She took it, perking and preening herself, and began to say something about Mrs. Malcomson in agreement with his last remark: "You are quite right about her," Mr. St. John overheard. "She is always jeering at men.

She abuses you wholesale. I've heard her often."

Captain Belliot's face darkened; but he put his arm round his partner, and they glided off together slowly.

When next they pa.s.sed Mr. St. John, their faces wore a similar expression of drowsy sensuous delight, which gave them for the moment a curious likeness to each other. They looked incapable of speech or thought, or anything but the slow measure of their interwoven paces, and inarticulate emotion.

The scene made a painful impression on Mr. St. John, and he began to feel as much out place as he looked.

"We churchmen are a failure," he thought. "We have done no good, and are barely tolerated. Poetry of the pulpit--spiritual anodyne--what is it?

Something I cannot grasp; but something wrong somewhere. Is Mrs. Malcomson right? Is Mr. Price? Where are they?"

He looked about, but the dancers with parted lips and drowsy dreamy eyes, intoxicated with music and motion, floated past him in endless, regular succession, hemming him in, so that he could not move till the music stopped.

CHAPTER V.

Mrs. Malcomson had made her way over to where Evadne and Mrs. Beale were sitting. Both welcomed her cordially, and Evadne, in particular, brightened visibly when she saw her approach. She was wearied by these vapid men, who had all said the same thing, and looked at her with the same expression one after the other the whole afternoon. Mrs. Sillenger and Mr. Price were also of the party, and Mrs. Malcomson, in a merry mood, was holding forth brightly when Mr. St. John joined them.

"Oh, yes, we have our reward, we Englishwomen," she was saying. "We religiously obey our men. We do nothing of which they disapprove. We are the meekest sheep in the world. We scorn your independent, out-spoken American women, Mr. Price; we think them bold and unwomanly, and do all we can to be as unlike them as possible. And what happens? Do our men adore us? Well, they continue to say so. But it is the Americans they marry."

Mr. Price twitched his nose and smiled.

"But, tell me, Mr. Price," Mrs. Malcomson rattled on: "The fate of nations has hung upon your opinion, and your decisions are matter of history: so kindly condescend, of your goodness and of your wisdom, to tell us if you think that '_true_ womanliness' is endangered by our occupations, or the cut of our clothes--I have it!" she broke off, clasping her hands, "Make us a speech! _Do_!!"

"Oh, yes, _do_!" the rest exclaimed simultaneously.

Mr. Price's mobile countenance twitched all over. He looked from one to the other, then, entering good-humouredly into the jest, he struck an att.i.tude: "If true womanliness has been endangered by occupation or the fashion of a frock in the past, it will not be so much longer, or the signs of the times are most misleading," he began, with the ease of an orator. "The old ideals are changing, and we regret them--not for their value, for they were often mischievous enough; but as a sign of change, to which, in itself, mankind has an ineradicable objection--yet these changes must take place if we are ever to progress. For myself," he continued--"I should be very sorry to say that anything which honourable women of the day consider a reform, and propose to adopt, is 'unwomanly' or 'uns.e.xing,'

until it has been thoroughly tried, and proved to be so. It sounds mere idiotcy, the thing is so obvious, when one reduces it to words, but yet neither men nor women themselves--for the most part--seem to recognize the fact that womanliness is a matter of s.e.x, not of circ.u.mstances, occupation, or clothing; and each s.e.x has instincts and proclivities which are peculiar to it, and do not differ to any remarkable extent even in the most diverse characters; from which we may be sure that those instincts are safe whatever happens. And as to the value of cherished 'ideals of womankind'--well, we have only to look back at many of the old ones, which had to be abandoned, and have been held up to the laughter and contempt of succeeding ages--although doubtless they were dear enough to the heart of man in their own day--to appreciate the, worth of such. That little incident of Jane Austin, hiding away the precious ma.n.u.script she was engaged upon, under her plain sewing, when visitors arrived, ashamed to be caught at the 'unwomanly' occupation of writing romances, and shrinking with positive pain from the remarks which such poor foolish people as those she feared would have made about her--that little incident alone, which I remarked very early in life, has saved me from braying with the rest of the world upon this subject. If those brave women, sure of themselves and of their message, who have written in the face of all opposition, had not dared to do so, how much the poorer and meaner and worse we should all, men and women alike, have been to-day for want of the nourishment of strength and goodness with which they have kept us provided. And you will find it so in these questions of our day. Women are bringing a storm about their ears, but they are prepared for that, and it will not deter them; for they have an infallible prescience in these matters which men have not, and they know what they are doing and why, and could make their motives plain to us if it were not for our own stupid prejudices and density. Ah! these are critical times, but I believe what a fellow-countryman of mine has already written--I believe that the women will save us. I do not fear the fate of the older peoples. I am sure that we shall not fall into nothingness from the present height of our civilization, by reason of our sensuality and vice, as all the great nations have done, heretofore. The women will rebel. The women will not allow it. But"--he added with his benign smile, dropping into a lighter tone, as if he felt that he had been more serious than the occasion warranted, and addressing Mrs. Malcomson specially--"but you must not despise your personal appearance. Beauty is a great power, and it may be used for good as well as for evil. Beauty is beneficent as well as malign.

Angels are always allowed to be beautiful, and our highest ideal of manhood is a.s.sociated with physical as well as moral perfection. Yes! Be sure that beauty is a legitimate means of grace; and I will venture to suggest that you who have it should use it as such." Here he was interrupted by applause. "True beauty, I mean, of course," he added, descending from the rostrum, as it were, and speaking colloquially--"not the fashionable travesty of it."

"Well, that is a piece of servility I have never been so degraded as to practise," Mrs. Malcomson exclaimed.

"Ah, my dear, it does not do to be singular," Mrs. Beale mildly remonstrated.

A dance concluded just at this moment, and Edith joined the group, followed by Sir Mosley Menteith.

The ladies looked at her as she approached with affectionate interest and admiration.

"I am always conscious of their presence," she was saying.

"Whose presence, dear?" her mother asked.

"The presence of those who love us, mother, in the other life," she said, looking out into s.p.a.ce with great serious eyes, as if she saw something grand and beautiful, and also love-inspiring. The words and her presence changed the whole mental att.i.tude of the group. The intellectual element subsided, the spiritual, which trenches on sensation and is warm, began to glow in their b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Edith was the actor now, and Mrs. Malcomson became a mere spectator. Mr. St. John was the first to appreciate the change.

Edith's presence, more than her words, was enough in itself to relax the tension of pained reflection which had possessed him the whole afternoon.

It was as if a draught of the sacred anodyne to which he had been so long accustomed were being held out to him, and he had drained it eagerly, to excite feeling, and to drown thought.

"Mosley does not think they are so near us as I know them to be," Edith pursued; "but I tell him, if only he would allow himself, he would perceive their presence just as I do. He says this scene is so worldly it would frighten them; but I answer that they cannot be frightened; they are incorruptible, so that there is nothing for them to fear for themselves--but they may fear for us, and when they do, we know that it is then that they are nearest to us. They come to guard us."

Menteith's glance wandered over her person as she spoke, and returned again to meet her eyes. He quite enjoyed a thrill of superst.i.tious awe; it was an excellent _sauce piquante_ to what he called his "sentiments"-- by which he meant the state of his senses at the moment. He recognized in Edith no higher quality than that of innocence, which is so appetizing.

But a gentle thrill, as of an electric shock, had pa.s.sed through them all, silencing them. Mrs. Beale, with a sigh, released herself from the uneasy impression Mrs. Malcomson's words had made upon her, and felt the peace of mind, which she managed to preserve by refusing to know of anything that might disturb it and rouse her soul from its apathetic calm to the hara.s.sing point of action, restored. Mrs. Sillenger gave herself up for the moment also. Her fine nature, although highly tempered and exceedingly sensitive, was too broad to, allow her to delude herself by imagining that it is right to countenance evil by ignoring it. She shrank from knowledge, but still she had the courage to possess herself of it; and, fortunately, her very sensitiveness enabled her to turn with ease from the consideration of terrible facts to the enjoyment of a fine idea.

Mrs. Malcomson and Mr. Austin Price looked at each other involuntarily.

The new element was not congenial to either of them. But Mr. St. John was satisfied. His heart had expanded to the full: "Mr. Price is wrong, Mrs.

Malcomson is wrong," was the new measure to which he set his thoughts.

"They exaggerated the evil; they have never perceived in what the good consists. And what do they do with all their wondrous clever talk? They withdraw our attention from the contemplation of holy things only to pain and excite us; for sin must continue, and suffering must continue, and we can do no more than we have done. Example--a good example! We have only each to set one, and say nothing. Talk, talk, talk; I will listen no more to such tattle! It is mere pride of intellect, which is put to shame by the first gentle innocent girl who comes, strong in purity and faith, and simply bids us all look up! Did not our heart burn within us? Was not the worst among us and the most worldly moved to repent?" He looked across at Menteith, but suddenly the exaltation ceased, and his soul shot with a pang to another extreme. "He is not worthy of her--he is not worthy of her--no! no! Heaven help me to save her from such a fate!" His mind had been nourished upon inconsistencies, and he was as unconscious of any now as he was when he preached--as he had been taught--that G.o.d orders all things for the best, and at the same time prayed him to avert some special catastrophe.

Menteith was bending over Edith.

"I want to lunch with you to-morrow," he said. "Do let me. I love to hear you talk. Just to be near you makes a better man of me. But you can make anything you like of me; you know you can. May I come?"

Edith glanced tip at him and smiled, and the young man, taking this for acquiescence, bowed and withdrew in triumph, making way for Colonel Colquhoun.

Evadne looked up at the latter and smiled too. "Shall we go?" she said.

"I came to see if you were ready," he answered, and then she rose, took leave of the friends about her, crossed the deck to where Captain Belliot, her host, was standing, shook hands with him, and left the ship. Many eyes had followed her with curiosity and interest; and many tongues made remarks about her when she was gone, expressing positive opinions with the confident conceit of mediocrity, although she had not at that time made any sign of what manner of person she really was. She had only been a week amongst them, and her mind had been in a state of pa.s.sive receptivity the whole time, subject to the impressions which might be made upon it, but not itself producing any. It was her appearance that they presumed to judge her by. But her intellect had been both nourished and stimulated that afternoon, and when she went to her room at night she hunted up a ma.n.u.script book suitable for the purpose, and resumed her old habit of noting everything of interest which she had seen and heard. There were blank pages still in the old "Commonplace Book," and she had it with her, but she never dreamt of making another note in it. She had written her last there once for all the night before her wedding, expecting to enter upon a new phase of existence; and she had indeed entered upon a new phase, although not at all in the way she had expected; and now she felt that only a new volume would be appropriate to contain the record of it.

She ended her notes that night with a maxim which probably contained all the wisdom she had been able to extract from her late experiences:--"Just do a thing, and don't talk about it," she wrote, expressing herself colloquially. "This is the great secret of success in all enterprises.

Talk means discussion, discussion means irritation, irritation means opposition; and opposition means hindrance always, whether you are right or wrong."

CHAPTER VI.

Evadne settled down into her new position at once. She took charge of the household and managed it well. Colonel Colquhoun was scrupulous in matters of etiquette, and Evadne's love of order and exact.i.tude made her punctilious too, so that there was one subject which they agreed upon perfectly, and it very soon came to be said of them that they always did the right thing. They appeared together everywhere, at the Palace receptions, the opera, entertainments on naval vessels, dinners and dances, polo and picnics, and at church. If there was one thing that Colquhoun was more particular about than another it was, in the language of his own profession, church parade. Watching Evadne to detect the first symptom of new tactics on her part, became one of the interests of his life. It wouldn't have been good form to take another man into his confidence for betting purposes, seeing that the lady was "Mrs. Colquhoun"; but a wager laid upon the chances of change in her "views" was the only zest lacking to the pleasure he took in the study of this new specimen of her s.e.x. He used to dance a good deal himself, and danced well too, but after Evadne joined him he gave it up to a great extent, and might often have been seen leaning against a pillar in a ball room gravely observing her. It was a kind of curiosity he suffered from, a sort of rage to make her out. He was very attentive to her at that period, treating her always with the deference due to a young lady, and for that reason she accepted his attentions gratefully, because they were delicately paid and he was really kind, but also as a matter of course. They had begun well together from the very first day, and she was soon satisfied that her position at Malta was the happiest possible. The beautiful place, the bright clear atmosphere, the lively society, all suited her. She had none of the trials peculiar to married life to injure her health and break her spirit, none of the restrictions imposed upon a girl to limit her pleasures, and she enjoyed her independence thoroughly. But of course there were drawbacks, and the thing of all others she disliked most was being toadied. There was one pair of inveterate toadies in the garrison, Major and Mrs. Guthrie Brimston. They belonged to a species well-known in the service, and tolerated on the principle of _d.a.m.ne-toi, pourvu que tu nous amuse_.

Major Guthrie Brimston claimed to be one of the Morningquest family, and he had a portrait of the duke, as the head of the house, in his dressing room. It was balanced on the right by _Ecce h.o.m.o_, and on the left by the _Sistine Madonna_, but it was popularly supposed that he worshipped the duke. The pair acted the role of devoted husband and wife successfully, being in fact sincere in their habit of playing into each other's hands for their own selfish purposes; and people who wished for an excuse to tolerate them because they were amusing, might say of them quite truly: "Well, whatever their faults, they are certainly devoted to each other." But it was a partnership of self-interest, enhanced by a little sentimentality, and they understood it themselves, for Mrs. Guthrie Brimston confessed in a moment of expansion that she knew "Bobbie" would marry again directly if she died, and certainly she would do the same if she lost him; why shouldn't she?

Mrs. Guthrie Brimston was a nasty-minded woman, of extremely coa.r.s.e conversation, and, without compromising herself, she was a fecund source of corruption in others. No younger woman of undecided character could come under her influence without being tainted in mind if not in manners.

She delighted in objectionable stories, and her husband fed her fancy from the clubs liberally. Her stock-in-trade consisted for the most part of these stories, which she would retail to her lady friends at afternoon teas. She told them remarkably well too, and knew exactly how to suit them to palates which were only just beginning to acquire a taste for such fare, and were still fastidious. Wherever she came there was laughter among the ladies, of the high hysteric bacchante kind, not true mirth, but a loud laxity, into which they were beguiled for the moment, and which was the cause of self-distrust, disgust, and regret, upon reflection, to the better kind. If the question of motive is to be taken into account in considering the words and deeds of people, it may be confidently a.s.serted that the Guthrie Brimstons never said a good-natured thing nor did a kind one. "I say, Minnie, if I give that sergeant of mine a goose at Christmas, I think I'll get more work out of the fellow next year," Major Brimston said to his wife at breakfast one morning.

"Yes, do," his wife answered sympathetically. "And I say, Bobbie, I'm going to work Captain Askew a bedspread. He's an awfully useful little man."

One form of pleasantry the Guthrie Brimstons greatly affected was nicknaming. They nicknamed everybody, always opprobriously, often happily in the way of hitting off a salient peculiarity; but they were not in the least aware that they were themselves the best nicknamed people in the service. And they would not have liked it had they known it, for they were both exceedingly touchy. They held no feelings of another sacred, but their own supreme. Mrs. Guthrie Brimston was known as "The Brimston Woman."

Her conversation bristled with vain repet.i.tions. She was always "a worm"

when asked after her health, and everything that pleased her was "pucka."

She knew no language but her own, and that she spoke indifferently, her command of it being limited for the most part to slang expressions, which are the sc.u.m of language; and a few stock phrases of polite quality for special occasions. But she used the latter awkwardly, as workmen wear their Sunday clothes.

Of the Guthrie Brimston morals it is safe to say that they would neither of them have broken either the sixth, seventh, or eighth commandments; but they bore false witness freely--not in open a.s.sertion, however, for that could be easily refuted, and fair fight was not at all in their line. But when false witness could be meanly conveyed by implication and innuendo, it formed the staple of their conversation.

"Those Guthrie Brimstons should be public prosecutors," Evadne said to Colonel Colquhoun at breakfast one morning, commenting upon some story of theirs which he had just retailed to her. "I notice when anyone's character is brought forward to be judged by society they are always Counsel for the Prosecution."

These were the people whom Colonel Colquhoun first introduced to Evadne.

They amused him, and therefore he encouraged them to come to the house.