Fraternity Part 32

"Ivy! Well, I'll write to you. But you must promise me to do exactly as I said."

The girl looked up; her face was almost ugly--like a child's in whom a storm of feeling is repressed.

"Promise!" repeated Hilary.

With a bitter droop of her lower lip, she nodded, and suddenly put her hand to her heart. That action, of which she was clearly unconscious, so naively, so almost automatically was it done, nearly put an end to Hilary's determination.

"Now you must go," he said.

The little model choked, grew very red, and then quite white.

"Aren't I even to say good-bye to Mr. Stone?"

Hilary shook his head.

"He'll miss me," she said desperately. "He will. I know he will!"

"So shall I," said Hilary. "We can't help that."

The little model drew herself up to her full height; her breast heaved beneath the clothes which had made her Hilary's. She was very like "The Shadow" at that moment, as though whatever Hilary might do there she would be--a little ghost, the spirit of the helpless submerged world, for ever haunting with its dumb appeal the minds of men.

"Give me your hand," said Hilary.

The little model put out her not too white, small hand. It was soft, clinging: and as hot as fire.

"Good-bye, my dear, and bless you!"

The little model gave him a look with who-knows-what of reproach in it, and, faithful to her training, went submissively away.

Hilary did not look after her, but, standing by the lofty mantelpiece above the ashes of the fire, rested his forehead on his arm. Not even a fly's buzzing broke the stillness. There was sound for all that-not of distant music, but of blood beating in his ears and temples.

CHAPTER XXIII

THE "BOOK OF UNIVERSAL BROTHERHOOD"

It is fitting that a few words should be said about the writer of the "Book of Universal Brotherhood."

Sylva.n.u.s Stone, having graduated very highly at the London University, had been appointed at an early age lecturer to more than one Public Inst.i.tution. He had soon received the professorial robes due to a man of his profound learning in the natural sciences, and from that time till he was seventy his life had flowed on in one continual round of lectures, addresses, disquisitions, and arguments on the subjects in which he was a specialist. At the age of seventy, long after his wife's death and the marriages of his three children, he had for some time been living by himself, when a very serious illness--the result of liberties taken with an iron const.i.tution by a single mind--prostrated him.

During the long convalescence following this illness the power of contemplation, which the Professor had up to then given to natural science, began to fix itself on life at large. But the mind which had made of natural science an idea, a pa.s.sion, was not content with vague reflections on life. Slowly, subtly, with irresistible centrifugal force--with a force which perhaps it would not have acquired but for that illness--the idea, the pa.s.sion of Universal Brotherhood had sucked into itself all his errant wonderings on the riddle of existence. The single mind of this old man, divorced by illness from his previous existence, pensioned and permanently shelved, began to wors.h.i.+p a new star, that with every week and month and year grew brighter, till all other stars had lost their glimmer and died out.

At the age of seventy-four he had begun his book. Under the spell of his subject and of advancing age, his extreme inattention to pa.s.sing matters became rapidly accentuated. His figure had become almost too publicly conspicuous before Bianca, finding him one day seated on the roof of his lonely little top-story flat, the better to contemplate his darling Universe, had inveigled him home with her, and installed him in a room in her own house. After the first day or two he had not noticed any change to speak of.

His habits in his new home were soon formed, and once formed, they varied not at all; for he admitted into his life nothing which took him from the writing of his book.

On the afternoon following Hilary's dismissal of the little model, being disappointed of his amanuensis, Mr. Stone had waited for an hour, reading his pages over and over to himself. He had then done his exercises. At the usual time for tea he had sat down, and, with his cup and brown bread-and-b.u.t.ter alternately at his lips, had looked long and fixedly at the place where the girl was wont to sit. Having finished, he left the room and went about the house. He found no one but Miranda, who, seated in the pa.s.sage leading to the studio, was trying to keep one eye on the absence of her master and the other on the absence of her mistress. She joined Mr. Stone, maintaining a respect-compelling interval behind him when he went before, and before him when he went behind. When they had finished hunting, Mr. Stone went down to the garden gate. Here Bianca found him presently motionless, without a hat, in the full sun, craning his white head in the direction from which he knew the little model habitually came. The mistress of the house was herself returning from her annual visit to the Royal Academy, where she still went, as dogs, from some perverted sense, will go and sniff round other dogs to whom they have long taken a dislike. A loose-hanging veil depended from her mushroom-shaped and coloured hat. Her eyes were brightened by her visit. Mr. Stone soon seemed to take in who she was, and stood regarding her a minute without speaking. His att.i.tude towards his daughters was rather like that of an old drake towards two swans whom he has inadvertently begotten--there was inquiry in it, disapproval, admiration, and faint surprise.

"Why has she not come?" he said.

Bianca winced behind her veil. "Have you asked Hilary?"

"I cannot find him," answered Mr. Stone. Something about his patient stooping figure and white head, on which the sunlight was falling, made Bianca slip her hand through his arm.

"Come in, Dad. I'll do your copying."

Mr. Stone looked at her intently, and shook his head.

"It would be against my principles; I cannot take an unpaid service.

But if you would come, my dear, I should like to read to you. It is stimulating."

At that request Bianca's eyes grew dim. Pressing Mr. Stone's s.h.a.ggy arm against her breast, she moved with him towards the house.

"I think I may have written something that will interest you," Mr. Stone said, as they went along.

"I am sure you have," Bianca murmured.

"It is universal," said Mr. Stone; "it concerns birth. Sit at the table.

I will begin, as usual, where I left off yesterday."

Bianca took the little model's seat, resting her chin on her hand, as motionless as any of the statues she had just been viewing. It almost seemed as if Mr. Stone were feeling nervous. He twice arranged his papers; cleared his throat; then, lifting a sheet suddenly, took three steps, turned his back on her, and began to read.

"'In that slow, incessant change of form to form, called Life, men, made spasmodic by perpetual action, had seized on a certain moment, no more intrinsically notable than any other moment, and had called it Birth.

This habit of honouring one single instant of the universal process to the disadvantage of all the other instants had done more, perhaps, than anything to obfuscate the crystal clearness of the fundamental flux.

As well might such as watch the process of the green, unfolding earth, emerging from the brumous arms of winter, isolate a single day and call it Spring. In the tides of rhythm by which the change of form to form was governed'"--Mr. Stone's voice, which had till then been but a thin, husky murmur, gradually grew louder and louder, as though he were addressing a great concourse--"'the golden universal haze in which men should have flown like bright wing-beats round the sun gave place to the parasitic halo which every man derived from the glorifying of his own nativity. To this primary mistake could be traced his intensely personal philosophy. Slowly but surely there had dried up in his heart the wish to be his brother.'"

He stopped reading suddenly.

"I see him coming in," he said.

The next minute the door opened, and Hilary entered.

"She has not come," said Mr. Stone; and Bianca murmured:

"We miss her!"

"Her eyes," said Mr. Stone, "have a peculiar look; they help me to see into the future. I have noticed the same look in the eyes of female dogs."

With a little laugh, Bianca murmured again:

"That is good!"

"There is one virtue in dogs," said Hilary, "which human beings lack--they are incapable of mockery."

But Bianca's lips, parted, indrawn, seemed saying: 'You ask too much! I no longer attract you. Am I to sympathise in the attraction this common little girl has for you?'

Mr. Stone's gaze was fixed intently on the wall.