Part 23 (1/2)

”Come into the dining-room,” he said. ”You know Mr. Harding? He is there.” He pa.s.sed out of the room, leaving the door open for Merat to follow through. ”Harding, read this letter.” He stood watching Harding while he read; but before Harding was half-way down the page he said: ”You see, she is going into a convent. They have got her, they have got her! But they shan't get her as long as I have a shoulder with which to force in a door. The doors of those mansions where she has gone to live are not very strong, are they, Merat? She shall see me; she shall not go to that convent. That blasted priest shall not get her. Those ghouls of nuns!” And he was about to break from the room when Merat threw herself in front of him.

”Remember, Sir Owen, she has been very ill; remember what has happened, and if you prevent her from going to the convent--”

”So, Merat, you're against me too? You want to drive her into a convent, do you?”

”Sir Owen, you hardly know what you are saying. I am thinking of what might happen if you went to Ayrdale Mansions and forced in the door.

Sir Owen, I beg of you.”

”Then if you oppose me you are responsible. They will get her, I tell you; those blasted ghouls, haunters of graveyards, diggers of graves, faint creatures who steal out of the light, mumblers of prayers! You know, Harding, what I say is true. G.o.d!” He raised his fist in the air and fell back into an armchair, screaming oaths and blasphemies without sense. It was on Harding's lips to say, ”Asher, you are making a show of yourself.” ”_Vous vous donnez en spectacle_”

were the words that crossed Merat's mind. But there was something n.o.ble in this crisis, and Harding admired Owen--here was one who was not afraid to shriek out and to rage. And what n.o.bler cause for a man's rage?

”The woman he loves is about to be taken out of the sunlight into the grey shadow of the cloister. Why shouldn't he rage?”

”To sing of death, not of life, and where the intelligence wilts and bleaches!” he shrieked. ”What an awful end! don't you understand?

Devils! devils!” and he slipped from his chair suddenly on to the hearthrug, and lay there tearing at it with his fingers. The elegant fribble of St. James' Street had pa.s.sed back to the primeval savage robbed of his mate.

”You give way to your feelings, Asher.”

At these words Asher sprang to his feet, yelling:

”Why shouldn't I give way to my feelings? You haven't lost the most precious thing on G.o.d's earth. You never cared for a woman as I do; perhaps you never cared for one at all. You don't look as if you did.” Owen's face wrinkled; he jibbered at one moment like a demented baboon, at the next he was transfigured, and looked like some t.i.tan as he strode about the room, swearing that they should not get her.

”But it all depends upon herself, Owen; you can do nothing,” Harding said, fearing a tragedy. But Owen did not seem to hear him, he could only hear his own anger thundering in his heart. At last the storm seemed to abate a little, and he said that he knew Harding would forgive him for having spoken discourteously; he was afraid he had done so just now.

”But, you know, Harding, I have suspected this abomination; the taint was in her blood. You know those Papists, Harding, how they cringe, how shamefaced they are, how low in intelligence. I have heard you say yourself they have not written a book for the last four hundred years. Now, why do you defend them?”

”Defend them, Asher? I am not defending them.”

”Paralysed brains, arrested intelligences.” He stopped, choked, unable to articulate for his haste. ”That brute, Monsignor Mostyn-- at all events I can see him, and kick the vile brute.” And taken in another gust of pa.s.sion, Owen went towards the door. ”Yes, I can have it out with him.”

”But, Asher, he is an old man; to lay hands upon him would be ruin.”

”What do I care about ruin? I am ruined. They have got her, and her mind will be poisoned. She will get the abominable ascetic mind. The pleasure of the flesh transferred! What is legitimate and beautiful in the body put into the mind, the mind sullied by pa.s.sions that do not belong to the mind. That is what papistry is! They will poison that pure, beautiful woman's mind. That priest has put them up to it, and he shall pay for it if I can get at him to-night!” Owen broke away suddenly, leaving Harding and Merat in the dining-room, Harding regretting that he had accepted Owen's invitation to dinner... If Asher and Monsignor were to meet that night? Good Lord! ... Owen would strike him for sure, and a blow would kill the old man.

”Merat, this is very unfortunate.... Not to be able to control one's temper. You have known him a long time.... I hope nothing will happen. Perhaps you had better wait.”

”No, Mr. Harding, I can't wait; I must go back to mademoiselle.” And the two went out together, Harding turning to the right, jumping into a cab as soon as he could hail one, and Merat getting into another in order to be in time to save her mistress from her madman lover.

XVI

Three hours after Harding and Merat had left Berkeley Square, Owen let himself in with his latch-key. He was very pale and very weary, and his boots and trousers were covered with mud, for he had been splas.h.i.+ng through wet streets, caring very little where he went. At first he had gone in the direction of the river, thinking to rouse up Monsignor, and to tell him what he thought of him, perhaps to give him a good thras.h.i.+ng; but the madness of his anger began to die long before reaching the river. In the middle of St. James's Park the hopelessness of any effort on his part to restrain Evelyn became clear to him suddenly, and he uttered a cry, walking on again, and on again, not caring whither he walked, splas.h.i.+ng on through the wet, knowing well that nothing could be done, that the inevitable had happened.

”It would have been better if she had died,” he often said; ”it would have been much better if she had died, for then I should be free, and she would be free. Now neither is free.”

There were times when he did not think at all, when his mind was away; and, after a long absence of thought, the memory of how he had lost her for ever would strike him, and then it seemed as if he could walk no longer, but would like to lie down and die. All the same, he had to get home, and the sooner he got home the better, for there was whisky on the table, and that would dull his memory; and, tottering along the area railings, he thought of the whisky, understanding the drunkard for the first time and his temptations.

”Anything to forget the agony of living!”