Of the development of human phenomena, two truisms may be stated. First, a man can seldom gauge its progress, the self of to-day differing so infinitely little from the self of yesterday. And secondly, the climax is seldom reached by a man’s own initiative. He seems blindly and unconsciously to depend upon that law of averages which assigns an indefinite number of external contingencies to act upon and to complete any given process.”
Raine had jotted down this among some rough notes for a series of lectures in Metaphysics he was preparing, when his father’s voice broke a silence that had lasted nearly an hour.
“I am reading that letter you wrote to ——.”
“Which letter?” asked Raine.
As the old man did not reply at first, but continued reading the letter which he held out before him, Raine closed his note-book, and went round behind his father’s chair, and looked over his shoulder.
“Oh, that one. You must have thought me idiotic. I half fancy I did it to puzzle you.”
“I wasn’t puzzled, my dear boy. I guessed. And does the magnet still attract?”
It was the first time he had referred to the matter. His voice was a little husky as he asked the question—it seemed to be a liberty that he was taking with Raine. He looked up at him deprecatingly, touching the hand that was on his shoulder.
“Don’t think me an inquisitive old man,” he added, smiling to meet the affectionate look on his son’s face.
“Yes, I am attracted—very much,” said Raine. “More than I had conceived possible.”
“I am so glad—she too is drawn to you, Raine.”
“I think so too—sometimes. At others she baffles me.”
“You would like to know for certain?”
“Of course,” said Raine with a laugh. There seemed a humorous side to the discussion. The loved old face wore an expression of such concern.
“Then, Raine—if you really love her—I can tell you—she has given you her heart, my son. I had it from her own lips.”
The laugh died away from Raine’s eyes. With a quick movement, he came from behind his father and stood facing him, his brows knitted.
“What do you mean, father?” he asked very earnestly.
“Felicia—she is only waiting, Raine.”
“Felicia!”
“Yes. Who else?”
Raine passed his hand through his hair and walked to and fro about the room, his hands dug deep in his pockets. The old man followed him with his eyes, anxiously, not comprehending.
Suddenly Raine stopped short before him.
“Father, I haven’t been a brute. I haven’t trifled with her. I never suspected it. I liked her for her own sake, because she is a bright, likeable girl—and I am fond of her for your sake. But I have never, to my knowledge, led her to suppose—believe me.”
And then the old man saw his plans for Raine’s future fall in desolation round him like a house of cards.
“I don’t understand,” he said rather piteously, “if she is the attraction—”
“It is not little Felicia.”
“Ah!” said the old man, with the bitter pang of disappointment.
He rested his head on his hand, dejectedly.
“I had set my heart upon it. That was why, the first day you came, I spoke of her coming back to Oxford with us. Poor little girl! Heaven knows what will happen to her, when I tell her.”
“Tell her! You mustn’t do that, dad. She must learn it for herself. It will be best for her. I will be very careful—very careful—she will see—and her pride will come to her help. I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll go away—for an indefinite time. Rogers and three men are climbing in Switzerland. I shall pack up my things and go and join them to-morrow; I have a list of their dates.”
He searched for it among the papers in his pocket-book.
“Chamonix! Their being so close will be a good excuse. When I come back—it will only be for a short time—this break will make it easier to modify my attitude.”
“Let us think what would be best,” said the professor with an old man’s greater slowness of decision.
“I have made up my mind,” said Raine. “I go to-morrow.”
Just then a rap was heard at the door, and a moment afterwards Felicia appeared, bringing her daily task of copy. She handed the professor the manuscript—and while he looked through it mechanically, she stood like a school-girl before her master, with clasped hands, waiting pleasurably for the little word of praise.
“There is going to be a specially gorgeous fête on the lake to-night, Mr. Chetwynd,” she said brightly, turning to Raine.
“Won’t it be like the other one?”
“Oh, much more so! There is a royal Duke of somewhere or other staying at the National, and the municipality mean to show him what they can do. I am so fond of these fêtes venétiennes. You’re coming, aren’t you, professor?”
“I don’t know, my dear,” replied the old man. “The night air isn’t good for me.” Then he added, closing the manuscript, “It is beautifully done. I shall grudge giving it to the printers.”
“But you’ll get it all back again,” said Felicia. “Send it to me afterwards, and I’ll bind it up beautifully with blue ribbon.”
She gave them each a little nod of farewell and tripped lightly out of the room. The two men looked at each other, rather sadly.
“Oh, Raine—is it too late? Couldn’t you?”
“No, dad,” said Raine. “I am afraid other things are too serious.”
Later in the day he opened his note-book and his eye fell upon the last fragment he had scribbled. He threw it upon his dressing-table with an exclamation of impatience. The personal application of his aphorisms was too sudden and obvious to be pleasant.
There was no doubt now in his mind as to the face that attracted him to Geneva. It had, vanished on the first day of his arrival, when he had seen Katherine comforting the hurt child. He was conscious too that it had been Katherine all along, at Oxford, whose memory had haunted him, that he had only evoked that of Felicia in order to enable him to deceive himself. He had practised the self-delusion systematically, whenever his thoughts had drifted away from the work and interests that surrounded him. He had made light of the matter, treated it jestingly, grown angry when it obtruded itself seriously on his thoughts. For he had shrunk, with the instinctive fear of a man of strong nature, from exposing to the touch a range of feelings which had once brought him great sorrow. To love meant to bring into play a man’s emotions, infinitely deeper than those of a boy, and subject to far more widely-reaching consequences. For this reason he had mocked at the idea of being in love with Katherine, had forced himself, since the power that drew him to Geneva could not be disregarded, to consider Felicia as an equal component, and at the time of his light confidence to Mrs. Monteith, had almost persuaded himself that he was indulging in a whimsical holiday fancy.
But he could delude himself no longer. From the first meeting he knew that it was not the young girl, but the older, deeper-natured woman that had stirred him. He had felt kindly and grateful to her for his father’s sake; but there his feelings had stopped. Whereas, with Katherine, he had been drifting, he knew not whither. The process of subjective development had been brought suddenly to its climax by his father’s words. He realized that he loved Katherine.
To fly away from Geneva at this moment was particularly unpleasant—necessitating almost the rending of his heart-strings. But as he had decided, he sent a telegram to Rogers at Chamonix, secured a place in the next morning’s diligence, and packed his Gladstone-bag and knapsack. He was sincerely sorry for Felicia. No decent, honest man can learn that a girl has given him her heart in vain, without a certain amount of pain and perplexity.
“And to think that I have been such a blind idiot as never even to suspect it?” he exclaimed with a vicious jerk of the bag-strap, which burst it, and thereby occasioned a temporary diversion.
“I passed you this afternoon and you did not see me,” said Felicia as they were going in to dinner. “You were in the diligence office.”
“Yes,” said Raine, “I was engaging a seat to Chamonix. I am going climbing with some Oxford people.”
“When do you start?”
“To-morrow,” said Raine. “I think I may be away some weeks.”
He could not help noticing the look of disappointment in her eyes, and the little downward droop of her lips. He felt himself a brute for telling her so abruptly. However, he checked the impulse, which many men, in a similar position, have obeyed, out of mistaken kindness, to add a few consoling words as to his return, and took advantage of the general bustle of seat-taking to leave her and go to his place at the opposite side of the table.
Many new arrivals had come to the pension during the last few days. Colonel Cazet and his wife had joined their friends the Por-nichons; several desultory tourists, whose names no one knew, made their appearance at meal-times, and vanished immediately afterwards. When questioned concerning them, Mme. Boccard would reply:
“Oh, des Américains!-” as if that explained everything.
In addition to these, Mr. Skeogh, the commercial gentleman who had surrendered to Frau Schultz’s seductions, had this evening introduced a friend who was passing through Geneva. By virtue of his position as visitor of a guest, Mme. Boccard placed him at the upper end of the table between Fraulein Klinkhardt and Mme. Popea, instead of giving him a seat at the foot, by herself, where new arrivals sat, and whence, by the rules of the pension, they worked their way upwards, according to seniority.
There were twenty-one guests that night. Mme. Boccard turned a red, beaming face to them, disguising with smiles the sharp directing glances kept ever upon the summer waiter and his assistant. The air was filled with a polyglot buzz, above which could be heard the great voices of the old soldiers and the shrill accents of the Americans fresh from the discovery of Chil-Ion. At the head of the table, however, where the older house-party were gathered, reigned a greater calm. Both Mr. Chetwynd and Felicia were silent. Raine conversed in low tones with Katherine, on America, where she had lived most of her younger life. She very rarely alluded to her once adopted nationality, preferring to be recognized as an Englishwoman, but Raine was recording his impressions of a recent visit to New York, an............