"I have read somewhere," she said, trying hard to recall the pa.s.sage, "that fast men, stupid men (_I think_), and rascals, profess to feel no surprise at anything."
The colour flew over his face, he seemed about to speak, but took up his pen again as if the thing were not worth the trouble of a word, and went on with his work. The habit of treating men as ideas is not to be got rid of in a moment, and it was only when she thought it over at dinner this evening that she saw anything to hurt him in what she had said. Now that she did think of it, however, it certainly seemed natural that he should object to being cla.s.sed in any category which included fast men, stupid men, or rascals; but even while she blamed herself, and credited him with much forbearance in that he had allowed her rudeness to pa.s.s unpunished, she was conscious of the existence, in that substratum of thought which goes on continually irrespective of our will, of a doubt as to whether he might not after all be one of these--say, a fast man. For what _did_ she know about him? Nothing, except that his manners were agreeable. True, she had heard of his good deeds, and there is never smoke without fire; but a man may balance his accounts, and many men do, in that way, topping up the scale of good deeds pretty high when the bad ones on the other side threaten to turn it; and, seeing that she knew nothing definitely about his private character, suppose she had been deceived in him?
But, no! The thing was impossible. And just as she thought it, a gentleman, sitting opposite, one whom she had not met before, looked across the table and asked her if she knew Mr. Lorrimer.
"I have seen him," she answered, with a burning blush, being taken unawares.
"He"s a charming fellow--don"t you think so?"
"Yes, I think so," she agreed, with an indescribable sense of relief.
And the next day a young clergyman whom she stopped to speak to in the street began at once about Lorrimer. "I met him at dinner the other night," he said. "I suppose you know him? There is much truth in "birds of a feather." He fascinated us all with his talk of art and literature. He gave us such new ideas--described such varied experiences, and all with such grace and power."
"Yes," she answered, thoughtfully. "I believe he is brilliant."
"Many people are that," was the reply, given with hearty enthusiasm; "but Lorrimer is something more. He is good. He makes you feel it, and know it, and believe in him, without ever saying a word about himself."
"Ah!" she sighed, "there is power in that. What lovely summer weather!
It makes me dream. Don"t you love the time of nasturtiums? Their pungent scent, and their colours? They seem to penetrate and glow through everything, and make the time their own."
And so she left him.
But that same day, an old gentleman, who came from another county, and looked as if he had come from another century--an old gentleman with curious wavy hair, parted in the middle, who worshipped the Idol of Days--the past and all that belonged to it--and, for evening dress, wore knee-breeches, frilled shirt, black silk stockings, and diamond buckles in his shoes; and had a bijou house, filled with a thousand relics of his Idol of Days, where n.o.ble ladies were wont to loll and listen to him, and drink tea out of his wonderful cups, and love him-- so it was said--this gentleman called on Ideala. He came to charm and to be charmed; and he, of all people in the world the one from whom she would least have expected it, although she knew they had met, began to sing Lorrimer"s praises.
"He raises the tone of everything he is engaged upon," this gentleman said. "He has not quite kept faith with me about a matter he promised to look into for me a year ago, but doubtless he is busy. I suppose you know him?"
"Yes, I know him. He seems to be very much above the average."
"Oh, very much above the average," was the warm response. "He"s a charming fellow, and a thoroughly good fellow, too."
This was the chorus to everything, and there was only one dissentient voice--that of a man who admired Ideala, and was a good soul himself, having gone out of his way to pay her trifling attentions, and even found occasion to do her some small acts of kindness. He began with the rest to praise Lorrimer, but when he saw he was doing so at his own expense, by diverting her attention from himself to his subject, he somewhat lowered his tone.
"Every one seems to like Mr. Lorrimer," Ideala said.
"O yes, he"s certainly a nice fellow; but he puts a lot of side on."
"And well he may, being so very good and well-beloved," she answered, smiling.
"So spoilt and conceited, you might say," was the rejoinder; but she felt that there was jealousy in the tone, and only laughed.
"What an interesting face he has," a lady remarked, who was having tea with Ideala, _tete-a-tete_, one afternoon, and had brought the conversation round to Lorrimer, as seemed inevitable in those days. "He must make a charming portrait."
"Yes, it is a fine face," Ideala answered, dreamily--"a face for a bust in white marble; a face from out of the long ago--not Greek, but Roman --of the time when men were pa.s.sing from a strong, simple, manly, into a luxuriously effeminate, self-indulgent stage; the face of a man who is midway between the two extremes, and a prey to the desires of both. I wish I had been his mother."
"His mother was a n.o.ble woman."
"I know; but she was not omniscient, and she never could have understood the boy. I daresay he was not enough of an ugly duckling to attract special attention, and with many other chicks in the brood he could not have more than the rest, and yet he required it. He ought to have been an only child. If he had been mine, I should have known what his dreaminess meant, why he loved to wander away and be alone; what was the conflict that began in his cradle--or earlier. Surely a mother must remember what there was in her mind to influence her child; she must have the key to all that is wrong in him; she must know if his soul is likely to be at war with his senses." And then Ideala forgot her listener, and burst out with one of those curious flashes of insight, irrespective of all knowledge, to which she was subject: "If I were only a soul to be saved, he would save me; but I am also a body to be loved, and whether he loves me or not, he suffers. It is the eternal conflict of mind and matter, spirit and flesh, two prisoners chained together--the one despising the other, yet ruled by him, and subservient to the needs of his lower nature."
The lady stared at her.
"You know Mr. Lorrimer very well, then, I suppose?" she remarked.
"Let me see," said Ideala, awaking from her trance, "that is a question I often ask myself. And sometimes I say I _do_ know him very well, and sometimes I say I don"t. I go to the Great Hospital frequently to read, and to look up information, and he helps me. He is a man who makes an instant impression, but he is many-sided, and, now you ask me, I think on the whole that I do not know him well. I should not be surprised to hear any number of the most contradictory things about him."
"It is not a nice character to have," the lady said.
"No," Ideala answered, "not at all nice, but very interesting."
When at last the day arrived she felt an unusual impatience to see him.
And she was in a strange flutter of nervous excitement. Should she tell him of those things which she had not been able to confide to him on the last occasion of their meeting? Could she? No; impossible! But she must see him, nevertheless. The desire was imperative.
The servant she had been accustomed to see met her at the door of the Great Hospital. She fancied he looked at her peculiarly. He said he had heard something about Mr. Lorrimer being absent that day, but he would inquire. He left her, and, returning in a few minutes, told her Mr.
Lorrimer was not there.
"Did he leave no note, no message for me?" Ideala asked, faintly.
"No, madam, nothing," was the reply.
CHAPTER XXII.
For quite three months we heard nothing of Ideala, but we were not alarmed, as she often neglected us in this way when she was busy. At last, however, Claudia received a note from her, written in pencil, and in her usual style.
"It has been dull down here to a degree," she said. "I am beginning to think we are all too respectable. Are respectability and imbecility nearly allied, I wonder? But don"t tell me; I don"t want to know. All the trouble in the world comes from knowing too much. And then, I"m so dreadfully clever! If people take the trouble to explain things to me, I am sure to acquire some of the information they try to impart. I heard of the block system the other day. It sounded mysterious. I like mystery, and I went about in daily dread of having it all made plain to me by some officious person. One day I was sitting on a rail above the line watching the trains. A workman came and sat down near me. It is very hard to have a workman sit down near you and not to talk to him, so we talked. And before I knew what was coming, he had explained the whole of that block system to me. Only fancy! and I may never forget it! It is quite disheartening.
"He said he was a pointsman, and I asked him if he would send a train down a wrong line for fifty pounds. He said fifty pounds was a large sum, and he had a mother depending on him! The people here are delicious. I think I shall write a book about them some day.
"Have you felt the fascination of the trains? My favourite seat here is a lovely spot just above where they pa.s.s. I can look down on them, and into them. The line winds, rather, through meadows and between banks, where wild flowers grow; and under an ivied bridge or two, and by some woods. And the trains rush past--some slow, some fast; and now and then comes one that is just a flash and roar, and I cling to the railing for a moment till it pa.s.ses, and quiver with excitement, feeling as if I must be swept away. I look at the carriage windows, too, trying to catch a glimpse of the people, and I always hope to see a face I know.
In that lies all the charm.
"I seem to be expected in town, and some Scotch friends have asked me to pay them a visit _en route_. I should like to go that way above everything; one would see so much more of the country! But I daren"t go to London while the Bishop is there. He is making a dead set at me again (confirmation this time), and I am afraid if he heard of my arrival he would do something rash--dance down the Row in his gaiters, perhaps--which might excite comment even if people knew what he was after."
And then she went on to say she had been a little out of sorts, and very lazy, and she thought the north country air would brace her nerves, and, if we would have her, she would like to go to us at once.
She arrived late one afternoon, and I did not see her until she came down to the drawing-room dressed for dinner.
I had not thought anything of her illness, she made so light of it, and I was therefore startled beyond measure when she appeared.
"Why, my dear!" I exclaimed, involuntarily, "what have they done to you? You"re a perfect wreck!"
"Well, so _I_ thought," she answered; "but I did not like to tell you. I was afraid you might think I was trying to make much of myself-- wrecks are so interesting."
There was a large party staying in the house, and I had no opportunity of speaking to her that evening; but the next morning she came into my studio with a brave a.s.sumption of her old manner. I cannot tell how it was that I knew in a moment she had broken down, but I did know it, and I could only look at her. Perhaps something in my look showed her she had betrayed herself, for all at once her false composure forsook her, and she stretched out her hands to me with a piteous little gesture:
"What am I to do?" she said. "Will it always be like this?"