Front matter (continued 2)

Another picture. The convent chapel this time; the hour of Benediction which she loved. Warm glow from the altar, warm glow about her heart. A suffused radiance from the lamps that burned day and night before the Body of the Lord; a wave of light, from the candles upon the altar, that seemed to roll upward as the incense soared, a vivid golden cloud that changed its shape momentarily, and was always beautiful, carrying your eye higher and higher until its glance rested at last in perfect peace upon the jewelled monstrance and pyx that held the Sacred Host. The nun's song stilled—that swan-song of dead womanhood—the hush of concentrated prayer—silence—the tinkling of a bell—the blessing that bathed one in a sea of light....

Music again; the organ only. The sense of human breath, temporarily suspended, returning simultaneously to a vast crowd that had for a short while been swayed by an eternal mystery. The shuffling of feet, the changed poise of many bodies, the jingle of rosaries, hastily kissed and put away, the rhythmic filing out of obedient convent boarders, outer air flowing in. But for some time afterwards Evelyn would move in a dream-world, a little detached from, a little unaware of, the gay chatter and talk of her companions in their recreation hour. One day, when in this mood, she was called to the parlour. Her father and stepmother awaited her with a strange man. It had been suggested that Evelyn was to sail with her parents for India, three months later, but Mrs. Harcourt, who, though no longer in her first youth, possessed some charm still for the other sex, had dreaded the rivalry of the younger woman, and was in consequence untiring in her efforts to alter the arrangement. Henry Brand, an acquaintance of her husband's, had been struck by Evelyn's beauty when visiting the convent in a friend's company one day to hear the music. He offered himself now as a solution to the problem.

"Would you like to be married, Evelyn?" her stepmother demanded abruptly. Something in the rapt look of the girl's face showed her that direct methods would be best. "Your father and I are anxious about you; we feel sure that you are much too delicate for India. Mr. Brand says that he wants to marry you, and we should like to leave you in his care."

"Why—should I mind? Yes, of course I'll marry him if you wish me to," said Evelyn dazedly. She had never cared to dwell on the thought of India in her stepmother's company; marriage with any one—the veriest stranger—would be better. She looked at Henry Brand gravely and sedately as he came to her and took her hand. The expression of her father's face, half-ashamed, and half-relieved, perplexed her; as her stepmother sprang forward, she shrank back from the hilarious embrace. The woman glanced at her husband and nodded. All three conspirators had counted upon Evelyn's obedience. Convent training does its work, and the moment had been especially propitious.

"Quite a leading of Providence, in fact," said Mrs. Harcourt, summing up the situation to everybody's satisfaction.

The last picture—the last, at least, upon which Evelyn chose to linger. Her wedding, hastened to fit in with her parents' autumn visits, and to prevent the possibility of a change.

The Oratory this time, large and massive; it felt very grey and cold after the convent chapel. A short Mass and no music—Henry Brand was avowedly a Protestant, but had no fixed belief. There were strangers in the congregation. Some one sobbing—why should Sister Veronica cry? Distractions pouring in; Evelyn pondered as to the meaning of certain directions given her by her confessor; she wondered if she would be allowed to visit the different altars of the church after the ceremony; she noticed a brilliant feather in a lady's hat; for the first time she felt a little shy and lonely. She wished that every one would not look at her; there were some pretty people to look at! She hoped she would be happy; she thought how nice it would be to be married, to have a man—even if his back were not quite straight—to go about with, instead of a mere nun. In future she would be able to wear nice clothes, to move freely in the world, to read what she liked, and be taken to public places where she might even meet some of the people she had crowned with laurels—Chamberlain, Curzon, Kitchener.

How wicked she was! She shut her eyes and knelt up very straight, practising every art she knew against the onslaught of distraction. Above the altar was a picture of the Blessed Virgin and the Eternal Father, painted by a French father of the community, after a design by Sebastian Concha of Turin. She looked from it to the cartouche above, the gilt heart surrounded by rays; then on again to the central picture. Little, forgotten stories of St. Philip Neri came back to her; little, forgotten maxims. She remembered how, on one occasion, a rich noble had come to St. Philip, full of his worldly plans and ambitions. The saint had listened patiently to the confidences, as was his habit. But at the end—"And then?" ... he asked.

Her dreams of happiness, her hopes of success, both seemed to sweep her towards the mysterious shore of marriage—that Sacrament which Catholics approach with prayer and fasting. So far so good. But—then? ...

The church faded; she was lost in the whirl and confusion of amused spectators, who pelted her with rose leaves and confetti, praising her beauty till she blushed. She drove off with her husband, still half-intoxicated with excitement. Then came a picture to which she shut her eyes, the first of a long series, blackening with time.

CHAPTER III

"They should take who have the power."

Martin Calvert was a business man, pure and simple. But he had withal a certain clairvoyance which enabled him to detect in others such qualities as would produce the most marketable and satisfactory results.

Starting life with a fairly large income, he had slowly but surely added to it, by effective, if unsensational, means. He had travelled in many countries, discarding the methods of the Yellow Press and its like, comparatively early in his career. It seemed to him that a man only reached permanent fame by being sincere himself and dealing sincerely with human problems. His sense of honour was so acute that it entered even into his business transactions. He had, of course, to make use of the weakness of others to a certain extent, to bend opportunity to his will on occasions; but he set about his work with a straightness not always, nor even often, found in Wall Street. Yet he had learned something from America, although it was said of him in that country that he missed more chances of making fortunes in a day than most men did in a lifetime.

But his round million of money satisfied him after all. He had no near kith or kin to work for, and, patriotic as a man may be at heart, impersonal ties seldom stir his blood so deeply as do those of family. Evelyn was right, he had learned by now to look upon Farquharson almost as his son. He had recognized him from the first as being a man of power, and the incident of their meeting was dramatic. A big ecclesiastical procession was marching one Easter down the Rambla at Barcelona; Calvert, standing at a street corner, was watching it with immense disapprobation. The crowd surged onward, sweeping all before it like a mighty flood; a child, running suddenly across the path of the procession, slipped, and was trampled out of sight almost without a cry, lost in the religious exaltation that is so often blind to human claims. From the opposite side of the road a man dashed forward; so sudden was his movement that it arrested even the half-dazed crowd. The child was saved. He had borne it away before more than the first ranks of the spectators knew what had happened.

The promptness, the surety of the action, appealed to a man to whom swift decisions came naturally. The rescuer was neat, but shabby. Calvert invited him to his hotel.

Farquharson made no claim on Calvert's pity or patronage. But, after a few judicious questions, the older man discovered that the stranger was of some social significance, and had been out of employment for about three weeks. The secretary for whom he had last worked in an office had absconded with the contents of the till. Calvert had important business letters to send to England that evening. He hired Farquharson's services then and there for the night, and presently gave him a place in his office.

And now, fifteen years later, he looked back upon this act of impulse as being the wisest of his life. From a commercial point of view, Farquharson had paid his way. More than that, he had healed an old sore in Calvert's heart; he had renewed the man's lost faith and hope. And Calvert was old enough to realize that in life the things we can touch and lay hold of are not always or even often the most valuable.

The dinner hour, usually a propitious moment in which to discuss claims and urge the need of benefactions, was almost always a cause of annoyance to Calvert. He hated ostentation; the very men who were anxious to gain his favour frequently lost it by offering him out-of-season delicacies on gold plate. Once, at a small dinner party in New York, where over a thousand dollars had been spent on table decorations alone, Calvert rose at the fourth course and struck the table with a blow which shook the gay, luxurious crowd from its apathy.

"You have got starving men outside," he said. "Every dish you have set before me, to my mind, is wholesale murder. You and your ways remind me of Babylon; beware lest her fate overtakes you."

But the startled guests broke in here with hilarious shrieks of laughter. The episode was supposed to have been got up by the host as a new form of entertainment to pique their jaded palates.

Conforming to custom in his own house, Calvert always offered his guests champagne at dinner, but he himself invariably drank ale. Democrat as he was, he could complain of nothing in the meal that had just been served at Creagh. It was characteristic of his host; good and simple without display. And the talk through the dinner was genial and unaffected; something in the atmosphere of a room which has grown warm with human kindness calls for a like response from those of its occupants who are sensitive to influences.

Calvert felt his own mind expand. He had talked openly, as he seldom talked, and Farquharson was at his best. The elder man took a pride in watching this child of his deliberate choice, who never failed him. Farquharson was a man who had from the first seen two moves ahead in the game of life, and Calvert, himself a skilled player, gladly acknowledged himself beaten by a pupil to whom he had taught the rudiments of hazard.

The drawing-room at Creagh was essentially a pleasant room. Innumerable flowers, books and reviews, Lady Ennly's spinning-wheel and lace pillow, kept in constant use, gave it a homely, old-fashioned appearance. Calvert, aware of comfort, although unable to analyze its cause, crossed the room to Mrs. Brand, who withdrew to a distant corner as the men entered the room.

She swept her skirt aside, and pointed to the seat beside her.

"How nice of you to come and speak to me! I thought you meant to," she said.

Calvert smiled.

"Lord Creagh told me you were just like that. 'Confide in Mrs. Brand, tell her everything you want; the more direct you are the more she'll like you,' he said. Now, I'm a plain man, Mrs. Brand, and have never been used to women and their ways. I deal with facts, not illusions." He seated himself more comfortably in his chair, obviously preparing for an intimate talk. "I'm commercial through and through, you know; if I want a thing I like to pay its proper price. Now, I want something from you, and you're not the sort of woman to take any price at all. That annoys me, because I haven't the faintest shadow of a claim upon your interest."

Evelyn was silent for a moment.

"Women aren't very active powers in the world as a rule," she said; "I'm a dabbler. I paint little pictures, I write little stories and do fancy work, for money—that's all. I think I could have been a good mother, but I've never had a child. There's nothing in this world of my very own I can shape and mould as I should love to shape it. I suppose I like to play with lives as other women do with stocks and shares. It's just another form of speculation. So when men who can do things—there aren't many of them!—are good enough to trust me, to confide in me even the tiniest inkling of their plans and hopes, I'm very proud." She waited. "I've always had one big ambition. I've wanted to do something to help on, even in the smallest way, some one who'll do big things; to show that I believed in him before the world had the least knowledge of what he was capable. I think you re going to give me my opportunity—I know what you want, of course; any one would, who saw you with Mr. Farquharson. You want every scrap of help for him that you can get. Now, mind, I don't really see where I come in, for he's a man who won't need even you for long. He stands alone; he'd always like to, wouldn't he?"

"You're right; he'd always like to," Calvert admitted slowly. There was some sadness in his tone.

Evelyn put out her hand.

"It's a good trait, isn't it? It hurts other people, of course. I think no one gets on in the world without hurting some one else in the process. But there are times when one thanks God that one was just the person who was called upon to make that special sacrifice which was counted on and taken, so very simply. Not that I see there should be any sacrifice in Mr. Farquharson's case. He is your protégé. Everything he does will tell for you. He came to you with a handful of irons, and you gave him fuel and lit the fire, and you'll be even prouder of the fact some day than you are now. Well, if you can let me put in even one tiny piece of wood to keep that fire alight, you may guess how delighted I shall be."

Calvert gave a sigh of relief.

"Thank you. You're right, of course. I'm acting the part of beggar for the boy's sake. You are—forgive me, I don't mean it rudely—a sort of fashionable cult. You know a great many persons, and everybody likes you. Some one once said of you that if a man really wanted the key of the Foreign Office secrets he would hunt for it in your flat. And they said, too, that you were as straight as a die: it's a quality one doesn't invariably find in political women. I want it to be under your wing that Richard"—he was unconscious of the lapse—"meets people. I'd like him to go into the world as a friend of yours. Oh yes, Creagh can do a lot for him, I know; but Creagh's religion puts off many people. You're a Romanist, too; but, then, one lets a woman have her little failings. Now, in many ways I'm broad-minded; Farquharson's political opinions and mine are at opposite poles, for instance; but I want him to have a free hand. There'll be a change in the Ministry soon. I give our present Government six months. We've decimated the Army, and the Navy's at boiling-point; the Labour candidates and Irish members are aggrieved as usual. You know what all parties think about the Education Bill—one needn't go into that; and I hear hints of so-called Licensing reforms, which will set the country by the ears."

He waited.

"Yes?" said Evelyn.

"During the winter I want Farquharson to meet men who are likely to form the next Ministry," said Calvert deliberately, lowering his voice. "To meet them intimately and often—under convenient auspices. I should like them all to forgather at your house. You bring the right people together, and you make them talk."

"I only listen."

Calvert laughed again.

"The music of a man's voice is very sweet in his ears. You're a born diplomat, Mrs. Brand. You and Richard have a quality in common—you're both 'masters of the unspoken word and slaves of the word you have spoken.' I don't want a cheap success for Richard. He's a man of men; in my heart I believe him to be the one man who can save our country in its crisis." There was a little pause. "It sounds sentimental to say it, but I love England. So does he. His pulses beat to music which most men only hear once in a lifetime. Things must come to him in time. He mustn't eat his heart out wanting them. For the country's sake as well as his I'm in a hurry. He ought to have a place in the next Cabinet."

Music was seldom permitted at Creagh, the conversation was usually too good for it. But a French opera singer was amongst the guests that night, and the words of her song came to them, clear and pathetic, in the pause that followed—

"Cet espoir, hélas! d'un avenir doré

Ces apparitions, ces rêves ont duré,

Le temps d'une aube boréale,

Et mon esprit partit aux fabuleux

Ou l'on pense cueillir les camélias bleus

Et trouver l'amour idéale."

How long would Calvert's dream last?

"I should like to know Mr. Farquharson better," said Evelyn presently. With the exception of Farquharson and his host, the remaining guests had gathered round Madame de Mirelle. Not to have paid for a professional entertainment is the surest factor in its enjoyment. As her voice died away, tenderly, like a caress, the buzz of talk rose and fell easily, and drifted to them at intervals. Presently the accompanist began a few modulations, preparatory to the prelude of the next song.

"I will do what you say, of course; I will gladly make opportunities, if Mr. Farquharson will take them."

"He only needs a chance," said Calvert. "Look at me." He rose heavily from his chair and stood before her: a man of loose build, large and solid; the type of man whom a photographer would pose beside a writing-table, with right hand extended on an open book, against a "good library background," like some suburban mayor. "I'm not a romantic figure, am I? but I've had my dreams, as romantic as any lover's, and Farquharson materialized one of them. I want to materialize his now as a thank-offering."

Evelyn said nothing. She looked up with eyes quick with sympathy, that drew him gently to her side again.

"I wanted an island to play with—to administrate," said Calvert after a pause. "It was the first definite plan that came to me after a blow which shook my world. You know about that, probably. I had nothing of my own left to care for. Kith and kin had either died or left me—they cared for nothing but my money. I wanted some one thing—in default of a person—a place I could do as I liked with—could run on my own lines—make in my own image, as you would have made your child. They were Utopian lines, maybe, which I meant to follow, but I wanted a commercial success too. There were plenty of useless places to be had as a mere matter of barter; some of them even carried titles with them! They didn't do. Hobbies—as hobbies—don't appeal to me. I went to Stamford's and bought maps; spent hours at the Geographical Society in Savile Row, groping in Parliamentary Reports, and so forth, until I found a spot which seemed to be all I wanted. And one day, very shortly after, Farquharson and I set sail for Taorna."

His eyes softened as a man's eyes soften when he recalls a splendid vision.

"If you could see it," he said impulsively, "you'd understand then all that the first glimpse of it meant to me. It's as dear to me now as it was then. It was Farquharson's first voyage. We got there early one morning, soon after dawn. Our bagahalow drew in to the shore as slowly and rhythmically as a gondola. There was light and colour everywhere. Bamboo skiffs, their decks flush with the sides, floated by, steered by negro slaves, singing. The oil of their skins gleamed like polish. The whole scene——" He stopped, seeking for the right expression. "It throbbed with the sunlight. Naked boys near the shore were diving into the water, not for pennies as they do in Madeira, but to catch shining fish in their hands, or in bright nets. A herd of little black babies with big stomachs were rolling over and over in the lemon-coloured sands, under the charge of atoms of three and four years old, twirling tops made out of whelk shells."

"For nobody knew what the bagahalow was bringing," said Evelyn softly.

"Unconscious, all," said Calvert grimly. "That was what touched me—and their patience. On the shore a group of slaves stood chained together; they had unhealed wheals across their shoulders, and the fetters had cut into their arms and made festering sores. I've lived too long out in the East to call black men my brothers, but injustice sticks in my gorge. All the voyage I'd been digesting a volume of evidence as to the Sheikh's ways of dealing with offenders."

He knocked the ashes off his cigarette with care. Lady Ennly, more accustomed to the society of men than women, allowed her guests to smoke in the drawing-room.

"Well, that's not pretty, and the scenery was," he said. "I can see it all now. A hill like a tower standing over five hundred feet high faced us, and dotted all over the islands were groups of Wanabi mosques with minarets. At the base of the hill there were the remains of the old capital, a white stone city, so brilliant in the sunshine that we had to shade our eyes. But everything was brilliant. Taornian sportsmen hunting gazelle in the distance, I remember, were riding horses with gold and crimson trappings, and in the east some women, unconscious of our field-glasses, had pushed back their masks; they carried baskets of citrons on their heads, and wore upper garments rather like red chemises, with flapping orange-coloured trousers. But all the colour concentrated in the gardens; hibiscus, pomegranates, plumbago, every tropical fruit and flower almost that you can think of grew in profusion."

Madame de Mirelle was singing again, a Bedouin love song this time.

"They were chanting something not unlike that song she's singing," said Calvert, jerking his broad thumb in the direction of the music-room. "It had a sort of droning note—pathetic almost. I suppose a sentimental man would have taken it as a call ... it meant a lot to me somehow."

"It must have meant still more to Richard Farquharson," said Evelyn slowly.

"He knew all along I was making him ready for some trial of strength; what it was he didn't know. I'm not the man to speak of dreams until they are within an ace of realization. He scored off me on one point, I remember. I'd made arrangements for our landing; amongst other items I'd ordered suitable conveyances. They sent us white donkeys of the swift Taornian breed, for which they're famous. Their tails and manes were very smart with henna, but they had neither reins nor stirrups. Our choice lay between them and camels. I chose a donkey, because it was less far to fall from." He paused.

"Go on, please," said Evelyn.

Calvert nodded.

"Curious how such details stay with one. I remember the very words I used to Farquharson at that moment, the look on his face as he listened. I purposely gave my order as though I were telephoning for a restaurant table. I said, 'I mean to have this island. You must get it for me. I'll give you a free hand, but everything must be fixed up before I leave for the next meeting of the Kimbala Mines in a week's time.' And Farquharson"—his eyes narrowed, and he smiled the slow smile of a man who looks back on a pleasant memory—"Farquharson turned very sharply; it was a savage place, you know, and he would have to deal with savages. So far he hadn't come across them. He said——"

Evelyn leant forward.

"Yes?"

Calvert laughed.

"He said, 'Right, sir. Look out, or you'll be off that donkey in another moment.' And that was all we ever said about the matter till the thing was done."

Dora Beadon swept across the room, a pair of youthful members of the Upper House in her train.

"Evelyn, your behaviour at parties is simply execrable. You've kept this corner all the evening, and everybody wants it, it's so comfy." Then in an undertone—"Now, do be grateful to me, there's a dear. I felt I must in common charity relieve you of that dreadful old fogey. And, besides, you haven't told me yet how you like my gown. Felice sat up all night giving the finishing touches, and was as cross as fourteen hundred sticks all day in consequence. Maids are so utterly unbearable."

"It's a lovely frock," said Evelyn, honestly admiring the beautiful material which no art could drape in graceful folds upon Miss Beadon's short, fat body. "Let off Felice to-night, Dora dear. I'll come and put you to bed if you'll let me. You don't know what a good maid I am."

"You'd ruin any decent maid in a month," said Dora shortly, her mouth twisting into curves which always showed displeasure. "It's a good thing you're never likely to have one. Felice is paid to wait on me; you aren't. Don't talk nonsense, Evelyn. Servants are made for us, not we for servants. If they fall ill they can go, and more fools they, when you think of the wages we give them. Oh"—with a brilliant smile—"isn't that Mr. Farquharson? Do come here, won't you? We've kept a place for you in this corner. Evelyn, isn't that Lady Wereminster calling? I wouldn't keep her waiting if I were you."

CHAPTER IV

"Thou shalt do a deed and abide it."—LEWIS MORRIS.

"If I were a younger woman, Richard Farquharson is a man I should fall head over ears in love with," announced Lady Wereminster, pausing at Evelyn's door on the way to her bedroom. "I mean no disrespect to Wereminster, of course; than whom it would be difficult to conceive a more opposite type. But the man sweeps one off one's feet, by sheer force of vitality and power. The guileless maiden of my time—it's a type that no longer exists, my dear; the birth of the twentieth century killed it—would have been vanquished at first sight, and suffered from vapours for a week. I suppose you have taken him under your wing, Evelyn? I noticed his political godfather making overtures to you in a recess. Well, you have a protégé who'll do you credit this time. Not like some of your lame dogs, who only used their mended limbs to kick you later. No, it's no use hushing me down, Evelyn. Other people have eyes and ears beside yourself, you know. Don't you remember making everybody's life unbearable until you'd secured an important colonial appointment for the husband of some impossible woman who looked like a suffragette and lived in the suburbs? After she'd spent the extra three hundred a year for twelve months or so she began abusing you because you hadn't got them an appointment in England instead. And there was another woman, who had twins or triplets, or something tiresome and embarrassing. You sold your best lace to provide the unprovided guest with the requirements of decency, and then the mother complained that the things you gave her had been bought at Peter Jones's instead of Steinmann's."

Evelyn laughed.

"Come now, you're the last person to preach. Your house has always been known to be the refuge of the socially destitute."

"One has to pay for one's title even if it's an old one," said Lady Wereminster. "It tacks on about thirty per cent. on the price of a yard of ribbon and lessens your income from five hundred a year upwards in charitable demands. But about Richard Farquharson. I believe that man's made of the right stuff, Evelyn."

She laid her hand on the younger woman's arm with a sudden access of gravity.

"My dear, I'm an old woman, and in my heart of hearts I'm as troubled for my country as though she were my child. All about me are signs of decay. I see young people spending twice as much a week on pleasure as their parents would have spent on the necessities of life in a year; I see every principle I was taught in childhood violated and outraged. Private betrayals, political treason, public indifference, contempt of religion, lightness in marriage are everywhere. Signs of the times, Wereminster says. It breaks his heart like mine. I was brought up to rank honour and truth and sincerity as everyday virtues, and marriage a church ceremony so solemn that it made one weep. I think we need some national upheaval or shock to make us realize how we've sunk morally."

"A strong man in politics, for instance, to take us by our shoulders and give us a good shaking?"

"Exactly. And that's just what Richard Farquharson would enjoy doing! The man will make history, my dear, or I'm no judge of character."

"I'm glad you've made friends with Mrs. Brand," said Creagh. It was past midnight, but he and Beadon had agreed to walk with Farquharson and Calvert so far as the village inn. "She's a woman of wide interests and sound common sense. By the way, she asked me if I knew any details of how Mr. Farquharson arranged that island scheme for you. She said I was not to press you if you had any objection to telling her."

"It's a long story," Calvert said slowly. "Farquharson never will speak of it. I think he went through worse things than I knew even. To start with, he had to go disguised to the bazaar, a thing not one Englishman out of a dozen could have carried through successfully, even with his knowledge of Arabic."

"He tossed the whole thing off to-night in a phrase when I spoke to him about it—said circumstances played into his hands, and it was merely a question of watching and waiting."

"There was a fairly complicated plot involved," said Calvert dryly. "To make you understand what happened I ought to explain something of the actual geographical situation. Taorna, you may know, is the chief of a group of islands that a good many Powers have coveted in their day—Turkish, Muscatian, Persian, even Portuguese. She was known to be a prize, her pearl fisheries only needed to be adequately worked on modern lines to bring in a big revenue. The Shah of Persia had had his eyes on that fishery for some time, and had planted secret agents very intelligently amongst the inland tribes of the Shiite sects. They sowed discontent and dissension—and we reaped the benefit."

Calvert stopped to light his cigar.

"Let the two others get on ahead a bit. Farquharson hates to hear me tell this story. Well, the island is divided into two parties; one being pro-Sheikh Aba, the other pro-Shah Omar. The Persians based their claim on the fact that, centuries before, Taorna had been an appanage of the Persian crown, under a certain race of kings."

"There were, in fact, the makings of a revolution, which you successfully turned to your own ends?" Creagh suggested, smiling.

"To England's eventually, I hope. Mind you, the scheme was Farquharson's. He began by sending a man to communicate with the British Consul at Benuni. Benuni is a port on the western coast of Persia. A British political resident lives there under the protection of a few gunboats. Sailors are always ready for a fight, as you know; it's a pleasant variation from the day's work. The Shiite revolution was timed to take place on Thursday night at ten o'clock. The palace was to be rushed and the Sheikh taken off to await the Shah's decision concerning which especial form of lingering death his end was intended to take. The Shah's claimant was, of course, to be immediately installed in place of the deposed ruler."

"And then——?"

"By ten o'clock on that same Thursday night the muzzles of two British gunboats were pointing at the mouth of Zut harbour, ready to protect my interests." There was a twinkle in Calvert's eyes, but his voice was preternaturally solemn. "Farquharson had been forced to represent, of course, that my person was in peril. You can count on the British Navy's disinclination to inquire unreasonably into the precise cause of these little affairs. I fear that the Commanders of those gunboats, young lieutenants both, gathered from the wording of Farquharson's appeal that my actual purchase of the island had taken place a few hours before it actually had; in his hurry he omitted to mention the exact time of the transaction." Creagh chuckled. "It was the death-blow of the plot. Half the population made for the shore, to see what the gunboats meant, and what Power they represented. And simultaneously, in the courtyard of the palace, Aba and his chiefs proclaimed that in view of the fact that the British had discovered a plot against his life, he had placed himself under their protection. Only a question or two was asked. The gunboats answered them."

"But I don't see——"

"Farquharson had interviewed the Sheikh first, of course," said Calvert simply. "He had made his way into the private apartments, every inch of the way to which was guarded. How he did it I don't know. Even by day only the members of the immediate household were allowed to approach within praying distance of the burying-place of his ancestors, where he had ensconced himself. I know Farquharson only reached him at the peril of his own life. He said the old man was quite reasonable under sheer stress of terror, and delighted to accept four lakhs of rupees for the transfer of the island. I told you he was old, and, luckily for us, his sons were lepers. I gave him his summer palace for his own use and that of the heirs immediate of his body in their lifetime. They were not to go beyond the walls without a permit for fear of insurrection. Aba was possibly the more amenable because he was frightened out of such wits as he still possessed at the thought of being killed in the same way that he had killed so many others."

"The three men actually were sent to prison then?" asked Creagh.

"Call it free accommodation in an hotel, it sounds better," Farquharson corrected blandly. He had caught the last words as the men approached.

"I take it that a liberal supply of palm-oil greased your way through those closed doors," said Creagh, turning.

Farquharson laughed.

"Oh, I had luck all through. I lighted upon the most useful drug in the bazaar, an excellent remedy for sleeplessness."

"I should like to hear more about your doings, Mr. Farquharson," said Beadon curiously.

"They're worth hearing." Creagh's tone was hearty. "He ran a great risk, but it was to some purpose. You and I know how useful Mr. Calvert has been to us, Beadon; how often his munificent gifts have helped the nation through tight places when our own exchequer has run dry. I'm sure he would be the first to acknowledge that he owes much of his fortune to Mr. Farquharson's help."

Calvert nodded approvingly. Things were panning out as he hoped. He appreciated Creagh's praise, but his eyes were fixed on Beadon—the man who, politically speaking, held Farquharson's future in his hand.

And for the moment Beadon was silent. Then—

"What did you yourself get out of it all?" he asked abruptly. "At first I was under the impression that you were Calvert's secretary, but some one told me to-night that you held an even more important post."

Calvert laid his hand affectionately upon the young man's shoulder.

"He is Administrator of Taorna," he said; "our report will be published in a few days. You will see then that the appointment is no sinecure. I think I may say that we work the resources of our island to the uttermost; we challenge you to make the fullest inquiries into our methods and criticize them fairly. Japan took thirty years to grow; we've taken ten. Even the present Government knows what our trade is: we have been useful to England already. We have our own fleet and our own Army, our own line of steamers for transport, our Chamber of Commerce and Council. Farquharson is the power behind all these; he holds them in the hollow of his hand. He works, I pay." A new note came into Calvert's voice, a note of gravity. "I have made him ruler over a few things already; at my death—God willing—I mean to leave him in a position where he may rule many things."

Creagh and Beadon walked away in silence. It was not until they had reached the lodge gates that the former spoke.

"Well, what have you decided to do for him?"

Beadon smiled.

"That's just like you! So you take my belief for granted, eh? Well, you're right. One might not like him, but one must believe in him. That impassive, implacable type of man always gets on. Look at his chin! But one can't decide these things in a hurry. There's the Blue Book to be looked through first.

"Oh, if it only depends on the Blue Book"—Creagh shrugged his shoulders—"that's right enough. I read the proofs this morning."

CHAPTER V

"... A bar was broken between

Life and life ...

In spite of the mortal screen."—BROWNING.

An American's advice to Farquharson at this particular juncture of his career would have been to "make things hum." The phrase itself is vulgar enough, but, employed with discretion, American methods have something in their favour. Farquharson, for one, knew their value. He brought infinite tact to bear upon his capture of London; to have captured London is, luckily for the nation, still to have captured the world.

He started well, of course. He had come at an effective moment, and his coming was judiciously pioneered. Then, too, he had the right influence to back him, and an amazing personality. It was impossible to ignore or be indifferent to him; he set too big forces in motion. Among the leaders of society he awoke, indeed, something like enthusiasm, and the plastic mob followed. Commercial enterprise has not yet robbed us of our love of the romantic, and there was something essentially romantic about Farquharson's past.

"The man takes one back to Scherazade and her thousand and one tales," Lady Wereminster decided. "He's unique. If he were to disappear before your eyes on a magic carpet, or turn your inferior electro-plate into solid gold, or vice versa, at an afternoon call, it wouldn't surprise you in the least. And yet he is utterly without pose. Then the man's voice! Well, Gladstone could talk about nothing for a solid hour or two, and make you think you were overflowing with knowledge until you analyzed what he had told you in cold blood. I believe this man could go on talking half the night, and hypnotize you into believing the most incredible facts."

That Lady Wereminster should take up any new-comer so warmly was in itself a proof of Farquharson's success. Hare rallied her on the subject.

"You've a positive flair for him. How long will it last?"

Lady Wereminster shrugged her shoulders.

"One must be in the fashion; his name is everywhere, like Odol advertisements."

Things had, indeed, opened out amazingly for the new-comer. Public curiosity was awakened, and public curiosity is another way of spelling success. Then, too, the political horizon was uniformly dull. Farquharson's doings were a positive godsend to the Press. The Stock Exchange was soon alive to his importance; Taorman bonds went up in leaps and bounds two days after his arrival.

Beadon, coming to visit him one morning and finding him at work with his secretary upon a mail from which he had separated a pile of invitation cards, glanced from them to him dubiously. Even distinguished people were anxious to be the first to exploit this man of the future; social charity, which popularizes your entertainments with no commensurate demands upon your purse-strings, is just as much sought after in Park Lane as in South Kensington.

"Feeling rather helpless, eh?"

Farquharson pointed despairingly at the invitations.

"Shall I accept or refuse the lot wholesale?" Beadon frowned.

"A difficult question. A secretary can't help you here; very few people could. It doesn't do to go everywhere; it lessens your value. And you can't afford to waste a moment's time upon unnecessary people. No, the Press is no guide. In the Morning Post you'll find long accounts of functions you mustn't dream of being seen at." He took up four or five invitations haphazard, glancing at the names. "Merrimans, Churchleighs, Halliways—what impertinence! You must refuse all those. I'll tell you who could help you—Mrs. Brand. She's a great friend of Creagh's; you met her at his house, I think. Put yourself in her hands—you can't do better. She's a good woman, always ready to help. Give her the whole bundle and take her advice implicitly."

It was the second time that the idea had been mooted to Farquharson.

He sat for a moment idly after Beadon had left, pondering. This would be the first occasion on which he had ever appealed to a woman for help. More, indeed, almost the first time that he had been brought into intimate companionship with one. To know a woman well you must see her in her home, surrounded by her individual accessories, the little personal touches which are so sure a guide to character. And he wanted to know Evelyn better, to trace the exact extent of her resemblance to the portrait at Glune, which in the days of his worst loneliness he had re-christened as his "Bride of Dreams."

He motored down to West Kensington that very afternoon, and found Mrs. Brand in and alone. He went directly to the point, as was his habit; her slight hesitation in accepting surprised and even slightly piqued him. People were usually proud to do small services for him.

They met again next day by arrangement; he found her work practical and business-like, and she was quick in decision like himself. It was the first of many visits.

Little by little Calvert dropped out of the fray; having put his man in the arena, he could trust him to hold his own against any opponent. He was beginning to feel his age. But now at last he seemed on the verge of reaping his reward for many yeas' toil and struggle. Farquharson had saved him from going to the grave a disappointed man. For Calvert had loved Cummings like a son, and the lad's change of front had dealt his uncle the sharpest blow of his life. The Roman Catholic priesthood was, in Calvert's view, a network of intrigue and deception, the betrayal of a man's heritage of freedom; he looked upon Cummings as an enemy of the State.

Calvert's interest had been purely impersonal at first; courage is after all instinctive, and may spring as easily from love of adventure as from nobler motives. "The crowded hour of life" is no real test of character. But Farquharson won him in spite of himself. He outstripped Cummings in a stride. Farquharson was born to give orders, Cummings to obey them. Calvert found himself erecting a pedestal for the one, while for the other he had made a home.

Calvert watched the growth of Farquharson's friendship with Mrs. Brand with openly expressed delight. Farquharson needed softening. The situation might have proved a trifle awkward in some cases, but Brand was a mere nonentity—an asp whose sting had been drawn long ago. Some years before a matter of a somewhat shady business transaction had brought the two men together; Brand had presumed on his distant connection with Calvert to use his name, and had been at once repudiated by the elder man. By now he had probably forgotten the incident. There had doubtless been many transactions of a like nature in Brand's career.

To Evelyn, these daily meetings with Farquharson were the fulfilment of a great ambition. She had wanted this ideal companionship all her life; the real "give and take" from which alone happy marriages are formed, if men and women would but realize the fact. It seemed to Evelyn that to be useful to such a man as Farquharson, to be at hand whenever he wanted her, and away when her presence might have been a distraction, to listen and understand his aims while keeping her independent judgment, to share the undramatic part of his work and leave him the substantial success, was a task any woman might be proud of. She threw herself with absolute ardour into his most minute interests and schemes; after a time he trusted her even with the outline of plans which had not yet taken tangible shape, recognizing the value of her quick perceptions and sincerity.

"You limit my acquaintances, but you yourself know far too many people," said Farquharson one day abruptly. "They make claims upon you and you give in to them. When I left you the other day there were four people waiting in the dining-room, pensioners, claimants, I don't know what they were, but they annoyed me. You are a woman who could do something if you set your mind to it. If these good folks want sympathy, let them go to an idle or frivolous person who can afford to spend on them the time you should devote to better things. Every one should have a set purpose in life; trivial claims and small anxieties distract one in spite of oneself."

"What set purpose can there be in the life of an ordinary woman of no especial talent?" said Evelyn. "Only women of genius have real lives of their own. Most of us are like poor little Alice—'part of the Red King's dream'—or some one else's. If I died to-morrow, some of my friends would canonize me and the rest forget. As far as acquaintances go, one divides them into two sets: those one likes to know, and those who like to know one. I am nice to the first because I want to be, and nice to the second because I ought. I am not applying the rule to you, of course—what is selfishness in a woman is singleness of purpose in a man, remember."

Farquharson frowned.

"Leave cynicism to others. By the way, we haven't looked at my morning letters yet."

At the Wereminsters' dinner party a week later, Farquharson was paired off with Dora Beadon, encased as usual in her unyielding armour of self-esteem. It was a compliment for which he was not perhaps sufficiently grateful. He always found Miss Beadon dull, but to-night she harassed him with a stream of impertinent questions intended to show sympathy: "Why on earth don't you do this? Haven't you really done the other? Everybody says——" and so forth.

"One hears of you on all sides," she said archly. "Oh, we all know about these little West Kensington visits of yours; there will be quite a scandal if you don't take care. I suppose you'll think we're all dreadful gossips, but you can't expect charming women to talk nothing but politics all day, can you? Personally, I always think a man wants a thorough change when he comes home. Suppose he's in an office, for instance, why, the last thing in the world he should do when he gets back is to talk over troublesome business with his wife."

"I've heard a good many unsympathetic and incapable wives urge that as an excuse for obvious neglect," said Farquharson dryly.

"Well, I know I never let my father say a word about politics or anything he's really interested in—it's ever so much better for him to hear what I've been doing all day," said Dora, defending herself.

"Salt, please."

Miss Beadon reddened slightly and tried another tack.

"You lazy person, there is some on your left. You've got an ally worth having in Evelyn Brand, by the bye. Father says he has never known even her work so hard. She's rather an extraordinary person too, you know. She can make any one do anything she wants. Well, I suppose one shouldn't say it"—she laughed consciously—"but pretty women generally can, can't they?"

"Mrs. Brand's power doesn't depend on mere looks," said Farquharson shortly. Across the table, as he spoke, he met the full look of her animated face, too pale for perfect beauty to-night, yet glowing with what, had he been a man whose mind lent itself readily to religious thoughts, he would have called the light of the spirit.

There were other far prettier women present; there were many more notable in the world's eyes. He looked with distaste at his colourless companion—her name would be published in the papers to-morrow and Evelyn's omitted. Yet scarcely one topic of conversation was broached that night at table, of which Mrs. Brand had not some special knowledge—knowledge so eminently marketable that, had it been in her husband's possession, the little West Kensington flat might soon have been exchanged for more congenial quarters.

"Fancy your not admiring her," Miss Beadon rattled on, delighted. "She's certainly very white to-night, and of course her features never were good. But if one's fond of a person their looks make little or no difference to one. Love is the only permanent beauty doctor, I think."

Miss Beadon always gave out her platitudes with the triumph of one throwing a searchlight on a gloomy corner.

"Don't you agree with me?" she asked coquettishly, mentally determining to bombard Meavy with the same phrase later.

"Love's a subject I know nothing of, I'm afraid," said Farquharson impatiently. Yet he paid Dora Beadon the tribute of remembering one of the many hints she had let fall. What she implied was true; he did already owe Evelyn a big debt of gratitude. The hours she had spent in his service, the letters she had written, the advice she had given on social matters, even the parties she had planned, the expense to which she had been put, her sympathy—he had taken it all for granted, as though she were his wife and it his due.

Thinking it over later, he was aghast at his own lack of consideration. Then, characteristically, he made the best of things. Woman was made for man after all. Was it Joubert or some other French philosopher who said one should choose for a wife only such a woman as he would choose for a friend were she a man?

A wife! The word, coming so readily to his lips, startled him. A wife ... a helpmate and companion, the tenderest of mistresses, and best of friends. For a moment he saw a vision, a picture of what his life might be with such a woman....

Such thoughts were not for him. Abruptly leaning out of the motor, he hailed a passer-by, a mere casual acquaintance, who was delighted to be recognized. He even drove on to the man's rooms in an access of quite unusual cordiality.

The little interruption dispersed the vision. But it came back to him, as dreams will, when he turned on the light in his empty room and stood for a moment absently by the table laden with its mass of documents and official pamphlets. It looked bare and cold—not right, somehow.

Wife! He tried to close the door of his heart upon the thought in vain. He said Evelyn's name aloud, and smiled as he re-christened her.

"Evelyn—that would do for the world. To me she must always be Eve, the first woman."

He drew a long breath, and set to work. The rough draft of accounts in connection with a native industry he was opening out in Taorna had to be checked and examined before dawn.

CHAPTER VI

"Those who want to lead must never hesitate about sacrificing their friends."—LORD BEACONSFIELD.

Miss Beadon returned from the Wereminsters' dinner party even more than usually self-satisfied. The Prime Minister himself had had a chat with her, while as for Farquharson, he was constantly at her side. Another conquest, she supposed—one worth considering this time, for Farquharson was in his way a parti.

After all, as nominal housekeeper to her father, life had little more to offer her. Even the best servants like a change of place occasionally! The wife of an important man gets more attention than his daughter. And some important post would doubtless fall to Farquharson's share ere long. Dora had only to mention the matter to her father, to let fall a few of those ready tears which so quickly subjugate a man's will and reason, to get her way later, when there was a change of Government. Her father was notoriously—she flattered herself most men were—indulgent where her wishes were concerned.

Miss Beadon blissfully believed that all her acquaintances who had done well in life, owed the position to her patronage. "So and so would never have got that post by himself. Why, I had to beard the Prime Minister in his den and do my poor little best to get round him before he consented," she would say, in reference to some coveted appointment which obvious merit, or a signed note from Beadon, had procured. Outsiders, recognizing her vanity and her father's weakness, played up to both because the game paid so well. If to make Miss Beadon believe she was the deus ex machina of all social and political events was to secure her father as ally, it was worth while to frame a few extravagant compliments, and spend half-an-hour or so, which might have been more amusingly employed, in her company.

Miss Beadon fell a very easy prey to the schemes of intriguing mothers. She was besieged with requests for recommendations by indolent young men who had no qualifications for any opening which demanded work. At public meetings she was invariably pursued by wives of provincial town-clerks eager to advance their husbands' opportunities; she plaintively complained that at bazaars her stall was the rest-house of nervous mothers with marriageable daughters, who reckoned on Miss Beadon's philanthropy to procure them coveted invitations. Bred in the atmosphere of favour, and herself totally unable to tell good from bad, Dora distributed smilingly innumerable small acts of favour, of which either her father, or some minister anxious to please him, ultimately paid the cost. Miss Beadon had the credit of a good action, which was all that mattered so far as she was concerned. One questions if the Holy Father grants his indulgences with as much inward satisfaction as did Dora.

The night after the Wereminsters' dinner party, the Beadons and some others had been invited by Hare to meet at his rooms and hear a famous scientist lecture on radium. Functions like these bored Dora inexpressibly, but to-night her maid was closeted with her for over two hours before she succeeded in pleasing her dictatorial mistress. For Farquharson was to be present, and Miss Beadon had always laid to heart the adage that attractive clothes complete a man's subjugation.

So Felice, who had been kept up until the small hours of the previous morning, was made to arrange and unpick, to drape and re-drape, to alter and exchange article upon article of Dora's attire.

"Mademoiselle est ravissante!" she cried at length, with the easy lie of the Latin races, as, the task completed, Miss Beadon surveyed her reflection in the mirror with a satisfied smile. From crown to foot she represented wealth, and yet how simple was the whole costume! The dress itself was suitable only for a débutante in her first youth—Dora always dressed twenty years younger than her looks—but her jewels were worth a fortune.

Brand, arriving at the party with his wife rather late in the evening, noticed them at once and took in their significance.

"You have excelled even yourself to-night," he said, adopting the tone of solemn fervour in which a very pious Catholic speaks of relics. "Better not say such things, perhaps, but circumstances are sometimes too strong for one. Yours is a regal power, Miss Beadon, yet you dispense your favours with quite exquisite simplicity."

Dora looked up, surprised. Up to the present she had found little in common with Brand; now she began to think she had misjudged him.

"Oh, well, it's always nice to help one's friends," she said, awkwardly fingering her fan. "Evelyn does it too, doesn't she? She and Mr. Farquharson are quite inseparable, I hear."

"Oh, Evelyn——" Brand shrugged his shoulder, and, obeying the invitation of her gesture, seated himself deferentially beside her. "What of that? Compare her years to yours, my dear young lady. Why, she's like a mother to Farquharson. I dare say they are really about the same age, but Evelyn's hard life makes her appear many years his senior. Now you, young and fresh——" He paused and sighed. "Ah, Richard Farquharson's a lucky fellow in more ways than one," he said daringly.

"I can't think what you mean. How quite absurd of you!" giggled Miss Beadon.

"You must really ask the Brands to dine next week, father," she announced a little later. "We've all been mistaken in Mr. Brand, I'm sure; there's ever so much more in him than one would think. We had a most interesting talk together just now. And I'm rather sorry for him, too. I'm afraid dear Evelyn doesn't make him happy. She's such an icicle, and from what he said to me just now I'm sure he's a man of extraordinarily deep feelings. There's nothing sadder, dear, is there, than to see a woman sow sympathy broadcast as Evelyn does, and yet not spare a grain of it for her husband?"

Easy indifference to the faults and failings of ourselves and our personal friends carry a man unscathed through many a social dilemma, but there are certain obvious misdemeanours to which he cannot well be blind. Sin—if it be but brave in face of danger—does not actually alienate us as mere meanness does. Love in itself, for instance, glows with so white a flame that its reflection lights the face of any woman who has given herself for love alone. Such a one hangs hourly upon the cross of wounded honour, crowding more sacrifices for her lover into a day than most of us can compass in a lifetime. But women who lie for the sake of lying, who secure confidences by base means to sell or betray them at the first prick of jealousy, and men who run up gambling debts and leave their womenkind to pay them, are on a different level. They return, like dogs, to their vomit, and the stench is surely foul in the nostril of God and man alike.

Yet even for these allowance is made—so prone is society to condone the faults of its immediate circle, if the men are good-natured enough to entertain dull dowagers at dinner parties, and the women in question have large enough balances at their bankers' to give large sums in public charity or to found philanthropic annuities. A witty raconteur, Brand's eye for detail, and memory for those trifles which sum up many of life's minor comforts, had stood him in good stead for some years. Luckily for him, they failed him only when he could count upon his wife's popularity to keep him in the position he had once held unaided. Some men "drop out or go under" without wincing; Brand was not of the number. His hold upon his social niche, such as it was, was insecure enough, at best; he meant to grasp it, to which end he laid successful siege to Dora Beadon.

He was no coward; he faced facts unflinchingly when alone. Only a fool makes the same mistake twice in life, the wise man turns mistakes to his own ends. He knew well enough where he had gone wrong.... Handicapped at the outset, he had still won some prizes early in his career. The first years of his social life were eminently successful; he played a good hand at whist, and learned the knack of paying compliments discreetly. He made himself indispensable to the type of person anxious to give parties, but unluckily a trifle hazy as to how the actual invitations should be worded. He dabbled tentatively in stocks and shares, with singular good fortune, as it appeared to those who did not know his methods, paying part of his way by taking boys abroad at the request of their parents. After a time it became known amongst his friends that "Brand was a good fellow, always ready with a pony when you needed one!"—at sixty per cent. interest, and the amount doubled if the day of reckoning brought no cheque. His influence grew; amongst those who had not borrowed from him he began to be quoted as a man to apply to when you were in difficulties of any doubtful nature, one who would help you pleasantly to evade the consequences of almost any imaginable action. Oh yes, Brand, too, had been a favourite in his day.

But night falls suddenly upon tropical days; it had so fallen upon Brand's.

He dated his ill-luck to the hour of meeting Cummings. Yet he had never paid more attention to the development of any scheme. At the beginning everything seemed to play into his hands. His idea, of course, was ultimately to oust Cummings from his position as Calvert's heir, and afterwards very delicately to insinuate himself into the vacant place. He manoeuvred Cummings through the open door of the Catholic Church with quite consummate skill—no female convert could have thrown herself into the task with greater ardour. From thence to the priesthood, after Calvert's indignant repudiation of Cummings and his creed, was an easy, and obviously a final, step. But the sincerity of Cummings' detachment had lifted him to heights which Brand could never realize. Never for one moment did he regret his vocation, his only sorrow being at his relations' pain and the withdrawal of his uncle's trust. Actual financial loss affected him not at all. The priest's eyes now were as clear and steady as when, a boy, he had stood upon the Glune road, nervously trying to match his untried blade of argument against the older man's skilled weapons. His smile, when it came, illumined his whole face. If it were possible—yet how could it be possible?—Brand might have thought him happy in his life.

So much for the scheme; Calvert himself upset its fulfilment. Rumours of Brand's treatment of his sisters had reached the older man, and on the single occasion when, in the past, Brand and he had come across each other, he taxed him openly with having done to death two innocent women. More than this. He accused him of having cleverly engineered Cummings into "that hotbed of lying and deception, the Roman Church." He stated facts so clearly that the pose of outraged honour and hurt susceptibility, with which Brand at first met his attack, broke down completely. The very setting of the interview was undignified. It took place in the hall, with butler and footman within hearing.

"There's a notice up, inside, no dogs admitted," said Calvert grimly.

Advancing years weakened convictions; Brand always hoped that with increasing age Calvert's opinions might change. But with Farquharson's entry into Taorna, the last hope died. It was doubly unfortunate for Brand that, at this period, his name should often have been mentioned in connection with a notorious case where there was a strong inference of blackmail, even if it could not actually be proved.

Oh, those hysterical women, with their love of keeping letters!

All this took place some years before Brand's marriage. He went abroad again until the storm blew over. This rumour, at least, had never reached Evelyn. Had others, he wondered? In all such matters she was so strictly rigid; he often wondered if her uncompromising views of sin were the result of temperament or convent education. Uncompromising to sin, that is to say—not to the sinner. His wife seemed to separate action from actor. The sin itself was loathsome, repulsive—it made her shrink. The sinner was wounded, and for him she had healing balms and ointments. But where another woman would have slurred over the cause of the hurt, she spoke of it confidently by name, confronting adultery or theft as she would any other mortal combat.

"We talk of Magersfontein and Colenso," she said once. "If we'd met sin on another kind of battle-field and been defeated, why should we be ashamed to call the battle-field by its own name?"

That Evelyn was original her husband conceded—at times he even took a certain pride in her looks and ways. They were useful. But her attitude to him personally was unendurable. She had never loved him, of course—such a man does not ask for love; he would not have recognized it had he found it. On the other hand, he had never claimed anything from her to which she had not made instant response so far as she was able. She had swept his floors and cooked for him, in their poorer days, like the docile wife of any village labourer; she had mended his reputation as well as his clothes, Hare once said, chuckling. When he was ill she nursed him; when he was well she stayed with him or left him as he wished. But day by day the wall that separated them grew higher; he had married a pliable child, who had become a woman in an hour.

If he spoke of it at all—which was seldom, for, try as he would, he could find no tangible ground for complaint—it was only to rail at her religion.

"Those damned priests and directors are behind this pose of yours. I'll break it down, as well as you, before I've done with you."

In an access of fury one day he dragged from her bedroom wall a Delia Robbia plaque of the Madonna and Child, before which a lamp was burning, and flung it to the ground.

Evelyn was smiling when he turned to her.

"Do you think one's faith depends on such things?" she asked, carefully gathering up the broken pieces. "They're quite immaterial. Your lover's picture is in your heart, whether you have his photograph or not. I'm sorry you broke this, it is one of the few valuable things we have. You may break or burn every outward needless symbol that I have, if you choose—I'll put them away if you dislike them. What you do or what you don't do doesn't touch anything in me. You killed my love long ago, and as for faith—that's just between myself and God."

She blew out the lamp, when he cursed her, and it was never lighted again.

Points of view such as these were indescribably irritating. In his excuse it must be admitted that with increasing years Brand's physical health had grown worse; long paroxysms of pain often seized him when he was alone. Once he had been man enough to fight against his irritability; he tended it now, watering it with his sense of ill-usage, and kept its fruits for his wife. Her unshaken calm, her peace, her air of quiet rest and strength when he was nervous and suffering, tried him beyond words; there were times when he could have stopped short at nothing to wreck her control, to subdue the unconquerable spirit that passed through the mines and tunnels of the world, as though the way was lit by an enduring light. The idea grew to an obsession. He himself was powerless to hurt her; he must act through some one else. Life had been unfair to him throughout; it had marred him first, then broken him. Well, it should mar and break her too.

And if in the fall some other enemy could be made to suffer too, so much the better ... some one to whom the gods had been lavish, as in the case of Richard Farquharson.

Farquharson was drawn to Evelyn, Evelyn was drawn to Farquharson; there was no doubt of that. And Miss Beadon meant to marry Farquharson, and, by herself, would never accomplish her purpose. Why, there were all the elements of a successful comedy in view if Brand could only teach the puppets their parts.

An opportunity came shortly. A few days later, as Brand was sitting in his little smoking-room, where the best, the most comfortable chairs and sofas were collected, he heard his wife's knock at the door.

He glanced at the open letter in her hand through half-closed eyes as she approached.

She held it out for him to read.

"Mr. Calvert's chauffeur has just brought this. The Bedfords have lent him their box at the opera to-night; the Beadons are going, and he wants us too. The man is waiting for an answer. We're free, of course, but you don't care for Wagner opera, do you?"

Brand took the letter and read it with unusual deliberation.

"'Tristan and Isolde, and please be in your place a quarter of an hour before the orchestra strikes up. We are a party of six,'" he quoted slowly. "That means Calvert, Beadon, Miss Dora, you and I and Farquharson, I suppose."

"Am I to refuse or accept?" asked Evelyn. "You look very tired to-night. Are you up to going?"

"I'm right enough," said Brand. "I think—I'm sure, in fact, it will amuse me, although, perhaps, that wasn't exactly the intention of the composer."

He looked at her from head to foot critically, then fumbled in his waistcoat pocket and drew out a sovereign.

"Get some flowers to wear—malmaison carnations for choice, if the neighbourhood can produce them. The colour suits you. This is the first invitation Calvert has ever given me, it mustn't be the last. Remember, I rely upon you to do all you can in that direction. Wear white to-night by the bye, you're one of the few women who can; and if the carnations fail, get roses of the same shade."

"Thank you," said Evelyn, lingering still. So sudden, so complete a change of manner made her vaguely uneasy. Brand never gave her money without expecting its full value back in kind.

"Give yourself plenty of time to dress, Evelyn. I want you to look your best. It's really an occasion."

He was still smiling as she closed the door.

CHAPTER VII

"Je connais trop tard quel est l'essential!"—E. ROSTAND.

"Oh, my dear, I'm so glad you've come to look after me," said Miss Beadon; "I was getting quite embarrassed amongst this tribe of men."

She tried to pull Evelyn playfully down beside her as she spoke into the vacant seat she had kept between herself and her father, but Calvert interposed.

"I want Mrs. Brand next me, Miss Beadon. We've business to talk over." He lowered his voice. "I'm going to plunge into things as usual. Farquharson and I have just been discussing his plan of campaign. You've worked wonders for him already; I'm trusting to you to concentrate your influence at this critical moment. He's been seen and felt already, but he's not actually been heard in public. Now I know you've great influence with Beadon——"

Farquharson, entering the box at that moment; overheard the last sentence, and came straight to Mrs. Brand.

"Is my chief worrying you again on my behalf?"

"I refuse to be drawn by that lure," Evelyn laughed lightly. "Don't be ridiculous. I haven't done a single thing for you as yet. Mr. Calvert's right, you know; you ought to speak soon in public. It's the only way to touch the man with the vote, the great uneducated majority. Why, I've seen two or three thousand people at the Albert Hall absolutely swaying to one man's words. Oh, oratory is the power of powers. To play on your audience like an instrument—there's nothing so telling. When The Ambassador was being acted at the St. James's Theatre, the manager used to let me go behind and listen in the wings. The big scene was the one between Violet Vanbrugh and Fay Davis, you know, and Violet Vanbrugh had certain words to say—I've forgotten the actual phrase—which always either warmed the house to frenzy or left it cold. I used to stand with my eyes shut waiting for that speech—one became in time so sensitive to the atmosphere of the house as to know before it was given exactly how it would be received. I've never heard you speak; but I know just how the world's going to take your speech when you make one."

"Yet I haven't done much in that line," said Farquharson. "The plain audience I'm accustomed to is quite different to critical London. Our whole system in Taorna is different to your system here, of course. We can't afford to have wastrels in our Assembly. The people elect their Council from amongst men who've been proved to have the island's interest at heart. And then each man has his own right of judgment. When an appeal comes before us, we vote according to our individual opinion, not according to party. The President has the casting vote. We put men on their honour, as it were; we don't necessarily oppose because we belong to the Opposition, nor do we change our opinions unanimously because we're afraid to face a general election. If at any time during his tenure of office a minister is found to have failed in his duty according to the opinion of a quorum of his colleagues, he has to come before a sort of political court-martial."

"I'm afraid our methods here are less straightforward," said Evelyn. "I know of at least one by-election where an inefficient candidate was pulled through solely because his canvassers said he had a sick wife whose death would be hastened if he didn't get the seat."

"As a matter of fact he hadn't lived with her for years, and neither of them took the least interest in the other, but his agent waxed positively hysterical over the sentimental aspect of the case. Had there been universal suffrage I've no doubt that the wife would have plumped her vote for the rival candidate," said Beadon. "By the bye, Farquharson, you're in favour of Tariff Reform, of course. Mrs. Brand asked me the other day to persuade you to speak for us at our monster meeting at the Albert Hall next Monday. You would be in good company; we have a fine show of speakers."

"Delighted, of course," said Farquharson impassively. "It begins at eight o'clock, doesn't it?" He took out his note-book.

Brand eagerly interposed.

"Mr. Calvert has just promised to dine with us that evening. Will you come too? Lady Wereminster always invites my wife to her box; Lord Meavy and Lord Creagh are coming too. We shall have to feed at an unearthly hour, but perhaps you won't mind that under the circumstances."

"Thanks very much, I shall be delighted," said Farquharson again.

Evelyn, amazed, leant back in her seat and whispered to her husband under cover of her fan.

"I didn't know that they were coming. When did you ask them?"

Brand bent down, adjusting his opera-glasses.

"Don't give yourself away. The others will be glad enough to come if Calvert and Farquharson do. Once capture the coming man and others will follow. You must help me, Evelyn; it means everything to me to have it known Calvert visits us."

"Of course I'll do my best. Oh, hush!" said Evelyn. The orchestra had begun playing the first notes of that exquisite prelude to Tristan and Isolde which, motif by motif, leads from the first confession of love by way of desire and magic and mystery to the deliverance of death.

Wagner opera was to Farquharson a new experience. He had come that night in a cynical enough mood. The darkness that enfolded the great assembly in its mantle, the hush and tension under which it laboured, listening without movement, rather as one corporate body than as a crowd of separate entities, struck him at first as a mere pose. But presently the power and strength and pathos of the music carried him away as it carried others. This was real flesh and blood; impatience, ardour, glory, the very song of the sea, transport and passion, blending with underlying chords of human sorrow—each in turn rang true.

And as he listened old memories came thronging back, memories at once exquisite and painful. For now the sufferings of his childhood spread before him like an allegory whose language his mature eyes could read; they had been encrusted for years with the ice of bitterness. But here, under Evelyn's influence, the ice had melted. He detached himself, the man, from the sturdy boyish figure which had flinched and wavered, but yet never given way, and saw how the fire of manhood had been kindled by those hours of stress. Wind and rain, storm and torrent, had formed his character, and mountain fastnesses had been his playground. The whole story of his childhood was a preparation for the battle he was fighting now. His ceaseless combats with men and things, even the mimic raids and sorties he had made as a child upon invisible foes, had stood him in good stead later when struggle was as infallibly his portion as it is the portion of certain men to sleep beside the hearth.

But if life for him was a battle-field, it was no less a battle-field for the woman at his side. His foes were worthy opponents, men of strength who brought their artillery to bear upon his little stronghold; hers were mere thieves of the night, but both came armed with weapons that drew blood.

Apart in body, separated from each other by every natural barrier, the wheel of the potter, whose toil is endless, had shaped the rough clay of these two human beings from very similar moulds. The voice of the great religion to which Evelyn belonged has its unworthy exponents; it is not always in a convent that the purest souls are reared. "Factus obediens usque ad mortem crucis," is sometimes chanted solemnly by those who betray unconsciously the souls of others; who impose little straws of restrictions upon backs already bent to breaking by God's unswerving laws. Should a Catholic sin, the fault is shrieked from the housetops, so high a standard is demanded of man or woman who subscribes to that high faith.

Yet the limits of Catholicism and the limits of Calvinism—apart as they seem—can touch. The bigot of the one may be as the bigot of the other. The gospel of detachment had been preached to Evelyn until, for a short time, she let herself drift upon the waters of submission, and since habitual and unquestioning obedience must crush in time the strongest spirit, yielded in the matter of marriage to the direction of her stepmother and father as she would have yielded to that of a spiritual adviser. Now, too late, she knew that for this retribution would be exacted hourly, for God strikes—not as men do, at the mere twigs and blossoms of human frailty, but at the very roots of being.

Unconsciously the thoughts of the man and woman in the box moved on converging lines and met, as the music below swayed onward and upward in Tristan and Isolde's exquisite duet.

"Isolde. So stürben wir,

Um ungetrennt—

Tristan. Ewig einig—

Isolde. Ohne End'—

Tristan. Ohn' Erwachen—

Isolde. Ohne Bangen—

Tristan. Namenlos

In Leib' umfangen—

Isolde. Ganz uns selbst gegeben,

Der Liebe nur zu leben?"

The spell of the music, rising to that passionate climax of the love song in the second act where Night the Revealer points the way of human transport to culminate in the superb Song of Death, broke the earthly barriers of speculation, and two souls in the audience called to each other as before the judgment seat and became temporarily one. Such things have been since the world came out of chaos, and will be until it returns again to the void. There is but one mate for each man and woman in the world, and until they recognize the fact and learn with patience to await that note of absolute conviction which is the one infallible guide to happiness, marriages will fail as they fail now, and the Church will give its empty blessing to those ill-assorted pairs whom God for ever leaves unblessed.

"... Traut allein,

Ewig heim....

Du Isolde,

Tristan ich,

Nicht mehr Tristan,

Nicht Isolde....

Endloss ewig

Ein-bewusst:

Heiss erglühter Brust

Hochste Leibes-Lust!"

"I always wish that the music of Peer Gynt could have been written by Wagner," said Evelyn. "Think what he would have made of Anitas' last words: and the magic of the Troll Kingdom, and the great scene, as eerie in its way as the Brocken scene in Faust—don't you really know it? Towards the end of the play, just before he meets the Button-Moulder, Peer Gynt, the failure, is standing alone on the moor with charred trees and desolation all about him. Mist has risen, and all the world is full of little voices. Tiny thread balls sweep before him—they are the thoughts he should have followed. Dewdrops fall—his unshed tears; withered leaves drift to and fro in his path and dazzle him—watchwords he should have spoken; broken straws lie at his feet—an epitome of his life. It's all so like one's own life, void and valueless. And yet things started well enough. The very trees flowered, the dewdrops were like gold in the sunshine, and one heard pleasant voices in the woods, as a child."

"I've been thinking of my childhood too to-night," said Farquharson. "My love for Glune has been with me through everything. Out in Taorna, that night I was waiting in the Place of Sepulchres, I had a dream—a vision, if you like to call it so—and Glune stood before me, as brave, as broken, as courageous as of old. I could see the gorse in bloom and the peewits circling round and round, and Dan waiting patiently as he always waited.... I shall never forget the day that dog died mercifully, it was in my arms. The man who made this music must have been through heaven and hell too in his day. Glune has been through both, and so have most of us Farquharsons."

"I sent my soul through the Invisible,

Some letters of that after-life to spell;

And by and by my soul return'd to me

And answer'd, 'I myself am Heaven and Hell,'"

Evelyn quoted below her breath.

"Oh, aren't those lovely words?" broke in Dora Beadon, impatient at having been left so long to the companionship of Calvert and her father. "Rossetti's, aren't they? Oh, Omar Khayyám, is it? Well, he's much the same. One of my attachés, a student at the Academy, promised to set them to music for me."

"Miss Beadon is a great devotee of music," said Brand gravely; "she has a pianola and three gramophones."

Evelyn laughed.

"Dora dislikes musical people as much as I do. We spread the gramophone story to frighten them away, don't we, Dora?"

"I shouldn't mind them so much if they were only clean," said Miss Beadon. "Or if they wore better clothes! There's always a ready-made thirty-shilling-the-suit look about them, don't you think, Mr. Farquharson? By the way, Evelyn, you mustn't annex Mr. Farquharson any longer; I really insist upon his coming over here for the last act."

Calvert's eyes and Brand's met for once in the intimacy of mutual amusement. Dora Beadon was laying her snares a trifle flagrantly.

Well, Richard might do worse, Calvert thought. With so uncompromising a face and figure Miss Beadon should certainly be a docile wife, and she had money and position. Calvert had seen many brilliant matches fail, two stars outshining one another and falling into oblivion. He looked with awakened interest at the girl; the shadow of the box was kind to her, and her pleasure at having drawn Farquharson from Evelyn had given her for once an almost intelligent expression. He smiled benignly and drew Evelyn's attention to the pair, with a genial little nod of approval.

It was only at parting that Farquharson got an opportunity of speaking again to Mrs. Brand.

Then—"I owe the Albert Hall Meeting to you?" he said, with meaning. "It's another debt. No, don't deny it; you help every one. What was said of Madame Recamier is true of you, 'Elle était pour ses amis la soeur de charité de lour peines, de leur frailtés, el même un peu de leur fautes.'"

CHAPTER VIII

"The Sacraments are seven—Baptism, Confirmation, Holy Communion, Penance, Extreme Unction, Holy Order, Matrimony.... Each has its own particular office: all give grace; but besides ordinary graces, they are intended to bestow the special grace which may be required to meet particular wants."—BISHOP BAGSHAWE.

"A lady to see you, sir."

"Oh, bother!" Cummings took the card impatiently, and then gave a startled exclamation. "Tell her I'll see her in half-a-minute."

The sight of Evelyn's card revived old memories; he smiled, absently fingering it for a moment before entering the little sitting-room. It was years since he had seen her. He remembered her as an undisciplined child; a small person with ideals which were never realized, an odd mixture of dreams and contradictions. Knowing Brand and Brand's capabilities as he did, no one was more surprised than Cummings at the marriage.

Partly for love of the cause, partly to kill thought, he had done the work of ten in his district, until at last his health gave way completely. A stray bishop paying pastoral visits in the neighbourhood took him in hand, and summarily ordered him away at a moment's notice on a sea-voyage and six months' leave. Medical opinions at home were slightly alarming; on his arrival in London he was packed off to Brighton within twenty-four hours.

As he opened the door of the little sitting-room he thought at first that it was the old unchanged Evelyn of childhood who greeted him so warmly. But to read men's souls is part of the priestly office, and there was something in her air of enforced gaiety which made him look at her more closely.

"You dear!" she said, holding his hands in hers as if they were a source of strength. "Isn't this a nice surprise? Lord Creagh offered to drive me down, and I couldn't resist the chance of routing you out."

"You are just one of the few people I wanted to see," said Cummings. "One of my last remaining links with the past. I won't have another soul admitted while you're here. You'll let me smoke, won't you? I want to hear about everything and everybody. I'm going to have my say first, yours comes later. If you talk as much as you used, I shan't get a look in when once you've started."

She became more at ease as he spoke. He pulled an arm-chair up to the empty grate, and wedged a shiny black horse-hair cushion at her back.

"Now begin about home, please. Is my mother's complexion still like a Greuze? How absolutely lovely she was once! Some one told me that my father had sold his hunters and taken to driving out in a governess car behind a fat pony. Surely that isn't true—they've not lost money, have they?"

"He is very changed," said Evelyn, hesitating. "He has become a total abstainer. Don't look so aghast, Jack; I believe in a way it suits him. A year ago he had a stroke which shook his nerves a good deal, and your mother is a chronic invalid, you know. She was thrown from the box-seat of a coach at the four-in-hand meet three years ago. We think some sort of vertigo must have seized her."

She looked pityingly at the bent form of the man beside her.

"We can't always be young, dear Jack," she said, with her eyes full of pain. "I always think the most obvious compensation of old age is its inability to feel, as we younger people do. The blows which fall on old people scarcely seem to shake their serenity. But they shatter us. Oh yes, it must be nice to be old. Your parents are marvellous considering all they have gone through. And, you see, you were their life, their all, and they won't let themselves be happy in your peace. Oh, my dear boy, don't look like that; things will come right in time—at least that's what I'm always telling other people," she added, faltering a little.

Cummings walked up and down the room for a moment or two before answering.

"Pone, Domini, custodian ori meo.... Yes, we say those things to others, but they don't always convince us. There are times when horrible spiritual dryness grips you, and you grope for days and weeks in absolute darkness, knowing that you yourself have raised the veil between you and the light."

"Sacrifice and death—somebody said those were the only terms on which the God of life has made life to exist," said Evelyn softly. "The French talk of the soul's secret garden as though it were a place of promise and perfume. I always think one's secret garden is Gethsemane. And sweat broke out even on Christ's brow in Gethsemane, you know. 'All bound together with one chain of darkness, and to themselves more grievous than the darkness.'"

"But the saints had a very great light," said Cummings. He shook his head back with a characteristic little gesture of decision. "Do you know what it is, Evelyn, suddenly, for no reason, when you are saying the same prayers in the same way, kneeling on the same step, practising the same austerities, whatever they may be, neither more nor less, to have your hardness break down and your heart like a little child's again? That has come before; it will, it must, come again."

Evelyn sighed wearily.

"It seems to me that sometimes one believes with one's heart and sometimes with one's head. I suppose the best of all is when the two work together. One can plant flowers in other people's gardens even when they won't flourish in one's own back yard. It's the same principle as telling a rosary. After you've hammered out half-a-dozen Pater and a hundred or so Aves, they begin to take some meaning, don't they? 'Vain repetitions' have their comfort after all. I heard such a nice story the other day about two dear Evangelical old ladies. At seventy-five and eighty, foreseeing the near approach of death, they began to take lessons on the harp, because they thought the knowledge could be turned to account later on in Paradise.

"Oh, delicious!" said Cummings. He pulled the blind up, so that the light fell more fully on Evelyn's face. "I've finished whining. Now tell me how the world has been treating you for the last few years."

Evelyn moved away restlessly to the window.

"What a nasty mean trick to let in that glare. You used to tease me as a child," she said from the back of the room. "What made you take these stuffy rooms, Jack? They're very ugly and uncomfortable."

"I didn't anticipate the visits of my female friends," said Cummings. "Come here, Evelyn; be a good girl and—you know the rest. No, I'm not chaffing now—you're bothered, aren't you?"

"I rather wish I hadn't come, Grand Inquisitor," said Evelyn. "Well, put down those glasses then; they worry me." She came and stood behind his chair. "Things are so horribly mixed up, Jack. One thinks perhaps it's—dangerous to go to a special place and see a special person—and then some one who has the right compels one to. Do you think what St. Philip Neri said about the way of escape was true?"

"Ungrammatical—but fairly concise for a woman. By the bye, I always gave St. Paul the credit of the remark you quote," said Cummings, his eyes twinkling.

"I wasn't thinking of that obvious text," said Evelyn triumphantly. "Capecelatro says what I mean—'Paradise was not made for cowards.' St. Philip always told one to face foes visible and invisible, as you know. But"—she bowed her head—"there was one particular temptation he told us to fly from the moment we recognized even the barest shadow of possibility of its coming near us."

There was a little pause.

"Yes?"

"Oh, I can look you in the face," said Evelyn hurriedly, coming forward. "It's not quite a temptation, Jack. A shadow, rather, that I'm flung against."

"But a substantial shadow."

"I'm shut up in the room with it," said Evelyn. "I believe I'm exaggerating. The whole thing may just be a senseless scruple, or vanity, and yet——"

"A cloud no bigger than a man's hand on the horizon," said Cummings softly.

Evelyn sat down.

"I suppose I'd better tell you all about it. I believe I meant to from the first. And yet there's nothing really to tell. You remember when I was a child I always wanted to be in everything—at the head of it, as a rule. Well, I honestly have been able to help one or two people since—it's the old childish vanity again, perhaps. There's one special person I've met often, and been a little—only a very little—useful to; everything has combined to bring us together, interest, ambition, sympathy. You see, the man doesn't trust women, but he trusts me—vanity again, I suppose you'll say. Sometimes I make excuses; I say not at home, and then he goes away." She stopped for a moment. "Then a note comes from his great friend, asking some little favour, saying that only I can do for him the special thing that is just wanted at the moment, and so it all begins again. The man's a hard man naturally, and I want to soften him. He's more gentle than he was, and kinder. He doesn't believe in anything; that's another point. I wish he could meet you, or some one like you who has fought battles and found faith. I can't talk about those things—I never have; I don't think born Catholics often do; we're lazier, perhaps, than converts. But he guesses what it all means to me, I fancy."