"That was--only an afterthought. Well, he had been--drinking, and he talked a good deal. Some of it was about Miss Ware."

For a moment there was silence.

Then "And you believed it?" she asked.

"At the time, no. Lord knows I did not want to. But, afterward, I remembered the look on her face when she gave me that last refusal. It was a strange look; it meant more than I could account for, at that time. Yes," he sighed, "I believe it. Why shouldn't I? I know how vile a man may be; be a woman only half as weak, or half as 'new,' and she is a thing for loathing."

"Hush! What a conventional man it is, after all. Always the same old tune, one thing for the man, another for the woman! Listen: I know Dorothy Ware, better, perhaps, than you do; I know her later self, you only know her as a child. There are great points of similarity between you two. She has much of your absurd sensitiveness; self-torment is one of her vices. She is very much given to making mountains out of molehills. She--"

"No, no," he interrupted, wearily, "I tell you I believe it. All, all of it!"

"Well," she said, somewhat angrily, "and suppose you do! What then! Who are you, that you should judge?"

He winced slightly, but then shrugged his shoulders. "Oh, of course, of course; I've heard all about that. But it won't do, in practice."

"Won't it? Let us put the cases plainly, for comparison's sake: You are a young man that has had more than his share of selfish indulgence; you have thrown aside all scruples and done everything and anything you pleased. Your actual transgressions of the commandments we will waive; there is a greater crime: you have allowed yourself to become a soured, bitter, heartless creature, fit only to disseminate scorn and distaste.

She, the woman in the case, once, we will say, allowed her senses to oust her sense. Ever since, she has suffered agonies of regret. Unlike the man she has not told herself that she might as well let fate have it's play out. She is as sweet as the dew of Maytime, and the slight trace of sadness only needs the touch of love to fall and almost fade. I think she loves you; I am not sure--she is a woman, and it is hard to say. As for you, in spite of everything, you love her. You coward! Why don't you ask her again? She will tell you that it is impossible, of course. She will say there was once another. Then, unless you are a greater coward than I think you, you will tell her that compared to yourself she is as pure as the driven snow, and you want nothing, only her forgiveness for yourself."

He was still stubborn. "It is the old story," he said, "one has heard it all before. The woman is to be put on a par with the man; there is no actual difference in ethics. But I once saw it tried; I shudder when I think of it. To be sure--the woman was notorious."

"Ah! How can you compare the cases? And yet--" she laughed a trifle bitterly,--"in this case the man is notorious." She watched him wince under the callousness of triumph.

"Think," she continued, "what she could be to you, how she could help you; how you could help each other! The happy days and dreams together, the planning for new artistic achievements, the sweet companionship of a soul capable of understanding! Instead of--what? Fierce flights into forgetfulness; pursuits of vanishing pleasures, palling desires; short triumphs in art merged into long revulsions from life! It seems, to me, a fair exchange!" She rose, as if to end the subject. He put her shawl about her shoulders, and they walked slowly back to the village, talking of other things, gaily, lightly, insincerely.

CHAPTER XVII

Lancaster said goodbye on the following morning, and by noon he was in Edinboro'. At the Travelers' club he found a letter from the firm of publishers, at home, that had lately been using a great many of his sketches. They took the liberty of informing him that owing to the popularity of his work they had thought proper to open an exhibition of his original sketches in the Museum Art Galleries. While they were aware that possession of these originals was entirely vested in themselves, they had decided to lay aside a share of the receipts from the exhibition and sale for him, as a courtesy royalty. Lancaster folded the letter up, drummed on the table for a second or two, and then went out to get a paper. It had occurred to him that, if he sailed for home at once, he could reach there before the exhibition closed. It would be a grim bit of humor to appear there in person, and listen to the comments of the very people who, a year ago, would have considered him and his work beneath their notice. Now, with a European reputation, his stock, so to put it, had gone far beyond par in his native country.

Besides,--the memory of the things that Mrs. Stewart had said to him refused to pa.s.s from him--there was Dorothy! He would see her again; he would put his fate to the touch once more.

It had been a white night that had pa.s.sed between his conversation with Mrs. Stewart and his departure from St. Andrews. He had lain awake listening to the hissing of the sea over the rocks, and recounting the arguments that affected his feelings toward Miss Ware. Now, it had seemed to him that she represented for him the one chance of happiness; that the touch of sadness that had come to her would make her but the more merciful to his own past. Then, again, the old bitterness, the old distaste came; he could not escape the thought that the old conventions teach, that one step aside means, for the woman, eternal disgrace. Well, and even if the old conventions said so a thousand times, were they to bind him now, when they had so long been thrust away by him in scorn? At any rate, the torment of these conflicting thoughts was to be avoided.

He must decide upon one attempt or another--the return home and the repet.i.tion of a certain question, or the effort to continue more steadfast than ever in the philosophy of laughter.

He decided for the return to America.

No boat left Liverpool for two days. In the interval he roamed about the most beautiful city in Scotland, enjoying the memories and pictures of the past that Holyrood, the old Castle, and John Knox's house brought up. The autumn sun turned Prince's Street Gardens, and the Scott Monument into a green and gold and flowered picture that he remembered no equal to, in his wanderings through the capitals of Europe, Prince's Street, he maintained, was the prettiest thoroughfare in the world. He left it with regret.

His voyage across the Atlantic merely gave him material for a study of the gowns adopted by the fair ocean travelers, and several chances for cynical representations of the humors of upper-deck flirtations.

Otherwise his journey was as monotonous as the luxuriance of the modern travel could make it.

It was morning, when after another fatiguing journey by rail, he reached the metropolis that held so many mixed memories for him. He went straight to the Philistine club, and took some rooms there. The servants hardly knew him. He had, it was true, changed a great deal. He was browner, thinner; there were deep lines about his eyes and mouth.

The first man he met in the smoking-room, after he had refreshed himself with a bath and a lunch, was Vanstruther.

"Why," said that gentleman, after a long, puzzled look, "dashed if it isn't d.i.c.k Lancaster!" "Come into the light, most n.o.ble genius, and let me gaze upon you. You--you put bright crimson tints on all the effete European cities, didn't you? I declare it's good to see you again!

You've seemed a good deal like a myth lately, you know; no one ever seemed to know just where you were, or whether you were alive at all."

They walked up and down the room, asking and answering such pleasant questions as come between two familiars after a long absence.

"Oh, there's not much change," Vanstruther was explaining, "except in yourself. You'll be no end of a lion, I'm afraid. Have to do a couple of paragraphs about you myself, just to scoop the other fellows. Give me a text or two. Oh, but you have hit the fad in the exact centre, somehow!

I'm not saying a thing against the real value of your stuff, but the fact remains that this whole blessed nation is fad-mad just now, and it simply has got to have a fad or quit. Your European reputation came along just about the time the fad for the newest English novel was dying. You went, so to say, with a whoop. One can't pick up a Sunday paper now but what one finds weird, impossible interviews with you; descriptions of your favorite models, or reproductions of your newest sketch. You are depicted as the founder of a new style; they talk of women as being "Lancaster-like," and you are a pest generally. In print, I mean, of course, only in print. You are about to furnish my own dear self with material for about a column, so I shouldn't call you a pest; but from the standpoint of the reader, rather than the penny-a-liner, I abhor you!" He made a gesture of aversion, laughingly.

"You want to know about the old guard, do you? Well, Stanley is still the same dismal distiller of cynicisms that he ever was; his trip abroad only seems to have made him worse. Belden? Oh, he plods along in the same old way, drawing b.l.o.o.d.y battles for the dailies, and making all creation look like the prize-ring 'toughs.' We have the same old Sunday evenings up at his house, too; his wife's turned out well, as far as one can see. He certainly doesn't look unhappy. We were all up there not long ago, Marsboro, Stanley and myself. Mind you, I never take Mrs. Van.

I'm about the same as ever, too. I've got a blood-curdling dime-novel on the stocks just now, and the 'season' is beginning for the winter, so I'm not likely to have much time for idle trifling for a while. Oh,--did you see Mrs. Stewart while you were abroad? Thanks! That'll be another scoop on the rest of the society editors. Hallo! three o'clock,--got to be off to the office--see you again!" He rushed off, leaving Lancaster smiling at his frank, jerky sentences.

Lancaster sat down and took up the morning paper. Before long the advertis.e.m.e.nt of his exhibition at the museum met his eyes. It occurred to him that if what Vanstruther had said was only in part true, it would be wise for him to go and take a peep at the show this very afternoon, before people knew he was in town.

The place was crowded with well-dressed men and women. They flowed in and out in a constant stream. They held catalogues in their hands, and chatted volubly. In front of one picture, whereon was depicted a London music-hall scene, there was an especially large gathering.

"He's so dreadfully cynical, don't you think so?" one man was saying to the girl that was with him. "I really think he ought to be called a caricaturist."

"Oh, but, after all, it's nearly all true, you know. Look at the expression on that gallery-G.o.d's face, will you!"

"Wonder what sort of a chap he is personally?"

"Oh--impossible, I suppose. Although I ought not to say that; nothing is impossible nowadays, there never was such a run on intellect. I never saw anything like it! It positively seems as if society was intellect-mad. Singers, actors, painters, writers--all sorts of queer people go everywhere now, and that isn't the worst of it! The society people won't be content with just playing at 'society' as they used to: they want to sing, and paint, and write, too! It's awful! I'll have to go on the stage, or something of that sort, myself, if I want to keep up with the procession."

Lancaster moved away from that corner. It was amusing, certainly; but it was also painful. What pleased him more than the overheard conversations were the little labels, displaying the word "SOLD" that decorated many of his sketches. It was balm to him to think that these moneybags, these puppets mumbling set phrases, were being despoiled of some of their wealth for his sake.

Walking over to the wall whereon hung the sketch for which Wooton had been the unconscious model, Lancaster heard a voice that seemed familiar.

"It certainly looks like him," the voice was saying. "That would be a wanton brutality."

It was Miss Tremont. Lancaster flushed angrily. What had she to judge by? It was Mrs. Tremont who was accompanying her daughter; the elder lady moved away, that moment, to speak to an acquaintance. Miss Tremont remained in front of the picture of the drunkard, her brows moving nervously.

Lancaster stepped close up to her.

"If I were you," he said quietly, but distinctly, "I should go and look after him. He needs it."

The girl started quickly, turned momentarily pale, and then, seeing who it was, nerved herself to stony calmness. "How dare you?" she said twisting her catalogue into shapelessness.

"Oh," he laughed, "I really mean it for the best. As you see--" he looked sneeringly at the sketch--"he's not the pink of sobriety. And when he drinks, he talks a good deal. He sometimes talks about--you, for instance." He paused and seemed engrossed in nothing save the smoothing out of the wrinkles in his gloves.

"You coward!" If intention could have killed, Miss Tremont's eyes committed murder.

"True; I fear for you both. And I take such an interest in you! But I believe he will make an excellent husband--for you!" He lifted his hat, with a fleeting mockery of a smile, and left her before the picture, staring, trembling.

"That," he told himself, "was wanton brutality number two. But she should not have judged me!"

He left the galleries, taking with him a feeling of scorn for himself, that he should have put himself on the level of the praise or blame of the fadists in such a public way. Yet, he reflected, it had been not of his own seeking.

The afternoon was already touched with the darkening shadow of evening.

The town roared and hissed and seethed in all it's wonted fervor; the chill-hardness of its material manners were painfully evident to Lancaster as he came from the comparative quiet of the picture-galleries. He contrasted the grim roar of the place with the smiling, careless, jovial glitter of those other towns he had lately enjoyed; for the bright cheer of the boulevards and the gardens and the open-air cafe's he found the skypiercing buildings that shut out the sun-light, hemmed in ma.s.ses of money-mad humanity, and extended apparently to all the horizons. For the strolling gayety he had grown to love so; for the ever-changing current of picturesque triflers, idlers and dandies,--he had received in exchange a breathless surge of anxious, nervous, straining men and women, plunging wildly down the slopes to an imaginary sea of gold. Something of the old repulsion made itself felt in him; he foresaw that it would never again be possible for him to endure life here. That other glittering, careless, joyous maelstrom,--perhaps; this one, never! He realized that while for future generations it was possible, for himself the hope of finding an American metropolis tinged with aught but the feverish strivings after riches was utterly vain. He tried to argue with himself about it; to persuade himself that it was a n.o.bler sign, this one of the ma.s.ses all honest in labor and in pursuit of it's fruits, than the evidences of inherited wealth, or quiet content with small means, that were the prevailing notes of older countries. But he failed. His temperament rebelled; he loved the smooth, the finished sides of life; the artist in him rebelled against the commercialism of his native haunts. If it should be the decree of fate that he continue to seek out life's most distracting enchantments, he would certainly have to bid his native land farewell again. If there were anything else in store for him; if it happened that he be required by Dame Chance to do something more serious than to laugh, to laugh, and laugh--well, that consideration would bear postponement.

It seemed to him, as he walked through the streets that were now beginning to glitter with the white and yellow lights born of electricity and gas, that these faces were the same faces always, that there was never any change, from year to year, in the puppets that paraded on this urban stage. A thousand differing types, to be sure; but always the same in their hard, tense, sinister look of restraint; all wore the same tiring eyes, the same rounded shoulders. The same fierce pa.s.sion for excitement swam in the eyes of the women. In his morbidness he fancied that it was as if all these city-dwellers were life-prisoners, condemned forever to walk, and mumble and laugh shrilly.