about the middle of a may afternoon, seven years later, a young man turned out of the strand into a quiet street in the neighbourhood of covent garden and began looking about him as if endeavouring to locate the whereabouts of some particular place. catching sight of the name william robertson on a neighbouring window, with the word publisher underneath it, he turned into the door of the establishment thus designated, and encountering an office-boy who was busily engaged in reading a comic journal inside a small pen labelled ‘inquiries,’ he asked with great politeness if mr. robertson was at that moment disengaged. the office-boy in his own good time condescended to examine the personal appearance of the inquirer, and having assured himself that the gentleman was worthy his attention he asked in sharp tones if he had an appointment with mr. robertson. to this the stranger replied that he believed he was expected by mr. robertson during the afternoon, but not at any particular hour, and produced a card from which the office-boy learned that he was confronting the viscount saxonstowe. he forthwith disappeared into some inner region and came back a moment later with a young gentleman who cultivated long hair and an ?sthetic style of necktie, and bowed lord saxonstowe through various doors into a pleasant ante-room, where he accommodated his lordship with a chair and the times, and informed him that mr. robertson would be at liberty in a few moments. lord saxonstowe remarked that he was in no hurry at all, and would wait mr. robertson’s convenience. the young gentleman with the luxuriant locks replied politely that he was quite sure mr. robertson would not keep his lordship waiting long, and added that they were experiencing quite summer-like weather. lord saxonstowe agreed{103} to this proposition, and opened the times. his host or keeper for the time being seated himself at a desk, one half of which was shared by a lady typist who had affected great interest in her work since lord saxonstowe’s entrance, and who now stole surreptitious glances at him as he scanned the newspaper. the clerk scribbled a line or two on a scrap of paper and passed it across to her. she untwisted it and read: ‘this is the chap that did that tremendous exploration in the north of asia: a real live lord, you know.’ she scribbled an answering line: ‘of course i know—do you think i didn’t recognise the name?’ and passed it over with a show of indignation. the clerk indited another epistle: ‘don’t look as if he’d seen much of anything, does he?’ the girl perused this, scribbled back: ‘his eyes and moustache are real jam!’ and fell to work at her machine again. the clerk sighed, caressed a few sprouts on his top-lip, and remarking to his own soul that these toffs always catch the girls’ eyes, fell to doing nothing in a practised way.
viscount saxonstowe, quite unconscious of the interest he was exciting, stared about him after a time and began to wonder if the two young people at the desk usually worked with closed windows. the atmosphere was heavy, and there was a concentrated smell of paper, and ink, and paste. he thought of the wind-swept plains and steppes on which he had spent long months—he had gone through some stiff experiences there, but he confessed to himself that he would prefer a bitter cold night in winter in similar solitudes to a summer’s day in that ante-room. his own healthy tan and the clearness of his eyes, his alert look and the easy swing with which he walked, would never have been developed amidst such surroundings, and the consciousness of his own rude health made him feel sorry for the two white slaves before him. he felt that if he could have his own way he would cut the young gentleman’s hair, put him into a flannel shirt and trot him round; as for the young lady, he would certainly send her into the country for{104} a holiday. and while he thus indulged his fancies a door opened and he heard voices, and two men stepped into the ante-room.
he instinctively recognised one as the publisher whom he had come to see; at the other, a much younger man, he found himself staring with some sense of recognition which was as yet vague and unformed. he felt sure that he had met him before, and under some unusual circumstances, but he could not remember the occasion, nor assure his mind that the face on which he looked was really familiar—it was more suggestive of something that had been familiar than familiar in itself. he concluded that he must have seen a photograph of it in some illustrated paper; the man was in all likelihood a popular author. saxonstowe carefully looked him over as he stood exchanging a last word with the publisher on the threshold of the latter’s room. he noted the gracefulness of the slim figure in the perfectly fashioned clothes, and again he became conscious that his memory was being stirred. the man under observation was swinging a light walking-cane as he chatted; he made a sudden movement with it to emphasise a point, and saxonstowe’s memory cleared itself. his thoughts flew back ten years: he saw two boys, one the very image of incarnate wrath, the other an equally faithful impersonation of amazement, facing each other in an antique hall, with rapiers in hand and a sense of battle writ large upon their faces and figures.
‘and i can’t remember the chap’s name!’ he thought. ‘but this is he.’
he looked at his old antagonist more closely, and with a keener interest. lucian was now twenty-five; he had developed into a tall, well-knit man of graceful and sinuous figure; he was dressed with great care and with strict attention to the height of the prevalent fashion, but with a close study of his own particular requirements; his appearance was distinguished and notable, and saxonstowe, little given to sentiment as regards manly beauty, confessed to himself that the face on which he{105} looked might have been moulded by nature from a canvas or marble of the renaissance. it was a face for which some women would forget everything,—saxonstowe, with this thought half-formed in his mind, caught sight of the an?emic typist, who, oblivious of anything else in the room, had fixed all her attention on lucian. her hands rested, motionless, on the keys of the machine before her; her head was slightly tilted back, her eyes shone, her lips were slightly parted; a faint flush of colour had stolen into her cheeks, and for the moment she was a pretty girl. saxonstowe smiled—it seemed to him that he had been privileged to peep into the secret chamber of a girlish soul. ‘she would give something to kiss his hand,’ he thought.
lucian turned away from the publisher with a nod; his eye caught saxonstowe’s and held it. a puzzled look came into his face; he paused and involuntarily stretched out his hand, staring at saxonstowe searchingly. saxonstowe smiled and gave his hand in return.
‘we have met somewhere,’ said lucian wonderingly, ‘i cannot think where.’
‘nor can i remember your name,’ answered saxonstowe. ‘but—we met in the stone hall at simonstower.’
lucian’s face lighted with the smile which had become famous for its sweetness.
‘and with rapiers!’ he exclaimed. ‘i remember—i remember! you are dickie—dickie feversham.’ he began to laugh. ‘how quaint that scene was!’ he said. ‘i have often thought that it had the very essence of the dramatic in it. let me see—what did we fight about? was it haidee? how amusing—because haidee and i are married.’
‘that,’ said saxonstowe, ‘seems a happy ending to the affair. but i think it ended happily at the time. and even yet i cannot remember your name.’
mr. robertson stepped forward before lucian could reply. he introduced the young men to each other in due form. then saxonstowe knew that his old enemy{106} was one of the great literary lions of the day; and lucian recognised saxonstowe as the mighty traveller of whose deeds most people were talking. they looked at each other with interest, and mr. robertson felt a glow of pride when he remembered that his was the only imprint which had ever appeared on a title-page of lucian damerel’s, and that he was shortly to publish the two massive volumes in which viscount saxonstowe had given to the world an account of his wondrous wanderings. he rubbed his hands as he regarded these two splendid young men; it did him good to be near them.
lucian was worshipping saxonstowe with the guileless adoration of a child that looks on a man who has seen great things and done great things. it was a trick of his: he had once been known to stand motionless for an hour, gazing in silence at a man who had performed a deed of desperate valour, had suffered the loss of his legs in doing it, and had been obliged to exhibit himself with a placard round his neck in order to scrape a living together. lucian was now conjuring up a vision of the steppes and plains over which saxonstowe had travelled with his life in his hands.
‘when will you dine with us?’ he said, suddenly bursting into speech. ‘to-night—to-morrow?—the day after—when? come before everybody snaps you up—you will have no peace for your soul or rest for your body after your book is out.’
‘then i shall run away to certain regions where one can easily find both,’ answered saxonstowe laughingly. ‘i assure you i have no intention of wasting either body or soul in london.’
then they arranged that the new lion was to dine with mr. and mrs. lucian damerel on the following day, and lucian departed, while saxonstowe followed mr. robertson into his private room.
‘your lordship has met mr. damerel before?’ said the publisher, who had something of a liking for gossip about his pet authors.{107}
‘once,’ answered saxonstowe. ‘we were boys at the time. i had no idea that he was the poet of whose work i have heard so much since coming home.’
‘he has had an extraordinarily successful career,’ said mr. robertson, glancing complacently at a little row of thin volumes bound in dark green cloth which figured in a miniature book-case above his desk. ‘i have published all his work—he leaped into fame with his first book, which i produced when he was at oxford, and since then he has held a recognised place. yes, one may say that damerel is one of fortune’s spoiled darlings—everything that he has done has turned out a great success. he has the grand manner in poetry. i don’t know whether your lordship has read his great tragedy, domitia, which was staged so magnificently at the athen?um, and proved the sensation of the year?’
‘i am afraid,’ replied saxonstowe, ‘that i have had few opportunities of reading anything at all for the past five years. i think mr. damerel’s first volume had just appeared when i left england, and books, you know, are not easily obtainable in the wilds of central asia. now that i have better chances, i must not neglect them.’
‘you have a great treat in store, my lord,’ said the publisher. he nodded his head several times, as if to emphasise the remark. ‘yes,’ he continued, ‘damerel has certainly been favoured by fortune. everything has conspired to increase the sum of his fame. his romantic marriage, of course, was a great advertisement.’
‘an advertisement!’
‘i mean, of course, from my standpoint,’ said mr. robertson hastily. ‘he ran away with a very beautiful girl who was on the very eve of contracting a most advantageous marriage from a worldly point of view, and the affair was much talked about. there was a great rush on damerel’s books during the next few weeks—it is wonderful how a little sensation like that helps the sale of a book. i remember that lord pintleford published a novel with me some years ago which{108} we could not sell at all. he shot his coachman in a fit of anger—that sold the book like hot cakes.’
‘i trust the unfortunate coachman was not seriously injured,’ said saxonstowe, who was much amused by these revelations. ‘it is, i confess, an unusual method of advertising a book, and one which i should not care to adopt.’
‘oh, we can spare your lordship the trouble!’ said mr. robertson. ‘there’ll be no need to employ any unusual methods in making your lordship’s book known. i have already subscribed two large editions of it.’
with this gratifying announcement mr. robertson plunged into the business which had brought lord saxonstowe to his office, and for that time no more was said of lucian damerel and his great fame. but that night saxonstowe dined with his aunt, lady firmanence, a childless widow who lived on past scandals and present gossip, and chancing to remark that he had encountered lucian and renewed a very small acquaintance with him, was greeted with a sniff which plainly indicated that lady firmanence had something to say.
‘and where, pray, did you meet lucian damerel at any time?’ she inquired. ‘he was unknown, or just beginning to be known, when you left england.’
‘it is ten years since i met him,’ answered saxonstowe. ‘it was when i was staying at saxonstowe with my uncle. i met damerel at simonstower, and the circumstances were rather amusing.’
he gave an account of the duel, which afforded lady firmanence much amusement, and he showed her the scar on his hand, and laughed as he related the story of lucian’s terrible earnestness.
‘but i have never forgotten,’ he concluded, ‘how readily and sincerely he asked my forgiveness when he found that he had been in the wrong—it rather knocked me over, you know, because i didn’t quite understand that he really felt the thing—we were both such boys, and the girl was a child.’
‘oh, lucian damerel has good feeling,’ said lady{109} firmanence. ‘you wouldn’t understand the italian strain in him. but it is amusing that you should have fought over haidee brinklow, who is now mrs. lucian. i’m glad he married her, and that you didn’t.’
‘considering that i am to dine with mr. and mrs. lucian damerel to-morrow,’ said saxonstowe, ‘it is a bit odd that i don’t know any more of them than this. she, i remember, was some connection of lord simonstower’s; but who is he?’
‘lucian damerel? oh, he was the son of cyprian damerel, an italian artist who married the daughter of one of simonstower’s tenants. simonstower was at all times greatly interested in him, and it has always been my firm impression that it was he who sent the boy to oxford. at any rate, when he died, which was just before lucian damerel came of age, simonstower left him ten thousand pounds.’
‘that was good,’ said saxonstowe.
‘i don’t know,’ said lady firmanence. ‘it has always seemed to me from what i have seen of him—and i keep my eyes open on most things—that it would have been far better for that young man if fortune had dealt him a few sound kicks instead of so many halfpence. depend upon it, saxonstowe, it’s a bad thing for a man, and especially for a man of that temperament, to be pampered too much. now, lucian damerel has been pampered all his life—i know a good deal about him, because i was constantly down at saxonstowe during the last two or three years of your uncle’s life, and saxonstowe, as you may remember, is close to simonstower. i know how lucian was petted and pampered by his own people, and by the parson and his daughter, and by the old lord. his way has always been made smooth for him—it would have done him good to find a few rough places here and there. he had far too much flattery poured upon him when his success came, and he has got used to expecting it, though indeed,’ concluded the old lady, laughing, ‘heaven knows i’m wrong in saying “got used,” for damerel’s{110} one of the sort who take all the riches and luxuries of the world as their just due.’
‘he seemed to me to be very simple and unaffected,’ said saxonstowe.
lady firmanence nodded the ribbons of her cap.
‘yes,’ she said, ‘he’s sadly too simple, and i wish—for i can’t help liking him—that he was as affected as some of those young upstarts who cultivate long hair and velvet coats on the strength of a slim volume printed on one side of the paper only. no—lucian damerel hasn’t a scrap of affectation about him, and he isn’t a poseur. i wish he were affected and that he would pose—i do indeed, for his own sake.’
saxonstowe knew that his aunt was a clever woman. he held his tongue, asking her by his eyes to explain this desire of hers, which seemed so much at variance with her well-known love of humbug and cant.
‘oh, of course i know you’re wondering at that!’ she said. ‘well, the explanation is simple enough. i wish lucian damerel were a poseur, i wish he were affected, even to the insufferable stage, for the simple reason that if he were these things it would show that he was alive to the practical and business side of the matter. what is he? a writer. he’ll have to live by writing—at the rate he and haidee live they’ll soon exhaust their resources—and he ought to be alive to the ￡ s. d. of his trade, for it is a trade. as things are, he isn’t alive. the difference between lucian damerel and some other men of equal eminence in his own craft is just this: they are for ever in an attitude, crying out, “look at me—is it not wonderful that i am so clever?” lucian, on the other hand, seems to suggest an attitude and air of “wouldn’t it be curious if i weren’t?”’
‘i think,’ said saxonstowe, ‘that there may be some affectation in that.’
‘affectation,’ said lady firmanence, ‘depends upon two things if it is to be successful: the power to deceive cleverly, and the ability to deceive for ever. lucian damerel couldn’t deceive anybody—he’s a child, the{111} child who believes the world to be an illimitable nursery crammed with inexhaustible toys.’
‘you mean that he plays at life?’
‘i mean that he plays in life,’ said lady firmanence. ‘he’s still sporting on his mother’s breast, and he’ll go on sporting until somebody picks him up, smacks him soundly, and throws him into a corner. then, of course, he will be vastly surprised to find that such treatment could be meted out to him.’
‘then let us hope that he will be able to live in his world of dreams for ever,’ said saxonstowe.
‘so he might, if the state were to establish an asylum for folk of his sort,’ said lady firmanence. ‘but he happens to be married, and married to haidee brinklow.’
‘my publisher,’ remarked saxonstowe, ‘gloated over the romantic circumstances of the marriage, and appeared to think that that sort of thing was good for trade—made books sell, you know.’
‘i have no doubt that damerel’s marriage made his books sell, and kept domitia running at the athen?um for at least three months longer,’ replied lady firmanence.
‘were the circumstances, then, so very romantic?’
‘i dare say they appealed to the sensations, emotions, feelings, and notions of the british public,’ said the old lady. ‘haidee brinklow, after a campaign of two seasons, was about to marry a middle-aged person who had made much money in something or other, and was prepared to execute handsome settlements. it was all arranged when lucian burst upon the scene, blazing with triumph, youth, and good looks. he was the comet of that season, and haidee was attracted by the glitter of his tail. i suppose he and she were madly in love with each other for quite a month—unfortunately, during that month they committed the indiscretion of marriage.’
‘a runaway marriage, was it not?’
‘under the very noses of the mamma and the bridegroom-elect. there was one happy result of the affair,’{112} said lady firmanence musingly; ‘it drove mrs. brinklow off to somewhere or other on the continent, and there she has since remained—she took her defeat badly. now the jilted gentleman took it in good part—it is said that he is quite a sort of grandpapa in the establishment, and has realised that there are compensations even in being jilted.’
saxonstowe meditated upon these things in silence.
‘mrs. damerel was a pretty girl,’ he said, after a time.
‘mrs. damerel is a nice little doll,’ said lady firmanence, ‘a very pretty toy indeed. give her plenty of pretty things to wear and sweets to eat, and all the honey of life to sip at, and she’ll do well and go far; but don’t ask her to draw cheques against a mental balance which she never had, or you’ll get them back—dishonoured.’
‘are there any children?’ saxonstowe asked.
‘only themselves,’ replied his aunt, ‘and quite plenty too, in one house. if it were not for millie chilverstone, i don’t know what they would do—she descends upon them now and then, straightens them up as far as she can, and sets the wheels working once more. she is good to them.’
‘and who is she? i have some sort of recollection of her name,’ said saxonstowe.
‘she is the daughter of the parson at simonstower—the man who tutored lucian damerel.’
‘ah, i remember—she was the girl who came with him to the castle that day, and he called her sprats. a lively, good-humoured girl, with a heap of freckles in a very bright face,’ said saxonstowe.
‘she is little altered,’ remarked lady firmanence. ‘now, that was the girl for lucian damerel! she would have taken care of his money, darned his socks, given him plain dinners, seen that the rent was paid, and made a man of him.’
‘admirable qualifications,’ laughed saxonstowe. ‘but one might reasonably suppose that a poet of{113} damerel’s quality needs others—some intellectual gifts, for example, in his helpmeet.’
‘stuff and nonsense!’ retorted lady firmanence. ‘he wants a good managing housekeeper with a keen eye for the butcher’s bill and a genius for economy. as for intellect—pray, saxonstowe, don’t foster the foolish notion that poets are intellectual. don’t you know that all genius is lopsided? your poet has all his brain-power in one little cell—there may be a gold-mine there, but the rest of him is usually weak even to childishness. and the great need of the weak man is the strong woman.’
saxonstowe’s silence was a delicate and flattering compliment to lady firmanence’s perspicacity.