CHAPTER IX.

New Zealand Illustrated Magazine, 1 February 1901, Page 358

CHAPTER IX.

STRANGERS YET,

Frank did not notice the length of his return walk. The night itself was exhilaz'ating, with just that touch of frost in the air which braced and invigorated the languid blood after the long and sultry summer. The excitement of his mind made exercise doubly acceptable — it would have been impossible for him to sleep or even to keep still ; he was stimulated as though with wine. New possibilities were dawning in his mind side by side with new complications.

The fact that Caroline was Howard Grey's wife did not propitiate him. Howard had behaved abominably, besmirched the ideal of a gentleman. It was a strange twist of fate to find his sister, whose fine sense of honour and honesty could not be corrupted even by her affection, wife of a moral thief !

But there must be no vulgar quarrel for Caroline's sake ; he owed her that. She had shielded him, now it was his turn to shield her— his opportunity ! He smiled a little grimly as he realised how every obligation must be met — sacrifice for favours; self-repression for kindness; so much in another kind for everything received, with compound interest !

But at perception of his own power — which the world had acknowledged, although to the credit of another man — his manhood arose from the rains where it had lain, crushed beneath failure. A new sense of strength and youth emerged from his despondency. He swung his arms as he walked, and as he neared the city paused to look at the lesser London — which lay bathed in moonlight, its towers and turrets standing out distinctly against the silver whiteness— with a smile dawning on his sad, young face. One day he should emerge from the debris of his life, and stand face to face again with men — claimed by them.

He lifted his hat mechanically, as though to greet that new time, aud looking out to the east where the dawn of a new day would presently break over the sleeping city, he unconsciously, in that silent greeting of the coming light, registered a vow to welcome the infinite unknown future, to face it and to fight. To fight — there was the stimulus ! He had been swept off his feet ; be had floundered and blundered ; all but been sucked under in the quicksand of despair, and he i"ecognised that his first protest against bondage, his first stroke for individual freedom had been in the act that had seemed cruel to Caroline.

Sad law of life that no man could live to himself — neither could any man die unto himself ! And he had died once. But he was alive again now, alive to ambition, and his brain was busy with the thought, how to wrench back what Howard Grey had filched ?

" When one has seen and felt the scorn meted out to failure, the contempt for it lifting a layer beneath even love ! one does not take kindly to being robbed of honour justly earned." His laugh was bitter. "I'll get it back," he affirmed.

And suddenly au idea came to him — his triumph should be au intoUoctual one — convict 99 should tell his own tale. Twice he had pinned his faith to a man — both had betrayed. Out of their betrayal he would make a ladder by which to climb. Before he let himself into " The Little Oust Pan,"

ho had sketched out his play. Night found him hard at work upon it. At the ond of a week hb had forgotten his revenge. His idea only had stuck ; to work it out absorbed him ; he feared he had the barest qualification for his task — which to accomplish became to him the sum and substance of life apart from any other consideration. In every pause between the business of tho shop he was at work, bringing into subordination to the technicalities of tho stage some wayward fancy of his own. All the winter evenings he spent at the theatre, returning to destroy or reconstruct his MS. He was in complete subordination to his work, and Ruth Opie, observant of him ever, saw that she could serve him bust by self-obliteration, and effaced herself accordingly. There was comfort and pleasure to her immeasurable in seeing the dark head, even though it was bent over MS. most of the time.,, and solace to her soul in knowing that " the lad " had eaten a nourishing meal — even in a half dream !

All through the winter Howard Grey was also at work. Never, as- now, when the coveted word "genius" was his, was he so alive to the demands of labour.

Caroline saw that he was possessed with a desire that excluded her from consideration. There were times when he appeared to forgot her altogether, or coming upon her suddenly was smitten with a compunction, it seemed to her, that made him almost tender.

One of these occasions was an afternoon at the end of the winter. Caroline, who was in the drawing-room, aud who had been playing softly to herself in the fire-lit twilight, heard his step in the hall as he came in. She did not cease playing, her fingers touched the keys more softly, but she knew the instant he opened the door and heard him seat himself.

She knew his scorn of " prettiness of performance," and strove to overcome the nervousness she always felt when playing in company. Something in his nearness affected her. She played well at all timesj as she did well most of what she undertook, but as Howard listened, it seemed as though the mystery of pain was finding some interpretation ; there was an impression of tragedy in his wife's music that the quiet face she presently turned to him did not reveal. He was sorry that she ceased. While she played she satisfied some hunger which at other times sho denied. She noted the look of cynicism upon his face of late had yielded under the spell of Schumann. She was eagerly alive to any change in him. Another woman might have reminded him that he was quite a sti'anger in her drawing-room. Instead, she accepted his presence there without comment, and rang for tea. Then she sat down and made herself charming to him, painfully conscious all the time how very like it was to entertaining a guest. Howard left his seat to examine some photographs, then stood and looked round him critically. " You have made this a charming room, Oai'oline !" he said appreciatively, with the artist's pleasure in harmonious colouring. Her face glowed, and his eyes, coming back from objects of art, settled upon her, and caught her expi'ession. It did not occur to him that his praise had brought the wave of emotion that passed over her face and softened it. He saw her looking young, and her eyes shining. She missed nothing then ? Through his days of poverty and weariness of heart, he was to her, as to others, " the famous Howard Grey." Well, he had his wish — he had bargained to give all to gain it !

While he drank his tea Caroline talked to him in that soft toneless way which soothed him more than he was aware.

" It is surprising," he blurted out, as the thought struck him forcibly all in a moment. " You always hit upon the subjects that interest me, and tell me the

things T want to know ! How do you do it, Caroline ? Is it haphazard ?" He took his empty cup over to the tea-table, and stood looking down upon her. She smiled curiously at the puzzled look in his eyes. "It is a sort of magic !" he added. " I was not aware how many likes and dislikes I had till you emphasized them. I hope you are not making a ' study ' of me, little woman ? A woman who studies her husband is unconsciously making him a curse to other people — he is bound to develop into a monster of selfishness !" Not make a study of him ! Her deep eyes met his. Yes, he meant it. Behind his laughter lay some concern. "I believe you know better thau I do myself what I like to eat and drink ; the sort of people I admire, and those who affect me like a red rag affects a bull — don't do it, Caroline, let me scramble." There was a troubled consciousness in the eyes he raised that they did not live heart to heart, nor mind to mind. He was uneasy under her kindness, as though receiving from a stranger. The very fragrance of the flowers in the room reproached him, for they were his favourite flowers — violets. He walked about restlessly. She was encompassing him on all sides — and herself, was she happy ? Had she found anything in her position as his wife to x'econcile her to the loss of her brother ? He looked at her more closely. Yes; her face was decidedly more animated. He put his hand upon her shoulder, and turned her round to him. " Caroline, do you never have individual desires ?" " Never !" The slow change that had been wrought in her, as though invoked to reveal itself, faced her fully. A wild wish that he knew without her telling, rose in her heart ; her second thought was of half-despairing passion that he did not. The dumb beseeching of her eyes he mistook for displeasure. He felt that he had intruded beyond the line -which she drew about herself, in which she had her being. " God !" he muttered beneath his breath,

" what place is there in the cold whiteness of her heart for mortal man." He let his arm drop from her shoulder ; his face clouded, his mouth drew into hard lines. A sudden, cruel desire to hurt her took possession of him— if only to hear her cryout. To shock her into horror of her fellows if she had no sympathy for their sins. He sat down in his chair by the tire, and in the slow drawl Caroline now understood signified anger, mocked bitterly, but with a half veiled observance of her. " You are right to have no impulses ; involuntary acts are sometimes generous — and as often mean — for we are still elementary. But because o.ur artistic sense is partially developed we suffer at ugliness — er — because of the ugliness Wellproportioned temperaments give a sense of security, hence our appreciation of good folk ! Self at bottom, you see ! We are not lost in any beautiful moral sympathy." She had flushed and grown pale. "The savage is disconcerting," she affirmed. "But have you any particular objection to a sane mind ?" She turned her eyes full upon him. He laughed. " ' I am not mad, most noble Festus,' " he quoted. " Caroline, [ believe you would be sane if this were the Judgment Day !" " This is the judgment day of yesterday," she answered apathetically. A spasm contracted his face. If he could have caught that moment to look at Caroline the expression of the beautiful eyes bent upon him would have banished from his heart for ever all thought of coldness. "He is suffering," she thought, "it is more than weariness ; it is pain. Yet how can I help him; he does not understand me enough for confidence. If he loved me he would understand. Her voice dropped into his thoughts. "I. like the title of your new book — ' A Man at Bay ' — it suggests warfare." He looked steadily away for a few moments. " Are you ravished of fights ?" " Of a fighter."

" Not his cuat ?" " Why will you impute to mo this smallness ?" She askod, so softly that ho looked up. She oevtaiuly was not small. He know he was angry, because her largeness dwarfed him in his own eyes. Because he feared that one day her truth would force him to unmask. He stood up aud put his arm about her. " Why ? To hear your defence, lonhinn. Come, do not let us quarrel any more. L have hurt aud vexed you?" Ho passed his hand once or twice over hur hair. " Don't you know that there is something in you ' white women ' that we men are sure to smudge? That when we meet with strength greater than our own, our brutal instinct is to oppose it? The Lord knows why — L don't ! For strange paradox, we despise a weak woman as thoroughly as wo know that salvation comes to us from a strong one." She moved from the shelter of his arm, and bending down over a bowl of violets, said in an impersonal tone, although the slender tingers straying among the flowers trembled : "Then you do not think ' we needs must love the highest when we see it ?' " He turned from her aud looked out into the dark garden, where the room with its softly-glowing lamps and lire was reflected, and the shadow of Caroline bending over the flowers. Her gown was of soft woollen stuff, finished at the waist aud wrists with ribbon of violet velvet. The white shadow was typical of the part she played in his consciousness, as vague and unreal to him. His gaze was on it when ho answered : " One lifts his eyes perhaps to ' the highest ' with reverent wonder; sometimes a man wishes he was there — but if he is not there? What then, wahine T " You ask a woman." The shadow of her bent lower. Ho made an impatient movement as though her attitude worried him, and he wanted her to look up. " Ah, there you women err — you raise the barrier of sex too high between us. For, after all, it is Adam on one side and hie

missing rib on the other. That bone should not be one of contention, but of understanding between them. The fullest developed woman has got a touch of the man in her, don't you think ? It's the bone from his side remembering" They both laughed. He went away still laughing, but when the- study door closed behind him, his face set again into the hard cynical lines habitual to it. As he sat within the circle of light, made by the writing-lamp on his desk, he looked ten years older than he had done the night he lost his way in the snow. Over his temples the thick dark hair was dusted with grey ; dissatisfaction had clouded the clear, keen eyes. He pushed his papers away from him, and with the impatient uplifting of the head of a horse chafing at the bit, got up and walked about the room with his hands thrust into his pockets. An air of dejection marked his attitude. Hard experience had made a pessimist of him long before. He had taken pleasure but in one idea — work, and now that sensation was leaving him. He had lived for one object and gained it — ignobly, and his self - dissatisfaction moi'e than outweighed the honour he had- won. He had not supposed himself capable of this weakness of introspection. He had acted up to his own standard ; had honestly believed that the higher and finer shades of truth were but the dreams of the idealist. Yet unexpectedly he found himself faced by an austere demand in himself that was the revival of something which marked his earlier manhood. It was a tone of mind inconsistent with his philosophy of calmness ; in deadly antagonism to his materialism. As far as pleasurable sensation went, he was as one dead. But with a patience that was humble he turned again to his work. There was a wordless wish in his heart to make this good as the last. Under the Goad had made his name to* the world. A Man at Bay might redeem his name to himself. Caroline very rarely entered her husband's study, but this evening as he left her she .had a strong impulse to follow him and

say : " Don't work this evening ; give this evening to me." They were both lonely, both pining for love — he, because contact with her had suggested infinite possibilities ; he caught glimpses of passion's magic which roused longing to know more. She knew why hia step, his voice, his presence thrilled her. A wave of colour swept her pale cheeks, she clasped her hands tightly with a self-restrain pitiful to see. She had schooled herself so long to negation and denial of self in her intercourse with Frank that she could not fling reserve aside and show her heart. It seemed strange to her that she had the great passionate want for herself — as yet it was a great sacredness. She had not known quite why she had married Howard Grey, except that he seemed to lift her from her own empty life into his — to feel her need. But that was all she had known of love, I ts giving. There had always been a need of her. And because there seemed but an imaginary place for her to fill in her husband's life, she had devoted herself the more to the trivialities of bis home. How was she to cope with this great longing? How stand quietly by and help him to his ambitions, put away every other thought but his happiness — his best ? She rose in excitement with some halfformed thought of going to him in her perplexity. " I will not fail him," she said, as though vowing to herself as she perceived dimly Love's tragic truth — selfishness. The question of the unloved woman would be asked for certain one day — himself, or me ? "It must be his strongest," she answered in a swift passionate whisper. "He must possess himself to the full — apart from my relation to him !" Her passion woke in her a thousand conflicts, and a new strange consciousness which made the wife, knowing herself unloved, shrink sensitively as an unwooed girl from the betrayal of her secret. The summer that year was unusually hot. The watercourses of the vast plains were dried, and in the city the people panted in the stifling air; the streets were cloudy

with dust, and the garish sunlight beating down pitilessly all day drove more folk indoors than a snowstorm would have done. Caroline's garden was a retreat of shade and freshness. It was a medley of vines and roses which scrambled over oue another in the race for verandah roofs and chimneypots. Figs, riotous pumpkins, and melons were intermixed, and over an arbour built under the shade of magnolia trees — whose lemon-scented blossoms impregnated the air with their pungent fragrance — the passion vine was loaded with fruit. Caroline was seated in the arbour, dressed in white, a broad-brimmed white straw hat shading the delicate face. All round her was a blaze of blossom ; scarlet, red, blue, yellow, vivid sunlight contrasted by black shadows of the black-green foliage. As Howard approached her through a wicket gate that led from a shrubbery of laurels and pine, he thought how cool and restful she looked. The moment she saw him she rose and went forward to meet him. He remarked how consistently courteous she way, and good tempered. Whatever his mood she showed no irritation. He was half smiling when they met. He took her hand and placed it on his arm. She never nagged ; she had no small accusations and reproaches; he could not tolerate gusty women ! He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed it. Nothing teaches pity like knowledge of pain ; prosperity tests a man more than adversity. In adversity Howard's whole nature had been depressed, but he looked down from his success gently and graciously. She smiled and blushed ; he did not see her blush, because of her broad-brimmed hat, but when she turned her eyes to his, she saw how clear they were. She looked young and bright in spite of her paleness. He could not know how his nearness revived her; made life sweet; gave it meaning; filled it with energy and hope and ecstasy. They strolled to the shade. She looked anxiously at his worn face. " You have not slept !" she said. It was their first meeting that day. Howard had been abroad at an early hour.

He lifted his hat from his head as though to find something refreshing. " It is the heat," he said, pausing for a moment, then continued : " Caroline, this book has taken it out of me somehow. I feel like a watch-dog on the chain, tirod of watching and sick of the chain. Shall I start off with the billy, and go 'on the wallaby ' ! Eh, walrine T She saw the wish in his oyes, heard tho longing in the tones he tried to make careless. Sh^ had a swift struggle with herself. He wanted to go free. True ; it was a protest of tired nerves to further strain. A quick mental picture formed itself of that first night she had seen him "on the ti'anip," when he came to The Whare with the snow on his shoulders, and brought into the deadness of her life a new, keen interest. It struck her suddenly, and with poignant pain how much of his old force was missing. "Go!" she said, impulsively, putting away her wish that he would not. " You would not mind ? You would not feel too much alone? I should bo back almost directly !" There was no attempt at deception in his eagerness ; his face had brightened ; there was more animation in his manner than she had seen for months. " There is something of the vagabond in me, Caroline," he said, in a tone of self-depi-eciation, which had entered into his manner towards her of late, and at which she often wondered. It seemed almost that he was determined to be tender towards her whatever else he might not be. This hint of remorse hurt her for him and for herself. " Oh ! I can understand ; it is the body craving for movement after long inaction." She could not bear to seem to grudge him relaxation and rest, but if he could have rested with her beside him. Ah ! how different. " Could you not go out of town also?" he asked. " Somewhere to the mountains ? or would you prefer having someone to stay with you here ?" • She laughed. " I shall remain in undisturbed possession

till you return. You are developing a capacity for worrying ! You forget that I can take care of myself very well indeed." " You take care of me. And you have the greatest ' capacity ' for keeping still of any one I know." He looked down at her, wistful, if might be, of probing her reserve. " Do you know, Caroline," he added, after a moment's study of her profile, " you give me the idea of one loaitincj. That is it — of one waiting. What are you waiting for, waliine ?" "You!" her heart cried out, but her lips

only trembled with the unspoken word. When Howai-d assumed this familiar tone it was almost more than she could bear. It emphasized the distance between them. They were strangers who conversed kindly, with not enough familiarity and security of each other to tear aside the veil.

Caroline did not answer the question put, but spoke of his route. Where should he go?

" Somewhere cooler," was his absentminded answer. He was thinking that his wife had never loved, and never could love but one, and that one had been her brother.

[to be continued.]