*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 63045 ***

Note: Images of the original pages are available through
      Internet Archive. See
      https://archive.org/details/auntoliveinbohem00mooriala





AUNT OLIVE IN BOHEMIA

by

LESLIE MOORE

Author of "The Cloak of Convention" and
"The Notch in the Stick"






Hodder & Stoughton
New York
George H. Doran Company

Copyright, 1913
by George H. Doran Company




 TO
 MY MOTHER




 CONTENTS


  CHAPTER                                        PAGE

      I. THE BEGINNING OF THE FAIRY TALE          11
     II. ANCIENT HISTORY                          19
    III. THE LADY OF THE BLUE DRESS               28
     IV. THE COURTYARD                            40
      V. IN BOHEMIA                               51
     VI. THE FAUN IN THE GARDEN                   58
    VII. THE SIX ARTISTS OF THE COURTYARD         63
   VIII. A MAN'S CONSCIENCE                       71
     IX. VISITORS                                 85
      X. THE CASA DI CORLEONE                     93
     XI. A MEETING                               104
    XII. PRINCESS PIPPA AWAKES                   118
   XIII. AT THE WORLD'S END                      136
    XIV. VARIOUS MATTERS                         150
     XV. A QUESTION OF COLOUR                    161
    XVI. THE LADY OF THE BLUE DRESS AGAIN        168
   XVII. THE DUCHESSA ENTERS A KINGDOM           176
  XVIII. BARNABAS SCHEMES WITH CUPID             181
    XIX. THE INTERFERENCE OF A FAIRY GODMOTHER   188
     XX. THE HEART OF NATURE                     204
    XXI. THE RING OF EROS                        212
   XXII. AN OLD MAN IN A GARDEN                  218
  XXIII. ANDREW MCANDREW                         233
   XXIV. THE CRUELTY OF THE FATES                238
    XXV. IN YORKSHIRE                            250
   XXVI. PIPPA'S MOTHER                          259
  XXVII. MICHAEL MAKES MUSIC                     279
 XXVIII. THE PEACE OF THE RIVER                  284
   XXIX. SOME TWISTED THREADS                    287
    XXX. KNOTS UNTIED                            292
   XXXI. THE TUNE OF LOVE                        299
  XXXII. A WEDDING DAY                           304
 XXXIII. A GIFT FROM THE DEAD                    308
  XXXIV. THE MUSIC OF TWO COURTYARDS             313




 AUNT OLIVE IN
 BOHEMIA




CHAPTER I

THE BEGINNING OF THE FAIRY TALE


Once upon a time, as the fairy tales have it, there was a certain
country town. It was a sleepy little town, where few things happened.
It was like a dog grown old and lazy with basking in the sun,
undisturbed by motor-cars and modern rush. An occasional event like
a fly, and as small and insignificant as that insect, would settle
momentarily upon it. For an instant it would be roused, shake itself,
and promptly go to sleep again.

The houses in the town were all alike--small, detached, and built of
red brick. They were named after the shrubs and trees that grew in
their gardens. There was the Myrtles, the Hawthorns, the Laurels, the
Yews, the Poplars, and many others.

One May morning, when the flowers on the laburnum trees were hanging
in a shower of golden rain, and the pink and white blossoms of the
hawthorn bushes were filling the air with a sweet and sickly scent,
a single cab, drawn by a horse as sleepy as the town to which it
belonged, drove up the small, clean street, and turned in at the gate
marked the Poplars.

Two small children with satchels on their backs paused to peep up the
drive. They saw two black boxes being hoisted by the driver on to the
roof of the cab. There was nothing, one would think, of vital interest
in the sight, but it proved more attractive than the thought of lesson
books and school-room benches. They remained to gaze.

In a couple of moments a woman came through the front door. She was
clad in a black cashmere dress of ample folds, partly hidden by a
blade satin jacket, with large, loose sleeves. A wide, white linen
collar adorned with a small black velvet bow surrounded her neck; a
mushroom-shaped hat, also black, was tied by broad strings beneath her
chin. In one hand she held a large and tightly rolled umbrella, in the
other was a black satin bag drawn up by a cord. It bulged in a knobby
fashion. It had evidently been stuffed to the extent of its capacities.

The woman spoke to the driver, then got into the cab. He climbed to the
box, flicked his whip, turned the horse's head, and drove once again
through the gate.

The children scuttled to one side, and the cab drove up the street.

Its occupant sat upright within it, clutching tightly at the umbrella
and the black satin bag. Little thrills of happiness were running
through her. The May wind blowing through the window fanned her face,
bringing with it great puffs of scent from the hawthorn bushes.
Sunshine sparkled on the roofs of the houses, birds were singing in the
gardens past which she drove. It was a day alive with gladness, warm
with the breath of spring, fresh with the sense of youth. And the woman
within the cab, whose heart, in spite of her sixty years, was as young
as the heart of a child, participated in the gladness.

She watched the people in the streets walking leisurely in the
sunshine. She saw the shops with the tradesmen standing idle in the
doorways. At the fishmonger's only there was a little air of bustle,
where a maid in a neat print had run in to buy a couple of soles for
lunch.

The woman pulled out her watch--a huge affair in solid gold, attached
to a black hair chain. For a moment she glanced at it anxiously, then
returned it to its place with a little sigh of relief. The horse still
trotted on its slow unhurried way. More shops were passed, then more
houses. Finally the cab drew up with a little jerk.

The driver got down and opened the cab door.

"Here we are, ma'am; and twenty minutes to spare. I'll call a porter."

While the boxes were being taken from the cab Miss Mason opened the
black satin bag. From it she extracted a ten-shilling piece.

The boxes were wheeled towards the platform.

"I've no change, ma'am," said the cabby.

"That's all right," said Miss Mason hurriedly.

The cabby stared. "You're very good, ma'am."

"It's all right," said Miss Mason again.

Ten shillings was a small amount to give a man who had driven her a
mile towards happiness. She followed the porter on to the platform.

"Victoria, second class," she said to the man at the ticket office.

"Return or single, ma'am?" he demanded.

"Single," said Miss Mason firmly.

She took the little piece of cardboard from him and thrust it up her
glove. She loved the feeling of it. It was her passport to freedom.

She watched the boxes being labelled. They were new boxes and hitherto
guiltless of station labels. When she had seen them firmly attached,
and had been solemnly assured by the porter that the paste was both
strong and adhesive, she turned her attention to the bookstall. After
a few moments' survey she moved away hurriedly. The pictures on the
covers of some of the books distressed her, especially one of a young
female with red hair and very insufficient orange attire. For a moment
Miss Mason blushed. But she forgot the objectionable book in looking
along the shiny rails in the direction from which the train must arrive.

The sudden ringing of a bell made her jump.

"Train's signalled, ma'am," said the porter. "She'll be here in five
minutes now."

"You'll be sure and put in my boxes," said Miss Mason.

"Sure, ma'am. Corner seat facing the engine, did you say?"

"Y-yes; a seat somewhere," stammered Miss Mason. The near approach of
the train was making her feel nervous.

"All right. I'll see to it. Second class I think you said."

There was a distant whistle; next, the panting as of some great beast,
and an engine with its tail of carriages steamed into sight. It drew up
slowly at the platform.

"Here y'are, ma'am. Carriage all to yourself. Boxes will be in the
front part of the train. Thank you kindly, ma'am. Anything I can get
for you? Paper or anything? Window up or down? Will put in the boxes
myself. Good morning, ma'am."

A tip proportionate to the fare Miss Mason had paid the cabby was
responsible for this burst of eloquence.

In spite of the porter's assurance that he would see to the boxes
himself, Miss Mason stood with her head through the carriage window
till she had seen them actually deposited in the guard's van. Then she
sat down in the corner of the carriage.

The porter reappeared.

"They're in, ma'am. You're off now."

There was a gentle vibration through the train, and the platform
began to recede. The one woman left on it--a stout woman who had been
seeing her daughter off on her way to service--waved a large white
pocket-handkerchief. Its fluttering was the last thing Miss Mason saw
as the train left the station.

She heaved a little sigh.

She found she was still clutching the large umbrella. She laid it now
upon the seat beside her. She was almost too excited to think of the
happiness before her. She hardly wanted to do so. It was almost too
overpowering. She would realize it by degrees. At the moment there were
a thousand trivial delights around her.

She examined the carriage in which she was seated. The number on the
door was seven hundred and seventy-seven. Miss Mason had a secret
partiality for certain numbers, seven being her favourite. She was
seven years old when she had her first silk frock. It was a blue and
white check frock, and her hair--Miss Mason at that time wore it in
two plaits--had been tied with blue ribbons. Seventeen had been, up
to date, the happiest year of her life. But more of that year anon.
At twenty-seven she had been allowed the entrance of Miss Stanhope's
library. At thirty-seven she had become the owner of a kitten. At
forty-seven Miss Stanhope had given her the watch she now wore. At
fifty-seven a favourite rose-tree had borne the most perfect flowers.
Trivial enough facts to form landmarks in a life, yet they formed
landmarks in Miss Mason's.

She again looked approvingly at the number. From it she turned to a
contemplation of the photographs which adorned the walls. They were
the usual kind of photographs found in railway carriages--seaside
promenades, ruined castles, lakes with mountains beyond. Miss Mason
read the names below them with interest. She looked at the gas-globe
in the roof of the carriage, with its black cover which could be drawn
over it if the passengers found the light troublesome. She looked at
the emergency cord which was to be pulled down to attract the attention
of the guard in case of accident. She noted that the penalty for its
improper use was five pounds. It seemed to Miss Mason a large sum to
pay merely for pulling a little piece of string. She wondered if anyone
had ever been bold enough to pull it without necessity.

After gazing at it for two minutes with a certain amount of awe, she
put her arm through the padded loop by the window, and looked out at
the scenery past which they were flying.

There were fields in which sheep and cows were solemnly munching the
fresh grass; there were hedges covered with the fairy snow of the
hawthorn blossoms; there were woods of larches, oaks, and beeches,
and among them the darker green of firs; there were streams rippling
golden-brown past meadow banks and clumps of rushes; there were
children swinging on gates and waving cap or handkerchief as the train
rushed by. She saw market carts and occasionally a dogcart on roads
running by the railway, and now and then a solitary cyclist, all going
at a snail's pace so it seemed compared with the rate at which she
herself was travelling. They passed houses with trimly-kept gardens
alive with flowers; cottages with strips of vegetable gardens where
from lines attached to posts stuck among the cabbages washing was hung
out to dry. The May breeze swung the clothing to and fro, ballooning
it momentarily to ridiculous shapes, fluttering red petticoats, white
tablecloths, and blue blouses, like the waving of coloured flags.

Again the joyous note of youth and gladness sounded in Miss Mason's
heart. She gave a queer little gruff laugh.

"Wonderful!" she thought. "Like the fairy tales I used to read when I
was little. Now I'm part of the fairy tale. Can hardly believe it. Yet
it's true."




CHAPTER II

ANCIENT HISTORY


Outwardly Miss Mason was not unlike certain pictures of the fairy
godmother who escorted Cinderella to the ball. Being a fairy godmother,
no doubt that old lady's heart was every bit as young as Miss Mason's,
so the similarity may very likely have extended still further.

Of the fairy godmother's previous history there is no known record.
Miss Mason's history was the public property of the little town in
which she lived. It is not unduly lengthy. It also cannot be termed
exciting.

Miss Mason became an orphan at the age of five. Her mother had been a
pretty Irish girl, only daughter of a penniless Irish gentleman; and
not having had enough of poverty in her own home, she gave her heart
to one, Dick Mason, a struggling painter, who was as ugly as he was
gay and light-hearted. In spite of poverty she had seven years of such
happiness as falls to the lot of few women. Then Dick was killed riding
a friend's young unbroken mare, and a month later his wife followed
him; dying--if such a complaint truly exists--of a broken heart.

Their one child, Olive, was left penniless, and with only one relation
in the world--a Miss Stanhope, a wealthy and eccentric cousin of her
father's, who was at this time a maiden lady of thirty.

A sense of duty as stern and uncompromising as Miss Stanhope's own
appearance induced her to offer the child a home. Duty also prompted
her to look well after her physical welfare, and educate her in
a style befitting a young woman of gentle birth. Miss Stanhope's
views on education were decided and not at all involved. Every lady,
she averred, should be able to speak French fluently, make her own
underclothes, and be conversant with the writings of the best authors.
Music--which she disliked--was left outside the category. She provided
the child with a French governess, who was a beautiful needlewoman. The
introduction to the authors would come later.

Olive remained under Madame Dupont's tuition for twelve years. When she
was seventeen she was sent to "finish her education" at Miss Talbot's
select Academy for Young Ladies at Brighton. This year was the happiest
in Olive's life. Not only was there a daily walk on the esplanade,
from whence she gazed for the first time in her life at the marvel of
the sea, but also she was permitted to take drawing-lessons. She had
inherited three things from her father, the first being his plainness
of feature, the second his youthful heart, and the third his passion
for drawing.

An extremely inefficient but well-meaning young man of impeachable
character visited Miss Talbot's Academy for Young Ladies twice a week,
and instructed the pupils in this art. Chalk drawings from casts
were the style in vogue. It was considered an extremely advanced
style. The chalk was kept in small glass tubes, it was shaken on to
a pad, and applied to the paper with leather stumps, in the manner
known as stippling. The poverty of the instruction, the horribly
inartistic results produced, were unrecognized by Miss Mason. Chalk
representations of plaster pears, apples, and floreate designs were
produced by her at the rate of one a fortnight, and were laid carefully
away in a large portfolio with tissue paper between to keep the chalk
from rubbing.

Among the pupils at Miss Talbot's Academy had been a girl--one Peggy
O'Hea. Her father was a portrait painter of some note. Miss Talbot had
hesitated at introducing this girl; daughter of a Bohemian--all artists
were Bohemian in Miss Talbot's eyes--into her select establishment,
but the fact that her father was a yearly exhibitor at that most
respectable institution the Royal Academy, and that her uncle was a
Dean, induced Miss Talbot to overlook Bohemia. She kept, however, a
strict guard over Miss O'Hea's conversation with the other pupils,
a guard Peggy invariably evaded; and curled up on her bed in her
nightdress, her arms clasped round her knees, she would hold forth
in glowing terms regarding her father's studio and the artists who
frequented it. She had in her secret heart a distinct contempt for the
chalk drawings; but she was a generous little soul, and refrained from
putting her thoughts into words.

From her glowing descriptions, the word studio came to sound in Miss
Mason's ears with a note akin to magic, while no one guessed the dreams
of art and artists, of the mad sweet land of Bohemia, cherished by the
ugly girl who was known in the school as "that awkward Olive Mason."

At the end of the year Miss Mason returned home, to find her presence
almost hourly required by Miss Stanhope, who had developed into what
is usually termed a _malade imaginaire_. Her only recreations were
gardening, and later--when at the age of twenty-seven she was allowed
free access to the library--reading. In these two occupations she was
able to forget the monotony of the days.

Children who peeped through the gate on sunny mornings saw a small
shrunken woman with a thin peevish face sitting on the lawn or in the
veranda, according to the season, while Miss Mason was busy in the
flower-beds, her grey dress tucked up over a black and white striped
petticoat, goloshes on her feet, a large black hat tied on her head,
and gauntlet gloves covering her hands. The progress of fashion being
outside the strictly limited circle of Miss Mason's life, she had
adopted a costume of her own device, which costume she found both warm
and comfortable, and it never varied.

The children who peeped through the gate grew to be men and women;
their children peeped in like fashion, and still the same order of
things endured at the house named the Poplars.

During these years Miss Mason made one friend. It was curious, though
perhaps not out of keeping with Miss Mason's character, which was now
almost as original as the garments she wore, that the friend should
be a child of ten years old. She had come to live with her parents at
the small town in which Miss Stanhope resided. The child's paternal
grandmother had been a friend of Miss Stanhope's youth. That statement
in itself had a flavour of respectability about it. Armed with a letter
of introduction from the grandmother--Mrs. Quarly--the parents ventured
to call upon Miss Stanhope. She received them graciously enough, and a
week later Miss Mason was ordered to return the visit.

It was then that she met little Sybil Quarly, who promptly took an
unaccountable, but very strong, liking to her. In a short time Sybil
learnt which were the hours spent by Miss Mason in the garden, and from
that moment those hours saw a fair-haired child in short petticoats
busy in the flower-beds with her. To an onlooker Miss Mason's manner
would have appeared almost surly, but Sybil, with the infallible
instinct of childhood, recognized the tenderness beneath the gruff
exterior. The two became fast friends.

For seven years Sybil helped Miss Mason pull up weeds, destroy
slugs, bud roses, and take cuttings of carnations. She called her
"Granny," and she confided all her childish woes and griefs to her.
Her parents were conventional people, also they were somewhat strict
and unsympathetic. They did not in the least understand Sybil's timid
nature. Miss Mason saw, to her sorrow, that the child was being driven
to subterfuge and petty untruth by an overharsh system of treatment.
But she was powerless to do anything. Mrs. Quarly would have resented
the smallest interference. For seven years Miss Mason gave the child
all the tenderness at her disposal. At the end of that time Sybil's
parents left the little town and took her to Pangbourne.

During the next three or four years Sybil and Miss Mason kept up a
fitful correspondence. From much that the girl left unsaid Miss Mason
felt that she was not happy. Had she herself been gifted with the
pen of a ready writer, she might indirectly have sought the girl's
confidence, but neither written nor spoken words came easily to her.
There were times--and those when she most longed for the power of
speech--when she felt herself possessed of a dumb dog. She wrote and
told Sybil that the roses were in bloom, that she had pickled a hundred
and fifty slugs in salt and water after one shower of rain, that the
Shirley poppies they had planted one year were spreading like weeds
over the garden. She heard from Sybil that she had made a few new
friends, among them one, Cecily Mainwaring, who lived in London, and
that she stayed with her occasionally. Her letters, however, gave mere
facts; there was no hint as to her thoughts, or whether she were happy
in her new surroundings. And Miss Mason longed to ask her, yet all the
time she could write of nothing but pickled slugs and the blight on
rose-trees. And after four years Sybil's letters suddenly ceased. Miss
Mason wrote three times and received no answer. Then she, too, stopped
writing. And thus the years, as far as Miss Mason was concerned, rolled
on.

But, at last, one sunny morning when a boy and girl approached the gate
they saw no one in the garden, and the blinds in the house pulled down.
Old Miss Stanhope had died quietly in her sleep that morning, and after
forty-three years Miss Mason had deserted the flower-beds. She was
sitting in the desolate drawing-room, unable yet to grasp the meaning
of the one really important event which had occurred in her life since
she was five years old.

Four days later Miss Stanhope's will was read. Miss Mason had been left
sole heiress to an income which amounted to something like fifteen
thousand a year. No one but Miss Stanhope herself and her trustees had
had the smallest conception of her wealth. The terms of the will, which
appeared in the local papers, had the effect of taking every one's
breath away.

Miss Mason spoke to the lawyer regarding it.

"Can't spend anything like that amount a year," she said gruffly.
"Don't know how Miss Stanhope managed to. Much rather you gave me one
thousand and looked after the rest. Shan't find it easy to spend one."

Mr. Davis stared for a moment. Then he suddenly realized--and by a
marvellous leap of intelligence on his part--that Miss Mason was under
the impression that he would yearly press fifteen thousand sovereigns
into her palm. The question of banks and cheque-books had not presented
itself to her mind.

During the next half-hour Henry Davis found himself explaining matters
to Miss Mason much as he would have explained them to a child of
twelve. Miss Mason grasped the situation instantly.

"Then before you go you'd better show me how to draw a cheque,"
she said. "Think that was your expression. I'm not imbecile, though
when a woman of sixty doesn't know the first principles of banks and
cheque-books you might think she was."

It was after Mr. Davis had left that Miss Mason gradually began to
realize what Miss Stanhope's death and her newly-acquired wealth would
mean. She had lived so long in one groove that the possibility of
change had never actually occurred to her. At first she had felt almost
stunned. But suddenly, in a flash, she saw a new life before her. Every
dream of her seventeenth year could be fulfilled. It found expression
in one short sentence:

"Shall go to London and take a studio."




CHAPTER III

THE LADY OF THE BLUE DRESS


Miss Mason was sitting in the lounge of the Wilton Hotel. Mr.
Davis--the lawyer--had given her the name of this hotel, telling her
that it was both quiet and comfortable.

A tiny cloud had arisen in Miss Mason's mind. It partially eclipsed the
sunshine of her morning mood. She knew vaguely what had caused it.

She had changed her dress on her arrival, donning a black satin gown
made in precisely the same style as the cashmere. A lace collar took
the place of the linen one. A cameo brooch, large, and set in gold as
massive as her watch, superseded the black bow. Miss Mason never wore
jewellery except in the evening.

She had dined excellently at a small table in a room adorned with
water-colour drawings. Between the courses she had found herself
admiring them. She was so intent on them that at first she did not
notice the covert smiles which two girls were directing towards her
table. When she did, the smiles began to make her feel uncomfortable.
At first she wondered if her cap were crooked, or her brooch unpinned,
but gradually it dawned on her that it was just she herself who was
affording them amusement.

Miss Mason had finished the last morsels of her gooseberry tart
hurriedly, had swallowed her glass of light wine, and gone out into the
lounge. She told herself that she was an old fool to worry over the
little incident, but it had caused a vague anxiety in her mind.

She took up a number of the "Graphic" and began turning the pages.
The style of the advertisements displayed within its covers had made
her previously imagine the periodical to be exclusively intended for
feminine perusal. She had been slightly alarmed before dinner to see
a stout elderly gentleman studying it profoundly. A momentary idea
took possession of her as to whether it was not her duty to go up to
him and warn him regarding the nature of some of the contents, but as
she saw it was the middle of the book he was studying, she concluded
that someone had already given him a delicate hint regarding the
advertisement pages. All the same, she could not imagine the editor of
the paper to be a modest man.

One or two people had come into the lounge for coffee after dinner, but
they had left it again, and, at the moment, it was deserted save for
Miss Mason and one other woman.

There was something about the woman that attracted her attention.
It was not merely her beauty, but something in the graceful way in
which she was sitting in her chair, and in her manner of speaking to
the waiter who brought her coffee. Miss Mason found herself watching
her. She liked the ivory whiteness of her skin, the vivid red-brown of
her hair, and the expression in her eyes. Her dress, too, which was a
curious deep blue, pleased her immensely.

Suddenly the woman looked up. She saw Miss Mason's eyes fixed on her,
and she smiled. There was something so frank and spontaneous about the
smile that Miss Mason found herself smiling too.

"We have the place to ourselves," said the woman. "Every one else has
departed for different theatres. I should have gone myself if I hadn't
an appointment with a friend of mine."

"Never been to a theatre in my life," said Miss Mason. "Lack of
opportunity, not prejudice."

"If you really care to have the opportunity it is certain to present
itself sooner or later," replied the woman calmly. "It's only a
question of the intensity of wishing."

Miss Mason leant a little forward.

"Doesn't the opportunity sometimes arrive too late?"

The question was put almost involuntarily. It was one she had been
asking herself for the last three-quarters of an hour--ever since her
somewhat hurried exit from the dining-room; and the question did not
refer merely to the opportunity of visiting the theatre. The woman
understood.

"That raises rather a fine point of question," she replied. "Can it
be fairly said that one has been given the opportunity if it is truly
impossible to accept it, which I imagine 'too late' would signify?"

Miss Mason did not reply at once. She wanted to tell this woman about
the little cloud which had covered the brightness of her sun, the
insidious little doubt which had crept into her mind. Yet she hardly
knew how to begin.

The woman waited. She was one of those to whom confidences are given.
If she had said anything at that moment the sentence Miss Mason was
slowly preparing in her mind would never have reached her lips. It came
suddenly and jerkily, it was spoken, too, almost below Miss Mason's
breath.

"Isn't one ever too old? Have waited a long time for the chance of
happiness. Got it now. But perhaps I am too old." A slow painful flush
had mounted in Miss Mason's face with the words.

The younger woman turned quickly towards her.

"Too old for happiness!" she cried, with a little laugh. "Never! If
happiness has come to you, welcome her with both hands; and with every
kiss she gives you years will roll away from your heart. Happiness is
like the spring, which wakes the world to brightness after a dreary
winter."

Miss Mason gave a little choke.

"Felt like that myself in the train this morning. Forgot I was sixty.
Thought it was splendid to be alive. Was going to enjoy myself. Was
so glad thinking about it thought everybody would be glad too. Can't
explain very well, but felt quite young. Thought all the young things
in the world would let me watch their happiness, and I'd be happy in my
own happiness and theirs. Didn't want to interfere with them, or try to
mix myself up with them. Just wanted to be a kind of onlooker. Never
thought they'd stop to laugh at me--make quiet fun of me, I mean. Made
me feel very old. Silly nonsense, of course. Oughtn't to care. Am
old."

The woman looked up quickly. She had noticed the little scene in the
dining-room.

"Age has nothing to do with the matter," she replied quietly. "There
is no reason why you should not enjoy yourself enormously. The dullest
person I know is a young man of twenty-three, and one of the gayest is
an aunt of mine who is seventy-five. Happiness is a gift of the gods,
and is bestowed by them irrespective of age."

"Think so?" said Miss Mason.

"I am sure of it."

Again there was a silence. Then, quite suddenly, Miss Mason began to
tell the woman the story of her life. She told it badly. For the last
forty years at least Miss Mason had talked little. Miss Stanhope had
never cared to encourage conversation other than her own. A daily and
minute recital of her own imaginary ailments had sufficed her. That had
been a subject which had never palled.

"And the summary of it all is," ended Miss Mason, "that my life has
been utterly narrow." She stopped and looked at the woman. There was
something half humorous, half pathetic, in the expression in her eyes.

"I think," said the woman slowly, "that one is too ready to use the
term 'narrow' for lives and opinions which have not covered, as we
imagine, a great deal of ground. Sometimes I think 'concentrated' would
be a better word to use for them. I know that people who have darted
hither and thither from one place to another, and from one excitement
to another, often talk about 'living' and the broadness of their lives.
But I fancy that if one could go up in a kind of mental aeroplane and
look down upon those lives, one might see that their grooves, though
they took an intricate pattern, were possibly narrower than some of
those which have gone along one straight and monotonous course."

"Think so?" said Miss Mason again. Then she smiled half-shamefacedly.
"There's one thing--in spite of all the monotony, I've never been able
to get rid of my belief in kind of fairy tale happenings. Utterly
ridiculous, of course."

The woman laughed, a low clear laugh, which pleased Miss Mason
enormously.

"Now we're on ground with which I'm far more familiar," she replied.
"I was trying to get hold of words and expressions before which were
rather outside my vocabulary, and I fear I sounded a little stilted in
consequence. But fairy tales! Why life is a fairy tale. Bad fairies and
wicked magicians get mixed up in it of course, or it wouldn't be one,
but there are good fairies and all kinds of unexpected and delicious
happenings right through it in spite of them. There's often, too, a
long journey through a wood. You've been through yours. What do you
hope to find on this side?"

"A studio," said Miss Mason promptly. This woman was making it
extraordinarily easy for her to tell her fairy tale. "Have wanted one
ever since I was seventeen, and I think almost before that. Perhaps
because my father was an artist."

"And now you'll take one?"

"Have come up to look for one," said Miss Mason. "Am going to look at
pictures too. There's the National Gallery, the Tate Gallery, and the
Academy. Used to read about them. Later I shall go abroad. Thought
I'd better get used to going about in England first. Have read a lot
about pictures. Used to take in a magazine called 'The Studio.' Saw it
advertised once and sent for it. Miss Stanhope used to make me a small
allowance. She was kind really, though didn't always understand."

"The kindest people don't always understand," said the younger woman
quickly. "Are you going to take an unfurnished studio? and will you
have some of the furniture sent up from your old home?"

There is a curious luxury in speaking of the details of a cherished
scheme, and especially to one who has never before found a sympathetic
audience. This the woman knew when she put the question.

Miss Mason gave a little laugh.

"Wouldn't ask that if you'd seen the furniture. Was so used to it it
was a wonder I still went on thinking it hideous. I think it was after
I'd been away from it for a year and came back to it that I knew how
terrible it was. After that it remained terrible. It will all be sold.
Have arranged for that. Couldn't stay with it any longer than was
necessary. Don't care what becomes of it now."

Miss Mason was feeling so light-hearted again she was almost reckless.

"Then you'll buy new things?" asked the woman.

"Yes. Soft colours--blues and greens. Love blue. Your dress is lovely."
The words were jerky but genuine.

"It's my favourite colour," said the woman.

Miss Mason looked in the direction of a mirror near her. She could see
both their figures reflected in it. Again a little wistful look crept
into her eyes.

"I suppose," she said suddenly, "that it was my dress those two girls
were laughing at. Perhaps it is queer. Never thought of that before.
Couldn't change now, any more than I could change my skin."

She stopped, then looked directly at the woman.

"I suppose people will always laugh at me?" she queried. "I suppose
those girls were right to laugh. I am queer."

There was a moment's pause. Then the woman in the blue dress spoke
deliberately.

"I am going to ask you a question which may sound rather conceited,"
she said. "Which would you value most--my opinion or the opinion of
those two girls?"

"Yours," said Miss Mason promptly.

"Then I am going to tell you exactly what I think, and you must forgive
me if what I say sounds impertinent. I don't think you are the least
queer. I think you are quaint and original. Any artist would infinitely
prefer your method of dressing than the method chosen by the older
women of the present day. I think it quite possible that you will find
a few people will laugh at you, for, as I've already said, in this
fairy tale world there are bad fairies, and, worse still, stupid ones.
But they don't count, because they aren't worth consideration, at least
not as regards their opinion of our actions." She spoke the words
slowly and simply, almost as she would have spoken them to a child.

Again there was a silence.

"Where will you take your studio?" asked the woman suddenly.

"Chelsea," said Miss Mason. "Whistler lived there."

"Conclusive," laughed the woman.

"Want it to be a nice studio," said Miss Mason. "Rent won't matter.
Miss Stanhope left me a lot of money. Can't spend it all."

"Now the fairy tale progresses," said the woman joyfully. "Plenty of
money and fairy tale ideas are the happiest of combinations."

Miss Mason laughed.

"Glad I met you," she said. "Feel like I did when I came up in the
train this morning."

"Our meeting was evidently part of the fairy tale," said the woman.
"Now I must go and get my cloak. It's five minutes to nine."

She went towards the stairs. Miss Mason watched her ascending them.

A moment after she had left, a man came into the lounge. He was wearing
a thin dark grey overcoat, and held a flat black hat in one hand.
Miss Mason had never before seen an opera hat. She looked at it with
interest. From it she looked at the man. He was tall and distinctly
aristocratic-looking. Miss Mason noticed that he wore a small moustache
and imperial.

She heard a step on the stairs. The woman in the blue dress was coming
down again. She had a black satin cloak round her.

"Christopher, darling," she cried, "is that you? I'm beautifully
punctual."

He went up to her and kissed her hand. There was something charming in
the courtliness of his manner. Miss Mason, who had been momentarily
shocked by the "darling," felt it somehow explained by the subsequent
action.

"One moment, and I'll come," said the woman.

She crossed to Miss Mason. The man waited for her.

"I shan't be home till midnight," she said, "and I'm leaving for Italy
at an unearthly hour to-morrow morning. But I am sure one day we shall
meet again. Good-bye."

"Good-bye," said Miss Mason. "Hope you'll enjoy yourself." She longed
to say something more, but the words failed her.

She watched her rejoin the man and leave the lounge. It seemed
extraordinarily empty after her departure.

"Don't suppose she'll ever lack friends," said Miss Mason to herself,
"but if ever she did need one----" She left the rest of the sentence
unspoken in her mind, and finding the place a little lonely went up to
her own room.

It was not till she was in bed that she realized that she had no idea
of the woman's name. It also never dawned on her to ask the hotel
management for it.




CHAPTER IV

THE COURTYARD


Dan Oldfield was standing in front of an easel on which was a minute
canvas. The scene depicted thereon was a pastoral of Mesonnier-like
detail. At the moment Dan was engaged in painting lilac flowers on a
green and white dress. The original dress was on a lay figure before
him.

The studio in which he was working was one of seven enclosed in a
courtyard. Two of the studios had small gardens in front. Standing in
one of the gardens it was easier to imagine oneself in the depths of
the country than in the midst of London. The roll of the traffic in the
King's Road was just sufficiently remote to sound not unlike the roar
of the sea.

There were lilac bushes and laburnums in the gardens. A thrush sang in
one of the laburnum trees in the spring, and a robin in the winter. The
robin was very tame. It had established a visiting acquaintance with
all seven studios. There was a certain amount of jealousy among the
inhabitants when occasionally for a week at a time, it would show a
marked preference for one studio. On the whole its affections were most
deeply centred on studio number seven. At the moment this studio was
empty.

Dan painted in the lilac flowers carefully, using extremely small
brushes. Every now and then he stepped back from his work to judge of
the effect. Any onlooker uneducated in the mysteries of art would have
imagined the use of a magnifying glass a more desirable method to study
the effect. Dan was evidently not of that opinion. He had just finished
painting in the yellow heart of the thirteenth flower when the sound of
the wheels of some large vehicle entering the courtyard struck upon his
ears.

"What's that!" he said carelessly, and he crossed to the window.

A large pantechnicon had drawn up opposite studio number seven. Men had
already run round to open the doors at the back of the van. It was full
of furniture.

"Good Lord!" ejaculated Dan.

He put his palette and brushes down on a table, and standing on a chair
poked his head through the upper part of the window. A large roll of
blue drugget and a dark oak easel were being carried up the small
garden path. Two men were hauling a Chesterfield sofa from the van.

"Good Lord!" said Dan again.

He withdrew his head from the window, descended from the chair, and
came out of his studio into the courtyard. The sunshine, which was
brilliant, shone on his untidy red hair. He looked like a slightly
worried giant.

The Chesterfield was reposing momentarily on the stones of the
courtyard. The men were wiping their foreheads. The day was warm.

"Studio let?" demanded Dan.

"Yes, sir," was the reply. "Bringing in the furniture, sir. Nice day,
but warm."

"Who's taken the studio?" demanded Dan.

"Can't remember the lady's name at the moment, sir. Elderly lady with
grey hair. Saw her when----"

"An old lady!" interrupted Dan. His voice held at least three notes of
disgust.

"Yes, sir, she----"

But Dan had vanished up the garden path of studio number six, had
banged on the door, and entered without waiting for permission.

A man in his shirtsleeves was standing before an easel. A nude model
was half sitting, half lying, on the platform.

"I say, Barnabas," he began. Then he saw the model. "Morning, Tilly.
Sorry I interrupted."

"Oh, it's all right," said the man addressed, good-humouredly. "I
thought it was your fairy footfall before I heard the knock. What's
the trouble? Have you stuck the Messonnier painting on an envelope in
mistake for a postage stamp and put it in the pillar-box? You'd better
take a rest now, Tilly, while Mr. Oldfield disburdens his mind."

The girl stretched herself in a lazy panther-like fashion, and taking a
faded purple dressing-gown from the model stand flung it round herself.

"Studio number seven's let," said Dan.

"Well, why shouldn't it be?" said Barnabas imperturbably. "It's been
vacant six months. It's a pleasant studio; large, well-ventilated,
drains in perfect condition, an ideal----"

"Oh, shut up, Barnabas," said Dan. "It's let to an old woman."

"What?"

"An old woman," repeated Dan bitterly.

For a moment Barnabas looked utterly taken aback. Then he shook his
head.

"Bad news indeed, my child. For the last five years at least we've been
a pleasant little coterie of seven undeniable geniuses all of the male
sex. Then Ashton left us. Why on earth didn't your friend Shottover
take the place? I thought you said he was going to."

"So I thought," replied Dan gloomily. "He's such a vacillating ass. I
told him he'd lose it if he didn't hurry and make up his mind. Now he
has lost it, and we've an old woman coming to plant herself among us.
It isn't that I dislike women----"

Barnabas grinned suddenly.

"What's funny?" asked Dan.

"Your unnecessary statement, my child."

"Well, it's true."

"I know. There was so remarkably little need to state the fact."

"But," went on Dan firmly, "I don't like old women."

"There are exceptions," said Barnabas solemnly. "My paternal
grandmother----"

"Bother your paternal grandmother. I tell you the studio's let to an
old woman, and they're taking in the furniture now."

Barnabas moved towards the door.

"Let's have a look at it," he said. "I wonder what her taste in studio
furniture is like."

He went out into his little garden, Dan following him. A dark oak
bookcase and an oak chest were being removed from the van.

"By Jove, the ancient lady has got taste!" said Barnabas. "Genuine old
stuff, or my name's not John Kirby."

The two stood together in the garden on the little gravel path, looking
across a bed of forget-me-nots and a small fence at the working men.

Barnabas--his real name was John Kirby, but he had first been nicknamed
the Comforter, and finally Barnabas, the Son of Consolation, by his
fellow-artists--was a tall man who would have looked even taller if it
had not been for the huge frame of the man beside him.

"I wouldn't mind that bit of furniture myself," said Barnabas, as a
beautiful corner cupboard was unearthed from the van. "Hullo! what's
this? 'The Winged Victory,' by Jingo! _and_ a pedestal. Here's art
and no mistake. Pictures, too. Here, you," he called to the two men
who were carrying them, "allow us momentarily to cast our eyes upon
those treasures. Ye gods and little fishes! a Nicholson, a Pryde, two
Sickerts, and a genuine Bartolozzi print. The ancient lady evidently
possesses not only taste but cash--hard coin of the realm, my child."

"Those old fogies always have tons of money," grunted Dan.

Three large wooden packing-cases were now carried towards the studio.

"Be careful with the unpacking of those," said the man who was
evidently the chief in command. "Old blue Worcester dinner service,
sir," he explained in an aside to the two who were looking over the
fence.

Dan groaned.

"Pure swank on her part," said Barnabas sorrowfully. "What have the
fleshpots of Egypt in common with the earthenware and bread and cheese
of Bohemia. Why didn't she take up her abode in the fashionable
quarters of Kensington."

"Turn a Park Lane house into a studio," said Dan.

"Have you any idea," asked Barnabas, addressing himself to the
man in command, "when the fortunate possessor of these rare and
valuable articles intends to take up her residence in this charming
domicile?--in other words, when does the elderly lady come in?"

"To-night, sir, about seven o'clock, I think. Our orders are to have
everything ready before six, even if we had to put on extra hands. But
it will be ready easily, bless you, even to the making of the beds
and final sweeping, which my wife's seeing to. There's not above four
or five hours' work here. There ain't none of the little whatnots and
ornaments to unpack what ladies usually carries about."

Barnabas looked at Dan.

"To-night!" he said meaningly. "And you have one of your famous parties
on! To-night the old lady will sleep--if she can--lulled by the sound
of hilarious laughter, the twanging of banjos, ribald songs, and all
the other pleasant little noises which are an invariable accompaniment
to one of your mad entertainments. Shall you be busy to-morrow?" he
asked the man.

"Yes, sir; we're moving a family into Elm Park Gardens."

Barnabas shook his head. "That's unfortunate. You'll doubtless be
required here. The old lady will be making a hasty exit. The old blue
Worcester dinner service will be repacked less carefully--there won't
be time for care--the corner cupboard and the Chesterfield sofa, to
say nothing of the Winged----"

"Ass!" said Dan. "What is the use of talking rot about it. We shall
have complaints from the owner of the studios about the noise we make.
I know what it will be."

"A new set of regulations à la German," said Barnabas. "No pianos
before seven or after ten. Lights out at eleven. We shall become a set
of model young men who will work quietly all the week and go to church
on Sundays. Hullo, here's Jasper. Let's tell him the pleasing tidings."

The door of another studio had opened, and a slight, dark man with a
somewhat ascetic and rather discontented-looking face came out in the
sunshine.

"What's going on here?" he demanded.

"We're studying the preface to a little book called 'From Wildness to
Decorum,'" answered Barnabas gravely. "The first chapter will no doubt
be named 'Hints from the Ancients to Young Men--on Deportment.'"

"Do you ever talk sense?" asked Jasper. "I suppose someone has taken
this studio."

Dan imparted the information they had lately received.

"So there's no more fun for us poor young fellows, and we'll grow like
the good artists grow," chanted Barnabas.

"I don't see why you should imagine that because this lady has
taken the studio that she should necessarily object to any of our
amusements," said Jasper seriously. "Besides, I hardly think it is
kind----"

Barnabas gave a little chuckle of laughter.

"Dear child!" he said patting Jasper gently on the shoulder. "He's
learnt the first chapter of the little book by heart while we've been
grizzling in the garden. Entirely Dan's fault, my child. He interrupted
a busy morning, thereby causing me to view the whole world, and old
ladies in particular, in a pessimistic spirit. Let us be kind. We will
invite the old dame to your party, Dan. We'll sing songs suited to the
ears of age. We'll hire a harmonium for the evening, and----"

"I wish you would occasionally be serious," interrupted Jasper half
impatiently. "Of course we should have preferred a man in the studio,
but I don't see why you and Dan need be so certain that a woman's
advent will interfere with us. Do the others know?"

"Lord, no, my child," said Barnabas. "It would take an earthquake to
induce the other three to put nose beyond door or eye to window before
one o'clock. If Michael isn't at work on an illustration of a starved
child, he'll be writing an essay on 'Humour--Some more of its more
cynical aspects.' Alan will be painting a burning cross in the centre
of a crimson rose, and would regard the smallest interruption as the
highest form of sacrilege, and Paul will be doing such genuine good
work that it would be sacrilege to interrupt him."

There was a moment's silence. Then Jasper spoke in the tone of one who
has been giving a subject close consideration.

"You know, I don't think we ought to let the fact that a woman has
taken the studio arouse feelings of animosity in us towards her. She
is bound to have a studio somewhere if she wants to paint, and why not
among us? I think we should do our best to make her welcome."

Dan swore softly beneath his breath. Jasper had moments of priggishness
that were almost beyond the patience of man to endure. Except when
these moods were on him he was not such a bad sort of fellow.

Barnabas choked down a little laughter and a big bit of annoyance at a
gulp.

"Right oh! my child. And now I must return to my studio, or Tilly will
have smoked all my cigarettes. I offered her one once, and henceforth
she has looked upon them all as her own especial property. Worst of
acting in a moment of ill-considered generosity. Dan, don't be boorish
any longer. I'll leave Jasper to read you a further homily on the whole
duty of man towards ancient ladies. So long, my children. Don't trample
down my forget-me-nots in your ardour."

He gave them a cheerful nod and vanished within the studio.

His departure left a curious blank. It gave something the impression
felt when the sun retires behind a cloud, or the sensation we
experience the first morning of work following a month's holiday.
People almost invariably felt this sensation when Barnabas left them.

The two other men still stood a few moments longer watching the
unpacking of the van. Dan, however, had ceased to find the same
interest in the proceedings. He could no longer grumble with a free
mind. In the presence of Jasper his utterances would have taken on
an air of seriousness he was far from fully intending. Besides, his
proximity in this mood annoyed him. The minute lilac flowers, too,
required his attention.

Jasper remembered that he also had left a model within his studio.
Besides, his latest resolution--among others--was not to waste mornings
unnecessarily.

The two separated. The work of removing the furniture from the van
continued.

A thrush, unheeding the presence of the men, settled in the laburnum
tree and began to sing. Perhaps it was an unconscious song of welcome
to the woman who would that evening enter the castle of her dreams.




CHAPTER V

IN BOHEMIA


It was nearly seven o'clock in the evening, and through one of the
windows of the newly-furnished studio a shaft of sunlight had found its
way. It formed a patch of light on the blue drugget on the floor, and
caught the corner of an oak dresser on which the old Worcester dinner
service was arranged.

There were two figures in the studio, though to the eyes of mortals the
place would have seemed empty. The one was in a robe of white and gold,
the other in a dress of dull grey. The white-robed figure was sitting
in a large chair near an oak chest, on which was a Sèvres bowl. She
looked as if she had come to stay. There was an irresolute appearance
about the grey-clad figure.

"I can't stay in this studio with you here," she said.

"I know," said the white-robed figure.

"It is my prerogative to be here," went on the grey-clad figure. "You
don't belong to age."

The white-robed figure smiled.

"You sit there," said the grey-clad figure, "as if the place belonged
to you."

"It will," said the one in white.

"You will not be able to stay," said the grey-clad figure warningly.

"I shall stay till I am asked to leave. Then you can take my place."

"That will be soon," said the grey-clad figure.

"We shall see," said the figure in white.

"I shall come back again," said the grey-clad figure, but the words
lacked confidence.

"When you are asked," said the figure in white.

"I am going now," said the grey-clad figure. "If I stay here any longer
with you I shall lose all my personality."

And Doubt flew through the window. She hated passing through the shaft
of sunlight, but it was the only way out. But Joy remained in the
studio.

The clock on the mantelpiece struck seven. Its note was like the
bell of a miniature cathedral. There was the sound of wheels in the
courtyard. They stopped.

The door opened and a woman in a black dress and wide mushroom hat
crossed the threshold. She saw the shaft of sunlight, the oak dresser
with its array of blue plates, and she looked towards the great chair
by the chest. Being a mortal she did not see the figure seated in it.

But Joy came forward to welcome her.

       *       *       *       *       *

An hour later Miss Mason was eating a supper of cold chicken, salad,
bread and butter, tinned peaches and cream. She was being waited on by
a little flower-faced girl in a blue print dress and a quaint cap and
apron. The little girl's name was Sally.

She had been found through an advertisement, after Miss Mason had
visited registry offices innumerable, and interviewed cooks fat, cooks
scraggy, cooks superior, cooks untidy, cooks confident, and cooks
deprecating, none of whom had pleased her. The owners of the registry
offices had considered Miss Mason an impossible person.

Sally's sole references had been that of her mother, the Sunday-school
teacher, and her own fresh little face. Miss Mason had fallen in love
with her on the spot.

She arrived with a parcel under her arm five minutes after Miss Mason
had entered the studio. Her box was to come the next morning by the
carrier.

Miss Mason finished her supper and Sally cleared the table. She then
vanished into the minute kitchen, out of which was an equally minute
bedroom.

Miss Mason got up from her chair and went slowly round the studio.
She had spent three weeks of careful shopping. It was astonishing how
quickly she had found herself going from place to place, aided by
friendly policemen. Her purchases had been sent to a furniture agent
who was responsible for their arrangement in the studio.

It was all exactly as she had imagined it would be. There were the
brown walls with the few pictures, the blue drugget on the floor, and
the old Persian rugs. There was the "Winged Victory" on its straight
pedestal in one corner. There was the dresser against one wall,
with the blue dinner service on its shelves. There was the bookcase
filled with books, the only reminder of her old life. There was the
Chesterfield sofa standing at right angles to the fire-place. There was
the corner cupboard, and a small cupboard with glass doors, in which
were a few bits of rare old china. There was the easel. There were a
few new canvases against the wall. There was a box full of oil paints.
There were charcoal sticks in another box--Miss Mason had found that
chalk in bottles was not the correct thing nowadays. There was a whole
ream of white Michelet paper. There was a sheaf of brushes in a green
earthenware jar. There was a large mahogany palette hanging on a nail.
It shone smooth and polished like a mirror.

When she had been the round of the studio she sat down in the big chair
and looked at the empty Sèvres bowl.

"Must buy pink roses for that to-morrow," she said.

She leant back in the chair. The corners of her mouth were relaxed in
a little tender smile. Her eyes were shining. She heard the voices of
men crossing the courtyard. They were laughing. She laughed a little
herself. And over and over again in her heart the words of the lady in
the blue dress were sounding:

"If happiness comes to you welcome her with both hands; and with every
kiss she gives you years will roll away from your heart. Happiness is
like the spring, which wakes the world to brightness after a dreary
winter."

Sally came back into the studio.

"Is there anything more I can do for you, ma'am?"

"No, child. You'd better get to bed. Boiled eggs for breakfast."

"Yes, ma'am. Good night."

"Good night." There was a moment's pause. Sally had reached the door.

"Got a young man?" Miss Mason's voice was so gruff that Sally's heart
beat uncomfortably.

"Yes, ma'am; but----"

"Does he live in London?"

"Yes, ma'am." Sally was trembling a little.

"Better write to-morrow and ask him to come to tea on Sunday. Suppose
there's room in that ridiculous kitchen for you both?"

"Oh, yes, ma'am." Sally's voice was joyful.

"Better buy some cake to-morrow. Gingerbread, plum cake, anything you
like. Don't loiter now. Get to bed like a good girl."

And Sally fled, feeling that Miss Mason was a winged angel in an odd
disguise.

Half an hour later Miss Mason herself went to her bedroom. It was
dainty and charming. The curtains before the window were white muslin,
with outer curtains of white dimity and borders of tiny pink rosebuds.
The quilt covering the bed was white like the curtains, it also had a
border of pink rosebuds. The carpet was cream-coloured, the furniture
Chippendale.

When Miss Mason was ready for bed she knelt down, her hands folded on
the rosebud-covered quilt. The old petitions of childhood, still used
by the woman of sixty years, failed her for the first time.

"God," said Miss Mason softly, "I am happy, and I thank You."

That was all.

She got into bed. For a long time she lay gazing into the darkness with
open eyes. She was too happy to sleep. She had become aware of sounds
she had heard at intervals during the evening almost without realizing
them--singing, the twanging of banjos, the sound of laughter. Now in
the darkness she heard them clearly. Her old eyes puckered at the
corners into little delighted wrinkles.

Then suddenly she heard the notes of a violin. Miss Mason had no
knowledge of music, but even to her ignorant ears the hand was that of
a master. When it stopped there was silence.

Presently she dozed. Much later she was awakened from a half-sleep
by laughter, footsteps, and louder singing. The words came to her
distinctly.

She lay there smiling, a queer old figure in a white nightcap, one
rather bony hand beating time softly on the quilt.

  "For he's a jolly good fellow,
   For he's a jolly good fellow,
   For he's a jolly good fe-el-low,
   And so say all of we."

With a little sigh of supreme content Miss Mason uttered the one word:

"Bohemia!"




CHAPTER VI

THE FAUN IN THE GARDEN


Barnabas came into his garden in the early morning sunshine. His hair
was still a little wet, for he had only just had his bath. He was
wearing an old Turkish dressing-gown, purple bedroom slippers, and was
smoking a cigarette.

A light wind was blowing through the courtyard. It scattered the pink
petals of a too full-blown la France rose upon the garden path. They
chased each other round in a little mad dance, first down the path,
then in circles at the foot of the statue of a little faun playing on
a long thin reed. The faun looked at them with mocking, laughing eyes,
while he piped to their dancing.

A thrush in the laburnum tree looked at Barnabas for a moment, but as
it had already got used to the fact that he was neither a cat nor a boy
with a stone handy, it began to sing a sweet full-throated song.

Barnabas fingered a la France rosebud. There were half a dozen little
green blights clinging to the petals. He blew a cloud of tobacco smoke
round it. The blights smiled at him, so to speak. It would require
something stronger than cigarette smoke to remove them from their
lodging. Barnabas let go his hold on the rosebud.

"Hang it all," he said. "I daresay they're enjoying life and the
sunshine as much as I am. They don't seem to be hurting the roses,
anyhow."

A couple of white butterflies flew into the garden. One of them settled
on the sleeve of his dressing-gown. Barnabas looked at it. It did not
move, only its wings quivered a little.

"You morsel of life," said Barnabas, "you're enjoying yourself too."

He felt a sudden odd remorse at the thought of other butterflies he
had long ago enclosed in wide-topped bottles filled with camphor, and
then pinned down on to pieces of cork. The destructive age had not
lasted long with Barnabas. His love of Nature was too whole-hearted and
genuine.

The door of studio number seven suddenly opened, and Sally came out in
her blue print dress. She held a duster in her hand which she flapped
two or three times. The butterfly flew away to perch on the shoulder of
the faun.

Sally paused for a moment to sniff the morning air. She did not see
Barnabas. She was feeling very happy. She was seventeen, it was eight
o'clock on a June morning, and last night she had written to her young
man--a stalwart coal-heaver. The letter had been written with a stubby
end of pencil on a scrap of paper. The envelope into which she had put
it had not stuck well. It had required much pressure from Sally's
thumb. The cleanest thumb will leave a mark on an envelope if it is
much rubbed on it. The envelope had looked a little dirty, and Sally
had sighed. She felt, however, that the words it contained would more
than make up in Jim's eyes for the smear. Later she would ask leave to
go out and buy a stamp.

Then she saw Barnabas. Her work having lain hitherto in the kitchen
rather than in the upstair regions, she was not used to the appearance
of young men in Turkish dressing-gowns, and she blushed.

"Morning," said Barnabas pleasantly, smiling at the girl. She made him
think of a wild-rose.

"Good morning, sir," said Sally, and she dropped a curtsey.

Barnabas looked at her with approval.

"Where did you learn to make curtsies, child? I thought they'd gone
out of fashion with Bibles, brown sugar on bread and butter, and old
ladies."

Sally dropped another curtsey from pure nervousness.

"Please, sir, mother taught me, sir. She was still-room maid in a big
house before she married father. She said born ladies curtseyed to the
King and Queen, and we curtseyed to the born ladies--and gentlemen,"
she added.

"Then your mother, child, is not a Socialist," said Barnabas.

"Please, sir, mother says," said Sally seriously, "that Socialism is
a lot of silly talk among discontented people who'd be discontented if
they had the moon to play with. She says Christ's socialism was love
and respect."

Barnabas gave a low whistle.

"Your mother must be a very remarkable woman," he said.

There was a moment's pause, while Sally looked at him and at the white
butterfly which had returned to perch upon his sleeve. Then a sudden
spirit of mischief, born of the wind of the morning, took possession of
Barnabas.

"I hope we didn't disturb your mistress with our singing last night,"
he said. There was a little glint of gay devilry in his eyes.

"Oh, no, sir," said Sally quickly. "I asked her ten minutes ago, sir,
and she said, 'Bless you, no, child. Enjoyed it. They sounded so
delightfully young and happy. Like to have that kind of lullaby every
night.'"

Sally was an unconscious mimic. Barnabas got a sudden and not
inaccurate mental image of Miss Mason as she spoke the words. A
little pang of remorse, not unlike the pang he had experienced at the
thought of the butterflies, smote him as he remembered his half-joking
conversation with Dan.

"Give your mistress my compliments, and tell her I am glad we didn't
disturb her. Also that I shall do myself the pleasure of calling upon
her at no very distant date."

"Yes, sir," said Sally, and she turned back towards the studio.

"By the way," said Barnabas, "what is your mistress's name?"

"Miss Mason, sir," said Sally. She dropped a final curtsey and
disappeared within the studio.

Barnabas lifted his arm with the butterfly on it, and brushed its wings
lightly against his lips. Apparently it appreciated the treatment, for
it remained passive.

"Is it the influence of the morning, the wings of a white butterfly, or
the wild-rose face of that child?" said Barnabas.

"I fancy I am going to fall in love with Miss Mason."




CHAPTER VII

THE SIX ARTISTS OF THE COURTYARD


That same afternoon the five other male occupants of the studios
dropped in to tea with Barnabas. They frequently did. They liked the
cakes he bought at a shop in the Fulham Road, and, incidentally, they
appreciated Barnabas himself. They had one and all announced their
intention previously.

"Meaning me to buy cakes," said Barnabas. And he had sent his man to
the Fulham Road to make the purchases.

Barnabas poured out the tea, which was drunk out of cream-coloured cups
with festoons of flowers on them. There were not enough chairs, but a
couple of packing-cases had been pressed into service, and they sat
round an oak table--gate-legged. Barnabas had picked it up for a mere
song at a filthy little shop in a back street. He was very proud of the
bargain.

The six men were curiously dissimilar in appearance and in character.
One took in the outlines of that, as one took in their appearance at
the first glance.

Next to Barnabas was Dan Oldfield, huge, red-haired, and
untidy-looking. He was one of a large family, and had begun his
artistic career at a suburban art school, where he had risen to the
post of pupil teacher, and later to that of assistant master. At
twenty-two he had been left three hundred a year by an uncle, and
had come to London to study at the Slade Schools. He was now thirty,
and had never lost the idea of minute finish inculcated in him at
the art school. It found expression in his tiny pictures of almost
miniature-like work, pictures which the palm of one of his huge hands
would have covered.

Beside Dan was Jasper Merton, sallow, clean-shaven, discontented in
expression, his previous history unknown to the six studios. He painted
altar pieces at low rates for high churches in poor districts, which
paintings were usually the gift of benevolent and religiously-minded
spinster ladies. He looked--as Barnabas had once said--as if he were
wearing a hair shirt for the good of his soul, and as if the shirt were
an extra-prickly one.

Beyond him was Alan Farley, who, like David of old, was "fair and of a
ruddy countenance." Nature had intended him for a cheerful soul, but
art of the ultra-mystic type had taken him prisoner. He painted shadowy
figures with silver stars on their brows, non-petalled roses, and
purple chalices; he read Swinburne and the poems of Fiona Macleod, and
talked about creative genius.

"Creative genius!" Barnabas had said to him one day. "Man, you don't
understand the first principles of it. Your painting is pure slither.
Do you think creation is slither? It's travail, it's agonizing. What
does your work cost you? Nothing. An airy fancy, half an hour's mental
indigestion, and there's a canvas covered with purples, greys, and
greens. The colour's all right, but what on earth is the thing worth?
I'm not talking monetary jargon. You say that purple mass in the corner
is a veiled woman, and she's talking through opal mists to a silver
star. Who on earth's going to find that out unless you go round like
a kind of animated catalogue to your own pictures. Get hold of form,
man. Study it. Draw--draw--draw--till you can express ideas tangibly.
Leave poetry alone for a bit till you're honoured with the power of
understanding it. You're being mentally sensual and don't know it. You
talk of passion! Great Scot! You don't understand the meaning of the
word, nor the A B C of nature."

And Alan had listened and taken the harangue meekly, though it had had,
apparently, little effect.

Next to Alan was Paul Treherne, seated on a packing-case. He was a man
well above the medium height, and with a lean-limbed look about him. He
had grey eyes, sad--like his mouth, which was partly hidden by a small
moustache. Fate had started him in an office, which he hated. Later
she had taken him abroad, where he had lived in a tent and under the
open sky, where he had experienced hardships few men of his class have
known, and where he had three times been face to face with death. He
had looked at sunsets across open plains, and seen mountains bathed in
gold and purple, and the crimson fire of tropical evenings. He had seen
the blue shadows of palm trees on yellow sand; he had seen the scarlet
of pomegranate flowers, the gold of oranges against azure skies, till
his whole being was saturated in colour. And lastly he had returned to
England at the age of twenty-seven to find in the soft greys and lilacs
of smoky London an even more wonderful charm. He had then an income
of eight hundred a year, four of which he gave to his widowed mother,
who lived in a little house in Hampshire. He was at last able to turn
to art, which he had always loved passionately, and from his knowledge
of character gained through much experience of men and women, and
with his wonderful sense of colour, he took to portrait painting. He
now, besides his invested income, earned, at the age of thirty-seven,
about six hundred a year by his brush. He sang in an untrained mellow
baritone in a way that brought tears to one's eyes.

Between Paul and Barnabas was Michael Chester, a small man, one
shoulder higher than the other, and with one leg shrunken and twisted.
He had had a pencil in his hand since babyhood. In illustration and
line work he excelled, though his choice of subjects was morbid. His
paintings of the river and grey London streets were beautiful. There
was something almost Whistler-ish about them. He had the heart of a
true poet, and the tongue of a cynic, and he played the violin like
a god. An ultra-morbidity regarding his own appearance had lost him
to the world as a public violinist. Nothing would have induced him to
mount a platform or enter a crowded drawing-room. The studios alone
were given the benefit of his talent.

And finally, master of the ceremonies, seated on another packing-case
was Barnabas--tall, brown-haired, green-eyed, and sunny hearted,
outwardly indolent, and beloved of his fellow-men. He followed in the
footsteps of Paul as a portrait painter, though he was apt to say it
was "the devil of a way behind."

The conversation during tea had somehow centred round a certain
unconscious old lady, who was at that moment cleaning oil paints from a
large mahogany palette, and looking with humorous disgust at a canvas
on which were large and unsteady blobs of pink paint above a smear of
green and gold. They were intended to represent pink roses in a Sèvres
bowl, but had failed horribly in the intention.

The conversation had begun airily enough, five of the men taking part
in it, Barnabas alone being silent. After about ten minutes it began to
be slightly strained, and three of the men had more or less dropped
out of it. Dan had, however, continued to express his views somewhat
clearly and with a certain amount of gruffness. Jasper was being
annoyingly Christian-like in his attitude.

"I intend to call on the lady, at all events," he said at last, with
exasperating decision. "After what you two fellows said yesterday I
felt that I at least----"

"Not you only, my child," interrupted Barnabas good-humouredly,
speaking for the first time. "We're all going. We begin on Sunday."

"Won't the lady be a trifle overwhelmed?" asked Paul.

"I didn't mean all at the same time, or on the same day," explained
Barnabas. "I intended that we should go in detachments. I thought Dan
and I could begin--take the initial step, so to speak."

"And who next?" asked Paul, smiling.

"Jasper and Alan, as Jasper's so keen about it," said Barnabas. "Then
you and Michael."

Michael looked at the tip of his cigarette through half-closed eyes.

"You can leave me out of the little programme," he said. "I don't pay
calls."

"And I'm calling on my great aunt's stepmother on Sunday," said Dan.
"Sorry, Barnabas, but it's a prior engagement."

"You can send a wire to that purely fictitious person--if you know her
address--and put her off," replied Barnabas.

"I'll be damned----" began Dan.

Jasper got up from his chair. "I will leave you five to make your own
arrangements," he said. "I shall call upon Miss Mason at five o'clock
on Monday afternoon. If Alan comes with me I shall be pleased. I've got
an engagement now. Good-bye."

He left the studio. There was a very slight and almost unconscious
movement of relief among the remaining men.

"Your language jarred on his nervous susceptibilities, Dan," said
Michael. "And he thinks our attitude altogether unchristian."

"Wish he'd get himself fixed up in one of the panels of his own
altarpieces, and carried off to the highest church in London," said
Dan. "It would be much the best place for him."

"I'll not call with him," said Alan firmly. "If I do make a martyr of
myself it will be by myself or with one of you others."

There was a silence. Then quite suddenly Barnabas told them of Miss
Mason's little speech to Sally. Somehow he had been unable to mention
it in Jasper's presence.

Again there was a pause. Then Dan laughed.

"You're confoundedly sentimental, Barnabas, my son. I suppose I'll have
to send that wire."

Michael smiled, a queer twisted smile.

"Barnabas has a curious faculty for keeping silence till the crucial
moment," he said. "He then makes some little trivial remark which
invariably manages to upset all our preconceived notions."

"He is," said Paul, "as Dan says, a pure sentimentalist."

The atmosphere had lightened. Jasper's departure and Barnabas' little
speech had had a curious effect upon it. A mental fog had previously
crept into the studio. It often found its way into the rooms Jasper
entered. Sometimes he seemed to leave it behind, but it generally came
to find him, creeping thin and ghostlike through the keyhole, through
the cracks in the doors, through the chinks in the windows, settling
thickly round him, and casting its gloom over the room and the other
occupants.

And the gods of Joy and Laughter, who cannot breathe in such an
atmosphere, would silently depart. Now, however, they had found their
way back, slipping easily and gladly into the place they loved.

When, half an hour later, Michael limped down the garden path with
Paul, he nodded in the direction of studio number seven.

"Shall we say Tuesday afternoon for our call?" he asked carelessly.

Paul had a momentary feeling of surprise. He did not show it.

"Right," he replied equally carelessly.

And the little faun laughed to hear them, and piped a madder dance
still to the rose-petals which had whirled below his pedestal at
intervals throughout the day.




CHAPTER VIII

A MAN'S CONSCIENCE


Jasper Merton was a man who had been born with a curious kind of
conscience. He was perpetually looking at it, dusting it, and seeing
that it kept in what he considered perfect working order. In reality it
only worked spasmodically and at unexpected intervals. He possessed,
also, an enormous amount of that quality which is generally termed
artistic sensitiveness, but which is most frequently a polite and
pretty name for selfishness. He see-sawed between conscience and--it
must be given its right name--selfishness, in a manner which made
his life not only uncomfortable to himself, but almost equally
uncomfortable to others.

He had, too, a skeleton which he kept in a cupboard, in other words, in
a small--a very small--house in Chiswick. That skeleton was a woman.
She was his wife, and a secret.

None of his fellow-artists had ever dreamt of asking him if he were
married. It never dawned on them to ask a man, who was apparently a
bachelor and who obviously disliked the company of women, such a
question; and he had no near relations to trouble their heads about him.

He was twenty-three when he married her, and she was eighteen. She was
a slight, fair-haired girl with blue eyes and a lovable nature. He had
worshipped her to the whole extent of his selfish disposition. At the
end of a year a child had been born to them. It had lived two years--a
toddling blue-eyed mite with fair hair like its mother. It had little
caressing ways and soft baby cooings of laughter.

But one day the laughter had ceased, and from the nursery had come
sounds of a child in anguish. A basin of boiling water had been left
on the table by a careless nurse, and pulled over by a pair of small,
clutching hands. A week of horror had followed. The child had lived for
four days in agony, even drugs could not soothe its pain, or quiet the
terrible sobbing voice. Jasper had fled from the house.

When he had returned his wife had met him white and tearless.

"My baby's at peace, thank God," she had said. And then she had
laughed. She had not slept except from momentary exhaustion for four
nights and days.

Later in the evening he had found her drunk in the dead child's room.
He had carried her from it and locked the door.

In the morning she had come to him and had tried to speak. His look of
disgust had made speech impossible.

"Jasper----" she had said brokenly.

"I--I can't say anything," he had stammered. And he had gone from her.

When he had returned in the evening it was to find her again drunk.
This time in the dining-room.

That was the beginning. He had never been able to hide his disgust, his
love had been killed. Conscience, which held the word Duty before him,
spelling it with a capital, told him to make the best of things; his
sensitiveness shrank from the woman as from something loathsome.

After the child's funeral she had pulled herself partially together,
and he had never found her in the same condition again. But she had
lost all her old charm. She grew listless in manner, slovenly and
untidy in dress. Now and then she would look at him with the eyes of
a dumb thing asking for help. He never saw her eyes. He had avoided
looking at them. The sight of her--her untidy hair, her neglected
dress--had offended his sensitive taste. Little by little they had
drifted mentally further apart. Finally they had separated. Even the
separation had been gradual. First he had taken his small house in
Chiswick and the studio in Chelsea, living at home, and going daily
to his work. She had known what the outcome would be, but had said
nothing. Later he had begun to sleep at the studio, returning only for
the week-end. He had spoken of the distance, making it an excuse.

And now there was only occasional visits, prompted entirely by
conscience. He had left the studio to pay one of these visits that
afternoon. An extraordinary priggishness of manner towards his
fellow-men was an invariable preface to them.

As the tram bore him into the suburbs he gave a little shiver of
disgust. The commonplace ugliness of the houses was an eyesore
to him. He pictured the inhabitants as dull, well-meaning,
ultra-respectable--leading a carpet-slipper, roast-beef,
little-music-in-the-evenings--kind of life. He thought of the men as
all old and fat, or young and conceited; of the women as thin and
careworn, or flashy and bejewelled. His mental pictures were either
extremely commonplace or extremely tawdry.

Suddenly his conscience began to fidget. It was becoming uncomfortable.
What right had he to feel like that, it said. They were every bit as
good as he was. Who was he to sit in judgment on his fellow-men?

He put the mental pictures aside. He said a little prayer for charity.
Then he looked at his conscience again, and satisfied himself that
he had swept away the dust specks which had caused it a momentary
uneasiness.

But he never thought of the poetry that might be hidden away in the
lives passed within those ugly walls, nor listened for the old, old
tunes of love and sorrow, hope and fear, birth and death, that were
played for them as they were played for those who dwelt in infinitely
more picturesque surroundings. And if he had heard the music he would
probably have said that the metre was out of time, the notes old and
cracked, or thin and tuneless.

At last he left the tram and turned up a side street. The houses in it
were small, red brick, and each of a pattern exactly like the other.
They stood a little way back from the pavement, separated from it by
a low brick wall on top of which was an ugly iron railing. Each of
the tiny plots of ground in front of the houses was divided from the
neighbouring plot by more iron railings. Some of the plots were merely
gravel, others grass, while a few had blossomed out into flower-beds
gay with flowers.

He turned into one of the gravel plots and went up four steps to the
front door. He rang the bell. His face was perfectly expressionless. It
was like the face of a man who is self-hypnotized.

"Your mistress in?" he said to the untidy woman who answered the door.

"Yes, sir. Will you come into the sitting-room? I'll tell 'er."

Jasper went into the sitting-room. He stood on the hearthrug in the
attitude of a stranger. The tea-things had not been cleared away, they
were still on the table, which was covered with a white cloth showing
various grease spots. The tea-things themselves were on a black tin
tray with the enamel scratched off in two or three places. There was a
loaf of bread on the table, a pat of soft-looking butter on a plate,
a pot of strawberry jam from which the spoon had fallen making a red
smear on the cloth, and a remnant of stale cake.

The furniture in the room was not ugly, but the whole place had a
desolate look. A French novel in a yellow paper cover lay open face
downwards on a small table near the hearthrug. Jasper picked it up,
glanced at the title, and put it down again with a little movement of
disgust.

The door opened and a woman came in. She was wearing a loose and rather
shabby brown dress; her hair, which was really a beautiful pale gold,
looked unbrushed and uncared for. She wore it parted and in an untidy
knot at the nape of her neck. The only neat thing about her were her
hands, which were small hands, the nails polished and manicured.

"Oh, it's you, Jasper," she said, and she sat down. She did not even
offer to shake hands.

"How do you do, Bridget," he said gravely.

She laughed. "Is that a gentle reminder to me of my manners, or a query
as to my health? I'm all right, thanks."

Jasper stood irresolute. This nonchalant attitude of his wife pained
him. She was usually more apathetic.

"Won't you sit down," she said politely, "that is if you wish to stay
for your usual hour."

Jasper put his hat and stick on the sofa and sat down on a chair near
the table. His eye fell on the tray.

"Why don't you get a new one," he said half irritably, "or at least
cover it with a tea-cloth? I hate these black, scratched things. I
don't keep you short of money."

She glanced towards the offending article.

"You don't often see it, do you?" she queried. "I'm used to it;
besides, I haven't an artistic eye. Emma shall take it away if it
displeases you."

She rang the bell, and the woman who had opened the front door appeared.

"Take away the tea-things," said Bridget carelessly. "Mr. Merton
doesn't like to see them."

The woman piled the things on to the tray, and gathered the cloth in a
bundle under one arm. She left the room with them.

There was a silence.

"Well," said Bridget encouragingly, "five minutes of the hour have
gone."

Jasper moved impatiently. "I don't know what is the matter with you
this evening, Bridget. I don't know you in this mood."

She raised her eyebrows with a slightly mocking expression.

"Do you ever notice my moods? That is news to me. I was waiting for the
usual lectures."

Jasper frowned. "I don't want to lecture you. I don't come here to
lecture you. I have only sometimes asked you to keep your hair tidy and
wear becoming dresses. There's nothing in the way of a lecture about
that."

She shrugged her shoulders. "It's hardly worth while to trouble, is it?
No one sees me but you, and then only four times a year."

"Your own self-respect----" he began.

She looked at him.

"I lost that," she said quietly, "long ago."

"It is never too late," he said. There was now a touch of priggishness
in his manner. Conscience had given him a little push.

"Isn't it?" she said. "I think it is. You showed me that."

"I?" Jasper was frankly amazed.

"Yes, you."

"I don't understand what you mean. I tried to help you. I've begged you
again and again to dress decently, to care for your appearance. I----"

"You left me." The words were perfectly quiet. They were the mere
statement of a fact.

"I--I---- Our life together was a misery," he stammered. "I tried for
two years to help you. I----"

"How did you try to help me?" she asked. "By talking calm platitudes
through a kind of moral disinfectant sheet--which you held between
us, unable, for all your high faluting words, to keep the disgust
out of your voice, the loathing out of your eyes. I had offended
your fastidious taste--yes, I know I had seemed horrible, that I was
horrible; but how ten thousand times more horrible do you think I felt
to myself? And yet I knew I had some excuse."

"Excuse," he said sternly, strong in his moral self-righteousness,
"excuse for lying drunk in the room with our dead child." He shuddered.
The memory of the sight filled him with horror.

She put her hand over her eyes. It was shaking.

"Listen," she said, "you shall have the truth for once, though I am
not speaking it in justification of myself. Have you ever thought of
those four days and nights of torture, when every cry of anguish my
baby uttered was like a red-hot needle piercing my heart and brain?
Have you thought that there were moments when I felt in my wild misery
that I must fly from the sound of them, but that her baby-hands were
seeking mine, her voice calling in vain to me to help her. You shudder?
You shuddered then and fled. The sensitiveness of your nature could
not stand the sight and sounds of agony. When at last it ceased, and
reason told me my baby was at peace, I still heard her voice. The
doctor had sent me to bed. I could not rest. I got up. I saw you. You
went to your own room to weep. I had gone through the agony alone. I
was to go through the grief alone. I was faint when I took the brandy.
I did not know it would affect me as it did. I was worn out, and it
went to my head. I heard her voice again. I thought it real that time.
I stumbled upstairs to the room where you found me. In the morning I
remembered what had happened. I loathed myself. I came to you and saw
the same loathing in your eyes. The next few days I drank purposely to
gain oblivion, and I hated myself for doing it more than you can ever
have hated me. But one night I thought I saw my baby----" she paused.
"I never took the stuff again, though there were moments when I longed
for it. I wanted to ask your help, to tell you what I had suffered. I
could not. I saw the look in your eyes. It kept awake in me the memory
of that--that day. Only at night, in the darkness, I forgot it. I could
feel my baby in my arms, her hair against my lips----"

She stopped.

For a moment there was a dead silence: Jasper broke it.

"I did not understand," he said. It was an admission on his part. At
the time she did not realize it.

"Of course you did not," she said, and a trace of weariness had found
its way into her voice. "You would never understand what offended
your taste. For a crime alone you might find excuse, provided it
was sufficiently picturesque. For mere sordidness there is none in
your eyes. You said it was not too late. I say it is. For years your
refinement and your conscience have been at war. You have not had the
moral courage to leave me, nor the manhood to help me--to help me to
regain the self-respect I lost seven years ago. I am tired at last of
you, tired of these perfunctory visits. They can end."

"What do you mean?" asked Jasper.

"Simply that I don't want to see you again. You can't get a divorce--I
have at least been faithful to you; there is not even cause for a legal
separation----"

"Bridget!" he cried, shocked. "I have never wanted----"

She held up her hand.

"Please don't protest, Jasper. Actions speak a good deal louder than
words. You have hated these four yearly visits quite as much as I have.
Your conscience has ordered you to make them. You have kept it quiet by
a quarterly journey to Chiswick. Your refinement has shrunk more each
time from the sight of me. The fact that Duty alone was urging you to
it has made it more difficult for you. Now it is I who say they must
cease."

"You are my wife," he said stubbornly.

She laughed. "You always had little sense of humour, Jasper, and
now I think that little must have died. You don't understand what I
mean? That shows it is quite--quite dead. I am now going to take all
responsibility off your shoulders by refusing to see you again."

"And if I refuse?"

"Then I shall go away where you cannot find me."

For a moment he was silent.

"How can you live if I don't know where you are?" he asked. "You have
no money of your own. I must send you some."

"I know you have considered it your duty to make me an allowance,"
she replied, "and in my candid opinion that is still your duty. If,
however, you persist in coming to see me I shall make it impossible for
you to send me money by going away where you will be unable to find me.
I can work. It might be better for me to do so. You can decide."

"I shall send you the money," he said stubbornly.

"And not attempt to see me--you promise?"

"You force me into giving the promise. I can't let my wife work for her
living, or starve."

She got up from her chair.

"Very well, then, that is understood. I've taken you by surprise this
afternoon. I think I have surprised myself. At present you resent my
interference with your conscience. Later you will feel the relief. Now,
though your hour is not yet up, it would be wiser if we said good-bye."

He got to his feet. The whole interview had been so unexpected he was
feeling a little dazed.

"Good-bye, Jasper." She held out her hand.

"Good-bye, Bridget." Then Conscience--the officious--spoke. Jasper bent
forward to kiss his wife.

She drew back.

"Isn't that rather ridiculous?" she asked, with a hint of sarcasm in
her voice.

Jasper flushed. He hated anything approaching ridicule. He had taken
her word-slashings quietly. They had not yet even fully penetrated his
plate-armour of self-righteousness.

"Just as you like," he said. "I only thought that as I was not seeing
you again----"

"Three months or a lifetime! It doesn't make much difference to us,
does it?"

He met her eyes. Beneath the look in them his own fell. For the first
time in his life he experienced something like genuine shame, not the
little meretricious prickings of conscience with which he was wont to
bewail his small or imaginary sins. To his great short-comings he was
blind.

"You hate me?" he asked.

"No," she said shortly, "for a wonder, I don't. Good-bye."

He went to the door, opened it, and passed out. A second later she
heard the iron gate clang to, and his receding steps on the pavement.

She stood for a moment listening, then turned towards the hearth. She
put her hand up to the mantelpiece and gripped it hard.

"If only he had helped me," she said. "God, why didn't you let me die
with my baby?"




CHAPTER IX

VISITORS


Miss Mason was sitting in her studio at four o'clock on Sunday
afternoon. She was reading a small, red-covered book, within whose
pages was enshrined a brief account of the life and work of Whistler.

At intervals she looked up from her reading to glance round the studio
and smile. It was her dream incarnate. She had waited forty-three
years for its birth. She realized now that she had always wanted it,
had always believed in it. All through the old days in the rose-beds,
when she had pruned the trees, when she had grafted new buds, when she
had watched the flowers expanding, she had dreamt of this studio. Only
at moments it had looked real; generally it was far off and shadowy,
but always it had been before her, and something had whispered to her
heart, "Wait; one day it will come."

And now it was no faint shadowy dream, but a living reality, and it
would bring more glorious realities in its train. Nothing could be too
wonderful to happen in the castle of her dreams.

Again she looked round the studio, and again she smiled. She would
have liked to sing for happiness, only her voice was too gruff and
cracked. She would have liked to dance for joy, only her old legs were
too stiff. But she minded neither of these things, for her heart was
beating to a little gay secret tune in which joy and thankfulness were
woven in delicious harmony.

From behind the door that led to the tiny kitchen she heard murmured
sounds and an occasional deep laugh. Sally's scrappy little note had
been answered by the appearance of Jim in his Sunday-best, shining
from the washtub, redolent of yellow soap, every trace of his black
weekday occupation removed. They were now cooing like a pair of young
turtle-doves in a cage.

Suddenly Miss Mason was startled by a knock.

A moment later the door which led from the studio to the little
vestibule opened, and Sally announced:

"Mr. Kirby and Mr. Oldfield."

Miss Mason's heart fluttered. It is an odd emotion, and now nearly
out of fashion. It belonged to the days of "Cranford," "Evelina," and
"Sense and Sensibility." Now all emotions are big and passionate, or
calm and well-controlled. There are few gentle excitements left.

In spite of the fluttering, Miss Mason rose to her feet, a quiet
dignified old figure.

"I am very pleased to see you," she said, and she gave them each her
hand with the air of a queen. "Sally," she said, "bring tea."

She sat down again. There was a little pink flush in her cheeks. For
forty-three years she had spoken to no man of her own class except the
vicar and doctor. The interview with Mr. Davis being purely on business
did not count.

Barnabas and Dan put their caps on the oak chest beside the Sèvres bowl
which was filled with the pink roses with whose portraiture Miss Mason
had so sadly failed. Then they sat down.

There was a moment's pause. Even Barnabas' mental picture of Miss
Mason--a picture supplied by Sally's unconscious imitation of her--had
not quite come up to the quaintness of the reality. He felt that he
had suddenly stepped back at least a century. There was about the
atmosphere a hint of potpourri and long ago half-forgotten days that
are laid up in lavender. There was a completeness about the whole
thing--from the oak dresser with its blue plates, the Sèvres bowl and
the pink roses, to the woman in her voluminous black dress, wide white
collar, and abundant grey hair covered with the finest of old lace
caps--a completeness that only an artist could fully realize, though
most people would have felt.

She was so extraordinarily ugly too. No ordinary commonplace plainness
of feature, but downright ugliness, yet without the smallest trace of
repulsiveness in it. It was a fascinating kind of ugliness, and the
eyes in the ugly face--they alone were really beautiful--shone like
bits of red-brown amber. It is a colour rarely seen.

Barnabas broke the silence.

"Your studio," he said, "is charming. Dan and I watched the furniture
coming in on Thursday morning. If it is not impertinent of me, may I
congratulate you on it?"

"Glad you like it," said Miss Mason. "It's the first studio I've ever
seen, but it's the kind I always wanted. Have always pictured studios
in my mind like this one."

"You're lucky in your mental images," said Dan. "If you saw ours----"
he broke off and shrugged his shoulders.

"But perhaps," said Miss Mason anxiously, "yours is the real thing, and
mine----"

"Yours," said Barnabas, "is the dream to which we aspire, and to which
we cannot achieve. When you see ours--and we hope you will honour
us with your presence--you will realize how very far short of our
aspirations they must fall."

"But," said Miss Mason almost wistfully, "you paint real pictures in
them."

"Try to do so," said Dan gruffly, "and a few of us succeed. Even in
that most of us fail as we fail in our furniture. Paul and Michael are
our geniuses."

"Paul and Michael?" queried Miss Mason.

"Mr. Treherne and Mr. Chester," explained Barnabas. "They live in
studios numbers one and three respectively. Jasper Merton has number
five, Alan Farley number four, Dan number two, and mine is number six,
next door to you."

"The garden with the faun," said Miss Mason.

"The garden with the faun," replied Barnabas. And then he got up to
move a table for Sally, who had come in with the tea-things, blue
willow china on a tray covered with the daintiest of damask cloths. She
brought in more dishes with cakes and bread and butter, and a copper
kettle which was singing its heart out on a little spirit lamp. Then
she left the room.

Miss Mason warmed the teapot and the tea-cups, measured the tea, and
filled the teapot with boiling water. Then she took up the sugar-tongs.

"Sugar?" she asked.

"One lump each," said Barnabas.

She put the little cubes into the cups, poured in milk and tea, and
handed the cups to the men.

"Help yourselves," she said. Then she looked up and smiled.

"Am quite delighted to see you," she said, "but you'll have to do the
talking. Don't suppose I've spoken more than six words a day for the
last twenty years, till the last three weeks. Then it has been entirely
about furniture. I've got out of the way of conversation."

"Barnabas will supply the need," said Dan. "He has the biggest flow of
conversation I've ever met. Only it's largely nonsense."

"Should like nonsense," said Miss Mason. "Never talked nonsense in my
life."

"No?" queried Barnabas politely, his eyes twinkling.

Then they all three laughed. And in the laugh Miss Mason forgot that
she was trying to hide her shyness, for it suddenly disappeared, and
there was nothing left to hide. She forgot that she had never set eyes
on the men till ten minutes ago. She was no longer a hostess trying
to feel at ease with strangers. She was just a happy woman talking to
two happy men, the difference in age forgotten. Such a magic god is
laughter.

And before an hour was over Miss Mason felt that she knew all about
them. Not the things in which some people consider the knowledge of
their fellow-men to consist--their father's profession, their mother's
family, their relationship to various grandees, the towns in which they
have lived, the schools at which they have been educated, the number of
their brothers and their sisters, all of which, if you come to think of
it, are pure accidents, and have nothing to do with the man himself.

It was none of these things Miss Mason learnt. She found out that
Barnabas had a universal love for nature and his fellow-men, in fact,
for everything alive; and that his heart was as sunny as his laugh.
And that Dan's rather gruff manner hid a heart as tender as a woman's.
There were a thousand minor characteristics she would discover by and
by, but these were the salient facts, and showed the true man.

When they said good-bye it was with a promise from her to visit their
studios, and with an assurance from them that the other four men were
going to call on her.

They did--Jasper Merton the next day alone; Paul, Alan, and Michael
on the Tuesday. Barnabas and Dan had broken the ice for her, and Miss
Mason received them with little trepidation. Having come once they came
again.

And not one of them guessed in what a curious way the influence of the
quaint old lady was to be woven into the lives of at least three of
them. For the Three Fates, who sit all day long spinning in three great
black chairs, are strange and ancient dames, and they saw in Miss Mason
a kindred spirit. In fact, they laughed to think of her likeness to
them as she sat in the carved oak chair in her studio with her knitting
in her hands.

And Miss Mason took one and all of the six artists of the courtyard
to her heart and loved them spontaneously as a mother loves her sons.
But Jasper she guessed was unhappy, and she was sorry for him, and she
was a tiny bit afraid of Michael's tongue and Alan she did not quite
understand, and Paul she was as proud of as if he were truly her son,
and Dan gave her a delightful feeling of being protected, he was so
big, but Barnabas--though she loved them all--took the first place in
her heart.




CHAPTER X

THE CASA DI CORLEONE


"Christopher, darling," said the Duchessa di Corleone in honeyed
accents, "I want you to find an artist for me."

"By all means," replied Christopher. "Where did you lose him?"

"My dear Christopher," said the Duchessa, "he is not lost, because
he has never been found. You are to find him--a pleasant, clever,
interesting artist."

She was sitting in the drawing-room of her house on the Embankment. The
windows looked on to the river which she loved. The room was full of
flowers which she also loved. She arranged them herself in a room off
the dining-room, and carried them upstairs in her arms like children.
Every one who loves and arranges flowers knows that in their transit
from one place to another the whole carefully-careless effect of their
arrangement may be spoiled. Therefore from the moment of entering
the strings that tied the great bundles fresh from Covent Garden, to
the moment of placing the vases in the drawing-room, no hand but the
Duchessa's touched the flowers. And there was no flower in existence
whose colour could jar in the room which was a harmony in pale
lavender. To have to exclude a flower on account of its colour would
have been to Sara di Corleone like shutting the door on a child because
its face was ugly. And being the very essence of womanhood she could
have done neither.

"And when the artist is found," queried Christopher, "may I ask what
are your intentions towards him? I have a conscience, Sara, though you
may not realize the fact, and if you wish to inmesh the young man in
your silken toils merely for the pleasure of seeing him wriggle, then I
fear duty will oblige me to refrain from helping you in your search."

Sara smiled. "I want him," she said, "to paint my portrait."

"It sounds dangerous--for the artist," said Christopher. "May I further
ask to whom the portrait is to be presented?"

"To the Casa di Corleone on the banks of Lake Como," said Sara quietly.

Christopher looked enquiring.

"You have never seen the place," said Sara, "but I have told you about
it."

"You have," said Christopher.

"One day," pursued Sara, "you must come with me to see it. Then I think
you will understand. I want you to see the courtyard with its orange
trees and fountains, the little naked marble fauns and the nymphs who
stand among them glistening in the sunlight. I want you to see the
rooms full of shadows and great patches of sunshine; and the gallery
with its pictured men and women of the house of Corleone, the dark-eyed
haughty women--beauties every one of them--the gay young men and the
courtly old ones. I want my portrait to be among them."

"Yes," said Christopher.

"It isn't conceit," said Sara. "At least I don't think it is. I love
that place, Christopher. It seems as if it belongs to me--had always
belonged to me; I mean, long before I knew Giuseppe. I want to think
that in the years to come my picture will be hanging there, looking
down into the old hall, and that when the door is open I shall catch
a glimpse of the courtyard bathed in sunlight, see the gleam of
golden oranges and white marble figures, and hear the plashing of the
fountain. It's just a fancy."

"A fancy," said Christopher, with a little gesture, "as charming as
yourself."

Sara laughed. "Christopher, I love you. And you ought to have lived in
the days of Queen Elizabeth, or, better still, at the Court of France."

"I appreciate your affection," said Christopher. "One day when we are
both in a mad mood we will run away together, and pick oranges from the
trees in the courtyard of Casa di Corleone. And we will play at ball
with them across the fountain--golden balls tossed through a shower of
silver. The idea appeals to me."

"I am glad Casa di Corleone is mine," said Sara, "though mine with
reservations."

"There was no entail on the estate?" asked Christopher.

"No; I don't understand the ins and outs of the matter, but it was my
husband's to do with as he pleased."

"It was thoughtful of the Duca to leave it to you," said Christopher.
"He might have turned it into a home for stray dogs. There are a good
many in Italy, aren't there?"

Sara had scarcely heard him.

"I liked Giuseppe," she said pensively. "But," she added, "better when
he was alive. I feel slightly irritable now when I think of him. I
dislike feeling irritable. It is a prickly sensation and doesn't suit
me."

"The will?" asked Christopher.

"Exactly. The will."

"But," asked Christopher, "you are not thinking of again entering the
holy bonds of matrimony?"

"Nothing," Sara assured him, "is further from my thoughts. But--if I
wanted to!--Think of it, Christopher! I lose every centesimo--every
single centesimo _and_ Casa di Corleone. Fancy parting with it!
Besides, there is that ridiculous letter."

She looked at him, mock-tragedy in her eyes.

"I never heard of any letter," said Christopher.

"Didn't you?" she asked. "It was almost the most provoking thing
Giuseppe did. It roused my curiosity--I am curious. Christopher--with
one hand, and took away every possibility of my satisfying it with the
other. I can quote the last phrases of the will verbatim."

She leant back in her chair, her eyes half-closed, and spoke slowly.

"And I further decree that if my wife Sara Mary di Corleone, _née_ de
Courcy, shall again enter the married state, that she shall immediately
forfeit all the money and estates herein willed to her, and shall have
no further claim upon them whatsoever. And that they shall, in the
case of her marriage, pass into the possession of my nephew, Antonio
di Corleone. And I leave in the hands of my executors--before herein
named--a letter, sealed and addressed to my wife the above Sara Mary di
Corleone, _née_ de Courcy, which letter, in the event of her marriage,
shall be given into her hands one hour precisely after the ceremony
has taken place. In the event of her demise without re-marriage, the
said letter shall be destroyed unopened by and in the presence of the
executors above-named. Written by me this fourteenth day of January,"
etc., etc.

Sara opened her eyes and sat up again.

"It was all signed and witnessed just a year before he died. It's all
horribly correct. Fixed up as firmly as yards of red tape can tie it.
And if I marry I lose every centesimo and my beloved Casa di Corleone,
and if I don't marry I shall never see the inside of that letter. Did
you ever know such a trying situation for a luxury-loving and curious
woman in your life?"

"I fancy," said Christopher, "that the curiosity does not trouble you
greatly."

"It does not," she confessed. "But the will! You must allow that
is annoying. It puts my mind and my affections in a kind of mental
strait-jacket. Every time I see a charming man----"

"Me, for instance," said Christopher.

"No, mercifully not you," said Sara. "We are one of the few exceptions
that prove the generally accepted rule of the non-existence of
platonic friendship between men and women. You are the most delightful
combination of friend and father-confessor that ever existed,
without--Heaven be praised--a trace of the lover. Where was I before
you interrupted?"

"Looking at a charming man," said Christopher.

"Oh, yes. Whenever I see a charming man I have to tell myself to be
careful, to run no risk of my heart getting in the smallest degree
involved. I call up mental pictures of coffers upon coffers--thousands
of them--crammed with centesimi. I shut my eyes and see the courtyard,
the oranges, and the marble fauns, then I open them and look at the
charming man and feel more secure. But I daren't run the tiniest risk
for fear of the consequences. I can't--" she almost wailed the words,
"I can't even flirt."

"As your father-confessor," said Christopher, "I am glad to hear it."

"But think," she protested, "what I lose."

"I think," said Christopher, "what the man would lose, and have a
fellow-feeling for him."

"You're very unsympathetic," said Sara.

"On the contrary, I am very sympathetic--towards the man, who, but for
the late Duca's will, might be wriggling, as I said before, in your
silken toils."

There was a silence.

"Christopher," said Sara, suddenly and quite seriously, "do you think I
shall ever marry again?"

"I most certainly hope you will," replied Christopher.

"And lose Casa di Corleone and the coffers of centesimi!" she
exclaimed. Then again she was back to the serious mood. "Why do you
hope so, Christopher?"

For a moment Christopher was silent. Then he spoke.

"Because, my dear, I know you and your capabilities. One day you will
realize the gift you have in your possession, and in giving it away you
will be one of the happiest women on God's earth."

She looked at the fire.

"I wonder," she mused. "I didn't give very much to Giuseppe."

"You liked him," smiled Christopher.

"He was a dear," said Sara. "He was extraordinarily considerate, and we
were always beautifully polite to each other. But----"

"Exactly," said Christopher. "But---- One day a force will take you
prisoner. Gifts will be showered on you, and you will shower gifts, and
that little word of three letters, which stands for so much, will have
no place in your vocabulary."

"And I shall give up everything?" she queried below her breath.

"You will give up everything, because you will have gained everything,"
he said.

"How do you know all this?" she asked.

Christopher lifted his shoulders the tiniest fraction.

"There is some knowledge," he said, "which is born in one, and of which
one need no experience in this incarnation. Probably I brought mine
with me from the experience of ages long ago."

Again there was a silence.

Outside there was a clack of horses' hoofs, the roll of carriages,
the hoot of taxis, all the sounds of London to which one grows so
accustomed that one hears them even less than one hears the humming of
insects in a sunny garden. And away below the window was the river,
gliding grey and noiseless to the sea.

It was a November day with a hint of fog in the atmosphere. A fire was
burning in the room in which the two were sitting, and great yellow
chrysanthemums like patches of sunlight were in bowls set on the tables.

And in the silence the woman was looking almost for the first time
into her heart with a kind of wonder for what she might find hidden
there. And the man, whose nature was one of queer self-analysis, was
marvelling that his feeling towards the woman near him held nothing
but strong affection and a curious interest in her vivid and unusual
personality. Perhaps the cause lay in the fact that he had known her
from childhood, and seen her gradual development. She had never flashed
unexpected and meteor-like across his path.

Suddenly she looked up at him with one of her individual smiles--a
smile that lit up her eyes before it found its way to her lips.

"We have wandered a long way from my request," she said.

"To find an artist for you?" said Christopher. "Oh, I know a man."

"Yes?" she asked, all interest. "What is he like?"

"Clever," said Christopher, "pleasant, and--yes, I think you'll find
him interesting. I think those were your three requirements."

"What is his name?"

"His name," said Christopher, "is Paul Treherne, and he lives at a
studio about ten minutes' walk from here."

"Paul Treherne," she said slowly, dwelling on the words. "I like that
name. Is he as nice as his name?"

"I shall leave you to judge," replied Christopher.

"You had better bring him to see me," she said. "To-morrow at tea-time
will do. You can ring me up in the morning and tell me if he is coming."

"Very well." He glanced towards the clock on the mantelpiece, a
beautiful little French clock. The hands pointed to half-past three.

"I must go," he said. "I've an appointment at my club. I'll go round to
the studio first." He got up from his chair.

"Then you can telephone from the club," said Sara. "I am not going out
again till this evening."

"Very well." He held out his hand.

"I hope he will be able to come," said Sara. "I like his name."

"You are not to fall in love with him," said Christopher warningly, "or
let him fall in love with you."

"I wonder," said Sara.

"Remember Casa di Corleone and the golden oranges."

Sara smiled.

"I thought," she said, "that one day I was to forget them."




CHAPTER XI

A MEETING


There comes a day in the lives of some of us when everything appears as
if it were pursuing its ordinary and normal course. We get up in the
morning and go through the usual routine--bath, dressing, breakfast,
all the little accustomed trivialities which have happened thousands of
times in our lives already, and which will doubtless happen thousands
of times again. We feel gay or dull as we have felt thousands of times
before, and we think, or we don't think, of the various occupations
that will go to make up our day, and we never guess that before sunset
we shall have our hand on a door--a door that when opened is to lead
the way into clouds of sorrow, or gild our life suddenly with the
radiant light of joy. So silently do the fates work, so secret do they
keep their intentions from us.

Paul got up that morning as usual at seven o'clock. He had his usual
cold bath, which most people would have found uncomfortably chilly on
a November morning, but in which Paul found merely a refreshing sting.
He rubbed himself dry while humming an air from "The Arcadians,"
and then put on his clothes. He went into his studio and found his
usual breakfast of coffee and rolls ready for him. While he ate it he
looked into a neat brown pocket-book to refresh his memory as to his
engagements for the day.

A small girl was coming to sit for him at ten o'clock. Her name was
Marjorie Arnold. She was possessed of personality and a fascinating
dimple. He had caught the personality, but the dimple had hitherto
eluded him. It was extremely fleeting in its appearance. He hoped to
catch it and place it on canvas that morning.

There was only one other entry for the day--"4.15. C.C." It meant that
Christopher Charlton was coming for him that afternoon, and would
take him to call on the Duchessa di Corleone, who desired to have her
portrait painted.

He felt a certain amount of interest as to the Duchessa's appearance,
but it was only an interest he had felt dozens of times before
concerning possible commissions. Christopher had said she was
good-looking. So were a good many people who were no use to Paul
as subjects. He painted only those who interested him. From the
others--and there were many--he politely evaded accepting commissions.
He was very much an artist, was Paul. And for this reason partly his
income was considerably below the amount his genius warranted. The
other reason was that there were many people who did not consider his
portraits to be likenesses.

At ten o'clock the child appeared with the nurse, who was dismissed for
a couple of hours, and armed with brushes and palette Paul set to work
to catch the fleeting dimple.

The child--she was five years old--was in a solemn mood. Smiles, and
with them the dimple, had temporarily vanished. She was a quaint little
thing with red hair and freckles, and a fascinating ugliness generally
termed the _beauté de diable_.

Paul told her half a dozen stories, including "The Three Bears", "The
Frog Prince", and Rudyard Kipling's "Stute Little Fish." But neither
the squeakiness of the little bear, the faithlessness of the princess,
nor the sufferings of the whale when the shipwrecked mariner danced
hornpipes in his inside had any effect on the dimple.

"Suppose," said Paul at last, "that you tell me a story."

The face was even more solemn.

"I don't know one."

"Make up one," suggested Paul.

There was the ghost of a smile, then solemnity. The flash of hope Paul
had experienced died away.

"Onst upon a time," she began gravely, "vere was a little dog _an'_ a
little duck. An' vey grewed wings, an' vey flewed up an' up an' up to
heaven to God."

There was a pause for effect.

"What a height," said Paul admiringly, watching her face. "What
happened next?"

"When vey got vere," went on the voice solemnly, "you bet vey wanted to
see round. But God said, 'Not to-day, I guess I'm busy. It's my last
day up here.' It was. 'Cos ve next day--God died. Isn't vat a nice
story?"

No trace of a dimple. Paul was exasperated.

"Not a bit a nice story," he said sternly. "And God couldn't die."

She put her head on one side and looked at him.

"Well, not weally, of course. But ve little dog an' ve little duck had
never _seen_ anybody die, an' vey wanted to. So God showed them." She
was laughing at him now in childish triumph, a very imp of mischief.

"Eureka!" cried Paul. And his brush flew to the canvas. Such are the
trials and triumphs of portrait painters.

"Come and look at it," said Paul after ten minutes.

She scrambled down from the chair and platform and came round. A small
mocking face of pure wickedness looked at her from the canvas. Her own.

"Do you see it?" said Paul, pointing at it with his brush. "And but
for your profane little story there would never have been exactly that
expression on your face. We wait for our moments, we artists, and we
catch them--sometimes. And now," he continued, "you can have a stick
of chocolate and brown your face up to the eyebrows with it. I have
finished your portrait, and therefore done with you. I don't care what
happens to you now."

That was Paul. During the time of painting he sought for intimate
knowledge of his subjects. Every tiniest characteristic, every
fleeting expression, were noted and stored up in his memory. He could
almost have told you their life history from his minute observation
of faces. He knew his subjects as few of their intimate friends knew
them. He guessed their hidden secrets with a power that was almost
uncanny--secrets known only to their own souls--and put the secrets
on his canvas. And it was for this reason that many people did not
consider the portraits to be likenesses. He painted the real person,
not merely the mask they wore to the world at large.

This fact had been particularly emphasized in his portrait of a certain
statesman--one Lord St. Aubyn. The statesman has nothing to do with the
rest of this story, but the incident as far as Paul is concerned is
interesting.

St. Aubyn was a man who was much before the public, and no less than
five portraits of him had been commissioned by different societies
as a token of their personal gratitude. Four of these, but for the
individuality of technique, might have been replicas one of the other,
and gave instant satisfaction alike to donors and public.

They showed a man with regular features and deep-set eyes, leaning
to the accepted military type, a resolute mouth, and a certain air
of distinction and command. One felt that a sculptor of the "classic
convention" would have expressed the type even more admirably. Reserve
was there, but with no hint of mystery or evasion; intellectuality, but
little imagination.

The fifth portrait by Paul was, one would have said, of another man. It
was a picture that seemed alive with a strange and slightly repellent
magnetism, for the eyes smiled at a stranger with a baffling mockery;
they seemed to invite and yet defy his judgment--to taunt him with his
impotence and read the soul behind them.

It had been received on exhibition with a storm of outspoken criticism;
while the Benevolent Trustees who had commissioned it, though
refraining from audible dissatisfaction, had maintained so eloquent a
silence at their private view, glancing at each other with liftings
of eyebrows and pursing of lips, that Paul had flung round upon them
and relieved their embarrassment by declaring the contract to be null
and void. No reasons were asked for or given; the action was taken
as a tacit admission of failure. Yet Paul himself had seemed not
ill-satisfied, and had met the chaff which had greeted him from many
of his circle with equanimity.

Landor, one of the circle, whose portrait of St. Aubyn in the previous
Academy had been hailed as a most masterly piece of work, had ventured
a serious protest.

"My dear fellow," he had said one evening, "you're letting your
imagination play tricks with you. It's becoming an absolute disease.
I made a most careful study of the man--made him give me innumerable
sittings, and I pledge you my word that I put everything into the face
that I could find. You had three sittings, and God only knows what
you've put there."

Paul had smoked for a few moments in silence.

"Perhaps you've hit it," he had said. "I've nothing to say against your
'Portrait of a rising Statesman.' It's a fine piece of work. But you
know all about the Factories Sanitation Amendment Act, and I can read
Sub-section Ten in your handling of the chin. Now I don't read the
papers, and I know nothing of the man. I tried to get at him and he
shut the door in my face. Yet something came through the keyhole and
the cracks by the hinges, and I have painted that. And, as you say, God
only knows what I've put in his face; I don't. And in spite of that--or
perhaps because of it--what I've put there happens to be the truth."

"But what have you done with the picture?" Landor had asked. "The
Benevolent refused it, didn't they?"

"Now you're getting coarse," had been Paul's reply. "We agreed to
differ as to its suitability."

"Then where is it?"

"In St. Aubyn's study, I believe," had been the careless reply.

"He bought it, then?"

"I gave it to him."

Landor had looked at Paul, and had refrained from putting further
questions. There had been an expression in Paul's face which might have
made them appear an impertinence.

The gift of the picture had come about in rather a curious way.

Paul never let his sitters see unfinished work, and St. Aubyn had left
town immediately after the third sitting, and had not returned till the
exhibition was over. Then he had gone to Paul's studio and had seen the
picture. He had made one remark, but that was eloquent.

"How did you find out?" he had said.

Paul had looked at him, and the next moment the mask had been on again,
and he had been talking business.

"You've sold this portrait, haven't you?" he had asked.

"Unfortunately not," Paul had replied. "It seems to give offence to
your numerous admirers."

"Then, if you will allow me, I should like to become the purchaser,"
had been the reply.

Paul had looked at him.

"It's not for sale," he had said.

St. Aubyn had bowed and taken up his hat without so much as looking
disappointed.

"But I'll send it round to your house to-morrow," Paul had said.

St. Aubyn had refused. He had talked polite platitudes regarding the
value of the work.

"Now you're talking Stock Exchange," Paul had told him. "The latest
marked quotation is absolutely nil. No one will look at it. As a piece
of property it is worthless. As a revelation----" he had stopped.

St. Aubyn had smiled. "I deal in revelations--professionally," he said.

That had told Paul the secret he had already guessed.

"What a head-line for the evening papers," he had said whimsically. "'A
Peer's Secret! Threatened Exposure by Eminent Artist!' But I'm not a
blackmailer, and I don't take hush-money. The picture is yours or no
one's."

They had argued a little more. At last St. Aubyn had taken it.

"And about the inscription?" It had been Paul's parting shot. "From a
painter to a----?"

St. Aubyn had shaken his head.

"Experience is against endorsements, however cryptic, on secret
documents," he had said. "Sooner or later the cipher is sure to be
read."

And he had gone away, leaving Paul the sole possessor of his secret, a
secret which Paul had summed up in one brief sentence addressed to a
Chinese idol on his mantelpiece.

"The man, God help him, is a poet."

A month later he had received a small volume of poems addressed in a
hand in which he had already received three short notes agreeing to
sittings. The verses--true poetry--were written under a _nom de plume_.
What St. Aubyn's reason was for keeping his poetical talent a secret
from the world Paul never knew. The volume came to him in silence from
the author; he respected the silence, attempting no word of thanks. And
the secret his insight had wrested from the man went with other secrets
somewhere away in the hidden recesses of his mind, while his work alone
absorbed him.

He never pursued his knowledge of men and women further. It
sufficed--or seemed to suffice him--to portray that knowledge on
canvas, and leave it for those to read who had the heart to do so.
As he had passed before among men and women of varied nationalities,
making no real friends, so he passed now among varied types, noting
them, painting them, and dismissing them, still making no friend. The
lonely reserve he had gained in his wanderings pursued him now. He
could not throw it off. Barnabas and Dan were nearer true friendship
with him than any, and more because they had silently accepted him for
their friend than from any advance on his part. It seemed that he could
make none. The solitude of the plains, the loneliness of big spaces,
seemed to have claimed his spirit.

And so he painted portraits, from statesmen to small girls, gaining
intimate knowledge of them, while no one yet had learnt to know the
real Paul.

       *       *       *       *       *

It was very much later in the day, long after Marjorie had departed led
by an indignant nurse muttering to herself regarding the carelessness
of "them artists," for not only Marjorie's face, but her best white
dress was covered with various smears of brown chocolate--it was long
after this that Paul looked once more at his pocket-book. He looked
at it to make sure that the hour Christopher would arrive for him
was four-fifteen, and not four o'clock. The former was there plainly
inscribed, written by Paul with a small gold pencil.

There were just two entries for that day--Friday, November 27th, "M.A.
10 o'clock" and "4.15 o'clock. C.C." Little did Paul think as he looked
at it that he would treasure that small page as one would treasure
one's passage to heaven.

Christopher arrived at the studio punctually to the second, and found
Paul ready for him. The two turned into Oakley Street and came down
towards the Embankment. It was already past sunset, and the houses and
river were shrouded in a soft mist. They reached the house near Swan
Walk and went up the steps.

"The Duchessa di Corleone at home?" asked Christopher of the footman
who opened the door.

"Will you come this way, sir," was the answer, and he led them up the
wide shallow stairs. He threw open a door.

Paul saw a room of pale lavenders, with the chrysanthemums like patches
of sunlight. A woman rose from a chair by the fire and came forward to
greet them. The window was behind her as she came forward, and the room
being in twilight he could not see her face distinctly, but he saw the
outlines of her graceful figure, and caught the glint of her red-brown
hair.

She held out her hand.

"It is very charming of you to come and see me, Mr. Treherne," she
said. "Pietro, the lights."

Paul heard the sound of three or four tiny clickings near the door,
and the room became full of a soft mellow light. Had the light been
a trifle brighter, or her voice a shade less natural, the whole
thing might have verged on the theatrical. As it was, it was simply
a revelation to Paul as, for the first time, he saw the Duchessa di
Corleone.

She stood before him smiling--a smile that just lit up her eyes and
trembled on her mouth. He saw that her skin was smooth like ivory,
that her lips were crimson like wine beneath oiled silk, that her hair
was the colour of a chestnut newly wrested from its sheath.

All this Paul saw almost without realizing it. For suddenly his heart
heard a tune--one that is played silently throughout the ages, and to
most of us the hearing of the tune comes slowly and gradually, a note
at a time. But to a few--as to Paul--it comes suddenly, played in full
melody. He felt vaguely that he had been waiting for that tune all his
life, listening for it on the plains, in the silence of the night under
the stars.

But he merely bowed and said in the most ordinary and conventional
voice in the world:

"It was very good of you to ask me to come and see you."

For Paul did not yet know the meaning of the tune. In his lonely
life he had never before even heard an imitation of it. And because
the music was very strange and very beautiful he listened to it with
something like awe.

And then he heard Christopher's voice.

"I ought to have told you, Sara, that Mr. Treherne is an artist of
strange moods, and that sometimes he refuses--in the most polite and
diplomatic way, of course--to accept commissions."

The Duchessa looked at Paul.

"I don't think Mr. Treherne will refuse to paint my portrait. At least
I hope not."

"I shall be honoured to paint it," Paul replied.

The words were conventional. Since he intended to accept the commission
it was very nearly the only phrase he could have used, yet there was
something in his utterance of the words that seemed just to lift them
from the commonplace. Perhaps it was the direct way in which he spoke
them. Paul had generally a very direct manner of speech.

Anyhow, Sara glanced at him, and an indefinable something in his eyes
caused an odd little movement in her heart. The room in which they were
sitting seemed suddenly brighter, the chrysanthemums a more beautiful
colour, the logs on the fire more than usually crackly and pleasant.
For so it is that two people who are complete strangers to each other
sometimes meet and in some subtle way, and without realizing it at the
time, the whole world has altered for them. And the invisible gods
laughed softly, and the grim old fates smiled, and drew two threads of
their weaving, which had hitherto had nothing to do with each other, a
little closer together.

Before Paul left the house on the Embankment it was arranged that the
Duchessa should come to his studio the following morning at eleven
o'clock for her first sitting.




CHAPTER XII

PRINCESS PIPPA AWAKES


Miss Mason threw a large shovelful of coal on to the fire, then turned
to Barnabas, who was sitting astride on a chair, his arms resting on
its back, and looking at her with a slight twinkle of amusement in his
eyes.

"It's all very well for you to smile, Barnabas," she said
energetically, "but if my model hadn't failed me, do you suppose for
one moment that I should allow you to be sitting there wasting my
morning, and incidentally wasting your own?"

"No waste, dear Aunt Olive," said Barnabas imperturbably. He had calmly
given her the title one day, and it had been adopted by the five other
artists of the courtyard. It had pleased Miss Mason immensely, though
she occasionally pretended to look upon it as an impertinence. "No
waste, dear Aunt Olive. The enormous benefit I invariably derive from
your conversation is of incalculably greater advantage to me than the
time I should otherwise spend in dabbing paint on canvas. The canvas is
always destroyed at the end of two hours, unless the subject happens
to be a commission. Your conversation abides for ever engraven on my
memory."

"Barnabas, you're a fool," retorted Miss Mason. "Besides, if you were
not here I should paint a still life."

"Oranges against a green or blue earthenware jar--I know," said
Barnabas sorrowfully. "Dear aunt, _cui bono_? You have dozens of
oranges already on canvas, to say nothing of the blue and green jars.
You could paint them in your sleep. Why make another representation of
them?"

"Don't mock at my work," said Miss Mason severely. "You have a lifetime
before you, and can afford to waste mornings. I cannot. Remember my
age."

"I'll try to do so, since you wish it," returned Barnabas. "It is,
however, the one thing I invariably forget."

"Nonsense," said Miss Mason. "However, if you won't go, where is my
knitting? I can't sit entirely idle."

She took a bundle of white woolwork from a side table. Two steel
knitting-needles were stuck into it. She sat down in the big oak chair
by the fire, and in a moment the needles were clicking busily. She
looked more like one of the three Fates than ever. And somewhere away
in a back street a scrap of humanity must have heard the clicking
needles, and a thread of white wool must have stretched out invisibly
to draw it towards the hands that held them. Though at the moment Miss
Mason knitted serenely unconscious of the fact.

Barnabas watched her in silence.

"For the poor?" he asked politely, after a couple of minutes.

"Babies," said Miss Mason shortly. "They get little enough welcome,
poor mites; but knowing that a white jacket with a bit of blue ribbon
run through it is waiting for them, helps the mothers to look forward
to their advent with a certain degree of pleasure. It's curious, the
effect of little things."

"I should hardly have thought----" began Barnabas.

"Of course you wouldn't," interrupted Miss Mason. "You've never had a
baby. Neither have I, for the matter of that."

She looked up and caught Barnabas' eyes fixed on her.

"Barnabas, you're disgraceful!" she exclaimed. "I never know what I say
when I begin to talk to you."

"Therein lies the charm of your conversation," he assured her. "It is
always so unpremeditated."

"Huh!" said Miss Mason, and she returned to her knitting.

She looked exactly the same as she had looked six months previously,
except that there was a new and curious radiance about her eyes. They
looked as if they were absorbing happiness, and giving it forth again
in actual light. Also her black dress had given place to a grey one.

The style being unprocurable at any modern shop, she had engaged
a sewing-woman to make it for her. The woman was firmly persuaded
that Miss Mason was quite mad, but finding her an extremely generous
customer, she was perfectly ready to seam grey cashmere into any
pattern Miss Mason might require. She had once gone so far as to
announce that the costume was picturesque. Something in her manner as
she made the statement had annoyed Miss Mason.

"Picturesque! Nothing of the kind!" Miss Mason had retorted. "It is
serviceable and comfortable, and suited to a woman of my age. Some
women of sixty make fools of themselves in a couple of yards of silk
nineteen inches wide. I make a fool of myself in twelve yards of
cashmere forty inches wide. That's all the difference. But I prefer my
own folly." And the sewing-woman had retired crestfallen.

"I saw Paul yesterday," remarked Barnabas after a moment.

"I like him," said Miss Mason succinctly.

"So do I," returned Barnabas. "He is so refreshingly clean. He always
looks as if he had just completed a toilette in which baths, aromatic
soap, and hair-brushes had played an important part."

"Yet he manages to escape looking shiny," said Miss Mason.

"We all take baths," went on Barnabas thoughtfully; "at least, I hope
so. But with the majority of people one has to take the fact of their
scrupulous cleanliness more on faith than by sight. With Paul it is so
extraordinarily apparent."

"What is he doing at the moment?" asked Miss Mason.

"Painting the portrait of a certain Duchessa di Corleone. I happened
to see the lady leaving the studio. She is remarkably beautiful. Paul
has the devil's own luck. I have to spend my time painting middle-aged
women with hair groomed by their maids till they look like barbers'
blocks, or pink-cheeked girls with a perpetual smile."

"Don't paint them if you dislike doing it," said Miss Mason.

"Dear Aunt Olive, I must."

"No such thing. You have an excellent private income."

"I grant you that. It is, however, not the point. I am a portrait
painter. It is my _métier_. To be a portrait painter one must paint
portraits. The two things are inseparable."

"Paint models, then," said Miss Mason. "Choose your subject."

"It is not the same thing," replied Barnabas gravely. "A model who
is paid for sitting does not rank with a creature who pays one to
immortalize their material features on canvas. To say I have a model
coming to sit for me this morning is nothing. To say the Lady Mayoress
of So-and-So comes to my study at eleven o'clock this morning is
quite another matter. At first your fellow-artists say, 'Pure swank
on his part.' But when eleven o'clock arrives, and with it the Lady
Mayoress in a gold coach with four horses and velvet-breeched lackeys
with cocked hats--why, then the whole thing assumes totally different
proportions. I am regarded in a new light. I become a person of
importance among my fellow-men. I gaze upon a double chin, boot-button
eyes, and a smile that won't come off, enduring mental torture thereby,
in order that later I may strut from my studio with an air of swagger,
and hear myself spoken of as 'John Kirby, the portrait painter.' And
once more I ask you, how can one attain to the distinction of portrait
painter if one does not paint portraits?"

"Barnabas, you're ridiculous," said Miss Mason. "You talk of nothing
seriously, not even your art which you love. But if you could be
serious for ten minutes, I'd like to ask you about a scheme I have in
my mind."

There was a little hesitancy in the last words. Barnabas looked up
quickly.

"I'm attending," he said gravely.

"You know," said Miss Mason quietly, "that for a woman who spends as
little as I do I am very rich."

Barnabas nodded. "I thought you must have a good bit of money," he
said, glancing round the studio.

Miss Mason followed the direction of his glance.

"That was rather--what you would call a splurge--on my part," said Miss
Mason. "Fact is, I have about fifteen thousand a year. If I spend two
in the year it will be all I shall do."

"Yes," said Barnabas gravely.

"Of course," went on Miss Mason, growing gruffer as she became more in
earnest, "I've told you how much I care for art. Suppose I inherited
the love of it from my father. See now, it's little use loving it if
one doesn't get the chance to work when one's young--I mean as far as
one's own creation is concerned. Get a lot of pleasure dabbing paint
on canvas, making pictures of oranges, and drawing charcoal heads. But
the time's past for me to do anything serious in that line. Glad you're
honest enough not to contradict me. Been thinking, though, that there
must be others who would like the chance. Care so much myself, would
like to help them." She stopped.

"A ripping idea," said Barnabas warmly.

"Thought," went on Miss Mason, "that if five thousand pounds a
year went for that purpose it'd be something--give twenty would-be
artists the chance, anyhow. Each would-be artist to have an income
of two hundred and fifty pounds for five years while they are
studying--longer if you thought well. Then another to take their place.
Want them to be people who'd really care. Love the work. Want you to
help me. Don't rush the matter. If you can find the right people let me
know. You're a young man. Would like to appoint you as my executor in
the scheme. You could carry on the work. Would like, though, to see it
started." Miss Mason looked anxiously at Barnabas. The little speech
had cost her a great effort. It was the outcome of the thought of many
weeks.

Barnabas met her look. "There's nothing I should like better than to
help you in the scheme," he said warmly. "It's fine. By Jingo! Twenty
men to have their chance every five years. Think of it!"

"Am ready to include women too," said Miss Mason, "as long as"--she
continued, getting gruffer than ever--"they aren't giving up other
duties to it. Might find some women glad to have a chance too. Would
have liked it myself. You go about among people. Can let me know later.
Don't rush it."

"It's fine," said Barnabas again. "Aunt Olive, you're a brick!"

The boyish compliment brought the colour to Miss Mason's cheeks.

"Glad you like the idea," she said.

A sudden gust of wind tore round the studio, and a torrential shower,
half of sleet, half of hail, beat down upon the skylight.

"Abominable weather!" said Miss Mason, clicking her knitting-needles
furiously. She did not even now guess how near to her the scrap of
humanity had been drawn by the thread of white wool.

"We have much for which to be thankful," began Barnabas piously, "a
blazing fire, a roof----"

His further reflections were interrupted by a knock on the door.

"See who it is, will you?" said Miss Mason. "Sally is busy. If it is a
beggar send him or her away. I don't encourage them."

Barnabas grinned broadly, knowing the untruth of the statement. He
heaved himself off the chair and went towards the door.

There was a moment's parley. Then he returned, followed by a small and
weird figure. Its sex was indistinguishable. A man's coat frayed and
torn reached to the top of a pair of patched boots many sizes too large
for the feet they covered, a man's slouched hat hid nearly the whole of
the face.

"It says it is a model," announced Barnabas. "Its language is a mixture
of French and broken English."

Miss Mason let her knitting fall.

"A model!" she exclaimed, looking at the odd creature.

The figure in the old coat saw the fire. It made an instant dart
towards it.

"Ah!" The sigh was one of intense satisfaction. The hands, hidden by
the frayed coat-sleeves, were held out towards the leaping flames.

"You're cold?" asked Miss Mason quickly.

The figure nodded its head.

"Who sent you to me?" she demanded.

"Personne. But I know Keetie Jenkins 'as been model for you. She tell
me you ask 'er when you bring ze baby ze white jacket. Mrs. Jenkins 'as
taken Keetie away, so I tink I do instead of Keetie."

"Huh," grunted Miss Mason. "Haven't seen you yet. So the Jenkinses have
gone, have they? That accounts for Kitty failing me this morning. They
might have taken the trouble to let me know."

The small figure by the fire raised its head quickly. Miss Mason and
Barnabas had a glimpse of a pointed chin and a scarlet mouth.

"Mrs. Jenkins she is too un'appy. You see Georgie 'e is dead."

"Georgie! Never heard of him. Who was he?" demanded Miss Mason.

"'Er little boy." The reply came seriously. "'E die of doing too many
lessons. Mrs. Jenkins say Keetie not die zat way. She 'as gone to ze
country, where ze 'spectors not so 'ticular, she say."

"A unique death," remarked Barnabas gravely. "I don't fancy many little
boys die of that complaint. Have you ever posed before?"

"Mais, oui." The head was nodded vigorously. "Sall I pose for you?"

"Don't know what you're like yet," said Miss Mason.

"There is a proverb, O infant," supplemented Barnabas, "which
instructs one never to buy a pig in a poke. Acting on that principle,
it is impossible for us to decide on a model attired as you are.
Therefore----" he broke off.

"Oh, my tings," she nodded gravely. "I take zem off."

The figure tossed the slouched hat on to a chair. It was followed by
the coat and the boots, which later were kicked off, disclosing bare
feet small and well-arched.

There stood before them a slip of a girl-child, in a faded green frock,
black hair cut square on the forehead and at the nape of the neck,
after the fashion of some mediæval page, the face white, with pointed
chin and geranium-coloured mouth, eyes grey with pupils large and very
black. She might have been about nine years old.

She raised her hands to the back of her neck, unfastening mysterious
strings. Before Miss Mason was aware of her intention, she slid
suddenly out of her clothes and stood on the hearthrug before them,
naked as the day on which she was born.

"_Bien?_" she queried.

Miss Mason gave a faint shriek.

"Barnabas, turn your back and leave the studio at once. I never paint
a nude model. It is against all my principles to do so. Put on your
clothes again at once, child. Barnabas, stop laughing. I know you're
perfectly brazen on the subject. Remember, in spite of my age, I'm an
unmarried woman."

Barnabas picked up a piece of scarlet silk drapery from the model stand
and flung it round the child, who was looking from him to Miss Mason in
astonishment. When she was enveloped in its folds he spoke.

"Miss Mason, my child, is not used to seeing little girls in their
birthday attire. It surprised her. She has a penchant for petticoats
and frocks, to say nothing of stockings. She might, however, be
persuaded to paint you draped as you now are. You look, by the way,
uncommonly like a scarlet poppy."

The child looked gravely at Barnabas.

"She not paint se altogezzer?" she demanded.

"Precisely. She does not paint what the immortal Trilby termed 'the
altogether,' which phrase you have just made your own."

The child nodded her head.

"Mais, oui. Some peoples zey do not. I hear Monsieur Thiery say one
time it _toute à fait extraordinaire_ zat some peoples 'shamed to look
at ze greatest 'andiwork of God. I did not know, me, zat ze peoples who
live in ze _vrais ateliers_ zey tink it shame."

"We all have our little prejudices," said Barnabas lightly. "Naked
little girls is apparently one of Miss Mason's."

He smiled whimsically at that lady.

"Shall we paint this infant?" he asked her. "Can the woolly jackets be
put on one side, and may I fetch my palette?"

"If you like," said Miss Mason shortly. "It's nice of you not to laugh
at my prejudices, Barnabas."

"There are moments when I rather like them," he assured her. And he
vanished from the studio.

When he returned it was to find Miss Mason kneeling by a low chair on
which the child was seated. The red silk was off the shoulders, and
Miss Mason was sponging an ugly bruise on the child's back. She turned
her head as Barnabas entered.

"Look at this," she said in a low, indignant voice.

"Who did it?" asked Barnabas.

"Some brute she calls Mrs. Higgins." Miss Mason's voice augured ill for
that lady, had she been at hand.

"Mrs. 'iggins drunk," said the child patiently. "She often drunk. Ver'
drunk last night."

Miss Mason put some ointment on the bruise, and covered it with a piece
of soft linen. Then she wrapped the red silk again round the child. She
sat down in the big chair and drew the child to her.

"Now, little one," she said, speaking in French, "tell us all about
it."

"Oh!" cried the child rapturously, "you speak French." Her face had
gone crimson with excitement.

"Tell us everything," said Miss Mason.

It came then, an odd little story, scrappily told. Her name was Pippa.
She had lived in Paris with Madame Barbin. Madame Barbin washed clothes
till they were white--oh, but very white. Pippa had posed for artists.
She loved Madame Barbin, but she had died--a year, perhaps two years,
ago. Madame Fournier had taken care of her then. She did not like
Madame Fournier, who was cross. Then Madame Fournier had brought her
in a ship to England. Perhaps that was a year ago. Anyhow, it was
cold weather. They had lived in different houses, and finally at Mrs.
Higgins' house, and Pippa had posed for different artists in London.
Some time in the summer, Madame Fournier had gone away, leaving Pippa
with Mrs. Higgins. She had not come back. Mrs. Higgins was angry--very
angry, according to Pippa. She beat her occasionally, but not always
very badly. Bruises were likely to be seen on one who poses for "the
altogether." Lately, however, Mrs. Higgins had been too angry to
remember that fact. Hence the bruises of the previous evening. In reply
to further questioning it was found that Pippa knew no one she had
ever called father or mother. There were only Madame Barbin, Madame
Fournier, Mrs. Higgins, and the names of quite a good many well-known
artists for whom she had posed. She also stated that she washed
herself every morning, though Mrs. Higgins said it was "un'ealthy." And
she washed and dried her underclothes when Mrs. Higgins was away at the
public-houses, where she spent most of her time.

"Yes," Miss Mason nodded. "The child is clean, at all events."

And then suddenly at the end of the recital, Pippa swayed a little
sideways, and if Barnabas had not sprung forward she would have fallen
on the hearthrug. As it was, she lay in his arms, her face dead white
against the scarlet folds of silk. In a word, Pippa had fainted.

Barnabas laid her flat on the hearthrug and opened the door and
windows. Miss Mason fetched brandy and a large cut-glass bottle of
smelling-salts, which she held to the child's nose, making a curious
clucking sound with her tongue, and lamenting that there were no
feathers handy to burn. But presently, in spite of the lack of
feathers, Pippa opened her eyes.

Then Barnabas put a question.

"When did you last have food?" he asked, watching her.

Pippa put up a small hand to her forehead and pushed back the dark hair.

"Yesterday," she said feebly. "Bread and treacle"--she rolled the r's
in a funny way--"at dinner-time."

"And nothing since then!" cried Miss Mason in horror. "Oh! that Mrs.
Higgins!"

But Barnabas was already in the kitchen issuing commands to Sally.

"Bread, Sally, quick. Cut it in small pieces and put them in a saucepan
with lots of milk. Is there a good fire? Yes. Ever made bread and milk
in your life before?" And Sally flew round.

Ten minutes later Barnabas and Miss Mason were feeding a small famished
girl, who was looking at them as if they were gods from another world,
and at the bread and milk as if it were the nectar and ambrosia they
had brought with them.

And when the blue basin was empty Barnabas lifted Pippa in his arms,
and guided by Miss Mason, carried her into the inner room, and laid her
like a little broken poppy in Miss Mason's bed. Together they tucked
her in, and saw the white eyelids close slowly over the great grey eyes.

Then they went out into the studio. And Barnabas threw the man's coat
and hat, and the old boots into a corner. The other garments he put on
the model stand.

"I shall come back by and by," he said, "and see how the small creature
is getting on."

He looked in twice during the day to find that she was still asleep. It
was after sunset when he came the third time, and it was to find her
sitting near the fire eating a delicious brown egg and slices of bread
and butter, while Miss Mason was telling her that most entrancing of
fairy tales--"The Sleeping Beauty."

Barnabas sat down and waited. Every now and then he looked at the child
with a puzzled expression in his eyes. Suddenly he threw back his
head. He very nearly whistled. Something that had eluded him had been
discovered.

The egg and the story were finished. There came a silence.

The child's eyes wandered round the studio. They lighted on the faded
green dress lying on the model stand. A queer little look of sadness
that should be foreign to a child's face crept back into her eyes.

She slid down from her chair, and stood solemnly before Miss Mason.

"I tank you bof ver' much," she said, with a quaint air of courtesy.
"But now I put on zem tings and go back to Mrs. 'iggins."

She smiled a brave little smile, sadder than any tears or protests.

Barnabas felt a sudden odd grip at his throat. Miss Mason spoke
suddenly and firmly.

"No," she said, "you are not going back to Mrs. Higgins."

The child looked at her with wondering eyes.

"You mean----?" she said.

"That you are going to stay here with me," said Miss Mason decisively.
"Barnabas, you must help me to arrange it."

The child's face quivered.

"Oh!" she cried, with a laugh that held a sob, "I tink I like dat
Princess. She sleep and sleep, and she wake up when ze Prince kiss her,
and ze world all ver' 'appy. And I so 'appy just all ze same, wisout no
Prince kiss me."

And then Barnabas did a queer thing. He put his arm round the child and
kissed her lips.




CHAPTER XIII

AT THE WORLD'S END


Barely half an hour after Miss Mason's sudden decision Barnabas set out
for a small and rather unwholesome street somewhere in the direction of
the World's End. It was given by Pippa as the locality in which Mrs.
Higgins had her residence.

It was not entirely on Miss Mason's account that Barnabas was anxious
to make further enquiries regarding the child. As he walked along the
King's Road, with its pavement slippery and muddy from the feet of many
passers-by, his mind travelled back to memories which Pippa's face had
awakened in him.

They were memories some fourteen or fifteen years old, of the time
when he was a young art student. A scene he had almost forgotten
came clearly back to him. He saw a big class-room full of easels and
men working and smoking. He saw himself, very young, very full of
enthusiasm, yet at the moment very full of despair. He saw himself
looking with disgust at his own somewhat feeble attempt to reproduce on
canvas the figure of the nude model who was standing on the platform
before him. He saw the master coming near, and heard his words. They
were few but sarcastic. He had felt that the whole room was listening
to them. First an insane desire to sink into the floor had overwhelmed
him, then a feeling that he had better take his canvas and brushes
and fling them into the river. It had been mere presumption on his
part to dream of art as a career. He had seen the other figures in the
room through a kind of hazy blur. The voice of the master as he went
from easel to easel had come to him as through cotton-wool. He did
not notice that almost equally sarcastic remarks were being levelled
at the other canvases, and were being received by their owners with
indifference or with good-humoured laughter. He had heard the door
close presently as the master left the room. Then he heard a voice at
his elbow--a curiously musical voice:

"It's a pity Saltby looks upon sarcasm in the light of instruction in
art. He can paint quite decently himself, but he has no more notion of
teaching than a tom cat."

Barnabas remembered that he had turned to look at the speaker, and had
seen a dark foreign-looking man standing beside him. The man had looked
at him sharply.

"That fellow has worried you," he said. "They're just calling rest.
Come along out and have a smoke."

Barnabas remembered following him into the corridor. He remembered
the curious feeling of restful strength the man had given him as they
walked up and down together.

"I'm going to give you a bit of advice," he had said suddenly.
"Remember this, that the opinion of one man, even if he happens
to be your master, counts for nothing. The moment you touch any
art--painting, sculpture, music, or literature--you're laying yourself
open to criticism, and you'll find any amount of it adverse. Don't let
it discourage you. If you've got the inner conviction that you can do
something, forge ahead and do it. Don't be damped by adverse criticism.
If you can learn from it, learn; but don't let it kill the germ of
belief in yourself."

"But can't one be mistaken in the belief that one can do something?"
Barnabas remembered asking.

"If you are mistaken you'll find it out for yourself," the man had
replied earnestly. "My dear boy, the men who can't, and never will,
do anything are those who are so cocksure of themselves that they are
impervious to sarcasm and every adverse criticism under the sun. It
simply doesn't hurt them. It does hurt us. It touches us on the raw.
But we've got to go on. You felt like chucking the whole thing just
now. I'll be bound it wasn't exactly that your self-vanity was wounded,
but because you felt that it had been utterly presumptuous of you ever
to have attempted to lift your eyes to the Immortal Goddess. My dear
boy, she loves men to look at her and worship her, from however far
off. It's those who say they are paying her homage, but who all the
time are looking at and worshipping themselves, for whom she has no
use. Go on worshipping her. Keep big ideas before you and one day you
may get near the foot of her throne. It's not given to many to touch
her knees. But to worship at the foot of the throne is something. Why,
even to look at her from afar is worth years of struggle. Saltby keeps
one eye on her I grant, but he keeps the other on himself, and it makes
him the damned conceited and sarcastic ass he is...."

Barnabas seemed to hear the voice distinctly, to feel the magnetism of
the man who had spoken the words so many years ago.

He remembered later in the evening hearing two students speaking of the
man.

"Kostolitz is a weird chap," one had said; "mad as a hatter."

"Spends half his time like a tramp," said the other, "going around the
country and writing poetry, and the other half in sculpting. Every now
and then he takes it into his head to come in here and draw a bit. He
says it freshens him up to see beginners on their way to fame."

Barnabas remembered that Kostolitz had come to him at the end of the
morning and had suggested their walking back to Chelsea together. It
had been the beginning of their friendship.

The man's face came persistently before him this evening as he pursued
his way towards the World's End.

Other little speeches of his returned to his mind. "I love colour," he
seemed to hear him saying, "but I can't work in paints. They aren't
my medium. I want to get to the solid. Give me a lump of clay and I'm
happy. It's nonsense to say there's only colour in actual coloured
things. There is colour in everything--words, music, thoughts--the
world's steeped in colour if you can only see it. Why, man, it may
seem odd to you, but people even give me the sense of colour. Perhaps
it's the old Eastern idea of auras, I don't know. Anyhow, that idea
is too mixed up with spiritualism and closed rooms to appeal to me.
Give me the open air, the sunshine, flowers, and singing birds. I can
believe in fairies, gnomes, the People of the Wind, and the People of
the Trees, anything that is of the Spirit of Nature. There they sit
together--Nature and Art--the two great goddesses, bless them; and
men try to separate Art from Nature. They can't, man, I tell you they
can't."

Barnabas could almost see the man's eyes--passionate grey eyes--fixed
on him as he remembered the words. And it was the memory of those
eyes that Pippa's eyes had awakened in him, and with their memory had
brought the other scenes before him. The memory had awakened as he had
watched her listening entranced to the story of "The Sleeping Beauty."
He had seen the eyes of his friend Kostolitz looking at him from the
small pale face, and suddenly he had seen the whole wonderful likeness
the child bore to the man. Kostolitz was dead, had been dead now many
years. Had he left behind him this scrap of humanity, holding perhaps a
spirit as poetical and intense as his own, to battle with the world? If
it were so, for the sake of that friendship, it must be protected. And
something told Barnabas that he was not mistaken in his belief.

He turned now into the small dark street. He found the house whose
number Pippa had given him, and knocked on the door. It was opened by a
large, slatternly woman with a watery eye.

"That you, Pippa?" she exclaimed. "'Ere, you come in, and I'll give you
somethink staying hout like this."

Then she saw Barnabas. Visions of N.S.P.C.C. inspectors rose suddenly
before her mind. Mrs. Higgins quailed inwardly.

"Well?" she asked, and her voice was truculent because her spirit was
quaking, "and wot can I do for you, sir?"

"Am I," asked Barnabas suavely, "addressing Mrs. Higgins?"

"That's my nime," replied the lady, arms akimbo.

"I believe," continued Barnabas, still suavely, "that you have had
charge of a child--a little girl named Pippa."

"I 'ave," said Mrs. Higgins defiantly, "and a more hungrateful,
huntruthful, little baggage I hain't never set heyes on. Hif you 'ave
hanythink to say about 'er, per'aps you'll kindly step hinside."

Barnabas stepped into the small passage. It was ill-smelling, redolent
of dirt and boiled cabbage. Mrs. Higgins herself breathed gin. She was,
however, at the moment tolerably sober.

"I understand," said Barnabas, "that she came here with a Madame
Fournier."

Mrs. Higgins blazed. "She did. A French 'uzzy wot took and disappeared
last June, leaving me with 'er child. Friend's child she called it.
I know them gimes. Just about as much a friend's child as Madame 'ad
a right to 'er title or 'er ring wot she wore so conspikus, I'll be
bound. Leaving me with the child on me 'ands, wot I kep' from charity,
and never so much has a penny piece to pay for 'er keep but wot she
gets from them hartists as she goes to."

"Then the child," asked Barnabas, "is no relation of yours?"

"Relation of mine!" cried Mrs. Higgins indignantly and virtuously.
"Do yer think hif she belonged to me as I'd allow 'er to be standing
naked fer men to look at. I'm a respectable woman, I am, I thanks the
Halmighty." Mrs. Higgins ended with a loud sniff.

Barnabas suddenly felt a sensation of almost physical nausea. He seemed
to hear Kostolitz's voice begging him to leave the place, to get away
from the filth of the atmosphere, and above all never to let the child
return to it.

"Then," said Barnabas decisively, "you will no doubt be glad to be
relieved from the burden of maintaining her. She will not return here,
and she will be provided for."

Mrs. Higgins gasped at the suddenness of the statement. She felt
something like dismay. She saw Pippa's earnings, which had added
largely to her weekly income, disappearing in the distance.

"And 'ow about the hexpense I've been put to!" she exclaimed. "Yer
don't feed a growing child for six months fer nothink, and me as kind
to 'er as hif I'd been 'er own mother." Mrs. Higgins began to sob here,
moved to tears by the memory of her own tenderness.

Barnabas' mouth set grimly.

"I think, Mrs. Higgins," he remarked, "that the less you say about your
treatment of the child the better. As far as her keep is concerned her
own earnings have no doubt paid you more than adequately for the food
you have given her. As however you will lose them in the future----"

He pulled two sovereigns from his pocket.

"Take these," he said briefly, "and good evening."

He turned from the house leaving Mrs. Higgins gaping and astonished.
It is a mercy when the Mrs. Higginses of the world can be thus easily
disposed of.

Barnabas walked away down the street, marvelling at the fact that man
had originally been created by God in His own image.

       *       *       *       *       *

He went straight back to studio number seven, where he found Miss Mason
anxiously awaiting him. He sat down and gave her a brief account of his
search and its results, omitting, however, a description of the dirt
and smells.

"And so," he ended, smiling, "you mean to keep this waif?"

"I couldn't let her go," said Miss Mason. "Did you see her eyes?"

Barnabas had. But the look in them had hurt him too much for him to
care to think about it. So he merely said lightly:

"Where is she now?"

"Asleep on half a dozen cushions and among blankets on the floor of
my room. She has had a bath and been wrapped again in that red silk.
She'll have to live in it till I can get her some more clothes. I've
burnt the others, and put the hat, coat, and boots in the dust hole. In
spite of her poor little attempts at cleanliness, one never knows."

"One does not," said Barnabas grimly, thinking of the house she had
come from. "May I smoke?" he asked.

"Certainly," said Miss Mason. She liked the scent of tobacco in her
studio. She felt it to be part and parcel of Bohemia.

There was a long silence.

Miss Mason was thinking of the child lying asleep in the next room. She
had an odd feeling that the Fates had sent Pippa directly to her that
she might in a way atone to herself for her own lonely childhood by
making this morsel of humanity happy. She had already begun to weave
the dreams that are woven by fairy godmothers.

And Barnabas' thoughts had again travelled back to his friend
Kostolitz, and the thoughts made his eyes grave and a little sad.

"I am going over to Paris to-morrow," he said suddenly, breaking the
silence.

"Yes?" queried Miss Mason.

"You know that oil-portrait that hangs by my mantelpiece?" he asked.
"Doesn't a likeness strike you?"

Miss Mason looked up. She felt suddenly a little anxious.

"Of course," she said slowly. "I never thought of it before. It's the
image of Pippa."

Barnabas nodded.

"I saw it when I came back into the studio and found her at tea."

There was a pause.

"Who is the portrait?" asked Miss Mason.

"A man I knew long ago," said Barnabas. "His name was Philippe
Kostolitz. He was a strange man--an Hungarian. He was a true vagabond,
yet certainly of good birth. I knew nothing of his people, if he had
any. He was half gipsy and wholly artist. The statue of the little faun
in my garden is his work. He gave it to me. We were great friends."

"Ah," said Miss Mason softly. "And where is he now?"

Barnabas made a swift sign of the cross. He had been baptized a
Catholic, and in spite of his present rather Pagan views regarding life
he had retained this beautiful custom. There was an innate instinct of
reverence in Barnabas.

"In Paradise I hope. He was killed nine years ago in a railway
accident. It was a horribly prosaic ending for a man whose whole nature
was the essence of poetry."

Miss Mason was silent. After a moment she spoke.

"Then you think that Pippa----" she broke off. She was looking straight
at Barnabas.

"I don't know," he said bluntly. "The likeness is extraordinary. In
Paris I might find out something from the artists for whom she posed. I
know one or two of them personally."

"Thank you," said Miss Mason. "The journey, of course, will be my
affair."

"That," said Barnabas, "is pure nonsense. If Pippa--you see, Kostolitz
was my friend."

"But I wish it," said Miss Mason. And something in her voice made
Barnabas give way.

Ten minutes or so later he left the studio.

Before Miss Mason put out her light that night she went across to the
heap of cushions and blankets and looked at Pippa. She touched her
cheek gently with one wrinkled hand. It was long before Miss Mason
slept. She lay awake listening to the regular sound of the child's
breathing.

       *       *       *       *       *

The morning, with the variability of English weather, broke still and
sunny, a touch of frost in the air.

Barnabas looked in at Miss Mason's studio before he left for Paris.

He found that lady sitting in her chair knitting. Pippa was curled up
on the hearthrug, the red silk tightly swathing her slim body. A pair
of shoes and stockings of Sally's, many sizes too big for her, covered
her feet. She was watching Miss Mason with the eyes of an adoring puppy.

She scrambled to her feet as she saw Barnabas.

"Ah!" she cried, a note of great pleasure in her voice. "It is ze so
sunny Monsieur. I wis you good morning."

Barnabas came over and stood on the hearthrug.

"I'm just off," he said.

"I knew you'd look in," said Miss Mason. "I waited for you before going
out to buy garments."

"Going away?" asked Pippa, looking at him with troubled eyes. She had
had experience of people who went away and did not return.

"Only for a few days, and mainly on business which concerns you, little
one," he replied.

Pippa gave a relieved sigh.

"Come back ver' quick," she said. And then suddenly: "What is your
name?"

He laughed. "You must call me Barnabas," he said.

She nodded her head. "Monsieur Barnabas," she said slowly. Then she
turned to Miss Mason "What sall I call you?" she asked.

A sudden little tender thought sprang into Miss Mason's mind. She put
it aside.

"You can call me," she said rather gruffly, "Aunt Olive."

Again the child nodded her head. "Aunt Oleeve and Monsieur Barnabas,
c'est bon." She looked an odd little elfin figure as she stood there
watching them.

"I must be off," said Barnabas. "I've no time to lose."

Pippa came to the door with him.

"Bon voyage," she cried, waving her hand. And then suddenly she saw the
marble faun in the next garden.

"Ah!" she cried. "Quel beau petit garçon!" She darted down one path and
up another.

The last thing Barnabas saw, as he looked back before leaving the
courtyard, was a poppy-coloured figure standing in the wintry sunshine
beside a white marble faun. The child had her arms familiarly round the
faun's neck.

He painted that picture later when the days were warmer. It was a
picture that was to travel far away from England, and it was to keep
alive in the heart of a woman the memory of a secret--a secret of three
weeks of glorious happiness and a strange regret--a secret known only
to herself and to three other living people.




CHAPTER XIV

VARIOUS MATTERS


And so Barnabas departed to Paris in the attempt to find some clue
regarding the scrap of humanity which the Fates had led to Miss Mason's
studio. It was not that Miss Mason cared in the smallest degree what
her parentage was. She was just a lonely little soul needing love,
and so Miss Mason had taken her into her arms and into her big heart.
Dan had once said of Miss Mason, and only shortly after making her
acquaintance:

"I veritably believe that woman has the biggest hands, the biggest
feet, and the biggest heart of any woman in Christendom." And the more
he knew of her the more convinced he felt of the truth of his statement.

But even a big heart is not entirely sufficient guarantee for taking
possession of a small girl. One can no more pick one up and keep
it than one can pick up a valuable ornament and place it on one's
mantelpiece. At any rate, if one did there would always be the
uncomfortable feeling that the rightful owner might one day walk
casually up to it and say:

"That is mine."

Barnabas understood this, and therefore he had gone off to Paris to see
if there were any likelihood of a rightful owner turning up one day to
claim Pippa. It was wiser that Miss Mason should not get too attached
to her possession before he had made sure on that point. Also there was
the memory of Philippe Kostolitz.

But while he was gone Miss Mason petted the child to her heart's
content, bought dainty undergarments and charming frocks, and played
that delightful game of "mother," which is a game all women have played
throughout eternity at some time in their lives, even if it is only
played with a rag doll wrapped in a shawl.

And while she was playing, and while Pippa was enjoying the game almost
as much as she was and revelling in frilly petticoats, long black
stockings, buckled shoes, and soft green frocks--green seemed to belong
to her, for some reason, as a matter of course--the other five artists
of the courtyard were living their lives, painting their pictures,
smoking their pipes, and being happy or miserable according to their
moods.

And it is perhaps safe to say, though a great pity to have to say
it, that Jasper's mood of the last six months had been one of utter
depression.

At first, when he had walked away from the ugly little house in
Chiswick, he had felt--in spite of the shock he had received at
Bridget's unexpected attitude towards him--a certain exultation in
the thought that duty would never compel him to take that route again.
He told himself that he rejoiced in his freedom, but after a day or so
he had found it necessary to emphasize that point to himself with a
certain degree of insistence. Phrases she had used began to return to
his mind at odd moments. In the midst of painting an angel's wing, or
trying to concentrate on the beatific expression of some saint's face,
he would suddenly hear her voice:

"I wanted to ask your help, to tell you what I had suffered. I could
not."

And again, when painting some piece of flame-coloured drapery, he would
hear the words:

"How did you try to help me? By talking calm platitudes through a kind
of moral disinfectant sheet which you held between us----"

And yet again, as he tried for the strength of courage in the face of
the warrior angel, he would hear her saying:

"You have not had the manhood to help me."

It angered him that she should come between him and his work. He had
loved it. He had felt a kind of mystical joy in it, in the knowledge
that his work would adorn the houses of God, and that the saints he
painted would look down upon the altar where the priest commemorated
the Great Sacrifice. Sometimes in his more intense moments he had
fancied himself an incarnation of one of the old painters who
portrayed for sheer love of God dancing saints garlanded with flowers.
He did not know that his own work lacked that child-like joy, and that
its asceticism was hard and cold.

But now the memory of the house in Chiswick, which he used to banish
easily from his thoughts, came again and again before his mind
to prevent him working. He began to leave his studio and go for
long walks, only returning when it was too dark to paint. And his
fellow-artists wondered what possessed him, and would have welcomed one
of his priggish speeches rather than this moody silence.

And Alan Farley, the other artist who fancied himself a mystic, painted
a few pictures when the inspiration was upon him, pictures which
remained to adorn his own studio walls, as they were incomprehensible
to any one but himself and to one other--a girl, Aurora Castleton, in
whom Alan found a kindred soul. They frequented each other's studios,
and talked of "the true spirit," and "the deeper meaning," and "the
virtue of symbolism," and lamented that the public were too blind
to realize the inner beauty which they were kindly interpreting for
them on canvas. They found, however, a great deal of consolation and
pleasure in each other's society. And a Small Boy with drooping wings
sat mournfully in a corner and heard them talk, knowing that he alone
could give them the true key to the meaning of Beauty--a key that the
most ignorant could understand. But they refused to look at him. Even
his arrows were useless, for the cloak of High Art with which the two
had surrounded themselves seems to be the one thing that is impervious
to them.

And Dan plodded on with his Messonier-like paintings and missed
Barnabas a good deal, in spite of the fact that he had been gone barely
three days. And Michael did wonderful line work, and wrote little
cynical essays for a small magazine that scoffed at love as sentimental.

But Paul was absorbed in his portrait of the Duchessa, and in the
wonderful music his heart heard, the meaning of which was beginning to
dawn on his soul.

The Duchessa had given him her own ideas regarding the portrait the
first morning she had come to the studio. She had told him about the
Casa di Corleone, and the courtyard with the golden oranges and marble
fauns and nymphs, and the gallery where her portrait was to hang.

"I want it," she had said, "to be a wee bit--just the weest bit in the
world--flaunting. The women of the House of Corleone are haughty and
disdainful. They are too proud to show their feelings. If they ever
loved the courtyard and the sunshine, they would have scorned to show
it. They have scorned me often for loving it. I have seen--you may
laugh at me if you like--their lips curl when my heart has danced for
joy as I have stood in the gallery and watched the sunlight stream
through the big hall door. I can't hang there meekly accepting their
scorn. I want to defy them. They may think the place theirs, and be
calmly satisfied in their possession of it, and they may look upon me
as an alien. But it is mine, mine, mine. I want them to know it--not
aggressively, you realize--but with just the tiniest bit of assurance
that there's no mistake at all."

And Paul had responded to her mood as a violin responds to the
master-hand that draws the bow across its strings. He had sketched her
in on the canvas almost as she had spoken the words, standing there
with her head just a trifle thrown back, a little gleam of fascinating
devilry in her eyes.

They had nearly come to loggerheads regarding her dress, however. She
wished it to be scarlet, in contrast to the black dresses and sombre
colours of the haughty ladies already in the gallery. Paul wished it to
be blue. In the end she had had her will. It was not often that Sara,
Duchessa di Corleone, failed in accomplishing it.

Perhaps the most noticeable characteristic of Sara was her vivid
magnetism. Every separate burnished hair of her head seemed to possess
it. Her eyes possessed it, her smile possessed it, her voice--a low
contralto--possessed it. Her presence dominated a room the moment she
entered it, even if she did not speak a word, and Sara possessed a
curious gift for silences. They were sudden and unaccountable silences,
more disconcerting and full of magnetism than speech. She lapsed into
them often with Paul. They came as a sudden and odd interruption to her
flow of sparkling talk. She had a trick of making the most ordinary
words sparkle. Water, after all, is only water, but it can look very
different in sunshine from beneath a grey sky.

And perhaps for the first time Paul found himself at a loss to read
the character she presented to him. Probably because he could not
appreciate it sufficiently calmly. The music in his heart distracted
him, and the tune was clearer and sweeter when she was near. He knew
its meaning now, and it filled him with happiness and pain--happiness
because it is the most beautiful music in the world to those who hear
it, and pain because it somehow seemed to emphasize his own loneliness.
And because he had always been lonely a certain feeling had come to him
of being not wanted. It was not exactly diffidence, not the outcome
of shyness, but merely a certainty that he made no difference to the
scheme of happiness in others; in fact, that it probably worked more
easily without him. He could not imagine himself as essential to
anyone, and never in his wildest dreams could he have imagined himself
as essential to the woman who had suddenly become the centre of his
universe.

       *       *       *       *       *

One evening Barnabas returned and walked into Miss Mason's studio. He
came right over to the fire and sat down.

"Well?" she said, looking at him very anxiously. The game of "mother"
can gain an extraordinary fascination in a very few days.

"I have found out one thing," said Barnabas, "that is a curious
coincidence at all events. The child's real name is Philippa."

"Ah," said Miss Mason slowly.

"I went to different studios," went on Barnabas, "but the artists knew
nothing beyond the fact that the child had lived with Madame Barbin.
Then I went to the houses she had tenanted. The neighbours told me
she was a kind old soul, and two of them at least averred that they
remembered the advent of Pippa to the house when a baby of a few weeks
old. They declare that an English lady brought her to Madame Barbin,
and that Madame Barbin received money for the child's keep. Madame
Fournier was a relation of Madame Barbin's--a niece, they believed.
They did not know where her home was beyond that it was somewhere
in Brittany. She came occasionally to visit Madame Barbin, and was
with her when she died. Their theory is that Madame Fournier took
possession of the child in order to receive the allowance made for her.
It was sent to Madame Barbin, and she returned a receipt and statement
that the child was alive and well. That, at least, is the neighbour's
story. But they had no notion from whom the money came. The people
who sent it must certainly have trusted Madame Barbin implicitly.
According to the neighbours, she deserved the trust. Madame Fournier
no doubt took on the job and abandoned the child as soon as she could
conveniently do so. To receive the money without having to provide for
the child has evidently appealed to her mind as a method of procedure
more advantageous to herself."

Barnabas stopped.

"And how did you find out that the child's real name was Philippa?"
asked Miss Mason.

"A woman named Madame Paulet volunteered the information," said
Barnabas. "She told me that Madame Barbin had said that the child had
first been christened Philippa according to the rites of the English
Church. But being a devout Catholic, Madame Barbin evidently didn't
trust to an English baptism. She had the child re-baptized. I saw
the priest who performed the ceremony. She was then, he said, about
two months old. Madame Barbin had told him that she did not know the
name of the child's parents. She received money quarterly for her
maintenance. She did tell him the name of the woman who sent it, but as
it was told under the seal of confession he couldn't have given it to
me even if he had remembered it. But he had forgotten."

There was a short silence.

"Then," said Mason slowly, "Pippa is a Catholic."

"Yes," said Barnabas. "You are sorry?"

"I am old-fashioned," said Miss Mason. "But after all it is the same
God we worship."

"And if," said Barnabas, "she is Philippe's child, as I believe, he
would be glad. He was a devout Catholic with a strange mixture of
Paganism. I believe that for him the altars of Pan and Christ were
built side by side."

Miss Mason looked at Barnabas with a little twinkle in her eyes.

"You'll have to take her to church," she said.

Barnabas laughed. "You think that after all there may be some advantage
in her baptism?"

Again there was a silence. Then Barnabas spoke.

"If Philippe were her father, and I can't help feeling sure of it, he
must have died some months before her birth. Possibly before he knew
that she was even thought of."

And then Miss Mason put a question, one which had been in the minds of
both of them throughout that conversation at least, but, being a woman,
it was she who voiced it.

"I wonder," she said quietly, "who was her mother?"

"Exactly," said Barnabas.

And because he had loved Philippe Kostolitz he said no more. But his
eyes again grew sad. For Barnabas held very straight views on some
subjects, and he dreaded lest the whiteness of his friend's honour had
been in the smallest degree smirched.




CHAPTER XV

A QUESTION OF COLOUR


Pippa became part of the life of the six artists of the courtyard,
and they all wondered, if they ever thought about the matter at all,
however they had managed to get on without her.

She seemed to belong in some special way to Barnabas. That fact was
one of mutual recognition. Michael found himself stopping suddenly
in the middle of his cynical little speeches when she was present.
It is impossible to be cynical with a child's eyes fixed on one,
drinking in every word. Dan kept her supplied with chocolates, and
gave her a grey kitten. Jasper painted her a picture of the Blessed
Virgin. It was the first painting he had done for weeks past without
the memory of the house in Chiswick coming as an interruption to his
thoughts. The picture, too, held a tenderness not seen in his previous
paintings. Paul, for a wonder, allowed her to see his unfinished
work, and found amusement in her naïve criticisms. One criticism--to
be related presently--was somewhat of a revelation. Alan studied her
deeply, saying that the innocent unfolding of a child's mind was one
of the greatest marvels of creation. Her remarks on colour honestly
interested him. And in them Barnabas felt more than ever convinced that
she was the child of his friend Philippe Kostolitz.

She used to announce quite gravely that people were like colours. Miss
Mason she designated as "couleur de rose." Barnabas himself she said
was gold "all sparkling like sunshine." Paul she insisted was like
the purple light that fell across the river at night. Dan was green
like the leaves of chrysanthemum foliage. Alan was the colour of the
sea. Michael was grey and red. And she refused to assign any colour to
Jasper. But when coaxed by Barnabas she confessed it was because he was
quite grey, and no pretty colour at all.

One day about the middle of February Pippa lunched with Paul. He
announced that he wished her to see the portrait of the Duchessa di
Corleone. The Duchessa herself, who had been away since Christmas, was
coming for what would probably be a last sitting at two o'clock that
afternoon.

"Well?" said Paul, standing near the luncheon table while Pippa gazed
upon the portrait, "what do you think of it?"

Pippa wrinkled up her forehead.

"I don't know," she said slowly, and she came across to the table
looking at Paul with perplexed eyes.

"Evidently," said Paul, a trifle disappointed, "it doesn't meet with
your approval."

"I don't know," said Pippa again, still looking puzzled. And then she
saw the luncheon table. "Chicken and meringues"--she rolled the "r" in
her funny way--"how lovely!"

"The lunch," said Paul, "unquestionably appeals to you far more than
the portrait."

Pippa did not reply. But during the meal she kept looking from the
portrait to Paul, as if she might find in his face some explanation of
her perplexity.

They were drinking their coffee, which Pippa loved, when Paul's man
announced the Duchessa.

The whole atmosphere of the studio seemed suddenly to sparkle with her
entrance. Paul sprang to his feet. There was a light in his eyes of
which the meanest intelligence might have recognized the interpretation.

"I am punctual to the moment," she said. "And how are you? It is six
weeks since we've met." Then she saw Pippa.

"And who," she asked, "is this?"

"Pippa," said Paul gravely, "may I introduce you to the Duchessa di
Corleone."

Pippa held out her hand.

"Pippa?" queried the Duchessa, with the tiniest and most adorable lift
of her eyebrows.

"Just Pippa," said Paul.

Sara sat down. "Finish your coffee," she said. "And may I have a cup?"

Paul seized the kettle. It was the first time she would have partaken
of food or drink in his studio. It marked, in his mind, an epoch.

"Don't make fresh coffee," she begged.

"It is a pleasure," he said. "It is one of the few achievements of
which I am justly proud."

Pippa was gazing at the Duchessa with wide grey eyes. The perplexity in
them had vanished.

"Well, Pippa," asked Sara, "and what do you think of my portrait?"

"I know now," said Pippa firmly. "Ze couleur is wrong."

Paul, who was stirring the coffee in a jug, paused a moment to look at
her.

"The colour?" he queried.

Pippa nodded. "The picture," she said, "is red. She"--Pippa looked at
the Duchessa--"is blue. Oh, but very blue, like--like zat." She pointed
towards a sapphire vase on Paul's mantelpiece.

Paul and Sara looked at each other. There was the tiniest--just the
very tiniest--look of triumph in Paul's eyes.

Sara laughed outright. "Mr. Treherne," she said, "aren't you longing to
say 'I told you so'?"

"I think," replied Paul, "Pippa has said it for me."

Sara turned to Pippa.

"Then," she said, "it is the colour of the dress that is wrong?"

Again Pippa nodded.

"Sometimes ze dresses zey not matter," she said thoughtfully, "but for
you ze real--oh, but it hurt." She clasped her hands against her heart
with a little tragic gesture.

"What's to be done?" asked Sara as Paul handed her the coffee.

"Re-paint the dress, and the whole portrait if necessary," he replied
promptly.

"Oh, but the time, and your trouble!" cried Sara. "I couldn't think of
it. Besides, it was my own fault," she added contritely.

It struck neither of them as odd that they should so implicitly accept
Pippa's criticism.

"I shall only," said Paul, "be doing what I originally wished to do, if
you will forgive me for saying so. The question is whether you will be
too bored with further sittings?"

A faint rose-colour stole over the ivory of the Duchessa's face.

"On the contrary," she said lightly, "I shall be very happy. I
have"--she paused the merest fraction of a second--"not been bored at
all."

She drank her coffee and put down the cup. Pippa got up from her chair.
She knew the moment to make herself scarce. Long acquaintance with
studios and the work of artists had taught her.

She held out her hand to the Duchessa.

"I like you," she said. "I like you ver' much. Please come to tea wis
me one day--you and Monsieur Paul."

"But," said the Duchessa, "Christopher is coming for me at half-past
three."

Paul's face, which had been very gay, fell suddenly. Christopher's name
troubled him. He was on such delightfully--for him--easy terms with the
Duchessa.

"But bring Monsieur Christopher too," said Pippa calmly.

The Duchessa looked at Paul.

"But where does she live?" she asked. "And may we accept this
invitation wholesale?"

"By all means," Paul assured her. "Pippa lives in studio number seven
with Miss Mason, don't you, Pippa? And we all invade that studio at any
hour. Miss Mason ties up cuts, finds new servants for us when our old
ones get out of hand, administers hot concoctions of her own brewing
when any of us have colds, in short, mothers us all round. And Pippa
gives us excellent advice as to the colour of our socks and ties. We
really don't care to think of what we were before Aunt Olive and Pippa
took us in hand."

"So you will come?" said Pippa, standing near the door.

Paul went over to open it for her.

"Yes, we'll come," he said.

"The Duchessa, you, and Monsieur Christopher," said Pippa gaily.

"Oh, yes," said Paul, an odd inflexion in his voice, "no doubt Monsieur
Christopher will come too."

He held the door open, and Pippa went out.

Then he came back to the Duchessa. She had heard the inflexion in his
voice, and a little light of comprehension had sprung to her eyes.

"Ah!" she breathed softly to herself. Then she looked up at Paul.

"And now," she said, "are you ready for the metamorphosis--to re-paint
me as a blue lady?"




CHAPTER XVI

THE LADY OF THE BLUE DRESS AGAIN


And so it was that Pippa's impulsive invitation brought the lady of the
blue dress once more into Miss Mason's surroundings.

And with her advent came one of the brightest threads which the Fates
were using to weave into the hitherto sombre pattern of her life. For
there is never any knowing what the Fates will do. For years the woof
of their weaving may be utterly grey, but if the warp has kept firm
and strong they may suddenly take the brightest colours--a very crazy
patchwork of them--and weave them into the most intricate and curious
pattern imaginable. And because the strength of the warp of this life
pleased them, they were now choosing the most fantastically coloured
threads in the weaving of the woof.

Pippa told Miss Mason of the invitation she had issued, and then went
to wash her hands and brush her hair. There was no need to change her
dress. She had already put on her prettiest frock to lunch with Paul.

Just before half-past three there was a knock at the door. Pippa looked
up expectant. But it was only Barnabas.

"Hullo!" he said, coming in and seeing the tea-things on the
table--Sally would be occupied with hot cakes at the last
moment--"you're expecting company."

"The Duchessa di Corleone, Monsieur Paul, and Monsieur Christopher,"
Pippa told him.

"Shall I be in the way?" asked Barnabas, looking at Miss Mason, "or may
I stay?"

"You are never in the way," said Miss Mason decisively.

Pippa sat down near him and slid one hand into his. And Miss Mason
looked at them, and thought that only a year ago, and perhaps at that
very hour, she had been sitting in a stiff drawing-room furnished with
hideous chairs and ornamented with wax flowers under glass shades,
listening to a long and minute account of Miss Stanhope's ill-health,
sleeplessness, and want of appetite. And because the contrast was so
very great, her eyes grew a trifle misty with unshed happy tears, and
she said a little prayer, that was certainly more Catholic than her
distinctly Broad Church views realized, for Miss Stanhope's present
welfare.

And then suddenly voices were heard outside the studio, a woman's voice
which Miss Mason seemed to recognize, and a man laughing.

The next moment Sally opened the door. Her eyes were round with awe.

"The Duchess----" the next words were indistinguishable--"Mr. Charlton,
and Mr. Treherne," she gasped. Already in her mind she was telling Jim
that she had had the honour of ushering a real live Duchess into the
studio.

The Duchessa di Corleone came into the room. Then she gave a little
exclamation of astonishment and went forwards with outstretched hands.

"My fairy godmother!" she cried. And she was nearer truth than she had
any idea as she spoke the words.

"The lady in the blue dress!" said Miss Mason, her face radiant with
pleasure.

"So you two know each other," said Paul.

"We met--when was it--last May?" said Sara. "May I introduce Mr.
Charlton." And the man whom Miss Mason had seen in the lounge of the
Wilton Hotel bowed.

"It is," said the Duchessa when she was seated, and after Barnabas had
been introduced, "quite the most unexpected and delightful meeting. It
was not till I was on my way to Italy that I remembered I had never
asked your name." And then she told the others of their first meeting.

"And has it all," she asked, "been just as delightful as I prophesied?"

"More delightful," said Miss Mason promptly. She was looking at
Christopher. She remembered the "Christopher, darling," and her mind,
woman-like, was keen on the secret of a romance.

Sara saw her glance. By a flash of intuition she guessed something of
what was passing in Miss Mason's mind. It gave her an opportunity she
had been looking for during the last hour and a half.

"Christopher came to fetch me that evening to take me to an At Home,
I remember. He is an extraordinarily useful person. I have known him
since I was ten years old."

The words were addressed to Miss Mason. They were intended for another
occupant of the studio.

"I remember," said Christopher, "our first meeting. It was, I think,
unique."

"In what way?" asked Paul.

"The Duchessa and her parents," said Christopher, "had taken a house
in Devonshire, at Salcombe, as a matter of fact, where I then lived.
My mother, being of a hospitable turn of mind, and also of opinion
that young men should make themselves generally useful, sent me across
the road to enquire of Captain and Mrs. de Courcy if I could be of any
assistance to them. I went. I found the Duchessa seated on the veranda
on an overturned flower-pot. She was engaged in teaching 'nap' to
three small boys who had come in from the next door garden, also with
hospitable intentions. I found Mrs. de Courcy disentangling silver
forks from among her evening frocks; they had been packed among them
for safety----"

"Mamma was always under the impression that everybody was going to
steal everything," interjected the Duchessa.

"Captain de Courcy," went on Christopher, "was extracting tin-tacks
from the kitchen coal-scuttle, into which they had been upset by the
Duchessa in her frantic questing for playing-cards."

"And did you," asked Miss Mason grimly, "assist him?"

"I extracted two tacks," continued Christopher reminiscently. "Then I
heard the Duchessa laugh. Have you ever heard her? I went out on to the
veranda. First I looked at her, then I turned another flower-pot upside
down and sat upon it. I tried to instruct her in a few of the correct
rules of 'nap.' She cheated, I remember, abominably. She has, in fact,
cheated throughout her life."

"Indeed, I have not," said Sara indignantly. There was a dimple at the
corner of her mouth.

"You have," said Christopher calmly. "You have cheated the Fates every
time they dealt the cards of fortune against you. It's a trick many
of us would give our eyes to learn. They deal her black cards, heigh
presto! the Duchessa has changed them to red ones. They deal her low
dull cards--the Duchessa holds aces and Kings, particularly," ended
Christopher severely, "Kings!"

"Christopher," said Sara sweetly, "is given to exaggeration." She
was first the tiniest bit annoyed. Christopher's last word savoured
somewhat of an accusation of flirting. No woman cares to be accused of
that pastime before a man in whom she is feeling--well, certainly more
than just a careless interest. Besides, the music Paul had been hearing
during the last ten weeks had begun to reach the Duchessa's ears,
though as yet quite faintly. The slight implication of flirting came as
a discord to the tune it was playing.

"The late Duca di Corleone might certainly be termed a King," protested
Christopher, "while the Casa di Corleone and the coffers of centesimi
are most assuredly many aces."

"Yes," agreed the Duchessa. "You, however, said 'particularly Kings.'"

"My mistake," said Christopher politely. "I should have said
particularly aces."

The Duchessa made a little gracious gesture of forgiveness. Paul had
been stroking a small grey kitten--gift of Dan to Pippa--during the
little conversation, and was apparently entirely engrossed in the
kitten. But he had heard every word, and Christopher's intimacy with
the Duchessa was seen by him in a new and far more satisfactory light.

"But now," said the Duchessa, addressing herself to Miss Mason, "I want
to hear everything you have been doing since last May."

Miss Mason glanced around the studio.

"Got a studio," she said.

"And also," said Barnabas, "she has adopted six nephews and one niece."

"Me," said Pippa, who was gazing at the Duchessa with fascinated eyes.

Sara smiled. She looked at Paul and Barnabas.

"I imagine," she said, "that these are two of the nephews. Where are
the others?"

"In their studios," said Barnabas. "Aunt Olive doesn't keep all her
nephews on the premises. They are the six artists of the courtyard."

"Oh," said Sara, with a low laugh, "then you, too, have a magic
courtyard."

"Where is yours?" asked Pippa.

And the Duchessa told her, bringing the sunshine of Italy and the
gleam of golden oranges into the studio, bathing it in their light and
colour. And Paul listened as he listened always when she spoke, loving
the sound of her voice and the magic of her words.

Suddenly as she ended they heard the sound of a violin. It came from
across the courtyard and through the partly open window.

"Hush!" said the Duchessa, and she raised her head listening.

When the last sad notes had died away, she looked across at Paul.

"Who is it?" she asked softly, her eyes full of tears, for the sad
bitterness of a troubled heart had wailed through the music.

"Michael Chester," said Paul quietly.

"And why," asked the Duchessa, "is he not taking London by storm?"

"Because," said Paul, "he is a cripple."

"Ah!" said the Duchessa. She had no need to ask more, for the music had
told her the rest.

After a time she left, promising to come again. As she went into the
courtyard with Paul and Christopher she looked towards the window from
whence the sounds of the violin had proceeded.

"I wonder," she said, "if one day he will play for me."




CHAPTER XVII

THE DUCHESSA ENTERS A KINGDOM


February gave place to a stormy March, which ushered itself in angry
and tempestuous. By the end of the month it was tired of its anger, and
throughout April was like a child promising with smiles and tears to be
good. In May it fulfilled its promise. The month was all sunshine, with
soft winds and blue skies. The parks were alive with flowers, women
donned their brightest dresses, and London looked like a great living
nosegay.

And with the spring the Music of the Heart was playing so loudly for
the Duchessa that she wondered Paul could not hear it too, and many
times she longed to bid him listen.

The portrait was finished, and was in her drawing-room till later in
the year when she would take it with her to Italy, where it would hang
in the gallery like a great glowing sapphire among the sombre and
haughty ladies of the House of Corleone.

She saw Paul from time to time. He came to her flat, and she went to
his studio. And Michael had been persuaded to come and play for her.
And having come once he was ready to come again. He made music sad
and gay, and in her presence it lost much of its bitterness. Only when
he was alone bitterness returned, and with it a desperate and pathetic
note of yearning. For with the beauty of the Duchessa Michael realized
more terribly that he was not as other men, though with the curious
instinct possessed by the man-creature of hurting himself, he loved
to be near her and look at her. And in his heart he laughed cynically
at Paul, seeing that he had but to put out his hand and grasp the
wonderful jewel of her love. But having been lonely all his own life he
understood better than anyone Paul's hesitation, even while he laughed.

And one day when the morning sunshine was more radiant than ever, and
the whole earth seemed singing the Benedicite, Sara wandered across one
of the bridges that span the river and found herself in Battersea Park.
And the lilacs were a mass of purple flowers, and the laburnums hanging
in showers of golden rain, and the tulips were flaunting their gaudy
colours, and the birds singing full-throated songs of joy.

She sat down on a bench near a great bed of golden tulips and looked
at them. And the colour took her back to Italy, and the courtyard of
Casa di Corleone and the golden oranges, and she knew now the truth
of Christopher's statement that one day she would be ready to forget
them. And a little prayer rose up in her heart, a prayer that perhaps
hundreds of women were praying at that moment before flower-decked
altars, but which Sara addressed to the bed of golden tulips.

"Ah, Madonna Santa," she prayed, in the language she had learned to
love, "let him tell me."

And then she looked up and saw Paul coming towards her.

"I knew I should find you here," he said quietly, and he sat down
beside her.

And the tulips became a mass of blurred gold, and the Music of the
Heart rang so loudly in her ears that for the moment the song of the
birds was drowned.

"I have waited a long time," said Paul, "but I cannot wait any longer.
I love you, Sara."

She turned towards him, and there was an adorable little sob of
happiness in her voice.

"But, Paul, dear," she said, "why didn't you tell me long ago?"

And Paul put both his arms round her, and knew that his loneliness was
ended.

There are some hours which pass like moments, so swiftly are they borne
on the wings of joy. And in those hours Paul and Sara told each other a
hundred little things they had quite possibly said many times before,
but which had suddenly taken on a new meaning and a great tenderness.
But for the most part they were silent, listening to the Music of the
Heart, which was playing now in the completest harmony.

At last, however, they grew alive to the fact that the morning was very
far advanced, and that they were both hungry. For, with joy be it said,
both Paul and Sara were most delightfully human.

As she got up from the bench Sara looked at the bed of tulips.

"I want one of those," she said.

Regardless of the little square board which forbade the foot of man to
desecrate the grass with his tread, Paul went across to the flower-bed.
He returned with a great golden tulip on a long pale green stem. He
gave it to her. She looked down into the shining petal-chalice.

"I shall always love yellow tulips now," she said.

Together they set off homewards, the Duchessa carrying the flower like
a queen carrying a golden-headed sceptre.

And verily she was a queen, for she had that morning entered her
kingdom--the kingdom of a man's heart.

       *       *       *       *       *

Of course, she went back to lunch with him at the studio, and equally,
of course, there happened to be no food but bread and cheese and
tomatoes. She refused to be taken to a restaurant, and Paul's man was
sent out to buy spaghetti, with which and the tomatoes and cheese Sara
made a true Italian dish, cooking it on a gas stove.

And it was when they had eaten that and were drinking their coffee, in
the making of which Paul excelled, that Sara suddenly exclaimed:

"Now I shall know what is in the letter."

And then she had to tell Paul about the late Duca's will and the
letter. Paul listened.

"But, dearest," he said, when she had ended, "do you realize what you
are giving up? I am a poor man, and you will lose everything."

But Sara replied in the words of Christopher:

"On the contrary, Paul, dear, I gain everything."

And Paul took her hand and kissed it.

After that they talked about the future. No one was to be told of their
happiness yet, except Christopher and Paul's mother. They would keep
it a secret known only to those four. In June Sara was going to Italy,
when she would take her portrait and leave it in the gallery. In July
she would return for Paul to claim her completely.

"But at least I shall know," she ended, "that my portrait is in the
gallery, and that I love the place ten thousand times more than those
haughty ladies who will now, I suppose, look upon it as entirely their
own."

"And loving it like that you give it up?" said Paul.

"For you," answered the Duchessa softly.




CHAPTER XVIII

BARNABAS SCHEMES WITH CUPID


And while the Music of the Heart was making incessant melody for Paul
and the Duchessa, the Small Boy with drooping wings was still sitting
disconsolate in the corner of Aurora's studio. His arrows being useless
he had tried whispering secrets to her, but delightful whispers of
flower-scented nights, country lanes aglow with wild roses, kisses, and
even cuddling babies fell on deaf ears. She heard nothing but the call
of the false goddess whom she had erected in the place of the glorious
goddess who sits so near to Nature.

One day early in June Aurora was in a particularly dissatisfied mood.
The model, Tilly, who posed not only for Barnabas, but for many other
studios, had been distinctly rude that afternoon.

Aurora had found inspiration lacking, and had told Tilly she could
go. It had been the signal for a tirade on Tilly's part. She had
spoken her mind freely, with contemptuous words regarding artists who
achieved nothing, and whose pictures, even when completed, were so
incomprehensible that they could find no place in any gallery. Aurora
had told Tilly not to come near her studio again. But her words had
held a sting which hurt. Aurora was near tears.

Then she remembered that Alan was coming to tea that afternoon and
bringing Barnabas with him. She dried her tears on her painting-apron
and put the kettle on the hob.

And perhaps it was the suspicion of tears that Barnabas saw when he
and Alan arrived, or perhaps it was an imploring whisper from the
discordant Boy, or perhaps it was merely the sunshine and his own
exuberant spirits, but, at any rate, he had, what the Boy considered, a
heaven-born inspiration.

"I think," he said suddenly, addressing himself to the square patch
of blue seen through skylight, "that studios are distinctly stuffy
this weather. Let's all go and paint out of doors a bit--be vagabond
artists." The thought of Kostolitz came into his mind with the words.

"Permanently?" asked Alan, "or by the day?"

"Oh, for about three weeks or so," said Barnabas. "You, Aurora, Dan,
and me. I'll make Dan come too. I'll hire a coster cart and donkey
to carry our painting materials, a few provisions, and a small tent
for Aurora to sleep in. We three can sleep in the open. Let's," ended
Barnabas slyly, "study Art in Nature."

"The symbolism of Nature," murmured Alan dreamily.

"Or Nature without the symbolism," said Aurora. "I'm tired of
symbolism." Her voice was almost petulant.

The Small Boy in the corner perked up. Barnabas grinned gently.

"To-day," he announced, "is Tuesday. Let us start on Thursday."

"Yes," said Aurora firmly, "I want to get away from everything."
Her eyes took in the studio and her own High Art productions in a
comprehensive sweep. "For a time," she added, seeing that Alan was
looking reproachful.

Barnabas promulgated a few further ideas on the subject, and they all
three studied a large cycling map of Aurora's which had small country
lanes plainly marked on it.

"Bring the map," said Barnabas, as he rose to take his leave. "And
Thursday, remember, at my studio, at ten o'clock."

He went round to see Miss Mason that evening to tell her of the plan.
Pippa, in a purple dressing-gown, listened entranced. She had been
given a quarter of an hour's grace from bed on account of Barnabas'
arrival.

"So," ended Barnabas, "on Thursday at ten o'clock we start off to study
Nature. I've already hired a donkey and cart. To-morrow I buy a tent
and a few other things."

Pippa gave a huge sigh.

"How lovely!" she said. "Just you, and Monsieur Dan, and Monsieur
Alan, and Mademoiselle Aurora. Just you four. I s'pose ze tent will be
quite tiny. Only just big enough for Mademoiselle Aurora. Not a teeny
bit more room in it. Not even enough room for Mimsi"--Mimsi was the
grey kitten--"and most certainly not enough room for--for me."

Barnabas laughed. He looked at Miss Mason. The idea conveyed by Pippa
in this flagrant hint had occurred to him.

Pippa heard something in the laugh that made her heart beat hopefully.

"I am," she said reflectively, "not very big. Or," she continued, "a
cart would be a _very_ nice ting to sleep in. I wonder what it feels
like to sleep in a cart."

"Time you went to bed," said Miss Mason grimly.

Pippa got up reluctantly. "Bon soir, Monsieur Barnabas," she said,
with a little sigh. "I wonder if Mademoiselle Aurora can darn holes
in men's socks. Madame Barbin taught me to darn--oh, but to darn very
beautifully. Much walking will no doubt make many holes."

Barnabas telegraphed a question to Miss Mason.

"You'd get tired walking," said Miss Mason gruffly.

Pippa looked dubious. "I am not ver' 'eavy. I could perhaps ride in ze
cart just sometimes. Besides," she ended hopefully, "it is ver' good
to be tired. One sleep well at night."

"Well, go to bed and sleep well now," said Miss Mason.

Pippa sighed again heavily.

"Good night, Aunt Oleeve, good night, Monsieur Barnabas." She went away
sorrowfully.

"Do you think she might come?" said Barnabas. "I'd take great care of
her."

"You'll tire her out, and she'll be a trouble to you," said Miss Mason.
She was hating the thought of parting with the child.

"Not a bit," said Barnabas. "The question is, will you spare her?"

Miss Mason laughed.

"You've a genius for hitting the truth full on the head, Barnabas.
I suppose I must. She'd adore it, and the open air life would be
excellent for her."

And so it was arranged. And the tour in the donkey-cart was to be
fraught with a curious little incident which was to lead infinitely
further than anyone could imagine.

       *       *       *       *       *

Thursday dawned bright and sunny under a cloudless sky.

The donkey-cart was outside Barnabas' studio, and Pippa in a green
dress and rough straw hat trimmed with daisies was feeding the animal
with sugar. She had instantly christened him Pegasus, for though he
was not a winged horse he was most unquestionably a magic steed.

Painting materials, a hamper of provisions, and the tent were packed
into the cart. Pippa climbed in. Seated on the luggage she held the
reins. Barnabas took hold of the bridle.

The men were in tweed knickerbocker suits and soft felt hats. Aurora
was in a blue serge skirt, a white blouse, scarlet tie, and a blue
sun-bonnet. She felt that the attire was suited to the part of a
vagabond.

The other three artists of the courtyard were there watching them and
offering advice. Paul, in his own happiness, felt in entire sympathy
with their gaiety. Jasper and Michael felt somehow rather out of things.

"You ought to have had the cart meet you somewhere," said Miss Mason.
"You'll be mobbed."

"Not a bit of it," said Barnabas cheerfully. "Dan's size is protection
enough for the lot of us. Good-bye, Aunt Olive. Ta-ta, you fellows.
We're off to study Nature. We'll write our comments to you and post the
letters at country post offices."

Pippa flicked the whip and Pegasus walked gravely out of the courtyard.
And the little faun in the garden played a gay tune on his pipe. The
youthful spirits of the departing cavalcade appealed to him.

And Miss Mason went back to her studio, and for the first time since
a year ago she felt a little lonely, for both Barnabas and Pippa had
gone, and the Duchessa di Corleone was on her way to Italy with the
portrait.

But the Fates had another thread in readiness, and she was not to feel
lonely long.




CHAPTER XIX

THE INTERFERENCE OF A FAIRY GODMOTHER


Pippa had been wont to haunt Jasper's studio a good deal. His pictured
saints appealed to her imagination. She loved the brilliance of their
robes and the gold of their backgrounds.

Colour appealed to her, as already seen, enormously, though she had no
power with brush or pencil herself. If she was ever to find expression
for the thoughts and fancies which filled her brain she would possibly
one day find it in writing. Beauty of language already moved her
profoundly, and she would listen by the hour to anyone reading poetry
aloud.

Jasper missed the child almost more than Miss Mason did. He seemed
to have nothing to fill up the gap she left in his life, and his old
restlessness in a measure returned. He took to dropping in at Miss
Mason's studio at odd hours, in order, so it seemed, to talk about
Pippa, though he would often sit moody and silent. He would stare at
the picture of Pippa wrapped in scarlet silk, her arms round the faun's
neck, which picture Barnabas had painted about a month previously, and
which now hung in Miss Mason's studio.

And one evening after looking at it for a long time he made a sudden
remark--a remark that seemed forced from him.

"If Stella had lived she would have been nearly the same age as Pippa."

Miss Mason looked up quickly.

"Who," she asked, "was Stella?"

"My little girl," said Jasper shortly.

"Ah," said Miss Mason. And then she added quietly, "and your wife died
too?"

"No," said Jasper, "she is alive."

There was a silence. The studio window was wide open, and the evening
sunlight was streaming in. From one of the trees in the garden a thrush
was singing a song of love and happiness.

"Perhaps," said Miss Mason suddenly, "you would care to tell me about
it."

And Jasper told her. He told her the whole story, omitting nothing;
though, wonderful to relate, making no excuses for himself.

"I suppose," he ended, "that Bridget lost all interest in life, and
I was always wanting her to be something she had lost the power of
being. And I got disheartened because she could not adapt herself to my
pattern."

For a moment Miss Mason did not reply. She did not care to say that
it had been largely Jasper's fault that his wife had lost interest in
life. After a moment she spoke slowly.

"I think," she said, "it is always dangerous to try and cut people to
our own pattern. We are so terribly apt to cut the cords of love first."

"I know," said Jasper, "and now it is, as she said, too late."

"It is never too late," said Miss Mason energetically. "Why don't you
go and see her?"

"I gave her my word of honour that I would not."

"Pooh!" said Miss Mason. "It is sometimes infinitely more honourable to
break one's word than to keep it. This is a case in point. Do you still
care for your wife?"

Jasper hesitated. "I care for my memory of her as she was when I first
married her--before the child died. I know after that at first I was
disgusted. But that passed, especially later when I saw less of her.
Then at the bottom of my heart I wanted to get back to the old footing.
Somehow it seemed impossible. Before I saw her I felt I loved her, but
the sight of her untidiness and the sordidness of the surroundings
killed it. It would be killed again if I saw her now. It's no use
pretending otherwise."

"Why don't you take her out of her surroundings then?" asked Miss Mason.

Jasper looked up quickly. "It's no use," he said. "I love her now,
but if I went down there the feeling would die away. When I see her
slovenly and untidy it seems to kill my affection. I can't help it.
Even when I was a child I could not eat the food I most liked if it
were served in a careless fashion. I have honestly tried to fight the
feeling. It is, however, part of my physical nature, and I can't rid
myself of it." Jasper's voice was quite humble and genuine.

Miss Mason's brain was working rapidly. "I suppose Chiswick is rather a
commonplace neighbourhood," she remarked. "Foolish of you to choose it
in the first instance. Where did you say the house was?" The question
was put indifferently.

Jasper mentioned the street and number. Miss Mason appeared hardly to
have heard it. She seemed engrossed in her own thoughts.

Jasper stayed a little longer in the studio. It was, in a sense, a
comfort to have spoken of the story, and yet it had brought the memory
of the last seven years almost too vividly before his mind.

When he got up to go Miss Mason held out her hand.

"Good night," she said. "Don't feel too miserable. Things often turn
out better than one expects."

And when he had gone she sat a long time in her big chair, her
brain full of the wildest and most exciting plans, in which she was
establishing herself as proxy to the Fates. And the Fates laughed, and
gave the threads of two lives temporarily into her hands for her own
weaving.

The next morning Miss Mason told Sally to order a taxi to be at the
studio at eleven o'clock.

"If I'm not taken there quickly," she said to herself, "my courage will
fail me, and I shall come home again."

And she went over in her mind many sentences she had been carefully
preparing during the long hours of a sleepless night.

One of them began rather like an old-fashioned letter. "My dear Mrs.
Merton, I have ventured to call upon you in order to discuss a matter I
am sure you must have very much at heart, namely, the welfare of your
husband Jasper Merton." She had repeated it a good many times to make
sure she had it verbatim.

There were other phrases such as, "Pardon what may appear an
unwarrantable interference on my part." And, "The mutual interest
we both must feel in one for whom you have a wifely love, and I the
affection of friendship."

She felt she had them all glibly on her tongue, when the hoot of the
taxi outside the studio warned her of its arrival.

"If I am not back to lunch, Sally," said Miss Mason, with the air of
one embarking on some dangerous enterprise from which she might never
return, "run out and buy a chop for yourself, and we can have the steak
this evening. And give Mimsi a piece of boiled whiting and a saucerful
of milk."

She got into the taxi, tightly clutching her black satin bag, and sat
down in one corner. It was the first time she had driven in a taxi,
and she felt a trifle nervous. But for her desire to arrive at her
destination before she had time to change her mind about going, she
would undoubtedly have taken a four-wheeler.

The speed of the vehicle seemed excessive, but as other taxis passed
them going at an even greater rate, she made up her mind to hope for
the best. She did, however, put up a small mental prayer for safety.

In spite of the rate at which they were travelling they seemed a long
time in getting to their destination. At last Miss Mason began to feel
uneasy. She had heard of people being kidnapped and murdered on account
of their money, and though she had only put ten shillings worth of
silver and one sovereign in her purse, the chauffeur might think her
worth infinitely more.

She decided to ask him how much further they had to go. She noticed a
long tube hanging from the front window. It was no doubt a whistle. She
took it up and blew gently down it. There was no sound. She collected
the whole force of her lungs and blew violently. The chauffeur, feeling
a sudden and unpleasant draught at the back of his neck, looked round.
He saw Miss Mason purple in the face from her efforts, and the
speaking tube at her lips. Fearing apoplexy he stopped the taxi and
came to the door.

"Wot is it, mum?" he asked.

"I only wanted to know if we were near the address I gave you?" she
said breathlessly. "I think this whistle must be out of order, I can't
make it sound."

The chauffeur grunted. "That ain't no bloomin' whistle-pipe. That
there's a speakin' toob," he remarked scornfully. "Be at Oxford Road in
five minutes now."

He shut the door with a bang and climbed back to his seat.

"Whistle!" he said to himself. "Whistle! Thought there was a bloomin'
draught. The old party must 'ave fair busted 'erself."

Miss Mason sank back in her corner and began to repeat the sentences in
a rapid whisper.

In less than five minutes the taxi stopped before a small house divided
from the pavement by a gravel plot.

The chauffeur got down and opened the taxi door.

"'Ere y'are, mum," he said.

Miss Mason got out, paid the man, crossed the gravel plot, and mounted
the steps. Her heart was beating uncomfortably fast.

"Is Mrs. Merton at home?" she asked of Emma, who opened the door.

"Yes'm. Will you come inside'm?" She showed Miss Mason into the dismal
little parlour. "What name shall I say, 'm?"

"Mrs. Merton won't know my name," said Miss Mason desperately. "But ask
her if she will speak to me for a few moments."

Emma left the room breathing heavily as she moved, and Miss Mason sat
very upright on the little sofa, her hands still clutching the black
satin bag. Her eyes took in the whole room. She saw the dingy and
torn tablecloth, the rather dirty chintz covers to the chairs, and
the distinctly dirty muslin curtains to the windows. A mantel-border
which covered the chimney-piece had come unnailed at one side, and
was hanging in an untidy festoon. The carpet was faded, and crumbs
scattered from the last meal were below one of the chairs. There was
a large Japanese fan in the fender before the empty grate; its edges
were broken and torn. It was also considerably fly-marked. Miss Mason
could understand Jasper's feelings very well. She saw what the place
must mean to a man of his fastidious instincts. It might be that he
was largely to blame that it had ever reached such a state, but having
reached it it was almost unavoidable that he should shrink from it.

A step on the stairs made her start. She clutched more tightly at the
bag and began murmuring "unwarrantable intrusion," "mutual interest,"
in a spasmodic fashion, her eyes fixed on the door.

Suddenly it opened, and a woman in a rather soiled white dress came
into the room. She made Miss Mason think of a faded lily.

The woman looked with something like amazement at the odd figure in the
mushroom hat, grey dress, and wide white linen collar, seated on the
sofa clutching a black satin bag.

Miss Mason got to her feet. "My dear," she began, but the rest of the
sentence was lost. "I'm downright nervous," said Miss Mason, with one
of her gruff little laughs, "and you'll think me an interfering old
fool, but I was bound to come."

Bridget looked at her. "There isn't," she said with a note of anxiety
in her voice, "anything wrong with Jasper?"

"Oh, no," said Miss Mason quickly, "but I was talking to him last
night."

"Ah!" said Bridget.

"And----" said Miss Mason, and stopped. It seemed entirely impossible
now to put her ideas into words. It is one thing to have marvellous
and fairy tale schemes in one's mind, and plan all kinds of wonderful
arrangements during the magic hours of the night. It is quite another
to find words for them in broad daylight and in a rather sordid little
parlour, especially when they seemed to resolve themselves into the
rather impertinent statement that Jasper would love his wife if she
brushed her hair. It is hardly a suggestion one can make in cold blood
to a complete stranger. "I just came," ended Miss Mason helplessly.

She looked through the window wondering how she could best make her
escape, and wishing with all her heart that she had kept the taxi.

It was Bridget herself who came to the rescue.

"I suppose," she said slowly, "that Jasper told you our story--it's a
sordid little story, isn't it--and you wanted to help?"

Miss Mason nodded. Something in Bridget's eyes made her own fill with
tears. She forgot her desire to run away. She felt that she was near a
dumb animal in pain.

"Tell me," said Bridget, "what Jasper told you?"

Very stumblingly Miss Mason gave her some idea of the conversation.
She wanted her to know the truth, yet dreaded to hurt her more than
necessary.

"Then Jasper does care a little," said Bridget wonderingly. "But all
this----" She looked round the dingy room. "What was your idea when you
came to me?" she asked simply.

"Great interference on my part, no doubt," said Miss Mason gruffly.
"Began to make up a plan. Thought if he was to see you again in a
pretty room and a pretty frock----" she stopped.

Bridget glanced down at her own dress. "Yes?" she said again. She had
reddened slightly.

"Can tell me to go if you like," said Miss Mason. "Had no business to
come. But thought---- My dear. I just planned to take you to a pretty
room and bring Jasper to you."

Bridget looked at her. "I don't know who you are," she said
impulsively, "nor anything about you. But you are a dear."

"Then you're not angry?" asked Miss Mason.

"I want," said Bridget, in a muffled voice, "to cry. But I'm not going
to. What were your plans? I'm sure you'd made some."

And then Miss Mason unfolded all the schemes she had planned during the
night hours. They were of a little flat somewhere in Chelsea not too
far from the studios. The drawing-room was to be furnished in shades of
brown and cream, and it was to be filled with roses in slender glass
vases and china bowls. And there was to be a woman among the flowers,
and Jasper coming in to find her.

"But I haven't the money for that," said Bridget. "And I can't ask
Jasper for any more."

"But I have," said Miss Mason bluntly. "My dear, I'm an old woman. Is
it worth while to you, for your husband's sake, to give me the pleasure
of arranging it?"

Bridget bit her lip. She tried to speak, but no words would come.

"Don't try to say anything," said Miss Mason.

"I--I----" began Bridget. And, somehow, the next moment she was down
on her knees by Miss Mason, who was soothing her with little odd
articulations and pattings as she had soothed Pippa one night when she
had awakened from a bad dream.

"I'm sorry," said Bridget at last, sitting up and pushing back her hair
from her face, "but it's all been so lonely. At times I've felt that
just for something to do I could be bad--really bad, you know. Anything
for excitement, and to forget my own thoughts. At first I used to hate
myself. Then I tried to hate Jasper, but I didn't--I didn't. I--I loved
him all the time. You see, he gave me my baby. But I was so lonely and
miserable I wanted to be wicked, only I remembered my baby, and----"

"I know, my dear," said Miss Mason.

"Have you been lonely?" asked Bridget.

"Utterly lonely, my dear, for fifty-five years at least, ever since my
parents died. And only women can understand the loneliness of women.
Men have their pipes, and they can always swear a little, which must at
times be an enormous help."

"But you're not lonely now?" asked Bridget.

Miss Mason smiled, a little glad smile. "My dear, I am so utterly
happy now that I long for every one else to be happy. It was that that
made me so sorry for you and Jasper, and made me want to come and
see you. And now I want you to come and have some luncheon with me
somewhere--you'll have to tell me where--and then we'll go and look at
flats."

Bridget got up from the floor.

"It's all too wonderful," she said, "and I don't know that I've the
right to let you help me."

"Nonsense," said Miss Mason gruffly. "Might just as well say I've no
right to ask you to give me the pleasure of doing a little thing like
this; but I'm going to ask you, all the same. Now go and put on a hat."

Bridget left the room. In a few moments she came down in a dark blue
linen coat and skirt, and a black straw hat swathed with rose-coloured
silk. She had brushed her hair and looked a different being.

"Can we get a four-wheeler?" asked Miss Mason. "Came in a taxi, but
didn't enjoy it."

"There's a train and an omnibus," said Bridget, "that will take us to
Notting Hill Gate, and we can get any amount of cabs from there."

So for the first time in her life Miss Mason mounted to the top of an
omnibus and thoroughly enjoyed it. She peered over garden walls as
they passed, and did her best to look through windows, and made up
a good many quite fascinating stories about the inhabitants of the
houses--stories very different from the mental pictures of the very
same lives that Jasper had been wont to paint. In Miss Mason's stories
there was always a mother--a mother clasping the downy head of a
new-born baby to her heart; a mother watching the first toddling steps
of a tiny child; a mother hearing a little white-nightgowned figure
lisp a childish prayer. The father in these stories--of course there
was a father--took an extraordinarily back seat.

Her thoughts were suddenly interrupted by a question from Bridget.

"How did Jasper come to tell you our story?" she asked.

"We were looking at a picture of Pippa," replied Miss Mason quietly,
"and he said that little Stella would have been nearly the same age."

Bridget nodded. For a moment she was silent. Then she spoke again.
"Who," she asked, "is Pippa?"

"My little girl," said Miss Mason promptly. "At least, she came to me
out of the Nowhere last December, and now she's mine."

"A Christmas gift," said Bridget.

Miss Mason nodded. "I like to hear you say that," she said. "I gave
Pippa her first Christmas tree. It was my first for the matter of that."

And then they fell to talking about Pippa and Stella, after the fashion
of women who love children, each capping the other with a new anecdote.
But after a time Miss Mason was left to do most of the talking, for
Bridget suddenly found her voice fail her.

"Pippa," said Miss Mason, "has true inventive genius. One night last
January I told her to say her prayers before she got into bed. She
announced that she'd already said them. 'Where?' I asked. 'In my baf,'
she replied, 'much warmer.' I couldn't help feeling there was a good
deal to be said in favour of the bathroom on a cold winter's night. But
all the same, I told her she was irreverent to say her prayers lying
down. I knew she'd said them that way. She always ends her ablutions
with lying full length in the water. Whereupon she remarked in an
aggrieved voice, 'Turned over on my front, anyhow.'"

"True prostration in prayer," laughed Bridget. "I shall love Pippa."

Already it was almost impossible to believe Bridget to be the same
apathetic woman who, slovenly and untidy, had entered the dingy little
parlour barely two hours previously. After lunch and on the way to some
flats in Beaufort Street she was almost radiant.

"We will put things through as quickly as we can," said Miss Mason. "I
hate loitering when one has set out on a piece of business." And in her
heart she was longing to get Bridget away from the dismal surroundings
of her present home without a moment's delay. She would have liked to
take her to her own studio, only there was no second bedroom, and also
Jasper would have seen her.

After a little search Miss Mason decided on a flat she thought would
do. It was on the third floor, and consisted of a dining-room, a
drawing-room, four bedrooms, a servant's room, a bathroom, and kitchen.

"What do you think of it?" asked Miss Mason. "It's for you to say as
you'll be living in it."

"It's heavenly," said Bridget ecstatically, "but really there are an
unnecessary number of rooms."

"Not at all," said Miss Mason firmly. "I hope you'll be here a long
time, and--one never knows," she ended significantly. Which little
speech caused Bridget to blush crimson.

"The rent," said Miss Mason, "is my affair for the first year, at all
events, till you've got rid of the house in Chiswick. And the furniture
will be my wedding present, as I didn't happen to know you when the
ceremony took place."

And Bridget, her eyes full of happy tears, put her arms round Miss
Mason and kissed her.




CHAPTER XX

THE HEART OF NATURE


During the next three weeks the two conspirators were wildly busy.
Money is a key which smooths many difficulties, and the path before
them was triumphantly easy.

Jasper found Miss Mason a little hard to understand during these days.
She had a way of looking at him and then giving vent to odd little
chuckles of laughter. He hoped she was not becoming childish.

She received several letters from the donkey tourists. One, received
about the tenth day, told her that another of her schemes was on the
way to be started.

"We are," wrote Barnabas, "enjoying ourselves immensely. The weather is
glorious, and Pegasus a model of well-behaved donkeyness. He certainly
deserves wings, even though he hasn't got them. But I heard Pippa
telling him in a consoling voice the other day that when he reached
heaven he'd be provided with a pair of beautiful white ones. I fancy
she sees in herself a female Bellerophon soaring aloft and through
golden streets on a grey donkey. If the golden streets are anything
like as beautiful as the country lanes through which we are driving we
shall be happy. I wish you could see them--the lanes, I mean. They are
a bower of fairy delight. Wild roses, honeysuckle, and meadow-sweet
seem to vie with each other in filling the warm air with perfume.
Larks--I never knew before that the world held so many--sing to us from
heaven, the sweetest feathered choristers. Last night a nightingale
sang to us in the light of a full moon. It was the first Pippa had
heard. There was something almost terrifying in her rapture. She
feels almost too keenly. She is, however, absolutely in her element,
and if I had ever felt any real doubt about her being the child of
Kostolitz I should only have needed to see her out here to convince
me. At times she finds the most adorable bits of language in which to
express her emotions. But then it is always some little thing like
the colour of a flower-chalice or the glint of the kingfisher's blue.
We saw one the other day. It skimmed up a bit of transparent water
and perched on a piece of stick in midstream. Pippa and I watched it,
holding our breath. All at once something--I don't know what--startled
it. There was a streak of iridescent colour and it had gone. But it
left us both with the joyous feeling of discovery. The bird is too
rare and too beautiful to leave one entirely unmoved. Pippa could
talk of that incident. It is the bigger aspects of Nature that hold
her dumb. We came to a wood one evening--pines, straight and solemn
as the aisles of a cathedral, the setting sun slanting down the long
spaces. Pippa's face was a marvel. She just put her hand up to her
throat and held it there as if it ached with the beauty of the thing,
and then she made the sign of the Cross. It was holy ground, though
there had been no priestly ceremonial to proclaim it so. Only the
wind was there to whisper a benediction, and the trees themselves
were like priests scattering the incense of their fragrant breath.
The very memory of it brings thoughts of poetry to my mind. But again
to Pippa. She's yours, and I want you to know her as I'm seeing her
now, for it's the essence of her--the spirit of Kostolitz I'm seeing.
A long line of cawing rooks, whether at sunset or against the blue
sky, affects her strangely. It seems to make her unutterably sad.
Temporarily only, I am glad to say, for she is the gayest of children,
and delights in the smallest of pleasures--namely, a pennyworth of
bull's-eyes and sticks of pink-and-white striped stuff which we buy
from extremely minute shops, whose windows are crammed below with
apples--foreign, of course--and nuts. Above the apples and nuts are
rows of glass bottles full of pear-drops, lemon-drops, peppermints, and
barley-sugar, also sugar candy the real article, rough and scrunchly
on a string. And somewhere in the window, very inconspicuous, is
a slit through which one can drop letters--the sweetstuff shop is
always the post office. But sweets evidently take decided precedence
over such minor considerations as letters and postage stamps. There
is always a garden leading up to the shop, and it is always crammed
with flowers, the stiff old-fashioned kind--sweet-williams, stocks,
marigolds, mignonette, asters, and such-like. There are bushes, too,
of lavender, and lad's-love. I painted one of them, but somehow did
not hit it off. I've made another sketch, though, of a pond, a willow,
meadow-sweet, and blue hills, which pleases me quite a lot. In fact,
I was so absorbed in it that I lost Pippa. You needn't be anxious,
because she is found again, and with her something you wanted, namely,
the first candidate for your School of a Wonderful Chance. I had just
finished my sketch, and having come back to the practicalities of life
realized that Pippa had been absent for two hours. When lo! and behold
she appeared, and with her a loose-limbed fellow of about twenty. When
he fills out he will rival Dan in size--but that is beside the mark.

"'Barnabas,' she cried--ceremony and with it the Monsieur has lapsed
into disuse in the open air--'do look at ze lovely little figure 'e
'as made. 'Is name is Andrew McAndrew.' And she rolled her r's with
gusto. Well, it is pleasant to think that Pippa should be the one to
find your first candidate, and it is curious to think it is one who, if
I am not much mistaken, will one day be a great sculptor. The little
figure of a young girl, made from the clay of the river, was to my mind
simply a marvel. I learnt his story. I'll not give it in the broad
Scotch in which he told it, for it would take you your whole time to
make it out. He lived in London--Bayswater way--with a widowed mother,
whom he supports by typing in a stuffy little office which he loathes,
though he has not been without hope that 'Aiblins the gud Lorrd would
find a way out for him one o' these days.' Whenever he has any spare
time he models in clay, which mercifully is an inexpensive material.
He has at the moment a week's holiday, during which he is tramping the
country, sleeping under a hedge or at the foot of a hayrick, eating
bread and cheese like any tramp, and enjoying himself finely--as we
are. Pippa, it appears, watched him at work, herself hidden, like the
fairy she is, in a mass of meadow-sweet. Suddenly she appeared from
among it, and they entered into a conversation which must have been
curious, conducted in a broad Scotch on his side, and in broken English
on hers--though her English is progressing rapidly. Anyhow, she made
him understand she was out with a party of artists. He was all agog
to meet us, and she brought him along. He will join us for the next
three days, instead of making his way again in the direction of London
as he had intended, and we've arranged between us to send him back by
train. As soon as I'm at my studio again he will look me up, and I'll
bring him along to see you. I've given him no inkling of the Wonderful
Chance before him. That is for you to do. But he's one of the right
ones for it and no mistake. You won't mind if we keep on the tour till
the end of June, will you? Cupid is sitting gaily in the donkey-cart
alongside Pippa, and though Aurora and Alan don't quite realize his
presence yet, they soon will discover him, and will no doubt bring
him back as a permanent guest to London. That, of course, was my main
idea when I proposed the tour. High Art, thank goodness, is getting
wan and pale. She had almost her death-blow the other day when Aurora
made a daisy-chain with which she adorned Alan, and he fell into a pond
dabbling after tadpoles for Pippa. We fished him out and wrapped him
in a rug, while we spread his clothes in a buttercup field to dry. The
warmth of their gold was enough to dry them, let alone the sun. I heard
Cupid chuckling, the rogue! We miss you a lot, and the best thing we
have to look forward to on our return is your welcome...."

Miss Mason put down the letter with a little sigh of happiness. Her
heart felt nearly as warm and sunny as the buttercup field.

Then she set out to meet Bridget at Storey's in Kensington High Street.

       *       *       *       *       *

Exactly three weeks after Miss Mason's peregrination to Chiswick she
put a request to Jasper.

"I want," she said, in as careless a voice as she could assume, "to
call on a friend of mine this afternoon, and I want you to come with
me."

Jasper looked dismayed. "I should be delighted," he said mendaciously,
"only calling isn't a bit in my line."

"It's quite near at hand," said Miss Mason; "only at a flat in Beaufort
Street, and I particularly want you to meet my friend."

"Very well," said Jasper, suppressing a sigh.

"We'll start," said Miss Mason, "at half-past three."

At the hour appointed Jasper appeared.

"You had better call a taxi," said Miss Mason. She felt it impossible
to walk. She would have run all the way, a proceeding which would have
undoubtedly have astonished Jasper.

As the taxi drew up at the door of a block of flats in Beaufort Street,
a woman looked for a moment from a window. As she saw the two figures
get out she drew back into the room. Her heart was beating so loudly
she could almost hear it.

Miss Mason rang the bell of the flat.

"Your mistress at home?" she said to the dapper little maid who opened
the door.

"Yes'm. What name 'm?"

"Miss Mason and Mr. Merton," said Miss Mason firmly.

They went into the bright little passage, and the maid threw open the
door of the drawing-room.

"Miss Mason and Mr. Merton," she announced.

A woman in a pale green dress came forward to meet them.

Jasper stared.

"Jasper," she said, with a little shaky laugh, and she held out both
her hands.

"Bride!" he exclaimed, and it was nearly seven years since she had
heard that name.

Miss Mason went quickly from the room, and closed the door softly
behind her.

It was nearly an hour before they realized her absence. Then Bridget
started up from the sofa.

"Aunt Olive!" she exclaimed. "Oh, Jasper, isn't she a dear! I must go
round and find her."

"She'll be back at her studio by now," said Jasper calmly.

"I'd quite forgotten her," said Bridget contritely. "Oughtn't we to
go----"

"Presently," said Jasper. "Come back to me now. I want you. Aunt Olive
will understand."




CHAPTER XXI

THE RING OF EROS


Far away from London Pippa was swinging on a gate. Her dress had become
rather faded from much sunshine, and her straw hat had been baked quite
brown. She had it well pulled down to shade her eyes, so that it hid
the upper part of her face.

An hour ago Pippa had been crying, and for the reason that the
purple-shadowed landscape had refused to be interpreted on canvas
through the medium of paints and brushes and her own little brown right
hand. Barnabas at her earnest request had lent her the materials. It
was not the first time she had tried with them. He had watched her in
silence as she messed away with the paints. Suddenly she flung the
canvas face downwards on the grass and burst into tears.

"What is it, Kiddy?" asked Barnabas, putting his arm round her.

"It's all out vere," she said, nodding towards the sunny landscape,
"and I can see it, and I want to tell it to myself and ozzer peoples,
like you tell your pictures, and I can't--oh, I can't." She rubbed her
tear-stained face up and down on Barnabas' coat-sleeve in an access of
despair.

"But, childie," expostulated Barnabas, "one can't 'tell pictures,' as
you say, all in a moment. One has to learn."

Pippa shook her head. "Not me," she said. "I shall never learn. I can't
ever tell pictures. And it's all here," she put her hand to her heart,
"and I want to say it so badly."

For a minute Barnabas was silent. Then he spoke.

"Once," he said, "there was a boy who saw that the world was very
beautiful and he wanted to tell his own beautiful thoughts about it to
himself and to other people. One day he heard a man playing the violin.
And the man made the violin speak so that in its music it said the most
wonderful things. It told about the moon shining on a sleeping sea, and
the secrets the little waves whispered to the shore. It told of silver
streams whose banks were starred with primroses, and it told of great
forests where the trees were standing dark and still in the purple
night waiting for the first rosy flush of dawn. It told of the laughter
of little children, and the songs young mothers sing to their babies.
All these things the music of the violin told, and the boy listened,
and said to himself, 'I will play the violin, for I know now the way I
can tell my thoughts to the world.'"

Pippa was listening entranced. "Had he got a violin?" she asked.

"No," said Barnabas, "but someone gave him a violin, and he had
lessons, and he practised for many hours, but the violin would not
speak his thoughts in the way he wished it to. And one day the great
violinist he had first heard play came to the house. He listened to the
boy playing but he didn't say very much. You see, he was a big man, and
the big men never discourage the little men. Remember that, Pippa, my
child. Well, when the boy had finished playing, the Master just wagged
his shaggy great head to and fro and said, 'Um, um, um. The lad's got
something to say, but----' and then he went away. But he came again to
see the boy. And that time he didn't ask him to play, but he just sat
talking to him. And while he talked the boy was playing with a piece of
clay, for he was very fond of making figures out of it."

"Like Andrew," said Pippa.

"Yes, like Andrew. Well, while the Master talked the boy went on doing
something with the clay, and suddenly the Master saw that it was a
likeness of himself the boy had made. 'Let's have a look at that,
boy,' he said. The boy, feeling very shy and crimson, pushed it over
to him. The Master stared at it for a minute, then he thumped his hand
down on the table. 'Du lieber Gott!' he exclaimed in a huge big voice
that made the boy tremble, 'I knew the boy had something to say,
and behold,' he pointed at the clay, 'here is the language in which
he shall say it. My son,' he went on, 'you have the ear to hear the
language of music, and you have the heart to understand it, but you
have not the hand to make it speak yourself. In it you understand the
thoughts of others, but in this earth you shall tell your own. If you
live you will be a great man.' And he held out his hand to the boy,
who took it and kissed it, because he was so very happy. It's a true
story," ended Barnabas, "because the boy himself told me, only he was a
man when he told the story."

Pippa nodded her head up and down. "I like dat," she said. "One day
p'raps I find a language. What was ze boy's name?"

"The boy's name," said Barnabas, "was Philippe Kostolitz, and he made
the little faun which you love, and which is in my garden."

"Oh!" said Pippa, with a delighted sigh. Her tears were completely
forgotten. Twenty minutes later she was swinging on the gate.

Barnabas was sitting in the shadow of a hedge near her, painting a
buttercup field and a copse of birches beyond. Dan was lying flat on
his back smoking. Andrew had gone back to London. And Aurora and Alan
were off on some business of their own. Pegasus, tethered to a long
rope, was contentedly eating thistles.

Pippa watched the birds and butterflies, which were many, and the
by-passers, which were few, as she swung. An old man passed and called
good afternoon in a cheery voice. A trap with a hard-worked young
doctor in it drove by, and he smiled as he saw Pippa. Then there came
a cart driven by a man, and with a boy of about fifteen sitting on the
tail-board, his legs swinging. He made a grimace at Pippa as he passed,
and Pippa--be it told with sorrow--put out her tongue at him. There was
something of the gamin about Pippa which was never wholly eradicated.
And after the boy there passed a young gipsy woman carrying a baby.
Pippa gave her a three-penny bit. The woman looked hard at her.

"Ah," she said, "there's some of our blood in your veins, and you
have the sad eyes and the lucky smile of those who are born to many
happenings. The Lord keep you, little lady." And she passed on her way.
And after she had gone there were only the birds and butterflies for
quite a long time.

Suddenly Pippa heard the distant hoot of a motor-car. Barnabas, who had
finished his painting, came to the gate and leant over it with her. The
motor hove in sight, a great crimson Mercedes, travelling fast.

Pippa waved her hand as it passed. The occupants of the car, a man and
a woman, saw the child, and the gaiety of the sunshine being in their
hearts they waved in response. The woman, who was swathed in a purple
motor veil, waved an ungloved hand. Pippa saw the flash of diamonds on
it. Also as she waved something fell, but the car rounded a bend in the
lane and was out of sight almost before Pippa and Barnabas realized it.

Pippa scrambled over the gate. There was something lying in the dust,
which she picked up. She came back slowly to Barnabas.

"Look," she said, "what a queer, pretty ring."

A ruby was set in it, on which was engraved a little figure of Eros
holding a circle and trident. The stone and its setting was undoubtedly
very ancient. The ring itself probably Georgian.

She held it out to Barnabas. He took it from her.

"Ah," he said slowly, and he looked from it in the direction the car
had vanished.

He had seen the ring before on the hand of Philippe Kostolitz.

"May I keep it?" asked Pippa.

"No, little thief," said Barnabas. "The owner will miss it and perhaps
come back for it. In any case we shall have to try and find out who she
is, and return it."

And he slipped the ring into his coat-pocket.




CHAPTER XXII

AN OLD MAN IN A GARDEN


It is strange how a name long unspoken and unheard, once coming again
within one's ken, comes again and again before one, and in the most
unlikely and unexpected ways.

For over nine years Barnabas had not chanced to hear his friend's name
mentioned, and now there was first Pippa and her wonderful likeness
to him, and then the incident of the ring, both of which had served
to remind him vividly and bring the name before him. But the third
incident was to be a good deal stranger, in fact it was to savour
somewhat of the "Arabian Nights' Entertainments."

They stopped for their noon halt one day in the shade of a small
coppice. A little beyond it they could see the roof and chimneys of a
house surrounded by a high wall. Before settling down to lunch Barnabas
strolled towards it and walked round the wall. There was no means of
seeing over, and the only entrance was through a small green wooden
door, which was shut. Ivy grew up the wall outside, and had Barnabas
felt disposed he might have climbed up by it and peered over. It was,
however, too hot for such exertion. Also if there were anyone in the
garden and he were seen, his position would have been, to say the least
of it, undignified. He strolled back to the copse and to the lunch
which the others had unpacked.

"Where 'ave you been?" asked Pippa.

Barnabas nodded in the direction of the house. "Down there," he said.

"What's inside?" demanded Pippa.

"Don't know," said Barnabas, attacking the leg of a chicken; "couldn't
see over."

Pippa's eyes became far off and dreamy. "_Quel domage!_ You couldn't
climb, ze wall ver' much too 'igh?"

"It wasn't the question of the height of the wall, but my dignity,"
returned Barnabas. "What would I have looked like if I'd been caught?"

"Funny," smiled Pippa, her eyes dancing with amusement.

"I've no desire to look funny," said Barnabas. "Toss me over that
bottle of cider, like a good child, and look out for flying corks. I do
my best, but this weather makes the stuff too fizzy for anything."

Pippa tossed the bottle and retired gravely behind Barnabas while he
manipulated the cork. Then she returned to her seat near him.

"I do wonder what's inside," she said.

"Cider," said Barnabas, pouring it into a glass.

"Not the bottle, _méchant_, the wall," announced Pippa.

"Oh, the wall! I don't know; nothing, I daresay."

"An Ogre," said Aurora. She and Alan and Dan had been too busy feeding
to enter into the conversation before.

Pippa elevated her chin. "_Je ne suis pas une bébé, moi._ I know, but
quite well, vere are no Ogres."

"Lions, then, Miss Curiosity," suggested Alan.

Pippa turned her shoulder towards him. "_Imbécile_, it is not a
menagerie, but I have no interest in it, _moi_. If you wish to discover
you can go and look for yourself." And she proceeded to eat chicken
delicately and haughtily with her fingers, disdaining further mention
of the house within the wall.

After lunch they all lay down in the shade of the trees and went to
sleep, lulled by the sleepy, liquid note of the wood-pigeons, and the
humming of bees.

Barnabas was the first to awaken. When he did he discovered that Pippa
was absent. He came out of the copse and looked down the little lane
that ran between the trees on one side and a stretch of moorland on the
other. To the left it would come out on the main road, to the right it
led to the wall-enclosed house.

Seeing no sign of the child, and not caring to coo-ee to her on account
of disturbing the sleepers, he went down towards the house, thinking
it more than likely, from her remarks at lunch, that she had gone to
investigate the place herself.

"Daughter of Eve," said Barnabas to himself, as he strolled down the
sunny lane, watching the butterflies flitting over the moorland.

He reached the garden wall and had strolled round two sides of it when
he suddenly came to a standstill, arrested by the sound of Pippa's
voice from inside the garden.

He paused to listen. He could hear her words distinctly. She was
narrating to some one the story of Philippe Kostolitz which he had told
her only a couple of days previously.

"And so," Pippa ended, in her clear voice, "I am looking for my
language. What is yours?" There was a note of shameless coaxing in the
words.

"That," returned a deep voice.

"What, ze garden?" came Pippa's reply.

Barnabas put one foot on a stout branch of ivy, and clinging to another
branch above him, heaved himself noiselessly to the top of the wall.

Then he saw Pippa. She was seated on a garden bench, her hat in her
hands, and on the bench beside her was an old man. His beard, long and
snow-white, reached almost to his waist. His hair, also snow-white and
very thick, glistened in the sunlight, for his head was uncovered.
His clothes, Barnabas saw, were dark and well-cut, and his voice was
peculiarly melodious and refined.

"Well, upon my word!" ejaculated Barnabas, quite forgetting that he was
speaking aloud.

The old man looked up. "Ah," he said, with a quaint smile, "so you,
too, have found the ivy route."

"You don't mean to say Pippa climbed up here?" exclaimed Barnabas,
absolutely forgetful of his own rather curious position.

"But I did," cried Pippa joyfully, "and he saw me, and asked me to come
in and see ze garden. But did you ever see such a garden?"

"Never!" said Barnabas enthusiastically, surveying it from his post of
vantage.

Smooth lawns with close-clipped edges, and flower-beds a mass of colour
met his eye. There were larkspurs tall and slender, from sapphire
blue to turquoise. There were great tree lupins, there were roses of
every shade and shape imaginable. There were crimson and blue salvias,
scarlet and white phloxes, borders of African marigolds--a blaze of
orange; and there was a great bed of hollyhocks, among whose silken
flowers butterflies innumerable were hovering. In the middle of the
lawn was a marble basin full of crystal water, on whose edge white
pigeons were preening themselves, and a couple of gorgeous peacocks
spread tails of waking eyes to the sun.

"Will you not," said the old man courteously, "follow Pippa's example
and enter the garden by the door? You will find it unfastened."

Barnabas slithered down off the wall and came round to the green door.
He felt as if he were suddenly walking into a fairy tale garden in
which nothing that might happen would surprise him.

The old man came forward to meet him.

"I hope," he said courteously, "that the child's absence has not caused
you anxiety. I found a pleasure in her conversation, and forgot that
time was passing."

"Not at all," Barnabas assured him. "I had only just missed her. I
came to look for her, and heard her voice. Forgive my unceremonious
appearance."

The old man smiled. "It was as delightful as her own," he said.

There was a little silence. Barnabas looked towards the house. It was
Elizabethan in structure, with walls stained to a variety of different
colours by wind, sun, rain, and time. Roses wreathed the latticed
windows, and up one side of the house a great wistaria climbed,
covering part of the roof and losing itself among the chimney-stacks.

"Will you come inside?" said the old man. "There is something I would
like the child to see."

Barnabas assented. The three sleepers in the coppice were forgotten.
The fascination of the place and the old man's strange and courtly
personality was upon him.

The old man had led the way into the house. They went into a square
hall, dark and cool. The floor was of inlaid wood highly polished, the
walls oak and hung with pictures. They passed through the hall, and
the old man led the way through an arched doorway and down two steps
into a room which to the mind of Barnabas belonged most assuredly to
the ancient stories of the "Arabian Nights." In shape it was circular,
and hung with draperies of a curious deep blue, like the colour of the
sky at night. The floor was also polished and covered with a few old
Persian rugs. There was an oak table at the far side of the room, three
large oak chairs, and a kind of divan covered in sapphire-blue silk and
worked with tiny crescent moons and stars.

But the arresting note of the room lay in a marble statue on a
pedestal. It would be hard to say wherein exactly the extraordinary
fascination of it lay. But Barnabas looked at it almost spellbound.
The old man motioned to them to sit down, and seated himself.

"That statue," he said, "was given me by a friend of mine. He used to
pass many months with me at a time. He loved the quietude of these
surroundings as I love them. At the back of the house I had a studio
built for him where he worked. When he was not working he sat in the
garden. He loved it. He used to say he loved the flowers both in
sunlight and in moonlight, or drenched in tears of rain. He said the
Spirit of the Garden moved among them. That was the Figure he made of
Her. Look at it well," he went on, with a grave earnestness. "Is it not
wonderful?"

"Wonderful!" echoed Barnabas from his heart.

"It is to me," said the old man quietly, "a perfect embodiment of
an inspiration. So much is often lost. First the inspiration-flash
has to become articulate--to be shaped in the brain--before the hand
even starts to fashion it. It loses enormously in the process. To
me that is one of the few things that has not lost. It is the first
inspiration-flash embodied in marble. It has never been exhibited. My
friend had a curious dislike to exhibiting his work. He was a strange
man."

He lapsed into a thoughtful silence. Pippa was lying back in her
chair, her hands tucked under her chin--a usual attitude of hers. She
was gazing at the statue with wide grey eyes. Barnabas had a certain
presentiment of a name that would shortly be mentioned.

"Would you like to see the place where he worked?" asked the old man
suddenly.

Barnabas got up from his chair. Pippa came across to him and slid her
hand into his. Her imagination was vividly at work.

They left the circular room and went down a passage. The old man took a
key from his pocket and unlocked a door.

"This is the place," he said.

It was a large room, well lighted. There were plaster casts of heads
on various shelves, and several plaster plaques hanging on the walls.
At one side of the studio Barnabas saw the plaster figure of a little
faun. It was the same as the marble faun in his garden. Pippa did not
notice it. She was gazing at a figure, enveloped in an old sheet, which
was on a stand in the middle of the room.

"It was the last piece of work he started here," said the old man,
pointing to it. "It has remained just as he left it. Nothing has been
moved. I dust the place myself. No one ever entered it but my friend
and I and the workmen he employed. They were always foreigners, and
came from a distance. But now no one enters but I. You are the first to
come into the place."

"And," said Barnabas, speaking in a low voice, "you brought us in here
because of Pippa?"

Pippa had wandered to the far side of the room.

"How did you know?" asked the old man.

"Because Philippe Kostolitz was also my friend."

"Ah!" said the old man softly. "And where," he asked, "did you find the
child?"

"She came to us," said Barnabas, "out of the Nowhere."

The old man smiled. "Planted there I fancy by Philippe." Then their
eyes met. "So you saw the likeness too?"

"I did," said Barnabas.

"That was the reason," said the old man, "that I liked to talk to her.
She reminded me of him. He came and went from here as he chose. It was
on one of his tramps that he wandered in. The door in the wall is never
locked. I found him looking at the butterflies among my hollyhocks. He
was a lad of twenty at that time. It is twenty-five years ago."

"Yes?" said Barnabas.

"Pippa's voice," went on the old man, "is charming. I liked to hear it.
She has a way of looking up at one when she talks that reminds me of
our friend. She told me a delightful little story about a sculptor."

"The story," said Barnabas, "was true. And the sculptor was Philippe
Kostolitz."

"Truly," said the old man, "I might have guessed it."

And again he lapsed into silence. Suddenly he roused himself.

"But you will have fruit and cake and something to drink," he said. "I
was forgetting my manners."

"We have only just lunched," said Barnabas.

"But fruit," the old man insisted, "at least fruit. I hold the Eastern
ideas of hospitality. Those to whom I feel friendly must eat in my
house."

He led the way back into the hall and signed to them to sit down.
Then he clapped his hands three times. An Indian, brown as mahogany,
in loose trousers, white shirt, and turban, answered the summons. He
salaamed, his face as impassive as a mask.

The old man said something to him in a language neither Barnabas nor
Pippa understood, though Barnabas guessed it to be Hindustanee.

"He has served me," said the old man, "for fifteen years. He is
faithful as a dog."

"Do you live here always?" asked Barnabas.

"I have lived here," said the old man, "for thirty years. Up till the
age of forty I travelled far. Then I came here to peace--my thoughts,
my flowers, and my books. I have a few friends who come to see me, and
they are always welcome."

He mentioned three or four names. Among them Barnabas recognized the
name of a famous statesmen and a well-known singer.

The Indian returned with a tray, on which was a dish of strawberries,
some wafer biscuits, a glass of milk, and two empty tumblers, and three
small decanters, which he placed on a table.

The old man helped Pippa to strawberries and gave her the glass of
milk. Then from the three decanters he mixed a drink for Barnabas and
himself.

"Excellent!" said Barnabas as he tasted it.

"My own brewing," said the old man.

While they ate the fruit he talked to them of his travels. Each little
narrative he told was well-turned and concise, the language he chose
was poetical.

All at once he got up and went into an inner room. He came back with
the most exquisite little Russian icon. He gave it to Pippa.

"Will you have it," he asked, "in memory of your visit here?"

Pippa was covered with rosy blushes of delight.

"_Mais, je vous rémerce mille fois_," she said. "Barnabas, isn't it
beautiful, but, oh, very beautiful?"

"It's very good of you," said Barnabas. "You've given a great deal
of pleasure." And then quite suddenly, and for the first time, he
remembered the three sleepers in the wood, who doubtless had long ago
awakened. He signed to Pippa, who got up. The old man took them into
the garden. At the green door he held out his hand.

"Will you come again and see me?" he said. "I live, as you see, alone
among my flowers. Ali looks after my bodily needs, and I have a man who
helps me in my garden. I do not, as a rule, see people--beyond the few
friends I mentioned to you. But it would give me great pleasure if you
will come. My name is Adam Gray, and my house is called The Close."

And Barnabas promised that one day they would come again.

So they left the enchanted garden and went up the lane among the
butterflies.

"I feel as if I'd been dreaming," said Pippa thoughtfully.

"Exactly, my dear," said Barnabas. "It's what we've both been
doing--dreaming a very fantastic Arabian Night's dream, which nobody
would believe if we told it to them."

And then from afar an extremely wakeful Dan saw them and hailed them in
wrathful accents.

"Where on earth have you two been?" he cried. "We've been hunting for
you for the last hour and a half."

"We've been in a fairy tale," said Barnabas, as he reached him, "where
clocks and watches are not admitted, and where turbaned Indians bring
red, white, and green drinks in cut-glass decanters, which when mixed
together is drink fit for the gods. Now let me help you to harness
Pegasus. And if you'll leave off staring I'll tell you about it, only
Pippa knows you won't believe it."

       *       *       *       *       *

Miss Mason, in her studio in London, received a registered packet from
Barnabas. She opened it, and found inside a letter and a curious signet
ring.

"We are on our way home," wrote Barnabas. "Cupid has triumphed and
is holding the reins of Pegasus. Pippa, Dan, and I are taking back
seats. Kisses and moonlight--there's a full moon--predominate, and I
saw Aurora hugging a rosy-cheeked baby in a cottage garden. High Art
gave one groan and expired. She has never, never moved again. The
call of wedding bells is bringing us back to London. You may expect
us on Friday. I am enclosing a ring which was dropped from a passing
motor-car. Fortunately I saw the number. It was a London car. I am
advertising for the owner of the ring in various London papers, and
have given your studio as the address to which to apply, though I gave
my own name. Therefore I send you the ring. You will, of course, take
the name and address of the claimant. Dan and I will be glad to be home
again. Though Nature in her present sunny mood is extraordinarily
entrancing, there is a good deal to be said in favour of spring
mattresses...."

Miss Mason looked at the ring, turning it curiously in her hand. Then
she put it away in a little carved box which she locked.




CHAPTER XXIII

ANDREW MCANDREW


"I feel," said Barnabas, "that some one ought to pat me on the back. I
set out to do something, and I did it. It is a pleasant sensation."

"Unaccustomed?" asked Miss Mason, with mock sarcasm.

They were both in her studio the day following the return of the
donkey-party. They were awaiting the appearance of Andrew McAndrew, to
whom Barnabas had written to come to the studio at four o'clock. Pippa
had been taken by Jasper to call upon his wife.

Miss Mason had announced Bridget's advent to Beaufort Street to the
assembled party the previous evening. They had taken the announcement
without undue surprise. Their minds were too big and straightforward to
dream of questioning. Since Jasper had chosen to keep the fact of his
marriage secret it was entirely his own affair. They merely rejoiced
that he was now, as Miss Mason told them, unfeignedly happy.

"Aurora," continued Barnabas, "has gone down to stay with her own
people for three weeks, while the banns are being called. She left
this morning, and Alan is writing to her at the moment. Their pet
names for each other are Sweetest and Boysie. I suppose the pendulum
was bound to swing pretty far in the direction of rank sentimentality.
It'll steady again presently."

"You swung it," said Miss Mason dryly.

"And I'm proud of the fact," said Barnabas.

There was a knock at the door.

"If that's Mr. McAndrew," said Miss Mason, relapsing into her gruffest
manner, "you'll have to do the talking, because I can't."

"Mr. McAndrew," said Sally, opening the door.

Andrew came in, a great loose-limbed fellow, with mouse-coloured hair,
and oddly earnest eyes in a snub-nosed, wide-mouthed face.

"Awfully glad to see you, McAndrew," said Barnabas warmly. "Let me
introduce you to Miss Mason."

The two shook hands and Andrew sat down. His glance wandered round the
studio till it reached the "Winged Victory." His eyes rested on it with
pleasure as on some familiar friend.

"Ay," he said, "but yon's a fine bit o' wor-rk."

"You're fond of sculpture," said Miss Mason shortly.

"'Deed," said Andrew, "I like it weel."

"Do you do anything yourself in that way?" asked Miss Mason.

Andrew shook his head. "I'll no be havin' the time," he said, "for
mair than juist dabblin' wi' a bit o' clay."

"Would you like to give your time to the work?" asked Miss Mason.

"'Deed an' I wad." There was a simple earnestness about the words
infinitely more convincing than any lengthy assurance of the fact.

"Well," said Miss Mason gruffly, "let's have some tea."

During the meal Barnabas did most of the talking, Andrew replying
in short sentences. Miss Mason was practically silent. When it was
finished Miss Mason looked across at Barnabas.

"Better tell Mr. McAndrew our idea," she said.

So, very straightforwardly, Barnabas told Andrew Miss Mason's scheme
for the Wonderful Chance. When he had ended Andrew looked at him with
an expression of dumb happiness in his eyes.

"You'll be meanin'----?" he said. "You were thinkin' to offer the
chance to me?"

"If you care to take it," said Barnabas. "What do you think?"

"I'm maist obleeged," said Andrew, and he lapsed into silence.

"Very well, then," said Miss Mason gruffly, "it's settled. Mr. Kirby
will make all arrangements with you." And she too became silent.

It was not at all the kind of interview Barnabas had intended. He felt
Miss Mason to be almost tiresomely gruff, and his protégé almost
ungrateful.

At last Andrew heaved himself out of his chair.

"I'll be leavin'," he said. He held out his hand to Miss Mason. "I'm
maist obleeged," he said again.

"That's all right," said Miss Mason gruffly.

Barnabas went out into the little garden with Andrew.

"Miss Mason doesn't mean to be abrupt," he said. "It's merely her
manner. She finds it difficult to express----"

Andrew turned on him. "Man, d'ye think I dinna ken. D'ye think 'I'm
maist obleeged' told juist all that was in ma heart. I cud e'en ha'
knelt an' ha' kissed the hem o' her skir-rt. An' gin I had I'd ha' been
sobbin' like a wee bit wean." Andrew swallowed once or twice fiercely.

Then he saw the little faun.

"Ay," he said, "yon's bonny. I wad like fine to make a figure to stand
in t' auld lady's garden, but aiblins she like it a wee bit draipit."

"Charity," laughed Barnabas, "colossal and in many robes."

"Huh!" said Andrew scornfully, "it's ha' gran' figure o' Charity I was
thinkin' o', but juist a wee figure o' smilin' Love wi' his hands held
oot to draw folk to his hearrt."

And a year later such a little figure did stand--not in the garden--but
in a corner of Miss Mason's studio.

When Andrew had gone Barnabas went back into the studio.

"We disappointed you," said Miss Mason. "That boy's no more good at
expressing his feelings than I am."

"I understand," said Barnabas lightly. "He managed though to say a bit
more in the garden. By the way," he went on, "no one has called to
claim the ring yet, I suppose?"

"No," replied Miss Mason. "It's a queer ring."

"Yes," said Barnabas. But for some reason he still did not say where
and when he had first seen it.




CHAPTER XXIV

THE CRUELTY OF THE FATES


The Duchessa di Corleone was on her way back from Italy. She had said
good-bye with a little pang to the gallery, and to the courtyard with
its golden oranges and marble statues, but once on her way to England
the thought of Paul completely obliterated any trace of sorrow. She was
joyfully ready to give up everything--the Casa di Corleone, her house
on the Embankment, and her thousands a year for the man who had taken
her heart into his keeping.

Throughout the journey her heart sang little songs of happiness, which
had as their refrain the one word, "Paul." The express train rushing
across the country bathed in the July sun could hardly carry her with
sufficient swiftness. When, at last, Calais was reached and she was on
board the boat she felt happier.

With the cliffs of Dover in sight her heart was singing a Te Deum. Till
that moment she had felt that some accident might happen to prevent her
getting to him. Now, in less than four hours she would be in his studio.

She had written to tell him not to meet her at the station. She wanted
their first meeting to be alone, without the eyes of curious porters
upon them.

"Just you and I together, my darling," she wrote. "I can see the room
in my mind, and you coming forward to meet me. There has not been a
moment day and night when you have been absent from my thoughts. Our
love transfigures everything for me. Life has become a magic book on
every page of which your name is written...."

       *       *       *       *       *

That letter had reached Paul in his studio the morning of the day Sara
would arrive. And now, an hour before her arrival, he was sitting with
it crumpled tightly in his hand, his eyes staring blankly before him.

The Fates had struck suddenly, dealing sorrow as they had dealt joy,
silently and swiftly. That very morning he had heard of the complete
failure of the Mexican bank in which his money was invested.

At first the news had stunned him. In the afternoon he had gone down to
a friend in the city to make fuller enquiries. He found his worst fears
realized. His income, which altogether had amounted to about fourteen
hundred a year, had been suddenly reduced to less than half. In fact,
to merely the six hundred or so he earned by his painting.

Paul went back to his studio and sat down trying to realize what it
would mean. And because he was a man whose steady grey eyes had always
looked facts clearly in the face, he even took pencil and paper and
jotted down certain figures. But the sum total always remained the
same--his marriage with Sara had become impossible.

He never for an instant did her the wrong of thinking that his loss of
income would make any difference to her love for him. He believed in
her love as implicitly as he believed in his own. That, however, did
not alter the one fact that marriage was out of the question. Even if
he reduced his mother's allowance by a hundred a year--which, however,
he had no intention of doing--the three hundred left him would not
justify him taking any woman to wife, and assuredly not a woman like
the Duchessa di Corleone. He knew the impossibility of transplanting a
hot-house flower to the open air of a wintry garden. The thing could
not be done. No amount of care could save it; it must die.

And with the irony of fate, this news had reached him by the very same
post as her letter.

He took it again from his pocket and re-read it. A spasm of pain that
was almost physical pierced him. His hand tightened on the paper till
it was crumpled and twisted. And in less than an hour she would be in
the studio with him.

"My God," said Paul to himself, "the Fates are very cruel!"

And then because throughout the day his first thought had been of Sara
he began to plan how best to break the news to her. He determined
that for a few hours at least she should not know. She should have
the complete joy of the meeting unmarred. They were going out to dine
together. When they returned to the studio it would be time enough to
tell her. With the decision all the old quiet endurance he had learnt
through days and nights of hardship came back to Paul. He would hide
the knowledge of their parting in his own heart. Till he bade her
good-bye that evening she should never guess what the world would
really mean to them both.

Something caught at his throat and a mist swam before his eyes. He got
up and began to walk quickly up and down the room. Every now and then
his hand, still holding the letter, clenched tightly.

Suddenly he realized what he held. He stopped in his walk and put
the letter on the table. He smoothed it out tenderly, as if it had
been some living thing he had injured. He folded it and put it in his
pocket-book. And once more he began his walk.

The whole place seemed full of her presence. Everything reminded him
of her, the chair in which she sat, the glass at which she had been
wont to arrange her hat when she was sitting for him, the vases on a
bookshelf, for which she insisted that he should buy flowers. There
were flowers in them to-day, real crimson roses--General Jacqueminot,
with its sweet old-fashioned scent. For the future they would remain
empty. It would be useless to buy flowers if she was not to see them.
It seemed to him as if his whole life he had been doing everything for
her, and that now nothing would seem worth while. He caught at his
underlip with his teeth, biting it hard. It seemed as if he were being
asked to bear more than human strength could endure. Then all at once
he stopped in his walk, for the hoot of a taxi near at hand struck on
his ears.

A moment later he heard a light step crossing the courtyard. The door
opened. She was in the doorway--radiant, living.

"Paul."

"My beloved."

She was in his arms. He was holding her as if he would never let her go.

       *       *       *       *       *

Love, so say the chroniclers--and wrongly--is blind. It is keen-sighted
as an eagle, which from afar discerns objects invisible to the sight of
man.

When Paul at last held Sara away from him, she looked into his eyes,
and though he had hidden his sorrow deep down in his heart she saw
suddenly into the depths, and her own heart momentarily stood still.
But also with her love and her quick woman's instinct she saw that it
was something he wished to keep hidden, and so she did not ask him then
what it was he was hiding from her, but smiled at him, and in her turn
hid what she had guessed.

So throughout the evening the two played a game of pretence, she
knowing that they both were playing it, and he--man-like--believing
that he was the sole performer.

They went to an hotel together and dined, and listened to a band which
was making music, and they talked nonsensically about the food they
were eating and the people they saw, and all the time her heart was
crying to him to drop the terrible mask of gaiety and tell her his
sorrow. But as she saw he meant to play the game she told him of her
journey, and the portrait that was hanging in the gallery, and she said
that she had kissed the fauns good-bye. And then quite suddenly she
stopped, because she saw a look of such pain come into his eyes that
for the moment she was dumb, and pretence seemed useless. But almost at
once he laughed and made some little light speech; and she laughed too,
and bravely, because she knew he wished it.

But when at last they were back in the studio she could play the
terrible little game no longer. And he too knew that the moment had
come for it to cease.

"Paul," she said steadily, "what is it?"

"You guessed?" he asked.

"My dear," she said, with a sad laugh, "I knew at once."

"Then the harlequin game has been no good," he said. And so he told
her. And when he had ended there was a long silence.

Sara was the first to break it.

"There is no need for me to tell you," she said, "that this makes no
difference to our love."

"But," said Paul, and in spite of himself his voice was bitter, "it
does to our marriage. There is no way out."

And with the words silence again fell. And in the silence Sara felt a
slow hatred of Giuseppe creep into her heart. He could have made this
happiness possible to her, and he had made it impossible.

She did not dream of suggesting that they should marry in spite of
everything. She knew it would be mere mockery to do so. But her heart
rebelled fiercely against fate and against the late Duca di Corleone.
It was the arrant selfishness of his deed that angered her. She had
been his wife faithful and courteous when he was living, and in return
he claimed her life when he was dead, or made a pauper of her.

She got up from her chair and began to move about the room. In mind and
body she felt like a caged animal beating against the bars which kept
it from freedom.

She paused near the window. Paul saw her figure silhouetted against the
night sky. He watched her. And suddenly her love for Paul and every
fighting instinct within her rose up against the injustice of the
Fates. Defiance of their decree and intense love overwhelmed her.

"There--is a way," she said slowly. She did not turn her head. Paul saw
her profile immovable against the square of grey-blue window.

He got up from his chair and came across to her. He took her hand and
held it hard against his lips.

"You honour me, Beloved," he said. "But it cannot be."

She turned towards him then.

"Why not?" she cried almost fiercely. "We love each other. Is not that
enough? Let us defy Giuseppe. Do you think I care what the world would
say of me?"

"But I care," said Paul simply.

"More than you care for me?" she asked.

"Beloved," said Paul huskily, "it is because I love you--because you
are more than the whole world to me that I cannot let there be the
smallest stain upon your honour. I--my God, how I worship you!" The
words came from him like a cry.

"Ah, Paul." The bitterness in her heart had melted, and with it her
strength. He held her in his arms.

"Was--was I horrible?" she asked.

He kissed her lips fiercely. "You were wonderful, my darling. God knows
the generosity of women. But there are some sacrifices a man cannot
accept."

"It would have been none," she whispered.

He held her closer. "You think not now, my darling. But later----
Dearest, I could not bear to see your whiteness stained by the mud the
world would throw at you." He kissed her eyes and hair.

"What is to be the end of it?" she asked. "What must we do?"

He laughed sadly. "There is only one thing left for us to do--we must
say good-bye."

She put her arms round him. "Ah, not that, Paul--not that."

"But listen, dearest," he said. "We've got to look at things as they
are. There is no profession open to me in which I am likely to make
more than I can by my painting. I have lost every penny of capital.
God! how sordid it seems that the lack of money should keep us apart.
But there it is. It may be years before I make more, though Heaven
knows I'd paint every commonplace creature in creation in return
for shekels now. I hate my own fastidiousness. I've lost dozens of
commissions and made not a few enemies. It will take ages to make up
for my folly. At the best it must be years before I have anything like
a decent income." He stopped. He had loathed having to speak the bare
commonplace facts.

"I will wait," she said.

"Dearest," he said, and his voice was shaking, "it would not be fair to
let you. There will be other men, rich, who----"

She interrupted by a gesture.

"Do you count my love as little as that?" she said. "Cannot you
understand that there is nothing in the world for me but my love for
you and your love for me. If you believe as I do that we belong to each
other for time and eternity, then how can you----?" She could get no
further. He stopped her with such kisses that she was frightened at his
vehemence.

"Enough," he said. "We belong to each other. One day I will claim you."

"And till then?" she asked.

"For a time," he said steadily, "we must not meet. It is--wiser not."

"Because--of what I said?" she asked. The crimson colour had covered
her face and neck.

"No," he answered quietly, "but because I am only a man, and very
human."

And there was something in his voice that told her not to gainsay him.

"But at least we will write," she said.

"No."

"Why not?"

"It would be almost the same as seeing you. There would come a day when
the sight of your writing would shake my resolve. You, if you wrote,
could only tell me all that was in your heart. What use else to write?
I should hear your heart calling mine, as mine will call to you. And
then one day my resolution would fail. And if it did I should hate
myself, and count myself unworthy to come near you again."

"Then never, dear heart," she whispered.

And there was a little silence too sad for words or tears. It was Sara
who broke it.

"Christopher used to say," she said, with a little shaky laugh, "that
I could cheat the Fates. This time I cannot. They have dealt me a hand
full of little spades, and every one of them is digging the grave of my
happiness."

"Ah, my dearest," he said.

She disengaged herself gently from him.

"And since for a time at least we both must die," she said, "we had
better die at once. A lingering death is so painful." Her voice shook.
"Good-bye, Paul. Don't come with me. I want to go home alone."

"Good-bye, Beloved."

Again their eyes met. And he caught her to him. She felt his body
shaking.

"Paul," she whispered.

"Beloved."

And then he took her to the door and held it open for her. She went out
through the courtyard in the twilight of the summer evening.

And the little faun, holding his pipe to his lips, made no sound, for
he knew at that moment no music however tender could bring comfort to
her heart.




CHAPTER XXV

IN YORKSHIRE


Away in Yorkshire, on a fell-side, a woman was sitting on a grey stone
and looking at the landscape before her.

Below her, some couple of hundred feet, ran a little brown stream,
on the banks of which a man in tweed clothes was walking. He held a
fishing-rod, and every now and then he paused to cast a fly upon the
water with a light and dexterous hand.

The woman watched him idly. Later he would join her by a clump of trees
near the stream, and they would have luncheon together. The man's name
was Luke Preston, and he was her husband. They had been married exactly
a fortnight previously, and were now spending part of their honeymoon
in Yorkshire.

The landscape, and particularly the sight of the distant figure by the
stream, gave her a great sense of rest. In some ways Luke was like the
fells around her she thought--very big, very silent, and very enduring.
It was the unwavering assurance of Luke that had first attracted him to
her. There was something so unswerving about his point of view. It was
so direct. There were never more than two ways in his mind--the right
and the wrong; never more than two colours--black and white. There were
no little chance bypaths, and no shades of grey admissible. Because of
this some people found Luke lacking in subtlety, but to the woman he
had married it constituted a strength which she found very pleasant.

All her life she had been swayed by varying moods. Actions seldom
appeared to her in a light of her own opinion. They became black,
white, or various shades of lighter or darker grey as they were
presented to her by the minds of others. There was one episode only in
her life in which she had resolutely adhered to her own determination.
And that episode was one she wished to forget, or to remember only as a
dream, and not as a time connected with her own waking self.

It had all happened a good many years ago, and some people have a
curious faculty for disconnecting themselves mentally from their own
past actions. Sybil Preston was one of these. During the years that had
elapsed since the episode she had had one thing only to remind her of
it--a quaint signet ring, with which she had never had the courage to
part.

On the way up to Yorkshire, the very day of her wedding, she had lost
it. She fancied it must have slipped from her finger as she had waved
to a small girl swinging on a gate. But she had not discovered her
loss till the evening when they had stopped for the night at an hotel.
In a sense she regretted the loss, yet on the other hand she could not
help feeling it a relief. She regarded it in a way as a kind of omen--a
sign that the past was banished forever, especially as the loss had
occurred on the very day she had entered her new life.

The episode was known only to herself and to one other living person--a
woman friend of hers. She had no smallest fear but that Cecily
Mainwaring had kept silence regarding it--would always keep silence.
She was a woman with extraordinary strength of character and great
reserve. She had always been a staunch friend of Sybil's. Sybil herself
had sometimes marvelled that in this matter she had been able to stand
firm against Cecily's opinion; in fact, to persuade her to her own
point of view regarding it. Though, to be strictly truthful, Cecily
had never adopted Sybil's point of view, she had acted contrary to her
own judgment, and purely from her unswerving friendship to Sybil. They
had never again referred to the matter. Sybil had seen considerably
less of Cecily after it. She had never felt entirely comfortable in
her presence. Cecily's eyes were too terribly truthful. They were not
unlike Luke's eyes.

Sybil, sitting up on the moorland, heaved an enormous sigh of relief
at the thought that he could never have the smallest suspicion of that
episode. She knew that deceit of any kind was the one thing Luke could
never forgive. She knew, however, that she was perfectly safe. She
would soon be safe herself from all memory of it. To-morrow they were
returning to London, and a month hence they were sailing for India.
Luke was in the Indian Civil Service, and would be returning after a
year's leave. For some years at least they would be out of England, and
there would be no chance of meeting Cecily, who just served to remind
her of things she now wanted to forget entirely.

And then she saw her husband winding in his line and waving to her. She
got up and went down the side of the fell towards him.

"Been lonely, little girl?" he asked, putting his arm round her. "I've
got five beauties. We'll have them for supper to-night. Now come along
and have some lunch. I'm simply ravenous."

"So am I," laughed Sybil. "What a glorious place it is, and how
delicious the air is, and how utterly happy I am."

"Darling," he said, and bent to kiss her.

They walked towards the clump of trees where Luke had left a knapsack
containing various eatables. They were simple enough--a couple of
packets of sandwiches, a couple of pieces of cake, and a flask of
claret. He was not the man to burden himself with unnecessary food.

Sybil sat down on the grass, leaning back against a tree-trunk.

"I wish we could stay on here," she said. "It would be infinitely
pleasanter than going back to town."

"Infinitely," said Luke, taking a great bite of chicken sandwich.

"Then why not write and tell your people that we can't come, and that
we're staying on here."

Luke laughed. "Because, darling, there is no earthly reason beyond our
own inclination to prevent us going back to London. And I promised my
parents that we would come to them during the last part of July. They
go down to Henley in August, and their cottage is too small to take us
in there."

Sybil pouted. "Can't you get out of it, though?" she said. "I could
sprain my ankle, or break my leg, or something, and be unable to
travel."

Luke frowned. "I don't like to hear you say that, Sybil. Of course you
don't mean it, but that you should even suggest in fun that you could
make an untrue statement----"

Sybil interrupted him quickly. "Of course I didn't mean it, Luke
darling. It was only rather a stupid bit of nonsense. I wouldn't break
our promise for worlds, and you know I love your people. It was just
the thought of this heavenly place that tempted me. Besides, I have you
to myself up here. I'm not sharing you with anyone."

The last two sentences were the outcome of genuine affection on Sybil's
part. She was honestly devoted to her big husband. And though at times
she would have preferred him to be a little less literal, his strength
and assurance of purpose, as already mentioned, appealed to her
enormously.

Her last two sentences, in fact her whole speech, pleased Luke. He
patted her hand and looked at her with tender eyes. He loved her from
the very bottom of his extremely truthful heart. He had placed her
carefully on a little pedestal of his own building, and her first
remark had distressed him, as it had caused her to sway a trifle
unsteadily on the same pedestal.

As soon as they had finished lunch he returned to his fishing, and
she strolled across some fields to a little pond in a bit of heathery
moorland, where she found some sundew and a bog violet.

It was nearly seven o'clock before they went back to the little white
cottage in the small village. They found that the evening post had come
in, and with it a couple of letters and a London paper.

"Wonder why this has been sent?" asked Luke, opening it. "We've been
eschewing London papers since we've been up here. The 'Yorkshire Post'
is quite good enough on a holiday." He turned the pages. "Oh, it's
Talbot's wedding"--Talbot had been his best man. "Ah, well, that kind
of rigmarole will interest you far more than me. I've no use for other
people's weddings. I'm quite satisfied with my own. Eh! little girl?"

Sybil laughed, returned his kiss, and went upstairs to take off her hat.

Later in the evening she took up the paper, and because she had nothing
else to read she studied the pages rather carefully. Suddenly an
advertisement caught her eye. She read it slowly, then put down the
paper. It told her that her ring had been found, and that she could get
it by applying at a certain address.

For a moment she decided that she would take no notice of the
advertisement. Then it occurred to her that there might be the smallest
element of risk in leaving the ring in other hands. It was certainly
unique, and once seen not likely to be forgotten. No doubt other people
had seen and observed it long before it had come into her hands--people
who had known its previous owner.

They were going back to London to-morrow. If Luke saw the advertisement
he would at once recognize it as a description of the ring she had
worn. She had told him that Cecily had given it to her. He had
mentioned it once to Cecily as her gift to Sybil. Sybil remembered the
tiny trace of scorn in Cecily's eyes at the lie, though she had not
contradicted the statement.

If Luke saw the advertisement he would promptly go and fetch the ring
for her, and then there was no knowing whether he would not learn
something of its previous history. She knew it was ridiculous to
imagine such a thing, and yet she felt that she dared run no tiniest
risk.

Whoever had found the ring was advertising the fact assiduously, for
the loss was now a fortnight old. They might continue to advertise. The
moment she got back to London she would go to the address given by Mr.
Kirby and claim the ring. And perhaps on the way out to India she would
drop it overboard. She wanted to forget. Whatever Sybil's faults and
weaknesses she was genuinely in love with Luke.

She crumpled the paper in her hand, managing to tear the advertisement.
She would run no risk.

Luke looked up with a big yawn.

"Read the account of the wedding?" he asked. "They were going to
Biarritz, weren't they?"

"Yes," said Sybil.

"Ah, well, I want all I can get out of old England. I don't have too
much of her. And now, little girl, how about bed?" He heaved himself
out of his chair.

"By the way," he said suddenly, "did you read the account of the
exhibition of pictures at the Grafton Galleries? I see there's a
portrait exhibited there by a fellow named John Kirby."

Sybil thought of the advertisement and her heart stood suddenly still,
then began to race furiously, though she had no real notion why it was
doing so.

"Do you know the man?" she asked carelessly.

"We were at school together," said Luke. "I've seen him occasionally
since then. He took up painting. I haven't looked him up this time or
let him know I was in England--don't know why. If I've time I might
look him up before I leave."

The simple statement troubled Sybil. She felt that she must get the
ring from Mr. Kirby before her husband should see him. She had no
reason for feeling this, but the idea was strong upon her, though she
told herself it was entirely absurd.

"You're looking tired, little girl," said Luke solicitously. "Hope you
didn't overwalk to-day?"

"Oh, no," she said lightly. "I'm sleepy, that's all. I'll go up now and
leave you to have your last pipe in the garden."

She left the room and Luke strolled into the garden, where he smoked
under the quiet stars, and sniffed the night air, and watched the light
in Sybil's room with a feeling of great content. The world, in his
opinion, was an extraordinarily pleasant place.




CHAPTER XXVI

PIPPA'S MOTHER


Miss Mason was in her studio having tea. Barnabas was with her. He
invariably dropped in at tea-time unless he was giving a tea-party on
his own account.

Pippa had gone with Alan to look at flats. The occupation was an
intense joy to her. If he had decided on all the flats on which she had
set her heart he would have taken at least a dozen, and he and Aurora
would have lived in one at a time during each of the twelve months of
the year. Hitherto, notwithstanding Pippa's enthusiasm regarding them,
he had not found one that quite came up to his requirements. Tea being
finished, Barnabas lit a cigarette.

"I must take you to call on Mrs. McAndrew soon," said Barnabas. "She
and Andrew have got a minute flat quite close to his studio. She's a
delightful old lady. You will like her, and her Scotch is, if anything,
broader than Andrew's. I've never seen a fellow so gloriously happy as
he is. We look upon you, Aunt Olive, as a kind of fairy godmother, who
has only to touch people's lives with a magic wand to ensure their
happiness."

Miss Mason laughed gruffly.

"That," she said, "is quite the nicest thing I've ever had said to me.
I know my own life has been a kind of glorious fairy tale lately."

"Life," said Barnabas, "is a fairy tale, if only one can believe it."

"But," said Aunt Olive, "one comes in touch with bad fairies on
occasions."

"I know," nodded Barnabas gravely. "But I fancy there are some people
who have the magic wand that can transform them into good ones."

"It's a comfortable belief," said Miss Mason.

Sally opened the studio door.

"A lady to see Mr. Kirby, ma'am," she said. "She says she has come
about an advertisement of a ring."

"At last," said Barnabas, and he got up.

"Show her in," said Miss Mason. And the next minute Sybil Preston
entered the studio. Halfway into the room she stopped.

"Granny!" she exclaimed.

Miss Mason got up from her chair.

"Bless me!" she said in an excited voice, "it's little Sybil Quarly.
Sally, bring fresh tea at once."

Sybil sat down by the table in a chair put for her by Barnabas.

"Of all the extraordinary things," she laughed, "that I should walk
quietly into this studio and find you. It must be fifteen years since
we met."

"And eleven since I heard from you," said Miss Mason.

Sybil flushed faintly. "I'm a shocking letter writer," she said. "I
never write letters. But indeed I had not forgotten you."

"Of course not," said Miss Mason. "So the ring is yours. Just fancy
that through your losing it, and Mr. Kirby's advertisement, we should
meet again. I've got it quite safely for you." She got up and took it
from a small box. "Here it is."

Sybil held out her hand for it. Suddenly she became aware that Barnabas
was watching her.

"I believe," she said to him, with a little nervous laugh, "that you
know my husband, Luke Preston. He was speaking of you only the other
day, and saying that he must look you up."

Barnabas smiled. "What, old Luke!" he exclaimed. "Of course I knew him.
We were at school together."

"Then you are married?" said Miss Mason.

"Barely three weeks ago. We went to Yorkshire for part of our
honeymoon. It was on the way up I lost my ring. We were quite rural
up there, and saw no papers but the 'Yorkshire Post.' It was only by
chance that a London paper was sent us, and I saw the advertisement, so
I----"

She broke off. She had suddenly seen the picture of Pippa standing by
the faun. Both figures were life-size.

"Who," she asked, "is that?" Her eyes were dilated, her breath coming
quickly.

"That is Pippa," said Miss Mason; "a little girl I have adopted."

Barnabas was again watching Sybil.

"She is," he said quietly, "extraordinarily like a man I once knew, a
great friend of mine--Philippe Kostolitz."

Sybil stared at him with wide eyes. There was a trace of fear in them.

"You knew Philippe?" she said.

"Yes," said Barnabas, still quietly.

Miss Mason's keen old eyes looked from one to the other of them.

"And what, my dear," she said, "did you know of him?"

Sybil gave a little sob. "He--he was my husband," she said.

There was a dead silence in the room. Then Miss Mason put a question.
It seemed forced from her:

"Did you have a child?"

Sybil bowed her head.

"Shall I go away?" asked Barnabas.

"No, stay," said Sybil. "I suppose you guessed something the moment I
came to claim the ring. Since you knew Philippe you must have known
it belonged to him. You had better hear the story. God knows what I
am going to do now." Her lips quivered. She looked like a piteous,
frightened child.

"My dear," said Miss Mason gently, "if there is any way in which we can
help you, we will. Tell us as much as you can."

Sybil drew a long breath. She looked at Miss Mason. She tried to forget
that Barnabas was present, though she wished him to remain.

"You know," she began, "that we went to live at Pangbourne. A year
after we went there I met Philippe. He was staying with some friends
near us. We saw a good bit of each other one way and another, and--and
we began to care....

"My mother must have guessed it, for she suddenly began to prevent
my seeing him. But one day he came straight to my father and said he
loved me.... My father was furious. He said he would never hear of his
daughter marrying a vagabond artist, a man who spent half his life on
the roads like any tramp, and the other half in a studio messing with
common clay. You know my father never did like art, and he looked on
all artists with contempt. He never believed that they were gentlemen.
You know, he never believed that anyone who did anything for their
livelihood was one. And he couldn't conceive it possible that the love
of the work and not money was Philippe's motive in his art. At any
rate, he sent Philippe away. I was quite miserable, but hadn't the
courage to gainsay him, and my mother was quite as bad....

"Six months later I was staying with some friends in Hampshire for
a fortnight. I was to go on from there to another friend--Cecily
Mainwaring--for a month. Cecily lives in London. One day while I was in
Hampshire I was out for a walk alone, when I met Philippe....

"Oh, it's no use my trying to tell you how glad I was to see him. When
he knew I was staying at Andover he remained in the neighbourhood, and
we used to meet almost daily. I'd always gone for long walks alone. We
used to spend hours together in Harewood Forest, and he used to make
all kinds of plans. First he wanted me to defy my parents and run away
with him and marry him. But I hadn't the courage. I said that perhaps
in time they'd consent. Then he thought of another plan and begged me
to consent to it. We were to be married and keep it a secret from my
people. I was to spend a month with him in some little country place
instead of staying with Cecily. Then I was to go home, and he was to
come down and use all his influence with my parents, and if it failed
we would have to tell them. He begged me so that at last I consented.
At the back of my mind I thought that if my parents were still obdurate
I could persuade Philippe not to tell them. At least I'd have a month
with him. I wasn't nineteen, and I never though of what--what might
happen...." She stopped, her face crimson.

"Yes, dear?" said Miss Mason gently.

"Philippe went away then to make arrangements, and I stayed on three
days longer with my friends. I left them ostensibly to go to Cecily. I
met Philippe instead.... We were married at a tiny church. He had got
a special license. He didn't like it not being his own church, but as
I was a Catholic it would have been difficult to arrange that. At all
events, the marriage was legal, and he thought that perhaps we'd be
married again in his own church when my parents knew. But of course
that didn't trouble me. We went to Wales together, to a little village
there. Any letters that might be written to me went to Cecily. I wrote
to her and told her I was on a motor tour with friends and my visit to
her must be postponed; that I wasn't sure when I could come home to
her. And I asked her to keep any letters for me till I came. Cecily was
quite unsuspecting, and did so.

"I was gloriously happy with Philippe. Occasionally I was frightened
at what I had done, but when he was with me I only thought about him
and my happiness. One day he went into Shrewsbury by train.... I
was going with him, but I had such a bad headache that at the last
moment I persuaded him to go alone. He was to have come back at seven
o'clock in the evening.... He didn't come, and I got uneasy. I went
down towards the station.... Then I heard there had been a frightful
railway accident only three miles outside the station.... I went to
the place.... I don't know how I got there. Ever so many people were
going.... They carried the people from the train to cottages and
barns.... I found Philippe in one of them...." Sybil's voice shook and
she stopped.

"We know, dear," said Miss Mason. "Don't try to tell us."

There was a little silence. At last Sybil went on:

"When I saw that he was dead I suddenly realized what I had done. I
knew there was no one to stand between me and my parents' anger....
And then men came who began to ask questions of the people present ...
wanting them to identify...." Again Sybil stopped.

"I ran away," she went on pitifully. "I couldn't bear to be asked
anything. I thought perhaps no one would ever know. I thought it would
be so much easier if they didn't.... I got back to the cottage and
packed a few things.... All the people were out at--at the place. We
had given them an assumed name. I thought they'd never know who we
were.... Of course, afterwards they knew about Philippe, I suppose,
when he was identified. I saw in the papers that letters were found
on him.... Someone went there, a friend of his. I've forgotten the
name...."

"I went," said Barnabas. "It is strange that there was no mention of
you. I suppose the people at the rooms where you stayed wished to keep
out of being questioned, so did not come forward. However, that's no
matter now."

"I left money to pay for our lodging," went on Sybil, "and just ran
away. I walked a long distance to another little station and took a
train to Hereford. From there I went to London. I got there in the
early morning. I waited about in the station till nearly lunch-time.
Then I drove to Cecily's flat. I had sent my luggage--at least most
of it--to her from Andover. I'd only taken a little box and a handbag
to Wales. I left the box behind at the rooms. There was nothing in it
that could betray my name. I took the handbag away with me. When I saw
Cecily I just said that the tour had ended unexpectedly, and that I
hadn't been well. I stayed with her a week. That week and the three
weeks in Wales just made up the month I was supposed to be with her.
Then I went home....

"It's no use trying to explain what I thought, nor how wretched I was.
I don't think I quite knew myself. It didn't seem I who was acting,
but just something or somebody outside myself. If I really thought of
anything it was only that I could never face my parents' anger. So
all the time I was planning and thinking how best to behave that they
should never know. It sounds dreadful now, but then it didn't seem fair
that I should only have three weeks' happiness, and for that bear the
whole brunt of their anger alone. I soon found that I need not fear
them guessing. They never suspected that I had not been with Cecily
the whole time.... As the weeks passed I began to think myself that
everything that had happened had been a dream.... It wasn't exactly
that I forgot Philippe, only I tried to pretend it had never been a
reality.... And then all at once I realized that it wasn't a dream ...
that it never had been ... and no amount of thinking could turn it into
one.... I used to pass whole nights of terror wondering what I could
do.... If I had only told my parents at once it would have been so much
easier.... Even though they would have been terribly angry, at least I
was married to Philippe.... But now I felt I could never tell them....

"At last I thought of Cecily. I wrote to ask her to let me stay with
her. I went; and then I told her everything.... Cecily was very good to
me. She begged and implored me to tell my people, but I wouldn't, and I
cried so much she thought I'd be ill, and at last she promised to help
me and do everything I wanted.... We went over to France. My father
was quite willing for me to travel about with Cecily, and kept me well
supplied with money. We were in France moving about in different places
the whole winter. In March we took rooms at St. Germain.... It--it was
there the child was born.... I wouldn't see it.... I didn't even want
to know if it were a boy or a girl ... but Cecily would tell me. She
had it christened Philippa.... I didn't want to see it because I didn't
want to get fond of it. The nurse thought it was just queerness on my
part because I was so weak. Cecily arranged everything. Just after the
nurse left, and when I was well enough to travel, she took the baby
away.... I was so glad when it went. Its crying always reminded me
that it was there. It made me remember, and I wanted so dreadfully to
forget....

"When Cecily came back to me alone I told her we'd never speak of it
again.... We never have.... I sent her money.... My father always gave
me a good dress allowance. Out of that I paid for the child.... I
wanted it to be in France. I couldn't bear to think of it speaking with
a common English accent...."

Barnabas, who had been looking on the ground during most of the
recital, now looked up quickly. What an extraordinary anomaly the woman
was. She could banish from her mind all memory of the man she had
loved, she could forsake the child he had given her, and yet she could
not bear the thought of its learning to speak with a common accent.

"Have you," asked Miss Mason, "any idea where the child was left?"

"In Paris," said Sybil quickly. "Cecily told me the name of the woman
when she came back. I didn't want to know, but I wasn't able to stop
her. It was Madame Barbin."

Miss Mason sighed. "Then," she said, "there is no question but that the
child who came to my studio last December is your daughter."

Sybil looked at the picture. "She is exactly like Philippe," she said.
"Tell me how she came to you."

So Miss Mason told the story.

"I must write to Cecily and tell her to stop sending money to Madame
Fournier," said Sybil when she had ended.

Again there was a long silence. It was broken by Sybil.

"What am I to do?" she said. "I never told Luke I'd been married
before. He knows nothing. And now for the first time in my life I want
my little girl. It's odd, isn't it?"

Miss Mason looked straight before her. Her face had paled a little, and
her voice was not quite steady as she answered:

"You must tell him now."

Sybil drew in her breath quickly. "I can't do that. You don't know
Luke. He'd never forgive me--never. And I love him."

"My dear," said Miss Mason quietly, "are you sure he wouldn't?
Remember, he loves you, and love----"

"Ah," said Sybil, with a little laugh that was almost a sob, "you're
a woman. Men aren't like that. At least, Luke isn't. If he knew I had
deceived him he wouldn't love me any more."

Miss Mason looked at Barnabas. Perhaps a man's judgment in the matter
would be of use.

"Mrs. Preston is right," said Barnabas. "If she had told him before she
married him it would have been different. Now---- You see, I know her
husband."

"But----" said Miss Mason, and stopped. She did not know what to say.
For her own sake she wanted silence. Yet to her candid mind further
deceit was terribly distressing.

Sybil looked from one to the other of them. She felt almost as if she
were in the presence of a jury awaiting their verdict.

"May I," said Barnabas, "say just how the situation strikes me?"

"Please do," said Sybil quietly. She leant back a little in her chair.

"It seems to me," said Barnabas, "that you cannot only look at the
right or wrong of the matter entirely from your own point of view.
There are two other people to be considered--your husband and the
child. Knowing Luke I fear it is a matter in which he would not forgive
the deceit. He is not a man who would see any extenuating circumstances
in the case. He would not even understand your having been first
persuaded into a secret marriage."

"Can you understand it?" asked Sybil quickly. There was a little flush
of colour in her face.

"I can," said Barnabas. "I can see the whole situation very
clearly--your fear of your parents' anger and Philippe's persuasions.
It would not be easy for a woman who loved Philippe to withstand him.
I, who knew him, can understand that. Luke did not know him?"

"Yes?" said Sybil as he stopped. She looked at him intently. "But," she
went on, "you don't understand the rest of my action?"

"Frankly, no," said Barnabas. "I can't understand your silence
afterwards when it came to your desertion of his child. I have, though,
no right to sit in judgment on anyone; and please understand that I'm
not judging you. But I am quite sure that Luke would not take a lenient
view. If he forgave at all--and I honestly doubt his forgiveness--duty
would make him offer the child a home. In fact, he would probably
insist on your having the child with you. But," and Barnabas' voice was
firm, "he would never, forget. And, however strong his sense of duty,
there would always be a barrier between him and the child. It would
not be good for her. Also there is no question but that your husband's
confidence and happiness would be destroyed." He stopped. He felt every
word he had said. He was sorry for the woman, but Luke and Pippa could
not be sacrificed, and to speak now would mean the sacrifice of both
their lives.

"Then----?" asked Sybil, her eyes upon the ground.

"In my opinion," said Barnabas, "having kept silence, you owe it to
your husband to keep silence still; in fact, for ever. The child has a
home now, and one who cares for her. For her sake, too, I do not think
you should run the risk of taking her to a home where she would be
unwelcome. She is extraordinarily sensitive. She would feel it now, and
more as she grows older."

Sybil looked towards the picture. It showed the child in three-quarter
face. "But I want her now," she said. "She looks such a darling."

Barnabas suppressed a slight movement of impatience. Sybil's sole
thought was of herself and her own wants.

"Then you are prepared," he asked, "to tell your husband everything? To
lose his confidence and his love, and kill his happiness, and, quite
possibly, have him to go away from you, merely making you an allowance.
For he is quite as likely--and I believe more likely--to do that than
accept the charge of the child. Which do you want most--your child
whom you have never seen or your husband?"

"Oh, I want Luke," said Sybil quickly. "At least, I think so."

Barnabas felt considerably like shaking her. He was determined that if
he could prevent it she should not spoil two lives. He had no belief in
weak and tardy confessions that advantage no one. He made an appeal to
her better self--if it existed.

"Then," he said, "have the strength and courage to keep silence. Even
if you do want your child now, have the pluck to renounce her for her
sake and Luke's. Remember, that payment of some kind is always demanded
sooner or later for any debt we owe. This is your payment."

Sybil looked silently towards Miss Mason.

"He's right," said Miss Mason. "I hadn't seen things quite in that
light. Also, I was afraid of having my judgment biassed by my desire to
keep the child."

Curiously enough throughout the conversation neither Miss Mason nor
Barnabas had spoken of Pippa by name. Instinctively they both felt
that to do so would be to suggest an intimacy to which Sybil was not
entitled.

Sybil looked at the floor for a few moments without speaking. Then she
raised her head.

"Very well," she said, "I will not tell Luke. He may come to see you,
Mr. Kirby. If he does please don't tell him of my visit here. But of
course you won't. And," she went on, with a little pleading note in her
voice, "please, you two, don't despise me more than you can help. Some
people seem born strong and not afraid. I've always been a coward. I
think perhaps if my father and mother had been a little more lenient
with me when I was a child it would have been different. But I was
timid, and dreaded being shut up in the dark. So I used to fib to get
out of punishment. And after a time I thought nothing of not speaking
the truth to them. But I suppose you can't understand that."

"I can understand very well," said Miss Mason. She had known the
parents.

And Barnabas felt a sudden pity for the woman, who in spite of her
thirty-two years looked little more than a girl. She was of the fragile
flower-like beauty that would no doubt appeal to a man of the strength
of Kostolitz. At the moment Barnabas himself would have protected her
rather than have blamed her.

All at once Sybil spoke timidly. "Where is she?" she asked, nodding
towards the picture. "Could I see her for a moment?"

Miss Mason hesitated, doubtful of the wisdom of the proceeding. "She's
out now," she said.

Sybil gave a tiny sigh. "Well, perhaps it's better not," she said.
"I'd have promised not to tell her. Of course, I don't suppose anyone
would trust me very easily who knew everything. But truly she shall
never know about me. And I'll never tell Luke either. I see that you
are right. I owe it to him now to keep silence. I'll try to make him
very happy. And--and I'll take wanting my little girl as a punishment.
I know I deserve to lose her, and I see that it is impossible for me to
have her and keep Luke's confidence. I should quite spoil his life and
his belief in every one. If only I had been brave long ago I might have
had my little girl and Luke too. But I will keep my word now." She said
it all like a child promising to be good.

"I know you will, my dear," said Miss Mason gently. She was desperately
sorry for Sybil, and terribly grieved at the whole situation. Yet she
too saw that silence was now the only possible thing for them all. And
in the end it would be happier for Sybil too. Possibly she would always
now wish for her child and regret her loss. But it would be a tender
regret, though sad. And she would keep Luke's love.

And then suddenly from the courtyard they heard a child's voice. Sybil
flushed and looked at Miss Mason with pleading eyes.

"I'll bring her," said Barnabas. Wisdom or not, he could not have
resisted Sybil's face.

"We've found a flat, really and truly," she cried, as she met Barnabas
in the garden. "It is beautiful, but quite beautiful."

"More beautiful than the others?" laughed Barnabas. "But come in now
and behave pretty. Aunt Olive has a lady to tea with her."

Pippa came into the room. Her extraordinary likeness to Kostolitz made
Sybil catch her breath. For a moment she did not trust herself to speak.

"Ah!" cried Pippa, with quick recognition. "It is ze lady of ze car.
Did you give her ze ring?"

Sybil held out her hand. "Yes, dear," she said, "I've got it. I'm
glad you found it and kept it for me." She held the child's hand
tight. Pippa looked at her with her great grey eyes, so like the dead
sculptor's. Memories rushed over Sybil. The days in the forest, the
days in the little Welsh village crowded back to her mind. She could
almost hear Kostolitz's voice, hear his gay laugh, and his words of
passionate love. Her throat contracted and tears filled her eyes.
Suddenly she got up.

"I'd better go now," she said. Her voice shook a little. Then an
impulse moved her. She held out the ring to Pippa. "Will you have it?"
she said. "I'd like you to keep it."

"For me?" said Pippa, her face crimson.

"May she?" said Sybil to Miss Mason.

"Yes," said Miss Mason.

Sybil looked again at the picture of the child.

"I suppose I oughtn't to ask," she said, "but it would remind me. I
don't want to forget now. Not that I ever shall."

"I'll send it to you," said Miss Mason. "Barnabas won't mind, will you,
Barnabas? Just a gift from an old friend, you know."

Sybil's eyes filled with tears. "Thank you," she said. Then she bent
and kissed Pippa. "Good-bye, little one."

Barnabas went to the door with her.

"I couldn't stay any longer," she said. "Good-bye."

And she went away in the sunshine, past the little faun in the next
garden, and so out of the courtyard, and out of the lives she had
momentarily entered.

When she had disappeared Barnabas looked at the little faun.

"It was the only way," he said. And his heart was sad for the man who
had been forgotten by the woman he had loved. And he wondered if he
knew everything now. If he did he would probably understand so fully
that he would forgive fully. And then Barnabas went back into the
studio.




CHAPTER XXVII

MICHAEL MAKES MUSIC


During August Miss Mason took Pippa down to a little seaside place in
Devonshire. She chose it because its name--Hope--appealed to her.

Pippa adored it. She loved the quaint cottages, and the beach with the
tarred nets spread out to dry, and the kindly fishermen who took her
out in their boats, and who talked to her in a dialect she could hardly
understand. But she understood their kindness, and they understood her
smiles, so they got on very well together.

Barnabas came down for a fortnight, and Pippa met him at the station,
a thin slip of a child, her face bronzed with the sun and sea air,
and her eyes holding the hint of mystery he had seen in the eyes of
Kostolitz.

They bathed together, they caught prawns in seaweedy pools in the
rocks, they sat in the shadow of the cliffs and watched the sea-gulls
and the white-sailed boats on the blue water.

And during these days Barnabas found in Pippa something that he had
not found before--not even during the June days when they had wandered
through the lanes with Pegasus. He found in her Woman and Companion.
She ceased to be merely Child. He saw the spirit of Kostolitz in
her mysterious eyes. She showed it to him in a hundred ways--in her
clear joyous love of Nature, in her fanciful imaginings and delicate
thoughts, in her quick insight into everything that was beautiful. And
with it all she was a child, too, with a child-like simple faith and
trust that was to be her heritage throughout her life. And because
there was this trait also in Barnabas they found in each other the most
perfect companionship.

Miss Mason watched them together, helped them prawn, and was radiantly
happy. She cared not at all for the occasional smiles her quaint figure
and costume provoked from other visitors to the place. And because
Pippa was enjoying herself enormously she remained at Hope throughout
September as well.

The Duchessa di Corleone too had left London during August. She
wandered from place to place trying to find forgetfulness and not
succeeding.

In September she returned to town. She never went near the studios now,
but Michael came often to see her, and used to make music for her. In
it she found some consolation. And Michael loved to come to her house,
though the sight of her always gave him pain.

One day after he had been playing to her, and they were having tea
together, he suddenly looked up at a picture of St. Michael that hung
in her drawing-room.

"Queer," he said, with a little twisted smile, "that my people should
have chosen to name me after the warrior angel." And he glanced from
the strength of the pictured figure at his own shrunken limbs. His
voice was so bitter that Sara could find no reply.

"Just a moment's carelessness on the part of a nursemaid," went on
Michael. "She dropped me when I was a baby. You see the result. It
makes it difficult to believe in an over-ruling Providence, doesn't it?
My guardian angel must have been peculiarly inattentive at the moment."

"I think," said Sara slowly, "that there are times in the life of every
one when it is very difficult to have faith. Yet, if one loses it one
loses all happiness."

"I lost both long ago," said Michael. "It's an irony of fate to be
born with an acute sense of the beautiful, and to see one's own
repulsiveness."

Sara looked up quickly.

"But you are not repulsive," she said.

"Bah!" said Michael. "Look at me! Women are only kind to me out of
pity."

Sara looked straight at him. "There you are quite wrong," she said
decisively. "I don't feel the smallest pity for you in the sense you
mean. Your face is quite beautiful, and your music----" she stopped.

"But my body," he said.

"Yes," said Sara calmly, "I grant you that it is extremely trying for
you to be lame, and you must often wish to be strong and big. But you
need not think it makes the smallest difference in our affection for
you." She again looked steadily at him as she spoke.

Michael looked away from her. "But no woman could love me--they would
shrink from me," he said. And his face flushed hotly.

"Not at all," said Sara. "There again you are quite wrong. I grant that
there is a certain type of woman who is entirely attracted by sinews
and muscles in a man. But most assuredly there are others."

There was a silence. Then Michael spoke again. His voice was very low.

"You--you could never care?" he said.

Sara's eyes filled with quick tears. "Not in the way you mean," she
said gently; "but not because of the morbid reason you have suggested.
I--I love some one else."

"Paul?" he asked.

Sara bowed her head.

Michael was silent. "But if you did not," he asked suddenly, "would you
have thought it horrible of me to tell you that I love you--not quietly
and calmly, but--but as a man loves a woman?"

"I should have been honoured to hear it from you," said Sara.

Michael looked across at her with a strange smile.

"Thank you," he said. "I shall not tell you how--though you know it.
Nor shall I ever tell any other woman what I have told you. You will
still let me come and see you?"

"You must come," said Sara quickly. "I should miss you dreadfully if
you didn't. During these last weeks your visits have been my greatest
pleasure. When I hear the front door bell ring I listen. And when I
hear the pad of your crutch on the stairs I am happy, and I say to
myself, 'It is Michael.'"

It was the first time she had used his name. For a few moments Michael
did not trust himself to speak. When he did his voice was light.

"I shall hate my crutch no longer," he said, "since its sound has given
you happiness. Do you know you have quite suddenly brought back faith
to me. I thought it was dead. Now I will play for you again."




CHAPTER XXVIII

THE PEACE OF THE RIVER


After Michael had left, Sara went to the window and stood looking out
at the trees on the Embankment. The heat of the summer had already
caused their leaves to turn yellow.

Beyond them she could see the river. It always held a note of peace
for her. Rivers and lakes had the power to speak to her. She loved
their calm quietude, though she had seen lakes lashed to fury by the
wind. But it was a different kind of anger from the anger of the
sea. The cruelty of the sea hurt her--its restlessness, its turmoil,
its never-ceasing demand for lives. Even when it was quiet it was
treacherous. Its smiling surface was nothing but a lure, for it held
terrible secrets in its heart.

But the quiet of the river always soothed her. She knew it in all its
moods--under grey skies, and under blue skies, in the crimson and
purple of sunset, in the amber grey and rose of dawn. She knew it at
the full flood of its waters, and at ebbing tide. In all its moods she
loved it, and she loved her house, yet she felt that she could not stay
there much longer.

With the end of October she would go away to Italy for the winter.
Everything here reminded her of Paul. She did not want to forget him,
yet the sight of the streets in which they had walked together, the
hotels at which they had dined, the theatres to which they had been,
only served to emphasize her present loneliness.

Christopher was the only person who, till to-day, had known of her
unhappiness. Ever since he first knew her, when she was ten and he was
two-and-twenty, she had come to him with her joys and griefs. There was
a curious faculty for sympathy in Christopher. It made him the popular
barrister he was, especially with women. It was easy to tell him
things. Had he been a priest he would undoubtedly have been much sought
in confession. He had heard many stories, both sordid and pitiful.
Somehow he seemed always able to separate the sin from the sinner. One
knew instinctively that he had no scorn for the latter, any more than
a doctor scorns a patient who comes to him with a disease to be cured.
He had, too, been instrumental in preventing several divorces, and
in giving men convicted of theft a second chance without the stigma
of prison attaching to them. And curiously enough he had never been
disappointed in those for whom he had pleaded for leniency. There was
nothing weak about Christopher. There had been certain cases he had
refused to accept--cases in which he knew the guilt to be a fact, and
in which justice could only be avoided by a direct wandering from the
truth, even though he knew that by one of his impassioned speeches
he could most probably have saved the victim from the law, and have
established a great reputation for himself. In spite of his sympathy,
he took a strangely impersonal view of things in general, and his
sympathy, though very real, was never allowed to bias his judgment.

He agreed fully with Paul's decision that he and Sara should not meet,
and he offered a silent sympathy which Sara found very comforting.
After she had once told him about the parting she had not again spoken
directly of it. She could not talk of it. She could only try to live
her life as best she might in the hope that one day....

But that day seemed very far off and dim.

       *       *       *       *       *

And in his studio Paul was working with a grim, dogged determination.
And every week he wrote cheerful letters to his mother, in one of which
he had just said that his marriage was postponed for a time; and he
never for a moment let her guess the trick fate had played him.

And so September passed, and it drew on towards the middle of October.




CHAPTER XXIX

SOME TWISTED THREADS


"Barnabas," said Miss Mason one day--it was the fourteenth of
October--"what's the matter with Paul?"

She was in Barnabas' studio when she put the question.

"Ah," said Barnabas, "you've seen it too."

"One must be blind not to see it," said Miss Mason. "I felt something
was wrong before I went away, and since I've been back I've been sure
of it."

For a moment Barnabas did not reply. "I know part," he said after a
minute, "and the rest I can guess. You know he has lost a good bit of
money?"

"Humpt!" said Miss Mason. "I didn't know. So that's the trouble."

"Partly," said Barnabas. "I think the other part is the Duchessa."

"You mean----?" said Miss Mason.

"Paul was in love with her," said Barnabas.

Miss Mason looked at him. Then she nodded her head two or three times.
She suddenly realized that the Duchessa, who used frequently to come
to the courtyard, had not been there during the last three weeks
of July, nor during this first fortnight in October. Of August and
September she had, of course, no record.

"I see," she said.

"I think," went on Barnabas, "that if this money loss had not
intervened they would have followed the example of Aurora and Alan."

"She cared for him then?" asked Miss Mason.

"I have never seen two people more in love with each other," said
Barnabas. "They evidently did not wish, at the moment, to make the fact
public. But seeing them together, as I occasionally did, one must have
been blind not to have realized it."

"Ah," said Miss Mason. "Then she is unhappy, too?"

"I have happened to meet her twice," said Barnabas. "She acts very
well. But the spring of life has gone."

"But she has money," said Miss Mason. "Surely----"

"If she marries again she loses every penny," said Barnabas. "I learned
that quite by chance one day from Charlton."

Miss Mason made a curious sound with her tongue. It can only be
described as clucking.

"The world," she said, "can be curiously contrary at times. I'm very
glad I asked you."

Then she went back to her studio and sat down for a long time in her
big arm-chair to think.

And the Three Fates watched her. For when Miss Mason sat in her chair
with just that particular expression on her face, it meant that she was
not over-pleased with their weaving, and that she wished to unravel
and re-weave their latest pattern to a fashion more according to their
mind. And the Three Fates looked at each other, and they nodded their
three old heads, and waited with amusement in their eyes to see what
she would do. As a matter of fact they had made this particular bit of
muddle in their weaving on purpose that she might have the pleasure of
putting it straight.

But it was a bit of straightening about which Miss Mason felt a trifle
nervous. Her fingers itched to be at the threads, unravelling and
untwisting the knots, yet somehow she felt a little frightened to begin.

It was quite three hours before she made up her mind. Then she suddenly
crossed to her writing-table and wrote a letter to Mr. Davis who had
rooms in Gray's Inn. In the letter she stated that she wished to
see him at eleven o'clock precisely the following morning on urgent
business.

And as she folded and sealed the letter the Three Fates laughed. For
Miss Mason had put her fingers on the first knot.

       *       *       *       *       *

"It is," said Mr. Davis, "a most unusual proceeding."

It was twelve o'clock on the following morning. He had been talking to
Miss Mason for an hour, or rather she had been talking, and it was the
third time that he had made the above statement.

"All the same," said Miss Mason firmly, "it is my wish. And I
understand that I have absolute control over my capital."

"Absolute," said Mr. Davis regretfully, looking at her with a kind of
mild protest through his spectacles.

"Very well, then," she went on, "have the deeds, or whatever you call
them, drawn up immediately. I will come down to your office the day
after to-morrow to sign them. I shall bring them away with me, and
post them to you the moment I wish the matter put in full train. Is
everything perfectly clear?"

"Perfectly," said Mr. Davis. "Of course, if there had been trustees----"

"But there aren't, thank goodness," said Miss Mason. "Remember, ten
o'clock Friday morning I'll be with you."

Mr. Davis found himself dismissed; and he left the studio wondering how
a woman who eighteen months ago did not know how to fill up a cheque
should suddenly have become so remarkably decided regarding business
matters, and utterly refuse to listen to common-sense statements on his
part.

As soon as he had gone Miss Mason wrote to Sara.

 "My dear Duchessa," she wrote, "will you do an old woman a favour and
 come to tea with her on Friday next at four o'clock. I want to see you
 on a particular matter. If you are engaged on Friday will you very
 kindly appoint some other hour on which you can come to see me.

                    "Yours very sincerely,
                                   "OLIVE MASON."

She sent the note by Sally, telling her to wait for an answer. In half
an hour Sally returned with it. Miss Mason opened it with fingers a
little shaky from anxiety. She read it slowly.

 "My dear Aunt Olive.--Thank you for your letter. I will be with you on
 Friday next at four o'clock. My love to you and Pippa. I hope you both
 enjoyed your holiday in Devonshire.

                    "Very sincerely yours,
                             "SARA DI CORLEONE."

It had cost Sara something to write that letter. It would bring back
memories of joy and pain for her again to enter the courtyard.




CHAPTER XXX

KNOTS UNTIED


On Friday afternoon at half-past two Barnabas took Pippa to feed the
monkeys and other animals at the Zoological Gardens. It was by Miss
Mason's special request.

During the time that elapsed between their departure and four o'clock
Miss Mason was distinctly restless. She began to sew at some fine
white cambric into which she was putting her most beautiful stitches.
When she had returned from Hope, Bridget had told her of a Secret that
was to arrive in the spring--a secret which if it was a boy was to be
called Oliver, but Bridget hoped it would be Olive. She and Jasper were
beamingly happy.

Miss Mason put in a few stitches, but she found it impossible to sit
still. She dropped the work into a basket, got up from her chair, and
began to walk up and down the room. Then she would suddenly sit down
and begin to sew again.

"I'm an old fool," she said. "I can no more help interfering than I
can help breathing, and yet I'm as nervous as a cat." And she began to
watch the clock anxiously.

It had just chimed the hour in its silvery tone when Sally opened the
door.

"The Duchessa di Corleone," she said. She had learnt the name by now.

Sara came into the room. She was in a dark blue dress, and because the
day was keen, though bright, she was wrapped in dark sable furs.

"My dear," said Miss Mason, "I am quite delighted to see you. Sally,
bring tea."

Sara sat down and loosened her furs. Miss Mason looked at her. Her
face was paler than even its usual worry warranted. It had lost the
under-glow of warmth, and her eyes looked dark and sad.

"Did you have a good time in Devonshire?" she asked.

"Delightful," said Miss Mason. "A few people grinned fatuously when
they saw my old figure skipping over the rocks. But I said to myself,
'The Duchessa wouldn't see anything to laugh at,' and so I didn't care."

Sara smiled. "You still remember our conversation long ago?"

"I've never forgotten it," said Miss Mason emphatically. "I fancy if I
had not seen you that evening I should have given up all my dreams and
have gone back to the old house for the rest of my life. And what a lot
I should have missed if I had."

"And what a lot a great many people would have missed," said Sara.
"You've woven yourself into a good many lives. Why, dozens of babies
would have been minus white woolly jackets, while several bigger babies
would have lost a good deal of happiness."

"Nice of you to say so," said Miss Mason. And she began to pour out tea.

For the next twenty minutes they talked of little things--the visit to
Devonshire, the donkey-tour, the flat Aurora and Alan had taken, and
Pippa at present feeding the animals at the Zoo. Sara talked lightly
and even gaily. As Barnabas had said, she was a good actress. It was
not till the meal was finished, then Miss Mason spoke on the subject of
her heart.

"My dear," she then said suddenly, "what is the matter?"

Sara flushed. "I can't talk about it," she said. She made no attempt at
denial.

"I don't really want you to tell me," said Miss Mason, "because I know.
But I think I can find a way out of the difficulty."

Sara gave a little sad laugh. "If you can you are clever. I've thought
and thought, and can see none."

Miss Mason coughed. "It's all perfectly simple, really," she said,
"only I don't quite know how to begin to tell you. It seems to me that
money is the most difficult thing in the world to talk about." She took
two envelopes from the table. "Will you, my dear, read the contents of
those. It seems to me the simplest way."

Sara took the envelopes--long ones--and drew out the parchment
contents. She read slowly. At first she could hardly grasp their
meaning, it had been so unexpectedly presented to her.

At last she looked up. Her face was quivering.

"But--but--I simply couldn't----"

"But, my dear, why not?" said Miss Mason. "Will you look at the whole
thing reasonably. If I chose to bequeath certain sums of money to you
and Paul at my death I presume you would not feel it incumbent on you
to refuse them. Why shouldn't you accept them now?"

"But----" began Sara again. And she stopped, looking from the documents
she held to Miss Mason.

"I know," said Miss Mason, "that people often feel a kind of pride
about accepting money, though why on earth they should calmly take it
from dead people and refuse to accept it from living ones, I can't
imagine. Of course their argument might be that dead people can't use
it themselves. That would be true. But then this special living person
can't use all hers. Let me just put things clearly to you. I have a
capital that brings me in fifteen thousand a year. Five thousand a year
I am devoting to a certain scheme in which Barnabas is helping me. I
wish to make over sufficient capital to you and Paul to bring you in
two thousand five hundred a year each. That will leave me with five
thousand a year for my own use. My dear, I don't even spend that."

"But charities----" began Sara vaguely.

"Pooh!" said Miss Mason. "I'm sick of them. If you'd written as many
charitable letters as I have you'd have had enough of charities. I
wrote hundreds for Miss Stanhope. She always filled in the amount she
gave herself. I never knew what it was. But I can give to all the
charities I want out of five thousand. Now, my dear, will you agree.
Will you give me the pleasure of your acceptance and allow me a few
more years on this extremely pleasant planet in which I can see your
happiness, instead of waiting till I'm dead and coming then to drop a
few grateful tears and white flowers on my grave. I'd infinitely prefer
the former I assure you."

Sara gave a little half-laughing sob. "I accept with all my heart," she
said, "and I don't know how ever I am to thank you."

Miss Mason grunted. "Now there's another thing," she said, "please
don't try. Do think if you can that the money just happened into the
bank without any human agency. If you're going to keep an eternal
feeling of gratitude before your mind it will spoil everything. I want
to be able to quarrel with you and Paul and scold you as much as I
like, and if I felt that gratitude was preventing you from answering
me back it would destroy my whole pleasure in the proceeding. Besides,
my dear, if there is any debt owing it is I who owe it. I've never
forgotten the hope you gave me the first evening we met."

Sara stretched out her hands with a little laugh of pure happiness. It
was the first time she had laughed like that for three months.

"And I tried to sermonize a little," she cried. "And then we got
on to fairy tales, and I was happier. Oh, isn't life a fairy tale!
And if we told all the dull, prosaic people of the truly delightful
and unexpected things that happen wouldn't they say that it was all
made-up, and far-fetched, and things like that. When it is just that
they are too stupid to see the happenings, and too heavy and dull to
look over the wall in which they have enclosed themselves. I can't tell
you how happy I am. And will you think me a pig if I run away for a
little while and tell Paul?"

She got up from her chair, radiant, vital, as she had been on the day
she had first entered the studio.

"My dear," said Miss Mason, "if you hadn't said you were going I should
have sent you."

Sara held out both her hands. "It seems," she said, "as if I were
taking it too quietly, and as if I ought to have protested more. But
after everything you said I really couldn't. It was all so absolutely
true. And we'd both so much rather have you here seeing our happiness
in your wonderful legacy, than that we should go to a grave to thank
you, and lay that white flower tenderly on the grass."

Miss Mason gave a gruff laugh. "You can't conceive," she said, "what
pleasure you've given me." Then quite suddenly she took Sara in her
arms and kissed her.

"Now, my dear," she said as she released her, "do, for goodness' sake,
go and make that poor Paul happy."




CHAPTER XXXI

THE TUNE OF LOVE


Paul had gone on bravely with his life. He knew that when Sara had gone
out of his studio into the summer night she had taken something away
with her, the something that was the best part of himself. But with
what remained to him he had set himself to face the lonely months ahead
of him. Each morning as he woke he told himself that he would work for
her. It was the only thing that made work possible to him.

His joy in art had been sufficient for him until he met her. Her coming
had increased it ten-thousandfold, as it had increased his whole joy in
life and in beauty, giving it a meaning he had never before realized.
And when she went she had taken it away, leaving him with nothing but
the husk.

In spite of his courage, loneliness at times seemed as if it must
overwhelm him, for now it was unlike his former loneliness. Before, he
had not known what it was to have the perfect companionship of a woman.
Now he had known it and lost it. And the years before him stretched
very grey. He tried to see a gleam of gold in the future, but it was
too far off for him to perceive it by sight; he could only tell himself
in faith that one day it would dawn through the greyness. But however
strong the spirit may be to have faith, the flesh after all is human
and weak, and his loneliness pressed hard upon him. During the last
weeks, too, he had had only one commission--an uninteresting one,
which he had nevertheless accepted. He would now, as he had said, have
painted anyone however commonplace. But the work had not taken him in
any degree out of himself.

On the afternoon of the fourteenth of October he was sitting alone in
his studio. It had been a bad day for him--one of the days that come to
all artists when hand and brain alike refuse to work, when inspiration
is lacking, and it seems as if her light had departed for ever.

He looked round the room. There was rather a neglected appearance about
it. He had given up his man as an extravagance he could not possibly
afford, and he was on the look-out for a tenant for his studio, meaning
to move into something much smaller. Yet, in spite of the neglected
look of the studio, Paul himself was as well groomed as ever. Personal
cleanliness was an ingrained characteristic of him. It belonged to him
as much as it belonged to the French aristocrats who manicured their
nails while waiting in the Bastille for the tumbrils that would take
them to the scaffold and the embrace of the guillotine.

After a time he got up from his chair, and taking the kettle from the
stove, he made some tea. As he did so he thought of the many times Sara
had had tea with him since the day in Battersea Park.

Everything he did or thought reminded him of her. The tiniest and most
trivial details recalled her--even a thing as insignificant as the
crack in the table. He remembered seeing her run her finger along it
one day when she had been sitting in the chair opposite to him, which
chair was now empty. The tea-cups reminded him. He had bought them
specially for her. Before that he had only possessed two cracked ones
and a tumbler. Even one of the cracked ones was precious, because from
it she had drunk a cup of coffee the day Pippa had lunched with him and
he had decided to re-paint her dress.

"My God!" said Paul to himself, "joy was so near me, and now I must
pass, at the best, years of my life alone."

He looked across at the vases on the bookshelf. They had never held
flowers since the day thirteen weeks ago when they had been full of
crimson roses. They and the blue vase on the mantelpiece, to the colour
of which Pippa had likened Sara, were covered with dust. Paul felt
suddenly as if, in spite of his efforts, dust were settling on his
heart.

And then all at once he heard a slight sound. It was a woman's step in
the courtyard. Paul caught hold of the arm of his chair and gripped it
hard. His face had gone quite white.

The door opened.

"Paul," said a voice.

The next moment she was in his arms and he was sobbing like a child.

"Don't, dear heart, don't," said Sara, her voice shaking.

He put her in a chair and sat down by the table.

"You shouldn't have come," he said brokenly.

She went over to him and knelt beside him.

"But, dearest, listen," she said, taking both his hands, "I have come
to tell you of joy."

Paul stared at her half bewildered. "What do you mean?" he said.

"Listen," she said. "It's all so wonderful I can hardly believe it
myself. But it's all true--true--true!"

"Tell me, quickly," said Paul, putting his arms round her.

And as many weeks ago he had had to tell her bad news, so she now told
him news of joy. She told him everything, all Miss Mason's quaint
and excellent reasons for their acceptance of this happiness with no
thought of false pride to intervene.

"You will accept, Paul?" said Sara, as she finished.

Again the man's eyes were full of tears. "Beloved, I must. My love for
you would sweep away all pride. But I think with a gift offered in that
way one need have none. My God, it's wonderful!"

And so she still knelt beside him, and he held her in a kind of dumb
ecstasy, as if he feared to move and find it was only a dream. And the
music of the Heart which had long held such a throb of pain now rose
loud and glorious, filling the whole studio.

"Beloved," said Paul at last, "let us go together and find Aunt Olive."

So they went out into the purple dusk, in which a light wind was
scattering the last few golden leaves from the trees, letting them
float gently to the courtyard.

And the little faun saw them coming, and the tune he played to welcome
them was the sweetest, purest Tune of Love.




CHAPTER XXXII

A WEDDING DAY


And so the knots the Fates had twisted were unravelled, and the threads
re-woven into the beautiful pattern of joy and gladness, love and
friendship.

One day Paul took Sara down to Hampshire to see his mother, a
white-haired old lady with a wrinkled face and a peaceful mouth, and
eyes like Paul's. She took Sara at once to her heart.

"Dearie," she said, "my boy has had a lonely life, and I thank God he
has found a woman like you to fill it."

And Sara in her turn loved the old lady, not only for Paul's sake,
but for her own. And she loved the little cottage where she lived,
and she loved the old-fashioned garden with its box-edged paths,
and flower-beds in which a few late autumn flowers still lingered.
The rooms in the cottage were small, but all as dainty and clean as
porcelain, and fragrant with the scent of lavender and potpourri. She
showed Sara the bedrooms with their old chintz curtains before the
casement windows, and the frilly dressing-tables, and white-valanced
beds. They had each the effect of a Dresden china Shepherdess--the
tiniest bit stiff, but extraordinarily dainty. She showed her her store
cupboard with its pots of jam, marmalade, and pickles, and she promised
her a recipe for curing hams and another for making oat cake.

And Sara told her how to make spaghetti, and told her it was the first
dish she had ever cooked for Paul. And in the evening when they went
away she took with her a great bunch of Michaelmas daisies. And Mrs.
Treherne kissed her and blessed her, for she knew that the next day she
was to be Paul's wife.

       *       *       *       *       *

The reception was to be held in Miss Mason's studio by special request
from Paul and Sara. Sara felt that already the house on the Embankment
was hers no longer.

There were to be few guests at the wedding--only the other artists of
the courtyard, Bridget, Christopher, Andrew, and the two executors of
Giuseppe's will, who would bring with them the important letter whose
secret would be at last disclosed. The journey and the fatigue of the
ceremony, however quiet, would have been too much for Mrs. Treherne.
Sara's own father and mother had been dead several years. Christopher
was to give away the bride, and Barnabas was to be best man.

And so the day dawned, a still, November day of soft mists and a pale
blue sky--a tender day full of peace and happiness.

Christopher went to the house on the Embankment to fetch Sara. She was
waiting in the drawing-room for him, in a sapphire-blue dress, a large
black hat, and her soft sable furs.

"Ready?" said Christopher, smiling. And they went down the stairs
together.

Pietro was in the hall. His face was radiant with pleasure. Paul and
Sara had arranged to keep him in their service.

"Good-bye," said Sara. "We'll let you know when we return to London.
You will of course hand over the keys of the house to the executors
when they ask for them."

"Yes, Your Grace. Good fortune and happiness to your Grace."

"Thank you, Pietro," said Sara. And then she passed through the door
he held open for her, and went down the steps to the taxi, Christopher
following.

"Christopher," said Sara a moment or two after they had started,
"you've been a very good friend to me, and I'd like to thank you."

"No occasion to do so," said Christopher imperturbably. "The friendship
has been mutual, and I hope will still continue."

"Of course," said Sara. "That was one thing I wanted to say to you. My
love for Paul doesn't make the least difference in my friendship for
you. You will be exactly the same to me, as I shall be, I hope, to
you."

"Agreed," said Christopher, holding out his hand with a smile. But he
knew that it never would be quite the same again. Her marriage with
Guiseppe had made no difference, her marriage with Paul would. And with
the knowledge Christopher had suddenly realized what he was losing.
He was like a man who had had a jewel in a box, looking at it always
in one position, and it was not till he took it in his hand to give
it to another that it suddenly flashed upon him in a new light, and
he saw colours and depths in it hitherto unperceived, and a longing
to keep it took possession of him. But the deed was already virtually
signed and witnessed, the power to keep it lost, and so he hid what
he was feeling, and his manner towards her held nothing but his old
courtliness, his old friendship. The pain the new knowledge had brought
him must be his alone.

And as the taxi stopped at the door of the church he helped Sara to
alight, and gave her his arm to lead her up the steps, and up the aisle
to the other man who was waiting for her.




CHAPTER XXXIII

A GIFT FROM THE DEAD


Signor Bernardo Cignolesi took his watch from his pocket and looked at
Signor Manfredi Guido.

"It is, I think, the exact hour," he said.

They were small and dapper Italians, these two, who had been appointed
by the late Duca di Corleone as the executors of his will and the
keepers of the letter.

The whole party was assembled in Miss Mason's studio. The wedding was
over. Paul and Sara had plighted their troth. The blessing upon them
had been pronounced. And when the last words of it had died away the
church had been suddenly filled with music, the notes of a violin
joyous and sweet, a wedding song for the two, a song that had never
before been played.

It was Michael's tribute to them both. The organist alone had been
taken into the secret, and the man, who was a very true musician,
listened to the song with his eyes full of tears.

"It is Michael," Sara had whispered. And no one had moved till the
music had ceased.

But now they were all in the studio, eating wedding cake and drinking
champagne, which Pippa had never tasted before and which made her gasp.
She was wearing a little pendant Paul had given her. It was gold and
shaped like a tulip, and it held in its chalice a blue sapphire.

And it was exactly an hour from the time the blessing had been
pronounced that Signor Bernardo Cignolesi said to Signor Manfredi Guido:

"I think it is the exact hour."

And Signor Manfredi Guido took a sealed envelope from his pocket,
and holding it in his hand the two crossed together to Sara, who was
standing by Paul, her radiance and magnetism filling the whole place.

"Allow us," said Signor Guido, speaking for himself and his
co-executor, "to give into your possession the letter addressed to
you by the late Duca di Corleone. And now permit me to kiss your hand
and wish you all happiness, thanking you at the same time for your
hospitality." He raised her hand to his lips, and Signor Cignolesi
followed his example. Then bowing and smiling the two dapper little men
returned to their glasses of champagne.

Sara broke the seal of the envelope and drew out the paper it
contained. It was a letter in the late Duca's handwriting, and
addressed to herself.

She crossed slowly to Miss Mason's large oak chair and sat down while
she read it.

  "My dear," the letter began, "if ever you read this letter it will
  be on the day that you have given yourself into the keeping of the
  man you love. Therefore, will you permit me, from the regions of the
  peaceful dead, to offer to you my felicitations?

  "It is possible that since my death there have been moments when you
  have thought of me, if not with anger, at least with vexation. I knew
  I ran the risk of incurring this sentiment on your part when I drew up
  my will.

  "May I now give you my reasons and my excuse for my action? I will be
  as brief as possible:

  "When you married me, my dear, you were able to bring me a certain
  quiet affection, a very true courtliness, and an entire faithfulness.
  Love had not entered your life. You did not, then, know its meaning. I
  was not the man to teach you. I knew it, and yet I was selfish enough
  to take you. My excuse is simply that I loved you. You gave me what
  you had then to give, and it made me happy. If I longed for more I
  knew it was not withheld, but simply, at the time, non-existent.

  "I realized, however, what one day you would have it in your power to
  give. And knowing that, I determined that the best should come to you
  and be asked of you. Hence my will. Total surrender of all worldly
  possessions for love. Love seeking you for your sake alone. My dear,
  was I wrong? I may have been. I leave it now for you to judge me. I
  wanted you, because I loved you, to have the gift of love in your
  life.

  "And now that you have it I, from the quiet regions to which I shall
  have attained, send my offering to you and the man of your choice.
  Signor Cignolesi will give you another packet. In it you will find a
  deed leaving you the whole and sole possessor of the Casa di Corleone
  on the banks of Lake Como.

  "You loved it, and I loved to see you there. If the spirits of the
  departed are allowed to return to earth, mine will come there to see
  you in your happiness. And remember, my dear, that in it I shall
  rejoice, for I believe that the only thing that could mar the peace to
  which, please God, I shall attain, would be your sorrow.

  "Therefore, my dear, live joyously in the Casa di Corleone. And when
  on sunny days you sit in the shadow of the orange trees, and your
  children come running to you across the courtyard, God grant that my
  spirit may be there to see it.

  "And may His Blessing be upon you; and the Blessed Virgin and all the
  Saints have you in their keeping,

                    "GIUSEPPE DI CORLEONE."

Sara looked up. Her eyes were misty. She signed to Paul to come to her.

"Read it," she said. "Giuseppe was a generous man, and a very true
courtier."

And when Paul had read it he kissed Sara's hand. Then he came back to
the table and every one saw that he had something to say.

"My wife," he said simply, "has just received a gift from one who we
know is at peace. It is the gift of a home she loves--the Casa di
Corleone. And the offering comes from the Duca di Corleone."

He bowed his head gravely, as did all the other occupants of the
studio, while Sara, Pippa, Barnabas, and the two dapper little
Italians, made the sign of the cross. And so they all for a moment paid
tribute to the memory of a true and generous man.

       *       *       *       *       *

Then, of course, came a babel of congratulations, and Paul was called
upon for a speech.

"Speeches," said Paul smiling, "are not very much in my line. My wife
and I thank you all very much for being here to-day, and we know
that throughout our lives we can count on the true friendship of all
present. There is one toast, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to
propose. It is to one who has been, and is, the best friend of many of
us. Ladies and gentlemen let us drink to Aunt Olive in Bohemia."

And everybody got to their feet, and there was a good deal of applause,
and a good deal of laughter, but the eyes of some of them were a
little dim, as were the eyes of the old lady who sat there smiling,
and thanking God in her heart for His wonderful gifts of Love and
Happiness.




CHAPTER XXXIV

THE MUSIC OF TWO COURTYARDS


And so it was that Paul and Sara did not spend their honeymoon in Paris
as they had at first intended, but travelled direct through without
stopping to the Casa di Corleone on the banks of Lake Como.

It was in the purple and crimson of a sunset that Paul first saw the
courtyard, and the golden oranges among their dark green leaves, and
the marble fauns and nymphs, and heard the plashing of the fountain.
The crimson light from the sky was touching the white marble of the
figures, transforming them momentarily to the warm flush of life. Sara
and Paul passed between them and up the steps of the old house into
the great hall where the smiling Italian servants were ready to greet
them, and where from the gallery above the haughty ladies of the house
of Corleone looked down upon the two, and where from among them the
portrait of the now true owner of the place glowed like a great blue
sapphire.

And a couple of hours later they came into the dining-room, where
shaded lamps filled the place with a soft mellow light, and shed their
glow on the white damask cloth, on the shining glass and silver, on
decanters of red wine, and on dishes of golden oranges. Soft-footed
low-voiced servants waited on them. It was a magic scene, over which
the gods of Love and Joy reigned supreme.

And later still, the moon rose in the night sky, bathing the lake in
silver, touching the marble statues to unearthly whiteness, and finding
its way through a great window where two figures stood together looking
at its light upon the sleeping lake. Behind them the room was full of
flickering lights and shadows from a fire of fir-cones burning on the
hearth.

And at last Sara turned from the strange beauty of the scene, and saw
Paul's eyes upon her.

"Are you--content?" she asked.

"Beloved of my heart," he said, and his arms closed round her.

And so the Music of the Heart again filled the room, playing in
glorious and most perfect harmony for the two whom the Gods had blessed.

       *       *       *       *       *

And far away in England, in a studio in another courtyard, Aunt Olive
was putting a question to Barnabas, while Pippa was lying asleep in the
inner room.

"Now that Paul and Sara will have reached the Casa di Corleone," she
said, "and Alan and Aurora are cooing together, and Jasper and Bridget
have found happiness, I wonder what is going to become of you and Dan
and Michael."

"You want to wind us up tidily, too," said Barnabas, smiling.

"I was just wondering," she said.

"Well," said Barnabas, "Michael has his music and his drawing, and, at
last, an ideal which will be his throughout his life. Dan will always
be what he is now--big, silent, making harmless love to all women (he
has been flirting disgracefully with Bridget, and Jasper has been
quite refreshingly jealous), and always he will be a staunch friend of
those who need him. And I, for the next few years, will turn my whole
attention to your candidates for the School of a Wonderful Chance, and
later----" he stopped.

"And later?" asked Aunt Olive.

"And later," said Barnabas, "I hope to ask you for Pippa."

And through the half-open window the little faun heard the words. And
under the stars he piped a tune of the fairy tale of life, a tune of
love and laughter, whose notes reached the soul of the sculptor who had
fashioned him, and hearing the music he was glad.




      *      *      *      *      *      *




Transcriber's note:

Minor changes have been made to correct typesetter errors and to
regularize hyphenation; variant spellings have been retained.

*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 63045 ***