The Far Horizon

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Immediately below was the roadway, bordered by an asphalt pavement on
either side, then the high impenetrable oak paling, which had baffled
Dominic Iglesias' maiden effort at participation in the amusements of the
rich. From Poppy's balcony, however, the palings offered no impediment to
observation. All the green expanse of the smaller polo-ground was
visible. So was the whole height of the grove of majestic elms on the
right and the back of the club house; and, and the left, between
_massifs_ of shrubbery, a vista of lawns sloping towards the river
peopled by a sauntering crowd.

It was upon this last that Poppy directed her gaze. To the naked eye the
units composing it showed as vertical lines of grey, brown, and black,
blotted with bright delicate colour, and splashed here and there with
white, the whole mingling, uniting, breaking into fresh combinations
kaleidoscope fashion. Through the opera-glasses figures of men, women,
and horses detached themselves, becoming quaintly distinct, neat as toys,
an assemblage of elegant highly finished marionnettes. There was a
fascination in watching the movement of these brilliant, clear-cut silent
little things upon that amazingly verdant carpet of grass. But it was a
fascination which, for Poppy, had by now worn somewhat thin. The interest
proved too far away, too impersonal. Indeed it may be questioned whether
any who have not within themselves large store of resignation, or of
hope, can look on at gaiety, in which they have no share, without first
sadness and then pretty lively irritation. And of those two most precious
commodities, resignation and hope, Poppy had but limited reserve stock at
present. So she pulled the little dog's ears rather hard and lamented:

"Oh! my good gracious me, if only something would happen!"

Then, the words hardly out of her mouth, she shot the much-enduring
Cappadocia off her lap and, restoring her elbows on the rails, leaned
right out over the balcony.

"Come here, dear beautiful lunatic, come here," she cried. "For pity's
sake don't pass by!"

Perhaps fortunately this very unconventional invitation was lost upon
Dominic Iglesias, soberly crossing the road with due observance of the
eccentricities of the drivers of motor-cars and riders of bicycles.
Looking up, he was aware of a vision quite sufficiently indicative of
welcome, without added indiscretion of words.--The white balustrade, the
trailing fringe of nasturtiums, succulent leaves and orange-scarlet
blossoms; the woman's bust and shoulders in her string-coloured lace
gown, her small face, curiously vivid in effect, capped by the heavy
masses of her black hair, her singular eyes full of light, the red of her
lips and tinge of stationary pink in her cheeks supplemented by a glow of
quick excitement. A few weeks ago the ascetic in Iglesias might have
taken alarm. Now it was different. He had his idea, and, walking in the
strength of it, dared adventure himself in neighbourhoods otherwise
slightly questionable.

Five minutes later Poppy advanced across the little drawing-room to meet
him.

"Well," she said, "of course you might have come sooner. But, equally of
course, you might never have come at all, so I won't quarrel with you
about the delay, though I would like you to know it has worried me a good
deal."

"Has it? I am sorry for that," Dominic answered gravely.

"Yes, be sorry, be sorry," she repeated. "It is comfortable to hear you
say so."

She looked at him with the utmost frankness, took his hand and led him to
a settee filling in the right angle between the fireplace and the double
doors at the back of the room.

"Sit down," she said, "and let us talk. Have another cushion--so--and if
you're good I'll give you tea presently. And understand, you needn't be
careful of yourself. I'll play perfectly fair with you. I've been
thinking it all out during this time you didn't come; and I never go back
on my word once given. So, look here, you needn't account for yourself in
any way. I don't even want to know your name--specially I don't want to
know that. It might localise you, and I don't want to have you localised.
Directly a person is localised it takes away their restfulness to one.
One begins to see just all the places where they belong to somebody else,
notice-boards struck up everywhere warning one to keep off the grass. And
that's a nuisance. It raises Old Nick in one, and makes one long to
commit all manner of wickedness which would never have entered one's head
otherwise."

Poppy held her hands palm to palm between her knees, glancing at Dominic
Iglesias now and again sideways as she spoke. The bodice of her dress,
cut slightly _en coeur_, showed the nape of her neck, and the whole of her
throat, which was smooth and rounded though rather long. Her make
altogether was that not uncommon to London girls of the lower middle-
class: small-boned and possibly anaemic, but prettily moulded, and with an
attraction of over-civilisation as of hot-house-grown plants. Just now
her head seemed bowed down by the weight of her dark hair, as she sat
gathered together, making herself small as a child will when
concentrating its mind to the statement of some serious purpose.

"I've knocked about a lot," she went on. "It's right you should know
that. And there's not very much left to tell me about a number of things
not usually set down in conversation books designed for _debutants_. But
just on that account I may be rather useful to you in some ways.--Don't
go and be offended now, there's a dear, good man," she added coaxingly.
"Because judging by what you told me the other day, there's no doubt
that, under some heads, you are very much of a _debutant_."

"I suppose I am," Iglesias said slowly. It was very strange to him to
find himself in so sudden and close an intimacy with this at once so wise
and so artificial woman creature. But he had his idea. Moreover,
increasingly he trusted her.

"Of course you are," she asserted. "That's just where the beauty of it
all comes in. You're the veriest infant. One has only to look into your
face to see that.--Don't go and freeze up now. You belong to another
order of doctrine and practice to that current in contemporary society."

Poppy gazed at the floor, still making herself small, the palms of her
hands pressed together between her knees.

"And that's just why you can be useful to me, awfully useful, if you
choose--I don't mean money, business, anything of the kind. I'm perfectly
competent to manage my own affairs, thank you. But you're good for me,
somehow. You rest me."

She began to rock herself gently backwards and forwards, but without
taking the heels of her shoes off the ground.

"Yes, you rest me, you rest me," she repeated.

"I am glad," Iglesias said. He felt soberly pleased, thankful almost.

Again Poppy glanced at him sideways.

"Yes, I believe you are," she said. "And that shows things have happened
to you--in you, more likely--since we last met. You have come on a great
piece."

"I doubt if I have come on, so much as gone back, to influences of long
ago," he answered; "to things which had been overlaid by the dust of my
working years almost to the point of obliteration."

"Was it pleasant to go back?" Poppy asked.

"Not at all. The going was painful. It required some courage to brush off
the dust."

"It usually does require courage--at least that's my experience--to brush
off the dust."

Dominic Iglesias made no immediate answer. He was a little startled at
his companion's acute reading of him, a little touched by her confidence.
Her words seemed to suggest the possibility of a relationship which
fitted in admirably with the development of his idea. He sat looking away
across the room, and, doing so, became aware that the said room possessed
unexpected characteristics, calculated to elucidate his impressions of
its owner's character. It was a man's room rather than a woman's,
innocent of furbelows and frills. Two low, wide settees, well furnished
with cushions and upholstered in dark yellowish-red tapestry, fitted into
the corners on either side the double doors. A couple of large armchairs
and a revolving book-table occupied the centre of the room. An upright
piano, in an ebonised case, draped across the back with an Indian
phulkari--discs of looking-glass set in coarsely worked yellow eyelet
holes forming the border of it--stood at right angles to the wall just
short of the bay window. In the window, placed slant-wise, was a carved
black oak writing-table, a long row of photographs stuck up against the
back shelf of it. The walls were hung with a set of William Nicolson's
prints, strong, dark, distinct, slightly sinister in effect; a fine
etching of Jean Francois Millet's _Gleaners_; and, in noticeable contrast
to this last, a mezzotint of Romney's picture of Lady Hamilton spinning.
Upon the book-table were a silver ash-tray and cigarette-box. The air was
unquestionably impregnated with the odour of tobacco, which the burning
of scent-sticks quite failed to dissemble.

While Mr. Iglesias thus noted the details of his surroundings, his
companion observed him, closely, intently. Suddenly she flung herself
back against the piled-up cushions.

"Let the dust lie, let it lie," she cried, almost shrilly. And as Dominic
turned to her, surprised at her vehemence, she added, "Yes, it's safest
so. Let it lie till it grows thick, carpeting all the surface, so that,
treading on it, one's footsteps are muffled, making no sound!"

Poppy jumped up, crossed swiftly to the writing-table, swept the long row
of photographs together and pushed them into a drawer.

"There you go, face downwards, every man Jack of you," she said. "And,
for all I care, there you may stay."

Then she turned round, confronting Dominic Iglesias, who had risen also,
her head carried high, her teeth set.

"You may not grasp the connection of ideas--I don't the very least see
how you should, and I've no extra special wish that you should. But you
must just take my word for it that's one way of thickening the dust, in
my particular case, and not half a bad way either!"

She pushed the heavy masses of her hair up from her forehead, crossed the
little room again and stood before Iglesias smiling, her hands clasped
behind her back.

"Yes, you rest me," she said, "you do, even more than I expected. I
wanted awfully to see you; and yet I was half afraid if I did we mightn't
pull the thing off. But we are going to pull it off, aren't we?"

This direct appeal demanded a direct answer; and Iglesias, looking down
at her, felt nerved to a certain steadiness of resolve.

"Yes, we are," he said gravely. "That, at least, is my purpose. I have
very few friends. I should value a new one." Then he added, with a
certain hesitancy, "I am glad you are not disappointed."

"Ah! you have come on--not a question about it," Poppy cried. "Sit down
again. You needn't go yet. And we are through with disturbances for this
afternoon anyhow. An anti-cyclone, as the weather reports put it, is
extending over all our coasts. I feel quite happy. Let me enjoy the anti-
cyclone while it lasts--and I'll give you your tea."

But of that tea Dominic Iglesias was fated not to drink. A ring at the
bell, a parley at the front door, followed by the advent of an elderly
parlourmaid bearing a card on a small lacquer tray.

"His lordship says if you're engaged he could wait a little, ma'am. But
he wants particularly to see you to-day."

Poppy took the card, glanced at it, and then at Dominic Iglesias.

"I'm afraid, I'm awfully afraid I shall have to let you go," she said.
She took both his hands, and holding them, without pressure but with a
great friendliness, went on: "Don't be offended, or you'll make me
miserable. But he's an old friend; and he's been a perfect brick to me--
stood by me through all my worst luck. I can't send him away. You won't
be off ended?"

"No," Iglesias said.

"And you will come again? You make me feel all smooth and good. You
promise you'll come?"

"Yes," Iglesias said.

In the narrow passage a tall, eminently well-dressed middle-aged
gentleman stood aside to let him pass. Dominic Iglesias received the
impression of a very handsome person, whose possible insolence of bearing
received agreeable modification, thanks to the expression of kindly
humorous eyes and a notably beautiful mouth.

Upon the centre table of the square first-floor sitting-room at Cedar
Lodge a note awaited Mr. Iglesias, addressed in George Lovegrove's neat
business hand.

"Dear old friend," it ran--"the wife asks you to take supper with us to-
morrow night. Step across as early as you like. My cousin, Miss Serena
Lovegrove, is paying us a visit. Yours faithfully, G. L.--N. B. Come as
you are: no ceremony. G. L."

CHAPTER XI

"Hullo, girlie," called the red and green parrot, as it helped itself up
the side of its zinc cage with beak as well as claws.

Serena Lovegrove had opened the door suddenly. Then, seeing that Mr.
Iglesias alone occupied the room, neither her host nor hostess being
present, she paused in the doorway, a large floppy yellow silk work-bag
in her hands, undecided whether to retreat or to proceed. And it was thus
that the bird, discovering her advent, announced it, while the pupils of
his hard, round yellowish grey eyes dilated and contracted--"snapped," as
Serena would have said--maliciously.

Serena was a tall, elegant, faded woman, dressed in black, her little
upright head balanced upon a long thin stalk of neck. Though undeniably
faded, there was, as now seen in the quiet evening light, a suggestion of
youthfulness about her. He brown eyes, pretty though rather small,
snapped even as did those of the parrot. Excitement--to-night she was
very much excited--invariably produced in Serena an effect of clutching
at her long-departed girlhood, an effect sufficiently pathetic in the
case of a woman well on in the forties. And it was precisely this
ineffectual throw-back to a Serena of seventeen or eighteen which lent a
sharp edge of irony to the strident salutations of the parrot, as it
called out again:

"Hullo, girlie! Polly's own pet girlie," then with a prolonged and ear-
piercing whistle:--"Hi, four-wheeler! girlie's going out." And hoarsely,
with a growl in its throat: "Move on there, stoopid, can't yer? Shut the
door."

During the delivery of these final admonitions Mr. Iglesias had
recognised the shadowy figure standing on the threshold and advanced.
This decided Serena. Still twisting the ribbons of the yellow work-bag
round her thin fingers, she drifted into the room.

"I think I have had the pleasure of meeting you once or twice before,
Miss Lovegrove," Dominic said. His manner was specially gentle and
courtly, for he could not but feel the poor lady was at a disadvantage,
owing to the very articulate indiscretions of the parrot.

"Oh! yes," Serena answered. "Certainly we have met. But you are wrong as
to the number of times. It is more than once or twice. Five times, I
think; or it may have been six. No, it is five, because I remember you
were expected, in the evening, the day before I went home the winter
before last; and at the last moment you were unable to come. That would
have made six. Now it is only five."

"You have an excellent memory," Iglesias said. "It is kind of you to
remember so clearly."

"I wonder if it is--I mean, I wonder whether it is kind," Serena
rejoined.

She was quite innocent of any intention of sarcasm. But her mind, like
those of so many unoccupied, and consequently self-occupied persons, was
addicted to speculation of a minor and vacuous sort. She was also liable
--as such persons often are--to mistake cavilling for spirit and wit--a
most tedious error!

"Still you are right in saying I have a good memory," she added. "People
generally observe that. But then I was always taught it was rude to
forget. Forgetfulness is the result of inattention. At school I never had
any difficulty in learning by heart."

"You must have found that both a useful and pleasant talent."

"Perhaps," Serena replied negligently. She was determined not to commit
herself, having arrived at the conclusion that Mr. Iglesias' address was
too civil. "It was bad manners of him not to remember how often we had
met," she said to herself, "and now he is trying to pass it off. But that
won't do!" Serena had many and distinct views on the subject of manner
and manners. She was never certain that civility did not argue a defect
of sincerity. She agreed with herself to think that over again later.
Meanwhile she would carefully remark Mr. Iglesias. "If he is insincere,
as I fear he is, he is sure to betray it in other ways. Then I shall be
on my guard." Forewarned is, of course, forarmed, and Serena felt very
acute. Though against exactly what she was taking such elaborate
precautions, it would have been difficult for her, or for anyone else, to
have stated. However, just now it was incumbent upon her to make
conversation. As is the way with persons not very fertile in ideas, she
had recourse to the simple expedient of asking a leading question.

"Are you fond of animals?" she inquired.

"I am afraid I have very little knowledge of animals," Iglesias replied.

Serena laughed dryly. This was so transparent a subterfuge.

"What a very odd answer!" she said. "Because everybody must really know
whether they like animals or not."

"I am afraid I stand by myself then, a solitary exception. I have had
little or nothing to do with animals, and have therefore had no
opportunity of discovering whether they attract me or not."

"How very odd!" Serena repeated.

She moved across to the centre-table where Mr. Lovegrove's books of
picture postcards, the miscellaneous consequences of many charity
bazaars, and kindred aesthetic treasures reposed, and deposited her work-
bag in their company. Her movement revived the attention of the parrot,
who had been nodding on its perch.

"Poor old girlie, take a brandy and soda? Kiss and be friends. Good-
night, all," it murmured hoarsely, half asleep.

"If your question bore reference to that particular animal, I stand in no
doubt as to my sentiments," Dominic remarked. "I am anything but fond of
it. I think it an odious bird."

"Ah! you see you do know," Serena exclaimed. "I was sure you did." She
felt justified in her suspicion of his sincerity. "But nobody would agree
with you, Mr. Iglesias, because of course it is really a very clever
parrot. They very seldom learn to say so many things."

"How fortunate!" Dominic permitted himself to ejaculate.

"I don't see why you should say it is fortunate."

"Do not its remarks strike you as somewhat impertinent and intrusive?"

"I wonder if an animal can be impertinent," Serena said reflectively.

But here to her vexation, for it appeared to her that she had just
started a really interesting subject of discussion, Mrs. Lovegrove
bustled into the room.

"Well, Mr. Iglesias," she began, "I am sure I am very delighted to see
you, and so will Georgie be. He was remarking only yesterday we don't
seem to see so much of you as we used to do. He's just a little behind
time, is Georgie, having been kept by the dear vicar at a meeting about
the Church Workers' Social Evenings Guild at the Mission Room in Little
Bethesda Street. You wouldn't know where that is, Mr. Iglesias--though I
can't help hoping you will some day--but Serena knows, don't you,
Serena? It's where Susan--her elder sister, Miss Lovegrove"--this aside
to Dominic--"gave an address once to the members of the Society for the
Conversion of the Jews."

"No doubt I remember; but Susan is always giving addresses somewhere,"
Serena said loftily.

"And very good and kind of her it is to give addresses," Mrs. Lovegrove
rejoined. "Even the dear vicar says what a remarkable gift she has as a
speaker, and there's no question as to the worth of his praise."

"I wonder if it is--I mean I wonder if it is good and kind of Susan to
give addresses," Serena remarked. "Because of course she enjoys giving
them. Susan likes to have a number of people listening to her."

"But if the object is a noble one?"--this from Mrs. Lovegrove, a little
nonplussed and put about.

"Still, if you enjoy doing anything, how can it be good and kind to do
it?" Serena said argumentatively. "Susan is very fond of publicity. I
think people very often deceive themselves about their own motives."

She looked meaningly at Dominic Iglesias as she spoke. And he looked back
at her gravely and kindly, though with a slightly amused smile. His
thoughts had travelled away--they had done so pretty frequently during
the last twenty-four hours--to the smirking self-conscious little house
on the verge of Barnes Common. Unpromising though it had appeared
outwardly, yet within it he believed he had found a friend--a friend who
was also an enigma. Perhaps, as he now reflected, all women are enigmas.
Certainly they are amazingly different. He thought of Poppy. He looked at
Serena. Yes, doubtless they all are enigmas; only--might Heaven forgive
him the discourtesy--all are not enigmas equally well worth finding out.

George Lovegrove arrived. Supper, a somewhat heavy and hybrid meal,
followed--"all comfortable and friendly," as Mrs. Lovegrove described it,
"no ceremony and fal-lals, but everything put down on the table so that
you could see it and please yourself."

Serena, however, was difficult to please. She picked daintily at the food
on her plate. Her host observed her with solicitude.

"Do take a little more," he said, in an anxious aside, Mrs. Lovegrove
being safely engaged in conversation with Mr. Iglesias, "or I shall begin
to be nervous lest we aren't offering you quite what you like."

But Serena was obdurate.

"Pray don't mind, George," she said. "You know I never eat much. I am
quite different from Susan, for instance. She always has a large
appetite, and so have all her friends. Low Church people always have, I
think. But I never care to eat a great deal, especially in hot weather."

Serena was really very glad indeed to come to London just now. Still,
there were self-respecting decencies to be observed, specially in the
presence of another guest. Relationship does not necessarily imply social
equality; and, as Serena reminded herself, the family always had felt
that poor George had married beneath him. Therefore it was well to keep
the fact of her own superior refinement well in view. In the case of good
George Lovegrove this was, however, a work of supererogation. For he had
a, to himself, positively embarrassing respect for Serena's gentility--
embarrassing because at moments it came painfully near endangering the
completeness of his consideration for "the wife's feelings." The two
ladies frequently differed upon matters of taste and etiquette, with the
result that the good man's guileless breast was torn by conflicting
emotions. For had not Serena's father been a General Officer of the
Indian army? And had not Serena herself and her elder sister Susan--a
person of definite views and commanding character--long been resident at
Slowby in Midlandshire, an inland watering-place of acknowledged fashion?
It followed that her pronouncements on social questions were necessarily
final. Yet to uphold her judgment, as against that of the wife, was to
risk mortifying the latter. And to mortify the wife would be to act as a
heartless scoundrel. Hence situations, for George Lovegrove, difficult to
the point of producing profuse perspiration.

That night Serena prepared for rest with remarkable deliberation. Clad in
a blue and white striped cotton dressing-gown, she sat long at her
toilet-table. And all the time she wondered--a far-reaching, mazelike,
elaborately intricate and wholly inconclusive wonder. Hers was a nature
which suffered perpetual solicitation from possible alternatives, hearing
warning voices from the vague, delusive regions of the might-be or might-
have-been. She had never grasped the rudimentary but very important truth
that only that which actually is in the least matters. And so to arrive
at what is, with all possible despatch--in so far as such arriving is
practicable--and then to go forward, comprises the whole duty of the sane
human being. Par from this, Serena's mind forever fitted batlike in the
half-darkness of innumerable small prejudices and ignorances. She moved,
as do so many women of her class, in a twilight, embryonic world,
untouched alike by the splendour and terror of living.

Nevertheless, on this particular occasion, as she brushed her hair and
inserted the tortoise-shell curling-pins which should secure to-morrow's
decorative effects, she felt almost daring and dangerous. She wondered
whether she had really enjoyed the evening or not; whether she had held
her own and shown independence and spirit. She laboured under the quaint
early-Victorian notion that, in the presence of members of the opposite
sex, a woman is called upon always to play something of a part. She
should advance, so to speak, and then retreat; provoke interest by a
studied indifference; yield a little, only to become more elegantly
fugitive. It may be doubted whether these wiles have even been a very
successful adjunct to feminine charms. But in the case of so negative and
colourless a creature as Serena, they were pathetically devoid of result.
Play a part industriously as she might, the majority of her audience was
wholly unaware that she was, in point of fact, playing anything at all!
They might think her a little capricious, a little foolish, but that
there was intention or purpose in her pallid flightiness passed the
bounds of imagination. Never mind, if the audience had no sense of the
position, Serena had, and she enjoyed it. Excitement possessed her, and
her eyes snapped even yet as, thinking it all over, she fastened the
curlers in her hair.

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