Mrs. Maxon Protests Part 48

Tora might be a profound speculative thinker, but, no, she was not quick in the little matters of the world. "Do you mean to say that the man objects to seeing any single house from his windows? Really d.i.c.k is putting on airs!"

"It depends on who lives in the single house."

"But you live there." Tora stared at her. "Have you quarrelled with him?

Do you mean to say he dislikes you?"

Winnie broke into a laugh. "On the contrary, Tora."

At last light dawned. A long-drawn "Oh!" proclaimed its coming. "I see.

I never do notice things like that. Then you've refused him, have you?"

"Oh no, he's never asked me. He never told me anything about it--not directly, or meaning to, at least." This qualification in view of the talk at the railway station. "But I'm sure of it."

"Then why doesn't he tell you? Or have you snubbed him hopelessly?"

"I haven't done much either way, but it's not that. You see, he thinks that he's not free to marry me, and that I'm not free to marry anybody."

"Then he'd better stop thinking such nonsense," said Tora, with her habitual and most unphilosophical contempt for other people's opinions.

"I don't know about that." Winnie shook her head doubtfully. "But I think that it would ease the situation if you gave Stephen just a hint."

"I'll go and tell him at once." Hints were not in Tora's line.

The first result of her friend's mission which reached Winnie's ears was a ringing peal of laughter from the sanctum where the Synopsis was in course of preparation. It was Wednesday--a half-holiday for the a.s.sistants--and Stephen was alone. When once the situation was elucidated, he enjoyed the humour of it immensely.

"Well, we have been a pair of dolts, you and I, Tora. Poor old d.i.c.k! He must have been wis.h.i.+ng us, and the house too, at the bottom of the sea.

But what's to be done?"

"Why, you must tell him not to be so silly, of course; I don't know what she'll say, but let him take his chance."

"I'm getting a bit shy of taking a hand in these complications. We didn't make much of a success out of the Ledstone affair, among us! I think I shall let it alone, and leave them to settle it for themselves."

"You never have the courage of your convictions. It's one of your worst faults, Stephen." With this condemnation on her lips, Tora departed into the garden.

When Winnie went in to resume her labours, Stephen looked up from his books with a twinkle in his eye. "Trouble again, Winnie?"

"I really thought you'd better know about it, or you'd burn d.i.c.k's house down."

"You seem to have a knack of setting fires ablaze too."

"You might just let it appear that you've come to the conclusion that it's not the house which makes d.i.c.k so grumpy. Don't say a word about me, of course."

"He'll think me much cleverer than I have been."

"Well, I should think you'd like that, Stephen. I should, in your place."

He laughed good-humouredly. "Oh, well, I deserve that dig."

"It's rather funny how this sort of thing pursues me, isn't it? But it's quite half your fault. If you will collect a menagerie of opinions, and throw me into the middle of it----"

"It's not strange that the animals like the dainty morsel, even though the keepers don't approve of the diet? But I didn't collect all the animals."

"No," said Winnie, smiling reflectively. "I did pick up one or two for myself in the course of my journeyings through the world. I'm not quite sure I want any others."

"He's an awfully good fellow, old d.i.c.k."

"Yes. And now I'm going back to Utopia--where animals like only their proper diet."

Meanwhile d.i.c.k Dennehy was not taking another look at his house, nor endeavouring to form a more favourable estimate of it. He was walking up and down in the field behind it, which under Tora Aikenhead's skilled care had already a.s.sumed something of the semblance of a garden. He had to settle his question one way or the other. If one way, then good-bye, for a long while at least, to the new house and to Shaylor's Patch; if the other, he would try his fortune with a good courage. Although his case had points of similarity enough to justify Winnie in linking it with those others which had presented themselves in her experience, it was not identical with any one of them, but had its own complexion. He was not called upon to defy public opinion and to confuse the lines of social demarcation, as G.o.dfrey Ledstone had been. Nor to revolutionize his ideas and mode of life, like Bob Purnett. Nor to be what he must deem disloyal to his profession and false to his work in the world, like Bertie Merriam. Cyril Maxon's case was closer; yet Cyril had only to pa.s.s, by an ingeniously constructed bridge, from the more extreme to the less extreme of two theories, and in so doing found abundance of approval and countenance among men of his own persuasion. d.i.c.k was confronted with a straight, rigid, unbending prohibition from an authority which he had always respected as final and infallible.

Yet he seemed asked to give up the whole of his real life, to empty life of what made it worth living. Save for one or two boyish episodes of sentiment, he had kept clear of love-affairs. He brought to Winnie's service both the fresh ardour of a young man and the settled conviction of maturity. He had never a doubt in his mind that for him it was this woman or no woman; his knowledge of himself and his past record made the certainty more trustworthy than it generally is. Given then that he had a chance of winning her, it was a mighty sacrifice which was demanded of him--even to the spoiling and maiming of his life, and the starvation of his spirit.

His was a perfectly straight case; there was no confusing it, there could be no golden bridge; a supreme authority on the one side, on the other the natural man, fortified by every secular justification--for he would be breaking no law of the land, infringing no code of honour, injuring no man whose rights or feelings he was under an obligation to respect. And he would be affording to the creature he loved best in the world happiness, as he believed, and, of a certain, peace, protection, and loving care--things of which she stood in need; to d.i.c.k Dennehy's notions, notwithstanding his love and admiration, her record showed that she stood sorely in need of them. Here, on one side of his mind, he found himself in a paradoxical agreement with the authority which the other side wanted to defy. It and he agreed about her past doings, but drew from them a different conclusion. He adored her, but he did not think that she could take care of herself. He believed that he could take care of her--at the cost of defying his supreme authority; or he would not use the word defying--he would throw himself on its mercy in a very difficult case. The creature he loved best of all things in life would do, he feared, more unpardonable things, unless he himself did a thing which he had been taught to think unpardonable in itself. He invited her to nothing that she was obliged to hold as wrongdoing; he did not ask her to sin against the light she possessed. That sin would be his. His chivalry joined forces with his love; to refrain seemed cowardice as well as almost impossibility. There was the dogma--but should there be no dispensation? Not when every fibre of a man's heart, every impulse of a man's courage, cried out for it?

The sun sank to its setting. He stood in the garden, and watched how its decline made more beautiful the gracious prospect. A little trail of smoke rose in leisurely fas.h.i.+on from the chimneys of Winnie's cottage.

The air was very still. He turned and looked at the new house with a new interest. "Would it be good enough for her, now?" asked d.i.c.k Dennehy.

The sudden vision of her in the house--of her dainty ways and gracious presence, her chaff and her sincerity--swept over his mind. She had been wrong--but she had been brave. Braver than he was himself?

To the horizon sank the sun. d.i.c.k Dennehy turned to look at it again. As the glow faded, peace and quiet reigned. Very gradually evening fell. He lifted his hat from his head and stood watching the last rays, the breeze stirring his hair and freshening his brow. He stood for a long time very still, as he was wont to stand, quiet, attentive, obedient, at the solemn offices of his Church--the Church that was to him creed, conscience, and half-motherland. Suddenly his soul was at peace, and he spoke aloud with his lips, even as though in response to the voice of One walking in the garden in the cool of the day. "I must do what I must do, and leave it to the mercy of G.o.d."

CHAPTER XXIX

IN THE RESULT

"On further inspection it turns out to be a perfectly corking house--a jewel of a house, Stephen!"

Winnie had gone home, and Stephen was working alone at the Synopsis when d.i.c.k Dennehy walked into the room with these words on his lips. Stephen looked up and saw that something had happened to his friend. The embarra.s.sed hang-dog air had left his face. He looked a trifle obstinate about the mouth, but his eyes were peaceful and met Stephen's straightforwardly.

"In fact, there's only one fault at all to be found with it."

"Give it a name, and Tora will put it right," said Stephen, in genial response to his friend's altered mood.

d.i.c.k smiled. "I'm afraid Tora can't, but I know of another lady who can--if she will. It's a bit big for a bachelor; I'll be feeling lonely there."

"Oh, that's it, is it?" Stephen laughed. "Now I rather thought it was, all along." At some cost to truth, he was carrying out Winnie's injunction. "You were so--well--restless."

"I was. And Tora was cross with me, and you laughed at me, and then I got savage. But it's all over now--so far as I'm concerned, at least.

You know who it is?"

"Well, I almost think I can guess, old fellow. We're not blind.

Winnie?"

d.i.c.k Dennehy nodded his head. "I'll have it settled before I'm many days older."

His mouth was now very firm, and his eyes almost challenging. It was evident even to the lover of discussion that here was a decision which was not to be discussed, one which only the man who came to it himself could judge. Stephen felt the implication in d.i.c.k's manner so strongly that he even retrenched his faint smile of amus.e.m.e.nt, as he held out his hand, and said, "Good luck!"