The Way of Ambition. Robert Hichens

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СКАЧАТЬ almost whispered Harriet in her very refined voice, "she heard you playing, and knew you were in."

      "Oh, is it Mrs. Mansfield?"

      "No, sir, the lady who called the other day just before that lady came."

      Claude Heath frowned and lifted his hands as if he were going to hit out at the piano.

      "Where is she?" he said in a low voice.

      "In the drawing-room, sir."

      "All right, Harriet. It isn't your fault."

      He got up in a fury and went to the tiny drawing-room, which he scarcely ever used unless some visitor came. Mrs. Shiffney was standing up in it, looking, he thought, very smart and large and audacious, bringing upon him, so he felt as he went in, murmurs and lights from a distant world with which he had nothing to do.

      "How angry you are with me!" she said, lifting her veil and smiling with a careless assurance. "Your eyes are quite blazing with fury."

      Claude, in spite of himself, grew red and all his body felt suddenly stiff.

      "I beg your pardon," he said. "But I was working, and—"

      He touched her powerful hand.

      "You had sprouted your oak, and I have forced it. I know it's much too bad of me."

      He saw that she could not believe she was wholly unwanted by such a man as he was, in such a little house as he had. People always wanted her. Her frankness in running after him showed him her sense of her position, her popularity, her attraction. How could she think she was undignified? No doubt she thought him an oddity who must be treated unconventionally. He felt savage, but he felt flattered.

      "I'll show her what I am!" was his thought.

      Yet already, as he begged her to sit down on one of his chintz-covered chairs, he felt a sort of reluctant pleasure in being with her.

      "May I give you some tea?"

      Her hazel eyes still seemed to him full of laughter. Evidently she regarded him as a boy.

      "No, thank you! I won't be so cruel as to accept."

      "But really, I am—"

      "No, no, you aren't. Never mind! We'll be good friends some day. And I know how artists with tempers hate to be interrupted."

      "I hope my temper is not especially bad," said Claude, stiffening with sudden reserve.

      "I think it's pretty bad, but I don't mind. What a dear, funny little room! But you never sit in it."

      "Not often."

      "I long to see your very own room. But I'm not going to ask you."

      There was a slight pause. Again the ironical light came into her eyes.

      "You're wondering quite terribly why I've come here again," she said. "It's about the yacht."

      "I'm really so very sorry that—"

      "I know, just as I am when I'm refusing all sorts of invitations that I'd rather die than accept. Slipshod, but you know what I mean. You hate the idea. I'm only just going to tell you my party, so that you may think it over and see if you don't feel tempted."

      "I am tempted."

      "But you'd rather die than come. I perfectly understand. I often feel just like that. We shall be very few. Susan Fleet—she's a sort of chaperon to me; being a married woman, I need a chaperon, of course—Max Elliot, Mr. Lane, perhaps—if he can't come some charming man whom you'd delight in—and Charmian Mansfield."

      Again there was a pause. Then Heath said:

      "It's very, very kind of you to care to have me come."

      "I know it is. I am a kind-hearted woman. And now for where we'll go."

      "I really am most awfully sorry, but I'm obliged to stick to work."

      "We might go down along the Riviera as far as Genoa, and then run over to Sicily and Tunis."

      She saw his eyes beginning to shine.

      "Or we might go to the Greek Islands and Smyrna and Constantinople. It's rather early for Constantinople, though, but perfect for Egypt. We could leave the yacht at Alexandria—"

      "I'm very sorry, Mrs. Shiffney, and I hope you'll have a splendid cruise. But I really can't come much as I want to. I have to work."

      "When you say that you look all chin! How terribly determined you are not to enjoy life!"

      "It isn't that at all."

      "How terribly determined you are not to know life. And I always thought artists, unless they wished to be provincial in their work, claimed the whole world as their portion, all experience as their right. But I suppose English artists are different. I often wonder whether they are wise in clinging like limpets to the Puritan tradition. On the Continent, you know, in Paris, Berlin, Rome, Milan, and, above all, in Moscow and Petersburg, they are regarded with pity and amazement. Do forgive me! But artists abroad, and I speak universally, though I know it's generally dangerous to do that, think art is strangled by the Puritan tradition clinging round poor old England's throat."

      She laughed and moved her shoulders.

      "They say how can men be great artists unless they steep themselves in the stream of life."

      "There are sacred rivers like the Ganges, and there are others that are foul and weedy and iridescent with poison," said Heath hotly.

      She saw anger in his eyes.

      "Perhaps you are getting something—some sacred cantata—ready for one of the provincial festivals?" she said. "If that is so, of course, you mustn't break the continuity with a trip to the Greek Islands or Tunis. Besides, you'd get all the wrong sort of inspiration in such places. I shall never forget the beautiful impression I received at—was it Worcester?—once when I saw an English audience staggering slowly to its feet in tribute to the Hallelujah Chorus. I am sure you are writing something that will bring Worcester to its feet, aren't you?"

      He forced a very mirthless laugh.

      "I'm really not writing anything of that kind. But please don't let us talk about my work. I am sure it's very uninteresting except to me. I feel very grateful to you for your kind and delightful offer, but I can't accept it, unfortunately for me."

      "Mal-au-cœur?"

      "Yes, yes. I don't think I'm a good sailor."

      "Mal-au-cœur!" she repeated, smiling satirically at him.

      "I'm in the midst of something."

      "The Puritan tradition?"

      "Perhaps it is that. Whatever it is, I suppose it suits me; it's in my line, so I had better stick to it."

      "You СКАЧАТЬ