The Way of Ambition. Robert Hichens
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said Mrs. Searle. Then, with a change of voice: "Come along, Fan! And bring Masterman with you, there's a good girl! We must get on his clothes or he'll catch cold." (To Mrs. Mansfield.) "You'll excuse her, ma'am, but she's that nat'ral, clothes or no clothes it's all one to her."
Fan turned round, holding Masterman by one leg and staring with bright blue eyes at Mrs. Mansfield. Her countenance expressed a dignified inquiry combined, perhaps, with a certain amount of very natural surprise at so unseemly an interruption of her strictly private interview with Claude Heath and Masterman. Her left thumb mechanically sought the shelter of her mouth, and it was obvious that she was "sizing up" Mrs. Mansfield with all the caution, if not suspicion, of the female nature in embryo.
Heath took her gently by the shoulder as he came forward, smiling, and propelled her slowly toward the middle of the large dim room.
"Welcome!" he said, holding out his hand. "Yes, Fantail, I quite understand. He's been sick and now he's getting better. Go with mother!"
Fan was exchanged for Mrs. Mansfield and vanished, speaking slowly and continuously about Masterman's internal condition and "the new lydy," while Mrs. Mansfield took off her fur coat and looked around her and at Heath.
"I didn't kiss her," she said, "because I think it's a liberty to kiss one of God's creatures at first sight without a special invitation."
"I know—I know!"
Heath seemed restless. His face was slightly flushed, and his eyes, always full of a peculiar vitality, looked more living even than usual. He glanced at Mrs. Mansfield, then glanced away, almost guiltily, she thought.
"Do come and sit down by the fire. Would you like a cushion?"
"No, thank you! What a nice old settle!"
"Yes, isn't it? I live in this room. Alling, the painter, built it for his studio. The other rooms are tiny."
"What a delightful servant you have!"
"Mrs. Searle—yes. She's a treasure! Humanity breaks out of her whatever the occasion. And my goodness, how she understands men!"
He laughed, but the laugh sounded slightly unnatural.
"Fantail's delightful, too!" he added.
"What is her real name?"
"Fanny. I call her Fantail." He paused. "Well, because I like her, I suppose."
"I know."
There was a moment of silence, in which Mrs. Mansfield glanced about the room. Despite its size it was cozy. It looked as if it were lived in, perpetually and intimately used. There was nothing in it that was very handsome or very valuable, except a fine Steinway grand pianoforte; but there was nothing ugly or vulgar. And there were quantities of books, not covered with repellent glass. They were ranged in dark cases, which furnished the walls, and lay everywhere on tables, among magazines and papers, scores and volumes of songs and loose manuscript music. The piano was open, and there was more music on it. The armchairs were well worn but comfortable, and looked "sat in." Over the windows there were dim orange-colored curtains that looked old but not shabby. On the floor there were some rather good and very effective Oriental rugs. The only flowers in the room were bright yellow tulips, grouped together in a mass on an oak table a long way from the fire. Opposite to the piano there was a large ebony crucifix mounted on a stand, and so placed that anyone seated at the piano faced it. The room was lit not strongly by oil lamps with shades. A few mysterious oil paintings, very dark in color, hung on the walls between the bookcases. Mrs. Mansfield could not discern their subjects. On the high wooden mantelpiece there were a few photographs, of professors and students at the Royal College of Music and of a serious and innocent-looking priest in black coat and round white collar.
To Mrs. Mansfield the room suggested a recluse who liked to be cosy, who, perhaps, was drawn toward mystery, even mysticism, and who loved the life of the brain.
"And you've a garden?" she asked, breaking the little pause.
"The size of a large pocket-handkerchief. I'm not at all rich, you know. But I can just afford my little house and to live without earning a penny."
A woman servant, not Mrs. Searle, came in with tea and retreated, walking very softly and slowly. She looked almost rustic.
"That's my only other servant, Harriet," said Heath, pouring out tea.
"There's something very un-Londony in it all," said Mrs. Mansfield, again looking round, almost with a puzzled air.
"That's what I try for. I'm fond of London in a way, but I can't bear anything typical of London in my home."
"It is quite a home," she said; "and the home of a worker. One gets weary of being received in reception-rooms. This is a retreat."
Heath looked at her with his bright almost too searching and observant eyes.
"I wonder," he said almost reluctantly, "whether—may I talk about myself to-day?" he interrupted himself.
"Do, if you like to."
"I think I should."
"Do, then."
"I wonder whether a man is a coward to raise up barriers between himself and life, whether it is a mistake to have a retreat, as you rightly call this room, this house, and to spend the greater part of one's time alone in it? But"—he moved restlessly—"the real question is whether one ought to let oneself be guided by a powerful instinct."
"I expect one ought to."
"Do you? Oh, you're not eating anything!"
"I will help myself."
"Mrs. Shiffney wouldn't agree with you."
"No."
"Didn't—didn't you see her? She went just before you came."
"I saw someone. I thought it might be Adelaide. I wasn't sure."
"It was she. I hadn't asked her to come and wasn't expecting her."
He stopped, then added abruptly:
"It was wonderfully kind of her to come, though. She is kind and clever, too. She has fascination, I think. … "
"I'm sure she has."
"And yet, d'you know, there's something in her, and in lots of people I might get to know, I suppose, through her and Max Elliot, that I—well, I almost hate it."
"What is it?"
"Well, whenever I come across one of them by chance I seem to hear a voice repeating, 'To-morrow we die—to-morrow we die—to-morrow we die.' And I seem to see something inside of them with teeth and claws fastening on pleasure. It's—it's like a sort of minotaur, and it gives me horrors. And yet I might go to it."
Mrs. Mansfield said nothing for a moment. She had finished her cup of tea, and now, with a little gesture, refused to have another.
"It's quite true. There is the creature with teeth and claws, and it is, perhaps, horrible. But it's so sad that I scarcely see anything but its sadness."
"You are kinder than I."
He leaned forward.
"D'you know, I think you're the kindest human being I ever met, except one, that priest up there on the mantelpiece."
"Forgive me," she said, making allowance for herself to-day because of Heath's evident desire to talk intimately, a desire which she believed she ought to help, "but are you a Roman Catholic?"
"Oh, no! I wish I was!"
"But I suppose you can't be?"
"Oh, no! I suppose I'm one of those unsatisfactory people whose soul and whose brain are not in accord. That doesn't make for inward calm or satisfaction. But I can only hope for better days."
There was something uneasy in his speech. She felt the strong reserve in him always fighting against