"Put aside explanations," Iglesias replied indulgently. "You are not going to quarrel with me any more--let that suffice."

"No, I cannot quarrel with you any more. I am sure I don't know whether it is unprincipled or not, but I cannot do it."

Regardless of observation, he pulled out a handkerchief and mopped his face.

"If it is unprincipled I must just let it go." he said, quite recklessly.

"I cannot help myself. I give you my word, Dominic, I have held out as long as I could."

This appeal to Iglesias, as against himself, appeared to him abundantly unaffected and ingenuous.

"I cannot but believe you will find the consequences of renewed intercourse with me less damaging than you suppose," he answered, smiling.

"That is what the wife says," the other man stated. "She has veered round completely in her opinion, has the wife. I do not understand why, except that Mrs. Porcher and Miss Hart and she seem to have fallen out. The workings of females' minds are very difficult to follow, even after years of marriage, you know, Dominic. Opposition to one of their own s.e.x will make them warmly embrace opinions you supposed were just those which they most strongly condemned. She has taken a very high tone, for some time past, about the Cedar Lodge ladies, has the wife. And when I came in, the evening of her last at-home day, I found her sadly upset at having heard from one of them that you were about to leave. She implied that I was to blame; whereas I can truthfully say my conduct throughout has been largely influenced by the fear of hurting her feelings." The speaker looked helplessly at Mr. Iglesias. "Of course we do not expect the same reticence in speech from females we require of ourselves. Still, such unfounded accusations are rather galling."

"I cannot be otherwise than very grateful to Mrs. Lovegrove for espousing my cause, you see," Iglesias replied. This confused and gentle being, struggling with the complexities of friendship, religious prejudice, and feminine methods and amenities, was wholly moving. "Circ.u.mstances have arisen which have made me decide to give up my rooms at Cedar Lodge.

To-night is the last upon which I shall occupy them. But I do not wish Mrs. Lovegrove to be under any misapprehension regarding my hostess and her companion. I have nothing to complain of. During my long residence they have treated me with courtesy and consideration. I wish them nothing but good. Still the time has come, I feel, for leaving Cedar Lodge."

Here the worthy George's imagination indulged in wild flights. Visions of a hideous and rugged cell--of the sort known exclusively to serial melodrama--and of a beautiful woman, in voluminous rose-red skirts and a costly overcoat, presented themselves to him in amazing juxtaposition.

"Of course, I have forfeited all right to question you as to your plans, Dominic," he said hurriedly and humbly. "I quite realise that. I believed I was acting on principle in keeping away from you, all the more because it pained me terribly to do so. I believed I was being consistent. Now I begin to fear I was only obstinate and cowardly. Your kindness of manner has completely unmanned me. I see how superior you are in liberality to myself. And so it cuts me to the quick, more than ever, to part from you."

"Why should we part?" Iglesias asked.

"But you are going away. The wife told me she heard you were leaving London altogether; whether to--I hardly like to mention the supposition--to join some brotherhood or--or, to be married, she did not know."

Mr. Iglesias shook his head, smiling sweetly and bravely.

"Oh! no, no, my dear fellow," he answered. "Rumour must have been rather unpardonably busy with my name. I fear I am about equally ill-fitted for monastic and for married life. The day of splendid ventures, whether of religion or of love, is over for me; and I shall die, as I have lived, a bachelor and a layman. Nor shall I cease to be your neighbour, for I am only returning here"--he pointed to the open door, in at which coatless white-ap.r.o.ned men carried that miscellaneous collection of furniture--"to the little old Holland Street house. Lately I have had a great craving upon me to be at home again--alone, save for one or two precious friendships; with leisure to read and to think; and, in as far as my poor mental powers permit, to become a humble student of the awe-inspiring philosophy--reconciling things natural and supernatural--of which the Catholic Church is the exponent, her creeds its textbook, her ceremonies and ritual the divinely appointed symbols of its secret truths." Iglesias'

expression was exalted, his speech penetrated by enthusiasm. "It would be profitable and happy," he said, "before the final auditing of accounts, to be a little better versed in this wonderful and living wisdom."

And George Lovegrove stood watching him, bewildered, agitated, full of doubt and inquiry.

"Ah! it is all beyond me, quite beyond me," he exclaimed presently.

"Mistaken or not, I see you are in touch with thoughts altogether outside my experience and comprehension. I supposed Romanism could only be held by uneducated and superst.i.tious persons. I see I was wrong. I ask your pardon, Dominic. I see I quite undervalued it." Then his manner changed, quick perception and consequent distress seizing him. "Ah! but you are ill. That is the meaning of it all. You are ill. Now I come to observe you, I see how thin and drawn your face is. How shall I ever forgive myself for not finding that out sooner! I have differed from you and blamed you. I have sulked, and thought bitterly of you, and avoided you.

I have even been envious, hearing how successfully you carried through affairs this anxious time at the bank. I have been a contemptibly mean-spirited individual. No, I can never forgive myself. I have found you again, only to lose you. You are in bad health. You have been suffering, and I never thought to inquire about that. I never knew it."

But Dominic Iglesias made effort to comfort him, speaking not uncheerfully, determining even to fight the fatigue and weakness which, as he could not but own, daily increased on him, if only for the sake of this faithful and simple adherent.

"Perhaps the sands are running rather low," he said; "but that does not greatly matter. The conditions are in process of alteration. Now that I am free of my City work, the strain is practically over. With care and quiet, the sands that remain in the gla.s.s may run very slowly. I have a peaceful time in prospect, here in my old home. When I left here, eight years ago, I could not make up my mind to part with any of our family belongings, so I warehoused all the contents of the house, save those which I took to furnish my rooms at Cedar Lodge. Now these half-forgotten possessions see the light once more. This in itself should const.i.tute a staying of the running sands, a putting back of the hands of the clock. Then I have two good servants to care for me. I am fortunate in that. And your friendship is restored to me. I should be ungrateful if I did not live on for a while to enjoy all this kindly circ.u.mstance. So do not grieve. There are many after-dinner pipes to be smoked, many talks to be talked yet.--Come into the house, and see it as you used to know it when we both were young.

Surely it is a good omen that you, my earliest friend, should be my first visitor when I come home?"

CHAPTER x.x.xV

De Courcy Smyth was not drunk, but he had been drinking--persistently nipping, as his custom was in times of mental excitement, in the fallacious hope of keeping up courage and steadying irritable nerves. The series of moods usually resultant on such recourse to spirituous liquors, followed one another with clock-work regularity. He was alternately hysterically elated, preternaturally moral, offensively quarrelsome, maudlin to the point of tears. The first _matinee_ of his long-promised play had prospered but very ill, notwithstanding large advertis.e.m.e.nt and free list. The second had prospered even worse.

Mercifully disposed persons, slipping out between the acts, had been careful not to return. Less amiably disposed ones had remained to t.i.tter or hiss. Failure had been written in capital letters across the whole performance--and deservedly, in the estimation of every one save the unhappy author himself. The play had perished in the very act of birth.

But of this tragic termination to so many extravagant hopes Dominic Iglesias was still ignorant, as he entered the dismantled sitting-room at Cedar Lodge that same night a little after half-past ten o'clock. He had dined in the old house in Holland Street; served by Frederick, the German-Swiss valet, who, some weeks previously, hearing of his intended departure, had announced his intention of "bettering himself," had given Mrs. Porcher warning, and, in moving terms and three languages, implored employment of Iglesias, declaring that the other gentlemen resident at Cedar Lodge were "no cla.s.s," their clothes utterly unworthy of his powers of brushing and folding.

Iglesias stayed on in Holland Street until late, the charm and gentleness of old a.s.sociations, the sight of familiar objects, the gladness of restored friendship with George Lovegrove working upon him to thankfulness. He was tranquil in spirit, serene with the calm twilight serenity of the strong who have learned the secret of detachment, and, who, while welcoming all glad and gracious occurrences, have schooled themselves to resignation, and, in the affairs of this world, do neither greatly fear nor greatly hope. And it was in this spirit he had made his way back to Cedar Lodge and entered the square panelled sitting-room. But, the door closed, he paused, aware of some sinister influence, some unknown yet repulsive presence. The room was nearly dark, the gas being lowered to a pin-point on either side the mantelpiece. Dominic moved across to turn it up, and in so doing stumbled over an unexpected obstacle. De Courcy Smith, who had been dozing uneasily in the one remaining armchair, sat upright with an oath.

"What are you at, you swine!" he shouted. Then as the light shone forth he made an effort to recover himself.

"It's hardly necessary to announce your advent by kicking me, Mr.

Iglesias," he said thickly, and without attempting to rise from his seat.

"Not but that there is an appropriateness in that graceful form of introduction. Only a kick from the benevolent patron, who professed himself so charitably disposed towards me, was required to make up the sum of outrage which has been my portion to-day.--Have you seen the theatrical items in the evening papers?" With trembling hands he spread out a newspaper upon his knees. "See the way that dirty reptile, Percy Gerrard, who succeeded me upon _The Daily Bulletin_, has chopped me and my play to mincemeat, cut bits of live flesh out of me and fried them in filth, and washed down my wounds with the vitriol of hypocritical compa.s.sion and good advice? That is the style of recognition a really first-cla.s.s work of art, fit to rank with the cla.s.sics, with Wycherley, and Congreve, and Sheridan, or Lytton--for there are qualities of all these very dissimilar masters in my writing--gets from the present-day press. As I have told you all along, the critics and playwrights hate me because they fear me. I have never spared them. I have exposed them and their ignorance, and want of scholarship, in print. They know I spoke the truth. Their hatred is witness to my veracity. They have been nursing their venom for years. Now with one consent they pour it forth. It is a vile plot and conspiracy. They were sworn to swamp me, so they formed a ring. They did not care what they spent so long as they succeeded in crushing me. Every one has been bought, miserably, scandalously bought.

This is the only conceivable explanation of the reception my play has met with. They got at the members of my company. My actors played better at first, better at rehearsal. Yesterday and to-day they have played like a row of wooden ninepins, of straw-stuffed scarecrows, of rot-stricken idiots! They missed their cues, and forgot their lines, or pretended to do so; and then had the infernal impertinence to giggle and gag, blast them!

I heard them. I could have screamed. I tried to stop them; and the stage-manager swore at me in the wings, and the scene-shifters laughed. It was a hideous nightmare. The audience laughed--the sound of it is in my ears now, and it tortures me, for it was not natural laughter. It was not spontaneous--how could it be so? It was simply part of this iniquitous conspiracy to ruin me. It was hired mockery, bought and paid for, the mockery of subsidised traitors, liars, imbeciles, the inhuman mockery of grinning apes!"

He crushed the newspaper together with both hands, flung it across the room, and broke into hysterical weeping.

"For my play is a masterpiece," he wailed. "It is a work of genius. No other man living could have written it. Yet it is d.a.m.ned by a brainless public and vindictive press, while I know and they know--they must know, the fact is self-evident--that it is great, nothing less than great."

During this harangue Dominic Iglesias stood immovable, facing the speaker, but looking down, not at him, rigid in att.i.tude, silent. Any attempt to stem the torrent of the wretched man's speech would have been futile.

Dominic judged it kindest just to wait, letting pa.s.sion tear him till, by force of its own violence, it had worn itself out. Then, but not till them, it might be helpful to intervene. Still the exhibition was a very painful one, putting a heavy strain upon the spectator. For be a fellow creature never so displeasing in nature and in habit, never so cankered by vanity and self-love, it cannot be otherwise than hideous to see him upon the rack. And that de Courcy Smyth was very actually upon the rack--a rack well deserved, may be, and of his own constructing, but which wrenched his every joint to the agony of dislocation nevertheless--there could be no manner of doubt. Coming as conclusion to the long day, to the peaceful evening--the thought of the Lady of the Windswept Dust, moreover, and her fortunes so eminently and presently just now in the balance, in his mind--the whole situation was horrible to Dominic Iglesias.

But Smyth's mood changed, his tears ceasing as incontinently as they had begun. He ceased to slouch and writhe, pa.s.sed his hands across his blood-shot eyes, drew himself up in his chair, began to snarl, even to swagger.

"I forget myself, and forget you, too, Mr. Iglesias--which is annoying,"

he said; "for you are about the last person from whom I could expect, or should desire to receive, sympathy. Persons of my world, scholars and idealists, and persons of your world, money-grubbing materialists, can, in the nature of things, have very little in common. There is a great gulf fixed between them. I beg your pardon for having so far forgotten myself as to ignore that fact, and talked on subjects incomprehensible to you.

What follows, however, will be more in your line, I imagine, and it is this which has made me come here to-night. You realise that your investment has turned out an unfortunate one? You have lost, irretrievably lost, your money."

"I was not wholly unprepared for that," Dominic answered. His temper was beginning to rise. Sodden with drink, maddened by failure, hardly accountable for his words or actions, still the man's tone was rather too offensive for endurance. "I had made full provision for such a contingency. I accept the loss. Pray do not let it trouble you."

"Oh! you accept it, do you? You were prepared for it?" Smyth broke in.

"You can afford to throw way a cool three hundred pounds--the expenses will amount to that at least in the bulk. How very agreeable for you!

Your late operations in the City must have been surprisingly profitable.

I was not aware, until now, that we had the honour of numbering a millionaire among us at Cedar Lodge. But let me tell you this extremely superior tone does not please me, Mr. Iglesias. It smells of insult. I warn you, you had better be a little careful. Even a miserable persecuted pauper like myself can make it unpleasant for those who insult him. I must request you to remember that I am a gentleman by birth, and that I have the feelings of my cla.s.s where my personal honour is concerned. Do you suppose I do not know perfectly well that the benevolent att.i.tude you have seen fit to a.s.sume towards me has been a blind, from first to last; and that every penny you have advanced me until now, as well as the three hundred pounds, the loss of which you so amiably beg me not to let trouble me, is hush-money? Yes, hush-money, I repeat, the price of my silence regarding your intrigue with my wife--my wife who calls herself--"

"We will introduce no woman's name into this conversation, if you please,"

Iglesias interrupted sternly.

The limit of things pardonable had been pa.s.sed. His face was white and keen as a sword. The weight of years and of failing health had vanished, burned up by fierce disgust and anger, as is mist by the sun-heat. He was young, arrogant in bearing, careless of consequence or of danger as some fifteenth-century finely bred fighting man face to face with his enemy and traducer, who, given honourable opportunity, he would kill or be killed by, without faintest scruple or remorse. And of this temper of mind his aspect was so eloquent that de Courcy Smyth, muddled with liquor though he was, seeing him, was seized with panic. He scrambled to his feet, flung himself behind the chair, clinging to the back of it for support.

"Don't look at me like that, you Spanish devil!" he whimpered. "You paralyse me. You hypnotise me. My brain is splitting. You're drawing the life out of me. I shall go mad. If you come a step nearer I'll make a scandal. I'll call for help. Ah! G.o.d in heaven, who's that?"

Only the housemaid entering, salver in hand, and leaving the door wide open behind her. Upon the landing with out, Farge and Worthington, in comic att.i.tudes, stood at attention.

"A telegram for you, sir. Is the boy to wait?" she inquired, in a stifled voice. "She could hardly keep a straight face," as she reported downstairs subsequently, "that ridiculous Farge was so full of his jokes."

Iglesias tore open the yellow envelope and held the telegraph-form to the light.

"Glorious luck. Happy as a queen. Come to supper after performance to-morrow. Love. Poppy,"

His face softened.