Part 27

During the fortnight that followed Mark saw Mrs. Perowne every day. The actress exercised over him strange powers of attraction and repulsion, which he tried to analyse: sensible that the repulsion was subtle and negative, whereas the attraction was obvious and positive. She had a score of charms; but beneath them lay something secret and hateful; possibly a cruelty not alien to red hair and red lips. By chance, one day, Mark said that strong smelling-salts held beneath the nose of a bulldog would make him relax his grip of another dog when more violent measures had failed. The actress had a Chow for whom she expressed extravagant affection. Before Mark could interfere, she had called the dog to her side and thrust beneath its sensitive nostrils some strong spirits of ammonia. The poor animal snuffed at them, and was almost strangled by the fumes. Mark, furious at such unnecessary cruelty, made hot protest and then got up to leave the room. Mrs. Perowne entreated forgiveness, pleading ignorance and thoughtlessness. Mark saw tears in her eyes; suborned witnesses, no doubt, but deemed honest by an honest man.

"I loathe cruelty," said Mark.

"Gonzales is cruel," she replied irrelevantly.

"But you like him?"

"I hate him--sometimes."

He divined in her a desire to talk about Gonzales.

"I hate him always," said Mark. "I don't want to hear his name mentioned. I know he is a beast."

"Would you like me to dismiss him?" she asked softly.

He stared at her in astonishment.

"Could you? I understood that he was in--indispensable, as actor and manager."

"No man is indispensable to--me," she said angrily. Then her face changed and softened, suffused by an extraordinary radiance of youth and vitality. "I mean to say," she murmured, "that no man, _yet_, has proved himself indispensable, but----"

She looked at Mark, who got up and began to pace the room, much agitated. Her lips were parted, revealing the small, white, resolute-looking teeth. She was reflecting, not without a sense of humour, that Mark was the first man of the many she liked who refused to dance to her piping. The fact allured her.

"I must go," he said abruptly.

"But you will come to-morrow?"

He hesitated, blushing like a girl, but on the morrow he came and found her friendly, genial, the "good sort": a role she could sustain to perfection. Mark, on the other hand, felt himself to be dull and irritable. Even the all-absorbing _Fenella_ failed to quicken his wits or pulses. He answered absently some suggestions in regard to the fourth act, staring at the speaker's eyes, as if trying to read their message instead of that of the lips.

"Why do you look at me like that?" she asked in a tone absolutely free from sentiment.

"I am trying to find the real Sybil."

"Sybils are mysteries," she said lightly. "Besides you come here to talk about the play--_hein_? not about me."

"I come here to talk about the play," he answered slowly, "but I go away to think about you."

"And the thoughts are not always pleasant ones?"

"Not always."

"You are truthful."

"Am I?"

"Most men are such liars. Gonzales, for example--ah, well, we won't talk of him. But the others--oh, the humbugs!"

In fluent, even tones, she began to speak of the men she knew intimately, the higher Bohemians of art and literature. It was impossible not to be amused by her sketches.

"This is caricature," said Mark.

"Studies from life."

"I'm glad I don't know those--gentlemen."

"You are a man of limitations; and you see others not as they are but as you would like them to be. That is why your books do not sell. Your characters are strongly drawn, but their strength is a reproach and an exasperation to readers of weaker clay. In books, as in real life, we like to meet people no better and perhaps worse than ourselves. You are handicapped by ideals, which bankrupt your ideas...."

On this theme she spoke volubly for some minutes. Mark listened, amazed at her perceptions, at her grasp of life as it is lived in London, at her audacity in dealing with problems.

"You look astonished," she concluded, "but nowadays revolt is a synonym of intelligence. As for me I revolt against stupid traditions and conventions. They are to me like those hideous horse-hair sofas and chairs upon which our grandfathers sat so stiffly. What? Good wear in them? I dare say they served their purpose, but now they are banished to obscure lodging-houses."

Mark repeated some of her phrases to Tommy Greatorex.

"She's as clever as she can stick," Tommy admitted, "but it's surface cleverness, like surface water, tricklings from a thousand sources more or less polluted. She's interested in you because you are different from--the others. Of course you're not interested in her--apart from her profession, I mean. I sent you to her because I knew you would be proof against her sorceries--the witch. Hullo!"

Mark was scarlet.

"I say--you're not interested, are you? She's a wrong 'un. I warned you."

"She has good in her."

Greatorex laughed.

"Good? A needle in a haystack. Seriously, Mark, you mustn't burn your fingers. Lord! I was so sure of you. I foresaw that you would excite her curiosity and interest; I knew that she would like you, as I said, better than your play. In a word I pulled the strings, but I thought I should make her dance, not you."

"She has been very kind to me."

"What have you been to her? Tell me to mind my own business, if you like. It's not worth minding, but that doesn't matter."

"I am going to ask Mrs. Perowne to marry me," Mark replied slowly.

"Phew-w-w!"

Instantly, Mark took his hat and marched out of the room. Tommy bit his nails till it occurred to him to light a pipe. Then he tried to continue his work, a special article, but he found it impossible to write a line. Mark's face and eyes disturbed him. Finally, he flung down his pen in a rage.

"I thought I knew him," he muttered, "I thought I knew him. This is the bottomless pit, and I led him blindfold to the edge of it."

Suddenly he bethought himself of Pynsent. Pynsent knew Mrs. Perowne, had painted her portrait--a revelation of character in colour. Accordingly he wired to Pynsent, asking him to dine at a small restaurant in Baker Street, and mentioning that a subject of importance was to be discussed. Pynsent wired back an acceptance for the same evening, and the men met at eight o'clock. They sat down to sharpen their appetites upon some excellent salted fillets of herring. Not till the _marmite_ was swallowed did Greatorex give his perplexity words. Then he said abruptly--

"You painted Mrs. Perowne?"

"You bet I did--inside and out."

"Did she make love to you?"

"N-n-no," Pynsent replied, not quite readily.

"Why not be frank? I can hold my tongue."

"I think," Pynsent admitted cautiously, "that she expected me to make love to her, but I didn't. I took a dislike to the woman. And it came out in the picture. Unpleasant things were said about it at the time, but she liked it. She told me I had succeeded. And--Great Scott!--so I had."

"She has captivated and is captivated by Mark Samphire. He is going to marry her."

"What?"

"It is partly my fault, but I was so sure of--him." He told the story at length. "And now what are we to do?"

"Mark--Mark!" Pynsent kept repeating stupidly. "It is incredible. Mark Samphire--and Sybil Perowne!"

"She has never denied herself anything."

"She'll suck every ounce of good blood from his body. It would be kindness to knock him on the head."

"It would be pleasure to knock her on the head," said Tommy gloomily.

"We can do nothing," said Pynsent, at length, as he lit one of his Caporal cigarettes, which he smoked between the courses. "There was Maiden. When I studied at the Beaux Arts, Maiden was the coming man. By Jove! he had come. I remember his big picture in the Salon of '79. Crowds stood in front of it, jabbering like monkeys. It was great, great. And France bought it. It hangs in the Luxembourg to-day. Well, Maiden had a model, a queer little devil of a girl with huge black eyes whom he stuck into all his pictures. He bought her from her mother out of a slum, the Rue du Haut-Pave, close to the cabaret du Soleil d'Or, and she followed him about like a spaniel, all over Normandy and Brittany. We wondered what would happen when the child became a woman. Gad! we might have guessed for a year and a day and never hit the truth. Maiden married her! He, the wit, the scholar, the gentleman, married that guttersnipe. And he hasn't painted a picture for fifteen years! I tell you, Tommy, that it's impossible to predict what any man will do when he comes in contact with the wrong woman."

"Or with the right one," said Greatorex, frowning.

They drank their coffee, and by mutual consent went to the Miraflores Music Hall, feeling that anything which might distract their thoughts from Mark would prove a relief. The place was crowded as usual, and Pynsent, pulling out a pencil, began to draw heads upon a piece of paper placed in his hat, while Tommy watched his facile fingers, much amused by the remarks which punctuated every line.

"People must relax," the painter was saying. "These places would be empty if we lived normal lives. A self-respecting savage would be bored to death here."

"True," said Tommy. "If you want to find sense nowadays you must hunt for it in the South Pacific, in the islands which Captain Cook and Mr. Thomas Cook did not find. Hullo, there's Jim Corrance."

"Why not tell him," said Pynsent quickly. "He's Mark's oldest friend; he'd do anything for Mark; and he's a practical sort of chap, too."

Jim joined them with alacrity, obviously glad to see Pynsent, who, of late, had dropped out of his file. The three secured a table in the corner of the foyer, where they could talk without fear of being overheard, for the noise--the shrill laughter of the women, the deep notes of the men, the blare of the band--was deafening. Jim, however, not knowing Mrs. Perowne, save by reputation, was unable to realise the gravity of the situation.

"Aren't you fellows making a mountain of a molehill?" he asked. "And, besides, what can old Mark offer Sybil Perowne?"

"A new sensation," said Tommy grimly. His face impressed Corrance. Pynsent nodded gloomily.

"There's David Ross," said Jim.

"The Bishop of Poplar?"

"At one time Mark and he were hand-in-glove. He used to be a wonder-worker."

"Oh, he is still," said Greatorex. "I thought we should get something out of you, Corrance."

"But a parson----" began Pynsent doubtfully.

"He was the amateur middleweight champion before he took Orders," said Corrance, "and it's the pugilist in him, not the parson, which has made him the man he is. He'll tackle Mark, never fear. He tackles me--periodically, but all the same, if this thing is serious he will accomplish nothing."

"That is what I say," Pynsent added.

But Tommy, the smallest and weakest of the three, doggedly persisted. Finally he persuaded Corrance to seek out the Bishop of Poplar. Having extracted a promise to this effect, he took leave of the others, for his article, due on the morrow, had to be finished that night. Pynsent and Corrance remained together. As the little man plunged into the crowd, Pynsent said: "Tommy Greatorex would cut off his right hand for Mark, but I've heard men call him selfish and self-centred."

Corrance at once began to analyse this indisputable fact, sticking out his chin, and talking with an aggressive frankness which much amused the painter, who said presently:

"We may as well admit, Jim, that we're cold-blooded, you and I----"

"For the sake of argument--yes. Go on!"

"Partly because of that we've succeeded. I can't see myself, or you, my boy, chucking our work to help others, although after the work was done we might write a cheque--eh?"

"You had better have another whisky and potass."

"Thanks. I will."

They watched the Miraflores ballet from a couple of balcony stalls. Fabulous sums had been spent upon the costumes of the dancers, who represented flowers and butterflies. Pynsent became absorbed in the spectacle of light and colour and movement. Now and again he jogged Corrance with his elbow, calling his attention to this effect and that, muttering inarticulate exclamations. The lights in the theatre were turned low, so that the stage, a blaze of golden splendour, attracted all eyes. Then, suddenly, like a sun in eclipse, the stage itself was obscured. One saw luminous shadows through which floated spirits of the air, mysterious winged beings; the butterflies seeking the flowers at the approach of night. Impenetrable darkness succeeded as the band stopped playing. In the foyer, men and women crowded together craned their heads in one direction, awaiting the supreme moment. It came. Out of the darkness glided a dazzling creature, veiled in what seemed to be a tissue of diamonds. From her alone emanated light, a myriad sparkles. She advanced slowly with white, outstretched arms, a smile upon her face. At the edge of the stage she poised herself for flight. Not a sound broke the silence, but one felt the throb and thrill of a thousand hearts. Then a faint strain of music suffused the air, as the creature took wing. She soared upward and forward, following the curve of an ellipse. Thus soaring, she scattered flowers which fell everywhere, filling the house with perfume. In the dome of the building she vanished. A sigh of pleasure escaped the lips of the spectators. The vision reappeared, gliding forward as before out of obscurity. Once more, for the last time, she soared upward and vanished.

"Let us go," said Pynsent. "That was the immortal spirit of Love. And she vanished--no wonder--in this temple of----" He shut his lips, for his neighbours were staring at him.

Corrance rose, muttering: "The expenses must be stupendous; but Miraflores shares are at 219. I bought a nice little block at 127 eighteen months ago."

"Shut up, you miserable materialist!"

"I can't afford to be anything else--nor can Mark, poor devil!"

"I beg your pardon," said Pynsent hurriedly.

They pushed their way through the crowd, pausing at the top of the broad stairs which led to the street below. The atmosphere, charged with odours of musk and patchouli and reeking of strong cigars, was overpoweringly oppressive. But on almost every face, pale beneath the glare of the electric light, flamed a curious satisfaction, curious because with rare exceptions it was artificial. The exception may be mentioned. A thick-set man, remarkable by reason of his white hair and pink smooth face, stood at the entrance, bowing and beaming. The habitues knew him, and nodded carelessly as they passed by. Some exchanged a few words. The man seemed to be counting: reckoning the numbers present, computing gains.

"That's old Harry," said Corrance to the painter. "He runs this place. Hullo, Harry, how are you? Big house to-night."

"Big house every night," said Harry complacently. "You know that, Mr. Corrance. It's prime--prime. I never get tired of watching it."

He rubbed his plump white hands together, beaming like an aged cherub.

"Holy Moses!" exclaimed Pynsent. "You never get tired of watching--this?" He indicated the promenade in a derisive gesture.

"Never," said Harry, opening his blue eyes in childish astonishment at such a question. "Why this is my show. I planned it. I stand here every night."

"It's meat and drink, old chap, isn't it?" said Corrance.

"I've got just where I wanted to be," Harry said solemnly. "The boys call me king of the music-halls."

"Good-night, your majesty," said Corrance, beginning to descend the stairs. "There's one that's happy and content," he added, as Pynsent and he strolled down the corridor.

"We're saprophytes," burst out Pynsent.

"I don't know what that means," said Jim, "but it sounds something nasty."

*CHAPTER XL*

*"COME!"*

True to his promise, Corrance sought out the Bishop of Poplar, and delivered himself of his message. David Ross nodded, but his fine eyes were troubled.

"What's happened to Mark?" said Corrance irritably. "D----n it all--I beg your pardon, David, but Mark would make you swear, bishop though you are."

"I'll see him," said David; "but I--I don't know--I fear----" He broke off abruptly. Then his eyes flashed. "What's happened to Mark?

"As for me," said Jim, "I can see, but Mark, the blind fool, wants a nurse or a keeper. He's half child, half lunatic. I'll go now. You're up to your nose in work, and so am I. I suppose you want money, you shameless beggar?"

"All I can get and all I can't get."

"I shall have to send you a cheque," Jim growled. "I tell everybody you're the dearest friend I've got. Good-bye."

He retreated hastily, fearing a lecture. David returned to an enormous correspondence with which his secretary was endeavouring to cope. The poor man nearly burst into tears when his chief told him that he might be absent for several hours. David put on his hat, deaf to a score of protests.

"I'm going fishing," he said, "and, confound it! I've no bait."

Corrance had told him that Mark lunched at the Scribblers. To that club the Bishop took his way. There he learned that Mark was writing in the silence room. David walked in, unannounced, holding out his hand, which Mark refused to take.

"You went to Betty," he said fiercely.

"No."

"She failed me."

"Yes; she failed you, thank God."

"What brings you here?"

"You know perfectly well."

"But this is intolerable, this interference! Will you understand, Ross, that I insist upon your leaving me alone?"

"That is impossible, Mark. Why, I want you to come and stay with me for a month."

"I wonder they ordained you a bishop," said Mark. "I thought they made a point of choosing men of--tact."

"I've any amount of tact," said David cheerfully. "Mark, you're a madman, and in your soul you know it."

"Tommy Greatorex sent you on this fool's errand?"

"Yes; Greatorex and Jim and Pynsent. Your friends love you well, Mark. Have you no love for them?"

"I'll tell you something, Ross; it may save you time and trouble. The love I had for you fellows is dead--dead." Then, as a gesture of dismay escaped the Bishop, Mark added: "I cannot love anybody. If it could come back, if--but it won't. That's why I've kept away from most of you. You--you all bore me. Oh, it's my fault, I know. I've become a one-idea'd man. I can think of nothing but my play and the woman who is going to produce it, to give it life. She's become part of it, do you understand, part of me--me. I can't lie to you; but I'd like you to try to realise that the Mark Samphire you once knew is dead. Who killed Cock Robin?" he laughed. "I can't answer that question."

"You mean you won't," said the Bishop steadily. "Well, I believe in the resurrection of the dead. You will come to life again, Mark Samphire, but not at my touch."

He moved towards the door.

"David!"

The familiar name thrilled upon the air. It was Mark, the old Mark, speaking. In an instant the hands of the two friends were locked.

"I can't let you go like that," said Mark. "For all you have done and would do, I--thank you."

A few days passed without incident. Spring was abroad in the fields and woods, hailed by twittering birds and white blossoms. Mark felt her caress, and was sensible of that amazing calm which succeeds and precedes any strenuous effort. He let himself drift with the current, lulled almost to sleep by the lilt of the stream which bore him to the troubled waters beyond his ken.

Someone has said that a fine quality in a human being may become the source of disaster as well as triumph. One might go further, and add that a fine quality denied its triumph, may be wrecked in disaster. That love for others with which Mark had been endowed would have increased and multiplied in marriage. The man had the best qualities or a husband and father. He apprehended this with his reason, even as Betty apprehended it intuitively. But such manifest destiny had been denied him, as in like manner it was denied to his friend David Ross. But David had been given his triumph. His power of loving, purged from the taint of selfish emotion, had expanded enormously, incredibly, suffusing itself, divinely fluid, over vast areas, transmuting everything it touched, producing and reproducing with inexhaustible energy and fertility. Mark's love might have flowed into as many and diverse channels had it not been dammed by its bastard brother passion--hate.

Now, standing (as Greatorex had put it) on the brink of the bottomless pit, he was conscious that not only was love, the higher love, dead, but that hate also was moribund. He could think of Archibald as of one at an immeasurable distance--a shadowy figure, a blur upon the horizon. And since his meeting with Betty in Pynsent's studio, she also had faded, and become _unreal_, a phantom of the past, flitting from him into impenetrable shades.

This feeling of remoteness from the persons whose lives had been so interwoven with his own underwent a crucial test that same afternoon. In the _Globe_ Mark read that the see of Parham had been offered to and accepted by Archibald Samphire. His brother had reached the apex of his ambitions; he was the bishop-designate of a famous diocese in the North of England! Lower down, in the same column, was another paragraph--

"Mrs. Perowne is leaving London for the Continent. The famous actress, we are given to understand, has accepted a play by one of our rising novelists, a play which those who have read it declare to be quite out of the common."

Mark recognised the finger of Tommy in this, as well as the long arm of coincidence. Upon the page opposite the column of personal paragraphs was a sketch of his brother's life and labours. Mark laughed. The Bishop of Parham. A spiritual peer! And what a leg for a gaiter! He laughed again, reflecting that other paragraphs might be printed concerning a famous actress and a rising novelist. My lord would read them with horror.

Next day the _Times_ had a long leader about the Chrysostom of Chelsea. The late Bishop of Parham, an old infirm man, had distinguished himself as scholar, and then extinguished himself as prelate, lacking those powers of organisation which do not, perhaps, lend themselves to biblical exegesis and the Higher Criticism. His diocese--of great extent--had of late years increased enormously in population. The discovery of coal and a certain kind of clay had brought about an upheaval: the pastoral industries, which supported a few farmers and shepherds, still flourished, but side by side with colossal commercial enterprises. Towns, black with the smoke from a thousand factories, had sprung up like mushrooms upon turf that had never known a plough; railroads ravaged the face of the landscape with indelible lines; half a dozen fishing villages bade fair to become seaports of importance. With these new and complex conditions, the aged scholar had tried in vain to cope. Upon his death, at an advanced age, it was felt at headquarters that a young man must be selected to grapple with them: an athlete of tried physical strength, an abstainer (for the statistics in regard to drunkenness were appalling), an organiser, and above all things an eloquent preacher. For such a task no better nor abler man than Archibald Samphire could be found in the kingdom. The Prime Minister had made a wise selection, which the Dean and Chapter of Parham would, doubtless, approve and confirm. _And so forth_....

Mark bought other journals and read what was written about Parham and its bishop-designate. In each a few lines were accorded to the wife, who, by happy chance, was descended from the most ancient and distinguished of the border families. One paper contained the following:--