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Title: The Price of Things

Author: Elinor Glyn

Posting Date: December 7, 2011 [EBook #9809]
Release Date: February, 2006
First Posted: October 19, 2003

Language: English

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                          THE PRICE OF THINGS

                             BY ELINOR GLYN

                                  1919




FOREWORD

I wrote this book in Paris in the winter of 1917-18--in the midst of
bombs, and raids, and death. Everyone was keyed up to a strange pitch,
and only primitive instincts seemed to stand out distinctly.

Life appeared brutal, and our very fashion of speaking, the words we
used, the way we looked at things, was more realistic--coarser--than in
times of peace, when civilization can re-assert itself again. This is why
the story shocks some readers. I quite understand that it might do so;
but I deem it the duty of writers to make a faithful picture of each
phase of the era they are living in, that posterity may be correctly
informed about things, and get the atmosphere of epochs.

The story is, so to speak, rough hewn. But it shows the danger of
breaking laws, and interfering with fate--whether the laws be of God
or of Man.

It is also a psychological study of the instincts of two women, which the
strenuous times brought to the surface. "Amaryllis," with all her
breeding and gentleness, reacting to nature's call in her fierce fidelity
to the father of her child--and "Harietta," becoming in herself the
epitome of the age-old prostitute.

I advise those who are rebuffed by plain words, and a ruthless analysis
of the result of actions, not to read a single page.

[Signature: Elinor Glyn]




THE PRICE OF THINGS




CHAPTER I


"If one consciously and deliberately desires happiness on this plane,"
said the Russian, "one must have sufficient strength of will to banish
all thought. The moment that one begins to probe the meaning of things,
one has opened Pandora's box and it may be many lives before one
discovers hope lying at the bottom of it."

"What do you mean by thought? How can one not think?" Amaryllis Ardayre's
large grey eyes opened in a puzzled way. She was on her honeymoon in
Paris at a party at the Russian Embassy, and until now had accepted
things and not speculated about them. She had lived in the country and
was as good as gold.

She was accepting her honeymoon with her accustomed calm, although it was
not causing her any of the thrills which Elsie Goldmore, her school
friend, had assured her she should discover therein.

Honeymoons! Heavens! But perhaps it was because Sir John was dull. He
looked dull, she thought, as he stood there talking to the Ambassador. A
fine figure of an Englishman but--yes--dull. The Russian, on the
contrary, was not dull. He was huge and ugly and rough-hewn--his eyes
were yellowish-green and slanted upwards and his face was frankly
Calmuck. But you knew that you were talking to a personality--to one who
had probably a number of unknown possibilities about him tucked away
somewhere.

John had none of these. One could be certain of exactly what he would do
on any given occasion--and it would always be his duty. The Russian was
observing this charming English bride critically; she was such a perfect
specimen of that estimable race--well-shaped, refined and healthy. Chock
full of temperament too, he reflected--when she should discover herself.
Temperament and romance and even passion, and there were shrewdness and
commonsense as well.

"An agreeable task for a man to undertake her education," and he wished
that he had time.

Amaryllis Ardayre asked again:

"How can one not think? I am always thinking."

He smiled indulgently.

"Oh! no, you are not--you only imagine that you are. You have questioned
nothing--you do right generally because you have a nice character and
have been well brought up, not from any conscious determination to uplift
the soul. Yes--is it not so?"

She was startled.

"Perhaps."

"Do you ever ask yourself what things mean? What we are--where we are
going? What is the end of it all? No--you are happy; you live from day
to day--and yet you cannot be a very young ego, your eyes are too
wise--you have had many incarnations. It is merely that in this one life
the note of awakening has not yet been struck. You certainly must have
needed sleep."

"Many lives? You believe in that theory?"

She was not accustomed to discuss unorthodox subjects. She was
interested.

"But of course--how else could there be justice? We draw the reflex of
every evil action and of every good one, but sometimes not until the next
incarnation, that is why the heedless ones cannot grasp the truth--they
see no visible result of either good or evil--evil, in fact, seems
generally to win if there is a balance either way."

"Why are we not allowed memory then, so that we might profit by
our lessons?"

"We should in that case improve from self-interest and not have our
faults eliminated by suffering. We are given no conscious memory of
our last life, so we go on fighting for whatever desire still holds
us until its achievement brings such overwhelming pain that the
desire is no more."

"Why do you say that for happiness we must banish thought--that seems
a paradox."

She was a little disturbed.

"I said if one _consciously_ and deliberately desired happiness, one must
banish thought to bring oneself back to the condition of hundreds of
people who are happy; many of them are even elementals without souls at
all. They are permitted happiness so that they may become so attached to
the earth plane that they willingly return and gradually obtain a soul.
But no one who is allowed to think is allowed any continued happiness;
there would be no progress. If so, we should remain as brutes."

"Then how cruel of you to suggest to me to think. I want to be
happy--perhaps I do not want to obtain a soul."

"That was born long ago--my words may have awakened it once more, but the
sleep was not deep."

Amaryllis Ardayre looked at the crowds passing and re-passing in those
stately rooms.

"Tell me, who is that woman over there?" she asked. "The very pretty one
with the fair hair in jade green--she looks radiantly happy."

"And is--she is frankly an animal--exquisitely preserved, damnably
selfish, completely devoid of intellect, sugar manners, the senses of a
harem houri--and the tenacity of a rat."

"You are severe."

"Not at all. Harietta Boleski is a product of that most astonishing
nation across the Atlantic--none other could produce her. It is the
hothouse of the world as regards remarkable types. Here for immediate
ancestry we have a mother, from heaven knows what European refuse heap,
arrived in an immigrant ship--father of the 'pore white trash' of the
south--result: Harietta, fine points, beautiful, quite a lady for
ordinary purposes. The absence of soul is strikingly apparent to any
ordinary observer, but one only discovers the vulgarity of spirit if one
is a student of evolution--or chances to catch her when irritated with
her modiste or her maid. Other nations cannot produce such beings. Women
with the attributes of Harietta, were they European, would have surface
vulgarity showing--and so be out of the running, or they would have real
passion which would be their undoing--passion is glorious--it is aroused
by something beyond the physical. Observe her nostril! There is simple,
delightful animal sensuality for you! Look also at the convex curve below
the underlip--she will bite off the cherry whether it is hers by right or
another's, and devour it without a backward thought."

"Boleski--that is a Russian name, is it not?"

"No, Polish--she secured our Stanislass, a great man in his
country--last year in Berlin, having divorced a no longer required,
but worthy German husband who had held some post in the American
Consulate there."

"Is that old man standing obediently beside her your Stanislass?--he
looks quite cowed."

"A sad sight, is it not? Stanislass, though, is not old, barely forty. He
had a _beguin_ for her. She put his intelligence to sleep and bamboozled
his judgment with a continuous appeal to the senses; she has vampired him
now. Cloying all his will with her sugared caprices, she makes him scenes
and so keeps him in subjection. He was one of the Council de l'Empire for
Poland; the aims of his country were his earnest work, but now ambition
is no more. He is tired, he has ceased to struggle; she rules and eats
his soul as she has eaten the souls of others. Shall I present her to
you? As a type, she is worthy of your attention."

"It sounds as if she had the evil eye, as the Italians say," Amaryllis
shuddered.

"Only for men. She is really an amiable creature--women like her. She
is so frankly simple, since for her there are never two issues--only to
be allowed her own desires--a riot of extravagance, the first
place--and some one to gratify certain instincts without too many
refinements when the mood takes her. For the rest, she is kind and
good-natured and 'jolly,' as you English say, and has no notion that
she is a road to hell. But they are mostly dead, her other spider
mates, and cannot tell of it."

"I am much interested. I should like to talk to her. You say that she
is happy?"

"Obviously--she is an elemental--she never thinks at all, except to plan
some further benefit for herself. I do not believe in this life that she
can obtain a soul--her only force is her tenacious will."

"Such force is good, though?"

"Certainly. Even bad force is better than negative Good. One must first
be strong before one can be serene."

"You are strong."

"Yes, but not good. Hardly a fit companion for sweet little English
brides with excellent husbands awaiting them."

"I shall judge of that."

"_Tiens!_ So emancipated!"

"If you are bad, how does your theory work that we pay for each action?
Since by that you must know that it cannot be worth while to be bad."

"It is not--I am aware of it, but when I am bad I am bad deliberately,
knowing that I must pay."

"That seems stupid of you."

He shrugged his shoulders.

"I take very severe exercise when I begin to think of things I should not
and I become savage when I require happiness--now is our chance for
making you acquainted with Harietta, she is moving our way."

Madame Boleski swept towards them on the arm of an Austrian Prince and
the Russian Verisschenzko said, with suave politeness:

"Madame, let me present you to Lady Ardayre. With me she has been
admiring you from afar."

The two women bowed, and with cheery, disarming simplicity, the American
made some gracious remarks in a voice which sounded as if she smoked too
much; it was not disagreeable in tone, nor had she a pronounced
American accent.

Amaryllis Ardayre found herself interested. She admired the superb
attention to detail shown in Madame Boleski's whole person. Her face was
touched up with the lightest art, not overdone in any way. Her hair, of
that very light tone bordering on gold, which sometimes goes with hazel
eyes, was quite natural and wonderfully done. Her dress was
perfection--so were her jewels. One saw that her corsetiere was an
artist, and that everything had cost a great deal of money. She had taken
off one glove and Amaryllis saw her bare hand--it was well-shaped, save
that the thumb turned back in a remarkable degree.

"So delighted to meet you," Madame Boleski said. "We are going over to
London next month and I am just crazy to know more of you delicious
English people."

They chatted for a few moments and then Madame Boleski swept onwards. She
was quite stately and graceful and had a well-poised head. Amaryllis
turned to the Russian and was startled by the expression of fierce,
sardonic amusement in his yellow-green eyes.

"But surely, she can see that you are laughing at her?" she exclaimed,
astonished.

"It would convey nothing to her if she did."

"But you looked positively wicked."

"Possibly--I feel it sometimes when I think of Stanislass; he was a very
good friend of mine."

Sir John Ardayre joined them at this moment and the three walked towards
the supper room and the Russian said good-night.

"It is not good-bye, Madame. I, too, shall be in your country soon and I
also hope that I may see you again before you leave Paris."

They arranged a dinner for the following night but one, and said
au revoir.

An hour later the Russian was seated in a huge English leather chair in
the little salon of his apartment in the rue Cambon, when Madame Boleski
very softly entered the room and sat down upon his knee.

"I had to come, darling Brute," she said. "I was jealous of the English
girl," and she fitted her delicately painted lips to his. "Stanislass
wanted to talk over his new scheme for Poland, too, and as you know that
always gets on my nerves."

But Verisschenzko threw his head back impatiently, while he
answered roughly.

"I am not in the mood for your chastisement to-night. Go back as you
came, I am thinking of something real, something which makes your
body of no use to me--it wearies me and I do not even desire your
presence. Begone!"

Then he kissed her neck insolently and pushed her off his knee.

She pouted resentfully. But suddenly her eyes caught a small case lying
on a table near--and an eager gleam came into their hazel depths.

"Oh, Stepan! Is it the ruby thing! Oh! You beloved angel, you are going
to give it to me after all! Oh! I'll rush off at once and leave you, if
you wish it! Good-night!"

And when she was gone Verisschenzko threw some incense into a silver
burner and as the clouds of perfume rose into the air:

"Wough!" he said.




CHAPTER II


"What are you doing in Paris, Denzil?"

"I came over for a bit of racing. Awfully glad to see you. Can't we dine
together? I go back to-morrow." Verisschenzko put his arm through Denzil
Ardayre's and drew him in to the Cafe de Paris, at the door of which they
had chanced to meet.

"I had another guest, but she can be consoled with some of Midas' food,
and I want to talk to you; were you going to eat alone?"

"A fellow threw me over; I meant to have just a snack and go on to a
theatre. It is good running across you--I thought you were miles away!"

Verisschenzko spoke to the head waiter, and gave him directions as to the
disposal of the lovely lady who would presently arrive, and then he went
on to his table, rather at the top, in a fairly secluded corner.

The few people who were already dining--it was early on this May
night--looked at Denzil Ardayre--he was such a refreshing sight of health
and youth, so tall and fit and English, with his brown smooth head and
fearless blue eyes, gay and debonnaire. One could see that he played
cricket and polo, and any other game that came along, and that not a
muscle of his frame was out of condition. He had "soldier" written upon
him--young, gallant, cavalry soldier. Verisschenzko appreciated him;
nothing complete, human or inanimate, left him unconscious of its
meaning. They knew one another very well--they had been at Oxford and
later had shot bears together in the Russian's far-off home.

They talked for a while of casual things, and then Verisschenzko said:

"Some relations of yours are here--Sir John Ardayre and his particularly
attractive bride. Shall we eat what I had ordered for Collette, or have
you other fancies after the soup?"

Denzil paid only attention to the first part of the speech--he looked
surprised and interested.

"John Ardayre here! Of course, he married about ten days ago--he is the
head of the family as you are aware, but I hardly even know him by sight.
He is quite ten years older than I am and does not trouble about us, the
poor younger branch--" and he smiled, showing such good teeth. "Besides,
as you know, I have been for such a long time in India, and the leaves
were for sport, not for hunting up relations."

Verisschenzko did not press the matter of his guest's fancies in food,
and they continued the menu ordered for Collette without further delay.

"I want to hear all that you know about them, the girl is an exquisite
thing with immense possibilities. Sir John looks--dull."

"He is really a splendid character though," Denzil hastened to assure
him. "Do you know the family history? But no, of course not, we were too
busy in the old days enjoying life to trouble to talk of such things!
Well, it is rather strange in the last generation--things very nearly
came to an end and John has built it all up again. You are interested in
heredity?"

"Naturally--what is the story?"

"Our mutual great-grandfather was a tremendous personage in North
Somerset--the place Ardayre is there. My father was the son of the
younger son, who had just enough to do him decently at Eton, and enable
him to scrape along in the old regiment with a pony or two to play with.
My mother was a Willowbrook, as you know, and a considerable heiress,
that is how I come out all right, but until John's father, Sir James,
squandered things, the head of the family was always very rich and full
of land--and awfully set on the dignity of his race. They had turned the
cult of it into regular religion."

"The father of this man made a _gaspillage_, then--well?"

"Yes, he was a rotter--a hark-back to his mother's relations; she was a
Cranmote--they ruin any blood they mix with. I am glad that I come from
the generation before."

Denzil helped himself to a Russian salad, and went on leisurely. "He
fortunately married Lady Mary de la Paule--who was a saint, and so John
seems to have righted, and takes after her. She died quite early, she had
had enough of Sir James, I expect, he had gambled away everything he
could lay hands upon. Poor John was brought up with a tutor at home, for
some reason--hard luck on a man. He was only about thirteen when she died
and at seventeen went straight into the city. He was determined to make a
fortune, it has always been said, and redeem the mortgages on
Ardayre--very splendid of him, wasn't it?"

"Yes--well all this is not out of the ordinary line--what comes next?"

Denzil laughed--he was not a good raconteur.

"The poor lady was no sooner dead than the old boy married a Bulgarian
snake charmer, whom he had picked up in Constantinople! You may well
smile"--for Verisschenzko had raised his eyebrows in a whimsical
way--this did sound such a highly coloured incident!

"It was an unusual sort of thing to do, I admit, but the tale grows more
lurid still, when I tell you that five months after the wedding she
produced a son by the Lord knows who, one of her own tribe probably, and
old Sir James was so infatuated with her that he never protested, and
presently when he and John quarrelled like hell he pretended the little
brute was his own child--just to spite John."

Verisschenzko's Calmuck eyes narrowed.

"And does this result of the fusion of snake charmers figure in the
family history? I believe I have met him--his name is Ferdinand, is it
not, and he is, or was, in some business in Constantinople?"

"That is the creature--he was brought up at Ardayre as though he were the
heir, and poor John turned out of things. He came to Eton three years
before I left, but even there they could not turn him into the outside
semblance of a gentleman. I loathed the little toad, and he loathed
me--and the sickening part of the thing is that if John does not have a
son, by the English law of entail Ferdinand comes into Ardayre, and will
be the head of the family. Old Sir James died about five years ago,
always protesting this bastard was his own child, though every one knew
it was a lie. However, by that time John had made enough in the city to
redeem Ardayre twice over. He had tremendous luck after the South African
War, so he came into possession and lives there now in great state--I do
really hope that he will have a son."

"You, too, have the instinct of the family, then--this pride in
it--since it cannot benefit you either way."

"I believe it is born in us, and though I have never seen Ardayre, I
should hate this mongrel to have it. I was brought up with a tremendous
reverence for it, even as a second cousin."

"Well, the new Lady Ardayre looks young enough and of a health to have
ten sons!"

"Y-es," Denzil acquiesced in a tentative tone.

"Not so?" Verisschenzko glanced up surprised, and then gave his attention
to the waiter who had brought some Burgundy and was pouring it out into
his glass.

"Not so you would say?"

"I don't know, I have never seen her--but in the family it is whispered
that John--poor devil--he had an accident hunting two or three years
ago. However, it may not any of it be true--here, let us drink to the
Ardayre son!"

"To the Ardayre son!" and Verisschenzko filled his friend's glass with
the decanted wine and they both drank together.

"Your cousin is like you," he said presently. "A fatiguing likeness, but
the same height and make--and voice--strange things these family
reproductions of an exact type. I have no family, as you know--we are of
the people, arisen by trade to riches. Could I go beyond my immediate
parents, could I know cousins and uncles and brothers, should I find this
same peculiar stamp of family among us all? Who knows? I think not."

"I suppose there is something in it. My father has told me that in
the picture gallery at Ardayre they are as like as two pins the whole
way down."

"The concentration upon the idea causes it. In people risen like my
father and myself, we only resemble a group--a nation; if I have children
they will resemble me. It is strength in the beginning when an individual
rises beyond the group, which produces a type. One says 'English' to look
at you, and then, if one knows, one says 'Ardayre' at once; one gets as
far as 'Calmuck' with me, that is all, but in years to come it will have
developed into 'Verisschenzko.'"

"How you study things, Stepan; you are always putting new ideas into my
head whenever I see you. Life would be just a routine, for all the joy of
sport, if one did not think. I am going to finish my soldiering this
autumn and stand for Parliament. It seems waste of time now, with no wars
in prospect, sticking to it; I want a vaster field."

"You think there can be no wars in prospect--no? Well, who can prophesy?
There are clouds in the Southeast, but for the moment we will not
speculate about them--and they may affect my country and not yours. And
so you will settle down and become a reputable member of Parliament?"
Then, as Denzil would have spoken perhaps upon the subject of war clouds,
Verisschenzko hastily continued:

"Will you dine to-morrow night at the Ritz to meet your cousin and his
wife? They are honouring me."

"I wish I could, but I am off in the morning. What is she like?"

Verisschenzko paid particular attention to the selection of a quail, and
then he answered:

"She is of the same type as the family, Denzil,--that is, a good
skeleton--bones in the right place, firm white flesh, colouring as
yours--well bred, balanced, unawakened as yet. Was she a relation?"

"Yes, I believe so--a cousin of a generation even before mine. I wish I
could have dined, I would awfully like to have met them; I shall have
to make a chance in England. It is stupid not to know one's own family,
but our fathers quarrelled and we have never had a chance of mending
the break."

"They were at the Russian Embassy last night; the throng admired Lady
Ardayre very much."

"And what are you doing in Paris, Stepan? The last I heard of you, you
were on your yacht in the Black Sea."

"I was cruising near countries whose internal affairs interest me for the
moment. I returned to my _appartement_ in Paris to see a friend of mine,
Stanislass Boleski--he also has a lovely wife. Look, she has just come
in with him. She is in the devil of a temper--observe her. If I sit back,
the pillar hides me--I do not wish them to see me yet."

Denzil glanced down the room; two people were taking their seats by the
wall. The mask was off Harietta Boleski's face for the moment; it looked
silly with its raised eyebrows and was full of ill temper and spite. The
husband had an air of extreme worry on his clever, intellectual face, but
that he was solicitous to gratify his wife's caprices, any casual
observer could have perceived.

"You mean the woman with the wonderful _cigrettes_--she is good-looking,
isn't she? I wonder who it is she has caught sight of now, though? Look
at the eagerness which has come into her eyes--you can see her in the
mirror if you want to."

But Verisschenzko had missed nothing, and he bent forward to endeavour
to identify the person upon whom Madame Boleski's gaze had turned. There
was nothing to distinguish any individual--the company were of several
nations--German and Austrian and Balkan and Russian scattered about here
and there among the French and American _habitues_. The only plan would
be to continue to watch Harietta--but although he did this throughout the
dinner, not a flicker of her eyelids gave him any further clue.

Denzil was interested--he felt something beyond what appeared on the
surface was taking place, so he waited for his friend to speak.

Verisschenzko was silent for a little, and then he casually gave a resume
of the character and place of Madame Boleski and her husband, a good deal
more baldly expressed, but in substance much the same as he had given to
Amaryllis at the Russian Embassy the night before.

He spoke lightly, but his yellow green eyes were keen.

"Look at her well--she is capable of mischief. Her extreme
stupidity--only the brain of a rodent or a goat--makes her more
difficult to manipulate than the cleverest diplomat, because you can
never be sure whether the blank want of understanding which she displays
is real or simulated. She is a perfect actress, but very often is quite
natural. Most women are either posing all the time, or not at all.
Harietta's miming only comes into action for self-preservation, or
personal gain, and then it is of such a superb quality that she leaves
even me--I, who am no poor diviner--confused as to whether she is
telling a lie or the truth."

"What an exceptional character!" Denzil was thrilled.

"An absence of all moral sense is her great power," Verisschenzko
continued, while he watched her narrowly, "because she never has any of
the prickings of conscience which even most rogues experience at times,
and so draws no demagnetising nervous uncertain currents. If it were not
for an insatiable extravagance, and a capricious fancy for different
jewels, she would be impossible to deal with. She has information,
obtained from what source I do not as yet know, which is of vital
importance to me. Were it not for that, one could simply enjoy her as a
mistress and take delight in studying her idiosyncrasies."

"She has lovers?"

"Has had many; her role now is that of a great lady and so all is of a
respectability! She is so stupid that if that instinct of
self-preservation were not so complete as to be like a divine guide, she
would commit betises all the time. As it is, when she takes a lover it is
hidden with the cunning of a fox."

"Who did you say the first husband was--?"

"A German of the name of Von Wendel--he used to beat her with a stick, it
is said--so naturally such a nature adored him. I did not meet her until
she had got rid of him and he had disappeared. She would sacrifice any
one who stood in her way."

"Your friend, the present husband, looks pretty epuise--one feels sorry
for the poor man."

Then, as ever, at the mention of the debacle of Stanislass,
Verisschenzko's eyes filled with a fierce light.

"She has crushed the hope of Poland--for that, indeed, one day she
must pay."

"But I thought you Russians did not greatly love the Poles?"
Denzil remarked.

"Enlightened Russians can see beyond their old prejudices--and
Stanislass was a lifetime friend. One day a new dawn will come for our
Northern world."

His eyes grew dreamy for an instant, and then resumed their watch of
Harietta. Denzil looked at him and did not speak for a while. He had
always been drawn to Stepan, from a couple of terms at Oxford before the
Russian was sent down for a mad freak, and did not return. He was such a
mixture of idealism and brutal commonsense, a brain so alert and the warm
heart of a generous child--capable of every frenzy and of every
sacrifice. They had planned great things for their afterlives before the
one joined his regiment, and learned discipline, and the other wandered
over many lands--and as they sat there in the Cafe de Paris, the thoughts
of both wandered back to old days gapping the encounters for sport in
Russia and in India between.

"They were glorious times, Denzil, weren't they?" Verisschenzko said
presently, aware by that wonderfully delicately attuned faculty of his of
what his friend was thinking. "We had thought to conquer the sun, moon
and stars--and who knows, perhaps we will yet!"

"Who knows? I feel my real life is only just beginning. How old are we,
Stepan? Twenty-nine years old!"

Afterwards, as they went out, they passed the Boleskis close, and the
two rose and spoke to Verisschenzko, with empressement. He introduced
Captain Ardayre and they talked for a few minutes, Harietta Boleski
all smiles and flattering cajoleries now--and then they said
good-night and went out.

But as Stepan passed, a man half hidden behind a pillar leaned
forward and looked at him, and in his light blue eyes there burned a
jealous hate.

"Ah, Gott in Himmel!" he growled to himself. "It is he whom she
loves--not the pig-fool who we gave her to--one day I shall kill him--"
and he raised his glass of Rhine wine and murmured "Der Tag!"

That evening Sir John Ardayre had taken his bride to dine in the Bois,
and they were sitting listening to the Tziganes at Armenonville.
Amaryllis was conscious that the evening lacked something. The
circumstances were interesting--a bride of ten days, and the environment
so illuminating--and yet there was John smoking an expensive cigar and
not saying _anything!_ She did not like people who chattered--and she
could even imagine a delicious silence wrought with meaning. But a stolid
respectable silence with Tziganes playing moving airs and the romantic
background of this Paris out-of-door joyous night life, surely demanded
some show of emotion!

John loved her she supposed--of course he did--or he never would have
asked her to marry him, rich as he was and poor as she had been. She
could not help going over all their acquaintance; the date of its
beginning was only three months back!

They had met at a country house and had played golf together, and then
they had met again a month later at another house, in March, but she
could not remember any love-making--she could not remember any of those
warm looks and those surreptitious hand-clasps when occasion was
propitious, which Elsie Goldmore had told her men were so prodigal of in
demonstrating when they fell in love. Indeed, she had seen emotion upon
the faces of quite two or three young men, for all her secluded life and
restricted means, since she had left the school in Dresden, where a
worldly maiden aunt had pinched to send her, German officers had looked
at her there with interest in the street, and the clergyman's three sons
and the Squire's two, when she returned home. Indeed, Tom Clarke had gone
further than this! He had kissed her cheek coming out of the door in the
dark one evening, and had received a severe rebuff for his pains.

She had read quantities of novels, ancient and modern. She knew that love
was a wonderful thing; she knew also that modern life and its exigencies
had created a new and far more matter-of-fact point of view about it than
that which was obtained in most books. She did not expect much, and had
indulged in none of those visions of romantic bliss which girls were once
supposed to spend their time in constructing. But she did expect
_something_, and here was nothing--just nothing!

The day John had asked her to marry him he had not been much moved. He
had put the question to her simply and calmly, and she had not dreamed of
refusing him. It was obviously her duty, and it had always been her
intention to marry well, if the chance came her way, and so leave a not
too congenial home.

She had been to a few London balls with the maiden aunt, a personage of
some prestige and character. But invitations do not flow to a penniless
young woman from the country, nor do partners flock to be presented to
strangers in those days, and Amaryllis had spent many humiliating hours
as a wall-flower and had grown to hate balls. She was not expansive in
herself and did not make friends easily, and pretty as she was, as a
girl, luck did not come her way.

When she had said "Yes" in as matter-of-fact a voice as the proposal of
marriage had been made to her, Sir John had replied: "You are a dear,"
and that had seemed to her a most ordinary remark. He had leaned
over--they were climbing a steep pitch in search of a fugitive golf
ball--and had taken her hand respectfully, and then he had kissed her
forehead--or her ear--she forgot which--nothing which mattered much, or
gave her any thrill!

"I hope I shall make you happy," he had added. "I am a dull sort of a
fellow, but I will try."

Then they had talked of the usual things that they talked about, the most
every-day,--and they had returned to the house, and by the evening every
one knew of the engagement, and she was congratulated on all sides, and
petted by the hostess, and she and John were left ostentatiously alone in
a smaller drawing-room after dinner, and there was not a grain of
excitement in the whole conventional thing!

There was always a shadow, too, in John's blue eyes. He was the most
reserved creature in this world, she supposed. That might be all very
well, but what was the good of being so reserved with the woman you liked
well enough to make your wife, if it made you never able to get beyond
talking on general subjects!

This she had asked herself many times and had determined to break down
the reserve. But John never changed and he was always considerate and
polite and perfectly at ease. He would talk quietly and with commonsense
to whoever he was placed next, and very seldom a look of interest
flickered in his eyes. Indeed, Amaryllis had never seen him really
interested until he spoke of Ardayre--then his very voice altered.

He spoke of his home often to her during their engagement, and she grew
to know that it was something sacred to him, and that the Family and its
honour, and its traditions, meant more to him than any individual person
could ever do.

She almost became jealous of it all.

Her trousseau was quite nice--the maiden aunt had seen to that. Her niece
had done well and she did not grudge her pinchings.

Amaryllis felt triumphant as she walked up the aisle of St. George's,
Hanover Square, on the arm of a scapegrace sailor uncle--she would not
allow her stepfather to give her away.

Every one was so pleased about the wedding! An Ardayre married to an
Ardayre! Good blood on both sides and everything suitable and rich and
prosperous, and just as it should be! And there stood her handsome,
stolid bridegroom, serenely calm--and the white flowers, and the
Bishop--and her silver brocade train--and the pages, and the bridesmaids.
Oh! yes, a wedding was a most agreeable thing!

And could she have penetrated into the thoughts of John Ardayre, this is
the prayer she would have heard, as he knelt there beside her at the
altar rails: "Oh, God, keep the axe from falling yet, give me a son."

The most curious emotions of excitement rose in her when they went off in
the smart new automobile en route for that inevitable country house "lent
by the bridegroom's uncle, the Earl de la Paule, for the first days of
the honeymoon."

This particular mansion was on the river, only two hours' drive from her
aunt's Charles Street door. Now that she was his wife, surely John would
begin to make love to her, real love, kisses, claspings, and what not.
For Elsie Goldmore had presumed upon their schoolgirl friendship and
been quite explicate in these last days, and in any case Amaryllis was
not a miss of the Victorian era. The feminine world has grown too
unrefined in the expression of its private affairs and too indiscreet for
any maiden to remain in ignorance now.

It is true John did kiss her once or twice, but there was no real warmth
in the embrace, and when, after an excellent dinner her heart began to
beat with wonderment and excitement, she asked herself what it meant.
Then, all confused, she murmured something about "Good-night," and
retired to the magnificent state suite alone.

When she had left him John Ardayre drank down a full glass of Benedictine
and followed her up the stairs, but there was no lover's exaltation, but
an anguish almost of despair in his eyes.

Amaryllis thought of that night--and of other nights since--as she sat
there at Armenonville, in the luminous sensuous dusk.

So this was being married! Well, it was not much of a joy--and why, why
did John sit silent there? Why?

Surely this is not how the Russian would have sat--that strange Russian!




CHAPTER III


It was nearing sunset in the garden below the Trocadero. A tall German
officer waited impatiently not far from the bronze of a fierce bull in a
secluded corner under the trees; he was plainly an officer although he
was clothed in mufti of English make. He was a singularly handsome
creature in spite of his too wide hips. A fine, sensual, brutal male.

He swore in his own language, and then, through the glorious light,
a woman came towards him. She wore an unremarkable overcoat and a
thick veil.

"Hans!" she exclaimed delightedly, and then went on in fluent German with
a strong American accent.

He looked round to be sure that they were alone, and then he clasped her
in his arms. He held her so tightly that she panted for breath; he kissed
her until her lips were bruised, and he murmured guttural words of
endearment that sounded like an animal's growl.

The woman answered him in like manner. It was as though two brute
beasts had met.

Then presently they sat upon a seat and talked in low tones. The woman
protested and declaimed; the man grumbled and demanded. An envelope
passed between them, and more crude caresses, and before they parted the
man again held her in close embrace--biting the lobe of her ear until she
gave a little scream.

"Yes--if there was time--" she gasped huskily. "I should adore you like
this--but here--in the gardens--Oh! do mind my hat!"

Then he let her go--they had arranged a future meeting. And left alone,
he sat down upon the bench again and laughed aloud.

The woman almost ran to the road at the bottom and jumped into a waiting
taxi, and once inside she brought out a gold case with mirror and powder
puff, and red greases for her lips.

"My goodness! I can't say that's a mosquito!" and she examined her ear.
"How tiresome and imprudent of Hans! But Jingo, it was good!--if there
only had been time--"

Then she, too, laughed as she powdered her face, and when she alighted at
the door of the Hotel du Rhin, no marks remained of conflict except the
telltale ear.

But on encountering her maid, she was carrying her minute Pekinese dog in
her arms and was beating him well.

"Regardez, Marie! la vilaine bete m'a mordu l'oreil!"

"Tiens!" commented the affronted Marie, who adored Fou-Chou. "Et le cher
petit chien de Madame est si doux!"

       *       *       *       *       *

Stanislass Boleski was poring over a voluminous bundle of papers when his
wife, clad in a diaphanous wrap, came into his sitting room. They had a
palatial suite at the Rhin. The affairs of Poland were not prospering as
he had hoped, and these papers required his supreme attention--there was
German intrigue going on somewhere underneath. He longed for Harietta's
sympathy which she had been so prodigal in bestowing before she had
secured her divorce from that brute of a Teutonic husband, whom she
hated so much. Now she hardly ever listened, and yawned in his face when
he spoke of Poland and his high aims. But he must make allowances for
her--she was such a child of impulse, so lovely, so fascinating! And here
in Paris, admired as she was, how could he wonder at her distraction!

"Stanislass! my old Stannie," she cooed in his ear, "what am I to wear
to-night for the Montivacchini ball? You will want me to look my best, I
know, and I just love to please you."

He was all attention at once, pushing the documents aside as she put her
arms around his neck and pulled his beard, then she drew his head back to
kiss the part where the hair was growing thin on the top--her eyes fixed
on the papers.

"You don't want to bother with those tiresome old things any more; go and
get into your dressing-gown, and come to my room and talk while I am
polishing my nails,--we can have half an hour before I must dress. I'll
wait for you here--I must be petted to-night, I am tired and cross."

Stanislass Boleski rose with alacrity. She had not been kind to him for
days--fretful and capricious and impossible to please. He must not lose
this chance--if it could only have been when he was not so busy--but--

"Run along, do!" she commanded, tapping her foot.

And putting the papers hastily in a drawer with a spring lock, he went
gladly from the room.

Her whole aspect changed; she lit a cigarette and hummed a tune, while
she fingered a key which dangled from her bracelet.

No one eclipsed Madame Boleski in that distinguished crowd later on.
Her clinging silver brocade, and the one red rose at the edge of the
extreme decolletage, were simply the perfection of art. She did not wear
gloves, and on her beautifully manicured hands she wore no rings except
a magnificent ruby on the left little finger. It was her caprice to
refuse an alliance. "Wedding rings!" she had said to Stanislass. "Bosh!
they spoil the look. Sometimes it is chic to have a good jewel on one
finger, sometimes on another, but to be tied down to that band of homely
gold! Never!"

Stanislass had argued in those early days--he seldom argued now.

"My love!" he cried, as she burst upon his infatuated vision, when ready
for the ball, "let me admire you!"

She turned about; she knew that she was perfection.

Her husband kissed her fingers, and then he caught sight of the ruby
ring. He examined it.

"I had not seen this ruby before," he exclaimed in a surprised voice,
"and I thought I knew all your jewel case!"

She held out her hand while her big, stupid, appealing hazel eyes
expressed childish innocence.

"No--I'd put it away, it was of other days--but I do love rubies, and so
I got it out to-night, it goes with my rose!"

He had perceived this. Had he not become educated in the subtleties of a
woman's apparel? For was it not his duty often, and his pleasure
sometimes, to have to assist at her toilet, and to listen for hours to
discussions of garments, and if they could suit or not. He was even
accustomed now to waiting in the hot salons in the Rue de la Paix, while
these stately perfections were being essayed. But the ruby ring worried
him. Why had she asked him to give her just such a one only last month,
if she already possessed its fellow?... He had refused because her
extravagance had grown fantastic, but he had meant to cede later. Every
pleasure of the senses he always had to secure by bribes.

"I do not understand why?--" he began, but she put her hand over his
mouth and then kissed him voluptuously before she turned and shrilly
cried to Marie to bring her ermine cloak.

The maid's eyes were round and sullen with resentment; she had not
forgotten the beating of Fou-Chou! "As for the ear of Madame!" she said,
clasping the tiny dog to her heart, as she watched her mistress go
towards the lift from the sitting-room, "as for that maudite ear, thy
teeth are innocent, my angel! But I wish that he who is guilty had bitten
it off!" Then she laughed disdainfully.

"And look at the old fool! He dreams of nothing! And if he dreamed, he
would not believe--such _insenses_ are men!"

Meanwhile the Boleskis had arrived at the hotel of the Duchesse di
Montivacchini, that rich and ravishing American-Italian, who gave the
most splendid and exclusive entertainments in Paris. So, too, had arrived
Sir John and Lady Ardayre, brought on from the dinner at the Ritz by
Verisschenzko.

Denzil had left that morning for England, or he would have had the
disagreeable experience of meeting his _soi-disant_ cousin, to whom he
had applied the epithet "toad." For Ferdinand Ardayre had just reached
the gay city from Constantinople, and had also come to the ball with a
friend in the Turkish Embassy.

He happened to be standing at the door when the Boleskis were announced,
and his light eyes devoured Harietta--she seemed to him the ideal of
things feminine--and he immediately took steps to be presented. Assurance
was one of his strongest cards. He was a fair man--with the fairness of a
Turk not European--and there was something mean and chetive in his
regard. He would have looked over-dressed and un-English in a London
ball-room, but in that cosmopolitan company he was unremarkable. He had
been his mother's idol and Sir James had left him everything he could
scrape from his highly mortgaged property. But certain tastes of his own
made a Continental life more congenial to him, and he had chosen early to
enter a financial house which took him to the East and Constantinople. He
was about twenty-seven years old at this period and was considered by
himself and a number of women to be a creature of superlative charm.

The one burning bitterness in his spirit was the knowledge that Sir John
Ardayre had never recognised him as a brother. During Sir James' lifetime
there had been silence upon the matter, since John had no legal reason
for denying the relationship, but once he had become master of Ardayre he
had let it be known that he refused to believe Ferdinand to be his
father's son. On the rare occasions when he had to be mentioned, John
called him "the mongrel" and Ferdinand was aware of this. A silent,
intense hatred filled his being--more than shared by his mother who,
until the day of her death, two years before, had always plotted
vengeance--without being able to accomplish anything. Either mother or
son would willingly have murdered John if a suitable and safe method had
presented itself. And now to know that John had married a beautiful
far-off cousin and might have children, and so forever preclude the
possibility of his--Ferdinand's--own inheritance of Ardayre was a further
incentive to hate! If only some means could be discovered to remove John,
and soon! But while Ferdinand thought these things, watching his
so-called brother from across the room, he knew that he was impotent.
Poisons and daggers were not weapons which could be employed in civilised
Paris in the twentieth century! If they would only come to
Constantinople!

Amaryllis Ardayre had never seen a Paris ball before. She was enchanted.
The sumptuous, lofty rooms, with their perfect Louis XV gilt _boiseries_,
the marvellous clothes of the women, the gaiety in the air! She was
accustomed to the new weird dances in England, but had not seen them
performed as she now saw them.

"This orgie of mad people is a wonderful sight," Verisschenzko said, as
he stood by her side. "Paris has lost all good taste and sense of the
fitness of things. Look! the women who are the most expert in the wriggle
of the tango are mostly over forty years old! Do you see that one in the
skin-tight pink robe? She is a grandmother! All are painted--all are
feverish--all would be young! It is ever thus when a country is on the
eve of a cataclysm--it is a dance Macabre."

Amaryllis turned, startled, to look at him, and she saw that his eyes
were full of melancholy, and not mocking as they usually were.

"A dance Macabre! You do not approve of these tangoes then?"

He gave a small shrug of his shoulders, which was his only form of
gesticulation.

"Tangoes--or one steps--I neither approve nor disapprove--dancing should
all have its meaning, as the Greek Orchises had. These dances to the
Greeks would have meant only one thing--I do not know if they would have
wished this to take place in public, they were an aesthetic and refined
people, so I think not. We Russians are the only so-called civilised
nation who are brutal enough for that; but we are far from being
civilised really. Orgies are natural to us--they are not to the French or
the English. Savage sex displays for these nations are an acquired taste,
a proof of vicious decay, the middle note of the end."

"I learned the tango this Spring--it is charming to dance," Amaryllis
protested. She was a little uncomfortable--the subject, much as she
was interested in the Russian's downright views, she found was
difficult to discuss.

"I am sure you did--you counted time--you moved your charming form this
way and that--and you had not the slightest idea of anything in it beyond
anxiety to keep step and do the thing well! Yes--is it not so?"

Amaryllis laughed--this was so true!

"What an incredibly false sham it all is!" he went on. "Started by
niggers or Mexicans for what it obviously means, and brought here
for respectable mothers, and wives, and girls to perform. For me a
woman loses all charm when she cheapens the great mystery-ceremonies
of love--"

"Then you won't dance it with me?" Amaryllis challenged smilingly--she
would not let him see that she was cast down. "I do so want to dance!"

His eyes grew fierce.

"I beg of you not! I desire to keep the picture I have made of you since
we met--later I shall dance it myself with a suitable partner, but I do
not want you mixed with this tarnished herd."

Amaryllis answered with dignity:

"If I thought of it as you do I should not want to dance it at all." She
was aggrieved that her expressed desire might have made him hold her less
high--"and you have taken all the bloom from my butterfly's wing--I will
never enjoy dancing it again--let us go and sit down."

He gave her his arm and they moved from the room, coming almost into
conflict with Madame Boleski and her partner, Ferdinand Ardayre, whose
movements would have done honour to the lowest nigger ring.

"There is your friend, Madame Boleski--she dances--and so well!"

"Harietta is an elemental--as I told you before--it is right that she
should express herself so. She is very well aware of what it all means
and delights in it. But look at that lady with the hair going grey--it is
the Marquise de Saint Vrilliere--of the bluest blood in France and of a
rigid respectability. She married her second daughter last week. They all
spend their days at the tango classes, from early morning till
dark--mothers and daughters, grandmothers and demi-mondaines, Russian
Grand Duchesses, Austrian Princesses--clasped in the arms of incredible
scum from the Argentine, half-castes from Mexico, and farceurs from New
York--decadent male things they would not receive in their ante-chambers
before this madness set in!"

"And you say it is a dance Macabre? Tell me just what you mean."

They had reached a comfortable sofa by now in a salon devoted to bridge,
which was almost empty, the players, so eager to take part in the
dancing, that they had deserted even this, their favourite game.

"When a nation loses all sense of balance and belies the traditions of
its whole history, and when masses of civilised individuals experience
this craze for dancing and miming, and sex display, it presages some
great upheaval--some calamity. It was thus before the revolution of 1793,
and since it is affecting England and America and all of Europe it seems,
the cataclysm will be great."

Amaryllis shivered. "You frighten me," she whispered. "Do you mean some
war--or some earthquake--or some pestilence, or what?"

"Events will show. But let us talk of something else. A cousin of your
husband's, who is a very good friend of mine, was here yesterday. He went
to England to-day, you have not met him yet, I believe--Denzil Ardayre?"

"No--but I know all about him--he plays polo and is in the Zingari."

"He does other things--he will even do more--I shall be curious to hear
what you think of him. For me he is the type of your best in England.
We were at Oxford together; we dreamed dreams there--and perhaps time
will realise some of them. Denzil is a beautiful Englishman, but he is
not a fool."

A sudden illumination seemed to come into Amaryllis' brain; she felt how
limited had been all her thoughts and standpoints in life. She had been
willing to drift on without speculation as to the goal to be reached.
Indeed, even now, had she any definite goal? She looked at the Russian's
strong, rugged face, his inscrutable eyes narrowed and gazing ahead--of
what was he thinking? Not stupid, ordinary things--that was certain.

"It is the second evening, amidst the most unlikely surroundings, that
you have made me speculate about subjects which never troubled me before.
Then you leave me unsatisfied--I want to know--definitely to know!"

"Searcher after wisdom!" and he smiled. "No one can teach another very
much. Enlightenment must come from within; we have reached a better stage
when we realise that we are units in some vast scheme and responsible for
its working, and not only atoms floating hither and thither by chance.
Most people have the brains of grasshoppers; they spring from subject to
subject, their thoughts are never under control. Their thoughts rule
them--it is not they who rule their thoughts."

They were seated comfortably on their sofa, and Verisschenzko leaning
forward from his corner, looked straight into her eyes.

"You control your thoughts?" she asked. "Can you really only let them
wander where you choose?"

"They very seldom escape me, but I consciously allow them indulgences."

"Such as?"

"Visions--day dreams--which I know ought not to materialise."

Something disturbed her in his regard; it was not easy to meet, so full
of magnetic emanation. Amaryllis was conscious that she no longer felt
very calm--she longed to know What his dreams could be.

"Yes--but if I told you, you would send me away."

It seemed that he could read her desire. "I shall order myself to be
gone presently, because the interest which you cause me to feel would
interfere with work which I have to do."

"And your dreams? Tell them first?" she knew that she was playing
with fire.

He looked down now, and she saw that he was not going to gratify her
curiosity.

"My noblest dream is for the regeneration of a nation--on that I have
ordered my thoughts to dwell. For the others, the time is not yet for me
to tell you of them--it may never come. Now answer me, have you yet seen
your new home, Ardayre?"

"No, but why should you be interested in that? It seems strange that you,
a Russian, should even know that there is such a place as Ardayre!"

"Continue--I know that it is a wonderful place, and that your husband
loves it more than his life."

Amaryllis pouted slightly.

"He does indeed! Perhaps I shall grow to do so also when I know it; it is
the family creed. Sir James--my late father-in-law--was the only
exception to this rule."

"You must uphold the idea then, and live to do fine things."

"I will try--if only--" then she paused, she could not say "if only John
would be human and unfreeze to me, and love me, and let us go on the road
together hand in hand!"

"It is quite useless for a family merely to continue from generation to
generation piling up possessions, and narrowing its interests. It must do
this for a time to become solid, and then it should take a vaster view,
and begin to help the world. Nearly everything is spoiled in all
civilisation because of this inability to see beyond the nose, this poor
and paltry outlook."

"People rave vaguely," Amaryllis argued, "about one's duty and vast
outlooks and those things, but it is difficult to get any one to give
concrete advice--what would you advise me to do, for instance?"

"I would advise you first to begin asking yourself the reason of
everything, each day, since Pandora's box has been opened for you in any
case. 'What caused this? What caused that?' Search for causes--then
eradicate the roots, if they are not good, do not waste time on trying to
ameliorate the results! Determine as to why you are put into such and
such a place, and accomplish what you discover to be the duty of the
situation. But how serious we have become! I am not a priest to give you
guidance--I am a man fighting a tremendously strong desire to take you in
my arms--so come, we will return to the ball room, and I will deliver you
to your husband."

Amaryllis rose and stood facing him, her heart was beating fast. "If I
try to do well--to climb the straight road of the soul's advancement,
will you give me counsel should I need it by the way?"

"Yes, this I will do when I have complete control, but for the moment you
are causing me emotions, and I wish to keep you a thing apart--of the
spirit. Hermits and saints subdue the flesh by abstinence and fasting;
they then become useless to the world. A man can only lead men while he
remains a man, with a man's passions, so that he should not fight in this
beyond his strength--only he should _never sully the wrong thing_. Come!
Return to the husband--and I shall go for a while to hell."

And presently Amaryllis, standing safely with John, saw Verisschenzko
dancing the maddest one-step with Madame Boleski, their undulations
outdoing all others in the room!




CHAPTER IV


The day after the wonderful rejoicing which the homecoming of Amaryllis
had been the occasion of at Ardayre, she was sitting waiting for her
husband in that exquisite cedar parlour which led from her room.

They would breakfast cosily there, she had arranged, and nothing was
wanting in the setting of a love scene. The bride wore the most alluring
cap and daintiest Paris neglige, and her fair and pure skin gleamed
through the diaphanous stuff.

How she longed for John to notice it all, and make love to her! She had
apprehended a number of delightful possibilities in Paris, none of which
had materialised, alas! in her case.

John was the same as ever--quiet, dignified, polite and unmoved. She had
taken to turning out the light before he came to her at night, to hide
the disappointment and chagrin which she felt might show in her eyes. It
would be so humiliating if he should see this. There would soon be
nothing left for her to do but pretend that she was as cold as he was, if
this last effort of _froufrous_ left him as stolid as usual.

She smoothed out the pale chiffon draperies with a tender hand. She got
up and looked at herself in the mirror. It was fortunate that the
reflection of snowy nose and throat and chin, and the pink velvet cheeks,
required no art to perfect them; it was all natural and quite nice, she
felt. What a bore it must be to have to touch up like Madame Boleski!

But what was the meaning of all the imputations she had read of in those
interesting French novels in Paris?--the languors and lassitudes and
tremors of breakfasting love! There was just such a scene as this in one
she had devoured on the boat. A _dejeuner_ of _amants--_certainly they
had not been married, there was that want of resemblance, but surely this
could not matter? For a fortnight, three weeks, a month, surely even a
husband could be as a lover--especially to a mistress who took such pains
to please his eye!

Would Elsie Goldmore spend such dull breakfasts when she espoused Harry
Kahn? Elsie Goldmore was a Jewess, perhaps that made the difference,
perhaps Jews were more expansive--But the people in the novels were not
Jews. Of course, though, they were French, that must be it! Could it be
that all Englishmen, to their wives, were like John? This she must
presently find out.

Meanwhile she would try--oh, try so hard to entice him to be lovely to
her! He was her own husband; there was absolutely no harm in doing this.
And how glorious it would be to turn him into a lover! Here in this
perfectly divine old house! John was so good-looking, too, and had the
most attractive deep voice, but heavens! the matter-of-factness of
everything about him!

How long would it all go on?

John came in presently with _The Times_ under his arm. He was
immaculately dressed in a blue serge suit. Amaryllis had hoped to see
him in that subduedly gorgeous dressing gown she had persuaded him to
order at Charvets during their first days. It would have been so
suitable and intimate and lover-like. But no! there was the blue serge
suit--and _The Times_.

A shadow fell upon her mood. Her own pink chiffons almost seemed
out of place!

John glanced at them, and at the glowing, living, delicious bit of young
womanhood which they adorned. He saw the rebellious ripe cherry of a
mouth, and the warm, soft tenderness in the grey eyes, and then he
quickly looked out of the window--his own blue ones expressionless, but
the hand which held the newspaper clenched rather hard.

"Amn't I a pet!" cooed Amaryllis, deliberately subduing the chill of her
first disappointment. "Dearest, see I have kept this last and loveliest
set of garments for the morning of our home-coming--and for you!" and she
crept close to him and laid her cheek against his cheek.

He encircled her with his arm and kissed her calmly.

"You look most beautiful, darling," he said. "But then, you always do,
and your frills are perfection. Now I think we ought to have breakfast;
it is most awfully late."

She sat down in her place and she felt stupid tears rise in her eyes.

She poured out the tea and buttered herself some toast, while John was
apparently busy at a side table where dwelt the hot dishes.

He selected the daintiest piece of sole for her, and handed her
the plate.

"I am not hungry," she protested, "keep it for yourself."

He did not press the matter, but took his place and began to talk quietly
upon the news of the day--in a composed fashion between glances at _The
Times_ and mouthfuls of sole.

Amaryllis controlled herself. She was too proud and too just to make a
foolish scene. If this was John's way and her little effort at enticement
was a failure, she must put up with it. Marriage was a lottery she had
always heard, and it might be her luck to have drawn a blank. So she
choked down the rising emotion and answered brightly, showing interest in
her husband's remarks--and she even managed to eat some omelette, and
when the business of breakfast was quite over she went to the window and
John followed her there.

The view which met their eyes was exquisite.

Beyond the perfect stately garden, with its quaint clipped yews and
masses of spring flowers and velvet lawns, there stretched the vast park
with its splendid oaks and browsing deer. It was a possession which any
man could feel proud to own.

John slipped his arm round her waist and drew her to him.

"Amaryllis," he said, and his voice vibrated, "to-day I am going to show
you everything I love here at Ardayre--because I want you to love it
all, too. You are of the family, so it must mean something to you, dear."

Amaryllis kindled with re-awakening hope.

"Indeed, it will mean everything to me, John."

He kissed her forehead and murmured something about her dressing quickly,
and that he would wait for her there in the cedar room. And when she
returned in about a quarter of an hour in the neatest country clothes, he
placed her hand on his arm and led her down the great stairs and on
through the hall into the picture gallery.

It was a wonderful place of green silk and chestnut wainscoting, and all
the walls of its hundred feet of length were hung with canvases of
value--portraits principally of those Ardayres who had gone on. Face
after face looked down on Amaryllis of the same type as John's and her
own--the brown hair and eyes of grey or blue. Some were a little fairer,
some a little darker, but all unmistakably stamped "Ardayre."

John pointed out each individual to her, while she hung fondly on his
arm, from some doubtful crude fourteenth century wooden panels of Johns
and Denzils, on to Benedict in a furred Henry VII. gown. Then came Henrys
and Denzils in Elizabethan armour and puffed white satin, and through
Stuart and Commonwealth to Stuart again, and so to William and Mary
numbers of Benedicts, and lastly to powdered Georgian James' and Regency
Denzils and Johns. And the name Amaryllis recurred more than once in
stately dame or damsel, called after that fair Amaryllis of Elizabeth's
days who had been maid of honour to the virgin Queen, and had sonnets
written to her nut brown locks by the gallants of her time.

"How little the women they married seem to have altered the type!" the
young living Amaryllis exclaimed, when they came nearly to the end. "It
goes on Ardayre, Ardayre, Ardayre, ever since the very first one. Oh!
John, if we ever have a son he ought to be even more so--you and I being
of the same blood--" and then she hesitated and blushed crimson. This was
the first time she had ever spoken of such a thing.

John held her arm very tightly to his side for a second, and his voice
was uncertain as he answered:

"Amaryllis, that is the profound desire of my heart, that we should
have a son."

A strange feeling of exaltation came over Amaryllis, half-innocent,
wholly ignorant as she was.

She had been stupid--French novels were all nonsense. Marriages in real
life were always like this--of course they must be--since John said
plainly and with such deep feeling that his profoundest desire was that
they should have a son! That meant that she would surely have one. This
was perfectly glorious, and it must simply be those silly books and Elsie
Goldmore's too uxorious imagination which had given her some ridiculously
romantic exaggerated ideas of what love hours would be. She would now be
contented and never worry again. She nestled closer to her husband and
looked up at him with eyes sweet and fond, the brown, curly lashes wet
with tender dew.

"Oh!--darling, when, when do you think we shall have a son?"

Then, for the first time in their lives, John Ardayre clasped her in his
arms passionately and held her to his heart.

"Ah, God," he whispered hoarsely, as he kissed her fresh young lips.
"Pray for that, Amaryllis--pray for that, my own."

Then he restrained himself and drew her on to the four last pictures at
the end of the room. They were of his grandfather and grandmother, and
his father and mother. And then there was a blank space, and the brighter
colour of the damask showed that a canvas had been removed.

"Who hung there, John?"

"The accursed snake charmer woman whom my father disgraced the family
with by bringing home. She was his wife by the law, and a Frenchman
painted her. It was a fine picture with the bastard Ferdinand in her
arms--the proof of our shame. I had it taken down and burnt the day the
place was mine."

Amaryllis was receiving surprises to-day--John's face was full of
emotion, his eyes were sparkling with hate as he spoke. How he must love
everything connected with his home, and its honour, and its name--he
could not be so very cold after all!

She thought of the Russian's words about a family--the uselessness of its
going on for generations, piling up possessions and narrowing its
interests. What had the aims been of all these handsome men? She knew the
earlier history a little, for even though she was of a distant branch
they had been proud of the connection, and treasured the traditions
belonging to it. But these were just dry facts of history which she knew,
so now she asked:

"John, what did any of them do? Did they accomplish great deeds?"

He took her back to the beginning again and began to tell her of the
achievements of each one. There would be three perhaps, one after
another, who had filled high posts in the State, and indeed had been
worthy of the name. Then would come one or two quiet plodding ones, who
seemed to have done little but sit still and hold on.

Then Denzil Ardayre, knight of Elizabeth's time, pleased Amaryllis most
of all--though there had been greater soldiers, and more able politicians
than he later on, culminating in Sir John Ardayre of George IV. days,
who had hammered against pocket boroughs and corruption until he died an
old man, the hour the Reform Bill swept aside abuses and the road to
freedom was won.

"How strange it seems that different ages produce more accentuated stamps
of breeding than others," Amaryllis said, "even in the same families
where the blood is all blue. Look, John! that Denzil and the rest of the
Elizabethans are the most refined, aristocratic creatures you could
imagine, in their little ruffs. Absolutely intellectual and cultivated
faces and of old race--and then comes a James period, less intelligent,
more round featured. And a Cavalier one, gay and gallant, aristocratic
and chiselled also, but not nearly so clever looking as the Elizabethan.
Then we get cadaverous William and Mary ones, they might be lawyers or
business men, not that look of great gentlemen, and the Anne's and the
first George's are really bucolic! And then that wonderfully refined,
cultivated, intellectual finish seems to crop up in the later eighteenth
century again. Have you noticed this, John? You can see it in every
collection of miniatures and portraits even in the museums."

John responded interestedly:

"The Elizabethans were supremely cultivated gentlemen--no wonder that
they look as they do--and their lives were always in their hands which
gives them that air of insouciance."

When the history of the family achievements had been told her down to
John's father, she paused, still clinging to his arm, and said:

"I am so glad that they did splendid things, aren't you? And we shall not
drift either. You must teach me to be the most perfect mistress of
Ardayre, and the most perfect wife for the greatest of them all--because
your achievement is the finest, John, to have won it all back and
redeemed it by the work of your own brain."

He pressed the hand on his arm.

"It was hard work--and the home times were ugly in those days, Amaryllis,
though the goal was worth it, and now we must carry on...." And then his
reserve seemed to fall upon him again, and he took her through the other
rooms, and kept to solid facts, and historic descriptions, and his bride
had continuously the impression that he was mastering some emotion in
himself, and that this stolidity was a mask.

When lunch time came the usual relations of obvious and commonplace
goodfellowship had been fully restored between them, and that atmosphere
of aloofness which seemed impossible to banish enveloped John once more.

Amaryllis sighed--but it was too soon to despair she thought, after the
hope of John's words, and with her serene temperament she decided to
leave things as they were for the present and trust to time.

But as her maid brushed out the soft brown hair that night, an unrest and
longing for something came over her again--what she knew not, nor could
have put into words. She let herself re-live that one moment when John
had pressed herewith passion to his heart. Perhaps, perhaps that was the
beginning of a change in him--perhaps--presently--

But the clock in the long gallery had chimed two, and there was yet no
sound of John in the dressing-room beyond.

Amaryllis lay in the great splendid gilt bed in the warm darkness, and at
last tears trickled down her cheeks.

What could keep him so long away from her? Why did he not come?

The large Queen Anne windows were wide open, and soft noises of the night
floated in with the zephyrs. The whole air seemed filled with waiting
expectancy for something tender and passionate to be.

What was that? Steps upon the terrace--measured steps--and then silence,
and then a deep sigh. It must be John--out there alone!--when she would
have loved to have stayed with him, to have woven sweet fancies in the
luminous darkness, to have taken and given long kisses, to have buried
her face in the honeysuckle which grew there, steeped in dew. But he had
said to her after their stately dinner in the great dining-hall:

"Play to me a little, Amaryllis, and then go to bed, child--you must be
tired out."

And after that he had not spoken more, but pushed her gently towards the
door with a solemn kiss on the forehead, and just a murmur of
"Good-night." And she had deceived herself and thought that it meant that
he would come quickly, and so she had run up the stairs.

But now it was after two in the morning, and would soon be growing
towards dawn--and John was out there sighing alone!

She crept to the window and leaned upon the sill. She thought that she
could distinguish his tall figure there by the carved stone bench.

"John!" she called softly, "I am, so lonely--John, dearest--won't
you come?"

Then she felt that her ears must be deceiving her, for there was the
sound of a faint suppressed sob, and then, a second afterwards, her
husband's voice answering cheerily, with its usual casual note:

"You naughty little night bird! Go back to bed--and to sleep--yes--I am
coming immediately now!"

But when he did steal in silently from the dressing-room an hour later in
a grey dawn, Amaryllis, worn out with speculation and disappointment, had
fallen asleep.

He looked down upon her charming face--the long, curly brown lashes
sweeping the flushed cheek, and at the rounded, beautiful girlish
form--all his very own to clasp and to kiss and to hold in his arms--and
two scalding tears gathered in his blue eyes, and he took his place
beside her without making a sound.




CHAPTER V


"Here are the papers, Hans, but I think the whole thing stupid nonsense.
What does it matter to any one what Poland wants? What a nuisance all
these old boring political things are! They always spoiled our happiness
since the beginning--and now if it wasn't for them we could have a
glorious time here together. I would love managing to come out to meet
you under Stanislass' nose. None of the others I have ever had are as
good in the way of a lover as you."

The man swore in German under his breath.

"Of a lightness always, Harietta! No _devouement_, no patriotism....
Should I have agreed to the divorce, loving your body as I do, had it not
been a serious matter? The pig-dog who now owns you must be sucked dry of
information--and then I shall take you back again."

A cunning look came into Madame Boleski's hazel eyes. She had not the
slightest intention of permitting this--to go back to Hans! To the
difficulty of making both ends meet! Even though he did cause every inch
of her well-preserved body to tingle! They had suggested her getting the
divorce for their own stupid political ends, to be able to place her in
the arms of Stanislass Boleski, and there she meant to stay! It was
infinitely more agreeable to be a grande dame in Paris, and presently in
London, than to be the spouse of Hans in Berlin, where, whatever his
secret power might be with the authorities, he could give her no great
social position; and social position was the goal of all Harietta
Boleski's desires!

She could attract lovers in any class of life--that had never been her
difficulty. Her trouble had been that she could never force herself into
good American society, even after she had married Hans, and they had
dwelt there for a year or more. Her own compatriots would have none of
her, and so she wanted triumph in other lands. She hated to remember her
youth of humiliation, trying to play a social game on the earnings of any
work that she could pick up, between discreet outings with--friends who
failed to suggest matrimony. Hans, on some secret mission to San
Francisco, where she had gone as companion to a friend, had seemed a
veritable Godsend and Prince Charming, when, in her thirtieth year, he
actually offered legal marriage, completely overcome by her great
physical charm. But although she loved Hans with whatever of that emotion
such a nature could be capable of, five years of him and more or less
genteel poverty had been enough, and now she was free of that, and could
still enjoy surreptitiously the pleasure of his passion, and reign as a
_persona grata_ wife of one of the richest men in Poland at the same
time. That those in authority who had arranged the divorce required of
her certain tiresome obligations in return for their services, was one of
those annoying parts of life! She took not the slightest interest in the
affairs of any country. Nothing really mattered to her, but herself. Her
whole force was concentrated upon the betterment of the position and
physical pleasure of Harietta Boleski.

It was this instinct alone which had prompted her to acquire a smattering
of education--and with the quick, adaptive faculty of a monkey she had
been able to use this to its utmost limits, as well as her histrionic
talent--no mean one--to gain her ends. She was now playing the role of a
lady, and playing it brilliantly she knew--and here was Hans back again,
and suggesting that when she had secured all the information that he
required from Stanislass she should return to him!

"Tra la la!" she said to herself, there in the room at the Hotel Astoria,
where she had gone to meet him, "think this if it pleases you! It will
keep you quiet and won't hurt me!"

For the moment she wanted Hans--the man, and was determined to waste no
further time on useless discussion. So she began her blandishments,
taking pride in showing him her beautiful garments, and her string of big
pearls; each thing exhibited between her voluptuous kisses, until Hans
grew intoxicated with desire, and became as clay in her hands.

"It is not thy pig-dog of a husband I wish to kill!" he said, after one
hour had gone by in inarticulate murmurings. "Him I do not fear--it is
the Russian, Verisschenzko, who fills me with hate--we have regard of
him, he does not go unobserved, and if you allure him also among the
rest, beyond the instructions which you had, then there will be
unpleasantness for you, my little cat--thy Hans will twist his bear's
neck, and thine also, if need be!"

"Verisschenzko!" laughed Harietta, "why, I hardly know him; he don't
amount to a row of pins! He's Stanislass' friend--not mine."

Then she smoothed back Hans' rather fierce, fair moustache from his lips
and kissed him again--her ruby ring flashing in a ray of sunlight.

"Look! isn't this a lovely jewel, Hans! My old Stannie gave it to me only
some days ago--it is my new toy--see--"

Hans examined it:

"Thou art a creature of the devil, Harietta, there is not one of thy evil
qualities of greed and extortion which I do not know. Thou liest to me
and to all men--the only good thing in thee is thy body--and for that all
men let thee lie."

Harietta pouted.

"I can't understand when you talk like that, Hans--it's all warbash, as
we said out West. What are qualities? What is there but the body anyway?
Great sakes! that's enough for me, and the devil is only in story books
to frighten children--I'm just like every other woman and I want to have
a good time."

"I hear that you are going to London soon," said Hans, dropping the
tutoyage and growing brutally severe, "to conquer new lovers and to wear
more dresses? But there you will be of great use to me. Your instructions
will be all ready in cypher by Tuesday night, when you must meet me at
whatever point is convenient to you, after nine o'clock--here, perhaps?"

Harietta frowned--she had other views for Tuesday night.

"What shall I gain by coming, or by going on with this spying on Stan?
I'm tired of it all; it breaks my head trying to take in your horrid old
cypher. I don't think I'll do it any more."

The Prussian's face grew livid and his mouth set like an iron spring. He
looked at her straight between the eyes, as a lion tamer might have done,
and he took a cane from where it laid on a bureau near.

"Until you are black and blue, I will beat you, woman," he said, "as I
have done before--if you fail us in a single thing--and do not think we
are powerless! It shall be that you are exposed and degraded, and so lose
your game. Now tell me, will you go on?"

Harietta crouched in fear, just animal, physical fear--she had felt that
stick, it was a nightmare to her, as it might have been to a child. She
knew that Hans would keep his word. His physical strength had been one of
the things she had adored in him--but to be degraded and exposed, as well
as beaten, touched her sensibilities, after all the trouble she had taken
to become a lady of the world! This was too much. No! Tiresome as all
these old papers were, she would have to go on--but since he threatened
her she would pay him out! The Russian should have papers as well! And so
there was good in all things, since now material advantage would come
from both sides. Was it not right that you looked to yourself, especially
when menaced with a stick?

She laughed softly; this was humorous and she could appreciate such kind
of humour.

Hans crushed her in his arms.

"Answer!" he ordered gutturally. "Answer, you fiend!"

Harietta became cajoling--no one could have looked more frank or simple,
as simple as she looked to all great ladies when she would disarm them
and win her way. She would look up at them gently, and ask their advice,
and say that of course she was only a newcomer and very ignorant, not
clever like they!

"Hans, darling, I was only joking, am I not devoted to your interests and
always ready to serve you and the higher powers whom you serve? Of
course, I will come on Tuesday night and, of course, I will go on."

She let her lip tremble and her eyes fill with tears; they were quite
real tears. She felt the hardship of having to weary her brain with a new
cypher, and self-pity inflames the lachrymose glands.

"To business then, _mein liebchen_--attend carefully to every word. In
England you must be received by Royalty itself, and you must go into the
highest circles of the diplomatic and political world. The men are
indiscreet there; they trust their women and tell them secret things. It
is the women you must please. The English are a race of fools; numbers
are aristocrats in all classes and therefore too stupid to suspect craft,
and those who are not are trying to appear to be, and too conceited to
use their wits. You can be of enormous use to our country, Harietta, my
wife," and he walked up and down the room in his excitement, his hands
clasped behind him--he would have been a very handsome man but for his
too wide hips.

Marietta looked at him out of the corner of her eye; she did not notice
this defect in him, for her he was a splendid male, with a delightful
quality of savagery in love which she had found in no other man except
Verisschenzko--Verisschenzko! Her thoughts hesitated when they came to
him--Verisschenzko was adorable, but he was a man to be feared--much more
than Hans. Him she could always cajole if she used passion enough, but
she had the uncomfortable feeling that Verisschenzko gave way to her only
when--and because--he wanted to, not for the reason that she had
conquered him.

"Of great use to our country, Harietta, my wife," Hans murmured again,
clearing his throat.

"I am not your wife, my pretty Hans!" and she raised her eyebrows, and
curled one corner of her upper lip. "You gave me up at the bidding of the
higher command--I am your mistress now and then, when I feel
inclined--but I am Stanislass' wife. I like a man better when I am his
mistress; there are no tiresome old duties along with it."

Hans growled, he hated to realise this.

"You must be more careful with your speech, Harietta. When you get to
England you must not say 'along with it'--after the pains I have taken
with your grammar, too! You can use Americanisms if they are apt, and
even a literal translation of another language--but bad grammar--common
phrases--pah! that is to give the show away!"

Harietta reddened--her vanity disliked criticism.

"I take very good care of my language when it is necessary in the
world--I am considered to have a lovely voice--but when I'm with you I
guess I can enjoy a holiday--it's kind of a rest to let yourself go," her
pronunciation lapsed into the broadest American, just to irritate him,
and she stood and laughed in his face.

He caught her in his arms. She never failed to appeal to his senses; she
had won him by that force and so held his brute nature even after five
years. This was always the reason of whatever success she secured. A man
had no smallest doubt as to why he was drawn; it was a direct appeal to
the most primitive animal nature in him. The birth of Love is ever thus
if we would analyse it truly, but the spirit fortunately so wraps things
in illusion that generally both participants really believe that the
mutual attraction is because of higher emotions of the mind, and so they
are doomed to disappointment when passion is sated, unless the mind
fulfills the ideal. But if the reality fails to make good, the refined
spirit turns in disgust from the material, unconsciously resentful in
that it has suffered deception. With Harietta this disappointment could
never occur, since she created no illusion that she was appealing to the
mind at all, and so a man if he were attracted faced no unknown quality,
but was aware that it was only the animal in him which was drawn, and if
his senses were his masters, not his servants, her victory was complete.

After some more fierce caresses had come to an end--there was no delicacy
about Harietta--Hans continued his discourse.

"There has come here to Paris a young man of the name of
Ardayre--Ferdinand Ardayre--he is slippery, but he can be of the greatest
value to us. See that you become friends--you can reach him through Abba
Bey. He hates his brother who is the head of the family and he hates his
brother's wife--for family reasons which it is not necessary to waste
time in telling you. I knew him in Constantinople. Underneath I believe
he hates the English--there is a slur on him."

"I have already met him," and Harietta's eyes sparkled. "I hate the wife
also for my own reasons--yes--how can I help you with this?"

"It is Ferdinand you must concentrate on; I am not concerned with the
brother or his wife, except in so far as his hate for them can be used to
our advantage. Do not embark upon this to play games of your own for your
hate--you may be foolish then and upset matters."

"Very well." The two objects could go together, Harietta felt; she never
wasted words. It would be a pleasure one day, perhaps, to be able to
injure that girl whom Verisschenzko certainly respected, if he was not
actually growing to love her. Harietta did not desire the respect of men
in the abstract; it could be a great bore--what they thought of her never
entered her consideration, since she was only occupied with her own
pleasure in them and how they affected herself. Respect was one of the
adjuncts of a good social position; and of value merely in that aspect.
But as Verisschenzko respected no one else, as far as she knew, that must
mean something annoyingly important.

Seven o'clock struck; she had thoroughly enjoyed being with Hans, he
satisfied her in many ways, and it was also a relaxation, as she need not
act. But the joys of the interview were over now, and she had others
prepared for later on, and must go back to the Rhin to dress. So she
kissed Hans and left, having arranged to meet him on the Tuesday night
here in his rooms, and having received precise instructions as to the
nature of the information to be obtained from Ferdinand Ardayre.

Life would be a paradise if only it were not for these ridiculous and
tiresome political intrigues. Harietta had no taste for actual intrigue,
its intricacies were a weariness to her. If she could have married a rich
man in the beginning, she always told herself, she would never have mixed
herself up in anything of the kind, and now that she _had_ married a rich
man, she would try to get out of the nuisance as soon as possible.
Meanwhile, there was Ferdinand--and Ferdinand was becoming in love with
her--they had met three times since the Montivacchini ball.

"He'll be no difficulty," she decided, with a sigh of relief. It would
not be as it had been with Verisschenzko, whom she had been directed to
capture. For in Verisschenzko she had found a master--not a dupe.

When she reached the beautiful Champs-Elysees, she looked at her diamond
wrist watch. It was only ten minutes past seven, the dinner at the
Austrian Embassy was not until half-past eight. Dressing was a serious
business to Harietta, but she meant to cut it down to half an hour
to-night, because there was a certain apartment in the Rue Cambon which
she intended to visit for a few minutes.

"What an original street to have an apartment in!" people always said to
Verisschenzko. "Nothing but business houses and model hotels for
travellers!" And the shabby looking _porte-cochere_ gave no evidence of
the old Louis XV. mansion within, converted now into a series of offices,
all but the top flooring looking on to the gardens of the _Ministere_.

Verisschenzko had taken it for its situation and its isolation, and had
converted it into a thing of great beauty of panelling and rare pictures
and the most comfortable chairs. There was absolute silence, too, there
among the tree tops.

Madame Boleski ascended leisurely the shallow stairs--there was no
lift--and rang her three short rings, which Peter, the Russian servant,
was accustomed to expect. The door was opened at once, and she was taken
through the quaint square hall into the master's own sitting-room, a
richly sombre place of oak boiserie and old crimson silk.

Verisschenzko was writing and just glanced up while he murmured
Napoleon's famous order to Mademoiselle George--but Harietta Boleski
pushed out her full underlip and sat down in a deep armchair.

"No--not this evening, I have only a moment. I have merely come, Stepan,
you darling, to tell you that I have something interesting to say."

"Not possible!" and he carefully sealed down a letter he had been writing
and put it ready to be posted. Then he came over and took some
cigarettes from a Faberger enamel box and offered her one.

Harietta smoked most of the day but she refused now.

"You have come, not for pleasure, but to talk! Sapristi! I am duly
amazed!"

Another woman would have been insulted at the tone and the insinuation in
the words, but not so Harietta. She did not pretend to have a brain, that
was one of her strong points, and she understood and appreciated the
crudest methods, so long as their end was for the pleasure of herself.

She nodded, and that was all.

Verisschenzko threw himself into the opposite chair, his yellow-green
eyes full of a mocking light.

"I have seen a brooch even finer than the ruby ring at Cartier's
just now--I thought perhaps if I were very pleased with you, it
might be yours."

Harietta bounded from her chair and sat upon his knee.

"You perfect angel, Stepan, I adore you!" she said. He did not return the
caresses at all, but just ordered:

"Now talk."

She spoke rapidly, and he listened intently. He was weighing her words
and searching into their truth. He decided that for some reason of her
own she was not lying--and in any case it did not matter if she were not,
because he had resources at his command which would enable him to test
the information, and if it were true it would be worth the brooch.

"She has been wounded in some way, probably physically, since nothing
less material would affect her. Physically and in her vanity--but who can
have done it?" the Russian asked himself. "Who is her German
correspondent? This I must discover--but since it is the first time she
has knowingly given me information, it proves some revenge in her goat's
brain. Now is the time to obtain the most."

He encircled her with his arm and kissed her with less contemptuous
brutality than usual, and he told her that she was a lovely creature, and
the desire of all men--while he appeared to attach little importance to
the information she vouchsafed, asking no questions and re-lighting a
cigarette. This forced her to be more explicit, and at last all that she
meant to communicate was exposed.

"You imagine things, my child," he scoffed. "I would have to have
proof--and then if it all should be as you say. Why, that brooch must be
yours--for I know that it is out of real love for me that you talk, and I
always pay lavishly for--love."

"Indeed, you know that I adore you, Stepan--and that brooch is just what
I want. Stanislass has been niggardly beyond words to me lately, and I am
tired of all my other things."

"Bring me some proof to the reception to-night. I am not dining, but I
shall be there by eleven for a few moments."

She agreed, and then rose to go--but she pouted again and the convex
_obstine_ curve below her under lip seemed to obtrude itself.

"She has gone back to England--your precious bride--I suppose?"

"She has."

"We shall all meet there in a week or so--Stanislass is going to see some
of his boring countrymen in London--the conference you know about--and
we have taken a house in Grosvenor Square for some months. I do not know
many people yet--will you see to it that I do?"

"I will see that you have as many of these handsome Englishmen as will
completely keep your hands full."

She laughed delightedly.

"But it is women I want; the men I can always get for myself."

"Fear nothing, your reception will be great."

Then she flung herself into his arms and embraced him, and then moved
towards the door.

"I will telephone to Cartier in the morning," and Verisschenzko opened
the door for her, "if you bring me some interesting proof of your love
for me--to-night."

And when she had gone he took up his letter again
and looked at the address,

_To_
Lady Ardayre,
_Ardayre Chase,
North Somerset,
Angleterre_.

"I must keep to the things of the spirit with you, precious lady. And
when I cannot subdue it, there is Harietta for the flesh--wough! but she
sickens me--even for that!"




CHAPTER VI


Denzil Ardayre could not get any more leave for a considerable time and
remained quartered in the North, where he played cricket and polo to his
heart's content, but the head of the family and his charming wife went
through the feverish season of 1914 in the town house in Brook Street.
Ardayre was too far away for week-end parties, but they had several
successful London dinners, and Amaryllis was becoming quite a capable
hostess, and was much admired in the world.

Very fine of instinct and apprehension at all times she was developing by
contact with intelligent people--for John had taken care that she only
mixed with the most select of his friends. The de la Paule family had
been more than appreciative of her and had guided her and supervised her
visiting list with care.

Everything was too much of a rush for her to think and analyse things,
and if she had been asked whether she was happy, she would have thought
that she was replying with honesty when she affirmed that she was. John
was not happy and knew it, but none of his emotions ever betrayed
themselves, and the mask of his stolid content never changed.

They had gone on with their matter-of-fact relations, and when they
returned to London after a week at Ardayre, all had been much easier,
because they were seldom alone--and at last Amaryllis had grown to accept
the situation, and try not to speculate about it. She danced every night
at balls and continued the usual round, but often at the Opera, or the
Russian ballet, or driving back through the park in the dawn, some wild
longing for romance would stir in her, and she would nestle close to
John. And John would perhaps kiss her quietly and speak of ordinary
things. He went everywhere with her though, and never failed in the
kindest consideration. He seldom danced himself, and therefore must often
have been weary, but no suggestion of this ever reached Amaryllis.

"What does he talk to his friends about, I wonder?" she asked herself,
watching him from across a room, in a great house after dinner one night.

John was seated beside the American Lady Avonwier, a brilliant person who
did not allow herself to be bored. He appeared calm as usual, and there
they sat until it was time to go on to a ball.

Everything he said was so sensible, so well informed--perhaps that was a
nice change for people--and then he was very good-looking and--but oh!
what was it--what was it which made it all so disappointing and tame!

A week after they had come up to Brook Street, the Boleskis arrived at
the Mount Lennard House which they had taken in Grosvenor Square, armed
with every kind of introduction, and Harietta immediately began to dazzle
the world.

Her dresses and jewels defied all rivalry; they were in a class alone,
and she was frank and stupid and gracious--and fitted in exactly with
the spirit of the time.

She restrained her movements in dancing to suit the less advanced English
taste; she gave to every charity and organized entertainments of a
fantastic extravagance which whetted the appetite of society, grown jaded
with all the old ways. The men of all ages flocked round her, and she
played with them all--ambassadors, politicians, guardsmen, all drawn by
her own potent charm, and she disarmed criticism by her stupidity and
good nature, and the lavish amusements she provided for every one--while
the chef they had brought over with them from Paris would have insured
any hostess's success!

Harietta had never been so happy in all the thirty-six years of her life.
This was her hour of triumph. She was here in a country which spoke her
own language--for her French was deplorably bad--she had an unquestioned
position, and all would have been without flaw but for this tiresome
information she was forced to collect.

Verisschenzko had been detained in Paris. The events of the twenty-eighth
of June at Serajevo were of deep moment to him, and it was not until the
second week in July that he arrived at the Ritz, full of profound
preoccupation.

Amaryllis had been to Harietta's dinners and dances, and now the Boleskis
had been asked down to Ardayre in return for the three days at the end of
the month, when the coming of age of the young Marquis of Bridgeborough
would give occasion for great rejoicings, and Amaryllis herself would
give a ball.

"You cannot ask people down to North Somerset in these days just for the
pleasure of seeing you, my dear child," Lady de la Paule had said to her
nephew's wife. "Each season it gets worse; one is flattered if one's
friends answer an invitation to dinner even, or remain for half an hour
when it is done. I do not know what things are coming to, etiquette of
all sorts went long ago--now manners, and even decency have gone. We are
rapidly becoming savages, openly seizing whatever good thing is offered
to us no matter from whom, and then throwing it aside the instant we
catch sight of something new. But one must always go with the tide unless
one is strong enough to stem it, and frankly _I_ am not. Now
Bridgeborough's coming of age will make a nice excuse for you to have a
party at Ardayre. How many people can you put up? Thirty guests and their
servants at least, and seven or eight more if you use the agent's house."

So thus it had been arranged, and John expressed his pleasure that his
sweet Amaryllis should show what a hostess she could be.

None but the most interesting people were invited, and the party promised
to be the greatest success.

Two or three days before they were to go down, Amaryllis coming in late
in the afternoon, found Verisschenzko's card.

"Oh! John!" she cried delightedly, "that very thrilling Russian whom we
met in Paris has called. You remember he wrote to me some time ago and
said he would let us know when he arrived. Oh! would not it be nice to
have him at our party--let us telephone to him now!"

Verisschenzko answered the call himself, he had just come in; he
expressed himself as enchanted at the thought of seeing her--and
yes--with pleasure he would come down to Ardayre for the ball.

"We shall meet to-night, perhaps, at Carlton House Terrace at the German
Embassy," he said, "and then we can settle everything."

Amaryllis wondered why she felt rather excited as she walked up the
stairs--she had often thought of Verisschenzko, and hoped he would come
to England. He was vivid and living and would help her to balance
herself. She had thought while she dressed that her life had been one
stupid rush with no end, since that night when they had talked of
serious things at the Montivacchini hotel. She had need of the counsel
he had promised to give her, for this heedless racket was not adding
lustre to her soul.

Verisschenzko seemed to find her very soon--he was not one of those
persons who miss things by vagueness. His yellow-green eyes were blazing
when they met hers, and without any words he offered her his arm, foreign
fashion, and drew her out on to the broad terrace to a secluded seat he
had apparently selected beforehand, as there was no hesitancy in his
advance towards this goal.

He looked at her critically for an instant when they were seated in the
soft gloom.

"You are changed, Madame. Half the soul is awake now, but the other half
has gone further to sleep."

"--Yes, I felt you would say that--I do not like myself," and she sighed.

"Tell me about it."

"I seem to be drifting down such a useless stream--and it is all so mad
and aimless, and yet it is fun. But every one is tired and restless and
nobody cares for anything real--I am afraid I am not strong enough to
stand aside from it though, and I wonder sometimes what I shall become."

Verisschenzko looked at her earnestly--he was silent for some seconds.

"Fate may alter the atmosphere. There are things hovering, I fear, of
which you do not dream, little protected English bride. Perhaps it is
good that you live while you can."

"What things?"

"Sorrows for the world. But tell me, have you seen Harietta Boleski in
her London role?"

"Yes--she is the greatest success--every one goes to her parties; she is
coming to mine at Ardayre."

Verisschenzko raised his eyebrows, and nothing could have been more
sardonically whimsical than his smile.

"I saw Stanislass this morning--he is almost _gaga_ now--a mere
cypher--she has destroyed his body, as well as his soul."

"They are both coming on the twenty-third."

"It will be an interesting visit I do not doubt--and I shall see the
Family house!"

"I hope you will like it--I shall love to show it to you, and the
pictures. It means so much to John."

"Have you met your cousin Denzil yet?".

Verisschenzko was studying her face; it had gained something, it was
a little finer--but it had lost something too, and there was a shadow
in her eyes.

"Denzil Ardayre? No--What made you mention him now?"

"I shall be curious as to what you think of him, he is so like--your
husband, you know."

The subject did not interest Amaryllis; she wanted to hear more of the
Russian's unusual views.

"You know London well, do you not?" she asked.

"Yes--I often came up from Oxford when I was there, and I have revisited
it since. It is a sane place generally, but this year it would seem to be
almost as _desequilibre_ as the rest of the world."

"You give me an uneasy feeling, as though you knew that something
dreadful was going to happen. What is it? Tell me."

"One can only speculate how soon a cauldron will boil over, one cannot
be certain in what direction the liquid will fly. The whole world seems
feverish; the spirit of progress has awakened after hundreds of years of
sleep, and is disturbing everything. In all boilings the scum rises to
the top; we are at the period when this has occurred--we can but
wait--and watch."

"If we had a new religion?"

"It will come presently, the reign of mystical make-believe is past."

"But surely it is mysticism and idealism which make ordinary
things divine!"

"Certainly when they are emplanted upon a true basis. I said
'make-believe'--that is what kills all good things--make-believe. Most
of the present-day leaders are throwing dust in their followers' eyes--or
their own. Priests and politicians, lawyers and financiers--all of them
are afraid of the truth. Every one lives in a stupid atmosphere of
self-deception. The religion of the future will teach each individual to
be true to himself, and when that is accomplished the sixth root race
will be born. Look at that man over there talking to a woman with haggard
eyes--can you see them in the gloom? They have all the ugly entities
around them, the spirits of morphine and nicotine--drawing misfortune and
bodily decay. Every force has to have its congenial atmosphere, or it
cannot exist; fishes cannot breathe on land."

Amaryllis looked at the pair; they were well-known people, the man
celebrated in the literary and artistic section of the world of
fashion--the woman of high rank and of refined intelligence.

Verisschenzko looked also. "I do not know either of their names," he
said, "I am simply judging by the obvious deductions to be made by their
appearances to any one who has developed intuition."

"How I wish I could learn to have that!"

"Read Voltaire's 'Zadig.' Deductive methods are shown in it useful to
begin upon--observe everything about people, and then having seen
results, work back to causes, and then realise that all material things
are the physical expression of an etheric force, and as we can control
the material, we need thus only attract what etheric waves we desire."

Amaryllis looked again at the pair--both were smoking idly, and she
remembered having heard that they both "took drugs." It was a phrase
which had meant nothing to her until now.

"You mean that because they smoke all the time, and it is said they take
morphine _piqures_, that they are not only hurting their bodies, but
drawing spiritual ills as well."

"Obviously. They have surrounded themselves with the drab demagnetising
current which envelops the body when human beings give up their wills. It
would be very difficult for anything good to pierce through such
ambience. Have you ever remarked the strange ends of all people who take
drugs? They seldom die natural, ordinary deaths. The evil entities which
they have drawn round them by their own weakness, destroy them at last."

"I do not like the idea that there are these 'entities,' as you call
them, all around us."

"There are not, they cannot come near us unless we allow them--have I not
told you that the atmosphere must be congenial? Our own wills can create
an armour through which nothing demagnetising can pass. It is weakness
and drifting which are inexorably punished; they draw currents suitable
for the vampires beyond to exist on."

"All this does sound so weird to me." Amaryllis was interested and
yet repelled.

"Have you ever thought about Marconigrams and their etheric waves?
No--not often. People just accept such things as facts as soon as they
become commercial commodities--and only a few begin to speculate upon
what such discoveries suggest, and the other possibilities which they
could lead to. Nothing is supernatural; it is only that we are so
ignorant. Some day I will take you to my laboratory in my home in
Russia and show you the result of my experiments with vibrations and
coloured lights."

"I should love that--but just now you troubled me--you seemed to include
smoking in the things which brought evil--I smoke sometimes."

"So do I--will you have a Russian cigarette?"

He took out his case and offered her one, which she accepted. "Will it
bring something bad?"

"Not more than a glass of wine," and he opened his lighter and bent
nearer to her. "One glass of wine might be good for you, but twenty would
make you very drunk and me very quarrelsome!"

They laughed softly and lit their cigarettes.

"I feel when I am with you that I am enveloped in some strong essence,"
and Amaryllis lay back with a satisfied sigh--"as though I were uplifted
and awakened--it is very curious because you have such a wicked face, but
you make me feel that I want to be good."

His queer, husky voice took on a new note.

"We have met of course in a former life--then probably I tempted you to
break all vows--it was my fault. So in this life you are to tempt me--it
may be--but my will has developed--I mean to resist. I want to place you
as my joy of the spirit this time--something which is pure and beautiful
apart from earthly things."

Into Amaryllis' mind there flashed the thought that if she saw him often,
her emotions for him might not keep at that high level! Her eyes perhaps
expressed this doubt, for Verisschenzko bent nearer.

"Another must fulfil that which must be denied to me. You are too young
to remain free from emotion. Hold yourself until the right time comes."

Amaryllis wondered why he should speak as though it were an understood
thing that she could feel no emotion for John. She resented this.

"I have my husband," she answered with dignity and a sweetly
conventional air.

Verisschenzko laughed.

"You are delicious when you say things like that--loyal, and English, and
proud. But listen, child--it is waste of time to have any dissimulation
with me, we finished all those things when we were lovers in our other
life. Now we must be frank and learn of each other. Shall it not be so?"

Amaryllis felt a number of things.

"Yes, you are right, we will always speak the truth."

"You see," he went on, "if you represent anything you must never injure
it; you must destroy yourself if necessary in its service. You
represent an ideal, the ideal of the perfect wife of the Ardayres. You
must fulfil this role. I represent a leader of certain thought in my
country. My soul is given to this--I must only indulge in through
which nothing demagnetising can pass. It is weakness and drifting which
are inexorably punished; they draw currents suitable for the vampires
beyond to exist on."

"All this does sound so weird to me." Amaryllis was interested and
yet repelled.

"Have you ever thought about Marconigrams and their etheric waves?
No--not often. People just accept such things as facts as soon as they
become commercial commodities--and only a few begin to speculate upon
what such discoveries suggest, and the other possibilities which they
could lead to. Nothing is supernatural; it is only that we are so
ignorant. Some day I will take you to my laboratory in my home in
Russia and show you the result of my experiments with vibrations and
coloured lights."

"I should love that--but just now you troubled me--you seemed to include
smoking in the things which brought evil--I smoke sometimes."

"So do I--will you have a Russian cigarette?"

He took out his case and offered her one, which she accepted. "Will it
bring something bad?"

"Not more than a glass of wine," and he opened his lighter and bent
nearer to her. "One glass of wine might be good for you, but twenty would
make you very drunk and me very quarrelsome!"

They laughed softly and lit their cigarettes.

"I feel when I am with you that I am enveloped in some strong essence,"
and Amaryllis lay back with a satisfied sigh--"as though I were uplifted
and awakened--it is very curious because you have such a wicked face, but
you make me feel that I want to be good."

His queer, husky voice took on a new note.

"We have met of course in a former life--then probably I tempted you to
break all vows--it was my fault. So in this life you are to tempt me--it
may be--but my will has developed--I mean to resist. I want to place you
as my joy of the spirit this time--something which is pure and beautiful
apart from earthly things."

Into Amaryllis' mind there flashed the thought that if she saw him often,
her emotions for him might not keep at that high level! Her eyes perhaps
expressed this doubt, for Verisschenzko bent nearer.

"Another must fulfil that which must be denied to me. You are too young
to remain free from emotion. Hold yourself until the right time comes."

Amaryllis wondered why he should speak as though it were an understood
thing that she could feel no emotion for John. She resented this.

"I have my husband," she answered with dignity and a sweetly
conventional air.

Verisschenzko laughed.

"You are delicious when you say things like that--loyal, and English, and
proud. But listen, child--it is waste of time to have any dissimulation
with me, we finished all those things when we were lovers in our other
life. Now we must be frank and learn of each other. Shall it not be so?"

Amaryllis felt a number of things.

"Yes, you are right, we will always speak the truth."

"You see," he went on, "if you represent anything you must never injure
it; you must destroy yourself if necessary in its service. You represent
an ideal, the ideal of the perfect wife of the Ardayres. You must fulfil
this role. I represent a leader of certain thought in my country. My soul
is given to this--I must only indulge in that over which I am master.
Indulgences are our recompenses, our rights, when we have obtained
dominion and they have become our slaves; to be enjoyed only when, and
for so long as, our wills permit. When you say a thing is _'plus fort que
vous'_--then you had better throw up the sponge--you have lost the fight,
and your indulgence will scourge you with a scorpion whip."

"You say this, and yet you are so far from being an ascetic!"

"As far as possible, I hope! They are self-acknowledged failures; they
dare not permit themselves the smallest indulgence, they are weaklings
afraid to enter the arena at all. To me they are at a stage further back
than the sensualists--what are they accomplishing? They have withered
nature, they are things of nought! A man or woman should realise what
plane he or she is living on, and try to live to the highest of the best
of the physical, mental and moral life on that plane, but not try to
alter all its workings, and live as though in a different sphere
altogether, where another scheme of nature obtained. It is colossal
presumption in human beings to give examples to be followed, which,
should they be followed, would end the human race. The Supreme Being will
end it in His own time; it is not for us to usurp authority."

"You reason in this in the same way that you did about the smoking."

"Naturally--that is the only form of sensible reasoning. You must keep
your judgment perfectly balanced and never let it be obscured by
prejudice, tradition, custom, or anything but the actual common-sense
view of the case."

"I think we English like that better than any other quality in
people--common sense."

Verisschenzko looked away from her to a new stream of guests who had come
out on the terrace--a splendid-looking group of tall young men and
exquisite women.

"With all your faults you are a great nation, because although these
latter years seem often to have destroyed the sense of duty in the
individual in regard to his own life, the ingrained sense of it had
become a habit and the habit still continues in regard to the
community--you are not likely to have upheavals of great magnitude here.
Now all other countries are moved by different spirits, some by
patriotism and gallantry like the French, some by superstition and
ignorance worked on by mystic religion, as in my country--some by
ruthless materialism like Germany; but that dull, solid sense of duty is
purely English--and it is really a glorious thing."

Amaryllis thought how John represented it exactly!

"I feel that I want to do my duty," she said softly, "but..."

"Continue to feel that and Fate will show you the way. Now I must take
you back to your husband whom I see in the distance there--he is with
Harietta Boleski. I wonder what he thinks of her?"

"I have asked him! He says that she is so obvious as to be innocuous, and
that he likes her clothes!"

Verisschenzko did not answer, and Amaryllis wondered if he agreed
with John!

They had to pass along a corridor to reach the staircase, upon the
landing of which they had seen Sir John and Madame Boleski leaning over
the balustrade, and when they got there they had moved on out of sight,
so Verisschenzko, bowing, left Amaryllis with Lady de la Paule.

As he retraced his steps later on he saw Sir John Ardayre in earnest
conversation with Lemon Bridges, the fashionable rising surgeon of the
day. They stood in an alcove, and Verisschenzko's alert intelligence was
struck by the expression on John Ardayre's face--it was so sad and
resigned, as a brave man's who has received death sentence. And as he
passed close to them he heard these words from John: "It is quite
hopeless then--I feared so--"

He stopped his descent for a moment and looked again--and then a
sudden illumination came into his yellow-green eyes, and he went on
down the stairs.

"There is tragedy here--and how will it affect the Lady of my soul?"

He walked out of the House and into Pall Mall, and there by the Rag met
Denzil Ardayre!

"We seem doomed to have unexpected meetings!" cried that young man
delightedly. "Here I am only up for one night on regimental business, and
I run into you!"

They walked on together, and Denzil went into the Ritz with
Verisschenzko and they smoked in his sitting-room. They talked of many
things for a long time--of the unrest in Europe and the clouds in the
Southeast--of Denzil's political aims--of things in general--and at last
Verisschenzko said:

"I have just left your cousin and his wife at the German Embassy; they
have now gone on to a ball. He makes an indulgent husband--I suppose the
affair is going well?"

"Very well between them, I believe. That sickening cad Ferdinand is
circulating rumours--that they can never have any children--but they are
for his own ends. I must arrange to meet them when I come up next time--I
hear that the family are enchanted with Amaryllis--"

"She is a thing of flesh and blood and flame--I could love her wildly did
I think it were wise."

Denzil glanced sharply at his friend. He had not often known him to
hesitate when attracted by a woman--

"What aspect does the unwisdom take?"

"Certain absorption--I have other and terribly important things to do.
The husband is most worthy--one wonders what the next few years will
bring. Their temperaments must be as the poles.

"No one seems to think of temperament when he marries, or heredity, or
anything, but just desire for the woman--or her money--or something
quite outside the actual fact." Denzil lit another cigarette. "Marriage
appears a perfect terror to me--how could one know one was going to
continue to feel emotion towards some one who might prove to be the most
awful physical or mental disappointment on intimate acquaintance? I
believe _affaires de convenance_ selected with thought-out reasoning are
the best."

Verisschenzko shrugged his shoulders.

"That is not necessary. If the brain is disciplined, it is in a condition
to use its judgment, even when in love, and ought therefore to be able to
resist the desire to mate if the woman's character or tendencies are
unsuitable, but most men's brains are only disciplined in regard to
mental things, and have no real control over their physical desires. I
have been this morning with Stanislass Boleski--there is a case and a
warning. Stanislass was a strong man with a splendid brain and immense
ambition, but no dominion over his senses, so that Succubus has
completely annihilated all force in him. He should have strangled her
after the first _etreinte_ as I should have done, had I felt that she
could ever have any power over me!"

Denzil smiled--Stepan was such a mixture of tenderness and
complete savagery.

"I always thought the Russian character was the most headstrong and
undisciplined in the world, and took what it desired regardless of costs.
But you belie it, old boy!"

"I early said to myself on looking at my countrymen--and especially my
countrywomen--these people are half genius, half fool; they have all
the qualities and ruin most of them through being slaves, not masters
to their own desires. If with his qualities a Russian could be balanced
and deductive, and rule his vagrant thoughts, to what height could he
not attain!"

"And you have attained."

"I am on the road, but did not affairs of vital importance occupy me at
the moment I might be capable of ancient excess!"

"It is as well for the head of the Ardayre family that you are occupied
then!" and Denzil smiled, and then he said, his thoughts drifting back to
what interested him most:

"You think Europe will be blazing soon, Stepan? I have wondered myself in
the last month if this hectic peace could continue."

"It cannot. I am here upon business with great issues, but I must not
speak of facts, and what I say now is not from my knowledge of current
events, but from my study of etheric currents which the thoughts and
actions of over-civilised generations have engendered. You do not cram a
shell with high explosives and leave it among matches with impunity."

The two men looked at one another significantly, and then Denzil said:

"I think I will not retire from the old regiment yet--I shall wait
another year."

"Yes--I would if I were you."

They smoked silently for a moment--Verisschenzko's Calmuck face fixed and
inscrutable and Denzil's debonnaire English one usually grave.

"Some one told me that your friend, Madame Boleski, was having a
tremendous success in London. I wish I could have got leave, I should
like to have seen the whole thing."

"Harietta is enjoying her luck-moment; she is in her zenith. She has
baffled me as to where she receives her information from--she is capable
of betraying both sides to gain some material, and possibly trivial, end.
She is worth studying if you do come up, for she is unique. Most
criminals have some stable point in immorality; Harietta is troubled by
nothing fixed, no law of God or man means anything to her, she is only
ruled by her sense of self-preservation. Her career is picturesque."

"Had she ever any children?"

Verisschenzko crossed himself.

"Heaven forbid! Think of watching Harietta's instincts coming out in a
child! Poor Stanislass is at least saved that!"

"What a terrible thought that would be to one! But no man thinks of such
things in selecting a wife!"

"You will not marry yet--no?"

"Certainly not, there is no necessity that I should. Marriage is only an
obligation for the heads of families, not for the younger branches."

"But if Sir John Ardayre has no son, you are--in blood--the next
direct heir."

"And Ferdinand is the next direct heir-in-law--that makes one sick--"

Verisschenzko poured his friend out a whisky and soda and said smiling:

"Then let us drink once more to the Ardayre son!"




CHAPTER VII


Lady de la Paule really felt proud of her niece; the party at Ardayre was
progressing so perfectly. The guests had all arrived in time for the ball
at Bridgeborough Castle on the twenty-third of July and had assisted next
day at the garden party, and then a large dinner at Ardayre, and now on
the last night of their stay Amaryllis' own ball was to take place.

All the other big country houses round were filled also, and nothing
could have been gayer or more splendidly done than the whole thing.

John Ardayre had been quite enthusiastic about all the arrangements,
taking the greatest pride in settling everything which could add lustre
to his Amaryllis' success as a hostess.

The quantities of servants, the perfectly turned-out motors--the
wonderful chef--all had been his doing, and when most of the party had
retired to their rooms for a little rest before dinner on the
twenty-fifth, the evening of the ball, Lady de la Paule and John's
friend, Lady Avonwier, congratulated him, as he sat with them, the last
ladies remaining, under the great copper beech tree on the lawn which led
down to the lake.

"Everything has been perfect, has it not, Mabella?" Lady Avonwier said.
"I have even been converted about your marvellous Madame Boleski! I
confess I have avoided her all the season, because we Americans are far
more exclusive than you English people in regard to whom we know of our
own countrywomen, and no one would receive such a person in New York, but
she is so luridly stupid, and such a decoration, that I quite agree you
were right to invite her, John."

"She seems to me charming," Lady de la Paule confessed. "Not the least
pretension, and her clothes are marvellous. You are abominably severe,
Etta. I am quite sure if she wanted to she could succeed in New York."

"Mabella, you simple creature! She just cajoles you all the time--she has
specialised in cajoling important great ladies! No American would be
taken in by her, and we resent it in our country when an outsider like
that barges in. But here, I admit, since she provides us with amusement,
I have no objection to accepting her, as I would a new nigger band, and
shall certainly send her a card for my fancy ball next week."

John Ardayre chuckled softly.

"That sound indicates?"--and Etta Avonwier flashed at him her lovely
clever eyes.

John Ardayre did not answer in words, but both women joined in his smile.

"Yes, we are worldlings," Lady Avonwier admitted, "just measuring people
up for what they can give us, it is the only way though when the whole
thing is such a rush!"

"I am so sorry for the poor husband," and Lady de la Paule's fat voice
was kindly. "He does look such a wretched, cadaverous thing, with that
black beard and those melancholy black eyes, and emaciated face. Do you
think she beats him when they are alone?"

"Who knows? She is so primitive, she may be capable even of that!"

"Her clothes are not primitive," and John Ardayre lighted a cigarette.
"I don't think she really can be such a fool."

"I never suggested that she was a fool at all!" Lady Avonwier was
decisive. "No one can be a fool who is as tenacious as she is--fools
are vague people, who let things go. She is merely illiterate and
stupid as an owl."

"I like your distinction between stupidity and foolishness!" John Ardayre
often argued with Lady Avonwier; they were excellent friends.

"A stupid person is often a great rest and arrives--a fool makes one
nervous and loses the game. But who is that walking with Amaryllis at the
other side of the lake?"

John Ardayre looked up, and on over the water to the glory of the beech
trees on the rising slope of the park, and there saw moving at the edge
of them his wife and Verisschenzko, accompanied by two of the great
tawny dogs.

"Oh! it is the interesting Russian whom we met in Paris, where all the
charming ladies were supposed to be in love with him. He was to have come
down for the whole three days. I suppose these Russian and Austrian
rumours detained him, he has only arrived for to-night."

       *       *       *       *       *

And across the lake Amaryllis was saying to Verisschenzko in her soft
voice, deep as all the Ardayre voices were deep:

"I have brought you here so that you may get the best view of the
house. I think, indeed, that it is very beautiful from over the water,
do not you?"

Verisschenzko remained silent for a moment. His face was altered in this
last week; it looked haggard and thinner, and his peculiar eyes were
concentrated and intense.

He took in the perfect picture of this English stately home, with its
Henry VII centre and watch towers, and gabled main buildings, and the
Queen Anne added Square--all mellowed and amalgamated into a whole of
exquisite beauty and dignity in the glow of the setting sun.

"How proud you should be of such possessions, you English. The
accumulation of centuries, conserved by freedom from strife. It is no
wonder you are so arrogant! You could not be if you had only memories, as
we have, of wooden barracks up to a hundred and fifty years ago, and
drunkenness and orgies, and beating of serfs. This is the picture our
country houses call up--any of the older ones which have escaped being
burnt. But here you have traditions of harmony and justice and
obligations to the people nobody fulfilled." And then he took his hat off
and looked up into the golden sky:

"May nothing happen to hurt England, and may we one day be as free."

A shiver ran through Amaryllis--but something kept her silent; she
divined that her friend's mood did not desire speech from her yet. He
spoke again and earnestly a moment or two afterwards.

"Lady of my soul--I am going away to-morrow into a frenzied turmoil. I
have news from my country, and I must be in the centre of events; we do
not know what will come of it all. I come down to-day at great sacrifice
of time to bid you farewell. It may be that I shall never see you again,
though I think that I shall; but should I not, promise me that you will
remain my star unsmirched by the paltriness of the world, promise me that
you will live up to the ideal of this noble home--that you will develop
your brain and your intuition, that you will be forceful and filled with
common sense. I would like to have moulded your spiritual being, and
brought you to the highest, but it is not for me, perhaps, in this
life--another will come. See that you live worthily."

Amaryllis was deeply moved.

"Indeed, I will try. I have seen so little of you, but I feel that I have
known you always, and--yes--even I feel that it is true what you said,"
and she grew rosy with a sweet confusion--"that we were--lovers--I am so
ignorant and undeveloped, not advanced like you, but when you speak you
seem to awaken memories; it is as though a transitory light gleamed in
dark places, and I receive flashes of understanding, and then it grows
obscured again, but I will try to seize and hold it--indeed, I will try
to do as you would wish."

They both looked ahead, straight at the splendid house, and then
Amaryllis looked at Verisschenzko and it seemed as though his face were
transfigured with some inward light.

"Strange things are coming, child, the cauldron has boiled over, and we
do not know what the stream may engulf. Think of this evening in the days
which will be, and remember my words."

His voice vibrated, but he did not look at her, but always across the
lake at the house.

"Whenever you are in doubt as to the wisdom of a decision between two
courses--put them to the test of which, if you follow it, will enable you
to respect your own soul. Never do that which the inward You despises."

"And if both courses look equally good and it is merely a question of
earthly benefit?"

Verisschenzko smiled.

"Never be vague. There is an Arab proverb which says: Trust in God but
tie up your camel."

The setting sun was throwing its last gleams upon the windows of the high
tower. Nothing more beautiful or impressive could have been imagined than
the scene. The velvet lawn sloping down to the lake, with a group of
trees to the right among which nestled the tiny cruciform ancient church,
while in the distance, on all sides, stretched the vast, gloriously
timbered park.

Verisschenzko gazed at the wonder of it, and his yellow-green eyes were
wide with the vision it created in his brain.

No--this should never go to the bastard Ferdinand, whose life in
Constantinople was a disgrace. This record of fine living and achievement
of worthy Ardayres should remain the glory of the true blood.

He turned and looked at Amaryllis at his side, so slender, and strong,
and young--and he said:

"It is necessary above all things that you cultivate a steadiness and
clearness of judgment, which will enable you to see the great aim in a
thing, and not be hampered by sentimental jingo and convention, which is
a danger when a nature is as good and true, but as undeveloped, as yours.
Whatever circumstance should arise in your life, in relation to the trust
you hold for this family and this home, bring the keenest common sense to
bear upon the matter, and keep the end, that you must uphold it and pass
it on resplendent, in view."

Amaryllis felt that he was transmitting some message to her. His eyes
were full of inspiration and seemed to see beyond.

What message? She refrained from asking. If he had meant her to
understand more fully he would have told her plainly. Light would come in
its own time.

"I promise," was all she said.

They looked at the great tower; the sun had left some of the windows and
in one they could see the figure of a woman standing there in some light
dressing-gown.

"That is Harietta Boleski," Verisschenzko remarked, his mood changing,
and that penetrating and yet inscrutable expression growing in his
regard. "It is almost too far away to be certain, but I am sure that it
is she. Am I right? Is that window in her room?"

"Yes--how wonderful of you to be able to recognise her at that distance!"

"Of what is she thinking?--if one can call her planning thoughts! She
does not gaze at views to appreciate the loveliness of the landscape;
figures in the scene are all which could hold her attention--and those
figures are you and me."

"Why should we interest her?"

"There are one or two reasons why we should. I think after all you must
be very careful of her. I believe if she stays on in England you had
better not let the acquaintance increase."

"Very well." Amaryllis again did not question him; she felt he knew best.

"She has been most successful here, and at the Bridgeborough ball she
amused herself with a German officer, and left the other women's men
alone. He was brought by the party from Broomgrove and was most
_empresse;_ he got introduced to her at once--just after we came in. I
expect they will bring him to-night. He and she looked such a magnificent
pair, dancing a quadrille. It was quite a serious ball to begin with!
None of those dances of which you disapprove, and all the Yeomanry wore
their uniforms and the German officer wore his too."

"He was a fine animal, then?"

"Yes--but?"

"You said _a pair_--only an animal could make a pair with Harietta!
Describe him to me. What was he like? And what uniform did he wear?"

Amaryllis gave a description, of height, and fairness, and of the blue
and gold coat.

"He would have been really good-looking, only that to our eyes his hips
are too wide."

"It sounds typically German--there are hundreds such there--some ordinary
Prussian Infantry regiment, I expect. You say he was introduced to
Harietta? They were not old friends--no?"

"I heard him ask Mrs. Nordenheimer, his hostess, who she was, in his
guttural voice, and Mrs. Nordenheimer came up to me and presented him and
asked me to introduce him to my guest. So I did. The Nordenheimers are
those very rich German Jews who bought Broomgrove Park some years ago.
Every one receives them now."

"And how did Harietta welcome this partner?"

"She looked a little bored, but afterwards they danced several times
together."

"Ah!"--and that was all Verisschenzko said, but his thoughts ran: "An
infantry officer--not a large enough capture for Harietta to waste time
on in a public place--when she is here to advance herself. She danced
with him because _she was obliged to_. I must ascertain who this man is."

Amaryllis saw that he was preoccupied. They walked on now and round
through the shrubbery on the left, and so at last to the house again.
Amaryllis could not chance being late.

Verisschenzko recovered from his abstraction presently and talked of
many things--of the friendship of the soul, and how it can only thrive
after there has been in some life a physical passionate love and fusion
of the bodies.

"I want to think that we have reached this stage, Lady mine. My mission
on this plane now is so fierce a one, and the work which I must do is so
absorbing, that I must renounce all but transient physical pleasures. But
I must keep some radiant star as my lodestone for spiritual delights, and
ever since we met and spoke at the Russian Embassy it seems as though
step by step links of memory are awakening and comforting me with
knowledge of satisfied desire in a former birth, so that now our souls
can rise to rarer things. I can even see another in the earthly relation
which once was mine, without jealousy. Child, do you feel this too?"

"I do not know quite what I feel," and Amaryllis looked down, "but I will
try to show you that I am learning to master my emotions, by thinking
only of sympathy between our spirits."

"It is well--"

Then they reached the house and entered the green drawing-room in the
Queen Anne Square, by one of the wide open windows, and there Amaryllis
held out her two slim hands to Verisschenzko.

"Think of me sometimes, even amidst your turmoil," she whispered, "and I
shall feel your ambience uplifting my spirit and my will."

"Lady of my Soul!" he cried, exalted once more, and he bent as though to
kiss her hands, but straightened himself and threw them gently from him.

"No! I will resist all temptations! Now you must dress and dine, and
dance, and do your duty--and later we will say farewell."

Harietta Boleski stamped across her charming chintz chamber in the great
tower. She was like an angry wolf in the Zoo, she burst with rage.
Verisschenzko had never walked by lakes with her, nor bent over with that
air of devotion.

"He loves that hateful bit of bread and butter! But I shall crush her
yet--and Ferdinand Ardayre will help me!"

Then she rang her bell violently for Marie, while she kicked aside
Fou-Chow, who had travelled to England as an adjunct to her beauty,
concealed in a cloak. His minute body quivered with pain and fear, and he
looked up at her reproachfully with his round Chinese idol's eyes, then
he hid under a chair, where Marie found him trembling presently and
carried him surreptitiously to her room.

"My angel," she told him as they went along the passage, "that she-devil
will kill thee one day, unless happily I can place thee in safety first.
But if she does, then I will murder for myself! What has caused her fury
tonight, some one has spoilt her game."

In the oak-panelled smoking room, deserted by all but these two,
Verisschenzko spoke to Stanislass, hastily, and in his own tongue.

"The news is of vital importance, Stanislass. You must return with me to
London; of all things you must show energy now and hold your men
together. I leave in the morning. You hesitate!--impossible!--Harietta
keeps you! Bah!--then I wash my hands of you and Poland. Weakling! to
let a woman rule you. Well; if you choose thus, you can go by yourself
to hell. I have done with you." And he strode from the room, looking
more Calmuck and savage than ever in his just wrath. And when he had
gone the second husband of Harietta leant forward and buried his head in
his hands.

       *       *       *       *       *

The picture Gallery made a brilliant setting for that gallant company! A
collection of England's best, dancing their hardest to a stirring band,
which sang when the tune of some popular Revue chorus came in.

"The Song of the Swan," Verisschenzko thought as he observed it all in
the last few minutes before midnight. He must go away soon. A messenger
had arrived in hot haste from London, motoring beyond the speed limit,
and as soon as his servant had packed his things he must return and not
wait for the morning. All relations between Austria and Servia had been
broken off, the conflagration had begun, and no time must be wasted
further. He must be in Russia as soon as it was possible to get there. He
blamed himself for coming down.

"And yet it was as well," he reflected, because he had become awakened in
regard to possible double dealing in Harietta. But where were his host
and hostess--he must bid them farewell.

John Ardayre was valsing with Lady Avonwier and Harietta Boleski
undulated in the arms of the tall German who had come with the party from
Broomgrove--but Amaryllis for the moment was absent from the room.

"If I could only know who the beast is before I go, and where she has met
him previously!" Verisschenzko's thoughts ran. "It is more than ever
necessary that I master her--and there is so little time."

He waited for a few seconds, the dance was almost done, and when the
last notes of music ceased and the throng of people swept towards him, he
fixed Harietta with his eye.

Her evening so far had not been agreeable. She had not been able to have
a word with Stepan, who had been far from her at the banquet before the
ball. She was torn with jealousy of Amaryllis; and the advent of Hans,
when she would have wished to have been free to re-grab Verisschenzko,
was most unfortunate. It had not been altogether pleasant, his turning up
at Bridgeborough, but at any rate that one evening was quite enough! She
really could not be wearied with him more!

His new instructions to her from the higher command were most annoyingly
difficult too--coming at a time when her whole mind was given to
consolidating her position in England,--it was really too bad!

If only the tiresome bothers of these stupid old quarrelsome countries
did not upset matters, she just meant to make Stanislass shut up his ugly
old Polish home, and settle in some splendid country house like this,
only nearer London. Now that she had seen what life was in England, she
knew that this was her goal. No bothersome old other language to be
learned! Besides, no men were so good-looking as the English, or made
such safe and prudent lovers, because they did not boast. If any
information she had been able to collect for Hans in the last year had
helped his Ober-Lords to stir up trouble, she was almost sorry she had
given it--unless indeed, ructions between those ridiculous southern
countries made it so that she could remain in England, then it was a good
thing. And Hans had assured her that England could not be dragged in.
Then she laughed to herself as she always did if Hans coerced her--when
she recollected how she had given his secrets away to Verisschenzko and
that no matter how he seemed to compel her obedience, she was even with
him underneath!

She looked now at the Russian standing there, so tall and ugly, and
weirdly distinguished, and a wild passionate desire for him overcame her,
as primitive as one a savage might have felt. At that moment she almost
hated her late husband, for she dared not speak to Verisschenzko with
Hans there. She must wait until Verisschenzko spoke to her. Hans could
not prevent that, nor accuse her of disobeying his command. So that it
was with joy that she saw the Russian approach her. She did not know that
he was leaving suddenly, and she was wondering if some meeting could not
be arranged for later on, when Hans would be gone.

"Good evening, Madame!" Verisschenzko said suavely. "May I not have the
pleasure of a turn with you; it is delightful to meet you again."

Harietta slipped her hand out of Hans' arm and stood still, determined to
secure Stepan at once since the chance had come.

Verisschenzko divined her intention and continued, his voice serious with
its mock respect:

"I wonder if I could persuade you to come with me and find your husband.
You know the house and I do not. I have something I want to talk to him
about if you won't think me a great bore taking you from your partner,"
and he bowed politely to Hans.

Harietta introduced them casually, and then said archly:

"I am sure you will excuse me, Captain von Pickelheim. And don't forget
you have the first one-step after supper!" So Hans was dismissed with a
ravishing smile.

Verisschenzko had watched the German covertly and saw that with all his
forced stolidity an angry gleam had come into his eyes.

"They have certainly met before--and he knows me--I must somehow make
time," then, aloud:

"You are looking a dream of beauty to-night, Harietta," he told her as
they walked across the hall. "Is there not some quiet corner in the
garden where we can be alone for a few minutes. You drive me mad."

Harietta loved to hear this, and in triumph she raised her head and drew
him into one of the sitting-rooms, and so out of the open windows on into
the darkness beyond the limitations of the lawn.

Twenty minutes afterwards Verisschenzko entered the house alone, a grim
smile of satisfaction upon his rugged countenance. Jealousy, acting on
animal passion, had been for once as productive of information as a ruby
ring or brooch--and what a remarkable type Harietta! Could there be
anything more elemental on the earth! Meanwhile this lady had gained the
ball-room by another door, delighted with her adventure, and the thought
that she had tricked Hans!

"Have you seen our hostess, Madame?" the Russian asked, meeting Lady de
la Paule. "I have been looking for her everywhere. Is not this a
charming sight?"

They stayed and talked for a few minutes, watching the joyous company of
dancers, among whom Amaryllis could now be seen. Verisschenzko wished to
say farewell to her when the one-step should be done. They would all be
going into supper, and then would be his chance. He could not delay
longer--he must be gone.

He was paying little attention to what Lady de la Paule was saying--her
fat voice prattled on:

"I hope these tiresome little quarrels of the Balkan peoples will settle
themselves. If Austria should go to war with Servia, it may upset my
Carlsbad cure."

Then he laughed out suddenly, but instantly checked himself.

"That would be too unfortunate, Madame, we must not anticipate such
preposterous happenings!"

And as he walked forward to meet Amaryllis his face was set:

"Half the civilised world thinks thus of things. The sinister events in
the Balkans convey no suggestions of danger, and only matter in that
they could upset a Carlsbad cure! Alas! how sound asleep these splendid
people are!"

He met Amaryllis and briefly told her that he must go. She left her
partner and came with him to the foot of the staircase, which led
to his room.

"Good-bye, and God keep you," she said feelingly, but she noticed that he
did not even offer to take her hand.

"All blessings, my Star," and his voice was hoarse, then he turned
abruptly and went on up the stairs. But when he reached the landing above
he paused, and looked down at her, moving away among the throng.

"Sweet Lady of my Soul," he whispered softly. "After Harietta I could not
soil--even thy glove!"




CHAPTER VIII


Events moved rapidly. Of what use to write of those restless, feverish
days before the 4th of August, 1914? They are too well known to all the
world. John, as ever, did his duty, and at once put his name down for
active service, cajoled a medical board which would otherwise probably
have condemned him and trained with the North Somerset Yeomanry in
anticipation of being soon sent to France. But before all this happened,
the night War was declared; he remained in his own sitting-room at
Ardayre, and Amaryllis wondered, and towards dawn crept out of bed and
listened in the passage, but no sound came from within the room.

How very unsatisfactory this strange reserve between them was becoming!
Would she never be able to surmount it? Must they go on to the end of
their lives, living like two polite friendly acquaintances, neither
sharing the other's thoughts? She hardly realised that the War could
personally concern John. The Yeomanry, she imagined, were only for home
defence, so at this stage no anxiety troubled her about her husband.

The next day he seemed frightfully preoccupied, and then he talked to her
seriously of their home and its traditions, and how she must love it and
understand its meaning. He spoke too of his great wish for a child--and
Amaryllis wondered at the tone almost of anguish in his voice.

"If only we had a son, Amaryllis, I would not care what came to me. A
true Ardayre to carry on! The thought of Ferdinand here after me drives
me perfectly mad!"

Amaryllis knew not what to answer. She looked down and clasped her hands.

John came quite close and gazed into her face, as if therein some comfort
could be found; then he folded her in his arms.

"Oh! Amaryllis!" he said, and that was all.

"What is it? Oh! what does everything mean?" the poor child cried. "Why,
why can't we have a son like other people of our age?"

John kissed her again.

"It shall be--it must be so," he answered--and framed her face in
his hands.

"Amaryllis--I know you have often wondered whether I really loved you.
You have found me a stupid, unsatisfactory sort of husband--indeed, I am
but a dull companion at the best of times. Well, I want you to know that
I do--and I am going to try to change, dear little girl. If I knew that I
held some corner of your heart it would comfort me."

"Of course, you do, John. Alas! if you would only unbend and be loving to
me, how happy we could be."

He kissed her once more. "I will try."

That afternoon he went up to London to his medical board, and Amaryllis
was to join him in Brook Street on the following day.

She was stunned like every one else. War seemed a nightmare--an
unreality--she had not grasped its meaning as yet. She thought of
Verisschenzko and his words. What was her duty? Surely at a great crisis
like this she must have some duty to do?

The library in Brook Street was a comfortable room and was always their
general sitting-room; its windows looked out on the street.

That evening when John Ardayre arrived he paced up and down it for
half an hour. He was very pale and lines of thought were stamped
upon his brow.

He had come to a decision; there only remained the details of a course of
action to be arranged.

He went to the telephone and called up the Cavalry Club. Yes, Captain
Ardayre was in, and presently Denzil's voice said surprisedly:

"Hullo!"

"I heard by chance that you were in town. I suppose your regiment will be
going out at once. It is your cousin, John Ardayre, speaking, we have not
met since you were a boy. I have something rather vital I want to say to
you. Could you possibly come round?"

The two voices were so alike in tone it was quite remarkable, each was
aware of it as he listened to the other.

"Where are you, and what is the time?".

"I am in our house in Brook Street, number 102, and it is nearly seven.
Could you manage to come now?"

There was a second or two's pause, then Denzil said:

"All right. I will get into a taxi and be with you in about five
minutes," and he put the receiver down.

John Ardayre grew paler still, and sank into a chair. His hands were
trembling, this sign of weakness angered him and he got up and rang
the bell and ordered his valet who had come up with him, to bring him
some brandy.

Murcheson was an old and valued servant, and he looked at his master with
concern, but he knew him too to make any remark. If there was any one in
the world beyond the great surgeon, Lemon Bridges, who could understand
the preoccupations of John Ardayre, Murcheson was the man.

He brought the old Cognac immediately and retired from the room a
moment or two before Denzil arrived. Very little trace of emotion
remained upon the face of the head of the family when his cousin was
shown in, and he came forward cordially to meet him. Standing opposite
one another, they might have been brothers, not cousins, the
resemblance was so strong! Denzil was perhaps fairer, but their heads
were both small and their limbs had the same long lines. But where as
John Ardayre suggested undemonstrative stolidity, every atom of the
younger man was vitally alive.

His eyes were bluer, his hair more bronze, and exuberant perfect health
glowed in his tanned fresh skin.

Both their voices were peculiarly deep, with the pronunciation of the
words especially refined. John Ardayre said some civil things with
composure, and Denzil replied in kind, explaining how he had been
most anxious to meet John and Amaryllis and heal the breach the
fathers had made.

John offered him a cigar, and finally the atmosphere seemed to be
unfrozen as they smoked. But in Denzil's mind there was speculation. It
was not for just this that he had been asked to come round.

John began to speak presently with a note of deep seriousness in his
voice. He talked of the war and of his Yeomanry's going out, and of
Denzil's regiment also. It was quite on the cards that they might both be
killed--then he spoke of Ferdinand, and the old story of the shame, and
he told Denzil of his boyhood and its great trials, and of his
determination to redeem the family home and of the great luck which had
befallen him in the city after the South African War--and how that the
thought of worthily handing on the inheritance in the direct male line
had become the dominating desire of his life.

At first his manner had been very restrained, but gradually the intense
feeling which was vibrating in him made itself known, and Denzil grew
to realise how profound was his love for Ardayre and how great his
family pride.

But underneath all this some absolute agony must be wringing his soul.

Denzil became increasingly interested.

At last John seemed to have come to a very difficult part of his
narration; he got up from his chair and walked rapidly up and down the
room, then forced himself to sit down again and resume his original calm.

"I am going to trust you, Denzil, with something which matters far more
than my life." John looked Denzil straight in the eyes. "And I will
confide in you because you are next in the direct line. Listen very
carefully, please, it concerns your honour in the family as well as mine.
It would be too infamous to let Ardayre go to the bastard, Ferdinand, the
snake-charmer's son, if, as is quite possible, I shall be killed in the
coming time."

Denzil felt some strange excitement permeating him. What did these words
portend? Beads of perspiration appeared on John's forehead, and his voice
sunk so low that his cousin bent forward to be certain of hearing him.

Then John spoke in broken sentences, for the first time in his life
letting another share the thoughts which tortured him, but the time was
not for reticence. Denzil must understand everything so that he would
consent to a certain plan. At length, all that was in John's heart had
been made plain, and exhausted with the effort of his innermost being's
unburdenment, he sank back in his chair, deadly pale. The quiet, waiting
attitude in Denzil had given way to keenness, and more than once as he
listened to the moving narration he had emitted words of sympathy and
concern, but when the actual plan which John had evolved was unfolded to
him, and the part he was to play explained, he rose from his chair and
stood leaning on the high mantelpiece, an expression of excitement and
illumination on his strong, good-looking face.

"Do not say anything for a little," John said. "Think over everything
quietly. I am not asking you to do anything dishonourable--and however
much I had hated his mother I would not ask this of you if Ferdinand were
my father's son. You are the next real heir--Ferdinand could not be; my
father had never met the woman until a month before he married her, and
the baby arrived five months afterwards, at its full time. There was no
question of incubators or difficulties and special precautions to rear
him, nor was there any suggestion that he was a seven months' child. It
was only after years that I found out when my father first saw the woman,
but even before this proof there were many and convincing evidences that
Ferdinand was no Ardayre."

"One has only to look at the beast!" cried Denzil. "If the mother was a
Bulgarian, he's a mongrel Turk, there is not a trace of English blood in
his body!"

"Then surely you agree with me that it would be an infamy if he should
take the place of the head of the family, should I not survive?"

Denzil clenched his hands.

"There is no moral question attached, remember," John went on anxiously
before he could reply. "There is only the question of the law, which has
been tricked and defamed by my father, for the meanest ends of revenge
towards me--and now we--you and I--have the right to save the family and
its honour and circumvent the perfidy and weakness of that one man.
Oh!--can't you understand what this means to me, since for this trust of
Ardayre that I feel I must faithfully carry on, I am willing to--Oh!--my
God, I can't say it. Denzil, answer me--tell me that you look at it in
the same way as I do! You are of the family. It is your blood which
Ferdinand would depose--the disgrace would be yours then, since if
Ferdinand reigned I would have gone."

The two men were standing opposite one another, and both their faces were
pale and stern, but Denzil's blue eyes were blazing with some wonderful
new emotion, as they looked at John.

"Very well," he said, and held out his hand. "I appreciate the tremendous
faith you have placed in me, and on my word of honour as an Ardayre, I
will not abuse it, nor take advantage of it afterwards. My regiment will
go out at once, I suppose, the chances are as likely that I shall be
killed as you--"

They shook hands silently.

"We must lose no time."

Then John poured out two glasses of brandy, and the toast they drank was
unspoken. But suddenly Denzil remembered as a strange coincidence that he
was drinking it for the third time.

       *       *       *       *       *

Amaryllis arrived from Ardayre the next afternoon, after John's medical
board had been squared into pronouncing him fit for active service--and
he met his wife at the station and was particularly solicitous of her
well-being. He seemed to be unusually glad to see her, and put his arm
round her in the motor driving to Brook Street. What would she like to
do? They could not, of course, go to the theatre, but if she would rather
they could go out to a restaurant to dine--there were going to be all
kinds of difficulties about food. Amaryllis, who responded immediately to
the smallest advance on his part, glowed now with fond sweetness. She had
been so miserable without him; so crushed and upset by the thought of
war, and his possible participation in it. All the long night, alone at
Ardayre, she had tried to realise what it all would mean. It was too
stupendous, she could not grasp it as yet, it was just a blank horror.
And now to be in the motor and close to him, and everything ordinary and
as usual seemed to drive the hideous fact further and further away. She
would not face it for to-night, she would try to be happy and banish the
remembrance. No one knew what was happening, nor if the Expeditionary
Force had or had not crossed to France. John asked her again what she
would like to do.

She did not want to go out at all, she told him; if the kitchenmaid and
Murcheson could find them something to eat she would much rather dine
alone with him, like a regular old Darby and Joan pair--and afterwards
she would play nice things to him, and John agreed.

When she came down ready for dinner, she was radiant; she had put on a
new and ravishing tea-gown and her grey eyes were shining with a winsome
challenge, and her beautiful skin was brilliant with health and
freshness. A man could not have desired a more delectable creature to
call his own.

John thought so and at dinner expanded and told her so. He was not a
practised lover; women had played a very small part in his life--always
too filled with work and the one dominating idea to make room for them.
He had none of the tender graciousness ready at his command which
Denzil would very well have known how to show. But he loved Amaryllis,
and this was the first time he had permitted the expression of his
emotion to appear.

She became ever more fascinating, and at length unconscious passion grew
in her glance. John said some rather clumsy but loving things, and when
they went back to the library he slipped his arm round her, and drew her
to his side.

"I love to be near you, John," she whispered; "I like your being so tall
and so distinguished-looking. I like your clothes--they are so well
made--" and then she wrinkled her pretty nose--"and I adore the smell of
the stuff you put on your hair! Oh! I don't know--I just want to be in
your arms!"

John kissed her. "I must give you a bottle of that lotion--it is supposed
to do wonders for the hair. It was originally made by an old housekeeper
of my mother's family in the still room, and I have always kept the
receipt--there are cloves in it and some other aromatic herbs."

"Yes, that is what I smell, like a clove carnation--it is divine. I
wonder why scents have such an effect upon one--don't you? Perhaps I am a
very sensuous creature--they can make me feel wicked or good--some
scents make me deliciously intoxicated--that one of yours does--when I
get near you--I want you to hold me and kiss me--John."

Every fibre of John Ardayre's being quivered with pain. The cruel,
ironical bitterness of things.

"I've never smelt this same scent on any one else," she went on, rubbing
her soft cheek up and down against his shoulder in the most alluring way.
"I should know it anywhere for it means just my dear--John!"

He turned away on the pretence of getting a cigarette; he knew that his
eyes had filled with tears.

Then Murcheson came into the room with the coffee, and this made a
break--and he immediately asked her to play to him, and settled
himself in one of the big chairs. He was too much on the rack to
continue any more love-making then; "what might have been" caused too
poignant anguish.

He watched her delicate profile outlined against the curtain of green
silk. It was so pure and young--and her long throat was white as milk. If
this time next year she should have a child--a son--and he, not killed,
but sitting there perhaps watching her holding it. How would he feel
then? Would the certainty of having an Ardayre carry on heal the wild
rebellion in his soul?

"Ah, God!" he prayed, "take away all feeling--reward this sacrifice--let
the family go on."

"You don't think you will have really to go to the war, do you, John?"
Amaryllis asked after she left the piano. "It will be all over, won't it,
before the New Year, and in any case the Yeomanry are only for home
defence, aren't they?" and she took a low seat and rested her head
against his arm.

John stroked her hair.

"I am afraid it will not be over for a long time, Amaryllis. Yes, I
think we shall go out and pretty soon. You would not wish to stop
me, child?"

Amaryllis looked straight in front of her.

"What is this thing in us, John, which makes us feel that--yes, we
would give our nearest and dearest, even if they must be killed? When
the big thing comes even into the lives which have been perhaps all
frivolous like mine--it seems to make a great light. There is an
exaltation, and a pity, and a glory, and a grief, but no holding back.
Is that patriotism, John?"

"That is one name for it, darling."

"But it is really beyond that in this war, because we are not going to
fight for England, but for right. I think that feeling that we must give
is some oblation of the soul which has freed itself from the chains of
the body at last. For so many years we have all been asleep."

"This is a rude awakening."

They were silent for a little while, each busy with unusual thoughts.

There was a sense of nearness between them--of understanding, new and
dangerously sweet.

Amaryllis felt it deliciously, sensuously, and took joy in that she was
touching him.

John thrust it away.

"I must get through to-night," he thought, "but I cannot if this hideous
pain of knowledge of what I must renounce conquers me--I must be strong."

He went on stroking her hair; it made her thrill and she turned and bit
one of his fingers playfully with a wicked little laugh.

"I wish I knew what I am feeling, John," she whispered, and her eyes were
aflame, "I wish I knew--"

"I must teach you!" and with sudden fierceness he bent down and
kissed her lips.

Then he told her to go to bed.

"You must be tired, Amaryllis, after your journey. Go like a good child."

She pouted. She was all vibrating with some totally new and overmastering
emotion. She wanted to stay and be made love to. She wanted--she knew not
what, only everything in her was thrilling with passionate warmth.

"Must I? It is only ten."

"I have a frightful lot of business things to write tonight, Amaryllis.
Go now and sleep, and I will come and wake you about twelve!" He looked
lover-like. She sighed.

"Ah! if you would only come now!"

He kissed her almost roughly again and led her to the door. And he stood
watching her with burning eyes as she went up the stairs.

Then he came back and rang the bell.

"I shall be very late, Murcheson--do not sit up, I will turn out the
lights. Good-night."

"Very good, Sir John."

And the valet left the room.

But John Ardayre did not write any business letters; he sank back into
his great leather chair--his lips were trembling, and presently sobs
shook him, and he leaned forward and buried his face in his hands.

Just before twelve had struck, he went out into the hall, and turned off
the light at the main. The whole house would now be in absolute darkness
but for an electric torch he carried. He listened--there was not a sound.

Then he crept quietly up to his dressing room and returned with a bottle
of the clove-scented hair lotion.

"What a mercy she spoke of it," his thoughts ran. "How sensitive women
are--I should never have remembered such a thing."

Yes--now there was a sound.

       *       *       *       *       *

Midnight had struck--and Amaryllis, sleeping peacefully, had been
dreaming of John.

"Oh! dearest," she whispered drowsily, as but half awakened, she felt
herself being drawn into a pair of strong arms--"Oh!--you know I love
that scent of cloves--Oh!--I love you, John!"




CHAPTER IX


When Amaryllis awoke in the morning her head rested on John's breast, and
his arm encircled her. She raised herself on her elbow and looked at him.
He was still asleep--and his face was infinitely sad. She bent over and
kissed him with shy tenderness, but he did not move, he only sighed
heavily as he lay there.

Why should he look so sad, when they were so happy?

She thought of loving things he had said to her at dinner--and then the
afterwards!--and she thrilled with emotion. Life seemed a glorious thing
and--But John was sad, of course, because he must go away. The
recollection of this fact came upon her suddenly like a blast of cold
air. They must part. War hung there with its hideous shadow, and John
must be conscious of it even in his dreams, that was why he sighed.

The irony of things--now--when--Oh! how cruel that he must go.

Then John awoke with a shudder, and saw her there leaning over him with a
new soft love light in her eyes, and he realised that the anguish of his
calvary had only just begun.

She was perfectly exquisite at breakfast, a fresh and tender graciousness
radiated in her every glance; she was subtle and captivating, teasing him
that he had been so silent in the night. "Why wouldn't you talk to me,
John? But it was all divine, I did not mind." Then she became full of
winsome ways and caresses, which she had hitherto been too timid to
express; and every fond word she spoke stabbed John's heart.

Could she not come and stay somewhere near so as to be with him while he
was in training? It was unbearable to remain alone.

But he told her that this would be impossible and that she must go back
to Ardayre.

"I will get leave, if there is a chance, dear little girl."

"Oh! John, you must indeed."

After he had gone out to the War Office, she sang as she undid a bundle
of late roses he had sent her from Soloman's, on his way.

She must herself put them in water; no servant should have this pleasing
task. Was it the thought of the imminence of separation which had altered
John into so dear a lover? She went over his words there in the library.
She relived the joy of his sudden fierce kiss, when he had said that he
must teach her as to what her emotions meant.

Ah! how good to learn, how all glorious was life and love!

"Sweetheart," the word rang in her ears. He had never called her that
before! Indeed, John rarely ever used any term of endearment, and never
got beyond "Dear" or "Darling" before. But now it was an exquisite
remembrance! Just the murmured word "Sweetheart!" whispered softly again
and again in the night.

John came back to lunch, but two of the de la Paule family dropped in
also, and the talk was all of war, and the difficulty of getting money at
the banks, and how food would go on, and what the whole thing would mean.

But over Amaryllis some spell had fallen--nothing seemed a reality, she
could not attend to ordinary things, she felt that she but moved and
spoke as one still in a dream.

The world, and life, and death, and love, were all a blended mystery
which was but beginning to unravel for her and drew her nearer to John.

The days went on apace.

John in camp thanked God for the strenuous work of his training that it
kept him so occupied that he had barely time to think of Amaryllis or the
tragedy of things. When he had left her on the following afternoon, the
seventh of August, she had returned to Ardayre alone and began the
knitting and shirt-making and amateurish hospital committees which all
well-meaning English women vaguely grasped at before the stern
necessities brought them organised work to do. Amaryllis wrote constantly
to John--all through August--and many of the letters contained loving
allusions which made him wince with pain.

Then the awful news came of Mons, then the Marne--and the Aisne--awful
and glorious, and a hush and mourning fell over the land, and Amaryllis,
like every one else, lost interest in all personal things for a time.

A young cousin had been killed and many of her season's partners and
friends, and now she knew that the North Somerset Yeomanry would shortly
go out and fight as they had volunteered at once. She was very
miserable. But when September grew, in spite of all this general sorrow,
a new horizon presented itself, lit up as if by approaching dawn, for a
hope had gradually developed--a hope which would mean the rejoicing of
John's heart.

And the day when first this possibility of future fulfilment was
pronounced a certainty was one of almost exalted beatitude, and when
Doctor Geddis drove away down the Northern Avenue, Amaryllis seized a
coat from the folded pile of John's in the hall, and walked out into the
park hatless, the wind blowing the curly tendrils of her soft brown hair,
a radiance not of earth in her eyes. The late September sun was sinking
and gilding the windows of the noble house, and she turned and looked
back at it when she was far across the lake.

And the whole of her spirit rose in thankfulness to God, while her soul
sang a glad magnificat.

She, too, might hand on this great and splendid inheritance! She, too,
would be the mother of Ardayres!

And now to write to John!

That was a fresh pleasure! What would he say? What would he feel? Dear
John! His letters had been calm and matter of fact, but that was his way.
She did not mind it now. He loved her, and what did words matter with
this glorious knowledge in her heart?

To have a baby! Her very own--and John's!

How wonderful! How utterly divine--!

Her little feet hardly touched the moss beneath them, she wanted to
skip and sing.

Next May! Next May! A Spring flower--a little life to care for when
war, of course, would have ended and all the world again could be happy
and young!

And then she returned by the tiny ancient church. She had the key of it,
a golden one which John had given her on their first coming down. It hung
on her bracelet with her own private key.

The sun was pouring through the western window, carpeting the altar steps
in translucent cloth of gold.

Amaryllis stole up the short aisle, and paused when she came between the
two tall canopied tombs of recumbent sixteenth century knights, which
made so dignified a screen for the little side aisles--and then she moved
on and knelt in the shaft of the sunlight there at the carved rails.

And no one ever raised to God a purer or more fervent prayer.

She stayed until the sun sunk below the window, and then she rose and
went back to the house, and up to her cedar room. And now she must
write to John!

She began--once--twice--but tore up each sheet. Her news was a supreme
happiness, but so difficult to transmit!

At last she finished three sides of her own rather large sized
note-paper, but as she read over what she had written, she was not quite
content; it did not express all that she desired John to know.

But how could a mere letter convey the wordless gladness in her heart?

She wanted to tell him how she would worship their baby, and how she
would pray that they should be given a son--and how she would remember
all his love words spoken that last time they were together, and weave
the joy of them round the little form, so that it should grow strong and
beautiful and radiant, and come to earth welcomed and blessed!

Something of all this finally did get written, and she concluded thus:

"John, is it not all wonderful and blissful and mysterious, this coming
proof of our love? And when I lie awake I say over and over again the
sweet name you called me, and which I want to sign! I am not just
Amaryllis any longer, but your very own 'Sweetheart'!"

John received this letter by the afternoon post in camp. He sat down
alone in his tent and read and re-read each line. Then he stiffened and
remained icily still.

He could not have analysed his emotions. They were so intermixed with
thankfulness and pain--and underneath there was a fierce, primitive
jealousy burning.

"Sweetheart!" he said aloud, as though the word were anathema! "And must
I call her that 'Sweetheart'! Oh! God, it is too hard!" and he clenched
his hands.

By the same post came a letter from Denzil, of whose movements he had
asked to be kept informed, saying that the 110th Hussars were going out
at once, so that they would probably soon meet in France.

Then John wrote to Amaryllis. The very force of his feelings seemed to
freeze his power of expression, and when he had finished he knew that it
was but a cold, lifeless thing he had produced, quite inadequate as an
answer to her tender, exalted words.

"My poor little girl," he sighed as he read it. "I know this will
disappoint her. What a hideous, sickening mockery everything is."

He forced himself to add a postscript, a practice very foreign
to his usual methodical rule. "Never forget that I love you,
Amaryllis--Sweetheart!" he said.

And then he went to his Colonel and asked for two days' leave, and when
it was granted for the following Saturday and Monday he wired to his wife
asking her to meet him in Brook Street.

"I must see her--I cannot bear it," he cried to himself.

And late at night he wrote to Denzil--it was just that he should do this.

"My wife is going to have a baby--if only it should be a son, then it
will not so much matter if both of us are killed, at least the family
will be saved, and be able to carry oh."

He tried to make the letter cordial. Denzil had behaved with the most
perfect delicacy throughout, he must admit, and although they had met
once and exchanged several letters, not the faintest allusion to the
subject of their talk in the library at Brook Street had ever been
made by him.

Denzil had indeed acted and written as though such knowledge between
them did not exist. He--Denzil--in these last seven weeks had been
extremely occupied, and while his forces were concentrated upon the
exhilarating preparations for war, it would happen in rare moments
before sleep claimed him at night that he would let his thoughts conjure
a waking dream, infinitely, mystically sweet. And every pulse would
thrill with ecstasy, and then his will would banish it, and he would
think of other subjects.

He could not face the marvel of his emotions at this period, nor dwell
upon the romantically exciting aspect of some things.

He was up in London upon equipment business on the very Saturday that
John got leave, and he was due to dine at the Carlton with Verisschenzko
who had that day arrived on vital matters bent.

As they came into the hall, a man stopped to talk to the Russian, and
Denzil's eyes wandered over the unnumerous and depressed looking company
collected waiting for their parties to arrive. War had even in those
early Autumn days set its grim seal upon this festive spot. People looked
rather ashamed of being seen and no one smiled. He nodded to one or two
friends, and then his glance fell upon a beautiful, slim, brown-haired
girl, sitting quietly waiting in an armchair by the restaurant steps.

She wore a plain black frock, but in her belt one huge crimson clove
carnation was unostentatiously tucked.

"What a lovely creature!" his thoughts ran, and Verisschenzko
turning from his acquaintance that moment, he said to him as they
started to advance:

"Stepan, if you want to see something typically English and perfectly
exquisite, look at that girl in the armchair opposite where the band used
to be. I wonder who she is?"

"What luck!" cried Verisschenzko. "That is your cousin, Amaryllis
Ardayre--come along!"

And in a second Denzil found himself being introduced to her, and being
greeted by her with interested cordiality, as befitted their cousinly
relationship.

But Verisschenzko, whose eyes missed nothing, remarked that under his
sunburn, Denzil had grown suddenly very pale. Amaryllis was enchanted to
see her friend, the Russian. John had gone to the telephone, it
appeared--and yes, they were dining alone--and, of course, she was sure
John would love to amalgamate parties, it was so nice of Verisschenzko to
think of it! There was John now.

The blood rushed back to Denzil's heart, and the colour to his face--he
had only murmured a few conventional words. Mercifully John would decide
the matter--it was not his doing that he and Amaryllis had met.

John caught sight of the three as he came along the balcony from the
telephone, so that he had time to take in the situation; he saw that the
meeting was quite _imprevu_, and he had, of course, no choice but to
accept Verisschenzko's suggestion with a show of grace. At that very
moment, before they could enter the restaurant, and re-arrange their
tables, Harietta Boleski and her husband swept upon them--they were
staying in the hotel. Harietta was enraptured.

What a delightful surprise meeting them! Were they all just together,
would they not dine with her?

She purred to John, while her eyes took in with satisfaction Denzil's
extraordinary good looks--and there was Stepan, too! Nothing could be
more agreeable than to scintillate for them both.

John hailed their advent with relief: it would relax the intolerable
strain which both he and Denzil would be bound to have to experience. So
looking at the rest of the party, he indicated that he thought they would
accept. It suited Verisschenzko also for his own reasons. And any
suggestion to enlarge the intimate number of four would have been
received by Denzil with graciousness.

He had not imagined that he would feel such profound emotion on seeing
Amaryllis, the intensity of it caused him displeasure. It was altogether
such a remarkable situation. He knew that it would have been of thrilling
interest to him had it not been for the presence of John. His knowledge
of what John must be suffering, and the knowledge that John was aware of
what he also must be feeling, turned the whole circumstance into
discomfort.

As soon as he recalled himself to Madame Boleski they all went into the
restaurant to the Boleski table, just inside the door, by the window on
the right. Harietta put John on one side of her and Denzil at the other,
and beyond were Verisschenzko and her husband, with Amaryllis between,
who thus sat nearly opposite Denzil, with her back to the room.

Harietta, when she desired to be, was always an inspiriting hostess,
making things go. She intended to do her best to-night. The turn affairs
had taken, England being at war, was quite too tiresome. It had spoilt
all her country house visits and nullified much of the pleasure and
profit she was intending to reap from her now secured position in this
promised land.

Stanislass, too, had been difficult, he had threatened to go back to
Poland immediately, which he explained was his obvious duty to do--but
she had fortunately been able to crush that idea completely with tears
and scenes. Then he suggested Paris, but information from Hans gave her
occasion to think this might not be a comfortable or indeed quite a safe
spot, and in all cases if the Frenchmen were fighting for dear life they
would not have leisure to entertain her, therefore, dull and gloomy as
England had become, she preferred to remain.

Hans, too, had given her orders. For the present London must be her home,
and the lease of the Mount Lennard house in Grosvenor Square having
expired, they had moved to the Carlton Hotel.

The misery of war, the holocaust of all that was noblest, left her
absolutely cold. It was certainly a pity that those darling young
guardsmen she had danced with should have had to be killed, but there was
never any use in crying over spilt milk--better look out for new ones
coming on. She was quite indifferent as to which country won. It was
still a great bother collecting information for her former husband, but
he threatened terrible reprisals if she refused to go on, and as in her
secret heart she thought that there was no doubt as to who would be
victor, she felt it might be wiser to remain on good terms with the power
she believed would win!

Ferdinand Ardayre had been very helpful all the summer--he had moved from
the Constantinople branch of his business to one in Holland and had just
returned to England now; he was, in fact, coming to see her later on when
she should have packed Stanislass safely off to the St. James' Club.

Harietta had no imagination to be inflamed by terrible descriptions of
things. She saw no actual horrors, therefore war to her was only a
nuisance--nothing ghastly or to be feared. But it was a disgusting
nuisance and caused her fatigue. She had continually to remember to
simulate proper sympathy, and concern and to subdue her vivacity, and
show enthusiasm for any agreeable war work which could divert her dull
days. If she had not been more than doubtful of her reception in America,
even as a Polish magnate's wife, she would have gone over there to escape
as far as possible from the whole situation, and she had been bored to
death now for several days. People were too occupied and too grieved to
go out of their way now to make much of her, and she had been left alone
to brood. Thus the advent of Verisschenzko, who thrilled her always, and
a possible new admirer in Denzil, seemed a heaven-sent occurrence.
Amaryllis and John were undesired but unavoidable appendages who had to
be swallowed.

Denzil's type particularly attracted her. There was an insouciance about
him, a _debonnair sans gene_ which increased the charm of his good looks;
he had everything of attraction about him which John Ardayre lacked.

Amaryllis, against her will, before the end of the dinner, was conscious
of the fact also, though Denzil studiously avoided any conversation with
her beyond what the exigencies of politeness required. He devoted himself
entirely to Harietta, to her delight, and Verisschenzko and Amaryllis
talked while John was left to Stanislass. But the very fact of Denzil's
likeness to John made Amaryllis look at him, and she resented his
attraction and the interest he aroused in her.

His voice was perhaps even deeper than John's, and how extraordinarily
well his bronze hair was planted on his forehead; and how perfectly
groomed and brushed and soldierly he looked!

He seemingly had taken the measure of Madame Boleski, too, and was
apparently enjoying with a cultivated subtlety the drawing of her out. He
was no novice it seemed, and there was a whimsical light in his eyes and
once or twice they had inadvertently met hers with understanding when
Verisschenzko had made some especially cryptic remark. She knew that she
would very much have liked to talk to him.

Verisschenzko was observing Amaryllis carefully. There was a new
expression in her eyes which puzzled him. Her features seemed to be drawn
with finer lines and pale violet shadows lay beneath her grey eyes. Was
it the gloom of the war which oppressed her? It could not be altogether
that, because her regard was serene and even happy.

"Did I not know that nothing could be more unlikely, I should say she was
going to have a child. What is the mystery?" He found himself very much
interested. Especially he was anxious to watch what impression Denzil
made upon her. He saw, as the dinner went on, that Amaryllis was aware
that he was an attractive creature.

"There is the beginning of a chapter of necessary and
expedient--romance--here," he decided. "If only Denzil is not killed."
But what did his growing so pale on learning that she was his cousin
mean...? that was not a natural circumstance--some deep undercurrents
were stirred. And in what way was all this going to affect the lady
of his soul?

They could not have any intimate conversation at dinner; they spoke of
ordinary things and the war and the horror of it. Russia was moving
forward, but Verisschenzko did not appear to be very optimistic in spite
of this. There were things in his country, he told Amaryllis, which might
handicap the fighting.

Stanislass Boleski looked extremely depressed. He had a hang-dog,
strained mien and Verisschenzko's contemptuously friendly attitude
towards him wounded him deeply. Once he had shone as a leader and chief
in Stepan's life, and now after the stormy scene in the smoking-room at
Ardayre, that he could greet him casually and not turn from him in anger,
showed, alas! to where he had sunk in Verisschenzko's estimation--a thing
of nought--not even worth his disapproval. The dinner to him was a
painful trial.

John also was far from content. He had been longing to see Amaryllis, and
yet the sight of her and her fond and insinuating words and caresses had
caused him exquisite suffering. His emotions were so varied and complex.
His prayer had been answered, but apart from his natural loathing for all
subterfuge, every new tenderness towards himself which Amaryllis
displayed aroused some indefinable jealousy. She had been so glad to see
him and he had been conscious himself that he had been even unusually
stolid and self-contained towards her. He knew that she grew disappointed
and that probably the exalted sentiment which her letter had indicated
that she was feeling had been chilled before she could put it into words.

All this distressed him, and yet he could not break through the reserve
of his nature.

And now to crown unfortunate things, there was Denzil brought by fate and
no one's manoeuvring into Amaryllis' company! Of all things he had hoped
that they need not meet before he and his cousin should go to the Front.
And it was all brought about by his own action in insisting that they had
better dine at a restaurant, as the kitchenmaid, who always remained at
Brook Street, had gone to see a wounded brother.

Amaryllis had sighed a little as she had consented, with the faint
protest that they could have eaten something cold.

But on their drive to the Carlton she had become fondly affectionate
again, nestling close to him, and then she had pulled out the carnation
from her belt and held it for him to smell.

"I picked it in the greenhouse this morning, the last of them; I have had
them all around me while there were any, because they remind me of you,
dearest--and of everything divine."

John felt that he should always now hate that clove stuff for the hair
and could no longer bear to use it.

He was perfectly aware that Denzil on his hostess' other hand was
looking everything that a woman could desire, and that his easy
casualness of manner would be likely to charm. He saw that Amaryllis,
too, observed him with unconscious interest, and a feeling akin to
despair filled his heart.

Life for him had always been difficult, and he was accustomed to blows,
but this one was particularly hard to bear, because he really loved
Amaryllis and desired happiness with her which he knew could never really
be attained.

Only Harietta of the whole party was quite content. She intended to annex
Stepan when they should be drinking coffee in the hall. She looked upon
Denzil's conquest now as almost an accomplished fact, and so felt that
she might let him talk to Amaryllis, since the Russian was her real
object. His ugly rugged face and odd Calmuck eyes always attracted her.

"Why aren't you staying in the hotel, darling Brute?'" she whispered to
him as they left the restaurant. "If you had been--"

"I am," said Verisschenzko, and leaving her for a moment he went and
telephoned to his not unintelligent Russian servant at the Ritz to
arrange about the transference of his rooms.

"She requires the most careful watching--I must waste no time."

And then he returned to the party in the hall.




CHAPTER X


Denzil Ardayre took up his letters which had been forwarded to him from
the depot where he was stationed. He and Verisschenzko were passing
through the hall of his mother's house, for a talk and a smoke in his
sitting-room, after leaving the Carlton.

The house was in St. James' Place, a small, old building, the ground
floor of which was given over to Denzil whenever he was in London. His
mother was absent at Bath, where she spent a long autumn cure.

John's letter lay on the top, and Verisschenzko caught the look of
interest which came into Denzil's face.

"Don't mind me, my dear chap," he remarked, "read your letters." And they
went on into the sitting-room.

"I want just to look at this one--it is from John Ardayre whom we met
to-night," and Denzil opened it casually--"I wonder what he is writing to
me about, he did not say anything at dinner."

He read the short communication and exclaimed: "Good God!" and then
checked himself. He was obviously stirred, and Verisschenzko watched him
narrowly. Anything to do with John must concern Amaryllis, and therefore
was of profound interest to himself.

"No bad news, I hope?" he said.

Denzil was gazing into the fire, and there was a look of wonderment and
even rapture upon his face.

"Oh! No--rather splendid--" He felt quite the strangest emotion he had
ever experienced in his life. His usual serene self-confidence and easy
flow of words deserted him, and Verisschenzko, watching him, began to
link certain things in his mind.

"Tell me, what did you think of your cousin, Lady Ardayre?" he asked
casually, as though the subject was irrelevant.

"Amaryllis?" and Denzil almost started from a reverie. "Oh, yes, of
course, she is a lovely creature, is not she, Stepan?"

Verisschenzko narrowed his eyes.

"I have told you that I adore her--but with the spirit--if it were
not so, she would appeal very strongly to the flesh--Yes?--Did you
not feel it?"

"I did."

"Well?"

"Well--"

"She is longing to understand life, she is groping; why do you not set
about her education, Denzil?"

"That is the husband's business."

"Not in this case. I consider it is yours; you are the right mate
for her. John Ardayre is a good fellow, but he stands for nothing in
the affair. Why did you waste your time upon Harietta, when time is
so short?"

"I was given no choice."

"But afterwards, in the hall?"

It was quite evident to Verisschenzko that the mention of Amaryllis was
causing his friend some unexplainable emotion.

"You did not even exert yourself, then. Why, Denzil?"

Denzil lit a cigarette.

"I thought her awfully attractive--it is the first time I have ever seen
her--as you know."

"And that was a reason for remaining silent and as stiff as a poker in
manner! You English are a strange race!"

Denzil smiled--if Stepan only knew everything, what would he say!

"You were made for each other. If I were you, I would not lose a
second's time!"

"My dear old boy, you seem quite to forget that the girl has a husband
of her own!"

"Not at all, it is for that reason--just because of that husband. I shall
say no more, you are quite intelligent enough to understand."

"You think it is all right then for a woman to have a lover?" Denzil
smiled as he curled rings of smoke. "It is curious how the most
honourable among us has not much conscience concerning such things."

Verisschenzko knocked off his cigarette ash and spoke contemplatively:

"The world would be an insupportable place for women, if he had! But
whatever the moral aspect of the matter is in general, circumstances
arise which alter the point, and that is where the absurd ticketing
system hampers suitable action. A thing is ticketed 'dishonourable.'
Pah! it is sometimes, and it is not at others--there is no hard and
fast rule."

Denzil stretched himself--he was always interested in Verisschenzko's
reasonings and prepared to listen with enjoyment:

"The general idea is that a man should not make love to another man's
wife. Man professes this as a creed, and the law enforces it and punishes
him if he is found out doing so. And if he acted up to this creed as he
does about stealing goods and behaving like a gentleman over business
matters, all might be well, but unfortunately that seldom occurs, because
there is that strong; instinct which is the base of all things working in
him, and which does not work in regard to any other point of
honour--i.e., the unconscious desire to re-create his, species, so that
this one particular branch of moral responsibility cannot be measured,
judged, or criticised from the same standpoint as any other. No laws can.
alter human nature, or really control a man's actions when a natural
force is prompting him unless stern self-analysis discovers the truth to
the man, and so permits his spirit to regain dominion. The best chance
would be to resist the first feeling of attraction which a woman
belonging to another man aroused before it had actually obtained a hold
upon his senses--but the percentage of men who do this must be very
small. Some resist--or try to resist the actual possession of the woman
from moral motives, but many more from motives of expediency and fear of
consequences. Then to salve conscience the mass of men ride a high moral
stalking horse, and write and speak condemnation of every back-sliding,
while their own behaviour coincides with the behaviour they are
criticising. The hypocrisy of the thing sickens me; no one ever looks any
question straight in the face, denuded of its man-made sophistries. And
few realise that a woman is a creature to be fought for--it is
prehistoric instinct, and if she can't be obtained in fair fight then you
secure her by strategy. And if a man cannot keep her once he has secured
her, it is up to him. If I had a wife, I should take good care that she
_desired_ no other man--but if I bored her, or was a cold and bad lover,
I should not expect the other men not to try and take her from
me--because I should know this was a natural instinct with them--like
taking food. It would probably be no temptation to most of us to steal
gold lying about in a room, even if we were poor, but a hideous
temptation to refrain from eating a tempting dish if we were starving
with hunger and it was before us--and if a woman did succumb to some new
passion I should blame myself, not her."

Denzil agreed.

"Jealousy is a natural instinct, though," he said, "and although there
would be not much profit in trying to hold a woman who no longer cared,
one could not help being mad about it."

"Of course not--that is the sense of personal possession which is
affronted. Vanity is deeply wounded, and so the power to analyse cause
and result sleeps. But this attitude which men take up of neglecting a
woman and then expecting her to be faithful still is quite ridiculous,
and without logic; they are as usual fogged by convention and can't see
straight."

Verisschenzko's rough voice was keen--compelling.

Denzil smiled.

"Another of your windmills to fight!"

"I am always fighting convention and shams. Get down to the meaning of a
thing, and if its true significance coincides with the convention which
surrounds it, then let that hold, but if convention is a super-imposed
growth, then amputate it and study the thing without it."

"I suppose a man marries a woman nine times out of ten because he cannot
obtain her in any other way; then when he has become indifferent by
possession, he still thinks that she should remain devoted to him. You
are right, Stepan, it is very illogical."

"Club the creature, or keep her in a cage if you want fidelity through
fear, but don't expect it if you allow her to remain at large and
neglected, and don't be such an ass as to imagine that your friends won't
act just as you yourself would act were she some one's else wife. If a
woman has that quality in her which arouses sex, married or single, I
never have observed that men refrained from making love to her."

"All this means that you consider I am quite at liberty to make love to
Amaryllis Ardayre!"

"Quite."

Denzil threw his cigarette end into the fire:

"Well, for once you are wrong, Stepan, in your usually perfect
deductions," he got up from his chair. "There is a reason in this
case which makes the thing an absolute impossibility; under no
possible circumstance while John is alive could I make the smallest
advance towards Amaryllis! There is another point of honour involved
in the affair."

Verisschenzko felt that here was some mystery which he had yet to
elucidate, the links in the chain were visible up to a point, but he then
became baffled by the incontestable fact that Denzil had seen Amaryllis
that evening for the first time!

"If this is so, then it is a very great pity," he announced, after a
moment or two's thought. "Were the times normal, we might leave all to
Fate and trust to luck, but if you are killed and John is killed, it
will be a thousand pities for Ferdinand to be the head of the family.
A creature like that will not enlist, he will be safe while you risk
your lives."

Denzil went over to the window, apparently to get out a fresh box of
cigars which were in a cabinet near.

"John writes to-night that there is the chance of an heir after all--so
perhaps we need not worry," he said, his voice a little hoarse with
feeling. "I was so awfully glad to hear this--we all loathe the thought
of Ferdinand."

Verisschenzko actually was startled, and also he was strangely moved.

"When I saw my lady Amaryllis to-night that idea came to me, only as I
believed it was quite an impossibility--I dismissed it--It is a war
miracle then?" and he smiled enquiringly.

"Apparently."

The cigar box was selected and Denzil had once more resumed his seat in a
big chair before either of them spoke again.

"I perfectly understand that there is some mystery here, Denzil--and that
you cannot tell me--and equally I cannot ask you any questions, but it
may be that in the days that are coming I could be of assistance to you.
I have some very curious information which I am holding concerning
Ferdinand Ardayre in his activities. You can always count on me--"
Verisschenzko rose from his chair, stirred deeply with the thoughts which
were coursing through his brain.

"Denzil--I love that woman--I am absolutely determined that I shall not
do so in any way but in spirit--I long for her to be happy--protected.
She has an exquisite soul--I would have given her to you with
contentment. You are her counterpart upon this plane--"

Denzil remained silent, he had never seen Stepan so agitated. The
situation was altogether very unusual. Then he asked:

"Do you think Ferdinand will make some protest then?"

"It is possible."

"But there is absolutely nothing to be said, the fact of there being a
child refutes all the old rumours."

"In law--"

"In every way," a flush had mounted to Denzil's forehead.

"You know Lemon Bridges?" Verisschenzko suggested.

"Yes--why do you ask?"

"He is a remarkably clever surgeon. It is said that he is also a
gentleman; if this news surprises him he will not express his feelings
probably."

Stepan was observing his friend with the minutest scrutiny now, while he
spoke lazily once more as though upon a casual topic bent, and he saw
that a lightning flash of anxiety passed through Denzil's eyes.

"I do not see how any one can have a word to say about the matter," and
he lit his cigar deliberately. "John is awfully pleased--"

"And so am I--and so are you, and so will be the lady Amaryllis. Thus we
can only wish for general happiness, and not anticipate difficulties
which may never occur. When is the event to happen?"

"The beginning of next May," Denzil announced, without hesitation, and
then the flush deepened, for he suddenly remembered that John had not
mentioned any date in his letter!

The subject was growing embarrassing, and he asked, so as to change it:

"What is your friend, Madame Boleski, doing now, Stepan?"

"She is receiving news from Germany which I shall endeavour to have her
transmit to me, and I have some suspicion that she is transmitting any
information which she can pick up here to Germany, but I cannot yet be
sure. When I am, then I shall have no mercy. She would betray any country
for an hour's personal pleasure or gain. I have not yet discovered who
the man was at the Ardayre ball--I told you about it, did I not? Just
then more important matters pressed and I could not follow up the clue."

"She is certainly physically attractive, and all the things she says are
so obvious and easy, she is quite a rest at a dinner, but Lord! think of
spending one's life with a woman like that!" and Denzil smiled.

"There are very few women whom it would be possible to contemplate in
calmness spending one's life with, because one's own needs change, and
the woman's also. The tie is a galling bond unless it can be looked at
with common sense by both--but I think men are quite as illogical as
women over it, and of such an incredible vanity! It is because we have
mixed so much sentiment into such a simple nature-act that all the
bothers arise, and men are unjust over every thing to do with women.
All men think, for instance, that a woman must not deceive her lover
and, at the same time that she is appearing to be his faithful
mistress, take another for her pleasure and diversion in secret. A man
would look upon this and rightly as a dishonourable betrayal because it
would wound his vanity and lower his personal prestige. But the
illogical part is that he would not hesitate to do the same thing
himself, and would never see the matter in the light of a betrayal,
because the Creator has happily equipped him with a rhinoceros hide
which enables him never to feel stings of self-contempt when viewing
his own actions towards the other sex."

Denzil laughed aloud.

"You are hard on us, Stepan, but I dare say you are right."

"It is just custom and convention which make us think ourselves such
gods. Had woman had the same chance always, who knows what she might not
have become by now! Everything is ticketed, it is called by a name and
put down under such and such a heading--women are 'weak' and 'illogical'
and 'unreliable' and men are 'brave' and 'sound' and 'to be
trusted'--tosh! in quantities of cases--and if so, why so? Women are
wonderful beings in many ways--of a courage! The way they bear things so
gladly for men--think of their suffering when they have children. You
don't know about it probably, men take all this as a matter of
course--but I saw my sister die--after hours of it--"

Denzil moved his arm rather suddenly and upset the glass of lemon squash
on a little table near.

Verisschenzko observed this, but went on without a break:

"It is agony for them under the best conditions, and sometimes they
become divine over it. Amaryllis will be divine--I hope John will take
care of her--"

A look of concern came into Denzil's face, and Verisschenzko watched him.
Could any one be more attractive as a splendid mate for Amaryllis, he
thought. He crushed down all feeling of human jealousy. His intuition
would probably reveal all the mystery to him presently, and meanwhile if
he could forward any scheme which would be for the good of Amaryllis and
the security of the family, he would do so.

"I must leave you now, old man," he said, looking at his watch. "I have a
rendezvous with Harietta. I shall have to play the part of an ardent
lover and cannot yet wring her neck."

When Denzil was alone, he stood gazing into the fire.

"That John should take care of her?"--but John was going out to
fight--and so was he--and they might both be killed--What then?

"Stepan knows, I am certain," he thought, "and he is true as steel; he
must stand by her if we don't come back."

And then his thoughts flew to the vision of her sitting opposite him at
the table, with her sweet eyes turned to his now and then, the faint
violet shadows beneath them and the transparent exquisiteness of her skin
telling their own story by the added, fragile beauty. Oh! what
unutterable joy to hold her in his arms and whisper passionate love words
in her little ears, to live again the dream of her dainty head lying
prone there on his breast. Every pulse in his being throbbed to bursting,
seeming almost to suffocate him.

"Amaryllis--Sweetheart!" he whispered aloud, and then started at his
own voice.

He paced up and down the room, clenching his hands. The family might go
on, but the two members of it must endure the pain of renunciation.

Which was the harder to bear, he wondered--his part of hopeless memory
and regret, or John's of forced denial and abstinence?

In all the world, no situation could be more strange or more cruel.

He had felt deeply about it before he had seen Amaryllis. He thought of
the myth of Eros and Psyche. His emotions had been much as Psyche's
before she lit the lamp. And now the lamp had been lighted--his eyes had
seen what his arms had clasped, the reality was more lovely than his
dream, and passion was kindled a hundredfold. It swept him off his feet.

He forgot war and the horror of the time, he forgot everything except
that he longed for Amaryllis.

"She is mine, absolutely mine," he said wildly. "Not John's."

And then he remembered his promise, given before any personal equation
had entered into the affair.

Never to take advantage of the situation--afterwards!

And what would the child be like? A true Ardayre, of course--they would
say that it had harked back, perhaps, to that Elizabethan Denzil whom
his father had told him was his exact portrait in the picture gallery
at Ardayre.

He could have laughed at the sardonic humour of everything if he had not
been too overcome with passionate desire to retain any critical sense.

Then he sat down and forced himself to realise what it meant--parenthood.
Not much to a man, as a rule. He had looked upon those occult stirrings
of the spirit of which he had read as romantic nonsense. It was a natural
thing and all right if a man had a place for him to wish to have a
son--but otherwise, sentimentality over such things was such rot!

And yet now he found himself thrilling with sentiment. He would like to
talk to Amaryllis all about it, and listen to her thoughts, too. And then
he remembered the many discussions with Verisschenzko upon the theory of
re-birth and of the soul's return again and again until its lessons are
learned on this plane of existence, and he wondered what soul would
animate the physical form of this little being who would be his and hers.

And suddenly in his mental vision the walls of the room seemed to fade,
and he was only conscious of a vastness of space, and knew that for this
brief moment he was looking into eternity and realising for the first
time the wonder of things.

       *       *       *       *       *

Meanwhile Verisschenzko had returned to the Carlton and was softly
walking down the passage towards the Boleskis' rooms. The ante-room door
was at the corner, and as he was about ten yards from it a man came out
and strode rapidly towards the lift down the corridor at right angles,
but the bright light fell upon his face for an instant, and Verisschenzko
saw that it was Ferdinand Ardayre.

He waited where he was until he heard the lift doors shut, and even then
he paced up and down for a time before he entered the sitting-room. There
must be no suspicion that he had encountered the late visitor.

"Darling Brute, here you are!" Harietta cried delightedly, rising from
her sofa and throwing herself into his arms. "I've packed Stanislass off
to the St. James' to play piquet. I have been all alone waiting for you
for the last hour--I began to fear you would not come."

Verisschenzko looked at her, with his cynical, humorous smile, whose
meaning never reached her. He took in the transparent garments which
hardly covered her, and then he bent and picked up a man's handkerchief
which lay on a table near.

"_Tiens_! Harietta!" he remarked lazily. "Since when has Stanislass taken
to using this very Eastern perfume?" and he sniffed with disgust.

The wide look of startled innocence grew in Madame Boleski's hazel eyes.

"I believe Stanislass must have got a mistress, Stepan. I have
noticed lately these scents on his things--as you know, he never used
any before!"

"The handkerchief is marked with 'F.A.' I suppose the _blanchisseuse_
mixes them in hotels. Let us burn the memento of a husband's straying
fancies then; the taste in perfumes of his inamorata is anything but
refined," and Verisschenzko tossed the bit of cambric into the fire which
sparkled in the grate.

"I've lots of news to tell you, Darling Brute--but I shan't--yet! Have
you come to England to see that bit of bread and butter--or--?"

But Verisschenzko, with a fierce savagery which she adored, crushed her
in his arms.




CHAPTER XI


On the Tuesday morning after the Carlton dinner, fate fell upon Denzil
and Amaryllis in the way the jade does at times, swooping down upon
them suddenly and then like a whirlwind altering the very current of
their destiny. It came about quite naturally, too, and not by one of
those wildly improbable situations which often prove truth to be
stranger than fiction.

Amaryllis was settled in an empty compartment of the Weymouth express at
Paddington. She had said good-bye to John the evening before, and he had
returned to camp. She was going back to Ardayre, and feeling very
miserable. Everything had been a disillusion. John's reserve seemed to
have augmented, and she had been unable to break it down, and all the
new emotions which she was trembling with and longing to express, had
grown chilled.

Presumably John must be pleased at the possibility of having a son since
it was his heart's desire; but it almost seemed as though the subject
embarrassed him! And all the beautiful things which she had meant to say
to him about it remained unspoken.

He was stolidly matter-of-fact.

What could it all mean?

At last she had become deeply hurt and had cried with a tremour in her
voice the morning before he left her:

"Oh! John, how different you have become; it can't be the same you who
once called me 'Sweetheart' and held me so closely in your arms! Have I
done anything to displease you, dearest? Aren't you glad that I am going
to have a baby?"

He had kissed her and assured her gravely that he was glad--overjoyed.
And his eyes had been full of pain, and he had added that he was stupid
and dull, but that she must not mind--it was only his way.

"Alas!" she had answered and nothing more.

She dwelt upon these things as she sat in the train gazing out of the
window on the blank side.

Yes. Joy was turning into dead sea fruit. How moving her thoughts had
been when coming up to meet him!

The marvel of love creating life had exalted her and she had longed to
pour her tender visionings into the ears of--her lover! For John had been
thus enshrined in her fond imagination!

The whole idea of having a child to her was a sacred wonder with little
of earth in it, and she had woven exquisite sentiment round it and had
dreamed fair dreams of how she would whisper her thoughts to John as she
lay clasped to his heart; and John, too, would be thrilled with
exaltation, for was not the glorious mystery his as well--not hers alone?

Now everything looked grey.

Tears rose in her eyes. Then she took herself to task; it was perhaps
only her foolish romance leading her astray once more. The thought
might mean nothing to a man beyond the pride of having a son to carry
on his name. If the baby should be a little girl John might not care
for it at all!

The tears brimmed over and fell upon a big crimson carnation in her coat,
a bunch of which John had ordered to be sent her, and which were now
safely reposing in a card-board box in the rack above her head.

Fortunately she had the carriage to herself. No one had attempted to get
in, and they would soon be off. To be away from London would be a relief.

Then her thoughts flew to Verisschenzko; he had told her that
circumstances in his country might require his frequent presence in
England for the next few months.

She would see him again. What would he tell her to do now? Conquer
emotion and look at things with common sense.

The picture of the dinner at the Carlton then came back to her, and the
face of Denzil across the table, so like, and yet so unlike John!

If Denzil had a wife would he be cold to her? Was it in the nature of
all Ardayres?

At the very instant the train began to move the carriage was invaded by a
man in khaki who bounded in and almost fell by her knees, and with a
cheery 'Just done it, Sir!' the guard flung in a dressing-bag and slammed
the door, and she realised with conscious interest that the intruder was
Denzil Ardayre!

"How do you do? By Jove. I am awfully sorry," and he held out his hand.
"I nearly lost the train and I am afraid I have bundled in without asking
leave. I am going down to Bath to say good-bye to my mother. I say, do
forgive me if I startled you," and he looked full of concern.

Amaryllis laughed; she was nervous and overstrung.

"Your entrance was certainly sudden and in this non-stop to Westbury we
shall have to put up with each other till then--shall you mind?"

"Awfully--Must I say that the truth would be that I am enchanted!"

Fortune had flung him these two hours. He had not planned them, his
conscience was clear, and he could not help delight rushing through him.
Two hours with her--alone!

There are some blue eyes which seem to have a spark of the devil lurking
in them always, even when they are serious. Denzil's were such eyes.
Women found it difficult to resist his charm, and indeed had never tried
very hard. Life and its living, knowledge to acquire, work to do, beasts
to hunt, had not left him too much time to be spoiled by them
fortunately, and he had passed through several adventures safely and had
never felt anything but the most transient emotion, until now looking at
Amaryllis sitting opposite him he knew that he was in love with this
dream which had materialised.

Amaryllis studied him while they talked of ordinary things and the war
news and when he would go out. She felt some strong attraction drawing
her to him. Her sense of depression left her. She found herself noticing
how the sun which had broken through a cloud turned his immaculately
brushed hair into bronze. She did a little modelling to amuse herself,
and so appreciated balance and line.

Everything in Denzil was in the right place, she decided, and above all
he looked so peculiarly alive. He seemed, indeed, to be the reality of
what her imagination had built up round the personality of John in the
weeks of their separation. Denzil believed that he was talking quite
casually, but his glance was ardent, and atmosphere becomes charged when
emotions are strong no matter how insignificant words may be. Amaryllis
_felt_ that he was deeply interested in her.

"You know my friend Verisschenzko well, it seems," she said presently.
"Is not he a fascinating creature? I always feel stimulated when I am
with him, and as if I must accomplish great things."

"Stepan is a wonder--we were at Oxford together--he can do anything he
desires. He is a musician and an artist and is chock full of common
sense, and there's not a touch of rot. He would have taken honours if he
had not been sent down."

Amaryllis wanted to know about this, and listened amazedly to the story
of the mad freak which had so scandalised the Dons.

She had recovered from her nervousness, she was natural and delightful,
and although the peculiar situation was filling Denzil with excitement
and emotion, he was too much a man of the world to experience any _gene_.
So they talked for a while with friendliness upon interesting things.
Then a pause came and Amaryllis looked out of the window, and Denzil had
time to grow aware that he must hold himself with a tighter hand, a sense
almost of intoxication had begun to steal over him.

Suddenly Amaryllis grew very pale and her eyelids flickered a little; for
the first time in her life she felt faint.

He bent forward in anxiety as she leaned her head against the
cushioned division.

"Oh! what is it, you poor little darling! what can I do for you?" he
exclaimed, unconscious that he had used a word of endearment; but even
though things had grown vague for her Amaryllis caught the tenderly
pronounced 'darling' and, physically ill as she felt, her spirit thrilled
with some agreeable surprise. He came nearer and pushing up the padded
divisions between the seats, he lifted her as though she had been a baby
and laid her flat down. He got out his flask from his dressing bag and
poured some brandy between her pale lips, then he rubbed her hands,
murmuring he knew not what of commiseration. She looked so fragile and
helpless and the probable reason of her indisposition was of such
infinite solicitude to himself.

"To think that she is feeling like that because--Ah!--and I may not even
kiss her and comfort her, or tell her I adore her and understand." So his
thoughts ran.

Presently Amaryllis sat up and opened her eyes. She had not actually
fainted, but for a few moments everything had grown dim and she was not
certain of what had happened, or if she had dreamed that Denzil had
spoken a love word, or whether it was true--she smiled feebly.

"I did feel so queer," she explained. "How silly of me! I have never felt
faint before--it is stupid"--and then she blushed deeply, remembering
what certainly must be the cause.

"I am going to open the window wide," he said, appreciating the blush,
and let it down. "You ought not to sit with your back to the engine like
that, let us change sides."

He took command and drew her to her feet, and placed her gently in his
vacant seat; then he sat down opposite her and looked at her with
anxious eyes.

"I sit that way as a rule because of avoiding the dust, but, of course,
it was that. I am not generally such a goose though--it is the nastiest
feeling that I have ever known."

"You poor dear little girl," his deep voice said. "You must shut your
eyes and not talk now."

She obeyed, and he watched her intently as she lay back with her eyes
closed, the long lashes resting upon her pale cheeks. She looked childish
and a little pathetic, and every fibre of his being quivered with desire
to protect her. He had never felt so profoundly in his life--and the
whole thing was so complicated. He tried to force himself to remember
that he was not travelling with _his_ wife whom he could take care of and
cherish because she was going to have _his_ child, but that he was
travelling with John's wife whom he hardly knew and must take no more
interest in than any Ardayre would in the wife of the head of the family!

He could have laughed at the extraordinary irony of the thing, if it had
not been so moving.

Verisschenzko, had he been there and known the circumstances, would have
taken joy in analysing what nature was saying to them both!

Amaryllis was only conscious that Denzil seemed the reality of her dream
of John, and that she liked his nearness--and Denzil only knew that he
loved her extremely and must banish emotion and remember his given word.
So he pulled himself together when she sat up presently and began
talking again, and gradually the atmosphere of throbbing excitement
between them calmed. They spoke of each other's tastes and likings and
found many to be the same. Then they spoke of books, and each discovered
that the other was sufficiently well read to be able to discuss varied
favourite authors.

An understanding and sympathy had grown up between them before they
reached Westbury, and yet Denzil was really trying to keep his word in
the spirit as well as the letter.

Amaryllis felt no constraint--she was more friendly than she would have
been with any other man she knew so slightly. Were they not cousins, and
was it not perfectly natural!

They talked of Oxford and of the effect it had upon young men, and again
they spoke of Stepan and of the dream he and Denzil shared.

"You will go into Parliament, I suppose, when you come back from the
war?" she remarked at last. "If you have dreams they should become
realities...."

"That is what I intend to do. The war may last a long time though--but it
ought to teach one something, and England will be a vastly different
place after it, and perhaps the younger men who have fought may have a
greater chance."

"You have pet theories, of course."

"I suppose so--I believe that the first great step will be to give the
people better homes--the housing question is what I am going to devote my
energy to. I am sure it is the root of nearly every evil. Every man and
woman who works should have the right to a good home. I have two supreme
interests--that is one, and the other is elimination of the wastrels and
the unfit. I am quite ruthless, perhaps, you will think. But there is
such a sickening lot of mawkish sentiment mixed up with nearly every
scheme to benefit workers. I agree with Stepan who always preaches: Get
down to the commonsense point of view about a thing. Prune the convention
and religion and sentimentality first and then you can judge."

Amaryllis thought for a moment; her eyes became wide and dreamy, and her
charmingly set head was a little thrown back. Denzil took in the line of
her white throat and the curve of her chin--it was not weak. Why was it
that women with the possibilities of this one always seemed to be some
other man's property! He had never come across such charm in girls. Or
was it that marriage developed charm?

They neither of them spoke for a minute or two, each busy with
speculation.

"I want to do something," Amaryllis said at last, "not, only just make
shirts and socks," and then the pink flushed her cheeks again suddenly as
she remembered that she would not be fit for more strenuous work for
quite a long time--and then the war would be over, of course.

Denzil thought the same thing without the last qualification. He was
under no delusions as to the speedy end of strife.

He could not help visioning the wonderful interest the hope of a son
would be to him if she really were his wife--how filled with supreme
sympathy and tenderness would be the months coming on. How they would
talk together about their wishes and the mystery and the glory of the
evolution of life. And here she had blushed at some thought concerning
it, and no words must pass between them about this sacred thing. He
longed to ask her many questions--and then a pang of jealousy shook him.
She would confide to John, not to him, all the emotions aroused by the
thought of the child--then. He wondered what she would do in the winter
all alone. Had she relations she was fond of? He wished that she knew his
Mother, who was the kindest sweetest lady in the world. He said aloud:

"I would like you to meet my Mother. She is going to be at Bath for a
month. She is almost an invalid with rheumatism in her ankle where she
broke it five years ago. I believe you would get on."

"I should love to--it is not an impossible distance from us. I will go
over to see her, if you will tell her about me--so that she won't think
some stranger is descending upon her some day!"

"She will be so pleased," and he thought that he would be happier knowing
that they were friends.

"Does she mean a great deal to you? Some mothers do," and she
sighed--her own was less than emptiness--they had never been near, and
now her stepfather and the step-family claimed all the affection her
mother could feel.

"She is a great dear--one of my best friends," and his eyes beamed. "We
have always been pals--because I have no brothers and sisters I suppose
she spoilt me!"

"I daresay you were quite a nice little boy!" Amaryllis smiled--"and it
must be divine to have a son--I expect it would be easy to spoil one."

Denzil clasped his hands rather tightly--she looked so adorable as she
said that, her eyes soft with inward knowledge of her great hope. How
impossible it all was that they must remain strangers--casual cousins and
nothing more.

"It must be an awful responsibility to have children," he said, watching
her. "Don't you think so?"

The pink flared up again as she answered a rather solemn "Yes."

Then she went on, a little hurriedly:

"One would try to study their characters and lead them to the highest
good, as gardeners watch over and train plants until they come to
perfection. But what funny, serious things we are talking about," and she
gave a little, nervous laugh--"Like two old grandfather philosophers."

"It is rather a treat to talk seriously; one so seldom has the chance to
meet any one who understands."

"To understand!" and she sighed. "Alas--How quite perfect life would
be--" and then she stopped abruptly. If she continued her words might
contain a reflection upon John.

Denzil bent forward eagerly--what had she been going to say?

She saw his blue attractive eyes gazing at her so ardently and some
delicious thrill passed through her. But Denzil recovered himself, and
leaned back in his seat--while he abruptly changed the conversation by
remarking casually:

"I have never seen Ardayre. I would love to look at our common ancestors.
My father used to say there was an Elizabethan Denzil who was rather like
me. I suppose we are all stamped with the same brand."

"I know him!" Amaryllis cried delightedly. "He is up at the end of the
gallery in puffed white satin and a ruff. Of course, you must come and
see him; he has exactly the same eyes."

"The whole family are alive I believe--we were a tenacious lot!"

"If you and John both get leave at Christmas you must come with him and
spend it at Ardayre--I shall have made your Mother's acquaintance by
then, and we must persuade her too."

He gave some friendly answer--while he felt that John might not endorse
this invitation. If the places were reversed, how would he himself act?
Difficult as the situation was for him, it was infinitely harder for
John. Then the train stopped at Westbury.




CHAPTER XII


Denzil had got out to get some papers which he had been to hurried to
secure at Paddington tipping the guard on the way, so that an old
gentleman who showed signs of desiring to enter was warded off to another
compartment. Thus when the train re-started, they were again left alone.

Amaryllis had partially recovered and was looking nearly her usual self,
but for the violet shadows beneath her eyes. She glanced at the papers
which he handed to her, and Denzil retired behind the Times. He wanted
to think; he must not let himself slip out of hand. He must resolutely
stamp out all the emotion that she was causing him; he despised weakness
of any sort.

He thought of Verisschenzko's words about laws being powerless to control
a man's actions, when a natural force is prompting him, unless he uses
self-analysis, and so by gaining knowledge permits the spirit to conquer.
He recollected that he had transgressed often without a backward thought
in past days with other women, but now his honour was engaged even apart
from his firm belief in Stepan's favourite saying, that a man must never
sully the wrong thing. Then the argument they had often had about
indulgences came to him, and the truth of the only possibility of their
enjoyment being while they remained servants, not masters.

He had had his indulgences in the two hours to Westbury, and had very
nearly let it conquer him, more than once, and now he must not only curb
all friendly words and delightful dalliance with forbidden topics, but he
must _feel_ no more passion.

He made himself read the war news and try to visualize the grim reality
behind the official phrasing of the communiques. And gradually he became
calm, and was almost startled when Amaryllis, who had been watching him
furtively and had begun to wonder if he was really so interested in his
paper, said timidly:

"Will you pull the window up a little? It seems to be growing cold."

She noticed that his lips were set firmly and that an abstracted
expression had grown in his eyes.

Then Denzil spoke, now quite naturally and about the war, and
deliberately kept the conversation to this subject, until Amaryllis lay
back again in her corner and closed her eyes.

"I am going to have a little sleep," she said.

She too had begun to realise that in more personal investigation of
mutual tastes there lay some danger. She had become conscious of the fact
that she was very interested in Denzil--and there he was, not really the
least like John!

They were silent for some time, and were nearing Frome when he spoke. He
had been deliberating as to what he ought to do? Get out and leave her,
to catch his connection to Bath, or sacrifice that and see her safely to
her destination and perhaps hire a motor from Bridgeborough?

This latter was his strong desire and also seemed the only chivalrous
thing to do when she still looked so pale, but--

"Here we are almost at Frome," he said.

Her eyes rounded with concern. It would be horrid to be alone. She had
left her maid in London for a few days' holiday.

"You change here for Bath," she faltered a little uncertainly.

He decided in a second. He could not be inhuman! Duty and desire were
one!

"Yes--but I am coming on with you. I shall not leave you until I see you
safely into your own motor. I can hire one perhaps then, to take me on
the rest of the way."

She was relieved--or she thought it was merely relief, which made a
sudden lifting in her heart!

"How kind of you. I do feel as if I did not like the thought of being by
myself, it is so stupid of me--But you can't hire a motor from
Bridgeborough which would get you to Bath before dark! They are wretched
things there. You must come with me to Ardayre; it is on the Bath road,
you know--and we can have a late lunch, and and then I'll send you on in
the Rolls Royce. You will be there in an hour--in time for tea."

This was a tremendous fresh temptation. He tried to look at it as though
it did not in reality matter to him more than the appearance suggested.
Had there been no emotion in his interest in Amaryllis, he would not have
hesitated, he knew.

Then it was only for him to conquer emotion and behave as he would do
under ordinary circumstances--it would be a good test of his will.

"All right--that's splendid, and I shall be able to see Ardayre!"

It was when they were in Amaryllis's own little coupe very close to each
other that strong temptation assailed Denzil. He suddenly felt his
pulses throbbing wildly and it was with the greatest difficulty he
prevented himself from clasping her in his arms. He tried to look out of
the window and take an interest in the park, which was entered very soon
after leaving the station. He told himself Ardayre was something which
deserved his attention and he looked for the first view of the house, but
all his will could only keep his arms from transgressing, it could not
control the riot of his thoughts.

Amaryllis was conscious in some measure that he was far from calm, and
her own heart began to beat unaccountably. She talked rather fast about
the place and its history, and both were relieved when the front door
came in sight.

There was a welcoming smell of burning logs in the hall to greet them,
and the old butler could not restrain an expression of startled curiosity
when he saw Denzil, the likeness to his master was so great.

"This is Captain Ardayre, Filson," Amaryllis said, "Sir John's cousin,"
and then she gave the order about the motor to take Denzil on to Bath.

They went through the Henry VII inner hall, and on to the green
drawing-room, with its air of home and comfort, in spite of its great
size and stateliness.

There were no portraits here, but some fine specimens of the Dutch
school, and the big tawny dogs rose to welcome their mistress and were
introduced to their "new relation."

She was utterly fascinating, Denzil thought, playing with them there on
the great bear skin rug.

"We shall lunch at once," she told him, "and then rush through the
pictures afterwards before you start for Bath."

They both tried to talk of ordinary things for the few moments before
that meal was announced, and then some kind of devilment seemed to come
into Amaryllis--nothing could have been more seductive or alluring than
her manner, while keeping to strict convention. The bright pink colour
glowed in her cheeks and her eyes sparkled. She could not have accounted
for her mood herself. It was one of excitement and interest.

Denzil had the hardest fight he had ever been through, and he grew almost
gruff in consequence. He was really suffering.

He admired the way she acted as hostess, and the way the home was done.
He hardly felt anything else, though apart from her he would have been
interested in his first view of Ardayre, but she absorbed all other
emotions, he only knew that he desired to make passionate love to her, or
to get away as quickly as he could.

"Are you going to remain here all the winter?" he asked her presently, as
they rose from the table, "or shall you go to London? You will be awfully
lonely, won't you, if you stay here?"

"I love the country and I am growing to love and understand the place.
John wants me to so much, it means more to him than anything else in the
world. I shall remain until after Christmas anyway. But come now, I want
just to take you into the church, because there are two such fine tombs
there of both our ancestors, yours and mine. We can go out of the windows
and come back for coffee in the cedar parlour."

Denzil acquiesced; he wished to see the church. They reached it in a
minute or two and Amaryllis opened the door with her own key and led him
on up the aisle to the recumbent knights--and then she whispered their
history to him, standing where a ray of sunlight turned her brown hair
into gold.

"I wonder what their lives were," Denzil said, "and if they lived and
loved and fought their desires--as we do now--the younger one's face
looks as though he had not always conquered his. Stepan would say his
indulgences had become his masters, not his servants, I expect."

"Verisschenzko is wonderful--he makes one want to be strong," and
Amaryllis sighed. "I wonder how many of us even begin to fight our
desires--"

"One has to be strong always if one wants to attain--but sometimes it is
only honour which holds one--and weaklings are so pitiful."

"What is honour?" Her eyes searched his face wistfully. "Is it being true
to some canon of the laws of chivalry, or is it being true to some higher
thing in one's own soul?"

Denzil leaned against the tomb and he thought deeply: then he looked
straight into her eyes:

"Honour lies in not betraying a trust reposed in one, either in the
spirit or in the letter."

"Then, when, we say of a man 'he acted honourably,' we mean that he did
not betray a trust placed in him, even if it was only perhaps by
circumstance and not by a person."

"It is simply that'--keeping faith. If a man stole a sum of money from a
friend, the dishonour would not be in the act of stealing, which is
another offence--but in abusing his friend's trust in him by committing
that act."

"Dishonour is a betrayal then--"

"Of course."

"Why would this knight"--and she placed her hand on the marble face,
"have said that he must kill another who had stolen his wife, say, to
avenge his 'honour'?"

"That is the conventional part of it--what Stepan calls the grafting
on of a meaning to suit some idea of civilisation. It was a nice way
of having personal revenges too and teaching people that they could
not steal anything with impunity. If we analysed that kind of honour
we would find it was principally vanity. The dishonour really lay with
the wife, if she deceived her husband--and with the other man if he
was the husband's friend--if he was not, his abduction of the woman
was not 'dishonourable' because he was not trusted, it was merely an
act of theft."

"What then must we do when we are very strongly tempted?" Her voice was
so low he could hardly hear it.

"It is sometimes wisest to run away," and he turned from her and moved
towards the door.

She followed wondering. She knew not why she had promoted this
discussion. She felt that she had been very unbalanced all the day.

They went back to the house almost silently and through the green
drawing-room window again and up the broad stairs with Sir William
Hamilton's huge decorative painting of an Ardayre group of his time,
filling one vast wall at the turn.

And so they reached the cedar parlour, and found coffee waiting and
cigarettes.

There was a growing tension between them and each guessed that the other
was not calm. Amaryllis began showing him the view from the windows
across the park, and then the old fireplace and panelling of the room.

"We sit here generally when we are alone," she said. "I like it the best
of all the rooms in the house."

"It is a fitting frame for you."

They lit cigarettes.

Denzil had many things he longed to say to her of the place, and the
thoughts it called up in him--but he checked himself. The thing was to
get through with it all quickly and to be gone. They went into the
picture gallery then, and began from the end, and when they came to the
Elizabethan Denzil they paused for a little while. The painted likeness
was extraordinary to the living splendid namesake who gazed up at the old
panel with such interested eyes.

And Amaryllis was thinking:

"If only John had that something in him which these two have in their
eyes, how happy we could be."

And Denzil was thinking:

"I hope the child will reproduce the type." He felt it would be some kind
of satisfaction to himself if she should have a son which should be his
own image.

"It is so strange," she remarked, "that you should be exactly like this
Denzil, and yet resemble John who does not remind me of him at all,
except in the general family look which every one of them share. This one
might have been painted from you."

He looked down at her suddenly and he was unable to control the
passionate emotion in his eyes. He was thinking that yes, certainly, the
child must be like him--and then what message would it convey to her?

Amaryllis was disturbed, she longed to ask him what it was which she
felt, and why there seemed some illusive remembrance always haunting her.
She grew confused, and they passed on to another frame which contained
the Lady Amaryllis who had had the sonnets written to her nut brown
locks. She was a dainty creature in her stiff farthingale, but bore no
likeness to the present mistress of Ardayre.

Denzil examined her for some seconds, and then he said reflectively:

"She is a Sweetheart--but she is not you!"

There was some tone of tenderness in his voice when he said the word
"Sweetheart" and Amaryllis started and drew in her breath. It recalled
something which had given her joy, a low murmur whispered in the night.
"Sweetheart!"--a word which John, alas! had never used before nor since,
except in that one letter in answer to her cry of exaltation--her glad
Magnificat. What was this echo sounding in her ears? How like Denzil's
voice was to John's--only a little deeper. Why, why should he have used
that word "Sweetheart"?

No coherent thought had yet come to her, it was as though she had looked
for an instant upon some scene which awakened a chord of memory, and then
that the curtain had dropped before she could define it.

She grew agitated, and Denzil turning, saw that her face was pale, and
her grey eyes vague and troubled.

"I am quite sure that it is tiring you, showing me all the house like
this, we won't look at another picture--and really I must be getting on."

She did not contradict him.

"I am afraid that you ought to go perhaps, if you want to arrive by
daylight."

And as they returned to the green drawing-room she said some nice things
about wanting to meet his mother, and she tried to be natural and at
ease, but her hand was cold as ice when he held it in saying good-bye
before the fire, when Filson had announced the motor.

And if his eyes had shown passionate emotion in the picture gallery, hers
now filled with question and distress.

"Good-bye, Denzil--"

"Good-bye, Amaryllis--" He could not bring himself to say the usual
conventionalities, and went towards the door with nothing more.

Her brain was clearing, terror and passion and uncertainty had come in
like a flood.

"Denzil--?"

He turned to her side fearfully. Why had she called him now?

"Denzil--?" her face had paled still further, and there was an anguish of
pleading in it. "Oh, please, what does it all mean?" and she fell forward
into his arms.

He held her breathlessly. Had she fainted? No--she still stood on her
feet, but her little face there lying on his breast was as a lily in
whiteness and tears escaped from her closed eyes.

"For God's sake, Denzil, have you not something to tell me? You cannot
leave me so!"

He shivered with the misery of things.

"I have nothing to tell you, child." His voice was hoarse. "You are
overwrought and overstrung. I have nothing to say to you but just
good-bye."

She held his coat and looked up at him wildly.

"--Denzil--It was you--not--John!"

He unclasped her clinging arms:

"I must go."

"You shall not until you answer me--I have a right to know."

"I tell you I have nothing to say to you," he was stern with the
suffering of restraint.

She clung to him again.

"Why did you say that word 'Sweetheart' then? It was your own word. Oh!
Denzil, you cannot be so frightfully cruel as to leave me in
uncertainty--tell me the truth or I shall die!"

But he drew himself away from her and was silent; he could not make lying
protestations of not understanding her, so there only remained one course
for him to follow--he must go, and the brutality of such action made him
fierce with pain.

She burst into passionate sobs and would have fallen to the ground. He
raised her in his arms and laid her on the sofa near, and then fear
seized him. What if this excitement and emotion should make her really
ill--?

He knelt down beside her and stroked her hair. But she only sobbed the
more.

"How hideously cruel are men. Why can't you tell me what I ask you? You
dare not even pretend that you do not understand!"

He knew that his silence was an admission, he was torn with distress.

"Darling," he cried at last in torment, "for God's sake, let me go."

"Denzil--" and then her tears stopped suddenly, and the great drops
glistened on her white cheeks. Weeping had not disfigured her--she looked
but as a suffering child.

"Denzil--if you knew everything, you could not possibly leave me--you
don't know what has happened--But you must, you will have to
since--soon--"

He bowed his head and placed her two hands over his face with a
despairing movement.

"Hush--I implore you--say nothing. I do know, but I love you--I must
go."

At that she gave a glad cry and drew him close to her.

"You shall not now! I do not care for conventions any more, or for laws,
or for anything! I am a savage--you are mine! John must know that you are
mine! The family is all that matters to him, I am only an instrument, a
medium for its continuance--but Denzil, you and I are young and loving
and living. It is you I desire, and now I know that I belong to you. You
are the man and I am the woman--and the child will be our child!"

Her spirit had arisen at last and broken all chains. She was
transfigured, transformed, translated. No one knowing the gentle
Amaryllis could have recognised her in this fierce, primitive creature
claiming her mate!

Furious, answering passion surged through Denzil; it was the supreme
moment when all artificial restrictions of civilisation were swept away.
Nature had come to her own. All her forces were working for these two of
her children brought near by a turn of fate. He strained her in his arms
wildly--he kissed her lips, and ears, and eyes.

"Mine, mine," he cried, and then "Sweetheart!"

And for some seconds which seemed an eternity of bliss they forgot all
but the joy of love.

But presently reality fell upon Denzil and he almost groaned.

"I must leave you, precious dear one--even so--I gave my word of honour
to John that I would never take advantage of the situation. Fate has done
this thing by bringing us together; it has overwhelmed us. I do not feel
that we are greatly to blame, but that does not release me from my
promise. It is all a frightful price that we must pay for pride in the
Family. Darling, help me to have courage to go."

"I will not--It is shameful cruelty," and she clung to him, "that we must
be parted now I am yours really--not John's at all. Everything in my
heart and being cries out to you--you are the reality of my dream lover,
your image has been growing in my vision for months. I love you, Denzil,
and it is your right to stay with me now and take care of me, and it is
my right to tell you of my thoughts about the--child--Ah! if you knew
what it means to me, the joy, the wonder, the delight! I cannot keep it
all to myself any longer. I am starving! I am frozen! I want to tell it
all to my Beloved!"

He held her to him again--and she poured forth the tenderest holy things,
and he listened enraptured and forgot time and place.

"Denzil," she whispered at last, from the shelter of his arms. "I have
felt so strange--exalted, ever since--and now I shall have this ever
present thought of you and love women in my existence--But how is it
going to be in the years which are coming? How can I go on pretending to
John?--I cannot--I shall blurt out the truth--For me there is only
you--not just the you of these last days since we saw each other with our
eyes--but the you that I had dreamed about and fashioned as my lover--my
delight--Can I whisper to John all my joy and tenderness as I watch the
growing up of my little one? No! the thing is monstrous, grotesque--I
will not face the pain of it all. John gave you to me--he must have done
so--it was some compact between you both for the family, and if I did not
love you I should hate you now, and want to kill myself. But I love you,
I love you, I love you!" and she fiercely clasped her arms once more
about his neck. "You must take the consequences of your action. I did not
ask to have this complication in my life. John forced it upon me for his
own aims, but I have to be reckoned with, and I want my lover, I claim my
mate." Her cheeks were flaming and her eyes flashed.

"And your lover wants you," and Denzil wildly returned her fond caress,
"but the choice is not left to me, darling, even if you were my wife, not
John's. You have forgotten the war--I must go out and fight."

All the warmth and passion died out of her, and she lay back on the
pillows of the sofa for a moment and closed her eyes. She had
indeed forgotten that ghastly colossus in her absorption in their
own two selves.

Yes--he must go out and fight--and John would go too--and they might both
be killed like all those gallant partners of the season and her cousin,
and those who had fallen at Mons and the battle of the Marne.

No--she must not be so paltry as to think of personal things, even love.
She must rise above all selfishness, and not make it harder for her man.
Her little face grew resigned and sanctified, and Denzil watching her
with burning, longing eyes, waited for her to speak.

"It is true--for the moment nothing but you and my great desire for you
was in my mind. But you are right, Denzil; of course, I cannot keep you.
Only I am glad that just this once we have tasted a brief moment of
happiness, and--Denzil, I believe our souls belong to each other, even if
we do not meet again on earth."

And when at last they had parted, and Amaryllis, listening, heard the
motor go, she rose from the sofa and went out through the window to the
lawn, and so to the church again, and there lay on the steps of the young
knight's tomb, sobbing and praying until darkness enveloped the land.




CHAPTER XIII


A day or two before Denzil sailed for France he dined with Verisschenzko.
The intense preoccupation of the last war preparations had left him very
little time for grieving. He was unhappy when he thought of Amaryllis,
but he was a man, and another primitive instinct was in action in
him--the zest of going out to fight!

Verisschenzko was depressed, his country was not yet giving him the
opportunity to fulfil his hopes, and he fretted that he must direct
things from so far.

They sat in a quiet corner of the Berkeley and talked in a desultory
fashion all through the _hors d'ouvres_ and the soup.

"I am sick of things, Denzil," Verisschenzko said at last. "I feel
inclined to end it all sometimes."

"And belie the whole meaning of your whole beliefs. Don't be a fool,
Stepan. I always have told you that there is one grain of suicide in the
composition of every Russian. Now it has become active with you. Have
another glass of champagne, old boy, and then you'll talk sense again.
It is sickening to be killed, or maimed, or any beastly thing if it
comes along with duty, but to court it is madness pure and simple. It's
just rot."

"I'm with you," and he called the waiter and ordered a fine champagne,
while he smiled, showing his strong, square teeth.

"They don't have decent vodka--but the brandy will do the trick," and in
an instant his mood changed even before the cognac had come.

"It is the lingering trace of some other life of folly, when I talk like
that--I know it, Denzil. It is the harking back to long months of gloom
and darkness and snow and the howling of wolves and the fear of the
knout. This is not my first Russian life, you know!"

"Probably not; but you've had some more balanced intervening ones, or I
should have found you dead with veronal, or some other filthy thing
before this, with your highly strung nerves! I am not really alarmed
about you though, Stepan--you are fundamentally sane."

"I am glad you think that--very few English understand us--"

"Because you don't understand yourselves. You seem to have every quality
and fault crammed into your skins with no discrimination as to how to
sort them. You are not self-conscious like we are and afraid of looking
like fools--so whatever is uppermost bursts out. If one of us had half
your brains he would never have said an idiot thing completely contrary
to his whole natural bent like that, just because he felt down on his
luck for the moment."

Verisschenzko laughed outright.

"Go ahead, Denzil--let off steam! I'm done in!"

"Well, don't be such a damned fool again!"

"I won't--how is my Lady Amaryllis?"

Denzil looked at him keenly.

"Why do you ask?"

"Because she has written to me, and I am going down to see her--"

"Then you know how she is?"

"I guess. Look here, Denzil, do try and be frank with me. You are
acquainted with me and know whether I am to be trusted or not. You are
aware that I love her with the spirit. You and the worthy husband are off
to be killed, and yet just because you are so damned reserved English,
you can't bring yourself to do the sensible thing and tell me all about
it so that if you go to glory I could look after her rights and--the
child's--and take care of her. It is you who are a fool really, not I!
Because I get a little drunk with my moods and talk about suicide, that
is froth, but I should not bottle up a confidence because it's 'not the
thing' to talk about a woman--even though it's for her benefit and
protection to do so. I've more common sense. Some difficult questions
might crop up later with Ferdinand Ardayre, and I want to have the real
truth made plain to myself so that I can crush him. If you've some cards
up your sleeve that I don't know of, I can't defend Amaryllis so well."

Denzil put down his knife and fork for a moment; he realised the truth
of what his friend said, but it was very difficult for him to speak
all the same.

"Tell me what you know, Stepan, and I'll see what I can do. It is not
because I don't trust you, but it is against everything in me to talk."

"Convention again, and selfishness. You are thinking more about the
Englishman's point of view than the good of the woman you love--because I
feel partly from her letter that you do love her and that she loves
you--and I surmise that the child is yours, not John's, though how this
miracle has been accomplished, since it was clear that you had never seen
her until the night at the Carlton, I don't pretend to guess!"

Denzil drank down his champagne, and then he made Verisschenzko
understand in a few words--the Russian's imagination filled in the
details.

He lit a cigarette between the course and puffed rings of smoke.

"So poor John devised this plan, and yet he loves her--he must indeed be
obsessed by the family!"

"He is--he is a frightfully reserved person too, and I am sure has frozen
Amaryllis from the first day."

"My idea was always for this, directly I went to Ardayre. I felt that
mysterious pull of the family there in that glorious house. I thought she
would probably simplify things by just taking you for a lover, when you
met, as you are her counterpart--a perfect mate for her. I had even made
up my mind to suggest this to her, and influence her as much as I could
to this end--but lo! the husband takes the matter out of our hands and
devises a really unique accomplishment of our wishes. Gosh! Denzil! it's
John who's got the common sense and the genius, not we!"

"Yes, he has--so far, but he did not reckon with human emotion. He might
have known that directly I should see Amaryllis I should fall in love
with her, and he ought to have understood that that extraordinary thing,
nature, might make her draw to me afterwards. Now the situation is
tragic, however you look at it. John will have the hell of a life if he
comes back; he can't help feeling jealous every time he sees the child,
and the tension between him and Amaryllis, now that she knows, will be
great. Amaryllis is wretched--she is passionate and vivid as a humming
bird. Every hair of her darling head is living and quivering with human
power for joy and union, and she will lead the famished life of a nun! I
absolutely worship her. I am frantically in love, so my outlook, if I
come back is not gay either. I wonder if we did well, after all, John and
I, and if the family makes all this suffering worth while? Perhaps it
would have been better to leave it to fate!" Denzil sighed and forgot to
notice a dish the waiter was handing.

"It is perfectly certain," and Verisschenzko grew contemplative, "that
the result of deliberately turning the current of events like that must
have some momentous consequence. Mind you, I think you were right. I
should have advised it as I have told you, because of that swine of a
Turk, Ferdinand--but it may have deranged some plan of the Cosmos, and
if so some of you will have to pay for it. I hate that it should be my
lady Amaryllis. All her sorrow comes from your dramatically honourable
promise. You can't make love to her now--because a man who is a
gentleman does not break his word. Now if my plan had been followed, you
would not have had this limitation and you could have had some joy--but
who knows! A false position is a gall in any case, and it would have
soiled my star, which now shines purely. So perhaps all is for the best.
But have you analysed, now that we are on the subject, what it is 'being
in love,' old boy?"

"It is divine--and it is hell--"

"All that! Amaryllis is the exact opposite to Harietta Boleski--in this,
that she attracts as strongly as Harietta could ever do physically, and
will be no disappointment in soul in the _entre actes_. _Being in love_
is a physical state of exaltation; _loving_ is the merging of spirit
which in its white heat has glorified the physical instinct for
re-creation into a godlike beatitude not of earth. A man could be in love
with Harietta, he could never love her. A man could always love
Amaryllis, so much that he would not be aware that half his joy was
because he was _in love_ with her also."

"You know, Stepan, men, women and every one talk a lot of nonsense about
other interests in life mattering more, and there being other kinds of
really better happiness, but it is pure rot; if one is honest one owns
that there is no real happiness but in the satisfaction of love. Every
other kind is second best. It is jolly good often, but only a _pis aller_
in comparison to the real thing.

"And when people deny this, believing they are speaking honestly, it is
simply because the real thing has not come their way, or they are too
brutalised by transient indulgences to be able to feel exaltation.

"So here's to love!" and Denzil emptied his glass. "The supreme God--"

_"Ainsi soit il,"_ and Stepan drank in response. "Our toast before has
always been to the Ardayre son, and now we drink to what I hope has been
his creator!"

They were silent for some moments, and then Verisschenzko went on:

"When the state of being in love is waning, affection often remains, but
then one is at the mercy of a new emotion. I'd be nervous if a woman who
had loved me subsided into feeling affection!"

"Then define loving?"

"Loving throbs with delight in the flesh; it thrills the spirit with
reverence. It glorifies into beauty commonplace things. It draws nearer
in sickness and sorrow, and is not the sport of change. When a woman
loves truly she has the passion of the mistress, the selfless tenderness
of the mother, the dignity and devotion of the wife. She is all fire and
snow, all will and frankness, all passion and reserve, she is
authoritative and obedient--queen and child."

"And a man?"

"He ceases to be a brute and becomes a god."

"Can it last, I wonder?" and again Denzil sighed.

"It could if people were not such fools--they nearly always deliberately
destroy the loved one's emotion by senseless stupidity--in not grasping
the fact that no fire burns without fuel. They disillusionise each other.
The joy once secured, they take no pains to keep it. A woman will do
things when the lover is an acknowledged possession, which she would not
have dreamed of doing while desiring to attract the man--and a man
likewise--neither realising that the whole state of being in love is an
intoxication of the senses, and that the senses are very easily wearied
or affronted."

"Stepan--what am I going to do about Amaryllis? If I come back, it will
be hell--a continual longing and aching, and I want to accomplish
something in life; it was never my plan to have the whole thing held and
bounded by passion for a woman. A hopeless passion I can understand
facing and crushing, but one which you know that the woman returns, and
that it is only the law and promises you have made which separate you, is
the most awful torment." He covered his eyes with his hand for a moment.
His face was stern. "And her life too--how sickening. You say you are
going down to Ardayre to see Amaryllis--you will tell me how you find
her. I have not written--I am trying not to feel."

"Are you interested about the coming child? I am never quite certain how
much it matters to a man, whether we deceive ourselves and feel sentiment
simply because we love the woman, whether the emotion is half vanity, or
whether there is something in the actual state called parenthood? How do
you feel?"

Denzil thought of his musings upon this subject after he had seen
Amaryllis at the Carlton.

"It is hard to describe," he answered now, "it is all so interwoven with
love for Amaryllis that I cannot distinguish which is which, or how I
feel about the state in the abstract. Women have these mysterious
emotions, I believe, but I do not think that they come to the average
man, but if he loves it seems a fulfilment."

"I have two children scattered in Russia, begotten before I had begun to
think of things and their meanings. I have them finely educated--I loathe
them. I sicken at the memory of the mothers; I am ashamed when I see in
them some chance physical likeness to myself. But how will you feel
presently when you see the child, adoring the mother as you do? What will
it say to you, looking at you with your own eyes, perhaps? You'll long to
have some hand in the training of it. You'll desire to watch the budding
brain and the expanding soul. You'll be drawn closer and closer to
Amaryllis--it will all pull you with an invisible nature chain--"

"I know it,--that is the tragedy of the whole thing. Those delights will
be John's--and I hate to think that Amaryllis will be alone for all these
months--and yet I believe I would prefer that to her being with John. I
am jealous when I remember that he has rights denied to me--so what must
he feel, poor devil, when he remembers about me?"

"It is quite a peculiar situation. I wonder what the years will
develop it into."

"If the child is a girl, the whole thing is in vain."

"It won't be a girl--you will see I am right. When will you and John get
leave, do you suppose?"

"I don't know, but about Christmas, perhaps, if we are alive--"

"Do you want to see her again, then?"

"I long always to see her--but by Christmas--it would be nearly five
months. I don't think I could keep my word and not make love to her--if I
saw her--then."

"You will wish to hear about her--?"

"Always."

After this they were both silent while the cheese was being removed.
Verisschenzko was thinking profoundly. Here was a study worthy of his
highest intuitive faculties. What possible solution could the future
hold? Only one--that of death for either of the men concerned. Well,
death was busy with England's best--it was no unlikely possibility--and
as he looked at Denzil he felt a stab of pain. Nothing more splendid and
living and strong could be imagined than his six foot one of manhood,
crowned with the health of his twenty-nine years.

"I hope to God he comes through," he prayed. And then he became cynical,
as was his habit, when he found himself moved.

"I am on the track of Harietta, Denzil. She has a new
lover--Ferdinand Ardayre."

"What a combination!"

"Yes, but who the officer was at the Ardayre ball I cannot yet trace.
Stanislass is quite a _gaga_--he spends his time packed off to play
piquet at the St. James'--he has no _bosse des cartes_,--it is his
burdensome duty."

"He does not feel the war?"

"He is numb."

"What will you do if you catch her red-handed?"

"I shall have her shot without a moment's compunction. It would be a
fitting end."

"I don't know that I should have the nerve to shoot a woman--even a spy."

Verisschenzko laughed, and a savage light grew in his Calmuck eyes.

"My want of civilisation will serve me--if ever that moment comes."

Then their talk turned to fighting, and women were forgotten for the
time.




CHAPTER XIV


Amaryllis came up to London the following week to say good-bye to John,
so Verisschenzko did not go down to Ardayre to see her.

John's leave-taking was characteristic. He could not break through the
iron band of his reserve, he longed to say something loving to her, but
the more deeply he felt things the greater was his difficulty in
self-expression. And the knowledge of the secret he hid in his heart made
him still more ill at ease with Amaryllis. She too was changed--he felt
it at once. Her grey eyes were mysterious--they had grown from a girl's
into a woman's. She did not mention the coming child until he did--and
then it was she who showed desire to change the conversation. All this
pained John, while he felt that he himself was the cause--he knew that he
had frozen her. He thought over his marriage from the beginning. He
thought of the night when he had sat on the bench outside her window
until dawn, of the agony he suffered, realising at last that the axe had
indeed fallen, and that some day she must know the truth. And would she
reproach him and say that he should have warned her that this possibility
might occur? He remembered his talk with Lemon Bridges. He had been going
to give him a definite answer that morning, but John had missed the
appointment, so they spoke at the ball.

Would it have been better if he had let himself go and fondly kissed and
netted Amaryllis? Or would that have been misleading and still more
unkind? It was too late now, in any case. He must learn to take the only
satisfaction which was left to him, the knowledge that there was the hope
of a true Ardayre to carry on.

He talked long to his wife of his desires for the child's education,
should it prove a boy, and he should not return, and Amaryllis listened
dutifully.

Her mind was filled with wonder all the time. She had been through much
emotion since the passionate outburst after Denzil had gone, but was
quite calm now. She had classified things in her mind. She felt no
resentment against John. He ought not to have married her perhaps, but it
might be that at the time he did not know. Only she wondered when she
looked at him sitting opposite her, talking gravely about the baby, in
the library of Brook Street, how he could possibly be feeling. What an
immense influence the thought of the family must have in his life. She
understood it in a great measure herself. She remembered Verisschenzko's
words upon the occasions when he had spoken to her about it, and of her
duties towards it, and how she must uphold it. She particularly
remembered that which he had said when they walked by the lake, and he
had seemed to be transmitting some message to her, which she had not
understood at the time. Did Verisschenzko know then that John must always
be heirless and had he been suggesting to her that the line should go on
through her? Some of the pride in it all had come to her before she had
left the dark church after parting with Denzil. Perhaps she was
fulfilling destiny. She must not be angry with John. She did not try to
cease from loving Denzil. She had not knowingly been unfaithful to
John--and now, she would be faithful to Denzil, he was her love and her
mate. Indeed, even in the fortnight which elapsed between her farewell
to him, and now when she was going to say farewell to John, she had many
months of tender consolation in the thought of the baby--Denzil's son.
She could revive and revel in that exquisite exaltation which she had
experienced at first and which John had withered. Denzil far surpassed
even the imagined lover into which she had turned John. So now Denzil had
become the reality, and John the dream.

She felt sorry for her husband too. She was fine enough to understand and
divine his difficulties.

She found that she felt just nothing for him but a kindly affection. He
might have been Archie de la Paule--or any of her other cousins. She knew
that her whole being was given to Denzil--who represented her dream.

She tried to be very kind to John, and when he kissed her before
starting, the tears came to her eyes.

Poor good, cold John!

And when he had departed--all the de la Paule family had been there at
Brook Street also--Lady de la Paule wondered at her niece's set face. But
what a mercy it was the marriage was such a success after all and that
there might be a son!

So both Denzil and John went to the war--and Amaryllis was alone.
Verisschenzko had returned to Paris without seeing her--and it was the
beginning of December before he was in England again and rang her up at
Brook Street where she had returned for a week, asking if he might call.

"Of course!" she said, and so he came.

The library was looking its best. Amaryllis had a knack of arranging
flowers and cushions and such things--her rooms always breathed an air of
home and repose, and Verisschenzko was struck by the sweet scent and the
warmth and cosiness when he came in out of the gloomy fog.

She rose to greet him, her face more ethereal still than when he had
dined with her.

"You are looking like an angel," he said, when she had given him some tea
and they were seated on the big sofa before the fire. "What have you to
tell me? I know that you are going to have a child; I am very interested
about it all."

Amaryllis blushed a soft pink--he went on with perfect calm.

"You blush as though I had said something unheard of! How custom rules
you still! For a blush is caused by feeling some sort of shame or
discomfort, or agitating surprise at some discovery. We may get red with
anger, or get pale, but that bright, sudden flush always has some
self-conscious element of shame in it. It is just convention which has
wrapped the most natural and divine thing in life round with discomfort
in this way. You are deeply to be congratulated that you are going to
have a baby, do you not think so?"

"Of course I do--" and Amaryllis controlled her uneasy bashfulness. She
really wished to talk to her friend.

"Who told you about it?" she asked.

"Denzil."

Amaryllis drew in her breath suddenly. Verisschenzko's eyes were looking
her through and through.

"Denzil--?"

"Yes,--he is glad that there may be the possibility of a son for
the family."

"How do you feel about it? It is an enormous responsibility to have
children."

"I feel that--I want to do the wisest things from the beginning--"

"You must take great care of yourself, and always remain serene. Never
let your mind become agitated by speculation as to the _presently_, keep
all thoughts fixed upon the now."

Amaryllis looked at him a little troubled. What did he know? Something
tangible, or were these views of his just applicable to any case? Her
eyes were full of question and pleading.

"What do you want to ask me?" His eyes narrowed in contemplating her.

"I--I--do not know."

"Yes, you want to hear of Denzil--is it not so?"

She clasped her hands.

"Yes--perhaps--"

"He is well--I heard from him yesterday. He asked me to come to you. His
mother is still at Bath--he wishes you to meet."

Suddenly the impossibleness of everything seemed to come over Amaryllis.
She rose quickly and threw out her hands:

"Oh! if I could only understand the meaning of things, my friend! I am
afraid to think!"

"You love Denzil very much--yes?"

"Yes--"

"Sit down and let us talk about it, lady of my soul. I am your
mother now."

She sank into her seat beside him, among the green silk pillows--and he
leaned back and watched her for a while.

"He fulfils some imaginary picture, _hein?_ You had not seen him really
until we all dined?"

"No."

"You were bound to be drawn to him--he is everything a woman could
desire--but it was not only that--tell me?"

"He was what I had hoped John would be--the likeness is so great--"

"It is much deeper than that--nature was drawing you unconsciously."

She covered her face with her hands. It seemed as if Verisschenzko must
know the truth. Had Denzil told him, or was it his wonderful intuition
which was enlightening him now, or was it just her sensitive conscience?

"You see custom and convention and false shames have so distorted most
natural things that no one has been taught to understand them. Men were
intended in the scheme of things to love women and to have children;
women were meant to love men and to desire to be mothers. These instincts
are primordial, the life of the world depends upon them. They have been
distorted and abused into sins and vices and excesses and every evil by
civilisation, so that now we rule them out of every calculation in
judging of a circumstance; if we are 'nice' people they are taboo.
Supposing we so suppressed and distorted and misused the other two
primitive instincts, to obtain food and to kill one's enemy, the world
would have ended long ago. We have done what we could to distort those
also, but nothing to the extent to which we have debased the nobility of
the recreative instinct!"

Amaryllis listened attentively, and he went on:

"It is admitted that we require food to live--and that if we are
threatened with death from an enemy we have the right to kill him in
self-defence. But it is never admitted that it is equally natural that we
desire to recreate our species. Under certain circumstances of vows and
restrictions, we are permitted to take one partner for life--and--if this
person turns out to be a fraud for the purpose for which we made the
promise, we may not have another. Supposing hungry savages were given
covered dishes purporting to contain food, and upon lifting the cover one
of them discovered his dish was empty--what would happen? He would bear
it as long as he could, but when he was starving he would certainly try
to steal some food from his neighbour--and might even knock him on the
head and obtain it! Civilisation has controlled primitive instincts, so
that a civilised man might perhaps prefer to die himself from starvation
rather than kill or steal. He is master of his actions, _but he is not
master of the effects of his abstinence--Nature wins these,_ and whatever
would be the natural physical result of his abstinence occurs. Now you
can reason this thought out in all its branches, and you will see where
it leads to--"

Amaryllis mused for some moments--and she saw the justice of his
reflections.

"But for hundreds of years there have been priests and nuns and companies
of ascetics," she remarked tentatively.

"There have been hundreds of lunatics also--and madness is not on the
decrease. When you destroy nature you always produce the abnormal, when
life survives from your treatment."

"You think that it is natural that one should have a mate then?"--she
hesitated.

"Absolutely."

"It is more important than the keeping of vows?"

"No, the spirit is degraded by the knowledge of broken vows--only one
must have intelligence to realise what the price of keeping them will be,
and then summon strength enough to carry out whatever course is best for
the soul, or best for the ideal one is living for. Sometimes that end
requires ruthlessness, and sometimes that end requires that we starve in
one way or another, so _we must_ be prepared for sacrifice perhaps of
life, or what makes life worth living, if we are strong enough to keep
vows which we have been short-sighted enough to make too hastily."

Amaryllis gazed in front of her--then she asked softly:

"Do you think it is wicked of me to be thinking of Denzil--not John?"

"No--it is quite natural--the wickedness would be if you pretended to
John that you were thinking of him. Deception is wickedness."

"Everything is so sad now. Both have gone to fight. I do not dare to
think at all."

"Yes, you must think--you must think of your child and draw to it all the
good forces, so that it may come to life unhampered by any weakness of
balance in you. That must be your constant self-discipline. Keep serene
and try to live in a world of noble ideals and serenity. Now I am going
to play to you--"

Amaryllis had never heard Verisschenzko play. He arranged the sofa
cushions and made her lie comfortably among them, then he went to the
piano--and presently it seemed to her that her soul was floating upward
into realms of perfect content. She had never even dreamed of such
playing. It was like nothing she had ever heard before, the sounds
touched all the highest chords in her spirit. She did not ask whose was
the music. She seemed to know that it was Verisschenzko's own, which was
just talking to her, telling her to be calm and brave and true.

He played for a whole hour--and at last softly and yet more softly, and
when he finished he saw that she was quietly asleep.

A smile as tender as a mother's came into his rugged face, and he stole
from the room noiselessly, breathing a blessing as he passed.

And somewhere in France, Denzil and John were thinking of her too, each
with great love in his heart.




CHAPTER XV


Harietta Boleski was growing dissatisfied with her life. England was of
no amusement to her, and yet Hans insisted upon her staying on. She
wanted to go to Paris. The war altogether was a supreme bore and upset
her plans!

She had been so successful in her obvious stupid way that Hans had been
enabled to transmit the most useful information to his country, which had
assisted to foil more than one Allied plan. Harietta saw numbers of old
gentlemen who pulled strings in that time, and although they wearied her,
she found them easier to extract news from than the younger men. Her
method was so irresistible: a direct appeal to the senses, and it hardly
ever failed. If only Hans would consent to her returning to Paris, with
the help of Ferdinand Ardayre, who was now her slave, she promised
wonderful things.

Hans, as a Swedish philanthropic gentleman, had been over to give her
instructions once or twice, and at last had agreed to her crossing
the Channel.

She told this good news to Ferdinand one afternoon just before Christmas,
when he came in to see her in London.

"I'm going to Paris, Ferdie, and you must come too. There's no use in
your pretending that England matters to you, and you are of such use to
us with your branch business in Holland like that. If I'd thought in the
beginning that there was a chance to knock out Germany, I would have been
right on this side, because there's no two ways about it, England's the
place to have a good time in, but I've information which makes it certain
that we shall take Calais in the Spring, and so I guess it's safer to
cling to Kaiser Bill--and get it all done soon, then we can enjoy
ourselves again. I do pine for a tango! My! I'm just through with this
dull time!"

Ferdinand was a rest to her, almost as good as Hans. She had not to be
over-refined--she knew that he was on the same level as herself. He
amused her too in several ways.

He looked sulky now. It did not suit his plans to go to Paris yet. He was
trying to collect information for a game of his own. But where Harietta
went he must go, he was besotted about her, and knew that he could not
trust her a yard.

He protested a little that they were very well where they were, but as
she never allowed any one's wishes to interfere with her plans she
only smiled.

"I'm going on Saturday. We have secured a suite at the Universal this
time, now that the Rhin is shut up, and it is such a large hotel, you can
quite well stay there; Stanislass won't notice you among the crowd."

Ferdinand agreed unwillingly--and just then Verisschenzko came in. He had
not seen Madame Boleski since the night at the Carlton, having taken care
not to let her know of his further visits to England since.

He looked at Ferdinand Ardayre as though he had been some bit of
furniture, and he took up Fou-Chow who was cowering beneath a chair. He
did not speak a word.

Harietta talked for every one for a little while, and then she began to
feel nervous.

Verisschenzko smiled lazily--he was trying an experiment. The interview
could not go on like this; Ferdinand Ardayre would certainly have to go.

Now that Verisschenzko had come, Harietta ardently wished that he would.

The most venomous hate was arising in Ferdinand's resentful soul. He felt
that here was a rival to be dreaded indeed. He saw that Harietta was
nervous; he had never seen her so before. He shut his teeth and
determined to stay on.

Verisschenzko continued his disconcerting silence. Harietta felt that
she should presently scream! She took Fou-Chow from Stepan and pinched
him cruelly in her exasperation. He gave a feeble squeak and she pushed
him roughly down. Animals to her were a nuisance. She disliked them if
she had any feeling at all. But Fou-Chow was an adjunct to her toilet
sometimes, and was a coveted possession, envied by her many female
friends. His tiny, cringing body irritated her though extremely when
she was not using him for effect, and he was often kicked and cuffed
out of her way.

He showed evident fear of her and ran from her always, so that when
she wanted to make a picture with him, she was obliged to carry him
in her arms.

Verisschenzko raised one bushy eyebrow, and a sardonic smile came
into his eyes.

Madame Boleski saw that she had made a mistake in showing her temper to
the dog; it would have given her pleasure then to wring its neck!

The two men sat on. She began to grow so uncomfortable that she could
endure it no more.

"You are coming back to dinner, Mr. Ardayre," she remarked at length,
"and I want you to get me gardenias to wear, if you will be so kind, and
I am afraid you will have to hurry as the shops close soon."

Ferdinand Ardayre rose, rage showing in his mean face, but as he had no
choice he said good-bye. Harietta accompanied him to the door, pressing
his hand stealthily, then she returned to the Russian with flaming eyes.
He had not uttered a word.

"How dare you make me so nervous, sitting there like a log! I won't stand
for such treatment--you Bear!"

"Then sit down. Why do you have that Turk with you at all?"

"He is not a Turk; he's an Englishman and a friend of mine. Why, he is
the brother of your precious John Ardayre--and they have behaved
shamefully to him, poor dear boy."

She was still enraged.

"He is not even a pure Turk--some of them are gentlemen. He is just the
scum of the earth, and no blood relation to John Ardayre."

"He will let them know whether he is or not some day! I hear that your
bit of bread and butter is going to have a child, and as Ferdie says it
can't be John's, I suppose it is yours!"

Verisschenzko's face looked dangerous.

"You would do well to guard your words, Harietta. I do not permit you to
make such remarks to me--and it would be more prudent if you warned your
friend that he had better not make such assertions either--do you
understand?"

Harietta felt some twinge of fear at the strange tone in the Russian's
voice, but she was too out of temper to be cowed now.

"Puh!" and she tossed her head. "If the child is a boy Ferdie will have
something to say--and as for Amaryllis--I hate her! I'd like to kill her
with my own hands."

Verisschenzko rose and stood before her--and there was a look in his eyes
which made her suddenly grow cold.

"Listen," he said icily. "I have warned you once and you know me well
enough to decide whether I ever speak lightly. I warn you again to be
careful of your words and your deeds. I shall warn you no more--if you
transgress a third time--then I will strike."

Harietta grew pale to her painted lips.

How would he strike? Not with a stick as Hans would have done, but
in some much more deadly way. She changed her manner instantly and
began to laugh.

"Darling Brute!"

Verisschenzko knew that he had alarmed her sufficiently, so he sat down
in his chair again and lit a cigarette calmly--then he sniffed the air.

"Your mongrel friend uses the same perfume as Stanislass' mistress!"

"Stanislass' mistress?" she had forgotten for the moment.

"Yes--don't you remember we burnt his scented handkerchief the last time
we met, because we did not like her taste in perfumes?"

Harietta's ill humour rose again; she was annoyed that she had forgotten
this incident. Her instinct of self-preservation usually preserved her
from committing any such mistakes. She felt that it was now advisable to
become cajoling; also there was something in the face of Verisschenzko
and his fierceness which aroused renewed passion in her--it was absurd
to waste time in quarrelling with him when in an hour Stanislass might be
coming in, so she went over behind his chair and smoothed back his thick
dark hair.

"You know that I adore you, darling Brute!"

"Of course--" he did not even turn his head towards her. "Have you had
your heart's desire here in England?"

"Before this stupid war came--yes--now I'm through with it. I'm for
Paris again."

"I suppose I must have been mistaken, but I thought I caught sight of
your handsome German friend in the hall just now?"

"German friend--who?"

"Your _danseur_ at the Ardayre ball. I have forgotten his name."

"And so have I."

At that instant Marie appeared at the door and Fou-Chow came from under
the chair where he was sheltering and pattered towards her with a glad
tiny whine. The maid's eyes rounded with dislike as she looked at her
mistress; she realised that the little creature had been roughly treated
again. She picked him up and could hardly control her voice into a tone
of respectfulness as she spoke:

"Monsieur Insborg demands if he can see Madame in half an hour. He
telephoned to Madame but received no reply."

For a second Harietta's eyes betrayed her; they narrowed with alarm, and
then she said suavely: "I suppose the receiver was off. No, say I am
dining early for the theatre--but to-morrow at five."

The maid inclined her head and left the room silently, carrying
Fou-Chow, but as she did so her eyes met Verisschenzko's and their
expression suggested to him several things:

"Marie loves the dog--so she hates Harietta. Good--we shall see."

Thus his thoughts ran, but aloud he asked what Harietta meant to do with
her life in Paris, and who had been her lovers here?

"You do say such frightful things to me, Stepan," and she tossed her
head. "You think that because I took you, I take others! Pah!--and if I
do--these Englishmen are peaches, just like little school boys--they'd
not harm a fly. But I only love you, Darling Brute--even though we have
had a row."

"I know that, of course. I am not jealous, only you have not given me any
proofs lately, so I am going to retire from the field. I came to say
good-bye."

He looked adorably attractive, Harietta thought--he made her blood run.
Ferdinand Ardayre was but an instructed weakling, when one had come
through his intricacies there was nothing in him. As a lover he was not
worth the Russian's little finger, and the more Verisschenzko eluded
her, the higher her passion for him grew; and here he was after months
of absence and suggesting that he would leave her for ever! This was not
to be borne!

The enraging part was that she would not dare to try to keep him with
Hans again upon the scene. She hated Hans once more as she had hated him
at the Ardayre ball!

Verisschenzko did not attempt to caress her; he sat perfectly still, nor
did he speak.

Harietta could not think how to cope with this new mood; her weariness
with the gloom of England and the absence of amusement seemed to render
Stepan more than ever desirable. He represented the wild, the strong, the
primitive, the only thing she felt that she desired at that moment--and
if she let him go to-day he was capable of never coming back to her
again. It was worth using any means to keep him on. She knew that she
could obtain some show of love from him if she bribed him with bits of
news. It would serve Hans right too for daring to turn up so
inconveniently!

So she came from behind his chair and sat down on Verisschenzko's knee
and commenced to whisper in his ear.

"Now I am beginning to think that you love me again," he announced
presently,--"and of course I must always pay for love!"

       *       *       *       *       *

They were seated by the fire in two armchairs when Stanislass came in
from the Club before dinner at eight. Harietta had not even remembered
that she must dress, so intoxicated with re-awakened passion for
Verisschenzko had she become. A man for her must be in the room; her
affection could not keep alight in absence. She had revelled in the joy
of finding again a complete physical master. She loved him as a tigress
may love her tamer, the man with the whip; and the knowledge that she was
deceiving Hans and her husband and Ferdinand added a fillip to her
satisfaction. But how was she going to be sure to see Stepan again--that
was the question which still agitated her. Verisschenzko wished to
further examine Ferdinand Ardayre, and so decided to make every one
uncomfortable once more by staying on. Stanislass, very nervous with him
now, talked fast and foolishly. Harietta fidgeted, and in a moment or two
Ferdinand Ardayre was announced.

He reddened with annoyance to see the Russian had not gone; the flowers
which he had brought were in a parcel in his hand.

Harietta took them disdainfully without a word of thanks. What a nuisance
the creature was after all!--and Stanislass was--and everything and
anything was which kept her from being alone with Verisschenzko!

"When are you coming to see me again, Stepan?" she asked, determined not
to let him part without some definite future meeting settled.

"I will come back and take coffee with you to-night," he answered
unexpectedly.

Harietta was enchanted, she had not hoped for this.

"No one bothers so much about dressing now, stay and dine as you are."

"Yes, do," chimed in Stanislass timidly in Russian, "we should be
so charmed."

"Very well--I will dine--but I must change. I shall not be long though.
Begin dinner without me, I will join you before the fish." And with no
further waste of words he left them.

Harietta pushed Stanislass gently from the room with an injunction to be
quick--and then she returned and held out her arms to Ferdinand Ardayre.

"Now you must not be jealous, Ferdie pet, about Verisschenzko," and she
patted him. "It is business--I must talk to him to-night; he has an idea
that you and I are not favourable to the Allies," and she laughed
delightedly, "and I must get him off this notion!"

Ferdinand Ardayre looked sullen; he was burning with jealousy.

"Will you make it up to me afterwards?"

"But, of course, in the usual way!" and with one of her wonderful kisses
Harietta went laughing from the room.

Left alone, the young man gave himself a morphine _piqure_, and then sat
down and held his head in his hands.

He had heard, as he had told Harietta earlier in the afternoon, that his
brother's wife was going to have a child, and he could find no way of
proving legally that it could not be John's, so his venom had grown with
his impotence.

His mother had said to him once:

"The accursed English will always beat us, my son. Thy real father would
have put poison in their coffee. We can only hope for revenge some day. I
fear we shall never gain our desires. The old fool whom thou callest
father must be sucked dry of everything while he lives, because no
quarter will be given us once the breath is out of his body."

Was this true? Must the English always beat him? He remembered his hatred
of Denzil while at Eton, and the dog's life he had often led there. Well,
he would hit back with an adder's sting when the chance came to him. He
would like to see both Ardayres ruined and England herself in the dust,
numbed and conquered. All his English life and education had never made
him anything but an alien in thought and appearance.

It was his powerlessness which enraged him, but surely the day must come
when he could make some of them suffer.

Harietta had not appeared in the hall when Verisschenzko returned
dressed, and she even kept all three men waiting for about ten minutes,
and then swept in resplendent in yellow brocade and the gardenias, when
the clock had struck nine and most of the other diners were having
their coffee.

The atmosphere of restraint and depression was a constant source of
resentment to her. It was all very well to be dignified and refined for
some definite end, like securing an unquestioned position, but it was a
weariness of the flesh to have to keep up this role month after month
with no excitement or reward, and every now and then she felt that she
must break out even in small ways by wearing too gorgeous and unsuitable
raiment. She wished that Germany would be quick about winning, then
things could settle down and she could begin her social career again.

"It don't amount to a row of pins to the people who want to enjoy
themselves, as I do, if their country is beaten or not; it'll all be the
same six months after peace is declared, so I'm all for knocking
whichever seems feeblest out quickly," she had said to Ferdinand, "and
Paris will always be top of the world for clothes and things that one
wants, so what do old politics matter?"

She derived some pleasure out of the sensation she created when she went
into a restaurant, and she really looked extraordinarily handsome.

The dinner amused her, too; it was entertaining to make Ferdinand
jealous. The emotions of Stanislass had ceased to count to her in any way
whatsoever.

Verisschenzko had discovered what he required in regard to Ferdinand
Ardayre before they went into the hall for coffee--there was nothing
further to be gained by having another tete-a-tete with Harietta, so he
sat down by Stanislass and suggested that the other two should go on to
the Coliseum without them, and Harietta was obliged to depart reluctantly
with Ferdinand, having arranged that Stepan should let her know, directly
he arrived in Paris, whither he was going in a day or two also.

When she had left them Stanislass Boleski turned melancholy eyes to his
old friend, but remained silent.

"Has it been worth it?" Verisschenzko asked, with certain feeling--they
had relapsed into Russian.

Stanislass sighed deeply.

"No--far from it--I am broken and finished, Stepan, she has devoured
my soul--"

"Why don't you kill her! I should."

The Pole clenched one of his transparent looking hands:

"I cannot--I desire her so--she is an obsession. I cannot work--she
leaves me neither time nor brain. But I want her always, she is a burning
torment, and a blast, and a sin. I see visions of the chance that I have
missed, and then all is obliterated by her voluptuous kisses. I die each
day with jealousy and shame. She withholds herself, and I would pay with
the blood from my veins to possess her again!"

"You have no longer any delusions about her--you see her as a curse and
a vampire?"

Stanislass reddened.

"I see everything, but I know only desire. Stepan, she has dragged me
through every degradation. I am a witness of her unfaithfulness. She
gives herself to this Turk with hardly a pretence of concealment--I know
it--I burn with rage, and I can do nothing. She returns to my arms and I
forget everything. I am a most unhappy man and only death can release me,
and yet I wish to live because I love her. Each day is fierce longing for
her--each night away from her hell--" Tears sprang to his hopeless black
eyes and his voice broke with emotion.

Verisschenzko looked at him and a rough pity tempered his contempt.

Here was a case where an indulgence having become master was exacting a
hideous toll. But the net was drawing closer and when all the strands
were in his hands he would act without mercy.




CHAPTER XVI


When Amaryllis knew that John was going to get a few days' leave at
Christmas a strange nervousness took possession of her. The personality
of Denzil had been growing more real to her ever since they had parted,
in spite of her endeavours to discipline her mind and control all
emotion. The thought of him and the thought of the baby were inseparable
and were seldom absent from her consciousness. All sorts of wonderful
emotions held her, and exalted her imagination until she felt that Denzil
was part of her daily life--and with the double interest her love for him
grew and grew.

She had only seen John during the day when he had come to bid her
good-bye before leaving for the Front, and most of the time they had been
surrounded by the de la Paule family. But now she would have to face the
fact of living with him again in an intimate relationship.

The thought appeared awful to her. There was something in her nature
which resembled that of the bride of King Caudaules. She could not
support the idea of belonging now to John; it seemed to her that he must
have no rights at all. She had written to him dutifully each week letters
about the place and her Committees in the County. She had not once
mentioned the coming child.

Denzil's mother had been ill and the visit to Bath had been postponed,
and after a fortnight alone at Ardayre she had come up to London. She had
too much time to think there.

Stepan had left her a list of books to get and she had been steadily
reading them.

How horribly ignorant she had been! She realised that what knowledge she
had possessed had never been centralised or brought to any use. She had
known isolated histories of Europe, and never had studied them
collectively or contemporarily to discover their effect upon human
evolution. She had learned many things, and then never employed her
critical faculties about them. A whole new world seemed to be opening to
her view. She had determined not to be unhappy and not to look ahead, but
in spite of these good resolutions she would often dream in the firelight
of the joy of being clasped in Denzil's arms.

When she thought of John it was with tolerance more than affection. What
did he really mean to her, denuded of the glamour with which she herself
had surrounded him?

Practically nothing at all.

She was quite aware that her state of being was rendering all her mental
and emotional faculties particularly sensitive, and she did her utmost to
remember all Verisschenzko's counsel to discipline herself and remain
serene. The morning John was expected to arrive she had a hard fight with
herself. She felt very nervous and ill at ease. Above all things, she
must not be unkind.

He was bronzed and looked well, he was more expansive also and plainly
very glad to see her.

He held her close to him and bent to kiss her lips; but some undefined
reluctance came over her, and she moved her head aside.

Something in her resented the caress. Her lips were now for Denzil and
for no other man. It was she who was recalcitrant and turned the
conversation into everyday things.

The de la Paule family had been summoned for luncheon and the
afternoon passed among them all, and then the evening and the
tete-a-tete dinner came.

John knocked at the door of her room while she was dressing. Her maid had
just finished her hair and she wondered at herself that she should
experience a sense of shyness and have to suppress an inclination to
refuse to let him come in. And once any of these little intimate
happenings would have given her joy!

She kept Adams there, and hurried into her tea-gown and then walked
towards the door.

John had not spoken much, but stood by the fire.

How changed things were! Once he had to be persuaded and enticed to stay
with her at such moments, and it was he who now seemed to desire to do
so, and it was she who discouraged his wishes!

In Amaryllis' mind an agitation grew. What could she say to him
presently--if he suggested coming to sleep in her room?

The knowledge in her breast rose as an insurmountable barrier
between them.

During dinner she kept the conversation entirely upon his life at the
Front--which indeed really interested her. She was not cold or stiff in
her manner, but she was unconsciously aloof.

Then they went back into the library, each feeling exceedingly depressed.

When coffee had come and they were quite alone Amaryllis felt she could
not stand the strain, and went to the piano. She played for quite a long
time all the things she remembered that John liked best. She wanted the
music to calm her, and she wanted to gain time. John sat in one of the
monster chairs and gazed into the fire. He seemed to see pictures in the
glowing coals.

The strange relentless fate which had pursued him always as far as
happiness was concerned!

He remembered what his mother had said to him when she lay a-dying with a
broken heart.

"John, we cannot see what God means in it all. There must be some
explanation because He cannot be unjust. It is because we have missed the
point of some lesson, probably, and so are given it again to learn. Do
not ever be rebellious, my son, and perhaps some day light will come."

He had read an article in some paper lately ridiculing the theory that we
have had former lives, but, after all, perhaps there was some foundation
for the belief. Perhaps he was paying in this one for sins in a previous
birth. That would account for the seeming inexorableness of the
misfortunes which fell upon him now, since common sense told him that in
this life such cruel blows were undeserved.

Amaryllis glanced at his face from the piano as she played. It was
infinitely sad.

A great pity grew in her heart. What ought she to do not to be unkind?

Presently she finished a soft chord and got up and came to his side.

They were both suffering cruelly--but John was going back to fight. She
must have some explanation with him which could make him return to France
at peace in a measure. It was cowardly to shirk telling him the truth,
and she could not let him go again into danger with this black shadow
between them.

He looked up at her and rose from his chair.

"You play so beautifully," he said hastily. "You take one out of
oneself. Now it is late and the day has been long. Let us go to bed,
dearest child."

Amaryllis stiffened suddenly--the moment that she dreaded had come.

"I would rather that you slept in your dressing-room. I have ordered that
to be prepared--"

He looked at her startled--and then he took her hand.

"Amaryllis--tell me everything. Why are you so changed?"

"I'm trying not to be, John."

"You are trying--that proves that you are, if you must try. Please tell
me what this means."

She endeavoured to remain calm and not become unhinged.

"It was you yourself who altered me. I came to you all loving and human
and you froze me. There is nothing to be done."

"Yes, there is. You know that I love you."

"Perhaps you do, but the family matters more to you than I do, or
anything else in the world."

"That may have been so once, but not now," his voice throbbed with
feeling.

"Alas!" was all she answered and looked down. John longed to appeal to
her--but he was too honest to seek to soften her through the link of the
child. Indeed, the thought of it had grown hateful to him. He only knew
that he had played for a stake which now seemed worthless. Amaryllis and
her love mattered more than any child.

He clenched his hands tightly; the pain of things seemed hard to bear.

Why had he not broken the thongs of reserve which held him long days ago
and made love to her in words? But that would have been dishonest. He
must at least be true; and he realised now that he had starved her--no
matter what his motive had been.

"Amaryllis, tell me everything, please," and he held out his hands and
drew her to the sofa and sat down by her side.

She could not control her emotion any longer, and her voice shook as she
answered him:

"I know that it was not you--but Denzil, John--and the baby is his,
not yours."

His face altered. He had not been prepared to hear this thing and he
was stunned.

"Ferdinand is an awful possibility to contemplate there at Ardayre, if
you have no son--" She went on, trying to be calm, "but do you not think
that you might have told me? Surely a woman has the right to select the
father of her child."

John could not answer her. He covered his face with his hands.

"You see it is all pitiful," she continued, her voice deep and broken
with almost a sob in it. "Denzil is so like you--it was an easy
transition to find that I loved him--because I was only loving the
imaginary you I had made for myself. I cannot explain myself and do not
make any excuse. There is something in me, whenever I think of the baby,
that draws me to Denzil and makes me remember that night. John, we must
just face the situation and try to find some way to avoid as much pain as
we can. I hate to think it is hurting you, too."

"Did Denzil tell you this?" his voice was icy cold.

"No--it came to me suddenly when I heard him say a word."

"'Sweetheart'!" and now John's eyes flashed. "He called you again
'Sweetheart'!"

"No, he did not--he used the word simply in speaking of a picture--but I
recognised his voice then immediately--it is a little deeper than yours."

"When did you see Denzil?"

She told him the exact truth about their meeting and his coming to
Ardayre, and how Denzil had endeavoured to keep his word.

"He would never have spoken to me--it was fate which sent him into the
train, and then I made him speak--I could not bear it. After I
recognised him, I made him admit that it was he. Denzil is not to blame.
He left immediately and I have never seen him or heard from him since.
It is I alone who must be counted with, John--Denzil will try never to
see me again."

John groaned aloud.

"Oh God--the misery of it all!"

"John, I must tell you everything now while we are talking of these
things. I love Denzil utterly. I thrill when I think of him; he seems to
me my husband, not even only a lover. John, not long ago, when I felt
the first movement of the child, I shook with longing for him--I found
myself murmuring his name aloud. So you must think what it all means to
me, so strongly passionate as I am. But I would never cheat you, John--I
had to be honest. I could not go on pretending to be your wife and
living a lie."

Tears of agony gathered in John Ardayre's blue eyes and rolled down
his cheeks.

He suddenly understood the suffering, that she, too, must be undergoing.

What right had he to have taken this young and loving woman and then to
have used her for his own aims, however high?

"Amaryllis--you cannot forgive me. I see now that I was wrong."

But the sympathy which she had felt when she had looked at him from the
piano welled up again in Amaryllis's heart and drowned all resentment.
She knew that he must be enduring pain greater than hers, so she
stretched out her hands to him, and he took them and held them in his.

"Of course, I forgive you, John--but I cannot cease from loving Denzil,
that is the tragedy of the thing. I am his really, not yours, even if I
never see him again, and that is why we must not make any pretences.
John dearest, let us be friends--and live as friends, then everything
won't be so hard."

He let her hands drop and got up and paced the room. He was suffering
acutely--must he renounce even the joy of holding her in his arms?

"But I love you, Amaryllis--I love you, dearest child--"

And now again she said "Alas!"--and that was all.

"Amaryllis--this is a frightful sacrifice to me--must you insist upon
it?"

Then her eyes seemed to flash fire and her cheeks grew rose--and she
stood up and faced him.

"I tell you, John, you do not know me. You have seen a well brought up,
conventional girl--milk and water, ready to obey your slightest will--I
had not found myself. I am a creature as primitive and passionate as a
savage"--her breath came in little pants with her great emotion,--"I
_could not_ belong to two men--it would utterly degrade me, then I do not
know what I should become. I love Denzil, body and soul--and while he
lives no other man shall ever touch me; that is what passion means to
me--fidelity to the thing I love! He is my Beloved and my darling, and I
must go away from you altogether and throw off the thought of the family,
and implore Denzil to take me when he comes home if you can agree to the
only terms I can offer you now."

John bowed his head. Life seemed over for him and done.

Amaryllis came close to him, then she stood on tiptoe and kissed his
brow. Her vehemence had died down in her sorrow for his pain.

"John," she whispered softly, "won't you always be my dearest friend? And
when the baby comes it will be a deep interest to us both, and you must
love it because it is mine and an Ardayre--and the comfort of that must
fill our lives. I truly believe that you did everything, meaning it for
the best, only perhaps it is dangerous to play with the creation of
life--perhaps that is why fate forced me to know."

John drew her to him, he smoothed the soft brown hair back from her brow
and kissed her tenderly, but not on the lips--those he told himself he
must renounce for evermore.

"Amaryllis,"--his voice was husky still, "yes--I will be your friend,
darling--and I will love your child. I was very wrong to marry you, but
it was not quite hopeless then, and you were so young and splendid and
living--and I was growing to love you, and for these reasons I hoped
against hope--and then when I knew that everything was impossible--I
felt that I must make it up to you in every other way I could. I don't
know how to put things into words, I always was dull, but I thought if I
gratified all your wishes perhaps--Ah!--I see it was very cruel. Darling,
I would have told you the truth--presently--but then the war came, and
the thought of Ferdinand here drove me mad and it forced my hand."

She looked up at him with her sweet true eyes--her one idea was now to
comfort him since she need no longer fear.

"John, if you had explained the whole thing to me--I do not know, perhaps
I should have agreed with you, for I, too, have much of this family
pride, and I cannot bear to think of Ferdinand--or his children which may
be, at Ardayre. I might have voluntarily consented--I cannot be sure. But
somehow just lately I have been thinking very much about spiritual
things, things I mean beyond the material, those great forces which must
be all around us, and I have wondered if we are not perhaps too ignorant
yet to upset any laws. Perhaps I am stupid--I don't know really. I have
only been wondering--but perhaps there are powerful currents connected
with laws, whether they are just or unjust, simply because of the force
of people's thoughts for hundreds of years around them."

They went to the sofa then and sat down. It made John happier to hear
her talk. His strong will was now conquering the outward show of his
emotion at last.

"It may be so--"

"You see, supposing anything should happen to Ferdinand," she went on,
"then Denzil would have been naturally the next heir--and now--if the
child is a boy--"

John started.

"We neither of us thought of that."

"But nothing is likely to happen to Ferdinand; he won't enlist--it is
only you, dear John, who are in danger, and Denzil, too--but surely the
war cannot go on long now?"

John wondered if he should tell her what he really felt about this, or
whether it were wiser to keep her quietly in this hopeful dream of a
speedy end. He decided to say nothing; it was better for her health not
to agitate her mind--events would speak for themselves, alas, presently.

He talked quietly then of Ardayre and of his boyhood and of its sorrows;
he was determined to break down his own reserve, and Amaryllis listened
interestedly, and gradually some kind of peace and calm seemed to come
to them both, and they resolutely banished the thought of the future,
and sought only to think of the present. And then at last John rose and
took her hand:

"Go to bed now, dear girl,--and to-morrow I shall have quite conquered
all the feelings which could disturb you, and just remember always that I
am indeed your friend."

She understood at last the greatness of his sacrifice and the fineness of
his soul, and she fell into a passion of weeping and ran from the room.

But John, left alone, sank down into the same chair as he had done once
before on the night he was waiting for Denzil, and, as then, he buried
his face in his hands.




CHAPTER XVII


The next day they met at breakfast. John had not slept at all and was
very pale and Amaryllis's eyes still showed the deepened violet shadows
from much weeping. But they were both quite calm.

She came over to John and kissed his forehead with gentle tenderness and
then gave him his tea. They tried to talk in a friendly way as of old
before any new emotions had come into their lives. And gradually the
strain became lessened.

They arranged to go out shopping, and John bought Amaryllis a new
emerald ring.

"Green is the colour of hope," she said. "I want green, John,
because it will make me think of the springtime and nature, and all
beautiful things."

They lunched at a restaurant and in the afternoon went down to Ardayre.
John had many things to attend to and would be occupied all the
following day.

There had been no Christmas feasting, but there were gifts to be
distributed and various other duties and ceremonies to be gone through,
although they had missed the Christmas day. Amaryllis tried in every way
to be helpful to her husband, and he appreciated her stateliness and
sweet manners with all the tenants and people on the estate.

So the four days passed quite smoothly, and the last night of the old
year came.

"I don't think that you must sit up for it, dear," John said after
dinner. "It will only tire you, and it is always a rather sad moment
unless one has a party as we always had in old days."

Amaryllis went obediently to her room and stayed there; sleep was far
from her eyes. What was the rest of her life going to be without Denzil?
And what of John? Would they settle down into a real quiet friendship
when he came back, and the child was born? Or would she have always to
feel that he loved her and was for ever suffering pain?

The more she thought the less clear the issue became, and the deeper the
sadness in the atmosphere.

At last she slipped down onto the big white bear-skin rug and
began to pray.

But when the clock struck midnight, and the New Year bells rang out, a
dreadful depression fell upon her, a sense of foreboding and fear.

She tried to tell herself that she was foolish, and it was all caused
only because she was so highly strung and sensitive now, on account of
her state. But the thought would persist that danger threatened some one
she loved. Was it Denzil, or John?

Amaryllis tried to force herself from her unhappy impressions by thinking
of what she could do presently in the summer, when she would be quite
well again, though her greatest work must always be to try to make John
happy, if by then he had come home.

She heard him go into his room at about one o'clock, and then she crept
noiselessly to her great gilt bed.

John had waited for the New Year by the cedar parlour fire. The room was
so filled with the radiance of Amaryllis that he liked being there.

And he, too, was thinking of what their new life would be should he
chance to come through. The ache in his heart would gradually subside, he
supposed, but how would he bear the long years, knowing that Amaryllis
was thinking of Denzil--and longing for him--and if fate made them
meet--what then?

How could he endure to know that these two beings were suffering?

There seemed no clear outlook ahead. But, as he knew only too well death
could hardly fail to intervene, and if it should claim Denzil, then he
must console Amaryllis' grief. But if happily it could be he who were
taken, then their future path would be clear.

He could not forget the third eventuality, that he and Denzil might both
be killed. He thought and thought over them all, and at last he decided
to add a letter to his will. If he should be killed he would ask Denzil
to marry Amaryllis immediately, without waiting for the conventional
year. The times were too strenuous, and she must not be left
unprotected--alone with the child.

He got up and began the letter to his lawyer, and so the
instructions ran:

"I request my cousin Denzil Benedict Ardayre to marry Amaryllis, my wife,
as soon as possible after my death, if he can get leave and is still
alive. I confide her to his care and ask them both not to let any
conventional idea of mourning stand in the way of these, my urgent last
commands. And I ask my cousin Denzil, if he lives through the war, to
take great care of the bringing up of the child."

He read thus far, and when he came to "the child" he scratched it out
and wrote "my child" deliberately, and then he went on to add his wishes
for its education, should it be a boy. The will had already amply
provided for Amaryllis, so that she would be a rich woman for the rest
of her days.

When all this was clearly copied out and sealed up in an envelope
addressed to his lawyer, the clock struck twelve.

The silence in the old house was complete; there was no revelry for the
first time for many years, even the servants far off in their wing had
gone to rest.

It seemed to John that the shadow of sorrow was suddenly removed from
him, and as though a weight of care had been lifted from his heart. He
could not account for the alteration, but he felt no longer sad. Was
it an omen? Was this New Year going to fulfill some great thing after
all? A divine peace fell upon him, and then a pleasant sensation of
sleep, and he turned out the lights and went softly to his room, and
was soon in bed.

And then he slept soundly until late in the morning, and awoke refreshed
and serene on New Year's day.

His leave was up on the third of January and he returned to London,
but he would not let Amaryllis undergo the fatigue of accompanying
him. He said good-bye to her there at Ardayre. She felt extremely sad
and unhappy.

Had she done well, after all, to have told John the truth? Should she
have borne things as they were and waited until the end of the war? But
no, that would have been impossible to her nature. If she might not have
Denzil for her lover, she would have no other man.

John's cheerfulness astonished her--it was so uniform, it could not be
assumed. Perhaps she did not yet understand him, perhaps in his heart he
was glad that all pretences had come to an end.

They had the most affectionate parting. John never was sentimental, and
he went off with brave, cheery words, and every injunction that she was
to take the greatest care of herself.

"Remember, Amaryllis, that you are the most precious thing on earth to
me--and you must think also of the child."

She promised him that she would carry out all his wishes in this
respect and remain quietly at Ardayre until the first of April, when
perhaps he could get leave again and then she would go to London for
the birth of the baby.

John turned and waved his hand as he went off down the avenue, and
Amaryllis watched the motor until it was out of sight, the tears slowly
brimming over and running down her cheeks.

She noticed that at the turn in the avenue a telegraph boy passed the car
and came straight on. The wire was not for John evidently, so she would
wait at the door to see. It proved to be for her, and from Denzil's
mother, saying that she was en route for Dorchester, motoring, and would
stop at Ardayre on the chance of finding its mistress at home. Amaryllis
felt suddenly excited; she had often longed for this and yet in some way
she had feared it also. What new emotions might the meeting not arouse?

It was quite early after luncheon that Mrs. Ardayre was announced.
Amaryllis had waited in the green drawing room, thinking that she would
come. She was playing the piano at the far end to try and lighten her
feeling of depression, when the door opened, and to her astonishment
quite a young, slight woman came into the room. She was a little lame,
and walked with a stick. For a moment Amaryllis thought she must be
mistaken, and rose with a vague, but gracious look in her eyes.

Mrs. Ardayre held out her hand and smiled:

"I hope you got my telegram in time," she said cordially. "I felt I must
not lose the opportunity of making your acquaintance. My son has been so
anxious for us to meet."

"You--you can't be Denzil's mother, surely!" Amaryllis exclaimed. "He is
much too old to be your son!"

Mrs. Ardayre smiled again--while Amaryllis made her sit down on the sofa
beside her and helped her off with her furs. "I am forty-nine years old,
Amaryllis--if I may call you so--but one ought never to grow old in body.
It is not necessary, and it is not agreeable to the eye!"

Amaryllis looked at her carefully in the full side light. It was the
shape of her face, she decided, which gave her such youth. There were no
unsightly bones to cause shadows and the skin was smooth and ivory--and
her eyes were bright brown; their expression was very humorous as well as
kindly, and Amaryllis was drawn to her at once.

They talked about their desire to know one another and about the family,
and the place, and the war--and at last they spoke of Denzil, and Mrs.
Ardayre told of what his life was, and his whereabouts now, and then grew
retrospective.

"He is the dearest boy in the world," she said. "We have been friends
always, and now he will not allow me to be anxious about him. I really
think that as far as the frightfulness of things will let him be, he
is actually enjoying his life! Men are such queer creatures, they like
to fight!"

Amaryllis asked what was her latest news of him, and where he was, and
listened interestedly to Mrs. Ardayre's replies:

"The cavalry have not had very much to do lately, fortunately," she
remarked. "My husband has just gone back, but I suppose if there is a
shortage of men for the trenches, they will be dismounted perhaps."

"I expect so--then we shall have to use all our courage and control
our fears."

Amaryllis turned the conversation back to Denzil again, and drew his
mother out. She would like to have heard incidents of his childhood and
of how he looked when he was a little boy, but she was too timid to ask
any deliberate questions. She felt drawn to this lady, she looked so
young and human. Perhaps she was not so wonderful in evening dress, but
her figure was boyish in its slim spareness--in these serge travelling
clothes she hardly looked thirty-five!

She wondered what Denzil had told his mother about her--probably that she
was going to have a child, but nothing more.

They talked in the most friendly way for half an hour, and then Amaryllis
asked her guest if she would like to come and see the house and
especially the picture gallery and the Elizabethan Denzil hanging there.

"It is just my boy!" Mrs. Ardayre cried, when they stood in front of it.
"Eyes and all, they are bold and true and so loving. Oh! my dear child,
you can't think what a darling he is; from his babyhood every woman has
adored him--the nurse maids were his slaves, and my old housekeeper and
my maid are like two jealous cats as to who shall do things for him when
he comes home. He has that queer quality which can wile a bird off a
tree. I daresay I am the silliest of them all!"

Amaryllis listened, enchanted.

"You see he has not one touch of me in him," Mrs. Ardayre went on, "but I
was so frantically in love with my husband when he was born, he naturally
was all Ardayre. Does it not interest you, Amaryllis, to wonder what your
little one, when it comes, will look like? It ought to be pronouncedly of
the family, your being also an Ardayre."

"Indeed yes, I am very curious. And how we all hope that it will
be a son!"

"Is there a portrait of your husband here? Denzil says they are alike."

"There is one in my sitting room; it is going to be moved in here
presently, when mine is done next year. It is by Sargent, almost the last
portrait he painted. Let us go there now and see it."

"But there is no likeness," Mrs. Ardayre exclaimed presently, when they
had gone to the cedar parlour and were examining the picture of John.
"Can you discover it?"

"I thought they were very alike once--but I do not altogether see it
now."

Mrs. Ardayre smiled. "I cannot, of course, think any one can compare with
my Denzil! And yet I am not a real mother at all! I am totally devoid of
the maternal instinct in the abstract! Children bore me, and I am glad I
have never had any more. I adore Denzil because he is Denzil. I loved my
husband and delighted in being the mother of his son."

"There are the two sorts of women, are not there? The mother woman and
the mate woman--we have to be one or the other, I suppose. I hardly yet
know to which category I belong," and Amaryllis sighed, "but I rather
think that I am like you--the man might matter even more to me than the
child, and I know that the child matters to me enormously because of the
man. It is all a great mystery and a wonder though."

Beatrice Ardayre looked up at the portrait of John; his stolid face did
not give her the impression that he could make a woman, and such a
fascinating and adorable creature as Amaryllis, passionately in love with
him, or fill her with mysterious feelings of emotion about his child!
Now, if it had been Denzil she could have understood a woman's committing
any madness for him, but this stodgy, respectable John!

Her bright brown eyes glanced at Amaryllis furtively, and she saw that
she was looking up at the picture with an expression of deep melancholy
on her face.

There was some mystery here.

She went over again in her mind what Denzil had told her about Amaryllis.
It was not a great deal. He had arrived at Bath that time looking very
stern and abstracted, and had mentioned rather shortly that he had come
down with the head of the family's wife in the train, and had gone on to
Ardayre with her, after meeting them the previous night at dinner for the
first time.

He had not been at all expansive, but later in the evening when they had
sat by her sitting room fire, he had suddenly said something which had
startled her greatly:

"Mum--I want you to know Amaryllis Ardayre. I am madly in love with
her--she is going to have a baby, and she seems to be so alone."

It must be one of those sudden passions, and the idea seemed in some way
to jar a little. Denzil to have fallen in love with a woman whom he knew
was going to have a child!

She had said something of this to him, and he had turned eyes full of
pain to her and even reproach.

"Mum--you always understand me--I am not a beast, you know--I haven't
anything more to say, only I want you to be really kind to her--and get
to know her well."

And he had not mentioned the subject again, but had been very preoccupied
during all his three days' visit, which state she could not account for
by the fact of the war--Denzil, she knew, was an enthusiastic soldier,
and to be going out to fight would naturally be to him a keen joy. What
did it all mean? And here was this sweet creature speaking of divine love
mysteries and looking up at the portrait of her dull, unattractive
husband with melancholy eyes, whereas they had sparkled with interest
when Denzil was the subject of conversation! Could she, too, have fallen
in love with Denzil in one night at dinner and a journey in the train!

It was all very remarkable.

They had tea together in the green drawing room, and by that time they
had become very good friends.

Mrs. Ardayre told Amaryllis of the little old manor home she had in
Kent--The Moat, it was called, and of her garden and the pleasure it
was to her.

"I had about twelve thousand a year of my own, you know," she said, "and
ever since Denzil was born I have each year put by half of it, so that
when he was twenty-one I was able to hand over to him quite a decent sum
that he might be independent and free. It is so humiliating for a man to
have to be subservient to a woman, even a mother, and I go on doing the
same every year. All the last years of his life my husband was very
delicate--he was so badly wounded in the South African War, you know--so
we lived very quietly at The Moat and in my tiny house in London. I hope
you will let me show you them both one day."

Amaryllis said she would be delighted, and added:

"You will come and see me, won't you? I am going up to our house in Brook
Street at the beginning of April, and I am praying that I may have a
little son about the first week in May."

Just before Mrs. Ardayre went on to Dorchester, she asked Amaryllis if
she had any message to send Denzil--she wanted to watch her face. It
flushed slightly and her deep soft voice said a little eagerly:

"Yes--tell him I have been so delighted to meet you, and you are just
what he said I should find you!--and tell him I sent him all sorts of
good wishes--" and then she became a little confused.

"I should so love a photograph of you--would you give me one, I wonder?"
the elder woman asked quickly, to avoid any pause, and while Amaryllis
went out of the room to get it, she thought:

"She is certainly in love with Denzil. It could not have been the first
time he had seen her--at the dinner--and yet he never tells lies." And
she grew more and more puzzled and interested.

When Amaryllis was alone after the motor with Mrs. Ardayre in it had
departed, an uncontrollable fit of restlessness came over her. The visit
had stirred up all her emotions again; she could not grieve any more
about the tragedy of John; her whole being was vibrating with thoughts
of Denzil and desire for his presence--she could see his face and feel
the joy of his kisses.

At that moment she would have flung everything in life away to rush
into his arms!




CHAPTER XVIII


Denzil was wounded at Neuve Chapelle on March 10th, 1915, though not
seriously--a flesh wound in the side. He had done most gallantly and was
to get a D.S.O. He had been in hospital for two weeks and was almost well
when Amaryllis came up to Brook Street, on the first of April. She had
read his name in the list of wounded, and had telegraphed to his mother
in great anxiety, but had been reassured, and now she throbbed with
longing to see him.

To know that soon he would be going back again to the Front, was almost
more than she could bear. She was feeling wonderfully well herself. Her
splendid constitution and her youth made natural things cause her little
distress. She was neither nervous nor fretful, nor oppressed with fancies
and moods. And she looked very beautiful with her added dignity of mien
and perfectly chosen clothes.

Mrs. Ardayre came at once to see her the morning after her arrival, and
suggested that Denzil should come when out driving that afternoon.
Amaryllis tried to accept this suggestion calmly, and not show her joy,
and Mrs. Ardayre left, promising to bring her son about four.

Denzil had said to his Mother when he knew that Amaryllis was coming
to London:

"Mum, I want to see Amaryllis--please arrange it for me. And Mum, don't
ask me anything about it; just leave me there when we drive and come and
fetch me when I must go in again."

Mrs. Ardayre was a very modern person, but she could not help exclaiming
in a half voice while she sat by her son's bed:

"You know she is going to have a baby in a month, dear boy, perhaps she
won't care to see you now."

A flush rose to Denzil's forehead: "Yes, I do know," he said a little
hurriedly, "but we are not conventional in these days. I wish to see her;
please, darling Mother, do what I ask."

And then he had turned the conversation.

So his mother had obediently arranged matters, and at about four in the
afternoon left him at the Brook Street door.

Early as it was, Amaryllis had made the tea, and expected to see both
Denzil and his mother. The room was full of hyacinths and daffodils, and
she herself looked like a spring flower, as she sat on the sofa among the
green silk cushions, wrapped in a pale parma violet tea-gown.

The butler announced "Captain Ardayre," and Denzil came in slowly, and
murmured "How do you do?"

But as soon as the door was closed upon him, he started forward,
forgetting his stiff side.

He covered her hands with kisses, he could not contain his joy; and
then he drew back and looked at her with worship and reverence in his
blue eyes.

The most mysterious, quivering emotions were coursing through him, mixed
with triumph, as he took in the picture she made. This delicate,
beautiful creature! And to see her--so!

Amaryllis lowered her head in a sweet confusion; her feelings were no
less aroused. She was thrilling with passionate welcome and delicious
shyness. Nature was indeed ruling them both, and with a glad "Darling
Angel!" Denzil sat down beside her and clasped her in his arms. Then for
a few seconds delirious pleasure was all that they knew.

"Let me look at you again, Sweetheart," he ordered presently, with a tone
of command and possession in his very deep voice, which caused Amaryllis
delight. It made her feel that she really belonged to him.

"To me you have never been so beautiful--and every scrap of you is mine."

"Absolutely yours."

"I had to come--I cannot help whether it is right or wrong. I must go
back to the Front as soon as I am fit, and I could not have borne to go
without seeing you, darling one."

They had a hundred things to say to each other about themselves--and
about the baby, and the next hour was very sacred and wonderful.
Denzil was a superlatively perfect lover and knew the immense value of
tender words.

He intoxicated Amaryllis' imagination with the moving things he said.

Alas! how many worthy men miss themselves, and make their loved ones
miss the best part of life's joys by their mulish silence and refusal
to gratify this desire of all women to be _told_ that they are loved,
to have the fact expressed in passionate speech! No deeds make up for
this omission.

Denzil had none of these limitations; he said everything which could
cajole and excite the imagination. He murmured a hundred affecting
tendernesses in her ears. He caressed her--he commanded and mastered her,
and then assured her that he was her slave. He was arrogant and
humble--arrogant when he claimed her love, humble in his worship. He
spoke of the child and what it meant to him that it should be his and
hers. He caused her to feel that he was strong and protective and that
she was to be cherished and adored. He made pictures of how it would be
if he could spend a whole day and night with her presently in June, when
she would be quite well, and of how thrilled with interest he would be to
see the baby, and that, of course, it _must_ be exactly like himself! And
Amaryllis' eyes, all soft and swimming with emotion answered him.

Naturally, since she loved him so passionately, it would be his image!
Had not his own mother accounted for his pronounced Ardayre stamp by her
having been so in love with his father--so, of course, this would
re-occur! It was all dear to think about!

They spent another hour of divine intoxication, and then the clock
struck six.

It sounded like a knell.

Amaryllis gave a little cry.

"Denzil, it is altogether unnatural that you should have to go. To
think that you must leave me, and may not even welcome your son! To
think that by the law we are sinning, because I am sitting here clasped
in your arms! To think that I may not have the joy of showing you the
exquisite little clothes, and the pink silk cot--all the things which
have given me such pleasure to arrange.... It is all too cruel! You
know that eighteenth century engraving in the series of Moreau le
Jeune, of the married lovers playing with the darling, teeny cap
together! Well, I have it beside my bed, and every day I look at it and
pretend it is you and me!"

"Darling--Darling!"--and Denzil fiercely kissed her, he was so
deeply moved.

"It is all holy and beautiful, the coming to earth of a soul. It only
makes me long to be good and noble and worthy of this wonderful thing.
But for us--we who love truly and purely, it has all been turned into
something forbidden and wrong."

"Heart of me--I must have some news of you. I cannot starve there in the
trenches, knowing that all the letters that should be mine are going to
John. My mother is really trustworthy, will you let her be with you as
often as you can, that she may be able to tell me how you are, precious
one? When the seventh of May comes I shall go perfectly mad with suspense
and anxiety. I will arrange that my mother sends me at once a telegram."

"Denzil!" and Amaryllis clung to him.

"It is an impossible situation," and he gave a great sigh. "I shall tell
John that I have seen you--I cannot help it, the times are too precarious
to have acted otherwise. And afterwards, when the war is over, we must
face the matter and decide what is best to be done."

"_I_ cannot live without you, Denzil, and that I know."

They said good-bye at last silently, after many kisses and tears, and
Denzil came out into the darkening street to his mother in the motor,
with white, set face.

"I am a little troubled, dearest boy," she whispered, as they went along.
"I feel that there is something underneath all this and that Amaryllis
means some great thing in your life--the whole aspect of everything fills
me with discomfort. It is unlike your usual, sensitive refinement,
Denzil, to have gone to see her--now--"

"I understand exactly what you mean, Mother. I should say the same thing
myself in your place. I can't explain anything, only I beg of you to
trust me. Amaryllis is an angel of purity and sweetness; perhaps some day
you will understand."

She took his hand into her muff and held it:

"You know I have no conventions, dearest, and my creed is to believe what
you say, but I cannot account for the situation because of your only
having met Amaryllis so lately for the first time. I could understand it
perfectly if you had been her lover, and the child was your child, but
she has not been married a whole year yet to John!"

Denzil answered nothing--he pressed his mother's hand.

She returned the pressure:

"We will talk no more about it."

"And you will go on being kind?"

"Of course."

Before they reached the hospital door in Park Lane Mrs. Ardayre had been
instructed to send an immediate telegram the moment the baby was born,
and to comfort and take care of Amaryllis, and tell her son every little
detail as to her welfare and about the child.

"I will try not to form any opinion, Denzil; and some day perhaps things
will be made plain, for it would break my heart to believe that you are a
dishonourable man."

"You need not worry, Mum dearest. Indeed, I am not that. It is just a
tragic story, but I cannot say more. Only take care of Amaryllis, and
send me news as often as you can."

       *       *       *       *       *

The telegram to say that Amaryllis had a little son came to John Ardayre
on the night before he went into the trenches again at the second battle
of Ypres on May 9th, 1915. He had been waiting in feverish impatience
and expectancy all the day, and, in fact, for three days for news.

His whole inner life since that New Year's night had been strangely
serene, in spite of its frightful outward turmoil and stress. He had
taken the tumult of Neuve Chapelle calmly, and had come through it and
all the beginning of the Ypres battle without a scratch. He had felt that
he was looking upon it all from some detached standpoint, and that it in
no way personally concerned him.

He had seen Denzil do the splendid thing and he had felt a distinct
distress when he had seen him fall wounded.

Denzil was just back now and in the trenches again with the rest of the
dismounted cavalry. They might meet in the attack at dawn.

When John read the telegram from his aunt, Lady de la Paule, his emotion
was so great that he staggered a little, and a friend standing by in the
billet took out his flask and gave him some brandy, thinking that he must
have received bad news.

Then it seemed as though he went mad!

The repression of his life appeared to fall from him, he became as a new
man. All his comrades were astonished at him, and a Scotch Corporal was
heard to remark that it was "na canny--the Captain was fey."

The Ardayres were saved! The family would carry on!

Fondest love welled up in his heart for Amaryllis. If he only came
through he would devote his life to showing her his gratitude and
showering everything upon her that her heart could desire--and
perhaps--perhaps the joy of the baby would make up for the absence of
Denzil. This thought stayed with him and comforted him.

Lady de la Paule had wired:

"A splendid little son born 11:45 A.M. seventh May--Amaryllis
well--all love."

And an hour or two before this Denzil had also received the news from his
Mother. He, too, had grown exalted and thanked God.

So the day that the Germans were to fail at Ypres, and destiny was to
accomplish itself for these two men--dawned.

       *       *       *       *       *

Of what use to write of that terrible fight and of the gas and the horror
and the mud? John Ardayre seemed to bear a charmed life as he led his men
"over the top." For an hour wild with exaltation and gladness, he rallied
them and cheered them on. The scene of blood and carnage has been too
often repeated on other fateful days, and as often well described, when
acts of glorious heroism occurred again and again. John had rushed
forward to succour a wounded trooper when a shell crashed near them, and
he fell to the ground. And then he know what the great thing was the New
Year had promised him. For death was going to straighten out
matters--John was going beyond. Well, he had never been rebellious, and
he knew now that light had come. But the sky above seemed to be darkening
curiously, and the terrible noise to be growing dim, when he was
conscious that a man was crawling towards him, dragging a leg, and then
his eyes opened wildly for an instant, and he saw that it was Denzil all
covered with blood.

"Are we both going West, Denzil?" he demanded faintly. "At least I am--"
then he gasped a little, while a stream of scarlet flowed from his
shattered side.

"I've asked you in a letter to marry Amaryllis immediately--if you get
home. I hope your number is not up, too, because she will be all alone.
Take care of her, Denzil, and take care of the child...." His voice grew
lower and lower, and the last words came in spasms: "There is an Ardayre
son, you know--so it's all right. The family is saved from Ferdinand and
I am very glad to die."

Denzil tried to get out his flask, but before he could reach John's lips
with it he saw that it would be of no avail--for Death had claimed the
head of the Family. And above his mangled body John's face wore a look of
calm serenity, and his firm lips smiled.

Then things became all vague for Denzil and he remembered nothing more.




CHAPTER XIX


It was more than two months before Denzil was well enough to be brought
from Boulogne, and then he had a relapse and for the whole of July was
dangerously ill. At one moment there seemed to be no hope of saving his
leg, and his mother ate her heart out with anxiety.

And Amaryllis, back at Ardayre with the little Benedict, wept many tears.

John's death had deeply grieved her. She realised his steadfast kindness
and affection for her. He had written her a letter just before the battle
had begun--a short epistle telling her calmly that the chances would be
perhaps even for any man to come out of it alive--and assuring her of his
greatest devotion.

"I know that Denzil went to see you, my dear little girl. He has told me
about it. And I know that you love each other. There is only one chance
for us in the future--and that lies with the child. It may be that when
it comes to you it may fill your life and satisfy you. This is my
prayer--otherwise we must see what can be arranged about things; because
I cannot allow you to be unhappy. You were an innocent factor in all
this, and it would be unjust that you should be hurt."

How good and generous John had always been.

And his letter to his lawyers! To make things smooth for her--and for
Denzil--how marvellously kind!

Her mourning for John was real and deep, as it would have been for a
brother. But during the month of intense anxiety about Denzil everything
else was numbed, even her interest in her son.

By the end of August he was out of danger, although little hope was
entertained that he would ever walk easily. But this was a minor
thing--and gradually it began to be some consolation to the two women who
loved him to know that he was safely wounded and would probably not be
fit for active service again for a very long time.

They wrote letters to one another, but they decided not to meet.
Six months must elapse at least, they both felt--even in spite of
John's commands.

Another shell must have fallen not far off, for his body was never
found--only his field glasses, broken and battered. And there would have
been no actual information about his death had not Denzil seen him die.

       *       *       *       *       *

Harietta Boleski and Stanislass and Ferdinand Ardayre had remained in
Paris, with visits to Fontainebleau.

When John had been killed, Harietta had been extremely perturbed.

"Now Stepan will be able to marry that odious bit of bread and butter,
and he is sure to do it after the year!" This thought rankled with her
and embittered everything. Nothing pleased her. She grew more than ever
rebellious at the dullness she had to live in. War was an imposition
which ought not to be tolerated and she often told Hans so. At last she
grew to take quite an interest in her spying for lack of more agreeable
things to do.

And so the months went by and November came, and a madness of jealousy
was gradually augmenting in Harietta for Amaryllis Ardayre.

Verisschenzko had gone to Russia in September, and she was convinced
that he loved Amaryllis and that the child was his child. She could not
conceive of a spiritual devotion, and something had altered all Stepan's
ways. From the moment he returned to Paris until he had left she had
tried and been unable to invoke any response in him, and she had felt
like a foiled tigress when another has eaten her prey.

As the impossibility of moving him forced itself upon her unwilling
understanding, so the wildest passion for him grew, and when he left in
September she was quite ill for a week with chagrin; then she became
moody and more than ever capricious, and made Stanislass' life a hell,
while Ferdinand Ardayre had little less misery to endure.

An incident late in November caused her jealousy to burst into flame.

She heard that Verisschenzko had returned from Russia and she went to his
rooms to see him. The Russian servant who was accustomed to receive her
was there waiting for his master who had not yet arrived. Without a word
she passed the old man when he opened the door, and made her way into the
sitting room, and then into the bedroom beyond. She did not believe that
Stepan was not there and wanted to make sure. It was empty but a light
burned before an Ikon, the doors of which were closed.

Curiosity made Harietta go close and examine it. She knew the room so
well and had never seen it there before. The table beneath it was
arranged like an altar, and the Ikon was let in to the carved boiserie of
the wall. It must have been since he had parted with her that this
ridiculous thing had been done! She had not entered his _appartement_
since June. She felt angry that the shrine should be closed and that she
could not look upon it, for it must certainly be something which
Verisschenzko prized.

She bent nearer and shook the little doors; they resisted her, and her
temper rose. Then some force seemed to propel her to commit sacrilege.
She shook and shook and tore at the golden clasp, her irritation giving
strength and cunning to her hands; and at last the small bolt came undone
and the doors flew open--and an exquisitely painted modern picture of the
Virgin disclosed itself, holding the Christ child in her arms. But for
all the saintliness in the eyes of Mary, the face was an exact portrait
of Amaryllis Ardayre!

A frenzy of rage seized Harietta. Her rival reigned now indeed! This was
positive proof to her, not of spiritual meaning--not of the mystic,
abstract aloofness of worship which lay deep in Stepan's nature and had
caused him to have Amaryllis transfigured into the symbol of purity, a
daily reminder that she must always be for him the lady of his soul--such
things had no meaning for Harietta. The Ikon was merely a material proof
that Verisschenzko loved Amaryllis--and, of course, as soon as the year
of mourning should be over he would make her his wife.

She trembled with passionate resentment. Nothing had ever moved her so
forcibly. She took out her pearl hatpin and stabbed out the eyes of the
Virgin, almost shaking with passion, and scratched and obliterated the
face of the Christ child. This done, she extinguished the little lamp and
slammed to the doors.

She laughed savagely as she went back into the sittingroom.

"The Virgin indeed!--and _his_ child!--well, I've taught him!" and she
flung past the Russian servant with a look which was a curse, so that the
old man crossed himself and quickly barred the entrance door, when she
stamped off down the stairs.

Arrived in her gilded salon at the Universal, she would like to have
wrung some one's neck. She had never been so full of rage in her life.
She did find a little satisfaction in a kick at Fou-Chow, who fled
whining to his faithful Marie who had come in to carry away her mistress'
sable cloak.

The maid's face became thunderous. A look of sullen hate gleamed in her
dark eyes.

"She will kick thee, my angel, just once too often," she murmured to the
wee creature when she had carried him from the room. "And then we shall
see, thy Marie knows that which may punish her some day soon!"

Harietta, quite indifferent to these matters, telephoned immediately to
Ferdinand Ardayre.

He must come to her instantly without a moment's delay! And she
stamped her foot.

A plan which might give her some satisfaction to execute had evolved
itself in her brain.

He was in his room in another part of the building, and hastened to obey
her command. She was livid with anger and seemed to have grown old.

She went over and kissed him voluptuously and then she began:

"Ferdie," and she whispered hoarsely, "now you have got to do something
for me. You are not going to let the child of Verisschenzko be master of
Ardayre! We are going to gain time and perhaps some day be able to do
away with it. Now I have got a plan which will lighten your heart."

She knew that she could count upon him, for since the birth of the
little Benedict and the death of John, Ferdinand had stormed with threats
of vengeance, while knowing his impotency.

His life with Harietta had grown a torment and a hell--but with every
fresh unkindness and pang of jealousy she caused him, his low passion for
her increased. He knew that she loved Verisschenzko, whom he hated with
all his might--and if she now proposed to hurt both his enemies, he would
assist her joyfully.

"Tell it me," he begged.

So she drew him to the sofa and picked up a block and pencil.

"Do you possess any of the writing of your dead brother, John, or if you
don't, can you get some from anywhere?"

Ferdinand's face blazed with excitement. What was she going to suggest?

"I always keep one letter--in which he ordered me never to address him
and told me I was not of his blood but was a mongrel Turk."

"That is splendid--where is it? Have you got it here?"

"Yes, in my despatch box. I'll go and fetch it now."

"Very well. I will get rid of Stanislass for the evening and we can have
some hours alone--and you will see if I don't help you to worry them
hideously, Ferdie, even if that is all we can do!"

And when he had left her presence, she paced the room excitedly.

"It will prevent Stepan's marrying her at all events for; a long time."

The thought that she had lost Verisschenzko completely unbalanced her.
It was the first time in her life that she had had to relinquish a man.
She hated to have to realise how highly he must hold Amaryllis. He seemed
the only thing she wanted now in life, and she knew that he was quite
beyond her, and that indeed he had never been hers; the one human being
whom she had attracted and yet never been able to intoxicate and draw
against his will. She went over all their past meetings. With what
supreme insolence he had invariably treated her--even in moments when he
permitted himself to feel passion! And how she adored him! She would have
crawled to him now on the ground. She had not known she could feel so
much. Every animal, sensual desire made her throb with rage. She would
have torn the flesh from Amaryllis' face had she been there, and thrust
her hatpin into her real eyes.

But the spoke should be put in the wheel of Verisschenzko's marrying her!
And perhaps some other revenge would come. Hans?--Hans should be made to
carry the scheme through--Hans and Ferdinand. She dug her nails into the
palms of her hands. No wild animal in its cage could have felt more rage.

Then when Ferdinand returned with John's letter, she controlled herself
and sat down at the table beside him and supervised his attempts at
copying the writing, while she unfolded the details of her scheme.

"You know John's body was never found," she informed him presently. "I
heard all the details from a man who was there--they only picked up his
glasses and his boot. He could very well have been taken prisoner by the
Germans and be in hospital there, too ill to have written for all this
time. Now think how he ought to word his first letter to his precious
bread and butter wife!"

"There must only be the fewest words, because I don't know what
terms they were on. I think a postcard, if we get one, would be the
best thing."

"Of course?--I have some one who can see to that--it will be worth
waiting the week for--we'll procure several, and meanwhile you must
practise his hand."

At the end of half an hour a very creditable forgery had been secured,
and the two jealous beings felt satisfied with their work for the time.




CHAPTER XX


It had been arranged that Denzil and his mother should spend Christmas
with Amaryllis at Ardayre. Both felt that it was going to be the most
wonderful moment when they should meet. There were no obstacles now to
their happiness and everything promised to be full of joy. The months
which had gone by since John's death had been turning Amaryllis into a
more serene and forceful being. The whole burden of the estate had
fallen upon her young shoulders and she had endeavoured to carry it with
dignity and success--and yet have time to spare for her war
organisations in the county. She had developed extraordinarily and had
grown from a very pretty girl into a most beautiful young woman. What
would Denzil think of her? That was her preoccupation--and what would he
think of the baby Benedict?

The great rooms at Ardayre were shut up except the green drawing room,
and she lived in her own apartments, the cedar parlour being her chief
pleasure. It was now filled with her books and all the personal
belongings which expressed her taste. The nurseries for the heir were
just above.

Her guests were to be there on the twenty-third of December, and when the
hour came for the motor to arrive from the station Amaryllis grew hot and
cold with excitement. She had made herself look quite exquisite in a soft
black frock, and her heart was beating almost to suffocation when she
heard the footsteps in the hall. Then the green drawing room door opened
and Colonel and Mrs. Ardayre were announced and were immediately greeted
by the great tawny dogs and then by their mistress. A pang contracted her
heart when she caught sight of Denzil--he was so very pale and thin, and
he walked painfully and slowly with a stick. It was only a wreck of the
splendid lover who had come to Ardayre before. But he was always Denzil
of the ardent eyes and the crisp bronze hair!

They were people of the world, and so the welcoming speeches went off
easily, and they sat round the tea-table with its singing kettle and its
delectable buns and Devonshire cream, and Amaryllis was gracious and
radiant and full of dignity and charm. But inwardly she felt deliciously
shy and happy.

They had neither met nor written any love letters since the April day
when they had parted in Brook Street, which now seemed to be an age away.

Her attraction for Denzil had increased a hundredfold. He thought as she
sat there pouring out the tea, of how he would woo her with subtlety
before he would claim her for his own. He was stimulated by her sweet
shyness and her tender aloofness. The tea seemed to him to be
interminably long and he wished for it to end.

Mrs. Ardayre behaved with admirable tact; she spoke of all sorts of light
and friendly things, and then asked about the baby. Was he not wonderful,
now at seven months old!

The lovely vivid pink deepened in Amaryllis' smooth velvet cheeks, and
her grey eyes became soft as a doe's.

"You shall see him in the morning--he will be asleep now. Of course, to
me he is wonderful, but I daresay he is only an ordinary child."

She had peeped at Denzil and had seen that his face fell a little as she
said they should only see the baby the next day, and she had felt a wave
of joy. She knew that she meant to take him up quietly presently--just he
and she alone!

After they had finished tea, Mrs. Ardayre suggested that she should go
to her room.

"I am tired, Amaryllis, my dear," she announced cheerily,--"and I shall
rest for an hour before dinner."

"Come then and I will show you both your rooms."

They came up the broad staircase with her, Denzil a step at a time,
slowly, and at the top she stopped and said to him:

"Perhaps you will remember that is the door of the cedar parlour at
the end of the passage--you will find me there when I have installed
your mother comfortably. Your room is next to hers," and she pointed
to two doors through the archway of the gallery. Then she went on with
Mrs. Ardayre.

Some contrary nervousness made her remain for quite a little while.

Was Cousin Beatrice sure that she was comfortable? Had she everything she
wanted? Her maid was already unpacking, and all was warm and fresh
scented with lavender and bowls of violets on the dressing table.

"My dear child, it is Paradise, and you are a perfect angel--I shall
revel in it after the cold journey down."

So at last there was no excuse to stay longer, and Amaryllis left the
room; but in the passage it seemed as though her knees were trembling,
and as she passed the top of the staircase she leaned for a second or two
on the balustrade.

The longed for moment had come!

When she opened the door of the cedar parlour, with its soft lamps and
great glowing logs, she saw Denzil was already there, seated on the sofa
beside the fire.

She ran to him before he could rise, the movement she knew was pain to
him--and she sank down beside him and held out her hands.

"Beloved darling!" he whispered in exaltation, and she slipped forward
into his arms.

Oh! the bliss of it all! After the months of separation, and the horrible
trenches and the battles and the suffering, the days and nights of
agonising pain! It seemed to Denzil that his being melted within
him--Heaven itself had come.

They could not speak coherently for some moments, everything was too
filled with holy joy.

"At last! at last!" he cried presently. "Now we shall part no more!"

Then he had to be assured that she loved him still.

"It is I who must take care of you now, Denzil, and I shall love to do
that," she cooed.

"I have not thought much of the hurt," he answered her, "for all these
months I have just been living for this day, and now it has come,
darling one, and I can hardly believe that it is true, it is so
absolutely divine--"

They could not talk of anything but themselves and love for an hour,
they told each other of their longings and anxieties--and at last they
spoke of John.

"He was so splendid," Denzil said, "unselfish to the very end," and then
he described to Amaryllis how he actually had died, and of his last
words, and their thought for her.

"If he could see us, I think that he would be glad that we are happy."

"I know that he would," but the tears had gathered in her eyes.

Denzil stroked her hand gently; he did not make any lover's caress, and
she appreciated his understanding, and after a little she leaned
against his arm.

"Denzil--when we live here together, we must always try to carry out all
that John would have wished to do. It meant his very soul--and you will
help me to be a worthy mother of the Ardayre son."

She had not spoken of the child before--some unaccountable shyness had
restrained her, even in their fondest moments. And yet the thought had
never been absent from either. It had throbbed there in their hearts. It
was going to be so exquisite to whisper about it presently!

And Denzil had waited until she mentioned this dear interest. He did not
wish to assume any rights, or take anything for granted. She should be
queen, not only of his heart, but of everything, until she should herself
accord him authority.

But his eyes grew wistful now as he leaned nearer to her.

"Darling, am I not going to be allowed to see--my son!"

Then, with a cry, Amaryllis bent forward and was clasped in his arms. All
her wayward shyness melted, and she poured forth her delight in the
baby--their very own!

"You will see that he is just you, Denzil,--as we knew that he would be,
and now I will go and fetch him for you and bring him here, because the
stairs up to the nursery are so steep they might hurt you to climb."

She left him swiftly, and was not long gone, and Denzil sat there
by the fire trembling with an emotion which he could not have
described in words.

The door opened again and Amaryllis returned with the tiny sleeping form,
in its long white nightgown and wrapped in a great fleecy shawl.

She crept up to him very softly. The little one was sound asleep. She
made a sign to Denzil not to rise, and she bent down and placed the
bundle tenderly in his arms.

Then they gazed at the little face together with worshipping eyes.

It was just a round pink and white cherub like thousands of others in the
world; the very long eyelashes, sweeping the sleep-flushed cheeks, and
minute rings of bronze-gold hair curling over the edge of the close
cambric cap; but it seemed to those two looking at it to be unique, and
more beautiful than the dawn.

"Isn't he perfect, Denzil!" whispered Amaryllis, in ecstasy.

"Marvellous!" and Denzil's voice was awed.

Then the wonder and the divinity of love and its spirit of creation came
over them both and a mist of deep feeling grew in both their eyes.

       *       *       *       *       *

At dinner they were all so happy together. Mrs. Ardayre was a note of
harmony anywhere. She had gradually grown to understand the situation in
the months of her son's recovering from his wounds and although no actual
words had passed between them Denzil felt that his mother had divined the
truth and it made things easier.

Afterwards, in the green drawing room, Amaryllis played to them and
delighted their ears, and then they went up to the cedar parlour and sat
round the fire and talked and made plans.

If it should be quite hopeless that Denzil could ever return to the
front, or be of service behind the lines, he meant to enter Parliament.
The thought that his active soldiering was probably done was very bitter
to him, and the two women who loved him tried to create an enthusiasm for
the parliamentary idea. The one certainty was that his adventurous spirit
would never remain behind in the background, whatever occurred.

They would be married at the beginning of February, they decided. The
whole of their world knew of John's written wishes, and no unkind
comments would be likely to arise.

And when Beatrice Ardayre left them alone to say good-night to each
other, Denzil drew Amaryllis back to his side!

"I think the world is going to be a totally new place, darling--after the
war. If it goes on very long the gradual privation and suffering and
misery will create a new order of things, and all of us should be ready
to face it. Only fools and weaklings cling to past systems when the
on-rolling wave has washed away their uses. Whatever seems for the real
good of England must be one's only aim, even if it means abandoning what
was the ideal of the Family for all these hundreds of years. You will
advance with me, Sweetheart, will you not, even if it should seem to be a
chasm we are crossing?"

"Denzil, of course I will."

He sighed a little.

"The old order made England great--but that cycle is over for all the
world--and what we shall have to do is to stand steady and try to
direct the new on-rush, so that it makes us greater and does not sweep
civilisation into darkness, as when Rome fell. It may be a fairly easy
matter because, as Stepan says, we have got such fundamental common
sense. It would be much less hard if the people at the top were really
courageous and unhampered by trying to secure votes, or whatever it is,
which makes them wobble and surrender at the wrong moment. If the
politicians could have that dogged, serene steadfastness which the
Tommies, and almost every man has in the trenches, how supreme we
should be--!"

"I hope so, but one must have vision as well so that one can look right
ahead and not stumble over retained old prejudices; people so often want
a thing and yet have not will enough to eliminate qualities in themselves
which must obviously prevent their obtaining their desire."

Denzil was not looking at her now, he was gazing ahead with his blue
eyes filled with light, and she saw that there was something far beyond
the physical magnetism which drew her to him, and a pride and joy filled
her. She would indeed be his helpmate in all his undertakings and
striving for noble ends. They talked for some time of these things and
their plans to aid in their fulfilment, and then they gradually spoke of
Verisschenzko and Amaryllis asked what was the latest news--he was in
Russia, she supposed.

"Stepan will be arriving in London next week. I heard from him to-day.
Won't you ask him down, darling, to spend the New Year with us here--it
would be so good to see the dear old boy again."

This was agreed upon, and then they drifted back to lovers' whisperings,
and presently they said a fond good-night.

       *       *       *       *       *

Christmas Day of 1915, and the weeks which followed were like some happy
dream for Denzil and Amaryllis. Each hour seemed to discover some new
aspect which caused further understanding and love to augment. They spent
long late afternoons in the cedar parlour dipping into books and a
delicious pleasure was for Amaryllis to be nestled in Denzil's arms on
the sofa while he read aloud to her in his deep, magnetic voice.

Beatrice Ardayre at this period was like a pleased mother cat purring in
the sun while her kittens gambol. Her well-beloved was content, and she
was satisfied. She always seemed to be there when wanted and yet to leave
the lovers principally to themselves.

Another of their joys was to motor about the beautiful country, exploring
the old, old churches and quaint farmhouses and manors with which North
Somerset abounds; and they went all over the estate also and saw all the
people who were their people and their friends. The union was thoroughly
approved of, and although the engagement was not to be officially
announced until after the New Year it was quite understood, as the
tenants had all heard of John's instructions in his will. But perhaps the
most supreme joy of all was when they could play with the baby Benedict
together alone for half an hour before he went to bed. Then they were
just as foolish and primitive as any other two young things with their
firstborn. He was a very fine and forward baby and already expressed a
spirit and will of his own, and it always gave Denzil the very strangest
thrill when he seized and clung firmly to one of his fingers with his
tiny, strong, chubby hand. And over all his qualities and perfections his
parents then said wonderful things together!

Every subtle and exquisite pleasure, mystical, symbolical and material,
which either had ever dreamed of as connected with this living proof of
love, was realised for them. And to know that soon, soon, they would be
united for always--wedded--not merely engaged. Oh! that was
glorious--when passion need be under no restraint--when there need be no
good-night!

For in this the chivalry of Denzil never failed--and each day they grew
to respect each other more.

Verisschenzko was to arrive in time for dinner on the last day of
the old year. That afternoon was one of even unusually perfect
happiness--motoring slowly round the park and up on to the hills in
Amaryllis' little two-seater which she drove herself. They got out at the
top and leaned upon a gate from which they seemed to be looking down over
the world. Peaceful, smiling, prosperous England! Miles and miles of her
fairest country lay there in front of them, giving no echo of war.

"If we had been born sixty years ago, Denzil, what different thoughts
this view would be creating in our minds. We would have no
speculation--no uncertainty--we should feel just happy that it is ours
and would be ours for ever! The world was asleep then!"

"Stepan would say that it was resting before the throes of struggle must
begin. Now we are going to face something much greater than the actual
war in France, but if we are strong we ought to come through. We have
always been saner than other peoples, so perhaps our upheaval will be
saner too."

"Whatever there is to face, we shall be together, Denzil, and nothing
can really matter then--and we must make our little Benedict armed
for the future, so that he will be fitted to cope with the conditions
of his day."

"Look there at the blue distance, darling, could anything be more
peaceful? How can anyone in the country realise that not two hundred
miles away this awful war is grinding on?"

Denzil put an arm round her and drew her close to him and clasped
her fondly.

"But just for a little we must try to forget about it. I never dreamed of
such perfect happiness as we are having, Sweetheart,--my own!"

"Nor I, Denzil,--I am almost afraid--"

But he kissed her passionately and bade this thought begone. Afraid of
what? Nothing mattered since they would always be together. February
would soon come, and then they would never part again.

So the vague foreboding passed from Amaryllis' heart, and in fond
visionings they whispered plans for the spring and the summer and the
growing years. And so at last they returned to the house and found the
after-noon post waiting for them. Filson had just brought it in and
Amaryllis' letters lay in a pile on her writing table.

There happened to be none for Denzil and he went over to the fireplace
and was stroking the head of Mercury, the greatest of the big tawny dogs,
when he was startled by a little ominous cry from his Beloved, and on
looking up he saw that she had sunk into a chair, her face deadly pale,
while there had fluttered to the floor at her feet a torn envelope and a
foreign looking postcard.

What could this mean?




CHAPTER XXI


Verisschenzko had come straight through from Petrograd to England. He had
been delayed and had never returned to Paris since September. He knew
nothing of Harietta's sacrilege as yet. But he had at last accumulated
sufficient proof against her to have her entirely in his hands.

He thought over the whole matter as he came down in the train to Ardayre.
She was a grave danger to the Allies and had betrayed them again and
again. He must have no mercy. Her last crimes had been against France,
her punishment would be easier to manage there.

The strain of cruelty in his nature came uppermost as he reviewed the
evil which she had done. Stanislass' haunted face seemed to look at him
out of the mist of the half-lit carriage. What might not Poland have
accomplished with such a leader as Boleski had been before this baneful
passion fell upon him! Then he conjured up the? imaged faces of the brave
Frenchmen who were betrayed by Harietta to Hans, and shot in Germany.

A spy's death in war time was not an ignoble one, and they had gone there
with their lives in their hands. Had Harietta been true to that side, and
had she been acting from patriotism, he could have desired to save her
the death sentence now. But she had never been true; no country mattered
to her; she had given to him secrets as well as to Hans! Then he laughed
to himself grimly. So her _danseur_ at the Ardayre ball was the first
husband! The man who used to beat her with a stick--and who had let her
divorce him in obedience to the higher command!

How clever the whole thing was! If it had not all been so serious, it
would have been interesting to allow her to live longer to watch what
next she would do, but the issues at stake were too vital to delay. He
would not hesitate; he would denounce her to the French authorities
immediately on his return to Paris, and without one qualm or regret. She
had lived well and played "crooked"--and now it was meet that she should
pay the price.

Filson announced him in the green drawing room when he reached Ardayre,
but only Denzil rose to greet him and wrung his hand. He noticed that his
friend's face looked stern and rather pale.

"I'm so awfully glad that you have come, Stepan," and they exchanged
handshakes and greetings. "You are about the only person I should want to
see just now, because you know the whole history. Something unprecedented
has happened. A communication has come apparently from John to Amaryllis
from a prisoners' camp in Germany, and yet as far as one can be certain
of anything I am certain that I saw him die--"

Verisschenzko was greatly startled. What a frightful complication it
would make should John be alive!

"The letter--merely a postcard enclosed in an envelope--came by this
afternoon's post--and as you can understand, it has frightfully upset us
all. It is a sort of thing about which one cannot analyse one's feelings.
John had a right to his life and we ought to be glad--but the idea of
giving up Amaryllis--of having all the suffering and the parting
again--Stepan, it is cruelly hard."

Verisschenzko sat down in one of the big chairs, and Euterpe, the lesser
tawny dog, came and pushed her nose into his hand. He patted her silky
head absently. He was collecting his thoughts; the shock of this news was
considerable and he must steady his judgment.

"John wrote to her himself, you say? It is not a message through a third
person--no?"

"It appears to be in his own writing." Denzil stood leaning on the
mantelpiece, and his face seemed to grow more haggard with each word.
"Merely saying that he was taken prisoner by the enemy when they made the
counter attack, and that he had been too ill to write or speak until now.
I can't understand it--because they did not make the counter attack until
after I was carried in--and even though I was unconscious then, the
stretcher bearers must have seen John when they lifted me if he had been
there. Nothing was found but his glasses and we concluded another shell
had burst somewhere near his body after I was carried in. Stepan, I swear
to God I saw him die."

"It sounds extraordinary. Try to tell me every detail, Denzil."

So the story of John's last moments was gone over again, and all the most
minute events which had occurred. And at the end of it the two solid
facts stood out incontrovertibly--John's body was never found, but Denzil
had seen him die.

"How long will it take to communicate with him, I wonder? We can through
the American Ambassador, I suppose, because he gives no address. It must
be awful for him lying there wounded with no news. I say this because I
suppose I must accept his own writing, but I, cannot yet bring myself to
believe that he can be alive."

Verisschenzko was silent for a moment, then he asked:

"May I see my Lady Amaryllis?"

"Yes, she told me to bring you to her as soon as I should have explained
to you the whole affair. Come now."

They went up the stairs together, and they hardly spoke a word. And
when they reached the cedar parlour Denzil let Verisschenzko go in in
front of him.

"I have brought Stepan to you," he told Amaryllis. "I am going to leave
you to talk now."

Amaryllis was white as milk and her grey eyes were disturbed and very
troubled. She held out her two hands to Verisschenzko and he kissed them
with affectionate worship.

"Lady of my Soul!"

"Oh! Stepan,--comfort me--give me counsel. It is such a terrible moment
in my life. What am I to do?"

"It is indeed difficult for you--we must think it all out--"

"Poor John--I ought to be glad that he is alive, and I am--really--only,
oh! Stepan, I love Denzil so dearly. It is all too awfully complicated.
What so greatly astonishes me about it is that John has not written
deliriously, or as though he has lost his memory, and yet if we had
carried out his instructions and wishes we should be married now, Denzil
and I,--and he never alludes to the possibility of this! It is written as
though no complications could enter into the case--"

"It sounds strange--may I see the letter?"

She got up and went over to the writing table and returned with a packet
and the envelope which contained the card. It was not one which prisoners
use as a rule; it had the picture of a German town on it and the
postmark on the envelope was of a place in Holland. Verisschenzko read it
carefully:

"I have been too ill to write before--I was taken prisoner in the counter
attack and was unconscious. I am sending this by the kindness of a nurse
through Holland. Everyone must have believed that I was dead. I am
longing for news of you, dearest. I shall soon be well. Do not worry. I
am going to be moved and will write again with address.

"All love,--

"JOHN."

The writing was rather feeble as a very ill person's would naturally be,
but the name "John" was firm and very legible.

"You are certain that it is his writing?"

"Yes"--and then she handed him another letter from the packet--John's
last one to her. "You can see for yourself--it is the same hand."

Stepan took both over to the lamp, and was bending to examine them when
he gave a little cry:

"Sapristi!"--and instead of looking at the writings he sniffed strongly
at the card, and then again. Amaryllis watched him amazedly.

"The same! By the Lord, it is the work of Ferdinand. No one could mistake
his scent who had once smelt it. The muskrat, the scorpion! But he has
betrayed himself."

Amaryllis grew paler as she came close beside him.

"Stepan, oh, tell me! What do you mean?"

"I believe this to be a forgery--the scent is a clue to me. Smell
it--there is a lingering sickly aroma round it. It came in an envelope,
you see,--that would preserve it. It is an Eastern perfume, very
heavy,--what do you say?"

She wrinkled her delicate nose:

"Yes, there is some scent from it. One perceives it at first and then it
goes off. Oh, Stepan, please do not torture me. Can you be quite sure?"

"I am absolutely certain that whether it is in John's writing or not,
Ferdinand, or some one who uses his unique scent, has touched that card.
Now we must investigate everything."

He walked up and down the room in agitation for a few moments; talking
rapidly to himself--half in Russian--Amaryllis caught bits.
"Ferdinand--how to his advantage? None. What then? Harietta?
Harietta--but why for her?"

Then he sat down and stared into the fire, his yellow-green eyes blazing
with intelligence, his clear brain balancing up things. But now he did
not speak his thoughts aloud.

"She is jealous. I remember--she imagined that it is my child. She
believes I may marry Amaryllis. It is as plain as day!"

He jumped up and excitedly held out his hands.

"Let us fetch Denzil," he cried joyously. "I can explain everything."

Amaryllis left the room swiftly and called when she got outside his door:

"Denzil--do come."

He joined them in a second or two--there as he was, in a blue silk
dressing gown, as he had just been going to dress for dinner.

He looked from one face to the other anxiously and Stepan
immediately spoke.

"I think that the card is a forgery, Denzil. I believe it to have been
written by Ferdinand Ardayre--at the instigation of Harietta Boleski.
She would have means to obtain the postcard, and have it sent through
Holland too."

"But why--why should she?" Amaryllis exclaimed in wonderment. "What
possible reason could she have for wishing to be so cruel to us. We were
always very nice to her, as you know."

Verisschenzko laughed cynically.

"She was jealous of you all the same. But Denzil, I track it by the
scent. I know Ferdinand uses that scent," he held out the card. "Smell."

Denzil sniffed as Amaryllis had done.

"It is so faint I should not have remarked it unless you had told me--but
I daresay if it was a scent one had smelt before, one would be struck by
it! But how are you going to prove it, Stepan? We shall have to have
convincing proof--because I am the only witness of poor John's death, and
it could easily be said that I am too deeply interested to be reliable.
For God's sake, old friend, think of some way of making a certainty."

"I have a way which I can enforce as soon as I reach Paris. Meanwhile say
nothing to any one and put the thought of it out of your heads. The
evidence of your own eyes convinced you that John is dead; you found it
difficult to accept that he was alive even when seeing what appeared to
be his own writing, but if I assure you that this is forged you can be at
peace. Is it not so?"

Amaryllis' lips were trembling; the shock and then this counter
shock were unhinging her. She was horrified at herself that she
should not catch at every straw to prove John was alive, instead of
feeling some sense of relief when Verisschenzko protested that the
postcard was a forgery.

Poor John! Good, and kind, and unselfish. It was all too agitating. But
was just life such a very great thing? She knew that had she the choice
she would rather be dead than separated now from Denzil. And if John were
really to be alive--what misery he would be obliged to suffer, knowing
the situation.

"Quite apart from what to me is a convincing proof, the scent,"
Verisschenzko went on, "the card must be a forgery because of John's
seeming oblivion of the possibility that you two might have already
carried out his wishes. All this would have been very unlike him. But if
it is, as I think, Ferdinand's and Harietta Boleski's work, they would
not be likely to know that John had desired that Denzil should marry you,
Amaryllis, and so would have thought a short card with longings to see
you would be a natural thing to write. Indeed you can be at rest. And now
I will go and dress for dinner, and we will forget disturbing thoughts."

Amaryllis and Denzil will always remember Stepan's wonderful tact and
goodness to them that evening; he kept everything calm and thrilled them
all with his stories and his conversation and his own wonderfully
magnetic personality. And after dinner he played to them in the green
drawing room and, as Mrs. Ardayre said, seemed to bring peace and healing
to all their troubled souls.

But when he was alone with Denzil late, after the two women had retired
to bed, he sunk into a deep chair in the smoking room and suddenly burst
into a peal of cynical laughter.

"What the devil's up?" demanded Denzil, astonished.

"I am thinking of Harietta's exquisite mistake. She believes the baby is
mine! She is mad with a goat's jealousy; she supposes it is I who will
marry Amaryllis--hence her plot! Does it not show how the good are
protected and the evil fall into their own traps!"

"Of course! She was in love with you!"

"In love! Mon Dieu! you call that love! I mastered her body and was
unobtainable. She was never able to draw me more than a person could to
whom I should pay two hundred francs. She knew that perfectly--it enraged
her always. The threads are now completely in my hands. Conceive of it,
Denzil! The man at the Ardayre ball was her first husband for whom she
always retained some kind of animal affection--because he used to beat
her. They married her to Stanislass just to obtain the secrets of Poland,
and any other thing which she could pick' up. Her marvellous stupidity
and incredible want of all moral restraint has made her the most
brilliant spy. No principles to hamper her--nothing. She has only tripped
up through jealousy now. When she felt that she had lost me she grew to
desire me with the only part of her nature with which she desires
anything, her flesh--then she became unbalanced, and in September before
I left, gave the clue into my hands. I shall not bore you with all the
details, but I have them both--she and Ferdinand Ardayre. The first
husband has gone back to Germany from Sweden, but we shall secure him,
too, presently. Meanwhile I shall hand Harietta to the French
authorities--her last exploits are against France. She has enabled the
Germans to shoot six or seven brave fellows, besides giving information
of the most important kind wormed from foolish elderly adorers and above
all from Stanislass himself."

"She will be shot, I suppose."

"Probably. But first she shall confess about the postcard from the
prison camp. I shall go to Paris immediately, Denzil; there must be
no delay."

"You will not feel the slightest twinge because she was your mistress, if
she is shot, Stepan? I ask because the combination of possible emotions
is interesting and unusual."

"Not for an instant--" and suddenly Verisschenzko's yellow-green eyes
flashed fire and his face grew transfigured with fierce hate. "You do not
know the affection I had for Stanislass from my boyhood--he was my
leader, my ideal. No paltry aims--a great pioneer of freedom on the
sanest lines. He might have altered the history of our two countries--he
was the light we need, and this foul, loathsome creature has destroyed
not only his soul and his body, but the protector and defender of a
conception of freedom which might have been realised. I would strangle
her with my own hands."

"Stanislass must have been a weakling, Stepan, to have let her destroy
him. He could never have ruled. It strikes me that this is the proof of
another of your theories. It must be some debt of his previous life that
he is paying to this woman. He was given his chance to use strength
against her and failed."

The hate died out of Verisschenzko's face--and the look of calm
reasoning returned.

"Yes, you are right, Denzil. You are wiser than I. So I shall not give
her up, for punishment of her crimes. I shall only give her up because of
justice--she must not be at large. You see, even in my case,--I who pride
myself on being balanced, can have my true point of view obsessed by
hate. It is an ignoble passion, my son!"

"You will catch Ferdinand too?"

"Undoubtedly--he is just a rotten little snipe, but he does mischief as
Harietta's tool--and through his business in Holland."

"He loathes the English--that is his reason, but Madame Boleski has no
incentive like that."

"Harietta has no country--she would be willing to betray any one of them
to gratify any personal desire. If she had been a patriot exclusively
working for Germany, one could have respected her, but she has often
betrayed their secrets to me--for jewels--and other things she required
at the moment. No mercy can be shown at all."

"In these days there is no use in having sentiment just because a spy is
a woman--but I am glad it is not my duty to deliver her up."

Verisschenzko smiled.

"I cannot help my nature, Denzil,--or rather the attributes of the nation
into which in this life I am born. I shall hand Harietta over to justice
without a regret."

Then they parted for the night with much of the disturbance and the
complex emotions removed from Denzil's heart.




CHAPTER XXII


When Verisschenzko reached Paris and discovered the desecration of the
Ikon, an icy rage came over him. He knew, even before questioning his old
servant, that it could only be the work of Harietta. Jealousy alone would
be the cause of such a wanton act. It revealed to him the certainty of
his theory that she had imagined the little Benedict to be his child. No
further proof that the postcard was a forgery was really needed, but he
would see her once more and obtain extra confirmation.

His yellow-green eyes gleamed in a curious way as he stood looking at the
mutilated picture.

That her ridiculous and accursed hatpin should have dared to touch the
eyes of his soul's lady, and scratch out the face of the child!

But he must not let this emotion of personal anger affect what he
intended in any case to do from motives of justice. In the morning he
would give all his proofs of her guilt to the French authorities, and let
the law take its course--but to-night he would make her come there to his
apartment and hear from him an indictment of her crimes.

He sat down in the comfortable chair in his own sitting room and
began to think.

His face was ominous; all the fierce passions of his nation and of his
nature held him for a while.

His dog, an intelligent terrier whom he loved, sat there before the fire
and watched him, wagging his stump of a tail now and then nervously, but
not daring to approach. Then, after half an hour had gone by, he rose and
went to the telephone. He called up the Universal and asked to be put
through to the apartment of Madame Boleski, and soon heard Harietta's
voice. It was a little anxious--and yet insolent too.

"Yes? Is that you Stepan! Darling Brute! What do you want?"

"You--cannot you come and dine with me to-night--alone?"

His voice was honey sweet, with a spontaneous, frank ring in it, only his
face still looked as a fiend's.

"You have just arrived? How divine!"

"This instant, so I rushed at once to the telephone. I long for
you--come--now."

He allowed passion to quiver in the last notes--he must be sure that she
would be drawn.

"He cannot have opened the doors of the Ikon," Harietta thought. "I will
go--to see him again will be worth it anyway!"

"All right!--in half an hour!"

"_Soit_,"--and he put the receiver down.

Then he went again to the Ikon and examined the doors; by slamming them
very hard and readjusting one small golden nail, he could give the
fastening the appearance of its having been jammed and impossible to
open. He ordered a wonderful dinner and some Chateau Ykem of 1900.
Harietta, he remembered, liked it better than Champagne. Its sweetness
and its strength appealed to her taste. The room was warm and
delightful with its blazing wood fire. He looked round before he went
to dress, and then he laughed softly, and again Fin nervously wagged
his stump of a tail.

Harietta arrived punctually. She had made herself extremely beautiful.
Her overmastering desire to see Verisschenzko had allowed her usually
keen sense of self-preservation partially to sleep. But even so,
underneath there was some undefined sense of uneasiness.

Stepan met her in the hall, and greeted her in his usual abrupt way
without ceremony.

"You will leave your cloak in my room," he suggested, wishing to give her
the chance to look at the Ikon's jammed doors and so put her at her ease.

The moment she found herself alone, she went swiftly to the shrine. She
examined it closely--no the bolt had not been mended. She pulled at the
doors but she could not open them, and she remembered with relief that
she had slammed them hard. That would account for things. He certainly
could not yet know of her action. The evening would be one of pleasure
after all! And there was never any use in speculating about to-morrows!

Verisschenzko was waiting for her in the sitting-room, and they went
straight in to dinner. A little table was drawn up to the fire; all
appeared deliciously intimate, and Harietta's spirits rose.

To her Verisschenzko appeared the most attractive creature on earth.
Indeed, he had a wonderful magnetism which had intoxicated many women
before her day. He was looking at her now with eyes unclouded by glamour.
He saw that she was painted and obvious, and without real charm. She
could no longer even affect his senses. He saw nothing but the reality,
the animal, blatant reality, and in his memory there remained the pierced
out orbs of the Virgin and the scratched face of the Christ child.

Everything fierce and cunning in his nature was in action--he was
glorying in the torture he meant to inflict, the torture of jealousy and
unsatisfied suspicion.

He talked subtly, deliberately stirring her curiosity and arousing her
apprehension. He had not mentioned Amaryllis, and yet he had conveyed to
her, as though it were an unconscious admission, that he had been in
England with her, and that she reigned in his soul. Then he used every
one of his arts of fascination so that all Harietta's desires were
inflamed once more, and by the time she had eaten of the rich Russian
dishes and drank of the Chateau Ykem she was experiencing the strongest
emotion she had ever known in her life, while a sense of impotence to
move him augmented her other feelings.

Her eyes swam with passion, as she leaned over the table whispering words
of the most violent love in his ears.

Verisschenzko remained absolutely unstirred.

"How silly you were to send that postcard to Lady Ardayre," he remarked
contemplatively in the middle of one of her burning sentences. "It was
not worthy of your usual methods--a child could see that it was a
forgery. If you had not done that I might have made you very happy
to-night--for the last time--my little goat!"

"Stepan--what card? But you are going to make me happy anyway, darling
Brute; that is what I have come for, and you know it!"

Her eyes were not so successfully innocent as usual when she lied. She
was uneasy at his stolidity, some fear stayed with her that perhaps he
meant not to gratify her desires just to be provoking. He had teased her
more than once before.

Verisschenzko went on, lighting his cigarette calmly:

"It was a silly plot--Ferdinand Ardayre wrote it and you dictated it; I
perceived the whole thing at once. You did it because you were jealous of
Lady Ardayre--you believe that I love her--"

"I do not know anything about a card, but I _am_ jealous about that
hateful bit of bread and butter," and her eyes flashed. "It is so unlike
you to worry over such a creature--I'm what you like!"

He laughed softly. "A man has many sides--you appeal to his lowest.
Fortunately it is not in command of him all the time--but let me tell you
more about the forgery. You over-reached yourselves--you made John ignore
something which would have been his first thought, thus the fraud was
exposed at once."

Her jealousy blazed up, so that she forgot herself and prudence.

"You mean about the child--your child--"

The ominous gleam came into Verisschenzko's eyes.

"My child--you spoke of it once before and I warned you--I never
speak idly."

She got up from the table and came and flung her arms round his neck.

"Stepan, I love you--I love you! I would like to kill Amaryllis and the
child--I want you--why are you so changed?"

He only laughed scornfully again, while he disengaged her arms.

"Do you know how I found out? By the perfume--the same as you told me
must be that of Stanislass' mistress--on the handkerchief marked 'F.A.'
The whole thing was dramatically childish. You thought to prove her
husband was still alive, would stop my marriage with Amaryllis Ardayre!"

"Then you are going to marry her!"

Harietta's hazel eyes flashed fire, her face had grown distorted with
passion and her cheeks burned beyond the rouge.

She appeared a most revolting sight to Stepan. He watched her with cold,
critical eyes. As she put out her hands he noticed how the thumbs turned
right back. How had he ever been able to touch her in the past! He
shivered with disgust and degradation at the thought.

She saw his movement of repulsion, and completely lost her head.

She flung herself into his arms and almost strangled him in her furious
embrace, while she threw all restraint to the winds and poured out a
torrent of passion, intermingled with curses for one who had dared to try
and rob her of this adored mate.

It was a wonderful and very sickening exhibition, Verisschenzko thought.
He remained as a statue of ice. Then when she had exhausted herself a
little, he spoke with withering calm.

"Control yourself, Harietta; such emotion will leave ugly lines, and you
cannot afford to spoil the one good you possess. I have not the least
desire for you--I find that you look plain and only bore me. But now
listen to me for a little--I have something to say!" His voice changed
from the cynical callousness to a deep note of gravity: "You need not
even tell me in words that you sent the forgery--you have given me ample
proof. That subject is finished--but I will make you listen to the
recital of some of your vile deeds." The note grew sterner and his eyes
held her cowed. "Ah! what instruments of the devil are such women as
you--possessing the greatest of all power over men you have used it only
for ill--wherever you have passed there is a trail of degradation and
slime. Think of Stanislass! A man of fine purpose and lofty ideals. What
is he now? A poor lifeless semblance of a man with neither brain nor
will. You have used him--not even to gratify your own low lust, but to
betray countries--and one of them your husband's country, which ought to
have been your own."

She sank to her knees at his side; he went on mercilessly. He spoke of
many names which she knew, and then he came to Ferdinand Ardayre.

"They tell me he is drinking and sodden with morphine, and raves wildly
of you. Think of them all--where are they now? Dead many of them--and you
have survived and prospered like a vampire, sucking their blood. Do you
ever think of a human being but your own degraded self? You would
sacrifice your nearest and dearest for a moment's personal gain. You are
not caught and strangled because the outside good natures come easily to
you. It makes things smooth to smile and commit little acts of showy
kindness which cost you nothing. You live and breathe and have your being
like a great maggot fattening on a putrid corpse. I blush to think that I
have ever used your body for my own ends, loathing you all the time. I
have watched you cynically when I should have wrung your neck."

She sobbed hoarsely and held out her hands.

"For all these things you might still have gone free, Harietta--and fate
would punish you in time, but you have committed that great crime for
which there can be no mercy. You have acted the part of a spy. A wretched
spy, not for patriotism but for your own ends--you have not been faithful
to either side. Have you not often given me the secrets of your late
husband Hans? Do you care one atom which country wins? Not you. The
whole sordid business has had only one aim--some personal gratification."

He paused--and she began to speak, now choking with rage, but he motioned
her to be silent.

"Do you think so lightly of the great issues which are shaking the world
that you imagine that you can do these things with impunity? I tell you
that soon you must pay the price. I am not the only one who knows of
your ways."

She got up from the floor now and tossed her head. Important things had
never been to her realities--her fear left her. What agitated her now was
that Stepan, whom she adored, should speak to her in such a tone. She
threw herself into his arms once more, passionately proclaiming her love.

He thrust her from him in shrinking disgust, and the cruel vein in his
character was aroused.

"Love!--do not dare to desecrate the name of love. You do not know what
it means. I do--and this shall always remain with you as a remembrance. I
love Amaryllis Ardayre. She is my ideal of a woman--tender and restrained
and true--I shall always lay my life at her feet. I love her with a love
such beings as you cannot dream of, knowing only the senses and playing
only to them. That will be your knowledge always, that I worship and
reverence this woman, and hold you in supreme contempt."

Harietta writhed and whined on the sofa where she had fallen.

"Go," he went on icily. "I have no further use for you, and my car is
waiting below. You may as well avail yourself of it and return to your
hotel. In the morning the last proof of the interest I have taken in you
may be given, but to-night you can sleep."

Harietta cried aloud--she was frightened at last. What did he mean? But
even fear was swallowed up in the frantic thought that he had done with
her, that he would never any more hold her in his arms. Her world lay in
ruins, he seemed the one and only good. She grovelled on the floor and
kissed his feet.

"Master, Master! Keep me near you--I will be your slave--"

But Verisschenzko pushed her gently aside with his foot and going to a
table near took up a cigarette. He lighted it serenely, glancing
indifferently at the dishevelled heap of a woman still crouching on
the floor.

"Enough of this dramatic nonsense," and he blew a ring of smoke. "I
advise you to go quietly to bed--you may not sleep so softly on
future nights."

Fear overcame her again--what could he mean? She got up and held on to
the table, searching his face with burning eyes.

"Why should I not sleep so softly always?" and her voice was thick.

He laughed hoarsely.

"Who knows? Life is a gamble in these days. You must ask your interesting
German friend."

She became ghastly white--that there was real danger was beginning
to dawn upon her. The rouge stood out like that on the painted face
of a clown.

Verisschenzko remained completely unmoved. He pressed the bell, and his
Russian servant, warned beforehand, brought him in his fur coat and hat,
and assisted him to put them on.

"I will take Madame to get her cloak," he announced calmly. "Wait here
to show us out."

There was nothing for Harietta to do but follow him, as he went towards
the bedroom door. She was stunned.

He walked over to the Ikon, and slipping a paper knife under them opened
wide the doors; then he turned to her, and the very life melted within
her when she saw his face.

"This is your work," and he pointed to the mutilations, "and for that and
many other things, Harietta, you shall at last pay the price. Now come, I
will take you back to your lover, and your husband--both will be waiting
and longing for your return. Come!"

She dropped on the floor and refused to move so that he was obliged to
call in the servant, and together they lifted her, the one holding her
up, while the other wrapped her in her cloak. Then, each supporting her,
they made their way down the stairs, and placed her in the waiting motor,
Verisschenzko taking the seat at her side--and so they drove to the
Universal. She should sleep to-night in peace and have time to think over
the events of the evening. But to-morrow he must no longer delay about
giving information to the authorities.

She cowered in the motor until they had almost reached the door, when she
flung her arms round his neck and kissed him wildly again, sobbing with
rage and terror:

"You shall not marry Amaryllis; I will kill you both first."

He smiled in the darkness, and she felt that he was mocking her, and
suddenly turned and bit his arm, her teeth meeting in the cloth of his
fur-lined coat.

He shook her off as he would have done a rat:

"Never quite apropos, Harietta! Always a little late! But here we have
arrived, and you will not care for your admirers, the concierge, and the
lift men, to see you in such a state. Put your veil over your face and go
quietly to your rooms. I will wish you a very good-night--and farewell!"

He got out and stood with mock respect uncovered to assist her, and she
was obliged to follow him. The hall porter and the numerous personnel of
the hotel were looking on.

He bowed once more and appeared to kiss her hand:

"Good-bye, Harietta! Sleep well."

Then he re-entered the car and was whirled away.

She staggered for a second and then moved forward to the lift. But as she
went in, two tall men who had been waiting stepped forward and joined
her, and all three were carried aloft, and as she walked to her salon she
saw that they were following her.

"There will be no more kicks for thee, my Angel!" the maid, peeping
from a door, whispered exultingly to Fou-Chow! "Thy Marie has saved
thee at last!"

       *       *       *       *       *

When Verisschenzko again reached his own sitting room he paced up and
down for half an hour. He was horribly agitated, and angry with himself
for being so.

Denzil had been right; when it came to the point, it was a ghastly thing
to have to do, to give a woman up to death--even though her crimes amply
justified such action.

And what was death?

To such a one as Harietta what would death mean?

A sinking into oblivion for a period, and then a rebirth in some sphere
of suffering where the first lessons of the meanings of things might be
learned? That would seem to be the probable working of the law--so that
she might eventually obtain a soul.

He must not speculate further about her though, he must keep his nerve.

And his own life--what would it now become? Would the spirit of freedom,
stirring in his beloved country, arrive at any good? Or would the red
current of revolution, once let loose, swamp all reason and flow in
rivers of blood?

He would be powerless to help if he let weakness overmaster him now.

The immediate picture looked black and hopeless to his far-seeing eyes.

But his place must be in Petrograd now, until the end. His activities,
which had obliged him to be away from Russia, were finished, and new ones
had begun which he must direct, there in the heart of things.

"The world is aching for freedom, God," his stormy thoughts ran, "but we
cannot hope to receive it until we have paid the price of the aeons of
greed and self-seeking which have held us, the ignorance, the low
material gain. We must now reap that sowing. The divine Christ--one
man--was enough as a sacrifice in that old period of the world's day--but
now there must be a holocaust of the bravest and best for our
purification."

He threw himself into his chair and gazed into the glowing embers. What
pictures were forming themselves there? Nations arising glorified by a
new religion of common sense, education universally enjoyed, the great
forces studied, and Nature's fundamental principles reckoned with and
understood.

To hunt his food.

To recreate his species.

_And to kill his enemy._

A bright blade sheathed but ready, a clear judgment trained and used,
ideals nobly striven for, and Wisdom the High Priest of God.

These were the visions he saw in the fire, and he started to his feet and
stretched out his arms.

"Strength, God! Strength!" that was his prayer.

"That we may go--
Armoured and militant,
New-pithed, new-souled, new-visioned, up the steeps
To those great altitudes whereat the weak
Live not, but only the strong
Have leave to strive, and suffer, and achieve."

Then he sat down and wrote to Denzil.

"I have all the needed proofs, my friend. Marry my soul's lady in peace
and make her happy. There come some phases in a man's life which require
all his will to face. I hope I am no weakling. I return to Russia
immediately. Events there will enable me to blot out some disturbing
memories.

"The end is not yet. Indeed, I feel that my real life is only just
beginning.

"Ferdinand Ardayre is deeply incriminated with Harietta; it is only a
question of a little time and he will be taken too. Then, Denzil, you, in
the natural course of events, would have been the Head of the Family. You
will need all your philosophy never to feel any jar in the situation with
your son as the years go on. You will have to look at it squarely, dear
old friend, and know that it is impossible to have interfered with
destiny and to have gone scott free. Then you will be able to accept
title affair with common sense and prize what you have obtained, without
spoiling it with futile regrets. You have paid most of your score with
wounds and suffering, and now can expect what happiness the agony of the
world can let a man enjoy.

"My blessings to you both and to the Ardayre son.

"And now adieu for a long time."

He had hardly written the last line when the telephone rang, and the
frantic voice of Stanislass, his ancient friend, called to him!

Harietta had been taken away to St. Lazare--her maid had denounced her.
What could be done?

A great wave of relief swept over Stepan. So he was not to be the
instrument of justice after all!

How profoundly he thanked God!

But the irony of the thing shook him.

Harietta would pay with her life for having maltreated a dog!

Truly the workings of fate were marvellous.




CHAPTER XXIII


The days in prison for Harietta, before and after her trial, were days of
frenzied terror, alternating with incredulity. She would not believe that
she was to die.

Stanislass and Ferdinand, and even Verisschenzko, would save her!

She loathed the hard bed at St. Lazare, and the discomfort, and the
ugliness, and the Sister of Charity!

She spent hours tramping her cell like a wild beast in a cage. She would
roar with inarticulate fury, and cry aloud to her husband, and her
lovers, one after another, and then she would cower in a corner, shaking
with fear.

The greatest pain of all was the thought that Stepan and Amaryllis would
marry and be happy. Once or twice foam gathered at the corners of her
lips when she thought of this.

If she could have reached Marie, that would have given her some
satisfaction--to tear out her eyes! For Ferdinand Ardayre had told her
how Marie had given her up, working quietly until she had all necessary
proofs, and then denouncing her.

When Stanislass had returned from the Club, whither she had despatched
him for the evening, so that she might be free to dine with
Verisschenzko, he found that she had already been taken away.

The shock, when he discovered that nothing could be done, had nearly
killed him--he now lay dangerously ill in a Maison de Sante, happily
unconscious of events.

For Ferdinand Ardayre the blow had fallen with crushing force. The one
strong thing in his weak nature was his passion for Harietta--and to be
robbed of her in such a way!

He battled impotently against fate, unable even to try to use any means
in his possession to get the death sentence commuted, because he was too
deeply implicated himself to make any stir.

He saw her in the prison after the trial, with the bars between and the
warders near. And the awful change in Tier paralysed him with grief. On
the morrow she was to die--the usual death of a spy.

Her hair was wild and her face without rouge was haggard and wan.

She implored him to save her.

The frightful pain of knowing that he could do nothing made Ferdinand
desperate, and then suddenly he became inspired with an idea.

He could at all events remove some of the agony of terror from her, and
enable her to go to her death without a hideous scene. He remembered "La
Tosca"--the same method might serve again!

He managed to whisper to her in broken sentences that she would certainly
be saved. The plan was all prepared, he assured her. The rifles would
contain blank cartridges, and she must pretend to fall--and afterwards he
would come, having bribed every one and made the path smooth.

He lied so fervently that Harietta was convinced, her material brain
catching at any straw. She must dress herself and look her best, he told
her, so as to make an impression upon all the men concerned; and then,
when he had to leave her, he arranged with the prison doctor that she
might receive a strong _piqure_ of morphine, so that she would be
serene. She spent the night dreaming quite happily and at four o'clock
was awakened and began to dress.

The drug had calmed all her terrors and her dramatic instinct held
full sway.

She arranged her toilet with the utmost care, using all her arts to
beautify herself. In her ears were Stanislass' ruby earrings and she wore
Stepan's ring and brooch.

Death to her was an impossibility--she had never seen any one die.

It was a wonderfully fine part she would have to play, with Ferdinand
there really going to save her! That was all! She must even be sweet at
last to the poor sister, whom she had snarled at hitherto.

If she could only have seen Stepan once more! Stanislass and his broken
life and fond devotion never gave her a thought or troubled her at all.
After she was free, she would find some means to pay out Hans! She hated
him. If it had not been for Hans and his tiresome old higher command
with their stupid intrigues, she would still be free. That she had
betrayed countries--that she was guilty in any way never presented
itself to her mind.

All Verisschenzko's passionate indictment had fallen upon unheeding ears.
The morphine now left her only sufficiently conscious for fundamental
instincts to act.

She felt that she was a beautiful woman going to be the chief figure in a
wonderfully dramatic scene. Nothing solemn had touched her. Her brain was
light and now only filled with cunning and _coqueterie_; she meant to
charm her guards and executioners to the last man! And ready at length,
she walked nonchalantly out of the prison and into the waiting car which
was to carry her to Vincennes.

Now the end of all this is best told in the words of a young French
soldier who was an eye witness and wrote the whole thing down. To pen the
hideous horror I find too difficult a task.

"Sunday--11 in the evening.

"We had only returned at that moment from our day's leave, when the
Lieutenant came to us to announce that we should be of the _piquet_
to-morrow morning for the execution of Madame Boleski, the spy.

"He said this to us in his monotonous voice as though he had been saying
'To-morrow--_Revue d'Armes_'--but for us, after a whole day passed far
from barracks, it was a rather brusque return to military realities!

"At once it became necessary that we look through our accountrements for
the show. No small affair! and for more than an hour there was brushing
and polishing of straps and buckles. It was nearly two o'clock in the
morning before we could turn in.

"Many of us could not sleep--we are all between eighteen and nineteen
years old, and the idea to see a woman killed agitated us. But little by
little the whole band dozed."

"Monday morning.

"At four o'clock--reveille. We dress in haste in the dark. Ten minutes
later we all find ourselves in the courtyard.

"'_A droit alignement couvres sur deux_.'

"The Lieutenant made the call."

       *       *       *       *       *

"The detachment moves off in the night, marching in slow cadence--that
step which so peculiarly gives the impression of restrained force and
condensed power.

"We leave the fort and gain the artillery butts--true landscape of the
front! Trenches, stripped trees, abandoned wagons!

"And in the middle of all that--our silhouettes of carbines,
casques and sacs.

"Absolute silence.

"We stop--we advance--and suddenly in the dawn which has begun, we arrive
at our destination--the execution ground.

"'_Cannoniers--halte! Couvres sur deux. A droite alignement_.'"

"A rattle of arms. And there in front of us, at hardly fifteen yards, we
catch sight of the post.

"Up till now we had scarcely felt anything--just startled impressions,
almost of curiosity, but now I begin to experience the first strong
sensation.

"The post! Symbol of all this sinister ceremony. A short post--not higher
than one's shoulder! There it stands in front of the shooting butts. And
to think that nearly every Monday--"

       *       *       *       *       *

"Now the troops from the Square, which is in reality rectangular, the
shooting butt constituting one of its sides. Then in the grim dawn we
wait quietly for what is to come. One after another, we see several
automobiles approach, and each time we ask ourselves, 'Is not this the
condemned?'

"No--they are journalists--officers--_avocats_--and presently a hearse,
out of which is lifted the coffin.

"The undertakers' men, who presently will proceed to the business of
placing the body there, laugh and talk together as they sit and smoke.
They are old _habitues!_"

"One was cold standing still! It begins to be quite light. The condemned
one may arrive at any moment, because the execution has been fixed for
exactly at the rising of the sun.

"The men of the platoon load their rifles. The number of them is
twelve--four sergeants, four corporals, four soldiers.

"And then there are the _Chasseurs a pied_."

"All of a sudden, two more cars appear, escorted by a company of
dragoons.

"This time it is She.

"They stop--out of the first one, officers descend. The Commissaire of
the Government who has, condemned Madame Boleski to death and who had
gone a little more than an hour ago to awake her in her cell. The
Captain, reporter, and two other Captains. The door of the second auto
opens, two gendarmes get out--a Sister of St. Lazare (what a terrible
_metier_ for her!)--and then Harietta Boleski!

"And at once, accompanied by the nun and followed by the gendarmes, she
penetrates into the square of men.

"Until now we have been enduring a period of waiting, we have been asking
ourselves if it will have an effect upon us--but now we have no more
doubt. The effect has begun!

"'Present arms!'

"All together we render honour to the dead woman--for one considers a
person condemned as already dead. And the bugles begin to play the
March--_Do sol do do Sol do do, Mi mi mi_--

"They play slowly--very softly and in the minor key.

"Harietta Boleski walks quickly, the sister can hardly keep by her side.
She is tall, beautiful, very elegant. A large hat with floating lace veil
thrown back and splendid earrings. A dark dress--pretty shoes.

"She looks at the troops and the _piquet d'execution_ a little
disdainfully, and then she smiles gaily--it is almost a titter. The
sister taps her gently on the shoulder, as if to recall her to a sense of
order, but she makes one careless gesture and walks up to the post.

"The bugles are sounding plaintively, slowly and more slowly all the
time.

"She pauses in front of us--and with us it is now, 'Does this make us
feel something?' We must hold ourselves not to grow faint.

"To see this woman go by with the trumpets sounding ever. To say to
ourselves that in sixty seconds she will be no more. There will be no
life in that beautiful body. Ah! that is an emotion, believe me!

"Never has the great problem been brought more forcibly before my spirit.

"It is during the second when she passes before me that I receive
the most profound impression, more even than at the actual moment of
the firing."

       *       *       *       *       *

"Harietta Boleski is beside the post. The bugles stop their mournful
sound. They tie her to it, but not tightly, only so that her fall may not
be too hard. A gendarme presents her with a bandeau for her eyes, which
she pushes aside with scorn.

"And when an officer reads the sentence, Harietta Boleski smiles."

       *       *       *       *       *

"At twelve yards the platoon is lined up. The sentence has been read.

"Madame Boleski embraces the Sister of Charity, who is very overcome.
She even whispers a few words to comfort her. They stand back from the
post. The adjutant who commands the platoon raises his sword--the rifles
come in into position--two seconds--and the sword falls!"

       *       *       *       *       *

"A salute!"

       *       *       *       *       *

"Harietta Boleski is no more.

"The fair body drops to earth and immediately an Adjutant of
Dragoons goes swiftly to the post, revolver pointed, and gives the
_coup de grace_.

"_'Arme sur l'epaule--Droit. A droit. En avant. Marche!'_

"And we file past the corpse while the trumpets recommence to sound.

"Harietta Boleski is lying down. She seems to be only reposing, so
beautiful she looks.

"The ball had entered her heart (we knew this later) so that her death
has been instantaneous.

"All the troops have defiled before her now.

"We regain our quarters.

"But as we file into the courtyard the sun gilds the highest window of
the fortress. The day has begun."

       *       *       *       *       *

Thus perished Harietta Boleski in the thirty-seventh year of her age--in
the midst of the zest of life. The times are to strenuous for sentiment.

So perish all spies!


THE END










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