Part 15

"I am sure of it," John answered earnestly. "I appreciate that in my heart. Let us talk together, Stephen, as we used. I will admit that I have found most of the time up here wearisome. On the other hand, I am beginning to understand that I have been, and still am, very ignorant. There is so much in the world that one can only learn by experience."

"And what are you willing to pay for the knowledge?" Stephen asked. "Your health, I suppose, your simple life, your love of the pure ways--all these are to go into the melting-pot?"

"There's no such payment demanded for the things I am thinking of," John assured his brother. "Take art, for instance: We reach the fringe of it with our books. There are pictures, even here in London, which when you look at them, especially with one who understands, give a new vigor to your understanding, a new resource to living. You become conscious of a new beauty in the world, a new garden, as it were, into which one can wander every day and yet not explore it in a lifetime. I have seen enough, Stephen, to make me want to go to Italy. It's a shameful thing to keep one's brain and taste unemployed!"

"Who takes you to see the pictures?" Stephen demanded.

"Miss Maurel, generally. She understands these things better than any one I have ever talked with."

"Pictures, eh?" Stephen grunted.

"I mentioned pictures as an example," John continued; "but the love of them includes many other things."

"Theaters?"

"Of course," John assented. "It's no good being narrow about theaters, Stephen. You read books readily enough, and theaters are only living books, after all. There is no real difference."

"There is a difference in plays, though, as there is a difference in books," Stephen reminded him. "What about the play Miss Maurel is acting in now? She's a man's mistress in it, isn't she, and glories in it?"

John, who had been walking about the room, came and sat down opposite to his brother. He leaned a little forward.

"Stephen," he confessed, "I loathed that play the first night I saw it. I sha'n't forget how miserable I was. Louise was so wonderful that I could see how she swayed all that audience just by lifting or dropping her voice; but the story was a horror to me. The next day--well, she talked to me. She was very kind and very considerate. She explained many things. I try my best, now, to look at the matter from her point of view."

Stephen's eyes were filled for a moment with silent scorn. Then he knocked out the ashes from his pipe.

"You're content, then, to let the woman you want to make your wife show herself on the stage and play the wanton for folks to grin at?" he asked.

John rose once more to his feet.

"Look here, Stephen," he begged, a little wistfully, "it isn't any use talking like that, is it? If you have come here with evil things in your mind about the woman I love, we had better shake hands and part quickly. She'll be my wife some day, or I shall count my life a failure, and I don't want to feel that words have passed between us--"

"I'll say no more, John," Stephen interrupted. "I was hoping, when I came, that there might be a chance of seeing you back home again soon. It's going to be an early spring. There was June sunshine yesterday. It lay about the hillsides all day and brought the tender greens out of the earth. It opened the crocuses, waxy yellow and white, all up the garden border. The hedgerows down in the valley smelled of primrose and violets. Art and pictures! I never had such schooling as you, John, but there was old Dr. Benson at Clowmarsh--I always remember what he said one day, just before I left. I'd been reading Ruskin, and I asked him what art was and what it meant. 'My boy,' he answered, 'art simply represents man's passionate desire to drag the truth out of life in half a dozen different ways. God does it for you in the country!' They called him an ignorant man, old Benson, for a schoolmaster, but when I'd struggled through what I could of Ruskin, I came to the conclusion that he and I were something of the same mind."

"It's good to hear you talk like that, Stephen," John said earnestly. "You're making me homesick, but what's the sense of it? For good or for evil, I am here to wrestle with things for a bit."

"It's no easy matter for me to open out the things that are in my heart," Stephen answered. "I am one of the old-fashioned Strangeweys. What I feel is pretty well locked up inside. The last time you and I met perhaps I spoke too much; so here I am!"

"It's fine of you," John declared. "I remember nothing of that day. We will look at things squarely together, even where we differ. I'm--"

He broke off in the middle of his sentence. The door had been suddenly opened, and Sophy Gerard made a somewhat impetuous entrance.

"I'm absolutely sick of ringing, John," she exclaimed. "Oh, I beg your pardon! I hadn't the least idea you had any one with you."

She stood still in surprise, a little apologetic smile upon her lips. John hastened forward and welcomed her.

"It's all right, Sophy," he declared. "Let me introduce my brother, may I? My brother Stephen--Miss Sophy Gerard."

Stephen rose slowly from his place, laid down his pipe, and bowed stiffly to Sophy. She held out her hand, however, and smiled up at him delightfully.

"How nice of you to come and see your poor, lonely brother!" she said. "We have done our best to spoil him, but I am afraid he is very homesick sometimes. I hope you've come to stay a long time and to learn all about London, as John is doing. If you are half as nice as he is, we'll give you such a good time!"

From his great height, Stephen looked down upon the girl's upturned face a little austerely. She chattered away, entirely unabashed.

"I do hope you're not shocked at my bursting in upon your brother like this! We really are great pals, and I live only just across the way. We are much less formal up here, you know, than you are in the country. John, I've brought you a message from Louise."

"About to-night?"

She nodded.

"Louise is most frightfully sorry," she explained, "but she has to go down to Streatham to open a bazaar, and she can't possibly be back in time to dine before the theater. Can you guess what she dared to suggest?"

"I think I can," John replied, smiling.

"Say you will, there's a dear," she begged. "I am not playing to-night. May Enser is going on in my place. We arranged it a week ago. I had two fines to pay on Saturday, and I haven't had a decent meal this week. But I had forgotten," she broke off, with a sudden note of disappointment in her tone. "There's your brother. I mustn't take you away from him."

"We'll all have dinner together," John suggested. "You'll come, of course, Stephen?"

Stephen shook his head.

"Thank you," he said, "I am due at my hotel. I'm going back to Cumberland to-morrow morning, and my errand is already done."

"You will do nothing of the sort!" John declared.

"Please be amiable," Sophy begged. "If you won't come with us, I shall simply run away and leave you with John. You needn't look at your clothes," she went on. "We can go to a grill-room. John sha'n't dress, either. I want you to tell me all about Cumberland, where this brother of yours lives. He doesn't tell us half enough!"

John passed his arm through his brother's and led him away.

"Come and have a wash, old chap," he said.

They dined together at Luigi's, a curiously assorted trio--Sophy, between the two men, supplying a distinctly alien note. She was always gay, always amusing, but although she addressed most of her remarks to Stephen, he never once unbent. He ate and drank simply, seldom speaking of himself or his plans, and firmly negativing all their suggestions for the remainder of the evening. Occasionally he glanced at the clock. John became conscious of a certain feeling of curiosity, which in a sense Sophy shared.

"Your brother seems to me like a man with a purpose," she said, as they stood in the entrance-hall on their way out of the restaurant. "Like a prophet with a mission, perhaps I should say."

John nodded. In the little passage where they stood, he and Stephen seemed to dwarf the passers-by. The men, in their evening clothes and pallid faces, seemed suddenly insignificant, and the women like dolls.

"For the last time, Stephen," John said, "won't you come to a music-hall with us?"

"I have made my plans for the evening, thank you," Stephen replied, holding out his hand. "Good night!"

He left them standing there and walked off down the Strand. John, looking after him, frowned. He was conscious of a certain foreboding.

XXVI

"I suppose," Sophy sighed, as they waited for a taxicab, "we shall spend the remainder of the evening in the usual fashion!"

"Do you mind?" John asked.

"No," she assented resignedly. "That play will end by making a driveling idiot of me. Only think for yourself! At first we had to rehearse an extra month to please M. Graillot. I never had more than a dozen lines to say, even before my part was practically cut out, but I had to be there every time. Now it has been running for I don't know how many nights, I have played in it half the time, and if your highness ever vouchsafes me a few hours in the evening, you turn to me about nine o'clock with just the same plaintive expression, and murmur something about going on to the theater!"

"We'll do something else to-night," John proposed heroically. "I really had no idea that you were so fed up with it."

Sophy shook her head. They were in the taxicab now and on their way.

"Too late!" she sighed. "Besides, my sense of economy revolts at the idea of your empty box. If Louise is tired to-night, though, I warn you that I shall insist upon supper."

"It's a bargain," John promised. "We'll drive Louise home, and then I'll take you back to Luigi's. We haven't been out together for some time, have we?"

She looked up at him with a little grimace and patted his hand.

"You have neglected me," she said. "I think all these fine ladies have turned your head."

She drew a little closer to him and passed her arm through his. John made no responsive movement. He was filled with resentment at the sensation of pleasure that her affectionate gesture gave him.

"I might as well try to flirt with a statue!" she declared, discontentedly. "What makes you so unlike other people, you man of granite? You used to kiss me very clumsily when I asked you to, and now--why, how hot your hand is!"

John pushed her away almost roughly.

"Yes, I know I did," he admitted, "and now I don't want to any more, do you see? It's this cursed place and this cursed life! One's feet seem always on the sands. I wouldn't have believed it when I first came here. Don't tease me, Sophy," he added, turning toward her suddenly. "I am rather inclined to despise myself these last few weeks. Don't make me worse--don't make me loathe myself!"

She shrugged her shoulders a little pettishly as she leaned back in the cab.

"You are nothing but a crank," she declared; "you and your brother, too! You've lived among those flinty rocks till you've become almost like them yourselves."

The taxi drew up at the theater. John, with a little sigh of relief, was already out upon the pavement. Sophy's eyes were still shining at him through her veil, as she walked lightly and gracefully by his side, but he led the way in silence down the stairs to the box that he had taken for the season.

"And now," she exclaimed with a pout, as she leaned back in the corner, "my little reign is over! You will sit in the front seat and you will look at Louise, and feel Louise, and your eyes will shine Louise, until the moment for your escape comes, when you can go round to the back and meet her; and then you will try to make excuses to get rid of me, so that you can drive her home alone!"

"Rubbish, Sophy!" he answered, as he drew a chair to her side. "You know quite well that I can't sit in the front of the box, for the very prosaic reason that I haven't changed my clothes. We shall both have to linger here in the shadows."

"Well, there is some comfort in that, at any rate," Sophy confessed. "If I become absolutely overcome by my emotions, I can hold your hand."

"You had better not," John observed. "The stage manager has his eye on you. If his own artists won't behave in the theater, what can he expect of the audience?"

Sophy made a little grimace. "If they stop my three pounds a week," she murmured, "I shall either have to starve or become your valet!"

The curtain was up and the play in progress--a work of genius rather in its perfectly balanced development and its phraseology than in any originality of motive. Louise, married as an ingenue, so quickly transformed into the brilliant woman of society poking mild fun at the unsympathetic husband to whom she has been sold while still striving to do her duty as a wife, easily dominated every situation. The witty speeches seemed to sparkle upon her lips. While she was upon the stage, every spoken sentence was listened to with rapt attention. Graillot, seated as usual among the shadows of the opposite box, moved his head appreciatively each time she spoke, as if punctuating the measured insolence of her brilliance.

Exquisitely gowned, full of original and daring gestures, she moved about the stage as if her feet scarcely touched the boards. She was full of fire and life in the earlier stages of the comedy. She heaped mild ridicule upon her husband and his love-affairs, exchanged light sallies with her guests, or parried with resourceful subtlety the constant appeals of the man she loved.

The spell of it all, against which he had so often fought, came over John anew. He set his chair back against the wall and watched and listened, a veritable sense of hypnotism creeping over his senses. Presently the same impulse which had come to him so many times before induced him to turn his head, to read in the faces of the audience the reflection of her genius. He had often watched those long lines of faces changing, each in its own way, under the magic of her art. To-night he looked beyond. He knew very well that his search had a special object. Suddenly he gripped the arms of his chair. In the front row of the pit, sitting head and shoulders taller than the men and women who lounged over the wooden rest in front of them, was Stephen. More than ever, among these unappropriate surroundings, he seemed to represent something almost patriarchal, a forbidding and disapproving spirit sitting in judgment upon some modern and unworthy wantonness. His face, stern and grave, showed little sign of approval or disapproval, but to John's apprehending eyes the critical sense was there, the verdict foredoomed. He understood as in a flash that Stephen had come there to judge once more the woman whom his brother desired.

At last the second act ended, and John pushed back his chair. Sophy, whose apprehensions were remarkably acute, especially where John was concerned, lifted the edge of the curtain and understood. She exchanged a quick glance with her companion.

"He won't like it!" she whispered.

"If only we could get him away before the next act!" John muttered.

They both glanced once more into the auditorium below. Many of the spectators had left their places to stroll about. Not so Stephen. Unflinchingly he sat there, with an air of dogged patience. He had bought a program and was reading the names, one by one.

"Is there nothing we can do?" Sophy asked. "Couldn't we send a message--persuade him that the last act isn't worth staying for?"

John shook his head.

"Stephen has come here with a purpose," he said gloomily. "I might have guessed it. He will see it through. He will sit there till the end."

The curtain went up again and the play moved on, with subtle yet inevitable dramatic power, toward the hated and dreaded crisis. Louise's moment of combined weakness and strength was so wonderfully natural, so very human, that its approach sent a thrill of anticipation through the audience. The intense lifelikeness of the play predominated over every other feeling. It was as if real things were happening, as if they were watching and listening to a woman at the moment of her choice. And then at last the tense moment, the sudden cessation of her husband's foolish laughter and futile taunts, the supreme denouement with its interval of breathless silence.

John, who was slowly tearing his program to pieces, turned his head toward the spot where his brother was sitting in the dimmer light. Stephen's countenance seemed to have changed into the color as well as the likeness of those granite rocks. The line of faces on either side of him appeared now curiously featureless. His eyes were still riveted upon that closed door, his eyebrows had come together in a stupendous frown.

Sophy had parted the curtain and was peeping through.

"Nothing in the world could make him understand!" she murmured. "Do you think it would be of any use if we met him outside?"

John shook his head.

"You can't convince people," he replied, "when you are unconvinced yourself."

The play came to an end presently, amid a storm of applause. The grim figure in the front of the pit remained motionless and silent. He was one of the last to leave, and John watched his retreating figure with a sigh. Sophy drew him away.

"We had better hurry round," she said. "Louise is always very quick getting ready."

They found her, as a matter of fact, in the act of leaving. She welcomed them naturally enough, but John fancied that her greeting showed some signs of embarrassment.

"You knew that I was going out to supper to-night?" she asked. "Or didn't I tell you? The prince has asked the French people from His Majesty's to meet M. Graillot at supper. I am hurrying home to dress."

John handed her into her waiting automobile in silence. She glanced into his face.

"Is anything the matter?" she asked.

"Nothing!"

"The prince would have asked you, without a doubt," Louise continued, "but he knows that you are not really interested in the stage, and this party is entirely French--they do not speak a word of English. _Au revoir!_ Sophy, take care of him, and mind you behave yourselves!"

She waved her hand to them both and threw herself back among the cushions as the car glided off. John walked to the corner of the street in gloomy silence. Then he remembered his companion. He stopped short.

"Sophy," he begged, "don't hold me to my promise. I don't want to take you out to supper to-night. I am not in the humor for it."

"Don't be foolish!" she replied. "If you stay alone, you will only imagine things and be miserable. We needn't have any supper, unless you like. Let me come and sit in your rooms with you."

"No!" he decided, almost roughly. "I am losing myself, Sophy. I am losing something of my strength every day. Louise doesn't help as she might. Don't stay with me, please. I am beginning to have moods, and when they come on I want to be alone."

She drew a little closer to him.

"Let me come, please!" she begged, with a pathetic, almost childlike quiver at the corner of her lips.

He looked down at her. A sudden wave of tenderness swept every other thought from his mind. His mental balance seemed suddenly restored. He hailed a passing taxi and handed Sophy into it.

"What a selfish pig I am!" he exclaimed. "Anyhow, it's all over now. We'll go back to Luigi's to supper, by all means. I am going to make you tell me all about that young man from Bath!"

XXVII

Louise glanced at her watch, sat up in bed, and turned reproachfully toward Aline.

"Aline, do you know it is only eleven o'clock?" she exclaimed.

"I am very sorry, _madame_," the latter hastened to explain, "but there is a gentleman down-stairs who wishes to see you. He says he will wait until you can receive him. I thought you would like to know."

"A gentleman at this hour of the morning?" Louise yawned. "How absurd! Anyhow, you ought to know better than to wake me up before the proper time."

"I am very sorry, _madame_," Aline replied. "I hesitated for some time, but I thought you would like to know that the gentleman was here. It is Mr. Stephen Strangewey--Mr. John's brother."

Louise clasped her knees with her fingers and sat thinking. She was wide awake now.

"He has been here some time already, _madame_," Aline continued. "I did not wish to disturb you, but I thought perhaps it was better for you to know that he was here."

"Quite right, Aline," Louise decided. "Go down and tell him that I will see him in half an hour, and get my bath ready at once."

Louise dressed herself simply but carefully. She could conceive of but one reason for Stephen's presence in her house, and it rather amused her. It was, of course, no friendly visit. He had come either to threaten or to cajole. Yet what could he do? What had she to fear? She went over the interview in her mind, imagining him crushed and subdued by her superior subtlety and finesse.

With a little smile of coming triumph upon her lips she descended the stairs and swept into her pleasantly warmed and perfumed little drawing-room. She even held out her hand cordially to the dark, grim figure whose outline against the dainty white wall seemed so inappropriate.

"This is very nice of you indeed, Mr. Strangewey," she began. "I had no idea that you had followed your brother's example and come to town."

She told herself once more that her slight instinct of uneasiness had been absurd. Stephen's bow, although a little formal and austere, was still an acknowledgment of her welcome. The shadows of the room, perhaps, had prevented him from seeing her outstretched hand.

"Mine is a very short visit, Miss Maurel," he said. "I had no other reason for coming but to see John and to pay this call upon you."

"I am greatly flattered," she told him. "You must please sit down and make yourself comfortable while we talk. See, this is my favorite place," she added, dropping into a corner of her lounge. "Will you sit beside me? Or, if you prefer, draw up that chair."

"My preference," he replied, "is to remain standing."

She raised her eyebrows. Her tone altered.

"It must be as you wish, of course," she continued; "only I have such pleasant recollections of your hospitality at Peak Hall that I should like, if there was any possible way in which I could return it--"

"Madam," he interrupted, "you must admit that the hospitality of Peak Hall was not willingly offered to you. Save for the force of circumstances, you would never have crossed our threshold."

She shrugged her shoulders. She was adapting her tone and manner to the belligerency of his attitude.

"Well?"

"You want to know why I have found my way to London?" he went on. "I came to find out a little more about you."

"About me?"

"To discover if there was anything about you," he proceeded deliberately, "concerning which report had lied. I do not place my faith in newspapers and gossip. There was always a chance that you might have been an honest woman. That is why I came to London, and why I went to see your play last night."

She was speechless. It was as if he were speaking to her in some foreign tongue.

"I have struggled," he continued, "to adopt a charitable view of your profession. I know that the world changes quickly, while we, who prefer to remain outside its orbit, of necessity lose touch with its new ideas and new fashions. So I said to myself that there should be no mistake. For that reason I sat in a theater last night almost for the first time in my life. I saw you act."

"Well?" she asked almost defiantly.

He looked down at her. All splendid self-assurance seemed ebbing away. She felt a sudden depression of spirit, a sudden strange sense of insignificance.

"I have come," he said, "if I can, to buy my brother's freedom."

"To buy your brother's freedom?" she repeated, in a dazed tone.

"My brother is infatuated with you," Stephen declared. "I wish to save him."