“well, i’ve been an unsuccessful man as the world counts success,” said image, as though the thread of their early conversation had never been broken, “but i’ve had fifteen years of great personal happiness. can one expect more than that in life? could i have been more successful? and i’ve laid up a store of beautiful memories for my old age.”
everyone knew the story of carey image. he had himself started out in life at the bar. when in his thirty-second year and well on the road to be a k.c., he was briefed as counsel in a divorce case. the woman was unsuccessful in divorcing her husband, the definition of legal cruelty did not cover practices and habits that had reduced a beautiful, healthy woman to a frightened shadow; but she was successful in winning a heart that had stood between her and the world for fifteen years afterwards. pariahs in social london—for in those days public opinion was more cruel than it is to-day—they had wandered all over the world together. they had not been quite idle, for she helped image to write several books of thoughtful travel that had first set the fashion of “wander literature.” she had died five years previously, and never once had image regretted what he had given up for her. he had rescued a woman from the lowest depths and made her perfectly happy. his worldly[16] failure in life had been his real success. the look in the dying woman’s eyes as they had turned to him had made an imperishable crown.
gilbert was silent. as a child he had known image, and he had often wondered since if it had really been worth while to make a pariah of himself. he was answered now. it was so different from his mother’s version of the good-looking woman who got image in her clutches and whom he was too unworldly to see through.
“i think that fifteen years of happiness is more than most of us can hope for,” said paton quietly.
“i remember as a boy,” said image reminiscently, “being asked what i wanted to do in life, and i replied ‘to do one thing well and make one person happy.’ i think i did the latter, but in the first i have failed. my globe-trotting books are pretty well known, but what are they, after all?” he looked at the portrait of gilbert in his wig and gown, and there was a sort of gentle regret in his eyes.
“surely you have been successful in both,” said paton. “to love well—isn’t that one of the rarest talents?”
image turned on him with his charming smile. “ah! but it was so easy. if you had known her you would realize it was nothing to my credit—nothing at all.” he said it very simply, as though stating an undeniable fact. for a moment there was silence, while the ghost of a beautiful, sweet-natured woman passed through the room.
then gilbert, who, like most englishmen, felt rather uncomfortable at the sentimental vein into which they had fallen, poured himself out a whisky and soda, and the prosaic hiss of the syphon dispelled the ghost.
“well, i must be going,” said paton, rousing himself from a little reverie and slowly getting out of the big armchair; “time for all good children, et cetera. good-night,[17] mr. image, i am very pleased to have met you. i hope we shall meet again.”
“we are sure to,” said image cordially. “i wish you would come and lunch with me at my club one day? you will? good. i’ll drop you a line. good-night to you.”
gilbert went to see him out, and image, rising, looked again at the photograph of him which his mother said was too severe. as gilbert came back to the room he compared the original with the photograph. more than a presentable man, gilbert currey was distinctly good-looking. the brow was broad and high, and the hair grew thick and strongly. his eyes, which image remembered in the baby had been blue like his mother’s, were now a darkish grey and the lids fell rather heavily over them. this, however, did not give any impression of sleepiness, rather that of self-sufficiency and reserve force. the nostrils of his well-shaped nose were somewhat wide, denoting his energy and driving power. the chin was rather too heavy, and had he not closed his mouth so firmly the lips would have been a trifle sensual. above the medium height, he gave promise of being one day a heavy man if he did not exercise sufficiently, but now he was still well-proportioned. the two men were physically a great contrast, for carey image was always known as “little carey image,” though the diminutive indicated affection as well as size. he had the small build and fineness of the japanese.
“well, cousin carey,” laughed gilbert as he met the ruminative gaze of the brown eyes, “sizing me up, eh? find me much changed?” he took out a pipe and commenced to fill it.
“no, very little, surprisingly little. you’re going to be like your father. how is he?”
“well, and fiercely combating socialism and all the other revolutionary ‘isms.’ you can imagine how much[18] he likes the democratic tendency of the times. he gets grimmer over them every time we meet.”
image smiled. “yes, politically i find a great change in england since i left it. but it’s interesting—very.... your friend paton is very charming. what does he do?”
“that’s a difficult question to answer. i can’t reply “nothing,” because he is always doing something. much more energetic than he looks. his father is urging him to go into parliament, and i think he will later on. but at present he says he is ‘informing himself,’ whatever that may mean. he is helping sir john tollins with his prison reform crusade at the moment, and he is visiting various institutions all over the country.”
“ah! yes, a sociologist. such men do very useful work. and what is mr. jack iverson?”
“a rich young ass,” laughed gilbert.
“sir,” said carey with a twinkle; “that is not information. i can see into shop windows as well as you.”
“well, he’s in the blues; but i always think of him as claudia’s brother.” he said it without the slightest embarrassment, just as he might have referred to his own uncle.
“claudia! a pretty name. is she as pretty as her name?”
“prettier. but they are a wonderfully handsome family. looks on both sides.”
image lit another of his french cigarettes, and then he said gently, “and have you any designs on the pretty sister?”
“yes,” said gilbert, with a curious thoughtful deliberation. “i think—i think i shall marry her.”
a look flashed into his godfather’s eyes at the—to him—curious way in which a young man expressed his intention of asking a woman to confer the greatest honour[19] upon him. but the modern young man was always astounding carey image and making him wonder if he had lost his bearings in india or if some mischievous god had deliberately turned things upside down.
“i was going to ask you if you had any plans other than worldly.... is miss iverson likely to do you the honour to——?”
gilbert broke in rather abruptly. the subtle reproof had passed him by, immersed as he was in his own thoughts. “you know the family? mrs. iverson was sybil daunton-pole, and geoffrey iverson is lord creagh’s third son.”
“why, of course; i wondered why the name was familiar.” a light broke in on him and he became animated. “i remember—why, yes. she was the woman who made such a sensation when she was first presented, and her portrait was painted as circe and exhibited at the academy? a lovely creature.”
gilbert nodded. “time has taken his toll now.”
image was searching back many years. “let me see, and wasn’t she supposed to be a circe in real life? wasn’t there a story about her and a member of parliament——?”
“oh! a hundred stories. one of the most talked-of women in london.”
“a certain royal personage was supposed——”
“yes, it’s always said so.... i should say she has had a high old time. iverson never tried to control her. of course, as i say, she’s a bit passée now. she knows it, too, and has taken up with occultism, mysticism, or whatever you call it. ‘i must occupy myself,’ she said to me the other day. ‘i have decided definitely to retire from the stage of love while i am still desirable. my children bore me. i will seek the occult.’”
“not an ideal mother for a girl,” said image.
“oh! claudia is all right. here’s her photo. she promised it to me if i won the driver case. it only[20] came this morning.” he took it out of a drawer and handed it to image. in the corner was written in a firm individual hand, “best congratulations, claudia.”
“beautiful,” said image warmly, who was ever an admirer of all things lovely, especially women. “i think i have met her somewhere. not at all like i remember the portrait of circe.”
“not a scrap like her mother. a good deal of what the french call beauté du diable about mrs. iverson. claudia’s look are quite different.”
image began to recall various tit-bits of scandal and gossip that had found their way out to india regarding claudia’s mother. utterly unmoral, passionately heartless, the fascinations of a siren, image had heard many tales of her. he recalled vaguely one story, which was particularly scandalous and which questions the paternity of one of the daughters. there had been whisper at that time that she had gone too far, and weak, complaisant geoff iverson would be roused to divorce her.
“miss iverson is dark, i should say? yes, i thought so.” image looked at the girl in the portrait, who looked back at him. she had adopted no coquettish pose, no drooping eyelids or heavenward gaze, but she looked straight out of the frame with her clear, fine eyes. and they seemed to image to be asking innumerable questions of life. there was a suggestion, too, of eagerness about the mobile lips, as though they would open and presently shape the word “why?”
“not a bit like her mother.” gilbert seemed to take a comfort in repeating it. “and although there is all this talk about heredity nowadays, such a woman as circe is something unusual. of course, if i thought——”
“my dear boy, can you be in love with her and stop to think it over in this way?” image was a little impatient with his godson. he liked the girl with the questioning eyes.
[21]
gilbert looked up in slow surprise. “well, mother doesn’t like mrs. iverson, as you may imagine. she calls her that ‘dreadful, immoral woman.’ and you know what mothers are. she’s carefully picked out a girl for me. plenty of money, and influential family relations. but the girl annoys me: she is one of the clinging, sentimental sort. i don’t think i could stand her as my wife.”
“why—why are you marrying?” said image slowly. gilbert had evidently consulted his mother, or at least listened to her counsels. in some way image was old-fashioned in his ideas of what is due to a parent, but he had never held it right that a mother should select a wife for her son.
“why?” gilbert knocked the ashes out of his pipe. “well, i think it is about time.”
“i see.” image looked again at the photograph. gilbert was only marrying because “it was about time.” what were the eager dark eyes asking for? only for that? “you don’t believe in having any sentiment about choosing one’s life partner?”
“oh, yes, of course. i’ve just told you the girl my mother has picked out would annoy me no end. i like claudia very much. only she is in a bad set, though it doesn’t seem to have affected her. as a matter of fact, her mother has hardly had any intercourse with her. she has none of the domestic virtues, you know. as far as one can see there is no taint there, but—well, its a serious responsibility to marry the daughter of a circe. and people talk so much about heredity and eugenics——”
“my dear boy,” said image heatedly, “love snaps its fingers at heredity and pulls a long nose at eugenics. to the devil with them, i say. it’s too much talk about these things that makes people so an?mic these days. if you love a woman, take her in your arms and keep her there. a good woman won’t want to go far astray. but[22] keep her in your arms. don’t put them round her once and hold her tight till she says ‘yes’ and then loosen hold. most englishmen deserve to lose their wives.” image spoke with such warmth that gilbert smiled.
“a champion of woman!” he took the photo from image. for the first time a tinge of warmth crept into his voice. it may have been caught from image. “she is handsome, isn’t she?”
“no, i do not stand up as a champion of women. i would not dare to do such a thing. but, thank god, i was brought up to love and respect women and to think that they needed protection and guarding. and men are all the better for the responsibility.”
“women nowadays resent guarding and protecting. they’ve changed while you’ve been away.”
“nonsense, i don’t believe it. they resent bullying and spying and the things that are done under the name of protection. they may pretend to like guarding and protecting themselves, but it’s because their men-folk are such incompetent slacksters. you modern lovers, what you miss in life! don’t be a fool, gilbert. you are in love with her, aren’t you?”
“oh! yes, i have a feeling that way.” gilbert gave a little laugh to cover his confession. for image’s enthusiasm was infective. and really claudia was very charming. what a good hostess she would make. and she was quick to see things; her fine eyes had a wonderful way of lighting up—one of the gifts of the gods; she was interested in his career——
image rose and clapped him on the shoulder.
“why don’t you put on your dancing-pumps and go off and dance with her to-night? i daresay she’ll cut out some unfortunate fellow for you.”
gilbert considered. “i must go down to my chambers early to-morrow, and i wanted to read over a brief to-night. still, i might go for an hour. after all——” he[23] broke off and put his pipe on the mantelpiece. after all, he had been celebrating a victory and his birthday. he had the feeling that he might allow himself a little treat. claudia would be surprised and, he thought, pleased to see him. it was always easy to see her emotion mirrored in her eyes.... yes, he would treat himself.
image said good-night and went down in the lift. he was thinking of gilbert, a little puzzled, a little regretful, of what he hardly knew—and he flashed back a glance to his own youth.
he stood still for a moment in the warm spring air and looked up at the stars. then he took off his hat and for a moment stood bareheaded, as before a shrine.
“i’m very glad,” he said softly; but why he was glad no one but himself knew, unless it were the stars.
