CHAPTER XIV
SPIRIT AND FLESH

The folding-doors between the back and front drawing-rooms at Mrs. Ashton's were thrown open, and both rooms were full that Thursday afternoon. Some of the visitors were standing, some sitting, and many ladies and gentlemen were moving about. A few had cups of tea, and all seemed to wish to appear pleased and pleasant. If serious matters were mentioned or discussed, it was in a light and desultory way It was impossible to plan ground for the foundation of enduring structures in politics, or taste, or art, or science, or polemics, when a humourist might come up and regard what you were saying as the suggestion for a burlesque opera or harlequinade. All the talk was touch-and-go, and as bright and witty as the speakers could make it. There was an unceasing clatter of tongues and ripple of laughter, which had not time to gather volume. Most of the people were serious and earnest, but the great bulk of the dialogue was artificial, designedly and deliberately artificial, for the purpose of affording relief to the speakers. Mrs. Ashton held that the most foolish way to spend life is to be always wise. These At homes were for recreation, not for the solemnities of work. People took no liberties, but all were free. Even such sacred subjects as the franchise, drainage, compound interest, the rights of the subject, and oysters, were dealt with lightly on Thursdays in Curzon Street.

As Oscar Leigh followed John Hanbury slowly from the immediate vicinity of Mrs. Ashton, his ears were aware of many and various voices saying many and various things, but he paid no attention to voices or words. He was all eyes. Miss Ashton was moving away to her former place by the window. She was accompanied by a tall, grizzled, military-looking man, who, to judge by her quick glances and laughing replies, was amusing and interesting her very much.

"That was a wild prank of yours," said Hanbury, bending over the little man and laying admonitory emphasis on his words. "You ought not to play tricks like that in a place like this. Everyone who saw and heard, Mrs. Ashton of course among the number, must have noticed your manner and the effect your words had upon-" He paused. They were standing in the second window-place. He did not like to say "upon me," for that would be an admission he had felt alarmed or frightened; it would also imply a suspicion of Leigh's trustworthiness in keeping his word and the secret.

The clockmaker did not say anything for a moment. He had no intention of helping Hanbury over the pause. It was his design, on the contrary, to embarrass the other as much as he could. He looked up with an innocent expression of face, and asked, "The effect of my manner on what, or whom?"

"Well," said Hanbury, with hesitation, "upon anyone who heard. Tricks of that kind may be amusing, but I am afraid you did not improve your credit for sense with Miss Ashton by what you said and your way of saying it. For a moment I felt afraid she might be surprised into an expression that would betray all."

"You!" cried Leigh in a low tone of wild amazement. "You were afraid Miss Ashton might have been surprised into an expression that would have betrayed all?"

"Yes. She was not prepared for your little sally and your subtlety," said Hanbury with a frown. It was intolerable to have to speak of Dora Ashton, his Dora, his wife that was to be, to this mechanic, or mechanist, or mechanician, or whatever he happened to be. "Miss Ashton might have been taken off her guard."

"Bah, sir! You might have been surprised and taken off your guard by what I said, but not she! Hah!" He said this with a secret mocking laugh. "I am fairly astonished at a man of your intelligence, Mr. Hanbury, mistaking me for a fool. I never make mistakes about people. I never make wrong estimates of the men or women I meet. I would trust Miss Ashton in any position of danger or difficulty, any situation requiring courage or tact."

"I am sure if she knew your high estimate of her she would be enormously flattered," said Hanbury, with a sneer.

"No, she would not. She is not the woman to be flattered by anything, and certainly not by any such trifle as my opinion of her good sense. You ought to know as much by this time. You and she are engaged?"

The cool assurance of the dwarf's manner, and the simple directness of the question with which he finished his speech, had the effect of numbing Hanbury's faculties, and confusing his purpose. "The relations between Miss Ashton and me are not a subject I care to speak of, and I beg of you to say no more of the matter," said he, with clumsiness, arising from disgust and annoyance, and the sense of helplessness.

"Hah! I thought so. Now if you were only as clever as Miss Ashton, you would not allow me to find out how matters stood between you and her, as you have plainly done by your answer. You are a young man, and in life many things are against a young man. In an encounter of this kind his bad temper is his chief foe. Hah!"

Hanbury's head was fiery hot, and his mind in a whirl. Things and people around him were blurred and dim to his eyes. "I have performed my part of the contract," he said, with impotent fury, "had we not better go now? This is no place for scenes or lectures, for lectures by even the most able and best qualified."

This conversation had been conducted in suppressed voices, inaudible to all ears but those of the speakers, and most of it by the open window, Miss Ashton being at her former position in the other one looking into the street.

"Yes, you have done your part. You have introduced me to Miss Ashton, or rather Mrs. Ashton has done so, and that is the same thing. I am perfectly satisfied so far. I do not ask you to do any more. I am not a levier of blackmail. I, too, have performed my part of the contract. So far we are quits. We are as though we had never met. If you have any engagement or wish that draws you away from this place I do not see why you should remain. If you want to go, by all means go. I shall stay. Hah!"

"What! Mr. Leigh, you do not mean to say you intend using my introduction here, which I undertook in compliance with your whim, as the means of effecting a lodgment!"

Leigh sprinkled a few drops of eau-de-cologne from his little silver flask into the palms of his long brown-yellow hands and sniffed it up noisily. "You do not use eau-de-cologne? You are wrong. It is refreshing-most refreshing. If you had been poring over retorts and crucibles until your very marrow was turned to dust, burnt-up to powder, you'd appreciate eau-de-cologne. It's most refreshing. It is, indeed. I am not going away from this place yet; but do not let me detain you if business or pleasure is awaiting you anywhere else. Do not stand on ceremony with me, my dear sir."

Hanbury ground his teeth and groaned. Sinbad's Old Man of the Sea was pleasant company compared with this hideous monster. Go from this place leaving him behind! John Hanbury would sooner fling himself head-foremost from that window than walk down the stairs without this hateful incubus. He now knew Leigh too well to try and divert or win him from his purpose. The dwarf was one of those men who see the object they desire to the exclusion of all other objects, and never take their eyes off it until it is in their hands. Once having brought Leigh here, he must hold himself at his mercy until it pleased the creature to take himself off. How deplorably helpless and mean and degraded he felt! He had never been in so exasperating and humiliating a position before, and to feel as he felt now, and be so circumstanced in this house above all other houses in London! It was not to be borne.

Then he reflected on the events which had drawn him into the predicament. He had gone down that atrocious Chetwynd Street at Dora's request, and against his own wish, conviction, instinct. They had seen the hateful place, and the odious people who lived there. That accident had befallen him, and while he was insensible Dora had given this man their names. He had come back to prevent their names getting into the newspapers, and found this man in the act of meditating a paragraph, with the "Post Office Directory" before him. He saw this man was not open to a money-bribe, but still he was open to a bribe, and the bribe was, to state it shortly, bringing him here, and introducing him to Dora. He introduced him to Mrs. Ashton, and, seeing that he brought Leigh to her house, she naturally thought he was a great friend of his! Good heavens, a great friend of his!

Only for Dora nothing of this would ever have happened. It all arose out of her foolish interest in the class of people of whom Leigh was a specimen. It was poetic justice on her that Leigh should insist upon coming here. Would it not be turning this visit into a useful lesson to her if she were allowed to see more of this specimen of the people? The kind of mind this man had? The kind of man he was? Yes, they should go to Dora.

During the progress of Leigh and Hanbury through the room to Mrs. Ashton, and on their way from her to the window, Hanbury had met a score of people he knew intimately, and several others with whom he was acquainted. He had nodded and spoken a few words of greeting right and left, and, when there was any likelihood of friends expecting more of him, had glanced at his companion to intimate that he was engaged and devoted to him. Whatever was to happen, it would not do to allow the clockmaker to break away from him, and mingle unaccompanied in the throng. While the two were at the window, Hanbury stood with his back to the room, in front of Leigh, so that he himself might not easily be accosted, and Leigh should be almost hidden from view.

He now made a violent effort to compose his mind and his features, and with an assumption of whimsical good humour turned round and faced the room. He had in a dismal and disagreeable way made up his mind to brazen out this affair. Let them both go to Dora, and when he was alone with her after dinner he could arrange that Leigh was not to come here again, for apart from Leigh's general objectionableness it would be like living in a powder magazine with a lunatic possessing flint and steel to be in Ashton's house with a man who held the secret of Chetwynd Street or Welbeck Place, or whatever the beastly region was called.

"I am not in the least hurry away from this, Mr. Leigh," said he, partly turning to the other. "It occurred to me that the place might be dull to you."

"On the contrary, the place and the people are most interesting to me. I am not, as you may fancy, much of a society man. I go out but little. I am not greatly sought after, Mr. Hanbury; and I do not think you can consider it unreasonable in me to wish to see this thing out." He was speaking suavely and pleasantly now, and when one was not looking at him there appeared nothing in his tone or manner to suggest disagreeableness, unless the heavy thick breathing, half wheeze, half gasp.

"But there is nothing to be seen out. There is no climax to these At homes. People come and chat and perhaps drink a cup of tea and go away. That is all. By the way, the servant has just set down some tea by Miss Ashton; perhaps you would like a cup."

"I have had no breakfast. I have eaten nothing to-day."

"I am sorry for that. I am greatly afraid they will not give you anything very substantial here; nothing but a cup of tea and a biscuit or wafery slice of bread. But let us get some. Half a loaf is better than no bread." He forced a smile, as pleasant a one as he could command.

"I shall be most grateful for a cup of tea from Miss Ashton's hands," said the dwarf graciously.

"He can," thought Hanbury, as they moved towards the other window, where Miss Ashton was now standing over a tiny inlaid table on which rested the tea equipage, "be quite human when he likes." Aloud he said, "I hope you will be more guarded this time?"

"I am always guarded-and armed. I shall be glad to take the useful olive from Pallas-Athena."

"And the olive bough too, I hope," said Hanbury under an impulse of generosity.

"It was a dove not a goddess brought the olive bough."

"But the dove was only a messenger."

"The olive bough was only a symbol; the olive itself was substantive good."

"But is not the symbol of peace better than an earthly meal?"

"Answer your own case out of your own mouth. I have never eaten to-day. I have never eaten yet in all my life. You are filled with divine luxuries. Go you your gait, I go mine. Tell me, Mr. Hanbury, would you rather have the spirit of my promise to you or the flesh of my promise?"

"I do not know exactly what you mean."

"Would you rather trust my word or see my dead body? If I were dead I could not speak."

"Trust your word beyond all doubt," said Hanbury with a perplexed and uneasy smile.

"Hah! I believe you believe what you say. But I am afraid your shoulders are not broad enough, your back is not strong enough for the faith you profess in me. I don't suppose you'd go to the extremity of murdering me, but at this moment you would not be sorry if I fell dead at your feet. Hah!"

"Pray do not say such a horrible thing. I assure you it is not true. Indeed you wrong me. I do not want the miserable thing talked about-"

"Sir, are you referring to me? I am the only miserable thing here."

"You are incorrigible."

"You are mistaken, sir. I am as plastic as wax; but like wax, if the fingers that touch me are cold I become brittle."

"If you persist how are we to approach Miss Ashton?"

"Thus! Follow me!"

He threw back his head haughtily, and glancing with scorn from side to side, strode to the table over which bent the exquisite face and figure of Dora.