Part 13 (1/2)

”He is very much in earnest,” she added. ”I have written him at length about the bringing up of daughters--he insisted on having my views. He is very modest, though--just ventures to hope for success. 'If I only had Morgan's pen,' he once wrote, yearningly.”

To be reminded now how completely his father had been won over to belief in him was but to have all the bitterness of his failure again concentrated in one moment.

During the rest of the time he found himself carrying on a half-hearted conversation here and there, yet with all his attention on Margaret. He followed her with his eyes, watching her every movement and gesture, noting her every smile, catching her laughter and the sound of her voice. Something that was light, that was suns.h.i.+ne, seemed to detach itself from her and to fill the whole room; something that brought a sense of happiness to mingle with his strange mood.

He felt that happiness as a sick man feels a cool, soft caress on his brow.

CHAPTER V.

One afternoon Morgan took a hansom and drove to Hampstead. He entered the gla.s.s-covered way that led up to Cleo's door and knocked unhesitatingly. The servant who responded to his summons stared at him in undisguised astonishment.

”Is your mistress at home?” he asked, for he did not know by what name to enquire for Cleo. He sent in his own, however, and was immediately ushered into her presence. This gave him no elation, because he had taken it for granted she would receive him.

”I had a sort of presentiment you would come to-day,” said Cleo, throwing on one side the novel she had been reading, and the cover of which, illumined with seven mystic stars and a veiled floating figure, just caught his eye.

”And I just felt that I _must_ come,” he said as, at her invitation, he took a seat on one of the quaint stools with somewhat of an air of long habituation to this strange Egyptian chamber.

Cleo was lounging on her gilded settee, obviously arrayed to receive him in the hope of his calling. A vague, mystic light that compelled an almost religious emotion came through the tiny window panes. The fountain played with a soft splash.

”Do you know I am what the vulgar call 'superst.i.tious?'” she continued. ”I always knew you would come into my life.”

As she spoke her eyes seemed to s.h.i.+ne with a greater fire. The scarlet of her lips to-day was somewhat concealed by the half shadows; her hair, too, seemed silkier and more restrained in tone than his first impression of it. Her gown was of a vague colour--a sort of blue-grey, in which the element of blue was suggested as a light continuous tinge. A crimson silk scarf, fastened with an opal buckle, formed a pleasing sash, and fell to the knee. As before, her feet were sandalled.

”That letter of yours Robert showed me--years ago now--made me love you at once,” she explained. ”Only a man of genius could have written it. How my heart bled for you when you said, 'I see no other end to the comedy than fall. G.o.d knows what shape that fall will take, into what mud my soul plunge in the fight for life. I could bear anything if I were not so utterly alone and helpless.... If you could see me, speak to me--help me in any way!' Yes, I wanted to see you--speak to you--help you. It was I who made Robert respond to your appeal. I remember how disgusted I was with him when he insisted on taking the whole thing as a splendid joke, just because he found you had a rich father.”

Her strange, soft voice seemed almost informed with dramatic pa.s.sion as she quoted his letter. It was clear she knew the whole of it by heart. So Ingram's violation of his confidence, he reflected, had been responsible for this interweaving of his life with Cleo's, and his presence here to-day was but the natural continuation of the beginning then made. He confessed to having been angered with Ingram.

”My blundering vision could not see how the strands were being woven,”

he added.

”I was certain all along they _were_ being woven,” she returned. ”The incident at the time made a great impression on me, and I knew that one day we should come together.”

It gave him a thrill of joy to learn that he had been occupying her thoughts for years past; that, having once come within her consciousness, he had remained in her vision as a never-fading image.

”I am encouraged to ask you about yourself,” he said. ”You know I love you, too.”

This last statement was not an insincere one, for he did not conceive it as a real statement made to a real human being. Cleo was his wonderful dream-woman, and he had no notion at all of getting any insight into her as a real woman playing an actual role in actual life. He did not think of her as an element of real life at all; she was simply the heroine of the fantasy he was busy weaving. His declaration represented exactly his sentiment towards her in that role; it expressed his sense of the fitness of things at the moment, was the requisite correct touch the position demanded--this position which he had mentally isolated from the rest of reality, and in which for the time being he had lost himself.

”I know, dear,” she answered. ”I will tell you gladly, for I want you to understand and appreciate me. Like you I have always been conscious of genius, but I have had to wait long, bitter years. 'Tis always so with genius. I have ever felt myself a chosen spirit, and I am sure I am destined to become the greatest actress that has yet charmed and captivated the world. Am I not tall, surpa.s.singly beautiful, lithe and supple as a reed--graceful as a lily? But that is not all.

In me is reincarnated the spirit of the ancient East, and it is my mission to interpret that spirit to the modern world. I will help you, dear, to realize that same spirit, and then one day, in a grand burst of inspiration you shall write the play of my life. Then shall I break upon the civilized world as a revelation.

”I can remember no time at which I have not been conscious of my mission. But six years ago, when I set out on my journey into the world, I was scarcely more than a child. I had no influence--I knew n.o.body; and so I had no chance of making a real appearance at once. I had to begin by joining a touring company, and that only to play the role of a servant girl. At the time I was glad of any beginning, for I was confident I should make my way. But I soon found myself stranded.

Then what do you think I did?”

”You wrote a letter to Ingram--just as I did?” he exclaimed excitedly.

She laughed.