'As you challenge inquiry, forgive me for asking what your interest was in one of your cousins at Twybridge?'
Christian started, and averted his face with a look of embarrassment.
'Do you mean to say that you knew anything about that?'
'I was always an observer,' Peak replied, smiling. 'You don't remember, perhaps, that I happened to be present when a letter had just arrived for you at your uncle's house--a letter which evidently disturbed you?'
'This is astonishing! Peak, you're a terrible fellow! Heaven forbid that I should ever be at your mercy! Yes, you are quite right,' he continued, despondently. 'But that was no real unfaithfulness. I don't quite know how to explain it. I _did_ make love to poor Janet, and with the result that I have never since seen any of the family. My uncle, when he found I had drawn back, was very savage--naturally enough. Marcella and I never again went to Twybridge. I liked Janet; she was a good, kind girl. I believed just then that my love for Constance was hopeless; my mood impelled me to the conviction that the best thing I could do was to marry Janet and settle down to a peaceful domestic life. Then came that letter--it was from Constance herself. It meant nothing, yet it was enough to revive all my hopes. I rushed off--! How brutally I had behaved! Poor little Janet!'
He let his face fall upon his hands.
'Allow me an indiscreet question,' said Peak, after a silence. 'Have you any founded hope of marrying Constance if she becomes a widow?'
Christian started and looked up with wide eyes.
'Hope? Every hope! I have the absolute assurance of her love.'
'I see.'
'But I mustn't mislead you,' pursued the other, hurriedly. 'Our relations are absolutely pure. I have only allowed myself to see her at very long intervals. Why shouldn't I tell you? It was less than a year after her marriage; I found her alone in a room in a friend's house; her eyes were red with weeping. I couldn't help holding my hand to her. She took it, and held it for a moment, and looked at me steadily, and whispered my name--that was all. I knew then that she repented of her marriage--who can say what led her into it? I was poor, you know; perhaps--but in spite of all, she _did_ love me. There has never since been anything like a scene of emotion between us--_that_ her conscience couldn't allow. She is a noble-minded woman, and has done her duty. But if she is free'--
He quivered with passionate feeling.
'And you are content,' said Godwin, drily, 'to have wasted ten years of your life for such a possibility?'
'Wasted!' Christian exclaimed. 'Come, come, Peak; why _will_ you affect this wretched cynicism? Is it waste of years to have lived with the highest and purest ideal perpetually before one's mind? What can a man do better than, having found an admirable woman, to worship her thenceforth, and defy every temptation that could lead him astray? I don't like to seem boastful, but I _have_ lived purely and devotedly. And if the test endured to the end of my life, I could sustain it. Is the consciousness of my love nothing to Constance? Has it not helped her?'
Such profound sincerity was astonishing to Peak. He did not admire it, for it seemed to him, in this case at all events, the fatal weakness of a character it was impossible not to love. Though he could not declare his doubts, he thought it more than probable that this Laura of the voiceless Petrarch was unworthy of such constancy, and that she had no intention whatever of rewarding it, even if the opportunity arrived. But this was the mere speculation of a pessimist; he might be altogether wrong, for he had never denied the existence of high virtue, in man or woman.
'There goes midnight!' he remarked, turning from the subject. 'You can't sleep, neither can I. Why shouldn't we walk into town?'
'By all means; on condition that you will come home with me, and spend to-morrow there.'
'Very well.'
They set forth, and with varied talk, often broken by long silences, made their way through sleeping suburbs to the dark valley of Thames.
There passed another month, during which Peak was neither seen nor heard of by his friends. One evening in October, as he sat studying at the British Museum, a friendly voice claimed his attention. He rose nervously and met the searching eye of Buckland Warricombe.
'I had it in mind to write to you,' said the latter. 'Since we parted down yonder I have been running about a good deal, with few days in town. Do you often read here?'
'Generally on Saturday afternoon.'
Buckland glanced at the open volume, and caught a heading, 'Apologetic Theology.'
'Still at the works?'
'Yes; I shall be there till Christmas--no longer.'
'Are you by chance disengaged to-morrow? Could you dine with me? I shall be alone; perhaps you don't mind that? We could exchange views on "fate, free-will, foreknowledge absolute".'
Godwin accepted the invitation, and Warricombe, unable to linger, took leave of him.
They met the next evening in Buckland's rooms, not far from the Houses of Parliament. Commonplace comfort was the note of these quarters. Peak wondered that a man who had it in his power to surround himself with evidences of taste should be content to dwell thus. His host seemed to detect this thought in the glances Godwin cast about him.
'Nothing but a _pied-a-terre_. I have been here three or four years, but I don't think of it as a home. I suppose I shall settle somewhere before long: yet, on the whole, what does it matter where one lives? There's something in the atmosphere of our time that makes one indisposed to strike roots in the old way. Who knows how long there'll be such a thing as real property? We are getting to think of ourselves as lodgers; it's as well to be indifferent about a notice to quit.'
'Many people would still make a good fight for the old homes,' replied Peak.
'Yes; I daresay I should myself, if I were a family man. A wife and children are strong persuasions to conservatism. In those who have anything, that's to say. Let the families who have nothing learn how they stand in point of numbers, and we shall see what we shall see.'
'And you are doing your best to teach them that.'
Buckland smiled.
'A few other things at the same time. One isn't necessarily an anarchist, you know.'
'What enormous faith you must have in the metaphysical powers of the multitude!'
'Trenchant! But say, rather, in the universal self-interest. That's the trait of human nature which we have in mind when we speak of enlightenment. The aim of practical Radicalism is to instruct men's selfishness. Astonishing how capable it is of being instructed! The mistake of the Socialist lies in his crediting men with far too much self-esteem, far too little perception of their own limits. The characteristic of mankind at large is humility.'
Peak began to understand his old acquaintance; he had imagined him less acute. Gratified by the smile of interest, Warricombe added:
'There are forces of madness; I have shown you that I make allowance for them. But they are only dangerous so long as privilege allies itself with hypocrisy. The task of the modern civiliser is to sweep away sham idealisms.'
'I agree with you,' Godwin replied.
With sudden change of mood, Buckland began to speak of an indifferent topic of the day, and in a few minutes they sat down to dinner.
Not till the welcome tobacco blended its aroma with that of coffee did a frankly personal note sound in their conversation.
'So at Christmas you are free,' said Warricombe. 'You still think of leaving London?'
'I have decided