ARCHIBOLD MASTERMAN (continued 2)

"They will surely understand one day," said Arthur.

"Ah! one day—but when? When the common people have forced them to see and understand. For there is my real hope, after all—the common people. They know what they want, and don't go to the critics for their opinions. A venomous review may do much to injure a young author; but if he goes on writing undismayed, the time comes when reviews, whether bad or good, don't affect him. If he can justify himself to the common people, he is certain to triumph in the long run. But there, we are getting too serious again. Let us forget books, and have some music. One can find solace for any kind of disappointment in music. It is the only art that makes a universal appeal."

Elizabeth rose and went to the piano, stooping as she went to kiss her father's brow.

She played nothing that was not familiar, but it seemed to Arthur that all she played was the expression of her own personality. She played on and on, wandering at will from Chopin to Tchaikowsky, and in the profound melodies of the great Russian her whole spirit spoke. And it seemed to Arthur that the Spirit of the World spoke too—a romantic and enchanted world, and yet a world of infinite yearning and pain, of love and battle and heroism, till he saw, as it were, the weird procession of human life, with white faces strained in final kisses, hands that rose above encroaching waves to touch and part, hearts that broke in ecstasies of love and joy and sorrow. The cool night breeze came in at the open window, the leaves whispered as it passed, and at intervals the deep voice of London ran like an undertone inwoven with the music. O wonderful, various, inscrutable world, what, bliss to be alive in it, even though it be for the briefest moment! But there was a bliss beyond bliss, unspeakable, unimaginable, not to live alone, but to love as the greatest hearts have loved, and surely that was the final message of this magic hour! Time, and the years, and all the centuries, and all events and histories, seemed to concentrate themselves in one fair girl, from whose slender fingers came this music of the world; she alone was important; she was the race itself in its final flower of love and loveliness. So ran the incoherent thoughts of youth, songs rather than thoughts, the wordless musical out-cries of a heart waking to a knowledge of itself, and finding all outer objects lit with the glamour of the magic hour.

The music ceased abruptly. There was a dull repeated thud upon the wall.

"What on earth is that?" cried Arthur.

"Oh, merely our neighbours," said Vickars. "Poor souls! they rise early and work hard, and I suppose they want to go to bed."

"Why, I shouldn't have thought they could have heard as plainly as that."

"That's because you don't live in Lonsdale Road," said Vickars with a smile. "Why, I can hear the children sneeze next door. And there's a crack in the party wall, big enough for light to shine through, and I know when the light appears that they are going to bed. My dear fellow, I honestly believe it's only the paper that holds the walls together at all."

Arthur blushed furiously, for he had remembered what Vickars had forgotten, that the house was the work of Archibold Masterman. It was a horrible irruption of the commonplace upon the magic hour.

Vickars, recognising his mistake, turned the conversation into ordinary channels. Arthur still clung to the vanishing skirts of his romance. Once more he thrilled as he touched Elizabeth's hand in farewell, but as he went out into the cool dusk it seemed as though Life strode beside him, a dark and menacing figure, no longer lyrical and friendly.

"What can they think of my father?" he thought, as he walked home. And behind this lay another thought: "If they think ill of my father, as they have a right to, can they think well of me?"

VI

YOUNG LOVE

A month had passed, a wonderful month; it was as though the whole of life had flowered in that month. All the days and years that had preceded it had been but so many roots and tendrils which had stored the strong essences of life, that at last they might display themselves in this miraculous bloom! It is the flower that blooms but once, this exquisite flower of young, adoring love. Maturer years may bring the strength of calm affection, the heat of turbulent passion, but, in the incredible romance of sex, once only comes the wonder-hour, when the whole world is dipped in splendour, winged with song, glittering with the fresh dew of young desire. We who are older recall that hour with a kind of mournful wonder. Just to wake and think she wakes too, she breathes the same morning air, was an intoxicating thought. And what beautiful and foolish things we did: how we kissed the scrap of paper that bore the adored name, watched the adored shadow on the blind, were at once so bold and shy, so determined and so fearful, so daring and so absurdly sensitive. No one else had ever loved as we loved; we alone possessed the immortal secret, and the knowledge of that secret separated us from common men and common life. Yes, we are older now, wiser and colder too, and the flesh no longer thrills with ecstasy at the touch of lip or hand; but who would not give all this late-found wisdom to recapture for a moment this divine folly of first love?

Arthur gave himself to the divine folly with complete abandonment. He did all the foolish things that lovers do: sat night after night in Vickars' room, pretending interest in the father while his eyes never left the daughter; trembled when she spoke, shivered when her dress touched his hand, shrank from her as if unworthy to touch the hem of her garment, and in the same moment longed to clasp her in his arms. He waited long hours just to gaze an instant into the depths of her timid eyes; gazed with ardour, and then flushed for shame, as one convicted of an outrage. When he left the house he walked only to the end of the street, came back again, and in the darkness watched the house, wondering what room was hers, and picturing her silent in the innocence of sleep. What if the house should burn? What if some outrageous wrong should violate her slumber? What if she should die in the night? When he went home at last, to the grim silence of Eagle House, it was to dream of her; and no sooner did he wake than he must seek Lonsdale Road, finding fresh joy and amazement in the impossible fact that she was still alive.

All this time his father said not a word to him, and made no question of his comings and goings. He passed him with averted face, his eyes not unkindly but absorbed, for it was a time of panic in the city, when richer men than he watched the trembling balance of events, which meant sudden triumph or sudden ruin. But with the unconscious cruelty of youth Arthur discerned none of these things. The material life had practically ceased for him; wealth and poverty were alike terms of no significance; they belonged to a world so far removed that he no longer apprehended it. It was enough for him that the punctual day awoke him with a new cup of happiness; with its first beam he mounted to the heaven of his romance, and there dwelt among rosy clouds, with the singing of the morning stars in his ears.

With Vickars it was different; him Arthur saw daily, and he could not dismiss him from his consideration. He had begun by admiring him with youthful ardour; he sincerely liked him; but now a new question disturbed their relationship—did Vickars approve of him? He was at pains to understand Vickars' view of life, for he knew that whatever his view was, it was Elizabeth's too. Had she not typewritten all his books for him? Did not her mind speak in them as well as his? And he knew instinctively that in both father and daughter there was a certain resolute fibre of conviction which could not be softened by mere sentiment. They each lived by some kind of definite creed; in a sense they were Crusaders pledged to loyalty to that belief; and if he were to become to either what he hoped to be, he knew that he must understand their attitude to life.

It piqued Arthur that Vickars said so little to him on these matters. But one night the opportunity arrived. Vickars had been busy over some literary task; when Arthur came into the room, Elizabeth was putting the cover on her typewriter and gathering up a mass of MSS.

"Come in," said Vickars. "You find me at a good moment. I have just finished a piece of work that has given me a vast deal of trouble."

"Another novel?"

"No, not exactly. I suppose it is fiction in form, and no doubt most people will regard it as fiction in essence too; but as a matter of fact it is a plain statement of what is wrong with the world, and a proposition for its remedy."

"That sounds rather formidable, doesn't it?"

"It would be formidable if the world would take it seriously. But they won't. I don't suppose it will even get read. I am by no means sure that it will even get printed. My publishers are considered bold men, but they are only bold along lines thoroughly familiar to them. Show them something new, really and truly new, and they will most likely be frightened out of their wits."

"Is it as bad as that?"

"It's not bad at all. It's absolutely plain commonsense. I wonder who the fool was who first talked of commonsense? My experience teaches me that sense is the most uncommon thing in the world. Most men are so at home with folly that nothing is so likely to alarm them as the irruption of real rational sense."

"I wish you would tell me all about it," said Arthur earnestly.

"Do you?" said Vickars, with an ironic smile. "Well, I don't know about that. You see, at heart I am a fanatic, and, like all fanatics, I should expect you to agree with me. If you didn't, I might not—like you. And then there's Elizabeth. I rather think she agrees with me. And she might not—like you."

"Oh no, father," Elizabeth began, and then flushed and dropped her eyes.

"Oh yes," he retorted. "Why, don't you know that the one great divisive force in society is opinion? I like the man who agrees with me, and I dislike the man who doesn't; and although I may accuse myself of intolerance, and persuade myself that he possesses all kinds of virtues, I shall still go on disliking him, because I think him stupid. And he will dislike me for the same reason—he will think me stupid."

He rose from his writing-table, lit a pipe, and stood with his hands behind him, with that whimsical smile upon his face which Arthur knew so well.

"No," he continued, with a sudden flash of passion, "I don't suppose I shall get heard. The nearer truth you come in your writing, the less likely are you to get heard, for above all things men hate truth. They crucified truth two thousand years ago on Calvary; and they have been doing it ever since. Yet truth is the most obvious thing in the world, to any one who is sincere enough to discern it. You want to know what I think, what I have been writing about. Well, I will tell you. I have simply put down in plain English a series of facts which are all indisputable. That war is folly, to begin with, and if the cost of armies and navies were removed, the prosperity of Europe would be instantly doubled. That the reckless growth of cities is folly, and if you could make the people stay upon the land by giving them land on equitable terms, three-fourths of the poverty would disappear. That unlimited commercial competition is folly, and that if you could make nations act as a great co-operative trust, only producing what each nation is best fitted to produce, and only as much of any commodity as was really needed, you would cure all the ills of labour. And I say all this is absolutely obvious. Every one knows it, though every one ignores it. It is so obvious that if God would make me sole dictator of the world for a single year, I would guarantee to make the world a Paradise. I wonder God doesn't do it Himself, instead of letting man go on age after age mismanaging everything, with the result that a few are rich and not happy, and the multitude are poor—and miserable. So now you know just the sort of man I am. Didn't I tell you I was a fanatic?" He broke off his harangue with a laugh. "Now how do you like me?" he asked.

"I like you better than I ever did," said Arthur.

"Ah! you think you do. But remember my definition: you only really like the man with whom you agree. Do you agree with me?"

"I think I do."

"Then what are you going to do with your own life?"

The abrupt question struck upon the mind with a sharp clang, like the sudden breaking of a string on a violin. It was the old question which Arthur had debated so often and so wearily. During this lyric month of love it had been forgotten, his mind had been bathed in delicious languor; but now the question returned upon him with singular and painful force, and his mind woke from its trance. What was he to do with his life? And as he asked the question, for the first time he caught a full vision of the gravity and splendour of existence. Man was born to do, not alone to feel, to act as well as love. And beautiful as love was, he saw with instant certainty that in creatures like Elizabeth it rested on a solid base of intellectual idealism. That was its final evolution: it was no longer the wild, passionate mating of forest lovers; it was a thing infinitely delicate and pure, infinitely complex and sensitive, in which the spirit, with all its agonies and exultations, was the dominating force.

For a breathless moment he was conscious of the grave eyes of Elizabeth resting on him with an anxious tenderness of inquisition. Then he answered in a low voice, "I wish to make my life worthy of the highest. That is as far as I can see." The speech was the implied offer of himself to Elizabeth, and she knew it. Her face was suffused with happy light, and her breast rose and fell in a long satisfied sigh.

"That is as far as any one need see," said Vickars. And then the tense moment broke, and the conversation flowed back into ordinary channels.

From that hour began a real intimacy with Vickars which had a great influence over his own character. Hitherto he had admired the man without understanding his real aims. Now he began to comprehend these aims. Vickars had spoken truly when he described himself as a fanatic, but his fanaticism was so wise and so gentle that it provoked love rather than antagonism. And it had also a certain restful and melancholy quality which was infinitely touching. He did not expect to be heard, and he knew that he would not prevail; yet he would at any time have suffered martyrdom with cheerful courage. Many men have found it not difficult to die for a faith which they believed would move on to triumph by the way of their Golgotha; but Vickars was prepared to die for a faith which he knew must fail. He had no illusions; he saw all things in a clear bleak light of actual fact, knew the world ill-governed and man incurably foolish, but not the less he was willing to sacrifice himself for convictions which the world called absurd. His speech about what he would do were he dictator of the world was not mere rhetoric; it was his genuine belief that life was at bottom a very simple business, and that mankind missed available happiness merely by perverse repudiation of the simplest principles of happiness. So he gave himself in hopeless consecration to the exposition of these principles; and if the martyr is great who can die because he sees the crown and palm waiting for him in the skies, how much greater is he who can die expecting no reward?

It was only by degrees that Arthur came to recognise these qualities in Vickars. What he did not recognise at all was that the influence of Vickars was slowly loosening all the moorings that held him to his own former life. Although he had not said it openly, he knew now that he could not join his father in the business. He was careful to frame no accusation of his father even in his own most secret thoughts, but he knew that their ways lay apart. This life his father loved of scheming and of toiling, with its empty wealth and emptier social rewards, had no attraction for him. It was too crude, too barbarous; and beside it the life of Vickars, in its noble poverty, shone like a gem. He did not judge his father, but he judged unmercifully the society in which he moved, especially the church society, with its pettiness of interest, its lack of idealism, and its honour for smooth hypocrites like Scales; and this set him wondering why Vickars went to church at all. He asked him the question one day.

"I go for Clark's sake principally," he replied. "He is the one pulpit-man in the neighbourhood who has a real glimpse of truth, and I feel it my duty to support him."

"But what about the Church itself?"

"You mean, what do I think of it?"

"Yes."

"I think that it will disappear, that, in fact, it is in process of disappearance. Dry rot has set in, and so, though it looks stately and stable, it is like the towering mast of a ship, only held upright by a thin varnished skin, but rotten at the core. It will last as long as the weather is fine; when a storm comes, it will fall."

"Well, but what has happened? I don't think I understand."

"Something has happened that very few persons have observed. Wealth has bought the Church; it is in the proprietorship of the rich. They finance it, they dictate its policies, and naturally those policies are not going to be hostile to themselves. Then it has ceased to be democratic in any true sense. It will be charitable to the poor, but it will not be just. Thus its very charity is a bribe to make men forget justice. And besides this, the note of conviction has left the pulpit. Half the preachers spend their time in apologies for Christianity, and the apologetic person soon finds himself despised. The centre of gravity has shifted, and the people who do believe most heartily in Christianity are people outside the churches—men like Tolstoi, for example. Why is it that the Church is always complaining of its want of success? It ought to succeed as nothing else can. It has privileges and attractions which no other institution has. The reason is that its vitality has run out. It has the dry rot, as I said, and the only skin that holds the thing together is the custom of worship. That also is becoming spotted with decay, and when the decay eats through the outer skin, the end will come."

"But we must have religion."

"Yes, we must have religion; but the Church and religion are not synonymous terms. The Founder of the Christian religion stood outside the Church." He paused a moment, with that curious hesitation which marked the movement of emotion in him. Then he laid his hand upon Arthur's shoulder, and said in a gentle voice, "Do you remember what you said you would do with your life? You said you wished to make it worthy of the highest. 'The utmost for the highest'—that's it, isn't it? Well, you needn't bother your head about the Church. That saying of yours is a tolerably complete definition of religion. You'll find it more than sufficient, if you'll be true to it."

There were many conversations such as this between Arthur and Vickars in this wonderful summer month. Life and love, like twin flowers on one stem, were opening, their petals simultaneously for Arthur. His mind flowered in contact with Vickars, his heart in contact with Elizabeth; for though the girl said little, her silence was eloquent of the bond of complete sympathy which existed between her father and herself. He tacitly included her in all his views of life. And it was clear that she gave him adoring discipleship—the discipleship of a young girl, long motherless, who had drawn from him all the elements of thought and will in her own character. It was a beautiful relationship, rare always, but especially rare in that conventional society which surrounded them, in which women were merely the butterfly appendages of men whose chief work in life was to provide them with the means of easy gaiety.

Vickars did not press his opinions upon Arthur; he was much too wise and gentle to play the pedant. If Arthur learned much from him, it was by indirection; knowledge came to him unconsciously, as an atmosphere to be breathed, rather than as a lesson to be mastered. Vickars had a curious knack of evading controversy. He would flash a winged sentence on the air, satisfied that it would find its mark; and then dismiss the subject with a laugh, or with the usual comment, "But we are growing too serious; let us have some music." Then Elizabeth would open the piano, and find her way to some solemn theme of Beethoven or Tchaikowsky, and the soft, perfumed wind would blow across the room from the open window, and the divine melodies would lift the spirit into worlds of unimaginable agony or rapture. But all the time the word that had been spoken would vibrate through the music, till the music seemed its real interpretation; and thus it was endowed with new vitality and emphasis by Elizabeth's playing. "How well she understands him!" Arthur would reflect, wondering at the perfect bond of sympathy between them; and then, with a pang of yearning, "Will she ever understand me like that?"

In such moments he trod the lover's hell, which is as real as the lover's heaven. He could never attain to her. He saw the miraculous freshness and richness of her nature, and knew the crudeness of his own. What was there in him that she should desire him? This very bond of sympathy between her and her father, so rare and sensitive, became his menace. She could not want him; but, O God! with what an agony of yearning did he want her! And then, as he sat disconsolate, with head resting on his hand, she would turn to him, as if she divined his thoughts, with a gaze infinitely pitiful and kind; and his eyes clung to hers for an instant in mute appeal and adoration, and something told him that there was yet a void in that virgin heart that he alone could fill. O exquisite terrors, authentic agonies, brief sky-daring hopes, surely it were worth all the millions of years of slow evolution from the brute to touch but for an instant so painful and delicate a bliss!

One night—it was a Sunday night—the three sat together in the little room.

Vickars was unusually silent.

"You look depressed, father. What is it?" said Elizabeth.

"Oh, nothing personal, my child. I think it's merely the spectacle of the congregation at church to-night that has disturbed me."

"What was wrong with the congregation?"

"Nothing was right, I think. Didn't you notice how stolid they looked—and in the presence of truths and hopes so vast, that had they believed them, they must have leapt to their feet and shouted in ecstasy?"

"That would be a novelty indeed," she smiled.

"It would have been natural," he replied. "But alas! who is natural? Most people never live at first-hand. They are plagiarists. Arthur, don't be a plagiarist. It cuts the fibre of sincerity. It's like drinking stale water from a dirty cup. But there," and then came the usual comment, "let us have some music."

And Elizabeth began to play. Perhaps it was the suggestion of the Sabbath evening that made her play sweet and solemn airs from Handel. Presently she wandered into old hymn-tunes, and finally began to play "Nearer, my God, to Thee."

Suddenly she stopped, for Vickars had left the room.

"Oh, I forgot!" she cried. "I ought not to have played that."

While she spoke, her father returned. His face was pale: he held in his hand a miniature of a woman.

"Do you remember what to-day is?" he said in a soft, shaken voice. "Twenty years ago to-day. And that was the last thing she played ... and then she went ... in the night ... upon her long journey. And it all seems but an hour ago. O my child! you are so like your mother."

He kissed her forehead.

Twenty years ago, and love still fresh! Arthur bowed his head before the sacred vision. He rose to go. He felt he had no right to look on that unveiled immortal sorrow.

Elizabeth stood for a moment with him at the garden gate.

"Could you?" ... He stopped, for emotion choked him. "Could you ... love me like that?"

He could see her tremble, and in the dim light he could divine her startled gaze. His hand clasped hers.

She pressed his for a single moment, turned, and fled.

VII

ENTER SCALES

August had come with its heavy, brooding heat, and the idyllic weather had disappeared. There were no more fresh breezes, tempering the hot sunlight, no more cool nights of lingering twilight; over the weary city spread a pall of stifling haze, and the atmosphere had the flatness of an unaired room. The trees turned brown, and the leaves began to fall, as though it were autumn, not summer. The greenness of the parks had vanished, and the pleasant sward had become a dirty gray, upon which vast tribes of ragged children camped. August in London, when from countless miles of brick walls and stone pavements heat is radiated; when roads steam beneath the casual visitations of the water-cart, and barefooted urchins paddle in the gutters, and the city sprawls like a languid drab too tired to be conscious of her dishevelment; August, when a million hearts feel a dull ache of yearning for green fields and open spaces, and in fortunate homes guide-books are being studied, routes of travel discussed, boxes packed, fishing-tackle and golf-clubs overhauled, and carriages, piled high with trunks, with pale, excited children gazing from their windows, day by day roll down every street, and converge at last in the wild pandemonium of the great terminal stations which are the doorways of the country.

In Eagle House such preparations were in process, but it was a joyless business. Masterman had informed his family that there would be no Scotland for them this year; times were hard, and they must make the best they could of Brighton.

"I'm sure Brighton will cost just as much as Scotland," objected his daughter.

"It's near London, and I can't afford to be far from town this year," he replied.

"We don't know any one there, father. All the people we know are going north. Why can't we?"

For this young lady was accustomed to get her own way in most things, and to consider every one her enemy who opposed her. There was not much of her physically; she was petite and graceful, with irregular features, pretty hair, and shallow blue eyes which showed no evidence of a soul; but like many small persons, she had a wonderful gift of obstinacy. As a rule, she could do as she liked with her father in small ways, by means of a childish wheedling manner, which concealed her obstinacy; but every now and again she came upon a hard strata in his nature which turned the edge of her assaults, and it was so now. Of course, she did not so much as perceive the grim lines that had written themselves upon his tired face during the past two months. Neither did she believe his plea of poverty. It was merely a selfish whim of his to be near London through August, and she must needs be sacrificed to his whim.

"At any rate, you might choose a better place than Brighton," she retorted petulantly.

"I might choose, but I don't," he retorted. "There's a good train service to Brighton, and it suits me. It will have to suit you, too."

"I'm sure I would just as soon stay in London," Arthur interrupted; and he was rewarded by a glance of intense disdain from his sister's eyes.

"No; you'll go to Brighton with the others." And Masterman, not knowing the private thoughts of Arthur, was gratified with his remark. He saw in it the evidence of that serious sense of duty which was presently to make him the kind of man for whom business is an imperious master. "You see, we must go somewhere. If we didn't, folk might talk. I've had a pretty hard time, my boy, but it's nearly over now. And I want you to go to Brighton for a reason of my own. There are some people there I'd like you to meet."

"Of course I'll do as you wish, father."

"That's the proper spirit," he replied kindly.

But when Masterman left the room, Helen turned upon her brother spitefully.

"Oh! you needn't think I don't know why you want to stop in London," she cried. "I know where you spend your evenings. You're not nearly so clever as you think you are."

"Do you?" he replied, trying in vain to subdue the hot blood that rushed to his cheeks.

"Yes, I do. And you just wait until father knows. I've a great mind to tell him."

"You can tell him anything you wish," he replied proudly.

"And do you wish it?"

And with this Parthian shot she drew her small figure up in anger, and left the room.

But the Parthian arrow left its wound, for it was tipped with subtle poison. Magic months are exquisite experiences; but the pity of it is that the magic is rarely so complete that the outlines of the plain world are totally obliterated. Helen's words were a sword that slashed a great rent in the purple curtains of young love, and the outer world lay visible. No use to turn the eyes away or to patch the rent; there lay the fact of things, palpable enough. Did he wish his father to know his love for Elizabeth? He had never yet faced the question. But the moment it was asked he saw with fatal prescience all that it implied. He had chosen not alone Elizabeth, but with her a path of life, an ideal of conduct. That path led out into a strange, uncharted world, the very existence of which his father had not so much as surmised. And he knew that his father never could be brought to see it.

He knew this, but he knew also that he himself had reached a clearness of vision of which nothing could deprive him. He had seen the land very far off, and henceforth his eyes could see no other. He was vowed to the highest, as men had been in days of knighthood, and he must follow the gleam wheresoever it led. To his father it would all seem the wildest folly; no doubt in that forgotten dream-time of the world, to men bartering in the market-place or reaping in the fields, young Sir Galahad must have seemed mad as he rode past singing, into the haunted forest. It would be no better now; nay, it would be far worse, for was not the world one vast clamorous marketplace, no longer merely disdainful but actively antagonistic to the dreamer? Not that he was worthy to rank himself with the Sir Galahads; he was merely a boy, intoxicated with the new wine of love and life; but nevertheless he had his ideal of what life should be, and he meant to pursue it. To one thing at least he had attained—he was not afraid of poverty. Hilary Vickars had taught him that, by showing him how little outward circumstance can affect the inner peace of the soul. And when all things are said and done, perhaps that is the greatest truth that a youth can learn, for if it does not necessarily produce heroism, it at least makes it possible. For it is through fear of poverty that men sell their souls; and not until that ignoble fear is gone does the soul have a chance to live.

But he did not wish to challenge his father to the conflict till the proper hour came. The clash must come, but he would leave the foreseen moment in the hands of time. It could not be long delayed, but he would not anticipate it. And in so determining he was thinking of his father rather than himself. His father might be wholly wrong in his method of life, but that old sense of his father's bigness still dominated him. Primeval, proud, scarred with savage conflict, he saw his father rise before him; he could not but admire even while he censured; and simply because he knew that it was in his power to wound the giant in a vital part, he was afraid to strike.

So in the first week of August the Masterman household accomplished its annual exodus, and Arthur found himself one of five hundred tenants in a vast hotel at Brighton. Brighton is not precisely a pleasant place in August—"a sea without a ship, and a shore without a tree"—but undeniably it has at all seasons a certain strong glitter of life, and its shipless sea is an inexhaustible reservoir of tonic breezes. But poetry does not breathe in the air of Brighton, and Arthur's heart was at the stage when poetry is indispensable to happiness. He could have been relatively happy in some deep Scotch glen, whipping a stream for the infrequent trout, and listening unconsciously to the wind-music in the fir-tops; for though he would still have been separated from Elizabeth, he would have seen her face mirrored in the stream, and heard her voice in the wind, and have felt her presence in the wide peacefulness. But the hard materialism of Brighton jarred upon his senses. It was London over again, a cleaner and a meaner London. The same kind of face met him everywhere—the heavy, soulless face of men who have their portion in this world. In the men it was a clean-shaved, rubicund face, in the women it was puffed and sometimes rouged; and this face was reduplicated everywhere—in the hotel, on the parade, on the pier, till it became a persecution such as one suffers in dreams. Looking at these faces, Arthur had not only a strong repulsion, but he knew the cause of it; these faces were the mirror of unclean souls. There was something dark and turbid in them, a mire of sin washed up from the abhorred depth of life; these eyes all had the same expression, something of greed and glassy insolence and vulpine shrewdness, and the mouths had the same looseness of sensual thirst. Perhaps he did not see with entire justice, for Elizabeth's face hung like a picture in his heart, before which he had built a shrine and lit a lamp of faith; or perhaps he did see with perfect lucidity the souls of these fellow creatures of his, simply because that lamp of pure love in his heart gave him light. At all events, he hated Brighton, and betook himself daily to the green empty Downs, and sometimes as far as Chantlebury Ring, where the width of the world could be felt once more, and the shy voice of love might be heard, like a cuckoo-note, in the great sylvan silences.

Helen had soon found friends, and was now quite reconciled to Brighton; his mother, more fragile than ever in appearance, was content to sit still all day, looking at the smooth sea-plain with its gem-like glitter. More than once he was moved to open all his heart to his mother, and there were times when her eyes seemed to invite his confidence; but always between them was that gulf of silence, for which speech could frame no bridge. He wondered much about this silence of hers. It was scarcely apathy; no eyes could be as bright as hers if the heart were apathetic. It seemed rather to be a resolved incuriousness about things around her, a turning away of the face from life, as from something dreadful, that had only pain to offer her. Could one imagine a human creature, with "a bright, sunshiny day after shipwreck," sitting beside an empty sea, willing to think of nothing that came before or after, but just to breathe, and watch, and wait—that was the kind of impression Mrs. Masterman made upon the mind. Arthur was always delicately tender with her. He hung about her chair, arranged her shawl or pillows, was quick to perceive her wishes; but in the very kiss with which she rewarded him there was restraint. The time was to come when he was to know what it meant, but that time was not yet. Now, as in all the later years which he could recall, her one wish seemed to be to efface herself, and to take up as little room in life and in the thoughts of others as possible.

He was greatly surprised one night, when he came back to the hotel from a long walk over the Downs, to find his father in conference with Scales. There was a mass of papers lying on the table, and it was clear the two men were deeply interested in them.

"Come in," said Masterman. "We're busy, you see, but we'll soon be through now."

Scales greeted him with his usual smooth civility, and, as usual, it was a little overdone.

"Shall I wait?" said Arthur.

"No. You'd better dress for dinner. Scales is going to spend the night here. I have something to say to you later on."

Arthur left the room without remark; but as he was dressing the thought suddenly took hold on him, What did his father want with Scales?

He knew that his father did not like the man, and that made their present relation the more unintelligible. He had heard his father speak with brusque scorn of Scales' plan to punish John Clark, by getting him off to the Holy Land, and then starting a church revolution in his absence. That the man was false was beyond doubt. Falsity looked out of his narrow, deprecating eyes, falsity breathed in his smooth voice, falsity declared itself in his obsequious manners. Under no possible circumstances could such a man play fair either as friend or foe. Judas was such another as Elisha Scales, and Judas was an apostle as Scales was a deacon.

And here Arthur laughed at the absurdity of the suggestion.

"He'll find it hard to betray father," he said.

But not the less he was uneasy. There was something in the man that was sinister, supple, diabolically adroit, and he felt instinctively that his presence in his father's room boded no good for any one. Suddenly there recurred to his memory his father's statement that there were persons in Brighton he wanted him to meet, and he felt sure that it was to Scales he referred. Yes, it must be so, because no one else who could claim his father's acquaintance had appeared in Brighton; and, if it were so, it argued some kind of compact or pre-arrangement with Scales.

That night, however, nothing was said that could illumine the situation. Scales spent the night in the hotel, was closeted late with his father, and accompanied him to London on the following day.

Another day passed, and then his father sent for him.

"Arthur," he began, "I'm not going to interfere with our compact. I gave you till the end of September to make your mind up about the business, and I don't want you to speak a word until then. But there's a matter of business on which I want your help now."

"I'm not much good at business, father. I don't think I ever shall be."

Masterman ignored the confession.

"You don't know that until you try."

"Of course, if there's anything in which I can help you, father, I'll do my best."

"Well, you're old enough to use your eyes, and that's all I want of you. Sit down, and let me explain."

Thereupon he explained. It seemed that Scales had got wind in the broker's office where he was managing clerk of a certain amalgamation of several brick companies which was likely to come off before long. One of these companies was in Sussex, not far from Brighton. It was in difficulties, had been a long time, and might be bought cheap. Masterman proposed to buy it, and then resell to the trust when it should be formed. Properly handled, there might be a fortune in the transaction.

"I thought you didn't trust Scales," said Arthur quietly.

"And I don't. Not an inch farther than I can see him. I know very well he'd sell the shirt off my back if he got a chance."

"Of course he's not working for nothing."

"Certainly not. If he were, I should distrust him still more. You'll find that in business no one does anything for nothing."

"But I don't see anything I can do, father."

"That's the point I am coming to. I dare not go to look at this Sussex property. I'm known. If I appeared upon the scene, they'd spring the price at once. But you can go to see it. It's at Leatham, not more than twenty miles away. What I want you to do is to go to the village, stop at the inn for a few days, make all the inquiries you can, quietly, and then report to me. Will you do it?"

How could he refuse? It was at least a break in the dull monotony of Brighton. And he was really touched, too, by his father's faith in him.

"But I have no expert knowledge, father, and surely that is what you need."

"Not at all. They'd suspect an expert. All that is wanted is a pair of good eyes, and good commonsense. I think you have these."

"Very well, father, I will go. When do you want me to start?"

"At once. You can't be too quick."

"I will start this morning, sir."

"That's the spirit I like," said Master-man. "It will be the first bit of business you ever did for me, and it won't be the last."

On that pious hope Arthur made no comment. He could not refuse to do what his father asked, and he did it the more readily because in his own mind he knew it would be likely to prove both the first and the last act of the kind he would perform.

"I daresay Scales will turn up at Leatham. Behave to him as civilly as you can."

"I'll try, sir." But he said it with so wry a smile that his father laughed.

"He'll be civil enough to you, never fear."

Of course, thought Arthur. Judas was no doubt a pleasant-mannered gentleman, and the very pattern of civility—until he bared his fangs.

So Arthur went to Leatham, and for the first time found himself in contact with that mysterious world of business in which his father lived. At first this contact produced an almost pleasurable sensation, such as the swimmer feels when the sting of the salt water thrills his nerves. It was all so new, this contact with rough reality. He found the owner of the brickfield an old man, as skilled in craft as Ulysses. The old man came to see him in the village inn, and played the game of cross-purposes with inimitable subtlety. He supposed the young gentleman wanted to settle there? No? Well, it was a fine neighbourhood, few better, and the sport was considered good. Interested in business? Well, for a safe paying business there was few things like bricks. People must have bricks, because they must have houses. He was an old man, and had an idea of retiring. If the young gentleman was interested in bricks, he'd like him to come over the works some day. Not that it could be supposed he was interested. Bookish, wasn't he? Been to college? Well, lots of college men went into business now, and even titled ladies kept bonnet-shops. So he'd heard. He was really an amusing old man, and Arthur enjoyed his company more than could have been supposed of a young Sir Galahad.

His father had not been mistaken when he had credited him with a pair of good eyes and cool commonsense, and the more he used his eyes the less he thought of the possibilities of the Leatham brick-works. It was clearly a bankrupt concern. It was handicapped by being four miles from the rail. It had been able to do a small local trade for several years, and that was about all it was ever likely to do. If there was a fortune in it, it was of such microscopic proportions that it needed keener eyes than Arthur's to discover it.

On the Saturday night Scales came down, deferential and obsequious as usual, but clearly a little ill at ease. Arthur dined with him in the old-fashioned inn-parlour, and after dinner came at once to the point. He said bluntly that he believed the Leatham Brick Manufacturing Co. was a worthless property.

Scales smiled enigmatically.

"You appear to dissent," said Arthur.

"No, not altogether. I never thought much of it myself."

"Then why do you want my father to buy it?"

"Why, to resell it, of course."

"If it's worthless, you can't resell it."

"It won't be worthless if your father gets it. If it's worthless now, it's because it hasn't been developed. The present owner hasn't had the money to put into it. Your father will develop it."

"And then?

"Make it a company."

"And then?"

"Resell it to the Amalgamated Brick Trust."

"And if the Amalgamated doesn't want it?"

"But they will. It's my business to look after that."

"Then why not let the present owner sell it to the Amalgamated? He's worked it all his life. If there's a fortune to be made out of it, as my father seemed to think, it's that poor old man who ought to get it—not my father."

"That's not the way business is done."

"It seems to me the way it should be done. It's the only honest way."

Thereupon Scales entered on an exposition of the methods of modern business, according to which it seemed that fortunes were only made by snatching advantages from the weak who could not hold them. Arthur listened in silence, and as Scales proceeded the boy's face had a curious likeness to his father's in his grimmest mood.

"It's no good," he broke out at length. "If that is what business means, it seems to me to be nothing better than organised theft. I'm sorry to disappoint you, Mr. Scales—for no doubt you hope to make something yourself out of this fine scheme—but my father expects me to report honestly what I think, and I shall report against the purchase."

"You'll regret it if you do."

"I should regret it all my life if I didn't."

"Think over it. Don't act hastily."

And as he spoke there was something like a tremor of anger in the suave voice.

"I've done my thinking already," said Arthur. "There's only one thing more I want to say. If the transaction were never so honest, there's a weak place in your scheme which I think my father will appreciate. It is that he has only your word for it, Mr. Scales, that the Amalgamated will, buy the property, and, to be quite frank, I don't trust your word."

He left the room and went to bed. The next morning he returned to Brighton. The first thing that met his eyes as he entered his room was a letter from Elizabeth.

VIII

THE ACCUSATION

It was a very brief note, simply informing him that Hilary Vickars was ill, and wished to see him.

An hour later he was in the train. Fortunately he had written his report of the Leatham business before he left the village, and this he left upon his father's desk. As he went up to London he read and re-read Elizabeth's brief note, in a conflict of torture and delight. There was but one phrase in it which impressed the personality of the writer. "I am alone with father, and very anxious," she wrote. He felt the throb of her heart in those words, and he realised that she leaned on him for strength. His own heart swelled with tenderness at the thought. There is a kind of pain which is so exquisite that it becomes joy; he realised such a pain now, an immense yearning to take the lonely girl to his bosom, and kiss her wet eyelids, and defend her from the imminent sword of sorrow.

He stood at the door of the little house in Lonsdale Road. The street lay silent in the August heat, the little patch of grass was brown and parched, there was an aspect of forlornness over everything. A sudden terror smote him: what if it were Elizabeth herself who was ill? His hand trembled as he rang the bell. The door opened softly, and there stood Elizabeth, pale and quiet as a spectre.

"Elizabeth!"

Her hand lay in his, her beautiful eyes, swimming in tears, met his; he drew her to him in one long kiss. It was the first time he had kissed her, and how often had he imagined the ecstasy of that kiss! It had come at last, but not with the kind of ecstasy he had imagined, yet with the diviner ecstasy of sorrow. The rose of her heart was yielded to him, but it was wet with tears.

"Elizabeth!"

She withdrew herself from his embrace, saying simply, "I wanted you so much."

And in that brief phrase all was said, and each knew that henceforth an irrevocable vow bound their hearts together.

She took his hand, and together they went into the room where they had so often talked. The desk was littered with papers, half-corrected proofs, unanswered letters, the mute, pathetic witness of an arrested hand.

"How long ago is it?" he whispered

"Four days."

"What is it?"

"Typhoid, the doctor thinks."

"Can I see him?"

"It was he who told me to write you. He wants to see you."

"And you?"

"Yes, I wanted you too."

There was a tender reproach in the words, which he was quick to recognise.

"I should not have asked the question. Forgive me."

"No, you need not have asked it."

They went upstairs together. Vickars lay very straight and quiet in the bed, his face pallid, his eyes closed. He roused instantly at their entrance, and at once began to speak in a weak, eager voice.

"So you see I'm caught at last," he said with difficult cheerfulness. "I've never had an illness—ailments, but not illness—and I don't quite know what to make of it. It's an experience that makes one humble."

"Don't talk, father. It exhausts you," said Elizabeth.

"On the contrary, it keeps me cheerful," he said, with the old whimsical smile. "Habit, I suppose. And besides, I have certain things to say to Arthur."

Elizabeth took the hint and left the room. Arthur sat beside the bed in awkward silence.

Presently Vickars said abruptly, "You love her?"

"Yes, with all my heart."

"I thought so."

He was silent for some moments. Then he said, "A month ago I suppose I should almost have hated you for that confession. She is all I have; I have always wanted to keep her wholly to myself.... I have dreaded this hour.... But I see now it is the course of nature. I may have to leave her soon—I don't know. But I'm glad now you love her. Yes, I think I'm glad, and I wished to tell you so."

"I hope you'll soon be better."

"Ah! do you? But then, you see, I might not feel the same toward you. But there—that's irony. You know that. Honestly, I'm glad you love her."

His eyes closed, and Arthur, sitting silently beside the bed, could not but mark the change in Vickars since last he saw him. The bones of the face showed white through the stretched, transparent skin, the eyes were sunken, and new lines had been etched upon the forehead. It came to him, in a rush of pity and of admiration, that he loved this man. And there came to him also some dim perception of the depth of that sacrifice which Vickars endured in resigning his sole jealous claim upon Elizabeth. It is seldom that young love attains to this vision. It is all hot eagerness, imperious and intense with the overmastering impulse of sex, and blind to the tendrils of old affection which it tears apart to reach its goal. But to Arthur there was granted a truer vision, a nobler temper, because love in him had always had a sacred meaning, and had never been the more clamorous cry of sex.

It was as though Vickars divined his thoughts. He opened his eyes, and said, "Bring me my notebook. It is lying on the table."

Arthur brought the book.

"I want to read you something. It was written by a wayward man of genius, who made many blunders both in thought and morals, but he understood love, and the one best thing in all his life was that he did know how to love. Listen. 'To love we must render up body and soul, heart and mind, all interests and all desires, all prudences and all ambitions, and identify our being with that of another.... To love is for the soul to choose a companion, and travel with it along the perilous defiles and winding ways of life; mutually sustaining when the path is terrible with dangers, mutually exhorting when it is rugged with obstructions, and mutually rejoicing when rich broad plains and sunny slopes make the journey a delight, showing in the quiet distance the resting-place we all seek in this world.'"

The words, beautiful in themselves, had a strange solemnity as Vickars read them. It was as though all the ages spoke in them, as though one overheard in some dim cathedral the low whispering of multitudes of lovers, confessing the ultimate secret of both life and love.

He put the book down, sank back upon his pillow, and began to talk in a low, intense voice.

"Yes, I loved like that.... A companion of the soul, that was what I found. Women are such delicate and fragile creatures, but oh! so strong—much stronger than we are; and a good woman is the strongest of all. The heavier the load you lay upon them, the happier they are. I know. I should have fallen by the way but for her. She always smiled at difficulty ... such a tender, smiling mouth she had ... like a fresh flower in the sun. Then God took her. She went smiling—her last word a word of encouragement to me, her eyes signalling courage as they closed. And Elizabeth is like her. She has carried my burdens and borne my sorrows.... Poor child! it may be I have leaned too heavily on her. Well, well. God forbid I should grudge her her right to joy. Take her, Arthur, and don't lean too heavily upon her."

Instinctively Arthur knelt beside the bed. His eyes were full of tears. Vickars stretched out his hand, and laid it on his head. There was no need of further words.

When he next spoke, it was with his old manner of whimsical humour.

"If I must needs have a son, I don't want an idle one," he said. "I want you to help me, Arthur."

"I'll do anything I can."

"Well, this is what I want you to do. You will find the proofs of my new book downstairs on my desk. They must be corrected at once, or the book will miss the autumn season. Will you correct them for me?"

"If Elizabeth will let me," he said with a smile.

"I think she will let you. I am sure she would let no one else."

"Then I'll begin at once."

"Well, that's a load off my mind. And don't you think I'm going to die, for I'm not. But I'm in for a hard fight, there's no doubt of that. Now go to Elizabeth—and the proofs. I'm tired out, and will sleep. I've never been lazy in my life before, and it's a new and quite exquisite sensation."

From that hour a strange chapter of life began for Arthur. Eagle House was closed, and he took refuge with Mrs. Bundy. He wrote his father a brief note, saying he was detained in London, and would not return to Brighton. He had not the courage to tell him the whole truth; that revelation would come soon enough, and he did not wish to antagonise his father by an abrupt declaration of his position. To this note his father made no reply.

Most of his hours were spent in the little house in Lonsdale Road. There he toiled over Vickars's new book. Much of it consisted of rough drafts, which he had to copy and piece together as best he could. In this delicate work he could obtain no counsel from Vickars.

Of Elizabeth he saw much, and yet far less than he would have imagined possible. She was constantly at her father's bedside. And as the days wore on, the fight for life in that shadowed room became intense. A silent pressure of her hand, a silent kiss—and she would glide from him like a ghost, and disappear into the gloom of that upper chamber.

One night it happened that she had gone to rest, worn out with long watching, and Arthur took her place at Vickars' bedside. For a long time Vickars lay in complete stupor. The gray dawn was near, and a milk-cart rattled down the road. The noise roused him for a moment, and he began to speak in half-delirious words.

"The old story," he said. "Rotten work, and human lives to pay for it. The poor ... the poor pay for everything in this world ... with their blood. And the rich sit in houses splashed with the blood of the poor, and don't even know it.... I always knew the drains were bad. I always said they smelt of death. But that damned builder didn't care—not he. He only laughed ... laughed."

The voice trailed off into an incoherent whisper.

When Vickars began to speak, Arthur listened drowsily; but as he finished, his entire mind sprang into vivid apprehension. It was as though a sudden torch flared through his brain.

What did the sick man mean? And with the question there came back to Arthur's memory a snatch of conversation at the deacons' tea, when he had first heard the name of Hilary Vickars. He recalled the suave, purring voice of Scales explaining to his father that the Vickars were inconsiderable people, living in Lonsdale Road—"in one of your houses, sir."

"I always said the drains smelt of death. But that damned builder didn't care. He only laughed."

And the builder was his father.

A blackness of great horror fell upon him. He struggled against it, as against an overwhelming tide. Could it be that Vickars knew this dreadful thing all the time, knew it even when he had laid his hand upon his head, and welcomed him as a son? It seemed hardly possible. He told himself that after all he had nothing to go upon but a few delirious words. Perhaps Vickars was not thinking of his own case at all. It might have been simply some scene in one of his books which he rehearsed—a snatch of drama flung out by the toiling, unconscious brain. But in his heart he knew that such an explanation was untrue. An inner force of conviction, stronger than reason, affirmed the reality of Vickars' words. The delirious mind had uttered a tragic truth which the conscious mind had concealed.

The dawn had now come. He heard Elizabeth going down the stairs silently. How could he meet her? Perhaps she also knew the truth, had known it all the time. He hastily wrote a note, saying that he had gone for a walk, and would return in an hour. Vickars still slept. He knew that in a few minutes Elizabeth would be with him. He went softly down the stairs, and let himself out into the Lonsdale Road.

In the freshness of the morning air his tragic suppositions seemed incredible. Life lay round him in its wide security of joy; birds sang, flowers bloomed, men were astir; everything breathed of honest industry, honest kindness, and it seemed a thing impossible that behind this fair show of things there lay unimaginable depths of cruelty. He passed Eagle House, shuttered and silent, and he fell to thinking of his father. Stern, inscrutable, resolute he knew his father to be, but he had never known him cruel. Yet if he had done this thing he was a monster. He had made a compact with death for money. Over the porch of Eagle House there hung a Virginia creeper, already touched with the first rusty crimson of autumn, and to the boy's wild imagination it was a stain of blood. "Splashed with blood of the poor," Vickars had said.... Yet, at that moment, every memory of his father that he could summon up was kind and gracious. He remembered his generosities to him during his university career, his patience with him while he waited for a decision on which his heart was set in burning eagerness, his trust in him over the Leatham business, and all that pride and love which had a thousand times met him in his father's glance. But he knew also that in the scales of justice even such memories as these were worthless. They could not outweigh deliberate fraud. He must know the truth; he was merciless in his appetite for truth; until that hunger was satisfied there was no place for kinder thoughts.

It struck him all at once that there was an easy way to satisfy his doubts. The doctor would know the exact truth, and to the doctor he would go.

Ten minutes later he stood in the doctor's waiting-room. Dr. Leet was not yet up. He would be down in half an hour.

Presently the doctor entered, a somewhat formal, gray, middle-aged man, with a hesitating manner which had grown upon him in the constant effort to avoid hurting the susceptibilities of patients who asked awkward questions which he was unwilling to answer.

"Ah, you come from Mr. Vickars? Nothing wrong, I hope?"

"No, doctor. I left him asleep."

The doctor nodded and waited.

"I came to ask you a question, doctor."

"Yes."

"It's about Vickars. I want to know the cause of his illness. I have a good reason for asking."

"The cause? Well, you see, Vickars had been run down for a long time before he became ill. He had probably worked too hard for years. That meant a certain devitalisation, which made him susceptible to fever."

"And is that all?"

"Well, not altogether, of course. There is still the question of the fever itself."

"That is what I want to know, doctor. I shall be very glad if you tell me plainly what you think."

"Oh, there's not much room for conjectures. Drains, of course. Lonsdale Road had been a perfect nest of typhoid germs for years. I don't know who built the street, but I do know that, whoever he was, he was a scoundrel. The drains run under the kitchen floors, and I'll be bound that there isn't one that is not a death-trap. I've seen some of these drains exposed, and I give you my word for it that the pipes are not so much as cemented together."

Arthur turned sick and pale. Then he said quietly, "My father built those houses."

"Oh, my dear sir," began the doctor, "I'm sorry I spoke. I had no idea."

"You need not apologise," said Arthur. "I asked a plain question and expected a plain answer. I understand that Vickars is the victim of bad drains?"

"Well, yes, primarily. Of course, run down as he was, he might have fallen ill, any way. But honestly I can't say that I believe this. The real cause is only too clear."

"Then Eliz—Miss Vickars is in danger too?"

"Any one is in danger who lives in those houses," said the doctor hotly, forgetting his usual caution. "They are mere death-traps, I tell you. And though I don't want to hurt your feelings, yet I am bound to say that in my opinion a highway robber who takes your purse upon a public road is a respectable person compared with the rascal who condemns scores of decent people to certain suffering, and some to certain death, for the sake of a few pounds of illicit gain."

"Thank you, doctor. I think I'll go now."

He groped for his hat, like a blind man.

"You'd better wait a little while," said the doctor. "Stop, and have some breakfast with me."

And then Arthur's self-control broke. He leant against the library shelves, covering his face with his hands.

"O my father," he cried, "how could you do it?"

"Don't take it too hardly," said the doctor. "Perhaps he didn't know ... surely he didn't think."

"Yes, he knew," said Arthur, turning on the doctor a pair of flaming, tear-wet eyes. "He's done it before. He once put oyster-shells and road-gravel into the foundations of a church instead of concrete. I heard him say so. He must have done it many times. And he doesn't care. People die, and he doesn't care. And I'm his son ... the son of a man who is a scoundrel."

He pushed the astonished doctor aside, and somehow found his way into the open air. There lay the world, even as he had left it, but its aspect was wholly changed. In the fresh morning light it had smiled upon him, it had seemed honest, it had breathed security of joy; now the mask of hypocrisy was gone, and it was an old, evil, wrinkled face that leered at him. It was the stage of tragic passions, it was full of the habitations of cruelty.

"Splashed with blood of the poor"—so he saw the world at that moment, a red grotesque, a grim crimson horror. And he saw his father, too, clothed in the same blood-red livery of crime.

IX

THE CONTEST

The troubles of the young are apt to move the ridicule of the mature, who have long since discovered that even tragedies can be outlived, disasters forgotten, and the worst defeats repaired. That there is a strange and stubborn resilience in life, which enables us to survive a thousand shocks, is indeed a wonderful quality which is needed to explain the persistence of the race. But the final view of life is never the immediate view, and, whatever we may think now of ancient sorrows, unless the memory is quite dulled we know well that they were once real and terrible enough. The child's terror of the dark, his bitter tears over slight or injustice, his first agony of homesickness, his rage against acts of cruelty or tyranny, the wounds inflicted on his tenderness or pride—these things may appear to us now absurd or insignificant episodes in the process by which we adjusted ourselves to the social scheme; but it may be doubted if any tears were bitterer than these, any later sorrow comparable with these young sorrows that left us dumb with fury and astonishment. The years bring healing and forgetfulness—or perhaps it were truer to say, a tougher skin, a less sensitive organism; but, if we care to examine our hearts, most of us would find that the scars of these earliest wounds run deep and are ineffaceable.

How well does the writer recollect a certain mournful morning when he stood at bay in the corner of a large school playground, tormented by the jeers and blows of a jovial crowd of young bullies, who found occasion for fresh mirth in every fresh impotent spasm of rage and grief. Since that day he has wept over open graves, said farewell to so many of those he loved that the unseen world seems less uninhabited than the seen, been betrayed by friends he trusted, been humiliated in a thousand ways by the cruelty or stupidity of men, but he has known no sorrow quite as keen as that sorrow, and no betrayal that seemed quite so cruel as the act by which his parents gave him to the wolves in that brutal playground. He can jest about the story now, but in his own private heart that fatal morning still looms tragic, and there are times when he still wakes out of painful dreams with the old horrible sense of forsakenness that he felt then.

So he finds it impossible to treat lightly Arthur Masterman's first cruel astonishment when the revelation of his father's misdoing was made plain to him. If Arthur had been more observant, he would have learned it by degrees, and so its force would have been broken; if he had not built up for himself an admired image of his father, the shock would have been easier to bear. As it was, the revelation came with a shattering blow which shook his life to the centre. And the blow struck him precisely at the point where he was most sensitive. His father had all but slain Vickars, who was his friend, and he might yet strike down the daughter who was dearer to him than his own life. He had as good as planned their death, for what he did he had done deliberately, well knowing the issue of his deeds. And how many more were there who were his helpless victims? How many graves had he filled? Where would the harvest of disgrace and death end? The doctor was right—the highwayman who took a purse was a reputable citizen compared with the criminal who wilfully sowed the seeds of death among innocent people for a few pounds of illicit gain! And he was the son of the man who had done this; the very clothes he wore, the food he ate, the books he read, were purchased by his father's sin.

To Vickars, slowly recovering from a mortal sickness, he dared not speak, to Elizabeth still less. So he took refuge with Mrs. Bundy, whose bosom was an open hospice for all sorts of vicarious sorrows.

"Well, well!" she said cheerfully, "Didn't I tell you that your father was like the man in the parable, 'an austere man, gathering where he had not strawed'? But it takes all sorts to make a world, laddie, and your father's none so bad as some."

"That's poor comfort," he replied gloomily.

"Poor it may be, but it's not to be forgotten. I mind the time when Bundy was in trouble, and it was your father helped him. Did I ever tell you that?"

"No."

"Well, he did. He lent Bundy what he asked, and did it cheerfully."

"Oh! I don't doubt he can be generous, but that's not the point. It's not what he may do with his money, but how he makes it."

And then he proceeded to pour out all the bitterness of his heart in hot, indignant words. He raged like a man blind with pain, who knows not how or where his blows fall.

"You cannot justify him," he cried. "God knows I've tried hard enough, but I cannot. Dr. Leet said he was a scoundrel, and I, his son, could not contradict him. I have tried to think he did not know, but this is a thing he must have known. It's a hard thing to hear your father called a scoundrel, and be silent. And I was silent, for I knew that it was true."

"Hush, hush, laddie! It's not for you to say that."

"I must say it. There are hundreds of people saying it. And I am his son—the son of a scoundrel."

If Arthur had not been blinded by his anger he would have known why Mrs. Bundy sought to stop the torrent of his words. For, while he was speaking, young Scales had entered the house, and stood in the doorway watching this unusual scene. The Scales family had returned that evening from their holiday, and it had occurred to young Benjamin Scales to call at Mrs. Bundy's, where he would be sure to find some of his acquaintance. Young Benjamin was not a pleasant youth; he had a mean, narrow face, like his father, and wore eye-glasses, not from any defect of vision, but because he imagined that they gave him an air of cleverness, and among his strong antipathies was jealousy of Arthur. So what more natural than that he should seize avidly on Arthur's angry words, and duly report them to his father, who in turn waited his opportunity of reporting them to Archibold Masterman.

The opportunity came a few days later, when Scales went to Brighton to see Masterman upon the Leatham business, which was still undecided. Scales knew very well why it was undecided, and his grudge against Arthur had grown by careful nursing. And now, thanks to Arthur's angry words, he had the means of avenging himself.

Masterman had, of course, read Arthur's report, and was secretly delighted with it. It was an admirable piece of writing, plain and convincing, and it was expressed with a lucidity to which he was not accustomed in similar documents. "The boy has brains," he said, as he read it; "he will go far." It was the first time he had tested those brains on any practical affair, and his pride in his son was great.

"I'm not at all sure Arthur isn't right," he said to Scales, and so he had postponed decision from day to day.

But the time had now come when the decision must be made, and Scales was fully resolved that that decision should be favourable to his own interests.

"I don't deny," he said, "that your son's report is admirably done, but you must recollect that he has no real experience of business. And besides——"

"Besides what?"

"I don't think he will ever understand business."

"Why not?"

"From words he said to me. From words he has said to others."

"What words? Tell me plainly what you mean?"

"I had rather not."

"Now look here, Scales," said Masterman, "either you have said too much or not enough. In a few weeks Arthur will be my partner, and the sooner you begin to think of him in that way the better for our future relations."

"I don't think he will ever be your partner," said Scales quietly.

"Why not?"

"Because he is a wild, impracticable boy," said Scales, throwing away his caution. "Because he told me that business—your business and mine—was, in his opinion, organised theft. Because he has been going about saying that you are a scoundrel——"

"What's that?" cried Masterman, rising to his feet. His face was pale and terrible, and his attitude so menacing that Scales was afraid. But in that mean heart hate was stronger than fear, and it supplied a certain desperate courage.

"I didn't mean to tell you, sir. But you ought to know it. Ask what he has been doing in London this last fortnight. Ask him where he has been. I can tell you. He has been living with Hilary Vickars, he has been making love to his daughter. Vickars is a Socialist. And your son shares his views, and he has said publicly that your methods of business prove you a scoundrel."

"Is that true?" said Masterman.

"It is God's truth. Do you think I would have come between father and son with a lie that was bound to be found out."

"No; I believe if you lied, you'd choose a safe lie, Scales," he said bitterly.

"You are unjust to me, sir. I have never lied to you. I don't lie now."

"That will do," said Masterman.

"But what will you do?"

"That's my affair," he retorted grimly.

"But it's my affair too, sir. I want to know whether your son's report is to go against my experience and yours? whether you will complete this Leatham purchase or not?"

"Ah! I wasn't thinking of that." He turned away, and stood for some moments looking out of the window in silence. Then he walked rapidly to his desk, unlocked a drawer, and took out Arthur's report. "This is my reply," he said. He tore it in pieces, slowly, almost methodically, and trampled it beneath his feet. "Come in an hour," he added. "I will sign the purchase papers. Now go."

"I hope you'll forgive me, sir——"

"What's that?" he roared in sudden rage. "'Go!' I said. Man, can't you see I'm dangerous? Go——"

The door banged behind the retreating Scales, and Archibold Masterman was alone.

So this was the end of all his hopes, his dreams, his ambitious purposes for Arthur! For he did not think of doubting the story Scales had told him. He knew very well that Scales would never have dared to tell the story if it were not true. In a swift moment of agonised apprehension he knew also that there had always been an element of insecurity in those very hopes and purposes on which he had set his heart so eagerly. His son had always stood aloof from him, there had always been some impalpable barrier between them. Yet of late he had been much less conscious of this barrier than he had ever been. Arthur had shown himself willing to meet his father's wishes, and in the Leatham business he had displayed practical faculties for which he had not given him credit. Instinctively Masterman knew that something had happened of which even Scales had not the clue.

If Arthur had been guilty of any of the common indiscretions of youth, he could have forgiven him readily; he would indeed have almost welcomed the opportunity, since it would have destroyed the barrier between them. But this was a different matter. He caught a galling vision of his son as his judge and critic publicly condemning him; no father could condone that. He had been too lenient with him, too generous. He had as good as admitted his superiority, he had even been humble before him. And this was the result—his son forgot all gratitude, all decency even, and denounced him as a scoundrel. The word stung him like a gadfly. His heart began to harden into cold, pitiless anger towards his son.

Yet he must give him a hearing. That was only fair. And he was too proud to seek it. His first instinct was to wire Arthur to come to Brighton at once, but this would be to admit an importance in the situation which he was resolved to ignore. In a day or two the family would be back in London, and then the opportunity would come.

The opportunity came a few days later.

Eagle House was reopened, and the common forms of life were re-established. Dinner was just over. Helen was chattering about the new friends she had made at Brighton, but no one else had anything to say. A heavy restraint rested like a cloud over the family. Mrs. Masterman sat silent as usual, Arthur had not said a word during the meal, Masterman had replied to Helen's ceaseless small talk in curt monosyllables.

Arthur rose quietly to leave the room, when his father's voice arrested him.

"Arthur."

"Yes, father."

"I want to see you."

"Very well, sir."

The words were colourless in themselves, but to one ear in that room they rang like a clash of swords. Mrs. Masterman looked up, her face quivering and eager. Her eyes sought Arthur, and as he passed her chair she pressed his hand. Arthur understood that silent overture, and was grateful for it.

"Come into the office," said Masterman, rising from the table.

Arthur followed obediently. The hour long foreseen had come, and upon the whole he was glad. He was sick of suspense, sick of the deceit of eating his father's bread with bitter resentment in his heart, but not the less he trembled. There was a strangling pressure in his throat, his heart swelled, a vein in his temple throbbed painfully. He had long rehearsed the hour; he had shaped every phrase that he would use to sharpest meaning; but now he felt unaccountably dumb. And, as if memory herself turned traitor, a sudden picture flashed before him of how, years ago, in some childish illness, his father had sat beside his bed, had taken him upon his knee, and had hushed him to sleep upon his bosom. It passed through his thoughts like a strain of music, like the fragrance of incense from an altar, subtly suggestive of a forgotten sacredness in old affections and of their inalienable claim upon his heart. And with it came that old sense of bigness in his father. Strange how that persisted, but it did. This rough mass of man, this big fighting figure, this man of many combats, did he really understand him? And he replied with the sadness of a great pity that he understood him too well, and he saw the gulf between them.

But there was no such touch of grace or tenderness in the father's mind. He also had rehearsed this hour, but with an extraordinary vehemence of rage, which grew by what it fed on. He had come to conceive himself a too generous and indulgent parent wronged by an ungrateful child. And worse still, he had come to conceive of Arthur as a weakling, who refused the battle of life; a fool, who wanted life arranged on a plan of his own; an attitudinising Pharisee, who held himself aloof from realities, and said to the man who grappled them, "Stand aside, I am holier than thou." Well, he would teach him! He would give him a lesson which he would never forget. His only mistake had been that he had not done it long ago.

The moment the door was closed he wheeled round upon him with a formidable gesture.

"I want a word with you," he said, "and I'll thank you not to interrupt till I'm done. It seems I've got a son that doesn't approve me. Well, I could bear that, but what I can't bear is to have a son that is fool enough to go about saying so. It seems I'm not good enough to be the father of this son. I'm a scoundrel, so he says, and he says it with my meat in his belly and my clothes on his back. My father was a hard man, and beat me, but I never told other folk what I thought of him. I never went whining to other folk and called my father names. I bore what I had to bear, and kept my mouth shut. But it seems I've got a son that must be talking. Well, I'm going to take care that he talks where I can't hear him. I thought to take him into my business—the more fool I. Business! Let me tell you business needs commonsense, which it seems you haven't got. And business needs a still tongue, which you'll never get, to say nothing of some kind of decent faith between partners, which you haven't a notion of. Partners! Why, let me tell you, I'd sooner take the most ignorant boy in my office and make him my partner than you! He'd at least have commonsense enough to know which side his bread's buttered, which you'll never know. So that's at an end, and you know my mind."

"But, father, you are unjust to me. You don't understand."

"What don't I understand?"

"What was in my thought."

"It's not a thing I'm at all anxious to understand," he retorted grimly.

"But you must. I won't be condemned unheard."

"But you condemned me unheard."

This was a shaft that drew blood. It was true, Arthur knew it to be true; he had taken the word of other people against his father.

"There were circumstances——" he began.

"Circumstances? Every fool pleads circumstances," Masterman interrupted. "Give it the right name, you that are so honest, and say lying gossip."

"No, it was not gossip, father."

And thereupon he went over the whole story of the illness of Vickars, his visit to Dr. Leet, and the doctor's angry denunciation of the builder of the Lonsdale Road houses as a scoundrel. He spoke with quiet force, and his father listened in perfect silence, but with averted face.

"Have you done?"

"Yes, father."

"Are you sure you've omitted nothing?"

"No, that is all."

"Well, now listen to me. Dr. Leet may be right or wrong in what he says—I don't know, and I don't care. The only thing I know is that when I built those houses I gave the best value I could at the price. I've told you before that if I am paid a cheap price I give cheap work. All the talking in the world can't upset that position—it's plain business."

"But if people die through the cheap work! O father, you can't mean what you say!"

"A good many people have lived in Lonsdale Road and haven't died. Your doctor is an old woman, telling fairy-tales. But even if he were right, I disclaim responsibility. I give the best value I can for the money; if people won't pay for things, they can't have them. I didn't set the standards of business. They existed before me, and they'll exist after me. If I hadn't built those houses, some one else would have built them, and probably worse."

"But the dishonesty of it!" cried Arthur.

"Dishonest? Well, I'll admit that too, if you like. But whose dishonesty? Find me a business in London that isn't dishonest. It's London itself that is dishonest. It insists on having what it hasn't paid for, and won't pay for. It prefers shoddy because it's cheap. It has no right to complain of what it gets."

Arthur listened in appalled silence; before this brutally lucid exposition of what business meant, it seemed as though all his fine ideals of right and justice were so many burst bubbles. For a long moment it was as though he saw the world streaming past him, like a dark torrent thronged with dead faces, upon whose agonised pale lips was the eternal accusation of things as they are.

"Father, it can't be right!" he cried.

"There's a power of things isn't right in this world, as you'll find out some day. And talking won't put 'em right, either. But that brings me to what I wanted to say. It's about the thing you omitted to mention when you told me your story."

"What was that, father?"

"I'll tell you. You can show me what's wrong in my business, and now I'm going to show you something that's wrong in your conduct. If I told you you'd behaved like a sulky young whelp, you'd say I was unjust, wouldn't you? Well, that's just what you've done."

"Father——"

"Don't interrupt. You've had your say, and I mean now to have mine, and be done with it. If you'd come to me when this thing began to trouble you, I'd have talked it over with you frankly. But what did you do? You kept away from me. You did worse. You went about repeating what Dr. Leet said. You hadn't even the common decency to wait until you'd seen me. You hadn't even the gratitude to recollect that I'd done the best I could for you, and was planning to do more. You behaved just like a bad-hearted little boy who goes about letting folks think that his father is his enemy. That's pretty behaviour in a son, isn't it? But it seems that's the kind of son I've got. And for that I don't forgive you. You've made it clear that you and I can't draw together."

"I never meant anything of the kind."

"Never meant! What kind of excuse is that? It's what every slack-baked youth in the office says when he's played the fool. And when a youth can find nothing better to say than that, I fire him. And I'm going to fire you."

"I am entirely in your hands, father. I can see that I was wrong in not coming to you at once. What more can I say?"

"It's too late to say anything. You can't undo wrong by just saying you are wrong. The plain fact is, I can't trust you. There's only one end for it—you must go your way, and I mine."

There was a rough dignity in Masterman as he uttered these words which was profoundly moving. Had he been only angry, violent, or satirical, Arthur could have borne it. He would have been sustained by the justice of his cause. But now that very justice on which he had relied for strength broke beneath him like a rotten prop. He who had been so keen for justice was himself unjust. He saw himself—an implicit parricide, a child who had taken arms against his father. And he saw with a sudden agonised clearness of perception his father's nature, with its strange blending of rugged virtue and unscrupulous craft, its hard, indomitable fibre shot through by soft veins of tenderness, his public traffic with dishonour almost counterbalanced by his stern reticence under the early cruelties he had endured, and his honourable, stoical silence under their brutal ignominies—he saw all this, and he saw himself as weak, hysteric, foolish, crying out for justice in another, but blind to the folly of his own behaviour.

"I am sorry, father," he said in a broken voice.

"That's the first sensible word you've said to-night. Only, you see, it comes too late. You and me's got to part. Our roads lie different."

"What do you wish me to do, father?"

"I don't know. I want to think things over. You'd better go now."

And then with a sudden savage burst of anger, as Arthur left the room, he shouted after him: "You can take my compliments to Dr. Leet, and tell him he's a confounded interfering fool!"

But there was more of pain than anger in this violent dismissal.

X

THE FAREWELL

The night had fallen upon Eagle House. Arthur sat alone in his bedroom at the open window. A soft wind talked to itself in the branches of the big mulberry tree on the lawn; a few placid stars shone in the blue-black heavens, then the late moon like a yellow fire; a nested sparrow chirped contentedly beneath the eaves; and, like a solemn wash of waves upon a hidden beach, London moaned and murmured through all its vast circumference. Out of the deep night the Spirit of his own Youth arose, and sat beside him.

"Listen to me," said the Spirit. "I bring with me two swords—Faith and Courage. Gird them on."

But London laughed. A soft derision shook the leaves upon the mulberry tree, and the waves upon the hidden beach were scornful.

"You have your life to live. Live it," said the Spirit.

But the stars, like eyes, turned slowly toward him in despairing irony. "How many millions have we heard say that," they whispered, "and each has been overcome in turn, and has sunk in nameless dust."

"You are not as the nameless millions," said the Spirit. "You are yourself, with your own right and power to live."

And at that the heavens moved, and an infinite procession of scarred brows and sad eyes, passed by, and a multitude of lips whispered, "We said that once, but Life was too strong for us."

"Nevertheless, thou canst conquer Life," said the Spirit.

"Nay, Life will conquer thee," replied the legions of the dead. "Let be. Submit. Why strive when all strife is vain?"

And then, out of the deep well of his misery, a bubble of light swam up, and something in his soul cried, "I will not submit! I will gird on the two swords of Faith and Courage. I will conquer Life!"

*****

He had sat so long in absorbed silence that he was unconscious that the door of the room had opened and shut. The noise of the closing door, gentle as it was, roused him like a clap of thunder. He turned at the sound, and saw his mother.

She was robed in white, a white silk shawl was drawn over her head, and in the dim light she looked like a gentle apparition.

"Mother!" he cried.

She came toward him with outstretched arms.

And then, as by a magic touch, he became a little child again. She sat besides him, drew his head down upon her warm bosom, put her arm round his neck, and whispered, "I know." And beneath her gentle caress, thawed as it were by the mere warmth of contact with her, something hard and cold in his own heart dissolved and drained itself away in delicious tears. He wept unrestrainedly, as a child weeps who is in no haste to cease from weeping, lest the consolation for his tears should cease with the tears themselves. And the chief sweetness of it all lay in the silence of their communion. Neither spoke because there was no need of speech. He knew that he was comprehended, and this is the final ecstasy of all communion. From this faithful bosom he had drawn his life; these hands had been the first to touch him; and as they had long ago bound up his childish bruises, so now their very touch drew the hurt out of his pained heart. He drank life from her again; he was conscious of a warm inflowing flood of strength, of restful power, of quiet blessedness.