CHAPTER XXI.—A WALK ACROSS HYDE PARK.

The new-comer was a tall, robust-looking man in the prime of life, who was dressed with the utmost neatness and exactness, in the plain frock coat and grey-coloured trousers so much in favour among so-called business men Despite the ceremony with which he was introduced, and which showed that he was an individual of no small importance, his manner was modest and retiring in the extreme, and he looked around him on the splendid temple of modern painting, and at its famous owner, with smiling and good-humoured homage.

Serena put down his brush at once, and warmly shook hands. Then, seeing Madeline, the new-comer made a movement as if to retire.

‘I am afraid I interrupt you,’ he exclaimed.

But before he could say more, Madeline came forward gently, and offered her hand.

‘Miss Hazelmere!’ he exclaimed, recognising her; ‘or shall I rather call you by the name you’ve already made so famous?’

‘You know each other?’ interrupted Serena, with some surprise.

‘Oh yes,’ cried Madeline, smiling. ‘Mr. Forster and I are old, old friends.’

At this statement even the new-comer himself evinced some surprise; but Madeline continued—

‘When I was only a very little girl, Mr. Forster, I remember how you came to see my guardian one day when he was sick, and how, when you went away, he cried and told me how good you were. You came often after that, and we used to talk of you together. And the other night at the theatre, when I saw your face in the box, I felt so glad, and I said to myself, “I won’t be afraid now, for there are at least two kind faces in front—one my dear guardian’s, the other the face of the best friend he ever had in the world.”’

Under this simple praise Forster looked a little uncomfortable.

‘How is White?’ he inquired nervously, as if for want of something better to say.

Madeline did not immediately reply, so Serena answered for her.

‘At the present moment, my dear Forster, our friend White is the happiest fellow in all the world, or shall I rather say, in all Bohemia. A hundred successful original plays, a thousand successful adaptations, could not have given him half the pleasure that he feels at the triumph of his charming ward. And well may he be proud. He has hatched at his lonely hearth a phoenix, who rises out of the ashes of our drama, to glorify the stage.’

‘Ah, but you spoil me,’ said Madeline, well pleased, nevertheless. ‘It is so easy to act; and, besides, who but my dear guardian has taught me the little I know?’

‘For you it is easy,’ returned Serena, gallantly; ‘ah yes—and it is easy for a flower to look beautiful or for a lark to sing a splendid song. That is all the difference between genius and talent. All you have to do is to be natural, to be your charming self, and the art comes of itself, like the perfume from a rose.’

Madeline looked at Forster and laughed.

‘Mr. Serena would not say that,’ she said, ‘if he knew what a goose I was when I first began. It was in that little theatre at Ryde, in the Isle of Wight, and when I went on the people could not hear a word, and I did not know what to do with my hands and feet. The manager said I was the greatest idiot who ever stept upon his stage, and he was right.’

Serena was not to be dismayed.

‘Another proof of genius,’ he cried. ‘Mere talent would have caught all the tricks of the stage, and by means of its affectations and insincerities gained cheap applause at the outset. I have often heard my friend Eugene Aram say that when he began he was so great a stick that no manager would keep him in his theatre. The people laughed at his legs, mimicked his voice. Critics compared him to the Knight of the Rueful Visage. He was invertebrate, inchoate, inarticulate. Look at him now. The people adore his legs and consider his voice music itself. That’s genius, my dear, depend upon it.’

‘One touch of genius makes amends for much,’ observed Forster quietly. ‘I don’t think Aram is a good actor even now, but he is interesting and intelligent, and his eccentricities have a fascination.’ He added, turning to the picture in the easel, ‘May I ask, is that picture a commission?’

Serena shook his head.

‘If I could afford it,’ he answered, ‘I should say “Yes,” and make a present of it—to the original. But it’s not worthy of her; upon my word it’s not worthy. I’m ashamed of my art when I compare my miserable attempt to the reality.’

‘It is very like,’ said Forster thoughtfully, studying before the canvas; ‘but too sorrowful; too sorrowful! I should not like to see Miss Hazelmere look like that.’

‘You see, it’s an “Ophelia,”’ observed Serena apologetically.

‘I would rather you had painted her as smiling and happy. So young a face should not reveal such depths of suffering. There is no hope here, and in Miss Hazelmere’s face all should be hope and happiness.’

Turning to glance at Madeline, he was startled and surprised. She was gazing now at the picture with the very expression depicted in it; all life, all pleasure seemed to have faded out of her face, leaving nothing but blankness there, and the shadow of a painful dream. Her thoughts seemed to have wandered far away, and have left her unconscious of the presence in which she stood.

But while he gazed the look faded, and the light came back to her eyes. Meeting his gaze she smiled, and held out her hand.

‘I must go now,’ she said; ‘my sitting is over, and I am already past my time.’

‘Do you ride or walk?’ asked Forster.

‘I am going to walk across the park, and then, at the Marble Arch, I shall take a cab.’

‘May I offer myself as an escort?’ he said, after a moment’s hesitation. ‘I am going that way, and—and———’

He paused, smiling benignly and blushing boyishly, but Madeline at once put her hand upon his arm and accepted his escort with a happy smile. Serena saw them to the door, and watched them as they walked chatting up the street.

‘I think I know the signs,’ muttered the painter to himself, ‘and if Forster is not fascinated, Eros Athanatos is no true god. Well, so be it. It will be none the worse for my pictures, and a splendid thing for the girl.’

Left alone with Madeline, Forster felt constrained and a little uneasy, but her perfect simplicity and frankness soon put him entirely at his ease. She was indeed happy beyond measure in his accidental companionship. Since her early childhood his name had been familiar to her as that of one whom White emphatically pronounced to be ‘the best man he had ever known or hoped to know,’ and his perfect gentleness and kindliness, which impressed even the most casual observer of his countenance, won the open-hearted girl at once. Leaning lightly on his arm, she chatted away frankly and fearlessly, as she might have done to White himself. Frank without boldness, fearless without forwardness, in every word and gesture free and spirituelle without affectation, she fairly won her way to his heart of hearts. Talking with her was like talking with a child; she was so unconscious of herself, so un reserved; and this, seeing her wonderful physical beauty, constituted at once her peril and her charm.

Passing in at Albert Gate, they crossed Rotten Row, and strolled quietly across the park. It was a bright golden day, and Madeline, always the creature of physical and external impressions, seemed to kindle into new gladness. She looked at the fair horsewomen, of whom there was a fair sprinkling already, though it was early in the afternoon, and laughed for pleasure.

‘Do you like riding?’ she asked. ‘I have never ridden; but I think if I were on a horse’s back, I could ride—and ride—and ride—and never stop.’

‘You would find it duller than you think,’ said Forster. ‘I ride here often, and do not think it very amusing.’

To his astonishment Madeline asked, quietly—

‘Does Mrs. Forster ride?’

‘Mrs. Forster?’ he repeated.

‘I mean your wife.’

‘My wife,’ he echoed, in still greater astonishment. ‘I am not married!’

‘How strange!’ exclaimed Madeline, with raised eyebrows. ‘Not married?’

‘Why is it so strange?’ asked Forster, with a laugh.

‘You do not look like an old bachelor—no, I don’t mean that; but there is something in your manner which makes one think of a kind wife, and little children, and home. You are not old, and yet I feel as if I could speak to you so freely, and could tell you anything, as I do my dear guardian. Do you understand?’

‘I think I do—partly,’ answered Forster, not without a certain uneasiness.

‘And that lady whom I saw you with at the theatre on the first night of “Cymbeline”—I thought she was Mrs. Forster.’

‘That was my sister.’

They walked on for a little in silence. Forster was the first to speak.

‘It is curious, after all, that you should class me among the married people, for the fact is, I am a widower. My poor wife died many years ago, and left me one child, a boy. My sister keeps my house; but when you talk of home, and home ties, I cannot help telling you that I am a very lonely man—quite an old bachelor, indeed, in my way. When, after a long day in the City, I return to my house, and get among my books and pictures, I am still lonely, but sometimes very happy after all.’

A girl less na?ve and unsuspicious than Madeline might have been astonished at this fragment of autobiography, coming from such a man, and might have questioned her own fascinations as to the origin of such candour. But Madeline thought it quite natural, as between friend and friend.

‘But let us speak of other things,* continued Forster, after a pause, ‘of yourself. I sometimes think, if you will forgive me for saying so, that you must be rather lonely too.’

‘No,’ she replied readily; adding with her brightest smile, ‘not while I have Mr. White.’

‘Ah, he is a good fellow—but you have neither father nor mother.’

Madeline shook her head.

‘They died long ago. I do not remember them.’

‘Your other relations?’

‘I have none.’

‘None?’

‘When my father died I was left with poor people, who brought me up. Then trouble came, and Uncle Mark died, and I was brought to Mr. White. Uncle Luke brought me. After he went away he used to write me, but at last all letters ceased. Mr. White made inquiries, but he had disappeared, and no one knew where he had gone. Dear Uncle Luke!’

Her voice was broken, and her eyes were full of tears.

‘What made you think of going upon the stage?’

‘I used to go to the theatre with Mademoiselle de Berny, and she used to make me hear her go through her parts. I always loved acting, Mr. Forster, and at Mr. White’s there were so many professional people. Afterwards, when I was older, I tried to think how I could repay my dear guardian for all his kindness, and then I thought if I could act—only a little—it would be some help. When he first heard me recite he was pleased, and I told him I would like to become an actress and act in his plays. So he sent me down into the country to try. That was how it began.’

‘And you like acting?’

‘Better than anything in the world; best of all, Mr. Forster, because it makes my dear guardian happy.’

‘You will make a great name/

‘I don’t care for that—yes, I do care; for a great name would mean a great deal of money, and I want that?

‘Indeed! Why?’

‘Because Mr. White is poor, and I want to make him rich—as rich as he deserves to be, for all his goodness to me. I love him so much. I should like to put him in a palace and surround him with splendour, like a king in a fairy tale.’

Forster laughed merrily.

‘I don’t think White would care for a palace, and he’s too Bohemian for a king.’

‘What do you mean by Bohemian?’ asked Madeline, with her characteristic frankness. ‘I often hear the word, and I don’t understand it.’

‘I’m not sure that I do either,’ he answered at once, ‘unless it means unconventionality, carelessness of appearances, contempt for Mrs. Grundy. In White’s case, though, it means far more—honesty, lightness of heart, patience under disappointment, all combined in one of the best fellows in the world.’

‘If you knew all about him, Mr. Forster, you would say even more than that. If you knew—if you knew—but no one will ever know but God! Oh, I should die if he even thought me ungrateful—he is so good. I have no other friend in all the world!’

‘Do not cry; you have one other.’

‘No.’

‘While I live, I hope you will not doubt it.’

She paused, and, looking at him through her tears, held out both her hands.

‘It is so kind of you to say so,’ she cried. ‘Yes, you are good also; but no one in the world can be to me what Mr. White has been.’

‘It is right that you should be grateful,’ said Forster, gently, ‘and I think more highly of you for that holy feeling. But here we are at the Marble Arch. Must I call a cab?’

‘If you please, unless you will drive home with me, and see Mr. White. I know he is at home, for he is very busy on his new play.’

The offer was accepted as frankly as it was made, and Forster’s face shone with pleasure.

‘Shall it be a hansom or a four-wheeler?’ he said, smiling.

‘A hansom, please; I cannot bear these slow old things, and I love hansoms. I used to think when I was a little girl that I would like to have one all to myself, and drive about in it for ever.’

A hansom was called, and the pair entered it; they drove swiftly away to St. John’s Wood. Very little more was said on either side, but Forster felt very happy.

They turned into the old familiar street, and reined up before the old familiar ‘studio,’ which Madeline knew and loved so well. They found the dramatist en déshabille and very busy, not on the new play, as Madeline had stated, but on a picture—which, on their entry, he hastily covered up.

‘My dear Forster,’ he exclaimed, with real delight. ‘How glad I am! But, upon my life, you puzzle me. How does it happen that——’

He paused and looked questioningly at Madeline, who laughed and explained.

‘I met Mr. Forster when I was sitting for my portrait, and he brought me home.’

‘Very good of him.’

‘Was it not? But what are you doing? Painting something! You told me the other day that you did not intend to paint any more.’

‘It’s nothing,’ returned the dramatist, ‘nothing at all. Only a kind of sketch—a little thing of memory. No, no,’ he added, as Madeline approached the canvas, ‘you mustn’t look at it. It’s a secret. It’s—it’s a—portrait—of—a—young—lady—I—admire.’

Quietly laughing, he endeavoured to prevent Madeline from inspecting the picture, but she was too quick for him, and had already uncovered the easel.

‘Why, it’s me!’ she cried, and continued merrily, with a theatrical gesture, ‘I mean “it is I”!—which is the same thing, and more grammatical.’

‘Grammar was never your strong point, my dear,’ observed White, gently. ‘Well, what do you think of it?’

It was Madeline indeed, but Madeline the child, as she first appeared, with wild, wistful eyes, in that lonely studio. The colours were crude, the drawing incorrect, but for all that the expression was there, and the whole thing was instinct with life.

With smiling face and clasped hands, Madeline stood gazing at the likeness; then, as if moved by a sudden impulse, she threw her arms round White’s neck and kissed him, first on one cheek then on the other, while Forster looked on in amused sympathy.

‘You like it, my dear? It was—ahem!—a sort of a kind of an inspiration. It came upon me when I was looking at the play, and, by Jove, I had to do it.’

‘It is really capital,’ said Forster. ‘I should have recognised the likeness anywhere.’

‘Of course, it’s only a daub,’ returned White, humbly. ‘I might have painted decently if I had stuck to it, instead of dangling after Jew managers and doing potboilers for Eugene Aram. But you’re fresh from seeing Serena’s picture, and that gives my thing no chance.’

‘I don’t care for Mr. Serena’s picture,’ cried Madeline. ‘I do not like to tell him so, but I am sure I am not so lovely as he makes me, and I know my eyes are not green. I like your picture ever so much the best—and, oh! it was so kind of you to do it, Mr. White. It is just like me as I was—a nasty, little, pale thing, with shock hair!’

And she stood contemplating the likeness in an ecstasy of honest reminiscence.

‘My dear, you were never nasty,’ said White, good humouredly. ‘Shock haired, if you like, but charming as you are now.’

‘Always charming, I’m sure,’ suggested Forster, mildly ‘Do you know, I should like to buy this picture?’

White opened his eyes.

‘Take it, my dear fellow, it’s of no pecuniary value. Stop, though! I can make a composition of it by putting in some flowers and a bit of background, and calling it “Primroses—a Study,” or something of that sort.’

‘You’ll allow me to fix the price?’ said Forster.

But there Madeline interfered.

‘No, Mr. White, you must not sell it; that is, you will sell it to no one but the original. How much must I give you for it? A thousand guineas? Two thousand? Tell me, and I’ll begin to save at once.’

She paused with sparkling eyes, looking into her guardian’s face.

‘Miss Hazelmere is right,’ said Forster; ‘she must keep the sketch as a souvenir of her childhood. No other person in the world has a right to possess it.’

No more was said on the subject, and White soon led the way into the adjoining house, there to dispense the hospitalities to his friend, who, however, soon took his leave, and departed by omnibus towards his home in South Kensington.

The night afterwards, however, Madeline saw his hearty face looking from a box in the theatre, and between the acts he came round to speak to her. He said little, but what he did say set her wits working, and the next morning she told White, as they sat at breakfast, that Mr. Forster had witnessed the performance on the previous evening.

‘Oh, indeed,’ said the dramatist with a pleased smile. ‘Did he come round?’

‘Yes, for a few minutes.’

‘It’s rather odd, and I think you may take it as a compliment. Forster doesn’t care for the drama as a rule.’

‘Indeed!’

‘Fact, my dear. Why, though we’re such capital friends, he has seldom come even to see my plays.’

‘Do you know his sister?’

‘Who told you he had a sister?’ asked White, slyly.

‘He did.’

‘Indeed. Well, the fact is, I don’t know her. She’s a sort of amiable Ogre; pious, you know, and all that sort of thing. Whenever I have dined at the house, she has been invisible; but we’ve generally met at his club.’

‘And his little boy?’

‘Eh? Who told you he had a little boy? The same informant. Why, he’s been giving you his autobiography!’

‘He only told me he was a widower.’

‘And that’s more than he ever told to me, though of course I was aware of it. You see, our friendship has been a sort of club friendship, and, besides, all the favour has been on his side. A rich man like Forster and a poor devil like myself can’t meet on equal terms.’

‘He is rich, then?’

‘Very. One of the oldest firms in the city. His house in Cromwell Road is like a palace, and the pictures in it alone would realise a fortune.’

Madeline looked thoughtful, then she said—‘I’m sorry he’s so rich.’

‘God bless me! why?’

‘I don’t like rich people, and—and he’s so nice!’ ‘If you were a poor poet, or a struggling painter, or a musician with a craze, you wouldn’t blame the dear fellow for his good fortune. He’s so generous, so good-hearted—not only to me, but to every fellow-creature who needs his help. Then look how modest and unaffected he is. His own flunkeys are lords to him, and when he asks for a cup in his own house he’s like a humble City clerk asking deferentially for refreshment in a large hotel.’

Having thus begun, White did not pause till he had sounded the praises of his patron over and over again; told of his goodness and generosity to himself personally; of his countless good deeds to others, who would otherwise have sunk long ago in the dark waters of Bohemia. The theme brought honest tears, as White concluded that ‘if ever there was an angel in a frock-coat and grey trousers, it was James Forster.’

Unsuspicious as Madeline herself, White at first saw nothing remarkable in the close interest with which Forster followed the fortunes of his ward. Nor, when some days afterwards the merchant again put in an appearance, bringing with him a bouquet of choice flowers, did the simple soul awake to much suspicion of the truth.

One afternoon, however, as White sat at work on the scenario of a new play, which he was about to submit to the distinguished Mr. Aram, Madeline entered in great agitation.

‘Are you busy? May I speak to you?’ she exclaimed.

‘Certainly, my dear; my time is yours. But what’s the matter?’

‘Something terrible has happened.’

‘Indeed!’

The dramatist pushed his papers aside, and arose trembling to his feet.

‘Mr. Forster——’

There she paused.

‘Not ill, I hope?’

‘Oh, no, no. But I have just left him. He was at Mr. Serena’s, and he came part of the way home.’

‘Yes. Pray go on.’

‘Oh, I was afraid of it!’ cried Madeline, with a sob. ‘I should have avoided him!—and yet, at first, I could not believe it possible.’

‘Do explain!’ cried White, in hopeless perplexity.

Madeline sank into a chair, crying, and hid her face in her hands.

‘He has asked me to become his wife.’