On the whole they were probably too hard on the Giant; they did not allow enough for the difficulties involved in being so big, so lumbering, so complex. They girded at him for not trying every conceivable experiment; he grumbled back that he did not want to risk explosion on a large scale. They laughed at him for not running; a creature of his bulk was safer at a walk. They offered him all manner of new concoctions; he feared indigestion on a mighty scale. Some of them he dreaded and hated; at some he was much amused; for others he had a slow-moving admiration – they might be right, he would take a generation or two to think about it, and let them know in due course through his accredited channels.
Of some of Stephen Aikenhead's friends it was a little difficult to think as human beings; they seemed just embodied opinions. Doctor Johnson once observed – and few will differ from him – that it would be tiresome to be married to a woman who would be for ever talking of the Arian heresy. Mrs. Danford, a bright-eyed, brisk-moving woman, was for ever denouncing boys' schools. Dennis Carriston wanted the human race to come to an end and, consistently enough, bored existing members of it almost to their extinction or his murder. These were of the faddists; but the majority did not fairly deserve that description. They were workers, reformers, questioners, all of them earnest, many clever, some even humorous (not such a very common thing in reformers), one or two eminent in achievement. But questioners and speculators all of them – with two notable exceptions, Mrs. Lenoir and Godfrey Ledstone. These two had no quarrel with orthodox opinion, and a very great respect for it; they would never have thought of justifying their deviations from orthodox practice. They were prepared to pay their fines – if they were caught – and did not cavil at the jurisdiction of the magistrate.
Godfrey Ledstone would have made a fine "man about town," that unquestioning, untroubled, heathenish master of the arts and luxuries of life. Chill penury – narrow means and the necessity of working – limited his opportunities. Within them he was faithful to the type and obedient to the code, availing himself of its elasticities, careful to observe it where it was rigid; up to the present anyhow he could find no breach of it with which to reproach himself.
He was committing no breach of it now. Not to do what he was doing would in his own eyes have stamped him a booby, a fellow of ungracious manners and defective sensibilities, a prude and a dolt.
The breeze stirred the trees; in leisurely fashion, unelbowed by rude clouds, there sank the sun; a languorous tranquillity masked the fierce struggle of beasts and men – men were ceasing from their labour, the lion not yet seeking his meat from God.
"I shall go to my grave puzzled whether the profile or the full face is better."
She stirred lazily on her long chair, and gave him the profile to consider again.
"Beautiful, but cold, distant, really disheartening!"
"You talk just as much nonsense as Mrs. Danford or Mr. Carriston."
"Now let me make the comparison! Full face, please!"
"You might be going to paint my picture. Now are you content?"
"I'm more or less pacified – for the moment."
Stephen Aikenhead lounged across the lawn, pipe in mouth. He noticed the two and shook his shaggy head – marking, questioning, finding it all very natural, seeing the trouble it might bring, without a formula to try it by – unless, here too, things were in solution.
She laughed lightly. "You must be careful with me, Mr. Ledstone. Remember I'm not used to flattery!"
"The things you have been used to! Good heavens!"
"I dare say I exaggerate." Delicately she asked for more pity, more approval.
"I don't believe you do. I believe there are worse things – things you can't speak of." It will be seen that by now – ten days since Winnie's arrival – the famous promise had been pitched most completely overboard.
"Oh, I don't think so, really I don't. Isn't it a pretty sky, Mr. Ledstone?"
"Indeed it is, and a pretty world too, Mrs. Maxon. Haven't you found it so?"
"Why will you go on talking about me?"
"Mayn't I talk about the thing I'm thinking about? How can I help it?"
Her smile, indulgent to him, pleaded for herself also.
"It is horribly hard not to, isn't it? That's why I've told all about it, I suppose."
Stephen Aikenhead, after the shake of his head, had drifted into the house, seeking a fresh fill for his pipe. He found the evening post in and, having nothing in the world else to do, brought out a letter to Mrs. Maxon.
"For you," he said, making a sudden and somewhat disconcerting appearance at her elbow. He puffed steadily, holding the letter out to Winnie, while he looked at his friend Godfrey with a kindly if quizzical regard.
"Good gracious, Stephen!"
"Well, I always like letters worth a 'Good gracious,' Winnie."
"Hobart Gaynor's coming here to-morrow."
"Don't know the gentleman. Friend of yours? Very glad to see him."
"Coming from – from Cyril!"
"Oh!" The little word was significantly drawn out. "That's another pair of shoes!" it seemed to say.
She sat up straight, and let her feet down to the ground.
"To make me go back, I suppose!"
"You could hardly expect him not to have a shot at it – Cyril, I mean."
Her eyes had been turned up to Stephen. In lowering them to her letter again, she caught in transit Godfrey Ledstone's regard. For a second or two the encounter lasted. She swished her skirt round – over an ankle heedlessly exposed by her quick movement. Her glance fell to the letter. Godfrey's remained on her face – as well she knew.
"I must see Hobart, but I won't go back. I won't, Stephen."
"All right, my dear. Stay here – the longer, the better for us. Shall I wire Gaynor to come?"
"Will you?"
Stephen's last glance – considerably blurred by tobacco smoke – was rather recognisant of fact than charged with judgment. "I suppose all that will count," he reflected, as he went back once again to the house. It certainly counted. Godfrey Ledstone was doing nothing against the code. All the same he was introducing a complication into Winnie Maxon's problem. At the start freedom for her had a negative content – it was freedom from things – friction, wrangles, crushing. Was that all that freedom meant? Was not that making it an empty sterile thing?
"You'll be firm, Mrs. Maxon?"
Godfrey leant forward in his chair; the change of attitude brought him startlingly near to her. She sprang quickly to her feet, in instinctive retreat.
"I must hear what Hobart has to say." She met his eyes once more, and smiled pleadingly. He shrugged his shoulders, looking sulky. Her lips curved in a broader smile. "That's only fair to Cyril. You're not coming to dinner? Then – good night."
CHAPTER VI
FRUIT OF THE TREE
Hobart Gaynor undertook his embassy with reluctance. He was busily occupied over his own affairs – he was to be married in a fortnight – and he was only unwillingly convinced by Mr. Attlebury's suave demonstration of where his duty lay, and by the fine-sounding promises which that zealous diplomatist made in Cyril Maxon's name. Waiving the question whether things had been all wrong in the past, Attlebury gave a pledge that they should be all right in the future; all that a reasonable woman could ask, with an ample allowance for whims into the bargain. That was the offer, put briefly. Gaynor doubted,