St. Leonard's Lodge is the residence of Mr. William Meredith, an ex-mayor of Silchester, and stands in the fashionable suburb of the town. There was at one time considerable intercourse between this house and Dome Castle, the seat of Colonel Abinger, though they are five miles apart and in different counties; and one day, after Rob had been on the Press for a few months, two boys set out from the castle to show themselves to Nell Meredith. They could have reached the high road by a private walk between a beech and an ivy hedge, but they preferred to climb down a steep path to the wild-running Dome. The advantage of this route was that they risked their necks by taking it.
Nell, who did not expect visitors, was sitting by the fire in her boudoir dreaming. It was the room in which she and Mary Abinger had often discussed such great questions as Woman, her Aims, her Influence; Man, his Instability, his Weakness, his Degeneration; the Poor, how are we to Help them; why Lady Lucy Gilding wears Pink when Blue is obviously her Colour.
Nell was tucked away in a soft arm-chair, in which her father never saw her without wondering that such a little thing should require eighteen yards for a dress.
'I'm not so little,' she would say on these occasions, and then Mr. Meredith chuckled, for he knew that there were young men who considered his Nell tall and terrible. He liked to watch her sweeping through a room. To him the boudoir was a sea of reefs. Nell's dignity when she was introduced to a young gentleman was another thing her father could never look upon without awe, but he also noticed that it soon wore off.
On the mantelpiece lay a comb and several hairpins. There are few more mysterious things than hairpins. So far back as we can go into the past we see woman putting up her hair. It is said that married men lose their awe of hairpins and clean their pipes with them.
A pair of curling-tongs had a chair to themselves near Nell, and she wore a short blue dressing-jacket. Probably when she woke from her reverie she meant to do something to her brown hair. When old gentlemen called at the Lodge they frequently told their host that he had a very pretty daughter; when younger gentlemen called they generally called again, and if Nell thought they admired her the first time she spared no pains to make them admire her still more the next time. This was to make them respect their own judgment.
It was little Will Abinger who had set Nell a-dreaming, for from wondering if he was home yet for the Christmas holidays her thoughts wandered to his sister Mary, and then to his brother Dick. She thought longer of Dick in his lonely London chambers than of the others, and by and by she was saying to herself petulantly, 'I wish people wouldn't go dying and leaving me money.' Mr. Meredith, and still more Mrs. Meredith, thought that their only daughter, an heiress, would be thrown away on Richard Abinger, barrister-at-law, whose blood was much bluer than theirs, but who was, nevertheless, understood to be as hard-up as his father.
The door-bell rang, and two callers were ushered into the drawing-room without Nell's knowing it. One of them left his companion to talk to Mrs. Meredith, and clattered upstairs in search of the daughter of the house. He was a bright-faced boy of thirteen, with a passion for flinging stones, and, of late, he had worn his head in the air, not because he was conceited, but that he might look with admiration upon the face of the young gentleman downstairs.
Bouncing into the parlour, he caught sight of the object of his search before she could turn her head.
'I say, Nell, I'm back.'
Miss Meredith jumped from her chair.
'Will!' she cried.
When the visitor saw this young lady coming toward him quickly, he knew what she was after and tried to get out of her way. But Nell kissed him.
'Now, then,' he said indignantly, pushing her from him.
Will looked round him fearfully, and then closed the door.
'You might have waited till the door was shut, at any rate,' he grumbled. 'It would have been a nice thing if any one had seen you!'
'Why, what would it have mattered, you horrid little boy!' said Nell.
'Little boy! I'm bigger than you, at any rate. As for its not mattering—but you don't know who is downstairs. The captain——'
'Captain!' cried Nell.
She seized her curling-tongs.
'Yes,' said Will, watching the effect of his words, 'Greybrooke, the captain of the school. He is giving me a week just now.'
Will said this as proudly as if his guest was Napoleon Bonaparte, but Nell laid down her curling-irons. The intruder interpreted her action and resented it.
'You're not his style,' he said; 'he likes bigger women.'
'Oh, does he?' said Nell, screwing up her little Greek nose contemptuously.
'He's eighteen,' said Will.
'A mere schoolboy.'
'Why, he shaves.'
'Doesn't the master whip him for that?'
'What? Whip Greybrooke!'
Will laughed hysterically.
'You should just see him at breakfast with old Jerry. Why, I've seen him myself, when half a dozen of us were asked to tea by Mrs. Jerry, and though we were frightened to open our mouths, what do you think Greybrooke did?'
'Something silly, I should say.'
'He asked old Jerry, as cool as you like, to pass the butter! That's the sort of fellow Greybrooke is.'
'How is Mary?'
'Oh, she's all right. No, she has a headache. I say, Greybrooke says Mary's rather slow.'
'He must be a horror,' said Nell, 'and I don't see why you brought him here.'
'I thought you would like to see him,' explained Will. 'He made a hundred and three against Rugby, and was only bowled off his pads.'
'Well,' said Nell, yawning, 'I suppose I must go down and meet your prodigy.'
Will, misunderstanding, got between her and the door.
'You're not going down like that,' he said anxiously, with a wave of his hand that included the dressing-jacket and the untidy hair. 'Greybrooke's so particular, and I told him you were a jolly girl.'
'What else did you tell him?' asked Nell suspiciously.
'Not much,' said Will, with a guilty look.
'I know you told him something else?'
'I told him you—you were fond of kissing people.'
'Oh, you nasty boy, Will—as if kissing a child like you counted!'
'Never mind,' said Will soothingly, 'Greybrooke's not the fellow to tell tales. Besides, I know you girls can't help it. Mary's just the same.'
'You are a goose, Will, and the day will come when you'll give anything for a kiss.'
'You've no right to bring such charges against a fellow,' said Will indignantly, strutting to the door.
Half-way downstairs he turned and came back.
'I say, Nell,' he said, 'you—you, when you come down, you won't kiss Greybrooke?'
Nell drew herself up in a way that would have scared any young man but Will.
'He's so awfully particular,' Will continued apologetically.
'Was it to tell me this you came upstairs?'
'No, honour bright, it wasn't. I only came up in case you should want to kiss me, and to—to have it over.'
Nell was standing near Will, and before he could jump back she slapped his face.
The snow was dancing outside in a light wind when Nell sailed into the drawing-room. She could probably still inform you how she was dressed, but that evening Will and the captain could not tell Mary. The captain thought it was a reddish dress or else blue; but it was all in squares like a draught-board, according to Will. Forty minutes had elapsed since Will visited her upstairs, and now he smiled at the conceit which made her think that the captain would succumb to a pretty frock. Of course Nell had no such thought. She always dressed carefully because—well, because there is never any saying.
Though Miss Meredith froze Greybrooke with a glance, he was relieved to see her. Her mother had discovered that she knew the lady who married his brother, and had asked questions about the baby. He did not like it. These, he thought, were things you should pretend not to know about. He had contrived to keep his nieces and nephews dark from the fellows at school, though most of them would have been too just to attach any blame to him. Of this baby he was specially ashamed, because they had called it after him.
Mrs. Meredith was a small, stout lady, of whose cleverness her husband spoke proudly to Nell, but never to herself. When Nell told her how he had talked, she exclaimed, 'Nonsense!' and then waited to hear what else he had said. She loved him, but probably no woman can live with a man for many years without having an indulgent contempt for him, and wondering how he is considered a good man of business. Mrs. Meredith, who was a terribly active woman, was glad to leave the entertainment of her visitors to Nell, and that young lady began severely by asking 'how you boys mean to amuse yourselves?'
'Do you keep rabbits?' she said to the captain sweetly.
'I say, Nell!' cried Will warningly.
'I have not kept rabbits,' Greybrooke replied, with simple dignity, 'since I was a boy.'
'I told you,' said Will, 'that Greybrooke was old—why, he's nearly as old as yourself. She's older than she looks, you know, Greybrooke.'
The captain was gazing at Nell with intense admiration. As she raised her head indignantly he thought she was looking to him for protection. That was a way Nell had.
'Abinger,' said the captain sternly, 'shut up.'
'Don't mind him, Miss Meredith,' he continued; 'he doesn't understand girls.'
To think he understands girls is the last affront a youth pays them. When he ceases trying to reduce them to fixed principles he has come of age. Nell, knowing this, felt sorry for Greybrooke, for she foresaw what he would have to go through. Her manner to him underwent such a change that he began to have a high opinion of himself. This is often called falling in love. Will was satisfied that his friend impressed Nell, and he admired Greybrooke's politeness to a chit of a girl, but he became restless. His eyes wandered to the piano, and he had a lurking fear that Nell would play something. He signed to the captain to get up.
'We'll have to be going now,' he said at last; 'good-bye.'
Greybrooke glared at Will, forgetting that they had arranged beforehand to stay as short a time as possible.
'Perhaps you have other calls to make?' said Nell, who had no desire to keep them there longer than they cared to stay.
'Oh yes,' said Will.
'No,' said the captain, 'we only came into Silchester with Miss Abinger's message for you.'
'Why, Will,' exclaimed Nell, 'you never gave me any message?'
'I forgot what it was,' Will explained cheerily; 'something about a ribbon, I think.'
'I did not hear the message given,' the captain said, in answer to Nell's look, 'but Miss Abinger had a headache, and I think Will said it had to do with that.'
'Oh, wait a bit,' said Will, 'I remember something about it now. Mary saw something in a Silchester paper, the Mirror, I think, that made her cry, and she thinks that if you saw it you would cry too. So she wants you to look at it.'
'The idea of Mary's crying!' said Nell indignantly. 'But did she not give you a note?'
'She was too much upset,' said Will, signing to the captain not to let on that they had refused to wait for the note.
'I wonder what it can be?' murmured Nell.
She hurried from the room to her father's den, and found him there surrounded by newspapers.
'Is there anything in the Mirror, father?' she asked.
'Nothing,' said Mr. Meredith, who had made the same answer to this question many hundreds of times; 'nothing except depression in the boot trade.'
'It can't be that,' said Nell.
'Can't be what?'
'Oh, give me the paper,' cried the ex-mayor's daughter impatiently.
She looked hastily up and down it, with an involuntary glance at the births, deaths, and marriages, turned it inside out and outside in, and then exclaimed 'Oh!' Mr. Meredith, who was too much accustomed to his daughter's impulses to think that there was much wrong, listened patiently while she ejaculated, 'Horrid!' 'What a shame!' 'Oh, I wish I was a man!' and, 'Well, I can't understand it.' When she tossed the paper to the floor, her face was red and her body trembled with excitement.
'What is it, Nelly?' asked her father.
Whether Miss Abinger cried over the Mirror that day is not to be known, but there were indignant tears in Nell's eyes as she ran upstairs to her bedroom. Mr. Meredith took up the paper and examined it carefully at the place where his daughter had torn it in her anger. What troubled her seemed to be something in the book notices, and he concluded that it must be a cruel 'slating' of a novel in one volume called The Scorn of Scorns. Mr. Meredith remembered that Nell had compelled him to read that book and to say that he liked it.
'That's all,' he said to himself, much relieved.
He fancied that Nell, being a girl, was distressed to see a book she liked called 'the sentimental out-pourings of some silly girl who ought to confine her writing to copy-books.' In a woman so much excitement over nothing seemed quite a natural thing to Mr. Meredith. The sex had ceased to surprise him. Having retired from business, Mr. Meredith now did things slowly as a good way of passing the time. He had risen to wealth from penury, and counted time by his dining-room chairs, having passed through a cane, a horsehair, and a leather period before arriving at morocco. Mrs. Meredith counted time by the death of her only son.
It may be presumed that Nell would not have locked herself into her bedroom and cried and stamped her feet on an imaginary critic had The Scorn of Scorns not interested her more than her father thought. She sat down to write a note to Mary. Then she tore it up, and wrote a letter to Mary's elder brother, beginning with the envelope. She tore this up also, as another idea came into her head. She nodded several times to herself over this idea, as a sign that the more she thought of it the more she liked it. Then, after very nearly forgetting to touch her eyes with something that made them look less red, she returned to the drawing-room.
'Will,' she said, 'have you seen the new ponies papa gave me on my birthday?'
Will leapt to his feet.
'Come on, Greybrooke,' he cried, making for the door.
The captain hesitated.
'Perhaps,' said Nell, with a glance at him, 'Mr. Greybrooke does not have much interest in horses?'
'Doesn't he just!' said Will; 'why——'
'No,' said Greybrooke; 'but I'll wait here for you, Abinger.'
Will was staggered. For a moment the horrible thought passed through his mind that these girls had got hold of the captain. Then he remembered.
'Come on,' he said, 'Nell won't mind.'
But Greybrooke had a delicious notion that the young lady wanted to see him by himself, and Will had to go to the stables alone.
'I won't be long,' he said to Greybrooke, apologising for leaving him alone with a girl. 'Don't bother him too much,' he whispered to Nell at the door.
As soon as Will had disappeared Nell turned to Greybrooke.
'Mr. Greybrooke,' she said, speaking rapidly in a voice so low that it was a compliment to him in itself, 'there is something I should like you to do for me.'
The captain flushed with pleasure.
'There is nothing I wouldn't do for you,' he stammered.
'I want you,' continued Miss Meredith, with a most vindictive look on her face, 'to find out for me who wrote a book review in to-day's Mirror, and to—to—oh, to thrash him.'
'All right,' said the captain, rising and looking for his hat.
'Wait a minute,' said Nell, glancing at him admiringly. 'The book is called The Scorn of Scorns, and it is written by—by a friend of mine. In to-day's Mirror it is called the most horrid names, sickly sentimental, not even grammatical, and all that.'
'The cads!' cried Greybrooke.
'But the horribly mean, wicked thing about it,' continued Nell, becoming more and more indignant as she told her story, 'is that not two months ago there was a review of the book in the same paper, which said it was the most pathetic and thoughtful and clever tale that had ever been published by an anonymous author!'
'It's the lowest thing I ever heard of,' said Greybrooke, 'but these newspaper men are all the same.'
'No, they're not,' said Nell sharply (Richard Abinger, Esq.'s, only visible means of sustenance was the press), 'but they are dreadfully mean, contemptible creatures on the Mirror—just reporters, you know.'
Greybrooke nodded, though he knew nothing about it.
'The first review,' Nell continued, 'appeared on the 3rd of October, and I want you to show them both to the editor, and insist upon knowing the name of the writer. After that find the wretch out, and——'
'And lick him,' said the captain.
His face frightened Nell.
'You won't hit him very hard?' she asked apprehensively, adding as an afterthought, 'perhaps he is stronger than you.'
Greybrooke felt himself in an unfortunate position. He could not boast before Nell, but he wished very keenly that Will was there to boast for him. Most of us have experienced the sensation.
Nell having undertaken to keep Will employed until the captain's return, Greybrooke set off for the Mirror office with a look of determination on his face. He went into two shops, the one a news-shop, where he bought a copy of the paper. In the other he asked for a thick stick, having remembered that the elegant cane he carried was better fitted for swinging in the air than for breaking a newspaper man's head. He tried the stick on a paling. Greybrooke felt certain that Miss Meredith was the novelist. That was why he selected so thick a weapon.
He marched into the advertising office, and demanded to see the editor of the Mirror.
''Stairs,' said a clerk, with his head in a ledger. He meant upstairs, and the squire of dames took his advice. After wandering for some time in a labyrinth of dark passages, he opened the door of the day composing-room, in which half a dozen silent figures were bending over their cases.
'I want the editor,' said Greybrooke, somewhat startled by the sound his voice made in the great room.
''Stairs,' said one of the figures, meaning downstairs.
Greybrooke, remembering who had sent him here, did not lose heart. He knocked at several doors, and then pushed them open. All the rooms were empty. Then he heard a voice saying—
'Who are you? What do you want?'
Mr. Licquorish was the speaker, and he had been peering at the intruder for some time through a grating in his door. He would not have spoken at all, but he wanted to go into the composing-room, and Greybrooke was in the passage that led to it.
'I don't see you,' said the captain; 'I want the editor.'
'I am the editor,' said the voice, 'but I can see no one at present except on business.'
'I am here on business,' said Greybrooke. 'I want to thrash one of your staff.'
'All the members of my literary staff are engaged at present,' said Mr. Licquorish, in a pleasant voice; 'which one do you want?'
'I want the low cad who wrote a review of a book called The Scorn of Scorns, in to-day's paper.'
'Oh!' said Mr. Licquorish.
'I demand his name,' cried Greybrooke.
The editor made no answer. He had other things to do than to quarrel with schoolboys. As he could not get out he began a leaderette. The visitor, however, had discovered the editorial door now, and was shaking it violently.
'Why don't you answer me?' he cried.
Mr. Licquorish thought for a moment of calling down the speaking-tube which communicated with the advertisement office for a clerk to come and take this youth away, but after all he was good-natured. He finished a sentence, and then opened the door. The captain strode in, but refused a chair.
'Are you the author of the book?' the editor asked.
'No,' said Greybrooke, 'but I am her friend, and I am here to thrash——'
Mr. Licquorish held up his hand to stop the flow of the captain's indignation. He could never understand why the public got so excited over these little matters.
'She is a Silchester lady?' he asked.
Greybrooke did not know how to reply to this. He was not sure whether Nell wanted the authorship revealed.
'That has nothing to do with the matter,' he said. 'I want the name of the writer who has libelled her.'
'On the press,' said Mr. Licquorish, repeating some phrases which he kept for such an occasion as the present, 'we have a duty to the public to perform. When books are sent us for review we never allow prejudice or private considerations to warp our judgment. The Mirror has in consequence a reputation for honesty that some papers do not possess. Now I distinctly remember that this book, The Vale of Tears——'
'The Scorn of Scorns.'
'I mean The Scorn of Scorns, was carefully considered by the expert to whom it was given for review. Being honestly of opinion that the treatise——'
'It is a novel.'
'That the novel is worthless, we had to say so. Had it been clever, we should——'
Mr. Licquorish paused, reading in the other's face that there was something wrong. Greybrooke had concluded that the editor had forgotten about the first review.
'Can you show me a copy of the Mirror,' the captain asked, 'for October 3rd?'
Mr. Licquorish turned to the file, and Greybrooke looked over his shoulder.
'There it is!' cried the captain indignantly.
They read the original notice together. It said that, if The Scorn of Scorns was written by a new writer, his next story would be looked for with great interest. It 'could not refrain from quoting the following exquisitely tender passage.' It found the earlier pages 'as refreshing as a spring morning,' and the closing chapters were a triumph of 'the art that conceals art.'
'Well, what have you to say to that?' asked Greybrooke fiercely.
'A mistake,' said the editor blandly. 'Such things do happen occasionally.'
'You shall make reparation for it!'
'Hum,' said Mr Licquorish.
'The insult,' cried Greybrooke, 'must have been intentional.'
'No. I fancy the authoress must be to blame for this. Did she send a copy of the work to us?'
'I should think it very unlikely,' said Greybrooke, fuming.
'Not at all,' said the editor, 'especially if she is a Silchester lady.'
'What would make her do that?'
'It generally comes about in this way. The publishers send a copy of the book to a newspaper, and owing to pressure on the paper's space, no notice appears for some time. The author, who looks for it daily, thinks that the publishers have neglected their duty, and sends a copy to the office himself. The editor, forgetful that he has had a notice of the book lying ready for printing for months, gives the second copy to another reviewer. By and by the first review appears, but owing to an oversight the editor does not take note of it, and after a time, unless his attention is called to the matter, the second review appears also. Probably that is the explanation in this case.'
'But such carelessness on a respectable paper is incomprehensible,' said the captain.
The editor was looking up his books to see if they shed any light on the affair, but he answered—
'On the contrary, it is an experience known to most newspapers. Ah, I have it!'
Mr. Licquorish read out, 'The Scorn of Scorns, received September 1st, reviewed October 3rd.' Several pages farther on he discovered, 'The Scorn of Scorns, received September 24th, reviewed December 19th.'
'You will find,' he said, 'that this explains it.'
'I don't consider the explanation satisfactory,' replied the captain, 'and I insist, first, upon an apology in the paper, and second, on getting the name of the writer of the second review.'
'I am busy this morning,' said Mr. Licquorish, opening his door, 'and what you ask is absurd. If the authoress can give me her word that she did not send the book and so bring this upon herself, we shall insert a word on the subject but not otherwise. Good-morning.'
'Give me the writer's name,' cried the captain.
'We make a point of never giving names in that way,' said Mr. Licquorish.
'You have not heard the last of this,' Greybrooke said from the doorway. 'I shall make it my duty to ferret out the coward's name, and——'
'Good-morning,' Mr. Licquorish repeated.
The captain went thumping down the stairs, and meeting a printer's devil at the bottom, cuffed him soundly because he was part of the Mirror.
To his surprise, Miss Meredith's first remark when he returned was—
'Oh, I hope you didn't see him.'
She looked at Greybrooke's face, fearing it might be stained with blood, and when he told her the result of his inquiries she seemed pleased rather than otherwise. Nell was soft-hearted after all, and she knew how that second copy of the novel had reached the Mirror office.
'I shall find the fellow out, though,' said Greybrooke, grasping his cudgel firmly.
'Why, you are as vindictive as if you had written the book yourself,' said Nell.
Greybrooke murmured, blushing the while, that an insult to her hurt him more than one offered to himself. Nell opened the eyes of astonishment.
'You don't think I wrote the book?' she asked; then seeing that it was so from his face, added, 'oh no, I'm not clever enough. It was written by—by a friend of mine.'
Nell deserves credit for not telling Greybrooke who the friend was, for that was a secret. But there was reason to believe that she had already divulged it to twelve persons (all in the strictest confidence). When the captain returned she was explaining all about it by letter to Richard Abinger, Esq. Possibly that was why Greybrooke thought she was not nearly so nice to him now as she had been an hour before.
Will was unusually quiet when he and Greybrooke said adieu to the whole family of Merediths. He was burning to know where the captain had been, and also what Nell called him back to say in such a low tone. What she said was—
'Don't say anything about going to the Mirror office, Mr. Greybrooke, to Miss Abinger.'
The captain turned round to lift his hat, and at the same time expressed involuntarily a wish that Nell could see him punishing loose bowling.
Mrs. Meredith beamed to him.
'There is something very nice,' she said to Nell, 'about a polite young man.'
'Yes,' murmured her daughter, 'and even if he isn't polite.'
On the morning before Christmas a murder was committed in Silchester, and in murders there is 'lineage.' As a consequence, the head reporter attends to them himself. In the Mirror office the diary for the day was quickly altered. Kirker set off cheerfully for the scene of the crime, leaving the banquet in the Henry Institute to Tomlinson, who passed on his dinner at Dome Castle to Rob, whose church decorations were taken up by John Milton.
Christmas Eve was coming on in snow when Rob and Walsh, of the Argus, set out for Dome Castle. Rob disliked doing dinners at any time, partly because he had not a dress suit. The dinner was an annual one given by Will's father to his tenants, and reporters were asked because the colonel made a speech. His neighbours, when they did likewise, sent reports of their own speeches (which they seemed to like) to the papers; and some of them, having called themselves eloquent and justly popular, scored the compliments out, yet in such a way that the editor would still be able to read them, and print them if he thought fit. Rob did not look forward to Colonel Abinger's reception of him, for they had met some months before, and called each other names.
It was one day soon after Rob reached Silchester. He had gone a-fishing in the Dome and climbed unconsciously into preserved waters. As his creel grew heavier his back straightened; not until he returned home did the scenery impress him. He had just struck a fine fish, when a soldierly-looking man at the top of the steep bank caught sight of him.
'Hi, you sir!' shouted the onlooker. Whir went the line—there is no music like it. Rob was knee-deep in water. 'You fellow!' cried the other, brandishing his cane, 'are you aware that this water is preserved?' Rob had no time for talk. The colonel sought to attract his attention by flinging a pebble. 'Don't do that,' cried Rob fiercely.
Away went the fish. Away went Rob after it. Colonel Abinger's face was red as he clambered down the bank. 'I shall prosecute you,' he shouted. 'He's gone to the bottom; fling in a stone!' cried Rob. Just then the fish showed its yellow belly and darted off again. Rob let out more line. 'No, no,' shouted the colonel, who fished himself, 'you lose him if he gets to the other side; strike, man, strike!' The line tightened, the rod bent—a glorious sight. 'Force him up stream,' cried the colonel, rolling over boulders to assist. 'Now, you have him. Bring him in. Where is your landing-net?' 'I haven't one,' cried Rob; 'take him in your hands.' The colonel stooped to grasp the fish and missed it. 'Bungler!' screamed Rob. This was too much. 'Give me your name and address,' said Colonel Abinger, rising to his feet; 'you are a poacher.' Rob paid no attention. There was a struggle. Rob did not realise that he had pushed his assailant over a rock until the fish was landed. Then he apologised, offered all his fish in lieu of his name and address, retired coolly so long as the furious soldier was in sight, and as soon as he turned a corner disappeared rapidly. He could not feel that this was the best introduction to the man with whom he was now on his way to dine.
The reporter whose long strides made Walsh trot as they hurried to Dome Castle, was not quite the Rob of three months before. Now he knew how a third-rate newspaper is conducted, and the capacity for wonder had gone from him. He was in danger of thinking that the journalist's art is to write readably, authoritatively, and always in three paragraphs on a subject he knows nothing about. Rob had written many leaders, and followed readers through the streets wondering if they liked them. Once he had gone with three others to report a bishop's sermon. A curate appeared instead, and when the reporters saw him they shut their notebooks and marched blandly out of the cathedral. A public speaker had tried to bribe Rob with two half-crowns, and it is still told in Silchester how the wrathful Scotsman tore his benefactor out of the carriage he had just stepped into, and, lifting him on high, looked round to consider against which stone wall he should hurl him. He had discovered that on the first of the month Mr. Licquorish could not help respecting his staff, because on that day he paid them. Socially Rob had acquired little. Protheroe had introduced him to a pleasant family, but he had sat silent in a corner, and they told the sub-editor not to bring him back. Most of the literary staff were youths trying to be Bohemians, who liked to feel themselves sinking, and they never scaled the reserve which walled Rob round. He had taken a sitting, however, in the Scotch church, to the bewilderment of the minister, who said, 'But I thought you were a reporter?' as if there must be a mistake somewhere.
Walsh could tell Rob little of Colonel Abinger. He was a brave soldier, and for many years had been a widower. His elder son was a barrister in London, whom Silchester had almost forgotten, and Walsh fancied there was some story about the daughter's being engaged to a baronet. There was also a boy, who had the other day brought the captain of his school to a Silchester football ground to show the club how to take a drop-kick.
'Does the colonel fish?' asked Rob, who would, however, have preferred to know if the colonel had a good memory for faces.
'He is a famous angler,' said Walsh; 'indeed, I have been told that his bursts of passion are over in five minutes, except when he catches a poacher.'
Rob winced, for Walsh did not know of the fishing episode.
'His temper,' continued Walsh, 'is such that his male servants are said never to know whether he will give them a shilling or a whirl of his cane—until they get it. The gardener takes a look at him from behind a tree before venturing to address him. I suppose his poverty is at the bottom of it, for the estate is mortgaged heavily, and he has had to cut down trees, and even to sell his horses. The tenants seem to like him, though, and if they dared they would tell him not to think himself bound to give them this annual dinner. There are numberless stories of his fierce temper, and as many of his extravagant kindness. According to his servants, he once emptied his pocket to a beggar at a railway station, and then discovered that he had no money for his own ticket. As for the ne'er-do-weels, their importuning makes him rage, but they know he will fling them something in the end if they expose their rags sufficiently.'
'So,' said Rob, who did not want to like the colonel, 'he would not trouble about them if they kept their misery to themselves. That kind of man is more likely to be a philanthropist in your country than in mine.'
'Keep that for a Burns dinner,' suggested Walsh.
Rob heard now how Tomlinson came to be nicknamed Umbrage.
'He was sub-editing one night,' Walsh explained, 'during the time of an African war, and things were going so smoothly that he and Penny were chatting amicably together about the advantages of having a few Latin phrases in a leader, such as dolce far niente, or cela va sans dire——'
'I can believe that,' said Rob, 'of Penny certainly.'
'Well, in the middle of the discussion an important war telegram arrived, to the not unnatural disgust of both. As is often the case, the message was misspelt, and barely decipherable, and one part of it puzzled Tomlinson a good deal. It read: "Zulus have taken Umbrage; English forces had to retreat." Tomlinson searched the map in vain for Umbrage, which the Zulus had taken; and Penny, being in a hurry, was sure it was a fortress. So they risked it, and next morning the chief lines in the Mirror contents bill were: "Latest News of the War; Capture of Umbrage by the Zulus."'
By this time the reporters had passed into the grounds of the castle, and, being late, were hurrying up the grand avenue. It was the hour and the season when night comes on so sharply, that its shadow may be seen trailing the earth as a breeze runs along a field of corn. Heard from a height, the roar of the Dome among rocks might have been the rustle of the surrounding trees in June; so men and women who grow old together sometimes lend each other a voice. Walsh, seeing his opportunity in Rob's silence, began to speak of himself. He told how his first press-work had been a series of letters he had written when at school, and contributed to a local paper under the signatures of 'Paterfamilias' and 'An Indignant Ratepayer.' Rob scarcely heard. The bare romantic scenery impressed him, and the snow in his face was like a whiff of Thrums. He was dreaming, but not of the reception he might get at the castle, when the clatter of horses awoke him.
'There is a machine behind us,' he said, though he would have written trap.
A brougham lumbered into sight. As its lamps flashed on the pedestrians, the coachman jerked his horses to the side, and Rob had a glimpse of the carriage's occupant. The brougham stopped.
'I beg your pardon,' said the traveller, opening his window, and addressing Rob, 'but in the darkness I mistook you for Colonel Abinger.'
'We are on our way to the castle,' said Walsh, stepping forward.
'Ah, then,' said the stranger, 'perhaps you will give me your company for the short distance we have still to go?'
There was a fine courtesy in his manner that made the reporters feel their own deficiencies, yet Rob thought the stranger repented his offer as soon as it was made. Walsh had his hand on the door, but Rob said—
'We are going to Dome Castle as reporters.'
'Oh!' said the stranger. Then he bowed graciously, and pulled up the window. The carriage rumbled on, leaving the reporters looking at each other. Rob laughed. For the first time in his life the advantage a handsome man has over a plain one had struck him. He had only once seen such a face before, and that was in marble in the Silchester Art Museum. This man looked thirty years of age, but there was not a line on his broad white brow. The face was magnificently classic, from the strong Roman nose to the firm chin. The eyes, too beautiful almost for his sex, were brown and wistful, of the kind that droop in disappointment oftener than they blaze with anger. All the hair on his face was a heavy drooping moustache that almost hid his mouth.
Walsh shook his fist at this insult to the Press.
'It is the baronet I spoke of to you,' he said. 'I forget who he is; indeed, I rather think he travelled incognito when he was here last. I don't understand what he is doing here.'
'Why, I should say this is just the place where he would be if he is to marry Miss Abinger.'
'That was an old story,' said Walsh. 'If there ever was an engagement it was broken off. Besides, if he had been expected we should have known of it at the Argus.'
Walsh was right. Sir Clement Dowton was not expected at Dome Castle, and, like Rob, he was not even certain that he would be welcome. As he drew near his destination his hands fidgeted with the window strap, yet there was an unaccountable twinkle in his eye. Had there been any onlookers they would have been surprised to see that all at once the baronet's sense of humour seemed to overcome his fears, and instead of quaking, he laughed heartily. Sir Clement was evidently one of the men who carry their joke about with them.
This unexpected guest did Rob one good turn. When the colonel saw Sir Clement he hesitated for a moment as if not certain how to greet him. Then the baronet, who was effusive, murmured that he had something to say to him, and Colonel Abinger's face cleared. He did Sir Clement the unusual honour of accompanying him upstairs himself, and so Rob got the seat assigned to him at the dinner-table without having to meet his host in the face. The butler marched him down a long table with a twist in it, and placed him under arrest, as it were, in a chair from which he saw only a few of the company. The dinner had already begun, but the first thing he realised as he took his seat was that there was a lady on each side of him, and a table-napkin in front. He was not sure if he was expected to address the ladies, and he was still less certain about the table-napkin. Of such things he had read, and he had even tried to be prepared for them. Rob looked nervously at the napkin, and then took a covert glance along the table. There was not a napkin in sight except one which a farmer had tied round his neck. Rob's fingers wanted to leave the napkin alone, but by an effort he forced them toward it. All this time his face was a blank, but the internal struggle was sharp. He took hold of the napkin, however, and spread it on his knees. It fell to the floor immediately afterwards, but he disregarded that. It was no longer staring at him from the table, and with a heavy sigh of relief he began to feel more at ease. There is nothing like burying our bogies.
His position prevented Rob's seeing either the colonel at the head of the table or Miss Abinger at the foot of it, and even Walsh was hidden from view. But his right-hand neighbour was a local doctor's wife, whom the colonel had wanted to honour without honouring too much, and she gave him some information. Rob was relieved to hear her address him, and she was interested in a tame Scotsman.
'I was once in the far north myself,' she said, 'as far as Orkney. We were nearly drowned in crossing that dreadful sea between it and the mainland. The Solway Firth, is it?'
Rob thought for a moment of explaining what sea it is, and then he thought, why should he?
'Yes, the Solway Firth,' he said.
'It was rather an undertaking,' she pursued, 'but though we were among the mountains for days, we never encountered any of those robber chieftains one reads about—caterans I think you call them?'
'You were very lucky,' said Rob.
'Were we not? But, you know, we took such precautions. There was quite a party of us, including my father, who has travelled a great deal, and all the gentlemen wore kilts. My father said it was always prudent to do in Rome as the Romans do.'
'I have no doubt,' said Rob, 'that in that way you escaped the caterans. They are very open to flattery.'
'So my father said. We also found that we could make ourselves understood by saying "whatever," and remembering to call the men "she" and the women "he." What a funny custom that is!'
'We can't get out of it,' said Rob.
'There is one thing,' the lady continued, 'that you can tell me. I have been told that in winter the wild boars take refuge in the streets of Inverness, and that there are sometimes very exciting hunts after them?'
'That is only when they run away with children,' Rob explained. 'Then the natives go out in large bodies and shoot them with claymores. It is a most exciting scene.'
When the doctor's wife learned that this was Rob's first visit to the castle, she told him at once that she was there frequently. It escaped his notice that she paused here and awaited the effect. She was not given to pausing.
'My husband,' she said, 'attended on Lady Louisa during her last illness—quite ten years ago. I was married very young,' she added hurriedly.
Rob was very nearly saying he saw that. The words were in his mouth, when he hesitated, reflecting that it was not worth while. This is only noticeable as showing that he missed his first compliment.
'Lady Louisa?' he repeated instead.
'Oh yes, the colonel married one of Lord Tarlington's daughters. There were seven of them, you know, and no sons, and when the youngest was born it was said that a friend of his lordship sent him a copy of Wordsworth, with the page turned down at the poem "We are Seven "—a lady friend, I believe.'
'Is Miss Abinger like the colonel?' asked Rob, who had heard it said that she was beautiful, and could not help taking an interest in her in consequence.
'You have not seen Miss Abinger?' asked the doctor's wife. 'Ah, you came late, and that vulgar-looking farmer hides her altogether. She is a lovely girl, but——'
Rob's companion pursed her lips.
'She is so cold and proud,' she added.
'As proud as her father?' Rob asked, aghast.
'Oh, the colonel is humility itself beside her. He freezes at times, but she never thaws.'
Rob sighed involuntarily. He was not aware that his acquaintances spoke in a similar way of him. His eyes wandered up the table till they rested of their own accord on a pretty girl in blue. At that moment she was telling Greybrooke that he could call her Nell, because 'Miss' Meredith sounded like a reproach.
The reporter looked at Nell with satisfaction, and the doctor's wife followed his thoughts so accurately that, before she could check herself, she said, 'Do you think so?'
Then Rob started, which confused both of them, and for the remainder of the dinner the loquacious lady seemed to take less interest in him, he could not understand why. Flung upon his own resources, he remembered that he had not spoken to the lady on his other side. Had Rob only known it, she felt much more uncomfortable in that great dining-room than he did. No one was speaking to her, and she passed the time between the courses breaking her bread to pieces and eating it slowly, crumb by crumb. Rob thought of something to say to her, but when he tried the words over in his own mind they seemed so little worth saying that he had to think again. He found himself counting the crumbs, and then it struck him that he might ask her if she would like any salt. He did so, but she thought he asked for salt, and passed the salt-cellar to him, whereupon Rob, as the simplest way to get out of it, helped himself to more salt, though he did not need it. The intercourse thus auspiciously begun, went no further, and they never met again. It might have been a romance.
The colonel had not quite finished his speech, which was to the effect that so long as his tenants looked up to him as some one superior to themselves they would find him an indulgent landlord, when the tread of feet was heard outside, and then the music of the waits. The colonel frowned and raised his voice, but his guests caught themselves tittering, and read their host's rage in his darkening face. Forgetting that the waits were there by his own invitation, he signed to James, the butler, to rush out and mow them down. James did not interpret the message so, but for the moment it was what his master meant.
While the colonel was hesitating whether to go on, Rob saw Nell nod encouragingly to Greybrooke. He left his seat, and before any one knew what he was about, had flung open one of the windows. The room filled at once with music, and, as if by common consent, the table was deserted. Will opened the remaining windows, and the waits, who had been singing to shadows on the white blinds, all at once found a crowded audience. Rob hardly realised what it meant, for he had never heard the waits before.
It was a scene that would have silenced a schoolgirl. The night was so clear, that beyond the lawn where the singers were grouped the brittle trees showed in every twig. No snow was falling, and so monotonous was the break of the river, that the ear would only have noticed it had it stopped. The moon stood overhead like a frozen round of snow.
Looking over the heads of those who had gathered at one of the windows, Rob saw first Will Abinger and then the form of a girl cross to the singers. Some one followed her with a cloak. From the French windows steps dropped to the lawn. A lady beside Rob shivered and retired to the fireside, but Nell whispered to Greybrooke that she must run after Mary. Several others followed her down the steps.
Rob, looking round for Walsh, saw him in conversation with the colonel. Probably he was taking down the remainder of the speech. Then a lady's voice said, 'Who is that magnificent young man?'
The sentence ended 'with the hob-nailed boots,' and the reference was to Rob, but he only caught the first words. He thought the baronet was spoken of, and suddenly remembered that he had not appeared at the dinner-table. As Sir Clement entered the room at that moment in evening dress, making most of those who surrounded him look mean by comparison, Rob never learned who the magnificent young man was.
Sir Clement's entrance was something of a sensation, and Rob saw several ladies raise their eyebrows. All seemed to know him by name, and some personally. The baronet's nervousness had evidently passed away, for he bowed and smiled to every one, claiming some burly farmers as old acquaintances though he had never seen them before. His host and he seemed already on the most cordial terms, but the colonel was one of the few persons in the room who was not looking for Miss Abinger. At last Sir Clement asked for her.
'I believe,' said some one in answer to the colonel's inquiring glance round the room, 'that Miss Abinger is speaking with the waits.'
'Perhaps I shall see her,' said Dowton, stepping out at one of the windows.
Colonel Abinger followed him to the window, but no farther, and at that moment a tall figure on the snowy lawn crossed his line of vision. It was Rob, who, not knowing what to do with himself, had wandered into the open. His back was toward the colonel, and something in his walk recalled to that choleric officer the angler whom he had encountered on the Dome.
'That is the man—I was sure I knew the face,' said Colonel Abinger. He spoke in a whisper to himself, but his hands closed with a snap.
Unconscious of all this, Rob strolled on till he found a path that took him round the castle. Suddenly he caught sight of a blue dress, and at the same moment a girl's voice exclaimed, 'Oh, I am afraid it is lost!'
The speaker bent, as if to look for something in the snow, and Rob blundered up to her. 'If you have lost anything,' he said, 'perhaps I can find it.'
Rob had matches in his pocket, and he struck one of them. Then, to his surprise, he noticed that Nell was not alone. Greybrooke was with her, and he was looking foolish.
'Thank you very much,' said Nell sweetly; 'it is a—a bracelet.'
Rob went down on his knees to look for the bracelet, but it surprised him a little that Greybrooke did not follow his example. If he had looked up, he would have seen that the captain was gazing at Nell in amazement.
'I am afraid it is lost,' Nell repeated, 'or perhaps I dropped it in the dining-room.'
Greybrooke's wonder was now lost in a grin, for Nell had lost nothing, unless perhaps for the moment her sense of what was fit and proper. The captain had followed her on to the lawn, and persuaded her to come and look down upon the river from the top of the cliff. She had done so, she told herself, because he was a boy; but he had wanted her to do it because she was a woman. On the very spot where Richard Abinger, barrister-at-law, had said something to her that Nell would never forget, the captain had presumptuously kissed her hand, and Nell had allowed him, because after all it was soon over. It was at that very moment that Rob came in sight, and Nell thought she was justified in deceiving him. Rob would have remained a long time on the snow if she had not had a heart.
'Yes, I believe I did drop it in the dining-room,' said Nell, in such a tone of conviction that Rob rose to his feet. His knees were white in her service, and Nell felt that she liked this young man.
'I am so sorry to have troubled you, Mr.——Mr.——' began the young lady.
'My name is Angus,' said Rob; 'I am a reporter on the Silchester Mirror.'
Greybrooke started, and Nell drew back in horror, but the next second she was smiling. Rob thought it was kindliness that made her do it, but it was really a smile of triumph. She felt that she was on the point of making a discovery at last. Greybrooke would have blurted out a question, but Nell stopped him.
'Get me a wrap of some kind, Mr. Greybrooke,' she said, with such sweet imperiousness that the captain went without a word. Half-way he stopped to call himself a fool, for he had remembered all at once about Raleigh and his cloak, and seen how he might have adapted that incident to his advantage by offering to put his own coat round Nell's shoulders.
It was well that Greybrooke did not look back, for he would have seen Miss Meredith take Rob's arm—which made Rob start—and lead him in the direction in which Miss Abinger was supposed to have gone.
'The literary life must be delightful,' said artful Nell, looking up into her companion's face.
Rob appreciated the flattery, but his pride made him say that the literary life was not the reporter's.
'I always read the Mirror,' continued Nell, on whom the moon was having a bad effect to-night, 'and often I wonder who writes the articles. There was a book-review in it a few days ago that I—I liked very much.'
'Do you remember what the book was?' asked Rob, jumping into the pit.
'Let me see,' said Nell, putting her head to the side, 'it was—yes, it was a novel called—called The Scorn of Scorns.'
Rob's good angel was very near him at that moment, but not near enough to put her palm over his mouth.
'That review was mine,' said Rob, with uncalled-for satisfaction.
'Was it?' cried his companion, pulling away her arm viciously.
The path had taken them to the top of the pile of rocks, from which it is a sheer descent of a hundred feet to the Dome. At this point the river is joined by a smaller but not less noisy stream, which rushes at it at right angles. Two of the castle walls rise up here as if part of the cliff, and though the walk goes round them, they seem to the angler looking up from the opposite side of the Dome to be part of the rock. From the windows that look to the west and north one can see down into the black waters, and hear the Ferret, as the smaller stream is called, fling itself over jagged boulders into the Dome.
The ravine coming upon him suddenly, took away Rob's breath, and he hardly felt Nell snatch away her arm. She stood back, undecided what to do for a moment, and they were separated by a few yards. Then Rob heard a man's voice, soft and low, but passionate. He knew it to be Sir Clement Dowton's, though he lost the words. A girl's voice answered, however, a voice so exquisitely modulated, so clear and pure, that Rob trembled with delight in it. This is what it said—
'No, Sir Clement Dowton, I bear you no ill-will, but I do not love you. Years ago I made an idol and worshipped it, because I knew no better, but I am a foolish girl no longer, and I know now that it was a thing of clay.'
To Rob's amazement he found himself murmuring these words even before they were spoken. He seemed to know them so well, that had the speaker missed anything, he could have put her right. It was not sympathy that worked this marvel. He had read all this before, or something very like it, in The Scorn of Scorns.
Nell, too, heard the voice, but did not catch the words. She ran forward, and as she reached Rob, a tall girl in white, with a dark hood over her head, pushed aside a bush and came into view.
'Mary,' cried Miss Meredith, 'this gentleman here is the person who wrote that in the Mirror. Let me introduce you to him, Mr. Angus, Miss——' and then Nell shrank back in amazement, as she saw who was with her friend.
'Sir Clement Dowton!' she exclaimed.
Rob, however, did not hear her, nor see the baronet, for looking up with a guilty feeling at his heart, his eyes met Mary Abinger.
Daybreak on the following morning found the gas blazing in Rob's lodgings. Rob was seated in an arm-chair, his feet on the cold hearth. The Scorn of Scorns lay on the mantelpiece carefully done up in brown paper, lest a speck of dust should fall on it, and he had been staring at the ribs of the fireplace for the last three hours without seeing them. He had not thought of the gas. His bed was unslept on. His damp boots had dried on his feet. He did not feel cold. All night he had sat there, a man mesmerised. For the only time in his life he had forgotten to wind up his watch.
At times his lips moved as if he were speaking to himself, and a smile lit up his face. Then a change of mood came, and he beat the fender with his feet till the fire-irons rattled. Thinking over these remarks brought the rapture to his face:
'How do you do, Mr. Angus?'
'You must not take to heart what Miss Meredith said.'
'Please don't say any more about it. I am quite sure you gave your honest opinion about my book.'
'I am so glad you think this like Scotland, because, of course, that is the highest compliment a Scotsman can pay.'
'Good-night, Mr. Angus.'
That was all she had said to him, but the more Rob thought over her remarks the more he liked them. It was not so much the words themselves that thrilled him as the way they were said. Other people had asked, 'How do you do, Mr. Angus?' without making an impression, but her greeting was a revelation of character, for it showed that though she knew who he was she wanted to put him at his ease. This is a delightful attribute in a woman, and worth thinking about.
Just before Miss Abinger said, 'How do you do, Mr. Angus?' Rob had realised what people meant by calling her proud. She was holding her head very high as she appeared in the path, and when Nell told her who Rob was she flushed. He looked hopelessly at her, bereft of speech, as he saw a tear glisten on her eyelid; and as their eyes met she read into the agony that he was suffering because he had hurt her. It was then that Mary made that memorable observation, 'How do you do, Mr. Angus?'
They turned toward the castle doors, Nell and the baronet in front, and Rob blurted out some self-reproaches in sentences that had neither beginning nor end. Mary had told him not to take it so terribly to heart, but her voice trembled a little, for this had been a night of incident to her. Rob knew that it was for his sake she had checked that tear, and as he sat in his lodgings through the night he saw that she had put aside her own troubles to lessen his. When he thought of that he drew a great breath. The next moment his whole body shuddered to think what a brute he had been, and then she seemed to touch his elbow again, and he half rose from his chair in a transport.
As soon as he reached his lodgings Rob had taken up The Scorn of Scorns, which he had not yet returned to Mr. Licquorish, and re-read it in a daze. There were things in it so beautiful now that they caught in his throat and stopped his reading; they took him so far into the thoughts of a girl that to go farther seemed like eavesdropping. When he read it first The Scorn of Scorns had been written in a tongue Rob did not know, but now he had the key in his hands. There is a universal language that comes upon young people suddenly, and enables an English girl, for instance, to understand what a Chinaman means when he looks twice at her. Rob had mastered it so suddenly that he was only its slave at present. His horse had run away with him.
Had the critic of The Scorn of Scorns been a bald-headed man with two chins, who did not know the authoress, he would have smiled at the severity with which she took perfidious man to task, and written an indulgent criticism without reading beyond the second chapter. If he had been her father he would have laughed a good deal at her heroics, but now and again they would have touched him, and he would have locked the book away in his desk, seeing no particular cleverness in it, but feeling proud of his daughter. It would have brought such thoughts to him about his wife as suddenly fill a man with tenderness—thoughts he seldom gives expression to, though she would like to hear them.
Rob, however, drank in the book, his brain filled with the writer of it. It was about a young girl who had given her heart to a stranger, and one day when she was full of the joy of his love he had disappeared. She waited, wondering, fearing, and then her heart broke, and her only desire was to die. No one could account for the change that came over her, for she was proud, and her relatives were not sympathetic. She had no mother to go to, and her father could not have understood. She became listless, and though she smiled and talked to all, when she went to her solitary bed-chamber she turned her face in silence to the wall. Then a fever came to her, and after that she had to be taken to the Continent. What shook her listlessness was an accident to her father. It was feared that he was on his deathbed, and as she nursed him she saw that her life had been a selfish one. From that moment she resolved if he got better (is it not terrible this, that the best of us try to make terms with God?) to devote her life to him, and to lead a nobler existence among the poor and suffering ones at home. The sudden death of a relative who was not a good man frightened her so much that she became ill again, and now she was so fearful of being untruthful that she could not make a statement of fact without adding 'I think so,' under her breath. She let people take advantage of her lest she should be taking advantage of them, and when she passed a cripple on the road she walked very slowly so that he should not feel his infirmity.
Years afterwards she saw the man who had pretended to love her and then ridden away. He said that he could explain everything to her, and that he loved her still; but she drew herself up, and with a look of ineffable scorn, told him that she no longer loved him. When they first met, she said, she had been little more than a child, and so she had made an idol of him. But long since the idol had crumbled to pieces, and now she knew that she had worshipped a thing of clay. She wished him well, but she no longer loved him. As Lord Caltonbridge listened he knew that she spoke the truth, and his eyes drooped before her dignified but contemptuous gaze. Then, concludes the author, dwelling upon this little triumph with a satisfaction that hardly suggests a heart broken beyond mending, he turned upon his heel, at last realising what he was; and, feeling smaller and meaner than had been his wont, left the Grange for the second and last time.
How much of this might be fiction, Rob was not in a mind to puzzle over. It seemed to him that the soul of a pure-minded girl had been laid bare to him. To look was almost a desecration, and yet it was there whichever way he turned. A great longing rose in his heart to see Mary Abinger again and tell her what he thought of himself now. He rose and paced the floor, and the words he could not speak last night came to his lips in a torrent. Like many men who live much alone, Rob often held imaginary conversations with persons far distant, and he denounced himself to this girl a score of times as he paced back and forwards. Always she looked at him in reply with that wonderful smile which had pleaded with him not to be unhappy on her account. Horrible fears laid hold of him that after the guests had departed she had gone to her room and wept. That villain Sir Clement had doubtless left the castle for the second and last time, 'feeling smaller and meaner than had been his wont' (Rob clenched his fists at the thought of him), but how could he dare to rage at the baronet when he had been as great a scoundrel himself? Rob looked about him for his hat; a power not to be resisted was drawing him back to Dome Castle.
He heard the clatter of crockery in the kitchen as he opened his door, and it recalled him to himself. At that moment it flashed upon him that he had forgotten to write any notice of Colonel Abinger's speech. He had neglected the office and come straight home. At any other time this would have startled him, but now it seemed the merest trifle. It passed for the moment from his mind, and its place was taken by the remembrance that his boots were muddy and his coat soaking. For the first time in his life the seriousness of going out with his hair unbrushed came home to him. He had hitherto been content to do little more than fling a comb at it once a day. Rob returned to his room, and, crossing to the mirror, looked anxiously into it to see what he was like. He took off his coat and brushed it vigorously.
Having laved his face, he opened his box, and produced from it two neckties, which he looked at for a long time before he could make up his mind which to wear. Then he changed his boots. When he had brushed his hat he remembered with anxiety some one on the Mirror's having asked him why he wore it so far back on his head. He tilted it forward, and carefully examined the effect in the looking-glass. Then forgetful that the sounds from the kitchen betokened the approach of breakfast, he hurried out of the house. It was a frosty morning, and already the streets were alive, but Rob looked at no one. For women in the abstract he now felt an unconscious pity, because they were all so very unlike Mary Abinger. He had grown so much in the night that the Rob Angus of the day before seemed but an acquaintance of his youth.
He was inside the grounds of Dome Castle again before he realised that he had no longer a right to be there. By fits and starts he remembered not to soil his boots. He might have been stopped at the lodge, but at present it had no tenant. A year before, Colonel Abinger had realised that he could not keep both a horse and a lodge-keeper, and that he could keep neither if his daughter did not part with her maid. He yielded to Miss Abinger's entreaties, and kept the horse.
Rob went on at a swinging pace till he turned an abrupt corner of the walk and saw Dome Castle standing up before him. Then he started, and turned back hastily. This was not owing to his remembering that he was trespassing, but because he had seen a young lady coming down the steps. Rob had walked five miles without his breakfast to talk to Miss Abinger, but as soon as he saw her he fled. When he came to himself he was so fearful of her seeing him, that he hurried behind a tree, where he had the appearance of a burglar.
Mary Abinger came quickly up the avenue, unconscious that she was watched, and Rob discovered in a moment that after all the prettiest thing about her was the way she walked. She carried a little basket in her hand, and her dress was a blending of brown and yellow, with a great deal of fur about the throat. Rob, however, did not take the dress into account until she had passed him, when, no longer able to see her face, he gazed with delight after her.
Had Rob been a lady he would probably have come to the conclusion that the reason why Miss Abinger wore all that fur instead of a jacket was because she knew it became her better. Perhaps it was. Even though a young lady has the satisfaction of feeling that her heart is now adamant, that is no excuse for her dressing badly. Rob's opinion was that it would matter very little what she wore, because some pictures look lovely in any frame, but that was a point on which he and Miss Abinger always differed. Only after long consideration had she come to the conclusion that the hat she was now wearing was undoubtedly the shape that suited her best, and even yet she was ready to spend time in thinking about other shapes. What would have seemed even more surprising to Rob was that she had made up her mind that one side of her face was better than the other side.
No mere man, however, could ever have told which was the better side of Miss Abinger's face. It was a face to stir the conscience of a good man, and make unworthy men keep their distance, for it spoke first of purity, which can never be present anywhere without being felt. All men are born with a craving to find it, and they never look for it but among women. The strength of the craving is the measure of any man's capacity to love, and without it love on his side would be impossible.
Mary Abinger was fragile because she was so sensitive. She carried everywhere a fear to hurt the feelings of others, that was a bodkin at her heart. Men and women in general prefer to give and take. The keenness with which she felt necessitated the garment of reserve, which those who did not need it for themselves considered pride. Her weakness called for something to wrap it up. There were times when it pleased her to know that the disguise was effective, but not when it deceived persons she admired. The cynicism of The Scorn of Scorns was as much a cloak as her coldness, for she had an exquisite love of what is good and fine in life that idealised into heroes persons she knew or heard of as having a virtue. It would have been cruel to her to say that there are no heroes. When she found how little of the heroic there was in Sir Clement Dowton she told herself that there are none, and sometimes other persons had made her repeat this since. She seldom reasoned about things, however, unless her feelings had been wounded, and soon again she was dreaming of the heroic. Heroes are people to love, and Mary's idea of what love must be would have frightened some persons from loving her. With most men affection for a woman is fed on her regard for them. Greatness in love is no more common than greatness in leading armies. Only the hundredth man does not prefer to dally where woman is easiest to win; most finding the maids of honour a satisfactory substitute for the princess. So the boy in the street prefers two poor apples to a sound one. It may be the secret of England's greatness.