No More Learning

" 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. But--have got orders: what can do? Are you strong enough to face
it alone? "

"I suppose I must. "

"Let me help, darling. We can hold each other very tight and try to
walk straight. We shall blunder horribly, but it will be better than
stumbling apart. Maisie, can't you see reason? "

"I don't think we should get on together. We should be two of a trade,
so we should never agree. "

"How I should like to meet the man who made that proverb! He lived in a
cave and ate raw bear, I fancy. I'd make him chew his own arrow-heads.
Well? "

"I should be only half married to you. I should worry and fuss about my
work, as I do now. Four days out of the seven I'm not fit to speak to. "

"You talk as if no one else in the world had ever used a brush.
D'you suppose that I don't know the feeling of worry and bother and
can't-get-at-ness? You're lucky if you only have it four days out of the
seven. What difference would that make? "

"A great deal--if you had it too. "

"Yes, but I could respect it. Another man might not. He might laugh at
you. But there's no use talking about it. If you can think in that way
you can't care for me--yet. "

The tide had nearly covered the mud-banks and twenty little ripples
broke on the beach before Maisie chose to speak.

"Dick," she said slowly, "I believe very much that you are better than I
am. "

"This doesn't seem to bear on the argument--but in what way? "

"I don't quite know, but in what you said about work and things; and
then you're so patient. Yes, you're better than I am. "

Dick considered rapidly the murkiness of an average man's life. There
was nothing in the review to fill him with a sense of virtue. He lifted
the hem of the cloak to his lips.

"Why," said Maisie, making as though she had not noticed, "can you see
things that I can't? I don't believe what you believe; but you're right,
I believe. "

"If I've seen anything, God knows I couldn't have seen it but for you,
and I know that I couldn't have said it except to you. You seemed to
make everything clear for a minute; but I don't practice what I preach.
You would help me. . . There are only us two in the world for all
purposes, and--and you like to have me with you? "

"Of course I do. I wonder if you can realise how utterly lonely I am! "

"Darling, I think I can. "

"Two years ago, when I first took the little house, I used to walk up
and down the back-garden trying to cry. I never can cry. Can you? "

"It's some time since I tried. What was the trouble? Overwork? "

"I don't know; but I used to dream that I had broken down, and had no
money, and was starving in London. I thought about it all day, and it
frightened me--oh, how it frightened me! "

"I know that fear. It's the most terrible of all. It wakes me up in the
night sometimes. You oughtn't to know anything about it. "

"How do you know? "

"Never mind. Is your three hundred a year safe? "

"It's in Consols. "

"Very well. If any one comes to you and recommends a better
investment,--even if I should come to you,--don't you listen. Never
shift the money for a minute, and never lend a penny of it,--even to the
red-haired girl. "

"Don't scold me so! I'm not likely to be foolish. "

"The earth is full of men who'd sell their souls for three hundred a
year; and women come and talk, and borrow a five-pound note here and
a ten-pound note there; and a woman has no conscience in a money debt.
Stick to your money, Maisie, for there's nothing more ghastly in the
world than poverty in London. It's scared me. By Jove, it put the fear
into me! And one oughtn't to be afraid of anything. "

To each man is appointed his particular dread,--the terror that, if he
does not fight against it, must cow him even to the loss of his manhood.
Dick's experience of the sordid misery of want had entered into the
deeps of him, and, lest he might find virtue too easy, that memory stood
behind him, tempting to shame, when dealers came to buy his wares. As
the Nilghai quaked against his will at the still green water of a lake
or a mill-dam, as Torpenhow flinched before any white arm that could cut
or stab and loathed himself for flinching, Dick feared the poverty he
had once tasted half in jest. His burden was heavier than the burdens of
his companions.

Maisie watched the face working in the moonlight.

"You've plenty of pennies now," she said soothingly.

"I shall never have enough," he began, with vicious emphasis. Then,
laughing, "I shall always be three-pence short in my accounts. "

"Why threepence? "

"I carried a man's bag once from Liverpool Street Station to
Blackfriar's Bridge. It was a sixpenny job,--you needn't laugh; indeed
it was,--and I wanted the money desperately. He only gave me threepence;
and he hadn't even the decency to pay in silver. Whatever money I make,
I shall never get that odd threepence out of the world. "

This was not language befitting the man who had preached of the sanctity
of work. It jarred on Maisie, who preferred her payment in applause,
which, since all men desire it, must be of the right. She hunted for her
little purse and gravely took out a threepenny bit.

"There it is," she said. "I'll pay you, Dickie; and don't worry any
more; it isn't worth while. Are you paid? "

"I am," said the very human apostle of fair craft, taking the coin. "I'm
paid a thousand times, and we'll close that account. It shall live on my
watch-chain; and you're an angel, Maisie. "

"I'm very cramped, and I'm feeling a little cold. Good gracious! the
cloak is all white, and so is your moustache! I never knew it was so
chilly. "

A light frost lay white on the shoulder of Dick's ulster. He, too, had
forgotten the state of the weather. They laughed together, and with that
laugh ended all serious discourse.

They ran inland across the waste to warm themselves, then turned to look
at the glory of the full tide under the moonlight and the intense black
shadows of the furze bushes. It was an additional joy to Dick that
Maisie could see colour even as he saw it,--could see the blue in the
white of the mist, the violet that is in gray palings, and all things
else as they are,--not of one hue, but a thousand. And the moonlight
came into Maisie's soul, so that she, usually reserved, chattered of
herself and of the things she took interest in,--of Kami, wisest of
teachers, and of the girls in the studio,--of the Poles, who will kill
themselves with overwork if they are not checked; of the French, who
talk at great length of much more than they will ever accomplish; of
the slovenly English, who toil hopelessly and cannot understand that
inclination does not imply power; of the Americans, whose rasping
voices in the hush of a hot afternoon strain tense-drawn nerves to
breaking-point, and whose suppers lead to indigestion; of tempestuous
Russians, neither to hold nor to bind, who tell the girls ghost-stories
till the girls shriek; of stolid Germans, who come to learn one thing,
and, having mastered that much, stolidly go away and copy pictures for
evermore. Dick listened enraptured because it was Maisie who spoke. He
knew the old life.