E. Phillips Oppenheim

“ Greatson. To be your guardian, Isobel, would not be seemly. That you will better understand—to-morrow."
"Indeed!" she protested, "I would sooner hear it now from your own lips—if, indeed, it must be so!"
He shook his head very slowly, but with a decision more finite than the most emphatic negation which words could have framed.
"I must go away, Isobel," he said, "and you and I must remain apart. I will only ask you to remember me by this. I am the man your mother loved. Nothing else in my life is worth considering—but that. I am one of those with whom fate has dealt a little hardly. ”

“ We crossed the road from the police-station, and found ourselves in one of the narrow streets fringing Covent Garden. The air was fragrant here with the perfume of white and purple lilac, great baskets full of which were piled up in the gutter. The girl half closed her eyes.
"Delicious!" she murmured. "This reminds me of St. Argueil! You have flowers too, then, in London?"
I bought her a handful, which she sniffed and held to her face with delight.
"Ah!" she said a little sadly. "I had forgotten that there were any beautiful things left in the world. Thank you so much, Mr. Arnold." ”

“ I answered, "of Isobel of Waldenburg."
"You are wise," she answered. "She is as surely separated from us eternally as though she had made that little journey from which one does not return. Yet you—you are going to hug your wounds all your life. Is that wise, my friend?"
I laughed softly.
"You are mistaken," I assured her. "I have no wounds—not even regrets. I believe that there are few men happier. Look at my home!"
"It is beautiful," she admitted.
"My gardens, my flowers, my cedar-tree and my books," I said. "These are all a joy to me. What more can a man want? ”

“ Allan declared gruffly. "Dear old chap, forgive me!"
"I am the brute who dangled the letter before his eyes," Arthur exclaimed bitterly, "and I am the only one of the three who has broken our covenant."
"My dear friends," I said slowly, "the things which are past, let us forget. Isobel has gone back to the life which claimed her. No barrier which human hand could rear could separate her from us so effectually and irrevocably as the mere fact that she has taken up the position which belongs to her. She is the Princess Isobel of Waldenburg, a king's grandchild. And we are—what we are! ”

“ An avenue with a gate at the end led through the orchard, and under the drooping boughs we caught a glimpse of the convent away on the hillside. Greyer and more stern than ever it seemed through the delicate framework of soft green foliage and blossoms.
"Lady Delahaye," I said, "you are yourself a young woman. Could you bear to think of banishing from your life for ever all the colour and the sweet places, all the joy of living? Would you be content to build for yourself a tomb, to commit yourself to a living death?" ”

“ I was annoyed with Mabane. There was just sufficient truth in his words to make them sound brutal. I answered him with some heat.
"Not if I starve for it, Allan? The whole cycle of life goes humming around us, hour by hour. It is here, there, everywhere. I will bring a little of it into my work, or I will write no more."
Mabane shook his head. He was busy again upon his canvas.
"It is always the humourist," he murmured, "who is ambitious to write a tragedy—and vice versâ. The only sane man is he who is conscious of his limitations." ”

“ Monsieur Feurgéres was sitting opposite to me, his eyes closed, a faint smile upon his lips. He had the air of a man who slept with a good conscience, and whose dreams were of the pleasantest. Close drawn to his was another chair, against which he leaned somewhat, and over the arm of which one hand was stretched, resting gently upon the soft mass of deep pink roses, whose perfume made fragrant the whole room. I spoke to him.
"Monsieur Feurgéres," I cried, "it is done. I have brought Isobel. She is here." ”

“ It seemed to me so strange that, under our very eyes, the child whom I had led by the hand through Covent Garden on that bright Spring morning should have developed in thought and mind under our own roof, and with so little conscious instruction, into a woman of perceptions and character. Somewhere the seed of these things must have lain hidden. One knows so little, after all, of those whom one knows best.
"It is a fair condition, Isobel," I said. "You are going into a world which is hedged about with conventions and prejudices. ”

“ The friends who smile from my study wall are patient and always ready. There is one to fit every hour. They do not change. They are always ready to show me the way into the world beautiful, to cheer me when I am sad, to laugh with me when I am gay. You must not waste any sympathy on me, Lady Delahaye. The man who has learnt to live alone is the man who has learnt the greatest lesson life has to teach. He is the man for whom the sun shines always, who carries with him for ever the magic key."
Lady Delahaye disturbed the smoothness of my turf with the point of her parasol. ”

“ The Princess Isobel left her husband accompanied only by a maid and a lady-in-waiting. They lived quietly in Paris until her husband procured his divorce. Then we were married, but until then we had not met since our parting at Waldenburg. Isobel's mother was ever a pure and holy woman. Let Isobel know that. Let her know that the greatest and most wonderful sacrifice a woman ever made was surely hers—when she denied herself her own daughter lest the merest shadow of shame should rest upon her in later years. It is for that same reason that I myself have kept away from Isobel. ”

“ Oh, how can you talk of such a place corrupting anybody, Allan!"
"I withdraw the term," he answered. "Yet Arnold knows what I meant very well. This place soothes while the city frets. Which state of mind do you think, Miss Isobel, draws from a man his best work?"
"Don't ask me enigmas, Allan," she murmured. "I am too happy to think, too happy to want to do anything more than exist. I wish we lived here always! ”

“ Wild untidiness had given place to some semblance of order. There was an attempt everywhere at repression. Mabane knocked the ashes from his pipe.
"For five years," he said abstractedly, "you and I and Arthur have lived here together. Are you satisfied with those five years? Think!"
I looked from my desk out of the window, over the housetops up into the sunshine, and I too was grave. Satisfied! Is anyone short of a fool ever satisfied?
"No! I am not," I admitted, a little bitterly.
"Tell me what you think of these five years, Arnold. Tell me the truth," Mabane persisted. ”

“ Isobel was standing quite still in the middle of the room, her hands tightly clenched, a spot of colour aflame in her cheeks. Arthur, who had passed Lady Delahaye and me upon the stairs, had apparently just been told the object of her visit.
"Oh, I hate that woman!" Isobel exclaimed as I entered, "I hate her! I would rather die than go to her. I would rather go back to the convent. She looks at me as though I were something to be despised, something which should not be allowed to go alive upon the earth!" ”

“ Isobel, her chair drawn a little behind the curtain, was almost invisible from the house. With both hands she held the cluster of pink roses which she had found upon the seat. Gravely, but with wonderful self-composure, she followed the action of the play with an intentness which never faltered. Occasionally she leaned a little forward, and at such moments her profile passed the droop of the curtain, and was visible to the greater part of the audience. It was immediately after one of such movements that I noticed some commotion amongst the occupants of the box opposite to us. ”

“ It is the dwellers in the world who are mummers—those who live their foolish, orderly lives with their eyes closed, and oppressed all the while with a nervous fear of what their neighbours are thinking of them. Those are the mummers—but you—you, Monsieur, are Feurgéres—the artist! You make music on the heartstrings of the world!"
For myself I was astonished. I had not often seen Isobel so deeply moved. I had never known her so ready, so earnest of speech. But Feurgéres was almost agitated. ”

“ Lady Delahaye was a very foolish woman. She had seen nothing of my well-ordered household, of the ease, the luxury—simple, yet almost Sybaritic—with which I had surrounded myself. She did not understand life from my point of view—life as Feurgéres had lived it. The life sentimental, but not passionate; the life to be evolved by will from the tangle of bruised hopes and hot desires. ”

“ I broke the greatest contract I had ever signed, and I placed my liberty, if not my life, at the mercy of your wonderful police system. But those things count for little. I have been forced, Isobel, to leave you very much to yourself. You come of a race who would regard any association with me as defilement. And there is always the chance that you may be able to take your proper position in the world. That is why it has been my duty to keep away from you, why I have been forced to leave to others what I would gladly have done myself. To-night you will understand everything. ”

“ I exclaimed hoarsely.
"You can deny it as much as you like, if you think it worth while to perjure yourself," she replied coolly. "The truth remains. I have had a good deal of experience in such matters. You love Isobel, and I am not at all sure that Isobel does not love you."
"Madame," I protested, "such statements are absurd. I am no longer a young man. I am thirty-four years old. I have no longer any thought of marriage. Isobel is no more than a child. ”

“ Arnold, Allan, can you smell the honeysuckle?"
"And the hay," Allan answered, smoking vigorously. "To-morrow we shall be sneezing every few minutes. Have you ever had hay fever, Isobel?"
She laughed at him scornfully.
"You poor old thing!" she exclaimed. "You should wear a hat."
"A hat," Allan protested, "is of no avail against hay fever. It's the most insidious thing in the world, and is no respecter of youth. You, my dear Isobel, might be its first victim." ”

“ I do not want to be a princess. I do not want to be rich. Monsieur Feurgéres has made me independent, and that is all I desire. I would like to be free to live always my own life—free like you and Allan, who paint and write and think, for I, too, would love so much to be an artist. But it seems that all these things have been decided for me—by you and Monsieur Feurgéres. No," she added quickly, "I know very well that you are right. I am willing to do what Monsieur Feurgéres thinks that my mother would have wished. I will go to my grandfather, and if he wishes it I will stay with him. ”

“ Isobel, with her hands full of flowers, flitted in and out amongst the rose-bushes, laughing and talking with all the invincible gaiety of light-hearted youth, and Arthur hung all the while about her, his eyes following her every movement, telling her all the while by every action and look—if indeed the time had come for her to discern such things—all that our compact forbade him to utter. ”

“ Arthur took up his hat. He was nervous and uneasy. His tone was almost threatening.
"I shall be here early in the morning," he said. "I suppose you will allow me to see Isobel?"
"By all means," I answered. "As things are now you need not go away unless you like. Your room is still empty. Our compact is at an end. Stay if you will."
He hesitated for a moment, and then threw down his hat. He sank into an easy chair, and covered his face with his hands.
"I've been a beast, I know!" he half sobbed. "I can't help it. Isobel is everything in the world to me. ”

“ Oh, I had need of all my strength, of all my common-sense.
"Dear Isobel," I said, looking straight ahead of me out of the cab, "I cannot make you any promise. All must depend upon what Monsieur Feurgéres tells us to-night. Nothing would make me—all of us—happier than to keep you with us always. But it may not be our duty to keep you, or yours to stay. Until we have heard Feurgéres' story we are in the dark." ”

“ Isobel came into the room, followed by Arthur in a leather jacket and breeches. Her cheeks were pink, her eyes danced with excitement. She threw off her tam-o'-shanter, and stood deftly re-arranging for a moment her wind-tossed hair.
"Glorious!" she exclaimed. "Oh, it has been glorious! Mr. Arthur, how can I thank you? I have never enjoyed myself so much in my life. If the Sister Superior could only have seen me—and the girls!"
"Motoring, I presume," Mabane remarked, "is amongst the pleasures denied to the young ladies of the convent?" ”

“ To the left were my gardens, the sweetness of which came stealing through the window with the very faintest breath of the slowly moving air, bordered by that ancient red brick wall, mellowed and crumbling with the sun and west winds of generations, and in front of me my lawn and the cedar-tree under which Lady Delahaye had sat an hour or so ago and prophesied evil things. My lips parted into a smile as I thought of her words. ”

“ Their hands had fallen apart a little while before, but Isobel, with an impulsive gesture, stooped down and raised the fingers of his left hand to her lips. I turned away. It seemed like sacrilege to watch a man's soul shining in his eyes. I walked to the other end of the long narrow room, and examined the swords which lay ready for use against the wall. It was not many minutes, however, before Feurgéres recalled me. ”