The Crown of Life Part 46

The hotel pleased him. After inspecting his bedroom, he came down again to smoke and glance over the newspapers; it was about half-past nine.

Half a dozen men were in the smoking-room; by ten o'clock there remained, exclusive of Piers, only three, of whom two were discussing politics by the fireside, whilst the third sat apart from them in a deep chair, reading a book. The political talk began to interest Otway; he listened, behind his newspaper. The louder of the disputants was a man of about fifty, dressed like a prosperous merchant; his cheeks were flabby, his chin triple or quadruple, his short neck, always very red, grew crimson as he excited himself. He was talking about the development of markets for British wares, and kept repeating the phrase "trade outlets," as if it had a flavour which he enjoyed. England, he declared, was falling behind in the compet.i.tion for the world's trade.

"It won't do. Mark my word, if we don't show more spirit, we shall be finding ourselves in Queer Street. Look at China, now! I call it a monstrous thing, perfectly monstrous, the way we're neglecting China."

"My dear sir," said the other, a thin, bilious man, with an undecided manner, "we can't force our goods on a country----"

"What! Why, that's exactly what we _can_ do, and ought to do! What we always _have_ done, and always _must_ do, if we're going to hold our own," vociferated he of the crimson neck. "I was speaking of China, if you hadn't interrupted me. What are the Russians doing? Why, making a railway straight to China! And we look on, as if it didn't matter, when the matter is national life or death. Let me give you some figures. I know what I'm talking about. Are you aware that our trade with China amounts to only half a crown a head of the Chinese population? Half a crown! While with little j.a.pan, our trade comes to something like eighteen s.h.i.+llings a head. Let me tell you that the equivalent of that in China would represent about three hundred and sixty millions per annum!"

He rolled out the figures with gusto culminating in rage. His eyes glared; he snorted defiance, turning from his companion to the two strangers whom he saw seated before him.

"I say that it's our duty to force our trade upon China. It's for China's good--can you deny that? A huge country packed with wretched barbarians! Our trade civilises them--can you deny it? It's our duty, as the leading Power of the world! Hundreds of millions of poor miserable barbarians. And"--he shouted--"what else are the Russians, if you come to that? Can _they_ civilise China? A filthy, ignorant nation, frozen into stupidity, and downtrodden by an Autocrat!"

"Well," murmured the diffident objector, "I'm no friend of tyranny; I can't say much for Russia----"

"I should think you couldn't. Who can? A country plunged in the darkness of the Middle Ages! The country of the _knout_! Pah! Who _can_ say anything for Russia?"

Vociferating thus, the champion of civilisation fixed his glare upon Otway, who, having laid down the paper, answered this look of challenge with a smile.

"As you seem to appeal to me," sounded in Piers' voice, which was steady and good-humoured, "I'm bound to say that Russia isn't altogether without good points. You spoke of it, by the bye, as the country of the knout; but the knout, as a matter of fact, was abolished long ago."

"Well, well--yes; yes--one knows all about that," stammered the loud man. "But the country is still ruled in the _spirit_ of the knout. It doesn't affect my argument. Take it broadly, on an ethnological basis."

He expanded his chest, sticking his thumbs into the armholes of his waistcoat. "The Russians are a Slavonic people, I presume?"

"Largely Slav, yes."

"And pray, sir, what have the Slavs done for the world? What do we owe them? What Slavonic name can anyone mention in the history of progress?"

"Two occur to me," replied Piers, in the same quiet tone, "well worthy of a place in the history of intellectual progress. There was a Pole named Kopernik, known to you, no doubt, as Copernicus, who came before Galileo; and there was a Czech named Huss--John Huss--who came before Luther."

The bilious man was smiling. The fourth person present in the room, who sat with his book at some distance, had turned his eyes upon Otway with a look of peculiar interest.

"You've made a special study, I suppose, of this sort of thing," said the fat-faced politician, with a grin which tried to be civil, conveying in truth, the radical English contempt for mere intellectual attainment. "You're a supporter of Russia, I suppose?"

"I have no such pretension. Russia interests me, that's all."

"Come now, would you say that in any single point Russia, modern Russia, as we understand the term, had shown the way in _practical_ advance?"

All were attentive--the silent man with the book seeming particularly so.

"I should say in one rather important point," Piers replied. "Russia was the first country to abolish capital punishment for ordinary crime."

The a.s.sailant showed himself perplexed, incredulous. But this state of mind, lasting only for a moment, gave way to genial bl.u.s.ter.

"Oh, come now! That's a matter of opinion. To let murderers go unhung----"

"As you please. I could mention another interesting fact. Long before England dreamt of the simplest justice for women, it was not an uncommon thing for a Russian peasant who had appropriated money earned by his wife, to be punished with a flogging by the village commune."

"A flogging! Why, there you are!" cried the other, with hoa.r.s.e laughter--"What did I say? If it isn't the knout, it's something equivalent. As if we hadn't proved long ago the demoralising effect of corporal chastis.e.m.e.nt! We should be ashamed, sir, to flog men nowadays in the army or navy. It degrades: we have outgrown it-- No, no, sir, it won't do! I see you have made a special study and you've mentioned very interesting facts; but you must see that they are wide of the mark--painfully wide of the mark--I must be thinking of turning in; have to be up at six, worse luck, to catch a train. Good-night, Mr.

Simmonds! Good-night to you, sir--good-night!"

He bustled away, humming to himself; and, after musing a little, the bilious man also left the room. Piers thought himself alone, but a sound caused him to turn his head; the person whom he had forgotten, the silent reader, had risen and was moving his way. A tall, slender, graceful man, well dressed, aged about thirty. He approached Otway, came in front of him, looked at him with a smile, and spoke.

"Sir, will you permit me to thank you for what you have said in defence of Russia--my country?"

The English was excellent; almost without foreign accent. Piers stood up, and held out his hand, which was cordially grasped. He looked into a face readily recognizable as that of a Little Russian; a rather attractive face, with fine, dreamy eyes and a mouth expressive of quick sensibility; above the good forehead, waving chestnut hair.

"You have travelled in Russia?" pursued the stranger.

"I lived at Odessa for some years, and I have seen something of other parts."

"You speak the language?"

Piers offered proof of this attainment, by replying in a few Russian sentences. His new acquaintance was delighted, again shook hands, and began to talk in his native tongue. They exchanged personal information. The Russian said that his name was Korolevitch; that he had an estate in the Government of Poltava, where he busied himself with farming, but that for two or three months of each year he travelled. Last winter he had spent in the United States; he was now visiting the great English seaports, merely for the interest of the thing. Otway felt how much less impressive was the account he had to give of himself, but his new friend talked with such perfect simplicity, so entirely as a good-humoured man of the world, that any feeling of subordination was impossible.

"Poltava I know pretty well," he said gaily. "I've been more than once at the July fair, buying wool. At Kharkoff too, on the same business."

They conversed for a couple of hours, at first amusing themselves with the rhetoric and arguments of the red-necked man. Korolevitch was a devoted student of poetry, and discovered not without surprise the Englishman's familiarity with that branch of Russian literature. He heard with great interest the few words Otway let fall about his father, who had known so many Russian exiles. In short, they got along together admirably, and, on parting for the night, promised each other to meet again in London some ten days hence.

When he had entered his bedroom, and turned the key in the lock, Piers stood musing over this event. Of a sudden there came into his mind the inexplicable impulse which brought him to this hotel, rather than to that recommended by the Liverpool acquaintance. An odd incident, indeed. It helped a superst.i.tious tendency of Otway's mind, the disposition he had, spite of obstacle and misfortune, to believe that destiny was his friend.

CHAPTER x.x.x

At home again, Piers wrote to Olga, the greater part of the letter being occupied with an account of what had happened at Liverpool. It was not a love-letter, yet differed in tone from those he had hitherto written her; he spoke with impatience of the circ.u.mstances which made it difficult for them to meet, and begged that it might not be long before he saw her again. Olga's reply came quickly; it was frankly intimate, with no suggestion of veiled feeling. Her mother's letters, she said, were in Dr. Derwent's hands. "I told him who had given them to me, and how you obtained them. I doubt whether he will have anything to say to me about them, but that doesn't matter; he knows the truth."

As for their meeting, any Sunday afternoon he would find her at Miss Bonnicastle's, in Great Portland Street. "I wish I were living there again," she added. "My uncle is very kind, but I can't feel at home here, and I hope I shall not stay very long."

So, on the next Sunday, Piers wended his way to Great Portland Street.

Arriving about three o'clock, he found the artist of the posters sitting alone by her fire, legs crossed and cigarette in mouth.

"Ah, Mr. Otway!" she exclaimed, turning her head to see who entered in reply to her cry of "Don't be afraid!" Without rising, she held a hand to him. "I didn't think I should ever see you here again. How are you getting on? Beastly afternoon--come and warm your toes."

The walls were hung with clever brutalities of the usual kind. Piers glanced from them to Miss Bonnicastle, speculating curiously about her.

He had no active dislike for this young woman, and felt a certain respect for her talent, but he thought, as before, how impossible it would be ever to regard her as anything but an abnormality. She was not ill-looking, but seemed to have no single characteristic of her s.e.x which appealed to him.

"What do you think of that?" she asked abruptly, handing him an ill.u.s.trated paper which had lain open on her lap.

The page she indicated was covered with some half-dozen small drawings, exhibiting scenes from a popular cafe in Paris, done with a good deal of vigour, and some skill in the seizing of facial types.

"Your work?" he asked.

"Mine?" she cried scoffingly. "I could no more do that than swim the channel. Look at the name, can't you?"

He found it in a corner.

"Kite? Our friend?"

"That's the man. He's been looking up since he went to Paris. Some things of his in a French paper had a lot of praise; nude figures--queer symbolical stuff, they say, but uncommonly well done. I haven't seen them; in London they'd be called indecent, the man said who was telling me about them. Of course that's rot. He'll be here in a few days, Olga says."