"CHAPTER I.\n\nINTRODUCES MR. LEWISHAM.\n\n\nThe opening chapter does not concern itself with Love--indeed that\nantagonist does not certainly appear until the third--and Mr. Lewisham\nis seen at his studies. It was ten years ago, and in those days he was\nassistant master in the Whortley Proprietary School, Whortley, Sussex,\nand his wages were forty pounds a year, out of which he had to afford\nfifteen shillings a week during term time to lodge with Mrs. Munday,\nat the little shop in the West Street. He was called \"Mr.\" to\ndistinguish him from the bigger boys, whose duty it was to learn, and\nit was a matter of stringent regulation that he should be addressed as\n\"Sir.\"\n\nHe wore ready-made clothes, his black jacket of rigid line was dusted\nabout the front and sleeves with scholastic chalk, and his face was\ndowny and his moustache incipient. He was a passable-looking youngster\nof eighteen, fair-haired, indifferently barbered, and with a quite\nunnecessary pair of glasses on his fairly prominent nose--he wore\nthese to make himself look older, that discipline might be\nmaintained. At the particular moment when this story begins he was in\nhis bedroom. An attic it was, with lead-framed dormer windows, a\nslanting ceiling and a bulging wall, covered, as a number of torn\nplaces witnessed, with innumerable strata of florid old-fashioned\npaper.\n\nTo judge by the room Mr. Lewisham thought little of Love but much on\nGreatness. Over the head of the bed, for example, where good folks\nhang texts, these truths asserted themselves, written in a clear,\nbold, youthfully florid hand:--\"Knowledge is Power,\" and \"What man has\ndone man can do,\"--man in the second instance referring to\nMr. Lewisham. Never for a moment were these things to be\nforgotten. Mr. Lewisham could see them afresh every morning as his\nhead came through his shirt. And over the yellow-painted box upon\nwhich--for lack of shelves--Mr. Lewisham's library was arranged, was a\n\"_Schema_.\" (Why he should not have headed it \"Scheme,\" the editor of\nthe _Church Times_, who calls his miscellaneous notes \"_Varia_,\" is\nbetter able to say than I.) In this scheme, 1892 was indicated as the\nyear in which Mr. Lewisham proposed to take his B.A. degree at the\nLondon University with \"hons. in all subjects,\" and 1895 as the date\nof his \"gold medal.\" Subsequently there were to be \"pamphlets in the\nLiberal interest,\" and such like things duly dated. \"Who would control\nothers must first control himself,\" remarked the wall over the\nwash-hand stand, and behind the door against the Sunday trousers was a\nportrait of Carlyle.\n\nThese were no mere threats against the universe; operations had\nbegun. Jostling Shakespeare, Emerson's Essays, and the penny Life of\nConfucius, there were battered and defaced school books, a number of\nthe excellent manuals of the Universal Correspondence Association,\nexercise books, ink (red and black) in penny bottles, and an\nindia-rubber stamp with Mr. Lewisham's name. A trophy of bluish green\nSouth Kensington certificates for geometrical drawing, astronomy,\nphysiology, physiography, and inorganic chemistry adorned his further\nwall. And against the Carlyle portrait was a manuscript list of French\nirregular verbs.\n\nAttached by a drawing-pin to the roof over the wash-hand stand,\nwhich--the room being an attic--sloped almost dangerously, dangled a\nTime-Table. Mr. Lewisham was to rise at five, and that this was no\nvain boasting, a cheap American alarum clock by the books on the box\nwitnessed. The lumps of mellow chocolate on the papered ledge by the\nbed-head indorsed that evidence. \"French until eight,\" said the\ntime-table curtly. Breakfast was to be eaten in twenty minutes; then\ntwenty-five minutes of \"literature\" to be precise, learning extracts\n(preferably pompous) from the plays of William Shakespeare--and then\nto school and duty. The time-table further prescribed Latin\nComposition for the recess and the dinner hour (\"literature,\" however,\nduring the meal), and varied its injunctions for the rest of the\ntwenty-four hours according to the day of the week. Not a moment for\nSatan and that \"mischief still\" of his. Only three-score and ten has\nthe confidence, as well as the time, to be idle.\n\nBut just think of the admirable quality of such a scheme! Up and busy\nat five, with all the world about one horizontal, warm, dreamy-brained\nor stupidly hullish, if roused, roused only to grunt and sigh and roll\nover again into oblivion. By eight three hours' clear start, three\nhours' knowledge ahead of everyone. It takes, I have been told by an\neminent scholar, about a thousand hours of sincere work to learn a\nlanguage completely--after three or four languages much less--which\ngives you, even at the outset, one each a year before breakfast. The\ngift of tongues--picked up like mushrooms! Then that \"literature\"--an\nastonishing conception! In the afternoon mathematics and the\nsciences. Could anything be simpler or more magnificent? In six years\nMr. Lewisham will have his five or six languages, a sound, all-round\neducation, a habit of tremendous industry, and be still but\nfour-and-twenty. He will already have honour in his university and\nampler means. One realises that those pamphlets in the Liberal\ninterests will be no obscure platitudes. Where Mr. Lewisham will be at\nthirty stirs the imagination. There will be modifications of the\nSchema, of course, as experience widens. But the spirit of it--the\nspirit of it is a devouring flame!\n\nHe was sitting facing the diamond-framed window, writing, writing\nfast, on a second yellow box that was turned on end and empty, and the\nlid was open, and his knees were conveniently stuck into the\ncavity. The bed was strewn with books and copygraphed sheets of\ninstructions from his remote correspondence tutors. Pursuant to the\ndangling time-table he was, you would have noticed, translating Latin\ninto English.\n\nImperceptibly the speed of his writing diminished. \"_Urit me Glycerae\nnitor_\" lay ahead and troubled him. \"Urit me,\" he murmured, and his\neyes travelled from his book out of window to the vicar's roof\nopposite and its ivied chimneys. His brows were knit at first and then\nrelaxed. \"_Urit me_!\" He had put his pen into his mouth and glanced\nabout for his dictionary. _Urare_?\n\nSuddenly his expression changed. Movement dictionary-ward ceased. He\nwas listening to a light tapping sound--it was a footfall--outside.\n\nHe stood up abruptly, and, stretching his neck, peered through his\nunnecessary glasses and the diamond panes down into the\nstreet. Looking acutely downward he could see a hat daintily trimmed\nwith pinkish white blossom, the shoulder of a jacket, and just the\ntips of nose and chin. Certainly the stranger who sat under the\ngallery last Sunday next the Frobishers. Then, too, he had seen her\nonly obliquely....\n\nHe watched her until she passed beyond the window frame. He strained\nto see impossibly round the corner....\n\nThen he started, frowned, took his pen from his mouth. \"This wandering\nattention!\" he said. \"The slightest thing! Where was I? Tcha!\" He\nmade a noise with his teeth to express his irritation, sat down, and\nreplaced his knees in the upturned box. \"Urit me,\" he said, biting the\nend of his pen and looking for his dictionary.\n\nIt was a Wednesday half-holiday late in March, a spring day glorious\nin amber light, dazzling white clouds and the intensest blue, casting\na powder of wonderful green hither and thither among the trees and\nrousing all the birds to tumultuous rejoicings, a rousing day, a\nclamatory insistent day, a veritable herald of summer. The stir of\nthat anticipation was in the air, the warm earth was parting above the\nswelling seeds, and all the pine-woods were full of the minute\ncrepitation of opening bud scales. And not only was the stir of Mother\nNature's awakening in the earth and the air and the trees, but also in\nMr. Lewisham's youthful blood, bidding him rouse himself to live--live\nin a sense quite other than that the Schema indicated.\n\nHe saw the dictionary peeping from under a paper, looked up \"Urit me,\"\nappreciated the shining \"nitor\" of Glycera's shoulders, and so fell\nidle again to rouse himself abruptly.\n\n\"I _can't_ fix my attention,\" said Mr. Lewisham. He took off the\nneedless glasses, wiped them, and blinked his eyes. This confounded\nHorace and his stimulating epithets! A walk?\n\n\"I won't be beat,\" he said--incorrectly--replaced his glasses, brought\nhis elbows down on either side of his box with resonant violence, and\nclutched the hair over his ears with both hands....\n\nIn five minutes' time he found himself watching the swallows curving\nthrough the blue over the vicarage garden.\n\n\"Did ever man have such a bother with himself as me?\" he asked vaguely\nbut vehemently. \"It's self-indulgence does it--sitting down's the\nbeginning of laziness.\"\n\nSo he stood up to his work, and came into permanent view of the\nvillage street. \"If she has gone round the corner by the post office,\nshe will come in sight over the palings above the allotments,\"\nsuggested the unexplored and undisciplined region of Mr. Lewisham's\nmind....\n\nShe did not come into sight. Apparently she had not gone round by the\npost office after all. It made one wonder where she had gone. Did she\ngo up through the town to the avenue on these occasions?... Then\nabruptly a cloud drove across the sunlight, the glowing street went\ncold and Mr. Lewisham's imagination submitted to control. So \"_Mater\nsaeva cupidinum_,\" \"The untamable mother of desires,\"--Horace (Book\nII. of the Odes) was the author appointed by the university for\nMr. Lewisham's matriculation--was, after all, translated to its\nprophetic end.\n\nPrecisely as the church clock struck five Mr. Lewisham, with a\npunctuality that was indeed almost too prompt for a really earnest\nstudent, shut his Horace, took up his Shakespeare, and descended the\nnarrow, curved, uncarpeted staircase that led from his garret to the\nliving room in which he had his tea with his landlady, Mrs.\nMunday. That good lady was alone, and after a few civilities\nMr. Lewisham opened his Shakespeare and read from a mark onward--that\nmark, by-the-bye, was in the middle of a scene--while he consumed\nmechanically a number of slices of bread and whort jam.\n\nMrs. Munday watched him over her spectacles and thought how bad so\nmuch reading must be for the eyes, until the tinkling of her shop-bell\ncalled her away to a customer. At twenty-five minutes to six he put\nthe book back in the window-sill, dashed a few crumbs from his jacket,\nassumed a mortar-board cap that was lying on the tea-caddy, and went\nforth to his evening \"preparation duty.\"\n\nThe West Street was empty and shining golden with the sunset. Its\nbeauty seized upon him, and he forgot to repeat the passage from Henry\nVIII. that should have occupied him down the street. Instead he was\npresently thinking of that insubordinate glance from his window and of\nlittle chins and nose-tips. His eyes became remote in their\nexpression....\n\nThe school door was opened by an obsequious little boy with \"lines\" to\nbe examined.\n\nMr. Lewisham felt a curious change of atmosphere on his entry. The\ndoor slammed behind him. The hall with its insistent scholastic\nsuggestions, its yellow marbled paper, its long rows of hat-pegs, its\ndisreputable array of umbrellas, a broken mortar-board and a tattered\nand scattered _Principia_, seemed dim and dull in contrast with the\nluminous stir of the early March evening outside. An unusual sense of\nthe greyness of a teacher's life, of the greyness indeed of the life\nof all studious souls came, and went in his mind. He took the \"lines,\"\nwritten painfully over three pages of exercise book, and obliterated\nthem with a huge G.E.L., scrawled monstrously across each page. He\nheard the familiar mingled noises of the playground drifting in to him\nthrough the open schoolroom door.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II.\n\n\"AS THE WIND BLOWS.\"\n\n\nA flaw in that pentagram of a time-table, that pentagram by which the\ndemons of distraction were to be excluded from Mr. Lewisham's career\nto Greatness, was the absence of a clause forbidding study out of\ndoors. It was the day after the trivial window peeping of the last\nchapter that this gap in the time-table became apparent, a day if\npossible more gracious and alluring than its predecessor, and at\nhalf-past twelve, instead of returning from the school directly to his\nlodging, Mr. Lewisham escaped through the omission and made his\nway--Horace in pocket--to the park gates and so to the avenue of\nancient trees that encircles the broad Whortley domain. He dismissed a\nsuspicion of his motive with perfect success. In the avenue--for the\npath is but little frequented--one might expect to read undisturbed.\nThe open air, the erect attitude, are surely better than sitting in a\nstuffy, enervating bedroom. The open air is distinctly healthy, hardy,\nsimple....\n\nThe day was breezy, and there was a perpetual rustling, a going and\ncoming in the budding trees.\n\nThe network of the beeches was full of golden sunlight, and all the\nlower branches were shot with horizontal dashes of new-born green.\n\n    \"_Tu, nisi ventis\n    Debes ludibrium, cave_.\"\n\nwas the appropriate matter of Mr. Lewisham's thoughts, and he was\nmechanically trying to keep the book open in three places at once, at\nthe text, the notes, and the literal translation, while he turned up\nthe vocabulary for _ludibrium_, when his attention, wandering\ndangerously near the top of the page, fell over the edge and escaped\nwith incredible swiftness down the avenue....\n\nA girl, wearing a straw hat adorned with white blossom, was advancing\ntowards him. Her occupation, too, was literary. Indeed, she was so\nbusy writing that evidently she did not perceive him.\n\nUnreasonable emotions descended upon Mr. Lewisham--emotions that are\nunaccountable on the mere hypothesis of a casual meeting. Something\nwas whispered; it sounded suspiciously like \"It's her!\" He advanced\nwith his fingers in his book, ready to retreat to its pages if she\nlooked up, and watched her over it. _Ludibrium_ passed out of his\nuniverse. She was clearly unaware of his nearness, he thought, intent\nupon her writing, whatever that might be. He wondered what it might\nbe. Her face, foreshortened by her downward regard, seemed\ninfantile. Her fluttering skirt was short, and showed her shoes and\nankles. He noted her graceful, easy steps. A figure of health and\nlightness it was, sunlit, and advancing towards him, something, as he\nafterwards recalled with a certain astonishment, quite outside the\nSchema.\n\nNearer she came and nearer, her eyes still downcast. He was full of\nvague, stupid promptings towards an uncalled-for intercourse. It was\ncurious she did not see him. He began to expect almost painfully the\nmoment when she would look up, though what there was to expect--! He\nthought of what she would see when she discovered him, and wondered\nwhere the tassel of his cap might be hanging--it sometimes occluded\none eye. It was of course quite impossible to put up a hand and\ninvestigate. He was near trembling with excitement. His paces, acts\nwhich are usually automatic, became uncertain and difficult. One might\nhave thought he had never passed a human being before. Still nearer,\nten yards now, nine, eight. Would she go past without looking up?...\n\nThen their eyes met.\n\nShe had hazel eyes, but Mr. Lewisham, being quite an amateur about\neyes, could find no words for them. She looked demurely into his\nface. She seemed to find nothing there. She glanced away from him\namong the trees, and passed, and nothing remained in front of him but\nan empty avenue, a sunlit, green-shot void.\n\nThe incident was over.\n\nFrom far away the soughing of the breeze swept towards him, and in a\nmoment all the twigs about him were quivering and rustling and the\nboughs creaking with a gust of wind. It seemed to urge him away from\nher. The faded dead leaves that had once been green and young sprang\nup, raced one another, leapt, danced and pirouetted, and then\nsomething large struck him on the neck, stayed for a startling moment,\nand drove past him up the avenue.\n\nSomething vividly white! A sheet of paper--the sheet upon which she\nhad been writing!\n\nFor what seemed a long time he did not grasp the situation. He glanced\nover his shoulder and understood suddenly. His awkwardness\nvanished. Horace in hand, he gave chase, and in ten paces had secured\nthe fugitive document. He turned towards her, flushed with triumph,\nthe quarry in his hand. He had as he picked it up seen what was\nwritten, but the situation dominated him for the instant. He made a\nstride towards her, and only then understood what he had seen. Lines\nof a measured length and capitals! Could it really be--? He\nstopped. He looked again, eyebrows rising. He held it before him,\nstaring now quite frankly. It had been written with a stylographic\npen. Thus it ran:--\n\n\"_Come! Sharp's the word._\"\n\nAnd then again,\n\n\"_Come! Sharp's the word._\"\n\nAnd then,\n\n\"_Come! Sharp's the word._\"\n\n\"_Come! Sharp's the word._\"\n\nAnd so on all down the page, in a boyish hand uncommonly like\nFrobisher ii.'s.\n\nSurely! \"I say!\" said Mr. Lewisham, struggling with, the new aspect\nand forgetting all his manners in his surprise.... He remembered\ngiving the imposition quite well:--Frobisher ii. had repeated the\nexhortation just a little too loudly--had brought the thing upon\nhimself. To find her doing this jarred oddly upon certain vague\npreconceptions he had formed of her. Somehow it seemed as if she had\nbetrayed him. That of course was only for the instant.\n\nShe had come up with him now. \"May I have my sheet of paper, please?\"\nshe said with a catching of her breath. She was a couple of inches\nless in height than he. Do you observe her half-open lips? said Mother\nNature in a noiseless aside to Mr. Lewisham--a thing he afterwards\nrecalled. In her eyes was a touch of apprehension.\n\n\"I say,\" he said, with protest still uppermost, \"you oughtn't to do\nthis.\"\n\n\"Do what?\"\n\n\"This. Impositions. For my boys.\"\n\nShe raised her eyebrows, then knitted them momentarily, and looked at\nhim. \"Are _you_ Mr. Lewisham?\" she asked with an affectation of entire\nignorance and discovery.\n\nShe knew him perfectly well, which was one reason why she was writing\nthe imposition, but pretending not to know gave her something to say.\n\nMr. Lewisham nodded.\n\n\"Of all people! Then\"--frankly--\"you have just found me out.\"\n\n\"I am afraid I have,\" said Lewisham. \"I am afraid I _have_ found you\nout.\"\n\nThey looked at one another for the next move. She decided to plead in\nextenuation.\n\n\"Teddy Frobisher is my cousin. I know it's very wrong, but he seemed\nto have such a lot to do and to be in _such_ trouble. And I had\nnothing to do. In fact, it was _I_ who offered....\"\n\nShe stopped and looked at him. She seemed to consider her remark\ncomplete.\n\nThat meeting of the eyes had an oddly disconcerting quality. He tried\nto keep to the business of the imposition. \"You ought not to have done\nthat,\" he said, encountering her steadfastly.\n\nShe looked down and then into his face again. \"No,\" she said. \"I\nsuppose I ought not to. I'm very sorry.\"\n\nHer looking down and up again produced another unreasonable effect. It\nseemed to Lewisham that they were discussing something quite other\nthan the topic of their conversation; a persuasion patently absurd and\nonly to be accounted for by the general disorder of his faculties. He\nmade a serious attempt to keep his footing of reproof.\n\n\"I should have detected the writing, you know.\"\n\n\"Of course you would. It was very wrong of me to persuade him. But I\ndid--I assure you. He seemed in such trouble. And I thought--\"\n\nShe made another break, and there was a faint deepening of colour in\nher cheeks. Suddenly, stupidly, his own adolescent cheeks began to\nglow. It became necessary to banish that sense of a duplicate topic\nforthwith.\n\n\"I can assure you,\" he said, now very earnestly, \"I never give a\npunishment, never, unless it is merited. I make that a rule.\nI--er--_always_ make that a rule. I am very careful indeed.\"\n\n\"I am really sorry,\" she interrupted with frank contrition. \"It _was_\nsilly of me.\"\n\nLewisham felt unaccountably sorry she should have to apologise, and he\nspoke at once with the idea of checking the reddening of his face. \"I\ndon't think _that_,\" he said with a sort of belated alacrity. \"Really,\nit was kind of you, you know--very kind of you indeed. And I know\nthat--I can quite understand that--er--your kindness....\"\n\n\"Ran away with me. And now poor little Teddy will get into worse\ntrouble for letting me....\"\n\n\"Oh no,\" said Mr. Lewisham, perceiving an opportunity and trying not\nto smile his appreciation of what he was saying. \"I had no business to\nread this as I picked it up--absolutely no business. Consequently....\"\n\n\"You won't take any notice of it? Really!\"\n\n\"Certainly not,\" said Mr. Lewisham.\n\nHer face lit with a smile, and Mr. Lewisham's relaxed in sympathy. \"It\nis nothing--it's the proper thing for me to do, you know.\"\n\n\"But so many people won't do it. Schoolmasters are not usually\nso--chivalrous.\"\n\nHe was chivalrous! The phrase acted like a spur. He obeyed a foolish\nimpulse.\n\n\"If you like--\" he said.\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"He needn't do this. The Impot., I mean. I'll let him off.\"\n\n\"Really?\"\n\n\"I can.\"\n\n\"It's awfully kind of you.\"\n\n\"I don't mind,\" he said. \"It's nothing much. If you really think ...\"\n\nHe was full of self-applause for this scandalous sacrifice of justice.\n\n\"It's awfully kind of you,\" she said.\n\n\"It's nothing, really,\" he explained, \"nothing.\"\n\n\"Most people wouldn't--\"\n\n\"I know.\"\n\nPause.\n\n\"It's all right,\" he said. \"Really.\"\n\nHe would have given worlds for something more to say, something witty\nand original, but nothing came.\n\nThe pause lengthened. She glanced over her shoulder down the vacant\navenue. This interview--this momentous series of things unsaid was\ncoming to an end! She looked at him hesitatingly and smiled again. She\nheld out her hand. No doubt that was the proper thing to do. He took\nit, searching a void, tumultuous mind in vain.\n\n\"It's awfully kind of you,\" she said again as she did so.\n\n\"It don't matter a bit,\" said Mr. Lewisham, and sought vainly for some\nother saying, some doorway remark into new topics. Her hand was cool\nand soft and firm, the most delightful thing to grasp, and this\nobservation ousted all other things. He held it for a moment, but\nnothing would come.\n\nThey discovered themselves hand in hand. They both laughed and felt\n\"silly.\" They shook hands in the manner of quite intimate friends, and\nsnatched their hands away awkwardly. She turned, glanced timidly at\nhim over her shoulder, and hesitated. \"Good-bye,\" she said, and was\nsuddenly walking from him.\n\nHe bowed to her receding back, made a seventeenth-century sweep with\nhis college cap, and then some hitherto unexplored regions of his mind\nflashed into revolt.\n\nHardly had she gone six paces when he was at her side again.\n\n\"I say,\" he said with a fearful sense of his temerity, and raising his\nmortar-board awkwardly as though he was passing a funeral. \"But that\nsheet of paper ...\"\n\n\"Yes,\" she said surprised--quite naturally.\n\n\"May I have it?\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\nHe felt a breathless pleasure, like that of sliding down a slope of\nsnow. \"I would like to have it.\"\n\nShe smiled and raised her eyebrows, but his excitement was now too\ngreat for smiling. \"Look here!\" she said, and displayed the sheet\ncrumpled into a ball. She laughed--with a touch of effort.\n\n\"I don't mind that,\" said Mr. Lewisham, laughing too. He captured the\npaper by an insistent gesture and smoothed it out with fingers that\ntrembled.\n\n\"You don't mind?\" he said.\n\n\"Mind what?\"\n\n\"If I keep it?\"\n\n\"Why should I?\"\n\nPause. Their eyes met again. There was an odd constraint about both of\nthem, a palpitating interval of silence.\n\n\"I really _must_ be going,\" she said suddenly, breaking the spell by\nan effort. She turned about and left him with the crumpled piece of\npaper in the fist that held the book, the other hand lifting the\nmortar board in a dignified salute again.\n\nHe watched her receding figure. His heart was beating with remarkable\nrapidity. How light, how living she seemed! Little round flakes of\nsunlight raced down her as she went. She walked fast, then slowly,\nlooking sideways once or twice, but not back, until she reached the\npark gates. Then she looked towards him, a remote friendly little\nfigure, made a gesture of farewell, and disappeared.\n\nHis face was flushed and his eyes bright. Curiously enough, he was out\nof breath. He stared for a long time at the vacant end of the\navenue. Then he turned his eyes to his trophy gripped against the\nclosed and forgotten Horace in his hand.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III.\n\nTHE WONDERFUL DISCOVERY.\n\n\nOn Sunday it was Lewisham's duty to accompany the boarders twice to\nchurch. The boys sat in the gallery above the choirs facing the organ\nloft and at right angles to the general congregation. It was a\nprominent position, and made him feel painfully conspicuous, except in\nmoods of exceptional vanity, when he used to imagine that all these\npeople were thinking how his forehead and his certificates\naccorded. He thought a lot in those days of his certificates and\nforehead, but little of his honest, healthy face beneath it. (To tell\nthe truth there was nothing very wonderful about his forehead.) He\nrarely looked down the church, as he fancied to do so would be to meet\nthe collective eye of the congregation regarding him. So that in the\nmorning he was not able to see that the Frobishers' pew was empty\nuntil the litany.\n\nBut in the evening, on the way to church, the Frobishers and their\nguest crossed the market-square as his string of boys marched along\nthe west side. And the guest was arrayed in a gay new dress, as if it\nwas already Easter, and her face set in its dark hair came with a\nstrange effect of mingled freshness and familiarity. She looked at him\ncalmly! He felt very awkward, and was for cutting his new\nacquaintance. Then hesitated, and raised his hat with a jerk as if to\nMrs. Frobisher. Neither lady acknowledged his salute, which may\npossibly have been a little unexpected. Then young Siddons dropped his\nhymn-book; stooped to pick it up, and Lewisham almost fell over\nhim.... He entered church in a mood of black despair.\n\nBut consolation of a sort came soon enough. As _she_ took her seat she\ndistinctly glanced up at the gallery, and afterwards as he knelt to\npray he peeped between his fingers and saw her looking up again. She\nwas certainly not laughing at him.\n\nIn those days much of Lewisham's mind was still an unknown land to\nhim. He believed among other things that he was always the same\nconsistent intelligent human being, whereas under certain stimuli he\nbecame no longer reasonable and disciplined but a purely imaginative\nand emotional person. Music, for instance, carried him away, and\nparticularly the effect of many voices in unison whirled him off from\nalmost any state of mind to a fine massive emotionality. And the\nevening service at Whortley church--at the evening service surplices\nwere worn--the chanting and singing, the vague brilliance of the\nnumerous candle flames, the multitudinous unanimity of the\ncongregation down there, kneeling, rising, thunderously responding,\ninvariably inebriated him. Inspired him, if you will, and turned the\nprose of his life into poetry. And Chance, coming to the aid of Dame\nNature, dropped just the apt suggestion into his now highly responsive\near.\n\nThe second hymn was a simple and popular one, dealing with the theme\nof Faith, Hope, and Charity, and having each verse ending with the\nword \"Love.\" Conceive it, long drawn out and disarticulate,--\n\n    \"Faith will van ... ish in ... to sight,\n    Hope be emp ... tied in deli ... ight,\n    Love in Heaven will shine more bri ... ight,\n      There ... fore give us Love.\"\n\nAt the third repetition of the refrain, Lewisham looked down across\nthe chancel and met her eyes for a brief instant....\n\nHe stopped singing abruptly. Then the consciousness of the serried\nranks of faces below there came with almost overwhelming force upon\nhim, and he dared not look at her again. He felt the blood rushing to\nhis face.\n\nLove! The greatest of these. The greatest of all things. Better than\nfame. Better than knowledge. So came the great discovery like a flood\nacross his mind, pouring over it with the cadence of the hymn and\nsending a tide of pink in sympathy across his forehead. The rest of\nthe service was phantasmagorial background to that great reality--a\nphantasmagorial background a little inclined to stare. He,\nMr. Lewisham, was in Love.\n\n\"A ... men.\" He was so preoccupied that he found the whole\ncongregation subsiding into their seats, and himself still standing,\nrapt. He sat down spasmodically, with an impact that seemed to him to\nre-echo through the church.\n\nAs they came out of the porch into the thickening night, he seemed to\nsee her everywhere. He fancied she had gone on in front, and he\nhurried up the boys in the hope of overtaking her. They pushed through\nthe throng of dim people going homeward. Should he raise his hat to\nher again?... But it was Susie Hopbrow in a light-coloured dress--a\nraven in dove's plumage. He felt a curious mixture of relief and\ndisappointment. He would see her no more that night.\n\nHe hurried from the school to his lodging. He wanted very urgently to\nbe alone. He went upstairs to his little room and sat before the\nupturned box on which his Butler's Analogy was spread open. He did not\ngo to the formality of lighting the candle. He leant back and gazed\nblissfully at the solitary planet that hung over the vicarage garden.\n\nHe took out of his pocket a crumpled sheet of paper, smoothed and\ncarefully refolded, covered with a writing not unlike that of\nFrobisher ii., and after some maidenly hesitation pressed this\ntreasure to his lips. The Schema and the time-table hung in the\ndarkness like the mere ghosts of themselves.\n\nMrs. Munday called him thrice to his supper.\n\nHe went out immediately after it was eaten and wandered under the\nstars until he came over the hill behind the town again, and clambered\nup the back to the stile in sight of the Frobishers' house. He\nselected the only lit window as hers. Behind the blind, Mrs.\nFrobisher, thirty-eight, was busy with her curl-papers--she used\npapers because they were better for the hair--and discussing certain\nneighbours in a fragmentary way with Mr. Frobisher, who was in\nbed. Presently she moved the candle to examine a faint discolouration\nof her complexion that rendered her uneasy.\n\nOutside, Mr. Lewisham (eighteen) stood watching the orange oblong for\nthe best part of half an hour, until it vanished and left the house\nblack and blank. Then he sighed deeply and returned home in a very\nglorious mood indeed.\n\nHe awoke the next morning feeling extremely serious, but not clearly\nremembering the overnight occurrences. His eye fell on his clock. The\ntime was six and he had not heard the alarum; as a matter of fact the\nalarum had not been wound up. He jumped out of bed at once and\nalighted upon his best trousers amorphously dropped on the floor\ninstead of methodically cast over a chair. As he soaped his head he\ntried, according to his rules of revision, to remember the overnight\nreading. He could not for the life of him. The truth came to him as he\nwas getting into his shirt. His head, struggling in its recesses,\nbecame motionless, the handless cuffs ceased to dangle for a\nminute....\n\nThen his head came through slowly with a surprised expression upon his\nface. He remembered. He remembered the thing as a bald discovery, and\nwithout a touch of emotion. With all the achromatic clearness, the\nunromantic colourlessness of the early morning....\n\nYes. He had it now quite distinctly. There had been no overnight\nreading. He was in Love.\n\nThe proposition jarred with some vague thing in his mind. He stood\nstaring for a space, and then began looking about absent-mindedly for\nhis collar-stud. He paused in front of his Schema, regarding it.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV.\n\nRAISED EYEBROWS.\n\n\n\"Work must be done anyhow,\" said Mr. Lewisham.\n\nBut never had the extraordinary advantages of open-air study presented\nthemselves so vividly. Before breakfast he took half an hour of\nopen-air reading along the allotments lane near the Frobishers' house,\nafter breakfast and before school he went through the avenue with a\nbook, and returned from school to his lodgings circuitously through\nthe avenue, and so back to the avenue for thirty minutes or so before\nafternoon school. When Mr. Lewisham was not looking over the top of\nhis book during these periods of open-air study, then commonly he was\nglancing over his shoulder. And at last who should he see but--!\n\nHe saw her out of the corner of his eye, and he turned away at once,\npretending not to have seen her. His whole being was suddenly\nirradiated with emotion. The hands holding his book gripped it very\ntightly. He did not glance back again, but walked slowly and\nsteadfastly, reading an ode that he could not have translated to save\nhis life, and listening acutely for her approach. And after an\ninterminable time, as it seemed, came a faint footfall and the swish\nof skirts behind him.\n\nHe felt as though his head was directed forward by a clutch of iron.\n\n\"Mr. Lewisham,\" she said close to him, and he turned with a quality of\nmovement that was almost convulsive. He raised his cap clumsily.\n\nHe took her extended hand by an afterthought, and held it until she\nwithdrew it. \"I am so glad to have met you,\" she said.\n\n\"So am I,\" said Lewisham simply.\n\nThey stood facing one another for an expressive moment, and then by a\nmovement she indicated her intention to walk along the avenue with\nhim. \"I wanted so much,\" she said, looking down at her feet, \"to thank\nyou for letting Teddy off, you know. That is why I wanted to see you.\"\nLewisham took his first step beside her. \"And it's odd, isn't it,\" she\nsaid, looking up into his face, \"that I should meet you here in just\nthe same place. I believe ... Yes. The very same place we met before.\"\n\nMr. Lewisham was tongue-tied.\n\n\"Do you often come here?\" she said.\n\n\"Well,\" he considered--and his voice was most unreasonably hoarse when\nhe spoke--\"no. No.... That is--At least not often. Now and then. In\nfact, I like it rather for reading and that sort of thing. It's so\nquiet.\"\n\n\"I suppose you read a great deal?\"\n\n\"When one teaches one has to.\"\n\n\"But you ...\"\n\n\"I'm rather fond of reading, certainly. Are you?\"\n\n\"I _love_ it.\"\n\nMr. Lewisham was glad she loved reading. He would have been\ndisappointed had she answered differently. But she spoke with real\nfervour. She _loved_ reading! It was pleasant. She would understand\nhim a little perhaps. \"Of course,\" she went on, \"I'm not clever like\nsome people are. And I have to read books as I get hold of them.\"\n\n\"So do I,\" said Mr. Lewisham, \"for the matter of that.... Have you\nread ... Carlyle?\"\n\nThe conversation was now fairly under way. They were walking side by\nside beneath the swaying boughs. Mr. Lewisham's sensations were\necstatic, marred only by a dread of some casual boy coming upon\nthem. She had not read _much_ Carlyle. She had always wanted to, even\nfrom quite a little girl--she had heard so much about him. She knew he\nwas a Really Great Writer, a _very_ Great Writer indeed. All she _had_\nread of him she liked. She could say that. As much as she liked\nanything. And she had seen his house in Chelsea.\n\nLewisham, whose knowledge of London had been obtained by excursion\ntrips on six or seven isolated days, was much impressed by this. It\nseemed to put her at once on a footing of intimacy with this imposing\nPersonality. It had never occurred to him at all vividly that these\nGreat Writers had real abiding places. She gave him a few descriptive\ntouches that made the house suddenly real and distinctive to him. She\nlived quite near, she said, at least within walking distance, in\nClapham. He instantly forgot the vague design of lending her his\n\"_Sartor Resartus_\" in his curiosity to learn more about her\nhome. \"Clapham--that's almost in London, isn't it?\" he said.\n\n\"Quite,\" she said, but she volunteered no further information about\nher domestic circumstances, \"I like London,\" she generalised, \"and\nespecially in winter.\" And she proceeded to praise London, its public\nlibraries, its shops, the multitudes of people, the facilities for\n\"doing what you like,\" the concerts one could go to, the theatres. (It\nseemed she moved in fairly good society.) \"There's always something to\nsee even if you only go out for a walk,\" she said, \"and down here\nthere's nothing to read but idle novels. And those not new.\"\n\nMr. Lewisham had regretfully to admit the lack of such culture and\nmental activity in Whortley. It made him feel terribly her\ninferior. He had only his bookishness and his certificates to set\nagainst it all--and she had seen Carlyle's house! \"Down here,\" she\nsaid, \"there's nothing to talk about but scandal.\" It was too true.\n\nAt the corner by the stile, beyond which the willows were splendid\nagainst the blue with silvery aments and golden pollen, they turned by\nmutual impulse and retraced their steps. \"I've simply had no one to\ntalk to down here,\" she said. \"Not what _I_ call talking.\"\n\n\"I hope,\" said Lewisham, making a resolute plunge, \"perhaps while you\nare staying at Whortley ...\"\n\nHe paused perceptibly, and she, following his eyes, saw a voluminous\nblack figure approaching. \"We may,\" said Mr. Lewisham, resuming his\nremark, \"chance to meet again, perhaps.\"\n\nHe had been about to challenge her to a deliberate meeting. A certain\ndelightful tangle of paths that followed the bank of the river had\nbeen in his mind. But the apparition of Mr. George Bonover, headmaster\nof the Whortley Proprietary School, chilled him amazingly. Dame\nNature no doubt had arranged the meeting of our young couple, but\nabout Bonover she seems to have been culpably careless. She now\nreceded inimitably, and Mr. Lewisham, with the most unpleasant\nfeelings, found himself face to face with a typical representative of\na social organisation which objects very strongly _inter alia_ to\npromiscuous conversation on the part of the young unmarried junior\nmaster.\n\n\"--chance to meet again, perhaps,\" said Mr. Lewisham, with a sudden\nlack of spirit.\n\n\"I hope so too,\" she said.\n\nPause. Mr. Bonover's features, and particularly a bushy pair of black\neyebrows, were now very near, those eyebrows already raised,\napparently to express a refined astonishment.\n\n\"Is this Mr. Bonover approaching?\" she asked.\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\nProlonged pause.\n\nWould he stop and accost them? At any rate this frightful silence must\nend. Mr. Lewisham sought in his mind for some remark wherewith to\ncover his employer's approach. He was surprised to find his mind a\ndesert. He made a colossal effort. If they could only talk, if they\ncould only seem at their ease! But this blank incapacity was eloquent\nof guilt. Ah!\n\n\"It's a lovely day, though,\" said Mr. Lewisham. \"Isn't it?\"\n\nShe agreed with him. \"Isn't it?\" she said.\n\nAnd then Mr. Bonover passed, forehead tight reefed so to speak, and\nlips impressively compressed. Mr. Lewisham raised his mortar-board,\nand to his astonishment Mr. Bonover responded with a markedly formal\nsalute--mock clerical hat sweeping circuitously--and the regard of a\nsearching, disapproving eye, and so passed. Lewisham was overcome with\nastonishment at this improvement on the nod of their ordinary\ncommerce. And so this terrible incident terminated for the time.\n\nHe felt a momentary gust of indignation. After all, why should Bonover\nor anyone interfere with his talking to a girl if he chose? And for\nall he knew they might have been properly introduced. By young\nFrobisher, say. Nevertheless, Lewisham's spring-tide mood relapsed\ninto winter. He was, he felt, singularly stupid for the rest of their\nconversation, and the delightful feeling of enterprise that had\nhitherto inspired and astonished him when talking to her had\nshrivelled beyond contempt. He was glad--positively glad--when things\ncame to an end.\n\nAt the park gates she held out her hand. \"I'm afraid I have\ninterrupted your reading,\" she said.\n\n\"Not a bit,\" said Mr. Lewisham, warming slightly. \"I don't know when\nI've enjoyed a conversation....\"\n\n\"It was--a breach of etiquette, I am afraid, my speaking to you, but I\ndid so want to thank you....\"\n\n\"Don't mention it,\" said Mr. Lewisham, secretly impressed by the\netiquette.\n\n\"Good-bye.\" He stood hesitating by the lodge, and then turned back up\nthe avenue in order not to be seen to follow her too closely up the\nWest Street.\n\nAnd then, still walking away from her, he remembered that he had not\nlent her a book as he had planned, nor made any arrangement ever to\nmeet her again. She might leave Whortley anywhen for the amenities of\nClapham. He stopped and stood irresolute. Should he run after her?\nThen he recalled Bonover's enigmatical expression of face. He decided\nthat to pursue her would be altogether too conspicuous. Yet ... So he\nstood in inglorious hesitation, while the seconds passed.\n\nHe reached his lodging at last to find Mrs. Munday halfway through\ndinner.\n\n\"You get them books of yours,\" said Mrs. Munday, who took a motherly\ninterest in him, \"and you read and you read, and you take no account\nof time. And now you'll have to eat your dinner half cold, and no time\nfor it to settle proper before you goes off to school. It's ruination\nto a stummik--such ways.\"\n\n\"Oh, never mind my stomach, Mrs. Munday,\" said Lewisham, roused from a\ntangled and apparently gloomy meditation; \"that's _my_ affair.\" Quite\ncrossly he spoke for him.\n\n\"I'd rather have a good sensible actin' stummik than a full head,\"\nsaid Mrs. Monday, \"any day.\"\n\n\"I'm different, you see,\" snapped Mr. Lewisham, and relapsed into\nsilence and gloom.\n\n(\"Hoity toity!\" said Mrs. Monday under her breath.)\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V.\n\nHESITATIONS.\n\n\nMr. Bonover, having fully matured a Hint suitable for the occasion,\ndropped it in the afternoon, while Lewisham was superintending cricket\npractice. He made a few remarks about the prospects of the first\neleven by way of introduction, and Lewisham agreed with him that\nFrobisher i. looked like shaping very well this season.\n\nA pause followed and the headmaster hummed. \"By-the-bye,\" he said, as\nif making conversation and still watching the play; \"I,\nah,--understood that you, ah--were a _stranger_ to Whortley.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Lewisham, \"that's so.\"\n\n\"You have made friends in the neighbourhood?\"\n\nLewisham was troubled with a cough, and his ears--those confounded\nears--brightened, \"Yes,\" he said, recovering, \"Oh yes. Yes, I have.\"\n\n\"Local people, I presume.\"\n\n\"Well, no. Not exactly.\" The brightness spread from Lewisham's ears\nover his face.\n\n\"I saw you,\" said Bonover, \"talking to a young lady in the avenue. Her\nface was somehow quite familiar to me. Who _was_ she?\"\n\nShould he say she was a friend of the Frobishers? In that case\nBonover, in his insidious amiable way, might talk to the Frobisher\nparents and make things disagreeable for her. \"She was,\" said\nLewisham, flushing deeply with the stress on his honesty and dropping\nhis voice to a mumble, \"a ... a ... an old friend of my mother's. In\nfact, I met her once at Salisbury.\"\n\n\"Where?\"\n\n\"Salisbury.\"\n\n\"And her name?\"\n\n\"Smith,\" said Lewisham, a little hastily, and repenting the lie even\nas it left his lips.\n\n\"Well _hit_, Harris!\" shouted Bonover, and began to clap his\nhands. \"Well _hit_, sir.\"\n\n\"Harris shapes very well,\" said Mr. Lewisham.\n\n\"Very,\" said Mr. Bonover. \"And--what was it? Ah! I was just remarking\nthe odd resemblances there are in the world. There is a Miss\nHenderson--or Henson--stopping with the Frobishers--in the very same\ntown, in fact, the very picture of your Miss ...\"\n\n\"Smith,\" said Lewisham, meeting his eye and recovering the full\ncrimson note of his first blush.\n\n\"It's odd,\" said Bonover, regarding him pensively.\n\n\"Very odd,\" mumbled Lewisham, cursing his own stupidity and looking\naway.\n\n\"_Very_--very odd,\" said Bonover.\n\n\"In fact,\" said Bonover, turning towards the school-house, \"I hardly\nexpected it of you, Mr. Lewisham.\"\n\n\"Expected what, sir?\"\n\nBut Mr. Bonover feigned to be already out of earshot.\n\n\"Damn!\" said Mr. Lewisham. \"Oh!--_damn_!\"--a most objectionable\nexpression and rare with him in those days. He had half a mind to\nfollow the head-master and ask him if he doubted his word. It was only\ntoo evident what the answer would be.\n\nHe stood for a minute undecided, then turned on his heel and marched\nhomeward with savage steps. His muscles quivered as he walked, and his\nface twitched. The tumult of his mind settled at last into angry\nindignation.\n\n\"Confound him!\" said Mr. Lewisham, arguing the matter out with the\nbedroom furniture. \"Why the _devil_ can't he mind his own business?\"\n\n\"Mind your own business, sir!\" shouted Mr. Lewisham at the wash-hand\nstand. \"Confound you, sir, mind your own business!\"\n\nThe wash-hand stand did.\n\n\"You overrate your power, sir,\" said Mr. Lewisham, a little\nmollified. \"Understand me! I am my own master out of school.\"\n\nNevertheless, for four days and some hours after Mr. Bonover's Hint,\nMr. Lewisham so far observed its implications as to abandon open-air\nstudy and struggle with diminishing success to observe the spirit as\nwell as the letter of his time-table prescriptions. For the most part\nhe fretted at accumulating tasks, did them with slipshod energy or\nlooked out of window. The Career constituent insisted that to meet and\ntalk to this girl again meant reproof, worry, interference with his\nwork for his matriculation, the destruction of all \"Discipline,\" and\nhe saw the entire justice of the insistence. It was nonsense this\nbeing in love; there wasn't such a thing as love outside of trashy\nnovelettes. And forthwith his mind went off at a tangent to her eyes\nunder the shadow of her hat brim, and had to be lugged back by main\nforce. On Thursday when he was returning from school he saw her far\naway down the street, and hurried in to avoid her, looking\nostentatiously in the opposite direction. But that was a\nturning-point. Shame overtook him. On Friday his belief in love was\nwarm and living again, and his heart full of remorse for laggard days.\n\nOn Saturday morning his preoccupation with her was so vivid that it\ndistracted him even while he was teaching that most teachable subject,\nalgebra, and by the end of the school hours the issue was decided and\nthe Career in headlong rout. That afternoon he would go, whatever\nhappened, and see her and speak to her again. The thought of Bonover\narose only to be dismissed. And besides--\n\nBonover took a siesta early in the afternoon.\n\nYes, he would go out and find her and speak to her. Nothing should\nstop him.\n\nOnce that decision was taken his imagination became riotous with\nthings he might say, attitudes he might strike, and a multitude of\nvague fine dreams about her. He would say this, he would say that,\nhis mind would do nothing but circle round this wonderful pose of\nlover. What a cur he had been to hide from her so long! What could he\nhave been thinking about? How _could_ he explain it to her, when the\nmeeting really came? Suppose he was very frank--\n\nHe considered the limits of frankness. Would she believe he had not\nseen her on Thursday?--if he assured her that it was so?\n\nAnd, most horrible, in the midst of all this came Bonover with a\nrequest that he would take \"duty\" in the cricket field instead of\nDunkerley that afternoon. Dunkerley was the senior assistant master,\nLewisham's sole colleague. The last vestige of disapprobation had\nvanished from Bonover's manner; asking a favour was his autocratic way\nof proffering the olive branch. But it came to Lewisham as a cruel\nimposition. For a fateful moment he trembled on the brink of\nacquiescence. In a flash came a vision of the long duty of the\nafternoon--she possibly packing for Clapham all the while. He turned\nwhite. Mr. Bonover watched his face.\n\n\"_No_,\" said Lewisham bluntly, saying all he was sure of, and\nforthwith racking his unpractised mind for an excuse. \"I'm sorry I\ncan't oblige you, but ... my arrangements ... I've made arrangements,\nin fact, for the afternoon.\"\n\nMr. Bonover's eyebrows went up at this obvious lie, and the glow of\nhis suavity faded, \"You see,\" he said, \"Mrs. Bonover expects a friend\nthis afternoon, and we rather want Mr. Dunkerley to make four at\ncroquet....\"\n\n\"I'm sorry,\" said Mr. Lewisham, still resolute, and making a mental\nnote that Bonover would be playing croquet.\n\n\"You don't play croquet by any chance?\" asked Bonover.\n\n\"No,\" said Lewisham, \"I haven't an idea.\"\n\n\"If Mr. Dunkerley had asked you?...\" persisted Bonover, knowing\nLewisham's respect for etiquette.\n\n\"Oh! it wasn't on that account,\" said Lewisham, and Bonover with\neyebrows still raised and a general air of outraged astonishment left\nhim standing there, white and stiff, and wondering at his\nextraordinary temerity.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI.\n\nTHE SCANDALOUS RAMBLE.\n\n\nAs soon as school was dismissed Lewisham made a gaol-delivery of his\noutstanding impositions, and hurried back to his lodgings, to spend\nthe time until his dinner was ready--Well?... It seems hardly fair,\nperhaps, to Lewisham to tell this; it is doubtful, indeed, whether a\nmale novelist's duty to his sex should not restrain him, but, as the\nwall in the shadow by the diamond-framed window insisted, \"_Magna est\nveritas et prevalebit_.\" Mr. Lewisham brushed his hair with\nelaboration, and ruffled it picturesquely, tried the effect of all his\nties and selected a white one, dusted his boots with an old\npocket-handkerchief, changed his trousers because the week-day pair\nwas minutely frayed at the heels, and inked the elbows of his coat\nwhere the stitches were a little white. And, to be still more\nintimate, he studied his callow appearance in the glass from various\npoints of view, and decided that his nose might have been a little\nsmaller with advantage....\n\nDirectly after dinner he went out, and by the shortest path to the\nallotment lane, telling himself he did not care if he met Bonover\nforthwith in the street. He did not know precisely what he intended to\ndo, but he was quite clear that he meant to see the girl he had met in\nthe avenue. He knew he should see her. A sense of obstacles merely\nbraced him and was pleasurable. He went up the stone steps out of the\nlane to the stile that overlooked the Frobishers, the stile from which\nhe had watched the Frobisher bedroom. There he seated himself with his\narms, folded, in full view of the house.\n\nThat was at ten minutes to two. At twenty minutes to three he was\nstill sitting there, but his hands were deep in his jacket pockets,\nand he was scowling and kicking his foot against the step with an\nimpatient monotony. His needless glasses had been thrust into his\nwaistcoat pocket--where they remained throughout the afternoon--and\nhis cap was tilted a little back from his forehead and exposed a wisp\nof hair. One or two people had gone down the lane, and he had\npretended not to see them, and a couple of hedge-sparrows chasing each\nother along the side of the sunlit, wind-rippled field had been his\nchief entertainment. It is unaccountable, no doubt, but he felt angry\nwith her as the time crept on. His expression lowered.\n\nHe heard someone going by in the lane behind him. He would not look\nround--it annoyed him to think of people seeing him in this\nposition. His once eminent discretion, though overthrown, still made\nmuffled protests at the afternoon's enterprise. The feet down the lane\nstopped close at hand.\n\n\"Stare away,\" said Lewisham between his teeth. And then began\nmysterious noises, a violent rustle of hedge twigs, a something like a\nvery light foot-tapping.\n\nCuriosity boarded Lewisham and carried him after the briefest\nstruggle. He looked round, and there she was, her back to him,\nreaching after the spiky blossoming blackthorn that crested the\nopposite hedge. Remarkable accident! She had not seen him!\n\nIn a moment Lewisham's legs were flying over the stile. He went down\nthe steps in the bank with such impetus that it carried him up into\nthe prickly bushes beside her. \"Allow me,\" he said, too excited to see\nshe was not astonished.\n\n\"Mr. Lewisham!\" she said in feigned surprise, and stood away to give\nhim room at the blackthorn.\n\n\"Which spike will you have?\" he cried, overjoyed. \"The whitest? The\nhighest? Any!\"\n\n\"That piece,\" she chose haphazard, \"with the black spike sticking out\nfrom it.\"\n\nA mass of snowy blossom it was against the April sky, and Lewisham,\nstraggling for it--it was by no means the most accessible--saw with\nfantastic satisfaction a lengthy scratch flash white on his hand, and\nturn to red.\n\n\"Higher up the lane,\" he said, descending triumphant and breathless,\n\"there is blackthorn.... This cannot compare for a moment....\"\n\nShe laughed and looked at him as he stood there flushed, his eyes\ntriumphant, with an unpremeditated approval. In church, in the\ngallery, with his face foreshortened, he had been effective in a way,\nbut this was different. \"Show me,\" she said, though she knew this was\nthe only place for blackthorn for a mile in either direction.\n\n\"I _knew_ I should see you,\" he said, by way of answer, \"I felt sure I\nshould see you to-day.\"\n\n\"It was our last chance almost,\" she answered with as frank a quality\nof avowal. \"I'm going home to London on Monday.\"\n\n\"I knew,\" he cried in triumph. \"To Clapham?\" he asked.\n\n\"Yes. I have got a situation. You did not know that I was a shorthand\nclerk and typewriter, did you? I am. I have just left the school, the\nGrogram School. And now there is an old gentleman who wants an\namanuensis.\"\n\n\"So you know shorthand?\" said he. \"That accounts for the stylographic\npen. Those lines were written.... I have them still.\"\n\nShe smiled and raised her eyebrows. \"Here,\" said Mr. Lewisham, tapping\nhis breast-pocket.\n\n\"This lane,\" he said--their talk was curiously inconsecutive--\"some\nway along this lane, over the hill and down, there is a gate, and that\ngoes--I mean, it opens into the path that runs along the river\nbank. Have you been?\"\n\n\"No,\" she said.\n\n\"It's the best walk about Whortley. It brings you out upon Immering\nCommon. You _must_--before you go.\"\n\n\"_Now_?\" she said with her eyes dancing.\n\n\"Why not?\"\n\n\"I told Mrs. Frobisher I should be back by four,\" she said.\n\n\"It's a walk not to be lost.\"\n\n\"Very well,\" said she.\n\n\"The trees are all budding,\" said Mr. Lewisham, \"the rushes are\nshooting, and all along the edge of the river there are millions of\nlittle white flowers floating on the water, _I_ don't know the names\nof them, but they're fine.... May I carry that branch of blossom?\"\n\nAs he took it their hands touched momentarily ... and there came\nanother of those significant gaps.\n\n\"Look at those clouds,\" said Lewisham abruptly, remembering the remark\nhe had been about to make and waving the white froth of blackthorn,\n\"And look at the blue between them.\"\n\n\"It's perfectly splendid. Of all the fine weather the best has been\nkept for now. My last day. My very last day.\"\n\nAnd off these two young people went together in a highly electrical\nstate--to the infinite astonishment of Mrs. Frobisher, who was looking\nout of the attic window--stepping out manfully and finding the whole\nworld lit and splendid for their entertainment. The things they\ndiscovered and told each other that afternoon down by the river!--that\nspring was wonderful, young leaves beautiful, bud scales astonishing\nthings, and clouds dazzling and stately!--with an air of supreme\noriginality! And their naïve astonishment to find one another in\nagreement upon these novel delights! It seemed to them quite outside\nthe play of accident that they should have met each other.\n\nThey went by the path that runs among the trees along the river bank,\nand she must needs repent and wish to take the lower one, the towing\npath, before they had gone three hundred yards. So Lewisham had to\nfind a place fit for her descent, where a friendly tree proffered its\nprotruding roots as a convenient balustrade, and down she clambered\nwith her hand in his.\n\nThen a water-vole washing his whiskers gave occasion for a sudden\ntouching of hands and the intimate confidence of whispers and silence\ntogether. After which Lewisham essayed to gather her a marsh mallow at\nthe peril, as it was judged, of his life, and gained it together with\na bootful of water. And at the gate by the black and shiny lock, where\nthe path breaks away from the river, she overcame him by an unexpected\nfeat, climbing gleefully to the top rail with the support of his hand,\nand leaping down, a figure of light and grace, to the ground.\n\nThey struck boldly across the meadows, which were gay with lady's\nsmock, and he walked, by special request, between her and three\nmatronly cows--feeling as Perseus might have done when he fended off\nthe sea-monster. And so by the mill, and up a steep path to Immering\nCommon. Across the meadows Lewisham had broached the subject of her\noccupation. \"And are you really going away from here to be an\namanuensis?\" he said, and started her upon the theme of herself, a\ntheme she treated with a specialist's enthusiasm. They dealt with it\nby the comparative methods and neither noticed the light was out of\nthe sky until the soft feet of the advancing shower had stolen right\nupon them.\n\n\"Look!\" said he. \"Yonder! A shed,\" and they ran together. She ran\nlaughing, and yet swiftly and lightly. He pulled her through the hedge\nby both hands, and released her skirt from an amorous bramble, and so\nthey came into a little black shed in which a rusty harrow of gigantic\nproportions sheltered. He noted how she still kept her breath after\nthat run.\n\nShe sat down on the harrow and hesitated. \"I _must_ take off my hat,\"\nshe said, \"that rain will spot it,\" and so he had a chance of admiring\nthe sincerity of her curls--not that he had ever doubted them. She\nstooped over her hat, pocket-handkerchief in hand, daintily wiping off\nthe silvery drops. He stood up at the opening of the shed and looked\nat the country outside through the veil of the soft vehemence of the\nApril shower.\n\n\"There's room for two on this harrow,\" she said.\n\nHe made inarticulate sounds of refusal, and then came and sat down\nbeside her, close beside her, so that he was almost touching her. He\nfelt a fantastic desire to take her in his arms and kiss her, and\novercame the madness by an effort. \"I don't even know your name,\" he\nsaid, taking refuge from his whirling thoughts in conversation.\n\n\"Henderson,\" she said.\n\n\"_Miss_ Henderson?\"\n\nShe smiled in his face--hesitated. \"Yes--_Miss_ Henderson.\"\n\nHer eyes, her atmosphere were wonderful. He had never felt quite the\nsame sensation before, a strange excitement, almost like a faint echo\nof tears. He was for demanding her Christian name. For calling her\n\"dear\" and seeing what she would say. He plunged headlong into a\nrambling description of Bonover and how he had told a lie about her\nand called her Miss Smith, and so escaped this unaccountable emotional\ncrisis....\n\nThe whispering of the rain about them sank and died, and the sunlight\nstruck vividly across the distant woods beyond Immering. Just then\nthey had fallen on a silence again that was full of daring thoughts\nfor Mr. Lewisham. He moved his arm suddenly and placed it so that it\nwas behind her on the frame of the harrow.\n\n\"Let us go on now,\" she said abruptly. \"The rain has stopped.\"\n\n\"That little path goes straight to Immering,\" said Mr. Lewisham.\n\n\"But, four o'clock?\"\n\nHe drew out his watch, and his eyebrows went up. It was already nearly\na quarter past four.\n\n\"Is it past four?\" she asked, and abruptly they were face to face with\nparting. That Lewisham had to take \"duty\" at half-past five seemed a\nthing utterly trivial. \"Surely,\" he said, only slowly realising what\nthis parting meant. \"But must you? I--I want to talk to you.\"\n\n\"Haven't you been talking to me?\"\n\n\"It isn't that. Besides--no.\"\n\nShe stood looking at him. \"I promised to be home by four,\" she\nsaid. \"Mrs. Frobisher has tea....\"\n\n\"We may never have a chance to see one another again.\"\n\n\"Well?\"\n\nLewisham suddenly turned very white.\n\n\"Don't leave me,\" he said, breaking a tense silence and with a sudden\nstress in his voice. \"Don't leave me. Stop with me yet--for a little\nwhile.... You ... You can lose your way.\"\n\n\"You seem to think,\" she said, forcing a laugh, \"that I live without\neating and drinking.\"\n\n\"I have wanted to talk to you so much. The first time I saw you.... At\nfirst I dared not.... I did not know you would let me talk.... And\nnow, just as I am--happy, you are going.\"\n\nHe stopped abruptly. Her eyes were downcast. \"No,\" she said, tracing a\ncurve with the point of her shoe. \"No. I am not going.\"\n\nLewisham restrained an impulse to shout. \"You will come to Immering?\"\nhe cried, and as they went along the narrow path through the wet\ngrass, he began to tell her with simple frankness how he cared for her\ncompany, \"I would not change this,\" he said, casting about for an\noffer to reject, \"for--anything in the world.... I shall not be back\nfor duty. I don't care. I don't care what happens so long as we have\nthis afternoon.\"\n\n\"Nor I,\" she said.\n\n\"Thank you for coming,\" he said in an outburst of gratitude.--\"Oh,\nthank you for coming,\" and held out his hand. She took it and pressed\nit, and so they went on hand in hand until the village street was\nreached. Their high resolve to play truant at all costs had begotten\na wonderful sense of fellowship. \"I can't call you Miss Henderson,\" he\nsaid. \"You know I can't. You know ... I must have your Christian\nname.\"\n\n\"Ethel,\" she told him.\n\n\"Ethel,\" he said and looked at her, gathering courage as he did\nso. \"Ethel,\" he repeated. \"It is a pretty name. But no name is quite\npretty enough for you, Ethel ... _dear_.\"...\n\nThe little shop in Immering lay back behind a garden full of\nwallflowers, and was kept by a very fat and very cheerful little\nwoman, who insisted on regarding them as brother and sister, and\ncalling them both \"dearie.\" These points conceded she gave them an\nadmirable tea of astonishing cheapness. Lewisham did not like the\nsecond condition very much, because it seemed to touch a little on his\nlatest enterprise. But the tea and the bread and butter and the whort\njam were like no food on earth. There were wallflowers, heavy scented,\nin a jug upon the table, and Ethel admired them, and when they set out\nagain the little old lady insisted on her taking a bunch with her.\n\nIt was after they left Immering that this ramble, properly speaking,\nbecame scandalous. The sun was already a golden ball above the blue\nhills in the west--it turned our two young people into little figures\nof flame--and yet, instead of going homeward, they took the Wentworth\nroad that plunges into the Forshaw woods. Behind them the moon, almost\nfull, hung in the blue sky above the tree-tops, ghostly and\nindistinct, and slowly gathered to itself such light as the setting\nsun left for it in the sky.\n\nGoing out of Immering they began to talk of the future. And for the\nvery young lover there is no future but the immediate future.\n\n\"You must write to me,\" he said, and she told him she wrote such\n_silly_ letters. \"But I shall have reams to write to you,\" he told\nher.\n\n\"How are you to write to me?\" she asked, and they discussed a new\nobstacle between them. It would never do to write home--never. She was\nsure of that with an absolute assurance. \"My mother--\" she said and\nstopped.\n\nThat prohibition cut him, for at that time he had the makings of a\nvoluminous letter-writer. Yet it was only what one might expect. The\nwhole world was unpropitious--obdurate indeed.... A splendid isolation\n_à deux_.\n\nPerhaps she might find some place where letters might be sent to her?\nYet that seemed to her deceitful.\n\nSo these two young people wandered on, full of their discovery of\nlove, and yet so full too of the shyness of adolescence that the word\n\"Love\" never passed their lips that day. Yet as they talked on, and\nthe kindly dusk gathered about them, their speech and their hearts\ncame very close together. But their speech would seem so threadbare,\nwritten down in cold blood, that I must not put it here. To them it\nwas not threadbare.\n\nWhen at last they came down the long road into Whortley, the silent\ntrees were black as ink and the moonlight made her face pallid and\nwonderful, and her eyes shone like stars. She still carried the\nblackthorn from which most of the blossoms had fallen. The fragrant\nwallflowers were fragrant still. And far away, softened by the\ndistance, the Whortley band, performing publicly outside the vicarage\nfor the first time that year, was playing with unctuous slowness a\nsentimental air. I don't know if the reader remembers it that,\nfavourite melody of the early eighties:--\n\n    \"Sweet dreamland faces, passing to and fro, (pum, pum)\n    Bring back to Mem'ry days of long ago-o-o-oh,\"\n\nwas the essence of it, very slow and tender and with an accompaniment\nof pum, pum. Pathetically cheerful that pum, pum, hopelessly cheerful\nindeed against the dirge of the air, a dirge accentuated by sporadic\nvocalisation. But to young people things come differently.\n\n\"I _love_ music,\" she said.\n\n\"So do I,\" said he.\n\nThey came on down the steepness of West Street. They walked athwart\nthe metallic and leathery tumult of sound into the light cast by the\nlittle circle of yellow lamps. Several people saw them and wondered\nwhat the boys and girls were coming to nowadays, and one eye-witness\neven subsequently described their carriage as \"brazen.\" Mr. Lewisham\nwas wearing his mortarboard cap of office--there was no mistaking\nhim. They passed the Proprietary School and saw a yellow picture\nframed and glazed, of Mr. Bonover taking duty for his aberrant\nassistant master. And outside the Frobisher house at last they parted\nperforce.\n\n\"Good-bye,\" he said for the third time. \"Good-bye, Ethel.\"\n\nShe hesitated. Then suddenly she darted towards him. He felt her hands\nupon his shoulders, her lips soft and warm upon his cheek, and before\nhe could take hold of her she had eluded him, and had flitted into the\nshadow of the house. \"Good-bye,\" came her sweet, clear voice out of\nthe shadow, and while he yet hesitated an answer, the door opened.\n\nHe saw her, black in the doorway, heard some indistinct words, and\nthen the door closed and he was alone in the moonlight, his cheek\nstill glowing from her lips....\n\nSo ended Mr. Lewisham's first day with Love.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII.\n\nTHE RECKONING.\n\n\nAnd after the day of Love came the days of Reckoning. Mr. Lewisham was\nastonished--overwhelmed almost--by that Reckoning, as it slowly and\nsteadily unfolded itself. The wonderful emotions of Saturday carried him\nthrough Sunday, and he made it up with the neglected Schema by assuring\nit that She was his Inspiration, and that he would work for Her a\nthousand times better than he could possibly work for himself. That was\ncertainly not true, and indeed he found himself wondering whither the\ninterest had vanished out of his theological examination of Butler's\nAnalogy. The Frobishers were not at church for either service. He\nspeculated rather anxiously why?\n\nMonday dawned coldly and clearly--a Herbert Spencer of a day--and he\nwent to school sedulously assuring himself there was nothing to\napprehend. Day boys were whispering in the morning apparently about\nhim, and Frobisher ii. was in great request. Lewisham overheard a\nfragment \"My mother _was_ in a wax,\" said Frobisher ii.\n\nAt twelve came an interview with Bonover, and voices presently rising\nin angry altercation and audible to Senior-assistant Dunkerley through\nthe closed study door. Then Lewisham walked across the schoolroom,\nstaring straight before him, his cheeks very bright.\n\nThereby Dunkerley's mind was prepared for the news that came the next\nmorning over the exercise books. \"When?\" said Dunkerley.\n\n\"End of next term,\" said Lewisham.\n\n\"About this girl that's been staying at the Frobishers?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"She's a pretty bit of goods. But it will mess up your matric next\nJune,\" said Dunkerley.\n\n\"That's what I'm sorry for.\"\n\n\"It's scarcely to be expected he'll give you leave to attend the\nexam....\"\n\n\"He won't,\" said Lewisham shortly, and opened his first exercise\nbook. He found it difficult to talk.\n\n\"He's a greaser,\" said Dunkerley. \"But there!--what can you expect\nfrom Durham?\" For Bonover had only a Durham degree, and Dunkerley,\nhaving none, inclined to be particular. Therewith Dunkerley lapsed\ninto a sympathetic and busy rustling over his own pile of\nexercises. It was not until the heap had been reduced to a book or so\nthat he spoke again--an elaborate point.\n\n\"Male and female created He them,\" said Dunkerley, ticking his way\ndown the page. \"Which (tick, tick) was damned hard (tick, tick) on\nassistant masters.\"\n\nHe closed the book with a snap and flung it on the floor behind\nhim. \"You're lucky,\" he said. \"I _did_ think I should be first to get\nout of this scandalising hole. You're lucky. It's always acting down\nhere. Running on parents and guardians round every corner. That's what\nI object to in life in the country: it's so confoundedly\nartificial. _I_ shall take jolly good care _I_ get out of it just as\nsoon as ever I can. You bet!\"\n\n\"And work those patents?\"\n\n\"Rather, my boy. Yes. Work those patents. The Patent Square Top\nBottle! Lord! Once let me get to London....\"\n\n\"I think _I_ shall have a shot at London,\" said Lewisham.\n\nAnd then the experienced Dunkerley, being one of the kindest young men\nalive, forgot certain private ambitions of his own--he cherished\ndreams of amazing patents--and bethought him of agents. He proceeded\nto give a list of these necessary helpers of the assistant master at\nthe gangway--Orellana, Gabbitas, The Lancaster Gate Agency, and the\nrest of them. He knew them all--intimately. He had been a \"nix\" eight\nyears. \"Of course that Kensington thing may come off,\" said Dunkerley,\n\"but it's best not to wait. I tell you frankly--the chances are\nagainst you.\"\n\nThe \"Kensington thing\" was an application for admission to the Normal\nSchool of Science at South Kensington, which Lewisham had made in a\nsanguine moment. There being an inadequate supply of qualified science\nteachers in England, the Science and Art Department is wont to offer\nfree instruction at its great central school and a guinea a week to\nselect young pedagogues who will bind themselves to teach science\nafter their training is over. Dunkerley had been in the habit of\napplying for several years, always in vain, and Lewisham had seen no\nharm in following his example. But then Dunkerley had no green-grey\ncertificates.\n\nSo Lewisham spent all that \"duty\" left him of the next day composing a\nletter to copy out and send the several scholastic agencies. In this\nhe gave a brief but appreciative sketch of his life, and enlarged upon\nhis discipline and educational methods. At the end was a long and\ndecorative schedule of his certificates and distinctions, beginning\nwith a good-conduct prize at the age of eight. A considerable amount\nof time was required to recopy this document, but his modesty upheld\nhim. After a careful consideration of the time-table, he set aside the\nmidday hour for \"Correspondence.\"\n\nHe found that his work in mathematics and classics was already some\ntime in arrears, and a \"test\" he had sent to his correspondence Tutor\nduring those troublous days after the meeting with Bonover in the\nAvenue, came back blottesquely indorsed: \"Below Pass Standard.\" This\nlast experience was so unprecedented and annoyed him so much that for\na space he contemplated retorting with a sarcastic letter to the\ntutor. And then came the Easter recess, and he had to go home and tell\nhis mother, with a careful suppression of details, that he was leaving\nWhortley, \"Where you have been getting on so well!\" cried his mother.\n\nBut that dear old lady had one consolation. She observed he had given\nup his glasses--he had forgotten to bring them with him--and her\nsecret fear of grave optical troubles--that were being \"kept\" from\nher---was alleviated.\n\nSometimes he had moods of intense regret for the folly of that\nwalk. One such came after the holidays, when the necessity of revising\nthe dates of the Schema brought before his mind, for the first time\nquite clearly, the practical issue of this first struggle with all\nthose mysterious and powerful influences the spring-time sets\na-stirring. His dream of success and fame had been very real and dear\nto him, and the realisation of the inevitable postponement of his long\nanticipated matriculation, the doorway to all the other great things,\ntook him abruptly like an actual physical sensation in his chest.\n\nHe sprang up, pen in hand, in the midst of his corrections, and began\npacing up and down the room. \"What a fool I have been!\" he\ncried. \"What a fool I have been!\"\n\nHe flung the pen on the floor and made a rush at an ill-drawn attempt\nupon a girl's face that adorned the end of his room, the visible\nwitness of his slavery. He tore this down and sent the fragments of it\nscattering....\n\n\"Fool!\"\n\nIt was a relief--a definite abandonment. He stared for a moment at the\ndestruction he had made, and then went back to the revision of the\ntime-table, with a mutter about \"silly spooning.\"\n\nThat was one mood. The rarer one. He watched the posts with far more\neagerness for the address to which he might write to her than for any\nreply to those reiterated letters of application, the writing of which\nnow ousted Horace and the higher mathematics (Lewisham's term for\nconics) from his attention. Indeed he spent more time meditating the\nletter to her than even the schedule of his virtues had required.\n\nYet the letters of application were wonderful compositions; each had a\nnew pen to itself and was for the first page at least in a handwriting\nfar above even his usual high standard. And day after day passed and\nthat particular letter he hoped for still did not come.\n\nHis moods were complicated by the fact that, in spite of his studied\nreticence on the subject, the reason of his departure did in an\namazingly short time get \"all over Whortley.\" It was understood that\nhe had been discovered to be \"fast,\" and Ethel's behaviour was\nanimadverted upon with complacent Indignation--if the phrase may be\nallowed--by the ladies of the place. Pretty looks were too often a\nsnare. One boy--his ear was warmed therefor--once called aloud\n\"Ethel,\" as Lewisham went by. The curate, a curate of the pale-faced,\nlarge-knuckled, nervous sort, now passed him without acknowledgment of\nhis existence. Mrs. Bonover took occasion to tell him that he was a\n\"mere boy,\" and once Mrs. Frobisher sniffed quite threateningly at him\nwhen she passed him in the street. She did it so suddenly she made him\njump.\n\nThis general disapproval inclined him at times to depression, but in\ncertain moods he found it exhilarating, and several times he professed\nhimself to Dunkerley not a little of a blade. In others, he told\nhimself he bore it for _her_ sake. Anyhow he had to bear it.\n\nHe began to find out, too, how little the world feels the need of a\nyoung man of nineteen--he called himself nineteen, though he had\nseveral months of eighteen still to run--even though he adds prizes\nfor good conduct, general improvement, and arithmetic, and advanced\ncertificates signed by a distinguished engineer and headed with the\nRoyal Arms, guaranteeing his knowledge of geometrical drawing,\nnautical astronomy, animal physiology, physiography, inorganic\nchemistry, and building construction, to his youth and strength and\nenergy. At first he had imagined headmasters clutching at the chance\nof him, and presently he found himself clutching eagerly at them. He\nbegan to put a certain urgency into his applications for vacant posts,\nan urgency that helped him not at all. The applications grew longer\nand longer until they ran to four sheets of note-paper--a pennyworth\nin fact. \"I can assure you,\" he would write, \"that you will find me a\nloyal and devoted assistant.\" Much in that strain. Dunkerley pointed\nout that Bonover's testimonial ignored the question of moral character\nand discipline in a marked manner, and Bonover refused to alter it. He\nwas willing to do what he could to help Lewisham, in spite of the way\nhe had been treated, but unfortunately his conscience....\n\nOnce or twice Lewisham misquoted the testimonial--to no purpose. And\nMay was halfway through, and South Kensington was silent. The future\nwas grey.\n\nAnd in the depths of his doubt and disappointment came her letter. It\nwas typewritten on thin paper. \"Dear,\" she wrote simply, and it\nseemed to him the most sweet and wonderful of all possible modes of\naddress, though as a matter of fact it was because she had forgotten\nhis Christian name and afterwards forgotten the blank she had left for\nit.\n\n\"Dear, I could not write before because I have no room at home now\nwhere I can write a letter, and Mrs. Frobisher told my mother\nfalsehoods about you. My mother has surprised me dreadfully--I did not\nthink it of her. She told me nothing. But of that I must tell you in\nanother letter. I am too angry to write about it now. Even now you\ncannot write back, for _you must not send letters here_. It would\n_never_ do. But I think of you, dear,\"--the \"dear\" had been erased and\nrewritten--\"and I must write and tell you so, and of that nice walk we\nhad, if I never write again. I am very busy now. My work is rather\ndifficult and I am afraid I am a little stupid. It is hard to be\ninterested in anything just because that is how you have to live, is\nit not? I daresay you sometimes feel the same of school. But I\nsuppose everybody is doing things they don't like. I don't know when\nI shall come to Whortley again, if ever, but very likely you will be\ncoming to London. Mrs. Frobisher said the most horrid things. It\nwould be nice If you could come to London, because then perhaps you\nmight see me. There is a big boys' school at Chelsea, and when I go by\nit every morning I wish you were there. Then you would come out in\nyour cap and gown as I went by. Suppose some day I was to see you\nthere suddenly!!\"\n\nSo it ran, with singularly little information in it, and ended quite\nabruptly, \"Good-bye, dear. Good-bye, dear,\" scribbled in pencil. And\nthen, \"Think of me sometimes.\"\n\nReading it, and especially that opening \"dear,\" made Lewisham feel the\nstrangest sensation in his throat and chest, almost as though he was\ngoing to cry. So he laughed instead and read it again, and went to and\nfro in his little room with his eyes bright and that precious writing\nheld in his hand. That \"dear\" was just as if she had spoken--a voice\nsuddenly heard. He thought of her farewell, clear and sweet, out of\nthe shadow of the moonlit house.\n\nBut why that \"If I never write again,\" and that abrupt ending? Of\ncourse he would think of her.\n\nIt was her only letter. In a little time its creases were worn\nthrough.\n\nEarly in June came a loneliness that suddenly changed into almost\nintolerable longing to see her. He had vague dreams of going to\nLondon, to Clapham to find her. But you do not find people in Clapham\nas you do in Whortley. He spent an afternoon writing and re-writing a\nlengthy letter, against the day when her address should come. If it\nwas to come. He prowled about the village disconsolately, and at last\nset off about seven and retraced by moonlight almost every step of\nthat one memorable walk of theirs.\n\nIn the blackness of the shed he worked himself up to the pitch of\ntalking as if she were present. And he said some fine brave things.\n\nHe found the little old lady of the wallflowers with a candle in her\nwindow, and drank a bottle of ginger beer with a sacramental air. The\nlittle old lady asked him, a trifle archly, after his sister, and he\npromised to bring her again some day. \"I'll certainly bring her,\" he\nsaid. Talking to the little old lady somehow blunted his sense of\ndesolation. And then home through the white indistinctness in a state\nof melancholy that became at last so fine as to be almost pleasurable.\n\nThe day after that mood a new \"text\" attracted and perplexed\nMrs. Munday, an inscription at once mysterious and familiar, and this\ninscription was:\n\nMizpah.\n\nIt was in Old English lettering and evidently very carefully executed.\n\nWhere had she seen it before?\n\nIt quite dominated all the rest of the room at first, it flaunted like\na flag of triumph over \"discipline\" and the time-table and the\nSchema. Once indeed it was taken down, but the day after it\nreappeared. Later a list of scholastic vacancies partially obscured\nit, and some pencil memoranda were written on the margin.\n\nAnd when at last the time came for him to pack up and leave Whortley,\nhe took it down and used it with several other suitable papers--the\nSchema and the time-table were its next-door neighbours--to line the\nbottom of the yellow box in which he packed his books: chiefly books\nfor that matriculation that had now to be postponed.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII.\n\nTHE CAREER PREVAILS.\n\n\nThere is an interval of two years and a half and the story resumes\nwith a much maturer Mr. Lewisham, indeed no longer a youth, but a man,\na legal man, at any rate, of one-and-twenty years. Its scene is no\nlonger little Whortley embedded among its trees, ruddy banks, parks\nand common land, but the grey spaciousness of West London.\n\nAnd it does not resume with Ethel at all. For that promised second\nletter never reached him, and though he spent many an afternoon during\nhis first few months in London wandering about Clapham, that arid\nwaste of people, the meeting that he longed for never came. Until at\nlast, after the manner of youth, so gloriously recuperative in body,\nheart, and soul, he began to forget.\n\nThe quest of a \"crib\" had ended in the unexpected fruition of\nDunkerley's blue paper. The green-blue certificates had, it seemed, a\nvalue beyond mural decoration, and when Lewisham was already\ndespairing of any employment for the rest of his life, came a\nmarvellous blue document from the Education Department promising\ninconceivable things. He was to go to London and be paid a guinea a\nweek for listening to lectures--lectures beyond his most ambitious\ndreams! Among the names that swam before his eyes was Huxley--Huxley\nand then Lockyer! What a chance to get! Is it any wonder that for\nthree memorable years the Career prevailed with him?\n\nYou figure him on his way to the Normal School of Science at the\nopening of his third year of study there. (They call the place the\nRoyal College of Science in these latter days.) He carried in his\nright hand a shiny black bag, well stuffed with text-books, notes, and\napparatus for the forthcoming session; and in his left was a book\nthat the bag had no place for, a book with gilt edges, and its binding\nvery carefully protected by a brown paper cover.\n\nThe lapse of time had asserted itself upon his upper lip in an\ninaggressive but indisputable moustache, in an added inch or so of\nstature, and in his less conscious carriage. For he no longer felt\nthat universal attention he believed in at eighteen; it was beginning\nto dawn on him indeed that quite a number of people were entirely\nindifferent to the fact of his existence. But if less conscious, his\ncarriage was decidedly more confident--as of one with whom the world\ngoes well.\n\nHis costume was--with one exception--a tempered black,--mourning put\nto hard uses and \"cutting up rusty.\" The mourning was for his mother,\nwho had died more than a year before the date when this story resumes,\nand had left him property that capitalized at nearly a hundred pounds,\na sum which Lewisham hoarded jealously in the Savings Bank, paying\nonly for such essentials as university fees, and the books and\ninstruments his brilliant career as a student demanded. For he was\nhaving a brilliant career, after all, in spite of the Whortley check,\nlicking up paper certificates indeed like a devouring flame.\n\n(Surveying him, Madam, your eye would inevitably have fallen to his\ncollar--curiously shiny, a surface like wet gum. Although it has\npractically nothing to do with this story, I must, I know, dispose of\nthat before I go on, or you will be inattentive. London has its\nmysteries, but this strange gloss on his linen! \"Cheap laundresses\nalways make your things blue,\" protests the lady. \"It ought to have\nbeen blue-stained, generously frayed, and loose about the button,\nfretting his neck. But this gloss ...\" You would have looked nearer,\nand finally you would have touched--a charnel-house surface, dank and\ncool! You see, Madam, the collar was a patent waterproof one. One of\nthose you wash over night with a tooth-brush, and hang on the back of\nyour chair to dry, and there you have it next morning rejuvenesced. It\nwas the only collar he had in the world, it saved threepence a week at\nleast, and that, to a South Kensington \"science teacher in training,\"\nliving on the guinea a week allowed by a parental but parsimonious\ngovernment, is a sum to consider. It had come to Lewisham as a great\ndiscovery. He had seen it first in a shop window full of indiarubber\ngoods, and it lay at the bottom of a glass bowl in which goldfish\ndrifted discontentedly to and fro. And he told himself that he rather\nliked that gloss.)\n\nBut the wearing of a bright red tie would have been unexpected--a\nbright red tie after the fashion of a South-Western railway guard's!\nThe rest of him by no means dandiacal, even the vanity of glasses long\nsince abandoned. You would have reflected.... Where had you seen a\ncrowd--red ties abundant and in some way significant? The truth has to\nbe told. Mr. Lewisham had become a Socialist!\n\nThat red tie was indeed but one outward and visible sign of much\ninward and spiritual development. Lewisham, in spite of the demands of\na studious career, had read his Butler's Analogy through by this time,\nand some other books; he had argued, had had doubts, and called upon\nGod for \"Faith\" in the silence of the night--\"Faith\" to be delivered\nimmediately if Mr. Lewisham's patronage was valued, and which\nnevertheless was not so delivered.... And his conception of his\ndestiny in this world was no longer an avenue of examinations to a\nremote Bar and political eminence \"in the Liberal interest (D.V.).\" He\nhad begun to realise certain aspects of our social order that Whortley\ndid not demonstrate, begun to feel something of the dull stress\ndeepening to absolute wretchedness and pain, which is the colour of so\nmuch human life in modern London. One vivid contrast hung in his mind\nsymbolical. On the one hand were the coalies of the Westbourne Park\nyards, on strike and gaunt and hungry, children begging in the black\nslush, and starving loungers outside a soup kitchen; and on the other,\nWestbourne Grove, two streets further, a blazing array of crowded\nshops, a stirring traffic of cabs and carriages, and such a spate of\nspending that a tired student in leaky boots and graceless clothes\nhurrying home was continually impeded in the whirl of skirts and\nparcels and sweetly pretty womanliness. No doubt the tired student's\nown inglorious sensations pointed the moral. But that was only one of\na perpetually recurring series of vivid approximations.\n\nLewisham had a strong persuasion, an instinct it may be, that human\nbeings should not be happy while others near them were wretched, and\nthis gay glitter of prosperity had touched him with a sense of\ncrime. He still believed people were responsible for their own lives;\nin those days he had still to gauge the possibilities of moral\nstupidity in himself and his fellow-men. He happened upon \"Progress\nand Poverty\" just then, and some casual numbers of the \"Commonweal,\"\nand it was only too easy to accept the theory of cunning plotting\ncapitalists and landowners, and faultless, righteous, martyr\nworkers. He became a Socialist forthwith. The necessity to do\nsomething at once to manifest the new faith that was in him was\nnaturally urgent. So he went out and (historical moment) bought that\nred tie!\n\n\"Blood colour, please,\" said Lewisham meekly to the young lady at the\ncounter.\n\n\"_What_ colour?\" said the young lady at the counter, sharply.\n\n\"A bright scarlet, please,\" said Lewisham, blushing. And he spent the\nbest part of the evening and much of his temper in finding out how to\ntie this into a neat bow. It was a plunge into novel handicraft--for\npreviously he had been accustomed to made-up ties.\n\nSo it was that Lewisham proclaimed the Social Revolution. The first\ntime that symbol went abroad a string of stalwart policemen were\nwalking in single file along the Brompton Road. In the opposite\ndirection marched Lewisham. He began to hum. He passed the policemen\nwith a significant eye and humming the _Marseillaise_....\n\nBut that was months ago, and by this time the red tie was a thing of\nuse and wont.\n\nHe turned out of the Exhibition Road through a gateway of wrought\niron, and entered the hall of the Normal School. The hall was crowded\nwith students carrying books, bags, and boxes of instruments, students\nstanding and chattering, students reading the framed and glazed\nnotices of the Debating Society, students buying note-books, pencils,\nrubber, or drawing pins from the privileged stationer. There was a\nstrong representation of new hands, the paying students, youths and\nyoung men in black coats and silk hats or tweed suits, the scholar\ncontingent, youngsters of Lewisham's class, raw, shabby, discordant,\ngrotesquely ill-dressed and awe-stricken; one Lewisham noticed with a\nsailor's peaked cap gold-decorated, and one with mittens and very\ngenteel grey kid gloves; and Grummett the perennial Official of the\nBooks was busy among them.\n\n\"Der Zozalist!\" said a wit.\n\nLewisham pretended not to hear and blushed vividly. He often wished he\ndid not blush quite so much, seeing he was a man of one-and-twenty.\nHe looked studiously away from the Debating Society notice-board,\nwhereon \"G.E. Lewisham on Socialism\" was announced for the next\nFriday, and struggled through the hall to where the Book awaited his\nsignature. Presently he was hailed by name, and then again. He could\nnot get to the Book for a minute or so, because of the hand-shaking\nand clumsy friendly jests of his fellow-\"men.\"\n\nHe was pointed out to a raw hand, by the raw hand's experienced\nfellow-townsman, as \"that beast Lewisham--awful swat. He was second\nlast year on the year's work. Frightful mugger. But all these swats\nhave a touch of the beastly prig. Exams--Debating Society--more\nExams. Don't seem to have ever heard of being alive. Never goes near a\nMusic Hall from one year's end to the other.\"\n\nLewisham heard a shrill whistle, made a run for the lift and caught it\njust on the point of departure. The lift was unlit and full of black\nshadows; only the sapper who conducted it was distinct. As Lewisham\npeered doubtfully at the dim faces near him, a girl's voice addressed\nhim by name.\n\n\"Is that you, Miss Heydinger?\" he answered. \"I didn't see, I hope you\nhave had a pleasant vacation.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX.\n\nALICE HEYDINGER.\n\n\nWhen he arrived at the top of the building he stood aside for the only\nremaining passenger to step out before him. It was the Miss Heydinger\nwho had addressed him, the owner of that gilt-edged book in the cover\nof brown paper. No one else had come all the way up from the ground\nfloor. The rest of the load in the lift had emerged at the\n\"astronomical\" and \"chemical\" floors, but these two had both chosen\n\"zoology\" for their third year of study, and zoology lived in the\nattics. She stepped into the light, with a rare touch of colour\nspringing to her cheeks in spite of herself. Lewisham perceived an\nalteration in her dress. Perhaps she was looking for and noticed the\ntransitory surprise in his face.\n\nThe previous session--their friendship was now nearly a year old--it\nhad never once dawned upon him that she could possibly be pretty. The\nchief thing he had been able to recall with any definiteness during\nthe vacation was, that her hair was not always tidy, and that even\nwhen it chanced to be so, she was nervous about it; she distrusted\nit. He remembered her gesture while she talked, a patting exploration\nthat verged on the exasperating. From that he went on to remember\nthat its colour was, on the whole, fair, a light brown. But he had\nforgotten her mouth, he had failed to name the colour of her eyes. She\nwore glasses, it is true. And her dress was indefinite in his\nmemory--an amorphous dinginess.\n\nAnd yet he had seen a good deal of her. They were not in the same\ncourse, but he had made her acquaintance on the committee of the\nschool Debating Society. Lewisham was just then discovering\nSocialism. That had afforded a basis of conversation--an incentive to\nintercourse. She seemed to find something rarely interesting in his\npeculiar view of things, and, as chance would have it, he met her\naccidentally quite a number of times, in the corridors of the schools,\nin the big Education Library, and in the Art Museum. After a time\nthose meetings appear to have been no longer accidental.\n\nLewisham for the first time in his life began to fancy he had\nconversational powers. She resolved to stir up his ambitions--an easy\ntask. She thought he had exceptional gifts and that she might serve to\ndirect them; she certainly developed his vanity. She had matriculated\nat the London University and they took the Intermediate Examination in\nScience together in July--she a little unwisely--which served, as\nalmost anything will serve in such cases, as a further link between\nthem. She failed, which in no way diminished Lewisham's regard for\nher. On the examination days they discoursed about Friendship in\ngeneral, and things like that, down the Burlington Arcade during the\nlunch time--Burlington Arcade undisguisedly amused by her learned\ndinginess and his red tie--and among other things that were said she\nreproached him for not reading poetry. When they parted in Piccadilly,\nafter the examination, they agreed to write, about poetry and\nthemselves, during the holidays, and then she lent him, with a touch\nof hesitation, Rossetti's poems. He began to forget what had at first\nbeen very evident to him, that she was two or three years older than\nhe.\n\nLewisham spent the vacation with an unsympathetic but kindly uncle who\nwas a plumber and builder. His uncle had a family of six, the eldest\neleven, and Lewisham made himself agreeable and instructive. Moreover\nhe worked hard for the culminating third year of his studies (in which\nhe had decided to do great things), and he learnt to ride the Ordinary\nBicycle. He also thought about Miss Heydinger, and she, it would seem,\nthought about him.\n\nHe argued on social questions with his uncle, who was a prominent\nlocal Conservative. His uncle's controversial methods were coarse in\nthe extreme. Socialists, he said, were thieves. The object of\nSocialism was to take away what a man earned and give it to \"a lot of\nlazy scoundrels.\" Also rich people were necessary. \"If there weren't\nwell-off people, how d'ye think I'd get a livin'? Hey? And where'd\n_you_ be then?\" Socialism, his uncle assured him, was \"got up\" by\nagitators. \"They get money out of young Gabies like you, and they\nspend it in champagne.\" And thereafter he met Mr. Lewisham's arguments\nwith the word \"Champagne\" uttered in an irritating voice, followed by\na luscious pantomime of drinking.\n\nNaturally Lewisham felt a little lonely, and perhaps he laid stress\nupon it in his letters to Miss Heydinger. It came to light that she\nfelt rather lonely too. They discussed the question of True as\ndistinguished from Ordinary Friendship, and from that they passed to\nGoethe and Elective Affinities. He told her how he looked for her\nletters, and they became more frequent. Her letters were Indisputably\nwell written. Had he been a journalist with a knowledge of \"_per\nthou_.\" he would have known each for a day's work. After the practical\nplumber had been asking what he expected to make by this here science\nof his, re-reading her letters was balsamic. He liked Rossetti--the\nexquisite sense of separation in \"The Blessed Damozel\" touched\nhim. But, on the whole, he was a little surprised at Miss Heydinger's\ntaste in poetry. Rossetti was so sensuous ... so florid. He had\nscarcely expected that sort of thing.\n\nAltogether he had returned to the schools decidedly more interested in\nher than when they had parted. And the curious vague memories of her\nappearance as something a little frayed and careless, vanished at\nsight of her emerging from the darkness of the lift. Her hair was in\norder, as the light glanced through it it looked even pretty, and she\nwore a well-made, dark-green and black dress, loose-gathered as was\nthe fashion in those days, that somehow gave a needed touch of warmth\nto her face. Her hat too was a change from the careless lumpishness of\nlast year, a hat that, to a feminine mind, would have indicated\ndesign. It suited her--these things are past a male novelist's\nexplaining.\n\n\"I have this book of yours, Miss Heydinger,\" he said.\n\n\"I am glad you have written that paper on Socialism,\" she replied,\ntaking the brown-covered volume.\n\nThey walked along the little passage towards the biological laboratory\nside by side, and she stopped at the hat pegs to remove her hat. For\nthat was the shameless way of the place, a girl student had to take\nher hat off publicly, and publicly assume the holland apron that was\nto protect her in the laboratory. Not even a looking-glass!\n\n\"I shall come and hear your paper,\" she said.\n\n\"I hope you will like it,\" said Lewisham at the door of the\nlaboratory.\n\n\"And in the vacation I have been collecting evidence about ghosts--you\nremember our arguments. Though I did not tell you in my letters.\"\n\n\"I'm sorry you're still obdurate,\" said Lewisham. \"I thought that was\nover.\"\n\n\"And have you read 'Looking Backward'?\"\n\n\"I want to.\"\n\n\"I have it here with my other books, if you'd care for me to lend it\nto you. Wait till I reach my table. My hands are so full.\"\n\nThey entered the laboratory together, Lewisham holding the door open\ncourtly-wise, Miss Heydinger taking a reassuring pat at her hair. Near\nthe door was a group of four girls, which group Miss Heydinger joined,\nholding the brown-covered book as inconspicuously as possible. Three\nof them had been through the previous two years with her, and they\ngreeted her by her Christian name. They had previously exchanged\nglances at her appearance in Lewisham's company.\n\nA morose elderly young demonstrator brightened momentarily at the\nsight of Lewisham. \"Well, we've got one of the decent ones anyhow,\"\nsaid the morose elderly young demonstrator, who was apparently taking\nan inventory, and then brightening at a fresh entry. \"Ah! and here's\nSmithers.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X.\n\nIN THE GALLERY OF OLD IRON.\n\n\nAs one goes into the South Kensington Art Museum from the Brompton\nRoad, the Gallery of Old Iron is overhead to the right. But the way\nthither is exceedingly devious and not to be revealed to everybody,\nsince the young people who pursue science and art thereabouts set a\npeculiar value on its seclusion. The gallery is long and narrow and\ndark, and set with iron gates, iron-bound chests, locks, bolts and\nbars, fantastic great keys, lamps, and the like, and over the\nbalustrade one may lean and talk of one's finer feelings and regard\nMichael Angelo's horned Moses, or Trajan's Column (in plaster) rising\ngigantic out of the hall below and far above the level of the\ngallery. And here, on a Wednesday afternoon, were Lewisham and Miss\nHeydinger, the Wednesday afternoon immediately following that paper\nupon Socialism, that you saw announced on the notice-board in the\nhall.\n\nThe paper had been an immense success, closely reasoned, delivered\nwith a disciplined emotion, the redoubtable Smithers practically\nconverted, the reply after the debate methodical and complete, and it\nmay be there were symptoms of that febrile affection known to the\nvulgar as \"swelled 'ed.\" Lewisham regarded Moses and spoke of his\nfuture. Miss Heydinger for the most part watched his face.\n\n\"And then?\" said Miss Heydinger.\n\n\"One must bring these views prominently before people. I believe still\nin pamphlets. I have thought ...\" Lewisham paused, it is to be hoped\nthrough modesty.\n\n\"Yes?\" said Miss Heydinger.\n\n\"Well--Luther, you know. There is room, I think, in Socialism, for a\nLuther.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Miss Heydinger, imagining it. \"Yes--that would be a grand\nway.\"\n\nSo it seemed to many people in those days. But eminent reformers have\nbeen now for more than seven years going about the walls of the Social\nJericho, blowing their own trumpets and shouting--with such small\nresult beyond incidental displays of ill-temper within, that it is\nhard to recover the fine hopefulness of those departed days.\n\n\"Yes,\" said Miss Heydinger. \"That would be a grand way.\"\n\nLewisham appreciated the quality of personal emotion in her voice. He\nturned his face towards her, and saw unstinted admiration in her\neyes. \"It would be a great thing to do,\" he said, and added, quite\nmodestly, \"if only one could do it.\"\n\n\"_You_ could do it.\"\n\n\"You think I could?\" Lewisham blushed vividly--with pleasure.\n\n\"I do. Certainly you could set out to do it. Even to fail hopelessly\nwould be Great. Sometimes ...\"\n\nShe hesitated. He looked expectation. \"I think sometimes it is greater\neven to fail than to succeed.\"\n\n\"I don't see that,\" said the proposed Luther, and his eyes went back\nto the Moses. She was about to speak, and changed her mind.\n\nContemplative pause.\n\n\"And then, when a great number of people have heard of your views?\"\nshe said presently.\n\n\"Then I suppose we must form a party and ... bring things about.\"\n\nAnother pause--full, no doubt, of elevated thoughts.\n\n\"I say,\" said Lewisham quite suddenly. \"You do put--well--courage into\na chap. I shouldn't have done that Socialism paper if it hadn't been\nfor you.\" He turned round and stood leaning with his back to the\nMoses, and smiling at her. \"You do help a fellow,\" he said.\n\nThat was one of the vivid moments of Miss Heydinger's life. She\nchanged colour a little. \"Do I?\" she said, standing straight and\nawkward and looking into his face, \"I'm ... glad.\"\n\n\"I haven't thanked you for your letters,\" said Lewisham, \"And I've\nbeen thinking ...\"\n\n\"Yes?\"\n\n\"We're first-rate friends, aren't we? The best of friends.\"\n\nShe held out her hand and drew a breath. \"Yes,\" she said as they\ngripped. He hesitated whether to hold her hand. He looked into her\neyes, and at that moment she would have given three-quarters of the\nyears she had still to live, to have had eyes and features that could\nhave expressed her. Instead, she felt her face hard, the little\nmuscles of her mouth twitching insubordinate, and fancied that her\nself-consciousness made her eyes dishonest.\n\n\"What I mean,\" said Lewisham, \"is--that this will go on. We're always\ngoing to be friends, side by side.\"\n\n\"Always. Just as I am able to help you--I will help you. However I can\nhelp you, I will.\"\n\n\"We two,\" said Lewisham, gripping her hand.\n\nHer face lit. Her eyes were for a moment touched with the beauty of\nsimple emotion. \"We two,\" she said, and her lips trembled and her\nthroat seemed to swell. She snatched her hand back suddenly and turned\nher face away. Abruptly she walked towards the end of the gallery, and\nhe saw her fumbling for her handkerchief in the folds of the green and\nblack dress.\n\nShe was going to cry!\n\nIt set Lewisham marvelling--this totally inappropriate emotion.\n\nHe followed her and stood by her. Why cry? He hoped no one would come\ninto the little gallery until her handkerchief was put away.\nNevertheless he felt vaguely flattered. She controlled herself, dashed\nher tears away, and smiled bravely at him with reddened eyes. \"I'm\nsorry,\" she said, gulping.\n\n\"I am so glad,\" she explained.\n\n\"But we will fight together. We two. I _can_ help you. I know I can\nhelp you. And there is such Work to be done in the world!\"\n\n\"You are very good to help me,\" said Lewisham, quoting a phrase from\nwhat he had intended to say before he found out that he had a hold\nupon her emotions.\n\n\"No!\n\n\"Has it ever occurred to you,\" she said abruptly, \"how little a woman\ncan do alone in the world?\"\n\n\"Or a man,\" he answered after a momentary meditation.\n\nSo it was Lewisham enrolled his first ally in the cause of the red\ntie--of the red tie and of the Greatness that was presently to\ncome. His first ally; for hitherto--save for the indiscretion of his\nmural inscriptions--he had made a secret of his private ambitions. In\nthat now half-forgotten love affair at Whortley even, he had, in spite\nof the considerable degree of intimacy attained, said absolutely\nnothing about his Career.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XI.\n\nMANIFESTATIONS.\n\n\nMiss Heydinger declined to disbelieve in the spirits of the dead, and\nthis led to controversy in the laboratory over Tea. For the girl\nstudents, being in a majority that year, had organised Tea between\nfour o'clock and the advent of the extinguishing policeman at\nfive. And the men students were occasionally invited to Tea. But not\nmore than two of them at a time really participated, because there\nwere only two spare cups after that confounded Simmons broke the\nthird.\n\nSmithers, the square-headed student with the hard grey eyes, argued\nagainst the spirits of the dead with positive animosity, while\nBletherley, who displayed an orange tie and lank hair in unshorn\nabundance, was vaguely open-minded, \"What is love?\" asked Bletherley,\n\"surely that at any rate is immortal!\" His remark was considered\nirrelevant and ignored.\n\nLewisham, as became the most promising student of the year, weighed\nthe evidence--comprehensively under headings. He dismissed the\nmediumistic _séances_ as trickery.\n\n\"Rot and imposture,\" said Smithers loudly, and with an oblique glance\nto see if his challenge reached its mark. Its mark was a grizzled\nlittle old man with a very small face and very big grey eyes, who had\nbeen standing listlessly at one of the laboratory windows until the\ndiscussion caught him. He wore a brown velvet jacket and was reputed\nto be enormously rich. His name was Lagune. He was not a regular\nattendant, but one of those casual outsiders who are admitted to\nlaboratories that are not completely full. He was known to be an\nardent spiritualist--it was even said that he had challenged Huxley to\na public discussion on materialism, and he came to the biological\nlectures and worked intermittently, in order, he explained, to fight\ndisbelief with its own weapons. He rose greedily to Smithers'\ncontroversial bait.\n\n\"I say _no_!\" he said, calling down the narrow laboratory and\nfollowing his voice. He spoke with the ghost of a lisp. \"Pardon my\ninterrupting, sir. The question interests me profoundly. I hope I\ndon't intrude. Excuse me, sir. Make it personal. Am I a--fool, or an\nimpostor?\"\n\n\"Well,\" parried Smithers, with all a South Kensington student's want\nof polish, \"that's a bit personal.\"\n\n\"Assume, sir, that I am an honest observer.\"\n\n\"Well?\"\n\n\"I have _seen_ spirits, _heard_ spirits, _felt_ the touch of spirits,\"\nHe opened his pale eyes very widely.\n\n\"Fool, then,\" said Smithers in an undertone which did not reach the\nears of the spiritualist.\n\n\"You may have been deceived,\" paraphrased Lewisham.\n\n\"I can assure you ... others can see, hear, feel. I have tested,\nsir. Tested! I have some scientific training and I have employed\ntests. Scientific and exhaustive tests! Every possible way. I ask you,\nsir--have you given the spirits a chance?\"\n\n\"It is only paying guineas to humbugs,\" said Smithers.\n\n\"There you are! Prejudice! Here is a man denies the facts and\nconsequently _won't_ see them, won't go near them.\"\n\n\"But you wouldn't have every man in the three kingdoms, who\ndisbelieved in spirits, attend _séances_ before he should be allowed\nto deny?\"\n\n\"Most assuredly yes. Most assuredly yes! He knows nothing about it\ntill then.\"\n\nThe argument became heated. The little old gentleman was soon under\nway. He knew a person of the most extraordinary gifts, a medium ...\n\n\"Paid?\" asked Smithers.\n\n\"Would you muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn?\" said Lagune\npromptly.\n\nSmithers' derision was manifest.\n\n\"Would you distrust a balance because you bought it? Come and see.\"\nLagune was now very excited and inclined to gesticulate and raise his\nvoice. He invited the whole class incontinently to a series of special\n_séances_. \"Not all at once--the spirits--new influences.\" But in\nsections. \"I warn you we may get nothing. But the chances are ... I\nwould rejoice infinitely ...\"\n\nSo it came about that Lewisham consented to witness a\nspirit-raising. Miss Heydinger it was arranged should be there, and\nthe sceptic Smithers, Lagune, his typewriter and the medium would\ncomplete the party. Afterwards there was to be another party for the\nothers. Lewisham was glad he had the moral support of Smithers.\n\"It's an evening wasted,\" said Smithers, who had gallantly resolved to\nmake the running for Lewisham in the contest for the Forbes\nmedal. \"But I'll prove my case. You see if I don't.\" They were given\nan address in Chelsea.\n\nThe house, when Lewisham found it at last, proved a large one, with\nsuch an air of mellowed dignity that he was abashed. He hung his hat\nup for himself beside a green-trimmed hat of straw in the wide,\nrich-toned hall. Through an open door he had a glimpse of a palatial\nstudy, book shelves bearing white busts, a huge writing-table lit by a\ngreen-shaded electric lamp and covered thickly with papers. The\nhousemaid looked, he thought, with infinite disdain at the rusty\nmourning and flamboyant tie, and flounced about and led him upstairs.\n\nShe rapped, and there was a discussion within. \"They're at it already,\nI believe,\" she said to Lewisham confidentially. \"Mr. Lagune's always\nat it.\"\n\nThere were sounds of chairs being moved, Smithers' extensive voice\nmaking a suggestion and laughing nervously. Lagune appeared opening\nthe door. His grizzled face seemed smaller and his big grey eyes\nlarger than usual.\n\n\"We were just going to begin without you,\" he whispered. \"Come\nalong.\"\n\nThe room was furnished even more finely than the drawing-room of the\nWhortley Grammar School, hitherto the finest room (except certain of\nthe State Apartments at Windsor) known to Lewisham. The furniture\nstruck him in a general way as akin to that in the South Kensington\nMuseum. His first impression was an appreciation of the vast social\nsuperiority of the chairs; it seemed impertinent to think of sitting\non anything quite so quietly stately. He perceived Smithers standing\nwith an air of bashful hostility against a bookcase. Then he was aware\nthat Lagune was asking them all to sit down. Already seated at the\ntable was the Medium, Chaffery, a benevolent-looking, faintly shabby\ngentleman with bushy iron-grey side-whiskers, a wide, thin-lipped\nmouth tucked in at the corners, and a chin like the toe of a boot. He\nregarded Lewisham critically and disconcertingly over gilt\nglasses. Miss Heydinger was quite at her ease and began talking at\nonce. Lewisham's replies were less confident than they had been in the\nGallery of Old Iron; indeed there was almost a reversal of their\npositions. She led and he was abashed. He felt obscurely that she had\ntaken an advantage of him. He became aware of another girlish figure\nin a dark dress on his right.\n\nEveryone moved towards the round table in the centre of the room, on\nwhich lay a tambourine and a little green box. Lagune developed\nunsuspected lengths of knobby wrist and finger directing his guests to\ntheir seats. Lewisham was to sit next to him, between him and the\nMedium; beyond the Medium sat Smithers with Miss Heydinger on the\nother side of him, linked to Lagune by the typewriter. So sceptics\ncompassed the Medium about. The company was already seated before\nLewisham looked across Lagune and met the eyes of the girl next that\ngentleman. It was Ethel! The close green dress, the absence of a hat,\nand a certain loss of colour made her seem less familiar, but did not\nprevent the instant recognition. And there was recognition in her\neyes.\n\nImmediately she looked away. At first his only emotion was\nsurprise. He would have spoken, but a little thing robbed him of\nspeech. For a moment he was unable to remember her surname. Moreover,\nthe strangeness of his surroundings made him undecided. He did not\nknow what was the proper way to address her--and he still kept to the\nsuperstition of etiquette. Besides--to speak to her would involve a\ngeneral explanation to all these people ...\n\n\"Just leave a pin-point of gas, Mr. Smithers, please,\" said Lagune,\nand suddenly the one surviving jet of the gas chandelier was turned\ndown and they were in darkness. The moment for recognition had\npassed.\n\nThe joining of hands was punctiliously verified, the circle was linked\nlittle finger to little finger. Lewisham's abstraction received a\nrebuke from Smithers. The Medium, speaking in an affable voice,\npremised that he could promise nothing, he had no \"_directing_\" power\nover manifestations. Thereafter ensued a silence....\n\nFor a space Lewisham was inattentive to all that happened.\n\nHe sat in the breathing darkness, staring at the dim elusive shape\nthat had presented that remembered face. His mind was astonishment\nmingled with annoyance. He had settled that this girl was lost to him\nfor ever. The spell of the old days of longing, of the afternoons\nthat he had spent after his arrival in London, wandering through\nClapham with a fading hope of meeting her, had not returned to\nhim. But he was ashamed of his stupid silence, and irritated by the\nawkwardness of the situation. At one moment he was on the very verge\nof breaking the compact and saying \"Miss Henderson\" across the\ntable....\n\nHow was it he had forgotten that \"Henderson\"? He was still young\nenough to be surprised at forgetfulness.\n\nSmithers coughed, one might imagine with a warning intention.\n\nLewisham, recalling his detective responsibility with an effort,\npeered about him, but the room was very dark. The silence was broken\never and again by deep sighs and a restless stirring from the\nMedium. Out of this mental confusion Lewisham's personal vanity was\nfirst to emerge. What did she think of him? Was she peering at him\nthrough the darkness even as he peered at her? Should he pretend to\nsee her for the first time when the lights were restored? As the\nminutes lengthened it seemed as though the silence grew deeper and\ndeeper. There was no fire in the room, and it looked, for lack of that\nglow, chilly. A curious scepticism arose in his mind as to whether he\nhad actually seen Ethel or only mistaken someone else for her. He\nwanted the _séance_ over in order that he might look at her again.\nThe old days at Whortley came out of his memory with astonishing\ndetail and yet astonishingly free from emotion....\n\nHe became aware of a peculiar sensation down his back, that he tried\nto account for as a draught....\n\nSuddenly a beam of cold air came like a touch against his face, and\nmade him shudder convulsively. Then he hoped that she had not marked\nhis shudder. He thought of laughing a low laugh to show he was not\nafraid. Someone else shuddered too, and he perceived an\nextraordinarily vivid odour of violets. Lagune's finger communicated a\nnervous quivering.\n\nWhat was happening?\n\nThe musical box somewhere on the table began playing a rather trivial,\nrather plaintive air that was strange to him. It seemed to deepen the\nsilence about him, an accent on the expectant stillness, a thread of\ntinkling melody spanning an abyss.\n\nLewisham took himself in hand at this stage. What _was_ happening? He\nmust attend. Was he really watching as he should do? He had been\nwool-gathering. There were no such things as spirits, mediums were\nhumbugs, and he was here to prove that sole remaining Gospel. But he\nmust keep up with things--he was missing points. What was that scent\nof violets? And who had set the musical box going? The Medium, of\ncourse; but how? He tried to recall whether he had heard a rustling or\ndetected any movement before the music began. He could not\nrecollect. Come! he must be more on the alert than this!\n\nHe became acutely desirous of a successful exposure. He figured the\ndramatic moment he had prepared with Smithers--Ethel a spectator. He\npeered suspiciously into the darkness.\n\nSomebody shuddered again, someone opposite him this time. He felt\nLagune's finger quiver still more palpably, and then suddenly the raps\nbegan, abruptly, all about him. _Rap_!--making him start violently. A\nswift percussive sound, tap, rap, dap, under the table, under the\nchair, in the air, round the cornices. The Medium groaned again and\nshuddered, and his nervous agitation passed sympathetically round the\ncircle. The music seemed to fade to the vanishing point and grew\nlouder again.\n\nHow was it done?\n\nHe heard Lagune's voice next him speaking with a peculiar quality of\nbreathless reverence, \"The alphabet?\" he asked, \"shall we--shall we\nuse the alphabet?\"\n\nA forcible rap under the table.\n\n\"No!\" interpreted the voice of the Medium.\n\nThe raps were continued everywhere.\n\nOf course it was trickery, Lewisham endeavoured to think what the\nmechanism was. He tried to determine whether he really had the\nMedium's little finger touching his. He peered at the dark shape next\nhim. There was a violent rapping far away behind them with an almost\nmetallic resonance. Then the raps ceased, and over the healing silence\nthe little jet of melody from the musical box played alone. And after\na moment that ceased also....\n\nThe stillness was profound, Mr. Lewisham was now highly strung. Doubts\nassailed him suddenly, and an overwhelming apprehension, a sense of\nvast occurrences gathering above him. The darkness was a physical\noppression....\n\nHe started. Something had stirred on the table. There was the sharp\nping of metal being struck. A number of little crepitating sounds like\npaper being smoothed. The sound of wind without the movement of air. A\nsense of a presence hovering over the table.\n\nThe excitement of Lagune communicated itself in convulsive tremblings;\nthe Medium's hand quivered. In the darkness on the table something\nfaintly luminous, a greenish-white patch, stirred and hopped slowly\namong the dim shapes.\n\nThe object, whatever it was, hopped higher, rose slowly in the air,\nexpanded. Lewisham's attention followed this slavishly. It was\nghostly--unaccountable--marvellous. For the moment he forgot even\nEthel. Higher and higher this pallid luminosity rose overhead, and\nthen he saw that it was a ghostly hand and arm, rising,\nrising. Slowly, deliberately it crossed the table, seemed to touch\nLagune, who shivered. It moved slowly round and touched Lewisham. He\ngritted his teeth.\n\nThere was no mistaking the touch, firm and yet soft, of\nfinger-tips. Almost simultaneously, Miss Heydinger cried out that\nsomething was smoothing her hair, and suddenly the musical box set off\nagain with a reel. The faint oval of the tambourine rose, jangled, and\nLewisham heard it pat Smithers in the face. It seemed to pass\noverhead. Immediately a table somewhere beyond the Medium began moving\naudibly on its castors.\n\nIt seemed impossible that the Medium, sitting so still beside him,\ncould be doing all these things--grotesquely unmeaning though they\nmight be. After all....\n\nThe ghostly hand was hovering almost directly in front of\nMr. Lewisham's eyes. It hung with a slight quivering. Ever and again\nits fingers flapped down and rose stiffly again.\n\nNoise! A loud noise it seemed. Something moving? What was it he had\nto do?\n\nLewisham suddenly missed the Medium's little finger. He tried to\nrecover it. He could not find it. He caught, held and lost an\narm. There was an exclamation. A faint report. A curse close to him\nbitten in half by the quick effort to suppress it. Tzit! The little\npinpoint of light flew up with a hiss.\n\nLewisham, standing, saw a circle of blinking faces turned to the group\nof two this sizzling light revealed. Smithers was the chief figure of\nthe group; he stood triumphant, one hand on the gas tap, the other\ngripping the Medium's wrist, and in the Medium's hand--the\nincriminatory tambourine.\n\n\"How's this, Lewisham?\" cried Smithers, with the shadows on his face\njumping as the gas flared.\n\n\"_Caught_!\" said Lewisham loudly, rising in his place and avoiding\nEthel's eyes.\n\n\"What's this?\" cried the Medium.\n\n\"Cheating,\" panted Smithers.\n\n\"Not so,\" cried the Medium. \"When you turned up the light ... put my\nhand up ... caught tambourine ... to save head.\"\n\n\"Mr. Smithers,\" cried Lagune. \"Mr. Smithers, this is very\nwrong. This--shock--\"\n\nThe tambourine fell noisily to the floor. The Medium's face changed,\nhe groaned strangely and staggered back. Lagune cried out for a glass\nof water. Everyone looked at the man, expecting him to fall, save\nLewisham. The thought of Ethel had flashed back into his mind. He\nturned to see how she took this exposure in which he was such a\nprominent actor. He saw her leaning over the table as if to pick up\nsomething that lay across it. She was not looking at him, she was\nlooking at the Medium. Her face was set and white. Then, as if she\nfelt his glance, her eyes met his.\n\nShe started back, stood erect, facing him with a strange hardness in\nher eyes.\n\nIn the moment Lewisham did not grasp the situation. He wanted to show\nthat he was acting upon equal terms with Smithers in the exposure. For\nthe moment her action simply directed his attention to the object\ntowards which she had been leaning, a thing of shrivelled membrane, a\npneumatic glove, lying on the table. This was evidently part of the\nmediumistic apparatus. He pounced and seized it.\n\n\"Look!\" he said, holding it towards Smithers. \"Here is more! What is\nthis?\"\n\nHe perceived that the girl started. He saw Chaffery, the Medium, look\ninstantly over Smithers' shoulders, saw his swift glance of reproach\nat the girl. Abruptly the situation appeared to Lewisham; he perceived\nher complicity. And he stood, still in the attitude of triumph, with\nthe evidence against her in his hand! But his triumph had vanished.\n\n\"Ah!\" cried Smithers, leaning across the table to secure it. \"_Good_\nold Lewisham!... Now we _have_ it. This is better than the\ntambourine.\"\n\nHis eyes shone with triumph. \"Do you see, Mr. Lagune?\" said\nSmithers. \"The Medium held this in his teeth and blew it out. There's\nno denying this. This wasn't falling on your head, Mr. Medium, was\nit? _This_--this was the luminous hand!\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XII.\n\nLEWISHAM IS UNACCOUNTABLE.\n\n\nThat night, as she went with him to Chelsea station, Miss Heydinger\ndiscovered an extraordinary moodiness in Lewisham. She had been\nvividly impressed by the scene in which they had just participated,\nshe had for a time believed in the manifestations; the swift exposure\nhad violently revolutionised her ideas. The details of the crisis were\na little confused in her mind. She ranked Lewisham with Smithers in\nthe scientific triumph of the evening. On the whole she felt\nelated. She had no objection to being confuted by Lewisham. But she\nwas angry with the Medium, \"It is dreadful,\" she said. \"Living a lie!\nHow can the world grow better, when sane, educated people use their\nsanity and enlightenment to darken others? It is dreadful!\n\n\"He was a horrible man--such an oily, dishonest voice. And the girl--I\nwas sorry for her. She must have been oh!--bitterly ashamed, or why\nshould she have burst out crying? That _did_ distress me. Fancy crying\nlike that! It was--yes--_abandon_. But what can one do?\"\n\nShe paused. Lewisham was walking along, looking straight before him,\nlost in some grim argument with himself.\n\n\"It makes me think of Sludge the Medium,\" she said.\n\nHe made no answer.\n\nShe glanced at him suddenly. \"Have you read Sludge the Medium?\"\n\n\"Eigh?\" he said, coming back out of infinity. \"What? I beg your pardon.\nSludge, the Medium? I thought his name was--it _was_--Chaffery.\"\n\nHe looked at her, clearly very anxious upon this question of fact.\n\n\"But I mean Browning's 'Sludge.' You know the poem.\"\n\n\"No--I'm afraid I don't,\" said Lewisham.\n\n\"I must lend it to you,\" she said. \"It's splendid. It goes to the\nvery bottom of this business.\"\n\n\"Does it?\"\n\n\"It never occurred to me before. But I see the point clearly now. If\npeople, poor people, are offered money if phenomena happen, it's too\nmuch. They are _bound_ to cheat. It's bribery--immorality!\"\n\nShe talked in panting little sentences, because Lewisham was walking\nin heedless big strides. \"I wonder how much--such people--could earn\nhonestly.\"\n\nLewisham slowly became aware of the question at his ear. He hurried\nback from infinity. \"How much they could earn honestly? I haven't the\nslightest idea.\"\n\nHe paused. \"The whole of this business puzzles me,\" he said. \"I want\nto think.\"\n\n\"It's frightfully complex, isn't it?\" she said--a little staggered.\n\nBut the rest of the way to the station was silence. They parted with\na hand-clasp they took a pride in--a little perfunctory so far as\nLewisham was concerned on this occasion. She scrutinised his face as\nthe train moved out of the station, and tried to account for his\nmood. He was staring before him at unknown things as if he had already\nforgotten her.\n\nHe wanted to think! But two heads, she thought, were better than one\nin a matter of opinion. It troubled her to be so ignorant of his\nmental states. \"How we are wrapped and swathed about--soul from soul!\"\nshe thought, staring out of the window at the dim things flying by\noutside.\n\nSuddenly a fit of depression came upon her. She felt alone--absolutely\nalone--in a void world.\n\nPresently she returned to external things. She became aware of two\npeople in the next compartment eyeing her critically. Her hand went\npatting at her hair.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIII.\n\nLEWISHAM INSISTS.\n\n\nEthel Henderson sat at her machine before the window of Mr. Lagume's\nstudy, and stared blankly at the greys and blues of the November\ntwilight. Her face was white, her eyelids were red from recent\nweeping, and her hands lay motionless in her lap. The door had just\nslammed behind Lagune.\n\n\"Heigh-ho!\" she said. \"I wish I was dead. Oh! I wish I was out of it\nall.\"\n\nShe became passive again. \"I wonder what I have _done_,\" she said,\n\"that I should be punished like this.\"\n\nShe certainly looked anything but a Fate-haunted soul, being indeed\nvisibly and immediately a very pretty girl. Her head was shapely and\ncovered with curly dark hair, and the eyebrows above her hazel eyes\nwere clear and dark. Her lips were finely shaped, her mouth was not\ntoo small to be expressive, her chin small, and her neck white and\nfull and pretty. There is no need to lay stress upon her nose--it\nsufficed. She was of a mediocre height, sturdy rather than slender,\nand her dress was of a pleasant, golden-brown material with the easy\nsleeves and graceful line of those aesthetic days. And she sat at her\ntypewriter and wished she was dead and wondered what she had _done_.\n\nThe room was lined with bookshelves, and conspicuous therein were a\nlong row of foolish pretentious volumes, the \"works\" of Lagune--the\nwitless, meandering imitation of philosophy that occupied his\nlife. Along the cornices were busts of Plato, Socrates, and Newton.\nBehind Ethel was the great man's desk with its green-shaded electric\nlight, and littered with proofs and copies of _Hesperus_, \"A Paper for\nDoubters,\" which, with her assistance, he edited, published, compiled,\nwrote, and (without her help) paid for and read. A pen, flung down\nforcibly, quivered erect with its one surviving nib in the blotting\npad. Mr. Lagune had flung it down.\n\nThe collapse of the previous night had distressed him dreadfully, and\never and again before his retreat he had been breaking into passionate\nmonologue. The ruin of a life-work, it was, no less. Surely she had\nknown that Chaffery was a cheat. Had she not known? Silence. \"After\nso many kindnesses--\"\n\nShe interrupted him with a wailing, \"Oh, I know--I know.\"\n\nBut Lagune was remorseless and insisted she had betrayed him,\nworse--made him ridiculous! Look at the \"work\" he had undertaken at\nSouth Kensington--how could he go on with that now? How could he find\nthe heart? When his own typewriter sacrificed him to her stepfather's\ntrickery? \"Trickery!\"\n\nThe gesticulating hands became active, the grey eyes dilated with\nindignation, the piping voice eloquent.\n\n\"If he hadn't cheated you, someone else would,\" was Ethel's inadequate\nmuttered retort, unheard by the seeker after phenomena.\n\nIt was perhaps not so bad as dismissal, but it certainly lasted\nlonger. And at home was Chaffery, grimly malignant at her failure to\nsecure that pneumatic glove. He had no right to blame her, he really\nhad not; but a disturbed temper is apt to falsify the scales of\njustice. The tambourine, he insisted, he could have explained by\nsaying he put up his hand to catch it and protect his head directly\nSmithers moved. But the pneumatic glove there was no explaining. He\nhad made a chance for her to secure it when he had pretended to\nfaint. It was rubbish to say anyone could have been looking on the\ntable then--rubbish.\n\nBeside that significant wreck of a pen stood a little carriage clock\nin a case, and this suddenly lifted a slender voice and announced\n_five_. She turned round on her stool and sat staring at the\nclock. She smiled with the corners of her mouth down. \"Home,\" she\nsaid, \"and begin again. It's like battledore and shuttlecock....\n\n\"I _was_ silly....\n\n\"I suppose I've brought it on myself. I ought to have picked it up, I\nsuppose. I had time....\n\n\"Cheats ... just cheats.\n\n\"I never thought I should see him again....\n\n\"He was ashamed, of course.... He had his own friends.\"\n\nFor a space she sat still, staring blankly before her. She sighed,\nrubbed a knuckle in a reddened eye, rose.\n\nShe went into the hall, where her hat, transfixed by a couple of\nhat-pins, hung above her jacket, assumed these garments, and let\nherself out into the cold grey street.\n\nShe had hardly gone twenty yards from Lagune's door before she became\naware of a man overtaking her and walking beside her. That kind of\nthing is a common enough experience to girls who go to and from work\nin London, and she had had perforce to learn many things since her\nadventurous Whortley days. She looked stiffly in front of her. The man\ndeliberately got in her way so that she had to stop. She lifted eyes\nof indignant protest. It was Lewisham--and his face was white.\n\nHe hesitated awkwardly, and then in silence held out his hand. She\ntook it mechanically. He found his voice. \"Miss Henderson,\" he said.\n\n\"What do you want?\" she asked faintly.\n\n\"I don't know,\" he said.... \"I want to talk to you.\"\n\n\"Yes?\" Her heart was beating fast.\n\nHe found the thing unexpectedly difficult.\n\n\"May I--? Are you expecting--? Have you far to go? I would like to\ntalk to you. There is a lot ...\"\n\n\"I walk to Clapham,\" she said. \"If you care ... to come part of the\nway ...\"\n\nShe moved awkwardly. Lewisham took his place at her side. They walked\nside by side for a moment, their manner constrained, having so much to\nsay that they could not find a word to begin upon.\n\n\"Have you forgotten Whortley?\" he asked abruptly.\n\n\"No.\"\n\nHe glanced at her; her face was downcast. \"Why did you never write?\"\nhe asked bitterly.\n\n\"I wrote.\"\n\n\"Again, I mean.\"\n\n\"I did--in July.\"\n\n\"I never had it.\"\n\n\"It came back.\"\n\n\"But Mrs. Munday ...\"\n\n\"I had forgotten her name. I sent it to the Grammar School.\"\n\nLewisham suppressed an exclamation.\n\n\"I am very sorry,\" she said.\n\nThey went on again in silence. \"Last night,\" said Lewisham at\nlength. \"I have no business to ask. But--\"\n\nShe took a long breath. \"Mr. Lewisham,\" she said. \"That man you\nsaw--the Medium--was my stepfather.\"\n\n\"Well?\"\n\n\"Isn't that enough?\"\n\nLewisham paused. \"No,\" he said.\n\nThere was another constrained silence. \"No,\" he said less\ndubiously. \"I don't care a rap what your stepfather is. Were _you_\ncheating?\"\n\nHer face turned white. Her mouth opened and closed. \"Mr. Lewisham,\"\nshe said deliberately, \"you may not believe it, it may sound\nimpossible, but on my honour ... I did not know--I did not know for\ncertain, that is--that my stepfather ...\"\n\n\"Ah!\" said Lewisham, leaping at conviction. \"Then I was right....\"\n\nFor a moment she stared at him, and then, \"I _did_ know,\" she said,\nsuddenly beginning to cry. \"How can I tell you? It is a lie. I _did_\nknow. I _did_ know all the time.\"\n\nHe stared at her in white astonishment. He fell behind her one step,\nand then in a stride came level again. Then, a silence, a silence that\nseemed it would never end. She had stopped crying, she was one huge\nsuspense, not daring even to look at his face. And at last he spoke.\n\n\"No,\" he said slowly. \"I don't mind even that. I don't care--even if\nit was that.\"\n\nAbruptly they turned into the King's Road, with its roar of wheeled\ntraffic and hurrying foot-passengers, and forthwith a crowd of boys\nwith a broken-spirited Guy involved and separated them. In a busy\nhighway of a night one must needs talk disconnectedly in shouted\nsnatches or else hold one's peace. He glanced at her face and saw that\nit was set again. Presently she turned southward out of the tumult\ninto a street of darkness and warm blinds, and they could go on\ntalking again.\n\n\"I understand what you mean,\" said Lewisham. \"I know I do. You knew,\nbut you did not want to know. It was like that.\"\n\nBut her mind had been active. \"At the end of this road,\" she said,\ngulping a sob, \"you must go back. It was kind of you to come,\nMr. Lewisham. But you were ashamed--you are sure to be ashamed. My\nemployer is a spiritualist, and my stepfather is a professional\nMedium, and my mother is a spiritualist. You were quite right not to\nspeak to me last night. Quite. It was kind of you to come, but you\nmust go back. Life is hard enough as it is ... You must go back at the\nend of the road. Go back at the end of the road ...\"\n\nLewisham made no reply for a hundred yards. \"I'm coming on to\nClapham,\" he said.\n\nThey came to the end of the road in silence. Then at the kerb corner\nshe turned and faced him. \"Go back,\" she whispered.\n\n\"No,\" he said obstinately, and they stood face to face at the cardinal\npoint of their lives.\n\n\"Listen to me,\" said Lewisham. \"It is hard to say what I feel. I don't\nknow myself.... But I'm not going to lose you like this. I'm not going\nto let you slip a second time. I was awake about it all last night. I\ndon't care where you are, what your people are, nor very much whether\nyou've kept quite clear of this medium humbug. I don't. You will in\nfuture. Anyhow. I've had a day and night to think it over. I had to\ncome and try to find you. It's you. I've never forgotten\nyou. Never. I'm not going to be sent back like this.\"\n\n\"It can be no good for either of us,\" she said as resolute as he.\n\n\"I shan't leave you.\"\n\n\"But what is the good?...\"\n\n\"I'm coming,\" said Lewisham, dogmatically.\n\nAnd he came.\n\nHe asked her a question point blank and she would not answer him, and\nfor some way they walked in grim silence. Presently she spoke with a\ntwitching mouth. \"I wish you would leave me,\" she said. \"You are\nquite different from what I am. You felt that last night. You helped\nfind us out....\"\n\n\"When first I came to London I used to wander about Clapham looking\nfor you,\" said Lewisham, \"week after week.\"\n\nThey had crossed the bridge and were in a narrow little street of\nshabby shops near Clapham Junction before they talked again. She kept\nher face averted and expressionless.\n\n\"I'm sorry,\" said Lewisham, with a sort of stiff civility, \"if I seem\nto be forcing myself upon you. I don't want to pry into your\naffairs--if you don't wish me to. The sight of you has somehow brought\nback a lot of things.... I can't explain it. Perhaps--I had to come to\nfind you--I kept on thinking of your face, of how you used to smile,\nhow you jumped from the gate by the lock, and how we had tea ... a lot\nof things.\"\n\nHe stopped again.\n\n\"A lot of things.\"\n\n\"If I may come,\" he said, and went unanswered. They crossed the wide\nstreets by the Junction and went on towards the Common.\n\n\"I live down this road,\" she said, stopping abruptly at a corner. \"I\nwould rather ...\"\n\n\"But I have said nothing.\"\n\nShe looked at him with her face white, unable to speak for a\nspace. \"It can do no good,\" she said. \"I am mixed up with this....\"\n\nShe stopped.\n\nHe spoke deliberately. \"I shall come,\" he said, \"to-morrow night.\"\n\n\"No,\" she said.\n\n\"But I shall come.\"\n\n\"No,\" she whispered.\n\n\"I shall come.\" She could hide the gladness of her heart from herself\nno longer. She was frightened that he had come, but she was glad, and\nshe knew he knew that she was glad. She made no further protest. She\nheld out her hand dumbly. And on the morrow she found him awaiting her\neven as he had said.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIV.\n\nMR. LAGUNE'S POINT OF VIEW.\n\n\nFor three days the Laboratory at South Kensington saw nothing of\nLagune, and then he came back more invincibly voluble than\never. Everyone had expected him to return apostate, but he brought\nback an invigorated faith, a propaganda unashamed. From some source he\nhad derived strength and conviction afresh. Even the rhetorical\nSmithers availed nothing. There was a joined battle over the\ninsufficient tea-cups, and the elderly young assistant demonstrator\nhovered on the verge of the discussion, rejoicing, it is supposed,\nover the entanglements of Smithers. For at the outset Smithers\ndisplayed an overweening confidence and civility, and at the end his\nears were red and his finer manners lost to him.\n\nLewisham, it was remarked by Miss Heydinger, made but a poor figure in\nthis discussion. Once or twice he seemed about to address Lagune, and\nthought better of it with the words upon his lips.\n\nLagune's treatment of the exposure was light and vigorous. \"The man\nChaffery,\" he said, \"has made a clean breast of it. His point of\nview--\"\n\n\"Facts are facts,\" said Smithers.\n\n\"A fact is a synthesis of impressions,\" said Lagune; \"but that you\nwill learn when you are older. The thing is that we were at cross\npurposes. I told Chaffery you were beginners. He treated you as\nbeginners--arranged a demonstration.\"\n\n\"It _was_ a demonstration,\" said Smithers.\n\n\"Precisely. If it had not been for your interruptions ...\"\n\n\"Ah!\"\n\n\"He forged elementary effects ...\"\n\n\"You can't but admit that.\"\n\n\"I don't attempt to deny it. But, as he explained, the thing is\nnecessary--justifiable. Psychic phenomena are subtle, a certain\ntraining of the observation is necessary. A medium is a more subtle\ninstrument than a balance or a borax bead, and see how long it is\nbefore you can get assured results with a borax bead! In the\nelementary class, in the introductory phase, conditions are\ntoo crude....\"\n\n\"For honesty.\"\n\n\"Wait a moment. _Is_ it dishonest--rigging a demonstration?\"\n\n\"Of course it is.\"\n\n\"Your professors do it.\"\n\n\"I deny that in toto,\" said Smithers, and repeated with satisfaction,\n\"in toto.\"\n\n\"That's all right,\" said Lagune, \"because I have the facts. Your\nchemical lecturers--you may go downstairs now and ask, if you\ndisbelieve me--always cheat over the indestructibility of matter\nexperiment--always. And then another--a physiography thing. You know\nthe experiment I mean? To demonstrate the existence of the earth's\nrotation. They use--they use--\"\n\n\"Foucault's pendulum,\" said Lewisham. \"They use a rubber ball with a\npin-hole hidden in the hand, and blow the pendulum round the way it\nought to go.\"\n\n\"But that's different,\" said Smithers.\n\n\"Wait a moment,\" said Lagune, and produced a piece of folded printed\npaper from his pocket. \"Here is a review from _Nature_ of the work of\nno less a person than Professor Greenhill. And see--a convenient pin\nis introduced in the apparatus for the demonstration of virtual\nvelocities! Read it--if you doubt me. I suppose you doubt me.\"\n\nSmithers abruptly abandoned his position of denial \"in toto.\" \"This\nisn't my point, Mr. Lagune; this isn't my point,\" he said. \"These\nthings that are done in the lecture theatre are not to prove facts,\nbut to give ideas.\"\n\n\"So was my demonstration,\" said Lagune.\n\n\"We didn't understand it in that light.\"\n\n\"Nor does the ordinary person who goes to Science lectures understand\nit in that light. He is comforted by the thought that he is seeing\nthings with his own eyes.\"\n\n\"Well, I don't care,\" said Smithers; \"two wrongs don't make a\nright. To rig demonstrations is wrong.\"\n\n\"There I agree with you. I have spoken plainly with this man\nChaffery. He's not a full-blown professor, you know, a highly salaried\nornament of the rock of truth like your demonstration-rigging\nprofessors here, and so I can speak plainly to him without offence.\nHe takes quite the view they would take. But I am more rigorous. I\ninsist that there shall be no more of this....\"\n\n\"Next time--\" said Smithers with irony.\n\n\"There will be no next time. I have done with elementary\nexhibitions. You must take the word of the trained observer--just as\nyou do in the matter of chemical analysis.\"\n\n\"Do you mean you are going on with that chap when he's been caught\ncheating under your very nose?\"\n\n\"Certainly. Why not?\"\n\nSmithers set out to explain why not, and happened on confusion. \"I\nstill believe the man has powers,\" said Lagune.\n\n\"Of deception,\" said Smithers.\n\n\"Those I must eliminate,\" said Lagune. \"You might as well refuse to\nstudy electricity because it escaped through your body. All new\nscience is elusive. No investigator in his senses would refuse to\ninvestigate a compound because it did unexpected things. Either this\ndissolves in acid or I have nothing more to do with it--eh? That's\nfine research!\"\n\nThen it was the last vestiges of Smithers' manners vanished. \"I don't\ncare _what_ you say,\" said Smithers. \"It's all rot--it's all just\nrot. Argue if you like--but have you convinced anybody? Put it to the\nvote.\"\n\n\"That's democracy with a vengeance,\" said Lagune. \"A general election\nof the truth half-yearly, eh?\"\n\n\"That's simply wriggling out of it,\" said Smithers. \"That hasn't\nanything to do with it at all.\"\n\nLagune, flushed but cheerful, was on his way downstairs when Lewisham\novertook him. He was pale and out of breath, but as the staircase\ninvariably rendered Lagune breathless he did not remark the younger\nman's disturbance. \"Interesting talk,\" panted Lewisham. \"Very\ninteresting talk, sir.\"\n\n\"I'm glad you found it so--very,\" said Lagune.\n\nThere was a pause, and then Lewisham plunged desperately. \"There is a\nyoung lady--she is your typewriter....\"\n\nHe stopped from sheer loss of breath.\n\n\"Yes?\" said Lagune.\n\n\"Is she a medium or anything of that sort?\"\n\n\"Well,\" Lagune reflected, \"She is not a medium, certainly. But--why do\nyou ask?\"\n\n\"Oh!... I wondered.\"\n\n\"You noticed her eyes perhaps. She is the stepdaughter of that man\nChaffery--a queer character, but indisputably mediumistic. It's odd\nthe thing should have struck you. Curiously enough I myself have\nfancied she might be something of a psychic--judging from her face.\"\n\n\"A what?\"\n\n\"A psychic--undeveloped, of course. I have thought once or twice. Only\na little while ago I was speaking to that man Chaffery about her.\"\n\n\"Were you?\"\n\n\"Yes. He of course would like to see any latent powers developed. But\nit's a little difficult to begin, you know.\"\n\n\"You mean--she won't?\"\n\n\"Not at present. She is a good girl, but in this matter she\nis--timid. There is often a sort of disinclination--a queer sort of\nfeeling--one might almost call it modesty.\"\n\n\"I see,\" said Lewisham.\n\n\"One can override it usually. I don't despair.\"\n\n\"No,\" said Lewisham shortly. They were at the foot of the staircase\nnow. He hesitated. \"You've given me a lot to think about,\" he said\nwith an attempt at an off-hand manner. \"The way you talked upstairs;\"\nand turned towards the book he had to sign.\n\n\"I'm glad you don't take up quite such an intolerant attitude as\nMr. Smithers,\" said Lagune; \"very glad. I must lend you a book or\ntwo. If your _cramming_ here leaves you any time, that is.\"\n\n\"Thanks,\" said Lewisham shortly, and walked away from him. The\nstudiously characteristic signature quivered and sprawled in an\nunfamiliar manner.\n\n\"I'm _damned_ if he overrides it,\" said Lewisham, under his breath.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XV.\n\nLOVE IN THE STREETS.\n\n\nLewisham was not quite clear what course he meant to take in the high\nenterprise of foiling Lagune, and indeed he was anything but clear\nabout the entire situation. His logical processes, his emotions and\nhis imagination seemed playing some sort of snatching game with his\nwill. Enormous things hung imminent, but it worked out to this,\nthat he walked home with Ethel night after night for--to be\nexact--seven-and-sixty nights. Every week night through November and\nDecember, save once, when he had to go into the far East to buy\nhimself an overcoat, he was waiting to walk with her home. A curious,\ninconclusive affair, that walk, to which he came nightly full of vague\nlongings, and which ended invariably under an odd shadow of\ndisappointment. It began outside Lagune's most punctually at five, and\nended--mysteriously--at the corner of a side road in Clapham, a road\nof little yellow houses with sunk basements and tawdry decorations of\nstone. Up that road she vanished night after night, into a grey mist\nand the shadow beyond a feeble yellow gas-lamp, and he would watch her\nvanish, and then sigh and turn back towards his lodgings.\n\nThey talked of this and that, their little superficial ideas about\nthemselves, and of their circumstances and tastes, and always there\nwas something, something that was with them unspoken, unacknowledged,\nwhich made all these things unreal and insincere.\n\nYet out of their talk he began to form vague ideas of the home from\nwhich she came. There was, of course, no servant, and the mother was\nsomething meandering, furtive, tearful in the face of troubles.\nSometimes of an afternoon or evening she grew garrulous. \"Mother does\ntalk so--sometimes.\" She rarely went out of doors. Chaffery always\nrose late, and would sometimes go away for days together. He was mean;\nhe allowed only a weekly twenty-five shillings for housekeeping, and\nsometimes things grew unsatisfactory at the week-end. There seemed to\nbe little sympathy between mother and daughter; the widow had been\nflighty in a dingy fashion, and her marriage with her chief lodger\nChaffery had led to unforgettable sayings. It was to facilitate this\nmarriage that Ethel had been sent to Whortley, so that was counted a\nmitigated evil. But these were far-off things, remote and unreal down\nthe long, ill-lit vista of the suburban street which swallowed up\nEthel nightly. The walk, her warmth and light and motion close to him,\nher clear little voice, and the touch of her hand; that was reality.\n\nThe shadow of Chaffery and his deceptions lay indeed across all these\nthings, sometimes faint, sometimes dark and present. Then Lewisham\nbecame insistent, his sentimental memories ceased, and he asked\nquestions that verged on gulfs of doubt. Had she ever \"helped\"? She\nhad not, she declared. Then she added that twice at home she had \"sat\ndown\" to complete the circle. She would never help again. That she\npromised--if it needed promising. There had already been dreadful\ntrouble at home about the exposure at Lagune's. Her mother had sided\nwith her stepfather and joined in blaming her. But was she to blame?\n\n\"Of _course_ you were not to blame,\" said Lewisham. Lagune, he\nlearnt, had been unhappy and restless for the three days after the\n_séance_--indulging in wearisome monologue--with Ethel as sole auditor\n(at twenty-one shillings a week). Then he had decided to give Chaffery\na sound lecture on his disastrous dishonesty. But it was Chaffery\ngave the lecture. Smithers, had he only known it, had been overthrown\nby a better brain than Lagune's, albeit it spoke through Lagune's\ntreble.\n\nEthel did not like talking of Chaffery and these other things. \"If you\nknew how sweet it was to forget it all,\" she would say; \"to be just us\ntwo together for a little while.\" And, \"What good _does_ it do to keep\non?\" when Lewisham was pressing. Lewisham wanted very much to keep on\nat times, but the good of it was a little hard to demonstrate. So his\nknowledge of the situation remained imperfect and the weeks drifted\nby.\n\nWonderfully varied were those seven-and-sixty nights, as he came to\nremember in after life. There were nights of damp and drizzle, and\nthen thick fogs, beautiful, isolating, grey-white veils, turning every\nyard of pavement into a private room. Grand indeed were these fogs,\nthings to rejoice at mightily, since then it was no longer a thing for\npublic scorn when two young people hurried along arm in arm, and one\ncould do a thousand impudent, significant things with varying pressure\nand the fondling of a little hand (a hand in a greatly mended glove of\ncheap kid). Then indeed one seemed to be nearer that elusive something\nthat threaded it all together. And the dangers of the street corners,\nthe horses looming up suddenly out of the dark, the carters with\nlanterns at their horses' heads, the street lamps, blurred, smoky\norange at one's nearest, and vanishing at twenty yards into dim haze,\nseemed to accentuate the infinite need of protection on the part of a\ndelicate young lady who had already traversed three winters of fogs,\nthornily alone. Moreover, one could come right down the quiet street\nwhere she lived, halfway to the steps of her house, with a delightful\nsense of enterprise.\n\nThe fogs passed all too soon into a hard frost, into nights of\nstarlight and presently moonlight, when the lamps looked hard,\nflashing like rows of yellow gems, and their reflections and the glare\nof the shop windows were sharp and frosty, and even the stars hard and\nbright, snapping noiselessly (if one may say so) instead of\ntwinkling. A jacket trimmed with imitation Astrachan replaced Ethel's\nlighter coat, and a round cap of Astrachan her hat, and her eyes shone\nhard and bright, and her forehead was broad and white beneath it. It\nwas exhilarating, but one got home too soon, and so the way from\nChelsea to Clapham was lengthened, first into a loop of side streets,\nand then when the first pulverulent snows told that Christmas was at\nhand, into a new loop down King's Road, and once even through the\nBrompton Road and Sloane Street, where the shops were full of\ndecorations and entertaining things.\n\nAnd, under circumstances of infinite gravity, Mr. Lewisham secretly\nspent three-and-twenty shillings out of the vestiges of that hundred\npounds, and bought Ethel a little gold ring set with pearls. With that\nthere must needs be a ceremonial, and on the verge of the snowy, foggy\nCommon she took off her glove and the ring was placed on her\nfinger. Whereupon he was moved to kiss her--on the frost-pink knuckle\nnext to an inky nail.\n\n\"It's silly of us,\" she said. \"What can we do?--ever?\"\n\n\"You wait,\" he said, and his tone was full of vague promises.\n\nAfterwards he thought over those promises, and another evening went\ninto the matter more fully, telling her of all the brilliant things\nthat he held it was possible for a South Kensington student to do and\nbe--of headmasterships, northern science schools, inspectorships,\ndemonstratorships, yea, even professorships. And then, and then--To\nall of which she lent a willing and incredulous ear, finding in that\ndreaming a quality of fear as well as delight.\n\nThe putting on of the pearl-set ring was mere ceremonial, of course;\nshe could not wear it either at Lagune's or at home, so instead she\nthreaded it on a little white satin ribbon and wore it round her\nneck--\"next her heart.\" He thought of it there warm \"next her heart.\"\n\nWhen he had bought the ring he had meant to save it for Christmas\nbefore he gave it to her. But the desire to see her pleasure had been\ntoo strong for him.\n\nChristmas Eve, I know not by what deceit on her part, these young\npeople spent together all day. Lagune was down with a touch of\nbronchitis and had given his typewriter a holiday. Perhaps she forgot\nto mention it at home. The Royal College was in vacation and Lewisham\nwas free. He declined the plumber's invitation; \"work\" kept him in\nLondon, he said, though it meant a pound or more of added\nexpenditure. These absurd young people walked sixteen miles that\nChristmas Eve, and parted warm and glowing. There had been a hard\nfrost and a little snow, the sky was a colourless grey, icicles hung\nfrom the arms of the street lamps, and the pavements were patterned\nout with frond-like forms that were trodden into slides as the day\ngrew older. The Thames they knew was a wonderful sight, but that they\nkept until last. They went first along the Brompton Road....\n\nAnd it is well that you should have the picture of them right:\nLewisham in the ready-made overcoat, blue cloth and velvet collar,\ndirty tan gloves, red tie, and bowler hat; and Ethel in a two-year-old\njacket and hat of curly Astrachan; both pink-cheeked from the keen\nair, shyly arm in arm occasionally, and very alert to miss no possible\nspectacle. The shops were varied and interesting along the Brompton\nRoad, but nothing to compare with Piccadilly. There were windows in\nPiccadilly so full of costly little things, it took fifteen minutes to\nget them done, card shops, drapers' shops full of foolish,\nentertaining attractions. Lewisham, in spite of his old animosities,\nforgot to be severe on the Shopping Class, Ethel was so vastly\nentertained by all these pretty follies.\n\nThen up Regent Street by the place where the sham diamonds are, and\nthe place where the girls display their long hair, and the place where\nthe little chickens run about in the window, and so into Oxford\nStreet, Holborn, Ludgate Hill, St. Paul's Churchyard, to Leadenhall,\nand the markets where turkeys, geese, ducklings, and chickens--turkeys\npredominant, however--hang in rows of a thousand at a time.\n\n\"I _must_ buy you something,\" said Lewisham, resuming a topic.\n\n\"No, no,\" said Ethel, with her eye down a vista of innumerable birds.\n\n\"But I _must_,\" said Lewisham. \"You had better choose it, or I shall\nget something wrong.\" His mind ran on brooches and clasps.\n\n\"You mustn't waste your money, and besides, I have that ring.\"\n\nBut Lewisham insisted.\n\n\"Then--if you must--I am starving. Buy me something to eat.\"\n\nAn immense and memorable joke. Lewisham plunged\nrecklessly--orientally--into an awe-inspiring place with mitred\nnapkins. They lunched on cutlets--stripped the cutlets to the\nbone--and little crisp brown potatoes, and they drank between them a\nwhole half bottle of--some white wine or other, Lewisham selected in\nan off-hand way from the list. Neither of them had ever taken wine at\na meal before. One-and-ninepence it cost him, Sir, and the name of it\nwas Capri! It was really very passable Capri--a manufactured product,\nno doubt, but warming and aromatic. Ethel was aghast at his\nmagnificence and drank a glass and a half.\n\nThen, very warm and comfortable, they went down by the Tower, and the\nTower Bridge with its crest of snow, huge pendant icicles, and the ice\nblocks choked in its side arches, was seasonable seeing. And as they\nhad had enough of shops and crowds they set off resolutely along the\ndesolate Embankment homeward.\n\nBut indeed the Thames was a wonderful sight that year! ice-fringed\nalong either shore, and with drift-ice in the middle reflecting a\nluminous scarlet from the broad red setting sun, and moving steadily,\nincessantly seaward. A swarm of mewing gulls went to and fro, and with\nthem mingled pigeons and crows. The buildings on the Surrey side were\ndim and grey and very mysterious, the moored, ice-blocked barges\nsilent and deserted, and here and there a lit window shone warm. The\nsun sank right out of sight into a bank of blue, and the Surrey side\ndissolved in mist save for a few insoluble, spots of yellow light,\nthat presently became many. And after our lovers had come under\nCharing Cross Bridge the Houses of Parliament rose before them at the\nend of a great crescent of golden lamps, blue and faint, halfway\nbetween the earth and sky. And the clock on the Tower was like a\nNovember sun.\n\nIt was a day without a flaw, or at most but the slightest speck. And\nthat only came at the very end.\n\n\"Good-bye, dear,\" she said. \"I have been very happy to-day.\"\n\nHis face came very close to hers. \"Good-bye,\" he said, pressing her\nhand and looking into her eyes.\n\nShe glanced round, she drew nearer to him. \"_Dearest_ one,\" she\nwhispered very softly, and then, \"Good-bye.\"\n\nSuddenly he became unaccountably petulant, he dropped her hand. \"It's\nalways like this. We are happy. _I_ am happy. And then--then you are\ntaken away....\"\n\nThere was a silence of mute interrogations.\n\n\"Dear,\" she whispered, \"we must wait.\"\n\nA moment's pause. \"_Wait_!\" he said, and broke off. He\nhesitated. \"Good-bye,\" he said as though he was snapping a thread that\nheld them together.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVI.\n\nMISS HEYDINGER'S PRIVATE THOUGHTS.\n\n\nThe way from Chelsea to Clapham and the way from South Kensington to\nBattersea, especially if the former is looped about a little to make\nit longer, come very near to each other. One night close upon\nChristmas two friends of Lewisham's passed him and Ethel. But Lewisham\ndid not see them, because he was looking at Ethel's face.\n\n\"Did you see?\" said the other girl, a little maliciously.\n\n\"Mr. Lewisham--wasn't it?\" said Miss Heydinger in a perfectly\nindifferent tone.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nMiss Heydinger sat in the room her younger sisters called her\n\"Sanctum.\" Her Sanctum was only too evidently an intellectualised\nbedroom, and a cheap wallpaper of silvery roses peeped coquettishly\nfrom among her draped furniture. Her particular glories were the\nwriting-desk in the middle and the microscope on the unsteady\noctagonal table under the window. There were bookshelves of\nworkmanship patently feminine in their facile decoration and\nstructural instability, and on them an array of glittering poets,\nShelley, Rossetti, Keats, Browning, and odd volumes of Ruskin, South\nPlace Sermons, Socialistic publications in torn paper covers, and\nabove, science text-books and note-books in an oppressive\nabundance. The autotypes that hung about the room were eloquent of\naesthetic ambitions and of a certain impermeability to implicit\nmeanings. There were the Mirror of Venus by Burne Jones, Rossetti's\nAnnunciation, Lippi's Annunciation, and the Love of Life and Love and\nDeath of Watts. And among other photographs was one of last year's\nDebating Society Committee, Lewisham smiling a little weakly near the\ncentre, and Miss Heydinger out of focus in the right wing. And Miss\nHeydinger sat with her back to all these things, in her black\nhorse-hair arm-chair, staring into the fire, her eyes hot, and her\nchin on her hand.\n\n\"I might have guessed--before,\" she said. \"Ever since that\n_séance_. It has been different ...\"\n\nShe smiled bitterly. \"Some shop girl ...\"\n\nShe mused. \"They are all alike, I suppose. They come back--a little\ndamaged, as the woman says in 'Lady Windermere's Fan.' Perhaps he\nwill. I wonder ...\"\n\n\"Why should he be so deceitful? Why should he act to me ...?\n\n\"Pretty, pretty, pretty--that is our business. What man hesitates in\nthe choice? He goes his own way, thinks his own thoughts, does his own\nwork ...\n\n\"His dissection is getting behind--one can see he takes scarcely any\nnotes....\"\n\nFor a long time she was silent. Her face became more intent. She began\nto bite her thumb, at first slowly, then faster. She broke out at last\ninto words again.\n\n\"The things he might do, the great things he might do. He is able, he\nis dogged, he is strong. And then comes a pretty face! Oh God! _Why_\nwas I made with heart and brain?\" She sprang to her feet, with her\nhands clenched and her face contorted. But she shed no tears.\n\nHer attitude fell limp in a moment. One hand dropped by her side, the\nother rested on a fossil on the mantel-shelf, and she stared down into\nthe red fire.\n\n\"To think of all we might have done! It maddens me!\n\n\"To work, and think, and learn. To hope and wait. To despise the\npetty arts of womanliness, to trust to the sanity of man....\n\n\"To awake like the foolish virgins,\" she said, \"and find the hour of\nlife is past!\"\n\nHer face, her pose, softened into self-pity.\n\n\"Futility ...\n\n\"It's no good....\" Her voice broke.\n\n\"I shall never be happy....\"\n\nShe saw the grandiose vision of the future she had cherished suddenly\nrolled aside and vanishing, more and more splendid as it grew more and\nmore remote--like a dream at the waking moment. The vision of her\ninevitable loneliness came to replace it, clear and acute. She saw\nherself alone and small in a huge desolation--infinitely pitiful,\nLewisham callously receding with \"some shop girl.\" The tears came,\ncame faster, until they were streaming down her face. She turned as if\nlooking for something. She flung herself upon her knees before the\nlittle arm-chair, and began an incoherent sobbing prayer for the pity\nand comfort of God.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe next day one of the other girls in the biological course remarked\nto her friend that \"Heydinger-dingery\" had relapsed. Her friend\nglanced down the laboratory. \"It's a bad relapse,\" she said. \"Really\n... I couldn't ... wear my hair like that.\"\n\nShe continued to regard Miss Heydinger with a critical eye. She was\nfree to do this because Miss Heydinger was standing, lost in thought,\nstaring at the December fog outside the laboratory windows. \"She looks\nwhite,\" said the girl who had originally spoken. \"I wonder if she\nworks hard.\"\n\n\"It makes precious little difference if she does,\" said her friend. \"I\nasked her yesterday what were the bones in the parietal segment, and\nshe didn't know one. Not one.\"\n\nThe next day Miss Heydinger's place was vacant. She was ill--from\noverstudy--and her illness lasted to within three weeks of the\nterminal examination. Then she came back with a pallid face and a\nstrenuous unavailing industry.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVII.\n\nIN THE RAPHAEL GALLERY.\n\n\nIt was nearly three o'clock, and in the Biological Laboratory the\nlamps were all alight. The class was busy with razors cutting sections\nof the root of a fern to examine it microscopically. A certain silent\nfrog-like boy, a private student who plays no further part in this\nstory, was working intently, looking more like a frog than usual--his\nexpression modest with a touch of effort. Behind Miss Heydinger, jaded\nand untidy in her early manner again, was a vacant seat, an abandoned\nmicroscope and scattered pencils and note-books.\n\nOn the door of the class-room was a list of those who had passed the\nChristmas examination. At the head of it was the name of the aforesaid\nfrog-like boy; next to him came Smithers and one of the girls\nbracketed together. Lewisham ingloriously headed the second class, and\nMiss Heydinger's name did not appear--there was, the list asserted,\n\"one failure.\" So the student pays for the finer emotions.\n\nAnd in the spacious solitude of the museum gallery devoted to the\nRaphael cartoons sat Lewisham, plunged in gloomy meditation. A\nnegligent hand pulled thoughtfully at the indisputable moustache, with\nparticular attention to such portions as were long enough to gnaw.\n\nHe was trying to see the situation clearly. As he was just smarting\nacutely under his defeat, this speaks little for the clearness of his\nmind. The shadow of that defeat lay across everything, blotted out the\nlight of his pride, shaded his honour, threw everything into a new\nperspective. The rich prettiness of his love-making had fled to some\nremote quarter of his being. Against the frog-like youngster he felt a\nsavage animosity. And Smithers had betrayed him. He was angry,\nbitterly angry, with \"swats\" and \"muggers\" who spent their whole time\ngrinding for these foolish chancy examinations. Nor had the practical\nexamination been altogether fair, and one of the questions in the\nwritten portion was quite outside the lectures. Biver, Professor\nBiver, was an indiscriminating ass, he felt assured, and so too was\nWeeks, the demonstrator. But these obstacles could not blind his\nintelligence to the manifest cause of his overthrow, the waste of more\nthan half his available evening, the best time for study in the\ntwenty-four hours, day after day. And that was going on steadily, a\nperpetual leakage of time. To-night he would go to meet her again, and\nbegin to accumulate to himself ignominy in the second part of the\ncourse, the botanical section, also. And so, reluctantly rejecting one\ncloudy excuse after another, he clearly focussed the antagonism\nbetween his relations to Ethel and his immediate ambitions.\n\nThings had come so easily to him for the last two years that he had\ntaken his steady upward progress in life as assured. It had never\noccurred to him, when he went to intercept Ethel after that _séance_,\nthat he went into any peril of that sort. Now he had had a sharp\nreminder. He began to shape a picture of the frog-like boy at home--he\nwas a private student of the upper middle class--sitting in a\nconvenient study with a writing-table, book-shelves, and a shaded\nlamp--Lewisham worked at his chest of drawers, with his greatcoat on,\nand his feet in the lowest drawer wrapped in all his available\nlinen--and in the midst of incredible conveniences the frog-like boy\nwas working, working, working. Meanwhile Lewisham toiled through the\nfoggy streets, Chelsea-ward, or, after he had left her, tramped\nhomeward--full of foolish imaginings.\n\nHe began to think with bloodless lucidity of his entire relationship\nto Ethel. His softer emotions were in abeyance, but he told himself no\nlies. He cared for her, he loved to be with her and to talk to her and\nplease her, but that was not all his desire. He thought of the bitter\nwords of an orator at Hammersmith, who had complained that in our\npresent civilisation even the elemental need of marriage was\ndenied. Virtue had become a vice. \"We marry in fear and trembling, sex\nfor a home is the woman's traffic, and the man comes to his heart's\ndesire when his heart's desire is dead.\" The thing which had seemed a\nmere flourish, came back now with a terrible air of truth. Lewisham\nsaw that it was a case of divergent ways. On the one hand that shining\nstaircase to fame and power, that had been his dream from the very\ndawn of his adolescence, and on the other hand--Ethel.\n\nAnd if he chose Ethel, even then, would he have his choice? What would\ncome of it? A few walks more or less! She was hopelessly poor, he was\nhopelessly poor, and this cheat of a Medium was her stepfather! After\nall she was not well-educated, she did not understand his work and his\naims....\n\nHe suddenly perceived with absolute conviction that after the _séance_\nhe should have gone home and forgotten her. Why had he felt that\nirresistible impulse to seek her out? Why had his imagination spun\nsuch a strange web of possibilities about her? He was involved now,\nfoolishly involved.... All his future was a sacrifice to this\ntransitory ghost of love-making in the streets. He pulled spitefully\nat his moustache.\n\nHis picture began to shape itself into Ethel, and her mysterious\nmother, and the vague dexterous Chaffery holding him back, entangled\nin an impalpable net from that bright and glorious ascent to\nperformance and distinction. Leaky boots and the splash of cabs for\nall his life as his portion! Already the Forbes Medal, the immediate\nstep, was as good as lost....\n\nWhat on earth had he been thinking about? He fell foul of his\nupbringing. Men of the upper or middle classes were put up to these\nthings by their parents; they were properly warned against involving\nthemselves in this love nonsense before they were independent. It was\nmuch better....\n\nEverything was going. Not only his work--his scientific career, but\nthe Debating Society, the political movement, all his work for\nHumanity.... Why not be resolute--even now?... Why not put the thing\nclearly and plainly to her? Or write? If he wrote now he could get the\nadvantage of the evening at the Library. He must ask her to forgo\nthese walks home--at least until the next examination. _She_ would\nunderstand. He had a qualm of doubt whether she would understand....\nHe grew angry at this possibility. But it was no good mincing\nmatters. If once he began to consider her--Why should he consider her\nin that way? Simply because she was unreasonable!\n\nLewisham had a transitory gust of anger.\n\nYet that abandonment of the walks insisted on looking mean to him. And\nshe would think it mean. Which was very much worse, somehow. _Why_\nmean? Why should she think it mean? He grew angry again.\n\nThe portly museum policeman who had been watching him furtively,\nwondering why a student should sit in front of the \"Sacrifice of\nLystra\" and gnaw lips and nails and moustache, and scowl and glare at\nthat masterpiece, saw him rise suddenly to his feet with an air of\nresolution, spin on his heel, and set off with a quick step out of the\ngallery. He looked neither to the right nor the left. He passed out of\nsight down the staircase.\n\n\"Gone to get some more moustache to eat, I suppose,\" said the\npoliceman reflectively....\n\n\"One 'ud think something had bit him.\"\n\nAfter some pensive moments the policeman strolled along down the\ngallery and came to a stop opposite the cartoon.\n\n\"Figgers is a bit big for the houses,\" said the policeman, anxious to\ndo impartial justice. \"But that's Art. I lay '_e_ couldn't do\nanything ... not arf so good.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVIII.\n\nTHE FRIENDS OF PROGRESS MEET.\n\n\nThe night next but one after this meditation saw a new order in the\nworld. A young lady dressed in an astrachan-edged jacket and with a\nface of diminished cheerfulness marched from Chelsea to Clapham alone,\nand Lewisham sat in the flickering electric light of the Education\nLibrary staring blankly over a business-like pile of books at unseen\nthings.\n\nThe arrangement had not been effected without friction, the\nexplanation had proved difficult. Evidently she did not appreciate the\nfull seriousness of Lewisham's mediocre position in the list. \"But you\nhave _passed_ all right,\" she said. Neither could she grasp the\nimportance of evening study. \"Of course I don't know,\" she said\njudicially; \"but I thought you were learning all day.\" She calculated\nthe time consumed by their walk as half an hour, \"just one half hour;\"\nshe forgot that he had to get to Chelsea and then to return to his\nlodgings. Her customary tenderness was veiled by an only too apparent\nresentment. First at him, and then when he protested, at Fate. \"I\nsuppose it _has_ to be,\" she said. \"Of course, it doesn't matter, I\nsuppose, if we _don't_ see each other quite so often,\" with a quiver\nof pale lips.\n\nHe had returned from the parting with an uneasy mind, and that evening\nhad gone in the composition of a letter that was to make things\nclearer. But his scientific studies rendered his prose style \"hard,\"\nand things he could whisper he could not write. His justification\nindeed did him no sort of justice. But her reception of it made her\nseem a very unreasonable person. He had some violent fluctuations. At\ntimes he was bitterly angry with her for her failure to see things as\nhe did. He would wander about the museum conducting imaginary\ndiscussions with her and making even scathing remarks. At other times\nhe had to summon all his powers of acrid discipline and all his\nmemories of her resentful retorts, to keep himself from a headlong\nrush to Chelsea and unmanly capitulation.\n\nAnd this new disposition of things endured for two weeks. It did not\ntake Miss Heydinger all that time to discover that the disaster of the\nexamination had wrought a change in Lewisham. She perceived those\nnightly walks were over. It was speedily evident to her that he was\nworking with a kind of dogged fury; he came early, he went late. The\nwholesome freshness of his cheek paled. He was to be seen on each of\nthe late nights amidst a pile of diagrams and text-books in one of the\nless draughty corners of the Educational Library, accumulating piles\nof memoranda. And nightly in the Students' \"club\" he wrote a letter\naddressed to a stationer's shop in Clapham, but that she did not see.\nFor the most part these letters were brief, for Lewisham, South\nKensington fashion, prided himself upon not being \"literary,\" and some\nof the more despatch-like wounded a heart perhaps too hungry for\ntender words.\n\nHe did not meet Miss Heydinger's renewed advances with invariable\nkindness. Yet something of the old relations were presently\nrestored. He would talk well to her for a time, and then snap like a\ndry twig. But the loaning of books was resumed, the subtle process of\nhis aesthetic education that Miss Heydinger had devised. \"Here is a\nbook I promised you,\" she said one day, and he tried to remember the\npromise.\n\nThe book was a collection of Browning's Poems, and it contained\n\"Sludge\"; it also happened that it contained \"The Statue and the\nBust\"--that stimulating lecture on half-hearted constraints. \"Sludge\"\ndid not interest Lewisham, it was not at all his idea of a medium, but\nhe read and re-read \"The Statue and the Bust.\" It had the profoundest\neffect upon him. He went to sleep--he used to read his literature in\nbed because it was warmer there, and over literature nowadays it did\nnot matter as it did with science if one dozed a little--with these\nlines stimulating his emotion:--\n\n    \"So weeks grew months, years; gleam by gleam\n    The glory dropped from their youth and love,\n    And both perceived they had dreamed a dream.\"\n\nBy way of fruit it may be to such seed, he dreamed a dream that\nnight. It concerned Ethel, and at last they were a-marrying. He drew\nher to his arms. He bent to kiss her. And suddenly he saw her lips\nwere shrivelled and her eyes were dull, saw the wrinkles seaming her\nface! She was old! She was intolerably old! He woke in a kind of\nhorror and lay awake and very dismal until dawn, thinking of their\nseparation and of her solitary walk through the muddy streets,\nthinking of his position, the leeway he had lost and the chances there\nwere against him in the battle of the world. He perceived the\ncolourless truth; the Career was improbable, and that Ethel should be\nadded to it was almost hopeless. Clearly the question was between\nthese two. Or should he vacillate and lose both? And then his\nwretchedness gave place to that anger that comes of perpetually\nthwarted desires....\n\nIt was on the day after this dream that he insulted Parkson so\ngrossly. He insulted Parkson after a meeting of the \"Friends of\nProgress\" at Parkson's rooms.\n\nNo type of English student quite realises the noble ideal of plain\nliving and high thinking nowadays. Our admirable examination system\nadmits of extremely little thinking at any level, high or low. But the\nKensington student's living is at any rate insufficient, and he makes\noccasional signs of recognition towards the cosmic process.\n\nOne such sign was the periodic gathering of these \"Friends of\nProgress,\" an association begotten of Lewisham's paper on\nSocialism. It was understood that strenuous things were to be done to\nmake the world better, but so far no decisive action had been taken.\n\nThey met in Parkson's sitting-room, because Parkson was the only one\nof the Friends opulent enough to have a sitting-room, he being a\nWhitworth Scholar and in receipt of one hundred pounds a year. The\nFriends were of various ages, mostly very young. Several smoked and\nothers held pipes which they had discontinued smoking--but there was\nnothing to drink, except coffee, because that was the extent of their\nmeans. Dunkerley, an assistant master in a suburban school, and\nLewisham's former colleague at Whortley, attended these assemblies\nthrough the introduction of Lewisham. All the Friends wore red ties\nexcept Bletherley, who wore an orange one to show that he was aware of\nArt, and Dunkerley, who wore a black one with blue specks, because\nassistant masters in small private schools have to keep up\nappearances. And their simple procedure was that each talked as much\nas the others would suffer.\n\nUsually the self-proposed \"Luther of Socialism\"--ridiculous\nLewisham!--had a thesis or so to maintain, but this night he was\ndepressed and inattentive. He sat with his legs over the arm of his\nchair by way of indicating the state of his mind. He had a packet of\nAlgerian cigarettes (twenty for fivepence), and appeared chiefly\nconcerned to smoke them all before the evening was out. Bletherley was\ngoing to discourse of \"Woman under Socialism,\" and he brought a big\nAmerican edition of Shelley's works and a volume of Tennyson with the\n\"Princess,\" both bristling with paper tongues against his marked\nquotations. He was all for the abolition of \"monopolies,\" and the\n_créche_ was to replace the family. He was unctuous when he was not\npretty-pretty, and his views were evidently unpopular.\n\nParkson was a man from Lancashire, and a devout Quaker; his third and\ncompleting factor was Ruskin, with whose work and phraseology he was\nsaturated. He listened to Bletherley with a marked disapproval, and\nopened a vigorous defence of that ancient tradition of loyalty that\nBletherley had called the monopolist institution of marriage. \"The\npure and simple old theory--love and faithfulness,\" said Parkson,\n\"suffices for me. If we are to smear our political movements with\nthis sort of stuff ...\"\n\n\"Does it work?\" interjected Lewisham, speaking for the first time.\n\n\"What work?\"\n\n\"The pure and simple old theory. I know the theory. I believe in the\ntheory. Bletherley's Shelley-witted. But it's theory. You meet the\ninevitable girl. The theory says you may meet her anywhen. You meet\ntoo young. You fall in love. You marry--in spite of obstacles. Love\nlaughs at locksmiths. You have children. That's the theory. All very\nwell for a man whose father can leave him five hundred a year. But how\ndoes it work for a shopman?... An assistant master like Dunkerley? Or\n... Me?\"\n\n\"In these cases one must exercise restraint,\" said Parkson. \"Have\nfaith. A man that is worth having is worth waiting for.\"\n\n\"Worth growing old for?\" said Lewisham.\n\n\"Chap ought to fight,\" said Dunkerley. \"Don't see your difficulty,\nLewisham. Struggle for existence keen, no doubt, tremendous in\nfact--still. In it--may as well struggle. Two--join forces--pool the\nluck. If I saw, a girl I fancied so that I wanted to, I'd marry her\nto-morrow. And my market value is seventy _non res_.\"\n\nLewisham looked round at him eagerly, suddenly interested. \"_Would_\nyou?\" he said. Dunkerley's face was slightly flushed.\n\n\"Like a shot. Why not?\"\n\n\"But how are you to live?\"\n\n\"That comes after. If ...\"\n\n\"I can't agree with you, Mr. Dunkerley,\" said Parkson. \"I don't know\nif you have read Sesame and Lilies, but there you have, set forth far\nmore fairly than any words of mine could do, an ideal of a woman's\nplace ...\"\n\n\"All rot--Sesame and Lilies,\" interrupted Dunkerley. \"Read\nbits. Couldn't stand it. Never _can_ stand Ruskin. Too many\nprepositions. Tremendous English, no doubt, but not my style. Sort of\nthing a wholesale grocer's daughter might read to get refined. _We_\ncan't afford to get refined.\"\n\n\"But would you really marry a girl ...?\" began Lewisham, with an\nunprecedented admiration for Dunkerley in his eyes.\n\n\"Why not?\"\n\n\"On--?\" Lewisham hesitated.\n\n\"Forty pounds a year _res_. Whack! Yes.\"\n\nA silent youngster began to speak, cleared an accumulated huskiness\nfrom his throat and said, \"Consider the girl.\"\n\n\"Why _marry_?\" asked Bletherley, unregarded.\n\n\"You must admit you are asking a great thing when you want a girl ...\"\nbegan Parkson.\n\n\"Not so. When a girl's chosen a man, and he chooses her, her place is\nwith him. What is the good of hankering? Mutual. Fight together.\"\n\n\"Good!\" said Lewisham, suddenly emotional. \"You talk like a man,\nDunkerley. I'm hanged if you don't.\"\n\n\"The place of Woman,\" insisted Parkson, \"is the Home. And if there is\nno home--! I hold that, if need be, a man should toil seven years--as\nJacob did for Rachel--ruling his passions, to make the home fitting\nand sweet for her ...\"\n\n\"Get the hutch for the pet animal,\" said Dunkerley. \"No. I mean to\nmarry a _woman_. Female sex always _has_ been in the struggle for\nexistence--no great damage so far--always will be. Tremendous\nidea--that struggle for existence. Only sensible theory you've got\nhold of, Lewisham. Woman who isn't fighting square side by side with a\nman--woman who's just kept and fed and petted is ...\" He hesitated.\n\nA lad with a spotted face and a bulldog pipe between his teeth\nsupplied a Biblical word.\n\n\"That's shag,\" said Dunkerley, \"I was going to say 'a harem of one'.\"\n\nThe youngster was puzzled for a moment. \"I smoke Perique,\" he said.\n\n\"It will make you just as sick,\" said Dunkerley.\n\n\"Refinement's so beastly vulgar,\" was the belated answer of the smoker\nof Perique.\n\nThat was the interesting part of the evening to Lewisham. Parkson\nsuddenly rose, got down \"Sesame and Lilies,\" and insisted upon reading\na lengthy mellifluous extract that went like a garden roller over the\ndebate, and afterwards Bletherley became the centre of a wrangle that\nleft him grossly insulted and in a minority of one. The institution\nof marriage, so far as the South Kensington student is concerned, is\nin no immediate danger.\n\nParkson turned out with the rest of them at half-past ten, for a\nwalk. The night was warm for February and the waxing moon\nbright. Parkson fixed himself upon Lewisham and Dunkerley, to\nLewisham's intense annoyance--for he had a few intimate things he\ncould have said to the man of Ideas that night. Dunkerley lived north,\nso that the three went up Exhibition Road to High Street,\nKensington. There they parted from Dunkerley, and Lewisham and Parkson\nturned southward again for Lewisham's new lodging in Chelsea.\n\nParkson was one of those exponents of virtue for whom the discussion\nof sexual matters has an irresistible attraction. The meeting had left\nhim eloquent. He had argued with Dunkerley to the verge of indelicacy,\nand now he poured out a vast and increasingly confidential flow of\ntalk upon Lewisham. Lewisham was distraught. He walked as fast as he\ncould. His sole object was to get rid of Parkson. Parkson's sole\nobject was to tell him interesting secrets, about himself and a\nCertain Person with a mind of extraordinary Purity of whom Lewisham\nhad heard before.\n\nAges passed.\n\nLewisham suddenly found himself being shown a photograph under a\nlamp. It represented an unsymmetrical face singularly void of\nexpression, the upper part of an \"art\" dress, and a fringe of\ncurls. He perceived he was being given to understand that this was a\nParagon of Purity, and that she was the particular property of\nParkson. Parkson was regarding him proudly, and apparently awaiting\nhis verdict.\n\nLewisham struggled with the truth. \"It's an interesting face,\" he\nsaid.\n\n\"It is a face essentially beautiful,\" said Parkson quietly but\nfirmly. \"Do you notice the eyes, Lewisham?\"\n\n\"Oh yes,\" said Lewisham. \"Yes. I see the eyes.\"\n\n\"They are ... innocent. They are the eyes of a little child.\"\n\n\"Yes. They look that sort of eye. Very nice, old man. I congratulate\nyou. Where does she live?\"\n\n\"You never saw a face like that in London,\" said Parkson.\n\n\"_Never_,\" said Lewisham decisively.\n\n\"I would not show that to every one,\" said Parkson. \"You can scarcely\njudge all that pure-hearted, wonderful girl is to me.\" He returned the\nphotograph solemnly to its envelope, regarding Lewisham with an air of\none who has performed the ceremony of blood-brotherhood. Then taking\nLewisham's arm affectionately--a thing Lewisham detested--he went on\nto a copious outpouring on Love--with illustrative anecdotes of the\nParagon. It was just sufficiently cognate to the matter of Lewisham's\nthoughts to demand attention. Every now and then he had to answer, and\nhe felt an idiotic desire--albeit he clearly perceived its idiocy--to\nreciprocate confidences. The necessity of fleeing Parkson became\nurgent--Lewisham's temper under these multitudinous stresses was\ngoing.\n\n\"Every man needs a Lode Star,\" said Parkson--and Lewisham swore under\nhis breath.\n\nParkson's lodgings were now near at hand to the left, and it occurred\nto him this boredom would be soonest ended if he took Parkson home,\nParkson consented mechanically, still discoursing.\n\n\"I have often seen you talking to Miss Heydinger,\" he said. \"If you\nwill pardon my saying it ...\"\n\n\"We are excellent friends,\" admitted Lewisham. \"But here we are at\nyour diggings.\"\n\nParkson stared at his \"diggings.\" \"There's Heaps I want to talk\nabout. I'll come part of the way at any rate to Battersea. Your Miss\nHeydinger, I was saying ...\"\n\nFrom that point onwards he made casual appeals to a supposed\nconfidence between Lewisham and Miss Heydinger, each of which\nincreased Lewisham's exasperation. \"It will not be long before you\nalso, Lewisham, will begin to know the infinite purification of a Pure\nLove....\" Then suddenly, with a vague idea of suppressing Parkson's\nunendurable chatter, as one motive at least, Lewisham rushed into the\nconfidential.\n\n\"I know,\" he said. \"You talk to me as though ... I've marked out my\ndestiny these three years.\" His confidential impulse died as he\nrelieved it.\n\n\"You don't mean to say Miss Heydinger--?\" asked Parkson.\n\n\"Oh, _damn_ Miss Heydinger!\" said Lewisham, and suddenly, abruptly,\nuncivilly, he turned away from Parkson at the end of the street and\nbegan walking away southward, leaving Parkson in mid-sentence at the\ncrossing.\n\nParkson stared in astonishment at his receding back and ran after him\nto ask for the grounds of this sudden offence. Lewisham walked on for\na space with Parkson trotting by his side. Then suddenly he\nturned. His face was quite white and he spoke in a tired voice.\n\n\"Parkson,\" he said, \"you are a fool!... You have the face of a sheep,\nthe manners of a buffalo, and the conversation of a bore, Pewrity\nindeed!... The girl whose photograph you showed me has eyes that don't\nmatch. She looks as loathsome as one would naturally expect.... I'm\nnot joking now.... Go away!\"\n\nAfter that Lewisham went on his southward way alone. He did not go\nstraight to his room in Chelsea, but spent some hours in a street in\nBattersea, pacing to and fro in front of a possible house. His passion\nchanged from savageness to a tender longing. If only he could see her\nto-night! He knew his own mind now. To-morrow he was resolved _he_\nwould fling work to the dogs and meet her. The things Dunkerley had\nsaid had filled his mind with wonderful novel thoughts. If only he\ncould see her now!\n\nHis wish was granted. At the corner of the street two figures passed\nhim; one of these, a tall man in glasses and a quasi-clerical hat,\nwith coat collar turned up under his grey side-whiskers, he recognised\nas Chaffery; the other he knew only too well. The pair passed him\nwithout seeing him, but for an instant the lamplight fell upon her\nface and showed it white and tired.\n\nLewisham stopped dead at the corner, staring in blank astonishment\nafter these two figures as they receded into the haze under the\nlights. He was dumfounded. A clock struck slowly. It was\nmidnight. Presently down the road came the slamming of their door.\n\nLong after the echo died away he stood there. \"She has been at a\n_séance_; she has broken her promise. She has been at a _séance_; she\nhas broken her promise,\" sang in perpetual reiteration through his\nbrain.\n\nAnd then came the interpretation. \"She has done it because I have left\nher. I might have told it from her letters. She has done it because\nshe thinks I am not in earnest, that my love-making was just\nboyishness ...\n\n\"I knew she would never understand.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIX.\n\nLEWISHAM'S SOLUTION.\n\n\nThe next morning Lewisham learnt from Lagune that his intuition was\ncorrect, that Ethel had at last succumbed to pressure and consented to\nattempt thought-reading. \"We made a good beginning,\" said Lagune,\nrubbing his hands. \"I am sure we shall do well with her. Certainly she\nhas powers. I have always felt it in her face. She has powers.\"\n\n\"Was much ... pressure necessary?\" asked Lewisham by an effort.\n\n\"We had--considerable difficulty. Considerable. But of course--as I\npointed out to her--it was scarcely possible for her to continue as my\ntypewriter unless she was disposed to take an interest in my\ninvestigations--\"\n\n\"You did that?\"\n\n\"Had to. Fortunately Chaffery--it was his idea. I must admit--\"\n\nLagune stopped astonished. Lewisham, after making an odd sort of\nmovement with his hands, had turned round and was walking away down\nthe laboratory. Lagune stared; confronted by a psychic phenomenon\nbeyond his circle of ideas. \"Odd!\" he said at last, and began to\nunpack his bag. Ever and again he stopped and stared at Lewisham, who\nwas now sitting in his own place and drumming on the table with both\nhands.\n\nPresently Miss Heydinger came out of the specimen room and addressed a\nremark to the young man. He appeared to answer with considerable\nbrevity. He then stood up, hesitated for a moment between the three\ndoors of the laboratory and walked out by that opening on the back\nstaircase. Lagune did not see him again until the afternoon.\n\nThat night Ethel had Lewisham's company again on her way home, and\ntheir voices were earnest. She did not go straight home, but instead\nthey went up under the gas lamps to the vague spaces of Clapham Common\nto talk there at length. And the talk that night was a momentous\none. \"Why have you broken your promise?\" he said.\n\nHer excuses were vague and weak. \"I thought you did not care so much\nas you did,\" she said. \"And when you stopped these walks--nothing\nseemed to matter. Besides--it is not like _séances_ with spirits ...\"\n\nAt first Lewisham was passionate and forcible. His anger at Lagune and\nChaffery blinded him to her turpitude. He talked her defences\ndown. \"It is cheating,\" he said. \"Well--even if what _you_ do is not\ncheating, it is delusion--unconscious cheating. Even if there is\nsomething in it, it is wrong. True or not, it is wrong. Why don't\nthey thought-read each other? Why should they want you? Your mind is\nyour own. It is sacred. To probe it!--I won't have it! I won't have\nit! At least you are mine to that extent. I can't think of you like\nthat--bandaged. And that little fool pressing his hand on the back of\nyour neck and asking questions. I won't have it! I would rather kill\nyou than that.\"\n\n\"They don't do that!\"\n\n\"I don't care! that is what it will come to. The bandage is the\nbeginning. People must not get their living in that way anyhow. I've\nthought it out. Let them thought-read their daughters and hypnotise\ntheir aunts, and leave their typewriters alone.\"\n\n\"But what am I to do?\"\n\n\"That's not it. There are things one must not suffer anyhow, whatever\nhappens! Or else--one might be made to do anything. Honour! Just\nbecause we are poor--Let him dismiss you! _Let_ him dismiss you. You\ncan get another place--\"\n\n\"Not at a guinea a week.\"\n\n\"Then take less.\"\n\n\"But I have to pay sixteen shillings every week.\"\n\n\"That doesn't matter.\"\n\nShe caught at a sob, \"But to leave London--I can't do it, I can't.\"\n\n\"But how?--Leave London?\" Lewisham's face changed.\n\n\"Oh! life is _hard_,\" she said. \"I can't. They--they wouldn't let me\nstop in London.\"\n\n\"What do you mean?\"\n\nShe explained if Lagune dismissed her she was to go into the country\nto an aunt, a sister of Chaffery's who needed a companion. Chaffery\ninsisted upon that. \"Companion they call it. I shall be just a\nservant--she has no servant. My mother cries when I talk to her. She\ntells me she doesn't want me to go away from her. But she's afraid of\nhim. 'Why don't you do what he wants?' she says.\"\n\nShe sat staring in front of her at the gathering night. She spoke\nagain in an even tone.\n\n\"I hate telling you these things. It is you ... If you didn't mind\n... But you make it all different. I could do it--if it wasn't for\nyou. I was ... I _was_ helping ... I had gone meaning to help if\nanything went wrong at Mr. Lagune's. Yes--that night. No ... don't! It\nwas too hard before to tell you. But I really did not feel it\n... until I saw you there. Then all at once I felt shabby and mean.\"\n\n\"Well?\" said Lewisham.\n\n\"That's all. I may have done thought-reading, but I have never really\ncheated since--_never_.... If you knew how hard it is ...\"\n\n\"I wish you had told me that before.\"\n\n\"I couldn't. Before you came it was different. He used to make fun of\nthe people--used to imitate Lagune and make me laugh. It seemed a sort\nof joke.\" She stopped abruptly. \"Why did you ever come on with me? I\ntold you not to--you _know_ I did.\"\n\nShe was near wailing. For a minute she was silent.\n\n\"I can't go to his sister's,\" she cried. \"I may be a coward--but I\ncan't.\"\n\nPause. And then Lewisham saw his solution straight and clear. Suddenly\nhis secret desire had become his manifest duty.\n\n\"Look here,\" he said, not looking at her and pulling his moustache. \"I\nwon't have you doing any more of that damned cheating. You shan't soil\nyourself any more. And I won't have you leaving London.\"\n\n\"But what am I to do?\" Her voice went up.\n\n\"Well--there is one thing you can do. If you dare.\"\n\n\"What is it?\"\n\nHe made no answer for some seconds. Then he turned round and sat\nlooking at her. Their eyes met....\n\nThe grey of his mind began to colour. Her face was white and she was\nlooking at him, in fear and perplexity. A new tenderness for her\nsprang up in him--a new feeling. Hitherto he had loved and desired her\nsweetness and animation--but now she was white and weary-eyed. He\nfelt as though he had forgotten her and suddenly remembered. A great\nlonging came into his mind.\n\n\"But what is the other thing I can do?\"\n\nIt was strangely hard to say. There came a peculiar sensation in his\nthroat and facial muscles, a nervous stress between laughing and\ncrying. All the world vanished before that great desire. And he was\nafraid she would not dare, that she would not take him seriously.\n\n\"What is it?\" she said again.\n\n\"Don't you see that we can marry?\" he said, with the flood of his\nresolution suddenly strong and steady. \"Don't you see that is the\nonly thing for us? The dead lane we are in! You must come out of your\ncheating, and I must come out of my ... cramming. And we--we must\nmarry.\"\n\nHe paused and then became eloquent. \"The world is against us,\nagainst--us. To you it offers money to cheat--to be ignoble. For it\n_is_ ignoble! It offers you no honest way, only a miserable\ndrudgery. And it keeps you from me. And me too it bribes with the\npromise of success--if I will desert you ... You don't know all ... We\nmay have to wait for years--we may have to wait for ever, if we wait\nuntil life is safe. We may be separated.... We may lose one another\naltogether.... Let us fight against it. Why should we separate?\nUnless True Love is like the other things--an empty cant. This is the\nonly way. We two--who belong to one another.\"\n\nShe looked at him, her face perplexed with this new idea, her heart\nbeating very fast. \"We are so young,\" she said. \"And how are we to\nlive? You get a guinea.\"\n\n\"I can get more--I can earn more, I have thought it out. I have been\nthinking of it these two days. I have been thinking what we could\ndo. I have money.\"\n\n\"You have money?\"\n\n\"Nearly a hundred pounds.\"\n\n\"But we are so young--And my mother ...\"\n\n\"We won't ask her. We will ask no one. This is _our_ affair. Ethel!\nthis is _our_ affair. It is not a question of ways and means--even\nbefore this--I have thought ... Dear one!--_don't_ you love me?\"\n\nShe did not grasp his emotional quality. She looked at him with\npuzzled eyes--still practical--making the suggestion arithmetical.\n\n\"I could typewrite if I had a machine. I have heard--\"\n\n\"It's not a question of ways and means. Now. Ethel--I have longed--\"\n\nHe stopped. She looked at his face, at his eyes now eager and eloquent\nwith the things that never shaped themselves into words.\n\n\"_Dare_ you come with me?\" he whispered.\n\nSuddenly the world opened out in reality to her as sometimes it had\nopened out to her in wistful dreams. And she quailed before it. She\ndropped her eyes from his. She became a fellow-conspirator. \"But,\nhow--?\"\n\n\"I will think how. Trust me! Surely we know each other now--Think! We\ntwo--\"\n\n\"But I have never thought--\"\n\n\"I could get apartments for us both. It would be so easy. And think of\nit--think--of what life would be!\"\n\n\"How can I?\"\n\n\"You will come?\"\n\nShe looked at him, startled. \"You know,\" she said, \"you must know I\nwould like--I would love--\"\n\n\"You will come?\"\n\n\"But, dear--! Dear, if you _make_ me--\"\n\n\"Yes!\" cried Lewisham triumphantly. \"You will come.\" He glanced round\nand his voice dropped. \"Oh! my dearest! my dearest!...\"\n\nHis voice sank to an inaudible whisper. But his face was eloquent. Two\ngarrulous, home-going clerks passed opportunely to remind him that his\nemotions were in a public place.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XX.\n\nTHE CAREER IS SUSPENDED.\n\n\nOn the Wednesday afternoon following this--it was hard upon the\nbotanical examination--Mr. Lewisham was observed by Smithers in the\nbig Education Library reading in a volume of the British\nEncyclopaedia. Beside him were the current Whitaker's Almanac, an open\nnote-book, a book from the Contemporary Science Series, and the\nScience and Art Department's Directory. Smithers, who had a profound\nsense of Lewisham's superiority in the art of obtaining facts of value\nin examinations, wondered for some minutes what valuable tip for a\nstudent in botany might be hidden in Whitaker, and on reaching his\nlodgings spent some time over the landlady's copy. But really Lewisham\nwas not studying botany, but the art of marriage according to the best\nauthorities. (The book from the Contemporary Science Series was\nProfessor Letourneau's \"Evolution of Marriage.\" It was interesting\ncertainly, but of little immediate use.)\n\nFrom Whitaker Lewisham learnt that it would be possible at a cost of\n£2, 6s. 1d. or £2, 7s. 1d. (one of the items was ambiguous) to get\nmarried within the week--that charge being exclusive of vails--at the\ndistrict registry office. He did little addition sums in the\nnote-book. The church fees he found were variable, but for more\npersonal reasons he rejected a marriage at church. Marriage by\ncertificate at a registrar's involved an inconvenient delay. It would\nhave to be £2, 7s. 1d. Vails--ten shillings, say.\n\nAfterwards, without needless ostentation, he produced a cheque-book\nand a deposit-book, and proceeded to further arithmetic. He found that\nhe was master of £61, 4s. 7d. Not a hundred as he had said, but a fine\nbig sum--men have started great businesses on less. It had been a\nhundred originally. Allowing five pounds for the marriage and moving,\nthis would leave about £56. Plenty. No provision was made for flowers,\ncarriages, or the honeymoon. But there would be a typewriter to\nbuy. Ethel was to do her share....\n\n\"It will be a devilish close thing,\" said Lewisham with a quite\nunreasonable exultation. For, strangely enough, the affair was\nbeginning to take on a flavour of adventure not at all unpleasant. He\nleant back in his chair with the note-book closed in his hand....\n\nBut there was much to see to that afternoon. First of all he had to\ndiscover the district superintendent registrar, and then to find a\nlodging whither he should take Ethel--their lodging, where they were\nto live together.\n\nAt the thought of that new life together that was drawing so near, she\ncame into his head, vivid and near and warm....\n\nHe recovered himself from a day dream. He became aware of a library\nattendant down the room leaning forward over his desk, gnawing the tip\nof a paper knife after the fashion of South Kensington library\nattendants, and staring at him curiously. It occurred to Lewisham that\nthought reading was one of the most possible things in the world. He\nblushed, rose clumsily and took the volume of the Encyclopaedia back\nto its shelf.\n\nHe found the selection of lodgings a difficult business. After his\nfirst essay he began to fancy himself a suspicious-looking character,\nand that perhaps hampered him. He had chosen the district southward\nof the Brompton Road. It had one disadvantage--he might blunder into a\nhouse with a fellow-student.... Not that it mattered vitally. But the\nfact is, it is rather unusual for married couples to live permanently\nin furnished lodgings in London. People who are too poor to take a\nhouse or a flat commonly find it best to take part of a house or\nunfurnished apartments. There are a hundred couples living in\nunfurnished rooms (with \"the use of the kitchen\") to one in furnished\nin London. The absence of furniture predicates a dangerous want of\ncapital to the discreet landlady. The first landlady Lewisham\ninterviewed didn't like ladies, they required such a lot of\nattendance; the second was of the same mind; the third told\nMr. Lewisham he was \"youngish to be married;\" the fourth said she only\n\"did\" for single \"gents.\" The fifth was a young person with an arch\nmanner, who liked to know all about people she took in, and subjected\nLewisham to a searching cross-examination. When she had spitted him\nin a downright lie or so, she expressed an opinion that her rooms\n\"would scarcely do,\" and bowed him amiably out.\n\nHe cooled his ears and cheeks by walking up and down the street for a\nspace, and then tried again. This landlady was a terrible and pitiful\nperson, so grey and dusty she was, and her face deep lined with dust\nand trouble and labour. She wore a dirty cap that was all askew. She\ntook Lewisham up into a threadbare room on the first floor, \"There's\nthe use of a piano,\" she said, and indicated an instrument with a\nfront of torn green silk. Lewisham opened the keyboard and evoked a\nvibration of broken strings. He took one further survey of the dismal\nplace, \"Eighteen shillings,\" he said. \"Thank you ... I'll let you\nknow.\" The woman smiled with the corners of her mouth down, and\nwithout a word moved wearily towards the door. Lewisham felt a\ntransient wonder at her hopeless position, but he did not pursue the\ninquiry.\n\nThe next landlady sufficed. She was a clean-looking German woman,\nrather smartly dressed; she had a fringe of flaxen curls and a voluble\nflow of words, for the most part recognisably English. With this she\nsketched out remarks. Fifteen shillings was her demand for a minute\nbedroom and a small sitting-room, separated by folding doors on the\nground floor, and her personal services. Coals were to be \"sixpence a\nkettle,\" she said--a pretty substitute for scuttle. She had not\nunderstood Lewisham to say he was married. But she had no hesitation.\n\"Aayteen shillin',\" she said imperturbably. \"Paid furs day ich wik\n... See?\" Mr. Lewisham surveyed the rooms again. They looked clean,\nand the bonus tea vases, the rancid, gilt-framed oleographs, two\ntoilet tidies used as ornaments, and the fact that the chest of\ndrawers had been crowded out of the bedroom into the sitting-room,\nsimply appealed to his sense of humour. \"I'll take 'em from Saturday\nnext,\" he said.\n\nShe was sure he would like them, and proposed to give him his book\nforthwith. She mentioned casually that the previous lodger had been a\ncaptain and had stayed three years. (One never hears by any chance of\nlodgers stopping for a shorter period.) Something happened (German)\nand now he kept his carriage--apparently an outcome of his stay. She\nreturned with a small penny account-book, a bottle of ink and an\nexecrable pen, wrote Lewisham's name on the cover of this, and a\nreceipt for eighteen shillings on the first page. She was evidently a\nperson of considerable business aptitude. Lewisham paid, and the\ntransaction terminated. \"Szhure to be gomfortable,\" followed him\ncomfortingly to the street.\n\nThen he went on to Chelsea and interviewed a fatherly gentleman at the\nVestry offices. The fatherly gentleman was chubby-faced and\nspectacled, and his manner was sympathetic but business-like. He\n\"called back\" each item of the interview, \"And what can I do for you?\nYou wish to be married! By licence?\"\n\n\"By licence.\"\n\n\"By licence!\"\n\nAnd so forth. He opened a book and made neat entries of the\nparticulars.\n\n\"The lady's age?\"\n\n\"Twenty-one.\"\n\n\"A very suitable age ... for a lady.\"\n\nHe advised Lewisham to get a ring, and said he would need two\nwitnesses.\n\n\"_Well_--\" hesitated Lewisham.\n\n\"There is always someone about,\" said the superintendent\nregistrar. \"And they are quite used to it.\"\n\nThursday and Friday Lewisham passed in exceedingly high spirits. No\nconsciousness of the practical destruction of the Career seems to have\ntroubled him at this time. Doubt had vanished from his universe for a\nspace. He wanted to dance along the corridors. He felt curiously\nirresponsible and threw up an unpleasant sort of humour that pleased\nnobody. He wished Miss Heydinger many happy returns of the day,\n_apropos_ of nothing, and he threw a bun across the refreshment room\nat Smithers and hit one of the Art School officials. Both were\nextremely silly things to do. In the first instance he was penitent\nimmediately after the outrage, but in the second he added insult to\ninjury by going across the room and asking in an offensively\nsuspicious manner if anyone had seen his bun. He crawled under a table\nand found it at last, rather dusty but quite eatable, under the chair\nof a lady art student. He sat down by Smithers to eat it, while he\nargued with the Art official. The Art official said the manners of the\nScience students were getting unbearable, and threatened to bring the\nmatter before the refreshment-room committee. Lewisham said it was a\npity to make such a fuss about a trivial thing, and proposed that the\nArt official should throw his lunch--steak and kidney pudding--across\nthe room at him, Lewisham, and so get immediate satisfaction. He then\napologised to the official and pointed out in extenuation that it was\na very long and difficult shot he had attempted. The official then\ndrank a crumb, or breathed some beer, or something of that sort, and\nthe discussion terminated. In the afternoon, however, Lewisham, to\nhis undying honour, felt acutely ashamed of himself. Miss Heydinger\nwould not speak to him.\n\nOn Saturday morning he absented himself from the schools, pleading by\npost a slight indisposition, and took all his earthly goods to the\nbooking office at Vauxhall Station. Chaffery's sister lived at\nTongham, near Farnham, and Ethel, dismissed a week since by Lagune,\nhad started that morning, under her mother's maudlin supervision, to\nbegin her new slavery. She was to alight either at Farnham or Woking,\nas opportunity arose, and to return to Vauxhall to meet him. So that\nLewisham's vigil on the main platform was of indefinite duration.\n\nAt first he felt the exhilaration of a great adventure. Then, as he\npaced the long platform, came a philosophical mood, a sense of entire\ndetachment from the world. He saw a bundle of uprooted plants beside\nthe portmanteau of a fellow-passenger and it suggested a grotesque\nsimile. His roots, his earthly possessions, were all downstairs in\nthe booking-office. What a flimsy thing he was! A box of books and a\ntrunk of clothes, some certificates and scraps of paper, an entry here\nand an entry there, a body not over strong--and the vast multitude of\npeople about him--against him--the huge world in which he found\nhimself! Did it matter anything to one human soul save her if he\nceased to exist forthwith? And miles away perhaps she also was\nfeeling little and lonely....\n\nWould she have trouble with her luggage? Suppose her aunt were to come\nto Farnham Junction to meet her? Suppose someone stole her purse?\nSuppose she came too late! The marriage was to take place at\ntwo.... Suppose she never came at all! After three trains in\nsuccession had disappointed him his vague feelings of dread gave place\nto a profound depression....\n\nBut she came at last, and it was twenty-three minutes to two. He\nhurried her luggage downstairs, booked it with his own, and in another\nminute they were in a hansom--their first experience of that species\nof conveyance--on the way to the Vestry office. They had said scarcely\nanything to one another, save hasty directions from Lewisham, but\ntheir eyes were full of excitement, and under the apron of the cab\ntheir hands were gripped together.\n\nThe little old gentleman was business-like but kindly. They made\ntheir vows to him, to a little black-bearded clerk and a lady who took\noff an apron in the nether part of the building to attend. The little\nold gentleman made no long speeches. \"You are young people,\" he said\nslowly, \"and life together is a difficult thing.... Be kind to each\nother.\" He smiled a little sadly, and held out a friendly hand.\n\nEthel's eyes glistened and she found she could not speak.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXI.\n\nHOME!\n\n\nThen a furtive payment of witnesses, and Lewisham was beside her. His\nface was radiant. A steady current of workers going home to their\nhalf-holiday rest poured along the street. On the steps before them\nlay a few grains of rice from some more public nuptials.\n\nA critical little girl eyed our couple curiously and made some remark\nto her ragamuffin friend.\n\n\"Not them,\" said the ragamuffin friend, \"They've only been askin'\nquestions.\"\n\nThe ragamuffin friend was no judge of faces.\n\nThey walked back through the thronged streets to Vauxhall station,\nsaying little to one another, and there Lewisham, assuming as\nindifferent a manner as he could command, recovered their possessions\nfrom the booking-office by means of two separate tickets and put them\naboard a four-wheeler. His luggage went outside, but the little brown\nportmanteau containing Ethel's trousseau was small enough to go on the\nseat in front of them. You must figure a rather broken-down\nfour-wheeler bearing the yellow-painted box and the experienced trunk\nand Mr. Lewisham and all his fortunes, a despondent fitful horse, and\na threadbare venerable driver, blasphemous _sotto voce_ and\nflagellant, in an ancient coat with capes. When our two young people\nfound themselves in the cab again a certain stiffness of manner\nbetween them vanished and there was more squeezing of hands. \"Ethel\n_Lewisham_,\" said Lewisham several times, and Ethel reciprocated with\n\"Husbinder\" and \"Hubby dear,\" and took off her glove to look again in\nan ostentatious manner at a ring. And she kissed the ring.\n\nThey were resolved that their newly-married state should not appear,\nand with considerable ceremony it was arranged that he should treat\nher with off-hand brusqueness when they arrived at their lodging. The\nTeutonic landlady appeared in the passage with an amiable smile and\nthe hope that they had had a pleasant journey, and became voluble with\npromises of comfort. Lewisham having assisted the slatternly general\nservant to carry in his boxes, paid the cabman a florin in a resolute\nmanner and followed the ladies into the sitting-room.\n\nEthel answered Madam Gadow's inquiries with admirable self-possession,\nfollowed her through the folding-doors and displayed an intelligent\ninterest in a new spring mattress. Presently the folding-doors were\nclosed again. Lewisham hovered about the front room pulling his\nmoustache and pretending to admire the oleographs, surprised to find\nhimself trembling....\n\nThe slatternly general servant reappeared with the chops and tinned\nsalmon he had asked Madam Gadow to prepare for them. He went and\nstared out of the window, heard the door close behind the girl, and\nturned at a sound as Ethel appeared shyly through the folding-doors.\n\nShe was suddenly domestic. Hitherto he had seen her without a hat and\njacket only on one indistinct dramatic occasion. Now she wore a little\nblouse of soft, dark red material, with a white froth about the wrists\nand that pretty neck of hers. And her hair was a new wonderland of\ncurls and soft strands. How delicate she looked and sweet as she stood\nhesitating there. These gracious moments in life! He took two steps\nand held out his arms. She glanced at the closed door of the room and\ncame flitting towards him....\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXII.\n\nEPITHALAMY.\n\n\nFor three indelible days Lewisham's existence was a fabric of fine\nemotions, life was too wonderful and beautiful for any doubts or\nforethought. To be with Ethel was perpetual delight--she astonished\nthis sisterless youngster with a thousand feminine niceties and\nrefinements. She shamed him for his strength and clumsiness. And the\nlight in her eyes and the warmth in her heart that lit them!\n\nEven to be away from her was a wonder and in its way delightful. He\nwas no common Student, he was a man with a Secret Life. To part from\nher on Monday near South Kensington station and go up Exhibition Road\namong all the fellows who lived in sordid, lonely lodgings and were\nboys to his day-old experience! To neglect one's work and sit back and\ndream of meeting again! To slip off to the shady churchyard behind the\nOratory when, or even a little before, the midday bell woke the great\nstaircase to activity, and to meet a smiling face and hear a soft,\nvoice saying sweet foolish things! And after four another meeting and\nthe walk home--their own home.\n\nNo little form now went from him and flitted past a gas lamp down a\nfoggy vista, taking his desire with her. Never more was that to\nbe. Lewisham's long hours in the laboratory were spent largely in a\ndreamy meditation, in--to tell the truth--the invention of foolish\nterms of endearment: \"Dear Wife,\" \"Dear Little Wife Thing,\" \"Sweetest\nDearest Little Wife,\" \"Dillywings.\" A pretty employment! And these\nare quite a fair specimen of his originality during those wonderful\ndays. A moment of heart-searching in that particular matter led to\nthe discovery of hitherto undreamt-of kindred with Swift. For\nLewisham, like Swift and most other people, had hit upon, the Little\nLanguage. Indeed it was a very foolish time.\n\nSuch section cutting as he did that third day of his married life--and\nhe did very little--was a thing to marvel at. Bindon, the botany\nprofessor, under the fresh shock of his performance, protested to a\ncolleague in the grill room that never had a student been so foolishly\noverrated.\n\nAnd Ethel too had a fine emotional time. She was mistress of a\nhome--_their_ home together. She shopped and was called \"Ma'am\" by\nrespectful, good-looking shopmen; she designed meals and copied out\npapers of notes with a rich sense of helpfulness. And ever and again\nshe would stop writing and sit dreaming. And for four bright week-days\nshe went to and fro to accompany and meet Lewisham and listen greedily\nto the latest fruits of his imagination.\n\nThe landlady was very polite and conversed entertainingly about the\nvery extraordinary and dissolute servants that had fallen to her\nlot. And Ethel disguised her newly wedded state by a series of\ningenious prevarications. She wrote a letter that Saturday evening to\nher mother--Lewisham had helped her to write it--making a sort of\nproclamation of her heroic departure and promising a speedy\nvisit. They posted the letter so that it might not be delivered until\nMonday.\n\nShe was quite sure with Lewisham that only the possible dishonour of\nmediumship could have brought their marriage about--she sank the\nmutual attraction beyond even her own vision. There was more than a\ntouch of magnificence, you perceive, about this affair.\n\nIt was Lewisham had persuaded her to delay that reassuring visit until\nMonday night. \"One whole day of honeymoon,\" he insisted, was to be\ntheirs. In his prenuptial meditations he had not clearly focussed the\nfact that even after marriage some sort of relations with Mr. and\nMrs. Chaffery would still go on. Even now he was exceedingly\ndisinclined to face that obvious necessity. He foresaw, in spite of a\nresolute attempt to ignore it, that there would be explanatory scenes\nof some little difficulty. But the prevailing magnificence carried him\nover this trouble.\n\n\"Let us at least have this little time for ourselves,\" he said, and\nthat seemed to settle their position.\n\nSave for its brevity and these intimations of future trouble it was a\nvery fine time indeed. Their midday dinner together, for example--it\nwas a little cold when at last they came to it on Saturday--was\nimmense fun. There was no marked subsidence of appetite; they ate\nextremely well in spite of the meeting of their souls, and in spite of\ncertain shiftings of chairs and hand claspings and similar delays. He\nreally made the acquaintance of her hands then for the first time,\nplump white hands with short white fingers, and the engagement ring\nhad come out of its tender hiding-place and acted as keeper to the\nwedding ring. Their eyes were perpetually flitting about the room and\ncoming back to mutual smiles. All their movements were faintly\ntremulous.\n\nShe professed to be vastly interested and amused by the room and its\nfurniture and her position, and he was delighted by her delight. She\nwas particularly entertained by the chest of drawers in the living\nroom, and by Lewisham's witticisms at the toilet tidies and the\noleographs.\n\nAnd after the chops and the most of the tinned salmon and the very new\nloaf were gone they fell to with fine effect upon a tapioca\npudding. Their talk was fragmentary. \"Did you hear her call me\n_Madame? Mádáme_--so!\" \"And presently I must go out and do some\nshopping. There are all the things for Sunday and Monday morning to\nget. I must make a list. It will never do to let her know how little I\nknow about things.... I wish I knew more.\"\n\nAt the time Lewisham regarded her confession of domestic ignorance as\na fine basis for facetiousness. He developed a fresh line of thought,\nand condoled with her on the inglorious circumstances of their\nwedding. \"No bridesmaids,\" he said; \"no little children scattering\nflowers, no carriages, no policemen to guard the wedding presents,\nnothing proper--nothing right. Not even a white favour. Only you and\nI.\"\n\n\"Only you and I. _Oh_!\"\n\n\"This is nonsense,\" said Lewisham, after an interval.\n\n\"And think what we lose in the way of speeches,\" he resumed. \"Cannot\nyou imagine the best man rising:--'Ladies and gentlemen--the health of\nthe bride.' That is what the best man has to do, isn't it?\"\n\nBy way of answer she extended her hand.\n\n\"And do you know,\" he said, after that had received due recognition,\n\"we have never been introduced!\"\n\n\"Neither have we!\" said Ethel. \"Neither have we! We have never been\nintroduced!\"\n\nFor some inscrutable reason it delighted them both enormously to think\nthat they had never been introduced....\n\nIn the later afternoon Lewisham, having unpacked his books to a\ncertain extent, and so forth, was visible to all men, visibly in the\nhighest spirits, carrying home Ethel's shopping. There were parcels\nand cones in blue and parcels in rough grey paper and a bag of\nconfectionery, and out of one of the side pockets of that East-end\novercoat the tail of a haddock protruded from its paper. Under such\nmagnificent sanctions and amid such ignoble circumstances did this\nhoneymoon begin.\n\nOn Sunday evening they went for a long rambling walk through the quiet\nstreets, coming out at last into Hyde Park. The early spring night was\nmild and clear and the kindly moonlight was about them. They went to\nthe bridge and looked down the Serpentine, with the little lights of\nPaddington yellow and remote. They stood there, dim little figures and\nvery close together. They whispered and became silent.\n\nPresently it seemed that something passed and Lewisham began talking\nin his magnificent vein. He likened the Serpentine to Life, and found\nMeaning in the dark banks of Kensington Gardens and the remote bright\nlights. \"The long struggle,\" he said, \"and the lights at the\nend,\"--though he really did not know what he meant by the lights at\nthe end. Neither did Ethel, though the emotion was indisputable. \"We\nare Fighting the World,\" he said, finding great satisfaction in the\nthought. \"All the world is against us--and we are fighting it all.\"\n\n\"We will not be beaten,\" said Ethel.\n\n\"How could we be beaten--together?\" said Lewisham. \"For you I would\nfight a dozen worlds.\"\n\nIt seemed a very sweet and noble thing to them under the sympathetic\nmoonlight, almost indeed too easy for their courage, to be merely\nfighting the world.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\"You 'aven't bin married ver' long,\" said Madam Gadow with an\ninsinuating smile, when she readmitted Ethel on Monday morning after\nLewisham had been swallowed up by the Schools.\n\n\"No, I haven't _very_ long,\" admitted Ethel.\n\n\"You are ver' 'appy,\" said Madam Gadow, and sighed.\n\n\"_I_ was ver' 'appy,\" said Madam Gadow.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXIII.\n\nMR. CHAFFERY AT HOME.\n\n\nThe golden mists of delight lifted a little on Monday, when Mr. and\nMrs. G.E. Lewisham went to call on his mother-in-law and\nMr. Chaffery. Mrs. Lewisham went in evident apprehension, but clouds\nof glory still hung about Lewisham's head, and his manner was heroic.\nHe wore a cotton shirt and linen collar, and a very nice black satin\ntie that Mrs. Lewisham had bought on her own responsibility during the\nday. She naturally wanted him to look all right.\n\nMrs. Chaffery appeared in the half light of the passage as the top of\na grimy cap over Ethel's shoulder and two black sleeves about her\nneck. She emerged as a small, middle-aged woman, with a thin little\nnose between silver-rimmed spectacles, a weak mouth and perplexed\neyes, a queer little dust-lined woman with the oddest resemblance to\nEthel in her face. She was trembling visibly with nervous agitation.\n\nShe hesitated, peering, and then kissed Mr. Lewisham effusively. \"And\nthis is Mr. Lewisham!\" she said as she did so.\n\nShe was the third thing feminine to kiss Lewisham since the\npromiscuous days of his babyhood. \"I was so afraid--There!\" She\nlaughed hysterically.\n\n\"You'll excuse my saying that it's comforting to see you--honest like\nand young. Not but what Ethel ... _He_ has been something dreadful,\"\nsaid Mrs. Chaffery. \"You didn't ought to have written about that\nmesmerising. And of all letters that which Jane wrote--there! But\nhe's waiting and listening--\"\n\n\"Are we to go downstairs, Mums?\" asked Ethel.\n\n\"He's waiting for you there,\" said Mrs. Chaffery. She held a dismal\nlittle oil lamp, and they descended a tenebrous spiral structure into\nan underground breakfast-room lit by gas that shone through a\npartially frosted globe with cut-glass stars. That descent had a\ndistinctly depressing effect upon Lewisham. He went first. He took a\ndeep breath at the door. What on earth was Chaffery going to say? Not\nthat he cared, of course.\n\nChaffery was standing with his back to the fire, trimming his\nfinger-nails with a pocket-knife. His gilt glasses were tilted forward\nso as to make an inflamed knob at the top of his long nose, and he\nregarded Mr. and Mrs. Lewisham over them with--Lewisham doubted his\neyes for a moment--but it was positively a smile, an essentially\nwaggish smile.\n\n\"You've come back,\" he said quite cheerfully over Lewisham to\nEthel. There was a hint of falsetto in his voice.\n\n\"She has called to see her mother,\" said Lewisham. \"You, I believe,\nare Mr. Chaffery?\"\n\n\"I would like to know who the Deuce _you_ are?\" said Chaffery,\nsuddenly tilting his head back so as to look through his glasses\ninstead of over them, and laughing genially. \"For thoroughgoing Cheek,\nI'm inclined to think you take the Cake. Are you the Mr. Lewisham to\nwhom this misguided girl refers in her letter?\"\n\n\"I am.\"\n\n\"Maggie,\" said Mr. Chaffery to Mrs. Chaffery, \"there is a class of\nbeing upon whom delicacy is lost--to whom delicacy is practically\nunknown. Has your daughter got her marriage lines?\"\n\n\"Mr. Chaffery!\" said Lewisham, and Mrs. Chaffery exclaimed, \"James!\nHow _can_ you?\"\n\nChaffery shut his penknife with a click and slipped it into his\nvest-pocket. Then he looked up again, speaking in the same equal\nvoice. \"I presume we are civilised persons prepared to manage our\naffairs in a civilised way. My stepdaughter vanishes for two nights\nand returns with an alleged husband. I at least am not disposed to be\ncareless about her legal position.\"\n\n\"You ought to know her better--\" began Lewisham.\n\n\"Why argue about it,\" said Chaffery gaily, pointing a lean finger at\nEthel's gesture, \"when she has 'em in her pocket? She may just as well\nshow me now. I thought so. Don't be alarmed at my handling them.\nFresh copies can always be got at the nominal price of two-and-seven.\nThank you ... Lewisham, George Edgar. One-and-twenty. And ...\nYou--one-and-twenty! I never did know your age, my dear, exactly, and\nnow your mother won't say. Student!  Thank you. I am greatly\nobliged. Indeed I am greatly relieved. And now, what have you got to\nsay for yourselves in this remarkable affair?\"\n\n\"You had a letter,\" said Lewisham.\n\n\"I had a letter of excuses--the personalities I overlook ... Yes,\nsir--they were excuses. You young people wanted to marry--and you\nseized an occasion. You did not even refer to the fact that you\nwanted to marry in your letter. Pure modesty! But now you have come\nhere married. It disorganises this household, it inflicts endless\nbother on people, but never you mind that! I'm not blaming\n_you_. Nature's to blame! Neither of you know what you are in for\nyet. You will. You're married, and that is the great essential\nthing.... (Ethel, my dear, just put your husband's hat and stick\nbehind the door.) And you, sir, are so good as to disapprove of the\nway in which I earn my living?\"\n\n\"Well,\" said Lewisham. \"Yes--I'm bound to say I do.\"\n\n\"You are really _not_ bound to say it. The modesty of inexperience\nwould excuse you.\"\n\n\"Yes, but it isn't right--it isn't straight.\"\n\n\"Dogma,\" said Chaffery. \"Dogma!\"\n\n\"What do you mean by dogma?\" asked Lewisham.\n\n\"I mean, dogma. But we must argue this out in comfort. It is our\nsupper hour, and I'm not the man to fight against accomplished\nfacts. We have intermarried. There it is. You must stop to\nsupper--and you and I must thresh these things out. We've involved\nourselves with each other and we've got to make the best of it. Your\nwife and mine will spread the board, and we will go on talking. Why\nnot sit in that chair instead of leaning on the back? This is a\nhome--_domus_--not a debating society--humble in spite of my manifest\nfrauds.... That's better. And in the first place I hope--I do so\nhope\"--Chaffery was suddenly very impressive--\"that you're not a\nDissenter.\"\n\n\"Eh!\" said Lewisham, and then, \"No! I am _not_ a Dissenter.\"\n\n\"That's better,\" said Mr. Chaffery. \"I'm glad of that. I was just a\nlittle afraid--Something in your manner. I can't stand Dissenters.\nI've a peculiar dislike to Dissenters. To my mind it's the great\ndrawback of this Clapham. You see ... I have invariably found them\ndeceitful--invariably.\"\n\nHe grimaced and dropped his glasses with a click against his waistcoat\nbuttons. \"I'm very glad of that,\" he said, replacing them. \"The\nDissenter, the Nonconformist Conscience, the Puritan, you know, the\nVegetarian and Total Abstainer, and all that sort of thing, I cannot\naway with them. I have cleared my mind of cant and formulae. I've a\nnature essentially Hellenic. Have you ever read Matthew Arnold?\"\n\n\"Beyond my scientific reading--\"\n\n\"Ah! you _should_ read Matthew Arnold--a mind of singular clarity. In\nhim you would find a certain quality that is sometimes a little\nwanting in your scientific men. They are apt to be a little too\nphenomenal, you know, a little too objective. Now I seek after\nnoumena. Noumena, Mr. Lewisham! If you follow me--?\"\n\nHe paused, and his eyes behind the glasses were mildly\ninterrogative. Ethel re-entered without her hat and jacket, and with a\nnoisy square black tray, a white cloth, some plates and knives and\nglasses, and began to lay the table.\n\n\"_I_ follow you,\" said Lewisham, reddening. He had not the courage to\nadmit ignorance of this remarkable word. \"You state your case.\"\n\n\"I seek after _noumena_,\" repeated Chaffery with great satisfaction,\nand gesticulated with his hand, waving away everything but that. \"I\ncannot do with surfaces and appearances. I am one of those\nnympholepts, you know, nympholepts ... Must pursue the truth of\nthings! the elusive fundamental ... I make a rule, I never tell myself\nlies--never. There are few who can say that. To my mind--truth begins\nat home. And for the most part--stops there. Safest and seemliest!\n_you_ know. With most men--with your typical Dissenter _par\nexcellence_--it's always gadding abroad, calling on the neighbours.\nYou see my point of view?\"\n\nHe glanced at Lewisham, who was conscious of an unwonted opacity of\nmind. He became wary, as wary as he could manage to be on the spur of\nthe moment.\n\n\"It's a little surprising, you know,\" he said very carefully, \"if I\nmay say so--and considering what happened--to hear _you_ ...\"\n\n\"Speaking of truth? Not when you understand my position. Not when you\nsee where I stand. That is what I am getting at. That is what I am\nnaturally anxious to make clear to you now that we have intermarried,\nnow that you are my stepson-in-law. You're young, you know, you're\nyoung, and you're hard and fast. Only years can give a mind\n_tone_--mitigate the varnish of education. I gather from this\nletter--and your face--that you are one of the party that participated\nin that little affair at Lagune's.\"\n\nHe stuck out a finger at a point he had just seen. \"By-the-bye!--That\naccounts for Ethel,\" he said.\n\nEthel rapped down the mustard on the table. \"It does,\" she said, but\nnot very loudly.\n\n\"But you had met before?\" said Chaffery.\n\n\"At Whortley,\" said Lewisham.\n\n\"I see,\" said Chaffery.\n\n\"I was in--I was one of those who arranged the exposure,\" said\nLewisham. \"And now you have raised the matter, I am bound to say--\"\n\n\"I knew,\" interrupted Chaffery. \"But what a shock that was for\nLagune!\" He looked down at his toes for a moment with the corners of\nhis mouth tucked in. \"The hand dodge wasn't bad, you know,\" he said,\nwith a queer sidelong smile.\n\nLewisham was very busy for a moment trying to get this remark in\nfocus. \"I don't see it in the same light as you do,\" he explained at\nlast.\n\n\"Can't get away from your moral bias, eh?--Well, well. We'll go into\nall that. But apart from its moral merits--simply as an artistic\ntrick--it was not bad.\"\n\n\"I don't know much about tricks--\"\n\n\"So few who undertake exposures do. You admit you never heard or\nthought of that before--the bladder, I mean. Yet it's as obvious as\ntintacks that a medium who's hampered at his hands will do all he can\nwith his teeth, and what _could_ be so self-evident as a bladder under\none's lappel? What could be? Yet I know psychic literature pretty\nwell, and it's never been suggested even! Never. It's a perpetual\nsurprise to me how many things are _not_ thought of by investigators.\nFor one thing, they never count the odds against them, and that puts\nthem wrong at the start. Look at it! I am by nature tricky. I spend\nall my leisure standing or sitting about and thinking up or practising\nnew little tricks, because it amuses me immensely to do so. The whole\nthing amuses me. Well--what is the result of these meditations? Take\none thing:--I know eight-and-forty ways of making raps--of which at\nleast ten are original. Ten original ways of making raps.\" His manner\nwas very impressive. \"And some of them simply tremendous raps. There!\"\n\nA confirmatory rap exploded--as it seemed between Lewisham and\nChaffery.\n\n\"_Eh?_\" said Chaffery.\n\nThe mantelpiece opened a dropping fire, and the table went off under\nLewisham's nose like a cracker.\n\n\"You see?\" said Chaffery, putting his hands under the tail of his\ncoat. The whole room seemed snapping its fingers at Lewisham for a\nspace.\n\n\"Very well, and now take the other side. Take the severest test I ever\ntried. Two respectable professors of physics--not Newtons, you\nunderstand, but good, worthy, self-important professors of physics--a\nlady anxious to prove there's a life beyond the grave, a journalist\nwho wants stuff to write--a person, that is, who gets his living by\nthese researches just as I do--undertook to test me. Test _me_!... Of\ncourse they had their other work to do, professing physics, professing\nreligion, organising research, and so forth. At the outside they don't\nthink an hour a day about it, and most of them had never cheated\nanybody in their existence, and couldn't, for example, travel without\na ticket for a three-mile journey and not get caught, to save their\nlives.... Well--you see the odds?\"\n\nHe paused. Lewisham appeared involved in some interior struggle.\n\n\"You know,\" explained Chaffery, \"it was quite an accident you got\nme--quite. The thing slipped out of my mouth. Or your friend with, the\nflat voice wouldn't have had a chance. Not a chance.\"\n\nLewisham spoke like a man who is lifting a weight. \"All _this_, you\nknow, is off the question. I'm not disputing your ability. But the\nthing is ... it isn't right.\"\n\n\"We're coming to that,\" said Chaffery.\n\n\"It's evident we look at things in a different light.\"\n\n\"That's it. That's just what we've got to discuss. Exactly!\"\n\n\"Cheating is cheating. You can't get away from that. That's simple\nenough.\"\n\n\"Wait till I've done with it,\" said Chaffery with a certain zest. \"Of\ncourse it's imperative you should understand my position. It isn't as\nthough I hadn't one. Ever since I read your letter I've been thinking\nover that. Really!--a justification! In a way you might almost say I\nhad a mission. A sort of prophet. You really don't see the beginning\nof it yet.\"\n\n\"Oh, but hang it!\" protested Lewisham.\n\n\"Ah! you're young, you're crude. My dear young man, you're only at the\nbeginning of things. You really must concede a certain possibility of\nwider views to a man more than twice your age. But here's supper. For\na little while at any rate we'll call a truce.\"\n\nEthel had come in again bearing an additional chair, and Mrs. Chaffery\nappeared behind her, crowning the preparations with a jug of small\nbeer. The cloth, Lewisham observed, as he turned towards it, had\nseveral undarned holes and discoloured places, and in the centre stood\na tarnished cruet which contained mustard, pepper, vinegar, and three\nambiguous dried-up bottles. The bread was on an ample board with a\npious rim, and an honest wedge of cheese loomed disproportionate on a\nlittle plate. Mr. and Mrs. Lewisham were seated facing one another,\nand Mrs. Chaffery sat in the broken chair because she understood its\nways.\n\n\"This cheese is as nutritious and unattractive and indigestible as\nScience,\" remarked Chaffery, cutting and passing wedges. \"But crush\nit--so--under your fork, add a little of this good Dorset butter, a\ndab of mustard, pepper--the pepper is very necessary--and some malt\nvinegar, and crush together. You get a compound called Crab and by no\nmeans disagreeable. So the wise deal with the facts of life, neither\nbolting nor rejecting, but adapting.\"\n\n\"As though pepper and mustard were not facts,\" said Lewisham, scoring\nhis solitary point that evening.\n\nChaffery admitted the collapse of his image in very complimentary\nterms, and Lewisham could not avoid a glance across the table at\nEthel. He remembered that Chaffery was a slippery scoundrel whose\nblame was better than his praise, immediately afterwards.\n\nFor a time the Crab engaged Chaffery, and the conversation\nlanguished. Mrs. Chaffery asked Ethel formal questions about their\nlodgings, and Ethel's answers were buoyant, \"You must come and have\ntea one day,\" said Ethel, not waiting for Lewisham's endorsement, \"and\nsee it all.\"\n\nChaffery astonished Lewisham by suddenly displaying a complete\nacquaintance with his status as a South Kensington teacher in\ntraining. \"I suppose you have some money beyond that guinea,\" said\nChaffery offhandedly.\n\n\"Enough to go on with,\" said Lewisham, reddening.\n\n\"And you look to them at South Kensington, to do something for you--a\nhundred a year or so, when your scholarship is up?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Lewisham a little reluctantly. \"Yes. A hundred a year or\nso. That's the sort of idea. And there's lots of places beyond South\nKensington, of course, even if they don't put me up there.\"\n\n\"I see,\" said Chaffery; \"but it will be a pretty close shave for all\nthat--one hundred a year. Well, well--there's many a deserving man has\nto do with less,\" and after a meditative pause he asked Lewisham to\npass the beer.\n\n\"Hev you a mother living, Mr. Lewisham?\" said Mrs. Chaffery suddenly,\nand pursued him through the tale of his connexions. When he came to\nthe plumber, Mrs. Chaffery remarked with an unexpected air of\nconsequence that most families have their poor relations. Then the\nair of consequence vanished again into the past from which it had\narisen.\n\nSupper finished, Chaffery poured the residuum of the beer into his\nglass, produced a Broseley clay of the longest sort, and invited\nLewisham to smoke. \"Honest smoking,\" said Chaffery, tapping the bowl\nof his clay, and added: \"In this country--cigars--sound cigars--and\nhonesty rarely meet.\"\n\nLewisham fumbled in his pocket for his Algerian cigarettes, and\nChaffery having regarded them unfavourably through his glasses, took\nup the thread of his promised apologia. The ladies retired to wash up\nthe supper things.\n\n\"You see,\" said Chaffery, opening abruptly so soon as the clay was\ndrawing, \"about this cheating--I do not find life such a simple matter\nas you do.\"\n\n\"_I_ don't find life simple,\" said Lewisham, \"but I do think there's a\nRight and a Wrong in things. And I don't think you have said anything\nso far to show that spiritualistic cheating is Right.\"\n\n\"Let us thresh the matter out,\" said Chaffery, crossing his legs; \"let\nus thresh the matter out. Now\"--he drew at his pipe--\"I don't think\nyou fully appreciate the importance of Illusion in life, the Essential\nNature of Lies and Deception of the body politic. You are inclined to\ndiscredit one particular form of Imposture, because it is not\ngenerally admitted--carries a certain discredit, and--witness the heel\nedges of my trouser legs, witness yonder viands--small rewards.\"\n\n\"It's not that,\" said Lewisham.\n\n\"Now I am prepared to maintain,\" said Chaffery, proceeding with his\nproposition, \"that Honesty is essentially an anarchistic and\ndisintegrating force in society, that communities are held together\nand the progress of civilisation made possible only by vigorous and\nsometimes even, violent Lying; that the Social Contract is nothing\nmore or less than a vast conspiracy of human beings to lie to and\nhumbug themselves and one another for the general Good. Lies are the\nmortar that bind the savage Individual man into the social\nmasonry. There is the general thesis upon which I base my\njustification. My mediumship, I can assure you, is a particular\ninstance of the general assertion. Were I not of a profoundly\nindolent, restless, adventurous nature, and horribly averse to\nwriting, I would make a great book of this and live honoured by every\nprofound duffer in the world.\"\n\n\"But how are _you_ going to prove it?\"\n\n\"Prove It! It simply needs pointing out. Even now there are\nmen--Bernard Shaw, Ibsen, and such like--who have seen bits of it in a\nnew-gospel-grubbing sort of fashion. What Is man? Lust and greed\ntempered by fear and an irrational vanity.\"\n\n\"I don't agree with that,\" said Mr. Lewisham.\n\n\"You will as you grow older,\" said Chaffery. \"There's truths you have\nto grow into. But about this matter of Lies--let us look at the fabric\nof society, let us compare the savage. You will discover the only\nessential difference between savage and civilised is this: The former\nhasn't learnt to shirk the truth of things, and the latter has. Take\nthe most obvious difference--the clothing of the civilised man, his\ninvention of decency. What _is_ clothing? The concealment of essential\nfacts. What is decorum? Suppression! I don't argue against decency and\ndecorum, mind you, but there they are--essentials to civilisation and\nessentially '_suppressio veri_.' And in the pockets of his clothes our\ncitizen carries money. The pure savage has no money. To him a lump of\nmetal is a lump of metal--possibly ornamental--no more. That's\nright. To any lucid-minded man it's the same or different only through\nthe gross folly of his fellows. But to the common civilised man the\nuniversal exchangeability of this gold is a sacred and fundamental\nfact. Think of it! Why should it be? There isn't a why! I live in\nperpetual amazement at the gullibility of my fellow-creatures. Of a\nmorning sometimes, I can assure you, I lie in bed fancying that people\nmay have found out this swindle in the night, expect to hear a tumult\ndownstairs and see your mother-in-law come rushing into the room with\na rejected shilling from the milkman. 'What's this?' says he. 'This\nMuck for milk?' But it never happens. Never. If it did, if people\nsuddenly cleared their minds of this cant of money, what would happen?\nThe true nature of man would appear. I should whip out of bed, seize\nsome weapon, and after the milkman forthwith. It's becoming to keep\nthe peace, but it's necessary to have milk. The neighbours would come\npouring out--also after milk. Milkman, suddenly enlightened, would\nstart clattering up the street. After him! Clutch--tear! Got him!\nOver goes the cart! Fight if you like, but don't upset the\ncan!... Don't you see it all?--perfectly reasonable every bit of it. I\nshould return, bruised and bloody, with the milk-can under my arm.\nYes, _I_ should have the milk-can--I should keep my eye on\nthat.... But why go on? You of all men should know that life is a\nstruggle for existence, a fight for food. Money is just the lie that\nmitigates our fury.\"\n\n\"No,\" said Lewisham; \"no! I'm not prepared to admit that.\"\n\n\"What _is_ money?\"\n\nMr. Lewisham dodged. \"You state your case first,\" he said. \"I really\ndon't see what all this has to do with cheating at a _séance_.\"\n\n\"I weave my defence from this loom, though. Take some aggressively\nrespectable sort of man--a bishop, for example.\"\n\n\"Well,\" said Lewisham, \"I don't much hold with bishops.\"\n\n\"It doesn't matter. Take a professor of science, walking the\nearth. Remark his clothing, making a decent citizen out of him,\nconcealing the fact that physically he is a flabby, pot-bellied\ndegenerate. That is the first Lie of his being. No fringes round _his_\ntrousers, my boy. Notice his hair, groomed and clipped, the tacit lie\nthat its average length is half an inch, whereas in nature he would\nwave a few score yard-long hairs of ginger grey to the winds of\nheaven. Notice the smug suppressions of his face. In his mouth are\nLies in the shape of false teeth. Then on the earth somewhere poor\ndevils are toiling to get him meat and corn and wine. He is clothed in\nthe lives of bent and thwarted weavers, his Way is lit by phossy jaw,\nhe eats from lead-glazed crockery--all his ways are paved with the\nlives of men.... Think of the chubby, comfortable creature! And, as\nSwift has it--to think that such a thing should deal in pride!... He\npretends that his blessed little researches are in some way a fair\nreturn to these remote beings for their toil, their suffering;\npretends that he and his parasitic career are payment for their\nthwarted desires. Imagine him bullying his gardener over some\ntransplanted geraniums, the thick mist of lies they stand in, so that\nthe man does not immediately with the edge of a spade smite down his\nimpertinence to the dust from which it rose.... And his case is the\ncase of all comfortable lives. What a lie and sham all civility is,\nall good breeding, all culture and refinement, while one poor ragged\nwretch drags hungry on the earth!\"\n\n\"But this is Socialism!\" said Lewisham. \"_I_--\"\n\n\"No Ism,\" said Chaffery, raising his rich voice. \"Only the ghastly\ntruth of things--the truth that the warp and the woof of the world of\nmen is Lying. Socialism is no remedy, no _ism_ is a remedy; things\nare so.\"\n\n\"I don't agree--\" began Lewisham.\n\n\"Not with the hopelessness, because you are young, but with the\ndescription you do.\"\n\n\"Well--within limits.\"\n\n\"You agree that most respectable positions in the world are tainted\nwith the fraud of our social conditions. If they were not tainted\nwith fraud they would not be respectable. Even your own position--Who\ngave you the right to marry and prosecute interesting scientific\nstudies while other young men rot in mines?\"\n\n\"I admit--\"\n\n\"You can't help admitting. And here is my position. Since all ways of\nlife are tainted with fraud, since to live and speak the truth is\nbeyond human strength and courage--as one finds it--is it not better\nfor a man that he engage in some straightforward comparatively harmless\ncheating, than if he risk his mental integrity in some ambiguous\nposition and fall at last into self-deception and self-righteousness?\nThat is the essential danger. That is the thing I always guard\nagainst. Heed that! It is the master sin.  Self-righteousness.\"\n\nMr. Lewisham pulled at his moustache.\n\n\"You begin to take me. And after all, these worthy people do not\nsuffer so greatly. If I did not take their money some other impostor\nwould. Their huge conceit of intelligence would breed perhaps some\nviler swindle than my facetious rappings. That's the line our doubting\nbishops take, and why shouldn't I? For example, these people might\ngive it to Public Charities, minister to the fattened secretary, the\nprodigal younger son. After all, at worst, I am a sort of latter-day\nRobin Hood; I take from the rich according to their incomes. I don't\ngive to the poor certainly, I don't get enough. But--there are other\ngood works. Many a poor weakling have I comforted with Lies, great\nthumping, silly Lies, about the grave! Compare me with one of those\nrascals who disseminate phossy jaw and lead poisons, compare me with a\nmillionaire who runs a music hall with an eye to feminine talent, or\nan underwriter, or the common stockbroker. Or any sort of lawyer....\n\n\"There are bishops,\" said Chaffery, \"who believe in Darwin and doubt\nMoses. Now, I hold myself better than they--analogous perhaps, but\nbetter--for I do at least invent something of the tricks I play--I do\ndo that.\"\n\n\"That's all very well,\" began Lewisham.\n\n\"I might forgive them their dishonesty,\" said Chaffery, \"but the\nstupidity of it, the mental self-abnegation--Lord! If a solicitor\ndoesn't swindle in the proper shabby-magnificent way, they chuck him\nfor unprofessional conduct.\" He paused. He became meditative, and\nsmiled faintly.\n\n\"Now, some of _my_ dodges,\" he said with a sudden change of voice,\nturning towards Lewisham, his eyes smiling over his glasses and an\nemphatic hand patting the table-cloth; \"some of _my_ dodges are\n_damned_ ingenious, you know--_damned_ ingenious--and well worth\ndouble the money they bring me--double.\"\n\nHe turned towards the fire again, pulling at his smouldering pipe, and\neyeing Lewisham over the corner of his glasses.\n\n\"One or two of my little things would make Maskelyne sit up,\" he said\npresently. \"They would set that mechanical orchestra playing out of\npure astonishment. I really must explain some of them to you--now we\nhave intermarried.\"\n\nIt took Mr. Lewisham a minute or so to re-form the regiment of his\nmind, disordered by its headlong pursuit of Chaffery's flying\narguments. \"But on your principles you might do almost anything!\" he\nsaid.\n\n\"Precisely!\" said Chaffery.\n\n\"But--\"\n\n\"It is rather a curious method,\" protested Chaffery; \"to test one's\nprinciples of action by judging the resultant actions on some other\nprinciple, isn't it?\"\n\nLewisham took a moment to think. \"I suppose that is so,\" he said, in\nthe manner of a man convinced against his will.\n\nHe perceived his logic insufficient. He suddenly thrust the delicacies\nof argument aside. Certain sentences he had brought ready for use in\nhis mind came up and he delivered them abruptly. \"Anyhow,\" he said, \"I\ndon't agree with this cheating. In spite of what you say, I hold to\nwhat I said in my letter. Ethel's connexion with all these things is\nat an end. I shan't go out of my way to expose you, of course, but if\nit comes in my way I shall speak my mind of all these spiritualistic\nphenomena. It's just as well that we should know clearly where we\nare.\"\n\n\"That is clearly understood, my dear stepson-in-law,\" said\nChaffery. \"Our present object is discussion.\"\n\n\"But Ethel--\"\n\n\"Ethel is yours,\" said Chaffery. \"Ethel is yours,\" he repeated after\nan interval and added pensively--\"to keep.\"\n\n\"But talking of Illusion,\" he resumed, dismissing the sordid with a\nsign of relief, \"I sometimes think with Bishop Berkeley, that all\nexperience is probably something quite different from reality. That\nconsciousness is _essentially_ hallucination. I, here, and you, and\nour talk--it is all Illusion. Bring your Science to bear--what am I? A\ncloudy multitude of atoms, an infinite interplay of little cells. Is\nthis hand that I hold out me? This head? Is the surface of my skin any\nmore than a rude average boundary? You say it is my mind that is me?\nBut consider the war of motives. Suppose I have an impulse that I\nresist--it is _I_ resist it--the impulse is outside me, eh? But\nsuppose that impulse carries me and I do the thing--that impulse is\npart of me, is it not? Ah! My brain reels at these mysteries! Lord!\nwhat flimsy fluctuating things we are--first this, then that, a\nthought, an impulse, a deed and a forgetting, and all the time madly\ncocksure we are ourselves. And as for you--you who have hardly learned\nto think for more than five or six short years, there you sit,\nassured, coherent, there you sit in all your inherited original\nsin--Hallucinatory Windlestraw!--judging and condemning. _You_ know\nRight from Wrong! My boy, so did Adam and Eve ... _so soon as they'd\nhad dealings with the father of lies_!\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nAt the end of the evening whisky and hot water were produced, and\nChaffery, now in a mood of great urbanity, said he had rarely enjoyed\nanyone's conversation so much as Lewisham's, and insisted upon\neveryone having whisky. Mrs. Chaffery and Ethel added sugar and\nlemon. Lewisham felt an instantaneous mild surprise at the sight of\nEthel drinking grog.\n\nAt the door Mrs. Chaffery kissed Lewisham an effusive good-bye, and\ntold Ethel she really believed it was all for the best.\n\nOn the way home Lewisham was thoughtful and preoccupied. The problem\nof Chaffery assumed enormous proportions. At times indeed even that\ngood man's own philosophical sketch of himself as a practical exponent\nof mental sincerity touched with humour and the artistic spirit,\nseemed plausible. Lagune was an undeniable ass, and conceivably\npsychic research was an incentive to trickery. Then he remembered the\nmatter in his relation to Ethel....\n\n\"Your stepfather is a little hard to follow,\" he said at last, sitting\non the bed and taking off one boot. \"He's dodgy--he's so confoundedly\ndodgy. One doesn't know where to take hold of him. He's got such a\nbreak he's clean bowled me again and again.\"\n\nHe thought for a space, and then removed his boot and sat with it on\nhis knee. \"Of course!... all that he said was wrong--quite\nwrong. Right is right and cheating is cheating, whatever you say about\nit.\"\n\n\"That's what I feel about him,\" said Ethel at the looking-glass.\n\"That's exactly how it seems to me.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXIV.\n\nTHE CAMPAIGN OPENS.\n\n\nOn Saturday Lewisham was first through the folding doors. In a moment\nhe reappeared with a document extended. Mrs. Lewisham stood arrested\nwith her dress skirt in her hand, astonished at the astonishment on\nhis face. \"_I_ say!\" said Lewisham; \"just look here!\"\n\nShe looked at the book that he held open before her, and perceived\nthat its vertical ruling betokened a sordid import, that its list of\nitems in an illegible mixture of English and German was lengthy. \"1\nkettle of coals 6d.\" occurred regularly down that portentous array and\nbuttoned it all together. It was Madam Gadow's first bill. Ethel took\nit out of his hand and examined it closer. It looked no smaller\ncloser. The overcharges were scandalous. It was curious how the humour\nof calling a scuttle \"kettle\" had evaporated.\n\nThat document, I take it, was the end of Mr. Lewisham's informal\nhoneymoon. Its advent was the snap of that bright Prince Rupert's\ndrop; and in a moment--Dust. For a glorious week he had lived in the\npersuasion that life was made of love and mystery, and now he was\nreminded with singular clearness that it was begotten of a struggle\nfor existence and the Will to Live. \"Confounded imposition!\" fumed\nMr. Lewisham, and the breakfast table was novel and ominous,\nmutterings towards anger on the one hand and a certain consternation\non the other. \"I must give her a talking to this afternoon,\" said\nLewisham at his watch, and after he had bundled his books into the\nshiny black bag, he gave the first of his kisses that was not a\ndistinct and self-subsisting ceremony. It was usage and done in a\nhurry, and the door slammed as he went his way to the schools. Ethel\nwas not coming that morning, because by special request and because\nshe wanted to help him she was going to copy out some of his botanical\nnotes which had fallen into arrears.\n\nOn his way to the schools Lewisham felt something suspiciously near a\nsinking of the heart. His preoccupation was essentially\narithmetical. The thing that engaged his mind to the exclusion of all\nother matters is best expressed in the recognised business form.\n\nDr.             £  s. d.     Cr.                     £  s. d\n       Mr. L.{ 13 10  4-1/2  By bus fares to South\nCash in hand {                Kensington (late)      0  0  2\n      Mrs. L.{  0 11  7      By six lunches at the\n                               Students' Club        0  5  2-1/2\nAt  bank       45  0  0      By two packets of cig-\nTo scholarship  1  1  0        arettes (to smoke\n                               after dinner)         0  0  6\n                             By marriage and elope-\n                               ment                  4 18 10\n                             By necessary subse-\n                               quent additions to\n                               bride's trousseau     0 16  1\n                             By housekeeping  exs.   1  1  4-1/2\n                             By \"A few little\n                              things\" bought by\n                              housekeeper            0 15  3-1/2\n                             By Madam Gadow for\n                               coal, lodging and\n                               attendance (as per\n                               account rendered)     1 15  0\n                             By missing              0  0  4\n                             By balance             50  3  2\n              -------------                        -------------\n              £60  3 11-1/2                        £60  3 11-1/2\n              -------------                        -------------\n\nFrom this it will be manifest to the most unbusiness like that,\ndisregarding the extraordinary expenditure on the marriage, and the by\nno means final \"few little things\" Ethel had bought, outgoings\nexceeded income by two pounds and more, and a brief excursion into\narithmetic will demonstrate that in five-and-twenty weeks the balance\nof the account would be nothing.\n\nBut that guinea a week was not to go on for five-and-twenty weeks, but\nsimply for fifteen, and then the net outgoings will be well over three\nguineas, reducing the \"law\" accorded our young couple to\ntwo-and-twenty weeks. These details are tiresome and disagreeable, no\ndoubt, to the refined reader, but just imagine how much more\ndisagreeable they were to Mr. Lewisham, trudging meditative to the\nschools. You will understand his slipping out of the laboratory, and\nbetaking himself to the Educational Reading-room, and how it was that\nthe observant Smithers, grinding his lecture notes against the now\nimminent second examination for the \"Forbes,\" was presently perplexed\nto the centre of his being by the spectacle of Lewisham intent upon a\npile of current periodicals, the _Educational Times_, the _Journal of\nEducation_, the _Schoolmaster, Science and Art, The University\nCorrespondent, Nature, The Athenaeum, The Academy_, and _The Author_.\n\nSmithers remarked the appearance of a note-book, the jotting down of\nmemoranda. He edged into the bay nearest Lewisham's table and\napproached him suddenly from the flank. \"What are _you_ after?\" said\nSmithers in a noisy whisper and with a detective eye on the papers. He\nperceived Lewisham was scrutinising the advertisement column, and his\nperplexity increased.\n\n\"Oh--nothing,\" said Lewisham blandly, with his hand falling casually\nover his memoranda; \"what's your particular little game?\"\n\n\"Nothing much,\" said Smithers, \"just mooching round. You weren't at\nthe meeting last Friday?\"\n\nHe turned a chair, knelt on it, and began whispering over the back\nabout Debating Society politics. Lewisham was inattentive and\nbrief. What had he to do with these puerilities? At last Smithers went\naway foiled, and met Parkson by the entrance. Parkson, by-the-bye, had\nnot spoken to Lewisham since their painful misunderstanding. He made a\nwide detour to his seat at the end table, and so, and by a singular\nrectitude of bearing and a dignified expression, showed himself aware\nof Lewisham's offensive presence.\n\nLewisham's investigations were two-fold. He wanted to discover some\nway of adding materially to that weekly guinea by his own exertions,\nand he wanted to learn the conditions of the market for typewriting.\nFor himself he had a vague idea, an idea subsequently abandoned, that\nit was possible to get teaching work in evening classes during the\nmonth of March. But, except by reason of sudden death, no evening\nclass in London changes its staff after September until July comes\nround again. Private tuition, moreover, offered many attractions to\nhim, but no definite proposals. His ideas of his own possibilities\nwere youthful or he would not have spent time in noting the conditions\nof application for a vacant professorship in physics at the Melbourne\nUniversity. He also made a note of the vacant editorship of a monthly\nmagazine devoted to social questions. He would not have minded doing\nthat sort of thing at all, though the proprietor might. There was\nalso a vacant curatorship in the Museum of Eton College.\n\nThe typewriting business was less varied and more definite. Those were\nthe days before the violent competition of the half-educated had\nbrought things down to an impossible tenpence the thousand words, and\nthe prevailing price was as high as one-and-six. Calculating that\nEthel could do a thousand words in an hour and that she could work\nfive or six hours in the day, it was evident that her contributions to\nthe household expenses would be by no means despicable; thirty\nshillings a week perhaps. Lewisham was naturally elated at this\ndiscovery. He could find no advertisements of authors or others\nseeking typewriting, but he saw that a great number of typewriters\nadvertised themselves in the literary papers. It was evident Ethel\nalso must advertise. \"'Scientific phraseology a speciality' might be\nput,\" meditated Lewisham. He returned to his lodgings in a hopeful\nmood with quite a bundle of memoranda of possible employments. He\nspent five shillings in stamps on the way.\n\nAfter lunch, Lewisham--a little short of breath-asked to see Madam\nGadow. She came up in the most affable frame of mind; nothing could be\nfurther from the normal indignation of the British landlady. She was\nvery voluble, gesticulatory and lucid, but unhappily bi-lingual, and\nat all the crucial points German. Mr. Lewisham's natural politeness\nrestrained him from too close a pursuit across the boundary of the two\nimperial tongues. Quite half an hour's amicable discussion led at last\nto a reduction of sixpence, and all parties professed themselves\nsatisfied with this result.\n\nMadam Gadow was quite cool even at the end. Mr. Lewisham was flushed\nin the face, red-eared, and his hair slightly disordered, but that\nsixpence was at any rate an admission of the justice of his\nclaim. \"She was evidently trying it on,\" he said almost apologetically\nto Ethel. \"It was absolutely necessary to present a firm front to\nher. I doubt if we shall have any trouble again....\n\n\"Of course what she says about kitchen coals is perfectly just.\"\n\nThen the young couple went for a walk in Kensington Gardens, and--the\nspring afternoon was so warm and pleasant--sat on two attractive green\nchairs near the band-stand, for which Lewisham had subsequently to pay\ntwopence. They had what Ethel called a \"serious talk.\" She was really\nwonderfully sensible, and discussed the situation exhaustively. She\nwas particularly insistent upon the importance of economy in her\ndomestic disbursements and deplored her general ignorance very\nearnestly. It was decided that Lewisham should get a good elementary\ntext-book of domestic economy for her private study. At home\nMrs. Chaffery guided her house by the oracular items of \"Inquire\nWithin upon Everything,\" but Lewisham considered that work\nunscientific.\n\nEthel was also of opinion that much might be learnt from the sixpenny\nladies' papers--the penny ones had hardly begun in those days. She had\nbought such publications during seasons of affluence, but chiefly, as\nshe now deplored, with an eye to the trimming of hats and such like\nvanities. The sooner the typewriter came the better. It occurred to\nLewisham with unpleasant suddenness that he had not allowed for the\npurchase of a typewriter in his estimate of their resources. It\nbrought their \"law\" down to twelve or thirteen weeks.\n\nThey spent the evening in writing and copying a number of letters,\naddressing envelopes and enclosing stamps. There were optimistic\nmoments.\n\n\"Melbourne's a fine city,\" said Lewisham, \"and we should have a\nglorious voyage out.\" He read the application for the Melbourne\nprofessorship out loud to her, just to see how it read, and she was\ngreatly impressed by the list of his accomplishments and successes.\n\n\"I did not, know you knew _half_ those things,\" she said, and became\ndepressed at her relative illiteracy. It was natural, after such\nencouragement, to write to the scholastic agents in a tone of assured\nconsequence.\n\nThe advertisement for typewriting in the _Athenaeum_ troubled his\nconscience a little. After he had copied out his draft with its\n\"Scientific phraseology a speciality,\" fine and large, he saw the\nnotes she had written out for him. Her handwriting was still round and\nboyish, even as it had appeared in the Whortley avenue, but her\npunctuation was confined to the erratic comma and the dash, and there\nwas a disposition to spell the imperfectly legible along the line of\nleast resistance. However, he dismissed that matter with a resolve to\nread over and correct anything in that way that she might have sent\nher to do. It would not be a bad idea, he thought parenthetically, if\nhe himself read up some sound authority on the punctuation of\nsentences.\n\nThey sat at this business quite late, heedless of the examination in\nbotany that came on the morrow. It was very bright and cosy in their\nlittle room with their fire burning, the gas lit and the curtains\ndrawn, and the number of applications they had written made them\nhopeful. She was flushed and enthusiastic, now flitting about the\nroom, now coming close to him and leaning over him to see what he had\ndone. At Lewisham's request she got him the envelopes from the chest\nof drawers. \"You _are_ a help to a chap,\" said Lewisham, leaning back\nfrom the table, \"I feel I could do anything for a girl like\nyou--anything.\"\n\n\"_Really!_\" she cried, \"Really! Am I really a help?\"\n\nLewisham's face and gesture, were all assent. She gave a little cry of\ndelight, stood for a moment, and then by way of practical\ndemonstration of her unflinching helpfulness, hurried round the table\ntowards him with arms extended, \"You dear!\" she cried.\n\nLewisham, partially embraced, pushed his chair back with his\ndisengaged arm, so that she might sit on his knee....\n\nWho could doubt that she was a help?\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXV.\n\nTHE FIRST BATTLE.\n\n\nLewisham's inquiries for evening teaching and private tuition were\nessentially provisional measures. His proposals for a more permanent\nestablishment displayed a certain defect in his sense of\nproportion. That Melbourne professorship, for example, was beyond his\nmerits, and there were aspects of things that would have affected the\nwelcome of himself and his wife at Eton College. At the outset he was\ninclined to regard the South Kensington scholar as the intellectual\nsalt of the earth, to overrate the abundance of \"decent things\"\nyielding from one hundred and fifty to three hundred a year, and to\ndisregard the competition of such inferior enterprises as the\nuniversities of Oxford, Cambridge, and the literate North. But the\nscholastic agents to whom he went on the following Saturday did much\nin a quiet way to disabuse his mind.\n\nMr. Blendershin's chief assistant in the grimy little office in Oxford\nStreet cleared up the matter so vigorously that Lewisham was angered.\n\"Headmaster of an endowed school, perhaps!\" said Mr. Blendershin's\nchief assistant \"Lord!--why not a bishopric? I say,\"--as\nMr. Blendershin entered smoking an assertive cigar--\"one-and-twenty,\n_no_ degree, _no_ games, two years' experience as junior--wants a\nheadmastership of an endowed school!\" He spoke so loudly that it was\ninevitable the selection of clients in the waiting-room should hear,\nand he pointed with his pen.\n\n\"Look here!\" said Lewisham hotly; \"if I knew the ways of the market I\nshouldn't come to you.\"\n\nMr. Blendershin stared at Lewisham for a moment. \"What's he done in\nthe way of certificates?\" asked Mr. Blendershin of the assistant.\n\nThe assistant read a list of 'ologies and 'ographies. \"Fifty\nresident,\" said Mr. Blendershin concisely--\"that's _your_\nfigure. Sixty, if you're lucky.\"\n\n\"_What_?\" said Mr. Lewisham.\n\n\"Not enough for you?\"\n\n\"Not nearly.\"\n\n\"You can get a Cambridge graduate for eighty resident--and grateful,\"\nsaid Mr. Blendershin.\n\n\"But I don't want a resident post,\" said Lewisham.\n\n\"Precious few non-resident shops,\" said Mr. Blendershin. \"Precious\nfew. They want you for dormitory supervision--and they're afraid of\nyour taking pups outside.\"\n\n\"Not married by any chance?\" said the assistant suddenly, after an\nattentive study of Lewisham's face.\n\n\"Well--er.\" Lewisham met Mr. Blendershin's eye. \"Yes,\" he said.\n\nThe assistant was briefly unprintable. \"Lord! you'll have to keep that\ndark,\" said Mr. Blendershin. \"But you have got a tough bit of hoeing\nbefore you. If I was you I'd go on and get my degree now you're so\nnear it. You'll stand a better chance.\"\n\nPause.\n\n\"The fact is,\" said Lewisham slowly and looking at his boot toes, \"I\nmust be doing _something_ while I am getting my degree.\"\n\nThe assistant, whistled softly.\n\n\"Might get you a visiting job, perhaps,\" said Mr. Blendershin\nspeculatively. \"Just read me those items again, Binks.\" He listened\nattentively. \"Objects to religious teaching!--Eh?\" He stopped the\nreading by a gesture, \"That's nonsense. You can't have everything, you\nknow. Scratch that out. You won't get a place in any middle-class\nschool in England if you object to religious teaching. It's the\nmothers--bless 'em! Say nothing about it. Don't believe--who does?\nThere's hundreds like you, you know--hundreds. Parsons--all sorts. Say\nnothing about it--\"\n\n\"But if I'm asked?\"\n\n\"Church of England. Every man in this country who has not dissented\nbelongs to the Church of England. It'll be hard enough to get you\nanything without that.\"\n\n\"But--\" said Mr. Lewisham. \"It's lying.\"\n\n\"Legal fiction,\" said Mr. Blendershin. \"Everyone understands. If you\ndon't do that, my dear chap, we can't do anything for you. It's\nJournalism, or London docks. Well, considering your experience,--say\ndocks.\"\n\nLewisham's face flushed irregularly. He did not answer. He scowled and\ntugged at the still by no means ample moustache.\n\n\"Compromise, you know,\" said Mr. Blendershin, watching him\nkindly. \"Compromise.\"\n\nFor the first time in his life Lewisham faced the necessity of telling\na lie in cold blood. He glissaded from, the austere altitudes of his\nself-respect, and his next words were already disingenuous.\n\n\"I won't promise to tell lies if I'm asked,\" he said aloud. \"I can't\ndo that.\"\n\n\"Scratch it out,\" said Blendershin to the clerk. \"You needn't mention\nit. Then you don't say you can teach drawing.\"\n\n\"I can't,\" said Lewisham.\n\n\"You just give out the copies,\" said Blendershin, \"and take care they\ndon't see you draw, you know.\"\n\n\"But that's not teaching drawing--\"\n\n\"It's what's understood by it in _this_ country,\" said Blendershin.\n\"Don't you go corrupting your mind with pedagogueries. They're the\nruin of assistants. Put down drawing. Then there's shorthand--\"\n\n\"Here, I say!\" said Lewisham.\n\n\"There's shorthand, French, book-keeping, commercial geography, land\nmeasuring--\"\n\n\"But I can't teach any of those things!\"\n\n\"Look here,\" said Blendershin, and paused. \"Has your wife or you a\nprivate income?\"\n\n\"No,\" said Lewisham.\n\n\"Well?\"\n\nA pause of further moral descent, and a whack against an obstacle.\n\"But they will find me out,\" said Lewisham.\n\nBlendershin smiled. \"It's not so much ability as willingness to teach,\nyou know. And _they_ won't find you out. The sort of schoolmaster we\ndeal with can't find anything out. He can't teach any of these things\nhimself--and consequently he doesn't believe they _can_ be taught.\nTalk to him of pedagogics and he talks of practical experience. But he\nputs 'em on his prospectus, you know, and he wants 'em on his\ntime-table. Some of these subjects--There's commercial geography, for\ninstance. What _is_ commercial geography?\"\n\n\"Barilla,\" said the assistant, biting the end of his pen, and added\npensively, \"_and_ blethers.\"\n\n\"Fad,\" said Blendershin, \"Just fad. Newspapers talk rot about\ncommercial education, Duke of Devonshire catches on and talks\nditto--pretends he thought it himself--much _he_ cares--parents get\nhold of it--schoolmasters obliged to put something down, consequently\nassistants must. And that's the end of the matter!\"\n\n\"_All_ right,\" said Lewisham, catching his breath in a faint sob of\nshame, \"Stick 'em down. But mind--a non-resident place.\"\n\n\"Well,\" said Blendershin, \"your science may pull you through. But I\ntell you it's hard. Some grant-earning grammar school may want\nthat. And that's about all, I think. Make a note of the address....\"\n\nThe assistant made a noise, something between a whistle and the word\n\"Fee.\" Blendershin glanced at Lewisham and nodded doubtfully.\n\n\"Fee for booking,\" said the assistant; \"half a crown, postage--in\nadvance--half a crown.\"\n\nBut Lewisham remembered certain advice Dunkerley had given him in the\nold Whortley days. He hesitated. \"No,\" he said. \"I don't pay that. If\nyou get me anything there's the commission--if you don't--\"\n\n\"We lose,\" supplied the assistant.\n\n\"And you ought to,\" said Lewisham. \"It's a fair game.\"\n\n\"Living in London?\" asked Blendershin.\n\n\"Yes,\" said the clerk.\n\n\"That's all right,\" said Mr. Blendershin. \"We won't say anything about\nthe postage in that case. Of course it's the off season, and you\nmustn't expect anything at present very much. Sometimes there's a\nshift or so at Easter.... There's nothing more.... Afternoon. Anyone\nelse, Binks?\"\n\nMessrs. Maskelyne, Smith, and Thrums did a higher class of work than\nBlendershin, whose specialities were lower class private\nestablishments and the cheaper sort of endowed schools. Indeed, so\nsuperior were Maskelyne, Smith, and Thrums that they enraged Lewisham\nby refusing at first to put him on their books. He was interviewed\nbriefly by a young man dressed and speaking with offensive precision,\nwhose eye adhered rigidly to the waterproof collar throughout the\ninterview.\n\n\"Hardly our line,\" he said, and pushed Lewisham a form to fill\nup. \"Mostly upper class and good preparatory schools here, you know.\"\n\nAs Lewisham filled up the form with his multitudinous \"'ologies\" and\n\"'ographies,\" a youth of ducal appearance entered and greeted the\nprecise young man in a friendly way. Lewisham, bending down to write,\nperceived that this professional rival wore a very long frock coat,\npatent leather boots, and the most beautiful grey trousers. His\nconceptions of competition enlarged. The precise young man by a motion\nof his eyes directed the newcomer's attention to Lewisham's waterproof\ncollar, and was answered by raised eyebrows and a faint tightening of\nthe mouth. \"That bounder at Castleford has answered me,\" said the\nnew-comer in a fine rich voice. \"Is he any bally good?\"\n\nWhen the bounder at Castleford had been discussed Lewisham presented\nhis paper, and the precise young man with his eye still fixed on the\nwaterproof collar took the document in the manner of one who reaches\nacross a gulf. \"I doubt if we shall be able to do anything for you,\"\nhe said reassuringly. \"But an English mastership may chance to be\nvacant. Science doesn't count for much in _our_ sort of schools, you\nknow. Classics and good games--that's our sort of thing.\"\n\n\"I see,\" said Lewisham.\n\n\"Good games, good form, you know, and all that sort of thing.\"\n\n\"I see,\" said Lewisham.\n\n\"You don't happen to be a public-school boy?\" asked the precise young\nman.\n\n\"No,\" said Lewisham.\n\n\"Where were you educated?\"\n\nLewisham's face grew hot. \"Does that matter?\" he asked, with his eye\non the exquisite grey trousering.\n\n\"In our sort of school--decidedly. It's a question of tone, you know.\"\n\n\"I see,\" said Lewisham, beginning to realise new limitations. His\nimmediate impulse was to escape the eye of the nicely dressed\nassistant master. \"You'll write, I suppose, if you have anything,\" he\nsaid, and the precise young man responded with alacrity to his\ndoor-ward motion.\n\n\"Often get that kind of thing?\" asked the nicely dressed young man\nwhen Lewisham had departed.\n\n\"Rather. Not quite so bad as that, you know. That waterproof\ncollar--did you notice it? Ugh! And--'I see.' And the scowl and the\nclumsiness of it. Of course _he_ hasn't any decent clothes--he'd go\nto a new shop with one tin box! But that sort of thing--and board\nschool teachers--they're getting everywhere! Only the other\nday--Rowton was here.\"\n\n\"Not Rowton of Pinner?\"\n\n\"Yes, Rowton of Pinner. And he asked right out for a board\nschoolmaster. He said, 'I want someone who can teach arithmetic.'\"\n\nHe laughed. The nicely dressed young man meditated over the handle of\nhis cane. \"A bounder of that kind can't have a particularly nice\ntime,\" he said, \"anyhow. If he does get into a decent school, he must\nget tremendously cut by all the decent men.\"\n\n\"Too thick-skinned to mind that sort of thing, I fancy,\" said the\nscholastic agent. \"He's a new type. This South Kensington place and\nthe polytechnics an turning him out by the hundred....\"\n\nLewisham forgot his resentment at having to profess a religion he did\nnot believe, in this new discovery of the scholastic importance of\nclothing. He went along with an eye to all the shop windows that\nafforded a view of his person. Indisputably his trousers _were_\nungainly, flapping abominably over his boots and bagging terribly at\nthe knees, and his boots were not only worn and ugly but extremely ill\nblacked. His wrists projected offensively from his coat sleeves, he\nperceived a huge asymmetry in the collar of his jacket, his red tie\nwas askew and ill tied, and that waterproof collar! It was shiny,\nslightly discoloured, suddenly clammy to the neck. What if he did\nhappen to be well equipped for science teaching? That was nothing. He\nspeculated on the cost of a complete outfit. It would be difficult to\nget such grey trousers as those he had seen for less than sixteen\nshillings, and he reckoned a frock coat at forty shillings at\nleast--possibly even more. He knew good clothes were very\nexpensive. He hesitated at Poole's door and turned away. The thing was\nout of the question. He crossed Leicester Square and went down\nBedford Street, disliking every well-dressed person he met.\n\nMessrs. Danks and Wimborne inhabited a bank-like establishment near\nChancery Lane, and without any conversation presented him with forms\nto fill up. Religion? asked the form. Lewisham paused and wrote\n\"Church of England.\"\n\nThence he went to the College of Pedagogues in Holborn. The College of\nPedagogues presented itself as a long-bearded, corpulent, comfortable\nperson with a thin gold watch chain and fat hands. He wore gilt\nglasses and had a kindly confidential manner that did much to heal\nLewisham's wounded feelings. The 'ologies and 'ographies were taken\ndown with polite surprise at their number. \"You ought to take one of\nour diplomas,\" said the stout man. \"You would find no difficulty. No\ncompetition. And there are prizes--several prizes--in money.\"\n\nLewisham was not aware that the waterproof collar had found a\nsympathetic observer.\n\n\"We give courses of lectures, and have an examination in the theory\nand practice of education. It is the only examination in the theory\nand practice of education for men engaged in middle and upper class\nteaching in this country. Except the Teacher's Diploma. And so few\ncome--not two hundred a year. Mostly governesses. The men prefer to\nteach by rule of thumb, you know. English characteristic--rule of\nthumb. It doesn't do to say anything of course--but there's bound to\nbe--something happen--something a little disagreeable--somewhen if\nthings go on as they do. American schools keep on getting\nbetter--German too. What used to do won't do now. I tell this to you,\nyou know, but it doesn't do to tell everyone. It doesn't do. It\ndoesn't do to do anything. So much has to be considered. However\n... But you'd do well to get a diploma and make yourself\nefficient. Though that's looking ahead.\"\n\nHe spoke of looking ahead with an apologetic laugh as though it was an\namiable weakness of his. He turned from such abstruse matters and\nfurnished Lewisham with the particulars of the college diplomas, and\nproceeded to other possibilities. \"There's private tuition,\" he\nsaid. \"Would you mind a backward boy? Then we are occasionally asked\nfor visiting masters. Mostly by girls' schools. But that's for older\nmen--married men, you know.\"\n\n\"I am married,\" said Lewisham.\n\n\"_Eh_?\" said the College of Pedagogues, startled.\n\n\"I _am_ married,\" said Lewisham.\n\n\"Dear me,\" said the College of Pedagogues gravely, and regarding\nMr. Lewisham over gold-rimmed glasses. \"Dear me! And I am more than\ntwice your age, and I am not married at all. One-and-twenty! Have\nyou--have you been married long?\"\n\n\"A few weeks,\" said Lewisham.\n\n\"That's very remarkable,\" said the College of Pedagogues. \"Very\ninteresting.... _Really!_ Your wife must be a very courageous young\nperson.... Excuse me! You know--You will really have a hard fight for\na position. However--it certainly makes you eligible for girls'\nschools; it does do that. To a certain extent, that is.\"\n\nThe evidently enhanced respect of the College of Pedagogues pleased\nLewisham extremely. But his encounter with the Medical, Scholastic,\nand Clerical Agency that holds by Waterloo Bridge was depressing\nagain, and after that he set out to walk home. Long before he reached\nhome he was tired, and his simple pride in being married and in active\ngrapple with an unsympathetic world had passed. His surrender on the\nreligious question had left a rankling bitterness behind it; the\nproblem of the clothes was acutely painful. He was still far from a\nfirm grasp of the fact that his market price was under rather than\nover one hundred pounds a year, but that persuasion was gaining ground\nin his mind.\n\nThe day was a greyish one, with a dull cold wind, and a nail in one of\nhis boots took upon itself to be objectionable. Certain wild shots\nand disastrous lapses in his recent botanical examination, that he had\nmanaged to keep out of his mind hitherto, forced their way on his\nattention. For the first time since his marriage he harboured\npremonitions of failure.\n\nWhen he got in he wanted to sit down at once in the little creaky\nchair by the fire, but Ethel came flitting from the newly bought\ntypewriter with arms extended and prevented him. \"Oh!--it _has_ been\ndull,\" she said.\n\nHe missed the compliment. \"_I_ haven't had such a giddy time that you\nshould grumble,\" he said, in a tone that was novel to her. He\ndisengaged himself from her arms and sat down. He noticed the\nexpression of her face.\n\n\"I'm rather tired,\" he said by way of apology. \"And there's a\nconfounded nail I must hammer down in my boot. It's tiring work\nhunting up these agents, but of course it's better to go and see\nthem. How have you been getting on?\"\n\n\"All right,\" she said, regarding him. And then, \"You _are_ tired.\nWe'll have some tea. And--let me take off your boot for you, dear.\nYes--I will.\"\n\nShe rang the bell, bustled out of the room, called for tea at the\nstaircase, came back, pulled out Madam Gadow's ungainly hassock and\nbegan unlacing his boot. Lewisham's mood changed. \"You _are_ a trump,\nEthel,\" he said; \"I'm hanged if you're not.\" As the laces flicked he\nbent forward and kissed her ear. The unlacing was suspended and there\nwere reciprocal endearments....\n\nPresently he was sitting in his slippers, with a cup of tea in his\nhand, and Ethel, kneeling on the hearthrug with the firelight on her\nface, was telling him of an answer that had come that afternoon to her\nadvertisement in the _Athenaeum_.\n\n\"That's good,\" said Lewisham.\n\n\"It's a novelist,\" she said with the light of pride in her eyes, and\nhanded him the letter. \"Lucas Holderness, the author of 'The Furnace\nof Sin' and other stories.\"\n\n\"That's first rate,\" said Lewisham with just a touch of envy, and bent\nforward to read by the firelight.\n\nThe letter was from an address in Judd Street, Euston Road, written on\ngood paper and in a fair round hand such as one might imagine a\nnovelist using. \"Dear Madam,\" said the letter, \"I propose to send you,\nby registered letter, the MS. of a three-volume novel. It is about\n90,000 words--but you must count the exact number.\"\n\n\"How I shall count I don't know,\" said Ethel.\n\n\"I'll show you a way,\" said Lewisham. \"There's no difficulty in\nthat. You count the words on three or four pages, strike an average,\nand multiply.\"\n\n\"But, of course, before doing so I must have a satisfactory guarantee\nthat my confidence in putting my work in your hands will not be\nmisplaced and that your execution is of the necessary high quality.\"\n\n\"Oh!\" said Lewisham; \"that's a bother.\"\n\n\"Accordingly I must ask you for references.\"\n\n\"That's a downright nuisance,\" said Lewisham. \"I suppose that ass,\nLagune ... But what's this? 'Or, failing references, for a deposit\n...' That's reasonable, I suppose.\"\n\nIt was such a moderate deposit too--merely a guinea. Even had the\ndoubt been stronger, the aspect of helpful hopeful little Ethel eager\nfor work might well have thrust it aside. \"Sending him a cheque will\nshow him we have a banking account behind us,\" said Lewisham,--his\nbanking was still sufficiently recent for pride. \"We will send him a\ncheque. That'll settle _him_ all right.\"\n\nThat evening after the guinea cheque had been despatched, things were\nfurther brightened by the arrival of a letter of atrociously\njellygraphed advices from Messrs. Danks and Wimborne. They all\nreferred to resident vacancies for which Lewisham was manifestly\nunsuitable, nevertheless their arrival brought an encouraging\nassurance of things going on, of shifting and unstable places in the\ndefences of the beleaguered world. Afterwards, with occasional\nendearments for Ethel, he set himself to a revision of his last year's\nnote-books, for now the botany was finished, the advanced zoological\ncourse--the last lap, as it were, for the Forbes medal--was\nbeginning. She got her best hat from the next room to make certain\nchanges in the arrangement of its trimmings. She sat in the little\nchair, while Lewisham, with documents spread before him, sat at the\ntable.\n\nPresently she looked up from an experimental arrangement of her\ncornflowers, and discovered Lewisham, no longer reading, but staring\nblankly at the middle of the table-cloth, with an extraordinary misery\nin his eyes. She forgot the cornflowers and stared at him.\n\n\"Penny,\" she said after an interval.\n\nLewisham started and looked up. \"_Eh_?\"\n\n\"Why were you looking so miserable?\" she asked.\n\n\"_Was_ I looking miserable?\"\n\n\"Yes. And _cross_!\"\n\n\"I was thinking just then that I would like to boil a bishop or so in\noil.\"\n\n\"My dear!\"\n\n\"They know perfectly well the case against what they teach, they know\nit's neither madness nor wickedness nor any great harm, to others not\nto believe, they know perfectly well that a man may be as honest as\nthe day, and right--right and decent in every way--and not believe in\nwhat they teach. And they know that it only wants the edge off a man's\nhonour, for him to profess anything in the way of belief. Just\nanything. And they won't say so. I suppose they want the edge off\nevery man's honour. If a man is well off they will truckle to him no\nend, though he laughs at all their teaching. They'll take gold plate\nfrom company promoters and rent from insanitary houses. But if a man\nis poor and doesn't profess to believe in what some of them scarcely\nbelieve themselves, they wouldn't lift a finger to help him against\nthe ignorance of their followers. Your stepfather was right enough\nthere. They know what's going on. They know that it means lying and\nhumbug for any number of people, and they don't care. Why should\nthey? _They've_ got it down all right. They're spoilt, and why\nshouldn't we be?\"\n\nLewisham having selected the bishops as scapegoats for his turpitude,\nwas inclined to ascribe even the nail in his boot to their agency.\n\nMrs. Lewisham looked puzzled. She realised his drift.\n\n\"You're not,\" she said, and dropped her voice, \"an _infidel_?\"\n\nLewisham nodded gloomily. \"Aren't you?\" he said.\n\n\"Oh no,\" said Mrs. Lewisham.\n\n\"But you don't go to church, you don't--\"\n\n\"No, I don't,\" said Mrs. Lewisham; and then with more assurance, \"But\nI'm not an infidel.\"\n\n\"Christian?\"\n\n\"I suppose so.\"\n\n\"But a Christian--What do you believe?\"\n\n\"Oh! to tell the truth, and do right, and not hurt or injure people\nand all that.\"\n\n\"That's not a Christian. A Christian is one who believes.\"\n\n\"It's what _I_ mean by a Christian,\" said Mrs. Lewisham.\n\n\"Oh! at that rate anyone's a Christian,\" said Lewisham. \"We all think\nit's right to do right and wrong to do wrong.\"\n\n\"But we don't all do it,\" said Mrs. Lewisham, taking up the\ncornflowers again.\n\n\"No,\" said Lewisham, a little taken aback by the feminine method of\ndiscussion. \"We don't all do it--certainly.\" He stared at her for a\nmoment--her head was a little on one side and her eyes on the\ncornflower--and his mind was full of a strange discovery. He seemed on\nthe verge of speaking, and turned to his note-book again.\n\nVery soon the centre of the table-cloth resumed its sway.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe following day Mr. Lucas Holderness received his cheque for a\nguinea. Unhappily it was crossed. He meditated for some time, and then\ntook pen and ink and improved Lewisham's careless \"one\" to \"five\" and\ntouched up his unticked figure one to correspond.\n\nYou perceive him, a lank, cadaverous, good-looking man with long black\nhair and a semi-clerical costume of quite painful rustiness. He made\nthe emendations with grave carefulness. He took the cheque round to\nhis grocer. His grocer looked at it suspiciously.\n\n\"You pay it in,\" said Mr. Lucas Holderness, \"if you've any doubts\nabout it. Pay it in. _I_ don't know the man or what he is. He may be a\nswindler for all I can tell. _I_ can't answer for him. Pay it in and\nsee. Leave the change till then. I can wait. I'll call round in a few\ndays' time.\"\n\n\"All right, wasn't it?\" said Mr. Lucas Holderness in a casual tone two\ndays later.\n\n\"Quite, sir,\" said his grocer with enhanced respect, and handed him\nhis four pounds thirteen and sixpence change.\n\nMr. Lucas Holderness, who had been eyeing the grocer's stock with a\ncurious intensity, immediately became animated and bought a tin of\nsalmon. He went out of the shop with the rest of the money in his\nhand, for the pockets of his clothes were old and untrustworthy. At\nthe baker's he bought a new roll.\n\nHe bit a huge piece of the roll directly he was out of the shop, and\nwent on his way gnawing. It was so large a piece that his gnawing\nmouth was contorted into the ugliest shapes. He swallowed by an\neffort, stretching his neck each time. His eyes expressed an animal\nsatisfaction. He turned the corner of Judd Street biting again at the\nroll, and the reader of this story, like the Lewishams, hears of him\nno more.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXVI.\n\nTHE GLAMOUR FADES.\n\n\nAfter all, the rosy love-making and marrying and Epithalamy are no\nmore than the dawn of things, and to follow comes all the spacious\ninterval of white laborious light. Try as we may to stay those\ndelightful moments, they fade and pass remorselessly; there is no\nreturning, no recovering, only--for the foolish--the vilest peep-shows\nand imitations in dens and darkened rooms. We go on--we grow. At least\nwe age. Our young couple, emerging presently from an atmosphere of\ndusk and morning stars, found the sky gathering greyly overhead and\nsaw one another for the first time clearly in the light of every-day.\n\nIt might perhaps witness better to Lewisham's refinement if one could\ntell only of a moderated and dignified cooling, of pathetic little\nconcealments of disappointment and a decent maintenance of the\nsentimental atmosphere. And so at last daylight. But our young couple\nwere too crude for that. The first intimations of their lack of\nidentity have already been described, but it would be tedious and\npitiful to tell of all the little intensifications, shade by shade, of\nthe conflict of their individualities. They fell out, dear lady! they\ncame to conflict of words. The stress of perpetual worry was upon\nthem, of dwindling funds and the anxious search for work that would\nnot come. And on Ethel lay long, vacant, lonely hours in dull\nsurroundings. Differences arose from the most indifferent things; one\nnight Lewisham lay awake in unfathomable amazement because she had\nconvinced him she did not care a rap for the Welfare of Humanity, and\ndeemed his Socialism a fancy and an indiscretion. And one Sunday\nafternoon they started for a walk under the pleasantest auspices, and\nreturned flushed and angry, satire and retort flying free--on the\nscore of the social conventions in Ethel's novelettes. For some\ninexplicable reason Lewisham saw fit to hate her novelettes very\nbitterly. These encounters indeed were mere skirmishes for the most\npart, and the silences and embarrassments that followed ended sooner\nor later in a \"making up,\" tacit or definite, though once or twice\nthis making up only re-opened the healing wound. And always each\nskirmish left its scar, effaced from yet another line of their lives\nthe lingering tints of romantic colour.\n\nThere came no work, no added income for either of them, saving two\ntrifles, for five long months. Once Lewisham won twelve shillings in\nthe prize competition of a penny weekly, and three times came\ninfinitesimal portions of typewriting from a poet who had apparently\nseen the _Athenaeum_ advertisement. His name was Edwin Peak Baynes and\nhis handwriting was sprawling and unformed. He sent her several short\nlyrics on scraps of paper with instructions that he desired \"three\ncopies of each written beautifully in different styles\" and \"_not_\nfastened with metal fasteners but with silk thread of an appropriate\ncolour.\" Both of our young people were greatly exercised by these\ninstructions. One fragment was called \"Bird Song,\" one \"Cloud\nShadows,\" and one \"Eryngium,\" but Lewisham thought they might be\nspoken of collectively as Bosh. By way of payment, this poet sent, in\ncontravention of the postal regulations, half a sovereign stuck into a\ncard, asking her to keep the balance against future occasions. In a\nlittle while, greatly altered copies of these lyrics were returned by\nthe poet in person, with this enigmatical instruction written across\nthe cover of each: \"This style I like, only if possible more so.\"\n\nLewisham was out, but Ethel opened the door, so this indorsement was\nunnecessary, \"He's really only a boy,\" said Ethel, describing the\ninterview to Lewisham, who was curious. They both felt that the\nyouthfulness of Edwin Peak Baynes detracted something from the reality\nof this employment.\n\nFrom his marriage until the final examination in June, Lewisham's life\nhad an odd amphibious quality. At home were Ethel and the perpetual\naching pursuit of employment, the pelting irritations of Madam Gadow's\npersistent overcharges, and so forth, and amid such things he felt\nextraordinarily grown up; but intercalated with these experiences were\nthose intervals at Kensington, scraps of his adolescence, as it were,\nlying amidst the new matter of his manhood, intervals during which he\nwas simply an insubordinate and disappointing student with an\nincreasing disposition to gossip. At South Kensington he dwelt with\ntheories and ideals as a student should; at the little rooms in\nChelsea--they grew very stuffy as the summer came on, and the\naccumulation of the penny novelettes Ethel favoured made a\nlitter--there was his particular private concrete situation, and\nideals gave place to the real.\n\nIt was a strangely narrow world, he perceived dimly, in which his\nmanhood opened. The only visitors were the Chafferys. Chaffery would\ncome to share their supper, and won upon Lewisham in spite of his\nroguery by his incessantly entertaining monologue and by his expressed\nrespect for and envy of Lewisham's scientific attainments. Moreover,\nas time went on Lewisham found himself more and more in sympathy with\nChaffery's bitterness against those who order the world. It was good\nto hear him on bishops and that sort of people. He said what Lewisham\nwanted to say beautifully. Mrs. Chaffery was perpetually\nflitting--out of the house as Lewisham came home, a dim, black,\nnervous, untidy little figure. She came because Ethel, in spite of her\nexpressed belief that love was \"all in all,\" found married life a\nlittle dull and lonely while Lewisham was away. And she went hastily\nwhen he came, because of a certain irritability that the struggle\nagainst the world was developing. He told no one at Kensington about\nhis marriage, at first because it was such a delicious secret, and\nthen for quite other reasons. So there was no overlapping. The two\nworlds began and ended sharply at the wrought-iron gates. But the day\ncame when Lewisham passed those gates for the last time and his\nadolescence ended altogether.\n\nIn the final examination of the biological course, the examination\nthat signalised the end of his income of a weekly guinea, he knew well\nenough that he had done badly. The evening of the last day's practical\nwork found him belated, hot-headed, beaten, with ruffled hair and red\nears. He sat to the last moment doggedly struggling to keep cool and\nto mount the ciliated funnel of an earthworm's nephridium. But\nciliated funnels come not to those who have shirked the laboratory\npractice. He rose, surrendered his paper to the morose elderly young\nassistant demonstrator who had welcomed him so flatteringly eight\nmonths before, and walked down the laboratory to the door where the\nrest of his fellow-students clustered.\n\nSmithers was talking loudly about the \"twistiness\" of the\nidentification, and the youngster with the big ears was listening\nattentively.\n\n\"Here's Lewisham! How did _you_ get on, Lewisham?\" asked Smithers,\nnot concealing his assurance.\n\n\"Horribly,\" said Lewisham shortly, and pushed past.\n\n\"Did you spot D?\" clamoured Smithers.\n\nLewisham pretended not to hear.\n\nMiss Heydinger stood with her hat in her hand and looked at Lewisham's\nhot eyes. He was for walking past her, but something in her face\npenetrated even his disturbance. He stopped.\n\n\"Did you get out the nephridium?\" he said as graciously as he could.\n\nShe shook her head. \"Are you going downstairs?\" she asked.\n\n\"Rather,\" said Lewisham, with a vague intimation in his manner of the\noffence Smithers gave him.\n\nHe opened the glass door from the passage to the staircase. They went\ndown one tier of that square spiral in silence.\n\n\"Are you coming up again next year?\" asked Miss Heydinger.\n\n\"No,\" said Lewisham. \"No, I shall not come here again. Ever.\"\n\nPause. \"What will you do?\" she asked.\n\n\"I don't know. I have to get a living somehow. It's been bothering me\nall the session.\"\n\n\"I thought--\" She stopped. \"Will you go down to your uncle's again?\"\nshe said.\n\n\"No. I shall stop in London. It's no good going out of things into the\ncountry. And besides--I've quarrelled rather with my uncle.\"\n\n\"What do you think of doing?--teaching?\"\n\n\"I suppose it will be teaching, I'm not sure. Anything that turns up.\"\n\n\"I see,\" she said.\n\nThey went on down in silence for a time.\n\n\"I suppose you will come up again?\" he asked.\n\n\"I may try the botanical again--if they can find room. And, I was\nthinking--sometimes one hears of things. What is your address? So that\nif I heard of anything.\"\n\nLewisham stopped on the staircase and thought. \"Of course,\" he\nsaid. He made no effort to give her the address, and she demanded it\nagain at the foot of the stairs.\n\n\"That confounded nephridium--!\" he said. \"It has put everything out of\nmy head.\"\n\nThey exchanged addresses on leaflets torn from Miss Heydinger's little\nnote-book.\n\nShe waited at the Book in the hall while he signed his name. At the\niron gates of the Schools she said: \"I am going through Kensington\nGardens.\"\n\nHe was now feeling irritated about the addresses, and he would not see\nthe implicit invitation. \"I am going towards Chelsea.\"\n\nShe hesitated a moment, looking at him--puzzled. \"Good-bye, then,\"\nshe said.\n\n\"Good-bye,\" he answered, lifting his hat.\n\nHe crossed the Exhibition Road slowly with his packed glazed bag, now\nseamed with cracks, in his hand. He went thoughtfully down to the\ncorner of the Cromwell Road and turned along that to the right so that\nhe could see the red pile of the Science Schools rising fair, and\ntall across the gardens of the Natural History Museum. He looked back\ntowards it regretfully.\n\nHe was quite sure that he had failed in this last examination. He\nknew that any career as a scientific man was now closed to him for\never. And he remembered now how he had come along this very road to\nthat great building for the first time in his life, and all the hopes\nand resolves that had swelled within him as he had drawn near. That\ndream of incessant unswerving work! Where might he have reached if\nonly he had had singleness of purpose to realise that purpose?...\n\nAnd in these gardens it was that he and Smithers and Parkson had sat\non a seat hard by the fossil tree, and discoursed of Socialism\ntogether before the great paper was read....\n\n\"Yes,\" he said, speaking aloud to himself; \"yes--_that's_\nall over too. Everything's over.\"\n\nPresently the corner of the Natural History Museum came between him\nand his receding Alma Mater. He sighed and turned his face towards the\nstuffy little rooms at Chelsea, and the still unconquered world.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXVII.\n\nCONCERNING A QUARREL.\n\n\nIt was late in September that this particular quarrel occurred. Almost\nall the roseate tints seemed gone by this time, for the Lewishams had\nbeen married six months. Their financial affairs had changed from the\ncatastrophic to the sordid; Lewisham had found work. An army crammer\nnamed Captain Vigours wanted someone energetic for his mathematical\nduffers and to teach geometrical drawing and what he was pleased to\ncall \"Sandhurst Science.\" He paid no less than two shillings an hour\nfor his uncertain demands on Lewisham's time. Moreover, there was a\nclass in lower mathematics beginning at Walham Green where Lewisham\nwas to show his quality. Fifty shillings a week or more seemed\ncredible--more might be hoped for. It was now merely a case of tiding\nover the interval until Vigours paid. And meanwhile the freshness of\nEthel's blouses departed, and Lewisham refrained from the repair of\nhis boot which had cracked across the toe.\n\nThe beginning of the quarrel was trivial enough. But by the end they\ngot to generalities. Lewisham had begun the day in a bad temper and\nunder the cloud of an overnight passage of arms--and a little incident\nthat had nothing to do with their ostensible difference lent it a\nwarmth of emotion quite beyond its merits. As he emerged through the\nfolding doors he saw a letter lying among the sketchily laid breakfast\nthings, and Ethel's attitude suggested the recoil of a quick movement;\nthe letter suddenly dropped. Her eyes met his and she flushed. He sat\ndown and took the letter--a trifle awkwardly perhaps. It was from Miss\nHeydinger. He hesitated with it halfway to his pocket, then decided to\nopen it. It displayed an ample amount of reading, and he read. On the\nwhole he thought it rather a dull sort of letter, but he did not allow\nthis to appear. When it was read he put it carefully in his pocket.\n\nThat formally had nothing to do with the quarrel. The breakfast was\nalready over when the quarrel began. Lewisham's morning was vacant,\nand be proposed to occupy it in the revision of certain notes bearing\nupon \"Sandhurst Science.\" Unhappily the search for his note-book\nbrought him into collision with the accumulation of Ethel's\nnovelettes.\n\n\"These things are everywhere,\" he said after a gust of vehement\nhandling, \"I _wish_ you'd tidy them up sometimes.\"\n\n\"They were tidy enough till you began to throw them about,\" Ethel\npointed out.\n\n\"Confounded muck! it's only fit to be burnt,\" Lewisham remarked to the\nuniverse, and pitched one viciously into the corner.\n\n\"Well, you tried to write one, anyhow,\" said Ethel, recalling a\ncertain \"Mammoth\" packet of note-paper that had come on an evil end\nbefore Lewisham found his industrial level. This reminiscence always\nirritated him exceedingly.\n\n\"Eh?\" he said sharply.\n\n\"You tried to write one,\" repeated Ethel--a little unwillingly.\n\n\"You don't mean me to forget that.\"\n\n\"It's you reminded me.\"\n\nHe stared hostility for a space.\n\n\"Well, the things make a beastly litter anyhow; there isn't a tidy\ncorner anywhere in the room. There never is.\"\n\n\"That's just the sort of thing you always say.\"\n\n\"Well--_is_ there?\"\n\n\"Yes, there is.\"\n\n\"_Where_?\"\n\nEthel professed not to hear. But a devil had possession of Lewisham\nfor a time. \"It isn't as though you had anything else to do,\" he\nremarked, wounding dishonourably.\n\nEthel turned. \"If I _put_ those things away,\" she said with tremendous\nemphasis on the \"_put_,\" \"you'd only say I'd hidden them. What _is_\nthe good of trying to please you?\"\n\nThe spirit of perversity suggested to Lewisham, \"None apparently.\"\n\nEthel's cheeks glowed and her eyes were bright with unshed\ntears. Abruptly she abandoned the defensive and blurted out the thing\nthat had been latent so long between them. Her voice took a note of\npassion. \"Nothing I can do ever does please you, since that Miss\nHeydinger began to write to you.\"\n\nThere was a pause, a gap. Something like astonishment took them\nboth. Hitherto it had been a convention that she knew nothing of the\nexistence of Miss Heydinger. He saw a light. \"How did you know?\" he\nbegan, and perceived that line was impossible. He took the way of the\nnatural man; he ejaculated an \"Ugh!\" of vast disgust, he raised his\nvoice. \"You _are_ unreasonable!\" he cried in angry remonstrance.\n\"Fancy saying that! As though you ever tried to please me! Just as\nthough it wasn't all the other way about!\" He stopped--struck by a\nmomentary perception of injustice. He plunged at the point he had\nshirked, \"How did you know it _was_ Miss Heydinger--?\"\n\nEthel's voice took upon itself the quality of tears. \"I wasn't\n_meant_ to know, was I?\" she said.\n\n\"But how?\"\n\n\"I suppose you think it doesn't concern me? I suppose you think I'm\nmade of stone?\"\n\n\"You mean--you think--?\"\n\n\"Yes--I _do_.\"\n\nFor a brief interval Lewisham stared at the issue she had laid\nbare. He sought some crashing proposition, some line of convincing\nreasoning, with which to overwhelm and hide this new aspect of\nthings. It would not come. He found himself fenced in on every side. A\nsurging, irrational rage seized upon him.\n\n\"Jealousy!\" he cried. \"Jealousy! Just as though--Can't I have\nletters about things you don't understand--that you _won't_\nunderstand? If I asked you to read them you wouldn't--It's just\nbecause--\"\n\n\"You never give me a _chance_ to understand.\"\n\n\"Don't I?\"\n\n\"No!\"\n\n\"Why!--At first I was always trying. Socialism, religion--all those\nthings. But you don't care--you won't care. You won't have that I've\nthought over these things at all, that I care for these things! It\nwasn't any _good_ to argue. You just care for me in a way--and all the\nrest of me--doesn't matter! And because I've got a friend ...\"\n\n\"Friend!\"\n\n\"Yes--_friend!_\"\n\n\"Why!--you hide her letters!\"\n\n\"Because I tell you you wouldn't understand what they are about. But,\npah! I won't argue. I _won't!_ You're jealous, and there's the end of\nthe matter!\"\n\n\"Well, who _wouldn't_ be jealous?\"\n\nHe stared at her as if he found the question hard to see. The theme\nwas difficult--invincibly difficult. He surveyed the room for a\ndiversion. The note-book he had disinterred from her novelettes lay\nupon the table and reminded him of his grievance of rained hours. His\nrage exploded. He struck out abruptly towards fundamental things. He\ngesticulated forcibly. \"This can't go on!\" he cried, \"this can't go\non! How can I work? How can I do anything?\"\n\nHe made three steps and stood in a clear space.\n\n\"I won't _stand_, it--I won't go on at this!\nQuarrels--bickerings--discomfort. Look there! I meant to work this\nmorning. I meant to look up notes! Instead of which you start a\nquarrel--\"\n\nThe gross injustice raised Ethel's voice to an outcry. \"_I_ didn't\nstart the quarrel--\"\n\nThe only response to this was to shout, and Lewisham shouted. \"You\nstart a quarrel!\" he repeated. \"You make a shindy! You spring a\ndispute--jealousy!--on me! How can I do anything? How can one stop in\na house like this? I shall go out. Look here!--I shall go out. I shall\ngo to Kensington and work there!\"\n\nHe perceived himself wordless, and Ethel was about to speak. He glared\nabout him, seeking a prompt climax. Instant action was necessary. He\nperceived Huxley's _Vertebrata_ upon the side-table. He clutched it,\nswayed it through a momentous arc, hurled it violently into the empty\nfireplace.\n\nFor a second he seemed to be seeking some other missile. He perceived\nhis hat on the chest of drawers, seized it, and strode tragically from\nthe room.\n\nHe hesitated with the door half closed, then opened it wide and\nslammed it vehemently. Thereby the world was warned of the justice of\nhis rage, and so he passed with credit into the street.\n\nHe went striding heedless of his direction through the streets dotted\nwith intent people hurrying to work, and presently habit turned his\nfeet towards the Brompton Road. The eastward trend of the morning\ntraffic caught him. For a time, save for a rebellious ingredient of\nwonder at the back of his mind, he kept his anger white and pure. Why\nhad he married her? was the text to which he clung. Why in the name of\ndestiny had he married her? But anyhow he had said the decisive\nthing. He would not stand it! It must end. Things were intolerable and\nthey must end. He meditated devastating things that he might presently\nsay to her in pursuance of this resolution. He contemplated acts of\ncruelty. In such ways he would demonstrate clearly that he would not\nstand it. He was very careful to avoid inquiring what it was he would\nnot stand.\n\nHow in the name of destiny had he come to marry her? The quality of\nhis surroundings mingled in some way with the quality of his\nthoughts. The huge distended buildings of corrugated iron in which the\nArt Museum (of all places!) culminates, the truncated Oratory all\naskew to the street, seemed to have a similar quarrel with fate. How\nin the name of destiny? After such high prolusions!\n\nHe found that his thoughts had carried him past the lodge of the\nmuseum. He turned back irritably and went through the turnstile. He\nentered the museum and passed beneath the gallery of Old Iron on his\nway to the Education Library. The vacant array of tables, the bays of\nattendant books had a quality of refuge....\n\nSo much for Lewisham in the morning. Long before midday all the vigour\nof his wrath was gone, all his passionate conviction of Ethel's\nunworthiness. Over a pile of neglected geological works he presented a\nface of gloom. His memory presented a picture of himself as noisy,\noverbearing, and unfair. What on earth had it all been about?\n\nBy two o'clock he was on his way to Vigours', and his mood was acute\nremorse. Of the transition there can be no telling in words, for\nthoughts are more subtle than words and emotions infinitely\nvaguer. But one thing at least is definite, that a memory returned.\n\nIt drifted in to him, through the glass roof of the Library far\nabove. He did not perceive it as a memory at first, but as an\nirritating obstacle to attention. He struck the open pages of the book\nbefore him with his flat hand. \"Damn that infernal hurdy-gurdy!\"  he\nwhispered.\n\nPresently he made a fretful movement and put his hands over his ears.\n\nThen he thrust his books from him, got up, and wandered about the\nLibrary. The organ came to an abrupt end in the middle of a bar, and\nvanished in the circumambient silence of space.\n\nLewisham standing in a bay closed a book with a snap and returned to\nhis seat.\n\nPresently he found himself humming a languid tune, and thinking again\nof the quarrel that he had imagined banished from his mind. What in\nthe name of destiny had it all been about? He had a curious sense that\nsomething had got loose, was sliding about in his mind. And as if by\nway of answer emerged a vision of Whortley--a singularly vivid\nvision. It was moonlight and a hillside, the little town lay lit and\nwarm below, and the scene was set to music, a lugubriously sentimental\nair. For some reason this music had the quality of a barrel\norgan--though he knew that properly it came from a band--and it\nassociated with itself a mystical formula of words, drawing words:--\n\n    \"Sweet dreamland fa--ces, passing to and fro,\n    Bring back to mem'ry days of long ago--oh!\"\n\nThis air not only reproduced the picture with graphic vividness, but\nit trailed after it an enormous cloud of irrational emotion, emotion\nthat had but a moment before seemed gone for ever from his being.\n\nHe recalled it all! He had come down that hillside and Ethel had been\nwith him....\n\nHad he really felt like that about her?\n\n\"Pah!\" he said suddenly, and reverted to his books.\n\nBut the tune and the memory had won their footing, they were with him\nthrough his meagre lunch of milk and scones--he had resolved at the\noutset he would not go back to her for the midday meal--and on his way\nto Vigours' they insisted on attention. It may be that lunching on\nscone and milk does in itself make for milder ways of thinking. A\nsense of extraordinary contradiction, of infinite perplexity, came to\nhim.\n\n\"But then,\" he asked, \"how the devil did we get to _this_?\"\n\nWhich is indeed one of the fundamental questions of matrimony.\n\nThe morning tumults had given place to an almost scientific calm. Very\nsoon he was grappling manfully with the question. There was no\ndisputing it, they had quarrelled. Not once but several times lately\nthey had quarrelled. It was real quarrelling;--they had stood up\nagainst one another, striking, watching to strike, seeking to\nwound. He tried to recall just how things had gone--what he had said\nand what she had replied. He could not do it. He had forgotten\nphrases and connexions. It stood in his memory not as a sequence of\nevents but as a collection of disconnected static sayings; each saying\nblunt, permanent, inconsecutive like a graven inscription. And of the\nscene there came only one picture--Ethel with a burning face and her\neyes shining with tears.\n\nThe traffic of a cross street engaged him for a space. He emerged on\nthe further side full of the vivid contrast of their changed\nrelations. He made a last effort to indict her, to show that for the\ntransition she was entirely to blame. She had quarrelled with him, she\nhad quarrelled deliberately because she was jealous. She was jealous\nof Miss Heydinger because she was stupid. But now these accusations\nfaded like smoke as he put them forth. But the picture of two little\nfigures back there in the moonlit past did not fade. It was in the\nnarrows of Kensington High Street that he abandoned her\narraignment. It was beyond the Town Hall that he made the new\nstep. Was it, after all, just possible that in some degree he himself\nrather was the chief person to blame?\n\nIt was instantly as if he had been aware of that all the time.\n\nOnce he had made that step, he moved swiftly. Not a hundred paces\nbefore the struggle was over, and he had plunged headlong into the\nblue abyss of remorse. And all these things that had been so dramatic\nand forcible, all the vivid brutal things he had said, stood no longer\ngraven inscriptions but in letters of accusing flame. He tried to\nimagine he had not said them, that his memory played him a trick;\ntried to suppose he had said something similar perhaps, but much less\nforcible. He attempted with almost equal futility to minimise his own\nwounds. His endeavour served only to measure the magnitude of his\nfall.\n\nHe had recovered everything now, he saw it all. He recalled Ethel,\nsunlit in the avenue, Ethel, white in the moonlight before they parted\noutside the Frobisher house, Ethel as she would come out of Lagune's\nhouse greeting him for their nightly walk, Ethel new wedded, as she\ncame to him through the folding doors radiant in the splendour his\nemotions threw about her. And at last, Ethel angry, dishevelled and\ntear-stained in that ill-lit, untidy little room. All to the cadence\nof a hurdy-gurdy tune! From that to this! How had it been possible to\nget from such an opalescent dawning to such a dismal day? What was it\nhad gone? He and she were the same two persons who walked so brightly\nin his awakened memory; he and she who had lived so bitterly through\nthe last few weeks of misery!\n\nHis mood sank for a space to the quality of groaning. He implicated\nher now at most as his partner in their failure--\"What a mess we have\nmade of things!\" was his new motif. \"What a mess!\"\n\nHe knew love now for what it was, knew it for something more ancient\nand more imperative than reason. He knew now that he loved her, and\nhis recent rage, his hostility, his condemnation of her seemed to him\nthe reign of some exterior influence in his mind. He thought\nincredulously of the long decline in tenderness that had followed the\nfirst days of their delight in each other, the diminution of\nendearment, the first yielding to irritability, the evenings he had\nspent doggedly working, resisting all his sense of her presence. \"One\ncannot always be love-making,\" he had said, and so they were slipping\napart. Then in countless little things he had not been patient, he had\nnot been fair. He had wounded her by harshness, by unsympathetic\ncriticism, above all by his absurd secrecy about Miss Heydinger's\nletters. Why on earth had he kept those letters from her? as though\nthere was something to hide! What was there to hide? What possible\nantagonism could there be? Yet it was by such little things that\ntheir love was now like some once valued possession that had been in\nbrutal hands, it was scratched and chipped and tarnished, it was on\nits way to being altogether destroyed. Her manner had changed towards\nhim, a gulf was opening that he might never be able to close again.\n\n\"No, it _shall_ not be!\" he said, \"it shall not be!\"\n\nBut how to get back to the old footing? how to efface the things he\nhad said, the things that had been done?\n\nCould they get back?\n\nFor a moment he faced a new possibility. Suppose they could not get\nback! Suppose the mischief was done! Suppose that when he slammed the\ndoor behind him it locked, and was locked against him for ever!\n\n\"But we _must_!\" said Lewisham, \"we must!\"\n\nHe perceived clearly that this was no business of reasoned\napologies. He must begin again, he must get back to emotion, he must\nthrust back the overwhelming pressure of everyday stresses and\nnecessities that was crushing all the warmth and colour from their\nlives. But how? How?\n\nHe must make love to her again. But how to begin--how to mark the\nchange? There had been making-up before, sullen concessions and\ntreaties. But this was different. He tried to imagine something he\nmight say, some appeal that he might make. Everything he thought of\nwas cold and hard, or pitiful and undignified, or theatrical and\nfoolish. Suppose the door _was_ closed! If already it was too late!\nIn every direction he was confronted by the bristling memories of\nharsh things. He had a glimpse of how he must have changed in her\neyes, and things became intolerable for him. For now he was assured he\nloved her still with all his heart.\n\nAnd suddenly came a florist's window, and in the centre of it a\nglorious heap of roses.\n\nThey caught his eye before they caught his mind. He saw white roses,\nvirginal white, roses of cream and pink and crimson, the tints of\nflesh and pearl, rich, a mass of scented colour, visible odours, and\nin the midst of them a note of sullen red. It was as it were the very\ncolour of his emotion. He stopped abruptly. He turned back to the\nwindow and stared frankly. It was gorgeous, he saw, but why so\nparticularly did it appeal to him?\n\nThen he perceived as though it was altogether self-evident what he had\nto do. This was what he wanted. This was the note he had to\nstrike. Among other things because it would repudiate the accursed\nworship of pinching self-restraint that was one of the incessant\nstresses between them. They would come to her with a pure\nunexpectedness, they would flame upon her.\n\nThen, after the roses, he would return.\n\nSuddenly the grey trouble passed from his mind; he saw the world full\nof colour again. He saw the scene he desired bright and clear, saw\nEthel no longer bitter and weeping, but glad as once she had always\nseemed glad. His heart-beats quickened. It was giving had been needed,\nand he would give.\n\nSome weak voice of indiscreet discretion squeaked and vanished. He\nhad, he knew, a sovereign in his pocket. He went in.\n\nHe found himself in front of a formidable young lady in black, and\nunprepared with any formula. He had never bought flowers before. He\nlooked about him for an inspiration. He pointed at the roses. \"I want\nthose roses,\" he said....\n\nHe emerged again with only a few small silver coins remaining out of\nthe sovereign he had changed. The roses were to go to Ethel, properly\npacked; they were to be delivered according to his express direction\nat six o'clock.\n\n\"Six o'clock,\" Lewisham had reiterated very earnestly.\n\n\"We quite understand,\" the young lady in black had said, and had\npretended to be unable to conceal a smile. \"We're _quite_ accustomed\nto sending out flowers.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXVIII.\n\nTHE COMING OF THE ROSES.\n\n\nAnd the roses miscarried!\n\nWhen Lewisham returned from Vigours' it was already nearly seven. He\nentered the house with a beating heart. He had expected to find Ethel\nexcited, the roses displayed. But her face was white and jaded. He was\nso surprised by this that the greeting upon his lips died away. He was\nbalked! He went into, the sitting-room and there were no roses to be\nseen. Ethel came past him and stood with her back to him looking out\nof the window. The suspense was suddenly painful....\n\nHe was obliged to ask, though he was certain of the answer, \"Has\nnothing come?\"\n\nEthel looked at him. \"What did you think had come?\"\n\n\"Oh! nothing.\"\n\nShe looked out of the window again. \"No,\" she said slowly, \"nothing\nhas come.\"\n\nHe tried to think of something to say that might bridge the distance\nbetween them, but he could think of nothing. He must wait until the\nroses came. He took out his books and a gaunt hour passed to supper\ntime. Supper was a chilly ceremonial set with necessary over-polite\nremarks. Disappointment and exasperation darkened Lewisham's soul. He\nbegan to feel angry with everything--even with her--he perceived she\nstill judged him angry, and that made him angry with her. He was\nresuming his books and she was helping Madam Gadow's servant to clear\naway, when they heard a rapping at the street door. \"They have come at\nlast,\" he said to himself brightening, and hesitated whether he should\nbolt or witness her reception of them. The servant was a\nnuisance. Then he heard Chaffery's voices and whispered a soft \"damn!\"\nto himself.\n\nThe only thing to do now if the roses came was to slip out into the\npassage, intercept them, and carry them into the bedroom by the door\nbetween that and the passage. It would be undesirable for Chaffery to\nwitness that phase of sentiment. He might flash some dart of ridicule\nthat would stick in their memory for ever.\n\nLewisham tried to show that he did not want a visitor. But Chaffery\nwas in high spirits, and could have warmed a dozen cold welcomes. He\nsat down without any express invitation in the chair that he\npreferred.\n\nBefore Mr. and Mrs. Chaffery the Lewishams veiled whatever trouble\nmight be between them beneath an insincere cordiality, and Chaffery\nwas soon talking freely, unsuspicious of their crisis. He produced two\ncigars. \"I had a wild moment,\" he said. \"'For once,' said I, 'the\nhonest shall smoke the admirable--or the admirable shall smoke the\nhonest,' whichever you like best. Try one? No? Those austere\nprinciples of yours! There will be more pleasure then. But really, I\nwould as soon you smoked it as I. For to-night I radiate benevolence.\"\n\nHe cut the cigar with care, he lit it with ceremony, waiting until\nnothing but honest wood was burning on the match, and for fully a\nminute he was silent, evolving huge puffs of smoke. And then he spoke\nagain, punctuating his words by varied and beautiful spirals. \"So\nfar,\" he said, \"I have only trifled with knavery.\"\n\nAs Lewisham said nothing he resumed after a pause.\n\n\"There are three sorts of men in the world, my boy, three and no\nmore--and of women only one. There are happy men and there are knaves\nand fools. Hybrids I don't count. And to my mind knaves and fools are\nvery much alike.\"\n\nHe paused again.\n\n\"I suppose they are,\" said Lewisham flatly, and frowned at the\nfireplace.\n\nChaffery eyed him. \"I am talking wisdom. To-night I am talking a\nparticular brand of wisdom. I am broaching some of my oldest and\nfinest, because--as you will find one day--this is a special occasion.\nAnd you are distrait!\"\n\nLewisham looked up. \"Birthday?\" he said.\n\n\"You will see. But I was making golden observations about knaves and\nfools. I was early convinced of the absolute necessity of\nrighteousness if a man is to be happy. I know it as surely as there is\na sun in the heavens. Does that surprise you?\"\n\n\"Well, it hardly squares--\"\n\n\"No. I know. I will explain all that. But let me tell you the happy\nlife. Let me give you that, as if I lay on my deathbed and this was a\nparting gift. In the first place, mental integrity. Prove all things,\nhold fast to that which is right. Let the world have no illusions for\nyou, no surprises. Nature is full of cruel catastrophes, man is a\nphysically degenerate ape, every appetite, every instinct, needs the\ncurb; salvation is not in the nature of things, but whatever salvation\nthere may be is in the nature of man; face all these painful things. I\nhope you follow that?\"\n\n\"Go on,\" said Lewisham, with the debating-society taste for a thesis\nprevailing for a minute over that matter of the roses.\n\n\"In youth, exercise and learning; in adolescence, ambition; and in\nearly manhood, love--no footlight passion.\" Chaffery was very solemn\nand insistent, with a lean extended finger, upon this point.\n\n\"Then marriage, young and decent, and then children and stout honest\nwork for them, work too for the State in which they live; a life of\nself-devotion, indeed, and for sunset a decent pride--that is the\nhappy life. Rest assured that is the happy life; the life Natural\nSelection has been shaping for man since life began. So a man may go\nhappy from the cradle to the grave--at least--passably happy. And to\ndo this needs just three things--a sound body, a sound intelligence,\nand a sound will ... A sound will.\"\n\nChaffery paused on the repetition.\n\n\"No other happiness endures. And when all men are wise, all men will\nseek that life. Fame! Wealth! Art!--the Red Indians worship lunatics,\nand we are still by way of respecting the milder sorts. But I say that\nall men who do not lead that happy life are knaves and fools. The\nphysical cripple, you know, poor devil, I count a sort of bodily\nfool.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" weighed Lewisham, \"I suppose he is.\"\n\n\"Now a fool fails of happiness because of his insufficient mind, he\nmiscalculates, he stumbles and hobbles, some cant or claptrap whirls\nhim away; he gets passion out of a book and a wife out of the stews,\nor he quarrels on a petty score; threats frighten him, vanity beguiles\nhim, he fails by blindness. But the knave who is not a fool fails\nagainst the light. Many knaves are fools also--_most_ are--but some\nare not. I know--I am a knave but no fool. The essence of your knave\nis that he lacks the will, the motive capacity to seek his own greater\ngood. The knave abhors persistence. Strait is the way and narrow the\ngate; the knave cannot keep to it and the fool cannot find it.\"\n\nLewisham lost something of what Chaffery was saying by reason of a rap\noutside. He rose, but Ethel was before him. He concealed his anxiety\nas well as he could; and was relieved when he heard the front door\nclose again and her footsteps pass into the bedroom by the passage\ndoor. He reverted to Chaffery.\n\n\"Has it ever occurred to you,\" asked Chaffery, apparently apropos of\nnothing, \"that intellectual conviction is no motive at all? Any more\nthan a railway map will run a train a mile.\"\n\n\"Eh?\" said Lewisham. \"Map--run a train a mile--of course, yes. No, it\nwon't.\"\n\n\"That is precisely my case,\" said Chaffery. \"That is the case of\nyour pure knave everywhere. We are not fools--because we know. But\nyonder runs the highway, windy, hard, and austere, a sort of dry\nhappiness that will endure; and here is the pleasant by-way--lush,\nmy boy, lush, as the poets have it, and with its certain man-trap\namong the flowers ...\"\n\nEthel returned through the folding doors. She glanced at Lewisham,\nremained standing for awhile, sat down in the basket chair as if to\nresume some domestic needlework that lay upon the table, then rose and\nwent back into the bedroom.\n\nChaffery proceeded to expatiate on the transitory nature of passion\nand all glorious and acute experiences. Whole passages of that\ndiscourse Lewisham did not hear, so intent was he upon those\nroses. Why had Ethel gone back into the bedroom? Was it possible--?\nPresently she returned, but she sat down so that he could not see her\nface.\n\n\"If there is one thing to set against the wholesome life it is\nadventure,\" Chaffery was saying. \"But let every adventurer pray for an\nearly death, for with adventure come wounds, and with wounds come\nsickness, and--except in romances--sickness affects the nervous\nsystem. Your nerve goes. Where are you then, my boy?\"\n\n\"Ssh! what's that?\" said Lewisham.\n\nIt was a rap at the house door. Heedless of the flow of golden wisdom,\nhe went out at once and admitted a gentleman friend of Madam Gadow,\nwho passed along the passage and vanished down the staircase. When he\nreturned Chaffery was standing to go.\n\n\"I could have talked with you longer,\" he said, \"but you have\nsomething on your mind, I see. I will not worry you by guessing\nwhat. Some day you will remember ...\" He said no more, but laid his\nhand on Lewisham's shoulder.\n\nOne might almost fancy he was offended at something.\n\nAt any other time Lewisham might have been propitiatory, but now he\noffered no apology. Chaffery turned to Ethel and looked at her\ncuriously for a moment. \"Good-bye,\" he said, holding out his hand to\nher.\n\nOn the doorstep Chaffery regarded Lewisham with the same curious look,\nand seemed to weigh some remark. \"Good-bye,\" he said at last with\nsomething in his manner that kept Lewisham at the door for a moment\nlooking after his stepfather's receding figure. But immediately the\nroses were uppermost again.\n\nWhen he re-entered the living room he found Ethel sitting idly at her\ntypewriter, playing with the keys. She got up at his return and sat\ndown in the armchair with a novelette that hid her face. He stared at\nher, full of questions. After all, then, they had not come. He was\nintensely disappointed now, he was intensely angry with the ineffable\nyoung shop-woman in black. He looked at his watch and then again, he\ntook a book and pretended to read and found himself composing a\nscathing speech of remonstrance to be delivered on the morrow at the\nflower-shop. He put his book down, went to his black bag, opened and\nclosed it aimlessly. He glanced covertly at Ethel, and found her\nlooking covertly at him. He could not quite understand her expression.\n\nHe fidgeted into the bedroom and stopped as dead as a pointer.\n\nHe felt an extraordinary persuasion of the scent of roses. So strong\ndid it seem that he glanced outside the room door, expecting to find a\nbox there, mysteriously arrived. But there was no scent of roses in\nthe passage.\n\nThen he saw close by his foot an enigmatical pale object, and\nstooping, picked up the creamy petal of a rose. He stood with it in\nhis hand, perplexed beyond measure. He perceived a slight disorder of\nthe valence of the dressing-table and linked it with this petal by a\nswift intuition.\n\nHe made two steps, lifted the valence, and behold! there lay his\nroses crushed together!\n\nHe gasped like a man who plunges suddenly into cold water. He remained\nstooping with the valence raised.\n\nEthel appeared in the half doorway and her, expression was unfamiliar.\nHe stared at her white face.\n\n\"Why on earth did you put my roses here?\" he asked.\n\nShe stared back at him. Her face reflected his astonishment.\n\n\"Why did you put my roses here?\" he asked again.\n\n\"Your roses!\" she cried, \"What! Did _you_ send those roses?\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXIX.\n\nTHORNS AND ROSE PETALS.\n\n\nHe remained stooping and staring up at her, realising the implication\nof her words only very slowly.\n\nThen it grew clear to him.\n\nAs she saw understanding dawning in his face, she uttered a cry of\nconsternation. She came forward and sat down upon the little bedroom\nchair. She turned to him and began a sentence. \"I,\" she said, and\nstopped, with an impatient gesture of her hands. \"_Oh_!\"\n\nHe straightened himself and stood regarding her. The basket of roses\nlay overturned between them.\n\n\"You thought these came from someone else?\" he said, trying to grasp\nthis inversion of the universe.\n\nShe turned her eyes, \"I did not know,\" she panted. \"A trap.... Was it\nlikely--they came from you?\"\n\n\"You thought they came from someone else,\" he said.\n\n\"Yes,\" she said, \"I did.\"\n\n\"Who?\"\n\n\"Mr. Baynes.\"\n\n\"That boy!\"\n\n\"Yes--that boy.\"\n\n\"Well!\"\n\nLewisham looked about him--a man in the presence of the inconceivable.\n\n\"You mean to say you have been carrying on with that youngster behind\nmy back?\" he asked.\n\nShe opened her lips to speak and had no words to say.\n\nHis pallor increased until every tinge of colour had left his face. He\nlaughed and then set his teeth. Husband and wife looked at one\nanother.\n\n\"I never dreamt,\" he said in even tones.\n\nHe sat down on the bed, thrusting his feet among the scattered roses\nwith a sort of grim satisfaction. \"I never dreamt,\" he repeated, and\nthe flimsy basket kicked by his swinging foot hopped indignantly\nthrough the folding doors into the living room and left a trail of\nblood-red petals.\n\nThey sat for perhaps two minutes, and when he spoke again his voice\nwas hoarse. He reverted to a former formula. \"Look here,\" he said, and\ncleared his throat. \"I don't know whether you think I'm going to\nstand this, but I'm not.\"\n\nHe looked at her. She sat staring in front of her, making no attempt\nto cope with disaster.\n\n\"When I say I'm not going to stand it,\" explained Lewisham, \"I don't\nmean having a row or anything of that sort. One can quarrel and be\ndisappointed over--other things--and still go on. But this is a\ndifferent thing altogether.\n\n\"Of all dreams and illusions!... Think what I have lost in this\naccursed marriage. And _now_ ... You don't understand--you won't\nunderstand.\"\n\n\"Nor you,\" said Ethel, weeping but neither looking at him nor moving\nher hands from her lap where they lay helplessly. \"_You_ don't\nunderstand.\"\n\n\"I'm beginning to.\"\n\nHe sat in silence gathering force. \"In one year,\" he said, \"all my\nhopes, all my ambitions have gone. I know I have been cross and\nirritable--I know that. I've been pulled two ways. But ... I bought\nyou these roses.\"\n\nShe looked at the roses, and then at his white face, made an\nimperceptible movement towards him, and became impassive again.\n\n\"I do think one thing. I have found out you are shallow, you don't\nthink, you can't feel things that I think and feel. I have been\ngetting over that. But I did think you were loyal--\"\n\n\"I _am_ loyal,\" she cried.\n\n\"And you think--Bah!--you poke my roses under the table!\"\n\nAnother portentous silence. Ethel stirred and he turned his eyes to\nwatch what she was about to do. She produced her handkerchief and\nbegan to wipe her dry eyes rapidly, first one and then the other. Then\nshe began sobbing. \"I'm ... as loyal as you ... anyhow,\" she said.\n\nFor a moment Lewisham was aghast. Then he perceived he must ignore\nthat argument.\n\n\"I would have stood it--I would have stood anything if you had been\nloyal--if I could have been sure of you. I am a fool, I know, but I\nwould have stood the interruption of my work, the loss of any hope of\na Career, if I had been sure you were loyal. I ... I cared for you a\ngreat deal.\"\n\nHe stopped. He had suddenly perceived the pathetic. He took refuge in\nanger.\n\n\"And you have deceived me! How long, how much, I don't care. You have\ndeceived me. And I tell you\"--he began to gesticulate--\"I'm not so\nmuch your slave and fool as to stand that! No woman shall make me\n_that_ sort of fool, whatever else--So far as I am concerned, this\nends things. This ends things. We are married--but I don't care if we\nwere married five hundred times. I won't stop with a woman who takes\nflowers from another man--\"\n\n\"I _didn't_,\" said Ethel.\n\nLewisham gave way to a transport of anger. He caught up a handful of\nroses and extended them, trembling. \"What's _this_?\" he asked. His\nfinger bled from a thorn, as once it had bled from a blackthorn spray.\n\n\"I _didn't_ take them,\" said Ethel. \"I couldn't help it if they were\nsent.\"\n\n\"Ugh!\" said Lewisham. \"But what is the good of argument and denial?\nYou took them in, you had them. You may have been cunning, but you\nhave given yourself away. And our life and all this\"--he waved an\ninclusive hand at Madam Gadow's furniture--\"is at an end.\"\n\nHe looked at her and repeated with bitter satisfaction, \"At an end.\"\n\nShe glanced at his face, and his expression was remorseless. \"I will\nnot go on living with you,\" he said, lest there should be any\nmistake. \"Our life is at an end.\"\n\nHer eyes went from his face to the scattered roses. She remained\nstaring at these. She was no longer weeping, and her face, save about\nthe eyes, was white.\n\nHe presented it in another form. \"I shall go away.\"\n\n\"We never ought to have married,\" he reflected. \"But ... I never\nexpected _this_!\"\n\n\"I didn't know,\" she cried out, lifting up her voice. \"I _didn't_\nknow. How could _I_ help! _Oh_!\"\n\nShe stopped and stared at him with hands clenched, her eyes haggard\nwith despair.\n\nLewisham remained impenetrably malignant.\n\n\"I don't _want_ to know,\" he said, answering her dumb appeal. \"That\nsettles everything. _That_!\" He indicated the scattered flowers. \"What\ndoes it matter to me what has happened or hasn't happened? Anyhow--oh!\nI don't mind. I'm glad. See? It settles things.\n\n\"The sooner we part the better. I shan't stop with you another\nnight. I shall take my box and my portmanteau into that room and\npack. I shall stop in there to-night, sleep in a chair or _think_. And\nto-morrow I shall settle up with Madam Gadow and go. You can go back\n... to your cheating.\"\n\nHe stopped for some seconds. She was deadly still. \"You wanted to,\nand now you may. You wanted to, before I got work. You remember? You\nknow your place is still open at Lagune's. I don't care. I tell you I\ndon't care _that_. Not that! You may go your own way--and I shall go\nmine. See? And all this rot--this sham of living together when neither\ncares for the other--I don't care for you _now_, you know, so you\nneedn't think it--will be over and done with. As for marriage--I don't\ncare _that_ for marriage--it can't make a sham and a blunder anything\nbut a sham.\n\n\"It's a sham, and shams have to end, and that's the end of the\nmatter.\"\n\nHe stood up resolutely. He kicked the scattered roses out of his way\nand dived beneath the bed for his portmanteau. Ethel neither spoke\nnor moved, but remained watching his movements. For a time the\nportmanteau refused to emerge, and he marred his stern resolution by a\nhalf audible \"Come here--damn you!\" He swung it into the living room\nand returned for his box. He proposed to pack in that room.\n\nWhen he had taken all his personal possessions out of the bedroom, he\nclosed the folding-doors with an air of finality. He knew from the\nsounds that followed that she flung herself upon the bed, and that\nfilled him with grim satisfaction.\n\nHe stood listening for a space, then set about packing\nmethodically. The first rage of discovery had abated; he knew quite\nclearly that he was inflicting grievous punishment, and that gratified\nhim. There was also indeed a curious pleasure in the determination of\na long and painful period of vague misunderstanding by this unexpected\ncrisis. He was acutely conscious of the silence on the other side of\nthe folding-doors, he kept up a succession of deliberate little\nnoises, beat books together and brushed clothes, to intimate the\nresolute prosecution of his preparations.\n\nThat was about nine o'clock. At eleven he was still busy....\n\nDarkness came suddenly upon him. It was Madam Gadow's economical habit\nto turn off all her gas at that hour unless she chanced to be\nentertaining friends.\n\nHe felt in his pocket for matches and he had none. He whispered\ncurses. Against such emergencies he had bought a brass lamp and in the\nbedroom there were candles. Ethel had a candle alight, he could see\nthe bright yellow line that appeared between the folding doors. He\nfelt his way presently towards the mantel, receiving a blow in the\nribs from a chair on the way, and went carefully amidst Madam Gadow's\nonce amusing ornaments.\n\nThere were no matches on the mantel. Going to the chest of drawers he\nalmost fell over his open portmanteau. He had a silent ecstasy of\nrage. Then he kicked against the basket in which the roses had\ncome. He could find no matches on the chest of drawers.\n\nEthel must have the matches in the bedroom, but that was absolutely\nimpossible. He might even have to ask her for them, for at times she\npocketed matches.... There was nothing for it but to stop\npacking. Not a sound came from the other room.\n\nHe decided he would sit down in the armchair and go to sleep. He crept\nvery carefully to the chair and sat down. Another interval of\nlistening and he closed his eyes and composed himself for slumber.\n\nHe began to think over his plans for the morrow. He imagined the scene\nwith Madam Gadow, and then his departure to find bachelor lodgings\nonce more. He debated in what direction he should go to get, suitable\nlodgings. Possible difficulties with his luggage, possible annoyances\nof the search loomed gigantic. He felt greatly irritated at these\nminor difficulties. He wondered if Ethel also was packing. What\nparticularly would she do? He listened, but he could hear nothing.\nShe was very still. She was really very still! What could she be\ndoing? He forgot the bothers of the morrow in this new interest.\nPresently he rose very softly and listened. Then he sat down again\nimpatiently. He tried to dismiss his curiosity about the silence by\nrecapitulating the story of his wrongs.\n\nHe had some difficulty in fixing his mind upon this theme, but\npresently his memories were flowing freely. Only it was not wrongs\nnow that he could recall. He was pestered by an absurd idea that he\nhad again behaved unjustly to Ethel, that he had been headlong and\nmalignant. He made strenuous efforts to recover his first heat of\njealousy--in vain. Her remark that she had been as loyal as he, became\nan obstinate headline in his mind. Something arose within him that\ninsisted upon Ethel's possible fate if he should leave her. What\nparticularly would she do? He knew how much her character leant upon\nhis, Good Heavens! What might she not do?\n\nBy an effort he succeeded in fixing his mind on Baynes. That helped\nhim back to the harsher footing. However hard things might be for her\nshe deserved them. She deserved them!\n\nYet presently he slipped again, slipped back to the remorse and\nregrets of the morning time. He clutched at Baynes as a drowning man\nclutches at a rope, and recovered himself. For a time he meditated on\nBaynes. He had never seen the poet, so his imagination had scope. It\nappeared to him as an exasperating obstacle to a tragic avenging of\nhis honour that Baynes was a mere boy--possibly even younger than\nhimself.\n\nThe question, \"What will become of Ethel?\" rose to the surface\nagain. He struggled against its possibilities. No! That was not it!\nThat was her affair.\n\nHe felt inexorably kept to the path he had chosen, for all the waning\nof his rage. He had put his hand to the plough. \"If you condone this,\"\nhe told himself, \"you might condone anything. There are things one\n_must_ not stand.\" He tried to keep to that point of view--assuming\nfor the most part out of his imagination what it was he was not\nstanding. A dim sense came to him of how much he was assuming. At any\nrate she must have flirted!... He resisted this reviving perception of\njustice as though it was some unspeakably disgraceful craving. He\ntried to imagine her with Baynes.\n\nHe determined he would go to sleep.\n\nBut his was a waking weariness. He tried counting. He tried to\ndistract his thoughts from her by going over the atomic weights of the\nelements....\n\nHe shivered, and realised that he was cold and sitting cramped on an\nuncomfortable horsehair chair. He had dozed. He glanced for the yellow\nline between the folding doors. It was still there, but it seemed to\nquiver. He judged the candle must be flaring. He wondered why\neverything was so still.\n\nNow why should he suddenly feel afraid?\n\nHe sat for a long time trying to hear some movement, his head craning\nforward in the darkness.\n\nA grotesque idea came into his head that all that had happened a very\nlong time ago. He dismissed that. He contested an unreasonable\npersuasion that some irrevocable thing had passed. But why was\neverything so still?\n\nHe was invaded by a prevision of unendurable calamity.\n\nPresently he rose and crept very slowly, and with infinite precautions\nagainst noise, towards the folding doors. He stood listening with his\near near the yellow chink.\n\nHe could hear nothing, not even the measured breathing of a sleeper.\n\nHe perceived that the doors were not shut, but slightly ajar. He\npushed against the inner one very gently and opened it silently. Still\nthere was no sound of Ethel. He opened the door still wider and\npeered into the room. The candle had burnt down and was flaring in\nits socket. Ethel was lying half undressed upon the bed, and in her\nhand and close to her face was a rose.\n\nHe stood watching her, fearing to move. He listened hard and his face\nwas very white. Even now he could not hear her breathing.\n\nAfter all, it was probably all right. She was just asleep. He would\nslip back before she woke. If she found him--\n\nHe looked at her again. There was something in her face--\n\nHe came nearer, no longer heeding the sounds he made. He bent over\nher. Even now she did not seem to breathe.\n\nHe saw that her eyelashes were still wet, the pillow by her cheek was\nwet. Her white, tear-stained face hurt him....\n\nShe was intolerably pitiful to him. He forgot everything but that and\nhow he had wounded her that day. And then she stirred and murmured\nindistinctly a foolish name she had given him.\n\nHe forgot that they were going to part for ever. He felt nothing but a\ngreat joy that she could stir and speak. His jealousy flashed out of\nbeing. He dropped upon his knees.\n\n\"Dear,\" he whispered, \"Is it all right? I ... I could not hear you\nbreathing. I could not hear you breathing.\"\n\nShe started and was awake.\n\n\"I was in the other room,\" said Lewisham in a voice full of\nemotion. \"Everything was so quiet, I was afraid--I did not know what\nhad happened. Dear--Ethel dear. Is it all right?\"\n\nShe sat up quickly and scrutinised his face. \"Oh! let me tell you,\"\nshe wailed. \"Do let me tell you. It's nothing. It's nothing. You\nwouldn't hear me. You wouldn't hear me. It wasn't fair--before you had\nheard me....\"\n\nHis arms tightened about her. \"Dear,\" he said, \"I knew it was\nnothing. I knew. I knew.\"\n\nShe spoke in sobbing sentences. \"It was so simple. Mr. Baynes\n... something in his manner ... I knew he might be silly ... Only I\ndid so want to help you.\" She paused. Just for one instant she saw\none untenable indiscretion as it were in a lightning flash. A chance\nmeeting it was, a \"silly\" thing or so said, a panic, retreat. She\nwould have told it--had she known how. But she could not do it. She\nhesitated. She abolished it--untold. She went on: \"And then, I thought\nhe had sent the roses and I was frightened ... I was frightened.\"\n\n\"Dear one,\" said Lewisham. \"Dear one! I have been cruel to you. I have\nbeen unjust. I understand. I do understand. Forgive me.\nDearest--forgive me.\"\n\n\"I did so want to do something for you. It was all I could do--that\nlittle money. And then you were angry. I thought you didn't love me\nany more because I did not understand your work.... And that Miss\nHeydinger--Oh! it was hard.\"\n\n\"Dear one,\" said Lewisham, \"I do not care your little finger for Miss\nHeydinger.\"\n\n\"I know how I hamper you. But if you will help me. Oh! I would work, I\nwould study. I would do all I could to understand.\"\n\n\"Dear,\" whispered Lewisham. \"_Dear_\"\n\n\"And to have _her_--\"\n\n\"Dear,\" he vowed, \"I have been a brute. I will end all that. I will\nend all that.\"\n\nHe took her suddenly into his arms and kissed her.\n\n\"Oh, I _know_ I'm stupid,\" she said.\n\n\"You're not. It's I have been stupid. I have been unkind,\nunreasonable. All to-day--... I've been thinking about it. Dear! I\ndon't care for anything--It's _you_. If I have you nothing else\nmatters ... Only I get hurried and cross. It's the work and being\npoor. Dear one, we _must_ hold to each other. All to-day--It's been\ndreadful....\"\n\nHe stopped. They sat clinging to one another.\n\n\"I do love you,\" she said presently with her arms about him. \"Oh! I\ndo--_do_--love you.\"\n\nHe drew her closer to him.\n\nHe kissed her neck. She pressed him to her.\n\nTheir lips met.\n\nThe expiring candle streamed up into a tall flame, flickered, and was\nsuddenly extinguished. The air was heavy with the scent of roses.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXX.\n\nA WITHDRAWAL.\n\n\nOn Tuesday Lewisham returned from Vigours' at five--at half-past six\nhe would go on to his science class at Walham Green--and discovered\nMrs. Chaffery and Ethel in tears. He was fagged and rather anxious for\nsome tea, but the news they had for him drove tea out of his head\naltogether.\n\n\"He's gone,\" said Ethel.\n\n\"Who's gone? What! Not Chaffery?\"\n\nMrs. Chaffery, with a keen eye to Lewisham's behaviour, nodded\ntearfully over an experienced handkerchief.\n\nLewisham grasped the essentials of the situation forthwith, and\ntrembled on the brink of an expletive. Ethel handed him a letter.\n\nFor a moment Lewisham held this in his hand asking;\nquestions. Mrs. Chaffery had come upon it in the case of her eight-day\nclock when the time to wind it came round. Chaffery, it seemed, had\nnot been home since Saturday night. The letter was an open one\naddressed to Lewisham, a long rambling would-be clever letter, oddly\ninferior in style to Chaffery's conversation. It had been written some\nhours before Chaffery's last visit his talk then had been perhaps a\nsort of codicil.\n\n\"The inordinate stupidity of that man Lagune is driving me out of the\ncountry,\" Lewisham saw. \"It has been at last a definite stumbling\nblock--even a legal stumbling block. I fear. I am off. I skedaddle. I\nbreak ties. I shall miss our long refreshing chats--you had found me\nout and I could open my mind. I am sorry to part from Ethel also, but\nthank Heaven she has you to look to! And indeed they both have you to\nlook to, though the 'both' may be a new light to you.\"\n\nLewisham growled, went from page 1 to page 3--conscious of their both\nlooking to him now--even intensely--and discovered Chaffery in a\npractical vein.\n\n\"There is but little light, and portable property in that house in\nClapham that has escaped my lamentable improvidence, but there are one\nor two things--the iron-bound chest, the bureau with a broken hinge,\nand the large air pump--distinctly pawnable if only you can contrive\nto get them to a pawnshop. You have more Will power than I--I never\ncould get the confounded things downstairs. That iron-bound box was\noriginally mine, before I married your mother-in-law, so that I am not\naltogether regardless of your welfare and the necessity of giving some\nequivalent. Don't judge me too harshly.\"\n\nLewisham turned over sharply without finishing that page.\n\n\"My life at Clapham,\" continued the letter, \"has irked me for some\ntime, and to tell you the truth, the spectacle of your vigorous young\nhappiness--you are having a very good time, you know, fighting the\nworld--reminded me of the passing years. To be frank in\nself-criticism, there is more than a touch of the New Woman about me,\nand I feel I have still to live my own life. What a beautiful phrase\nthat is--to live one's own life!--redolent of honest scorn for moral\nplagiarism. No _Imitatio Christi_ in that ... I long to see more of\nmen and cities.... I begin late, I know, to live my own life, bald as\nI am and grey-whiskered; but better late than never. Why should the\neducated girl have the monopoly of the game? And after all, the\nwhiskers will dye....\n\n\"There are things--I touch upon them lightly--that will presently\nastonish Lagune.\" Lewisham became more attentive. \"I marvel at that\nman, grubbing hungry for marvels amidst the almost incredibly\nmarvellous. What can be the nature of a man who gapes after\nPoltergeists with the miracle of his own silly existence\n(inconsequent, reasonless, unfathomably weird) nearer to him than\nbreathing and closer than hands and feet. What is _he_ for, that he\nshould wonder at Poltergeists? I am astonished these by no means\nflimsy psychic phenomena do not turn upon their investigators, and\nthat a Research Society of eminent illusions and hallucinations does\nnot pursue Lagune with sceptical! inquiries. Take his house--expose\nthe alleged man of Chelsea! _A priori_ they might argue that a thing\nso vain, so unmeaning, so strongly beset by cackle, could only be the\ndiseased imagining of some hysterical phantom. Do _you_ believe that\nsuch a thing as Lagune exists? I must own to the gravest doubts. But\nhappily his banker is of a more credulous type than I.... Of all that\nLagune will tell you soon enough.\"\n\nLewisham read no more. \"I suppose he thought himself clever when he\nwrote that rot,\" said Lewisham bitterly, throwing the sheets forcibly\nathwart the table. \"The simple fact is, he's stolen, or forged, or\nsomething--and bolted.\"\n\nThere was a pause. \"What will become of Mother?\" said Ethel.\n\nLewisham looked at Mother and thought for a moment. Then he glanced\nat Ethel.\n\n\"We're all in the same boat,\" said Lewisham.\n\n\"I don't want to give any trouble to a single human being,\" said\nMrs. Chaffery.\n\n\"I think you might get a man his tea, Ethel,\" said Lewisham, sitting\ndown suddenly; \"anyhow.\" He drummed on the table with his fingers. \"I\nhave to get to Walham Green by a quarter to seven.\"\n\n\"We're all in the same boat,\" he repeated after an interval, and\ncontinued drumming. He was chiefly occupied by the curious fact that\nthey were all in the same boat. What an extraordinary faculty he had\nfor acquiring responsibility! He looked up suddenly and caught\nMrs. Chaffery's tearful eye directed to Ethel and full of distressful\ninterrogation, and his perplexity was suddenly changed to pity. \"It's\nall right, Mother,\" he said. \"I'm not going to be unreasonable. I'll\nstand by you.\"\n\n\"Ah!\" said Mrs. Chaffery. \"As if I didn't know!\" and Ethel came and\nkissed him.\n\nHe seemed in imminent danger of universal embraces.\n\n\"I wish you'd let me have my tea,\" he said. And while he had his tea\nhe asked Mrs. Chaffery questions and tried to get the new situation\ninto focus.\n\nBut even at ten o'clock, when he was returning hot and jaded from\nWalham Green, he was still trying to get the situation into\nfocus. There were vague ends and blank walls of interrogation in the\nmatter, that perplexed him.\n\nHe knew that his supper would be only the prelude to an interminable\n\"talking over,\" and indeed he did not get to bed until nearly two. By\nthat time a course of action was already agreed upon. Mrs. Chaffery\nwas tied to the house in Clapham by a long lease, and thither they\nmust go. The ground floor and first floor were let unfurnished, and\nthe rent of these practically paid the rent of the house. The\nChafferys occupied basement and second floor. There was a bedroom on\nthe second floor, formerly let to the first floor tenants, that he and\nEthel could occupy, and in this an old toilet table could be put for\nsuch studies as were to be prosecuted at home. Ethel could have her\ntypewriter in the subterranean breakfast-room. Mrs. Chaffery and Ethel\nmust do the catering and the bulk of the housework, and as soon as\npossible, since letting lodgings would not square with Lewisham's\nprofessional pride, they must get rid of the lease that bound them and\ntake some smaller and more suburban residence. If they did that\nwithout leaving any address it might save their feelings from any\nreturn of the prodigal Chaffery.\n\nMrs. Chaffery's frequent and pathetic acknowledgments of Lewisham's\ngoodness only partly relieved his disposition to a philosophical\nbitterness. And the practical issues were complicated by excursions\nupon the subject of Chaffery, what he might have done, and where he\nmight have gone, and whether by any chance he might not return.\n\nWhen at last Mrs. Chaffery, after a violent and tearful kissing and\nblessing of them both--they were \"good dear children,\" she said--had\ndeparted, Mr. and Mrs. Lewisham returned into their sitting-room.\nMrs. Lewisham's little face was enthusiastic. \"You're a Trump,\" she\nsaid, extending the willing arms that were his reward. \"I know,\" she\nsaid, \"I know, and all to-night I have been loving you. Dear! Dear!\nDear....\"\n\nThe next day Lewisham was too full of engagements to communicate with\nLagune, but the following morning he called and found the psychic\ninvestigator busy with the proofs of _Hesperus_. He welcomed the young\nman cordially nevertheless, conceiving him charged with the questions\nthat had been promised long ago--it was evident he knew nothing of\nLewisham's marriage. Lewisham stated his case with some bluntness.\n\n\"He was last here on Saturday,\" said Lagune. \"You have always been\ninclined to suspicion about him. Have you any grounds?\"\n\n\"You'd better read this,\" said Lewisham, repressing a grim smile, and\nhe handed Lagune Chaffery's letter.\n\nHe glanced at the little man ever and again to see if he had come to\nthe personal portion, and for the rest of the time occupied himself\nwith an envious inventory of the writing appointments about him. No\ndoubt the boy with the big ears had had the same sort of thing ...\n\nWhen Lagune came to the question of his real identity he blew out his\ncheeks in the most astonishing way, but made no other sign.\n\n\"Dear, dear!\" he said at last. \"My bankers!\"\n\nHe looked at Lewisham with the exaggerated mildness of his spectacled\neye. \"What do you think it means?\" he asked. \"Has he gone mad? We have\nbeen conducting some experiments involving--considerable mental\nstrain. He and I and a lady. Hypnotic--\"\n\n\"I should look at my cheque-book if I were you.\"\n\nLagune produced some keys and got out his cheque book. He turned over\nthe counterfoils. \"There's nothing wrong here,\" he said, and handed\nthe book to Lewisham.\n\n\"Um,\" said Lewisham. \"I suppose this--I say, is _this_ right?\"\n\nHe handed back the book to Lagune, open at the blank counterfoil of a\ncheque that had been removed. Lagune stared and passed his hand over\nhis forehead in a confused way. \"I can't see this,\" he said.\n\nLewisham had never heard of post hypnotic suggestion and he stood\nincredulous. \"You can't see that?\" he said. \"What nonsense!\"\n\n\"I can't see it,\" repeated Lagune.\n\nFor some seconds Lewisham could not get away from stupid repetitions\nof his inquiry. Then he hit upon a collateral proof. \"But look here!\nCan you see _this_ counterfoil?\"\n\n\"Plainly,\" said Lagune.\n\n\"Can you read the number?\"\n\n\"Five thousand two hundred and seventy-nine.\"\n\n\"Well, and this?\"\n\n\"Five thousand two hundred and eighty-one.\"\n\n\"Well--where's five thousand two hundred and eighty?\"\n\nLagune began to look uncomfortable. \"Surely,\" he said, \"he has\nnot--Will you read it out--the cheque, the counterfoil I mean, that I\nam unable to see?\"\n\n\"It's blank,\" said Lewisham with an irresistible grin.\n\n\"Surely,\" said Lagune, and the discomfort of his expression\ndeepened. \"Do you mind if I call in a servant to confirm--?\"\n\nLewisham did not mind, and the same girl who had admitted him to the\n_séance_ appeared. When she had given her evidence she went again. As\nshe left the room by the door behind Lagune her eyes met Lewisham's,\nand she lifted her eyebrows, depressed her mouth, and glanced at\nLagune with a meaning expression.\n\n\"I'm afraid,\" said Lagune, \"that I have been shabbily treated.\nMr. Chaffery is a man of indisputable powers--indisputable powers; but\nI am afraid--I am very much afraid he has abused the conditions of the\nexperiment. All this--and his insults--touch me rather nearly.\"\n\nHe paused. Lewisham rose. \"Do you mind if you come again?\" asked\nLagune with gentle politeness.\n\nLewisham was surprised to find himself sorry.\n\n\"He was a man of extraordinary gifts,\" said Lagune. \"I had come to\nrely upon him.... My cash balance has been rather heavy lately. How he\ncame to know of that I am unable to say. Without supposing, that is,\nthat he had very remarkable gifts.\"\n\nWhen Lewisham saw Lagune again he learnt the particulars of Chaffery's\nmisdeed and the additional fact that the \"lady\" had also\ndisappeared. \"That's a good job,\" he remarked selfishly. \"There's no\nchance of _his_ coming back.\" He spent a moment trying to imagine the\n\"lady\"; he realised more vividly than he had ever done before the\nnarrow range of his experience, the bounds of his imagination. These\npeople also--with grey hair and truncated honour--had their emotions I\nEven it may be glowing! He came back to facts. Chaffery had induced\nLagune when hypnotised to sign a blank cheque as an \"autograph.\" \"The\nstrange thing is,\" explained Lagune, \"it's doubtful if he's legally\naccountable. The law is so peculiar about hypnotism and I certainly\nsigned the cheque, you know.\"\n\nThe little man, in spite of his losses, was now almost cheerful again\non account of a curious side issue. \"You may say it is coincidence,\"\nhe said, \"you may call it a fluke, but I prefer to look for some other\ninterpretation! Consider this. The amount of my balance is a secret\nbetween me and my bankers. He never had it from _me_, for I did not\nknow it--I hadn't looked at my passbook for months. But he drew it all\nin one cheque, within seventeen and sixpence of the total. And the\ntotal was over five hundred pounds!\"\n\nHe seemed quite bright again as he culminated.\n\n\"Within seventeen and sixpence,\" he said. \"Now how do you account for\nthat, eh? Give me a materialistic explanation that will explain away\nall that. You can't. Neither can I.\"\n\n\"I think I can,\" said Lewisham.\n\n\"Well--what is it?\"\n\nLewisham nodded towards a little drawer of the bureau. \"Don't you\nthink--perhaps\"--a little ripple of laughter passed across his\nmind--\"he had a skeleton key?\"\n\nLagune's face lingered amusingly in Lewisham's mind as he returned to\nClapham. But after a time that amusement passed away. He declined upon\nthe extraordinary fact that Chaffery was his father-in-law, Mrs.\nChaffery his mother-in-law, that these two and Ethel constituted his\nfamily, his clan, and that grimy graceless house up the Clapham\nhillside was to be his home. Home! His connexion with these things as\na point of worldly departure was as inexorable now as though he had\nbeen born to it. And a year ago, except for a fading reminiscence of\nEthel, none of these people had existed for him. The ways of Destiny!\nThe happenings of the last few months, foreshortened in perspective,\nseemed to have almost a pantomimic rapidity. The thing took him\nsuddenly as being laughable; and he laughed.\n\nHis laugh marked an epoch. Never before had Lewisham laughed at any\nfix in which he had found himself! The enormous seriousness of\nadolescence was coming to an end; the days of his growing were\nnumbered. It was a laugh of infinite admissions.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXI.\n\nIN BATTERSEA PARK.\n\n\nNow although Lewisham had promised to bring things to a conclusion\nwith Miss Heydinger, he did nothing in the matter for five weeks, he\nmerely left that crucial letter of hers unanswered. In that time their\nremoval from Madam Gadow's into the gaunt house at Clapham was\naccomplished--not without polyglot controversy--and the young couple\nsettled themselves into the little room on the second floor even as\nthey had arranged. And there it was that suddenly the world was\nchanged--was astonishingly transfigured--by a whisper.\n\nIt was a whisper between sobs and tears, with Ethel's arms about him\nand Ethel's hair streaming down so that it hid her face from him. And\nhe too had whispered, dismayed perhaps a little, and yet feeling a\nstrange pride, a strange novel emotion, feeling altogether different\nfrom the things he had fancied he might feel when this thing that he\nhad dreaded should come. Suddenly he perceived finality, the advent of\nthe solution, the reconciliation of the conflict that had been waged\nso long. Hesitations were at an end;--he took his line.\n\nNext day he wrote a note, and two mornings later he started for his\nmathematical duffers an hour before it was absolutely necessary, and\ninstead of going directly to Vigours', went over the bridge to\nBattersea Park. There waiting for him by a seat where once they had\nmet before, he found Miss Heydinger pacing. They walked up and down\nside by side, speaking for a little while about indifferent topics,\nand then they came upon a pause ...\n\n\"You have something to tell me?\" said Miss Heydinger abruptly.\n\nLewisham changed colour a little. \"Oh yes,\" he said; \"the fact is--\"\nHe affected ease. \"Did I ever tell you I was married?\"\n\n\"_Married_?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Married!\"\n\n\"Yes,\" a little testily.\n\nFor a moment neither spoke. Lewisham stood without dignity staring at\nthe dahlias of the London County Council, and Miss Heydinger stood\nregarding him.\n\n\"And that is what you have to tell me?\"\n\nMr. Lewisham tamed and met her eyes. \"Yes!\" he said. \"That is what I\nhave to tell you.\"\n\nPause. \"Do you mind if I sit down?\" asked Miss Heydinger in an\nindifferent tone.\n\n\"There is a seat yonder,\" said Lewisham, \"under the tree.\"\n\nThey walked to the seat in silence.\n\n\"Now,\" said Miss Heydinger, quietly. \"Tell me whom you have married.\"\n\nLewisham answered sketchily. She asked him another question and\nanother. He felt stupid and answered with a halting truthfulness.\n\n\"I might have known,\" she said, \"I might have known. Only I would not\nknow. Tell me some more. Tell me about her.\"\n\nLewisham did. The whole thing was abominably disagreeable to him, but\nit had to be done, he had promised Ethel it should be done. Presently\nMiss Heydinger knew the main outline of his story, knew all his story\nexcept, the emotion that made it credible. \"And you were\nmarried--before the second examination?\" she repeated.\n\n\"Yes,\" said Lewisham.\n\n\"But why did you not tell me of this before?\" asked Miss Heydinger.\n\n\"I don't, know,\" said Lewisham. \"I wanted to--that day, in Kensington\nGardens. But I didn't. I suppose I ought to have done so.\"\n\n\"I think you ought to have done so.\"\n\n\"Yes, I suppose I ought ... But I didn't. Somehow--it has been hard. I\ndidn't know what you would say. The thing seemed so rash, you know,\nand all that.\"\n\nHe paused blankly.\n\n\"I suppose you had to do it,\" said Miss Heydinger presently, with her\neyes on his profile.\n\nLewisham began the second and more difficult part of his\nexplanation. \"There's been a difficulty,\" he said, \"all the way\nalong--I mean--about you, that is. It's a little difficult--The fact\nis, my life, you know--She looks at things differently from what we\ndo.\"\n\n\"We?\"\n\n\"Yes--it's odd, of course. But she has seen your letters--\"\n\n\"You didn't show her--?\"\n\n\"No. But, I mean, she knows you write to me, and she knows you write\nabout Socialism and Literature and--things we have in common--things\nshe hasn't.\"\n\n\"You mean to say she doesn't understand these things?\"\n\n\"She's not thought about them. I suppose there's a sort of difference\nin education--\"\n\n\"And she objects--?\"\n\n\"No,\" said Lewisham, lying promptly. \"She doesn't _object_ ...\"\n\n\"Well?\" said Miss Heydinger, and her face was white.\n\n\"She feels that--She feels--she does not say, of course, but I know\nshe feels that it is something she ought to share. I know--how she\ncares for me. And it shames her--it reminds her--Don't you see how it\nhurts her?\"\n\n\"Yes. I see. So that even that little--\" Miss Heydinger's breath\nseemed to catch and she was abruptly silent.\n\nShe spoke at last with an effort. \"That it hurts _me_,\" she said, and\ngrimaced and stopped again.\n\n\"No,\" said Lewisham, \"that is not it.\" He hesitated.\n\n\"I _knew_ this would hurt you.\"\n\n\"You love her. You can sacrifice--\"\n\n\"No. It is not that. But there is a difference. Hurting _her_--she\nwould not understand. But you--somehow it seems a natural thing for me\nto come to you. I seem to look to you--For her I am always making\nallowances--\"\n\n\"You love her.\"\n\n\"I wonder if it _is_ that makes the difference. Things are so\ncomplex. Love means anything--or nothing. I know you better than I do\nher, you know me better than she will ever do. I could tell you things\nI could not tell her. I could put all myself before you--almost--and\nknow you would understand--Only--\"\n\n\"You love her.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Lewisham lamely and pulling at his moustache. \"I suppose\n... that must be it.\"\n\nFor a space neither spoke. Then Miss Heydinger said \"_Oh_!\" with\nextraordinary emphasis.\n\n\"To think of this end to it all! That all your promise ... What is it\nshe gives that I could not have given?\n\n\"Even now! Why should I give up that much of you that is mine? If she\ncould take it--But she cannot take it. If I let you go--you will do\nnothing. All this ambition, all these interests will dwindle and die,\nand she will not mind. She will not understand. She will think that\nshe still has you. Why should she covet what she cannot possess? Why\nshould she be given the thing that is mine--to throw aside?\"\n\nShe did not look at Lewisham, but before her, her face a white misery.\n\n\"In a way--I had come to think of you as something, belonging to me\n... I shall--still.\"\n\n\"There is one thing,\" said Lewisham after a pause, \"it is a thing that\nhas come to me once or twice lately. Don't you think that perhaps you\nover-estimate the things I might have done? I know we've talked of\ngreat things to do. But I've been struggling for half a year and more\nto get the sort of living almost anyone seems able to get. It has\ntaken me all my time. One can't help thinking after that, perhaps the\nworld is a stiffer sort of affair ...\"\n\n\"No,\" she said decisively. \"You could have done great things.\n\n\"Even now,\" she said, \"you may do great things--If only I might see\nyou sometimes, write to you sometimes--You are so capable\nand--weak. You must have somebody--That is your weakness. You fail in\nyour belief. You must have support and belief--unstinted support and\nbelief. Why could I not be that to you? It is all I want to be. At\nleast--all I want to be now. Why need she know? It robs her of\nnothing. I want nothing--she has. But I know of my own strength too I\ncan do nothing. I know that with you ... It is only knowing hurts\nher. Why should she know?\"\n\nMr. Lewisham looked at her doubtfully. That phantom greatness of his,\nit was that lit her eyes. In that instant, at least he had no doubts\nof the possibility of his Career. But he knew that in some way the\nsecret of his greatness and this admiration went together. Conceivably\nthey were one and indivisible. Why indeed need Ethel know? His\nimagination ran over the things that might be done, the things that\nmight happen, and touched swiftly upon complication, confusion,\ndiscovery.\n\n\"The thing is, I must simplify my life. I shall do nothing unless I\nsimplify my life. Only people who are well off can be--complex. It is\none thing or the other--\"\n\nHe hesitated and suddenly had a vision of Ethel weeping as once he had\nseen her weep with the light on the tears in her eyes.\n\n\"No,\" he said almost brutally. \"No. It's like this--I can't do\nanything underhand. I mean--I'm not so amazingly honest--now. But I've\nnot that sort of mind. She would find me out. It would do no good and\nshe would find me out. My life's too complex. I can't manage it and go\nstraight. I--you've overrated me. And besides--Things have\nhappened. Something--\" He hesitated and then snatched at his resolve,\n\"I've got to simplify--and that's the plain fact of the case. I'm\nsorry, but it is so.\"\n\nMiss Heydinger made no answer. Her silence astonished him. For nearly\ntwenty seconds perhaps they sat without speaking. With a quick motion\nshe stood up, and at once he stood up before her. Her face was\nflushed, her eyes downcast.\n\n\"Good-bye,\" she said suddenly in a low tone and held out her hand.\n\n\"But,\" said Lewisham and stopped. Miss Heydinger's colour left her.\n\n\"Good-bye,\" she said, looking him suddenly in the eyes and smiling\nawry. \"There is no more to say, is there? Good-bye.\"\n\nHe took her hand. \"I hope I didn't--\"\n\n\"Good-bye,\" she said impatiently, and suddenly disengaged her hand and\nturned away from him. He made a step after her.\n\n\"Miss Heydinger,\" he said, but she did not stop. \"Miss Heydinger.\" He\nrealised that she did not want to answer him again....\n\nHe remained motionless, watching her retreating figure. An\nextraordinary sense of loss came into his mind, a vague impulse to\npursue her and pour out vague passionate protestations....\n\nNot once did she look back. She was already remote when he began\nhurrying after her. Once he was in motion he quickened his pace and\ngained upon her. He was within thirty yards of her as she drew near\nthe gates.\n\nHis pace slackened. Suddenly he was afraid she might look back. She\npassed out of the gates, out of his sight. He stopped, looking where\nshe had disappeared. He sighed and took the pathway to his left that\nled back to the bridge and Vigours'.\n\nHalfway across this bridge came another crisis of indecision. He\nstopped, hesitating. An impertinent thought obtruded. He looked at his\nwatch and saw that he must hurry if he would catch the train for\nEarl's Court and Vigours'. He said Vigours' might go to the devil.\n\nBut in the end he caught his train.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXII.\n\nTHE CROWNING VICTORY.\n\n\nThat night about seven Ethel came into their room with a waste-paper\nbasket she had bought for him, and found him sitting at the little\ntoilet table at which he was to \"write.\" The outlook was, for a London\noutlook, spacious, down a long slope of roofs towards the Junction, a\nhuge sky of blue passing upward to the darkling zenith and downward\ninto a hazy bristling mystery of roofs and chimneys, from which\nemerged signal lights and steam puffs, gliding chains of lit window\ncarriages and the vague vistas of streets. She showed him the basket\nand put it beside him, and then her eye caught the yellow document in\nhis hand. \"What is that you have there?\"\n\nHe held it out to her. \"I found it--lining my yellow box. I had it at\nWhortley.\"\n\nShe took it and perceived a chronological scheme. It was headed\n\"SCHEMA,\" there were memoranda in the margin, and all the dates had\nbeen altered by a hasty hand.\n\n\"Hasn't it got yellow?\" she said.\n\nThat seemed to him the wrong thing for her to say. He stared at the\ndocument with a sudden accession of sympathy. There was an\ninterval. He became aware of her hand upon his shoulder, that she was\nbending over him. \"Dear,\" she whispered, with a strange change in the\nquality of her voice. He knew she was seeking to say something that\nwas difficult to say.\n\n\"Yes?\" he said presently.\n\n\"You are not grieving?\"\n\n\"What about?\"\n\n\"_This_.\"\n\n\"No!\"\n\n\"You are not--you are not even sorry?\" she said.\n\n\"No--not even sorry.\"\n\n\"I can't understand that. It's so much--\"\n\n\"I'm glad,\" he proclaimed. \"_Glad.\"_\n\n\"But--the trouble--the expense--everything--and your work?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" he said, \"that's just it.\"\n\nShe looked at him doubtfully. He glanced up at her, and she questioned\nhis eyes. He put his arm about her, and presently and almost\nabsent-mindedly she obeyed his pressure and bent down and kissed him.\n\n\"It settles things,\" he said, holding her. \"It joins us. Don't you\nsee? Before ... But now it's different. It's something we have between\nus. It's something that ... It's the link we needed. It will hold us\ntogether, cement us together. It will be our life. This will be my\nwork now. The other ...\"\n\nHe faced a truth. \"It was just ... vanity!\"\n\nThere was still a shade of doubt in her face, a wistfulness.\n\nPresently she spoke.\n\n\"Dear,\" she said.\n\n\"Yes?\"\n\nShe knitted her brows. \"No!\" she said. \"I can't say it.\"\n\nIn the interval she came into a sitting position on his knees.\n\nHe kissed her hand, but her face remained grave, and she looked out\nupon the twilight. \"I know I'm stupid,\" she said. \"The things I say\n... aren't the things I feel.\"\n\nHe waited for her to say more.\n\n\"It's no good,\" she said.\n\nHe felt the onus of expression lay on him. He too found it a little\ndifficult to put into words. \"I think I understand,\" he said, and\nwrestled with the impalpable. The pause seemed long and yet not\naltogether vacant. She lapsed abruptly into the prosaic. She started\nfrom him.\n\n\"If I don't go down, Mother will get supper ...\"\n\nAt the door she stopped and turned a twilight face to him. For a\nmoment they scrutinised one another. To her he was no more than a dim\noutline. Impulsively he held out his arms....\n\nThen at the sound of a movement downstairs she freed herself and\nhurried out. He heard her call \"Mother! You're not to lay\nsupper. You're to rest.\"\n\nHe listened to her footsteps until the kitchen had swallowed them\nup. Then he turned his eyes to the Schema again and for a moment it\nseemed but a little thing.\n\nHe picked it up in both hands and looked at it as if it was the\nwriting of another man, and indeed it was the writing of another\nman. \"Pamphlets in the Liberal Interest,\" he read, and smiled.\n\nPresently a train of thought carried him off. His attitude relaxed a\nlittle, the Schema became for a time a mere symbol, a point of\ndeparture, and he stared out of the window at the darkling night. For\na long time he sat pursuing thoughts that were half emotions, emotions\nthat took upon themselves the shape and substance of ideas. The\ndeepening current stirred at last among the roots of speech.\n\n\"Yes, it was vanity,\" he said. \"A boy's vanity. For me--anyhow. I'm\ntoo two-sided.... Two-sided?... Commonplace!\n\n\"Dreams like mine--abilities like mine. Yes--any man! And yet ...--The\nthings I meant to do!\"\n\nHis thoughts went to his Socialism, to his red-hot ambition of world\nmending. He marvelled at the vistas he had discovered since those\ndays.\n\n\"Not for us--Not for us.\n\n\"We must perish in the wilderness.--Some day. Somewhen. But not for\nus....\n\n\"Come to think, it is all the Child. The future is the Child. The\nFuture. What are we--any of us--but servants or traitors to that?...\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\"Natural Selection--it follows ... this way is happiness ... must\nbe. There can be no other.\"\n\nHe sighed. \"To last a lifetime, that is.\n\n\"And yet--it is almost as if Life had played me a trick--promised so\nmuch--given so little!...\n\n\"No! One must not look at it in that way! That will not do! That will\n_not_ do.\n\n\"Career! In itself it is a career--the most important career in the\nworld. Father! Why should I want more?\n\n\"And ... Ethel! No wonder she seemed shallow ... She has been\nshallow. No wonder she was restless. Unfulfilled ... What had she to\ndo? She was drudge, she was toy ...\n\n\"Yes. This is life. This alone is life! For this we were made and\nborn. All these other things--all other things--they are only a sort\nof play....\n\n\"Play!\"\n\nHis eyes came back to the Schema. His hands shifted to the opposite\ncorner and he hesitated. The vision of that arranged Career, that\nordered sequence of work and successes, distinctions and yet further\ndistinctions, rose brightly from the symbol. Then he compressed his\nlips and tore the yellow sheet in half, tearing very deliberately. He\ndoubled the halves and tore again, doubled again very carefully and\nneatly until the Schema was torn into numberless little pieces. With\nit he seemed to be tearing his past self.\n\n\"Play,\" he whispered after a long silence.\n\n\"It is the end of adolescence,\" he said; \"the end of empty dreams....\"\n\nHe became very still, his hands resting on the table, his eyes staring\nout of the blue oblong of the window. The dwindling light gathered\nitself together and became a star.\n\nHe found he was still holding the torn fragments. He stretched out\nhis hand and dropped them into that new waste-paper basket Ethel had\nbought for him.\n\nTwo pieces fell outside the basket. He stooped, picked them up, and\nput them carefully with their fellows."