The Far Horizon

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She wondered whether George and Rhoda--how intensely she disliked the
name Rhoda!--had any special reason for asking her just now, and talking
so much about Mr. Iglesias, or whether it was a coincidence.

"Of course it is not of the slightest importance to me whether they have
or not," she reflected. "I think it would be rather an impertinence if
they had. Still, I think I had better find out; but without letting Rhoda
suspect, of course. If you give her any encouragement Rhoda is inclined
to go too far and say what is rather indelicate. I always have thought
Rhoda had a rather vulgar mind. I wonder if poor George feels that? I
believe he does, before me. Once or twice to-night he was very nervous.
How dreadfully coarse poor Rhoda's skin is getting! I wonder if Rhoda has
given Susan a hint, and if that was what made Susan so gracious about my
leaving home? But I don't believe she did--I mean that Susan suspected
that George and Rhoda had any particular reason for inviting me. I wonder
if I shall ever make Susan see that I am not a cipher? Of course if
George and Rhoda really have any particular reason, and Susan comes to
know it, that will show her that other people do not consider me a
cipher. I wonder what most people would think of Mr. Iglesias? Of course
he has only been a bank clerk; but then so has George. Only then he is a
foreigner, and that makes a difference. I wonder whether, if anything
came of it, Susan would make his being a foreigner an objection?"

But this was growing altogether too definite and concrete. With a sort of
mental squeak Serena's thought flitted into twilight and embryonic
regions.

"I think if they have any particular reason, it is rather scheming of
George and Rhoda. I wonder if it is nice of them? If they have, I think
it is rather deceitful. I wonder if they have said anything to Mr.
Iglesias?"

Serena, with the aid of a curling-pin, was controlling the short fuzzy
little hairs just at the nape of her neck; and this last wonder proved so
absorbing a one that she remained, head bent and fingers aimlessly
fiddling with the bars of the curler, till it suddenly occurred to her
that she was getting quite stiff.

"If they have, I think it is very presuming of them," she continued
wrathfully, stretching her arms, for they ached--"very presuming. How
glad I am I was on my guard. I wonder if they saw I was on my guard? I
believe George did. I wonder if that helped to make him nervous?"

Serena fastened in the last of the curlers. There was no excuse for
sitting up any longer; yet she lingered.

"I must be more on my guard than ever," she said.

Meanwhile Dominic Iglesias, after sitting in the dining-room with his old
friend while the latter smoked a last pipe, made his way across the Green
in the deepening mystery of the summer night. The sky was moonless; and
at the zenith, untouched by the upward streaming light of the great city,
the stars showed fair and bright. A nostalgia of wide untenanted spaces,
of far horizons, of emotions at once intimate and rooted in things
eternal, was upon him. But of Serena Lovegrove, it must be admitted, he
thought not one little bit.

CHAPTER XII

Only one of the trees from which Cedar Lodge derives its name was still
standing. This lonely giant, sombre exile from Libanus, overshadowed all
that remained of the formerly extensive garden and sensibly darkened the
back of the house. Its foliage, spread like a deep pile carpet upon the
wide horizontal branches, was worn and sparse, showing small promise of
self-renewal. Yet though starved by the exhausted soil, and clogged by
soots from innumerable chimneys, it remained majestic, finely decorative
as some tree of metal, of age-old bronze roughened by a greenness of
deep-eating rust. From the first moment of his acquaintance with Cedar
Lodge it had been to Dominic Iglesias an object of attraction, even of
sympathy. For he recognised in it something stoical, an unmoved dignity
and lofty indifference to the sordid commonplace of its surroundings. It
made no concessions to adverse circumstances, but remained proudly
itself, owning for sole comrade the Wind--that most mysterious of all
created things, unseen, untamed, mateless, incalculable. The wind gave it
voice, gave it even a measure of mobility, as it swept through the
labyrinth of dry unfruitful branches and awoke a husky music telling of
far-distant times and places, making a shuddering and stirring as of the
resurgence of long-forgotten hope and passion.

When Dominic entered into residence at Cedar Lodge, a pair of stout
mauve-brown wood-pigeons--migrants from the pleasant elms of Holland
Park--had haunted the tree. But they being, for all their dolorous
cooings, birds of a lusty, not to say truculent, habit, grew weary of its
persistent solemnity of aspect. So, at least, Dominic judged. He had been
an interested spectator of the love-makings, quarrels, and
reconciliations of these comely neighbours from his bedroom window daily
while dressing. But one fine spring morning he saw them fly away and
never saw them fly back again. Clearly they had removed themselves to
less solemn quarters, leaving the great tree, save for fugitive
visitations from its comrade the wind, to solitary meditation within the
borders of its narrow prison-place.

Besides presenting in itself an object altogether majestical, the cedar
performed a practical office whereby it earned Iglesias' gratitude. For
its dark interposing bulk effectually shut off the view of an
aggressively new rawly red steam laundry, with shiny slate roofs and a
huge smoke-belching chimney to it, which, to the convulsive disgust of
the gentility of the eastern side of Trimmer's Green, had had the
unpardonable impertinence to get itself erected in an adjacent street. It
followed that when, one wet evening, yellow-headed little Mr. Farge had
advised himself to speak slightingly of the cedar tree, Iglesias was
prepared to defend it, if necessary, with some warmth.

The conversation had ranged round the subject of the hour, namely, the
possibility--as yet in the estimation of most persons an incredible one--
of war with the Boer Republics, when the young man indulged in a playful
aside addressed to Miss Hart, at whose right hand he was seated.

"If I could find fault with anything belonging to the lady at the head of
the table," he said, "it would be the gloomy old party looking in at
these back windows."

"What, the dear old cedar tree! Never, Mr. Farge!" protested Eliza.

"Yes, it would, though," he insisted, "when, as tonight, it is drip,
drip, dripping all over the shop. No touch of Sunny Jim about him, is
these now, Bert?"--this to the devoted Worthington sitting immediately
opposite to him on Miss Hart's left.

"Truly there is not, if I may venture so far," the other young gentleman
responded, playing up obediently. "And if anything could give me and
Charlie a fit of the blues, I believe that old fellow would in rainy
weather."

"Makes you think of the cemetery, does it not now, Bert?"

"You have hit it. Paddington--not the station though, Charlie, just
starting for a cosey little trip with your best girl up the river."

"For shame, Mr. Worthington," Eliza protested again, giggling.

"Suggestive of the end of all week-ends, in short," de Courcy Smyth, who
contrary to his custom was present at dinner that evening, put in
snarlingly. "One last trip up the River of Death for you, with a ticket
marked not transferrable, eh, Farge? Then an oblong hole in the reeking
blue clay, silence and worms."

His tone was spiteful to the point of commanding attention. A hush fell
on the company, broken only by the drifting sob of the rain through the
branches of the great cedar. Mr. Farge went perceptibly pale. Mrs.
Porcher sighed and turned her fine eyes up to the ceiling. Iglesias
looked curiously at the speaker. Eliza Hart was the first to find voice.

"Pray, Mr. Smyth," she said, "don't be so very unpleasant. You're enough
to give one the goose-skin all over."

"I am sorry I have offended," he answered sullenly. "But I beg leave to
call attention to the fact that I did not start this subject. I was
rather interested in the previous discussion, which gave an opportunity
of intelligent conversation not habitual among us. Farge is responsible
for the interruption, and for the cemeteries, and consequently for my
comment. Still, I am sorry I have offended."

He shifted his position, glancing uneasily first at his hostess, and then
at Dominic Iglesias, who sat opposite him in the place of honour at that
lady's right hand.

"You have not offended, Mr. Smyth," Mrs. Porcher declared graciously.
"And no doubt it is well for us all to be reminded of death and burial at
times. Though some of us hardly need reminding"--again she sighed. "We
carry the thought of them about with us always." And she turned her fine
eyes languidly upon Mr. Iglesias.

"My poor sweet Peachie," the kind-hearted Eliza murmured, under her
breath.

"But at meals, perhaps, a lighter vein is more suitable, Mr. Smyth," Mrs.
Porcher continued. "At table the thought of death does seem rather
disheartening, does it not? But about our poor old cedar tree now, Mr.
Farge? You were not seriously proposing to have it removed?"

"Well, strictly between ourselves, I am really half afraid I actually
was."

"You forget it sheltered my childhood. It is associated with all my
past."

"Can a rosebud have a past?" Farge cried, coming up to the surface again
with a bounce, so to speak.

Mrs. Porcher smiled, shook her head in graceful reproof, and turned once
more to Dominic.

"I think we should all like to know how you feel about it, Mr. Iglesias,"
she said. "Do you wish the poor old tree removed?"

"On the contrary, I should greatly regret it's being cut down," he
answered. "It would be a loss to me personally, for I have always taken a
pleasure both in the sound and the sight of it. But that is a minor
consideration."

"You must allow me to differ from that opinion," Mrs. Porcher remarked,
with gentle emphasis. "We can never forget, can we, Eliza, who is our
oldest guest? Mr. Iglesias' opinion must ever carry weight in all which
concerns Cedar Lodge."

Here Farge and Worthington made round eyes at one another, while de
Courcy Smyth shuffled his feet under the table. He had received a
disquieting impression.

"Oh! of course, Peachie, dear," Miss Hart responded. She hugged herself
with satisfaction. "The darling looks more bonny than ever," she
reflected. "To-night what animation! What tact! She seems to have come
out so lately, since that Serena Lovegrove has been stopping over the
way. Not that there could be any rivalry between her and that poor
thread-paper of a thing!"

Dominic Iglesias, however, received his hostess' pretty speeches with a
calm which turned the current of the ardent Eliza's thoughts, causing her
to refer, mentally, to the degree of emotion which might be predicated of
monuments, mountains, stone elephants, and kindred objects.

"You are very kind," he said. "But on grounds far more important than
those of any private sentiment the cutting down of the cedar calls for
careful consideration. I am afraid you would find it a serious loss to
the beauty of your property. What the house loses in light, it certainly
gains in distinction and interest from the presence of the tree."

"Yes," Mrs. Porcher returned, folding her plump pink hands upon the edge
of the table and looking down modestly. "It does speak of family
perhaps."

"And in your case, dear, it speaks nothing more than the truth," Eliza
declared. "Just as well a certain gentleman should reckon with Peachie's
real position," she said to herself--"specially with that stuck-up Serena
Lovegrove cat-and-mousing about on the other side of the Green. It does
not take a Solomon to see what she's after!"

"I am afraid the verdict is given against you, Mr. Farge. The cedar tree
will remain." Mrs. Porcher rose as she spoke.

The young man playfully rubbed his eyes with his knuckles, feigning
tears. Then a scrimmage ensued between him and Worthington as to which
should reach the dining-room door first and throw it open before the
ladies. At this exhibition of high spirits de Courcy Smyth groaned
audibly, while Mrs. Porcher, linking her arm within that of Miss Hart,
lingered.

"You will join our little circle in the drawing-room to-night, will you
not, Mr. Iglesias?" she pleaded.

Again the young men made round eyes at one another. De Courcy Smyth had
come forward. He stood close to Iglesias and, before the latter could
answer, spoke hurriedly:

"Can you give me ten minutes in private? I don't want to press myself
upon you, but this is imperative."

Iglesias proceeded to excuse himself to his hostess, thereby causing Miss
Hart to refer mentally to monuments and mountains once again.

"Thank you," Smyth gasped. His face was twitching and he swayed a little,
steadying himself with one hand on the corner of the dinner-table.

"I loathe asking," he continued, "I loathe pressing my society upon you,
since you do not seek it. It has taken days for me to make up my mind to
this; but it is necessary. And, after all, you made the original offer
yourself."

"I am quite ready to listen, and to renew any offer which I may have
made," Iglesias answered quietly.

"We can't talk here, though," Smyth said. "That blundering ass of a
waiter will be coming in directly; and whatever he overhears is sure to
go the round of the house. All servants are spies."

"We can go up to my sitting-room and talk there," Iglesias replied.

Yet he was conscious of making the proposal with reluctance, pity
struggling against repulsion. For not only was the man's appearance very
unkempt, but his manner and bearing were eloquent of a certain
desperation. Of anything approaching physical fear Dominic Iglesias was
happily incapable. But his sitting-room had always been a peaceful place,
refuge alike from the strain and monotony of his working life. It held
relics, moreover, wholly dear to him, and to introduce into it this
inharmonious and, in a sense, degraded presence savoured of desecration.
Therefore, not without foreboding, as of one who risks the sacrifice of
earnestly cherished security, he ushered his guest into the quiet room.

The gas, the small heart-shaped flames of which showed white against the
dying daylight coming in through the windows, was turned low in the
bracket-lamps on either side the high mantelpiece. Dominic Iglesias
moved across and drew down the blinds, catching sight as he did so--
between the tossing foliage of the balsam-poplars which glistened in the
driving wet--of the unwinking gaselier in the Lovegroves' dining-room, on
the other side of the Green. He remembered that he ought to have called
on Mrs. Lovegrove and Miss Serena, and that he had been guilty of a lapse
of etiquette in not having done so. But he reflected poor Miss Serena was
a person whose existence it seemed so curiously difficult to bear
actively in mind. Then he grew penitent, as having added discourtesy to
discourtesy in permitting himself this reflection. He came back from the
window, turned up the lights, drew forward an armchair and motioned Smyth
to be seated; fetched a cut-glass spirit decanter, tumblers, and a syphon
of soda from the sideboard and set them at his guest's elbow.

"Pray help yourself," he said. "And here, will you not smoke while we
talk?"

Smyth's pale, prominent eyes had followed these preparations for his
comfort with avidity, but now, the handsome character of his surroundings
being fully disclosed to him, he was filled with uncontrollable envy.
Silently he filled his glass, by no means stinting the amount of alcohol,
gulped down half the contents of the tumbler, paused a moment, leaning
his elbow on the table, and said:

"We were treated to a public exhibition of feminine cajolery in your
direction, Mr. Iglesias, at the end of dinner. It occurs to me we might
have been spared that. I have never had the honour of penetrating into
your apartments before; but the aspect of them is quite sufficient
indication as to who is the favoured member of Mrs. Porcher's
establishment."

Dominic had remained standing. Hospitality demanded that he should do all
in his power to secure his guest's material comfort; but there, in his
opinion, immediate obligation ceased. In thus remaining standing he had a
quaint sense of safeguarding the sanctities of the place. The man's tone
was curiously offensive. Involuntarily Mr. Iglesias' back stiffened a
little.

"I took these rooms unfurnished," he said. And then added: "May I ask
what your business with me may be?"

Smyth had recourse to his tumbler again. His hand shook so that his teeth
chattered against the edge of the glass.

"I am a fool," he said sullenly. "But my nerves are all to pieces. I
cannot control myself. I have come here to ask a favour of you, and yet
some devil prompts me to insult you. I hate you because I am driven to
make use of you. And this room, in its sober luxury, emphasises the
indignity of the position, offering as it does so glaring a contrast to
my own quarters--here under the same roof, only one flight of stairs
above--that I can hardly endure it. Life is hideously unjust. For what
have you done--you, a mere Canaanite, hewer of wood and drawer of water
to some grossly Philistine firm of city bankers--to deserve this immunity
from anxiety and distress; while I, with my superior culture, my ambition
and talents, am condemned to that beastly squeaking wire-wove mattress
upstairs, and a job-lot of furniture which some previous German waiter
has ejected in disgust from his bedroom in the basement? But there--I beg
your pardon. I ought to be accustomed to injustice. I have served a long
enough apprenticeship to it. Only--partly, thanks to you, I own that--I
have seemed to see the dawning of hope again--hope of success, hope of
recognition, hope of revenge; and just on that account it becomes
intolerable to run one's head against this paralysing, stultifying dead
wall of poverty and debt."--He bowed himself together, and his voice
broke.--"I owe Mrs. Porcher money for my miserable bedsitting-room and my
board, and I am so horribly afraid she will turn me out. The place is
detestable; unworthy of me--of course it is--but I am accustomed to it.
And I am not myself. I am terrified at the prospect of any change. In
short, I am worn out. And they see that, those beasts of editors. The
_Evening Dally Bulletin_ has given me my _conge_. I have lost the last of
my hack-work. It was miserable work, wholly beneath a man of my capacity;
still it brought me in a pittance. Now it is gone. Practically I am a
pauper, and I owe money in this house."

"I am sorry, very sorry," Iglesias said. "You should have spoken sooner.
I could not force myself into your confidence; but, believe me, I have
not been unmindful of my engagement. I have merely waited for you to
speak."

His manner was gentle, yet he remained standing, still possessed by an
instinct to thus safeguard the sanctities of the place. He paused, giving
the other man time to recover a measure of composure: then he asked
kindly, anxious to conduct the conversation into a happier channel:
"Meanwhile, how is the play advancing? Well, I hope--so that you find
solace and satisfaction in the prosecution of it."

Smyth moved uneasily, looking up furtively at his questioner.

"Oh! it is grand," he said, "unquestionable it is grand. You need have no
anxiety under that head. Pray understand that anything that you may do
for me in the interim, before the play is produced, is simply an
investment. You need not be in the least alarmed. You will see all your
money back--see it doubled, certainly doubled, probably trebled."

"I was not thinking of investments," Iglesias put in quietly.

"But I am," Smyth asserted. "Naturally I am. You do not suppose that I
should accept, still less ask, you help, unless I was certain that in the
end I should prove to be conferring, rather than incurring, a favour? You
humiliate me by assuming this attitude of disinterested generosity. Let
me warn you it does not ring true. Moreover, in assuming it you do not
treat me as an equal; and that I resent. It is mean to take advantage of
my sorrows and my poverty, and exalt yourself thus at my expense. Of
course I understand your point of view. From your associations and
occupations you must inevitably worship the god of wealth. One cannot
expect anything else from a business man. You gauge every one's
intellectual capacity by his power of making money. Well, wait then--
just wait; and when that play appears, see if I do not compel you to rate
my intellectual capacity very highly. For there are thousands in that
play, I tell you--tens of thousands. It is only in the interim that I am
reduced to this detestable position of dependence. I know the worth of my
work, if----"

But Iglesias' patience was beginning to wear rather thin. He interposed
calmly, yet with authority.

"Pardon me," he said, "but it is irrelevant to discuss my attitude of
mind or my past occupations. It will be more agreeable for us, both now
and in the future, to treat any matters that arise between us as
impersonally as possible. Therefore, I will ask you to tell me, simply
and clearly, how much you require to clear you from immediate difficulty;
and I will tell you, in return, whether I am in a position to meet your
wishes or not."

For a moment Smyth sat silent, his hands working nervously along the arms
of the chair.

"You understand it is merely a temporary accommodation?"

"Yes," Iglesias answered. "I understand. And consequently it is
superfluous to indulge in further discussion."

"You want to get rid of me," Smyth snarled. "Everyone wants to get rid of
me; I am unwelcome. The poor and unsuccessful always are so, I suppose.
But some day the tables will be turned--if I can only last."

And Dominic Iglesias found himself called upon to rally all his humanity,
all his faith in merciful dealing and the reward which goes along with
it. For it was hard to give, hard to befriend, so thankless and
ungracious a being. Yet, having put his hand to the plough, he refused to
look back. He had inherited a strain of fanaticism which took the form of
unswerving loyalty to his own word once given. So he spoke gravely and
kindly, as one speaks to the sick who are beyond the obligation of
showing courtesy for very suffering. And truly, as he reminded himself,
this man was grievously sick; not only physically from insufficient food,
but morally from disappointment and that most fruitful source of disease,
inordinate and unsatisfied vanity.

"I do not wish to get rid of you; I merely wish to take the shortest and
simplest way to relieve you of your more pressing anxieties, and so
enable you to give yourself unreservedly to your work. Want may be a
wholesome spur to effort at times; but it is difficult to suppose any
really sane and well-proportioned work of art can be produced without a
sense of security and of leisure."

"How do you come to know that? It is not your province," Smyth said
sharply.

Mr. Iglesias permitted himself to smile and raise his shoulders slightly.

"I come of a race which, in the past, has given evidence of no small
literary and artistic ability. The experience of former generations
affects the thought of their descendants, I imagine, and illuminates it,
even when these are not gifted individually with any executive talent."

For some minutes Smyth sat staring moodily in front of him. At last he
rose slowly from his chair.

"I am an ass," he said, "a jealous, suspicious, ungrateful ass. It is
more than ever hateful to me to ask a favour of you, just because you are
forbearing and generous. I wish to goodness I could do without you help;
but I can't. So let me have twenty-five pounds. Less would not be of use
to me. I should only have to draw on you again, and I do not care to do
that. Look here, can I have it in notes?"

"Yes," said Mr. Iglesias.

"I prefer it so. There might have been difficulties in cashing a cheque.
Moreover, it is unpleasant to me that your name, that any name, should
appear. It is only fair to save my self-respect as far as you can."

Then, as Dominic put the notes into his hand, he added, and his voice was
aggressive again and quarrelsome in tone: "I don't apologise. I don't
explain. I do not even thank you. Why should I, since I simply take it as
a temporary accommodation until my play is finished--my great play, which
is going--I swear before God it is going--not only to cancel this paltry
debt, but a far more important one, the debt I owe to my own genius, and
justify me once and forever in the eyes of the whole English-speaking
world."

With that he shambled out of the room, letting the handle of the door
slip so that it banged noisily behind him.

For a while Dominic Iglesias remained standing before the fireplace. He
was sad at heart. He had given generously, lavishly, out of proportion,
as most persons reckon charitable givings, to his means. But, though the
act was in itself good, he was sensible of no responsive warmth, no glow
of satisfaction. The transaction left him cold; left him, indeed, a prey
to disgust. Not only were the man's faults evident, but they were of so
unpleasant a nature as to neutralise all gladness in relieving his
distress. Mechanically Iglesias straightened the chair which his guest
had so lately occupied, put away tumbler and spirit decanter, pulled up
the blind and opened one of the tall narrow windows, set the door giving
access to his bed-chamber wide, and opened a window there, too, so
creating a draught right through the apartment from end to end. He
desired to clean it both of a physical and a moral atmosphere which were
displeasing to him. And, in so doing, he let in, not only the roar of
London, borne in a fierce crescendo on the breath of the wind, but a
strange multitudinous rustling from the sombre foliage and stiff branches
of the lonely cedar tree. Two limbs, crossing, sawed upon one another as
the wind took them, uttering at intervals a long-drawn complaint--not
weakly, but rather with virility, as of a strong man chained and groaning
against his fetters.

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