'Copies? No. They are Alec's own original pictures. What makes you think they are copies?'

What made her think that they were copies was the very remarkable fact that both pictures represented scenes among the Scilly Isles: that in each of them was represented—herself—as a girl of fifteen or sixteen: that the sketches for both these pictures had been made in her own presence by the artist: that he was none other than Roland Lee: and that the picture she had seen in his studio was done by the same hand and in the same style as the two pictures before her. Of that she had no doubt. She had so trained her eye and hand that there could be no doubt at all of that fact.

She stared, bewildered. Philippa, who was beside her looking at the pictures, went on talking without observing the sheer amazement in Armorel's eyes.

'That was his first picture,' she continued; 'and this was the second. I remember very well the little speech he made while we were all crowding round the picture. "I am going," he said, "to make a new departure. You all thought I was just following the beaten road at the Bar. Well, I am trying a new and a shorter way to success. You see my first effort." It was difficult to believe our eyes. Alec a painter? One might as well have expected to find Alec a poet: and in a few months he was a poet: and then a story-teller. And his poetry is as good as it is made in these days; and his short stories are as good as any of those by the French writers.'

'What is the subject of this picture?' Armorel asked with an effort.

'The place is somewhere on the Cornish coast, I believe. He always paints the same kind of picture—always a rocky coast—a tossing sea—perhaps a boat—spray flying over the rocks—and always a girl, the same girl. There she is in both pictures—a handsome black-haired girl, quite young—it might be almost a portrait of yourself when you were younger, Armorel.'

'Almost,' said Armorel.

'This girl is now as well known to Alec's friends as Wouvermann's white horse. But no one knows the model.'

Armorel's memory went back to the day when Roland made that sketch. She stood—so—just as the painter had drawn her, on a round boulder, the water boiling and surging at her feet and the white foam running up. Behind her the granite rock, grey and black. How could she ever forget that sketch?

'Alec is wonderful in his seas,' Philippa went on. 'Look at the bright colour and the clear transparency of the water. You can feel it rolling at your feet. Upon my word, Armorel, the girl is really like you.'

'A little, perhaps. Yes; they are good pictures, Philippa. The man who painted them is a painter indeed.'

She sat down again, still bewildered.

Presently she heard Philippa's voice. 'What is it?' she asked. 'You have become deaf and dumb. Are you ill?'

'No—I am not ill. The sight of those pictures set me thinking. I will go now, Philippa. If he speaks to me I will reply so that there can be no mistake. But if he persists in following me about, I will ask you to interfere.'

'If necessary,' Philippa promised her. 'I will interfere for you. But there is something in all this which I do not understand. Come again soon, dear, and tell me everything.'

When they began this talk, one girl was a little troubled, but not much. The other was free from any trouble. When they parted, both girls were troubled.

One felt, vaguely, that danger was in the air. Zoe meant something by constantly talking about her cousin Alec. What understanding was there between him and that woman—that detestable woman?

The other walked home in a doubt and perplexity that drove everything else out of her head. What did those pictures mean? Had Roland given away his sketches? Was there another painter who had the very touch of Roland as well as his sketches? No, no; it was impossible.

Suddenly she remembered something on the fragment of paper that Effie picked up. The corner of the torn cheque—even the signature of Alec Feilding. What did that mean? Why had Roland torn up a cheque signed by Mr. Feilding? Why had he called that act the turning of the footstep?

CHAPTER XI
A CRITIC ON TRUTH

One painter may make use of another man's sketches for his own pictures. The thing is conceivable, though one cannot recall, and there is no record of, any such case. It is, perhaps, possible. Portrait-painters have employed other men to paint backgrounds and even hands and drapery. Now, the two pictures hanging in Philippa's room were most certainly painted from Roland's sketches. If there were any room for doubt the figure of Armorel herself in the foreground removed that doubt. Therefore, Roland must have lent his sketches to Mr. Feilding. What else did he lend? Can one man lend another his eye, his hand, his sense of colour, his touch, his style? There was once, I seem to have read, a man who sold his soul to the only Functionary who buys such things, and keeps a stock of them second-hand, on the condition that he should be able to paint as well as the immortal Raffaello. He obtained his wish, because the Devil always keeps his bargain to the letter, with the result that, instead of winning the imperishable wreath for himself that he expected, he was never known at all, and his pictures are now sold as those of the master whose works they so miraculously resemble. Armorel had perhaps heard this story somewhere. Could the cleverest man in all London have made a similar transaction, taking Roland Lee for his model? If so, the Devil had not cheated him at all, and he got out of the bargain all he expected, because he not only painted quite as well as his master, and in exactly the same style, so that it was impossible to distinguish between them, but, which the other unfortunate did not get, all the credit was given to him, while the original model or master languished in obscurity.

It was obvious to a trained eye, at very first sight, that the style of the pictures was that of Roland Lee. He had a style of his own. The first mark of genius in any art is individuality. His style was no more to be imitated in painting than the style of Robert Browning can be followed in poetry. Painters there are who have been imitated and have created a school of imitators: even these can always be distinguished from their copyists. The subtle touch of the master, the personal presence of his hand, cannot be copied or imitated. In these two pictures the hand of Roland was clearly, unmistakably visible. The light thrown over them, the atmosphere with which they were charged—everything was his. He had caught the September sunshine as it lies over and enfolds the Scilly Islands—who should know that soft and golden light better than Armorel?—he had caught the transparencies of the seas, the shining yellows of the sea-weed, the browns and purples of bramble and fern, the greyness and the blackness of the rock: you could hear the rush of the water eddying among the boulders; you could see the rapid movement of the sea-gulls' wings as they swept along with the wind. Could another, even with the original sketches lying before him, even with skill and feeling of his own, reproduce these things in Roland's own individual style?

'No,' she cried, but not aloud; 'I know these pictures. They are not his at all. They are Roland's.'

Every line of thought that she followed—to write these down would be to produce another 'Ring and Book'—in her troubled meditations after the discovery led her to the same conclusion. It was that at which she had arrived in a single moment of time, without argument or reasoning, and at the very first sight of the pictures. The first thought is always right. 'They are Roland's pictures'—that was the first thought. The second thought brings along the doubts, suggests objections, endeavours to be judicial, deprecates haste, and calls for the scales. 'They cannot,' said the second thought, 'be Roland's paintings, because Mr. Feilding says they are his.' The third thought, which is the first strengthened by evidence, declared emphatically that they were Roland's, whatever Mr. Feilding might say, and could be the work of none other.

Therefore, the cleverest man in all London, according to everybody, the best and most generous and most honourable, according to Armorel's companion, was an impostor and a Liar. Never before had she ever heard of such a Liar.

Armorel, it is true, knew but little of the crooked paths by which many men perform this earthly pilgrimage from the world which is to the world which is to come. Children born on Samson—nay, even those also of St. Mary's—have few opportunities of observing these ways. That is why all Scillonians are perfectly honest: they do not know how to cheat—even those who might wish to become dishonest, if they knew. In her five years' apprenticeship the tree of knowledge had dropped some of its baleful fruit at Armorel's feet: that cannot be avoided even in a convent garden. Yet she had not eaten largely of the fruit, nor with the voracity that distinguishes many young people of both sexes when they get hold of these apples. In other words, she only knew of craft and falsehood in general terms, as they are set forth in the Gospels and by the Apostles, and especially in the Book of Revelation, which expressly states the portion of liars. Yet, even with this slight foundation to build upon, Armorel was well aware that here was a fraud of a most monstrous character. Surely, there never was, before this man, any man in the world who dared to present to the world another man's paintings, and to call them his own? Men and women have claimed books which they never wrote—witness the leading case of the false George Eliot and the story told by Anthony Trollope; men have pretended to be well-known writers—did I not myself once meet a man in an hotel pretending to be one of our most genial of story-tellers? Men have written things and pretended that they were the work of famous hands. Literature—alas!—hath many impostors. But in Art the record is clean. There are a few ghosts, to be sure, here and there—sporadic spectres!—but they are obscure and mostly unknown. Armorel had never heard or seen any of them. Surely there never before was any man like unto this man!

And, apart from the colossal impudence of the thing, she began to consider the profound difficulties in carrying it out. Because, you see, no one man, unaided, could carry it through. It requires the consent, the silence, and the active—nay, the zealous—cooperation of another man. And how are you to get that man?

In order to get this other man—this active and zealous fellow-conspirator—you must find means to persuade him to sacrifice every single thing that men care for—honour, reputation, success. He must be satisfied to pursue Art, actually and literally, for Art's own sake. This is, I know, a rule of conduct preached by every art critic, every æsthete, every lecturer or writer on Art. Yet observe what it may lead to. Was there, for instance, an unknown genius who gave his work to Giotto, with permission to call it his own? And was that obscure genius content to sit and watch that work in the crowd, unseen and unsuspected, while he murmured praises and thanksgiving for the skill of hand and eye which had been given to him, but claimed by that other young man, Messer Giotto? Did Turner have his ghost? Sublime sacrifice of self! So to pursue Art for Art's sake as to give your pictures to another man by which he may rise to honour—even, it may be, to the Presidency of the Royal Academy, contented only with the consciousness of good and sincere work, and with the possession of mastery! It is beyond us: we cannot achieve this greatness—we cannot rise to this devotion. Art hath no such votaries. By what persuasions, then—by what bribes—was Roland induced to consent to his own suicide—ignoble, secret, and shameful suicide?

He must have consented; in no other way could the thing be done. He must have agreed to efface himself—but not out of pure devotion to Art. Not so. The Roland of the past survived still. The burning desire for distinction and recognition still flamed in his soul. The bitterness and shame with which he spoke of himself proved that his consent had been wrung from him. He was ashamed. Why? Because another bore the honours that should be his. Because he was a bondman of the impostor. Of this Armorel was certain. Roland Lee—the man whom for five long years she had imagined to be marching from triumph to triumph—conqueror of the world—had sold himself—for what consideration she knew not—hand and eye, genius and brain, heart and soul—had sold himself into slavery. He had consented to a monstrous and most impudent fraud! And the man who stood before the canvas in public, writing his name in the corner, was—the noun appellative, the proper noun—belonging to such an act. And her own friend—her gallant hero of Art—what else was he in this conspiracy of two? You cannot persuade a woman—such is the poverty of the feminine imagination—to call a thing like this by any other name than its plain, simple, and natural one. A man may explain away, find excuses, make suggestions, point out extenuating circumstances, show how the force of events destroys free will, and propose a surplice and a golden crown for the unfortunate victim of fate, instead of bare shoulders and the nine-clawed cat. But a woman—never. If the thing done is a Lie, the man who did it is a ——

'Armorel,' said her companion—it was in the afternoon, and she had been dozing after her lunch—'what is the matter? You have been sitting in the window, which has a detestable view of a dismal street, for two long hours without talking. At lunch you sat as if in a dream. Are you ill? Has anything happened? Has the respectable Mr. Jagenal robbed you of your money? Has Philippa been saying amiable things about me?'

'I have found out something which has disquieted me beyond expression,' said Armorel, gravely.

Zoe changed colour. 'Heavens!'—she laughed curiously. 'What has come out now? Anything about me? One never knows what may come out next. It is very odd what a lot of things may be said about everybody.'

'My discovery has nothing to do with you, at least—no, nothing at all.'

'That is reassuring.' It certainly was, as everybody knows who does not wish the curtain to draw up once again on the earlier and half-forgotten scenes of the play. 'Perhaps it might relieve you, dear, if you were to tell me. But do not think I am curious. Besides, I dare say I could tell you more than you could tell me. Is it about Philippa's hopeless attachment for the man who will never marry her, and her cruelty to the reverend gentleman who will?'

'No—no: it is nothing about Philippa. I know nothing about any attachments.'

'Well, you will tell me when you please.' Zoe relapsed into warmth and silence. But she watched the girl from under her heavy eyelids. Something had happened—something serious. Armorel pursued her meditations, but in a different line. She now remembered that the leader in this Fraud was the man whom Zoe professed to honour above all other living men: could she tell this disciple what she had discovered? One might as well inform Kadysha that her prophet Mohammed was an epileptic impostor. And, again, he was Philippa's first cousin, and she regarded him with pride, if not—as Zoe suggested—with a warmer feeling still. How could she bring this trouble upon Philippa?

And, again, it was Roland's secret. How could she reveal a thing which would cover him with ridicule and discredit for the rest of his life? She must be silent for the sake of everybody.

'Zoe,' she sprang to her feet, 'don't ask me anything more. Forget what I said. It is not my own secret.'

'My dear child,' Zoe murmured, 'if nobody has run away with your money, and if you have found out no mares' nests about me, I don't mind anything. I have already quite forgotten. Why should I remember?'

'Of course,' Armorel repeated impatiently—this companion of hers often made her impatient—'there is nothing about you. It concerns——'

'Mr. Feilding.'

It was only an innocent maid who opened the door to announce an afternoon caller; but Armorel started, for really it was the right completion to her sentence, though not the completion she meant to make.

He came in—the man of whom her mind was full—tall, handsome, calm, and self-possessed. Authority sat, visible to all, upon his brow. His dress, his manner, his voice, proclaimed the man who had succeeded—who deserved to succeed. Oh! how could it be possible?

Armorel mechanically gave him her hand, wondering. Then, quite in the old style, and as a survival of Samson Island, there passed rapidly through her mind the whole procession of those texts which refer to liars. For the moment she felt curious and nervously excited, as one who should talk with a man condemned. Then she came back to London and to the exigencies of the situation. Yet it was really quite wonderful. For he sat down and began to talk for all the world as if he was a perfectly truthful person: and she rang the bell for tea, and poured it out for him, as if she knew nothing to the contrary. That he, being what he was, should so carry himself; that she, who knew everything, should sit down calmly and put milk and sugar in his tea, were two facts so extraordinary that her head reeled.

Presently, however, she began to feel amused. It was like knowing beforehand, so that the mind is free to think of other things, the story and the plot of a comedy. She considered the acting and the make-up. And both were admirable. The part of successful genius could not be better played. One has known genius too modest to accept the position, happiest while sitting in a dark corner. Here, however, was genius stepping to the front and standing there boldly in sight of all, as if the place was his by the double right of birth and of conquest.

He sat down and began to talk of Art. He seldom, indeed, talked about anything else. But Art has many branches, and he talked about them all. To-day, however, he discoursed on drawing and painting. He was accustomed to patient listeners, and therefore he assumed that his discourse was received with respect, and did not observe the preoccupied look on the face of the girl to whom he discoursed—for Zoe made no pretence of listening, except when the conversation seemed likely to take a personal turn. Nor did he observe how from time to time Armorel turned her eyes upon him—eyes full of astonishment—eyes struck with amazement.

Presently he descended for awhile from the heights of principle to the lower level of personal topic. 'Mrs. Elstree tells me,' he said, smiling with some condescension, 'that you paint—of course as an amateur—as well as play. If you can draw as well as you can play you are indeed to be envied. But that is, perhaps, too much to be expected. Will you show me some of your work? And will you—without being offended—suffer me to be a candid critic?'

Armorel went gravely to her own room and returned with a small portfolio full of drawings which she placed before him, still with the wonder in her eyes. What would he say—this man who passed off another man's pictures for his own? She stood at the table over him, looking down upon him, waiting to see him betray himself—the first criminal person—the first really wicked man—she had ever encountered in the flesh.

'You are not afraid of the truth?' he asked, turning over the sketches. 'In Art—truth—truth is everything. Without truth there is no Art. Truth and sincerity should be our aim in criticism as well as in Art itself.'

Oh! what kind of conscience could this man have who was able so to talk about Art, seeing what manner of man he was? Armorel glanced at Zoe, half afraid that he would convict himself in her presence. But she seemed asleep, lying back in her cushions.

His remarks were judgments. Once pronounced, there was no appeal. Yet his judgments produced no effect upon the girl, not the least. She listened, she heard, she acquiesced in silence.

Perhaps because he was struck with her coldness he left off examining the sketches, and began a learned little discourse about composition and harmony, selection and grouping. He illustrated these remarks, not obtrusively, but quite naturally, by referring to his own pictures, appealing to Zoe, who lazily raised her head and murmured response, as one who knew it all beforehand. Now, as to the discourse itself, Armorel recognised every word of it already: she had read and had been taught these very things. It showed, she thought, what a pretender the man must be not to understand work that had been done by one who had studied seriously, and already knew all that he was laboriously enforcing. But she said nothing. It was, moreover, the lesson of a professor, not of an artist. Between the professional critic who can neither paint nor draw and the smallest of the men who can paint and draw there is, if you please, a gulf fixed that cannot be passed over.

'This drawing, for instance,' he concluded, taking up one from the table, 'betrays exactly the weakness of which I have been speaking. It has some merit. There is a desire for truth—without truth what are we? The lights are managed with some dexterity, the colour has real feeling. But consider this figure. From sheer ignorance of the elementary considerations which I have been laying down, you have placed it exactly in front. Had it been here, at the right, the effect of the figure in bringing up the whole of the picture would have been heightened tenfold. For my own part, I always like a figure in a painting—a single figure for choice—a girl, because the treatment of the hair and the dress lends itself to effect.'

'His famous girl!' echoed Zoe. 'That model whom nobody is allowed to see!'

Now, the figure was placed in the middle for very excellent reasons, and in full consideration of those very principles which this expounder had been setting forth. But what yesterday would have puzzled her, now amused her one moment and irritated her the next.

He took up a crayon. 'Shall I show you,' he asked, 'exactly what I mean?'

'If you please. Here is a piece of paper which will do.'

He spoke in the style which Matthew Arnold so much admired—the Grand Style—the words clear and articulate, the emphasis just, the manner authoritative. 'I will just indicate your background,' he said, poising the pencil professionally—he looked as if the Grand Style really belonged to him—'in two or three strokes, and then I will sketch in your figure in the place—here—where it properly belongs. You will see immediately, though, of course—your eye—cannot——' He played with the chalk as one considering where to begin—but he did not begin. Armorel remembered a certain day when Roland gave her his first lesson, pencil in hand. Never was that pencil idle: it moved about of its own accord: it was drawing all the time: it seemed to be drawing out of its own head. Mr. Feilding, on the other hand, never touched the paper at all. His pencil was dumb and lifeless. But Armorel waited anxiously for him to begin. Now, at any rate, she should see if he could draw. She was disappointed. The clock on the overmantel suddenly struck six. Mr. Feilding dropped the crayon. 'Good heavens!' he cried. 'You make one forget everything, Miss Rosevean. We must put off the rest of this talk for another day. But you will persevere, dear young lady, will you not? Promise me that you will persevere. Even if the highest peak cannot be attained—we may not all reach that height—it is something to stand upon the lower slope, if it is only to recognise the greatness of those who are above and the depths below—how deep they are!—of the world which knows no art. Persevere—persevere! I will call again and help you, if I may.' He pressed her hand warmly, and departed.

'I really think,' said Zoe, 'that he believes you worth teaching, Armorel. I have never known him give so much time to any one girl before. And if you only knew how they flock about him!'

'Zoe,' said Armorel, without answering this remark, 'you have seen all Mr. Feilding's pictures, have you not?'

'I believe, all.'

'Do they all treat the same subject?'

'Up to the present, he has exhibited nothing but sea and coast pieces, headlands, low tide on the rocks, and so forth. Always with this black-haired girl—something like you, but not much more than a child.'

'Did you ever see him actually at work?'

'You mean working at an unfinished thing? No; never. He cannot endure anyone in his studio while he is at work.'

'Did he ever draw anything for you—any pen-and-ink sketch—pencil sketch? Have you got any of his sketches—rough things?'

'No. Alec has a secretive side to his character. It comes out in odd ways. No one suspected that he could paint, or even draw, until, three or four years ago, he suddenly burst upon us with a finished picture; and then it came out that he had been secretly drawing all his life, and studying seriously for years. Where he will break out next, I don't know.'

'He may break out anywhere,' said Armorel, 'except upon the fiddle. I think that he will never play the fiddle. Yes, Zoe, he really is a very, very clever man. He is certainly the very cleverest man in all London.'

CHAPTER XII
TO MAKE THAT PROMISE SURE

'What happy thought brings you here again, Armorel?' he asked, with the familiarity of an old friend.

'I came to see you at work. Last time I came only to see you. Is it permitted?'

'Behold me! I am at work. See my picture—all there is of it.'

Armorel looked at it long and carefully. Then she murmured unintelligibly, 'Yes, of course. But there never could have been any doubt.' She turned to the artist a face full of encouragement. 'What did I prophesy for you, Roland? That you should be a great painter? Well, my prophecy will come true.'

'I hope, but I fear. I am beginning the world again.'

'Not quite. Because you have never ceased to work. Your hand is firmer and your eye is truer now than it was four years ago, when you—ceased to exhibit. But you have never ceased to work. So that you go back to the world with better things.'

'They refused to buy my things before.'

'They will not refuse now. Nay, I am certain. Don't think of money, my old friend: you must not—you shall not think of money. Think of nothing but your work—and your name. What ought to be done to a man who should forget his name? He deserves to be deprived of his genius, and to be cast out among the stupid. But you, Roland, you were always keen for distinction—were you not?'

He made no reply.

'How well I know the place,' she said, standing before the picture. 'It is the narrow channel between Round Island and Camber Rock. Oh! the dear, terrible place. When you and I were there, you remember, Roland, the water was smooth and the sea-birds were flying quietly. I have seen them driven by the wind off the island and beating up against it like a sailing ship. But in September there are no puffins. And I have seen the water racing and roaring through the channel, dashing up the black sides of the rocks—while we lay off, afraid to venture near. It was low tide when you made your sketch. I remember the long, yellow fringing sea-weed hanging from the rock six feet deep. And there is your girl sitting in the boat. Oh! I remember her very well. What a happy time she had while you were with her, Roland! You were the very first person to show her something of the outer world. It seemed, when you were gone, as if you had taken that girl and planted her on a high rock so that she could see right across the water to the world of men and Art. You always keep this girl in your pictures?'

'Always in these pictures of coast and rock.'

'Roland, I want you to make a change. Do not paint the girl of sixteen in this picture. Let me be your model instead. Put me into the picture. It is my fancy. Will you let me sit for you again?'

'Surely, Armorel, if I may. It will be—oh, but you cannot—you must not come to this den of a place.'

'Indeed, I think it is not a nice place at all. But I shall stipulate that you take another and a more decent studio immediately. Will you do this?'

'I will do anything—anything—that you command.'

'You know what I want. The return of my old friend. He is on his way back already.'

'I know—I know. But whether he ever can come back again I know not. A shade or spectre of him, perhaps, or himself, besmirched and smudged, Armorel—dragged through the mud.'

'No. He shall come back—himself—in spotless robes. Now you shall take a studio, and I will come and sit to you. I may bring my little friend, Effie Wilmot, with me? That is agreed, then. You will go, Sir, this very morning and find a studio. Have you gone back to your old friends?'

'Not yet. I had very few friends. I shall go back to them when I have got work to show. Not before.'

'I think you should go back as soon as you have taken your new studio. It will be safer and better. You have been too much alone. And there is another thing—a very important thing—the other night you made me a promise. You tore up something that looked like a cheque. And you assured me that this meant nothing less than a return to the old paths.'

'When I tore up that accursed cheque, Armorel, I became a free man.'

'So I understood. But when one talks of free men one implies the existence of the master or owner of men who are not free. Have you signified to that master or owner your intention to be his bondman no longer?'

'No. I have not.'

'This man, Roland,' she laid her hand on his, 'tell me frankly, has he any hold upon you?'

'None.'

'Can he injure you in any way? Can he revenge himself upon you? Is there any old folly or past wickedness that he can bring up against you?'

'None. I have to begin the world again: that is the outside mischief.'

'All your pictures you have sold to this man, Roland, with me in every one?'

'Yes, all. Spare me, Armorel! With you in every one. Forgive me if you can!'

'I understand now, my poor friend, why you were so cast down and ashamed. What? You sold your genius—your holy, sacred genius—the spirit that is within you! You flung yourself away—your name, which is yourself—you became nothing, while this man pretends that the pictures—yours—were his! He puts his name to them, not your own—he shows them to his friends in the room that he calls his studio—he sends them to the exhibition as his own—and yet you have been able to live! Oh, how could you?—how could you? Oh! it was shameful—shameful—shameful! How could you, Roland? Oh, my master!—I have loaded you with honour—oh, how could you?—how could you?'

The vehemence of her indignation soon revived the old shame. Roland hung his head.

'How could I?' he repeated. 'Yes, say it again—ask the question a thousand times—how could I?'

'Forgive me, Roland! I have been thinking about it continually. It is a thing so dreadful, and yesterday something—an unexpected something—brought it back to my mind—and—and—made me understand more what it meant. And oh, Roland, how could you? I thought, before, that you had only idled and trifled away your time; but now I know. And again—again—again—how could you?'

'It is no excuse—but it is an explanation—I do not defend myself. Not the least in the world—but ... Armorel, I was starving.'

'Starving?'

'I could not sell my pictures. No one wanted them. The dealers would give me nothing but a few shillings apiece for them. I was penniless, and I was in debt. A man who drops into London out of Australia has no circle of friends and cousins who will stand by him. I was alone. Perhaps I loved too well the luxurious life. I tried for employment on the magazines and papers, but without success. In truth, I knew not where to look for the next week's rent and the next week's meals. I was a Failure, and I was penniless. Do you ask more?'

'Then the man came——'

'He came—my name was worth nothing—he asked me to suppress it. My work—which no one would buy—he offered to buy for what seemed, in my poverty, substantial prices if I would let him call it his own. What was the bargain? A life of ease against the bare chance of a name with the certainty of hard times. I was so desperate that I accepted.'

'You accepted. Yes.... But you might have given it up at any moment.'

'To be plunged back again into the penniless state. For the life of ease, mark you, brought no ease but a bare subsistence. Only quite lately, terrified by the success of the last picture, my employer has offered to give me two thirds of all he gets. The cheque you saw me tear up and burn was the first considerable sum I have ever received. It is gone, and I am penniless again——'

'And now that you are penniless?'

'Now I shall pawn my watch and chain and everything else that I possess. I shall finish this picture, and I will sell it for what the dealers will give me for it. Too late, this year, for exhibition. And so ... we shall see. If the worst comes I can carry a pair of boards up and down Piccadilly, opposite to the Royal Academy, and dream of the artistic life that once I hoped would be my own.'

'You will do better than that, Roland,' said Armorel, moved to tears. 'Oh! you will make a great name yet. But this man—don't tell me his name. Roland, promise me, please, not to tell me his name. I want you—just now—to think that it is your own secret—to yourself. If I should find it out, by accident, that would be—just now—my secret—to myself. This man—you have not yet broken with him?'

'Not yet.'

'Will you go to him and tell him that it is all over? Or will you write to him?'

'I thought that I would wait, and let him come to me.'

'I would not, if I were you. I would write and tell him at once, and plainly. Sit down, Roland, and write now—at once—without delay. Then you will feel happier.'

'I will do what you command me,' he replied meekly. He had, indeed, resolved with all his might and main that the rupture should be made; but, as yet, he had not made it.

'Get paper, then, and write.'

He obeyed, and sat down. 'What shall I say?' he asked.

'Write: "After four years of slavery, I mean to become a man once more. Our compact is over. You shall no longer put your name to my works; and I will no longer share in the infamy of this fraud. Find, if you can, some other starving painter, and buy him. I have torn up your cheque, and I am now at work on a picture which will be my own. If there is any awkwardness about the subject and the style, in connection with the name upon it, that awkwardness will be yours, not mine." So—will you read it aloud? I think,' said Armorel, 'that it will do. He will probably come here and bluster a little. He may even threaten. He may weep. You will—Roland—are you sure—you will be adamant?'

'I swear, Armorel! I will be true to my promise.'

Armorel heaved a sigh. Would he stand steadfast? He might have much to endure. Would he be able to endure hardness? It is only the very young man who can be happy in a garret and live contentedly on a crust. At twenty-six or twenty-seven, the age at which Roland had now arrived, one is no longer quite so young. The garret is dismal: the crust is insipid, unless there are solid grounds for hope. Yet he had the solid grounds of improved work—good work.

'Should you be afraid of him?' she asked.

'Afraid of him?' Roland laughed. 'Why, I never meet him but I curse him aloud. Afraid of him? No. I have never been afraid of anything but of becoming penniless. Poverty—destitution—is an awful spectre. And not only poverty but—I confess, with shame——'

'Oh! man of little faith'—she did not want to hear the end of that confession—'you could not endure a single hour. You did this awful thing for want of money.'

'I did,' said Roland, meekly.

'The Way of Pleasure and the Way of Wealth. I remember—you told me long ago—they draw the young man by ropes. But not the girl. Why not the girl? I have never felt this strange yearning for riot and excess. In all the poetry, the novels, the pictures, and the plays the young men are always being dragged by ropes to the Way of Pleasure. Are men so different from women? What does it mean—this yearning? I cannot understand it. What is your Way of Pleasure that it should attract you so? Your poetry and your novels cannot explain it. I see feasting in the Way of Pleasure, drinking, singing, dancing, gambling, sitting up all night, and love-making. As for work, there is none. Why should the young man want to feast? It is like a City Alderman to be always thinking of banquets. Why should you want to drink wine perpetually? I suppose you do not actually get tipsy. If you can sing and like singing, you can sing over your work, I suppose. As for love-making'—she paused. The subject, where a young man and a maiden discuss it, has to be treated delicately.

'I have always supposed'—she added, with hesitation, for experience was lacking—'that two people fall in love when they are fitted for each other. But in this, your wonderful Way of Pleasure, the poets write as if every man was always wanting to make love to every woman if she is pleasant to look at, and without troubling whether she is good or bad, wise or silly. Oh! every woman! any woman! there is neither dignity of manhood nor self-respect nor respect to woman in this folly.'

'You cannot understand any of it, Armorel,' said Roland. 'We ought all of us to be flogged from Newgate to Tyburn.'

'That would not make me understand. Flora, Chloe, Daphne, Amaryllis—they are all the same to the poet. A pretty girl seems all that he cares for. Can that be love?'

'—And back again,' said Roland.

'Still I should not understand. In the poetry I think that love-making comes first, and eating and drinking afterwards. As for love-making,' she spoke philosophically, as one in search of truth, 'as for love-making, I believe I could wait contentedly without it until I found exactly the one man I could love. But that I should take a delight in writing or singing songs about making love to every man who was a handsome fellow—any man—every man—oh! can one conceive such a thing? There is but one Way of Pleasure to such as you, Roland. If I could paint so good a picture as this is going to be, it would be a life-long joy. I should never, never, never tire of it. I should want no other pleasure—nothing better—than to work day after day, to work and study, to watch and observe, to feel the mastery of hand and eye. Oh! Roland—with this before you—with this'—she pointed to the picture—'you sold your soul—you—you—you!—for feasting and drinking and—and—perhaps——'

'No, Armorel: no. Everything else if you like, but not love-making.'

CHAPTER XIII
THE DRAMATIST

These ramblings belong to another book—the Book of the Things Left Out. I could show you, dear reader, many curious and interesting places visited by these two pilgrims, but one must not in this place write these down, because Armorel's story is not Armorel's history. Let us always be careful to distinguish. Besides, the events which have to be related destroyed, as you will see, the calm and tranquillity necessary for the proper enjoyment of such ramblings. First, this discovery concerning the pictures. Who can visit old churches and museums with a mind full of wrath and bitterness? So wrathful was Armorel in considering the impudence of the fraud she had discovered: so bitter was she in considering the cowardice of her old hero: that she even failed to observe the unmistakable signs of trouble which at this time showed themselves in her friend's face. If not a beautiful face, it was expressive. When the projecting forehead showed a thick black line: when the deep-set eyes were ringed with dark circles: when the pale cheeks grew paler and more hollow: and when the girl, who was generally so bright and animated, became silent and distraite, something was wrong.

'What is it, Effie?' Armorel asked, waking up. 'I have asked you three questions, and have received no answer. And you are looking ill. Has anything gone wrong?'

'Oh!' cried Effie, 'it is horrid! You are in troubles of your own, and you want me to add to them by telling you about mine.'

'I am in trouble, dear. And it makes me selfish and blind. You know partly what it is about. It is about the Life that has gone wrong. I have found out why and how. But I can never tell you or anybody. Never mind. Tell me about yourself.'

'It is more about my brother than myself. You know that Archie has been writing a play?'

'Yes. You write verses which you have never shown me; and your brother writes plays. I shall see both some day, perhaps.'

'Whenever you like. But Archie has now finished his play.'

'Yes?'

'That means to him more than I can possibly tell you. He has been living for that play, and for nothing else. It has filled his brain day and night. Never was so much trouble given to a play before, I am sure. It is himself.'

'I understand.'

'Well—then—you will understand also what he feels when he has been told that his play is utterly worthless.'

'Who told him that?'

'A great authority—a writer of great reputation—the only living writer whom we have ever known.'

'Well—but—Effie, if a great authority says this, it is frightful.'

'It would be, but for one thing, which you shall hear afterwards. However, he did confess that some of the situations were fine. But the dialogue, he said, was unfitted for the stage, and no manager would so much as look at the play.'

'Poor Archie! What a dreadful blow! What does he say?'

'He is utterly cast down. He sits at home and broods. Sometimes he swears that he will tear up the thing and throw it into the fire; sometimes he recovers a little of his old confidence in it. He will not eat anything, and he does not sleep; and I can find nothing to say that will comfort him. If I knew anyone who would give him another opinion—the play cannot be so bad. Armorel, will you read the play?'

'But, my dear, I am no critic. What would be the good of my reading it?'

'I would rather have your criticism than'—she hesitated—'than anybody's. Because you can feel—and you have the artist's soul; and everybody has not——though he may paint such beautiful pictures,' she added rather obscurely.

'Well, I will read the play, or hear him read it, if you think it will do him any good, Effie. I will go with you at once.'

'Oh! will you, really? Archie will be shy at first. The last criticism caused him so much agony that he dreads another. But yours will be sympathetic, at least. You will understand what he meant, even if he has not succeeded—poor boy!—in putting on the stage what was in his heart. When he sees that you do feel for him, it will be different. Oh! Armorel!'—the tears rose to her eyes—'you cannot know what that play has been to both of us. We have talked over every situation: we have rehearsed all the dialogue. I know it by heart, I think. I could recite the whole of it, straight through. We have cried over it, and laughed over it. I have dressed dolls for all the parts, and one of us made them act while the other read the play. And, after all, to be told that it is worthless! Oh! It is a shame! It is a shame! And it isn't worthless. It is a great, a beautiful play. It is full of tenderness, and of strength as well.'

'Let us go at once, Effie.'

'What a good thing it was for me that the Head of the Reading Room sent me to you! I little thought I was going to make such a friend'—she took Armorel's hand—'We had no friends—yes, there was one, but he is no true friend. We have had no friends at all, and we thought to make our way without any.'

'You came to London to conquer the world—such a great giant of a world—you and your brother, Jack the Giant Killer.'

'Ah! But we had read, somewhere, that the world is a good-natured giant. He only asks to be amused. If you make him laugh or cry, and forget, somehow, his own troubles—the world is full of troubles—he will give in at once. Archie was going to make him laugh and cry; I was going to tickle him with pretty rhymes. But you may play for him, act for him, dance for him, paint for him, sing for him, make stories for him—anything that you will, and he will be subdued. That is what we read, and we kept on repeating this assurance to each other, but as yet we have not got very far. The great difficulty seems to make him look at you and listen to you.'

'My dear, you shall succeed.'

The young dramatist was sitting at his table, as melancholy as Keats might have been after the Quarterly Review's belabouring. He looked wretched: there was no pretence at anything else: it was unmitigated wretchedness. Despair sat upon his countenance, visible for all to see: his hair had not apparently been brushed, nor his collar changed, since the misery began: he seemed to have gone to bed in his clothes. Trouble does thus affect many men. It attacks even their clothes as well as their hair and their minds. The manuscript was lying on the table before him, but the pen was dry: he had no longer any heart to correct the worthless thing. It was the hour of his deepest dejection. The day before he had plucked up a little courage: perhaps the critic was wrong: to-day all was blackness.

'Here is Armorel, Archie!' cried Effie, with the assumption of cheerfulness.

'I have come to ask a favour,' said Armorel, taking the hand that was mechanically extended. 'I hear that your play is finished, and I am told that it is a beautiful play.'

'No—it isn't,' said the author.

'And that an unkind critic has said horrid and unkind things about it. And I want to read it, if I may. Oh! I am not a great critic, but, indeed, Archie, I have some feeling for Art and for things beautiful. May I read it?'

'The play is perfectly worthless,' he replied sternly, but with signs of softening. 'It is only waste of time to read it. Better throw it behind the fire!' He seized the manuscript as he spoke, but he did not throw it behind the fire.

'Is your critic a dramatist?'

'No. He has never written a play that I know of. But he is a great authority. Everybody would acknowledge that.'

'A critic who has never written a play may very easily make mistakes,' said Armorel. 'You have only to read the critiques of pictures in the papers written by men who cannot paint. They are full of mistakes.'

'This man would not make a mistake, would he, Effie?'

'Well, dear, I think he might, and besides, remember what he said at the conclusion.' Armorel sat down. 'Now,' she said, 'tell me first what the play is about, and then read it, or let Effie read it. I am sure she will read it a great deal better than you.'

He hesitated. He was ashamed to show his miserable work to a second critic. And yet he longed to have another opinion, because, when he came to think about it, he could not understand why the thing could be called worthless.

He yielded. He read, with faltering accents, the scenario which he had prepared with so much pride. Now it was like unrolling a canvas daubed for the scenery of Richardson's Show. He took no more pride in it.

'Oh!' cried Armorel, interrupting. 'This seems to me a very fine situation.'

'My critic said that some of the situations were fine.'

He went on to the end without further interruption.

'Now, Effie,' said Armorel, 'you will read it aloud while your brother plays it with his dolls. Then I am sure to catch the points.'

Archie sat up, and began to place his dolls while Effie read. He was so expert in manipulating his puppets that he made them actually represent the piece, changing the groups every moment, while Effie, dropping the manuscript, folded her arms and recited the play, watching Armorel's face.

This was quite another kind of critic. It was such a critic as the playwright loves when he sits in his box and watches the people in the house—a face which is easily moved to laughter or to tears, which catches the points and feels the story. There are thousands of such faces in every theatre every night. It is for them that the play is written, and not for the critic, who comes to show his superiority by picking out faults and watching for slips. For two hours, not pausing for the division of the acts, Effie went on, her soft voice rising and falling, the passion indicated but repressed; and Archie watched, and moved his groups, and the audience of one sat motionless but not unmoved.

'What?' she cried, springing to her feet and clasping her hands. It is easy for this fine gesture to become theatrical and unreal, but Armorel was never unreal. 'He dared to call this splendid play—this glorious play—oh, this beautiful, sweet, and noble play!'—here Archie's eyes began to fill, and his lips to quiver: he was but a young dramatist, and of praise he had as yet had none—'he dared to call this worthless?'

'He said it was utterly worthless,' said Effie.

'He said,' Archie added, 'that the language was wholly unfitted for the stage. And then—then—after he'd said that, he offered to give me fifty pounds for it.'

'Fifty pounds for a play quite worthless?'

'On the condition that he was to bring it out himself if he pleased, under his own name.'

'Oh! but this is monstrous! Can there be,' asked Armorel, thinking of the pictures, 'two such men in London?'

'If I would let him call it his own! He wants to take my play—mine—to do what he likes with it—to bring it out as if it was his own! Never! Never! I would rather starve first.'

'What did you tell him?'

'He said that he would wait for an answer. I have sent him none as yet.'

'When you do,' said Armorel, 'let there be no hesitation or possibility of mistaking. Oh! If I could tell you a thing that I know!'

'I will put it quite plainly. Effie, am I the same man? I feel transformed. What a difference it makes only to think that, perhaps, after all one is not such a dreadful failure!' In fact, he looked transformed. The trouble had gone out of him—out of his face—out of his hair—out of his clothes—out of his attitude. Armorel even fancied that his limp, day-before-yesterday's collar had become white and starched again. That may have been mere fancy, but joy certainly produces very strange effects.

'I would have sent an answer before,' he said, 'but it is so unlucky for Effie. This great man—this critic—is the only editor who would ever take her verses. And now, of course, he will be offended, and will never take any more.'

'He shall not have any more,' said Effie, with red cheeks.

'Oh! But that would be horribly mean. Well, Archie, I will begin by taking advice. I know a dramatic critic—his name is Stephenson. I will ask him what you should do next, and I will ask him about your verses, Effie, too—those verses which you are always going to show me.'

'I tell her,' said her brother, 'that she will easily find another editor. You would say so too, if you were to see her verses. I am always telling her she ought to show them to you.'

The poet blushed. 'Some day, perhaps, when I am very courageous.'

'No—to-day.' Archie opened a drawer and took out a manuscript book bound in limp brown leather. 'I will read you one,' he said.

'Of course, you will say kind things,' said the poet. 'But you cannot deceive me, Armorel. I shall tell by your eyes and by your face if you really like my rhymes.'

'Well, I will read one, and I will lend you the volume, and then you will see whether Effie hasn't got her gifts as well as anybody else.'

He turned over the pages, selected a poem, and read it. The lines showed, first of all, the command that comes of long and constant practice; and next, they were sweet, simple, and pure in tone.

'Strange!' said Armorel. 'I seem to have heard something like them before—a phrase, perhaps. Where did I read only the other day?... Never mind. But, Effie, this is not ordinary girl's verse.'

'Oh! you really like it?'

'Of course I like it. But it is so strange—I seemed to know the style. May I borrow the whole volume? I will be very careful with it. Thank you. I will carry it home with me. And now—I have thought of a plan. Listen, Archie. You know that many young dramatists bring out their pieces first at a matinée. Now, suppose that you read your piece, Archie, in my rooms in the evening. Should you like to do so?'

'I read badly,' he said. 'Could Effie read or recite it?'

'The very thing. Bring your dolls along and arrange your groups, while Effie recites. You will do that, Effie?'

'I will do anything that will help Archie.'

'Very well, then. We will get an evening fixed as soon as possible. I fear we shall have to wait a week at least. I will get my dramatic critic and a few more people, and we will have a private performance of our own. And then we shall defy this critic who said the piece was worthless—and then wanted to buy it and to bring it out as his own. I could not have believed,' she added, 'that there were two such impudent pretenders and liars to be found in the whole of London.'

'Two?' asked Ellie, changing colour. 'There can be only one.'

CHAPTER XIV
AN HONOURABLE PROPOSAL

'To return, Alec: I have failed. I have no influence at all upon this girl. I have spent hours and hours in singing your praise. I have enlarged upon the absolute necessity of giving you a rest from business cares. I have proposed that she and I together—that was the way I put it—should buy a share in the paper, and that she should advance my half. Oh! I grew eloquent on the glory that two women thus coming to the relief of a man like yourself would achieve in after years. I tried to speak from my heart, Alec.' The woman caught his hand, but he drew it away. 'Oh! you deserve no help. You are hard-hearted, and you are selfish: you have broken every promise you ever made me: you spend all that you have in selfish pleasures: you leave me almost without assistance——'

'When I have got you into the easiest and most luxurious berth that can be imagined; when I have asked you for nothing but a simple——'

'Yes, dear Alec, but you see that an honest acknowledgment would be worth all this goodness. Well, I say that I spoke from my heart, because in spite of all I was proud of my man—mine, yes, though Philippa still imagines, poor wretch!'

'Do leave my cousin's name out of it, will you, Zoe?' he said, a little less roughly.

'I am proud of the man who is acknowledged to be the cleverest man in London.' She got up and began to walk about the studio. She stopped before the picture. 'Do you know, Alec—I am not a critic, but I can feel a thing—that this is quite the best work you have ever done. Oh! Those waves, they live and dance; and those birds, they fly; and the air is so warm and soft!—you are a great painter. Odd! your girl is curiously like Armorel. One would fancy your model was Armorel at sixteen or so—a lovely girl she must have been then, and a lovely woman she is now.' Zoe left the picture and began to look at the papers on the table. 'What is this—the new story? Is it good?'

'To you, Zoe, I may confess that it is as good as anything I have ever done.'

'You are really splendid, Alec! What is this?' She took up a very neatly written page in his handwriting. 'Poetry?'

'Those are some verses for next week's journal. I think there is no falling off there, Zoe.'

'Have you got another copy?'

'There is the copy that has gone to the printers'.'

'Then I will take this. It will do for a present—the autograph original draft of the poem—or I may keep it.'

'Zoe, come back and sit down. We must talk seriously.'

She returned and took up her old position by the fire. 'As seriously as you please. It means something disagreeable—something to do with money. Let us get it over. To go back to what we were saying, therefore. I cannot get you that money from Armorel. And at the very word of money she refers one to her lawyer. No confidence at all, as between friends who love each other. That is the position, Alec.' She sat with her hands clasped over her right knee.

'I must have some money,' he said.

'Then, as I have before remarked, Alec—make it.'

'If one cannot have money, Zoe, one may get credit, which is sometimes just as good.'

'I cannot help you in getting credit.'

'Perhaps you can. You can help me, Zoe, by keeping quite quiet.'

'Oh! I am always quiet. I have remained quiet for three years and more, while you flirt with countesses and cousins. How much more quiet do you wish me to remain? While you marry them?'

'Not quite that, my child. But next door to it. While I get engaged to one of them—to one who has money.'

'Not—Philippa.'

'No—I told you before. What the devil is the good of harping on Philippa? You see, if I can let it be understood that I am going to marry an heiress, the difficulties will be tided over. Therefore I shall get engaged to your charge—Armorel Rosevean.'

'Oh!' Zoe received this proposition with coldness. 'This is a charming thing for me to sanction, isn't it?'

'It will do you no harm.'

'I have certainly endured things as bad.'

'You see, Zoe, one could always break off the thing when the time came.'

'Certainly.'

'And you would know all the time that it was a mere pretence.'

'I should certainly know that.'

'Well; is there any other observation?'

'You would make it an open engagement—go about with her—have it publicly known?'

'Of course. The whole point is publicity. I must be known to be engaged to an heiress.'

'And it would last——'

'As long as might prove necessary. One could find an excuse at any time for breaking it off.'

'Or I could.'

'Just so. It really amounts to nothing at all.'

'To nothing at all!' Zoe neither raised her voice nor her eyes. 'Here is a man who proposes to pretend love and to win a girl's affections, when he can never marry her. He also proposes to throw her over, as soon as she has served his purpose. It is nothing at all, of course! Alec, you are really a wonderful man!'

'Nonsense! The thing is done every day.'

'No—not every day. If you are the cleverest man in London, you are also the most heartless.'

'You know that you can say what you please,' he replied, without any outward sign of annoyance. 'Even heroics.'

'But,' she said, nursing her knee and swinging backwards and forwards, 'we have forgotten one thing—the most important thing of all, in fact. My poor boy, there is no more chance of your being engaged to Armorel than of your entering into the Kingdom of Heaven.'

'Why?'

'Other girls you might catch: you are tall and big and handsome; and you have the reputation of being so very, very clever. Most girls would be carried away. But not Armorel. She is not subdued by bigness in men, and she doesn't especially care for a clever man. She is actually so old-fashioned—think of it!—that she wants—character.'

'Well! What objection would that raise, I should like to know?'

Zoe laughed softly and sweetly.

'Don't you see, dear Alec? Oh! But you must let Armorel explain to you.'