The Blower of Bubbles Part 17

"And lastly?" He was still calm, although keener eyes than hers would have noticed a dark, ominous flush under his eyes.

"And, lastly," she said, unconsciously repeating his formula, "you scoff at everything that is good and pure, sneering at religion, and drawing yourself aside from your fellow-creatures as though they were loathsome. Yet I say to you, Dennis, that there is not a man in the slums whose soul isn't far, far richer than yours. It is only a coward, afraid to face the real things, who scoffs at life."

Weak from the effort she had made, her voice subsided into silence and a cold sweat broke out on her brow and the palms of her hands.

"Will you smoke, Vera?"

"No, thanks," she answered faintly.

"Do. It would soothe you."

"No, I thank you." She repressed a sudden desire to fly from the conservatory. She had become suddenly afraid of the cool, smiling figure beside her.

"As far as girls are concerned," he said quietly, replacing the cigarette-case in his pocket, "just as long as they angle for us with every artifice of dress and rouge and coquetry, so long will they catch us and the consequences. As for the law, which my mother planned for me, I regret that my father left me the instincts of a gentleman, not of an attorney. I am not boring you?"

She made no reply.

"As for the army, I don't happen to be interested in the war. I disapprove of the crudeness of our Canadian civilization. I disapprove of England's lack of the artistic. I disapprove of German militarism, Scotch bagpipes, Swiss cheese, Chinese laundries, and American politics. Why should I fight for one when I disapprove of them all? As for my fellow-man, I shun the ordinary man of the streets because he does not think, read, or bathe often enough. I am not hostile to him; I merely ignore him. I am not a coward at all, my dear Vera; I am merely an artist among artisans."

He bowed gracefully. "Let us return to the dancing," he said.

With a frightened, inquiring glance, she took his arm, and without a word they left the conservatory. At the door of the ballroom they paused, and she laid a timid hand on his arm. It will ever be a mystery to men how women can love and despise the same object.

"Dennis," she said, "will you try to forget what I have said?" Her courage had gone, fled before his coolness and the fascination he held for her, though she had striven with all her womanhood to free herself from it.

"I wish to Heaven I could," he said grimly.

V

The morning suns.h.i.+ne invaded the rooms of Dennis Montague with pervading cheeriness. It was nearing the end of April, and a hundred birds sang of the winter wonders of arid Africa, and of the witcheries of the Nile, where Pygmies are at war with the b.u.t.terflies, and the great G.o.d Memnon raises his mighty shout to greet the dawn of day.

Oblivious to the suns.h.i.+ne and everything but his thoughts, Montague lay in bed, and sought to wrestle with the truth he had heard the night before. It was impossible to dismiss the thing from his mind. His brain throbbed with resentment, questioning, searching her words--striving to convince himself that her charge of cowardice was the vituperation of an unrequited love. But it was useless. He could explain her actions, dissect her motives, applaud his own pose, but he could not eliminate the feeling of personal nausea which clung to him, as though he had suddenly sickened of his whole nature.

A knock at the door interrupted the thread of his thoughts, and his valet entered with a tray of breakfast-things.

"Good morning, sir." Sylvester carefully rearranged the tray on a little table beside the bed. "It's a beautiful morning, sir. There's great news too."

"What is it?"

"Canadians 'ave saved Calais, sir--leastways they've stopped them for the time."

"They're in action, eh?"

"'Orrible, too, sir; the paper says the Germans used poison gas."

"Good G.o.d!"

"Yes, sir--the French Colonials gave way, yelling that 'ell was let loose, and the Canadians went up and 'eld the line."

Montague put down the cup of coffee untasted. "What does it say--about casualties?"

"Why, sir it looks as if some battalions was pretty well wiped out.

'Ere's the paper, sir----"

"No--no. I don't want to see it. Tell me--it says ... the Canadians held against ... gas?"

"Yes, sir."

"Are our Toronto chaps in it?"

"Very 'eavy, sir. It seems as if the 'Ighland Brigade got it the worst."

Montague sank back on the pillow, his face grim and pallid.

"Come along, sir; 'ere's your breakfast."

His master gazed at the ceiling. "Sylvester," he said listlessly, "for a long time you have ministered to my body. What can you do for a soul that is starving?"

The valet beamed rea.s.suringly. A large and varied experience as a servant to young gentlemen had inured him to morning-after repentances.

"That's all right, sir," he said, rubbing his hands genially. "A bromo-seltzer will fix you up. 'Ello, sir!" The sound of a military band drew him to the window. "It's one of the new battalions--blooming near a thousand of them. Seems like 'ome, it does, when the Guards used to do London in all their sw.a.n.kin' regimentals."

A battalion swung past in steady rhythmical tread to the stirring strains of the Welsh hymn of freedom, "Men of Harlech"--and there was a youthful vigorousness about the men, a suggestion of unconquerable manhood.... And on every man's face there was written pride and determination. For their comrades had been tried at Ypres.... They had held the line.... And, by the living G.o.d, the Hun would pay for that foul gas given to the wind to carry against defenseless men.

The last ranks of the battalion pa.s.sed, and the music ceased as suddenly as it had come. The birds resumed their chorus, and William Sylvester his imperturbable mask of deference. Languidly Montague rose from his bed and lit a cigarette.

"Our civilization," he said quietly, "need not pride itself on raising those men. Men have always been brave since the beginning of time. The terrible failure of our age is that it has produced men like me--a coward."

Mr. Sylvester scratched his head. "Lord bless me, sir!" he ventured, "you're not a coward. Why, look at the jump you took at last year's horse show."

Montague turned on him with a vehemence that the valet had never before seen in his master. "I tell you I am a coward," he said fiercely.

"Don't I know that my place is with these men? In that battalion that pa.s.sed there are married men with families, there are only sons of widows, there are brothers, sweethearts. Who is there to care if I go?

My death would not cause a single tear; and yet I stay--not that I am afraid of bullets or death, but because I know that I should have to sleep beside men who are filthy, unclean, and that I should grow filthy too. I abhor it. I detest it. Yet I stand aside and let others go."

"You--you are a gentleman, sir."

"A gentleman!" Montague laughed raspingly. "My own definition last night was 'a man with a valet and three addresses.' What a fool I was!

No, I am not a gentleman. I have never been one. The greatest gentleman of all time was a carpenter. That is the truth I have to burn into my soul."

He sank into a chair, and shadows of fatigue marred his face. "Last night, Sylvester," he said slowly, "I lay awake for hours, and sometimes in the awful darkness that surrounds one when sleep refuses to come, things seem clearer and more cruel than in daylight. Last night I saw myself for the first time.... I do not say I shall change.... It is too late, I think...."

An hour later he left his flat, fully dressed, and strolled into the sun-lit streets. A newsboy dashed past, screaming in strident tones, "All night fighting--Canadian Line still holding;" and then, apparently feeling the announcement needed identification, he shrieked, "All about that great big European War."

Montague heard his name spoken. It was the ex-bank clerk, the young subaltern with the uninspired face.

"Good-bye," he said rather shyly.

"Where are you going?"