CHAPTER I

LOVE IN IDLENESS

"How can any one hope to transfer that to canvas?" asked the artist, surveying the many-coloured earth and sky and sea with despairing eyes.

"Easily enough," replied the girl at his elbow, "those who see twice as vividly as others, can make others see once as vividly as they do. That is what we call genius."

"A large word for my small capabilities, Miss Enistor. Am I a genius?"

"Ask yourself, Mr. Hardwick, for none other than yourself can answer truly."

Outside his special gift the artist was not over clever, so he lounged on the yielding turf of the slope to turn the speech over in his mind and wait results. This tall solidly built Saxon only arrived at conclusions by slow degrees of laborious reflection. With his straight athletic figure, closely clipped fair hair and a bronzed complexion, against which his moustache looked almost white, he resembled a soldier rather than a painter. Yet a painter he was of some trifling fame, but being only moderately creative, he strove to supply what was wanting by toilsome work. He had not so much the steady fire of genius as the crackling combustion of talent. Thus the grim Cornish country and the far-stretching Atlantic waters, so magically beautiful under an opalescent sunset, baffled him for the moment.

"I have the beginnings of genius," he finally decided, "that is, I can see for myself, but I cannot pass the vision on to others by production."

"Half a loaf is better than none," said Miss Enistor soothingly.

"I am not so sure that your proverb is true, so I reply with another. If indeed appetite comes with eating, as the French say, it is useless to invite it with half a loaf, when, for complete satisfaction, one requires the whole."

"There is something in that," admitted the girl, smiling, "but try and secure your desired whole loaf by sitting mousey-quiet and letting what is before you sink into your innermost being. Then you may create."

Crossing his legs and gripping his ankles, Hardwick, seated in the approved attitude of a fakir, did his best to adopt this advice, although he might well despair of fixing on canvas the fleeting vision of that enchanted hour. From the cromlech, near which the couple were stationed, a purple carpet of heather rolled down to a winding road, white and dusty and broad. On the hither side of the loosely built wall which skirted this, stretched many smooth green fields, divided and subdivided by boundaries of piled stones, feathery with ferns and coarse grasses. Beyond the confines of this ordered world, a chaos of bracken and ling, of small shrubs and stunted trees, together with giant masses of silvery granite, islanded amidst a sea of gold-besprinkled gorse, tumbled pell-mell to the jagged edge of the cliffs. Finally, the bluish plain of ocean glittered spaciously to the far sharp horizon-line. Thence rose billowy clouds of glorious hues threaded with the fires of the sinking sun, heaping themselves in rainbow tints higher and higher towards the radiant azure of the zenith. No ship was on the water, no animals moved on the land, and even the grey huddle of houses, to which the smooth level road led, appeared to be without inhabitants. For all that could be seen of sentient life, the two on the hilltop were alone in this world of changeful beauty: the Adam and Eve of a new creation.

"Yet," murmured the girl, to whom this stillness suggested thoughts, "around us are nature-spirits, invisible and busy, both watchful and indifferent. Oh, Mr. Hardwick, how I should love to see the trolls, the pixies, the gnomes and the nixies."

"Rhyme, if not reason," laughed the artist lazily, "one must have the eye of faith to see such impossible things."

"Impossible?" Miss Enistor shrugged her shoulders and declined to combat his scepticism beyond the query of the one word. As that did not invite conversation, Hardwick gave himself up to the mere contentment of looking at her. Amidst the warm splendours of the hour, she somehow conveyed to him the sensation of a grey and pensive autumn day, haunting, yet elusive in its misty beauty. He was wholly unable to put this feeling into words, but he conceived it dimly as a subtle blurring of the picture she had bidden him create. His love for her was like a veil before his conception, and until that veil was removed by his surrender of the passion, the execution of the landscape on canvas was impossible. Yet so sweet was this drawback to his working powers that he could not wish it away.

Yet it was strange that the girl should be attractive to a man of his limitations, since her alluring qualities were not aggressively apparent. A delicate oval face, exquisitely moulded, with a transparent colourless skin, and mystical eyes of larkspur blue, were scarcely what his blunt perceptions approved of as absolute beauty. Slim and dainty and fragile in shape and stature, her unusual looks suggested a cloistered nun given to visions or some peaked elfin creature of moonlight and mist. She might have been akin to the fairies she spoke about, and even in the strong daylight she was a creature of dreams ethereal and evanescent. Hardwick was much too phlegmatic a man to analyse shadows. A Celt would have comprehended the hidden charm which drew him on; the Saxon could only wonder what there was in the girl to impress him.

"You are not my ideal of beauty, you know, Miss Enistor," he said in such a puzzled way as to rob the speech of premeditated rudeness; "yet there is something about you which makes me adore you!"

The girl flushed and shrugged her shoulders again. "What a flamboyant word is 'adored'!"

"It is the only word I can use," said Hardwick stoutly. "The Venus of Milo, Brynhild in the Volsung poem, Jael who slew Sisera, Rubens' robust nymphs: these were the types which appealed to me—until I met you."

"How complimentary to my small commonplace looks! What caused you to change your mind, Mr. Hardwick?"

"Something you possess, which is not apparent."

"You talk in riddles. What attracts any one must be apparent."

"Well, that is uncertain. I am not a deep thinker, you know. But there is such a thing as glamour."

"There is. But you are not the man to comprehend the meaning of the word."

"I admit that: all the same I feel its influence—in you!"

"I don't know what you mean," said the girl indifferently.

"Nor do I. Yet the feeling is here," and he touched his heart. "If I could only shape that feeling into words,"—he hesitated and blushed.

"Well?"

"I might be able to tell you much—Alice."

"Why do you use my Christian name?"

"Why not? We are man and woman on a hillside, and not over-civilised beings in a drawing-room. You are Alice: I am Julian. It is quite simple."

"But too intimate," she objected, "you have known me only six months."

"Do you reckon knowledge by Time?"

"You have no knowledge: you confessed as much lately."

Hardwick looked at her earnestly. "I have this much, that I know how deeply I love you, my dear!" and he took her hand gently between his palms.

Alice let it lie there undisturbed, but did not return his pressure. For a few moments she looked straightly at the sunset. "I am sorry to hear you say that," was her calm remark when she did decide to speak.

"Why?"

"Because I can never love you!"

"Love can create love," urged Julian, again pressing her hand and again receiving no answering caress.

"Not between you and me. You may be fire, but I am not tow to catch alight." The flush had disappeared from her face, leaving it pure and white and calm to such a degree that the man dropped her hand. It was like holding a piece of ice, and he felt chilled by the aloofness of touch and look. "But you are a woman," he said roughly in his vexation, "you must know what love means."

"I don't: really I don't." Alice hugged her knees and stared with the sublime quietness of an Egyptian statue at his perturbed countenance. As he did not answer, she continued to speak in a deliberate way, which showed that his proposal had not touched her heart in the least. "My mother died when I was born, and I had Dame Trevel in the village yonder as my foster-mother until I was ten years of age. Then my father sent me to a Hampstead boarding school for eleven years. I returned only twelve months ago to live at Tremore"—she nodded towards a long low grey house, which basked on a neighbouring hilltop like a sullen reptile in the sunshine.

"But your father——?"

"My father," interrupted the girl in a melancholy tone, "has no love for any one but himself. At times I think he hates me for causing the death of my mother by being born."

"Surely not."

"Well, you have seen my father. I leave you to judge."

Hardwick was puzzled how to reply. "He is not a man who shows his feelings, you know," he said delicately.

"I don't think he has any feelings to show," replied Alice indifferently. "I am used to his neglect, and so have schooled myself to be quietly agreeable without expecting any demonstrations of affection."

Hardwick nodded. "I have noticed, when dining at Tremore, that you are more like well-bred acquaintances than father and daughter. Perhaps," he added in a dreamy tone, "that is what first made me fall in love with you."

"I see," said Miss Enistor ironically, "you have come across the line of Shakespeare which says that pity is akin to love."

"I have never read Shakespeare's plays," admitted Mr. Hardwick simply. "I'm not a clever chap, you know. But you looked so forlorn in that dismal house, and seemed so starving for kind words and actions, that I wanted to take you away with me and make you happier. Yes," the artist quite brightened at his own perspicuity, "that is what drew me to you—a desire to give you a really good time."

Alice looked at him gravely, but with a suspicion of a smile on her pale lips. "Do you know, Julian, that I believe you to be a good man." The artist blushed again: he had the trick of blushing on occasions, which showed him to possess still the modesty of boyhood. "Oh, I say," he murmured almost inaudibly; then to cover his confusion added: "You call me Julian."

"Yes," Alice nodded her head in a stately way. "Henceforth let us be the greatest of friends."

"Lovers," he urged, "true honest lovers."

"No, Julian. We would be neither true nor honest as lovers. Our marriage would not be one of those made in heaven."

"Are any marriages made in heaven?" he asked somewhat cynically.

She looked at him in surprise. "Of course. When one soul meets another soul capable of blending with it, that is a heavenly marriage."

"Well then," he cried impetuously, "my soul and your soul?"

Alice shook her head. "We don't strike the same note: we are not in harmony, Julian. As friends we can esteem one another, but as lovers, as man and wife, you would end in boring me as I should finally bore you."

"One would think you were fifty to hear you talk so," said Hardwick crossly.

"Do you reckon knowledge by Time?" she asked, harking back to the phrase he had used earlier in the conversation.

He had no reply ready. "Still it is odd to hear a girl of twenty-one talk as you do, Alice."

"You are speaking of my new suit of clothes. I am as old as the world."

"Oh, that is the queer stuff your father talks. He believes in reincarnation, doesn't he?"

"He does, and so do I."

"I wonder that you can. A sensible girl like you——"

"My dear Julian, you speak without knowledge," she interrupted placidly.

"That can't be knowledge which can't be proved."

"I think you must be a reincarnation of Nicodemus," retorted Miss Enistor.

"That is no answer."

"Now how can I give you an answer, when you have not the capability of grasping the answer, Julian? If a peasant wanted a mathematical problem proved to him, he would have to learn mathematics to understand it."

"Yes, I suppose so. But you mean——"

"I mean that you have to live the life to understand the doctrine. Christ said that two thousand years ago, and it is as true to-day as it was then."

With his slow habit of thinking Hardwick had to revolve this speech in his mind before replying. Alice, with an impish look of mischief on her face, laughed also to prevent his answering. "I am taking you into deep water and you will be drowned," she said lightly, "suppose you begin your picture."

"No," said the man soberly. "I don't feel like painting the picture. I don't believe I ever could," and he looked at the fading glories of sea and land regretfully.

"Next time you are born you will be a genius," said Miss Enistor cheerfully, "as you are building up in this life the brain required by a master-painter. Meantime I wish you to be my friend."

"Well, it is hard to decline from love to friendship, but——"

"No 'buts.' Friendship is love from another point of view."

"Not my point of view."

Alice raised an admonitory finger. "You mustn't be selfish," she said severely.

"Selfish? I? How can I be?"

"By wishing me to give for your gratification what I cannot give for my own. I cannot love you as you desire, because there is not that spiritual link between us which means true love. Therefore to make me happy, if you really love me, you should be prepared to sacrifice yourself to the lower feeling of friendship."

"That is too high for me," murmured Hardwick despondingly, "but I see that you won't have me as your husband."

"Certainly not. I want a man to love me, not to pity me."

"It isn't exactly pity."

"Yes it is," she insisted, "you are sorry for me because I live in a dull house with a neglectful father. It is very nice of you to think so, and it is still nicer to think that you are willing to help me by tying yourself to a woman you do not really love. But I can't accept that sacrifice. You must be my friend, Julian—my true honest friend."

Hardwick glanced into her deep blue eyes, and unintelligent as he was in such subtle matters read his answer therein. "I shall do my best," he said with a deep sigh; "but you must give me time to cool down from passion to friendship. I want you to be my wife, and like all women you offer to be a sister to me."

"Or I will be your cousin if the relation will suit you better," said the girl, laughing outright at his rueful looks.

Julian took offence. "You don't pity me?"

"Not at all, since your feeling is not one of genuine love," was the cool response. "I would if it were."

"One would think you were a hardened woman of the world to hear you speak in this way."

"Perhaps I was a woman of the world in my last incarnation, Julian. I seem to have brought over a great deal of common sense to this life. You are a dear, sweet, placid thing, but although you have seen more of human nature and worldly existence this time than I have, you don't know half so much."

"Alice, you are conceited."

"Ah, that speech shows you are yet heart-whole, Julian. If you were really in love you would never dare to speak so to your divinity."

"Well, I daresay I shall get over it. But it's hard on a fellow."

"Not at all. Hard on your vanity perhaps, but vanity isn't you. Come," Alice sprang to her feet and took up her smart silver-headed cane, "the sun will soon go down and I must get home. We are friends, are we not?" she held out her hand smiling.

"Of course we are." Hardwick bent to kiss her hand and she snatched it away swiftly.

"That isn't friendship."

"Oh, with you friendship means: 'You may look, but you mustn't touch.'"

"Exactly," said Miss Enistor lightly, "consider me if you please as a valuable Dresden china ornament under a glass shade."

Julian heaved another sigh and began to collect his painting materials. "I must if I must," he admitted grudgingly; "there isn't another man, I suppose?"

The face of the girl grew grave. "There isn't another man whom I love, if that is what you mean," she said, reluctantly. "I have not yet met with my Prince, who will wake me to love and beauty. But there is a man who wants, as you do, to be the Prince."

"Oh hang him, who is he?"

"Don Pablo Narvaez!"

"That old mummy. Impossible!"

"It is both possible and disagreeable. He hinted the other day that he——"

"Loved you? What impertinence!"

"No," said Alice dryly, "he did not commit himself so far. But he hinted that he would like me to be his wife. My father afterwards told me that it would be a good match for me, as Don Pablo is wealthy."

"Wealthy be blessed, Alice," rejoined Hardwick with great heat. "You don't want to take your husband from a museum."

"I don't and I won't," she replied with great determination, "and for that reason I wish you to be my friend."

"Why, what can I do?"

"Stand by me. If my father insists upon my marrying Don Pablo, you must say that I am engaged to you, and this will give you the right to interfere."

Hardwick packed his traps, and swung up the hill on the home-path alongside the girl. "How can you ask me to take up such a position when you know that I love you, Alice?"

"If I thought that you did I should not ask for your help, Julian. But in your own heart you know that you really do not love me. It is only what you call the glamour of my personality that has caught you for the moment. It is not improbable," she went on musingly, "that there may be some slight link between us dating from our meeting in former lives, but it is not a strong enough one to bring us together this time as man and wife!"

"Oh, this mystical talk makes me tired," cried the painter in quite an American way, "it's silly."

"So it is from your point of view," said Miss Enistor promptly, "let us get down to what you call common sense in your robust Anglo-Saxon style. I want you to stand between me and Don Pablo in the way I suggest. Will you?"

"Yes. That is—give me a day or two to think the matter over. I am flesh and blood, you know, Alice, and not stone."

"Oh, nonsense, you deceive yourself," she retorted impatiently. "Don't I tell you that if I thought your feeling for me was really genuine I should not be so wicked as to risk your unhappiness? But I know you better than you do yourself. If you loved me, would you have chatted about this, that and the other thing so lightly after I had rejected you?"

"There is something in that," admitted Hardwick, as Alice had done previously with regard to his whole-loaf argument. "Well, I daresay I shall appear as your official lover. Don Pablo shan't worry you if I can help it."

"Thanks, you dear good boy," rejoined the girl gratefully and squeezed the artist's arm. "Don't you feel fire running through your veins when I touch you, Julian?"

"No," said Hardwick stolidly.

"Doesn't your heart beat nineteen to the dozen: haven't you the feeling that this is heaven on earth?"

"Not a bit."

Alice dropped his arm with a merry laugh. "And you talk about being in love with me! Can't you see now how wise I was to refuse you?"

"Well," said Hardwick reluctantly, for he felt that she was perfectly right in her diagnosis; "there may be something in what you say."

"There is everything in what I say," she insisted; "however, I shall give you another chance. Catch me before I reach Tremore and I shall be your wife."

Before Hardwick could accept or refuse, she sprang up the narrow winding path as lightly as Atalanta. More out of pique than absolute desire the artist followed. Although he now began to see that he had taken a false Eros for the true one, he resolutely sped after the flying figure, if only to have the pleasure of refusing the prize when he won it. But he might as well have attempted to catch an air-bubble. Alice was swifter than he was, and ran in a flying way which reminded him of a darting swallow. Down the declivity she dropped, following the twists of the pathway amongst the purple heather, and sprang across the brawling stream at the bottom of the valley before he was half-way down. Then up she mounted, with an arch backward glance, to scale the hill whereon Tremore gloomed amidst its muffling trees. At the gate set in the mouldering brick wall he nearly caught her, for pride winged his feet. But she eluded his grasp with a laugh and disappeared amongst the foliage of the miniature forest. When next she came in sight, he beheld her standing at the sombre porch of the squat mansion binding up her tresses of black hair, which had become loose with her exertions.

"You don't love me," panted Alice, who had scarcely got her breath, "if you did I should have been in your arms by this time."

"Pouf!" puffed Hardwick, wiping his wet brow. "Pouf! pouf! pouf!"

"Is that all you have to say?"

"It is all I am able to say. Pouf! Pouf! Well, my dear girl, Saul went to look for his asses and found a kingdom. I went to look for a kingdom of love and find an ass—in myself."

"Oh no! no!" protested Alice, rather distressed.

"Oh yes! yes! The love-mood has come and gone in the space of an afternoon, Miss Enistor."

"Alice to you, Julian," and she held out her hand.

The artist did not attempt to kiss it this time. "Brother and sister," he said, giving the hand a hearty shake, "and official lover when necessary."

"It's a bargain," replied Miss Enistor beaming, and so it was arranged.