Part 9 (1/2)

”I'm sure I don't know what you mean,” said Glory. Her own eyes were swimming in big tear-drops.

”Don't you? What a funny girl you are! But your education has been neglected, my dear.”

It was a combination van and hea.r.s.e with the coffin under the driver's box, and John Storm (as the only discoverable mourner) with the undertaker on the seat inside.

”Will ye be willin' ter tyke the service at the cimitery, sir?” said the undertaker, and John answered that he would.

The grave was on the paupers' side, and when the undertaker, with his man, had lowered the coffin to its place, he said, ”They've gimme abart three more funerals this morning, so I'll leave ye now, sir, to finish 'er off.”

At the next moment John Storm in his surplice was alone with the dead, and had opened his book to read the burial service which no other human ear was to hear.

He read ”Dust to dust, ashes to ashes,” and then the bitter loneliness of the pauper's doom came down on his soul and silenced him.

But his imprisoned pa.s.sion had to find a vent, and that night he wrote to the Prime Minister: ”I begin to understand what you meant when you said I was in the wrong place. Oh, this London, with its society, its worldly clergy, its art, its literature, its luxury, its idle life, all built on the toil of the country and compounded of the sweat of the nameless poor! Oh, this 'Circe of cities,' drawing good people to it, decoying them, seducing them, and then turning them into swine! It seems impossible to live in the world and to be spiritually-minded. When I try to do so I am torn in two.”

X.

On the following Tuesday evening two young men were dining in their chambers in St. James's Street. One of them was Lord Robert Ure; the other was his friend and housemate, Horatio Drake. Drake was younger than Lord Robert by some seven or eight years, and also beyond comparison more attractive. His face was manly and handsome, its expression was open and breezy; he was broad-shouldered and splendidly built, and he had the fair hair and blue eyes of a boy.

Their room was a large one, and it was full of beautiful and valuable things, but the furniture was huddled about in disorder. A large chamber-organ, a grand piano, a mandolin, and two violins, pictures on the floor as well as on the walls, many photographs scattered about everywhere, and the mirror over the mantelpiece fringed with invitation-cards, which were stuck between the gla.s.s and the frame.

Their man had brought in the coffee and cigarettes. Lord Robert was speaking in his weary drawl, which had the worn-out tone of a man who had made a long journey and was very sleepy.

”Come, dear boy, make up your mind, and let us be off.”

”But I'm tired to death of these fas.h.i.+onable routs.”

”So am I.”

”They're so unnatural--so unnecessary.”

”My dear fellow, of course they're unnatural--of course they're unnecessary; but what would you have?”

”Anything human and natural,” said Drake. ”I don't care a ha'p'orth about the morality of these things--not I--but I am dead sick of their stupidity.”

Lord Robert made languid puffs of his cigarette, and said, in a tearful drawl: ”My dear Drake, of course it is exactly as you say. Who doesn't know it is so? It has always been so and always will be. But what refuge is there for the poor leisured people but these diversions which you despise? And as for the poor t.i.tled cla.s.ses--well, they manage to make their play their business sometimes, don't you know. Confess that they do sometimes, now, eh?”

Lord Robert was laughing with an awkward constraint, but Drake looked frankly into his face and said:

”How's that matter going on, Robert?”

”Fairly, I think, though the girl is not very hot on it. The thing came off last week, and when it was over I felt as if I had proposed to the girl and been accepted by the mother, don't you know. I believe this rout to-night is expressly in honour of the event, so I mustn't run away from my bargain.”

He lay back, sent funnels of smoke to the ceiling, and then said, with a laugh like a gurgle: ”I'm not likely to, though. That eternal dun was here again to-day. I had to tell him that the marriage would come off in a year certain. That was the only understanding on which he would agree to wait for his money. Bad? Of course it's bad; but what would you have, dear boy?”

The men smoked in silence for a moment, and then Lord Robert said again: ”Come, old fellow, for friends.h.i.+p's sake, if nothing else. She's a decent little woman, and dead bent on having you at her house to-night.

And if you're badly bored we'll not stay long. We'll come away early and--listen--we'll slip across to the Nurses' Ball at Bartimaeus's Hospital; there'll be fun enough there, at all events.”

”I'll go,” said Drake.

Half an hour later the two young men were driving up to the door of Mrs. Macrae's house in Belgrave Square. There was a line of carriages in front of it, and they had to wait their turn to approach the gate.