The Way of Ambition

by Robert Hichens

This pained her. She even considered whether she ought not to put an end to her intimacy with Heath. She had grown to value it. She was incapable of entering into a sentimental relation with any man. She had loved deeply, had had her beautiful summer. It had died. The autumn was upon her. She regretted. Often her heart was by a grave, often it was beyond, seeking, like a bird with spread wings above dark seas seeking the golden clime it needs and instinctively knows of. But she did not repine. And she was able to fill her life, to be strongly interested in people and in events. She mellowed with her great sorrow instead of becoming blunted by it or withering under it. And so she drew people to her, and was drawn, in her turn, to them.

Claude Heath had brought into her life something her other friends had not given her. She realized this clearly when she first considered Charmian in connection with herself and him. If he ceased from her life, sank away into the crowd of unseen men, he would leave a gap which another could not fill. She had a feeling that she was valuable to him. She did not know exactly how or why. And he was valuable to her.

But of course Charmian was the first interest in her life, had the first claim upon her consideration. She sat wondering what it was in Heath which the girl disliked, what it was in Charmian which, perhaps, troubled or irritated Heath.

Charmian was out that day at an afternoon concert, and Mrs. Mansfield had made an engagement to go to tea with Heath in his little old house near St. Petersburg Place. She had never yet visited him, although she had known him for nearly three months. And she had never heard a note of his music. The latter fact did not strike her as strange. She had never mentioned her dead husband to him.

Max Elliot had at first been perturbed by this reticence of the musician. He had specially wished Mrs. Mansfield to hear what he had heard. After that evening in Cadogan Square he had several times asked: "Well, have you heard the Te Deum?" or "Has Heath played any of his compositions to you yet?" To Mrs. Mansfield's invariable unembarrassed "No!" he gave a shrug of the shoulders, a "He's an extraordinary fellow!" or a "Well, I've made a failure of it this time!" Once he added: "Don't you want to hear his music?" "Not unless he wants me to hear it," Mrs. Mansfield replied. Elliot looked at her for a minute with his large, prominent and kind eyes, and said: "No wonder you're adored by your friends!" Several times since the evening in Cadogan Square he had heard Heath play his compositions, and he now began to feel as if he owed this pleasure to his busy and almost vulgar curiosity about musical development and the progress of artists, as if Heath's reserve were his greatest proof of regard and friendship. He had not succeeded in persuading Heath to come to one of his Sunday musical evenings, at which crowds of people in society and many artists assembled. Mrs. Mansfield taught him not to attempt any more persuasion. He realized that his first instinct had been right. The plant must grow in darkness. But he was always being carried away by artistic enthusiasms, and had an altruistic desire to share good things. And he dearly loved "a musical find." He had a certain name as a discoverer of talent, and there's so much in a name. The lives that have been changed, moulded, governed by a hastily conferred name!

Mrs. Mansfield was inclined to believe that Heath had invited her to tea with the intention of at last submitting his talent to her opinion. They had sometimes talked together of music, but much oftener of books, character, people, national movements, topics of the day. As she went to her bedroom to dress for her expedition, she felt a certain hesitation, almost a disinclination to go. To go was to draw a step or two nearer to Heath, and so, perhaps, to retreat a step or two from her child. To-day the fact that Charmian and Heath did not quite "hit it off together" vexed her spirit, and the slight mystery of their relation troubled her. As she went down to get into the motor she was half inclined to speak to Heath on the subject. She was quite certain that she would not speak to Charmian.

The month was February, and by the time Mrs. Mansfield reached Mullion House evening was falling. A large motor was drawn up in front of the house, and as Mrs. Mansfield's chauffeur sounded a melodious chord the figure of a smartly dressed woman walked across the pavement and stepped into it. After an instant of delay, caused by this woman's footman, who spoke to her at the window, the car moved off and disappeared rapidly in the gathering darkness.

"Was that Adelaide?" Mrs. Mansfield asked herself as she got out.

She was not certain, but she thought the passing figure had looked like Mrs. Shiffney's.

The door of Mullion House stood open, held by a thin woman with very large gray eyes, who smiled at Mrs. Mansfield and made a slight motion, almost as if she mentally dropped a curtsey, but physically refrained out of respect for London ways.