 CHAPTER VII. I've had time to look a little further into what we're prepared to do, and I find the case is one in which I should consider the advisability of going to an extreme length, said Mr. Lockett. Jersey Villas the next morning had had the privilege of again receiving the editor of the promiscuous. And as he sat once more at the Davenport, where the bone of contention in the shape of a large, loose heap of papers that showed how much they had been handled, was placed well in view. We shall see our way to offering you three hundred, but we shouldn't, I must positively assure you, see it a single step further. Peter Barron, in his dressing gown and slippers, with his hands in his pockets, crept softly about the room, repeating below his breath and with inflections that for his own sake he endeavored to make humours, three hundred, three hundred. His state of mind was far from hilarious, for he felt poor and sore and disappointed. But he wanted to prove to himself that he was gallant, was made, in general and in particular, of undiscarriageable stuff. The first thing he had been aware of, on stepping into his front room, was that a four-wheeled cab with Mrs. Rives' luggage upon it stood at the door of number three. Permitting himself behind his curtain, a pardonable peep, he saw the mistress of his thoughts come out of the house, attended by Mrs. Bundy, and take her place in the modest vehicle. After this his eyes rested for a long time on the sprigged cotton back of the landlady, who kept bobbing at the window of the cab and endlessly moralizing old head. Mrs. Rives had really taken flight. He had made Jersey Villa's impossible for her. But Mrs. Bundy, with a magnanimity unprecedented in the profession, seemed to express a belief in the purity of her motives. Barron felt that his own separation had been, for the present at least, affected. Every instinct of delicacy prompted him to stand back. Mr. Lockett talked a long time, and Peter Barron listened and waited. He reflected that his willingness to listen would probably excite hopes in his visitor, hopes which he himself was ready to contemplate without a scruple. He felt no pity for Mr. Lockett and had no consideration for his suspense or for his possible illusions. He only felt sick and forsaken and in want of comfort and of money. Yet it was a kind of outrage to his dignity to have the knife held to his throat, and he was irritated above all by the ground on which Mr. Lockett put the question, the ground of a service rendered to historical truth. It might be, he wasn't clear, it might be the question was deep, too deep probably for his wisdom, at any rate he had to control himself not to interrupt angrily such dry, interested palaver, the false voice of commerce and of Kant. He stared tragically out the window and saw the stupid rain begin to fall. The day was duller even than his own soul, and Jersey Villas looked so sordidly hideous that it was no wonder Mrs. Rives couldn't endure them. Hideous as they were he should have to tell Mrs. Bundy in the course of the day that he was obliged to seek humbler quarters. Suddenly he interrupted Mr. Lockett. He observed to him, I take it that if I should make you this concession the hospitality of the promiscuous would be by that very fact unrestrictedly secured to me. Mr. Lockett stared, hospitality secured. He thumbed the proposition as if it were a hard peach. I mean that of course you wouldn't in courtesy and gratitude keep on declining my things. I should give them my best attention as I've always done in the past. Peter Barron hesitated. It was a case in which there would have seemed to be some chance for the ideally shrewd aspirant in such an advantage as he possessed, but after a moment the blood rushed into his face with the shame of the idea of pleading for his productions in the name of anything but their merit. It was as if he had stupidly uttered evil of them. Nevertheless he added the interrogation. Would you for instance publish my little story? The one I read and objected to some features of the other day? Do you mean with the alteration? Mr. Lockett continued. Oh no, I mean utterly without it. The pages you want altered contain, as I explained to you very lucidly I think, the very raison d'etre of the work, and it would therefore, it seems to me, be an imbecility of the first magnitude to cancel them. Peter had really renounced all hope that his critic would understand what he meant, but under favour of circumstances he couldn't forbear to taste the luxury, which probably never again would come within his reach of being really plain for one wild moment with an editor. Mr. Lockett gave a constrained smile. Think of the scandal, Mr. Baron. But isn't this other scandal just what you're going in for? It will be a great public service. You mean it will be a big scandal, whereas my poor story would be a very small one, and that it's only out of a big one that money's to be made. Mr. Lockett got up. He, too, had his dignity to vindicate. Such a sum as I offer you ought really to be an offset against all claims. Very good. I don't mean to make any, since you don't really care for what I write. I take note of your offer, Peter pursued, and I engage to give you tonight, in a few words left by my own hand at your house, my absolutely definite and final reply. Mr. Lockett's movements, as he hovered near the relics of the eminent statesmen, were those of some feathered parent fluttering over a threatened nest. If he had brought his huddled brood back with him this morning, it was because he had felt sure enough of closing the bargain to be able to be graceful. He kept a glittering eye on the papers, and remarked that he was afraid that before leaving them he must elicit some assurance that in the meanwhile Peter would not place them in any other hands. Peter at this gave a laugh of harsher cadence than he intended, asking justly enough on what privilege his visitor rested such a demand, and why he himself was disqualified from offering his wares to the highest bidder. Surely you wouldn't hawk such things about, cried Mr. Lockett, but before Baron had time to retort cynically, he added, I'll publish your little story. Oh, thank you. I'll publish anything you'll send me, Mr. Lockett continued as he went out. Peter had before this virtually given his word that for the letters he would treat only with the promiscuous. The young man passed during a portion of the rest of the day the strangest hours of his life. Yet he thought of them afterwards not as a phase of temptation, though they had been full of the emotion that accompanies an intense vision of alternatives. The struggle was already over. It seemed to him that poor as he was, he was not poor enough to take Mr. Lockett's money. He looked at the opposed courses with the self-possession of a man who was chosen. But this self-possession was in itself the most exquisite of excitements. It was really a high revulsion and a sort of noble pity. He seemed indeed to have his finger upon the pulse of history and to be in the secret of the gods. He had them all in his hand, the tablets and the scales and the torch. He couldn't keep a character together, but he might easily pull one to pieces. That would be creative work of a kind. He could reconstruct the character less pleasingly, could show an unknown side of it. Mr. Lockett had had a good deal to say about responsibility, and responsibility in truth sat with him all the morning while he revolved in his narrow cage, and watching the crude spring rain on the windows thought of the dizziness to which at Dover Mrs. Rives was going back. This influence took in fact the form put on the physiognomy of poor Sir Dominic Ferrand. He was at present as perceptible in it, as coldly and strangely personal, as if he had been a haunting ghost and had risen beside his own old hearthstone. Our friend was accustomed to his company and indeed had spent so many hours in it of late following him up at the museum and comparing his different portraits and gravings and lithographs in which there seemed to be conscious, pleading eyes for the betrayer that their queer intimacy had grown as close as an embrace. Sir Dominic was very dumb, but he was terrible in his dependence, and Peter would not have encouraged him by so much curiosity nor reassured him by so much deference had it not been for the young man's complete acceptance of the impossibility of getting out of a tight place by exposing an individual. It didn't matter that the individual was dead. It didn't matter that he was dishonest. Peter felt him sufficiently alive to suffer. He perceived the rectification of history so conscientiously desired by Mr. Lockett to be somehow for himself not an imperative task. It had come over him too definitely that in a case where one's success was to hinge upon an act of extradition it would minister most to an easy conscience to let the success go. No, no, even should he be starving he couldn't make money out of Sir Dominic's disgrace. He was almost surprised at the violence of the horror with which, as he shuffled mournfully about, the idea of any such profit inspired him. What was Sir Dominic to him after all? He wished he had never come across him. In one of his brooding pauses at the window, the window out of which never again apparently should he see Mrs. Rives glide across the little garden with the step for which he had liked her from the first. He became aware that the rain was about to intermittent and the sun to make some grudging amends. This was the sign that he might go out. He had a vague perception that there were things to be done. He had work to look for and a cheaper lodging and a new idea, every idea he had ever cherished had left him in addition to which the promised little word was to be dropped at Mr. Lockett's door. He looked at his watch and was surprised at the hour for he had nothing but a heartache to show for so much time. He would have to dress quickly but as he passed to his bedroom his eye was caught by the little pyramid of letters which Mr. Lockett had constructed on his Davenport. They startled him and staring at them he stopped for an instant, half amused, half annoyed at their being still in existence. He had so completely destroyed them in spirit that he had taken the act for granted and he was now reminded of the orderly stages of which an intention must consist to be sincere. Baron went at the papers with all his sincerity and at his empty grate where there lately had been no fire and he had only to remove a horrible ornament of tissue paper dear to Mrs. Bundy, he burned the collection with infinite method. It made him feel happier to watch the worst pages turn to illegible ashes if happiness be the right word to apply to his sense in the process of something so crisp and crackling that it suggested the death rustle of banknotes. When ten minutes later he came back into his sitting room he seemed to himself oddly unexpectedly in the presence of a bigger view. It was as if some interfering mass had been so displaced that he could see more sky and more country. Yet the opposite houses were naturally still there and if the grimy little place looked lighter it was doubtless only because the rain had indeed stopped and the sun was pouring in. Peter went to the window to open it to the altered air and in doing so beheld at the garden gate the humble growler in which a few hours before he had seen Mrs. Rive's taker departure it was unmistakable. He remembered the knock need white horse but this made the fact that his friend's luggage no longer surmounted it only the more mystifying. Perhaps the cab man had already removed the luggage. He was now on his box smoking the short pipe that derived relish from inaction paid for. As Peter turned into the room again his ears caught a knock at his own door. A knock explained as soon as he had responded by the hard breathing of Mrs. Bundy. Please sir it's to say she've come back. What has she come back for? Baron's question sounded ungracious but his heartache had given another throb and he felt a dread of another wound it was like a practical joke. I think it's for you sir said Mrs. Bundy she'll see you for a moment if you'll be so good in the old place. Peter followed his hostess downstairs and Mrs. Bundy ushered him with her company flourish into the apartment she had fondly designated. I went away this morning and I've only returned for an instant said Mrs. Rives as soon as Mrs. Bundy had closed the door. He saw that she was different now. Something had happened that made her indulgent. Have you been all the way to Dover and back? No but I've been to Victoria. I've left my luggage there. I've been driving about. I hope you enjoyed it very much. I've been to see Mr. Moorish. Mr. Moorish? The musical publisher. I showed him our song. I played it for him and he's delighted with it. He declares it's just the thing he has given me fifty pounds. I think he believes in us. Mrs. Rives went on while Baron stared at the wonder. Too sweet to be safe it seemed to him as yet of her standing there again before him and speaking of what they had in common. Fifty pounds, fifty pounds she exclaimed, fluttering at him her happy check. She had come back the first thing to tell him and of course his share of the money would be the half. She was rosy, jubilant, natural. She chattered like a happy woman. She said they must do more, ever so much more. Mr. Moorish had practically promised he would take anything that was as good as that. She had kept her cab because she was going to Dover. She couldn't leave the others alone. It was a vehicle, infirm and inert. But Baron, after a little appreciated its pace, for she had consented to his getting in with her and driving, this time in earnest, to Victoria. She had only come to tell him the good news. She repeated this assurance more than once. They talked him so profoundly that it drove everything else for the time out of his head. His duty to Mr. Lockett, the remarkable sacrifice he had just achieved, and even the odd coincidence, matching with the oddity of all the others, of her having reverted to the house again, as if with one of her famous divinations, at the very moment the Trumpery papers, the origin really of their intimacy, had ceased to exist. But she on her side also had evidently forgotten the Trumpery papers. She never mentioned them again, and Peter Baron never boasted of what he had done with them. He was silent a while from curiosity to see if her fine nerves had really given her a hint, and then later, when it came to be a question of his permanent attitude, he was silent, prodigiously, religiously, tremulously silent, in consequence of an extraordinary conversation that he had had with her. This conversation took place at Dover, when he went down to give her the money for which, at Mr. Morris' bank, he had exchanged the check she had left with him. That check, or rather certain things had represented, had made somehow all the difference in their relations. The difference was huge, and Baron could think of nothing but this confirmed vision of their being able to work fruitfully together that would account for so rapid a change. She didn't talk of impossibilities now. She didn't seem to want to stop him off. Only when, the day following his arrival at Dover with the fifty pounds, he had, after all, to agree to share them with her. He couldn't expect her to take a present of money from him. He returned to the question over which they had had their little seen the night they dined together. On this occasion he had brought a portmanteau and was staying. She mentioned that there was something very particular she had it on her conscience to tell him before letting him commit himself. They are dawned in her face as she approached the subject a light of warning that frightened him. It was charged with something so strange that for an instant he held his breath. This flash of ugly possibilities passed, however, and it was with the gesture of taking still tenderer possession of her checked indeed by the grave important way she held up a finger that he answered tell me everything tell me you must know what I am who I am you must know especially what I'm not there's a name for it a hideous cruel name it's not my fault others have known I've had to speak of it it has made a great difference in my life surely you must have guessed she went on with the thinnest quaver of irony letting him now take her hand which felt as cold as her hard duty don't you see I've no belongings no relations no friends nothing at all in the world my own I was only a poor girl a poor girl baron was mystified touched distressed piecing dimly together what she meant but feeling in a great surge of pity that it was only something more to love her for my mother my poor mother said mrs rives she paused with this and through gathering tears her eyes met his as if to plead with him to understand he understood and drew her closer but she kept herself free still to continue she was a poor girl she was only a governess she was alone she thought he loved her he did I think it was the only happiness she ever knew but she died of it oh I'm so glad you tell me it's so grand of you baron murmured then your father he hesitated as if with his hands on old wounds he had his own troubles but he was kind to her it was all misery and folly he was married he wasn't happy there were good reasons I believe for that I know it from letters I know it from a person who's dead everyone is dead now it's too far off that's the only good thing he was very kind to me I remember him though I didn't know then as a little girl who he was he put me with some very good people he did what he could for me I think later his wife knew a lady who came to see me once after his death I was a very little girl but I remember many things what he could he did something that helped me afterwards something that helps me now I think of him with a strange pity I see him said mrs rives with the faint past in her eyes you mustn't say anything against him she added gently and gravely never never but he has only made it more of a rapture to care for you you must wait you must think we must wait together she went on you can't tell and you must give me time now that you know it's all right but you have to know doesn't it make us better friends ask mrs rives with a tired smile which had the effect of putting the whole story further and further away the next moment however she added quickly as if with a sense that it couldn't be far enough you don't know you can't judge you must let it settle think of it think of it oh you will and leave it so I must have time myself oh I must yes you must believe me she turned away from him and he remained looking at her a moment ah how I shall work for you he exclaimed you must work for yourself I'll help you her eyes had met his eyes again and she added hesitating thinking you had better know perhaps who he was baron shook his head smiling confidently I don't care a straw I do a little he was a great man there must indeed have been some good in him he was a high celebrity you've often heard of him baron wondered an instant I've no doubt you're a princess he said with a laugh she made him nervous I'm not ashamed of him he was serdomenic for and baron saw in her face in a few seconds that she had seen something in his he knew that he stared then turned pale it had the effect of a powerful shock he was cold for an instant as he had just found her with a sense of danger the confused horror of having delta blow but the blood rushed back to its courses with his still quicker consciousness of safety and he could make out as he recovered his balance that his emotions struck her simply as a violent surprise he gave a muffled murmur ah it's you my beloved which lost itself as he drew her closer and held her long in the intensity of his embrace and the wonder of his escape it took more than a minute for him to say over to himself often enough with his hidden face ah she must never never know she never knew she only learned what she asked him casually that he had in fact destroyed the old documents she had had such a comic caprice about the sensibility the curiosity they had had the queer privilege of exciting in her had lapsed with the event as irresponsibly as they had arisen and she appeared to have forgotten or rather to attribute now to other courses the agitation and several of the odd incidents that accompanied them they naturally gave peter baron rather more to think about much food indeed for clandestine meditation some of which in spite of the pains he took not to be caught was noted by his friend and interpreted to his knowledge as depression produced by the long probation she succeeded in imposing on him he was more patient than she could guess with all her guessing for if he was put to the proof she herself was not left undisected it came back to him again and again that if the documents he had burned proved anything they proved that serdomenek forrand's human errors were not all of one order the woman he loved was the daughter of her father he couldn't get over that what was more to the point was that as he came to know her better and better for they did work together under mr. morrish's protection his affection was the quantity still less to be neglected he sometimes wondered in the light of her general straightness their marriage had brought out even more than he believed there was of it whether the relics in the davenport were genuine that piece of furniture is still almost as useful to him as mr. morrish's patronage there is a tremendous run as this gentleman calls it on several of their songs baron nevertheless still tries his hand also at prose at his offering so now not always declined by the magazines but he has never approached the promiscuous again this periodical published in u-course a highly eulogistic study of the remarkable career of serdomenek forrand end of chapter seven end of serdomenek forrand by henry james