"'In love with me? She may have been. I daresay she can convince herself she's in love with all of us. I told you she's imaginative. In love with me? Golly, I don't blame her. I nearly went out of my mind about her. There isn't a folly I didn't commit for—how long was it?—say six weeks. I shall never forget it. But a man in my position can't afford many of these episodes. They're too strenuous. I've got to work. If you'll excuse me, your cab is waiting and Miss Bailey will be back in a few minutes. She costs me three shillings an hour. You see,' he added, smiling, 'she's not in love with me! Love! My friend, the love those sort of women inspire never got a man anywhere. You can't escape it if it comes your way, it's true. You can only trust to the good Lord to let you off lightly. But flight is the bravest course. You have to be very rich and very strong in character if you are going in for that sort of thing. And this girl especially, because she does it by instinct. She works on you and gradually builds up in your mind an ideal woman who does duty for her. Oh, I know! She's a wonder. For instance,' and Mr. Kelly turned to me and held his index finger against my breast, 'why does she send you to me? Is she in want of money? Is she in danger? No. If she was, she knows I couldn't do anything for her if I would. She's doing it to impress you, to play up to the imaginary woman you've in your mind. As for this idea of sending a kid over here to be brought up an Englishman—phew! She's read something like that in a book, I'll bet. Well, here's Miss Bailey. You must excuse me. If you're in London next month, come and see my show at the New Gallery. And Sunday nights at supper. How I envy you going to the Mediterranean. My dream ... Good-bye.'
"Well," said Mr. Spenlove, after a moment of silent reflection, "I came out of the Kentish Studios and climbed into my cab feeling very much as though I had been skinned. That terrible young man seemed to have left me without a single illusion about myself. I have discovered since that he is recognized now as a painter of unusual power. He is making a name. But to me he will always be the merciless analyst of human emotion. He had the bitterness of those who escape love. He spared neither himself, nor me, nor the girl. He almost frightened me with the accuracy of his diagnosis. As the cab sped along the Tottenham Court Road on its way back to the Strand I wondered what he would have thought of Captain Macedoine himself, that master of illusion who was always playing up to the imaginary being one had in one's mind. I suppose creative artists see through each other's tricks. An artist is one who imposes upon our legitimate aspirations.
"I paid off the cab in the Strand and walked into the hotel. Men and women in evening dress were alighting for early theatre-dinners. I sent up my name as before. I had no very clear idea what I wanted to do. Oh, of course I wanted to see her again. I had no scruples. She was more interesting, more her father's daughter, than ever, to me now. As Florian Kelly had said, she was a wonder, but she could do me no harm. She was an artist, let us say, and as such I wished to see her at work. Beyond that there was another feeling, a sort of fatherly affection—a silly notion of protecting her from herself. But that young devil of a painter had divined that, too, and I sat down to wait, ashamed, amused, astonished. I recalled the conversations we had had on the ship and on the cliff, the subtle implication in her voice, the pity she had inspired in me by the contemplation of her disastrous fate. I had put my arm round her, given her my address, behaved like a sentimental old fool. And all the time her brain had been working, weighing, comparing, judging chances, and leading me on. But had she done so? Oh, women are wonderful! Their emotional imperturbability defies analysis. They weep, confess, cajole, attack, reproach, renounce, and at the end of it all you are as baffled as ever. Their souls are like those extraordinary bronze mirrors one sees nowadays. You look and see a picture. You go off in amused annoyance, your head over your shoulder, and see another picture. And when you come back again determined to be fair and candid, you see yet another picture, or perhaps a mere shining blank, a dazzling and expensive enigma. I knew all this. I saw all this; and yet I lingered. I was unable to resist the piquant pleasure of watching the girl, of occupying the position of confidant. I understood how the obscure husband of a celebrated theatrical star must feel without experiencing his grim regret. And when the page, in his blue and silver, with his miraculously brushed hair, and his expression of almost unearthly cleanliness, carried me upward once more, I had attained the right mood again for meeting these adventures in vicarious emotion. After all, for those of us to whom the avenues of fame, of wealth, of the domestic virtues are closed, there remains an occasional ramble in the romantic bye-ways of life. One may still meet young knights in shining armour, haughty kings and queens, and women with unfathomable eyes engaged upon mysterious quests. We can always run back to our old mother, the sea, and restore our souls upon her comfortable bosom.
"And I found myself again in that palatial apartment. There was no one there apparently. The page had closed the door and left me. I turned at the sound of a voice and saw her standing in the doorway of the next room, a figure in pale, shimmering gold, holding back a portière of heavy dark blue velvet. Holding it back for me to enter, and watching me with the old, derisive, questioning smile.
"'You have come back very quickly,' she said, going over to a lounge and patting a chair beside it.
"'Why did you send me to him?' I demanded, good-humouredly. She lay down on the lounge and turned toward me, her head on her palm.
"'What did he say?' she asked, and in her voice was that peculiar timbre of which I have already spoken, a delicate quality of tone that made one think of bells at a distance, a hint of fairy lands forlorn. I could understand how, to a young man in love with her, that exquisite modulation of tone would drive him mad.
"'He was not sympathetic,' I replied. 'He seemed to jump to the conclusion you didn't really need any assistance from him. Disclaims any responsibility, in fact.'
"'And you believed him?' she murmured.
"'He was very frank,' I answered. 'He spared neither you nor himself. He was good enough to warn me against your tricks.'