Part 14 (1/2)

Occasionally the young man tried to tell himself that perhaps the real reason of his discontent was their guest's att.i.tude to himself. It was clear that the famous soldier did not like the younger of his hosts, in fact he hardly made any attempt to conceal his prejudice, and the two men, though of course forced into a kind of intimacy, saw as little as they could of one another.

It was with his hostess that General Lingard spent every odd moment,--every moment that he could spare from the work on which he was engaged--a book he had promised to write by a certain date. And after a very few days Wantele discovered with amus.e.m.e.nt, discomfiture, amazement that Lingard was actually consulting Athena about his book, reading her pa.s.sages as he wrote them.

And then Wantele told himself with shame that the doing of this was not so foolish or so strange, after all,--for the book was to appeal to the general public, and Mrs. Maule might reasonably be supposed to belong to that public.

But not even Wantele in his darkest, most suspicious moods suspected the depth, the reality of Lingard's peril.

The exciting, exhilarating experiences which were now befalling him produced on one who was essentially a man of action, not a philosopher and thinker, an extraordinary mental and even physical effect.

The absurd homage, the crude flattery, to which Lingard found himself subjected by the young and the foolish among Mrs. Maule's guests annoyed rather than pleased him, but he would be moved to the soul when a word said--often an awkward, shy word--showed how great was the place he had conquered in the estimation of those of his fellow-countrymen and countrywomen who were jealous for their country's glory.

He had instinctively discounted the newspaper fame showered so freely upon him on his immediate arrival in England; he was humorously conscious that he owed it in a great measure to the absence of any other competing lion of the moment.

True, he had at once received a number of invitations from hostesses of the kind who make it their business to secure the latest celebrity, and he had grudged the time he spent over the writing of coldly civil refusals. Lingard had also been plagued with innumerable letters from people who vaguely hoped he would be able to do something which would contribute in some way to their advancement, or that of their near relations. And then there had come absurd and painful communications from lunatics, begging-letter writers, and autograph hunters.

Not till he came to Rede Place did the position he had won become really clear to him, though pride and good breeding made him appear to take his triumph lightly.

And Athena Maule shared it all with him! The very letters he received were, at her entreaty, shown to, and discussed with her in a way which gave each of them a special value and importance. Athena was much more impressed with his triumph than he allowed himself to be; and when alone with her,--and they were very often alone together,--Lingard unconsciously moved in a delightful atmosphere of subtle, wordless sympathy and flattery.

Jane Oglander, absorbed in the physical crisis through which was pa.s.sing the friend with whom she was staying, became even to her lover infinitely remote; though Lingard liked to remind himself, now and again, that it was Jane who had given him his new, enchanting comrade and friend.

Athena Maule appeared to Hew Lingard the most selfless human being he had ever known. And yet, each day, when the guests, the people she so kindly asked to meet him, were all gone, and when he and she were enjoying an hour of rest and solitude together, to which he had now learnt to look forward so eagerly, she was always ready to talk to him about herself. Soon there was no subject of conversation between them which held for Lingard so potent, so entrancing a lure.

There came a day when the soldier, more moved, more secretly excited, more exhilarated than usual, was able to express to her something of what he felt.

Among those who had been bidden to Rede Place was an old man, a Crimean veteran who in his day had enjoyed, though of course on a smaller scale, much the same kind of experience Hew Lingard was now pa.s.sing through.

The two had been allowed, by tacit consent, to have a considerable amount of talk together, and Lingard had been greatly touched and moved by the other's words of understanding praise, and appreciation, of the difficult, perilous task he had accomplished.

Sure of her sympathy and understanding, he told Mrs. Maule all that the veteran's words had meant to him, and at once, as was her wont,--though he remained quite unconscious of it,--she brought the subject round to the personal, the intimate standpoint: ”You don't know,” she said softly, ”what it means to me to know that you met that dear old man here.”

And that had given him his chance of saying what he felt each day more and more, namely that he owed everything, _everything_ to her,--to her thoughtful kindness and to her instinctive knowledge of what would at once please and move him.

How amazed he would have been could he have seen into Athena's heart!

She had thought it rather absurd that Lingard should care so much for praise uttered by such an unimportant person as the poor, broken old officer who led a quiet and rather eccentric existence on the edge of a lonely common some way from Rede Place. He had originally come into the neighbourhood in order to be near Mabel Digby's father, and Athena had never thought him to be of the slightest consequence,--indeed, she had only a.s.sented to his being asked to meet General Lingard because Mabel had earnestly begged that he might be.

Conscious hypocrisy is far rarer than the world is apt to believe, and only succeeds in its designs with those who are mentally ill-equipped.

The women who work the most mischief in civilized communities are supreme egoists, and an egoist is never a conscious hypocrite.

When dealing with a being of the opposite s.e.x to her own, Athena Maule always held up to his enraptured gaze a magic mirror in which was reflected the beautiful and pathetic figure of a deeply injured woman: one who had made a gallant fight against the harsh fate which had married her to such a man as Richard Maule, and which placed her in subjection to so cruel and contemptible a creature as was Richard's kinsman and heir, d.i.c.k Wantele.

Mrs. Maule was also affected, and very powerfully so, by all that took place during the ten days which elapsed between d.i.c.k Wantele's return and Jane Oglander's arrival.

The people among whom she habitually lived knew nothing of such men as Hew Lingard. Rich and idle always, vicious or virtuous according to their temperament and the measure of their temptations, they had no use for the great workers of the world, unless indeed those workers'

struggles, victories, and defeats lay in the world of finance.

Thus it was that General Lingard presented to Athena Maule the attractive human bait of something new, untasted, unrehea.r.s.ed.