These days were almost unalloyed joy to Maddison, and full of pleasure to Marian, only checkered by the difficulty which she saw before her of persuading him to allow her to return to town while he remained where he was. The fear of Squire molesting them was now, she felt, an insufficient excuse for their separation, not sufficient, at any rate, to compel Maddison to forego his decision that he would not be parted from her again. At any rate this motive alone was not strong enough, and she searched in vain for some further argument to support it. Determined she was to free herself partially from him, but she did not wish to break entirely with him yet; indeed, he was essential to her still. She would not run any risk she could avoid or foresee, but equally she would not leave any effort untried to obtain her own way.

“The Rebel” was quickly completed, and he had no other work on hand. Mrs. West had learned from her husband who this friend was, and therefore accepted the excuse. But West himself came over one afternoon in the motor car, and was told by Marian, who came to the door, that Maddison had walked into Brighton, and that she was alone, nursing a headache.

“I’m awfully sorry,” West said, thinking how extraordinarily pretty she looked against the dark shadow behind her. “If it’s not a real bad one, come for a spin in the car: the air will blow it out of you in no time.”

“I believe it would, but——”

“Oh, I know; never mind Maddison. Leave a note pinned up for him to tell him where you’ve gone in case he’s back before we are. Now, do come; I’m sure it will do you good.”

“It’s awfully kind of you. Very well. I must just run up for my hat and coat. I shan’t be two minutes.”

“Two minutes! I’ll give you five!” adding to himself: “she’s worth waiting for.”

West laughed at Marian’s coat, “which might,” he said, “keep a few flies out,” and wrapped her in rugs, until little of her could be seen save her face, peeping out beneath the natty fur hat which she had tied down with a thick brown veil.

“By Jove, you look like Mother Christmas,” laughed West. “All snug? Right! Forrard!”

“It’s glorious!” she said, as they sped along a short piece of broad, level road. “I don’t wonder men go mad over it.”

“Don’t you ever go mad over things?”

“I? No, I don’t think so. I’ve never come across anything which tempted me quite enough to make me go mad over it. Perhaps I was born hopelessly sane. It must be rather nice to feel real mad sometimes.”

“Yes, it’s intoxicating, just that. Don’t be scared, I’m not going to do it now anyway, but I sometimes feel horribly tempted to turn on full speed, let her rip, put my hands in my pockets and see——”

“But then—you’d never be able to get intoxicated again. I prefer something less final than that. A big business—to be at the head of it—a sort of king—with every other king’s hand against me—that would intoxicate me. If I were a man, I should like to be a speaker and make thousands drunk with my words.”

“An actress?”

“Yes; that must be intoxicating too—just to play on an audience—but—I can’t do any of these things, so I must content myself with watching other people—getting intoxicated. You men have most of the good things in the way of power.”

“Except power over ourselves. That belongs to you.”

“Does it? Perhaps to some of us. I haven’t got it—at least—I want to persuade George to do something sensible and I can’t.”

“Perhaps he’s intoxicated?”

“He can’t afford to be every day. He’s not done a stroke of work since I’ve come down here—or rather for the last two days, not touched Mrs. West’s portrait, and won’t—I’m afraid—till I go away, and he won’t let me go. I came down on condition that I only stayed three days; I’ve been here five now. I daresay you think it queer my talking to you—but you see I haven’t got any friends, and you’re George’s friend too. Couldn’t you—couldn’t you—just give him a bit of advice?”

“Oh, lots, heaps, tons!” West replied, laughing; “and couldn’t he and wouldn’t he refuse to take an ounce of it? Of course he would, even if he didn’t tell me to go to the—to go to, forsooth!”

“Probably,” said Marian, smiling; “but you wouldn’t mind that, would you? You needn’t go. Don’t you see, it’s this way: he might pay a little more attention to my advice if he found that you gave him just the same.”

“Perhaps. But he’s got an obstinate little way of his own, has Master George. Besides, do you really think that if you can’t get a thing from him by yourself you’ll be able to do so with my help?”

“You’re so strong,” Marian said, in such a matter-of-fact tone of voice that West laughed out loud, though this very tone flattered and pleased him.

“I think I must stop the car, get out and bow to the ground in gratitude,” he said. “It isn’t often a pretty woman pays a pretty compliment in such a tone that there’s no doubting its genuineness.”

“Are men any better? I should hate to pay a man false compliments, but I never expect him to do anything else. When a man thinks a woman pretty he calls her lovely, and when she’s ugly he says she’s pretty, and—we—oh, we’re just weak fools enough to love a pretty lie and to hate an ugly truth.”

“Are you?” he asked bluntly.

“Present company always excepted.”

“Do you think so? When anyone says that I at once conclude that present company was particularly meant. Yes, it’s wonderful what you can do with soft-sawder, especially in business. Only you must be careful to deal with each man as an individual: some like their compliments hot, some cold, some spoken, some implied, some like to be taken for saints and some for sinners. Here’s the whole art of big business in a nutshell—‘play high, play low,’ high stakes and a low estimate of the strength of human nature; every man has his price, though more often than not it isn’t money.”

“You’re a cynic!”

“I don’t believe in labels; I try to flatter myself that I’m a practical man of business, while all the time at the bottom of my heart, I know that I’m what every man and woman really is—just a mere emotional creature of impulse. Oh, yes, I’ve met those cold-blooded, calculating, anÆmic-looking men, but they’re just as impulsive, only they hoodwink themselves by finding reasons for their impulse, and very often by the time they’ve found them it’s too late to act on their impulse. Study history; you won’t find any really big man who didn’t act on impulse at all the important moments of his life; impulse unconsciously checked and guided by the intuition which makes a man a genius.”

“How is it there are no great women, then? We’ve got impulses and intuition.”

“The average woman has more intuition than the average man, but almost all women are just average. Then you let your emotions run away with you more often than we do, and you run away so far that you generally can’t get back again.”

“That’s true. It comes back to what I said: men have most of the good things.”

“We have to work hard to keep them. Then—it isn’t till we’re old and worn out that we know what’s worth having; life’s a long chase after knowledge, and when we’ve caught it up—if we ever do—we’ve no time left to use it in.”

“But meantime you’ve thoroughly enjoyed the chase?”

“Yes, that’s true; by God, that’s true. If life was a certainty and not the wild speculation it is—it wouldn’t be worth living.”

He stopped short, slowed down the pace of the car almost to a crawl, as he turned and looked searchingly at her.

“You’re—what shall I call you?” he asked—“a witch or a fairy or what? You’ve made me talk more than I’ve ever done to any woman, or man, for the matter of that. There are so few people worth talking to.”

“Because there are so few who know how to listen.”

West greeted this retort with a shout of laughter.

“A hit!” he exclaimed. “Yes, I suppose that’s horribly true—you’re kind enough not to have shown me how I bored you, and so—I’ve thoroughly enjoyed myself.”

“It’s not that at all,” Marian retorted, putting a touch of anger into her voice. “That’s rude of you; it’s calling me deliberately insincere and also pointing out that what I’ve said might just as well have been unsaid for all you heard or noticed it.”

“Mrs. Squire, ’pon my honor you’re taking things—seriously; you’re not really angry——?”

“Yes, I am. I am. I was enjoying myself, and you suddenly—Please drive on, quick, quick. You can’t talk if you go quick, and then shan’t I bore you.”

“But really, Mrs. Squire, I——”

“Please drive on—quick!” Marian interrupted.

“She’s a masterful little devil,” West thought, as he obeyed her orders, and he also decided that Maddison was a lucky devil. A woman who is difficult to win or a man who has won is usually likened to the greatest of the fallen angels. The devil has many unconscious admirers and there are many who envy him.

West slowed down again when they were nearing home.

“There! Wasn’t I good?” he asked. “I obeyed orders like a lamb. Have you forgiven me?”

“No, I haven’t,” Marian answered, with a catch in her voice as she went on: “it’s not easy to forgive anyone who smashes up a pleasant time——”

“But, Mrs. Squire, really I didn’t do anything much——”

“Much! You said the wrong thing and it jarred; that’s all, but it’s a good deal when you’re really enjoying yourself. Here we are home, and there’s George. Don’t forget your promise, if you get a chance of speaking to him.”

“But I didn’t promise——”

“Well, keep it all the same—just to show you’re sorry for what you’ve done. I was going to thank you for the ride, but I shan’t now.”

Maddison helped Marian to alight, and welcomed West warmly.

“Go and put your box of tricks up at the garage and come back here to tea? Good! Then we’ll expect you in a quarter of an hour at most; don’t stop down there discussing motor mysteries.”

“I hope you didn’t think it horrid of me to go out for a run with Mr. West; I thought the blow might do my head good.”

“And has it, sweetheart?” he asked, as he nestled her head against his shoulder and kissed her. “I do hope it has. I hate you having any pain.”

“Yes, dear, it’s quite gone away—but—you asked Mr. West to tea and there won’t be any for him if—you insist on going on in this way!”

She broke away from him, laughing merrily, and slammed the parlor door and locked it in his face as he ran after her, calling to him:

“Cook won’t have you in her kitchen! I must attend to the kettle and not to you for once!”

She took off her heavy coat and then set about preparing the tea things, and as she busied herself with them, thought over the events of the afternoon. She was certain that West was to be caught only by making him feel that he was pursuer, not pursued; by no art of coquetry on her part, but by a show of absolute indifference to him, which would lure him to win her out of pride if not for love. Once she could rouse his interest in her, she was confident the game would be in her own hands. She was pleased at the way in which she had made the most of West’s innocent speech, and made up her mind that merely pleasant friendliness must be her attitude toward him, until he sought to make her change it, and even then he must find anything further difficult to gain.

West was in the studio when she carried in the tray, and insisted on taking it from her, while Maddison drew up a table to the fireside. Cakes were set close to the blazing fire to keep hot. Maddison drew the curtains and struck a match.

“Don’t light the lamps yet, George,” said Marian, “unless you and Mr. West dislike blindman’s holiday. Stir up the fire and make a big blaze and we’ll have tea by firelight; it’s much more cozy—and artistic too, so there!”

The rough cottage fireplace, with old-fashioned blue tiles and broad grate; the rich blaze; the dark background of the studio; Marian, her red-gold hair gloriously lit by the dancing flames, graceful, lithe; Maddison, with his dusky, refined face and his midnight eyes; West, long, lank, angular, with his shock of dark hair and his eyes of deep blue: the man of art, the man of the world, and the woman; each man wishing that the other were absent.

“Now, Mr. West, open the door,” said Marian, after tea, as she put the cups and saucers together on the tray. “Please open the door—I’m off to wash up. I always wash up the tea things, because it secures a lecture from Mrs. Witchout in the morning, which is always delightful. You and George can talk high art and smoke.”

Maddison lit a pipe, while West contented himself with a cigarette.

“When you told me about yourself and Mrs. Squire, I naturally thought you’d made a fool of yourself or been made a fool of, Maddison,” West said, as he prowled about; “but you’re a lucky devil. She’s a clever, interesting woman. No wonder she couldn’t stick to the curate—I wonder how she ever came to marry him. Hullo! Here’s ‘The Rebel.’ Can’t see by this jumpy light—is it finished?”

“Yes—as far as I can finish it.”

“If you can’t, who can? Anything else on hand beside the portrait of the missis?”

“No.”

“You’re getting lazy. You’re enjoying yourself too much. I must tell Mrs. Squire to buck you up and make you work. Don’t forget, old chap, that I want ‘The Rebel’ if you’ll let me have it. I don’t mind your doing a replica for yourself, provided you never part with it. Think it over. You haven’t much more than three months before you’ll have to send in—I forgot you’re a blooming A.R.A.—but buck up, it don’t do to rest on your oars nowadays, competition’s too keen and you must keep yourself before the public if you don’t want to be forgotten.”

“That’s shop talk, West.”

“All the world’s a shop, my boy; always has been, always will be. Why, even the socialist idea is to turn the country into a universal provider. Don’t think it would help matters if poets and painters were endowed by the State and hadn’t to work for a living. You can’t tell me of any rich man—any man born rich—who has ever done any art work worth talking about. If it weren’t for women and money the world would die of inanition.”

“What rot you do talk sometimes, West; I suppose you find it a useful habit in business; when a wise man can disguise himself as a foolish, he’s sure to get on.”

“And the reverse also holds good, from which, logically, it must be deduced that to appear other than you are is the first law of existence! But as a matter of fact you know I’m not talking nonsense. If I were to say to you: ‘I’ll give you an annuity of three thousand a year, on condition that you give me all the pictures you paint, but you’ve only to paint when you feel inspired to do so,’ why, my dear fellow, you know as well as I do that your career would be over. Thank your lucky stars you’ve got to work for your living. Well, I must be off, Aggy will wonder what on earth’s become of me. She’s always expecting me to smash myself. Do you think I may ‘walk into the parlor’ and say ‘good-by’ to—cook?”