CHAPTER III

At ten o'clock he breakfasted, after three hours' sleep and a cold bath. In the bright, yet soft spring daylight, the lines of his face had relaxed, and the pallor of his cheeks was less unnatural. He was still a man of remarkable appearance; his features were strong and firmly chiselled, his forehead was square and almost hard. He wore no beard, but a slight, black moustache only half-concealed a delicate and sensitive mouth. His complexion and his soft grey eyes were alike possessed of a singular clearness, as though they were, indeed, the indices of a temperate and well-contained life. His dress, and every movement and detail of his person, were characterized by an extreme deliberation; his whole appearance bespoke a peculiar and almost feminine fastidiousness. The few appointments of his simple meal were the most perfect of their kind. A delicate vase of freshly cut flowers stood on the centre of the spotless table-cloth,--the hangings and colouring of the apartment were softly harmonious. The walls were hung with fine engravings, with here and there a brilliant little water-colour of the school of Corot; a few marble and bronze statuettes were scattered about on the mantelpiece and on brackets.

There was nothing particularly striking anywhere, yet there was nothing on which the eye could not rest with pleasure.

At half-past ten he lit a cigarette, and sat down at his desk. He wrote quite steadily for an hour; at the end of that time he pinned together the result of his work, and wrote a hasty note.

"113, PICCADILLY.

"DEAR MR. HASLUP,--

"I went last night to the New Theatre, and I send you my views as to what I saw there. But I beg that you will remember my absolute ignorance on all matters pertaining to the modern drama, and use your own discretion entirely as to the disposal of the enclosed. I do not feel myself, in any sense of the word, a competent critic, and I trust that you will not feel yourself under the least obligation to give to my views the weight of your journal.

"I remain, "Yours truly, "JOHN MATRAVERS."

His finger was upon the bell, when his servant entered, bearing a note upon a salver. Matravers glanced at the handwriting already becoming familiar to him, recognizing, too, the faint odour of violets which seemed to escape into the room as his fingers broke the seal.

"It is half-past eleven and you have not come! Does that mean that you will not listen to me, that you mean to judge me unheard? You will not be so unkind! I shall remain indoors until one o'clock, and I shall expect you.

"BERENICE."

Matravers laid the note down, and covered it with a paper-weight. Then he sealed his own letter, and gave it, with the ma.n.u.script, to his servant. The man withdrew, and Matravers continued his writing.

He worked steadily until two o'clock. Then a simple luncheon was brought in to him, and upon the tray another note. Matravers took it with some hesitation, and read it thoughtfully.

"TWO O'CLOCK.

"You have made up your mind, then, not to come. Very well, I too am determined. If you will not come to me, I shall come to you! I shall remain in until four o'clock. You may expect to see me any time after then.

"BERENICE."

Matravers ate his luncheon and pondered, finally deciding to abandon a struggle in which his was obviously the weaker position. He lingered for a while over his coffee; at three o'clock he retired for a few moments into his dressing-room, and then descending the stairs, made his way out into the street.

He had told himself only a few hours back that he would be wise to ignore this summons from a woman, the ways of whose life must lie very far indeed from his. Yet he knew that his meeting with her had affected him as nothing of the sort had ever affected him before--a man unimpressionable where women were concerned, and ever devoted to and cultivating a somewhat unnatural exclusiveness. Her first note he had been content to ignore,--she might have written it in a fit of pique--but the second had made him thoughtful. Her very persistence was characteristic. Perhaps after all she was in the right--he had arrived too hastily at an ign.o.ble conclusion. Her att.i.tude towards him was curiously unconventional; it was an att.i.tude such as none of the few women with whom he had ever been brought into contact would have dreamed of a.s.suming. But none the less it had for him a fascination which he could not measure or define,--it had awakened a new sensation, which, as a philosopher, he was anxious to probe. The mysticism of his early morning wanderings seemed to him, as he walked leisurely through the sunlit streets, in a sense ridiculous. After all it was a little thing that he was going to do; he was going to make, against his will, an afternoon call. To other men it would have seemed less than nothing. Albeit he knew he was about to draw into his life a new experience.

He rang the bell at Number 18, Large Street, and gave his card to the trim little maidservant who opened the door. In a minute or two she returned, and invited him to follow her upstairs; her mistress was in, and would see him at once. She led the way up the broad staircase into a room which could, perhaps, be most aptly described as a feminine den. The walls, above the low bookshelves which bordered the whole apartment, were hung with a medley of water-colours and photographs, water-colours which a single glance showed him were good, and of the school then most in vogue. The carpet was soft and thick, divans and easy chairs filled with cushions were plentiful. By the side of one of these, which bore signs of recent occupation, was a reading stand, and upon it a Shakespeare, and a volume of his own critical essays.

To him, with all his senses quickened by an intense curiosity, there seemed to hang about the atmosphere of the room that subtle odour of femininity which, in the case of a man, would probably have been represented by tobacco smoke. A Sevres jar of Neapolitan violets stood upon the table near the divan. Henceforth the perfume of violets seemed a thing apart from the perfume of all other flowers to the man who stood there waiting, himself with a few of the light purple blossoms in the b.u.t.tonhole of his frock coat.

CHAPTER IV

She came to him so noiselessly, that for a moment or two he was unaware of her entrance. There was neither the rustle of skirts nor the sound of any movement to apprise him of it, yet he became suddenly conscious that he was not alone. He turned around at once and saw her standing within a few feet of him. She held out her hand frankly.

"So you have come," she said; "I thought that you would. But then you had very little choice, had you?" she added with a little laugh.

She pa.s.sed him, and deliberately seated herself amongst a pile of cushions on the divan nearest her reading stand. For the moment he neglected her gestured invitation, and remained standing, looking at her.

"I was very glad to come," he said simply.

She shook her head.

"You were afraid of my threat. You were afraid that I might come to you. Well, it is probable, almost certain that I should have come. You have saved yourself from that, at any rate."

Although the situation was a novel one to him, he was not in the least embarra.s.sed. He was altogether too sincere to be possessed of any self-consciousness. He found himself at last actually in the presence of the woman who, since first he had seen her, months ago, driving in the Park, had been constantly in his thoughts, and he began to wonder with perfect clearness of judgment wherein lay her peculiar fascination! That she was handsome, of her type, went for nothing. The world was full of more beautiful women whom he saw day by day without the faintest thrill of interest. Besides, her face was too pale and her form too thin for exceptional beauty. There must be something else,--something about her personality which refused to lend itself to any absolute a.n.a.lysis. She was perfectly dressed,--he realized that, because he was never afterwards able to recall exactly what she wore.

Her eyes were soft and dark and luminous,--soft with a light the power of which he was not slow to recognize.

But none of these things were of any important account in reckoning with the woman. He became convinced, in those few moments of deliberate observation, that there was nothing in her "personnel"

which could justify her reputation. On the whole he was glad of it.

Any other form of attraction was more welcome to him than a purely physical one!

"First of all," she began, leaning forward and looking at him over her interlaced fingers; "I want you to tell me this! You will answer me faithfully, I know. What did you think of my writing to you, of my persistence? Tell me exactly what you thought."

"I was surprised," he answered; "how could I help it? I was surprised, too," he added, "to find that I wanted very much to come."

"The women whom you know," she said quietly,--"I suppose you do know some,--would not have done such a thing. Some people say that I am mad! One may as well try to live up to one's reputation; I have taken a little of the license of madness."

"It was unusual, perhaps," he admitted; "but who is not weary of usual things? I gathered from your note that you had something to explain. I was anxious to hear what that explanation could be."

She was silent for a moment, her eyes fixed upon vacancy, a faint smile at the corners of her lips.

"First," she said, "let me tell you this. I want to have you understand why I was anxious that you should not think worse of me than I deserved. I am rather a spoilt woman. I have grown used to having my own way; I wanted to know you, I have wanted to for some time. We have pa.s.sed one another day after day; I knew quite well all the time who you were, and it seemed so stupid! Do you know once or twice I have had an insane desire to come right up to your chair and break in upon your meditations,--hold out my hand and make you talk to me? That would have been worse than this, would it not? But I firmly believe that I should have done it some day. So you see I wrote my little note in self-defence."

"I do not know that I should have been so completely surprised after all," he said. "I, too, have felt something of what you have expressed. I have been interested in your comings and your goings. But then you knew that, or you would never have written to me."

"One sacrifices so much," she murmured, "on the altars of the modern G.o.ddess. We live in such a tiny compa.s.s,--nothing ever happens. It is only psychologically that one's emotions can be reached at all. Events are quite out of date. I am speaking from a woman's point of view."

"You should have lived," he said, smiling, "in the days of Joan of Arc."

"No doubt," she answered, "I should have found that equally dull. What I was endeavouring to do was, first of all to plead some justification for wanting to know you. For a woman there is nothing left but the study of personalities."

"Mine," he answered with a faint gleam in his eyes, "is very much at your service."

"I am going to take you at your word," she warned him.

"You will be very much disappointed. I am perfectly willing to be dissected, but the result will be inadequate."

She leaned back amongst the cushions and looked at him thoughtfully.

"Listen," she said; "I can tell you something of your history, as you will see. I want you to fill in the blanks."

"Mine," he murmured, "will be the greater task. My life is a record of blank places. The history is to come."

"This," she said, "is the extent of my knowledge. You were the second son of Sir Lionel Matravers, and you have been an orphan since you were very young. You were meant to take Holy Orders, but when the time came you declined. At Oxford you did very well indeed. You established a brilliant reputation as a cla.s.sical scholar, and you became a fellow of St. John's.