Name and Fame: A Novel

by Adeline Sergeant

But the desire to be free from his trammels had taken possession of him with irresistible force, and he was prepared to risk the worst that she could do to him in order to accomplish it. Even as it was, he had reason to think that she was not true to her undertaking not to slander or molest him so long as she received her allowance. He had twice received offensive post-cards, and though there was nothing to prove from whom they came, he could have very little doubt that they had been posted by her in moments when jealous rage or intoxication had got the better of her prudence.

The scandal which began to fasten upon his name after Sydney Campion had heard Brooke Dalton's story in the smoking-room of the Oligarchy was almost forgotten again, though it lurked in the memory of many a thoughtless retailer of gossip, ready to revive on the slightest provocation.

More for Lettice's sake than his own, he lived in complete retirement, and scarcely ever left his lodgings except to spend a few hours in the Museum Reading Room. In this way he avoided the chance of meeting her, as well as the chance of encountering his wretched wife, concerning whose mode of life he had only too trustworthy evidence from the lawyer to whom he had committed his interests.

Then there came a day when he could not deny himself the pleasure of attending a conversazione for which tickets had been sent him by an old friend. The subject to be discussed in the course of the evening was one in which he was specially interested, and his main object in going was that he might be made to forget for a few hours the misery of his present existence, which the last of Cora's post-cards had painfully impressed upon him.

He had not been there more than half-an-hour, when, moving with the crowd from one room to another, he suddenly came face to face with Lettice and the Grahams. All of them were taken by surprise, and there was a little constraint in their greeting. Perhaps Lettice was the least disturbed of the four—for the rest of them thought chiefly of her, whilst she thought of Alan's possible embarrassment, which she did her best to overcome, with the ready tact of an unselfish woman.

Alan had grown doubly sensitive of late, and his one idea had been that Lettice must be preserved from all danger of annoyance, whether by the abandoned woman who had so amply proved the shrewdness of her malice, or by himself—who had no less amply proved his weakness. In pure generosity of mind he would have contented himself with a few grave words, and passed on. But it seemed to her as if he had not the courage to remain, taking for granted her resentment at his unfortunate letter. To her pure mind there was not enough, even in that letter, to cause complete estrangement between them. At any rate, it was not in her to impose the estrangement by any display of anger or unkindness. The sublime courage of innocence was upon her as she spoke.

"See," she said, "the professor is going to begin. The people are taking their seats, and if we do not follow their example all the chairs will be filled, and we shall have to stand for an hour. Let us sit down."

She just glanced at Alan, so that he could regard himself as included in the invitation; and, nothing loth, he sat down beside her. The lecturer did not start for another ten minutes, and Lettice occupied the interval by comparing notes with Clara Graham: for these two dearly loved a gossip in which they could dissect the characters of the men they knew, and the appearance of the women they did not know. It was a perfectly harmless practice as indulged in by them, for their criticism was not malicious. The men, after one or two commonplaces, relapsed into silence, and Alan was able to collect his thoughts, and at the same time to realize how much happiness the world might yet have in store for him, since this one woman, who knew the worst of him, did not think it necessary to keep him at a distance.

Then the professor began to speak. He was a small and feeble man, wheezy in his delivery, and, it must be confessed, rather confused in his ideas. He had been invited to make plain to an audience, presumably well read and instructed, the historical bearings of certain recent discoveries in Egypt; and the task was somewhat difficult for him. There were seven theories, all more or less plausible, which had been started by as many learned Egyptologists; and this worthy old gentleman, though quite as competent to give an opinion, and stick to it, as any of the rest, was so modest and self-depreciatory that he would not go further than to state and advocate each theory in turn, praising its author, and defending him against the other six. After doing this, he was bold to confess that he did not altogether agree with any of the seven. He was on the point of launching his own hypothesis, which would have been incompatible with all the rest, when his heart failed him. He therefore ended by inviting discussion, and sat down, blushing unseen beneath his yellow skin, exactly as he used to blush half a century ago when he was called up to construe a piece of Homer. Three of the seven Egyptologists were present, and they now rose, one after another, beginning with the oldest. Each of them stated his own theory, showing much deference to the lecturer as "the greatest living authority" on this particular subject; and then, after politely referring to the opinions of the two rival savants whom he saw in the audience, became humorous and sarcastic at the expense of the absent four.

But, as the absent are always wrong in comparison with the present, so youth is always wrong in comparison with age. The youngest Egyptologist—being in truth a somewhat bumptious man, fresh from Oxford by way of Cairo and Alexandria—had presumed to make a little feint of sword-play with one of the lecturer's diffident remarks. This brought up the other two who had already spoken; and they withered that young man with infinite satisfaction to themselves and the male part of the audience.