Probation

Two days later, Myles took his way, in the evening, towards Herr Süsmeyer’s house. The travellers had arrived, he had heard, early in the forenoon. There had been a ceremonious Mittagessen, or midday dinner, at which different treasured friends of Herr Süsmeyer’s had been present—friends also of Sebastian in former days. Myles, too, had received a pressing invitation to be there; but, feeling that he would much rather descend of his own free will into the crater of Mount Vesuvius, and there spend the remainder of his natural life, than sit a long three hours (for German congratulatory dinners are not amongst the briefest of ceremonies) at Herr Süsmeyer’s table under the proposed circumstances, he had declined, on the plea that it was a very busy day at the works, and he could not possibly be spared before evening. At the evening meal (the Abendbrod), Herr Süsmeyer insisted that he should be present; and Myles, not quite sure, when it came to the point, that the last arrangement was not worse than the first, had perforce consented.

The house was lighted up, he saw, as he approached. There were lights in the windows of those guest-chambers which had once been the pride of her life to the selige Amalie of Herr Süsmeyer. There, in that house, under that roof, he was to meet Adrienne again—no longer the girl whom he might dare to love because she was free, but as the wife of Sebastian Mallory, henceforth to be looked upon with other eyes. A rush of recollections, sweet and bitter, alike filled his mind for a moment, and were very strong.

But his will was still stronger. He had not endured his years of sorrow, trial, and probation, to emerge, at the last, a weaker and worse man than he had been at first. He was prepared to endure the pain that awaited him, piene forte et dure though it might be—to endure and perhaps, in the end to conquer it; to bear it, moreover, so that it and its cause should be known to himself alone.

It was with a feeling of sadness, but without any of bitterness, that he entered the house. He felt clearly and distinctly that he could meet his successful rival without a feeling of grudging or ill-will.

He was ushered into the large commodious room which was Herr Süsmeyer’s library, and in which he always sat when alone, or with intimate friends. Myles, going in, saw his old master in his gala dress of faultless black cloth and dazzling linen, his gouty foot laid up on the stool before him; his best-pleased smile upon his face, looking up to where Sebastian Mallory stood talking, his elbow resting on the top of the piano. There was no one else in the room. Sebastian, who was looking towards the door, changed his position quickly as Myles came in, and went to meet him with outstretched hand.

‘Ah, Heywood, I am glad to see you again. We were talking about you at this instant.’

Myles found it strangely hard at first to return the greeting, but he sternly beat back the grudging feeling which momentarily raised its head, and spoke with cordiality. How well Sebastian looked! How happy! How self-possessed, and at harmony with life and circumstances, naturally, thought Myles. He had everything to make him so. He was little changed. Perhaps there was a degree more of animation or abruptness in his manner; a little more of the active combatant, and less of the amused bystander, looker-on at the world’s game. That was natural too, thought Myles, and to be expected, while Sebastian was thinking he had never seen any man with manner, expression, almost appearance, so completely changed as this ‘revolutionary weaver,’ as Hugo von Birkenau had once called him. He could scarcely realise the excessive change which had taken place. All the old froward defiance appeared to have vanished, and instead there was

which were the qualities he himself most highly prized in man and woman. They stood patent on his ex-workman’s broad brow, in his steady eyes, and upon his firmly, though not sourly, set lips. Sebastian was divided between pleased surprise and self-congratulation on his own foresight; for, from the first, he had hoped and expected to see Myles turn into something of this kind.

Occupied with these feelings, the two young men scarcely spoke, but left Herr Süsmeyer to do the talking, which was exactly what he wished. The first thing that really roused them to reality again was a remark of Herr Süsmeyer’s:

‘Your dear wife (Ihre liebe Frau) is absent a long time, mein Bester.’

‘Oh,’ said Sebastian, with a sudden flash of the eyes, which did not escape Myles, ‘she will not be long. I told her at what time you took your supper. She was resting when I saw her.’

‘So!’ said Herr Süsmeyer, adding, for the hundredth time, ‘I trust she finds herself accommodated with all she wants upstairs.’

‘Oh, everything, thank you. She says she thinks German hospitality is the most delightful she ever had.’

‘German hospitality!’ thought Myles. ‘Strange! She passed her happiest years in Germany; she told me so.’

While he was marvelling at this (to him) peculiar remark of Sebastian’s, the rustle of a silken gown became audible on the polished floor of the passage; she was coming now.

‘There she is!’ said Sebastian, catching the sound too, and starting forward to open the door.

‘I hope I’m not very late,’ said a voice—(silvery, though not the voice)—and it was just at that moment that Myles began to wonder if he were labouring under some wild and extraordinary hallucination—whether long brooding and the last blow had really driven him mad.

He was conscious, but in a dream-like, unreal manner, of rising, as Sebastian led a lady into the room—a lady who laughed a happy laugh. He was conscious, also dreamily, of seeing a figure which had been in his thoughts quite lately—a tall, superbly shaped, queenly figure—not the figure of Adrienne; of seeing a lovely face, glowing with a soft flush of health and happiness; of meeting eyes which, for darkness and fire, might match his own; of seeing a long, white throat, a dress of silk and lace, rings flashing on white hands, and a dazzling smile making the brilliant whole more brilliant still. Nothing like a sweet violet, indeed, but a rich and gorgeous rose, in the full pride of its queenly beauty.

‘Helena, this is Mr. Heywood, of whom you have often heard me speak. Heywood, Mrs. Mallory.’

(‘How fearfully he stared at me, dear!’ said Helena afterwards. ‘He is really a very remarkable-looking young man, and I liked him when I talked to him; but he stared most alarmingly at first.’)

Myles was still dimly aware that the brilliant vision, which he kept expecting to see fade away like a dissolving view, to be followed by that of Adrienne, held out her hand graciously, saying something about ‘My husband has often told me about you,’ or words to that effect; and that he took the hand and bowed over it—very creditably, considering his state of mind. Then Sebastian placed a chair for—yes, his wife—it must be his wife, Myles argued within himself, and the conversation was taken up, and he listened to it in silence for a time, gradually comprehending that he had been labouring under a delusion, but a different delusion than he had imagined. By and by he became able to answer some remark addressed to him by Helena, and then she continued to talk to him, and Myles found himself being drawn out to show to the best advantage, saying clever things which he had had no idea that he could say, until they were elicited by the tact and sympathy of a woman like Helena. Still, he could not altogether get rid of the sensation that he was in a dream, and he continued to feel so for the rest of the evening.

When he was going away, Sebastian asked him if he could see him on the following morning.

‘At any time you please,’ said Myles.

‘Then I will call at the works in the forenoon. I can soon say what I have to say.’

On that understanding they parted.