'Certainly.'
Freeland regarded that as a triumph, but Clara was furious with him for interfering, and she scolded him until he promised that in future he would not say a word.
'What are you going to do?' he asked.
'I need a holiday from Charles,' she said—a new idea to Freeland, whose conception of love was besotted devotion—'and I am going to live alone for a time.'
Out she went, and before the day was done she had found a furnished apartment in the dingy region of narrow streets behind Leicester Square, and for a time she was entirely absorbed in this new acquisition. It was her own, her very own. It was at the top of the house, and looked out over roofs and chimneys westward so that she had the London sunset for comfort and companionship: more than enough, sweeter intimacy than any she had yet found among human beings, whose shallow business and fussy importance always hurt and exasperated her.... More clearly than ever she knew that there was only Charles and his work that mattered to her at all. She saw him occasionally and knew that he was entirely happy. He wrote to her every day and his plans were maturing famously. Lord Verschoyle was more and more interested, and as his lordship's interest grew so there waxed with it Charles's idea of his immense wealth. That worried Clara, who wanted her genius to prove himself in order to command and not to crave support. But Charles was elated with the success of his advertising campaign, and at the growth of his prestige among the artists.... 'Such a combination has never been known. We shall simply overwhelm the public.'
Clara's answer to this was to see that his relations with Sir Henry Butcher were not neglected. The explosion produced by Kitty's intervention had split their efforts, so that Charles was now working through Lord Verschoyle, she through Sir Henry Butcher, and once again she was embarked upon a battle with Charles for the realisation of his dreams—not upon paper, which perfectly satisfied him—but in terms of life in which alone she could feel that her existence was honourable. She kept a tight enough hold of Charles to see that he worked at The Tempest, but, as she was no longer with him continually, she could not check his delighted absorption in his committee. This was properly and duly constituted. It had a chairman, Professor Laverock, and Mr Clott acted also as its secretary in an honorary capacity, his emoluments from Charles being more than sufficient for his needs. It met regularly once a month in studios and drawing-rooms. The finest unofficialised brains in London were gathered together, and nervous men eyed each other suspiciously and anxiously until Charles appeared, with Mr Clott fussing and moving round him like a tug round a great liner. His presence vitalised the assembly; the suppressed idealism in his supporters came bubbling to the surface. Poets whose works were ignored by the great public, musicians whose compositions were ousted by Germans, Russians, Frenchmen, and Poles from the concert-rooms of London, dramatists whose plays were only produced on Sunday evenings, art critics who had acclaimed Charles's exhibition, all in his presence were conscious of a solidarity proof against all jealousy and disappointment; Charles, famous in Paris, Berlin, Moscow, New York, moved among them like a kindling wind.
He would arrive with his arms full of papers, while Mr Clott in a little black bag carried the essential documents—minute-book, agenda, suggestions, plans. For some months the Committee accomplished nothing but resolutions to invite and co-opt other members, but it seemed impossible to lure any really successful person into the net. No actor-manager, no Royal Academician, no poet with a healthy circulation could be found to give practical expression to his sympathy, though admiration for Mr Mann's work and the high reputation he had won for British Art on the Continent oozed from them all in letters of great length, which were read to the Committee until its members, most of them rather simple souls, were bewildered.
The accretion of Lord Verschoyle made a great difference. He attended in person, a shy, elegant young man, educated at Eton, and in the Guards for the gentle art of doing nothing. He owned a large area of London, and his estates were managed by a board which he was not even expected to attend, and he was a good young man. He wanted to spend money and to infuriate his trustees, but he did not know how to do it. Women bored him. He had a yacht, but loathed it, and kept it in harbour, and only spent on it enough money to keep it from rusting away. He maintained a stable, but would not bet or attend any other meeting than Ascot. He had some taste in art, but only cared for modern pictures, which he could buy for fifty or a hundred pounds. Indeed he was much too nice for his altogether exceptional opportunities for wasting money, for he loathed vulgarity, and the only people who could tell him how to waste his wealth—stable-touts, art-dealers, women of the West End—were essentially vulgar, and he could not endure their society.... He had five houses, but all he needed was an apartment of three rooms, and he was haunted and made miserable by the idea, not without a fairly solid foundation, that young women and their mammas wished to marry him for his money.... He longed to know a young woman who had no mamma, but none ever came his way. Society was full of mammas, and of ladies eager to push the fortunes of their husbands and lovers. He was turned to as a man of power, but in his heart he knew that no human being was ever more helpless, more miserably at the mercy of his trustees, agents, and servants.... He had been approached many times by persons interested in plays, theatres, and schemes, but being that rare and unhappy creature, a rich man with good taste, he had avoided them as hotly as the mammas of Mayfair and Belgravia.
He met Charles at his exhibition and was introduced to him. Charles at once bellowed at him at the top of his voice on the great things that would be achieved through the realisation of his dreams, and Lord Verschoyle had in his society the exhilarated sense of playing truant, and wanted more of it. He was hotly pursued at the moment by Lady Tremenheer, who had two daughters, and he longed ardently to disgrace himself, but so perfect was his taste that he could not do it—in the ordinary way. Charles was outrageous, but so famous as to carry it off, and Verschoyle seized upon the great artist as the way of escape, well knowing that art ranked with dissipation in the opinion of his trustees. With one stone he could kill all his birds. He promised by letter, being most careful to get his wicked indiscretion down in writing, his whole-hearted support of Charles's scheme.
Charles thereupon drew up his scheme. Verschoyle's wealth disposed of the most captious member of his committee, whose meetings now became more awful and ceremonious than ever. Even so much assembled intellect could not resist the wealth that through the generations had been gathered up to surround the gentle personality of Horace Biningham, Lord Verschoyle, who smiled benignantly upon the strange company and, all unconscious of the devastating effect upon them of his money, was most humbly flattered to be in the presence of so many distinguished persons.