Caleb Bateson"s wisdom had been justified. Through his pa.s.sionate love for little Willie, Alan had drawn near to the kingdom of G.o.d; not as yet to the extent of formulating any specific creed or attaching himself to any special church--that was to come later; but he had learned, by the mystery of his own fatherhood, to stretch out groping hands toward the great Fatherhood that had called him into being; and by his own love for his suffering child to know something of the Love that pa.s.seth knowledge. Therefore Alan Tremaine was a better and wiser man than he had been in times past. A strong friendship had gradually grown up between himself and Christopher Thornley; and it was a friendship which was good for both of them. Though Christopher never talked about his religious beliefs, he lived them; and it is living epistles such as this which are best known and read of all thoughtful men, and which--far more than all the books and sermons ever written--are gradually converting the kingdoms of this world into the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ. Alan would have refuted--to his own satisfaction, if not to Christopher"s--any arguments which the latter might have brought forward in favour of Christianity; but he could not refute the evidence of a life which could never have been lived but for that Other Life lived in Judaea nineteen centuries ago. Perhaps his friendship with Christopher did as much for Alan as his love for Willie in opening his eyes to the hidden things of G.o.d.
The intercourse with the Tremaines was, on the other hand, of great advantage to Christopher, as it afforded him the opportunity of meeting and mixing with men as clever and as cultivated as himself, which is not always easy for a lonely man in a provincial town who devotes his loneliness to intellectual pursuits. Christopher was fast becoming one of the most influential men in Mershire; and his able management of the Osierfield had raised those works to a greater height of prosperity than they had ever attained before, even in the days of William and John Farringdon.
But now the shadows were darkening around Alan Tremaine, as day by day Willie gradually faded away. Felicia, too, at last awoke to the real state of the case, and, in her way, was almost as anxious as her husband.
During the spring-time, as Willie"s life grew shorter with the lengthening days, the child"s chiefest delight lay in visits from Christopher. For Elisabeth"s sake Christopher had always felt an interest in little Willie. Had not her dear hands fondled the child, before they were too busy to do anything but weave spells to charm the whole world? And had not her warm heart enfolded him, before her success and her fame had chilled its fires? For the sake of the Elisabeth that used to be, Christopher would always be a friend to Willie; and he did not find it hard to love the child for his own sake, since Christopher had great powers of loving, and but little to expend them upon.
As Willie continually asked for Elisabeth, Felicia wrote and told her so; and the moment she found she was wanted, Elisabeth came down to the Willows for a week--though her fame and the London season were alike at their height--and went every day to see Willie at the Moat House. He loved to have her with him, because she talked to him about things that his parents never mentioned to him; and as these things were drawing nearer to Willie day by day, his interest in them unconsciously increased. He and she had long talks together about the country on the other side of the hills, and what delightful times they would have when they reached it: how Willie would be able to walk as much as he liked, and Elisabeth would be able to love as much as she wanted, and life generally would turn out to be a success--a thing which it so rarely does on this side of the hills.
Christopher, as a rule, kept away from the Moat House when Elisabeth was there; he thought she did not wish to see him, and he was not the type of man to go where he imagined he was not wanted; but one afternoon they met there by accident, and Christopher inwardly blessed the Fate which made him do the very thing he had so studiously refrained from doing. He had been sitting with Tremaine, and she with Felicia and Willie; and they met in the hall on their way out.
"Are you going my way?" asked Elisabeth graciously, when they had shaken hands. It was dull at Sedgehill after London, and the old flirting spirit woke up in her and made her want to flirt with Christopher again, in spite of all that had happened. With the born flirt--as with all born players of games--the game itself is of more importance than the personality of the other players; which sometimes leads to unfortunate mistakes on the part of those players who do not rightly understand the rules of the game.
"Yes, Miss Farringdon, I am," said Christopher, who would have been going Elisabeth"s way had that way led him straight to ruin. With him the personality of the player--in this case, at least--mattered infinitely more than any game she might choose to play. As long as he was talking to Elisabeth, he did not care a straw what they were talking about; which showed that he really was culpably indifferent to--if not absolutely ignorant of--the rules of the game.
"Then we might as well walk together." And Elisabeth drew on her long Suede gloves and leisurely opened her parasol, as they strolled down the drive after bidding farewell to the Tremaines.
Christopher was silent from excess of happiness. It was so wonderful to be walking by Elisabeth"s side again, and listening to her voice, and watching the lights and shadows in those gray eyes of hers which sometimes were so nearly blue. But Elisabeth did not understand his silence; she translated it, as she would have translated silence on her own part, into either boredom or ill-temper, and she resented it accordingly.
"You are very quiet this afternoon. Aren"t you going to talk to me?" she said; and Christopher"s quick ear caught the sound of the irritation in her voice, though he could not for the life of him imagine what he had done to bring it there; but it served to silence him still further.
"Yes--yes, of course I am," he said lamely; "what shall we talk about? I am afraid there is nothing interesting to tell you about the Osierfield, things are going on so regularly there, and so well."
How exactly like Christopher to begin to talk about business when she had given him the chance to talk about more interesting subjects--herself, for instance, Elisabeth thought; but he never had a mind above sordid details! She did not, of course, know that at that identical moment he was wondering whether her eyes were darker than they used to be, or whether he had forgotten their exact shade; he could hardly have forgotten their colour, he decided, as there had never been a day when he had not remembered them since he saw them last; so they must actually be growing darker.
"I"m glad of that," said Elisabeth coldly, in her most fine-ladylike manner.
"It was distinctly kind of you to find time to run down here, in the midst of your London life, to see Willie! He fretted after you sadly, and I am afraid the poor little fellow is not long for this world." And Christopher sighed.
Elisabeth noted the sigh and approved of it. It was a comfort to find that the man had feelings of any sort, she said to herself, even though only for a child; that was better than being entirely immersed in self-interest and business affairs.
So they talked about Willie for a time, and the conversation ran more smoothly--almost pleasantly.
Then they talked about books; and Elisabeth--who had grown into the habit of thinking that n.o.body outside London knew anything--was surprised to find that Christopher had read considerably more books than she had read, and had understood them far more thoroughly. But this part of the conversation was inclined to be stormy; since Christopher as a rule disliked the books that Elisabeth liked, and this she persisted in regarding as tantamount to disliking herself.
Whereupon she became defiant, and told stories of her life in London of which she knew Christopher would disapprove. There was nothing in the facts that he could possibly disapprove of, so she coloured them up until there was; and then, when she had succeeded in securing his disapproval, she was furious with him on account of it. Which was manifestly unfair, as Christopher in no way showed the regret which he could not refrain from experiencing, as he listened to Elisabeth making herself out so much more frivolous and heartless than she really was.
"This is the first time I have had an opportunity of congratulating you on your success," he said to her at last; "we are all very proud of it at Sedgehill; but, believe me, there is no one who rejoices in it a t.i.the as much as I do, if you will allow me to say so."
Elisabeth was slightly mollified. She had been trying all the time, as she was so fond of trying years ago, to divert the conversation into more personal channels; and Christopher had been equally desirous of keeping it out of the same. But this sounded encouraging.
"Thank you so much," she answered; "it is very nice of you all to be pleased with me! I always adored being admired and praised, if you remember."
Christopher remembered well enough; but he was not going to tell this crushing fine lady how well he remembered. If he had not exposed his heart for Elisabeth to peck at in the old days, he certainly was not going to expose it now; then she would only have been scientifically interested--now she would probably be disdainfully amused.
"I suppose you saw my picture in this year"s Academy," Elisabeth added.
"Saw it? I should think I did. I went up to town on purpose to see it, as I always do when you have pictures on view at any of the shows."
"And what did you think of it?"
Christopher was silent for a moment; then he said--
"Do you want me to say pretty things to you or to tell you the truth?"
"Why, the truth, of course," replied Elisabeth, who considered that the two things were synonymous--or at any rate ought to be.
"And you won"t be angry with me, or think me impertinent?"
"Of course not," answered Elisabeth, who most certainly would; and Christopher--not having yet learned wisdom--believed her.
"I thought it was a distinctly powerful picture--a distinctly remarkable picture--and if any one but you had painted it, I should have been delighted with it; but somehow I felt that it was not quite up to your mark--that you could do, and will do, better work."
For a second Elisabeth was dumbfounded with amazement and indignation.
How dare this one man dispute the verdict of London? Then she said--
"In what way do you think the work could have been done better?"
"That is just what I can"t tell you; I wish I could; but I"m not an artist, unfortunately. It seems to me that there are other people (not many, I admit, but still some) who could have painted that picture; while you are capable of doing work which no one else in the world could possibly do. Naturally I want to see you do your best, and am not satisfied when you do anything less."
Elisabeth tossed her head. "You are very hard to please, Mr. Thornley."
"I know I am, where your work is concerned; but that is because I have formed such a high ideal of your powers. If I admired you less, I should admire your work more, don"t you see?"
But Elisabeth did not see. She possessed the true artist-spirit which craves for appreciation of its offspring more than for appreciation of itself--a feeling which perhaps no one but an artist or a mother really understands. Christopher, being neither, did not understand it in the least, and erroneously concluded that adoration of the creator absolves one from the necessity of admiration of the thing created.
"I shall never do a better piece of work than that," Elisabeth retorted, being imbued with the creative delusion that the latest creation is of necessity the finest creation. No artist could work at all if he did not believe that the work he was doing--or had just done--was the best piece of work he had ever done or ever should do. This is because his work, however good, always falls short of the ideal which inspired it; and, while he is yet working, he can not disentangle the ideal from the reality. He must be at a little distance from his work until he can do this properly; and Elisabeth was as yet under the influence of that creative glamour which made her see her latest picture as it should be rather than as it was.
"Oh, yes, you will; you will fulfil my ideal of you yet. I cherish no doubts on that score."
"I can"t think what you see wrong in my picture," said Elisabeth somewhat pettishly.
"I don"t see anything wrong in it. Good gracious! I must have expressed myself badly if I conveyed such an impression to you as that, and you would indeed be justified in writing me down an a.s.s. I think it is a wonderfully clever picture--so clever that n.o.body but you could ever paint a cleverer one."
"Well, I certainly couldn"t. You must have formed an exaggerated estimate of my artistic powers."
"I think not! You can, and will, paint a distinctly better picture some day."
"In what way better?"
"Ah! there you have me. But I will try to tell you what I mean, though I speak as a fool; and if I say anything very egregious, you must let my ignorance be my excuse, and pardon the clumsy expression of my intentions because they are so well meant. It doesn"t seem to me to be enough for anybody to do good work; they must go further, and do the best possible work in their power. Nothing but one"s best is really worth the doing; the cult of the second-best is always a degrading form of worship. Even though one man"s second-best be intrinsically superior to the best work of his fellows, he has nevertheless no right to offer it to the world. He is guilty of an injustice both to himself and the world in so doing."
"I don"t agree with you. This is an age of results; and the world"s business is with the actual value of the thing done, rather than with the capabilities of the man who did it."
"You are right in calling this an age of results, Miss Farringdon; but that is the age"s weakness and not its strength. The moment men begin to judge by results, they judge unrighteous judgment. They confound the great man with the successful man; the saint with the famous preacher; the poet with the writer of popular music-hall songs."
"Then you think that we should all do our best, and not bother ourselves too much as to results?"
"I go further than that; I think that the mere consideration of results incapacitates us from doing our best work at all."