The Duchess of Wrexe Part 15

"Go ahead."

"He tells me that a number of young novelists are going to band themselves into a kind of Artists' Young Liberty movement--artists, poets, novelists, some thirty altogether--going to have a magazine, do all kinds of things. Some of the older men will scoff. At the same time----"

"Well?" said Christopher.

"They'd asked him to join. He wanted my opinion."

"What did you say?"

"He interested me--he was a kind of test case. It would mean that, commercially, from the popular point of view, it would put him back for years. Those young men will all be put down as conceited cranks. They will tilt at the successful popular men like Lawson and the others, will wors.h.i.+p at the feet of the unsuccessful 'Great' men like Lester and Cotton. The papers will hate 'em, the public will be indifferent. The result will be that, in the end, they may do a big thing--at any rate they'll have done a fine thing, but they'll all die on the way, I expect."

Brun spoke with enthusiasm unusual for him.

"How was this a test of Westcott?" asked Christopher.

"Well--would he go or no? He's at the kind of parting of the ways. I believe success is coming to him, if he wants it; but he'll have to build another wall in front of his Tiger either before the success or after. If he joins this crowd of men, there'll be no walls for him ever again."

Christopher knew that when Brun had some idea that he was pleasantly pursuing and had secured an audience nothing would stay or hinder him.

He pushed a chair towards him.

"What do you mean by your Tiger?" he asked.

"My Tiger is what every man has within him--I don't mean, you know, a nasty habit or a degrading pa.s.sion or anything of necessity vicious--only my theory is that every man is given at the outset of life a Beast in the finest, n.o.blest sense with whom through life he has got to settle. It may be an Ambition, or a Pa.s.sion, or a Temptation, or a Virtue, what you will, but with that Beast he's got to live. Now it's according to his dealings with the Beast that the man's great or no. If he faces the Beast--and the Beast is generally something that a man knows about himself that n.o.body else knows--the Beast can be used, magnificently used. If he's afraid, pretends the Tiger isn't there, builds up walls, hides in cities, does what you will, then he must be prepared for a life of incessant alarm, and he may be sure that at some moment or another the Tiger will make his spring--then there'll be a crisis!

"Over here in England you're hiding your Tigers all the time. That's why you're muddled--about Art, Literature, Government, everything that matters--and an old woman like the d.u.c.h.ess of Wrexe--sharp enough herself, mind you--uses all of you.

"No Beaminster has ever faced his or her Tiger yet, and they're down, like knives, on everyone who does and everything that shows the Tiger's bright eyes----

"But I see--oh, Lord! I see--a time coming, yes, here in England, when the Individual, the great man, is coming through, when the d.u.c.h.ess will be dead and the Beaminster driven from power and every man with his Tiger there in front of him, faced and trained, will have his chance--

"More brain, more courage, no muddle--G.o.d help the day!"

"You see things moving--everywhere?"

"Everywhere. These fellows, Randall and the rest, are bringing their Tigers with 'em. They're going to put them there for all the world to see. It's only another party out against the d.u.c.h.ess, _she_ wants all the Tigers hidden--only herself to know about them--then she can do her work. She'll hate these fellows until they've made their stand and then she'll try to adopt them in order to muzzle them the better in the end.

"If Westcott hides his Tiger, forgets he's there, his way's plain enough. He'll make money, the d.u.c.h.ess will ask him to tea. Let him join these fellows and his Tiger may tear all his present self to pieces."

"What about yourself, Brun?"

"Oh, I'm nothing! I'm the one great exception. No Tiger thinks me worth while. I merely observe, I don't feel--and you have to feel to keep your Tiger alive."

Brun's little lecture was over. He suddenly drew his body together, clapped his mental hands to dismiss the whole thing and was drawing Westcott to the door.

"But I talk--how I talk! You bear with me, Christopher, because I must go on, you know. It means nothing--absolutely nothing. But they will have arrived now, so down we go. I go on in my sleep, exactly the same.

And now tea--and I will talk less because Breton talks a great deal and so does Arkwright, and so do you...."

II

Arkwright came, and after a little, Breton. But the meeting was not a success. Arkwright had heard a good deal about Breton's reputation, and although, on the whole, he was tolerant of any backsliding in women, he made what he called his liking for "clean men" an excuse for much narrow-mindedness.

It is quite a mistake to suppose that living in solitude and danger makes a human being tolerant. It has the precisely opposite effect.

Arkwright was more frightened of a man who was not "quite right with society" than of any number of enraged natives. With natives one knew where one was. Whereas with a man like this ...

Breton, anxious to please, made the mistake of showing his anxiety.

Seeing an enemy round every corner he was a little theatrical, too demonstrative, too foreign. Arkwright disliked his beard and the movement of his hands. "He wouldn't have come, had he known...."

Breton had, of course, at once perceived this man's hostility. Returning to England had involved, as he had known that it must, a life of battles, skirmishes, retreats, wounds, and every kind of hostility.

People did not forget and even had they desired to do so, his relations.h.i.+p family history prevented Breton's oblivion.

He was ready for discourtesy, however eager he may have been for friends.h.i.+p. But what the Devil, he thought, is this fellow doing here at all? If Brun brought him in he must have told him just whom he was to meet, and if he came with that knowledge about him, why then should he not behave like a gentleman? Breton's half timid advance towards friendliness now yielded to curt hostility.

Brun maintained his silence and only watched the two men with an amus.e.m.e.nt just concealed. Conversation at last ceased and the heat beat, in waves, through the open windows and the air seemed now to be stiffened into bronze. Beyond the room all the city lay waiting for the cool of the evening.

Christopher liked Arkwright and Arkwright liked Christopher.

Christopher had read one of Arkwright's books and spoke of it with praise and also intelligence, and nothing goes to an author's heart like intelligent appreciation from an unbia.s.sed critic. But Breton was not to be won over. He sat deep in his chair and replied in sulky monosyllables whenever he was addressed.

Christopher soon gave him up and the three men talked amongst themselves.

The heat of the afternoon pa.s.sed and a little breeze danced into the room, and the hard brightness of the sky changed to a pale primrose that had still some echo of the blue in its faint colour.

The city had uttered no sound through the heat of the day, but now voices came up to the windows: the distant crying of papers, the call of some man with flowers, then the bells of the Round Church began to ring for evensong.

Breton sat there, wrapped in sulky discontent. In his heart he was wretched. Christopher had deserted him; these men would have nothing to do with him. As was his nature everything about him was exaggerated. He had come to Brun's rooms that afternoon, feeling that men had taken him back to their citizens.h.i.+p again. Now he was more urgently a.s.sured of his ostracism than before. Who were these men to give themselves these airs?

Because he had made one slip were they to const.i.tute themselves his judges? These Beaminster virtues again--the trail of his family at every step, that same d.a.m.nable hypocrisy, that same priggish a.s.sumption of the right to judge. Better to die in the society of those friends of his who had suffered as he had done, from the judgment of the world--no scorn of sinners there, no failure in all sense of true proportion.

Christopher got up to go. He gave Arkwright his card. "Come in and dine one night and tell me all you're doing----"

"Of course I'll come," Arkwright said. "Only you're much too busy----"

"Indeed no," said Christopher. "One day next week you'll hear from me----"

Breton got up. "I'll come with you," he said to Christopher.

The two men went away together.

When they were gone Arkwright said to Brun, "Now that's the kind of man I like----"

"Yes," said Brun, laughing. "Better than the other fellow, eh?"

Arkwright smiled. "More my sort, I must confess."

III