Anthony Hope

“ Even the bright hues of Harry's future grew a hundredfold brighter when beheld through this enchanted medium, while Vivien's simple ideal of life seemed heaven realized. Visions were their only facts, and dreams alone their truth. Neither from without nor from within could aught harm the airy fabric that they built—Vivien out of ignorance, Harry by help of that fine oblivion of his.
For a long while Isobel Vintry—fled to her room lest Wellgood should seek her—watched them from her window with envious eyes. For them the dreams; for her, most uninspiring reality! ”

“ The beliefs and the aspirations with which he had wooed Vivien were not dead; they were struggling for life against their old and mighty enemy. For him Vivien still meant happiness, and more than happiness—a haven for anything that was good in him, a refuge from all that was bad. With all his instincts of pure affection, of loyalty and chivalry, still he loved her and clung to her. She it was still who had power to comfort and soothe him, to send him forth able to do his work again. She was the best thing in his life; she seemed to him well-nigh his only chance against himself. ”

“ Vivien took Sally off again with her. Only Doris Flower sat on by him, silent too, revolving in her mind the chronicles of Meriton, the little town with which her whim had brought her into such close touch, from which she was not now minded wholly to separate herself. It seemed like an anchorage in the wandering sea of her life. It offered some things very good—a few firm friends, a sense of home, a place where she was Doris Flower, not merely the Nun, the Quaker, or Joan of Arc. Did she wish that it offered yet more? Ah, there she paused! She was a worker born, as Andy himself was. ”

“ In old days they had laughed at Harry's love affairs as at his foible; he seemed all foible now—there was nothing else. His life and its possibilities had narrowed and dwindled down to that. Billy Foot had tried to be serious on the subject. What was the use, when there was only one question to be asked about him—who was the latest woman? An atmosphere of ridicule, kindly, tender, infinitely regretful, yet still ridicule, enveloped the figure of him who once had been a hero. This was a different quality of jest from that which found its occasion in Andy Hayes' patient wooing. ”

“ Harry swore softly; Isobel laughed low.
"This is ridiculous!" she remarked. "Couldn't you take just one turn with Vivien's companion? Your mother might hear straight just once."
"I'll be hanged if I chance it to-night," said Harry. "I'll take Wellgood on at billiards."
"Yes, go and do that; it's much better. It may bring back your colour, Harry."
Harry looked at her in exasperation—and in longing. "I wish there wasn't a woman in the world!" he growled.
"It's men like you who say that," she retorted, smiling. "Go and forget us for an hour." ”

“ Wellgood by the thought of a mastery he deemed already established, and waiting only for his word to be declared; Vivien by a dream that glowed and glittered, refusing too close a touch with earth; Andy by a stout conviction that he must not think about chances, but work away at his timber (he still called it lumber in his inner mind) and his books, pausing only to thank heaven for a wonderful Saturday holiday.
But life was taking chances! Supine in her chair, silent since her one exclamation in championship of Harry Belfield, Isobel Vintry echoed the cry. Life was taking chances? ”

“ Her jealousy caught fresh flame from Vivien's shy revelation—fresh flame and new shame. Harry was repenting—with smiles of memory. She was sinning still, with groans, with all her cunning, and with all her might. Pass the theory that it is each man for himself in this fight, and each woman for her own hand. No doubt; but should not the fight be fair? The girl did not so much as know there was a fight, and should not and must not, unless and until it had gone irrevocably against her. "All's fair in love—and war." Yet traitors suffer death from their own side and the enemy's contempt. ”

“ Harry said to Isobel Vintry, in that low careful voice to which he was nowadays so much addicted.
"Oh well, we can't keep it up this way long anyhow," she answered, and sauntered off to join Vivien.
With Billy, with Andy, as with old Jack, the Nun found enthusiasm enough and to spare.
"How perfectly ripping an idea!" cried Billy. "Because Harry's governor had asked me to stay a fortnight at Halton, and do half a dozen more meetings; and I'm going to. And Andy'll be down here too. Why, we shall all be together! ”

“ How away from human nature! She was now terribly afraid. Playing that part, which seemed now so ridiculous because it assumed that there was no real woman in her, she had brought herself into a perilous pass—between one man's love and another man's wrath. She knew which she feared the more; but she feared both. Somehow her confession to Harry had taken all the courage out of her. She felt as if she could not stand any more by herself. She wanted Harry.
She could not tell Wellgood that henceforth there was to be only his daughter's companion, only Miss Vintry ”

“ He might have acquired the side of democracy the easier of the two to acquire; he might be ready to call any man his equal, whatever his station or his work. He stumbled at the harder task of seeing himself, whatever his work or station, as any man's equal—at claiming or assuming, not at according, equality. And in Meriton! To claim or assume equality with any and every man in Meriton would, if he accepted Jack Rock's offer, be to court ridicule from equals and unequals all alike, and most of all from his admitted inferiors. Surely Harry would never send him to the butcher's shop? ”

“ A faint frown of vexation marred Harry's comely contentment. "Yes, but I don't know that one isn't best out of it. A lot of grind, making yourself pleasant to a lot of fools! Oh, perhaps it's a duty; but it'll wait a bit."
"You're not looking out elsewhere?" Andy asked.
"Give a fellow time!" Harry expostulated. "I've only been married a fortnight! You must let me have a bit of a holiday. Oh, you needn't be afraid I shan't tackle it again soon—Isobel's awfully keen! And I hope to find a rather less dead-alive hole than Meriton." ”

“ But to suffer a challenge, to endure a taunt, to be subjected to a sneer, as a slow-coach, a faint-heart, a boy afraid to tell a girl he loved her, afraid to snatch what he desired! This was a new experience for Harry Belfield, new and unbearable. And when he had only been trying to please his father! Hang this pleasing of one's father, if it leads to things like that!
He dashed up to Nutley one fine afternoon on his bicycle; he was teaching Vivien the exercise, and she was finding that even peril had its charms. ”

“ You're the girl for me, Isobel! It comes home to me—right home—every time I see you. Let's face it—it'll soon be over! A minute with you is worth an hour with her. I tell you I love you, Isobel." He stooped suddenly and kissed the upturned lips.
"You think that to-night. You won't to-morrow. The—the other side of it will come back."
"Face the other side with me, and I can stand it. You love me—you know you do!"
The trees swayed, murmured, and creaked under the wind; the water lapped on the edge of the lake. The footsteps of a man walking up the drive passed unheard by the engrossed lovers. ”

“ In very truth the atmosphere at Nutley was heavy with threatening clouds; unless a fair wind came to scatter them, the storm must soon break. Isobel had fled within her feminine barricades—the barricades which women are so clever at constructing and at persuading the conventions of life to help them to defend. A woman's solitudes may not be stormed; with address she can escape private encounters. In sore fear of Harry because sore afraid of herself, she gave him no opportunity. In sore fear of Wellgood, she shrank from facing him with a rupture of their secret arrangement. ”

“ Harry was on his feet again in a moment. Women's praise was always sweet to him, and not the less sweet for being open to a suspicion of partiality—which is, after all, a testimony to achievement in other fields.
Such a partiality accounted for the conviction of Harry's superiority in Vivien's case at least. She had grown up in the midst of the universal Meriton adoration of him as the most accomplished, the kindest, the merriest son of that soil, the child of promise, the present pride and the future glory of his native town. ”

“ The tide of merry empty talk—gone in the speaking, like the wine in the drinking, yet not less pleasant—flowed on; only now Miss Flower to some degree shared Andy's taciturnity. She was not apprehensive or gloomy; it seemed merely that some sense of the real, the ordinary, course of life had come back to her; the hour of careless gaiety was no longer, like Joan of Arc, "completely encased" in silver armour.
Jack Rock turned to her, bashful, humble, yet sure of her kindness. "I must be goin', miss; I've to be up and about by seven. ”

“ Billy's nod acknowledged the import of the question. Out of reason, out of possibility, out of bounds! Not out of memory, of echo, of the mirror of things not to be forgotten.
"He still thinks he can't compete with Harry," she went on, "and he's right as far as this game is concerned. But he'll win just by not competing. To be utterly different is his chance." With a glance round the table, she appealed to their experience. "Nobody ever begins by choosing Andy—well, except Jack Rock perhaps, and that was to be a butcher! But he ends by being indispensable."
"You all like him," said Amaranth. ”

“ The words reached Wellgood, where he was now crouching behind a bush. He dared come no nearer, lest they should hear his movements.
Harry had lost all hold on himself now. The pale image of Vivien was obliterated from his mind. He had no doubt about to-morrow—how had he ever doubted?—and he pleaded his cause with a passion eloquent and infectious. It was hard to meet passion like that with denial and doubt; sorely hard when belief would bring such joy and triumph! ”

“ Isobel slowly turned her head and kissed the girl's cheek. "I know what you mean, Vivien," she said with a smile that to the girl seemed wistful, almost bitter.
"You dear!" she whispered. "Some day you must be very happy too." Her voice carolled in song as she sped upstairs.
"The good which I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do." That—and possibly one other—reminiscence of the Scriptures came back to Isobel Vintry when, with a kiss, she had dismissed Vivien to her happy rest. ”

“ Good-bye, Doris." He held out his hand to her. The Nun interlaced her hands on the table in front of her.
"I won't!" she said. "I won't shake hands with you to-night, Harry Belfield. You've broken the heart of the sweetest girl I ever met. You've brought shame and misery on her—you who aren't fit to black her shoes! You've brought shame on your people. I suppose you've pretty well done for yourself in Meriton. And all for what? Because you must philander, must have your conquests, must always be proving to yourself that nobody can resist you!" ”

“ That a career is open to talent is a fact consolatory only to a minority; flatter mere common-sense with the same prospect, and every man feels himself fit for the Bench—of Judges, Bishops, or Ministers.
But as a lover—a wooer? Passion, impetuosity, a total absorption, great eloquence in few words, the eyes beating the words in persuasion—such seemed, roughly, the requisites, as learnt by those who had sat at Harry Belfield's feet and marked his practical expositions of the subject. Andy was neither passionate nor eloquent, not even in glances. ”

“ Harry Belfield had been the hero of his youth, his ideal, his touchstone of excellence in all things, the standard by which he humbly measured his own sore deficiencies, and contemptuously assessed the demerits of his schoolfellows. Of these Harry had not been one. No grammar school for him! He was the son of Mr. Belfield of Halton Park—Harrow and Oxford were the programme for him. The same favourable conditions gave him the opportunity—which, of course, he took—of excelling in all the accomplishments that Andy lacked and envied—riding, shooting, games of skill that cost money. ”

“ If one woman teased him, occupying his thoughts without satisfying his desire, he turned to the adoration of another, and gave her of his own that hers might be more complete. Adoring Vivien found herself adored; Harry's worship would break out even in Isobel's presence! He who had been rather too content to accept now asked; she could not do enough to witness her love. Half-unconsciously fighting for a victory he less than consciously desired, he struck at Isobel through Vivien—and made Vivien supremely happy. Happiness gave her confidence ”

“ Yes, Andy was on the whole the happiest—happier even than Harry, to whom content, triumph, and challenge were all too habitual; happier even than Vivien, who had still some schooling to endure, still some of love's finicking doubts, some of hope's artificially prudent incredulity, to overcome; beyond doubt happier than Wellgood, who had lost two pounds, or Isobel Vintry, who had challenged and had been told that her challenge should be taken up—some day! ”

“ Vivien Wellgood was each and all of these things—fence, screen, and barricade. And many other things besides, such as an ideal, an incentive, an inspiration. It was among Harry's attractions that he was not in the least ashamed of his emotions or shy about them.
"With the girls one meets in town it's a bargain," said Harry. "With her—oh, I can talk to you, old man!—it really does seem a sort of sacrament."
"I know. I mean I can imagine."
"Not things a fellow can talk about to everybody," Harry pursued. ”

“ Most urgent was the pretty, slight, fair girl who was Harry Belfield's fiancée. Her eyes were so friendly and gentle that the Nun could refuse her nothing.
"At one bound, Doris, you've become a personage in Meriton," laughed Billy Foot.
"She's a personage wherever she goes," said Andy in frank and affectionate admiration.
The Nun gurgled happily. But where was her old friend Harry with his congratulations? He had greeted her, but not with much enthusiasm; he was now talking to the other girl—Miss Vintry—in a low voice, with a frown on his face; he looked weary and spent. ”

“ Vivien remarked to Andy.
Andy had the pride and pleasure of informing her that her lover was indulging in a quotation from another lover, more famous and more temperate.
"'I sighed as a lover. I obeyed as a son.' I see! How funny! Do you think Gibbon was right, Mr. Hayes?"
"The oldest question since men had sons and women had lovers, isn't it?"
"Doesn't love come first—when once it has come?"
"After honour, the poet tells us, Miss Wellgood." ”

“ Others might take their pleasure in Harry's gifts, might enjoy his brilliance, or reap benefit from his ready kindness—and then, when trouble came, pass by on the other side. There was every excuse for them; in the common traffic of life no more is asked or expected; men, even brilliant men, must behave themselves at their peril. Andy did not stand so. It was his to try to assess Harry's weakness, and to see if anywhere there could be found a remedy, a buttress for the weak wall in that charming edifice. ”

“ The situation was favourable for Isobel's bet.
A light hand in flirtation could not be expected from a man to whom the heavy hand—the strong decisive grip—was gospel in matters public and private. Besides, he had grown impatient; his affair waited on Harry's.
"From a quarter's salary downwards? Will you bet me a kiss?"
"Yes," she smiled, "if losing means the kiss. Because I know I shall win, Mr. Wellgood."
Harry and Vivien came near, still exalted in dreams, the new man and the girl transformed. Wellgood had not noticed them, perhaps would have forgotten them anyhow. ”