Garth sat down, lay back in his chair, with his arms behind his sleekdark head, and looked at her with his soft shining eyes, just as he hadlooked at the duchess.
"How cross you are, old chap," he said, gently. "What is the matter?"
Jane laughed and held out her hand. "Oh, you dear boy! I think you havethe sweetest temper in the world. I won't be cross any more. The truthis, I hate the duchess's concerts, and I don't like being the duchess's'surprise-packet.'"
"I see," said Garth, sympathetically. "But, that being so, why did youoffer?"
"Ah, I had to," said Jane. "Poor old dear! She so rarely asks meanything, and her eyes besought. Don't you know how one longs to havesomething to do for some one who belongs to one? I would black herboots if she wished it. But it is so hard to stay here, week afterweek, and be kept at arm's length. This one thing she asked of me, andher proud old eyes pleaded. Could I refuse?"
Garth was all sympathy. "No, dear," he said thoughtfully; "of courseyou couldn't. And don't bother over that silly joke about the 'surprisepacket.' You see, you won't be that. I have no doubt you sing vastlybetter than most of them, but they will not realise it. It takes aVelma to make such people as these sit up. They will think THE ROSARY apretty song, and give you a mild clap, and there the thing will end. Sodon't worry."
Jane sat and considered this. Then: "Dal," she said, "I do hate singingbefore that sort of audience. It is like giving them your soul to lookat, and you don't want them to see it. It seems indecent. To my mind,music is the most REVEALING thing in the world. I shiver when I thinkof that song, and yet I daren't do less than my best. When the momentcomes, I shall live in the song, and forget the audience. Let me tellyou a lesson I once had from Madame Blanche. I was singing Bemberg'sCHANT HINDOU, the passionate prayer of an Indian woman to Brahma. Ibegan: 'BRAHMA! DIEU DES CROYANTS,' and sang it as I might have sung'DO, RE, MI.' Brahma was nothing to me. 'Stop!' cried Madame Blanche inher most imperious manner. 'Ah, vous Anglais! What are you doing?BRAHMA, c'est un Dieu! He may not be YOUR God. He may not be MY God.But he is somebody's God. He is the God of the song. Ecoutez!' And shelifted her head and sang: 'Brahma! Dieu des croyants! Maitre des citessaintes!' with her beautiful brow illumined, and a passion of religiousfervour which thrilled one's soul. It was a lesson I never forgot. Ican honestly say I have never sung a song tamely, since."
"Fine!" said Garth Dalmain. "I like enthusiasm in every branch of art.I never care to paint a portrait, unless I adore the woman I ampainting."
Jane smiled. The conversation was turning exactly the way she had hopedeventually to lead it.
"Dal, dear," she said, "you adore so many in turn, that we old friends,who have your real interest at heart, fear you will never adore to anydefinite purpose."
Garth laughed. "Oh bother!" he said. "Are you like all the rest? Do youalso think adoration and admiration must necessarily mean marriage. Ishould have expected you to take a saner and more masculine view."
"My dear boy," said Jane, "your friends have decided that you need awife. You are alone in the world. You have a lovely home. You are in afair way to be spoiled by all the silly women who run after you. Ofcourse we are perfectly aware that your wife must have everyincomparable beauty under the sun united in her own exquisite person.But each new divinity you see and paint apparently fulfils, for thetime being, this wondrous ideal; and, perhaps, if you wedded one,instead of painting her, she might continue permanently to fulfil it."
Garth considered this in silence, his level brows knitted. At last hesaid: "Beauty is so much a thing of the surface. I see it, and admireit. I desire it, and paint it. When I have painted it, I have made itmy own, and somehow I find I have done with it. All the time I ampainting a woman, I am seeking for her soul. I want to express it on mycanvas; and do you know, Miss Champion, I find that a lovely woman doesnot always have a lovely soul."
Jane was silent. The last things she wished to discuss were otherwomen's souls.
"There is just one who seems to me perfect," continued Garth. "I am topaint her this autumn. I believe I shall find her soul as exquisite asher body."
"And she is--?" inquired Jane.
"Lady Brand."
"Flower!" exclaimed Jane. "Are YOU so taken with Flower?"
"Ah, she is lovely," said Garth, with reverent enthusiasm. "Itpositively is not right for any one to be so absolutely flawlesslylovely. It makes me ache. Do you know that feeling, Miss Champion, ofperfect loveliness making you ache?"
"No, I don't," said Jane, shortly. "And I do not think other people'swives ought to have that effect upon you."
"My dear old chap," exclaimed Garth, astonished; "it has nothing to dowith wives or no wives. A wood of bluebells in morning sunshine wouldhave precisely the same effect. I ache to paint her. When I havepainted her and really done justice to that matchless loveliness as Isee it, I shall feel all right. At present I have only painted her frommemory; but she is to sit to me in October."
"From memory?" questioned Jane.
"Yes, I paint a great deal from memory. Give me one look of a certainkind at a face, let me see it at a moment which lets one penetratebeneath the surface, and I can paint that face from memory weeks after.Lots of my best studies have been done that way. Ah, the delight of it!Beauty--the worship of beauty is to me a religion."
"Rather a godless form of religion," suggested Jane.
"Ah no," said Garth reverently. "All true beauty comes from God, andleads back to God. 'Every good gift and every perfect gift is fromabove, and cometh down from the Father of lights.' I once met an oldfreak who said all sickness came from the devil. I never could believethat, for my mother was an invalid during the last years of her life,and I can testify that her sickness was a blessing to many, and borneto the glory of God. But I am, convinced all true beauty is God-given,and that is why the worship of beauty is to me a religion. Nothing badwas ever truly beautiful; nothing good is ever really ugly."
Jane smiled as she watched him, lying back in the golden sunlight, thevery personification of manly beauty. The absolute lack ofself-consciousness, either for himself or for her, which allowed him totalk thus to the plainest woman of his acquaintance, held a vein ofhumour which diverted Jane. It appealed to her more than buyingcoloured air-balls, or screaming because the duchess wore a mushroomhat.
"Then are plain people to be denied their share of goodness, Dal?" sheasked.
"Plainness is not ugliness," replied Garth Dalmain simply. "I learnedthat when quite a small boy. My mother took me to hear a famouspreacher. As he sat on the platform during the preliminaries he seemedto me quite the ugliest man I had ever seen. He reminded me of agrotesque gorilla, and I dreaded the moment when he should rise up andface us and give out a text. It seemed to me there ought to be barsbetween, and that we should want to throw nuts and oranges. But when herose to speak, his face was transfigured. Goodness and inspirationshone from it, making it as the face of an angel. I never again thoughthim ugly. The beauty of his soul shone through, transfiguring his body.Child though I was, I could differentiate even then between uglinessand plainness. When he sat down at the close of his magnificent sermon,I no longer thought him a complicated form of chimpanzee. I rememberedthe divine halo of his smile. Of course his actual plainness of featureremained. It was not the sort of face one could have wanted to livewith, or to have day after day opposite to one at table. But then onewas not called to that sort of discipline, which would have beenmartyrdom to me. And he has always stood to my mind since as a proof ofthe truth that goodness is never ugly; and that divine love andaspiration shining through the plainest features may redeem themtemporarily into beauty; and, permanently, into a thing one loves toremember."
"I see," said Jane. "It must have often helped you to a right view tohave realised that so long ago. But now let us return to the importantquestion of the face which you ARE to have daily opposite you at table.It cannot be Lady Brand's, nor can it be Myra's; but, you know, Dal, avery lovely one is being suggested for the position."
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"No names, please," said Garth, quickly. "I object to girls' namesbeing mentioned in this sort of conversation."
"Very well, dear boy. I understand and respect your objection. You havemade her famous already by your impressionist portrait of her, and Ihear you are to do a more elaborate picture 'in the fall.' Now, Dal,you know you admire her immensely. She is lovely, she is charming, shehails from the land whose women, when they possess charm, unite with ita freshness and a piquancy which place them beyond compare. In someways you are so unique yourself that you ought to have a wife with acertain amount of originality. Now, I hardly know how far the opinionof your friends would influence you in such a matter, but you may liketo hear how fully they approve your very open allegiance to--shall wesay--the beautiful 'Stars and Stripes'?"
Garth Dalmain took out his cigarette case, carefully selected acigarette, and sat with it between his fingers in absorbedcontemplation.
"Smoke," said Jane.
"Thanks," said Garth. He struck a match and very deliberately lightedhis cigarette. As he flung away the vesta the breeze caught it and itfell on the lawn, flaming brightly. Garth sprang up and extinguishedit, then drew his chair more exactly opposite to Jane's and lay back,smoking meditatively, and watching the little rings he blew, mount intothe cedar branches, expand, fade, and vanish.
Jane was watching him. The varied and characteristic ways in which herfriends lighted and smoked their cigarettes always interested Jane.There were at least a dozen young men of whom she could have given thenames upon hearing a description of their method. Also, she had learnedfrom Deryck Brand the value of silences in an important conversation,and the art of not weakening a statement by a postscript.
At last Garth spoke.
"I wonder why the smoke is that lovely pale blue as it curls up fromthe cigarette, and a greyish-white if one blows it out."
Jane knew it was because it had become impregnated with moisture, butshe did not say so, having no desire to contribute her quota of pats tothis air-ball, or to encourage the superficial workings of his mindjust then. She quietly awaited the response to her appeal to his deepernature which she felt certain would be forthcoming. Presently it came.
"It is awfully good of you, Miss Champion, to take the trouble to thinkall this and to say it to me. May I prove my gratitude by explainingfor once where my difficulty lies? I have scarcely defined it tomyself, and yet I believe I can express it to you." Another longsilence. Garth smoked and pondered.
Jane waited. It was a very comprehending, very companionable silence.Garth found himself parodying the last lines of an oldsixteenth-century song:
"Then ever pray that heaven may send Such weeds, such chairs, and such a friend."
Either the cigarette, or the chair, or Jane, or perhaps all threecombined were producing in him a sublime sense of calm, and rest, andwell-being; an uplifting of spirit which made all good things seembetter; all difficult things, easy; and all ideals, possible. Thesilence, like the sunset, was golden; but at last he broke it.
"Two women--the only two women who have ever really been in mylife--form for me a standard below which I cannot fall,--one, mymother, a sacred and ideal memory; the other, old Margery Graem, mychildhood's friend and nurse, now my housekeeper and general tender andmender. Her faithful heart and constant remembrance help to keep metrue to the ideal of that sweet presence which faded from beside mewhen I stood on the threshold of manhood. Margery lives at CastleGleneesh. When I return home, the sight which first meets my eyes asthe hall door opens is old Margery in her black satin apron, lawnkerchief, and lavender ribbons. I always feel seven then, and I alwayshug her. You, Miss Champion, don't like me when I feel seven; butMargery does. Now, this is what I want you to realise. When I bring abride to Gleneesh and present her to Margery, the kind old eyes willtry to see nothing but good; the faithful old heart will yearn to loveand serve. And yet I shall know she knows the standard, just as I knowit; I shall know she remembers the ideal of gentle, tender, Christianwomanhood, just as I remember it; and I must not, I dare not, fallshort. Believe me, Miss Champion, more than once, when physicalattraction has been strong, and I have been tempted in the worship ofthe outward loveliness to disregard or forget the essentials,--thethings which are unseen but eternal,--then, all unconscious ofexercising any such influence, old Margery's clear eyes look into mine,old Margery's mittened hand seems to rest upon my coat sleeve, and thevoice which has guided me from infancy, says, in gentle astonishment:`Is this your choice, Master Garthie, to fill my dear lady's place?' Nodoubt, Miss Champion, it will seem almost absurd to you when you thinkof our set and our sentiments, and the way we racket round that Ishould sit here on the duchess's lawn and confess that I have been heldback from proposing marriage to the women I have most admired, becauseof what would have been my old nurse's opinion of them! But you mustremember her opinion is formed by a memory, and that memory is thememory of my dead mother. Moreover, Margery voices my best self, andexpresses my own judgment when it is not blinded by passion or warpedby my worship of the beautiful. Not that Margery would disapprove ofloveliness; in fact, she would approve of nothing else for me, I knowvery well. But her penetration rapidly goes beneath the surface.According to one of Paul's sublime paradoxes, she looks at the thingsthat are not seen. It seems queer that I can tell you all this, MissChampion, and really it is the first time I have actually formulated itin my own mind. But I think it so extremely friendly of you to havetroubled to give me good advice in the matter."
Garth Dalmain ceased speaking, and the silence which followed suddenlyassumed alarming proportions, seeming to Jane like a high fence whichshe was vainly trying to scale. She found herself mentally rushinghither and thither, seeking a gate or any possible means of egress. Andstill she was confronted by the difficulty of replying adequately tothe totally unexpected. And what added to her dumbness was the factthat she was infinitely touched by Garth's confession; and when Janewas deeply moved speech always became difficult. That this youngman--adored by all the girls for his good looks and delightful manners;pursued for his extreme eligibility by mothers and chaperons; famousalready in the world of art; flattered, courted, sought after insociety--should calmly admit that the only woman really left IN hislife was his old nurse, and that her opinion and expectations held himback from a worldly, or unwise marriage, touched Jane deeply, evenwhile in her heart she smiled at what their set would say could theyrealise the situation. It revealed Garth in a new light; and suddenlyJane understood him, as she had not understood him before.
And yet the only reply she could bring herself to frame was: "I wish Iknew old Margery."
Garth's brown eyes flashed with pleasure.
"Ah, I wish you did," he said. "And I should like you to see CastleGleneesh. You would enjoy the view from the terrace, sheer into thegorge, and away across the purple hills. And I think you would like thepine woods and the moor. I say, Miss Champion, why should not _I_ getup a 'best party' in September, and implore the duchess to come andchaperon it? And then you could come, and any one else you would likeasked. And--and, perhaps--we might ask--the beautiful 'Stars andStripes,' and her aunt, Mrs. Parker Bangs of Chicago; and then weshould see what Margery thought of her!"
"Delightful!" said Jane. "I would come with pleasure. And really, Dal,I think that girl has a sweet nature. Could you do better? The exterioris perfect, and surely the soul is there. Yes, ask us all, and see whathappens."
"I will," cried Garth, delighted. "And what will Margery think of Mrs.Parker Bangs?"
"Never mind," said Jane decidedly. "When you marry the niece, the auntgoes back to Chicago."
"And I wish her people were not millionaires."
"That can't be helped," said Jane. "Americans are so charming, that wereally must not mind their money."
"I wish Miss Lister and her aunt were here," remarked Garth. "But theyare to be at Lady Ingleby's, where I am due next Tuesday. Do you comeon there, Miss Champion?"
"I do," replied Jane. "I go to the Bra
nds for a few days on Tuesday,but I have promised Myra to turn up at Shenstone for the week-end. Ilike staying there. They are such a harmonious couple."
"Yes," said Garth, "but no one could help being a harmonious couple,who had married Lady Ingleby."
"What grammar!" laughed Jane. "But I know what you mean, and I am gladyou think so highly of Myra. She is a dear! Only do make haste andpaint her and get her off your mind, so as to be free for PaulineLister."
The sun-dial pointed to seven o'clock. The rooks had circled round theelms and dropped contentedly into their nests.
"Let us go in," said Jane, rising. "I am glad we have had this talk,"she added, as he walked beside her across the lawn.
"Yes," said Garth. "Air-balls weren't in it! It was a football thistime--good solid leather. And we each kicked one goal,--a tie, youknow. For your advice went home to me, and I think my reply showed youthe true lie of things; eh, Miss Champion?"
He was feeling seven again; but Jane saw him now through old Margery'sglasses, and it did not annoy her.
"Yes," she said, smiling at him with her kind, true eyes; "we willconsider it a tie, and surely it will prove a tie to our friendship.Thank you, Dal, for all you have told me."
Arrived in her room, Jane found she had half an hour to spare beforedressing. She took out her diary. Her conversation with Garth Dalmainseemed worth recording, particularly his story of the preacher whosebeauty of soul redeemed the ugliness of his body. She wrote it downverbatim.
Then she rang for her maid, and dressed for dinner, and the concertwhich should follow.