No More Learning

Dick's always leading you into mischief.
If you aren't a gentleman, Dick, you might at least. . . '"

The sentence ended abruptly. Maisie remembered when it had last been
used.

"'Try to behave like one,'" said Dick, promptly. "Quite right. Now we'll
get some lunch and go on to Fort Keeling,--unless you'd rather drive
there? "

"We must walk, out of respect to the place. How little changed it all
is! "

They turned in the direction of the sea through unaltered streets,
and the influence of old things lay upon them. Presently they passed
a confectioner's shop much considered in the days when their joint
pocket-money amounted to a shilling a week.

"Dick, have you any pennies? " said Maisie, half to herself.

"Only three; and if you think you're going to have two of 'em to buy
peppermints with, you're wrong. She says peppermints aren't ladylike. "

Again they laughed, and again the colour came into Maisie's cheeks as
the blood boiled through Dick's heart. After a large lunch they went
down to the beach and to Fort Keeling across the waste, wind-bitten land
that no builder had thought it worth his while to defile. The winter
breeze came in from the sea and sang about their ears.

"Maisie," said Dick, "your nose is getting a crude Prussian blue at the
tip. I'll race you as far as you please for as much as you please. "

She looked round cautiously, and with a laugh set off, swiftly as the
ulster allowed, till she was out of breath.

"We used to run miles," she panted. "It's absurd that we can't run now. "

"Old age, dear. This it is to get fat and sleek in town. When I wished
to pull your hair you generally ran for three miles, shrieking at the
top of your voice. I ought to know, because those shrieks of yours were
meant to call up Mrs. Jennett with a cane and----"

"Dick, I never got you a beating on purpose in my life. "

"No, of course you never did. Good heavens! look at the sea. "

"Why, it's the same as ever! " said Maisie.

Torpenhow had gathered from Mr. Beeton that Dick, properly dressed and
shaved, had left the house at half-past eight in the morning with a
travelling-rug over his arm. The Nilghai rolled in at mid-day for chess
and polite conversation.

"It's worse than anything I imagined," said Torpenhow.

"Oh, the everlasting Dick, I suppose! You fuss over him like a hen with
one chick. Let him run riot if he thinks it'll amuse him. You can whip a
young pup off feather, but you can't whip a young man. "

"It isn't a woman. It's one woman; and it's a girl. "

"Where's your proof? "

"He got up and went out at eight this morning,--got up in the middle of
the night, by Jove! a thing he never does except when he's on service.
Even then, remember, we had to kick him out of his blankets before the
fight began at El-Maghrib. It's disgusting. "

"It looks odd; but maybe he's decided to buy a horse at last. He might
get up for that, mightn't he? "

"Buy a blazing wheelbarrow! He'd have told us if there was a horse in
the wind. It's a girl. "

"Don't be certain. Perhaps it's only a married woman. "

"Dick has some sense of humour, if you haven't. Who gets up in the gray
dawn to call on another man's wife? It's a girl. "

"Let it be a girl, then. She may teach him that there's somebody else in
the world besides himself. "

"She'll spoil his hand. She'll waste his time, and she'll marry him, and
ruin his work for ever. He'll be a respectable married man before we can
stop him, and--he'll ever go on the long trail again. "

"All quite possible, but the earth won't spin the other way when that
happens. . . . No! ho! I'd give something to see Dick 'go wooing with
the boys. ' Don't worry about it. These things be with Allah, and we can
only look on. Get the chessmen. "

The red-haired girl was lying down in her own room, staring at the
ceiling. The footsteps of people on the pavement sounded, as they grew
indistinct in the distance, like a many-times-repeated kiss that was
all one long kiss. Her hands were by her side, and they opened and shut
savagely from time to time.

The charwoman in charge of the scrubbing of the studio knocked at her
door: "Beg y' pardon, miss, but in cleanin' of a floor there's two,
not to say three, kind of soap, which is yaller, an' mottled, an'
disinfectink. Now, jist before I took my pail into the passage I though
it would be pre'aps jest as well if I was to come up 'ere an' ask you
what sort of soap you was wishful that I should use on them boards. The
yaller soap, miss----"

There was nothing in the speech to have caused the paroxysm of fury
that drove the red-haired girl into the middle of the room, almost
shouting--"Do you suppose I care what you use? Any kind will do! --any
kind! "

The woman fled, and the red-haired girl looked at her own reflection in
the glass for an instant and covered her face with her hands. It was as
though she had shouted some shameless secret aloud.



CHAPTER VII

Roses red and roses white
Plucked I for my love's delight.

She would none of all my posies,--
Bade me gather her blue roses.

Half the world I wandered through,
Seeking where such flowers grew;
Half the world unto my quest
Answered but with laugh and jest.

It may be beyond the grave
She shall find what she would have.

Mine was but an idle quest,--
Roses white and red are best!
----Blue Roses

Indeed the sea had not changed. Its waters were low on the mud-banks,
and the Marazion Bell-buoy clanked and swung in the tide-way. On the
white beach-sand dried stumps of sea-poppy shivered and chattered.

"I don't see the old breakwater," said Maisie, under her breath.

"Let's be thankful that we have as much as we have. I don't believe
they've mounted a single new gun on the fort since we were here. Come
and look. "

They came to the glacis of Fort Keeling, and sat down in a nook
sheltered from the wind under the tarred throat of a forty-pounder
cannon.

"Now, if Ammoma were only here! " said Maisie.

For a long time both were silent. Then Dick took Maisie's hand and
called her by her name.

She shook her head and looked out to sea.

"Maisie, darling, doesn't it make any difference? "

"No! " between clenched teeth. "I'd--I'd tell you if it did; but it
doesn't. Oh, Dick, please be sensible. "

"Don't you think that it ever will? "

"No, I'm sure it won't. "

"Why? "

Maisie rested her chin on her hand, and, still regarding the sea, spoke
hurriedly--"I know what you want perfectly well, but I can't give it to
you, Dick. It isn't my fault; indeed, it isn't. If I felt that I
could care for any one----But I don't feel that I care. I simply don't
understand what the feeling means. "

"Is that true, dear? "

"You've been very good to me, Dickie; and the only way I can pay you
back is by speaking the truth. I daren't tell a fib. I despise myself
quite enough as it is. "

"What in the world for? "

"Because--because I take everything that you give me and I give you
nothing in return. It's mean and selfish of me, and whenever I think of
it it worries me. "

"Understand once for all, then, that I can manage my own affairs, and if
I choose to do anything you aren't to blame. You haven't a single thing
to reproach yourself with, darling. "

"Yes, I have, and talking only makes it worse. "

"Then don't talk about it. "

"How can I help myself? If you find me alone for a minute you are always
talking about it; and when you aren't you look it. You don't know how I
despise myself sometimes. "

"Great goodness! " said Dick, nearly jumping to his feet. "Speak the
truth now, Maisie, if you never speak it again! Do I--does this worrying
bore you? "

"No. It does not. "

"You'd tell me if it did? "

"I should let you know, I think. "

"Thank you. The other thing is fatal. But you must learn to forgive
a man when he's in love. He's always a nuisance. You must have known
that? "

Maisie did not consider the last question worth answering, and Dick was
forced to repeat it.

"There were other men, of course. They always worried just when I was in
the middle of my work, and wanted me to listen to them. "

"Did you listen? "

"At first; and they couldn't understand why I didn't care. And they used
to praise my pictures; and I thought they meant it. I used to be proud
of the praise, and tell Kami, and--I shall never forget--once Kami
laughed at me. "

"You don't like being laughed at, Maisie, do you? "

"I hate it. I never laugh at other people unless--unless they do
bad work. Dick, tell me honestly what you think of my pictures
generally,--of everything of mine that you've seen. "

"'Honest, honest, and honest over! '" quoted Dick from a catchword of
long ago. "Tell me what Kami always says. "

Maisie hesitated. "He--he says that there is feeling in them. "

"How dare you tell me a fib like that? Remember, I was under Kami for
two years. I know exactly what he says. "

"It isn't a fib. "

"It's worse; it's a half-truth. Kami says, when he puts his head on one
side,--so, 'Il y a du sentiment, mais il n'y a pas de parti pris. '" He
rolled the r threateningly, as Kami used to do.

"Yes, that is what he says; and I'm beginning to think that he is
right. "

"Certainly he is. " Dick admitted that two people in the world could do
and say no wrong. Kami was the man.

"And now you say the same thing. It's so disheartening. "

"I'm sorry, but you asked me to speak the truth. Besides, I love you
too much to pretend about your work. It's strong, it's patient
sometimes,--not always,--and sometimes there's power in it, but there's
no special reason why it should be done at all. At least, that's how it
strikes me. "

"There's no special reason why anything in the world should ever be
done. You know that as well as I do. I only want success. "

"You're going the wrong way to get it, then. Hasn't Kami ever told you
so? "

"Don't quote Kami to me. I want to know what you think. My work's bad,
to begin with. "

"I didn't say that, and I don't think it. "

"It's amateurish, then. "

"That it most certainly is not. You're a work-woman, darling, to your
boot-heels, and I respect you for that. "

"You don't laugh at me behind my back? "

"No, dear. You see, you are more to me than any one else. Put this cloak
thing round you, or you'll get chilled. "

Maisie wrapped herself in the soft marten skins, turning the gray
kangaroo fur to the outside. "This is delicious," she said, rubbing her
chin thoughtfully along the fur.

"Well? Why am I wrong in trying to get a little success? "

"Just because you try. Don't you understand, darling? Good work has
nothing to do with--doesn't belong to--the person who does it. It's put
into him or her from outside. "

"But how does that affect----"

"Wait a minute.
All we can do is to learn how to do our work, to be
masters of our materials instead of servants, and never to be afraid of
anything. "

"I understand that. "

"Everything else comes from outside ourselves. Very good. If we sit down
quietly to work out notions that are sent to us, we may or we may not
do something that isn't bad. A great deal depends on being master of the
bricks and mortar of the trade. But the instant we begin to think
about success and the effect of our work--to play with one eye on the
gallery--we lose power and touch and everything else. At least that's
how I have found it. Instead of being quiet and giving every power
you possess to your work, you're fretting over something which you can
neither help no hinder by a minute. See? "

"It's so easy for you to talk in that way. People like what you do.
Don't you ever think about the gallery? "

"Much too often; but I'm always punished for it by loss of power. It's
as simple as the Rule of Three. If we make light of our work by using
it for our own ends, our work will make light of us, and, as we're the
weaker, we shall suffer. "

"I don't treat my work lightly. You know that it's everything to me. "

"Of course; but, whether you realise it or not, you give two strokes
for yourself to one for your work. It isn't your fault, darling. I do
exactly the same thing, and know that I'm doing it. Most of the French
schools, and all the schools here, drive the students to work for their
own credit, and for the sake of their pride. I was told that all
the world was interested in my work, and everybody at Kami's talked
turpentine, and I honestly believed that the world needed elevating and
influencing, and all manner of impertinences, by my brushes. By Jove, I
actually believed that! When my little head was bursting with a notion
that I couldn't handle because I hadn't sufficient knowledge of my
craft, I used to run about wondering at my own magnificence and getting
ready to astonish the world. "

"But surely one can do that sometimes? "

"Very seldom with malice aforethought, darling. And when it's done it's
such a tiny thing, and the world's so big, and all but a millionth part
of it doesn't care. Maisie, come with me and I'll show you something of
the size of the world. One can no more avoid working than eating,--that
goes on by itself,--but try to see what you are working for. I know such
little heavens that I could take you to,--islands tucked away under the
Line. You sight them after weeks of crashing through water as black as
black marble because it's so deep, and you sit in the fore-chains
day after day and see the sun rise almost afraid because the sea's so
lonely. "

"Who is afraid? --you, or the sun? "

"The sun, of course. And there are noises under the sea, and sounds
overhead in a clear sky. Then you find your island alive with hot moist
orchids that make mouths at you and can do everything except talk.
There's a waterfall in it three hundred feet high, just like a sliver of
green jade laced with silver; and millions of wild bees live up in the
rocks; and you can hear the fat cocoanuts falling from the palms; and
you order an ivory-white servant to sling you a long yellow hammock with
tassels on it like ripe maize, and you put up your feet and hear the
bees hum and the water fall till you go to sleep. "

"Can one work there? "

"Certainly. One must do something always. You hang your canvas up in a
palm tree and let the parrots criticise. When the scuffle you heave a
ripe custard-apple at them, and it bursts in a lather of cream. There
are hundreds of places. Come and see them. "

"I don't quite like that place. It sounds lazy. Tell me another. "

"What do you think of a big, red, dead city built of red sandstone,
with raw green aloes growing between the stones, lying out neglected on
honey-coloured sands? There are forty dead kings there, Maisie, each in
a gorgeous tomb finer than all the others. You look at the palaces and
streets and shops and tanks, and think that men must live there,
till you find a wee gray squirrel rubbing its nose all alone in the
market-place, and a jewelled peacock struts out of a carved doorway and
spreads its tail against a marble screen as fine pierced as point-lace.
Then a monkey--a little black monkey--walks through the main square to
get a drink from a tank forty feet deep. He slides down the creepers to
the water's edge, and a friend holds him by the tail, in case he should
fall in. "

"Is that all true? "

"I have been there and seen. Then evening comes, and the lights change
till it's just as though you stood in the heart of a king-opal. A little
before sundown, as punctually as clockwork, a big bristly wild boar,
with all his family following, trots through the city gate, churning the
foam on his tusks. You climb on the shoulder of a blind black stone god
and watch that pig choose himself a palace for the night and stump in
wagging his tail. Then the night-wind gets up, and the sands move, and
you hear the desert outside the city singing, 'Now I lay me down to
sleep,' and everything is dark till the moon rises. Maisie, darling,
come with me and see what the world is really like. It's very lovely,
and it's very horrible,--but I won't let you see anything horrid,--and
it doesn't care your life or mine for pictures or anything else except
doing its own work and making love. Come, and I'll show you how to brew
sangaree, and sling a hammock, and--oh, thousands of things, and you'll
see for yourself what colour means, and we'll find out together what
love means, and then, maybe, we shall be allowed to do some good work.
Come away! "

"Why? " said Maisie.

"How can you do anything until you have seen everything, or as much as
you can? And besides, darling, I love you. Come along with me. You
have no business here; you don't belong to this place; you're half a
gipsy,--your face tells that; and I--even the smell of open water makes
me restless. Come across the sea and be happy! "

He had risen to his feet, and stood in the shadow of the gun, looking
down at the girl. The very short winter afternoon had worn away, and,
before they knew, the winter moon was walking the untroubled sea. Long
ruled lines of silver showed where a ripple of the rising tide was
turning over the mud-banks. The wind had dropped, and in the intense
stillness they could hear a donkey cropping the frosty grass many yards
away. A faint beating, like that of a muffled drum, came out of the
moon-haze.

"What's that? " said Maisie, quickly. "It sounds like a heart beating.
Where is it? "

Dick was so angry at this sudden wrench to his pleadings that he could
not trust himself to speak, and in this silence caught the sound. Maisie
from her seat under the gun watched him with a certain amount of fear.

She wished so much that he would be sensible and cease to worry her with
over-sea emotion that she both could and could not understand. She was
not prepared, however, for the change in his face as he listened.

"It's a steamer," he said,--"a twin-screw steamer, by the beat. I can't
make her out, but she must be standing very close inshore. Ah! " as the
red of a rocket streaked the haze, "she's standing in to signal before
she clears the Channel. "

"Is it a wreck? " said Maisie, to whom these words were as Greek.

Dick's eyes were turned to the sea. "Wreck! What nonsense! She's only
reporting herself. Red rocket forward--there's a green light aft now,
and two red rockets from the bridge. "

"What does that mean? "

"It's the signal of the Cross Keys Line running to Australia. I wonder
which steamer it is. " The note of his voice had changed; he seemed to
be talking to himself, and Maisie did not approve of it. The moonlight
broke the haze for a moment, touching the black sides of a long steamer
working down Channel. "Four masts and three funnels--she's in deep
draught, too. That must be the Barralong, or the Bhutia. No, the Bhutia
has a clipper bow. It's the Barralong, to Australia. She'll lift the
Southern Cross in a week,--lucky old tub! --oh, lucky old tub! "

He stared intently, and moved up the slope of the fort to get a better
view, but the mist on the sea thickened again, and the beating of the
screws grew fainter. Maisie called to him a little angrily, and he
returned, still keeping his eyes to seaward. "Have you ever seen the
Southern Cross blazing right over your head? " he asked. "It's superb! "

"No," she said shortly, "and I don't want to. If you think it's so
lovely, why don't you go and see it yourself? "

She raised her face from the soft blackness of the marten skins about
her throat, and her eyes shone like diamonds. The moonlight on the gray
kangaroo fur turned it to frosted silver of the coldest.

"By Jove, Maisie, you look like a little heathen idol tucked up there. "
The eyes showed that they did not appreciate the compliment. "I'm
sorry," he continued. "The Southern Cross isn't worth looking at unless
someone helps you to see. That steamer's out of hearing. "

"Dick," she said quietly, "suppose I were to come to you now,--be quiet
a minute,--just as I am, and caring for you just as much as I do. "

"Not as a brother, though. You said you didn't--in the Park. "

"I never had a brother. Suppose I said, 'Take me to those places, and in
time, perhaps, I might really care for you,' what would you do? "

"Send you straight back to where you came from, in a cab. No, I
wouldn't; I'd let you walk. But you couldn't do it, dear. And I wouldn't
run the risk. You're worth waiting for till you can come without
reservation. "

"Do you honestly believe that? "

"I have a hazy sort of idea that I do. Has it never struck you in that
light? "

"Ye--es. I feel so wicked about it. "

"Wickeder than usual? "

"You don't know all I think. It's almost too awful to tell. "

"Never mind. You promised to tell me the truth--at least. "

"It's so ungrateful of me, but--but, though I know you care for me, and
I like to have you with me, I'd--I'd even sacrifice you, if that would
bring me what I want. "

"My poor little darling! I know that state of mind. It doesn't lead to
good work. "

"You aren't angry? Remember, I do despise myself. "

"I'm not exactly flattered,--I had guessed as much before,--but I'm not
angry. I'm sorry for you. Surely you ought to have left a littleness
like that behind you, years ago. "

"You've no right to patronise me! I only want what I have worked for so
long. It came to you without any trouble, and--and I don't think it's
fair. "

"What can I do? I'd give ten years of my life to get you what you want.
But I can't help you; even I can't help. "

A murmur of dissent from Maisie. He went on--"And I know by what you
have just said that you're on the wrong road to success. It isn't got
at by sacrificing other people,--I've had that much knocked into me;
you must sacrifice yourself, and live under orders, and never think for
yourself, and never have real satisfaction in your work except just at
the beginning, when you're reaching out after a notion. "

"How can you believe all that? "

"There's no question of belief or disbelief. That's the law, and you
take it or refuse it as you please. I try to obey, but I can't, and
then my work turns bad on my hands. Under any circumstances, remember,
four-fifths of everybody's work must be bad. But the remnant is worth
the trouble for its own sake. "

"Isn't it nice to get credit even for bad work? "

"It's much too nice. But----May I tell you something? It isn't a pretty
tale, but you're so like a man that I forget when I'm talking to you. "

"Tell me. "

"Once when I was out in the Soudan I went over some ground that we had
been fighting on for three days. There were twelve hundred dead; and we
hadn't time to bury them. "

"How ghastly! "

"I had been at work on a big double-sheet sketch, and I was wondering
what people would think of it at home. The sight of that field taught
me a good deal. It looked just like a bed of horrible toadstools in all
colours, and--I'd never seen men in bulk go back to their beginnings
before. So I began to understand that men and women were only material
to work with, and that what they said or did was of no consequence.
See? Strictly speaking, you might just as well put your ear down to the
palette to catch what your colours are saying. "

"Dick, that's disgraceful! "

"Wait a minute. I said, strictly speaking. Unfortunately, everybody must
be either a man or a woman. "

"I'm glad you allow that much. "

"In your case I don't. You aren't a woman. But ordinary people, Maisie,
must behave and work as such. That's what makes me so savage. " He hurled
a pebble towards the sea as he spoke. "I know that it is outside my
business to care what people say; I can see that it spoils my output
if I listen to 'em; and yet, confound it all,"--another pebble flew
seaward,--"I can't help purring when I'm rubbed the right way. Even when
I can see on a man's forehead that he is lying his way through a clump
of pretty speeches, those lies make me happy and play the mischief with
my hand. "

"And when he doesn't say pretty things? "

"Then, belovedest,"--Dick grinned,--"I forget that I am the steward of
these gifts, and I want to make that man love and appreciate my work
with a thick stick. It's too humiliating altogether; but I suppose even
if one were an angel and painted humans altogether from outside, one
would lose in touch what one gained in grip. "

Maisie laughed at the idea of Dick as an angel.

"But you seem to think," she said, "that everything nice spoils your
hand. "

"I don't think. It's the law,--just the same as it was at Mrs.
Jennett's. Everything that is nice does spoil your hand. I'm glad you
see so clearly. "

"I don't like the view. "

"Nor I.