"Ah--er--not quite a new one. I"ve been taken that way before."
She was about to make some pretty speech when they were joined by Ted, who had not noticed Audrey. His forehead puckered slightly when he saw her, but that was no doubt from sympathy with her probable embarra.s.sment. For the first time in their acquaintance he was indifferent to the touch of the small hand that had tried to mould his destiny. If the truth must be told, in the flush of his success Ted had found out that his pa.s.sion for Audrey was only the flickering of the flame on the altar dedicated to eternal Art. He listened to her compliments without that sense of apotheosis which (however low he rated it) her criticism had been wont to produce.
"Don"t let"s be seen looking at it any longer," he said at last; "let"s go and pretend to get excited about some other fellow"s work."
So they left Audrey to herself. She turned back and went down the room to see "The Witch of Atlas," the lady robed in her "subtle veil" of starbeams and mist. Her view of this picture was somewhat obstructed by a stout gentleman who, together with a thin lady, was taking up the whole of the available s.p.a.ce before it. His companion, a badly-dressed young woman with a double eye-gla.s.s, was trying to decipher the lines quoted in her catalogue. As Audrey paused she looked up and stared, as only a woman with a double eye-gla.s.s can stare, at the same time attracting the stout gentleman"s attention by a movement of her elbow.
"Look, uncle, quick! That"s her! That"s the person!"
"What"s that, Nettie?" (The stout gentleman swung round as if on a pivot, as Audrey moved gracefully by.) "You don"t mean to say so?
Where"s Ted?"
She walked on through the rooms, depressed by the meeting with Knowles--it suggested Wyndham. She would be meeting _him_ next. And indeed she met him in the first gallery, where her aimless wanderings had brought her again.
His wife was with him. Audrey knew that she must meet her some time, and she had expected to see in Alison Fraser an enlarged edition of herself; she had even feared an _edition de luxe_, which would have been intolerable. She was prepared for distinction; but she saw with a finer agony the slight figure, the sweet proud face with its setting of pale gold hair, and worse than all, the indefinable air of remoteness and reserve which made Mrs. Langley Wyndham more than a "distinguished"
woman. Wyndham lifted his hat and would have pa.s.sed on; but Audrey, to show her perfect self-possession, stopped and held out her hand. He felt it trembling as he took it in a preoccupied manner; and Mrs. Langley Wyndham became instantly absorbed in picture No. 1.
"Have you seen young Haviland"s performance?" asked Wyndham. (He had to say something.)
"Yes; it"s a very fine study."
"So Knowles tells me. But everything"s a fine study in this collection.
There ought to be "a fine" for the abuse of that expression."
"But it really is; go and see for yourself."
"It"s his sister, isn"t it?"
"Yes."
"Ah, that accounts for it. He could give his mind to it in that case."
Wyndham was surprised at his own fatuity; his remarks sounded like the weird inanities that pa.s.s for witticisms in dreams.
"Perhaps. But never mind Mr. Haviland; I want you to introduce me to your wife."
Wyndham looked round; his wife had turned an unconscious back.
"Oh--er--thank you, you"re very kind, but--er--we"re just going."
He had not meant them so, but his words were like a whip laid across Audrey"s shoulders. He moved on, and his wife joined him.
Audrey came across them half an hour later, stooping over some designs in black and white. She saw Mrs. Langley Wyndham look up in her husband"s face with a smile, raising her golden eyebrows. The look was one of those intimate trifles that have no meaning beyond the two persons concerned in it. For Audrey, smarting from Wyndham"s insult, it was the flick of the lash in her face.
CHAPTER XXI
In the autumn of that year Audrey woke and found herself the cla.s.sic of the hour, a literary queen without a rival. Wyndham"s great work was finished, and it stood alone. Not another heroine of fiction could lift her head beside Laura, the leading character of "An Idyll of Piccadilly." He himself owned, almost with emotion, that it was the best thing he had ever done. He had not touched the surface this time; he had gone deep down to the springs of human nature. He had not merely a.n.a.lysed the woman till her character lay in ruins around him, but he had built her up again out of the psychic atoms, and Laura was alive.
She showed the hand of the master by her own nullity. In her splendid vanity she was like some piece of elaborate golden fretwork, from which the substance had been refined by excess of workmanship.
The voice of criticism was one voice; there arose a unanimous hymn of praise from every literary "organ" in the country. It was Mr. Langley Wyndham"s masterpiece, a work that left the excellence of "London Legends" far behind it on a lower plane. Though there was no falling off in point of style, the author had found something better to do this time than to cultivate the flowers of perfect speech. "Laura" was a triumph of intimate characterisation. And the brutal touches that disfigured his former work were absent from this; he had shown us that the boldest, most inflexible realism is compatible with a delicacy worthy of the daintiest of esoteric ideals.
The book, dedicated "To my Wife," appeared early in October. By November the question of the sources was opened out, and it began to be whispered (a whisper that could be traced to the private utterances of Miss Gladys Armstrong) that the prototype of Laura was a Miss Audrey Craven. In the person of her ubiquitous double, Miss Audrey Craven became a leading figure in London society. Then bit by bit the news got into the papers, and Wyndham"s _succes d"estime_ was followed by _succes de scandale_ which promised to treble his editions.
Thus Audrey, unable to achieve greatness, had greatness thrust upon her; and the weight of it bowed her to the earth. The earth? As she read on, the earth seemed to crumble away from under her feet, leaving her baseless and alone before that terrifying apocalypse. Wyndham had trained her intelligence till it could appreciate the force of every chapter in his book of revelations. At last she saw herself as she was.
And yet--could that be she? That mixture of vanity, stupidity, and pa.s.sion? To be sure, he had been careful to give her brown hair instead of tell-tale red, and skillfully to alter the plot of her life with all details of time and place; but--what had he said? "Light as air, fluent as water, a being mingled of fire and a little earth; fickle as the wind that blew her in a wavering line across the surface of things." "Modern, and of stuff so fine that it chafed under the very breath of disapproval; and yet with a little malleable heart in it compounded of the most primeval of affections." She turned over the pages; everywhere she came upon the same thing. Now the phrases were spun out fine, they were subtle, they seemed to cling round her and stifle her; now they were short and keen, and they cut like knives. "Women may be divided into three cla.s.ses--the virtuous, the flirtuous, and the non-virtuous.
The middle cla.s.s is by far the largest. It shades off finely into the two extremes. Laura belonged to it." "The moon was up, and Diana, divine sportswoman, was abroad, hunting big game." "Laura had made a virtue of necessity. She said that proved the necessity of virtue."
Oh, the cruelty of it! Would Ted, would Vincent, have done this if they had had it in their power? True, they had reproached her; but it was to her face, alone in her own drawing-room, where she had a chance of defending herself. _They_ would not have held her up to public scorn.
And they had some right to blame her,--she saw that now. But what had she done to deserve this from Langley? How had he found it in his heart to speak against her? She had loved him. Yes, she had known many a pa.s.sing pain, but she had never really suffered until now. That was a part of her education that had been neglected hitherto. Only an accomplished student of human nature could have coached her through the highest branches of it.
Having set the scandal successfully afloat, the society papers began to utter a feeble protest against it--thus increasing their own reputation for a refined morality. But they had no power to turn the tide, and the scandal floated on. In society itself judgment was divided. Whether "Laura" was or was not a work of the highest art, was a question you might have heard discussed at every other dinner-table. Perhaps the criticism that was most to the point was that of Miss Gladys Armstrong, who proclaimed publicly that Langley Wyndham laboured under the disadvantage of not being a woman, and having no imagination to make up for it. Meanwhile the tone of the larger reviews remained unchanged. The reviewers, to a man, had committed themselves to the position that the book was Wyndham"s masterpiece; and n.o.body could be found to go back on that opinion.
But in all that concert of adulation one voice was silent--the only voice that Wyndham cared to hear, that of Percival Knowles. The others might howl in chorus, and it would not be worth his while even to listen; he was looking forward to Knowles"s long impressive solo. But that solo never came, neither could the note of Knowles be detected in the intricate chorus. It was strange. Knowles had been the high priest of the new Wyndham worship, and to him the eminent novelist had looked for sympathy and appreciation. But Knowles had made no sign. They had avoided the subject whenever they met; Wyndham was not so hardened by authorship as to have lost the instinctive delicacy felt by the creator at the birth of his book. Knowles seemed only too much inclined to respect that delicacy. Finally, Wyndham resolved to go and see his friend alone, and tentatively sound him on the subject of "Laura." He proposed to himself a pleasant evening"s chat, in which that lady would be discussed in all her bearings, and he would enjoy a foretaste of the praise ere long to be dealt out to him before an admiring public. On his way to Knowles"s rooms he heard in fancy the congratulation, the temperate flattery, the fine discriminating phrase.
He found Knowles amusing himself with a blue pencil and Miss Armstrong"s last novel. "Laura: An Idyll of Piccadilly" lay on the table beside him, its pages cut, but with none of those slips of paper between them which marked the other books put aside for review. Knowles greeted his friend with an embarra.s.sed laugh, and they fell to discussing every question of the hour except the burning one for Wyndham. By the rapidity of his conversational manoeuvres, it was evident that the critic wanted to steer clear of that topic. Wyndham, however, after ambling round and round it for some time with no effect, suddenly brought up straight in front of it with--
"By-the-bye, have you condescended to read my last fairy-tale?"
"What, the Mayfairy tale?" said Knowles, with deft pleasantry. "Yes, of course I"ve read it."
"What do you think of it?"
Knowles suddenly looked grave. "Well, at the moment, I had much rather not tell you."
"Really? Well, I suppose I shall know some day."
Knowles looked as if he were struggling with an unpleasant duty, and it were getting the better of him.
"Not from me, I"m afraid. It will be the first work of yours I have left unnoticed. As I can"t review it favourably, I prefer not to notice it at all."
"You surely don"t suppose that I came here to fish for a review?"
"I do not."
"Thanks. I don"t deny that I should have appreciated the public expression of your opinion, favourable or unfavourable. But I respect your scruples as far as I understand them. The only thing is----"
He paused; it was his turn to feel uncomfortable.
"Is what?"
"Well, after the way you"ve delivered yourself on my other books, which are feebleness itself compared with this one, I must say your present att.i.tude astonishes me."
"I"ve given you my reasons for it."
"No; that"s what you"ve not done. Surely we"ve known each other too long for this foolishness. Of course, it"s considerate of you not to d.a.m.n me for the entertainment of the British public; but you know you"re the only man in England whose judgment I care about, and I confess I"d like to have your private opinion--the usual honest and candid thing, you know. I"m not talking of G.o.ds, men, and columns."