No More Learning

Lucian the earlier to Lucian the later—and, after all, it was annoying to find one's great effort some- what looked askance at.
preferred
'I've given them too much,' he said, turning to con- siderations of breakfast with a certain amount of pity for himself. ' I ought to have remembered that the stomach of this generation is a weak one—Tennyson was wise in giving his public the Idylls of the King in fragments — if he'd given his most fervent admirers the whole lot all at once they'd have had a surfeit. I should have followed his example, but I wanted to present the thing as a whole. And it is good, however they may damn it with faint praise. '
LUCIAN THE DREAMER 173
' Does this mean that the book won't sell? ' asked Haidee, who had gathered up the papers, and was glanc- ing through the columns at the head of which Lucian's name stood out in bold letters.
' Sell? Why, I don't think reviews make much difference to the sales of a book,' answered Lucian. * I really don't know — I suppose the people who bought all my other volumes will buy this. '
But as he ate his chop and drank his coffee he began to wonder what would happen if the new volume did not sell. He knew exactly how many copies of his other volumes had been sold up to the end of the previous half-year: it was no business instinct that made him carry the figures in his mind, but rather the instinct of the general who counts his prisoners, his captured eagles, and his dead enemies after a victory, and of the
who knows that the magnitude of the winnings of a great racehorse is a tribute to the quality of its blood and bone and muscle. He recalled the figures of the last statement of account rendered to him
his publisher, and their comfortable rotundity cheered him. Whatever the critics might say, he had a public, and a public of considerable size. And after all, this was the first time the critics had not burned incense at his shrine—he forgave them with generous readiness, and ere he rose from the breakfast-table was as full as ever of confident optimism. He felt as regards those particular reviewers as a man might feel who bids all and sundry to a great feast, and finds that the first- comers are taken aback by the grand proportions of the banquet —he pitied them for their lack of appetite, but he had no doubt of the verdict of the vast majority of later comers.
But if Lucian had heard some of the things that were said of him and his beloved epic in those holes and comers of literary life wherein one may hear much trenchant criticism plainly voiced, he would have felt less cock-sure about it and himself. It was the general opinion amongst a certain class of critics, who exercised
sportsman
by
174
LUCIAN THE DREAMER
a certain influence upon public thought, that there was too much of the workshop in his magnum opus. It was a magnificent block of marble that he had handled, but he had handled it too much, and the result would have been greater if he had not perpetually hovered about it with a hungry chisel and an itching mallet. It was perfect in form and language and proportion, but it wanted life and fire and rude strength.
' It reminds me,' said one man, discussing it in a club corner where coffee-cups, liqueur-glasses, and cigarettes were greatly in evidence, ' of the statue of Galatea, flawless, immaculate, but neuter, —yes, neuter
—as it appeared at the very moment ere Pygmalion's love breathed into it the very flush, the palpitating, forceful tremor of life. ' —
This man was young and newly come to town the others looked at him with shy eyes and tender sympathy, for they knew what it was that he meant to say, and they also knew, being older, how difficult it is to express oneself in words.
' How very differently one sees things ! ' sighed one of them. ' Damerel's new poem, now, reminds me of a copy of the Pink 'Un, carefully edited by a committee of old maids for the use of mixed classes in infant schools. '
The young man who used mellifluous words mani- fested signs of astonishment. He looked at the last speaker with inquiring eyes.
* Ssh! ' whispered a voice at his elbow, ' don't ask him what he means at any time. He means that the thing's lacking in virility. '
It may have been the man who Hkened Lucian's epic to an emasculated and expurgated Pink 'Un to whom was due a subsequent article in the Porthole, wherein, under the heading Lucian the Ladylike, much sympathy was expressed with William the Conqueror at his sad fate in being sung by a nineteenth-century bard. There was much good-humoured satire in that article, but a
' You mean ' he began.
LUCIAN THE DREAMER 175
good many of its points were sharply
Lucian winced under them. He was beginning to find by that time that his epic was not being greeted with the enthusiasm which he had anticipated for it; the great literary papers, the influential journals of the provinces, and the critics who wrote of it in two or three of the monthly reviews, all concurred that it was very fine as a literary exercise, but each deplored the absence of a
certain something which had been very conspicuous indeed in his earlier volumes.
Lucian began to think things over. He remembered how his earlier work had been written—he recalled the free, joyous flush of thought, the impulse to write, the fertility and fecundity which had been his in those days, and he contrasted it all with the infinite pains which he had taken in polishing and revising the epic. It must have been the process of revision, he thought, which had sifted the fire and life out of the poem. He read and re-read passages of it—in spite of all that the critics said, they pleased him. He remembered the labour he had gone through, and valued the results by it. And finally, he put the whole affair away from him, feeling that he and his world were not in accord, and that he had better wrap himself in his cloak for a while. He spoke of the
epic no more. But unfortunately for Lucian, there were monetary considerations at the back of the new volume, and when he discovered at the end of a month that the sales were small and already at a stand- still, he felt a sudden, strange sinking at the heart. He looked at Mr. Robertson, who communicated this news to him, in a fashion which showed the pubUsher that he did not quite understand this apparently capricious neglect on the part of the public. Mr. Robertson
barbed, and
endeavoured to explain matters to him.
' After all,' he said, ' there is such a thing as a vogue,
and the best man may lose it. I don't say that you have lost yours, but here's the fact that the book is at a stand- still. The faithful bought as a religious duty as soon as we published; those of the outer courts won't buy. For
176
LUCIAN THE DREAMER
one thing, your poem is not quite in the fashion—what people are buying just now in poetry is patriotism up- to-date, with extension of the Empire, and Maxim-guns, and deification of the soldier and sailor, and so on. '
* You talk as if there were fashions in poetry as there are in clothes/ said Lucian, with some show of scornful
indignation. ' * So there are, my dear sir !
replied the pubHsher. ' If you lived less in the clouds and more in the world
of plain fact you would know it.
would think it strange, if you had ever read to find PoUok's poem, The Course Time, selling to the extent of thousands and tens of thousands, or of Tupper's Pro- verbial Philosophy making almost as prominent figure in the middle-class household as the Bible itself. Of course there's a fashion in poetry, as there in every- thing else. Byron was once the fashion; Mrs. Hemans
You, for instance,
was once the fashion; even Robert Montgomery was once fashionable. You yourself were very fashionable for three years — you see, you'll pardon me for speaking plainly, you were an interesting young man. You had
beautiful face; you were what the women call " inter- esting "; you aroused all the town by your romantic marriage—you became personality. think you've had big run of it,' concluded Mr. Robertson. Why, lots of men come up and go down within two years— you've had four already. '
Lucian regarded him with grave eyes.
Do you think of me as of rocket or comet? ' he
said. things are what you say they are, wish
But think you are wrong,' and he went away to consider all that had been said to him. He decided, after some thought and reflec-
tion, that his publisher was not arguing on sound Hues, and he assured himself for the hundredth time that the production of the tragedy would put everything right.
was now very near to the day on which the tragedy was to be produced at the Athenaeum, and both Lucian and Mr. Harpourt had been worried to the point of death
had never pubhshed an3^hing.
It
If
'
a a
I
a
I 'a
I I
is
it,
'
a a
if
of
LUCIAN THE DREAMER 177
by pressmen who wanted to know all about it. Chiefly owing to their persistency the public were now in posses-
sion of a considerable amount of information as to what it might expect to hear and see. It was to witness —that portion of it, at any rate, which was lucky enough to secure seats for the first night—an attempt to revive tragedy on the lines of pure Greek art. As this attempt was being made at the close of the nineteenth century, it was quite in accordance with everything that vast sums of money should be laid out on costumes, scenery, and accessories, and it was well known to the readers of the
halfpenny newspapers
that the production involved the of so many hundreds of supernumeraries,
employment
that so many thousands of poimds had been spent on the scenery, that certain realistic effects had been worked up at enormous cost, and that the whole affair, to put it in plain language, was a gigantic business speculation — nothing more nor less, indeed, than the provision of a gorgeous spectacular drama, full of life and colour and modem stage effects, which should be enthralling and commanding enough to attract the public until a hand- some profit had been made on the outlay. But the words
' an 'attempt to revive Tragedy on the lines of pure Greek Art looked well in print, and had a highly respectable sound, and the production of Lucian's second tribute to the tragic muse was looked forward to with much interest by many people who ignored the fact that many thousands of pounds were being expended in placing it upon the stage.
M
XXI
At twelve o'clock on the night that witnessed the produc- tion of the tragedy, Lucian found himself one of a group of six men which had gathered together in Harcourt's dressing-room. There was a blue haze of cigarette smoke all over the room; a decanter of whisky with syphons and glasses stood on a table in the centre; most of the men had abready helped themselves to a drink. Lucian found a glass in his own hand, and sipped the mixture in it he recognised the taste of soda, and remeni- bered in a vague fashion that he much preferred ApolH- naris, but he said to himself, or something said to him, that it didn't matter. His brain was whirling with the events of the night; he still saw, as in a dream, the misty
auditorium as he had seen it from a box; the stage as he had seen it during a momentary excursion to the back of the dress-circle; the busy world behind the scenes where stage-carpenters sweated and swore, and the dust made one's throat tickle. He recalled particular faces and heard particular voices; all the world and his wife had been there, and all the first-nighters, and all his friends, and he had spoken to a great many people. They all seemed to swim before him as in a dream, and th« sound of their voices came, as it were, from the cylinder of a phonograph. He remembered seeing Mr. Chilverstone and his wife in the stalls — their faces were rapt and eloquent; in the stalls, too, he had seen Sprats
CHAPTER
Berenson; he himself had spent some of the time with Haidee and Darlington and other people of their set in a box, but he had also
wandered in and out of Harcourt's dressing-room a good deal, and had sometimes spoken to Harcourt, and some- times to his business manager. He had a vague recol- lection that he had faced the house himself at the end of everything, and had bowed several times in response to
178
and Lord Saxonstowe and Mrs.
LUCIAN THE DREAMER 179
cheering which was still buzzing in his ears. The night was over.
He took another drink from the glass in his hand and
him; there was a curious feeling in his brain that he himself was not there, that he had gone away, or been left behind somewhere in the world's mad rush, and that he was something else, watching a sem- blance of himself and the semblance's surroundings. The scene interested and amused whatever it was that was
looked about
Harcourt, free of his Greek draperies, now appeared in a shirt and trousers; he stood before the mirror on his dressing-table, brushing his hair —Lucian wondered where he bought his braces, which,
looked at closely, revealed a peculiarly dainty pattern worked by hand. All the time that he was manipulating the brushes he was talking in ' disconnected sentences. Lucian caught some of them: Little cutting here and there—that bit dragged —I'm told that was a fine effect — very favourable indeed —we shall see, we shall see! ' — and he wondered what Harcourt was talking about. Near the actor-manager, in an easy-chair, sat an old gentleman of benevolent aspect, white-bearded, white- moustached, who wore a fur-lined cloak over his evening- dress. He was sucking at a cigar, and his hand, very fat and very white, held a glass at which he kept looking from time to time as if he were not quite certain what to do with it. He was reported to be at the back of Har- court in financial matters, and he blinked and nodded at
looking on from his brain.
sentence rapidly spoken by the actor-manager, but said nothing. Near him stood two men in cloaks and opera-hats, also holding glasses in their hands and smok- ing cigarettes — one of them Lucian recognised as a great critic, the other as a famous actor. At his own side, talking very rapidly, was the sixth man, Harcourt 's Lucian suddenly realised that he was nodding his head at this man as if in intelligent com- prehension of what he was saying, whereas he had not understood one word. He shook himself together as a
man does who throws drowsiness aside.
every
business-manager.
i8o LUCIAN THE DREAMER
* I'm sorry,' he said. ' I—I don't think I was pajdng attention. I don't know why, but I feel half-asleep. '
'It's the reaction,' said Harcourt, hastily getting into his waistcoat and coat. ' I feel tired out—if I had my way there should be no such thing as a first night—it's a most wearing occasion. '
The famous critic turned with a smile.
' Think of being able to lie in bed to-morrow with a
sheaf of newspapers on your counterpane! ' he said
pleasantly.
Then somehow, chatting disjointedly, they got out of
the theatre. Harcourt and Lucian drove off in a hansom together —they were near neighbours.
' What do you think? ' asked Lucian, as they drove
away.
' Oh, I think it went all right, as far as one could
judge. There was plenty of applause —we shall see what is said to-morrow morning,' answered Harcourt, with a mighty yawn. ' They can't say that it wasn't magni- ficently staged,' he added, with complacency. ' And everything went like clockwork. I'll tell you what—I wish I could go to sleep for the next six months ! '
' I believe I feel like that,' responded Lucian. ' Well, it is launched, at any rate. '
The old gentleman of the white beard and fur-lined cloak drove off in a private brougham, still nodding and blinking; the actor and the critic, lighting cigars, walked away together, and for some time kept silence.
' What do you really think ? ' said the actor at last. ' You're in rather a lucky position, you know, in respect of the fact that the Forum is a weekly and not a daily journal —it gives you more time to make up your mind. But you already have some notion of what your verdict
will be? '
' Yes,' answered the critic. He puffed thoughtfully
' Well,' he said, ' I think we have heard some beautiful poetry, beautifully recited. But I con- fess to feeling a certain sense of incongruity in the attempt to mingle Greek art with modern stage acces-
at his cigar.
LUCIAN THE DREAMER i8i
sories. I think Damerel's tragedy will read delightfully —in the study. But I counted several speeches to-night which would run to two and three pages of print, and I saw many people yawn. I fear that others will yawn. '
' What would you give it? ' said the actor. ' The other ran for twelve months. '
' This,' said the critic, ' may run for one. But I think Harcourt will have to withdraw it within three weeks. I am bearing the yawns in mind. '
CHAPTER XXII
Lucian's tragedy ran for precisely seventeen nights. The ' attempt to revive Tragedy on the Hnes of pure Greek Art ' was a failure. Everybody thought the poetry very beautiful, but there were too many long speeches and too few opportunities for action and move- ment to satisfy a modem audience, and Harcourt quickly discovered that not even magnificent scenery and crowds of supernumeraries arrayed in garments of white and gold and purple and green will carry a play through. He was in despair from the second night onwards, for it became evident that a great deal of cutting was neces- sary, and on that point he had much trouble with Lucian, who, having revised his work to the final degree, was not disposed to dock it in order to please the gods in the gallery. The three weeks during which the tragedy ran were indeed weeks of storm and stress. The critics praised the poetry of the play, the staging, the scenery, the beauty and charm of everything connected with it, but the public yawned. In Lucian's previous play there had been a warm, somewhat primitive human interest— it took those who saw it into the market-place of Ufe, and appealed to everyday passions; in the new tragedy people were requested to spend some considerable time with the gods in Olympus amidst non-human characteristics and qualities. No one, save a few armchair critics like Mr.
Chilverstone, wished to breathe this diviner air; the earlier audiences left the theatre cold and untouched. * It makes you feel, ' said somebody, ' as if you had been sitting amongst a lot of marble statues all night and could do with something warming to the blood. ' In this way the inevitable end came. All the people who really wanted to see the tragedy had seen it within a fortnight; during the next few nights the audiences thinned and the
advance bookings represented small future business, and 182
LUCIAN THE DREAMER
183
before the end of the third week Harcourt had withdrawn the attempt to revive tragedy on the lines of pure Greek Art, and announced a revival of an adaptation from a famous French novel which had more than once proved its money-earning powers. —
Lucian said little of this reverse of fortune
all appearance unmoved by it; but Sprats, who could read his face as easily as she could read an open book, saw new lines write themselves there which told of sur- prise, disappointment, and anxiety, and she knew from his subdued manner and the unwonted reticence which he observed at this stage that he was thinking deeply of more things than one. In this she was right. Lucian by sheer force of circumstances had been dragged to a certain point of vantage whereat he was compelled to stand and look closely at the prospect which confronted
him. When it became evident that the tragedy was a failure as a money-making concern, he remembered, with a sudden shock that subdued his temperamental buoyancy in an unpleasant fashion, that he had not foreseen such a contingency, and that he had confidently expected a success as great as the failure was complete. He sat down in his study and put the whole matter to
himself in commendably brief fashion: for several months he and Haidee had been living and spending money on anticipation; it was now clear that the anticipa- tion was not to be realised. The new volume was selling very slowly; the tragedy was a financial failure; very little in the way of soUd cash would go from either to the right side of Lucian' s account at Darlington's. And on the wrong side there must be an array of figures which he felt afraid to think of. He hurriedly cast up in his mind a vague account of those figures which memory presented to him; when he added the total to an equally vague guess of what Haidee might have spent, he recog- nised that he must be in debt to the bank to a consider- able amount. He had never had the least doubt that the tragedy would prove a gold-mine —everybody had predicted it. Darlington had predicted it a hundred
he was to
i84
LUCIAN THE DREAMER
times, and Darlington was a keen, hard-headed business man. Well, the tragedy was a failure—to use the ex- pressive term of the man in the street, ' there was no money in it. ' It was to have replenished Lucian's coffers —it left them yawning.
Easy-going and thoughtless though he was, Lucian had a constitutional dislike of owing money to any one, and the thought that he was now in debt to his bankers irri- tated and annoyed him. Analysed to a fine degree, it was not that he was annoyed because he owed money, but because he was not in a position to cancel the debt with a few scratches of his pen, and so reheve himself of the disagreeable necessity of recognising his indebted- ness to any one. He had a temperamental dishke of impleasant things, and especially of things which did not interest him—his inherited view of Hfe had caused him to regard it as a walk through a beautiful garden under perpetual sunshine, with full liberty to pluck what- ever flower appealed to his eye, eat whatever fruit
tempted his palate, and turn into whatever side- walk took his fancy. Now that he was beginning to reahse that it is possible to wander out of such a garden into a brake full of thorns and tangles, and to find some difficulty in escaping therefrom, his dislike of the unpleasant was accentuated and his irritation increased. But there was a certain vein of method and of order in him, and when he really recognised that he had got somewhere where he never expected to be, he developed a sincere desire to find out at once just where he was. The present situa- tion had some intellectual charm for him : he had never in all his life known what it was to want money; it had always come to his hand as manna came to the Israelites in the desert—he wondered, as these unwonted con- siderations for the present and the future filled him, what would develop from it.
' It wiU be best to know just where one really is,' he thought, and he went off to find his wife and consult with her. It was seldom that he ever conversed with her on any matter of a practical nature; he had long since
LUCIAN THE DREAMER 185
discovered that Haidee was bored by any topic that did
not interest her, or that she did not understand. She
scarcely grasped the meaning of the words which Lucian
now addressed to her, simple though they were, and she
stared at him with puzzled eyes. was ' You see,' he said, feeling that his explanation
inept and crude, 'I'd fully expected to have an awful lot of money out of the book and the play, and now, it seems, there won't be so much as I had anticipated.
and so on, but I don't think they will amount to very much for the
Of course there will be Robertson's royalties,
half-year, and '
Haidee interrupted him. ' ' Does it mean that you have spent all the money?
she asked. * There was such a lot, yours and mine,
together. '
Lucian felt powerless in the face of this apparently
childish remark. lot,' he said. ' And you know we had
' Not such a — to a lot on the heavy expenses at first we had spend
house, hadn't we? '
' But will there be no more to spend? ' she asked. ' I
mean, has it all been spent? Because I want a lot of things, if we are to winter in Egypt as you proposed. '
Lucian laughed. winter,' he
' I'm afraid we shall not go to Egypt this
said. ' But don't be alarmed; I think there will be
money for new gowns and so on. No; what I just wished to know was—have you any idea of what you have spent since I transferred our accounts to Darlington's bank?
Haidee shrugged her shoulders. As a matter of fact
as she pleased, and had no idea of anything relating to her account except that
she had drawn on it whenever she wished to do so.
* I haven't,' she answered. ' You told me I was to have a separate account, and, of course, I took you at
she had used her cheque-book
your word. '
' Well, it will be all right,' said Lucian soothingly.
'I'll see about everything. '
i86 LUCIAN THE DREAMER
He was going away, desirous of closing any discussion of the subject, but Haidee stopped him.
' Of course it makes a big difference if your books don't sell and people won't go to your plays,' she said.
' That doesn't bring money, does it? ' '
' My dear child ! ' exclaimed Lucian, how terribly perturbed you look! One must expect an occasional
dose of bad luck. The next book will probably sell by the tens of thousands, and the next play run for a
hundred years! '
' They were saying at Lady Firmanence's the other
afternoon that you had had your day, ' she said, looking
at him. ' Do you think you have?
'
' I hope I have quite a big day to come yet,' he answered quietly. ' You shouldn't listen to that sort
inquiringly
of thing—about me. '
Then he left her and went back to his study and
thought matters over once more. 'I'll find out exactly where I am,' he thought at last, and he went out and got into a hansom and was driven to Lombard Street— he meant to ascertain his exact position at the bank. When he entered, with a request for an interview with Mr. Eustace Darlington, he found that the latter was out of town, and for a moment he thought of postponing his
Then he reflected that others could probably give him the information he sought, and he asked to see the manager. Five minutes after entering the manager's private room he knew exactly how he stood with Messrs. Dariington and Darlington. He owed them close upon nine thousand pounds.
Lucian, bending over the slip of paper upon which the manager had jotted down a memorandum of the figures, trusted that the surprise which he felt was not being dis- played in his features. He folded the paper, placed it in his pocket, thanked the manager for his courtesy, and left the bank. Once outside he looked at the paper again : the manager had made a distinction between Mr. Damerel's account and his wife's. Mr. Damerel's was
about eighteen hundred pounds in debt; Mrs. Damerel's
inquiries.
LUCIAN THE DREAMER 187
separate account had been drawn against to the extent of nearly seven thousand pounds. Lucian knew what had become of the money which he had spent, but he was puzzled beyond measure to account for the sums which Haidee had gone through within a few months.
Whenever he was in any doubt or perplexity as to practical matters Lucian invariably turned to Sprats, and he now called a hansom and bade the man drive to Bayswater. He knew, from long experience of her, that he could tell Sprats anything and everything, and that she would never once say ' Itold you so! ' or 'I knew how it would turn out! ' or ' Didn't I warn you? ' She might scold him; she would almost certainly tell him that he was a fool; but she wouldn't pose as a superior person, or howl over the milk which he had spilled— instead, she would tell him quietly what was the best thing to do.
He found her alone, and he approached her with the old boyish formula which she had heard a hundred times since he had discovered that she knew a great deal more about many things than he knew himself.
' I say, Sprats, I'm in a bit of a hole ! ' he began.
* And, of course, you want me to pull you out. Well, what is it? ' she asked, gazing steadily at him and making a shrewd guess at the sort of hole into which he
had fallen. ' Do the usual, Lucian, tell everything. ' When he liked to be so, Lucian was the most candid
of men. He laid bare his soul to Sprats on occasions like these in a fashion which would greatly have edified
back; he made no excuses; he added no coat of paint or touch of white-
a confessor. He kept nothing
wash. He set forth a plain, unvarnished statement, without comment or explanation; it was a brutally clear and lucid account of facts which would have honoured an Old Bailey lawyer. It was one of his gifts, and Sprats never had an instance of it presented to her notice without wondering how it was that a man who could marshal facts so well and put them before others in such
i88
LUCIAN THE DREAMER
a crisp and concise fashion should be so unpractical
in ' the stem business of life. are,' concluded Lucian, ' And that's just how things '
What do you advise me to do? once,' she answered, ' There is one thing to be done at
without hesitation. ' You must get out of debt to Dar- lington; you must pay him every penny that you owe him as quickly as possible. You say you owe him
nearly nine thousand pounds: very good. have you got towards paying that off? '
Lucian sighed deeply.
'That's just it! ' he exclaimed.
How much
'I don't exactly know. Let me see, now; well, look here, Sprats—^you won't tell, of course — Mr. Pepperdine owes me a
thousand—at least I mean to say I lent him a thousand, but then, don't you know, he has always been so good
'
to me, that
' I think you had better chuck sentiment,' she said.
' Mr. Pepperdine has a thousand of yours. Very well—
go ' on. ' continued, ' that I might I've been thinking,' he
now ask him for the money which my father left me. He has had full charge of that, you know. I've never known what it was. I dare say it was rather heavily dipped into during the time I was at Oxford, but there may be something left. '
* Has he never told you anything about it? ' asked
Sprats.
' Very little.
Indeed, I have never asked him any- thing — I could trust him with everything. It's quite
possible there may not be a penny; he may have spent
it all on me before I came of age,' said Lucian.
if there is anything, it would go towards making up the nine thousand, wouldn't it ? '
' Well, leave it out of the question at present,' she answered. ' What else have you coming in soon? '
' Harcourt has two hundred of mine, and Robertson
about three hundred. '
' That's another five hundred.
Well, and the rest? '
' Still,
LUCIAN THE DREAMER 189
' I think that's the lot,' he said.
she said. ' Come, now, Lucian, you know there are. '
' There are people who owe you money,'
Lucian began to wriggle and to study the pattern of
the hearthrug.
' Oh ! ah ! well ! ' he said, ' I—I dare say I have
lent other men a little now and then. '
' Better say given,' she interrupted.
wondering if there was any considerable
' I was only sum that you
could get in. '
* No, really,' he answered.
* Very well; then you've got fifteen hundred towards
your nine thousand. That's all, eh? ' she asked.
' All that I know of,' he said. remarked, with
' Well, there are other things,' she
some emphasis. ' There are your copyrights and your furniture, pictures, books, and curiosities. '
Lucian 's mouth opened and he uttered a sort of groan.
' You don't mean that I should— sell any of these? ' he said, looking at her entreatingly.
'I'd sell the very clothes off my back before I'd owe a penny to Darlington ! ' she repHed. ' Don't be a senti- mental ass, Lucian; books in vellum bindings, and pic-
tures by old masters, and unique pots and pans and platters, don't make life! Sell every blessed thing you've got rather than owe Darlington money. Pay him off, get out of that house, Hve in simpler fashion, and you'll be a happier man. '
Lucian sat for some moments in silence, staring at the hearthrug. At last he looked up. Sprats saw some- thing new in his face—or was it something old? some- thing that she had not seen there for years? He looked
at her for an instant, and then he looked away.
' I should be very glad to live a simpler life,' he said.
' I dare say it seems rather sentimental and all that, you know, but of late I've had an awfully strong desire— sort of home-sickness, you know —for Simonstower.
I've caught myself thinking of the old days, and—' he paused, laughed in rather a forced way, and sitting
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LUCIAN THE DREAMER
straight up in the easy-chair in which he had been lounging, began to drum on its arms with his fingers.
' What you say,' he continued presently, ' is quite right. I must not be in debt to Darlington —it has been a most kind and generous thing on his part to act as one's banker in this fashion, but one mustn't trespass on a friend's kindness. '
' Yes,' he went on meditatively, ' I'm sure you are right. Sprats, quite right. I'll act on your advice. I'll go down to Simonstower to-morrow and see if Uncle Pepperdine can let me have that thousand, and if there is any money of my own, and when I come back I'll see if Robertson will buy my copyrights—I may be able to clear the debt off with all that. If not, I shall sell the furniture, books, pictures, everything, and Haidee and
Sprats flashed a swift, half-puzzled look upon him— he was looking another way, and did not see her.
I will go to Italy, to Florence, and live cheaply. Ah
! I know the loveliest palazzo on the Lung' Arno —I wish
we were there already. I'm sick of England. '
' It will make a difference to Haidee, Lucian,' said
Sprats. ' She likes England —and English society. '
' Yes,' he answered thoughtfully, ' it will make a great difference. But she gave up a great deal for me
when we married, and she'll give up a great deal now. A woman will do anything for the 'man she loves,' he added, with the air of a wiseacre. It's a sort of fixed law. '
Then he went away, and Sprats, after spending five minutes in deep thought, remembered her other children and hastened to them, wondering whether the most juvenile of the whole brood were quite so childish as
Lucian. ' It will go hard with him if his disillusion comes suddenly,' she thought, and for the rest of the day she felt inclined to sadness.
Lucian went home in a good humour and a brighter flow of spirits. He was always thus when a new course of action suggested itself to him, and on this occasion he felt impelled to cheerfulness because he was meditat-
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191
ing a virtuous deed. He wrote some letters, and then went to his club, and knowing that his wife had an engagement of her own that night, he dined with an old college friend whom he happened to meet in the smok- ing-room, and to whom before and after dinner he talked in lively fashion. It was late when he reached home, and he was then more cheerful than ever; the picture of the old palazzo on the Lung' Amo had fastened itself upon the wall of his consciousness and compelled him to look at it. Haidee had just come in; he persuaded her to go with him into his study while he smoked a final cigarette, and there, full of his new projects, he told her what he intended to do. Haidee listened with- out saying a word in reply. Lucian took no notice of her silence : he was one of those people who imagine that they are addressing other people when they are in reality talking to themselves and require neither Yea
nor Nay; he went on expatiating upon his scheme, and the final cigarette was succeeded by others, and Haidee still listened in silence.
' You mean to do all that? ' she said at last. ' To sell everything and go to Florence? And to Hve there? ' ' Certainly,' he repHed tranquilly; ' it will be so
cheap. '
'Cheap? ' she exclaimed. 'Yes— and dull!
Besides, why this sudden fuss about owing Darlington money? It's been owing for months, and you didn't say anything. '
' I expected to be able to put the account straight out of the money coming from the book and the play,' he replied. ' As they are not exactly gold-mines, I must do what I can. I can't remain in Darlington's debt in that way—it wouldn't be fair to him. '
' I don't see that you need upset everything just for that,' she said. ' He has not asked you to put the
account straight, has he? '
* Of course not! ' exclaimed Lucian.
* He never would; he's much too good a fellow to do that sort of thing. But that's just why I must get out of his debt—
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LUCIAN THE DREAMER
it's taking a mean advantage of his kindness. I'm quite certain nobody else would have been so very generous/ Haidee glanced at her husband out of the comers
of her eyes: the glance was something like that with which Sprats had regarded him in the afternoon. He had not caught Sprats's glance, and he did not catch his wife's.
Haidee,' he said, after a short silence, * I called at Darlington's to-day to find out just how we stand there, and the manager gave me the exact figures. You've rather gone it, you know, during the past half-year, you've gone through seven thousand
* By the bye,
pounds. '
Haidee looked at him wonderingly.
' But I paid for the diamonds out of that, you know,' she said. ' They cost over six thousand. '
'Good heavens! —did they? ' said Lucian. *I thought it was an affair of fifty pounds or so. ' —
' How ridiculous 1 ' she exclaimed. ' Diamonds
like these— for fifty pounds ! I ever knew. '
You are the simplest child
Lucian was endeavouring to recall the episode of the buying of the diamonds. He remembered at last that Haidee had told him that she had the opportunity of buying some diamonds for a much less sum than they were worth. He had thought it some small transaction, and had bidden her to consult somebody who knew something about that sort of thing.
' I remember now,' he said. ' I told you to ask
advice of some one who knew something about
diamonds. '
' And so I did,' she answered. ' I asked Darlington's
advice —he's an authority —and he said I should be fooUsh to miss the chance. And then I said I didn't know whether I dare draw a cheque for such an amount, and he laughed and said of course I might, and that he would arange it with you. ' *
that's just another proof of what I've been saying all along.
* There you are! ' said Lucian triumphantly;
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193
Darlington's such a kind-hearted sort of chap that he never said anything about it to me. Well, there's no harm done there, any way, Haidee; in fact, it's rather a rehef to know that you've locked up six thousand in that way, because you can sell the diamonds and the money will go towards putting the account straight. '
Haidlee looked at him narrowly: Lucian's eyes were fixed on the curling smoke of his cigarette.
' Sell my diamonds? ' she said in a low voice.
* Yes, of course,' said Lucian; * it'll be rather jolly if there's a profit on them. Oh yes, we must sell them. I can't afford to lock up six thousand in precious stones, you know, and of course we can't let Darlington pay for them. I wonder what they really are worth? What a lark if we got, say, ten thousand for them ! '
Then he wandered into an account of how a friend of his had once picked up a ring at one of the stalls on the Ponte Vecchio in Florence, and had subsequently sold it for just ten times as much as he had given for it. He laughed very much in telling his wife this story, for it had certain amusing points in it, and Haidee laughed too, but if Lucian had been endowed with a better understanding of women he would have known that she was neither amused nor edified.
N
CHAPTER XXIII
LuciAN came down to breakfast next morning equipped for his journey to Simonstower. He was in good spirits : the day was bright and frosty, and he was already dreaming of the village and the snow-capped hills beyond it. In dressing he had thought over his plans, and had decided that he was now quite reconciled to the drastic measures which Sprats had proposed. He would clear off all his indebtedness to Darlington, pay whatever bills might be owing, and make a fresh start, this time on the lines of strict economy, forethought, and prudence. He had very little conception of the real meaning of these
but he had always admired them in the abstract, and he now intended to form an intimate
important qualities,
with them.
* I've been thinking,' he said, as he faced Haidee at
acquaintance
the breakfast-table and spread out the Morning
' that when I have readjusted everything we shall be
much better off than I thought. Those diamonds make a big difference, Haidee. In fact we shall have, or we ought to have, quite a decent little capital, and we'll invest it in something absolutely safe and sound. I'll ask Darlington's advice about that, and we'll never touch it. The interest and the royalties will yield an income which will be quite sufficient for our needs—you can live very cheaply in Italy. ' —
' Then you are still bent on going to Italy to Florence? ' she asked calmly.
' Certainly,' he replied. ' It's the best thing we can do. I'm looking forward to it. After all, why should we be encumbered as we are at present with an expen- sive house, a troop of servants, and all the rest of it? We don't really want them. Has it never occurred to you that all these things are something like the shell which the snail has to carry on his back and can't get
194
Post,
LUCIAN THE DREAMER
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away from? Why should a man cany a big shell on his back? It's all very well talking about the advan- tages and comforts of having a house of one's own, but it's neither an advantage nor a comfort to be tied to a house nor to anything that clogs one's action. '
Haidee made no reply to those philosophic observations.
' How long do you propose to stay in Italy? ' she asked.