Anthony Hope

“ Semingham had no doubt on whose bidding; and, out of the airy forms of those absurd fancies, there seemed to rise a more material shape, a reality, a fabric not compounded wholly of dreams, but mixed of stuff that had made human comedies and human tragedies since the world began. Mrs. Dennison had bidden Willie Ruston to Dieppe. That was Semingham's instant conclusion; she had bidden him, not merely by a formal invitation, or by a simple acquiescence, but by the will and determination which possessed her to be of his mind and in his schemes. ”

“ The look now was a man's homage to beauty—it differs from every other—a lover hardly seems to have it unless his love be beautiful—and she had never yet seen it when he looked at her. She turned away towards the sea, grasping the arm of her chair with a sudden grip that streaked her fingers red and white. Marjory also saw, and a wild hope leapt up in her that her task needed not the doing. But a moment later Ruston was back in Omofaga—young Sir Walter being his bridge for yet another transit. ”

“ Adela looked at her, hesitated, opened her fan, shut it again, and smiled.
"Oh, I didn't mean that, Bessie," she said with half a laugh. "Do, please."
"But if you dislike him——"
"Why, my dear, doesn't one hate half the men one likes meeting—and all the women!"
Lady Semingham smiled amiably. She did not care to think out what that meant; it was Adela's way, just as it was her husband's way to laugh at many things that seemed to her to afford no opening for mirth. But Adela was not to escape. ”

“ From a paid servant of his Company, powerful only by a secret influence unbased on any substantial foundation, he leapt to the position of a shareholder with a larger stake than any man besides; no intrigue could shake him now, no sudden gust of petulant impatience at the tardiness of results displace him. He had never thought of this motive behind the Baron's large purchases of Omofaga shares; as he thought of it, he had not been himself had he not smiled. And his smile was of the same quality as had burst on his face when first Maggie Dennison dropped the veil and owned his sway. ”

“ Reality pressed hard upon them, crushing their romance into crime, their passion to the vulgarity of an everyday intrigue. This secret backstairs meeting seemed to stamp all that passed at it with its own degrading sign; their high-wrought defiance of the world and the right dwindled before their eyes to a mean and sly evasiveness. So felt Willie Ruston; and Maggie Dennison sat silent while he painted for her what he felt. ”

“ This time it was Semingham who nodded silent assent.
"And," said Adela, with a glance of what seemed like defiance, "I pray."
"You're a good woman, Adela," said he.
"He sees no change in her, or he sees a change that makes him love her more. Surely, surely, some day, Lord Semingham——?" [pg 336]
She broke off, leaving her hope unexpressed, but a faint smile on her face told of it.
"It may be—some day," he said, as though he hardly hoped. Then, with one of his quick retreats, he took refuge in asking, "Are you happy with your husband, Adela? I hope to goodness you are." ”

“ Adela Ferrars detected kindness in him; his gallant deference pleased Lady Semingham. They were all grieved when the cold winds laid hold of him, forced him to keep house often, and drove him to furs and a bath-chair, even when the sun shone most brightly. Although they liked him, they implored him to fly south. He would not move, finding pleasure in them, and held fast by an ever-increasing uneasy interest in Willie Ruston. Adela quarrelled with him heartily and energetically on this score. To risk health because anyone was interesting was absurd ”

“ But how would Harry take a hint? There were men silly enough to resent such hints. Caution was the word.
"Well, I almost wish he wasn't going," she said at last. "For Maggie's sake, I mean. She wants a complete rest."
"Oh, but she likes him. He amuses her. Why, she's tremendously interested in Omofaga, Mrs. Cormack."
"Ah, but he excites her too. We poor women have nerves, Mr. Dennison. It would be much better for her to hear nothing of Omofaga for a few weeks."
"Has she been talking to you much about it?" asked Harry, beginning to feel anxious at his guest's immensely solemn tone. ”

“ Then, with a sudden twinkle of his eye, his holiday mood seemed to come back again. Seizing the Baron's arm, he pressed it, and said with a laugh, "I say, Baron, if you want to get control over Omofaga——"
"But, my dear friend——" protested the Baron.
"If you do—I only say 'if'—I'm not the only man you've got to fight. Well, yes, I am the only man."
"My dear young friend, I don't understand you," pleaded the Baron.
"We'll go and see Mrs. Dennison to-morrow," said Willie Ruston. ”

“ People often are ashamed of being better than their surroundings. Being better they feel better, and feeling better they feel priggish, and then they try not to be better, and happily fail. So Adela was very shamefaced over her ideal, and would as soon have thought of preaching on a platform—of which practice she harboured a most bigoted horror—as of proclaiming the part that love must play in her marriage. The romantic resolve lay snug in its hidden nest, sheltered from cold gusts of ridicule by a thick screen of worldly sayings, and, when she sent away a suitor, of worldly-wise excuses. ”

“ The hardest thing about great resolves and lofty [pg 146] moods is their intermixture with everyday life. The intervals, the "waits," the mass of irrelevant trivialities that life inartistically mingles with its drama, flinging down pell-mell a heap of great and small—these cool courage and make discernment distrust itself. Mrs. Dennison seemed so quiet, so placid, so completely the affectionate but not anxious wife, the kind hostess, and even the human gossip, that Marjory wanted to rub her eyes, wondering if all her heroics were nonsense—a girl's romance gone wrong. ”

“ Marjory was both looking and listening closely, but she detected neither disappointment nor relief.
"He's seen Tom Loring! Oh, and Tom sends me his best remembrances. Poor Tom! Marjory, does Adela talk about Mr. Loring?"
"She mentioned him once."
"She thinks it was all my fault," laughed Mrs. Dennison. "A woman always thinks it's a woman's fault; at least, that's our natural tendency, though we're being taught to overcome it. Marjory, you look dull! It will be livelier for you when your brother and Mr. Ruston come." ”

“ From great to small his influence ran; from the expulsion of Tom Loring to the christening of the Omofaga mantle. Semingham had an acute sense of the absurdity of it all, but he had seen absurd things happen too often to be much relieved by his intuition. And when absurd things happen, they have consequences just as other things have. And the most exasperating fact was the utter unconsciousness of the disturber. ”

“ But he was here at last, and Adela was merrier than she had been in all her stay at Dieppe. Semingham also was happy; it was a great relief to feel that there was someone to whom responsibility properly, or at least more properly, belonged, and an end, therefore, to all unjustifiable attempts to saddle mere onlookers with it. And Lady Semingham perceived that her companions were in more genial mood than lately had been their wont, and expanded in the warmer air. When Tom came down nothing could exceed the empressement of his welcome. ”

“ Or she might flash out on him, and call his charge an insult, and drive him away; and a word from her would turn poor old Harry into his enemy. Decidedly his task was no easy one.
It was a coward's joy that he felt when he found a third person there; but he felt it from the bottom of his heart. Divine delay! Gracious impossibility! How often men adore them! Tom Loring gave thanks, praying silently that Marjory would not withdraw, shook hands as though his were the most ordinary morning call, and began to discuss the scenery of Dieppe, and—as became a newcomer—the incidents of his voyage. ”

“ CHAPTER II. THE COINING OF A NICKNAME. When it was no later than the middle of June, Adela Ferrars, having her reputation to maintain, ventured to sum up the season. It was, she said, a Ruston-cum-Violetta season. Violetta's doings and unexampled triumphs have, perhaps luckily, no place here; her dancing was higher and her songs more surpassing in another dimension than those of any performer who had hitherto won the smiles of society; and young men who are getting on in life still talk about her. Ruston's fame was less widespread, but his appearance was an undeniable fact of the year. ”

“ Marjory Valentine came along, bending her slim figure a little, the better to resist a fresh breeze that blew her skirts out behind her, and threatened to carry off her broad-brimmed hat. She had been bathing; the water was warm, and her cheeks glowed with a fine colour. As she came up, both Adela and Lord Semingham put on their eyeglasses.
"An uncommon pretty girl," observed the latter.
"Isn't it glorious?" cried Marjory, yet several yards away. "Walter will enjoy the bathing tremendously." ”

“ Willie Ruston had never declared himself her suitor; yet (she clung hard to this) he would not have said what he did had not the chagrin of a defeated rival inspired him; and a defeated rival, as everybody knows, will say anything. Certainly she had been right not to listen, and was wrong to remember. To this she had often made up her mind, and to this she returned now as she sat watching her husband and Willie Ruston, forgetful of all the chattering crowd beside. ”

“ The Carlin children had come to tea, and a great dissension had arisen between the two parties. The Carlins had belauded the generous donor of ices; Madge had taken up the cudgels fiercely on Tom Loring's behalf, and Dora and Alfred had backed her up. Each side proceeded from praise of its own favourite to sneers—by no means covert—at the other's man, and the feud had passed from the stage of words to that of deeds before it was discovered by the superior powers and crushed. ”

“ Maggie Dennison's eyes sparkled. Behind the mockery in Semingham's jest, behind the only half make-believe homage which Detchmore's humorous glance at Ruston showed, she saw the reality of deference, the acknowledgment of power in the man she [pg 302] loved. For a brief moment she tasted the troubled joy which she had paid so high to win. For a moment her eyes rested on Willie Ruston as a woman's eyes rest on a man who is the world's as well as hers, but also hers as he is not the world's. ”

“ She clasped them.
"Nothing?" he asked in a low tone. "Nothing, Maggie?"
She bowed her head for answer; it was the attitude of surrender, of helplessness, and of trust, and it appealed to the softer feeling in him which her resistance had smothered. He was strongly moved, and his face was pale as he drew her to him and kissed her lips; but all he said was,
"Then the deuce take Tom Loring!"
It seemed to her enough. The light devil-may-care words surely covered a pledge from him to her—something in return from him to her. At last, surely he was hers, and her wishes his law. It was her moment ”

“ She was not a beauty, but her broad brow and expressive features, joined to a certain subdued dignity of manner and much grace of movement, made her conspicuous among the women in her drawing-room. Young Evan Haselden seemed to appreciate her, for he bowed his glossy curly head, and shook hands in a way that almost turned the greeting into a deferentially distant caress. Mrs. Dennison acknowledged his hinted homage with a bright smile, and turned to Ruston. ”

“ Yet what Ruston did, pleased him not; for the better part of the man—what led him to respond to kindness or affection, and abate something of his hardness where he met no resistance—seemed to be conspiring with his old domineering mood to lead him beyond all power of warning or recall.
A week had passed since Ruston paid his first visit to Mrs. Dennison in the cottage on the cliff. It was a bright morning. The Baron was feeling stronger; he had left his chair and walked with Adela to a seat. There they sat side by side, in the occasional talk and easy silences of established friendship. ”

“ Ruston, who liked to make everybody a convert to his own point of view, spent the best part of an afternoon conversing with the little lady, but, when he came away, he left her placidly admiring the Omofaga mantle which had just arrived from the milliner's, and promised to create an immense sensation.
"I believe she's all gown," said he despairingly, at the Valentines in the evening. "If you undressed her there'd be no one there."
"Well, there oughtn't to be many people," said young Sir Walter, with a hearty laugh at his boyish joke.
"Walter, how can you!" cried Marjory. ”

“ Dennison shook her head, and smiled.
"Because, if you please, I'm too emotional. Emotional, indeed! And I can't generalise! Oh, couldn't I generalise about men!"
"Women can never say 'No,'" observed Evan Haselden, not in the least as if he were repeating a commonplace.
"You'll find you're wrong when you grow up," retorted Adela. ”