BROTHERS (continued 7)

"Yes," said Betty; "it makes me laugh."

When the maid left the room, Betty sat down by the window which overlooked the gardens below, the gardens typical of such houses as the one she was leaving—conventionally laid out, fenced with sharply pointed iron palings, pleasure grounds wherein no person, out of their teens, took any pleasure whatever. Betty could see two children and a gaunt governess walking primly along one of the broad well-swept paths. One child, a nice fat little girl, escaped from bondage, hiding behind a bush. Betty could hear the voice of the governess calling to her, and then a sharp rebuke, as the truant came toddling back to the path.

"If my baby had lived——"

She put the baby out of her thoughts. If it had lived, she and the child might have remained inside iron palings.

Then, very deliberately, she faced the future. Her money was settled on herself. Mark and she could live where they pleased, as they pleased. If one place proved disagreeable they could move on and on; the world was wide.

She smiled happily and contentedly. Many women, at such a moment, would have been distraught by anxiety and fear. But Betty was gladder than she had ever felt before. Indeed, she was triumphant. She told herself that every instinct she had tried to suppress was vindicated gloriously. To such a proud, refined woman the memory that she had flung herself at Mark's head had been always a dire humiliation, the more so because she had never measured the width and depth of his feeling for her. She repeated the phrase, "He has always loved me," again and again, letting the sweetness of it linger upon her lips.

The inevitable sacrifice—the fact which Mark plainly pointed out that she, the woman, had more to lose than the man—was acclaimed. Hitherto, love—whether love of niece for uncle, of friend for friend, of wife for husband—had exacted nothing from her. She had been extremely generous with her money, giving away far more than the tithe. But the signing of cheques had not included one genuine act of self-denial on her part. Whatever she had done had been accomplished without effort, without pain.

Her thoughts turned from herself to Mark. Immediately the smile faded from her face.

How cruelly he had suffered! And with what a pleasant smile, with how gay a laugh he had confronted ill-health, ill-fortune, and disappointment!

"I shall be so good to him," she swore beneath her breath. "I shall make it up to him—and I know how to do it."

Here, again, what had gone before might be reckoned as fuel for the feeding of love's flames. She was no green girl, but a woman who understood men, who could speak the right word at the right time, and had learned to hold her tongue.

"We shall be the happiest pair in the world."

Presently her eye fell upon the small bag she had carried to Weybridge. In it were the two sermons. She rose from her chair, hesitated a moment, and opened the bag. The sermons, she decided, must be locked up in one of the trunks she was leaving behind. The first sermon she had read the night before, but the second she had not read.

She looked at her watch. Then she picked up the Windsor sermon, and sat down to read it, because, reading it, she would hear not Archibald's voice, but Mark's.

The text met her eyes. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

She read no further. The MS. fell from her fingers, and rolled upon the carpet. Betty did not see it, because she saw nothing. The familiar room, the gardens below, the great city beyond, faded from her vision. Darkness encompassed her. And out of the darkness, like the writing upon the wall of Belshazzar's palace in Babylon, flared the words of the text.

Suddenly, with a violence of contrast which convulsed her, the darkness was dispelled, and she saw, even as Saul of Tarsus saw, a great light. If she read Mark's sermon, if she listened to the pleading voice of the priest, she would fail to keep tryst with the man, not because she feared for herself, but because this question could not be evaded: "Will my impurity prove a curse to him?"

Bending down, she picked up the sheaf of papers, and thrust them fiercely into the trunk, which stood open near the window. Then she sank back into the chair, covering her face with her hands....

So sitting, she was transported to the ancient, banner-hung chapel, wherein her husband had preached before his sovereign. But in the pulpit stood Mark, not his brother, and Mark as she remembered him long ago, the Mark of King's Charteris days, thin, pale, strong only in spirit; yet how strong, how valiant in that!

But he was mute, save for the pleading of the eloquent eyes. Beneath the spell of these Betty rose once more, and stood beside the trunk, staring into it.

Thus standing, she heard the clock in the tower of St. Anne's strike four. At that moment David Ross was praying for her and Mark, praying and believing that his prayer would be answered.

Betty picked up the MS., locked the door, fell on her knees, and read the sermon through.

She was still kneeling when the clock struck five. One hour had passed. Mark was nearing Charing Cross. She rose from her knees, and sat down to write a letter: an intolerably difficult task, which must be accomplished in a few minutes. She stared dully at the blank sheet of paper in front of her; then she wrote:—

"I have read your sermon, the one preached at Windsor. Because of that I cannot come to you, and I entreat you not to come to me. Mark, my best beloved, I tempted you. May God forgive me! And I know—I know, I say—that He has stretched forth His hand to save us. And He willed that your words—what is best in you—the greatest thing you ever did—should stand between us. I cannot lower the Mark who wrote that sermon to my level. Oh, Mark, will you curse me as faithless? Or will you know that it is not my wretched soul I seek to save, but yours—yours.

"As soon as this is sent off I shall go to a friend's till Archibald returns. I must tell him the truth."

Archibald Samphire returned from the Midlands to find a new house set in order and his wife awaiting him. He advanced to greet her with a warm word of affection and congratulation. But she held up her hand, and before the distress in her eyes he recoiled, astonished and dismayed.

Although Betty knew that the lapse from honour involved in preaching another's sermon was as nothing compared with the sin she had contemplated, still she felt that the charge against her husband must be dealt with first. In a few words she told him of the breaking open of his desk and the discovery of Mark's MSS. He exhibited no confusion, but his expression changed and in a manner so amazing that Betty let fall a sharp exclamation.

"I am glad you know," he said simply.

His voice, his face, his fine massive figure expressed relief. She repeated his words:

"You are glad that I know?"

She had made sure that he would excuse himself blandly, with dignity, looking down upon her; and she had told herself that his carefully chosen words would flood her with contempt, the stronger because her own speech would prove halting and unrestrained.

"Yes, yes. I was a coward. I meant to tell you: I swear it, but I couldn't." Then he repeated the phrase he had used to Mark: "God knows it has been a secret sore."

"Why couldn't you tell me?" she asked.

"Because the right moment for doing so slipped by me."

"You married me under false pretences."

"Eh?"

"You wooed me with Mark's words."

"Wooed you with—Mark's—words? I can't follow you."

And here he stated a fact. He had neither the ability nor the intuition to follow a woman down the tortuous path of her feelings and aspirations. But at this moment he became aware that something dreadful remained to be said. Betty's pale, haggard face, her trembling fingers, her panting bosom, revealed an agitation which communicated itself to him. Let us be fair to a man with inexorable limitations. He had always believed that Betty married him for love. And he too had married for love—and other things which he valued; but the other things without love would not have tempted him to a mere marriage of convenience. And marriage with Betty had seemed at the time and afterwards the one thing needful: rounding a life too square, lending colour and sparkle to a profession whose habit is sable. If at times he had been vouchsafed a glimpse of barriers between his wife and himself, he attributed these to difference of sex. But till this minute he had believed her love as much an inalienable possession as his name. There was no love in the face half turned from his.

"You can't follow me," she repeated slowly. "That is true enough. Years ago, when we were children—babies—I loved Mark, and he loved me."

"Paul and Virginia!"

"Yes, yes, Paul and Virginia."

"We all knew that. At one time I thought you would marry Mark."

"He never asked me," she replied, with blazing cheeks. "If he had, I should have married him, sick or well. I supposed that he didn't want me."

"Why, so did I."

She met his eyes fiercely.

"You swear that?"

"Certainly. Great heavens! You don't think that if I had thought otherwise I should have tried to supplant him. He went away and left the field open to all comers—Jim Corrance, Harry Kirtling—and me."

"I have done you an injustice," Betty faltered.

At this Archibald's sense of what was fitting asserted itself. "Come, come," he said, "I regret profoundly that I did not frankly avow those two sermons to be Mark's. I do not expect you to forgive me in a minute, but you are generous, sensible, and my wife. We must take up our lives where we left them less than a week ago."

"That is impossible," said Betty.

She felt a great pity for him. The blow must fall with hideous violence, shattering the man's just pride in what he had accomplished. His extraordinary success seemed of a sudden to be transformed into an immense bubble about to be pricked by a word.

And when the word was spoken, when he knew everything, Betty saw what Mark had seen upon the night that the baby was born—the collapse of a personality. The big man who was to fill Lord Vauxhall's Basilica dwindled into a boy with the puzzled, wondering eyes of youth confronted for the first time with what it cannot understand. Betty felt old enough to be his mother, when he stammered out: "You—you have done this thing?"

"I might have done it," she answered gently.

He broke down.

"I have lost my brother and my wife," he groaned. "my brother and my wife."

Instantly Betty realised what Mark had always known—the weakness of the colossus. And this knowledge that she was the stronger took the chill from her heart, restoring magically her moral circulation. Looking at him, she wondered how she could have blinded herself to his true proportions. She had deemed him a Titan!

"What are you going to do?" he asked presently.

"That is for you to say. If you choose to put me from you——"

He interrupted her.

"You would go to him."

"No."

He rose up and began to pace the room, glancing furtively at his wife, who never moved. Suddenly, seizing her arm, and speaking in a loud, trembling voice, he exclaimed: "Mark is dead—you understand that? Say it; say it!"

"Mark is dead," she repeated sombrely.

CHAPTER XXXVI

FENELLA

Mark went abroad immediately after the events narrated in the last chapter, and remained abroad for many months, trying to drown recollection of Betty in printer's ink. By a tremendous effort of will and unremitting grind he nearly succeeded, but at times he could see nothing save her face, hear nothing save her voice, feel nothing save the touch of her lips upon his. After these visitations he was beset by a Comus' crew of spectres: the innumerable disappointments of his life: toute l'amertume et tout le déboire de mille événements fâcheux.

However, Compensation ordained that his Songs of the Angels should please a certain section of the American public, and a substantial cheque crossed the Atlantic in a letter from Cyrus Otway, who asked for another novel. Mark had learned to use his pen (as Conquest once put it); but recognition—the acclaim of the multitude—seemed indefinitely remote. A Soul Errant appeared, and was pronounced by reviewers an admirable piece of work, but its sales were limited to a few thousand copies.

From George Samphire, Mark learned that Archibald and Betty had entertained royalty upon the occasion when the first service was held in the Basilica. Tommy Greatorex wrote: "Your big brother is booming Vauxhall's new neighbourhood, and no mistake!" From Betty herself came no word whatever. Archibald, so Mark told himself, had forgiven her, determined to preserve appearances, to keep the wife with wealth and beauty, to guard her zealously from the man who had tried to deprive him of so valuable a possession. Once again, hatred of Archibald consumed him. In his heart he knew that Betty was pining for one line—the generous "I forgive you. I understand." But these words he could not write. He believed that she had failed him, that she had lacked courage, and lacking it, had grasped the first excuse pat to lip and hand. It seemed incredible that a sermon should stand between a woman and the man she loved. Curiously enough, he could not recall a line of this sermon thrown off, as it had been, in a brief fever of excitement and enthusiasm. Again and again, he repeated to himself the beatitude, and wondered what he had found to say about it.

On his return to England he moved from Weybridge to Hampstead, where another shelter was built in a small garden overlooking the Heath.

Meantime, Mary Dew had married Albert Batley, and when Mark paid her a brief visit he found the bride beaming, obviously content with her lot, and very proud of her husband's success as a contractor. Mrs. Dew explained matters:

"You see, Mr. Samphire, it's like this: Albert Batley just worships Mary, and she makes him very comfortable. Tasty meals go a long way with men who have a living to earn in this cruel, hard world."

Just as he was leaving Mary said shyly: "I hope, Mr. Samphire, we shall hear of your getting married. If ever a gentleman wanted a wife to look after him, you are he."

Mark laughed; then he replied in his easy, genial way: "Yes, yes; if you had a twin sister, Honeydew, I should ask her to live up a tree with me."

Alone at Hampstead, he wondered whether a wife was waiting for him somewhere: a kind, sweet creature, who would teach him to forget. Drax had told him that, humanly speaking, he was now free from that insidious disease which spares so few of its victims. With care he might live out his three-score years and ten; he could marry—if he so pleased. And for the first time since his father's death, a balance, steadily increasing, lay at his bankers.

About midsummer he began his first play—a comedy, which had been simmering in his brain for many months. He showed the scenario to Greatorex, who was not encouraging.

"You've immense difficulties ahead of you. Your unknown playwright must write his play for one actor-manager, whose ability it illumines" (Tommy was quoting from an article of his on the modern drama), "and whose weakness it obscures. And your moral purpose must be disguised, so as to give the dramatic critic a chance to discover it. Personally, there's nothing I enjoy so much as discovering in a play something which the author never thought of. Now, then, having written your play, you must persuade your actor-manager to spend some thousands in producing it adequately. All said and done, I'd stick to novels, if I were you."

"I must write this play," said Mark.

He wrote it and rewrote it. Then he read it aloud to Greatorex, who pointed out many technical blunders. Not till the play was actable in every detail would Tommy pass it as fit to be sent the rounds.

And then followed interminable, heartbreaking delays and disappointments. Actors and actresses, with rare exceptions, keep plays for months without reading them, answer no letters, and unhesitatingly break all promises unprotected by iron-clad contracts. Finally, the comedy, returned for the sixth time, was flung by Mark into a drawer and forgotten.

Next summer Mark read in his morning paper the announcement of a son born to Archibald. A son! It was enough that the fellow should desire anything, anything, for the object to fall into his grasp! Then, in a passionate revulsion of feeling, wondering how Betty fared, he hastened to Chelsea and furtively interviewed Dibdin, who assured him that his mistress was doing not only as well as, but better than, the doctor expected. Mark gave Dibdin a sovereign and instructions to report once a day by letter for three weeks. Dibdin, an old friend and as discreet as an archbishop, promised to write, volunteering the information that the baby was an "uncommon fine boy, a Samphire every inch of him." From Jim Corrance, later, Mark learned that Betty was likely to prove an adoring mother. Jim had seen her with the urchin. "She has changed," he told Mark, in his blunt fashion. "It's natural, I suppose; one couldn't wish for anything else; but the Betty of King's Charteris is out of sight. As for Archie—he looks patriarchal."

If Jim wondered why Mark never entered his brother's house, he was too shrewd to ask questions. Perhaps he guessed more or less accurately at the truth. A score of times, Mark was tempted to take his arm and tell his old friend everything. Betty, however, could not be betrayed; and speech with reserves, with abysmal silences, would avail nothing. But if he could have unburdened his soul, what a relief, what a balm it would have proved!

After writing some pot-boiling short stories and articles, he plunged into a second play, a tragedy, dealing with the inevitable surrender of woman to tradition and convention. In accordance with Tommy Greatorex's advice, this play was built up for Mrs. Perowne, an English actress-manager, who had recently returned from an enormously successful tour in the United States and Australia. Mark went to see her act again and again, fascinated by her methods, which were those of Duse, and by her vivid and extraordinary beauty. She had red hair, a milk-white skin, a Spanish cast of features, the spirits and inconsequence of a child, and amazing physical and intellectual activity. Mr. Perowne, an American, had divorced her after a very stormy year of marriage. Since, he had died.

This second play, Fenella, was written in a spirit compounded of recklessness and patience. Mark was reckless inasmuch as his money was nearly gone; patient, because the artist within him told him that he must make haste slowly. But at the back of this supreme endeavour, ever-increasing and all-absorbing, was the determination to achieve a success which would surpass that of his brother. Archibald and he never met, for Mark saw none of his old friends save Pynsent and Jim Corrance, but Archibald's name and fame were for ever in his ears. A great reputation is hard to make in England, or elsewhere, but once made it is easily sustained. The Basilica was crowded every Sunday morning. Mark slipped in one day, wondering what sort of fare would be provided. He found it nicely flavoured to the palate of the town. Jim Corrance growled out, "Archie gives 'em easily digested food. Of course he hasn't time to prepare such sermons as that Westchester one. He's up to his eyes in parochial work. That's what makes bishops nowadays."

Mark saw Betty in her pew without being seen by her. She looked pale and thin, but not unhappy.

After the visit to the Basilica Mark worked even harder than before, although he worked in the open air, and with due regard for his health. If that failed again, he was conscious that he would be bankrupt indeed. Accordingly, he lived a life of Spartan simplicity, and played golf regularly with Jim or Tommy Greatorex. But Fenella obsessed him. He told Jim that he was glad the comedy had not been produced, because Fenella was stronger and better written. Tommy growled out protests and warnings: "Fenella, whose acquaintance I'm anxious to make, may prove an ungrateful hussy. For Heaven's sake don't pin your hopes to her petticoat!"

When the fourth act was nearly finished, Sybil Perowne appeared in a new play, an adaptation of a French drama, which had enjoyed a succès fou in Paris. Mark and Tommy went to see it and found an audience cold and indifferent. As they came out of the theatre, Mark heard a stout dowager whisper to her daughter, "My dear, I don't know what it means, but it's taken away my appetite for supper."

"There you are," said Tommy. "Beware, Mark, of tampering with the British playgoer's appetite for supper. This thing is too sad. It won't go. Ah, well, the shrewdest managers make abominable mistakes, and the most successful is the fellow who makes least."

"Fenella is sadder than this."

"Um!" said Tommy. "Sorry to hear that, my boy."

But when the tragedy was read aloud, Greatorex professed himself amazed. He jumped up excitedly.

"I believe you've found yourself, 'pon my soul! And Sybil is mad keen for a new play. Hullo! Phew-w-w!"

Mark had fainted.

When he came to himself he admitted that he had been unable to sleep for several nights. Tommy talked like a sage, advising moderation, but knowing—none better—that Fenella could never have been born without pangs. With his sense of the dramatic he perceived that Mark in his present condition would be likely to impress the actress, herself highly strung and emotional. The good fellow took pains to arrange an interview, obtaining permission to call and bring a friend.

"I've cracked you up as the coming novelist, who's dying to make her acquaintance. I said in a postscript that you raved about her."

"She is magnificent," said Mark.

"She never reads plays. But you must corner her. Spar free! I tell you frankly she's a slippery one. I was her Press agent for a season. If possible, I want her to hear all about her part before she hands the play on to that scoundrel Gonzales."

Gonzales was Mrs. Perowne's manager. Mark frowned when his name was mentioned. He had heard of Gonzales.

Mrs. Perowne made the appointment for three. At two Mark met Greatorex in his rooms. Tommy was in his oldest clothes and hard at work.

"I'm not coming," he announced. "Never meant to, either. Why, man, I should wreck your chance. Here's a letter with a gilt-edged lie in it. Have you the play? Yes. Now, look here; leave it in the hall with your overcoat. Persuade her, if you can, to listen to the last scene of the third act. Don't leave the house without giving her some of it, if you have to force it down her throat. She'll respect your determination. Report here."

"I c-c-can't r-r-read it," stammered Mark.

Tommy hit his desk so hard with his fist that the ink bespattered it.

"Mark," he said solemnly, "I am counting on your making an exhibition of yourself. Be sure to stammer, burst a blood-vessel, faint, have a fit, but stick to your job. Now—go!"

Mark was pushed out of the room by his friend. When the door slammed behind him Greatorex burst out laughing. "He won't stammer now, and he'll read his play."

Mark was shown by an irreproachable butler into a small room hung with silk and filled with Japanese furniture. The dominant note was the grotesque if not the monstrous. Everything—from the embroideries on the walls to the tiny carved figures in the cabinets—indicated the cult of deformity.

He was examining a bit of enamel when Mrs. Perowne came in, holding out both hands.

"Tommy's friends are always welcome here," she said graciously. "That's a nice bit—isn't it? It's not Japanese at all, but Byzantine, as I dare say you know."

Mark confessed that he knew nothing of enamels. He sat down, glancing at his hostess, who was not unconscious of his scrutiny and surprise. Always, men meeting her for the first time off the stage were amazed at her appearance of youth. She braved the light from the window with impunity. Hair, complexion, eyes might have belonged to a maiden of twenty. But the mouth—her most remarkable feature—betrayed the woman of maturity. It was large, finely curved, and mobile. Her eyes were of a rich chestnut tint.

"You want to tell me about a play?" she said, with a low laugh.

"How did you d-d-divine that?"

"The expression of a man who has written a play is unmistakable. Well, I am in a charming humour this afternoon. What is the play about? À propos—are you the famous Mr. Samphire's brother?"

Unconsciously Mark winced.

"Yes," he said shortly.

"Tell me about your play."

"I c-c-can't," he said. For a moment he hesitated, feeling the lump rising in his throat; then some emanation from the woman opposite—a sense of sympathy—restored his confidence. His face—so plain when troubled—broke into a smile. "It's like this," he continued: "I hate to give you a synopsis of it. L-l-let me read a scene or two. You can make up your mind in a jiffy whether it pleases you or not; and if it doesn't, I'll go at a nod from you."

"But I never listen to plays. Surely that wretch, Tommy, told you. I talk them over before they're written. I've got someone coming in three-quarters of an hour to talk over an unwritten play. The hundreds which are sent to me to read are always passed on to Alfred Gonzales."

Mark felt his confidence oozing from every pore. In another minute his hostess would be bored. At this ignominious probability his fighting instincts asserted themselves.

"I wrote this play for you," he said slowly. "I can't see another woman in it at all. And somehow,"—he stretched out his lean, finely formed hands with a dramatic gesture—"somehow I seem to have gripped you, elusive though you are. Tommy says you're a good sort. Be good to me—for ten minutes. The play's downstairs in the hall. Let me fetch it. Shall I?"

"Yes—fetch it."

He ran like a boy from the room. Mrs. Perowne got up, glanced at herself in a small mirror, and sat down in the seat which Mark had just left. The change was not without significance. Before, she had wished to be seen; now she wished to see. When Mark came back she said quietly: "Begin at the beginning."

At that moment Mark felt once more the accursed lump in his throat. His face contracted. The woman closely watching him rose and laid her hand upon his shoulder.

"You have an impediment of speech," she whispered. "Take your time. You have interested me. I like men who surmount obstacles. I'll sit here till you can read your play. I'm going to mix two tiny cocktails, Martigny cocktails: mild as Mary's little lamb."

When she came back Mark was at his ease; she had ceased to be a stranger. He drank the cocktail, and began the first act. Mrs. Perowne lay back in her chair, watching him with half-closed eyes. She never moved, absorbing in silence every word and intonation. When Mark had finished, she nodded gaily.

"The first act is capital. When will you come and read the others?"

"At any hour you choose—day or night."

"To-morrow at twelve then. You must stay to luncheon afterwards."

CHAPTER XXXVII

POPPY AND MANDRAGORA

Half an hour later Mark was describing what had passed to Greatorex, who listened with an odd smile upon his ugly, intelligent face: the smile which is typical of so much that is left unsaid, the smile of a knowledge and an experience which cannot be imparted. Greatorex had appetite for such food as Mark was giving him, and he demanded every crumb. While Mark was speaking the journalist smoked. The smoke ascended in fragrant clouds, melting into the thickening atmosphere of the room. It struck Greatorex, not for the first time, that the reek of good tobacco manifested all the things for which men strive and to which it would seem to be predestined that they should not attain. Greatorex asked himself what life would be without the fragrance of hopes and ambitions which float from us and vanish. And how stale, how offensive their odour becomes unless the windows of the mind be flung wide open!

"Mark," he said, dropping the end of his cigarette, "you are desperately keen on this?"

He meant his words to be taken as affirmation or interrogation, according to Mark's mood. He never invited confidences withheld.

"Yes," Mark replied.

"Why?"

When the eyes of the two men countered, a third person would have remarked in them an extraordinary difference in colour and quality. Greatorex had the onyx eyes of a gipsy, bright yet obscured by mysterious flickering tints, the eyes which conceal and so seldom reveal the thoughts behind them. Mark's blue eyes had that candid expression which pertains to children's eyes.

"Why?" Mark repeated the pregnant word. "I think you know why. I have failed in everything I have undertaken. I have pursued success as if it were a will-o'-the-wisp——"

"Which it is——"

"And if once I could hold it in my hand, if I could say to myself, I have it—it is mine—why then——"

He paused.

"You care so much for fame—you?"

"I ask for recognition, not because recognition is in itself a hall mark of success, but because without it labour would seem to be wasted. What is the use of a great poem, a great book, which remains unread? A gospel is no gospel until it is preached to thousands."

"Don't set your heart on this play being produced!"

"I have set my heart on that, Tommy."

"If Sybil takes a fancy to you——" he paused.

Mark's ingenuous stare was disconcerting. He continued lightly: "I warn you that she may like you better than Fenella. It would not surprise me if she liked you rather too well."

"Don't be a fool," said Mark angrily.

"If I could only be a fool," Greatorex murmured. "Depend upon it fools have the best of it. And they live, some of 'em, in the only paradise to be found on this planet. Well, I have spoken, I have warned you."

Upon the following day Mark returned at the hour appointed to Mrs. Perowne's flat. The butler, impassive as the Sphinx, showed him into the same room with its curious atmosphere of the East. In a few minutes the actress appeared in a kimono of some silvery tissue embroidered in gold, with her hair done à la Japonaise, and embellished with barbaric ornaments. Clad in this she became a part, and the greatest part, of the room. Looking at her, Mark felt ill at ease in his blue serge suit. At the same time he tried to measure the difference between the woman in the kimono and all other women whom he had known. Mrs. Perowne smiled, reading his thoughts.

"I am quite, quite different to all the others," she said softly. "I ought to have lived in the days of Herod Antipas."

When she spoke of Herod, Mark remembered that she had Jewish blood in her veins. Her father had been a well-known English picture-dealer; her mother, a famous dancer, a Spanish Moor. Her Moorish ancestors, of whom the actress boasted, were Jews to the marrow, although living in Spain, outwardly subject to the faith of most Catholic monarchs. For generations these people had lived and died incomparable actors, sustaining from the cradle to the grave a rôle above which glittered the knives of the Inquisition. Mark began to understand that the woman smiling at him was natural, most true to herself, when playing a part—and yet beneath a thousand disguises throbbed the heart of the Jewess, the child of all countries and of none.

Mark read his play.

As he read it, he realised how poor an instrument lay in his throat. He was hoarse from a neglected cold, and his voice, though flexible, betrayed the effort made to control it. But the stammer spared him. To Sybil Perowne, familiar with and therefore slightly contemptuous of the arts of the elocutionist, this rough, uneven inflection and articulation had something of the charm of a disused viol or harpsichord, whose frayed, worn strings still hold jangled echoes of cadences melodic and harmonious long ago. She had the perceptions of the artist, and that feeling for art which is partly a gift and partly the result of patient training. Her perceptions enabled her to see Mark Samphire as he was, the man who had fought against odds; her feeling for art approved his work as the epitome and expression of that fight dramatically set forth in admirable English. At the end of the second act the reader looked up for a word of approval: "Go on!" she said. The climax of the third act provoked an exclamation at Mark's physical distress. She brought him a glass of champagne and insisted upon his drinking it. But he saw that her eyes were shining. He plunged into the fourth act and stumbled through it: every word rasping his throat. When he had finished she jumped up as Greatorex had done.

"I am a woman of impulse," she cried. "I will produce your play."

Mark stared at her, not believing his ears.

"You will p-p-produce it?" he stammered.

"Yes," she answered. "I don't say there's money in it; I don't say it hasn't faults and crudities; but I do say it's a play—and it pleases, it touches, it thrills—me."

She held out her hand. Mark had an intuition that she wished him to kiss it. He raised it gratefully to his lips.

"And now," she said gaily, "luncheon! I am famished. There is no sauce like emotion. That is why Spanish people eat so much at funerals."

At luncheon she asked a score of questions about his work and life.

"Last night," she said, "I read The Songs of the Angels. You have heard these songs yourself, eh? But—do you hear them now?"

She held his glance, faintly smiling at the colour which rushed into his cheeks.

"There are angels and angels," he said evasively.

"But, if I have interpreted your meaning, the angels you write about are heard only by the—shall I offend you if I say—the saints. You are not a saint?"

"Hardly," said Mark.

"But you might be," she murmured; "that is why you interest me"—she paused, sighed, and finished the sentence—"so much. I have never met a saint; I have never met a man who had the makings of a saint in him—till to-day."

Mark knew that she had challenged him.

"Out of the makings of a saint," he said curtly, "the devil fashions the greatest sinner."

"You believe in the devil?"

Mark shrugged his shoulders.

"The devil is 'evil' with a big D before it. I certainly believe in evil."

"I have to drag answers from you. Do you dislike this sort of talk? Perhaps you think me indiscreet, impudent; but I like to get my bearings. It saves bother. You can ask me anything—anything, if, if you regard me as a friend."

"I do," he said hastily; but he asked no questions.

"I don't quite understand you," she said slowly; "and of course you don't understand me. I am sure, judging from your book, your play, and—and your face, that you have an extravagant admiration for what you think to be good women. Is it not so? You needn't take the trouble to say 'yes.' And I'm only a good—sort. I have a sound body, of which I take the greatest care, and a sane mind; but I was born without a soul. Enfin, the conclusion is inevitable—for me—I do not believe in the soul but you do?"

"I did," he answered.

She offered him a cigarette, and lit one herself, as the Sphinx-like butler brought coffee and liqueurs. The luncheon had been very simple. Sipping her coffee, the actress began to talk of Fenella.

"You wrote the part, you say, for me; but you have drawn Fenella from life."

Mark denied this.

"You may have done it subconsciously, but you've done it. Now tell me, have you worked out the technical details? Have you estimated the probable expense?"

"I suppose the adequate mounting of it will be costly."

"Between three and four thousand pounds," said Mrs. Perowne carelessly.

Soon after he took his leave. The play remained in the actress's possession. No mention was made of terms. Mrs. Perowne had said that Gonzales would look it over. Greatorex expressed astonishment that the affair had come to a head so suddenly, and congratulated Mark; but he added that a contract must be signed as soon as possible.

"You don't think——" began Mark.

"My dear fellow, I know a poor devil whose first play was accepted six years ago. It has not been produced yet! Strictly between ourselves, I don't mind telling you that I'm the man."

"But if your lawyer——"

"I can't afford to make an enemy of the actor-manager who still has it! I blame myself; I had no contract. We'll prepare a corker for you. I take it that you want nothing if the thing fails, and a fair profit if it goes—eh? Just so. When do you see the fascinating Sybil again? To-morrow. Have you made love to her? She expects it from every man. Not many disappoint her."

He laughed at Mark's confusion, and compared him to the infant Moses found by Pharaoh's daughter in the bulrushes. The friends celebrated the acceptance of the drama at a restaurant, and Mark made merry.

"You feel it?" said Tommy.

"Eh?"

"Success tickling the palm of your hand?"

"I shall mark this day with red, of course!"

"If we were in the West of America," said Greatorex, "we should paint the night as red as la belle Sybil's hair. This sort of thing has only a tinge of pink in it. Have you ever let yourself go, Mark? Of course not! There is nothing of the beast in you. You might kill yourself, or somebody else, but I can't fancy you on all fours."

They returned to the club, where some choice spirits were discussing art and literature in a fog of tobacco-smoke. But Mark, who joined them, saw no fog—only the sun, shining upon all things and all men.

"He's had a four-act play accepted," Greatorex explained. "There's no more to tell yet."

Several of the men shook Mark's hand. Glasses were replenished, fresh cigars lighted. Mark laughed as gaily as any, delightfully aware that he was receiving something—so to speak—on account, a few pieces of silver, cash down to bind a bargain. Some of his companions were celebrities. It seemed to him that for the first time he was of them as well as with them. These Olympians asked for his opinion, laughed at his jokes, approved his suggestions. The hours passed swiftly and pleasantly.

But walking home to Hampstead, beneath the stars, in an air purged by frost, his triumph dwindled to mean proportions. He considered the events of the day. Out of these, now become shadows for the most part, the face of Sybil Perowne stood out substantially: a fact to be reckoned with. He asked himself if he liked her. Was he attracted by her beauty and cleverness? No; these had not touched him. Yet he was attracted—and by what? A vision of the Japanese room revealed the fascination, so mysterious, so alluring to the imagination, of the occult. The sorceress beguiled the fancy of a man who had only cared for good women. He found himself speculating in regard to her. Doubtless the Sphinx-faced butler could tell some tales—an he would!

If he saw much of her, would he forget Betty? The child of the Moorish dancer gave poppy and mandragora to those who sought her.

He had made an appointment with Mrs. Perowne in the afternoon, but in the morning, having nothing to do, he thought he would like to see Pynsent. Pynsent owned a queer old-fashioned house in Kensington. Mark rang the bell, which was answered by a delightful French bonne, who made the best omelette in the world and worshipped Pynsent. Certainly, Monsieur would be charmed to see his friend. Alas! yes; the dear studio in Paris had been abandoned. She, Francine, was desolated, but what would you? Monsieur Pynsent made gold in this detestable London instead of silver in enchanting Paris! So chattering, she conducted Mark to the big studio, which was found to be empty. The master had slipped out for a minute. Would Monsieur Mark sit down? Before he had time to smoke a tiny cigarette, his friend would be shaking both his hands. She gave Mark the cigarettes, the potent Caporal cigarettes, handed him the latest Paris paper, popped a log on to the fire, and bustled away.

Mark looked about him. The studio, simply furnished, bare of those tapestries and properties which most painters buy as soon as they begin to earn money, was, in short, a workshop full of ingenious appliances for obtaining curious effects of colour, light and shade. In the middle of it stood a huge oak easel. Several large canvases were turned to the wall. An open paint-box, a palette, a bowl full of the coarse, broad brushes which Pynsent used, told Mark that work was about to begin. Pynsent took few holidays. Work had become to him not a means to an end, but the end itself. But then such work as his was an end, an accomplishment, a victory. Finality distinguished every touch. Mark lit one of the French cigarettes, because he knew the fumes of it would bring back the pleasant days in the Rue de l'Ancienne Comédie. He wondered whether Pynsent—the least sentimental of men—smoked Caporal tobacco for the same reason. Possibly. But more probably because he was a man in a groove. One could not conceive of Pynsent with a butler and footmen. He lived now as he had always lived, regardless of Mrs. Grundy, who said tartly that the great painter was a pincher.

After a whiff or two, the Rue de l'Ancienne Comédie revealed itself as it appeared one morning when a couple of brother students were removing themselves and their belongings from one studio to another. Mark had lent two willing hands and a tongue which outwagged a terrier's tail. The students possessed a chest full of costumes. In these their friends had arrayed themselves. From several adjoining studios came other students and their models, all anxious to help—or hinder. Every article was carried in procession down the narrow street to the sounds of loud laughter, of banjo and mandoline, of drum and cornet, and of various songs. A diminutive Frenchman, beardless as a baby, had taken off most of his clothes and was sitting cross-legged in the middle of a large flat bath, which four of his friends were carrying, arm-high, down the street. The little man had robed himself in a rough towel; he wore a sponge-bag on his head; and he hugged to his bare chest an enormous sponge. All down the street, windows were flung up. Everybody joined in the fun.

"Une petite surprise pour Monsieur—et Madame."

The voice of the good Francine put to flight the joyous procession. Mark rose up, flung away the half-smoked cigarette, and saw Betty advancing into the studio. Francine hobbled away. She knew that Betty had married Mark's brother.

"Betty!"

"Mark!"

"Don't go," said Mark, as she paused irresolute. "Pynsent is painting you, I suppose. He will be here in a minute. I'll go."

"You never wrote," she faltered.

"Was it likely? How is the boy?"

"I expected a word of—forgiveness. The boy is very well."

"Is he like you?"

"Everybody says so."

He was silent and very pale, whereas Betty's face was suffused with delicate colour. He was trying to resist an overmastering impulse to take her in his arms, when he heard Pynsent's step, and a moment afterwards his clear incisive voice.

"I am ashamed that I was not here to receive you, Mrs. Samphire. But I know you'd sooner talk to Mark than me. I'm painting her, Mark. You shall give us your opinion. I've not seen you for a coon's age. What? Nonsense, my dear fellow. I can paint just as well while you're here. You must stay as long as you possibly can. Mustn't he, Mrs. Samphire?"

"Of course," said Betty in her ordinary voice. Pynsent dragged a canvas across the studio and placed it on the easel.

"There," said he, "what do you think of that?"

Mark approached the easel, as Betty turned to remove her hat and jacket. The portrait, almost completed, was three-quarters length: a daring study in what at first glance seemed to be black-and-white. As a matter of fact, black, as pigment, was not used at all. The effect of it was produced by the admixture and contrast of colour. Looking into the translucent shadows the eye detected brilliant tints.

"It's one of the best things I've done," said Pynsent. "It's kept me awake nights, this portrait. I got that shadow under the chin by a trick I learnt in Florence. You lay three colours one on top of the other. It's great. The fellow who discovered it can't draw; he'd be a wonder if he could——"

Pynsent went on talking, unaware of what was passing in the minds of his friends. Betty sat down on the model's dais, and Pynsent arranged her hands, still talking volubly of light and colour effects. Mark remained staring at the picture. "You haven't said what you think of it," concluded Pynsent, as he picked up his palette.

"For whom are you painting it?"

"It's an open secret, isn't it?" said the painter, glancing sideways at his model. "The grateful Vauxhall wishes to give it to your brother. But I had difficulty in persuading Madame to sit."

"Vauxhall," repeated Mark stupidly.

"Archie, they say, has put thousands into his pocket. He boomed the price of all bricks and mortar within a mile radius of the Basilica. Well—your opinion, my dear fellow."

Mark still hesitated. Pynsent was famous for his delineation of character. He had the power of seizing and transferring to canvas those delicate shades of expression which reveal the real man and woman. In pourtraying Betty, he had emphasised the mother in her at the expense, possibly, of the wife. The portrait was hardly flattering in the generally received sense. The face was troubled; lines and shadows lay on it. Betty's youth and beauty were subdued, as if beneath the touch of suffering rather than time. But the general effect remained that of a grace and loveliness independent of colour and texture. The admirable contours, the delicate modelling of cheek and brow and chin, indicated a noble maturity not yet attained but certain to be attained. Not at that moment, however, did Mark realise that Pynsent's portrait was an incomparable likeness of the Betty who had failed to keep tryst because the higher nature had overcome the lower and baser. But he did grasp a part of the truth. He told himself that if Betty had not suffered, Pynsent would have painted another and a different portrait.

"The face is strange to me," said Mark.

"What?" Pynsent exclaimed, staring at the speaker. "You, you say that? Why of all men, I——" He broke off abruptly, sensible of some psychological disturbance, puzzled and distressed. Mark laughed harshly. He had almost betrayed himself. Then he glanced at Betty. Her likeness to the picture was extraordinary.

"You m-m-misunderstand me," he stammered. "I meant to say that you had painted a woman who has changed. We all change. I hardly recognise my own f-face. This picture is, as you say, the b-b-best thing you've done, and I congratulate you warmly. I'd like to see it again. But now I must r-r-run away. I d-dropped in to tell you that my play is accepted."

This piece of news effectively cloaked his nervousness. Pynsent and Betty expressed their pleasure and congratulation. Mark shook hands and escaped.

"I thought he was not himself," said Pynsent, picking up his palette. "This will make up for a good deal, won't it? I know exactly how he feels. Great Scott! It seems only yesterday that I had my first picture hung in the Salon. I was skied, but I was the happiest man in Paris. All the same, Mark did not strike me as looking happy—eh?"

She answered his sharp "eh" and still sharper glance with a constrained "N-n-no."

CHAPTER XXXVIII

GONZALES

Mark plunged into the obscurity of the underground railway, cursing the impulse which had taken him to Pynsent's studio. Betty had suffered, but what was her suffering compared with his?

He repeated this to himself again and again, as the train bore him eastward. Then he remembered Jim's phrase: "Our Betty is out of sight."

Thinking of Jim, he got out at the Mansion House and walked to the Stock Exchange. Five minutes with Jim might blow some cobwebs out of his mind. He reached the huge building and called for James Corrance. The porter bade him wait near some glass swinging-doors through which hatless men were continually passing. Whenever these opened a dull roar of many voices fell on Mark's ear, a menacing growl as of an angry beast. In his present mood Mark welcomed any strange noise as a distraction from the buzzing of his own thoughts. This beast of the markets made itself heard. Mark wondered vaguely whether it drowned, to such men as Jim, all other sounds.

While he stood, peering through the glass doors, a sharp thud, as of a mallet striking a panel of wood, smote his ears. In an instant, as if some wizard had waved a wand, silence fell upon the crowd within the building, a silence inexpressibly strange and awe-inspiring. Again the thud was heard, louder and more articulate. Mark guessed what was happening. A member of the Stock Exchange was about to be "hammered." The silence, Mark noted, was partially broken by a shuffling of innumerable feet, as men pressed forward to catch the name of the man who had failed. The hammer struck for the third and last time. Mark could see that every face was turned in one direction; upon each lay a grim expression of anxiety. Then a hoarse voice said in a monotone: "Mr. Caxton Bruno is unable to comply with his bargains." A roar of voices succeeded the announcement, as the crowd resumed the business of the minute. The glass doors swung open; and Jim Corrance appeared.

"You heard poor Bruno hammered," he said. "Dramatic—eh? It always thrills, because one never knows. That cursed hammer may sound the death knell of a dozen firms. I am glad to see you——"

Talking volubly, he insisted that Mark must lunch with him, although Mark protested that he had no appetite. But Jim, when he heard that Fenella was accepted by Mrs. Perowne, declared that a bottle of champagne must be cracked. He carried Mark off to his City club, where scores of men were eating, drinking, and talking. Jim pointed out the celebrities.

"That fellow is a famous 'bear,'" he indicated a short, thick-set, rather unctuous-looking Jew. "In the long run the 'bears' have the best of it."

"He doesn't look clever," said Mark.

"Clever? He's stupid as an owl outside his own special business. It isn't the clever ones who arrive. I know men with all the qualities essential to success, but the luck goes against 'em every time. They ought to get there with both feet, but they don't. You must have a glass of that old cognac, Mark. A play is not accepted every day, by Jove! I tell you what I'll do, my boy. I'll give a dinner in honour of the event. We'll get Pynsent, and Tommy Greatorex, and the rest of 'em. Why not nip over to Paris for it? Eh? What are you mumbling? All take and no give. What infernal rot! Well, I won't take no. As if it wasn't an honour to entertain so distinguished a gentleman."

Mark's spirits began to rise. After all, the world was not such a bad place. And the luck which Jim spoke about had certainly changed. The play would be produced within the year. Thoroughly warmed by Jim's hospitality, and promising that he would reconsider his refusal to dine in Paris, he left the City to keep his appointment with Mrs. Perowne. But the atmosphere of the underground railway, raw, fetid, thick with smoke, brought back the misery and despair of the morning. He found himself reflecting that life after thirty was an underground procession, a nauseating vagabondage in semi-obscurity, stopping now and again at stations artificially illumined, garishly decorated, reeking with abominable odours, crowded with pale, troubled strangers jostling each other in their wild efforts to hurry on to some other place as detestable as the one they were leaving....

As for the play upon which so much was staked, was he not a sanguine fool to take a woman's word that it would be produced? And production did not mean success. But here he paused. Production to him did mean success. It was good, good, good! It had thrilled two persons who knew. Greatorex, the cynic, the reader of innumerable plays, and the actress, the woman of genius.

On this occasion Mrs. Perowne received him in her drawing-room: a conventional room, white-and-yellow, filled with absurd knick-knacks and too many flowers, principally exotics of overpowering perfume. She was wearing a large hat which overshadowed her face. Her dress and jacket of the plainest cloth and cut were trimmed with sable. Mark had passed her brougham, drawn up a few yards from the entrance of the building, and guessed that she was going out. She began to speak about Fenella.

"Alfred Gonzales has read it."

"What does he say?"

"He finds it too serious. He says there's no money in it."

Mark gasped.

"But Alfred is not infallible," she added. "I mean to produce Fenella. It may be wise to throw it first to the dog." This meant a first performance in the provinces. Mark burst into excited speech.

"Then you d-d-don't mean to ch-chuck me. You've raised me to the heights, Mrs. Perowne. Don't drop me! I m-m-mean that I'd sooner know the worst now. You said you were an impulsive woman. Perhaps your impulse overstepped the b-b-bounds of prudence, you know. And, if so, we'll call the thing off. But don't drop me later. I couldn't stand that. Am I speaking out too plainly? You've been very kind, very kind indeed; I shall always be grateful, b-b-but I can face disappointment better now than l-l-later."

"Sit down," she said, smiling. "Why, what a boy you are. I-I like boys."

He sat down, trembling, wiping the perspiration from his forehead.

"You are as emotional as I am," she murmured in a caressing voice. "Now, I've an appointment which I must keep. You can believe that I'd sooner spend the afternoon with you. I really mean it. I have to recite at a bazaar. Which bores me horribly. Now do you believe that I am your friend, that I like you, that you interest me? And will you be furious if I add that I like you better than your play—good though it is? I prefer the man to his work, the artist to his art."

She paused, glancing at him through half-closed eyes. There was something feline about her expression and pose. Her voice had a purr in it. Mark did not know what to say or do.

"I should like to help you to a real success," she continued. "And why not? Your play might be made into a masterpiece. At present it is uneven, amateurish, crude in parts. Alfred put his finger on the weak spots. He says that the fourth act ought to be rewritten. Shall we rewrite it together? I mean, will you let me help you to make it just what it ought to be?"

"Why, of course," said Mark eagerly. "I am not fool enough to suppose that the thing can't be improved. Your help, your hints, your experience would be invaluable. I was counting on them at rehearsal."

"But we haven't come to that yet. I don't hold with altering plays at rehearsals. After the first night or two, revision may be expedient. One never knows. Scenes may drag, or they may be too short. We needn't go into that now. But my point is that the thing should be as perfect as the author can make it, before it is read to the company. You agree with me—hein?"

The foreign word of interrogation had a soothing sound. Mark placed himself in her hands unreservedly.

"I trust you," he said simply.

She nodded, showing her lovely teeth in a smile. Then she pointed out that nothing could be done till the piece in which she was acting had been taken off. She expected to be quite free in a fortnight's time. After Easter she would appear in a rôle which required little preparation. During Lent she might go abroad. But all details could be settled later. Would he drink tea with her and talk everything over the day after to-morrow?

He saw her into her brougham.

"Your play is in Alfred's hands," she said, as she bade him good-bye. "He is going to make some notes for us. Have you met him? Go and see him. He's at the theatre now."

She murmured something he did not catch, as the brougham rolled silently away. She was right. He ought to see Gonzales. The business connected with the play, the contract and so forth, must be done through him. Doubtless that was what she meant when she urged him to go to the theatre. He took a 'bus to the Alcazar and sent up his card. Presently word came down through a tube that Mr. Gonzales would be disengaged in less than ten minutes. Mr. Samphire might care to look over the house? Mark assenting to this, a youth connected with the manager's department escorted him through the building, which had been built for Mrs. Perowne "regardless of expense," as the youth said, and "replete with every modern appliance." Mark wondered at the beauty of the decorations in parts of the theatre other than the auditorium, where lavishness was to be expected. The stage was already set, and the youth told Mark that the "Empire" furniture had adorned the palace of one of Napoleon's marshals.

Further details, setting forth the thousands lavished upon scenery and costumes, gave Mark a dismal impression that the play itself was the least part of a modern theatrical performance; this impression was deepened when he met the manager, whom he disliked at the first glance. Gonzales, it was said, had lured Mrs. Perowne from her husband, holding out the bait of fame. She first appeared in one of his adaptations from the French, a melodrama built about a head of red hair. Mrs. Perowne's red hair had been the feature of posters six yards long, designed by Cheret. In America, the yellow press had asserted that Gonzales was in the habit of dragging his pupil across her room by her flaming locks. Her screams echoed from Maine to California, and filled every theatre with curious crowds, who believed the stories when they saw the red hair.

Gonzales was big and burly, with a close-clipped black beard, through which protruded a red lower lip. His face indicated power, cruelty, and a brutal self-assurance. He was smoking a very thick cigar, which he held, when he spoke, between white, fat fingers. His voice, however, was charming; melodious, persuasive, with the intonations and inflections characteristic of the Latin races; and his eyes, heavily lidded, were finely formed and of a clear umber in colour. He began to praise Mark's play with an insincerity which revolted. Mark, sensible of an overpowering desire to escape, listened to interminable phrases.

"You are soaping the ways," he said, when Gonzales paused. "I understood from Mrs. Perowne that you saw no m-money in the thing. You can tell me frankly what you think of it. I am not thin-skinned, and I hope you d-don't take me for a f-fool."

Gonzales showed his teeth.

"One has to be careful with authors," he said. "I write myself, trifles," he shrugged his shoulders, "adaptations, as you know, which have had a measure of success. And I can't bear to have them criticised, these adopted children of mine. I think them perfect, perfect. But you—you are of colder blood—and you say you prefer the truth which I speak sometimes," he smiled disagreeably. "Well, then, in my opinion, you have just missed a big thing. There's dramatic power in every line of Fenella, and in Paris it might catch on, but here tragedy is played—out. Still, I don't say that with judicious cutting, and a slight strengthening of the love interest, and—in short I told Mrs. Perowne that we could make something of it, if you gave us a free hand. Oh, there's plenty of action, and a freshness of treatment, but look here——" He made a couple of suggestions, so admirable, so luminous of his insight into dramatic possibilities, that Mark admitted at once the man's cleverness and knowledge of what was good work. But when he had, so to speak, given this sample of his ability, he added with an odious sneer: "After all the public, our public, asks for something absolutely different. For example, I am in treaty now for a comedy in four acts. Mrs. Perowne will wear eight dresses, furnished by the four leading dressmakers of Paris. Entre nous, these confections will cost us nothing, not a sou. They will be an immense 'ad' for the dressmakers and for us. The comedy must be constructed round these dresses. As an artist I deplore such methods, but a successful manager is forced to employ them."

Mark curtly stated the object of his visit. Gonzales shrugged his shoulders.

"The contract? Is it not early to talk of that?"

Words flowed like a stream of milk from his mouth. In the "profession," he explained, one could not move in haste. Mrs. Perowne had engagements to be filled. It was absurd to talk of producing a play on a certain day. It was bad business to take off a paying piece. And Rejane might lease the Alcazar. No, no, he gave Mr. Samphire credit for a certain delicacy. He was dealing, remember, with a lady, whose judgment—the truth was best—he had taken by storm. As her manager, he had implored her again and again to read no plays till he, the speaker, had looked them over. Finally, Mark took his leave, conscious that he had been defeated, that this man of many words could warp him to his will. He carried away with him, moreover, a conviction that Gonzales was his enemy, and that the stories about him and Mrs. Perowne were true.

CHAPTER XXXIX

AT THE MIRAFLORES

During the fortnight that followed Mark saw Mrs. Perowne every day. The actress exercised over him strange powers of attraction and repulsion, which he tried to analyse: sensible that the repulsion was subtle and negative, whereas the attraction was obvious and positive. She had a score of charms; but beneath them lay something secret and hateful; possibly a cruelty not alien to red hair and red lips. By chance, one day, Mark said that strong smelling-salts held beneath the nose of a bulldog would make him relax his grip of another dog when more violent measures had failed. The actress had a Chow for whom she expressed extravagant affection. Before Mark could interfere, she had called the dog to her side and thrust beneath its sensitive nostrils some strong spirits of ammonia. The poor animal snuffed at them, and was almost strangled by the fumes. Mark, furious at such unnecessary cruelty, made hot protest and then got up to leave the room. Mrs. Perowne entreated forgiveness, pleading ignorance and thoughtlessness. Mark saw tears in her eyes; suborned witnesses, no doubt, but deemed honest by an honest man.

"I loathe cruelty," said Mark.

"Gonzales is cruel," she replied irrelevantly.

"But you like him?"

"I hate him—sometimes."

He divined in her a desire to talk about Gonzales.

"I hate him always," said Mark. "I don't want to hear his name mentioned. I know he is a beast."

"Would you like me to dismiss him?" she asked softly.

He stared at her in astonishment.

"Could you? I understood that he was in—indispensable, as actor and manager."

"No man is indispensable to—me," she said angrily. Then her face changed and softened, suffused by an extraordinary radiance of youth and vitality. "I mean to say," she murmured, "that no man, yet, has proved himself indispensable, but——"

She looked at Mark, who got up and began to pace the room, much agitated. Her lips were parted, revealing the small, white, resolute-looking teeth. She was reflecting, not without a sense of humour, that Mark was the first man of the many she liked who refused to dance to her piping. The fact allured her.

"I must go," he said abruptly.

"But you will come to-morrow?"

He hesitated, blushing like a girl, but on the morrow he came and found her friendly, genial, the "good sort": a rôle she could sustain to perfection. Mark, on the other hand, felt himself to be dull and irritable. Even the all-absorbing Fenella failed to quicken his wits or pulses. He answered absently some suggestions in regard to the fourth act, staring at the speaker's eyes, as if trying to read their message instead of that of the lips.

"Why do you look at me like that?" she asked in a tone absolutely free from sentiment.

"I am trying to find the real Sybil."

"Sybils are mysteries," she said lightly. "Besides you come here to talk about the play—hein? not about me."

"I come here to talk about the play," he answered slowly, "but I go away to think about you."

"And the thoughts are not always pleasant ones?"

"Not always."

"You are truthful."

"Am I?"

"Most men are such liars. Gonzales, for example—ah, well, we won't talk of him. But the others—oh, the humbugs!"

In fluent, even tones, she began to speak of the men she knew intimately, the higher Bohemians of art and literature. It was impossible not to be amused by her sketches.

"This is caricature," said Mark.

"Studies from life."

"I'm glad I don't know those—gentlemen."

"You are a man of limitations; and you see others not as they are but as you would like them to be. That is why your books do not sell. Your characters are strongly drawn, but their strength is a reproach and an exasperation to readers of weaker clay. In books, as in real life, we like to meet people no better and perhaps worse than ourselves. You are handicapped by ideals, which bankrupt your ideas...."

On this theme she spoke volubly for some minutes. Mark listened, amazed at her perceptions, at her grasp of life as it is lived in London, at her audacity in dealing with problems.

"You look astonished," she concluded, "but nowadays revolt is a synonym of intelligence. As for me I revolt against stupid traditions and conventions. They are to me like those hideous horse-hair sofas and chairs upon which our grandfathers sat so stiffly. What? Good wear in them? I dare say they served their purpose, but now they are banished to obscure lodging-houses."

Mark repeated some of her phrases to Tommy Greatorex.

"She's as clever as she can stick," Tommy admitted, "but it's surface cleverness, like surface water, tricklings from a thousand sources more or less polluted. She's interested in you because you are different from—the others. Of course you're not interested in her—apart from her profession, I mean. I sent you to her because I knew you would be proof against her sorceries—the witch. Hullo!"

Mark was scarlet.

"I say—you're not interested, are you? She's a wrong 'un. I warned you."

"She has good in her."

Greatorex laughed.

"Good? A needle in a haystack. Seriously, Mark, you mustn't burn your fingers. Lord! I was so sure of you. I foresaw that you would excite her curiosity and interest; I knew that she would like you, as I said, better than your play. In a word I pulled the strings, but I thought I should make her dance, not you."

"She has been very kind to me."

"What have you been to her? Tell me to mind my own business, if you like. It's not worth minding, but that doesn't matter."

"I am going to ask Mrs. Perowne to marry me," Mark replied slowly.

"Phew-w-w!"

Instantly, Mark took his hat and marched out of the room. Tommy bit his nails till it occurred to him to light a pipe. Then he tried to continue his work, a special article, but he found it impossible to write a line. Mark's face and eyes disturbed him. Finally, he flung down his pen in a rage.

"I thought I knew him," he muttered, "I thought I knew him. This is the bottomless pit, and I led him blindfold to the edge of it."

Suddenly he bethought himself of Pynsent. Pynsent knew Mrs. Perowne, had painted her portrait—a revelation of character in colour. Accordingly he wired to Pynsent, asking him to dine at a small restaurant in Baker Street, and mentioning that a subject of importance was to be discussed. Pynsent wired back an acceptance for the same evening, and the men met at eight o'clock. They sat down to sharpen their appetites upon some excellent salted fillets of herring. Not till the marmite was swallowed did Greatorex give his perplexity words. Then he said abruptly—

"You painted Mrs. Perowne?"

"You bet I did—inside and out."

"Did she make love to you?"

"N-n-no," Pynsent replied, not quite readily.

"Why not be frank? I can hold my tongue."

"I think," Pynsent admitted cautiously, "that she expected me to make love to her, but I didn't. I took a dislike to the woman. And it came out in the picture. Unpleasant things were said about it at the time, but she liked it. She told me I had succeeded. And—Great Scott!—so I had."

"She has captivated and is captivated by Mark Samphire. He is going to marry her."

"What?"

"It is partly my fault, but I was so sure of—him." He told the story at length. "And now what are we to do?"

"Mark—Mark!" Pynsent kept repeating stupidly. "It is incredible. Mark Samphire—and Sybil Perowne!"

"She has never denied herself anything."

"She'll suck every ounce of good blood from his body. It would be kindness to knock him on the head."

"It would be pleasure to knock her on the head," said Tommy gloomily.

"We can do nothing," said Pynsent, at length, as he lit one of his Caporal cigarettes, which he smoked between the courses. "There was Maiden. When I studied at the Beaux Arts, Maiden was the coming man. By Jove! he had come. I remember his big picture in the Salon of '79. Crowds stood in front of it, jabbering like monkeys. It was great, great. And France bought it. It hangs in the Luxembourg to-day. Well, Maiden had a model, a queer little devil of a girl with huge black eyes whom he stuck into all his pictures. He bought her from her mother out of a slum, the Rue du Haut-Pavé, close to the cabaret du Soleil d'Or, and she followed him about like a spaniel, all over Normandy and Brittany. We wondered what would happen when the child became a woman. Gad! we might have guessed for a year and a day and never hit the truth. Maiden married her! He, the wit, the scholar, the gentleman, married that guttersnipe. And he hasn't painted a picture for fifteen years! I tell you, Tommy, that it's impossible to predict what any man will do when he comes in contact with the wrong woman."

"Or with the right one," said Greatorex, frowning.

They drank their coffee, and by mutual consent went to the Miraflores Music Hall, feeling that anything which might distract their thoughts from Mark would prove a relief. The place was crowded as usual, and Pynsent, pulling out a pencil, began to draw heads upon a piece of paper placed in his hat, while Tommy watched his facile fingers, much amused by the remarks which punctuated every line.

"People must relax," the painter was saying. "These places would be empty if we lived normal lives. A self-respecting savage would be bored to death here."

"True," said Tommy. "If you want to find sense nowadays you must hunt for it in the South Pacific, in the islands which Captain Cook and Mr. Thomas Cook did not find. Hullo, there's Jim Corrance."

"Why not tell him," said Pynsent quickly. "He's Mark's oldest friend; he'd do anything for Mark; and he's a practical sort of chap, too."

Jim joined them with alacrity, obviously glad to see Pynsent, who, of late, had dropped out of his file. The three secured a table in the corner of the foyer, where they could talk without fear of being overheard, for the noise—the shrill laughter of the women, the deep notes of the men, the blare of the band—was deafening. Jim, however, not knowing Mrs. Perowne, save by reputation, was unable to realise the gravity of the situation.

"Aren't you fellows making a mountain of a molehill?" he asked. "And, besides, what can old Mark offer Sybil Perowne?"

"A new sensation," said Tommy grimly. His face impressed Corrance. Pynsent nodded gloomily.

"There's David Ross," said Jim.

"The Bishop of Poplar?"

"At one time Mark and he were hand-in-glove. He used to be a wonder-worker."

"Oh, he is still," said Greatorex. "I thought we should get something out of you, Corrance."

"But a parson——" began Pynsent doubtfully.

"He was the amateur middleweight champion before he took Orders," said Corrance, "and it's the pugilist in him, not the parson, which has made him the man he is. He'll tackle Mark, never fear. He tackles me—periodically, but all the same, if this thing is serious he will accomplish nothing."

"That is what I say," Pynsent added.

But Tommy, the smallest and weakest of the three, doggedly persisted. Finally he persuaded Corrance to seek out the Bishop of Poplar. Having extracted a promise to this effect, he took leave of the others, for his article, due on the morrow, had to be finished that night. Pynsent and Corrance remained together. As the little man plunged into the crowd, Pynsent said: "Tommy Greatorex would cut off his right hand for Mark, but I've heard men call him selfish and self-centred."

Corrance at once began to analyse this indisputable fact, sticking out his chin, and talking with an aggressive frankness which much amused the painter, who said presently:

"We may as well admit, Jim, that we're cold-blooded, you and I——"

"For the sake of argument—yes. Go on!"

"Partly because of that we've succeeded. I can't see myself, or you, my boy, chucking our work to help others, although after the work was done we might write a cheque—eh?"

"You had better have another whisky and potass."

"Thanks. I will."

They watched the Miraflores ballet from a couple of balcony stalls. Fabulous sums had been spent upon the costumes of the dancers, who represented flowers and butterflies. Pynsent became absorbed in the spectacle of light and colour and movement. Now and again he jogged Corrance with his elbow, calling his attention to this effect and that, muttering inarticulate exclamations. The lights in the theatre were turned low, so that the stage, a blaze of golden splendour, attracted all eyes. Then, suddenly, like a sun in eclipse, the stage itself was obscured. One saw luminous shadows through which floated spirits of the air, mysterious winged beings; the butterflies seeking the flowers at the approach of night. Impenetrable darkness succeeded as the band stopped playing. In the foyer, men and women crowded together craned their heads in one direction, awaiting the supreme moment. It came. Out of the darkness glided a dazzling creature, veiled in what seemed to be a tissue of diamonds. From her alone emanated light, a myriad sparkles. She advanced slowly with white, outstretched arms, a smile upon her face. At the edge of the stage she poised herself for flight. Not a sound broke the silence, but one felt the throb and thrill of a thousand hearts. Then a faint strain of music suffused the air, as the creature took wing. She soared upward and forward, following the curve of an ellipse. Thus soaring, she scattered flowers which fell everywhere, filling the house with perfume. In the dome of the building she vanished. A sigh of pleasure escaped the lips of the spectators. The vision reappeared, gliding forward as before out of obscurity. Once more, for the last time, she soared upward and vanished.

"Let us go," said Pynsent. "That was the immortal spirit of Love. And she vanished—no wonder—in this temple of——" He shut his lips, for his neighbours were staring at him.

Corrance rose, muttering: "The expenses must be stupendous; but Miraflores shares are at 219. I bought a nice little block at 127 eighteen months ago."

"Shut up, you miserable materialist!"

"I can't afford to be anything else—nor can Mark, poor devil!"

"I beg your pardon," said Pynsent hurriedly.

They pushed their way through the crowd, pausing at the top of the broad stairs which led to the street below. The atmosphere, charged with odours of musk and patchouli and reeking of strong cigars, was overpoweringly oppressive. But on almost every face, pale beneath the glare of the electric light, flamed a curious satisfaction, curious because with rare exceptions it was artificial. The exception may be mentioned. A thick-set man, remarkable by reason of his white hair and pink smooth face, stood at the entrance, bowing and beaming. The habitués knew him, and nodded carelessly as they passed by. Some exchanged a few words. The man seemed to be counting: reckoning the numbers present, computing gains.

"That's old Harry," said Corrance to the painter. "He runs this place. Hullo, Harry, how are you? Big house to-night."

"Big house every night," said Harry complacently. "You know that, Mr. Corrance. It's prime—prime. I never get tired of watching it."

He rubbed his plump white hands together, beaming like an aged cherub.

"Holy Moses!" exclaimed Pynsent. "You never get tired of watching—this?" He indicated the promenade in a derisive gesture.

"Never," said Harry, opening his blue eyes in childish astonishment at such a question. "Why this is my show. I planned it. I stand here every night."

"It's meat and drink, old chap, isn't it?" said Corrance.

"I've got just where I wanted to be," Harry said solemnly. "The boys call me king of the music-halls."

"Good-night, your majesty," said Corrance, beginning to descend the stairs. "There's one that's happy and content," he added, as Pynsent and he strolled down the corridor.

"We're saprophytes," burst out Pynsent.

"I don't know what that means," said Jim, "but it sounds something nasty."

CHAPTER XL

"COME!"

True to his promise, Corrance sought out the Bishop of Poplar, and delivered himself of his message. David Ross nodded, but his fine eyes were troubled.

"What's happened to Mark?" said Corrance irritably. "D——n it all—I beg your pardon, David, but Mark would make you swear, bishop though you are."

"I'll see him," said David; "but I—I don't know—I fear——" He broke off abruptly. Then his eyes flashed. "What's happened to Mark?

"As for me," said Jim, "I can see, but Mark, the blind fool, wants a nurse or a keeper. He's half child, half lunatic. I'll go now. You're up to your nose in work, and so am I. I suppose you want money, you shameless beggar?"

"All I can get and all I can't get."

"I shall have to send you a cheque," Jim growled. "I tell everybody you're the dearest friend I've got. Good-bye."

He retreated hastily, fearing a lecture. David returned to an enormous correspondence with which his secretary was endeavouring to cope. The poor man nearly burst into tears when his chief told him that he might be absent for several hours. David put on his hat, deaf to a score of protests.

"I'm going fishing," he said, "and, confound it! I've no bait."

Corrance had told him that Mark lunched at the Scribblers. To that club the Bishop took his way. There he learned that Mark was writing in the silence room. David walked in, unannounced, holding out his hand, which Mark refused to take.

"You went to Betty," he said fiercely.

"No."

"She failed me."

"Yes; she failed you, thank God."

"What brings you here?"

"You know perfectly well."

"But this is intolerable, this interference! Will you understand, Ross, that I insist upon your leaving me alone?"

"That is impossible, Mark. Why, I want you to come and stay with me for a month."

"I wonder they ordained you a bishop," said Mark. "I thought they made a point of choosing men of—tact."

"I've any amount of tact," said David cheerfully. "Mark, you're a madman, and in your soul you know it."

"Tommy Greatorex sent you on this fool's errand?"

"Yes; Greatorex and Jim and Pynsent. Your friends love you well, Mark. Have you no love for them?"

"I'll tell you something, Ross; it may save you time and trouble. The love I had for you fellows is dead—dead." Then, as a gesture of dismay escaped the Bishop, Mark added: "I cannot love anybody. If it could come back, if—but it won't. That's why I've kept away from most of you. You—you all bore me. Oh, it's my fault, I know. I've become a one-idea'd man. I can think of nothing but my play and the woman who is going to produce it, to give it life. She's become part of it, do you understand, part of me—me. I can't lie to you; but I'd like you to try to realise that the Mark Samphire you once knew is dead. Who killed Cock Robin?" he laughed. "I can't answer that question."

"You mean you won't," said the Bishop steadily. "Well, I believe in the resurrection of the dead. You will come to life again, Mark Samphire, but not at my touch."

He moved towards the door.

"David!"

The familiar name thrilled upon the air. It was Mark, the old Mark, speaking. In an instant the hands of the two friends were locked.

"I can't let you go like that," said Mark. "For all you have done and would do, I—thank you."

A few days passed without incident. Spring was abroad in the fields and woods, hailed by twittering birds and white blossoms. Mark felt her caress, and was sensible of that amazing calm which succeeds and precedes any strenuous effort. He let himself drift with the current, lulled almost to sleep by the lilt of the stream which bore him to the troubled waters beyond his ken.

Someone has said that a fine quality in a human being may become the source of disaster as well as triumph. One might go further, and add that a fine quality denied its triumph, may be wrecked in disaster. That love for others with which Mark had been endowed would have increased and multiplied in marriage. The man had the best qualities or a husband and father. He apprehended this with his reason, even as Betty apprehended it intuitively. But such manifest destiny had been denied him, as in like manner it was denied to his friend David Ross. But David had been given his triumph. His power of loving, purged from the taint of selfish emotion, had expanded enormously, incredibly, suffusing itself, divinely fluid, over vast areas, transmuting everything it touched, producing and reproducing with inexhaustible energy and fertility. Mark's love might have flowed into as many and diverse channels had it not been dammed by its bastard brother passion—hate.

Now, standing (as Greatorex had put it) on the brink of the bottomless pit, he was conscious that not only was love, the higher love, dead, but that hate also was moribund. He could think of Archibald as of one at an immeasurable distance—a shadowy figure, a blur upon the horizon. And since his meeting with Betty in Pynsent's studio, she also had faded, and become unreal, a phantom of the past, flitting from him into impenetrable shades.

This feeling of remoteness from the persons whose lives had been so interwoven with his own underwent a crucial test that same afternoon. In the Globe Mark read that the see of Parham had been offered to and accepted by Archibald Samphire. His brother had reached the apex of his ambitions; he was the bishop-designate of a famous diocese in the North of England! Lower down, in the same column, was another paragraph—

"Mrs. Perowne is leaving London for the Continent. The famous actress, we are given to understand, has accepted a play by one of our rising novelists, a play which those who have read it declare to be quite out of the common."

Mark recognised the finger of Tommy in this, as well as the long arm of coincidence. Upon the page opposite the column of personal paragraphs was a sketch of his brother's life and labours. Mark laughed. The Bishop of Parham. A spiritual peer! And what a leg for a gaiter! He laughed again, reflecting that other paragraphs might be printed concerning a famous actress and a rising novelist. My lord would read them with horror.

Next day the Times had a long leader about the Chrysostom of Chelsea. The late Bishop of Parham, an old infirm man, had distinguished himself as scholar, and then extinguished himself as prelate, lacking those powers of organisation which do not, perhaps, lend themselves to biblical exegesis and the Higher Criticism. His diocese—of great extent—had of late years increased enormously in population. The discovery of coal and a certain kind of clay had brought about an upheaval: the pastoral industries, which supported a few farmers and shepherds, still flourished, but side by side with colossal commercial enterprises. Towns, black with the smoke from a thousand factories, had sprung up like mushrooms upon turf that had never known a plough; railroads ravaged the face of the landscape with indelible lines; half a dozen fishing villages bade fair to become seaports of importance. With these new and complex conditions, the aged scholar had tried in vain to cope. Upon his death, at an advanced age, it was felt at headquarters that a young man must be selected to grapple with them: an athlete of tried physical strength, an abstainer (for the statistics in regard to drunkenness were appalling), an organiser, and above all things an eloquent preacher. For such a task no better nor abler man than Archibald Samphire could be found in the kingdom. The Prime Minister had made a wise selection, which the Dean and Chapter of Parham would, doubtless, approve and confirm. And so forth....

Mark bought other journals and read what was written about Parham and its bishop-designate. In each a few lines were accorded to the wife, who, by happy chance, was descended from the most ancient and distinguished of the border families. One paper contained the following:—

"Our readers will learn with deep sympathy and regret that the health of the future châtelaine of Parham Castle is causing her husband and many friends grave anxiety."

Mark sprang to his feet with an exclamation. Betty—ill! In an instant he felt his blood circulating violently, stinging him to wild and over-powering excitement. The bishop-designate of Parham remained an attenuated shade; his wife was clothed with palpable flesh and blood. Ill? She? Incredible!

He despatched a telegram to Dibdin, the butler, and waited for the answer, pacing up and down the Finchley Road, regardless of a shower which wetted him to the skin. While he waited, one of the telegraph boys who knew him came up with a despatch. Mark tore open the envelope. The telegram was from Sybil Perowne. She had reached Paris and was going to Fontainebleau. Mark stared stupidly at the message. Then he murmured between his teeth: "I wish she was going to Jericho."

The actress had become as remote as Betty had been a few hours before. Between Sybil Perowne and him stretched the long years of youth and childhood, never to be forgotten—the years which belonged to Betty. He went back to meet Betty in a thousand familiar places; she ran to meet him, her eyes radiant with pleasure, her lips parted in joyous acclamation.

An hour later Dibdin's answer came—

"Very ill indeed. Typhoid."

Mark went to Chelsea in the first hansom he saw. At his brother's house carriages were coming and going upon the straw which had been laid down. Dibdin gave details. His mistress had complained of headache and general malaise for some ten days, but had refused persistently to see her doctor. Finally, she had taken to her bed, ravaged by fever. She had eaten some oysters sent as a present to the preacher by an ardent admirer. Archibald also had eaten the oysters, but with impunity.

"Lady Randolph is upstairs, and master is in the library," said Dibdin. "Won't you see him, Mr. Mark?"

Mark hesitated.

"Yes," he said nervously, "I will. Show me in, Dibdin."

Archibald, who was writing at his desk, rose to receive him. As the door closed behind Dibdin, the eyes of the brothers met.

"If she asks for me, you will send?" said Mark, moving a step nearer.

"Go," Archibald replied, trembling and turning aside his eyes.

"Not till I have your promise. She may not ask, but if she does, by Heaven! you must, you shall send. Swear it!"

"Go, go!"

But Mark advanced, omnipotent by virtue of the passion within him.

Archibald retreated. Did he fear violence? Or did he read in his brother's eyes a power of will against which he was helpless. Pale, shaken as by a palsy, he stammered out: "I w-w-will s-s-send."

"Swear it!"

"I swear it."

Mark went back into the hall. Dibdin mentioned, with a pride which at any other time would have tickled Mark's humour, that everybody in London wanted the latest news. He and George, the footman, were almost worn out answering inquiries. Princes of the blood, the House of Peers, the House of Commons, Royal Academicians, county families, had learned with infinite regret of Mrs. Samphire s dangerous illness. Mark listened with eager ears. And what did Dibdin himself think? Dibdin, like all of his class, was lamentably pessimistic. "In the hall, we entertain no hope, no hope," Dibdin murmured. "And to think of that beautiful castle at Parham without the mistress is breaking our hearts in two, sir."

A terrible ten days passed. At the beginning of the first week Mark received a letter from Mrs. Perowne. Between the lines of it an even more distracted vision than Mark's might have caught a glimpse of the Fury. Mark read it, wondering what charm he had perceived in her, and thankful that no links stronger than words bound him to the witch. He had asked no questions concerning Mrs. Perowne's past; and she had asked none concerning his. The postscript to her letter was very imperative: "Come to the woman you love, if you are alive." He replied simply: "The woman I loved as a boy and a man, the woman I love still, is dying. Think what you please of me, and forget me as soon as possible." By return of post came his play with a brutal line across the title page: "Take this to her; I have no use for it." Mark tossed the typescript into a drawer with a laugh. Fenella, the graven image of success which he had set up and worshipped, had become a thing of absolutely no importance. But he remembered the Chow and the spirits of ammonia. His dear love, who lay dying, had saved him from—what?

Meantime, his friends sought him out, but he sent away David, and Tommy Greatorex and Pynsent. Jim Corrance, however, refused to leave him, although Mark ignored his presence for twenty-four hours. Then, very gradually, he thawed into speech with his old friend. Together they awaited the bulletins. The disease was running its slow, tortuous course. One telegram spelt hope in capital letters; another—despair: each rose and fell with Betty's temperature. Mark's self-control distressed poor Jim unspeakably. His face, which had lost the expression of youth, always so captivating, wore an iron mask of impassivity. And yet Jim knew that the intermittences of Betty's fever imposed themselves on Mark.

We are told that Chinese malefactors condemned to die by the abominable torment of Ling—the death from a thousand cuts—only suffer up to a certain point. Then insensibility dulls the knives of the executioners.

Jim was asking himself the question: "Will Mark cease to feel?" when a telegram from Archibald reached Hampstead, containing one word, "Come."

CHAPTER XLI

THE POWER BEHIND THE THRONE

Lady Randolph was awaiting Mark in the pretty drawing-room overlooking the river.

"Nothing can save her," she whispered. "She is alive because she could not die without seeing you. What is left is yours. You understand. Archibald has been generous."

"Archibald has his son," Mark said hoarsely.

"She was not herself till last night, when the fever burnt itself out. But, Mark, always, always she raved of you. Husband and child were never mentioned. It was terrible for him—poor fellow—terrible!"

Mark followed her upstairs.

Betty lay in bed, the light from the windows, which were opened wide, streaming upon her emaciated face. A clean, sweet perfume of violets filled the air, and whatever might have indicated a long and terrible illness had been removed.

She met his glance with a strange smile, as he stumbled forward, falling on his knees at the bedside, saying nothing, but kissing the hand lying limp upon the coverlet. Betty spoke first:

"Mark, Mark, Archie has forgiven you."

Mark said nothing. His brother's forgiveness came upon him at this moment as a meaningless blow on the cheek. What did he care for Archie's forgiveness? But he understood instantly what it meant to Betty. It explained the smile with which she greeted him. The question in her eyes slowly burnt its way to his heart.