The Hillman Part 41

"Dear John," she begged, "pull yourself together! Remember that Louise is waiting for you. It's Louise you want--not me. Nothing that she has done to-night should make her any the less worthy of you and your love."

He strode away into the farther room. He reappeared in a moment or two, his hair smoothly brushed, his tie newly arranged.

"I'll come, little girl," he promised. "I don't know what I'll say to her, but I'll come. There can't be any harm in that!"

"Of course not," she answered cheerfully. "You're the most terrible goose, John," she added, as they walked down the corridor. "Do, please, lose your tragical air. The whole world is at Louise's feet to-night.

You mustn't let her know how absurdly you have been feeling. To-morrow you will find that every paper in London will be acclaiming her genius."

John squared his shoulders.

"All the same," he declared grimly, "if I could burn the theater and the play, and lock up Graillot for a month, to-night, I'd do it!"

XXV

The days and weeks drifted into months, and John remained in London. His circle of friends and his interests had widened. It was only his relations with Louise which remained still unchanged. Always charming to him, giving him much of her time, favoring him, beyond a doubt, more than any of her admirers, there was yet about her something elusive, something which seemed intended to keep him so far as possible at arm's length.

There was nothing tangible of which he could complain, and this probationary period was of his own suggestion. He bore it grimly, holding his place, whenever it was possible, by her side with dogged persistence. Then one evening there was a knock at his door, and Stephen Strangewey walked in.

After all, this meeting, of which John had often thought, and which sometimes he had dreaded a little, turned out to be a very ordinary affair. Stephen, although he seemed a little taller and gaunter than ever, though he seemed to bring into the perhaps overwarmed atmosphere of John's little sitting room something of the cold austerity of his own domain, had evidently come in no unfriendly spirit. He took both his brother's hands in his and gripped them warmly.

"I can't tell you how glad I am to see you, Stephen!" John declared.

"It has been an effort to me to come," Stephen admitted. "But I had it in my mind, John, that we parted bad friends. I have come to see how things are with you."

"Well enough," John answered evasively. "Sit down."

Stephen held his brother away from him, gripping his shoulders with both hands. He looked steadily into his face.

"Well enough you may be, John," he said, "but your looks tell a different story. There's a look in your eyes already that they all get here, sooner or later."

"Nonsense!" John protested cheerfully. "No one pretends that the life here is quite as healthy as ours, physically, but that isn't everything.

I am a little tired to-day, perhaps. One spends one's time differently up here, you know, and there's a little more call upon the brain, a little less upon the muscles."

"Give me an example," Stephen suggested. "What were you doing last night, for instance?"

John rang the bell for some tea, took his brother's hat and stick from his hand, and installed him in an easy chair.

"I went to a political meeting down in the East End," he replied. "One of the things I am trying to take a little more interest in up here is politics."

"No harm in that, anyway," Stephen admitted. "That all?"

"The meeting was over about eleven," John continued. "After that I came up here, changed my clothes, and went to a dance."

"At that time of night?"

John laughed.

"Why, nothing of that sort ever begins until eleven o'clock," he explained. "I stayed there for about an hour or so, and afterward I went round to a club I belong to, with the Prince of Seyre and some other men. They played bridge, and I watched."

"So that's one of your evenings, is it?" Stephen remarked. "No great harm in such doings--nor much good, that I can see. With the Prince of Seyre, eh?"

"I see him occasionally."

"He is one of your friends now?"

"I suppose so," John admitted, frowning. "Sometimes I think he is, sometimes I am not so sure. At any rate, he has been very kind to me."

"He is by way of being a friend of the young woman herself, isn't he?"

Stephen asked bluntly.

"He has been a friend of Miss Maurel since she first went on the stage,"

John replied. "It is no doubt for her sake that he has been so kind to me."

"And how's the courting getting on?" Stephen demanded, his steely eyes suddenly intent.

"None too well," John confessed.

"Are you still in earnest about it?"

"Absolutely! More than ever!"

Stephen produced his pipe from his pocket, and slowly filled it.

"She is keeping you dangling at her heels, and giving you no sort of answer?"

"Well, I wouldn't put it quite like that," John declared, good-humoredly. "I asked her to marry me as soon as I came up, and we both agreed to wait for a time. You see, her life has been so extraordinarily different from mine. I have only half understood the things which to her are like the air she breathes. She is a great artist, and I scarcely ever leave her without feeling appallingly ignorant. Our life down in c.u.mberland, Stephen, is well enough in its way, but it leaves us outside many of the great things of life."

"That may be true enough, boy," Stephen admitted, blowing out dense volumes of smoke from his pipe; "but are you sure that it's toward those great things that she is pointing you?"

"I am sure of it," John answered earnestly. "I appreciate that in my heart. Let us talk together, Stephen, as we used. I will admit that I have found most of the time up here wearisome. On the other hand, I am beginning to understand that I have been, and still am, very ignorant.

There is so much in the world that one can only learn by experience."

"And what are you willing to pay for the knowledge?" Stephen asked.

"Your health, I suppose, your simple life, your love of the pure ways--all these are to go into the melting-pot?"

"There's no such payment demanded for the things I am thinking of," John a.s.sured his brother. "Take art, for instance: We reach the fringe of it with our books. There are pictures, even here in London, which when you look at them, especially with one who understands, give a new vigor to your understanding, a new resource to living. You become conscious of a new beauty in the world, a new garden, as it were, into which one can wander every day and yet not explore it in a lifetime. I have seen enough, Stephen, to make me want to go to Italy. It's a shameful thing to keep one's brain and taste unemployed!"

"Who takes you to see the pictures?" Stephen demanded.

"Miss Maurel, generally. She understands these things better than any one I have ever talked with."

"Pictures, eh?" Stephen grunted.

"I mentioned pictures as an example," John continued; "but the love of them includes many other things."