The Way of Ambition Part 9

"I wonder whether a man is a coward to raise up barriers between himself and life, whether it is a mistake to have a retreat, as you rightly call this room, this house, and to spend the greater part of one's time alone in it? But"--he moved restlessly--"the real question is whether one ought to let oneself be guided by a powerful instinct."

"I expect one ought to."

"Do you? Oh, you're not eating anything!"

"I will help myself."

"Mrs. Shiffney wouldn't agree with you."

"No."

"Didn't--didn't you see her? She went just before you came."

"I saw someone. I thought it might be Adelaide. I wasn't sure."

"It was she. I hadn't asked her to come and wasn't expecting her."

He stopped, then added abruptly:

"It was wonderfully kind of her to come, though. She is kind and clever, too. She has fascination, I think...."

"I'm sure she has."

"And yet, d'you know, there's something in her, and in lots of people I might get to know, I suppose, through her and Max Elliot, that I--well, I almost hate it."

"What is it?"

"Well, whenever I come across one of them by chance I seem to hear a voice repeating, 'To-morrow we die--to-morrow we die--to-morrow we die.'

And I seem to see something inside of them with teeth and claws fastening on pleasure. It's--it's like a sort of minotaur, and it gives me horrors. And yet I might go to it."

Mrs. Mansfield said nothing for a moment. She had finished her cup of tea, and now, with a little gesture, refused to have another.

"It's quite true. There is the creature with teeth and claws, and it is, perhaps, horrible. But it's so sad that I scarcely see anything but its sadness."

"You are kinder than I."

He leaned forward.

"D'you know, I think you're the kindest human being I ever met, except one, that priest up there on the mantelpiece."

"Forgive me," she said, making allowance for herself to-day because of Heath's evident desire to talk intimately, a desire which she believed she ought to help, "but are you a Roman Catholic?"

"Oh, no! I wish I was!"

"But I suppose you can't be?"

"Oh, no! I suppose I'm one of those unsatisfactory people whose soul and whose brain are not in accord. That doesn't make for inward calm or satisfaction. But I can only hope for better days."

There was something uneasy in his speech. She felt the strong reserve in him always fighting against the almost fierce wish to be unreserved with her.

"They will come, surely!" she said. "If you are quite sincere, sincere with yourself always and sincere with others as often as is possible."

"You're right about its not being possible to be always sincere with others."

She smiled.

"They simply wouldn't let you!"

"No," he said. "I feel as if I could be rather sincere with you sometimes."

"Specially to-day, perhaps."

"Yes, I think so. We do get on, don't we?"

"Yes, we do."

"I often wonder why. But we do. I'll move the table if you've really finished."

He put the table away and sat down on the settle beside her, at the far end. And he turned, leaning his back against the upright end, and stretching one arm along the wooden top, on which his long fingers restlessly closed.

"I was sorry I went to Max Elliot's till you came into the room," he said. "And ever since then I've been partly very glad."

"But only partly?"

"Yes, because I've always had an instinctive dread of getting drawn in."

"To the current of our modern art life. I'm sure you mean that."

"I do. And of course Elliot is in the thick of it. Mrs. Shiffney's in it, and all her lot, which I don't know. And that fellow Lane is in it too."

"And I suppose I am in it with Charmian."

Heath looked at the floor. Ignoring Mrs. Mansfield's remark, he continued:

"I have some talent. It isn't the sort of talent to win popularity.

Fortunately, I don't desire--in fact, I'm very much afraid of popularity. But as I believe my talent is--is rather peculiar, individual, it might easily become--well, I suppose I may say the rage in a certain set. They might drop me very soon. Probably they would--I don't know. But I have a strong feeling that they'd take me up violently if I gave them a chance. That's what Max Elliot can't help wanting. He's such a good fellow, but he's a born exploiter. Not in any nasty way, of course!" Heath concluded hastily.

"I quite understand."

"And, I don't want to seem conceited, but I see there's something about me that set would probably like. Mrs. Shiffney's showed me that. I have never called upon her. She has sent me several invitations. And to-day she called. She wants me to go with her on _The Wanderer_ for a cruise."

"To Wonderland?"

Heath shrugged his shoulders.

"In the Mediterranean, I believe."

"Doesn't that tempt you?"