The Far Horizon

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This last solution of the perplexing question aroused all Mr.
Iglesias' loyalty towards his old employers. He saw before them the
ugly possibility of failure and disgrace. The mere phantom of the
thing hurt him as unseemly, as a shame and dishonour to those who in
their corporate capacity had benefited him, and therefore as a shame
and dishonour, at least indirectly, to himself. The thought agitated
him. He needed to take council with someone; and so, pushed by a
necessity of immediate action uncommon to him, he laid hands on hat
and coat and set forth to talk matters over with his old friend and
former colleague, George Lovegrove.

Out of doors the air was stimulating. The voice of London had a tone
of urgency in it, as the voice of the young and strong who court the
coming of stirring events.

"The moods of the monstrous mother are inexhaustible," Iglesias said
to himself. "She is changeful as the great ocean. To-day she is
virile, and shouts for battle--. well, it may be she will get her fill
of that before many months are out!"

Then the thought of his afternoon visit returned upon him. If the air
would remain as exhilarating, the sunshine as daring as now, these
would heighten enjoyment.

Mr. Iglesias smiled to himself, an emotion of tenderness mingling with
his anxiety. He felt very much alive, very ready to meet any demand
which the future might make on him--battle for him, too, perhaps, and
at this moment he welcomed the thought of it! Thus, a little exalted
in spirit, Dominic walked on rapidly across the Green between the iron
railings, conscious of colour, of light, and of sound; but unobservant
of the details of his immediate surroundings, until a drifting female
figure barred his path, undulating uncertainly before him. He moved to
the right to let it pass. It moved to the right also. He moved to the
left, it did so, too.

"I beg your pardon," he said.

"Oh!" cried Serena Lovegrove.

"I beg your pardon," Iglesias repeated, raising his hat. "Excuse me, I
did not see who it was."

"How very odd!" Serena remarked. She stood still in the middle of the
path. Her eyes snapped. Her silk petticoat rustled. Serena was very
particular about her petticoats. It gave her great moral and social
support to hear them rustle. "How very odd!" she said again. "Did you
not know that I had come back?"

Dominic might truthfully have replied that he did not know that she
had ever gone away; but he abstained.

"It must be a great pleasure to your cousins to have you with them,"
he said courteously.

Serena looked at the falling leaves.

"I wonder whether it is--I mean I wonder whether it is a pleasure to
them, or whether they ask me out of a sense of duty." She paused,
gazing at Mr. Iglesias. "Of course, I know George has a strong regard
for me, and for Susan. It is only natural, as we are first cousins.
But I am not sure about Rhoda. Of course we never heard of Rhoda until
she married George."

"She has made him an excellent wife," Iglesias put in.

"I suppose she has," Serena said reflectively. "But I sometimes wonder
whether, if George had married somebody else, it might not have been
more satisfactory in some ways."

Serena felt very proud in making this remark. It elicited no reply,
however, from Mr. Iglesias.

"I wonder if he really sees that Rhoda is on a different level from
us, and won't admit it; or whether he doesn't see. If he doesn't see,
of course that means a good deal."

"Do you usually go out walking in the morning?" Dominic inquired. The
silence was becoming protracted. Courtesy demanded that he should
break it.

Serena looked at him with heightened intelligence.

"We were always brought up to take a walk twice a day. Mamma was very
particular about it. She believed that health had so much to do with
regular exercise. Sometimes I wonder whether she did not carry that
too far. But, of course, Susan is very strong, much stronger than I
am. I believe she would have been strong in any case, even if mamma
had not insisted on our taking so much exercise." Serena paused. "But
I did not know you went out in the morning. That is, I mean I have
never seen you go out before."

"Indeed," Iglesias exclaimed, a little startled at the close
observation of his habits implied by this remark.

"No," she said; "of course one can see Cedar Lodge very plainly from
George's house, and I often look out of window. I think it among the
pleasures of London to look out of window. I have never seen you go
out in the morning before." Again she paused, adding reflectively: "It
really seems rather odd that neither George nor Rhoda should have told
you that I had come back."

To this remark no suitable answer suggested itself. Moreover, Mr.
Iglesias was growing slightly impatient. He wished she would see fit
to move aside and let him pass.

"You will get cold standing here," he said. "You must not let me
detain you any longer."

Serena's eyes snapped. She was excited. She was also slightly
offended. "He is very abrupt," she said to herself; but she did not
move aside and let him pass. "Yes, he is abrupt," she repeated;
"still, he has a very good manner. If one didn't know that he had been
a bank clerk, I wonder if one would detect it. I don't think it would
be a thing that need be mentioned, for instance, at Slowby. Only Susan
would be sure to make a point of mentioning it. Susan has an idea she
owes it to herself to be truthful. Of course, it would be wrong to
deny that anyone had been a bank clerk; but that is different from
telling everybody. I wonder if Susan would feel obliged to tell
everybody."

When she reached the near side of the Green, Serena looked back. Mr.
Iglesias was in the act of entering the Lovegroves' front door, which
the worthy George held open for him. Serena stood transfixed.

"So he was going there!" she said to herself. "How extraordinary not
to mention it to me. What could have been his object in not mentioning
it? I wonder if he has only gone to see George, or to see Rhoda as
well. If he has gone to see Rhoda, then I think he has been
exceedingly rude to me. And he has been very short-sighted, too, if he
didn't want me to know, for he might have taken it for granted that of
course I should look back. Unless he did do it on purpose, meaning to
be rude. But--"

Serena resumed her walk. She was very much excited.

"Of course he may have done it on purpose that I should see, and
understand that he meant something special--that he was going to speak
to George and Rhoda about something in particular, which he could not
say before me. He may have wanted to sound them. But then it is so
very odd that he should have said that George had never told him I had
come back. But I don't believe he ever did say that." Serena was
growing more and more excited. She drifted along the pavement, in her
rustling petticoats, with the most unusually animated expression of
countenance.

"I remember--of course he did not say it. He avoided the question each
time. How very extraordinary! I think he must mean me to understand
something by that. I wonder if George will refer to it at luncheon. If
he does I must find out from Rhoda, but without letting her suspect
that I observed anything, of course."

Serena had quite ceased to be offended. Her fancy, indeed, had taken a
most wildly ingenious flight. She felt very remarkable, very acute,
quite dangerous, in short--and these sensations, however limited their
justification by fact, were highly agreeable to her.

CHAPTER XV

The heavens remained clear, the air exhilarating, and Iglesias set
forth on his weekly pilgrimage in a serene frame of mind. George
Lovegrove's view had been reassuring.

"I know you are much more far-sighted than I am," he had said, his
honest face beaming with combined cleanliness and affection, "so I
always hesitate to set up my opinion against yours. It would be
presumptuous. Still, you do surprise me. I never had an inkling of
anything of the sort; and between ourselves--for I should never hint
at the subject before the wife, you know--it might upset her, females
are so sensitive--but between ourselves it would fairly unman me to
think there could be any unsoundness in Barking Brothers & Barking.
You know the phrase current in the city about them--'as safe as the
Bank of England'? And I have always believed that. I know I left
before Mr. Reginald had any active share in the business, and I never
have cared about American speculation. It is all beyond me. Still I
cannot suppose the senior partners would let him have too much his own
way. Depend upon it, Sir Abel keeps an eye on him. And then as to this
war, of course you have studied it all more deeply than I have the
power to do; still I cannot help thinking you distress yourself
unnecessarily. As I said to the wife when I first heard of it, it's
suicidal. One can only feel pity for such poor ignorant creatures,
rushing headlong on their ruin. Depend upon it, they will very soon
come to their senses and deplore their own rash action. A very few
weeks will see the finish of it all. I only hope there will not be
much bloodshed first, for of course they couldn't stand up against
English troops for an hour, poor things."

Encouraged by which cheerful optimism Dominic Iglesias began to think
his fears exaggerated, as he descended from an omnibus top at
Hammersmith Bridge that afternoon, crossed the river, and walked on
down the long suburban road. The sky was sharply blue. Multicoloured
leaves danced down from the trees in the villa gardens. Gaily clad
children, pursued by anxious mothers and nursemaids, ran and shouted,
the sunshine and fresh air having gone to their heads. Perched on the
brick pier of an entrance gate, a robin uplifted its voice in
piercingly sweet song. Autumn wore her fairest face, speaking of
promise rather than of decay. It was good to be alive. Even to Mr.
Iglesias' sober and chastened spirit horror of war, disgrace of
financial failure, seemed remote and inconsiderable things, morbid
delusions such as sane men brush aside scorning to give them
harbourage so much as of thought.

Poppy was mirthful, too, in her greeting of him.

"My dear man," she cried, "the house is out of windows! You find us in
the throes of a great domestic event. Cappadocia has done her duty by
posterity. She has been brought to bed, if you'll excuse my mentioning
it, of four puppies. Perfect little lambs, not a white hair among
them. And she shows true maternal feeling, does Cappadocia. Whenever
you go near her she tries to bite."

Poppy spoke very fast, holding his hand, looking him full in the face,
her singular eyes very gentle in expression, yet all alight.

"Ah! it's good to see you. My stars, but it is good to see you," she
said.

And Dominic, moved beyond his wont, stood silent for a space.

"You're not offended? Surely, at this time of the day, you're not
going to stiffen up?" she asked.

He shook his head.

"No, no, dear friend," he said; "but this greeting is a little
wonderful to me. Except my mother, years ago, nobody has ever cared
whether I came or went."

"More fools they," Poppy answered, with a fine disregard of grammar.
"But all that's over now. You know it's over. All the same I can't be
altogether sorry it was so, because it gives me my chance.--Sit down;
I'll expound to you. Let us talk.--You see, my beautiful innocent,
with most men worth knowing--I am not talking about boys running about
with the shell still on their heads and more affections to place than
they can find a market for, but men. Well then, with most all of them,
when one comes to discuss matters, one finds one's had such an awful
lot of predecessors. At best one comes in a bad third--more often a
bad three-and-twentieth--I mean nothing risky. Don't be nervous. But
they have romantic memories of half-a-dozen women. And so, though they
are no end nice and kind to one, play up and give one a good time and
have a jolly good one themselves--trust 'em to take care of that--one
knows all the while, if one knows anything, that the whole show's
merely a _rechauffe_. Visions of Clara and Gladys, and dear
little Emily, and Rosina, and Beatrice, and the lovely Lucinda--
angels, every one of them, if you haven't seen them for ten years, and
wouldn't know them again if you met them in the street--haunt the
background of every man's mind by the time he's five-and-thirty, and
cut entrancing capers against the sky-line, so that--when one comes to
thrash the matter out--one finds the actually present woman, here in
the foreground, hasn't really any look-in at all."

Poppy threw her head back against the yellowish red cushions of the
settee, her teeth showing white as she laughed.

"Boys aren't worth having. They're too crude, too callow. Moreover, it
isn't playing the game. One doesn't want to make a mess of their
futures, poor little chaps. And grown men, except as I say of the very
preengaged sort, are not to be had. So don't you understand, most
delightful lunatic, how it comes to pass that you and your friendship
are precious to me beyond words? When you go I could cry. When you
come I could dance."

Her tone changed, becoming defiant, almost fierce.

"And it is all right," she said, "thank heaven, right,--right, clean,
and honest, and good for one's soul. Now I've done. Only we are very
happy in our own quaint way, aren't we? And we can leave it at that.
Oh, yes, we can very well leave it at that if"--she looked sideways at
Mr. Iglesias, her expression half-humorous, half-pathetic--"if only it
will stay at that and not play the mischief and scuttle off into
something quite else."

She got up quickly, with a little air of daring and bravado.

"I must move about. I must do something--there, I'll make up the fire.
No, sit still, dear man"--as Dominic prepared to rise also--"I like
doing little odd jobs with you here. It takes off the company feeling,
and makes it seem as if you belonged, and like the bicycle, had 'come
to stay.'"

Poppy threw a couple of driftwood logs upon the smouldering fire.
Around them sharp tongues of flame--rose and saffron, amber, sea-
green, and heliotrope, glories as of a tropic sunset--leaped upward.
She stood watching these, her left hand resting on the edge of the
mantelpiece, her right holding up the front of her black skirt. Her
right foot rested on the fender curb, thereby displaying a discreet
interval of openwork silk stocking and a neatly cut steel-buckled
shoe. The many-hued firelight flickered over her dark figure; over the
soft lace jabot at her throat and ruffles at her wrists; over her pale
profile; and glinted in the heavy masses of her hair. The room, facing
east, was cold with shadow, which the thin fantastic colours of the
flames appeared to emphasise rather than to relieve. And Iglesias,
obedient to her entreaty, sat quietly waiting until it should again
please her to speak. For he had begun to accept her many changes of
mood as an integral element of her personality--a personality rich in
rapid and subtle contradictions. Often he had no clue to the meaning
of these many changes. But he did not mind that. Not absence of vulgar
curiosity alone, but an unwilling sub-conscious shrinking from any too
close acquaintance with the details of her life contributed to render
him passive. He had a conviction, though he had never formulated it
even in thought, that ignorance in relation to her made for security
and content. And there was a refined charm in this--namely, that each
to the other, even while friendship deepened, should remain something
of an undiscovered country. Moreover, had she not told him that he
rested her? To ask questions, however sympathetic, to volunteer
consolation, however delicately worded, is to risk being officious;
and to be officious, in however mild a degree, is to drive away the
shy and illusive spirit of rest. And so Dominic Iglesias was coming,
in the good nautical reading of that phrase, simply "to stand by" and
wait where this woman was concerned. After all, it was but the
reapplication of a lesson learned long ago for the support and solace
of another woman, by him supremely loved. To act thus was, therefore,
not only natural but poignantly sweet to him, as a new and gentle
offering laid upon the dear altar of his dead. It rejoiced him to find
that now, as of old, the demand created a supply of silent but
sustaining moral force, ready to pass into the sphere of active help
should necessity arise.

Nevertheless as the minutes passed, while daylight and firelight alike
began to fade, Dominic Iglesias grew somewhat troubled and sad. And it
was with a distinct movement of relief that he, at last, saw Poppy
draw herself up, push the soft masses of her hair back from her
forehead with a petulant gesture, and turn towards him. As she did so
she let her hands drop at her sides, as though she had finished with
and dismissed some unwelcome form of thought, while her face showed
wan, and her eyes large and vague, as though they saw beyond and
through all that which they actually looked on.

"There, there," she said harshly, with an angry lift of her head,
"what a silly fool I am, wasting time like this when you are here. But
my soul went out of my body; and I could afford to let it go, just
because you were here, and I felt safe." Her tone softened. "Sure I
don't bore you?" she asked.

Dominic shook his head, smiling.

"Very sure," he said.

"Bless you, then that's all right." Poppy strolled back and sat down
languidly. "I've gone confoundedly tired," she said. "You see, I sat
up half the night acting Gamp to Cappadocia--if you excuse my again
alluding to the domestic event.--Oh! my being tired doesn't matter. My
dear man, I'm never ill. I'm as strong as a horse. Let's talk of
something more interesting--let's review the topics of the hour--only
for the life of me I can't remember what the topics of the hour are!
Yes, I know though--the management of the Twentieth Century Theatre
has given Dot Parris a leading part. Does that leave you cold?
Impossible! Why, in theatrical circles it's a world-shaking event. I
own I'm curious to see how she does in legitimate drama, after her
career in musical comedy and at the halls, myself. I'm really very
fond of her, poor little Dot. She's going to call herself Miss
Charlotte Colthurst in the future, I understand. Did you ever hear
such cheek? But then she always had the cheek of the old gentleman
himself, and that makes for success. Cheek does go an awfully long way
towards bringing you through, don't you think so?"

"Probably," Dominic said. "My opportunities of exercising that
particular form of virtue have been so limited that I am quite
prepared to accept your ruling on the point."

Poppy laughed softly, looking at him with a great friendliness.

"Ah! but it wouldn't have been cheek in your case, anyhow. It would
merely have been that you stepped into your right place, ascended any
throne that happened to be right divine. I can see you doing it, so
statelily and yet so innocently. It would be a perfectly delicious
sight. I believe you will do it yet, some day, somehow, and make a lot
of people sit up. But that reminds me, joking apart, there is a topic
of the hour I wanted to ask you about. Tell me what you think of this
war."

And Dominic Iglesias, once more obedient to her changing mood, replied
with quiet sincerity:

"I am told I am an alarmist. I hope I may prove to be so, for in this
matter I should much prefer the optimists to be in the right. But I
confess I do not like the outlook. Both on public and private grounds
this war makes me anxious."

Poppy's languor had vanished. She had grown very much alive again. Now
she leaned forward, pressing her hands together, palm to palm, between
her knees, and making herself small, as a child does when it is deeply
in earnest and wants to think.

"You're right," she assented. "I'm perfectly certain all this cocksure
Johnny-head-in-air business, 'sail to-day and see you again at tea
tomorrow, so it's not worth while saying good-by'--you know the
style?--is fatuous and idiotic. It is not bluff, because the English
officer-man doesn't bluff. He hasn't the brains, to begin with, and
then he is a very sound sort of an animal. He doesn't need to hide his
fright for the simple reason that he's not frightened. A friend of
mine was talking about it all yesterday. He thinks as you do, and he's
no silly, though he is a member of the House of Lords.--After all, he
can't help that, poor dear old chap," she added apologetically,
looking sideways at Mr. Iglesias. "But there, you've seen him, I
believe. You met him the first time you came here. Don't you remember,
I had to turn you out because I had to see him on business, and you
ran across him in the hall as you were going?"

"I remember meeting someone," Dominic said, rather loftily. He did not
want to hear any more. The conversation had become displeasing to him,
though he could have given no reason for his displeasure. But Poppy
suddenly turned mischievous and naughty. She patted her hands gently
together between her knees and swayed with rather impish merriment.

"Ah, of course you were much too grand to take any particular notice
of him, poor brute. But he wasn't a bit too grand to take a lot of
notice of you. He was fearfully impressed. Yes, I tell you he was.
Don't be cross. I am speaking the veracious truth. I give you my word
I'm not gassing. He was awfully keen to know who you were, and where
you came from, and how I met you. And it was the sweetest thing out to
be able to reply that I'd been introduced to you on a bench--a mighty
uncomfortable one, too, with no back to it!--on Barnes Common by
Cappadocia; and that as to your name and local habitation I hadn't the
faintest ghost of a notion what they were. Are you cross? Don't be
cross," Poppy pleaded.

"No, no, of course not," Mr. Iglesias answered, goaded from his
habitual calm and speaking almost sharply.

Poppy patted her palms together again, swaying backwards and forwards.
Her eyes were dancing.

"Oh! but you are, though," she cried. "You're just a wee bit jealous.
You are--you know you are, and I'm not a scrap sorry. On the contrary,
I'm enchanted. For it shows that you are human after all, and must
have a name and address tucked away somewhere about you. I don't want
to know what they are, but it's comfortable to be assured of their
existence. It shows you don't drop straight down from heaven--as I was
beginning to be afraid you did--once a week, into the Mortlake Road,
and then go straight up again. It shows that I could get on to you by
post, or telephone, or other means of communication common to mortals,
if I was in a tight place and really wanted you, without walking as
far as Hammersmith Bridge and waiting in the wind and the wet on the
bare chance you might take it into your august head to materialise,
and break out of paradise, and take a little stroll round our
sublunary sphere."

For a moment Poppy laid her hand lightly on Mr. Iglesias' shoulder.

"Yes, be cross," she repeated. "Just as cross as ever you like, so
long as you don't keep it up too protractedly. It's the most engaging
piece of flattery I've come across for a month of Sundays. Only you
needn't worry in this particular instance, dear man, I give you my
word you needn't. It's a sheer waste of feeling. For Fallowfeild's
always been perfectly decent with me. I know people think him an
awfully risky lot, but they're noodles. He's racketed in his day--of
course he has. But if he'd been more of a hypocrite, people would have
talked less. As the man says in the play, it's not the sin but the
being found out which makes the scandal. And Fallowfeild was too
honest. He never pretended to be better than he was. He is a man of
good nature who has done wrong things, which is quite different to
being a man of bad nature who does wrong things, and still more
different to being a man of weak nature who pretends to do right
things. That last is the sort I hate most, and I speak out of beastly
intimate experience."

She made a most expressive grimace, as though she had a remarkably
disagreeable taste in her mouth.

"No salvation for that sort, I believe," she went on, "either here or
hereafter. Now, are you better? You do believe it has always been
perfectly square and above-board between Fallowfeild and me, don't
you?"

"Unquestionably, I believe it," Dominic answered. He spoke slowly.

Poppy turned her head sharply and looked hard at him.

"Ah! but I don't quite like that," she said. "I've muddled it somehow
--I see I have. I've hurt and offended you. You're farther off than
you were ten minutes ago. In spirit you've got up and gone away. I
have muddled it. I have made you distrust me."

"No," Dominic answered, "you have not made me distrust you; but you
have perplexed me. It is the result of my own dulness, no doubt. My
imagination is not agile enough to follow you, and so--"

He hesitated. That which he had in his mind was not easy to put into
words without discourtesy. He would far rather have left it unsaid;
but to do so would have been, in truth, to stand farther off, to erect
a barrier which might prove insuperable to happy companionship in the
future.

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