New Grub Street Part 66

'Things were rather stupid. Some people who were to have come didn't turn up. And--well, it doesn't matter.'

She rose and glanced at herself in the little oblong mirror over the mantelpiece.

'Did Jasper ever speak to you of a Miss Rupert?' asked Dora.

'Not that I remember.'

'What do you think? He told me in the calmest way that he didn't see why Marian should think of him as anything but the most ordinary friend--said he had never given her reason to think anything else.'

'Indeed! And Miss Rupert is someone who has the honour of his preference?'

'He says she is about thirty, and rather masculine, but a great heiress.

Jasper is shameful!'

'What do you expect? I consider it is your duty to let Marian know everything he says. Otherwise you help to deceive her. He has no sense of honour in such things.'

Dora was so impatient to let her brother have the news that she left the house as soon as she had had tea on the chance of finding Jasper at home. She had not gone a dozen yards before she encountered him in person.

'I was afraid Marian might still be with you,' he said, laughing.

'I should have asked the landlady. Well?'

'We can't stand talking here. You had better come in.'

He was in too much excitement to wait.

'Just tell me. What has she?'

Dora walked quickly towards the house, looking annoyed.

'Nothing at all? Then what has her father?'

'He has nothing,' replied his sister, 'and she has five thousand pounds.'

Jasper walked on with bent head. He said nothing more until he was upstairs in the sitting-room, where Maud greeted him carelessly.

'Mrs Reardon anything?'

Dora informed him.

'What?' he cried incredulously. 'Ten thousand? You don't say so!'

He burst into uproarious laughter.

'So Reardon is rescued from the slum and the clerk's desk! Well, I'm glad; by Jove, I am. I should have liked it better if Marian had had the ten thousand and he the five, but it's an excellent joke. Perhaps the next thing will be that he'll refuse to have anything to do with his wife's money; that would be just like him.' After amusing himself with this subject for a few minutes more, he turned to the window and stood there in silence.

'Are you going to have tea with us?' Dora inquired.

He did not seem to hear her. On a repet.i.tion of the inquiry, he answered absently:

'Yes, I may as well. Then I can go home and get to work.'

During the remainder of his stay he talked very little, and as Maud also was in an abstracted mood, tea pa.s.sed almost in silence. On the point of departing he asked:

'When is Marian likely to come here again?'

'I haven't the least idea,' answered Dora.

He nodded, and went his way.

It was necessary for him to work at a magazine article which he had begun this morning, and on reaching home he spread out his papers in the usual businesslike fas.h.i.+on. The subject out of which he was manufacturing 'copy' had its difficulties, and was not altogether congenial to him; this morning he had laboured with unwonted effort to produce about a page of ma.n.u.script, and now that he tried to resume the task his thoughts would not centre upon it. Jasper was too young to have thoroughly mastered the art of somnambulistic composition; to write, he was still obliged to give exclusive attention to the matter under treatment. Dr Johnson's saying, that a man may write at any time if he will set himself doggedly to it, was often upon his lips, and had even been of help to him, as no doubt it has to many another man obliged to compose amid distracting circ.u.mstances; but the formula had no efficacy this evening. Twice or thrice he rose from his chair, paced the room with a determined brow, and sat down again with vigorous clutch of the pen; still he failed to excogitate a single sentence that would serve his purpose.

'I must have it out with myself before I can do anything,' was his thought as he finally abandoned the endeavour. 'I must make up my mind.'

To this end he settled himself in an easy-chair and began to smoke cigarettes. Some dozen of these aids to reflection only made him so nervous that he could no longer remain alone. He put on his hat and overcoat and went out--to find that it was raining heavily. He returned for an umbrella, and before long was walking aimlessly about the Strand, unable to make up his mind whether to turn into a theatre or not.

Instead of doing so, he sought a certain upper room of a familiar restaurant, where the day's papers were to be seen, and perchance an acquaintance might be met. Only half-a-dozen men were there, reading and smoking, and all were unknown to him. He drank a gla.s.s of lager beer, skimmed the news of the evening, and again went out into the bad weather.

After all it was better to go home. Everything he encountered had an unsettling effect upon him, so that he was further than ever from the decision at which he wished to arrive. In Mornington Road he came upon Whelpdale, who was walking slowly under an umbrella.

'I've just called at your place.'

'All right; come back if you like.'

'But perhaps I shall waste your time?' said Whelpdale, with unusual diffidence.

Rea.s.sured, he gladly returned to the house. Milvain acquainted him with the fact of John Yule's death, and with its result so far as it concerned the Reardons. They talked of how the couple would probably behave under this decisive change of circ.u.mstances.

'Biffen professes to know nothing about Mrs Reardon,' said Whelpdale. 'I suspect he keeps his knowledge to himself, out of regard for Reardon. It wouldn't surprise me if they live apart for a long time yet.'

'Not very likely. It was only want of money.'

'They're not at all suited to each other. Mrs Reardon, no doubt, repents her marriage bitterly, and I doubt whether Reardon cares much for his wife.'

'As there's no way of getting divorced they'll make the best of it. Ten thousand pounds produce about four hundred a year; it's enough to live on.'

'And be miserable on--if they no longer love each other.'

'You're such a sentimental fellow!' cried Jasper. 'I believe you seriously think that love--the sort of frenzy you understand by it--ought to endure throughout married life. How has a man come to your age with such primitive ideas?'

'Well, I don't know. Perhaps you err a little in the opposite direction.'

'I haven't much faith in marrying for love, as you know. What's more, I believe it's the very rarest thing for people to be in love with each other. Reardon and his wife perhaps were an instance; perhaps--I'm not quite sure about her. As a rule, marriage is the result of a mild preference, encouraged by circ.u.mstances, and deliberately heightened into strong s.e.xual feeling. You, of all men, know well enough that the same kind of feeling could be produced for almost any woman who wasn't repulsive.'

'The same kind of feeling; but there's vast difference of degree.'

'To be sure. I think it's only a matter of degree. When it rises to the point of frenzy people may strictly be said to be in love; and, as I tell you, I think that comes to pa.s.s very rarely indeed. For my own part, I have no experience of it, and think I never shall have.'

'I can't say the same.'