“He was a practical Socialist, in fact,” said Erskine.
“On the contrary, he was a somewhat too grasping Individualist. Howbeit, I enabled him to make good his defalcation — in the city they consider a defalcation made good when the money is replaced — and to go to New York. I recommended him not to go there; but he knew better than I, for he made a fortune by speculating with money that existed only in the imagination of those with whom he dealt. He never repaid me; he is probably far too good a man of business to pay money that cannot be extracted from him by an appeal to the law or to his commercial credit. Mr. Erskine,” added Trefusis, lowering his voice, and turning to the poet, “you are wrong to take part with hucksters and money-hunters against your own nature, even though the attack upon them is led by a man who prefers photography to etching.”
“But I assure you — You quite mistake me,” said Erskine, taken aback. “I—”
He stopped, looked to Sir Charles for support, and then said airily: “I don’t doubt that you are quite right. I hate business and men of business; and as to social questions, I have only one article of belief, which is, that the sole refiner of human nature is fine art.”
“Whereas I believe that the sole refiner of art is human nature. Art rises when men rise, and grovels when men grovel. What is your opinion?”
“I agree with you in many ways,” replied Sir Charles nervously; for a lack of interest in his fellowcreatures, and an excess of interest in himself, had prevented him from obtaining that power of dealing with social questions which, he felt, a baronet ought to possess, and he was consequently afraid to differ from anyone who alluded to them with confidence. “If you take an interest in art, I believe I can show you a few things worth seeing.”
“Thank you. In return I will some day show you a remarkable collection of photographs I possess; many of them taken by me. I venture to think they will teach you something.”
“No doubt,” said Sir Charles. “Shall we return to the gallery? I have a few treasures there that photography is not likely to surpass for some time yet.”
“Let’s go through the conservatory,” said Jane. “Don’t you like flowers, Mr. Smi — I never can remember your proper name.”
“Extremely,” said Trefusis.
They rose and went out into a long hothouse. Here Lady Brandon, finding Erskine at her side, and Sir Charles before her with Gertrude, looked round for Trefusis, with whom she intended to enjoy a trifling flirtation under cover of showing him the flowers. He was out of sight; but she heard his footsteps in the passage on the opposite side of the greenhouse. Agatha was also invisible. Jane, not daring to rearrange their procession lest her design should become obvious, had to walk on with Erskine.
Agatha had turned unintentionally into the opposite alley to that which the others had chosen. When she saw what she had done, and found herself virtually alone with Trefusis, who had followed her, she blamed him for it, and was about to retrace her steps when he said coolly:
“Were you shocked when you heard of Henrietta’s sudden death?”
Agatha struggled with herself for a moment, and then said in a suppressed voice: “How dare you speak to me?”
“Why not?” said he, astonished.
“I am not going to enter into a discussion with you. You know what I mean very well.”
“You mean that you are offended with me; that is plain enough. But when I part with a young lady on good terms, and after a lapse of years, during which we neither meet nor correspond, she asks me how I dare speak to her, I am naturally startled.”
“We did not part on good terms.”
Trefusis stretched his eyebrows, as if to stretch his memory. “If not,” he said, “I have forgotten it, on my honor. When did we part, and what happened? It cannot have been anything very serious, or I should remember it.”
His forgetfulness wounded Agatha. “No doubt you are well accustomed to—” She checked herself, and made a successful snatch at her normal manner with gentlemen. “I scarcely remember what it was, now that I begin to think. Some trifle, I suppose. Do you like orchids?”
“They have nothing to do with our affairs at present. You are not in earnest about the orchids, and you are trying to run away from a mistake instead of clearing it up. That is a shortsighted policy, always.”
Agatha grew alarmed, for she felt his old influence over her returning. “I do not wish to speak of it,” she said firmly.
Her firmness was lost on him. “I do not even know what it means yet,” he said, “and I want to know, for I believe there is some misunderstanding between us, and it is the trick of your sex to perpetuate misunderstandings by forbidding all allusions to them. Perhaps, leaving Lyvern so hastily, I forgot to fulfil some promise, or to say farewell, or something of that sort. But do you know how suddenly I was called away? I got a telegram to say that Henrietta was dying, and I had only time to change my clothes — you remember my disguise — and catch the express. And, after all, she was dead when I arrived.”
“I know that,” said Agatha uneasily. “Please say no more about it.”
“Not if it distresses you. Just let me hope that you did not suppose I blamed you for your share in the matter or that I told the Janseniuses of it. I did not. Yes, I like orchids. A plant that can subsist on a scrap of board is an instance of natural econ—”
“YOU blame ME!” cried Agatha. “I never told the Janseniuses. What would they have thought of you if I had?”
“Far worse of you than of me, however unjustly. You were the immediate cause of the tragedy; I only the remote one. Jansenius is not farseeing when his feelings are touched. Few men are.”
“I don’t understand you in the least. What tragedy do you mean?”
“Henrietta’s death. I call it a tragedy conventionally. Seriously, of course, it was commonplace enough.”
Agatha stopped and faced him. “What do you mean by what you said just now? You said that I was the immediate cause of the tragedy, and you say that you were talking of Henrietta’s — of Henrietta. I had nothing to do with her illness.”
Trefusis looked at her as if considering whether he would go any further. Then, watching her with the curiosity of a vivisector, he said: “Strange to say, Agatha,” (she shrank proudly at the word), “Henrietta might have been alive now but for you. I am very glad she is not; so you need not reproach yourself on my account. She died of a journey she made to Lyvern in great excitement and distress, and in intensely cold weather. You caused her to make that journey by writing her a letter which made her jealous.”
“Do you mean to accuse me—”
“No; stop!” he said hastily, the vivisecting spirit in him exorcised by her shaking voice; “I accuse you of nothing. Why do you not speak honestly to me when you are at your ease? If you confess your real thoughts only under torture, who can resist the temptation to torture you? One must charge you with homicide to make you speak of anything but orchids.”
But Agatha had drawn the new inference from the old facts, and would not be talked out of repudiating it. “It was not my fault,” she said. “It was yours — altogether yours.”
“Altogether,” he assented, relieved to find her indignant instead of remorseful.
She was not to be soothed by a verbal acquiescence. “Your behavior was most unmanly, and I told you so, and you could not deny it. You pretended that you — You pretended to have