Hubert Bland

“ But Litvinoff felt as if he had no cares. He was going to meet the woman he loved, and the nearer he got to her the more he loved her. In love, as in friendship, nearness was everything to him.
Every figure in the distance he thought was her figure. If you have ever gone to meet a person whom you very intensely wished to meet, you will remember how constantly recurring is that illusion. You will remember the spasm of vindictive hate which seizes on you when the figure in the distance is neared, and dispels your illusion by being itself and not the one you wanted it to be. ”

“ O run at full speed across a Derbyshire moor by the uncertain light of a wintry moon is a feat not unattended with difficulty and danger, especially when the runner is not quite accustomed to the course; but it would have taken greater pitfalls than even those moors present to have made Count Litvinoff choose a longer and easier way. For when that shout had been borne to him on the wind he scented excitement and danger, and excitement and danger were to him as the breath of life. He was almost certain that the men meant mischief, and he intended to do his best to prevent it. ”

“ Some kind fate certainly kept watch over my wife while I was playing the fool and dangling after another woman. And Fate has been a thousand times better to me than I deserve. With my dear wife, and the prospect of meeting you soon in Russia, I feel all the old enthusiasm re-awakening. Vive la Révolution!—Your old secretary and friend,
Armand Percival.
'In signing that name I feel as though I were writing with my left hand, it is so awkward to me after all these years.'
Petrovitch sighed as he replaced the letters in their envelope. ”

“ The story of the sleeping beauty is an allegory with a very real meaning. Every woman's mind has its time of slumber, when the creed of the day is truth and the convention of the day is morality. The fairy prince's awakening kiss may come in the pages of a book, in the words of a speaker, through love, through suffering, through sorrow, through a thousand things glad or sad, and to some it never comes, and that is the saddest thing of all. Clare had slept, and now was well awake, and it was no word of Count Litvinoff's that had broken the slumbrous spell. ”

“ It was a bitter thought to Richard Ferrier that the old man's last moments should have been made unquiet through any conduct of his, and he reproached himself for not having concealed his own feelings better, and for not having watched more keenly over those of his father. The most crushing part of bereavement is always the consciousness that so little more thought, so little more tact and tenderness, would have sufficed to spare that ended life many an hour of sorrow, that quiet heart many a pang of pain. ”

“ The mill was not one of those square, many-windowed blocks which remind one of children's toy-houses, but a group of irregular buildings of all sorts and sizes, built of grey stone and roofed with slate. There was a paved yard surrounded by outhouses, some mere sheds of wood and thatch, and it was round the outhouse nearest to the mill itself that the men were crowding. There was plenty of light now for Litvinoff to discern every detail of the scene before him, for two sheds were on fire and burning merrily in the frosty air. ”

“ Litvinoff shuddered as he lighted a large cigar and pulled his gloves on.
'This is a detestable climate,' he said, as he drew the first whiffs; 'but London is about the only place I know where good cigars can be had at a price to fit the pocket of an exile. I suppose I shall soon have to leave this palatial residence, and become one of the out-at-elbows gentlemen who make life hideous in Leicester Square and Soho.'
Like many men who have lived lonely lives, Michael Litvinoff had an inveterate habit of soliloquy. ”

“ All the expenses of Alice's illness were borne by Petrovitch, who bade Mrs Toomey spare no expense in making 'Mrs Litvinoff' as comfortable as might be. When at last Alice began to grow better he came to see her very often, brought her books and flowers, and was as tenderly thoughtful of her, as anxious to gratify her every possible wish, as a brother could have been.
'You are too good to me,' she said one day, looking at him with wet eyes as he stood by her sofa and put into her hand some delicate snowdrops. 'I do not deserve to have people so kind to me. ”

“ So it came about that Alice married her love who had not been true, and forgave him with all her heart; when she was leaving the church, leaning on her husband's arm, with a new world of love and joy opening before her, and Litvinoff was looking down at her with eyes in which love deepened every moment, her father lay dead at the bottom of the tank in Thornsett Mill. The Litvinoffs left England at once, and to this day Alice does not know of her father's death, and her husband does not know of the dire disaster that followed on his double dealing. I doubt if they will ever learn it now. ”

“ Is it not better, seeing the little time that is ours, to know that we at least have listened to the wail of agony that ever goes up to the deaf heavens?—that we have done what we could in our little day to help forward a better time for those who shall come after us, than to know that we have had the good opinion of "respectable people"?'
'If one could only hope that one could help it forward!' sighed Clare.
'Hope? We know it. These things will be. It is a question of the little sooner or the little later. There is no standing still. He that is not with us is against us. ”

“ Richard rested his hand on his father's gravestone with a caressing touch. A great wave of regret and longing swept over him, and then a sort of relief at the thought that his father could not know how his dying wish would be unfulfilled. The old man's words rang in his ears,—'It has been a long life; I should like to lie quiet at last.'
'Thank God,' said Richard. People who don't believe in God have a way of speaking as though they did in moments of emotion. 'Thank God, he can't be troubled about anything now. Dear old dad—he has that wish, at any rate. ”

“ Do not let my brother win what his fault forbids me to try for.'
She rose.
'I have given you no right to talk in that way, nor to ask me any such promise, and I will promise nothing since I know nothing,' she said, indignantly.
'Then at least it shall not be my fault,' said Richard with equal fire, 'if you do not know what every woman he comes near ought to know. He is not free to offer love to any woman. He owes all the love he is capable of to a woman he has ruined and deserted.'
Miss Stanley looked at him coldly and contemptuously. ”

“ Much as the Ferriers had already wondered at Litvinoff's mastery of English, they wondered still more after the first ten minutes on his speech. It is one thing to carry on a social conversation in a tongue not one's own; it is another and a widely different thing to be able to hold a foreign audience, and to sway and move it, to rouse its enthusiasm and to thrill it with horror, at one's will and pleasure. Yet such was the power of this young Russian rebel. ”

“ He had been in a state of mingled remorse and terror ever since, and only Petrovitch's strong representations to the effect that men who set themselves against Society should at least not fall below Society in the matter of keeping their word, had induced him to face the dreadful ordeal of meeting half-a-dozen well-dressed Social Reformers in a large and luxurious drawing-room.
It would be impossible for any human being to be quite as glad to see any other human being as Mrs Quaid appeared to be to see her two new friends. ”

“ Richard, who had remained standing, gave the slightest possible stamp of impatience, which his brother did not observe.
'And as for the money,' he went on, 'I dare say I can do as well without it as with it.'
'Look here,' said Dick, his face flushing hotly; 'if you suppose I care a straw about the dirty money, you're mistaken; only one of us can't have any without the other now. Come, Roland, be friends, if it's only for the old dad's sake.'
Roland seemed to have what the children call the 'black dog on his shoulder,' but this appeal was not lost. ”

“ Alice Hatfield hadn't read Huxley, but if she had she would have agreed with him in this; and now it seemed as though the furies were driving her along the streets towards that miserable home of hers, where, so far, no dove of peace had folded its wings.
It is given to all of us, at one time or another, to repent—more or less—of the evil; but many of us also know what it is to look back, with something like remorse, on what we believe to have been the good. ”

“ No? the essence of love is its boundless capacity for pardon; the [Pg 310] unaccountable part of it was that he should ever have loved him at all. And they were gone; and gone, as Petrovitch knew well enough, to begin a life whose end, sooner or later, must be the scaffold or the death-in-life of perpetual imprisonment. He had led many a man and many a woman into that path, knowing all that it meant, and he was not sorry. Was it not the path he had himself chosen as being the noblest that any man's feet could tread—the path of utter self-renunciation? ”

“ Was it simply because Litvinoff had been the first name that had come into her head, or for some deeper or more important reason?
The room was very neat, and did not offer much entertainment to the eye or employment to the mind; but there were four or five books on the mantelpiece, and he was drawn towards them by a natural attraction. It was one of his habits always to take up a book, if one was within reach. They were very nicely bound, he noticed, except two small volumes at the end of the row, in which he smiled rather sadly to recognise a Bible and Prayer Book. ”

“ From the windows of Morley's Hotel the view on a fine day is about as cheerful as any that London can [Pg 74] present—though one may have one's private sentiments respecting the pepper-boxes which emphasise the bald ugliness of the National Gallery, and though one may sometimes wish that the slave of the lamp would bring St George's Hall from Liverpool and drop it on that splendid site. But this was not a fine day. It was a gloomy, damp, foggy, depressing, suicidal day. The fog had, with its usual adroitness, managed to hide the beauties of everything, and to magnify the uglinesses. ”

“ I cannot go without thanking you with my whole heart for all you have done for me—for both of us. No words can ever tell you how much I feel what we owe to you. My husband says he owes more to you than I do, but I cannot think that. Good-bye until we see you in Russia. Oh! Heaven bless you, Mr Petrovitch, for all you have done for us.—Yours always gratefully,
Alice Litvinoff.'
In the same envelope was a letter from Alice's husband, and it did not begin in the same way as hers. ”

“ The strain of the strong men wrestling was too much for the splintered boards already rotted through by the rain and snow of the past months. Crash went the flooring beneath their feet, and as the two went through, fast locked in each other's arms, Hatfield, above his adversary, saw, in a flash of intensest horror, that the face below him was not that of Roland, but of Richard. ”

“ Clare read it through; her face grew white, and she passed it to Petrovitch. He read it silently, his brow contracting. When he laid the paper down he looked at Clare. She had sunk into a chair, her arms stretched out over her knees to their full length, and her hands clasped.
'Poor fellow! poor Dick!' she said; 'but, oh, Cora! poor Mrs Hatfield! How will she bear it? Oh! how cruel life is to some people. ”

“ He had, when still young, married the woman he passionately loved, and work for her sake had seemed so easy that he had risen from poverty to competence, and from competence to wealth. Born in the poorest ranks of the workers in a crowded Stockport alley, he had started in life as a mill 'hand,' and he was ending it now a millowner, and master of many hands. ”

“ THE CLEON.
ELL, I hope you will enjoy the evening, my dear; at anyrate, it will be a new experience for you, and will show you that some of us can be earnest even in the midst of our life of frivolity and heartlessness. You know, I have been a Socialist almost from my birth.'
The speaker sighed gently, and adjusted the folds of her rich black satin dress.
'Oh, I am sure I shall enjoy it immensely, dear Mrs Quaid,' answered Clare Stanley, she being the person addressed; 'you know, since papa was rescued from those dreadful horses, I have taken such an interest in all these questions. ”

“ In a little while the eyes opened, and the younger man struggled into a sitting position, and looked into the face that bent over him.
'Litvinoff, it is you, then?' he said in a low voice, and covered his face with his hands. The joy of seeing once more the man he had loved seemed to be swallowed up in the shame of meeting the man he had wronged.
'Yes, Percival, it is I,' said Petrovitch; 'but let this be the last time you call me Litvinoff, and I must not call you Percival either. I think I have a right to ask that. ”

“ Suppose—and at the thought his blood ran coldly through his veins—suppose old Richard Ferrier had got up from under that white stone in Thornsett churchyard, and had come down to keep watch over what his sons had so little regarded. The footsteps came nearer, and Hatfield sprang to his feet and walked not away from, but towards, the sound. The impulse of a naturally brave man when he is frightened is to face the fearsome thing as speedily as may be. ”