Front matter (continued 2)

He stopped and I prompted him.

"What principle did you go on?" I asked--"Was it magnetism? How did you set to work to avoid friction?"

This time, as he looked at me, his eyes were expressionless. I felt that he was blind. He had not understood a word I had said.

"Are ye trying to get the secret out av me?" he asked at length. "Shure, there's many have done that. They all try and get it out av me. The blacksmith--him that was working at the forge where I was myself before I lost the sight in me eyes--he wanted to make the machine for me. But I'd known him before I was blind and I hadn't lost the knowledge with me eyesight."

"Are you making it yourself, then?"

He nodded his head.

"As well as I can," he continued--"but, shure, what can these fingers do with feeling alone--I must see what I'm doing. Faith, I've all the pieces here now in me pocket, only for the putting of 'em together, and glory be to God, I've tried and tried, but they won't go. Ye can't do it with feelin' alone."

Some lump threatened to rise in my throat.

"Good God!" I thought--"this is tragedy----" And I looked in vain for sight in his eyes.

"Would ye like to see the pieces?" he asked.

I assured him that the secret would be safe in my keeping were he so generous.

"No one about?" he asked.

"Not a soul!"

Then, from his pocket--one by one--he took them out and laid them down on a grass bank by our side. I watched each piece as he produced it and, with the placing of them on the bank of grass, I watched his face. These were the parts in the construction of his intricate mechanism that he showed to me--a foot of rod iron, a small tin pot that once perhaps had held its pound of coffee, a strip of hoop iron and an injured lock.

"There," he said proudly--"but if I were to give these to that blacksmith, he'd steal the secret before my face. I wouldn't trust him with 'em and I working these fifteen years."

I thanked God he could not see my face then. The foot of rod iron! The small tin pot! The injured lock! They stared at me in derision. Only they and I knew the secret--only they and I could tell it, as they themselves had told it me. His wits were gone. Perpetual motion! The wretched man was mad.

Perpetual motion out of these rusty old things--rusting for fifteen years in the corners of his pockets! Perpetual motion!

But here the reality of it all broke upon me--burst out with its thundering sense of truth. Mad the blind beggar might be; yet there, before my very eyes, in those motionless objects, was the secret of perpetual motion. Rust, decay, change--the obstinate metal of the iron rod, the flimsy substance of the tin pot, always under the condition of change; rusting in his pocket where they had lain for fifteen years--never quiescent, never still, always moving--moving--moving--in obedience to the inviolable law of change, as we all, in servile obedience to that law as well, are moving continually, from childhood into youth, youth to middle-age--middle-age to senility--then death, the last change of all. All this giant structure of manhood, the very essence of complicated intricacy compared to that piece of rod iron, passing into the dust from which the thousands of years had contrived to make it. What more could one want of perpetual motion than that?

I looked up into his face again.

"You've taught me a wonderful lesson," I said quietly.

"Ah," he replied--"it's all there--all there--the whole secret of it; if only I had the eyes to put it together."

If he only had the eyes? Have any of us the eyes? Have any of us the eyes?

When he had finished, he folded it slowly and put it back in his pocket.

"Well----?" he said.

His heart was beating with anticipation, with apprehension, with exaltation. With one beat he knew she must think it was good. It was his best. He had just done it and, when you have just done it, you are apt to think that. But with another beat, he felt she was going to say the conventional thing--to call it charming--to say--"But how nice." It would be far better if she said it was all wrong, that it struck a wrong note, that its composition was ill. One can believe that about one's work--but that it is charming, that it is nice--never!

For that moment Destiny swung in a balance, poised upon the agate of chance. What was she going to say? It all depended upon that. But she was so silent. She sat so still. Mice are still when you startle them; then, when they collect their wits, they scamper away.

Suddenly she rose to her feet.

"Will you be here in the Gardens to-morrow morning at this time," she said--"Then I'll tell you how very much I liked it."

CHAPTER X

THE NEED FOR INTUITION

In such a world as this, anything which is wholly sane is entirely uninteresting. But--thank heaven for it!--madness is everywhere, in every corner, at every turning. You will not even find complete sanity in a Unitarian; in fact, some of the maddest people I have ever met have been Unitarians. Yet theirs is an aggravating madness. You can have no sympathy with a man who believes himself sane.

But anything more utterly irresponsible than this sudden, impulsive departure of the Lady of St. Joseph can scarcely be imagined. John did not even know her name and, what is more, did not even realise the fact until she and Ronald had crossed the stretch of grass and reached the Broad Walk. Then he ran after them.

Ronald turned first as he heard the hurrying footsteps. Anything running will arrest the attention of a boy, while a woman hears, just as quickly, but keeps her head rigid. Evidently, Ronald had told her. She turned as well. John suddenly found himself face to face with her. Then the impossible delicacy of the situation and his question came home to him.

How, before Ronald, to whom he had just been introduced as a friend, could he ask her name? Simplicity of mind is proverbial in those who traffic in deep waters; but could the master of the good ship Albatross ever be so simple as not to find the suggestion of something peculiar in such a question as this?

And so when he reached her side, he stood there despairingly dumb.

"You wanted to say something?" said she.

He looked helplessly at Ronald. Ronald looked helplessly at him. Then, when he looked at her, he saw the helplessness in her eyes as well.

"What is it you want?" said her eyes--"I can't get rid of him. He's as cunning as he can be."

And his eyes replied--"I want to know your name--I want to know who you are." Which is a foolish thing to say with one's eyes, because no one could possibly understand it. It might mean anything.

Then he launched a question at a venture. If she had any intuition, she could guide it safe to port.

"I just wanted to ask," said John--"if you were any relation to the--the----" At that moment the only name that entered his head was Wrigglesworth, who kept a little eating-house in Fetter Lane--"the--oh--what is their name!--the Merediths of Wrotham?"

He had just been reading "The Amazing Marriage." But where on earth was Wrotham? Well, it must do.

She looked at him in amazement. She had not understood. Who could blame her?

"The Merediths?" she repeated--"But why should you think----"

"Oh, yes--I know,"--he interposed quickly--"It's not the same name--but--they--they have relations of your name--they told me so--cousins or something like that, and I just wondered if--well, it doesn't matter--you're not. Good-bye."

He lifted his hat and departed. For a moment there was a quite unreasonable sense of disappointment in his mind. She was wanting in intuition. She ought to have understood. Of course, in her bewilderment at his question she had looked charming and that made up for a great deal. How intensely charming she had looked! Her forehead when she frowned--the eyes alight with questions. Anyhow, she had understood that what he had really wanted to say could not be said before Ronald and, into her confidence she had taken him--closing the door quite softly behind them. Without question, without understanding, she had done that. Perhaps it made up for everything.

Presently, he heard the hurrying of feet, and turned at once. How wonderfully she ran--like a boy of twelve, with a clean stride and a sure foot.

"I'm so sorry," she said in little breaths. "I didn't understand. The Merediths and the Wrotham put me all out. It's Dealtry--Julie Dealtry--they call me Jill. We live in Prince of Wales' Terrace." She said the number. "Do they call you Jack? Good-bye--to-morrow." And she was off.

CHAPTER XI

A SIDE-LIGHT UPON APPEARANCES

He watched the last sway of her skirt, the last toss of her head, as she ran down the hill of the Broad Walk, then, repeating mechanically to himself:

Jack and Jill went up the hill

To fetch a pail of water,

Jack fell down and broke his crown

And Jill came tumbling after,

and, wondering what it all meant, wondering if, after all, those nursery rhymes were really charged with subtle meaning, he made his way to Victoria Gate in the Park Railings.

In the high road, he saw a man he knew, a member of his club, top-hatted and befrocked. The silk hat gleamed in the sunlight. It looked just like a silk hat you would draw, catching the light in two brilliant lines from crown to brim. The frock coat was caught with one button at the waist. Immaculate is the word. John hesitated. They were friends, casual friends, but he hesitated. There might be two opinions about the soft felt hat he was wearing. He found it comfortable; but one gets biased in one's opinions about one's hats. Even the fact that the evening before he had driven with this friend in a hansom for which he had paid as the friend had no money on him at the time--even this did not give him courage. He decided to keep to his, the Park side of the Bayswater Road.

But presently the friend saw him, lifted his stick, and shook it amicably in greeting. He even crossed the road. Well, after all, he could scarcely do anything else. John had paid for his hansom only the evening before. He remembered vividly how, on the suggestion that they should drive, his friend had dived his hand into his pocket, shaken his bunch of keys and said, with obvious embarrassment, that he had run rather short of change. It always is change that one runs short of. Capital is never wanting. There is always a balance at the poor man's bank, and the greater his pride the bigger the balance. But at that moment, John had been rich in change--that is to say, he had half a crown.

"Oh--I've got heaps," he had said. It is permissible to talk of heaps when you have enough. And he had paid for the whole journey. It was not to be wondered at then, that his friend came amicably across the road.

John greeted him lightly.

"Going up to town?"

"Yes--are you?"

John nodded. "Are you lunching at the Club?"

"No--I've got to meet some people at the Carlton--How's the time--my watch is being mended."

"I don't know," said John--"my watch is all smashed up. It's just on one I should think."

"As much as that? I must be moving on. Shall we get on a 'bus?"

The very thing. John acquiesced readily. He had nothing; a careful calculation of what he had spent that morning will account for that. But his friend could pay. It was his turn.

They mounted the stairs and took a front seat behind the driver.

"You'll have to pay for me to-day," said John. "My pockets are empty till I get a cheque changed."

The blood mounted to the face of his friend. For a moment he looked as though his beautiful hat were too tight for his head. He felt in his pocket. Then he produced a little stamp case, with gold mounted corners and one penny stamp inside.

"I'm awfully sorry," said he--"I--I've only got a penny stamp." He rose quickly to his feet.

John laughed--laughed loudly.

"What are you going to do?" said he.

"Well--get off," said his friend.

"Sit down," said John--"there's no hurry."

"Have you got twopence, then?"

"No--not a farthing. But we're getting into Town, aren't we? We've got nothing to grumble at."

When the 'bus had travelled another hundred yards or so, John stood up.

"Now, you come downstairs," said he. The friend followed obediently. The conductor was inside punching tickets. John looked in.

"Does this 'bus go to Paddington Station?" he asked inquiringly.

"No--Piccadilly Circus, Haymarket, and Strand."

"What a nuisance," said John--"Come on--we'd better get off."

They descended on to the road, and the friend, immaculate, top-hatted and befrocked, took his arm.

"I see," he said, and he looked back to measure the distance with his eye.

There are more people in London with only a penny in their pockets than you would imagine.

CHAPTER XII

THE CHAPEL OF UNREDEMPTION

The next morning was one of promise. For half an hour before the time appointed for his meeting, John was waiting, seated upon a penny chair, thinking innumerable thoughts, smoking innumerable cigarettes. Sometimes he felt the money that was in his pocket, running his finger nail over the minted edge of the half crowns and florins to distinguish them from the pennies. No woman, whatever franchise she may win, will ever understand the delight of this. You must have a pocket in your trousers and keep your money there--even gold when you possess it--to appreciate the innocent joy of such an occupation as this. Men have really a deal to be grateful for.

That morning, John had money. He even had gold. He had pawned his gold watch-chain, intending, if the opportunity arose, to ask Jill to lunch.

The watch, as you know, was smashed up. That is a technical term in use amongst all gentlemen and sensitive people, having this great advantage that it may be taken literally or not, at will. No one who uses the term has ever been so much in want of shame as to define it.

You may wonder why it is that the watch and not the chain should get smashed up first. It is the watch that tells the time. But then, it is the chain that tells you have got the watch that tells the time, and in this life one has always to be considering that there would be no maiden all forlorn if it were not for the house that Jack built. The chain will always be the last to go, so long as those three brass balls continue to hang over that suspicious-looking shop in the dingy side street.

John's watch had been smashed up for some weeks; but little boys and little girls in the street still flattered him by asking to be told the time.

With one eye searching for a distant clock while your hand pulls out the latch key which depends upon the chain, giving it the weight of a reason to stay in the pocket, you can easily deceive the eyes of these unsuspecting little people in the street. If you discover the distant clock, all well and good. If not, then a hundred devices are left open to you. You can guess--you can tell it by the sun, but, and if you are conscientious, you can apologise and say your watch has stopped. And last of all, if it is a nice little person with eyes in which a laugh is always a-tip-toe, you may dangle the key in front of their face, and with their merriment experience the clean pleasure of honesty.

A quality about John that was interesting, was his ability to anticipate possibilities. Perhaps a man's mind runs instinctively to the future, and it is the woman who lives in the past.

When Mrs. Rowse awakened him in the morning, he sat up in bed with the glowing consciousness that something was to happen that day. Something had been arranged; some appointment was to be kept; some new interest had entered his life which was to take definite shape that very day.

He asked Mrs. Rowse the time--not as one who really wishes to know it, but as it were a duty, which must sooner or later be accomplished. Directly she said a quarter to nine, he remembered. Jill! The Lady of St. Joseph! That morning she was going to tell him how much she liked his story.

He sat up at once in bed.

"Mrs. Rowse! I shall want my coffee in half an hour. Less! Twenty minutes!"

In twenty minutes, he was dressed. Allowance must be made if he chose a sock that matched a tie or spent a moment of thought upon the selection of a shirt to go with them. Vanity, it is, only to do these things for your own approval; but when all consciously, you stand upon the very threshold of romance, it may be excused you if you consider yourself in the reflexion of the door. It is the man who, wandering aimlessly through the streets in life, looks in at every mirror that he passes, who is abominable. That is the vanity of which the prophet spoke. The prophet, himself, would have been the first to set straight the tie, or rearrange the 'kerchief of the lover who goes to meet his mistress.

Even John smiled at himself. The socks matched the tie so absolutely; it was ludicrous how well they matched. There was no rough, blue serge suit that day. Out of the depths of the wardrobe came a coat well brushed and kept. Then he went in to breakfast.

During the meal, Mrs. Rowse lingered about in the sitting-room, dusting things that might easily have escaped notice. John, reading his paper, at last became aware of it with a rush of blood to his cheeks. She had paid the day before for the washing--three and elevenpence.

If you go to a laundry in the environment of Fetter Lane, it is like putting your clothes in pawn. You can't get them back again until the bill is paid, and there are times when that is inconvenient.

That was why Mrs. Rowse was lingering. She had paid for the washing. Whenever money was due to her, she lingered. It is a subtle method of reproach, a gentle process of reminder which at first scarcely explains itself.

On the first occasion when she had adopted it, John had thought she was losing her memory, that her wits were gathering. Out of the corner of his eye, he had nervously watched her going aimlessly about the room, dusting the same object perhaps six separate times. When a woman is paid seven shillings a week for keeping one's rooms tidy, such industry as this might well be a sign of madness.

At length, unable to bear it any longer, John had said that he thought she had done enough. Despairingly then, she had folded up the duster, put it away, taken an unconscionable time in the pinning on of that black, shabby hat, and finally, but only when at the door itself, she had said:

"Do you think you could spare my wages to-day, sir?"

Now she was lingering again. But he had come to know the signs and meanings of the process. This time, John knew it was the washing. He watched her covertly from behind his paper, hoping against hope that she might tire; for he had not got three and elevenpence, nor three halfpence in the world. But a master in the art of lingering does not know what it means to tire. Just when he thought she must have finished, when she had done all the glass on the mantel-piece for the second time, she went out of the room to the cupboard on the landing where John kept his two-hundredweight of coal and returned with all the rags and pots of paste necessary for the cleaning of the brass.

Here he gave in; the siege was over. Under cover of the newspaper, he detached the latch key from his watch-chain, slipped it into his pocket and rose, concealing the chain within his hand.

"I'm just going out," he said--"for a few moments. Can you wait till I get back?"

She looked as though she could not, as if it were rather encroaching upon the limit of her time to ask her to stay longer, but----

"I expect I can find one or two little things to do for a few moments," she said.

John left her doing them. They mainly consisted of putting the brass polish and the rags back again in the cupboard from which she had taken them.

It is here that you will see this quality interesting in John, this ability to anticipate possibilities. It was not really the victory of Mrs. Rowse that had impelled him to the sacrifice of his watch-chain. It is not consistent with human nature for any man to pawn an article of value--far less one which implies the possession of another--in order to pay his washing bill. Washing, like the income tax, is one of those indemnities in life which appear to have no justice in their existence. It would always seem that your integrity were still preserved, that you were still a man of honour if you could avoid paying them.

I know a man, who has eluded the income tax authorities for seven years, and he is held in the highest esteem as a man of acumen, ability, and the soul of honour. I admit that this opinion is only held of him by those who are endeavouring to do the same as he. A man, for instance, who belongs to the same club and pays his income tax to the last shilling, thinks him to be a hopelessly immoral citizen and would believe him capable of anything. But this is not fair. It would be far more just to say that the man who pays his income tax to the uttermost farthing is capable of nothing--invertebrate.

It was not, then, alone to pay his washing bill that John decided to part with the gold watch-chain. He had, in a moment of inspiration, conjured before him the possibility of asking Jill to lunch, and these two motives, uniting from opposite quarters of the compass of suggestion to one and the same end, he sacrificed the last pretentions he might have claimed to the opulence conveyed by a gold watch-chain and repaired to Payne and Welcome's.

With a bold and unconscious step, he strode into the little side entrance, which is a feature of all these jeweller's shops displaying the mystical sign of the three brass balls. Without the slightest sense of shame, he pushed open one of the small doors that give admittance to the little boxes--those little boxes where the confession of one's poverty is made. And to no sympathetic ear of a gentle priest are those terrible confessions to be whispered--the most terrible confession you can make in this world. The man to whom you tell your story of shame is greedy and willing to listen, eager and inexorable to make your penance as heavy as he may. A bailiff is, perhaps, more stony of heart than a pawnbroker; yet both are brothers in trade. The dearest things in the life of anyone are their possessions, and both these tradesmen deal in their heartless confiscation. The woman out at elbow, hollow-eyed, who comes to pawn her wedding ring, the man--shabby--genteel--wearing, until the nap is gone and the sleeves are frayed, the garment of his self-respect, who comes to put away his best and Sunday coat; they are all one to the pawnbroker. He beats them down to the last farthing, well knowing that, having once determined to part with their possessions, they will not willingly go away again without that for which they came. He has them utterly at his mercy. They are all one to him. The story in their faces is nothing to his eyes. He signs a hundred death warrants in the tickets that he writes every day--death warrants to possessions well-nigh as dear as life; but it means nothing to him.

The awful thought about it all, is to consider the ease with which one loses the sense of shame which, upon a first transaction of the kind, is a hot wind blowing on the face, burning the cheeks to scarlet.

On the first occasion that John was driven to such dealing, he passed that guilty side entrance many times before he finally summoned courage to enter. Every time that he essayed the fatal step, the street became full of people whom he knew. There was that editor who was considering his last short story! He turned swiftly, his heel a sudden pivot, and scrutinised the objects in the jeweller's window, then harried away up the street, as though he were ashamed of wasting his time. A glance over the shoulder, satisfied him that the editor was out of sight and back he slowly came. This time he had got within a foot of the door--a foot of it. One step more and he would have been in the sheltering seclusion of that narrow little passage! There was the girl who sold him stamps in the post-office--the girl who smiled at him and said she had read a beautiful story of his in one of the magazines! He had looked up quickly as though he had mistaken the number on the door, then marched into the next shop on the left, as if that were the one he had been looking for. When he had got in, he realised that it was a butcher's.

The butcher, in a blithe voice, had said:

"And what this morning, sir?"

"I want--can you tell me the time?" said John.

In about half an hour there came a moment when the street was empty. John had seized it and vanished up the little passage. But the ordeal was not over then. He had had to face the high priest of poverty--to tell to him the unforgivable, the mortal crime of penury. And there had been someone in the next confessional--someone hardened in sin--who could hear every single word that he said, and even so far over-stepped the bounds of decency as to look round the corner of their partition.

"How much will you give me for this?" said John, laying his watch upon the counter. It was the watch his mother had given him, the watch for which she had lovingly stinted herself of ten pounds in order to mark, with degree, his twenty-first birthday.

The high priest had picked it up superciliously.

"D'you want to sell it?"

"No--oh, no! Only--pawn it."

"Well, how much d'you want?"

"I'd rather you said," replied John meekly.

The high priest shrugged his shoulders. It was a wasting of his time, he said, to go on with nonsense like that.

"How much do you want?" he repeated.

"Five pounds," said John, and suddenly, without knowing how, found the watch back again in his possession. The high priest had turned to the hardened sinner in the next confessional, and he was left there looking at it blankly in the palm of his open hand. He scarcely knew how he had come by it again. In the midst of the other transaction, the pawnbroker presently addressed him over his shoulder--loudly, so that all in the shop could hear:

"I'll give you two pounds," he had said--"And that's about as much as I could sell it for myself."

Two pounds! It was an insult to that dear, little, old, white-haired lady who had scraped and saved to buy him the best she knew.

"It cost ten pounds!" John said boldly.

"Ten pounds!" The laugh he gave was like the breaking of glass. "The person who gave ten pounds for that must have wanted to get rid of money in a hurry."

Wanted to get rid of money in a hurry! If he could have seen the number of dainty shawls the thin white fingers had knitted and the trembling hands had sold in order to amass the fortune of that ten pounds, he would not have talked of hurry.

"I'll give you two pounds five," he had added. "Not a farthing more and if you take it away somewhere else and then bring it back here again, I'll only give you two pounds, what I said at first."

When the blood is mounting to your forehead, when it seems you are crushed about by those watching your discomfort till the warmth of their pressing, phantom bodies brings the perspiration out in beads upon your face, you will take anything to get away.

The pawnbroker had made out the ticket as John mumbled his name and address.

"Got a penny--a penny for the ticket?" said the man.

To be compelled to make this confession--the most unabsolvable of all--that he had nothing in his pocket, was the crisis to his suffering. The high priest sniffed, smiled and counted out two pounds four and elevenpence. Then John had turned and fled.

Out in the street again, he had breathed once more. The air was purer there. The passers-by, hearing the money jingle in his pocket, held him in higher esteem than did those devotees in the chapel of unredemption. He could even stop and look in the windows of the jeweller's shop--that open, smiling face of a shop window which, beneath its smug and shiny respectability, concealed all the secret, sordid crimes of poverty--the polished pledges unredeemed, that lay deceptively upon the glass shelves as though they had come just new from the maker's hands.

It was then, gazing in the window, on that memorable day when he had made his first confession, that John had seen the little brass man. He stood there on a glass shelf along with dozens of other unredeemed trinkets, his low-crowned top-hat, his long-tailed, slim-waisted, Georgian coat and many-buttoned vest, giving him an air of distinction which none of the other objects around him possessed. His attitude, his pose, was that of a Chevalier d'honneur--a chivalrous, courteous, proud old gentleman. The one hand resting on the hip, was full of dignity. The other stretched out as though to reach something, John came later, on acquaintance, to learn the fuller significance of that. But though all the features of his face were worn away by hands that had held him, gripping him as they pressed him down, a seal upon the molten wax, it had no power to lessen his undeniable dignity. For all his shapelessness of eyes and nose and mouth, there was not an inch thereby detracted from his stature. From the first moment that he had seen him, the little brass man had taken his stand in John's mind as the figure of all nobility, all honour, and all cleanliness and generosity of heart.

To see that little figure in brass was to covet him. John walked back without hesitation into the shop; but this time it was through the jeweller's entrance--this time it was with the confidence of one who comes to buy, not to sell, with the self-righteousness of the virtue of two pounds four and eleven-pence, not with the shame of the sin of poverty.

Ah, they treat you differently on this side of the counter. If you were ordering a High Mass to be sung, the priest of poverty could treat you with no greater deference. They may have thought he was mad--most probably they did. It is not characteristic of the man who comes without a penny to pay for the ticket as he pawns his watch, to immediately purchase, haphazard, a little trinket that is of no use to anyone. The high priest of poverty, himself, will tell you that the sin must weigh heavy with need upon the mind before the tongue can bring itself to confess.

They had looked at him in no little surprise as he re-entered; but when he had asked to be shown the little brass man, they cast glances from one to another, as people do when they think they are in the presence of a wandering mind.

"How much do you want for it?" John had asked.

"Seven and six. It's very good--an old seal, you know, quite an antique."

John considered the one pound fifteen which he owed out of that two pounds four and elevenpence.

"I'm afraid that's too much," said he.

"Ah--it's worth it. Why, that's over a hundred years old--quite unique."

"I'm afraid it's too much," John repeated.

"Well--look here--I'll tell you what we'll do. You can have it for seven shillings, and we'll give you six on it any day you like to bring it back."

They could have offered no greater proof than that of the value in which they held it. If a pawnbroker will buy back an article at almost the same price that he sells it, he must indeed be letting you have it cheap. This offering to take back the little brass man at only a shilling less than he was asking for it, was the highest expression of honesty with which he could defend his demands.

John accepted the conditions--paid out his seven shillings and bore the little Chevalier d'honneur in brass away.

It was three months later, he had only had breakfast for two days--breakfast, which consisted of toast made from a loaf that was ten days old, bloater paste which keeps for ever, and coffee which can--if you know where to get it--be obtained on credit. It was winter-time and the cold had made him hungry. Coals had run out. The last few scrapings of dust had been gathered out of that cupboard on the landing. Then depression set in. Depression is a heartless jade. She always pays you a visit when both stomach and pocket are empty. Putting his face in his hands, John had leant on the mantel-piece. There was nothing to pawn just then. Everything had gone! Suddenly, he became aware that he was gazing at the little brass man, and that the little brass man had got one hand aristocratically upon his hip, whilst the other was holding out something as though secretly to bestow it as a gift. John looked, and looked again. Then he saw what it was. The little brass man was offering him six shillings and a spasm of hunger creaking through him--he had taken it.

CHAPTER XIII

THE INVENTORY

All this had happened more than a year ago, and the sense of shame, accompanying that first confession, had been worn to the dull surface, incapable of reflecting the finer feelings of the mind. Under the very nose of that editor who was considering his last short story, John would have stepped boldly into the suspicious-looking little passage; returning the smile of the girl who sold him stamps in the post-office, he would have entered shamelessly the chapel of unredemption. Such is the reward of the perpetual sin of poverty. It brings with it the soothing narcotic of callousness, of indifference--and that perhaps is the saddest sin of all.

The watch-chain went that morning with the ease of a transaction constantly performed. There was no need to haggle over the price this time. The same price had been paid many times before. It came last but one on the list of things to be pawned. Last of all was the little brass man--the last to be pledged, the first to be redeemed. There is always an order in these things and it never varies. When pledging, you go from top to bottom of the list; when redeeming, it is just the reverse. And the order itself depends entirely upon that degree of sentiment with which each object is regarded.

The following was the list, in its correct order, of those things which from time to time left the world of John's possession, and were hidden in the seclusion of pledged retreat:--

FUR COAT. CUFF LINKS. CIGARETTE CASE. TIE PIN. MATCH BOX. WATCH. CHAIN. LITTLE BRASS MAN.

Reverse the order of this and you arrive at the sequence in which they returned. And here follows a detailed account of the history of each object--detailed, where details are possible and of interest.

Fur Coat. This pretentious-looking article was bought by John as a bargain. One day, when paying his rent to the landlord--a man who smelted and refined the gold that has an acquaintance with false teeth--he was asked if he would like to buy something very cheap. Well--you know what a temptation that is. So great a temptation is it, that you ask first "How much?" and only when you have heard the price, do you inquire the nature of the article. Four pounds ten, he was told. Then what was it? A fur-lined overcoat with astrachan collar and cuffs! There must be a presumption on the part of the seller that you know nothing of fur coats, or he will not talk to you like this. Certainly it was cheap, but even then, it would not have been bought had John not overheard the former possessor offering to buy it back at four pounds five. Such a circumstance as this doubles the temptation. So seldom is it that one comes across a bargain when one has any money in one's pocket, that it is impossible, when one does, to let it go to another man. John bought it. It would be a useful thing to visit editors in when he had no money.

But you would scarcely credit the treachery of a fur-lined coat with astrachan collar and cuffs. John had no idea of it. It played fiendish tricks upon him. Just as he determined to mount upon a 'bus, it whispered in his ear--"You can't do this--you really can't. If you want to drive, you'd better get a hansom. If not, then you'd better walk."

It was of no avail that he complained of not being able to afford a hansom and of being in too great a hurry to walk. That heavy astrachan collar whispered again:

"You can't ride on a 'bus anyway--look at that man laughing at you already----"

And with a fiendish joy, it gave him sudden and magical insight into the jeering minds of all those people in the 'bus. He relinquished the 'bus then. He called a hansom; he was in a hurry and he drove away, while the astrachan collar preens itself with pride and delight as it looks in the little oblong mirror.

And this is not the only treachery which the fur coat played upon him. As he descended from the cab, a man rushed out of nowhere to protect that coat from the wheels, and overcome with pleasure, the fur coat whispered in his ear once more--"Give him twopence--you can't ignore him."

"I could have kept my coat off the wheel quite easily myself," John replied--"He was really only in the way."

"Never mind," exclaimed the astrachan collar--"If you're going to be seen about with me, you'll have to give him twopence."

Reluctantly John took the twopence out.

And then, all the while that he was fumbling in his pocket for the shilling which should have been more than his legal fare, seeing the distance he had come, only that it cannot be less, the astrachan collar was still at him.

"Can't you hear," it says suggestively--"can't you hear what the cabman is going to say when you only give him a shilling!"

Then it imitated his voice, just in the very way John knew he would say it, and he felt the blood tingling to the roots of his hair. Of course, he gave him one and six, for by this time he was the slave of that fur-lined coat. It dominated his life. It ran up bills in his name and he had to pay them. For myself, I would sooner live with an extravagant wife than with a fur-lined coat.

And so was it with John. That bargain he had purchased with the astrachan collar and cuffs treated him shamefully. It was insatiable in its demands, and all under false pretences; for there came one terrible day when John, who knew nothing about these things, learnt that it was only imitation astrachan. Then he asserted himself. He refused to take it out, and one freezing day in the month of February pawned it for two pounds five. Some three months later, on a blazing day in May, he received a notice from the pawnbroker, who said that he must redeem it immediately, for he could not hold himself responsible for the fur. Now, even an extravagant wife would have more consideration for you, more idea of the true fitness of things than that. Eventually that fur coat was pawned in order to save a lady from the last, the most extreme sentence that the law can pass upon the sin of poverty. There comes a time when the sin of poverty can be dealt no longer with by the high priest in the chapel of unredemption. Then it comes into the hands of the law. To save her from this, was a debt of honour and perhaps the most generous action that that fur coat ever did in its life, was to pay that debt: for the three months went by, and on one of the coldest days in winter, it passed silently and unwept into the possession of the high priest.

Cuff Links. No history is attached to these. They realised ten shillings many times, till the ticket was lost, and then, since, under these circumstances, an affidavit must be made, and cuff links not being worth the swearing about, they were lost sight of.

The Watch. For this is the next article on the inventory, of which any substance can be written, and its history is practically known already. John's mother had given it to him. It represented the many times those two bright eyes were tired with counting the stitches of the white lace shawls. It represented the thousands of times that those slender, sensitive fingers had rested in weariness from their ceaseless passing to and fro. It represented almost the last lace-work she had done, before those fingers had at length been held motionless in the cold grip of paralysis. But, above all, it stood for the love of that gentle heart that beat with so much pride and so much pleasure, to see the little boy, whose head her breast had fondled, come to the stern and mighty age of twenty-one. And two pounds five was the value they put upon it all.

The Little Brass Man,--the Chevalier d'honneur. His story has already been told--his life, so far as it concerns this history. But of what he had lived through in the hundred years that had gone before--nobody knows. One can only assume, without fear of inaccuracy, that it was the life of a gentleman.

CHAPTER XIV

THE WAY TO FIND OUT

These were the thoughts passing and re-passing idly through John's mind as he sat, waiting, upon the stiff little iron chair in Kensington Gardens, and felt the minted edge of the half-crowns and the florins that lay so comfortably at the bottom of his pocket.

And then came Jill. She came alone.

He saw her in the distance, coming up that sudden rise of the Broad Walk down which hoops roll so splendidly--become so realistically restive, and prance and rear beneath the blow of the stick in the circus-master's hand. And--she was walking alone.

Then, in a moment, the Gardens became empty. John was not conscious of their becoming so. They were--just empty. Down a long road, tapering to the infinite point of distance, on which her figure moved alone, she might have been coming--slowly, gradually, to their ultimate meeting.

He felt no wonder, realised no surprise at their sudden solitude. When in the midst of Romance, you are not conscious of the miracles it performs. You do not marvel at the wonders of its magic carpets which, in the whisk of a lamb's tail, transport you thousands of miles away; you are not amazed at the wizardry of its coats of invisibility which can hide you two from the whole world, or hide the whole world from you. All these you take for granted; for Romance, when it does come to you, comes, just plainly and without ceremony, in the everyday garments of life and you never know the magician you have been entertaining until he is gone.

Even John himself, whose business in life it was to see the romance in the life of others, could not recognise it now in his own. There were women he had met, there were women he had loved; but this was romance and he never knew it.

With pulses that beat warmly in a strange, quick way, he rose from his chair, thinking to go and meet her. But she might resent that. She might have changed her mind. She might not be coming to meet him at all. Perhaps, as she lay awake that morning--it was a presumption to think she had lain awake at all--perhaps she had altered her opinion about the propriety of an introduction afforded by St. Joseph. It were better, he thought, to see her hand held out, before he took it.

So he sat back again in his chair and watched her as she stepped over the railings--those little railings scarcely a foot high, over which, if you know what it is to be six, you know the grand delight of leaping; you know the thrill of pleasure when you look back, surveying the height you have cleared.

She was coming in his direction. Her skirt was brushing the short grass stems. Her head was down. She raised it and--she had seen him!

Those were the most poignant, the most conscious moments of all when, after their eyes had met, there were still some forty yards or so to be covered before they met. She smiled and looked up at the elm trees; he smiled and looked down at the grass. They could not call out to each other, saying--"How-do-you-do." Inexorably, without pity, Circumstance decreed that they must cross those forty yards of silence before they could speak. She felt the blood rising in a tide to her cheeks. He became conscious that he had hands and feet; that his head was set upon his shoulders and could not, without the accompaniment of his body, face round the other way. The correct term for these excruciating tortures of the mind--so I am assured--is platt. When there is such a distance between yourself and the person whom you are approaching to meet, you are known, if you have any sensitiveness at all, to have a platt.

Now, if ever people had a platt, it was these two. That distance was measured in their mind, yard by yard.

At last he held her hand.

"I was," she began at once, "going to write. But I didn't know your address."

"You were going to write----?"

He pulled forward a chair for her, near to his.

"Yes--I was going to write and tell you--I'm terribly sorry, but I can't come this morning----" and she sat down.

A look of deepest disappointment was so plainly written in his face as he seated himself beside her. He made no effort to render it illegible to those eyes of hers.

"Why not?" said he, despondently. "Why can't you come?"

"Oh--you wouldn't understand if I told you."

This was the moment for the ferrule of an umbrella, or the point of an elegant shoe. But she had not brought the umbrella, and her shoes, well--she was unable to come that morning, so it had scarcely mattered what she had put on. The toe of the shoe did peep out for a moment from under the skirt, but not being approved of for elegance, it withdrew. She was forced to fall back upon words; so she just repeated herself to emphasise them.

"You wouldn't understand if I told you," she said again.

"Is it fair to say that," said John, "before you've found me wanting in understanding?"

"No, but I know you wouldn't understand. Besides--it's about you."

"The reason why you can't come?"

"Yes."

"What is it?"

"I'll tell you another time, perhaps."

Ah, but that would never do. You can't tell people another time. They don't want to hear it then.

"You can tell me now," persisted John.

She shook her head.

"There's only one time to tell things," he said.

"When?"

"Now."

She just began. Her lips parted. She took the breath for speech. The words came into her eyes.

"No--I can't tell you--don't ask me."

But he asked. He kept on asking. Whenever there was a pause, he gently asked again. He began putting the words into her mouth, and when he'd half said it for her, he asked once more.

"Why do you keep on asking?" she said with a smile.

"Because I know," said John.

"You know?"

"Yes."

"Then why----"

"Because I want you to tell me, and because I only know a little. I don't know it all. I don't know why your mother objects to me, except that she doesn't approve of the introduction of St. Joseph. I don't know whether she's said you're not to see me again."

That look of amazement in her eyes was a just and fair reward for his simple hazard. Girls of twenty-one have mothers--more's the pity. He had only guessed it. And a mother who has a daughter of twenty-one has just reached that age when life lies in a groove and she would drag all within it if she could. She is forty-eight, perhaps, and knowing her husband as an obedient child knows its collect on a Sunday, she judges all men by him. Now, all men, fortunately for them, fortunately for everybody, are not husbands. Husbands are a type, a class by themselves; no other man is quite like them. They have irritating ways, and no wife should judge other men by their standards. When she would quarrel, theirs is the patience of Job. When she would be amiable, there is nothing to please them. They are seldom honest; they are scarcely ever truthful. For marriage will often bring out of a man the worst qualities that he has, as the washing-tub will sometimes only intensify the strain upon the linen.

In the back of his mind, John felt the unseen judgment of some woman upon him, and from this very standpoint. When he saw the look of amazement in Jill's eyes, he knew he was right.

"Why do you look so surprised?" he said, smiling.

"Because--well--why did you ask if you knew?"

"Do you think I should ask if I didn't know?"

"Wouldn't you?"

"Oh, no. It's no good asking a woman questions when you don't know, when you haven't the faintest idea of what her answer is going to be. She knows very well just how ignorant you are and, by a subtle process of the mind, she superimposes that ignorance upon herself. And if you go on asking her direct questions, there comes a moment when she really doesn't know either. Then she makes it up or tells you she has forgotten. Isn't that true?"

She watched him all the time he spoke. He might have been talking nonsense. He probably was; but there seemed to be some echo of the truth of it far away in the hidden recesses of her mind. She seemed to remember many times when just such a process had taken place within her. But how had he known that, when she had never realised it before?

"What do you do, then, when you don't know, if you don't ask questions?"

He took a loose cigarette from his pocket and slowly lit it.

"Ah--then you have recourse to that wonderful method of finding out. It's so difficult, so almost impossible, and that's why it's so wonderful. To begin with, you pretend you don't want to know. That must be the first step. All others--and there are hundreds--follow after that; but you must pretend you don't want to know, or she'll never tell you. But I am sure your mother's been saying something to you about me, and I really want to know what it is. How did she come to hear about me?"

He knew it would be easy for her to begin with that. No woman will tell unless it is easy.

"Did you tell her?" he suggested gently, knowing that she did not.

"Oh, no--I didn't. It was Ronald."

"Ah--he said something?"

"Yes--at lunch--something about the papers."

"And you had to explain?"

"Yes."

"Was she vexed?"

"Yes--rather. Well--I suppose it did sound rather funny, you know."

"You told her about St. Joseph?"

"I said where I'd met you, in the Sardinia St. Chapel." She smiled up at him incredulously. "You didn't think I'd tell her that St. Joseph had introduced us, did you?"

"Why not? St. Joseph's a very proper man."

"Yes--on his altar, but not in Kensington."

"Well--what did she say?"

"She asked where you lived."

"Oh----"

It is impossible to make comparison between Fetter Lane and Prince of Wales' Terrace without a face longer than is your wont--especially if it is you who live in Fetter Lane.

"And you told her you didn't know."

"Of course."

She said it so expectantly, so hopefully that he would divulge the terrible secret which meant so much to the continuation of their acquaintance.

"And what did she say to that?"

"She said, of course, that it was impossible for me to know you until you had come properly as a visitor to the house, and that she couldn't ask you until she knew where you lived. And I suppose that's quite right."

"I suppose it is," said John. "At any rate you agree with her?"

"I suppose so."

It meant she didn't. One never does the thing one supposes to be right; there's no satisfaction in it.

"Well--the Martyrs' Club will always find me."

This was John's club; that club, to become a member of which, he had been despoiled of the amount of a whole year's rent. He was still staggering financially under the blow.

"Do you live there?" she asked.

"No--no one lives there. Members go to sleep there, but they never go to bed. There are no beds."

"Then where do you live?"

He turned and looked full in her eyes. If she were to have sympathy, if she were to have confidence and understanding, it must be now.

"I can't tell you where I live," said John.

The clock of St. Mary Abbot's chimed the hour of midday. He watched her face to see if she heard. One--two--three--four--five--six--seven--eight nine--ten--eleven--twelve! She had not heard a single stroke of it, and they had been sitting there for an hour.

CHAPTER XV

WHAT IS HIDDEN BY A CAMISOLE

Add but the flavour of secrecy to the making of Romance; allow that every meeting be clandestine and every letter written sealed, and matters will so thrive apace that, before you can, with the children in the nursery, say Jack Robinson, the fire will be kindled and the flames of it leaping through your every pulse.

When, with tacit consent, Jill asked no further questions as to where John lived, and yet continued clandestinely to meet him, listening to the work he read aloud to her, offering her opinion, giving her approval, she was unconsciously, unwillingly, too, perhaps, had she known, hastening towards the ultimate and the inevitable end.

It must not be supposed that after this second interview in Kensington Gardens, when John had plainly said that he could not tell her where he lived, she had wilfully disobeyed the unyielding commands of her mother not to see him again. The fulfilment of destiny does not ask for disobedience. With the shuttles of circumstance and coincidence to its fingers, Destiny can weave a pattern in defiance of every law but that of Nature.

Jill had said that morning:

"Then we mustn't meet again."

"You mean that?" said John.

"I can't help it," she replied distressfully. "After all, I'm living with my people; I must respect their wishes to a certain degree. If you would only tell me----"

"But I can't," John had interposed. "It's no good. It's much better that I leave you in ignorance. Why won't the Martyrs' Club satisfy you? There are men at the Martyrs' Club who live on Carlton House Terrace. That is a part of their martyrdom. Is it beyond the stretch of your imagination for you to suppose that I might have an abode in--in--Bedford Park or Shepherd's Bush?"

She laughed, and then, as that stiff social figure of her mother rose before her eyes and she recalled to her mind remarks about a dressmaker who happened to live in Shepherd's Bush--"Poor thing--she lives at Shepherd's Bush--Life treats some people in a shameful way--" an expression of charity that went no further, for the dressmaker's work was not considered good enough or cheap enough, and she was given nothing more to do--when she remembered that, the laugh vanished from her eyes.

"Isn't it as good as Shepherd's Bush?" she had asked quite simply.

Well, when, in your more opulent moments, you have thought of such a thing as a better address at Shepherd's Bush, and have a question such as this put to you, you have little desire left to reveal the locality of the abode you do occupy. It takes the pride out of you. It silenced John. He recalled to his mind a remark of Mrs. Meakin's when, having invited him to take a rosy-cheeked apple from that little partition where the rosy-cheeked apples lay, she had thought by this subtle bribe to draw him into conversation about himself.

"Don't you find it very dull livin' 'ere all alone by yourself?" she had asked.

"Wherever you live," said John evasively, "you're by yourself. You're as much alone in a crowd as in an empty church."

She had nodded her head, picked up a large Spanish onion, and peeled off the outer skin to make it look more fresh.

"But I should have thought," she had added pensively--"I should have thought as 'ow you'd have found this such a very low-cality."

And so, perhaps it was--very low. And if Mrs. Meakin had thought so, and Jill herself could talk thus deprecatingly of Shepherd's Bush, where he had hoped to better his address, then it were as well to leave Fetter Lane alone.

"So you have made up your mind," he had said quietly. "You've made up your mind not to see me again?"

"It's not I who have made it up," she answered.

"But you're going to obey?"

"I must."

"You won't be here to-morrow morning, at this hour?"

"No--I can't--I mustn't."

"Not to tell me how you liked my short story?"

"You know I liked it--awfully."

"And you won't come and hear another that's better than that?"

"How can I? You don't understand. If you came and lived at Prince of Wales' Terrace, you'd understand then."

"Then it's no good my coming to-morrow?"

"Not if you want to see me."

"Then good-bye."

John stood up and held out his hand.

If you know the full value of coercion in renunciation; if you realise the full power of persuasion in the saying of good-bye, you have command of that weapon which is the surest and the most subtle in all the armament of Destiny. It is only when they have said good-bye that two people really come together.

"But why must you go now?" Jill had said regretfully.

John smiled.

"Well--first, because you said you couldn't come this morning, and we've been here for an hour and a half; and secondly, because if, as you say, we are to see no more of each other, then hadn't I better go now? I think it's better. Good-bye."

He held out his hand again. She took it reluctantly, and he was gone.

The next morning, Jill had wakened an hour earlier--an hour earlier than was her wont--an hour earlier, with the weight of a sense of loss pressing on her mind. It is that hour in bed before rising that a woman thinks all the truest things in her day; is most honest with herself, and least subtle in the expression of her thoughts. Then she gets up--bathes--does her hair and, by the time a dainty camisole is concealing those garments that prove her to be a true woman--all honesty is gone; she assumes the mystery of her sex.

In that hour earlier before her rising, Jill honestly admitted her disgust with life. Romance is well-nigh everything to a woman--for Romance is the Prelude, full of the most sonorous of chords, breathing with the most wonderful of cadences--a Prelude to the great Duty which she must inevitably perform. And this had been Romance. She had just touched it, just set in motion the unseen fingers that play with such divine inspiration upon the whole gamut of the strings, and now, it had been put away.

Mind you, she knew nothing of the evolution of the Prelude; she knew little of the history of the Duty to perform. It was not the conscious loss of these that brought the disgust of life into the complaining heart of her; for Romance, when first it comes to a woman, is like the peak of a mountain whose head is lifted above the clouds. It has nothing of this earth; means no such mundane phrase as--falling in love. To the girl of twenty-one, Romance is the spirit of things beautiful, and, therefore, the spirit of all things good. And Jill had lost it. They were not to meet again. She was never to hear another of his stories. He was not coming to Kensington Gardens any more.

But suppose he did come! Suppose there were the sense of regret in the heart of him, as it was with her, and suppose he came to see the place where they had sat together! If she could only know that he cared enough to do that! It would make the renunciation more bearable if she could only know that. How could she find out? Send Ronald to the Gardens at about that hour? He would say if he had seen him. But if Ronald went to the Gardens, he would be voyaging on the good ship Albatross, far away out at sea, out of sight of land, in the dim distance of make-belief. But if she went herself--just casually--just for a walk--just to see, only to see. And, if he were there, she could easily escape; she could easily creep away unnoticed. Well--not quite unnoticed, perhaps. He might see her in the distance, just before she passed out of sight.

She got up quickly from her bed. She bathed; she did her hair; she dressed; she put on that dainty camisole with its pale blue ribbon twined through intricate meshes and concealed those little garments which proved her to be a true woman--concealed them with the camisole and the mystery of her sex.

At breakfast, she talked of having her hair washed that morning. There was no gloss in it, she said. Ronald cast a glance at it, sniffed and then went on with his hasty mouthfuls of porridge. What fools were girls! As if it mattered! As if anyone noticed whether there were gloss or not! The good ship Albatross wanted a new spinnaker, and from whose under-linen that was to be stolen without detection was a far more delicate matter. He had petitioned for white linen shirts for himself for the last six months--white linen shirts are always valuable to a sailor--but he had not got them as yet. This deprivation naturally led to nefarious dealings with the tails of his father's old white shirts. It was impossible to use his own. You cannot have flannel sails to your ship, if she sails on the Round Pond. On the other waters--the Atlantic, for example--it doesn't matter so much. There were one or two things he had begun to fancy he would never be able to get.

Quite simply, quite pensively, he had said one day at dinner:

"I wonder if I shall ever eat the wing of a chicken."

They permitted him to wonder--he and his drumstick. One cannot be surprised, then, that he sniggered when Jill talked about the gloss of her hair.

"Well, don't go to this place in the High Street," said her mother. "They're terribly exorbitant."

"I shall go up to town," said Jill. And, up to town she started.

There are various ways of going up to town. She chose to cross the Broad Walk with the intention of going by Bayswater. She even made a detour of the Round Pond. It was nicer to walk on the grass--more comfortable under foot. It was not even an uncomfortable sensation to feel her heart beating as a lark's wings beat the air when it soars.

Then the rushing of the wings subsided. He was not there. From that mighty altitude to which it had risen, her heart began to descend--slowly, slowly, slowly to earth. He was not there!

But oh! you would never know, until you yourself had played there, the games of hide-and-seek that the big elms afford in Kensington Gardens. On the far side of a huge tree-trunk, she came suddenly upon him, and the slowly fluttering wings of her heart were struck to stillness. There he was, seated upon his chair with a smile upon his lips, in his eyes--spreading and spreading till it soon must be a laugh.

And--"Oh!" said she.

Then it was that the smile became a laugh.

"What are you doing here at this time in the morning?" he asked.

"I--I was just going up to town. I--I wanted to go to Bayswater first."

How much had he guessed? How long had he seen her looking here and there, and all about her?

"What are you doing?" She had as much a right to ask him.

"I've been waiting to see you go by," said he.

"But----"

"I knew you were coming."

"How?"

"We've been thinking just exactly the same things ever since I said good-bye yesterday. I woke up early this morning wondering what had happened."

"So did I," she whispered in an awed voice.

"Then--before I'd got my coat on, I came to the conclusion that I had to live somewhere, and that the only thing that mattered was whether I did it honestly--not where I did it. Then, I sort of felt you might come to the Gardens this morning."

She set her lips. Once that camisole is on, every woman has her dignity. It is a thing to play with, much as a child plays with its box of bricks. She makes wonderful patterns with it--noble ladies--imperious dames, who put dignity before humanity as you put the cart before the horse.

"Why should you think I would come to the Gardens?" she asked.

John steadied his eyes.

"Well, I presume you go up to town sometimes," he said.

"Yes--but one can get up to town by Knightsbridge."

"Of--course. I forgot that. But when you might be wanting to go to Bayswater first."

She looked very steadily into his eyes. How long had he seen her before she had seen him?

"Perhaps you're under the impression that I came to see you," she said, and she began walking towards the Bayswater Road.

He followed quietly by her side. This needed careful treatment. She was incensed. He ought not to have thought that, of course.

"I never said so," he replied quietly.

Then they fought--all the way over to the Bayswater side. Each little stroke was like velvet, but beneath it all was the passion of the claw.

"I expect it's as well we're not going to see each other any more," she said one moment and, when he agreed, repented it bitterly the next. He cursed himself for agreeing. But you must agree. Dignity, you know. Dignity before humanity.

And then he called her a hansom--helped her within.

"Are you going back to the Gardens?" she asked from inside, not shutting the doors.

"No--I'm going up to town."

"Well----" She pushed the bricks away. "Can't--can't I drive you up?"

He stepped inside, and the cab rolled off.

"Were you going to have walked?" she asked presently, after a long, long silence.

"No," said John. "I was going to drive--with you."

CHAPTER XVI

EASTER SUNDAY

One Easter Sunday, soon after his first clandestine meeting with Jill, John was seated alone in his room in Fetter Lane. The family of Morrell and the family of Brown--the plumber and the theatre cleaner--had united in a party and gone off to the country--what was the country to them. He had heard them discussing it as they descended the flights of uncarpeted wooden stairs and passed outside his door.

"As long as we get back to the Bull and Bush by five," Mr. Morrell had said emphatically, and Mr. Brown had said, "Make it half-past four." Then Mrs. Morrell had caught up the snatch of a song:

"I've a tickly feelin' in the bottom of me 'eart

For you--for you,"

and Mrs. Brown has echoed it with her uncertain notes. Finally the door into the street had opened--had banged--their voices had faded away into the distance, and John had been left alone listening to the amorous frolics on the stairs of the sandy cat which belonged to Mrs. Morrell, and the tortoise-shell, the property of Mrs. Brown.

Unless it be that you are an ardent churchman, and of that persuasion which calls you to the kirk three times within the twenty-four hours, Easter Sunday, for all its traditions, is a gladless day in London. There is positively nothing to do. Even Mass, if you attend it, is over at a quarter to one, and then the rest of the hours stretch monotonously before you. The oppressive knowledge that the Bank Holiday follows so closely on its heels, overburdens you with the sense of desolation. There will be no cheerful shops open on the morrow, no busy hurrying to and fro. The streets of the great city will be the streets of a city of the dead and, as you contemplate all this, the bells of your neighbourhood peal out in strains that are meant to be cheerful, yet really are inexpressibly doleful and sad. You know very well, when you come to think about it, why they are so importunate and so loud. They are only ringing so persistently, tumbling sounds one upon another, in order to draw people to the fulfilment of a duty that many would shirk if they dared.

The bells of a city church have need to be loud, they have to rise above the greater distractions of life. Listen to the bells of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields. The bell-ringers there know only too well the sounds they have to drown before they can induce a wandering pedestrian within. It was just the same in Fetter Lane. John listened to them clanging and jangling--each bell so intent and eager in its effort to make itself heard.

He thought of the country to which the families upstairs had departed; but in the country it is different. In the country, you would go to church were there no bell at all, and that gentle, sonorous note that does ring across the fields and down the river becomes one of the most soothing sounds in the world. You have only to hear it to see the old lych-gate swinging to and fro as the folk make their way up the gravel path to the church door. You have only to listen to it stealing through the meadows where the browsing cattle are steeping their noses in the dew, to see with the eye of your mind that pale, faint flicker of candle-light that creeps through the stained glass windows out into the heavy-laden air of a summer evening. A church bell is very different in the country. There is an unsophisticated note about it, a sound so far removed from the egotistical hawker crying the virtue of his wares as to make the one incomparable with the other. John envied Mrs. Brown and Mr. Morrell from the bottom of his heart--envied them at least till half-past four.

For an hour, after breakfast was finished, he sat staring into the fire he had lighted, too lonely even to work. That heartless jade, depression, one can not call her company.

Then came Mrs. Rowse to clear away the breakfast things and make his bed. He looked up with a smile as she entered.

"What sort of a day is it outside?" he asked.

"Cold, sir; and looks as if we was going to have rain."

She caught up the breakfast things, the china clattered in her fingers. He turned round a little in his chair and watched her clear away. This is loneliness--to find a sense of companionship in the woman who comes to look after one's rooms.

"Whenever a man is lonely," wrote Lamartine, "God sends him a dog." But that is not always so. Some men are not so fortunate as others. It happens sometimes that a dog is not available and then, God sends a Mrs. Rowse to clear away the breakfast things.

But Mrs. Rowse was in a hurry that morning. There was no money due to her. You would not have found the faintest suspicion of lingering in anything that she did then. Even the topic that interested her most--her daughters--had no power to distract her attention.

She was going to take them out to the country--they were going down to Denham to see her sister, as soon as her work was done--Lizzie, who stuck labels on the jam-jars in Crosse and Blackwell's, and Maud, who packed cigarettes in Lambert and Butler's.

There were those living in Peabody Buildings, who said that Lizzie would have a beautiful voice, if she'd only practise. She could sing, "Love Me and the World Is Mine." She could sing that lovely. And Maud--well, Mrs. Rowse had even got a piano in their little tenement rooms for Maud to learn on, but Maud would never practise neither. True, she could pick up just anything she heard, pick it up quite easy with the right hand, though she could only vamp, foolish-like, with the left.

Yet upon these portentous matters, Mrs. Rowse would say nothing that morning. They were going to catch a mid-day train from Marylebone down to Denham, and she had no time to waste.

"Would you mind me coming with you, Mrs. Rowse?" said John suddenly. As suddenly he regretted it, but only because of its impossibility.

There is some sort of unwritten law which says that when you accompany ladies on a journey by train, you must pay for their tickets, and all women are ladies if they do not swear or spit on the ground. You should take off your hat to everyone of them you know when in the street. It may be that they are charwomen, that they stick labels upon jam-jars in their spare hours, that they pack up little boxes of cigarettes when there is nothing else to do, but in the street, they are women--and all women, with the restrictions here mentioned, are ladies.

Now John could not possibly pay for their tickets. He could ill-afford to pay for his own. It would mean no meal the next day if he did. And here let it be said--lest any should think that his poverty is harped upon--John was always poor, except for five minutes after an excursion to the pawn-shop, and perhaps five days after the receipt of the royalties upon his work. You may be sure at least of this, that John will jingle the money in his pocket and run his finger-nail over the minted edge of the silver when he has any. If he has gold, you will see him take it out under the light of a lamp-post when it is dark, in order to make sure that the sovereign is not a shilling. On all other occasions than these, assume that he is poor,--nay, more than assume, take it for granted.

Accordingly, directly he had made this offer to accompany Mrs. Rowse and her daughters to Denham, he had to withdraw it.

"No," said he, "I wish I could come--but I'm afraid it's impossible. I've got work to do."

Quite soon after that Mrs. Rowse departed.

"Hope you'll enjoy yourselves," said he.

"We always do in the country," replied she as she put on her hat outside the door. And then--"Good-morning, sir,"--and she too had gone; the door into the street had banged again, and the whole house, from floor to roof, was empty but for the sandy cat, the tortoiseshell cat and John.

He sat on there in the stillness. Even the cats grew tired of play and were still. Then came the rain, rain that turned to sleet, that drove against the roofs outside and tried, by hiding in the corners of the chimneys, to look like snow. John thought of the tulips in Kensington Gardens. Spring can come gladsomely to England--it can come bitterly, too. Those poor people in the country! But would the country ever permit such weather as this? Even supposing it did, they would not be lonely as he was. Mr. Morrell had Mrs. Brown to talk to, and Mr. Brown had the company of Mrs. Morrell. There were Lizzie and Maud for Mrs. Rowse. Perhaps going down in the train, they would get a carriage to themselves and Lizzie would sing, "Love Me and the World Is Mine," and Maud would count cigarettes in her mind, and pack them up in her mind, or more probably forget that there ever were such things as cigarettes in the fresh delight of seeing the country with bread and cheese on all the hedges. Those young green buds on the hawthorn hedges are the pedestrian's bread and cheese. But you know that, every bit as well as I.

Well, it seemed that everyone had company but John. He took out of his pocket the last letter his mother had written him from Venice--took it out and spread it before him. If only she were there! If only her bright brown eyes were looking at him, what thousands of things there would be to say! What short stories and beginnings of new books would there not be to read her! And how sympathetically would she not listen. How frequently would she not place those dear paralysed hands of hers in his, as he read, at some new passage that she liked!

"My darling boy----"

He could hear that gentle voice of hers--like the sound you may hear in the ring of an old china tea-cup--he could hear it, as she had dictated it to his father to write----

"This is where I begin counting the days to your visit. I dare not begin sooner--too many figures always bewildered me. It is now just about three months. Your father is much better than he was, and is doing a little work these days."

And here was added in a quaint little parenthesis of his father's: "She calls it work, my dear boy, just to please me--but when old men play, they like to hear it called work. You've got to do my work. And she is so quick--she has seen I have been writing more than she has said. I shall persuade her to let this stay in nevertheless."

Then, uninterrupted for a space the letter continued.

"I'm so pleased that your work is going on so well. I thought your last story was too sad, though. Must stories end unhappily? Yours always seem to. But I think I guess. They won't always end like that. But your father says I am not to worry you on that point; that you can't paint in a tone of gold what you see in a tone of grey, and that what you see now in a tone of grey, you will as likely as not see one day in a tone of gold."

Then, here, another parenthesis.

"You will understand what I mean, my dear boy. I've read the story, and I don't think it ought to end sadly, and you will no doubt say, 'Oh, he's quite old-fashioned; he does not know that a sad ending is an artistic ending.' But that is not because I am old-fashioned. It is simply because I am old. When you are young, you see unhappy endings because you are young enough to bear the pain of them. It is only when you get older that you see otherwise. When you have had your sorrow, which, you know, only as an artist I wish for you, then you will write in another strain. Go on with your unhappy endings. Don't take any notice of us. All your work will be happy one day, and remember, you are not writing for but because of us. By the way, I think you spelt paregoric wrong."

Now again the dictation.

"Well, anyhow, though I know nothing about it, I feel you write as though you loved. You would tell me, would you not, if you did? I am sure it must be the way to write, the way, in fact, to do everything. Your father says the pictures he paints now lack strength and vigour; but I find them just as beautiful; they are so gentle."

Parenthesis.

"One can't always love as one did at twenty-six--T.G. That sounds like reverential gratitude for the fact, but you understand it is only my initials."

"He has written something again, John--and he won't tell me what it is. If he has said he is getting too old to love, don't believe him. He has just leant forward and kissed me on my forehead. I have insisted upon his writing this down. Your story about the girl in the chapel and the last candle amused us very much. It interested me especially. If it had been me, I should have fallen in love with you then and there for being so considerate. What was she like? Have you ever seen her since? I can't feel that you were meant to meet her for nothing. I have tried to think, too, what she could have been praying to St. Joseph for, but it is beyond me. It is not like a woman to pray for money for herself. Perhaps some of her relations have money troubles. That is all I can imagine, though I have thought over it every day since I got your letter. God bless you, my darling. We are waiting eagerly for the reviews of your new book. When will it be out--the exact date? I want to say a novena for it, so let me know in good time. And if you meet the Lady of St. Joseph--as you call her--again, you must promise to tell me all about it. Your father wants the rest of the sheet of note-paper on which to say something to you--so, God bless you always."

"Don't read the reviews when they come out, John. Send them along to me, and I'll sort out the best ones and send them back to you to read. As far as I can see, there are so many critics who get the personal note into their criticisms, and to read these, whether praising or blaming, won't do you any good; so send them all along to me before you look at them. The first moment you can send me a copy, of course, you will. Your loving father."

Here the letter ended. Long as it was, it might well have been longer. They were good company, those two old people, talking to him through those thin sheets of foreign paper, one breaking in upon the other with all due courtesy, just as they might with a "Finish what you have to say, my dear," in ordinary conversation.

And now they had gone to the country, too--they had left him alone. When he had folded up the letter, it was almost as if he could hear the door bang again for the third time.

He leant back in his chair with an involuntary sigh. What a few people, after all, there were in the world whom he really knew! What a few people who would seek out his company on such a day as this! He stood up and stretched out his arms above his head--it was----

He stopped. A sound had struck to his heart and set it beating, as when the bull's-eye of a target is hit.

The bell had rung! His electric bell! The electric bell which had raised him immeasureably in station above Mrs. Morrell and Mrs. Brown, who had only a knocker common to the whole house--one, in fact, of the landlord's fixtures! It had rung, and his heart was beating to the echoes of it.

In another second, he had opened his door; in another moment, he was flying down the uncarpeted wooden stairs, five at a time. At the door itself, he paused, playing with the sensation of uncertainty. Who could it be? If the honest truth be known, it scarcely mattered. Someone! Someone had come out of nowhere to keep him company. A few personalities rushed to his mind. It might be the man who sometimes illustrated his stories, an untidy individual who had a single phrase that he always introduced into every conversation--it was, "Lend me half-a-crown till to-morrow, will you?" It would be splendid if it were him. They could lunch together on the half-crown. It might be the traveller from the wholesale tailor's--a man whom he had found begging in the street, and told to come round to Number 39 whenever he was at his wit's end for a meal. That would be better still; he was a man full of experiences, full of stories from the various sleeping-houses where he spent his nights.

Supposing it were Jill! A foolish, a hopeless thought to enter the mind. She did not know where he lived. She might, though, by some freak of

CHAPTER XVII

THE FLY IN THE AMBER

The sleet had driven honestly into snow by the time John had finished his lunch and, there being but two old original members in the Martyrs' Club, who were congratulating each other upon having put on their fur coats, stayed in town and not gone to the country, he left as soon as his meal was over.

The hall-porter stood reluctantly to his feet as he passed out,--so reluctantly that John felt as though he should apologise for the etiquette of the club. In the street, he turned up the collar of his coat and set off with determination, intended to show the hall-porter that he had a definite destination and but little time in which to reach it.

Round the corner and out of sight, he began counting to himself the people he might go and see. Each name, as he reviewed it in his mind, presented some difficulty either of approval or of place. At last, he found himself wandering in the direction of Holborn. In a side street of that neighbourhood lived his little typewriter, who had promised to finish two short stories over Easter. She would be as glad of company as he. She would willingly cease from pounding the symphony of the one monotonous note on those lifeless keys. They would talk together of wonderful works yet to be typed. He would strum on her hired piano. The minutes would slip by and she would get tea, would boil the kettle on that miniature gas-stove, situated in her bedroom, where he had often imagined her saying her prayers in the morning while a piece of bacon was frying in the pan by her side--prayers, the Amen of which would be hastened and emphasised by the boiling over of the milk. Those are the prayers that reach Heaven. They are so human. And a burnt sacrifice of burnt milk accompanying them, they are consistent with all the ritual of the Old Testament.

To the little typewriter's, then, he decided to go. It did not matter so very much if his stories were not finished over Easter. They could wait.

He rang the bell, wondering if her heart was leaping as his had done but an hour or so before. His ears were alert for the scurrying of feet on her uncarpeted, wooden stairs. He bent his head sideways to the door. There was no sound. He rang again. Then he heard the creaking of the stairs. She was coming--oh, but so slowly! Annoyed, perhaps, by the disturbance, just as she was getting into work.

The door was opened. His heart dropped. He saw an old woman with red-rimmed eyes which peered at him suspiciously from the half-opened space.

"Is Miss Gerrard in?" he asked.

"Gone to the country--won't be back till Tuesday," was the reply.

Gone to the country! And his work would never be finished over Easter! Oh, it was not quite fair!

"Any message?" said the old housekeeper.

"No," said John; "nothing," and he walked away.

Circumstance was conspiring that he should work--circumstance was driving him back to Fetter Lane. Yet the loneliness of it all was intolerable. It was, moreover, a loneliness that he could not explain. There had been other Easter Sundays; there had been other days of snow and sleet and rain, but he had never felt this description of loneliness before. It was not depression. Depression sat there, certainly, as it were upon the doorstep, ready to enter at the faintest sound of invitation. But as yet, she was on the doorstep only, and this--this leaden weight at the heart, this chain upon all the energies--was loneliness that he was entertaining, a condition of loneliness that he had never known before.

Why had he gone to see the little typewriter? Why had he not chosen the man who illustrated his stories, or many of the other men whom he knew would be in town that day and any day--men who never went into the country from one year's end to the other?

It had been the company of a woman he had wanted. Why was that? Why that, suddenly, rather than the company he knew he could find? What was there in the companionship of a woman that he had so unexpectedly discovered the need of it? Why had he envied Mr. Brown who had Mrs. Morrell to talk to, or Mr. Morrell who could unburden himself to Mrs. Brown? Why had he been glad when Mrs. Rowse came and unutterably lonely when she left? Why had he suggested going to the country with her, pleased at the thought that Lizzie would sing, "Love Me and the World Is Mine," and that Maud would be counting and packing cigarettes in her mind?

The questions poured into his thoughts, rushing by, not waiting for an answer, until they all culminated in one overwhelming realisation. It was Jill.

Morning after morning, for a whole week, they had met in secret, not in Kensington Gardens alone, but in the most extraordinary of places--once even at Wrigglesworth's, the obscure eating-house in Fetter Lane, she little knowing how near they were to where he lived. He had read her his stories; he had given her copies of the two books that bore his name upon their covers. They had discussed them together. She had said she was sure he was going to be a great man, and that is always so consoling, because its utter impossibility prevents you from questioning it for a moment.

Then it was Jill. And all the disappointment, all the loneliness of this Easter Sunday had been leading up to this.

Common sense--except in that mad moment when he had hoped the bell had been rung by her--had debarred him from thinking of seeking her out. But away in the deep corners of his mind, it was her company he was looking for--her company he had sought to find, first in Mrs. Rowse and then in the little typewriter.

Shutting the door of his room, he went across to the chair by the fire. What did it mean? What did it mean? Here and there he had fallen in love; but this was not the same sort of thing. This was not falling in love. Falling in love was quick, sudden, a flash that burnt up all desire to work, flared out in a moment, obliterating everything else. But this was slow, stealthy, a growing thing that asked, not for sudden satisfaction, but for wonderful, untellable things.

All the attributes common to love, as he had understood it, had no place in this sensation. As he had thought of it, love found its expression in the gratification of the need with which it had begun, or it ended, like his stories--unhappily. Then this could not be love. There was no ending of gratification and no ending of unhappiness to this. It was unending. Was that what his mother had meant he would learn?

Then, as he sat before the fire, wondering what new thing he had found, the bell rang again. It found no echo on this occasion. He slowly turned his head. They were not going to deceive him a second time. He rose quietly from his chair, crossed to the window, silently raised it and, as silently, looked out. There, below him, he saw a woman's hat--a hat with fur in it, cunningly twined through grey velvet,--a hat that he knew, a hat that he had often seen before.

He closed the window quietly and slowly made his way downstairs. Before he reached the end of the passage, the bell rang again. Then he opened the door.

It was the lady on whose behalf the fur coat had discharged the debt of honour.

She stepped right in with a little laugh of pleasure at finding him there; turned and waited while he closed the door behind them, then linked her arm in his as they mounted the stairs.

"I came," said she, "on chance. Aren't you glad to see me?"

There was just that fraction's pause before he replied--that pause into which a woman's mind leaps for answer. And how accurately she makes that leap, how surely she reaches the mental ground upon which you take your place, you will never be able truly to anticipate.

"Yes," said John, "I'm very glad."

"Then what is it?" she said quickly. "Are you writing?"