"Of course," she said, "if you want to be left alone----"

"But I don't," I interrupted, reaching for my hat. "I want to come too."

"You nice old thing!" she exclaimed, pa.s.sing her arm through mine.

"We'll walk to Heather Hill. Arthur says that we can see the sea from there. Come along!"

So we started away, the four of us together. Presently, however, Arthur and Isobel drew away in front. Allan, with a little grunt, stopped to light his pipe.

"Arthur may keep his compact in the letter," he said, "but in the spirit he breaks it every time their eyes meet. You can't blame him. It's human nature, after all--the gravitation of youth. Arnold, I'm afraid you awoke to your responsibilities too late."

"You think--that she understands?" I asked quietly.

"Why not? She is almost a woman, and she is older than her years. Look at them now. He wants to talk seriously, and she is teasing him all the time. She has the instinct of her s.e.x. She will conceal what she feels until the--psychological moment. But she does feel--she begins to understand. I am sure of it. Watch them!"

We kept silence for a while, I myself struggling with a sickening sense of despair against this newborn and most colossal folly. I think that I was always possessed of an average amount of self-control, but my great fear now was lest my secret should in any way escape me. Mabane's words had carried conviction with them. Life itself for these few deadly minutes seemed changed. The birds had ceased to sing, and the warmth of the sunshine had faded out of the fluttering east wind. I saw no longer the heath starred with yellow and purple blooms, the distant line of blue hills. The turf was no longer springy beneath my feet, a grey mist hung over the joyous summer morning. I was back again on my way from Bow Street, threading a difficult pa.s.sage through the market baskets of Covent Garden, the child stepping blithely by my side, graceful even then, notwithstanding her immatureness, and quaintly attractive, though her deep blue eyes were full of tears, and the white terror had not pa.s.sed wholly from her face. It was those few moments of her complete and trustful helplessness which had transformed my life for me, those few moments in which the huge folly of these later days had been born.

For her very coming seemed to have been at a chosen time--at one of those periods of weariness which a man must feel whose sympathy with and desire for life leads him into many and devious forms of distraction, only to find in time the same dregs at the bottom of the cup. The joy of her fresh childish beauty, her pure sweet trustfulness, at all times a delicate flattery to any man, just the more so to me, a little inclined towards self-distrust, was like a fragrant, a heart-stirring memory even now. I looked back upon these years which lay between her youth and my fast approaching middle-age--grey, weary years, whose follies seemed now to rise up and stalk by my side, the ghosts of misspent days, ghosts of the sickly reasonings of a sham philosophy which lead into the broad way because its thoroughfares are easy and pleasant, and pressed by the feet of the great majority. I kept my eyes fixed upon the ground and I felt that strange thrill of despair pulling at my heartstrings, dragging me downwards--the despair which is almost akin to physical suffering.... And then a voice came floating back to me down the west wind. Its call at such a moment seemed almost symbolical.

"Come along, you very lazy people! Arnold, may I walk with you for a little way? Arthur is not at all brilliant this morning, and he does not amuse me."

"I am afraid," I began, "that as an entertainer----"

"Oh, you want to smoke your pipe in peace, of course," she interrupted, laughing, and pa.s.sing her arm through mine. "Well, I am not going to allow it. I want you--to tell me things."

So our little procession was re-formed. Mabane, and Arthur with his hands deep in his pockets and an angry frown upon his forehead, walked on ahead. Behind came Isobel and I--Isobel with her hands clasped behind her, her head a little thrown back, a faint, wistful smile lightening the unusual gravity of her face. I looked at her in wonder.

"Come," I said, "what are the things you want me to talk to you about, and why are you tired of talking nonsense with Arthur?"

She did not look at me, but the smile faded from her lips. Her eyes were still fixed steadily ahead.

"I believe you think, Arnold," she said quietly, "that I am still a baby!"

I saw her lips quiver for a moment, and my selfishness melted away. I thought only of her.

"No, I do not think that, Isobel," I said gently. "Only if I were you I would not be in too great a hurry to grow up. It is when one is young, after all, that one walks in the gardens of life. Afterwards--when one has pa.s.sed through the portals--outside the roads are dusty, and the way a little wearisome. Stay in the gardens, Isobel, as long as you can.

Believe me, that life outside has many disappointments and many sorrows.

Your time will come soon enough."

She smiled at me a little enigmatically.

"And you?" she asked, "have you closed the gates of the garden behind you?"

"I am nearer forty than thirty," I answered. "I have grey hairs, and I am getting a little bald. I may still be of some use in the world, and there are very beautiful places where I may rest, and even find happiness. But they are not like the gardens of youth. There is no other place like them. All of us who have hurried so eagerly away, Isobel, look back sometimes--and long!"

She shook her head. Perhaps a little of the sadness of my mood had after all found its way into my tone, for she looked at me with the shadow of a reproach in her deep blue eyes, a faint tenderness which seemed to me more beautiful than anything I had ever seen.

"I do not think that I like your allegory, Arnold," she said. "After all, the gardens are the nursery of life, are they not? The great things of the world are all outside."

I held my breath for a moment in amazement. Since when had thoughts like this come to her? I knew then that the days of her childhood were numbered indeed, that, underneath the fresh joyous grace of her delightful youth, the woman's instincts were stirring. And I was afraid!

"The great things, Isobel," I said slowly, "look very fine from a distance, but the power of accomplishment is not given to all of us.

Every triumph and every success has its reverse side, its sorrowful side. For instance, the whole judgment of the world is by comparison. A great picture which brings fame to a man eclipses the work and lessens the reputation of another. A successful book takes not a place of its own, but the place of another man's work who must needs suffer for your success. Life is a battle truly enough, but it is always civil war, the striving of humanity against itself. That is why what looks so great to you from behind the hedge may seem a very hollow thing when you have won the power to call it your own."

She looked at me as though wondering how far I were in earnest.

"I think," she said, smiling, "that you are trying to confuse me. Of course, I have not thought much about such things, but when I am a little older, if there was anything I could do I should simply try to do it in the best possible way, and I should feel that I was doing what was right. There is room for a great many people in the world, Arnold--a great many novelists and a great many artists and a great many thinkers!

Some of us must be content with lesser places. I for one!..."

I walked home with Allan, and I spoke to him seriously.

"There is a duty before us," I said, "which up to now we have shirked.

The time has come when we must undertake it in earnest."

"You mean?"

"We must abandon our negative att.i.tude. Isobel comes, I am very sure, from no ordinary people. We must find out her place in life and restore her to it. She is a child no longer. It is not fitting that she should stay with us."

Mabane, too, was for a moment sad and silent. His face fell into stern lines, but when he answered me his tone was steady and resolute enough.

"You are right, Arnold," he answered. "We had better go back to London and begin at once."

It was perhaps a little ominous that I should find waiting for me on our return a telegram from Grooten:

"I must see you to-night. Shall call at your rooms twelve o'clock."

CHAPTER IX

Isobel interrupted the discussion with an imperative little tap upon the table.

"Please listen, all of you!" she exclaimed. "I have something to say, and an invitation for you all."

We had been dining at a little Italian restaurant on our way home, and over our coffee had been considering how to spend the rest of the evening. Arthur had declared for a music hall; Mabane and I were indifferent. Isobel up to now had said nothing.

"All my life," she said slowly, "I have been wanting to see Feurgeres.

He is in London for one week with Rejani, and if we can get seats I am going to take you all. I have twenty pounds in my pocket from that nice man Mr. Grooten, who bought my other miniature, and I want to spend some of it."

Arthur, who understood no French, shook his head.

"Not the slightest chance of seats," he declared. "They've all been booked for weeks."

"They often have some returned at the theatre," Isobel answered. "At least, if you others do not mind, we will go and see."

"Your proposal, Isobel," Allan said gravely, "indicates a certain amount of recklessness which reflects little credit upon us, your guardians. I propose----"

"Please do not be tiresome!" she interrupted. "Arnold, you will come with me, will you not?"