The Prophet's Mantle

'I don't see that anything could be said to my brother without offence that could not equally well be said to me.'

'This, then, is what I would ask. Is there anything I can do to effect a reconciliation between you and your brother, and prevent this breach from growing wider?'

'I had never told you that there was any breach,' Richard said stiffly.

'No,' he said, 'but all others have not your powers of reticence.'

'I presume my brother has been confiding in you.'

'Your brother told me—what perhaps his pride forbade him to tell you—that you had accused him of something of which he assured me he was as innocent as—as I am,' ended Litvinoff, raising his eyebrows ingenuously.

Richard's first impulse was to request the Count to mind his own business, but he remembered that the interferer was a foreigner, and besides, Litvinoff's manner was so honest, and what he said was true enough. He certainly must be disinterested. So he constrained himself to say, with very little change of manner,—

'If my brother wishes to disprove any charges I may bring, he'd better disprove them to me.'

'But are you quite sure that you were not mistaken? May not your feelings on another matter have predisposed you to believe without evidence enough in this?'

'I quite fail to understand,' said Richard, frowning.

'Is it not possible that you may have thought of him less as your brother than as your rival?'

'If you have anything more to say that needs saying, I shall be glad if you will say it plainly.' Richard spoke angrily.

'Plainly, then—you also are a suitor for the hand of Miss Stanley?'

Ferrier's hand clenched itself, and then made a little movement which seemed quite involuntary. The blood rushed to his face as he spoke.

'May I ask who gave you that piece of false information?'

'Certainly you may ask,' answered Litvinoff, smiling very sweetly. Other people's tempers did not seem to affect him much. 'You may ask, but I—I must not reply.'

'It is lucky that I don't need your answer. There's only one person who would have told you such a lie, and for the future you'd better keep your interference for him, as he seems to like it.'

'And you, perhaps you'd better keep your insolence for those who'll stand it,' said Litvinoff, with the same gentle smile. 'Perhaps our next meeting may be in a country where it is customary to avenge insults in some other way than what you call, I think, a rough-and-tumble fight. Au revoir!'

'You don't seem to find other countries very anxious to have you, since you have had to run away from one at least,' said Richard passionately.

'Oh, delicacy and nobility of English chivalry!' said the Count, turning at the door to favour the other with one last smile. 'How unfortunate for Miss Stanley that you at least are impossible. Pouf! The bourgeoisie is the same, all the world over!'

He lingered in the hall to make himself a cigarette, half expecting Richard to follow him, but as he did not, strolled slowly away into the street.

Richard remained standing in the coffee-room with one hand on the table by which the conversation had taken place.

He felt indignantly injured by Litvinoff's interference, and in the first moments of passion felt sure that his interference had not been disinterested. But as he grew calmer, and was able to think the matter out quietly, he could not suggest to himself any possible reason for the Count's wishing to adjust the quarrel between himself and Roland, except the one he had given. Yet, even if the Russian had been merely filling the rôle of 'friend of humanity,' Dick felt glad that he had shown resentment. One might overlook intermeddling which had its rise in an overpowering interest in one's own personality; but when one was included merely in a vast aggregate like humanity, the compliment which might have been as salt to over-officiousness did not exist, and the conduct of the Count became simply offensive. But, after all, most of his resentment was levelled at the man who had put this weapon into the Russian's hands. Had his brother completely lost all sense of honour—of decency even—that he should thus make him, Richard, the subject of confidence with a stranger? And such confidences, too; confidences that hinged on her name.

'But why should I expect anything better from him, after his conduct to that poor child?'

Then he thought of all he fancied he had discovered about Alice, and all the little things that had aggravated the quarrel with Roland. All the substance of the quarrel would not, perhaps, seem insurmountable if it were written here in detail, but to Richard and his brother these things appeared in far other proportions. The mutual jealousy and distrust that had been growing up between them in the past months was as so much dry tinder ready to catch fire at any spark of a pretext for anger which either might have lighted on.

And this case of Alice was something more than a trifling pretext. Richard himself was neither an angel nor a monk, but at least he played the game of life according to the rules. And, consequently, he felt towards his brother much as an old écarté player might towards a man who kept kings up his sleeve.

He decided to spend a few more hours in the search for Alice, which, hitherto unavailing, he had kept up for the last two days, and then he would go down home and see Gates, and Roland would have his wish. The same roof should not cover them again.

CHAPTER XV.

THE CLEON

WELL, I hope you will enjoy the evening, my dear; at anyrate, it will be a new experience for you, and will show you that some of us can be earnest even in the midst of our life of frivolity and heartlessness. You know, I have been a Socialist almost from my birth.'

The speaker sighed gently, and adjusted the folds of her rich black satin dress.

'Oh, I am sure I shall enjoy it immensely, dear Mrs Quaid,' answered Clare Stanley, she being the person addressed; 'you know, since papa was rescued from those dreadful horses, I have taken such an interest in all these questions. It is too good of you to have asked such an outsider as I am to a gathering like this. I don't feel frightened of you, because I know how kind you are, but I'm afraid I shall be at a loss with all the rest of the clever people.'

Mrs Quaid smiled benignantly. 'Oh, my dear, intellect is not what we care for. The great thing is character.'

Mrs Quaid emphasised every third or fourth word in such a way as to give to her smallest remarks an apparently profound significance. She was a distinguished member of the Cleon, a small society which met at the houses of members for the purpose of discussing social questions. To-night the meeting was to take place in her own drawing-room, and she had invited her daughter's school friend, Clare Stanley, to spend the evening, which that young woman was glad enough to do, as her father was going to dine at the 'Travellers'' with a friend, and she did not care to face the long lonely evening in the hotel sitting-room. Besides, Mrs Quaid in herself was always amusing to the girl, whose sharp eyes noticed all the little inconsistencies overlooked by more constant associates. Mrs Quaid had, as she said, been a Socialist almost from her birth, and repudiated with scorn what she termed the 'sad distinctions of class,' but she had such tender consideration for those who did not share her views that she never invited those whom she naïvely styled 'one's own friends' to meet any of those members of the working class whom she warmly but fitfully patronised. She was one of those who, while professing the strongest sympathy with the fashionable Socialism, are able to avail themselves of all the advantages which the present system offers to a limited number; and while ardently looking forward to a time when all men would be equal, appear to view with sweet resignation the probable continuance of the present system during their lifetime and that of their children.

On this particular occasion both she and her daughter, a charming specimen of frank English girlhood, were more interested than usual in the business before them.

This evening was to be a field night. The secretary of the Cleon had captured a genuine Russian Socialist, and the society was disposed to make the most of him.

Nearly every member was to bring a friend, so the gathering would be a large one. It was very amusing to Miss Stanley to watch the arrivals, and to ticket them in her own mind each with his appropriate epithet, and the more uncomplimentary these epithets were, the more demure and unconscious she looked. Mrs Quaid introduced to her several personal adherents, for the Cleon, like larger assemblies, was not without its party differences. Miss Stanley did not feel particularly drawn towards any of them. They had not had to fly across Russian frontiers, nor had they ever, to her knowledge, imperilled their lives at the heads of runaway horses.

There was a Civil Service clerk whose strong point was statistics, and another one whose strong point was so obvious an adherence to the principles of the hostess, that he was secretly styled by the irreverent Irreconcilables 'the member for Quaid.' He was an advocate for short hours of labour, particularly in Government offices. Then there was an enthusiastic young stockjobber, with a passion for morality in public life, who believed in levelling down—to the level of stockjobbers, and who systematically avoided revolutionary literature, on the grounds that it would prevent his keeping good tempered, and he wished to keep good tempered, which Clare thought very nice of him.

Then there was the man whose friends thought he was like Camille Desmoulins, and the man who himself thought he was like Danton.

Then there was a George Atkins, whose care for humanity in the abstract was so great as to soar far above the level of his own wife, who was popularly supposed to have rather a bad time of it.

The 'great proletariat,' on whose behalf the Cleon met and discussed, was represented by one stone-mason. Clare was surprised when she heard what his calling was, as there was nothing in his dress or bearing to distinguish him from the other men present. Perhaps that was why Mrs Quaid had specially invited him.

There were about a score of other members who were less noticeable on account of any peculiarity. They formed the real strength of the society, and did all the work, owing to which it held a position in the Socialist movement altogether out of proportion to its numbers.

The majority of the ladies gave a business-like aspect to the evening by severely retaining their outdoor garments. Some of these were of peculiar shape and make, a fact which Mrs Quaid explained in a whisper to be the result of their employment of inexperienced dressmakers, on the highest moral grounds.

By the time Clare had noticed all this the room was pretty full, and as everyone talked at once, and very loud, one might, by shutting one's eyes, have fancied oneself at an ordinary 'at home,' instead of at a serious gathering, whose note was earnestness, and whose motif was social regeneration.

She was just thinking something like this when Mrs Quaid touched her on the shoulder.

'Clare, my love,' she said, 'you must let me introduce dear Mr Petrovitch to you. You know he has been so exceedingly good as to consent to read us a paper to-night.'

Clare knew by experience that all her hostess's male friends were 'dear,' and her female ones 'sweet,' for at least three weeks after their first introduction, but when she turned to receive Petrovitch's bow, it did strike her that the epithet was more than usually incongruous. He was about the last person, she thought, to whom terms of indiscriminate endearment could be applied.

After the Continental manner, he had put on evening dress. The wide shirt-front showed off the splendid breadth of a chest that would not have disgraced a Life Guardsman in uniform. Miss Stanley, as she looked at him, admitted to herself that on some people the claw-hammer coat was not without its æsthetic attraction.

As the people settled down into chairs he took a seat beside her, but in such a position that she could see his face without turning her own.

Then, after a few business preliminaries, Petrovitch began to speak. He did not read, as had been announced, but spoke from notes, with a little hesitation, caused, perhaps, by his speaking in a foreign language. To most of his hearers what he had to say was well-known, no doubt; but to Clare all he said came as a revelation. She had come to be amused, to criticise, to 'make fun,' perhaps; but what she heard from this man beside her was not in the least amusing or funny. It seemed to her more like the gospel of a new religion. She listened intently, and after a while, unconsciously influenced by the interest and light in her face, he began to feel less and less as though he were talking to the room, and more and more as though he were speaking solely to the girl beside him. If he saw comprehension in her eyes, he did not trouble to explain a point further; if he saw a question there, he answered it; a doubt, he solved it. Some eyes are easy to read, and Petrovitch was a master of that art.

The girl was no fool, and though the whole theory of Socialism was new to her, she was able to follow the rigorous train of logic with which he led up to his conclusions. He attacked all the stock ideas which she had been brought up to respect. It somehow did not seem like blasphemy. He flung scorn and derision on the social ideals which she had heard lauded from her cradle. Some things which she had been taught to consider admirable and desirable, grew, as he spoke of them, to seem mean and paltry. Life, as she listened, took new meanings, and became of deeper significance. Even the affairs of every day, the chance stories of misery, and the 'painful' paragraphs of the newspapers, which she felt, and shuddered as she felt, had hitherto seemed only occasions for the sprinkling of a little Radical rose-water—little stings of passing horror, which heightened rather than detracted from the pleasures of existence—seemed now to be worth considering in some other light.

This was not the first time that Clare's heart had been stirred and her sympathies quickened by a spoken discourse. More than once she remembered having left the doors of parish church or cathedral in a tumult of emotion when some specially earnest and eloquent preacher had succeeded in casting a new and fierce light into the inmost depths of her soul; but, she remembered, those feelings had been transient, and strong though the new convictions and resolutions had been when she left the sacred portals, the small things of life—the duties of school, the light worries of home, the social bagatelles, things trivial and tenuous enough in themselves—had soon settled down upon her like a thick atmosphere, and by their aggregate weight had crushed, not out of existence, but back to her soul's remoter recesses, the new-born life.

As Petrovitch finished speaking, and, folding up his notes, thanked his hearers for their patience and attention, she wondered to herself, so quick is thought, whether what had happened before would not happen again, and whether by this time to-morrow her mind would not be running with its accustomed smoothness in its accustomed channels. She hoped no; she feared yes. But somehow something seemed to tell her that in these past experiences her emotions only had been affected, but that this time her reason also had been forced into life and action, and it would be harder to chloroform that, she thought.

For some minutes after he had ceased she was so preoccupied with these thoughts that she hardly noticed the sharp fire of questions which was levelled at him from visitors in different parts of the room. When she did begin to listen to them, it was only to wonder how people could so have misunderstood what seemed to her so clear. There was one lady in particular who asked inconsequent questions in such a feebly deliberate manner, dropping her words out as though they were some precious elixir of which it was not well to give out much at a time, that Clare felt an insane desire to shake her words out of her, and at the same time a little sense into her.

The genial young stockbroker wanted to know whether the best part of Petrovitch's scheme was not included in the present Radical programme, but his suggestion was received with disapprobation by the large majority, and he hastily withdrew into obscurity. It struck Miss Stanley that all the questions and remarks were on side issues, and left untouched the main contentions.

When the chairman of the evening announced that the discussion was at an end, everybody rose and began to talk at once—in most cases not about the paper. Perhaps they were all glad to get away from the larger questions of life's possibilities, and to return to the trivial personalities which form the chief interest of most of our lives.

'You are interested in these questions, Miss Stanley?' Petrovitch said, as he turned to bid her good-night.

'I—I—shall be.'

'Yes, I think you will. Good-bye.'

He left alone, and at once, telling his hostess he had an appointment to keep.

Just outside the door he met Count Litvinoff's visitor of the morning. Hirsch had evidently been waiting for him with some impatience. He turned, and they walked away together.

'I've been here some time,' he said. 'I thought you must have gone.'

'I am sorry,' said Petrovitch; 'I could not leave earlier.'

'Little good you'll do in a house like that,' grumbled Hirsch, knitting his brows. 'Casting pearls before swine.'

'Not quite that, my good Hirsch. Casting seed upon stony ground, maybe, but I am much mistaken if some has not fallen upon virgin soil, and then my evening has not been wasted. How did it fare with you this morning?'

Hirsch silently produced Litvinoff's cheque, not quite so fresh-looking as when he had received it.

'Ah, as I expected!' said the other, glancing at it under a lamp. 'Ten pounds is not illiberal. You see, he does not keep so tight a purse-string as you thought.'

'Lightly won lightly spent. Donner wetter! he gained it easily enough.'

'This is not spent—it is given. Don't be unjust.'

'Gott in Himmel! You're a good man, Petrovitch. You seem to have no faults.'

'Ah! so it may seem to you who have known me only three months, but I have known myself more than a score of years, and I know that I am full of them. Come home with me and have a smoke, and we'll talk about something else.'

'And how have you liked it, my dearest Clare? Have you been terribly bored—or puzzled perhaps—since you are not used to these discussions?'

'I have never been more interested than I was by Mr Petrovitch,' said Clare, with perfect truth.

'Ah, yes,' said Mrs Quaid enthusiastically; 'so sweet, isn't he?'

Clare did not answer, but as she drove home it occurred to her that the principal ingredient in Petrovitch's character was not exactly sugar.

CHAPTER XVI.

GOING HOME

THERE are people, we are told, on whom the rapid action of railway travelling acts as a soothing influence; but to the majority of us, when suffering from any loss or grief, a long train journey is simply maddening. The rattling of the windows, the vibration of the carriage, the banging of doors and shouting of porters at the stations, the prolonged and ear-piercing shriek of the whistle, occurring at such moments as to convince the thinking mind that it is not let off with any good intention or to serve any useful purpose, but simply to gratify the torturing instinct of the engine-driver at the expense of the passengers' nerves and tempers—all these only aggravate any trouble which may be part of one's invisible luggage. For all these together are not enough to distract one from the contemplation of one's special skeleton, and each is in itself enough to keep one from contemplating it with any good result. And as for seeing the bright side of one's troubles, that is quite impossible when one is moving at the rate of fifty miles an hour; the only wonder is that more people are not overcome by the peculiarly dismal aspect which one's position assumes under these circumstances, and that we don't hear of more suicides in railway carriages.

The three o'clock Midland express was tearing through the quiet country. A faint mist lay over the fields and hedges, faint, but still thick enough to hold its own against the pale yellow sunbeams that seemed striving to disperse it.

Richard Ferrier, idly gazing at the flying hedges and gates and squalid cottages, did not feel any less sad for the sadness of the outside world through which he was speeding home.

He had spent the previous evening in a vigorous search after Alice—a search which had been unsuccessful, even though he had offered Mrs Fludger the best inducement to frankness. It had needed that golden token to mitigate the wrath with which she had received his first question. She had, indeed, hinted, not darkly, in the first flush of indignation, at worse designs on his part than even Bible-reading; but gold itself, though it had softened her asperity, had been powerless to extort from her any information of the slightest value. Having tried all he knew, and failed, to discover any trace of what he sought, Richard had given up the search. He had met Roland once on the hotel staircase. They had passed each other like strangers.

As the train rushed on, he went over and over again all the circumstances of his quarrel with his brother. A fire of hate burned in him fiercely, a stern and deep indignation surged in his heart, and blinded his eyes to any possible palliation of his brother's conduct. This state of mind was the outcome of months of heart soreness and suppressed bitterness of spirit,—months in which he had vainly tried to disguise from himself that if Clare Stanley did incline to one more than the other, it was Roland who was the favourite. During that month of Roland's unexplained holiday Richard had fancied he made some progress in her good graces, but when his brother came back again she had turned on him just the same smiles and glances that had bewildered Dick. And from that time it had seemed to him that Roland was gradually elbowing him out. Miss Stanley had a taste for poetry, and Roland read poetry extremely well. Miss Stanley called herself a Radical, and Roland had been a shining light on that side in a small debating society at Cambridge. Miss Stanley liked to chatter about Art, and Roland always had a stock of the latest Art prattle at the tip of his tongue. Roland had grown fond of solitary walks, and in these was constantly meeting Miss Stanley 'by accident'—'accident' which Richard could not always bring himself to believe in. It was to be noticed, by the way, that in the walks of both these young men all roads led, not to Rome, but past Aspinshaw. Richard had borne all this, sustaining himself with a hope that Miss Stanley did not really feel interested so much in Roland as in the tastes he affected. He had still hoped that she might come to care for him,—for the man who loved her with such a passionate intensity. It is so hard, so very hard, to believe that the love that is everything to us is absolutely nothing to the beloved. Men have even dreamed that their passion could warm marble to life. How much easier to fancy that it can stir a heart to love.

But the sting in the pain he had suffered while his lady smiled on Roland had been a half unselfish fear that these smiles of hers were being bestowed on a man unworthy of them. Now that he believed this unworthiness to be proved, all the latent doubts, distrusts, suspicions he had kept down 'sprang full statured in an hour,' and with them sprang a hatred of his brother, so fierce as to frighten himself; for however he might seek to deceive himself about it, he knew in his inmost heart that it was less as a heartless profligate than as a possibly successful rival that he had learned to hate him.

But he knew that now this rivalry could not be successful. His great love for her prevented his seeing the realities that underlay the superficial side of her character, so that he actually believed her to be the last woman in the world one could dare to ask to share poverty. He knew that his own chance, such as it had been, was lost; but he knew, too, that his brother's chance was also at an end. This did not make him less determined that the quarrel should be à outrance.