how oft the sight of means to do ill deeds makes ill deeds done!
he is a wise liar who makes use of the truth at times. seymour michael was clever enough to stay his fantastic tongue in his further explanation to arthur agar.
“it is a long story,” he said, “and in order to fully state the case to you i must go into some matters of which perhaps you have heard little. do you happen to be anything of a politician? are you, i mean, interested in foreign affairs?”
arthur confessed that he knew nothing of foreign affairs, a fact of which michael had become fully aware on entering the narrow-minded, characteristic room.
“you perhaps know,” seymour michael went on, in a tone of which the sarcasm was lost upon its victim, “that russia is living in hopes of some day possessing india?”
“oh—ah—yes!”
arthur agar was obviously not at all interested. there were so many things of a similar nature to be remembered—things which did not really interest him—and those nearer home had precedence in his mind. he knew, for instance, that trinity hall lived in hopes of heading the river that year, and that the narcissus club were going to give a narcissus-coloured dance in may week, at which entertainment even the jellies were to be yellow.
the general now launched into an explanation, couched carefully in language suitable to his hearer's limited knowledge of the facts.
“russia,” he said, “is now so large that, unless they make it larger still and get tropical resources to draw upon, it will fall to pieces. they want india. some day there will be a fight, a very large fight. but not yet. in the meantime it is a question of learning every inch of that country where the battle-fields will be, and every thought in the minds of those men who will look on at the fight. i—”
he paused, recollecting that the fame of his own name might have penetrated even to this out-of-the-way spot. “some of us have been at this all our lives. over there, on the frontier, there are certain numbers of us, on both sides, playing a very deep game. your brother is one of the players, a prominent man on the field; a half-back, one might call him.”
there was a strong temptation to continue the allegory—to say that he himself was goal-keeper; but seymour michael was one of the few men who can in need make even their own vanity subservient to convenience.
“we watch each other,” he went on, “like cats. we always know where the others are, and what they are doing. your brother was one of the most closely watched by the other side. for some time we have been aware of an influence at work with a tribe of hillmen who have hitherto been friendly to us, and we have not been able to find what this influence is, or how it is brought to bear upon them. we were so closely watched that we could not penetrate to the affected country. but at last the chance came. your brother was gazetted as killed. we allowed the report to remain uncontradicted. we let the other side think that jem agar was dead, and therefore incapable of doing any more harm, and now he has gone up into that country to find out what they are after.”
arthur nodded.
“i see,” he said. he was rather vague about it all, and had not quite realised yet that this was all true, that this man whom he still hated and distrusted without any apparent reason was real and living, speaking to him in real waking life and not in a dream. moreover, he had not nearly realised that jem was alive. the evidence of his own black clothes, of the sombre-edged stationery, of his mourning habit of life this term, was too strong upon a mind like his to be suddenly thrown aside. perhaps he had discovered that the consolation of inheritance was greater than was at first apparent. in six weeks he had slipped very comfortably into jem's shoes, and it seemed only right and proper that his life should have a background of the noble proportions of stagholme. also, now stagholme meant dora; for he was worldly-wise enough to know that his own personal value in the world's estimation had undergone a great change in six short weeks. he knew that the man with the money usually wins.
it would almost seem that seymour michael divined his thoughts, at least in part.
“there are two reasons,” he went on to say, “why absolute secrecy is necessary; first, for agar's own sake. he is, of course, in disguise. no one suspects that he is there, and that is his only safeguard in the country where he is. secondly—but i want your whole attention, please.”
“yes, i am listening.”
seymour michael leant forward and emphasised his remark by tapping on the table with his gloved finger.
“the mission is so extremely dangerous that it comes almost to the same thing.”
“what do you mean?” inquired arthur agar, whose gentle intellect only compassed subtleties of the drawing-room type.
“i mean that jem agar is almost as good as a dead man, although he was not killed at pregalla.”
the man who had wept in this same room six weeks before looked up with a gleam of something very like hope in his troubled eyes. such is the power of love. for arthur agar had not been ignorant of the probability that in his step-brother, once dead but now living, he had had a rival. sister cecilia had seen to that.
“but when shall we know? when will he come back?” inquired he. and seymour michael, the subtle, began to see his way more clearly.
“certainly not for six months, probably not for nine.”
one may take it that no man is sent into the world a ready-made scoundrel. it all depends upon the circumstances of life. no one is safe right up to the end, and events may combine to make the very best of us into that thing which the world calls a villain.
arthur agar, all inexperienced, weak, hereditarily handicapped, suddenly found himself on the balance. and the scales were held, not by the hand of justice, blind and clement, but by seymour michael, very open-eyed, with a keen watchfulness for his own purpose; biassed; unscrupulous. it must be admitted that circumstances were against arthur agar.
“there is nothing to be done,” added seymour michael, with a smile which his companion could not be expected to fathom, “but to keep very quiet, and to make the best of your opportunities while you occupy the position of heir.”
arthur smiled in a sickly way. he felt suddenly as if this man could see right through him, and all the while he hated him. seymour michael meant “debts”—it was only natural that one of his race should think of money before all things—arthur's thoughts were fixed on dora. and guiltily he imagined himself to be detected.
“you will be doing no harm to jem,” said the tempter, with his pleasant laugh. “you are called upon to act the part well for his sake.”
“ye-es, i suppose i am,” answered arthur. “and i must tell no one?”
“absolutely no one.”
despite his credulous nature, arthur agar was singularly suspicious on this occasion.
“are these jem's own instructions?” he asked.
“his own instructions,” replied seymour michael callously.
arthur paused in deep reflection. it was evident, he argued to himself, that jem could not have cared for dora, or he would never have left her in ignorance of the truth. if, therefore, during jem's absence, he could win dora for himself, he could not in any way be accused of wronging his step-brother. and we all know that a conscience which argues with itself is lost.
“to make things easier for us both,” pursued seymour michael, “i propose that this interview remain a strict secret between ourselves, and for that purpose i have suppressed my own name. it is a fairly well-known name. i may mention that in guarantee of good faith. as, however, you do not know me, it will be easier for you to suppress the fact that we have ever met.”
arthur almost laughed at these last words. it seemed as if he had known this man all his life—as if his whole existence had merely been a period of waiting until he should come.
“and my mother must not know?” he said. he kept harking back to this question with a singular persistence. there are a few men and many women for whom a secret is a responsibility to be transferred to the first-comer without hesitation. one half of the world takes pleasure in divulging a secret—for the other half it is positive pain to keep one.
seymour michael never dreamt that the secret might be in unsafe hands. to a secretive man like himself the incapacity to keep a counsel never suggested itself. there is no doubt that where we all err is in persistently judging others by ourselves. arthur agar was keenly aware of his own incompetence in many things—he was one of those promising undergraduates who hire a man to water six small plants in a window-box. incompetence was by him reduced to a science. there were so many things which he could not do, that he was forced to find occupations for a very extensive leisure, and these were usually of the petty accomplishment order, which are graceful in young girls and very disgraceful in young men.
now the doctrine of incompetence is a very dangerous one. already in the criminal courts we are beginning to hear of men and women who do not feel competent to keep the law. there were many laws of social procedure and a few of schoolboy honour which arthur agar felt to be beyond him, and he considered that in making confession he was acquiring a right to absolution.
he did not tell general michael that he was not good at keeping secrets, chiefly because that gentleman was not of the trivial confession type; but he made a mental reservation.
seymour michael had risen and was walking backwards and forwards slowly between the window and the door. he seemed quite at home in the small room, and his manner of taking three strides and then wheeling round suggested the habit of living in tents.
“what you must say is that you have received your brother's effects,” he said. “if they ask from whence—from the war office. i am the war office to all intents and purposes. the affair is almost forgotten. all the details have been published—the usual newspaper details, with fleet street local colouring. you should have no difficulty.”
“no,” answered arthur meekly, but with another mental reservation.
“there are, of course, certain legal formalities in progress,” went on the general, “relative to the estate. those must be allowed to go on. we may trust the lawyers to go slowly. and afterwards they can amuse themselves by undoing what they have done. that is their trade. half of them make a living by undoing what the others have done. you are ...”
seymour michael so far forgot himself as to pause and make a mental calculation. arthur saw him do it and never thought of being surprised. it seemed quite natural that this man should possess data upon which to base mental calculations.
“... not twenty-one yet?” michael finished the sentence.
“no.”
“so that, you see, they cannot make over the estate to you before the time your brother comes or—should—come—back.”
arthur understood the emphasis perfectly this time. he was getting on.
“there are,” continued michael, who was eminently methodical, “a few military formalities, which have had my attention. in fact, i think that everything has been attended to. in case you should require any information, or perhaps advice, write to c 74, smith's library, vigo street. that is the address on that envelope.”
arthur rose too. the thought that his visitor might be about to depart thrilled through him with the warmth of relieved suspense.
“for your own information,” said michael, looking straight into the wavering, colourless eyes, “i may tell you that in my opinion—the opinion of an expert—this expedition is exceedingly hazardous. we—we must be prepared for the worst.”
arthur agar turned away. he had felt the deep eyes probing his very soul—looking right through him. a sickening sense of weakness was at his heart. he felt that in the presence of this man he did not belong to himself.
“you mean,” he muttered awkwardly, “that jem will never come back?”
“i think it most probable. and then—when we have to abandon all hope, i mean—we shall be glad that we kept this thing to ourselves.”
seymour michael held out his hand, and pressed the boy's weak fingers in a careless grip. then he turned, and with a short “good-bye” left him.
arthur stood looking at the closed door with the frightened eyes of a woman. he looked round at the familiar objects of his room—the futile little gimcracks with which he had surrounded an existence worthy of such environments—the invitation cards on the draped mantelpiece, the little glass vases of fantastic shape with a single bloom of stephanotis, the hundred and one fantasies of a finicking generation wherein art sappeth manhood. and his eyes were suddenly opened to a new world of things which he could not do. he gazed—not without a vague shame—into a perspective of incompetencies.
in the laissez-aller of the unreflective he had assumed that life would be a continuance of small pleasures and refined enjoyments, little dinners and pleasant converse, dora and a comfortable home, mutual mild delight in flowers and table decoration. into this assumption seymour michael had suddenly stepped—strong, restless, and mysterious—and arthur became uneasily conscious of possibilities. there might be something in his own life, there might even be something within himself, over which he could have no control. there was something within himself—something connected with the man who had gone, leaving unrest behind him, as he left it wherever he passed. what was this? whither would it lead?
arthur agar rang the bell, and kept the “gyp” in the room on some trivial pretext. he was afraid of solitude.
