Part 14

Sergius--wondering, as much as the condition of his mind, possessed by one idea, would allow--filled his friend's glass. Anthony began to eat, with a well-assumed hunger. Sergius scarcely touched food, but drank a good deal of wine. The hands of the big oaken-cased clock that stood in a far corner of the room crawled slowly upon their round, recurring tour. Anthony's eyes were often upon them, then moved with a swift directness that was akin to passion to the face of Sergius, which was always strangely rigid, like the painted face of a mask.

"I sat by a woman to-day," he said presently, "sat by her in an attic that looked on to a narrow street full of rain, and watched her die."

"This morning?"

"Yes."

"And now she's been out of the world seven or eight hours. Lucky woman!"

"Ah, Sergius, but the mischief, the horror of it was that she wasn't ready to go, not a bit ready."

Sergius suddenly smiled, a straight, glaring smile, over the sparkling champagne that he was lifting to his lips.

"Yes; it's devilish bad for a woman or a--man to be shot into another world before they're prepared," he said. "It must be--devilish bad."

"And how can we know that any one is thoroughly prepared?"

Sergius' smile developed into a short laugh.

"It's easier to be certain who isn't than who is," he said.

The eyes of Anthony fled to the clock face mechanically and returned.

"Death terrified me to-day, Sergius," he said; "and it struck me that the most awful power that God has given to man is the power of setting death--like a dog--at another man."

Sergius swallowed all the wine in his glass at a gulp. He was no longer smiling. His hand went up to his left side.

"It may be awful," he rejoined; "but it's grand. By Heaven! it's magnificent."

He got up, as if excited, and moved about the room, while Anthony went on pretending to eat. After a minute or two Sergius sat down again.

"Power of any kind is a grand thing," he said.

"Only power for good."

"You're bound to say that; you're a parson."

"I only say what I really feel; you know that, Serge."

"Ah, you don't understand."

Anthony looked at him with a sudden, strong significance.

"Part of a parson's profession--the most important part--is to understand men who aren't parsons."

"You think you understand men?"

"Some men."

"Me, for instance?"

The question came abruptly, defiantly. Anthony seemed glad to answer it.

"Well, yes, Sergius; I think I do thoroughly understand you. My great friendship alone might well make me do that."

The face of Sergius grew a little softer in expression, but he did not assent.

"Perhaps it might blind you," he said.

"I don't think so."

"Well, then, now, if you understand me--tell me--"

Sergius broke off suddenly.

"This champagne is awfully good," he said, filling his glass again.

"What were you going to say?" Anthony asked.

"I don't know--nothing."

Anthony tried to conceal his disappointment. Sergius had seemed to be on the verge of over-leaping the barrier which lay between them. Once that barrier was overleapt, or broken down, Anthony felt that the mission he had imposed upon himself would stand a chance of being accomplished, that his gnawing anxiety would be laid to rest. But once more Sergius diffused around him a strange and cold atmosphere of violent and knowing reserve. He went away from the table and sat down close to the fire. From there he threw over his shoulder the remark:--

"No man or woman ever understands another--really."

III

Anthony did not reply for a moment and Sergius continued:--

"You, for instance, could never guess what I should do in certain circumstances."

"Such as--"

"Oh, in a thousand things."

"I should have a shrewd idea."

"No."

Anthony didn't contradict him, but got up from the dinner-table and joined him by the fire, glass in hand.

"I might not let you know how much I guessed, how much I knew."

Sergius laughed.

"Oh, ignorance always surrounds itself with mystery," he said.

"Knowledge need not go naked."

Again the eyes of the two friends met in the firelight, and over the face of Sergius there ran a new expression. There was an awakening of wonder in it, but no uneasiness. Anxiety was far away from him that night. When passion has gripped a man, passion strong enough, resolute enough, to over-ride all the prejudices of civilisation, all the promptings of the coward within us, whose voice, whining, we name prudence, the semi-comprehension, the criticism of another man cannot move him. Sergius wondered for an instant whether Anthony suspected against what his heart was beating. That was all.

While he wondered, the clock chimed the half hour after nine. He heard it.

"I shall have to go very soon," he said.

"You can't. Just listen to the rain."

"Rain! What's that got to do with it?"

Sergius spoke with a sudden unutterable contempt.

"Ring for another bottle of champagne," Anthony replied. "This one is empty."

"Well--for a parson and a teetotaller, I must say!"

Sergius rang the bell. A second bottle was opened. The servant went out of the room. As he closed the door, the wind sighed harshly against the window panes, driving the rain before it.

"Rough at sea to-night," Anthony said.

The remark was an obvious one; but, as spoken, it sounded oddly furtive, and full of hidden meaning. Sergius evidently found it so, for he said:

"Why, whom d'you know that's going to sea to-night?"

Anthony was startled by the quick question, and replied almost nervously:--

"Nobody in particular--why should I?"

"I don't know why, but I think you do."

"People one knows cross the channel every night almost."

"Of course," Sergius said indifferently.

He glanced towards the clock and again mechanically his hand went up, for a second, to his left breast. Anthony leaned forward in his chair quickly, and broke into speech. He had seen the stare at the clock-face, the gesture.

"It's strange," he said, "how people go out of our lives, how friends go, and enemies!"

"Enemies!"

"Yes. I sometimes wonder which exit is the sadder. When a friend goes--with him goes, perhaps for ever, the chance of saying 'I am your friend.' When an enemy goes--"

"Well, what then?"

"With him goes, perhaps for ever, too, the chance of saying, 'I am not your enemy.'"

"Pshaw! Parson's talk, Anthony."

"No, Sergius, other men forgive besides parsons; and other men, and parsons too, pass by their chances of forgiving."

"You're a whole Englishman, I'm only half an Englishman. There's something untamed in my blood, and I say--damn forgiveness!"

"And yet you've forgiven."

"Whom?"

"Olga Mayne."

The face of Sergius did not change at the sound of this name, unless, perhaps, to a more fixed calm, a more still and pale coldness.

"Olga is punished," he said. "She is ruined."

"Her ruin may be repaired."

Sergius smiled quietly.

"You think so?"

"Yes. Tell me, Sergius"--Anthony spoke with a strong earnestness, a strong excitement that he strove to conceal and hold in check--"you loved her?"

"Yes, I loved her--certainly."

"You will always love her?"

"Since I'm not changeable, I daresay I shall."

Anthony's thin, eager face brightened. A glow of warmth burned in his eyes and on his cheeks.

"Then you would wish her ruin repaired."

"Should I?"

"If you love her, you must."

"How could it be repaired?"

"By her marriage with--Vernon."

Anthony's strong voice quivered before he pronounced the last word, and his eyes were alight with fervent anxiety. He was looking at Sergius like a man on the watch for a tremendous outbreak of emotion. The champagne he had drunk--a new experience for him since he had taken orders--put a sort of wild finishing touch to the intensity of the feelings, under the impulse of which he had forced himself upon Sergius to-night. He supposed that his inward excitement must be more than matched by the so different inward excitement of his friend. But he--who thought he understood!--had no true conception of the region of cold, frosty fury in which Sergius was living, like a being apart from all other men, ostracised by the immensity and peculiarity of his own power of emotion. Therefore he was astonished when Sergius, with undiminished quietude, replied:

"Oh, with Vernon, that charming man of fashion, whose very soul, they say, always wears lavender gloves? You think that would be a good thing?"

"Good! I don't say that. I say--as the world is now--the only thing. He is the author of her fall. He should be her husband."

"And I?"

Anthony stretched out his hand to grasp his friend's hand, but Sergius suddenly took up his champagne glass, and avoided the demonstration of sympathy.

"You can be nothing to her now, Serge," Anthony said, and his voice quivered with sympathy.

"You think so? I might be."

"What?"

"Oh, not her husband, not her lover, not her friend."

"What then?"

Sergius avoided answering.

"You would have her settle down with Vernon in Phillimore Place?" he said. "Play the wife to his noble husband? Well, I know there's been some idea of that, as I told you yesterday."

The clock chimed ten. Although Sergius seemed so calm, so self-possessed, Anthony observed that now he paid no heed to the little, devilish note of time. This new subject of conversation had been Anthony's weapon. Desperately he had used it, and not, it seemed, altogether in vain.

"Yes; as you told me yesterday."

"And it seems good to you?"

"It seems to me the only thing possible now."

"There are generally more possibilities than one in any given event, I fancy."

Again Anthony was surprised at the words of Sergius, who seemed to grow calmer as he grew more excited, who seemed, to-night, strangely powerful, not simply in temper, but even in intellect.

"For a woman there is sometimes only one possibility if she is to be saved from ignominy, Serge."

"So you think that Olga Mayne must become the wife of Vernon, who is a--"

"Coward. Yes."

At the word coward, Sergius seemed startled out of his hard calm. He looked swiftly and searchingly at Anthony.

"Why do you say coward?" he asked sharply. "I was not going to use that word."

Anthony was obviously disconcerted.

"It came to me," he said hurriedly.

"Why?"

"Any man that brings a girl to the dust is a coward."

"Ah--that's not what you meant," Sergius said.

Anthony stole a glance at the clock. The hand crawled slowly over the quarter of an hour past ten.

"No, it was not," he said slowly.

IV

Sergius got up from his chair and stood by the fire. He was obviously becoming engrossed by the conversation. Anthony could at least notice this with thankfulness.

"Anthony, I see you've got a fresh knowledge of Vernon since I was with you yesterday," Sergius continued; "some new knowledge of his nature."

"Perhaps I have."

"How did you get it?"

"Does that matter?"

"You have heard of something about him?"

"No."

"You have seen him, then; I say, you have seen him?"

Anthony hesitated. He pushed the champagne bottle over towards Sergius. It had been placed on a little table near the fireplace.

"No; I don't want to drink. Why on earth don't you answer me, Anthony?"

"I have always felt that Vernon was a coward. His conduct to you shows it. He was--or seemed--your friend. He saw you deeply in love with this--with Olga. He chose to ruin her after he knew of your love. Who but a coward could act in such a way?"

An expression of dark impatience came into the eyes of Sergius.

"You are confusing treachery and cowardice, and you are doing it untruthfully. You have seen Vernon."

Anthony thought for a moment, and then said:

"Yes, I have."

"By chance, of course. Why did you speak to him?"

"I thought I would."

Sergius was obviously disturbed and surprised. The deeply emotional, yet rigid calm in which he had been enveloped all the evening was broken at last. A slight excitement, a distinct surface irritation, woke in him. Anthony felt an odd sense of relief as he observed it. For the constraint of Sergius had begun to weigh upon him like a heavy burden and to move him to an indefinable dread.

"I wonder you didn't cut him," Sergius said. "You're my friend. And he's--he's--"

"He's done you a deadly injury. I know that. I am your friend, Serge; I would do anything for you."

"Yet you speak to that--devil."

"I spoke to him because I'm your friend."

Sergius sat down again, with a heavy look, the look of a man who has been thrashed, and means to return every blow with curious interest.

"You parsons are a riddle to me," he said in a low and dull voice. "You and your charity and your loving-kindness, and your turning the cheek to the smiter and all the rest of it. And as to your way of showing friendship--"

His voice died away in something that was almost a growl, and he stared at the carpet. Between it and his eyes once more the mist seemed rising stealthily. It began to curl upwards softly about him. As he watched it, he heard Anthony say:--

"Sergius, you don't understand how well I understand you."

The big hand of the clock had left the half-hour after ten behind him. Anthony breathed more freely. At last he could be more explicit, more unreserved. He thought of a train rushing through the night, devouring the spaces of land that lie between London and the sea that speaks, moaning, to the South of England. He saw a ship glide out from the dreary docks. Her lights gleamed. He heard the bell struck and the harsh cry of the sailors, and then the dim sigh of a coward who had escaped what he had merited. Then he heard Sergius laugh.

"That again, Anthony!"

"Yes. I didn't meet Vernon by chance at all."

"What? You wrote to him, you fixed a meeting?"

"I went to Phillimore Place, to his house."

Sergius said nothing. Strange furrows ploughed themselves in his young face, which was growing dusky white. He remained in the attitude of one devoted entirely to listening.

"You hear, Sergius?"

"Go on--when?"

"To-day. I decided to go after I met you yesterday night--and after I had seen that woman die--unprepared."

"What could she have to do with it?"

"Much. Everything almost."

Anthony got up now, almost sprang up from his chair. His face was glowing and working with emotion. There was a choking sensation in his throat.

"You don't know what it is," he said hoarsely, "to a man with--with strong religious belief to see a human being's soul go out to blackness, to punishment--perhaps to punishment that will never end. It's abominable. It's unbearable. That woman will haunt me. Her despair will be with me always. I could not add to that horror."

His eyes once more sought the clock. Seeing the hour, he turned, with a kind of liberating relief, to Sergius.

"I couldn't add to it," he exclaimed, almost fiercely, "so I went to Vernon."

"Why?"

"Sergius--to warn him."

There was a dead silence. Even the rain was hushed against the window. Then Sergius said, in a voice that was cold as the sound of falling water in winter:--

"I don't understand."

"Because you won't understand how I have learnt to know you, Sergius, to understand you, to read your soul."

"Mine too?"

"Yes; I've felt this awful blow that's come upon you--the loss of Olga, her ruin--as if I myself were you. We haven't said much about it till yesterday. Then, from the way you spoke, from the way you looked, from what you said, even what you wouldn't say, I guessed all that was in your heart."

"You guessed all that?"

Sergius was looking directly at Anthony and leaning against the mantelpiece, along which he stretched one arm. His fingers closed and unclosed, with a mechanical and rhythmical movement, round a china figure. The motion looked as if it were made in obedience to some fiercely monotonous music.

"Yes, more--I knew it."

Sergius nodded.

"I see," he said.

Anthony touched his arm, almost with an awe-struck gesture.

"I knew then that you--that you intended to kill Vernon. And--God forgive me!--at first I was almost glad."

"Well--go on!"

Anthony shivered. The voice of Sergius was so strangely calm and level.

"I--I--" he stammered. "Serge, why do you look at me like that?"

Sergius looked away without a word.

"For I, too, hated Vernon, more for what he had done to you even than for what he had done to Olga. But, Sergius, after you had gone, in the night, and in the dawn too, I kept on thinking of it over and over. I couldn't get away from it--that you were going to commit such an awful crime. I never slept. When at last it was morning, I went down to my district; there are criminals there, you know."

"I know."

"I looked at them with new eyes, and in their eyes I saw you, always you; and then I said to myself could I bear that you should become a criminal?"

"You said that?"

The fingers of Sergius closed over the china figure, and did not unclose.

"Yes. I almost resolved then to go to Vernon at once and to tell him what I suspected--what I really knew."

The clock struck eleven. Anthony heard it; Sergius did not hear it.

"Then I went to sit with that wretched woman. Already I had resolved, as I believed, on the course to take. I had no thought for Vernon yet, only for you. It seemed to me that I did not care in the least to save him from death. I only cared to save you--my friend--from murder. But when the woman died I felt differently. My resolve was strengthened, my desire was just doubled. I had to save not only you, but also him. He was not ready to die."

Anthony trembled with a passion of emotion. Sergius remained always perfectly calm, the china figure prisoned in his hand.

"So--so I went to him, Sergius."

"Yes."

"I saw him. Almost as I entered he received your letter, saying that you forgave him, that you would call to-night after eight o'clock to tell him so, and to urge on his marriage with Olga. When he had read the letter--I interpreted it to him; and then I found out that he was a coward. His terror was abject--despicable; he implored my help; he started at every sound."

"To-night he'll sleep quietly, Anthony."

"To-night he has gone. Before morning he will be on the sea."

The sound of the wind came to them again, and Sergius understood why Anthony had said: "Rough at sea to-night."

Suddenly Sergius moved; he unclosed his fingers: the ruins of the china figure fell from them in a dust of blue and white upon the mantelpiece.

"No--it's too late, Sergius. He went at eleven."

Sergius stood quite still.

"You came here to-night to keep me here till he had gone?"

"Yes."

"That's why you--"

He stopped.

"That's why I came. That's why I broke my pledge. I thought wine--any weapon to keep you from this crime. And, Sergius, think. Vernon dead could never have restored Olga to the place she has lost. That, too, must have driven me to the right course, though I scarcely thought of it till now."

Sergius said, as if in reply: "So you have understood me!"

"Yes, Sergius. Friendship is something. Let us thank God, not even that he is safe, but that you--you are safe--and that Olga--"

"Hush! Has she gone with him?"

"She will meet him. He has sworn to marry her."

The hand of Sergius moved to his left breast. Anthony's glowing eyes were fixed upon him.

"Ah, yes, Sergius," Anthony cried. "Put that cursed, cursed thing down, put it away. Now it can never wreck your life and my peace."

Sergius drew out the revolver slowly and carefully. Again the mist rose around him. But it was no longer white; it was scarlet.

There was a report. Anthony fell, without a word, a cry.

Then Sergius bent down, and listened to the silence of his friend's heart--the long silence of the man who intervened.

AFTER TO-MORROW

I

In his gilded cage, above the window-boxes that were full of white daisies, the canary chirped with a desultory vivacity. That was the only near sound that broke the silence in the drawing-room of No. 100 Mill Street, Knightsbridge, in which a man and a woman stood facing one another. Away, beyond his twittering voice, sang in the London streets the muffled voice of the season. The time was late afternoon, and rays of mellow light slanted into the pretty room, and touched its crowd of inanimate occupants with a radiance in which the motes danced merrily. The china faces of two goblins on the mantelpiece glowed with a grotesque meaning, and their yellow smiles seemed to call aloud on mirth; but the faces of the man and woman were pale, and their lips trembled, and did not smile.

She was tall, dark, and passionate-looking, perhaps twenty-eight or thirty. He was a few years older, a man so steadfast in expression that silly people, who spring at exaggeration as saints spring at heaven, called him stern, and even said he looked forbidding--at balls.

At last the song of the canary was broken upon by a voice. Sir Hugh Maine spoke, very quietly. "Why not?" he said.

"I don't think I can tell you," Mrs. Glinn answered, with an obvious effort.

"You prefer to refuse me without giving a reason?"

"I have a right to," she said.

"I don't question it. You cannot expect me to say more than that."

He took up his hat, which lay on a chair, and smoothed it mechanically with his coat-sleeve.

The action seemed to pierce her like a knife, for she started, and half-extended her hand. "Don't!" she exclaimed. "At least, wait one moment. So you belong to the second class of men."

"What do you mean?"

"Men are divided into two classes--those who refuse to be refused, and those who accept. But don't be too--too swift in your acceptance. After all, a refusal is not exactly a bank-note."

She tried to smile.

"But I am exactly a beggar," he answered, still keeping the hat in his hand. "And if you have nothing to give me, I may as well go."

"And spend the rest of your life in sweeping the old crossing?"

"And spend the rest of my life as I can," he said. "That need not concern you."

"A woman must be all to a man, or nothing?"

"You must be all to me, or nothing."

She sat down in an arm-chair in that part of the room that was in shadow. She always sat instinctively in shadow when she wanted to think.

"Well?" Sir Hugh said. "What are you thinking?"

She glanced up at him. "That you don't look much like a beggar," she said.

"It is possible to feel tattered in a frock-coat and patent-leather boots," he answered. "Good-bye. I am going back to my crossing." And he moved towards the door.

"No, stop!" she exclaimed. "Before you go, tell me one thing."

"What is it?"

"Will you ever ask me to marry you again?"

He looked hard into her eyes. "I shall always want to, but I shall never do it," he said slowly.

"I am glad you have told me that. We women depend so much on a repetition of the offence, when we blame a man for saying he loves us, and ask him not to do it again. If you really mean only to propose once, I must reconsider my position."

She was laughing, but the tears stood in her eyes.

"Why do you want to make this moment a farcical one?" he asked rather bitterly.

"Oh, Hugh!" she answered, "don't you see? Because it is really--really so tragic. I only try to do for this moment what we all try to do for life."

"Then you love me?" he said, moving a step forward.

"I never denied that," she replied. "I might as well deny that I am a woman."

He held out his arms. "Eve--then I shall never go back to the crossing."

But she drew back. "Go--go there till to-morrow! To-morrow afternoon I will see you; and if you love me after that--"

"Yes?"

She turned away and pressed the bell. "Good-bye," she said. Her voice sounded strange to him.

He came nearer, and touched her hand; but she drew it away.

"You may kiss me," she said.

"Eve!"

"After to-morrow."

The footman came in answer to the bell. Mrs Glinn did not turn round. "I only rang for you to open the door for Sir Hugh," she said. "Good-bye then, Sir Hugh. Come at five."

"I will," he answered, wondering.

When he had gone, Mrs Glinn sat down in a chair and took up a French novel. It was by Gyp. She tried to read it, with tears running over her cheeks. But at last she laid it down.