"Of course we did!" retorted his wife—"You yourself saw that I was rather taken aback,—it was difficult to conceal our mutual astonishment—"
"It must have been!" and a thin ironic smile hovered on his lips—"And you carried it off well! But—the poor child!—what an ordeal for her! You can hardly have felt it so keenly, being seasoned to hypocrisy for so many years!" Her eyes flashed up at him indignantly. He raised his hand with a warning gesture.
"Permit me to speak, Maude! You can scarcely wonder that I am—well!—a little shaken and bewildered by the confession you have made,—the secret you have—after years of marriage—suddenly divulged. You suggested—at the beginning of this interview—that perhaps there was nothing in the social life of our day that would very much shock or surprise me—and I answered you that I was not easily surprised—but—I was thinking of others.—it did not occur to me that—that my own wife—" he paused, steadying his voice,—then continued—"that my own wife's honour was involved in the matter—" he paused again. "Sentiment is of course out of place—nobody is supposed to feel anything nowadays—or to suffer—or to break one's heart, as the phrase goes,—that would be considered abnormal, or bad form,—but I had the idea—a foolish one, no doubt!—that though you may not have married me for love on your own part, you did so because you recognised the love,—the truth—the admiration and respect—on mine. I was at any rate happy in believing you did!—I never dreamed you married me for the sake of convenience!—to kill the memory of a scandal, and establish a safe position—"
She moved restlessly and gathered her ermine cloak about her as though to rise and go.
"One moment!" he went on—"After what you have told me I hope you see clearly that it is impossible we can live together under the same roof again. If YOU could endure it, I could not!"
She sprang up, pale and excited.
"What? You mean to make trouble? I, who have kept my own counsel all these years, am to be disgraced because I have at last confided in you? You will scandalise society—you will separate from me—"
She stopped, half choked by a rising paroxysm of rage.
He looked at her as he might have looked at some small angry animal.
"I shall make no trouble," he answered, quietly—"and I shall not scandalise society. But I cannot live with you. I will go away at once on some convenient excuse—abroad—anywhere—and you can say whatever you please of my prolonged absence. If I could be of any use or protection to the girl I saw last night—the daughter of my friend Pierce Armitage—I would stay, but circumstances render any such service from me impossible. Besides, she needs no one to assist her—she has made a position for herself—a position more enviable than yours or mine. You have that to think about by way of—consolation?—or reproach?"
She stood drawn up to her full height, looking at him.
"You cannot forgive me, then?" she said.
He shuddered.
"Forgive you! Is there a man who could forgive twenty years of deliberate deception from the wife he thought the soul of honour? Maude, Maude! We live in lax times truly, when men and women laugh at principle and good faith, and deal with each other less honestly than the beasts of the field,—but for me there is a limit!—a limit you have passed! I think I could pardon your wrong to me more readily than I can pardon your callous desertion of the child you brought into the world—your lack of womanliness—motherliness!—your deliberate refusal to give Pierce Armitage the chance of righting the wrong he had committed in a headstrong, heart-strong rush of thoughtless passion!—he WOULD have righted it, I know, and been a loyal husband to you, and a good father to his child. For whatever his faults were he was neither callous nor brutal. You prevented him from doing this,—you were tired of him—your so-called 'love' for him was a mere selfish caprice of the moment—and you preferred deceit and a rich marriage to the simple duty of a woman! Well!—you may find excuses for yourself,—I cannot find them for you! I could not remain by your side as a husband and run the risk of coming constantly in contact, as we did last night, with that innocent girl, placed as she is, in a situation of so much difficulty, by the sins of her parents—her mother, my wife!—her father, my dead friend! The position is, and would be untenable!"
Still she stood, looking at him.
"Have you done?" she asked.
He met her fixed gaze, coldly.
"I have. I have said all I wish to say. So far as I am concerned the incident is closed. I will only bid you good-night—and farewell!"
"Good-night—and farewell!" she repeated, with a mocking drawl,—then she suddenly burst into a fit of shrill laughter. "Oh dear, oh dear!" she cried, between little screams of hysterical mirth—"You are so very funny, you know! Like—what's-his-name?—Marius in the ruins of Carthage!—or one of those antique classical bores with their household gods broken around them! You—you ought to have lived in their days!—you are so terribly behind the times!" She laughed recklessly again. "We don't do the Marius and Carthage business now—life's too full and too short! Really, Richard, I'm afraid you're getting very old!—poor dear!—past sixty I know!—and you're quite prehistoric in some of your fancies!—'Good-night!'—er—'and farewell!' Sounds so stagey, doesn't it!" She wiped the spasmodic tears of mirth from her eyes, and still shaking with laughter gathered up her rich ermine wrap on one white, jewelled arm. "Womanliness—motherliness!—good Lord, deliver us!—I never thought you likely to preach at me—if I had I wouldn't have told you anything! I took you for a sensible man of the world—but you are only a stupid old-fashioned thing after all! Good-night!—and farewell!"
She performed the taunting travesty of an elaborate Court curtsey and passed him—a handsome, gleaming vision of satins, laces and glittering jewels—and opening the door with some noise and emphasis, she turned her head gracefully over her shoulder. Unkind laughter still lit up her face and hard, brilliant eyes.
"Good-night!—farewell!" she said again, and was gone.
For a moment he stood inert where she left him—then sinking into a chair he covered his face with his hands. So he remained for some time—silently wrestling with himself and his own emotions. He had to realise that at an age when he might naturally have looked for a tranquil home life—a life tended and soothed into its natural decline by the care and devotion of the wife he had undemonstratively but most tenderly loved, he was suddenly cast adrift like the hulk of an old battleship broken from its moorings, with nothing but solitude and darkness closing in upon his latter days. Then he thought of the girl,—his wife's child—the child too of his college chum and dearest friend,—he saw, impressed like a picture on the cells of his brain, her fair young face, pathetic eyes and sweet intelligence of expression,—he remembered how modestly she wore her sudden fame, as a child might wear a wild flower,—and, placed by her parentage in a difficulty for which she was not responsible, she must have suffered considerable pain and sorrow.
"I will go and see her to-morrow," he said to himself—"It will be better for her to know that I have heard all her sad little history—then—if she ever wants a friend she can come to me without fear. Ah!—if only she were MY daughter!"
He sighed,—his handsome old head drooped,—he had longed for children and the boon had been denied.
"If she were my daughter," he repeated, slowly—"I should be a proud man instead of a sorrowful one!"
He turned off the lights in the library and went upstairs to his bedroom. Outside his wife's door he paused a moment, thinking he heard a sound,—but all was silent. Imagining that he probably would not sleep he placed a book near his bedside—but nature was kind to his age and temperament, and after about an hour of wakefulness and sad perplexity, all ruffling care was gradually smoothed away from his mind, and he fell into a deep and dreamless slumber.
Meanwhile Lady Blythe had been disrobed by a drowsy maid whom she sharply reproached for being sleepy when she ought to have been wide awake, though it was long past midnight,—and dismissing the girl at last, she sat alone before her mirror, thinking with some pettishness of the interview she had just had with her husband.
"Old fool!" she soliloquised—"He ought to know better than to play the tragic-sentimental with me at his time of life! I thought he would accept the situation reasonably and help me to tackle it. Of course it will be simply abominable if I am to meet that girl at every big society function—I don't know what I shall do about it! Why didn't she stay in her old farm-house!—who could ever have imagined her becoming famous! I shall go abroad, I think—that will be the best thing to do. If Blythe leaves me as he threatens, I shall certainly not stay here by myself to face the music! Besides, who knows?—the girl herself may 'round' on me when her head gets a little more swelled with success. Such a horrid bore!—I wish I had never seen Pierce Armitage!"
Even as she thought of him the vision came back to her of the handsome face and passionate eyes of her former lover,—again she saw the romantic little village by the sea where they had dwelt together as in another Eden,—she remembered how he would hurry up from the shore bringing with him the sketch he had been working at, eager for her eyes to look at it, thrilling at her praise, and pouring out upon her such tender words and caresses such as she had never known since those wild and ardent days! A slight shiver ran through her—something like a pang of remorse stung her hardened spirit.
"And the child," she murmured—"The child—it clung to me and I kissed it!—it was a dear little thing!"
She glanced about her nervously—the room seemed full of wandering shadows.
"I must sleep!" she thought—"I am worried and out of sorts—I must sleep and forget—"
She took out of a drawer in her dressing-table a case of medicinal cachets marked "Veronal."
"One or two more or less will not hurt me," she said, with a pale, forced smile at herself in the mirror—"I am accustomed to it—and I must have a good long sleep!"
********
******
****
She had her way. Morning came,—and she was still sleeping. Noon—and nothing could waken her. Doctors, hastily summoned, did their best to rouse her to that life which with all its pains and possibilities still throbbed in the world around her—but their efforts were vain.
"Suicide?" whispered one.
"Oh no! Mere accident!—an overdose of veronal—some carelessness—quite a common occurrence. Nothing to be done!"
No!—nothing to be done! Her slumber had deepened into that strange stillness which we call death,—and her husband, a statuesque and rigid figure, gazed on her quiet body with tearless eyes.
"Good-night!" he whispered to the heavy silence—"Good-night! Farewell!"
CHAPTER VI
One of the advantages or disadvantages of the way in which we live in these modern days is that we are ceasing to feel. That is to say we do not permit ourselves to be affected by either death or misfortune, provided these natural calamities leave our own persons unscathed. We are beginning not to understand emotion except as a phase of bad manners, and we cultivate an apathetic, soulless indifference to events of great moment whether triumphant or tragic, whenever they do not involve our own well-being and creature comforts. Whole boatloads of fishermen may go forth to their doom in the teeth of a gale without moving us to pity so long as we have our well-fried sole or grilled cod for breakfast,—and even such appalling disasters as the wicked assassination of hapless monarchs, or the wrecks of palatial ocean-liners with more than a thousand human beings all whelmed at once in the pitiless depths of the sea, leave us cold, save for the uplifting of our eyes and shoulders during an hour or so,—an expression of slight shock, followed by forgetfulness. Air-men, recklessly braving the spaces of the sky, fall headlong, and are smashed to mutilated atoms every month or so, without rousing us to more than a passing comment, and a chorus of "How dreadful!" from simpering women,—and the greatest and best man alive cannot hope for long remembrance by the world at large when he dies. Shakespeare recognised this tendency in callous human nature when he made his Hamlet say—
"O heavens! Die two months ago and not forgotten yet? Then there's hope a great man's memory may outlive his life half a year, but by 'r lady, he must build churches then, or else shall he suffer not thinking on."
Wives recover the loss of their husbands with amazing rapidity,—husbands "get over" the demise of their wives with the galloping ease of trained hunters leaping an accustomed fence—families forget their dead as resolutely as some debtors forget their bills,—and to express sorrow, pity, tenderness, affection, or any sort of "sentiment" whatever is to expose one's self to derision and contempt from the "normal" modernist who cultivates cynicism as a fine art. Many of us elect to live, each one, in a little back-yard garden of selfish interests—walled round carefully, and guarded against possible intrusion by uplifted spikes of conventionalism,—the door is kept jealously closed—and only now and then does some impulsive spirit bolder than the rest, venture to put up a ladder and peep over the wall. Shut in with various favourite forms of hypocrisy and cowardice, each little unit passes its short life in mistrusting its neighbour unit, and death finds none of them wiser, better or nearer the utmost good than when they were first uselessly born.
Among such vain and unprofitable atoms of life Lady Maude Blythe had been one of the vainest and most unprofitable,—though of such "social" importance as to be held in respectful awe by tuft-hunters and parasites, who feed on the rich as the green-fly feeds on the rose. The news of her sudden death briefly chronicled by the fashionable intelligence columns of the press with the usual—"We deeply regret"—created no very sorrowful sensation—a few vapid people idly remarked to one another—"Then her great ball won't come off!"—somewhat as if she had retired into the grave to avoid the trouble and expense of the function. Cards inscribed—"Sympathy and kind enquiries"—were left for Lord Blythe in the care of his dignified butler, who received them with the impassiveness of a Buddhist idol and deposited them all on the orthodox salver in the hall—and a few messages of "Deeply shocked and grieved. Condolences"—by wires, not exceeding sixpence each, were despatched to the lonely widower,—but beyond these purely formal observances, the handsome brilliant society woman dropped out of thought and remembrance as swiftly as a dead leaf drops from a tree. She had never been loved, save by her two deluded dupes—Pierce Armitage and her husband,—no one in the whole wide range of her social acquaintance would have ever thought of feeling the slightest affection for her. The first announcement of her death appeared in an evening paper, stating the cause to be an accidental overdose of veronal taken to procure sleep, and Miss Leigh, seeing the paragraph by merest chance, gave a shocked exclamation—
"Innocent! My dear!—how dreadful! That poor Lady Blythe we saw the other night is dead!"
The girl was standing by the tea-table just pouring out a cup of tea for Miss Leigh—she started so nervously that the cup almost fell from her hand.
"Dead!" she repeated, in a low, stifled voice. "Lady Blythe? Dead?"
"Yes!—it is awful! That horrid veronal! Such a dangerous drug! It appears she was accustomed to take it for sleep—and unfortunately she took an over-dose. How terrible for Lord Blythe!"
Innocent sat down, trembling. Her gaze involuntarily wandered to the portrait of Pierce Armitage—the lover of the dead woman, and her father! The handsome face with its dreamy yet proud eyes appeared conscious of her intense regard—she looked and looked, and longed to speak—to tell Miss Leigh all—but something held her silent. She had her own secret now—and it restrained her from disclosing the secrets of others. Nor could she realise that it was her mother—actually her own mother—who had been taken so suddenly and tragically from the world. The news barely affected her—nor was this surprising, seeing that she had never entirely grasped the fact of her mother's personality or existence at all. She had felt no emotion concerning her, save of repulsion and dislike. Her unexpected figure had appeared on the scene like a strange vision, and now had vanished from it as strangely. Innocent was in very truth "motherless"—but so she had always been—for a mother who deserts her child is worse than a mother dead. Yet it was some few minutes before she could control herself sufficiently to speak or look calmly—and her eyes were downcast as Miss Leigh came up to the tea-table, newspaper in hand, to discuss the tragic incident.
"She was a very brilliant woman in society," said the gentle old lady, then—"You did not know her, of course, and you could not judge of her by seeing her just one evening. But I remember the time when she was much talked of as 'the beautiful Maude Osborne'—she was a very lively, wilful girl, and she had been rather neglected by her parents, who left her in England in charge of some friends while they were in India. I think she ran rather wild at that time. There was some talk of her having gone off secretly somewhere with a lover—but I never believed the story. It was a silly scandal—and of course it stopped directly she married Lord Blythe. He gave her a splendid position,—and he was devoted to her—poor man!"
"Yes?" murmured Innocent, mechanically. She did not know what to say.
"If she had been blessed with children—or even one child," went on Miss Leigh—"I think it would have been better for her. I am sure she would have been happier! He would, I feel certain!"
"No doubt!" the girl answered in the same quiet tone.
"My dear, you look very pale!" said Miss Leigh, with some anxiety—"Have you been working too hard?"
She smiled.
"That would be impossible!" she answered. "I could not work too hard—it is such happiness to work—one forgets!—yes—one forgets all that one does not wish to remember!"
The anxious expression still remained on Miss Lavinia's face,—but, true to the instincts of an old-fashioned gentlewoman, she did not press enquiries where she saw they might be embarrassing or unwelcome. And though she now loved Innocent as much as if she had been her own child, she never failed to remember that after all, the girl had earned her own almost wealthy independence, and was free to do as she liked without anybody's control or interference, and that though she was so young she was bound to be in all respects untrammelled in her life and actions. She went where she pleased—she had her own little hired motor-brougham—she also had many friends who invited her out without including Miss Leigh in the invitations, and she was still the "paying guest" at the little Kensington house,—a guest who was never tired of doing kindly and helpful deeds for the benefit of the sweet old woman who was her hostess. Once or twice Miss Leigh had made a faint half-hearted protest against her constant and lavish generosity.
"My dear," she had said—"With all the money you earn now you could live in a much larger house—you could indeed have a house of your own, with many more luxuries—why do you stay here, showering advantages on me, who am nothing but a prosy old body?—you could do much better!"
"Could I really?" And Innocent had laughed and kissed her. "Well!—I don't want to do any better—I'm quite happy as I am. One thing is—(and you seem to forget it!)—that I'm very fond of you!—and when I'm very fond of a person it's difficult to shake me off!"
So she stayed on—and lived her life with a nun-like simplicity and economy—spending her money on others rather than herself, and helping those in need,—and never even in her dress, which was always exquisite, running into vagaries of extravagance and follies of fashion. She had discovered a little French dressmaker, whose husband had deserted her, leaving her with two small children to feed and educate, and to this humble, un-famous plier of the needle she entrusted her wardrobe with entirely successful results. Worth, Paquin, Doucet and other loudly advertised personages were all quoted as "creators" of her gowns, whereat she was amused.
"A little personal taste and thought go so much further in dress than money," she was wont to say to some of her rather envious women friends. "I would rather copy the clothes in an old picture than the clothes in a fashion book."
Odd fancies about her dead mother came to her when she was alone in her own room—particularly at night when she said her prayers. Some mysterious force seemed compelling her to offer up a petition for the peace of her mother's soul,—she knew from the old books written by the "Sieur Amadis" that to do this was a custom of his creed. She missed it out of the Church of England Prayer-book, though she dutifully followed the tenets of the faith in which Miss Leigh had had her baptised and confirmed—but in her heart of hearts she thought it good and right to pray for the peace of departed souls—
"For who can tell"—she would say to herself—"what strange confusion and sorrow they may be suffering!—away from all that they once knew and cared for! Even if prayers cannot help them it is kind to pray!"
And for her mother's soul she felt a dim and far-off sense of pity—almost a fear, lest that unsatisfied spirit might be lost and wandering in a chaos of dark experience without any clue to guide or any light to shine upon its dreadful solitude. So may the dead come nearer to the living than when they also lived!
Some three or four weeks after Lady Blythe's sudden exit from a world too callous to care whether she stayed in it or went from it, Lord Blythe called at Miss Leigh's house and asked to see her. He was admitted at once, and the pretty old lady came down in a great flutter to the drawing-room to receive him. She found him standing in front of the harpsichord, looking at the portrait upon it. He turned quickly round as she entered and spoke with some abruptness.
"I must apologise for calling rather late in the afternoon," he said—"But I could not wait another day. I have something important to tell you—" He paused—then went on—"It's rather startling to me to find that portrait here!—I knew the man. Surely it is Pierce Armitage, the painter?"
"Yes"—and Miss Leigh's eyes opened in a little surprise and bewilderment—"He was a great friend of mine—and of yours?" "He was my college chum"—and he walked closer to the picture and looked at it steadfastly—"That must have been taken when he was quite a young man—before—" He paused again,—then said with a forced smile—"Talking of Armitage—is Miss Armitage in?"
"No, she is not"—and the old lady looked regretful—"She has gone out to tea—I'm sorry—"
"It's just as well"—and Lord Blythe took one or two restless paces up and down the little room—"I would rather talk to you alone first. Yes!—that portrait of Pierce must have been taken in early days—just about the time he ran away with Maude Osborne—"
Miss Leigh gazed at him enquiringly.
"With Maude Osborne?"
"Yes—with Maude Osborne, who afterwards became my wife."
Miss Leigh trembled and drew back, looking about her in a dazed way as though seeking for some place to hide in. Lord Blythe saw her agitation.
"I'm afraid I'm worrying you!" he said, kindly. "Sit down, please,"—and he placed a chair for her. "We are both elderly folk and shocks are not good for us. There!"—and he took her hand and patted it gently—"As I was saying, that portrait must have been taken about then—did he give it to you?"
"Yes," she answered, faintly—"He did. We were engaged—"
"Engaged! Good God! You?—to Pierce?—My dear lady, forgive me!—I'm very sorry!—I had no idea—"
But Miss Leigh composed herself very quickly.
"Please do not mind me!" she said—"It all happened so very long ago! Yes—Pierce Armitage and I were engaged—but he suddenly went away—and I was told he had gone with some very beautiful girl he had fallen head over ears in love with—and I never saw him again. But I never reproached him—I—I loved him too well!"
Silently Lord Blythe took the worn little hand and raised it to his lips.
"Pierce was more cruel than I thought was possible to him"—he said, at last, very gently—"But—you have the best of him with you in—his daughter!"
"His daughter!"
She sprang up, white and scared.
He gripped her arm and held it fast to support her.
"Yes," he said—"His daughter! That is what I have come to tell you! The girl who lives with you—the famous author whose name is just now ringing through the world is his child!—and her mother was my wife!"
There was a little stifled cry—she dropped back in her chair and covered her face with her hands to hide the tears that rushed to her eyes.
"Innocent!" she murmured, sobbingly—"His child!—Innocent!"
He was silent, watching her, his own heart deeply moved. He thought of her life of unbroken fidelity—wasted in its youth—solitary in its age—all for the sake of one man. Presently, mastering her quiet weeping, she looked up.
"Does she—the dear girl!—does she know this?" she asked, in a half whisper.
"She has known it all the time," he answered—"She knew who her mother was before she came to London—but she kept her own counsel—I think to save the honour of all concerned. And she has made her name famous to escape the reproach of birth which others fastened upon her. A brave child!—it must have been strange to her to find her father's portrait here—did you ever speak of him to her?"
"Often!" replied Miss Leigh. "She knows all my story!"
He smiled, very kindly
"No wonder she was silent!" he said.
Just then they heard the sound of a latch-key turning in the lock of the hall door—there was a light step in the passage—they looked at one another half in wonder, half in doubt. A moment more and Innocent entered, radiant and smiling. She stopped on the threshold, amazed at the sight of Lord Blythe.
"Why, godmother"—she began. Then, glancing from one to the other, her cheeks grew pale—she hesitated, instinctively guessing at the truth. Lord Blythe advanced and took her gently by both hands.
"Dear child, your secret is ours!" he said, quietly. "Miss Leigh knows, and I know that you are the daughter of Pierce Armitage, and that your mother was my late wife. No one can be dearer to us both than you are—for your father's sake!"
CHAPTER VII
Startled and completely taken aback, she let her hands remain passively in his for a moment,—then quietly withdrew them. A hot colour rushed swiftly into her cheeks and as swiftly receded, leaving her very pale.
"How can you know?" she faltered—"Who has told you?"
"Your mother herself told me on the night she died," he answered—"She gave me all the truth of herself,—at last—after long years!"
She was silent—standing inert as though she had received a numbing blow. Miss Leigh rose and came tremblingly towards her.
"My dear, my dear!" she exclaimed—"I wish I had known it all before!—I might have done more—I might have tried to be kinder—"
The girl sprang to her side and impulsively embraced her.
"You would have tried in vain!" she said, fondly, "No one on earth could have been kinder than my beloved little godmother! You have been the dearest and best of friends!"
Then she turned towards Lord Blythe.
"It is very good of you to come here and say what you have said"—and she spoke in soft, almost pathetic accents—"But I am sorry that anyone knows my story—it is no use to know it, really! I should have always kept it a secret—for it chiefly concerns me, after all,—and why should my existence cast a shadow on the memory of my father? Perhaps you may have known him—"
"I knew him and loved him!" said Lord Blythe, quickly.
She looked at him with wistful, tear-wet eyes.
"Well then, how hard it must be for you to think that he ever did anything unworthy of himself!" she said—"And for this dear lady it is cruel!—for she loved him too. And what am I that I should cause all this trouble! I am a nameless creature—I took his name because I wanted to kindle a little light of my own round it—I have done that! And then I wanted to guard his memory from any whisper of scandal—will you help me in this? The secret must still be kept—and no one must ever know I am his daughter. For though your wife is dead her name must not be shamed for the long ago sin of her youth—nor must I be branded as what I am—base-born."
Profoundly touched by the simple straightforward eloquence of her appeal, Lord Blythe went up to her where she stood with one arm round Miss Leigh.
"My dear child," he said, earnestly—"believe me, I shall never speak of your parentage or give the slightest hint to anyone of the true facts of your history—still less would I allow you to be lightly esteemed for what is no fault of your own. You have made a brilliant name and fame for yourself—you have the right to that name and fame. I came here to-day for two reasons—one to tell you that I was fully acquainted with all you had endured and suffered—the other to ask if you will let me be your guardian—your other father—and give me some right to shelter you from the rough ways of the world. I may perhaps in this way make some amends to you for the loss of mother-love and father-love—I would do my best—"
He stopped—a little troubled by unusual emotion. Innocent, drawing her embracing arm away from Miss Leigh, looked at him with wondering, grateful eyes.
"How good you are!" she said, softly—"You would take care of me—you with your proud name and place!—and I—the poor, unfortunately born child of your dead friend! Ah, you kind, gentle heart!—I thank you!—but no!—I must not accept such a sacrifice on your part—"
"It would be no sacrifice"—he interrupted her, eagerly—"No, child!—it would be pure selfishness!—for I'm getting old and am lonely—and—and I want someone to look after me!" He laughed a little awkwardly. "Why not come to me and be my daughter?"
She smiled—caught his hand and kissed it.
"I will be a daughter to you in affection and respect," she said—"But I will not take any benefits from you—no, none! Oh, I know well all you could and would do for me!—you would place me in the highest ranks of that society where you are a leader, and you would surround me with so many advantages and powerful friends that I should forget my duty, which is to work for myself, and owe nothing to any man! Dear, kind Lord Blythe!—do not think me ungrateful! But I have made my own little place in the world, and I must keep it—independently! Am I not right, my godmother?"
Miss Leigh looked at her anxiously, and sighed.
"My dear, you must think well about it," she said—"Lord Blythe would care for you as his own child, I am sure—and his home would be a safe and splendid one for you—but there!—do not ask ME!" and the old lady wiped away one or two trickling tears from her eyes—"I am selfish!—and now I know you are Pierce's daughter I want to keep you for myself!—to have you near me!—to look at you and love you!—"
Her voice broke—her gaze instinctively wandered to the portrait of the man whose memory she had cherished so long and so fondly.
"What did you think—what must you have thought the first day you came here when I asked you if you were any relation to Pierce Armitage, and told you that was his portrait!" she said, wistfully.
"I thought that God had guided me to you," the girl answered, in soft, grave accents—"And that my father's spirit had not forsaken me!"
There was a moment's silence. Then she spoke more lightly—
"Dear Lord Blythe," she said—"Now that you know so much may I tell you my own story? It will not take long! Come and sit here—yes!"—and she placed a comfortable arm-chair for him, while she drew Miss Leigh gently down on the sofa and sat next to her—"It is nothing of a story!—my little life is not at all like the lives lived by all the girls of my age that I have ever met or seen—it's all in the past, as it were,—the old, very old past!—as far back as the days of Elizabeth!"
She laughed, but there were tears in her eyes—she brushed them away and holding Miss Leigh's hand in her own, she told with simple truth and directness the narrative of her childhood's days—her life on Briar Farm—how she had been trained by Priscilla to bake, and brew, and wash and sew,—and how she had found her chief joy and relaxation from household duties in the reading of the old books she had found stowed away in the dower-chests belonging to the "Sieur Amadis de Jocelin."
As she pronounced the name with an unconsciously tender accentuation
Lord Blythe interrupted her.
"Why, that's a curious thing! I know a rather clever painter named
Amadis de Jocelyn—and surely you were dancing with him on the evening
I first met you?"
A wave of rosy colour swept over her cheeks.
"Yes!—that is what I was just going to tell you!" she said. "He is another Amadis de Jocelyn!—and he is actually connected with a branch of the same family! HIS ancestor was the brother of that very Amadis who lies buried at Briar Farm! Is it not strange that I should have met him!—and he is going to paint my portrait!"
"Is he indeed!" and Lord Blythe did not look impressed—"I thought he was a landscape man."
"So he is," she explained, with eagerness—"But he can do portraits—and he wishes to make a picture of me, because I have been a student of the books written by one of his ancient line. Those books taught me all I know of literature. You see, it is curious, isn't it?"
"It is," he agreed, rather hesitatingly—"But I've never quite liked Jocelyn—he's clever—yet he has always struck me as being intensely selfish,—a callous sort of man—many artists are."
Her eyes drooped, and her breath came and went quickly.
"I suppose all clever men get self-absorbed sometimes!" she said, with a quaint little air of wisdom—"But I don't think he is really callous—" She broke off, and laughed brightly—"Anyhow we needn't discuss him—need we? I just wanted to tell you what an odd experience it has been for me to meet and to know someone descended from the family of the old French knight whose spirit was my instructor in beautiful things! The little books of his own poems were full of loveliness—and I used to read them over and over again. They were all about love and faith and honour—"
"Very old-fashioned subjects!" said Lord Blythe, with a slight smile—"And not very much in favour nowadays!"
Miss Leigh looked at him questioningly.
"You think not?" she said.
He gave a quick sigh.
"It is difficult to know what to think," he answered—"But I have lived a long life—long enough to have seen the dispersal of many illusions! I fear selfishness is the keynote of the greater part of humanity. Those who do the kindest deeds are invariably the worst rewarded—and love in its highest form is so little known that it may be almost termed non-existent. You"—and he looked at Innocent—"you write in a very powerful and convincing way about things of which you can have had no real experience—and therein lies your charm! You restore the lost youth of manhood by idealisation, and you compel your readers to 'idealise' with you—but 'to idealise' is rather a dangerous verb!—and its conjugation generally means trouble and disaster. Ideals—unless they are of the spiritual kind unattainable on this planet—are apt to be very disappointing."
Innocent smiled.
"But love is an ideal which cannot disappoint, because it is everlasting!" she said, almost joyously. "The story of the old French knight is, in its way, a proof of that. He loved his ideal all his life, even though he could not win her."
"Very wonderful if true!" he answered—"But I cannot quite believe it! I am too familiar with the ways of my own sex! Anyhow, dear child, I should advise you not to make too many ideals apart from the characters in the books you write. Fortunately your special talent brings you an occupation which will save you from that kind of thing. You have ambition as an incentive, and fame for a goal."
She was silent for a moment. In relating the story of her life at Briar Farm she had not spoken of Robin Clifford,—some instinct told her that the sympathies of her hearers might be enlisted in his favour, and she did not want this.
"Well, now you know what my 'literary education' has been," she went on—"Since I came to London I have tried to improve myself as much as I can—and I have read a great many modern books—but to me they seem to lack the real feeling of the old-time literature. For instance, if you read the account of the battle of the Armada by a modern historian it sounds tame and cold,—but if you read the same account in Camden's 'Elizabeth'—the whole scene rises before you,—you can almost see every ship riding the waves!"
Her cheeks glowed and her eyes shone,—Lord Blythe smiled approvingly.
"I see you are an enthusiast!" he said—"And you could not have better teachers than the Elizabethans. They lived in a great age and they were great men. Our times, though crowded with the splendid discoveries of science, seem small and poor compared to theirs. If you ever come to me, I can give you the run of a library where you will find many friends."
She thanked him by a look, and he went on—
"You will come and see me often, will you not?—you and Miss Leigh—by-and-by, when the conventional time of mourning for my poor wife is over. Make my house your second home, both of you!—and when I return from Italy—"
"Oh!" the girl exclaimed, impulsively—"Are you going to Italy?"
"For a few weeks—yes!—will you come with me—you and your godmother?"
His old heart beat,—a sudden joy lighted his eyes. It would have been like the dawn of a new day to him had she consented, but she shook her fair little head decisively.
"I must not!" she said-"-I am bound to finish some work that I have promised. But some day—ah, yes!—some day I should love to see Italy!"
The light went slowly from his face.
"Some day!—well!—I hope I may live to be with you on that 'some day.'
I ought not to leave London just now—but the house is very lonely—and
I think I am best away for a time—"
"Much best!" said Miss Leigh, sympathetically—"And if there is anything we can do—"
"Yes—there is one thing that will please me very much," said Lord Blythe, drawing from his pocket a small velvet case—"I want my friend Pierce's daughter to wear this—it was my first gift to her mother." Here he opened the case and showed an exquisite pendant, in the shape of a dove, finely wrought in superb brilliants, and supported on a thin gold chain. "I gave it as an emblem of innocence"—a quick sigh escaped him—"I little knew!—but you, dear girl, are the one to wear it now! Let me fasten it round your neck."
She stooped forward, and he took a lingering pleasure in putting the chain on and watching the diamonds flash against her fair skin. She was too much moved to express any worded thanks—it was not the value or the beauty of the gift that touched her, but its association and the way it was given. And then, after a little more desultory conversation, he rose to go.
"Remember!" he said, taking her tenderly by both hands—"Whenever you want a home and a father, both are ready and waiting for you!" And he kissed her lightly on the forehead. "You are famous and independent, but the world is not always kind to a clever woman even when she is visibly known to be earning her own living. There are always spiteful tongues wagging in the secret corners and byways, ready to assert that her work is not her own and that some man is in the background, helping to keep her!"
He then shook hands warmly with Miss Leigh.
"If she ever comes to me"—he went on—"you are free to come with her—and be assured of my utmost friendship and respect. I shall feel I am in some way doing what I know my old friend Pierce Armitage would, in his best moments, approve, if I can be of the least service to you. You will not forget?"
Miss Leigh was too overcome by the quiet sweetness and dignity of his manner to murmur more than a few scarcely audible words of gratitude in reply—and when at last he took his leave, she relieved her heart by throwing her arms round Innocent and having what she called "a good cry."
"And you Pierce's child!" she half laughed, half sobbed—"Oh, how could he leave you at that farm!—poor little thing!—and yet it might have been much worse—"
"Indeed I should think so!" and Innocent soothed her fondly with the tenderest caresses—"Very much worse! Why, if I had not been left at Briar Farm, I should never have known Dad!—and he was one of the best of men—and I should never have learned how to think, and write my thoughts, from the teaching of the Sieur Amadis de Jocelin!"
There was a little thrill of triumph in her voice—and Miss Leigh, wiping away her tears, looked at her timidly and curiously.
"How you dwell on the memory of that French knight!" she said. "When are you going to have your portrait painted by the modern Amadis?"
Innocent smiled.
"Very soon!" she answered—"We are to begin our sittings next week. I am to wear a white frock—and I told him about my dove Cupid, and how it used to fly from the gables of the house to my hand—and he is going to paint the bird as well as me!"
She laughed with the joy of a child.
"Fancy! Cupid will be there!"
"Cupid?" echoed Miss Leigh, wonderingly.
"Yes—Cupid!—usually known as the little god of love,—but only a dove this time!—so much more harmless than the god!"
Miss Leigh touched the diamond pendant at the girl's neck.
"You have a dove there now," she said—"All in jewels! And in your heart, dear child, I pray there is a spiritual dove of holy purity to guard you from all evil and keep your sweet soul safe and clean!"
A startled look came into the girl's soft grey-blue eyes,—a deep flush of rose flew over her cheeks and brow.
"A blessing or a warning, godmother mine?" she said.
Miss Leigh drew her close in her arms and kissed her.
"Both!" she answered, simply.
There was a moment's silence.
Then Innocent, her face still warm with colour, walked close up to the harpsichord where her father's picture stood.
"Let us talk of HIM!" she said—"Now that you know I am his daughter, tell me all you remember of him!—how he spoke, how he looked!—what sort of pictures he painted—and what he used to say to you! He loved you once, and I love you now!—so you must tell me everything!"
CHAPTER VIII
Fame, or notoriety, whichever that special noise may be called when the world like a hound "gives tongue" and announces that the quarry in some form of genius is at bay, is apt to increase its clamour in proportion to the aloofness of the pursued animal,—and Innocent, who saw nothing remarkable in remaining somewhat secluded and apart from the ordinary routine of social life so feverishly followed by more than half her sex, was very soon classified as "proud"—"eccentric"—"difficult" and "vain," by idle and ignorant persons who knew nothing about her, and only judged her by their own limited conceptions of what a successful author might or could possibly be like. Some of these, more foolish than the rest, expressed themselves as afraid or unwilling to meet her—"lest she should put them into her books"—this being a common form of conceit with many individuals too utterly dull and uninteresting to "make copy" for so much as the humblest paragraphist. It was quite true that she showed herself sadly deficient in the appreciation of society functions and society people,—to her they seemed stupid and boresome, involving much waste of precious time,—but notwithstanding this, she was invited everywhere, and the accumulation of "R.S.V.P." cards on her table and desk made such a formidable heap that it was quite a business to clear them, as she did once a week, with the assistance of the useful waste-paper basket. As a writer her popularity was unquestionable, and so great and insistent was the public demand for anything from her pen that she could command her own terms from any publishing quarter. Her good fortune made very little effect upon her,—sometimes it seemed as if she hardly realised or cared to realise it. She had odd, almost child-like ways of spending some of her money in dainty "surprise" gifts to her friends—that is to say, such friends as had shown her kindness,—beautiful flowers and fruit for invalids—choice wines for those who needed yet could not afford them,—a new drawing-room carpet for Miss Leigh, which was, in the old lady's opinion, a most important and amazing affair!—costly furs, also for Miss Leigh,—and devices and adornments of all sorts for the pleasure, beauty or comfort of the house—but on herself personally she spent nothing save what was necessary for such dress and appearance as best accorded with her now acknowledged position. Dearly as she would have loved to shower gifts and benefits on the inhabitants of never-forgotten Briar Farm, she knew that if she did anything of the kind poor lonely old Priscilla Friday and patiently enduring Robin Clifford were more likely to be hurt than gratified. For a silence had fallen between that past life, which had been like a wild rose blossoming in a country lane, and the present one, which resembled a wonderful orchid flower, flaming in heat under glass,—and though she wrote to Robin now and again, and he replied, his letters were restrained and formal—almost cold. He knew too well how far she was removed from him by more than distance, and bravely contented himself with merely giving her such news of the farm and her former home surroundings as might awaken her momentary interest without recalling too many old memories to her mind.
She seemed, and to a very great extent she was, unconscious of the interest and curiosity both her work and her personality excited—the more so now as the glamour and delight of her creative imagination had been obscured by what she considered a far greater and more lasting glory—that of love!—the golden mirage of a fancied sun, which for a time had quenched the steadier shining of eternal stars. Since that ever memorable night when he had suddenly stormed the fortress of her soul, and by the mastery of a lover's kiss had taken full possession, Amadis de Jocelyn had pursued his "amour" with admirable tact, cleverness and secrecy. He found a new and stimulating charm in making love to a tender-hearted, credulous little creature who seemed truly "of such stuff as dreams are made of"—and to a man of his particular type and temperament there was an irresistible provocation to his vanity in the possibility of being able to lure her gradually and insidiously down from the high ground of intellectual ambition and power to the low level of that pitiful sex-submission which is responsible for so much more misery than happiness in this world. Little by little, under his apparently brusque and playful, but really studied training, she began to think less and less of her work,—the books she had loved to read and refer to, insensibly lost their charm,—she went reluctantly to her desk, and as reluctantly took up her pen,—what she had written already, appeared to her utterly worthless,—and what she attempted to write now was to her mind poor and unsatisfying. She was not moved by the knowledge, constantly pressed upon her, that she was steadily rising, despite herself, to the zenith of her career in such an incredibly swift and brilliant way as to be the envy of all her contemporaries,—she was hardly as grateful for her honours as weary of them and a little contemptuous. What did it all matter to her when half of her once busy working mornings were now often passed in the studio of Amadis de Jocelyn! He was painting a full-length portrait of her—a mere excuse to give her facilities for visiting him, and ensure his own privacy and convenience in receiving her—and every day she went to him, sometimes late in the afternoons as well as the mornings, slipping in and out familiarly and quite unnoticed, for he had given her a key to the private door of his studio, which was reached through a small, deeply shaded garden, abutting on an old-fashioned street near Holland Park. She could enter at any time, and thought it was the customary privilege accorded by an artist to his sitter, while it saved the time and trouble of the rheumatic "odd man" or servant whose failing limbs were slow to respond to a summons at the orthodox front entrance. She would come in, dressed in her simple navy blue serge walking costume, and then in a little room just off the studio would change and put on the white dress which her lover had chosen as the most suitable for his purpose, and which he called the "portrait gown." It was simple, and severely Greek, made of the softest and filmiest material which fell gracefully away in enchanting folds from her childishly rounded neck and arms,—it gave her the appearance of a Psyche or an Ariadne,—and at the first sitting, when he had posed her in several attitudes before attempting to draw a line, she had so much sweet attractiveness about her that he was hardly to be blamed for throwing aside all work and devoting himself to such ardent delight in woman's fairness as may sometimes fall to the lot of man. While moving from one position to another as he suggested or commanded, she had playfully broken off one flower from a large plant of "marguerite" daisies growing in a quaint Japanese pot, close at hand, and had begun pulling off the petals according to the old fanciful charm—"Il m'aime!—un peu!—beaucoup!—passionement!—pas du tout!" He stopped her at the word "passionement," and caught her in his arms.
"Not another petal must be plucked!" he whispered, kissing her soft warm neck—"I will not have you say 'Pas du tout!'"
She laughed delightedly, nestling against him.
"Very well!" she said—"But suppose—"
"Suppose what?"
"Suppose it ever came to that?"—and she sighed as she spoke—"Then the last petal must fall!"
"Do you think it ever will or can come to that?" he asked, pressing a kiss on the sweet upturned lips—"Does it seem like it?"
She was too happy to answer him, and he was too amorous just then to think of anything but her soft eyes, dewy with tenderness—her white, ivory-smooth skin—her small caressing hands, and the fine bright tendrils of her waving hair—all these were his to play with as a child plays with beautiful toys unconscious of or indifferent to their value.
Many such passages of love occupied their time—though he managed to make a good show of progressive work after the first rough outline drawing of the picture was completed. He was undeniably a genius in his way, uncertain and erratic of impulse, but his art was strong because its effects were broad and simple. He had begun Innocent's portrait out of the mere desire to have her with him constantly,—but as day after day went on and the subject developed under his skilled hand and brush he realised that it would probably be "the" picture of the Salon in the following year. As this conviction dawned upon him, he took greater pains, and worked more carefully and conscientiously with the happiest results, feeling a thrill of true artistic satisfaction as the picture began to live and smile in response to his masterly touch and treatment. Its composition was simple—he had drawn the girl as though she were slowly advancing towards the spectator, giving her figure all the aerial grace habitual to it by nature,—one little daintily shaped hand held a dove lightly against her breast, as though the bird had just flown there for protection from its own alarm,—her face was slightly uplifted,—the lips smiled, and the eyes looked straight out at the world with a beautiful, clear candour which was all their own. Yet despite the charm and sweetness of the likeness there was a strange pathos about it,—a sadness which Jocelyn had never set there by his own will or intention.
"You are a puzzling subject," he said to her one day—"I wanted to give you a happy expression—and yet your portrait is actually growing sad!—almost reproachful! … do you look at me like that?"
She opened her pretty eyes wonderingly.
"Amadis! Surely not! I could not look sad when I am with you!—that is impossible!"
He paused, palette in hand.
"Nor reproachful?"
"How? When I have nothing to reproach you for?" she answered.
He put his palette aside and came and sat at her feet on the step of the dais where he had posed her.
"You may rest," he said, smiling up at her—"And so may I." She sat down beside him and he folded her in his arms. "How often we rest in this way, don't we!" he murmured—"And so you think you have nothing to reproach me for! Well,—I'm not so sure of that—Innocent!"
She looked at him questioningly.
"Are you talking nonsense, my 'Sieur Amadis'?—or are you serious?" she asked.
"I am quite serious—much more serious than is common with me," he replied, taking one of her hands and studying it as the perfect model it was—"I believe I am involving you in all sorts of trouble—and you, you absurd little child, don't see it! Suppose Miss Leigh were to find out that we make the maddest love to each other in here—you all alone with me—what would she say?"
"What COULD she say?" Innocent demanded, simply—"There is no harm!—and I should not mind telling her we are lovers."
"I should, though!" was his quick thought, while he marvelled at her unworldliness.
"Besides"—she continued—"she has no right over me."
"Who HAS any right over you?" he asked, curiously.
She laughed, softly.
"No one!—except you!"
"Oh, hang me!" he exclaimed, impatiently—"Leave me out of the question. Have you no father or mother?"
She was a little hurt at his sudden irritability.
"No," she answered, quietly—"I have often told you I have no one. I am alone in the world—I can do as I like." Then a smile brightened her face. "Lord Blythe would have me as a daughter if I would go to him."
He started and loosened her from his embrace.
"Lord Blythe! That wealthy old peer! What does he want with you?"
"Nothing, I suppose, but the pleasure of my company!" and she laughed—"Doesn't that seem strange?"
He rose and went back to work at his easel.
"Rather!" he said, slowly—"Are you going to accept his offer?"
Her eyes opened widely.
"I? My Amadis, how can you think it? I would not accept it for all the world! He would load me with benefits—he would surround me with luxuries—but I do not want these. I like to work for myself and be independent." He laid a brush lightly in colour and began to use it with delicate care.
"You are not very wise," he then said—"It's a great thing for a young girl like you who are all alone in the world, to be taken in hand by such a man as Blythe. He's a statesman,—very useful to his country,—he's very rich and has a splendid position. His wife's sudden death has left him very lonely as he has no children,—you could be a daughter to him, and it would be a great leap upwards for you, socially speaking. You would be much better off under his care than scribbling books."
She drew a sharp breath of pain,—all the pretty colour fled from her cheeks.
"You do not care for me to scribble books!" she said, in low, stifled accents.
He laughed.
"Oh, I don't mind!—I never read them,—and in a way it amuses me! You are such an armful of sweetness—such a warm, nestling little bird of love in my arms!—and to think that you actually write books that the world talks about!—the thing is so incongruous—so 'out of drawing' that it makes me laugh! I don't like writing women as a rule—they give themselves too many airs to please me—but you—"
He paused.
"Well, go on," she said, coldly.
He looked at her, smiling.
"You are cross? Don't be cross,—you lose your enchanting expression! Well—you don't give yourself any airs, and you seem to play at literature like a child playing at a game: of course you make money by it,—but—you know better than I do that the greatest writers"—he emphasized the word "greatest" slightly—"never make money and are never popular."
"Does failure constitute greatness?" she asked, with a faintly satirical inflection in her sweet voice which he had never heard before.
"Sometimes—in fact pretty often," he replied, dabbing his brush busily on his canvas—"You should read about great authors—"
"I HAVE read about them," she said—"Walter Scott was popular and made money,—Charles Dickens was popular and made money—Thackeray was popular and made money—Shakespeare himself seemed to have had the one principal aim of making sufficient money enough to live comfortably in his native town, and he was 'popular' in his day—indeed he 'played to the gallery.' But he was not a 'failure'—and the whole world acknowledges his greatness now, though in his life-time he was unconscious of it."
Surprised at her quick eloquence, he paused in his work.
"Very well spoken!" he remarked, condescendingly—"I see you take a high view of your art! But like all women, you wander from the point. We were talking of Lord Blythe—and I say it would be far better for you to be—well!—his heiress!—for he might leave you all his fortune—than go on writing books."
Her lips quivered: despite her efforts, tears started to her eyes. He saw, and throwing down his brush came and knelt beside her, passing his arm round her waist.
"What have I said?" he murmured, coaxingly—"Innocent—sweet little love! Forgive me if I have—what?"—and he laughed softly—"rubbed you up the wrong way!"
She forced a smile, and her delicate white hands wandered caressingly through his hair as he laid his head against her bosom.
"I am sorry!" she said, at last—"I thought—I hoped—you might be proud of my work, Amadis! I was planning it all for that! You see"—she hesitated—"I learned so much from the Sieur Amadis de Jocelin—the brother of your ancestor!—that I have been thinking all the time how I could best show you that I was worthy of his teaching. The world—or the public—you know the things they say of me—but I do not want their praise. I believe I could do something really great if YOU cared!—for now it is only to please you that I live."
A sense of shame stung him at this simple avowal.
"Nonsense!" he said, almost brusquely—"You have a thousand other things to live for—you must not think of pleasing me only. Besides I'm not very—keen on literature,—I'm a painter."
"Surely painting owes something to literature?" she queried—"We should not have had all the wonderful Madonnas and Christs of the old masters if there had been no Bible!"
"True!—but perhaps we could have done without them!" he said, lightly—"I'm not at all sure that painting would not have got on just as well without literature at all. There is always nature to study—sky, sea, landscape and the faces of lovely women and children,—quite enough for any man. Where is Lord Blythe now?"
"In Italy," she replied—"He will be away some months."
She spoke with constraint. Her heart was heavy—the hopes and ambitions she had cherished of adding lustre to her fame for the joy and pride of her lover, seemed all crushed at one blow. She was too young and inexperienced to realise the fact that few men are proud of any woman's success, especially in the arts. Their attitude is one of amused tolerance when it is not of actual sex-jealousy or contempt. Least of all can any man endure that the woman for whom he has a short spell of passionate fancy should be considered notable, or in an intellectual sense superior to himself. He likes her to be dependent on him alone for her happiness,—for such poor crumbs of comfort he is pleased to give her when the heat of his first passion has cooled,—but he is not altogether pleased when she has sufficient intelligent perception to see through his web of subterfuge and break away clear of the entangling threads, standing free as a goddess on the height of her own independent attainment. Innocent's idea of love was the angelic dream of truth and everlastingness set forth by poets, whose sweet singing deludes themselves and others,—she was ready to devote all the unique powers of her mind and brain to the perfecting of herself for her lover's delight. She wished to be beautiful, brilliant, renowned and admired, simply that he might take joy in knowing that this beautiful, brilliant, renowned and admired creature was HIS, body and soul—existing solely for him and content to live only so long as he lived, to work only so long as he worked,—to be nothing apart from his love, but to be everything he could desire or command while his love environed her. She thought of the eternal union of souls,—while he had no belief in the soul at all, his half French materialism persuading him that there was nothing eternal. And like all men of his type he estimated her tenderness for him, her clinging arms, and the lingering passion of her caresses, to be chiefly the outflow of pleased vanity—the kittenish satisfaction of being stroked and fondled—the sense of her own sex-attractiveness,—but of anything deep and closely rooted in the centre of a more than usually sensitive nature he had not the faintest conception, taking it for granted that all women, even clever ones, were more or less alike, easily consoled by new millinery when lovers failed.
Sometimes, during the progress of their secret amour, a thrill of uneasiness and fear ran coldly through her veins—a wondering doubt which she repelled with indignation whenever it suggested itself. Amadis de Jocelyn was and must be the very embodiment of loyalty and honour to the woman he loved!—it could not be otherwise. His tenderness was ardent,—his passion fiery and eager,—yet she wondered—timidly and with deep humiliation in herself for daring to think so far—why, if he loved her so much as he declared, did he not ask her to be his wife? She supposed he would do so,—though she had heard him depreciate marriage as a necessary evil. Evidently he had his own good reasons for deferring the fateful question. Meanwhile she made a little picture-gallery of ideal joys in her brain,—and one of her fancies was that when she married her Amadis she would ask Robin Clifford to let her buy Briar Farm.
"He could paint well there!" she thought, happily, already seeing in her mind's eye the "Great Hall" transformed into an artist's studio—"and I almost think I could carry on the farm—Priscilla would help me,—and we know just how Dad liked things to be done—if—if Robin went away. And the master of the house would again be a true Jocelyn!"
The whole plan seemed perfectly natural and feasible. Only one obstacle presented itself like a dark shadow on the brightness of her dream—and that was her own "base" birth. The brand of illegitimacy was upon her,—and whereas once she alone had known what she judged to be a shameful secret, now two others shared it with her—Miss Leigh and Lord Blythe. They would never betray it—no!—but they could not alter what unkind fate had done for her. This was one reason why she was glad that Amadis de Jocelyn had not as yet spoken of their marriage.
"For I should have to tell him!" she thought, woefully—"I should have to say that I am the illegitimate daughter of Pierce Armitage—and then—perhaps he would not marry me—he might change—ah no!—he could not!—he would not!—he loves me too dearly! He would never let me go—he wants me always! We are all the world to each other!—nothing could part us now!"
And so the time drifted on—and with its drifting her work drifted too, and only one all-absorbing passion possessed her life with its close and consuming fire. Amadis de Jocelyn was an expert in the seduction of a soul—little by little he taught her to judge all men as worthless save himself, and all opinions unwarrantable and ill-founded unless he confirmed them. And, leading her away from the contemplation of high visions, he made her the blind worshipper of a very inadequate idol. She was happy in her faith, and yet not altogether sure of happiness. For there are two kinds of love—one with strong wings which lift the soul to a dazzling perfection of immortal destiny,—the other with gross and heavy chains which fetter every hope and aspiration and drag the finest intelligence down to dark waste and nothingness.