Project Gutenberg's The Hypocrite, by Cyril Arthur Edward Ranger Gull

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Title: The Hypocrite

Author: Cyril Arthur Edward Ranger Gull

Release Date: September 2, 2012 [EBook #40651]

Language: English

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  THE HYPOCRITE




  A FEW

  EARLY PRESS OPINIONS

  OF

  THE HYPOCRITE


    _MORNING POST_:--"It is entitled to be regarded as one of the
    clever books of the day."

    _MORNING LEADER_:--"A brilliant book.... Evidently the work of a
    young, powerful, and subtle brain."

    _WORLD_:--"The anonymous author is evidently young and clever. He
    paints with a firm, bold hand. The characters are life-like, and
    in many cases drawn from the life. The book will be found
    interesting and entertaining."

    _LONDON MORNING_:--"A remarkable book.... Clever the book
    undoubtedly is. Its brutally frank analysis of the temperament of
    a man with brain and mind hopelessly diseased lifts the author out
    of the common rut of novelists, and stamps him as a writer of
    power."

    _LLOYD'S_:--"The book sparkles with epigrammatic sayings and
    satirical allusions. The characters are all vividly drawn, some of
    them being undoubted and recognisable caricatures. The writing is
    that of a clever pessimist, with a vein of sardonic humour that
    keeps the reader amused. The author may wear a green carnation,
    but whether he does or not, it is the work of a skilful pen."




  THE HYPOCRITE

  LONDON
  GREENING & CO.
  1898

  (_All rights reserved_)

  SECOND IMPRESSION




  _First Edition_      _November, 1898_
  _Reprinted_          _December, 1898_




  CONTENTS


  CHAPTER I.                                      PAGE

      YARDLY GOBION OPENS HIS LETTERS                1

  CHAPTER II.

      SCOTT IS LONELY                               18

  CHAPTER III.

      INITIATION                                    39

  CHAPTER IV.

      THE CAMPAIGN                                  62

  CHAPTER V.

      A PSYCHOLOGICAL MOMENT                        83

  CHAPTER VI.

      THE COUP                                     103

  CHAPTER VII.

      THE CONSOLATIONS OF MRS. EBBAGE; WITH SOME
      ACCOUNT OF THE REV. PETER BELPER             129

  CHAPTER VIII.

      THE FINAL POSE                               147

  CHAPTER IX.

      TWENTY YEARS AFTER                           157




  THE HYPOCRITE




  CHAPTER I.

  _YARDLY GOBION OPENS HIS LETTERS._


"I am thinking of writing my impressions, binding them in red leather,
with a _fleur-de-lys_ stamped in the corner, and distributing them among
my friends," said the youth with the large tie.

"My good fool," said the President of the Union, who sat by the fire,
"you must remember that most of us know you are a humbug."

"Quite so, but I'm not going to do it for the journalistic set. Don't
you know that, owing to my youthful appearance and earnest eyes, I have
an admiring circle of people who worship me as their god--good, healthy,
red people, who like moonlight in the quad, and read leading articles?
It is very amusing. I wear a great mass of hair, and look at them with
far-away eyes instinct with intellectual pain; and sometimes when we get
very solemn, the tears rise slowly, and I talk in clear tones of effort,
of will--the toil, the struggle, the Glorious Reward! They absolutely
love me, and I live on them, borrow their allowances, drink their
whiskey--in short, rook them largely all round."

"It is a good thing," said a Merton man, whom they called the Prophet,
"that you have an ark of refuge, where there is no necessity to pose,
and where you can freely behave like the scoundrel you are;
soul-scraping with earnest freshmen is doubtless profitable, but I
should say it was wearing."

"That's the worst of it. I have to disguise the fact that I know you
people, and write for _The Dead Bird_; it is horribly difficult. I find,
though, that when I am just a little drunk I do it much better. One can
look more _spirituel_, and play the game better all round. Unfortunately
the entrances and exits require management. When one is leaning back in
a padded armchair, it is easy to appear sober; but coming into a big
room full of men, and picking one's way through them to get to the
aforesaid chair, is very perilous work."

"'Where there's a swill there's a sway,' I suppose," said the Prophet.

"Exactly," said the youth, with a yawn; "you are becoming singularly apt
at a certain sort of machine-made epigram. I will have a short
drink--quite short. Yes, please--Scotch----" He splashed some soda-water
into his tumbler from a syphon on the table, drank it off at a gulp, and
got up.

"I really must go now; I am to speak third at the Wadham debate, so I
mustn't be late."

He got his hat--a soft felt one--and arranging his tie in the glass over
the mantelpiece, went out with a smile. The rooms belonged to the
President of the Union, who was living out of college. They were rooms
arranged with an eye to effect; the owner posed in his furniture as well
as in his person, though there was no particular evidence of luxury or
straining after cheap aestheticism.

A few armchairs, a sideboard covered with bottles, and two large
bookshelves full of paper-backed novels of Heller and Maupassant, with
a few portly historical treatises of the Taswell-Langmead type, were the
most prominent objects.

It was evident, however, that a central idea influenced the arrangement.
Sturtevant wrote little decadent studies for any London paper that would
take them. He had scattered notes from literary people about the
mantelpiece. The table was covered with proof-slips, magazines, and
empty glasses, while his latest piece of work, a thin book bound in
brown paper, called _The Harmonies of Sin_, lay in a conspicuous place
on the window-seat.

When Yardly Gobion, the youth who had been speaking, had gone,
Sturtevant and the Prophet, whose real name was Condamine, drew up their
chairs to the fire, lighting fresh cigarettes. They had been drinking
all day, and were by this time in the stage that knows no reticence. It
is the stage immediately preceding a pious fervour and resolve to start
a new life.

Both of them were men of mark in the University.

Sturtevant had come up to Oxford with a brilliant scholarship from a
public school which was growing in reputation every year, the
Head-master being a high churchman who made a scientific study of
advertising his own personality in the weekly press as an earnest
ascetic, but who in reality was merely a Sybarite masquerading as a
monk. Sturtevant was the show boy of Hailton, and soon made himself felt
in his year at Oxford.

He spoke well and brilliantly at the Union and various college debating
societies. He affected an utter disregard for morals, pretending so
vigorously that Irish whiskey was entirely necessary to salvation that
he soon came to believe in his own pose, and to find a day impossible
without frequent "short drinks."

Though his eyesight was excellent he carried a single eyeglass, and on
alternate days wore a hunting stock or a Liberty yellow silk tie.

The extraordinary thing about the man was that he was not merely a
poseur; he really had remarkable cleverness, and despite his life he
had done excellently well in the Schools and Union. In this his last
term he was at the head of things literary, and of the "Modern" school
at Oxford.

Condamine was a different type of man. He had done nothing very much but
talk, but had a great influence with the cleverest set. He was tall,
with a white, clean-shaven face, and an oracular way of holding forth
which had earned him the name of Prophet. He lived as if life were a
painful duty which he must perform, but very much against his
inclination.

He was a very high churchman, who on Sunday mornings might often be seen
walking up the aisle of St. Barnabas carrying a richly-illuminated
mass-book. "Sunday," he would say, "should be a day of rest." He defined
himself as a psychological hedonist.

"Young Gobion is a very clever blackguard," said the Prophet.

"Yes, he is," said Sturtevant; "he looks so young and innocent, and he
talks well."

"Is he a pure adventurer?"

"No, I don't quite think that; he comes of a good family, but they
won't have anything to do with him, and for the last term or two he has
been living on his wits. He's nearly done now, though. I should think
he'd drop out after this term."

"I never knew how far to believe the man. I suppose he does write a good
deal?"

"Yes, that's quite true. I've seen his things in _The Book Review_ and
in _The Pilgrim_. I imagine too he makes a good deal out of the Church
party."

"What on earth do you mean?"

"Why, he acts a fit of remorse and horror at the life he is leading,
goes to Father Gray to confession, and then borrows ten pounds to start
a new life."

Sturtevant laughed an evil little snigger and poured out some more
whiskey.

They had blown out the lamp as the oil was low, and the room was only
lighted by the dull glow of the dying fire. The air was heavy with
cigarette smoke and the smell of spirits, and both men felt bored and
sleepy.

Condamine was afraid a fit of depression was approaching, so he raised
himself in his chair, and began to drive away his thoughts by telling
Sturtevant risky stories.

They were far too clever to really care much for cheap nastiness, but
both felt it a relief from the state of nervous tension that a long
day's continuous drinking had induced.

"One touch of indecency makes the whole world grin, to paraphrase the
immortal bard," he said, and they both laughed and sighed.

Suddenly a man in the rooms above who had a piano began to play the
Venusberg music from _Tannhaeuser_ very quietly.

Almost simultaneously with the beginning of the music the moon, like a
piece of carved silver floating through the winter sky, attended by a
little drift of fluffy amber and sulphur-coloured clouds, swung round
from behind New College tower, sending a broad band of green light
across the room.

Sturtevant's white face was thrown into sharp relief against the shadow.

Condamine sat quite still, shivering a little. He felt cold. The strange
music tinkled on, like the overture to some strange experience,
sounding almost unearthly to those two unhappy souls in the room below.

Sturtevant's face twitched. His nerves were all wrong, and he was
subject to small facial contortions.

The moon moved farther away from the tower, and, peeping over a
gargoyle, shone still more directly into the room. On the wall opposite
the window was a picture of the Dutch realistic school, a heavy hairless
face, fat, with a look of vacuous excitement.

Condamine stared fixedly at it.

Suddenly the music stopped, and the man above shut the piano with a bang
that jarred among the strings.

Condamine jumped up with a curse, looking as if he had been asleep. Then
he yawned, and taking his cap and gown, without speaking left the room.

It was then upon nine o'clock, and he went to the Union and fought
depression by firing off epigrams to a crowd of men in the smoking-room
with the assured air of a man of vogue.

The Wadham debate was over about eleven, and soon after the hour had
struck, Yardly Gobion left the college and strolled down the Broad in
the moonlight.

He had, as usual, made a sensation.

They had been discussing a social question, and though what knowledge of
the matter he had came as much from intuition as experience, he spoke
well and brilliantly, and now lit his cigarette with a pleasing sense of
strength and nerve running through him. The sunshine of applause seemed
to warm his impressionable brain, to make it expand with the power of
receiving and mentally recording more vivid impressions. He had a
pleasing consciousness of being very young and very interesting.

He was wonderfully quick and sympathetic in his perceptions, and he
could see that every one of the good-natured men at the debate was
thinking what a clever fellow he was.

He felt instinctively how all his carefully-studied tricks of manner and
personal eccentricities told. The big football-playing, warm-hearted
undergraduates admired him for his soft felt hat, his terra-cotta tie,
his way of arranging his hands when he sat down, and his epigrams.

They imagined that all these things were the outcroppings of a
distinctive personality, and indeed these little poses would have
deceived, and very often did, far cleverer persons than they were.

To-night he had said in his speech of a certain genial and popular
social reformer that he was a "doctrinaire with a touch of Corney Grain
grafted on to a polemic attitude," and already in the Common Room they
were chuckling over what they thought was a happy piece of impromptu
caricature.

Gobion sauntered down the Broad and Turl to the college gates, and when
he knocked in found several letters waiting for him in the lodge. He
took them up to his rooms, turned on the light (they have electric light
at Exeter), and arranged them in a row on the table. Then he turned and
looked at himself in the glass. His hand shook till he had had some
brandy, and he was several minutes moving restlessly about the room,
putting on a blazer, and placing some stray books back on the shelves,
before he sat down to read the first letter. He toyed about with it for
some minutes, afraid to open it.

Outside in the quad a wine party were shouting and singing, their voices
echoing strangely in the still winter night, their drunken shouts
seeming to be mellowed and made musical by the ancient buildings. At
last, with a quick nervous look round the room, he tore open the
envelope and began to read. Without any heading the letter began:--

    "BASSINGTON VICARAGE,

    "_Sunday Night._

    "I have heard from Dr. Fletcher that you are suspected to be
    carrying on an intrigue with a low woman in Oxford; that you have
    not passed a single examination, and that you consistently fritter
    away your time in speaking at debating societies, and are in the
    habit of being frequently intoxicated.

    "You have written me accounts of your progress and work at the
    University, which, on investigation, I find to be simply a tissue
    of lies.

    "I have had bills for large amounts sent to me during the last few
    weeks from tradesmen, saying that they find it impossible to get
    any money from you, and that you ignore their communications. You
    have had splendid opportunities, a good name, with abilities above
    the average, and I believed that you would have done me credit.
    Your deceit and cruelty have broken my heart.

    "I shall do nothing further for you, and you must make your own
    plans for the future.

    "I shall not help you in any way.

    "Your unhappy

    "FATHER."

He got up and had some more brandy, walking about the room. "I knew the
old fool would find out soon. My God, though, it's rather sudden. I
haven't twopence in the world, and the High Church people are beginning
to smell a rat. Damn this collar--it's tight...." He tore it off,
smashing the head of the stud, which rolled under the fender with a
sharp metallic click. After a time he sat down again. The feeling of
ruin was already passing away, and his face lost its sweetness and
youth, while a sharp keen look took its place--the look that he wore
when at night he was alone and plotting, a haggard, old look which no
one ever saw but Condamine or Sturtevant.

He took up the next letter, a small envelope addressed in a girl's
hand:--

    "WESTCOTT,

    "WOOTON WOODS."

    "DEAREST CARADOC,--You cannot think how delighted I was to get
    your letter on Saturday. I have been thinking of you a good deal
    the last two or three weeks, and wondering why you did not write.

    "Had you forgotten all about me? I expect so, but there is some
    excuse for you, as you must meet heaps of _pretty_ girls in
    Oxford. Do write me a nice long letter soon--a _nice_ letter, you
    know.

    "Good-bye, dearest--

    "Your _very_ loving

    "GOODIE.

    "P.S.--Excuse scrawl."

The hard, keen expression faded away, his eyes filling with tears, while
the light played caressingly on his face and tumbled hair.

It was his one pure affection, an attachment for a dear little girl of
seventeen, a clergyman's daughter in the country. He thought of the
evening walks in the sweet summer meadows, when the "mellow lin lan lone
of evening bells" ringing for evensong floated over the corn. He
remembered how her hair had touched his face, and how she had whispered
"dearest."

And then the thoughts of all the other women in Oxford and London
came crowding into his brain. The hot kisses, the suppers and
patchouli-scented rooms, the slang and high tinkling laughter. His brow
wrinkled up with pain as he walked up and down the room, filled with a
supreme self-pity.

He remembered half unconsciously that Charles Ravenshoe had said, "Will
the dawn never come? Will the dawn never come?" and he began to moan it
aloud, with an aesthetic pleasure in the feeling of desolation and
melancholy wasted hours--"will the dawn _never_ come?" He came opposite
the looking-glass, and was struck with the beauty of his own face, sad
and pure. He gazed intently for a minute or two, then his features
relaxed, and he breathed hard and smiled, murmuring, "Ah, well, a little
purity and romance whip the jaded soul pleasantly. Goodie is a darling,
and I love her, but still the others were amusing and piquant. They were
the iota subscripts of love!"

There were still two more letters to be opened. One ran:--

    "162_a_, STRAND, W.C.

    "DEAR MR. YARDLY GOBION,--I shall be glad if you will do us a
    review of Canon Emeric's new book, _Art and Religion_. We can take
    half a column--leaded type; and shall be glad to have the copy by
    Friday at the latest. Are you going to be in town at all soon? If
    so I shall possibly be able to give you work on _The Pilgrim_, as
    we want an extra man, and I have been quite satisfied with what
    you have done for us so far.

    "Please do not be later than Friday with the review.

    "Believe me, yours very truly,

    "JAMES HEATH."

"Just what I want! good--I like _The Pilgrim_, it's smart--this is luck.
I suppose they like my 'occ' reviews. Heath always likes work that keeps
cleverly on the border, and I imagine that I have shown him how to be
realistic without being indelicate. Dear old Providence manages things
very well after all. I really must do a short drink on the strength of
this."

And he had some more brandy.

The last letter was simply a breakfast invitation.

He sat up for half an hour more making plans for the morrow, finally
deciding to borrow all the money he could and go up to town in the
afternoon.

It was now nearly half-past one, and the excitement of the debate and
later of the letters had left him shaking and tired, so he turned out
the light and went into his bedroom. Just as he was closing the door of
communication, he noticed by the firelight that his father's letter had
dropped on the hearthrug, and he went back, putting it in the fire with
a grin.

Then the door shut, and the room was silent.




  CHAPTER II.

  _SCOTT IS LONELY._


Bravery Reginald Scott, of Merton, was one of Gobion's chief admirers.
He thought that no one was so clever or so good, and felt sure that his
friend's traducers--and they were many--had never really got down below
the crust of cynicism and surface immorality of mind as he had done. He
certainly knew that Gobion occasionally drank more than was good for
him, but he put it down to misadventure more than taste.

He was a good young man, rather commonplace in intellect, but of a
blameless life and an unsuspicious, happy temperament.

A man who had always been on the best of terms with an adoring family
and a wealthy father, he ambled easily through life, enjoying
everything, and being especially happy when he was worked up into an
emotion by a poem or sunset.

Generally tethered in the shallows of everyday circumstances, his mind
experienced undimmed delight in acute sensation.

He had one great motif running like a silver thread through his
consciousness--his love for Gobion; and every night he humbly and
earnestly prayed for him, kneeling at a little _prie-Dieu_ painted
green.

To him there had been something very sacred in his relations with this
man. One night Gobion had stayed behind after a wine party, and had sat
late, staring into the fire and talking simply and hopefully about the
trials and temptations of a young man's life. Very frankly he had talked
with a nobleness of ideal and breadth of thought that fascinated Scott
and made him feel drawn close to this strange handsome boy who was so
assured and so hopeful.

After that first night there had been others when they sat alone, and
Gobion talked airily with a fantastic wealth of fancy and sweetness of
expression.

Scott thought he could see in all this man's conversation a high purpose
and a stainless purity, made the more obvious by attempts at
concealment.

Then again, Gobion gave him the impression of being delightfully
unworldly, with no idea of the value of money, for he would come to him
unconcernedly and borrow ten pounds to get out of some scrape, with a
careless freedom that seemed to point to an absolute childishness in
money matters.

Scott always lent it, and gloried in the feeling that he was helping the
friend of his soul, albeit that Gobion had had most of his available
cash, and he knew his affairs were getting something precarious.

On the morning of the Wadham debate he lay in bed half dozing, with a
pleasing sense of anticipation.

Gobion was coming to a _tete-a-tete_ breakfast, and he wondered what he
would talk about, whether he would wear what he called his "explicit"
tie or that green suit which became him so well.

Not far away in Exeter, the object of his thoughts was getting up and
carefully dressing. He was thinking over the part he would have to play
at breakfast, and devising some way of breaking the news of his
approaching flight, and thinking out a plan for getting as much money as
he could to take him up to town.

He had finished his toilette, and was passing out of his bedroom when he
noticed that he looked in capital health, and not at all anxious or
unhappy enough for a ruined man.

Scott would doubtless never have noticed, but Gobion was nothing if not
an artist, and had a hatred of incompleteness.

Accordingly, he pulled a box of water-colour paints out of a drawer in
his writing table, and carefully pencilled two dark sepia lines under
his eyes, several times sponging them off till he had got what he
considered a proper effect.

About a quarter after nine Scott's bedroom door opened unceremoniously,
and Gobion came in.

Scott jumped up.

"I'm beastly sorry, old man, to be so slack. I'll be up in a minute. Is
brekker in?"

"Never mind, old man; I'll go back into the next room and wait."

When breakfast was brought they sat for a time in silence. Then Gobion
spoke.

"Old man, the game's up."

"What!"

"I'm done--utterly."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, you know how unlucky I have been in exams, and what a small
allowance I have always had?"

"Yes."

"Well, the guvnor has written saying that I am idle and hopeless, and
has taken my name off the books and refused to have anything more to do
with me."

Scott gasped. "Oh, Lord, I _am_ so sorry--dear old man--never mind,
remember we promised to stick to each other. Now let's talk it over.
What do you propose to do?"

"I shall go up to town this afternoon if I can get some money. I have
had some work offered me on _The Pilgrim_, and I am sure to get along
somehow."

"Of course you will, old man, you always succeed--look here, have you
got any 'oof?"

"Not a penny."

"Well, I've got about twenty pounds I don't want. You had better take
them."

"Thanks awfully, old chap, but I don't think I will, I owe you too much
as it is. I don't know when I shall be able to repay you."

"Oh, but do, old man, you _must_ have some cash."

"Well, if----"

"Ah, I knew you wouldn't mind; let me write you a cheque, you can cash
it at the Old Bank this morning."

And he got out his cheque-book and wrote it. Gobion took it without
saying anything, but he stretched out his hand and looked him in the
face. With wonderful intuition he knew exactly what the other expected,
and Scott felt repaid by his warm grasp and silence, which, as Gobion
expected, he mistook for emotion.

After a melancholy cigarette Gobion got up and said, "You'll come and
see me off, of course? I've got a lot to do, but I will have tea here
at four and you can come to the station after. My train leaves at 5.30.
Do you mind telling Robertson and Fleming, and anyone else you come
across, and getting them to come too?"

The sun was shining when Gobion got out, and he thought that his first
success was a good omen for the future. He strolled up to the bank
feeling well fed and happy, and the strangeness of his position induced
a pleasing sense of excitement and anticipation. He liked to think that
he would be in the Strand that same evening.

When he had got his money he went to Condamine's rooms in Grove Street,
where, as he expected, he found Sturtevant. He wore the yellow silk tie
this morning.

They were having breakfast, and Condamine, unwashed and unshaven,
dressed in pyjamas, with his feet thrust into a venerable pair of
dancing pumps with the bows gone, was indignantly holding forth on the
unapproachable manner of some barmaid or other whom he had discovered.

Gobion took the proffered drink. "First this mornin'," he said, and
then, "I'm going down to-day."

"Game up?" said Sturtevant. These men were never excited.

"Exactly. When shall you be up?"

"I shall be in my chambers, 6, Middle Temple Lane, in three weeks' time,
ready for a campaign in Fleet Street; we'll work together."

"Right you are; but aren't you afraid of my queering your pitch?"

"I'll take the risk of that. When do you go?"

"Five-thirty train."

"Shall we come to the station?" said Condamine.

"No, don't, the 'good' set will be there, and as I hope to carry off
most of their spare cash, I think it would be wiser to depart in the
odour of sanctity, and you'd rather spoil it."

"Right oh!" said the president, using one of his favourite phrases, and
then raising his glass to his lips, "The old toast?"

"The old toast," said Condamine, "the three consonants"; and they drank
it and said good-bye.

These three men were bound together by many an orgie, many a shady
intrigue and modest swindle; they had no illusions about each other, but
now they all felt a keen pang of regret that their little society was to
be broken up.

Gobion went out feeling sorry, but he had too much to do to indulge in
sentiment. He hoped to turn his twenty pounds into forty before lunch.

As he went into the High, bells were ringing, tutors hurrying along, and
men going to lectures in cap and gown. A group of men in "Newmarkets"
came round the corner of King Edward Street, going to hunt, and nearly
knocked down Professor Max Mueller, who was carrying a brown paper parcel
and walking very fast. The Jap shop-girl in a new hat passed with a
smile, and a Christchurch man and rowing blue came out of the "Mitre,"
where, no doubt, he had been looking over the morning paper, and
gleaning information about his own state of health. The scene was bright
and animated, and the winter's sun cast a glamour over everything.

Nearly every other man stopped and spoke to Gobion, and he felt
strangely moved to think that he would soon be out of it all and
forgotten.

He turned into the stable-yard of the "Bell," and stood there for a
moment irresolutely, frowning, and then with a quick movement went into
the private bar.

It was quite empty of customers, and a girl sat before the fire with her
feet on the fender reading a novel.

She jumped up when Gobion came in, and he put his arm round her waist
and kissed her. She was a pretty, fresh-looking girl, and would have
been prettier still if she had not so obviously darkened her eyelashes
with a burnt hairpin.

Gobion sat down on the chair, and pulled her on to his knee, smiling at
her, and puffing rings of cigarette smoke at her.

She settled herself comfortably, leaning back in his arms, and began to
rattle away in a rather high-pitched voice about a raid of the proctors
the night before.

As is the habit of the more "swagger" sort of barmaid, she used the
word "awfully" (with the accent on the _aw_) once or twice in nearly
every sentence, and it was curious to hear how glibly the Varsity slang
and contractions slipped from her.

He played with a loose curl of hair, thinking what a pretty little fool
she was.

"Maudie dear, I'm going away."

"Do you mean for _good_?"

"I'm afraid so, darling."

She opened her eyes wide and puckered up her forehead. She looked very
nice, and he kissed her again.

"I don't understand," she said.

"Well, the fact is the guvnor has stopped supplies, and I'm sent down."

"And you're going to leave _me_?... and we've had such an awfully jolly
time ... oh, you cruel boy!"

And she began to sob.

He grinned perplexedly over her head.

" ... Never mind, dearest, I'll write to you and come down and see you
soon."

"I don't know _what_ I shall do.... I l-liked you s-so much better than
the others.... _Don't_ go."

"But, Maudie, I must. Look here, I will come in after lunch and arrange
things properly. I'm in a fearful hurry now, and I shan't go till
to-morrow."

"Really!"

"Oh, rather; now give me a B. and S. I really must depart."

She got up from his knee, and went behind the counter in the corner of
the room.

"I'm going to have some first," she said.

"You're a naughty little girl!"

"Am I? you rather like it, don't you?" ... She looked tempting when she
smiled.

"May I?"

"You've had such a lot!"

"Just one to keep me going till after lunch."

"Stupid boy; well, there----"

"That was ve-ry nice. Good-bye for the present, dear."

She made a little mock curtsey. "I shall expect you at two ... dear!"

He kissed his hand and shut the door, breathing a sigh of relief when he
got outside.

"She won't see me again. I'm well out of that," he thought, his cheeks
still burning with her hot kisses.

"Now for the worst ordeal."

Father Gray came out of the private chapel of the clergy-house in his
cassock and biretta.

He had been hearing the somewhat long confession of an innocuous but
unnecessary Keble man, and felt inclined to be irritable. He met Gobion
going up to his room.

His pale lined face lighted up--most people's faces did when they saw
Gobion.

"You here, dear boy? Come in--come into my room."

He opened the door, and went in with his hand on Gobion's shoulder. The
room was panelled in dark green, and warmed by a gas stove. The shelves
were filled with books, and books littered the floor and chairs, and
even invaded two big writing-tables covered with papers. Over the
mantelpiece was hung a print of Andrea Mantegna's Adoration of the Magi.
On the wall opposite was a great crucifix, while underneath it was a
little shelf covered with worn black velvet, with two silver
candlesticks standing on it.

Behind a green curtain stood an iron frame, holding a basin and jug of
water.

All the great Anglican priests had been in that room at one time or
another.

From it retreats were organized, the innumerable squabbles of the
various sisterhoods settled, and arrangements made for the private
confession of High Church bishops who required a tonic.

In fact, this business-like little room was in itself the head-quarters
of what that amusing print _The English Churchman_ would call "the most
Romanizing members of the Ritualistic party."

They sat down. Father Gray said, "You have something to tell me?"

"Yes," Gobion answered sadly, "I am ruined."

"Oh, come, come! What's all this? A boy like you can't be ruined."

"My father has put the last touch to his unkindness, and quite given me
up. You know how I have tried to work and lead a decent life; but he
won't listen, and I'm going to work at journalism in London and take my
chance."

"My poor boy, my poor boy!" And the old priest was silent.

Then he said, "Do you think you can keep yourself?"

"I am sure I can, if only I can tide over the first three months. I
expect it will be very hard at first though."

"Have you any money?"

"No; and I am heavily in debt into the bargain."

"Oh, well, well, we must manage all that somehow. I won't let you
starve. You have always been so frank with me, and told me all your
troubles. We understand one another; you must let me lend you some for a
time."

"It's awfully good of you."

"Oh, nonsense, these things are nothing between you and me; here is a
cheque for five-and-twenty pounds, that will keep you going for a month
or two. You know I'm not exactly a poor man. Now you'll stay to lunch,
the Bishop's coming."

"No, thanks, I won't stay, I'll say good-bye now; I want to be alone
and think. Thank you so very much; I haven't led a very happy life at
Oxford, but I _have_ tried ... and you've been so kind.... I am afraid I
am utterly unworthy of it all"; and his voice trembled artistically.

"My boy," said the old man, and his face shone, "you have been foolish,
and wasted your chances. You have not been very bad. Thank God that you
are pure and don't drink. God bless you--go out and prosper, keep
innocence; now good-bye, good-bye"; and he made the sign of the cross in
the air.

Gobion got outside somehow, feeling rather unwell. He did not feel
particularly pleased with his success at first, but the sun, and the
crowd of people, and the wonderful irrepressible gaiety of the High just
before lunch on a fine day cheered him up; and he cashed the second
cheque, enjoying the look of surprise on the clerk's face, which was an
unusual thing, because bank clerks, though always discourteous, are
seldom surprised.

Then he went back to college and packed his portmanteau.

He left most of his books, and took only clothes and things that did not
require much room. Scott would send up the heavy things after him. He
told his scout he was going down for a few days, and that Mr. Scott of
Merton would forward all letters. He knew that if his intended departure
became known his creditors would rush to the Rector, and he would
probably be detained.

He lingered over lunch, making an excellent meal, drinking a good deal
of brandy, and thinking over the position. As far as he could see things
were not so very bad; he could probably earn enough by journalism to
keep him, and he had forty-five pounds in his pocket, while the
pleasures of London awaited him.

He lay back in an armchair, taking deep draughts of hot cigarette smoke
into his lungs, smiling at the idea of his morning's work, and wondering
how he had done it--analyzing and dissecting his own fascination.

It is a curious thing that the more evil we are the more intensely we
are absorbed in our own personality. The clever scoundrel is always an
egotist; and Gobion liked nothing better than to admire himself quietly
and dispassionately.

Leaning back half asleep, looking lazily at the purring, spitting fire,
his thoughts turned swiftly into memories, and a vista of the last few
years opened up before him.

He saw himself a boy of fifteen, keenly sensitive and inordinately vain.
He remembered how his eager hunger for admiration had led him to pose
even to his father and mother; how, when he found out he was clever, he
used to lie carefully to conceal his misdoings from them. Gradually and
slowly he had grown more evil and more bitter at the narrowness which
misunderstood him.

When love had gone the deterioration was more marked, and he threw
himself into grossness. His imagination was too quick and vivid to let
him live in vice wholly without remorse, and every now and again he
wildly and passionately confessed his sins and turned his back on them,
as he thought, for ever. Then after a week or two the emotional fervour
of repentance would wear off, and he would plunge more deeply into vice,
and lead a jolly, wicked life.

But keenest and most poignant of all his memories were the quiet summer
evenings with Scott or Taylor, when the windows were open, and the long
days sank gently into painted evenings. It was at times like these, when
all the charm and mellow beauty of evening floating down on the ancient
town of spires sensuously bade him forget the life he was leading, and
thrilled all the poetry and fervour in him, that he would talk simply
and beautifully, and stir his friends into a passion of enthusiasm by
his ideals. The gloriousness of youth bound them all together, and in
the summer quiet of some old-world college garden the wolf and the lambs
held sweet converse, generally in the chosen language of that university
exclusiveness which is at once so pretty and so delightful, so impotent,
and yet full of possibilities. Detached scenes rose up ... the almost
painful aesthetic pleasure he had felt when he had gone to evensong at
Magdalen with Scott, and the scent of the summer seemed to penetrate and
be felt through the solemn singing and sonorous booming of the lessons.

... The High by moonlight--the most fairy-like scene in Europe. Scott's
arm in his, and the grey towers shimmering in the quivering moonspun
air.

A black cloud of horror and despair came down on him. He saw himself as
he was. For once he dared to look at his own evil heart, and no light
came to him in that dark hour.

       *       *       *       *       *

A little before half-past five, nine or ten men stood on the platform of
the Great Western station talking together.

A group of what Gobion called the "good" set had come to see him go.

They stood round, sorrowfully pressing him to write and let them know
how he got on.

Fleming went to the bookstall and bought a great bundle of papers and
magazines, and Scott appeared at the door of the refreshment-room laden
with sandwiches and a flask of sherry.

They shook hands all round; it was the last time most of them saw him.
Sadly they said good-bye, and took a last look at his clear-cut face.

Scott claimed the last adieu, and leant into the carriage, pressing
Gobion's hand, afraid to speak. Gobion felt a horrible remorse, but he
choked down his emotion by an enormous effort of will.

The train began to move.

"God bless you, God bless you, old un," said Scott hoarsely.

"An epithet is the conclusion of a syllogism," said Gobion to himself,
lighting a cigarette as the train glided out of the station.

So he went his way, and they saw him no more.




  CHAPTER III.

  _INITIATION._


Gobion went to the Grosvenor Hotel and dressed for dinner. Never before
had he been so free, so unrestrained. A most pleasurable feeling of
excitement possessed him.

He knew he could venture where another man would fail; he had
fascination, resource--he was utterly unscrupulous; it was almost
pleasingly dramatic.

He stood in the hall after dinner and lit a cigarette, watching the
crowd of well-dressed people on the lounges round the wall, enjoying
their after-dinner coffee.

The excellent dinner he had eaten still wanted the final climax of
coffee, and sitting down in an armchair he ordered some.

The dreamy content of a well-fed, but not over-fed, man beamed from
him. What should he do?--a music-hall perhaps--he could almost have
laughed aloud in pure amusement and delight at his freedom.

A man sitting near asked him for a match, and they began to talk in the
idle desultory way of two chance acquaintances, making remarks about the
people sitting round.

A big, yellow-haired girl was talking and laughing in loud tones on the
other side of the room, clattering her fan with, it seemed to Gobion,
quite unnecessary noise.

"Who is that person?" he said.

"Which?"

"The girl with the bun, by the potted palm."

"Oh," said the stranger, "that is Lady Mary Aiden Hibbert; she is of a
rather buoyant disposition."

"Not to say _Tom_ buoyant," said Gobion, punning lazily; "she seems of
an amiable complexion."

"My dear sir, complexion of both kinds is influenced by cosmetics, not
by character."

"I perceive you are a cynic."

"Possibly," said the other in a meditative tone; "yet not so much of a
cynic as a man in quest of sensations."

"A society journalist?"

"No, merely a man who has become tired of the higher immorality, and
wants something else to do."

Gobion laughed and got up. "I'm going to the Palace for an hour or two."

"May I come?" said the stranger; "my name is Jones."

"Please do. I am called Yardly Gobion. I shouldn't like to be called
Jones, it's not a pretty name."

The other smiled, he was not vexed; Gobion knew his man. They drove
swiftly to the Palace through the lighted streets, talking a little on
the way. When they went into the stalls the hysterio-comic of the hour
was leaping round the stage in frenzied pirouettes between the verses of
her song.

The suggestive music of the dance pulsed through the audience, and when
the time sank into the rhythm of the verse, they sat back in their
seats with expectant eyes, and a little sigh of delight and
anticipation.

Miss Mace, in her song "It's a Family Characteristic," was the talk of
London. The _risque_ nature of the words, her wonderful art in singing
them, her naughty eyes, the twitching of her somewhat large mouth--all
the lewd papers of the baser sort yelled over her in ecstasy every
Wednesday morning.

"I wonder what they pay her a week," said Mr. Jones.

Gobion hadn't an idea, but he said "sixty pounds" confidently.

"Really! She certainly is very clever."

"The best thing I find about her is that she is in wonderful sympathy
with her audience, especially too when she is drunk--much funnier then."

"Imagine how often the average faddist would invoke the Deity during her
turn," said the stranger something sententiously.

"His deity, you mean," answered Gobion. "The average man of the
_Echo_-reading type thinks God is a policeman in the service of the
Purity party."

"You coruscate; let us go to the American bar."

"That's a good idea; the presiding gentleman who makes the drinks is an
artist. The mingled science and art with which he compounds whimsical
beverages is wonderful. Half of him seems impulse and nervous force as
he rattles the pounded ice and flourishes the glasses, while the other
half looks in and puts the finishing touches."

"You talk nonsense very pleasantly," said Mr. Jones. "What will you
have?"

"Oh! a sherry cobbler, please, _with_ straws."

"Are you a connoisseur in drinks?"

"Not yet; I hope to be."

"I will take you to a place where you may learn."

"Please do; drinks are more than a cult, they are a science. To a man I
knew at Oxford they were a religion." He was thinking of Condamine.

"There are so many religions nowadays."

"Yes; the sham of yesterday takes an alias and calls itself the religion
of the future."

"I hate the faddist."

"What _do_ you like?"

"I haven't many likes left now. I like to be amused as much as
possible."

After a time they left the music-hall, and while they were walking
through clubland the stranger permitted himself more freedom of
expression, talking cynically. He was a middle-aged man, and Gobion
amused him immensely.

"How badly brought up you must have been," he said to him.

"Why, what makes you think so?"

"You vibrate so quickly to my views, and I am not considered orthodox."

"Well, I was not so much badly brought up, as left to myself. My
father's pedigree claimed a larger share of his attention than his
progeny. I was an accident in the domestic arrangements."

"He must be a strange person."

"He is. I always suspect my predisposition to shady pleasures is
hereditary, although he is a parson."

"It's quite often the case that a repentant rake takes Orders from a
mere revulsion to asceticism. And your mother?"

"A nonentity with most seductive hair."

While talking, they had arrived at the Park, and were turning home to
the hotel in the fresh night air. Gobion knew that he had been smart,
perhaps smarter than usual, but he did not know what impression he had
made. The stranger was a man outside his experience. Accustomed as
Gobion was, in the light of Oxford experience, to feel that _he_ was the
cynic and man of the world, he was somewhat doubtful of a man who
appeared to him to be a realization of what he might himself become.
Cynicism, he thought, is now my plaything; it is this man's master, and
he has lost the savours of life. I wonder if Father Gray was right. He
often said that up to thirty a man might be happy with no moral sense;
but after----

He saw dimly a foreshortened view of the future. It was on this night
that the confidence in his own ability to be happy in evil began to be a
little undermined. This chance meeting with a man weary of life, and not
interested in death, a man with an aching, futile soul, whom he never
saw again, was fraught with tremendous importance to his future career.
On this his first night in London the seeds were sown which led to the
final pose in Houndsditch.

A celebrated lady novelist (she is now in Colney Hatch, but very clever)
once said to the writer of these memoirs that literature, or rather
journalism, is little more than a big game of bluff. Her remark was
quite true. The art of the thing consists in getting the keynote of
twenty different publics, and writing on those lines for the twenty
different papers that represent their views.

This is not the way to make a reputation, but it is certainly one of the
ways in which the literary adventurer may make a certain amount of
money. Gobion knew this well. The conquest was mean and the reward not
far from meagre; but at his age and with his past he could not hope for
much more, and there was a bustling excitement in it which seemed to him
most desirable.

He could not specialize; he had no fixed opinions. It was impossible for
him to take up a decided line in his work.

At Oxford the exigencies of his career had forced him to have no
opinions, but simply to adopt the policy of the set he happened to be
with. He belonged to no party, and in moral views, though he was
apparently in agreement with both, he titillated the men of a clean and
decent life, and amused their opposites, while he borrowed money from
both with a cheerful impartiality. As far as he could dispassionately
reckon them up, his mental assets were a felicity and facility of
expression, more or less wide reading, and a power of intuition and
knowledge of the public mind that was almost devilish in its
infallibility.

After breakfast next morning, that meal so dear (in more senses than
one) to the undergraduate, obviously the first thing to be done was to
secure a place to dwell in. It was not wise to stay on at the hotel a
moment longer than was necessary; the expense was too great. He thought
at once of the Temple. It was a good address, and near most things. He
knew enough of London to understand that Bloomsbury was clerk-land, and
though cheap, quite impossible. Westminster was better, but not quite
central enough. Finally, after some trouble, he took two first-floor
rooms in one of the quiet streets running from the Fleet Street end of
the Strand to the Embankment. They were well-furnished bachelor rooms,
with a low window-seat from which a glimpse could be caught of
red-sailed barges with yellow masts of pitch-pine floating slowly down
the tide, while on late wintry afternoons the sunsets stained the brown
water with a grim and sullen glory.

Gobion had a lurking hope that he might meet the comic landlady that Mr.
Farjeon writes about so nicely in the flesh. He was doomed to
disappointment. The person, called Mrs. Daily, who owned the house had
no peculiarities, and nothing to suggest the type he was in search of
save rotundity of form. He was loth to think the comic landlady was a
fabulous monster, or an extinct one--the lady who says, "Which Mister
Jones come tight last blessed hevening has hever was, and which I 'ad to
bump 'is 'edd on the stairs to keep 'im quiet while the girl and I
'elped 'im up to the third floor back." Was she really fabulous? It was
a sorrowful reflection.

The same day that he took the rooms he moved from the West and took
possession. He had dined at the hotel before he left, and when he had
unpacked his portmanteaux he sat before the fire feeling horribly dull
and uneasy.

He was not inclined to go out to a theatre or bar, and the men he knew
in town, mostly journalists, were all hard at work now in Fleet Street.

The sensation of _ennui_ was new to him, and at first quite overbearing.
Gobion was in personal matters strong-willed, and after a time this
trained faculty of will helped him, and, with an effort almost heroic in
its strength, he sat down at the table and began to review a book for
_The Pilgrim_. It was a collection of essays by a well-known priest on
some doctrinal aspects of church teaching that he had before him, and it
was sent to him partly because he was known to have had some connection
with the High Church party, and the editor assumed that he would have
enough superficial knowledge of the subject to write a clever and
flippant review.

_The Pilgrim_ had been bought at a low ebb in its fortunes by its
present editor, James Heath, for a thousand pounds, lock, stock, and
barrel. Before it came into his hands it was an unsavoury little print,
which published little else but impressionist criticisms of the
music-halls and fulsome reviews of evil books, under the direction of a
man who was a personified animal passion roughly clothed in flesh.

Now it was all changed. The tone of _The Pilgrim_ was immoral as before,
and the column headed "The Pilgrim's Scrip" as grossly personal as ever,
but the personalities were more artistic, the immorality the immorality
of culture.

The paper was never low. The sale was good, for all the young men and
women who considered themselves clever, and who, under the comprehensive
shield of "soul," sucked poison from strange flowers, bought it and
quoted it.

Heath was smart and cynical in his conduct of the paper, though in
private life he lived at Putney, collected stamps, and read Miss
Braddon's novels to his wife after dinner. He knew quite well that
realism was mechanism, and he never welcomed photography as art, but as
the people who bought his literary wares did not understand these
things he never enlightened them, which was natural.

The book that Gobion was reviewing he had entrusted to him willingly. He
was an Oxford man himself, and still kept up some communication with his
friends there, and he had heard indirectly that Gobion had received
various benefits from the High Church party. His knowledge of Gobion
taught him that he would do a delightfully clever and malicious review.

The clergyman who had written the book was a rather noisy Anglican
divine, who preached the gospel of unity in art and religion at the top
of his voice. He deprecated and eloquently denounced the new literature
of the day. As _The Pilgrim_ was the outward and visible head of what
Canon Emeric denounced as very little short of devilish, Heath was
naturally anxious that the review should, in journalistic phrase, "crab"
the sale of the book among his readers.

Now this Canon Emeric had met Gobion at a garden party, and found him
well informed in the history of his campaign against art for art's sake.
Finding that Gobion agreed with his views, he had asked him as a
special favour to call on his son, who had just come up to Christchurch
from Marlborough. Gobion did call, and asked the youth to meet
Sturtevant, and the poor boy, dazzled by being in the society of men of
whom he heard everyone talking, made a fool of himself and came to utter
grief, much to the pecuniary benefit of Condamine, Sturtevant, and
Gobion. It was a disgraceful affair, and though some rather acrimonious
correspondence had passed between the Canon and Gobion, the matter had
been hushed up.

When Gobion got well into his work the ennui passed away and he worked
hard, turning out a very clever and caustic review. To the pleasure of
creation, always a keen one with him, was added the delight of writing
something which, if he saw it, would pain his adversary grievously. And
Gobion meant to take very good care that he _did_ see it.

He ended the column by saying:--

     "Whether these essays were worth writing is of course a question
     which lies between Canon Emeric and his publisher. That they are
     not worth reading we have no hesitation in saying.

     "If anyone were so childish as to take the advice given in this
     book seriously, he would find that all the time he could spare
     from worship he would spend in neglecting the obligations of
     religion."

It took him about two hours to produce the criticism in its finished
state, and then he began to have a last smoke before going to bed. As
with so many men, he found that at no time did his ideas come so
rapidly, or shape themselves so well, as during the smoking of that last
cigarette.

The fire was blazing, and he drew his chair up closer, leaning back and
enjoying in every nerve a moment of intense physical ease.

There was no more innocent picture to be found in London than the
well-furnished room lit by the dancing firelight, with the handsome
young man in the chair lazily watching the blue cigarette smoke slowly
twisting itself into strange fantastic shapes. The powers of Asmodeus
were here a failure.

Next day, when he had written to his Oxford friends and to Marjorie
Lovering, his sweetheart in the country, he went to _The Pilgrim_
office with his review and saw Heath. The two editorial rooms were on
the second floor looking out into the Strand. Big bare places littered
with paper, cigarette ends, and type-written copy, with none of the tape
machines, telephones, and fire-calls that are found in the offices of a
daily. Heath was seated at a writing-table "making up" the issue for the
week, while his assistant, a man named Wild, was looking through a batch
of cuttings from Romeike's in the hope of finding what he called "spicy
pars" for the front page. Gobion was well received, and after he had
explained that he was going to stay in town, and was open for any amount
of work, he was offered a permanent salary of two pounds ten shillings a
week, to do half the reviewing for the paper. Naturally he accepted at
once, and was pleased at his good luck, for though the pay was small it
was regular.

Heath was a very large, fat man, with no hair on his face, and a quick,
nervous smile which ended high in the pendant flabbiness of his cheeks.
He was well and fashionably dressed in dark grey, the frock coat,
tight-fitting as it was, making his vast size and huge hips seem the
more noticeable. He was smoking a cigar, and gave Gobion one.

It was lunch time when the bargain was concluded, and Gobion, Wild, and
Heath went out together. Gobion, who, obeying the precept of Iago, had
put money in his purse, asked them to lunch with him at Romano's. Heath
laughed.

"My _dear_ Yardly Gobion, lunch at Romano's! No thanks; it would cost
you five pounds and be far too respectable. No, you shall certainly pay
for the lunch--eh Wild?--but I will show you where to get it."

He turned up a side street and entered a small court, not far from the
stage door of the Lyceum, at the end of which was a door. They went in
and found a suite of three largish rooms opening one out of the other.
The first was fitted up as a restaurant, while the other two were
smoking-lounges with a bar in each. Comfort, brutal unaesthetic comfort,
was the most obvious thing in all three rooms. The chairs were
comfortable, the carpets soft, while big cheery fires burnt in the open
grates. No one was in the dining-room, but through the half-open
curtains, which separated the lounge from the dining-room, came snatches
of conversation, the sound of soda-water corks, and the shrill laughter
of a London barmaid, than which few things are more unpleasant.

The three journalists sat down at a table by the fire, and a waiter
brought the menu.

Mr. Heath's rather impassive face lighted up, and he read the list
eagerly. Eating and drinking were of tremendous importance to him.

The food was ordered, and Gobion asked them what they would drink.
Heath, with a sublime disregard for bulk, ordered lager; the other two,
simple "halves" of bitter. While the meal was in progress a man came in
from a side door. Heath called him, introducing him to Gobion as Mr.
Hamilton, the owner of the place.

Wild explained to Gobion that he was now free of the "copy shop." "You
see," said he, "this is a place almost entirely used by journalists of a
non-political kind. Everyone knows everyone else, and Hamilton knows us
all by name. An outsider who wanders in here is not encouraged to repeat
his visit, unless he is vouched for by someone, for the place is really
more like a club than a public bar."

After lunch they went into the lounge, which was filled with men, mostly
young, who all seemed to know one another by their Christian names.
Heath was hailed cordially.

A man sitting on the table stood up, and said theatrically, "Enter the
Pilgrim, arch-druid of the loving Mountain--slow music. Well, my fat
friend, what wicked scandal do you come fresh from concocting? What lewd
pars are even now in the copy box at 162, Strand?"

The Pilgrim grinned. "Gentlemen, let me introduce my latest permanent
recruit, Mr. Yardly Gobion. He has just been sent down from Exeter."
Gobion was welcomed as a brother, and in half an hour had taken up his
favourite position on the hearthrug.

Exerting himself to the utmost, he found he could produce much the same
impression as he did in Oxford, and he was a pronounced success in
perhaps one of the most critical coteries in London.

They were critics of everything, criticism was in their veins, they
lived on it; they were "the men who had failed in literature and art."

Every now and then a man or two on an evening paper would come in
hastily for a drink, and there was a quick interchange of
technicalities, a chorus of experts, sharp, clipped, allusive; the
latest wire from the Central News, the newest story from the clubs, the
smartest headline of the afternoon.

Gobion soon caught the note and was voted an acquisition. Although he
was of a somewhat finer grain than most of these men, he recognized the
type instantly. Cheap cynicism was the keynote of most of the
conversation, and his lighter side revelled in it. Most complex of all
men, he could suck pleasure from every shade of feeling. Lord Tennyson's
beautiful line: "A glorious devil large in heart and brain," fitted him
exactly. With his intellect he might have been a saint, instead of which
he was sublime in nothing whatever. With the face of an angel, he loved
goodness for its beauty, and sin for its excitement.

Before he left the "copy shop" he had picked up several good stories,
and saw his way to at least half a dozen scandalous paragraphs, which
he would send to a provincial paper with which he had some connection.

He went away, being pressed to come regularly, and Mr. Hamilton met him
going out, expressing his pleasure at seeing any "friend of Mister
Heath's and member of the fourth hestate, 'oping as the pleasure will be
repeated." Not being a journalist, the worthy landlord had a high
opinion of the press.

Gobion left with Wild, and they strolled down towards Fleet Street.

"Drop in at my place some evening, will you?" he said to his companion.

"Thanks very much. I will, certainly. You must come and look me up when
you've time. I am at present sharing a flat with Blanche Huntley, whom
you may have heard of. I suppose you don't mind?"

"I, my dear fellow? Rather not; delighted to come. Do you turn off
here?"

"Yes, I'm going to the Temple station; good-bye."

Gobion had heard of Miss Huntley. "How very nasty some men are in their
tastes," he thought; "it's all rather horrid. I'll go to evensong
somewhere." Not the better, but the finer side of him woke up, and he
felt the necessity of a quieting and poetic influence to counteract the
clever sordidness of the afternoon. He took a cab to Pimlico, where he
knew churches were plentiful, and after a little search found what he
wanted not far from Victoria Station.

The church was only lit by the candles on the high altar and a solitary
corona over the stall of the clergyman. Gobion was quite alone. The
shadows and gloom of the building were thrown into a deeper gloom, an
added mystery, by the radiance above. A young priest, of the earnest
Cuddesdon type, walked in all alone, his steps echoing mournfully on the
flagged chancel floor. He gave a slight start of pleasure when he saw
that there was a congregation, a young man, too!--the poor curate had
never before seen such a phenomenon at a weekday evensong.

They said the psalms together, Gobion's sweet voice echoing down the
long, dark aisles.

The clergyman felt an instinctive sympathy. He saw that Gobion was
feeling to the full the influence of the hour and place, the musical
cadence of the verse, and he responded in his turn with a newer sense of
the poetry of worship, throwing deep feeling into his voice. It was a
keen, aesthetic pleasure to both of them, though the priest felt
something more, but it put Gobion on good terms with himself at once. He
had roused emotion of a sort, and the rousing seemed to sweep away the
contamination of the day.

He bowed low to the distant crucifix on the altar on leaving the
building, as a man who had tasted a sweet morsel, with shadowy and
pleasant thoughts--the sense of a finer glory.




  CHAPTER IV.

  _THE CAMPAIGN._


When a few unconsidered trifles have been thrown out at score, to a
middle-aged business man the world is a bundle of shares and bills
receivable. To most young men it is a girl or several girls. For some
girls it is a young man. For some other people it is a church, a bar, a
coterie--for Yardly Gobion it was himself. Realizing this in every
nerve, for the next few weeks he devoted himself to making acquaintances
and impressions.

He did no writing beyond his weekly contribution to _The Pilgrim_, but
went abroad and looked around, making himself a niche before he essayed
anything further. He managed to get about to one or two rather decent
houses, and greatly consolidated his position at the "copy shop." His
idea was to keep quiet till Sturtevant came up to town, for he thought
that very little could stand against such a combination. Accordingly he
had a pleasant time for the next few weeks. His work did not take him
more than four hours a day, and now that his circle of acquaintance was
so much enlarged there was always plenty of amusement. He could always
enjoy the small change of transient emotion by a visit to the church at
Pimlico, where in the lonely services he felt (sometimes for nearly an
hour) a sorrow at his life and a yearning for goodness.

His mental attitude on these occasions was a strange one, and one only
found in people possessing the artistic temperament; for he seemed to
stand aloof, and mourn over the grossness of some dear friend; he could
detach his mind from his own personality, and feel an awful pity for his
own dying soul. Then after these luxurious abandonments, these
delightful lapses into religious sentimentality, he would seize on
pleasure as a monkey seizes on a nut, finding an added zest in the
pursuit of dissipation. One thing in some small degree he noticed, and
that was that this alternation of attitude was slightly weakening his
powers of taste. The sharpest edge of enjoyment seemed blunted.

One night, about a month after his arrival in town, he dined out in
Chelsea with some friends, driving back to his rooms about eleven
o'clock, very much in love with himself. On this particular evening he
had not tried to be smart or clever. There had been several other
ultra-modern young men there; and seeing that the hostess--a charming
person--was wearied of their modernity and smart sayings, he affected
quite another style, pleasing her by his deferential and chivalrous
manner, the simplicity of his conversation. A fresh instance of his
power always tickled his vanity, and he drove home down the Strand, his
soul big with a hideous egoism.

He paid the driver liberally, for he was generous in all small matters,
and opening the door with his latch-key went upstairs. He entered the
room, and to his immeasurable surprise found it brilliantly lit with gas
and candles. On the table was a half-empty bottle of champagne and a
bedroom tumbler.

In a chair on the right side of the fireplace sat Sturtevant in his
shirtsleeves, smoking a cigarette, while on the other side of the fire
was a young lady dressed in the van of the fashion, also smoking. Her
hat was off, and her hair was metallically golden.

"Where--the--devil--did you spring from?" said Gobion.

"My good friend--not before a lady, please," said Sturtevant with a
grin.

The lady waved her cigarette in the air. "Spit it out, old man; don't
mind me!" she said.

Gobion looked helplessly from the lady to Sturtevant and back again.
These things were beyond him.

"Allow me," said Sturtevant. "Mr. Yardly Gobion, Miss--er--I don't know
your name, my dear."

"Me?" said the young lady. "My name don't matter. I'm off; so long,
boys."

"Will you explain?" said Gobion. "I am rather bewildered."

"Well, it's in this way. I got up to town about six this evening, and
went to the Temple. I found my chambers in an excessively filthy state,
with no fire, my laundress not expecting me till to-morrow. I dined at
the 'Monico,' and met that damsel in Piccadilly; and, in short, we have
been spending the evening under your hospitable roof, aided by a bottle
of fizz from the 'Grecian.'"

"I see. Well, if you don't mind, old man, don't bring that sort in. I
like them anywhere but in my rooms. A _demoiselle de trottoir_ should
stay----"

"On the _trottoir_--quite so. I won't offend again; only I wanted
someone to amuse me, and I expected you'd be late. Now look here; can
you put me up for the night? my chambers are in a horrible mess."

"Oh, I should think so; I'll ask the landlady."

At half-past eleven the next morning Gobion got up, after some trouble
getting Sturtevant out of bed; and they began a composite meal which the
president called "brunch" soon after twelve.

Some letters were waiting. One was a pathetic appeal from an Oxford
tailor for "something on account." Gobion said "damn" (the Englishman's
shortest prayer), and threw it into the fire. Another was a letter from
Scott, strong, earnest, and loving. He passed it to Sturtevant, who read
it and said, "Man seems to have kept it a little too long in a hot
place. Trifle high, don't you think?"

The third ran:--

    "MY DEAR CARADOC,

    "Marjorie and I are coming up for a fortnight to stay with my
    mother in Kensington. We hope to see a good deal of you, as you
    say you have deserted Oxford for a time to take up some literary
    work in London.

    "Marjorie tells me to say that you must meet our train--the 4.30
    at Victoria, but don't put yourself out.

    "Yours affectionately,

    "GERALD LOVERING."

"Hallo," said Gobion, "my girl's coming up!"

"Didn't know you had one; has she any money?"

"A little, I think, and her father looks on me as an eligible; he
doesn't know I've been sent down, and I don't intend he shall. I have to
meet the 4.30 this afternoon."

"Well, I wanted to talk over our plans some time to-day. When will you
come to my chambers?"

"This evening, I should think. I must work till four; I've a novel to do
for _The Pilgrim_, and I've not read a line yet."

"Oh, don't bother about that. 'Smell the paper-knife' instead; let's go
to the 'copy shop.'"

"Afraid I can't; I must do it. Look here, I will come round about ten
this evening. Don't be drunk."

"Right oh! I'll go back now and get my rooms into some sort of order."

He rolled a cigarette and roamed about the room, looking for his hat.
"It's gone to the devil, I think," he said.

"In that case you'll find it again some day. There it is, though--under
the sofa. I thought you didn't believe in the devil."

"Satan may be dead, as the hedonists think; but I expect someone still
carries on the business."

When he had gone Gobion got to work, and wrote steadily till three,
when he went to the "copy shop" to get something to eat. They kept him
waiting some little time. Albert, the waiter, who was supposed to be
smart in his profession, on this occasion hid his talent (no doubt in a
napkin), and Gobion had only a minute to spare when he got to Victoria.

The train curved into the station and pulled up slowly. He made for the
door of a first-class carriage where he saw Mr. Lovering getting out.
The parson was a little man, all forehead and nose. When Gobion came up
he was struggling with a bundle of rugs and umbrellas.

"Ah, dear boy, you have come then. So good of you. Get Marjorie out
while I find our luggage."

Then Marjorie came down from the carriage, glowing with health and
spirits, her dark eyes flashing when they saw Gobion.

"Dearest," he said. She put her little gloved hand into his, looking up
in his face, while his blood ran faster through his veins.

"Caradoc, dear, it _is_ so jolly to see you again; we are going to stay
in London for over a fortnight, and you shall take me about everywhere.
Oh, here's father."

The little man bustled up. He was one of those dreadful people whom a
railway journey excites to a species of frenzy. He ran up and down the
platform, dancing round the truck which held his baggage, holding a
piece of paper in his hand, muttering, "One black bag--yes; two corded
trunks--yes; one hat-box--yes; two boxes of ferns--yes; one bundle of
rugs--y--NO! Marjorie! _where_ are the rugs? Gobion, I _know_ I had the
rugs _after_ we got out--a big bundle with a striped red and green one
on the outside."

"You're carrying it, aren't you, Mr. Lovering?"

"Dear me! so I am. How very stupid of me! Now if you will get a cab I
should be so obliged--a four-wheeler, mind!"

Gobion secured one and came back, standing by Marjorie while the luggage
was hoisted on the roof.

"I do hate a silly old four-wheeler!" she said.

"Never mind, dearest, soon we'll go about in a hansom together to your
heart's content--jump in! May I call to-morrow, Mr. Lovering?"

"Yes, yes, dear boy--you know the address. Good-bye for the present."

Gobion left the station with a sense of _bien-etre_. He remembered that
he was not due at the Temple till ten, wondering what he should do with
himself. Just as he was going out of the gates that rail off the
station-yard from the street, a cab dashed up, the occupant evidently in
haste to catch a train. Unfortunately, just as it was coming into the
yard, the horse swerved and fell, and the man inside was shot out past
Gobion, his head striking the curbstone with fearful force. Death was
almost instantaneous. Gobion rushed up and lifted him in his arms, but
it was of no use. In a short time two policemen came up, and after
taking Gobion's name as a witness of the occurrence, placed the body on
a stretcher, moving off with it followed by the crowd. The whole affair
did not last ten minutes.

Gobion stood by himself staring at the blood on his clothes. He was
moving away, when he saw the card-case of the dead man was lying in the
gutter, where it had been jerked when he fell. He picked it up, giving a
start of surprise when he saw the name SIR WILLIAM RAILTON, a prominent
member of the government in power.

All the horror of the scene passed away in a flash. He was a journalist
pure and simple now, with an hour's start of any man in London.
Hurriedly wiping his clothes, he ran over the road to Tinelli's, an
Italian restaurant, and, ordering pens, paper, and a flask of Chianti,
wrote furiously a brief account, about a quarter of a column long. He
made five copies, and then got into a cab and drove hard to Fleet
Street, leaving his card and an account at the news-office of each of
the big dailies.

Then came the reaction, and he staggered home, faint with hard work and
the horror of what he had seen. He put on another suit, not feeling
himself till he had roused his spirits with a copious brandy and soda.

This instinct of the journalist is a curious thing; while it lasts it is
a hot fever, brutal almost in its vehemence. A man possessed by it
forgets everything but the fierce joy of his work, and a deep exaltation
in the possession of exclusive news; but the reaction is bad for the
nerves.

Sturtevant's chambers in the Temple were distinctly comfortable. A large
room panelled in white, with doors opening round it into bedrooms. A gay
Japanese screen protected a cosy corner by the fire, fitted up with a
lounge, an armchair, two little tables, and a standard lamp. It was all
more elaborate than his Oxford rooms, because at Oxford he was too well
known for his position to depend on externals--while in London they were
part of his stock-in-trade. It was a room in which laziness seemed a
virtue, with numberless contrivances for comfort. Corners for elbows,
shaded reading lamps, the best of tobacco, and a speaking-tube from the
fireside to the outer passage of the chambers, so that on hearing a
knock, Sturtevant could tell an unwelcome visitor that he was not at
home, but was expected back about five, without opening the door.

"Now," he said, when they had settled down comfortably, "we shall be
quite undisturbed all night. We have a good fire, tobacco, and drink of
the best; let us seriously map out our little campaign."

"Take the evening papers first then," said Gobion. "Now there is the
_Moon_, an organ devoted to playfully redressing wrongs. We will do an
article for it on 'How Barmaids Live.' We can describe the horrors of
their lot: a sleeping-room, 12 feet by 12, with six girls in it, and a
window that won't open; the insults they are exposed to, _et cetera_."

"Do you think that will take?"

"Yes, and I'll tell you why. The ordinary beast who reads the _Moon_
loves anything about a barmaid; they are his society."

"Where shall we get our facts?"

"Invent them, of course; there is no need for investigation. We can make
it much more interesting without. Put it down: 'Barmaid--_Moon_.' Now we
come to the _Resounder_. We must try quite a different line. It's a
newspaper in a strait waistcoat, so to speak, and it's just been
subsidized by the anti-gambling people. How would 'The Gambling Evil at
the Universities' do? We could easily make some astounding revelations,
and your name as president of the Union would have weight with the
editor. What else is there?"

"Well, there's the _Evening Times_ and the _Wire_," said Sturtevant.

"Yes; I think with them we must do short stories. I have three or four
MSS. not yet printed which I will revise. All these things shall go in
under your name, and I will invent two-stick pars about celebrities, and
send three or four to each paper. For instance--

     'It is not generally known that the Queen has a great liking for
     that very plebeian dish, tripe and onions. Indeed, so fond is Her
     Majesty of this succulent preparation, that a few sheep are
     always kept in the home paddocks of each of the royal residences
     to be in readiness if Her Majesty should suddenly express her
     desire. They are mountain bred, and are brought from the
     Highlands of Scotland as soon as they can travel without their
     dams.'

The British public love this kind of thing."

As Gobion suggested an article, one of them put it down on a piece of
paper with the name of the journal to which they proposed to send it.

"I have a beautiful idea," said Sturtevant, after a pause.

"Yes?"

"Look here, you know all the High Church goings-on at Oxford, don't
you?"

"Yes, but why?"

"There's a paper run in London called _The Protesting Protestant_, which
discovers a new popish plot every week. Well, you supply me with enough
facts and names to prove that there is widespread conspiracy going on to
Romanize the undergraduates. See?"

"Ripping!"

"Yes, but wait a minute, the best part is to come. _Then_ you go to the
opposition High Church paper with a letter of introduction from Father
Gray, and answer my attack and so on for the next few weeks, and divide
the swag"; and he leaned back in his chair with a cigarette, with an air
of conscious merit.

"This is more than smartness, Sturtevant," said Gobion, wagging his head
at the tobacco-jar, "this is genius."

"We must be careful in what we say. It would be unpleasant to be
imprisoned for a portion of our unnatural lives."

"Yes, we will hint more than we state. Style is the art of leaving out."

They went on like this for a good part of the night, arranging their
plans, inventing new scandal, and making notes of useful lies.

Towards morning they had settled enough for a week's continuous work;
only proposing, however, to deal with the less reputable papers, for
they both knew well that there was no chance with any respectable sheet.

Just as Gobion was going, Sturtevant said, "What about typing? we can't
send them in MSS."

"I think I can manage that," said Gobion; "a man called Wild, the
sub-editor of _The Pilgrim_, is living with that girl Blanche Huntley,
who was mixed up in the Wrampling case. She used to be a typewriter, and
she has a machine still. Moreover she'd be glad to earn a pound or two
for pocket money; Wild isn't generous. I wonder, by the way, if any of
the things we propose to write are true?"

"Possibly; nature is always committing a breach of promise against the
journalist."

They arranged not to begin the work till the Friday morning, as Gobion
wished to have a day to spend with Marjorie.

In the morning he called in Kensington, and Mr. Lovering, with a chilly
Christian smile, in which perchance lingered some reminiscence of his
youth, left the two young people together.

Soon after, Gobion was sitting at Marjorie's side, with his arm round
her waist and her head delightfully near his. Melodiously he whispered
his joy at seeing her again, holding her little, tender, perfumed hand.
He called forth all his powers of pleasing, and paid her delicate
compliments, like kisses through a veil, compliments such as girls love,
the refinements of adoration arranged neatly in a _bouquet_.

Marjorie was a damsel of many flirtatious loves, though perhaps Gobion
was her especial favourite, he was so extremely good-looking; but she
was the sort of girl that took nothing but chocolates seriously. As her
mother had died when she was quite young, she had been sent to a
boarding school, and had caught the note. She had no mind--girls of this
sort never have--but she was adorably pretty, which, to most men, is
much better.

They both pretended they were very fond of one another, Marjorie because
she liked to be kissed and adored, and Gobion because, after bought
loves, he found a pleasant freshness. It was not only better and holier,
but more piquant. At times, now past, he had persuaded himself that her
influence was ennobling and purifying, but the cynicism engendered by
evil was burning this feeling out.

He was rapidly getting into the condition when everything loses its
savour. Despite his emotional and sympathetic nature, the least glimpse
of higher things was going, and though he put the thought from him, he
knew in his inmost soul that the time was approaching when life would
have nothing more left. Meanwhile it was pleasant to linger in this
last gleam of sunshine--to run his fingers through his lady's hair.

He spent the day at the house, meeting old Mrs. Lovering at lunch. She
was a lady of the old school, with a black knitted shawl, and the three
graces pictured on a cornelian brooch. She disapproved of her
granddaughter as too modern, and taking things too much for granted.
Indeed, the old lady had a dim idea that Marjorie must be one of the
"new" women she had read of in the papers, though if she had ever seen
that sexless oddity she would have rescinded her opinion with a gasp of
relief.

After a drive in the park, sitting on the front seat of the barouche
with Marjorie, and holding her hand under the carriage rug, Gobion went
home. The fire had gone out, leaving the room dark and cheerless, in
sympathy with his thoughts. But then came a stroll for a few yards in
the bright and animated street to the "copy shop," and by the time he
got there his spirits had returned.

They were all there, and he soon forgot everything else in the pride of
dominating them and making his presence felt.

Sturtevant, who was known in the place, came in, and they had a jolly
riotous time, the estimable Mr. Heath having to be sent home in a cab
long before closing time.

Sturtevant drank till he was white and shaking, but kept quite sober,
and was as caustic as ever. Wild dramatically related, amid shouts of
laughter, how he had first met his _protege_ Blanche Huntley, when he
was reporting in the divorce court. It was one of his dearest memories.
Altogether it was a most successful evening.

Then came a week of terribly arduous work, from nine in the morning till
late at night, varied for Gobion by two or three flying visits to the
Loverings. Night after night they wrote with the whiskey bottle between
them. MS. after MS. was finished and sent off to be typed; and then when
they had produced a number of articles, paragraphs, and stories,
possibly unequalled in London for their brilliancy and falsity, they
both went to bed in Sturtevant's rooms for a day and a half, utterly
speechless and worn out.

When the copy was despatched, for Gobion there was a period of peace and
Marjorie. And for three or four days, while Sturtevant sat in his rooms
and drank, Gobion sunned himself in a cleaner air, while the "copy shop"
was deserted.




  CHAPTER V.

  _A PSYCHOLOGICAL MOMENT._


There was once a wood-louse, who, being dissatisfied with his position,
called himself a Pterygobranchiate. This arrogation of dignity was much
resented by his friends. "You belong to the Bourgeoisie," they said to
him, "and we cannot call to mind that you have done anything to warrant
an assumption of this aristocratic title." "My good fools," said the
wood-louse, "you mistake the term 'Bourgeoisie.' The Bourgeoisie are not
a class. A Bourgeois is merely a man who has time to sit down, a chair
is not a caste." So saying he took another glass of log-juice, and
looked his friends steadily in the face. He was an epigrammatic
wood-louse.

They returned somewhat abashed, and for a time, though he was not
liked, he was asked about a good deal; for as people said, "To have a
Pterygobranchiate in one's rooms lends a party such an air of
distinction."

Our friend made some mistakes at first, for he could not resist the
dishes of dried wood _a la Francaise_ and the '74 log-juice that were of
frequent occurrence at the tables of the great. The result of this was
that Nemesis, in the shape of gastric pains, overtook him, and he had to
moderate his appetites.

"Indigestion," he said, "is charged by God with the enforcement of
morality on the stomach, I will reform my habits." Another reason also
contributed to this wise decision, for one day, when going to the
kitchen for his boots, he heard the cook (an elderly wood-louse of
uncertain temper) say to the boy wood-louse who cleaned the knives and
helped in the garden: "Master's that independent and 'e smell so of
drink since 'e 's been a Pterygobranchiate, there's no bearin' with
'im." He realized how foolish he must look in the eyes of many good
people, so he pitched his new visiting cards into a rabbit-hole, and
once more returned to middle-class respectability and happiness.

This story has seven morals, only one of which is wanted here, and that
is: "Any divergence from habit is generally attended with disastrous
results." This was the case with Gobion, who, in an unguarded moment,
told Mr. Lovering something approaching the truth, and so gave himself
away.

The three or four days at the close of the Loverings' visit were very
enjoyable to him, especially after the hard work of the last week; but
unfortunately Mr. Lovering could not quite understand what he was doing
in London, and after a time bluntly asked him the reason for this change
of plans. Thereupon Gobion admitted that he had had a disagreement with
his father, and the parson putting two and two together arrived at a
guess that was not far short of the truth.

Both of them were humbugs, but with this difference, that while Gobion
knew it and made it pay, Mr. Lovering prayed night and morning that he
might not find it out. The result was that the clergyman, who, as the
father of a most attractive damsel, naturally desired to sell her to an
eligible bidder, took Marjorie home at once, telling her that he had
been "greatly deceived" in Gobion, and dictating a polite little note
which she sent him.

He got the letter while he was at breakfast, and read it slowly, trying
in vain to feel it as a blow. It was of no use, however, for it did not
even lessen his hunger for the meal before him.

Then in a flash he realized what this callousness meant. It meant simply
this, that the actual moment had arrived when all higher aspirations had
deserted him, that he was inevitably and firmly bound to sin, while his
mind was allowed to realize the horror of it.

His soul had passed into the twilight.

He knew all this in the space of time that it took to pour out a cup of
coffee, but not a muscle of his face moved.

He knew the reaction would be torture when it came--the torture of a man
damned before death--but until then there was the hideous joy of
absolute unrestraint. There would be no more even shadowy scruples, he
would frolic in evil over the corpse of a dead conscience.

He rang the bell for some more bacon and a morning paper. While he was
reading a "Drama of the Day" article by Clement Scott, the landlady
knocked at the door, and said, "Please, sir, a boy messenger has brought
this, and is there any answer?" He took the note.

    "DEAR MR. YARDLY GOBION,--I and Veda are going to _The Liars_
    to-night, and we want you to escort us. Come to dinner first if
    you can.

    "Yours, E."

He scribbled an acceptance and sent it back by the boy. The invitation
came from a Mrs. Ella Picton, the wife of Lionel Picton, the editor of
the well-known paper _The Spy_. Gobion had been to her house several
times, and she had petted and made much of him.

Her husband was a clever, sardonic man, who let his pretty wife do
exactly as she liked. He said that marriage resembled vaccination, it
might take well or ill, and as for him he put up with the result for
quietness. To his great amusement, his wife had almost persuaded
herself that she was in love with Gobion. He looked so young and fresh,
with such a pretty mouth, and such expressive eyes. She felt a desire to
taste all this dawn.

Picton quite understood, and resolved to use Gobion for his own
purposes, as it seemed necessary to have him in the house. Accordingly
after dinner he asked him a good many questions about _The Pilgrim_ and
its editor. His tongue being loosened by champagne, Gobion made fun of
Heath, an easy subject of ridicule, and blasphemed against _The
Pilgrim_.

"Heath is a sort of literary fat boy, an urchin Rabelais," he said.

"Look here, I'll give you ten guineas for a column in _The Spy_, showing
up Heath and _The Pilgrim_. You needn't give names. Just make it racy,
and cut into the old elephant. You'll excuse my talkin' shop in my own
house, but I should like to have you on _The Spy_ very much."

Gobion was flattered. _The Spy_ was disreputable, but big and important.
He agreed to do an article for the next issue, and as the arrangement
was concluded, the butler came in to say that the ladies were ready to
start. Bidding his host good-night, he went up to the drawing-room,
where Mrs. Picton and her sister Veda Leuilette were waiting.

They drove to the "Criterion," and the air of the carriage was heavy
with the scent of flowers and a subtle odour of white lilac, and the
_frou-frou_ of skirts seemed to accentuate the perfume. They drove up to
the theatre, the footman springing down to open the door, and Gobion
helped the ladies out. As they went into the _foyer_ he noticed Wild and
Blanche Huntley going into the stalls. It was very pleasant to take care
of two strikingly pretty women, and Gobion was conscious of a wish that
some of his Oxford friends, who had imagined that his flight to London
practically meant starvation, could see him now.

The house was full of celebrities. There were warm scents in the air,
and from their box they could see vaguely as through a mist a parterre
of bright colours, the swirl of a fan, the gleaming of white arms, and
the occasional sharp scintillation from a diamond ring or bracelet,
while beyond, the space under the circle was crowded with rows of white
faces framed in black.

Mrs. Picton was dressed in pale blue _crepe-de-chine_, looking very
lovely, and her violet eyes flashed a dangerous fascination while Gobion
and she consulted the programme. Soon after their entrance the band came
in, and began to play a lazy, swinging waltz, which seemed to Gobion to
harmonize strangely with the apricot light of the theatre. The whole
scene struck an unreal and exotic note; he felt a strange deadening of
thought, a dreamy sensuousness more physical than mental, and every time
Mrs. Picton leant back to make some remark, with a little flash of white
teeth framed in wine-red lips, her looks stung his blood.

One of her hands lay on the cushion of the box, white and soft, with
rosy filbert nails.

"How Botticelli would have loved to paint your hands," he said, speaking
a little thickly.

"A portrait is always so unsatisfactory, don't you think?"

"Perhaps; a looking-glass is a better artist than Herkomer."

"Now you're going to be clever! Look at Mrs. Wrampling in the
stalls--fancy showing so soon after the divorce! Isn't she a perfect
poem, though?"

"One that has been through several editions."

"She's well made up, but she's put on a little too much colour."

"Oh, she's not as ugly as she's painted."

"Now you are much too nice a boy to be cynical."

"The cynic only sees things as they really are."

She laughed a silvery little laugh. "Who is that ugly man with her?"

"That is _the_ man--Wilfrid Fletcher."

"She must be fonder of his purse than of his person."

"The most thorough-going of all the philosophies."

"Who else is here that you know?"

"Well, that very fat man in the third row is Heath, the editor of _The
Pilgrim_. He was at Exeter--my college--years ago."

"I should have imagined that he was a University man."

"Really! Why?"

"He is so evidently an apostle of the Extension movement."

"That's quite good! Heath is a clever man though, despite his size."

"In what way?"

"He manages to grasp the changeful modern spirit of the day exactly."

"I think I was introduced to him once, somewhere or other."

"I believe he does go into society."

"Society condones a good deal."

"It is condonation incarnate."

She looked up at him, and blushed a little. "Perhaps it is as well?"

"For some of us?"

"_Si loda l'uomo modesto._"

"Don't you think modesty is advisable? One never knows how far to go."

"One should experiment, then; modesty is more original than natural
nowadays."

"Originality is only a plagiarism from nature."

She opened her fan, moving it quickly. She was not accustomed to be
fenced with like this.

Gobion's senses were coming back to him, the voluptuousness had gone,
and after the first intoxication of her presence, he looked again and
found she did not interest him in the way she sought. After the first
act he offered to get them some ices, sending them by a man, while he
went to the buffet.

Heath and Wild were there. "Hullo!" said the former, "who's that pretty
woman in your box?"

"Picton's wife."

"Lionel Picton?"

"Yes."

"I wouldn't advise you to get mixed up with that lot," he said, making
Gobion feel rather guilty as he remembered the article he was going to
do for _The Spy_. After a minute Wild moved away.

"Such a joke," said Heath, with a grin. "Wild's brought little Blanche
Huntley, the typewriter girl, and both Mrs. Wrampling and Will Fletcher
are here, and they're saying that Wrampling himself is in the circle!
It's a dirty world, my boy, a dirty world."

"I wouldn't quarrel with my bread and butter if I were you," said
Gobion; "you and I'd be in rather a hole if it wasn't for these little
episodes. Mrs. Grundy always was an indecent old person. Ta-ta, see you
after at the 'copy shop'?"

"Yes, my wife's away in Birmingham, so I won't go home till morning."

Gobion went back to the box, where he found Moro de Minter, the new
humourist, making himself agreeable. Gobion knew the man slightly, and
hated him. People said his real name was Gluckstein, and he was reported
to have been a ticket collector at Euston before he had come out as the
apostle of the ridiculous. He was holding forth on his latest book, and
he asked Gobion what he thought of the new humourists.

"I have only met two sorts," he answered, "the disgustingly facetious
and the facetiously disgusting. Both are equally nasty."

Miss Leuilette was rather nettled; she liked Minter.

"And what do you think of the new critics of _The Pilgrim_ type, Mr.
Minter?" she asked.

"They squirt venom from the attic into the gutter, and nobody is ever
hurt." After which passage of arms he left the box, and the curtain
went up on the Inn at Shepperford.

After the play Gobion saw the ladies into their carriage, and Mrs.
Picton, as she pressed his hand, whispered him to come to tea the next
day.

"I shall be quite alone," she said, with a side look.

Then came the "copy shop" and a noisy supper, at which the latest sultry
story of a certain judge's wife was repeated and enjoyed.

It struck Gobion more than ever what a drunken, rakish lot these men
were, but still he was very little better, only less coarse in his
methods, and it didn't matter.

Lucy, the barmaid, was in great form. Someone had given her a copy of
_The Yellow Book_, with its strange ornamentation.

"They do get these books up in a rum way now," she said, pointing to the
figures blazoned on the cover.

"You shouldn't find fault with that, my dear," he said. "The fig-leaf
was the grandmother of petticoats"; and everyone roared.

"Can anyone recommend me a new religion?" said a fat man who did
sporting tips for _The Moon_.

There was a yell at once. "Flintoff wants a new religion."
"Theosophist!" "Absintheur!" "Jew!" "Mahomedan!"

"Theosophist?" said the fat man; "no, I think not. Madame Blavatski was
too frankly indecent. Absintheur might perhaps suit if it wasn't for
Miss Marie Corelli. Jew is quite out of the question; there are two
difficulties, pork and another. Mahomedan! well, that isn't bad. As many
wives as you like--the religion of the henroost. Yes, I think I'll be a
Mahomedan."

"How about drinks?" said Gobion.

"Oh, damn! Yes, I forgot that, I must stick to Christianity after all."
He limped to the table to get a match.

"What's the matter with your leg?" said Heath.

"I hurt it last night going home in the fog."

"You should try Elliman's--horse for choice."

"I did, and I stank so of turpentine I was quite ashamed to lie with
myself."

"You're not ashamed to lie here," said some feeble punster.

"No, it's my profession. I'm a sporting prophet."

Gobion suddenly remembered that he had heard nothing about the mass of
copy that had been sent out some days before.

"Has Mr. Sturtevant been in to-night?" he asked the barmaid.

"No, I haven't seen him for two or three days," she said.

Gobion went quickly out into the Strand and walked to Sturtevant's
rooms. The gas flamed on the dingy staircase, making a hissing noise in
the silence, and shining on the white paint of the names above the
door--Mr. Mordaunt Sturtevant, Mr. Thompson Jones, Mr. Gordon.

The "oak" was open, so Gobion went in, pushing aside the swing door at
the end of the little passage.

A strong smell of brandy struck him in the face. He walked in, and
looked round the screen by the fire, starting back for a moment with a
sick horror of what he saw.

The candles were alight before the looking-glass over the mantelpiece.
In front of it stood Sturtevant, with his back to Gobion. His thumbs
were in the corners of his mouth, and with his first fingers he was
pulling down the loose skin under his eyes, making the most ghastly
grimaces at his image in the mirror.

Gobion stood still, petrified, and mechanically pressed the spring of
his opera hat, which flew out with a loud pop. Sturtevant wheeled round
like a shot, shaking with fear. When he saw who was there he gave a
great sob of relief and fell into a chair.

"O God, how you startled me!" he said.

"What on earth's the matter with you?" said Gobion; "you look as if you
were dying."

The man was not good to look at. His skin was a uniform tint of
discoloured ivory, with red wrinkles round the eyes. His lips were dark
purple and swollen, his hands shook.

"I'm so glad you've come; I've had a slight touch of D.T., and if you
hadn't come in I should have broken out again to-night."

Gobion calmed him as well as he could, and in about an hour got him
into something like ordinary condition.

"And now," he said, "how about our copy?"

"By George, I've forgotten all about it; there are probably a lot of
letters in the box."

They got them out. The first one they opened was a collection of
personal paragraphs sent in by Gobion, "Declined with thanks." The next
was a cheque from the _Resounder_ for four guineas, in payment of the
"Gambling at Oxford" article. They went on opening one after the other,
and at the end found that they had netted twenty-six pounds.

Sturtevant got excited about it, and wanted to have some more brandy,
but Gobion managed to get him to bed, and locked the door, putting the
key in his pocket. He built up the fire, took Daudet's _Sappho_ from a
shelf, and passed the night on the sofa alternately reading and dozing.

It took him three or four days to bring Sturtevant round to something
like form, most of which he spent in the Temple, occupying himself by
writing the attack on Heath for _The Spy_.

It was the cleverest piece of work he had done, and when it was
finished it was with all the pride of an artist that he read it to
Sturtevant, and sent it to Blanche Huntley to be typed.

Meanwhile he became at times horribly bored and low-spirited, and each
new attack accentuated the next, for he would rush into the lowest forms
of amusement to find oblivion. In the intervals of coarseness he called
on Mrs. Picton.

Such society as was open to him soon began to pall, and he spent more
and more time at the "copy shop" or with Sturtevant in the Temple.

These two men, who a few years ago were freshmen at Oxford, sat night
after night cursing and blaspheming all that most men hold sacred.

They were colossal in their bitterness.

Sturtevant said once, "Life is a disease; as soon as we are born we
begin to die. I shall die soon from D.T., and you'll write a realistic
study for _The Pilgrim_. Perhaps my life was ordained for that end."
Which, considering the degree the man had taken, and what his mental
abilities were, was about the bitterest thing he could have said.

One night Sturtevant went to bed about two, leaving Gobion in the room
not much inclined for sleep. After an inspection of the bookcase, he
took down a Swinburne, and turned to "Dolores."

    "Come down and redeem us from virtue,
            Our Lady of Pain,"

he read in the utter stillness of the night.

Then he put the book down and sat staring into the fire, thinking
quietly of the literary merit of the poem, while its passion throbbed
through and through him--a strange dual action of mind and sense.

Suddenly he looked up and saw a silver streak in the dull sky, the
earliest messenger of dawn pressing its sad face against the window.

"I will go abroad," he said, "and see the day come to London." He went
out in the ancient echoing courts through the darkness, till he came to
the Embankment, and looked over the river. Far away in the east the sky
was faintly streaked with grey, the curtain of the dark seemed shaken by
the birth-pangs of the morning. He stood quite still, looking towards a
great bar of crimson which flashed up from over St. Paul's, showing the
purple dome floating in the mist. The western sky over the archbishop's
palace was all aglow with a red reflected light. Dark bars of cloud
stretched out half over heaven, turning to brightness as the sun rushed
on them. The deepening glow spread wider and wider, on and up, till the
silver greys and greens faded into blue, and the glory of the morning in
a great arch suffused the Abbey, the Tower, and all the palaces of
London. The sparrows began to twitter in the little trees on the
Embankment.




  CHAPTER VI.

  _THE COUP._


"He was one of those earnest people who feel that life ought to have
some meaning if they could only find it out," said Sturtevant, "and he
came in with my little brochure, _The Harmonies of Sin_, in his paw. He
was a sort of wrinkled romance. 'Sir,' he said, 'may I ask if you are
Mordaunt Sturtevant?' 'At your service,' I answered. Then he said, 'I
must tell you that I have felt it my duty to come and remonstrate with
you about this 'ere dreadful book.' I asked him to sit down, and pushed
over the decanter. He waved it away, tapping my book with his umbrella.
'You have unpaved hell to build your book with,' he said. 'Then my book
is made up of good intentions,' I answered, but he didn't see it. 'Think
of your pore soul,' he said. I told him I didn't know its address.
'Sir, you have exalted harlotry into a social force.' I told him the
harlot was the earthworm of society. He got up and retreated to the
door. 'Any _man_ would 'ate it,' he said. I asked him quite politely if
he considered himself a man. He remarked that he _was_ a man, 'made in
God's image, sir! in God's image!' 'The mould must have leaked,' I said.

"At this he grew angry, pointing his umbrella at me and snorting. 'You
'ave all the vices, and aspire to all the crimes,' he shouted. When he
began to shout I'd had about enough, so I kicked him downstairs."

"When did this episode occur?"

"Oh, just before you came in."

"What's the book about, I haven't read it."

"Merely a little psychological analysis of a young girl's misdoings."

"There's a sort of naked indecency about a young girl's soul, so I don't
think I'll read it. Pass the whiskey, will you? You've had enough. I
suppose you hurt your visitor considerably?"

"Oh, he didn't really come, I only said that for the sake of saying
something, and because I thought how amusing such a man would be if he
did turn up."

Gobion yawned. Both of them were very dull and miserable.

The afternoon was all blind with rain swirling against the window in
sudden gusts. Footsteps echoed on the flags below with a monotonous
clank, while, more faintly, London poured into their ears a dreary hum,
a suggestion of wet cold streets. It was about four in the afternoon,
and Gobion having done some work in the morning was now in the Temple,
sitting in front of the fire, without any present interest. Restless and
miserable, he tried to think of Scott, of Father Gray, of the people who
cared for him, hoping for vague thrillings, little tender luxuries of
regret, but it was of no use. A short time ago he could have induced the
pleasing grief-bubble easily with a good fire and a little whiskey, and
at its bursting, enjoy a music-hall with its lights and laughter; but
now something seemed to have snapped. The curtain was down, the gas was
out, the house was cold and empty. He was no longer able to put on a
sentimental halo and act at himself as an approving audience.

Sturtevant too was dull and lethargic. He was not emotional like the
other, but though a man of less charm, his attainments were greater, he
knew more, and now he also was struggling to think--to work.

They were both silent for some time while the darkness closed in, the
rain outside pattering with an added weariness and the wind wailing up
from the river. At last Sturtevant took up a glass from the table and
threw it into the fire with an oath.

"Laugh, you devil!" he said, "shout! be merry! be brilliant!"

"Can't," said Gobion, "I keep my brilliancy for the comparative
stranger."

"----and the positive _Pilgrim_, I suppose."

"Exactly. Hallo! there's someone at the door." He shouted, "Yes!" it was
one of his little mannerisms never to say, "Come in." The door opened
and a girl came round the corner of the screen. It was Blanche Huntley,
Wild's mistress, dressed in a long macintosh dripping with rain.

Both men jumped up surprised, Gobion helping her to take off her ulster,
while Sturtevant put her umbrella in the stand.

She came to the fireside, a girl not unlike a dainty illustration in a
magazine, very neatly got up with a white froth of lace round her neck,
and a _chic_ black rosette at her waist. Certainly a pretty girl, with a
sweet rather tired mouth, well-marked eyebrows, and dark eyes somewhat
full, the lids stained with bistre. Gobion knew her, having met her at
Wild's, and rather liked her. She was a girl with ideas, and might have
made something of her life if she had not been mixed up in the famous
Wrampling Divorce Case, and been forced to leave her type-writing office
in the City.

When ruin comes a man begs, a woman sells.

She sat down, Gobion introducing her to Sturtevant, who looked with some
interest. "Fashion-plate in distress," was his mental comment. Gobion
thought, "Her youth is the golden background which shows up the sadness
of her lot; lucky man Wild though," a very fair index to the
individuality of the two men as far as such things go.

"I'm afraid I've got some bad news for you, old man, and it's partly my
fault," she said.

"What is it, Blanche?"

"Well, we were sitting at lunch to-day--Tom wasn't going to the
office--when that old pig, Mr. Heath, came rushing in, half mad, waving
a paper in his hand, cursing and swearing till I thought they would hear
him in the street. He threw it on the table, and I noticed a column in
leaded type marked with blue pencil. 'There,' he said to Tom, 'there's a
nice thing to see about one's self! Some damn dirty skunk's been writing
this about me and _The Pilgrim_.' It was so funny to see him, I never
saw anybody in such a bate before; I looked over Tom's shoulder, and,
without thinking, said, 'Why, I typed that for Mr. Yardly Gobion.'
'What!' they both yelled. 'Well--I'm--damned! Curse the cad!' Excuse me
telling you all this. Well, he went on storming and raving, and said he
was going to sack you, and write you a letter you'd remember, and what
was more, crab you in every paper in London. I'm horribly sorry, it was
all through me."

Sturtevant gave a long whistle.

"Never mind, dear," said Gobion, "it doesn't matter, I don't care; what
a rag it must have been!"

"I haven't seen the thing in print yet," said Sturtevant, "I'll go out
and get a copy."

When he had gone, Blanche came closer to Gobion. "Poor boy," she said,
"I'm afraid you'll find things rather difficult now."

"Never mind, dear, it doesn't matter, I've got past caring for most
things. Does Wild know you're here?"

"Tom? oh no, he'd half kill me if he did. He never liked you much, you
know, he said you put on such a lot of Oxford side."

"Isn't he kind to you, then?"

"Oh, Lord, no, not now. He was at first, but he's getting tired."

"I should cut the brute."

"What would I do?" she said sadly, "what would I do? I've no character
or money or anything. I'd have to go to the Empire promenade, I expect."

She stretched out her hands to the blaze wearily.

"Poor little girl," he said, taking one of her hands in his, "poor
little girl, it's a nasty, miserable world."

She said nothing for half a minute, and then she burst into an agony of
tears, dropping her head on his shoulder.

"Oh, don't, dear, don't!" said Gobion, half crying too; "try to bear
up."

"You don't know what it means. You're not an outcast."

"Yes I am, dear, I'm a good deal worse than you. I have a hell, too. Be
a brave girl."

She smiled faintly through her tears.

"You are good," she said, "not like the other men."

"I'm simply a blackguard; don't tell me I'm good."

"You don't shrink from me."

"I? Good God! you don't know what I am--sister."

At that word she crouched down in her chair, passionately sobbing.

"God bless you," she said, "God bless you."

"You must leave him, dear, and get your living by your type-writing." He
pulled out his pocket-book and made a rapid calculation. "Twenty here
and ten at my rooms. Look here," he said, "I'm not hard up now; here's
three fivers. It will keep you going for a month or two. Make a new
start, little woman."

She took the money and looked him in the face. Some thoughts are
prayers.

"Good-bye," she said, "good-bye. If only I'd met you first."

The man bowed his head, and they left the room hand in hand. When they
reached the lane she turned, and in the dim light of the flickering lamp
she saw that his face was wet.

He took her little ungloved hand, raising it to his lips, still with
bowed head, and turning, left her without a word.

When Sturtevant came in an hour afterwards he found him lying on the
floor dead drunk, with a little pool of whiskey dripping from the table
on to his hair.

       *       *       *       *       *

"We must do highly moral articles for those papers which are calculated
not to bring a blush to the face of the purest girl (except in the
advertisements of waterproof rouge), or you might try _The Spy_. They
can hardly refuse your copy now," said Sturtevant, about three weeks
after the exposure.

Gobion had found the girl spoke truly. Not a paper in London was open to
him. He was barred at the "copy shop," and was living on money borrowed
from Scott in a piteous appeal full of lies. He forwarded an article to
Picton, but it was sent back by return of post, with a sarcastic little
note, saying that Mr. Picton could not find himself sufficiently bold to
accept any further contributions. Things were getting rather desperate.
Oxford bills were coming in by every post to both of them. They were
nearly at their wits' end for money.

At this juncture came a letter from Condamine.

    "OXFORD UNION SOCIETY.

    "DEAR GOBION,--The game is played almost to an end. Only one more
    move, and that not till next June, to be taken. Then will be peace
    at last. My latest has been of its kind a master-stroke, that is,
    to disappear. Things were getting too hot for me, so I have gone
    down to read. Everybody was getting suspicious, and eyed me
    askance. Drage was sent down (another disappearance!) for lying
    drunk with a friend from Oriel in the fellows' quad, and for
    reviling the buck priest most blasphemously in that he had
    awakened him. My tutor waxed very wroth with me. I was troubled
    with frightful insomnia every afternoon, and often in the
    morning--often finding it necessary to go to bed at midnight, rise
    at two a.m. and work till five or so, and again retire. Perhaps
    this was due to the fact that I had to sleep off certain matters
    of no importance, and then awake early, which is a way of mine.
    Drage's last moments in Oxford I soothed by fetching Father Gray
    at ten p.m. Tommy had all sorts of ideas, Stage, Germany,
    Colonies, every manner of starvation, so I applied his Reverence
    as a last remedy, which succeeded. Many things I could tell you of
    this, but not now. He (the Gray father) has got a rich young cub
    with him, Lord Frederick Staines Calvert, and they are going to
    town for a time to-day. The boy is without understanding--very
    oofy--so if you are still _epris_ with the worthy parson you may
    be able to make something out of it.

    "Farewell. Thine,

    "ARTHUR CONDAMINE.

    "TO CARADOC YARDLY GOBION."

Gobion showed this to Sturtevant. "Do you think there's anything in it?"
he said.

"Yes, I certainly do; you must make every effort to get hold of the boy.
We must think out a plan; I hope he's an ass. At present he's a
problem."

"I'll find him out if I can get hold of him, but I don't quite see how
we're going to make any money out of it."

"Do you remember," said Sturtevant slowly, "that dear lady I took to
your rooms when I first came up?"

"Little beast! yes."

"I've seen her since then; she lives in Bear Street off Leicester
Square, just behind the Alhambra. Now doesn't the diffused white light
of your intelligence supply the rest?"

"No, I confess----"

"Listen then. You must tell Father Gray that you are supporting yourself
by coaching, and that you are working in the East End. He knows about
those defence articles in the _Church Chimes_. Somehow or other he must
be got to think you're steady and trustworthy. Then you go about with
this young lord he's got and get well hold of him: you can be very
charming when you like. From what I have heard of his father, Lord
Ringwood, he's been brought up strictly. You must, therefore, take him
about a little--Empire, Jimmies, that sort of thing; show him life, till
he begins to long to go a little further, and to make sheep's-eyes at
the painted ladies in the stalls. Meanwhile I shall get hold of the Bear
Street girl and promise her a fiver if she'll help us. One night you and
Calvert dine out (give fizz and Benedictine after, it's exciting), and
when you get back to your rooms you find Marie as "Mrs. Holmes" waiting
to see you. Then I send you a telegram, and you apologise and go out,
promising to be back in half an hour. Come round to the Temple, where I
shall be waiting. We'll arrange with Marie that she shall have half an
hour to make Calvert cuddle her. Then I come in--the outraged
husband!--and kick up the devil's own row, swearing I'll get a divorce.
In the middle enter Mr. Gobion again. You persuade Marie and me to
leave. Then you soothe the ruffled boy, promising to try and arrange the
matter. You go out, consult with me, and touch him for a cheque to
square matters. I should think we might work a 'thou' almost."

Gobion lay back in his chair, overwhelmed by the brilliancy of the idea.
"Won-der-ful! you're a master simply. It ought to be put on the market
in one pound shares; and I thought you a mere decadent story writer."

Sturtevant smiled. "Don't say decadent," he said, "it's a misnomer now.
The public thinks decadence is the state of being different from Miss
Charlotte M. Yonge, while the aesthete----"

"_Please_ don't begin to lecture on the utter."

"Do you object to the utter then?"

"I object to the utterer."

"I am silent. The surly word makes the curst squirm."

"That's worthy of Condamine."

Very soon they both got bored again, when the excitement of the plotting
had evanesced. It was a consequence of their diseased mental state, this
constant overpowering _ennui_. Sturtevant went to the piano and began to
chant--

    "There was a young fellow of Magdalen
    Whose tutor accused him of dagdalen,
      And of stretching his credit;
      He wouldn't have said it
    Had the youth been a peer or a lagdalen."

"I hope our lagdalen will be profitable; if we do well we might go down
to the Riviera for a week or two."

"That wouldn't be bad at all, the sunny South! I think I'll go west now
to the War Office and get Bobby Burness to come out for some lunch. Do
you remember him? little Pemmy man. He got a clerkship by interest.
Spends his time round the west now looking out for a moneyed female.
Jolly berth he's got, just puts his name in the south-east corner of a
few papers, and trots off to the park for the rest of the mornin'."

As he went down the Strand he thought over Sturtevant's plan. It was a
good deal nearer the wind than he had dared to go before; however, the
thing was certain, something had to be done to raise money. He was not a
man who could live on thirty shillings a week, for, even though they
failed to amuse him, he could not go without the "extras" of life. He
did not, for instance, particularly care for Kuemmell with his coffee,
but it was as much a necessity to him as a clean shirt.

The morality of Sturtevant's scheme did not trouble him in the least;
the danger was the thing he thought of. His head bubbled with details
and scenic arrangements, rapidly falling into order as he thought. His
mind was masterly in its grasp of salient points, in its suggestions of
detail. Naturally, as he plotted and studied his part, this orderly
marshalling of ideas induced a sense of freedom from danger. With a
clearer view of incident came a confusion of outline.

He had just got to Trafalgar Square when he started to feel a hand
placed on his shoulder, and looking round saw Father Gray and his
victim. In the first shock of surprise he reeled as if struck, and a
flash of deadly fear passed over his face, but so instantaneously that
it would have been almost impossible for a stranger to have seen it.
Though he had recovered this first feeling of terror in a moment, hard
as he was, he could never have prevented it. It was the inevitable
cowardice of evil, the most horrid kind of fear. Then almost immediately
came a great flood of exaltation dominating all other sensation.

"This _is_ jolly," said Father Gray, "we were just coming to see you.
This is my friend, Lord Frederick Calvert. How are you getting on? Well!
Oh, I'm so glad. You did excellent service for us in the _Church
Chimes_; that Protestant paper was dreadfully venomous. Now, what do you
say to the hotel and lunch?"

"I should like it of all things. Where are you staying?"

"At the Charing Cross, just over the road."

"Right you are. If you will go on I will join you in a moment; I just
want to go to the post."

He went to the office at the corner, and sent off a wire to Sturtevant,
not being able to resist elevenpence-halfpennyworth of epigram.

     "Everything comes to him who can't wait. Keep away from my rooms,
     have met our worthy friends.--G."

The lunch party was bright and enjoyable. Lord Frederick did not talk
much, but Gobion did, and the clergyman treated him most affectionately,
paying the greatest attention to his remarks. The young fellow, who was
aching to see a little life, and taste some of the joys hitherto
forbidden, looked on Gobion as a being from another world, charmed and
fascinated by his manner and conversation. He hoped that perhaps he
might be able to make him the excuse for a little more freedom.

At the end of the meal a waiter came up with a telegram in his hand,
"Rrreverrend Grray, sir?" he said. The clergyman read the flimsy pink
paper, his face growing very serious as he did so.

"My dear Lord Frederick," he said, "I am so very sorry. My great friend
Stanley, of the C.B.S., is dying up in Scotland and asking for me. I
must leave you for a day or two, I fear. Do you mind? Gobion, perhaps,
would not mind keeping you company a little."

Both men showed the deepest sympathy, saying that they could manage very
well, while both were inwardly rejoicing. There were the elements of
farce in the situation.

They got him off late in the afternoon. "God proposes, and man is
disposed of," said Gobion as the train left the station. Lord Frederick
laughed. "And now, my dear sir," he said, "I place myself entirely in
your hands. To speak quite frankly, I've never had such a chance of a
rag before, and I want to make the most of it."

"I too should like a rag," said Gobion. "We _will_ rag, and take no
thought for the morrow beyond staying up to welcome its arrival. We'd
better go and dress first; I'll call at the hotel when I'm ready."

When he had put the other down at Charing Cross he went on in the
hansom to the "Temple," bursting in on Sturtevant, whom he found with
the female conspirator sitting on his knee. "Arrange the coup for
to-morrow evening at nine," he said; "I'm off now to take him round the
halls."

He rushed out again and dressed as quickly as he could, putting two or
three sovereigns in his pocket for emergencies, though he intended his
friend should pay all expenses.

They went at first to The Princes, and had, as Gobion told Sturtevant
next morning, "a dinner regardless, my dear boy, simply regardless.
Never done so well before." Lord Frederick insisted on paying,
explaining that as he had asked Gobion to accompany him, all the
expenses would be his.

They got on very well together. The nobleman was ingenuous and
gentlemanly, and Gobion, who appreciated these things to the full,
almost felt compunction at what he proposed to do. They afterwards went
to the Alhambra, taking a box, and Gobion pointed out various people as
celebrities in literature and art, making himself a charming companion
by his clever commentaries on the crowd.

Being extremely young and innocent, Lord Frederick was of course a
confirmed cynic, and he enjoyed the malice of Gobion's remarks,
especially as he was always unmercifully snubbed at home when he tried
to be caustic.

On this particular evening it happened that no one of any note was in
the place except Moro de Minter, the comic journalist, but, nothing
daunted, Gobion pointed out various obvious bank clerks and actors
"resting" as the leading lights of London journalism. The poor boy
believed it all; he was very ingenuous; indeed, he laughed twice, once
almost loudly, at one of Little Hich's songs!

They parted late, Lord Frederick a little tipsy, swearing eternal
friendship, and Gobion promised to take him to a well-known night club
in Soho the following evening.

Progress was reported to Sturtevant next morning over breakfast, and he
gave Gobion some valuable hints as to detail. As the evening drew on
both of them got rather nervous and excited--the coup was so big, and
the chances of failure so many.

They discussed the final arrangements with an affected disregard for
danger, sprinkling cheap cynicism as a sort of intellectual pepper to
disguise the too strong taste of the undertaking.

"Pan is dead," said Sturtevant, filling up the inevitable tumbler. "Long
live Pannikin! And now to play your part; the curtain is going up and
the critics are in the stalls. Go out and prosper."

They dined this time at the Trocadero, Gobion thinking that the music
would help in producing the necessary high spirits in Calvert, and at
the close of the meal he proposed an adjournment to his rooms, as it was
yet too early for the night club. When they mounted the stairs a light
showed from under the door. "Hallo," said Gobion, "there's someone
here"; and meeting Mrs. Daily on the landing, she said Mrs. Holmes was
waiting to see him.

"You're in luck," he said to his friend; "she's a charming little
woman--acts in burlesques, you know."

Mrs. Holmes rose to meet them. With a keen sense of the comic side of
the situation, Gobion noticed that Sturtevant had been there, his gloves
were left on the table. The room was evidently arranged by a master
mind. An inviting lounge shaded by a screen was placed by the red glow
of the fire, the lights were carefully shaded so as not to shine too
fully on the artificial beauties of the lady's face. The cushions and
chairs exhaled an odour of patchouli (Sturtevant had been round with a
spray-diffuser half an hour before), and _Nana_ lay open on the table at
the page where Georges is drying by the kitchen fire.

Indeed, so far had the thing been carried out, Gobion could not help
thinking that something was wrong. No. 999, Queer Street was a little
too visible, but the champagne had exhilarated Calvert, and he noticed
nothing, and became on confidential terms with "Mrs. Holmes" in no time.

Absinthe was produced, the sickly smell irritating Gobion, who was
longing to get out of the hot rooms and the _poudre d'amour_ atmosphere.


At last the telegram came. He said, "Awf'ly sorry, old man, but I must
go out for half an hour; they want me to do a leaderette for to-morrow's
_Happy Despatch_ on the 'spinning-house' row. I'll be back very
shortly."

He went out in a hurry to the Temple, where he found Sturtevant in
evening dress, white and haggard, walking up and down the room.

       *       *       *       *       *

They got the cheque, and Sturtevant cashed it before lunch next morning,
and at one o'clock they met in Gobion's rooms to divide the spoil. Over
the meal--a dainty repast, ordered to celebrate their achievement--they
were in the highest spirits. To-morrow they resolved that they would go
to Cannes, or perhaps further still.

"We might do Madeira," said Sturtevant. "Think of the heat, the
quivering air, the hum of the insects, ah-h!" He took a deep
anticipatory breath, and as he did so the door opened and an elderly
gentleman came in.

"I don't think I have the pleasure," said Gobion, rising from his chair.

"My name is Ringwood," said the stranger quietly. Gobion flinched as if
he had been struck in the face. There was a strained, tense silence,
only broken by the gurgling of the champagne in Sturtevant's glass as he
raised it to his lips. Then he sneered, "Ah!" his lips curling away from
his teeth.

Lord Ringwood struggled desperately to control himself. "Good God! what
a damned couple of rascals you are!" he cried.

Gobion laughed a little sickly, pitiable laugh. "Fine day," he said.

The peer got up. "I see now what to do," he said. "I was a fool to come
here. I'll have you both in gaol this afternoon."

When he had gone, and they had heard the front door bang, Gobion jumped
up and packed a portmanteau.

"Go back to the Temple," he said; "no one knows your address. I'm going
to get rooms somewhere in Pimlico--till we can get further away. I'll
come to the Temple to-night."

He got into a cab and drove away. As he turned into the Embankment a
piano-organ burst out with "The Dandy Coloured Coon," and the tune
throbbed in his brain, keeping time to the monotonous beat of the
horse's feet on the macadam.




  CHAPTER VII.

  _THE CONSOLATIONS OF MRS. EBBAGE; WITH SOME ACCOUNT OF THE REV. PETER
  BELPER_.


In the Vauxhall Bridge Road Gobion found a room in a lodging-house kept
by a Mrs. Ebbage. In the evening of the same day he went to the Temple,
but found Sturtevant's door shut, and he received no answer to his
knocks. As he was turning away he saw that something was written on a
piece of paper pinned to the door.

    "To Y. G.,--Note for you at the 'Grecian' bar.

    "M. S."

He went to the bar and got the letter, which ran:--

    "MIDDLE TEMPLE.

    "DEAR GOBION,--I have gone to the southern heat as we proposed,
    and shall soon be sailing over the siren-haunted Mediterranean. I
    enclose a ten-pound note in the hope that a period of enforced
    sobriety may tend to a worthier life for you.

    "Even a wise man is sometimes happy, and I should recommend
    philosophy to you at this present juncture. As a matter of fact,
    you may be quite sure that Ringwood won't make any move; but
    still, as I intend, as you know, to practise at the bar, it may be
    as well to go away for a time.

    "If I were you I should stick to journalism; it will pay for bread
    and butter. You might even write on subjects that you know
    something about!

    "With your appreciation of 'master-strokes' you cannot but admire
    this my last move. To you, I am sure, the illustrious will now
    become the august.

    "MORDAUNT STURTEVANT."

"Yes," muttered Gobion, "he is cleverer than I am--ten pounds, out of a
thousand! Damn the scoundrel!" He swore under his breath for a minute or
two, but his quick wit soon grasped the humour of the situation. Though
it told against him, the joke was too good to be lost, and he could not
help a somewhat bitter laugh.

He went to bed when he got back, and, having nothing particular to do,
lay far into the morning, listening lazily to the sounds of the house.
He heard Mrs. Ebbage shouting angrily at her children, while in the
distance a tinkling piano spun out "Belle Mahone," and every half-hour
or so someone on the other side of the wall knocked his pipe out against
the mantelpiece.

A smell of steak and onions floated into the room.

He looked round. It was what is known as a "bed-sitter" on the
ground-floor at the end of the main passage. He got up and looked out of
the window, making the discovery that the landlady and her family lived
below him. Opposite the window, some four yards away, was the straight
wall of the next house, while below he looked down into a deep yard into
which the back door opened. It was entirely enclosed by the two houses,
forming a sort of pit or well. Some children were playing in the dirt,
while just below his window a rope was fastened, with some socks and a
flannel shirt drying on it.

His room was furnished with the bed, a jug and basin standing on an old
sugar-box painted green, an old armchair, a table, a wooden chair, and a
mirror over the fire, in which a crack down the middle was repaired by a
strip of paper gilded to match the frame. The walls were decorated with
a black japanned pipe-rack studded with pink and green stars, a
medallion of the Queen stamped in bronze cardboard, and a photograph of
the new Scotland Yard framed in shiny yellow wood.

For this he was to pay five-and-sixpence a week. Strangely enough the
utter sordidness of the place did not strike a jarring note. He felt
that he had dropped out of everything, that from henceforth he belonged
to this world of Mrs. Ebbage, this Vauxhall-Bridge-Road world. After
another lazy half-hour he got up and dressed, calling for the landlady
when he was ready. The woman came in, carrying a tray with his
breakfast. She was dirty and unkempt. Her face, where it was not black,
was yellow, and stray wisps of grizzled hair blew round it--a face lined
and shrewd.

"Thort you'd like an 'errin'," she said. "Ebbage 'ad one before 'e went
out. 'E's a pliceman, is Ebbage; 'as 'is beat down Kennington way."

"Oh, thanks very much; very nice," said Gobion, amused to see her making
the bed and lighting the fire while he ate.

"Better 'ave the window open," she said. "Gets a bit smelly in the
mornin', don't it?" She opened the window, breaking off her conversation
to shout at one of the children in the yard. "Leave off playin' with Mr.
Belper's socks, little nosey wretch yer; always nosin' about, little
devil."

"Ah, you don't know what kids are, you don't. Ebbage gets cussing at
them sometimes. I sez to 'im, 'Touch the 'arp lightly, my deah! You want
yer ugly 'edd tappin',' I sez. It makes 'im fairly med. 'Cummere,' I
sez, 'call _your_self a man? Cummere if you want to knock anyone about.
I could make a better yuman man than you, art of a lump o' coal.' Ah, 'e
isn't what 'Olmes was, my first man. 'E _was_ a man--big, fat, fleshy
devil, makin' 'is three quid a week regular. 'E was always good to me;
'e was fond of women. I've 'eard 'im say as a man ort to ave as many
women as 'e could keep."

Gobion soon got used to the woman, and even began to like her. She was
kind to him in her way, saying she'd "had many a toff down on his luck
with her," and she "noo the brand." He made friends with the husband--a
big, black-haired man, stolid and obscene in his conversation, and they
used to go to the public-house at the corner for a "drop of Scotch." Mr.
Ebbage always called it "a drop," though it would have been better for
him if he had never exceeded the twopennorth that did duty for the
aforesaid generic name.

After a fortnight Gobion settled down to a dull cheerless time, sordid
and dreadful; and it was but rarely that a pain-flash disturbed his
torpor. He used to play the old cracked piano in the evenings to the
family. Mrs. Ebbage's nieces--giggling shop girls--would come in from
College Street, and he would sit, with no tie and a dirty shirt, making
vulgar love to "Trot" and "Fanny," while Ebbage read the football
_Star_, and his wife cooked the sausages for supper. Sometimes in the
long dull afternoons Lucy Ebbage, a girl of sixteen, used to come into
his room and sit on his knee. He took a diseased pleasure in lowering
himself to their level.

He was a man with a keen eye for beauty, a deep appreciation of the
poetry of things, and yet for a week or two, with a strange morbid
insensibility, he revelled in the manners of the vulgarest class in
London. "Human nature is much of a muchness," he said to himself. "Why
give myself airs? I should make Lucy a capital husband; we could keep a
fried-fish shop and be happy."

This went on for three weeks; then one evening--somewhat of the
suddenest--came the reaction.

He was sitting alone on the one comfortable chair drawn up close to the
fire. The dancing flames lit up the unmade bed, the remains of a chop, a
heap of clothes scattered over a chair, and a pair of muddy boots drying
in the fender.

It was again the after-dinner hour--an hour with the monopoly of some
effects. He sat lazily smoking a pipe, half dozing, when he became
conscious of a banjo playing a comic song: "And her golden hair was
hanging down her back." Gradually the air took greater hold of him. The
distant twanging seemed fraught with an undercurrent of sadness, a
sub-tone of regret.

Gradually the sordid message dispelled lassitude, and his vivid mind
began to preen itself, waking from its long sleep. First passed away
with the swing of the first line the dull December London. His mind put
on wings, flying through confused memories to the first night of term,
the little Oxford theatre crammed with men--all the old set, Fleming,
Taylor, Robertson, Raymond, Young, "Weggie" Dibb, Scott, even Condamine.
How they had applauded and joined in the choruses! how they had cheered
the fat principal boy, how bright and _young_ it was!... Then a moment's
hush, and the sharp-strung chords, when the orchestra dashed madly into
the song, "Oh, Flo, 'twas _very_ wrong, you know!" How all the men had
roared at the girl's conscious wink. From the first he had posed, but in
those early terms he had been innocent of great wrong ... and now?...
The twang stopped with a little penultimate flourish before the final
chord. The trams in the road rattled past. Mrs. Ebbage shouted in the
kitchen, opining that her spouse must be "off 'is blooming onion"; and
outside in the passage Trot and Lucy giggled, high in the palate, hoping
he would hear and ask them to come in.... He shook violently in his
chair. To his excited imagination it seemed as if strange lights passed
before him; he heard strange sounds. He shook, and it seemed as if the
scales fell from his eyes, letting all the horror of his life flash into
his ken. There was a sense of the finality of things; he saw dimly a
far-off purpose.

It was the _staleness_, the torture of sin, not a sorrowful sense of
evil, that settled round him like a cloud. He had fed his appetites too
heavily, and a total apoplexy of mind and soul had ensued.

Then came a knock at the door, and a grotesque figure entered--a large,
gross old man, with heavy pouches under the eyes, with unsteady
dribbling lips, dressed in a long parti-coloured dressing-gown.

He said he lived on the other side of the passage, "and perhaps his
young friend would come in and smoke a pipe with him." They went into a
room much the same as Gobion's. A jug of steaming water stood on the
table by a bottle of gin.

"My name is Belper," said the old gentleman, "the Reverend Peter Belper,
though I no longer have a cure of souls. Will you have some Old Tom? I
never work, but it makes me very thirsty."

Gobion drank; he was not in a state of mind to be surprised at anything.
This leering old satyr seemed quite natural and in proper sequence.

"I won't ask you what you've done," he said to Gobion. "A gentleman
doesn't live here for no reason." He spoke with a wagging of his heavy
jaw, with a hoarse bleat, but an accent in which still lingered a trace
of culture.

"No," said Gobion; "I suppose we're a shady lot in this hole."

"We are, we are; I myself am not what I was. Good heavens! I was once a
vicar! I am now a moral object-lesson. I used to live by sermonizing,
now I sermonize by living. A university man, may I ask?"

"Yes--Oxford."

"Really, there are then two of us. Mrs. Ebbage ought to congratulate
herself."

"Have you been with her long?"

"Six years now. I have a moderate incompetence left; enough to be
constantly drunk on."

"You find it really does deaden thought?"

"My dear sir, if it wasn't for gin I should long since have been in
another hell!"

A shrill laugh floated up from the kitchen.

"I call her 'laughing water,'" said Mr. Belper.

"You are poetic."

"Yes, my father was Belper the minor poet. I am the least poetic of his
works."

He leered at the fire, shaking with drink--a shameless, dirty old man.
"I was a pretty fellow in my time," he said, licking the chops of
remotest memory. "I had a conscience, and wrote harvest festival hymns
with it."

Gobion filled his glass. "What do you do with yourself all day?"

"Drink and sleep, sleep and drink."

"Cheerful!"

"Yes, very; what else can I do? My mind is gone; if I think it's only
blurred pain. I used to try and philosophise, but I can't think now. I
don't believe in the nonsense people talk about the comforting powers of
philosophy."

"Nor I. Philosophy seems to me to be an attempt to eat one's own soul,
and indigestion generally results."

The old man filled his pipe anew, his face half in light half in shadow,
the gross imprint of vice showing more sharply for the contrast, and
suggesting still worse possibilities. Bad as it was, it had the
prepotency of lower depths.

They often sat together thus, spending the long-drawn evenings over the
gin-bottle, japing at society. Mr. Belper was ribald and cynical.
Nothing could shock either of them; their only prejudice was to persuade
themselves that they had none.

It was a dark, dull time, too sordid for the actors to accrue any
excitement at its lurid aspects. Night after night they sat till they
were too befuddled to talk, each in turn providing the necessary amount
of gin for the night's debauch. Belper punctuated the weary days by long
sleeps, and Gobion by caressing Lucy Ebbage.

His health began to go slowly, and the torture of insomnia was added to
his life.

One evening Mrs. Ebbage came into his room incoherently reminiscent, and
sitting on the bed, rambled of the past, giving Gobion a strange glimpse
of the habits of her class.

She told of her youth in a Westminster slum, of her mother who had been
kicked to death in a low public-house on the evening of the Derby. "'Er
face was like a bit of liver after they'd done with 'er, and when the
p'lice came in she was as dead as meat. I often think ovver."

She went on to talk of her daughter by her first marriage, who had died
at seventeen, her coarse voice trembling as she told how clever she had
been at crochet work, and what a small foot she had. She showed Gobion a
tiny white shoe the girl had worn. It was piteous to hear her--this
scraggy, hard woman--with tears in her eyes, talking of her dead
darling.

Then she said, "My 'ands are all mucky, and I've gone and soiled the
shoe. Pore 'Arriet, it don't matter to 'er now."

She wiped her eyes with the corner of her apron, and with a change of
manner--a somewhat futile arrogation of gaiety--"We're goin' to 'ave a
bit of supper. Ebbage said as 'e could swallow a Welsh rarebit and a
drop of something 'ot; come down and 'ave a bit."

"Yes," said Gobion slowly, "let us eat, drink, and be merry, for
to-morrow----"

Mr. Belper came in and made coarse jokes, to Mr. Ebbage's huge delight.
Gobion in his loneliness sat and became one of them, eating with his
knife to avoid the appearance of eccentricity.

About eleven o'clock he went out with a jug to get some beer. The
streets were heavy with fog, but he had not far to go, as the
public-house he frequented was just round the corner. He chatted with
the barmaid while she was drawing the beer, noticing with a smile the
notice painted on the wall:

      "WHERE ELSE CAN YOU GET

    Such fine MELLOW   4d.  RUM!
    Such pure OLD      6d.  WHISKEY!
    Such luscious  4-1/2d.  GIN!
    Such MATCHLESS     6d.  BRANDY!"

As he was going back a man in evening dress knocked against him.

"I beg pardon," he said. "I don't see--good God! Gobion!"

It was Scott.

Gobion took him into his room, and lit the little alabaster lamp, rich
in gaudy flower work. The door opened, and the Reverend Peter Belper
came in. The light shone on him, and he looked more Silenus-like than
ever. "Beg pardon," he said, "thought you were alone." Gobion seized the
momentary diversion of his coming to put on a tie and push his dirty
cuffs under the sleeves of his coat.

"Oh! my dear old man," said Scott, looking round the room, "have you
come to this? Why didn't you tell me?"

He put his arm on his shoulder, and Gobion drew nearer, shaking with
emotion.

"I've been always thinking of you," said Scott. "It's been so lonely
without you--so dull and lonely--we all miss you so. They said at Oxford
that you'd been mixed up in some beastly newspaper scandal, but I knew
of course that you'd rather die than do anything like that. I've been
horribly afraid for you. You see, I couldn't find out where you'd got to
or anything. You look terribly ill, old man; you must come out of this
hole. Come away with me to-morrow, and when you're better you can make a
new start."

"It's no use," said Gobion, "I'm finished--mind and body."

"Rot, old man! you're only rather pippy. Don't you know you've _always_
got me? Don't you remember how once for a joke in those Ship Street
rooms you made me put my hands between yours and swear to be your man?
Well, it wasn't a joke--to me. Don't you know how we all love you? Fancy
your being here, you who used to lead us all. Damn it all, what gaudy
nonsense I'm talking!"

His rather commonplace face shone strangely. He seemed to change the
mean aspect of the room, to annihilate its sordidness.

Late at night Scott went back to his hotel, promising to be round first
thing in the morning to take Gobion away. They parted at the door with a
long hand-grip, and never met again in this world.

When he had gone Gobion went back to his room and fell like a log on to
the floor, lying there motionless till the grey light crept into the
court.

Then he got up and swiftly packed a small bag, his face white and drawn.

He went into the next room. The lamp was still burning, and old Mr.
Belper lay in a drunken sleep on the bed. His mouth was open, and he
breathed heavily.

Gobion woke him. "I've come to say good-bye," he said.

"What! has it come to that?"

"Yes."

The old man stared heavily. "Well, good-bye," he said. "I shan't be very
long either. I'm glad we've met. I, ahem, I--er"--he coughed--"I
congratulate you." He passed his dirty hand over his eyes. "Yes,
I--er--congratulate you. I wish--I'll see you out."

He came to the front door. They shook hands. "Good-bye," he said,
"good-bye, dear boy."

He stood on the steps, a fat, grotesque figure, and watched Gobion's
slim form disappear in the fog--a dirty, shameless old man.




  CHAPTER VIII.

  _THE FINAL POSE._


He felt that the time had come at last. What in his misery he had
thought vaguely possible now loomed close before.

With the resolve to make an end of it all, to have done with pain, to
cheat the inevitable, came a flood of relief. The torture of his brain
was swept away as if it had not been, and its receding tide left only a
shallow residuum of false sentiment.

The poor fool busied himself with details and accessories. Since he had
come to the point, he resolved that he would pose to the last. He began
to play his old trick of exciting a diseased duality of consciousness.

As he walked eastwards he was composing his farewell letters, he was
picturing to himself the sorrow of his friends. They would talk of him
wonderingly, as a brilliant life promising great things, gone with its
work undone. They would recall his sweetness, the glow of his bright
youth ... the tears came into his eyes at the idea, it was so pathetic a
picture.

His thoughts had run so long in the same groove, that though he felt
dimly that there ought to be other and deeper feelings within him, he
was unable to evoke them. He was conscious that this dainty picturing
was utterly false; yet, try as he would, he could not stop it. Whether
it was the last flicker of intense vanity, or merely that his mind was
weakened by debauchery, it is impossible to say; but when a man plays
unhealthy tricks with his mind, and is for ever feeling his spiritual
muscles, the habit holds him fast as in a vice. His last hours possess a
strange psychological interest.

He walked eastwards mechanically, but stopped when he had turned into
Houndsditch, and the roar of the early traffic in Bishopsgate sounded
less loudly.

From a card hanging in a pawnbroker's window he saw a bedroom was to
let, and after paying the rent in advance, he was allowed to take
possession. He lit the oil-stove that did duty for a fire, and lay down,
falling into a heavy, dreamless sleep.

When he woke it was quite dark, and after washing his hands he went to a
low eating-house for a last meal. The _menu_ was pasted on the window in
strips, while a cabbage-laden steam floated out of the half-open door.
The room was long and low of ceiling, each table standing in a separate
partition. A large woman, dressed in a scarlet silk blouse, walked up
and down the centre gangway, taking the orders, which she shouted out in
a hoarse voice to the open kitchen at the far end. "Pudding and peas!"
"Roast, Yorkshire, and baked!"

The table at which Gobion sat was covered with oil-cloth, and as he
moved a saucer full of salt out of the way of his elbow, a many-legged
insect ran over it to a crack in the wall.

The woman brought him the food, not giving him a knife and fork till he
had paid for what he had ordered. He noticed her hands were red and
misshapen, with long, black nails.

He ate ravenously. Over the low partition he could see a Jew jerking
some rich, steaming mess into his mouth with a curious twist of the
wrist, and every now and again wiping his mouth on the sleeve of his
coat. These details fascinated him.

When he had done, he asked for some paper, and with the roar of
Whitechapel surging outside he began to write to Scott.

    "MY DEAR, DEAR OLD MAN,

    Forgive me for what I am going to do. Life seems to me----"

After writing a sentence or two he tore it up, as he found that he could
not produce what he wanted. Time after time he tried, and only succeeded
in being commonplace to the last degree. All his ideas of a tender
farewell, a beautiful poetic letter, seemed impossible of realization;
instead, he produced effusions which looked as if they might have been
copied from the _Family Herald_.

At last he wrote simply "Good-bye," adding his new address. He tried to
think of someone else to write to, but could not. His father he hated
and feared; there was no thrill in a letter to him. It all seemed very
flat and commonplace. These last few hours were not at all as he had
pictured to himself.

Then he went out into the Whitechapel High Street. The costermongers'
stalls, lit with flaring naphtha lamps, made the street nearly as bright
as in the day-time. The pavement was greasy to walk on, and it was
thronged by a vast crowd walking slowly up and down. The fog was
settling over the houses, and the place smelt like a stale sponge.

He wandered slowly down towards the church, picking his way among the
mob.

Coarse Jewish women with false hair shouted to one another. Girls with
high cheek-bones, smeared with red and white, caught hold of his arm,
whispering evil suggestions to him, and cursing him for a fool when he
turned away. There was a lurid glow in the air.

He stopped outside a stationer's window, gazing idly at the specimens
of invitation cards in the window.

   "_Mr. and Mrs. Levenstein
    Request the pleasure of your company
    At the occasion of their son's circumcision._"

In the brilliant light he saw the gutters littered with decayed
vegetables, bones, and rags. Two old women stood at a corner of the
Commercial Road. He heard one of them say, "Yes, it was still-born, so
she _said_; but I 'eard it squeak before Annie come out of the room." He
passed on. A piano-organ, with a cage of bedraggled birds on the top,
struck up, the handle being turned by a boy, while his father went among
the crowd showing a smooth white stump where his hand should have been.

The door of the Free Library stood open. He went in. The room was
crowded with men standing about reading the evening papers. He walked up
and down through the rows of stands, as if looking for someone, after a
while coming out again into the street. A sailor knocked against him,
and swore at him for a "bleeding fool."

He was passing a pillar-box, when he remembered his letter to Scott, and
he posted it, hearing the hollow echo of its fall with the sense of a
curious subjective disturbance in the air around. He felt something was
by him in the noisy street, something waiting by him for the end. He
looked hastily over his shoulder, and then laughed grimly.

After a time, when he had been among the crowd for nearly two hours,
some impulse seemed to draw him away, and he went back towards
Houndsditch. Before turning down the long narrow street, he went into
the "Three Nuns," the big hotel at the corner, and spent his last
shilling in three glasses of brandy.

As he closed the door of his lodgings, the noise of the streets sank
suddenly into a distant hum, through which he could distinguish the
far-off tinklings of the barrel-organ, which had moved higher up the
street. When he got to his room he busied himself in making it clean and
tidy, clearing up the hearth, putting his clothes neatly away into his
bag.

Then he took a little bottle out of his pocket marked "Chloroform."
Over the head of the bed he fixed up a sort of rack with two hatpins and
some string, so that the bottle could swing exactly over his pillow.
Then he pricked a hole in the cork in such a manner that if the phial
was turned upside-down, every few minutes a drop of liquid would ooze
through.

       *       *       *       *       *

He lit a cigarette and sat down to think. He was not quite sober, but he
felt a dull conviction that things were never more unsatisfactory. He
felt no sadness, no pathos, stealing over him.

With a great effort he struggled to realize things, getting up and
walking round the room, talking thickly to himself. "Here I am, young,
clever, of a good family, a man who might have been good or even great;
am I going to die like a rat in a hole? Oh, God!" He said it with all
the force and yearning he could put into his voice, trying to force a
note of pain, but the result was most ordinary. He looked at his face in
a little strip of looking-glass above the fireplace. He saw nothing but
the imprint of impurity and sin.

Then he lay back on the bed, and thought that he roared with laughter.
The situation seemed irresistibly comic. He only chuckled feebly, but to
him it seemed as if he were shrieking in an ecstasy of mirth.

Suddenly he got up and fell on his knees, praying aloud, "Oh, God, help
me! God forgive me!" All the time that he knelt and tried to pour out an
impassioned prayer for forgiveness he knew that it was only an attempt
to bring some poetry, some pathos, into his last moments. Again he got
up and laughed wildly. His face grew ashen grey and horribly drawn in
his attempts to deceive himself, to pose once more.

"Is there nothing, NOTHING? Good God!... why can't I feel? Why? why? Ah!
ahh!" He tore at the bed-quilt wildly, snarling like a beast.

       *       *       *       *       *

In the middle of his paroxysm he stopped suddenly and stiffened. Once
more the weird horror of another presence in the room came over him. He
whimpered like a dog, shrinking into a corner, with staring eyes, not
knowing what he did, muttering "Mother--mother!" Then with a complete
change of tone and manner, he said, "A nonentity with most seductive
hair."

He took the little bottle from the table, and hung it mouth downwards in
the sling.

He took off his coat and waistcoat, mechanically winding up his watch
and placing it on the mantel.

"This is not at all what I had hoped. It is _most_ unsatisfactory, quite
commonplace, in fact," he said as he lay down on the bed.

He felt a little splash on his cheek, and moved his face out of the
direct course of the liquid, which now began to fall more rapidly.




  CHAPTER IX.

  _TWENTY YEARS AFTER. AN EPILOGUE IN TWO PICTURES._

  THE FIRST PICTURE.

  _The Art of Religion._


The church was very full. It was the vigil of All Saints, and Father
Scott was to preach.

Far away, the culminating point of the long vista of shadowy arches,
stood the High Altar, blazing with lights. The choir had just taken
their stalls, and every head was bent low.

An orchestra was reinforcing the organ, and the long silver trumpets,
loved of old Purcell, shouted jubilantly, echoing away down the dim
clerestory.

Father Scott felt a strange thrill, an uplifting of the heart, at the
melody. He stood up in his stall with the rest, a man whose face still
showed a trend to the commonplace, but sweetened, almost refined away by
something else.

The little sisters of St. Cecily, sweet souls with whom he worked, said
among themselves that he had had a dear friend once whom he had loved,
and for whom he still mourned and prayed, and that it was this that made
him such an eminently lovable man.

Indeed, Sister Eliza had even read a novel he had written in his early
days, a mystic romance of a glorious youth who had never come to prime.

The music of the stately anthem swelled up in a burst of praise, the
trumpets singing high over all with keen vibratory notes that told of an
inner mystery to ears initiate. Then, when Father Gray, an old priest
whose days were nearly done, read the lesson, Scott leant back with
crossed hands, thinking of old times, of his youth. It seemed to him on
this great night of the Church that other and less earthly forms and
voices thronged the building. In the Creed, the words "communion of
saints" touched him strangely, as they always did; but to-night they
came home to him with a deeper meaning.

"God is so good," he thought simply. "Surely He has pardoned him for
that one sin. He was so pure and beautiful--very pleasant hast thou been
to me." His thoughts wandered disconnectedly, recalling sentences that
had struck him, old scenes and scraps of verse. The smell of the incense
brought back Cowley or the Sunday evening services at St. Barnabas. He
rejoiced in his heart at the stateliness and circumstance of worship
around him, and he recalled some old articles in the _Church Chimes_,
defending eloquently the "true ritual of holy Church." He had thought
them so good, he remembered, such a dignified answer to the other side.

The prayers began, each with its deep harmonized "Amen," which seemed to
him in his excited mind long-drawn gasps of thankfulness and worship. He
bent his head low in his hands, and prayed humbly for the Church's
welfare, and then, with an uplifting of his heart and a great
passionate yearning, for his dead friend. He felt very near to him on
this feast of the departed.

The time came for him to speak to the long rows of faces. He mounted to
the high pulpit in the sweep of the chancel arch, and looked down on the
congregation.

He began quietly enough, but gathered power and sonance as his feelings
swayed him, drawing for them a picture, an ideal, to which they might
all attain, telling them of the sweetness that comes with goodness. He
thought of the friend of his youth, and drew an exalted picture of him,
while the people sat breathless at the beauty of his words.

Then he said in a hushed voice how he had thought, and liked to think,
that round them to-night were the dear ones who had died, that they were
watching over them and praying with them that holy night.

Everyone felt the spell of the hour and the voice of the priest, it was
most unearthly, dramatic, and effective. Sister Eliza wiped her eyes and
thought of the novel, and only poor old Father Gray, worthy man, was
fast asleep in the chancel, tired by the long ceremonial day.

Then came the great procession round the church, with its acolytes and
crosses, Father Scott walking last in flowered cope. They sang, "For all
the saints who from their labours rest," waking a responsive echo in
every heart.

Last, and most impressive of all, the long spell of silent prayer,
broken at last by the crashing music, and the shuffling feet of the
congregation as they left the building. Sister Eliza, as she went out
into the cutting night wind, could not help thinking of the novel. It
was not a bad novel, but this is the true account.


  THE SECOND PICTURE.

  _A dinner in honour of the law._


"Well, my dear, and who have you got?" said the duchess.

"First of all there's Mr. Mordaunt Sturtevant, the new Q.C., _quite_ a
nice person."

"He is," said the duchess, "I've met him. Such eyes! Eliza Facinorious
said that he made her 'feel quite funny when he looked at her.' You
know the sort of person--makes you feel b-r-r-r-r-r! like that."

"I know," said the hostess. "Then Marjorie Burness is coming--such a
dear! knows all the latest stories about everyone."

"I don't think I've met her," said the duchess, "is she quite?"

"Not exactly; she was a Miss Lovibond--Lovering--some name like that.
Parson's daughter, Kensington people, dontcherknow; but so amusin'--fat,
too, she is."

"Oh!" said the duchess.

"Then there's a Mr. Sanderson Tom asked. He keeps a school board, or
wants the poor to live noble lives in Hackney--somethin' of that sort.
Eliza Facinorious and the Baron, Lady Darwin Swift, Mr. Justice Coll,
Bradley Bere, the new writin' boy, Lord Saul Horridge, and of course the
girls. That's all, I think."

"Oh!" said the duchess again.

She was rather a damaged duchess, and very impertinent, but Mrs.
Chitters was exceedingly glad to get her. She really _was_ a duchess,
which, if a woman has no brains, money, or comeliness, is the best
thing she can be. She was staying for a week with Colonel Chitters and
his wife.

The dinner was for the joy of Mr. Mordaunt Sturtevant, who had just
taken silk. The most eminent member of the criminal bar, he would have
been Queen's Counsel long ago if it had not been for some vague rumours
of his early life.

A footman opened the door, the duchess her eye-glasses, and Mrs.
Chitters the conversation. Mr. Bradley Bere was announced, a youth
apparently of seventeen, but of a great name; the rich uncleanness of
his life almost rivalling his stories, and both being given undue
prominence by his friends on the weekly press. Then came Lord Saul
Horridge, a tall melancholy man, whose life was crushed by an energetic
mother, whose forte was teetotalism, and whose weakness was omniscience.

Mr. and Mrs. Robert Burness came in, were effusively greeted by the
hostess, and passed on to amuse the duchess. Mrs. Burness, _nee_
Marjorie Lovering, had grown too stout for flirtation, and feeling the
want of a _metier_, had turned her thoughts to scandal, and achieved a
great success. Her husband, a clerk in the War Office, used to say that
his wife had a higher regard for truth than anyone he knew--she used it
so economically.

Mordaunt Sturtevant and Mr. Justice Coll came in arm in arm, and soon
after they went down to dinner.

Sturtevant had grown two small whiskers, and his keen eyes, shaded by
bushy brows, made the duchess want to say "B-r-r-r-r-r!" several times
during the evening.

The Baroness Facinorious, an ample and various lady, was taken down by
Mr. Sanderson, the education person from Hackney, and they discussed the
latest thing in Chelsea churches.

Bradley Bere told Miss Chitters that poetry was the pursuit of the
unattainable by the unbearable, hoping she would repeat it as having
come from him.

Mr. Justice Coll alone was silent, his whole mind, no large part of
him, being given up to the business in hand.

When the gentlemen came up to the drawing-room Sturtevant sat down by
Mrs. Burness, and they discussed their host and hostess, both of them
telling Mrs. Chitters what the other had said later on in the evening.

When they got tired of scandal Mrs. Burness mentioned that her son had
just gone up to Oxford. "To Exeter, you know. Robert says it's an
excellent college. We went up for the 'Torgids,' I think they call
them--boatin' races, you know--and we had lunch in Bernard's rooms.
_Such_ nice rooms, all panelled in oak, and only next door to the Hall,
which must be _so_ convenient in wet weather, don't you think?"

"Have they a high-barred window in the corner looking out into B. N. C.
Lane?" said Sturtevant.

"Yes! do you know them?"

"I think so. I believe I used to know a man who had them years ago. He's
dead now."

"Oh, _how_ romantic! I must tell Bernard! Perhaps his ghost haunts
them! _Do_ tell me his name."

"A rather uncommon name--Yardly Gobion."

Mrs. Burness grew pale.

"I knew him when I was a girl," she said faintly.

The man gripped a little ornamental knob on the arm of the chair. The
people who were coming after the dinner were being announced. He heard
Sir Lionel and Lady Picton's names shouted from the door. It was a
curious evening.

"Were you a Miss Lovering before you married?" he asked.

"Yes."

"Then you're Marjorie!"

"Yes," she said with a little smile, "I was Marjorie."

They were silent for a time, and their faces changed a little.

"Rather a fool, wasn't he?" Sturtevant forced himself to say at last.

"Oh, yes, we flirted a little, don't you know, but I always thought him
rather poor fun."

"Yes, he wasn't much. I remember when I was reading for the Bar I did
him a service, for which he was not in the least grateful."

"Yes, he was quite that sort of person."

"But still," said Sturtevant, "he was a man possessed of considerable
personal charm."


FINIS.




  PLYMOUTH

  WILLIAM BRENDON AND SON

  PRINTERS

       *       *       *       *       *




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    =Sunday Chronicle.=--"Full of unflagging interest from cover to
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    =Bookseller.=--"A pleasant and attractive story. The various
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  GREENING AND CO.,
  20, CECIL COURT, CHARING CROSS ROAD, LONDON, W.C.




  Two splendidly interesting Books by =CLEMENT SCOTT=.


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    found this slight and unpretentious little volume bright,
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    =Punch.=--"What pleasant memories does not Clement Scott's little
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  SISTERS BY THE SEA.

    (_SEASIDE AND COUNTRY SKETCHES._)

    SECOND EDITION JUST OUT.

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_May be obtained at the Railway Bookstalls and of all Booksellers_.


  GREENING AND CO.,
  20, CECIL COURT, CHARING CROSS ROAD, LONDON, W.C.




  AN IMPORTANT WORK ON ELOCUTION.

  THE ART OF ELOCUTION AND PUBLIC SPEAKING

    _Being simple explanations of the various branches of Elocution;
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    By ROSS FERGUSON

    (TEACHER OF ELOCUTION).

    INTRODUCTION BY GEORGE ALEXANDER

    (_St. James' Theatre_)

    Dedicated by permission to MISS ELLEN TERRY.


  SOME OPINIONS OF THE PRESS.

     =Bookman.=--"Good, clear-detailed advice by a practical teacher."

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     =Dundee Advertiser.=--"Maybe read with profit by anyone wishing to
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     from the chapters on 'Articulation and Modulation.' Not only for
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     it."

    THE ART OF ELOCUTION. With Portrait of the Author. Now ready at
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    Cloth. =Price One Shilling.=


  GREENING AND CO.,
  20, CECIL COURT, CHARING CROSS ROAD, LONDON, W.C.




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    BY RIVINGTON PYKE

    (Author of "THE MAN WHO DISAPPEARED").

    _Long 12mo, 132 pp. Cloth_, =1/6=; _Sewed_, =1/-.=


  SOME PRESS OPINIONS.

    =Whitehall Review.=--"Those who love a mystery with plenty of 'go,'
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    "For fear divine Philosophy
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  REVIEWERS' REMARKS.

     =Sketch.=--"It is a well-written story. An admirable literary
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     =News of the World.=--"It combines excellent descriptive power with
     a gruesome and fascinating plot, with sufficient mystery to keep
     the interest well sustained. The story is built round a novel and
     interesting incident of crime, and the literary style of the
     writer makes acceptable horrors that otherwise would be too weird
     for any but the strongest nerved readers."

     =Weekly Dispatch.=--"A remarkable book. It reads like the
     production of a bad nightmare, and produces a creepiness of the
     flesh. Any reader desiring to sup on horrors can here find his
     fill. The book possesses considerable literary merit."

     =Star.=--"May be guaranteed to disturb your night's rest. It is a
     gruesome, ghastly, blood-curdling, hair-erecting, sleep-murdering
     piece of work, with a thrill on every page. Read it."

     =Hampshire Telegraph.=--"The principal figure in the story, Aleck
     Severn, is a perfect imp of Satan. His course of crime, and the
     manner in which Nemesis finally overtakes him, is very
     graphically told."


  GREENING AND CO.,
  20, CECIL COURT, CHARING CROSS ROAD, LONDON, W.C.




Transcriber's Note. Very few changes have been made to the punctuation
and spelling in this book. The word Carodoc is now Caradoc and
Tannhaueser is Tannhaeuser.





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