i encountered the captain on his doorstep. he was just going out, hatted and gloved, but on seeing me he abandoned his intention. his delight was that of a child, and so manifestly genuine, so transparently sincere, that it warmed my heart. he dragged me into his sitting-room and wrung my hands again and again, expressing his pleasure in tones that made the windows rattle. one cannot help liking a man so simple and at the same time so kind. there are too many complex people in the world. he had grieved for my supposed loss more than at his own brother's death, he said, and i believed him. very few men care much for their brothers. then he told me all about his approaching marriage. it was to take place in five weeks and he was dreading the ordeal already. he had just finished furnishing his wexford country house from top to bottom. they were to settle there after a honeymoon in italy and adopt the life and manners of country magnates, only coming to town for the season. it was miss ottley's desire; she did not care for london smart[pg 125] society, it seemed, and although he did, he was quite willing to give it up or anything else indeed to please her. it was pleasant to hear him rhapsodise concerning her and to watch his happy face. its spirit made him ten times handsomer, and although his speech was boyish it did not detract him from his exuberant virility. he was a man from the crown of his head to the soles of his feet,—a splendid animal, with just enough brains to be a force to command respect, and a heart big enough to fill the whole world with his affection. there was not a single bitter drop in the cup of his happiness. he was about to marry the woman he adored. he was enormously wealthy, and his wife-to-be was the only daughter of a millionaire. his plans for the future were utopian. he dreamed of enlarging his estates and providing for at least the welfare of a hundred families. wealth was given one in trust for others, he declared, and he was resolved to make every one around him happy and contented. as a wedding present to his tenants he had already ordered the rebuilding of their homes and cottages on a scale of almost lavish grandeur. each farmhouse would be a model of luxury; each labourer's cottage would be a miniature castle with tiled walls, and hot and cold water attachments. other landlords were annoyed with him and had not hesitated to express their resentment. he was spoiling his own tenants and making them dissatisfied, they said. but the captain asked me with eyes aglow how could one want to[pg 126] keep all the good things of life to benefit a single class? it was monstrous, impossible, absurd. he only wished he could at one stroke make all the poor in the world comfortable. "you ought to hear may on the subject," he cried out in a burst of confidence. "you'd think she was a socialist. but she is only an angel." thence he wandered to her father. sir robert had given up all his old stupid ways. he had reformed and was as sane as any man in england. he had repudiated his ancient attachment to "spooks" and spirit-rapping, and mahatmas, and had sent his famous medium, navarro, to the right about, much to that gentleman's disgust and indignation. sir robert was now engaged with dr. belleville in compiling a history of the dynasty from papyri they had found in the tomb of ptahmes. the captain still thought that ottley had treated me very badly, but he begged me to forgive the old man as he had evidently not been quite in his mind at the time. "you excited his professional jealousy, don't you know, old chap," said weldon. "sir robert has one fault—he is dreadfully vain and he wanted to get all the credit out of his discovery. he told me so himself. he quite opened up to me on the voyage home."
a vision of sir robert ottley "opening up" to the captain occurred to me. the little, old, inscrutable, shut-in face of the baronet peering slyly into the frank and unsuspicious countenance[pg 127] of the handsome, simple-minded guardsman and making a confession of his faults the while! for why? i could not guess, but i had a feeling that it was for no straightforward purpose. we dined together, and while we ate i questioned him about dr. belleville. for the first time i saw a shade on his face. he did not like the doctor. i pursued the investigation. for a while he fenced with my questions but finally it all came out. "i have an idea," said he, "that belleville annoys may. he is in love with her. of course one can't blame him for that, but as a guest in her father's house and her father's closest friend, he has opportunities to force his attentions, and i believe the brute abuses them. she does not complain and will tell me nothing—but all the same i have my opinion. you see, she worships her father so much that she will run no risk of hurting his feelings. she would put up with almost anything rather than distress him, and belleville knows it. he has sir robert under his thumb far more than i like. i hate to think i may be wronging the fellow—but upon my soul i cannot help distrusting him."
"but you have nothing definite to go upon?"
"nothing—except this: one day about two weeks ago i went in unannounced and found her—in tears. i had passed belleville in the hall a second earlier. he looked as black as night. and she—well, she told me, weeping, that she would marry me when i pleased. up till then she had always put[pg 128] off naming the day. what would you make of it, pinsent?"
"what did you?"
"i concluded that he had been persecuting her and that—well, that she felt safer with me than with her father. don't rag me for being vain, old chap. if you'd seen her cry. she is not that sort of a girl either. it was the first time i ever knew her to break down, and i've known her all my life."
"did you speak to belleville about it?"
"she forbade me to—but all the same i did. i behaved like an idiot, of course. lost my temper and all that sort of thing. he was as cool as a cucumber. he denied nothing and admitted nothing. he pretended to think i had been drinking, and that enraged me the more. i was fool enough to strike him. he got all the best of it. he picked himself up smiling sweetly and said that nothing could induce him to resent anything addressed by a person in whom miss ottley was interested. the inference was that he loved her in an infinitely superior way to me. i felt like choking him for a bit. and would you believe it—he actually offered to shake hands."
"a dangerous man, my lad. beware of him."
"he gives me the creeps," said the captain. "but let's talk of something else pleasanter."
we talked of miss ottley, or rather he did, while i listened, till midnight. then he strolled with me to bruton street and we parted at dixon hubbard's doorstep as the clocks were striking one.
i found hubbard seated before the fire, smoking, and staring dreamily up at a portrait of his wife that rested on the mantel.
"i've found out why i married her, pinsent," he said slowly. "it was to benefit a jew named maurice levi—the most awful bounder in london. she had been borrowing from him at twenty-five per cent. to pay some of her brother's gambling debts. levi wanted to marry her, and would have, too, if i had not stepped in to save him. she is the dearest little woman in the world. she shed some tears. they cost me about a thousand pounds apiece."
"good-night, dixon," i said gently.
"tears, idle tears," he murmured. "the poet, mark you, did not speak of woman's tears." then he closed his eyes and heaved a deep sigh. "you find me changed, pinsent?"
"a little."
"for better or worse? be frank with me."
"for the better. this afternoon for the first time in our acquaintance i beheld you in a lady's drawing-room. you are growing tolerant of your kind."
"i am no longer a misanthrope, but i am rapidly becoming a misogynist. yes, i am altered, old friend, greatly altered. at the bottom of my former misanthropy was a diseased conviction born of vanity that i was the only person in the world really worth thinking badly about. but marriage has compelled me to think more badly still of [pg 130]somebody else. the less selfish outlook thus induced has broadened my mind. i begin to look forward to a time when my perversion will be complete and i shall be able without blushing to look any woman in the face and acknowledge her superiority in innate viciousness."
"i begin to pity your wife, dixon."
"a waste of sentiment. she has married five and twenty thousand pounds per annum, and she would be the last to tell you that the institution is a failure. few women contrive to dispose as advantageously of the sort of goods they have to sell. lady helen would have made a fortune as a bagman. but there, i do not want to prejudice you against her. she likes you, i believe. perhaps—who knows—but there—good-night."
i was glad to get away.
