Part 4 (1/2)

”Well,” he said, ”I have no doubt it is an excellent piece of literary work--a satire I suppose you would call it--and I must congratulate you upon its complete success. I don't mind running the theatre at a financial loss, but I have a distinct objection to being made a laughing stock of. I suppose this paper appeared about two hours ago, and already I can't move a yard without having to suffer the condolences of some sympathizing a.s.s. I shall close the theatre next week.”

”That is naturally,” Matravers said, ”a matter of complete indifference to me. In the cause of art I should say that you will do well, unless you can select a play from a very different source. What I wrote of the performance last night, I wrote according to my convictions. You,” he added, turning to Berenice, ”will at least believe that, I am sure!”

”Most certainly I do,” she a.s.sured him, holding out her hand. ”Must you really go? You will come and see me again--very soon?”

He bowed over her fingers, and then their eyes met for a moment. She was very pale, but she looked at him bravely. He realized suddenly that Mr. Thornd.y.k.e's threat was a serious blow to her.

”I am very sorry,” he said. ”You will not bear me any ill will?”

”None!” she answered; ”you may be sure of that!”

She walked with him to the open door, outside which the servant was waiting to show him downstairs.

”You will come and see me again--very soon?” she repeated.

”Yes,” he answered simply, ”if I may I shall come again! I will come as soon as you care to have me!”

CHAPTER V

Matravers pa.s.sed out into the street with a curious admixture of sensations in a mind usually so free from any confusion of sentiments or ideas. The few words which he had been compelled to exchange with Thornd.y.k.e had grated very much against his sense of what was seemly; he was on the whole both repelled and fascinated by the incidents of this visit of his. Yet as he walked leisurely homewards through the bright, crowded streets, he recognized the existence of that strange personal charm in Berenice of which so many people had written and spoken. He himself had become subject to it in some slight degree, not enough, indeed, to engross his mind, yet enough to prevent any feeling of disappointment at the result of his visit.

She was not an ordinary woman--she was not an ordinarily clever woman.

She did not belong to any type with which he was acquainted. She must for ever occupy a place of her own in his thoughts and in his estimation. It was a place very well defined, he told himself, and by no means within that inner circle of his brain and heart wherein lay the few things in life sweet and precious to him. The vague excitement of the early morning seemed to him now, as he moved calmly along the crowded, fas.h.i.+onable thoroughfare, a thing altogether unreal and unnatural. He had been in an emotional frame of mind, he told himself with a quiet smile, when the sight of those few lines in a handwriting then unknown had so curiously stirred him. Now that he had seen and spoken to her, her personality would recede to its proper proportions, the old philosophic calm which hung around him in his studious life like a mantle would have no further disturbance.

And then he suffered a rude shock! As he pa.s.sed the corner of a street, the perfume of Neapolitan violets came floating out from a florist's shop upon the warm sunlit air. Every fibre of his being quivered with a sudden emotion! The interior of that little room was before him, and a woman's eyes looked into his. He clenched his hands and walked swiftly on, with pale face and rigid lips, like a man oppressed by some acute physical pain.

There must be nothing of this for him! It was part of a world which was not his world--of which he must never even be a temporary denizen.

The thing pa.s.sed away! With studious care he fixed his mind upon trifles. There was a crease in his silk hat, clearly visible as he glanced at his reflection in a plate-gla.s.s window. He turned into Scott's, and waited whilst it was ironed. Then he walked homewards and spent the remainder of the day carefully revising a bundle of proofs which he found on his table fresh from the printer.

On the following morning he lunched at his club. Somehow, although he was in no sense of the word an unpopular man, it was a rare thing for any one to seek his company uninvited. The scholarly exclusiveness of his Oxford days had not been altogether brushed off in this contact with a larger and more spontaneous social life, and he figured in a world which would gladly have known more of him, as a man of courteous but severe reserve.

To-day he occupied his usual round table set in an alcove before a tall window. For a recluse, he always found a singular pleasure in watching the faces of the people in that broad living stream, little units in the wheeling cycle of humanity of which he too felt himself to be a part; but to-day his eyes were idle, and his sympathies obstructed. Although a p.r.o.nounced epicure in both food and drink, he pa.s.sed a new and delicate _entree_, and not only ordered the wrong claret, but drank it without a grimace. The world of his sensations had been rudely disturbed. For the moment his sense of proportions was at fault, and before luncheon was over it received a further shock. A handsomely appointed drag rattled past the club on its way into Piccadilly. The woman who occupied the front seat turned to look at the window as they pa.s.sed, with some evident curiosity--and their eyes met. Matravers set down the gla.s.s, which he had been in the act of raising to his lips, untasted.

”Berenice and her Father Confessor!” he heard some one remark lightly from the next table. ”Pity some one can't teach Thornd.y.k.e how to drive! He's a disgrace to the Four-in-hand!”

It was Berenice! The sight of her in such intimate a.s.sociation with a man utterly distasteful to him was one before which he winced and suffered. He was aware of a new and altogether undesired experience.

To rid himself of it with all possible speed, he finished his lunch abruptly, and lighting a cigarette, started back to his rooms.

On the way he came face to face with Ellison, and the two men stood together upon the pavement for a moment or two.

”I am not quite sure,” Ellison remarked with a little grimace, ”whether I want to speak to you or not! What on earth has kindled the destructive spirit in you to such an extent? Every one is talking of your attack upon the New Theatre!”

”I was sent,” Matravers answered, ”with a free hand to write an honest criticism--and I did it. Istein's work may have some merit, but it is unclean work. It is not fit for the English stage.”

”It is exceedingly unlikely,” Ellison remarked, ”that the English stage will know him any more! No play could survive such an onslaught as yours. I hear that Thornd.y.k.e is going to close the theatre.”