Anthony Hope

“ She had been so wont to think him Bernadette's man—whether in joy or in delusion, or in the cruel shock of sudden enlightenment—so wont to think Bernadette invincible, that even Bernadette's memory seemed a thing that could hardly be displaced. She craved a probation, a searching test both of her own feelings and of Arthur's. She feared while she enjoyed, and of set purpose nursed her doubts. There was not always skating—not always bright sun, keen air, and the rapture of motion, incentives to hot blood. If he deluded himself, she would have compassion ready and friendship for him unimpaired ”

“ The meaning of the change that puzzled Esther Norton Ward was no riddle to her; the touch of love had awakened the instinct to coquetry and fascination; feelings long latent and idle were once more in activity, swaying the woman's soul and ruling her thoughts. Judith had little doubt of what the end would be, whether it came clandestinely, or openly, or passed from the one to the other, as such things often did. Still, so long as there was a chance, so long as she had a card to play——! She played Cousin Arthur now—for what he was worth. ”

“ And that look of contempt he had seen again when Arthur Lisle, in answer to Joe Halliday's clumsy jokes, replied in his cool proud voice that, as he walked home by Oxford Street, he had met with "nothing out of the common." He had met a common fellow with a common woman, and, as was common, the common fellow was drunk. With all the sharpness wherewith humiliation pricks a man, with all the keenness wherewith hatred can read the mind of an enemy, he pointed for himself the meaning of Arthur's careless-sounding words. ”

“ He showed no jealousy of her preferences; that she would ever give him cause for serious jealousy, fears for his honour, had never yet entered his head; such matters did not lie within the ordinary ambit of his thoughts. But the sense of failure had bitten deep into his heart; his pride chafed under it perpetually. His life was soured.
Arthur saw little of all this, and of what he did see he made light. It is always the easiest and most comfortable thing to assume that people are doing as they like and liking what they are doing. ”

“ Judith smiled. "The situation is saved just by my not having to do it. If I had to do it for my bread-and-butter I should hate it like poison. But, thank heaven, I've four hundred a year, and if I spend the summer with them, it's because Godfrey and Margaret want me. The winter I keep for myself—Switzerland part of the time, then Rome, or Florence. So I'm quite independent, you see. I'm always a visitor. Besides, of course, nobody could be more gracious than Bernadette; graciousness is part of being irresistible."
"I really do think that being pretty improves people," said Esther. ”

“ You won't forgive Oliver, I suppose—my old Sir Oliver! In fact, if I know you, Cousin Arthur, you've been trying to paint him blacker in the hope of making me whiter! But he gives me a wonderful life. I never really knew what a man could do for a woman's life before. Well, I'd had no chance of understanding that, had I? It's not being in love that I mean so much. After all, I've been in love before—yes, and with Godfrey, as I told you once. ”

“ He was different now from Marie Sarradet's placid, contented, half-condescending wooer, different from him who had worshipped Bernadette with virgin eyes—different now even from the forsaken and remorseful lover of that black hour at Hilsey. He had received an initiation—a beginning of wisdom, an opening of the eyes, a glimpse of what a man's life may be and hold and do for him. He had seen lights glimmering on the surface of other lives, and now and then, however dimly and fitfully, revealing their deeper waters. ”

“ Marie was in no mood to be courted yet; her dream was too recently dispelled, and her steady nature could not leap to sudden change. But her eyes were on his strong qualities again; she looked at him less through Arthur Lisle's spectacles; that side of her which liked him could now assert itself. She turned to his aid readily, and, with her shrewd calculation seconding the impulse of friendship, made his company seem as welcome for its own sake as for the services it promised.
"You always bring a breath of comfort with you, Sidney," she told him gratefully. ”

“ Judith was looking forward to seeing Margaret and to the country pursuits she loved; her talk was of riding, fishing, and tennis. Arthur was gleeful; the short separation seemed but to flavour the prospect of long and blissful days at Hilsey. Bernadette herself was the most silent of the party, a thing quite contrary to her wont. She sat there with a queer attractive sense of power—in kind perhaps like what they say has sometimes tempted men to secret murder—as though she dispensed fate to her companions and disposed of their lives, though they knew nothing of it. ”

“ Bernadette's lips twisted in a smile and she gave Judith a glance of merry reproof. They were both amused to see how entirely the point of the observation was lost on Arthur.
"I daresay we shall find we have, when we come to know each other better," he agreed in innocent sincerity.
Bernadette was stirred to one of the impulses of affectionate tenderness which the absolute honesty and simplicity of his devotion now and then roused in her. His faith in her was as absolute as his adoration was unbounded. For him she was as far above frailty as she was beyond rivalry or competition. ”

“ Arthur laughed again. What a way to talk of his precious brief, pregnant with all those wonderful possibilities! What an epithet for the barque that carried Cæsar and his fortunes! But his laugh had sympathy and understanding in it. Across the narrow table sat another Cæsar—and there was a barque that carried his fortunes, and was to set sail within a short space on a stormy and dangerous voyage, over a sea beset with shoals.
"Well, anyhow, here's jolly good luck to Jephthah's Daughter!" he said. Such was the title of Mr. Claud Beverley's play of real life. ”

“ It was, as it were, a devastation, a clean sweep of all the best things in his life—his adoration for Bernadette, his loyalty to Godfrey, the affection which had gathered in his heart for these his kinsfolk, for this the home of his forefathers. A dull numb pain of the soul afflicted him, such as a man might feel in the body as he comes to consciousness after a stunning blow. The future seemed impossible to face; he did not know how to set about the task of reconstructing it. He was past anger, past resentment; he did not want Oliver Wyse's blood now. ”

“ Judith joined again in his laugh. Godfrey's course of action struck on their humour as the culmination, the supreme expression, of his attitude towards the world and its troubles. He could not fight them in the open; he took refuge from them within his fortifications. If they laid siege and the attack pressed hotly, he retreated from the outer to the inner defences. What the philosopher found in a mind free from passions—a citadel than which a man has nothing more secure whereto he can fly for refuge and there be inexpugnable—Godfrey Lisle found in a more material form. ”

“ As Arthur watched Bernadette at dinner, serene, gracious, and affectionate—wary too by reason of that tiny slip—his suspicions seemed to his reason again incredible. Judith must be wrong, and he himself wrong also. And her friend Sir Oliver—so composed, so urbane, so full of interesting talk about odd parts of the world that he had seen and the strange things which had befallen him! Surely people who were doing or contemplating what they were suspected of could not behave like that? That must be beyond human nature? He and Judith must be wrong! ”

“ He was in a rage, not only with Arthur Lisle, but with himself and his luck—which had indeed been somewhat perverse. Lashing himself with these various irritants, he soon produced another sore spot—Marie Sarradet's behaviour. He was an older friend than Arthur; she had, he declared, backed Arthur up in his airy insolence; he swore to himself that he had seen her smile at it. At any rate she had not backed him up; to a man in a rage, or several rages, it was enough—more than enough for a man of his temper, to whom the desire for a woman was the desire for a mastery over her. ”

“ In London an agreeable young man who has—or behaves as if he had—nothing to do will soon find things to do in plenty. Arthur's days were full; lunches, dinners, theatres, dances, tennis to play, cricket and polo matches to watch, a race-meeting now and then, motor excursions or a day on the river—time went like lightning in amusing himself and other people. ”

“ Her dog, her whole dog, and nothing but her dog, was what Miss Crewdson wanted.
Arthur sat down before his fire and lit his pipe. He abandoned himself to a gratified contemplation of the turn in his fortunes. A great moment when a young man sees his chosen profession actually opening before him, when dreams and hopes crystallize into reality, when he plucks the first fruit from branches which a little while ago seemed so far out of reach! This moment it was now Arthur's to enjoy. ”

“ Lisle stood for against herself and what she represented—candid-minded Marie could not for a moment doubt the issue. Her little, firmly repressed grievance against Arthur faded away; she must have a grievance against fate, if against anything. For it was fate or chance which had brought Mrs. Lisle on to the scene just when the issue hung in the balance. Yet with her quick woman's intuition, quickened again by her jealous interest, she saw clearly in ten minutes, in a quarter of an hour—while Bernadette chattered about the farce (valuable anyhow as a topic in common!) ”

“ It was judged to be safe for father and son to meet. Sidney brought the rescued sinner to Regent's Park. Compunction seized them at the sight of one another; the boy was so pale, shaken, and contrite; the old man was thinner, aged, and feeble. The old tenderness between them revived; each tried to console the other. Quite resolved to protect his business, Mr. Sarradet consented to forgive his son. Humbled to his soul, Raymond asked no more than to be received back into favour on any terms. Marie and Sidney stood by, helping, favouring, and exchanging glances of self-congratulation. ”

“ All Arthur's feelings fought against the sacrilegious idea, but it would not be denied an entry into his mind—after the querulous anger, after the curiosity, mingling with the futile fussiness, there had been an undercurrent of relief—relief that nothing and nobody had to be faced really, that really nothing could be done, nothing expected from him, no call made now on courage or on energy—no, nor on a love or a sympathy already dead before Oliver Wyse struck them the final blow. ”

“ A fine slap in the face for Sidney Barslow it would be, for instance!
Arthur's generous impulse, the desire to show himself a warm and grateful friend to his champion, was merged now in a great and absorbing contentment. It prevented him from considering how an engagement and a marriage would consort with his prospects and his career; it narrowed his vision of his own life and mind to the present moment. He had got what he had been pining for—that intimate and (so to say) ministering sympathy which a man perhaps can get, and certainly can ask, from a woman only. ”

“ That's pretty evident," laughed Norton Ward. "You shouldn't give her away before all of us, Arthur. If she does make assignations with you——"
"If she does make assignations, she keeps them—no matter who knows," said Bernadette. A little mocking smile hung persistently about her lips as she sat there, regarded by them all, the ornament of the group, the recipient of the flattery of their eyes.
"If she made one with me," said Sir Christopher, "I don't think I should be able to keep it to myself either. I should be carried away by pride, as no doubt Mr. Lisle is." ”

“ Arthur too saw the change, or rather felt it, as he would feel a variation in the atmosphere. He could have given no such clear account of wherein it lay as Esther had arrived at, nor any such simple explanation as served for Norton Ward or Sir Christopher. Had he been pressed, he might have said—doubtfully—that she seemed to have become more his equal, and more like other women in a way, though still infinitely more delightful. But, no man asking him to analyse his feeling, he did not attempt the vain task. ”

“ It was not strengthened by any congeniality of disposition, nor by the tender appeal of frailty or sickness—despite that doctor's advice, Margaret was robust and healthy. They did not see much of one another really, not even at Hilsey. There was so much to do. Bernadette was not a habit in her child's life and doings; she was an interlude, and probably not seldom an interruption. Still there they were—mother and child. And the child would grow up, understand, and remember. No woman could make light of all that; if Oliver thought she could, he did her gross injustice. ”

“ Joe Halliday sat on the table—Sacred Love and Profane, Stern Duty and Alluring Venture.
"I'm putting up five hundred. Be a sport, and cover it!" said Joe.
Something in Arthur Lisle leapt to a tremendous decision—a wild throw with Fortune. "You can put me down for the thousand you want, Joe," he said in quite a calm voice.
"Christopher!" Joe ejaculated in amazed admiration. Then a scruple, a twinge of remorse, seized him for a moment. "That's pretty steep, old chap—and nothing's an absolute cert!" Temperament triumphed. "Though if there's one on God's earth we've got it!" ”

“ Most people don't. But if you did, I could show you mine. Only if you're sure you like guinea-pigs!"
Arthur laughed outright. For all the world, it was like the way Godfrey had invited him down to Hilsey! The same depreciation of what was offered, the same anxiety not to force an unwilling acceptance!
"Guinea-pigs! I just love them!" he exclaimed with all possible emphasis.
"Oh, well then!" said Margaret, almost resignedly, with a sort of "Your blood be on your own head" manner, as she jumped down and put her free hand into his; the other held tight hold of the headless doll. ”

“ Arthur received the impression that he would think twice and thrice before he emerged from his refuge. He looked yellowish—very likely he had fretted himself into some little ailment—but there was about him an air of relief, almost of resignation. "At all events I needn't see the man when he comes"—so Arthur imagined Godfrey's inner feelings and smiled within himself at such weakness, at the mixture of timidity and bearishness which turned an unwelcome arrival into a real calamity, a thing to be feared and dodged. ”

“ Indeed it was pitiable for the forsaken jealous lover—denied even a departure from the scene of his woes, condemned to dwell in the house so full of her and yet so empty, the butt (so his sensitive fancy imagined) of half the gossip and half the giggles of which to his ears Hilsey Manor was already full. But the forsaken lover must sink himself in the sympathetic kinsman—if he could; must wear his face and speak in his tones. A monstrous hypocrisy! "Bernadette's run away, but, I'm sorry to say, not with me, Godfrey." ”

“ It made him forget that the prime function of a lover and his supreme expression lie in giving, and that the woman truly makes the man in love with her when she makes him give all he has and think that he is giving brass for gold. But if this it is to be a lover, Arthur Lisle was no lover now; if this it is to be a lover, Marie Sarradet had never seen and scarce imagined one. ”

“ How he soared in a heaven of his own making, with an angel of his own manufacture! With what a thud he would come to earth, and how the angel would moult her wings, if a certain thing happened! Oh, what a fool he was—yet attractive in his folly! For the sake of woman, she could almost love him for the love he bore his Bernadette—who was not, by a long way, the real one.
"I'm rather glad Wyse isn't going to be here for a bit yet," said Arthur thoughtfully. "We shall be jollier by ourselves."
Queer that he should put a name so pat to the shadow which he could not see! ”

“ If Godfrey lived apart from the life of the house, doubtless it was by his own choice; and, if he had a grievance, it must just be about money. The paymaster always has a grievance about money; he is Ishmael, with every man's and every woman's hand against him—stretched out for more. A legitimate occasion for a grumble—but it would be absurd to make much of it.
Besides what serious trouble could there be when Bernadette was so radiant and serene, so gay and merry with himself and with Judith, so gentle and friendly with her husband? ”

“ Under the threat of rivalry, the generous impulse to protect became hatred of another's mastery, devotion took on the heat of passion, and jealousy lent the vision of its hundred eyes.
But Bernadette too was watchful and wary; her position gave her an added quickness of perception. Oliver's contemptuous self-confidence might notice nothing, but, as she watched the other two, the effect of his persuasions wore off; she became vaguely sensible of an atmosphere of suspicion around her. She felt herself under observation, curious and intense from Arthur, from Judith half-scornful, half-amused. ”

“ Yet she could not hide the great contentment which possessed her; native sincerity made such concealment impossible. Arthur saw her enviable state and, while he smiled, honestly rejoiced. The old sense of comradeship revived in him; he remembered how much happiness he had owed her. The last silly remnant of condescending surprise at her choice vanished.
"It does one good to see you so happy," he declared. "I bask in the rays, Marie!"
"I hope you'll often come and bask—afterwards."
"I will, if you'll let me. We must go on being friends. I want to be better friends with Sidney." ”

“ It was his old climax, his old hope, aspiration, vision. Arthur heard it again, had heard him working up to it through that procession of "Ifs," with a mixture of pity and amusement. Would the new play do the trick, would "real life" serve him better than the humours of farce? Would that "success" ever come, or would all Tom Mayne's life be a series of vain efforts to chuck an office ultimately unchuckable, a long and futile striving to end his double personality, and to be nobody but Claud Beverley? Full of sympathy, Arthur wondered.
"It's bound to be a success, old chap. ”

“ The girls were aflame with primitive woman's admiration of fighting man—of muscles, skill, and pluck. Joe was an amateur of the noble art and must have every detail of the encounter. Old Sarradet fussed about, now scolding his son, now surreptitiously patting him on the shoulder, always coming back to Sidney with fresh praises and fresh proffers of champagne. Marie took her seat permanently by the wounded warrior's side, and delicately conveyed the foaming glass to his lacerated lips. More than admiration was in her heart; she was a prey to severe remorse. ”

“ Esther observed with ample emphasis. Protected by the gloom, she drew nearer to Judith, put her arm round her, and kissed her. "You mustn't mind so much," she whispered. "Men have to take tumbles all the time, and Arthur took his bravely."
"Oh, after the other thing it is such hard luck! And I—we—didn't know how to—to help or console him. I wish Bernadette had been there! She'd have known how to do that."
Esther frowned at the idea of this very desperate remedy. A forlorn silence fell on the car, till they reached home and got out. In the hall Esther laid a hand on Judith's arm. ”

“ Arthur murmured.
"Oh, I've no intention of rotting Sidney about it. If only because he'd probably hit me in the eye!"
"Yes, we know his fighting powers," laughed Amabel in admiring reminiscence. Her tone changed to one of regretful exasperation. "Raymond is a goose!"
"But we mustn't spoil Mr. Lisle's party with our troubles," said Marie, smiling again.
"Oh, come, I say, I'm not altogether an outsider!" Arthur protested with a sudden touch of vehemence.
"Oh, no, not that," Marie murmured, with a little shake of her head; her tone did not sound very convinced. Amabel giggled feebly. ”