it all over the little misfortune at the pool?'
Tragedy grew in Lewis's eyes. 'Don't laugh, old chap. You don't know what I did. I let her fall into the water, and then I stood staring and let another man-the other man-save her.'
'Well, and what about that? He had a better chance than you. You shouldn't grudge him his good fortune.'
'Good Lord, man, you don't think it's that that's troubling me! I felt murderous, but it wasn't on his account.'
'Why not?' asked the older man drily. 'You love the girl, and he's in the running with you. What more?'
Lewis groaned. 'How can I talk about loving her when my love is such a trifling thing that it doesn't nerve me to action? I tell you I love her body and soul. I live for her. The whole world is full of her.
She is never a second out of my thoughts. And yet I am so little of a man that I let her come near death and never try to save her.'
'But, confound it, man, it may have been mere absence of mind. You were always an extraordinarily plucky chap.' Wratislaw spoke irritably, for it seemed to him sheer folly.
Lewis looked at him imploringly. 'Can you not understand?' he cried.
Wratislaw did understand, and suddenly. The problem was subtler than he had thought. Weakness was at the core of it, weakness revealed in self-deception and self-accusation alike, the weakness of the finical dreamer, the man with the unrobust conscience. But the weakness which Lewis arraigned himself on was the very obvious failing of the diffident and the irresolute. Wratislaw tried the path of boisterous encouragement.
'Get up, you old fool, and come down to the house. You a coward! You are simply a romancer with an unfortunate knack of tragedy.' The man must be laughed out of this folly. If he were not he would show the self- accusing front to the world, and the Manorwaters, Alice, Stocks-all save his chosen intimates-would credit him with a cowardice of which he had no taint.
Arthur and George, resigned now to the inevitable lady, had seen in the incident only the anxiety of a man for his beloved, and just a hint of the ungenerous in his treatment of Mr. Stocks. They were not prepared for the silent tragic figure which Wratislaw brought with him.
Arthur had a glint of the truth, but the obtuse George saw nothing. 'Do you know that you are going to have the Wisharts for neighbours for a couple of months yet? Old Wishart has taken Glenavelin from the end of August.'
This would have been pleasant hearing at another time, but now it simply drove home the nail of his bitter reflections. Alice would be near him, a terrible reproach-she, the devotee of strength and competence. He could not win her, and it is characteristic of the man that he had ceased to think of Mr. Stocks as his rival. He would lose her to no rival; to his ragged incapacity alone would his ill fortune be due.
He struggled to act the part of the cheerful host, and Wratislaw watched his efforts grimly. He ate little at dinner, showed no desire to smoke, and played billiards so badly that Wratislaw, an execrable player, won the first and last game of his life. The victor took him out of doors thereafter to walk on the moonlit, fragrant lawn.
'You are taking things to heart,' said he.
'And I'm blessed if I can understand you. To me it's sheer mania.'
'And to me it's the last link in a chain. I have suspected myself for long, now I know myself and-ugh! the knowledge is a hideous thing.'
Wratislaw stood regarding his companion seriously. 'I wonder what will happen to you, Lewie. Life is serious enough without inventing a crotchety virtue to make it miserable.'
'Can't you understand me, Tommy? It isn't that I'm a cad, it's that I am a coward. I couldn't be a cad supposing I tried. These things are a matter chiefly of blood and bone, and I am not made that way. But God help me! I am a coward. I can't fight worth twopence. Look at my performance a fortnight ago. The ordinary gardener's boy can beat me at making love. I am full of generous impulses and sentiments, but what's the use of them? Everything grows cold and I am a dumb icicle when it comes to action. I knew all this before, but I thought I had kept my bodily courage. I've had a good enough training, and I used to have pluck.'
'But you don't mean to tell me that it was funk that kept you out of the pool to-day?' cried the impatient Wratislaw.
'How do I know that it wasn't?' came the wretched answer.
Wratislaw turned on his heel and made to go back.
'You're an infernal idiot, Lewie, and an infernal child. Thank heaven! your friends know you better than you know yourself.'
The next morning it was a different man who came down to breakfast. He had lost his haggard air, and seemed to have forgotten the night's episode.
'Was I very rude to everybody last night?' he asked. 'I have a vague recollection of playing the fool.'
'You were particularly rude about yourself,' said Wratislaw.
The young man laughed. 'It's a way I have sometimes. It's an awkward thing when a man's foes are of his own household.'
The others seemed to see a catch in his mirth, a ring as of something hollow. He opened some letters, and looked up from one with a twitching face and a curious droop of the eyelids. 'Miss Wishart is all right,' he said. 'My aunt says that she is none the worse, but that Stocks has caught a tremendous cold. An unromantic ending!'
The meal ended, they wandered out to the lawn to smoke, and Wratislaw found himself standing with a hand on his host's shoulder. He noticed something distraught in his glance and air.
'Are you fit again to-day?' he asked.
'Quite fit, thanks,' said Lewis, but his face belied him. He had forgiven himself the incident of yesterday, but no proof of a non sequitur could make him relinquish his dismal verdict. The wide morning landscape lay green and soothing at his feet. Down in the glen men were winning the bog-hay; up on the hill slopes they were driving lambs; the Avelin hurried to the Gled, and beyond was the great ocean and the infinite works of man. The whole brave bustling world was astir, little and great ships hasting out of port, the soldier scaling the breach, the adventurer travelling the deserts. And he, the fool, had no share in this braggart heritage. He could not dare to look a man straight in the face, for like the king in the old fable he had lost his soul.
Chapter XIV
A GENTLEMAN IN STRAITS
The fall of the leaf found Etterick very full of people, and new dwellers in Glenavelin. The invitations were of old standing, but Lewis found their fulfilment a pleasant trick of Fortune's. To keep a bustling household in good spirits leaves small room for brooding, and he was famous for his hospitality. The partridges were plentiful that year, and a rainless autumn had come on the heels of a fine summer. So life went pleasantly with all, and the master of the place cloaked a very sick heart under a ready good-humour.
His thoughts were always on Glenavelin, and when he happened to be near it he used to look with anxious eyes for a slim figure which was rarely out of his fancy. He had not seen Alice since the accident, save for one short minute, when riding from Gledsmuir he had passed her one afternoon at the Glenavelin gates. He had earnestly desired to stop, but his curious cowardice had made him pass with a lifted hat and a hasty smile. Could he have looked back, he might have seen the girl watching him out of sight with tearful eyes. To himself he was the hopeless lover, and she the scornful lady, while she in her own eyes was the unhappy girl for whom the soldier in the song shakes his bridle reins and cries an eternal adieu.
Matters did not improve when the Manorwaters left and Mr. Wishart himself came down, bringing with him Stocks, a certain Mr. Andrews and his wife, and an excellent young man called Thompson. All were pleasant people, with the manners which the world calls hearty, well-groomed, presentable folk, who enjoyed this life and looked forward to a better.
Mr. Wishart explored the place thoroughly the first evening, and explained that he was thankful indeed that he had been led to take it.
He was a handsome man with a worn, elderly face, a square jaw and somewhat weary eyes. It is given to few men to make a great fortune and not bear the signs of it on their persons.
