Part 16

"And so blonds are the elect, are they?" she said. "Now I know the scientific explanation for the popularity of peroxide of hydrogen."

"Joking aside," said the military man. It was a stock phrase in his domestic experiences. "Joking aside, I am sure our man of science will admit the importance of the--ah, the cephalic index?"

"Sir George, I look to you for protection."

"Head measurements, Lady Stuckley, that's all," explained Sir George with a smile. "Well, as to that," he went on, rising and coming to the library table, "a fellow by the name of Parchappe, who went in for that sort of thing, found 'the head of an intelligent woman to be perceptibly inferior to the dimensions of the head of an idiot.' Now, Stuckley, justify that to your wife if you can."

Lady Winifred laughed heartily.

"For Lord Kerhill," added the doctor to Winifred as he put a prescription on the corner of the table before her.

"It pleases Sir George to treat facts as jests," said the discomfited Gordon.

"Facts?" queried Winifred. "Facts? Why that is ground for divorce."

"Facts?" echoed the man of science gravely. "I wonder what are facts? The conviction of to-day is the derision of to-morrow. We have long used the skull and the brain to assign hopeless inferiority to various peoples, now comes along Finot and says: 'The skull and the brain furnish no argument in favor of organic inequality.' Lamarck--I think it's Lamarck--puts it better. He affirms that 'Nature has created neither classes nor orders, nor families, nor kinds, nor permanent species, but only individuals!'"

"That's the answer to the problem, Gordon," cried Lady Winifred triumphantly--"the Individual!"

Down the stairs came the Individual and lounged into the room. Hal knew at once from the suggestion of an embarrassed pause that he had been the subject of the conversation.

It is rather trying to one with a problem to have inept hands dipping in, messing it about.

The doctor was the first to regain his poise. He was used to difficult cases, and when he had to announce to the patient that he had only six weeks or six months to live, his manner was perfect. "Ah, Harold," he said with a kindly smile, putting his hand on the boy's arm with a reassuring touch, "splendid for your dear father, this home coming. You mustn't go away again." Then he dropped his voice for Hal's ear alone. "I'll be back. I want to speak with you before you retire," and the busy man passed out. Hal had on the conventional dinner coat. He looked at his relatives with an amused smile and came down to the table and started to help himself to a cigarette, then thought better of it, took some rice-paper from his pocket and made his own, manipulating it with one hand after the miraculous manner of the Mexican. When it was finished, amid the awed and fascinated wonder of the spectators, he lit a match on the leg of his trousers and lit the cigarette with the same hand to the dismay of Gordon and the joy of Winifred.

To Gordon's mind no well-bred person could really care for miracles.

"Well, Cousin Hal, you have been three years an exile! What a joy, eh? What a joy to be back in dear old London!"

The boy smiled as he took up his coffee.

"Do you remember Grafton? Used to be a pal of mine. Met him on the train coming up from Liverpool." The boy bent forward with an air of startled boredom. One could see Grafton. "Well, old chap, missed you awfully! Where have you been keeping yourself for the last _fortnight_?" He dropped the assumption.

"Cordial place--London! Out our way men and their characters go in their shirt sleeves." And he stretched his arms and the dinner coat popped ominously. For the moment he seemed to fill the library and it dwarfed most people.

"But you don't escape the rotter even out there, do you?" asked Winifred.

"No, but the rotter shouts himself out to all the world, and if you don't like the noise he makes you shoot it full of holes. Here they carry concealed weapons. I'm more at home with the shirt-sleeve crowd," and he sat down in the Charles II chair and threw his leg over one arm of it as he sipped his coffee.

Sir Gordon rose from the upholstered rail in front of the fireplace where he had been sitting, put down his empty coffee-cup, then stood up with the air of taking charge personally of Hal's tangled affairs.

"Well, Hal, my boy, you have come back prepared I presume to settle down, settle down to some career befitting an English gentleman." Sir Gordon paused to draw Hal's fire. As the young man did not dispute this assumption, he continued with patronizing pomposity.

"We must place you. We must place you, my boy. It won't be an easy matter, will it? Of course you can't go into trade. The Army is the only gentleman's game, but--we must not speak of that. We must not speak of that," and he hastened to get away from a subject so painful. "Now, how about the church?"

"The church?" asked Hal with a laugh.

"Oh, your father could get you a living." Then he added hastily: "It's respectable at least."

"For me? The church?"

"Oh, you don't have to go in for religion; oh, no; oh, my, no! None of that bally rot."

Seeing that her amiable husband was in very deep water, Winifred reached out her hand and encouraged him to go deeper.

"Hal, how stupid of you," she said. "You have assistants, curates, and that sort of thing who do the religion for you. You ride to hounds, play cricket for your county, and enjoy similar spiritual diversions."

"Well, you must do _something_," said Sir Gordon petulantly, annoyed with the young man's levity. "Of course whatever you decide to try, it is going to be a long hard struggle to live down the Army record; still with time and pluck it may be done. You are an earl's son and you have influential relatives. Well, then, how about politics?"

"Sit in the House and listen to the gabble on the Old Age Pensions and The Licensing Bill? I'd rather be a suffragette and go to jail."

Sir Gordon had exhausted the careers. It wasn't a career exactly, but people went in for it and it was a devilish nice thing to go in for.

"Well," he suggested, "there's the life of a country gentleman."

"The country would be all right," said Hal, "if the people would only stay away. They spoil everything. Even the gardens are as formal as the odious people, and the flowers, even the flowers, are made to look stiff and stuck-up and well-behaved, as if they felt they, too, were on exhibition and might be talked about. The country is only another setting for teas, tennis, and top hats, bridge, scandal, and flirting with each other's wives."

"Well, there's shooting," said Sir Gordon in desperation. "You used to like shooting."

"Yes, before people shot in mobs, and made it a function. Now they go into the solitudes, the cosey solitudes, with footmen, a French cook, vintage wines, and a Hungarian band."

Sir Gordon did not realize that his wife and Hal were having fun with his prejudices. He was on the edge of losing his patience.

"Well, if you stay _here_--" He was annoyed to observe that he had raised his voice almost to a vulgar scream. He repeated the phrase in a more temperate key. "If you stay here----"

"But I'm not going to stay here, Gordon. It's the West for me. It's in my blood. When I've visited with father and arranged one or two important matters, I'm goin' back to God's country."

"Bravo, Hal," exclaimed Lady Winifred. "If you stay here you'll end by becoming a conventional little snob, and I should hate you. No; go back to your shirt-sleeve crowd."

"Well, my dear boy," exclaimed Gordon completely nonplussed; "I can't make you out," and he made up his mind to beat a hasty retreat to the United Service Club, where anarchy was not petted and spoiled and fed on chocolate bonbons. Then he thought of something and came back.

"Winifred, speak to Hal about that."

"About what?" inquired Hal.

Again he lost some of his habitual poise in the fervor of his convictions.

"You must put your foot down, Hal; you really must--'er--for our sakes as well as for your own. You ought--er--Winifred will tell you," and the old soldier scrambled out of the trench and effected a most disorderly retreat.

His cousin Winifred was about six years older than Hal, and in all the memories of his childhood and boyhood she was the one bright spot. His step-mother had died when he was but a lad. His father was much occupied with public affairs. No one else seemed to care to understand the queer little chap except this tall, queer girl. She stood by and encouraged him to whip the first little brat that called him an insulting name, a name suggested by his color. Then she washed and wiped his resulting wounds, and encouraged him to believe that he was in the path of duty and on the road to glory. Thus encouraged, the shy, timid lad had quickly developed into a fierce little warrior, and it was Winifred who somehow realized and foresaw that if he were ever to enjoy the blessings of peace he would have to fight for them, and she got the head gardener's son who had a distinguished reputation as an amateur pugilist, to teach him how to box, an accomplishment in which he soon distanced his teacher, and one which was destined to be of the greatest service to him in his subsequent career. His readiness to meet all comers and his demonstrated ability to do so was his passport through life.

He had fought every step of the way from childhood to manhood. A battle or series of battles marked every change in environment, in school, in college, in his preparations for a military career. Soon it came as a routine. He knew he would have to "lick somebody" in order to be let alone. It didn't worry him, and he didn't seek these encounters, but he didn't mind them. In fact, it was one of the things he did exceptionally well. When he joined a swell regiment he had a terrific struggle to stay. He was "ragged" unmercifully, but he took his medicine, and before he was forced out, the regiment was ordered into the field, went through a campaign in which he had opportunities, which he eagerly accepted and with brilliant results, results which he took modestly. Eventually he compelled respect from his brother officers, but it was earned. Oh, it was earned! In all this bitter struggle with environment Cousin Winifred, this woman "with the serpent's tongue," was the only soul who knew and understood. He came over to her and put his hands affectionately on her shoulders.

"What is it you're to tell me?" he asked her.

"Dear, simple soul, he expects you to change Edith."

"Change Edith, eh?" Hal walked away with a queer look on his face. She continued: "One can dam a river and change its course. You can't do that with a woman. Edith will go on being Edith, I fancy, to the end of the chapter."

"She seems to be still rather careless of appearances," he said.

"She never was discreet, but there are many safely on the inside who are quite as careless. At all events, she's kept out of the papers. That's something. See here."

She showed him a London society journal whose leaves she had been turning and glancing at in a desultory fashion, one of those hybrid products of modern life which make a specialty of social garbage and elevate blackmail to the point of high art; a journal which every one calls "a rag" and which all smart people read religiously. Hal took it and glanced through the article hastily.

It was an account of a "well-known society woman," "name withheld out of consideration for her distinguished relatives and friends," who was found by a police officer wandering aimlessly in Hyde Park and utterly unable to give a lucid account of herself. Sir George _Blank_, a well-known specialist in nervous diseases, happens to be driving by, recognizes the unhappy lady, who is apparently under the influence of a powerful drug, and takes her to her home, etc., etc., etc.

"How awful!" he said. "Do you suppose it's true?"

"My dear boy, these things are becoming so common we're no longer shocked by them. Society has its favorites, and it has a broad mantle of charity for its favorites, but obviously one mustn't parade one's sins in Hyde Park. Edith hasn't been a huge social success, but she has kept out of the papers; she is still possible and she never gives up. She is still at it--climbing, climbing."

"And Lord Yester is the latest ladder, eh?"

"Why, you haven't been in England more than a few minutes. How did you find that out?"

"Why, my friend Grafton laid one of these illustrated papers down on the seat beside me as we came up in the train. I saw a picture of Edith and Lord Yester, and I had the pleasure of reading 'an open letter' to my wife. It was very instructive. I thought you said she had kept out of the papers."

"Oh, that's a small matter. That isn't publicity. That 'open letter' attention is merely an acknowledgment of her social prominence. That is a trifle. Lady Lucretia Burk-Owsley is dancing in one of our music halls. Now, you might object to that, though her husband, I understand, rather enjoys its democracy. It sort of takes the whole of London into the bosom of the family. She can't dance, of course, but she's a revelation. You must see it. Oh, we're not standing still."

"And Lord Yester?" suggested Hal. "What is his _raison d'etre_?"

"Lord Yester's vocation is Edith, his avocation is being next in succession to the old Duke of Uxminster, and the Duke is feeble enough to satisfy even the most impatient heir."

"A duchess, eh?"

"Nothing short of that."

"But Yester," objected Hal in dreamy retrospection; "Yester's a boy. His father, though he was old enough to be my father, was a pal of mine. We served together in South Africa. Why you remember, Winifred? He was forced into retirement because he justified my disobedience and refused to be silenced--God bless him! One of the few friends I've had in the world! His son, eh? Why, the youngster must be just out of his perambulator."

"Some women as they grow older suddenly display a fondness for children. When a woman has escaped being a mother, she sometimes meets her fate in the grandmother class."

"He's rather a nice child, if I remember correctly," said Hal.

"Well, not a 'double-first,' not an intellectual giant, but a nicely brought-up child; a credit to his nurse, and, incidentally, just at the age to be madly in love with a married woman, married, of course, to a clod who cannot possibly understand her."

Hal laughed.

"Yes, the _clod_ understands that. They have already made their plans, I suppose?"

"Oh, yes; and you're just in time to give the bride away. Now there's a novelty, and they're rare these days--a wedding in which the ex-husband is the new husband's best man. No? Well, Edith pays you the compliment of believing that you will behave very well under the circumstances. I was expected to prepare you for the inevitable and, if possible, soften the blow."

"And Lord Yester--is he willing?"

"Willing? Strenuously, madly willing. Personally, I think you are in tremendous luck. I congratulate you upon your prospective deliverance with all my heart."

Lady Winifred continued to play with the situation, turning it inside and outside, holding it up to fantastic derision, until she saw that he was not listening. The strain was off. He had resigned himself to pleasant dreams. He had been pulling against wind and tide, every muscle, every nerve stretched to cracking, his head bursting, his heart breaking, and making no progress, barely holding his own. Now the tide had turned. The storm had passed. He could take in his oars, sit in the stern, and just keep her in the current, the current that was bearing him on to his desires. He could rest in delicious lethargy and see the flowers and gardens on the bank, and see at the end of the beautiful journey Wah-na-gi standing on the rock, holding out her arms to him.

"How do you do, Harold? Welcome home."

Edith stood holding out her hand to him.

*CHAPTER XIX*

Instead of the little bronze figure in the buckskin dress with its straight, simple lines, as straight and simple as the soul within it, he saw a white woman, preternaturally white, the complex product of nature and art, where the dressmaker, the hair-dresser, and the jeweller had done their latest and best, with the soft, warm, dark colors of the library as a noble background, a chromatic frame. Her Paquin gown of canary yellow, cut very low, was bordered and outlined with dark-brown marabou feathers. On her dazzling neck rested a string of emeralds, the gift of Lord Yester. Her red hair was dressed, buttressed and supplemented by braids, coils and puffs, and surmounted by a diamond tiara. Her white hands were covered with rings, many of them with a history. This ornate combination was concealing and exposing an individuality more complex still, its barbaric impulses crossed and seamed and twisted by generations of acquired stress and strain. She was a radiant creature, conscious of her charms, but about her agate eyes were gathering little signals of distress, grave, insistent warnings, destined not to be heeded, saying that she had lived too fast, that she was at the zenith, the climax, that the descent would be quick and rapid. The wonderful mechanism wasn't working smoothly. "How do you do, Harold? Welcome home." And an extended hand. And this was her husband, returned from a long journey.

"Thank you, Edith," and he took her hand. She did not offer to kiss him and she gave him only one hand. He might have been a stranger to whom she had just been introduced. Indeed, she would have had more interest in a stranger. They had gone past even the forms of domestic procedure.

"Winifred," said her cousin, "Lord Yester is in the drawing-room. You get on so well together. Would you mind?"

"Not at all."

"I just want a moment's chat with Harold."

Winifred glanced at them with a cynical smile as she went out of the room. The situation appealed to her supreme love of contrast.

"You'll pardon my running off to-night, Harold; won't you? You see I didn't know in time, and I couldn't very well break a previous engagement. I asked Winifred to take my place and make you feel at home." And she undulated over to the railing before the fireplace and sat down in the genial glow in an indolent cat-like way. The fog had penetrated into the house and there was a chill in the dampness. She knew, too, that the fire shot strange lights into her hair and over her jewels and neck, and the desire to excite admiration was instinctive and ever present.

"Winifred is good company and she did her best," said Hal simply.

"And I knew that after a little chat with Winifred--well--that you would know all there was to know, and that there wouldn't be anything left for me to tell."

It was evident that neither woman had any illusions about the other. The attitude of rest and repose was only momentary. She got up restlessly and came forward, her eyes bent with fierce concentration upon his.

"Of course you haven't come back with the idea of changing anything?"

"Your attitude would seem to make that hopeless, Edith."

She was relieved. It was not to be open war, then. She turned half away, let her eyelids droop, and surveyed and measured him from underneath them. It gave her an oriental look.

"My dear Harold, it is too late for pretence between us. You will welcome a release quite as eagerly as I shall; and so we ought to be able to arrange matters. We have investigated your movements since you have been away and the name of the Indian woman will serve our purposes."

This produced a most disagreeable impression upon Hal.

"No," he said with a slow drawl that had menace in it. "No, I think not."

Edith turned and looked at him in amazement. It was a formality, one of those unpleasant formalities the silly law made necessary. The woman in view would never know of it, wouldn't care if she did. It seemed much the easier way. To her look of genteel astonishment he said in explanation:

"You see she is nothing but a savage. She wouldn't understand our refinements."

She laughed at his irony. Then he was in love, romantically in love. She laughed joyously. It seemed to make his acquiescence very certain.

"I won't oppose your application," she heard him say.

Of course he would not. Why should he? He loved this Indian woman. Her fears of a moment ago seemed childish, silly. She felt the situation pliant in her soft, cruel hand. Her heart leaped up within her. Her barque, too, was floating with the stream. It was a pleasure barge smothered in flowers but crowned with a coronet, and as it spread its silken sails to the perfumed breeze, everywhere in the crowded roadway shipping gave way and place, salutes were fired, and everywhere the air was thick with adulation and acclaim. And no small part of the anticipated triumph were the scowls of the envious and the evening of old scores.

"I make two stipulations," she heard him say.

She held her breath. Had he led her on only to tell her at last that he would fight her application--refuse her freedom? She knew she was at his mercy. He could exact bitter terms. He could in fact prevent the consummation of her crowning ambitions; could wreck the whole elaborate structure of her life. Her assured happiness seemed suddenly threatened. In a hysterical moment she saw it in ruins. Instantly her plans and prospects assumed an importance and insistence they had never had before. At the thought that he might stand in her way she was filled with an insane fury. Still she waited. What would he demand?

"You must not bring the Indian woman's name into the affair."

Heavens! Was that all? Willing victims and accomplices were to be found. What else?

"And you must take no steps while my father lives."

She passed in a second from death unto life. The Earl was clinging to existence by a thread. Hal hadn't even bargained for the return of the jewels he had given her. She felt that she must make some show of resistance or the terms would be changed. It was too ridiculously simple.

"Of course Lord Yester's wishes must not be ignored."

"I cannot allow you or Lord Yester to decide that for me."

He turned away as he spoke and so was not aware that Lord Yester had entered the room in time to hear this reference to himself. It is universally conceded that it requires courage to interfere between husband and wife; but then Lord Yester was a brave little man. He could wait no longer. His fate, too, was being decided in the library. He felt he must have a voice in deciding it. More than that, she needed him, this soft, plaintive soul that had come through time and space, through sin and suffering, to meet him, her complement, her supplement. Small, slender, with a delicate, sensitive face, distinguished by regular but small features, he had a fine, fresh, unspoiled capacity for suffering, which she teased and worried and played with for her infinite amusement. Quite apart from his coming coronet, she was in love with him; that is, she was a pyromaniac, and she got sensations from seeing his emotions burn, the fresh, beautiful emotions of a poet and a child.

"Harold, I don't think you have met Lord Norman Yester?"

She was the only one of the three who was without embarrassment.

"Yes, I think I met Lord Yester when he was at Eton."

Hal had no intention of making the other uncomfortable.

The clod! thought Yester; the clumsy clod! Eton, indeed! Everything about the boy was small except his spirit. He was like a child who says: "I'm six, going on seven."

"Yes?" he said with a supercilious elevation of the brows. "That was such a long time ago, I had quite forgotten it."

Having put the unpleasant husband in his place, he turned to her with the utmost deference, to the wronged and neglected wife.