as he had expected, the foreign office beamed on him. it was immensely gratified that a man of his statesmanlike qualities should have differentiated so acutely between the values of the two spheres of his suggested activities. in bureaucratic satisfaction it rubbed its hands at a departmental score. mr. baltazar had only to name his terms and conditions. with the foreign office it was all plain sailing. nay, more. if it could have prevailed with an ultra-conservative admiralty, it would have sent him out to china in the newest, fastest and most mysterious battle-cruiser. but in government circles outside the foreign office there was the devil to pay. consternation also reigned in the office of the new universe. for two or three weeks baltazar had a grim time.
the first announcement in an evening newspaper of his retirement from the projected ministry smote the eyes of an incredulous and bewildered marcelle. she caught him on the telephone.
“is it true?”
“yes. quite true.”
“but i don’t understand.”
“i’ll come round this evening and explain.”
“no. i’ll come to you. i shan’t be alone here.”
“come to dinner.”
“miss graham and i are just sitting down to ours. i’ll run round after.”
“all right. i’m free all the evening.”
baltazar dined alone with quong ho, and talked cheerfully of matters far remote from the war. no reference was made to his retirement from english politics, about which quong ho knew everything, or to the chinese mission, of which quong ho as yet had no official knowledge. apart from the expressed desire of the foreign office to keep the appointment from the press, it was characteristic of baltazar to maintain silence, even to those dear to him, as to his especially meteoric doings. besides, of the two, marcelle must have the privilege of being the first to learn from his own lips.
she arrived about half-past eight, and he received her in the drawing-room. she wore a simple, semi-evening old black dress into which she had changed before her quiet dinner with her friend, a long pre-war confection, a favourite of godfrey’s, moulding her, as he said, in soldierly daring, like juno. her thick brown hair crowned her gloriously. rest had restored her to health, and in spite of the anxiety in her eyes, she appeared to baltazar in the ripe fullness of her beauty. he strode to meet her, with his usual gesture of outstretched hands, strong, confident, admiring, smiling. yet never did she appear more desirable, or more remote from his desires.
“what is the meaning of it—your resignation? i thought it was the one thing in life you were working for.”
“i find,” said he, “i can serve my country better in other ways.”
she put a hand to a puzzled forehead.
“how?”
he looked steadily into her eyes. what was the use of beating the air with idle words? she would have to know the truth sooner or later.
“by going to china.”
she stared at him open-mouthed.
“china?”
“why not?”
he stood, his hands deep in his dinner-jacket pockets, balancing himself alternately on toes and heels, with the air of a conqueror.
“i know more about inner china, i suppose, than any man living. i go out with a free hand to pull two or three million people together and establish a wise government and exterminate the german. hundreds of men can do my job in england. but those who can do it in china may be counted on the fingers of a mutilated hand.”
“it’s all so sudden.”
“i’m a sudden sort of fellow, as you ought to know,” he laughed.
“but you always said you hated the place—would rather die than go back.”
“in these days you’ve got to do things you hate—for the good of your country.”
she sat down, feeling stupefied by his news. she asked:
“how long will you be away?”
he shrugged his shoulders. “possibly years. who knows?”
“and when do you start?”
“as soon as i can wind up here. say in a fortnight’s time.” she shook her head and looked at the floor, making little hopeless gestures with her fingers. “you see, my dear,” said he, “except my own personal ambitions, which i have scrapped for the time, there’s nothing very much to keep me here. i’ve done my duty by quong ho. he’s on the road to fame at cambridge. godfrey’s settled in france till the end of the war. and you—well, my dear,” he smiled, “we won’t lose touch with each other for another twenty years.”
“no, of course not,” she said in a queer voice. “we’ll—we’ll write to each other.” she raised her eyes to his timidly. “won’t you be rather lonely out there, without us?”
he turned swiftly aside so that she should not see his face. “naturally i’ll miss you. miss the three of you. i’m human. but, on the other hand, i’m used to being alone. i’m a solitary by temperament.” then he flashed round on her. “don’t you worry about me. i’ll have my hands too full to be lonely. i’ll have a real man’s job to get through.”
in his vehement way he sketched the kind of work that lay before him, went off into picturesque reminiscence, unfolded some of the plans he had already made for the conquest of those in power in disaffected districts. anyone but marcelle he would have convinced of the whole-hearted and enthusiastic anticipation of his mission. but a woman whom a man loves is apt to know him even better than the woman who loves him. a suspicion, vague but insistent, began to haunt her. presently she gave words to it.
“have godfrey’s affairs anything to do with this sudden decision of yours?”
he assumed a puzzled look. “godfrey’s affairs?”
“yes. the donnithorpe business.”
he laughed. “my dear, we’re dealing in high international politics. what on earth can a boy’s calf love have to do with it?”
“you’ve never told me what happened at waterloo. nor did godfrey.”
“i simply pulled them apart. sent lady edna home, and despatched godfrey to france a day before his time. that’s all over.”
“but you met mr. donnithorpe. quong ho——”
“oh yes, i met donnithorpe. that’s what saved the situation. he expected to find godfrey. found me instead.” he grinned in the most disarming manner. “a comedy situation. and off he went defeated.” he took her hand, apparently in the gayest of moods. “it’s only a woman,” said he, “that could throw a bridge between waterloo station and the interior of china.”
she let the question drop; but the suspicion remained, and every minute that passed, until the ormolu clock on the drawing-room mantelpiece gave her the signal for conventional retirement, converted it into certainty.
he walked with her as usual to the door of her block of flats. on parting she found tremulous utterance for the sense of utter forlornness which she had been trying all the evening to formulate:
“what’s to become of me when you’re gone?”
she fled upstairs, not waiting for the lift, and went straight to her room, with the words echoing in her ears. no. they did not at all convey her heart’s meaning. they sounded heartless, selfish. yet they were true. what would become of her? for a year she had been enwrapped soul and mind and thought in the dynamic man. dynamic, yet so tender, so chivalrous, so childlike. without him existence was a blank full of shuddering fears. and then a coldness as of death fell upon her. never once, on this night of the parting of the ways, had he hinted at his love for her. had she, by her selfish folly, her now incomprehensible sex shrinkings, killed at last the love that once was hers for the taking? slowly she undressed and crept into bed; but sleep mocked her. agonizingly awake, she stared at her life. . . . and she stared too, almost in rhythmic alternation, at the life of john baltazar. nothing but some supreme emotional crisis could have caused this characteristic revolution, this sudden surrender of the prize of his ambition, this gorgeous acceptance of exile. for all his contemptuous dismissal of the suggestion, she knew, with a woman’s unerring logic, that baltazar had bought godfrey’s release from entanglement at the price of his own career. and never a hint of regret, never a murmur against fate. never the faintest appeal to pity. . . . and she arraigned her own narrow nurse’s self, and condemned it mercilessly. and the lower she sank in her own esteem, the higher rose baltazar until he loomed gigantic as a god above her puny mortality.
her throat was dry. she got out of bed and drank a glass of water. on her way back across the room her glance fell on the little brass yale latchkey, lying on her dressing-table, which he, in his big, careless way, had insisted on her having, so that she could gain entrance, as of right, to the house, whenever she chose. she took it up, gazing at it stupidly. the key to his home, the key to his heart, the key to his soul—all in her keeping. and she had despised it. now she had lost it. the home would pass into alien hands. his heart was barred. for the first time, for a whole year, they had met without his uttering one little word, playful or wistful or tyrannic, to prove that his nature was open hungrily for her. to-night she had been but his dear friend. he had accepted her gift of friendship. she remembered the old french adage: l’amitié, c’est le tombeau de l’amour. she sat on the edge of the bed and mourned hopelessly the death of his love.
and the brass yale latchkey lay mockingly within her range of vision.
baltazar walked home, her last words echoing in his ears. his absence in china would naturally make a difference to her. she had become part of his household. godfrey, to whom she had given a mother’s heart, was indefinitely in france and alienated from her by his resentment of her breach of confidence. she had identified herself so unreservedly with the fortunes of the house of baltazar that now, cut adrift, she would be on the high seas, derelict. what could he do to mitigate her loneliness? if he died, she would be well provided for. he had made his will some months ago. but he had every hope of living for many robust years. what indeed would become of the beloved woman now that their new attachments to life were broken? the nurse’s career, in which she had spent the splendid energies of her young womanhood? if godfrey were in london, he could commend her, with authority, to his care. but godfrey’s vanishing to france was the essence of the whole business. there remained only quong ho. his appreciation of the comic put quong ho out of court.
he entered his house in sussex gardens remorseful for lack of consideration for marcelle. but, hang it all, one couldn’t think of everything at once. if she had cared enough for him to marry him, well—there would have been the light that never was on sea or land. he would have snapped his fingers at the doings of the little planet earth. he would have been master of the universe. but that was not to be. either all in all as a wife or not at all. an irrevocable decision. it was not marcelle’s fault that she did not love him in that way. . . . no use thinking of it. it was all over. they had drifted, however, into an exquisite companionship, as exquisite to her—he had no false modesty about it—as to him. and now that was over. what was to become of marcelle?
he was filling his pipe when quong ho entered the library with his little deferential bow.
“sir,” said he, “may i be allowed to commit an indiscretion?”
“you’ll do it so discreetly,” said baltazar, “that it won’t matter. fire ahead.”
“in the event of your leaving this country on a mission to the far east——”
“what the devil do you know about it?” asked baltazar.
“in high chinese circles in london it is common knowledge,” replied quong ho.
“together with lots of other things concerning me, i suppose.”
“you have many times observed,” said quong ho, “that my countrymen are afflicted with an abnormal thirst for unessential information.”
in spite of his heavy-heartedness, baltazar smiled grimly.
“well, suppose i am going to china. what of it?”
“may i postpone cambridge degree and fellowship for several years and accompany you?”
baltazar’s brow grew black. “isn’t england good enough for you?”
quong ho broke into florid chinese, the only vehicle for his emotion. england was the land of his dreams. but why should he lie beneath the passion-flower of luxury while his master ate the bread of exile? surely his degraded unworthiness might be useful to his illustrious excellency as confidential secretary not unversed, thanks to his honoured master and patron, in the language and scholarship of the mandarins. or, if that was deemed too honourable a position, his filial piety ordained that he should offer himself as slave or any debased instrument for which use could be found.
“oh, for god’s sake talk english!” cried baltazar, his nerves on edge, foreseeing such endless verbiage in similar perfect phrasing that awaited him in china.
quong ho spread out his hands and his face grew impassive. “i have spoken,” he replied simply.
“i don’t want any more careers upset,” said baltazar, irritably. “you’re fixed. you’ve to get your fellowship. you’ll stay in england. besides, i need you here to look after miss baring’s interests.”
“i confess,” said quong ho, gravely, “to being oblivious of that side of the question.”
baltazar, lying deep in his arm-chair, pipe in mouth, gazed intently into the oblique steadfast eyes of the son of his quaint adoption. the idea of leaving marcelle under his protection did not seem in the least comic. he passed an impatient hand over his brow. was he losing his sense of values?
apart from his intellectual gifts, quong ho was a man of shrewd common sense and of infinite trustworthiness. marcelle knew this. unlike so many untravelled englishwomen, she did not regard a chinaman as a sort of dangerous toy dog. she shared his faith in quong ho.
“i thank you for your offer, my dear fellow,” he said at last, repenting his ungraciousness. “i know you made it out of affection for me. i deeply appreciate it. if it weren’t for miss baring, i wouldn’t hesitate. as it is, i leave you here as my agent.”
quong ho bowed. “so long as i can be of service to you, sir, your word is law,” said he, and retired.
baltazar, left alone, resumed his uninspired reflections. he felt physically and morally weary, a beaten man. he shrank from his chinese exile with pathetic dread; shrank from the toilsome journeys, the eternal compliments of convention that delayed serious discussion, the perpetual ceremonial, the futile tea-drinking, the mass of tradition and prejudice and ignorance, the smiling craft that used it as a buffer against enlightenment. he looked with dismay on his exclusion from the keen intellectual talk in which he had revelled for the past year, from the brain-thrilling battle of western thought. it was a man’s work, his mission; a picked man’s work. hundreds would have regarded it as a climax of their diplomatic ambition. but to him, who had thrown himself into vast schemes for the reconstruction of the war-torn world, it was exile, defeat. it was not in his nature to regret his sacrifice. what was done was done. the stars in their courses had fought against him individually, even though, in their inscrutable wisdom they fought, as he believed, for his house. no man who has saturated himself for years with chinese thought can escape the spiritual influence of fatalism. he was a fatalist. it was written that he should fail in every one of his great adventures. yet the fact of it being written made his lot none the less damnable for the very human and vivid man, once more involved in predestined shipwreck.
he smoked many pipes thinking disconnectedly, without method, and feeling old and lonely and broken, and very, very tired. at last his pipe dropped to the floor and he fell asleep.
suddenly the subconsciousness of a presence in the room caused him to awake with a start. he looked up and, bewildered, saw marcelle standing by his chair. she was crying. he sprang to his feet, passing his hands over his eyes.
“you here?” his glance instinctively sought the clock on the mantelpiece. “why, it’s half-past two in the morning!”
she said: “i couldn’t sleep. i couldn’t rest. i had to come.”
he did not understand.
“what is the matter, my dearest? what can i do for you?”
“only go on loving me, and forgive me,” she said desperately.
“but i do,” he cried, puzzled. “it’s just hell for me to leave you. but i can’t help it, my dear. my hand has been forced. it’s even harder to leave you than it was twenty years ago. i love you and want you more than ever i did in my life.”
“so do i,” she said, in a shaking voice. “that’s why i’m here, at half-past two in the morning.”
baltazar uttered a great triumphant cry and clasped her in his arms.
“my god,” said he, “i’ve won after all!”
he held her at arm’s length and looked at her exultantly. thank heaven she had no suspicion of his sense of downfall. not pity, but love at last awakened, had brought her to him.
“yes,” he repeated. “i’ve won after all.”
after a while, when he had almost forgotten his words, she asked him:
“what did you think you had lost?”
“my faith in my destiny. the star of baltazar. once upon a time the original bearer of my name, with the others, had faith in a star, and he followed it and found god.”
she smiled. “dear, aren’t you talking a bit wildly?”
“what’s the good of speech if one can’t use it wildly in wild moments?” he laughed. “oh, you belovedest woman,” said he, and kissed her.
presently: “you’ll come out to china with me? you’ll progress like a queen. i’ll see to that.”
“it doesn’t matter how i progress,” she said, “so long as i’m with you. i’m yours body and soul to the end of time.”
“to the end of eternity,” he cried. “i prefer that. it’s bigger. the biggest there is is good enough for me.”
his dancing eyes burned like flames of pride and happiness. twenty years seemed to have fallen from him, and she saw before her the young man whom as a girl she had loved.
“you and i are going over to the greatest work ever attempted by man. the regeneration of half the continent of asia. i couldn’t have done it alone. the prospect frightened me. yes, it did. i hadn’t the heart. but with you—i stake my faith in the star—it’ll be one of the great accomplishments of the war. quong ho will come with us. he’ll have his chance. i’ll make him one of the great men of the new china.”
he went on, expounding his vision of the new order of oriental things. she marvelled at him, for it seemed as if he had but lived for that moment.
and divining his great sacrifice, she forgot the selfless years that had all but moulded her into a mere machine of tender service to maimed and diseased humanity, and felt a thing of small account before this man whose unconquerable faith and indomitable courage transformed his colossal vanities into virtues, and who, for all his egotism, was endowed with the supreme gift of love.
“godfrey will be astonished at all this,” she hazarded.
“astonishment,” said he, “is an emotion salutary for the very young. it stimulates thought.”
