Love, which had given her heart wings to soar, clogged Senhouse about the feet, hobbled him and caused him to limp. If she had never loved before, she had played with love; but to him the woe was new. One need not inquire into his relations with women, or believe him immune, to understand that. It was so entirely new to him that he refused to believe in it. She was present with him, though with her face veiled, night and day; the thought of her was joy; his ledge of calochortus took a value in his eyes because she had looked at them, knelt among them, stroked and fondled one, at least. He mocked at himself for searching out and cherishing the marks of her feet, for stooping to touch what seemed to be the printings of her knees; and yet, when he went down the Pillar and stood among other precious growths of his, he saw them a huddle of wet weeds. The outlook was a bad one. He tried to paint, and smeared out everything he tried; to write, and had nothing to say. He slept badly. And yet he could not leave the north; for he had an appointment in October which would take him to Penrith. A learned man from Baden was coming out to meet him, with proposals in his pocket of Grand Ducal dimensions; two years’ plant-hunting in the Caucasus, and three years’ gardening—with the Schwarzwald for his garden. So far the Grand Ducal Government was prepared to go upon report. The thing had been a year coming to a head, for Senhouse was a difficult man to inoculate with other people’s ideas; but to such a head it was now brought, and he felt that, whatever else he did, he must by all means meet Herr Doktor L?ffner.
What was he to do, then, between June and October? Characteristically, with the south calling him, he went north. He shipped at Leith and went to Iceland with Bingo and a saddle-bag for all his luggage. He traversed that island from end to end; and though he could not tire himself, he got his sleeping powers back, began to paint and to believe in his painting, to botanize and to be sure it was worth while. He knew next to nothing of Danish, and was driven in upon himself for company. Upon that fare he throve. He moped no more, forgot Mary for whole hours together, and believed himself cured. In September he returned to Leith and went afoot down to Penrith to meet the Herr Doktor.
Their greeting was cordial. “Oh, man of silences, oh, thou unlettered one, do I find thee in truth?”
“My dear Doctor L?ffner, you do indeed. Come into the yard and I’ll show you some things worth having.”
“Where have you been, my friend?”
“Iceland.”
“Iceland! Ach, then you haf—? No, you haf not—? Never in the worlt!”
“I’m not sure. But I rather think that I have.” What he had was some earth and broken limestone in a sponge-bag—so far as could be seen. But there was enough beside to occupy the pair of them until dinner. Before that meal was ready the Doctor had fallen weeping on Senhouse’s neck, had clasped him to his breast. “Thou hast it—thou hast it—oh, wonder-child!”—and then, as he wiped the dew from his glasses, with a startling lapse into idiom—“I say! Dot was cholly.”
The dinner was very gay; Bingo had an indigestion.
Next morning, the great man was taken out and about to view the various fields of tillage; the ledge where calochortus had been fair in Mary’s eyes, the larkspur slope, and what could be done with Alpines upon a Cumberland moraine. He was more than amazed, he was convinced. “You are chust the man for us. We pick you up cheap, I consider, for ten thousand mark.” Senhouse was not concerned to affirm or deny; but he insisted upon it that he was selling his liberty very cheaply indeed. “And I wouldn’t do it, you know, for a hundred thousand,” he said, “if it weren’t for the two years in the Caucasus. You have me there, I own. I’ve hungered after that for years, and now I’ll take it as it comes to me. There must be irises there which neither Leichtlin nor Korolkov have spotted—I’m certain of it.”
“And you are the man to spod them,” said Herr L?ffner with deep feeling. “Bod, mind you, we haf them wid you in Schwarzwald.”
“Honour among thieves,” said Senhouse. “Depend upon me.”
Herr L?ffner passed by the proposal that he should be taken to the Dukeries to see the cyclamen, or to Wales for the peonies, or to Cornwall for the Ramondias; but he could not resist the promise of Syrian irises growing wild on Dartmoor. That he must see before he died; and he would take Kew and necessary business there on the way. Agreed; they would start in the morning by the express from Carlisle.
This they did; L?ffner, Senhouse, and Bingo journeyed to London, and put up at the Grand Hotel, which was chosen by the savant solely on account of its name. “I feel grand to haf got you my Senhouse,” said he; “let us therefore go to the grandest hotel we can find.” It was not in his friend’s power to correct this simplicity; and the Grand Hotel was too grand for him.
In the “lounge” of this palace—“all looking-glasses and whisky,” as he described it—it was necessary for him to spend certain moments while Herr L?ffner briskly inspected rooms, menus, and lists of wines. Briskly, but with method, he went to work. Senhouse, having discovered that most of the plants were imitation and the others dying, flung himself upon a plush settee and picked up journal after journal, in the hope of finding one which did not contain either photographs of ladies or advertisements. He was grumbling over an evening sheet when his friend joined him and, sighing his content at a good dinner ahead of him, produced and lighted a cigar. Senhouse found himself reading for a second time a paragraph of a leading article which began thus:—
“Ever since the by-election in Farlingbridge, caused by the death of Mr. Germain, the Government has been losing seats with a steadiness as reasonable as reason can require.” Midway through his second reading he stiffened and sat up.
“Excuse me, L?ffner,” he said, “but I must leave you for an hour or so.”
Herr L?ffner beamed and bowed. “I am sorry, but submit. Only—you must promise me to come back, or I lose you, du wilder Mann.”
Senhouse was not vague; on the contrary, he was remarkably collected. “Yes, I’ll come back. But this is a matter of losing myself—or the reverse, as the case may be.” He nodded, and walked straight out of the hotel into the street. Bingo, stepping delicately, with ears set back and muzzle to earth, followed close to his right heel. He shared his master’s contempt of London, but added fear.
The hour was late for callers, since it was now half-past seven, but he knew nothing of hours. He went directly to Hill-street and rang the bell. After a long interval a caretaker released many a bolt and peered round the edge of the door. A respectable, grey-haired lady, very anxious.
“Mrs. Germain?” said Senhouse. He almost heard her sigh.
“Out of town, sir.”
“So I see. But where is she?” Bingo lifted his head high, snuffed the air, misliked it, and yawned.
The elderly lady had no more doubts. “She would be at Southover House, Sir. The family is expected on the 15th for a few days, on their way abroad.”
Senhouse jerked away all this surplusage. “The family? What family? It is Mrs. John Germain, I mean.”
Whatever caution may have lingered in the caretaker now disappeared, in the occasion of a treasured wonder to be revealed. “Oh, Sir, we don’t know anything about her. It’s all a mystery, Sir, and has been since Mr. John—passed away.”
“What do you mean by that?” she was asked.
Her cue! “She’s not been seen or heard of, Sir—not by her own family nor by ours. She went away by herself in July—after the event. Sir—and here&............