LOVE AND MR. LEWISHAM

By

H. G. WELLS

[Illustration: "Why on earth did you put my roses here?" he asked. ]

[Illustration]

CONTENTS

 I. INTRODUCES MR. LEWISHAM II. "AS THE WIND BLOWS" III. THE WONDERFUL DISCOVERY IV. RAISED EYEBROWS V. HESITATIONS VI. THE SCANDALOUS RAMBLE VII. THE RECKONING VIII. THE CAREER PREVAILS IX. ALICE HEYDINGER X. IN THE GALLERY OF OLD IRON XI. MANIFESTATIONS XII. LEWISHAM IS UNACCOUNTABLE XIII. LEWISHAM INSISTS XIV. MR. LAGUNE'S POINT OF VIEW XV. LOVE IN THE STREETS XVI. MISS HEYDINGER'S PRIVATE THOUGHTS XVII. IN THE RAPHAEL GALLERY XVIII. THE FRIENDS OF PROGRESS MEET XIX. LEWISHAM'S SOLUTION XX. THE CAREER IS SUSPENDED XXI. HOME! XXII. EPITHALAMY XXIII. MR. CHAFFERY AT HOME XXIV. THE CAMPAIGN OPENS XXV. THE FIRST BATTLE XXVI. THE GLAMOUR FADES XXVII. CONCERNING A QUARRELXXVIII. THE COMING OF THE ROSES XXIX. THORNS AND ROSE PETALS XXX. A WITHDRAWAL XXXI. IN BATTERSEA PARK XXXII. THE CROWNING VICTORY

CHAPTER I. 

INTRODUCES MR. LEWISHAM. 

The opening chapter does not concern itself with Love--indeed thatantagonist does not certainly appear until the third--and Mr. Lewishamis seen at his studies. It was ten years ago, and in those days he wasassistant master in the Whortley Proprietary School, Whortley, Sussex, and his wages were forty pounds a year, out of which he had to affordfifteen shillings a week during term time to lodge with Mrs. Munday, at the little shop in the West Street. He was called "Mr. " todistinguish him from the bigger boys, whose duty it was to learn, andit was a matter of stringent regulation that he should be addressed as"Sir. "

He wore ready-made clothes, his black jacket of rigid line was dustedabout the front and sleeves with scholastic chalk, and his face wasdowny and his moustache incipient. He was a passable-looking youngsterof eighteen, fair-haired, indifferently barbered, and with a quiteunnecessary pair of glasses on his fairly prominent nose--he worethese to make himself look older, that discipline might bemaintained. At the particular moment when this story begins he was inhis bedroom. An attic it was, with lead-framed dormer windows, aslanting ceiling and a bulging wall, covered, as a number of tornplaces witnessed, with innumerable strata of florid old-fashionedpaper. 

To judge by the room Mr. Lewisham thought little of Love but much onGreatness. Over the head of the bed, for example, where good folkshang texts, these truths asserted themselves, written in a clear, bold, youthfully florid hand:--"Knowledge is Power, " and "What man hasdone man can do, "--man in the second instance referring toMr. Lewisham. Never for a moment were these things to beforgotten. Mr. Lewisham could see them afresh every morning as hishead came through his shirt. And over the yellow-painted box uponwhich--for lack of shelves--Mr. Lewisham's library was arranged, was a"_Schema_. " (Why he should not have headed it "Scheme, " the editor ofthe _Church Times_, who calls his miscellaneous notes "_Varia_, " isbetter able to say than I. ) In this scheme, 1892 was indicated as theyear in which Mr. Lewisham proposed to take his B. A. Degree at theLondon University with "hons. In all subjects, " and 1895 as the dateof his "gold medal. " Subsequently there were to be "pamphlets in theLiberal interest, " and such like things duly dated. "Who would controlothers must first control himself, " remarked the wall over thewash-hand stand, and behind the door against the Sunday trousers was aportrait of Carlyle. 

These were no mere threats against the universe; operations hadbegun. Jostling Shakespeare, Emerson's Essays, and the penny Life ofConfucius, there were battered and defaced school books, a number ofthe excellent manuals of the Universal Correspondence Association, exercise books, ink (red and black) in penny bottles, and anindia-rubber stamp with Mr. Lewisham's name. A trophy of bluish greenSouth Kensington certificates for geometrical drawing, astronomy, physiology, physiography, and inorganic chemistry adorned his furtherwall. And against the Carlyle portrait was a manuscript list of Frenchirregular verbs. 

Attached by a drawing-pin to the roof over the wash-hand stand, which--the room being an attic--sloped almost dangerously, dangled aTime-Table. Mr. Lewisham was to rise at five, and that this was novain boasting, a cheap American alarum clock by the books on the boxwitnessed. The lumps of mellow chocolate on the papered ledge by thebed-head indorsed that evidence. "French until eight, " said thetime-table curtly. Breakfast was to be eaten in twenty minutes; thentwenty-five minutes of "literature" to be precise, learning extracts(preferably pompous) from the plays of William Shakespeare--and thento school and duty. The time-table further prescribed LatinComposition for the recess and the dinner hour ("literature, " however, during the meal), and varied its injunctions for the rest of thetwenty-four hours according to the day of the week. Not a moment forSatan and that "mischief still" of his. Only three-score and ten hasthe confidence, as well as the time, to be idle. 

But just think of the admirable quality of such a scheme! Up and busyat five, with all the world about one horizontal, warm, dreamy-brainedor stupidly hullish, if roused, roused only to grunt and sigh and rollover again into oblivion. By eight three hours' clear start, threehours' knowledge ahead of everyone. It takes, I have been told by aneminent scholar, about a thousand hours of sincere work to learn alanguage completely--after three or four languages much less--whichgives you, even at the outset, one each a year before breakfast. Thegift of tongues--picked up like mushrooms! Then that "literature"--anastonishing conception! In the afternoon mathematics and thesciences. Could anything be simpler or more magnificent? In six yearsMr. Lewisham will have his five or six languages, a sound, all-roundeducation, a habit of tremendous industry, and be still butfour-and-twenty. He will already have honour in his university andampler means. One realises that those pamphlets in the Liberalinterests will be no obscure platitudes. Where Mr. Lewisham will be atthirty stirs the imagination. There will be modifications of theSchema, of course, as experience widens. But the spirit of it--thespirit of it is a devouring flame!

He was sitting facing the diamond-framed window, writing, writingfast, on a second yellow box that was turned on end and empty, and thelid was open, and his knees were conveniently stuck into thecavity. The bed was strewn with books and copygraphed sheets ofinstructions from his remote correspondence tutors. Pursuant to thedangling time-table he was, you would have noticed, translating Latininto English. 

Imperceptibly the speed of his writing diminished. "_Urit me Glyceraenitor_" lay ahead and troubled him. "Urit me, " he murmured, and hiseyes travelled from his book out of window to the vicar's roofopposite and its ivied chimneys. His brows were knit at first and thenrelaxed. "_Urit me_!" He had put his pen into his mouth and glancedabout for his dictionary. _Urare_?

Suddenly his expression changed. Movement dictionary-ward ceased. Hewas listening to a light tapping sound--it was a footfall--outside. 

He stood up abruptly, and, stretching his neck, peered through hisunnecessary glasses and the diamond panes down into thestreet. Looking acutely downward he could see a hat daintily trimmedwith pinkish white blossom, the shoulder of a jacket, and just thetips of nose and chin. Certainly the stranger who sat under thegallery last Sunday next the Frobishers. Then, too, he had seen heronly obliquely.... 

He watched her until she passed beyond the window frame. He strainedto see impossibly round the corner.... 

Then he started, frowned, took his pen from his mouth. "This wanderingattention!" he said. "The slightest thing! Where was I? Tcha!" Hemade a noise with his teeth to express his irritation, sat down, andreplaced his knees in the upturned box. "Urit me, " he said, biting theend of his pen and looking for his dictionary. 

It was a Wednesday half-holiday late in March, a spring day gloriousin amber light, dazzling white clouds and the intensest blue, castinga powder of wonderful green hither and thither among the trees androusing all the birds to tumultuous rejoicings, a rousing day, aclamatory insistent day, a veritable herald of summer. The stir ofthat anticipation was in the air, the warm earth was parting above theswelling seeds, and all the pine-woods were full of the minutecrepitation of opening bud scales. And not only was the stir of MotherNature's awakening in the earth and the air and the trees, but also inMr. Lewisham's youthful blood, bidding him rouse himself to live--livein a sense quite other than that the Schema indicated. 

He saw the dictionary peeping from under a paper, looked up "Urit me, "appreciated the shining "nitor" of Glycera's shoulders, and so fellidle again to rouse himself abruptly. 

"I _can't_ fix my attention, " said Mr. Lewisham. He took off theneedless glasses, wiped them, and blinked his eyes. This confoundedHorace and his stimulating epithets! A walk?

"I won't be beat, " he said--incorrectly--replaced his glasses, broughthis elbows down on either side of his box with resonant violence, andclutched the hair over his ears with both hands.... 

In five minutes' time he found himself watching the swallows curvingthrough the blue over the vicarage garden. 

"Did ever man have such a bother with himself as me?" he asked vaguelybut vehemently. "It's self-indulgence does it--sitting down's thebeginning of laziness. "

So he stood up to his work, and came into permanent view of thevillage street. "If she has gone round the corner by the post office, she will come in sight over the palings above the allotments, "suggested the unexplored and undisciplined region of Mr. Lewisham'smind.... 

She did not come into sight. Apparently she had not gone round by thepost office after all. It made one wonder where she had gone. Did shego up through the town to the avenue on these occasions?... Thenabruptly a cloud drove across the sunlight, the glowing street wentcold and Mr. Lewisham's imagination submitted to control. So "_Matersaeva cupidinum_, " "The untamable mother of desires, "--Horace (BookII. Of the Odes) was the author appointed by the university forMr. Lewisham's matriculation--was, after all, translated to itsprophetic end. 

Precisely as the church clock struck five Mr. Lewisham, with apunctuality that was indeed almost too prompt for a really earneststudent, shut his Horace, took up his Shakespeare, and descended thenarrow, curved, uncarpeted staircase that led from his garret to theliving room in which he had his tea with his landlady, Mrs. Munday. That good lady was alone, and after a few civilitiesMr. Lewisham opened his Shakespeare and read from a mark onward--thatmark, by-the-bye, was in the middle of a scene--while he consumedmechanically a number of slices of bread and whort jam. 

Mrs. Munday watched him over her spectacles and thought how bad somuch reading must be for the eyes, until the tinkling of her shop-bellcalled her away to a customer. At twenty-five minutes to six he putthe book back in the window-sill, dashed a few crumbs from his jacket, assumed a mortar-board cap that was lying on the tea-caddy, and wentforth to his evening "preparation duty. "

The West Street was empty and shining golden with the sunset. Itsbeauty seized upon him, and he forgot to repeat the passage from HenryVIII. That should have occupied him down the street. Instead he waspresently thinking of that insubordinate glance from his window and oflittle chins and nose-tips. His eyes became remote in theirexpression.... 

The school door was opened by an obsequious little boy with "lines" tobe examined. 

Mr. Lewisham felt a curious change of atmosphere on his entry. Thedoor slammed behind him. The hall with its insistent scholasticsuggestions, its yellow marbled paper, its long rows of hat-pegs, itsdisreputable array of umbrellas, a broken mortar-board and a tatteredand scattered _Principia_, seemed dim and dull in contrast with theluminous stir of the early March evening outside. An unusual sense ofthe greyness of a teacher's life, of the greyness indeed of the lifeof all studious souls came, and went in his mind. He took the "lines, "written painfully over three pages of exercise book, and obliteratedthem with a huge G. E. L. , scrawled monstrously across each page. Heheard the familiar mingled noises of the playground drifting in to himthrough the open schoolroom door. 

CHAPTER II. 

"AS THE WIND BLOWS. "

A flaw in that pentagram of a time-table, that pentagram by which thedemons of distraction were to be excluded from Mr. Lewisham's careerto Greatness, was the absence of a clause forbidding study out ofdoors. It was the day after the trivial window peeping of the lastchapter that this gap in the time-table became apparent, a day ifpossible more gracious and alluring than its predecessor, and athalf-past twelve, instead of returning from the school directly to hislodging, Mr. Lewisham escaped through the omission and made hisway--Horace in pocket--to the park gates and so to the avenue ofancient trees that encircles the broad Whortley domain. He dismissed asuspicion of his motive with perfect success. In the avenue--for thepath is but little frequented--one might expect to read undisturbed. The open air, the erect attitude, are surely better than sitting in astuffy, enervating bedroom. The open air is distinctly healthy, hardy, simple.... 

The day was breezy, and there was a perpetual rustling, a going andcoming in the budding trees. 

The network of the beeches was full of golden sunlight, and all thelower branches were shot with horizontal dashes of new-born green. 

 "_Tu, nisi ventis Debes ludibrium, cave_. "

was the appropriate matter of Mr. Lewisham's thoughts, and he wasmechanically trying to keep the book open in three places at once, atthe text, the notes, and the literal translation, while he turned upthe vocabulary for _ludibrium_, when his attention, wanderingdangerously near the top of the page, fell over the edge and escapedwith incredible swiftness down the avenue.... 

A girl, wearing a straw hat adorned with white blossom, was advancingtowards him. Her occupation, too, was literary. Indeed, she was sobusy writing that evidently she did not perceive him. 

Unreasonable emotions descended upon Mr. Lewisham--emotions that areunaccountable on the mere hypothesis of a casual meeting. Somethingwas whispered; it sounded suspiciously like "It's her!" He advancedwith his fingers in his book, ready to retreat to its pages if shelooked up, and watched her over it. _Ludibrium_ passed out of hisuniverse. She was clearly unaware of his nearness, he thought, intentupon her writing, whatever that might be. He wondered what it mightbe. Her face, foreshortened by her downward regard, seemedinfantile. Her fluttering skirt was short, and showed her shoes andankles. He noted her graceful, easy steps. A figure of health andlightness it was, sunlit, and advancing towards him, something, as heafterwards recalled with a certain astonishment, quite outside theSchema. 

Nearer she came and nearer, her eyes still downcast. He was full ofvague, stupid promptings towards an uncalled-for intercourse. It wascurious she did not see him. He began to expect almost painfully themoment when she would look up, though what there was to expect--! Hethought of what she would see when she discovered him, and wonderedwhere the tassel of his cap might be hanging--it sometimes occludedone eye. It was of course quite impossible to put up a hand andinvestigate. He was near trembling with excitement. His paces, actswhich are usually automatic, became uncertain and difficult. One mighthave thought he had never passed a human being before. Still nearer, ten yards now, nine, eight. Would she go past without looking up?... 

Then their eyes met. 

She had hazel eyes, but Mr. Lewisham, being quite an amateur abouteyes, could find no words for them. She looked demurely into hisface. She seemed to find nothing there. She glanced away from himamong the trees, and passed, and nothing remained in front of him butan empty avenue, a sunlit, green-shot void. 

The incident was over. 

From far away the soughing of the breeze swept towards him, and in amoment all the twigs about him were quivering and rustling and theboughs creaking with a gust of wind. It seemed to urge him away fromher. The faded dead leaves that had once been green and young sprangup, raced one another, leapt, danced and pirouetted, and thensomething large struck him on the neck, stayed for a startling moment, and drove past him up the avenue. 

Something vividly white! A sheet of paper--the sheet upon which shehad been writing!

For what seemed a long time he did not grasp the situation. He glancedover his shoulder and understood suddenly. His awkwardnessvanished. Horace in hand, he gave chase, and in ten paces had securedthe fugitive document. He turned towards her, flushed with triumph, the quarry in his hand. He had as he picked it up seen what waswritten, but the situation dominated him for the instant. He made astride towards her, and only then understood what he had seen. Linesof a measured length and capitals! Could it really be--? Hestopped. He looked again, eyebrows rising. He held it before him, staring now quite frankly. It had been written with a stylographicpen. Thus it ran:--

"_Come! Sharp's the word. _"

And then again, "_Come! Sharp's the word. _"

And then, "_Come! Sharp's the word. _"

"_Come! Sharp's the word. _"

And so on all down the page, in a boyish hand uncommonly likeFrobisher ii. 's. 

Surely! "I say!" said Mr. Lewisham, struggling with, the new aspectand forgetting all his manners in his surprise.... He rememberedgiving the imposition quite well:--Frobisher ii. Had repeated theexhortation just a little too loudly--had brought the thing uponhimself. To find her doing this jarred oddly upon certain vaguepreconceptions he had formed of her. Somehow it seemed as if she hadbetrayed him. That of course was only for the instant. 

She had come up with him now. "May I have my sheet of paper, please?"she said with a catching of her breath. She was a couple of inchesless in height than he. Do you observe her half-open lips? said MotherNature in a noiseless aside to Mr. Lewisham--a thing he afterwardsrecalled. In her eyes was a touch of apprehension. 

"I say, " he said, with protest still uppermost, "you oughtn't to dothis. "

"Do what?"

"This. Impositions. For my boys. "

She raised her eyebrows, then knitted them momentarily, and looked athim. "Are _you_ Mr. Lewisham?" she asked with an affectation of entireignorance and discovery. 

She knew him perfectly well, which was one reason why she was writingthe imposition, but pretending not to know gave her something to say. 

Mr. Lewisham nodded. 

"Of all people! Then"--frankly--"you have just found me out. "

"I am afraid I have, " said Lewisham. "I am afraid I _have_ found youout. "

They looked at one another for the next move. She decided to plead inextenuation. 

"Teddy Frobisher is my cousin. I know it's very wrong, but he seemedto have such a lot to do and to be in _such_ trouble. And I hadnothing to do. In fact, it was _I_ who offered.... "

She stopped and looked at him. She seemed to consider her remarkcomplete. 

That meeting of the eyes had an oddly disconcerting quality. He triedto keep to the business of the imposition. "You ought not to have donethat, " he said, encountering her steadfastly. 

She looked down and then into his face again. "No, " she said. "Isuppose I ought not to. I'm very sorry. "

Her looking down and up again produced another unreasonable effect. Itseemed to Lewisham that they were discussing something quite otherthan the topic of their conversation; a persuasion patently absurd andonly to be accounted for by the general disorder of his faculties. Hemade a serious attempt to keep his footing of reproof. 

"I should have detected the writing, you know. "

"Of course you would. It was very wrong of me to persuade him. But Idid--I assure you. He seemed in such trouble. And I thought--"

She made another break, and there was a faint deepening of colour inher cheeks. Suddenly, stupidly, his own adolescent cheeks began toglow. It became necessary to banish that sense of a duplicate topicforthwith. 

"I can assure you, " he said, now very earnestly, "I never give apunishment, never, unless it is merited. I make that a rule. I--er--_always_ make that a rule. I am very careful indeed. "

"I am really sorry, " she interrupted with frank contrition. "It _was_silly of me. "

Lewisham felt unaccountably sorry she should have to apologise, and hespoke at once with the idea of checking the reddening of his face. "Idon't think _that_, " he said with a sort of belated alacrity. "Really, it was kind of you, you know--very kind of you indeed. And I knowthat--I can quite understand that--er--your kindness.... "

"Ran away with me. And now poor little Teddy will get into worsetrouble for letting me.... "

"Oh no, " said Mr. Lewisham, perceiving an opportunity and trying notto smile his appreciation of what he was saying. "I had no business toread this as I picked it up--absolutely no business. Consequently.... "

"You won't take any notice of it? Really!"

"Certainly not, " said Mr. Lewisham. 

Her face lit with a smile, and Mr. Lewisham's relaxed in sympathy. "Itis nothing--it's the proper thing for me to do, you know. "

"But so many people won't do it. Schoolmasters are not usuallyso--chivalrous. "

He was chivalrous! The phrase acted like a spur. He obeyed a foolishimpulse. 

"If you like--" he said. 

"What?"

"He needn't do this. The Impot. , I mean. I'll let him off. "

"Really?"

"I can. "

"It's awfully kind of you. "

"I don't mind, " he said. "It's nothing much. If you really think ... "

He was full of self-applause for this scandalous sacrifice of justice. 

"It's awfully kind of you, " she said. 

"It's nothing, really, " he explained, "nothing. "

"Most people wouldn't--"

"I know. "

Pause. 

"It's all right, " he said. "Really. "

He would have given worlds for something more to say, something wittyand original, but nothing came. 

The pause lengthened. She glanced over her shoulder down the vacantavenue. This interview--this momentous series of things unsaid wascoming to an end! She looked at him hesitatingly and smiled again. Sheheld out her hand. No doubt that was the proper thing to do. He tookit, searching a void, tumultuous mind in vain. 

"It's awfully kind of you, " she said again as she did so. 

"It don't matter a bit, " said Mr. Lewisham, and sought vainly for someother saying, some doorway remark into new topics. Her hand was cooland soft and firm, the most delightful thing to grasp, and thisobservation ousted all other things. He held it for a moment, butnothing would come. 

They discovered themselves hand in hand. They both laughed and felt"silly. " They shook hands in the manner of quite intimate friends, andsnatched their hands away awkwardly. She turned, glanced timidly athim over her shoulder, and hesitated. "Good-bye, " she said, and wassuddenly walking from him. 

He bowed to her receding back, made a seventeenth-century sweep withhis college cap, and then some hitherto unexplored regions of his mindflashed into revolt. 

Hardly had she gone six paces when he was at her side again. 

"I say, " he said with a fearful sense of his temerity, and raising hismortar-board awkwardly as though he was passing a funeral. "But thatsheet of paper ... "

"Yes, " she said surprised--quite naturally. 

"May I have it?"

"Why?"

He felt a breathless pleasure, like that of sliding down a slope ofsnow. "I would like to have it. "

She smiled and raised her eyebrows, but his excitement was now toogreat for smiling. "Look here!" she said, and displayed the sheetcrumpled into a ball. She laughed--with a touch of effort. 

"I don't mind that, " said Mr. Lewisham, laughing too. He captured thepaper by an insistent gesture and smoothed it out with fingers thattrembled. 

"You don't mind?" he said. 

"Mind what?"

"If I keep it?"

"Why should I?"

Pause. Their eyes met again. There was an odd constraint about both ofthem, a palpitating interval of silence. 

"I really _must_ be going, " she said suddenly, breaking the spell byan effort. She turned about and left him with the crumpled piece ofpaper in the fist that held the book, the other hand lifting themortar board in a dignified salute again. 

He watched her receding figure. His heart was beating with remarkablerapidity. How light, how living she seemed! Little round flakes ofsunlight raced down her as she went. She walked fast, then slowly, looking sideways once or twice, but not back, until she reached thepark gates. Then she looked towards him, a remote friendly littlefigure, made a gesture of farewell, and disappeared. 

His face was flushed and his eyes bright. Curiously enough, he was outof breath. He stared for a long time at the vacant end of theavenue. Then he turned his eyes to his trophy gripped against theclosed and forgotten Horace in his hand. 

CHAPTER III. 

THE WONDERFUL DISCOVERY. 

On Sunday it was Lewisham's duty to accompany the boarders twice tochurch. The boys sat in the gallery above the choirs facing the organloft and at right angles to the general congregation. It was aprominent position, and made him feel painfully conspicuous, except inmoods of exceptional vanity, when he used to imagine that all thesepeople were thinking how his forehead and his certificatesaccorded. He thought a lot in those days of his certificates andforehead, but little of his honest, healthy face beneath it. (To tellthe truth there was nothing very wonderful about his forehead. ) Herarely looked down the church, as he fancied to do so would be to meetthe collective eye of the congregation regarding him. So that in themorning he was not able to see that the Frobishers' pew was emptyuntil the litany. 

But in the evening, on the way to church, the Frobishers and theirguest crossed the market-square as his string of boys marched alongthe west side. And the guest was arrayed in a gay new dress, as if itwas already Easter, and her face set in its dark hair came with astrange effect of mingled freshness and familiarity. She looked at himcalmly! He felt very awkward, and was for cutting his newacquaintance. Then hesitated, and raised his hat with a jerk as if toMrs. Frobisher. Neither lady acknowledged his salute, which maypossibly have been a little unexpected. Then young Siddons dropped hishymn-book; stooped to pick it up, and Lewisham almost fell overhim.... He entered church in a mood of black despair. 

But consolation of a sort came soon enough. As _she_ took her seat shedistinctly glanced up at the gallery, and afterwards as he knelt topray he peeped between his fingers and saw her looking up again. Shewas certainly not laughing at him. 

In those days much of Lewisham's mind was still an unknown land tohim. He believed among other things that he was always the sameconsistent intelligent human being, whereas under certain stimuli hebecame no longer reasonable and disciplined but a purely imaginativeand emotional person. Music, for instance, carried him away, andparticularly the effect of many voices in unison whirled him off fromalmost any state of mind to a fine massive emotionality. And theevening service at Whortley church--at the evening service surpliceswere worn--the chanting and singing, the vague brilliance of thenumerous candle flames, the multitudinous unanimity of thecongregation down there, kneeling, rising, thunderously responding, invariably inebriated him. Inspired him, if you will, and turned theprose of his life into poetry. And Chance, coming to the aid of DameNature, dropped just the apt suggestion into his now highly responsiveear. 

The second hymn was a simple and popular one, dealing with the themeof Faith, Hope, and Charity, and having each verse ending with theword "Love. " Conceive it, long drawn out and disarticulate, --

 "Faith will van ... Ish in ... To sight, Hope be emp ... Tied in deli ... Ight, Love in Heaven will shine more bri ... Ight, There ... Fore give us Love. "

At the third repetition of the refrain, Lewisham looked down acrossthe chancel and met her eyes for a brief instant.... 

He stopped singing abruptly. Then the consciousness of the serriedranks of faces below there came with almost overwhelming force uponhim, and he dared not look at her again. He felt the blood rushing tohis face. 

Love! The greatest of these. The greatest of all things. Better thanfame. Better than knowledge. So came the great discovery like a floodacross his mind, pouring over it with the cadence of the hymn andsending a tide of pink in sympathy across his forehead. The rest ofthe service was phantasmagorial background to that great reality--aphantasmagorial background a little inclined to stare. He, Mr. Lewisham, was in Love. 

"A ... Men. " He was so preoccupied that he found the wholecongregation subsiding into their seats, and himself still standing, rapt. He sat down spasmodically, with an impact that seemed to him tore-echo through the church. 

As they came out of the porch into the thickening night, he seemed tosee her everywhere. He fancied she had gone on in front, and hehurried up the boys in the hope of overtaking her. They pushed throughthe throng of dim people going homeward. Should he raise his hat toher again?... But it was Susie Hopbrow in a light-coloured dress--araven in dove's plumage. He felt a curious mixture of relief anddisappointment. He would see her no more that night. 

He hurried from the school to his lodging. He wanted very urgently tobe alone. He went upstairs to his little room and sat before theupturned box on which his Butler's Analogy was spread open. He did notgo to the formality of lighting the candle. He leant back and gazedblissfully at the solitary planet that hung over the vicarage garden. 

He took out of his pocket a crumpled sheet of paper, smoothed andcarefully refolded, covered with a writing not unlike that ofFrobisher ii. , and after some maidenly hesitation pressed thistreasure to his lips. The Schema and the time-table hung in thedarkness like the mere ghosts of themselves. 

Mrs. Munday called him thrice to his supper. 

He went out immediately after it was eaten and wandered under thestars until he came over the hill behind the town again, and clamberedup the back to the stile in sight of the Frobishers' house. Heselected the only lit window as hers. Behind the blind, Mrs. Frobisher, thirty-eight, was busy with her curl-papers--she usedpapers because they were better for the hair--and discussing certainneighbours in a fragmentary way with Mr. Frobisher, who was inbed. Presently she moved the candle to examine a faint discolourationof her complexion that rendered her uneasy. 

Outside, Mr. Lewisham (eighteen) stood watching the orange oblong forthe best part of half an hour, until it vanished and left the houseblack and blank. Then he sighed deeply and returned home in a veryglorious mood indeed. 

He awoke the next morning feeling extremely serious, but not clearlyremembering the overnight occurrences. His eye fell on his clock. Thetime was six and he had not heard the alarum; as a matter of fact thealarum had not been wound up. He jumped out of bed at once andalighted upon his best trousers amorphously dropped on the floorinstead of methodically cast over a chair. As he soaped his head hetried, according to his rules of revision, to remember the overnightreading. He could not for the life of him. The truth came to him as hewas getting into his shirt. His head, struggling in its recesses, became motionless, the handless cuffs ceased to dangle for aminute.... 

Then his head came through slowly with a surprised expression upon hisface. He remembered. He remembered the thing as a bald discovery, andwithout a touch of emotion. With all the achromatic clearness, theunromantic colourlessness of the early morning.... 

Yes. He had it now quite distinctly. There had been no overnightreading. He was in Love. 

The proposition jarred with some vague thing in his mind. He stoodstaring for a space, and then began looking about absent-mindedly forhis collar-stud. He paused in front of his Schema, regarding it. 

CHAPTER IV. 

RAISED EYEBROWS. 

"Work must be done anyhow, " said Mr. Lewisham. 

But never had the extraordinary advantages of open-air study presentedthemselves so vividly. Before breakfast he took half an hour ofopen-air reading along the allotments lane near the Frobishers' house, after breakfast and before school he went through the avenue with abook, and returned from school to his lodgings circuitously throughthe avenue, and so back to the avenue for thirty minutes or so beforeafternoon school. When Mr. Lewisham was not looking over the top ofhis book during these periods of open-air study, then commonly he wasglancing over his shoulder. And at last who should he see but--!

He saw her out of the corner of his eye, and he turned away at once, pretending not to have seen her. His whole being was suddenlyirradiated with emotion. The hands holding his book gripped it verytightly. He did not glance back again, but walked slowly andsteadfastly, reading an ode that he could not have translated to savehis life, and listening acutely for her approach. And after aninterminable time, as it seemed, came a faint footfall and the swishof skirts behind him. 

He felt as though his head was directed forward by a clutch of iron. 

"Mr. Lewisham, " she said close to him, and he turned with a quality ofmovement that was almost convulsive. He raised his cap clumsily. 

He took her extended hand by an afterthought, and held it until shewithdrew it. "I am so glad to have met you, " she said. 

"So am I, " said Lewisham simply. 

They stood facing one another for an expressive moment, and then by amovement she indicated her intention to walk along the avenue withhim. "I wanted so much, " she said, looking down at her feet, "to thankyou for letting Teddy off, you know. That is why I wanted to see you. "Lewisham took his first step beside her. "And it's odd, isn't it, " shesaid, looking up into his face, "that I should meet you here in justthe same place. I believe ... Yes. The very same place we met before. "

Mr. Lewisham was tongue-tied. 

"Do you often come here?" she said. 

"Well, " he considered--and his voice was most unreasonably hoarse whenhe spoke--"no. No.... That is--At least not often. Now and then. Infact, I like it rather for reading and that sort of thing. It's soquiet. "

"I suppose you read a great deal?"

"When one teaches one has to. "

"But you ... "

"I'm rather fond of reading, certainly. Are you?"

"I _love_ it. "

Mr. Lewisham was glad she loved reading. He would have beendisappointed had she answered differently. But she spoke with realfervour. She _loved_ reading! It was pleasant. She would understandhim a little perhaps. "Of course, " she went on, "I'm not clever likesome people are. And I have to read books as I get hold of them. "

"So do I, " said Mr. Lewisham, "for the matter of that.... Have youread ... Carlyle?"

The conversation was now fairly under way. They were walking side byside beneath the swaying boughs. Mr. Lewisham's sensations wereecstatic, marred only by a dread of some casual boy coming uponthem. She had not read _much_ Carlyle. She had always wanted to, evenfrom quite a little girl--she had heard so much about him. She knew hewas a Really Great Writer, a _very_ Great Writer indeed. All she _had_read of him she liked. She could say that. As much as she likedanything. And she had seen his house in Chelsea. 

Lewisham, whose knowledge of London had been obtained by excursiontrips on six or seven isolated days, was much impressed by this. Itseemed to put her at once on a footing of intimacy with this imposingPersonality. It had never occurred to him at all vividly that theseGreat Writers had real abiding places. She gave him a few descriptivetouches that made the house suddenly real and distinctive to him. Shelived quite near, she said, at least within walking distance, inClapham. He instantly forgot the vague design of lending her his"_Sartor Resartus_" in his curiosity to learn more about herhome. "Clapham--that's almost in London, isn't it?" he said. 

"Quite, " she said, but she volunteered no further information abouther domestic circumstances, "I like London, " she generalised, "andespecially in winter. " And she proceeded to praise London, its publiclibraries, its shops, the multitudes of people, the facilities for"doing what you like, " the concerts one could go to, the theatres. (Itseemed she moved in fairly good society. ) "There's always something tosee even if you only go out for a walk, " she said, "and down herethere's nothing to read but idle novels. And those not new. "

Mr. Lewisham had regretfully to admit the lack of such culture andmental activity in Whortley. It made him feel terribly herinferior. He had only his bookishness and his certificates to setagainst it all--and she had seen Carlyle's house! "Down here, " shesaid, "there's nothing to talk about but scandal. " It was too true. 

At the corner by the stile, beyond which the willows were splendidagainst the blue with silvery aments and golden pollen, they turned bymutual impulse and retraced their steps. "I've simply had no one totalk to down here, " she said. "Not what _I_ call talking. "

"I hope, " said Lewisham, making a resolute plunge, "perhaps while youare staying at Whortley ... "

He paused perceptibly, and she, following his eyes, saw a voluminousblack figure approaching. "We may, " said Mr. Lewisham, resuming hisremark, "chance to meet again, perhaps. "

He had been about to challenge her to a deliberate meeting. A certaindelightful tangle of paths that followed the bank of the river hadbeen in his mind. But the apparition of Mr. George Bonover, headmasterof the Whortley Proprietary School, chilled him amazingly. DameNature no doubt had arranged the meeting of our young couple, butabout Bonover she seems to have been culpably careless. She nowreceded inimitably, and Mr. Lewisham, with the most unpleasantfeelings, found himself face to face with a typical representative ofa social organisation which objects very strongly _inter alia_ topromiscuous conversation on the part of the young unmarried juniormaster. 

"--chance to meet again, perhaps, " said Mr. Lewisham, with a suddenlack of spirit. 

"I hope so too, " she said. 

Pause. Mr. Bonover's features, and particularly a bushy pair of blackeyebrows, were now very near, those eyebrows already raised, apparently to express a refined astonishment. 

"Is this Mr. Bonover approaching?" she asked. 

"Yes. "

Prolonged pause. 

Would he stop and accost them? At any rate this frightful silence mustend. Mr. Lewisham sought in his mind for some remark wherewith tocover his employer's approach. He was surprised to find his mind adesert. He made a colossal effort. If they could only talk, if theycould only seem at their ease! But this blank incapacity was eloquentof guilt. Ah!

"It's a lovely day, though, " said Mr. Lewisham. "Isn't it?"

She agreed with him. "Isn't it?" she said. 

And then Mr. Bonover passed, forehead tight reefed so to speak, andlips impressively compressed. Mr. Lewisham raised his mortar-board, and to his astonishment Mr. Bonover responded with a markedly formalsalute--mock clerical hat sweeping circuitously--and the regard of asearching, disapproving eye, and so passed. Lewisham was overcome withastonishment at this improvement on the nod of their ordinarycommerce. And so this terrible incident terminated for the time. 

He felt a momentary gust of indignation. After all, why should Bonoveror anyone interfere with his talking to a girl if he chose? And forall he knew they might have been properly introduced. By youngFrobisher, say. Nevertheless, Lewisham's spring-tide mood relapsedinto winter. He was, he felt, singularly stupid for the rest of theirconversation, and the delightful feeling of enterprise that hadhitherto inspired and astonished him when talking to her hadshrivelled beyond contempt. He was glad--positively glad--when thingscame to an end. 

At the park gates she held out her hand. "I'm afraid I haveinterrupted your reading, " she said. 

"Not a bit, " said Mr. Lewisham, warming slightly. "I don't know whenI've enjoyed a conversation.... "

"It was--a breach of etiquette, I am afraid, my speaking to you, but Idid so want to thank you.... "

"Don't mention it, " said Mr. Lewisham, secretly impressed by theetiquette. 

"Good-bye. " He stood hesitating by the lodge, and then turned back upthe avenue in order not to be seen to follow her too closely up theWest Street. 

And then, still walking away from her, he remembered that he had notlent her a book as he had planned, nor made any arrangement ever tomeet her again. She might leave Whortley anywhen for the amenities ofClapham. He stopped and stood irresolute. Should he run after her?Then he recalled Bonover's enigmatical expression of face. He decidedthat to pursue her would be altogether too conspicuous. Yet ... So hestood in inglorious hesitation, while the seconds passed. 

He reached his lodging at last to find Mrs. Munday halfway throughdinner. 

"You get them books of yours, " said Mrs. Munday, who took a motherlyinterest in him, "and you read and you read, and you take no accountof time. And now you'll have to eat your dinner half cold, and no timefor it to settle proper before you goes off to school. It's ruinationto a stummik--such ways. "

"Oh, never mind my stomach, Mrs. Munday, " said Lewisham, roused from atangled and apparently gloomy meditation; "that's _my_ affair. " Quitecrossly he spoke for him. 

"I'd rather have a good sensible actin' stummik than a full head, "said Mrs. Monday, "any day. "

"I'm different, you see, " snapped Mr. Lewisham, and relapsed intosilence and gloom. 

("Hoity toity!" said Mrs. Monday under her breath. )

CHAPTER V. 

HESITATIONS. 

Mr. Bonover, having fully matured a Hint suitable for the occasion, dropped it in the afternoon, while Lewisham was superintending cricketpractice. He made a few remarks about the prospects of the firsteleven by way of introduction, and Lewisham agreed with him thatFrobisher i. Looked like shaping very well this season. 

A pause followed and the headmaster hummed. "By-the-bye, " he said, asif making conversation and still watching the play; "I, ah, --understood that you, ah--were a _stranger_ to Whortley. "

"Yes, " said Lewisham, "that's so. "

"You have made friends in the neighbourhood?"

Lewisham was troubled with a cough, and his ears--those confoundedears--brightened, "Yes, " he said, recovering, "Oh yes. Yes, I have. "

"Local people, I presume. "

"Well, no. Not exactly. " The brightness spread from Lewisham's earsover his face. 

"I saw you, " said Bonover, "talking to a young lady in the avenue. Herface was somehow quite familiar to me. Who _was_ she?"

Should he say she was a friend of the Frobishers? In that caseBonover, in his insidious amiable way, might talk to the Frobisherparents and make things disagreeable for her. "She was, " saidLewisham, flushing deeply with the stress on his honesty and droppinghis voice to a mumble, "a ... A ... An old friend of my mother's. Infact, I met her once at Salisbury. "

"Where?"

"Salisbury. "

"And her name?"

"Smith, " said Lewisham, a little hastily, and repenting the lie evenas it left his lips. 

"Well _hit_, Harris!" shouted Bonover, and began to clap hishands. "Well _hit_, sir. "

"Harris shapes very well, " said Mr. Lewisham. 

"Very, " said Mr. Bonover. "And--what was it? Ah! I was just remarkingthe odd resemblances there are in the world. There is a MissHenderson--or Henson--stopping with the Frobishers--in the very sametown, in fact, the very picture of your Miss ... "

"Smith, " said Lewisham, meeting his eye and recovering the fullcrimson note of his first blush. 

"It's odd, " said Bonover, regarding him pensively. 

"Very odd, " mumbled Lewisham, cursing his own stupidity and lookingaway. 

"_Very_--very odd, " said Bonover. 

"In fact, " said Bonover, turning towards the school-house, "I hardlyexpected it of you, Mr. Lewisham. "

"Expected what, sir?"

But Mr. Bonover feigned to be already out of earshot. 

"Damn!" said Mr. Lewisham. "Oh!--_damn_!"--a most objectionableexpression and rare with him in those days. He had half a mind tofollow the head-master and ask him if he doubted his word. It was onlytoo evident what the answer would be. 

He stood for a minute undecided, then turned on his heel and marchedhomeward with savage steps. His muscles quivered as he walked, and hisface twitched. The tumult of his mind settled at last into angryindignation. 

"Confound him!" said Mr. Lewisham, arguing the matter out with thebedroom furniture. "Why the _devil_ can't he mind his own business?"

"Mind your own business, sir!" shouted Mr. Lewisham at the wash-handstand. "Confound you, sir, mind your own business!"

The wash-hand stand did. 

"You overrate your power, sir, " said Mr. Lewisham, a littlemollified. "Understand me! I am my own master out of school. "

Nevertheless, for four days and some hours after Mr. Bonover's Hint, Mr. Lewisham so far observed its implications as to abandon open-airstudy and struggle with diminishing success to observe the spirit aswell as the letter of his time-table prescriptions. For the most parthe fretted at accumulating tasks, did them with slipshod energy orlooked out of window. The Career constituent insisted that to meet andtalk to this girl again meant reproof, worry, interference with hiswork for his matriculation, the destruction of all "Discipline, " andhe saw the entire justice of the insistence. It was nonsense thisbeing in love; there wasn't such a thing as love outside of trashynovelettes. And forthwith his mind went off at a tangent to her eyesunder the shadow of her hat brim, and had to be lugged back by mainforce. On Thursday when he was returning from school he saw her faraway down the street, and hurried in to avoid her, lookingostentatiously in the opposite direction. But that was aturning-point. Shame overtook him. On Friday his belief in love waswarm and living again, and his heart full of remorse for laggard days. 

On Saturday morning his preoccupation with her was so vivid that itdistracted him even while he was teaching that most teachable subject, algebra, and by the end of the school hours the issue was decided andthe Career in headlong rout. That afternoon he would go, whateverhappened, and see her and speak to her again. The thought of Bonoverarose only to be dismissed. And besides--

Bonover took a siesta early in the afternoon. 

Yes, he would go out and find her and speak to her. Nothing shouldstop him. 

Once that decision was taken his imagination became riotous withthings he might say, attitudes he might strike, and a multitude ofvague fine dreams about her. He would say this, he would say that, his mind would do nothing but circle round this wonderful pose oflover. What a cur he had been to hide from her so long! What could hehave been thinking about? How _could_ he explain it to her, when themeeting really came? Suppose he was very frank--

He considered the limits of frankness. Would she believe he had notseen her on Thursday?--if he assured her that it was so?

And, most horrible, in the midst of all this came Bonover with arequest that he would take "duty" in the cricket field instead ofDunkerley that afternoon. Dunkerley was the senior assistant master, Lewisham's sole colleague. The last vestige of disapprobation hadvanished from Bonover's manner; asking a favour was his autocratic wayof proffering the olive branch. But it came to Lewisham as a cruelimposition. For a fateful moment he trembled on the brink ofacquiescence. In a flash came a vision of the long duty of theafternoon--she possibly packing for Clapham all the while. He turnedwhite. Mr. Bonover watched his face. 

"_No_, " said Lewisham bluntly, saying all he was sure of, andforthwith racking his unpractised mind for an excuse. "I'm sorry Ican't oblige you, but ... My arrangements ... I've made arrangements, in fact, for the afternoon. "

Mr. Bonover's eyebrows went up at this obvious lie, and the glow ofhis suavity faded, "You see, " he said, "Mrs. Bonover expects a friendthis afternoon, and we rather want Mr. Dunkerley to make four atcroquet.... "

"I'm sorry, " said Mr. Lewisham, still resolute, and making a mentalnote that Bonover would be playing croquet. 

"You don't play croquet by any chance?" asked Bonover. 

"No, " said Lewisham, "I haven't an idea. "

"If Mr. Dunkerley had asked you?... " persisted Bonover, knowingLewisham's respect for etiquette. 

"Oh! it wasn't on that account, " said Lewisham, and Bonover witheyebrows still raised and a general air of outraged astonishment lefthim standing there, white and stiff, and wondering at hisextraordinary temerity. 

CHAPTER VI. 

THE SCANDALOUS RAMBLE. 

As soon as school was dismissed Lewisham made a gaol-delivery of hisoutstanding impositions, and hurried back to his lodgings, to spendthe time until his dinner was ready--Well?... It seems hardly fair, perhaps, to Lewisham to tell this; it is doubtful, indeed, whether amale novelist's duty to his sex should not restrain him, but, as thewall in the shadow by the diamond-framed window insisted, "_Magna estveritas et prevalebit_. " Mr. Lewisham brushed his hair withelaboration, and ruffled it picturesquely, tried the effect of all histies and selected a white one, dusted his boots with an oldpocket-handkerchief, changed his trousers because the week-day pairwas minutely frayed at the heels, and inked the elbows of his coatwhere the stitches were a little white. And, to be still moreintimate, he studied his callow appearance in the glass from variouspoints of view, and decided that his nose might have been a littlesmaller with advantage.... 

Directly after dinner he went out, and by the shortest path to theallotment lane, telling himself he did not care if he met Bonoverforthwith in the street. He did not know precisely what he intended todo, but he was quite clear that he meant to see the girl he had met inthe avenue. He knew he should see her. A sense of obstacles merelybraced him and was pleasurable. He went up the stone steps out of thelane to the stile that overlooked the Frobishers, the stile from whichhe had watched the Frobisher bedroom. There he seated himself with hisarms, folded, in full view of the house. 

That was at ten minutes to two. At twenty minutes to three he wasstill sitting there, but his hands were deep in his jacket pockets, and he was scowling and kicking his foot against the step with animpatient monotony. His needless glasses had been thrust into hiswaistcoat pocket--where they remained throughout the afternoon--andhis cap was tilted a little back from his forehead and exposed a wispof hair. One or two people had gone down the lane, and he hadpretended not to see them, and a couple of hedge-sparrows chasing eachother along the side of the sunlit, wind-rippled field had been hischief entertainment. It is unaccountable, no doubt, but he felt angrywith her as the time crept on. His expression lowered. 

He heard someone going by in the lane behind him. He would not lookround--it annoyed him to think of people seeing him in thisposition. His once eminent discretion, though overthrown, still mademuffled protests at the afternoon's enterprise. The feet down the lanestopped close at hand. 

"Stare away, " said Lewisham between his teeth. And then beganmysterious noises, a violent rustle of hedge twigs, a something like avery light foot-tapping. 

Curiosity boarded Lewisham and carried him after the briefeststruggle. He looked round, and there she was, her back to him, reaching after the spiky blossoming blackthorn that crested theopposite hedge. Remarkable accident! She had not seen him!

In a moment Lewisham's legs were flying over the stile. He went downthe steps in the bank with such impetus that it carried him up intothe prickly bushes beside her. "Allow me, " he said, too excited to seeshe was not astonished. 

"Mr. Lewisham!" she said in feigned surprise, and stood away to givehim room at the blackthorn. 

"Which spike will you have?" he cried, overjoyed. "The whitest? Thehighest? Any!"

"That piece, " she chose haphazard, "with the black spike sticking outfrom it. "

A mass of snowy blossom it was against the April sky, and Lewisham, straggling for it--it was by no means the most accessible--saw withfantastic satisfaction a lengthy scratch flash white on his hand, andturn to red. 

"Higher up the lane, " he said, descending triumphant and breathless, "there is blackthorn.... This cannot compare for a moment.... "

She laughed and looked at him as he stood there flushed, his eyestriumphant, with an unpremeditated approval. In church, in thegallery, with his face foreshortened, he had been effective in a way, but this was different. "Show me, " she said, though she knew this wasthe only place for blackthorn for a mile in either direction. 

"I _knew_ I should see you, " he said, by way of answer, "I felt sure Ishould see you to-day. "

"It was our last chance almost, " she answered with as frank a qualityof avowal. "I'm going home to London on Monday. "

"I knew, " he cried in triumph. "To Clapham?" he asked. 

"Yes. I have got a situation. You did not know that I was a shorthandclerk and typewriter, did you? I am. I have just left the school, theGrogram School. And now there is an old gentleman who wants anamanuensis. "

"So you know shorthand?" said he. "That accounts for the stylographicpen. Those lines were written.... I have them still. "

She smiled and raised her eyebrows. "Here, " said Mr. Lewisham, tappinghis breast-pocket. 

"This lane, " he said--their talk was curiously inconsecutive--"someway along this lane, over the hill and down, there is a gate, and thatgoes--I mean, it opens into the path that runs along the riverbank. Have you been?"

"No, " she said. 

"It's the best walk about Whortley. It brings you out upon ImmeringCommon. You _must_--before you go. "

"_Now_?" she said with her eyes dancing. 

"Why not?"

"I told Mrs. Frobisher I should be back by four, " she said. 

"It's a walk not to be lost. "

"Very well, " said she. 

"The trees are all budding, " said Mr. Lewisham, "the rushes areshooting, and all along the edge of the river there are millions oflittle white flowers floating on the water, _I_ don't know the namesof them, but they're fine.... May I carry that branch of blossom?"

As he took it their hands touched momentarily ... And there cameanother of those significant gaps. 

"Look at those clouds, " said Lewisham abruptly, remembering the remarkhe had been about to make and waving the white froth of blackthorn, "And look at the blue between them. "

"It's perfectly splendid. Of all the fine weather the best has beenkept for now. My last day. My very last day. "

And off these two young people went together in a highly electricalstate--to the infinite astonishment of Mrs. Frobisher, who was lookingout of the attic window--stepping out manfully and finding the wholeworld lit and splendid for their entertainment. The things theydiscovered and told each other that afternoon down by the river!--thatspring was wonderful, young leaves beautiful, bud scales astonishingthings, and clouds dazzling and stately!--with an air of supremeoriginality! And their naïve astonishment to find one another inagreement upon these novel delights! It seemed to them quite outsidethe play of accident that they should have met each other. 

They went by the path that runs among the trees along the river bank, and she must needs repent and wish to take the lower one, the towingpath, before they had gone three hundred yards. So Lewisham had tofind a place fit for her descent, where a friendly tree proffered itsprotruding roots as a convenient balustrade, and down she clamberedwith her hand in his. 

Then a water-vole washing his whiskers gave occasion for a suddentouching of hands and the intimate confidence of whispers and silencetogether. After which Lewisham essayed to gather her a marsh mallow atthe peril, as it was judged, of his life, and gained it together witha bootful of water. And at the gate by the black and shiny lock, wherethe path breaks away from the river, she overcame him by an unexpectedfeat, climbing gleefully to the top rail with the support of his hand, and leaping down, a figure of light and grace, to the ground. 

They struck boldly across the meadows, which were gay with lady'ssmock, and he walked, by special request, between her and threematronly cows--feeling as Perseus might have done when he fended offthe sea-monster. And so by the mill, and up a steep path to ImmeringCommon. Across the meadows Lewisham had broached the subject of heroccupation. "And are you really going away from here to be anamanuensis?" he said, and started her upon the theme of herself, atheme she treated with a specialist's enthusiasm. They dealt with itby the comparative methods and neither noticed the light was out ofthe sky until the soft feet of the advancing shower had stolen rightupon them. 

"Look!" said he. "Yonder! A shed, " and they ran together. She ranlaughing, and yet swiftly and lightly. He pulled her through the hedgeby both hands, and released her skirt from an amorous bramble, and sothey came into a little black shed in which a rusty harrow of giganticproportions sheltered. He noted how she still kept her breath afterthat run. 

She sat down on the harrow and hesitated. "I _must_ take off my hat, "she said, "that rain will spot it, " and so he had a chance of admiringthe sincerity of her curls--not that he had ever doubted them. Shestooped over her hat, pocket-handkerchief in hand, daintily wiping offthe silvery drops. He stood up at the opening of the shed and lookedat the country outside through the veil of the soft vehemence of theApril shower. 

"There's room for two on this harrow, " she said. 

He made inarticulate sounds of refusal, and then came and sat downbeside her, close beside her, so that he was almost touching her. Hefelt a fantastic desire to take her in his arms and kiss her, andovercame the madness by an effort. "I don't even know your name, " hesaid, taking refuge from his whirling thoughts in conversation. 

"Henderson, " she said. 

"_Miss_ Henderson?"

She smiled in his face--hesitated. "Yes--_Miss_ Henderson. "

Her eyes, her atmosphere were wonderful. He had never felt quite thesame sensation before, a strange excitement, almost like a faint echoof tears. He was for demanding her Christian name. For calling her"dear" and seeing what she would say. He plunged headlong into arambling description of Bonover and how he had told a lie about herand called her Miss Smith, and so escaped this unaccountable emotionalcrisis.... 

The whispering of the rain about them sank and died, and the sunlightstruck vividly across the distant woods beyond Immering. Just thenthey had fallen on a silence again that was full of daring thoughtsfor Mr. Lewisham. He moved his arm suddenly and placed it so that itwas behind her on the frame of the harrow. 

"Let us go on now, " she said abruptly. "The rain has stopped. "

"That little path goes straight to Immering, " said Mr. Lewisham. 

"But, four o'clock?"

He drew out his watch, and his eyebrows went up. It was already nearlya quarter past four. 

"Is it past four?" she asked, and abruptly they were face to face withparting. That Lewisham had to take "duty" at half-past five seemed athing utterly trivial. "Surely, " he said, only slowly realising whatthis parting meant. "But must you? I--I want to talk to you. "

"Haven't you been talking to me?"

"It isn't that. Besides--no. "

She stood looking at him. "I promised to be home by four, " shesaid. "Mrs. Frobisher has tea.... "

"We may never have a chance to see one another again. "

"Well?"

Lewisham suddenly turned very white. 

"Don't leave me, " he said, breaking a tense silence and with a suddenstress in his voice. "Don't leave me. Stop with me yet--for a littlewhile.... You ... You can lose your way. "

"You seem to think, " she said, forcing a laugh, "that I live withouteating and drinking. "

"I have wanted to talk to you so much. The first time I saw you.... Atfirst I dared not.... I did not know you would let me talk.... Andnow, just as I am--happy, you are going. "

He stopped abruptly. Her eyes were downcast. "No, " she said, tracing acurve with the point of her shoe. "No. I am not going. "

Lewisham restrained an impulse to shout. "You will come to Immering?"he cried, and as they went along the narrow path through the wetgrass, he began to tell her with simple frankness how he cared for hercompany, "I would not change this, " he said, casting about for anoffer to reject, "for--anything in the world.... I shall not be backfor duty. I don't care. I don't care what happens so long as we havethis afternoon. "

"Nor I, " she said. 

"Thank you for coming, " he said in an outburst of gratitude. --"Oh, thank you for coming, " and held out his hand. She took it and pressedit, and so they went on hand in hand until the village street wasreached. Their high resolve to play truant at all costs had begottena wonderful sense of fellowship. "I can't call you Miss Henderson, " hesaid. "You know I can't. You know ... I must have your Christianname. "

"Ethel, " she told him. 

"Ethel, " he said and looked at her, gathering courage as he didso. "Ethel, " he repeated. "It is a pretty name. But no name is quitepretty enough for you, Ethel ... _dear_. "... 

The little shop in Immering lay back behind a garden full ofwallflowers, and was kept by a very fat and very cheerful littlewoman, who insisted on regarding them as brother and sister, andcalling them both "dearie. " These points conceded she gave them anadmirable tea of astonishing cheapness. Lewisham did not like thesecond condition very much, because it seemed to touch a little on hislatest enterprise. But the tea and the bread and butter and the whortjam were like no food on earth. There were wallflowers, heavy scented, in a jug upon the table, and Ethel admired them, and when they set outagain the little old lady insisted on her taking a bunch with her. 

It was after they left Immering that this ramble, properly speaking, became scandalous. The sun was already a golden ball above the bluehills in the west--it turned our two young people into little figuresof flame--and yet, instead of going homeward, they took the Wentworthroad that plunges into the Forshaw woods. Behind them the moon, almostfull, hung in the blue sky above the tree-tops, ghostly andindistinct, and slowly gathered to itself such light as the settingsun left for it in the sky. 

Going out of Immering they began to talk of the future. And for thevery young lover there is no future but the immediate future. 

"You must write to me, " he said, and she told him she wrote such_silly_ letters. "But I shall have reams to write to you, " he toldher. 

"How are you to write to me?" she asked, and they discussed a newobstacle between them. It would never do to write home--never. She wassure of that with an absolute assurance. "My mother--" she said andstopped. 

That prohibition cut him, for at that time he had the makings of avoluminous letter-writer. Yet it was only what one might expect. Thewhole world was unpropitious--obdurate indeed.... A splendid isolation_à deux_. 

Perhaps she might find some place where letters might be sent to her?Yet that seemed to her deceitful. 

So these two young people wandered on, full of their discovery oflove, and yet so full too of the shyness of adolescence that the word"Love" never passed their lips that day. Yet as they talked on, andthe kindly dusk gathered about them, their speech and their heartscame very close together. But their speech would seem so threadbare, written down in cold blood, that I must not put it here. To them itwas not threadbare. 

When at last they came down the long road into Whortley, the silenttrees were black as ink and the moonlight made her face pallid andwonderful, and her eyes shone like stars. She still carried theblackthorn from which most of the blossoms had fallen. The fragrantwallflowers were fragrant still. And far away, softened by thedistance, the Whortley band, performing publicly outside the vicaragefor the first time that year, was playing with unctuous slowness asentimental air. I don't know if the reader remembers it that, favourite melody of the early eighties:--

 "Sweet dreamland faces, passing to and fro, (pum, pum) Bring back to Mem'ry days of long ago-o-o-oh, "

was the essence of it, very slow and tender and with an accompanimentof pum, pum. Pathetically cheerful that pum, pum, hopelessly cheerfulindeed against the dirge of the air, a dirge accentuated by sporadicvocalisation. But to young people things come differently. 

"I _love_ music, " she said. 

"So do I, " said he. 

They came on down the steepness of West Street. They walked athwartthe metallic and leathery tumult of sound into the light cast by thelittle circle of yellow lamps. Several people saw them and wonderedwhat the boys and girls were coming to nowadays, and one eye-witnesseven subsequently described their carriage as "brazen. " Mr. Lewishamwas wearing his mortarboard cap of office--there was no mistakinghim. They passed the Proprietary School and saw a yellow pictureframed and glazed, of Mr. Bonover taking duty for his aberrantassistant master. And outside the Frobisher house at last they partedperforce. 

"Good-bye, " he said for the third time. "Good-bye, Ethel. "

She hesitated. Then suddenly she darted towards him. He felt her handsupon his shoulders, her lips soft and warm upon his cheek, and beforehe could take hold of her she had eluded him, and had flitted into theshadow of the house. "Good-bye, " came her sweet, clear voice out ofthe shadow, and while he yet hesitated an answer, the door opened. 

He saw her, black in the doorway, heard some indistinct words, andthen the door closed and he was alone in the moonlight, his cheekstill glowing from her lips.... 

So ended Mr. Lewisham's first day with Love. 

CHAPTER VII. 

THE RECKONING. 

And after the day of Love came the days of Reckoning. Mr. Lewisham. Was astonished--overwhelmed almost--by that Reckoning, as it slowly and steadily unfolded itself. The wonderful emotions ofSaturday carried him through Sunday, and he made it up with theneglected Schema by assuring it that She was his Inspiration, and thathe would work for Her a thousand times better than he could possiblywork for himself. That was certainly not true, and indeed he foundhimself wondering whither the interest had vanished out of histheological examination of Butler's Analogy. The Frobishers were notat church for either service. He speculated rather anxiously why?

Monday dawned coldly and clearly--a Herbert Spencer of a day--and hewent to school sedulously assuring himself there was nothing toapprehend. Day boys were whispering in the morning apparently abouthim, and Frobisher ii. Was in great request. Lewisham overheard afragment "My mother _was_ in a wax, " said Frobisher ii. 

At twelve came an interview with Bonover, and voices presently risingin angry altercation and audible to Senior-assistant Dunkerley throughthe closed study door. Then Lewisham walked across the schoolroom, staring straight before him, his cheeks very bright. 

Thereby Dunkerley's mind was prepared for the news that came the nextmorning over the exercise books. "When?" said Dunkerley. 

"End of next term, " said Lewisham. 

"About this girl that's been staying at the Frobishers?"

"Yes. "

"She's a pretty bit of goods. But it will mess up your matric nextJune, " said Dunkerley. 

"That's what I'm sorry for. "

"It's scarcely to be expected he'll give you leave to attend theexam.... "

"He won't, " said Lewisham shortly, and opened his first exercisebook. He found it difficult to talk. 

"He's a greaser. " said Dunkerley. "But there!--what can you expectfrom Durham?" For Bonover had only a Durham degree, and Dunkerley, having none, inclined to be particular. Therewith Dunkerley lapsedinto a sympathetic and busy rustling over his own pile ofexercises. It was not until the heap had been reduced to a book or sothat he spoke again--an elaborate point. 

"Male and female created He them, " said Dunkerley, ticking his waydown the page. "Which (tick, tick) was damned hard (tick, tick) onassistant masters. "

He closed the book with a snap and flung it on the floor behindhim. "You're lucky, " he said. "I _did_ think I should be first to getout of this scandalising hole. You're lucky. It's always acting downhere. Running on parents and guardians round every corner. That's whatI object to in life in the country: it's so confoundedlyartificial. _I_ shall take jolly good care _I_ get out of it just assoon as ever I can. You bet!"

"And work those patents?"

"Rather, my boy. Yes. Work those patents. The Patent Square TopBottle! Lord! Once let me get to London.... "

"I think _I_ shall have a shot at London, " said Lewisham. 

And then the experienced Dunkerley, being one of the kindest young menalive, forgot certain private ambitions of his own--he cherisheddreams of amazing patents--and bethought him of agents. He proceededto give a list of these necessary helpers of the assistant master atthe gangway--Orellana, Gabbitas, The Lancaster Gate Agency, and therest of them. He knew them all--intimately. He had been a "nix" eightyears. "Of course that Kensington thing may come off, " said Dunkerley, "but it's best not to wait. I tell you frankly--the chances areagainst you. "

The "Kensington thing" was an application for admission to the NormalSchool of Science at South Kensington, which Lewisham had made in asanguine moment. There being an inadequate supply of qualified scienceteachers in England, the Science and Art Department is wont to offerfree instruction at its great central school and a guinea a week toselect young pedagogues who will bind themselves to teach scienceafter their training is over. Dunkerley had been in the habit ofapplying for several years, always in vain, and Lewisham had seen noharm in following his example. But then Dunkerley had no green-greycertificates. 

So Lewisham spent all that "duty" left him of the next day composing aletter to copy out and send the several scholastic agencies. In thishe gave a brief but appreciative sketch of his life, and enlarged uponhis discipline and educational methods. At the end was a long anddecorative schedule of his certificates and distinctions, beginningwith a good-conduct prize at the age of eight. A considerable amountof time was required to recopy this document, but his modesty upheldhim. After a careful consideration of the time-table, he set aside themidday hour for "Correspondence. "

He found that his work in mathematics and classics was already sometime in arrears, and a "test" he had sent to his correspondence Tutorduring those troublous days after the meeting with Bonover in theAvenue, came back blottesquely indorsed: "Below Pass Standard. " Thislast experience was so unprecedented and annoyed him so much that fora space he contemplated retorting with a sarcastic letter to thetutor. And then came the Easter recess, and he had to go home and tellhis mother, with a careful suppression of details, that he was leavingWhortley, "Where you have been getting on so well!" cried his mother. 

But that dear old lady had one consolation. She observed he had givenup his glasses--he had forgotten to bring them with him--and hersecret fear of grave optical troubles--that were being "kept" fromher---was alleviated. 

Sometimes he had moods of intense regret for the folly of thatwalk. One such came after the holidays, when the necessity of revisingthe dates of the Schema brought before his mind, for the first timequite clearly, the practical issue of this first struggle with allthose mysterious and powerful influences the spring-time setsa-stirring. His dream of success and fame had been very real and dearto him, and the realisation of the inevitable postponement of his longanticipated matriculation, the doorway to all the other great things, took him abruptly like an actual physical sensation in his chest. 

He sprang up, pen in hand, in the midst of his corrections, and beganpacing up and down the room. "What a fool I have been!" hecried. "What a fool I have been!"

He flung the pen on the floor and made a rush at an ill-drawn attemptupon a girl's face that adorned the end of his room, the visiblewitness of his slavery. He tore this down and sent the fragments of itscattering.... 

"Fool!"

It was a relief--a definite abandonment. He stared for a moment at thedestruction he had made, and then went back to the revision of thetime-table, with a mutter about "silly spooning. "

That was one mood. The rarer one. He watched the posts with far moreeagerness for the address to which he might write to her than for anyreply to those reiterated letters of application, the writing of whichnow ousted Horace and the higher mathematics (Lewisham's term forconics) from his attention. Indeed he spent more time meditating theletter to her than even the schedule of his virtues had required. 

Yet the letters of application were wonderful compositions; each had anew pen to itself and was for the first page at least in a handwritingfar above even his usual high standard. And day after day passed andthat particular letter he hoped for still did not come. 

His moods were complicated by the fact that, in spite of his studiedreticence on the subject, the reason of his departure did in anamazingly short time get "all over Whortley. " It was understood thathe had been discovered to be "fast, " and Ethel's behaviour wasanimadverted upon with complacent Indignation--if the phrase may beallowed--by the ladies of the place. Pretty looks were too often asnare. One boy--his ear was warmed therefor--once called aloud"Ethel, " as Lewisham went by. The curate, a curate of the pale-faced, large-knuckled, nervous sort, now passed him without acknowledgment ofhis existence. Mrs. Bonover took occasion to tell him that he was a"mere boy, " and once Mrs. Frobisher sniffed quite threateningly at himwhen she passed him in the street. She did it so suddenly she made himjump. 

This general disapproval inclined him at times to depression, but incertain moods he found it exhilarating, and several times he professedhimself to Dunkerley not a little of a blade. In others, he toldhimself he bore it for _her_ sake. Anyhow he had to bear it. 

He began to find out, too, how little the world feels the need of ayoung man of nineteen--he called himself nineteen, though he hadseveral months of eighteen still to run--even though he adds prizesfor good conduct, general improvement, and arithmetic, and advancedcertificates signed by a distinguished engineer and headed with theRoyal Arms, guaranteeing his knowledge of geometrical drawing, nautical astronomy, animal physiology, physiography, inorganicchemistry, and building construction, to his youth and strength andenergy. At first he had imagined headmasters clutching at the chanceof him, and presently he found himself clutching eagerly at them. Hebegan to put a certain urgency into his applications for vacant posts, an urgency that helped him not at all. The applications grew longerand longer until they ran to four sheets of note-paper--a pennyworthin fact. "I can assure you, " he would write, "that you will find me aloyal and devoted assistant. " Much in that strain. Dunkerley pointedout that Bonover's testimonial ignored the question of moral characterand discipline in a marked manner, and Bonover refused to alter it. Hewas willing to do what he could to help Lewisham, in spite of the wayhe had been treated, but unfortunately his conscience.... 

Once or twice Lewisham misquoted the testimonial--to no purpose. AndMay was halfway through, and South Kensington was silent. The futurewas grey. 

And in the depths of his doubt and disappointment came her letter. Itwas typewritten on thin paper. "Dear, " she wrote simply, and itseemed to him the most sweet and wonderful of all possible modes ofaddress, though as a matter of fact it was because she had forgottenhis Christian name and afterwards forgotten the blank she had left forit. 

"Dear, I could not write before because I have no room at home nowwhere I can write a letter, and Mrs. Frobisher told my motherfalsehoods about you. My mother has surprised me dreadfully--I did notthink it of her. She told me nothing. But of that I must tell you inanother letter. I am too angry to write about it now. Even now youcannot write back, for _you must not send letters here_. It would_never_ do. But I think of you, dear, "--the "dear" had been erased andrewritten--"and I must write and tell you so, and of that nice walk wehad, if I never write again. I am very busy now. My work is ratherdifficult and I am afraid I am a little stupid. It is hard to beinterested in anything just because that is how you have to live, isit not? I daresay you sometimes feel the same of school. But Isuppose everybody is doing things they don't like. I don't know whenI shall come to Whortley again, if ever, but very likely you will becoming to London. Mrs. Frobisher said the most horrid things. Itwould be nice If you could come to London, because then perhaps youmight see me. There is a big boys' school at Chelsea, and when I go byit every morning I wish you were there. Then you would come out inyour cap and gown as I went by. Suppose some day I was to see youthere suddenly!!"

So it ran, with singularly little information in it, and ended quiteabruptly, "Good-bye, dear. Good-bye, dear, " scribbled in pencil. Andthen, "Think of me sometimes. "

Reading it, and especially that opening "dear, " made Lewisham feel thestrangest sensation in his throat and chest, almost as though he wasgoing to cry. So he laughed instead and read it again, and went to andfro in his little room with his eyes bright and that precious writingheld in his hand. That "dear" was just as if she had spoken--a voicesuddenly heard. He thought of her farewell, clear and sweet, out ofthe shadow of the moonlit house. 

But why that "If I never write again, " and that abrupt ending? Ofcourse he would think of her. 

It was her only letter. In a little time its creases were wornthrough. 

Early in June came a loneliness that suddenly changed into almostintolerable longing to see her. He had vague dreams of going toLondon, to Clapham to find her. But you do not find people in Claphamas you do in Whortley. He spent an afternoon writing and re-writing alengthy letter, against the day when her address should come. If itwas to come. He prowled about the village disconsolately, and at lastset off about seven and retraced by moonlight almost every step ofthat one memorable walk of theirs. 

In the blackness of the shed he worked himself up to the pitch oftalking as if she were present. And he said some fine brave things. 

He found the little old lady of the wallflowers with a candle in herwindow, and drank a bottle of ginger beer with a sacramental air. Thelittle old lady asked him, a trifle archly, after his sister, and hepromised to bring her again some day. "I'll certainly bring her, " hesaid. Talking to the little old lady somehow blunted his sense ofdesolation. And then home through the white indistinctness in a stateof melancholy that became at last so fine as to be almost pleasurable. 

The day after that mood a new "text" attracted and perplexedMrs. Munday, an inscription at once mysterious and familiar, and thisinscription was:

Mizpah. 

It was in Old English lettering and evidently very carefully executed. 

Where had she seen it before?

It quite dominated all the rest of the room at first, it flaunted likea flag of triumph over "discipline" and the time-table and theSchema. Once indeed it was taken down, but the day after itreappeared. Later a list of scholastic vacancies partially obscuredit, and some pencil memoranda were written on the margin. 

And when at last the time came for him to pack up and leave Whortley, he took it down and used it with several other suitable papers--theSchema and the time-table were its next-door neighbours--to line thebottom of the yellow box in which he packed his books: chiefly booksfor that matriculation that had now to be postponed. 

CHAPTER VIII. 

THE CAREER PREVAILS. 

There is an interval of two years and a half and the story resumeswith a much maturer Mr. Lewisham, indeed no longer a youth, but a man, a legal man, at any rate, of one-and-twenty years. Its scene is nolonger little Whortley embedded among its trees, ruddy banks, parksand common land, but the grey spaciousness of West London. 

And it does not resume with Ethel at all. For that promised secondletter never reached him, and though he spent many an afternoon duringhis first few months in London wandering about Clapham, that aridwaste of people, the meeting that he longed for never came. Until atlast, after the manner of youth, so gloriously recuperative in body, heart, and soul, he began to forget. 

The quest of a "crib" had ended in the unexpected fruition ofDunkerley's blue paper. The green-blue certificates had, it seemed, avalue beyond mural decoration, and when Lewisham was alreadydespairing of any employment for the rest of his life, came amarvellous blue document from the Education Department promisinginconceivable things. He was to go to London and be paid a guinea aweek for listening to lectures--lectures beyond his most ambitiousdreams! Among the names that swam before his eyes was Huxley--Huxleyand then Lockyer! What a chance to get! Is it any wonder that forthree memorable years the Career prevailed with him?

You figure him on his way to the Normal School of Science at theopening of his third year of study there. (They call the place theRoyal College of Science in these latter days. ) He carried in hisright hand a shiny black bag, well stuffed with text-books, notes, andapparatus for the, forthcoming session; and in his left was a bookthat the bag had no place for, a book with gilt edges, and its bindingvery carefully protected by a brown paper cover. 

The lapse of time had asserted itself upon his upper lip in aninaggressive but indisputable moustache, in an added inch or so ofstature, and in his less conscious carriage. For he no longer feltthat universal attention he believed in at eighteen; it was beginningto dawn on him indeed that quite a number of people were entirelyindifferent to the fact of his existence. But if less conscious, hiscarriage was decidedly more confident--as of one with whom the worldgoes well. 

His costume was--with one exception--a tempered black, --mourning putto hard uses and "cutting up rusty. " The mourning was for his mother, who had died more than a year before the date when this story resumes, and had left him property that capitalized at nearly a hundred pounds, a sum which Lewisham hoarded jealously in the Savings Bank, payingonly for such essentials as university fees, and the books andinstruments his brilliant career as a student demanded. For he washaving a brilliant career, after all, in spite of the Whortley check, licking up paper certificates indeed like a devouring flame. 

(Surveying him, Madam, your eye would inevitably have fallen to hiscollar--curiously shiny, a surface like wet gum. Although it haspractically nothing to do with this story, I must, I know, dispose ofthat before I go on, or you will be inattentive. London has itsmysteries, but this strange gloss on his linen! "Cheap laundressesalways make your things blue, " protests the lady. "It ought to havebeen blue-stained, generously frayed, and loose about the button, fretting his neck. But this gloss ... " You would have looked nearer, and finally you would have touched--a charnel-house surface, dank andcool! You see, Madam, the collar was a patent waterproof one. One ofthose you wash over night with a tooth-brush, and hang on the back ofyour chair to dry, and there you have it next morning rejuvenesced. Itwas the only collar he had in the world, it saved threepence a week atleast, and that, to a South Kensington "science teacher in training, "living on the guinea a week allowed by a parental but parsimoniousgovernment, is a sum to consider. It had come to Lewisham as a greatdiscovery. He had seen it first in a shop window full of indiarubbergoods, and it lay at the bottom of a glass bowl In which goldfishdrifted discontentedly to and fro. And he told himself that he ratherliked that gloss. )

But the wearing of a bright red tie would have been unexpected--abright red tie after the fashion of a South-Western railway guard's!The rest of him by no means dandiacal, even the vanity of glasses longsince abandoned. You would have reflected.... Where had you seen acrowd--red ties abundant and in some way significant? The truth has tobe told. Mr. Lewisham had become a Socialist!

That red tie was indeed but one outward and visible sign of muchinward and spiritual development. Lewisham, in spite of the demands ofa studious career, had read his Butler's Analogy through by this time, and some other books; he had argued, had had doubts, and called uponGod for "Faith" in the silence of the night--"Faith" to be deliveredimmediately if Mr. Lewisham's patronage was valued, and whichnevertheless was not so delivered.... And his conception of hisdestiny in this world was no longer an avenue of examinations to aremote Bar and political eminence "in the Liberal interest (D. V. )" Hehad begun to realise certain aspects of our social order that Whortleydid not demonstrate, begun to feel something of the dull stressdeepening to absolute wretchedness and pain, which is the colour of somuch human life in modern London. One vivid contrast hung in his mindsymbolical. On the one hand were the coalies of the Westbourne Parkyards, on strike and gaunt and hungry, children begging in the blackslush, and starving loungers outside a soup kitchen; and on the other, Westbourne Grove, two streets further, a blazing array of crowdedshops, a stirring traffic of cabs and carriages, and such a spate ofspending that a tired student in leaky boots and graceless clotheshurrying home was continually impeded in the whirl of skirts andparcels and sweetly pretty womanliness. No doubt the tired student'sown inglorious sensations pointed the moral. But that was only one ofa perpetually recurring series of vivid approximations. 

Lewisham had a strong persuasion, an instinct it may be, that humanbeings should not be happy while others near them were wretched, andthis gay glitter of prosperity had touched him with a sense ofcrime. He still believed people were responsible for their own lives;in those days he had still to gauge the possibilities of moralstupidity in himself and his fellow-men. He happened upon "Progressand Poverty" just then, and some casual numbers of the "Commonweal, "and it was only too easy to accept the theory of cunning plottingcapitalists and landowners, and faultless, righteous, martyrworkers. He became a Socialist forthwith. The necessity to dosomething at once to manifest the new faith that was in him wasnaturally urgent. So he went out and (historical moment) bought thatred tie!

"Blood colour, please, " said Lewisham meekly to the young lady at thecounter. 

"_What_ colour?" said the young lady at the counter, sharply. 

"A bright scarlet, please, " said Lewisham, blushing. And he spent thebest part of the evening and much of his temper in finding out how totie this into a neat bow. It was a plunge into novel handicraft--forpreviously he had been accustomed to made-up ties. 

So it was that Lewisham proclaimed the Social Revolution. The firsttime that symbol went abroad a string of stalwart policemen werewalking in single file along the Brompton Road. In the oppositedirection marched Lewisham. He began to hum. He passed the policemenwith a significant eye and humming the _Marseillaise_.... 

But that was months ago, and by this time the red tie was a thing ofuse and wont. 

He turned out of the Exhibition Road through a gateway of wroughtiron, and entered the hall of the Normal School. The hall was crowdedwith students carrying books, bags, and boxes of instruments, studentsstanding and chattering, students reading the framed and glazednotices of the Debating Society, students buying note-books, pencils, rubber, or drawing pins from the privileged stationer. There was astrong representation of new hands, the paying students, youths andyoung men in black coats and silk hats or tweed suits, the scholarcontingent, youngsters of Lewisham's class, raw, shabby, discordant, grotesquely ill-dressed and awe-stricken; one Lewisham noticed with asailor's peaked cap gold-decorated, and one with mittens and verygenteel grey kid gloves; and Grummett the perennial Official of theBooks was busy among them. 

"Der Zozalist!" said a wit. 

Lewisham pretended not to hear and blushed vividly. He often wished hedid not blush quite so much, seeing he was a man of one-and-twenty. He looked studiously away from the Debating Society notice-board, whereon "G. E. Lewisham on Socialism" was announced for the nextFriday, and struggled through the hall to where the Book awaited hissignature. Presently he was hailed by name, and then again. He couldnot get to the Book for a minute or so, because of the hand-shakingand clumsy friendly jests of his fellow-"men. "

He was pointed out to a raw hand, by the raw hand's experiencedfellow-townsman, as "that beast Lewisham--awful swat. He was secondlast year on the year's work. Frightful mugger. But all these swatshave a touch of the beastly prig. Exams--Debating Society--moreExams. Don't seem to have ever heard of being alive. Never goes near aMusic Hall from one year's end to the other. "

Lewisham heard a shrill whistle, made a run for the lift and caught itjust on the point of departure. The lift was unlit and full of blackshadows; only the sapper who conducted it was distinct. As Lewishampeered doubtfully at the dim faces near him, a girl's voice addressedhim by name. 

"Is that you, Miss Heydinger?" he answered. "I didn't see, I hope youhave had a pleasant vacation. "

CHAPTER IX. 

ALICE HEYDINGER. 

When he arrived at the top of the building he stood aside for the onlyremaining passenger to step out before him. It was the Miss Heydingerwho had addressed him, the owner of that gilt-edged book in the coverof brown paper. No one else had come all the way up from the groundfloor. The rest of the load in the lift had emerged at the"astronomical" and "chemical" floors, but these two had both chosen"zoology" for their third year of study, and zoology lived in theattics. She stepped into the light, with a rare touch of colourspringing to her cheeks in spite of herself. Lewisham perceived analteration in her dress. Perhaps she was looking for and noticed thetransitory surprise in his face. 

The previous session--their friendship was now nearly a year old--ithad never once dawned upon him that she could possibly be pretty. Thechief thing he had been able to recall with any definiteness duringthe vacation was, that her hair was not always tidy, and that evenwhen it chanced to be so, she was nervous about it; she distrustedit. He remembered her gesture while she talked, a patting explorationthat verged on the exasperating. From that he went on to rememberthat its colour was, on the whole, fair, a light brown. But he hadforgotten her mouth, he had failed to name the colour of her eyes. Shewore glasses, it is true. And her dress was indefinite in hismemory--an amorphous dinginess. 

And yet he had seen a good deal of her. They were not in the samecourse, but he had made her acquaintance on the committee of theschool Debating Society. Lewisham was just then discoveringSocialism. That had afforded a basis of conversation--an incentive tointercourse. She seemed to find something rarely interesting in hispeculiar view of things, and, as chance would have it, he met heraccidentally quite a number of times, in the corridors of the schools, in the big Education Library, and in the Art Museum. After a timethose meetings appear to have been no longer accidental. 

Lewisham for the first time in his life began to fancy he hadconversational powers. She resolved to stir up his ambitions--an easytask. She thought he had exceptional gifts and that she might serve todirect them; she certainly developed his vanity. She had matriculatedat the London University and they took the Intermediate Examination inScience together in July--she a little unwisely--which served, asalmost anything will serve in such cases, as a further link betweenthem. She failed, which in no way diminished Lewisham's regard forher. On the examination days they discoursed about Friendship ingeneral, and things like that, down the Burlington Arcade during thelunch time--Burlington Arcade undisguisedly amused by her learneddinginess and his red tie--and among other things that were said shereproached him for not reading poetry. When they parted in Piccadilly, after the examination, they agreed to write, about poetry andthemselves, during the holidays, and then she lent him, with a touchof hesitation, Rossetti's poems. He began to forget what had at firstbeen very evident to him, that she was two or three years older thanhe. 

Lewisham spent the vacation with an unsympathetic but kindly uncle whowas a plumber and builder. His uncle had a family of six, the eldesteleven, and Lewisham made himself agreeable and instructive. Moreoverhe worked hard for the culminating third year of his studies (in whichhe had decided to do great things), and he learnt to ride the OrdinaryBicycle. He also thought about Miss Heydinger, and she, it would seem, thought about him. 

He argued on social questions with his uncle, who was a prominentlocal Conservative. His uncle's controversial methods were coarse inthe extreme. Socialists, he said, were thieves. The object ofSocialism was to take away what a man earned and give it to "a lot oflazy scoundrels. " Also rich people were necessary. "If there weren'twell-off people, how d'ye think I'd get a livin'? Hey? And where'd_you_ be then?" Socialism, his uncle assured him, was "got up" byagitators. "They get money out of young Gabies like you, and theyspend it in champagne. " And thereafter he met Mr. Lewisham's argumentswith the word "Champagne" uttered in an irritating voice, followed bya luscious pantomime of drinking. 

Naturally Lewisham felt a little lonely, and perhaps he laid stressupon it in his letters to Miss Heydinger. It came to light that shefelt rather lonely too. They discussed the question of True asdistinguished from Ordinary Friendship, and from that they passed toGoethe and Elective Affinities. He told her how he looked for herletters, and they became more frequent. Her letters were Indisputablywell written. Had he been a journalist with a knowledge of "_perthou_. " he would have known each for a day's work. After the practicalplumber had been asking what he expected to make by this here scienceof his, re-reading her letters was balsamic. He liked Rossetti--theexquisite sense of separation in "The Blessed Damozel" touchedhim. But, on the whole, he was a little surprised at Miss Heydinger'staste in poetry. Rossetti was so sensuous ... So florid. He hadscarcely expected that sort of thing. 

Altogether he had returned to the schools decidedly more interested inher than when they had parted. And the curious vague memories of herappearance as something a little frayed and careless, vanished atsight of her emerging from the darkness of the lift. Her hair was inorder, as the light glanced through it it looked even pretty, and shewore a well-made, dark-green and black dress, loose-gathered as wasthe fashion in those days, that somehow gave a needed touch of warmthto her face. Her hat too was a change from the careless lumpishness oflast year, a hat that, to a feminine mind, would have indicateddesign. It suited her--these things are past a male novelist'sexplaining. 

"I have this book of yours, Miss Heydinger, " he said. 

"I am glad you have written that paper on Socialism, " she replied, taking the brown-covered volume. 

They walked along the little passage towards the biological laboratoryside by side, and she stopped at the hat pegs to remove her hat. Forthat was the shameless way of the place, a girl student had to takeher hat off publicly, and publicly assume the holland apron that wasto protect her in the laboratory. Not even a looking-glass!

"I shall come and hear your paper, " she said. 

"I hope you will like it, " said Lewisham at the door of thelaboratory. 

"And in the vacation I have been collecting evidence about ghosts--youremember our arguments. Though I did not tell you in my letters. "

"I'm sorry you're still obdurate, " said Lewisham. "I thought that wasover. "

"And have you read 'Looking Backward'?"

"I want to. "

"I have it here with my other books, if you'd care for me to lend itto you. Wait till I reach my table. My hands are so full. "

They entered the laboratory together, Lewisham holding the door opencourtly-wise, Miss Heydinger taking a reassuring pat at her hair. Nearthe door was a group of four girls, which group Miss Heydinger joined, holding the brown-covered book as inconspicuously as possible. Threeof them had been through the previous two years with her, and theygreeted her by her Christian name. They had previously exchangedglances at her appearance in Lewisham's company. 

A morose elderly young demonstrator brightened momentarily at thesight of Lewisham. "Well, we've got one of the decent ones anyhow, "said the morose elderly young demonstrator, who was apparently takingan inventory, and then brightening at a fresh entry. "Ah! and here'sSmithers. "

CHAPTER X. 

IN THE GALLERY OF OLD IRON. 

As one goes into the South Kensington Art Museum from the BromptonRoad, the Gallery of Old Iron is overhead to the right. But the waythither is exceedingly devious and not to be revealed to everybody, since the young people who pursue science and art thereabouts set apeculiar value on its seclusion. The gallery is long and narrow anddark, and set with iron gates, iron-bound chests, locks, bolts andbars, fantastic great keys, lamps, and the like, and over thebalustrade one may lean and talk of one's finer feelings and regardMichael Angelo's horned Moses, or Trajan's Column (in plaster) risinggigantic out of the hall below and far above the level of thegallery. And here, on a Wednesday afternoon, were Lewisham and MissHeydinger, the Wednesday afternoon immediately following that paperupon Socialism, that you saw announced on the notice-board in thehall. 

The paper had been an immense success, closely reasoned, deliveredwith a disciplined emotion, the redoubtable Smithers practicallyconverted, the reply after the debate methodical and complete, and itmay be there were symptoms of that febrile affection known to thevulgar as "swelled 'ed. " Lewisham regarded Moses and spoke of hisfuture. Miss Heydinger for the most part watched his face. 

"And then?" said Miss Heydinger. 

"One must bring these views prominently before people. I believe stillin pamphlets. I have thought ... " Lewisham paused, it is to be hopedthrough modesty. 

"Yes?" said Miss Heydinger. 

"Well--Luther, you know. There is room, I think, in Socialism, for aLuther. "

"Yes, " said Miss Heydinger, imagining it. "Yes--that would be a grandway. "

So it seemed to many people in those days. But eminent reformers havebeen now for more than seven years going about the walls of the SocialJericho, blowing their own trumpets and shouting--with such smallresult beyond incidental displays of ill-temper within, that it ishard to recover the fine hopefulness of those departed days. 

"Yes, " said Miss Heydinger. "That would be a grand way. "

Lewisham appreciated the quality of personal emotion in her voice. Heturned his face towards her, and saw unstinted admiration in hereyes. "It would be a great thing to do, " he said, and added, quitemodestly, "if only one could do it. "

"_You_ could do it. "

"You think I could?" Lewisham blushed vividly--with pleasure. 

"I do. Certainly you could set out to do it. Even to fail hopelesslywould be Great. Sometimes ... "

She hesitated. He looked expectation. "I think sometimes it is greatereven to fail than to succeed. "

"I don't see that, " said the proposed Luther, and his eyes went backto the Moses. She was about to speak, and changed her mind. 

Contemplative pause. 

"And then, when a great number of people have heard of your views?"she said presently. 

"Then I suppose we must form a party and ... Bring things about. "

Another pause--full, no doubt, of elevated thoughts. 

"I say, " said Lewisham quite suddenly. "You do put--well--courage intoa chap. I shouldn't have done that Socialism paper if it hadn't beenfor you. " He turned round and stood leaning with his back to theMoses, and smiling at her. "You do help a fellow, " he said. 

That was one of the vivid moments of Miss Heydinger's life. Shechanged colour a little. "Do I?" she said, standing straight andawkward and looking into his face, "I'm ... Glad. "

"I haven't thanked you for your letters, " said Lewisham, "And I'vebeen thinking ... "

"Yes?"

"We're first-rate friends, aren't we? The best of friends. "

She held out her hand and drew a breath. "Yes, " she said as theygripped. He hesitated whether to hold her hand. He looked into hereyes, and at that moment she would have given three-quarters of theyears she had still to live, to have had eyes and features that couldhave expressed her. Instead, she felt her face hard, the littlemuscles of her mouth twitching insubordinate, and fancied that herself-consciousness made her eyes dishonest. 

"What I mean, " said Lewisham, "is--that this will go on. We're alwaysgoing to be friends, side by side. "

"Always. Just as I am able to help you--I will help you. However I canhelp you, I will. "

"We two, " said Lewisham, gripping her hand. 

Her face lit. Her eyes were for a moment touched with the beauty ofsimple emotion. "We two, " she said, and her lips trembled and herthroat seemed to swell. She snatched her hand back suddenly and turnedher face away. Abruptly she walked towards the end of the gallery, andhe saw her fumbling for her handkerchief in the folds of the green andblack dress. 

She was going to cry!

It set Lewisham marvelling--this totally inappropriate emotion. 

He followed her and stood by her. Why cry? He hoped no one would comeinto the little gallery until her handkerchief was put away. Nevertheless he felt vaguely flattered. She controlled herself, dashedher tears away, and smiled bravely at him with reddened eyes. "I'msorry, " she said, gulping. 

"I am so glad, " she explained. 

"But we will fight together. We two. I _can_ help you. I know I canhelp you. And there is such Work to be done in the world!"

"You are very good to help me, " said Lewisham, quoting a phrase fromwhat he had intended to say before he found out that he had a holdupon her emotions. 

"No!

"Has it ever occurred to you, " she said abruptly, "how little a womancan do alone in the world?"

"Or a man, " he answered after a momentary meditation. 

So it was Lewisham enrolled his first ally in the cause of the redtie--of the red tie and of the Greatness that was presently tocome. His first ally; for hitherto--save for the indiscretion of hismural inscriptions--he had made a secret of his private ambitions. Inthat now half-forgotten love affair at Whortley even, he had, in spiteof the considerable degree of intimacy attained, said absolutelynothing about his Career. 

CHAPTER XI. 

MANIFESTATIONS. 

Miss Heydinger declined to disbelieve in the spirits of the dead, andthis led to controversy in the laboratory over Tea. For the girlstudents, being in a majority that year, had organised Tea betweenfour o'clock and the advent of the extinguishing policeman atfive. And the men students were occasionally invited to Tea. But notmore than two of them at a time really participated, because therewere only two spare cups after that confounded Simmons broke thethird. 

Smithers, the square-headed student with the hard grey eyes, arguedagainst the spirits of the dead with positive animosity, whileBletherley, who displayed an orange tie and lank hair in unshornabundance, was vaguely open-minded, "What is love?" asked Bletherley, "surely that at any rate is immortal!" His remark was consideredirrelevant and ignored. 

Lewisham, as became the most promising student of the year, weighedthe evidence--comprehensively under headings. He dismissed themediumistic _séances_ as trickery. 

"Rot and imposture, " said Smithers loudly, and with an oblique glanceto see if his challenge reached its mark. Its mark was a grizzledlittle old man with a very small face and very big grey eyes, who hadbeen standing listlessly at one of the laboratory windows until thediscussion caught him. He wore a brown velvet jacket and was reputedto be enormously rich. His name was Lagune. He was not a regularattendant, but one of those casual outsiders who are admitted tolaboratories that are not completely full. He was known to be anardent spiritualist--it was even said that he had challenged Huxley toa public discussion on materialism, and he came to the biologicallectures and worked intermittently, in order, he explained, to fightdisbelief with its own weapons. He rose greedily to Smithers'controversial bait. 

"I say _no_!" he said, calling down the narrow laboratory andfollowing his voice. He spoke with the ghost of a lisp. "Pardon myinterrupting, sir. The question interests me profoundly. I hope Idon't intrude. Excuse me, sir. Make it personal. Am I a--fool, or animpostor?"

"Well, " parried Smithers, with all a South Kensington student's wantof polish, "that's a bit personal. "

"Assume, sir, that I am an honest observer. "

"Well?"

"I have _seen_ spirits, _heard_ spirits, _felt_ the touch of spirits, "He opened his pale eyes very widely. 

"Fool, then, " said Smithers in an undertone which did not reach theears of the spiritualist. 

"You may have been deceived, " paraphrased Lewisham. 

"I can assure you ... Others can see, hear, feel. I have tested, sir. Tested! I have some scientific training and I have employedtests. Scientific and exhaustive tests! Every possible way. I ask you, sir--have you given the spirits a chance?"

"It is only paying guineas to humbugs, " said Smithers. 

"There you are! Prejudice! Here is a man denies the facts andconsequently _won't_ see them, won't go near them. "

"But you wouldn't have every man in the three kingdoms, whodisbelieved in spirits, attend _séances_ before he should be allowedto deny?"

"Most assuredly yes. Most assuredly yes! He knows nothing about ittill then. "

The argument became heated. The little old gentleman was soon underway. He knew a person of the most extraordinary gifts, a medium ... 

"Paid?" asked Smithers. 

"Would you muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn?" said Lagunepromptly. 

Smithers' derision was manifest. 

"Would you distrust a balance because you bought it? Come and see. "Lagune was now very excited and inclined to gesticulate and raise hisvoice. He invited the whole class incontinently to a series of special_séances_. "Not all at once--the spirits--new influences. " But insections. "I warn you we may get nothing. But the chances are ... Iwould rejoice infinitely ... "

So it came about that Lewisham consented to witness aspirit-raising. Miss Heydinger it was arranged should be there, andthe sceptic Smithers, Lagune, his typewriter and the medium wouldcomplete the party. Afterwards there was to be another party for theothers. Lewisham was glad he had the moral support of Smithers. "It's an evening wasted, " said Smithers, who had gallantly resolved tomake the running for Lewisham in the contest for the Forbesmedal. "But I'll prove my case. You see if I don't. " They were givenan address in Chelsea. 

The house, when Lewisham found it at last, proved a large one, withsuch an air of mellowed dignity that he was abashed. He hung his hatup for himself beside a green-trimmed hat of straw in the wide, rich-toned hall. Through an open door he had a glimpse of a palatialstudy, book shelves bearing white busts, a huge writing-table lit by agreen-shaded electric lamp and covered thickly with papers. Thehousemaid looked, he thought, with infinite disdain at the rustymourning and flamboyant tie, and flounced about and led him upstairs. 

She rapped, and there was a discussion within. "They're at it already, I believe, " she said to Lewisham confidentially. "Mr. Lagune's alwaysat it. "

There were sounds of chairs being moved, Smithers' extensive voicemaking a suggestion and laughing nervously. Lagune appeared openingthe door. His grizzled face seemed smaller and his big grey eyeslarger than usual. 

"We were just going to begin without you, " he whispered. "Comealong. "

The room was furnished even more finely than the drawing-room of theWhortley Grammar School, hitherto the finest room (except certain ofthe State Apartments at Windsor) known to Lewisham. The furniturestruck him in a general way as akin to that in the South KensingtonMuseum. His first impression was an appreciation of the vast socialsuperiority of the chairs; it seemed impertinent to think of sittingon anything quite so quietly stately. He perceived Smithers standingwith an air of bashful hostility against a bookcase. Then he was awarethat Lagune was asking them all to sit down. Already seated at thetable was the Medium, Chaffery, a benevolent-looking, faintly shabbygentleman with bushy iron-grey side-whiskers, a wide, thin-lippedmouth tucked in at the corners, and a chin like the toe of a boot. Heregarded Lewisham critically and disconcertingly over giltglasses. Miss Heydinger was quite at her ease and began talking atonce. Lewisham's replies were less confident than they had been in theGallery of Old Iron; indeed there was almost a reversal of theirpositions. She led and he was abashed. He felt obscurely that she hadtaken an advantage of him. He became aware of another girlish figurein a dark dress on his right. 

Everyone moved towards the round table in the centre of the room, onwhich lay a tambourine and a little green box. Lagune developedunsuspected lengths of knobby wrist and finger directing his guests totheir seats. Lewisham was to sit next to him, between him and theMedium; beyond the Medium sat Smithers with Miss Heydinger on theother side of him, linked to Lagune by the typewriter. So scepticscompassed the Medium about. The company was already seated beforeLewisham looked across Lagune and met the eyes of the girl next thatgentleman. It was Ethel! The close green dress, the absence of a hat, and a certain loss of colour made her seem less familiar, but did notprevent the instant recognition. And there was recognition in hereyes. 

Immediately she looked away. At first his only emotion wassurprise. He would have spoken, but a little thing robbed him ofspeech. For a moment he was unable to remember her surname. Moreover, the strangeness of his surroundings made him undecided. He did notknow what was the proper way to address her--and he still kept to thesuperstition of etiquette. Besides--to speak to her would involve ageneral explanation to all these people ... 

"Just leave a pin-point of gas, Mr. Smithers, please, " said Lagune, and suddenly the one surviving jet of the gas chandelier was turneddown and they were in darkness. The moment for recognition hadpassed. 

The joining of hands was punctiliously verified, the circle was linkedlittle finger to little finger. Lewisham's abstraction received arebuke from Smithers. The Medium, speaking in an affable voice, premised that he could promise nothing, he had no "_directing_" powerover manifestations. Thereafter ensued a silence.... 

For a space Lewisham was inattentive to all that happened. 

He sat in the breathing darkness, staring at the dim elusive shapethat had presented that remembered face. His mind was astonishmentmingled with annoyance. He had settled that this girl was lost to himfor ever. The spell of the old days of longing, of the afternoonsthat he had spent after his arrival in London, wandering throughClapham with a fading hope of meeting her, had not returned tohim. But he was ashamed of his stupid silence, and irritated by theawkwardness of the situation. At one moment he was on the very vergeof breaking the compact and saying "Miss Henderson" across thetable.... 

How was it he had forgotten that "Henderson"? He was still youngenough to be surprised at forgetfulness. 

Smithers coughed, one might imagine with a warning intention. 

Lewisham, recalling his detective responsibility with an effort, peered about him, but the room was very dark. The silence was brokenever and again by deep sighs and a restless stirring from theMedium. Out of this mental confusion Lewisham's personal vanity wasfirst to emerge. What did she think of him? Was she peering at himthrough the darkness even as he peered at her? Should he pretend tosee her for the first time when the lights were restored? As theminutes lengthened it seemed as though the silence grew deeper anddeeper. There was no fire in the room, and it looked, for lack of thatglow, chilly. A curious scepticism arose in his mind as to whether hehad actually seen Ethel or only mistaken someone else for her. Hewanted the _séance_ over in order that he might look at her again. The old days at Whortley came out of his memory with astonishingdetail and yet astonishingly free from emotion.... 

He became aware of a peculiar sensation down his back, that he triedto account for as a draught.... 

Suddenly a beam of cold air came like a touch against his face, andmade him shudder convulsively. Then he hoped that she had not markedhis shudder. He thought of laughing a low laugh to show he was notafraid. Someone else shuddered too, and he perceived anextraordinarily vivid odour of violets. Lagune's finger communicated anervous quivering. 

What was happening?

The musical box somewhere on the table began playing a rather trivial, rather plaintive air that was strange to him. It seemed to deepen thesilence about him, an accent on the expectant stillness, a thread oftinkling melody spanning an abyss. 

Lewisham took himself in hand at this stage. What _was_ happening? Hemust attend. Was he really watching as he should do? He had beenwool-gathering. There were no such things as spirits, mediums werehumbugs, and he was here to prove that sole remaining Gospel. But hemust keep up with things--he was missing points. What was that scentof violets? And who had set the musical box going? The Medium, ofcourse; but how? He tried to recall whether he had heard a rustling ordetected any movement before the music began. He could notrecollect. Come! he must be more on the alert than this!

He became acutely desirous of a successful exposure. He figured thedramatic moment he had prepared with Smithers--Ethel a spectator. Hepeered suspiciously into the darkness. 

Somebody shuddered again, someone opposite him this time. He feltLagune's finger quiver still more palpably, and then suddenly the rapsbegan, abruptly, all about him. _Rap_!--making him start violently. Aswift percussive sound, tap, rap, dap, under the table, under thechair, in the air, round the cornices. The Medium groaned again andshuddered, and his nervous agitation passed sympathetically round thecircle. The music seemed to fade to the vanishing point and grewlouder again. 

How was it done?

He heard Lagune's voice next him speaking with a peculiar quality ofbreathless reverence, "The alphabet?" he asked, "shall we--shall weuse the alphabet?"

A forcible rap under the table. 

"No!" interpreted the voice of the Medium. 

The raps were continued everywhere. 

Of course it was trickery, Lewisham endeavoured to think what themechanism was. He tried to determine whether he really had theMedium's little finger touching his. He peered at the dark shape nexthim. There was a violent rapping far away behind them with an almostmetallic resonance. Then the raps ceased, and over the healing silencethe little jet of melody from the musical box played alone. And aftera moment that ceased also.... 

The stillness was profound, Mr. Lewisham was now highly strung. Doubtsassailed him suddenly, and an overwhelming apprehension, a sense ofvast occurrences gathering above him. The darkness was a physicaloppression.... 

He started. Something had stirred on the table. There was the sharpping of metal being struck. A number of little crepitating sounds likepaper being smoothed. The sound of wind without the movement of air. Asense of a presence hovering over the table. 

The excitement of Lagune communicated itself in convulsive tremblings;the Medium's hand quivered. In the darkness on the table somethingfaintly luminous, a greenish-white patch, stirred and hopped slowlyamong the dim shapes. 

The object, whatever it was, hopped higher, rose slowly in the air, expanded. Lewisham's attention followed this slavishly. It wasghostly--unaccountable--marvellous. For the moment he forgot evenEthel. Higher and higher this pallid luminosity rose overhead, andthen he saw that it was a ghostly hand and arm, rising, rising. Slowly, deliberately it crossed the table, seemed to touchLagune, who shivered. It moved slowly round and touched Lewisham. Hegritted his teeth. 

There was no mistaking the touch, firm and yet soft, offinger-tips. Almost simultaneously, Miss Heydinger cried out thatsomething was smoothing her hair, and suddenly the musical box set offagain with a reel. The faint oval of the tambourine rose, jangled, andLewisham heard it pat Smithers in the face. It seemed to passoverhead. Immediately a table somewhere beyond the Medium began movingaudibly on its castors. 

It seemed impossible that the Medium, sitting so still beside him, could be doing all these things--grotesquely unmeaning though theymight be. After all.... 

The ghostly hand was hovering almost directly in front ofMr. Lewisham's eyes. It hung with a slight quivering. Ever and againits fingers flapped down and rose stiffly again. 

Noise! A loud noise it seemed. Something moving? What was it he hadto do?

Lewisham suddenly missed the Medium's little finger. He tried torecover it. He could not find it. He caught, held and lost anarm. There was an exclamation. A faint report. A curse close to himbitten in half by the quick effort to suppress it. Tzit! The littlepinpoint of light flew up with a hiss. 

Lewisham, standing, saw a circle of blinking faces turned to the groupof two this sizzling light revealed. Smithers was the chief figure ofthe group; he stood triumphant, one hand on the gas tap, the othergripping the Medium's wrist, and in the Medium's hand--theincriminatory tambourine. 

"How's this, Lewisham?" cried Smithers, with the shadows on his facejumping as the gas flared. 

"_Caught_!" said Lewisham loudly, rising in his place and avoidingEthel's eyes. 

"What's this?" cried the Medium. 

"Cheating, " panted Smithers. 

"Not so, " cried the Medium. "When you turned up the light ... Put myhand up ... Caught tambourine ... To save head. "

"Mr. Smithers, " cried Lagune. "Mr. Smithers, this is verywrong. This--shock--"

The tambourine fell noisily to the floor. The Medium's face changed, he groaned strangely and staggered back. Lagune cried out for a glassof water. Everyone looked at the man, expecting him to fall, saveLewisham. The thought of Ethel had flashed back into his mind. Heturned to see how she took this exposure in which he was such aprominent actor. He saw her leaning over the table as if to pick upsomething that lay across it. She was not looking at him, she waslooking at the Medium. Her face was set and white. Then, as if shefelt his glance, her eyes met his. 

She started back, stood erect, facing him with a strange hardness inher eyes. 

In the moment Lewisham did not grasp the situation. He wanted to showthat he was acting upon equal terms with Smithers in the exposure. Forthe moment her action simply directed his attention to the objecttowards which she had been leaning, a thing of shrivelled membrane, apneumatic glove, lying on the table. This was evidently part of themediumistic apparatus. He pounced and seized it. 

"Look!" he said, holding it towards Smithers. "Here is more! What isthis?"

He perceived that the girl started. He saw Chaffery, the Medium, lookinstantly over Smithers' shoulders, saw his swift glance of reproachat the girl. Abruptly the situation appeared to Lewisham; he perceivedher complicity. And he stood, still in the attitude of triumph, withthe evidence against her in his hand! But his triumph had vanished. 

"Ah!" cried Smithers, leaning across the table to secure it. "_Good_old Lewisham!... Now we _have_ it. This is better than thetambourine. "

His eyes shone with triumph. "Do you see, Mr. Lagune?" saidSmithers. "The Medium held this in his teeth and blew it out. There'sno denying this. This wasn't falling on your head, Mr. Medium, wasit? _This_--this was the luminous hand!"

CHAPTER XII. 

LEWISHAM IS UNACCOUNTABLE. 

That night, as she went with him to Chelsea station, Miss Heydingerdiscovered an extraordinary moodiness in Lewisham. She had beenvividly impressed by the scene in which they had just participated, she had for a time believed in the manifestations; the swift exposurehad violently revolutionised her ideas. The details of the crisis werea little confused in her mind. She ranked Lewisham with Smithers inthe scientific triumph of the evening. On the whole she feltelated. She had no objection to being confuted by Lewisham. But shewas angry with the Medium, "It is dreadful, " she said. "Living a lie!How can the world grow better, when sane, educated people use theirsanity and enlightenment to darken others? It is dreadful!

"He was a horrible man--such an oily, dishonest voice. And the girl--Iwas sorry for her. She must have been oh!--bitterly ashamed, or whyshould she have burst out crying? That _did_ distress me. Fancy cryinglike that! It was--yes--_abandon_. But what can one do?"

She paused. Lewisham was walking along, looking straight before him, lost in some grim argument with himself. 

"It makes me think of Sludge the Medium, " she said. 

He made no answer. 

She glanced at him suddenly. "Have you read Sludge the Medium?"

"Eigh?" he said, coming back out of infinity. "What? I beg your pardon. Sludge, the Medium? I thought his name was--it _was_--Chaffery. "

He looked at her, clearly very anxious upon this question of fact. 

"But I mean Browning's 'Sludge. ' You know the poem. "

"No--I'm afraid I don't, " said Lewisham. 

"I must lend it to you, " she said. "It's splendid. It goes to thevery bottom of this business. "

"Does it?"

"It never occurred to me before. But I see the point clearly now. Ifpeople, poor people, are offered money if phenomena happen, it's toomuch. They are _bound_ to cheat. It's bribery--immorality!"

She talked in panting little sentences, because Lewisham was walkingin heedless big strides. "I wonder how much--such people--could earnhonestly. "

Lewisham slowly became aware of the question at his ear. He hurriedback from infinity. "How much they could earn honestly? I haven't theslightest idea. "

He paused. "The whole of this business puzzles me, " he said. "I wantto think. "

"It's frightfully complex, isn't it?" she said--a little staggered. 

But the rest of the way to the station was silence. They parted witha hand-clasp they took a pride in--a little perfunctory so far asLewisham was concerned on this occasion. She scrutinised his face asthe train moved out of the station, and tried to account for hismood. He was staring before him at unknown things as if he had alreadyforgotten her. 

He wanted to think! But two heads, she thought, were better than onein a matter of opinion. It troubled her to be so ignorant of hismental states. "How we are wrapped and swathed about--soul from soul!"she thought, staring out of the window at the dim things flying byoutside. 

Suddenly a fit of depression came upon her. She felt alone--absolutelyalone--in a void world. 

Presently she returned to external things. She became aware of twopeople in the next compartment eyeing her critically. Her hand wentpatting at her hair. 

CHAPTER XIII. 

LEWISHAM INSISTS. 

Ethel Henderson sat at her machine before the window of Mr. Lagume'sstudy, and stared blankly at the greys and blues of the Novembertwilight. Her face was white, her eyelids were red from recentweeping, and her hands lay motionless in her lap. The door had justslammed behind Lagune. 

"Heigh-ho!" she said. "I wish I was dead. Oh! I wish I was out of itall. "

She became passive again. "I wonder what I have _done_, " she said, "that I should be punished like this. "

She certainly looked anything but a Fate-haunted soul, being indeedvisibly and immediately a very pretty girl. Her head was shapely andcovered with curly dark hair, and the eyebrows above her hazel eyeswere clear and dark. Her lips were finely shaped, her mouth was nottoo small to be expressive, her chin small, and her neck white andfull and pretty. There is no need to lay stress upon her nose--itsufficed. She was of a mediocre height, sturdy rather than slender, and her dress was of a pleasant, golden-brown material with the easysleeves and graceful line of those aesthetic days. And she sat at hertypewriter and wished she was dead and wondered what she had _done_. 

The room was lined with bookshelves, and conspicuous therein were along row of foolish pretentious volumes, the "works" of Lagune--thewitless, meandering imitation of philosophy that occupied hislife. Along the cornices were busts of Plato, Socrates, and Newton. Behind Ethel was the great man's desk with its green-shaded electriclight, and littered with proofs and copies of _Hesperus_, "A Paper forDoubters, " which, with her assistance, he edited, published, compiled, wrote, and (without her help) paid for and read. A pen, flung downforcibly, quivered erect with its one surviving nib in the blottingpad. Mr. Lagune had flung it down. 

The collapse of the previous night had distressed him dreadfully, andever and again before his retreat he had been breaking into passionatemonologue. The ruin of a life-work, it was, no less. Surely she hadknown that Chaffery was a cheat. Had she not known? Silence. "Afterso many kindnesses--"

She interrupted him with a wailing, "Oh, I know--I know. "

But Lagune was remorseless and insisted she had betrayed him, worse--made him ridiculous! Look at the "work" he had undertaken atSouth Kensington--how could he go on with that now? How could he findthe heart? When his own typewriter sacrificed him to her stepfather'strickery? "Trickery!"

The gesticulating hands became active, the grey eyes dilated withindignation, the piping voice eloquent. 

"If he hadn't cheated you, someone else would, " was Ethel's inadequatemuttered retort, unheard by the seeker after phenomena. 

It was perhaps not so bad as dismissal, but it certainly lastedlonger. And at home was Chaffery, grimly malignant at her failure tosecure that pneumatic glove. He had no right to blame her, he reallyhad not; but a disturbed temper is apt to falsify the scales ofjustice. The tambourine, he insisted, he could have explained bysaying he put up his hand to catch it and protect his head directlySmithers moved. But the pneumatic glove there was no explaining. Hehad made a chance for her to secure it when he had pretended tofaint. It was rubbish to say anyone could have been looking on thetable then--rubbish. 

Beside that significant wreck of a pen stood a little carriage clockin a case, and this suddenly lifted a slender voice and announced_five_. She turned round on her stool and sat staring at theclock. She smiled with the corners of her mouth down. "Home, " shesaid, "and begin again. It's like battledore and shuttlecock.... 

"I _was_ silly.... 

"I suppose I've brought it on myself. I ought to have picked it up, Isuppose. I had time.... 

"Cheats ... Just cheats. 

"I never thought I should see him again.... 

"He was ashamed, of course.... He had his own friends. "

For a space she sat still, staring blankly before her. She sighed, rubbed a knuckle in a reddened eye, rose. 

She went into the hall, where her hat, transfixed by a couple ofhat-pins, hung above her jacket, assumed these garments, and letherself out into the cold grey street. 

She had hardly gone twenty yards from Lagune's door before she becameaware of a man overtaking her and walking beside her. That kind ofthing is a common enough experience to girls who go to and from workin London, and she had had perforce to learn many things since heradventurous Whortley days. She looked stiffly in front of her. The mandeliberately got in her way so that she had to stop. She lifted eyesof indignant protest. It was Lewisham--and his face was white. 

He hesitated awkwardly, and then in silence held out his hand. Shetook it mechanically. He found his voice. "Miss Henderson, " he said. 

"What do you want?" she asked faintly. 

"I don't know, " he said.... "I want to talk to you. "

"Yes?" Her heart was beating fast. 

He found the thing unexpectedly difficult. 

"May I--? Are you expecting--? Have you far to go? I would like totalk to you. There is a lot ... "

"I walk to Clapham, " she said. "If you care ... To come part of theway ... "

She moved awkwardly. Lewisham took his place at her side. They walkedside by side for a moment, their manner constrained, having so much tosay that they could not find a word to begin upon. 

"Have you forgotten Whortley?" he asked abruptly. 

"No. "

He glanced at her; her face was downcast. "Why did you never write?"he asked bitterly. 

"I wrote. "

"Again, I mean. "

"I did--in July. "

"I never had it. "

"It came back. "

"But Mrs. Munday ... "

"I had forgotten her name. I sent it to the Grammar School. "

Lewisham suppressed an exclamation. 

"I am very sorry, " she said. 

They went on again in silence. "Last night, " said Lewisham atlength. "I have no business to ask. But--"

She took a long breath. "Mr. Lewisham, " she said. "That man yousaw--the Medium--was my stepfather. "

"Well?"

"Isn't that enough?"

Lewisham paused. "No, " he said. 

There was another constrained silence. "No, " he said lessdubiously. "I don't care a rap what your stepfather is. Were _you_cheating?"

Her face turned white. Her mouth opened and closed. "Mr. Lewisham, "she said deliberately, "you may not believe it, it may soundimpossible, but on my honour ... I did not know--I did not know forcertain, that is--that my stepfather ... "

"Ah!" said Lewisham, leaping at conviction. "Then I was right.... "

For a moment she stared at him, and then, "I _did_ know, " she said, suddenly beginning to cry. "How can I tell you? It is a lie. I _did_know. I _did_ know all the time. "

He stared at her in white astonishment. He fell behind her one step, and then in a stride came level again. Then, a silence, a silence thatseemed it would never end. She had stopped crying, she was one hugesuspense, not daring even to look at his face. And at last he spoke. 

"No, " he said slowly. "I don't mind even that. I don't care--even ifit was that. "

Abruptly they turned into the King's Road, with its roar of wheeledtraffic and hurrying foot-passengers, and forthwith a crowd of boyswith a broken-spirited Guy involved and separated them. In a busyhighway of a night one must needs talk disconnectedly in shoutedsnatches or else hold one's peace. He glanced at her face and saw thatit was set again. Presently she turned southward out of the tumultinto a street of darkness and warm blinds, and they could go ontalking again. 

"I understand what you mean, " said Lewisham. "I know I do. You knew, but you did not want to know. It was like that. "

But her mind had been active. "At the end of this road, " she said, gulping a sob, "you must go back. It was kind of you to come, Mr. Lewisham. But you were ashamed--you are sure to be ashamed. Myemployer is a spiritualist, and my stepfather is a professionalMedium, and my mother is a spiritualist. You were quite right not tospeak to me last night. Quite. It was kind of you to come, but youmust go back. Life is hard enough as it is ... You must go back at theend of the road. Go back at the end of the road ... "

Lewisham made no reply for a hundred yards. "I'm coming on toClapham, " he said. 

They came to the end of the road in silence. Then at the kerb cornershe turned and faced him. "Go back, " she whispered. 

"No, " he said obstinately, and they stood face to face at the cardinalpoint of their lives. 

"Listen to me, " said Lewisham. "It is hard to say what I feel. I don'tknow myself.... But I'm not going to lose you like this. I'm not goingto let you slip a second time. I was awake about it all last night. Idon't care where you are, what your people are, nor very much whetheryou've kept quite clear of this medium humbug. I don't. You will infuture. Anyhow. I've had a day and night to think it over. I had tocome and try to find you. It's you. I've never forgottenyou. Never. I'm not going to be sent back like this. "

"It can be no good for either of us, " she said as resolute as he. 

"I shan't leave you. "

"But what is the good?... "

"I'm coming, " said Lewisham, dogmatically. 

And he came. 

He asked her a question point blank and she would not answer him, andfor some way they walked in grim silence. Presently she spoke with atwitching mouth. "I wish you would leave me, " she said. "You arequite different from what I am. You felt that last night. You helpedfind us out.... "

"When first I came to London I used to wander about Clapham lookingfor you, " said Lewisham, "week after week. "

They had crossed the bridge and were in a narrow little street ofshabby shops near Clapham Junction before they talked again. She kepther face averted and expressionless. 

"I'm sorry, " said Lewisham, with a sort of stiff civility, "if I seemto be forcing myself upon you. I don't want to pry into youraffairs--if you don't wish me to. The sight of you has somehow broughtback a lot of things.... I can't explain it. Perhaps--I had to come tofind you--I kept on thinking of your face, of how you used to smile, how you jumped from the gate by the lock, and how we had tea ... A lotof things. "

He stopped again. 

"A lot of things. "

"If I may come, " he said, and went unanswered. They crossed the widestreets by the Junction and went on towards the Common. 

"I live down this road, " she said, stopping abruptly at a corner. "Iwould rather ... "

"But I have said nothing. "

She looked at him with her face white, unable to speak for aspace. "It can do no good, " she said. "I am mixed up with this.... "

She stopped. 

He spoke deliberately. "I shall come, " he said, "to-morrow night. "

"No, " she said. 

"But I shall come. "

"No, " she whispered. 

"I shall come. " She could hide the gladness of her heart from herselfno longer. She was frightened that he had come, but she was glad, andshe knew he knew that she was glad. She made no further protest. Sheheld out her hand dumbly. And on the morrow she found him awaiting hereven as he had said. 

CHAPTER XIV. 

MR. LAGUNE'S POINT OF VIEW. 

For three days the Laboratory at South Kensington saw nothing ofLagune, and then he came back more invincibly voluble thanever. Everyone had expected him to return apostate, but he broughtback an invigorated faith, a propaganda unashamed. From some source hehad derived strength and conviction afresh. Even the rhetoricalSmithers availed nothing. There was a joined battle over theinsufficient tea-cups, and the elderly young assistant demonstratorhovered on the verge of the discussion, rejoicing, it is supposed, over the entanglements of Smithers. For at the outset Smithersdisplayed an overweening confidence and civility, and at the end hisears were red and his finer manners lost to him. 

Lewisham, it was remarked by Miss Heydinger, made but a poor figure inthis discussion. Once or twice he seemed about to address Lagune, andthought better of it with the words upon his lips. 

Lagune's treatment of the exposure was light and vigorous. "The manChaffery, " he said, "has made a clean breast of it. His point ofview--"

"Facts are facts, " said Smithers. 

"A fact is a synthesis of impressions, " said Lagune; "but that youwill learn when you are older. The thing is that we were at crosspurposes. I told Chaffery you were beginners. He treated you asbeginners--arranged a demonstration. "

"It _was_ a demonstration, " said Smithers. 

"Precisely. If it had not been for your interruptions ... "

"Ah!"

"He forged elementary effects ... "

"You can't but admit that. "

"I don't attempt to deny it. But, as he explained, the thing isnecessary--justifiable. Psychic phenomena are subtle, a certaintraining of the observation is necessary. A medium is a more subtleinstrument than a balance or a borax bead, and see how long it isbefore you can get assured results with a borax bead! In theelementary class, in the introductory phase, conditions aretoo crude.... "

"For honesty. "

"Wait a moment. _Is_ it dishonest--rigging a demonstration?"

"Of course it is. "

"Your professors do it. "

"I deny that in toto, " said Smithers, and repeated with satisfaction, "in toto. "

"That's all right, " said Lagune, "because I have the facts. Yourchemical lecturers--you may go downstairs now and ask, if youdisbelieve me--always cheat over the indestructibility of matterexperiment--always. And then another--a physiography thing. You knowthe experiment I mean? To demonstrate the existence of the earth'srotation. They use--they use--"

"Foucault's pendulum, " said Lewisham. "They use a rubber ball with apin-hole hidden in the hand, and blow the pendulum round the way itought to go. "

"But that's different, " said Smithers. 

"Wait a moment, " said Lagune, and produced a piece of folded printedpaper from his pocket. "Here is a review from _Nature_ of the work ofno less a person than Professor Greenhill. And see--a convenient pinis introduced in the apparatus for the demonstration of virtualvelocities! Read it--if you doubt me. I suppose you doubt me. "

Smithers abruptly abandoned his position of denial "in toto. " "Thisisn't my point, Mr. Lagune; this isn't my point, " he said. "Thesethings that are done in the lecture theatre are not to prove facts, but to give ideas. "

"So was my demonstration, " said Lagune. 

"We didn't understand it in that light. "

"Nor does the ordinary person who goes to Science lectures understandit in that light. He is comforted by the thought that he is seeingthings with his own eyes. "

"Well, I don't care, " said Smithers; "two wrongs don't make aright. To rig demonstrations is wrong. "

"There I agree with you. I have spoken plainly with this manChaffery. He's not a full-blown professor, you know, a highly salariedornament of the rock of truth like your demonstration-riggingprofessors here, and so I can speak plainly to him without offence. He takes quite the view they would take. But I am more rigorous. Iinsist that there shall be no more of this.... "

"Next time--" said Smithers with irony. 

"There will be no next time. I have done with elementaryexhibitions. You must take the word of the trained observer--just asyou do in the matter of chemical analysis. "

"Do you mean you are going on with that chap when he's been caughtcheating under your very nose?"

"Certainly. Why not?"

Smithers set out to explain why not, and happened on confusion. "Istill believe the man has powers, " said Lagune. 

"Of deception, " said Smithers. 

"Those I must eliminate, " said Lagune. "You might as well refuse tostudy electricity because it escaped through your body. All newscience is elusive. No investigator in his senses would refuse toinvestigate a compound because it did unexpected things. Either thisdissolves in acid or I have nothing more to do with it--eh? That'sfine research!"

Then it was the last vestiges of Smithers' manners vanished. "I don'tcare _what_ you say, " said Smithers. "It's all rot--it's all justrot. Argue if you like--but have you convinced anybody? Put it to thevote. "

"That's democracy with a vengeance, " said Lagune. "A general electionof the truth half-yearly, eh?"

"That's simply wriggling out of it, " said Smithers. "That hasn'tanything to do with it at all. "

Lagune, flushed but cheerful, was on his way downstairs when Lewishamovertook him. He was pale and out of breath, but as the staircaseinvariably rendered Lagune breathless he did not remark the youngerman's disturbance. "Interesting talk, " panted Lewisham. "Veryinteresting talk, sir. "

"I'm glad you found it so--very, " said Lagune. 

There was a pause, and then Lewisham plunged desperately. "There is ayoung lady--she is your typewriter.... "

He stopped from sheer loss of breath. 

"Yes?" said Lagune. 

"Is she a medium or anything of that sort?"

"Well, " Lagune reflected, "She is not a medium, certainly. But--why doyou ask?"

"Oh!... I wondered. "

"You noticed her eyes perhaps. She is the stepdaughter of that manChaffery--a queer character, but indisputably mediumistic. It's oddthe thing should have struck you. Curiously enough I myself havefancied she might be something of a psychic--judging from her face. "

"A what?"

"A psychic--undeveloped, of course. I have thought once or twice. Onlya little while ago I was speaking to that man Chaffery about her. "

"Were you?"

"Yes. He of course would like to see any latent powers developed. Butit's a little difficult to begin, you know. "

"You mean--she won't?"

"Not at present. She is a good girl, but in this matter sheis--timid. There is often a sort of disinclination--a queer sort offeeling--one might almost call it modesty. "

"I see, " said Lewisham. 

"One can override it usually. I don't despair. "

"No, " said Lewisham shortly. They were at the foot of the staircasenow. He hesitated. "You've given me a lot to think about, " he saidwith an attempt at an off-hand manner. "The way you talked upstairs;"and turned towards the book he had to sign. 

"I'm glad you don't take up quite such an intolerant attitude asMr. Smithers, " said Lagune; "very glad. I must lend you a book ortwo. If your _cramming_ here leaves you any time, that is. "

"Thanks, " said Lewisham shortly, and walked away from him. Thestudiously characteristic signature quivered and sprawled in anunfamiliar manner. 

"I'm _damned_ if he overrides it, " said Lewisham, under his breath. 

CHAPTER XV. 

LOVE IN THE STREETS. 

Lewisham was not quite clear what course he meant to take in the highenterprise of foiling Lagune, and indeed he was anything but clearabout the entire situation. His logical processes, his emotions andhis imagination seemed playing some sort of snatching game with hiswill. Enormous things hung imminent, but it worked out to this, that he walked home with Ethel night after night for--to beexact--seven-and-sixty nights. Every week night through November andDecember, save once, when he had to go into the far East to buyhimself an overcoat, he was waiting to walk with her home. A curious, inconclusive affair, that walk, to which he came nightly full of vaguelongings, and which ended invariably under an odd shadow ofdisappointment. It began outside Lagune's most punctually at five, andended--mysteriously--at the corner of a side road in Clapham, a roadof little yellow houses with sunk basements and tawdry decorations ofstone. Up that road she vanished night after night, into a grey mistand the shadow beyond a feeble yellow gas-lamp, and he would watch hervanish, and then sigh and turn back towards his lodgings. 

They talked of this and that, their little superficial ideas aboutthemselves, and of their circumstances and tastes, and always therewas something, something that was with them unspoken, unacknowledged, which made all these things unreal and insincere. 

Yet out of their talk he began to form vague ideas of the home fromwhich she came. There was, of course, no servant, and the mother wassomething meandering, furtive, tearful in the face of troubles. Sometimes of an afternoon or evening she grew garrulous. "Mother doestalk so--sometimes. " She rarely went out of doors. Chaffery alwaysrose late, and would sometimes go away for days together. He was mean;he allowed only a weekly twenty-five shillings for housekeeping, andsometimes things grew unsatisfactory at the week-end. There seemed tobe little sympathy between mother and daughter; the widow had beenflighty in a dingy fashion, and her marriage with her chief lodgerChaffery had led to unforgettable sayings. It was to facilitate thismarriage that Ethel had been sent to Whortley, so that was counted amitigated evil. But these were far-off things, remote and unreal downthe long, ill-lit vista of the suburban street which swallowed upEthel nightly. The walk, her warmth and light and motion close to him, her clear little voice, and the touch of her hand; that was reality. 

The shadow of Chaffery and his deceptions lay indeed across all thesethings, sometimes faint, sometimes dark and present. Then Lewishambecame insistent, his sentimental memories ceased, and he askedquestions that verged on gulfs of doubt. Had she ever "helped"? Shehad not, she declared. Then she added that twice at home she had "satdown" to complete the circle. She would never help again. That shepromised--if it needed promising. There had already been dreadfultrouble at home about the exposure at Lagune's. Her mother had sidedwith her stepfather and joined in blaming her. But was she to blame?

"Of _course_ you were not to blame, " said Lewisham. Lagune, helearnt, had been unhappy and restless for the three days after the_séance_--indulging in wearisome monologue--with Ethel as sole auditor(at twenty-one shillings a week). Then he had decided to give Chafferya sound lecture on his disastrous dishonesty. But it was Chafferygave the lecture. Smithers, had he only known it, had been overthrownby a better brain than Lagune's, albeit it spoke through Lagune'streble. 

Ethel did not like talking of Chaffery and these other things. "If youknew how sweet it was to forget it all, " she would say; "to be just ustwo together for a little while. " And, "What good _does_ it do to keepon?" when Lewisham was pressing. Lewisham wanted very much to keep onat times, but the good of it was a little hard to demonstrate. So hisknowledge of the situation remained imperfect and the weeks driftedby. 

Wonderfully varied were those seven-and-sixty nights, as he came toremember in after life. There were nights of damp and drizzle, andthen thick fogs, beautiful, isolating, grey-white veils, turning everyyard of pavement into a private room. Grand indeed were these fogs, things to rejoice at mightily, since then it was no longer a thing forpublic scorn when two young people hurried along arm in arm, and onecould do a thousand impudent, significant things with varying pressureand the fondling of a little hand (a hand in a greatly mended glove ofcheap kid). Then indeed one seemed to be nearer that elusive somethingthat threaded it all together. And the dangers of the street corners, the horses looming up suddenly out of the dark, the carters withlanterns at their horses' heads, the street lamps, blurred, smokyorange at one's nearest, and vanishing at twenty yards into dim haze, seemed to accentuate the infinite need of protection on the part of adelicate young lady who had already traversed three winters of fogs, thornily alone. Moreover, one could come right down the quiet streetwhere she lived, halfway to the steps of her house, with a delightfulsense of enterprise. 

The fogs passed all too soon into a hard frost, into nights ofstarlight and presently moonlight, when the lamps looked hard, flashing like rows of yellow gems, and their reflections and the glareof the shop windows were sharp and frosty, and even the stars hard andbright, snapping noiselessly (if one may say so) instead oftwinkling. A jacket trimmed with imitation Astrachan replaced Ethel'slighter coat, and a round cap of Astrachan her hat, and her eyes shonehard and bright, and her forehead was broad and white beneath it. Itwas exhilarating, but one got home too soon, and so the way fromChelsea to Clapham was lengthened, first into a loop of side streets, and then when the first pulverulent snows told that Christmas was athand, into a new loop down King's Road, and once even through theBrompton Road and Sloane Street, where the shops were full ofdecorations and entertaining things. 

And, under circumstances of infinite gravity, Mr. Lewisham secretlyspent three-and-twenty shillings out of the vestiges of that hundredpounds, and bought Ethel a little gold ring set with pearls. With thatthere must needs be a ceremonial, and on the verge of the snowy, foggyCommon she took off her glove and the ring was placed on herfinger. Whereupon he was moved to kiss her--on the frost-pink knucklenext to an inky nail. 

"It's silly of us, " she said. "What can we do?--ever?"

"You wait. " he said, and his tone was full of vague promises. 

Afterwards he thought over those promises, and another evening wentinto the matter more fully, telling her of all the brilliant thingsthat he held it was possible for a South Kensington student to do andbe--of headmasterships, northern science schools, inspectorships, demonstratorships, yea, even professorships. And then, and then--Toall of which she lent a willing and incredulous ear, finding in thatdreaming a quality of fear as well as delight. 

The putting on of the pearl-set ring was mere ceremonial, of course;she could not wear it either at Lagune's or at home, so instead shethreaded it on a little white satin ribbon and wore it round herneck--"next her heart. " He thought of it there warm "next her heart. "

When he had bought the ring he had meant to save it for Christmasbefore he gave it to her. But the desire to see her pleasure had beentoo strong for him. 

Christmas Eve, I know not by what deceit on her part, these youngpeople spent together all day. Lagune was down with a touch ofbronchitis and had given his typewriter a holiday. Perhaps she forgotto mention it at home. The Royal College was in vacation and Lewishamwas free. He declined the plumber's invitation; "work" kept him inLondon, he said, though it meant a pound or more of addedexpenditure. These absurd young people walked sixteen miles thatChristmas Eve, and parted warm and glowing. There had been a hardfrost and a little snow, the sky was a colourless grey, icicles hungfrom the arms of the street lamps, and the pavements were patternedout with frond-like forms that were trodden into slides as the daygrew older. The Thames they knew was a wonderful sight, but that theykept until last. They went first along the Brompton Road.... 

And it is well that you should have the picture of them right:Lewisham in the ready-made overcoat, blue cloth and velvet collar, dirty tan gloves, red tie, and bowler hat; and Ethel in a two-year-oldjacket and hat of curly Astrachan; both pink-cheeked from the keenair, shyly arm in arm occasionally, and very alert to miss no possiblespectacle. The shops were varied and interesting along the BromptonRoad, but nothing to compare with Piccadilly. There were windows inPiccadilly so full of costly little things, it took fifteen minutes toget them done, card shops, drapers' shops full of foolish, entertaining attractions. Lewisham, in spite of his old animosities, forgot to be severe on the Shopping Class, Ethel was so vastlyentertained by all these pretty follies. 

Then up Regent Street by the place where the sham diamonds are, andthe place where the girls display their long hair, and the place wherethe little chickens run about in the window, and so into OxfordStreet, Holborn, Ludgate Hill, St. Paul's Churchyard, to Leadenhall, and the markets where turkeys, geese, ducklings, and chickens--turkeyspredominant, however--hang in rows of a thousand at a time. 

"I _must_ buy you something, " said Lewisham, resuming a topic. 

"No, no, " said Ethel, with her eye down a vista of innumerable birds. 

"But I _must_, " said Lewisham. "You had better choose it, or I shallget something wrong. " His mind ran on brooches and clasps. 

"You mustn't waste your money, and besides, I have that ring. "

But Lewisham insisted. 

"Then--if you must--I am starving. Buy me something to eat. "

An immense and memorable joke. Lewisham plungedrecklessly--orientally--into an awe-inspiring place with mitrednapkins. They lunched on cutlets--stripped the cutlets to thebone--and little crisp brown potatoes, and they drank between them awhole half bottle of--some white wine or other, Lewisham selected inan off-hand way from the list. Neither of them had ever taken wine ata meal before. One-and-ninepence it cost him, Sir, and the name of itwas Capri! It was really very passable Capri--a manufactured product, no doubt, but warming and aromatic. Ethel was aghast at hismagnificence and drank a glass and a half. 

Then, very warm and comfortable, they went down by the Tower, and theTower Bridge with its crest of snow, huge pendant icicles, and the iceblocks choked in its side arches, was seasonable seeing. And as theyhad had enough of shops and crowds they set off resolutely along thedesolate Embankment homeward. 

But indeed the Thames was a wonderful sight that year! ice-fringedalong either shore, and with drift-ice in the middle reflecting aluminous scarlet from the broad red setting sun, and moving steadily, incessantly seaward. A swarm of mewing gulls went to and fro, and withthem mingled pigeons and crows. The buildings on the Surrey side weredim and grey and very mysterious, the moored, ice-blocked bargessilent and deserted, and here and there a lit window shone warm. Thesun sank right out of sight into a bank of blue, and the Surrey sidedissolved in mist save for a few insoluble, spots of yellow light, that presently became many. And after our lovers had come underCharing Cross Bridge the Houses of Parliament rose before them at theend of a great crescent of golden lamps, blue and faint, halfwaybetween the earth and sky. And the clock on the Tower was like aNovember sun. 

It was a day without a flaw, or at most but the slightest speck. Andthat only came at the very end. 

"Good-bye, dear, " she said. "I have been very happy to-day. "

His face came very close to hers. "Good-bye, " he said, pressing herhand and looking into her eyes. 

She glanced round, she drew nearer to him. "_Dearest_ one, " shewhispered very softly, and then, "Good-bye. "

Suddenly he became unaccountably petulant, he dropped her hand. "It'salways like this. We are happy. _I_ am happy. And then--then you aretaken away.... "

There was a silence of mute interrogations. 

"Dear, " she whispered, "we must wait. "

A moment's pause. "_Wait_!" he said, and broke off. Hehesitated. "Good-bye, " he said as though he was snapping a thread thatheld them together. 

CHAPTER XVI. 

MISS HEYDINGER'S PRIVATE THOUGHTS. 

The way from Chelsea to Clapham and the way from South Kensington toBattersea, especially if the former is looped about a little to makeit longer, come very near to each other. One night close uponChristmas two friends of Lewisham's passed him and Ethel. But Lewishamdid not see them, because he was looking at Ethel's face. 

"Did you see?" said the other girl, a little maliciously. 

"Mr. Lewisham--wasn't it?" said Miss Heydinger in a perfectlyindifferent tone. 

 * * * * *

Miss Heydinger sat in the room her younger sisters called her"Sanctum. " Her Sanctum was only too evidently an intellectualisedbedroom, and a cheap wallpaper of silvery roses peeped coquettishlyfrom among her draped furniture. Her particular glories were thewriting-desk in the middle and the microscope on the unsteadyoctagonal table under the window. There were bookshelves ofworkmanship patently feminine in their facile decoration andstructural instability, and on them an array of glittering poets, Shelley, Rossetti, Keats, Browning, and odd volumes of Ruskin, SouthPlace Sermons, Socialistic publications in torn paper covers, andabove, science text-books and note-books in an oppressiveabundance. The autotypes that hung about the room were eloquent ofaesthetic ambitions and of a certain impermeability to implicitmeanings. There were the Mirror of Venus by Burne Jones, Rossetti'sAnnunciation, Lippi's Annunciation, and the Love of Life and Love andDeath of Watts. And among other photographs was one of last year'sDebating Society Committee, Lewisham smiling a little weakly near thecentre, and Miss Heydinger out of focus in the right wing. And MissHeydinger sat with her back to all these things, in her blackhorse-hair arm-chair, staring into the fire, her eyes hot, and herchin on her hand. 

"I might have guessed--before, " she said. "Ever since that_séance_. It has been different ... "

She smiled bitterly. "Some shop girl ... "

She mused. "They are all alike, I suppose. They come back--a littledamaged, as the woman says in 'Lady Windermere's Fan. ' Perhaps hewill. I wonder ... "

"Why should he be so deceitful? Why should he act to me ... ?"

"Pretty, pretty, pretty--that is our business. What man hesitates inthe choice? He goes his own way, thinks his own thoughts, does his ownwork ... 

"His dissection is getting behind--one can see he takes scarcely anynotes.... "

For a long time she was silent. Her face became more intent. She beganto bite her thumb, at first slowly, then faster. She broke out at lastinto words again. 

"The things he might do, the great things he might do. He is able, heis dogged, he is strong. And then comes a pretty face! Oh God! _Why_was I made with heart and brain?" She sprang to her feet, with herhands clenched and her face contorted. But she shed no tears. 

Her attitude fell limp in a moment. One hand dropped by her side, theother rested on a fossil on the mantel-shelf, and she stared down intothe red fire. 

"To think of all we might have done! It maddens me!

"To work, and think, and learn. To hope and wait. To despise thepetty arts of womanliness, to trust to the sanity of man.... 

"To awake like the foolish virgins, " she said, "and find the hour oflife is past!"

Her face, her pose, softened into self-pity. 

"Futility ... 

"It's no good.... " Her voice broke. 

"I shall never be happy.... "

She saw the grandiose vision of the future she had cherished suddenlyrolled aside and vanishing, more and more splendid as it grew more andmore remote--like a dream at the waking moment. The vision of herinevitable loneliness came to replace it, clear and acute. She sawherself alone and small in a huge desolation--infinitely pitiful, Lewisham callously receding with "some shop girl. " The tears came, came faster, until they were streaming down her face. She turned as iflooking for something. She flung herself upon her knees before thelittle arm-chair, and began an incoherent sobbing prayer for the pityand comfort of God. 

 * * * * *

The next day one of the other girls in the biological course remarkedto her friend that "Heydinger-dingery" had relapsed. Her friendglanced down the laboratory. "It's a bad relapse, " she said. "Really... I couldn't ... Wear my hair like that. "

She continued to regard Miss Heydinger with a critical eye. She wasfree to do this because Miss Heydinger was standing, lost in thought, staring at the December fog outside the laboratory windows. "She lookswhite, " said the girl who had originally spoken. "I wonder if sheworks hard. "

"It makes precious little difference if she does, " said her friend. "Iasked her yesterday what were the bones in the parietal segment, andshe didn't know one. Not one. "

The next day Miss Heydinger's place was vacant. She was ill--fromoverstudy--and her illness lasted to within three weeks of theterminal examination. Then she came back with a pallid face and astrenuous unavailing industry. 

CHAPTER XVII. 

IN THE RAPHAEL GALLERY. 

It was nearly three o'clock, and in the Biological Laboratory thelamps were all alight. The class was busy with razors cutting sectionsof the root of a fern to examine it microscopically. A certain silentfrog-like boy, a private student who plays no further part in thisstory, was working intently, looking more like a frog than usual--hisexpression modest with a touch of effort. Behind Miss Heydinger, jadedand untidy in her early manner again, was a vacant seat, an abandonedmicroscope and scattered pencils and note-books. 

On the door of the class-room was a list of those who had passed theChristmas examination. At the head of it was the name of the aforesaidfrog-like boy; next to him came Smithers and one of the girlsbracketed together. Lewisham ingloriously headed the second class, andMiss Heydinger's name did not appear--there was, the list asserted, "one failure. " So the student pays for the finer emotions. 

And in the spacious solitude of the museum gallery devoted to theRaphael cartoons sat Lewisham, plunged in gloomy meditation. Anegligent hand pulled thoughtfully at the indisputable moustache, withparticular attention to such portions as were long enough to gnaw. 

He was trying to see the situation clearly. As he was just smartingacutely under his defeat, this speaks little for the clearness of hismind. The shadow of that defeat lay across everything, blotted out thelight of his pride, shaded his honour, threw everything into a newperspective. The rich prettiness of his love-making had fled to someremote quarter of his being. Against the frog-like youngster he felt asavage animosity. And Smithers had betrayed him. He was angry, bitterly angry, with "swats" and "muggers" who spent their whole timegrinding for these foolish chancy examinations. Nor had the practicalexamination been altogether fair, and one of the questions in thewritten portion was quite outside the lectures. Biver, ProfessorBiver, was an indiscriminating ass, he felt assured, and so too wasWeeks, the demonstrator. But these obstacles could not blind hisintelligence to the manifest cause of his overthrow, the waste of morethan half his available evening, the best time for study in thetwenty-four hours, day after day. And that was going on steadily, aperpetual leakage of time. To-night he would go to meet her again, andbegin to accumulate to himself ignominy in the second part of thecourse, the botanical section, also. And so, reluctantly rejecting onecloudy excuse after another, he clearly focussed the antagonismbetween his relations to Ethel and his immediate ambitions. 

Things had come so easily to him for the last two years that he hadtaken his steady upward progress in life as assured. It had neveroccurred to him, when he went to intercept Ethel after that _séance_, that he went into any peril of that sort. Now he had had a sharpreminder. He began to shape a picture of the frog-like boy at home--hewas a private student of the upper middle class--sitting in aconvenient study with a writing-table, book-shelves, and a shadedlamp--Lewisham worked at his chest of drawers, with his greatcoat on, and his feet in the lowest drawer wrapped in all his availablelinen--and in the midst of incredible conveniences the frog-like boywas working, working, working. Meanwhile Lewisham toiled through thefoggy streets, Chelsea-ward, or, after he had left her, trampedhomeward--full of foolish imaginings. 

He began to think with bloodless lucidity of his entire relationshipto Ethel. His softer emotions were in abeyance, but he told himself nolies. He cared for her, he loved to be with her and to talk to her andplease her, but that was not all his desire. He thought of the bitterwords of an orator at Hammersmith, who had complained that in ourpresent civilisation even the elemental need of marriage wasdenied. Virtue had become a vice. "We marry in fear and trembling, sexfor a home is the woman's traffic, and the man comes to his heart'sdesire when his heart's desire is dead. " The thing which had seemed amere flourish, came back now with a terrible air of truth. Lewishamsaw that it was a case of divergent ways. On the one hand that shiningstaircase to fame and power, that had been his dream from the verydawn of his adolescence, and on the other hand--Ethel. 

And if he chose Ethel, even then, would he have his choice? What wouldcome of it? A few walks more or less! She was hopelessly poor, he washopelessly poor, and this cheat of a Medium was her stepfather! Afterall she was not well-educated, she did not understand his work and hisaims.... 

He suddenly perceived with absolute conviction that after the _séance_he should have gone home and forgotten her. Why had he felt thatirresistible impulse to seek her out? Why had his imagination spunsuch a strange web of possibilities about her? He was involved now, foolishly involved.... All his future was a sacrifice to thistransitory ghost of love-making in the streets. He pulled spitefullyat his moustache. 

His picture began to shape itself into Ethel, and her mysteriousmother, and the vague dexterous Chaffery holding him back, entangledin an impalpable net from that bright and glorious ascent toperformance and distinction. Leaky boots and the splash of cabs forall his life as his portion! Already the Forbes Medal, the immediatestep, was as good as lost.... 

What on earth had he been thinking about? He fell foul of hisupbringing. Men of the upper or middle classes were put up to thesethings by their parents; they were properly warned against involvingthemselves in this love nonsense before they were independent. It wasmuch better.... 

Everything was going. Not only his work--his scientific career, butthe Debating Society, the political movement, all his work forHumanity.... Why not be resolute--even now?... Why not put the thingclearly and plainly to her? Or write? If he wrote now he could get theadvantage of the evening at the Library. He must ask her to forgothese walks home--at least until the next examination. _She_ wouldunderstand. He had a qualm of doubt whether she would understand.... He grew angry at this possibility. But it was no good mincingmatters. If once he began to consider her--Why should he consider herin that way? Simply because she was unreasonable!

Lewisham had a transitory gust of anger. 

Yet that abandonment of the walks insisted on looking mean to him. Andshe would think it mean. Which was very much worse, somehow. _Why_mean? Why should she think it mean? He grew angry again. 

The portly museum policeman who had been watching him furtively, wondering why a student should sit in front of the "Sacrifice ofLystra" and gnaw lips and nails and moustache, and scowl and glare atthat masterpiece, saw him rise suddenly to his feet with an air ofresolution, spin on his heel, and set off with a quick step out of thegallery. He looked neither to the right nor the left. He passed out ofsight down the staircase. 

"Gone to get some more moustache to eat, I suppose, " said thepoliceman reflectively.... 

"One 'ud think something had bit him. "

After some pensive moments the policeman strolled along down thegallery and came to a stop opposite the cartoon. 

"Figgers is a bit big for the houses, " said the policeman, anxious todo impartial justice. "But that's Art. I lay '_e_ couldn't doanything ... Not arf so good. "

CHAPTER XVIII. 

THE FRIENDS OF PROGRESS MEET. 

The night next but one after this meditation saw a new order in theworld. A young lady dressed in an astrachan-edged jacket and with aface of diminished cheerfulness marched from Chelsea to Clapham alone, and Lewisham sat in the flickering electric light of the EducationLibrary staring blankly over a business-like pile of books at unseenthings. 

The arrangement had not been effected without friction, theexplanation had proved difficult. Evidently she did not appreciate thefull seriousness of Lewisham's mediocre position in the list. "But youhave _passed_ all right, " she said. Neither could she grasp theimportance of evening study. "Of course I don't know, " she saidjudicially; "but I thought you were learning all day. " She calculatedthe time consumed by their walk as half an hour, "just one half hour;"she forgot that he had to get to Chelsea and then to return to hislodgings. Her customary tenderness was veiled by an only too apparentresentment. First at him, and then when he protested, at Fate. "Isuppose it _has_ to be, " she said. "Of course, it doesn't matter, Isuppose, if we _don't_ see each other quite so often, " with a quiverof pale lips. 

He had returned from the parting with an uneasy mind, and that eveninghad gone in the composition of a letter that was to make thingsclearer. But his scientific studies rendered his prose style "hard, "and things he could whisper he could not write. His justificationindeed did him no sort of justice. But her reception of it made herseem a very unreasonable person. He had some violent fluctuations. Attimes he was bitterly angry with her for her failure to see things ashe did. He would wander about the museum conducting imaginarydiscussions with her and making even scathing remarks. At other timeshe had to summon all his powers of acrid discipline and all hismemories of her resentful retorts, to keep himself from a headlongrush to Chelsea and unmanly capitulation. 

And this new disposition of things endured for two weeks. It did nottake Miss Heydinger all that time to discover that the disaster of theexamination had wrought a change in Lewisham. She perceived thosenightly walks were over. It was speedily evident to her that he wasworking with a kind of dogged fury; he came early, he went late. Thewholesome freshness of his cheek paled. He was to be seen on each ofthe late nights amidst a pile of diagrams and text-books in one of theless draughty corners of the Educational Library, accumulating pilesof memoranda. And nightly in the Students' "club" he wrote a letteraddressed to a stationer's shop in Clapham, but that she did not see. For the most part these letters were brief, for Lewisham, SouthKensington fashion, prided himself upon not being "literary, " and someof the more despatch-like wounded a heart perhaps too hungry fortender words. 

He did not meet Miss Heydinger's renewed advances with invariablekindness. Yet something of the old relations were presentlyrestored. He would talk well to her for a time, and then snap like adry twig. But the loaning of books was resumed, the subtle process ofhis aesthetic education that Miss Heydinger had devised. "Here is abook I promised you, " she said one day, and he tried to remember thepromise. 

The book was a collection of Browning's Poems, and it contained"Sludge"; it also happened that it contained "The Statue and theBust"--that stimulating lecture on half-hearted constraints. "Sludge"did not interest Lewisham, it was not at all his idea of a medium, buthe read and re-read "The Statue and the Bust. " It had the profoundesteffect upon him. He went to sleep--he used to read his literature inbed because it was warmer there, and over literature nowadays it didnot matter as it did with science if one dozed a little--with theselines stimulating his emotion:--

 "So weeks grew months, years; gleam by gleam The glory dropped from their youth and love, And both perceived they had dreamed a dream. "

By way of fruit it may be to such seed, he dreamed a dream thatnight. It concerned Ethel, and at last they were a-marrying. He drewher to his arms. He bent to kiss her. And suddenly he saw her lipswere shrivelled and her eyes were dull, saw the wrinkles seaming herface! She was old! She was intolerably old! He woke in a kind ofhorror and lay awake and very dismal until dawn, thinking of theirseparation and of her solitary walk through the muddy streets, thinking of his position, the leeway he had lost and the chances therewere against him in the battle of the world. He perceived thecolourless truth; the Career was improbable, and that Ethel should beadded to it was almost hopeless. Clearly the question was betweenthese two. Or should he vacillate and lose both? And then hiswretchedness gave place to that anger that comes of perpetuallythwarted desires.... 

It was on the day after this dream that he insulted Parkson sogrossly. He insulted Parkson after a meeting of the "Friends ofProgress" at Parkson's rooms. 

No type of English student quite realises the noble ideal of plainliving and high thinking nowadays. Our admirable examination systemadmits of extremely little thinking at any level, high or low. But theKensington student's living is at any rate insufficient, and he makesoccasional signs of recognition towards the cosmic process. 

One such sign was the periodic gathering of these "Friends ofProgress, " an association begotten of Lewisham's paper onSocialism. It was understood that strenuous things were to be done tomake the world better, but so far no decisive action had been taken. 

They met in Parkson's sitting-room, because Parkson was the only oneof the Friends opulent enough to have a sitting-room, he being aWhitworth Scholar and in receipt of one hundred pounds a year. TheFriends were of various ages, mostly very young. Several smoked andothers held pipes which they had discontinued smoking--but there wasnothing to drink, except coffee, because that was the extent of theirmeans. Dunkerley, an assistant master in a suburban school, andLewisham's former colleague at Whortley, attended these assembliesthrough the introduction of Lewisham. All the Friends wore red tiesexcept Bletherley, who wore an orange one to show that he was aware ofArt, and Dunkerley, who wore a black one with blue specks, becauseassistant masters in small private schools have to keep upappearances. And their simple procedure was that each talked as muchas the others would suffer. 

Usually the self-proposed "Luther of Socialism"--ridiculousLewisham!--had a thesis or so to maintain, but this night he wasdepressed and inattentive. He sat with his legs over the arm of hischair by way of indicating the state of his mind. He had a packet ofAlgerian cigarettes (twenty for fivepence), and appeared chieflyconcerned to smoke them all before the evening was out. Bletherley wasgoing to discourse of "Woman under Socialism, " and he brought a bigAmerican edition of Shelley's works and a volume of Tennyson with the"Princess, " both bristling with paper tongues against his markedquotations. He was all for the abolition of "monopolies, " and the_créche_ was to replace the family. He was unctuous when he was notpretty-pretty, and his views were evidently unpopular. 

Parkson was a man from Lancashire, and a devout Quaker; his third andcompleting factor was Ruskin, with whose work and phraseology he wassaturated. He listened to Bletherley with a marked disapproval, andopened a vigorous defence of that ancient tradition of loyalty thatBletherley had called the monopolist institution of marriage. "Thepure and simple old theory--love and faithfulness, " said Parkson, "suffices for me. If we are to smear our political movements withthis sort of stuff ... "

"Does it work?" interjected Lewisham, speaking for the first time. 

"What work?"

"The pure and simple old theory. I know the theory. I believe in thetheory. Bletherley's Shelley-witted. But it's theory. You meet theinevitable girl. The theory says you may meet her anywhen. You meettoo young. You fall in love. You marry--in spite of obstacles. Lovelaughs at locksmiths. You have children. That's the theory. All verywell for a man whose father can leave him five hundred a year. But howdoes it work for a shopman?... An assistant master like Dunkerley? Or... Me?"

"In these cases one must exercise restraint, " said Parkson. "Havefaith. A man that is worth having is worth waiting for. "

"Worth growing old for?" said Lewisham. 

"Chap ought to fight, " said Dunkerley. "Don't see your difficulty, Lewisham. Struggle for existence keen, no doubt, tremendous infact--still. In it--may as well struggle. Two--join forces--pool theluck. If I saw, a girl I fancied so that I wanted to, I'd marry herto-morrow. And my market value is seventy _non res_. "

Lewisham looked round at him eagerly, suddenly interested. "_Would_you?" he said. Dunkerley's face was slightly flushed. 

"Like a shot. Why not?"

"But how are you to live?"

"That comes after. If ... "

"I can't agree with you, Mr. Dunkerley, " said Parkson. "I don't knowif you have read Sesame and Lilies, but there you have, set forth farmore fairly than any words of mine could do, an ideal of a woman'splace ... "

"All rot--Sesame and Lilies, " interrupted Dunkerley. "Readbits. Couldn't stand it. Never _can_ stand Ruskin. Too manyprepositions. Tremendous English, no doubt, but not my style. Sort ofthing a wholesale grocer's daughter might read to get refined. _We_can't afford to get refined. "

"But would you really marry a girl ... ?" began Lewisham, with anunprecedented admiration for Dunkerley in his eyes. 

"Why not?"

"On--?" Lewisham hesitated. 

"Forty pounds a year _res_. Whack! Yes. "

A silent youngster began to speak, cleared an accumulated huskinessfrom his throat and said, "Consider the girl. "

"Why _marry_?" asked Bletherley, unregarded. 

"You must admit you are asking a great thing when you want a girl ... "began Parkson. 

"Not so. When a girl's chosen a man, and he chooses her, her place iswith him. What is the good of hankering? Mutual. Fight together. "

"Good!" said Lewisham, suddenly emotional. "You talk like a man, Dunkerley. I'm hanged if you don't. "

"The place of Woman, " insisted Parkson, "is the Home. And if there isno home--! I hold that, if need be, a man should toil seven years--asJacob did for Rachel--ruling his passions, to make the home fittingand sweet for her ... "

"Get the hutch for the pet animal, " said Dunkerley. "No. I mean tomarry a _woman_. Female sex always _has_ been in the struggle forexistence--no great damage so far--always will be. Tremendousidea--that struggle for existence. Only sensible theory you've gothold of, Lewisham. Woman who isn't fighting square side by side with aman--woman who's just kept and fed and petted is ... " He hesitated. 

A lad with a spotted face and a bulldog pipe between his teethsupplied a Biblical word. 

"That's shag, " said Dunkerley, "I was going to say 'a harem of one'"

The youngster was puzzled for a moment. "I smoke Perique, " he said. 

"It will make you just as sick, " said Dunkerley. 

"Refinement's so beastly vulgar, " was the belated answer of the smokerof Perique. 

That was the interesting part of the evening to Lewisham. Parksonsuddenly rose, got down "Sesame and Lilies, " and insisted upon readinga lengthy mellifluous extract that went like a garden roller over thedebate, and afterwards Bletherley became the centre of a wrangle thatleft him grossly insulted and in a minority of one. The institutionof marriage, so far as the South Kensington student is concerned, isin no immediate danger. 

Parkson turned out with the rest of them at half-past ten, for awalk. The night was warm for February and the waxing moonbright. Parkson fixed himself upon Lewisham and Dunkerley, toLewisham's intense annoyance--for he had a few intimate things hecould have said to the man of Ideas that night. Dunkerley lived north, so that the three went up Exhibition Road to High Street, Kensington. There they parted from Dunkerley, and Lewisham and Parksonturned southward again for Lewisham's new lodging in Chelsea. 

Parkson was one of those exponents of virtue for whom the discussionof sexual matters has an irresistible attraction. The meeting had lefthim eloquent. He had argued with Dunkerley to the verge of indelicacy, and now he poured out a vast and increasingly confidential flow oftalk upon Lewisham. Lewisham was distraught. He walked as fast as hecould. His sole object was to get rid of Parkson. Parkson's soleobject was to tell him interesting secrets, about himself and aCertain Person with a mind of extraordinary Purity of whom Lewishamhad heard before. 

Ages passed. 

Lewisham suddenly found himself being shown a photograph under alamp. It represented an unsymmetrical face singularly void ofexpression, the upper part of an "art" dress, and a fringe ofcurls. He perceived he was being given to understand that this was aParagon of Purity, and that she was the particular property ofParkson. Parkson was regarding him proudly, and apparently awaitinghis verdict. 

Lewisham struggled with the truth. "It's an interesting face, " hesaid. 

"It is a face essentially beautiful, " said Parkson quietly butfirmly. "Do you notice the eyes, Lewisham?"

"Oh yes, " said Lewisham. "Yes. I see the eyes. "

"They are ... Innocent. They are the eyes of a little child. "

"Yes. They look that sort of eye. Very nice, old man. I congratulateyou. Where does she live?"

"You never saw a face like that in London, " said Parkson. 

"_Never_, " said Lewisham decisively. 

"I would not show that to every one, " said Parkson. "You can scarcelyjudge all that pure-hearted, wonderful girl is to me. " He returned thephotograph solemnly to its envelope, regarding Lewisham with an air ofone who has performed the ceremony of blood-brotherhood. Then takingLewisham's arm affectionately--a thing Lewisham detested--he went onto a copious outpouring on Love--with illustrative anecdotes of theParagon. It was just sufficiently cognate to the matter of Lewisham'sthoughts to demand attention. Every now and then he had to answer, andhe felt an idiotic desire--albeit he clearly perceived its idiocy--toreciprocate confidences. The necessity of fleeing Parkson becameurgent--Lewisham's temper under these multitudinous stresses wasgoing. 

"Every man needs a Lode Star, " said Parkson--and Lewisham swore underhis breath. 

Parkson's lodgings were now near at hand to the left, and it occurredto him this boredom would be soonest ended if he took Parkson home, Parkson consented mechanically, still discoursing. 

"I have often seen you talking to Miss Heydinger, " he said. "If youwill pardon my saying it ... "

"We are excellent friends, " admitted Lewisham. "But here we are atyour diggings. "

Parkson stared at his "diggings. " "There's Heaps I want to talkabout. I'll come part of the way at any rate to Battersea. Your MissHeydinger, I was saying ... "

From that point onwards he made casual appeals to a supposedconfidence between Lewisham and Miss Heydinger, each of whichincreased Lewisham's exasperation. "It will not be long before youalso, Lewisham, will begin to know the infinite purification of a PureLove.... " Then suddenly, with a vague idea of suppressing Parkson'sunendurable chatter, as one motive at least, Lewisham rushed into theconfidential. 

"I know, " he said. "You talk to me as though ... I've marked out mydestiny these three years. " His confidential impulse died as herelieved it. 

"You don't mean to say Miss Heydinger--?" asked Parkson. 

"Oh, _damn_ Miss Heydinger!" said Lewisham, and suddenly, abruptly, uncivilly, he turned away from Parkson at the end of the street andbegan walking away southward, leaving Parkson in mid-sentence at thecrossing. 

Parkson stared in astonishment at his receding back and ran after himto ask for the grounds of this sudden offence. Lewisham walked on fora space with Parkson trotting by his side. Then suddenly heturned. His face was quite white and he spoke in a tired voice. 

"Parkson, " he said, "you are a fool!... You have the face of a sheep, the manners of a buffalo, and the conversation of a bore, Pewrityindeed!... The girl whose photograph you showed me has eyes that don'tmatch. She looks as loathsome as one would naturally expect.... I'mnot joking now.... Go away!"

After that Lewisham went on his southward way alone. He did not gostraight to his room in Chelsea, but spent some hours in a street inBattersea, pacing to and fro in front of a possible house. His passionchanged from savageness to a tender longing. If only he could see herto-night! He knew his own mind now. To-morrow he was resolved _he_would fling work to the dogs and meet her. The things Dunkerley hadsaid had filled his mind with wonderful novel thoughts. If only hecould see her now!

His wish was granted. At the corner of the street two figures passedhim; one of these, a tall man in glasses and a quasi-clerical hat, with coat collar turned up under his grey side-whiskers, he recognisedas Chaffery; the other he knew only too well. The pair passed himwithout seeing him, but for an instant the lamplight fell upon herface and showed it white and tired. 

Lewisham stopped dead at the corner, staring in blank astonishmentafter these two figures as they receded into the haze under thelights. He was dumfounded. A clock struck slowly. It wasmidnight. Presently down the road came the slamming of their door. 

Long after the echo died away he stood there. "She has been at a_séance_; she has broken her promise. She has been at a _séance_; shehas broken her promise, " sang in perpetual reiteration through hisbrain. 

And then came the interpretation. "She has done it because I have lefther. I might have told it from her letters. She has done it becauseshe thinks I am not in earnest, that my love-making was justboyishness ... 

"I knew she would never understand. "

CHAPTER XIX. 

LEWISHAM'S SOLUTION. 

The next morning Lewisham learnt from Lagune that his intuition wascorrect, that Ethel had at last succumbed to pressure and consented toattempt thought-reading. "We made a good beginning, " said Lagune, rubbing his hands. "I am sure we shall do well with her. Certainly shehas powers. I have always felt it in her face. She has powers. "

"Was much ... Pressure necessary?" asked Lewisham by an effort. 

"We had--considerable difficulty. Considerable. But of course--as Ipointed out to her--it was scarcely possible for her to continue as mytypewriter unless she was disposed to take an interest in myinvestigations--"

"You did that?"

"Had to. Fortunately Chaffery--it was his idea. I must admit--"

Lagune stopped astonished. Lewisham, after making an odd sort ofmovement with his hands, had turned round and was walking away downthe laboratory. Lagune stared; confronted by a psychic phenomenonbeyond his circle of ideas. "Odd!" he said at last, and began tounpack his bag. Ever and again he stopped and stared at Lewisham, whowas now sitting in his own place and drumming on the table with bothhands. 

Presently Miss Heydinger came out of the specimen room and addressed aremark to the young man. He appeared to answer with considerablebrevity. He then stood up, hesitated for a moment between the threedoors of the laboratory and walked out by that opening on the backstaircase. Lagune did not see him again until the afternoon. 

That night Ethel had Lewisham's company again on her way home, andtheir voices were earnest. She did not go straight home, but insteadthey went up under the gas lamps to the vague spaces of Clapham Commonto talk there at length. And the talk that night was a momentousone. "Why have you broken your promise?" he said. 

Her excuses were vague and weak. "I thought you did not care so muchas you did, " she said. "And when you stopped these walks--nothingseemed to matter. Besides--it is not like _séances_ with spirits ... "

At first Lewisham was passionate and forcible. His anger at Lagune andChaffery blinded him to her turpitude. He talked her defencesdown. "It is cheating, " he said. "Well--even if what _you_ do is notcheating, it is delusion--unconscious cheating. Even if there issomething in it, it is wrong. True or not, it is wrong. Why don'tthey thought-read each other? Why should they want you? Your mind isyour own. It is sacred. To probe it!--I won't have it! I won't haveit! At least you are mine to that extent. I can't think of you likethat--bandaged. And that little fool pressing his hand on the back ofyour neck and asking questions. I won't have it! I would rather killyou than that. "

"They don't do that!"

"I don't care! that is what it will come to. The bandage is thebeginning. People must not get their living in that way anyhow. I'vethought it out. Let them thought-read their daughters and hypnotisetheir aunts, and leave their typewriters alone. "

"But what am I to do?"

"That's not it. There are things one must not suffer anyhow, whateverhappens! Or else--one might be made to do anything. Honour! Justbecause we are poor--Let him dismiss you! _Let_ him dismiss you. Youcan get another place--"

"Not at a guinea a week. "

"Then take less. "

"But I have to pay sixteen shillings every week. "

"That doesn't matter. "

She caught at a sob, "But to leave London--I can't do it, I can't. "

"But how?--Leave London?" Lewisham's face changed. 

"Oh! life is _hard_, " she said. "I can't. They--they wouldn't let mestop in London. "

"What do you mean?"

She explained if Lagune dismissed her she was to go into the countryto an aunt, a sister of Chaffery's who needed a companion. Chafferyinsisted upon that. "Companion they call it. I shall be just aservant--she has no servant. My mother cries when I talk to her. Shetells me she doesn't want me to go away from her. But she's afraid ofhim. 'Why don't you do what he wants?' she says. "

She sat staring in front of her at the gathering night. She spokeagain in an even tone. 

"I hate telling you these things. It is you ... If you didn't mind... But you make it all different. I could do it--if it wasn't foryou. I was ... I _was_ helping ... I had gone meaning to help ifanything went wrong at Mr. Lagune's. Yes--that night. No ... Don't! Itwas too hard before to tell you. But I really did not feel it... Until I saw you there. Then all at once I felt shabby and mean. "

"Well?" said Lewisham. 

"That's all. I may have done thought-reading, but I have never reallycheated since--_never_.... If you knew how hard it is ... "

"I wish you had told me that before. "

"I couldn't. Before you came it was different. He used to make fun ofthe people--used to imitate Lagune and make me laugh. It seemed a sortof joke. " She stopped abruptly. "Why did you ever come on with me? Itold you not to--you _know_ I did. "

She was near wailing. For a minute she was silent. 

"I can't go to his sister's, " she cried. "I may be a coward--but Ican't. "

Pause. And then Lewisham saw his solution straight and clear. Suddenlyhis secret desire had become his manifest duty. 

"Look here, " he said, not looking at her and pulling his moustache. "Iwon't have you doing any more of that damned cheating. You shan't soilyourself any more. And I won't have you leaving London. "

"But what am I to do?" Her voice went up. 

"Well--there is one thing you can do. If you dare. "

"What is it?"

He made no answer for some seconds. Then he turned round and satlooking at her. Their eyes met.... 

The grey of his mind began to colour. Her face was white and she waslooking at him, in fear and perplexity. A new tenderness for hersprang up in him--a new feeling. Hitherto he had loved and desired hersweetness and animation--but now she was white and weary-eyed. Hefelt as though he had forgotten her and suddenly remembered. A greatlonging came into his mind. 

"But what is the other thing I can do?"

It was strangely hard to say. There came a peculiar sensation in histhroat and facial muscles, a nervous stress between laughing andcrying. All the world vanished before that great desire. And he wasafraid she would not dare, that she would not take him seriously. 

"What is it?" she said again. 

"Don't you see that we can marry?" he said, with the flood of hisresolution suddenly strong and steady. "Don't you see that is theonly thing for us? The dead lane we are in! You must come out of yourcheating, and I must come out of my ... Cramming. And we--we mustmarry. "

He paused and then became eloquent. "The world is against us, against--us. To you it offers money to cheat--to be ignoble. For it_is_ ignoble! It offers you no honest way, only a miserabledrudgery. And it keeps you from me. And me too it bribes with thepromise of success--if I will desert you ... You don't know all ... Wemay have to wait for years--we may have to wait for ever, if we waituntil life is safe. We may be separated.... We may lose one anotheraltogether.... Let us fight against it. Why should we separate?Unless True Love is like the other things--an empty cant. This is theonly way. We two--who belong to one another. "

She looked at him, her face perplexed with this new idea, her heartbeating very fast. "We are so young, " she said. "And how are we tolive? You get a guinea. "

"I can get more--I can earn more, I have thought it out. I have beenthinking of it these two days. I have been thinking what we coulddo. I have money. "

"You have money?"

"Nearly a hundred pounds. "

"But we are so young--And my mother ... "

"We won't ask her. We will ask no one. This is _our_ affair. Ethel!this is _our_ affair. It is not a question of ways and means--evenbefore this--I have thought ... Dear one!--_don't_ you love me?"

She did not grasp his emotional quality. She looked at him withpuzzled eyes--still practical--making the suggestion arithmetical. 

"I could typewrite if I had a machine. I have heard--"

"It's not a question of ways and means. Now. Ethel--I have longed--"

He stopped. She looked at his face, at his eyes now eager and eloquentwith the things that never shaped themselves into words. 

"_Dare_ you come with me?" he whispered. 

Suddenly the world opened out in reality to her as sometimes it hadopened out to her in wistful dreams. And she quailed before it. Shedropped her eyes from his. She became a fellow-conspirator. "But, how--?"

"I will think how. Trust me! Surely we know each other now--Think! Wetwo--"

"But I have never thought--"

"I could get apartments for us both. It would be so easy. And think ofit--think--of what life would be!"

"How can I?"

"You will come?"

She looked at him, startled. "You know, " she said, "you must know Iwould like--I would love--"

"You will come?"

"But, dear--! Dear, if you _make_ me--"

"Yes!" cried Lewisham triumphantly. "You will come. " He glanced roundand his voice dropped. "Oh! my dearest! my dearest!... "

His voice sank to an inaudible whisper. But his face was eloquent. Twogarrulous, home-going clerks passed opportunely to remind him that hisemotions were in a public place. 

CHAPTER XX. 

THE CAREER IS SUSPENDED. 

On the Wednesday afternoon following this--it was hard upon thebotanical examination--Mr. Lewisham was observed by Smithers in thebig Education Library reading in a volume of the BritishEncyclopaedia. Beside him were the current Whitaker's Almanac, an opennote-book, a book from the Contemporary Science Series, and theScience and Art Department's Directory. Smithers, who had a profoundsense of Lewisham's superiority in the art of obtaining facts of valuein examinations, wondered for some minutes what valuable tip for astudent in botany might be hidden in Whitaker, and on reaching hislodgings spent some time over the landlady's copy. But really Lewishamwas not studying botany, but the art of marriage according to the bestauthorities. (The book from the Contemporary Science Series wasProfessor Letourneau's "Evolution of Marriage. " It was interestingcertainly, but of little immediate use. )

From Whitaker Lewisham learnt that it would be possible at a cost of£2, 6s. 1d. Or £2, 7s. 1d. (one of the items was ambiguous) to getmarried within the week--that charge being exclusive of vails--at thedistrict registry office. He did little addition sums in thenote-book. The church fees he found were variable, but for morepersonal reasons he rejected a marriage at church. Marriage bycertificate at a registrar's involved an inconvenient delay. It wouldhave to be £2, 7s. 1d. Vails--ten shillings, say. 

Afterwards, without needless ostentation, he produced a cheque-bookand a deposit-book, and proceeded to further arithmetic. He found thathe was master of £61, 4s. 7d. Not a hundred as he had said, but a finebig sum--men have started great businesses on less. It had been ahundred originally. Allowing five pounds for the marriage and moving, this would leave about £56. Plenty. No provision was made for flowers, carriages, or the honeymoon. But there would be a typewriter tobuy. Ethel was to do her share.... 

"It will be a devilish close thing, " said Lewisham with a quiteunreasonable exultation. For, strangely enough, the affair wasbeginning to take on a flavour of adventure not at all unpleasant. Heleant back in his chair with the note-book closed in his hand.... 

But there was much to see to that afternoon. First of all he had todiscover the district superintendent registrar, and then to find alodging whither he should take Ethel--their lodging, where they wereto live together. 

At the thought of that new life together that was drawing so near, shecame into his head, vivid and near and warm.... 

He recovered himself from a day dream. He became aware of a libraryattendant down the room leaning forward over his desk, gnawing the tipof a paper knife after the fashion of South Kensington libraryattendants, and staring at him curiously. It occurred to Lewisham thatthought reading was one of the most possible things in the world. Heblushed, rose clumsily and took the volume of the Encyclopaedia backto its shelf. 

He found the selection of lodgings a difficult business. After hisfirst essay he began to fancy himself a suspicious-looking character, and that perhaps hampered him. He had chosen the district southwardof the Brompton Road. It had one disadvantage--he might blunder into ahouse with a fellow-student.... Not that it mattered vitally. But thefact is, it is rather unusual for married couples to live permanentlyin furnished lodgings in London. People who are too poor to take ahouse or a flat commonly find it best to take part of a house orunfurnished apartments. There are a hundred couples living inunfurnished rooms (with "the use of the kitchen") to one in furnishedin London. The absence of furniture predicates a dangerous want ofcapital to the discreet landlady. The first landlady Lewishaminterviewed didn't like ladies, they required such a lot ofattendance; the second was of the same mind; the third toldMr. Lewisham he was "youngish to be married;" the fourth said she only"did" for single "gents. " The fifth was a young person with an archmanner, who liked to know all about people she took in, and subjectedLewisham to a searching cross-examination. When she had spitted himin a downright lie or so, she expressed an opinion that her rooms"would scarcely do, " and bowed him amiably out. 

He cooled his ears and cheeks by walking up and down the street for aspace, and then tried again. This landlady was a terrible and pitifulperson, so grey and dusty she was, and her face deep lined with dustand trouble and labour. She wore a dirty cap that was all askew. Shetook Lewisham up into a threadbare room on the first floor, "There'sthe use of a piano, " she said, and indicated an instrument with afront of torn green silk. Lewisham opened the keyboard and evoked avibration of broken strings. He took one further survey of the dismalplace, "Eighteen shillings, " he said. "Thank you ... I'll let youknow. " The woman smiled with the corners of her mouth down, andwithout a word moved wearily towards the door. Lewisham felt atransient wonder at her hopeless position, but he did not pursue theinquiry. 

The next landlady sufficed. She was a clean-looking German woman, rather smartly dressed; she had a fringe of flaxen curls and a volubleflow of words, for the most part recognisably English. With this shesketched out remarks. Fifteen shillings was her demand for a minutebedroom and a small sitting-room, separated by folding doors on theground floor, and her personal services. Coals were to be "sixpence akettle, " she said--a pretty substitute for scuttle. She had notunderstood Lewisham to say he was married. But she had no hesitation. "Aayteen shillin', " she said imperturbably. "Paid furs day ich wik... See?" Mr. Lewisham surveyed the rooms again. They looked clean, and the bonus tea vases, the rancid, gilt-framed oleographs, twotoilet tidies used as ornaments, and the fact that the chest ofdrawers had been crowded out of the bedroom into the sitting-room, simply appealed to his sense of humour. "I'll take 'em from Saturdaynext, " he said. 

She was sure he would like them, and proposed to give him his bookforthwith. She mentioned casually that the previous lodger had been acaptain and had stayed three years. (One never hears by any chance oflodgers stopping for a shorter period. ) Something happened (German)and now he kept his carriage--apparently an outcome of his stay. Shereturned with a small penny account-book, a bottle of ink and anexecrable pen, wrote Lewisham's name on the cover of this, and areceipt for eighteen shillings on the first page. She was evidently aperson of considerable business aptitude. Lewisham paid, and thetransaction terminated. "Szhure to be gomfortable, " followed himcomfortingly to the street. 

Then he went on to Chelsea and interviewed a fatherly gentleman at theVestry offices. The fatherly gentleman was chubby-faced andspectacled, and his manner was sympathetic but business-like. He"called back" each item of the interview, "And what can I do for you?You wish to be married! By licence?"

"By licence. "

"By licence!"

And so forth. He opened a book and made neat entries of theparticulars. 

"The lady's age?"

"Twenty-one. "

"A very suitable age ... For a lady. "

He advised Lewisham to get a ring, and said he would need twowitnesses. 

"_Well_--" hesitated Lewisham. 

"There is always someone about, " said the superintendentregistrar. "And they are quite used to it. "

Thursday and Friday Lewisham passed in exceedingly high spirits. Noconsciousness of the practical destruction of the Career seems to havetroubled him at this time. Doubt had vanished from his universe for aspace. He wanted to dance along the corridors. He felt curiouslyirresponsible and threw up an unpleasant sort of humour that pleasednobody. He wished Miss Heydinger many happy returns of the day, _apropos_ of nothing, and he threw a bun across the refreshment roomat Smithers and hit one of the Art School officials. Both wereextremely silly things to do. In the first instance he was penitentimmediately after the outrage, but in the second he added insult toinjury by going across the room and asking in an offensivelysuspicious manner if anyone had seen his bun. He crawled under a tableand found it at last, rather dusty but quite eatable, under the chairof a lady art student. He sat down by Smithers to eat it, while heargued with the Art official. The Art official said the manners of theScience students were getting unbearable, and threatened to bring thematter before the refreshment-room committee. Lewisham said it was apity to make such a fuss about a trivial thing, and proposed that theArt official should throw his lunch--steak and kidney pudding--acrossthe room at him, Lewisham, and so get immediate satisfaction. He thenapologised to the official and pointed out in extenuation that it wasa very long and difficult shot he had attempted. The official thendrank a crumb, or breathed some beer, or something of that sort, andthe discussion terminated. In the afternoon, however, Lewisham, tohis undying honour, felt acutely ashamed of himself. Miss Heydingerwould not speak to him. 

On Saturday morning he absented himself from the schools, pleading bypost a slight indisposition, and took all his earthly goods to thebooking office at Vauxhall Station. Chaffery's sister lived atTongham, near Farnham, and Ethel, dismissed a week since by Lagune, had started that morning, under her mother's maudlin supervision, tobegin her new slavery. She was to alight either at Farnham or Woking, as opportunity arose, and to return to Vauxhall to meet him. So thatLewisham's vigil on the main platform was of indefinite duration. 

At first he felt the exhilaration of a great adventure. Then, as hepaced the long platform, came a philosophical mood, a sense of entiredetachment from the world. He saw a bundle of uprooted plants besidethe portmanteau of a fellow-passenger and it suggested a grotesquesimile. His roots, his earthly possessions, were all downstairs inthe booking-office. What a flimsy thing he was! A box of books and atrunk of clothes, some certificates and scraps of paper, an entry hereand an entry there, a body not over strong--and the vast multitude ofpeople about him--against him--the huge world in which he foundhimself! Did it matter anything to one human soul save her if heceased to exist forthwith? And miles away perhaps she also wasfeeling little and lonely.... 

Would she have trouble with her luggage? Suppose her aunt were to cometo Farnham Junction to meet her? Suppose someone stole her purse?Suppose she came too late! The marriage was to take place attwo.... Suppose she never came at all! After three trains insuccession had disappointed him his vague feelings of dread gave placeto a profound depression.... 

But she came at last, and it was twenty-three minutes to two. Hehurried her luggage downstairs, booked it with his own, and in anotherminute they were in a hansom--their first experience of that speciesof conveyance--on the way to the Vestry office. They had said scarcelyanything to one another, save hasty directions from Lewisham, buttheir eyes were full of excitement, and under the apron of the cabtheir hands were gripped together. 

The little old gentleman was business-like but kindly. They madetheir vows to him, to a little black-bearded clerk and a lady who tookoff an apron in the nether part of the building to attend. The littleold gentleman made no long speeches. "You are young people, " he saidslowly, "and life together is a difficult thing.... Be kind to eachother. " He smiled a little sadly, and held out a friendly hand. 

Ethel's eyes glistened and she found she could not speak. 

CHAPTER XXI. 

HOME!

Then a furtive payment of witnesses, and Lewisham was beside her. Hisface was radiant. A steady current of workers going home to theirhalf-holiday rest poured along the street. On the steps before themlay a few grains of rice from some more public nuptials. 

A critical little girl eyed our couple curiously and made some remarkto her ragamuffin friend. 

"Not them, " said the ragamuffin friend, "They've only been askin'questions. "

The ragamuffin friend was no judge of faces. 

They walked back through the thronged streets to Vauxhall station, saying little to one another, and there Lewisham, assuming asindifferent a manner as he could command, recovered their possessionsfrom the booking-office by means of two separate tickets and put themaboard a four-wheeler. His luggage went outside, but the little brownportmanteau containing Ethel's trousseau was small enough to go on theseat in front of them. You must figure a rather broken-downfour-wheeler bearing the yellow-painted box and the experienced trunkand Mr. Lewisham and all his fortunes, a despondent fitful horse, anda threadbare venerable driver, blasphemous _sotto voce_ andflagellant, in an ancient coat with capes. When our two young peoplefound themselves in the cab again a certain stiffness of mannerbetween them vanished and there was more squeezing of hands. "Ethel_Lewisham_, " said Lewisham several times, and Ethel reciprocated with"Husbinder" and "Hubby dear, " and took off her glove to look again inan ostentatious manner at a ring. And she kissed the ring. 

They were resolved that their newly-married state should not appear, and with considerable ceremony it was arranged that he should treather with off-hand brusqueness when they arrived at their lodging. TheTeutonic landlady appeared in the passage with an amiable smile andthe hope that they had had a pleasant journey, and became voluble withpromises of comfort. Lewisham having assisted the slatternly generalservant to carry in his boxes, paid the cabman a florin in a resolutemanner and followed the ladies into the sitting-room. 

Ethel answered Madam Gadow's inquiries with admirable self-possession, followed her through the folding-doors and displayed an intelligentinterest in a new spring mattress. Presently the folding-doors wereclosed again. Lewisham hovered about the front room pulling hismoustache and pretending to admire the oleographs, surprised to findhimself trembling.... 

The slatternly general servant reappeared with the chops and tinnedsalmon he had asked Madam Gadow to prepare for them. He went andstared out of the window, heard the door close behind the girl, andturned at a sound as Ethel appeared shyly through the folding-doors. 

She was suddenly domestic. Hitherto he had seen her without a hat andjacket only on one indistinct dramatic occasion. Now she wore a littleblouse of soft, dark red material, with a white froth about the wristsand that pretty neck of hers. And her hair was a new wonderland ofcurls and soft strands. How delicate she looked and sweet as she stoodhesitating there. These gracious moments in life! He took two stepsand held out his arms. She glanced at the closed door of the room andcame flitting towards him.... 

CHAPTER XXII. 

EPITHALAMY. 

For three indelible days Lewisham's existence was a fabric of fineemotions, life was too wonderful and beautiful for any doubts orforethought. To be with Ethel was perpetual delight--she astonishedthis sisterless youngster with a thousand feminine niceties andrefinements. She shamed him for his strength and clumsiness. And thelight in her eyes and the warmth in her heart that lit them!

Even to be away from her was a wonder and in its way delightful. Hewas no common Student, he was a man with a Secret Life. To part fromher on Monday near South Kensington station and go up Exhibition Roadamong all the fellows who lived in sordid, lonely lodgings and wereboys to his day-old experience! To neglect one's work and sit back anddream of meeting again! To slip off to the shady churchyard behind theOratory when, or even a little before, the midday bell woke the greatstaircase to activity, and to meet a smiling face and hear a soft, voice saying sweet foolish things! And after four another meeting andthe walk home--their own home. 

No little form now went from him and flitted past a gas lamp down afoggy vista, taking his desire with her. Never more was that tobe. Lewisham's long hours in the laboratory were spent largely in adreamy meditation, in--to tell the truth--the invention of foolishterms of endearment: "Dear Wife, " "Dear Little Wife Thing, " "SweetestDearest Little Wife, " "Dillywings. " A pretty employment! And theseare quite a fair specimen of his originality during those wonderfuldays. A moment of heart-searching in that particular matter led tothe discovery of hitherto undreamt-of kindred with Swift. ForLewisham, like Swift and most other people, had hit upon, the LittleLanguage. Indeed it was a very foolish time. 

Such section cutting as he did that third day of his married life--andhe did very little--was a thing to marvel at. Bindon, the botanyprofessor, under the fresh shock of his performance, protested to acolleague in the grill room that never had a student been so foolishlyoverrated. 

And Ethel too had a fine emotional time. She was mistress of ahome--_their_ home together. She shopped and was called "Ma'am" byrespectful, good-looking shopmen; she designed meals and copied outpapers of notes with a rich sense of helpfulness. And ever and againshe would stop writing and sit dreaming. And for four bright week-daysshe went to and fro to accompany and meet Lewisham and listen greedilyto the latest fruits of his imagination. 

The landlady was very polite and conversed entertainingly about thevery extraordinary and dissolute servants that had fallen to herlot. And Ethel disguised her newly wedded state by a series ofingenious prevarications. She wrote a letter that Saturday evening toher mother--Lewisham had helped her to write it--making a sort ofproclamation of her heroic departure and promising a speedyvisit. They posted the letter so that it might not be delivered untilMonday. 

She was quite sure with Lewisham that only the possible dishonour ofmediumship could have brought their marriage about--she sank themutual attraction beyond even her own vision. There was more than atouch of magnificence, you perceive, about this affair. 

It was Lewisham had persuaded her to delay that reassuring visit untilMonday night. "One whole day of honeymoon, " he insisted, was to betheirs. In his prenuptial meditations he had not clearly focussed thefact that even after marriage some sort of relations with Mr. AndMrs. Chaffery would still go on. Even now he was exceedinglydisinclined to face that obvious necessity. He foresaw, in spite of aresolute attempt to ignore it, that there would be explanatory scenesof some little difficulty. But the prevailing magnificence carried himover this trouble. 

"Let us at least have this little time for ourselves, " he said, andthat seemed to settle their position. 

Save for its brevity and these intimations of future trouble it was avery fine time indeed. Their midday dinner together, for example--itwas a little cold when at last they came to it on Saturday--wasimmense fun. There was no marked subsidence of appetite; they ateextremely well in spite of the meeting of their souls, and in spite ofcertain shiftings of chairs and hand claspings and similar delays. Hereally made the acquaintance of her hands then for the first time, plump white hands with short white fingers, and the engagement ringhad come out of its tender hiding-place and acted as keeper to thewedding ring. Their eyes were perpetually flitting about the room andcoming back to mutual smiles. All their movements were faintlytremulous. 

She professed to be vastly interested and amused by the room and itsfurniture and her position, and he was delighted by her delight. Shewas particularly entertained by the chest of drawers in the livingroom, and by Lewisham's witticisms at the toilet tidies and theoleographs. 

And after the chops and the most of the tinned salmon and the very newloaf were gone they fell to with fine effect upon a tapiocapudding. Their talk was fragmentary. "Did you hear her call me_Madame? Mádáme_--so!" "And presently I must go out and do someshopping. There are all the things for Sunday and Monday morning toget. I must make a list. It will never do to let her know how little Iknow about things.... I wish I knew more. "

At the time Lewisham regarded her confession of domestic ignorance asa fine basis for facetiousness. He developed a fresh line of thought, and condoled with her on the inglorious circumstances of theirwedding. "No bridesmaids, " he said; "no little children scatteringflowers, no carriages, no policemen to guard the wedding presents, nothing proper--nothing right. Not even a white favour. Only you andI. "

"Only you and I. _Oh_!"

"This is nonsense, " said Lewisham, after an interval. 

"And think what we lose in the way of speeches, " he resumed. "Cannotyou imagine the best man rising:--'Ladies and gentlemen--the health ofthe bride. ' That is what the best man has to do, isn't it?"

By way of answer she extended her hand. 

"And do you know, " he said, after that had received due recognition, "we have never been introduced!"

"Neither have we!" said Ethel. "Neither have we! We have never beenintroduced!"

For some inscrutable reason it delighted them both enormously to thinkthat they had never been introduced.... 

In the later afternoon Lewisham, having unpacked his books to acertain extent, and so forth, was visible to all men, visibly in thehighest spirits, carrying home Ethel's shopping. There were parcelsand cones in blue and parcels in rough grey paper and a bag ofconfectionery, and out of one of the side pockets of that East-endovercoat the tail of a haddock protruded from its paper. Under suchmagnificent sanctions and amid such ignoble circumstances did thishoneymoon begin. 

On Sunday evening they went for a long rambling walk through the quietstreets, coming out at last into Hyde Park. The early spring night wasmild and clear and the kindly moonlight was about them. They went tothe bridge and looked down the Serpentine, with the little lights ofPaddington yellow and remote. They stood there, dim little figures andvery close together. They whispered and became silent. 

Presently it seemed that something passed and Lewisham began talkingin his magnificent vein. He likened the Serpentine to Life, and foundMeaning in the dark banks of Kensington Gardens and the remote brightlights. "The long struggle, " he said, "and the lights at theend, "--though he really did not know what he meant by the lights atthe end. Neither did Ethel, though the emotion was indisputable. "Weare Fighting the World, " he said, finding great satisfaction in thethought. "All the world is against us--and we are fighting it all. "

"We will not be beaten, " said Ethel. 

"How could we be beaten--together?" said Lewisham. "For you I wouldfight a dozen worlds. "

It seemed a very sweet and noble thing to them under the sympatheticmoonlight, almost indeed too easy for their courage, to be merelyfighting the world. 

 * * * * *

"You 'aven't bin married ver' long, " said Madam Gadow with aninsinuating smile, when she readmitted Ethel on Monday morning afterLewisham had been swallowed up by the Schools. 

"No, I haven't _very_ long, " admitted Ethel. 

"You are ver' 'appy, " said Madam Gadow, and sighed. 

"_I_ was ver' 'appy, " said Madam Gadow. 

CHAPTER XXIII. 

MR. CHAFFERY AT HOME. 

The golden mists of delight lifted a little on Monday, when Mr. AndMrs. G. E. Lewisham went to call on his mother-in-law andMr. Chaffery. Mrs. Lewisham went in evident apprehension, but cloudsof glory still hung about Lewisham's head, and his manner was heroic. He wore a cotton shirt and linen collar, and a very nice black satintie that Mrs. Lewisham had bought on her own responsibility during theday. She naturally wanted him to look all right. 

Mrs. Chaffery appeared in the half light of the passage as the top ofa grimy cap over Ethel's shoulder and two black sleeves about herneck. She emerged as a small, middle-aged woman, with a thin littlenose between silver-rimmed spectacles, a weak mouth and perplexedeyes, a queer little dust-lined woman with the oddest resemblance toEthel in her face. She was trembling visibly with nervous agitation. 

She hesitated, peering, and then kissed Mr. Lewisham effusively. "Andthis is Mr. Lewisham!" she said as she did so. 

She was the third thing feminine to kiss Lewisham since thepromiscuous days of his babyhood. "I was so afraid--There!" Shelaughed hysterically. 

"You'll excuse my saying that it's comforting to see you--honest likeand young. Not but what Ethel ... _He_ has been something dreadful, "said Mrs. Chaffery. "You didn't ought to have written about thatmesmerising. And of all letters that which Jane wrote--there! Buthe's waiting and listening--"

"Are we to go downstairs, Mums?" asked Ethel. 

"He's waiting for you there, " said Mrs. Chaffery. She held a dismallittle oil lamp, and they descended a tenebrous spiral structure intoan underground breakfast-room lit by gas that shone through apartially frosted globe with cut-glass stars. That descent had adistinctly depressing effect upon Lewisham. He went first. He took adeep breath at the door. What on earth was Chaffery going to say? Notthat he cared, of course. 

Chaffery was standing with his back to the fire, trimming hisfinger-nails with a pocket-knife. His gilt glasses were tilted forwardso as to make an inflamed knob at the top of his long nose, and heregarded Mr. And Mrs. Lewisham over them with--Lewisham doubted hiseyes for a moment--but it was positively a smile, an essentiallywaggish smile. 

"You've come back, " he said quite cheerfully over Lewisham toEthel. There was a hint of falsetto in his voice. 

"She has called to see her mother, " said Lewisham. "You, I believe, are Mr. Chaffery?"

"I would like to know who the Deuce _you_ are?" said Chaffery, suddenly tilting his head back so as to look through his glassesinstead of over them, and laughing genially. "For thoroughgoing Cheek, I'm inclined to think you take the Cake. Are you the Mr. Lewisham towhom this misguided girl refers in her letter?"

"I am. "

"Maggie, " said Mr. Chaffery to Mrs. Chaffery, "there is a class ofbeing upon whom delicacy is lost--to whom delicacy is practicallyunknown. Has your daughter got her marriage lines?"

"Mr. Chaffery!" said Lewisham, and Mrs. Chaffery exclaimed, "James!How _can_ you?"

Chaffery shut his penknife with a click and slipped it into hisvest-pocket. Then he looked up again, speaking in the same equalvoice. "I presume we are civilised persons prepared to manage ouraffairs in a civilised way. My stepdaughter vanishes for two nightsand returns with an alleged husband. I at least am not disposed to becareless about her legal position. "

"You ought to know her better--" began Lewisham. 

"Why argue about it, " said Chaffery gaily, pointing a lean finger atEthel's gesture, "when she has 'em in her pocket? She may just as wellshow me now. I thought so. Don't be alarmed at my handling them. Fresh copies can always be got at the nominal price of two-and-seven. Thank you ... Lewisham, George Edgar. One-and-twenty. And ... You--one-and-twenty! I never did know your age, my dear, exactly, andnow your mother won't say. Student! Thank you. I am greatlyobliged. Indeed I am greatly relieved. And now, what have you got tosay for yourselves in this remarkable affair?"

"You had a letter, " said Lewisham. 

"I had a letter of excuses--the personalities I overlook ... Yes, sir--they were excuses. You young people wanted to marry--and youseized an occasion. You did not even refer to the fact that youwanted to marry in your letter. Pure modesty! But now you have comehere married. It disorganises this household, it inflicts endlessbother on people, but never you mind that! I'm not blaming_you_. Nature's to blame! Neither of you know what you are in foryet. You will. You're married, and that is the great essentialthing.... (Ethel, my dear, just put your husband's hat and stickbehind the door. ) And you, sir, are so good as to disapprove of theway in which I earn my living?"

"Well, " said Lewisham. "Yes--I'm bound to say I do. "

"You are really _not_ bound to say it. The modesty of inexperiencewould excuse you. "

"Yes, but it isn't right--it isn't straight. "

"Dogma, " said Chaffery. "Dogma!"

"What do you mean by dogma?" asked Lewisham. 

"I mean, dogma. But we must argue this out in comfort. It is oursupper hour, and I'm not the man to fight against accomplishedfacts. We have intermarried. There it is. You must stop tosupper--and you and I must thresh these things out. We've involvedourselves with each other and we've got to make the best of it. Yourwife and mine will spread the board, and we will go on talking. Whynot sit in that chair instead of leaning on the back? This is ahome--_domus_--not a debating society--humble in spite of my manifestfrauds.... That's better. And in the first place I hope--I do sohope"--Chaffery was suddenly very impressive--"that you're not aDissenter. "

"Eh!" said Lewisham, and then, "No! I am _not_ a Dissenter. "

"That's better, " said Mr. Chaffery. "I'm glad of that. I was just alittle afraid--Something in your manner. I can't stand Dissenters. I've a peculiar dislike to Dissenters. To my mind it's the greatdrawback of this Clapham. You see ... I have invariably found themdeceitful--invariably. "

He grimaced and dropped his glasses with a click against his waistcoatbuttons. "I'm very glad of that, " he said, replacing them. "TheDissenter, the Nonconformist Conscience, the Puritan, you know, theVegetarian and Total Abstainer, and all that sort of thing, I cannotaway with them. I have cleared my mind of cant and formulae. I've anature essentially Hellenic. Have you ever read Matthew Arnold?"

"Beyond my scientific reading--"

"Ah! you _should_ read Matthew Arnold--a mind of singular clarity. Inhim you would find a certain quality that is sometimes a littlewanting in your scientific men. They are apt to be a little toophenomenal, you know, a little too objective. Now I seek afternoumena. Noumena, Mr. Lewisham! If you follow me--?"

He paused, and his eyes behind the glasses were mildlyinterrogative. Ethel re-entered without her hat and jacket, and with anoisy square black tray, a white cloth, some plates and knives andglasses, and began to lay the table. 

"_I_ follow you, " said Lewisham, reddening. He had not the courage toadmit ignorance of this remarkable word. "You state your case. "

"I seek after _noumena_, " repeated Chaffery with great satisfaction, and gesticulated with his hand, waving away everything but that. "Icannot do with surfaces and appearances. I am one of thosenympholepts, you know, nympholepts ... Must pursue the truth ofthings! the elusive fundamental ... I make a rule, I never tell myselflies--never. There are few who can say that. To my mind--truth beginsat home. And for the most part--stops there. Safest and seemliest!_you_ know. With most men--with your typical Dissenter _parexcellence_--it's always gadding abroad, calling on the neighbours. You see my point of view?"

He glanced at Lewisham, who was conscious of an unwonted opacity ofmind. He became wary, as wary as he could manage to be on the spur ofthe moment. 

"It's a little surprising, you know, " he said very carefully, "if Imay say so--and considering what happened--to hear _you_ ... "

"Speaking of truth? Not when you understand my position. Not when yousee where I stand. That is what I am getting at. That is what I amnaturally anxious to make clear to you now that we have intermarried, now that you are my stepson-in-law. You're young, you know, you'reyoung, and you're hard and fast. Only years can give a mind_tone_--mitigate the varnish of education. I gather from thisletter--and your face--that you are one of the party that participatedin that little affair at Lagune's. "

He stuck out a finger at a point he had just seen. "By-the-bye!--Thataccounts for Ethel, " he said. 

Ethel rapped down the mustard on the table. "It does, " she said, butnot very loudly. 

"But you had met before?" said Chaffery. 

"At Whortley, " said Lewisham. 

"I see, " said Chaffery. 

"I was in--I was one of those who arranged the exposure, " saidLewisham. "And now you have raised the matter, I am bound to say--"

"I knew, " interrupted Chaffery. "But what a shock that was forLagune!" He looked down at his toes for a moment with the corners ofhis mouth tucked in. "The hand dodge wasn't bad, you know, " he said, with a queer sidelong smile. 

Lewisham was very busy for a moment trying to get this remark infocus. "I don't see it in the same light as you do, " he explained atlast. 

"Can't get away from your moral bias, eh?--Well, well. We'll go intoall that. But apart from its moral merits--simply as an artistictrick--it was not bad. "

"I don't know much about tricks--"

"So few who undertake exposures do. You admit you never heard orthought of that before--the bladder, I mean. Yet it's as obvious astintacks that a medium who's hampered at his hands will do all he canwith his teeth, and what _could_ be so self-evident as a bladder underone's lappel? What could be? Yet I know psychic literature prettywell, and it's never been suggested even! Never. It's a perpetualsurprise to me how many things are _not_ thought of by investigators. For one thing, they never count the odds against them, and that putsthem wrong at the start. Look at it! I am by nature tricky. I spendall my leisure standing or sitting about and thinking up or practisingnew little tricks, because it amuses me immensely to do so. The wholething amuses me. Well--what is the result of these meditations? Takeone thing:--I know eight-and-forty ways of making raps--of which atleast ten are original. Ten original ways of making raps. " His mannerwas very impressive. "And some of them simply tremendous raps. There!"

A confirmatory rap exploded--as it seemed between Lewisham andChaffery. 

"_Eh?_" said Chaffery. 

The mantelpiece opened a dropping fire, and the table went off underLewisham's nose like a cracker. 

"You see?" said Chaffery, putting his hands under the tail of hiscoat. The whole room seemed snapping its fingers at Lewisham for aspace. 

"Very well, and now take the other side. Take the severest test I evertried. Two respectable professors of physics--not Newtons, youunderstand, but good, worthy, self-important professors of physics--alady anxious to prove there's a life beyond the grave, a journalistwho wants stuff to write--a person, that is, who gets his living bythese researches just as I do--undertook to test me. Test _me_!... Ofcourse they had their other work to do, professing physics, professingreligion, organising research, and so forth. At the outside they don'tthink an hour a day about it, and most of them had never cheatedanybody in their existence, and couldn't, for example, travel withouta ticket for a three-mile journey and not get caught, to save theirlives.... Well--you see the odds?"

He paused. Lewisham appeared involved in some interior struggle. 

"You know, " explained Chaffery, "it was quite an accident you gotme--quite. The thing slipped out of my mouth. Or your friend with, theflat voice wouldn't have had a chance. Not a chance. "

Lewisham spoke like a man who is lifting a weight. "All _this_, youknow, is off the question. I'm not disputing your ability. But thething is ... It isn't right. "

"We're coming to that, " said Chaffery. 

"It's evident we look at things in a different light. "

"That's it. That's just what we've got to discuss. Exactly!"

"Cheating is cheating. You can't get away from that. That's simpleenough. "

"Wait till I've done with it, " said Chaffery with a certain zest. "Ofcourse it's imperative you should understand my position. It isn't asthough I hadn't one. Ever since I read your letter I've been thinkingover that. Really!--a justification! In a way you might almost say Ihad a mission. A sort of prophet. You really don't see the beginningof it yet. "

"Oh, but hang it!" protested Lewisham. 

"Ah! you're young, you're crude. My dear young man, you're only at thebeginning of things. You really must concede a certain possibility ofwider views to a man more than twice your age. But here's supper. Fora little while at any rate we'll call a truce. "

Ethel had come in again bearing an additional chair, and Mrs. Chafferyappeared behind her, crowning the preparations with a jug of smallbeer. The cloth, Lewisham observed, as he turned towards it, hadseveral undarned holes and discoloured places, and in the centre stooda tarnished cruet which contained mustard, pepper, vinegar, and threeambiguous dried-up bottles. The bread was on an ample board with apious rim, and an honest wedge of cheese loomed disproportionate on alittle plate. Mr. And Mrs. Lewisham were seated facing one another, and Mrs. Chaffery sat in the broken chair because she understood itsways. 

"This cheese is as nutritious and unattractive and indigestible asScience, " remarked Chaffery, cutting and passing wedges. "But crushit--so--under your fork, add a little of this good Dorset butter, adab of mustard, pepper--the pepper is very necessary--and some maltvinegar, and crush together. You get a compound called Crab and by nomeans disagreeable. So the wise deal with the facts of life, neitherbolting nor rejecting, but adapting. "

"As though pepper and mustard were not facts, " said Lewisham, scoringhis solitary point that evening. 

Chaffery admitted the collapse of his image in very complimentaryterms, and Lewisham could not avoid a glance across the table atEthel. He remembered that Chaffery was a slippery scoundrel whoseblame was better than his praise, immediately afterwards. 

For a time the Crab engaged Chaffery, and the conversationlanguished. Mrs. Chaffery asked Ethel formal questions about theirlodgings, and Ethel's answers were buoyant, "You must come and havetea one day, " said Ethel, not waiting for Lewisham's endorsement, "andsee it all. "

Chaffery astonished Lewisham by suddenly displaying a completeacquaintance with his status as a South Kensington teacher intraining. "I suppose you have some money beyond that guinea, " saidChaffery offhandedly. 

"Enough to go on with, " said Lewisham, reddening. 

"And you look to them at South Kensington, to do something for you--ahundred a year or so, when your scholarship is up?"

"Yes, " said Lewisham a little reluctantly. "Yes. A hundred a year orso. That's the sort of idea. And there's lots of places beyond SouthKensington, of course, even if they don't put me up there. "

"I see, " said Chaffery; "but it will be a pretty close shave for allthat--one hundred a year. Well, well--there's many a deserving man hasto do with less, " and after a meditative pause he asked Lewisham topass the beer. 

"Hev you a mother living, Mr. Lewisham?" said Mrs. Chaffery suddenly, and pursued him through the tale of his connexions. When he came tothe plumber, Mrs. Chaffery remarked with an unexpected air ofconsequence that most families have their poor relations. Then theair of consequence vanished again into the past from which it hadarisen. 

Supper finished, Chaffery poured the residuum of the beer into hisglass, produced a Broseley clay of the longest sort, and invitedLewisham to smoke. "Honest smoking, " said Chaffery, tapping the bowlof his clay, and added: "In this country--cigars--sound cigars--andhonesty rarely meet. "

Lewisham fumbled in his pocket for his Algerian cigarettes, andChaffery having regarded them unfavourably through his glasses, tookup the thread of his promised apologia. The ladies retired to wash upthe supper things. 

"You see, " said Chaffery, opening abruptly so soon as the clay wasdrawing, about this cheating--I do not find life such a simple matteras you do. "

"_I_ don't find life simple, " said Lewisham, "but I do think there's aRight and a Wrong in things. And I don't think you have said anythingso far to show that spiritualistic cheating is Right. "

"Let us thresh the matter out, " said Chaffery, crossing his legs; "letus thresh the matter out. Now"--he drew at his pipe--"I don't thinkyou fully appreciate the importance of Illusion in life, the EssentialNature of Lies and Deception of the body politic. You are inclined todiscredit one particular form of Imposture, because it is notgenerally admitted--carries a certain discredit, and--witness the heeledges of my trouser legs, witness yonder viands--small rewards. "

"It's not that, " said Lewisham. 

"Now I am prepared to maintain, " said Chaffery, proceeding with hisproposition, "that Honesty is essentially an anarchistic anddisintegrating force in society, that communities are held togetherand the progress of civilisation made possible only by vigorous andsometimes even, violent Lying; that the Social Contract is nothingmore or less than a vast conspiracy of human beings to lie to andhumbug themselves and one another for the general Good. Lies are themortar that bind the savage Individual man into the socialmasonry. There is the general thesis upon which I base myjustification. My mediumship, I can assure you, is a particularinstance of the general assertion. Were I not of a profoundlyindolent, restless, adventurous nature, and horribly averse towriting, I would make a great book of this and live honoured by everyprofound duffer in the world. "

"But how are _you_ going to prove it?"

"Prove It! It simply needs pointing out. Even now there aremen--Bernard Shaw, Ibsen, and such like--who have seen bits of it in anew-gospel-grubbing sort of fashion. What Is man? Lust and greedtempered by fear and an irrational vanity. "

"I don't agree with that, " said Mr. Lewisham. 

"You will as you grow older, " said Chaffery. "There's truths you haveto grow into. But about this matter of Lies--let us look at the fabricof society, let us compare the savage. You will discover the onlyessential difference between savage and civilised is this: The formerhasn't learnt to shirk the truth of things, and the latter has. Takethe most obvious difference--the clothing of the civilised man, hisinvention of decency. What _is_ clothing? The concealment of essentialfacts. What is decorum? Suppression! I don't argue against decency anddecorum, mind you, but there they are--essentials to civilisation andessentially '_suppressio veri_. ' And in the pockets of his clothes ourcitizen carries money. The pure savage has no money. To him a lump ofmetal is a lump of metal--possibly ornamental--no more. That'sright. To any lucid-minded man it's the same or different only throughthe gross folly of his fellows. But to the common civilised man theuniversal exchangeability of this gold is a sacred and fundamentalfact. Think of it! Why should it be? There isn't a why! I live inperpetual amazement at the gullibility of my fellow-creatures. Of amorning sometimes, I can assure you, I lie in bed fancying that peoplemay have found out this swindle in the night, expect to hear a tumultdownstairs and see your mother-in-law come rushing into the room witha rejected shilling from the milkman. 'What's this?' says he. 'ThisMuck for milk?' But it never happens. Never. If it did, if peoplesuddenly cleared their minds of this cant of money, what would happen?The true nature of man would appear. I should whip out of bed, seizesome weapon, and after the milkman forthwith. It's becoming to keepthe peace, but it's necessary to have milk. The neighbours would comepouring out--also after milk. Milkman, suddenly enlightened, wouldstart clattering up the street. After him! Clutch--tear! Got him!Over goes the cart! Fight if you like, but don't upset thecan!... Don't you see it all?--perfectly reasonable every bit of it. Ishould return, bruised and bloody, with the milk-can under my arm. Yes, _I_ should have the milk-can--I should keep my eye onthat.... But why go on? You of all men should know that life is astruggle for existence, a fight for food. Money is just the lie thatmitigates our fury. "

"No, " said Lewisham; "no! I'm not prepared to admit that. "

"What _is_ money?"

Mr. Lewisham dodged. "You state your case first, " he said. "I reallydon't see what all this has to do with cheating at a _séance_. "

"I weave my defence from this loom, though. Take some aggressivelyrespectable sort of man--a bishop, for example. "

"Well, " said Lewisham, "I don't much hold with bishops. "

"It doesn't matter. Take a professor of science, walking theearth. Remark his clothing, making a decent citizen out of him, concealing the fact that physically he is a flabby, pot-bellieddegenerate. That is the first Lie of his being. No fringes round _his_trousers, my boy. Notice his hair, groomed and clipped, the tacit liethat its average length is half an inch, whereas in nature he wouldwave a few score yard-long hairs of ginger grey to the winds ofheaven. Notice the smug suppressions of his face. In his mouth areLies in the shape of false teeth. Then on the earth somewhere poordevils are toiling to get him meat and corn and wine. He is clothed inthe lives of bent and thwarted weavers, his Way is lit by phossy jaw, he eats from lead-glazed crockery--all his ways are paved with thelives of men.... Think of the chubby, comfortable creature! And, asSwift has it--to think that such a thing should deal in pride!... Hepretends that his blessed little researches are in some way a fairreturn to these remote beings for their toil, their suffering;pretends that he and his parasitic career are payment for theirthwarted desires. Imagine him bullying his gardener over sometransplanted geraniums, the thick mist of lies they stand in, so thatthe man does not immediately with the edge of a spade smite down hisimpertinence to the dust from which it rose.... And his case is thecase of all comfortable lives. What a lie and sham all civility is, all good breeding, all culture and refinement, while one poor raggedwretch drags hungry on the earth!"

"But this is Socialism!" said Lewisham. "_I_--"

"No Ism, " said Chaffery, raising his rich voice. "Only the ghastlytruth of things--the truth that the warp and the woof of the world ofmen is Lying. Socialism is no remedy, no _ism_ is a remedy; thingsare so. "

"I don't agree--" began Lewisham. 

"Not with the hopelessness, because you are young, but with thedescription you do. "

"Well--within limits. "

"You agree that most respectable positions in the world are taintedwith the fraud of our social conditions. If they were not taintedwith fraud they would not be respectable. Even your own position--Whogave you the right to marry and prosecute interesting scientificstudies while other young men rot in mines?"

"I admit--"

"You can't help admitting. And here is my position. Since all ways oflife are tainted with fraud, since to live and speak the truth isbeyond human strength and courage--as one finds it--is it not betterfor a man that he engage in some straightforward comparatively harmlesscheating, than if he risk his mental integrity in some ambiguousposition and fall at last into self-deception and self-righteousness?That is the essential danger. That is the thing I always guardagainst. Heed that! It is the master sin. Self-righteousness. "

Mr. Lewisham pulled at his moustache. 

"You begin to take me. And after all, these worthy people do notsuffer so greatly. If I did not take their money some other impostorwould. Their huge conceit of intelligence would breed perhaps someviler swindle than my facetious rappings. That's the line our doubtingbishops take, and why shouldn't I? For example, these people mightgive it to Public Charities, minister to the fattened secretary, theprodigal younger son. After all, at worst, I am a sort of latter-dayRobin Hood; I take from the rich according to their incomes. I don'tgive to the poor certainly, I don't get enough. But--there are othergood works. Many a poor weakling have I comforted with Lies, greatthumping, silly Lies, about the grave! Compare me with one of thoserascals who disseminate phossy jaw and lead poisons, compare me with amillionaire who runs a music hall with an eye to feminine talent, oran underwriter, or the common stockbroker. Or any sort of lawyer.... 

"There are bishops, " said Chaffery, "who believe in Darwin and doubtMoses. Now, I hold myself better than they--analogous perhaps, butbetter--for I do at least invent something of the tricks I play--I dodo that. "

"That's all very well, " began Lewisham. 

"I might forgive them their dishonesty, " said Chaffery, "but thestupidity of it, the mental self-abnegation--Lord! If a solicitordoesn't swindle in the proper shabby-magnificent way, they chuck himfor unprofessional conduct. " He paused. He became meditative, andsmiled faintly. 

"Now, some of _my_ dodges, " he said with a sudden change of voice, turning towards Lewisham, his eyes smiling over his glasses and anemphatic hand patting the table-cloth; "some of _my_ dodges are_damned_ ingenious, you know--_damned_ ingenious--and well worthdouble the money they bring me--double. "

He turned towards the fire again, pulling at his smouldering pipe, andeyeing Lewisham over the corner of his glasses. 

"One or two of my little things would make Maskelyne sit up, " he saidpresently. "They would set that mechanical orchestra playing out ofpure astonishment. I really must explain some of them to you--now wehave intermarried. "

It took Mr. Lewisham a minute or so to re-form the regiment of hismind, disordered by its headlong pursuit of Chaffery's flyingarguments. "But on your principles you might do almost anything!" hesaid. 

"Precisely!" said Chaffery. 

"But--"

"It is rather a curious method, " protested Chaffery; "to test one'sprinciples of action by judging the resultant actions on some otherprinciple, isn't it?"

Lewisham took a moment to think. "I suppose that is so, " he said, inthe manner of a man convinced against his will. 

He perceived his logic insufficient. He suddenly thrust the delicaciesof argument aside. Certain sentences he had brought ready for use inhis mind came up and he delivered them abruptly. "Anyhow, " he said, "Idon't agree with this cheating. In spite of what you say, I hold towhat I said in my letter. Ethel's connexion with all these things isat an end. I shan't go out of my way to expose you, of course, but ifit comes in my way I shall speak my mind of all these spiritualisticphenomena. It's just as well that we should know clearly where weare. "

"That is clearly understood, my dear stepson-in-law, " saidChaffery. "Our present object is discussion. "

"But Ethel--"

"Ethel is yours, " said Chaffery. "Ethel is yours, " he repeated afteran interval and added pensively--"to keep. "

"But talking of Illusion, " he resumed, dismissing the sordid with asign of relief, "I sometimes think with Bishop Berkeley, that allexperience is probably something quite different from reality. Thatconsciousness is _essentially_ hallucination. I, here, and you, andour talk--it is all Illusion. Bring your Science to bear--what am I? Acloudy multitude of atoms, an infinite interplay of little cells. Isthis hand that I hold out me? This head? Is the surface of my skin anymore than a rude average boundary? You say it is my mind that is me?But consider the war of motives. Suppose I have an impulse that Iresist--it is _I_ resist it--the impulse is outside me, eh? Butsuppose that impulse carries me and I do the thing--that impulse ispart of me, is it not? Ah! My brain reels at these mysteries! Lord!what flimsy fluctuating things we are--first this, then that, athought, an impulse, a deed and a forgetting, and all the time madlycocksure we are ourselves. And as for you--you who have hardly learnedto think for more than five or six short years, there you sit, assured, coherent, there you sit in all your inherited originalsin--Hallucinatory Windlestraw!--judging and condemning. _You_ knowRight from Wrong! My boy, so did Adam and Eve ... _so soon as they'dhad dealings with the father of lies_!"

 * * * * *

At the end of the evening whisky and hot water were produced, andChaffery, now in a mood of great urbanity, said he had rarely enjoyedanyone's conversation so much as Lewisham's, and insisted uponeveryone having whisky. Mrs. Chaffery and Ethel added sugar andlemon. Lewisham felt an instantaneous mild surprise at the sight ofEthel drinking grog. 

At the door Mrs. Chaffery kissed Lewisham an effusive good-bye, andtold Ethel she really believed it was all for the best. 

On the way home Lewisham was thoughtful and preoccupied. The problemof Chaffery assumed enormous proportions. At times indeed even thatgood man's own philosophical sketch of himself as a practical exponentof mental sincerity touched with humour and the artistic spirit, seemed plausible. Lagune was an undeniable ass, and conceivablypsychic research was an incentive to trickery. Then he remembered thematter in his relation to Ethel.... 

"Your stepfather is a little hard to follow, " he said at last, sittingon the bed and taking off one boot. "He's dodgy--he's so confoundedlydodgy. One doesn't know where to take hold of him. He's got such abreak he's clean bowled me again and again. "

He thought for a space, and then removed his boot and sat with it onhis knee. "Of course!... All that he said was wrong--quitewrong. Right is right and cheating is cheating, whatever you say aboutit. "

"That's what I feel about him, " said Ethel at the looking-glass. "That's exactly how it seems to me. "

CHAPTER XXIV. 

THE CAMPAIGN OPENS. 

On Saturday Lewisham was first through the folding doors. In a momenthe reappeared with a document extended. Mrs. Lewisham stood arrestedwith her dress skirt in her hand, astonished at the astonishment onhis face. "_I_ say!" said Lewisham; "just look here!"

She looked at the book that he held open before her, and perceivedthat its vertical ruling betokened a sordid import, that its list ofitems in an illegible mixture of English and German was lengthy. "1kettle of coals 6d. " occurred regularly down that portentous array andbuttoned it all together. It was Madam Gadow's first bill. Ethel tookit out of his hand and examined it closer. It looked no smallercloser. The overcharges were scandalous. It was curious how the humourof calling a scuttle "kettle" had evaporated. 

That document, I take it, was the end of Mr. Lewisham's informalhoneymoon. Its advent was the snap of that bright Prince Rupert'sdrop; and in a moment--Dust. For a glorious week he had lived in thepersuasion that life was made of love and mystery, and now he wasreminded with singular clearness that it was begotten of a strugglefor existence and the Will to Live. "Confounded imposition!" fumedMr. Lewisham, and the breakfast table was novel and ominous, mutterings towards anger on the one hand and a certain consternationon the other. "I must give her a talking to this afternoon, " saidLewisham at his watch, and after he had bundled his books into theshiny black bag, he gave the first of his kisses that was not adistinct and self-subsisting ceremony. It was usage and done in ahurry, and the door slammed as he went his way to the schools. Ethelwas not coming that morning, because by special request and becauseshe wanted to help him she was going to copy out some of his botanicalnotes which had fallen into arrears. 

On his way to the schools Lewisham felt something suspiciously near asinking of the heart. His preoccupation was essentiallyarithmetical. The thing that engaged his mind to the exclusion of allother matters is best expressed in the recognised business form. 

Dr. £ s. D. Cr. £ s. D Mr. L. { 13 10 4-1/2 By bus fares to SouthCash in hand { Kensington (late) 0 0 2 Mrs. L. { 0 11 7 By six lunches at the Students' Club 0 5 2-1/2At bank 45 0 0 By two packets of cig-To scholarship 1 1 0 arettes (to smoke after dinner) 0 0 6 By marriage and elope- ment 4 18 10 By necessary subse- quent additions to bride's trousseau 0 16 1 By housekeeping exs. 1 1 4-1/2 By "A few little things" bought by housekeeper 0 15 3-1/2 By Madam Gadow for coal, lodging and attendance (as per account rendered) 1 15 0 By missing 0 0 4 By balance 50 3 2 ------------- ------------- £60 3 11-1/2 £60 3 11-1/2 ------------- -------------

From this it will be manifest to the most unbusiness like that, disregarding the extraordinary expenditure on the marriage, and the byno means final "few little things" Ethel had bought, outgoingsexceeded income by two pounds and more, and a brief excursion intoarithmetic will demonstrate that in five-and-twenty weeks the balanceof the account would be nothing. 

But that guinea a week was not to go on for five-and-twenty weeks, butsimply for fifteen, and then the net outgoings will be well over threeguineas, reducing the "law" accorded our young couple totwo-and-twenty weeks. These details are tiresome and disagreeable, nodoubt, to the refined reader, but just imagine how much moredisagreeable they were to Mr. Lewisham, trudging meditative to theschools. You will understand his slipping out of the laboratory, andbetaking himself to the Educational Reading-room, and how it was thatthe observant Smithers, grinding his lecture notes against the nowimminent second examination for the "Forbes, " was presently perplexedto the centre of his being by the spectacle of Lewisham intent upon apile of current periodicals, the _Educational Times_, the _Journal ofEducation_, the _Schoolmaster, Science and Art, The UniversityCorrespondent, Nature, The Athenaeum, The Academy_, and _The Author_. 

Smithers remarked the appearance of a note-book, the jotting down ofmemoranda. He edged into the bay nearest Lewisham's table andapproached him suddenly from the flank. "What are _you_ after?" saidSmithers in a noisy whisper and with a detective eye on the papers. Heperceived Lewisham was scrutinising the advertisement column, and hisperplexity increased. 

"Oh--nothing, " said Lewisham blandly, with his hand falling casuallyover his memoranda; "what's your particular little game?"

"Nothing much, " said Smithers, "just mooching round. You weren't atthe meeting last Friday?"

He turned a chair, knelt on it, and began whispering over the backabout Debating Society politics. Lewisham was inattentive andbrief. What had he to do with these puerilities? At last Smithers wentaway foiled, and met Parkson by the entrance. Parkson, by-the-bye, hadnot spoken to Lewisham since their painful misunderstanding. He made awide detour to his seat at the end table, and so, and by a singularrectitude of bearing and a dignified expression, showed himself awareof Lewisham's offensive presence. 

Lewisham's investigations were two-fold. He wanted to discover someway of adding materially to that weekly guinea by his own exertions, and he wanted to learn the conditions of the market for typewriting. For himself he had a vague idea, an idea subsequently abandoned, thatit was possible to get teaching work in evening classes during themonth of March. But, except by reason of sadden death, no eveningclass in London changes its staff after September until July comesround again. Private tuition, moreover, offered many attractions tohim, but no definite proposals. His ideas of his own possibilitieswere youthful or he would not have spent time in noting the conditionsof application for a vacant professorship in physics at the MelbourneUniversity. He also made a note of the vacant editorship of a monthlymagazine devoted to social questions. He would not have minded doingthat sort of thing at all, though the proprietor might. There wasalso a vacant curatorship in the Museum of Eton College. 

The typewriting business was less varied and more definite. Those werethe days before the violent competition of the half-educated hadbrought things down to an impossible tenpence the thousand words, andthe prevailing price was as high as one-and-six. Calculating thatEthel could do a thousand words in an hour and that she could workfive or six hours in the day, it was evident that her contributions tothe household expenses would be by no means despicable; thirtyshillings a week perhaps. Lewisham was naturally elated at thisdiscovery. He could find no advertisements of authors or othersseeking typewriting, but he saw that a great number of typewritersadvertised themselves in the literary papers. It was evident Ethelalso must advertise. "'Scientific phraseology a speciality' might beput, " meditated Lewisham. He returned to his lodgings in a hopefulmood with quite a bundle of memoranda of possible employments. Hespent five shillings in stamps on the way. 

After lunch, Lewisham--a little short of breath-asked to see MadamGadow. She came up in the most affable frame of mind; nothing could befurther from the normal indignation of the British landlady. She wasvery voluble, gesticulatory and lucid, but unhappily bi-lingual, andat all the crucial points German. Mr. Lewisham's natural politenessrestrained him from too close a pursuit across the boundary of the twoimperial tongues. Quite half an hour's amicable discussion led at lastto a reduction of sixpence, and all parties professed themselvessatisfied with this result. 

Madam Gadow was quite cool even at the end. Mr. Lewisham was flushedin the face, red-eared, and his hair slightly disordered, but thatsixpence was at any rate an admission of the justice of hisclaim. "She was evidently trying it on, " he said almost apologeticallyto Ethel. "It was absolutely necessary to present a firm front toher. I doubt if we shall have any trouble again.... 

"Of course what she says about kitchen coals is perfectly just. "

Then the young couple went for a walk in Kensington Gardens, and--thespring afternoon was so warm and pleasant--sat on two attractive greenchairs near the band-stand, for which Lewisham had subsequently to paytwopence. They had what Ethel called a "serious talk. " She was reallywonderfully sensible, and discussed the situation exhaustively. Shewas particularly insistent upon the importance of economy in herdomestic disbursements and deplored her general ignorance veryearnestly. It was decided that Lewisham should get a good elementarytext-book of domestic economy for her private study. At homeMrs. Chaffery guided her house by the oracular items of "InquireWithin upon Everything, " but Lewisham considered that workunscientific. 

Ethel was also of opinion that much might be learnt from the sixpennyladies' papers--the penny ones had hardly begun in those days. She hadbought such publications during seasons of affluence, but chiefly, asshe now deplored, with an eye to the trimming of hats and such likevanities. The sooner the typewriter came the better. It occurred toLewisham with unpleasant suddenness that he had not allowed for thepurchase of a typewriter in his estimate of their resources. Itbrought their "law" down to twelve or thirteen weeks. 

They spent the evening in writing and copying a number of letters, addressing envelopes and enclosing stamps. There were optimisticmoments. 

"Melbourne's a fine city, " said Lewisham, "and we should have aglorious voyage out. " He read the application for the Melbourneprofessorship out loud to her, just to see how it read, and she wasgreatly impressed by the list of his accomplishments and successes. 

"I did not, know you knew _half_ those things, " she said, and becamedepressed at her relative illiteracy. It was natural, after suchencouragement, to write to the scholastic agents in a tone of assuredconsequence. 

The advertisement for typewriting in the _Athenaeum_ troubled hisconscience a little. After he had copied out his draft with its"Scientific phraseology a speciality, " fine and large, he saw thenotes she had written out for him. Her handwriting was still round andboyish, even as it had appeared in the Whortley avenue, but herpunctuation was confined to the erratic comma and the dash, and therewas a disposition to spell the imperfectly legible along the line ofleast resistance. However, he dismissed that matter with a resolve toread over and correct anything in that way that she might have senther to do. It would not be a bad idea, he thought parenthetically, ifhe himself read up some sound authority on the punctuation ofsentences. 

They sat at this business quite late, heedless of the examination inbotany that came on the morrow. It was very bright and cosy in theirlittle room with their fire burning, the gas lit and the curtainsdrawn, and the number of applications they had written made themhopeful. She was flushed and enthusiastic, now flitting about theroom, now coming close to him and leaning over him to see what he haddone. At Lewisham's request she got him the envelopes from the chestof drawers. "You _are_ a help to a chap, " said Lewisham, leaning backfrom the table, "I feel I could do anything for a girl likeyou--anything. "

"_Really!_" she cried, "Really! Am I really a help?"

Lewisham's face and gesture, were all assent. She gave a little cry ofdelight, stood for a moment, and then by way of practicaldemonstration of her unflinching helpfulness, hurried round the tabletowards him with arms extended, "You dear!" she cried. 

Lewisham, partially embraced, pushed his chair back with hisdisengaged arm, so that she might sit on his knee.... 

Who could doubt that she was a help?

CHAPTER XXV. 

THE FIRST BATTLE. 

Lewisham's inquiries for evening teaching and private tuition wereessentially provisional measures. His proposals for a more permanentestablishment displayed a certain defect in his sense ofproportion. That Melbourne professorship, for example, was beyond hismerits, and there were aspects of things that would have affected thewelcome of himself and his wife at Eton College. At the outset he wasinclined to regard the South Kensington scholar as the intellectualsalt of the earth, to overrate the abundance of "decent things"yielding from one hundred and fifty to three hundred a year, and todisregard the competition of such inferior enterprises as theuniversities of Oxford, Cambridge, and the literate North. But thescholastic agents to whom he went on the following Saturday did muchin a quiet way to disabuse his mind. 

Mr. Blendershin's chief assistant in the grimy little office in OxfordStreet cleared up the matter so vigorously that Lewisham was angered. "Headmaster of an endowed school, perhaps!" said Mr. Blendershin'schief assistant "Lord!--why not a bishopric? I say, "--asMr. Blendershin entered smoking an assertive cigar--"one-and-twenty, _no_ degree, _no_ games, two years' experience as junior--wants aheadmastership of an endowed school!" He spoke so loudly that it wasinevitable the selection of clients in the waiting-room should hear, and he pointed with his pen. 

"Look here!" said Lewisham hotly; "if I knew the ways of the market Ishouldn't come to you. "

Mr. Blendershin stared at Lewisham for a moment. "What's he done inthe way of certificates?" asked Mr. Blendershin of the assistant. 

The assistant read a list of 'ologies and 'ographies. "Fiftyresident, " said Mr. Blendershin concisely--"that's _your_figure. Sixty, if you're lucky. "

"_What_?" said Mr. Lewisham. 

"Not enough for you?"

"Not nearly. "

"You can get a Cambridge graduate for eighty resident--and grateful, "said Mr. Blendershin. 

"But I don't want a resident post, " said Lewisham. 

"Precious few non-resident shops, " said Mr. Blendershin. "Preciousfew. They want you for dormitory supervision--and they're afraid ofyour taking pups outside. "

"Not married by any chance?" said the assistant suddenly, after anattentive study of Lewisham's face. 

"Well--er. " Lewisham met Mr. Blendershin's eye. "Yes, " he said. 

The assistant was briefly unprintable. "Lord! you'll have to keep thatdark, " said Mr. Blendershin. "But you have got a tough bit of hoeingbefore you. If I was you I'd go on and get my degree now you're sonear it. You'll stand a better chance. "

Pause. 

"The fact is, " said Lewisham slowly and looking at his boot toes, "Imust be doing _something_ while I am getting my degree. "

The assistant, whistled softly. 

"Might get you a visiting job, perhaps, " said Mr. Blendershinspeculatively. "Just read me those items again, Binks, " He listenedattentively. "Objects to religious teaching!--Eh?" He stopped thereading by a gesture, "That's nonsense. You can't have everything, youknow. Scratch that out. You won't get a place in any middle-classschool in England if you object to religious teaching. It's themothers--bless 'em! Say nothing about it. Don't believe--who does?There's hundreds like you, you know--hundreds. Parsons--all sorts. Saynothing about it--"

"But if I'm asked?"

"Church of England. Every man in this country who has not dissentedbelongs to the Church of England. It'll be hard enough to get youanything without that. "

"But--" said Mr. Lewisham. "It's lying. "

"Legal fiction, " said Mr. Blendershin. "Everyone understands. If youdon't do that, my dear chap, we can't do anything for you. It'sJournalism, or London docks. Well, considering your experience, --saydocks. "

Lewisham's face flushed irregularly. He did not answer. He scowled andtugged at the still by no means ample moustache. 

"Compromise, you know, " said Mr. Blendershin, watching himkindly. "Compromise. "

For the first time in his life Lewisham faced the necessity of tellinga lie in cold blood. He glissaded from, the austere altitudes of hisself-respect, and his next words were already disingenuous. 

"I won't promise to tell lies if I'm asked, " he said aloud. "I can'tdo that. "

"Scratch it out, " said Blendershin to the clerk. "You needn't mentionit. Then you don't say you can teach drawing. "

"I can't, " said Lewisham. 

"You just give out the copies, " said Blendershin, "and take care theydon't see you draw, you know. "

"But that's not teaching drawing--"

"It's what's understood by it in _this_ country, " said Blendershin. "Don't you go corrupting your mind with pedagogueries. They're theruin of assistants. Put down drawing. Then there's shorthand--"

"Here, I say!" said Lewisham. 

"There's shorthand, French, book-keeping, commercial geography, landmeasuring--"

"But I can't teach any of those things!"

"Look here, " said Blendershin, and paused. "Has your wife or you aprivate income?"

"No, " said Lewisham. 

"Well?"

A pause of further moral descent, and a whack against an obstacle. "But they will find me out, " said Lewisham. 

Blendershin smiled. "It's not so much ability as willingness to teach, you know. And _they_ won't find you out. The sort of schoolmaster wedeal with can't find anything out. He can't teach any of these thingshimself--and consequently he doesn't believe they _can_ be taught. Talk to him of pedagogics and he talks of practical experience. But heputs 'em on his prospectus, you know, and he wants 'em on histime-table. Some of these subjects--There's commercial geography, forinstance. What _is_ commercial geography?"

"Barilla, " said the assistant, biting the end of his pen, and addedpensively, "_and_ blethers. "

"Fad, " said Blendershin, "Just fad. Newspapers talk rot aboutcommercial education, Duke of Devonshire catches on and talksditto--pretends he thought it himself--much _he_ cares--parents gethold of it--schoolmasters obliged to put something down, consequentlyassistants must. And that's the end of the matter!"

"_All_ right, " said Lewisham, catching his breath in a faint sob ofshame, "Stick 'em down. But mind--a non-resident place. "

"Well, " said Blendershin, "your science may pull you through. But Itell you it's hard. Some grant-earning grammar school may wantthat. And that's about all, I think. Make a note of the address.... "

The assistant made a noise, something between a whistle and the word"Fee. " Blendershin glanced at Lewisham and nodded doubtfully. 

"Fee for booking, " said the assistant; "half a crown, postage--inadvance--half a crown. "

But Lewisham remembered certain advice Dunkerley had given him in theold Whortley days. He hesitated. "No, " he said. "I don't pay that. Ifyou get me anything there's the commission--if you don't--"

"We lose, " supplied the assistant. 

"And you ought to, " said Lewisham. "It's a fair game. "

"Living in London?" asked Blendershin. 

"Yes, " said the clerk. 

"That's all right, " said Mr. Blendershin. "We won't say anything aboutthe postage in that case. Of course it's the off season, and youmustn't expect anything at present very much. Sometimes there's ashift or so at Easter.... There's nothing more.... Afternoon. Anyoneelse, Binks?"

Messrs. Maskelyne, Smith, and Thrums did a higher class of work thanBlendershin, whose specialities were lower class privateestablishments and the cheaper sort of endowed schools. Indeed, sosuperior were Maskelyne, Smith, and Thrums that they enraged Lewishamby refusing at first to put him on their books. He was interviewedbriefly by a young man dressed and speaking with offensive precision, whose eye adhered rigidly to the waterproof collar throughout theinterview. 

"Hardly our line, " he said, and pushed Lewisham a form to fillup. "Mostly upper class and good preparatory schools here, you know. "

As Lewisham filled up the form with his multitudinous "'ologies" and"'ographies, " a youth of ducal appearance entered and greeted theprecise young man in a friendly way. Lewisham, bending down to write, perceived that this professional rival wore a very long frock coat, patent leather boots, and the most beautiful grey trousers. Hisconceptions of competition enlarged. The precise young man by a motionof his eyes directed the newcomer's attention to Lewisham's waterproofcollar, and was answered by raised eyebrows and a faint tightening ofthe mouth. "That bounder at Castleford has answered me, " said thenew-comer in a fine rich voice. "Is he any bally good?"

When the bounder at Castleford had been discussed Lewisham presentedhis paper, and the precise young man with his eye still fixed on thewaterproof collar took the document in the manner of one who reachesacross a gulf. "I doubt if we shall be able to do anything for you, "he said reassuringly. "But an English mastership may chance to bevacant. Science doesn't count for much in _our_ sort of schools, youknow. Classics and good games--that's our sort of thing. "

"I see, " said Lewisham. 

"Good games, good form, you know, and all that sort of thing. "

"I see, " said Lewisham. 

"You don't happen to be a public-school boy?" asked the precise youngman. 

"No, " said Lewisham. 

"Where were you educated?"

Lewisham's face grew hot. "Does that matter?" he asked, with his eyeon the exquisite grey trousering. 

"In our sort of school--decidedly. It's a question of tone, you know. "

"I see, " said Lewisham, beginning to realise new limitations. Hisimmediate impulse was to escape the eye of the nicely dressedassistant master. "You'll write, I suppose, if you have anything, " hesaid, and the precise young man responded with alacrity to hisdoor-ward motion. 

"Often get that kind of thing?" asked the nicely dressed young manwhen Lewisham had departed. 

"Rather. Not quite so bad as that, you know. That waterproofcollar--did you notice it? Ugh! And--'I see. ' And the scowl and theclumsiness of it. Of course _he_ hasn't any decent clothes--he'd goto a new shop with one tin box! But that sort of thing--and boardschool teachers--they're getting everywhere! Only the otherday--Rowton was here. "

"Not Rowton of Pinner?"

"Yes, Rowton of Pinner. And he asked right out for a boardschoolmaster. He said, 'I want someone who can teach arithmetic. '"

He laughed. The nicely dressed young man meditated over the handle ofhis cane. "A bounder of that kind can't have a particularly nicetime, " he said, "anyhow. If he does get into a decent school, he mustget tremendously cut by all the decent men. "

"Too thick-skinned to mind that sort of thing, I fancy, " said thescholastic agent. "He's a new type. This South Kensington place andthe polytechnics an turning him out by the hundred.... "

Lewisham forgot his resentment at having to profess a religion he didnot believe, in this new discovery of the scholastic importance ofclothing. He went along with an eye to all the shop windows thatafforded a view of his person. Indisputably his trousers _were_ungainly, flapping abominably over his boots and bagging terribly atthe knees, and his boots were not only worn and ugly but extremely illblacked. His wrists projected offensively from his coat sleeves, heperceived a huge asymmetry in the collar of his jacket, his red tiewas askew and ill tied, and that waterproof collar! It was shiny, slightly discoloured, suddenly clammy to the neck. What if he didhappen to be well equipped for science teaching? That was nothing. Hespeculated on the cost of a complete outfit. It would be difficult toget such grey trousers as those he had seen for less than sixteenshillings, and he reckoned a frock coat at forty shillings atleast--possibly even more. He knew good clothes were veryexpensive. He hesitated at Poole's door and turned away. The thing wasout of the question. He crossed Leicester Square and went downBedford Street, disliking every well-dressed person he met. 

Messrs. Danks and Wimborne inhabited a bank-like establishment nearChancery Lane, and without any conversation presented him with formsto fill up. Religion? asked the form. Lewisham paused and wrote"Church of England. "

Thence he went to the College of Pedagogues in Holborn. The College ofPedagogues presented itself as a long-bearded, corpulent, comfortableperson with a thin gold watch chain and fat hands. He wore giltglasses and had a kindly confidential manner that did much to healLewisham's wounded feelings. The 'ologies and 'ographies were takendown with polite surprise at their number. "You ought to take one ofour diplomas, " said the stout man. "You would find no difficulty. Nocompetition. And there are prizes--several prizes--in money. "

Lewisham was not aware that the waterproof collar had found asympathetic observer. 

"We give courses of lectures, and have an examination in the theoryand practice of education. It is the only examination in the theoryand practice of education for men engaged in middle and upper classteaching in this country. Except the Teacher's Diploma. And so fewcome--not two hundred a year. Mostly governesses. The men prefer toteach by rule of thumb, you know. English characteristic--rule ofthumb. It doesn't do to say anything of course--but there's bound tobe--something happen--something a little disagreeable--somewhen ifthings go on as they do. American schools keep on gettingbetter--German too. What used to do won't do now. I tell this to you, you know, but it doesn't do to tell everyone. It doesn't do. Itdoesn't do to do anything. So much has to be considered. However... But you'd do well to get a diploma and make yourselfefficient. Though that's looking ahead. "

He spoke of looking ahead with an apologetic laugh as though it was anamiable weakness of his. He turned from such abstruse matters andfurnished Lewisham with the particulars of the college diplomas, andproceeded to other possibilities. "There's private tuition, " hesaid. "Would you mind a backward boy? Then we are occasionally askedfor visiting masters. Mostly by girls' schools. But that's for oldermen--married men, you know. "

"I am married, " said Lewisham. 

"_Eh_?" said the College of Pedagogues, startled. 

"I _am_ married, " said Lewisham. 

"Dear me, " said the College of Pedagogues gravely, and regardingMr. Lewisham over gold-rimmed glasses. "Dear me! And I am more thantwice your age, and I am not married at all. One-and-twenty! Haveyou--have you been married long?"

"A few weeks, " said Lewisham. 

"That's very remarkable, " said the College of Pedagogues. "Veryinteresting.... _Really!_ Your wife must be a very courageous youngperson.... Excuse me! You know--You will really have a hard fight fora position. However--it certainly makes you eligible for girls'schools; it does do that. To a certain extent, that is. "

The evidently enhanced respect of the College of Pedagogues pleasedLewisham extremely. But his encounter with the Medical, Scholastic, and Clerical Agency that holds by Waterloo Bridge was depressingagain, and after that he set out to walk home. Long before he reachedhome he was tired, and his simple pride in being married and in activegrapple with an unsympathetic world had passed. His surrender on thereligious question had left a rankling bitterness behind it; theproblem of the clothes was acutely painful. He was still far from afirm grasp of the fact that his market price was under rather thanover one hundred pounds a year, but that persuasion was gaining groundin his mind. 

The day was a greyish one, with a dull cold wind, and a nail in one ofhis boots took upon itself to be objectionable. Certain wild shotsand disastrous lapses in his recent botanical examination, that he hadmanaged to keep out of his mind hitherto, forced their way on hisattention. For the first time since his marriage he harbouredpremonitions of failure. 

When he got in he wanted to sit down at once in the little creakychair by the fire, but Ethel came flitting from the newly boughttypewriter with arms extended and prevented him. "Oh!--it _has_ beendull, " she said. 

He missed the compliment. "_I_ haven't had such a giddy time that youshould grumble, " he said, in a tone that was novel to her. Hedisengaged himself from her arms and sat down. He noticed theexpression of her face. 

"I'm rather tired, " he said by way of apology. "And there's aconfounded nail I must hammer down in my boot. It's tiring workhunting up these agents, but of course it's better to go and seethem. How have you been getting on?"

"All right, " she said, regarding him. And then, "You _are_ tired. We'll have some tea. And--let me take off your boot for you, dear. Yes--I will. "

She rang the bell, bustled out of the room, called for tea at thestaircase, came back, pulled out Madam Gadow's ungainly hassock andbegan unlacing his boot. Lewisham's mood changed. "You _are_ a trump, Ethel, " he said; "I'm hanged if you're not. " As the laces flicked hebent forward and kissed her ear. The unlacing was suspended and therewere reciprocal endearments.... 

Presently he was sitting in his slippers, with a cup of tea in hishand, and Ethel, kneeling on the hearthrug with the firelight on herface, was telling him of an answer that had come that afternoon to heradvertisement in the _Athenaeum_. 

"That's good, " said Lewisham. 

"It's a novelist, " she said with the light of pride in her eyes, andhanded him the letter. "Lucas Holderness, the author of 'The Furnaceof Sin' and other stories. "

"That's first rate, " said Lewisham with just a touch of envy, and bentforward to read by the firelight. 

The letter was from an address in Judd Street, Euston Road, written ongood paper and in a fair round hand such as one might imagine anovelist using. "Dear Madam, " said the letter, "I propose to send you, by registered letter, the MS. Of a three-volume novel. It is about90, 000 words--but you must count the exact number. "

"How I shall count I don't know, " said Ethel. 

"I'll show you a way, " said Lewisham. "There's no difficulty inthat. You count the words on three or four pages, strike an average, and multiply. "

"But, of course, before doing so I must have a satisfactory guaranteethat my confidence in putting my work in your hands will not bemisplaced and that your execution is of the necessary high quality. "

"Oh!" said Lewisham; "that's a bother. "

"Accordingly I must ask you for references. "

"That's a downright nuisance, " said Lewisham. "I suppose that ass, Lagune ... But what's this? 'Or, failing references, for a deposit... ' That's reasonable, I suppose. "

It was such a moderate deposit too--merely a guinea. Even had thedoubt been stronger, the aspect of helpful hopeful little Ethel eagerfor work might well have thrust it aside. "Sending him a cheque willshow him we have a banking account behind us, " said Lewisham, --hisbanking was still sufficiently recent for pride. "We will send him acheque. That'll settle _him_ all right. "

That evening after the guinea cheque had been despatched, things werefurther brightened by the arrival of a letter of atrociouslyjellygraphed advices from Messrs. Danks and Wimborne. They allreferred to resident vacancies for which Lewisham was manifestlyunsuitable, nevertheless their arrival brought an encouragingassurance of things going on, of shifting and unstable places in thedefences of the beleaguered world. Afterwards, with occasionalendearments for Ethel, he set himself to a revision of his last year'snote-books, for now the botany was finished, the advanced zoologicalcourse--the last lap, as it were, for the Forbes medal--wasbeginning. She got her best hat from the next room to make certainchanges in the arrangement of its trimmings. She sat in the littlechair, while Lewisham, with documents spread before him, sat at thetable. 

Presently she looked up from an experimental arrangement of hercornflowers, and discovered Lewisham, no longer reading, but staringblankly at the middle of the table-cloth, with an extraordinary miseryin his eyes. She forgot the cornflowers and stared at him. 

"Penny, " she said after an interval. 

Lewisham started and looked up. "_Eh_?"

"Why were you looking so miserable?" she asked. 

"_Was_ I looking miserable?"

"Yes. And _cross_!"

"I was thinking just then that I would like to boil a bishop or so inoil. "

"My dear!"

"They know perfectly well the case against what they teach, they knowit's neither madness nor wickedness nor any great harm, to others notto believe, they know perfectly well that a man may be as honest asthe day, and right--right and decent in every way--and not believe inwhat they teach. And they know that it only wants the edge off a man'shonour, for him to profess anything in the way of belief. Justanything. And they won't say so. I suppose they want the edge offevery man's honour. If a man is well off they will truckle to him noend, though he laughs at all their teaching. They'll take gold platefrom company promoters and rent from insanitary houses. But if a manis poor and doesn't profess to believe in what some of them scarcelybelieve themselves, they wouldn't lift a finger to help him againstthe ignorance of their followers. Your stepfather was right enoughthere. They know what's going on. They know that it means lying andhumbug for any number of people, and they don't care. Why shouldthey? _They've_ got it down all right. They're spoilt, and whyshouldn't we be?"

Lewisham having selected the bishops as scapegoats for his turpitude, was inclined to ascribe even the nail in his boot to their agency. 

Mrs. Lewisham looked puzzled. She realised his drift. 

"You're not, " she said, and dropped her voice, "an _infidel_?"

Lewisham nodded gloomily. "Aren't you?" he said. 

"Oh no, " said Mrs. Lewisham. 

"But you don't go to church, you don't--"

"No, I don't, " said Mrs. Lewisham; and then with more assurance, "ButI'm not an infidel. "

"Christian?"

"I suppose so. "

"But a Christian--What do you believe?"

"Oh! to tell the truth, and do right, and not hurt or injure peopleand all that. "

"That's not a Christian. A Christian is one who believes. "

"It's what _I_ mean by a Christian, " said Mrs. Lewisham. 

"Oh! at that rate anyone's a Christian, " said Lewisham. "We all thinkit's right to do right and wrong to do wrong. "

"But we don't all do it, " said Mrs. Lewisham, taking up thecornflowers again. 

"No, " said Lewisham, a little taken aback by the feminine method ofdiscussion. "We don't all do it--certainly. " He stared at her for amoment--her head was a little on one side and her eyes on thecornflower--and his mind was full of a strange discovery. He seemed onthe verge of speaking, and turned to his note-book again. 

Very soon the centre of the table-cloth resumed its sway. 

 * * * * *

The following day Mr. Lucas Holderness received his cheque for aguinea. Unhappily it was crossed. He meditated for some time, and thentook pen and ink and improved Lewisham's careless "one" to "five" andtouched up his unticked figure one to correspond. 

You perceive him, a lank, cadaverous, good-looking man with long blackhair and a semi-clerical costume of quite painful rustiness. He madethe emendations with grave carefulness. He took the cheque round tohis grocer. His grocer looked at it suspiciously. 

"You pay it in, " said Mr. Lucas Holderness, "if you've any doubtsabout it. Pay it in. _I_ don't know the man or what he is. He may be aswindler for all I can tell. _I_ can't answer for him. Pay it in andsee. Leave the change till then. I can wait. I'll call round in a fewdays' time. "

"All right, wasn't it?" said Mr. Lucas Holderness in a casual tone twodays later. 

"Quite, sir, " said his grocer with enhanced respect, and handed himhis four pounds thirteen and sixpence change. 

Mr. Lucas Holderness, who had been eyeing the grocer's stock with acurious intensity, immediately became animated and bought a tin ofsalmon. He went out of the shop with the rest of the money in hishand, for the pockets of his clothes were old and untrustworthy. Atthe baker's he bought a new roll. 

He bit a huge piece of the roll directly he was out of the shop, andwent on his way gnawing. It was so large a piece that his gnawingmouth was contorted into the ugliest shapes. He swallowed by aneffort, stretching his neck each time. His eyes expressed an animalsatisfaction. He turned the corner of Judd Street biting again at theroll, and the reader of this story, like the Lewishams, hears of himno more. 

CHAPTER XXVI. 

THE GLAMOUR FADES. 

After all, the rosy love-making and marrying and Epithalamy are nomore than the dawn of things, and to follow comes all the spaciousinterval of white laborious light. Try as we may to stay thosedelightful moments, they fade and pass remorselessly; there is noreturning, no recovering, only--for the foolish--the vilest peep-showsand imitations in dens and darkened rooms. We go on--we grow. At leastwe age. Our young couple, emerging presently from an atmosphere ofdusk and morning stars, found the sky gathering greyly overhead andsaw one another for the first time clearly in the light of every-day. 

It might perhaps witness better to Lewisham's refinement if one couldtell only of a moderated and dignified cooling, of pathetic littleconcealments of disappointment and a decent maintenance of thesentimental atmosphere. And so at last daylight. But our young couplewere too crude for that. The first intimations of their lack ofidentity have already been described, but it would be tedious andpitiful to tell of all the little intensifications, shade by shade, ofthe conflict of their individualities. They fell out, dear lady! theycame to conflict of words. The stress of perpetual worry was uponthem, of dwindling funds and the anxious search for work that wouldnot come. And on Ethel lay long, vacant, lonely hours in dullsurroundings. Differences arose from the most indifferent things; onenight Lewisham lay awake in unfathomable amazement because she hadconvinced him she did not care a rap for the Welfare of Humanity, anddeemed his Socialism a fancy and an indiscretion. And one Sundayafternoon they started for a walk under the pleasantest auspices, andreturned flushed and angry, satire and retort flying free--on thescore of the social conventions in Ethel's novelettes. For someinexplicable reason Lewisham saw fit to hate her novelettes verybitterly. These encounters indeed were mere skirmishes for the mostpart, and the silences and embarrassments that followed ended sooneror later in a "making up, " tacit or definite, though once or twicethis making up only re-opened the healing wound. And always eachskirmish left its scar, effaced from yet another line of their livesthe lingering tints of romantic colour. 

There came no work, no added income for either of them, saving twotrifles, for five long months. Once Lewisham won twelve shillings inthe prize competition of a penny weekly, and three times cameinfinitesimal portions of typewriting from a poet who had apparentlyseen the _Athenaeum_ advertisement. His name was Edwin Peak Baynes andhis handwriting was sprawling and unformed. He sent her several shortlyrics on scraps of paper with instructions that he desired "threecopies of each written beautifully in different styles" and "_not_fastened with metal fasteners but with silk thread of an appropriatecolour. " Both of our young people were greatly exercised by theseinstructions. One fragment was called "Bird Song, " one "CloudShadows, " and one "Eryngium, " but Lewisham thought they might bespoken of collectively as Bosh. By way of payment, this poet sent, incontravention of the postal regulations, half a sovereign stuck into acard, asking her to keep the balance against future occasions. In alittle while, greatly altered copies of these lyrics were returned bythe poet in person, with this enigmatical instruction written acrossthe cover of each: "This style I like, only if possible more so. "

Lewisham was out, but Ethel opened the door, so this indorsement wasunnecessary, "He's really only a boy, " said Ethel, describing theinterview to Lewisham, who was curious. They both felt that theyouthfulness of Edwin Peak Baynes detracted something from the realityof this employment. 

From his marriage until the final examination in June, Lewisham's lifehad an odd amphibious quality. At home were Ethel and the perpetualaching pursuit of employment, the pelting irritations of Madam Gadow'spersistent overcharges, and so forth, and amid such things he feltextraordinarily grown up; but intercalated with these experiences werethose intervals at Kensington, scraps of his adolescence, as it were, lying amidst the new matter of his manhood, intervals during which hewas simply an insubordinate and disappointing student with anincreasing disposition to gossip. At South Kensington he dwelt withtheories and ideals as a student should; at the little rooms inChelsea--they grew very stuffy as the summer came on, and theaccumulation of the penny novelettes Ethel favoured made alitter--there was his particular private concrete situation, andideals gave place to the real. 

It was a strangely narrow world, he perceived dimly, in which hismanhood opened. The only visitors were the Chafferys. Chaffery wouldcome to share their supper, and won upon Lewisham in spite of hisroguery by his incessantly entertaining monologue and by his expressedrespect for and envy of Lewisham's scientific attainments. Moreover, as time went on Lewisham found himself more and more in sympathy withChaffery's bitterness against those who order the world. It was goodto hear him on bishops and that sort of people. He said what Lewishamwanted to say beautifully. Mrs. Chaffery was perpetuallyflitting--out of the house as Lewisham came home, a dim, black, nervous, untidy little figure. She came because Ethel, in spite of herexpressed belief that love was "all in all, " found married life alittle dull and lonely while Lewisham was away. And she went hastilywhen he came, because of a certain irritability that the struggleagainst the world was developing. He told no one at Kensington abouthis marriage, at first because it was such a delicious secret, andthen for quite other reasons. So there was no overlapping. The twoworlds began and ended sharply at the wrought-iron gates. But the daycame when Lewisham passed those gates for the last time and hisadolescence ended altogether. 

In the final examination of the biological course, the examinationthat signalised the end of his income of a weekly guinea, he knew wellenough that he had done badly. The evening of the last day's practicalwork found him belated, hot-headed, beaten, with ruffled hair and redears. He sat to the last moment doggedly struggling to keep cool andto mount the ciliated funnel of an earthworm's nephridium. Butciliated funnels come not to those who have shirked the laboratorypractice. He rose, surrendered his paper to the morose elderly youngassistant demonstrator who had welcomed him so flatteringly eightmonths before, and walked down the laboratory to the door where therest of his fellow-students clustered. 

Smithers was talking loudly about the "twistiness" of theidentification, and the youngster with the big ears was listeningattentively. 

"Here's Lewisham! How did _you_ get on, Lewisham?" asked Smithers, not concealing his assurance. 

"Horribly, " said Lewisham shortly, and pushed past. 

"Did you spot D?" clamoured Smithers. 

Lewisham pretended not to hear. 

Miss Heydinger stood with her hat in her hand and looked at Lewisham'shot eyes. He was for walking past her, but something in her facepenetrated even his disturbance. He stopped. 

"Did you get out the nephridium?" he said as graciously as he could. 

She shook her head. "Are you going downstairs?" she asked. 

"Rather, " said Lewisham, with a vague intimation in his manner of theoffence Smithers gave him. 

He opened the glass door from the passage to the staircase. They wentdown one tier of that square spiral in silence. 

"Are you coming up again next year?" asked Miss Heydinger. 

"No, " said Lewisham. "No, I shall not come here again. Ever. "

Pause. "What will you do?" she asked. 

"I don't know. I have to get a living somehow. It's been bothering meall the session. "

"I thought--" She stopped. "Will you go down to your uncle's again?"she said. 

"No. I shall stop in London. It's no good going out of things into thecountry. And besides--I've quarrelled rather with my uncle. "

"What do you think of doing?--teaching?"

"I suppose it will be teaching, I'm not sure. Anything that turns up. "

"I see, " she said. 

They went on down in silence for a time. 

"I suppose you will come up again?" he asked. 

"I may try the botanical again--if they can find room. And, I wasthinking--sometimes one hears of things. What is your address? So thatif I heard of anything. "

Lewisham stopped on the staircase and thought. "Of course, " hesaid. He made no effort to give her the address, and she demanded itagain at the foot of the stairs. 

"That confounded nephridium--!" he said. "It has put everything out ofmy head. "

They exchanged addresses on leaflets torn from Miss Heydinger's littlenote-book. 

She waited at the Book in the hall while he signed his name. At theiron gates of the Schools she said: "I am going through KensingtonGardens. "

He was now feeling irritated about the addresses, and he would not seethe implicit invitation. "I am going towards Chelsea. "

She hesitated a moment, looking at him--puzzled. "Good-bye, then, "she said. 

"Good-bye, " he answered, lifting his hat. 

He crossed the Exhibition Road slowly with his packed glazed bag, nowseamed with cracks, in his hand. He went thoughtfully down to thecorner of the Cromwell Road and turned along that to the right so thathe could see the red pile of the Science Schools rising fair, andtall across the gardens of the Natural History Museum. He looked backtowards it regretfully. 

He was quite sure that he had failed in this last examination. Heknew that any career as a scientific man was now closed to him forever. And he remembered now how he had come along this very road tothat great building for the first time in his life, and all the hopesand resolves that had swelled within him as he had drawn near. Thatdream of incessant unswerving work! Where might he have reached ifonly he had had singleness of purpose to realise that purpose?... 

And in these gardens it was that he and Smithers and Parkson had saton a seat hard by the fossil tree, and discoursed of Socialismtogether before the great paper was read.... 

"Yes, " he said, speaking aloud to himself; "yes--_that's_all over too. Everything's over. "

Presently the corner of the Natural History Museum came between himand his receding Alma Mater. He sighed and turned his face towards thestuffy little rooms at Chelsea, and the still unconquered world. 

CHAPTER XXVII. 

CONCERNING A QUARREL. 

It was late in September that this particular quarrel occurred. Almostall the roseate tints seemed gone by this time, for the Lewishams hadbeen married six months. Their financial affairs had changed from thecatastrophic to the sordid; Lewisham had found work. An army crammernamed Captain Vigours wanted someone energetic for his mathematicalduffers and to teach geometrical drawing and what he was pleased tocall "Sandhurst Science. " He paid no less than two shillings an hourfor his uncertain demands on Lewisham's time. Moreover, there was aclass in lower mathematics beginning at Walham Green where Lewishamwas to show his quality. Fifty shillings a week or more seemedcredible--more might be hoped for. It was now merely a case of tidingover the interval until Vigours paid. And meanwhile the freshness ofEthel's blouses departed, and Lewisham refrained from the repair ofhis boot which had cracked across the toe. 

The beginning of the quarrel was trivial enough. But by the end theygot to generalities. Lewisham had begun the day in a bad temper andunder the cloud of an overnight passage of arms--and a little incidentthat had nothing to do with their ostensible difference lent it awarmth of emotion quite beyond its merits. As he emerged through thefolding doors he saw a letter lying among the sketchily laid breakfastthings, and Ethel's attitude suggested the recoil of a quick movement;the letter suddenly dropped. Her eyes met his and she flushed. He satdown and took the letter--a trifle awkwardly perhaps. It was from MissHeydinger. He hesitated with it halfway to his pocket, then decided toopen it. It displayed an ample amount of reading, and he read. On thewhole he thought it rather a dull sort of letter, but he did not allowthis to appear. When it was read he put it carefully in his pocket. 

That formally had nothing to do with the quarrel. The breakfast wasalready over when the quarrel began. Lewisham's morning was vacant, and be proposed to occupy it in the revision of certain notes bearingupon "Sandhurst Science. " Unhappily the search for his note-bookbrought him into collision with the accumulation of Ethel'snovelettes. 

"These things are everywhere, " he said after a gust of vehementhandling, "I _wish_ you'd tidy them up sometimes. "

"They were tidy enough till you began to throw them about, " Ethelpointed out. 

"Confounded muck! it's only fit to be burnt, " Lewisham remarked to theuniverse, and pitched one viciously into the corner. 

"Well, you tried to write one, anyhow, " said Ethel, recalling acertain "Mammoth" packet of note-paper that had come on an evil endbefore Lewisham found his industrial level. This reminiscence alwaysirritated him exceedingly. 

"Eh?" he said sharply. 

"You tried to write one, " repeated Ethel--a little unwillingly. 

"You don't mean me to forget that. "

"It's you reminded me. "

He stared hostility for a space. 

"Well, the things make a beastly litter anyhow; there isn't a tidycorner anywhere in the room. There never is. "

"That's just the sort of thing you always say. "

"Well--_is_ there?"

"Yes, there is. "

"_Where_?"

Ethel professed not to hear. But a devil had possession of Lewishamfor a time. "It isn't as though you had anything else to do, " heremarked, wounding dishonourably. 

Ethel turned. "If I _put_ those things away, " she said with tremendousemphasis on the "_put_, " "you'd only say I'd hidden them. What _is_the good of trying to please you?"

The spirit of perversity suggested to Lewisham, "None apparently. "

Ethel's cheeks glowed and her eyes were bright with unshedtears. Abruptly she abandoned the defensive and blurted out the thingthat had been latent so long between them. Her voice took a note ofpassion. "Nothing I can do ever does please you, since that MissHeydinger began to write to you. "

There was a pause, a gap. Something like astonishment took themboth. Hitherto it had been a convention that she knew nothing of theexistence of Miss Heydinger. He saw a light. "How did you know?" hebegan, and perceived that line was impossible. He took the way of thenatural man; he ejaculated an "Ugh!" of vast disgust, he raised hisvoice. "You _are_ unreasonable!" he cried in angry remonstrance. "Fancy saying that! As though you ever tried to please me! Just asthough it wasn't all the other way about!" He stopped--struck by amomentary perception of injustice. He plunged at the point he hadshirked, "How did you know it _was_ Miss Heydinger--?"

Ethel's voice took upon itself the quality of tears. "I wasn't_meant_ to know, was I?" she said. 

"But how?"

"I suppose you think it doesn't concern me? I suppose you think I'mmade of stone?"

"You mean--you think--?"

"Yes--I _do_. "

For a brief interval Lewisham stared at the issue she had laidbare. He sought some crashing proposition, some line of convincingreasoning, with which to overwhelm and hide this new aspect ofthings. It would not come. He found himself fenced in on every side. Asurging, irrational rage seized upon him. 

"Jealousy!" he cried. "Jealousy! Just as though--Can't I haveletters about things you don't understand--that you _won't_understand? If I asked you to read them you wouldn't--It's justbecause--"

"You never give me a _chance_ to understand. "

"Don't I?"

"No!"

"Why!--At first I was always trying. Socialism, religion--all thosethings. But you don't care--you won't care. You won't have that I'vethought over these things at all, that I care for these things! Itwasn't any _good_ to argue. You just care for me in a way--and all therest of me--doesn't matter! And because I've got a friend ... "

"Friend!"

"Yes--_friend!_"

"Why!--you hide her letters!"

"Because I tell you you wouldn't understand what they are about. But, pah! I won't argue. I _won't!_ You're jealous, and there's the end ofthe matter!"

"Well, who _wouldn't_ be jealous?"

He stared at her as if he found the question hard to see. The themewas difficult--invincibly difficult. He surveyed the room for adiversion. The note-book he had disinterred from her novelettes layupon the table and reminded him of his grievance of rained hours. Hisrage exploded. He struck out abruptly towards fundamental things. Hegesticulated forcibly. "This can't go on!" he cried, "this can't goon! How can I work? How can I do anything?"

He made three steps and stood in a clear space. 

"I won't _stand_, it--I won't go on at this!Quarrels--bickerings--discomfort. Look there! I meant to work thismorning. I meant to look up notes! Instead of which you start aquarrel--"

The gross injustice raised Ethel's voice to an outcry. "_I_ didn'tstart the quarrel--"

The only response to this was to shout, and Lewisham shouted. "Youstart a quarrel!" he repeated. "You make a shindy! You spring adispute--jealousy!--on me! How can I do anything? How can one stop ina house like this? I shall go out. Look here!--I shall go out. I shallgo to Kensington and work there!"

He perceived himself wordless, and Ethel was about to speak. He glaredabout him, seeking a prompt climax. Instant action was necessary. Heperceived Huxley's _Vertebrata_ upon the side-table. He clutched it, swayed it through a momentous arc, hurled it violently into the emptyfireplace. 

For a second he seemed to be seeking some other missile. He perceivedhis hat on the chest of drawers, seized it, and strode tragically fromthe room. 

He hesitated with the door half closed, then opened it wide andslammed it vehemently. Thereby the world was warned of the justice ofhis rage, and so he passed with credit into the street. 

He went striding heedless of his direction through the streets dottedwith intent people hurrying to work, and presently habit turned hisfeet towards the Brompton Road. The eastward trend of the morningtraffic caught him. For a time, save for a rebellious ingredient ofwonder at the back of his mind, he kept his anger white and pure. Whyhad he married her? was the text to which he clung. Why in the name ofdestiny had he married her? But anyhow he had said the decisivething. He would not stand it! It must end. Things were intolerable andthey must end. He meditated devastating things that he might presentlysay to her in pursuance of this resolution. He contemplated acts ofcruelty. In such ways he would demonstrate clearly that he would notstand it. He was very careful to avoid inquiring what it was he wouldnot stand. 

How in the name of destiny had he come to marry her? The quality ofhis surroundings mingled in some way with the quality of histhoughts. The huge distended buildings of corrugated iron in which theArt Museum (of all places!) culminates, the truncated Oratory allaskew to the street, seemed to have a similar quarrel with fate. Howin the name of destiny? After such high prolusions!

He found that his thoughts had carried him past the lodge of themuseum. He turned back irritably and went through the turnstile. Heentered the museum and passed beneath the gallery of Old Iron on hisway to the Education Library. The vacant array of tables, the bays ofattendant books had a quality of refuge.... 

So much for Lewisham in the morning. Long before midday all the vigourof his wrath was gone, all his passionate conviction of Ethel'sunworthiness. Over a pile of neglected geological works he presented aface of gloom. His memory presented a picture of himself as noisy, overbearing, and unfair. What on earth had it all been about?

By two o'clock he was on his way to Vigours', and his mood was acuteremorse. Of the transition there can be no telling in words, forthoughts are more subtle than words and emotions infinitelyvaguer. But one thing at least is definite, that a memory returned. 

It drifted in to him, through the glass roof of the Library farabove. He did not perceive it as a memory at first, but as anirritating obstacle to attention. He struck the open pages of the bookbefore him with his flat hand. "Damn that infernal hurdy-gurdy!" hewhispered. 

Presently he made a fretful movement and put his hands over his ears. 

Then he thrust his books from him, got up, and wandered about theLibrary. The organ came to an abrupt end in the middle of a bar, andvanished in the circumambient silence of space. 

Lewisham standing in a bay closed a book with a snap and returned tohis seat. 

Presently he found himself humming a languid tune, and thinking againof the quarrel that he had imagined banished from his mind. What inthe name of destiny had it all been about? He had a curious sense thatsomething had got loose, was sliding about in his mind. And as if byway of answer emerged a vision of Whortley--a singularly vividvision. It was moonlight and a hillside, the little town lay lit andwarm below, and the scene was set to music, a lugubriously sentimentalair. For some reason this music had the quality of a barrelorgan--though he knew that properly it came from a band--and itassociated with itself a mystical formula of words, drawing words:--

 "Sweet dreamland fa--ces, passing to and fro, Bring back to mem'ry days of long ago--oh!"

This air not only reproduced the picture with graphic vividness, butit trailed after it an enormous cloud of irrational emotion, emotionthat had but a moment before seemed gone for ever from his being. 

He recalled it all! He had come down that hillside and Ethel had beenwith him.... 

Had he really felt like that about her?

"Pah!" he said suddenly, and reverted to his books. 

But the tune and the memory had won their footing, they were with himthrough his meagre lunch of milk and scones--he had resolved at theoutset he would not go back to her for the midday meal--and on his wayto Vigours' they insisted on attention. It may be that lunching onscone and milk does in itself make for milder ways of thinking. Asense of extraordinary contradiction, of infinite perplexity, came tohim. 

"But then, " he asked, "how the devil did we get to _this_?"

Which is indeed one of the fundamental questions of matrimony. 

The morning tumults had given place to an almost scientific calm. Verysoon he was grappling manfully with the question. There was nodisputing it, they had quarrelled. Not once but several times latelythey had quarrelled. It was real quarrelling;--they had stood upagainst one another, striking, watching to strike, seeking towound. He tried to recall just how things had gone--what he had saidand what she had replied. He could not do it. He had forgottenphrases and connexions. It stood in his memory not as a sequence ofevents but as a collection of disconnected static sayings; each sayingblunt, permanent, inconsecutive like a graven inscription. And of thescene there came only one picture--Ethel with a burning face and hereyes shining with tears. 

The traffic of a cross street engaged him for a space. He emerged onthe further side full of the vivid contrast of their changedrelations. He made a last effort to indict her, to show that for thetransition she was entirely to blame. She had quarrelled with him, shehad quarrelled deliberately because she was jealous. She was jealousof Miss Heydinger because she was stupid. But now these accusationsfaded like smoke as he put them forth. But the picture of two littlefigures back there in the moonlit past did not fade. It was in thenarrows of Kensington High Street that he abandoned herarraignment. It was beyond the Town Hall that he made the newstep. Was it, after all, just possible that in some degree he himselfrather was the chief person to blame?

It was instantly as if he had been aware of that all the time. 

Once he had made that step, he moved swiftly. Not a hundred pacesbefore the struggle was over, and he had plunged headlong into theblue abyss of remorse. And all these things that had been so dramaticand forcible, all the vivid brutal things he had said, stood no longergraven inscriptions but in letters of accusing flame. He tried toimagine he had not said them, that his memory played him a trick;tried to suppose he had said something similar perhaps, but much lessforcible. He attempted with almost equal futility to minimise his ownwounds. His endeavour served only to measure the magnitude of hisfall. 

He had recovered everything now, he saw it all. He recalled Ethel, sunlit in the avenue, Ethel, white in the moonlight before they partedoutside the Frobisher house, Ethel as she would come out of Lagune'shouse greeting him for their nightly walk, Ethel new wedded, as shecame to him through the folding doors radiant in the splendour hisemotions threw about her. And at last, Ethel angry, dishevelled andtear-stained in that ill-lit, untidy little room. All to the cadenceof a hurdy-gurdy tune! From that to this! How had it been possible toget from such an opalescent dawning to such a dismal day? What was ithad gone? He and she were the same two persons who walked so brightlyin his awakened memory; he and she who had lived so bitterly throughthe last few weeks of misery!

His mood sank for a space to the quality of groaning. He implicatedher now at most as his partner in their failure--"What a mess we havemade of things!" was his new motif. "What a mess!"

He knew love now for what it was, knew it for something more ancientand more imperative than reason. He knew now that he loved her, andhis recent rage, his hostility, his condemnation of her seemed to himthe reign of some exterior influence in his mind. He thoughtincredulously of the long decline in tenderness that had followed thefirst days of their delight in each other, the diminution ofendearment, the first yielding to irritability, the evenings he hadspent doggedly working, resisting all his sense of her presence. "Onecannot always be love-making, " he had said, and so they were slippingapart. Then in countless little things he had not been patient, he hadnot been fair. He had wounded her by harshness, by unsympatheticcriticism, above all by his absurd secrecy about Miss Heydinger'sletters. Why on earth had he kept those letters from her? as thoughthere was something to hide! What was there to hide? What possibleantagonism could there be? Yet it was by such little things thattheir love was now like some once valued possession that had been inbrutal hands, it was scratched and chipped and tarnished, it was onits way to being altogether destroyed. Her manner had changed towardshim, a gulf was opening that he might never be able to close again. 

"No, it _shall_ not be!" he said, "it shall not be!"

But how to get back to the old footing? how to efface the things hehad said, the things that had been done?

Could they get back?

For a moment he faced a new possibility. Suppose they could not getback! Suppose the mischief was done! Suppose that when he slammed thedoor behind him it locked, and was locked against him for ever!

"But we _must_!" said Lewisham, "we must!"

He perceived clearly that this was no business of reasonedapologies. He must begin again, he must get back to emotion, he mustthrust back the overwhelming pressure of everyday stresses andnecessities that was crushing all the warmth and colour from theirlives. But how? How?

He must make love to her again. But how to begin--how to mark thechange? There had been making-up before, sullen concessions andtreaties. But this was different. He tried to imagine something hemight say, some appeal that he might make. Everything he thought ofwas cold and hard, or pitiful and undignified, or theatrical andfoolish. Suppose the door _was_ closed! If already it was too late!In every direction he was confronted by the bristling memories ofharsh things. He had a glimpse of how he must have changed in hereyes, and things became intolerable for him. For now he was assured heloved her still with all his heart. 

And suddenly came a florist's window, and in the centre of it aglorious heap of roses. 

They caught his eye before they caught his mind. He saw white roses, virginal white, roses of cream and pink and crimson, the tints offlesh and pearl, rich, a mass of scented colour, visible odours, andin the midst of them a note of sullen red. It was as it were the verycolour of his emotion. He stopped abruptly. He turned back to thewindow and stared frankly. It was gorgeous, he saw, but why soparticularly did it appeal to him?

Then he perceived as though it was altogether self-evident what he hadto do. This was what he wanted. This was the note he had tostrike. Among other things because it would repudiate the accursedworship of pinching self-restraint that was one of the incessantstresses between them. They would come to her with a pureunexpectedness, they would flame upon her. 

Then, after the roses, he would return. 

Suddenly the grey trouble passed from his mind; he saw the world fullof colour again. He saw the scene he desired bright and clear, sawEthel no longer bitter and weeping, but glad as once she had alwaysseemed glad. His heart-beats quickened. It was giving had been needed, and he would give. 

Some weak voice of indiscreet discretion squeaked and vanished. Hehad, he knew, a sovereign in his pocket. He went in. 

He found himself in front of a formidable young lady in black, andunprepared with any formula. He had never bought flowers before. Helooked about him for an inspiration. He pointed at the roses. "I wantthose roses, " he said.... 

He emerged again with only a few small silver coins remaining out ofthe sovereign he had changed. The roses were to go to Ethel, properlypacked; they were to be delivered according to his express directionat six o'clock. 

"Six o'clock, " Lewisham had reiterated very earnestly. 

"We quite understand, " the young lady in black had said, and hadpretended to be unable to conceal a smile. "We're _quite_ accustomedto sending out flowers. "

CHAPTER XXVIII. 

THE COMING OF THE ROSES. 

And the roses miscarried!

When Lewisham returned from Vigours' it was already nearly seven. Heentered the house with a beating heart. He had expected to find Ethelexcited, the roses displayed. But her face was white and jaded. He wasso surprised by this that the greeting upon his lips died away. He wasbalked! He went into, the sitting-room and there were no roses to beseen. Ethel came past him and stood with her back to him looking outof the window. The suspense was suddenly painful.... 

He was obliged to ask, though he was certain of the answer, "Hasnothing come?"

Ethel looked at him. "What did you think had come?"

"Oh! nothing. "

She looked out of the window again. "No, " she said slowly, "nothinghas come. "

He tried to think of something to say that might bridge the distancebetween them, but he could think of nothing. He must wait until theroses came. He took out his books and a gaunt hour passed to suppertime. Supper was a chilly ceremonial set with necessary over-politeremarks. Disappointment and exasperation darkened Lewisham's soul. Hebegan to feel angry with everything--even with her--he perceived shestill judged him angry, and that made him angry with her. He wasresuming his books and she was helping Madam Gadow's servant to clearaway, when they heard a rapping at the street door. "They have come atlast, " he said to himself brightening, and hesitated whether he shouldbolt or witness her reception of them. The servant was anuisance. Then he heard Chaffery's voices and whispered a soft "damn!"to himself. 

The only thing to do now if the roses came was to slip out into thepassage, intercept them, and carry them into the bedroom by the doorbetween that and the passage. It would be undesirable for Chaffery towitness that phase of sentiment. He might flash some dart of ridiculethat would stick in their memory for ever. 

Lewisham tried to show that he did not want a visitor. But Chafferywas in high spirits, and could have warmed a dozen cold welcomes. Hesat down without any express invitation in the chair that hepreferred. 

Before Mr. And Mrs. Chaffery the Lewishams veiled whatever troublemight be between them beneath an insincere cordiality, and Chafferywas soon talking freely, unsuspicious of their crisis. He produced twocigars. "I had a wild moment, " he said. "'For once, ' said I, 'thehonest shall smoke the admirable--or the admirable shall smoke thehonest, ' whichever you like best. Try one? No? Those austereprinciples of yours! There will be more pleasure then. But really, Iwould as soon you smoked it as I. For to-night I radiate benevolence. "

He cut the cigar with care, he lit it with ceremony, waiting untilnothing but honest wood was burning on the match, and for fully aminute he was silent, evolving huge puffs of smoke. And then he spokeagain, punctuating his words by varied and beautiful spirals. "Sofar, " he said, "I have only trifled with knavery. "

As Lewisham said nothing he resumed after a pause. 

"There are three sorts of men in the world, my boy, three and nomore--and of women only one. There are happy men and there are knavesand fools. Hybrids I don't count. And to my mind knaves and fools arevery much alike. "

He paused again. 

"I suppose they are, " said Lewisham flatly, and frowned at thefireplace. 

Chaffery eyed him. "I am talking wisdom. To-night I am talking aparticular brand of wisdom. I am broaching some of my oldest andfinest, because--as you will find one day--this is a special occasion. And you are distrait!"

Lewisham looked up. "Birthday?" he said. 

"You will see. But I was making golden observations about knaves andfools. I was early convinced of the absolute necessity ofrighteousness if a man is to be happy. I know it as surely as there isa sun in the heavens. Does that surprise you?"

"Well, it hardly squares--"

"No. I know. I will explain all that. But let me tell you the happylife. Let me give you that, as if I lay on my deathbed and this was aparting gift. In the first place, mental integrity. Prove all things, hold fast to that which is right. Let the world have no illusions foryou, no surprises. Nature is full of cruel catastrophes, man is aphysically degenerate ape, every appetite, every instinct, needs thecurb; salvation is not in the nature of things, but whatever salvationthere may be is in the nature of man; face all these painful things. Ihope you follow that?"

"Go on, " said Lewisham, with the debating-society taste for a thesisprevailing for a minute over that matter of the roses. 

"In youth, exercise and learning; in adolescence, ambition; and inearly manhood, love--no footlight passion. " Chaffery was very solemnand insistent, with a lean extended finger, upon this point. 

"Then marriage, young and decent, and then children and stout honestwork for them, work too for the State in which they live; a life ofself-devotion, indeed, and for sunset a decent pride--that is thehappy life. Rest assured that is the happy life; the life NaturalSelection has been shaping for man since life began. So a man may gohappy from the cradle to the grave--at least--passably happy. And todo this needs just three things--a sound body, a sound intelligence, and a sound will ... A sound will. "

Chaffery paused on the repetition. 

"No other happiness endures. And when all men are wise, all men willseek that life. Fame! Wealth! Art!--the Red Indians worship lunatics, and we are still by way of respecting the milder sorts. But I say thatall men who do not lead that happy life are knaves and fools. Thephysical cripple, you know, poor devil, I count a sort of bodilyfool. "

"Yes, " weighed Lewisham, "I suppose he is. "

"Now a fool fails of happiness because of his insufficient mind, hemiscalculates, he stumbles and hobbles, some cant or claptrap whirlshim away; he gets passion out of a book and a wife out of the stews, or he quarrels on a petty score; threats frighten him, vanity beguileshim, he fails by blindness. But the knave who is not a fool failsagainst the light. Many knaves are fools also--_most_ are--but someare not. I know--I am a knave but no fool. The essence of your knaveis that he lacks the will, the motive capacity to seek his own greatergood. The knave abhors persistence. Strait is the way and narrow thegate; the knave cannot keep to it and the fool cannot find it. "

Lewisham lost something of what Chaffery was saying by reason of a rapoutside. He rose, but Ethel was before him. He concealed his anxietyas well as he could; and was relieved when he heard the front doorclose again and her footsteps pass into the bedroom by the passagedoor. He reverted to Chaffery. 

"Has it ever occurred to you, " asked Chaffery, apparently apropos ofnothing, "that intellectual conviction is no motive at all? Any morethan a railway map will run a train a mile. "

"Eh?" said Lewisham. "Map--run a train a mile--of course, yes. No, itwon't. "

"That is precisely my case, " said Chaffery. "That is the case ofyour pure knave everywhere. We are not fools--because we know. Butyonder runs the highway, windy, hard, and austere, a sort of dryhappiness that will endure; and here is the pleasant by-way--lush, my boy, lush, as the poets have it, and with its certain man-trapamong the flowers ... "

Ethel returned through the folding doors. She glanced at Lewisham, remained standing for awhile, sat down in the basket chair as if toresume some domestic needlework that lay upon the table, then rose andwent back into the bedroom. 

Chaffery proceeded to expatiate on the transitory nature of passionand all glorious and acute experiences. Whole passages of thatdiscourse Lewisham did not hear, so intent was he upon thoseroses. Why had Ethel gone back into the bedroom? Was it possible--?Presently she returned, but she sat down so that he could not see herface. 

"If there is one thing to set against the wholesome life it isadventure, " Chaffery was saying. "But let every adventurer pray for anearly death, for with adventure come wounds, and with wounds comesickness, and--except in romances--sickness affects the nervoussystem. Your nerve goes. Where are you then, my boy?"

"Ssh! what's that?" said Lewisham. 

It was a rap at the house door. Heedless of the flow of golden wisdom, he went out at once and admitted a gentleman friend of Madam Gadow, who passed along the passage and vanished down the staircase. When hereturned Chaffery was standing to go. 

"I could have talked with you longer, " he said, "but you havesomething on your mind, I see. I will not worry you by guessingwhat. Some day you will remember ... " He said no more, but laid hishand on Lewisham's shoulder. 

One might almost fancy he was offended at something. 

At any other time Lewisham might have been propitiatory, but now heoffered no apology. Chaffery turned to Ethel and looked at hercuriously for a moment. "Good-bye, " he said, holding out his hand toher. 

On the doorstep Chaffery regarded Lewisham with the same curious look, and seemed to weigh some remark. "Good-bye, " he said at last withsomething in his manner that kept Lewisham at the door for a momentlooking after his stepfather's receding figure. But immediately theroses were uppermost again. 

When he re-entered the living room he found Ethel sitting idly at hertypewriter, playing with the keys. She got up at his return and satdown in the armchair with a novelette that hid her face. He stared ather, full of questions. After all, then, they had not come. He wasintensely disappointed now, he was intensely angry with the ineffableyoung shop-woman in black. He looked at his watch and then again, hetook a book and pretended to read and found himself composing ascathing speech of remonstrance to be delivered on the morrow at theflower-shop. He put his book down, went to his black bag, opened andclosed it aimlessly. He glanced covertly at Ethel, and found herlooking covertly at him. He could not quite understand her expression. 

He fidgeted into the bedroom and stopped as dead as a pointer. 

He felt an extraordinary persuasion of the scent of roses. So strongdid it seem that he glanced outside the room door, expecting to find abox there, mysteriously arrived. But there was no scent of roses inthe passage. 

Then he saw close by his foot an enigmatical pale object, andstooping, picked up the creamy petal of a rose. He stood with it inhis hand, perplexed beyond measure. He perceived a slight disorder ofthe valence of the dressing-table and linked it with this petal by aswift intuition. 

He made two steps, lifted the valence, and behold! there lay hisroses crushed together!

He gasped like a man who plunges suddenly into cold water. He remainedstooping with the valence raised. 

Ethel appeared in the half doorway and her, expression was unfamiliar. He stared at her white face. 

"Why on earth did you put my roses here?" he asked. 

She stared back at him. Her face reflected his astonishment. 

"Why did you put my roses here?" he asked again. 

"Your roses!" she cried, "What! Did _you_ send those roses?"

CHAPTER XXIX. 

THORNS AND ROSE PETALS. 

He remained stooping and staring up at her, realising the implicationof her words only very slowly. 

Then it grew clear to him. 

As she saw understanding dawning in his face, she uttered a cry ofconsternation. She came forward and sat down upon the little bedroomchair. She turned to him and began a sentence. "I, " she said, andstopped, with an impatient gesture of her hands. "_Oh_!"

He straightened himself and stood regarding her. The basket of roseslay overturned between them. 

"You thought these came from someone else?" he said, trying to graspthis inversion of the universe. 

She turned her eyes, "I did not know, " she panted. "A trap.... Was itlikely--they came from you?"

"You thought they came from someone else, " he said. 

"Yes, " she said, "I did. "

"Who?"

"Mr. Baynes. "

"That boy!"

"Yes--that boy. "

"Well!"

Lewisham looked about him--a man in the presence of the inconceivable. 

"You mean to say you have been carrying on with that youngster behindmy back?" he asked. 

She opened her lips to speak and had no words to say. 

His pallor increased until every tinge of colour had left his face. Helaughed and then set his teeth. Husband and wife looked at oneanother. 

"I never dreamt, " he said in even tones. 

He sat down on the bed, thrusting his feet among the scattered roseswith a sort of grim satisfaction. "I never dreamt, " he repeated, andthe flimsy basket kicked by his swinging foot hopped indignantlythrough the folding doors into the living room and left a trail ofblood-red petals. 

They sat for perhaps two minutes, and when he spoke again his voicewas hoarse. He reverted to a former formula. "Look here, " he said, andcleared his throat. "I don't know whether you think I'm going tostand this, but I'm not. "

He looked at her. She sat staring in front of her, making no attemptto cope with disaster. 

"When I say I'm not going to stand it, " explained Lewisham, "I don'tmean having a row or anything of that sort. One can quarrel and bedisappointed over--other things--and still go on. But this is adifferent thing altogether. 

"Of all dreams and illusions!... Think what I have lost in thisaccursed marriage. And _now_ ... You don't understand--you won'tunderstand. "

"Nor you, " said Ethel, weeping but neither looking at him nor movingher hands from her lap where they lay helplessly. "_You_ don'tunderstand. "

"I'm beginning to. "

He sat in silence gathering force. "In one year, " he said, "all myhopes, all my ambitions have gone. I know I have been cross andirritable--I know that. I've been pulled two ways. But ... I boughtyou these roses. "

She looked at the roses, and then at his white face, made animperceptible movement towards him, and became impassive again. 

"I do think one thing. I have found out you are shallow, you don'tthink, you can't feel things that I think and feel. I have beengetting over that. But I did think you were loyal--"

"I _am_ loyal, " she cried. 

"And you think--Bah!--you poke my roses under the table!"

Another portentous silence. Ethel stirred and he turned his eyes towatch what she was about to do. She produced her handkerchief andbegan to wipe her dry eyes rapidly, first one and then the other. Thenshe began sobbing. "I'm ... As loyal as you ... Anyhow, " she said. 

For a moment Lewisham was aghast. Then he perceived he must ignorethat argument. 

"I would have stood it--I would have stood anything if you had beenloyal--if I could have been sure of you. I am a fool, I know, but Iwould have stood the interruption of my work, the loss of any hope ofa Career, if I had been sure you were loyal. I ... I cared for you agreat deal. "

He stopped. He had suddenly perceived the pathetic. He took refuge inanger. 

"And you have deceived me! How long, how much, I don't care. You havedeceived me. And I tell you"--he began to gesticulate--"I'm not somuch your slave and fool as to stand that! No woman shall make me_that_ sort of fool, whatever else--So far as I am concerned, thisends things. This ends things. We are married--but I don't care if wewere married five hundred times. I won't stop with a woman who takesflowers from another man--"

"I _didn't_, " said Ethel. 

Lewisham gave way to a transport of anger. He caught up a handful ofroses and extended them, trembling. "What's _this_?" he asked. Hisfinger bled from a thorn, as once it had bled from a blackthorn spray. 

"I _didn't_ take them, " said Ethel. "I couldn't help it if they weresent. "

"Ugh!" said Lewisham. "But what is the good of argument and denial?You took them in, you had them. You may have been cunning, but youhave given yourself away. And our life and all this"--he waved aninclusive hand at Madam Gadow's furniture--"is at an end. "

He looked at her and repeated with bitter satisfaction, "At an end. "

She glanced at his face, and his expression was remorseless. "I willnot go on living with you, " he said, lest there should be anymistake. "Our life is at an end. "

Her eyes went from his face to the scattered roses. She remainedstaring at these. She was no longer weeping, and her face, save aboutthe eyes, was white. 

He presented it in another form. "I shall go away. "

"We never ought to have married, " he reflected. "But ... I neverexpected _this_!"

"I didn't know, " she cried out, lifting up her voice. "I _didn't_know. How could _I_ help! _Oh_!"

She stopped and stared at him with hands clenched, her eyes haggardwith despair. 

Lewisham remained impenetrably malignant. 

"I don't _want_ to know, " he said, answering her dumb appeal. "Thatsettles everything. _That_!" He indicated the scattered flowers. "Whatdoes it matter to me what has happened or hasn't happened? Anyhow--oh!I don't mind. I'm glad. See? It settles things. 

"The sooner we part the better. I shan't stop with you anothernight. I shall take my box and my portmanteau into that room andpack. I shall stop in there to-night, sleep in a chair or _think_. Andto-morrow I shall settle up with Madam Gadow and go. You can go back... To your cheating. "

He stopped for some seconds. She was deadly still. "You wanted to, and now you may. You wanted to, before I got work. You remember? Youknow your place is still open at Lagune's. I don't care. I tell you Idon't care _that_. Not that! You may go your own way--and I shall gomine. See? And all this rot--this sham of living together when neithercares for the other--I don't care for you _now_, you know, so youneedn't think it--will be over and done with. As for marriage--I don'tcare _that_ for marriage--it can't make a sham and a blunder anythingbut a sham. 

"It's a sham, and shams have to end, and that's the end of thematter. "

He stood up resolutely. He kicked the scattered roses out of his wayand dived beneath the bed for his portmanteau. Ethel neither spokenor moved, but remained watching his movements. For a time theportmanteau refused to emerge, and he marred his stern resolution by ahalf audible "Come here--damn you!" He swung it into the living roomand returned for his box. He proposed to pack in that room. 

When he had taken all his personal possessions out of the bedroom, heclosed the folding-doors with an air of finality. He knew from thesounds that followed that she flung herself upon the bed, and thatfilled him with grim satisfaction. 

He stood listening for a space, then set about packingmethodically. The first rage of discovery had abated; he knew quiteclearly that he was inflicting grievous punishment, and that gratifiedhim. There was also indeed a curious pleasure in the determination ofa long and painful period of vague misunderstanding by this unexpectedcrisis. He was acutely conscious of the silence on the other side ofthe folding-doors, he kept up a succession of deliberate littlenoises, beat books together and brushed clothes, to intimate theresolute prosecution of his preparations. 

That was about nine o'clock. At eleven he was still busy.... 

Darkness came suddenly upon him. It was Madam Gadow's economical habitto turn off all her gas at that hour unless she chanced to beentertaining friends. 

He felt in his pocket for matches and he had none. He whisperedcurses. Against such emergencies he had bought a brass lamp and in thebedroom there were candles. Ethel had a candle alight, he could seethe bright yellow line that appeared between the folding doors. Hefelt his way presently towards the mantel, receiving a blow in theribs from a chair on the way, and went carefully amidst Madam Gadow'sonce amusing ornaments. 

There were no matches on the mantel. Going to the chest of drawers healmost fell over his open portmanteau. He had a silent ecstasy ofrage. Then he kicked against the basket in which the roses hadcome. He could find no matches on the chest of drawers. 

Ethel must have the matches in the bedroom, but that was absolutelyimpossible. He might even have to ask her for them, for at times shepocketed matches.... There was nothing for it but to stoppacking. Not a sound came from the other room. 

He decided he would sit down in the armchair and go to sleep. He creptvery carefully to the chair and sat down. Another interval oflistening and he closed his eyes and composed himself for slumber. 

He began to think over his plans for the morrow. He imagined the scenewith Madam Gadow, and then his departure to find bachelor lodgingsonce more. He debated in what direction he should go to get, suitablelodgings. Possible difficulties with his luggage, possible annoyancesof the search loomed gigantic. He felt greatly irritated at theseminor difficulties. He wondered if Ethel also was packing. Whatparticularly would she do? He listened, but he could hear nothing. She was very still. She was really very still! What could she bedoing? He forgot the bothers of the morrow in this new interest. Presently he rose very softly and listened. Then he sat down againimpatiently. He tried to dismiss his curiosity about the silence byrecapitulating the story of his wrongs. 

He had some difficulty in fixing his mind upon this theme, butpresently his memories were flowing freely. Only it was not wrongsnow that he could recall. He was pestered by an absurd idea that hehad again behaved unjustly to Ethel, that he had been headlong andmalignant. He made strenuous efforts to recover his first heat ofjealousy--in vain. Her remark that she had been as loyal as he, becamean obstinate headline in his mind. Something arose within him thatinsisted upon Ethel's possible fate if he should leave her. Whatparticularly would she do? He knew how much her character leant uponhis, Good Heavens! What might she not do?

By an effort he succeeded in fixing his mind on Baynes. That helpedhim back to the harsher footing. However hard things might be for hershe deserved them. She deserved them!

Yet presently he slipped again, slipped back to the remorse andregrets of the morning time. He clutched at Baynes as a drowning manclutches at a rope, and recovered himself. For a time he meditated onBaynes. He had never seen the poet, so his imagination had scope. Itappeared to him as an exasperating obstacle to a tragic avenging ofhis honour that Baynes was a mere boy--possibly even younger thanhimself. 

The question, "What will become of Ethel?" rose to the surfaceagain. He struggled against its possibilities. No! That was not it!That was her affair. 

He felt inexorably kept to the path he had chosen, for all the waningof his rage. He had put his hand to the plough. "If you condone this, "he told himself, "you might condone anything. There are things one_must_ not stand. " He tried to keep to that point of view--assumingfor the most part out of his imagination what it was he was notstanding. A dim sense came to him of how much he was assuming. At anyrate she must have flirted!... He resisted this reviving perception ofjustice as though it was some unspeakably disgraceful craving. Hetried to imagine her with Baynes. 

He determined he would go to sleep. 

But his was a waking weariness. He tried counting. He tried todistract his thoughts from her by going over the atomic weights of theelements.... 

He shivered, and realised that he was cold and sitting cramped on anuncomfortable horsehair chair. He had dozed. He glanced for the yellowline between the folding doors. It was still there, but it seemed toquiver. He judged the candle must be flaring. He wondered whyeverything was so still. 

Now why should he suddenly feel afraid?

He sat for a long time trying to hear some movement, his head craningforward in the darkness. 

A grotesque idea came into his head that all that had happened a verylong time ago. He dismissed that. He contested an unreasonablepersuasion that some irrevocable thing had passed. But why waseverything so still?

He was invaded by a prevision of unendurable calamity. 

Presently he rose and crept very slowly, and with infinite precautionsagainst noise, towards the folding doors. He stood listening with hisear near the yellow chink. 

He could hear nothing, not even the measured breathing of a sleeper. 

He perceived that the doors were not shut, but slightly ajar. Hepushed against the inner one very gently and opened it silently. Stillthere was no sound of Ethel. He opened the door still wider andpeered into the room. The candle had burnt down and was flaring inits socket. Ethel was lying half undressed upon the bed, and in herhand and close to her face was a rose. 

He stood watching her, fearing to move. He listened hard and his facewas very white. Even now he could not hear her breathing. 

After all, it was probably all right. She was just asleep. He wouldslip back before she woke. If she found him--

He looked at her again. There was something in her face--

He came nearer, no longer heeding the sounds he made. He bent overher. Even now she did not seem to breathe. 

He saw that her eyelashes were still wet, the pillow by her cheek waswet. Her white, tear-stained face hurt him.... 

She was intolerably pitiful to him. He forgot everything but that andhow he had wounded her that day. And then she stirred and murmuredindistinctly a foolish name she had given him. 

He forgot that they were going to part for ever. He felt nothing but agreat joy that she could stir and speak. His jealousy flashed out ofbeing. He dropped upon his knees. 

"Dear, " he whispered, "Is it all right? I ... I could not hear youbreathing. I could not hear you breathing. "

She started and was awake. 

"I was in the other room, " said Lewisham in a voice full ofemotion. "Everything was so quiet, I was afraid--I did not know whathad happened. Dear--Ethel dear. Is it all right?"

She sat up quickly and scrutinised his face. "Oh! let me tell you, "she wailed. "Do let me tell you. It's nothing. It's nothing. Youwouldn't hear me. You wouldn't hear me. It wasn't fair--before you hadheard me.... "

His arms tightened about her. "Dear, " he said, "I knew it wasnothing. I knew. I knew. "

She spoke in sobbing sentences. "It was so simple. Mr. Baynes... Something in his manner ... I knew he might be silly ... Only Idid so want to help you. " She paused. Just for one instant she sawone untenable indiscretion as it were in a lightning flash. A chancemeeting it was, a "silly" thing or so said, a panic, retreat. Shewould have told it--had she known how. But she could not do it. Shehesitated. She abolished it--untold. She went on: "And then, I thoughthe had sent the roses and I was frightened ... I was frightened. "

"Dear one, " said Lewisham. "Dear one! I have been cruel to you. I havebeen unjust. I understand. I do understand. Forgive me. Dearest--forgive me. "

"I did so want to do something for you. It was all I could do--thatlittle money. And then you were angry. I thought you didn't love meany more because I did not understand your work.... And that MissHeydinger--Oh! it was hard. "

"Dear one, " said Lewisham, "I do not care your little finger for MissHeydinger. "

"I know how I hamper you. But if you will help me. Oh! I would work, Iwould study. I would do all I could to understand. "

"Dear, " whispered Lewisham. "_Dear_"

"And to have _her_--"

"Dear, " he vowed, "I have been a brute. I will end all that. I willend all that. "

He took her suddenly into his arms and kissed her. 

"Oh, I _know_ I'm stupid, " she said. 

"You're not. It's I have been stupid. I have been unkind, unreasonable. All to-day--... I've been thinking about it. Dear! Idon't care for anything--It's _you_. If I have you nothing elsematters ... Only I get hurried and cross. It's the work and beingpoor. Dear one, we _must_ hold to each other. All to-day--It's beendreadful.... "

He stopped. They sat clinging to one another. 

"I do love you, " she said presently with her arms about him. "Oh! Ido--_do_--love you. "

He drew her closer to him. 

He kissed her neck. She pressed him to her. 

Their lips met. 

The expiring candle streamed up into a tall flame, flickered, and wassuddenly extinguished. The air was heavy with the scent of roses. 

CHAPTER XXX. 

A WITHDRAWAL. 

On Tuesday Lewisham returned from Vigours' at five--at half-past sixhe would go on to his science class at Walham Green--and discoveredMrs. Chaffery and Ethel in tears. He was fagged and rather anxious forsome tea, but the news they had for him drove tea out of his headaltogether. 

"He's gone, " said Ethel. 

"Who's gone? What! Not Chaffery?"

Mrs. Chaffery, with a keen eye to Lewisham's behaviour, noddedtearfully over an experienced handkerchief. 

Lewisham grasped the essentials of the situation forthwith, andtrembled on the brink of an expletive. Ethel handed him a letter. 

For a moment Lewisham held this in his hand asking;questions. Mrs. Chaffery had come upon it in the case of her eight-dayclock when the time to wind it came round. Chaffery, it seemed, hadnot been home since Saturday night. The letter was an open oneaddressed to Lewisham, a long rambling would-be clever letter, oddlyinferior in style to Chaffery's conversation. It had been written somehours before Chaffery's last visit his talk then had been perhaps asort of codicil. 

"The inordinate stupidity of that man Lagune is driving me out of thecountry, " Lewisham saw. "It has been at last a definite stumblingblock--even a legal stumbling block. I fear. I am off. I skedaddle. Ibreak ties. I shall miss our long refreshing chats--you had found meout and I could open my mind. I am sorry to part from Ethel also, butthank Heaven she has you to look to! And indeed they both have you tolook to, though the 'both' may be a new light to you. "

Lewisham growled, went from page 1 to page 3--conscious of their bothlooking to him now--even intensely--and discovered Chaffery in apractical vein. 

"There is but little light, and portable property in that house inClapham that has escaped my lamentable improvidence, but there are oneor two things--the iron-bound chest, the bureau with a broken hinge, and the large air pump--distinctly pawnable if only you can contriveto get them to a pawnshop. You have more Will power than I--I nevercould get the confounded things downstairs. That iron-bound box wasoriginally mine, before I married your mother-in-law, so that I am notaltogether regardless of your welfare and the necessity of giving someequivalent. Don't judge me too harshly. "

Lewisham turned over sharply without finishing that page. 

"My life at Clapham, " continued the letter, "has irked me for sometime, and to tell you the truth, the spectacle of your vigorous younghappiness--you are having a very good time, you know, fighting theworld--reminded me of the passing years. To be frank inself-criticism, there is more than a touch of the New Woman about me, and I feel I have still to live my own life. What a beautiful phrasethat is--to live one's own life!--redolent of honest scorn for moralplagiarism. No _Imitatio Christi_ in that ... I long to see more ofmen and cities.... I begin late, I know, to live my own life, bald asI am and grey-whiskered; but better late than never. Why should theeducated girl have the monopoly of the game? And after all, thewhiskers will dye.... 

"There are things--I touch upon them lightly--that will presentlyastonish Lagune. " Lewisham became more attentive. "I marvel at thatman, grubbing hungry for marvels amidst the almost incrediblymarvellous. What can be the nature of a man who gapes afterPoltergeists with the miracle of his own silly existence(inconsequent, reasonless, unfathomably weird) nearer to him thanbreathing and closer than hands and feet. What is _he_ for, that heshould wonder at Poltergeists? I am astonished these by no meansflimsy psychic phenomena do not turn upon their investigators, andthat a Research Society of eminent illusions and hallucinations doesnot pursue Lagune with sceptical! inquiries. Take his house--exposethe alleged man of Chelsea! _A priori_ they might argue that a thingso vain, so unmeaning, so strongly beset by cackle, could only be thediseased imagining of some hysterical phantom. Do _you_ believe thatsuch a thing as Lagune exists? I must own to the gravest doubts. Buthappily his banker is of a more credulous type than I.... Of all thatLagune will tell you soon enough. "

Lewisham read no more. "I suppose he thought himself clever when hewrote that rot, " said Lewisham bitterly, throwing the sheets forciblyathwart the table. "The simple fact is, he's stolen, or forged, orsomething--and bolted. "

There was a pause. "What will become of Mother?" said Ethel. 

Lewisham looked at Mother and thought for a moment. Then he glancedat Ethel. 

"We're all in the same boat, " said Lewisham. 

"I don't want to give any trouble to a single human being, " saidMrs. Chaffery. 

"I think you might get a man his tea, Ethel, " said Lewisham, sittingdown suddenly; "anyhow. " He drummed on the table with his fingers. "Ihave to get to Walham Green by a quarter to seven. "

"We're all in the same boat, " he repeated after an interval, andcontinued drumming. He was chiefly occupied by the curious fact thatthey were all in the same boat. What an extraordinary faculty he hadfor acquiring responsibility! He looked up suddenly and caughtMrs. Chaffery's tearful eye directed to Ethel and full of distressfulinterrogation, and his perplexity was suddenly changed to pity. "It'sall right, Mother, " he said. "I'm not going to be unreasonable. I'llstand by you. "

"Ah!" said Mrs. Chaffery. "As if I didn't know!" and Ethel came andkissed him. 

He seemed in imminent danger of universal embraces. 

"I wish you'd let me have my tea, " he said. And while he had his teahe asked Mrs. Chaffery questions and tried to get the new situationinto focus. 

But even at ten o'clock, when he was returning hot and jaded fromWalham Green, he was still trying to get the situation intofocus. There were vague ends and blank walls of interrogation in thematter, that perplexed him. 

He knew that his supper would be only the prelude to an interminable"talking over, " and indeed he did not get to bed until nearly two. Bythat time a course of action was already agreed upon. Mrs. Chafferywas tied to the house in Clapham by a long lease, and thither theymust go. The ground floor and first floor were let unfurnished, andthe rent of these practically paid the rent of the house. TheChafferys occupied basement and second floor. There was a bedroom onthe second floor, formerly let to the first floor tenants, that he andEthel could occupy, and in this an old toilet table could be put forsuch studies as were to be prosecuted at home. Ethel could have hertypewriter in the subterranean breakfast-room. Mrs. Chaffery and Ethelmust do the catering and the bulk of the housework, and as soon aspossible, since letting lodgings would not square with Lewisham'sprofessional pride, they must get rid of the lease that bound them andtake some smaller and more suburban residence. If they did thatwithout leaving any address it might save their feelings from anyreturn of the prodigal Chaffery. 

Mrs. Chaffery's frequent and pathetic acknowledgments of Lewisham'sgoodness only partly relieved his disposition to a philosophicalbitterness. And the practical issues were complicated by excursionsupon the subject of Chaffery, what he might have done, and where hemight have gone, and whether by any chance he might not return. 

When at last Mrs. Chaffery, after a violent and tearful kissing andblessing of them both--they were "good dear children, " she said--haddeparted, Mr. And Mrs. Lewisham returned into their sitting-room. Mrs. Lewisham's little face was enthusiastic. "You're a Trump, " shesaid, extending the willing arms that were his reward. "I know, " shesaid, "I know, and all to-night I have been loving you. Dear! Dear!Dear.... "

The next day Lewisham was too full of engagements to communicate withLagune, but the following morning he called and found the psychicinvestigator busy with the proofs of _Hesperus_. He welcomed the youngman cordially nevertheless, conceiving him charged with the questionsthat had been promised long ago--it was evident he knew nothing ofLewisham's marriage. Lewisham stated his case with some bluntness. 

"He was last here on Saturday, " said Lagune. "You have always beeninclined to suspicion about him. Have you any grounds?"

"You'd better read this, " said Lewisham, repressing a grim smile, andhe handed Lagune Chaffery's letter. 

He glanced at the little man ever and again to see if he had come tothe personal portion, and for the rest of the time occupied himselfwith an envious inventory of the writing appointments about him. Nodoubt the boy with the big ears had had the same sort of thing ... 

When Lagune came to the question of his real identity he blew out hischeeks in the most astonishing way, but made no other sign. 

"Dear, dear!" he said at last. "My bankers!"

He looked at Lewisham with the exaggerated mildness of his spectacledeye. "What do you think it means?" he asked. "Has he gone mad? We havebeen conducting some experiments involving--considerable mentalstrain. He and I and a lady. Hypnotic--"

"I should look at my cheque-book if I were you. "

Lagune produced some keys and got out his cheque book. He turned overthe counterfoils. "There's nothing wrong here, " he said, and handedthe book to Lewisham. 

"Um, " said Lewisham. "I suppose this--I say, is _this_ right?"

He handed back the book to Lagune, open at the blank counterfoil of acheque that had been removed. Lagune stared and passed his hand overhis forehead in a confused way. "I can't see this, " he said. 

Lewisham had never heard of post hypnotic suggestion and he stoodincredulous. "You can't see that?" he said. "What nonsense!"

"I can't see it, " repeated Lagune. 

For some seconds Lewisham could not get away from stupid repetitionsof his inquiry. Then he hit upon a collateral proof. "But look here!Can you see _this_ counterfoil?"

"Plainly, " said Lagune. 

"Can you read the number?"

"Five thousand two hundred and seventy-nine. "

"Well, and this?"

"Five thousand two hundred and eighty-one. "

"Well--where's five thousand two hundred and eighty?"

Lagune began to look uncomfortable. "Surely, " he said, "he hasnot--Will you read it out--the cheque, the counterfoil I mean, that Iam unable to see?"

"It's blank, " said Lewisham with an irresistible grin. 

"Surely, " said Lagune, and the discomfort of his expressiondeepened. "Do you mind if I call in a servant to confirm--?"

Lewisham did not mind, and the same girl who had admitted him to the_séance_ appeared. When she had given her evidence she went again. Asshe left the room by the door behind Lagune her eyes met Lewisham's, and she lifted her eyebrows, depressed her mouth, and glanced atLagune with a meaning expression. 

"I'm afraid, " said Lagune, "that I have been shabbily treated. Mr. Chaffery is a man of indisputable powers--indisputable powers; butI am afraid--I am very much afraid he has abused the conditions of theexperiment. All this--and his insults--touch me rather nearly. "

He paused. Lewisham rose. "Do you mind if you come again?" askedLagune with gentle politeness. 

Lewisham was surprised to find himself sorry. 

"He was a man of extraordinary gifts, " said Lagune. "I had come torely upon him.... My cash balance has been rather heavy lately. How hecame to know of that I am unable to say. Without supposing, that is, that he had very remarkable gifts. "

When Lewisham saw Lagune again he learnt the particulars of Chaffery'smisdeed and the additional fact that the "lady" had alsodisappeared. "That's a good job, " he remarked selfishly. "There's nochance of _his_ coming back. " He spent a moment trying to imagine the"lady"; he realised more vividly than he had ever done before thenarrow range of his experience, the bounds of his imagination. Thesepeople also--with grey hair and truncated honour--had their emotions IEven it may be glowing! He came back to facts. Chaffery had inducedLagune when hypnotised to sign a blank cheque as an "autograph. " "Thestrange thing is, " explained Lagune, "it's doubtful if he's legallyaccountable. The law is so peculiar about hypnotism and I certainlysigned the cheque, you know. "

The little man, in spite of his losses, was now almost cheerful againon account of a curious side issue. "You may say it is coincidence, "he said, "you may call it a fluke, but I prefer to look for some otherinterpretation! Consider this. The amount of my balance is a secretbetween me and my bankers. He never had it from _me_, for I did notknow it--I hadn't looked at my passbook for months. But he drew it allin one cheque, within seventeen and sixpence of the total. And thetotal was over five hundred pounds!"

He seemed quite bright again as he culminated. 

"Within seventeen and sixpence, " he said. "Now how do you account forthat, eh? Give me a materialistic explanation that will explain awayall that. You can't. Neither can I. "

"I think I can, " said Lewisham. 

"Well--what is it?"

Lewisham nodded towards a little drawer of the bureau. "Don't youthink--perhaps"--a little ripple of laughter passed across hismind--"he had a skeleton key?"

Lagune's face lingered amusingly in Lewisham's mind as he returned toClapham. But after a time that amusement passed away. He declined uponthe extraordinary fact that Chaffery was his father-in-law, Mrs. Chaffery his mother-in-law, that these two and Ethel constituted hisfamily, his clan, and that grimy graceless house up the Claphamhillside was to be his home. Home! His connexion with these things asa point of worldly departure was as inexorable now as though he hadbeen born to it. And a year ago, except for a fading reminiscence ofEthel, none of these people had existed for him. The ways of Destiny!The happenings of the last few months, foreshortened in perspective, seemed to have almost a pantomimic rapidity. The thing took himsuddenly as being laughable; and he laughed. 

His laugh marked an epoch. Never before had Lewisham laughed at anyfix in which he had found himself! The enormous seriousness ofadolescence was coming to an end; the days of his growing werenumbered. It was a laugh of infinite admissions. 

CHAPTER XXXI. 

IN BATTERSEA PARK. 

Now although Lewisham had promised to bring things to a conclusionwith Miss Heydinger, he did nothing in the matter for five weeks, hemerely left that crucial letter of hers unanswered. In that time theirremoval from Madam Gadow's into the gaunt house at Clapham wasaccomplished--not without polyglot controversy--and the young couplesettled themselves into the little room on the second floor even asthey had arranged. And there it was that suddenly the world waschanged--was astonishingly transfigured--by a whisper. 

It was a whisper between sobs and tears, with Ethel's arms about himand Ethel's hair streaming down so that it hid her face from him. Andhe too had whispered, dismayed perhaps a little, and yet feeling astrange pride, a strange novel emotion, feeling altogether differentfrom the things he had fancied he might feel when this thing that hehad dreaded should come. Suddenly he perceived finality, the advent ofthe solution, the reconciliation of the conflict that had been wagedso long. Hesitations were at an end;--he took his line. 

Next day he wrote a note, and two mornings later he started for hismathematical duffers an hour before it was absolutely necessary, andinstead of going directly to Vigours', went over the bridge toBattersea Park. There waiting for him by a seat where once they hadmet before, he found Miss Heydinger pacing. They walked up and downside by side, speaking for a little while about indifferent topics, and then they came upon a pause ... 

"You have something to tell me?" said Miss Heydinger abruptly. 

Lewisham changed colour a little. "Oh yes, " he said; "the fact is--"He affected ease. "Did I ever tell you I was married?"

"_Married_?"

"Yes. "

"Married!"

"Yes, " a little testily. 

For a moment neither spoke. Lewisham stood without dignity staring atthe dahlias of the London County Council, and Miss Heydinger stoodregarding him. 

"And that is what you have to tell me?"

Mr. Lewisham tamed and met her eyes. "Yes!" he said. "That is what Ihave to tell you. "

Pause. "Do you mind if I sit down?" asked Miss Heydinger in anindifferent tone. 

"There is a seat yonder, " said Lewisham, "under the tree. "

They walked to the seat in silence. 

"Now, " said Miss Heydinger, quietly. "Tell me whom you have married. "

Lewisham answered sketchily. She asked him another question andanother. He felt stupid and answered with a halting truthfulness. 

"I might have known, " she said, "I might have known. Only I would notknow. Tell me some more. Tell me about her. "

Lewisham did. The whole thing was abominably disagreeable to him, butit had to be done, he had promised Ethel it should be done. PresentlyMiss Heydinger knew the main outline of his story, knew all his storyexcept, the emotion that made it credible. "And you weremarried--before the second examination?" she repeated. 

"Yes, " said Lewisham. 

"But why did you not tell me of this before?" asked Miss Heydinger. 

"I don't, know, " said Lewisham. "I wanted to--that day, in KensingtonGardens. But I didn't. I suppose I ought to have done so. "

"I think you ought to have done so. "

"Yes, I suppose I ought ... But I didn't. Somehow--it has been hard. Ididn't know what you would say. The thing seemed so rash, you know, and all that. "

He paused blankly. 

"I suppose you had to do it, " said Miss Heydinger presently, with hereyes on his profile. 

Lewisham began the second and more difficult part of hisexplanation. "There's been a difficulty, " he said, "all the wayalong--I mean--about you, that is. It's a little difficult--The factis, my life, you know--She looks at things differently from what wedo. "

"We?"

"Yes--it's odd, of course. But she has seen your letters--"

"You didn't show her--?"

"No. But, I mean, she knows you write to me, and she knows you writeabout Socialism and Literature and--things we have in common--thingsshe hasn't. "

"You mean to say she doesn't understand these things?"

"She's not thought about them. I suppose there's a sort of differencein education--"

"And she objects--?"

"No, " said Lewisham, lying promptly. "She doesn't _object_ ... "

"Well?" said Miss Heydinger, and her face was white. 

"She feels that--She feels--she does not say, of course, but I knowshe feels that it is something she ought to share. I know--how shecares for me. And it shames her--it reminds her--Don't you see how ithurts her?"

"Yes. I see. So that even that little--" Miss Heydinger's breathseemed to catch and she was abruptly silent. 

She spoke at last with an effort. "That it hurts _me_, " she said, andgrimaced and stopped again. 

"No, " said Lewisham, "that is not it. " He hesitated. 

"I _knew_ this would hurt you. "

"You love her. You can sacrifice--"

"No. It is not that. But there is a difference. Hurting _her_--shewould not understand. But you--somehow it seems a natural thing for meto come to you. I seem to look to you--For her I am always makingallowances--"

"You love her. "

"I wonder if it _is_ that makes the difference. Things are socomplex. Love means anything--or nothing. I know you better than I doher, you know me better than she will ever do. I could tell you thingsI could not tell her. I could put all myself before you--almost--andknow you would understand--Only--"

"You love her. "

"Yes, " said Lewisham lamely and pulling at his moustache. "I suppose... That must be it. "

For a space neither spoke. Then Miss Heydinger said "_Oh_!" withextraordinary emphasis. 

"To think of this end to it all! That all your promise ... What is itshe gives that I could not have given?

"Even now! Why should I give up that much of you that is mine? If shecould take it--But she cannot take it. If I let you go--you will donothing. All this ambition, all these interests will dwindle and die, and she will not mind. She will not understand. She will think thatshe still has you. Why should she covet what she cannot possess? Whyshould she be given the thing that is mine--to throw aside?"

She did not look at Lewisham, but before her, her face a white misery. 

"In a way--I had come to think of you as something, belonging to me... I shall--still. "

"There is one thing, " said Lewisham after a pause, "it is a thing thathas come to me once or twice lately Don't you think that perhaps youover-estimate the things I might have done? I know we've talked ofgreat things to do. But I've been struggling for half a year and moreto get the sort of living almost anyone seems able to get. It hastaken me all my time. One can't help thinking after that, perhaps theworld is a stiffer sort of affair ... "

"No, " she said decisively. "You could have done great things. 

"Even now, " she said, "you may do great things--If only I might seeyou sometimes, write to you sometimes--You are so capableand--weak. You must have somebody--That is your weakness. You fail inyour belief. You must have support and belief--unstinted support andbelief. Why could I not be that to you? It is all I want to be. Atleast--all I want to be now. Why need she know? It robs her ofnothing. I want nothing--she has. But I know of my own strength too Ican do nothing. I know that with you ... It is only knowing hurtsher. Why should she know?"

Mr. Lewisham looked at her doubtfully. That phantom greatness of his, it was that lit her eyes. In that instant, at least he had no doubtsof the possibility of his Career. But he knew that in some way thesecret of his greatness and this admiration went together. Conceivablythey were one and indivisible. Why indeed need Ethel know? Hisimagination ran over the things that might be done, the things thatmight happen, and touched swiftly upon complication, confusion, discovery. 

"The thing is, I must simplify my life. I shall do nothing unless Isimplify my life. Only people who are well off can be--complex. It isone thing or the other--"

He hesitated and suddenly had a vision of Ethel weeping as once he hadseen her weep with the light on the tears in her eyes. 

"No, " he said almost brutally. "No. It's like this--I can't doanything underhand. I mean--I'm not so amazingly honest--now. But I'venot that sort of mind. She would find me out. It would do no good andshe would find me out. My life's too complex. I can't manage it and gostraight. I--you've overrated me. And besides--Things havehappened. Something--" He hesitated and then snatched at his resolve, "I've got to simplify--and that's the plain fact of the case. I'msorry, but it is so. "

Miss Heydinger made no answer. Her silence astonished him. For nearlytwenty seconds perhaps they sat without speaking. With a quick motionshe stood up, and at once he stood up before her. Her face wasflushed, her eyes downcast. 

"Good-bye, " she said suddenly in a low tone and held out her hand. 

"But, " said Lewisham and stopped. Miss Heydinger's colour left her. 

"Good-bye, " she said, looking him suddenly in the eyes and smilingawry. "There is no more to say, is there? Good-bye. "

He took her hand. "I hope I didn't--"

"Good-bye, " she said impatiently, and suddenly disengaged her hand andturned away from him. He made a step after her. 

"Miss Heydinger, " he said, but she did not stop. "Miss Heydinger. " Herealised that she did not want to answer him again.... 

He remained motionless, watching her retreating figure. Anextraordinary sense of loss came into his mind, a vague impulse topursue her and pour out vague passionate protestations.... 

Not once did she look back. She was already remote when he beganhurrying after her. Once he was in motion he quickened his pace andgained upon her. He was within thirty yards of her as she drew nearthe gates. 

His pace slackened. Suddenly he was afraid she might look back. Shepassed out of the gates, out of his sight. He stopped, looking whereshe had disappeared. He sighed and took the pathway to his left thatled back to the bridge and Vigours'. 

Halfway across this bridge came another crisis of indecision. Hestopped, hesitating. An impertinent thought obtruded. He looked at hiswatch and saw that he must hurry if he would catch the train forEarl's Court and Vigours'. He said Vigours' might go to the devil. 

But in the end he caught his train. 

CHAPTER XXXII. 

THE CROWNING VICTORY. 

That night about seven Ethel came into their room with a waste-paperbasket she had bought for him, and found him sitting at the littletoilet table at which he was to "write. " The outlook was, for a Londonoutlook, spacious, down a long slope of roofs towards the Junction, ahuge sky of blue passing upward to the darkling zenith and downwardinto a hazy bristling mystery of roofs and chimneys, from whichemerged signal lights and steam puffs, gliding chains of lit windowcarriages and the vague vistas of streets. She showed him the basketand put it beside him, and then her eye caught the yellow document inhis hand. "What is that you have there?"

He held it out to her. "I found it--lining my yellow box. I had it atWhortley. "

She took it and perceived a chronological scheme. It was headed"SCHEMA, " there were memoranda in the margin, and all the dates hadbeen altered by a hasty hand. 

"Hasn't it got yellow?" she said. 

That seemed to him the wrong thing for her to say. He stared at thedocument with a sudden accession of sympathy. There was aninterval. He became aware of her hand upon his shoulder, that she wasbending over him. "Dear, " she whispered, with a strange change in thequality of her voice. He knew she was seeking to say something thatwas difficult to say. 

"Yes?" he said presently. 

"You are not grieving?"

"What about?"

"_This_. "

"No!"

"You are not--you are not even sorry?" she said. 

"No--not even sorry. "

"I can't understand that. It's so much--"

"I'm glad, " he proclaimed. "_Glad. "_

"But--the trouble--the expense--everything--and your work?"

"Yes, " he said, "that's just it. "

She looked at him doubtfully. He glanced up at her, and she questionedhis eyes. He put his arm about her, and presently and almostabsent-mindedly she obeyed his pressure and bent down and kissed him. 

"It settles things, " he said, holding her. "It joins us. Don't yousee? Before ... But now it's different. It's something we have betweenus. It's something that ... It's the link we needed. It will hold ustogether, cement us together. It will be our life. This will be mywork now. The other ... "

He faced a truth. "It was just ... Vanity!"

There was still a shade of doubt in her face, a wistfulness. 

Presently she spoke. 

"Dear, " she said. 

"Yes?"

She knitted her brows. "No!" she said. "I can't say it. "

In the interval she came into a sitting position on his knees. 

He kissed her hand, but her face remained grave, and she looked outupon the twilight. "I know I'm stupid, " she said. "The things I say... Aren't the things I feel. "

He waited for her to say more. 

"It's no good, " she said. 

He felt the onus of expression lay on him. He too found it a littledifficult to put into words. "I think I understand, " he said, andwrestled with the impalpable. The pause seemed long and yet notaltogether vacant. She lapsed abruptly into the prosaic. She startedfrom him. 

"If I don't go down, Mother will get supper ... "

At the door she stopped and turned a twilight face to him. For amoment they scrutinised one another. To her he was no more than a dimoutline. Impulsively he held out his arms.... 

Then at the sound of a movement downstairs she freed herself andhurried out. He heard her call "Mother! You're not to laysupper. You're to rest. "

He listened to her footsteps until the kitchen had swallowed themup. Then he turned his eyes to the Schema again and for a moment itseemed but a little thing. 

He picked it up in both hands and looked at it as if it was thewriting of another man, and indeed it was the writing of anotherman. "Pamphlets in the Liberal Interest, " he read, and smiled. 

Presently a train of thought carried him off. His attitude relaxed alittle, the Schema became for a time a mere symbol, a point ofdeparture, and he stared out of the window at the darkling night. Fora long time he sat pursuing thoughts that were half emotions, emotionsthat took upon themselves the shape and substance of ideas. Thedeepening current stirred at last among the roots of speech. 

"Yes, it was vanity, " he said. "A boy's vanity. For me--anyhow. I'mtoo two-sided.... Two-sided?... Commonplace!

"Dreams like mine--abilities like mine. Yes--any man! And yet ... --Thethings I meant to do!"

His thoughts went to his Socialism, to his red-hot ambition of worldmending. He marvelled at the vistas he had discovered since thosedays. 

"Not for us--Not for us. 

"We must perish in the wilderness. --Some day. Somewhen. But not forus.... 

"Come to think, it is all the Child. The future is the Child. TheFuture. What are we--any of us--but servants or traitors to that?... 

 * * * * *

"Natural Selection--it follows ... This way is happiness ... Mustbe. There can be no other. "

He sighed. "To last a lifetime, that is. 

"And yet--it is almost as if Life had played me a trick--promised somuch--given so little!... 

"No! One must not look at it in that way! That will not do! That will_not_ do. 

"Career! In itself it is a career--the most important career in theworld. Father! Why should I want more?

"And ... Ethel! No wonder she seemed shallow ... She has beenshallow. No wonder she was restless. Unfulfilled ... What had she todo? She was drudge, she was toy ... 

"Yes. This is life. This alone is life! For this we were made andborn. All these other things--all other things--they are only a sortof play.... 

"Play!"

His eyes came back to the Schema. His hands shifted to the oppositecorner and he hesitated. The vision of that arranged Career, thatordered sequence of work and successes, distinctions and yet furtherdistinctions, rose brightly from the symbol. Then he compressed hislips and tore the yellow sheet in half, tearing very deliberately. Hedoubled the halves and tore again, doubled again very carefully andneatly until the Schema was torn into numberless little pieces. Withit he seemed to be tearing his past self. 

"Play, " he whispered after a long silence. 

"It is the end of adolescence, " he said; "the end of empty dreams.... "

He became very still, his hands resting on the table, his eyes staringout of the blue oblong of the window. The dwindling light gathereditself together and became a star. 

He found he was still holding the torn fragments. He stretched outhis hand and dropped them into that new waste-paper basket Ethel hadbought for him. 

Two pieces fell outside the basket. He stooped, picked them up, andput them carefully with their fellows.