CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME 
 OF THE SAGE ENDOWMENT 
 FUND GIVEN IN 1891 BY 
 
 HENRY WILLIAMS SAGE 
 
Cornell University Library 
 PR6011.O65B4 
 
 The benefactor; a tale of a small circle. 
 
 3 1924 012 972 869 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tliis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924012972869 
 
THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
THE BENEFACTOR 
 
 A TALE OF A SMALL CIRCLE 
 
 BY 
 
 FORD MADOX HUEFFER, 
 
 AUTHOR OF "THE CINQUE PORTS," "THE SOUL OF LONDON," ETC. 
 
 " It is no easy thing to drive sheep thro' the traflSc of 
 streets. I have known the most expert drover come to terrible 
 grief," — TAe Drovers' Manual. 
 
 LONDON 
 BROWN, LANGHAM & CO^. 
 MCMV. 
 
TO 
 
 W. M. ROSSETTI, 
 
 AFFECTIONATELY AND WITH 
 
 GRATITUDE, 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PART I. 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 THE JEWELLER AND HIS STONES i 
 
 PART II. 
 
 THE GOLDEN CIRCLE ... . . 103 
 
 PART III. 
 
 THE BLACKENING PEARLS 165 
 
 PART IV. 
 
 THE BANKRUPT JEWELLER ... 259 
 
THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 PART I. 
 
 THE JEWELLER AND HIS STONES, 
 
THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 PART I. 
 
 The Jeweller and His Stones. 
 
 I. 
 
 " Oh, I don't suspect him — What's his name ? 
 Hailes ? — of an eye to your spoons," Mrs. 
 Gregory Moifat said to her husband's brother ; 
 " but I've said a hundred times, George, that 
 I don't see why you should turn your house 
 into an asylum. What claim has he ? " 
 
 George Moffat said : " Everyone has claims 
 of one sort or another," with his large air of 
 peaceable and majestic obstinacy. He had 
 argued the matter too often. 
 
 " Precisely," Mrs. Moffat snapped in her 
 high, convicting voice. " I suppose he writes, 
 or something. You'd do much more good if 
 you did some work of your own " (George 
 made a placid and amused gesture of negation) 
 " instead," Mrs. Moffat finished, " of wasting 
 all your time and most of your money on these 
 creatures. You know they usually turn out 
 rank impostors." 
 
 She cast meaning glances, first at her 
 husband, then at Mrs. Henwick. Her hus- 
 band, Gregory Moffat, beamed through gold- 
 rimmed spectacles. He held his head as the 
 
 B 
 
2 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 very short-sighted do, and seemed on the 
 point of uttering a small joke. He did not. 
 Mrs. Henwick, with the air, not so much of a 
 tiny marchioness as of an enlarged, but still 
 tiny, marquise, pointed a little foot at the 
 brilliant carpet. She might have been point- 
 ing at it as a proof that George Moffat was still 
 the same. His drawing-room was not up-to- 
 date, yet it was still gloriously sumptuous, and, 
 in a grand way, " artistic." George had given 
 a unique price for his carpet to one of his 
 Arts-and-Crafts port6g6s — the two ladies called 
 them parasites, and said they had ruined 
 George. 
 
 Mrs. Moffat had not seen her brother-in-law 
 for some years, but she recognised that he re- 
 mained emphatically the same. He had not 
 aged markedly, though he was beginning to 
 suggest that softening of the outlines that the 
 middle age confers — he was quite turned 
 forty-five. But George was the same, glamour 
 and all. Mrs. Moffat had long since outlived 
 her appreciation of the glamour, but her mean- 
 ing glances to her companions indicated that 
 she very much acknowledged George's same- 
 ness. Everyone, save those who for the 
 moment were sufficiently new to him to lie 
 under his inevitable and tremendous spell, 
 always indicated that George was the same. 
 They indicated it by glances, shrugs or smiles. 
 Yet it can hardly be said that Mrs. Moffat 
 sighed. George's famous show house stood 
 
THE JEWELLER AND HIS STONES. 3 
 
 just outside a little town right down on the ex- 
 treme south coast. Mrs. Moffat, in coming to 
 see him, had taken roads that her chauffeur 
 had desolately intimated would ruin the en- 
 trails of any automobile. She had dragged 
 with her her husband, who didn't express any 
 desire to see his brother, and her friend who had 
 already been mixed up in one of the mysterious 
 broils that seemed always to move in the 
 vicinity of George ; she had made a curve of 
 seventy miles on these disastrous south-eastern 
 roads. She herself did not quite know what 
 she wanted of George. Perhaps it was only a 
 curiosity to see how he was " getting on " — to 
 see whether it might be practicable to use 
 him at last as a " lion." For all she knew, he 
 might have published something lately, or 
 might be going to do so soon. He had begun 
 his career so well, and the articles that he still 
 very occasionally wrote for the more majestic 
 reviews were received, she believed, with 
 much respect. She knew he had some stand- 
 ing of a desirable, rather donnish kind. The 
 trouble was that you couldn't tell just where 
 he stood. 
 
 She had formulated a mere strategetic idea. 
 She was one of those leading ladies in whose 
 great drawing-rooms new religions are born, 
 and new feminine-social-political and generally- 
 in-the-swim movements serve to make transi- 
 tory notorieties. It might be a pleasant 
 feature of her autumn campaign if George, re- 
 
4 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 united to his wife, could be got to figure 
 among her guests. Of his making an impres- 
 sion she had no doubt. 
 
 He certainly overwhelmed anyone who was 
 new to him. And Mrs. Moffat could claim 
 triumphantly that all her acquaintance — 
 except her permanent body-guard of the 
 really good people — were the very newest of 
 the very new. They couldn't possibly have 
 had either time or opportunity to let George's 
 attractions be exercised and lose theiij:^ 
 charm. 
 
 She would even receive George not re-united 
 to Mrs. George. 
 
 There had been nothing piquant about the 
 rupture of her brother-in-law and his wife. 
 Mrs. George had complained of no infidelities. 
 They simply could not get on together. 
 George was said to have acted nobly — to have 
 placed two-thirds of his capital in the hands 
 of his departing wife. Mrs. Moffat knew the 
 truth of this because her husband was Mrs. 
 George Moffat's trustee. George's few remain- 
 ing thousands had continued to pass steadily 
 into the hands of George's innumerable 
 hangers-on ; whilst Mrs. George's " managing" 
 had as steadily added to her share. She led a 
 determined, forceful life, in a large, bleak, 
 white house, in the recesses of a northern 
 moor, among her own people. 
 
 Mrs. Gregory Moffat's world was a matter of 
 a western hill in Town, and a house in a western 
 
f H^ jeWeller and his stones. 5 
 
 county where fourteen gardeners raised things 
 under glass in the season, and ladies, caucus- 
 meetings in the shooting months. She shivered 
 at the thought of Mrs. George's life, though she 
 recognised the eligibility, for those who could 
 
 stand it, of her old-fashioned county familydom. 
 
 * * # 
 
 She looked round George's drawing room, 
 wondering how in the world he managed to 
 exist. The oak beams of the ceiling — George 
 was understood to have paid a fabulous price 
 for them — remained. But the more noticeable 
 of George's treasures had vanished. Sir 
 Graham's famous " Heloise " had departed 
 from above the great open hearth. A number 
 of Grigson-Turner's pictures of lamp-flames 
 still hung out their green-gold frames, but they 
 were such remarkably premature efforts of that 
 master as to be practically valueless in the 
 sale room. Grigson-Turner had been one of 
 the very earliest of the innumerable strugglers 
 George had helped to fame. Before Grigson- 
 Turner had finally and so lamentably dropped 
 poor George, George had — she could do 
 Turner that justice — possessed some really 
 representative third period Turners. But in 
 one of his blazes George had given them to 
 that odious Lamley Smith — to improve Smith's 
 sense of line, George said. That had, as usual, 
 been just before Smith had become famous, 
 and, as usual, just before his disgraceful treat- 
 ment of poor George. Smith's own contribu- 
 
6 THE feENEFACTdR. 
 
 tion — George had paid about four times the 
 market value for it — remained. It was the 
 giant oak book-case with carvings rendering 
 bubbly sea-weed. A motto : " Troth bideth 
 frendeshepe," sprawled large red Gothic letters 
 in a diagonal droop across the glass and serious- 
 ly interfered with the view of the books. It 
 stood in a dim corner of the magnificent room. 
 The white vellum book backs of the poets since 
 become notorious, and the yellow and blacks 
 of the novelists now forgotten nearly three 
 seasons ago, had given place to a number in 
 colours as yet unfamiliar. These represented 
 presentation copies in repayment, mostly of 
 loans from George to the crop of young lions 
 who would roar this year, next year, were just 
 beginning to roar, or might never roar at all. 
 George had the gift for discovering new talent. 
 The pity was that as soon as the men he had 
 helped stood on their own feet they invariably 
 dropped George and generally insulted him. 
 
 It irritated her that George himself had 
 never aped them. " Heaven knows," she 
 thought, " He's nursed so many litters of lions 
 that he might have caught the trick of roar- 
 ing." Yet, for "reception" purposes George's 
 soft, indefinite, yet most undoubted eminence 
 was well worth having. 
 
 George apparently couldn't and wouldn't 
 fade. He was always somebody — the Mr. 
 Moffat. Even if no one in her large drawing 
 room which overlooked twelve miles of park. 
 
THE JEWELLER AND HIS STONES. 7 
 
 chimney-tops, and smoke ; even if no one 
 knew exactly what George had done, they had 
 at least a feeling that the want of knowledge 
 left them inferior. It was true there were the 
 dangers. 
 
 George's rare visits at Campden Hill had 
 been followed by incomprehensible im- 
 broglios. The affairs sometimes involved 
 families, sometimes whole cdteries. On the 
 last occasion her best friend, Mrs. Henwick ; 
 Mrs. Henwick's husband, who normally 
 counted no more than her own ; and Mr. 
 Frewer Hoey, her own particular friend, had, 
 as it were, rushed violently to George's mag- 
 net. They evolved three political pamphlets 
 between them — George correcting the " style " 
 — and then parted with all sorts of mutual 
 injuries. The pamphlets had even shaken 
 some of her own " tail." Yet that George him- 
 self had been to blame she was not prepared to 
 advance ; it might have been coincidence. 
 George always was a magnet ; people gener- 
 ally rushed to him. They as generally 
 quarrelled, but, most frequently, with George 
 himself. 
 
 She accepted George's invitation to stay the 
 night, and sent her husband out to tell the 
 chauffeur that he could put himself up at the 
 inn. Left alone with Mrs. Henwick and 
 George, she returned to the charge. 
 
 "I really should have thought you would 
 have learned, George, not to pick up these 
 
8 THE BENEFACTOR, 
 
 young strays, after all the eye-openers you 
 have had." Her brother-in-law stirred his 
 considerable form uneasily, and Mrs. Moffat 
 noticed that one of his cuffs was very minutely 
 frayed. It reminded her of Mrs. George's 
 despairing : — 
 
 "He would give the shirt off his back. 
 He's incorrigible." . 
 
 " My dear Ella," he got under weigh, 
 "this young man, Hailes, if the matter's really 
 worth discussing, has a quite genuine 
 talent. He's, as the saying is, at a 
 loose end. Well, I'm tiding him over. If I 
 didn't, he'd probably never have a chance." 
 He uttered his slang words with the amused, 
 and as if savouring, air of a man very choice in 
 his language. He could afford to condescend. 
 
 George Moffat excused his incorrigibility by 
 his tradition. He was the elder son of Sir 
 Graham Moffat, the late great portrait painter. 
 Sir Graham had left a highly respectable for- 
 tune to be divided between George and 
 Gregory, and a sister who had quarrelled with 
 George at a very early period. But Sir 
 Graham had known days of extreme want. 
 He had been one of a brilliant young band 
 who had undoubtedly established a sort of 
 tradition — that of giving lifts to youth and 
 brilliance even at the cost of their shirts. It 
 was all recorded in the biography of Sir 
 Graham by George. The traces of loans, 
 
THE JEWELLER AND HIS STONES. 9 
 
 offered more often than repaid, formed a great 
 proportion of Sir Graham's earUer correspond- 
 ence, and George, in struggHng through the 
 mass of his father's letters to get material for 
 his book, had had the great tradition con- 
 stantly before his eyes. And during his 
 childhood George's father had impressed 
 upon him that you must never lose a chance 
 of helping any lame dog over a style, because 
 you never know what he might not become. 
 But whether that alone was responsible for 
 George's generosities, was much debated in 
 his family. His sister Mary said that meddle- 
 someness was at the bottom of his character. 
 
 George had attempted to advise her in her 
 first love affair. She had had a slight quarrel 
 with her suitor — about the right of women to 
 vote — and George had given her hints as to 
 how the man should be managed. The first 
 lover, worn out by George's subtle handling, 
 had accepted an official position on the Gold 
 Coast, and had died there. Unfortunately, he 
 had never had a successor, and Mary had not 
 spoken to her brother for twenty years. 
 
 George inherited a reputable fortune from 
 his father. He wrote an official biography, 
 splendid in appearance and notable for its avoid- 
 ance of delicate topics. The members of the 
 brilliant young band had quarrelled lamentably 
 when they had reached maturity and eminence. 
 Afterwards George found a certain glamour 
 descend upon him, a glamour, if not 
 
10 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 distinct from that of his father, at least 
 partially his own. His verse was considered 
 to give tone to the best of the magazines and 
 reviews of those old-fashioned days ; but he 
 wrote very little, and his writing was so very 
 little an essential part of the man that, as Mrs. 
 Moffat said, hardly any of her own friends 
 knew that he wrote at all. 
 
 Tall, with hair that waved away from his 
 forehead, and in his moments of inspiration 
 appeared almost like the wings on a Hermes' 
 cap ; with a chestnut beard that in the early 
 'eighties was called Vandyke ; with a nose and 
 forehead that might pass as Grecian, yet with 
 an air that one might have mistaken for 
 Southern French, George had married years 
 ago a brilliantly beautiful Scottish girl in the 
 young softness of her strong character. She 
 had appealed to him because the simplicity and 
 directness of her speech and her decision of 
 character made a quaint contrast with her 
 youth and suppleness. Her family accepted 
 him because of the brilliance of his father, 
 who passed his summers on their moors. 
 
 On her adolescent eyes George had pro- 
 duced the effect of a godhead. In his father's 
 studio he had seen all the world sitting for its 
 portrait, and he had splendid anecdotes of the 
 great. He rather disliked the deerstalkers and 
 heather-forest lords, who were his wife's people, 
 and he carried away to the south his bride and 
 her emotions. Long before then he had 
 
The jeweller and His STONES. Il 
 
 selected a unique spot for them to live in. Wick- 
 ham was a town that had dwindled to a village. 
 Glorious panoplies of history seemed there to 
 moulder and to die tenderly, among the wall- 
 flowers on gateways, and ruins that were 
 crumbling and quaint rather than archi- 
 tectural, grand or complete. 
 
 He bought the best house in the place. It 
 was old, battered, rat- ridden, and spacious. It 
 had been a fortified dwelling. It had been a 
 manor house, and, when George bought it, it 
 had sunk into the hands of three families of 
 agricultural labourers. It had been plastered 
 and tarred in places, but its old stones were 
 intact, and, under the whitewash and paper of 
 the inside, George discovered the ancient 
 beams and fireplaces as large as small rooms. 
 It was the house in which later the interview 
 with Mrs, Gregory Moffat had taken place. It 
 stood beyond a strip of park, at the end of a 
 gapped and spacious street of cottages. Its 
 buttresses rose to the roof line, and a back- 
 ground of immense elms sheltered it, fan-like, 
 from the west winds. 
 
 To Mrs. George, for the first few years, the 
 house was a palace of romance. She was ex- 
 cited at finding the old fireplaces and carved 
 corbels, and to discover primitive and ugly 
 frescoes under coatings of wall-paper seemed 
 the most important thing in life. 'She was very 
 young ; she admired looking up to her hus- 
 band ; she came to it out of a dull northern 
 
ti tHE BENEFACTOfe. 
 
 castlej where turnip fields ran almost up to the 
 drawing-room windows, and where her family 
 had been so considerable that there had been 
 no one she could talk to within fifteen miles of 
 moor roads. 
 
 'But gradually she became very religious, 
 and the marriage turned out a lamentable mis- 
 take. George's tolerance made her horribly 
 unhappy, and in the conversations of the young 
 men whom he aided she imagined constantly 
 that she detected loose ideas and impietyJ She 
 grew at last to consider that, in helping them 
 
 _tp write, George was committing a sacrilege. 
 
 ^ She left him after five years that were miser- 
 able to them both.j 
 
 George's large and tolerant figure had, in 
 fact, got on her nerves. She could not stand 
 it. She went back to her own people — the 
 people whose scientific farming carried turnips 
 up to their back windows. Charity she could 
 understand, a whole-hearted district visiting, a 
 bestowing to help the deserving poor of a 
 tithe of one's goods. But it seemed to her 
 that with George it was give, give, give — to the 
 undeserving as to the meritorious, a continual 
 giving of his time, his counsel, his brains, 
 his money, and, above all, of his ex- 
 cuses. He would find pity for an adulteress, 
 she said, and he would give the shirt off his 
 back. He could not give any reason for it, 
 and she could not believe that it did any 
 good. 
 
THE JEWELLER AND HIS STONES. 1 3 
 
 Her brother approached him on the subject 
 of a separate estabUshment, George gave her 
 not her jointure alone, but a considerably larger 
 sum. It left him almost poor, but she ac- 
 cepted the sacrifice because she considered 
 that the money would otherwise dwindle into 
 the hands of his parasites. Her family made 
 efforts to reconcile them, and George wrote to 
 her at times, but as the years went on she grew 
 more and more intolerant. One day George's 
 name headed a petition for the release of a man 
 who had been committed to gaol for militant 
 agnosticism. The petition was successful, and 
 after that she did not answer his letters. 
 
 Gregory Moffat, George's younger brother, 
 was a silent figure. He had no glamour, no 
 physique, and no anecdotes to speak of. His 
 clipped golden whiskers, slightly bald head, 
 and peeringly jocular manner permitted him to 
 attract no attention in his own house. He 
 passed an unobtrusive life between his " busi- 
 ness " and his " study." Extraordinarily noisy 
 " meetings," which, his wife's voice windily 
 dominated, set the tone of his lofty white and 
 ormolu reception rooms, were echoed in 
 reverberations on the tall white and gilt-brass 
 staircases, and eddied in overflows during 
 the day-time round the empty dining-room 
 tables. 
 
 When he came in from business, ambling up 
 to dress, he brushed against groups of ladies 
 
14 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 still debating on the landings, or effaced him- 
 self against the gilt dados as they brushed 
 downwards past him. He beamed upon them 
 through spectacles at the extreme tip of his 
 button nose. Hardly more than two or three of 
 them were even hazily aware of his identity. 
 Half their number would have disputed the as- 
 sertion that a certain Mr. Frewer Hoey was not 
 Mr. Moffat — was not, in fact, the Mr. Moffat, 
 "who, don't you remember, wrote that delightful 
 . . . ." and then a pause of doubt as to what 
 it was he had written. 
 
 Mr. Frewer Hoey ' was seen with her 
 everywhere, a dark person with an extremely 
 rigid spine, acting as her private secretary in 
 her political activities. He was a quite good 
 composer of ballads in his leisure moments. 
 The confusion of identities, inextricable as it 
 was, was excusable. 
 
 There was Mr. Gregory Moffat, who was a 
 lay figure ; there was the Mr. Moffat, who had 
 written something. That was George. There 
 was also the Mrs. Moffat. Had she not all but 
 engineered the famous " Lady's Qualification, 
 &c., Act " through the lower house ? And 
 were not her considerable figure, that remote- 
 ly suggested a gathering of pillows tightly 
 packed, her large hats and gestures, her 
 great mass of golden hair, whose genuine- 
 ness not even her friends questioned, her 
 brilliant cheeks and pronounced eyebrows, and 
 her high voice familiar to everybody, every- 
 
THE JEWELLER AND HIS STONES, I5 
 
 where that anyone went ? It was a pardonable 
 error to mistake the usual companion of Mrs, 
 Moffat for Mr. Moffat, and Mr. Moffat for the 
 Mr. Moffat, One had seen Mr. Frewer Hoey 
 carrying her wraps. He collected paper slips 
 when there was any voting ; at the meetings 
 he stood like a stiff, dark sentry beside her pul- 
 pit ; he directed the fourteen gardeners in the 
 West, 
 
 But Mr. Frewer Hoey had vanished two 
 months before Mrs. Moffat sat in George's 
 drawing room. The noise of the final rupture 
 — or at least Mrs, Moffat's part of it — was said 
 to have penetrated the walls of the adjoining 
 house at Campden Hill. He had been seen 
 carrying the cloak of a tall, swaying, reedy 
 lady, a Mrs. Minver, of Queen's Gate. What 
 Mrs. Moffat felt when she swept past them in 
 her victoria is not recorded. Neither is what 
 Mr. Moffat said. Apparently he had never 
 said anything that mattered since his mar- 
 riage, and no one appears to have known him 
 before that union. 
 
 He had been educated by Sir Graham as a 
 solicitor, and his name appeared with others 
 of weight on a brass door-plate in Bedford 
 Row. His person accorded with the plate, he 
 looked like a family adviser. But he was 
 known to have some connection with a gallery 
 that had lately blazed into being in Bond Street. 
 He had a manner of closely peering at objects 
 of art and vertu whenever he came across them, 
 
1 6 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 and this had got him, even among his wife's 
 friends, the reputation of a connoisseur. It is 
 certain that the enormous aggravation of his 
 income had taken place about the time that 
 " really smart " people discovered the value of 
 Raeburns and Hoppners. 
 
 He, however, never discoverably unbosomed 
 himself. He may or may not have engineered 
 the " boom " in those artists. A marquis, an earl, 
 and several honourables directed the affairs of 
 the Bond Street Gallery, and perhaps it was 
 only a coincidence that they also directed the 
 taste of the public that counted in such matters. 
 Gregory Moffat had perhaps inherited the 
 prodigious flair that the gallery undoubtedly 
 possessed for the discovery of the decorative 
 bric-a-brac that was going to be the rage. It 
 might be going too far to say that the peers in 
 question admitted into the elect Wyndham 
 Chetwynd set only those new people who paid 
 record prices for works of art exhibited in the 
 gallery. That was said, though. Gregory 
 Moffat's income certainly Ijecame considerable, 
 and he was undoubtedly adviser to the Marquis 
 and the Earl. There was, for instance, the 
 affair of a quite hopelessly unpaying journal 
 called the Salon. People knew that it was 
 the property of Mr. Gregory Moffat. It was 
 edited by a queer, hirsute, unpresentable 
 personage, Thwaite, author of the " Love 
 Poems of Sidonia," which were creating a 
 prodigious and deserved flutter. Thwaite was, 
 
THE JEWELLER AND HIS STONES. 17 
 
 however, said to be one of Mrs. Moffat's young 
 men. He had certainly once made an appear- 
 ance in Mrs. Moffat's drawing room. 
 
 Thwaite really was one of George's young 
 men. He had been recommended to Gregory 
 by George when the purchase of the Salon 
 had been made by Gregory a year before. 
 
 Thwaite, in fact, had been and remained 
 George's one ewe-lamb. With a delicately 
 sensitive talent he had passed through an ex- 
 travagantly bad time. When he first came to 
 see George he had looked almost like a tramp. 
 He had been carrying the MS. of the famous 
 " Love Poems," practically his sole possession, 
 in a rather dirty German knapsack. George 
 had played the good Samaritan, and Thwaite 
 had the singular merit of having been the one 
 person who had never in any way kicked over 
 poor George's traces. His week remained 
 divided between the office of the Salon 
 itself and a tiny slice of weather-boarded 
 cottage in George's town. 
 
 As an editor he had shown no signs of 
 being a success. Under his rule the Salon 
 boasted no new " features " — not even a prize 
 competition. Its 2,000 a week circulation 
 continued to dwindle steadily. The more 
 knowing ones, non-readers, wondered a little. 
 On the face of it, here was an organ owned by 
 Gregory and — presumably — run by Mrs. 
 Moffat. Yet it contained no single puff of the 
 Raeburns and Hoppners. Gregory's gallery 
 
 Q 
 
1 8 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 published at odd moments enormously costly 
 works of belles-lettres : the Salon chaffed 
 them quite good humouredly. As for Mrs. 
 Moffat's high-pitched propaganda, it never 
 noticed them at all. What was to be made of 
 such a situation ? 
 
 When the Marquis, on the velvet carpet of 
 the marble staircase in the Bond Street estab- 
 lishment, laid his small gloved hand on 
 Gregory's sleeve, and asked, in his high, deli- 
 cate voice^ " Moffat, what axe you up to with that 
 paper of yours ? " Gregory, with his spectacles 
 on the end of his nose, beamed on the great 
 man's Murillo face, fur-lined coat, and darkly 
 gleaming monocle. His myopic smile might 
 have indicated inaudible chuckling over a 
 humorous thought. But he said nothing. He 
 probably would have said no more had he been 
 interrogated on the subject of Mrs. Moffat, Mr. 
 Frewer Hoey, his brother George, Thwaites, 
 or even Mrs. Henwick. 
 
II. 
 
 Mrs. Henwick herself, the tiny Pompadour 
 Marquise in a Gainsborough hat, never to all 
 intents and purposes did anything but go about 
 with Mrs. Moffat. She had a house of great 
 size, modelled, as far as decorations went, on 
 Mrs. Moffat's, and she had a husband, also 
 modelled on Mrs. Moffat's. He was something 
 professional. No one knew why Mrs. Henwick 
 went about with Mrs. Moffat. She did not 
 speak at the meetings ; she did not even vote. 
 She had seemed content to appear as the com- 
 plement of Mr. Frewer Hoey before the defec- 
 tion of that gentleman. 
 
 Since then she had been, as it were, the sole 
 supporter of a florid coat of arms. She sat 
 about as still as a mouse, and pointed her little 
 shoe at the carpet. 
 
 Beneath the dark beams, before the great 
 stone hearth, in the pleasant light from the ela- 
 borately leaded windows, she sat still, whilst 
 George delivered his overwhelming and only 
 partly comprehensible defence of Mr. Hailes. 
 " He had a real and quite genuine talent ; he 
 was at a loose end; George was tiding him over." 
 
 Mr. Hailes had very obligingly taken a tele- 
 gram for Mrs. Moffat, after that lady had decided 
 
20 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 to stay the night at George's. She had 
 launched into her warning to George the 
 moment the door had closed behind him. She 
 hadn't liked Hailes' looks. 
 
 "Oh, I don't say anything about that," 
 George smiled amiably. " I don't care — I 
 haven't considered whether he's personally 
 very estimable. Perhaps he isn't ; but he's 
 got a talent, and he needs a lift." 
 
 Mr. Hailes re-entered the room, and, with a 
 quiet and efficient air, remarked to Mrs. 
 Moffat— 
 
 ""Ves, it went for sixpence." He raised his 
 hand nonchalantly to the thin and stiff black 
 hair on his crown. " One can generally save 
 a fair percentage at the post if one knows the 
 ropes." He gave the impression of knowing 
 a great many things of all kinds, and of being 
 aware that he could be very, and very quietly, 
 useful to ladies. 
 
 He was thirty-five. One noticed most that 
 his very black eyes — he remotely suggested a 
 Japanese — moved continually from one's own 
 to one's waistcoat buttons, and back again. He 
 wore a navy blue suit, a bark blue tie with 
 small white spots, and a tall, very shiny collar, 
 open at the throat. There was a striking glitter 
 of white teeth under a black moustache when 
 he spoke, which he did — it was his misfortune 
 — with an air of leaning against something and 
 practising the confidence trick. He was tall, 
 square shouldered, and almost painfully thin. 
 
THE JEWELLER AND HIS STONES. 21 
 
 He sat down and pulled at the knees of his 
 trousers. 
 
 George rose and said that, bachelor like, he 
 had " matters to see to," There was a sugges- 
 tion of things brewing as he closed the door 
 on Mr. Hailes, Mrs. Moffat, and on Mrs. Hen- 
 wick, who remained silent. 
 
 George took a walk with his brother. There 
 was between the two a subtle resemblance, 
 like that of two carriage horses, which, though 
 radically different apart, become an excellent 
 pair in double harness. Having taken a look 
 at Gregory's rounded shoulders and short- 
 sighted amble, George, perhaps unconsciously, 
 squared himself, and marched erect and 
 lightly. If a man be as young as he feel, George, 
 who at that moment was distinctly near to fifty, 
 was by many years the younger of the two. 
 
 He walked well ; he swung his stick ; he 
 looked sanguinely and straight at the horizon. 
 The broad brow remained unwrinkled ; the nose, 
 passably Grecian ; the lips, full and fresh. 
 Where his brother's face was a matter of 
 bumps and buttons, his own formed one of 
 those combinations of oval curves that, for 
 obscure reasons, please and subtly stir us to 
 happiness in the contemplation. It gave the 
 effect of a landscape of flowing hill-lines, one 
 melting into another. 
 
 The house still stood, mellow, grey and 
 buttressed, square and strong, at the end of its 
 
22 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 hundred yards or so of park-turf, sheltered by 
 its great elms, and looking through the bars of 
 its high gate right down the main street 
 of the tiny bright town. Its owner had 
 the privilege of looking into the very heart 
 of the little old place, suggestively and 
 friendlily, with an interested glance that was 
 not the cold criticism of a squire. That, 
 precisely, was as George would have 
 had it. 
 
 The few leaves fallen on the short drive 
 served only to emphasise the crisp whiteness, 
 the evenness of its surface. There wasn't a 
 sign of decay there, and, assuredly, there was 
 none in George himself. It was his idea to 
 keep things going " just so " — until they 
 stopped dead. There would be no slackening, 
 no slowing down. If, for instance, he kept no 
 trap, it was because brisk walking kept him in 
 his excellent condition. 
 
 There wasn't another " house " in the little 
 town. It had dwindled to the merest village. 
 There were clap board cottages painted white, 
 others with red tiled gables, others with cream- 
 coloured walls, the remains of an immense 
 church in a wide square, the beaux restes of a 
 mediaeval, grey stone town hall, a grocer's 
 shop, a doctor's, a parsonage. The main road 
 ran through the town above the church square, 
 white and level ; the other broad streets had 
 suggestions of blades of grass here and there 
 among the flints. 
 
THE JEWELLER AND HIS STONES. 23 
 
 " You see," George said, pointing at them, 
 " we can't keep out these * little brothers.' 
 They'll get the upper hand one day," he 
 laughed, gently and gaily. 
 
 Taken as he was, walking through the mel- 
 lowed and gently crumbling buildings of the 
 wide, straight streets, there was not a more 
 hale man in a more charming place. It was 
 the early autumn, towards sun-down. 
 
 Whilst they strolled on the high road, down 
 the perspective of a sloping avenue of immense 
 trees they met a young girl and an elder. 
 George's face became more subtle in line, his 
 step more elastic, his shoulders more squarjs. 
 He paused before them and asked after the 
 health of their father. It was one of his bad 
 days, it appeared. He invited them to dine 
 with himself and the Moffats, refused excuses, 
 and passed on with his brother. Gregory had 
 beamed from a little distance. 
 
 "You shall meet Mr. Thwaites at last," 
 George said over his shoulder to the younger 
 sister. She was a fair, oval-faced slip of a 
 girl, with that loose combing back of fair hair, 
 swing of the shoulders, and slight, rather en- 
 grossed manner of moving the chin forward, 
 that denote one newly come from a girl's 
 college. 
 
 She said, " Oh, I should like to, so much," 
 flushed a little,and passed on with her elder sister. 
 
 " A singular set of circumstances about that 
 family," George said, rejoining his brother. 
 
24 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 Gregory said nothing. " The father was Vicar 
 of Eastfield, about ten miles to the west. He 
 had to resign. The mother had died about a 
 year before." Gregory turned his spectacles 
 slightly towards George. "The father," 
 George continued — (" The name's Brede, a 
 good name about here ") — " got it into his head 
 that he had killed the mother by his im- 
 patience. An effect of grief, you know. A 
 magnificent figure of a man, heavy, ponderous, 
 like a sort of Titan. It's an awful spectacle, 
 one of his fits of depression. The young girl's 
 in love with Thwaite, your editor of the 
 Salon." 
 
 Gregory turned his attention to a branch that, 
 prematurely autumned, made a spray of vivid 
 yellow against a mass of green. Afterwards he 
 said : 
 
 " I imagine you have been consoling them." 
 
 George made a gentle gesture of depreca- 
 tion. 
 
 " She's had a bad time," he said. " They all 
 have." Somewhat later he added : 
 
 " One has to give a lift to people like that." 
 
 Gregory asked : 
 
 " Why in the world ? " 
 
 " Dora, the younger Miss Brede," George 
 went on, " you understand, is not in love with 
 Thwaite personally. It's as author of the 
 ' Love Poems of Sidonia.' I've never been 
 able to bring them together. I shall to-night, 
 though, if I can catch Thwaite." 
 
THE JEWELLER AND HIS STONES. 25 
 
 They were both silent for a little while. 
 
 " Yes, a very singular family," George recom- 
 menced. " Very lovable and essentially con- 
 scientious. That's their note. Extraordinarily 
 conscientious." He pointed his stick over the 
 palings. " I've had some elms cut down there." 
 
 " Essentially — morbidly that, in the father," 
 he began again, meditatively. " The mother 
 left all her money to Clara, the elder — did you 
 notice her ? — with a sort of proviso that she 
 was to apply it as she thought fit, for the benefit 
 of her sisters." 
 
 Gregory uttered an " um " of disapprobation. 
 
 " Why ? Is it unusual ? " George asked. 
 
 Gregory said grimly : " That sort of thing's 
 the fortune of a certain type of legal practi- 
 tioner," 
 
 " Oh, there hasn't been any kind of quarrel- 
 ling,' George retorted, amusedly, " in the 
 Brede family. And only Dora remains to be 
 provided for." 
 
 Gregory asked if that were the exact wording 
 of the will. 
 
 Gregory laughed gaily. 
 
 " Oh, it won't come into any Court. Dora 
 worships her sister, and if Thwaite did marry 
 her, he'd be the last person in the world to 
 cause any sort of trouble." 
 
 Gregory said, " Um." They went under an 
 old archway into the open country. It fell dusk, 
 
 A heavy silence descended upon the brothers. 
 Mrs. Moffat had tired George. In his brother's 
 
26 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 society he had the blissful feeling that there 
 was no need for conversation, and because 
 that gave him a great feeling of ease, he was 
 fond of his brother. Suddenly Gregory said : 
 
 " I don't like Hailes." 
 
 George ground his stick violently into the 
 stony road, and then took up the defence of 
 his last proteg6. 
 
 Hailes, it appeared, had hitherto wasted his 
 great gifts as editor of an Author's Directory. 
 George drew a moving picture of the man : navy 
 blue suit, spotless . collar, white spotted bow 
 and cuffs protected by sheaths of paper, bent 
 all day over an office desk covered with slips 
 recording dates of birth, of marriage, clubs, 
 and books written during the current year by 
 thousands of authors. These little slips Hailes 
 had cut out and pasted on to sheets with 
 emendations and additions for the printer. It 
 obviously was a duty to give him a lift. He 
 was wasting his youth. 
 
 " He came to see me," George said, " inci- 
 dentally because I had neglected to fill up one of 
 his atrocious slips." George never had filled up 
 slips. On his first visit Hailes had confidingly, 
 but with a proper shyness, shown George 
 little things of his own, small anecdotes in the 
 style of an author lately deceased. They were 
 written on sheets of grey paper that had a red 
 border-line. 
 
 " They were derivative, of course," George 
 admitted, "but the real man only needed 
 
THE JEWELLER AND HIS STONES. 27 
 
 bringing out. Where he did himself justice 
 was in his extraordinary aptness of illustration 
 — of figurative speaking." 
 
 Gregory grunted slightly once more. 
 
 " I remember," George went on, " speaking 
 
 of 's books " (he named an author, whose 
 
 covers were millions of red spots on two 
 continents). " He said the array reminded him 
 of a Saturday night whelk-stall with the 
 kerosene lamps flaring." 
 
 Gregory was in labour with a remark : 
 
 " A poor return for a quarter's board and 
 lodgings," it came at last. 
 
 " Oh, but there were others," George 
 answered, " in plenty." 
 
 " He's caught the trick," Gregory drove 
 home. " It's like a rather inferior remark of 
 your own." 
 
 George had a moment of discouragement. 
 He really had housed Hailes for the last three 
 months. During that time a brilliant novel 
 was officially supposed to be in the writing. 
 And there was no reason why, in the course of 
 many midnight torrents of words, Hailes should 
 not have caught George's trick. George dis- 
 quietedly understood that. Indeed, he was not 
 absolutely certain that Hailes had not caught 
 the whelk-stall simile itself. He had had a 
 hazy notion of having uttered something like 
 it two nights before Hailes had brought it out. 
 But, even to himself, he had credited it loyally 
 to his young friend. 
 
28 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 "Anyhow, the man's a bit of a genius," he 
 maintained. 
 
 " More than a bit of a cur," Gregory stood 
 it out. 
 
 " He didn't do it," George said, hotly. " It 
 was I who advised him to give the thing up 
 because he was wasting himself." 
 
 The story went that Hailes, with the idea of 
 confirming his position in the firm of Hills, the 
 owner of the Author's Directory, had more 
 pressingly ingratiated himself with his pro- 
 prietor's wife than his proprietor liked. " I tell 
 you it was by my advice," George said. "He 
 resigned of his own accord." 
 
 Gregory said, " Um." 
 
 A little, later they met Thwaite, the author of 
 " The Love Poems of Sidonia," and the editor 
 of Gregory Moffat's journal, the Salon. 
 
 Gregory suddenly, and to George's surprise, 
 shot at Thwaite the question : 
 
 " Been doing anything original ? " 
 
 Thwaite answered : 
 
 " Why, no ; I'm kept too busy." 
 
 " For me ? " Gregory asked. " Um." 
 
 George pressed Thwaite to come to dinner 
 with them all. Thwaite evaded him— he had 
 work, he would have to be at the office next 
 day by noon. He had no dress clothes. 
 
 George said that no one had. 
 
 Thwaite laughed : " It's quite impossible " 
 and George mentioned Dora Brede. 
 
THE JEWELLER AND HIS STONES. 29 
 
 *' Oh, dear," Thwaite said. 
 
 George explained hastily : 
 
 " The young lady admires your poems. And 
 you know that there is nothing so good for a 
 talent as admiration. Besides, a little human 
 contact of just the right sort would do you all 
 sorts of good. . . . Isn't it so, Gregory ? " 
 
 George was anxious that his friend should 
 make a good impression on Gregory, who, after 
 all, was his employer. He waved his stick 
 round the outline of Thwaite, and said, with 
 affectionate banter : 
 
 " I seem to see under all this something 
 quite smooth and polished. It's in his work, 
 it's in all his thoughts and all his expressions 
 .... delicacy." 
 
 Gregory peered at Thwaite, but did not 
 commit himself. Seen in the half light of the 
 sunken lane at sunset, Thwaite bore out George's 
 description. He exaggerated it. The knotted 
 stick that he carried was like a club ; his boots 
 covered and seemed to crush a quite un- 
 necessary amount of ground. His hair and 
 beard were going grey, and you might have 
 thought the greyness a purposed exaggeration. 
 It was as if he set himself the task of look- 
 ing like a tramp. His voice and mannerisms 
 were soft. 
 
 George turned upon Thwaite : 
 
 " You do want a little contact with ordinary 
 people, regular meals, that order of thing. 
 Supposing that you were the best product of 
 
30 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 your type of life, it wouldn't harm that to come 
 in contact with the best products of other 
 types of humanity," 
 
 He chuckled. A big man as he walked in 
 the dusk between the two smaller, emphasising 
 his remarks with flourishes of his stick, George 
 had the air of some teacher of classic philo- 
 sophy strolling between two disciples. 
 
 " Don't you see, my dear fellow," he apos- 
 trophised Thwaite, " you've knocked about, 
 you've starved ; you've lived with gipsies, and 
 been a journeyman carpenter ; you've existed 
 on bread and raisins for six months in Tus- 
 cany — He lived for six months on four pounds, 
 Gregory, in peasants' huts — You've done all 
 sorts of out-of-the-way and irresponsible 
 things. Do me a favour now. . . ." 
 
 " Oh, there's no standing against you,' 
 Thwaite said, good humouredly. " Let me at 
 least post these reviews. But I don't see, and 
 I can't see, why you should put yourself out 
 for me." 
 
 " Don't you see that someone must, as it 
 were, look after the dress clothes of you 
 poets .■* " George bantered. 
 
 He continued, out of earshot, to Gregory : 
 
 " Something good must result from bringing 
 nice people in contact." 
 
 "Haven't you grown out of that pathetic 
 illusion ? " Gregory answered. 
 
III. 
 
 At the resulting dinner, George wore a white 
 waistcoat and a black velvet coat. Doing the 
 honours, he lived up to his attire ; shone upon 
 by wax candles in serpentine silver branches, 
 he radiated light himself. 
 
 Nothing pleased him better than to make a 
 number of very ill-assorted people meet and 
 appreciate each other. It was as if he rejoiced 
 in performing a fine conjuring trick. 
 
 Mrs. Moffat had certainly reconciled herself 
 to Hailes. They sat side by side ; Hailes was 
 enlightening her as to the precise significance 
 of St. Thomas Aquinas, who had somehow 
 turned up in the conversation. Hailes was 
 extravagantly many-sided. He could answer 
 questions upon subjects so unrelated as to be 
 in the nature of conundrums — or he gave that 
 effect. 
 
 There was in George's sister-in-law a great 
 rawness in a sensitive part — a rawness that 
 had persisted unhealed from the date of 
 the defection of Mr. Frewer Hoey. There 
 was also a hatred for that gentleman. 
 It was this hatred which had caused her 
 diatribes against Hailes at the first view. 
 Hailes was physically so like Frewer Hoey that 
 
32 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 he had given her a shock. There was even in 
 both a singular occasional jerk backwards of 
 the head that resembled nothing so much as 
 the action of a pigeon afflicted with a certain 
 fidgetting complaint. And, in both, there were 
 the darkness, the air of discreetness, the vivid 
 flash of white teeth under a black moustache. 
 All these things were pronounced in Hailes, 
 but Hailes had not Mr. Frewer Hoey's almost 
 alarmingly distinct spot, like a tonsure, in the 
 jetty black of his cranium. Hoey had been 
 useful ; but Hailes, in two minutes, could give 
 a lady the idea that, socially speaking, he was 
 one of those gentlemen who, in great em- 
 poriums, glide forward and assure us that they 
 have in stock every article that any self- 
 respecting person could desire. Undoubtedly 
 there is a price to pay. 
 
 Vaguely and titillatingly feeling that he was 
 dangerous, the large lady with her tawny 
 mane, her accentuatedly flashing eyes, her 
 accentuatedly brilliant cheeks, succumbed to a 
 craving that Hoey's departure had left in her. 
 Mrs. Henwick, the silent attendant at so many 
 of the seances, had been silent at one more. 
 She doubtless was by this time aware of what 
 she was " in for." 
 
 Hailes, it had appeared, could drive motor 
 cars of all builds and all forms of propulsion. 
 It was not so much matter for wonder that one 
 small head could carry all he knew, as that he 
 should have contrived to pick up so much 
 
THE JEWELLER AND HIS STONES. 33 
 
 whilst ostensibly editing an Author's Directory. 
 It was one of Hfe's httle puzzles, Mrs. Moffat's 
 chauffeur, a blue-in-the-faced, black spectacled 
 person, like a monkey from cross-channel, had 
 been more than usually, and much more than 
 bearably, insolent during the run from London. 
 With an astonishing swiftness it became 
 arranged that the driver was to be sent, with a 
 flea in his ear, back to town. Mr. Hailes was 
 to take his place and whirl the car the rest of 
 the way to the house with the fourteen 
 gardeners. Thus, whilst Mr. Moffat and 
 George were still strolling, Mrs. Moffat, squired 
 by Mr. Hailes, had walked swiftly across the 
 church square to the Inn where the lady in a 
 grandly negligent manner had packed off the 
 
 , driver, 
 
 ^ " You'll have to pay the insolent creature, I 
 suppose," she sent in her high voice across the 
 dining table to her husband. Gregory jerked 
 his head rather more abruptly than usual in 
 her direction. But he said nothing. 
 
 The other feasters — it was a feast — Mrs. 
 Moffat quite naively ignored. There were her 
 husband and Mrs. Henwick ; there was 
 George shedding a glamour that surely didn't 
 matter ; there was Thwaite, whom she detested 
 — in his capacity of driver of her journal he 
 was quite as insolent a creature as the chauffeur 
 she had just^dismissed. 
 
 There were also the two Brede girls. As far 
 as she was concerned they didn't exist, and 
 
 D 
 
34 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 certainly didn't matter any more than thorough- 
 bred mares, cocker-spaniels, shorthorns, or 
 anything else thoroughbred. They had blue 
 eyes that looked at you ; they gave a certain 
 impression of being clean-run, healthy, quite 
 English, and nothing , in particular. They 
 certainly would never set the Thames on fire 
 for any particular set, or fringe of a set. 
 
 For George, they undoubtedly existed as 
 much as twin stalks of corn ; straight, tall, a pale 
 golden. And, given the right strength of wind, 
 the right sky, the right texture of clod under- 
 foot, stalks of corn may be precious enough. 
 One goes, as he put it, to them for the daily 
 bread one prays for daily, for breakfast, dinner, 
 and tea ; they are the products of air, of rain, 
 of sun and the earth — the one thing one can- 
 not dispense with when all the feasting is over 
 and done. 
 
 Dora, the younger sister, with her round 
 young face a little flushed and with delighted 
 blue eyes, leaned a little forward listening to 
 Thwaite, who, across the table, was talking 
 about "the Abruzzi" to Mrs, Henwick and 
 Gregory Moffat. 
 
 Thwaite, if he had felt any shyness, had 
 lived it down. Dora — it was wonderful to 
 George in what a degree she had the inestim- 
 able gift of youth— listened with rapt softness. 
 
 The Abruzzi are mountains in the king- 
 dom of Naples, and certainly as Thwaite 
 
THE JEWELLER AND HIS STONES. 35 
 
 talked of them they seemed to get an 
 astonishing intimacy with an "atmosphere" 
 of goat-skins, tanned shoulders and faces, vine- 
 garlands and sandal-thongs. 
 
 George had a moment's doubt whether 
 Thwaite were not doing it too well. He him- 
 self would have called for a little more of a 
 contrast, a little less of the poet. But he 
 reflected that Thwaite's personal appear- 
 ance probably gave Dora a sufficiency of 
 shock. It would be the occasion for saying 
 that " when you get accustomed to him," that, 
 like a little initial check, is the almost neces- 
 sary opening to a rapid run down-hill into a 
 "blessed and inevitable intimacy. He let the 
 matter alone, and devoted himself to the elder 
 sister. 
 
 Between Dora and herself ran a quite un- 
 rememberable string of Christian names — 
 Harry, who was in Singapore ; Willie, who was 
 going out to join him ; Marian, in Yorkshire, 
 with two children ; and Kate, married to an 
 excellent young man, who was planting 
 oranges in California. There was also a Rose 
 who was dead. Clara Brede had always struck 
 him as being " like her sister." There were 
 two of them, but, as far as type went, he had 
 noted no more than one. There were features 
 and lines on Clara's face, where, in her sister's, 
 there was only a soft roundness. She might 
 have been thirty ; she might have been less or 
 more. But she, too, and in her way, had her 
 
36 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 gift of 'youth — of not having lived. He 
 knew that, for many years, she had been bound 
 hand and foot attendant on a hopelessly, and 
 very querulously, invalid mother. And he was 
 prepared to read resignation in her face. 
 
 But, rather suddenly, it seemed to him that 
 she had been asleep for a long time — as if she 
 must have endlessly waited on her mother in 
 a dream. He began to talk to her very par- 
 ticularly, because, he thought, she must have 
 had great griefs, a sad life. He exerted him- 
 self to give her, as far as he could, a happy 
 half- hour of forgetfulness. He had been talk- 
 ing about Thomas Aquinas, having caught 
 the name from Hailes. She said, with con- 
 viction : 
 
 " Oh, one can't exist at the bottom of a sand- 
 pit all one's life. Everyone has to live sooner 
 or later. I'm convinced of it." 
 
 George asked : 
 
 " And Fra Angelico ? " 
 
 She answered : 
 
 " Oh, either they have lived already, your 
 monks. Or, if they are caught quite young, 
 they'll — I don't mean kick up their heels ; it 
 probably never gets to the surface. But in 
 their minds." 
 
 Her intonation was clear cut, and, in a way, 
 determined. You could tell that she had once 
 sat under professors and held arguments. No 
 doubt she had had aspirations before the sick 
 room had swallowed her. It startled George ; 
 
TrtE JEWELLER AND HIS STOfJES. 37 
 
 it made him wonder in what particular still 
 watches of her invaHd's nights she had 
 thought her thoughts, but it relieved him and 
 released his tongue. He had been holding 
 himself down to platitudes out of deference 
 for what he had imagined to be a good girl 
 wanting in comprehension. After that he let 
 himself go. As she listened, she reminded 
 him of her sister listening to Thwaite. There 
 was the same expression. 
 
 He accepted it as a tribute to the excellence 
 of his dinner, and it pleased him. He had all 
 sorts of theories as to dining, and when he took 
 the trouble he drilled his house-keeper with a 
 vigilance that ladies, ranging from the precisest 
 of old maids to Mrs- Moffat herself, had envied. 
 It was a matter of the just meat inciting to the 
 just wine, and both to a flow of joyful speech, 
 with flowers here and there. 
 
 The door opened, and a tremendous, 
 spectacled head, with a vast black beard, glared 
 suddenly at them all. It was Mr. Brede, the 
 father. His big, jarring voice, said gloomily, 
 but without a touch of embarrassment : 
 
 " Oh, I didn't know." 
 
 " I thought you were too ill to come," 
 George said ; " we'll make room," 
 
 The big voice answered, " No." 
 
 The head withdrew, and George hurried 
 anxiously after it. The Reverend Mr. Brede, 
 in the dim hall, appeared a gigantic figure. 
 
38 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 He said suddenly, in his deep voice : 
 
 " It's no good ; I shall cut my throat," He 
 raised his great hands in a gesture of despair, 
 and his shadow flitted away into the recesses 
 of the stone hall, and seemed to run swiftly 
 to vanish in the darkness of the black, carved 
 staircase. 
 
 The interview was like a dash of cold water 
 to George. It was a case of aggravated 
 neurotics ; maybe it overstepped the bounds 
 of sanity. In blowing up a stable-boy with his 
 tremendous voice, Mr. Brede had seriously 
 alarmed his wife. She had been dying of a 
 nervous complaint. Perhaps he had not ac- 
 celerated her death ; he, on the other hand, 
 was certain that he had. 
 
 George had argued the point with him end- 
 lessly, in the very early mornings, for hours of 
 the daytime, for almost whole nights. He had 
 wrestled in spirit when Mr, Brede was listlessly 
 hopeless ; when he was savagely contemptu- 
 ous; when, as if hunted by At6, he raved 
 with his immense arms waving over his head. 
 
 George went to work again. He had uttered 
 three words when Mr. Brede, violently contort- 
 ing his black bulk, exclaimed : 
 
 " The brand of Cain is upon me." 
 
 Clara Brede came out of the brilliant room 
 and became a dim figure beside them. She 
 said suddenly : 
 
 " Father, are we never to have a moment's 
 pleasure ? " 
 
THE JEWELLER AND HIS STONES. 39 
 
 Her voice had a great hardness, and Mr, 
 Brede became instantly like a dog that has 
 very often been whipped. The change was 
 almost extravagant. 
 
 " Mr. Moffat is so good," she said, " but 
 you . . ." 
 
 Mr. Brede, with the gait of an immense 
 Newfoundland, made off for the front door. 
 
 " I shall have to go with him," she said, 
 grudgingly enough ; " don't come.'' 
 
 George followed her. 
 
 There was, outside, the pearly light of a 
 shrouded moon, and they walked under lighted 
 cottage windows that, with shadows of lattice 
 and flower-pots, looked exactly like a stage set 
 for domestic drama. She said ; 
 
 " He'll never do anything. You ought not 
 to fear it." 
 
 Brede, muffling his great voice in his great 
 beard, said bitterly : 
 
 " No one understands me ; no one cares." 
 When he reached his cottage he threw the 
 garden gate violently back, and went obscurely 
 crashing into a dark bit of shrubbery. 
 
 " What wiU he do ? " George asked. 
 
 She answered : 
 
 " I think he wiU go to bed. When he finds 
 he can't worry you." She paused. A moment 
 after she said: "What do you do it all for ? 
 No one ever thanks you." 
 
 Mr. Brede in the shrubbery was tearing 
 at the twigs like a sinister and gigantic 
 
40 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 ape. Quite suddenly he loomed out upon 
 them. 
 
 " What I wanted to tell you," his deep and 
 muffled voice boomed at George, " is that 
 Dora can never marry. I forbid it." He had 
 spoken with passionate fatalism. " Never." 
 He hastened back to the darkness. 
 
 Clara Brede's head drooped dispiritedly. 
 To George's " What does he mean ? " she 
 answered' : 
 
 " I think, because we are his children, he 
 thinks we shall inherit madness." 
 
 George, remotely shocked, interrupted her : 
 
 " Oh, I will talk him out of that idea." He 
 felt intensely concerned for her. " You 
 mustn't let it worry you," he added, comfort- 
 ingly. "He will be better soon. I will talk to him." 
 
 She looked him very straight in the eyes. 
 In the light of the moon that had just un- 
 veiled, her face was pale, strongly defined, 
 full of emotions. It was as if he were 
 looking at it through deep water that quivered 
 slightly. 
 
 " You are such a good man," she said. 
 
 "Oh, I will make it all right," George 
 repeated. He was thinking of the intense sad- 
 ness of her position. He must, of course, 
 make it all right. He must, and he felt that 
 he could, by sheer force of words, bring Mr. 
 Brede back to reason. 
 
 Going back through the moonlight, walking 
 quite slowly and looking at his shadow, George 
 
THE JEWELLER AND HIS STONES, 41 
 
 wondered vaguely whether he really were 
 " such a good man, and why he did it all." 
 He reached no solution. At the corner of the 
 churchyard there was a black knot of lounging 
 villagers. When he had passed them a boy's 
 hoarse voice called : 
 
 " There goes old ' That's what you want.' " 
 It was George's nickname in the village, con- 
 ferred upon him in return for an infinite 
 amount of material assistance, and an almost 
 more boundless quantity of advice. " A dozen 
 of port," or " a few books to read," or " a 
 larger window in the bedroom, that's what 
 you want," distinguished so many of his chats 
 with the villagers. 
 
 The harsh " Old That's what you want," 
 and the soft, bitter " No one ever thanks you," 
 vibrated in his ears together as he went the 
 rest of his way. 
 
 In the drawing room Hailes was relating to 
 Mrs. Moffat and Mrs. Henwick some engross- 
 ing anecdotes of Lady Carrie Jones. Thwaite 
 and Dora Brede, with their heads close to- 
 gether, were talking beside the great fire-place. 
 Gregory, his hands beneath his coat tails, was 
 poking his spectacles up against the glass of 
 one of Grigson-Turner's pictures of lamp 
 flames. He was beamingly making the tour 
 of the room. It was said that he had once dis- 
 covered an authentic Wilkie under the daub- 
 ings of a later student by recognising a hair 
 that, having come out of one of the peculiar 
 
42 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 brushes Wilkie used, had showed through the 
 later coat of paint. That is probably un- 
 true. 
 
 But it is indubitable that no one had missed 
 George. 
 
IV. 
 
 Next morning they all flew away as quickly 
 and completely as a puff of sparrows from a 
 roadway. The recalcitrant chauffeur was sup- 
 posed to have maliciously " deranged the 
 entrails " of the imposing automobile, but its 
 repair was only a matter of a few minutes to 
 Hailes. The car, like an immense phenomenal 
 black-beetle, spat and gurgled spasmodically 
 in front of George's high stone steps, sur- 
 rounded by a small horseshoe of children in 
 pink pinafores, hoops, and with fingers in 
 their mouths, Hailes, who had an engrossed 
 air, ran round it with spanners, and even 
 disappeared under it. Mrs. Moffat sat 
 opulently on the front seat, the bright wind 
 stirring the black cock's feathers of her great 
 drooping hat. Her husband and Mrs, Hen- 
 wick had strolled forward along the western 
 road. 
 
 After final jerks of misgiving, the motive 
 power settled to its sustained buzz. Hailes re- 
 appeared, admirably calm, with no perceptible 
 flush on his paUid, slightly Japanese face, and 
 no visible elation. He jerked his head back 
 to its rigid erectness, brushed some dust off 
 the knees of his navy blue trousers, adjusted 
 
44 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 his cap, and began to put the spanners back 
 into their box. He hadn't even soiled his 
 hands, which were hke paUid alabaster fins. 
 George came down the steps and said to 
 him : 
 
 "I've been thinking over those passages in 
 your chapter four. Mind you, I think they 
 want keying down — bringing in tone." He 
 was talking of the novel he had for so long 
 been helping Hailes to write. " Because it 
 seems to me that if you get the opening 
 chapters so strong — as they undoubtedly are — 
 you won't have anything left for the end . . 
 in the way of effect." 
 
 Hailes was tired of his novel, and still more 
 tired of George's ceaseless incitements to all 
 sorts of technical excellencies. He answered : 
 "Yes," with the air of one engrossed with 
 more important things. He slammed the lid 
 of the spanner box, cast a watchful eye along 
 the side of the car, and then made for his seat. 
 "I'll think about it," he added, climbing in 
 beside Mrs. Moffat. " Good-bye." 
 
 The particular noise of the motor changed 
 to another equally particular ; it started spas- 
 modically ; turned in short compass, whizzed 
 violently, and went off. George had expected 
 some sort of farewell moment. Mrs. Moffat 
 had waved a plump, gloved hand ; her light- 
 coloured eyes, brilliantly relieved, and her 
 brilliantly relieved, high-coloured cheeks had 
 flashed for a moment at George. Her high 
 
THE JEWELLER AND HIS STONES. 45 
 
 voice had pealed out : " Good-bye, George, 
 don't fall in love with . . ." The rest was 
 lost in the clatter, dust and east wind. 
 
 Hailes' rigid head had been devoted to his 
 steering wheel. The ostler was grinning as he 
 began to lout back towards the inn. 
 
 George rather groaned, turning into his 
 empty house. For Hailes' defection he might 
 have been prepared ; for his sister-in-law's 
 vulgarity, too. Hailes had simply dropped 
 him and the novel along with any associations ; 
 deference, even politeness, he might have been 
 expected to show to a distinguished and surely 
 benevolent figure. He had behaved like any 
 servant in changing places. George could see 
 that his own considerable personality must 
 have oppressed Hailes ; Hailes had merely sub- 
 mitted to him in order to obtain board and 
 lodging, and, perhaps, " introductions." Now 
 he had got an introduction. But for the mo- 
 ment he could not see exactly where Hailes 
 expected to get to. 
 
 There were undoubtedly loose ends of rope 
 hanging about the triumphal car of the 
 Gregory Moffat's, and Hailes, having taken 
 hold of one, would probably see to it that 
 he got himself dragged some way along the 
 road. 
 
 George, of course, did not sigh, but his 
 gentle, large personality acknowledged, by a 
 general slackening of fibre, the slap in the face. 
 
46 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 I suppose he was really always in quest of the 
 perfect disciple. It was not going to be Hailes. 
 Indeed, George, except in his most romantic 
 moments, had hardly expected it to be. But 
 time was getting on, the sands running out, 
 the bank balance, too. 
 
 And the quest was incredibly difficult. You 
 have naturally to differentiate between material 
 personality and artistic capacity — I mean, to 
 allow for a man who will rob a bed-ridden 
 mother whilst he is writing a supreme Ode to 
 the Infinite. George allowed for this. Hailes, 
 from his very first appearance with a slip of the 
 Author's Directory in his hand, had revealed 
 himself as having precisely that morale of 
 the domestic servant, that he had so ingenuously 
 displayed at the parting. He had kicked 
 down George's ladder after climbing into Mrs. 
 Moffat's motor car. That was the sort of 
 thing George had expected from the first. 
 But George had passed all that over — for 
 the sake of the novel he was going to drill 
 Hailes into writing. As he had put it to Mrs. 
 Moffat : he didn't care, he hadn't considered 
 whether Hailes were personally estimable. He 
 had thought he had talent ; he knew he 
 " wanted a lift." Now Hailes had dropped the 
 novel as well ; probably for the sake of some- 
 thing Mrs. Moffat had to give, 
 
 George turned into his drawing room. In 
 the far, dim corner, his house-keeper, a for- 
 midable collection of alpaca, grey curls, and 
 
THE JEWELLER AND HIS STONES. 47 
 
 remotely contemptuous nose, was impatiently 
 dusting the books in the portentous book-case. 
 The remaining volumes leaned one against the 
 other in place of standing erect. 
 
 " Mr. Hailes, Sir," she said, pausing in run- 
 ning a purple duster over the gilt top of a book 
 that had leather sides and green ribbon bows, 
 " took four of these big books, and those two 
 water colours from beside the clock." 
 
 George said : " Mr. Hailes ? " mildly. 
 
 " He said you told him to take them," the 
 house-keeper said. " He packed them in the 
 Venice box from the blue bedroom." 
 
 George said : " Oh." 
 
 " They're all addressed to go to Shaftesbury 
 Avenue," Mrs. McNutt added. 
 
 George's face fell a little. It was not the 
 loss of the books, the water - colours 
 and the Venice box, so much as the 
 mention of Shaftesbury Avenue. Undoubt- 
 edly he had said about the books and the 
 pictures, " You can have them if you like," to 
 Hailes at a moment of midnight expansion. 
 And he could picture Hailes, with the hidden 
 dislike that servant has to master, going about 
 the house picking up these perquisites. That, 
 of course, was in the day's journey. 
 
 But he was reminded of another moment — 
 of equal expansion, but more serious in effect. 
 ... A friend of Hailes, a young Mr. Spendle, 
 lately of the Lambeth School of Art, had 
 started along with Hailes a press which was 
 
^8 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 to turn out editions of Renaissance de luxe in 
 a new and particularly decorative type, the 
 joint design of Hailes and Spendle, They 
 had intensely and very badly wanted a couple 
 of thousand. 
 
 Hailes had brought down Spendle, a young 
 man with very low collars and a vivid red tie. 
 He had wild spectacles that did not much 
 mitigate a cast in his agate blue eyes, and wild 
 pale hair that was not mitigated at all. He 
 had talked with tremendous vivacity, and an 
 obviously honest enthusiasm. It was so honest 
 and infectious that George had ultimately con- 
 sented to find the couple of thousand. 
 
 He didn't do it without a twinge. But he 
 wanted to help them. Spendle appealed to 
 him. Hailes, pulling at his thin black mous- 
 tache, said : 
 
 " Of course, you needn't find the money at 
 once, Probably not at all." He eyed George 
 coolly, and with a certain caution. " I know 
 people who will give us all the credit we shall 
 need, if they understand you're backing us ! '' 
 
 Spendle burst in : " After all, look what 
 jolly capital letters we've got." 
 
 George smiled indulgently, as if at a child. 
 He was trying to listen to Hailes. 
 
 " In fact, . . . . " Hailes began. He leaned 
 back against the mantel-piece with his air sug- 
 gestive of "trying it on" — "the way would 
 be to make over the whole concern to you. 
 You would employ Spendle and myself." 
 
THE JEWELLER AND HIS STONES. 49 
 
 Spendle said : " The ' G ' alone would make 
 the fortune of any Press." 
 
 " Oh, I couldn't think of sapping your brains 
 like that," George said, and Hailes answered, 
 nonchalantly — 
 
 " Of course, you can be as liberal as you 
 like with our salaries. It's a way of giving 
 security." 
 
 The matter had been arranged on that basis, 
 and the Renaissance Press had opened terra- 
 cotta-faced offices in Shaftesbury Avenue some 
 months before. It had set about producing in 
 black letter one of Scud6ry's romances in nine 
 volumes, Hailes, now business manager with- 
 out anything to manage, had predicted that the 
 Press would shortly pay a dividend of 215 per 
 cent. Other presses of the sort had done it. 
 
 But their more ornamental capitals, that 
 covered both pages of the book, could not be 
 induced to fold properly. George had gently 
 hinted to Hailes that he might spare his pro- 
 mises of dividends. He would be more than 
 contented if he got his money back. His ex- 
 perience made him see well enough the nebu- 
 lousness of such expected golden comet- tails. 
 Hailes, on the other hand, could not see why 
 George should have lent the money if he didn't 
 expect a large profit. It seemed too much like 
 the " happy ever afterwards " of a fairy tale. 
 He really could not understand what George 
 was " getting at." He had gone off on the 
 automobile still puzzled as to the point, and 
 
 E 
 
50 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 uncertain as to what George really had expected 
 to get out of him. 
 
 George was confronted by the weekly house- 
 hold bills that his housekeeper laid before him 
 on the great oak table, and by the fact that in 
 a month or two he wouldn't know where to go 
 to lay hands for certain on a couple of hundred 
 or so. He very decidedly wished that he 
 had not guaranteed the money. With him it 
 was like drink — and he knew it. He came 
 across men, vivid, real, with strong outlines, 
 with intense hopes, and he entered into their 
 desires and hopes, and made them more than 
 his own. He went casting about, really taking 
 unheard of troubles, and racking his brains. 
 He did not want to do something for them so 
 much as to set them in the position oi their 
 ideal as they represented it, or as he figured it. 
 
 Once, walking down the broad western 
 avenue, he had come upon a particularly merry 
 tramp seated on the grass, re-bandaging a 
 damaged toe. The man was singing some of 
 the recitative from " Rigoletto." George dis- 
 covered that he had been an Irish squireen, 
 particularly good with whiskey punch, Irish 
 epigrams, and that horseflesh which had car- 
 ried him to sit at the roadside. George 
 set him up in life ; he rented a cottage for him, 
 bought him a horse and cart, and launched 
 him as a kind of carrier — a higgler. The 
 Irishman pursued his business for perhaps two 
 
THE JEWELLER AND HIS STONES. Si 
 
 months ; he paid George back £2 los., which 
 he subsequently re-borrowed, and gave many 
 reasons for satisfaction. A carrier of his sort 
 had been much needed in the Httle town. One 
 dark night he had driven off with his cart and 
 horse, the more moveable of his furniture, and 
 the daughter of the grocer, and the contents of 
 the grocer's till. 
 
 The affair had caused George some un- 
 popularity, because the grocer's daughter had 
 been much sought after by the youth of the 
 place. 
 
 He directed his housekeeper as to the meals 
 for the day. He was dispirited. To use a 
 figure of speech, he was possessed by a grave- 
 yard full of tombstones of that kind, glimmer- 
 ing at him in the flashlight of Hailes' depar- 
 ture. Like all great men, all our great figures, 
 George, in fact, was romantic. 
 
 He was that even in his treatment of his 
 housekeeper. She was a worthy and stonily up- 
 upright lady. But George had got it into his head 
 that the upper servants of single gentlemen 
 are exposed to singular temptations — that they 
 almost inevitably rob their masters, in fact. 
 Frequently they drink. He put himself out 
 to make this impossible for Mrs. McNutt 
 by checking her accounts down to the 
 last halfpenny. He acquired considerable 
 knowledge of the prices of such things 
 as butcher's meat. He took credit to him- 
 self for having kept the lady virtuous 
 
52 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 by dint of never letting her have a chance to 
 be the reverse. 
 
 It gave him a great deal of trouble even to 
 affect to cast an eye down her numerous 
 " books," but he did it, and doubtless with 
 profit. His personal expenses were of the 
 very smallest. He might be regarded as an 
 ascetic of choice — one of your great Cardinals 
 who with a cordon bleu in their kitchens at the 
 service of all and sundry, live on dry apples, 
 but like to hear their tables praised. He 
 had not in all this any consideration of saving, 
 except in the most incidental manner ; but it 
 had undoubtedly enabled him to keep going 
 for so long. 
 
 He considered absent - mindedly a red 
 leather book that had a gilt cow stamped on 
 the cover, and small particles of suet adhering 
 to its edges. Mrs. McNutt gently jingled the 
 keys in her alpaca apron pockets. He was 
 making a resolve. Just as any other man vows 
 to reduce the number of pipes a day, he deter- 
 mined definitely to break off all indulging in 
 assistance to people like Hailes. He had made 
 the same resolve many times before. He went 
 into his study. A letter with a conspicuous 
 heading caught his eye. It came from the 
 editor of a new quarterly to be called " The 
 Higher Things." George was floridly begged 
 to write a sonnet for the first page of the first 
 number — a sonnet on the higher things. As 
 a matter of fact, George never had written a 
 
THE JEWELLER AND HIS STONES. 53 
 
 sonnet in his life. The letter called for a 
 reply. It had lain unanswered for nearly a 
 week. 
 
 He went to see how the Reverend Mr. Brede 
 had passed the night. He felt convinced it 
 must have been one of extreme anguish. 
 
 One of the local flies was driving away from 
 the gate of the Brede's cottage. He could see in 
 it the hats of Mr. Brede and of both daughters. 
 It rattled vigorously on the stony road, the 
 driver limply swished his whip, and the whole 
 swept round a corner in the direction of the 
 station. George felt discontented and nipped 
 by the cast wind. It was one of those radiant, 
 cold autumn days when brilliant trails of scarlet 
 creeper shook on grey walls all over the town ; 
 all the shadows were very blue, and small 
 whirlwinds of dust arose at the street corners. 
 
 There simply was not a conversible resident 
 left in the town if the Bredes had gone for any 
 space of time. Thwaite was at his office. 
 There remained only several old maids and a 
 widow, who were not on terms one with 
 another. They united, however, in regarding 
 George as "so sarcastic." 
 
 George pulled his cap on more, and walked 
 briskly in the teeth of the wind to the little 
 watchhouse, a tarred shelter of planks on a 
 stone platform. It hung over the brow of the 
 steep hill. Formerly, there had been ramparts 
 there. Far below was a great expanse of green 
 
54 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 marshland threaded by dykes. In the distance 
 there was the brilliant blue sea, and some 
 small white houses on the shingle of the beach. 
 He sat down discontentedly on a plank seat in 
 its lea. 
 
 In front of him, an extravagantly tall young 
 man and a young girl were leaning against the 
 low brick parapet, and looking over the flats. 
 They talked animatedly in a language that 
 George did not understand, and pointed over 
 the great expanse, speaking very fast and with 
 much enthusiasm. George regarded them with 
 tacit disfavour. 
 
 They had a singularly exotic air, tempered 
 by a kind of misery of the wind that swept 
 every visible object as dry, bare, and cold as a 
 clean-picked bone. The young man was an 
 immensely tall, cadaverous figure of plaintive- 
 ness. His mobile eyebrows quivered, his 
 hands shivered and hesitated on the hook of 
 his stick. It had a large horn for handle, and 
 was extravagantly gold-mounted. His buff 
 waistcoat boasted a protentous crossing of 
 gold eyeglass and watch-chains. His long, 
 trembling fingers had many rings upon them. 
 
 He pointed his noticeable stick at the little 
 group of huts on the edge of the distant, slaty 
 sea, and said something. The young girl was 
 fair, florid, and unformed ; had large, promi- 
 nent, nervous eyes, and had very evidently 
 only lately " put her hair up " in some foreign 
 style. She seemed to contradict him ; they 
 
THE JEWELLER AND HIS STONES. 55 
 
 fell into an excited argument. The young man, 
 fumbling very uncertainly in his pocket, pro- 
 duced a map that he unfolded tremulously. It 
 blew into a fluttering sheet of green and pink 
 and blue. He spread his fingers across it, and 
 peered between them at the names. George 
 still regarded them with disfavour. 
 
 The young man turned his head, which was 
 bent over the map, and scanned George with 
 the furtive glance of a beast that has been 
 much hunted. He looked ; then looked again 
 straight into George's eyes — rather authorita- 
 tively. He drew himself very straight, and 
 marched towards George with a military salute 
 that suggested the greeting of a royal personage 
 to defiling troops. 
 
 " Do I see," he said quickly, with a soft, 
 guttural accent, " do I see the great po6t, the 
 great mastehr ? " 
 
 He began addressing his sister very 
 animatedly, ignoring George's slight motion 
 of deprecation. " We, my people, owe a great 
 debt to you, sir, we Moldauers to you, sir. I 
 come to Paris to fetch my sister after our 
 revolution." 
 
 His sister began animatedly : 
 
 " Monsieur mon frire veut dire, monsieur . ." 
 
 The brother recommenced : " Your great 
 song, your famose poem. I have let him be 
 translated. I give one hundred thousand copies 
 to sing roun' the camp fire with music 
 of the balalaika . . in the great 
 
56 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 mountains all through our revolution just 
 ended." 
 
 " You are quite aware of my identity ? " 
 George hazarded stiffly. 
 
 " We have seen so many, many portraits," 
 the young man said enthusiastically, " and your 
 house, this little town where in old days great 
 fighting was too, is it not ? " 
 
 " My name is " George began again. 
 
 " Precisely — Georg Mo-fat, Mister Georg 
 Mo-fat. You did write the great, the heroic 
 song . . . " He recited some sonorous 
 lines in an ungraspable language ; there was 
 great fire and much charm in his voice. Then 
 he translated : " When upon our mountains 
 the foot-tread of the conquering ! We are now 
 free, we Moldavians." There was a fiery 
 pride in his voice. The mistrust did not 
 leave George. As a matter of fact he had 
 suffered before from inroads of refugees 
 from the Balkans. At one time they had 
 settled round him in great swarms and caused 
 some lamentable inconveniences in the little 
 town. He said : 
 
 " I think you are mistaken. I cannot recall 
 the lines at all." 
 
 The young man consulted with his sister, and 
 she flashed shyly upon George : 
 
 " Mais non, mais non. II n'y a pas der- 
 reur, Monsieur, me se souvient il pas f ' Et 
 quand sur nos montagnes vont lespasdu con- 
 querant' ..." 
 
THE JEWELLER AND HIS STONES, 57 
 
 They both looked at him with parted lips, 
 a great expectation, George shook his head. 
 He could not remember ever having written 
 lines answerable. He maintained his new 
 pose of unsociability, the unaccustomed sus- 
 picion which in his genial romanticism he 
 exaggerated. 
 
 " I really cannot take the credit," he closured 
 the matter stonily. 
 
 The young girl said eagerly : " Mais si, 
 mais si, monsieur." 
 
 Her brother laid his trembling hand upon 
 her arm with an air of tender and darkling re- 
 straint. 
 
 "You have forgotten, sir," he said; "you 
 wrote the great song perhaps years agone. 
 You wrote him for another people strug- 
 gling for liberty as we have struggled many 
 years. We took it, we made it for our own." 
 He had drawn himself up to an immense 
 height and leaned diagonally across his stick 
 like a great ladder. " I came to fetch my sis- 
 ter from Paris where she haf made her studies." 
 They had come to Wickham principally to 
 thank George. " We have seen, we do make 
 thanks. The great mastehr has forgotten his 
 great poem; we — we will never forget, we 
 Moldavians." He removed his hat with a rather 
 grand air. 
 
 The young girl looked at George, her large 
 blue eyes troubled, her large fair cheeks 
 a little depressed. "Ah, monsiem," she 
 
58 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 said, "monsieur mon frlre vient de si loin, 
 exprh." 
 
 Her brother stooped his discouraged height 
 tenderly over her. He thrust his great hand 
 under her arm, and, still holding his hat, drew 
 her away, 
 
 " A good day, sir, and take our thanks," he 
 said. They went slowly up the ascending 
 street. 
 
 George looked moodily after them ; he had 
 no doubt of having hurt their feelings. One 
 of the young man's long legs was longer than 
 the other, and he halted rather painfully. He 
 continued to point his portentous stick at the 
 stone-work of the house-fronts. 
 
 George had an impulse to go after them, to 
 overwhelm them with atoning hospitalities. 
 But he could not tell, and, for the matter of that, 
 did not wish to tell — that they were not intent 
 upon some Oriental form of the confidence 
 trick. He said as much about twenty minutes 
 afterwards to Clara Brede. 
 
 By that time he had impatiently made the 
 tour of the ramparts of the little town. He 
 recovered his circulation, and called at the 
 Bredes' cottage to make enquiries. He found 
 Miss Brede in the unpleasantly furnished 
 sitting-room — ^the house was a hired one — 
 very much engrossed with a thin book. She 
 looked up with a gentle, rapt expression, then 
 flushed and laid the book down upon the 
 
THE JEWELLER AND HIS STONES. 59 
 
 marble top of a cheffonier. It had a looking- 
 glass with a frame lavishly carved like rose 
 wreaths for a back, and for ornaments a num- 
 ber of large shiny shells, reclining on green 
 and red worsted " tidies." 
 
 She said merely : 
 
 " Oh ! " 
 
 Receiving George's apologies, she explained 
 that she had sent her father away for two or 
 three days. 
 
 " It was necessary for himself, and for us 
 all," she said, with her soft determinedness. 
 She was sitting in a cane lounge, near a fire, 
 and she twined her hands back to back in a 
 minutely-affected attitude, that used to charac- 
 terise Cambridge students of a decade or so 
 ago. 
 
 George, standing looking down on her, be- 
 gan a mild " But ? " of surprise. She smiled, 
 and showed even white teeth. 
 
 " I have to think for my sister," she said. 
 "These . . . manifestations, like that of last 
 night, are so dreadfully bad for her — for a young 
 girl." She looked, at the moment, intensely 
 young herself. " Dreadfully bad for a young 
 mind," she repeated slowly. " Because, of 
 course, the sort of thing is in the family. Con- 
 tact would undoubtedly bring it out in Dora." 
 
 " She has such a happy disposition," she 
 added, then she sighed very slightly. 
 
 " But yourself, my dear young lady ? " 
 George said. 
 
6o THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 She looked up at him gravely. 
 
 " You know," she said, " one Iphigenia in 
 a family doesn't matter so much ; but there 
 sha'n't be two," 
 
 George pondered the remark for a moment 
 without much fathoming it. He looked at the 
 reflection of part of his waistcoat in the 
 looking-glass at the back of the cheffonier. 
 Then his eye caught the back of the thin book 
 she had been reading. It was one of his own 
 volumes of verse of some years back. She 
 would naturally have a curiosity to read 
 something of his, and would be able to borrow 
 his books from Thwaite, " Does that 
 queer stuff leave any impression at all ? " he 
 asked. 
 
 To him the recollection of the book 
 was like that of leaves gone very dry, 
 and with a faint scent. She looked past him 
 out of the window, and then said : 
 
 " I think it was because of that I sent my 
 father away." 
 
 George, standing with his stick in one hand, 
 his hat in the other, jumped very slightly. 
 
 "It seemed so — so shameful that you 
 should be taken up with our worries," she 
 said. 
 
 George gently tapped his leg with the crook 
 of his stick. It was equivalent to a yokel 
 hilariously slapping his thigh. He said : " How 
 energetic you are ! " She continued, looking 
 >-aImly at him — 
 
THE JEWELLER AND HIS STONES. 6l 
 
 "We are a very selfish family, hopelessly 
 self-centred. It's a symptom of the other — 
 the neurotic side." 
 
 George looked at her for an explana- 
 tion. 
 
 " My father," she went on, " would take up 
 your entire time. And the more skilfully you 
 talk to him the more skilful he becomes — in 
 the dialectics of his own misery. I would not 
 permit it any longer." 
 
 George walked slowly to the window seat 
 and sat down. 
 
 " You meant to give me time for work ? " he 
 asked. 
 
 " The change is very good for him, too," she 
 said. " He has gone back to his parish to look 
 after his locum tenens for two days. He's 
 excellent at parish work." 
 
 George was silent. 
 
 " He will come back a great deal better, and 
 afterwards I shall keep him out of your way," 
 she said, with her soft determinedness. 
 
 George said : " Oh, don't do that. My work 
 doesn't count. I used to blow little tunes on 
 an oat straw ; but it all went years ago." 
 
 For answer she slowly drew out a blue re- 
 view from her side in the lounge, and held it 
 accusingly at him. 
 
 " Oh, that I wrote six months ago," he said, 
 a little guiltily. 
 
 " I am determined the loss shan't be trace- 
 able to us," she said sharply. 
 
62 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 George said, gaily : " Oh, bother the loss," 
 and she leant forward, with an impatience that 
 was almost an anger. 
 
 " Do you mean to say," she said, fixing her 
 eyes upon him, "that you don't know you're a 
 great poet ? " 
 
 George said : " Well, I didn't know anyone 
 followed my work like that," and then burst 
 into quite joyful laughter. Her quaint anger, 
 her accusing, long white hand ; her figure, of 
 which all the lines of her coarse, dull blue 
 dress seemed to lend themselves to her ear- 
 nestness in this form of academic debate ; all 
 these things struck him as quaintly and ador- 
 ably charming. She looked at him in the same 
 mood for a moment, and then began to laugh too. 
 
 " I get," she said, " these firmnesses from 
 having to manage a family." She smoothed 
 her fair hair, that drooped in a sort of Flemish 
 band over her small ears. In her half confu- 
 sion her face had the tint of a shell cameo. 
 " But it is irritating," she affirmed ; " because 
 you are a great poet." 
 
 George said : " Oh, you young people." 
 
 She seemed to him, perhaps on account of 
 the naivete of her attack, intensely young still. 
 He felt himself, in proportion, ripely and mel- 
 lowedly middle-aged. 
 
V. 
 
 Then George told her the story of the young 
 Moldavians. He related it as an anecdote 
 illustrating the folly of youthful enthusiasms. 
 
 " I was rather rude to him," George said, 
 " or, at least, quite cool. He was distinctly 
 brusque. I don't know that I don't regret it." 
 
 " What a pity, oh, what a pity," Clara Brede 
 said, with an evident and intense concern. It 
 prepared George for a new and pleasant shock 
 of surprise. 
 
 "He was an attractive figure," he said, 
 " but it was stupid of him. The lines certainly 
 aren't mine — 
 
 ' Quand sur nos montagnes sonne 
 Le pas du conquSrant.' " 
 He shook his head. Clara Brede's eyes were 
 full of an intense concern. 
 
 " Don't you remember ? " she asked. . . . 
 
 " So, on that day, 
 When our hills feel a foreign tread, 
 And our slave-seed shall strive to raise 
 Their necks from underneath the yoke, 
 There shall not lack a folk to say : 
 Their fathers' deeds inspired our souls 
 With breath of freedom, and shall they 
 Cry unto us in vain ? " 
 
 Her voice was full and rich ; she quoted with 
 
64 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 the certainty of knowing the words infinitely 
 well. 
 
 George had the swift, disturbing feeling of 
 remembering the long since forgotten. " Oh, 
 was it that ?" he said. 
 
 Years before, Greece had been making one 
 of its periodical clamours against the Turk. 
 George had written some unbalanced verse, 
 aimed at inducing one of the political parties to 
 unsheath the sword against the oppressor. 
 
 "I learned them— we all learned them — 
 when I was at college," Clara Brede said re- 
 proachfully. 
 
 " Oh, an unlicked production," George 
 laughed. 
 
 " You mustn't say it," she answered rather 
 fiercely. " I love these lines." 
 
 " Well, anyhow," he excused himself, " how 
 could / tell that Moldavians would adopt some- 
 thing I had written for the Greeks ? And how 
 could I recognise a free translation into French 
 from the Moldavian ? " 
 
 " I am so sorry," she said, pensively, " so 
 sorry." 
 
 George rose. " One must lunch, after 
 all," he said. He was a little nettled. " I 
 have been a good deal victimised," he added, 
 as she followed him to the garden gate. 
 
 " Oh, I know," she said. " I know. I should 
 be so very glad if you recognised it more." 
 Her eyes were exploring the street up and 
 down. 
 
THE JEWELLER AND HIS STONES. 65 
 
 He went again to his study desk. He had 
 undoubtedly the itch to write. The letter of the 
 editor of "The Higher Things" confronted 
 him, and the words " a great poet " still 
 rang in his ears. He had fallen under his 
 own spell. There was the fervent letter of the 
 editor offering him a gratifying sum for a 
 sonnet ; there were the look, the steadfast face 
 of Clara Brede. Her full voice, her exhor- 
 tatory manner, were those of the whole-souled 
 women who incite to great enthusiasm and to 
 forlorn hopes. 
 
 His own attitude towards himself as poet was 
 the inevitable one of backing and filling. It is 
 obvious that he must have been at times ob- 
 sessed by the jingle of words. But, nine days 
 out of ten he would dismiss his work with a 
 small motion of his hand, that, given his great 
 personal prestige, did really extinguish it 
 altogether. He had tried to do it with Clara 
 Brede. He had in the nature of the case no 
 respect for the intellects of the people for the 
 moment enthusiastic about him. An editor is 
 by nature an ass ; a Moldavian can't be expec- 
 ted to judge English verse. And a young girl 
 is a young girl. You can't give a reason for 
 her likings. But the three together did some- 
 thing. Applause after all is applause ; and for 
 the moment he had ttiat faint touch of hope, 
 like a waft of spring wind ; like a glimmer of 
 first love — ^that sort of half touch of whole faith 
 that we must sometimes have or die — the faith 
 
66 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 that words matter, that letters survive. He 
 dipped his pen spiritedly in the ink and held it 
 poised above clean paper. With that pen on 
 that paper he might write words that would 
 outlast the stars. It had become, for the 
 moment at least, a potentiality. 
 
 He did not, of course. The postman, jerking 
 down from the steps of the house, jogged past. 
 Then came the tall, halting figure of the 
 Moldavian, half hiding his sister, and, on the 
 further side, Clara Brede, her blue dress wav- 
 ing in the wind. They walked slowly, with 
 the averted gaze and self-conscious air of 
 persons who do not wish to look in at a win- 
 dow, and yet wish to look at a house. George 
 lost himself in conjectures. They passed. A 
 letter was brought in to him. It had a French 
 stamp, and a hand-writing that George recog- 
 nised as that of a great French writer — one of 
 the great names. It was with a certain 
 pleasure that he read the " Cher Maitre " of 
 the opening. The letter was by way of being 
 one of recommendation of a Prince Nicholas 
 of Moldavia — " A true hero of the grand style. 
 Figure to yourself, he carries in his left leg 
 two bullets of the oppressor. He has for you 
 a true veneration ; it is a veritable artist of 
 action, and so young, with a charm so ingen- 
 uous . . . ." The writer begged that 
 George would receive the prince favourably. 
 " But why do I talk of a favourable reception 
 to you, who are the fine soul of hospitality ? " 
 
THE JEWELLER AND HIS STONES. 67 
 
 There was a postscript praising an article of 
 George's that had appeared some months 
 before. The writer said that it might be 
 taken for the work of a Frenchman. 
 
 Five minutes later he was hurrying towards 
 the Bredes' cottage. Once again the fly was 
 driving away. Clara Brede was standing at 
 the gate waving her hand in farewell to the 
 young girl. The flyman swished his whip. 
 From the back seat the young man was point- 
 ing his stick at a gable of the church. Then 
 they disappeared. 
 
 Clara Brede, shading her eyes with her 
 hand, turned to go indoors. She caught sight 
 of George and waited. 
 
 " I went out to find them," she said 
 valiantly, as soon as he was within hearing. 
 
 George said, " You showed them round ? " 
 mildly. 
 
 " You must not think it was meddling," she 
 pleaded. "At least, it was meddling," she 
 added, conscientiously, "but I mean . . ." 
 
 " It was a kind thought ? " he asked. 
 
 " I didn't like it," she answered, " and I 
 couldn't leave it." 
 
 " You thought it pathetic they should have 
 come so far to meet such a rebuff ? " George 
 asked gaily. 
 
 She looked down at the ground as if 
 still conscientiously analysing her own 
 motives. " No, I think," she said, " I didn't 
 like their carrying away such an impression." 
 
68 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 " Of — of English men of letters ? " George 
 asked. 
 
 She flushed right over her face and down to 
 where her neck ran into the severe sim- 
 plicity of her blue dress at just the juncture 
 of the shoulders. 
 
 " Of you," she said. 
 
 George said : 
 
 " Oh, dear, there's nothing to be distressed 
 about. I don't at all resent your coming to 
 my rescue. I had behaved like a bear." 
 
 " I told some lies," she said, as if relief 
 made her suddenly glib. 
 
 " You would have to if you wanted me to 
 seem amiable," George smiled. 
 
 " I said you had come there to meditate, and 
 that you had had a bereavement," 
 
 " You might, you know, have said that I had 
 deputed you to make it up. Or that you 
 were, as it were, a buffer between me and a 
 world of intruders." 
 
 " I did think of saying that," she admitted. 
 
 " Now that was too bad," George said. 
 She looked at him with a sort of alarm. 
 " Think, I mean, of how you missed impres- 
 sing them with my resources," he reassured 
 banteringly. "What an idea they might have 
 carried away of a man with a concierge of such 
 charm." He said the words with a bow and 
 a "leg." 
 
 Her great-grandmother would have curtsied 
 and riposted with a ready turned phrase ending 
 
TrtE jEWELLEli AND rflS STONES, 69 
 
 in " Sir." Clara Brede only said " Oh," and 
 appeared distressed. 
 
 "You know you'll catch a dreadful cold 
 without a cape," George ended. " But you 
 shall, if you want to be really kind, come in 
 and make music for me with your sister. 
 I'm a lonely old man." 
 
 That was a " kind thought " of George's. 
 
 George was determined to play the great 
 man, if by that pose he could give pleasure. 
 The two Brede girls came and made music 
 for him ; he exerted himself to please. His 
 candles again glowed ; there was a great log on 
 the andirons ; the magnificent-roofed room 
 was full of warm shadows. And George did 
 justice to his setting. He had precisely that 
 glow, that pleasantness, that a fire has of an 
 early autumn night — what you might call an 
 over-charm. He was the old, great man, ex- 
 erting himself to be delightful to the young. 
 
 They made a mild, folk-ballad music — and 
 then he talked. He was very much at his best. 
 The Brede girls pleased him ; they gave him, 
 as it were, a stage and an audience too. And 
 they placed him. He was the old great man, 
 a sort of Scott of Abbotsford. They, in their 
 ingenuous, delightful youth, were players to 
 him, too. 
 
 Dora, after all, was young, silent, unformed, 
 and, as it were, unawakened, fair, flushed, and 
 as if tumbled after a pleasant warm sleep. But 
 Clara, with her directness, her Puritanic con- 
 
5^0 tHlE BEiJEFAcTdfe, 
 
 scientiousness, was a figure of comedy for him. 
 Her pauses before she spoke amused his anti- 
 cipation ; her uttered judgments, her direct- 
 nesses, were a deUght. So were her blushes, 
 her self-consciousness. Once she condemned 
 something George had written in support of 
 one of his young men. But she did it with an air 
 of distress, and at the same time revealed an 
 inherent difficulty of either tempering or 
 shirking the condemnation. It infinitely de- 
 lighted George. 
 
 " I think the man was not worth writing 
 about," she said. 
 
 " But, my dear young lady, he has a certain 
 lisp of a style. And he wanted a friendly lift." 
 
 She hesitated, and said reluctantly : 
 
 " But if he was not worth writing about, I 
 think it makes it all the worse that you have 
 written so tremendously well about him. It 
 seems to me like a crime." 
 
 George laughed. 
 
 " You know, you will have to be the keeper 
 of my conscience as well as of my door," he 
 said. 
 
 " One wants you to be always at your best," 
 she maintained, " just because you do so very 
 little." 
 
 "Oh, you mustn't elevate me to a cult," he 
 said, " my feet are so obviously clay." He 
 laughed again hilariously, when he saw 
 Dora cast an involuntary shy glance at his 
 feet. 
 
THE JEWELLER AND HIS STONES. 7I 
 
 After they had gone, he began to rake 
 together fragments of verse from all sorts of 
 drawers full of magazines. He was con- 
 sidering the possibility of a new volume. 
 
VI. 
 
 Once a Greek scholar of repute and Fellow 
 of his College, afterwards a clergyman noted for 
 his public spirit and the diligence with which 
 he administered his parish and tried to draw 
 public attention to the wants of the agricultural 
 labourer, Mr. Brede had, until his breakdown, 
 gone about all his work with a fierce energy 
 and a sort of impressive harshness of temper. 
 Now, he walked always rather slowly and with 
 a slight limp. The story of his wife's death 
 was for ever on his lips. He had an almost 
 stereotyped form of words : — 
 
 " There was my wife. The doctors had told 
 me, as plainly as they could tell anybody 
 anything, that in her state of health the 
 least excitement would kill her. I knew it, if 
 ever a man knew anything." There was no 
 stopping him. George must have heard the 
 story at least twenty times on Mr. Brede's bad 
 days. He would relate it in a sort of frenzy, 
 and detail it in a gloating grief. " It was one 
 day when she had been better than usual. She 
 was sitting in the drawing room window to 
 get the benefit of the sun. I saw that the 
 knife boy hadn't cleaned my boots properly. 
 He had a habit of blacking over the mud in 
 
THE JEWELLER AND HIS STONES. 73 
 
 the welts." The knife boy had passed across 
 the lawn whistling ; Mr. Brede had run out of 
 the French window. The knife boy had 
 " answered " him saucily. " In a rage ! " Mr. 
 Brede would foam in telling the tale. " I could 
 have throttled the oaf. I caught hold of him." 
 He had heard a scream ; Mrs. Brede was dead. 
 
 He would, in his bad days, talk about it by 
 the hour together. The brain specialist he 
 had consulted had forbidden his working any 
 more. It was a case of complete nervous 
 breakdown ; he had been too strenuous ; he 
 was, in fact, paying the penalty of doing the 
 work of several men. 
 
 His parish had been large. He had attended 
 to it with his angry thoroughness, and he had 
 had many other interests : a crusade against the 
 High Church party in his diocese, and, above 
 all, a society that he had founded for creat- 
 ing social life in rural districts — the Society for 
 Promoting Rural Pleasures. He wanted to 
 keep the peasant on the land by making his 
 life attractive. He had had to give them all 
 up. At his worse moments he would as- 
 severate that he was possessed by devils and 
 unfit to minister before the Most High, He 
 " heard voices." At his best he was convinced 
 that he had murdered his wife. 
 
 Clara Brede had passed from the unceasing 
 tending of her mother to a more harassing 
 attendance upon Mr. Brede. He had an ex- 
 aggerated desire to talk about his case, and, 
 
74 The beneMctoR. 
 
 until at Wickham he had come upon George, 
 he had walked about continuously with her. 
 Then Dora had come back from college. 
 
 It added to Clara's perplexities. Dora must 
 at all costs be kept from the sadness of her own 
 lot, from her father's depressing influence. 
 Mr. Brede had suddenly recovered a small 
 interest in his classical studies. He bought a 
 number of fac- similes of papyri, and spent some 
 hours — it was about the time of the discovery 
 of the Codex Argentinensis — in angrily demon- 
 strating that the Strasburg decipherer was 
 entirely in the wrong in his emendations of 
 the missing portions. 
 
 " I will," Clara suddenly offered him on the 
 day of his return from his short visit to the 
 parish, " do all the copying of the Codex for 
 you." It was in the gloomy and tiny room, 
 like a thin-sided box, that, in the house they 
 had hired at Wickham, served as his study. 
 Heavy and dusty calf-bound books, relics of 
 his fellowship, stood on the small desk that 
 almost filled the room. On its flap lay the 
 yellow fac-simile of the papyrus covered with 
 crabbed uncial writing. 
 
 "You, you're no good," Mr. Brede said 
 gloomily. 
 
 Clara looked at him seriously. 
 
 "I think I haven't forgotten everything," 
 she said. " I can try." 
 
 Mr. Brede looked down at his papers. He 
 had a certain respect for his daughter. 
 
fHfi JEWELLEk AND HIS STONES, 75 
 
 " Well, you can try," he said. " What 
 would you say now to eTriSerdyfievoi here ? " 
 He pointed a great finger to where a word had 
 been gnawed by mice out of the papyrus. 
 Clara turned her serious eyes to the place. 
 
 " I think the other reading's quite as good," 
 she said, after a long pause. 
 
 He began to dictate to her : " The Strasburg 
 professor's contention " It was the com- 
 mencement of a quite interminable corres- 
 pondence about the words missing from the 
 twenty lines of uncials. 
 
 Half the morning had passed over the silent 
 movements of her pen when Clara said : 
 
 " I think, father, you ought not to take up 
 so much of Mr. Moffat's time." 
 
 Mr. Brede said, violently : " Oh, nonsense." 
 
 " I'm quite ready," she went on, unwaver- 
 ingly, " to give you all mine. Not, of course, 
 as a price or a return. But I think it isn't 
 right of us to trouble Mr. Moffat." She con- 
 tinued cogently and conscientiously to put 
 before him just what she had put before George 
 himself. 
 
 Mr. Brede grew intensely angry. He said 
 he couldn't do without George ; George was 
 was the only person that understood his case. 
 It made him all the more angry to have to 
 acknowledge that she was in the right. 
 
 Dora and Thwaite had seen a great deal of 
 each other by a month after that day. They 
 
76 triE B^NEPACfOS. 
 
 had met at street corners ; Thwaite called at 
 the house ; they chanced upon each other on 
 George's steps ; the two sisters and Thwaite 
 went walking together. Dora even, in her shy, 
 flushed way, got lessons in book reviewing — 
 for the Salon. It was a quite open and quite 
 charming commencement of a courtship. 
 
 Then, suddenly, Mr. Brede descended upon 
 them heavily. Dora wasn't to think of mar- 
 riage. He forbade it. He was speaking to 
 the two girls alone. 
 
 How could Dora after that see Thwaite at 
 all ? And how could she explain the avoid- 
 ance ? She avoided him. Clara had argued 
 the matter with her father. He did not give 
 any reasons. He forebade it to her, too. She 
 was never to marry. He hadn't noticed what 
 had been going on ; he had not realised that 
 Thwaite was the man. As soon as he had he 
 had spoken. 
 
 After a long fortnight of unhappiness Dora 
 met Thwaite. It was on the station road, in 
 the winter dusk. She had tried to pass him ; 
 he had detained her very gently and master- 
 fully. She had not the right to treat him in 
 such a way. He wanted to know why she 
 did. 
 
 It came out then, and, under the steely 
 glitter of the winter stars, shut in by the 
 gathering shadows, and confronted with the 
 purple bluff of the town's little hill, which had 
 on one shoulder a single, oblong, orangQ^pane 
 
THE JEWELLER AND HIS STONES, 77 
 
 of a lit cottage window, they were gloriously and 
 glowingly warm suddenly — immensely happy 
 and tenderly desolate ; bursting into the speech, 
 and dumb with the irrational mournfulness 
 of a newly-avowed and inevitably crossed 
 love. 
 
 Eventually Thwaite had gone off to George. 
 
 Then George himself confronted Clara in 
 the Brede's brightly lit and glowing room. 
 She had been crying a little. She had had to 
 listen to her sister's confession, and it had moved 
 her a good deal. She said : 
 
 " Dora is fond of Mr. Thwaite." 
 
 " Oh^ I'll make it all right with your father," 
 George said. 
 
 She looked at him, and asked, with her hesi- 
 tating and as if painful conscientiousness, " Are 
 you sure ? do you think he's quite scrupulous 
 — Mr. Thwaite, I mean ? " 
 
 Some days before, Thwaite, with a sort of 
 candour of a tentative suitor, had been making 
 to Dora, and before Clara, little admissions as 
 to his financial prospects. It was as much 
 as to say, " If you don't think it good enough, 
 we had better not go any farther." He drew 
 such and such a salary from the Salon. He 
 had no debts except that he owed George a 
 good round sum. He had owed it for a great 
 many years. " But, of course," he added, 
 with his winning smile, " no one ever thinks 
 of repaying him." 
 
78 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 It had given Clara a shock. She was not 
 used to that sort of gay irresponsibUity. She 
 had even argued the matter with him. He had 
 answered : " Oh, it's rather a large sum. I 
 owed a lot of small things, and he took them 
 all over. I haven't the least prospect of re- 
 paying him. He would not expect it." He 
 mentioned the sum, and Clara noted that it 
 was just a little more than the dowry she 
 would have to give when Dora was married. 
 
 The episode was in her mind when she 
 asked George — it pained her a great deal, 
 even thus veiledly, to question a man George 
 had commended — whether he was sure that 
 Thwaite was quite scrupulous. 
 
 George made a large gesture with his 
 hand. 
 
 " Oh, my dear young lady," he said, with 
 his air of ripe knowledge, "ask if he has kind 
 thoughts. Ask — and that's the essential 
 thing in a journey through life — if he's sympa- 
 thetic ; a staunch companion, a pleasant and 
 faithful friend. Ask if he's the imagination 
 that will make him enter into, and be tender 
 to, the desires, the hopes, and above all, the 
 weaknesses of others. That's the essential 
 quality ! " He spoke with a great deal of 
 masterful enthusiasm. He added, amusedly ; 
 " But you've only got to look at Thwaite's face 
 to see that he's the soul of honour." 
 
 Clara Brede, with her rapt air, seemed 
 to signify that he must be right, that he 
 
THE JEWELLER AND HIS STONES. 79 
 
 was always right. But her Hps closed as 
 if, in spite of that, she had taken a 
 resolve. He set before her a glowing picture 
 of the happiness that must arise from such a 
 marriage as that of Thwaite and Dora. It 
 would make a charming little circle of them 
 all in the tiny town. He certainly succeeded 
 in convincing Clara Brede. It wasn't so easy 
 a matter with her father. On that night — he, 
 too, had just heard of the coming together of 
 Thwaite and Dora — Mr. Brede abruptly re- 
 fused even to see George. He wasn't going 
 to argue the matter ; his fiat was irrevocable. 
 George had to confess as much to Thwaite, 
 who was waiting for him. 
 
 " But, of course," George comforted his 
 protege, " it won't rest there." 
 
 " The thing's too senseless, too abominable," 
 Thwaite said. 
 
 His air was rather wild, his eyes fierce, and 
 his hands nervously agitated. " An insensate 
 piece of cruelty ; the man's a brute." He had 
 a certain vigour of over-riding ; a certain 
 almost frenzy that a little disturbed George. 
 He hadn't seen anything like it in Thwaite 
 before. 
 
VII. 
 
 Clara Brede was sitting on her bed. Her hands 
 were folded in her lap ; her fair hair fell about 
 her shoulders. Her dress, unfastened at the 
 neck, revealed her full throat and a little of her 
 white chest. Her blue eyes looked, unseeing, 
 at her looking-glass, that, tilted upwards, 
 showed her only the plain white of the ceiling. 
 The lines of her face drooped a little, and 
 were quite motionless. She had a tortoise-shell 
 hairpin in one hand. 
 
 Her room was very small, the paper very 
 pale, the coverlet, the toilet cover, the blind, 
 the curtains, all white. Above the head of her 
 bed hung a small photograph of her Cam- 
 bridge College. The two candles on the 
 dressing table made the place blaze. The 
 servants in the room above were talking, and 
 the higher notes of their voices came through 
 the ceiling. " I wish I could see . . . ." she 
 said suddenly. Her voice startled her. She 
 stirred, leaned forward and laid the hairpin on 
 the dressing table. She raised both her hands 
 to her hair and slowly untwisted a heavy coil. 
 But they sank again into her lap. " No, I 
 can't go to bed," she said. 
 
 She moved one hand towards her pillow. 
 
THE JEWELLER AND HIS STONES. 8 1 
 
 She was going to lie down. Then she re- 
 membered to have read somewhere that lying 
 down fully dressed injured the complexion. 
 "What nonsense," she said, but her hand re- 
 turned to her lap. Perhaps it was true. She 
 sat motionless. "And this is what I have 
 come to ! " she said. She sat silent for a very 
 long time. Then she spoke : " I think he 
 goes upon very wrong lines. I think he is 
 dreadfully demoralising." 
 
 Her eyes rested upon the tortoise-shell hair- 
 pins. She wondered whether, if she waved her 
 hair, it would suit her. Dora had said it would. 
 
 " No one ever thanks him," she said. She 
 was speaking of George. j 
 
 She was twenty-seven. She had left her 
 college six years before, on the very eve of 
 " going up " for her " tripos." She had 
 been sitting in her college study. Half-a-dozen 
 other girls, her best friends, had been perched 
 on the sofa, on the table, lying back in the 
 lounge. They were talking about "what they 
 were going to do " after that next week which 
 was going to settle so much, for which they had 
 been working hard enough, many of them. 
 Clara was going in for teaching. It was needed 
 so much ; she had a vocation for it. She would 
 love it ; and with a little luck one might make 
 a career. Clara — she was in these days exactly 
 the same Clara — had sat gazing at a point in the 
 wall, above the mantel-piece. " If I get through," 
 she said, " but I muddle things so dreadfully." 
 
 G 
 
82 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 " Oh, you ! " her best friend said derisively. 
 " You never made a sUp since you learned your 
 first declension in short frocks." 
 
 Clara shook her head mildly. To herself she 
 seemed so dreadfully wanting in " nerve," in 
 just that thing that makes one do things neatly, 
 decidedly, and with an instinct for the right 
 alternative. There were always so many 
 alternatives ; one could never be sure ; life was 
 so "difficult." 
 
 " Good old Clara ! " one of the girls said. 
 
 Someone at the door called : " Here's a 
 telegram for Clara Brede." 
 
 It said that her mother was very ill. 
 
 Mrs. Brede had been kept just alive for 
 five years from that day. She had, before 
 the telegram was sent, been struck down 
 by a spasm of the heart. Clara, who was 
 the only one to nurse her, had never gone 
 back to her college. The sister next her 
 had been married just before ; the next was 
 only eighteen ; the next fifteen — that was 
 Dora. Clara was the only one who could 
 look after the house ; it was large and rambling ; 
 there were three servants and the stables ; her 
 father needed help. She had frequently to sit 
 up all night in her mother's room, a place all 
 shadows, where medicine bottles clicked on the 
 shelves at the lightest footfall. She had tried at 
 first to "keep up her work" — reading — through 
 those long nights by the glimmer of a shaded 
 night-light. She had to hold her book very 
 
THE JEWELLER AND HIS STONES. 83 
 
 close to it. She was not sure that it did her 
 " any good," 
 
 At first she had kept up a correspondence 
 with her best friend still at college, and with a 
 young graduate who gave private lectures in 
 Cambridge. He was full of generous ambitions ; 
 he, too, had a "vocation" for teaching. The 
 best friend became secretary to a training 
 school. After a time the young graduate 
 married. Their letters stopped like the dying 
 away of faint sounds from outside a closed 
 place. Things went very quietly. The two 
 boys went to college, then out into the world. 
 The next sister married. Dora went away to 
 a high school, then to college too. Her father 
 worked strenuously ; in his big parish he drove 
 congregations to church ; in the diocese he 
 combated the Ritualists. He travelled much, 
 giving lectures, raising his loud voice in the 
 country at large, attempting to bind the peasant 
 to the land. All the while Mrs. Brede lay still, 
 or crept very gently from the bed to the window. 
 Three times they had gone to Wickham be- 
 cause it was very quiet and near the sea. 
 There already Clara had seen George at a dis- 
 tance. She knew him as distinguished ; she 
 had read his verse at college. Once she heard 
 him speak. He had been asking the post- 
 mistress about her rheumatism. He had struck 
 Clara as being rather " finicking," too nice in 
 his dress, and a little meddlesome. Her college 
 training had left her the tone of contempt for 
 
84 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 personal refinement and delicacy. She still 
 desired people to be "purposeful." She went 
 back to her night watches. The house moved as 
 quietly as ever. Nothing would ever disturb it. 
 
 She was dead and buried. She did not care 
 to think of any " afterwards," because it would 
 have meant looking forward to her mother's 
 death. But she thought her thoughts. Life 
 was none the easier because she had no 
 " vocation " for that sort of life, and she had 
 no one to talk to. 
 
 An under housemaid would ask for an extra 
 night out, Clara was never certain. To refuse 
 might be harsh, to grant it, bad for discipline. 
 The girl might get into mischief if she went ; 
 if she could not, it might be a bitter disappoint- 
 ment, and Clara was tender towards the 
 disappointed. 
 
 She had Dora, too, to think for, and there 
 was her father. She was no longer certain 
 that she was a Christian ; she was assuredly 
 not certain that it was for the peasant's good 
 to keep him " on the land." Sometimes she 
 thought that any kind of propagandising was 
 wrong. All the time, she copied out her 
 father's sermons at night ; she wrote, from 
 dictation, his violent letters to the Times. 
 He abused her handwriting. Sometimes she 
 forgot to cross her " t's," because she was 
 thinking so hard about all these matters. 
 
 Dora, too, seemed to be growing up " frivo- 
 lous." At College she appeared to think 
 
THE JEWELLER AND HIS STONES. 85 
 
 most of dress, of college shirts, of neat collars, 
 and of games. She treated life so gaily ; she 
 was always laughing. Apparently she did very 
 little work, and never faced any of Clara's 
 " graver issues." It worried Clara very much ; 
 her father, engrossed in his own work, left the 
 matter entirely in her hands. What was she 
 to do ? She could not sympathise with Dora's 
 irresponsibility, yet she dare not " talk to " 
 Dora. What had the graver issues done for 
 her, Clara Brede ? Dora now was, yes, she 
 was, like a sun-beam. How could her sister 
 play the cloud ? Life was so difficult. 
 
 Then her mother died. She had seemed so 
 much better. Clara, in the last sunshine of 
 the year, had been taking a little walk, not 
 going a mile out of earshot of the house. Her 
 mother was sitting dead in the chair when she 
 came back ; her father was raving that he had 
 killed her. 
 
 She had to face an entirely new situation. 
 Of the old she had retained only one precious 
 memory. 
 
 Her mother had awakened late one night, 
 some months before, and had said : " Darling 
 Clara, you are so good to me, so kind, so 
 patient." They had both cried very bitterly. 
 
 Clara had never thought of herself as kind 
 or patient. She had done her work without 
 any idea that she did it well. She had done 
 her best, but not as to any manner born. So 
 her mother's words were very precious. After- 
 
86 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 wards her mother had made her will. There 
 was a respectable sum for the children. Clara 
 was to divide it as she thought fit, giving to one 
 more than to another, as their circumstances 
 seemed to her to warrant, or not to give it at all 
 if she liked. It marked her mother's perfect 
 trust in Clara, but it was one more responsi- 
 bility, and she had her father upon her hands. 
 
 She had one more very bad year to pass 
 through before they had settled down at 
 Wickham. Horrible moments stood out. She 
 had gone with her father to consult a Harley 
 Street specialist. Mr. Brede had been moan- 
 ing to her until seven in the morning, in the 
 sitting room of a London hotel. She had had no 
 sleep, they had had to wait a very long time in 
 the specialist's ante-room. Afterwards she 
 had received long instructions as to the 
 management of her father. She was to find a 
 locum tenens for him, she was to take him 
 abroad, she was to keep his mind engaged, she 
 was to watch him unceasingly. He might 
 become light-headed at times. She was to 
 secure always rooms opening out of his. In 
 foreign hotels it was a good thing to have a 
 night porter within easy call. All the while 
 she had been wanting to call out at the doctor : 
 ' And I ? And I ? What's to become of me ? 
 Is my life worth nothing ? Haven't I got a 
 sanity to lose ? " 
 
 But she had appointed the locum tenens; 
 she had gone abroad with her father. It re- 
 
THE JEWELLER AND HIS STONES. 87 
 
 mained in her mind as a long agony of trying 
 to interest him in great pictures that made her 
 eyes ache, by artists whose names seemed to 
 be all like " Caravaggio." 
 
 Mr. Brede grew a little better. They came 
 to settle at Wickham. It all went on just the 
 same. Then Dora came back ; one day they 
 met George. Mr. Brede had once or twice 
 called on him, in the old days, when he had 
 been trying to beat up recruits for the Society 
 for keeping the peasant on the land. So when 
 they met, George asked her father how the 
 Society went. Mr. Brede had replied with his 
 whole lamentable story. It had been one of his 
 bad days, and he had shouted a good deal. It 
 had shocked Clara. She was used to his out- 
 breaks before strangers, but George was differ- 
 ent, a distinguished man who would not stand 
 intruders. She had had that idea of George. 
 
 George, however, had almost taken her 
 father off her hands. He had become the 
 centre of their lives. 
 
 She had the smallest room in the house, 
 because from it she could hear through the 
 wall the slightest sounds that her father made. 
 It was so low that she could not take her dress 
 off without rubbing her hands against the ceiling. 
 She had not thought much about it before, 
 but suddenly it struck her as abominable. 
 
 George had hardly noticed her. She would 
 have said he had not really looked at her until 
 
88 THE BENEFACTOR, 
 
 that evening. When he had spoken about 
 Thwaite he had really, as it were, tried to 
 come in contact with her. He had always had 
 a very kind tone, but an amused one, as if 
 she were a person who had never thought 
 about life. He had said : " A concierge of 
 such a charm ! " bantering things like that. 
 
 " I think I do not agree with him about 
 Thwaite," she said. His doctrine seemed to 
 to be immoral. He had told her not to trouble 
 about a man's scrupulousness ; the main thing 
 was whether he was sympathetic. " I couldn't 
 subscribe to such a doctrine," she said. 
 
 But, at least, he had spoken to her about 
 life, about things that mattered, not only of 
 books and flowerSj and the gossip of the place. 
 She wondered why gossip amused him. She 
 had alwayslthought that one ought to be above 
 it. But he was interested in people's lives. 
 She sat speculating for a long time . . . 
 
 " Thwaite is unscrupulous," she maintained. 
 " He's charming. I think he would make 
 Dora an excellent defender, a splendid com- 
 panion. But ought I to let Dora marry him ? " 
 He would be unscrupulous for her against 
 all the world. But was that what most a 
 woman needed ? Would it be moral ? What 
 ought she to do ? Mr. Moffat said that they 
 would make such a charming family circle. 
 But was that an excuse ? 
 
 " Oh, if only " she began. She was 
 
 talking to herself again. It startled and 
 
THE JEWELLER AND HIS STONES. 89 
 
 shocked her. It was a sign that her mind, too, 
 was yielding to a strain. Or was that idea, too, 
 only self-consciousness ? 
 
 " Yet, heaven knows," she said, "I've no 
 one else to talk to. No one." 
 
 The pure lines of her fair face hardened ; 
 her eyes gazed more intently in front of her. 
 
 " He might have taken an interest in me ! " 
 she said. He never had. A hot glow had 
 come over her one day while George had 
 been taking his immense pains over her father. 
 It had done her father no good ; it had only 
 made him talk the more and think the more 
 about his own misery. She had wanted to say 
 to George : " Why not talk to me ? " 
 
 Ah, why not ? No one, not ever, seemed 
 to think that she could suffer. She had 
 listened to her mother, to her father, to her 
 sisters. Her girl friends had built, before her, 
 their castles in the air. But they seemed 
 always to cool at once if she began to talk 
 about herself. " You ? — you can do what you 
 like," they had always seemed to say. Why ? 
 Why should she be always credited with this 
 cool efficiency ? Why did no one — even 
 George, who could see into so many hearts 
 — ever see that she needed sympathy, help, 
 counsel ? Besides, she dare not really speak 
 to Dora. She could not be certain that she 
 had not " morbid " ideas, that it was not right 
 for a child like Dora to share. She could not 
 be certain. There was no one she could open 
 
90 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 her heart to. She needed it so much — ah, 
 she needed it so much. She bowed her head, 
 and sat for a long time lost in gazing at her 
 hands. Her nails were very pink and delicate, 
 her hands were very long. She laid them one 
 within another, and thought that, surely, they 
 were graceful. 
 
 But her dress was dreadfully coarse blue 
 stuff. She had thought it so nice when she 
 had bought it before they came to Wickham. 
 Why shouldn't she have some better things ? 
 She had money now. Besides, they could afford 
 it. She had always made her own. Why 
 shouldn't she manage to run up to town for an 
 afternoon now to a dressmaker's ? Surely 
 Dora could look after her father for one day. 
 Dora had plenty of things. 
 
 " He took an interest in Dora," she said, 
 suddenly. He worried himself about her, 
 about Thwaite — even about that hateful Hailes, 
 who had always made her shudder. What 
 could he see in such a creature, such a mani- 
 fest leech ? Why should he help such people ? 
 Why not her? What was the matter, that she 
 appealed to no one ? 
 
 " Oh, if only " she began again. If 
 
 only she could talk, just once, just once open 
 her heart to some good man like that ! If only 
 he would listen to her for awhile, just once, 
 just to ease herself of her intolerable load of 
 — " of silly nothings," she said, sharply. 
 
 She must put a stop to these morbid self- 
 
THE JEWELLER AND HIS STONES. QI 
 
 analyses. There was nothing in her to attract 
 the notice of such a great man. Hundreds 
 of other girls had been trampled under, 
 dried up, became dust at last without ever 
 speaking. She, too, would have to in the 
 end. 
 
 "But if only " No, it was no good. 
 
 She couldn't even speak to herself. What was 
 the good ? One has to give up day dreams at 
 last. One has to come to renunciations. She 
 opened a drawer and stood looking into it 
 abstractedly. She had a few treasures, some 
 old brooches of her mother's, a pearl necklace. 
 She took it out, and stood fingering the pearls. 
 They were wonderfully soothing to the touch, 
 delicate, silky. She put it round her neck and 
 stood thinking. It came over her gently, like 
 something precious, that she knew more about 
 George than anyone there. Even Thwaite did 
 not know that he was a poor man. She had 
 overheard that hateful Mrs. Gregory Moffat 
 talking about it — to Hailes. A horrible, bare- 
 faced thing to do ! " Oh, I assure you," Mrs. 
 Moffat's high voice had said, " George can't last 
 another year. This place is mortgaged up to 
 the hilt — What ? Oh, I don't suppose he's in 
 debt ; he's too ridiculously considerate of his 
 tradesmen." Clara had been coming in by the 
 private way, over the turf in the dusk, behind 
 a tall, quickset hedge that George was proud 
 of. It had arcaded openings, round arches 
 cut in it. Mrs. Moffat had been talking, in her 
 
92 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 high, contemptuous voice on the other side. 
 Clara had paused with one foot drawn back. 
 She had heard a great deal more. 
 
 It had shocked her horribly at first. She 
 had watched George's face intently for signs 
 of worry. She thought she had made them out. 
 But how splendidly he concealed it ! 
 
 Afterwards, when Thwaite had spoken light- 
 heartedly of owing a large sum to George, it 
 had sickened her. It was too dreadful, too 
 heartless. But Thwaite evidently knew nothing. 
 George was keeping his sorrow to himself. 
 What would he do ? What was he going to 
 do ? It would be dreadful for him. He was 
 used to all these fine things. It was impossible 
 to imagine him without them. Supposing he 
 intended to kill himself ! 
 
 She paused, bending over another drawer 
 that she had opened. It was full of her 
 mother's beautiful old china silks. She 
 remembered that there was some old, very fine 
 lace beneath the silks. She began to take them 
 carefully out, and lay them on the bed. They 
 had only been relics for her. What was she to 
 do ? What ought she to do ? She had not 
 money enough to be worth offering to George. 
 And how could she offer it. It wasn't possible. 
 And all these people had been preying upon 
 him. Her father, too, had been taking up time 
 when George might have been working. Well, 
 she had stopped all that ! She was going to go 
 on as she had begun, on the very next day — 
 
THE JEWELLER AND HIS STONES. 93 
 
 keeping her father away from George. They, 
 assuredly, were not going to prey on him. 
 
 She began to take out from the drawer a long 
 strip of broad lace ; it fell voluptuously, a 
 delicate yellow, over her arm ; it depended in 
 a broad fold to her feet. She remembered for 
 a minute that lace was coming in again. This, 
 she believed, was priceless. 
 
 No ! They were not going to prey on 
 George. If Thwaite were going to become a 
 member of their family, he, too, would have to 
 leave off. She would insist on that — if George 
 could persuade her father to consent to the 
 marriage. She wondered vaguely if he would. 
 If not, poor Dora. 
 
 She herself liked Thwaite ; in many things 
 he was so " genuine." But, if he were to 
 marry Dora, he must work to pay George 
 back. He must. They couldn't be indebted. 
 But she couldn't explain to Thwaite ; she 
 could not tell him why it was so urgent. 
 George wanted no one to know. She sat down 
 again on her bed and began to loosen her 
 dress. She tilted the glass down, to catch 
 sight of herself. 
 
 What, then, was to be done ? She had 
 only her own money — and Dora's. Of her 
 mother's bequest she had given away by 
 now all but their two shares. Perhaps, after 
 all, George might not be ruined. She undid 
 the hooks of her cuffs ; her dress began to 
 slip down. 
 
94 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 Thwaite owed George all this money. If 
 
 he married Dora, then She sat up very 
 
 straight ; her dress slid down, her white 
 shoulders appeared, dazzling and solid. 
 
 " Dora's money ought to j5ay Mr. Moffat," 
 she said. The whole position took shape be- 
 fore her, as if snow had fallen to outline a dim 
 landscape. 
 
 That was it ; that was obviously it. In some 
 form. But in what ? 
 
 Dora's money will just pay Mr. Moffat," she 
 said. She considered for a long time. She 
 could not tell Thwaite — that George was in 
 need of money. It might be a great blow for 
 Thwaite. Perhaps it would. She was con- 
 vinced that Thwaite was fond of money. She 
 did not want to hurt Thwaite's feelings. What 
 ought she to do ? 
 
 She was draping the yellow lace upon her 
 white shoulders. The touch of it was like a 
 caress. 
 
 " I could give Mr. Moffat my own money," 
 she said. But no. That wasn't possible. It 
 would do Thwaite good — to have a reverse. 
 Hehadhadtooeasyatime of it ; he had been too 
 long a parasite. Things had " turned up " for 
 him too easily. It was demoralising. 
 
 That was precisely it ; George was de- 
 moralising. He helped people too much ; they 
 could not do without him at last. He meddled, 
 too. It would have been meddling in a man 
 less fine, She pursued remorselessly her con- 
 
THE JEWELLER AND HIS STONES. 95 
 
 scientious reasoning. It must lead to evil in 
 the end. People victimised him. That was 
 degrading to them. He hadn't the right to 
 usurp the functions of Providence. No man 
 had. 
 
 She sat down in front of her mirror. She 
 shook her hair loose about her shoulders. Her 
 face had the freshness, her flesh the lustrous 
 transparence, in the bright light, of a white- 
 heart cherry. The white of her shoulders 
 looked velvety and soft through, the old ivory 
 of the lace. Yes ; she was beautiful, like that. 
 Why wouldn't people see it ? Why had she 
 never attracted anyone ? Was it only the 
 matter of dress, or hadn't she had the 
 win? 
 
 ^If I had this lace made up," she thought, 
 " and did my hair so as to get the full value of 
 it." She half closed her eyes and pictured 
 herself walking, tall, straight, fair, her cheeks 
 flushed, her eyes dancing, a soft smile curving 
 the clear lines of her mouth. She had seen 
 women like that with — with . . . . " with an 
 ensemble," she remembered George had said 
 of a lady they had once seen — a tourist, looking 
 at the church. She sighed, the tenseness re- 
 laxed. She wondered what sort of a woman his 
 wife could have been. 
 
 " Why have people always treated him so 
 badly ? " she asked herself. He had probably 
 spoilt his wife. That was it. He spoiled 
 everybody he met. He was too good. People 
 
96 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 could not appreciate him.! They must treat 
 him badly. It was inevitable. 
 
 " I ought to put these things away," she said, 
 but she was too tired. She had used up all 
 her energy. Then she said determinedly : 
 " Thwaite sha'n't escape." It was perfectly 
 right. Her mother had given her the money. 
 This was precisely a case for hfer to use her 
 discretion. 
 
 "But ought I? — ought I?" She felt 
 instinctively that something, somewhere, was 
 biasing her. " If only I had someone to talk 
 to ! " But she couldn't talk, even to George, 
 about this matter. To him least of all. 
 
 It would do Thwaite good. That was 
 something. The thing was beginning to 
 worry her horribly. It needn't hurt Dora. If 
 Dora ever needed money, she, Clara, would 
 give her her own. How did it work out ? It was 
 surely perfectly right. Mr. Moffat ought to be 
 paid. Her sister could not be indebted to 
 him. But supposing he never needed the 
 money ? Supposing that Mrs. MofEat had 
 been lying ? She was that sort of woman. 
 
 She drew up her blind, and looked through 
 the low diamond-paned window at the pale 
 night. She extinguished her candles, and a 
 blazing moon, a great bright star, the silver 
 band of the distant, tranquil sea, existed 
 suddenly behind the wintering branches 
 of trees. It was all so still, so steadfast, so 
 definite. 
 
THE JEWELLER AND HIS STONES. 97 
 
 " I suppose I must let it slide," she said, bit- 
 terly. " Then I shall have to act. But I'm 
 always doing things. I can never get to the 
 bottom of anything." 
 
 She had become, in her little room, a white, 
 dim figure in the shadows. Her hair caught 
 the reflection of the moon in broad bands. 
 She said—" Never ! " 
 
 But she debated these things for long after. 
 
 George was prepared to go to any lengths to 
 make Mr. Brede consent to the marriage of 
 Dora and Thwaite. He thought he understood 
 Mr. Brede' s mental trouble ; he was not pre- 
 pared to call him a brute. There was un- 
 doubtedly a logic underlying the unreasonable- 
 ness. 
 
 "But it's absurd," he fulminated. Mr. 
 Brede had at last come to see him, after per- 
 haps a week of gloomy and obstinate silence 
 at home. " Even if, for the sake of argument, 
 we allow that you did cause your wife's death, 
 that's not the kind of sin that's visited on the 
 children. Besides, it would be for Thwaite to 
 object." 
 
 Mr. Brede shook his head gloomily. 
 
 " It isn't that," he said. " I don't want to 
 talk about it." 
 
 George caught him resolutely. " I won't 
 talk about anything else." 
 
 He impHed, distinctly enough, that if Mr. 
 Brede would not listen to reason, he, George, 
 
 H 
 
98 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 would have no more to say to him. Mr. Brede 
 said, rather lamentably : 
 
 " But, Moffat — — " There was a great appeal 
 in his voice. 
 
 George shook his head. 
 
 Mr. Brede's heavy features sank towards his 
 chest. Suddenly he raised his brows and shot 
 a piercing, rather wild glance at George. 
 
 " I'm — I tell you I'm going " he muttered 
 
 rather thickly, and then, with a swift intonation, 
 " I'm not the sort of man whose children 
 ought to marry, There are more than enough 
 creatures like me." 
 
 George laughed robustly and comfortingly. 
 " It's just such strenuous natures as yours that 
 we need so dreadfully. People who can work 
 themselves out — right out, as you have done. 
 Now, of course you're taking a rest ; but you'll 
 begin again. I'm not certain that you 
 oughtn't soon." 
 
 Mr. Brede shook his head gloomily. " I've 
 no mind left," he said. " You don't know 
 what it is." 
 
 George laughed rather brilliantly. 
 
 " You know, you are — you are really — a little 
 outrageous with your self-questioning. It's 
 conscientiousness carried to a logical absurdity. 
 But you must really get back to work again. 
 That's what you want." 
 
 Mr. Brede looked at him with a suggestion 
 of awakened trusting that irresistibly suggested 
 Clara's. 
 
THE JEWELLER AND HIS STONES. 99 
 
 " You think that," he said. 
 
 " Oh, I'm sure of it," George answered. 
 
 Mr. Brede rose suddenly to his immense 
 height. " I'll never consent to their marriage," 
 he said, vehemently. His manner had entirely 
 changed. " Never. It's not fitting that my 
 children should marry. A mark is set upon 
 me." He rushed out of the room. 
 
 But after a week, during which George reso- 
 lutely refused to see him, he wrote a note to 
 George. " Heaven, if it cares about me any 
 more, knows that I don't wish to be cruel to 
 my girls. But I'm a man sorely tried." 
 
 George felt extremely pleased. " Oh, I'll 
 take all the responsibilities," he went round to 
 say to him. 
 
 There was going to be such a pleasant circle 
 in that little town. He himself would take Mr. 
 Brede in hand, and would get him back to 
 himself. And he had begun his new volume. 
 
 END OF PART I. 
 
THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 PART II. 
 
 The Golden Circle. 
 
THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 PART II. 
 
 The Golden Circle. 
 
 I. 
 
 Whilst he was ferretting in drawers and 
 turning over in his mind fragments of uncom- 
 pleted verse, George came upon a novel that 
 he had written a great many years before. He 
 had been dissatisfied with it, and the manu- 
 script had remained ever since at the bottom 
 of a drawer. He read it out of curiosity, and 
 it left him gasping and ashamed to think that 
 he had ever been so callow and so crude. It 
 was like looking at a portrait of himself in his 
 boyhood, though it was not really ten years 
 old. 
 
 It had been a mediaeval-renaissance story ; 
 it was romantically concerned with the dis- 
 covery of America, the opening up of 
 new and mysterious worlds; it was "justi- 
 fied" according to George's own psycho- 
 logical ideas. The hero analysed his emotions 
 hair-splittingly. He thought whole pages 
 full between the uplifting and downfall of a 
 battle axe ; he was filled with quite modern 
 world pain as he walked in cloisters, strayed in 
 
104 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 Virginian forests, or saw outrages committed 
 on the high seas. It was, in fact, that Wilder- 
 spin which half the world that reads has 
 since read. 
 
 It had filled George with the shame of a 
 suddenly remembered youthful indiscretion. 
 He left it lying, a heap of paper, open to the 
 oak beams of his study on the top of the 
 bureau at which he wrote. Sometimes whilst 
 he was working at the new volume he looked 
 at the heap ; the dust was settling down on it 
 again. Then one day Clara Brede came in 
 and borrowed it to read. But Wilderspin or 
 no Wilderspin, there was undoubtedly a fever 
 in George. He thought of Clara's finding 
 revealed its vulgarities, its life, its positiveness 
 and its youth, and that spurred him to those 
 fits of impatience in which, spasmodically, a 
 man catches at the pen, and can't write fast 
 enough. It carried him into the New Year, 
 too. 
 
 " My dear fellow," he said suddenly to 
 Thwaite, " the fact is you're all, all of you, 
 working along wrong lines. What we want is 
 your commonplaces." 
 
 It was a January night after supper. Candle- 
 light from under green shades in two places of 
 the dusky room fell on the respective blotting- 
 pads of George and of the Editor of the 
 Salon. Thwaite had undoubtedly ensued 
 the civiUsing touches of George's " best type." 
 He had had his beard well trimmed; it gave 
 
THE GOLDEN CIRCLE. I05 
 
 him a certain air of Henry IV. of France, and a 
 certain air of knowing it. He was by then 
 definitely affianced to Dora. Mr. Brede had 
 never again mentioned the subject. They 
 were to be married in the summer hoUdays ; 
 peace had descended upon the Httle circle. 
 
 " Oh, if you want my commonplaces," he 
 said good humouredly, looking up from the 
 slip on his knees, "listen!" He began to 
 read the book announcements from the Salon : 
 " Messrs. Killingworth are publishing an inter- 
 esting volume on . , ." 
 
 George said : " Killingworths have asked 
 for this volume," and Thwaite answered : 
 
 " Oh, they aren't the least use for verse." 
 
 " Where I mean your mistake lies," George 
 took up again, "is in your view of the attitude 
 of the poet — ^you want so damnably to be 
 poets, to get the poetic point of view." 
 
 Thwaite laid his pad on the ground beside 
 his cane chair, crossed his legs, and began to 
 tap his delicate white fingers one on the other. 
 He said: "Well?" 
 
 "The poetic point of view," George said, 
 with a slight sniff, " and to • get ' it . . . 
 But don't you see, my dear fellow ? A man 
 either is or is not a poet. If he is, his com- 
 monplace is the poetic point of view. If he 
 isn't . . ." 
 
 Thwaite said : " Oh, but . . . " and 
 stirred slightly. His chair creaked in the dim 
 warmth of the room. 
 
lo6 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 " I fall Upon you," George said animatedly, 
 " because the idea is a new one ; a new canon, 
 a new motive, a light through all sort of dim- 
 nesses — to me, I mean. I've never seen it 
 put as clearly as I want to put it. And upon 
 
 you because here " he let a heavy fist 
 
 fall upon a copy of the Salon, " here I find 
 you writing those absurd words : An unfor- 
 tunate has published a first volume ; you 
 recommend him to keep firmly before him 
 ' the poetic point of view.' '' 
 
 Thwaite said : " Oh, I'm not a good critic. 
 That's commercialism — that's penny-a-lining. 
 Those reviews represent tables and chairs for 
 the cottage." 
 
 " You're writing a great deal too much, my 
 dear boy," George said with sudden gravity. 
 " This rag of a paper isn't worth it." 
 
 " You mean I've a delicate thin pipe of a 
 talent," Thwaite mocked at him. 
 
 " You have," George affirmed. " I don't 
 want to see you blunt it." 
 
 Thwaite leaned forward. 
 
 " The Salon people — (I fancy it's principally 
 your sister-in-law) — have given hints of dis- 
 pleasure," he said. " They think I'm not worth 
 my salt. I been trying to prove I am." 
 
 " You've been writing it pretty well from 
 cover to cover," George accused. " It's too 
 much, too much." 
 
 " It's a matter of death or nothing," Thwaite 
 laughed. " If they give me notice, how the 
 
tHE GOLDEN CIRCLE. 107 
 
 deuce am I to marry Dora? She's next to 
 nothing ; I've practically not a cent." 
 
 " It's not as bad as that, surely ? " George 
 asked. 
 
 "Bad," Thwaite answered gloomily, "why, 
 one has to look things in the face. I couldn't 
 take that child into starvation, I don't want 
 anything for myself." 
 
 George interjected : " No, no," as if he 
 were asking a question. 
 
 " I explained the matter to the father — to 
 Mr. Brede," Thwaite went on, " and he said 
 the whole thing was in Clara's hands." 
 
 George nodded confidently. 
 
 " Clara — Clara's so incomprehensible." 
 Thwaite uttered an ejaculation of intense vex- 
 ation. " I thought she approved of me. Why 
 the deuce shouldn't she ? But — but — " 
 he paused — " I believe she's as mad as her 
 father," he said. 
 
 " You're talking absolute nonsense," George 
 interrupted angrily. 
 
 Clara had acted on Christmas Eve. She 
 and her sister had been sitting over the fire 
 in Dora's room, at night. 
 
 Dora had said : " Oh, Clara, I shan't see 
 another Xmas at home." 
 
 Clara looked absently at the red coals. It 
 was the first time Dora had spoken directly of 
 leaving home. Butshe had been talking about 
 it with Thwaite, And sitting now with her 
 
lo8 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 sister, on that anniversary, she began to make 
 her plans before Clara, She loved Clara very 
 much, because Clara was so good and so gentle. 
 She was going to marry Thwaite in July ; 
 that was the time when Thwaite could take his 
 holiday, because people didn't publish books 
 much in the summer. They were going to 
 live in Thwaite's cottage. She would spend 
 some of her money in doing it up. They could 
 make it lovely. 
 
 Clara said suddenly : " I may not be able to 
 let you have your money." 
 
 She had reflected about it all that time, and 
 ten minutes before she hadn't arrived at any 
 conclusion. Now the words were out. 
 
 Dora was saying : " Oh, but, Clara, . . . 
 why ? " 
 
 It was not against Clara that she felt resent- 
 ment, but against whatever it was that forced 
 Clara. 
 
 Clara said : " I can't give you any reason. I 
 have one. I may not be able to let you have 
 the money." 
 
 Her voice sounded hor'ribly cold to herself ; 
 the short, sharp sentences had a ring like the 
 command of an officer. Dora's blue eyes were 
 round with surprise. It wasn't anger. She 
 was too young to understand quite what not 
 having the money meant. 
 
 Clara felt suddenly horribly mean. " I've 
 a claim upon me," she said. 
 
 " But what ? " Dora said. 
 
THE GOLDEN CIRCLE, 109 
 
 " I can't give you any reason," Clara 
 answered again. 
 
 She continued looking at the red coals. She 
 remained quite motionless. But it was as if 
 she were out of breath after a desperate 
 struggle. She had acted ! 
 
 She was not going to give Dora her money. 
 She was going to wait to see what happened 
 to George. She was not going to explain, 
 because that would be to betray George. It 
 was settled. But what was going to happen ? 
 She felt sudden tears in her eyes. She did 
 not know why they were there. She looked 
 round and said to Dora, "Darling child, I 
 will give you whatever you want out of my 
 own money." It came suddenly into her 
 mind : " This means that I am giving my 
 money to George Moffat. And Dora will 
 get her money, but I shall be keeping a hold 
 over it." She could not trust Thwaite. These 
 thoughts made her more firm. She had no 
 more doubts. 
 
 Dora could not understand. She consulted 
 Thwaite, and he was angry. Dora said, " Oh, 
 but Clara says there is a claim." 
 
 Her words made him still more angry. He 
 could not see why Dora should so implicitly 
 trust her sister. The money was Dora's. He 
 had thought of speaking to Clara. Then he 
 had decided to consult George first. Now 
 he was doing it. He tried to restrain his 
 anger. 
 
110 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 " But it's at least annoying," he said. " We 
 certainly had expected the money." 
 
 George said, " What are Clara's reasons ? " 
 
 " I don't know." Thwaite poured out his 
 heart. " It's the most incomprehensible thing. 
 She's given Dora a hundred pounds towards 
 doing up the cottage." His handsome, peak- 
 bearded face expressed an honest puzzlement. 
 " She says that if something happens a claim on 
 
 her will arise She can't ignore it even 
 
 for her sister's sake." 
 
 "Only don't," George urged, "only don't 
 take the odious family view of these things. 
 Don't drop down to that level. If Clara says 
 she has a claim, she certainly has. She's 
 essentially " — he paused for a word — " scru- 
 pulous," he added. 
 
 Thwaite laughed. " It's easier for you than 
 for me to see that she has a fine character. 
 She has, of course she has." He paused and 
 then broke out again, " But that's why I'm, 
 doing so much to keep in the good books of the 
 Salon people. I simply must. Dora and I are 
 both set on — on living happily ever after- 
 wards. Good Lord, I wouldn't have believed 
 it of myself a year ago." 
 
 George frowned. " You are not to overwrite 
 yourself," he said ; " you will be ruining 
 your style." 
 
 Thwaite laughed. "At any rate I'll make 
 Dora happy," he said ; " it's a responsibility." 
 
 George pondered. He took up his pen and 
 
THE GOLDEN CIRCLE. Ill 
 
 began listlessly scrawling the letters of the 
 alphabet A B C . . . A B C. Then C ; then 
 B ; then a more ornate C and a finer B. He 
 did not much like this mood of Thwaite's. 
 Here he was talking like a householder, about 
 his " responsibilities." George was romantic 
 enough to prefer the joyous Bohemian, the 
 vagabond with the knapsack. But after all 
 it was his own doing. It struck him that his 
 capital C's had not a sufficiently weighty look. 
 He wrote " Clara Brede " heavily and 
 majestically with the full weight of his strong 
 hand. He looked at the name uncomprehend- 
 ingly, and then with a certain alertness at 
 Thwaite. 
 
 " I'll speak to Clara Brede," he said, " and 
 to my brother. He's an enigmatic person ; 
 but he sha'n't turn you off the Salon." 
 
 He would have to keep these worries out of 
 Thwaite's way. They would spoil any man. 
 He was not going to let them spoil Thwaite. 
 " Dora shan't come within measurable distance 
 of a pinch." 
 
 Thwaite said, " Oh, I can't cadge on you for 
 ever." 
 
 George waved his hand plutocratically. 
 " It's a point of honour," he said. " I'm re- 
 sponsible. I brought you together." It went 
 through his mind that to do anything effectual 
 for Dora he would have to sell his house. 
 
 Thwaite laughed. " Someone said of you 
 that you would give the shirt off your back." 
 
112 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 " Who ? " George asked. 
 " Oh, I heard it from Clara," Thwaite said. 
 Clara had heard it from Mrs. Gregory Moffat. 
 
 George came into the Bredes' drawing room 
 next morning. The' front, door stood always 
 open, and he had the run of the house. Clara 
 was standing in front of the tall glass. It ran 
 from floor to ceiling, and. was the only one in 
 which she could see her tull figure. Her new 
 dress had come down from Town that morning. 
 It had fitted very badly on the shoulders, and 
 she had been for a long time moving and re- 
 moving the hooks and eyes of the lace in the 
 collar. She had been looking forward to it-r- 
 she had only that moment discovered how 
 ardently. She drew a long breath ; it was 
 very charming now. 
 
 The dressmaker had told her that her old lace 
 would work into it beautifully. And it did. It 
 was set in square round the shoulders, and fell 
 gracefully right down to her feet. Yes, it made 
 her look .... it made her look .... she 
 couldn't think of any word. She was a little 
 ashamed to be thinking of such things at all. 
 It wasn't like her. 
 
 She squared her shoulders involuntarily : 
 " Taller, more graceful, imposing — but this 
 glass always flattered me " — the under bodice 
 was cut low beneath the lace ; she wondered 
 if it were not too low. She couldn't tell. She 
 had never had anything like it before. A 
 
THE GOLDEN CIRCLE. 113 
 
 London dressmaker wouldn't have sent her 
 anything immodest. "And for evening 
 wear. . . ." 
 
 George said behind her : 
 
 " I want to speak to you about Thwaite." 
 
 Her heart beat wildly. What was going to 
 happen ? Did he know ? Did he guess why 
 she had refused Dora her money ? But he 
 couldn't. Was he angry ? 
 
 She faced him. He was smiling. He said : 
 
 I' Oh, what a pretty dress." He sat down 
 comfortably beside the piano, and rested one 
 arm on the end of the keys. His dark eyes 
 seemed to see right through her, and she 
 felt unreasonably tremulous. She said : 
 
 " I can't talk about Thwaite." She had 
 acted once more ! 
 
 She felt a profound feeling of thankfulness. 
 Then, suddenly, she thought that she had been 
 horribly rude to him, and cold, and brutal. 
 He asked : 
 
 " You think I'm presumptuous because I 
 interfere." 
 
 She answered : " Oh, «o." 
 
 And he said : "I take an interest in you all. 
 But, of course,! am meddling." 
 
 He thought how calm she was and how very 
 reasonable. He hadn't any right to speak to 
 her. 
 
 " I can't talk about the matter," she said. 
 Her voice was trembling. " I believe I'm act- 
 ing rightly." She couldn't trust herself to say 
 
 I 
 
114 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 any more. She had wanted so much to talk 
 to him, just once. Now he was offering to talk 
 to her about the one thing she could not talk 
 about. She leaned against the mantelpiece. It 
 relieved her to have even a material support. 
 She became more nervous. Supposing she 
 should think out loud. She might say : " It's 
 because I want the money for you." She 
 shivered. She remembered her dress. Oh, 
 supposing those words came out. Suddenly 
 she found herself wishing that she dared say 
 them. If only she could say them and have 
 done with it 
 
 He flicked his cap gently on his knee. 
 
 "Well, I suppose that settles it," he said. 
 He had never been treated like that before. It 
 was as if she had told him to mind his own 
 business, and it pleased him. It made him 
 feel like a lion confronted by a sparrow defend- 
 ing its nest. She was most refreshing ; he 
 certainly hadn't a right to meddle, and she told 
 him so. 
 
 She thought : " Now I have made him hate 
 me. He is smiling to hide his anger." Then 
 she thought, proudly : " But I'm doing the 
 right thing." 
 
 He said: 
 
 " I suppose I shall find your father in the 
 study." 
 
 He was on his feet, and she was thinking 
 desperately of something to say to keep him a 
 moment longer. She had wanted so much to 
 
THE GOLDEN CIRCLE. I15 
 
 speak to him. Now he was going. She said : 
 
 " I was only trying this dress on." 
 
 He smiled and answered : 
 
 " Well, it's very charming," and she wondered 
 how in the world she could have said such a 
 thing. She must have been trying to excuse 
 the splendour of it. 
 
 He paused at the door and added : 
 
 " I thought it might have been that old 
 matter — ^Thwaite's lack of scruples. That's 
 unfounded, I assure you." It occurred to him 
 oddly that he had been pleading his own 
 cause. If he had to support Dora it meant 
 selling his furniture. 
 
 " I ventured because poorThwaite is a good 
 deal worried just now." The door closed 
 upon him. 
 
 To her it was like a knell. She had 
 offended him mortally. He would never speak 
 to her again. Suddenly she thought, with a 
 mutinous rage : 
 
 " He thinks about Thwaite's worries. He 
 never imagines I have any." Her head fell 
 upon her chest. " I never let him ! " She had 
 prevented his talking. 
 
 But he had noticed her dress. 
 
II. 
 
 George took up his parable of the poetic point 
 of view some nights later. The thing was 
 running in his head. It simply meant his 
 salvation, he said, and he felt, he went on, a 
 desperate desire to he saved. He didn't know 
 why. " At my age it seems childish. But 
 there it is." 
 
 Thwaite was still correcting proofs. He 
 nodded. 
 
 " Dora has been prodding me on to write 
 great works. It's in the Brede family," he 
 said, " to prod you on. In me you might call 
 it love." 
 
 " I've always felt so hopelessly dull, so 
 commonplace," George said. But it had come 
 as a revelation to him that his commonplaces 
 might be the poetry of A, B and C. "So that 
 if )I accept myself on those lines I may do 
 something yet." He stopped, and then re- 
 peated : " Something yet." 
 
 " I've always been too honest, or too con- 
 temptuous to ' write poetic' " It had always 
 seemed to him that consequently he hadn't 
 anything worth saying. " But you fellows in- 
 sist that I (I'm a wealth of boredom to myself) 
 am really somebody, a personality, a poet " 
 
THE GOLDEN CIRCLE. II7 
 
 Thwaite made an energetic forward move- 
 ment. George said hastily that he didn't 
 deny it. It was a thing they couldn't discuss 
 — " I have it or I haven't it — this personal 
 magnetism, this power of hypnotising crowds." 
 But it was his duty to be natural, not to pose, 
 not to cast about for a poetic point of view. 
 That was it, wasn't it ? Thwaite said that he 
 wasn't any good at Socratic argument. 
 
 That day, to avoid a troublesome draught of 
 some years' standing, George had had his desk 
 moved some yards further from the window. 
 A mirror above the fireplace threw the re- 
 flection of his own face in profile, warmly lit up 
 by the glow of light on the papers in front of 
 him, into a large glass on the opposite wall. 
 
 " By jove, how young I look ! " he exclaimed. 
 He felt a sudden warmth of joy, of thankful- 
 ness, as it were. He saw a head that appealed 
 to him very much ; that was sympathetic, 
 massive, full of energy and expressive. 
 
 " Didn't you know ? " Thwaite laughed. 
 " You're a child. The youngest of us all." 
 
 George paused for a long time- If he were 
 as young as that — if he still had that life, that 
 power of taking an interest in life, which is 
 more than life itself, he had still a chance. 
 
 He might still What ? What was it that 
 
 he wanted ? The minutest examination of the 
 mirror didn't reveal a wrinkle. His eyes 
 shone. 
 
 " I don't know what in the world has come 
 
Il8 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 over me," he said vehemently. " I seem to 
 have been talking of myself for hours. I'm 
 beginning a stage. What stage ? What is it ? 
 Senile decay ? A final flicker of the candle 
 before it drops into the socket ? " He was 
 speaking in his large, bantering manner. He 
 looked down at his work. " I shall have some- 
 thing to show you in a minute." 
 
 " I'm so extremely glad," Thvijaite said with 
 a gush of pleasure. " We shall all be." 
 
 " It's three-quarters finished," George said. 
 " But wait a minute." He vigorously erased 
 three lines of manuscript. Then his eyebrows 
 contracted, and he interlined little words. 
 
 " One minute," he repeated abstractedly. 
 
 Thwaite looked intently and affectionately 
 at George's engrossed face. " If only he 
 could really take an interest in himself," he 
 thought. He felt immense pleasure. He had 
 been waiting for the announcement so very 
 long. George hadn't had " anything to show " 
 anybody for a period that had melted from 
 months into years. 
 
 If only he would pull himself together, and 
 deliver one blow to clench all the staves of the 
 barrel. He ran over in his mind the desultory 
 output of George's life. " There are volumes 
 enough, and it's all good stuff ; it's got charm ; 
 it's got his own individuality." It hadn't failed 
 of its success of esteem ; but in the light of 
 George's personality the success did not seem 
 good enough. 
 
THE GOLDEN CIRCLE. 119 
 
 George, with an abstracted expression, held 
 his pen poised over a missing word. 
 
 " No, there isn't any reason," Thwaite 
 thought. " He should make pots of money if 
 there isn't any budding publisher he wants to 
 give a lift to. He may do the trick this very 
 time." 
 
 His mind went rapidly over the engineering 
 of the trick. He saw himself running about 
 from reviewer to reviewer. There were the 
 hundreds of fellows George had helped. 
 Thwaite would force them, for shame, to give 
 George a shove. That was how these things 
 are worked. He saw advertisements in enor- 
 mous letters. He would bully George into 
 letting him fill the Salon with them. 
 
 " It all turns on what he's writing now," he 
 thought, excitedly. And then, " No, it doesn't 
 matter a straw what he's writing ; it's a sure 
 thing." 
 
 The pen of the unconscious George began 
 to scratch swiftly over the paper. 
 
 " Yes, if only he'd succeed now," Thwaite 
 thought. He thought of the immense sums 
 that George ought to make. His mind lost 
 itself in details of publishers' agreements, 
 Thwaite was fond of money, and he had a 
 settled idea — George let himself be victimised 
 by these people. It irritated him horribly. 
 There ought to be a definite clause in the next 
 agreement ; the publishers must spend a stipu- 
 lated suni on advertisements. He grew impa- 
 
120 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 tient. " Why can't he show me the back 
 pages, and let me catch him up ? " 
 
 The pen slackened its pace, and George 
 looked meditatively up the page, " It's coming 
 now." 
 
 The tramp of heavy feet sounded on the 
 cobbles outside the window ; it was followed 
 by the sound of a clumsy hand on the por- 
 tentous iron fastenings of the front door. The 
 noise penetrated even to the absent mind of 
 George. He threw down his pen with a ges- 
 ture of impatience. 
 
 " Our excellent friend," he said. 
 
 Mr. Brede loomed darkly into the room. 
 
 " You're busy ? " he asked, with a shade of 
 apology in his tone. " I couldn't do without 
 some company. I'll listen to your talk." He 
 dropped his great bulk into a low chair. 
 
 " We'd been discussing," George said with 
 his suave collectedness, " the reason for the 
 degeneracy of us modern poets." 
 
 " Ah, give me the poets of my young days," 
 said Mr. Brede. "And the classics, of 
 course." 
 
 Thwaite moved across the room in his 
 desultory manner. He sloped a long arm and 
 caught at the manuscript before George. 
 
 " Let me look," he said. 
 
 "There's dry rot everywhere," Mr. Brede 
 boomed. " Only money matters." 
 
 " There were some points I wanted to make 
 clear," George said a little regretfully to 
 
THE GOLDEN CIRCLE. 121 
 
 Thwaite. He had very much wished for a 
 quiet talk with Thwaite. 
 
 "Look all round you," Mr. Brede boomed 
 cheerfully. 
 
 Thwaite carried the pile of manuscript to 
 the sofa at the far end of the room, and Mr. 
 Brede continued his philippic. It meant that 
 it was quite one of his best days, for on his 
 bad ones he hadn't a thought to bestow outside 
 his own condition. George felt that it was a 
 little more than hard to have him when he was 
 well, since he was ready enough to give his 
 time when Mr. Brede needed cheerful society. 
 He caught sight of his own reflection again. 
 Thwaite, suddenly absorbed in the manuscript, 
 lay on the sofa beneath his reading-lamp. 
 George saw his own friendly smile at Mr. 
 Brede. " It's such a very relative matter," he 
 was saying. 
 
 Mr. Brede repeated dogmatically, " Every- 
 thing's falling to pieces. Look at the Dis- 
 senters." He began to laugh ponderously. 
 " I was talking to an old woman this morning. 
 She asked me : ' Mister, if so be things were 
 as they usedn't to be ' " 
 
 He mimicked rather spiritedly the drawl of 
 a very old woman. 
 
 Suddenly he said : " It's no good." 
 
 There was a harshness in his voice that 
 took George aback. 
 
 " What's no good ? " he asked involun- 
 tarily. 
 
122 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 " I — I — I," Mr. Brede answered, clenching 
 his enormous fist. " I'm no good." 
 
 He had had a relapse. It was usual with 
 him. 
 
 George sighed. With his new preoccupa- 
 tions, with Thwaite absorbed in the new work, 
 with the new desire to talk of his own aims and 
 aspirations, there descended upon him a new 
 weariness in setting to cast off Mr. Brede's 
 portentous shadows. He felt an intense desire 
 to say : " I can't be bothered ; I've my own 
 worries." 
 
 Mr. Brede muttered : " Clara says I'm not 
 to trouble you. I have to wait till she's in bed 
 before coming round. Did you ever hear of 
 such a thing ? " He looked ferociously at 
 George. " You're the only person that does 
 me any good. What's the use of Clara ? She's 
 been working with me all day. But she 
 doesn't understand. She's no sympathy." 
 
 " Aren't you a little hard on people ? " 
 George asked. 
 
 "Hard," Mr. Brede groaned. "Yes, I 
 know I'm hard ; a burden to all the world. 
 And myself ! " 
 
 A sudden vision of Clara Brede, bent over 
 the fac-simile of the mutilated papyrus, ap- 
 peared to George. It was too bad. 
 
 " I didn't know Clara was helping you," he 
 said. " The subject's not very interesting." 
 
 " Most engrossing," Mr. Brede said, dog- 
 matically. Most en " He did not finish 
 
THE GOLDEN CIRCLE. 123 
 
 his word, which, as if it had touched a 
 spring of discontent, ended in a plaintive 
 groan. 
 
 " But I can't take an interest in anything." 
 
 He proclaimed triumphantly that it was a 
 bad sign that he was no longer engrossed by a 
 find so remarkable as that of the Fragment of 
 Strasburg. " How can I keep my mind on 
 anything ? " he thundered. " I am a murderer. 
 The brand of Cain is on my brow, I shall 
 murder someone else. I'm going mad." 
 
 George said hastily : " Nothing of the sort," 
 and Mr. Brede began his long monologue : 
 "There was my wife. I knew, if ever a man 
 knew anything, that the least excitement would 
 kill her " 
 
 Thwaite and his work seemed to disappear 
 together from George's mind. He felt that 
 he would have to give them up for a long time 
 at least. This was a nervous crisis, as serious 
 as any that had gone before. He would have 
 to devote weeks to the society of Mr. Brede. 
 He wanted to save the man. He was such a 
 fine creature ; so real, so vivid — a man who 
 might be so useful to the world. 
 
 " But what's the good of talking to these 
 oafs," Mr. Brede was wandering on. He had 
 reached the episode of the knife-boy and the 
 boots. His voice had that odd expression of 
 hard contempt that one finds in the country 
 clergy talking of its flocks. " What's the good 
 of trying to show them how to do things? 
 
124 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 They're like animals " He continued his 
 
 stereotyped and miserable story. 
 
 George saw his way quite clearly. The 
 thing was ito divert his mind — to lure him 
 back to his real work, as a clergyman. He 
 mustn't be allowed to brood any more. It 
 would be a struggk to get him to do it. But 
 that was to be George's task ; he was up to it. 
 
 Mr. Brede's voice rose : " I don't know what 
 I should have done to the young devil. But I 
 heard a scream. My God, such a scream. 
 She was dead." 
 
 He looked at the floor, then at George 
 again, his eyes suffused with blood, his face 
 suddenly rigid. 
 
 " I believe I'm possessed by a devil," he 
 whispered. 
 
 George affected a laugh : " You don't believe 
 anything of the sort." 
 
 " I don't know what I believe," Brede re- 
 torted gloomily. " I hear voices. You don't 
 know what it is." 
 
 " It's a purely physical delusion," George 
 answered cheerfully. 
 
 " It's awful," Brede said, " awful." There 
 was an expression of stony fatalism in his 
 voice. 
 
 " I think you want work," George said care- 
 fully. He would have to give up his own. 
 " Something you can get engrossed in. More 
 vital than the Greek aorists or fragments of 
 papyrus." 
 
THE GOLDEN CIRCLE. 1 25 
 
 Mr. Brede looked at him attentively. 
 
 " I know what you mean," he said, " but I'm 
 not fit. How can I go to the altar ? They're 
 whispering to me : ' Had Nimshi peace who 
 slew his master ? ' How can I, a man pos- 
 sessed by devils." 
 
 George said : " Oh, now , . ." and Brede 
 made a sudden motion. 
 
 " I didn't mean to speak of it," he muttered. 
 " It slipped out." 
 
 "That isn't the point," George said. 
 
 Undoubtedly he meant that in the end Mr. 
 Brede should again take up his priestly func- 
 tions. If he ever reached that stage he would 
 be cured for good. It would want a great deal 
 of leading up to. Months, perhaps years. 
 " No, it isn't the point I mean," he repeated. 
 " Don't go among your people as a minister of 
 God, but as a man. Get interested in their 
 sorrows ; get engrossed in their endeavourings. 
 God knows, human endeavours and sorrows 
 are interesting enough to take a man out of 
 himself." 
 
 " They're such a debased, dissolute lot," Mr. 
 Brede said gloomily ; " not more interesting 
 than animals." 
 
 " It's desperately wanted, your organising 
 power," George said, as if guilelessly. " Village 
 life is dying out for want of it." 
 
 " Well, no one knows that better than /." 
 Brede began to talk of the Society for Promoting 
 Rural Pleasures. He had forced it into notoriety 
 
126 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 throughout the country. He had collected 
 statistics ; he had whipped up local gentry and 
 members of both houses. " But goodness only 
 knows what sort of a muddle they'll have got 
 into. There are too many women in it ; they 
 were always quarrelling. The Rural Dean 
 here has asked me to read a paper on my ex- 
 periences." 
 
 George had roused some of the old fire in 
 him. 
 
 Mr. Brede looked at him with a slightly 
 awakened air of nibbling at a bait. " You think 
 it would do me good to mix in these things 
 again ? " 
 
 In the far corner of the room, Thwaite 
 sighed over the manuscript. 
 
 George looked at him absently. " It will 
 save your reason," he said. 
 
 Mr. Brede rose suddenly, and his shadowy 
 form towered over George. 
 
 "Come home with me for a moment," he 
 said. " I've something I want to show you." 
 
 George looked hesitatingly at Thwaite, who 
 was getting to the end of his reading. He 
 wanted to hear Thwaite's verdict. 
 
 " I won't keep you a minute," Mr. Brede 
 said. His voice was shaking with eagerness, 
 and his eyes rolled. 
 
III. 
 
 "Yes, I'm going mad," he thundered, He 
 caught violently at George's coat-lapel ; they 
 were in his tiny room. 
 
 " I'm going mad. You've said the word." 
 He kept George for two hours in the dim 
 light of a solitary candle, It was past one. 
 On the flap of the bureau lay the fac-simile 
 of the papyrus, beside it one of Clara's gloves. 
 Cheering him, distracting his mind and sooth- 
 ing his nerves, seemed an endless task. The 
 little black hands of the strident clock crept 
 round the dial. 
 
 George noticed the glove beside the yellow 
 paper. He twisted it round his fingers and 
 flicked the buttoned end absently at Mr. 
 Brede, emphasising his remarks. Once the 
 click of a door lock sounded above them ; 
 footsteps creaked on the stairs ; a skirt brushed 
 against the wall. George wondered if Clara 
 Brede would come in. The sounds retreated 
 after a moment. He felt some disappoint- 
 ment. He realised with conviction that she 
 had become alarmed. Her nerves must be 
 always on the stretch. She was trying to hear 
 if her father were talking to himself in a 
 sudden paroxysm. She listened just long 
 
128 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 enough to satisfy herself that he was not 
 alone. He seemed to know her so very well. 
 
 Mr. Brede read him his notes for a sermon on 
 the evilness of the age. He dragged them, 
 panting, out of ill-fitting drawers of the bureau, 
 and talked of them with animation. His eyes 
 sparkled. 
 
 "You're the only person that does me any 
 good," he asseverated. " I feel better already. 
 That specialist said my brain couldn't stand 
 any kind of strain." 
 
 George twisted Clara's glove more tightly 
 round his middle finger. " You ought to see 
 him again," he said. 
 
 " No, no," the clergyman snorted. " Never ! 
 He frightened me out of my wits. That's 
 what's the matter with me." 
 
 George reflected. He didn't like the re- 
 sponsibility. The specialist ought to be con- 
 sulted. 
 
 " What you want," he said at last, " is pre- 
 cisely not to let these things be a strain. Only 
 work at them enough to keep your mind em- 
 ployed. It's your duty — if you have any kind 
 of message for the times — to deliver that 
 message. But you ought to see the specialist." 
 
 Mr. Brede eluded the injunction. The special- 
 ist had frightened him. 
 
 " The point is : Am I fit ? Have I the right, 
 morally, after " 
 
 " Oh, I'll help you," George said cheerfully. 
 " I'm, an essential idler." 
 
THE GOLDEN CIRCLE. 1 29 
 
 Clara Brede had heard in her sleep the deep 
 boom of her father's voice. She had found 
 herself running out of her door and creeping 
 down the stairs. She hardly knew whether 
 she was frightened ; she was breathlessly 
 anxious that there should be no outcry. He 
 was such a large man. One day he would be 
 more violent than she could control, and then 
 she would have to call for help. 
 
 That was her constant dread — a public dis- 
 closure of the fact that her father was mad. 
 She had no personal fears, but that kept her 
 awake many nights. She heard George's 
 voice, and suddenly she felt quite safe. It 
 was very cold. She crept back to her room, 
 found in the darkness her blue cloak, and, 
 covering herself with it, she leaned over the 
 banisters at the stair-head and listened to the 
 voices. They seemed to soothe her ; it was 
 pleasant to think they were so near. The rest 
 of the house was very quiet and it was quite 
 dark, with the heavy, soundless blackness 
 of a mid-winter midnight, when all the 
 world is as if frozen and dead. She had 
 nothing to think of ; she remained perfectly 
 motionless, 
 
 " How I love him," she whispered, and to 
 herself it seemed like a loud and startling cry. 
 A great peace descended upon her soul ; it 
 was as if all the sleeping world were suddenly 
 at one with itself and with her. She put her 
 hands before her face and began to cry 
 
 K 
 
130 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 silently, as if with the restfulness of it. Her 
 tears fell between her fingers. 
 
 No thoughts came to her. There was only 
 the feeling that he was there, quite near her, 
 and that everything was well. He was there, 
 almost within hand touch ; she could hear his 
 voice. And she loved him ; the world outside 
 her small, dark circle of hopelessness seemed 
 again to have sent a ray towards her. She was 
 no longer alone, and she was at rest ; she 
 wanted to sleep, to sink into unconsciousness ; 
 then, with the warmth of her hands upon her 
 face 
 
 The door below her feet clicked open, a thin 
 fillet of light ran up the wall ; the voices 
 gushed up to her. She caught her father's : 
 " Have I the right, morally ? " 
 
 She leaned forward and looked down. She 
 caught sight of George's shoulder and of the 
 light shining on his hair. She drank in his 
 voice thirstily, the vibrating, comforting, joyous 
 tones, " Oh, I'll help you." 
 
 What a good man he was ! He moved 
 slightly ; disappeared. He had such a light 
 foot that she could not hear his steps m the 
 hall. The minutest sounds seemed of immense 
 importance. She heard none. A rush of cold 
 
 air came. She heard her father's : " Ph , 
 
 what a cold night ! " then a sort of murmur, a 
 single footstep on the bricked path. The front 
 door clanged to. It struck her as a shame that 
 her father had not waited.until George was out 
 
THE GOLDEN CIRCLE. 131 
 
 of the gate. Everyone treated him so badly ! 
 She had been expecting blissful and impossible 
 things to happen. She heard a fumbling with 
 the chains and bolts. It was all over, then ! 
 She couldn't believe it. She slipped noiselessly 
 into her room. 
 
 George walked erectly and elatedly home as 
 the church clock drowsily chimed and struck 
 two. In the study the pile of manuscript lay 
 on the sofa ; Thwaite had gone home. He 
 stood for some minutes gazing at the fire and 
 still flicking Clara's glove up and down. He 
 had carried it off absent-mindedly. He threw 
 it on to his desk. He couldn't give any reason at 
 all for his elation. 
 
 He had, next morning, a letter from his 
 brother Gregory. "No," it said (George 
 had asked whether he had an idea of dismissing 
 Thwaite from the Salon), " I haven't the least. 
 He need not break his back with hack work. 
 I'm not a sweater." George went hurriedly 
 round the churchyard to Thwaite's cottage. 
 He had not even breakfasted. The cottage 
 faced the friendly ruins of the great church, A 
 weather-boarded, two-storied shanty, once run 
 up for a yeomanry occupation during a 
 Napoleonic invasion scare, it had, with its little, 
 long and attenuated strip of garden in front, 
 the air of being sandwiched in, an extravagant 
 toy, a heightened doll's house, between two 
 rather pretentious brick and tile dwellings. 
 
132 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 George was swinging the garden gate briskly 
 ajar when a man sprang out of a passing fly, 
 straight at him. He made a sort of flash of 
 brown ulster and red beard cut nattily into a 
 spade shape. 
 
 " I guess you're Mr. Moffat," he said, holding 
 out a nervous hand. " I'm George P- Beale — 
 the Philadelphia Book Company." 
 
 He had friendly blue eyes that looked 
 amusedly at the world in general and George 
 in particular. 
 
 He jerked out, " I heard from Mr. Hailes 
 that you've a book on hand. I want it." 
 
 George faced him squarely and solidly, " I'm 
 not aware that I have." 
 
 " Well, we can't talk business in the. open 
 air," Mr. Beale said, cheerfully. " llaven't 
 breakfasted even. I came straight on from Mr. 
 Hailes' rooms. Early morning train." 
 
 George sent him home to await his own 
 coming, and offered him a share of his own 
 breakfast. 
 
 "I'm going to have that book," the American 
 called, as he jumped back into the fly. " I 
 thought that was your shanty. Queer erection. 
 But there's no knowing what you English 
 Pre-Raphaelites won't rejoice in." 
 
 " I'll be with you in a minute," George called. 
 The fly drove off. He went smiling up the 
 long, narrow garden path. He was used to 
 people who came to him with absurd requests, 
 and Mr. Beale had amused him. He seemed 
 
THE GOLDEN CIRCLE. I33 
 
 to promise a cheerful hour at breakfast. He 
 could not think what Hailes had meant by 
 sending the man after a book. Hailes had not 
 heard of the new volume before he went, and 
 he hadn't taken the trouble to write to George 
 since. Standard roses had been newly planted 
 along the paths ; round new, circular beds in 
 the grass, new crocuses peeped perfunctory 
 yellow flames at the March wind. 
 
 " You've been getting the garden into shape 
 for Dora," George said to Thwaite. 
 
 It had been for years an untended tangle of 
 weeds and briars. 
 
 "Oh, Dora likes pretty things," Thwaite 
 answered. " You won't know this house when 
 we're done with it." He was bending over 
 some bacon in a frying-pan that sizzled and 
 sent out a sharp, joyful odour. " It's go- 
 ing to be like your room. Look at the 
 ceiling." He pointed a fork backwards over 
 his shoulder. 
 
 He read the letter from Gregory, joyfully 
 letting small drops of fat fall from the prongs 
 on to his sackcloth apron. The plaster had 
 been stripped from the ceiling, laying bare the 
 floor joists above ; they undoubtedly imitated 
 George's famous beams. A large, rough oak 
 table that someone had begun to polish had a 
 pile of books for review on it. 
 
 " Dora wants it to look like your room," 
 Thwaite commented. He was still intent on 
 the letter. " She's a tenderly imitative spirit." 
 
i34 T^HE BENfiFACTOli. 
 
 He removed the frying pan from the fire, and 
 placed it among his papers. 
 
 " Your brother's a good sort," he commented. 
 " I suppose he knows his business." And what 
 a good sort George was to have come round 
 before breakfast. It took a weight off his mind 
 to know that things were settled — that little 
 room would look really pretty when all the 
 furniture was in it. They had arranged to have 
 a general servant and a knife boy to sleep out. 
 
 George laughed. 
 
 " One has to arrange these things," Thwaite 
 admonished him. " It's a serious business." 
 He pointed to the trying-pan among the 
 papers, "And I'm certainly acquiring a 
 distaste for that sort of thing." 
 
 George said : " Ah ! " and moved towards 
 the door. 
 
 " Oh, I know you think I'm deteriorating," 
 Thwaite jeered at him, " but one can't always 
 be a tramp. Don't abandon me, though," 
 
 George lifted the latch. " I've got an 
 American publisher descended out of the 
 heavens to breakfast," he smiled. 
 
 " Don't let him swindle you with your absurd 
 good nature," Thwaite came to the door to call 
 after him. " I haven't had time to speak about 
 your work. But it's going to be a valuable asset." 
 
 George waved a comfortable hand from the 
 gate. He was immensely pleased to think that 
 Thwaite's post on the Salon was safe ; it was 
 going to be an ideal little manage in that cottage. 
 
IV. 
 
 Hailes and Mrs. Moffat had finished break- 
 fast in the large, shining dining room at 
 Campden Hill. The folded Times and half 
 a score of letters beside a silver kettle hissing 
 on a tripod awaited Gregory. 
 
 Mrs. Moffat was poring, flushed and anxi- 
 ously, above a sale catalogue of Christie's, the 
 fine art auctioneers ; she made feverish 
 marks with a pencil against several num- 
 bers. Hailes stood with his back to the light 
 in one of the three tall white window spaces. 
 His air of unconcern, his noticeable, dark, 
 spick and spanness, and the slight backward 
 ricking of the neck were precisely those that 
 had deserted George four months before. 
 
 " I don't see where anything's to come 
 from," he said, " I really don't." 
 
 Mrs. Moffat looked at him as if with a pang 
 of anguish. 
 
 " Oh, as a last resort we can always go to 
 him." She looked disdainfully towards the 
 place of the absent Gregory. 
 
 Hailes slightly squared his noticeably 
 squared shoulders. 
 
 " If we can carry on till May " 
 
 " That Astley woman ought to be made to 
 
136 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 pay up," Mrs. Moffat said angrily. " I've 
 had her here ; Lady Clo's presented her. 
 What are these people for ? " 
 
 Hailes swung a window cord knob like an 
 acorn round and round in the air. 
 
 "You might as well ask what are we all 
 here for ? " he asked sardonically. 
 
 Mrs. Moffat looked at him, her eyes full of 
 anger. 
 
 " You haven't any heart," she said. 
 
 Gregory Moffat appeared at the door. He 
 beamed at them through his gold-rimmed 
 spectacles, and sat down to breakfast. Hailes 
 was gazing at the trees that, outside, swung in 
 the fresh breeze. A sparrow flew upwards, 
 carrying a straw. Mrs. Moffat resumed her 
 reading in the catalogue. 
 
 Five minutes later she said in her clear, 
 windy voice : " Gregory, I must have a 
 cheque." 
 
 Her husband peered, as if with the end of 
 his nose, over a blue letter lying across his 
 plate. He did not move. 
 
 " Over and above the household expenses," 
 Mrs. Moffat explained, as if she were talking 
 to a stupid child. " I can't get along without 
 it. I've tried." 
 
 Gregory peered, at first over, then through 
 his glasses. 
 
 " A woman must have money," his wife 
 protested angrily. 
 
 Gregory slightly shrugged one of his 
 
THE GOLDEN CIRCLE. I37 
 
 shoulders, and looked down again at his letter. 
 When he went out of the room he pointed 
 short-sightedly at a large Gainsborough por- 
 trait that hung above the imposing sideboard. 
 " That's to go down to the Gallery this morn- 
 ing. There's a Troyon coming to take its 
 place. You can come down about eleven for 
 the cheque." 
 
 " By Jove, I wish I had his luck," Hailes 
 said, looking appreciatively at the Gains- 
 borough after Gregory's noiseless disappear- 
 ance. " I suppose that's sold to some fool." 
 He remained looking moodily at the fire for 
 some minutes. " He cut up rather rusty about 
 the cheque, didn't he ? " 
 
 Mrs. Moffat, looking with gloomy abstrac- 
 tion at the table-cloth, muttered : " Oh, 
 he " 
 
 Hailes pulled a tiny, gilt-edged note-book 
 from his upper waistcoat pocket. " Thirty — 
 no, twenty-eight at a pinch," he said, beneath 
 his mongolian moustache. 
 
 " I'll do him the justice to say he's not close 
 with money," she said scornfully. " He's 
 never refused me a penny. There's some- 
 thing else on his mind." 
 
 Hailes put his note-book up. 
 
 " I don't ask for much. And you'll admit 
 we've not been very successful these last 
 few months." 
 
 " It's the fault of your tip about Barberton 
 Reefs," Mrs. Moffat said. 
 
138 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 Hailes paced abstractedly up and down the 
 border of the enormous Oriental carpet. 
 
 " The fact is, you've been going on wrong 
 lines," he said, authoritatively. 
 
 From his assured manner and quiet pose of 
 being used to the household it wouldn't have 
 been guessed that he had been Mrs. Moffat's 
 private secretary for certainly not half a year. 
 
 " I used to keep myself in pocket money 
 very well before," Mrs. Moffat said, almost 
 plaintively. She was thinking of the Mr. 
 Frewer Hoey who had preceded Mr. Hailes. 
 " And with much less trouble." 
 
 Hailes put his hand to the back bottom rim 
 of his waistcoat, pulled it a little, and jerked 
 his head back. 
 
 " That only proves that the game was played 
 out," he said. " And it's so niggling at the 
 best of times. I'm almost ashamed to be 
 seen going to these sales and snapping up a 
 thing here and there to sell to wretched par- 
 venus who want to-^t into Lady Clo's set. 
 And Lady Clo wants such a devil of a com- 
 mission." 
 
 Mrs. Moffat, with instinctive conservatism, 
 said that it was in any case better than Mr. 
 Hailes' tip about Barberton Reefs. 
 
 Mr. Hailes, in no way listening, went on : 
 " Now my Spanish project is a certain thing." 
 
 Mrs. MofEat sighed slightly, and, leaning her 
 arms on the table, prepared to listen to the 
 Spanish project. 
 
The GOLbEN CIRCLE. 139 
 
 The coming of Mr. Hailes had very much 
 changed her Ufe. In the old days — in Mr. 
 Frewer Hoey's — she had, Hke so many ladies 
 in her set, dabbled in a branch of the antique 
 furniture business. She went with Mr. Hoey 
 to occasional sales, as a rule in large country 
 mansions, and purchased the more costly lots 
 of bric-a-brac that "went cheaply." These 
 Mr. Hoey had afterwards, through dis- 
 creet tradesmen, disposed of to the people 
 Mr. Hailes called " wretched parvenus 
 who wanted to get into the set of" Lady 
 Clo, or any other of Mrs. Moffat's bosom 
 friends. 
 
 Mrs. Moffat had hardly considered the 
 money side of the matter. It had comfortably 
 supplemented the income of Mr. Hoey himself. 
 To her it meant more frequent tdtes-a-t6te with 
 him — in railway carriages to and from the 
 country mansions, pleasant drives in the 
 country, and the pleasing excitement of pick- 
 ing up bargains. The pursuit had had the 
 glamour of romance and sentiment. It had 
 caused, too, only occasional intervals between 
 the once incessant " meetings." 
 
 Mr. Hailes had changed all this. The 
 " meetings " had become the scarce interludes 
 in his almost sinister pursuit of money in large 
 quantities. He had even hinted that politics 
 itself was vieux jeu. If Mrs. Moffat really 
 wanted to keep herself in any sort of set at all 
 she might have to face weaning herself from 
 
140 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 the public life of a sort that she so delighted 
 windily to dominate. 
 
 It all caused her a certain amount of dis- 
 quietude, the precursor of the mental agony 
 of being superannuated, on the shelf, used up 
 and leading nothing. Hailes terrorised her, as 
 it were, by veiled hints, the merest suggestions 
 that if she were undocile he would cut himself 
 adrift. He terrorised her. She most desper- 
 ately did not want to lose him. Perhaps it 
 was his sinister personal charm ; perhaps the 
 mere necessity for close and intimate union 
 with some man, and the feeling that, Hailes 
 once lost, no more in all probability would take 
 his place. I don't know. She was on that 
 indefinite, wrong side of forty-five, when for 
 a woman everything that is lost is gone for 
 ever. To Mrs. Moffat the measure of rule, of 
 tyranny, that she had enjoyed had meant a very 
 great deal. 
 
 Listening to Hailes' Spanish project she 
 sighed vaguely. 
 
 " I tell you it's a certain thing," he was say- 
 ing. " I know the Duke of Medina's master 
 of the horse. He would give us all the in- 
 structions and introductions we should want. 
 Why, even the figures that I got from the 
 little dealer in Clarges Street mean a profit of 
 four hundred per cent. And properly boomed, 
 as you and your people could do it, there's a 
 fortune in it. All these old Spanish families 
 part with their old furniture for next to nothing. 
 
THE GOLDEN CIRCLE. 141 
 
 There's a painter in Portugal now — an old 
 master called II Gran Vasco. Why, he " 
 
 Hailes, in fact, was merely elaborating the 
 principle of purchasing objects of vertu at 
 local sales and disposing of them at enhanced 
 prices in London. His idea was that half the 
 old furniture in Spain — old cloth of gold, 
 ancient tapestries, and gorgeous Portuguese 
 carvings and lace — might be purchased for a 
 few hundred pounds from the country casus 
 of the nobles in out of the way places. The 
 nobles would be only too glad of a chance of 
 re-furnishing with Tottenham Court Road and 
 Rue de Rivoli stuff. 
 
 " It's all there waiting," he said. " After- 
 wards we open little Kleinkampf's gallery with 
 the best of the stuff and a few borrowed Goyas 
 and Velasquez. II Gran Vasco's pictures 
 — we'll buy them up at old rag prices — will be 
 the discovery of the year. He's quite un- 
 known. The Bond Street Peninsular Gallery ! 
 It's a little fortune if we get the right people 
 interested. And that's easy." 
 
 " It's rather like Gregory's undertakings," 
 Mrs. Moffat said, negligently. 
 
 " Oh, of course, he's too big a man for us to 
 fly at," Hailes answered. 
 
 " It's on the same lines, though. The only 
 thing we want is capital." 
 
 He said, after a time : " Get everything you 
 can out of him ; every penny. What will he 
 stand — a thousand ? " 
 
142 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 " Oh, I don't know," Mrs. Moffat answered, 
 a little wearily ; " I don't in the least know. 
 He's always given me whatever I asked. I 
 daresay he will." 
 
 Mr. Hailes looked as if he envied her. " Well, 
 get the last penny," he said. 
 
 " If we have to go away in April," Mrs. 
 Moffat hesitated, " I shall miss the Women's 
 Parliamentary Protection Meetings." She had 
 always taken the chair unopposed. They were 
 the chief source of her power. 
 
 " Of course, you can't be in Spain and here, 
 too," Mr. Hailes said, in his reasonable way. 
 " I can go alone, though. Lady Clo and 
 Semples will be in Madrid. We can work it 
 all right." 
 
 " The meetings must go," Mrs. Moffat said 
 sharply. She did not like the idea of Hailes 
 and Lady Clo in Madrid. 
 
 They drove down to Bond Street, through the 
 park, behind the horses that looked as if they 
 had been French-polished. 
 
 Mr. Hailes said : " I wish you'd contrive to 
 make that beggar Thwaite and the Salon a little 
 more useful. I always thought the paper was 
 ^owr property." 
 
 Mrs. Moffat's large feathered hat waved in 
 the breeze ; she had recovered a great deal of 
 her serenity. 
 
 " I don't know ; frankly I don't know," she 
 said, rather uninterestedly. It had occurred 
 
THE GOLDEN CIRCLE. 143 
 
 to her that, if she got from her husband the 
 sinews of war that Hailes needed, his allegiance 
 to her must be as rivetted as she could desire. 
 And, lying back among the cushions, she felt 
 that she could torment Hailes as much as she 
 liked. " When Gregory bought the Salon I 
 naturally thought it would be an organ for my 
 causes." 
 
 Hailes gnawed at his moustache and 
 meditated. A fat policeman stopped the cross- 
 park traffic for their passage ; the boughs above 
 them, brightened by heavy, tight buds, and 
 shot by windy sunlight, shook in the vigour of 
 the spring. Enormous pink and white clouds 
 lumbered high above the clumsy Bayswater 
 houses, across a limpid blue sky. 
 
 " It hasn't been," she said, negligently. 
 
 " I always hated that supercilious ass, 
 Thwaite," Hailes snarled. "/ saw enough of him 
 at George Moffat's. You must really get rid 
 of him if anything's to be done." 
 
 Mrs. Moffat looked at the back buttons of 
 the footman's coat. She smiled faintly. 
 Probably Thwaite had irritated Hailes at 
 George's. She could imagine them together. 
 She said, a little contemptuously : 
 
 " Well, the creature has ideas about art. He 
 wouldn't admit things I wanted put in." 
 
 " It's a pretty state of affairs," Hailes sneered. 
 Then he, too, became meditative. 
 
 " After all," he commented, " it's just as well 
 the Salon wasn't devoted to the shrieking sister- 
 
144 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 hood. It has a sort of tone. That's what's 
 wanted." 
 
 "What do you want, then?" Mrs. Moffat 
 returned his sneer. 
 
 "Oh, I shall have to begin to boom the 
 Spanish project." 
 
 " You think he'll insert you ? " Mrs. Moffat 
 asked, with a shade of irony. 
 
 " He'll have to," Hailes answered. " We'll 
 throw him out if he doesn't." 
 
 Mrs. Moffat raised her eyebrows. 
 
 " You can, can't you ?" Hailes asked, "Any 
 one but a fool could edit so as to make money 
 out of it. It's a good salary, too." 
 
 " Better than the Spanish idea ? " Mrs. 
 Moffat asked, a little anxiously. 
 
 " Oh, no, we'll work that too," Hailes 
 answered with his air of cheerful competence, 
 " We'll work everything. You shall see." 
 
 She dropped him outside the small gallery at 
 the top of Bond Street. It was for the time 
 tenanted by an Oriental-German called Klein- 
 kampf . Hailes intended to convert it into his 
 Peninsular Gallery. In imagination he already 
 saw his sandwichmen with the name scrawled 
 across their backs, and elevated above their 
 uniform caps. " We'll do the thing in style," 
 he said to himself. He disappeared into the 
 swing-doors. Mrs. Moffat caught a gUmpse of 
 the venerable, grey-bearded proprietor who 
 was lying in wait. At the same moment, 
 
THE GOLDEN CIRCLE. 145 
 
 Gregory himself, jostled in the crowd, recog- 
 nised his equipage and hopped in beside his 
 wife. She wondered uneasily if he had seen 
 Hailes going in ; if he suspected anything, and 
 what he would do if he did. " I was just 
 coming to you," she vouchsafed. He beamed 
 sideways at a large, gilt sign across an upper 
 window. He said nothing, but friendlily 
 patted her hand. It was a habit of his, and it 
 intensely disgusted her. A minute afterwards 
 he handed her out, fumblingly, in front of the 
 Gallery. He ambled away before her towards 
 a carter's arch that was some distance from the 
 gilt and marble of the facing. Mrs. Moffat 
 intensely disliked her husband's side entrance. 
 She followed some yards behind his awry 
 figure ; in the intense draught of the arch, her 
 immense hat was uncomfortably lifted, nearly 
 from her head. Her face had an expression of 
 disgust. 
 
 She rejoined him at the tail of a black- 
 hooded van that, by the agency of men in green 
 aprons, was discharging immense flat packing- 
 cases into an opening that had glass doors 
 painted white. A man with one arm was 
 superintending the unloading. He was 
 normally a commissionaire of considerable 
 presence, now in his shirt-sleeves and a sack- 
 cloth apron, a four days' grizzled beard and a 
 screw-driver stuck across his mouth. ^^ He 
 removed a dirty cloth cap and bowed to Mrs. 
 Moffat, then went on to talk to Gregory. 
 
 h 
 
146 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 They were getting ready for an interim 
 exhibition before the full-dress Spring show. 
 Mrs. Moffat, ignoring their existence, swept 
 into the opening that for the moment was free 
 of men and cases. She went swiftly past a 
 series of rectangular, ill-lit stone cellars, and 
 emerged, ill-temperedly, in a subterranean 
 board room. It had iron bars before windows 
 looking on nothing, and an immense red 
 baise table, surrounded by cane chairs, and 
 dotted with ink pots and blotting pads. 
 
 A man with a particularly nice waistcoat and 
 a genial, incompetent air came suddenly out 
 of a side door up to Gregory. 
 
 "That immense big Rubens," he said, 
 smoothing the hair that was plastered across 
 his forehead — " Good morning, Mrs. Moffat — 
 has got an immense big nail hole through the 
 
 cheek of one of the Sabine women Yes, of 
 
 course it's a loan, sir." He referred to a 
 printed invoice. " An immense big hole." 
 
 He fingered his watch chain, and looked at 
 Gregory, who smiled amiably, and said nothing. 
 
 " Of course I ballyragged the carriers. The 
 owner's that Jeaffreson, of Birmingham ; he's 
 as crusty as the devil. He'll bring all the law- 
 suits in the world. An unpleasant business." 
 
 Gregory appeared to reflect upon the state 
 of the inkpots. " Who's the forwarding 
 agent ? " he asked. 
 
 The secretary referred again to the invoice. 
 " Wyllie, of King Street, sir," he answered, 
 
THE GOLDEN CIRCLE. I47 
 
 " Oh, let them re-back it, and fill up the 
 hole," Gregory decided. 
 
 The secretary said : " Certainly, sir. And 
 not tell the owner anything at all ? " 
 
 "Why certainly not. An unpleasant business, 
 very," he explained to Mrs. Moffat, who 
 was not listening. " It makes other owners so 
 chary of lending. Charming weather." 
 
 He disappeared. 
 
 Gregory already had his head in the safe 
 that stood between the barred windows. He 
 produced a cheque book, and looked at his 
 wife interrogatively. She sank voluminously 
 into a chair, and faced him across the red 
 table. She was a little nervous ; she never 
 had sounded Gregory. 
 
 " What can you make it ? " she asked. " I'm 
 pretty deep. Deeply hit, I mean." 
 
 Gregory dipped a pen into ink and laid the 
 cheque book on a blotting pad. His face 
 questioned her again. 
 
 " After all, you've nothing to grumble at," 
 his wife protested. " I'm not as bad as a 
 thousand women in our set." 
 
 " There aren't so many," Gregory chuckled 
 suddenly ; " there aren't a thousand." 
 
 She looked down meditatively at a gold 
 bangle on her tight wrist of her black glove, 
 
 " I've dropped a pot of money on Barberton 
 Reefs. I suppose you'd mean me to face the 
 music." 
 
 Gregory said, " Oh." 
 
148 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 " A couple of thousand will set me quite 
 straight," she said. The sudden thought of 
 Hailes had advanced her hopes and her 
 demands. " You can make me a present of that, 
 I should think. I haven't asked you for any- 
 thing for myself for two years." 
 
 " It makes a thousand a year," Gregory 
 chuckled. His pen was already at work on a 
 cheque. " Pin money ? Eh ? " 
 
 Mrs. Moffat thought with intense disgust : 
 "While I was at it I might have asked him for 
 the double. But you never know with a man. 
 You'd almost think he was fond of me." 
 
 She said : " Well, you can't grumble. I'm 
 not extravagant." 
 
 Gregory paused in the middle of his signature, 
 
 " I wish," he said, without displaying any 
 emotion at all, "you would get rid of that Hailes. 
 I don't like him." 
 
 Sheer astonishment deprived Mrs. Moffat 
 of speech. 
 
 "You," she said. And then, with sharp 
 haughtiness : " What absurdity. I must have 
 a private secretary. If you didn't like him, why 
 didn't you speak before ? I've engaged him 
 for a year." She added sharply : " With a 
 year's notice." 
 
 It was quite untrue, an after-thought. 
 
 Gregory completed his cheque. 
 
 " I shall have you interfering with the house- 
 maids next," Mrs. Moffat snorted with the in- 
 dignation of virtue. 
 
THE GOLDEN CIRCLE. I49 
 
 " You can give wages in lieu of notice, you 
 know," Gregory said with benevolent reason- 
 ableness. 
 
 Mrs. Moffat rose and caught up the cheque. 
 
 " And you complain of my extravagance ? 
 Wages in lieu of notice ! How would you con- 
 duct business on such lines ? " 
 
 " I didn't complain, you know," Gregory 
 answered amiably. 
 
 She swept towards the further door. Gre- 
 gory, roused from his absent-mindedness to a 
 sort of impressed politeness, hurried to open 
 it. 
 
 As they met at the top of the table Mrs. 
 Moffat apostrophised him with expansive 
 gestures : 
 
 " No, you don't complain, of course. You 
 never do. That's just what / complain of. 
 How do I know what you're thinking of ? How 
 can I tell ? It's like living with — with — " 
 as her eyes roamed round the room her hus- 
 band regarded her with amused admiration 
 and affection — " with a blotting-^pad," she com- 
 pleted. "You never tell me what you think." 
 
 " I tell you I don't like Hailes," Gregory 
 beamed amiably. 
 
 " And I tell you I don't care whether you 
 like him or not." She swept out of the room. 
 " I do." 
 
 Gregory closed the door noiselessly behind 
 her. 
 
V. 
 
 In the dim, broad, marble-balustered staircase 
 that led up from the Board Room to the Gal- 
 lery itself, she paused in front of an immense 
 mirror to shake her ruffled plumes into their 
 proper storminess. She was still quivering 
 with the extraordinariness of it. 
 
 "She had never ..." 
 
 That was precisely it. She never had. There 
 was something unprecedented about the whole 
 affair. She had never before had to ask her 
 husband for such a sum, and he had never be- 
 fore spoken — had never dared to speak — in 
 such a manner. He had never so much as 
 mentioned her companions ; she had gone 
 about with Hoey for years. And all her other 
 friends. He must know that he himself, with 
 his obfusque, blind silence, wasn't a proper 
 companion for her. He had always seemed to 
 realise that, even if he didn't hear any of the 
 sharp truths that she lashed him with. She 
 moved nearer to the great glass — it ran from 
 floor to ceiling of the tall, square landing — ^to 
 arrange the cock's hackle boa beneath her 
 determined chin. 
 
 The dim, unfriendly light fell through ground 
 glass windows from high above behind her 
 
THE GOLDEN CIRCLE. 151 
 
 head. She was filled with sudden misgiving. 
 Was it possible she looked like that — so coarse, 
 so heavy ? How could she keep a hold on 
 people ? on anybody, let alone Hailes — an im- 
 mense, tawny-maned woman with a great 
 drooping hat. It wasn't possible unless she 
 had a personal attraction, a magnetism, some- 
 thing behind and above the qualities of 
 skin, eyes and hair. She was accustomed to 
 think of herself as striking ; the hair shining, 
 the eyes flashing. And, on top of the flush 
 that what she felt to be Gregory's inscrutable 
 outrage had brought to her cheeks, two round 
 marks of the other flush seemed, as it were, 
 to float, accentuated and betrayed. 
 
 She squared her shoulders and looked things 
 in the face. If she could not hold Hailes 
 by personal charm, she would have to the 
 other way. Her fingers crumpled more ner- 
 vously Gregory's cheque. And, with a rapid 
 ipotion, she drew a powder puff from her reti- 
 cule and dabbed it impatiently over her face ; 
 she pulled down a veil that had floated, negli- 
 gently draped, among the feathers of her hat. 
 
 Her reflections flashed an immense distance 
 back into the past and out again, like a 
 diving bird in deep water. She paused 
 for her face to resume composure. 
 
 Why, something like a fifth of a century 
 (imagine such an age) ago, had she ever 
 married Gregory ? Except for the minutest 
 stripplings of time's colour brush, he had re- 
 
152 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 mained precisely the same. In those days she 
 had rather Hked him. It even caused her 
 something remotely resembling an attendrisse- 
 ment ; her mind ran back to the days when 
 Gregory, very young, with practically the same 
 large spectacles and identically the same 
 smile, had persisted in hanging dumbly round 
 her, inscrutably intent on carrying her off, 
 doggedly and silently in love. He hadn't 
 violated the marriage contract by changing. 
 He might be in love with her still for all she 
 knew ; that might account for his many and 
 insufferable tiresomenesses. He was perfectly 
 — and unbearably — what she ought to have 
 expected. The very same. 
 
 "And I'm precisely the same myself," she 
 protested, " except for that." She pointed at 
 her coarse figure in the glass. " I'm exactly 
 what I ought to have expected myself to be. 
 And yet " 
 
 Yes, undoubtedly, she had an attendrisse- 
 ment de coeur. She looked back upon herself, 
 young, slim, haughty, with flashing eyes and 
 a great contempt for the created universe ; 
 with a steep elastic as that of a race-horse, and 
 fingers that at any motion had curved nervously, 
 as if upon the handle of a riding whip. She 
 had for years, insolently, " choked off " in pure 
 irresponsibility all the eligible young men of 
 her own exclusive set — they had been exclu- 
 sive in those days ; she had, as it were, whip- 
 ped them with scorpions in the face and over 
 
THE GOLDEN CIRCLE. 153 
 
 the back. Then she had captivated the excel- 
 lent, mute, obstinate and intent Gregory. And 
 as she looked back to that ever so long ago 
 she suddenly stiffened her back. " Ever so 
 long ago," she as if snorted ; " the absurdity of 
 of it. It was yesterday. It's now. I'm the 
 same. Anyone not a fool could see what's 
 under that." It did indeed require only a 
 very little of that imagination that has so small 
 a place in the world to see her — brilliant, flash- 
 ing, blonde, exhortative ; as if flying across the 
 land at the head of the hunt, and contemptu- 
 ously in at the death. " And yet " 
 
 Her mind, alert and hastening, flashed 
 through a list of hitherto despised aids — things 
 one hears recommended, treatments, cures, 
 systems of diet, pink candle shades, all the 
 elixirs of youth. Except for the two red dabs 
 on the cheek-bones, which were, so to speak, 
 flung contemptuously at the eyes of the world, 
 she had ignored all these things. But now. . . 
 The proprietary Marquis of the Gallery, with a 
 soft brown hat dominating his soft brown fur 
 collar, and an air of leisurely going towards 
 work in an office, strolled down the silencing, 
 red stair-carpets beneath a marble Grace, who 
 seemed about to drop three electric lights on 
 to his head. 
 
 He said : " Mrs. Moffat," as if inscrutably 
 feeling nothing at all. " How extremely aston- 
 ishing," 
 
 He conducted her across the immense rooms 
 
154 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 of the Gallery itself, looking indulgently at the 
 immense, red-papered, empty walls, the strips 
 of rough matting laid to cover the dancing 
 floor, and the central ottomans draped in dull 
 coloured hoUands. 
 
 " I'm going to have a gallery for the band 
 put there, up at the top," he said, pausing and 
 looking with the eye of a connoisseur at the 
 further wall. 
 
 " It's my idea, not Moffat's this time." 
 
 Mrs, Moffat said : " Oh," uninterestedly. 
 
 " Owners have complained," he said, " that 
 chairs get put against the pictures. You'd 
 think there'd be floor space enough here." 
 
 Mrs. Moffat said contemptuously : " When 
 these Hampstead people want to give a ball 
 they cram in all they can get to come." She 
 moved on a step or two. " They want full 
 value for their money, trust them." 
 
 " Oh, well, you know," he surveyed her 
 indulgently through his monocle, " I want it 
 for mine, too.'' 
 
 He followed her towards the door leading 
 into the next gallery. 
 
 " I never looked at it in that way. Now 
 what value do they get ? What is the width 
 
 of the room ? Say " He stopped, and 
 
 then gravely paced the room from side to side ; 
 he faced round and stood considering. His 
 Vandyke beard, swarthy, small face and grave, 
 inherited Castilian expression, gave him an 
 absurd air of being an old master, left un- 
 
THE GOLDEN CIRCLE. 155 
 
 framed, from among the pictures gone from 
 the walls. " Fifty, say by three hundred. 
 Fifteen thousand, isn't it ? " he appealed pleas- 
 antly to Mrs. Moffat. " Now, taking into con- 
 sideration what we charge for the hire of the 
 rooms for a dance and the number of square 
 feet needed per waltzer, and throwing the side 
 galleries in " 
 
 Mrs. Moffat, impatient to be at the real 
 problem of life, wished the amiable dilettante 
 very intensely somewhere else. 
 
 He abandoned the abstruse calculation with : 
 " And so you see they might get very good 
 value," as he walked beside her again. 
 
 " What ! the excellent Hailes ? " he said, 
 from the top of the front steps. Hailes was 
 already seated in the victoria. " How do, 
 Hailes ? " He waved a tiny hand benignantly, 
 and surveyed Bond Street with musing inter- 
 est for a minute and a half. The doors of the 
 gallery swung to again behind him. 
 
 " If one could only get hold of him" Hailes 
 said, half to himself. 
 
 " Oh, he's no fool," Mrs. Moffat said, arrang- 
 ing the furs contemptuously round her. 
 
 " Henwick's dead," Mr. Hailes announced 
 suddenly. 
 
 Mrs. Moffat looked at him increduously, her 
 eyes dilated. 
 
 " Henwick ? " she asked. " It isn't possible." 
 
 "Well, he's dead, anyhow," Mr. Hailes 
 answered. "Dropped dead, not ten minutes 
 
156 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 ago, in that jeweller's opposite the Gallery. 
 It's what you might call a coincidence our 
 being so near." 
 
 The dilation in Mrs. Moffat's eyes did not 
 diminish. 
 
 " How awful," she said. " And FeUcia ? " 
 
 Felicia, Mrs. Henwick, the little Marquise, 
 was her dearest friend — one of those dearest 
 friends that one has, for no particular reasons, 
 rivetted by a thousand ties of going to the same 
 shops, of lunching- in the same restaurants, of 
 leaving cards at the same doors, of hearing and 
 telling the same scandals. And the image of 
 Mr. Henwick — big, clumsy, fair, entirely un- 
 presentable and entirely amiable, suddenly 
 became intensely vivid to her, loomed up and 
 obscured all Bond Street. Her heart seemed 
 suddenly and incredibly compressed. And 
 there wasn't any reason. She wasn't aware of 
 taking the least interest in him ; his going 
 would not leave the least gap ; she would not 
 in the least, she thought, at any moment miss 
 the amiable inanity of his smile as he hung 
 clumsily a cloak round his wife's shoulders in 
 one or the other of the innumerable crushes 
 they seemed to have been always coming out 
 of together. 
 
 Hailes was recounting onwards with the 
 nonchalance of a man intensely bored by sud- 
 den deaths, yet interested in the coincidence — 
 that it should have happened just there, so 
 close to them. He had seen a little crowd as 
 
THE GOLDEN CIRCLE. 1 57 
 
 he walked down towards the carriage. Mr. 
 Henwick, it seems, had been buying a bracelet 
 for Mrs. Henwick. He had been a little irri- 
 tated by some detail ; it hadn't been made just 
 as he had ordered it for her. And then . . 
 dead. The heart, of course. Mr. Hailes sup- 
 posed that Mrs. Henwick would be pretty well 
 off. 
 
 "And Felicia?" Mrs. Moffat asked. "Does 
 she know ? " 
 
 Mr. Hailes didn't see how she could — " You 
 remember she was going to order a hat at Ma- 
 dame Rene's just about now." Mr. Hailes re- 
 membered everything. "Yes, I suppose she'll 
 be pretty well off. Henwick was a warm man, 
 I believe. But it was an extraordinary coin- 
 cidence, wasn't it ? " 
 
 In the depths of his superstitious soul a 
 belief in Luck as the First Cause took the 
 place of every other faith ; the coincidence, he 
 thought, might undeniably point to sowe-thing. 
 He was the firsttohearof Mr. Henwick's death ; 
 why shouldn't that be a supernatural indication 
 that he was to be the first to profit by it ? 
 
 Mrs. Moffat suddenly stopped the carriage, 
 and then, in the face of the descended foot- 
 man, dropped into a fit of pondering. 
 
 " Madame Rene's," she announced at last, 
 and then to Hailes : " We must — we must 
 break it to her if we can catch her there." 
 
 Hailes said : 
 
 " Oh, very well. I thought you hated that 
 
158 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 sort of thing. That was why I didn't send in- 
 to you at the gallery. But of course it will 
 look better, naturally." After a cheerful pause 
 he added : 
 
 "What did he stand?" 
 
 Mrs. Moffat was recalled from an immense 
 maze of shaken thoughts to a sharp wearying 
 alertness. She answered : 
 
 "Oh ... a thousand." 
 
 She instinctively halved what Gregory had 
 " stood," in the desire to retain, as it were, a 
 reserve force. Hailes' brow clouded in the 
 slightest degree. 
 
 " From what you said," he pronounced, " I 
 thought you could have made him make it 
 more. We shall have to raise it somehow. 
 The market's too good to be spoilt by a mis- 
 fire." 
 
 Mrs. Moffat, with her eyes obsessed by the 
 image of Mr. Henwick grotesquely half alive, 
 half stiff and dead, looked at him with in- 
 tense repulsion. He didn't in the least notice 
 it. 
 
 "Yes, it was a coincidence," his mind reverted, 
 "and Mrs. Henwick — she will be well off, I 
 suppose ?" 
 
 "You can't," Mrs. Moffat blazed at him, 
 " get at her money for your Spanish scheme." 
 She felt suddenly the fulness of her repulsion. 
 In essentials, her attitude of mind was lofty : 
 she could flagellate well enough such want of 
 imagination as Hailes was displaying. 
 
THE GOLDEN CIRCLE. 159 
 
 "No, I suppose the estate couldn't be ar- 
 ranged in time for that," he said pensively. 
 Mrs. Moffat's fingers drummed nervously on 
 the side of the carriage. She did not speak 
 again. 
 
 Hailes remained lost in thought. He ran 
 over in his clear mind all the infinite ramifica- 
 tion of schemes that, with just the touch of 
 that luck which was surely in store for him, 
 might land him in the " anywhere " of a splen- 
 dour that he had not even imaged to him- 
 self. 
 
 Upon the himself of his quite near past he 
 looked with wondering contempt. It did not 
 seem possible that he could ever have looked 
 upon George as a great man, a stepping stone, 
 let alone the wife of a publisher of an author's 
 Directory. He had come to look upon even Mrs. 
 Moffat as irritatingly wanting in courage or in- 
 itiative. She hardly seemed to want to make 
 the money, of which so large a share, he would 
 take care, should be his. What did she want, 
 anyhow ? What had she made him her private 
 secretary for — and herself, as he very well re- 
 cognised, a little egregious — if not for that ? 
 
 He at least was not wanting in initiative. If 
 things hadn't ,got enough in them he dropped 
 them immediately. There had been, for in- 
 stance, the Renaissance Press that he had got 
 George to back. That was on its last legs. 
 Well, he had long ago cleared out of that. 
 He, obviously, could not pay up anything ; he 
 
l6o THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 had nothing. It would all fall upon George. 
 And, in the light of Mrs. Moffat's revelations, 
 he didn't see where George was going to find 
 the money to meet the bill. George was ob- 
 viously on his last legs. 
 
 " Lucky I cleared out from him when I did," 
 Hailes mused. " He might have let me in for 
 something. I suppose that was what he was 
 really up to." Hailes, as a matter of fact, had 
 sent Mr. George P. Beale, the Philadelphia 
 publisher, down to George. He had a general 
 idea that George, by selling something to Mr. 
 Beale, might realise at least enough to satisfy 
 the creditors of the Renaissance Press. The 
 creditors in question were mostly friends that 
 Mr. Hailes thought it would be desirable to 
 keep in with — at the expense of George. 
 
 He pictured himself, after George's crash 
 came, going about, proclaiming, " Well, I did 
 my best for him ; I got him in with Beale's. 
 Yes, / sent Beale to him. But there are some 
 people you can't save from themselves." 
 
 Sitting there in the carriage, he thought 
 comfortably, " And I have done my best for 
 that old fool. No one can accuse me of a dis- 
 honourable act." 
 
 The carriage stopped suddenly opposite 
 Madame Rene's. Mrs. Henwick's brougham, 
 shining brilliantly and coquettishly,was planted 
 in front of them. 
 
 Mr. Hailes said, cheerfully : " I suppose 
 you'll ask her in here." 
 
THE GOLDEN CIRCLE. l6l 
 
 " No, I can't, " Mrs. Moffat answered, curtly, 
 '' I can't tell her. I can't be bothered with 
 scenes." 
 
 Hailes said : " Oh, I'll break it. I'm quite 
 up to it. I'd better ask her for a hft westwards, 
 and tell her on the way." 
 
 Mrs. Moffat nodded without speaking, and 
 Hailes noticed that two long furrows of tears 
 were ploughed down the brilliance of her 
 cheeks. He was intensely astonished. 
 
 A moment later Mrs. Henwick tripped out 
 of the blazoned doors. She took in their car- 
 riage with an alert, unastonished bird's glance, 
 and came, smiling daintily and with a touch of 
 pleasure, to their door. 
 
 " Oh, you two creatures," she said, " I've got 
 such an inspiration of a hat." 
 
 " Be careful," Mrs. Moffat whispered hoarsely 
 to him as he passed her, " I believe she was 
 fond of him." 
 
 " Well, you are in a hurry, Ella," Mrs. Hen- 
 wick said. " So am I, too. Dick's got such a 
 charm of a surprise bracelet waiting for me, I 
 believe. All right ; I'll drop Mr. Hailes quite 
 tenderly. Going to your bank ? Well, so 
 long." 
 
 She waved her hand daintily, and disap- 
 peared into her coup6, followed by the atten- 
 tive form of Mr. Hailes. 
 
 Mrs. Moffat drove alone towards Trafalgar 
 Square, immensely shaken, but with a feeling 
 of momentary calm. And her intense dislike 
 
 M 
 
l62 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 for Hailes grew with every turn of her swift 
 wheels. He was unbearable, insufferable. 
 She would make him feel Then, sud- 
 denly, she stopped her horses, and sent them 
 prancing back after the brougham of Mrs. 
 Henwick. 
 
 It had occurred to her, like the stab of a 
 long needle, " What is he doing now ? " She 
 realised that he was quite capable of com- 
 mencing, with adroit consolations, a series of 
 small, encroaching services. She knew him so 
 well. What a devil he was 
 
 And, inconsequently, she wondered how 
 Mrs. Henwick would look in black, after such 
 a shock. 
 
 END OF PART II. 
 
THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 PART III, 
 
 The Blackening Pearls. 
 
THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 PART III. 
 
 The Blackening Pearls. 
 
 I. 
 
 George found Mr. Beale of Philadelphia a 
 thoroughly entertaining " type." He entered 
 into his frankness, his brusqueness, his evident 
 intention to get what he wanted. It would be 
 saying too little, to put it that George found the 
 American thoroughly sympathetic ; he found 
 him the sort of man that he himself would 
 have wished to be. 
 
 At his return from Thwaite's cottage he dis- 
 covered Mr. Beale standing before the fire- 
 place, reading nervously and intently the 
 manuscript that Thwaite the night before had 
 left on the sofa. 
 
 " I say, this isn't the thing ? " he immediately 
 attacked George. " I mean the thing that's to 
 fill two continents with awe. The novel that 
 man Hailes was talking about." He brushed 
 his disengaged hand nervously across his red- 
 gold beard. " Oh, but it's there, somewhere. 
 It's not a figment of the imagination." 
 
 " We'd better breakfast," George said pleas- 
 antly. " One can't unravel mysteries fasting." 
 
1 66 THE 6ENEPACT0R. 
 
 Mr. Beale looked at him a shade savagely ; 
 then he laughed. 
 
 " You can look at it in that way," he said. 
 
 He swiftly examined the celebrated dining- 
 room and exclaimed : " So this is where you 
 eat, Mr. Moffat ? It's real fine." 
 
 He folded his napkin into the opening of his 
 waistcoat and emphasised his remarks with a 
 bacon knife : " Let me tell you all about my- 
 self, Mr. Moffat." 
 
 George, massive and benignantly amused, let 
 the stream pass over him. Mr. Beale explained 
 that he was a business man, who wouldn't in- 
 trude anywhere unless he saw a good thing 
 that he wanted. 
 
 " And when I don't see that good thing in 
 the window, I ask for it," he concluded, fixing 
 his clear blue eyes on George. 
 
 " But, my dear man," George said, amiably, 
 "I don't know what it is you want." 
 
 " The American novel is played out," Mr. 
 Beale suddenly announced. Philadelphia, in the 
 shape of his firm, was waiting for it at the last 
 base or he wasn't any judge of base-ball. " No, 
 sir, the American novel racket has had its day." 
 
 "Things move so fast over there," 
 George said. He savoured his toast in his 
 pleasant way of tasting an ice at an opera. 
 " But, how, if I had a novel for you to have, or 
 if you had my novel — how, in the realms of 
 wonder, would you affect that American phe- 
 nomenon with it ? " 
 
The blackening pearls. 167 
 
 Mr. Beale looked at him sharply : " I 
 thought you would come round," he said. 
 " Why, the merit wouldn't be yours. I don't 
 mind telling you that much." 
 
 George chuckled once more. 
 
 " Oh, I know you won't get riled," Mr. Beale 
 said rapidly. "You haven't any 'side,' as 
 they say over here. Well, it's like this — I'm 
 going to play the Great Panjandrum card over 
 again." 
 
 George laughed : 
 
 " You don't mean to say I'm the Great Pan- 
 jandrum ? " 
 
 " With the little button at the top and all," 
 Mr. Beale confirmed. He snapped up a piece 
 of kidney. 
 
 " But really " George was beginning. 
 
 " You're precisely that," Mr. Beale said. 
 
 " It's like this " He stopped, looked at 
 
 George, and then himself exploded into laugh- 
 ter : 
 
 " It's the most ridiculous thing. Fancy 
 having to persuade an author that he's a big 
 iron pot. You've gotten yourself anyhow, a sort 
 of European-American, extra-superfine, poet's 
 bay -leaf reputation. You needn't deny it. 
 And that man Hailes (he does know you? 
 
 He has lived in this house ? Well, then ) 
 
 he says you've gotten a novel. Now I want 
 that novel." 
 
 George supposed it was what he was 
 writing now. 
 
l68 THE BENEFACTOR, 
 
 "Oh, put that on one side," Mr. Beale 
 answered. 
 
 George was in the pleasant humour that 
 came over him when an ingenuous and 
 charming child wanted his repeater watch to 
 play with. 
 
 " Of course, I don't know why you should 
 oblige me," Mr. Beale said suddenly ; "it isn't 
 as if our aunts had been neighbours, or any- 
 thing." 
 
 " I'd oblige you if I by any means could," 
 George said. 
 
 " What I want is to get a big Rostand- 
 Cyrano - de - Bergerac - real literature - all - that 
 boom," Mr. Beale began again. He said he 
 wanted something national and romantic — hit- 
 the-great-heart-of-the-nation-plumb-centre. " I 
 guess you think I'm vulgar, though," he 
 added. 
 
 George laughed, and ensconsed himself 
 cross-legged in the shelter of his great hooded 
 chair. 
 
 " My dear fellow," he said pontifically, and 
 as soothingly as he could, " how in the world 
 could I appeal to your Transatlantic-national 
 heart ? " 
 
 "Why, it was about the discovery of America, 
 wasn't it ?" Mr. Beale said. 
 
 George said, " Oh." 
 
 Mr. Beale was referring to the half remem- 
 bered and half again forgotten Wilderspin — the 
 manuscript that had been lent to Clara Brede. 
 
THE BLACKENING PEARLS. 169 
 
 It appeared that Mr, Hailes on his departure 
 had carried away a rather fragmentary dupU- 
 cate, the existence of which George had alto- 
 gether forgotten. 
 
 " I've seen it," Mr. Beale said. " I'm not 
 after a pig in a poke. I read it at Hailes' 
 rooms last night. Why that passage — when 
 your hero sights the land. Why, by Jove — " 
 
 " It's atrocious," George said quickly. " It's 
 the work of a boy of ten." 
 
 " I don't care what it is," Mr. Beale 
 answered. " That's what I'm after. Give me 
 the complete manuscript." 
 
 " It's out of the question," George said 
 decidedly. " It's in the hands of another 
 person." 
 
 Mr. Beale's face fell so dismally that George 
 felt really concerned for him. 
 
 " But I tell you," he said grievously, " if it 
 is rot, I like it, but I'm no judge ; if it is rot, 
 that's just what the public — our crowd — wants . 
 Something they can like that's written by a 
 real man with a reputation like yours. Full- 
 dress, classical literature with the big L is so 
 almighty dry as a rule. But if they can get 
 something tender and juicy like this, by a 
 standard man like you, they'll fall on it. Good 
 Lord ! No one could work that racket as I 
 could. Why " 
 
 He paused dejectedly. 
 
 " Can't it be arranged ? The American 
 rights, at least ? My people are a wealthy crowd." 
 
170 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 George shook his head. 
 
 " It's not a question of pubUcation," he said. 
 " The book's sentimental rubbish." 
 
 "Well, but Where's the manuscript," Mr. 
 Beale asked. 
 
 George waved a hand non-committally. 
 
 " Don't waste time," Mr. Beale said. " You 
 can't bluff me." 
 
 George laughed. " I wouldn't even think 
 of trying." 
 
 Beale looked at him frankly and apprecia- 
 tively. 
 
 " I don't believe you would," he said. He 
 paused and considered. 
 
 " I really wouldn't think of publishing it on 
 any account," George said. " I tell you the 
 thing's atrocious." Its glaring sentimentalisms 
 rose up suddenly before his mind's eye. He 
 remembered an absurd scene in which, in the 
 wilds of an impassable Virginian forest, his 
 hero mused on the fall of Rome, Babylon and 
 Carthage, and on the rise of the Trans- 
 atlanic empires yet to be. That was what 
 Mr. Beale wanted. It was as if George, in the 
 ingenuousness of his heart, had written it to 
 glorify spread-eagleism. " It's the most 
 childish piece of false sentiment from begin- 
 ning to end," he brought out. 
 
 "I'm prepared to spend a record sum on 
 advertising it," Mr. Beale coaxed him. 
 
 George felt the pathos of Mr. Beale's 
 position — of his joyous enthusiasm, his delight 
 
THJE BLACKENING PEARLS. I7I 
 
 in a coup as a coup. He really wished that 
 Mr. Beale might succeed in proving the justice 
 of his theories. He felt, too, that Mr. Beale 
 must regard the refusal as a senseless and 
 gratuitous piece of ill-luck. The thing worried 
 him more than a little. 
 
 He looked pensively out of the window ; 
 Clara Brede, in her blue cloak, passed once again. 
 She was carrying a bulky and untidy brown 
 paper parcel. " I'm really extremely sorry," he 
 said to Mr. Beale, " for my apparent churlish- 
 ness." 
 
 " Well, but Where's the manuscript of 
 Wilderspin, anyhow ? " Mr. Beale asked cheer- 
 fully. " We can talk about terms when I get 
 hold of it." 
 
 George opened the door for Clara Brede. 
 Her fresh voice said enthusiastically : 
 
 "I've brought you back the manuscript. 
 It's splendid." She entered the room as if on 
 the spring wind, her face full of animation. 
 
 " Oh, I didn't know you had anyone here," 
 she said, and added : " But it's magnificent, 
 your Wilderspin. Why don't you publish 
 it?" 
 
 It was as if Mr. Beale sprang upon her. 
 George looked at him with momentary appre- 
 hension. He didn't know — and he a little 
 dreaded — how his mannerisms might strike 
 Clara Brede. But Mr. Beale had suddenly 
 become almost Parisian in his manner : 
 
 " I assure you," he said, " I've been asking 
 
172 tHE BfeNtiFACtOR. 
 
 Mr. Moffat the same question for the last two 
 hours." 
 
 " Why ? What ? " Clara asked. She held 
 the manuscript as if it had been a child, 
 tenderly, and stood framed by the doorway. 
 
 " I am what you call a publisher," said Mr. 
 Beale gallantly. " I can't say the offer I've 
 made him for that precise work is a princely 
 one. He won't allow me to make an offer." 
 
 " Oh, but it's splendid," Clara Brede said. 
 " I've never read anything like it." 
 
 George suddenly felt a great deal of pleasure. 
 
 " It's a childish performance," he maintained 
 stoutly, " and my position's absurd." 
 
 Clara Brede came a little farther into the 
 room. 
 
 "You don't mean to say," she suddenly at- 
 tacked George — "you don't mean to say you 
 refuse to let it be published." 
 
 " It would make his name," Mr. Beale ad- 
 dressed her. " It would make him famous in 
 two, if not three, continents. I haven't arranged 
 for Australia." 
 
 " But I don't in the least want to be famous," 
 George said rather angrily, " on the strength 
 of Wilderspin." 
 
 Clara had been listening to Mr. Beale, 
 flushed as if an enchanter had been speaking. 
 She flashed an " Oh ! how can you ? " on 
 George. " I like the book so much. It's so 
 real, it's so full of life, it's so kind and good 
 and helpful." 
 
THE BLACKENING PEARLS. 173 
 
 " Exactly, exactly what I wanted to say, Miss," 
 Mr. Beale chimed in. 
 
 George suddenly reflected on Wilderspin as 
 viewed in the eyes of Clara Brede. Clara was 
 undoubtedly romantic — and Wilderspin, which 
 to him was nauseatingly sentimental, to her 
 was real. And she found it so kind, so good 
 and so helpful? The central character in- 
 dulged in rhetorical musings ; she must have 
 found them pleasing. Perhaps the book was 
 attractive. 
 
 When he had been writing it (he remem- 
 bered that it had appealed to his wife) he had 
 meant it to be full of the open air, of the sea ; 
 yes, certainly of romance ; of kindness, too, 
 and a certain good-hearted braveness. Per- 
 haps some of that young spirit of his had really 
 expressed itself in the work. As a " piece of 
 work " it was undoubtedly bad ; points 
 were incredibly missed ; the subject hadn't 
 been done justice to ; nothing had been 
 squeezed out of it — from a writer's point of 
 view. It wasn't the sort of subject that 
 he was really fit to treat — romance, love, 
 gallantry, tenderness. What had he known of 
 these ? 
 
 But Clara Brede liked it ; then it must have 
 merits that he himself couldn't see. 
 
 He softened towards his work whilst he 
 stood mutely listening to their exhortations. 
 
 At last Clara said : " I'd give anything to see 
 it published." 
 
174 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 And Mr. Beale chimed in : " I'd give more 
 than a few dollars to publish it. 
 
 George took the untidy bundle from Clara's 
 arms and handed it to Mr. Beale. 
 
 " Take it," he said, " take it away. Never 
 let me hear of it and its absurdities again." 
 
 A swift wave of pleasure went over Clara's 
 face. Mr. Beale said : 
 
 " Well, I guess you won't be dissatisfied as 
 to results." 
 
 George began again : 
 
 " I tell you I never want to hear of it again. 
 You may have it as a present. I'll even cor- 
 rect the proofs. But I wouldn't take a penny 
 profit if it made the biggest boom that 
 ever " 
 
 " But," Clara interrupted with immense con- 
 cern. Mr. Beale laughed in sheer incompre- 
 hension. It struck him as an agreeable kind 
 of lunacy. 
 
 " I won't give it to you on any other terms," 
 George said. " I will, to oblige Miss Brede 
 and you, commit a sin with my eyes shut, but 
 I couldn't think of profiting by Bad Art." 
 
 Clara began again : " But Mr. Moffat " 
 
 George waved a benignant hand at her. 
 " I'm sure," he silenced, " with your scru- 
 pulous nature you won't disapprove." 
 
 Clara, with her naive, distressed air, answered 
 after a pause : 
 
 "I think I— I don't disapprove. But," 
 she wrestled painfully with embarrassment, 
 
THE BLACKENING PEARLS. 1 75 
 
 — " but have you thought that you may come 
 
 " Oh, I've thought about the wretched book 
 more than it can by any possibiUty deserve," 
 George said. " The world's full of such much 
 pleasanter topics." 
 
 " It isn't," Clara said with a quaint and 
 shocked intonation. " But you do such won- 
 derfully " 
 
 Mr. Beale had still his air of bright non-com- 
 prehension. He said : 
 
 " Well, you can rely on me to mail the cheque 
 for the proper sum. You can build a hospital 
 with it if it rattles you. But good heavens — " 
 
 " Mr. Beale has had rather a bad experience 
 of authors as such," George explained to 
 Clara. 
 
 " Oh, this hole makes it all square," Mr. Beale 
 said. He was going to mail the cheque, or it 
 would give his book-keepers dyspepsia. 
 
 George laughed. He wasn't going to engage 
 in a fantastic duel of generosity with an absurd 
 American. The voices of Thwaite and Dora 
 sounded in the hall. 
 
 Thwaite had more than a nodding acquaint- 
 ance with Mr. Beale. 
 
 "You've emerged victoriously," he said. He 
 had caught sight of the obvious bundle under 
 Mr. Beale's arm. 
 
 "Oh, I'm a victor," Mr. Beale said, "but I 
 guess I'm ashamed of my terms." 
 
176 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 Thwaite laughed gently. " We're all ashamed 
 when we succeed with Mr. Moffat," he said. 
 
 They stood talking, pleasantly enough, all 
 together in the large room. Suddenly Dora 
 uttered an exclamation of ingenuous surprise 
 and delight : 
 
 " Why, there's your glove, Clara." 
 
 She pointed to the glove that George had 
 carried off the night before ; it lay on the 
 bureau where George had thrown it. Clara 
 (she had, Dora said, hunted high and low for it) 
 crimsoned to the roots of her hair ; George, in 
 his very best manner, explained the appear- 
 ance. It amused him a good deal. 
 
 Thwaite, with a quick awakened air, looked 
 from one to the other, and suddenly George 
 noticed that Clara Brede was extremely charming 
 
 It was as if he had just rubbed his eyes. He 
 looked at her more narrowly with his scrutinis- 
 ing, intensely penetrating glance, and she 
 slowly let her eyes fall. 
 
 The other three were talking about the 
 beauties of the town ; "Mr. Beale said some- 
 thing about a " bully Gothic window." George 
 missed what they were saying. 
 
 ''Whoever marries this young person will 
 get a great treasure," he thought ; Clara's blue- 
 cloaked, gentle figure, as if submissively and 
 proudly, seemed to offer itself for his inspec- 
 
 tibuz]-" This young person " He paused, 
 
 vaguely aware that his habitual, playful tone of 
 badinage wasn't appropriate, wasn't in place 
 
THE BLACKENING PEARLS. 177 
 
 any more. She had suddenly — or perhaps 
 gradually enough — asserted an equality, as if 
 now, for some reason, she mattered ; as if she 
 claimed a place in his serious reflections, had 
 due to her a certain respect, a certain defer- 
 ence, even in his thoughts. She had become 
 a woman, all of a sudden, but very completely. 
 
 Her candour of eyes, of face, of form, of 
 mind, her candour of words — had ceased 
 gradually enough to be merely the amusing 
 naivete of a child. It had come to mean very 
 much more. There was not anything precisely 
 like her in the world ; she was, as it were, a 
 standard ; her opinions, her view of matters, 
 seemed suddenly not risible, but necessary ; 
 not only refreshing, but intensely salutary. 
 
 And the qualities of her mind seemed to be 
 translated into her gestures — into the folds her 
 dress took, into the lines of her mouth when 
 she smiled, into the very waves of her hair. It 
 was as if something intensely touching in the 
 picture that she made affected him almost 
 tenderly. A certain pathos, mingled with her 
 candour, her grasp on life and on truth ; it 
 had the exquisiteness of habitual renunciation, 
 a radiance as if of many tears. 
 
 Mr. Beale, who suddenly had somehow lost 
 the intense significance of his share of life and 
 of candour, was asking him to walk to the 
 station, and, on the way, to point out the glories 
 of the little town. He had to catch the 
 " N.D.L," to-morrow ; no idling for him. 
 
 N 
 
II. 
 
 It had been for Clara like stepping down into 
 an arena. She had delivered her first battle. 
 Mr. Beale was walking beside her, before the 
 others. He turned back ; pointed at George's 
 house ; explained that George's elms were 
 " bully old oaks." His turf was deliciously 
 soft. Six hundred years old, may be ! 
 
 She wondered swiftly whether she had said 
 too much. 
 
 " I couldn't help what I did say," she argued 
 with herself. 
 
 Mr. Beale said : 
 
 " What a fine chap that man is ! " 
 
 He was talking of George. She assented 
 with a faint smile and her habitual abstracted air. 
 
 Where did she stand now ? She had brought 
 Wilderspin round because she had wanted to 
 see George. She had wanted to look at him, to 
 discover, if she could, what had happened to 
 her. Last night she had said to herself that 
 she loved him. And she had passed the night 
 in thinking it ; she had fallen asleep smiling 
 about it ; it remained a blissful and sub- 
 lime fact. She felt that now she could wait 
 for ever on her father without a complaint, 
 without a murmur eyen to herself, 
 
THE BLACKENING PEARLS. 179 
 
 Mr. Beale hastened to open George's gate 
 for her. She bowed her head and smiled — 
 she had awakened smiUng. It had been de- 
 lightful that there was Wilderspin to carry back 
 to George. It had made a pretext ready to her 
 hand. It was like a good omen ; she had not 
 had to cast about for an excuse. She c©uld act 
 at once. She had acted. 
 
 Mr. Beale said : 
 
 " Ah, Miss, it's what one wants, to come to 
 such a quiet place." 
 
 For once in her life she had acted. George's 
 house had seemed to her more mellow, more 
 grey and more radiant, in among its tall trees. 
 The great buttresses that held it up had 
 seemed like symbols of absolute permanence ; 
 the rooks had cawed among the loose sticks of 
 their high, untidy nests, and their mere atti- 
 tude had suggested ideas of the blue air, as if 
 she herself could fly. 
 
 " Don't you think," she said to Mr. Beale, 
 " that however little one may want, it's always 
 too infinite for one ever to attain ? " 
 
 He said, "Well, now ? " interrogatively, and 
 began to argue the point. Living in such a 
 place would be good enough for him. 
 
 But what she wanted was that George should 
 go on living in that place.- That had made 
 her "speak out" so just before. She had 
 found him deliberately throwing away a 
 chance. She had forced him to take it. For 
 a minute she wondered whether she had not 
 
l8o THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 said too much. Then she didn't care. She 
 had made him give Wilderspin to this quaint 
 man. Beale would be sure to pay him. She 
 knew that Beale was honest, and the payment 
 for Wilderspin would keep George going if he 
 were really poor. With her sure instinct she 
 knew that Beale was not a man to be mistaken. 
 Wilderspin would succeed. 
 
 She was very happy because George was 
 going to stand out before the world as the 
 author of Wilderspin. She had persuaded him 
 to. It would make him illustrious ; it would 
 render him beloved by hundreds. She had 
 read the book with avidity. She had cried 
 over the tender passages ; noble phrases had 
 elevated her. She had wondered if George 
 could love as tenderly as his hero loved his 
 heroine. She had wondered if that heroine 
 had been his wife. 
 
 George was only a few yards behind. She 
 seemed to feel an " influence " coming to- 
 wards her, and making her vaguely at peace. 
 But just as they were passing her own gate 
 her father pounced out of it upon George. In 
 his grey study coat he looked like an immense 
 spider dropping out of a lurking place. He 
 said : 
 
 " Just come in a minute. I want to consult 
 you." 
 
 George said swifty : " But, my dear fellow," 
 and indicated the brilUant, brown figure of the 
 American. 
 
THE BLACKENING PEARLS. l8l 
 
 "You said you'd help me," Mr. Brede 
 grumbled. He opened the wicket for George. 
 " I won't keep you. You can catch them up." 
 
 George passed helplessly in. 
 
 She felt an intense impulse to run back to 
 her father — to upbraid him and to release 
 George. But suddenly she dared not. 
 
 Love, which had simplified so many things 
 for Clara Brede, stopped short at that. She 
 was a valiant soul, but she was afraid then. It 
 wasn't public opinion she feared ; it wasn't 
 even the private reproof of her own people. 
 Her father might know, her sister might know 
 that she loved George helplessly and vigi- 
 lantly, but he must not. She owed that to 
 herself. 
 
 She had always thought it ignoble that a 
 woman should prostrate herself before a man. 
 Man had been, for her, the enemy — predatory, 
 accustorhed to conquer insolently, and with a 
 hard and odious light in the eyes. She had 
 figured him as twisting a moustache and wink- 
 ing at the universe, whilst a woman hung round 
 his neck or unlaced his boots. It had not 
 enraged her ; it had not made her desire to 
 change this for other women. - She regarded 
 them as fools ; they went under, for the good 
 of the race perhaps. It did not concern her. 
 
 George was different — the eternal excep- 
 tion. He had no conquering insolence. He 
 was tender ; he was " considerate." He 
 would be always casting about to spare one 
 
1 82 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 humiliation. He was a mental influence that 
 one could feel ; a magnetic force, a radiator of 
 joy — something she could not express, but an 
 exception. 
 
 Nevertheless, she would not, to his face, 
 save him from her father. She would not 
 let him know that she was concerned for him. 
 That would be a degradation ; as if she 
 should cast herself prostrate before him. He 
 must help himself ; she would not " demoral- 
 ise " him. But she thought of herself as an 
 invisible providence, keeping off from him 
 these parasites, these thieves of his time, of his 
 goods, of his interests, of his very lite. She 
 intended, however, to remain invisible to 
 him. 
 
 She was walking beside Mr. Beale, and im- 
 parting information with smiles. 
 
 " No," she said, " that is not a Renaissance 
 window ; it's Early Perpendicular." They 
 were outside the end of the church. Dora 
 and Thwaite had forged a little ahead, and 
 were talking intimately, with their heads bent 
 down. She expected every minute to hear 
 George's footsteps behind her. 
 
 " Well, it's bully," Mr. Beale said. " Like 
 Brooklyn Evangelical ; only better, I expect." 
 He didn't know anything about these things, 
 but he loved them. 
 
 She had his company right down the hill, 
 along the winding road across the levels to the 
 little station. He talked all the time. They ran 
 
THE BLACKENING PEARLS. 1 83 
 
 down Dora and Thwaite at the station, but his 
 last words were addressed to Clara. He said 
 she could rely on his booming Wilderspin for 
 all it was worth, because he simply " loved " 
 George. Clara tried to think of an apology for 
 George's absence. 
 
 She expected to meet him at every turn of 
 the homeward road. She had to make it alone, 
 because Thwaite and Dora remembered that a 
 mile beyond the line there was a picturesque 
 copse they had not visited together. Thwaite 
 looked at her so gloomily that she did not offer 
 to go with them, and they disappeared into a 
 green field. 
 
 She felt vaguely that if George wanted to 
 meet her, there could be no better time. The 
 sight of Thwaite and her sister side by side 
 made her a little melancholy. 
 
 " He has never looked at me," she thought, 
 bitterly. " Never once." 
 
 It was at times in her head that he must 
 care for her, because she cared so much for 
 him. She did not wish for his love ; what 
 could she do with it ? She had her father to 
 think of. It wasn't so much a duty ; it wasn't 
 so much affection — it was a piece of work that 
 she had to carry through. There was no one 
 else to do it. 
 
 She turned a corner of the road. A quarter 
 of a mile in front of her there was a figure of 
 a man, half hidden by a pollard willow. Her 
 heart began to flutter ; she halted irresolutely. 
 
184 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 But it was too slight a man, and he did not 
 walk erect enough. She stepped out quickly. 
 Her blue cloak was blown strongly against her 
 in the unsheltered spaces. She wanted to be 
 back to see him. Then she remembered that 
 he might be coming, and, if he came, she would 
 have less far to walk back with him. She 
 slackened her pace. 
 
 At the thought that in the end it made no 
 difference, her face grew sad. Then she re- 
 membered that he had had her glove, and she 
 smiled. She lingered on the bridge and 
 looked at the small river. It was full with 
 rain, and grey with the reflection of the March 
 skies. She looked at the horizon. The clouds 
 were low, the sails of a ship stood up, dim and 
 sad, above the level of the marsh. 
 
 If only, beyond the horizon, there were a 
 
 land But she shrugged her shoulders. 
 
 This was childish nonsense. Even if there 
 were such a land she couldn't go to it with 
 him. He had never looked at her, and there 
 was her father. But she imagined a place 
 where the air was always soft, and where one 
 lay back dreamily in long chairs. There would 
 have to be a grey sea there, and a great sky, 
 and perpetual twilight. And one would 
 rest 
 
 The little town was not a hundred yards 
 from her. It stood on a bluff of perpendicular 
 copse. Red roofs peeped over, and hundreds 
 of birds were singing in the brown underwood. 
 
THE BLACKENING PEARLS. 1 85 
 
 She looked at where the bottom of the road 
 struck the level. He was not at the bend. He 
 was not coming. He had never even looked 
 at her. 
 
 She began to walk swiftly. He might be 
 gone back to his house if she did not hurry. 
 She might not see him again for all the rest of 
 that day. She had a sensation of horrible pain 
 because he had not come. Then it struck her 
 that it was ignoble to care so much for a man 
 who altogether ignored her. She turned into 
 the sloping door of a dilapidated stone cottage 
 to order the week's potatoes. That was her 
 business in life. 
 
 In Mr. Brede's tiny and shabby study 
 George was listening to a "letter needing 
 great tact " — about the affairs of the Society 
 for Promoting Rural Pleasures. Harassing 
 intrigues had sprung up in the Committees 
 during Mr. Brede's retirement. A Northern 
 countess and a Midland lady had formed two 
 intensely hostile parties. It was a question of 
 policy — were the peasants to pay nominal sub- 
 scriptions for the books they borrowed from 
 the village libraries whenever the libraries 
 should get themselves established ? And 
 which of the two ladies was to be premier lady 
 patroness ? 
 
 " I shall have to get these women well in 
 hand before beginning anything else," Mr. 
 Brede said heavily. "Listen " He be- 
 gan to read his letter. It seemed to George 
 
1 86 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 suddenly wearisome that he should be at the 
 beck of anyone for a matter so grotesque and 
 trivial. And Mr. Brede's implicit and almost 
 childish belief in George's own good judgment 
 made the matter no better. 
 
 But it was, he recognised, his own fault. 
 He had egged Mr. Brede on to divert his mind 
 with these things. Mr. Brede, at least, was 
 alert and bustling. He breathed excitedly 
 through his nostrils. In the midst of these 
 details he was like a horse turned out at last 
 into a luxuriant meadow. His brooding was 
 gone. There was that much gained. 
 
 " One of them will have to go into the Com- 
 mittee on Ways and Means," Mr. Brede said 
 heavily. " I don't care which. I wish there 
 weren't any women." 
 
 George, at any rate, in the course of the 
 morning, got a very good insight into the 
 working of Mr. Brede's Society. The quarrels 
 had been quite extraordinary. 
 
III. 
 
 " You may consider that man happy," George 
 said three months later," whose months are 
 marked merely seasonally. I mean if his 
 events are — say a bee that's hanging in a 
 daffodil, or the way the days draw out and 
 shorten. That's it — phenomena, not events, 
 being set down in his mental journal." 
 
 " Don't you think," Clara Brede asked 
 earnestly (they were conversing along a strip of 
 wet sand, and she paused to step across a little 
 rijl that channelled its way down towards 
 unquiet, stretched waves) "that achievements 
 are better than either?" 
 
 George laughed. " Oh ! if it came to achieve- 
 ments," he said comfortably, "there would be 
 
 nothing left for us but " He pointed to a 
 
 company of gulls floating a long way out be- 
 yond the poles of the kettle nets. Clara 
 pondered an exhortative reply. 
 
 "You're a gallant soul," George said. "What 
 you set out to do you carry through. Not a 
 doubt. But for us — for the rest of the 
 world " 
 
 " I think I have never succeeded in any- 
 thing in all my life," Clara said suddenly, with 
 a ring of conviction in her voice. 
 
I 88 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 " Ah, you're nervous ; you're run down," 
 George said. "These marriages are enervating. 
 But Dora and Thwaite are off ; it's all over." 
 
 " Oh, it isn't thai I mean," Clara said. " It's a 
 continual thing. I never can — and so, I sup- 
 pose I never shall — succeed ; just really suc- 
 ceed in anything, not anything appreciable, but 
 some grotesquely little thing, like arranging 
 flowers in a vase . . ." She was speaking fast 
 and nervously. George looked at her in his 
 serious manner. 
 
 "You really feel like that?" he asked. 
 " You strike one as being so — so tremendously 
 effectual." 
 
 Clara was hindered in the unusual stride of 
 her speech ; she looked back at him with her 
 eyes a little wide, and then, as it were, died 
 down. 
 
 "You're only trying to comfort me," she 
 said. " I know what I am." 
 
 George felt a sudden and immense tender- 
 ness of pity. 
 
 " You can't, you know," he said, " tell how 
 you appear — comparatively — set against the 
 rest of humanity." 
 
 "Oh, I know I appear harsh and unsym- 
 pathetic," Clara said. 
 
 " You know you're extremely young," 
 George said. 
 
 " I'm — horrible," she almost shuddered. 
 " I've never been young ; I've never really 
 enjoyed anything. And I appear " 
 
THE BLACKENING PEARLS. 189 
 
 A number of distant shouts were carried by 
 the wind from behind them. 
 
 "Ah, delightfully young," George said. 
 " I've known so many. How do you know — 
 how can you — how you appear ? I'll tell you 
 how you do." 
 
 The shouts were wafted more insistently. A 
 long way behind them, near the two or three 
 bathing tents on the high wall of bright shingle, 
 Mr. Brede, a black figure, quite tiny, agitating 
 arms and hands, was walking swiftly towards 
 / tljem. Clara stepped suddenly forward, and 
 George hastened after her. He wanted to 
 cheer her up ; he thought she ought to marry 
 some young man — nicer even than Thwaite. 
 Her environment was altogether too depres- 
 sing. But there wasn't anyone good enough. 
 The pleasant wind blew the gulls high into the 
 immense vacancy of the sky before them. 
 
 " I think we must have appeared a frightful 
 collection of savages," she suddenly brought 
 out, " all this time of the wedding. It made 
 me wretched." 
 
 George said, " Good heavens." There had 
 been the little extraordinary squabbles of all 
 her sisters and all her aunts at Dora's wedding, 
 but it had never occurred to him that Clara 
 had been in the least degree troubled. 
 
 " If it hadn't been for you " she began. 
 
 George said, quickly, " Oh, please." 
 
 " And some of them were so rude to you. 
 I'm sure my Aunt Hilda — — " 
 
190 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 It was as if Clara had suddenly touched the 
 ground. 
 
 George laughed. " Of course, I got my 
 knuckles rapped. Your aunt naturally didn't 
 like me. Why should she ? And there will 
 be quarrels in that sort of gathering — especially 
 among determined types like your amiable 
 relatives. But I hadn't the least idea you even 
 noticed that sort of thing." 
 
 "Oh, I don't," Clara said wearily, " I'm used 
 to it. But when you — when another person 
 comes among it, all the sort of violence and 
 clumsiness, the crudeness, seems to stand out." 
 
 " I know I'm a trifler in your eyes," George 
 said with a certain levity, "but I wasn't really 
 crushed by them. I enjoyed it immensely." 
 
 Clara said : " I was so miserable. I'm so 
 tired of it all. If I could only get away." 
 
 She half pointed a long, sensitive, white 
 hand towards the sea. 
 
 " Beyond the horizon ? " George asked 
 sympathetically. 
 
 " Beyond — beyond all the horizons," she 
 assented. She added : " If you only knew." 
 
 " Ah, one can't get away from one's own per- 
 sonality," George said. " It all comes round 
 to that." He added banteringly : "You 
 couldn't, you know, even if you were married 
 to the nicest man in the world." 
 
 It was as if her eyes filled with tears. 
 
 " I don't want " she began with what for 
 
 her was almost passion. 
 
THE BLACKENING PEARLS. 19I 
 
 George felt that he had behaved with bru- 
 tality. 
 
 " I only meant," he said quite seriously, 
 " that you ought to be out of all this." 
 
 She shook her head. 
 
 " I've wanted all my life, so intensely," she 
 said slowly, " not to mind ; to be irresponsible ; 
 to do things easily and gracefully." 
 
 She looked up at a gull ; it swung swiftly 
 across the sky, as if it illustrated what she meant. 
 
 " And I've seemed always to be doing 
 clumsy things that make one clumsy oneself. 
 Like an agricultural labourer, if you understand 
 what I mean." 
 
 George half shook his head. 
 
 "Ah ! " She looked an immeasurable distance 
 ahead along the sand. " I seem to have been 
 so purposeful always ; so dull ; so plodding. 
 Why ? Why ? I plodded at college. I took 
 a degree. I didn't in the least want to. And 
 I nursed my mother and I kept the home to- 
 gether. I'm still doing it. I don't know why, 
 either. It may have been a sense of duty. I 
 suppose it was. But that's not very creditable." 
 
 George said : " It's a fine thing to have 
 done." 
 
 " Of course I loved my mother," she said, 
 " but even that doesn't make it any more credit- 
 able." 
 
 " My dear child," he interrupted her. 
 
 " No, it's hopeless," she said decidedly. " I've 
 always felt like this | I always shall. But I'd 
 
192 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 give anything, anything, to get away. Beyond 
 the horizon, as you say." 
 
 " Well, you know," George said, " you'd lose 
 all, self-respect if you did." 
 
 "The voice of Mr. Brede calling an inter- 
 mittent "Hi — hi — hi" passed over their 
 heads unnoticed. 
 
 " Because it would be a runningaway," George 
 went on. " You were born to face things — 
 and to face them very splendidly and mutely/V' 
 
 "I've been yelping," she answered bitterly, 
 " like — like a puppy or Werther." 
 
 George laughed. 
 
 " You've had a trying time," he commented. 
 "And it's very charming to hear you. It does 
 me a great deal of good. You've always seemed 
 so splendidly assured ; so certain. It is charm- 
 ing to find the human touch in you." 
 
 " Oh, I'm human," she said bitterly ; " I'm 
 worrying you with my troubles, like all the 
 rest of them. I swore I never would." 
 
 Mr. Brede hurrying after them had aban- 
 doned his calls, 
 
 " It's charming," George said, " because, 
 mutatis mutandis, it's so very much my own 
 case. We've precisely the opposite desires ; 
 the opposite quests beyond the horizon. I 
 mean, I feel myself so miserably wanting in the 
 purposefulness you want to get rid of. I'm so 
 desultory." 
 
 " You do everything so well," Clara accused 
 him, 
 
THE BLACKENING PEARLS. I93 
 
 " Ah, my dear young lady," George sighed, 
 " I don't do anything at all. But the fact re- 
 mains, we're each other's complements." 
 
 She looked away from him out to sea, the 
 corners of her mouth drawn tight. 
 
 George's " You may consider that man 
 happy whose journal is filled with phenomena, 
 not events," had been the moral drawn 
 from his own life of late. His months had 
 slipped by without external contacts. He 
 had remarked daffodils with bees hanging in 
 them, the sudden sound of the lawn-mowers 
 thrilling in his garden, the immense twilight 
 chorus of birds in April, the lengthening of 
 the days. They were shortening again already ; 
 July was beginning. And he had undoubtedly 
 been happy, buoyant, alert and capable of en- 
 joying his leisures. He had seen a great deal 
 of Clara Brede, and nothing had happened. 
 
 They had glided into July ; the sea — broad, 
 smooth and blue — ^the warm beach, leisurely 
 hours beneath the sun, had swung again into 
 the round of the year. Mr. Brede was un- 
 doubtedly better. He was humanised, and, 
 except for alarming and violent relapses 
 that were characteristic of him, showed the 
 wisdom of George's treatment. He had even, 
 at odd moments, taken an interest in his 
 daughter's wedding. And he had been un- 
 sparing in his demands on George's time. 
 
 George himself had worked in the intervals, 
 
 o 
 
194 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 held down to it by an unacknowledged desire 
 to come to the scratch. The last proofs of 
 Wilderspin had re- crossed the Atlantic more 
 than a month ago ; the lull that precedes pub- 
 lication had set dumbly in, Thwaite had 
 proclaimed that the " new volume " — it was 
 more than three parts finished — really might 
 do George's trick, and George unconsciously 
 rejoiced in the approbation that Clara bestowed 
 alike on his industry and on its fruits. I don't 
 know that George himself wasn't pleased with 
 his work. 
 
 Thwaite's marriage had approached with the 
 gentle arriving of all the other phenomena. 
 Preparation had been great fun. The turn- 
 ing of the weather-boarded cottage into a 
 spick and span little dwelling, with a new, red 
 chimney stack, and extremely flourishing 
 standard roses above the tulips of circular 
 beds, had engrossed and amused them all. 
 And Thwaite's extreme earnestness in the 
 whole matter had agreeably enough diverted 
 George. 
 
 " One has to consider what Dora has been 
 used to," he said, in a slightly nettled tone on 
 the night before the wedding. George had a 
 little rallied him on the choice of a Paris hotel. 
 
 " I should think that was precisely what one 
 hadn't to do at this stage," George said, good 
 humouredly. 
 
 " I couldn't take her to some back street 
 place in the Latin quarter," Thwaite said. 
 
THE BLACKENING PEARLS, 1 95 
 
 " / should," George answered. 
 
 Thwaite uttered an ejaculation of impatience. 
 
 "Well, I wish to-morrow was over." He 
 avoided the question. " That damned tailor." 
 
 " Oh, the things will come in the morning," 
 George said unsympathetically, "otherwise I 
 shouldn't have recommended him." 
 
 "He's confoundedly expensive, "said Thwaite. 
 He subsided into an uneasy murmur. 
 
 George was surveying him from the calm 
 outer sphere of the sympathetic observer. He 
 was touched by the pleasing pettiness of his 
 preoccupations. One naturally expected 
 Thwaite to rise very superior to the occasion ; 
 to soar with the unconcern of a kite right over 
 the church, the ceremony, and the assistants. 
 He didn't in the least. He was immensely 
 troubled by his own beard. He ran his deli- 
 cate hands through it, grasped it frantically, 
 and made as if to tear it off. 
 
 '' Heaven knows what it looks like," he 
 groaned. "I suppose I shall appear at least fifty." 
 
 " Dora thinks it picturesque," George said. 
 " It is." 
 
 " I don't want to look like a tramp." Thwaite 
 writhed on the sofa. 
 
 "You used to, you know," George said. 
 " That, after all, was what captivated her." 
 
 Thwaite sat up and apostrophised George 
 savagely. " Look here ; this is a serious mat- 
 ter. You don't know how I feel the responsi- 
 bility of it." 
 
196 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 "You'd better take a sedative and go to bed," 
 George said. " You will look like a scarecrow 
 if you don't." 
 
 Thwaite said : " How can I go to bed when 
 we haven't even settled about an hotel ? " He 
 rose to his feet and stamped about the room. 
 " It's no joke." 
 
 " It doesn't seem to be," George answered. 
 He felt a moment of misgiving, Thwaite was 
 so unrecognisable. He said that he couldn't 
 take Dora to any sort of hotel ; you never 
 knew what sort of people you mightn't meet, 
 or what sort of shocking scenes you mightn't 
 see in the streets. He knew the Quartier 
 Latin. At the same time he didn't want to 
 have to pay Grand Hotel prices ; it was out of 
 the question. He wanted to find a decent 
 middle-class hotel with a cuisine hourgeoise. 
 And you couldn't tell where to find one. It 
 would be ridiculous to arrive in Paris without 
 knowing where they were going. 
 
 George said : " But, my dear fellow. This 
 dreadful respectability ! Dora would, I am 
 perfectly sure, like a sort of chastened Bohe- 
 mianism. And, bless my soul, all the quartier 
 round the School of Medicine's as staid as 
 Bloomsbury." 
 
 Thwaite said : " It's a responsibility — a young 
 girl's soul like Dora's." 
 
 George interrupted, mildly : " But she'll 
 have to " 
 
 " Her — her unsullied outlook," Thwaite 
 
THE BLACKEJJING t»EARLS, I97 
 
 caught him up, " I've got to preserve that. 
 And she must be decently comfortable. I 
 haven't undertaken this thing without looking 
 it in the face." 
 
 George sighed a little. " I think you're 
 most beautifully wrong," he said. What 
 Dora wanted was just not the decent cuisine 
 bourgeoise that she'd had all her life. " She 
 expects you to give her a holiday — the rich 
 and strange, the finer spirit. You'd get it by 
 a little roughing it, by a softened touch of your 
 tramping in the Abruzzi." He went on to 
 explain that Dora, once blooded in that way, 
 would return with all the delight in the world 
 to his life of eminent respectability. 
 
 " But all this doesn't give me the name of 
 an hotel," Thwaite said, with a touch of inso- 
 lence. 
 
 George, in his turn, felt remotely nettled. 
 " You'd better take her to the Grand Hotel," 
 he said. " I daresay the marble and gilding 
 would amuse her childish innocence." 
 
 Thwaite flashed at him pragmatically : "And 
 pay their abominable prices ? " He adopted a 
 rather lofty tone, "You can't — you won't 
 seem to understand that I've undertaken this 
 affair in a serious spirit. I suppose you think 
 that, because I've been a vagabond once, I'm 
 always going to be one. It isn't so. I'm going 
 to begin from the very beginning with modera- 
 tion and common-sense. I've got a certain 
 income. If it weren't for that confounded 
 
198 tHE BfiNEFACTOR. 
 
 Clara, Dora would be sure of a decent com- 
 petency." He spoke with astonishing bitter- 
 ness. 
 
 Clara had remained silently obdurate. To 
 George himself she had vouchsafed no kind of 
 explanation, and it wasn't the kind of subject 
 that George could harp on or return to. 
 
 "What does she mean to do?" Thwaite 
 asked. " Dora's aunt advised me to bring an 
 action about it." 
 
 George raised his hands. 
 
 " Oh, I'm not mercenary," Thwaite said. 
 " But it's a matter to be looked at in a serious 
 way. You, of course, can't look at it like that. 
 You've never had to think about a penny, and 
 you've not got a young girl to provide for." 
 
 George's back suddenly stiffened. His gaze 
 at Thwaite became extremely direct. Thwaite, 
 as a matter of fact, had never seen George 
 angry ; he did not recognise the signs. 
 
 " As I say," he went on, " you can't under- 
 stand ; you've never had to look forward or 
 wanted money. I'm a man of the world in 
 some matters. I've got a certain income 
 assured, and " 
 
 George suddenly sat up, 
 
 " If it hadn't been for me " he began. 
 
 Then he paused and leant back in his chair. 
 He had meant to finish with : " you wouldn't 
 have had any position at all." 
 
 But, between word and word, the dislike for 
 saying anything of the kind quenched his 
 
THE BLACKENING PEARLS. I99 
 
 anger suddenly. He saw the humour of the 
 situation — the absurdity of quarreUing with a 
 man of Thwaite's caUbre, of raising an un- 
 pleasantness over the selection of an hotel. 
 
 " My dear fellow," he said, " you're rather 
 insufferable to-night. You are, really." 
 
 " Well, I've things to worry me," Thwaite 
 said. 
 
 George answered : " And heaven knows, so 
 have I." 
 
 It was true enough, and perhaps Thwaite's 
 sudden reminder of his private trouble had 
 been the cause of his sudden anger. George 
 had that morning received the first demand 
 from the creditors of the Renaissance Press ; 
 it had been for a good round sum. George's 
 affairs were involved in a tangle that might un- 
 ravel very blankly indeed. He had thrown the 
 affair off his mind. He had forwarded the 
 creditors' demand to his brother Gregory to 
 attend to in his solicitor's capacity. But 
 Thwaite's harping on a string of much the 
 same tone had brought it back to his mind. 
 
 Gregory's answer might mean that the cup- 
 board was more than bare. He remembered 
 suddenly all sorts of manipulations of invest- 
 ments, all sorts of equitable mortgages, and he 
 equally couldn't remember whether certain 
 shares in a South American Railway had or 
 had not been sold. They would make all the 
 difference. He pressed the subject out of his 
 mind once more, replacing it with his genial 
 
2O0 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 fatalism. Thwaite was regarding him remorse- 
 fully enough. 
 
 " Oh, I'm immensely sorry," he said, " I 
 really am." 
 
 George, laughing, said that it was all right ; 
 that he could make allowance for Thwaite, whose 
 position obviously called for nervous irritation. 
 " But really, Thwaite, your hotel needn't cause 
 us the least worry if we can only keep a level 
 head between us." He explained that Thwaite 
 could drive to one of the tourist agencies in 
 the Avenue de I'Opera, and get details of all 
 the cuisines bourgeoises in the dangerous city. 
 
 Thwaite's face expressed joy ; his brow un- 
 clouded. He suddenly saw prospects of hotel- 
 board tickets at greatly reduced prices. 
 
 " I'm such a child in travelling of this sort," 
 he said gratefully. " It would never have 
 occurred to me." 
 
 "You certainly don't shine — without a knap- 
 sack," George said. " I can't for the life of me 
 think why you're going to Paris at all. Dora 
 would much rather go to a wilder place." 
 
 " It's the proper thing," said Thwaite. 
 
 Before leaving, he for a time became the old 
 Thwaite — exaggerated a little toward a senti- 
 mentalism that, George excused him, was in 
 the circumstances not inappropriate. He 
 talked a great deal of his plans ; aired his 
 theories of domesticity, which strangely 
 enough were almost Oriental. Seclusion from 
 an unpleasant world — that ought to be the lot 
 
THE BLACKENING PEARLS, 20l 
 
 of woman in life. George had a sudden vision of 
 Dora darning stockings beneath the darkened 
 beams of the weather-boarded cottage, whilst 
 Thwaite read poetry aloud and rocked a cradle 
 with his foot. It tickled his humorous nerves, 
 and as, with his hand affectionately on 
 Thwaite's shoulder, he saw the bridegroom out 
 of the house, he said : 
 
 "Well, my dear boy, all these things are — 
 aren't they ? — very much on the knees of the 
 gods. But if I were you — if I were young and 
 very much in love, I don't think I should have 
 all these — all these moral scruples." 
 
 " Oh, you would," Thwaite said. He added : 
 " I wish — I wish you would try to influence 
 Clara about that money." 
 
 He returned after he had been gone some 
 minutes to bring out the fact that what was at 
 the bottom of his extreme care, pecuniarily, was 
 his desire to repay the really large sums that 
 he owed George. " And if Clara would give 
 Dora the money that morally (and I'm not sure 
 that it isn't legally, too) is Dora's, I could with 
 a clear conscience set about repaying you. 
 Because I'm not ungrateful ; I don't forget my 
 oblations to you. I owe you everything." 
 
 It was a moment of attendrissements. The 
 late-at-night emotions that Thwaite's moved 
 voice caused in George overwhelmed his 
 slight shudder at the recurrence of the word 
 " money." Thwaite went on to give details of 
 a scheme for insuring his life. 
 
IV. 
 
 The wedding breakfast, a sufficiently imposing 
 affair, had taken place in George's large dining 
 hall ; the Bredes' hired house contained no 
 room sufficiently noble. It was Thwaite's 
 idea ; Clara had opposed it strenuously, and 
 with some show of emotion. Her ingenuous 
 cheeks flushed, and the discussion had left her 
 brother-in-law a no better friend. Thwaite 
 had said that he did not wish Dora's wedding 
 to be a hole and corner affair. 
 
 " I think," Clara had answered, " that 
 people won't think any the better of us for im- 
 posing on a friend who is more than enough 
 imposed on." 
 
 But George had made Thwaite's idea his 
 own, and there wasn't any opposing George. 
 
 Relatives had accepted, in a disconcert- 
 ing manner ; two families of Bredes who were 
 not on terms with each other ; two sisters of 
 Clara's, whom the care of considerable 
 nurseries had made prematurely querulous ; 
 an Honourable Aunt Hilda on the mother's 
 side ; and a bearded, half-centaur cousin from 
 La Plata by accident in England. 
 
 The two bridesmaids came from Mr. Breda's 
 own parish— they had been to college with 
 
THE BLACKENING PEARlS. 2O3 
 
 Dora. Their bustling and amiably fresh 
 county-family mothers disapproved of the 
 aunt, who was understood to have had a past 
 of aristocratic and ancient liveliness. The 
 aunt, on the other hand, disapproved, with- 
 out any mincing matters, of Clara and her 
 earlier scholastic career. 
 
 " Colleges for gals," she exclaimed in the ear 
 of the cousin from La Plata, who had acted as 
 best man. " It's Greek to me what they're for. 
 And what's Greek to them? / don't like 
 spectacles on debutantes." 
 
 " I don't agree with you, ma'am," the bearded 
 cousin exclaimed. He twirled a champagne- 
 glass by the stalk in his enormous fingers, and 
 spoke indulgently. " Out in the Pampas they 
 make the best wives. They've something to 
 think of, and don't mope. Give me that sort." 
 
 " Well, take 'em all out to the Pampas and 
 keep them there," the aunt exclaimed with a 
 good-natured intonation for the handsome 
 nephew. 
 
 " You ought to remember, aunt," one of the 
 querulous sisters interjected, "that Dora's a 
 Girton girl. And the bridesmaids." 
 
 " Oh, Dora's married," the old lady rang 
 back. " She'll do no more mischief. Besides, 
 not even a college could do Dora any harm. 
 You've got the best of the bunch, Mr. — ^Waite ! 
 — Thwaite ! A Shropshire Thwaite — oh, I beg 
 pardon." 
 
 Clara had smiled all the time. 
 
204 "^H^ BENEFACTOR, 
 
 Mr. Brede — it was quite one of his best days 
 — blinked amiably, like an owl dragged from a 
 hollow. He quoted Horace three times in a 
 short but weighty speech. The cousin from 
 La Plata in his speech remarked, swaying 
 bulkily and easily : 
 
 "Ladies and gentlemen, I haven't learnt the 
 art of oration from cattle on my ranche. The 
 bride's charms speak for themselves. I could 
 make a speech — an excellent quotation — if I'd 
 to speak for the best man. As it happens, I'm 
 that functionary myself. I should say, may 
 the best man win." 
 
 He sat down heavily, and with a certain air, 
 pulling at his heavy moustache, and casting at 
 Clara an unconcealed glance of admiration. 
 No one laughed. 
 
 Afterwards, Mr. Brede's two sisters, who had 
 not met for seven years, began a formal recon- 
 ciliation. It was interrupted by a violent and 
 quite unmitigated quarrel between their 
 husbands about " poor Jane's will." Clara, with 
 her swift grace and air of patience, had 
 separated them. " I should think. Uncle 
 James," George caught her saying to one 
 immense, coal black-haired creature, "that 
 you would be quiet in the house of a gentle- 
 man who had been kind to us " 
 
 The uncle muttered something apologetic. 
 Subsequently, he came up to George, and, with 
 a deferential air, began to talk about the High- 
 lands. 
 
THE BLACKENING PEARLS. 205 
 
 When Thwaite and Dora drove away, a 
 period of great misery for Clara Brede came to 
 an end. It wasn't only, as she said to George, 
 that the violence of her relatives had " got on 
 her nerves." It wasn't even that she was 
 horribly distracted by the idea of what George 
 must be thinking of them. Dora had smiled 
 radiantly at her ; Thwaite scowled and looked 
 away. He had been scowling like that at her 
 all these months. Once he had begun to talk 
 to her about the money. She had answered 
 him with a settled " No ! " 
 
 It had never shown on the surface how near 
 she was to telling him everything ; and it had 
 made her the more miserable that she could 
 not bring herself to tell him. She could not. 
 She had been again and again on the point, 
 but she was always afraid. He hated her so 
 much, that she was sure he would tell George, 
 in order to discredit her in George's eyes. She 
 couldn't trust Thwaite, and all the time he was 
 trying to make Dora hate her. 
 
 She ought to have told Thwaite. She ought 
 never to have withheld the money. She had 
 recognised that as soon as she knew that she 
 loved George. It was a mistake, a disaster, 
 and, when she recognised it, it was a new 
 calamity. She remembered that she had 
 thought about it for a long time one night. 
 Her reasons had seemed to her so good then 
 — but now, all these reasons seemed to have 
 vanished. She couldn't put them together 
 
206 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 again. It seemed to her, when she looked 
 back, that her only real reason had been that 
 she was in love with George. She had not 
 known it, but it had biassed her. 
 
 Oh, she had thought she had been acting so 
 justly ! She wrung her hands. She craved 
 for the real heroism that would make her con- 
 fess to Thwaite. It did not come, and for all 
 those months he had gone on hating her, and 
 trying to make Dora hate her. 
 
 She had remained doggedly mute. She had 
 spent all her savings on Dora ; she had bought 
 her whatever she idly wished for. It had not 
 appeased Thwaite. Dora, however, had not 
 seemed to listen to him, though it made her 
 the more in love with him because he was 
 defending her interests. And she loved Clara 
 more because Clara was unhappy. 
 
 On the night before the wedding Dora had 
 been over at the cottage. She came hurrying 
 back to Clara. Thwaite had gone into George's. 
 
 " Oh, Clara," she said. Her delighted face 
 was flushed ; her blue eyes sparkled. " Come 
 and see what Mr. Moffat has given us." 
 
 All round the walls of the living room there 
 hung frames of delicate drawings, touching 
 closely one on the other. It was George's 
 surprise. Whilst Thwaite and Dora had been 
 out in the afternoon he had come round to the 
 cottage with his gardener, wheeling all the 
 frames in a truck. He had spent the afternoon 
 in directing the gardener where to hang them. 
 
THE BLACKENING PEARLS. 207 
 
 Clara stood motionless and looked. She saw 
 row upon row of faces, delicately touched in 
 and tinted, the faces of very beautiful women 
 an d of very famous men . They were intimately 
 familiar to her, and it was like a calamity, 
 
 Dora was saying that Thwaite said they were 
 worth some hundreds of pounds. 
 
 They were the complete series of Sir 
 Graham's small sketches for his most famous 
 portraits. They were practically the only 
 things of value that George still had. They 
 had always been in a great portfolio on a 
 special stand in George's drawing room ; Clara 
 had looked through them many times. 
 
 Dora said : " Mr. Moffat has given them to 
 William, because he is his dearest friend and 
 pupil." 
 
 Clara leant a hand against the table. There 
 were tears warm in her eyes. She thought 
 swiftly : " He is ruined, then. He gave them 
 because he had nothing else to give." The 
 bright, rich little room wavered and became 
 invisible in the blur of her tears. Suddenly 
 she gave one long sob. She saw Dora's 
 alarmed young face, then she sank down on 
 her knees and hid her own on her arms. 
 " Don't you know he is ruined ? " she sobbed. 
 She began to cry unrestrainedly ; the rough 
 stuff of her sleeve smarted on her face. It was 
 beneficent and soothing, as if he himself were 
 there. In the abandonment of her grief she 
 closed her eyes, to see nothing, and sought 
 
208 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 blindly for a resting-place on her sister's breast 
 as a child would do on its mother's. " I love 
 him so," she said. 
 
 She told her sister everything ; it was 
 wonderful how Dora understood. It was as if 
 Clara were talking to herself. 
 
 " You misunderstood Willie," Dora said. 
 Of course Thwaite would have paid George if 
 he had known. 
 
 " But I couldn't tell him," Clara said. She 
 hadn't wished to diminish George's noble 
 figure. She had wanted to keep the secret 
 for her own. 
 
 " Oh, I know," Dora said. It was wonderful 
 how she understood and how she pardoned. 
 
 It wasn't indeed a matter of pardon. She 
 would have wanted her sister to have acted as 
 she had done. It was romantic and it was 
 charming. This new sensation seemed some- 
 how to have made the cottage itself become 
 suddenly a home, a place one already had 
 lived in. She was open to all tender emotions 
 because it was the night before she was to be 
 married, and she was very happy. 
 
 Clara lay back, softly and wearily, in a long 
 chair before the high fire-place, and Dora sat 
 on the ground at her feet. Her arms were 
 across her sister's knees, and Clara's hand lay 
 on her head. The long, polished oak table re- 
 flected the light of the lamp like a brown mill- 
 pond. The darkened joists ran parallel 
 overhead in long lines, the air was heavy with 
 
THE BLACKENING PEARLS. 209 
 
 the scent of jasmine from the open casement. 
 Large moths blurred suddenly, pale from out 
 of the blue night outside. The silence was 
 filled with the sound of gnats, faint like a dull 
 vibration, or sharp like tiny horns. 
 
 This was to be Dora's home. The idea of 
 Clara's loving a man filled her with young and 
 tremulous delight. She said suddenly : 
 
 " Oh, Clara, would you go away with him if 
 he asked you to ? " 
 
 Clara said : " Yes," with her soft resolute- 
 ness, and Dora nodded her head gently. It 
 was as if she considered for a short time, and 
 then thought that Clara was right. She pressed 
 Clara's knees gently in token of sympathy. 
 
 " Only I can't leave father," Clara said. 
 
 Dora answered : " Oh, Clara ! " 
 
 " No one else could do for him so well," Clara 
 said. " And I couldn't bear to let anyone else 
 know how bad he really is." 
 
 Dora said : " Oh, Clara ! " again. 
 
 " Even George doesn'treally know," Clara said. 
 
 Dora suddenly had a swift and sinister 
 glimpse of how much Clara must have suffered. 
 She herself had heard noises in the house at 
 night when she had been half asleep. And she 
 could understand Clara's jealous and intense 
 pride that wished to conceal, even from a pro- 
 fessional attendant, that dreadful weak place in 
 their house. 
 
 Clara said proudly now, with a pride in her 
 lover, " He would want me to see it through." 
 
2IO THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 She suddenly stopped stroking Dora's hair. 
 
 "Besides, he's never even looked at me!" 
 she said bitterly. "He thinks I'm only a 
 drudge ; and that's all I am." 
 
 Dora said : " Oh, Clara ! You're a beautiful 
 woman, and sweet — and charming — and clever 
 — and — and — there's no one like you, my 
 Clara." 
 
 She rose up and took Clara's face between 
 her hands. She kissed her many times, and 
 said in between : " No one — no one — no one 
 — no one." She paused to push back a wisp 
 of her hair. 
 
 " Oh, Clara," she went on, " he does admire 
 you. I have heard him say you were shame- 
 fully used. He did ; and that you ought to 
 marry some good man. But there's no one 
 good enough." 
 
 Clara's head lay back in the chair. Her eyes 
 were closed, and her face looked like a tranquil, 
 pale mask of a classic head. 
 
 " And he said you had a splendid nature. 
 I heard him." 
 
 " He means that I am an efficient housewife," 
 Clara said, with a listless and weary disdain. 
 
 " No, no." Dora flushed. " He means that 
 you're good and generous and clever." 
 
 Before they went home Clara said swiftly : 
 
 " Don't tell Willie ! " Then she hesitated. 
 No ! she mustn't come between man and wife. 
 She had told her sister. She must take the 
 consequences, 
 
THE BLACKENING PEARLS. 211 
 
 " Oh, but Willie would understand," Dora 
 said. She meant that Thwaite had a heart as 
 romantic as her own. She thought that he 
 would even be charmed, and that from now he 
 must begin to admire Clara. 
 
 Clara shook her head slightly. 
 
 " Why, yes ; tell him about the money," she 
 said. " And that I beg his pardon. But not 
 that I love George Moffat," 
 
 That, at least, was her own story. 
 
V. 
 
 Carew, the South American cousin, was a 
 younger son who had gone out and returned 
 an ingenuous, public-school, University of 
 Cambridge young man. He more than a little 
 disturbed George, who, in the goodness of his 
 heart and the' largeness of his house, was 
 " putting him up." 
 
 In the unharassing Pampas he had preserved 
 his ingenuousness and his youth even more 
 notably than Clara Brede had done. He took 
 an immense and, as it were, filial liking to his 
 distinguished host. He called George " Sir," 
 and, extending his great legs and genially 
 waving a cigar on the evening after the 
 wedding, candidly unfolded to George his 
 simple ideas. They depended guilelessly and 
 entirely upon a wife. He wanted a wife. 
 
 And, apparently, like Mr. Beale, he con- 
 sidered 'that he was born to get what he 
 wanted ; it showed in all his gestures, and 
 almost in the very curl of his cigar-smoke. He 
 explained that it was a good life " out there "; 
 that the right sort of woman -would be good 
 for it — "And it would be good for her, by 
 jove. . . . Now, what do you think ? " 
 
 George said that undoubtedly Mr. Carew 
 himself must be the best judge. 
 
 " But I want to know what you think, Sir," 
 
THE BLACKENING PEARLS. 213 
 
 Carew iterated. " Wouldn't it be good for a 
 girl — ^the right sort of girl ? " 
 
 George said : " Really " and Carew ex- 
 plained himself in a burst of rugged eloquence. 
 His hacienda was really pretty ; there were 
 passion-flowers all over the verandah, and an 
 excellent water supply. And he himself — 
 well, he wasn't an angel, but he thought he 
 was a gentleman. 
 
 " And mind you. Sir, I'm not the sort of 
 blackguard to take a girl out to the back of be- 
 yond without a reasonably filled purse and a 
 promise of good living." 
 
 He asked George his opinion of Clara Brede. 
 Wasn't she a rattling good sort ? He explained 
 that he hadn't got a father living ; George was 
 the only elderly man — George winced — that 
 he had ever been able to get on terms with, or 
 ask advice of. 
 
 George considered the matter rather 
 earnestly, digging the point of his paper- 
 knife into the- hard wood of his desk. 
 
 " I mean," Carew began again, " that I like 
 Clara, though there's no need for a broken 
 heart if I don't let myself go. And women, as 
 a rule, like me," he added. His quick eye 
 caught a rather heavy frown settling on 
 George's rather noticeable forehead. 
 
 " Oh, I'm not talking loosely," he hastened 
 to explain. " I mean just that, and no more." 
 
 George had the painful conviction that his 
 interlocutor regarded him as old-maidish. And 
 
214 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 the disappearance of Clara Brede into the 
 " back of beyond " would be a calamity in the 
 face of the eternal fitnesses. 
 
 " My dear fellow," he began suddenly, with 
 a sort of indignation. He felt as if the man 
 had, with a surpassing and blind coolness, 
 asked for the Venus of Milo to use as the door- 
 step of his stables. "No, I don't know of any 
 objection," he said coldly. 
 
 Carew went on to dilate, with a modesty 
 that was quite touching and young, on his own 
 eligibility. " She's only got her father to 
 think of now. And he can come with us." It 
 would be the making of Mr. Brede. He 
 could ride about all day and take services. He 
 was sound of wind and limb, and only wanted 
 the megrims bumped out of him. 
 
 For the very first time in his life George 
 found himself full of a personal envy. Even at 
 school he had hardly been able to bowl out 
 the captain of his team — from sheer dislike for 
 spoiling an innings. 
 
 That was what, most of all, he had always 
 suffered from. Seeing always, clearly enough, 
 the ends and aims of others ; never having had 
 any very conscious goal of his own, he had 
 always been content to step out of the way, and 
 to supply the immense incentive of applause. It 
 was as if, recognising very fully the futility of 
 human strivings, he were content himself to 
 strive not at all, and had attempted to be, in a 
 small, practical way, a tutelary of good fortune. 
 
THE BLACKENING PEARLS. 215 
 
 He had tried to supply at odd moments those 
 little bits of unexpected luck that will change 
 a man's moods and the tide of a man's affairs. 
 He very certainly desired this man's failure. 
 
 It alarmed him a little ; he took refuge in a 
 simple refusal of counsel. Perhaps that, too, 
 was for the first time in his life. 
 
 " I simply don't know," he said twice. " I 
 couldn't judge in such a matter." 
 
 " But you don't say no ? " Carew asked. 
 
 George felt a sudden and intense impatience. 
 What was this person to him ? Let him be 
 quiet. Let him learn manners. 
 
 " And if you don't say no, Sir," the other 
 went on — his tone implied an enthusiastic 
 homage paid to a man of immensely superior 
 knowledge of the world — and of immense 
 seniority — " if you don't say no, there can't 
 be much wrong." 
 
 Afterwards George had to listen to a long 
 and very detailed account of Carew's properties 
 in South America. 
 
 " Well, I've got thirty thousand acres there, 
 with a pretty good head of cattle, but not so 
 many as at the other place I was telling you of, 
 and the droughts are worse." 
 
 Next morning George walked with Clara 
 Brede along the sand. Carew had ridden off 
 for a two days' tour among the neighbouring 
 cathedrals, which it " was his duty as an 
 Englishman" to "do." 
 
2l6 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 "Ah, yes, beyond the horizon," George 
 said musingly, with his eyes on the juncture 
 of sky and sand and sea. " My dear young 
 lady, the question is — and it's the same for 
 every one of us — what we should find there." 
 It was, after all, George's manner rather than 
 his matter that was so eminently soothing. 
 
 He let loose the platitudes that lie so 
 inevitably close to the hand of every habitual 
 consoler ; he proved to her how very identi- 
 cally her case — with the inevitable mutatis 
 mutandis — was that of everyone else. " I, 
 you know, have come across so many. And 
 it's striking how exactly the same all the 
 cases are. It's only in the very exterior 
 symptoms that the differences make any kind of 
 a show." He was speaking slowly, and with a 
 great deal of bonhomie. He made little 
 soothing and emphatic gestures. 
 
 " All our stories are the same. One wants 
 to be something — something that what iden- 
 tically one can't by any possibility be. Or 
 one wants to have something that one either 
 doesn't get, or that one doesn't care for when 
 one gets it." He spoke his platitudes with an 
 absent enough air, and then added more 
 brilliantly : 
 
 " You, of course, don't want any poor minis- 
 trations of mine. You're temperamentally too 
 brave ; you bear things in silence. That, after 
 all, is the highest of human qualities. Not to 
 yelp. Not to disturb the neighbours." 
 
THE BLACKENING PEARLS. 217 
 
 "But I have been yelping," Clara smiled at 
 him. 
 
 He made an airy gesture with his stick, 
 
 " Oh— for a yelp," he said. «' It wasn't that. 
 It was, if you like, a curse wrung out, that's the 
 point. When one's put out one ought to show 
 it." He raised his eyebrows humorously. 
 " Don't you see, too, the immense advantages 
 of your — your confidences ? " 
 
 Clara, laughing rather brilliantly, confessed 
 that she didn't. 
 
 "You save me from a danger of complete 
 misapprehension. How otherwise was I to 
 know that you weren't a goddess ; not to be 
 tired ; not to be ruffled by all the squabblings 
 of all the relations in the world ? How ? Isn't 
 it a pleasure to know that you're human if — as 
 I'm sure I hope will be the case — I'm to go on 
 seeing a good deal of you." 
 
 Clara remonstrated : 
 
 " One would have to be stone not to be 
 afraid that you had been disgusted by our 
 humiliating squabbles," but any shade of 
 bitterness had gone out of her voice. 
 
 "One might, you know," George said 
 humorously, " be a Venus of Milo. If you'll 
 go to the Louvre you'll see her surrounded by 
 people excellently more trivial than your 
 amiable relatives. Obviously, she hears their 
 comments. But think how much more desir- 
 able she would be if " 
 
 Clara, with her conscientious l;iumour, said : 
 
2l8 THE BENEFACTOR, 
 
 " Oh, please don't make me think of a Venus 
 with a crise de nerjs." 
 
 " The obvious retort would be," George 
 flashed amiably back at her, " then why do 
 you make me ? " 
 
 Mr. Brede, remotely suggesting a shortness 
 of breath, obtruded suddenly between them. 
 
 " I wish, Moffat," he said, with some show of 
 vexation, " you would not let Clara tire you 
 with her nonsense." 
 
 He had seen George hardly at all for the 
 last three days ; he wanted to have the cream 
 of George's mind for himself. " Those con- 
 founded women are still squabbling. They're 
 all women on my Committee now." 
 
 George said : " Oh, my mind's alert enough 
 for all the squabbles in the world." He smiled 
 rather hilariously at the immense clergyman. 
 Clara, too, smiled softly. She listened with an 
 expression of engrossed contentment. He had 
 talked to her. She wondered — she wondered 
 how much he really meant. Did he find her 
 charming ? Oh, if only he sometimes spoke 
 more seriously. But she didn't want him in 
 the least altered. She wondered if it could be 
 true that he was ruined. He couldn't talk so 
 gaily if he were . But then, he was so wonder- 
 ful ; he never " yelped." George was saying 
 that for the moment he couldn't give Mr. 
 Brede more than that one day. He had to 
 consult his brother upon business. Gregory, 
 in fact, had begged him urgently to come. 
 
THE BLACKENING PEARLS. 219 
 
 Clara thought, agitatedly, "What does he 
 mean ? What is it ? Is he ruined now ? He 
 can't be. It doesn't seem possible." 
 
 He couldn't be. And it didn't seem possible. 
 She asked so very little of life. Just that he 
 should remain there ; that she might walk 
 beside them, thinking, whilst he talked to her 
 father. So very little. Yet, because it gave 
 her so great joy, perhaps it was infinitely too 
 much for her. 
 
 Her father's face had fallen lamentably. 
 George said, laughing : " Oh, I sha'n't be long. 
 I don't want to leave all this " — he waved his 
 hand, taking in the sea, sky and sand — " in 
 these glorious days." His eyes happened to 
 be on Clara, and he smiled, friendly and 
 brilliant. It was as if he meant that, in her, 
 he recognised another who felt the infectious 
 glory of these days. 
 
 She had one of her swift rushes of pure joy. 
 That was what his smile meant. He regarded 
 her as a kindred spirit ; as if he had raised her 
 to his own level and saluted her. Dora had 
 said as much. And he — he too had said it. Her 
 eyes shone ; her heart fluttered wildly, and 
 then beat tranquilly and with an assured and 
 sustaining pulsation. She didn't care. She 
 didn't believe that he was ruined, that he 
 would have to go. She was not going to 
 believe it. And he had talked to her and he 
 had looked at her. 
 
VI. 
 
 Mrs. Moffat's house in a western county — 
 the house with the legendary fourteen gar- 
 deners — dominated the shoulder of a hill at 
 the angle of a bay. Below it the greatest of 
 western watering-places displayed a white and 
 moon-like crescent to the suns of the south. 
 It was only Gregory's as if innate modesty 
 that made it not one of the show places of the 
 country. 
 
 At first, to his acquaintance, it had seemed 
 an appropriate and modest luxury ; a little 
 later they said it was an immense folly. 
 Afterwards they agreed that you didn't know 
 Gregory. It had once been a rather obscure 
 looking, rather large, rather rambling, square 
 mansion, masked and rendered gloomy, on its 
 hill shoulder, by awkwardly disposed timber. 
 It had passed into Gregory's hands for an old 
 song. A little later, for another old song, he 
 had bought in another part of coastal England, 
 the entire face of a great half timbered house, 
 then in process of demolition. And this entire 
 face, water-borne to the western county, 
 Gregory had had fixed to the front of his 
 obscure mansion. The gloomy surrounding 
 trees had been bodily transplanted into very 
 
THE BLACKENING PEARLS, 221 
 
 fine clumps. These dotted sea-marks all over 
 the shoulder of the hill ; the glass-houses of 
 the gardeners had sprung up, and an august, 
 walled garden. Outlying, but desirable, par- 
 ings of the land had become bedecked with 
 pleasant villas. And almost suddenly, at an 
 astonishingly eligible and select distance from 
 the magnificent watering-place, a great, sunny 
 haunt of ancient peace, black and mellow 
 white, stood up and opened out to the soft 
 breezes. One asked as one drove past in one's 
 fly : " What is this ? What is this ? " 
 
 It stood in fact revealed that Gregory was 
 possessed of a "property " which the adjectives 
 of an auctioneer could only touch with a 
 crudity to make one blush, Gregory hadn't 
 turned a hair in the course of the transforma- 
 tion. No one had even realised that he had 
 had anything on hand. 
 
 Mr. Hailes sat smooth, cool and precise, in 
 the deep window-seat of a spacious, panelled 
 room ; in its bright tallness it appeared quite 
 small and habitable. He wore his air of pro- 
 fessional helpfulness, tinged with something 
 masterly and dark ; he was pulling his 
 celestial, thin moustache above a long, droop- 
 ing proof sheet. He played with a blue pencil, 
 and twice made little dabs on the paper. At 
 the other end of the broad seat, deliciously 
 ruffled in her widow's black, a little and quite 
 unusually perturbed, as if with a touch of naive 
 shyness, Mrs. Henwick was delicately patting 
 
222 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 the back of her tiny hand against the lozenges 
 of the high, leaded window. Beside them, 
 curtains obscured the tall double doQrway of 
 an immensely long and immensely rich room, 
 into which the sunlight fell in glowing patches 
 on a brilliant, soft carpet. The window looked 
 out on to a hopelessly blue sea a long way 
 below. 
 
 Mrs. Henwick uttered, " Well ? " in a bird- 
 like appeal of questioning. The deep frown 
 of a connoisseur did not leave Mr. Hailes' 
 dead-white, narrow forehead. His eyes 
 travelled slowly down the page. There was a 
 slight clicking noise from the next room ; the 
 brilliant, cheerful "pink, pink" of a chaffinch 
 sounded through an open window to the west. 
 Its metallic clearness seemed to belong to 
 another order of world. Mr. Hailes rested the 
 slip on his knee. 
 
 " Oh, exquisite. Quite exquisite," he said. 
 
 His voice did not lose its authoritative, con- 
 noisseur quality. 
 
 " You really think ?" Mrs. Henwick appealed, 
 as if hardly believing her ears. Mr. Hailes 
 appeared to come up out of a dream. 
 
 "It grips one," he said. "It undoubtedly 
 grips one." 
 
 Mrs. Henwick said : " Oh ! " 
 
 Mr. Hailes reversed his pencil, and gently 
 emphasized his words with it : " It's deriva- 
 tive, of course. But that, in a first effort, is to 
 be expected. Indeed, it's to be commended." 
 
THE BLACKENING PEARLS. 223 
 
 Mr. Hailes' remarkable memory had come 
 to his aid. He was repeating, almost word for 
 word, and to a certain extent the exact man- 
 nerisms of the connoisseur who had favour- 
 ably greeted his own first efforts. " Derivative, 
 but with a certain authentic touch, a delicacy, 
 a — a savour." 
 
 Mrs. Henwick flushed with a quite honest 
 pleasure. 
 
 " I was so distractingly afraid of showing it 
 to anyone," she said. "I thought people 
 might make fun of it." 
 
 It was a storiette written with an intense and 
 quite childish yearning, and destined to 
 face the smudgy portrait of an actress wear- 
 ing the last opera cloak, in the pages of a 
 lady's magazine. It dealt with a lady whose 
 starry face (after she had married someone of 
 the plutocracy) beamed out of a lit window on 
 to a terrace where Some One Else (whom she 
 hadn't married because he was too compara- 
 tively penniless) bent his head above his 
 bowed arms, drank in upon his parched face 
 the pure breezes of the night, and swore to be 
 a better man. 
 
 She had written the story in the dead of her 
 solitary nights with quite real tears, a quite 
 real catching in the throat, a quite real and 
 indescribable mournfulness. And of its own 
 strength it had got itself placed in the pages of 
 the Lady's Magazine. It filled her with an 
 indescribable tremor of prides, of shamefaced- 
 
224 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 ness, of embarrassment. She had not dared to 
 show it to Mrs. Moffat, whom, in her nervous 
 shyness, she worshipped and looked up to. 
 But the sharp eye of Mr. Hailes had caught 
 sight of the familiar blue wrappings of proofs 
 on the breakfast table among Mrs. Henwick's 
 post. He had proffered his aid, confidentially 
 and with his air of concealed dark reliability, 
 in the hall. Mrs. Henwick, with a new flood of 
 warm emotions, was tremulously trying to tear 
 off the wrapper without injuring the contents. 
 And now Mr. Hailes, with his balanced and 
 surely reliable taste, pronounced her work a 
 master-piece, with only the most venial of flaws 
 observable to the meticulous eye of the hyper- 
 critical ! 
 
 It's incredible to me," he said. " Incredible. 
 Others of us " — he was still quoting George — 
 " work for years at tinkering, at endless patch- 
 ing. You come along, and, if I may use the 
 expression, ' do the trick ' at the very outset. 
 It makes one doubt the justice of Providence." 
 
 Mrs. Henwick was mute with pleasure, Mr. 
 Hailes, picking up the slip from his knee, 
 moved across the window seat. His shoulder 
 touched hers, and she minutely edged away. 
 He accepted the reservation for the time. 
 " I've put in a comma here," he resumed his 
 mastery, " and deleted this ' and.' Of course, in 
 things like these, beginners can be helped, 
 however skilful. And it's tricks like these 
 make all the difference." 
 
THE BLACKENING PEARLS. 22$ 
 
 Mrs. Henwick was profuse in her bird-like 
 thanks." 
 
 " Half the battle's in that," Hailes said. 
 " I've seen some of the great — the high 
 and mighty — writers at work. They talk a 
 great deal about art. But I can assure you — 
 take George Moffat now — it's nothing more 
 than a juggling of commas to make it look like 
 no other person's writing, and an occasional 
 change of a word to one no sane person would 
 think of using." 
 
 Mrs. Henwick said : " Oh, but George 
 Moffat " 
 
 Hailes shook his head. 
 
 " If I didn't want not to appear outrageously 
 flattering," he said, coolly, " I should say that 
 this " — he fluttered the slip reverentially — " is 
 worth all that George " 
 
 Mrs. Moffat, entering the further door, 
 brusquely ejaculated : 
 
 "Well, but Where's George?" Her 
 
 brilliant eyes fell upon Hailes. 
 
 " You," she said. " I thought you were 
 going into the town." 
 
 Hailes explained, nonchalantly, that he had 
 changed his mind. 
 
 Mrs. Moffat cast a hard glance right up 
 and down him, then disappeared through 
 the curtain. They heard her high voice ex- 
 claim : " George." 
 
 Hailes went swiftly and quite silently out of 
 the room. 
 
 Q 
 
226 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 George was " discovered." He was seated 
 in a singularly gorgeous, spindle-legged chair, 
 that when he rose displayed on its back 
 cushions the embroidery of a chaste flower- 
 urn. He explained to his sister-in-law how he 
 came to be in that gallery. 
 
 " It is a gallery, you know," he said, indica- 
 ting, with a slight swaying of his supple body, 
 his admiration for the bright, palatial room. 
 " That fire-place ! " The fire-place was an enor- 
 mous structure of shining marbles and ala- 
 baster. 
 
 " Oh, the things are good enough, I sup- 
 pose," Mrs. Moffat said, with an indifferent 
 and wearied swish of her skirts. " I'm sure I 
 don't know what they all are. Gregory proba- 
 bly does." 
 
 George raised his eyebrows. 
 
 " One gets sick to death of living in a show- 
 room," Mrs. Moffat said. "/ do. But it's 
 really nice of you to come, George." 
 
 George bowed his head gallantly and cheer- 
 fully. He didn't know exactly what to make 
 of that present ; he said he did not deserve 
 praise. 
 
 " It's after all dire necessity that brings me 
 here. Business." 
 
 Mrs. Moffat said : "But you'll stay ? We 
 see so little of you. Gregory will be so pleased." 
 
 George surveyed her with ironical, genial 
 hilarity. He was not used to his sister-in-law 
 in this mood. She was undoubtedly ageing. 
 
THE BLACKENING PEARLS. 227 
 
 She seemed, indeed, to be wanting — as august 
 ladies sometimes did — to take George into her 
 confidence to the extent of not defiantly con- 
 cealing from him that she was unhappy. He 
 laughed a little. 
 
 " I've brought a bag. I didn't imagine you'd 
 want to pack me off at once." 
 
 Mrs. Moffat, by voice and manner indi- 
 cated that George was an immensely honoured 
 guest, and that she was shocked at his not 
 having realised it before. 
 
 " Gregory's in his room," she said. " You 
 may go there ; but it's as much as anyone 
 else's life is worth." 
 
 She led him, with an air almost of reverence, 
 along a warren of queer, shining passages, 
 flashing through glowing windows immensely 
 bright views of flower-beds and mellowed 
 walls. There were all sorts of odd and 
 precious things in dark corners ; a fich brown 
 picture here and there, set against the light. 
 
 "By jove," George said, "there are those 
 two Constables," They were descending an 
 obscure, square staircase. " What does 
 Gregory mean by hanging them here ? " 
 
 Mrs. Moffat made a little hushing, hurried 
 sound. 
 
 " Oh, one's not supposed to know," she said, 
 with the discreet, unmistakable air that the 
 greatest of ladies assumes when talking of her 
 husband's " business." " There's not a corner 
 of the house that isn't full of that sort of thing. 
 
228 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 The servants complain that there are no cup- 
 boards left for the linen." 
 
 George, with his hands behind his back, 
 peered upwards at the pictures in the dusk. 
 
 "Ah, what lovable things," he said. He 
 turned to face Mrs. Moffat, and swayed gently 
 with his fashion of eternal leisure, " I hadn't 
 the least idea that Gregory was so like myself," 
 he said. His genial, deprecatory smile shone 
 out on his clear cut face. 
 
 Mrs. Moffat, leaning against the banisters a 
 little below him, questioned him with her clear 
 eyes, 
 
 " I mean, he too has just my — my indiscre- 
 tion in this direction. The taste for anything 
 fine. On a grander scale it's just my home over 
 again." 
 
 Mrs. Moffat's large, coarse features drooped 
 a little. She looked nervously at a closed door 
 at the stair-foot. 
 
 " All this " — George good-humouredly 
 indicated the pile of buildings that seemed to 
 press on them — " all this is so precisely what 
 I should have now if I'd had the resources — if 
 I hadn't been the fool that I am, and Gregory 
 apparently isn't." 
 
 Mrs. Moffat shook her head very minutely. 
 
 " Apart from the rather excruciating things," 
 George went on — " that fireplace, for in- 
 stance — that do make me shudder, but that are, 
 I suppose, extremely valuable, this is more or 
 less exactly my house." 
 
tHE BLACKENING t>EARLS. 22^ 
 
 Mrs, Moffat again shook her head. 
 
 " Oh, my dear lady " — George prepared to 
 vanquish her — " don't you see ? The taste's 
 the same. It's the family resemblance — the 
 taste for costly, fine things of a certain age, a 
 certain mellowness. Gregory's taste " 
 
 " Taste ! " said Mrs. Moffat, with a sort of 
 scorn of intense denial. " It's a market instinct 
 with him." She made it suddenly blaze rather 
 clearly before George that the house wasn't a 
 house, but a show-room. " You don't know 
 Gregory " — she quivered — " no one does."' 
 She indicated the doorway. In its darkness 
 and inscrutability it appeared a symbol of his 
 brother's intense secretiveness. 
 
 " Oh, I don't profess to," he said, amiably. 
 " But he's a good fellow." 
 
 Mrs. Moffat's eyes blazed rather distrustfully 
 at him. 
 
 "I'm sure I don't know him," she retorted. 
 
 They went down the steps to the closed 
 door. 
 
 " You know " — Mrs. Moffat lowered her voice 
 before she knocked — " there's not a thing in 
 the place that isn't for sale — either someone's 
 security for a loan or maturing for the market." 
 
 George said, soothingly : "That's more than 
 can be said for my house, and I'm not sure that 
 it is not a pity." 
 
 Gregory sat with his elbows propping him up 
 over a table. He was sedulously examining 
 
^36 "THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 the portrait of a lady. He did not look round 
 when the door opened. The portrait, seen in 
 perspective, had the dead black of a lace 
 mantilla, and striking, rather crudely white high- 
 lights. 
 
 Mrs. Moffat said : " Here's George," and 
 Gregory, with an automatic, hasty movement, 
 dropped a green baize flap over the portrait. 
 His face beamed round at his brother. It was 
 as if to both husband and wife George were a 
 guardian angel. 
 
 The door George closed on Mrs. Moffat ; 
 Gregory raised the flap fiom the portrait with 
 a chuckling air, saying, " Pretty good, that." 
 
 It displayed a lady of mature charms and 
 vacuous good-nature, draped, head and 
 shoulders, in Spanish lace, and with a disturb- 
 ing, masterly indication of a quite uncondoned 
 squint. 
 
 George asked, meditatively : " Goya ? " 
 
 Gregory moved awkwardly round the room. 
 He turned one of half-a-dozen canvases that 
 showed dirty backs. 
 
 A long-horned bull stood elastically at bay 
 before a shadowy escadrilla ; the just-indicated 
 forms of tier on tier of spectators shut them in. 
 A shadowy, dead and disembowelled horse lay, 
 crushing its picador, just behind the bull. 
 
 George pursed his lips. " That's the Duke 
 of Seville's 'Bull-fight,'" he said. It un- 
 doubtedly was that famous picture. Gregory, 
 with a gesture of his thumb, made it plain that 
 
THE BLACKENING PEARLS. 23 1 
 
 the other canvases were all from the same 
 collection. 
 
 " You're going to have a Spanish Exhibition 
 at the Gallery ? " George asked. 
 
 Gregory chuckled : " Don't mention it — 
 up above." 
 
 The room — it resembled a butler's pantry — 
 was in the very basement of the house. There 
 were thick iron bars before the windows, a 
 large figured almanac facing them, a heavy safe 
 built into the wall. The table was covered 
 with baize to protect the frames of pictures 
 placed upon it for inspection. It had for 
 Gregory the home-feeling of his office at the 
 Gallery. 
 
 He settled himself in a revolving chair and 
 took a sheaf of letters from behind the portrait, 
 George recognised the note that he himself had 
 written about his own affairs. 
 
 Gregory made a curdling sound in his throat. 
 
 " You're absolutely at the end of your 
 tether, George," he said, 
 
 George, leaning against the window-sill, 
 tapped the walking-stick that he still held 
 against the tiled floor. He said : " Ah ! " He 
 sat down facing his brother. 
 
 " As far as I've gone into the matter, you've 
 nothing. Unless you've something in the 
 bank." 
 
 " Oh, I've a little in the bank," George said. 
 
 Gregory said, " Um." 
 
 Looking sideways at the floor, George tried 
 
232 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 to figure out what it meant to him. He was 
 ruined. He was penniless. He had some- 
 thing in the bank — enough, perhaps, for two 
 months' house-keeping. Perhaps for three. 
 He wondered a little how he was taking it. 
 How was he taking it ? What did it mean ? 
 He couldn't tell. It meant nothing ; not as 
 much as if a road vanished uphill on the sky- 
 line. He hadn't the least idea what was be- 
 yond. He looked at his brother. 
 
 " I can't say I didn't expect it," he said. 
 Half a dozen queer pictures of his future pre- 
 sented themselves to him. 
 
 Gregory said that the statement was only 
 approximate. 
 
 " I suppose you've other obligations besides 
 this precious undertaking ? " He lifted, with an 
 air of disfavour, the demand from the creditors 
 of the Renaissance Press. " This is the princi- 
 pal, of course ? You may, if it's to be 
 managed, compound it for a couple of thou- 
 sand. That's about the last of your capital." 
 
 George said : " Ah ! " 
 
 " You aren't subsidising anything else ? " 
 Gregory asked. 
 
 George shook his head. He did not mean 
 to speak. It had suddenly occurred to him 
 that it might mean — that it must mean — his 
 leaving his house. " Can't — can't some- 
 thing be arranged ? " he interrupted his own 
 thoughts. His voice had a shade of a tremble 
 in it. It struck him that he was taking it very 
 
THE BLACKENING PEARLS. 233 
 
 badly. He laughed : " But of course nothing 
 can be arranged." 
 
 It ran tumultuously through his head that 
 it must mean that. Some time ago — a long 
 time — he had reasoned it out calmly enough 
 that when the crash came he would have to 
 leave his house and his little town. Then he 
 had concluded that he would not mind it 
 much. Now he was face to face with it. 
 
 Gregory was piitting him through an examina- 
 tion that worried him a good deal. Had he 
 many debts ? Oh ! some — the usual ones. A 
 fairly heavy bookseller's bill. He remembered 
 several dozen of Pouilly, and some of Chamber- 
 tin. (They had had both wines for Thwaite's 
 wedding. He had given Dora a complete 
 little library, too. Prettily bound. The 
 shelves had cost a great deal. They weren't 
 paid for.) Something to his tailor ? — Prac- 
 tically nothing : not twenty pounds. Some- 
 thing to his tobacconist. 
 
 " You don't smoke," Gregory said. 
 
 " Oh, I give cigars for Christmas presents — 
 and tobacco for the villagers. Snuff, too." 
 
 "For the old women ?" Gregory asked, 
 cheerfully. 
 
 George nodded. It was rather appalling 
 the way bills mounted up. There must 
 be a couple of hundred. . . . More, perhaps. 
 He remembered half-a-dozen small accounts 
 he had promised to pay for a man called Dean, 
 who wrote sonnets, and was starving. 
 
234 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 " And your debtors ? " Gregory asked, 
 
 George frowned. " Oh, my lending's always 
 been a figure of speech," he said. 
 
 " You gave," Gregory said. 
 
 " You must know me by this time," George 
 said. 
 
 Gregory beamed at him attentively. 
 
VII. 
 
 Thrashed out fairly fully, the matter ended in 
 a certain indefiniteness. Things might turn 
 out rather better than Gregory had estimated ; 
 they might — ^very much worse. Gregory had 
 made a trip to town for the purpose of inspect- 
 ing the books of the Renaissance Press. 
 
 " I don't know if you realise," he said, 
 " what this precious agreement amounts to." 
 It amounted to George's being responsible for 
 all the losses. Hailes and, in a lesser degree, 
 Spendle would have taken all the profits had 
 there been any. " Mr. Hailes," Gregory said 
 grimly, " likes speculating with other people's 
 money. I can't quite say whether you'll be 
 sold up or not. You may be just able to find 
 the money." 
 
 George rose nervously from his chair. 
 
 " I say very probably you won't be sold up," 
 Gregory said, 
 
 George looked through him, a great way 
 away. 
 
 " But even if you aren't," Gregory advanced 
 a point, " you can't go on living where you 
 are." 
 
 George began to pace swiftly up and down. 
 
 " My personal expenses are nothing." 
 
236 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 " But you've always someone in the house," 
 Gregory pushed the matter. He had always 
 disapproved of George's hospitality. George 
 stopped angrily in front of him. 
 
 " My dear chap," he said sharply, " that's a 
 pure superstition." 
 
 " Haven't you anyone now ? " Gregory asked. 
 
 George answered, " No." Then he stopped 
 confusedly. 
 
 He had suddenly remembered that at that 
 moment Carew, Clara Brede's South American 
 cousin, would almost certainly be reining his 
 horse in before George's own steps. He would 
 just have returned from his tour among the 
 cathedrals. " At least " he added. 
 
 Gregory said : " Ah ! " 
 
 George swerved nervously in his stride. He 
 felt intensely irritated. 
 
 " It's only some fool. An absolute cretin." 
 What, in fact, was he doing with such a 
 creature in his house. What did the man 
 mean by being there at all ? He had an image 
 of the bearded, jaunty colossus, swinging with 
 his horseman's stride down his — George's — 
 own steps and along the clear, quiet streets to 
 the Brede's cottage. To pay his court to Clara 
 Brede ! 
 
 He said quickly : -'Well, there's nothing to 
 be made of this discussion. I must get back." 
 
 He held out his hand to Gregory. He 
 wanted most intensely to be home. 
 
 Gregory shook his head minutely. 
 
THE BLACKENING PEARLS. 237 
 
 " Your house would sell well," he said. 
 
 George ignored the question. 
 
 " I have found you a purchaser. I've got the 
 exact person. You could pay off all the mort- 
 gages and just live abroad." 
 
 George said : " I couldn't think of it." 
 
 The firmness of his own voice surprised him. 
 He was disturbed so as to be hardly conscious 
 of speaking. "I couldn't think of it," he 
 repeated. " I must get home. I must get 
 home at once." 
 
 Gregory, rising ungracefully in his chair, 
 seemed to have grown quite small and a long 
 way away. The room itself didn't matter at all. 
 
 Mr. Hailes was saying, exactly two stories 
 above them : 
 
 " You really think he can be got to speak 
 for me to your husband," and Mrs, Moffat was 
 answering : 
 
 " Oh, you don't know George." 
 
 They both of them had an air of panic- 
 stricken conspirators with their heads together. 
 They were in Mrs. Moffat's work-room — all sha- 
 green bolstered arm-chairs and dark panelling. 
 
 " After all," Hailes went on re-assuredly, 
 " I don't see why he should bear me any ill- 
 will. It's the fortunes of war. The Press 
 ought to have succeeded. It isn't as if I had 
 done anything dishonourable." 
 
 Mrs. Moffat, leaning her chin on her wrist, 
 asked : 
 
238 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 " What were you working at with Felicia ? " 
 
 Mr. Hailes replied with excellent non- 
 chalance : 
 
 " Oh, she's been writing some nonsense for 
 the Lady's Magazine. She asked me to cor- 
 rect the proofs." 
 
 Mrs. Moffat shot an intensely distrustful 
 glance at his unconcerned face. She wanted 
 to discover what untruth lay hidden beneath 
 what she knew to be the transparent veracity 
 of Hailes' words. 
 
 " I should have thought she wouldn't have 
 wanted to worry you," she said. 
 
 " Oh, I don't mind," Hailes answered in the 
 same tone. 
 
 They began to answer letters, and to arrange 
 when the local clergy might dine at the house, 
 
 " We shall have to put the garden party for 
 the 6th," Hailes said, with his air of com- 
 petency. " Is Colonel Williams an Honourable, 
 or is it his wife ? " He opened a scarlet 
 reference book. 
 
 Mrs. Moffat's fingers drummed on the in- 
 laid green leather of the writing table. 
 
 " What, after all, is at the bottom of your 
 transaction with George ? " she asked. 
 
 Hailes, with the same unconcern, marking 
 with a pale finger his place in the book, ex- 
 plained : " Oh, he wanted to make money. I 
 thought it would be a good thing. I intro- 
 duced Spendle to him. Some of those presses 
 have earned fabulous sums. I'm afraid this 
 
THE BLACKENING PEARLS, 239 
 
 hasn't, though. I don't see what he has 
 against me." 
 
 Mrs. Moffat said : " Oh, it isn't George. It's 
 how Gregory will take the matter." 
 
 Hailes looked at her interrogatively. 
 
 " Gregory will have all the papers in his 
 hands by this time." She did not for a 
 moment believe in her secretary's clean hands 
 in the matter. 
 
 " Oh, / don't appear in any papers," Hailes 
 answered. He had taken care of that. 
 
 " Gregory worships George," Mrs. Moffat 
 said. 
 
 Hailes ejaculated negligently, " Oh ! " After 
 five minutes of reflection he asked : " Has he 
 been saying anything more against me ? " 
 
 " Oh, Gregory's never said anything at all," 
 Mrs. Moffat answered. " Nothing, except that 
 once. It's precisely his not saying anything 
 
 Hailes interjected : " Then perhaps I'd 
 better clear out." 
 
 " You mean altogether ? " Mrs. Moffat shot 
 at him. 
 
 She, like George, was face to face with it — 
 with what she had dreaded. But she wasn't 
 prepared to accept that sort of bankruptcy. 
 
 " I don't want to cause unpleasantness," 
 Hailes yawned at her. 
 
 She couldn't, she wasn't going to, accept 
 this. It was obvious to her that Hailes had a 
 price ; that he wanted, as it were, an advance 
 
240 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 of wages. What did he want ? What was it ? 
 She swished her skirts together with a certain 
 violence of assertion. 
 
 "Unpleasantness," she said blackly. "What 
 do you mean by that ? Gregory knows better 
 than to speak to me." 
 
 Hailes got up slowly. He clinked the keys 
 in his trouser pockets, and sauntered towards 
 the tall window. 
 
 " Oh, I didn't know," he said. 
 
 He quite literally didn't know what Mrs, 
 Moffat wanted. He accepted his post of paid 
 servant, and did his easy work easily until he 
 could see a chance of bettering himself. He 
 wanted to make money ; he supposed Mrs. 
 Moffat wanted him to make it for her. That 
 was why she kept him. But it was an extra- 
 ordinary family. He stood looking out of the 
 window. Mrs. Moffat gave a long look of 
 superacute hatred at his unconscious back. 
 
 What did she want of him ? She hadn't even 
 yet figured it out. What does a woman want 
 of a man ? Admiration ? A tacit and con- 
 tinuous acknowledgment of wonder ? Sym- 
 pathy, perhaps, and, above all, no betrayal of a 
 desire to slacken the binding chain, the tie, 
 whatever its nature. That above all ; and at 
 the very least a pretence that one is the only 
 woman that counts — the pretence, however 
 shallow, however easy to pierce. And Hailes 
 hadn't made the least shadow of a pretence of 
 the sort. She absolutely refused to believe 
 
THE BLACKENING PEARLS. 24I 
 
 that that was his real attitude. He had 
 adopted it ; he wanted to screw something out 
 of her — something more. 
 
 She perfectly accepted his mercenary nature. 
 It was part of him ; it was perhaps part of his 
 attraction. I suppose that what she really 
 wanted was some acknowledgment of a 
 personal attraction, an " influence " over 
 him. If by playing him with a gilt bait, 
 by luring him on, she could wring from 
 him some acknowledgment that would be 
 absolutely independent of the money 
 factor. If ! That, in fact, would be the 
 triumph. 
 
 She said at last : " And the Spanish scheme ? 
 What would become of that ? " 
 
 Hailes gnawed at his moustache. " We 
 don't seem to get more forward with it," 
 he said. " It isn't worth while, with our re- 
 sources. We ought to have been there and 
 back." 
 
 " It will have to be for the next season," 
 Mrs. Moftat said. "We can't go before Sep- 
 tember." 
 
 He surveyed her with some interest. " I 
 thought you had dropped the idea," he said. 
 He pondered a little. " With the money we 
 have — I've reckoned it out — we couldn't make 
 any kind of a show." 
 
 Mrs. Moffat hazarded another card. " I 
 daresay I could find another five hundred " — 
 and, at Hailes' minute shrug of the shoulders 
 
242 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 • — " or a thousand, perhaps." The prospect of 
 a long, warm journey in Spain with Hailes had 
 suddenly opened out before her as extremely 
 desirable — a thing to thaw out all sorts of 
 coolness. 
 
 Hailes drew the creases out of his waistcoat, 
 ricking his neck back. He began to speak 
 slowly : " The fact is we want much more 
 capital." He was rather mystified ; he couldn't 
 see why Mrs. Moffat should suddenly blow hot 
 after having for months blown extremely cold. 
 He supposed she was suddenly in want of 
 money for some reason unknown to him. 
 " The idea's too good to spoil. It's my own, 
 after all. I've studied the subject." He re- 
 explained the details to Mrs. Moffat. " If now 
 
 you'd go to Mrs. Henwick " he broke off 
 
 suddenly. 
 
 Mrs. Moffat started into stiffness. " I couldn't 
 think of it," she said. 
 
 Hailes, still chasing small creases out of his 
 dark suit, said that he couldn't see why. 
 Mrs. Henwick was the soul of good nature. 
 
 " I couldn't think of it," Mrs. Moffat repeated. 
 
 Hailes said : " Oh, well," and turned again 
 to the window. He said, unintcrestedly : 
 "There they both are, George Moffat and your 
 husband, looking at the strawberry beds. Why, 
 Mrs. Henwick's coming round the corner, too." 
 It occurred to him that Mrs. Moffat simply 
 didn't want to let Mrs. Henwick sh9,re in the 
 good thing. 
 
THE BLACKENING PEARLS. 243 
 
 " You need only borrow the money. She 
 needn't stand in," he returned to the charge. 
 " I'm sure she'd lend it. If there's any deli- 
 cacy about it I would speak to her myself." 
 
 " I've told you I couldn't think of it." Mrs. 
 Moffat repeated with a touch of her old disdain. 
 She had suffered a good deal on seeing Hailes 
 and Mrs. Henwick, as it were, cheek by jowl 
 on the window seat. She was not yet prepared 
 even to think of Felicia as a possible rival. 
 But she certainly was not going to throw 
 opportunities in his way. 
 
 " We shall simply have to drop it," she said, 
 icily. 
 
 Hailes continued his survey of the sunny 
 garden with the three figures parading the 
 paths. He answered, negligently : " Oh, very 
 well. By jove, Mrs. Henwick is showing 
 George Moffat those absurd proofs of hers. 
 Oh, very well, but the idea's too good, almost, 
 to be lost." 
 
 " You can do as you please about that," Mrs. 
 Moffat said. She felt an intense disgust with 
 herself for having stooped without conquering 
 this oaf. Who was he ? What was he ? 
 " You'd better go and order the tea — in the 
 square drawing-room," she added. 
 
 Hailes, chuckling slightly to himself at this 
 sign of his employer's displeasure — it was 
 always a sign of displeasure to make her 
 secretary perform some slightly menial office — 
 was yet remotely perturbed at the idea of meet- 
 
244 'T'^^ BENEFACTOR. 
 
 ing George, " It's an extraordinary house- 
 hold," he said to himself, " I wonder now 
 what she does want — what she is getting at," 
 He wondered, too, if it would be possible to 
 meet Mrs. Henwick in the shrubbery after tea. 
 Left to herself, Mrs. Moffat exclaimed : 
 " The beast ; oh, the beast ! " 
 
 Mrs. Henwick really had shown her proofs 
 to George, producing them bashfully under 
 the beaming glances of Gregory, She had been 
 reading and re-reading them, fretting deli- 
 cately up and down the secluded paths of the 
 walled garden. Then George had appeared in 
 the wake of his brother. I am not sure that 
 Mrs. Henwick's attack hadn't been the best 
 thing in the world for George himself. 
 
 He had mastered his desire for flight. 
 There had not seemed to be any reason for it ; 
 he instinctively distrusted his emotions. He 
 wasn't, after the inevitable had happened, 
 going to yelp at his time of life. He mastered 
 the desire and assented to Gregory's fervent 
 pressure to stop the night. 
 
 " You haven't seen the house ; you haven't 
 seen the gardens," Gregory uttered in a 
 flustered, outraged voice. 
 
 George found himself suddenly let out of a 
 little door into a blaze of sunlight and fruit 
 trees. They worried him more than a little. 
 Gregory began pointing out the strawberry 
 beds. 
 
THE BLACKENING PEARLS. 245 
 
 Gregory, in the words of Mrs. Moffat, 
 worshipped George. In common with his 
 wife — whom Gregory considered still one of 
 the most brilliant persons in the world — 
 George stood for all that was most able, fine 
 and .illustrious — for the undoubted hope of 
 the family. Gregory would have wanted to 
 conceal, to make up deficiencies out of his 
 own pocket, to drop a mortgage here, an odd 
 figure or two there. But under George's keen 
 eyes this wasn't possible — and Gregory had 
 had to face putting the matter as coldly and as 
 clearly as he could. It agitated him a great 
 deal — far beyond the point of realising that 
 strawberry beds in July couldn't much 
 interest a man who suddenly found himself 
 penniless. 
 
 To him, too, Mrs. Henwick's gliding ap- 
 proach had come as a relief ; it gave him time 
 to think how he was going to say things to 
 George — to make offers without giving offence. 
 It was, after all, comedy — those three in the 
 blazing garden, with their smiles concealing 
 emotions intense enough. For Mrs. Hen- 
 wick, more diffident and less a master of 
 words than even Gregory himself, the plunge 
 — the definite request to a person of George's 
 calibre — had been almost incredible. She 
 was as flustered as a wild bird in your 
 hand. 
 
 A minute or so later they were seated on a 
 white bench in the shadow of a tall pear-espalier. 
 
246 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 Gregory, his clumsy and unpresentable thumbs 
 sticking out from his jacket pockets, a white 
 hat tilted forward above his spectacles, and a 
 length of scorched, red neck dominating the 
 back of his crumpled and baggy fawn- 
 coloured coat, moved clumsily, at a little dis- 
 tance, still intent on the strawberry leaves that, 
 here and there, were already changing colour. 
 
IX. 
 
 George was in love with Clara Brede. He 
 had to face that fact, too, very late, in a great 
 bed, in a panelled room. It stood straight 
 up against him and filled him with an em- 
 barrassed and intense dislike for the frailty of 
 his own nature. 
 
 He, at his age, with his experience, with his 
 maturity, with all the things that made any- 
 thing^like such a feeling disastrous, was simply 
 in love with a young girl to whom he stood, 
 as it were, in a position of trust. It was a 
 calamity — a calamity that made everything 
 else unimportant, that paled the other ruin, 
 since it meant that he could not any more be 
 sure of himself. It was more than a calamity ; 
 it was a humiliation. But he was undoubtedly 
 in love with her. He had to face the fact, 
 and to face it he must give it a name. The 
 words " in love " said nothing, or said too 
 much ; covered a space too wide, and left un- 
 defined the exact nature of the thing. And, 
 having, as it were, uttered and faced them, he 
 dropped them once and for all. 
 
 What did he want ? What did he desire ? 
 He, too, did not know. He only wanted to 
 be back there. It was as if he could only get 
 
248 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 a clear view of the situation with her beneath 
 his eyes. In that case he might get at some- 
 thing — if there was anything to be got at. 
 Where he lay, staring at the darkness, there 
 seemed to be nothing but a physical unrest, 
 with the vague phantoms of thoughts, dark and 
 flitting before a dimradiance as vaguely suggest- 
 ing her face. Vaguely suggesting ! He could 
 not even remember — could not call to mind — 
 her features. It was as if something external 
 told him that she was fair ; that she had blue 
 eyes — as if he had made a note of it and re- 
 membered the note, not the face. That, too, 
 added to his perplexity. 
 
 He wanted to be back, to see just what she 
 was like. He could remember exactly the emo- 
 tions her face had caused him — tenderness, 
 compassion, an intense desire to comfort, an 
 overwhelming pity. Thinking of her, he felt 
 all these. But he wanted to see her to be 
 sure. 
 
 He would never deserve to be sure again — 
 never sure of himself. He had behaved like a 
 fool ; he had been a fool. Why hadn't he got 
 out of the way ? The feelings, the emotions 
 that he could remember, ought to have warned 
 him at the time he felt them. If he had 
 thought ! If he had taken himself in hand ; if 
 only he hadn't fatally drifted. He remembered 
 now very clearly sudden, intense twinges of 
 impatience — when her father had talked of 
 travelling. He understoood why he hadn't 
 
THE BLACKENING PEARLS. 249 
 
 been able to stand that La Platan. Why 
 hadn't he at the time taken his feelings in 
 hand, analysed them, got to the bottom of 
 them ? He realised that it was because 
 he had been too contented ; too tranquilly 
 happy. And it was the being with Clara 
 Brede that had made him happy. 
 
 What concerned him most was whether he 
 would be able to " keep his end up " ; to 
 conceal the fact ; to stand the strain, not to 
 make a fool of himself — not to " yelp." He 
 hadn't much doubt of that. He was, after 
 all, mature ; he had himself in hand. He had 
 managed to keep his end up during that rather 
 long, rather dreary, day. He would have to go 
 on doing it. 
 
 George had managed to keep going. It had 
 occurred to him, quite early in the midst of 
 his financial perturbation — " Why, I'm in love 
 with Clara Brede." Probably because, in the 
 dreariness of his other thoughts, that of Clara 
 had been comforting, the idea had seemed to 
 flash by him as an agreeable pleasantry. But 
 it had recurred insistently. It showed 
 him at last that it was Clara Brede that 
 he was determined not to leave ; not his house, 
 his associations, his little town, his past life. 
 Without the shock of his ruin, he felt he 
 might have gone on quietly for years, knowing 
 nothing, merely enjoying himself in her 
 society. The thought of having to leave her 
 came up suddenly through all his talks with 
 
250 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 Mrs. Henwick, with Hailes, with his sister-in- 
 law, and with his perturbed brother. 
 
 He had kept his end up, though. Mrs, 
 Henwick's httle efEusion had touched him quite 
 genuinely. His own emotional state, as if it 
 reached out, touched the emotions, the loneli- 
 ness, and recognised the self-aljandonment 
 that really underlay Mrs. Henwick's night 
 writings. He had, at any rate, left very happy 
 a Mrs. Henwick who was quite awake enough 
 to discriminate between George's praise and 
 Hailes'. 
 
 The meeting with Hailes took place without 
 shock of any kind. If, when the door opened 
 beyond the tea-table, anyone felt any tremor, 
 it was certainly Hailes — and perhaps Mrs.- 
 Moffat. George's figure filled the doorway 
 behind Mrs. Henwick. And Hailes very quickly 
 took a grip of the position. George, he observed, 
 greeted him quite naturally and without any 
 reservation, as if he were really interested to 
 hear how Hailes had " got on." He proceeded 
 to take tea with Mrs. Moffat. Hailes considered 
 him furtively and attentively. He supposed 
 that, after all, George couldn't have made such 
 a bad thing of it ; he must be seeing his way 
 to make it pay. Gregory was such a wonderful 
 man of business with bric-a-brac of that sort. 
 He perhaps had got out of it too soon. He 
 approached George in a corner of the room and 
 airily suggested : 
 
 " If the losses over that Renaissance Press 
 
THE BLACKENING PEARLS. 25 1 
 
 are very heavy, perhaps I ought to try to repay 
 something." He said that he hadn't any 
 property but his furniture, but he might sell 
 that to recoup George ; it might bring twenty 
 pounds. He affected a certain embarrassment. 
 "Of course, I'm in some degree responsible." 
 
 George looked at him as if absently — as if 
 Hailes hardly existed. " Oh — that. Don't think 
 of it," he said. 
 
 He saw through Hailes very well ; he didn't 
 want to think of him ; he was thinking that he 
 had to consider Clara Brede. 
 
 Later at night, he and his brother lounged 
 in a large dimly lit hall, where, all round the 
 walls, men-at-arms' visors gaped out from 
 between ladies in powdered wigs and colonels 
 in scarlet. George explained to Gregory : ^^ If 
 you like, it was the confidence trick, and Hailes 
 is a sharper. But I have always sympathised 
 with these gentry." Gregory hissed between 
 his yellow teeth, and George smiled a little 
 wanly, " Oh, it irritates you. But if you're 
 travelling on a foreign railway, and a porter or 
 a guide tries to do you out of an extra franc or 
 so, you'll see his whole face intent on it, his 
 black eyes flashing and exploring yours like a 
 dog's ; it's his whole life to him ; it's nothing 
 to you ; and perhaps he's really the better man 
 — the more purposeful, or has the more need 
 
 " He spoke rather wearily, without his 
 
 usual buoyancy of words, and he left his sen- 
 tence unfinished. His preoccupations had 
 
252 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 out-tired him, even in his altruist's profession 
 of faith. ] 
 
 " You mean to say you'd let the man swindle 
 you," Gregory barked. 
 
 George raised a hand deprecatingly. 
 
 '■ It's idiotic, perhaps, or it isn't." He roused 
 himself suddenly on his lounge. " But in the 
 matter of Hailes — I'm not going to worry about 
 him. Let's let him alone." 
 
 Gregory compressed his lips. He didn't say 
 anything. 
 
 " It's no use," George began — he paused 
 as if forgetfully — " crying about spilt milk — 
 that particular spilt milk." Along, heavy night 
 silence descended upon the two of them. After 
 a time George said desultorily : 
 
 " Don't get your knife into him. He isn't 
 worth attention." 
 
 Gregory suddenly erected his head until it 
 had the rigidity of a seal's peering out of the 
 water. He didn't say anything. Geoige 
 laughed a little disconsolately. He recognised 
 his brother's final sign of implacability. 
 
 " Oh, let him alone," he said. " I tempt 
 these people. I'm too open to them ; it's not 
 fair to be revenged on them." He got up like 
 a very tired man. " It's no use talking " 
 
 Gregory, leaning a little forward, let out his 
 voice as if his throat were very dry. It was a 
 sign of intense nervousness. 
 
 " You wouldn't, I suppose, go back — go, 
 that is, to your wife ? Or let me " 
 
THE BLACKENING PEARLS. 253 
 
 He had a more than nervous fear of his 
 brother's displeasure — a shrinking from any 
 kind of quarrel. 
 
 George faced round on him with sudden 
 vigour : " /," he said. Then he paused. 
 Gregory having, as it were, entered on the 
 road, commenced to shuffle along it : 
 
 " But your wife. She needs your advice." 
 
 " My advice," George said. 
 
 Gregory, hurried and anxious to make the 
 most of any opening, said : " Your advice is 
 always excellent, George." 
 
 George said : " Oh, for heaven's sake " 
 
 He made towards the distant stairs and came 
 back. 
 
 " You want me, in fact, to live on her. How 
 could I ? With what sort of a face ? " 
 
 Gregory said : " Gertrude would be very 
 glad." 
 
 " My dear chap," George said, " my dear 
 chap, I've ruined my own life." 
 
 A sort of conviction in his tone made 
 Gregory attempt a sort of stuttered, " Not so 
 bad as that." 
 
 " I've mangled and mismanaged everything 
 that I ever touched. I've muddled and 
 meddled." He raised a hand in a large 
 gesture. Then, in spite of the genuineness of 
 his emotions, it struck him that he was over- 
 doing it ; that he was, so to speak, harrowing 
 Gregory's feelings. " I mean," he finished 
 quickly, " that the respect I have for Gertrude 
 
254 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 should surely, in all conscience, make me leave 
 her alone." 
 
 Gregory raised his hands and opened his 
 mouth with the gesture of an old woman. It 
 shocked him inexpressibly that the brother 
 that he considered so gifted and so fine should 
 even remotely touch such mortification. 
 "There's all my money," he brought out. 
 " All this." His clumsy thumb indicated the 
 large hall, the house, and its treasures. " If 
 you wanted them, they'd practically all be at 
 your disposal. There's no one else but you 
 and my wife." 
 
 The words hardly filtered through to the inner 
 George, though he felt as if Gregory had with- 
 drawn a curtain from something affecting. 
 
 " Of course, you'll have to go on working 
 without money troubles," Gregory said. 
 "You've got to keep up the family name and 
 the tradition." 
 
 The speech as much astonished George as 
 if, whilst he was hurrying past it, one of the 
 men-at-arms had muttered from its shadowy 
 and yawning visor. 
 
 He went to bed to face his feeling for Clara 
 Brede, but Gregory's last speech added to his 
 perplexities. It added to them because it 
 seemed to increase his responsibilities. 'Tie 
 wasn't, he discovered, alone. There were his 
 brother, his father's friends and admirers ; his 
 own, too, perhaps — old people now whom he 
 had not seen for years. They counted on him 
 
THE BLACKENING PEARLS. 255 
 
 to maintain the tradition of his famjly, that had 
 done things worthily. He had, as it were, to 
 sacrifice himself to them. They demanded it, 
 all of them, down to his eloquent and brilliant 
 father. To men like George the dead do not 
 die, since their memories are living things in 
 the heart. It was not with him a point of con- 
 duct ; it was not a thing that affected himself. 
 He had to preserve his image worthily before 
 the world, so that the dead whose name he 
 bore should be unashamed, and so that such of 
 the living as loved him should not be saddene d. J 
 
 To preserve his image unspoiled . . . He 
 thought about the small piece of his future 
 that he could see, and it was an easy matter to 
 arrange in his mind. He would sell his house 
 without any fuss, secretly, and at the last 
 moment he would walk out and go away. In 
 any case, he would have had to go away. 
 He wasn't, of course, a man who could not 
 keep himself from making love to a girl nur- 
 tured and placed as Clara Brede had been. 
 And, much more, he could not spoil his own 
 image for her father. 
 
 He wasn't, of course, going to make any 
 fuss, even to himself ; he wasn't going to avoid 
 the Bredes. He would stay his month or so 
 at home, and then go. He gave very little 
 thought to the material side of it. He would 
 live in an Italian town, making enough to keep 
 himself with his pen. That was perfectly 
 easy. 
 
256 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 Even in her eyes he would go down 
 gallantly. He would not tell them that he was 
 ruined. He did not wish to sadden her, as he 
 knew it would sadden her. He would say 
 nothing, or nothing more than that he was 
 going abroad, and he would disappear, leaving 
 the same gallant and helpful image in her 
 mind. He knew that she respected him, and 
 that would be how she would continue to 
 think of him. 
 
 Then it struck him as curiously unphilo- 
 sophical that he should desire to leave any 
 image in her mind, and then, in the darkness, 
 he smiled at himself for expecting to be super- 
 humanly reasonable. Of course, he would 
 want her to think well of him. And he 
 wanted to be at home. 
 
 END OF PART III. 
 
THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 PART IV. 
 
 The Bankrupt Jeweller. 
 
THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 PART IV. 
 
 The Bankrupt Jeweller. 
 
 I. 
 
 She had been watching for his return from 
 her window. She wanted to see if he looked 
 worried ; it might tell her whether he really 
 were ruined. He came walking with his fine 
 stride ; beside him a porter was wheeling his 
 portmanteau on a hand-truck. He was 
 interested in something the man was saying. 
 He nodded. 
 
 " I suppose Griffin is begging of him," Clara 
 said bitterly to herself. George looked in at 
 the window ; he saw her, and waved a hand 
 gently. He smiled brilliantly. She had not 
 seen him for two days, and it seemed to her 
 that she had never seen anyone so noble, so 
 good and so kind ; her heart was filled with an 
 immense thankfulness, and she wanted to cry 
 because he had come back. 
 
 " He can't be ruined," she said. " He 
 can't be going away." 
 
 It came to her as a luminous conviction 
 that, had there been any danger, he would 
 have told them. He would owe that to them. 
 She could no longer believe that he was not at 
 
26o THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 least friendly to her, and interested in her. 
 And, even if he weren't, he would owe it to 
 her father to tell him. They were his most inti- 
 mate friends. And she knew George so well. 
 He couldn't be so cruel as not to have told 
 them. 
 
 During the next few days she observed him 
 with the meticulous earnestness of a woman in 
 love. He wasn't in the least melancholy ; he 
 wasn't even preoccupied. Once or twice she 
 observed him frown and wince. It was always 
 when Carew was speaking. A rather rigid 
 look would come into his eyes and spread, as 
 if it were communicating itself, to the back of 
 his head and to his spine. It suggested to her 
 a wild thought that she dared not entertain, 
 Carew came and went with the fine irresponsi- 
 bility and the easy swing of a great bird round 
 an accustomed crag, A younger son, he 
 genially " didn't get on with " the elder 
 brother who lived in his paternal house, or 
 with the sister who was married in "Vorkshire, 
 She thought him too boisterous. He made 
 himself quite frankly at home with the Bredes. 
 Clara found him amusing because he reminded 
 her of an immense Newfoundland dog. As 
 children, they had climbed oaks together, and, 
 hidden among the leaves, had dropped acorns 
 upon the heads of passers by. He wanted her 
 to accept a pony from him, and tried to make 
 her take up riding again. He said she used 
 to have a regular cowboy's seat when she was 
 
THE BANKRUPT JEWELLER. 261 
 
 a child, and the nerve of three men, by jove, 
 only her hands were a little heavy on the reins. 
 Women's always were. He might cure her of 
 that, though. Clara laughed, and said that 
 she had her father to see to. He asked if old 
 Moffat wasn't enough for the governor ? She 
 didn't answer. 
 
 They were walking towards the sea a fort- 
 night after George's return. Looking back 
 upon that time afterwards, it seemed that they 
 had all the time been doing nothing else in 
 the tremendous blaze of the summer weather. 
 Great rollers of white cloud piled up into the 
 immense crystalline and shimmering vault of 
 the sky. The level fields blazed vivid green ; 
 yellowing rushes filled the dykes. A dancing 
 haze made tremulous the outlines of low, 
 purple hills on the horizon. Mr. Brede, at 
 George's side, laid down the law ponderously. 
 The shining, dark red cattle watched their 
 passage as they walked four abreast across the 
 smooth turf. 
 
 This occasion seared itself into her mind ; 
 it was never forgotten ; it never merged itself 
 into the other seasonal "walks to the sea." 
 The cattle raised their noses, snuffing the wind. 
 Then, with a sudden accord, they went gal- 
 loping, a serried wedge of red-brown, round 
 and round, thundering on the green meadow, 
 appearing and suddenly disappearing on the 
 slopes of the dyke mounds. In all the fields 
 around, among the shaggy pollard willows, 
 
262 THfi BEMEFACTOR. 
 
 there were tails flashing up at the flanks of gal- 
 loping beasts. 
 
 Carew stopped and laughed with a whole- 
 hearted gaiety. " Ah, they smell the thunder " 
 — it growled heavily below the horizon — " but 
 you should see my stock. You should come 
 and see them." He raised his arms, as if 
 he were urging the cattle on in their gallop. 
 
 George caught Clara's gentle and frank 
 smile. It gave him a moment's intense plea- 
 sure merely to see it. Then it struck him as 
 an injury intensely and personally to be re- 
 sented, that that smile was one he had regarded 
 as reserved for him. 
 
 "My dear sir!" he said sharply to Mr. 
 Brede, who was more than half way through 
 a sketch of a letter inciting resident gentry to 
 provide bathrooms for their tenantry. "What, 
 in the end, is the good of all this ? You can't 
 keep the peasant in the village. You'd have to 
 alter the moon to arrest a falling tide." 
 
 The actual purport of the outburst did not 
 penetrate to the engrossed mind of Mr. Brede. 
 Clara's eyes seemed to be always upon the 
 ground ; but she felt the sudden chill that 
 George spread around him. It made her 
 admire him the more. He could be cold ; he 
 could strike and wound. She wondered that 
 one of them wasn't actually blighted, and it 
 pleased her'. It made him seem so much more 
 of a man. 
 
 It slipped suddenly into her mind j " He 
 
THE BANKRUPT JEWELLER. 263 
 
 must be jealous ! " and she found that she was 
 laughing excitedly, and breathing very fast. 
 
 It wasn't possible. And yet " That doesn't 
 
 mean that he loves me," flashed through her 
 excited mind. Men are like that. They will 
 be jealous whether they want a woman or not. 
 She had seen the same thing in robins on the 
 lawn. 
 
 But her cousin must be paying her atten- 
 tions — that was what had made George so 
 angry. She had never thought of it before. 
 It became a pleasing certainty. She hadn't 
 any doubt of it. It was very soothing. Now 
 she was living. All of a sudden she was going 
 to be able to watch, as if through half closed 
 eyes, these two men concerned with her, agi- 
 tated about her, swayed by her. She smiled, 
 and the bright fields grew more bright ; the 
 sky itself seemed friendly. Her breathing 
 grew more free. She felt as if she could fly if 
 she wanted to, as if she could do anything that 
 she tried without any effort. This was life at 
 last. She could not bring herself to believe 
 that George loved her ; it would be too like a 
 fairy tale. On the other hand, he wasn't des- 
 picable, like robins or like other men. He 
 wouldn't be jealous for mere love of conquest. 
 So he must care for her. But she could not 
 believe it. 
 
 She wanted very much to test him. She 
 thought of showing Carew some small favours 
 to see if George frowned again. But she could' 
 
264 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 not think of what to do. Supposing she put 
 her hand on her cousin's arm, or said that she 
 wished she could go to La Plata. But she might 
 do too much, and then George would despise her. 
 
 It struck her rather comfortingly that she 
 was now a " mere coquette." She had always 
 despised such women. She had fallen very 
 low. She understood them now. It was a 
 woman's right. She understood vividly that 
 the fight between man and woman is according 
 to no code of honour. Besides, she imagined 
 that George himself admired a spice of coquetry 
 in a woman. He had bantered her about her 
 continual " scruples." She became more re- 
 served towards Carew. She couldn't bring 
 herself to flirt with him ; it wasn't in her. He 
 became more attentive, and she grew distressed. 
 She was afraid of hurting George if he really 
 did care for her. She could not bear to think 
 of that. It was like a pain to think that he 
 should suffer. 
 
 But there were going to be these long days 
 full of light, and pleasant thoughts to take to 
 bed with one. She almost forgot the burden 
 that her father was. Her unceasing and jealous 
 watch over him was hardly any more a strain. 
 She could sit beside him and think of these 
 other things. And when at night she listened 
 outside his door to make sure from his breath- 
 ing that he was asleep, she knew that in her 
 bed when she returned to it she would find 
 warm and pleasant half-dreams. 
 
II. 
 
 George was sitting with her father one 
 evening in Mr. Brede's tiny work-room. It 
 was obscure and gloomy, encumbered with 
 dark furniture, and lit by a solitary reading 
 candle in a metal hood. In the shadow, Mr. 
 Brede's funereal coats and hats on pegs looked 
 like dim men who had hung themselves. It 
 seemed to him by now more familiar and more 
 homelike than his own fine study. 
 
 The intrigues of the ladies of the Society for 
 Promoting Rural Pleasures had become more 
 harassing than ever. Mr. Brede displayed 
 their letters and telegrams, that had cost for- 
 midable amounts, docketed and bound by 
 broad india-rubber bands. 
 
 " Look here, this is what I have to put up 
 with." He knotted his brows above a letter ; 
 with a faint idea of courtesy he fumbled with 
 his reading candle to give George a better light. 
 " This kind of unbearable thing. Listen." He 
 began to read with a sort of frenzied indig- 
 nation. 
 
 George caught faintly through the thin walls 
 of the tiny room the thrilling jar of Carew's 
 voice, followed by a long pause, then a fainter 
 suggestion of Clara Brede's clear, conscien- 
 
266 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 tiously halting tones. They were in the 
 drawing-room just across the narrow passage. 
 
 "Of course, that's the confounded Countess," 
 Mr. Brede commented. He pushed foolscap 
 sheets irritably to right and to left, and grasped 
 a telegram on several, pages. 
 
 George's nerves were on the stretch. In the 
 next room there was a long silence. Mr. Brede 
 went on reading slowly and ponderously the 
 virulent sentences of an American lady of title 
 who wanted to be on his committee. George 
 was wondering whether Clara was succumbing 
 to the large attractions and stock-whip 
 mannerisms of Carew. He tried to fix his 
 mind on the affairs of the Society. He knew 
 them all by heart. Carew's voice uttered one 
 inaudible, sharp word. Clara, after an interval, 
 a soft, long speech. Then Carew laughed. 
 
 " Feel imperative to press view on you 
 to-morrow for committee meeting," Mr. Brede 
 read heavily from his telegram. Suddenly he 
 flung it passionately on to the desk. George 
 knew that he would say : " It's no good." He 
 raised a huge hand to his great creased forehead. 
 
 " I shall be off to La Plata," he said. 
 
 George felt the weight of an immense and 
 expected catastrophe. It was all over, then ! 
 
 Mr. Brede maintained a heavy brooding 
 silence. The candle flickered slightly in the 
 gloom and cast a wavering light on to the 
 brown ceiling. They weren't speaking'in the 
 other room. 
 
tHfe BANKRUPT JEWELLER. 267 
 
 At last Mr. Brede brought out his heavy 
 knell : " It's all over. It's no use." 
 
 And George echoed him. It wasn't any use. 
 He could not engage in a struggle that, win or 
 lose, must be ignoble. He was not going to 
 fight — with a La Platan — for the possession of 
 a woman he could do nothing with. 
 
 " Yes," he said slowly, " perhaps it would be 
 the best thing you could do." 
 
 Mr. Brede flashed an angry and overbear- 
 ing : " What ? " from the depths of his black- 
 study. " Do what ? Write to these infernal 
 women ? It's no use." 
 
 George answered deliberately enough : " I 
 mean, go to La Plata with your nephew." 
 
 Mr. Brede said : " Oh," contemptuously. 
 He had forgotten already. " That's pure non- 
 sense." 
 
 George's ideas whirled. He felt an irresis- 
 tible desire to know something ; to have some- 
 thing settled. 
 
 " Hasn't your nephew asked you ? " he 
 blurted out. 
 
 '' Oh, that fellow," Mr. Brede answered, con- 
 temptuously. " He wants to marry Clara. 
 What nonsense." 
 
 George's heart gave a solitary and sickening 
 leap. Carew had spoken then. And Clara ? 
 At that moment Clara might be in his arms. 
 
 He sprang to his feet. The reedy, ancient 
 piano began desultorily the tum-pa-tum of a 
 Spanish-American banjo melody, l^o. She 
 
268 THE BENEFACTOR, 
 
 couldn't be, then. The burr of Carew's voice, 
 humming the melody between his teeth, suc- 
 ceeded ; then the drawing-room door closed. 
 The sounds sank to nothing. 
 
 Mr. Brede, speaking thickly and very fast, 
 began a string of confidences that were horrible 
 on account of his voice and his suddenly wild 
 eyes : " I tell you I'm going mad. The very 
 idea terrifies me. You don't know what it is. I 
 don't want to worry you. You're very good to 
 me. I've no claim." He continued a hope- 
 less, listless fatalism of monologue. He was 
 sunk low in his chair ; there were deep vibra- 
 ting tones in his voice that roused in 
 George a vague and helpless alarm. He felt 
 wearily that Mr. Brede was worse than he had 
 ever been. His voice sank to nothing. He 
 sat looking blackly and gloomily, as if at sha- 
 dows of terror that he saw very plainly a long 
 way away. He ground his teeth ; it was the 
 devil who tempted him, who mocked at him, 
 and who was driving him mad. 
 
 George raised a fine and insincere laugh. 
 He had a faint glimpse of that sinister survival 
 of the black history of man. This man still 
 believed with a savage and hidden belief that 
 was all the more blighting in that he did so 
 sedulously hide it, that was all the more hope- 
 less in that no human words could conjure it 
 away. George would not accept that view ; he 
 wasn't goJ4ig to. It wasn't in him to do so. 
 He said that that sort of thing — the Society 
 
THE BANKRUPT JEWELLER. 269 
 
 and its distractions — was only a means, not 
 an end. Mr. Brede wasn't to take it seriously, 
 it was only a means for tiding him over dark 
 moments. He must drop it now that it had 
 become a strain. 
 
 Mr. Brede muttered silently : " If I went to 
 La Plata, what would you do ? " 
 
 George, as if suddenly brought down to the 
 earth, was silent. 
 
 " Of course, you couldn't be expected to 
 come too," Mr. Brede added convincingly. 
 " Well, then .■* " He had an air of heavily con- 
 vincing an opponent's futility. He meant that 
 he couldn't do without George. 
 
 Face to face with an opening that would one 
 day have to be entered, George began : 
 
 " Eventually, you know, you'll have to get on 
 without me." 
 
 Mr. Brede paid him no kind of attention. 
 
 " Of course, I sha'n't go," he said. " I shall 
 face things out here. I'm not going to run 
 away." George was overcome by a thankful- 
 ness that he could not analyse. 
 
 "Yes, here," Mr. Brede said. " If I can't do 
 that, what's the good of me." 
 
 He rose heavily, and, at his full height, with a 
 mysterious vindictiveness brought out : 
 
 "You think I ought to get back to my work 
 — to my real work as shepherd of my flock. I 
 ought to preach. You said so." 
 
 He was going to fight Satan, high,in the air, 
 from the shining elevation of the pulpit. He 
 
270 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 knew that it would kill him. Very well ! But 
 it would prove to these fellows — George and 
 the rest — ^that he wasn't shamming, that there 
 always had been that horrible "something" 
 the matter with him. 
 
 "There's no doubt about it," he continued. 
 " Very well, I shall." He motioned a great hand 
 towards the door. " Let's hear some of that 
 fellow's strumming. I shall try to be a man. I've 
 shirked it too long." He held the door open. 
 " I'm going to try to live up to your standard, 
 Moffat." 
 
 George, in his hurry of mind, wondered 
 vaguely which of his many maxims Mr. Brede 
 had got hold of now. 
 
 The light of the drawing room was rather 
 dazzling. Carew, with his back to the door, 
 was abstractedly thumbing the yellow keys of 
 the ancient box of a piano. Clara, from the 
 further window seat, rose up eagerly at their 
 entry. She smiled frankly into George's eyes. 
 Carew, without turning his large back, began to 
 roll out a Spanish Bamboula to the distracted 
 stringy tinkle of the piano's notes. He had a 
 rather good natural voice and sang with 
 sentiment. 
 
 George leaned back in his chair. In a mirror 
 running from floor to ceiling he had an 
 excellent view of Clara Brede on the window- 
 seat behind his back. She sat a little forward, 
 with her hands clasped back to back, the little 
 fingers linked, lying on the lap of her blue 
 
THE BANKRUPT JEWELLER. 27I 
 
 dress. Her fair hair was quite smooth ; her 
 eyes rested on the floor. She did not seem 
 to be listening to the music of Carew. That 
 gave George a moment's pleasure. 
 1^5'The song changed to a languorous and 
 rhythmically marked chorus. It was as if, in the 
 mirror, Clara Brede were a portrait of herself, 
 shut in the alcove of the window-curtains that 
 draped the straight, square seat ; the whole 
 was framed in the reflection by the gilt 
 bunches of flowers and fruit that set the mirror 
 ifself, Carew resumed the body of his song, 
 the piano the inane tumpa-tumpa. The 
 brilliant lamp suddenly raised its flame in a 
 draught of open-windowed July. A sense of 
 the heavy night outside conveyed itself by the 
 black small panes of the casement. 
 
 She had just refused Carew, It had saddened 
 and had sobered her. He had said : " I thought 
 that you liked me. Is there anyone else ? " His 
 voice had shaken and grated ; it had upset her. 
 She had wondered if she had used him badly ; 
 she could not believe she had. She had been 
 avoiding him ever since the other day. But 
 perhaps she ought to tell him that there was 
 someone else ! If only there hadn't been ! 
 She might be going away out of all this, beyond 
 the horizon. Now there was nothing and no 
 one — a long round of days, a dull world. If only 
 she needn't love George ! Carew began to 
 thump on the piano. He had a passionate and 
 entirely sensuous love for rhythmical melodies. 
 
272 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 She recognised that he was drowning his sorrows 
 in the sound. She liked him for it, and she 
 pitied him. Then George was there, looking 
 at her. Ah, if only he had never come into her 
 life ! What was the good of it all ? She could 
 never leave her father ; she had made this 
 other man miserable. What senselessness ! 
 Why did he ever come ? He was looking at 
 her in the glass ; it paralysed her. It was as if 
 some immense power were keeping her motion- 
 less. What right had he to this hold over her ? 
 What right had any man to make a woman love 
 him, and not to know, not to care, not to 
 think ? He looked at her so that it was as if 
 she should never be able to move again. 
 
 She seemed to droop, listening to other 
 voices — to the whispers of other thoughts ; 
 the pitiful, tender smile was on her ab- 
 stracted face. George's eyes ran over it 
 from chin to forehead, from forehead to 
 chin. The intense folly of his preoccu- 
 pation made him wish to rub his eyes. 
 He wondered very intensely why he should 
 care ; what made him. She was a 
 woman — a girl with certain, clear-cut, 
 delicately enough tinted, softly enough out- 
 lined features — and a certain sadness. But 
 just a woman. What, in essence, was her 
 charm ? Had she a charm ? What was it ? 
 Nothing seemed to radiate from her ; nothing 
 appeared to hold his eyes. She was rather sad. 
 But 
 
THE BANKRUPT JEWELLER. 273 
 
 Carew finished with his Bamboula ; he bent 
 again over the keys. He muttered that he had 
 heard a rattling good song in town ; he had 
 learned it for the benefits of the fellows " over 
 there." He struck the first notes of a music- 
 hall ballad. 
 
 George wondered what he was doing 
 here. With a touch of the immense pride of 
 the artist, he looked round him. It seemed 
 ludicrous that he — he — should be among 
 these little people, listening to that grotesque 
 noise. And moved by this girl with nothing 
 — nothing but a droop — a sadness, a passivity. 
 He could not believe it. These people ! 
 These ! They were the very people, the very 
 class that one regards as the most hopeless, the 
 most home, the most unappreciative — and the 
 most inappreciable. The " local clergy " ! It 
 was not possible that they could appeal to him. 
 What had become of all the artists with the 
 great hopes he had shared ; of all the circle of 
 thinkers more exclusive than Castillians ; more 
 contemptuous of outsiders than any military 
 sect ? They would have laughed at the idea of 
 being in a parson's house. Yet there wasn't one 
 of them within miles of him. He was listening 
 to a jingle-song ; he was swayed by the hopes 
 of people whose only purpose on earth was a 
 tomb-stone, decipherable for a year or two. 
 Clara raised her eyes, and in the glass met his 
 fixed and abstracted glance. She had as if a 
 moment of embarrassment, then gently turned 
 
 T 
 
274 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 her head and looked out into the night behind 
 her. The curve of her neck filled him with 
 sudden, intimate, and very great joy. The 
 pressure of her good-night hand was a thing 
 frank, ingenuous and tender. He knew he 
 had been awaiting it. It was the climax of his 
 whole nights, and of each of his days. 
 
III. 
 
 In the silent darkness of the Uttle street he 
 was bringing his mind down again to the fact. 
 Heavy and hurried footsteps jarred on his ear. 
 
 " I say, Sir " — he felt on his arm Carew's de- 
 ferential touch — " she won't have me. Clara's 
 refused me." 
 
 George made no answer ; he found nothing 
 to say. They reached his steps and entered 
 together his great, dimly lit hall. Carew 
 pushed open the door of the study. His face 
 was smiling, and George felt it to be suddenly 
 pleasant and handsome. On the flap of the 
 bureau, George noticed a long envelope bear- 
 ing the angular writing of Hailes. It struck 
 him as an odd occurrence. What could Hailes 
 want ? And Clara Brede had refused Carew. 
 
 Carew said : " Oh, don't be too cast down 
 for my sake. She's worth a second try." 
 
 George felt suddenly weary. He had, he 
 thought, had enough for one day. What did 
 this fool want ? 
 
 Carew wanted to tell him that it was a bit of 
 a blow. He was going to go away for a month 
 or so. But before he went back to South 
 America he would return. " I shall leave her 
 plenty of time, of course, to get ready her 
 
276 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 trousseau. A woman can't go to the back of 
 beyond without a lot of things." 
 
 George actually laughed. He felt as if he 
 stood upon a pillar a great way above Carew. 
 Of course she wouldn't marry such an oaf. 
 
 He asked George for some whiskey. George's 
 was better, he said, than he could get at the 
 Inn. One needed something after such an 
 experience. He knew where the spirit case 
 was, and would fetch it himself. 
 
 George picked up the letter from Hailes. It 
 covered an article that Hailes begged George 
 ito get inserted in the Salon. It was one of a 
 series that Hailes was writing about Spanish art, 
 Spanish art hadn't had justice done to it ; Hailes 
 was anxious that it should. He had discovered 
 an unknown Portuguese painter called El Gran 
 Vasco — a miracle. He had the assistance of 
 the Duke of Medina's master of the horse, 
 
 Hailes, in fact, was beginning to boom his 
 exhibition of Spanish bric-a-brac. He had 
 bought four of E-i Gran Vasco's pictures for 
 six pounds each. 
 
 Carew's face fell disappointedly as he caught 
 sight of the papers in George's hand. He 
 wanted, he said, desperately, a little talk 
 with George ; a little advice. He sat down 
 on the sofa edge, holding a glass. He was 
 prepared to wait until George had finished his 
 letter. 
 
 Hailes, for his part, was sure George would 
 do him this small favour " in the interests of a 
 
THE BANKRUPT JEWELLER. 277 
 
 great art," and George seemed to see him 
 writing the letter. It was a clever move. 
 Hailes was intent on demonstrating to the hilt 
 that George felt no resentment against him. 
 
 George smiled a little. A sentence at the 
 end of the letter aroused, underneath his 
 amusement, a touch of interest. " I have been 
 trying to do you a good turn. I think it will 
 succeed, and feel sure that you will be pleased 
 and touched." George was more than avaised. 
 It struck him that Hailes wanted to bribe him 
 to pitchfork the Spanish article into the 
 Salon. 
 
 Carew, clearing hisjhroat, was plainly try- 
 ing to draw his attention, and to extract from 
 George an invitation to stop where he was. 
 George waved his hand non-committally. He 
 glanced through Hailes' article. It alarmed 
 him. It read like the official advertisement of 
 a German Spa. One might almost have con- 
 sidered that Hailes thought Spanish art, Spanish 
 lace, Spanish upholstery, and El Gran Vasco, 
 the painter he had discovered, universal 
 panaceas. They were bound to be the thing 
 very shortly for anyone who wished to be in 
 the swim. It alarmed George to think that 
 this was Hailes — the real and unaided Hailes, 
 if you excepted the help of the master of the 
 horse, whose Spanish, egregiously translated, 
 dominated in hyperbole the style of the 
 article. This was Hailes. 
 
 And George, himself, with his easy good 
 
278 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 nature, had set his seal on Hailes' talent ! He 
 had fathered him before the world. He 
 dropped the papers and gazed abstractedly at 
 Carew. Carew immediately began a lover's 
 praise of Clara Brede. 
 
 And, afterwards, George had to listen to the 
 thoughts of his own mind. All the barriers of 
 altruism were levelled before a passion not to 
 be held off. He wanted Clara Brede. He 
 wanted her love ; he wanted her to be en- 
 thralled ; cut off — smiles, glances, tears, and 
 thoughts — from all the rest of the world. 
 Rationally or irrationally, for better or very 
 much for worse, she had for him a charm that 
 was, that could be, in no other person in the 
 world. Rationally or irrationally ! In the end, 
 rationally enough ; for, in the infinite combin- 
 ations, the infinite possibilities of this world of 
 women, it was impossible that there could be 
 another Clara Brede, another woman with just 
 those lines of the face, with just that turn of 
 mind, of childlike candour, of flower-like open- 
 ness ; a combination that appealed so in- 
 timately, that came always so inevitably true to 
 him. 
 
 He saw the words " Not to be " scrawled 
 across the prospect. But it is at once the 
 solace and the curse of mankind that one must 
 for ever picture the just impossible as the 
 supremely desirable — that one must always 
 imagine the place where such things might be, 
 
THE BANKRUPT JEWELLER. 279 
 
 the place beyond the horizon, at the back of 
 beyond. 
 
 He was married ; he could not take her. 
 He was ruined ; it pained him even to 
 think of bringing Clara Brede even near a 
 sort of indigence. He repeated to himself 
 the words : " One doesn't take a woman to 
 the back of beyond without the prospect of 
 good meals " — they were Carew's words. He 
 repeated to himself : " One doesn't take a 
 woman to the back of beyond in any case," 
 which were his own. But he lay contemplating 
 the landscape of that land where there is no more 
 evil, somewhere in sheltered hollows or beneath 
 an immense sky, or beside a vast and silent sea. 
 
 One does not do it. But if a catclysm could 
 overwhelm the things that one doesn't, that, 
 being true to oneself, one can't do ? He 
 wondered how she would make the sacrifice. 
 How would she face it ? Calmly, without a doubt: 
 without any doubt quite reasonably. It might not 
 be much of a sacrifice. It came suddenly into 
 his head : "And she ? Does she care for me ? " 
 
 He ran through in his mind all that he had 
 to go upon : a few blushes, a few smiles, a great 
 deference to his opinion. He numbered many 
 hundreds of the smallest incidents. He re- 
 membered her : " If the man isn't worth writing 
 about it makes it all the worse that you have 
 written so tremendously well about him " — the 
 earnestness with which she had said it. That 
 might mean either a great feeling for him or a 
 
28o THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 great censure for all his doings — for his essen- 
 tial dilettantism. Only two mornings before 
 when he had passed the window he had seen 
 her clipping the stems of flowers to put in a 
 vase. He entered the passage, and he saw the 
 swift flash of her skirt as she ran up the stairs, 
 evidently away from him. That might mean 
 that she saw too much of him, or that she had 
 been wearing an apron, and wanted to appear 
 before him only at her best. The room, at any 
 rate, had been full and fragrant of clove pinks ; 
 the day before he had said they were his favourite 
 flower. But clove pinks filled all the beds in July. 
 
 She read always any book that he mentioned 
 with favour ; but he was supposed to be an 
 authority of literature, a kind of professor. All 
 these small incidents became torturing enig- 
 mas of the first importance ; each one, he felt 
 desperately, if he could get at what lay behind, 
 would solve definitely and for good all that was 
 to be known. 
 
 And, as the lustrous night ran on, things solved 
 themselves. She cared ; she would come. She 
 would face the sacrifice ; it would be no sacri- 
 fice. They would be beyond the horizon, in a 
 land where there is no evil to be feared. It 
 came to that in the delicate stillness of the dawn. 
 
 In the morning he saw himself again — grow- 
 ing old, penniless, failing and falling ; with ties 
 that cannot be broken ; unloved — and face to 
 face with what one does not do. 
 
IV. 
 
 Three days later Thwaite M'as back in Wick- 
 ham. George had anticipated a great deal of 
 pleasure ; things would run smoothly now until 
 the very end. It was to be the very end. He 
 had already sold his house ; he would dis- 
 appear without any fuss, without any leave- 
 takings, as if he were just going abroad for a 
 time. He was going to walk quietly out of 
 the front door. " Things " — his affairs had 
 turned out even worse than he had expected 
 or Gregory had hoped. He was stripped 
 almost bare. He had sold his house ; it 
 fetched just enough to pay his own creditors 
 and those of the Renaissance Press. There 
 were a few hundreds over. He hadn't made 
 any fuss about it. Gregory found a purchaser 
 for the house as it stood. The purchaser was 
 naturally an American ; but he was neither 
 hideously rich nor singularly outrageous ; he 
 came quite quietly to look over the property. 
 He was small and dark ; a comfortable man 
 who wanted to " retire." He found his native 
 State unpleasing for the purpose. He appre- 
 ciated George's taste in furniture, but insisted 
 on knocking off a little of the purchase price 
 because the drains were not in first-class re- 
 
282 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 pair. That was the final comment on the 
 chief labour of George's life. A London 
 valuer had already paid a discreet visit of ap- 
 praisement. 
 
 The American, at their pleasant parting — 
 George expressed hopes for his future in the town 
 — declared himself proud to be the successor of 
 the author of Wilderspin. It came out then 
 that Mr. Beale was undoubtedly booming 
 George's work. As the little, friendly, dark 
 man put it : " Over there at home they have 
 Wilderspin with their breakfast cakes and 
 syrup. It hits you in the eye all over the 
 page the moment you open the Herald." 
 
 George laughed. It was a little drop of 
 bitter the more to be the "Author of Wilderspin," 
 the work he would least want to be remem- 
 bered by. The American's lawyers were set 
 to work at that^ meticulous inspection of old 
 deeds that is called " completing the pur- 
 chase." At the thought of their attitudes, 
 George remembered Gregory's rapt face and 
 back bowed above the same parchments. 
 Years ago he had completed his purchase of 
 the ramshackle and rat-ridden old barrack. It 
 was now the mellow house he was leaving for- 
 good. At any rate, he didn't make any fuss 
 about it. Nobody, so far, even thought of 
 smelling a rat. At the bottom of that, too, 
 there was Clara Brede ; it was she who was 
 not to know of the breakdown of the fine 
 fabric until it was all over. It was undoubt- 
 
THE BANKRUPT JEWELLER. 283 
 
 edlj' for her that he was carrying on until the 
 very end. He was afraid of himself, afraid of 
 the strain that, more and more, her companion- 
 ship had put upon him. On one of the 
 inevitable drives in the warm dusk to fetch 
 her father back from his parish she had 
 happened to say, after a long interval of 
 silence : 
 
 " You are very good to us. I don't know 
 why." She had lately, as if she were exhausted, 
 given up her attempts to keep George at his 
 work. 
 
 The wheels had turned slowly in the soft, 
 sunken lanes ; the driver had been somnolent 
 on the box, they were climbing a hill at sunset. 
 She had spoken slowly and seriously, as if after 
 much reflection on a matter that claimed her 
 attention and puzzled her. He had been very 
 good to them ; she didn't know why. 
 
 She had not afterwards broken the long, un- 
 bearable silence ; her shoulder had been 
 touching his as they sat. It was as if he were 
 entirely pervaded by her being ; by the irradia- 
 tion of her life. 
 
 Afterwards, in the light of the upper roads, 
 George had thanked the Gods that had given 
 him power to remain silent, just to sit still. 
 But the strain had been too great. That even- 
 ing he had written to Gregory : " Sell the 
 house if anyone's fool enough to buy." And, 
 coming back from the post, he had turned in at 
 the Bredes' gate. 
 
284 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 He gave a little dinner to celebrate the return 
 of TV\-waitc. zmrl Dpra. It was to be the last of 
 his gatherings under itiat roof. It had been 
 one of Mr. Brede's bad days. Dora was 
 nervous and constrained. She cast apprehen- 
 sive glances at her husband's handsome, over- 
 cast face. A cold chill of dislike passed from 
 Thwaite to Clara. 
 
 There was no fusing of lights, no effect at all. 
 The great drooping roses on the white table 
 were each solitary ; the magnificent beams 
 overhead seemed fantastic and out of place. It 
 was the last time they would have a chance of 
 impending over his revelry. He roused him- 
 self to talk gallantly to Dora ; his voice, sound- 
 ing alone, seemed to him futile and irritating. 
 Dora said she had enjoyed herself very much. 
 " Oh, very much." She found nothing else to 
 say. 
 
 Afterwards Dora and Clara went out into the 
 garden ; Thwaite's eyes followed them sus- 
 piciously and gloomily. Their voices sounded 
 for a little near the open window, intimately 
 low and comprehending each other with that 
 comprehension between women that is given to 
 neither husband nor lover. Mr. Brede gazed 
 in moody silence at his dessert plate. 
 
 Thwaite began to talk irritably of his sub- 
 editor on the Salon. During Thwaite's absence 
 he had inserted a great many columns of his 
 personal friends' rhapsodical effusions, 
 
 " You can't trust anyone," Thwaite said. 
 
THE BANKRUPT JEWELLER. 285 
 
 George, with his warm affection for his 
 disciple, shifted his seat closer. -.^_ 
 
 " It will all come right/' he said, " now you're 
 back." 
 
 Thwaite, with an added gloom, muttered : 
 
 " And that means that I shall have to be away 
 from here for ever so long." 
 
 George laughed : " Oh, you can trust us to 
 look after Dora," 
 
 Thwaite glanced nervously and suspiciously 
 towards the open window. The voices of 
 Clara and Dora had died away on the lower 
 paths. 
 
 Mr. Brede interpolated suddenly : " Mind — 
 that wine-glass at your elbow, Moffat." He re- 
 lapsed into gloom. 
 
 George mentioned that he had all but 
 finished his book. 
 
 Thwaite said : " Oh." 
 
 He broke out : " I shall take two rooms in 
 town. To take Dora to." 
 
 George had been hesitating whether or not 
 to tell Thwaite of his approaching departure. 
 He decided that Thwaite had already 
 worries enough. He told him, instead, of 
 the article on Spanish Art that Hailes had 
 asked to have inserted in the Salon. 
 
 Thwaite ejaculated : " Oh, that ass. You 
 surely don't want me to insert him." 
 
 George waved his hand non-committally. He 
 rather wanted to help Hailes because he was 
 such an amusing scoundrel, 
 
286 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 " I shall send it back to-morrow," Thwaite 
 said. ' 
 
 Afterwards, in the garden, Thwaite liberated 
 his soul to George. He mistrusied Clara's in- 
 fluence on his wife. The two men, walking 
 up and down on the path in front of the house, 
 talked in low tones. A thick quickset hedge 
 separated them from the dark lawn ; they had 
 glimpsing suggestions of it through high, clip- 
 ped arches. Clara and her sister seemed to have 
 been swallowed up in the remote black depths 
 of the paths among the trees. George was in a 
 great trouble of mind. 
 
 " But, surely " he began. He couldn't 
 
 find anything to say. A family quarrel, so black, 
 so odious and so unhappy, gave him a more com- 
 plete disgust with life itself. He made a great 
 effort, trusting to his age, his prestige, his deli- 
 cacy, and his great services to Thwaite. 
 
 " My dear fellow," he said, " my dear fellow, 
 Dora is very fond of her sister." 
 
 Thwaite in the darkness made a small obdur- 
 ate sound. 
 
 George added : " It's — don't you see ? — it's 
 a great responsibility to take. To sew dissen- 
 sion between two sisters, to break up a family 
 so united." 
 
 Thwaite maintained his silence ; they step- 
 ped regularly up and down the path beneath 
 the brilliantly lit windows. George took 
 Thwaite's arm affectionately. Thwaite, with his 
 
THE BANKRUPT JEWELLER. 287 
 
 delicacy, his sympathy, his human imagination, 
 could not in the end fail to come to a better 
 frame of mind. " You're tired, you're worried," 
 he said. " But you can't really mean ." 
 
 Thwaite said grimly : " What have I got to 
 do with Dora's family ? They're nothing to me. 
 What have I in common with such people ? " 
 It was the " artistic exclusiveness." He regar- 
 ded them as mere outsiders. Why should he 
 trouble about them. He did not want to know 
 them. 
 
 That view became appallingly clear to 
 George. He said gently : " But Dora ? " 
 
 Thwaite did not answer. Suddenly he 
 said : 
 
 "I don't approve of Clara. I've been hear- 
 ing a great deal about her. I don't like her ideas. 
 It's not an influence I like Dora to be under." 
 
 His tone was peremptory and decisive. 
 Dora, in fact, had told him Clara's secret. She 
 had been so convinced that he, too, would see 
 the romantic side of it. Hadn't she married 
 him because he was romantic ? They had 
 been at the time leaning over the balcony of 
 a mediocre hotel facing one of the Paris 
 stations, where everything was as grey, as dull 
 and as noisy as in Euston Square. It had 
 slipped out. He had said, "Ah." He hadn't 
 spoken to her about it. Now he was speaking. 
 
 It flashed suddenly upon George that 
 " Clara's views " might mean that she was pre- 
 pared to face being taken to the back of 
 
288 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 beyond. She might have spoken to Dora 
 in that way of the relations of man and 
 woman. 
 
 " I don't think," he said quickly, " that you 
 have any right to speak of Clara." 
 
 Thwaite said : " / don't speak without the 
 book." 
 
 " To me, I mean," George said, hotly. " I'm 
 a stranger ; I'm an outsider. You've heard 
 what you have heard in confidence from your 
 wife." 
 
 He had come to a pause at one end of the 
 path, and was speaking quickly. He gripped 
 hard on Thwaite's arm. It occurred to him 
 that he was frightfully angry with Thwaite — 
 with Thwaite, of all men in the world ; and 
 that in the darkness Thwaite seemed to be 
 sneering at him. He finished hotly : 
 
 " I don't consider you've the right, and I 
 certainly will not listen to you." 
 
 He did not want to listen ; it seemed to him 
 that next moment Thwaite might reveal to him 
 that Clara was in love with him. He didn't — 
 he didn't want to hear. 
 
 " Clara has never spoken against you to 
 Dora," he said. He was sure of that. 
 
 "She has no call to," Thwaite said. "I 
 haven't swindled her." 
 
 There was a great and increasing bitterness 
 in his tone, 
 
 George pressed his arm more tightly. It 
 was as if he wanted to hold his disciple, 
 
THE BANKRUPT JEWELLER. 289 
 
 " For heaven's sake," he said, agitatedly, 
 "for heaven's sake don't let such a miserable 
 cause give rise to all this unhappiness." 
 
 Thwaite raised his voice : " I shall stick out 
 for Dora's rights. I shall force her to do it 
 herself. I'm master in my own house." 
 
 George remembered how light-heartedly 
 and confidently he had forced Thwaite on the 
 Bredes — against the father's will, and against 
 Clara's. 
 
 He said, miserably : " But not in such a 
 quarrel ; for a little money ! Clara has such a 
 noble spirit," 
 
 Thwaite pulled his arm from George's grasp, 
 and with amazing violence flashed upon him : 
 " Does that infernal woman think I wouldn't ^oy 
 you ? " There was an exclamation like a sob 
 from the other side of the hedge ; a quick 
 sound of footsteps. Dora came with a certain 
 rigidity and stillness through one of the cut 
 arches. Both men were silent as her feet 
 sounded on the gravel. She touched her 
 husband's arm. 
 
 " We had better go now," she said. There was 
 not much of the inestimable gift of youth in her 
 voice. She and her sister had been coming 
 over the turf behind the hedge. The night 
 had been very still ; Thwaite had been 
 shouting. They hadn't missed a word. They 
 both went away from George, and he felt as if 
 tragedy went with them. 
 
 It certainly stayed with him as he walked 
 
 u 
 
290 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 instinctively back into the house. It was as if 
 out there he could see Clara — a dim figure 
 through the denseness of the hedge and 
 through the darkness of the night — and it was 
 as if every one of Thwaite's words had been 
 horrible and undeserved blows upon her 
 silent figure. She must have been there ; she 
 must have heard and must have felt the bitter- 
 ness of having to ensue the pitiless hatred that 
 pursued her into the hearts of her own sister 
 and her own friend. 
 
 He went back into the house. He wanted 
 not to have to face her ; not to have any ex- 
 planation ; any scene with a personal element. 
 He was more than saddened. A dead misery 
 must have descended upon Dora's head by 
 this time. He seemed to see the two of them 
 arriving at their little house, that with so much 
 joy, so short a time ago, had received its toy- 
 like finishing touches. 
 
 It was Dora's first admission to the intimate 
 personality of her husband. He began to rave 
 at her, too. He was going to take her away 
 from her sister ; he was going to knock these 
 ideas out of her head. He was going to speak 
 to her father. An abominable intrigue was 
 going on between her sister and George 
 Moffat. That was what George Moffat had 
 been up to all along. It was a scandal. They 
 had conspired to rob him of Dora's money. 
 To Dora it was like death. 
 
 It was something like it to George, too. He 
 
THE BANKRUPT JEWELLER. 29I 
 
 stood for a long time pondering over it. His 
 drawing-room, lit up with many candles, lay rich 
 and glowing round his solitary meditation. 
 The portentous " Troth bideth frendshepe," 
 scrawled across the flamboyant bookcase, 
 greeted him fantastically with its inscrutable, 
 incomprehensible message. Truth had cer- 
 tainly outbided most of his friendships — 
 and this too. In Thwaite's tone there had 
 been a bitterness of outrage, of insult against 
 himself. He could not understand why. But 
 in this case, as in so many others, the worry 
 and fret of circumstance had been too much 
 for old friendship. And he had passed his 
 word for Thwaite ; he had blindly pitchforked 
 him into the Brede family ; he was responsi- 
 ble. It was a miserable business. He sighed 
 rather heavily and went back to Mr. Brede. 
 
 The great clergyman raised his head from 
 an abstracted scrutiny of the shiny table-cloth ; 
 he smiled almost gaily as George entered the 
 room. 
 
 " I've taken a resolution," he said. His 
 smile gave George a momentary and warm 
 feeling of satisfaction. Young Scraithe, the 
 Vicar here, had asked him to give a sermon 
 to the Volunteers on Sunday. He was going 
 to do it. There was a sort of heavy firmness 
 in his speech. 
 
 He went on to explain, rather animatedly, 
 pushing the wine-glasses aside to allow room 
 for the gestures of his arms, that during 
 
292 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 dinner he had been immersed in doubts. He 
 hadn't dared to face the idea of officiating 
 again. 
 
 " But what you said to me on Monday came 
 into my mind. I'll do it." 
 
 What George had said on Monday was one 
 of George's innumerable platitudes — that a 
 man who can't do his work may just as well 
 die. Of all the time and the innumerable 
 words that he had expended in the service 
 of Mr. Brede, this copybook phrase, dropped 
 by chance to fill in a chain of ideas, had proved 
 his salvation ! 
 
 It seemed to amount to salvation. 
 
 " Yes, by Jove," he said, " if I can't do my 
 work, I may as well die. I'm going to do it. 
 I've been malingering and shirking too long." 
 
 He straightened his gigantic back, and 
 looked with a certain tenderness at George. 
 
 " You're a good fellow, Moffat," he said. " I 
 don't know why you do it." 
 
 A certain look in his eyes — a certain simi- 
 larity of his tone reminded George over- 
 whelmingly of Clara. He wondered why he 
 had done it now that it was at an end. 
 Because with Mr. Brede's sermon on Sunday 
 evening it would be at an end. He arranged 
 with himself to walk over to the Junction after 
 he had heard that Mr. Brede was safely 
 through. He would catch the last train and 
 the night-boat. 
 
 It was at an end. He felt a warm glow of 
 
¥he bankrupt jeaveller. 293 
 
 satisfaction. He had carried through a diffi- 
 cult, but surely not a thankless task. He felt, 
 too, a warm liking for the great, uncouth and 
 passionate man who sat opposite him. Per- 
 haps it was only because he was Clara's father ; 
 perhaps because of the likeness, the curious 
 family similarity that is like a familiar voice 
 speaking unmistakably, but through a veil. 
 There was in them both the same passionate 
 steadfastness in what they had in hand, a cer- 
 tain imperviousness to outside influence, and 
 at the same time a persuasibility — a docility 
 when they thought the persuader was to be 
 trusted in. 
 
 " I shall be able to touch some of them up." 
 Mr. Brede was referring to his sermon. 
 " Make them see things. An awakener, an eye 
 opener is needed somewhere in days like 
 these." He was speaking buoyantly and con- 
 fidently. 
 
 For George a certain glow came into the 
 room ; it was as if, after all, on this last even- 
 ing there was again a touch of success, a last 
 glimmer of the sun. 
 
 Behind his back Clara Brede came in. He 
 did not look round. "Tracts against the 
 Time," Mr. Brede chuckled, "that's what's 
 needed." 
 
 George knew that Clara Brede, with her 
 habitual patient movement, was sitting down 
 to listen to their discussion. Suddenly Mr. 
 Brede reached across to pat her hand clumsily. 
 
294 "THE BENEFACtoR. 
 
 The gesture carried George's eyes with it to 
 Clara herself. She was looking at him. 
 
 "You're a good girl, Clara," Mr. Brede said. 
 " Very patient with me." 
 
 She turned her eyes upon her father ; they 
 were a little starred, as it she had been crying. 
 Her face was rather pale. George felt his 
 familiar but more deep emotion of intolerable 
 pitifulness. He was at the bottom of this grief 
 of hers ; he had brought it into her life. 
 
 " I think," she said, slowly, " if Mr. Moffat 
 can be so patient with us all, it's no great merit 
 in me to do my duty." Mr. Brede again, and 
 as if confirmatorily, patted her hand. " He set 
 me the example." 
 
 George read in her eyes a gratitude for having 
 left her alone in the garden. She had suffered 
 a great deal to hear Thwaite abusing her to 
 George. But she didn't care, because George 
 had defended her. She had heard him say she 
 had a noble spirit. 
 
V. 
 
 It was as if from cellar to roof of his great 
 house not an association remained appreciable 
 or poignant. The centre of his life had 
 changed from it to the Bredes' cottage ; the 
 whole of his past had grown dim and entirely 
 negligible. It hadn't mattered more than the 
 merest passing of time ; it hadn't been a life, it 
 was the merest dallying with trifles and with 
 triflers. It seemed impossible that he could have 
 spent years of his time in amassing the im- 
 mense dead-weight of the house and its con- 
 tents. He had given the best of his life to it. 
 Now it had crushed him with its beams, its 
 muUioned windows, its groined stones ; it, and 
 what it represented — the frame of mind, the 
 profuse and unreflecting giving ; the parasites it 
 had attracted to him. 
 
 He went leisurely from room to room collect- 
 ing his more personal relics ; a few books, 
 some small sketches of his father's, a portrait 
 or two, some drawers full of old letters from 
 his wife. He was neither very dazed nor very 
 regretful. He acknowledged that for this reap- 
 ing he had sown. He was not going to yelp. 
 
 In this disturbing of old and dusty corners, 
 this burning of old papers, a rather onerous 
 
296 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 solitude descended upon him. He recognised 
 with some gratitude his own loneliness, his 
 want of dependents, of responsibilities. There 
 was no one to care very much, except perhaps 
 Clara and perhaps her father. Not even 
 Thwaite. 
 
 Thwaite had driven him away a little earlier 
 than he had expected, a day or two — perhaps a 
 week. He had meant to have had again a few 
 of the good old talks. Now that wasn't any 
 more possible. He would have to write to 
 Thwaite — to make one final attempt to get him 
 back to reason. He had been fond of the man. 
 Even yet he was not going to believe that he 
 would not find some way to touch him. 
 
 Thwaite had gone to London and had taken 
 Dora with him. They had left a message that 
 they would not be back for a week. In a week 
 George would be in a small town in the North 
 of Italy. 
 
 It was a place that he had visited two or 
 three times. There was a small and rather 
 presentable pension where they cooked bear- 
 ably enough ; the ruins of a Roman circus ; 
 some shady walks by the side of the Adige. 
 That was to be the end of him. After the 
 final settlings up there would remain enough 
 to keep him for a year or two ; after that the 
 gods must provide, or kind death, or his pen. 
 
 He stuck to his image of " walking out " — 
 there was no reason why he should not. He 
 was going to send his small baggage by rail in 
 
THE BANKRUPT JEWELLER. 297 
 
 the morning of the Sunday, and he was going 
 to walk away by himself, after taking a swift 
 leave of the Bredes at their supper. Mr. Brede 
 would just have delivered his sermon. George 
 felt still a warm satisfaction at the thought. 
 There at least was one thing he had not 
 bungled. 
 
 He had figured it all out, down to the minute 
 details. He would have handsome cheques in 
 his waistcoat pockets for his servants who 
 were to be engaged by his successor. 
 On the Saturday night after his supper — it 
 would be the last he would take there — he dis- 
 covered that he had no labels for his luggage. 
 
 On his way to the Bredes, he turned in at 
 the infinitesimal grocer's shop, whose lamps 
 made a brilliant spray in the dusky street. 
 The shop was full of the hard-featured villagers 
 huddled together before the swift passage 
 across the counter of the Saturday-night pack- 
 ages. A sudden hush fell on it, and all the 
 faces turned to George. A ferret-eyed woman 
 with a battered straw hat and an unsightly 
 basket on her arm threw back her head and 
 laughed shrilly. Small nudges of elbows passed 
 among them all. George was used to the 
 black and bitter envy of all villagers for all 
 the " Quality," but he was astonished at the 
 more than usually candid want of conceal- 
 ment. An old man with singularly heavy 
 boots and a thin fringe of hair beneath his 
 chin touched his hat, groped up his small 
 
298 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 parcel of tobacco, and hobbled with grotesque 
 haste out of the shop. He was followed by all 
 the others. A solitary yell of laughter went 
 up from outside, and the faces of the village 
 boys appeared glued against the windows. 
 
 The grocer, a diminutive and stout, beady- 
 eyed man, whisked away a copy of the local 
 paper that sprawled its coarse type across the 
 counter. He produced with an apologetic air 
 a small bill — " for embrocation for your house- 
 keeper, forgotten when we sent in the account 
 to-day." George paid it and made his pur- 
 chase. 
 
 "We've had dealings a great many years," 
 the grocer said, with a friendly and inane 
 smile. " I trust I've given satisfaction." He 
 wished George good-night with empresse- 
 ment. 
 
 At the top of the descending street George 
 caught, whirled against the sky, the swift and 
 sinister flash of the great light on the French 
 coast. He paused and looked at it ; that, too, 
 he was seeing for the last time from that place. 
 He was going a long way beyond that horizon. 
 
 He made his way to the Bredes' cottage. 
 The familiar and hoarse giggling voice went 
 up from the hardly distinguishable, lounging 
 group of young men at the church-yard 
 corner, 
 
 " There's old, ' That's-what-you-want.' " 
 
 Another commented more shrilly : " What's 
 'e want now." There was a roar of laughter. 
 
*rHlE BANKRUPT JEWELLER, 299 
 
 It added a little to his sadness. That was 
 the best that could be done for him, in his 
 own town, after so many years. Clara was 
 alone ; her father was preparing his sermon. 
 She smiled when George entered. 
 
VI. 
 
 It really seemed to amount to no more than 
 the mere leaving a woman, and walking away 
 from a house. He looked forward to the time 
 when it would be all over, to a quiet and grey 
 expanse of unnoteworthy days. It was as if 
 he were getting off very cheaply — too cheaply. 
 It was, in fact, all over already ; he passed a 
 good night. He had finished all his prepara- 
 tions ; he had before him only a few hours of 
 nothing to do — of sunshine, of intense leisure, 
 and then hurried farewells. It was a quite still 
 Sunday morning ; there wasn't a quiver of 
 wind in the cottage climbing roses. He walked 
 towards the Bredes'. Not a soul was in the 
 wide, swept streets ; the sheep in the church- 
 yard meditated among the tomb stones ; on 
 the ridge of the church roof a long row of star- 
 lings was aligned and motionless, as if they, 
 too, in the heavens observed the decencies of 
 the Sabbath. He was going to spend his last 
 day with the Bredes. 
 
 Clara Brede was standing in the gate- way. She 
 had one hand across her forehead ; she was quite 
 obviously waiting for him. She held, droop- 
 ing limply, the country paper ; her face was 
 hard and drawn ; there were on it little lines 
 
THE BANKRUPT JEWELLER. 30I 
 
 that George did not recognise. She said 
 suddenly : 
 
 " What is this ? " 
 
 And George had to face, as if thrust accus- 
 ingly up at him, a paragraph copied from a 
 London journal. It began : 
 
 " The world of letters will be deeply con- 
 cerned to learn of the great financial losses 
 sustained by Mr. George Moffat," and it gave 
 accurately enough a detailed account of 
 George's position. In his swift and gasping 
 glance George caught that his " magnificent 
 house in which so many men of letters and the 
 arts had spent unforgetable hours had already 
 been disposed of, and that we understand he is 
 leaving immediately for the South of France." 
 He even saw the words, " Renaissance Press." 
 He breathed a heavy sigh of exasperation. 
 
 " Is it true ? " Clara asked. 
 
 He did not look at her face ; he kept his 
 eyes on the paper. He learned dazedly that 
 his many friends were organising a testimonial 
 to him ; that Prince Nicholas of Moldavia had 
 headed the list with a munificent donation in 
 return for George's services to Moldavia. Even 
 the balalaika was there, 
 
 Clara said in a constrained tone : " It's 
 rather cruel of you not to have told us, isn't 
 it?" 
 
 He read that the secretary and organiser 
 was Mr. C. T. Hailes. This grotesque and 
 horrible affair was Hailes' " good turn." He 
 
362 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 had given the paragraph to the papers ; that 
 was why it was so accurate. 
 
 " It's rather cruel of you, isn't it," she 
 repeated, " not to have told us ? " 
 
 Her voice had a cold ring of accusation. It 
 came suddenly and dismally into his mind that 
 it was rather cruel. 
 
 " A servant showed it to me last night," she 
 said. 
 
 She had learned the news from a servant. 
 Her dry and dim eyes showed him that she 
 had had a bad night. Standing in the gate- 
 way she had made no move to let him pass ; 
 she was stopping the way, and he realised, with 
 a sudden pang, that he was not to spend his 
 last morning with her. Her pallid face 
 seemed to blaze accusingly at him like a white 
 flower in the shadow of a moonlight night. 
 
 She hated him. She had hated him all 
 through an interminable night. A servant had 
 brought her the paper with a little giggle just 
 after George had left. He had been talking to 
 her calmly and very pleasantly. He had been 
 concealing this wicked thing even then. And 
 she had thought he had cared for her ; she 
 had thought he was interested in her. She 
 was a laughing-stock to herself. She, Clara 
 Brede ! He had been raising a public sub- 
 scription ; he hadn't even come to them. He 
 was too idistinguished ! He had been kind to 
 them, as he might be to the lower animals. 
 She understood what the artist's pride is. She 
 
THE BANKRUPT JEWELLER. 303 
 
 and her father were PhiUstines ; they were out- 
 siders — people you didn't talk to about your 
 private affairs. And she had thought he was 
 interested in her. And she loved him. Ah, 
 heavens ! by what right could men make 
 women love them, and then treat them like 
 dust ? By what right ; by what force ? How 
 did they dare to smile ; to be amiable ; to 
 behave as if they were attentive and interested, 
 when they meant nothing ? 
 
 She said bitterly : " My father must not 
 know till after his sermon." She had to keep 
 all shocks off him. How was she to keep this. 
 " He is preparing it for to-night." 
 
 George said : " No, no," and then, " I'm 
 
 sorry. I thought — I had thought " It 
 
 struck him like a calamity that he had never 
 thought of her feelings. He had wanted to 
 keep his image in her eyes as prospering, as 
 buoyant, as untouched. He had left her to 
 learn the truth from a servant. The thought 
 of her father, sitting absorbed and intent, as if 
 caged up in his tiny room, contented and re- 
 lieved of gloom, became suddenly poignant to 
 him, like the figure of a man unconscious and 
 threatened by an assassin's knife. 
 
 He said quickly : " No, no ! don't let him 
 know"; and then : " I'm going away to-night." 
 
 It was as if something swift and deadly 
 passed from her eyes to his, as if she had struck 
 him. Her lips moved, twitching convulsively. 
 He dropped his eyes like a culprit. 
 
304 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 He heard her say : " Yes, I must keep it 
 from him." Her voice was low and as if 
 abstracted. "He was very — we were both — 
 very — very — fond " 
 
 It was as if he only remembered it afterwards. 
 He had been horribly upset ; he had been 
 casting about for some consoling word that 
 would be convincing. She had already turned 
 away ; he had caught at her hand. He had said : 
 " I didn't tell you because I loved you." She 
 had snatched her hand passionately and hate- 
 fully from his fingers and had gone. From 
 the bedroom window, that, among rose- 
 leaves, stood open above his head, he heard 
 the sound of sudden, suddenly hushed sob- 
 bing. 
 
 There was a footstep on the gravel behind 
 him. A boy put a telegram into his hand. He 
 did not look at it. It seemed odd that a tele- 
 gram should be delivered on a Sunday, till he 
 recollected that it wasn't quite ten o'clock. A 
 carriage rattled past behind his back. He 
 couldn't understand what he had done. 
 
 He heard confused sounds from the carriage 
 behind him. It stopped. He recognised a 
 familiar voice. Why must people bother him 
 now ? He turned swiftly and saw his brother. 
 Gregory was advancing, blinking in the bright 
 sunlight. His hand was held nervously out, 
 his beaming smile was shaded right down to 
 the eyes by an old, broad-brimmed, grey hat. 
 
 He' said : " I wasn't certain when you were 
 
THE BANKRUPT JEWELLER. 305 
 
 going. But I don't want to be in the way." 
 He looked at the Bredes' cottage. 
 
 " Oh, we'll go home," George answered. 
 
 He seemed to be turning, with a finger on 
 his lips, from beside some death-bed. The 
 low, yellow cottages, embroidered with joyous 
 creepers, looked, in the vivid light, as if they 
 smiled ironically and had become strange and 
 hostile. 
 
 Gregory said : " You didn't let me know 
 what you were going to do." 
 
 It came into George's head that his brother 
 must have been afraid that he was going to 
 commit suicide. 
 
 Gregory seemed plunged in intense medi- 
 tations. He paused at George's gate and 
 absently inspected the latch. His face was 
 intent and abstracted ; there were deep lines 
 about the mouth. His shoulders stooped 
 more than ever. He said : " You had an article 
 sent you by that man Hailes." 
 
 George drew a deep breath. That horrible 
 man was at the bottom of this misery. And he 
 had told Clara Brede that he loved her. It 
 filled him with a sudden horror. He said : 
 " Yes, I gave the article to Thwaite. I think 
 Thwaite sent it back." 
 
 Gregory came to a stop and drove his stick 
 into the turf at the side of George's drive. He 
 pondered for a long time over the little hole. 
 
 George felt horribly sick and ill. It came 
 back more and more insistently that 
 
 W 
 
306 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 he had told Clara that he loved her. It 
 had slipped out. He had hardly realised it 
 at the time. He had hardly heard himself 
 speak, because he had been so moved. 
 Now the words seemed to shout at him. 
 Perhaps, though, she hadn't heard. She had 
 been so angry. Or she might regard his words 
 as-only a figure of speech — a way of excusing 
 himself by saying he was fond of her. Certainly 
 he hadn't meant to make her a declaration. 
 
 They were standing still, just before his 
 house. The many windows were dimned and 
 cloudy. It was as if they reproached him 
 like eyes. The garden walls at the wings 
 looked sordid in the deep shadow of the trees. 
 And he had lived in that house all these years, 
 to find that he could not hold his tongue at a 
 pinch. 
 
 Gregory said : " You know Hailes got 
 Thwaite dismissed from the Salon ? " 
 
 George said, " Oh !" He didn't care. His 
 eyes roved away among his trees, as if for a 
 place in which to hide from the light. 
 
 Gregory seemed to be chuckling. He 
 turned his glasses on George in a blank and 
 inutely observant gaze : " My wife — ^EUa — 
 dismissed him." 
 
 George said : " Dismissed Thwaite." It 
 suddenly occurred to him what that would 
 mean for Dora. He said : 
 
 " You surely didn't allow it ?" 
 
 Gregory in his turn looked away among the 
 
THE BANKRUPT JEWELLER. 307 
 
 trees. " Do you know if T-hwaite drinks ? " he 
 asked. 
 
 George walked agitatedly up to him. He 
 asked what it meant. He wanted to get to the 
 bottom of it quickly, without any delay. He 
 had too much else to think of. 
 
 Gregory looked at him searchingly again. 
 "Thwaite thought — he insisted to methatj;oM 
 got him dismissed." 
 
 George hadn't even the power to utter " I." 
 His hands opened. The telegram that he was 
 holding dropped on to the ground. His 
 brother stooped to restore the orange envelope 
 to him. 
 
 " You haven't read that," he said, with the 
 mechanical air of the man of business. " Is it 
 important ? " 
 
 " I don't know," George said. " I've too 
 many worries to want to see a new one." 
 
 "Thwaite made an extraordinary scene in my 
 office," Gregory muttered. " He said that his 
 wife's sister " 
 
 George said : " Good God ! " 
 
 " I couldn't stop him," Gregory said. " I 
 didn't feel certain that I ought to. He would 
 have been telling my porters." 
 
 George clenched his fists with a fury that 
 was quite new to him. " What — what — 
 what did the scoundrel say ? " He quivered. 
 
 Gregory dropped into the dry manner of a 
 solicitor. " From what I could ascertain — the 
 man wasn't particularly coherent — his griev- 
 
308 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 ance was against Miss Brede. About her 
 mother's legacy to Mrs, Thwaite, I remember 
 you mentioned some of the particulars to 
 me " 
 
 In the midst of his immense anger George 
 remembered too. " He had passed his word to 
 Gregory that Thwaite would be the last person 
 in the world to make trouble about that very 
 thing. 
 
 " She intended," Gregory went on, " to de- 
 vote the money to paying off a debt that 
 Thwaite had incurred — to you." 
 
 George said : " Dora did ? " 
 
 Gregory added : " No, Miss Brede." 
 
 A certain horror came slowly into George's 
 eyes, 
 
 " Clara meant the money for me," he 
 said. It flashed across him that Thwaite, 
 in the garden, had said : " Does she think 
 
 I don't mean to pay you " " For me," 
 
 he said. 
 
 Gregory laid his hand timidly on George's 
 arm. He gave up the effort to speak like a 
 lawyer. 
 
 " I listened to the man because he spoke of 
 having commenced an action against Miss 
 Brede. I thought you ought to know what he 
 had to allege. I didn't want to interfere." 
 He was stuttering with emotion. 
 
 It occurred to George, slowly and inevitably, 
 that there was in the world an immense and 
 lamentable affair of which he was the centre. 
 
THE BANKRUPT JEWELLER. 309 
 
 Gregory cast his eyes appealingly over the 
 grey face of the house and up to the tops of 
 the trees. He dropped into his dry mode of 
 speech once more. 
 
 " Thwaite's theory was that you had in- 
 fluenced my wife to dismiss him at the instiga- 
 tion of Miss Brede — out of revenge for his 
 having commenced the action against her." 
 
 George said with an accent of sick horror : 
 " She hadn't even told me." 
 
 It was nothing short of horror. He was 
 reaUsing very vividly that another man, in- 
 censed and not master of his tongue, was go- 
 ing about the world levelling a vile accusation 
 against Clara Brede. It was going on . . . 
 
 " He said that you had been carrying on an 
 intrigue with Miss Brede under pretence of 
 helping her father. And that his wife had 
 told him that her sister had been in love with 
 you for a long time." 
 
 It was as if for a moment the sunlight had 
 become a blight ; Gregory's voice sounded 
 distant and unimportant. He was explaining 
 that he had not been able to stop Thwaite. 
 George seemed to see Thwaite bursting into 
 the board-room, his eyes blazing, his hands 
 trembling as he remembered they had trem- 
 bled when Mr. Brede had opposed his 
 marriage. George had thought at the time 
 that he was almost mad. Poor Dora ! But 
 all that was unimportant. Clara had loved 
 him — for a long time. She must have loved 
 
310 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 him on the night when he had imagined him- 
 self playing the part of the eminent old man. 
 A Scotch tune that Dora had hummed that 
 night sounded suddenly in his mind : 
 
 "I've heard them lilting at our ewe-milking, 
 Lasses a-lilting before the break o' day . . ." 
 
 That was why she had run out and taken 
 his part with the Moldavians. He seemed to 
 hear her " I'm so sorry ; so sorry," when she 
 had heard of his brusqueness to them. Her 
 adorable and quaint humility, all the pleasant- 
 ness of those immensely distant days came, 
 like a tiny lull, back to him. 
 
 And with sudden emotion he remembered 
 her : " Don't you know you're a great poet ? " 
 She had wanted to spur him on, to make a 
 man of him. 
 
 Gregory was saying rigidly, and with a hard 
 glint in his eyes : " Of course, I shall dismiss 
 Thwaite now. I'll take care he doesn't get 
 another appointment, too." 
 
 George found himself answering, with 
 fierce emphasis : " Yes, yes ; let him feel it, 
 Gregory." 
 
 He was quivering with rage. The man had 
 vilely defamed her. His breath hissed through 
 his nostrils. 
 
 He couldn't abandon her now ! He made 
 a motion as if to go swiftly to her. Then he 
 remembered her father, and that he himself 
 was ruined. 
 
THE BANKRUPT JEWELLER. 311 
 
 Gregory was patiently digging his stick into 
 the turf, 
 
 "You're very tired, Gregory," he said. 
 " You look ill." 
 
VII. 
 
 Mrs. Moffat had, two-days before, taken the 
 great leap. Hailes, naturally, had pushed her 
 to it. According to him, if anything were to 
 be done with the Spanish plan it would have 
 to be done quickly. The Duke of Medina's 
 Master of the Horse had written to him that 
 someone was already in the market. The 
 Duke of Seville's Portrait of a Manola, his 
 celebrated Toreador preparing the coup de 
 grace, and half-a-dozen other Goya's were 
 already in England, bought, apparently, by 
 some English Milor. 
 
 " Of course," Hailes said, in his reasonable 
 manner, " those are too high game for us. But 
 it's a bad sign. Someone may be in the market." 
 
 He had paid increasing attentions to Mrs. 
 Henwick, quite openly. He told her that she 
 needed for her stories a strong local colour. 
 Why not the starlight of old Madrid ? 
 
 His openness increased the pangs of Mrs. 
 Moffat ; she became more insolent to him. 
 He didn't seem to notice it. It had flashed 
 upon her that he regarded her as comparatively 
 powerless — as, in short, not a very good specu- 
 lation. Then Hailes received back his article 
 from Thwaite. 
 
THE BANKRUPT JEWELLER. 313 
 
 " I really don't see why you should put up 
 with the fellow's insolence," he said. 
 
 The speech was a challenge and ultimatum. 
 
 She would have to lose him, or show her 
 power by dismissing Thwaite. 
 
 They debated the matter in her panelled 
 work-room with the green morocco furniture. 
 Hailes said : 
 
 " He's insolent ; he's an abject fool. He 
 
 can't make the paper pay. Now I " He 
 
 pressed down his collar,, and erected his long 
 neck. " I suppose your husband wants him ? " 
 he added. 
 
 Mrs. Moffat saw once and for all that Hailes' 
 price was either the editorship of the Salon or 
 the money to finance his Spanish Exhibition. 
 Her fingers twitched with doubt. 
 
 Hailes said : " George Moffat owes me a 
 good turn. Subscriptions are literally pouring 
 in." He had started that testimonial to George, 
 and he really considered he had put George 
 under an obligation. He had taken a great 
 deal of trouble ; he had carried the paragraph 
 round to all the papers. " I've routed up 
 everyone who ever owed him a penny. He 
 would be bound to make it all right with your 
 husband." 
 
 Mrs. Moffat hadn't any illusions on that 
 point. It was for her only a matter how far 
 she herself could overawe Gregory. She re- 
 membered that he had never refused her any- 
 thing in or out of reason, except the dismissal 
 
314 THE BENiEPACTOR, 
 
 of Thwaite. But George was concerned in 
 that. 
 
 When he had bought the paper she had 
 regarded it as a present to her. She could 
 have had it had she wanted it. She had played 
 at editing it for some months. Then she had 
 grown tired, and Thwaite had been appointed 
 at the request of George. 
 
 She was quite unsure of the position ; she was 
 quite unsure of Gregory. She hadn't the least 
 idea of what was underneath his amiability. He 
 had never really opposed anything she asked. 
 
 Hailes said : " If you cared for me to take 
 Thwaite's place, I could do that and your 
 work too. I could make a good thing of ihtSalon." 
 
 He saw himself quite clearly as Editor. The 
 thing was a journalistic plum. It would 
 " place " him for good and all. Thwaite had 
 undoubtedly given the paper weight. It 
 counted, if it didn't sell. It was something that 
 one could rise from ; it would, in the end, be 
 worth several Spanish projects. Mrs. Moffat 
 had been used to overbearing Gregory. With 
 a quiver of alarm she consented to overbear 
 him once more. She had to if she were to 
 keep Hailes' allegiance ; she mu&t show that 
 she could make it worth his while. She wrote 
 the letter of dismissal to Thwaite. It had 
 driven Thwaite mad. He had been convinced 
 that George had got him dismissed, and he had 
 gone nearly raving to " show up " George and 
 Clara to Gregory. 
 
THE BANKRUPT JEWELLER. 315 
 
 Afterwards — on the afternoon before Gregory 
 had gone down to George — an imperative 
 telegram had come from Gregory to his wife. 
 He himself had just faced Thwaite. She had 
 to face Gregory. 
 
 Her heart had beaten violently all the way up 
 in the train. She flounced haughtily into the 
 Board-Room. Gregory, to her astonished 
 alarm, greeted her with a sudden and as if un- 
 veiled tenderness that she didn't in the least 
 know what to do with. She thought he must 
 be leading up to something abominable. 
 
 He explained, nervously and haltingly, 
 fumbling with his button-holes. She had put 
 him in a difficult and false position. " I've 
 had, my dear, to tell Mr. Thwaite that / hadn't 
 dismissed him. I had passed my word to 
 George not to." He muttered, " Very awk- 
 ward," and looked intently at a blotter. His 
 mouth opened. 
 
 Mrs. Moffat couldn't get over her alarm ; 
 what was the man going to say now ? 
 
 He dropped his head again. 
 
 " It's most unfortunate," he said, " most un- 
 fortunate." 
 
 He considered blankly for a minute or two. 
 It gave Mrs. Moffat more than time to collect 
 herself. She sank into one of the cane chairs 
 and dropped her reticule brilliantly on to the 
 table. 
 
 " I told Mr. Thwaite " — Gregory looked up at 
 her at last — " that it was a mistake — ^that, in 
 
3l6 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 fact, a clerk had misaddressed two letters ; that 
 yours hadn't been meant for him at all. 
 " Naturally " — he brought out with an immense 
 effort — " the last thing I should wish would be 
 to cross you or to give anyone the idea that we 
 were at variance." 
 
 Mrs. Moffat looked at him ironically. 
 
 " I don't anticipate," he added cheerfully, 
 " that he or anyone else will think that." 
 
 He stretched out his fumbling hand and pat- 
 ted her wrist. It flashed into Mrs, Moffat's 
 mind : 
 
 " Why, the man's fond of me ! " 
 
 His familiar and irritating gesture had sud- 
 denly given her this bizarre clue to his char- 
 acter. 
 
 He was fond of his wife. He had begun by 
 thinking her more brilliantly and flashingly 
 beautiful, more desirable and more admirable 
 than he by any means deserved. He had sim- 
 ply gone on thinking it. She had a right to 
 be proud and overbearing ; it was part of what 
 made him proud of her. He had never cav- 
 illed at her companions — her " own people." 
 They even suited his particular business very 
 well. A brilliant, expensive, and not too scru- 
 pulous world with a large subsidiary fringe 
 whose qualifications were the great wealth 
 that made them desirable. To Mr. Frewer 
 Hoey he had offered no objections ; he had 
 rather liked him. There wasn't any harm in 
 
THE BANKRUPT JEWELLER. 317 
 
 him, and Mrs. Moffat had undoubtedly needed 
 both an assistant and someone to talk to. But 
 he could not bear Hailes. He disliked him in- 
 stinctively and with a blind Tightness. He was 
 perfectly convinced that Hailes, at least, wasn't 
 a fit companion for his wife. He was of the 
 lower type. And after Hailes' treatment of 
 George he had been the more determined to 
 be rid of him. With his same blind man's 
 insight he more than suspected his wife's at- 
 tachment to Hailes. 
 
 Mrs. Moffat did not lose any time over the 
 wonderfulness of her discovery. She re- 
 arranged her skirts and said, with her high 
 contemptuous voice : 
 
 " If I'm not to have the Salon to occupy me 
 I shall want to do something. You can't ex- 
 pect me to stifle at Woodlands." She was 
 going to make the most of her advantage. 
 " I shall travel." 
 
 Gregory, with a sort of instinctive humility, 
 made a motion towards his cheque book. It 
 was an habitual gesture. 
 
 " I shan't be able to go with you," he 
 said. 
 
 " I'm going to Spain," she announced. She 
 was going to force Gregory to finance Hailes' 
 Spanish Exhibition. 
 
 Gregory raised his head sharply. He did 
 not say anything. 
 
 " For some months," she added. 
 
 His neck suddenly rose rigidly above his 
 
3l8 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 low collar. His lips moved as if he had caught 
 at a phrase and missed it. 
 
 " I warn you," he pronounced huskily, " that 
 if you go to Spain with Hailes I shall divorce 
 you." 
 
 Mrs. Moffat laughed contemptuously. 
 
 " You're perfectly absurd," she said. " I went 
 to dozens of places with Hoey." 
 
 Gregory said : "I warn you." 
 
 His neck remained rigidly erect ; he had an 
 odd air of menacing like a wild beast listening 
 to a distant footfall. His lips folded and 
 creased one on another ; his eyes gleamed. 
 Mrs, Moffat quite literally did not know her 
 husband. 
 
 He gave her a couple of days to reflect upon 
 the matter. With her verdict hanging over 
 him he sat talking to George in the brilliant 
 study. He was afraid, too, for his brother. 
 He had understood that something lamentable 
 was in progress ; he feared, as George had 
 discerned, that George might do " something 
 irrevocable." He did not mention the matter of 
 his wife and Hailes. And George never gath- 
 ered that one more of his proteges had caused 
 unhappiness in yet another family. ' He had 
 enough to think of with Thwaite and the 
 Bredes. Eventually he had to plead for 
 Thwaite, himself. 
 
 Gregory said, implacably: " I won't shelter 
 a man speaking like that of you." 
 
 " Oh, I've unhappiness enough to answer 
 
THE BANKRUPT JEWELLER, 319 
 
 for," George said. He dropped his head deject- 
 edly. Gregory's face took an expression of 
 immense concern. He could not bear to see 
 George despond. 
 
 " Don't you see " — George spoke lucidly and 
 musically — "it's such a muddle. The only 
 string that you can in any way pull out of the 
 tangle ends at me. I've caused an immense 
 amount of misery. Oh,with the best intentions." 
 
 Gregory was moving his hands in a dumb 
 show of remonstrance. " I am at the bottom 
 of it all, however you look at it. I foisted 
 Thwaite on to poor Dora ; I forced him in- 
 sanely on the family. Quite without any will 
 of mine, I'm responsible for Clara's attitude to 
 him. Perhaps she gauged him better than I 
 did, and he would not have paid me. I know, 
 as a rule, she is unterringly right, by instinct. 
 But say she's in the wrong — I'm none the less 
 miserably at the bottom of that. I foisted that 
 miserable Hailes on Ella — and Hailes got her 
 to dismiss him." 
 
 He spoke with a certain entrain ; with even 
 a certain zest. Clara Brede loved him. He 
 sat alone with that precious and tender fact ; 
 other sorrows and the miseries of others seemed 
 to grow small in that light. It was as if they 
 too were tenderly pathetic, and as if he had 
 had restored to him some of his power to do 
 good, some of his buoyancy, some of his heart. 
 He leaned his head back on the cushions of 
 the chair, he was so soon to sit in it no more. 
 
320 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 Gregory said in a shocked and agitated 
 voice : " No, no, you aren't responsible for 
 Hailes." 
 
 George interrupted : " She rather carried him 
 off ? True ! He deserted me, if you Uke. 
 But I ought not to lay people open to the risk 
 of meeting such creatures in my house. But 
 let Thwaite off, there's a good fellow. That is, 
 if he's useful to you." 
 
 " Oh, he's useful," Gregory said. He 
 added : " Why don't you open your tele- 
 gram ? " It worried his business mind to 
 think that his brother might mislay some- 
 thing needing an answer. 
 
 George slowly tore the envelope open. 
 
 " Yes, let Thwaite alone," he said, with the 
 pink enclosure between finger and thumb, 
 " this is only something about my boat to-night 
 — let him alone. After all there was a possibly 
 logical scheme in his abominable suspicions. 
 I don't pardon him anything. But let poor 
 little Dora have a chance — for my sake. I'm 
 responsible." 
 
 He leaned his impressive head back again on 
 his chair ; his searching eyes gazed through 
 the sumptuous backs of his rows of books, into 
 an infinite distance. " Worry about money," 
 he said to himself. In the end it all came to 
 that. It had brought out an undesirable strain 
 in him, too. If he had been able to go on 
 living, there would have been no shock or 
 parting. That had shaken the even surface of 
 
THE BANKRUPT JEWELLER. 32 1 
 
 things into strange shapes ; it had forced him 
 to see that he loved her, and to know that she 
 loved him. He had never needed money ; he 
 had never valued it. But now . . . One 
 couldn't take a girl, reared as Clara had been 
 reared, nurtured as she had been, into dis- 
 honour, without a decent chance of maintain- 
 ing her. He hadn't any illusions on the point. 
 He was too old. They couldn't think of a 
 month of bliss and then suicide. It wasn't in 
 Clara Brede's nature ; it wasn't in his. 
 
 Gregory was saying : " I'll do as you like 
 about Thwaite. But if he owes you money, 
 you must be paid. I shall give him a receipt 
 when Miss Brede pays you." 
 
 His brother's intense and nervous battling 
 for his interests struck George as oddly and 
 pleasantly ludicrous. It was pleasing to have a 
 champion so grim and so ardent. It reminded 
 him of Clara. It was the sort of thing that in 
 her had seemed so pleasantly, so amusingly — 
 and so fatally — attractive. She, too, had fought 
 for him silently and ardently ! 
 
 " You're a good fellow, Gregory," he said. 
 
 His brother smiled brilliantly, and began to 
 stammer a disclaimer. George unfolded his 
 telegram ; it must be about the boat — some 
 alteration in the time, or something about the 
 weather. It occurred to him that if Clara had 
 taken him in hand she would have forced him 
 to become famous. She would have forced 
 him. He would never have a chance now. 
 
322 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 On his knee the telegram displayed large copy- 
 book text : 
 
 " 150,000 copies sold day of issue. Cheque 
 mailed. Friendly congratulations. — Beale." 
 
 The staccato phrases suddenly brought the 
 Philadelphian before his eyes, with Clara 
 Brede talking to them both. The words, he 
 knew, meant something eminently fateful to 
 him. It meant new adjustments, new worries. 
 He tossed the limp sheet to his brother. 
 
 " Look at what this good creature says 
 about Wilderspin," he commented. "You see 
 what they can do when they ' boom,' " 
 
VIII. 
 
 And after that George had to face the creep- 
 ing fingers of the clock. He had only a few 
 hours ; the fragments of a day. The little 
 black minute marks of the dial became infinite 
 tortures ; it was as if they had become small 
 thorns clinging to and impending the skirts of 
 the hours. He wanted it over. The aspect 
 of his room changed from minute to minute. 
 The sunlight crept across the brilliant carpet, 
 and shone reflected on the sumptuous binding 
 of his aligned books. It seemed at times to 
 grow all dim and far away, an unimportant 
 mist hiding the reality of George's memories. 
 They were the only real things left to him 
 now. The voice of Gregory was discussing 
 what seemed to be merely academic and un- 
 profitable things. 
 
 " You'll be rich, you'll be successful," he 
 commented on Beale's telegram. It was like 
 a subtle and jarring irony. George made a 
 lazy motion of his whole body — " I suppose I 
 shall muddle — meander " — he was seek- 
 ing the exact word to express his profitless 
 and futile life. He could not find one ; it did 
 not seem worth the labour of finding exact 
 words any more — "as I've always done," he 
 
324 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 added. "What do I want with such a success 
 of the dogs now ? " 
 
 " It means several thousand pounds," 
 Gregory argued. "You'll have a big market 
 for anything you do. A tremendous position." 
 He brightened into one of his pleasant smiles. 
 
 " It won't touch me," George said, lazily. " I 
 shall always be essentially the rotten apple I 
 have been. If I ' succeed ' on the strength of 
 this absurd book, I shall only be a hilmbug as 
 well." 
 
 Gregory raised his hands with the shocked 
 air of a priest listening to blasphemy. It was 
 an article of faith with him that George was 
 brilliant in his work as in his life. 
 
 George looked at the clock ; the minute 
 hand was dropping to a half-hour. There was 
 so much to be decided. 
 
 " I suppose I couldn't buy this place back 
 again," he asked. Then he saw that that 
 would be no solution. 
 
 It would mean not a prolonging of the old, 
 slow, charming life. It would be only the 
 commencement of endless false positions. He 
 couldn't stroll any more with Clara Brede. 
 Something must now occur. He wasn't the 
 man, she wasn't the woman, to carry on an 
 intrigue, to deal in sordid concealments. It 
 wasn't matter for even a passing thought. At 
 the same time, he could not leave the matter to 
 chance. How much did he owe to Clara's 
 feelings ? Wzs he pledged to take her and 
 
THE BANKRUPT JEWELLER, 3^5 
 
 afterwards to shield her ? But he owed it to 
 her father, to keep sacred in his eyes his own 
 image as disinterested. 
 
 Gregory said : " That, of course, would lie 
 with your purchaser. But if I were you, I 
 would stick to the bargain." He was talking 
 about the re-purchase of the house, 
 
 "Oh, I don't want to stop here," George 
 added, negligently. "Besides, I haven't the 
 money."' 
 
 It had been slowly dawning upon him ever 
 since he had opened Beale's telegram; it flashed 
 disastrously in upon him now ! He had 
 enough money to support Clara Brede ! 
 
 One of his holds had been swept away. 
 
 But her father remained. Nothing could 
 clear him out of the way. He couldn't carry 
 off the daughter. The point was : ought he to 
 see her again ? 
 
 Gregory was musing pleasantly. He 
 muttered: " It means at least six thousand 
 pounds already, doesn't it ? " 
 
 George did not hear him any more. The 
 point was : ought he to risk a farewell ? And 
 he knew that he ought not. He dared not risk 
 it. He could not stand the strain. Neither of 
 them could. She would stand in the arched 
 porch ; she would walk beside him to the gate; 
 there would be just a shimmer of moonlight 
 and they would be parting for good. He 
 couldn't risk it ! He would say something 
 disastrous. It would come out in spite of him- 
 
526 tHE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 self. And then He was never to see her 
 
 again ! 
 
 A sudden footstep on the road outside made 
 him start violently. He understood that all the 
 time he was expecting her to come, to say 
 something to him, to bring some message from 
 her father, to pass the window once again in her 
 blue cloak. His gardener was coming back 
 from morning service. 
 
 George went to the window. He wanted to 
 see her and her father passing down the church- 
 yard homewards. Her father was the only 
 obstacle now. He was a hale man. He would 
 not die ; George would not want him to die. 
 There was not any other way. He couldn't 
 even think of saddening Mr. Brede ; of shaking 
 his belief in human nature. It must do that if 
 he, George, abducted his daughter. It would 
 seem like a small, usual intrigue — the petty 
 horror Thwaite had thought him capable of. 
 
 In the churchyard the old and bent form of 
 the sexton hobbled goutily over the pebbles of 
 the path. He was swinging the church key 
 round his thumb. The church was empty. 
 She had gone. He could not risk seeing her 
 that evening. He would never see her again. 
 
 He turned upon Gregory. "We had better 
 lunch," he said. 
 
 At dusk the solemn and insistent jangle of 
 the church bell took the place of the clock face, 
 which became a pale blur. He had only the 
 
THE BANKRUPT JEWELLER. 327 
 
 length of the church service now. He could 
 not remember how long it lasted. The church 
 windows became suddenly glowing and tall. 
 He would not be able to see her going in. His 
 hall lamp was lit, too ; a thin beading of light 
 fell through the crack of the door. His 
 servants hurried down the steps — the old 
 housekeeper after them. It irritated him. He 
 would, if he were going to say good-bye to the 
 Bredes, have to lose precious time in taking 
 leave of the servants. He couldn't treat them 
 like dogs ; they had been good servants to him. 
 
 Suddenly it flashed upon him, he couldn't 
 be guilty of the incredible cruelty of leaving 
 her without a word. He was in the middle of 
 it all again. The voice of Gregory became in- 
 tolerable. He was talking about his next ex- 
 hibition, a Spanish one. It was ?,s if they were 
 in a house where someone lay dying, talking to 
 pass the time. 
 
 Minutes assumed their preposterous air of 
 being each a separate eternity. The service 
 must long be over. He moved restlessly. The 
 clock ting'd the half-hour. No. Mr. Brede 
 must be in the middle of his sermon. At 
 the hour George would be setting off 
 for the station at last. He would have to 
 say good-bye to the Bredes ; he would 
 have to be commonly polite. He might even 
 think of something to say to Clara ; something 
 that, in a flash of joy, she might understand 
 and treasure until she forgot. He had only an 
 
328 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 hour now, all told, in which to catch his train. 
 And he had to see his servants, too. An 
 immense quiver, running all through him, told 
 him that nothing was settled. In spite of 
 everything his mind whispered to himself — in 
 spite of his reasoning, of his ideas of right and 
 fitness, he had not mastered his heart. It 
 began to beat solemnly and insistently. If only 
 there were no Mr. Brede 
 
 He would not go. He would have to stop 
 and explain to Clara Brede. They must part 
 openly from each other, they must face it to- 
 gether. She was so brave — and he, he 
 
 would' nt make a fuss. But no What 
 
 was he to do ? 
 
 Heavy footsteps sounded outside. It must 
 be her father. What was going to happen ? 
 Mr. Brede must have heard that he was going ; 
 he would make a frightful scene. George 
 hadn't thought of the frightful scene he would 
 make. Gregory cleared his throat. 
 
 The outer door was opened. He was com- 
 ing in. There was a clanking footstep in the 
 hall ; a fumbling knock on their door. What 
 was going to happen ? The crack widened ; 
 George caught a glimpse of scarlet cloth and 
 of shining metal buttons. He got up quickly 
 to face a military uniform. The callow head 
 of the grocer's son was staring at him above a 
 too tight collar. He remembered that Mr. 
 Brede's sermon was to have been to the 
 Volunteer's. The boy said : 
 
THE BANKRUPT JEWELLER. 329 
 
 "Please will you come to Mr. Brede ?" 
 
 Mr. Brede must have heard that he was 
 going. The boy's eyes stared at him as if the 
 stiff collar choked him. He grew calm him- 
 self. Yes, he was coming. The Volunteer 
 disappeared. 
 
 George took his cap, and went slowly along 
 the dark street. It occurred to him that Mr. 
 Brede had been asked to preach a course of 
 sermons to Volunteers. He wanted to con- 
 sult him before consenting. In that case they 
 would meet in the vestry. George might tell 
 him there ; there could not, in the nature of 
 the place, be any scene. They would part. 
 As he walked with his head bent down, pon- 
 dering, across the turf of the graveyard, he 
 pictured the vestry with its deal wainscotting, 
 the surplices hung up, and glaring oil lamp, 
 the strong shadows. He rehearsed a swift 
 parting speech. It was very dark, and he 
 stumbled over a grave. He thought mourn- 
 fully enough that whatever else had happened, 
 he had cured Mr. Brede, At least, in that he 
 hadn't bungled. He had forced him to deliver 
 the sermon. 
 
 The light, shooting from the open door, lit up 
 a circular crowd of scarlet coats and of black 
 dresses. He caught sight of the clumsy round 
 of the big drum. A voice said : " Here's 
 Moffat. Get out of the way." Faces, bent 
 forward, peered straining into the bright door- 
 way. He went in. 
 
330 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 Above the high, brown pews, beneath the 
 soaring vault of a column rendered patchy and 
 pallid by the glare of a lamp, the pulpit was 
 rent from panel to panel. Low and stifled 
 voices came from the invisible aisle on the 
 right. One of the sides of the pulpit hung 
 towards the ground ; a fixed reading candle 
 drooped, twisted and contorted, above the 
 preacher's cushion. It passed slowly through 
 George's mind, paralysingly : " There's been 
 an accident." He stood still for a moment, 
 thinking nothing. The great vault of the 
 church soared into gloom above him ; on the 
 altar table the brass candle-sticks and vases of 
 artificial flowers gleamed gaily above the white 
 altar-cloth and the diagonal, bright patterns of 
 the frontal. 
 
 He walked swiftly round the pews. A knot 
 of men stood stupidly, panting round a tall, 
 canopied, mediaeval tomb. They moved apart, 
 and he saw Clara Brede bending over her 
 father. He was sitting, crouched and with his 
 hands to his face, at the feet of a cross-legged 
 effigy. A fragment of his surplice hung jagged 
 on his black, left shoulder. As George ap- 
 proached, Clara, still leaning over her father, 
 raised her head. Her face was distorted ; her 
 eyes had in them great tears, like those he 
 remembered to have seen in some heavily 
 painted picture. He had thought them im- 
 possible. They looked at him, intensely, 
 dumbly, with an agony of appeal. 
 
TniE feANKRUlPT JEWELLER. 33 1 
 
 " This is what we have done," she said. 
 " Oh, George ! " 
 
 Mr. Brede had gone mad in the middle of 
 his sermon. 
 
IX. 
 
 " Then, now there is no one between us." 
 
 The thought came suddenly into George's 
 mind. It was two nights later, and he stood 
 with his foot on the step of a carriage, looking 
 at his watch in the light of the lampsj Behind 
 him a long building wavered out of sight, old, 
 high walled, with a light shining here and there 
 in a window. A yew tree stretched dim and 
 shadowy tiers of feathery needles over him. 
 He stopd reflecting over his watch ; it was 
 ten o'clock. He was eight miles from home ; 
 then he remembered that he hadn't any home. 
 For a moment he thought of driving straight 
 to the junction, then he snapped his watch to. 
 As he got into the black recess before him his 
 eyes ran along the face of the old house. It 
 was long, rambling, comfortable in its outlines 
 of an old manor. The lights of his carriage 
 turned in the drive, there wavered palely in 
 the light details of the brickwork, some rose 
 leaves and a grating before a window. 
 
 He sank back into his corner. Twenty 
 minutes before there had been before him the 
 presence of Clara Brede's father. Now he 
 was in the house George was leaving, like 
 a man buried and no more. He was even 
 
THE BANKRUPT JEWELLER. 333 
 
 more than dead, since the dead seem to us to 
 have spirits, and it was impossible to imagine 
 his imprisoned soul watching the things of this 
 earth. His spirit was more clouded than the 
 soul of any dead man ; his weary ghost could 
 not walk between his daughter and her lover. 
 
 The dreadful two days that had gone before 
 stood, packed with detail, clear in George's 
 mind. Everything in them was defined and un- 
 forgetable. But two things stood out — his love 
 for her, and hers for him. It was plain and 
 manifest : only the spoken words were needed 
 now to make it alive and actual. They had 
 spoken enough in the long hours whilst her 
 father lay silent and breathing heavily in the 
 shadow of his immense bed. That great and 
 shadowy figure had presided at their remorse, 
 at her tears, at her passionate self-reproach — and 
 at his mournful repentance. It had filled the 
 house with a numb quiet ; the}'^ spoke, but it 
 seemed as if they were whispering. 
 
 ^George and his brother had taken every- 
 thing into their hands. If it were a brain speci- 
 alist who had broken to her that her father 
 would never speak consciously again, it was 
 Gregory who had fetched him,and it was George 
 who had acted, as best he could, the part of 
 consoler.^ There was no sharing the responsi- 
 bility, and there wasn't any avoiding it. She 
 crept, after the specialist had spoken to her, up 
 to her father's room, as if she would be able to 
 convey to him, in silence, her misery and her 
 
334 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 repentance. George was there, looking silently 
 at the great figure, that lay like a deeper blot 
 in the shadows of the funereal bed curtains. 
 
 " That man says that we did it," she said. 
 
 Her father was always to be silent now. His 
 head was always to hang on his breast ; it would 
 shake a little at times, as if he were puzzled or 
 as if he were shaking away tears. And he 
 would never hear a word again. 
 
 " Do you remember," she asked, suddenly, 
 " that night he said I had been very good and 
 patient with him ? " The big figure moved a 
 little as if with her voice, a great hand clasped 
 and unclasped itself. " That man says it was 
 the preaching. Oh, poor dear, he thought it 
 was fighting with devils up there ..." 
 
 She shuddered violently. 
 
 George said : " Yes, it was that." He paused. 
 " You couldn't reproach me more bitterly than 
 I " 
 
 She put her hand on his arm imperiously to 
 stop him. 
 
 " No, I did it," her voice came. " I did it. I 
 knew more than you." 
 
 " You couldn't have stopped my meddling," 
 George said, bitterly. 
 
 Her eyes dilated, and she spoke breathlessly : 
 " I ought to have sent you away. I had been 
 warned. I had seen him before." She be- 
 gan to speak in a brooding monotone : " Yes, 
 I had been warned. I ought to have known 
 if anyone did, how bad " 
 
THE BANKRUPT JEWELLER. 335 
 
 George said, harshly : " Don't say that. 
 Don't think that. I forbid it." 
 
 She had used the very words, the very tone, 
 that her father had used so often, and George 
 was stung with a terrible dread : the family 
 likeness, the terrible overscrupulousness was 
 there again. He paused, overcome with his 
 sharp fear ; he had never been so moved. 
 
 " I forbid it," he repeated, and he felt as if 
 he could make her obey him. " We can't 
 divide the responsibility. I'll take it, if you 
 like." She tried to speak. " Or," he went on 
 gently, " I'll let it rest with him, with his 
 nature, with those who have taught men to 
 dread, with his God . . " 
 
 But, as if he couldn't keep back a truth, he 
 said : " No, it was because I cared for him too 
 much. One kills, it seems to me, those one 
 likes too well." 
 
 She said : " Oh, no. Oh, no." 
 
 He took her hand in both his own. He 
 wanted to soothe her by the sound of his 
 voice : " One persuades them to do things 
 that one thinks will make them more happy, 
 or more honourable or more serviceable to 
 their fellows. And then, oh my dearest child, 
 the strain breaks them." 
 
 She shook her head with a dumb vehemence. 
 
 " Don't. Don't," she whispered. " Don't 
 force me to talk, here, now." Her voice broke 
 in her throat. " Look at him ! " 
 
 Her hand, gripped in his, moved convul- 
 
336 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 sively, like something craving of itself for pity. 
 
 " I ought never to have seen him," George 
 said. " I've spoilt too many lives." 
 
 She dragged her hand from his, and pressed 
 her fingers into her ears : 
 
 " Oh, don't ; oh, don't," she moaned. " It's 
 like deserting us. He was so fond of you. He 
 never smiled at anyone but you. Wouldn't 
 you have let him have that little pleasure ? " 
 She spoke between the heavings of her 
 breast, her dilated eyes closed and opened, 
 gazing at him, and because she was 
 tottering on her feet, she caught at the curtains 
 of the bed. " And me ! And me ! What's to 
 become of me, if you make me think these things 
 about you ? I'm so alone. And he — don't say 
 that he made you do wrong. Oh, you mustn't 
 desert us. You mustn't desert us. You must 
 not, you daren't wrong us, me and him. What 
 else is it, if you say that he made you do wrong." 
 
 she fell suddenly on her knees beside the 
 bed, and as if in a passionate appeal to the 
 man that lay there, she felt blindly for his 
 hand. The flame of the candle that had 
 stirred with her motion became a still and soHd 
 cone of fire. To George they seemed so 
 terribly alone, all the three of them : alone to- 
 gether with their problems, their responsibili- 
 ties, their remorseless destinies, and their dead 
 and more remorseless pasts. * 
 
 " God knows," he said, " I wouldn't wrong 
 you or him." 
 
THE BANKRUPT JEWELLER. 337 
 
 " You dare not," she answered : " you dare 
 not." 
 
 To George, outside the gate, holding the fly 
 door handle, the specialist had said : " Get that 
 girl away. Hasn't she relations or any 
 friends ? Well, get her away. How splendidly 
 your creepers do here." 
 
 He shut the door on himself with profes- 
 sional skill, and drove away beside Gregory's 
 blinking face. 
 
 That was George's last sight of his brother. 
 Gregory was summoned to town ; George was 
 to cross the Channel next morning. He would 
 have to start early, practically at dawn, if he 
 wished to avoid seeing the new owner of his 
 house. Gregory on his way up was to arrange 
 for Mr. Brede's reception at an asylum a few 
 miles further up the line. 
 
 But Clara had no relations, and no friends ! 
 It was one more fatality ; all her people were 
 out of England, and Thwaite, struck down by 
 the shock of his dismissal, was in a brain fever. 
 That also, George thought bitterly, was his 
 handiwork. He had dragged that wretched 
 man into that family. And Dora was tied to 
 his bedside. That sister, too, Clara had lost, as 
 utterly as she had lost her father. And all 
 her friends had dropped away from her, 
 whilst she had been tied first to her mother, 
 then to her father. She was entirely alone : 
 there was no one but himself to think for 
 her, 
 
338 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 And then it was all over. George drove to the 
 asylum very late, a black presence sitting alone 
 with him in the intense darkness of a hearse- 
 like carriage. The only sights were the swift 
 flitting past of the hedgerow briars, revealed 
 for an instant in the glow of the lamps. 
 
 A presence. . . . The man for whom he had 
 cared so much seemed to him now at minutes 
 only a deeper blot in the gloom, a more intense 
 silence, a void more empty than if there had 
 been no one. Then again, the reflection from 
 a white wall showed dimly, for an instant, 
 features, the outline of a beard, a glimpse of a 
 man. It wasn't possible that he was shut out 
 from them for ever ; it wasn't thinkable that a 
 time had come when no words ever again could 
 hearten him, make him speak or smile. It was 
 to George as if there must be some secret 
 words, some open sesame, that would touch 
 the springs of his brain. And as the wheels of 
 the carriage crept along, it was as if that word 
 must be at the tip of his tongue. He wanted 
 that drive never to end, so that he should have 
 time to think. 
 
 In the narrow street of a market town some- 
 thing blocked their way, and the light from 
 behind a chemist's carboy shone brilliantly in 
 upon them. The great head turned upon 
 George, the hopeless eyes seemed to unveil. 
 " It's me, Moffat," George said, instinctively. 
 
 There was no answer ; the carriage rolled on 
 again out into the darkness, It was for a time 
 
THE BANKRUPT JEWELLER. 339 
 
 a consolation to George, the feeling that they 
 were doing something together, as if they were 
 on an expedition alone. They had driven that 
 road so often on the way to his parish. George 
 wanted the drive never to end ; at corners of 
 rough and narrow lanes it seemed to hang, to 
 pause for a long time. When they went on 
 again it was to George like a disillusionment, 
 because they were nearing the end. 
 
 Gradually there settled down upon him, there 
 grew more and more overpowering, the feeling 
 that this was a treachery. He seemed to be 
 there in order to soothe that poor thing until 
 he handed it over to a palpable gaol. He was 
 decoying this man behind gates that would 
 close for ever. It would be better to turn him 
 loose into the darkness, enraged and violent, to 
 let him dash himself to death against the black 
 walls and the black trees, to let him die frenzied 
 and gigantic, but at least free and like a man. 
 
 No luminous thought came to him, no 
 philosophy that consoled him ; no reasoning 
 could make this thing anything other than 
 lamentable. There was no possibility of lean- 
 ing back and saying : "Perhaps, after all, it was 
 for the best." That might have been possible 
 had death come, for rest would have come with 
 it. But this was a continuing misery, a long 
 blackness — and a treachery. 
 
 And then all that was over ; there was a 
 lighted hall so bright that he could not see at 
 first. A man with an expressionless face 
 
340 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 motioned him to lead the great black form into 
 a room where no unfamiliar voice could start 
 dreadful fancies in its brain. George felt the 
 pressure on his arm, the weight, the action of 
 a great affection, of a tender solicitude — it was 
 his final guiding and a final treachery. 
 
 George left him sitting with his immense 
 hands hanging inert. His heavy eyes gazed 
 unseeingly in front of him, his head was shak- 
 ing a little. It was not even possible to press 
 his hand in farewell. George tried to remem- 
 ber the last time he had said good-bye, but he 
 could not call it to mind. 
 
 A doctor with a comforting professional 
 manner assured him that every care would be 
 taken of his friend. Their system was humane, 
 their living rooms bright and healthy, their 
 employees were men who had been thoroughly 
 tested. He insisted upon showing George 
 over the establishment. Then at last George 
 was outside, looking mechanically at his watch, 
 without a thought, without anything to think 
 of, as if for an instant his brain were marking 
 time. 
 
 But as the blackness of the empty carriage 
 enveloped him, there came that immense fact : 
 there was no one now between himself and 
 Clara Brede. For a moment he quailed before 
 the immensity of his satisfaction, as men fear 
 joys that are too great to bear. But the lights 
 shone upon the garden plants, upon the high 
 stone pillars of the old gates, and upon the 
 
THE BANKRUPT JEWELLER. 34 1 
 
 pallid briars of the hedgerows. He was going 
 to her, and after they met now they would 
 never be parted again. He sighed. Under all 
 the remorse and all the thoughts that fact stood, 
 clear, firm, and tranquil, 'brought about irresist- 
 ibly by Fate, that goes to its aim across the 
 graves of men and the wrecks of their hopes, 
 by that ironical and inscrutable destiny that had 
 made all his benefits turn into curses, and that 
 now converted a treachery into a sacred duty 
 and into an intense joy for himself.j 
 
 Clara was lying back in her long chair in 
 their brightly-lit room. After a few questions 
 and answers as to her father, a silence fell upon 
 them. Then he asked her what plans she had 
 for her future. The question seemed like 
 making believe, because he was going to take 
 her future into his own hands. 
 
 She said that she had not thought yet, and he 
 answered, " Ah, no." 
 
 She had been thinking about it all that day ; 
 it had flashed into her mind between all the 
 misery over her father. She had had paroxysms 
 of doubt ; now she was very calm because she 
 was certain he would take her away with him. 
 Over her father's body he had pledged himself 
 not to desert her ; and he loved her. He had 
 said it before all this wretchedness had come. 
 
 She lay still. She was wearing her old blue 
 dress, and the lamp on its pedestal blazed 
 brilliantly down on her bright hair and her 
 pure features. He was sitting on the window 
 
342 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 seat with his eyes upon the ground, and it was 
 she who looked at him as one still evening he 
 had held her motionless. An echo of those old 
 agonies, of those old beneficent and torturing 
 doubts, floated into her calm. He loved her. 
 
 " He had not told her of his ruin because he 
 loved her so much :" the words remained vivid 
 in her memory through all these days of misery. 
 It seemed years, a different world, since they 
 had stood together. He had caught at her 
 hand, and she seemed still to feel the pain of 
 snatching it away, and still to feel the solace, the 
 intense appeasement of the tears she had shed 
 afterwards because he had said he loved her. 
 He had not spoken for fear of shocking her, or 
 because of her father. But her father was gone 
 now, and she thought it would be easy. If he 
 did not speak in the next day, she would tell 
 him there was no room for misunderstandings 
 now. She would give him two days. 
 
 He said suddenly : 
 
 " I shall be in France to-morrow." 
 
 The new owner would be already in his 
 house in the morning. 
 
 She trembled a little ; they would have to 
 speak to-night, then. 
 
 It occurred to him swiftly that he might 
 say : " You must come with me," but he did 
 not, because it would have been too brusque. 
 He wanted to find some finer way, something 
 delicate. 
 
 He began talking slowly about life, about 
 
The banki?upt jeweller. 343 
 
 his own expectations, about how he was going 
 to live in Italy, He was looking for an open- 
 ing. He talked about happiness. He wanted 
 her to be Jaappy — to look at things in their en- 
 tirety ; not to expect too much of life, but 
 assuredly not to expect too little. Once he 
 said : 
 
 " I want you to be happy, because I am very 
 fond of you." 
 
 Her heart began to beat rapidly. It was 
 coming now. No, no ; it was too soon. He 
 must not speak yet, she was not ready ; it 
 would spoil everything. 
 
 But he said : " About what we talked of last 
 night. It is no good thinking over what is past. 
 It would be wrong. We have ourselves to 
 think of ; that, too, is a duty. You remember 
 there was a Roman who killed himself not so 
 much for fear of his future as because he 
 dreaded the recollection of his past." 
 
 The image of poor Brede came to him : 
 strong, vigorous in his tirades, crying out for 
 sympathy, and indefatigable. That was how 
 he would live in their hearts for as long as they 
 lived. He was still alive ; he was still there. 
 .George could hardly remember him as he was 
 actually then. 
 
 Clara said : " No ; you told me never to 
 think of that. I will not." 
 
 The simplicity of her utterance seemed to 
 give the measure of his influence over her, of 
 his love, and of her respect. 
 
344 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 In the reaction from the thought of her 
 father he wanted to say : " I love you ; come 
 with me." But at that moment the words 
 seemed shocking, as if they must wound her 
 ears. The memory of her father would not 
 leave him, and he repeated : 
 
 " Yes, I want you to be happy." 
 
 But she must not expect that even " below 
 the horizon " she would find pure rest. 
 
 She kept her eyes fixed on him ; there was 
 a great light in them, and her lips were parted. 
 She was suddenly more than beautiful, and to 
 him it was like a bliss of unconsciousness 
 merely to sit looking at her. She said : 
 
 " Oh, I shall not expect too much, even 
 there," and he could not remember what they 
 had been talking of, because he was so absorbed 
 in looking at her. 
 
 He looked at the clock ; it was very late, 
 That did not matter now ; nothing mattered 
 any more. She lay back without stirring, and 
 they were all alone. There was not in the 
 whole village, in the whole black countryside, 
 another watcher, another sigh, or another 
 smile. They might wait like that until they 
 started in the morning. 
 
 Suddenly he said: " I should like to take 
 you to Rimini. There is a portico there that's 
 very lovely." He got up abruptly, and she 
 shrank a little and closed her eyes, " What I 
 mean is, that it's in looking at such things that 
 we can forget ourselves, Some things are so 
 
THE BANKRUPT JEWELLER. 345 
 
 beautiful that one can look at them for a long 
 time, absorbed, unconscious, And, don't you 
 see, it's then that one is happy, When you 
 forget to think about your health, you are 
 well ; and, just in the same way, the moment 
 you think, Now I am happy, you lose the finer 
 spirit, you begin to question," 
 
 She said : " Yes, yes," eagerly, and she 
 thought : " Now he has spoken. How ten- 
 derly he has done it," 
 
 " Over there," he was saying, " there are so 
 many things. There's something for you, and 
 something for me when we differ, and at every 
 turn there's something for both of us together. 
 It's that. It's that forgetfulness, it's that 
 getting outside ourselves into communion with 
 a spirit that absorbs us — it's that that is getting 
 below the horizon." 
 
 " Yes," she said, " except at the supreme 
 moments." 
 
 He paced swiftly up and down, coming so 
 close to her that her heart shrank painfully, 
 and then receding. He said, hurriedly ; " It's 
 only action that is a difficulty." 
 
 He stepped towards her recumbent figure. 
 It was as if already he held her in his arms ; as 
 if she had said, " Ah ! " as if her head had 
 fallen back. Suddenly it slipped into his 
 mind, like an odd thought that he regarded 
 contemptuously, " This is seduction." 
 
 She wondered for one swift moment what it 
 felt like to be dishonoured. Was it like a pain ? 
 
346 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 She had looked coldly at other women. He 
 was coming : she shut her eyes. 
 
 Swift thoughts ran into her proud mind. 
 What was ignominy ? What did she care for 
 contempt ? She was going with him, and she 
 
 felt proud and calm (social codes, framed 
 
 by men for the purposes of men, were nothing 
 to her. She felt in herself no dishonour, but 
 
 the glory of sacrificing herself to him ;' 
 
 But he was coming, and she shivered. Ouf^ 
 side the darkness of her closed lids something 
 paralysing, something terrible and blissful was 
 coming towards her. 
 
 A profound thankfulness, like the spirit of a 
 prayer, shed itself over her, and her arms lay 
 as if powerless along the chair. 
 
 Suddenly she heard him say: " But it's too — " 
 
 The black and tremendous figure of her 
 father had risen before George's eyes once 
 more. /The man was dead, the man was 
 more than dead ; but his memory remained. 
 This thing would never vex his troubled 
 spirit. But his memory was in their hands, 
 and George seemed to hear men's voices 
 say, " Oh, Brede. He's in a lunatic asy- 
 lum, and his daughter ran away with a 
 married man." That contempt would fall on 
 the memory of this man that they had both 
 loved, and both impelled to his ruin. It would 
 be a final and despicable stab at the fair fame 
 of his friend's house ; it would be a final and 
 despicable treachery j 
 
THE BANKRUPT JEWELLER. 347 
 
 He said : " No, I must go. It would be a 
 calamity for us all." 
 
 The spirit of self-sacrifice that was his 
 seemed to envelope her too, now that she was 
 his. She, too, must sacrifice herself to that 
 tremendous ghost. The weariness that had so 
 often come over him in face of Mr. Brede's 
 long troubles fell upon him once more, and 
 seemed to make the invisible presence of her 
 father the more actual and the more paraly- 
 sing. 
 
 She gave a sudden and pitiful laugh of 
 incredulity, a sharp, dry sound that expres- 
 sed an utter disbelief. She could not 
 believe that her attraction would not hold 
 him. 
 
 He brought out : "I couldn't make love to 
 his daughter after ruining him." 
 
 The horror of that long drive in the dark 
 became appalling in his memory. He had 
 been calm then, like a person stupefied. 
 Now he saw it as something black and evil, 
 a retribution for the ignoble course of events 
 that had swept every obstacle away. It had 
 given him her love, it had forced upon him the 
 money that should make possible their life 
 together, it had swept aside her father. But 
 that memory and that past had risen up, a 
 thing more dreadful than any disaster in the 
 future. 
 
 She had been lying still, silent, as if she 
 were very calm, but suddenly she was 
 
348 THE BENEFACTOR. 
 
 standing up before him, very pale, tall and 
 rigid. 
 
 " You think it would be a calamity ? " she 
 asked slowly. 
 
 He did not speak. 
 
 " You told me — you told me — you forbade 
 me to think about him." 
 
 She , had thought, lying there, that with a 
 word she could change him again. She had 
 happiness in her hands ; nothing could take it 
 from her. But now she could not find any 
 words. A cold anger, a cruel pride was rising 
 uncontrollable in her, 
 
 " You told me it did not matter. You told 
 me to forget him. I was ready, God help 
 you." 'S. violent passion against the universe 
 overwhelmed her. If he were right, the right 
 was a bitter wrong to her, and it was fated that 
 all the world might think for others, and never 
 one man for her. And she had tasted happiness. 
 
 She could not trust herself to speak to this 
 man who had thrown her away^ 
 
 She stood before him, pale and tall, a 
 monastic figure in her coarse blue dress. Her 
 fair and waving hair was brilliant in the light 
 of the lamp ; her features were rigid and 
 pitiful, because the smile of the happiness 
 she had tasted had not yet vanished from 
 them. Her eyes were very wide open, as if 
 she were walking in her sleep, and mechani- 
 cally she brushed a strand of hair from her 
 forehead. 
 
THE BANKRUPT JEWELLER. 349 
 
 " Self-sacrifice," she said, slowly, " Doesn't 
 that ever end ? " 
 
 Her hands dropped passionately apart. He 
 was looking at the ground. Her dress rustled 
 inaudibly, and when he glanced up again, she 
 was no longer there. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 HOLLAND ROWBOTTOM, PRINTER, BOURNEMOUTH,