'The triumph of Chilvers!' murmured Godwin. 'I wonder whether the Hon. Bertha is past her fortieth year?'
'A blooming beauty, I dare say. But Lord! how many people it takes to marry a man like Chilvers! How sacred the union must be!--Pray take a paragraph more: "The four bridesmaids--Miss--etc., etc.--wore cream crepon dresses trimmed with turquoise blue velvet, and hats to match. The bridegroom's presents to them were diamond and ruby brooches."'
'Chilvers _in excelsis_!--So he is no longer at Exeter; has no living, it seems. What does he aim at next, I wonder?'
Earwaker cast meaning glances at his friend.
'I understand you,' said Godwin, at length. 'You mean that this merely illustrates my own ambition. Well, you are right, I confess my shame--and there's an end of it.'
He puffed at his cigar, resuming presently:
'But it would be untrue if I said that I regretted anything. Constituted as I am, there was no other way of learning my real needs and capabilities. Much in the past is hateful to me, but it all had its use. There are men--why, take your own case. You look back on life, no doubt, with calm and satisfaction.'
'Rather, with resignation.'
Godwin let his cigar fall, and laughed bitterly.
'Your resignation has kept pace with life. I was always a rebel. My good qualities--I mean what I say--have always wrecked me. Now that I haven't to fight with circumstances, they may possibly be made subservient to my happiness.'
'But what form is your happiness to take?'
'Well, I am leaving England. On the Continent I shall make no fixed abode, but live in the places where cosmopolitan people are to be met. I shall make friends; with money at command, one may hope to succeed in that. Hotels, boarding-houses, and so on, offer the opportunities. It sounds oddly like the project of a swindler, doesn't it? There's the curse I can't escape from! Though my desires are as pure as those of any man living, I am compelled to express myself as if I were about to do something base and underhand. Simply because I have never had a social place. I am an individual merely; I belong to no class, town, family, club'----'Cosmopolitan people,' mused Earwaker. 'Your ideal is transformed.'
'As you know. Experience only could bring that about. I seek now only the free, intellectual people--men who have done with the old conceptions--women who'----
His voice grew husky, and he did not complete the sentence. 'I shall find them in Paris, Rome.--Earwaker, think of my being able to speak like this! No day-dreams, but actual sober plans, their execution to begin in a day or two. Paris, Rome! And a month ago I was a hopeless slave in a vile manufacturing town.--I wish it were possible for me to pray for the soul of that poor dead woman. I don't speak to you of her; but do you imagine I am brutally forgetful of her to whom I owe all this?'
'I do you justice,' returned the other, quietly.
'I believe you can and do.'
'How grand it is to go forth as I am now going!' Godwin resumed, after a long pause. 'Nothing to hide, no shams, no pretences. Let who will inquire about me. I am an independent Englishman, with so and so much a year. In England I have one friend only--that is you. The result, you see, of all these years savage striving to knit myself into the social fabric.'
'Well, you will invite me some day to your villa at Sorrento,' said Earwaker, encouragingly.
'That I shall!' Godwin's eyes flashed with imaginative delight. 'And before very long. Never to a home in England!'
'By-the-bye, a request. I have never had your portrait. Sit before you leave London.'
'No. I'll send you one from Paris--it will be better done.'
'But I am serious. You promise?'
'You shall have the thing in less than a fortnight.'
The promise was kept. Earwaker received an admirable photograph, which he inserted in his album with a curious sense of satisfaction. A face by which every intelligent eye must be arrested; which no two observers would interpret in the same way.
'His mate must be somewhere,' thought the man of letters, 'but he will never find her.'
CHAPTER II
In his acceptance of Sidwell's reply, Peak did not care to ask himself whether the delay of its arrival had any meaning one way or another. Decency would hardly have permitted her to answer such a letter by return of post; of course she waited a day or so.
But the interval meant more than this.
Sylvia Moorhouse was staying with her friend. The death of Mrs Moorhouse, and the marriage of the mathematical brother, had left Sylvia homeless, though not in any distressing sense; her inclination was to wander for a year or two, and she remained in England only until the needful arrangements could be concluded.
'You had better come with me,' she said to Sidwell, as they walked together on the lawn after luncheon.
The other shook her head.
'Indeed, you had better.--What are you doing here? What are you going to make of your life?'
'I don't know.'
'Precisely. Yet one ought to live on some kind of plan. I think it is time you got away from Exeter; it seems to me you are finding its atmosphere _morbific_.'
Sidwell laughed at the allusion.
'You know,' she said, 'that the reverend gentleman is shortly to be married?'
'Oh yes, I have heard all about it. But is he forsaking the Church?'
'Retiring only for a time, they say.'
'Forgive the question, Sidwell--did he honour you with a proposal?'
'Indeed, no!'
'Some one told me it was imminent, not long ago.'
'Quite a mistake,' Sidwell answered, with her grave smile. 'Mr Chilvers had a singular manner with women in general. It was meant, perhaps, for subtle flattery; he may have thought it the most suitable return for the female worship he was accustomed to receive.'
Mr. Warricombe was coming towards them. He brought a new subject of conversation, and as they talked the trio drew near to the gate which led into the road. The afternoon postman was just entering; Mr Warricombe took from him two letters.
'One for you, Sylvia, and--one for you, Sidwell.'
A slight change in his voice caused Sidwell to look at her father as he handed her the letter. In the same moment she recognised the writing of the address. It was Godwin Peak's, and undoubtedly her father knew it.
With a momentary hesitation Mr. Warricombe continued his talk from the point at which he had broken off, but he avoided his daughter's look, and Sidwell was too well aware of an uneasiness which had fallen upon him. In a few minutes he brought the chat to an end, and walked away towards the house.
Sidwell held her letter tightly. Conversation was no longer possible for her; she had a painful throbbing of the heart, and felt that her face must be playing traitor. Fortunately, Sylvia found it necessary to write a reply to the missive she had received, and her companion was soon at liberty to seek solitude.
For more than an hour she remained alone. However unemotional the contents of the letter, its arrival would have perturbed