Chapter X: Part 10

Mark frankly explained his position. He thought he was qualified to translate either French or Italian books. McIntyre said he would make a note of it, and did so, entering Mark's address in a small pocket-book.

"Finish your novel," said he at parting. "And give it undivided attention."

Accordingly, Mark remained at Weybridge. He realised that if this novel failed, he must become, as Betty said, a drudge; and he was certain that hack-writing meant the sacrifice of higher literary ambitions. McIntyre was right. He must make the effort of his life to grasp something substantial. If he failed, let him clutch at straws!

Necessity lent edge to the enterprise. Each morning he woke with an appetite for work which seemed to increase rather than diminish. He became so absorbed in his task that everything and everybody became subservient to it. Archibald had taken Betty abroad; Pynsent was in Paris; Jim Corrance had been summoned to New York; David Ross still held aloof. So, for six weeks or more, he was undisturbed by the claims of friendship: the only claims at that time which he would have considered.

But to such a temperament as Mark's, speech is vital. Having no one else, he talked with Mary. He told himself that Mary was a remarkable girl, endowed with a fund of practical common sense upon which he was entitled to draw. Mary walked every other Sunday, if it was fine, with the young fellow of whom mention has been made. The rest of her time was spent with her mother and in the prosecution of duties which lay within the apple-green palings of her home. Mrs. Dew kept one servant, a cook; Mary worked in the house and in the garden.

The Dews, mother and daughter, knew that Mark was a writer. Mrs. Dew, however, considered literary work not quite "genteel." When Mark said to her: "You know, Mrs. Dew, that I'm an author," she sniffed and replied: "I didn't think you liked it mentioned."

It is curious and instructive to trace any friendship to its source. Mark had a character in his book not unlike Mary. The reviewers of his first novel agreed that Mark drew men with a firm touch; his women, on the other hand, were unconvincing, artificial, idealised. It was the most natural thing that he should say to Mary in his pleasant, friendly voice: "I s-s-say, Honeydew, if you found yourself in such-and-such a quandary, what would you do?"

Mary answered this first question so simply and convincingly that it led to many others. Mark ignored her sex, talking to her as he talked to Pynsent and Corrance.

"Such a lot depends upon the success of this book," he told her. "Journalism means bread-and-scrape, at best cakes and ale, but I'm hungering for the nectar and ambrosia of Literature. I feel my power with the men, but with the women--I grope. What I don't know about your delightful sex, Mary, would fill an encyclopaedia."

He eyed Mary with wrinkled irritability as a type of composite womanhood. After all, he reflected, "Judy O'Grady and the Colonel's lady are sisters under their skins!" Mary was a bridge by which a poor ignorant man might cross the gulf which separates the sexes. _The Songs of the Angels_ was a love story. He submitted the plot to Mary, who confounded him by an apt suggestion.

"By Jove, Honeydew, you know all about it. I suppose you've had half a dozen lovers?"

Mary blushed.

"Only Albert Batley."

He spared her confusion, but Mrs. Dew supplied details. Albert Batley had a nice growing business, as a contractor, in and about Weybridge, where houses were popping up like mushrooms in a night. Mrs. Dew fretfully complained that Mary did not know her own mind. Albert, it appeared, was quite willing to accept a mother-in-law as a permanent guest, if Mary would only accept him. "But naturally I'm not considered," she concluded, in that querulous whine which penetrated so far.

"Now, Mrs. Dew," Mark replied, "that won't do with me. Mary is as good as gold and your faithful slave."

"She won't have me long, Mr. Samphire. I'd like to see her settled, before I die."

Mark had met Albert, and been much entertained by him. Without wasting time in superfluous verbiage, Mr. Batley had given Mark to understand that he was ready to buy a wedding-ring, not to mention other trinkets, as soon as Mary gave him the word. If ever man was deeply, inextricably in Cupid's toils, Mr. Batley was he. _A propos_ of this Mark said one day:

"You see, Honeydew, when a man is in love, he knows it."

"It works the same way with a woman," said Mary. "Only more so."

"Eh?" said Mark.

Mary explained that a girl really and truly in love was of necessity aware of her condition, because the fermentation, so to speak, took place in the bottle, instead of in the barrel with the bung out. "With men," she concluded, "it often bubbles away."

Mark detected a note of pain.

"My poor little Honeydew," he said, with warm sympathy. "You have suffered. Some day you must tell me about it."

"I cared for a man," she murmured, "who cared nothing for me; but that's over and done with." Then she added, blushing: "Albert knows all about it, and he says he doesn't mind."

"There's no chance of the other----"

"No, no," Mary interrupted. "He married."

"You will make Albert very happy," said Mark; "and you will be happy yourself."

"I am happy now," she replied with conviction.

Mark said no more; but Mary's words gave him pause. She called herself happy. Happy--in what? Only one answer was possible. Inasmuch as she had given in fullest measure to others, happiness had been given to her.

*CHAPTER XXX*

*A NOTE OF INTERROGATION*

The Samphires returned to Cadogan Place in November. It was now settled that Archibald should take the Basilica whenever it was finished, but the world knew nothing of this till after Christmas, when there appeared paragraphs in the papers controlled by Conquest. One of these caught the eye of Betty, and she took it to her husband, with the direct question: "Are you thinking of leaving St. Anne's?"

He replied with a certain air of restraint: "Yes."

"Why?"

"My dearest, I can do better work there than here. I had not meant to speak about it to you--yet. Lord Vauxhall has paid me a very great compliment."

"What sort of compliment has he paid me? Did he ask you to keep so important a matter from your wife?"

"I so understood him."

"And your word is pledged?"

"Yes."

"Has he offered you more than you receive here?"

"We shall be richer by some hundreds a year."

"I am sorry," said Betty, with heightened colour. "Lord Vauxhall is shrewd. Had you seen fit to consult me, I should have implored you to remain where you are. Money is no object to you."

"True. But preferment----"

"Preferment! Promotion! That implies service. You have only been here eighteen months. There will be gossip about this."

"As if I cared for gossip."

"We will say no more about it," said Betty; "but I tell you frankly that I am hurt!"

She turned and left the room. That he should not have trusted her was hard to be borne; yet later she made allowances for him. Doubtless, Lord Vauxhall had insisted upon secrecy. Her husband's sense of honour had closed his lips. She had been unjust, unkind, a disloyal wife. She had even insulted him, hinting that an increase of income had lured him from duty. At this point she bathed her eyes, arranged her hair, and ran downstairs to beg pardon and entreat forgiveness. Archibald was magnanimous.

"You have shown the right feeling, dear Betty, which I knew you possessed. I am acting according to my lights."

Next day the Rector of St. Anne's wired to Mark to come to town; Mark replied that he had had a bad bout of influenza, in those days a new and virulent disease. Archibald, nervous about his Lenten sermons but laughing to scorn the possibility of catching influenza, went down to Weybridge in the afternoon. He found Mark looking pale and thin, but otherwise in good spirits, and on the high road to recovery.

"You're a valiant man to visit me. This confounded disease is so infectious. You laugh? You'll cry if you get it! I've been as weak as a baby. If it had not been for Honeydew----"

He spoke enthusiastically of all his nurse had done for him. Archibald nodded absently, turning over in his mind certain possible themes which he wished Mark to consider.

"Yes, yes," he interrupted. "She did what she could, I make no doubt."

"She's one of the very best," cried Mark. "I say--it was awfully good of you, old Archie, to run down here. I expect work has piled up."

"It has; it has. I want to speak to you about that." He paused for a moment, as a smile flickered across Mark's lips. Archibald, Mark was reflecting, had an axe to grind. He had not left home merely to visit a brother laid by the heels. Suddenly his feeling which had flamed grew chill. He listened perfunctorily to some introductory remarks.

"My Lenten sermons are giving me grave anxiety; I find that something out of the common is expected. If you will bear with me, I'll walk over the--er--course which I've marked out."

"Cut along!" said Mark.

Archibald winced. Mark had no sense of the fitness of things. He spoke at times as if he (the Rector of St. Anne's) were a boy in his teens. Perhaps a word in season might----

"_A propos_," he said, with dignity, "don't you think, my dear fellow, that it is time for you to put away certain childish--you will pardon the adjective--certain childish expressions. It's absurd to talk of a man of my weight--'cutting along'...."

"True! You can stroll if you like, as the placid Pecksniff strolled. You have put on weight, Archie."

Archibald, indeed, was broader and thicker about the neck and shoulders. He had lost the look of youth; the hair on the top of his head was thinner; his eyes were less clear; his fine skin had become redder and coarser in texture.

"I carry great burdens," he replied. "Perhaps I ought not to ask you to share them."

Mark responded instantly, touched by this unexpected solicitude: "I'm all right."

"You might come to us for a week. Betty will nurse you."

"That is impossible. I must finish my book."

"Oh, yes--your book. I am looking forward to reading that. But I wish you would turn your talents to something more serious than fiction. I----"

"Shall we talk about your work?"

Archibald smiled, but Mark fidgeted and frowned, as carefully culled platitudes fell upon his ear. Archibald was indeed strolling placidly down familiar paths to the great festival of Christendom. The very name of Easter had always quickened Mark's pulses. Hitherto he had hastened to the feast, the most joyful of pilgrims. Now he was shut out; or rather, the door stood wide open, but he dared not pass it. The ban lay upon him--and upon how many thousands? His imagination flared, revealing a multitude staring with yearning eyes at tables spread for others. Archibald, in his silky tones, was enumerating celestial joys. His words flowed like a pellucid stream.

"What are you smiling at?" he asked abruptly.

"I beg your pardon," Mark replied, "but you remind me of an alderman reciting to a starving mob the names of the dishes to which he and his corporation are about to sit down."

Archibald had wit enough to see and feel the point. He saw, too, that Mark was moved.

"You have an idea. I should like to hear it, although----"

"Although I am without the pale, you would say. Archie, if you would descend from your pulpit and walk in the shadows with me for a little while--and if then you could set forth my doubts and perplexities, how many, think you, of your congregation would not say: 'I, too, have wandered in those blind alleys.' And having pierced the crust of their indifference with your sympathy and insight, if then you could transmit the light which seems to have always blazed on you, this Easter would indeed be a Day of Resurrection to hundreds who now lie cold and dead." He paused, gazed keenly at Archibald, and continued: "But you--you cannot do that. You have not trod the wilderness...." He covered his face with his hand.

"It is true," said Archibald, in a low voice, "that I do lack an experience common, I fear, to hundreds of my parishioners. And if I cannot open their hearts, and you can, lend me your key."

Mark was silent. Then, as before, the sense that he had envied and hated this once dearly beloved brother made him generous.

"I will write down and send what is in my mind. No--don't thank me!"

He began to talk briskly of other things. Presently Mary came in and reminded him to take his medicine. Archibald had not seen her before. Twice during the previous summer Betty and he had come to Weybridge, but each day had been spent upon the river. Mark went into his bedroom, and Mary disappeared, to reappear a moment later with a tea-tray. Archibald was alone with her for a couple of minutes. She arranged the tea-things with quick, deft fingers, displaying the admirable lines of her figure as she moved to and fro, now standing upright, now bending down. In the soft light of the spring afternoon she looked charming, with the inexpressible freshness of youth and health. Archibald addressed her.

"You are," he was about to say "Mary," but changed it to "Miss Dew."

"Oh, no, I am Mary," she replied, smiling. "Your brother calls me 'Honeydew.'"

"My brother calls you a ministering angel."

His soft voice had that fluid quality which percolates everywhere. He meant to be polite, nothing more; he wished to thank a pretty girl who had nursed a brother: but to Mary his words had other significance; his glance became an indictment, his tone inquisitorial. Without reason, her cheeks flamed. Archibald turned aside, murmuring a commonplace. When he looked at her, after a discreet interval, she was composed but pale. She went out of the room and did not return.

"Um!" said Archibald to himself, "I must speak to Betty about this."

Not, however, till late did he find an opportunity. Harry Kirtling was dining in Cadogan Place, and loath to say good-night. The young fellow had crushed a muscle of his leg out hunting, and had come up to London to see a famous surgeon, who prescribed gentle walking exercise and massage. Harry complained bitterly of the hardship of spending a fortnight away from his kennels, but was consoled by Betty, who promised to entertain him. Despite his injury, he looked astonishingly well, and brought with him from Cumberland a breezy atmosphere of mountain and moor which Betty inhaled gratefully. He had managed to make it plain that he was still her devoted slave--a tribute which the best of women accept without scruple. And he had asked her advice upon a score of matters connected with Kirtling.

When Harry had taken his clean, lean body out of her drawing-room, Betty turned rather impatiently to Archibald.

"Has anything happened? You have been so glum. Surely you do not resent my asking Harry to dine without consulting you?"

"Harry?" His tone was heavily contemptuous. "Harry can waste as much of your time as you like to give him. Yes; something has happened."

He told his story.

"I don't believe it."

"The girl is attractive. Her mother, I am told, reckons herself a lady. Something must be done. I give you my word that I am not mistaken."

"I don't believe it," Betty repeated.

None the less, she did believe it. Here again Archibald's voice beguiled her understanding. He had acquired that power, invaluable to a clergyman or a barrister, of making every statement sound as if it were irrefutable fact.

"I went down to Weybridge to see Mark on important business, and for a quarter of an hour he sang this girl's praises. It is obvious that he wished to impress me, to make me see with his eyes."

"What is she like?" Betty asked, shortly.

Archibald described her with a deliberation which annoyed his wife.

"The girl is very comely, my dear; alluring, many men would call her. A seductive figure--round, but not too plump; the complexion of Hebe."

"That's enough," said Betty.

"I tried to do the girl justice," replied her husband with dignity. "Personally speaking, her type of beauty does not appeal to me, but as a man of the world I cannot deny that it may appeal irresistibly to others!"

"You call yourself a man of the world," said Betty suddenly. "You do not preach to us as a man of the world. If this girl loves Mark, if he has made her love him, you ought to be the first to urge him to marry her. From a pagan point of view such a marriage may seem disastrous, but from the Christian's----"

She confronted him with heaving bosom and flaming eyes. Her agitation and excitement amazed him. But he grasped the essential fact that he had blundered, that it might be difficult to retrieve the blunder. He was aware that some of his sermons moved his wife to the core, for she had told him so a score of times. He was also aware, but as yet in less degree, that as mere man he had aroused without adequately satisfying her expectations.

"If you choose to misinterpret me----" he began.

"But I don't choose. I ask you, you the preacher and teacher, to make plain a puzzle which you, not I, have propounded. Let us admit what you tell me. Heaven knows that Mark has lived a lonely and forlorn life. Never has he complained to me; but I have guessed, I have felt that--that--beneath the mask he chooses to wear a devil tears him. That devil drove him from the Church. Well, we know that misery loves company. He has talked to me about this girl. She is a plucky creature, like Mark, inasmuch as she faces adversity with a smile. She has a selfish, querulous mother to whom she is devoted. Such a girl would appeal to such a man. And now you tell me that she is attractive. It is significant that Mark never mentioned that to me. I take back what I said. I believe you are right. Mark _has_ learned to love this girl, and she loves him. And what are you going to do about it? And in what capacity? As a man of the world? Or as a priest of the Most High God?

"I beg you to compose yourself."

"You can compose me by telling the truth----"

"You dare to imply that----"

"I dare be honest with my husband. I have not been happy for some weeks, and you must have noticed it. Sometimes, particularly of late, I look for the man I married, and I find somebody else. Let me finish! I am too conscious of my own shortcomings not to be aware that between most husbands and wives lie troubled waters only to be passed by mutual faith and patience. Why, happiness is faith; and women, I often think, are on the whole happier than men, because their faith is stronger. A woman can believe in her child, in her husband, in her God. Well, as years passed, my faith in God grew dim, and you restored my sight. But now, somehow, I no longer see so clearly. Is it my fault or yours? I listen to your sermons, and then I come back to this luxurious house, and somebody tells me that you are _persona grata_ at Windsor--that you are sure to be made a bishop, as if preferment were salvation; and----"

"My dear!" said Archibald, "it is late, and I have half a dozen letters to write. You have been talking in an unrestrained manner. You are not yourself."

He left the room, erect, impassive, master of himself, but not of her. She gazed defiantly after him, clenching her slender fingers. Intuition told her that this man was trying to serve God and Mammon, but when he came to bed an hour later, she owned herself humbly in the wrong. Again Archibald was magnanimous, assuring his dearest Betty that already he had forgiven and forgotten her offence. The "forgotten" sounded patronising. As if he, with his memory, could forget! She lay awake, perplexed and dismayed, for she knew that Mark was still so dear to her that the thought of his caring for any other woman was insupportable.

*CHAPTER XXXI*

*BETTY SEES DANGER SIGNALS*

Second thoughts constrained Archibald not to interfere with Mark. He told himself that he had been alarmed unnecessarily. Mark was in no position to marry a penniless girl; the infatuation--if infatuation had been aroused--would subside, the more quickly, doubtless, if undisturbed. Moreover, he was too busy to give affairs other than his own more than a passing thought. Four days after the visit to Weybridge he received from Mark a huge envelope filled with rough notes and suggestions for a course of Lenten sermons. With these (and supplementary to them) were a score of sheets of foolscap setting forth the phases of modern unbelief, or want of belief. Archibald read this record with a keen appreciation of its dramatic value, but--it would be unfair to suppress the fact--touched to issues higher than those involved in rhetoric. His extraordinary "flair" had not been at fault. Mark had given him more than ideas: insight into a human heart. And whatever he saw Archibald could describe with emphasis and effect. At once the plan and purpose of his sermons were made clear. He would take infidelity as his theme, and treat it synthetically, putting together all forms of unbelief, and exhibiting them as the root from which evil sprang and flourished. Faithlessness was the common denominator of suffering and sin. He remembered what Betty had said about happiness in women being dependent on faith, and told her that wittingly or unwittingly she had hit a truth. But if he expected her to hit another, he was disappointed. She said quietly that she had drawn a bow at a venture.

About this time she paid a visit to Weybridge, Mark still pleading work as an excuse for not coming to Cadogan Place. Archibald awaited her report with awakened interest. Betty told her husband that Mark was certainly madly in love--with his heroine.

"And he tells me," she concluded triumphantly, "that Mary, who seems a nice modest girl, is going to marry a Mr. Batley. When _The Songs of the Angels_ is sent off to his publisher, he will come to us."

About mid-Lent the novel was despatched to town. After a few days a letter came from McIntyre, accepting the MS. and offering better terms than Mark had expected--fifty pounds upon the day of publication and a royalty upon a sliding scale. An American publisher, Cyrus Otway, who had large dealings with McIntyre's house, happened to be in England. He offered Mark similar terms for the American rights. Mark was jubilant, but McIntyre predicted limited sales.

"It will be well received," he said. "My readers have no doubt on that point, but we do not expect it to be popular. You have an admirable style, but your subject--eh?--is sublimated: over the heads of many. And the story is sad. The public likes a happy ending. Other things being equal, the story with the happy ending sells four to one at least. Mr. Cyrus Otway would like to meet you." Mark lunched with Cyrus Otway, and was entertained handsomely.

"I'll be frank with you, Mr. Samphire," said the Boston publisher, a thin, pale, carefully dressed man, with a typical New England manner as prim and precise as a spinster's, and very bright, restless eyes. "This is an experiment on our part--a leap in the dark. Our people, sir, know a good thing when they see it. But the difficulty lies in making them see it. Have you done any dramatic work? You have not. Ah, there's a goldfield! And, if I may be allowed to say so, I think that you would strike rich ore there. You have dramatic power and a re--markable insight into character...."

Mark repeated this conversation to Betty. He was staying at Cadogan Place and in high spirits. The drudgery of hack-writing no longer impended. Already he was in a position to do the work he liked best where and when and how he pleased.

"A hundred pounds is not much," said Betty doubtfully.

"It will last me a year," said Mark.

Meantime, Archibald's Lenten sermons were filling St. Anne's every Sunday and exciting widespread comment. Mark had seen and revised the first three before he left Weybridge. The others were prepared and written out under Mark's eye in the comfortable library at Cadogan Place. The Rector of St. Anne's made no scruple of accepting what help his brother could give him. Mark honoured all cheques, reflecting that this was a labour of love, which made for his happiness as well as Betty's. It never struck him that he was compounding a moral felony. Such knowledge came later; but, at the moment, had any person--Lady Randolph, for instance--pointed out what he was doing, he would have indignantly (and honestly) repudiated his own actions.

Betty listened to every word of these sermons and told herself she was the wife of an evangelist. None the less, she did not ignore the fact that a sharp distinction lay between Archibald as Man and Archibald as Priest. One day she said to Mark, "Somehow one does not expect a great preacher to lose his temper because the cook has sent up cod without oyster sauce."

"Oh, his little weaknesses ought to endear him to such a woman as you are. He tells us each Sunday what a man ought to be, and on weekdays he shows us what a man is. A preacher without his little infirmities would be as uninteresting as--as cod without oyster sauce."

After Easter, Mark returned to Weybridge. Betty missed him so much that she had a fit of nervous depression which lasted two days. She made a resolution to devote herself to parochial work, to begin a course of stiff reading: pamphlets dealing with the better housing of the poor, and kindred subjects.

Mark was now absorbed in writing another novel, and in the correction of proofs. _The Songs of the Angels_ appeared simultaneously in New York and London upon the first of May. Mark wrote to Betty that he had never felt in such good health, or more sanguine about the future. He was living in the open air, and had the appetite and complexion of a gipsy.

Archibald, meanwhile, was working hard on committees, hand-in-glove with a ducal philanthropist, whose music-loving duchess declared that Mr. Samphire had the best tenor voice in the kingdom. In return for this high compliment, the Rector of St. Anne's was persuaded to sing at the duchess's small dinner parties; and this led to a widening of a circle of acquaintance, which now included some very great people indeed. Betty found herself dining out three days in the week, and was amazed to discover that her husband enjoyed this mild dissipation. As a celebrity he began to be courted wherever he went, and his photograph embellished certain shops. Young women entreated him to write in their albums.

The world said that Chrysostom was a good fellow and still unspoiled, but his wife noted an ever-increasing complacency and compliancy which gave her pause. He had begged her, it will be remembered, to keep at arm's length certain frisky dames whom she had met at Newmarket and Monte Carlo, when she was under Lady Randolph's wing. These ladies were of no particular rank or position. But when Lady Cheyne, notorious all over Europe before and after she married her marquess, called upon Mrs. Samphire, Archibald insisted upon Betty returning the call and accepting an invitation to dine at Cheyne House. Betty protested, but he said blandly: "I have reason to know that Lady Cheyne is an indefatigable worker in Chelsea. She will be a parishioner of ours when we go to the Basilica. Personally I do not believe half the stories they tell about her."

"I should hope not," said Betty. "If a quarter be true, she is dyed scarlet."

Often she talked to Lady Randolph, but never with the candour of bygone days. Intuition told her that her old friend had no great liking for Archibald, although she rejoiced at his success.

"You were at Cheyne House last night," said Lady Randolph, with the twinkle in her eye which Betty knew so well. "I dare swear the dinner, my dear, was better than the company."

"Archie says the dinner was perfection." Then she flushed slightly, remembering that her husband ought to know, for he had spared but few dishes. "Have you read Mark's new book?"

"I have," said Lady Randolph.

At once Betty began to praise the _Songs_. It was to be inferred from her sparkling eyes and eager gestures that Mark's success had become vital to her. Lady Randolph drew conclusions which she kept to herself. But that night she said to Lord Randolph: "I saw Betty Samphire this afternoon. It is as I feared. Her parson, the man beneath the surplice, never inspired anything warmer than respect."

"Ay, say you so? Dear me--that's a pity. But there's stout stuff under the surplice."

"Stout?" Lady Randolph smiled. "You have hit the word, Randolph. Stout--and growing stouter. And some of the stuff is--stuffing."

"My dear, you are severe. _Who drives fat horses should himself be fat_. I have noticed that your good round parson is the most popular; your lean fellow makes everybody uncomfortable. Archibald is thought highly of. He is approachable; he has great gifts of organisation; he is liked by Nonconformists and Roman Catholics."

"No doubt," replied Lady Randolph impatiently. "In a word he can lunch at Lambeth and dine at Cheyne House, but I am thinking of Betty. A sword impends."

In a vague, mysterious way Betty herself was conscious of danger. As a girl the pageant of the London season had excited her. Her sensibilities, too keen, her adaptability, her faculty for enjoyment, inevitably were overstrained during those feverish months between April and August. When she married a clergyman she told herself that she was out of the rapids and at rest in a placid backwater. Now, involuntarily, she had been sucked into the current again. And curiously intermingled with the feeling of apprehension was a thrill. At times the desire to let herself go, to fling herself, like a Maenad, into the gay crowds, to be reckless, as they were, became almost irresistible. The devil-may-care temperament of the De Courcys set her pulses a-tingling. But so far she had restrained these longings. And then one night, in late June, Harry Kirtling met her at a ducal house to which Archibald deemed it a duty to go. A splendid entertainment had been provided. A famous prima donna and a brilliant violinist enchanted lovers of music; a French comedian travelled from Paris to recite; minor luminaries twinkled round these fixed stars. A few choice spirits, however, had withdrawn to a small room set apart for cards, wherein a young guardsman had opened a bank at baccarat. This was in flagrant bad taste, for both host and hostess detested gambling. Yet it lent a spice to the adventure. Lady Cheyne told her cavalier that she felt as if she were meeting a lover in a church. When the fun was getting furious, Betty and Kirtling came in on the heels of curiosity. Betty drew back, but Harry held her arm. A moment later he was recognised and invited to try his luck. Always easy-going and thoughtless, he pressed forward, half dragging Betty with him. Lady Cheyne looked up, saw Betty, and screamed with laughter. Her mocking laughter roused the devil in Betty. She had not gambled since her marriage; and gambling in all its forms was regarded by Archibald as a deadly sin. Upon the Sunday succeeding Derby Day he had preached upon this very subject. He had shown that betting had become a national vice; he had described with dramatic force its moral effect upon servants and children. This was one of a series of sermons upon the sins of the day, in the preparation of which the Rector of St. Anne's needed no assistance from others: culling his facts from pamphlets and Blue Books, and marshalling them with the skill which comes from long practice. To such sermons Betty lent an indifferent ear. They were of the Gradgrind type: too didactic, too florid, too obvious, to appeal to the intellectual members of his congregation. He preached in the same Cambyses vein upon drunkenness and gluttony. When Lady Cheyne laughed, Betty was vouchsafed a vision of her husband as she had seen him ten minutes before, sharing a _pate_ with a be-diamonded countess who admitted frankly that she lived to sup.

"You must not peach, Mrs. Samphire!" cried Lady Cheyne, turning up her impudent nose.

For a moment the game was stopped, and those present stared at Betty.

"Peach?" echoed Harry, who had certainly taken more than his allowance of champagne. "Not she! Come on, Betty, let us venture a sovereign!" He put his hand into his pocket and pulled out a five-pound note. "Halves?" Betty nodded. "When it's gone, we'll stop--eh?"

Betty nodded again, beginning to laugh. One of the young men offered her his chair.

"You play," said Harry. "I'm such an unlucky beggar." He pushed the counters which he had received in exchange for his note in front of her. The dealer picked up the pack in front of him, and began to deal. Up till then he had won. Now his luck deserted him and fell on Betty.

"_Tapez sur la veine_," said Harry. "Pile it on, Betty!"

By this time Betty was sorry she had sat down. In the hope of losing what she had won already, she did pile it on, the banker making no objection. But still she won, and won, and won. And then, in the middle of the noise and laughter, the host walked in--and out! But the expression on his face put an instant stop to the proceedings. The young guardsman, looking exceedingly foolish, pulled out a pencil and began computing his losses to Betty.

"I make it seventy-five pound," he said. "I'll send it to you to-morrow, Mrs. Samphire."

"No, no," said Betty.

"Pooh," said Harry. "You forget that I'm your partner. We'll have a spree together with this ill-gotten gold." He laughed, and the others joined in, but Betty smiled dismally. All London would be prattling of this escapade within a few hours.

Going home in the brougham she told Archibald what had passed. The light inside the carriage was dim, but she felt rather than saw his face stiffen into amazed displeasure.

"And the Duke came in?"

She understood from his tone that being caught was not the least part of the offence.

"I have said that I am very sorry."

"You have made me ridiculous," said Archibald in a tone she had not heard from him before.

"You will make yourself ridiculous," she retorted, "if you take this too seriously."

He exclaimed hotly: "I would not have had it happen for five hundred pounds."

The opportunity was irresistible to murmur: "The moral obliquity of it seems to have escaped you."

"What? You laugh? You sneer? This is too much, too much."

"Much too much," Betty answered disdainfully. "I said I was sorry. Well, I'm nothing of the kind--now. I'm glad. And I shall play again, if I choose, and back horses, as I used to do, when I was a happy sinner."

To this Archibald made no reply, and Betty told herself that she was a shrew. As the brougham stopped she said in a low voice: "Archie, I apologise."

Her husband, in a voice colder than liquid air, replied: "I accept your apology, Betty, but let me beg that nothing of this sort occurs again."

*CHAPTER XXXII*

*BETTY MAKES GOOD RESOLUTIONS*

During July a deanery in the West of England fell vacant and was offered to Archibald Samphire. Conquest, acting on a hint from Lord Vauxhall, came post haste to Cadogan Place. It happened that he was shown into the drawing-room, and it also happened that on the balcony Betty sat in a chair, fast asleep, with a dull novel on her lap. The balcony was a pretty place, protected from the sun by a striped awning and filled with palms and plants.

Conquest looked more enormous than usual in a light grey frock-coat, open in front, revealing a vast extent of white waistcoat. His eyes sparkled keenly beneath the heavy black brows. Archibald found himself shirking these piercing eyes, as he explained that his library was filled with a deputation of working men, from whom he had escaped with difficulty. Conquest nodded impatiently as Archie's polished periods fell softly upon the air heavy with the heat of summer and the perfume of many flowers.

"Yes, yes," he said; "I'm obliged. I hate to be kept waiting. About this deanery--hey?"

"I am giving the matter earnest consideration."

"You can't afford to take it," said Conquest abruptly. "If you go there, you'll stay there, mark my words! That'll be the end of you. I told Vauxhall you'd too much common sense to chuck him. If it were a bishopric, of course, Vauxhall would not stand in the way. I can't pick my words. And by this time you and I understand each other."

He spread out his broad, pudgy hands in a gesture familiar to Archibald.

"How did you hear?"

"It's my business to hear things. I've a hundred eyes and a thousand ears. Well?"

"It's great preferment."

"You will be 'Mr. Dean' of course. But you'll be out of sight and out of mind. How did you get this offer? By being on the spot. I'll say a word more, only you mustn't give me away. You met the Prime Minister at Belgrave House the other day. My friend, he had heard you preach a certain sermon at Westchester, but, by gad! he'd forgotten you."

"Forgotten me?" exclaimed Archibald. "Why, he came up as soon as the ladies left the dining-room, and was most civil."

"He can be civil when he likes," said Conquest drily. "All the same, he had forgotten your name; he did not know what you were doing. The Duchess, who is a capital friend of yours and a good creature although she does sniff, sang your praises for five minutes. And that did the trick. Of course, he made inquiries; he satisfied himself that you are a corking good worker and a discreet fellow, and all that, but, bless my soul, aren't there hundreds of such? Lord--yes. But they don't dine at Belgrave House. Now, look here, I've no time to waste. I came here to do you a friendly turn. You will gain far more than you will lose by refusing this so-called preferment. And I'll see that your self-sacrifice is duly recorded. Trust me for that. You think you've made a mark. So you have; so you have; but you must deepen the impression. You've a magnificent voice, but, man--it won't carry four hundred miles. If you want it to be heard by the right people you must preach in a London pulpit."

"My dear Conquest, I really----"

"Pooh, pooh! You don't like me the less because I talk straight when no one is listening. Now--stand and deliver a monosyllable. Are you going to chuck Vauxhall? Yes--or No?"

"I have no intention of chucking Lord Vauxhall or anybody else."

"Right. That means No. Good-bye. You'll see a leader in next Saturday's _Mercury_ which will warm the cockles of your heart."

Before Archibald could reply, Conquest was out of the room. For a big man he could move--when he so chose--with amazing quickness and lightness. He disappeared, leaving a vacuum which Betty filled. As Archibald turned, after ringing the bell for a servant to show out Conquest, he saw his wife standing in the window, framed by the ferns and palms.

"Betty!" he exclaimed.

"Why didn't you kick that--that beast downstairs? I heard what he said. He insulted you. I was asleep outside. His voice woke me. For your sake, not mine, I resisted the temptation to come forward, and--oh, I could have flown at him!"

Her bosom heaved; her eyes sparkled. Archibald stared at her dully, wondering what words would meet this emergency.

"Have you nothing to say?" she cried.

"My dear," he said, "you do not understand."

"Then explain--explain!"

"Conquest means well. He is our friend; a rough diamond, I grant you, but he means well. He is our friend."

He repeated the words, sensible that they were inadequate, yet unable to find others.

"Save us from such friends!"

"I had almost decided to send a refusal."

"Why--why, only last night you were on edge to accept. You gave me a dozen _pros_ against my two or three _cons_."

"And perhaps," said Archibald, in what Betty sometimes called his "antiseptic" manner, "those _cons_ outweighed the _pros_, although numerically less. Conquest takes your view of the matter. He feels that I have undertaken a task here in Chelsea, which cannot be abandoned. He----"

"He tells you to _reculer pour mieux sauter_," said Betty derisively, "to refuse a deanery and accept a bishopric later! He--the apostle of expediency, of diplomacy, of compromise! Well--I do not judge him. But he counts you to be of his own opinion. He brands you as a time-server, a worldling, a parasite. And you let him do it--and shake hands with him! And, on next Saturday--you will read a leader in the _Mercury_ which will warm the cockles of your heart."

"Protest would have been wasted," said Archibald. "If you will excuse me, my dear, I will go downstairs. The deputation is waiting for me."

"One moment," said Betty. "I have something to say which must be said--here and now. Last night you spoke eloquently enough of that west country and the life we might lead there. And I--I," she faltered and blushed, "I was not honest when I urged you to stay here. I am drifting into the old hateful whirlpool from which I thought I had escaped for ever. I pictured to myself life in a cathedral close--stagnant, dun-coloured, full of uninteresting duties--and I recoiled from it. I smelled that old smell of cleaned gloves at all the parties. I thought of myself, not of you. But now, I beseech you to consider what London means to both of us--to you and to me. And if Mr. Conquest is right, if your sacred profession is a trade, if great success in it can be achieved only by such self-advertisement as he thinks justifiable, is such success worth having to a Christian gentleman?"

Archibald frowned. Then, feeling that his powers of speech had returned to him, he answered at length, citing certain prelates whose piety, sincerity, and humility were above reproach. Conquest took the worldling's view. He was more than half pagan, and he posed openly as a scoffer and a cynic. Still, he was right in contending that the great places in the Church's gift were held by those whom a wide knowledge of the world had equipped. Such knowledge was not to be gleaned in a cathedral close lying in the heart of a sleepy west country town. He hoped that his dearest Betty would not misunderstand him when he confessed frankly that he did aspire to the highest positions, not for what they might hold of honour or emolument, but for the power they conferred of doing widespread good to others. Warming to his theme, he flooded Betty's perplexed mind with scores of ready-made phrases--phrases laboriously accumulated: stones, so to speak, with which he had fortified his own position.

"Oh--I am muddled, muddled," said Betty.

"I have been muddled myself," her husband admitted. "Modern life must perplex and distress the wisest. And all of us at times feel a desire to get out of the hurly-burly. Shall I say that last night, feeling worn out and discouraged, I did long for the quiet and peace of that west-country deanery; but this morning--now," he expanded his chest, "I am myself again."

He smiled assuringly and left the room.

When he had gone, Betty went back to the chair among the ferns and palms. She tried to go over what her husband had said, to look at the matter fairly from his point of view. But the effort was greater than she could compass. She felt as if she had been submerged in a torrent of words, and of these words nothing was left--only a sense of desolation and isolation.

When she saw Mark a few days later, the article in the _Mercury_ had been published. Conquest was given to boasting that he could "boom" an author with such subtlety that none, not even the man himself, suspected what was being done. The readers of the _Mercury_ rose from the perusal of the article in question convinced that a seasonable and well-deserved tribute had been paid to a saintly and self-sacrificing preacher of Christ's gospel. Archibald, reading it, was aware that his cheeks, as also the cockles of his heart, were very warm indeed. Betty did not read the article. Mark, however, was full of it, not knowing that Conquest had written it.

"The truth is," he told Betty, "the truth is, Betty, that I did not like his acceptance of the Basilica. It bothered me a good deal. Now this proves plainly that Archie is above worldly considerations. Not another man of his age would have refused such an offer."

Betty asked for news of the _Songs_.

Of this Mark had nothing very encouraging to tell. The book, handsomely received by the Press, was in fair demand at the libraries, but less than two thousand copies had been sold. In America as yet it had not, so Otway wrote, "caught on." The new novel, _A Soul Errant_, was sure to be a success. He talked with animation for half an hour, describing his characters.

"You live for this," said Betty abruptly.

"Do you blame me," he answered quickly, "because I make the most of what is left?"

"I beg your pardon," she replied.

Later, she inquired after Mary Dew.

"She's having a better time of it," Mark declared. "I don't mind telling you, Betty, that I've tackled her mother. I told her she was a slave-owner, a despot, and a bully. She took it like a lamb, and things at Myrtle Cottage are easier, I can assure you."

"And Albert what's-his-name, who is going to marry your paragon----"

"Albert Batley is making money. He has a big building contract near Surbiton. He will give Honeydew all she wants, and deserves."

"You know nothing of women, Mark."

"So the critics say--confound 'em; but I tell you, Betty, I know a good woman when I see her."

"There you are; displaying your ignorance. You talk in that foolish masculine manner of good women, as if good women were in a class by themselves, and different from all others. Why good and evil are such relative terms that sometimes I can't tell one from the other."

"Then you're a miserable sinner, and blind to boot. Good, the genuine article, can never be mistaken for evil, although evil, I grant you, may counterfeit good. Bless me! I've been puzzled a score of times by sinners, but I never mistook a saint."

"How many have you met?"

"More than you think," he replied gravely.

"And where do you place me? Among the sheep or the goats?"

Mark wondered why her lips trembled. She looked tired and pale, much paler than usual.

"What a question!" he said lightly.

"I'll answer it myself, Mark. I have an extraordinary appreciation of good. There are times when I have soared--yes, that's the word--into another world. I had dreams, visions if you like, when I was a girl, but the most vivid experience of the kind came upon me unexpectedly--in Westchester Cathedral, upon the day Archie preached his sermon. I grasped Something that morning which cannot be described, but It was real substance. I grasped It, and I let It go. Since I have wondered what It was. Perhaps I--touched--God."

"Ah!" said Mark. "Go on, go on!"

She saw that his eyes were shining, that the expression which she had missed from his face since her marriage had come back.

"Go--on," she sighed. "I am going back. Can you help me?"

She turned to him with a pathetic gesture of entreaty. The light faded in Mark's face. He began to stammer.

"If I c-c-could----"

"You believed once. And now your faith is gone! Why? How? You _must_ tell me."

In her excitement she laid her hand upon his wrist, clutching it fiercely. He felt that her fingers were burning, that the fire in them was fluid, that in another moment the flame would flare in him, consuming them both. He rose, releasing his wrist with violence.

"I c-c-can't tell you that." He moved half a dozen paces from her, before he turned. When he spoke again his voice was quite steady. "Faith oozes from some people imperceptibly: there is a steady drain of which they may be unaware, but my faith left me in an instant. It may come back as suddenly. It may be redeemed. I have thought sometimes that faith is God's franchise which is given freely to all, and taken away from the unworthy. And once taken away, it is never given again, never. It must be ransomed--paid for."

As he spoke he was aware that at any cost to his own feelings the talk must be turned into safer channels. His first impulse had been one of unreasoning fear and horror. When she touched him, he lost for a terrible moment his self-control. Love is a despot whose lightest word may make the bravest coward. Seeing her distress, hearing her quavering voice, feeling her trembling fingers, he had divined his own weakness.

"Paid for?" She echoed the words. "How?"

"By sacrifice," he answered slowly. "By blood sacrifice."

When he had gone, she went to her room and locked the door. Alone, her face flamed with anger against herself. Had she betrayed her secret? She could not answer the question. Had he spoken coldly, precisely--on purpose? Nine women out of ten distrust a man's works, and have absurd and infantile faith in his words. But Betty had had a surfeit of words from her husband. Of late, much of her leisure had been wasted in trying to determine their value. Archibald's works were self-explanatory. He was indefatigable as parish priest and philanthropist. Such work could be measured; it lay within a circle, say the inner circle of the Underground Railway. But his sonorous phrases, his dogmas and doctrines, were immeasurable: including this world, past and present, and the world to come. It was natural, therefore, that finding herself compassless in a sea of sentences, she would steer by the light of such fixed stars as frequent communions, charity organisation, the visiting of the sick, and the crusade against alcohol. In a word, she had come to the conclusion that it did not matter very much what a man said, but that what he did was vital to his own welfare and the welfare of others, the true expression of his character and temperament. Whenever a woman touches the fringe of such a commonplace, you may be sure that she will watch a man's actions, the more closely, perhaps, because she has become too heedless of his words. Betty had seen Mark shrink with a violent effort from her touch; he had kept out of Cadogan Place during the summer; he had lost faith in revealed religion. What if these effects were to be traced to one cause--herself?

When she was able to think articulately, pleasure in her discovery was obliterated by pain--the bitter pangs of retrospection. Why had she doubted him--and herself? By what irony of fate had she given herself to Archibald? But almost instantly she curbed these unavailing regrets. The past was irrevocable. What did the future hold for Mark and for her? One thing was certain: they must meet but rarely, perhaps not at all.

And then ensued a struggle, from which she emerged weak indeed, but triumphant. Once again she was conscious of that sense of detachment, of looking in spirit upon the flesh; once again a strange giddiness warned her that only in fancy had she attained to the heights, that the cliffs were yet to be scaled.

When she met her husband that afternoon a closer observer than he might have detected a tenderness in her voice and manner: the first-fruits of a resolution to do her duty as wife to a good man. That night, when she said her prayers, she thanked God passionately, because she could esteem and respect the Rector of St. Anne's.

*CHAPTER XXXIII*

*ILLUMINATION*