GENIUS ASSERTS ITSELF.

The landlady followed him with a hesitating air and stood looking at him for a moment or two without speaking. Seeing that she trembled and nervously twisted the edge of a shabby black silk apron between her fingers, he began to imagine that something must be the matter—that something dreadful must have happened.

“I hope Mr. Carlaw is not ill?” he exclaimed anxiously.

The landlady shook her head. “No, sir,” she began, and her voice was faded and thin and anxious like herself; “he ain’t what you’d call ill—not by no means. Not, that is to say, in body; but I’m thinkin’ ’is mind ain’t quite what it ought to be—not for peacefulness.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” said Comethup gravely. “Hadn’t I better see him? I think you said he was in.”

“There’s a word I’d like to say to you first, sir,” she interrupted hastily. “Might I make so bold as to ask if you’re a friend of Mr. Carlaw’s, or perhaps a relation?”

“Yes,” said Comethup, “I am his cousin. Why do you ask?”

The woman came a little nearer to him and mysteriously lowered her voice. “Sir, it’s now a matter of nine weeks since Mr. Carlaw first entered this ’ouse. I won’t deny it, as I was took with ’im; frank and free was ’e, an’ ’earty, to the point o’ bein’ quite familiar. ’Is meals ’e’s ’ad reg’lar, and always a kind word as to the cookin’, and the quality of things in general. And I won’t deny, sir, as we’re proud of ’im. ’E give me one of ’is books, and though I couldn’t—’avin’ ’ad to work ’ard all my days, an’ po’try bein’ a thing, to my mind, as one must be eddicated up to—couldn’t make much of it, still there it was, and the print, I must say, was like the ’Oly Bible for clearness. But proud we may be, and proud we may continue, and I won’t deny as ’e gives the ’ouse wot one might call ‘tone’; but neither pride nor tone never filled any one’s stomach yet, if you’ll forgive me mentionin’ such things before a gentleman.”

“I suppose,” said Comethup slowly, “I suppose you mean my cousin has not—not been able to keep quite regular as regards his payments, eh?”

“Reg’lar ain’t the word, sir, I do assure you. He ain’t paid nothink yet; not even the week in advance as I asks for in general from all as comes to me. But ’e were that smilin’ and ’appy and easy with me when ’e first set foot in the place, and such a way ’e ’ad with ’im, that it seemed like a insult to mention such a thing.”

“Yes, I think I understand,” said Comethup. “If, without hurting your feelings or—or disturbing your arrangements in any way, I might be permitted to be responsible for this bill, perhaps——”

She burst into tears; not with any violence, but rather with as near an approach to happiness as the dull routine of her hard life had left her capable of. She began to assure him, with a gratitude which was pitiful, that she saw what he was in his face directly she met him; mentioned, between her exclamations of relief, the exact sum to a halfpenny which was then due; and felt her small horizon cleared of clouds by the appearance of a banknote. The bill paid and duly receipted, she broke into extravagant praise of her lodger—of his manners, of his cleverness, of his wit. Comethup begged to be taken to him, and she led the way up the stairs with alacrity, and ushered him into Brian’s room with smiles and ejaculations of respect which must have given the whole business away to the most innocent mind.

Brian Carlaw was lying on a sofa near the window, smoking a cigarette and reading. Books and papers were strewn in all directions—flung about, it would almost appear, with something of studied carelessness. The whole place was full of the reek of stale tobacco; the man on the sofa appeared, late though it was, to be but just out of bed, so carelessly dressed and so generally unkempt was he. He did not rise, but waved a hand toward Comethup by way of welcome. The landlady, with murmurs, had gone out and closed the door.

“My dear old chap, this is a surprise indeed. Somehow or other I’ve lost sight of you—couldn’t find you anywhere. In moments of desperation I’ve even taken to hanging about outside that aristocratic town residence; of yours in the hope of seeing you, but I’ve only seen my afflicted aunt drive out alone. Where have you been, my young Croesus?”

“Oh, I’ve been away. Your letter was sent on to me, and so, as I returned to-day, I came straight here. I’m sorry to hear that things have gone so badly with you.”

“My dear boy, when did they ever go well? I was brought into this world first with a disposition to sit in the sunshine and play with flowers; and yet it seems to me that there’s always a howling tempest as a sort of cheerful music to accompany me on my journey through life, and a snowstorm thrown in, just for luck. I was born for fair and pleasant things; I get only hard ones. I am the plaything of the gods, and the favourite game of the gods appears to be football. My very landlady looks at me with an expression which tells me I am little else than a robber of the widow and the fatherless; my sensitive soul will not permit me to meet her eye at meal times.”

“Oh, I don’t think I’d worry about her any more if I were you,” said Comethup. “I took the liberty, in order to save you any trouble, of settling up with her. I hope you don’t mind.”

Brian Carlaw brought his legs down from the sofa, and sat upright. He shook his head playfully for a moment, then began to smile, then to laugh outright; finally he got up and came at Comethup in his pleasantest and most jovial fashion, and clapped both hands on his shoulders. “You dear old rascal,” he said, and his eyes had a light of tenderness in them which was sufficient repayment, if any were needed, for anything that Comethup had done; “you dear old rascal, I knew that you’d put things right for me directly you came. You know, old boy, my nature—damn it, I can’t help it; it was born in me—my nature is a proud and a sensitive one; and though I may carry a brave face to the world, and laugh and joke with these people who have for the moment to supply me with bread and butter and a roof to cover me, still my spirit rebels against the idea of owing them money. I don’t like it; I don’t want to feel that I owe this man or that woman, of however common clay they may be, so many pounds, shillings, and pence. I’ve got my work to think about, my hopes in life to realize; and these sordid things come up against me and hurt me, and leave their stain, as it were, upon the work I have to do. Don’t you understand that? Now, my dear boy, I shall go on cheerfully. Like the immortal village blacksmith, I can look the whole world in the face again—well, not quite the whole world, because I’m already deeply in your debt; but all that shall be wiped off some day, and we’ll start with a clean slate. Now, I sincerely hope that that woman hasn’t overcharged you.”

“I shouldn’t bother about that if I were you,” said Comethup. “It’s paid and done with, and you won’t need to trouble about it. But how are you going on? What are you going to do?”

“My dear fellow, that’s a question for the future; and the future, for good or ill, can always be depended upon to take care of itself. For the present—and that’s the only really important thing—you have stepped in, like the splendid chap you are, and have put all my world right. I won’t attempt to thank you: thanks between friends are always meaningless. Let us go out somewhere and look on the world, and be grateful, and sit in the sunshine.”

“I’m afraid I can’t do that,” said Comethup. “You see, I’ve been away in the country for some time, and I must hurry back home. I only called here on my way from the station.”

“Well, some other day, then, although I wish you could have made it to-day. I’m just in the mood for a holiday. So you’ve been in the country, have you? What part?”

“Oh, the old place, our old home, you know,” replied Comethup.

“Indeed! the dear old spot! And I suppose you saw all the old people and all the familiar sights of our boyhood. Been staying there long?”

“Only about a week this time,” said Comethup.

The other caught him up quickly. “This time! Do you often go down there, then?”

“Well, I’ve been down once or twice to—to see the captain. You remember the captain?”

“Oh, yes—queer, stiff old chap!—I remember him very well. I—I suppose the place hasn’t changed much?” He had walked across to a table, had picked up a cigarette, and was lighting it.

“No, very little,” replied Comethup. “People die, and get married, and live the same lives that other people did before them; nothing very exciting ever happens there.”

“I suppose not. I’ve half a mind to run down there myself one of these days, just to dream among the old streets where I lived when I was a boy; it would be rather inspiring, I should think. Let me see: there was a little girl—what the deuce was her name?—used to live there in a house we thought was haunted. Do you remember?”

“Yes, I remember,” said Comethup. “She lives there still; her father’s dead, you know.”

“Really, I don’t think I ever met him. But I see you’re impatient to be gone, so I won’t detain you. By the way”—this as Comethup was moving toward the door—“I wish you would let me have—say a fiver. I hate to ask you; but, you know, I haven’t a shilling to bless myself with, and although I get all I want here, still there are some additional things which——”

“I’m very sorry,” said Comethup; “I never thought of that. Here you are. I’ll come round and see you again. I suppose you’re working pretty hard now?”

“Well, not what you would call working; as a matter of fact, I’m waiting for an idea. I can feel it coming. I know that at any moment of the night or day I may wake up with the whole thing complete in my mind, ready to put down on paper. But these things can’t be forced—one has to wait for them.”

“And the other books?” asked Comethup. “I suppose they’re going well?”

“Very well,” replied Brian. “From a point of view of fame, they’re going very well indeed; people are talking about me, and I’ve even been preached at from some rather popular pulpits. Of course I get a little money from them, and that money will increase as time goes on. I don’t mind confessing that I was in the depths of despair this morning. Now I shall go out, and look my fellow-man in the face, and enjoy the sunshine, and slap myself on the breast and say, ‘Brian Carlaw, you are once again a free man!’”

Comethup left him and drove home. Miss Charlotte Carlaw, even in the midst of an affectionate greeting, expressed her surprise that he should not have telegraphed the hour of his arrival, in order that the carriage might meet him. He explained lamely that he had made up his mind quite suddenly to return, and that there had been no time for anything. Miss Carlaw sat in her accustomed chair, amid a curious silence, for some moments, evidently waiting for him to speak, feeling, probably, after the confidence he had before given her, that there would be something further to say. Delicacy urged her to be silent, but impatience and anxiety for him prompted her to speak, and at last she broke out, in characteristic fashion:

“Well, boy, how fares the wooing? Do you come back with a heart too big for your waistcoat to hold it, or has the jade proved fickle and sent you about your business? Come, I’m an old woman—perhaps an old fool—but I’m tingling to know if she has used you well, and if you’re happy.”

He crossed to her and stooped, and put an arm about her shoulders and kissed her. “Yes, dear,” he said, with a little laugh; “I’m so happy that I can’t express what I feel.”

She put her hand up and softly stroked the hand that lay on her shoulder. “That’s well, boy; that’s well,” she said. “And what did she say to you, and what did you say to her?”

“Lots of things that I can’t remember—lots of beautiful things that I didn’t think any one could ever say to me,” he replied.

“Well, don’t tell me; you’ve evidently got it pretty badly. I’ve never seen this girl, and know nothing about her; but I’m quite sure that she’s all that’s good and sweet and true, or you wouldn’t have selected her from all other women. Just a word or two to you, my boy, although I don’t think you need it; but I’m a woman myself, and women are strange creatures to deal with. Don’t forget that a girl is a thing of moods and whims and fancies—quite the best of them are that—and they’ve got to be humoured, just like spoilt children. The world has banded itself together for centuries past to spoil its womenkind—sometimes in the best sense, generally in the worst—and you can’t blame the women if they’ve learned to take advantage of it. I think a woman wants to feel that a man is her master, but she wants him to be a gentle master, all the same. And there is no woman living will love a man, in the best and finest way that a man can be loved, unless she is first his friend and his comrade—unless, unerringly, in time of doubt or trouble, her thoughts fly to him. There! I’ve done preaching. Now tell me what you’re going to do, or what’s going to happen, or what you’ve determined on.”

“Oh, I don’t think we’ve determined on anything yet,” said Comethup. “You see, it seems only just to have happened. I’ve only just found out, as it were, that she loves me.”

“She’d be a fool if she didn’t,” ejaculated Miss Carlaw. “Well, I’m not going to interfere in your love-making. In your own good time I must make the girl’s acquaintance. In this, as in everything else, I leave all to your own good judgment and common sense. Make your own plans, and I’ll back you up; I can’t say more than that. But remember that if at any time you want her to come to London or to see me, this house is open to her, and she may stay under my wing as long as she likes. Selfishly, I’m glad to hear she has no friends. Relatives are a nuisance—at least, mine have always been. But you know I don’t include you in that, don’t you?”

Comethup’s visits to the old town became of necessity more frequent. It was splendid to think, as he started off from London on each occasion, that in the desolate garden would be waiting the woman who watched for his coming and listened for his footsteps through weary days when he could not reach her. Once or twice he had suggested that she should go to London as his aunt’s guest, and see all the wonders of that wonderful city; but she had hung back shyly, pleading that there was plenty of time, or that she liked better to see him down there. Always she had some half-laughing excuse, so that he ceased at last to urge her, and was content to live in the happy present, and to leave the more formal questions of introduction and such like matters to the future. Always, too, she was the same petulant, impulsive, warm-hearted creature, quick to anger and as sudden in her repentance; wounding him deeply at times, and yet striving afterward to heal the wound with so much of love and tenderness and self-reproach that he would not willingly have been without the pain which revealed to him such depths of wonderful compassion in her. Each night, when he sought his bed, there was some faint bitterness in his heart; and yet, greater than the bitterness, the remembrance of some beautiful phrases she had used, some sudden, half-shy glance of her eyes, some wholly spontaneous caress. His love for her grew with the wonder of her; but she seemed always so intangible, so changeful, that he was never sure of her—was forever, after he had parted from her, on the verge of rushing back to crave her forgiveness for this, or her clearer understanding of that.

Once, when he parted from her at night under the balcony, she clung to him, held him for a moment after they had whispered their “Good-nights,” and looked up into his eyes. He saw her own were swimming in tears. “Dear,” she whispered, “I wish I were kinder to you; you deserve so much more than I can ever give you.”

“No,” he replied, “I don’t deserve anything; you’ve given me already more than I ever hoped to gain. Why, you’re the best woman in the whole world, and I——”

She put her hand quickly on his lips. “And you are the best man—better and more patient than any one else could be. Tell me”—she laid her head upon his breast, and he had to bend his own to catch the words—“tell me, what would you do if you found—if it were possible that I did not love you?”

His arms closed more tightly about her. “It isn’t fair to jest about that,” he said. “Why should you think about it at all? You do love me?”

“Yes, of course. But what would you do? Would it mean—oh, how serious you are!—would it mean so much to you? Think: I vex and trouble you a hundred times a day. I know I do, only you’re too good to say anything about it. Wouldn’t it be better if you loved some one—some one who loved you steadily and firmly, just as you deserve to be loved? Wouldn’t it be better?”

“My dearest,” he said, “you don’t understand. I’m only a youngster, I know; but I’m quite sure I never could love any one else; that I want you just as you are, whether smiling or in tears, whether frowning—but that doesn’t happen often—or laughing. Although we’ve been parted such a long time, you seem to be the ’Linda who has grown up with me; we’ve been waiting for each other all this time. Only you mustn’t say such things as this, because you hurt me. I can not think what I should do without you now.”

She looked up at him with a smile, and drew his face down and kissed him. “Rest content,” she whispered. “Only be patient with me; I won’t desert you.”

Comethup walked home thoughtfully, holding that last whispered phrase of hers steadily before him, and striving to banish everything else. He found the captain standing leaning over his garden gate, smoking a cheroot, and looking up and down the road.

“There’s a note for you inside,” said the captain; “it was sent round from the Bell Inn an hour since.”

Comethup, wondering a little, walked into the cottage, followed leisurely by the captain. The note lay on the little table, in the circle of light thrown by the lamp; the young man picked it and tore it open. It was from Brian Carlaw.

“Dear Friend in Need: I am, so to speak, breathing my native air; but, although there is a popular belief to the effect that one’s native air is beneficial, I find it is wholly insufficient to support existence. I am treated here with respect, not to say reverence; my fame (such as it is) has preceded me, even to this benighted spot, and the old place slaps itself upon the back approvingly because it gave me birth; at the present moment I wish it would give me something to eat. Providence, however, watches over the weakest of its creatures, and I hear, by accident, that you are staying within a hundred yards of me. Imagine my ridiculous position: I am spoken of with bated breath as a wonder, shedding lustre on all to whom I will deign to nod, yet I have not the wherewithal to pay my bill, and, moreover, I am burdened. Come and smile upon me—and see the Burden.

“Yours in distress,
“Brian.”