The Far Horizon

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Poppy mused, her head bent, pushing away the tiny dogs with her foot as
they fawned upon her.

"Don't bother! you little miseries," she said, "don't bother! I'm busy
now. I've no use for you." Presently she glanced up at Mr. Iglesias, who
held himself proudly, as he stood waiting before her. "Do you care for
these barking people? Is it a question of affection between any of them
and you?"

"I am afraid not," he answered. "Ours has been a purely business
connection throughout. How should it be otherwise? The social interval
between employers and employed is not easily bridged."

"Stuff-a-nonsense!" Poppy put in scornfully. "They might feel honoured to
tie your shoe."

"Any attempt to ignore differences of wealth and station, which others are
pleased to remember, would be unbecoming," he continued. "Nor do I relish
condescension on the part of my social betters. It does not suit me. I
prefer to remain within my own borders. Still, there is the tie of long
association with these merchant princes and their undertakings, and this,
I own, influences me strongly. It would be shocking to me to witness the
failure or ruin of those with whom I have been in daily intercourse. Then,
too, there is a certain challenge in the present position which appeals to
the fighting instinct in me. If not altogether by nature, still by habit I
am a business man. Affairs interest me, and consequently the more
embarrassed and apparently hopeless the existing state of things is, the
greater would be my satisfaction in mastering the intricacies of it and
reducing them to order. These practical matters are not without very real
excitement and drama to those who have the habit of handling them."
Iglesias paused, and then added quietly, "But I am contented enough as I
am, and should not voluntarily have touched business again had there not
been another consideration over and above those I have enumerated--namely,
the plain obligation of right doing, whether the said doing be congenial
to one or not. This obligation is supreme, or should be so, in the case of
one who, like myself, has bound himself by definite acts of obedience and
self-dedication."

His expression had changed, taking on something of exaltation. He no
longer looked at Poppy, but away to the far horizon and the light thereon
resident.

And the Lady of the Windswept Dust was quick to realise this, though upon
what fair unseen object the eyes of his spirit did, in fact, rest she was
ignorant. Against it the vanity inherent in her womanhood rebelled. She
was piqued and jealous of the unnamed, unknown object which absorbed his
attention more than she herself and her friendship did. From the first
Iglesias had appealed to her very various nature in a threefold manner. To
the artist in her he appealed by the clearness of his individuality, his
finish of person and of feature, his gravity and poise--these last taking
their rise not in insensibility, but in reasoned will, in passionate
emotion held, as she had learned, austerely in check. He appealed to the
motherhood in her by his unworldliness, by his ignorance of base motives,
thus making her attitude towards him protective; she instinctively trying
to stand between him and a naughty world, to stand, too, between him and
her own too often naughty self. He appealed to the child in her by the
exotic and foreign elements in him, which captivated her fancy, endowing
him with an effect of mystery, making him seem to hail from some region of
legend and high romance. But the events of the last few days had been
far from beneficial to Poppy St. John. They had demoralised her, so that
the artistic, maternal, and childlike aspects of her nature were alike
overlaid by the bitterness, the cynicism, the recklessness engendered by
her unhappy childless marriage and the irregular life she had led. Poppy's
feet were held captive in the quicksands of the things of sense; her
outlook was concrete and gross. Finer instincts lit up but momentary
flickering fires in her, speedily dying out into the gloom begotten by the
deplorable scene of yesterday with her husband, and shame at the
conspiracy of silence into which, as the lesser of the two evils presented
to her, she had entered, remembrances of which, on his first arrival,
had made her feel unworthy and a traitor in the presence of Iglesias. This
demoralisation worked in her to rebellion against just all that which, in
her happier moods, rendered Iglesias delightful to her. His exaltation,
his calm, the mystery which so delicately surrounded him, the very
distinction of his appearance irritated her, so soon as she became
conscious that she was no longer the sole object of his thoughts. She was
pushed by a bad desire to force from him a more complete self-revelation,
to cheapen him in some way and break him up.

"Dominic Iglesias," she cried suddenly and imperatively, "you are a trifle
too empyrean. I don't quite believe in you. Be more ordinary, more
vulgarly human. For who are you, after all? What are you?" she said.

And he, his thoughts recalled from a great distance, regarded her
questioningly and as without immediate recognition. Her voice was harsh,
and the transition was so abrupt from the radiant land of the spirit to
the dingy realities of Poppy's drawing-room, her tired, black, bluey-mauve
patterned tea-gown, and her absurdly artificial little dogs. It took him
some few seconds to adjust himself. Then he smiled in apology, and spoke
very courteously and gently.

"Who am I, what am I, dear friend? Why this, I think--a commonplace, very
ordinary person who, long ago, in early childhood, by mournful accident,
for which it would be an impiety to hold those on whom he was dependent
responsible, lost his sight. Through all the years which men count, and
rightly, the best of life--when courage is high and the hand strong, and
opportunity fertile, circumstance as a block of precious many-coloured
marble out of which to carve fine fortune for ourselves and those we
love--he wandered in darkness, insecure of footing, missing the very end
and object for which earthly existence has been bestowed upon us mortals.
He was sad and homesick for that which he had not; yet ignorant of the
nature of his own loss, disposed to blame the constitution of things,
rather than his own incapacity, for that which he suffered."

"And then?" Poppy put in sharply. Listening, she had started to mock, the
cynic and worldling being hot in her, but, looking at the speaker,
somehow, she dared not mock.

"And then--recently--since I have known you in short, it has pleased
Almighty God by degrees to restore my sight."

Poppy regarded him intently, her singular eyes wide with question and with
doubt, her lips pressed together.

"I see--you have got religion," she said. "But do you seriously mean to
tell me that I--I--have had anything to do with that?"

"Yes," Iglesias answered. "You have had much to do with it. First by
love--for your friendship woke up my heart. Then by sorrow"--he paused,
divided by the desire to spare her and to tell her the whole of his
thought--"sorrow, when I came to know you better and value your character
and gifts at their true worth, because I saw noble things put to ignoble
uses, which of all pitiful sights is perhaps the most profoundly pitiful."

Silence followed, broken only by minute and reproachful snorings on the
part of Cappadocia and her spouse. The little dogs, sensible of neglect,
had become the victims of wounded self-love, that most primitive, as it is
the most universal, of passions throughout all grades of living things.
Poppy meanwhile turned her head aside, unable or unwilling to speak. Again
she blew her nose with complete disregard of the unromantic quality of
that action, then said huskily:

"I have cleaned the slate. I shall keep it clean." Her voice grew
steadier. A touch of malice came into her expression. "I like compliments,
and you have paid me about the biggest I ever had. It will take a little
time to digest. So I think--I think, dear man, I will not stand in the way
of your going back to the City, and saving the sinking ship--that is, if
the work won't be too hard for you?"

"No," he answered, touched by her more gracious aspect, yet slightly
confused. "I have had nearly a year's holiday and rest; I am quite equal
to work. But I am afraid the hours must necessarily be long, and that my
opportunities of coming to see you will not be very frequent."

"Perhaps that's just as well," she said, "while I am still in process of
digesting the big compliment."

Then impulsively she swept up to him and laid her hands on his shoulders,
looking him full in the face.

"See here, you thrice dear innocent, since you have mentioned that
terrible word 'love,' the complexion of our relation has changed somewhat.
Don't you understand, made as I am, I must fight seven devils within me if
I'm to continue to play fair with you, as I swore I would? And so, just
because you are so very much to me, I had best not see you too often until
I have settled down into my new scheme of life. In a sense Alaric was a
safeguard. That safeguard's gone."

She moved a step back, letting her hands fall at her sides, while her eye
grew hard and dark.

"And there are other reasons, brutal, unworthy, sordid reasons, why it is
wiser that you should not come here often at present. They did not
exist--at least I had not the faintest conception that they did--when we
last met. They have rushed into hateful prominence since. Don't ask me--I
cannot tell you. You must trust me, and you must not let my silence
alienate you. I can't be explicit, but I give you my word I am perfectly
straight. And you must not let your religion alienate you either. By the
way, what form of faith is it?"

"The faith of my own people," Dominic answered. "The faith of the Catholic
Church."

Poppy smiled.

"Then I am not so afraid I shall lose you," she said, "for that's the only
brand of religion I've ever come across which isn't too nice to reckon
with human nature as it really is. It can save sinners, just because it
knows how to make saints--and it has made them out of jolly unpromising
material at times, there's the comfort of it."

She held out her hand in farewell.

"Good-bye till next time. You've done me good, as you always do. Now, I am
going to re-study some of my old parts, just to get the hang of the whole
show again."

But the door once shut, she flung herself down on the broad settee, while
the tiny dogs, whimpering, crowded upon her lap.

"Poppy St. John, you're not such a bad lot after all," she cried. "But oh!
oh! oh! it's beastly rough to be so young, and have gone so far, and know
so much. There, Willie Onions, don't snivel. It's both superfluous and
unpleasant." She sat up and wiped her eyes. "Upon my honour, I think it
was just as well I gave Phillimore the little revolver last night, to lock
up in the plate chest," she said.

CHAPTER XXIX

It followed that Dominic Iglesias walked on across the common to Barnes
Station and travelled Citywards, solaced and uplifted in spirit, yet
greatly troubled by the idea of those newly arrived complications at
which the Lady of the Windswept Dust had hinted. He did not permit himself
to inquire what they might be. Doubtless she knew best--in her social
sense he had great confidence--so he acquiesced in her silence about them.
Still, as he reflected, it is not a little lamentable that even
friendship, the angelic relation between man and woman, should be
thus beset by perils from within and pitfalls without. Where lay the
fault--with over-civilisation and the improper proprieties resultant
therefrom? Or was it of far more ancient origin, resident in the very
foundations of human nature? Woman, eternally the vehicle of man's being,
eternally the inspiration of quite three-fifths of his action; yet, at the
same time, the eternal stumbling block and danger to the highest of his
moral and intellectual attainment! Mr. Iglesias smiled sadly and soberly
to himself as the train rolled on into Waterloo. In any case she remains
the most astonishing of God's creatures. It would be dull enough here on
earth without her, though, to employ one of Poppy's characteristic
phrases, "it's most infernally risky" with!

But once inside the bank, such far-ranging meditations gave place to
considerations immediate and concrete, Iglesias' whole mind being focussed
to arrive at the facts of the case. And this was far from easy. For alarm
stalked those usually self-secure and self-complacent rooms and glass and
mahogany-walled corridors; men looking up from their desks as he,
Iglesias, passed, with anxious faces, or moving with hushed footsteps as
though someone lay sick to death within the house. In Sir Abel Barking's
private room the drama reached its climax, panic sitting there sensibly
enthroned. Her chill presence had visibly affected Sir Abel, causing the
contrast between the overblown portrait upon the wall and the subject of
it to be ironical to the point of cruelty. For Sir Abel was aged and
shrivelled. His clothes hung loose upon him. Hardly could he rally his
tongue to the enunciation of a single platitude even of the most obviously
staring sort. The mighty, indeed, were fallen and the weapons of
wealth-getting perished! Yet never had Iglesias felt so drawn in sympathy
towards his late employer, for the spectre of possible ruin had made Sir
Abel almost humble, almost human.

"I am obliged to you for responding to my summons so promptly--yes, sit
down, my good friend, sit down," he said. "It is necessary that I should
converse with you at some length, and I refuse to keep you standing. Our
present position is inexplicable to me. Granting that my nephew Reginald
is unworthy of the trust we reposed in his ability and probity, there was
still our own judgment in reserve, and our own unquestioned capacity to
meet any strain upon our resources. That our confidence in these last was
misplaced is still incredible to me. I am completely baffled. The past few
months, indeed, with their reiterated discovery of difficulty and of loss,
have been a terrible tax upon my fortitude. Veteran financier though I am,
I own to you, Iglesias, there have been moments when I feared that I, too,
should give way. Only my sense of the duty I owe to my own reputation has
supported me." Sir Abel turned sideways in his chair. His eyes sought the
derisive portrait upon the wall, contemplation of which appeared to
reanimate his self-confidence somewhat, for he continued in his larger
manner, "Nor has the sting of private anxiety been lacking. My younger son
has been called away to the seat of war under circumstances of a
peculiarly affecting character. My earnest hopes for his future, in the
shape of a very desirable marriage, touched on fulfilment--."

But here Iglesias intervened. For his temper began to rise at the mention
of the loves of Alaric Barking. If the springs of Christian charity, just
now welling up so sweetly within him, were not to run incontinently dry,
the conversation, he felt, must be steadied down to themes of other
import. So he civilly but definitely requested Sir Abel to "come to
Hecuba," and to Hecuba the poor man, haltingly yet very obediently, came.
He and his ex-head-clerk seemed, indeed, to have changed places, so that,
before the end of the interview, Iglesias began to measure himself as
never before, to realise his own business acumen, his quickness of
apprehension, his grasp of the issues presented to him and his own
fearlessness of judgment. Whatever the upshot as to the eventual saving of
the credit of Messrs. Barking Brothers & Barking, Iglesias became
increasingly confident of his own power, and quietly satisfied in the
exercise of it.

And so it happened that, although tired in brain and body, his mind
weighted with thought, as were his arms with bundles of papers--which he
carried home for more leisurely inspection--Iglesias came rapidly up the
white steps of Cedar Lodge that night. He was buoyant in spirit, content
with his day's work, keenly interested in the development of it. Using his
latchkey he entered the square panelled hall silently--with results, for
revels were in progress within.

Dinner was over. Mrs. Porcher and the great Eliza, linked arm in arm,
stood near the dining-room door watching, while those two gay young
sparks, Farge and Worthington, inspired by memories of a recent visit to
the Hippodrome, played at lions. It was a simple game, still it gave
pleasure to the players. Clad in an easy-fitting dark blue "lounge suit,"
with narrow white cross-bar lines on it, an aged and faded orange
sheep-skin hearthrug thrown gallantly across his shoulders, Farge, on all
fours, with the mildest roarings imaginable, made rushes from under the
dinner-table at the devoted Worthington, who withstood his fiery onslaught
with lungings and brandishings of that truly classic weapon, the humble
necessary umbrella. At each rush the ladies backed and tittered, clinging
together with the most engagingly natural semblance of terror.

"Ha! caitiff wretch, beware!" declaimed Worthington nobly. "Only across my
prostrate corse shall you reach your innocent victims. Say, Charlie boy,"
he added in a hurried aside, "I didn't poke you in the eye by mistake just
now, did I?"

"Wurra--wurra--wurra," roared Farge. "Never touched me, Bert, by a couple
of inches--wurra."

But there the would-be ferocious animal paused, squatted upon its
haunches, pointing its finger dramatically towards the front door, thus
causing the whole company to wheel round and gaze nervously in the
direction indicated.

"Oh, Mr. Iglesias, how you did startle me!" Mrs. Porcher cried
plaintively, laying her hand upon her heart.

"Pardon me," he answered. "I had no idea the hall was occupied or I would
have rung instead of letting myself in. I must apologise further for being
so late, and for not having telephoned that I should be unable to be back
in time for dinner."

"We all know that there are counter-attractions, which may easily account
for unpunctuality," Miss Hart put in, with a toss of her head.

"Hush, hush, dear Liz," murmured Mrs. Porcher, while the two young men
made round eyes at each other, and de Courcy Smyth, leaning against the
balusters on the landing of the half-flight, announced his presence by a
sarcastic laugh.

Mr. Iglesias looked from one to another in surprise. He had been thinking
so very little--perhaps, as he told himself, insolently little--about all
these good people for some time past. Now he became aware of a hostile
atmosphere. For cause unknown he was in disgrace with them all. Possibly
they resented his indifference, possibly they were justified in so doing.
Hence he did not feel angry, but merely sorry and perplexed. He addressed
his hostess with increased courtliness of bearing.

"I hope I have not caused you inconvenience, Mrs. Porcher," he said. "I
was summoned suddenly upon business to the City this morning. The business
in question proved more complicated than I had anticipated, and I was
detained by it till late. This leads me to tell you, if you will forgive
my troubling you with personal matters, that I shall be compelled to go to
the City daily for some weeks to come. I shall not, therefore, be able to
give myself the pleasure of joining you at luncheon, or probably at
dinner, either."

"Indeed," Mrs. Porcher remarked. "This is rather unexpected, Mr.
Iglesias."

"To me wholly unexpected," he answered, "and in some respects unwelcome;
but it is unavoidable, unfortunately."

He bowed gravely to the two ladies and, ignoring the rest of the little
company, went on his way upstairs. At the half-flight Smyth stood aside to
let him pass; then, after a moment's hesitation, followed him.

"Mr. Iglesias," he said, "may I be permitted so far to presume upon our
acquaintance as to remind you that you received a letter from me this
morning requiring an answer?"

Dominic paused at the stair-head.

"Yes, I received it," he replied coldly.

"And you condescended to read it, so I venture to imagine, notwithstanding
that you were summoned on important business to the City. We are all
impressed by that interesting fact--vastly impressed by it, needless to
state. I specially so, of course, since commerce in all its branches, as
you know, commands my profoundest admiration and respect. Literature
and art are but as garbage compared with it--no one ever recognised
that gratifying truth more thoroughly than I do myself. Still, the
shopkeeper--I beg your pardon, financier I should have said--is not wholly
exempted, by the ideal character of his calling, from keeping his promises
even to poor devils of scholars and literary men such as myself."

Smyth swaggered, his hands in his trouser pockets, his glance at once
impertinent and malevolent, his manner easy to the point of insolence.

"I venture to remind you of my letter, therefore, and I may add I shall
feel obliged if you'll just hand me over those notes without delay."

"I read your letter," Iglesias answered. "It required consideration."

"Oh! did it, really? I supposed that I had expressed myself with perfect
lucidity. But if any point appeared to you to need explanation, I am
disengaged at the present time--I am quite willing to explain."
"Thank you," Iglesias answered, "no explanation is necessary on your part,
I believe, though perhaps a little is on mine. I must ask you to remember
that I promised to help you within reasonable relation to my means. What
constitutes a reasonable relation it is for me to judge, since I alone
know what my means are. I regret to tell you that your last demand greatly
exceeded that reasonable relation. I am therefore reluctantly obliged to
refuse it."

"To refuse it?" Smyth exclaimed incredulously.

"Yes, to refuse it," Iglesias said calmly. "When your play is ready for
production I am prepared to bear the cost of two representations, as I
have already told you. But I am not prepared to make you unlimited
advances meanwhile. To do so would be no kindness to you--"

"Wouldn't it?" Smyth broke out excitedly. "No kindness to me? Do you
imagine I want kindness, that I would accept or even tolerate kindness
from any man, and particularly from you? I offer you a magnificent
investment, and you speak to me as though I was a beggar asking alms in
the street. No kindness to me? This high moral tone does not become you in
the very least, let me tell you, Mr. Iglesias. Do you suppose I am such a
stoneblind ass as not to see what has been happening. Doesn't it occur to
you that I hold your reputation in my two hands?"

"My reputation?" Iglesias repeated, a very blaze of pride and indignation
in his eyes.

Smyth backed hastily away from him, with a livid face and shaking knees.

"No, no, Mr. Iglesias," he protested. "I was a fool to say that. But I am
utterly beaten by work and by worry. I do not deny that you have behaved
handsomely to me. But persistent injustice and cruelty have soured
me. Is it wonderful? And then to-night those blatant young idiots, Farge
and Worthington, have set my nerves on edge by their imbecility and
conceit, till I really am not accountable for what I say. I had better go.
We can talk of this at another time. I dare say I can manage for a day or
two, though it will not be easy to do so. However, I am accustomed to
rubbing shoulders with every created description of undeserved indignity
and wretchedness. I will go. Good-night."

Iglesias entered his sitting-room, turned up the gas, and looked round at
the orderly aspect of the place with a movement of relief. He ranged the
bundles of papers upon the table. If he was to master their contents he
would have to work far into the night, and the day had been a long one,
full of application and of very varied emotions. He stood for a little
space thinking of it all. The return to his familiar quarters at the bank
had affected him less than he had expected. He had not felt it as a return
to slavery.

"Thanks to the Church," he said gratefully, "which confers on her members
the only perfect freedom, namely, freedom of soul, freedom of heavenly
citizenship."

Then he thought of Poppy--thought very tenderly of that strangely
captivating woman of many moods! How clever she was, how accurately
she knew the ways of men! Her warnings regarding his dabbling in
matters theatrical, for instance, and charities to unsuccessful
playwrights.--And at that point Dominic Iglesias drew himself up short.
For, in a flash, the truth came to him that Poppy St. John's hated "jackal
of a husband" was none other than his fellow-lodger, de Courcy Smyth,
whose shuffling footsteps he heard even now, nervelessly crossing and
recrossing the floor of the room immediately above.

CHAPTER XXX

"I could not write, Rhoda, because of course I could not be sure
beforehand whether, when I came to London, I should really wish to see you
and George again or not." This from Serena, loftily and with rustlings.
"But as Lady Samuelson was driving in this direction to-day, and offered
to drop me here if I could find my own way back, I thought I had better
come, as I knew it was your afternoon at home."

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