Ideala Part 17

"I don't believe you," she answered, promptly.

"That is polite," he observed.

Then there was another pause.

"It must be time for me to go," she said at last.

The rain was still falling in torrents.

"Oh, no!" he exclaimed. "You mustn't go yet. Your train does not leave for another hour. Why do you want to go?"

She was struggling with the b.u.t.ton of a glove, and he went to help her, but she repulsed him, half unconsciously, as she would have brushed off a troublesome fly.

The gesture irritated him.

"I cannot believe you are not conscientious," she said, with a frown of intentness. "When a man of talent ceases to be true, he loses half his power."

He turned from her coldly, sat down at the writing table, and began to write.

Ideala was still putting on her gloves.

Outside, the rain fell lightly now, and the clouds were clearing. The children were still playing at the open window of the house opposite.

Lorrimer had often been obliged to answer notes when she was there; she thought nothing of that; but he was a long time, and at last she interrupted him. "Forgive me if I disturb you," she said, "but I am afraid I shall miss my train."

"Oh, pardon me," he answered, jumping up, and looking at his watch.

"But it is not nearly time yet. I cannot understand why you are in such a hurry to-day."

"Yet you know that I always go when I have done my work," she said.

"You have done unusually early then," he replied; "and I wish to goodness I had." He looked round the room pettishly, like a schoolboy out of temper. "I shall have to put all these things away when you're gone--a task I hate, but n.o.body can do it but myself."

"Why wait till I've gone? Let me help you," said Ideala.

His countenance cleared, and they set to work merrily, he explaining the curious histories of coins and cameos, of ancient gems, ornaments of gold and silver, and valuable intaglios, as they returned them to their places. Both forgot everything in the interest of the collection; so that, when the last tray was completed, they were surprised to find that two trains had gone while they were busy, and another had become due, and there was only time to jump into a hansom to catch it.

Lorrimer was still irritable.

"Why on earth does a lady always carry her purse in her hand?" he said, as they drove along.

Ideala laughed, and put hers in her pocket.

"When are you coming to go on with your work?" he asked.

"I will write and fix a day," she said.

"I shall be away a good deal for the next three weeks," he continued.

"The twenty-third or twenty-sixth would be the most convenient days for me, if they would suit you."

"Thank you," she answered, and hurried down the platform, without having said a word or given a thought to what she had come to say.

And then at last the twenty-four hours' fasting, fatigue, and mental suffering overcame her. A little later she was lying insensible on the floor of her room, and she was alone. The servants had not seen her enter, and there was not a creature near her to help her.

CHAPTER XXI.

Ideala was unable to exert herself for many days after this. At last, however, she began to think of work again, and of Lorrimer. She was uneasy about him. He had not been himself on that last occasion.

Something was wrong, she could not think what, but she felt anxious; and out of her anxiety arose an intense longing to see him again. So she wrote, first of all fixing the twenty-third for her visit; but when the day came she found herself unequal to the exertion, and wrote again, begging him to expect her on the twenty-sixth instead.

He did not reply. He was generally overwhelmed with correspondence, and she had therefore begged him not to do so if the days she named suited him.

Up to this time she had never heard Lorrimer mentioned by any one; but now, suddenly, his name seemed to be in everybody's mouth. She thought of him incessantly herself, and it was as if the strength of her own mind compelled all other minds to think of him while she was present, and to yield to her will and tell her all they knew. For, curiously enough, she had begun to want to know about him. I call it curious, because she was so confiding so unsuspicious, and also so penetrating, she never seemed to care to know more of people than she learnt from intercourse with them. But with regard to Lorrimer, she had evidently begun to distrust her own judgment, which is significant.

One night, at a dinner-party, she was thinking of a gratuitous piece of information an old woman, who brought her some milk on one occasion at the Great Hospital, had given her. Ideala had noticed that the old woman had a bad cough, and had asked her, in her usual kindly way, if she were subject to it, and what she did for it, remarking that the north country air was trying to people with delicate chests, and warmer clothing and greater care were more necessary there than in the south; and thereupon the old woman had launched forth, as such people will upon the slightest provocation, with minute details of her own sufferings, and the sufferings of all the people she ever knew, from "the bronchitis" during the winter and spring, Mr. Lorrimer being included among the number.

"Does Mr. Lorrimer suffer in that way?" Ideala had asked with interest.

"Indeed, yes," was the answer, given with many shakings of the head and that air of importance and pleasure which vulgar bearers of bad news a.s.sume. "He was very bad in the spring. He coughed so as never was, and had to give in at last and keep his room, which he should have done at first; but it takes a deal to make him give in, for he takes no care of hisself though not strong, and we _were_ in a way!

Eh! but it would be a bad thing for this place if anything happened to Mr. Lorrimer!" Ideala gave the woman half-a-crown.

"People may have bronchitis without being delicate," she a.s.serted. "Mr.

Lorrimer is very kind to all of you, I suppose?" "If I was to tell you all his good deeds, ma'am," the woman said, impressively, "I'd not have done before to-morrow morning. But as to his not being delicate," she continued--in the hope, perhaps, of scoring another on that point-- "why, it just depends on what you call delicate."

Ideala absently gave her another half-crown, and another after that, but she could not get her to say that Mr. Lorrimer's chest was strong.

Later, when Lorrimerre turned, and they were both at work, he was interrupted in the middle of some cynical remarks on over-population, and the good it would do to check it by allowing the spread of epidemics and encouraging men to kill each other, by the arrival of another old woman in great distress.

His manner changed in a moment. "I am afraid he is worse," he said to her most kindly.

She could only shake her head.

"There is the order," he went on, giving her a paper--"get him these things at once, and tell him I will come as soon as I am disengaged."

When they were alone again, Ideala looked at Lorrimer and laughed.

"Another instance, I shrewdly suspect, of the difference between theory and practice," she observed.

He brushed his hand back over his forehead and hair, a trifle disconcerted. "He was the only son of his mother, and she was a widow,"

he said.

"And one can approve of capital punishment without having the nerve to see it inflicted, I suppose," Ideala commented, "and be convinced that it would be good for the human race to have a certain number of their children drowned, like kittens, every year, and yet not be able to see a single one disposed of in that way without risking one's own life to save it. Verily, I have heard this often, and yet I think I am more surprised to find it true than if I had never been warned! But that is always the way. Things surprise us just as much as we expect them to.

When we went up the river to Canton and saw the PaG.o.da, we all exclaimed, 'Why, it is just like the pictures--river, and junks, and all!' If we had not seen the pictures I believe we should scarcely have noticed it, and certainly we should not have been surprised at all."

"Haven't you done being surprised yet?" Lorrimer asked.

"No. Have you?"

"Quite. Nothing ever surprises me."