"Babiole, tell me, on your word of honour, are you thinking about that man still?"
I could hear her breath coming in quick sobs. Then she moved, and her fingers held out something right under my averted eyes. It was the one note she had received from Fabian Scott, worn into four little pieces.
"Look here, dear," I said, having signified by a bend of the head that I understood, "do you think a man like that would be likely to make a good husband?"
"Oh no," readily and sadly.
"But you would be his wife all the same?"
"Oh, Mr. Maude!" in a low trembling voice, as if Paradise had been suddenly thrown open to mortal sight.
I got up.
"Well, well," I said, trying to speak in a jesting tone, "I suppose these things will be explained in a better world!"
Mrs. Ellmer came in at that moment, and the leave-taking for the day was easier.
"Won"t you stay and lunch with us, Mr. Maude? I"ve just been preparing something nice for you," she said with disappointment.
"Thank you, no, I can"t stay this morning. The fact is I have to start for London this afternoon, and I haven"t a minute to lose."
Babiole started, and her eyes, as I turned to her to shake hands, shone like stars.
"Good-bye, Mr. Maude," she faltered, taking my hand in both hers, and pressing it feverishly.
And she looked into my face without any inquiry in her gaze, but with a subdued hope and a boundless grat.i.tude.
Mrs. Ellmer insisted on coming over to the house to see that everything was properly packed for me. As I left the cottage with her I looked back, and saw the little face, with its weird expression of eagerness, pressed against the window.
It was an awful thing I was going to do, certainly. But what sacrifice would not the worst of us make to preserve the creature we love best in the world from dying before our eyes?
CHAPTER XVII
I arrived at King"s Cross at 8.15 on the following morning, and after breakfasting at the Midland Hotel, went straight to Fabian Scott"s chambers, in a street off the Hay-market. It was then a little after half-past ten.
Fabian, who was at breakfast, received me very heartily, and was grieved that I had not come direct to him.
"What would you have said," he asked, "if I had gone to have breakfast at the Invercauld Arms in Ballater, instead of coming on to you?"
"That"s not quite the same thing, my impetuous young friend. You didn"t expect me, for one thing, and London is a place where one must be a little more careful of one"s behaviour than in the wilds."
"No, that is true, I did not expect you; though when I heard your name, I was so pleased I thought I must have been living on the expectation for the last month."
"Out of sight, out of mind, according to the simple old saying."
I was looking about me, examining my friend"s surroundings, feeling discouraged by the portraits of beautiful women, photographs on the mantelpiece, paintings on the walls, the invitation cards stuck in the looking-gla.s.s, the crested envelopes, freshly torn, on the table; the room, which seemed effeminately luxurious, after my sombre, threadbare, old study, gave no evidence of bachelor desolation. It was just untidy enough to prove that "when a man"s single he lives at his ease," for an opera hat and a soiled glove lay on the chair, a new French picture, which a wife would have tabooed, was propped up against the back of another, and on the mantelpiece was a royal disorder, in which a couple of pink clay statuettes of pierrettes, by Van der Straeten, showed their piquant, high-hatted little heads, and their befrilled, high-lifted little skirts above letters, ash trays, cigarette cases, "parts" in MS., sketches, a white tie, a woman"s long glove, the "proof" of an article on "The Cathedrals of Spain," and a heap of other things. In the centre stood a handsome Chippendale clock, surmounted by signed photographs of Sarah Bernhardt and a much admired Countess. Fresh hot-house flowers filled two delicate Venetian gla.s.s vases on the table, long-leaved green plants stood in the windows. I began to suspect that the feminine influence in Fabian Scott"s life was strong enough already, and I felt that any idea of an appeal to a bachelor"s sense of loneliness must straightway be given up. There was another point, however, on which I felt more sanguine. Fabian had no private means, his tastes were evidently expensive, and he had had no engagement since the summer. Having made up my mind that to marry my little Babiole to this man was the only thing that would restore her to health and hope (about happiness I could but be doubtful), I could not afford to shrink from the means.
I had been listening with one ear to Fabian, who never wanted much encouragement to talk. He treated me to a long monologue on the low ebb to which art of all kinds had sunk in England, to the prevailing taste for burlesque in literature, and on the stage, and for "Little Toddlekins" on the walls of picture galleries.
"I thought burlesque had gone out," I suggested.
He turned upon me fiercely, having finished his breakfast, and being occupied in striding up and down the room.
"Not at all," he said emphatically. "What is farcical comedy but burlesque of the most vicious kind? Burlesque of domestic life, throwing ridicule on virtuous wives and jealous husbands, making heroes and heroines of men and women of loose morals? What is melodrama but burlesque of incidents and of pa.s.sions, fatiguing to the eye and stupefying to the intellect? I repeat, art in England is a dishonoured corpse, and the man who dares to call himself an artist, and to talk about his art with any more reverence than a grocer feels for his sanded sugar, or a violin-seller for his sham Cremonas, is treated with the derision one would show to a modern Englishman who should fall down and worship a mummy."
All which, being interpreted, meant that Mr. Fabian Scott saw no immediate prospect of an engagement good enough for his deserts.
"Well, even if art is in a bad way, artists still seem to rub on very comfortably," I said, glancing round the room.
Fabian swept the place with a contemptuous glance from right to left, as if it had been an ill-kept stable.
"One finds a corner to lay one"s head in, of course," he admitted disdainfully; "but even that may be gone to-morrow," he added darkly, plunging one hand into a suggestive heap of letters and papers on a side table as he pa.s.sed it.
"Bills?" I asked cheerfully.
He gave me a tragic nod and strode on.
"You should marry," I ventured boldly, "some girl with seven or eight hundred a year, for instance, with a little love of art on her own account to support yours."
Fabian stopped in front of me with his arms folded. He was the most unstagey actor on the stage, and the stagiest off I ever met. He gave a short laugh, tossing back his head.
"A girl with seven hundred a year marry _me_, an _artist_! My dear fellow, you have been in Sleepy Hollow too long. You form your opinions of life on the dark ages."
"No I don"t," I said very quietly. "I know a girl with eight hundred a year, who likes you well enough to marry you if you were to ask her."
"These rapid modern railway journeys--A heavy breakfast--with perhaps a gla.s.s of cognac on an empty stomach"--murmured Fabian softly, gazing at me with kindly compa.s.sion.
"She is seventeen, the daughter of an artist, an artist herself by every instinct. Her name is Babiole Ellmer," I went on composedly.
Fabian started.
"Babiole Ellmer! Pretty little Babiole!" he cried, with affectionate interest at once apparent in his manner; "but," he hesitated and flushed slightly, "I don"t understand. The little girl--dear little thing she was, I remember her quite well, with her coquettish Scotch cap and her everlasting blushes. She was no heiress then, certainly."
A bitter little thought of the different manner in which he would have treated her in that case crossed my mind. "I"ve adopted her. I allow her eight hundred a year during my life, and of course afterwards----"
I nodded; he nodded. It was all understood. Fabian had grown suddenly quiet and thoughtful, and I knew that Babiole had gained her precious admirer"s heart. He liked her, that was my comfort, my excuse. His face had lighted up at the remembrance of her; and as she would bring with her an income large enough to prevent his being even burdened with her maintenance, I felt that I was heaping upon his head too much joy for a mortal to deserve, and that he accepted it more calmly than was meet. It is a curious experience to have to be thankful to see another person receive, almost with indifference, a prize for which one would gladly have given twenty years of life.
"She is a most beautiful and charming girl," he said, after a pause, in a new tone of respect. Eight hundred a year and "expectations" put such a splendid mantle of dignity on the shoulders of a little wild damsel in a serge frock. "Do you know, I thought, Harry, you would end by marrying her yourself!"
I only laughed and said, oh no, I was a confirmed bachelor. But it was in my mind to tell him how much obliged I felt for his contribution towards my domestic felicity.
I presently said that I had some business to transact, that I had to pay a visit to my lawyer. This young man"s complacent beat.i.tude since he had discovered a not unpleasant way out of his difficulties was beginning to jar upon me furiously. So we made an appointment for the evening, and I took myself off.
When I made my excuse to Fabian I really had some idea in my mind of calling upon a solicitor and having a deed drawn up, settling 800 a year on Babiole. But I reflected, as soon as I was alone, that I should make a better guardian than the law, and that I should do as well to keep control over her allowance. I would alter my will on her wedding-day, just as I must have done if it had been my own. A trace of cowardice strengthened this resolution, for I look upon a visit to a lawyer much as I do upon a visit to a dentist, with this difference, that the latter really does sometimes relieve you of your pain, while the former relieves you of nothing but your money.