Fraternity Part 42

"I feel," said Mr. Stone, "able to dictate what I have already written--not more. Has she come?"

"Not yet; but I will go and find her if you like."

Mr. Stone looked at his daughter wistfully.

"That will be taking up your time," he said.

Bianca answered: "My time is of no consequence."

Mr. Stone stretched his hands out to the fire.

"I will not consent," he said, evidently to himself, "to be a drag on anyone. If that has come, then I must go!"

Bianca, placing herself beside him on her knees, pressed her hot cheek against his temple.

"But it has not come, Dad."

"I hope not," said Mr. Stone. "I wish to end my book first."

The sudden grim coherence of his last two sayings terrified Bianca more than all his feverish, utterances.

"I rely on your sitting quite still," she said, "while I go and find her." And with a feeling in her heart as though two hands had seized and were pulling it asunder, she went out.

Some half-hour later Hilary slipped quietly in, and stood watching at the door. Mr. Stone, seated on the very verge of his armchair, with his hands on its arms, was slowly rising to his feet, and slowly falling back again, not once, but many times, practising a standing posture. As Hilary came into his line of sight, he said:

"I have succeeded twice."

"I am very glad," said Hilary. "Won't you rest now, sir?"

"It is my knees," said Mr. Stone. "She has gone to find her."

Hilary heard those words with bewilderment, and, sitting down on the other chair, waited.

"I have fancied," said Mr. Stone, looking at him wistfully, "that when we pa.s.s away from life we may become the wind. Is that your opinion?"

"It is a new thought to me," said Hilary.

"It is not tenable," said Mr. Stone. "But it is restful. The wind is everywhere and nowhere, and nothing can be hidden from it. When I have missed that little girl, I have tried, in a sense, to become the wind; but I have found it difficult."

His eyes left Hilary's face, whose mournful smile he had not noticed, and fixed themselves on the bright fire. "'In those days,"' he said, "'men's relation to the eternal airs was the relation of a billion little separate draughts blowing against the south-west wind. They did not wish to merge themselves in that soft, moon-uttered sigh, but blew in its face through crevices, and cracks, and keyholes, and were borne away on the pellucid journey, whistling out their protests.'"

He again tried to stand, evidently wis.h.i.+ng to get to his desk to record this thought, but, failing, looked painfully at Hilary. He seemed about to ask for something, but checked himself.

"If I practise hard," he murmured, "I shall master it."

Hilary rose and brought him paper and a pencil. In bending, he saw that Mr. Stone's eyes were dim with moisture. This sight affected him so that he was glad to turn away and fetch a book to form a writing-pad.

When Mr. Stone had finished, he sat back in his chair with closed eyes. A supreme silence reigned in the bare room above those two men of different generations and of such strange dissimilarity of character.

Hilary broke that silence.

"I heard the cuckoo sing to-day," he said, almost in a whisper, lest Mr.

Stone should be asleep.

"The cuckoo," replied Mr. Stone, "has no sense of brotherhood."

"I forgive him-for his song," murmured Hilary.

"His song," said Mr. Stone, "is alluring; it excites the s.e.xual instinct."

Then to himself he added:

"She has not come, as yet!"

Even as he spoke there was heard by Hilary a faint tapping on the door.

He rose and opened it. The little model stood outside.

CHAPTER XXIX

RETURN OF THE LITTLE MODEL

That same afternoon in High Street, Kensington, "Westminister," with his coat-collar raised against the inclement wind, his old hat spotted with rain, was drawing at a clay pipe and fixing his iron-rimmed gaze on those who pa.s.sed him by. It had been a day when singularly few as yet had bought from him his faintly green-tinged journal, and the low cla.s.s of fellow who sold the other evening prints had especially exasperated him. His single mind, always torn to some extent between an ingrained loyalty to his employers and those politics of his which differed from his paper's, had vented itself twice since coming on his stand; once in these words to the seller of "Pell Mells": "I stupulated with you not to come beyond the lamp-post. Don't you never speak to me again--a-crowdin'

of me off my stand"; and once to the younger vendors of the less expensive journals, thus: "Oh, you boys! I'll make you regret of it--a-snappin' up my customers under my very nose! Wait until ye're old!" To which the boys had answered: "All right, daddy; don't you have a fit. You'll be a deader soon enough without that, y'know!"

It was now his time for tea, but "Pell Mell" having gone to partake of this refreshment, he waited on, hoping against hope to get a customer or two of that low fellow's. And while in black insulation he stood there a timid voice said at his elbow--

"Mr. Creed!"

The aged butler turned, and saw the little model.

"Oh," he said dryly, "it's you, is it?" His mind, with its incessant love of rank, knowing that she earned her living as a handmaid to that disorderly establishment, the House of Art, had from the first cla.s.sed her as lower than a lady's-maid. Recent events had made him think of her unkindly. Her new clothes, which he had not been privileged to see before, while giving him a sense of Sunday, deepened his moral doubts.

"And where are you living now?" he said in tones incorporating these feelings.

"I'm not to tell you."

"Oh, very well. Keep yourself to yourself."

The little model's lower lip drooped more than ever. There were dark marks beneath her eyes; her face was altogether rather pinched and pitiful.

"Won't you tell me any news?" she said in her matter-of-fact voice.

The old butler gave a strange grunt.

"Ho!" he said. "The baby's dead, and buried to-morrer."

"Dead!" repeated the little model.