THE WEAKER VESSEL
 
 THE 
 
 WEAKEt VESSEL 
 
 BY 
 
 D. CHRISTIE MURRx-\Y 
 
 AUTHOR OF 'Joseph's coat,' ' rainbow gold,' ' aunt rachel.' etc. 
 
 IX THREE VOLS. 
 VOL. L 
 
 Hontron 
 MACMILLAN AND CO. 
 
 AND NEW YORK 
 1888 
 
 All rights reserved
 
 Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2009 with funding from 
 
 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/weakervessel01murr
 
 ?23 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 George Dolmer Delamere, Esq., being 
 
 advertised to lecture in the Athenaeum Hall 
 
 Bondage Road, Houndsditch, under the 
 
 auspices of the Moral Tone Association, I 
 
 paid my threepence, secured thereby a right 
 
 of entry to the reserved seats, and went in to 
 
 ^'listen. I was at this time an idle man (not, I 
 
 '^ think, from any fault of mine), and anxious 
 
 '^ to find some business which should bring in 
 
 ;^ butter for that necessary daily loaf which was 
 
 a already provided for me by a kindly fortune. 
 
 -^ In the hope that I might one day find a 
 
 ^ literary use for the knowledge I was picking 
 
 ^up by bits and scraps, I had devoted myself 
 
 ^ for some months to the study of life and 
 
 <^ VOL. I B
 
 777^ WEAKER VESSEL 
 
 manners in various corners of London, and 
 was in the habit of making enthusiastic and 
 copious notes. George Dolmer Delamere, 
 Esq., was known to me as to almost every- 
 body by name, and the doings of the Moral 
 Tone Association had been trumpeted in the 
 newspapers of late. 
 
 I sat down and waited in a waste little 
 room, and had ample time to look about me. 
 There were thirty or forty people already 
 present, and at intervals of a minute or so a 
 new-comer would appear, smoothing his hair 
 furtively, and creaking to a seat on tiptoe, as 
 though he were afraid of awaking the echoes. 
 People coughed apologetically and shuffled 
 their feet, and sat apart from one another. 
 The place and everybody in it had an air of 
 penance, and, so far as one might judge from 
 appearances, the Gospel of the Moral Tone 
 was not gay or popular. The audience was 
 made up mainly of youngish men, most of 
 whom looked thoughtful and earnest. They 
 were ill at ease because they were not used
 
 THE WEAKER VESSEL 
 
 to society, and they were evidently anxious 
 to observe and evidently anxious to be un- 
 observed. 
 
 When we had sat in a shuffling and un- 
 easy silence for a quarter of an hour, a dapper 
 man opened a door at the back of the room 
 and looked in. The scattered assembly ap- 
 plauded, and the dapper man disappeared ; 
 but a few minutes later returned at the head 
 of a string of ladies and gentlemen who, in 
 accompaniment to a dropping fire of hand- 
 clapping, advanced to a low platform and 
 took their seats upon it. The leader took 
 his place at a red-clad table in the centre, 
 and at his right sat a gentleman whose very 
 aspect was a lesson in tone. He was tall and 
 slender and stately, and he condescended 
 from his crowm to his heels in every attitude 
 and movement. His face was refined and 
 capable, and he smiled in a complex way, 
 which expressed curiosity, and affable pity, 
 and a profound allowance all at once. He 
 had a tall, bald forehead ; silky white hair,
 
 4 THE WEAKER VESSEL chap. 
 
 rather unusually long ; long narrow hands of 
 extraordinary whiteness and delicacy ; and a 
 mouth which, in the intervals of his smile, 
 looked a trifle peevish and disappointed. He 
 was in evening dress, and would have looked 
 remarkable and distinguished anywhere. 
 Here he was as remarkable as a stag in a 
 herd of cart-horses. I supposed this gentle- 
 man to be George Dolmer Delamere, Esq., 
 and the dapper man in the chair confirmed 
 my supposition by his introductory speech. 
 
 Mr. Delamere, he told us, was a gentleman 
 who had always taken the deepest interest 
 in art. He was known in the highest artistic 
 circles, as everybody knew ; and his delicate 
 taste and profound knowledge had secured 
 for him a position unique in the artistic 
 world. He was warmly interested also in 
 the condition of the people, and the Moral 
 Tone Association had been so fortunate as to 
 enlist his invaluable sympathy and support. 
 The dapper man would no longer detain us 
 from the intellectual treat in store. Mr.
 
 THE WEAKER VESSEL 
 
 Dolmer Delamere would deliver to us an 
 address on the Line of Beauty. 
 
 Mr. Delamere arose and began to talk 
 without preface in a gentle and persuasive 
 voice, which carried conviction of high 
 breeding in every tone of it. A great black 
 board on a wheeled stand was placed upon 
 the platform, with a clean napkin hanging 
 over it, and a number of pieces of white 
 chalk scattered on a rest below it. Whilst 
 he talked he took down the napkin and 
 polished the black board, as only an accom- 
 plished critic and a gentleman could polish a 
 black board. By way of preliminary, he told 
 us in his soft persuasive voice that the only 
 fashion of manfully facing the future was to 
 convince ourselves that the past was dead. 
 The creeds in which the human race had 
 been cradled were dead and done with. The 
 religious go-carts in which humanity had 
 toddled for centuries were broken, and there 
 was not the faintest little hope of mending 
 them. That hope of a hereafter, with which
 
 6 THE WEAKER VESSEL chap. 
 
 benevolent cheats or misguided enthusiasts 
 had beguiled the poor and suffering, was 
 finally extinguished. There was but one 
 life to live, and it must be made the best of. 
 To make the best of it, it was necessary to 
 redeem it from ugliness. Ugliness, whether 
 material or moral, was a crime which created 
 its own punishment — a crime infectious as 
 measles. Everybody suffered from it, and 
 almost everybody actively propagated it. 
 He proposed to offer a slight — a very slight 
 — reactionary dose that evening. He would 
 do his humble best to show us what beauty 
 was and what it was not. When everything 
 was beautiful and everybody had caught the 
 prevailing sentiment of things, everybody 
 would be good and everybody would be 
 happy, because beauty and goodness and 
 happiness were interchangeable terms. He 
 put all this lightly, gracefully, in well-chosen, 
 striking, and clear words, so that nobody 
 could fail to understand him ; and then, with 
 a rare purity of line and certainty of hand,
 
 THE WEAKER VESSEL 
 
 he began to draw upon the black board. 
 He showed us architectural lines which were 
 ugly and architectural lines which were beau- 
 tiful ; and he drew for us curves of all kinds, 
 talking without pause the while, and interest- 
 ing everybody present. Then in a while he 
 mounted to the human face, and drew a 
 plain but not unprepossessing countenance in 
 three-quarters. He pointed out to us how 
 plain it was, and by the side of it drew 
 another face, unmistakably the same, and yet 
 pleasanter to look upon. Talking on and 
 working with great delicacy and assurance 
 of touch, he drew a third face, still unmis- 
 takably the same, but charming ; and finally, 
 after a fourth step towards perfection, he 
 sketched for us a face w^hich was simply and 
 purely beautiful. As he stood aside from 
 each drawing in turn as it was completed, 
 the little audience broke into warm applause ; 
 and when the last face was finished, the 
 stamping of enthusiastic feet raised a dust of 
 faded odour from the floor, and made the
 
 8 THE WEAKER VESSEL chap. 
 
 place feel as if it had awakened after being 
 neglected for a century. Then, when the 
 applause had subsided, he told us how the 
 faults in the first face, which made it plain, 
 were due to certain inadequacies of character, 
 and traced for us mental and moral progress 
 in the lines which led up to beauty. 
 
 Finally, everybody was interested, and 
 most were charmed and persuaded. If Mr. 
 Dolmer Delamere condescended to us — and 
 he did — it seemed so natural, and the con- 
 descension was so delicately and kindly ex- 
 pressed, that not a soul could dream of taking 
 umbrage at it. How could he but conde- 
 scend, moving on so high a plane of thought, 
 being so refined, and sensitive, and good, 
 and so filled with that piety of cultured 
 nature of which he spoke so often .^ His 
 audience was rough and poor, and he was a 
 product of ages of exquisitely refined think- 
 ing and living. 
 
 The dapper man proposed a vote of 
 thanks, which was most eagerly carried, and
 
 THE WEAKER VESSEL 
 
 he promised Mr. Delamere, that if he should 
 again honour them by his presence, an audi- 
 ence more fitting in number and enthusiasm 
 would certainly welcome his appearance. Mr. 
 Delamere responded, the ladies and gentle- 
 men withdrew, and the audience crowded 
 round the platform to discuss and admire 
 the five faces on the black board, until some- 
 body turned out the lights and we were left 
 to find our way out in the dark. 
 
 The gas went out so suddenly, and I had 
 been looking so intently at the five beauti- 
 fully-drawn outlines, that for an instant 
 everything was left distinctly on the retina 
 or on the mind. On the mind, I think, for I 
 am conscious now, and seem to have been 
 conscious then, of the pale ring of faces, and 
 the tint of the walls, and the shape of the 
 windows, and the colours of the shadows 
 that lurked in corners, and half a dozen other 
 little details of which the eye could not 
 at any given moment have taken complete 
 cognisance. The faces quite lived with me.
 
 lo THE WEAKER VESSEL chap. 
 
 and I went out into the streets in company 
 with them. 
 
 I do not know if it may not seem a bold 
 thing to say — perhaps it may seem a boast- 
 fully foolish thing, though it is no more than 
 simple fact — but I never, in the whole course 
 of a wandering and eventful life, have cast a 
 conscious look upon a face, if it were only in 
 passing along Regent Street or in struggling 
 to a carriage from a railway platform, but I 
 could recall it clearly and identify it, and if 
 I were artist enough could paint it. A pic- 
 ture impresses itself less vividly and pro- 
 foundly, and I have but dim remembrances 
 of many portraits which I have scrutinised 
 with care. The five sketches were but newl}^ 
 imprinted on the mind, however, and I car- 
 ried them away with unblurred eyes. I 
 compared the fourth and fifth, and somehow, 
 though it was likely enough that a finer 
 moral and intellectual excellence was ex- 
 pressed in the last, somehow, in my unre- 
 generate way, I liked the fourth the better.
 
 I THE WEAKER VESSEL n 
 
 and thought it a more human and lovable 
 type. 
 
 I sauntered on, without taking much 
 notice of the people whom I passed or who 
 breasted the bitter wind which blew behind 
 me, until a something out of consonance with 
 the street recalled me to myself. A pair of 
 well-appointed carriages had halted at the 
 edee of the horse -road, and Mr. Delamere, 
 whose figure was easily recognisable, was 
 shaking hands with a lady who leaned from 
 one of them. 
 
 ' Pray, let me drive you there,' said the 
 lady ; ' it is so little out of our way.' 
 
 ' No,' said Mr. Delamere. ' I am obliged 
 to you ; but I will walk until I find a han- 
 som.' 
 
 I sauntered on, thinking. I heard the 
 lady say, ' Good-night, then,' and Mr. Dela- 
 mere said to the coachman, ' Home.' The 
 carriages moved past me, and a minute or 
 two later Mr. Delamere went by, weaving a 
 scarf about his throat as he walked. He
 
 12 THE WEAKER VESSEL chap. 
 
 turned in passing and regarded me, and then 
 went on with a sHght shiver at the bitter 
 wind, and, going at a swift and resolute pace, 
 turned a corner and went out of sight. My 
 way led me after him, and I followed. When 
 I reached the corner he had already cleared 
 the short street upon which I entered. Not 
 a figure broke the monotony of its lines from 
 end to end, and the neighbourhood was more 
 desolate than a desert. The noise of the 
 wind was dulled here, and I could still hear 
 the quick and nervous beat of the lecturer's 
 heels as he trod the pavement beyond the 
 next turning. Suddenly the step paused, 
 and there was a cry. I ran forward — I had 
 not more than twenty yards to run before I 
 reached the corner — and there was the 
 apostle of sweetness in the hands of three 
 who were not as yet his disciples. He was 
 struggling with them ; his light overcoat was 
 torn open, and I saw the gleam of his white 
 shirt-front in the light of a street lamp. As 
 I came in sight of the swaying quartette I
 
 I THE WEAKER VESSEL 13 
 
 saw a blow struck. ]\Ir. Dolmer Delamere 
 fell full length on the pavement, and at the 
 sound of my approaching footsteps the three 
 scoundrels made off at a run. I shouted 
 'Stop thief as I ran, and saw the fellows 
 scatter and take different ways. 
 
 Mr. Delamere was but little hurt. His 
 hat was crushed, his right elbow was numbed 
 — I had a fear at first that his arm was broken 
 — and his coat was torn in two or three 
 places. His watch dangled from its chain, 
 and the buttons were torn from his waist- 
 coat, but he had lost nothing ; and when I 
 had helped him to his feet we ran at his 
 urging to the end of the street, shouting 
 'Stop thief until it became evident that 
 his assailants had escaped. No policeman 
 made an appearance, and, so far as I saw, 
 no one appeared at door or window to mani- 
 fest any interest in the affair. We settled 
 down almost directly, and I ventured to ob- 
 serve — being young and nervous, and feeling 
 it necessary to say something — that all the
 
 14 THE WEAKER VESSEL chap. 
 
 world was not quite converted to the prin- 
 ciples of the Moral Tone Association. 
 
 'No,' he said; 'you arrived by a happy 
 accident for me. Those fellows were ready 
 for any extremity of violence.' He looked 
 down at me from his superior height, and 
 by and by added, ' I have seen you before 
 this evening ? ' 
 
 ' Yes,' I answered. ' I was present at 
 your lecture.' 
 
 ' You reside in this neighbourhood .^ ' he 
 asked me, with that courteous condescension 
 which had marked him all the evening. 
 
 ' Some miles away,' I said. I went on to 
 express some surprise and admiration for his 
 coolness. Most men would have become a 
 little flustered and excited. 
 
 ' I have lived long enough to learn one 
 important lesson,' he responded. ' Now is a 
 man's only time. When a thing is done, I 
 have done with it.' 
 
 I was much the more flustered of the two 
 — indeed, he did not seem disturbed at all.
 
 I THE WEAKER VESSEL 15 
 
 He chafed the numbed elbow, and, catching 
 me in the act of looking at him, he said with 
 a smile — 
 
 ' That is a part of now, and will be for a 
 day or two, I fancy. You go about among 
 these people ? Yes ? You are not a clergy- 
 man ? I thought not. A doctor ? No? A 
 student of human nature ? ' 
 
 I blushed and pleaded guilty stammer- 
 ingly. They were interesting — the people 
 down here. I am afraid I caught something 
 of his own tone, and, being very young and 
 an absurd prig and coxcomb in a hundred 
 ways (though, as I believe, a fairly honest 
 and lovable lad at bottom), I was pleased to 
 find that he did not confound me with the 
 rest of his hearers, and wanted him to under- 
 stand that I was an intellectual young person. 
 
 'Yes,' said he, still chafing the numbed 
 elbow ; ' they make themselves interesting.' 
 Then a moment later, ' What sort of a 
 sample had I there to-night .'^ Were they 
 exceptional .^ '
 
 1 6 THE WEAKER VESSEL chap. 
 
 'Certainly not representative,' I told 
 him. Exceptionally intelligent, curious, and 
 anxious to learn, I fancied. For the most 
 part the people of that quarter seemed 
 apathetic, stolid, not anxious to go beyond 
 themselves and their affairs of everyday. 
 He was so easy, stately, and condescending 
 that I was rather in awe of him, and ex- 
 pressed myself somewhat hesitatingly. 
 
 ' You must be good enough to let me 
 know to whom I am indebted,' he said, 
 when I had done speaking. He drew a 
 card-case from his pocket, and we exchanged 
 cards. He paused beneath a lamp and read 
 my name and address aloud. ' John Den- 
 ham, lo Warwick Court, Gray's Inn.' A 
 four - wheeled cab rumbled into the street ; 
 he hailed it, and it proved to be empty. 
 ' You must let me set you down, Mr. Den- 
 ham, if you are going homewards now.' 
 
 I accepted his invitation, and as we rode 
 he persuaded me to talk. The rattling 
 noise of the vehicle made conversation
 
 I THE WEAKER VESSEL 17 
 
 difficult, and I had to shout at him, so that 
 I felt impudent and noisy. When the driver 
 pulled up at the entrance to Warwick Court 
 Mr. Delamere shook me by the hand, ex- 
 pressed a desire to see more of me, promised 
 to write in the course of a day or two, and 
 then drove away. 
 
 In a day or two an invitation to dinner 
 awaited me. Mr. Delamere expressed a 
 hope that I might not be engaged for the 
 specified day, and asked me, if I should be 
 so, to appoint another date and give him a 
 week's notice. I wrote at once to accept 
 the invitation. I looked forward to the 
 evening with a fluttered expectancy, and 
 was rejoiced to think that I was about to set 
 foot in literary and artistic London. 
 
 VOL. I 
 
 UU
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 I THINK my chambers were amongst the 
 tiniest in town. If there are less spacious 
 apartments they are inhabited by people 
 smaller of stature than the average Briton, 
 or not inhabited at all. The bedroom was 
 about the size of a Saratoga trunk, and the 
 sitting-room was only a trifle larger. I was 
 very happy there and very full of dreams 
 and ambition, and I spent my days in pur- 
 suits more or less literary. I was not quite 
 certain In what direction I was to blossom, 
 but I had a modest certainty that I should 
 flower out in one way or another, and be- 
 come rich and famous — a delusion which I 
 have found to be common amongst bookish 
 young men of three or four-and-twenty. I
 
 CHAP. II THE WEAKER VESSEL 19 
 
 had written a three - act comedy, which no 
 manager would so much as look at, and a 
 five -canto poem, which no publisher would 
 venture to introduce to an uninterested 
 world ; and in the course of a score or so of 
 chapters I had got the characters of an in- 
 tended novel into so unearthly a muddle of 
 cross-purposes that I had thrown aside the 
 whole thing in disgust, and for the time 
 abandoned it. None of these things de- 
 stroyed or abated the modest confidence 
 already mentioned. 
 
 I was sitting in my own room an hour or 
 two after the despatch of my answer to Mr. 
 Delamere's invitation to dinner when I heard 
 a noise of hammering overhead, and after 
 responding to it by a vigorous employment 
 of the poker on the brickwork of my fire- 
 place, I threw open my outer door and 
 awaited the arrival of the personage whose 
 presence had been signalled. Above me 
 dwelt a young man of seven -and -twenty — 
 four years my senior — Walter Pole by name.
 
 20 THE WEAKER VESSEL chap. 
 
 He had no occupation, and seemed in want 
 of none ; but he had a prodigious circle of 
 acquaintances. He read a great deal, though 
 how he found time to do it was something 
 of a wonder, and he lounged through time 
 with a solemn insouciance which some people 
 found irritating and others charming. He 
 was a good deal of an athlete and chose to 
 disguise his activity by a pretence of idleness, 
 propping himself up lazily against walls and 
 doors with his head rolling idly, as if in quest 
 of a restful corner, and his hands in his 
 pockets. He and I were great chums, but 
 he feigned to be too idle to walk downstairs 
 to knock at my door like an ordinary Chris- 
 tian, and always demanded an answer to that 
 noisy signal of his before he would take the 
 trouble to descend. 
 
 On this occasion there was a pause 
 between the signal and the sound of his 
 steps upon the stair, and so, leaving the door 
 open, I resumed my book and went on 
 reading. In those happy days — it was the
 
 II THE WEAKER VESSEL 21 
 
 Spring of the year 1865 — Charles Dickens 
 was alive and at work, and the whole 
 English -reading world was engaged with 
 Mr. Silas Wegg and Mr. Nicodemus Boffin. 
 I am aware now — on the authority of an 
 American gentleman who ought to know — 
 that since the great master's death fiction 
 has grown to be a finer art than it was in 
 his day, but somehow — whether with advan- 
 cing years one's faculty for enjoyment grows 
 duller, or whether the gilt has been rubbed 
 off the fictional gingerbread by the defacing 
 hand of Time, as it has been rubbed oft 
 gingerbread of so many other kinds — there 
 comes nobody who delights me in his way. 
 I would fain have the finer sorts of art which 
 have grown up in the last score of years 
 abolished, and the dead master back again ; 
 or — and the second wish seems likelier of 
 fulfilment — would fain see some new man 
 rising who would make me laugh and cry as 
 he did, and as he still does whenever I look 
 into his noble and delightful pages.
 
 THE WEAKER VESSEL 
 
 A new book from Dickens. Let elderly 
 and middle-aged people remember what it 
 meant, and let me enjoy myself for a minute 
 as I recall that afternoon. 
 
 I forgot the signal and the open door, 
 and I read on until the last page of the num- 
 ber was finished. Then I became aware 
 that the fire was out, that the door was still 
 open, that the dusk of the spring evening 
 was falling fast, and that I was stiff and cold. 
 I rang the bell to have the fire remade, and 
 then walked upstairs to the first landing. 
 The door was closed, but my chum answered 
 to my knock, returning to his pocket as I 
 entered the hand he had used to open it, 
 and beckoning me indoors by a backward 
 movement of his head. 
 
 * I was coming down,' he said, ' but I had 
 a call just as I knocked to you. Do you 
 fellows know each other ?' We did not, and 
 he introduced us to each other. ' Jones — 
 Denham.' 
 
 Jones presented rather a striking figure.
 
 II THE WEAKER VElSSEL 23 
 
 He was taller than common — six feet two, 
 I should say ; he differed very much from 
 what one's ideal Jones should look like ; 
 was magnificently moustached and bearded ; 
 he had jet-black Italian-looking eyes and an 
 olive-coloured skin. His features were re- 
 markably delicate and refined, and his long 
 wavy hair was parted in the middle. 
 
 ' I beg your pardon,' he said in a soft 
 voice which had a faint suspicion of an 
 un-English accent, ' but did I see your name 
 upon the door-post as I came upstairs ?' 
 
 ' I live in the rooms below these,' I 
 answered. 
 
 'Was it you who saved Delamere's life 
 the other night?' he asked. 
 
 * Saved his life ?' 
 
 ' He certainly said so.' 
 
 ' I saved his watch,' I said. ' I was lucky 
 enough to hear him call out, and when I 
 turned the corner the men who had attacked 
 him ran away. I don't think his life was in 
 any danger.'
 
 24 THE WEAKER VESSEL chap. 
 
 'Well/ said the Italian -looking Jones, 
 smoothing his glossy beard with a hand of 
 beautiful whiteness and delicacy, ' he quite 
 thinks he would have been killed if it had 
 not been for the happy accident of your 
 arrival ; and he is, I assure you, boiling over 
 with gratitude.' 
 
 Remembering Mr. Delamere's unusual 
 coolness I was a little astonished at this, 
 but I said nothing. 
 
 ' The Delameres are great friends of 
 mine,' continued Jones. ' Delamere is a 
 remarkable man. He has never done half 
 as much as he should have done, of course ; 
 but he stands aloof from modern art a good 
 deal, and lives with the ideals of the past.' 
 
 With this a certain undefined uneasiness 
 took possession of him, and in a little while 
 began to develop oddly. He rose and poked 
 the fire. He fidgeted with the gas, raising 
 and lowering the flame of the burners. He 
 strayed to the book-shelves, and there took 
 down and opened a score of volumes, return-
 
 II THE WEAKER VESSEL 25 
 
 ing each after an apparently unseeing glance 
 at one of its pages. Pole, with one leg 
 thrown across the other, followed these 
 movements with a glance of some meaning, 
 and once or twice the merest glimpse of a 
 smile flickered across his face. 
 
 'What's the matter, Jones?' he asked 
 after a while, when the other's signs of un- 
 easiness had become so marked as to seem 
 to call for some recognition. 
 
 Jones seemed to make up his mind, and 
 then seemed to recoil from his determination, 
 and then seemed to make up his mind again. 
 
 ' Do you sketch at all, Pole ? Do you 
 paint ?' he asked. ' Have you any sketching 
 tools about ? Anything will do.' 
 
 * No,' said Pole, ' I'm sorry to say I do 
 nothing in that line. What is it that's a- 
 hurting you, my boy ? The divine afflatus V 
 
 ' I've an idea,' said Jones, wincing as if it 
 hurt him to have this not too-pointed bit of 
 fun poked at him. ' I want to get it down 
 before it goes. Anything will do. A bit of
 
 26 THE WEAKER VESSEL chap. 
 
 brown paper and a fragment of charcoal. 
 Anything.' / 
 
 'There's your brown paper,' returned 
 Pole, opening a drawer and setting a sheet 
 of paper on the table. ' And there's your 
 material for charcoal.' He drew a packet of 
 firewood from a locker, and cutting the string 
 which surrounded it, thrust one of the pieces 
 between the bars of the fire-place and left it 
 there. 
 
 Jones pounced upon the paper, smoothed 
 it with both hands upon the table, and then 
 thrust a second stick between the bars. 
 
 ' Don't let that burn too far,' he said ; and 
 drawing out the first, returned to the table, 
 and with the burning bit of wood began to 
 work all manner of preparatory eager signs 
 with it, as though he were hungering to 
 realise his idea. 
 
 Now at this time it was meat and drink 
 to me to see an artist at work ; and I arose 
 to watch the Italian-looking Jones with an 
 excited interest of a sort which hardly any
 
 II THE WEAKER VESSEL 27 
 
 otheY spectacle in the world would have 
 awakened in me. There was a glamour 
 about an artist, even if he were a duffer, 
 which no other earthly creature had about 
 him. Jones, with that clumsily-shaped bit 
 of charcoal, before the red sparks had fairly 
 died out of it, began to draw with a feverish 
 hurry and rapidity. Pole got ready one bit 
 of charcoal for him whilst he used another ; 
 and in something under five minutes, as I 
 should guess, a very beautiful and noble face 
 was expressed upon the brown paper, and 
 the artist threw himself into a chair and lit a 
 cigarette. His eagerness to get the sketch 
 made had seemed a little exaggerated, and 
 now his indifference and laxness seemed a 
 little overdone. I was young, and, as does 
 not happen with every young man in the 
 world, I knew it. I mistrusted my own ex- 
 perience, and yet I seemed to discover a 
 something overdone in the Jonesian enthu- 
 siasm of desire and its rapidly followed ex- 
 haustion. Did artists really work in that
 
 28 THE WEAKER VESSEL chap. 
 
 way ? Were they so seized by an idea, 
 and so incapable of resisting it ? Or was 
 Jones exceptionally gifted, or exceptionally 
 susceptible, or was he a little bit of a 
 
 hum ? I dared hardly complete the 
 
 inquiry. 
 
 Pole stood over the table with his hands 
 in his pockets and his head on one side, and 
 looked enjoyingly at the drawing. For my 
 own part I was a little staggered by the bold 
 swiftness and dexterity with which this in- 
 spiration had been brought to life, but Pole's 
 beaming face expressed a gratification so 
 unusual for him that my doubts died, and 
 I began to think that I was in the presence 
 of a new Michael Angelo. 
 
 *I say,' said Pole, in his idle way, 'you 
 must let me keep this, old fellow.' 
 
 ' If you care for it,' Jones answered lan- 
 guidly. ' It's off my mind now. I've got it 
 down and I can get it again whenever I 
 want it' 
 
 * You don't mean to say that you could
 
 II THE WEAKER VESSEL 29 
 
 reproduce this inspiration accurately ?' Pole 
 asked him, still beaming at the drawing. 
 
 * Oh yes,' said the artist, with a careless 
 modesty. ' You see,' he added, waking up 
 a little, ' when an idea gets into the mind 
 it offers itself sometimes in a will-o'-the- 
 wispish, tantalising kind of way. It comes 
 and goes, revealing itself in glimpses which 
 are neither clear enough nor prolonged 
 enough to make that kind of impression on 
 the memory which is necessary to fix it. 
 But if you can catch the tricksy thing and set 
 it in form, no matter how roughly, it is your 
 own property for good and all. The definite 
 impression is secured — clearly stamped on the 
 mind. I shall never forget that face again.' 
 
 He dropped back into languor, relit 
 his extinguished cigarette, and smoked in 
 silence. Two or three minutes later he 
 arose, looked at his watch, took up his hat, 
 and said good-bye. 
 
 ' I think,' he added to me, ' that you dine 
 at the Delameres on Monday .^'
 
 30 
 
 THE WEAKER VESSEL chap. 
 
 * I wrote to-day/ I answered, 'accepting.' 
 
 'We shall meet there,' he said; and with 
 more good-byes he went away. 
 
 Pole, having closed the door behind him, 
 came back at a waltz, and having circled the 
 room twice or thrice, cannoned against a sofa 
 and fell into it, laughing. Then he got up 
 and looked at the charcoal drawing, and 
 rubbed his hands and laughed again, with 
 an enjoyment so genuine that I laughed with 
 him. 
 
 ' Here's a lark,' he said, still chuckling. 
 
 ' Where is it ?' I asked him. 
 
 'Here,' he answered; and opening a 
 drawer below the book-shelves he drew out 
 a sheaf of papers, from amongst which he 
 produced a rough sheet of gray paper, such 
 as grocers use, and holding it before me, dis- 
 played to my astonished vision an absolute 
 replica of the drawing which had just been 
 executed in my presence. He set the two 
 side by side, and we examined them to- 
 gether. They looked almost as if they
 
 II THE WEAKER VESSEL 31 
 
 might have been produced from the same 
 Hthographic stone. 
 
 ' What is this ? ' I asked ; ' a coincidence ? ' 
 
 ' Yes,' said Pole, turning on me with a 
 deHcious grin of mischief, ' a coincidence. 
 Do you know Wilson Craig ? No ? He's a 
 far-off cousin of mine — Scotchman. Poor 
 Sebastian had the same idea at Craig's only 
 a week ago. He was tormented by it; was 
 obliged to get it out. If you can once catch 
 the tricksy thing, you know, it's your own 
 property for good and all. But it comes and 
 goes, my boy, revealing itself in glimpses 
 which are neither clear enough nor pro- 
 longed enough to make that kind of im- 
 pression on the memory which is necessary 
 to fix it.' 
 
 ' Sebastian ? ' I asked. ' Who is Sebas- 
 tian ? ' 
 
 ' Sebastian ? Sebastian Is Jones. Sebas- 
 tian Dolmer Jones. His name has been a 
 damage to him. If his godfathers and god- 
 mothers at his baptism had seen to it that
 
 32 
 
 THE WEAKER VESSEL 
 
 he should be called Bill, or Dick, or Tom, or 
 Harry, it would have been a blessing for 
 him. But Sebastian Dolmer's bound to be a 
 bit out of the way, and to have artistic 
 cranks and furies, don't you see ! Sebastian 
 Dolmer can't even speak his native tongue 
 without a little bit of foreign accent. How 
 should he ? Bill Jones could have done it, 
 or Dick, Tom, or Harry, but Sebastian and 
 Dolmer couldn't manage it between 'em 
 though they tried ever so. Thank your 
 stars you're plain John, my boy.' 
 
 I felt a vicarious shame. I would greatly 
 have preferred that Jones should not have 
 been bowled out in this ignominious way. 
 Pole's rejoicing at it seemed cruel and un- 
 fair. 
 
 ' Rubbish ! ' said he, when I put this before 
 him. ' The only advantage this kind of 
 humbug brings with it is that a man can 
 laugh at it. What do you think pretence 
 exists for, unless to be found out and laughed 
 at ? You're going to dine with the Dela-
 
 II THE WEAKER VESSEL 33 
 
 meres, are you ? Then you're going into the 
 very nursery and citadel of humbug. The 
 dinner's real and the wines are real. Plates, 
 knives, forks, spoons, chairs, tables, white 
 ties, shirt-fronts, dress-coats, all real. But 
 the people and the sentiments ! Keep Sebas- 
 tian Dolmer In your mind, John. There's a 
 lot of Sebastian Dolmer In the enlightened 
 converse of the Delameres. But whenever 
 you hear It your safeguard is to say " Jones " 
 to yourself. Look here ! ' He became quite 
 hot upon a sudden, and struck the table, 
 leaning across it and looking me straight In 
 the eyes. ' I'll tell you what you'll find 
 there. You'll find the sham enthusiast in 
 art, who doesn't know a Rubens from a Van- 
 dyke ; and the sham enthusiast In humanity, 
 who wouldn't part with sixpence to save you 
 from starvation ; and the sham enthusiast 
 in friendship, who'll stick pins and needles 
 in a wax caricature of you when you're gone ; 
 and the sham enthusiast In the last new fad 
 of atheism, who's deadly afraid of ghosts and 
 
 VOL. I D
 
 34 THE WEAKER VESSEL chap. 
 
 says his prayers on the sly ; and the sham 
 enthusiast In poetry, who's as wooden under 
 her wooden simper as this wooden table. 
 They tremble with sensitiveness, every man 
 Jack and woman Jill of them, and they're 
 just as tough-hided as a lot of camels. They're 
 boiling over with sympathies of all sorts if 
 you listen to 'em, and they're dryer than the 
 desert sand. Look at this!' He snatched 
 the drawing vehemently from the table and 
 held it up before me. * Why can't plain 
 Jones come here and say, '* I'm just itching 
 all over to show you how practised and 
 dexterous I am. There's a rapid bit of cer- 
 tainty for you ! And now I've staggered 
 you I'm happy ! " Vanity's a natural passion, 
 and, like all natural passions, it's useful whilst 
 you've got the bit in its mouth and the reins 
 in your hands. But the beggar comes 
 Sebastian Dolmering with his stale old in- 
 spiration, and turns his own cleverness into 
 a shameful lie.' 
 
 * They can't all be like that,' I hesitated.
 
 II THE WEAKER VESSEL 35 
 
 The fancy made my head ache. I was young 
 and ingenuous, and I wanted to believe in 
 people. 
 
 * Go and dine with the Delameres,' he 
 answered, still speaking hotly, ' and then 
 tell me how far I'm wrong.'
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 I WENT to dine with the Delameres, and 
 whilst I dressed and whilst I was on the way 
 I felt as if I were somehow on a mean errand 
 — as If I were going to spy out the defects 
 of my host and convives, and find out each 
 one of them In a false enthusiasm. I had 
 no right to accept a man's hospitality on 
 those conditions, and the dinner began to 
 take the aspect of an ordeal. It seemed 
 especially terrible to face Jones, whom I 
 already knew to be a pretender. He would 
 probably go on pretending, and I should have 
 to look and listen and to pretend to be 
 deceived by his pretensions. As we get older 
 we take a more humorous or a more allow- 
 ing view of human foibles, unless we happen
 
 CHAP. Ill 777^ WEAKER VESSEL 37 
 
 to have been so bitterly wounded by them 
 in our sensitive days that the whole world 
 grows hateful ; but there is nothing so hope- 
 less and mournful to the heart of an ingenuous 
 lad than the beginning of disbelief in his 
 fellow-mortals. 
 
 I was partly relieved and cheered by an 
 unexpected encounter at the door of Mr. 
 Delamere's house in Cromwell Terrace. A 
 little old gentleman was in the act of dis- 
 charging a hansom there as I drove up, and 
 as he stood on tiptoe to reach the outstretched 
 hand of the cabman I recognised him. This 
 little old gentleman was the Reverend Dr. 
 Fish, an old friend of my father's and a great 
 favourite of mine. There was a good fat 
 vicarage in my native Warwickshire village, 
 and Dr. Fish had held it for many years. In 
 his old age he had allowed himself to be 
 transplanted to London, chiefly in order to 
 make room for his son, who had taken the 
 living the Doctor had vacated. 
 
 * Ha, John, my boy,' said the Doctor, as
 
 38 THE WEAKER VESSEL chap. 
 
 I alighted and stood waiting by him at Mr. 
 Delamere's door. * I expected to meet you 
 here.' He was silent when a man-servant 
 opened the door, and whilst we disembarrassed 
 ourselves of hats and coats, but when we had 
 mounted the stairs and found ourselves alone 
 in the drawing-room he began to speak again. 
 ' I heard of your gallant conduct the other 
 night. Delamere mentioned it to me, and — 
 you mustn't be offended, John — he talked 
 about doing something for you. He has a 
 weakness for patronage. I told him, of course, 
 that that would never do, and told him who 
 you were, and so on, and as a matter of fact 
 you are here under my recommendation. 
 Delightful people — delightful people — but 
 curiously exclusive.' 
 
 I was on the point of saying that I had 
 been surprised to find him there, but re- 
 membering that Mr. Delamere's opinions 
 about religion afforded me my only grounds 
 for surprise I kept a judicious silence. The 
 old Doctor, with his eyes beaming bene-
 
 in THE WEAKER VESSEL 39 
 
 volently behind his gold-rimmed glasses, and 
 his soft old face alight with friendship and 
 amiability, touched the theme which was 
 in my mind. 
 
 ' They are, as I said just now, delightful 
 people, but I am not sure that some of them 
 may not be a little dangerous if placed in 
 contact with a mind not altogether formed. 
 They have curious opinions, even reprehen- 
 sible opinions sometimes, some of them. 
 There's that book of Seeley's, and there's 
 that other book of Kenan's. They are not 
 works which I would recommend a young 
 man to study ; but after all, you know, John, 
 we must know doubt to fight it, and I find 
 Mr. Delamere a kind of mental tonic' 
 
 It was plain that Dr. Fish felt it necessary 
 to justify his presence there. ' You don't 
 know Miss Delamere yet ? ' he went on. 
 * Of course not. Of course not. A very 
 superior young lady, a very charming young 
 lady. Perhaps a little over-educated. I am 
 no friend to these new-fangled notions about
 
 40 THE WEAKER VESSEL chap. 
 
 female education, but she wears her learning 
 lightly, and she is certainly very charming.' 
 
 Mr. Delamere appeared and welcomed me 
 very agreeably. The guests began to drop 
 in, amongst them Jones, whom I greeted with 
 a wretched consciousness of embarrassment, 
 being afraid, though I knew how unreason- 
 able the fear was, that he was somehow 
 aware of my knowledge of him, and thinking 
 all the while how hideously ashamed he 
 would have been If he were aware of my 
 discovery. I was Introduced to an American 
 lady who was assuredly old enough to be 
 my mother ; a lady who wrote poetry, and 
 blushed and simpered behind her fan like 
 the dear young creature she had been thirty 
 years earlier, and made my life a burden to 
 me whilst I tried to talk to her. Then I 
 was Introduced to a tall and stately foreigner, 
 who left me abruptly to talk to a fat woman 
 In red, who received him with a shrill ecstasy; 
 and then, whilst I was rather forlornly turning 
 over the leaves of a book of engravings, a
 
 in THE WEAKER VESSEL 41 
 
 lady who commanded my instant attention 
 sailed into the room, and moved from one to 
 another with salutations and welcome and 
 apology for being late. There were more 
 reasons than one for looking at her, for, to 
 begin with, she was very strikingly beautiful 
 and graceful, and dressed with a taste which, 
 though I was then even more ignorant in 
 such matters than I am now — and that is 
 saying a great deal — seemed to me altogether 
 exquisite. But the thing that enlisted my 
 attention was this. The fourth drawing of 
 that suite of five which Mr. Delamere had 
 executed upon the black board at the lecture 
 for the Moral Tone Association had been 
 neither more nor less than an accurate re- 
 production of Miss Delamere's face. I could 
 not help thinking that in a person of Mr. 
 Delamere's reputation there was something 
 wanting in good feeling and delicacy in 
 having drawn his daughter's features for the 
 instruction and amusement of that mechanical 
 crowd, and when I came to remember the
 
 42 THE WEAKER VESSEL chap. 
 
 comments on the fifth drawing and his cold- 
 blooded artistic improvement on his child's 
 features, I felt for the moment as if I hated 
 him. But Mr. Delamere himself carrying 
 me up to his daughter and introducing me to 
 her as the hero of his adventure of a week 
 ago, and making much of me to her in spite 
 of some feeble protest of my own, I had no 
 time to pursue my thoughts of him. When 
 it appeared that I was set apart to take Miss 
 Delamere down to dinner, and when it ap- 
 peared further that everybody was impressed 
 with an absurdly untrue Idea of my courage 
 and usefulness on the night of the attack, I 
 resigned myself for a while in a kind of stupor. 
 Pole's denunciation of the Delameres and 
 their set of friends and acquaintances was 
 with me for an hour and more, and nothing 
 but my beautiful neighbour's easy charm of 
 manner drew me away from the memory 
 of it. 
 
 Mary Delamere was two years younger 
 than myself. She had a perfect self-posses-
 
 Ill THE WEAKER VESSEL 43 
 
 sion, and a distinguishing quietude of manner 
 which would have become a princess. She 
 was ver}^ beautiful, and in her quiet kind 
 way did so much to put me at my ease that 
 I became grateful to her and was not long 
 in arriving at the conclusion that, whatever 
 brand of insincerity might have been marked 
 upon the rest of the people there present, she 
 herself was as honest as daylight. Nothing 
 about her pleased me so much as the soft, 
 sincere serenity of her manner — a something 
 so gentle and engaging that I have no words 
 for it. One used to hear — for phrases come 
 into fashion and go out again as clothes do 
 — a good deal of the eyes as the windows of 
 the soul. I never knew anybody of whom 
 the saying seemed as true as it did of r^Iary 
 Delamere. Candour lived in those large 
 gray orbs of hers. They were not made to 
 hide deceit. Before the evening was over I 
 was ready to fight anything or anybody in 
 defence of that belief. 
 
 Perhaps if it had not been for Pole's dia-
 
 44 THE WEAKER VESSEL chap. 
 
 tribe of a day or two earlier I might have 
 been more disposed to believe in the sincerity 
 of other people at the table. There was a 
 lady opposite to me who talked of her poor 
 dear Hottentots in tones of greatest affection, 
 and as though she owned the nation, but I 
 never learned in what relation she and the 
 poor dear Hottentots stood to each other, or 
 on what ground she made them hers. A 
 long-haired, clean-shaven man sat beside her 
 and held the table spell-bound for a while as 
 he spoke of the desecration of a Turner which 
 was in the possession of a titled acquaint- 
 ance. 
 
 ' They had had it cleaned, Delamere,' he 
 said with a voice and manner of resigned 
 despair. 'All that lovely impasto architec- 
 tural stuff turns out to have been built up in 
 white and glazed. They have cleaned the 
 glaze away, and now the thing stares at you, 
 with the middle distance hanging over the 
 foreground — a forlorn line of dirty chalk. I 
 could have cried with anger. I could posi-
 
 Ill THE WEAKER VESSEL 45 
 
 tively have shed tears of mortification. I 
 could indeed.' 
 
 The long-haired, clean-shaven man made 
 this protestation with a sort of reserve, as if 
 he would rather that we didn't think too 
 highly of him for it. 
 
 Jones said it was heart-breaking, absolutely 
 heart-breaking, and (as an aside to the man 
 behind his chair) that he would take a little 
 currant-jelly. 
 
 I caught Miss Delamere's eye at this 
 moment, and was guilty of a youthful im- 
 pertinence of that sort which is only per- 
 petrated by shy people, who, as a matter of 
 fact, say and do, in their own desperation, 
 the most impudent things which are said and 
 done in the world. I asked why the gentle- 
 man didn't cry, if he wanted to. Her eyes 
 laughed, but she held up a warning finger. 
 
 ' You must not say that sort of thing,' she 
 answered. ' It is not good form.' 
 
 I was horribly disconcerted, and for a while 
 found nothing else to say. The man had
 
 46 THE WEAKER VESSEL chap. 
 
 irritated me. I was persuaded that he had 
 cared less about the Turner than I should 
 have done myself, and that he had only 
 mentioned its destruction in order to show 
 how delicately-toned he was, and what a love 
 for art he had. But of course I had no least 
 little right to ridicule her father's guests to 
 the lady of the house, and I told myself that 
 nobody but a cad could have dreamed of 
 making that unfortunate observation. Yet 
 Pole's opinion of the people was working in 
 me, and I had been embarrassed by the 
 wilful exaggeration of my own accidental 
 service, and Jones's trick of being inspired 
 with the same urgent fancy twice running 
 was present in my mind, and I seemed to 
 breathe an atmosphere of humbug which 
 stifled me. 
 
 I suppose Miss Delamere saw my embar- 
 rassment and took pity upon me. 
 
 'You live in Gray's Inn, I think, Mr. 
 Denham ? ' 
 
 ' Not actually within the Inn,' I answered,
 
 Ill THE WEAKER VESSEL 47 
 
 determining that I at least would be precise. 
 ' In Warwick Court, just outside the Inn 
 gates.' 
 
 ' Do you happen to know a Mr. Pole, who 
 lives there ? ' she asked me. 
 
 'Very well indeed,' I answered, not much 
 relieved from my discomfiture by the intro- 
 duction of his name. 
 
 ' He was a great friend of ours until a 
 little while ago,' she said. ' He used to be 
 very enthusiastic at times about art, and 
 books, and politics, and we thought he had 
 a career of some sort before him. Is he — 
 you know him well, you say — is he change- 
 able?' 
 
 I thought not. He pretended to be lazy ; 
 but what with his friends, and his books, and 
 his athletics, he must always have his hands 
 full. 
 
 ' Oh yes,' she said, ' I know that way of 
 his, but I was not thinking of that. There 
 are a great many young men who are ashamed 
 of being thought enthusiastic, and he is one
 
 48 THE WEAKER VESSEL chap. 
 
 of them. He used to come here very often, 
 and my father had become attached to him, 
 but somehow he has drifted away. I should 
 be obliged if you would tell him that he was 
 asked for. You must understand,' she added 
 brightly, ' that he and I are friends of fifteen 
 years' standing, and that I have old-estab- 
 lished rights to an interest In him.' 
 
 It was clearly impossible to say what I 
 knew of his reasons for staying away, but I 
 promised as lightly as I could to convey her 
 message. Then I began to wonder whether 
 Pole had included this delightful young lady 
 in his condemnation of her father's guests. 
 
 'They can't all be like that,' I had said to 
 him when he had done with Jones. 
 
 ' Go and dine with the Delameres,' he had 
 answered, 'and see how far I am wrong.' 
 
 And now, bent on discovery, and quite 
 certain that if he attacked Miss Delamere 
 with the rest then I should be able to confute 
 him, I watched my chance. Somebody spoke 
 of the civilising influences of art. Art seemed
 
 Ill THE WEAKER VESSEL 49 
 
 the Delamere gospel — the tidings of joy to 
 an ugly world — the only possible redemption 
 of men and women lay in it. 
 
 ' Don't you think it easy,' I asked her, 
 * to over-estimate the things that art is going 
 to do for the world ? Isn't there at least a 
 little danger of falling into a sort of cant 
 about it ? ' 
 
 She looked at me with a surprised smile. 
 
 * Do you know,' she said, with that patron- 
 ising air which young women can always 
 assume so successfully with men who are 
 but little older than themselves, * I was 
 at first inclined to think you shy, Mr. 
 Denham ? But you are a very bold person 
 indeed if you dare to ventilate that doctrine 
 here.' 
 
 ' But really,' I stammered, ' it all sounds 
 wild to me. I — I won't speak of it, if I must 
 not, but ' 
 
 ' Let us talk of it later,' she said. * Colonel 
 Seaforth is talking. He is always worth 
 listening to.' 
 
 VOL. I E
 
 50 THE WEAKER VESSEL chap. 
 
 The possibility that this speech included 
 a counter-proposition to the effect that I was 
 not worth listening to so weighed upon me 
 that I lost the first part of Colonel Seaforth's 
 speech. When I was able to listen I found 
 he was telling a story of a comrade who 
 died before the Redan. Nothing could 
 have been better than the manner of his 
 narrative, nothing very well more affecting 
 than its matter. I was ashamed of my own 
 eyes, and made a pretence of eating to dis- 
 guise myself 
 
 ' What a theme for a poem ! ' said the 
 American lady, clasping her hands together. 
 * Oh, may I use it, Colonel Seaforth ? 
 May I ? ' 
 
 ' I should prefer the theme in marble,' 
 said the clean-shaven man. * I can see the 
 cold, inscrutable calm of the dead face.' 
 
 * No, no, Cumming,' said our host, shaking 
 his head with a grave decision. ' You forget 
 the costume.' 
 
 'You are quite right, Delamere,' returned
 
 Ill THE WEAKER VESSEL 51 
 
 the clean-shaven man. ' I forgot the costume. 
 Language is the medium for it, after all. It 
 is one of the themes in which omission 
 becomes the chief artistic virtue.' 
 
 So they forgot the hero in the space of 
 ten seconds, and the lady opposite was re- 
 minded by the story of something which had 
 happened amongst the poor dear Hottentots, 
 and had no earthly bearing upon it, so far as 
 I could discover. 
 
 The dinner came to an end, and when 
 coffee had been served the men followed the 
 ladies upstairs. There was some excellent 
 music, and a great deal of desultory clever 
 talk, and then people began to go. No 
 further chance presented itself for talk with 
 Miss Delamere, and when I came to think 
 of it I seemed to have acquitted myself so 
 ill with her that I did not dare to make an 
 opportunity. I had been insolent about one 
 of her father's guests, and I had accused the 
 whole table of the vice of cant, and altogether 
 the sooner I hid my head in shame the better 
 
 S^ato..u..-
 
 52 THE WEAKER VESSEL chap. 
 
 it seemed likely to be for me. I took ad- 
 vantage of Dr. Fish's farewells to shelter my 
 own, and much to my surprise found Miss 
 Delamere's cordiality in no way diminished. 
 
 *We are at home on Fridays,' she said 
 kindly, ' from nine in the evening. Come 
 next Friday, and bring Mr. Pole with you. 
 Will you ? ' 
 
 I promised for myself, and said I would 
 bring Pole if I could. She raised her eye- 
 brows in reproof for what I knew to be a 
 kind of gaucherie, and I got away covered 
 with confusion. 
 
 * Pole .'^ ' said the old Vicar, when we 
 reached the street together. ' Walter Pole ? 
 Are you a friend of his ? I used to meet 
 him at the Delameres'. A bright young 
 fellow of high principle, I always fancied. 
 I used to think — oh, well, that's no business 
 of mine.' 
 
 We walked to the street corner together 
 and there separated, each taking a hansom. 
 Pole was in his own rooms when I got home.
 
 Ill THE WEAKER VESSEL 53 
 
 and, hearing me enter, came down in his 
 dressing-gown and slippers. 
 
 * Well,' he asked me, 'what do you think 
 of em ?' 
 
 I didn't know. I was weary and dispirited. 
 I told him with a little heat, when I began 
 to talk at last, that he had spoiled my even- 
 ing for me, and that I believed them to be a 
 deal nicer and more genuine than he thought 
 them. I believe I charged him, in my own 
 mind, with the three failures of which I had 
 been guilty. 
 
 * I suppose,' I said at last, ' that you don't 
 include Miss Delamere among the sham 
 enthusiasts. I don't think I ever met a more 
 delightful girl' 
 
 ' Miss Delamere's another pair of shoes, 
 John,' he answered. ' I wasn't talking of i\Iiss 
 Delamere.' 
 
 I told him of the invitation I had for him, 
 and in his own idle w^ay he began to beat the 
 half-extinguished fire with the poker. 
 
 'Yes,' he said drawlingly, poising the
 
 54 THE WEAKER VESSEL chap, hi 
 
 poker In his hand, ' I think I'll go.' Then 
 he dropped the poker with a crash in the 
 fender, and said with startling emphasis, ' I'll 
 be hanged if I do.' And with that he got 
 up and marched away, leaving me staring 
 after him.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 Pole sauntered into my rooms on Friday 
 evening just as I was making ready to start 
 for Mr. Delamere's house. I had not seen 
 him since his curious exit, but I had sent 
 him a note asking him to provide me with 
 some excuse or message in case he should be 
 inquired after. 
 
 ' So you're going, are you ?' he demanded. 
 
 'Yes, I'm going. What am I to say to 
 Miss Delamere ? ' 
 
 ' I suppose,' he said, propping himself 
 against the bedroom door and lounging there, 
 ' that the straightest thing to say will be that 
 I wouldn't go.' 
 
 I put it to him that that was an unamiable 
 message for a friend to deliver. He shrugged
 
 56 THE WEAKER VESSEL chap. 
 
 his shoulders and rolled about against the 
 door for a time with a manner which seemed 
 to disclaim responsibility. 
 
 * If you like to invent any social lie you 
 may, my boy, but I'm not going to save your 
 conscience by inventing it for you. Say you 
 tried to persuade me and failed. Is that too 
 hard for you ? ' 
 
 * Do you want to make enemies of them ? ' 
 I asked. 
 
 'Enemies or friends — it is all one to me,' 
 he answered. ' I don't suppose they'll care 
 greatly whether I go or not, and I'm sure I 
 shan't care much how they take it.' 
 
 * There are thousands of people in the 
 world for whom one doesn't greatly care,' I 
 urged ; ' but one doesn't go out of the way 
 to wound them. You might send a civiler 
 message.' 
 
 ' If old Delamere asks for me,' said Pole, 
 'you can tell him that I think and speak of 
 him with a constant want of respect and 
 veneration. If Miss Delamere should do me
 
 IV THE WEAKER VESSEL 57 
 
 the honour to call me to mind again, you 
 may tell her that I'm sorry not to be able to 
 meet her.' 
 
 Finding that I could make nothing better 
 of him than this I set out, and arriving at Crom- 
 well Terrace in due time found the rooms 
 already fairly filled. IMiss Delamere shook 
 hands with me, and afterwards I got into a 
 corner and sat dull and resigned, knowing 
 nobody and noticed by nobody. The rooms 
 were filled with a loud buzz of talk ; and I 
 saw so many introductions going on that it 
 seemed as if nobody knew anybody except 
 the host and his daughter. After the space 
 of an hour Miss Delamere found me out and 
 sat down beside me. 
 
 ' You did not bring Mr. Pole ?' she asked. 
 * I suppose that you have seen him T 
 
 'Oh yes; I have seen him.' A sudden 
 awkwardness fell upon me, and Miss Dela- 
 mere, who was toying with her fan, looked 
 up and became immediately aware of my 
 embarrassment.
 
 58 THE WEAKER VESSEL chap. 
 
 ' He refused to come ?' she said. ' Did he 
 give a reason for it ?* 
 
 I began to stammer something, but she 
 stopped me almost at once. She made no 
 display of temper or confusion or indifference. 
 
 ' Will you tell me actually what he said ?' 
 Then seeing that I grew more embarrassed 
 than before — for I knew that I was making 
 a foolish effort to smile in an allowing sort 
 of way for Pole, and an apologetic way for 
 myself, and failing horribly — she added, 
 ' Never mind, Mr. Denham. I ought not to 
 have asked you. I shall be right in thinking 
 it was not pleasant or friendly. Now let us 
 talk of something else. Do you care about 
 celebrities? That is Mr. Gushing — the 
 gentleman with the eye-glass and the black 
 ribbon — the author of The Spider. Have 
 you read it .'^ No ? People are talking 
 
 about it a great deal. That is ' and so 
 
 on through half a dozen. 
 
 They were all people with whose names I 
 was more or less familiar, and it was interest-
 
 IV THE WEAKER VESSEL 59 
 
 ing to see them for the first time. I had 
 forgotten Pole for the moment and the dis- 
 comfiture his purposed absence had brought 
 upon me, when ]\Iiss Delamere brought him 
 back to memory. 
 
 'Have you known Mr. Pole long? 'she 
 asked. I told her I had known him pretty 
 intimately for a year. 'You like him?' 
 Yes. I liked him much. I felt as if this 
 avowal were a sort of tacit expression of 
 approval of his want of politeness in her 
 case, and made it awkwardly. I thought at 
 the time, and I knew later on, that she under- 
 stood me, but she pursued her questioning. 
 'He is not natively impolite, I fancy?' I 
 thought not. Brusque, perhaps, but too 
 kindly to be insolent or ill-bred. ' Shall I 
 introduce you to Mr. Gushing? I must go 
 now, for I see more people coming, and I 
 have to receive them. Oh ! Here is Mr. 
 Jones. You know him already. Sebastian, 
 I leave you and Mr. Denham to each other.' 
 
 Jones sat beside me in the place she
 
 THE WEAKER VESSEL chap. 
 
 vacated and began to talk, but I could see 
 that his heart was not in it, and that he was 
 somehow distracted. He appeared to be 
 more interested in his own coat than men 
 commonly are, and sat plucking at his sleeves 
 with delicate thumb and forefinger until I 
 made a discovery which I suppose I ought 
 to have made much earlier. Jones was not 
 attired in absolute black, as other men were, 
 but had had his clothes cut out of very dark 
 claret colour. When he was sure that my 
 observation was attracted by this fact he 
 mentioned it. 
 
 ' You are looking at my coat ? It's some- 
 thing of an innovation, and I dare say that 
 one may be laughed at for it. But really 
 one finds the monotony of English dress 
 oppressive, and evening dress has quite 
 grown beyond one's power of endurance. 
 One has been looking for some sort of moral 
 Curtius to throw himself into the gulf for 
 years past, and since one can't find him one 
 must sacrifice oneself.'
 
 IV THE WEAKER VESSEL 6i 
 
 He Invested the theme with a certain air 
 of lightness. Since that time I have seen 
 men jest under fire in the same spirit. I 
 could see that he felt the seriousness of the 
 position. 
 
 ' Somebody has to lead the way, and of 
 course it doesn't do to be too bold at first. 
 One may find somebody to follow one's lead, 
 or even to go beyond it. The thing once 
 started may make strides. One doesn't 
 know. But really it seems impossible that 
 men should be content to go on for ever in 
 the present monotony of hideousness.' 
 
 I began to take an interest in Jones. The 
 artistic humbug with which he had chosen 
 to mark the beginning of my knowledge of 
 him had made him noticeable, and this new 
 development, which seemed to be so admir- 
 ably in consonance with the first, helped to 
 make him worthy of study. For the first 
 time in my life I began consciously to try to 
 see inside a man, to appreciate his stand- 
 point, to endeavour to see how he saw things,
 
 62 THE WEAKER VESSEL chap. 
 
 and what kind of opinion of himself sup- 
 ported him. It struck me that since I was 
 perilously- near to hating and despising him, 
 and since he was perilously near to self-wor- 
 ship, it might be worth while to study him, 
 if only with an eye to reconciling the differ 
 ence and striking a reasonable balance. You 
 have a right to be grateful to the man who 
 sets you upon any new field of mental effort, 
 and I have to thank Jones for many happy 
 hours. 
 
 I began to observe him closely. He was 
 very far from being uncomely, and, so far as 
 I could discover, there was nothing in the 
 way of warning in his face. He had very 
 fine, soft, dark, Italian eyes, faithful and sin- 
 cere to look at, with just such a patient long- 
 ing in them as you may see in an intelligent 
 and affectionate dog's. His moustache hid 
 his mouth, but his forehead seemed to express 
 honesty and candour. Nothing but a slight 
 pinching of the nostrils betrayed any poverty 
 of nature or littleness of sentiment. Some-
 
 IV THE WEAKER VESSEL 63 
 
 thing of coxcombry and affectation could be 
 traced in his manner, but not enough to 
 offend, unless you were somewhat too readily 
 disposed to be offended. ♦ 
 
 ' Delamere quite desponds,' he said, cling- 
 ing to his theme. ' But then Delamere is 
 elderly: he is getting on in life, and one 
 doesn't expect to find the enthusiasm of hope 
 in a man of his years. I dare say, now, you 
 take this for a sort of ridiculous trifling ; but 
 really it isn't so if one looks rightly at it. 
 When beautiful dress was a part of every 
 gentleman's duty the arts flourished as they 
 have never flourished since. Every assem- 
 blage of ladies and gentlemen afforded the 
 eye a feast of delicate and rich colouring. 
 The popular taste was educated to colour, 
 and to us who look upon tone and form as 
 the elementary civilising influence, the ques- 
 tion of dress assumes an importance which, 
 of course, it cannot wear to those who 
 do not share our convictions. To dress 
 with grace and refinement is one of the
 
 64 THE WEAKER VESSEL chap. 
 
 ways to thinking and living with grace and 
 refinement.' 
 
 Whilst Jones was talking thus Mr. Dela- 
 mere appeared in our neighbourhood, and 
 taking a chair which happened to be vacant 
 near at hand, drew it up to the sofa upon 
 which we sat, and placed himself before us. 
 
 ' Nobody would think,' he said, striking in 
 here, ' of disputing that proposition, but really 
 we are at such a period of decadence that 
 
 ' He paused with an air of dejection, 
 
 but brightened a moment later. ' I don't 
 know,' he went on. '''When things are at 
 their worst they sometimes mend." Perhaps 
 we may really hope for a rebound from all 
 this. The popular taste can never be finally 
 depraved.' 
 
 ' Everything seems to move in grooves,' 
 said Jones seriously. ' We have our cycle 
 of ugliness with us now. We shall move 
 out of it by and by.' 
 
 ' I'm not sure,' said Mr. Delamere, putting 
 up a pair of gold-rimmed glasses, the better
 
 IV THE WEAKER VESSEL 65 
 
 to scrutinise Jones's raiment, ' that the point 
 of departure is well chosen. You see, Sebas- 
 tian, that if you push your point to its 
 legitimate conclusion, you may arrive — you 
 must arrive — at golds, and reds, and blues. 
 Now the question comes, Will the material 
 and the form lend themselves to a richly 
 coloured treatment? To my mind, that 
 question carries its own answer.' 
 
 'I have thought it out, sir,' Jones an- 
 swered, with a respectful firmness of de- 
 meanour. ' If we desire to move the crowd 
 we must have their good-will. To be moved 
 too suddenly is shocking. The material is 
 too important, too solidly fixed as it were, 
 to be tampered with at first without danger. 
 A slight deviation in colour — a mere hint 
 of movement in the right direction — can 
 give no shock, whilst it may invite at- 
 tention.' 
 
 ' Of course, returned Mr. Delamere, ' one 
 has not spent sixty years in the world with- 
 out learning patience, but even now the 
 
 VOL. I F
 
 66 THE WEAKER VESSEL chap. 
 
 narrow-mindedness, the extreme limitation 
 of vision, which characterises some of the 
 best -meaning people one encounters, is a 
 little trying. I was speaking of this very 
 theme the other night at the Trelawneys', 
 and a gentleman whose name I have for- 
 gotten — he turned out to be a medical man 
 of some eminence — chose to be mightily 
 satirical. I remember now, a Doctor Brand, 
 a disorderly giant of a man ; a man, I should 
 say, judging from what I saw of him, of 
 excellent capacities. He thought the soap- 
 boiler a more practical person to encourage 
 in the cause of civilisation than the costumier. 
 He put it rather well, but " My dear sir," I 
 said, '' ckacun a son mdtier. Let us all work 
 together. Let us welcome anything that 
 helps. Soap and the scrubbing-brush by all 
 means, but then I do not deal in soap ana 
 scrubbing-brushes." I heard him afterwards 
 — he is a loud man, not too well-bred, and 
 one can hear him over a whole room — and 
 he was talking of fiddling and Rome burning,
 
 IV THE WEAKER VESSEL 67 
 
 and that sort of thing. He found some 
 listeners, too.' 
 
 'There is no popular art -feeling,' said 
 Jones. * There is no conception of the 
 necessity of an awaking.' 
 
 I thought of many things, but then I knew 
 how young I was, and I kept silence. Mr. 
 Delamere took up his parable anew. 
 
 *I am a little tired,' he said. * One 
 doesn't sacrifice one's conclusions any the 
 more for being tired, but I confess to a little 
 fatigue. There are none blinder than those 
 who won't see, and people will not see that to 
 be ugly is to be immoral. They have to see 
 that two and two make four. That is a 
 matter of the counting-house, and must be 
 remembered in the purchase of the daily loaf. 
 But they are quite sunk in stupor about 
 everything that does not relate to their hate- 
 ful daily comforts. One moves them for a 
 moment — even in Houndsditch ' — he looked 
 at me — ' one finds people who will listen ; 
 but they go to sleep again.'
 
 68 THE WEAKER VESSEL chap. 
 
 ' One would hardly think, sir,' said Jones 
 with a mournful appeal, ' that you would 
 shrink from lending the weight of your own 
 example to a movement of this sort.' He 
 shook his claret-coloured sleeve, and looked 
 almost hopelessly at Delamere. 
 
 ' I do not disapprove of it,' said he 
 solemnly. 'It is well meant, Sebastian, 
 and it may bear fruit beyond your expecta- 
 tions. But I am too old, a little too much 
 daunted by futile experiment, too saddened 
 by repeated failure. Youth has the vitality 
 for experiment. By the way, I must show 
 you my last bit of Worcester, Sebastian. 
 Are you interested in china, Mr. Denham ? ' 
 
 I was on the edge of some idiotic rejoinder 
 about the Opium traffic, but I understood in 
 time, and saved myself. Mr. Delamere 
 piloted us downstairs and showed us a 
 cabinet, with most of the contents of which 
 Jones was evidently familiar. My host, 
 delicately handling some of its treasures, 
 grew extremely eloquent and interesting.
 
 IV THE WEAKER VESSEL 69 
 
 ' He probably knows more about old 
 Worcester than any man alive,' said Jones, 
 when we were left to ourselves again by the 
 chance intrusion of other guests. ' His learn- 
 ing is prodigious.' 
 
 I went away dazed that night. I felt 
 somehow as if I had been beaten about the 
 head. My wits were scattered and I did not 
 get at them easily. This solemn air of going 
 crusading about the colour of a coat and a 
 pair of trousers, this prodigy of learning in 
 old crockery -ware, fairly stupefied me. I 
 walked alone, and my soul rebelled at it all. 
 This huge London, said I hotly to myself, 
 lies sweltering about them, noble and loathly, 
 all comedy and tragedy, and they turn their 
 backs upon it, and blind themselves from the 
 sight of it, and find their souls' bread in bric- 
 a-brac and the wine of life in the distillation 
 of the fashion plates. And I thought myself 
 particularly clever, and felt that I was great 
 and magnanimous and altogether what I ought 
 to be by comparison with these trifiers, and
 
 70 THE WEAKER VESSEL chap. 
 
 got into a very satisfactory state of mind by 
 reason of them. But if I thought poorly of 
 the great art critic himself or of Jones his 
 pupil, I had formed, without knowing any 
 very sound reasons for it, a different opinion 
 with regard to Mr. Delamere s daughter. I 
 do not pride myself upon any special discern- 
 ment on this account, for a boy's judgment 
 about a young woman is liable to be influenced 
 by facts of which he takes no count. Mary 
 Delamere was, to begin with, a very beautiful 
 girl, and, to continue, she was to my mind, 
 even in her personal aspect, better than 
 beautiful. I thought I read nothing but 
 candour and goodness in her looks, and if for 
 once I was right, it is not a thing to be 
 greatly proud of. I have thought the same 
 things since, and have been wrong, and it 
 would be a worse world than it is, if all the 
 eyes that look sincere and honest were the 
 loopholes through which mean natures peered 
 to spy their own advantage, and all the 
 unwrinkled foreheads and blooming cheeks
 
 IV THE WEAKER VESSEL 71 
 
 and laughing lips were no better than pretty 
 disguises. Here and there in the world, in 
 the middle of all the chicane and frivolity, 
 and that pitiless icy selfishness which is the 
 deadliest because the commonest of human 
 crimes, you find a nature so honest, so true, 
 so gentle and tender, that your only way with 
 it is to love it and worship it and wonder at 
 its goodness. And you are a lucky man if 
 its very goodness does not sometimes make 
 your heart ache.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 I HAD no need to discover that Mr. Delamere 
 and Sebastian Jones were not wholly given 
 over to the demon of hollowness. Mr. 
 Delamere's books held a good deal of sound 
 thinking and admirable writing, and Jones's 
 pictures were visible to prove his faculty of 
 imagination, and to show that he could draw 
 and paint what he had imagined. But what 
 with Pole's emphatic condemnation of them 
 — which carried great weight with me at the 
 time — and my own small discoveries and 
 observations, I should have fallen away from 
 them altogether if it had not been for the 
 fact of Mary Delamere's influence. I do not 
 think that I was ever in love with her, 
 though I might have gone that length but
 
 CHAP. V THE WEAKER VESSEL 73 
 
 for another's unconscious intervention ; but 
 from the first I admired her and revered her, 
 and credited her with all imaginable good 
 qualities. It was so great a pleasure to meet 
 her that it more than atoned to me for the 
 impotent exasperation I felt in the presence 
 of Jones, and the bewildering contempt with 
 which Jones s friend and patron inspired 
 me. 
 
 It was, then, entirely upon Miss Dela- 
 mere's account that I kept up my acquaint- 
 ance with her father, and consented to give 
 his halls the benefit of my presence, and 
 his society my carefully-disguised contempt. 
 But I should never have known in its details 
 the sloxy I am about to tell if it had not been 
 for one or two accidental circumstances, such 
 as are always happening in life to jostle us 
 out of the road upon which we fancy that 
 our feet are set, and into new roads upon 
 which we had never the remotest intention 
 of travelling. 
 
 Mr. Delamere's out -of- season entertain-
 
 74 THE WEAKER VESSEL chap. 
 
 ments and receptions came to an end. The 
 entertainments and receptions of the season, 
 which were of a much more exalted and 
 magnificent description, were suddenly, ac- 
 cording to annual fashion, arrested, and in 
 mid-May the house in Cromwell Terrace was 
 closed and the family went abroad, accom- 
 panied, as I learned, by Jones. Mr. Dela- 
 mere found a certain spell of Continental life 
 per year quite necessary for him, and he pre- 
 ferred to take it when the winter health- 
 seekers were all gone home, or going, and 
 before the arrival of the annual summer and 
 autumn crowd of tourists. He liked to have 
 the foreign galleries to himself as far as 
 possible, and always, wherever he might be, 
 he had a sort of haughty and tolerant 
 patience for the crowd. He spent his life in 
 directing the vulgar gaze towards objects of 
 art, and he resented, in his polished and 
 gentlemanly way, the presence of the people 
 he so constantly and eloquently invited. 
 
 Pole and I, having nothing better to do.
 
 V THE WEAKER VESSEL 75 
 
 went up river and lived aboard a hired house- 
 boat. The business arrangements which had 
 been necessary before we took possession of 
 our summer-house were entirely carried out 
 by Pole. I knew nothing about the boat 
 until we entered upon it beyond the fact 
 that it belonged to 'old Goldsmith,' that we 
 paid forty pounds for its use during the 
 summer season, and that during the regatta 
 week at Henley its proprietor would expect 
 to have leave to quarter himself upon us. I 
 had that vague and general idea of old Gold- 
 smith which people gather of men they have 
 heard of and never seen, and it naturally 
 happened that when he presented himself in 
 the flesh he proved to be the exact opposite 
 of what I had imagined. 
 
 I remember the day perfectly. I have 
 reasons for that exactitude of memory, as 
 will in due course appear. It was broiling 
 hot, and in the first week of June. The river 
 was low, and the clayey bank beside which 
 the house - boat was moored was already
 
 76 THE WEAKER VESSEL chap. 
 
 fissured with the heat, and its baking cracks 
 gaped like so many Tantalus mouths above 
 the water, which flowed so near and so un- 
 reachable. I was half asleep in the dingey, 
 and Pole was lounging on the deck, making 
 the shallowest possible pretence of reading 
 Roman law, when a movement on his part 
 awoke me from my dreams, and he mur- 
 mured softly to himself — 
 
 ' Now what on earth does that old scoun- 
 drel want here ? ' 
 
 ' Which old scoundrel ? ' I demanded 
 sleepily. 
 
 ' That old scoundrel ! ' said Pole, nodding 
 his head backward. ' Old Goldsmith.' 
 
 I rolled over in the dingey and, with my 
 elbows on the stern seat, looked down the 
 river in the direction indicated by Pole's 
 nod. On the smooth, mirror-like expanse of 
 the river there was but a single craft, and 
 seated in it, holding a tiller- rope in either 
 hand, was a fat, contented-looking young man 
 of undeniably Jewish aspect. His black eyes
 
 V THE WEAKER VESSEL jj 
 
 gleamed and his fat cheeks creased, and his 
 Hebrew nose wrinkled in a smile of recogni- 
 tion, as the boat, impelled by a sun-burned 
 waterman, whose neck and arms were of the 
 colour of a new-baked brick, bore down upon 
 us. His white teeth, which looked the 
 whiter by contrast with the jetty little mous- 
 tache curling above them, held the stump of 
 a fat cigar. He was dressed in white boat- 
 ing flannels, and a huge cable of watch-chain 
 ran from one breast pocket of his flannel 
 coat to the other. The plump hands that 
 twirled the tiller-ropes were all over rings. 
 His diamonds gleamed, his watch-chain 
 gleamed, the black eyes and white teeth 
 shone as he bore down ; he seemed to shine 
 all over ; and what with the bright daylight 
 and the sunny river, and this opulent glitter 
 of the new-comer, the effect on my sleepy 
 eyes was altogether dazzling. 
 
 ' Halloa ! ' said the new-comer, as he 
 stepped aboard with a dapper dexterity. 
 ' Here you are.'
 
 78 THE WEAKER VESSEL chap. 
 
 ' Yes,' said Pole, casting a lazy eye at him 
 from under the rim of his straw hat, and 
 speaking with a conspicuous absence of wel- 
 come in his tone; 'here we are. Who's 
 a-denying of it ? ' 
 
 The new-comer stooped to the boatman 
 and handed him a coin. 
 
 * This won't do ! ' said the boatman. * I 
 want a shillin'.' 
 
 * He wants a shilling ! ' The new man 
 appealed to me. * Did you ever hear such a 
 thing ? Why do you want a shilling ? What 
 do you want a shilling for ? ' 
 
 * Why ? 'Cos its the regular charge. 
 What for? Why, for scullin' you up 
 here.' 
 
 ' Upon my word ! ' said the new man, 
 still appealing to me — Pole had gone back to 
 his pretended study of Roman law again — 
 ' I'm always being got at. Everybody gets 
 at me. There you are ; that's a sixpence. 
 Go and revel on it, go and revel ! ' 
 
 His voice stopped half-way in his hooked
 
 V THE WEAKER VESSEL 79 
 
 nose, and all his n's sounded like d's. He 
 laughed with a delightful cunning and self- 
 approval, and his black eyes and white teeth 
 twinkled more brightly than before. 
 
 ' It's beastly hot,' said the waterman, wip- 
 ing his tanned forehead with his red forearm. 
 ' Twopence wouldn't break a gentleman like 
 you, would it, Mr. Goldsmith ? ' 
 
 'What a wandering style of conversation!' 
 cried Mr. Goldsmith. 'What's the connec- 
 tion between the heat and twopence ? ' He 
 pulled out an ostentatious handful of gold 
 and silver, and turned it over from one hand 
 to the other, facetiously blowing upon it, as 
 if to sever the wheat from the chaff, and 
 showing to me and the boatman some thirty 
 or forty sovereigns. I saw the glittering eye 
 look at me to remark if I had noticed this 
 little Pactolus as it flowed jingling to and 
 fro with metallic ripple. ' I haven't got 
 twopence. D'ye think a gentleman carries 
 coppers about with him ? There's a three- 
 penny-bit for you. Upon my word every-
 
 8o THE WEAKER VESSEL chap. 
 
 body makes a mark at me, and everybody 
 brings me down. I'm not half active on the 
 wing. I can't escape 'em.' 
 
 I had never met so merry and so self- 
 satisfied a young gentleman. He fairly 
 beamed with self-approval ; and he smiled 
 and smiled at the smiling boatman, who 
 seemed to recognise a certain humour in 
 him, until the latter disappeared round the 
 bend of the river. Then the gay young 
 gentleman leaned over Pole and slapped him 
 on the shoulder. 
 
 * What brings you here ? ' asked Pole, 
 without looking at him. 
 
 ' A little bit of pleasure. A little bit of 
 business,' he responded gaily, seeming in 
 nowise disconcerted by the evident coolness 
 of his reception. 
 
 ' Well, get both of them over,' said Pole, 
 rising and sauntering into the house -boat. 
 The smiling Jew followed him, and by and 
 by I heard Pole asking for pen and ink. 
 
 I confess that though I tried not to be
 
 THE WEAKER VESSEL 
 
 curious I did not succeed to my own com- 
 plete satisfaction. The jingle of money 
 within the boat made me fancy that some 
 part of Mr. Goldsmith's belongings were 
 passing to Pole. I cast the dingey loose 
 and sculled idly over to the other side of the 
 river to avoid hearing more. Pole was sup- 
 posed to have a good deal of money of his 
 own, and I did not understand what was 
 going on at all. It was obviously none of 
 my business, but I would a great deal rather 
 have believed that Pole had nothing in the 
 way of borrowing to do with the smiling 
 young personage, and yet it seemed from 
 that jingling of coin and that asking for pen 
 and ink, as if money were changing hands 
 between them. Then I bethouorht me that 
 though I had paid my half of the house-boat 
 rent beforehand, Pole might not until now 
 have settled with the owner, and so dismissed 
 the matter from my mind. 
 
 My companion and his visitor shortly 
 afterwards appearing on the outer deck of 
 
 VOL. I G
 
 82 THE WEAKER VESSEL chap. 
 
 the house-boat, I sculled back again. Pole 
 was grave and silent — but he was often 
 grave and silent, and It was his manner to 
 seem constantly self-possessed. I could not 
 avoid a feeling that something of Importance 
 had happened ; but the sense of it was only 
 In the air, and there was nothing to give the 
 fancy solidity or shape. 
 
 ' If you'll wait here awhile,' said Pole, 
 turning on Goldsmith, ' I'll go up to town 
 with you.' 
 
 * All right,' he responded cheerfully. 'I've 
 got to take two or three petticoats to see 
 Bedford and Toole In the Pauly-Tooley- 
 Technlc Entertainment, and I want to get 
 back again. Stunning funny name, ain't It ? 
 Pauly-Tooley-Technlc. Bedford's name Is 
 Paul, you know — Polytechnic. See the 
 joke?' 
 
 ' Yes,' said Pole ; ' It's a fascinating bit of 
 humour. Walt there.' 
 
 Mr. Goldsmith remained upon the deck, 
 and affably offered to beguile the time of his
 
 Y THE WEAKER VESSEL 83 
 
 waiting by tossing with me for a sovereign. 
 I declined this sportive offer. 
 
 ' Look here ! ' said the agreeable young 
 man. He selected two sovereigns from a 
 little handful, and sitting down upon the 
 deck, with his back lounging against the 
 wall of the boat, he began to toss and catch 
 the sovereigns with a flourishing dexterity 
 which seemed wasted on so simple a process. 
 * We'll go the best of sevedteen,' he said, 
 'and see who'd have won if we had been 
 tossig. I like to go a big long number 
 because it prologs the agony. I call to you 
 on the right hand, and you call to me on the 
 left.' When he had arranged the prelimin- 
 aries to his own satisfaction he entered upon 
 his self-appointed business with gravity. He 
 called 'eight all,' and even seemed excited. 
 Again he spun the glittering coin, and 
 peered into his palm to see the result. ' I 
 should have lost,' he said. ' I always do 
 lose. There's nothing like my luck in the 
 world. I never have a slice of luck like
 
 THE WEAKER VESSEL 
 
 Other people. Now, wod't you have a 
 flutter ? ' 
 
 Still I declined, thinking of a famous 
 phrase in the collected works of a philo- 
 sopher of his own nation, and half inclined 
 to quote it to him. ' Surely the net is spread 
 in vain in the sight of any bird.' I repressed 
 myself, however, and he sank into silence, 
 and producing a miniature book from an 
 inner pocket fell to checking entries in it 
 with a little gold pencil, until he became* 
 absorbed enough to forget me. By and by 
 Pole appeared, dressed for town, and he and 
 Mr. Goldsmith, stepping ashore, took their 
 way across the fields towards the railway 
 station. 
 
 I was a little curious still, in spite of my- 
 self. I should as soon have thought of the 
 magnificent and refined Mr. Delamere him- 
 self associating with this young Hebrew as 
 of Pole, who was fastidious in the choice of 
 his companions. If I had been disposed to 
 criticise my friend I might have thought that
 
 THE WEAKER VESSEL 
 
 he was a little too ready and too profound in 
 disdain, and Mr. Goldsmith was just the 
 kind of person of whom he would be most 
 readily and most profoundly disdainful. Yet 
 the two had dealings together, and the fat 
 little Jew at least was obviously unconscious 
 of any great social or intellectual difference 
 between them. 
 
 I was displeased to find myself clinging in 
 fancy to this problem, the solution of which, 
 however simple or complex it might be, was 
 assuredly no business of mine, and I took up 
 a book to get rid of it ; but still finding myself 
 hovering round the theme in a manner which 
 I felt to be altogether absurd and undignified, 
 I walked off to the village, locking up the 
 house - boat before I started, and ordered 
 dinner at the inn. Pole and I did our own 
 cooking, and were getting to be expert, but 
 a regimen of chops and steaks palled some- 
 what when the pleasant novelty of providing 
 for ourselves was worn away, and on this par- 
 ticular afternoon I felt a distaste for solitude.
 
 86 THE WEAKER VESSEL chap. 
 
 Nothing seemed very entertaining that 
 afternoon. I lounged about the river-bank 
 until dinner was ready, and then sat down to 
 my meal in a room overlooking the stream, 
 and read the day before yesterday's news- 
 paper as I ate. Dinner over — and I made 
 it last as long as I could to kill the time — I 
 hung at the window watching the few craft 
 about the stream, when I heard my friend's 
 name mentioned loudly and distinctly. 
 
 ' Mr. Pole. Mr. Walter Pole.' 
 
 A lady stood at the steps by the water- 
 side, and near her was the man who had 
 brought Goldsmith to the house-boat. The 
 man answered in a murmur, pointing up 
 stream. The lady said 'Thank you' in a 
 somewhat harsh and metallic-sounding voice, 
 and turning away from him looked casually 
 up at me as I looked out of window, and so 
 moved away. She struck me as being over- 
 dressed, and her face was painted. She was 
 perhaps two or three-and-thirty years of age, 
 of a handsome and imposing presence, but
 
 V THE WEAKER VESSEL 87 
 
 reckless and passionate to look at, and I had 
 an instinct that she had been drinkinor. In 
 the mere second for which her eyes rested on 
 mine they were scornful and defiant ; and in 
 her manner of looking away from me there 
 was a world of disdain. 
 
 The lady struck me as being no more a 
 desirable acquaintance from Pole's point of 
 view than the Jew had seemed to be — if any- 
 thing a little less. The memory of her face 
 and figure stayed with me ; I might almost 
 say it haunted me. There was a sort of im- 
 perious abandoned devilry about her which 
 made me think that she had fallen utterly out 
 of her own esteem, and that her worse self 
 stood before her better self, striving to stare 
 her down and brazen her out of her re- 
 proaches. I cannot tell how or why, but the 
 magnificence of her dress seemed to be in 
 contradiction with her face. I fancied her in 
 squalor, with the great lustrous coils of her 
 heavy hair unloosed and hanging in disorder. 
 
 She kept me in unpleasant company across
 
 88 THE WEAKER VESSEL chap. 
 
 the fields as I walked back to the boat. I 
 saw her at a distance once, drawing patterns 
 on the turf with the point of her laced parasol, 
 and looking downwards. From where she 
 stood she could see the house-boat, if she 
 were but minded to look at it ; and I had so 
 much aversion to the possibility of being 
 recognised as one of its inmates and being 
 questioned by her that I purposely sauntered 
 away from it until I assured myself that she 
 had disappeared. Then I approached it, 
 dropped into the dingey, and pulled up 
 stream. It was an hour before I came back 
 again, and the shades of evening were begin- 
 ning to fall. The lady was on the deck of 
 the house-boat, trying the door, which I had 
 locked some two or three hours earlier. It 
 was but a step from the baked clay of the 
 bank to the deck. I drifted by in the grow- 
 ing dark, and feigned to take no notice of 
 her, though I was irresolutely inclined to 
 accost her and to tell her that Pole was 
 absent.
 
 V THE WEAKER VESSEL 89 
 
 I heard her shaking and knocking with an 
 apparent increasing anger and insistence as I 
 drifted beyond her, and then the sounds ceased, 
 and she seemed to have resigned her attempt 
 to enter, or to have made up her mind that 
 the boat was really deserted. I kept away for 
 fully an hour after this, and then returning 
 and finding the coast clear, entered, lit the 
 lamp, and sat down to my usual evening's 
 work. At this time I was resolute to select 
 and record whatever seemed best worth 
 noting and remembering in the progress of 
 the day — thoughts, impressions, descriptions, 
 scraps of all sorts. I was engaged in this 
 way, and quite absorbed in my task, when the 
 door was thrust suddenly and noisily open, 
 and turning a startled look that way, I saw 
 the lady standing before me. 
 
 She stared at me with a sort of haughty 
 and angry surprise, as though the chamber had 
 belonged to her and I had been an intruder. 
 
 * Where is Mr. Pole ? ' she asked me, curtly 
 and disdainfully.
 
 90 777^ WEAKER VESSEL chap. 
 
 ' He has gone to town,' I answered. 
 
 * You heard me asking for him at the inn,' 
 she said, with the same curt disdain of words 
 and tone ; * why did you not tell me then that 
 he was gone to town ? ' 
 
 ' I beg your pardon,' I answered. ' It did 
 not occur to me.' 
 
 ' It did not occur,' she said, in a voice of 
 explanatory suavity, as if she addressed some 
 third person. Then — ' I will wait until he 
 returns.' 
 
 She entered, closed the door behind her, 
 and sat down. I made no objection to this, 
 thouo^h I am afraid I showed no enthusiasm 
 of welcome. She sat in silence, and when I 
 made a motion to place the lamp nearer to 
 her and to set a little heap of books beside 
 her, so that she might occupy herself, she 
 moved me away contemptuously. Except 
 for an occasional tapping of the foot upon the 
 floor, which bespoke either anger or im- 
 patience, she made no sound ; and when I 
 had offered one or two casual awkward obser-
 
 V THE WEAKER VESSEL 91 
 
 vations and had received no more sign of 
 heed or answer than if I had addressed a 
 graven image, I also relapsed into silence. 
 A half-hour of excessive discomfort — on my 
 side, at least — went by, and then came the 
 sound of a tuneful whistle which I knew for 
 Pole's. My companion recognised it also, 
 and rising to her feet stood facing the 
 door. 
 
 A mere moment later Pole leapt on the 
 deck, and the vessel swayed faintly. Then 
 the door opened, and I saw Pole's face look 
 in with its usual aspect of idle insouciance. 
 Underlying that lazy, careless look there was 
 always an expression of waiting courage, and 
 I had always thought that Pole, if he were 
 really awakened, would be an awkward 
 enemy. His eyes blazed into swift anger as 
 he caught sight of the waiting figure, but he 
 resumed his usual look almost at once. He 
 stuck his hands into his pockets and nodded 
 at me, presenting so complete a picture of 
 his common self that I was more than half
 
 92 THE WEAKER VESSEL chap, v 
 
 inclined to doubt my impression of a few 
 seconds earlier. 
 
 ' That you, Adelaide ? ' he said. ' I'll walk 
 to the railway station with you. We'll talk 
 as we go.' 
 
 She answered never a word, but followed 
 him into the darkness.
 
 CHAPTER \T 
 
 When Pole came back again In the course of 
 about an hour, he began to swing his ham- 
 mock and otherwise to prepare for the night. 
 For my own part, I had to pretend to be not 
 in the least interested by his visitors, but I 
 knew that my manner seemed odd and con- 
 strained, and my very desire that he should 
 notice nothing seemed at last insistent and 
 impertinent. I arranged my own hammock, 
 and drew the curtain which separated us for 
 the night across the chamber, but I had only 
 just addressed myself to sleep when he drew 
 it back again and addressed me. The gleam 
 of his pipe shone in the darkness, and revealed 
 his eyes and the tip of his nose by occasional 
 glimpses.
 
 94 THE WEAKER VESSEL chap. 
 
 ' Did that woman tell you anything, Den- 
 ham ? ' he asked. 
 
 'Nothing,' I answered. 'She asked for 
 you, and when I told her you had gone to 
 town she said she would wait.' 
 
 ' Was she here long before I came ? ' 
 
 ' About half an hour.' 
 
 He was silent for a minute or two, but 
 smoking furiously, as I could see through the 
 darkness, by the alternate glow and fading of 
 the pipe. 
 
 ' I don't know why I shouldn't tell you,' 
 he said, at the end of this pause. ' You'll 
 hold your tongue about it.' 
 
 ' If you want to tell me anything that you 
 want kept secret it shall never be talked 
 about.' 
 
 ' Very well. That's my wife.' 
 
 I think I was too astonished to reply. He 
 was quiet for a time, and then he laughed 
 oddly. 
 
 ' We were married four years ago. I re- 
 member tipping the pew-opener. She let off
 
 VI THE WEAKER VESSEL 95 
 
 an old joke on me : " You've tied a knot with 
 your tongue that you can't undo with your 
 teeth." ' 
 
 He laughed again in the same odd way as 
 before, and I made no answer. I did not see 
 what could be said to be of service. My 
 head whirled, and I thought of all sorts of 
 ridiculous things, congratulations and con- 
 dolences, but luckily none of them passed my 
 lips. Pole said no more. I heard him lay 
 his pipe down carefully, and I heard him 
 settling himself in his hammock. Then I 
 listened to the lap of the water on the boat 
 and the stir and rustle of the leaves which 
 hung above the roof, and the nibbling of a 
 lonely rat who had his home in the well, and 
 defied all our efforts to entrap him. I had 
 never until then felt so dreary and unhappy 
 in my life, and I lay awake the greater part 
 of the night thinking of Pole and pitying him, 
 and wondering what the history might be. 
 
 He was precisely like himself next morn- 
 ing, and precisely like himself for many days
 
 96 THE WEAKER VESSEL chap. 
 
 afterwards, and for a long time there was no 
 more said between us. I thought then, and 
 still think, that he took my silence as the 
 most friendly and acceptable thing I had to 
 offer, and that he liked me the better for it. 
 On his side the revelation of an unhappy 
 secret, and on my side the knowledge of it, 
 seemed to draw us closer. But he seemed 
 to desire that I should treat the revelation as 
 if I had forgotten it, and with every day it 
 grew to be less possible to speak of it. So 
 between us we buried it for the time. 
 
 If I have not conveyed a sufficing picture 
 of the woman, my feeling about Pole's union 
 with her will seem exaggerated, unless indeed 
 the feeling itself be translated into the picture, 
 and is seen as a reasonable part of it. I have 
 now lived twice the years I had then known, 
 and have seen the world of men and women 
 far and wide, but I have never met anything 
 to equal the hate and pride and self-disdain 
 of her face. ' I know you hate me. Well, I 
 hate you, and despise you, and I hate myself
 
 VI THE WEAKER VESSEL 97 
 
 and all the world.' The proud eyes, and the 
 haggard, painted face said these things plainly, 
 and never failed to say them in my imagina- 
 tion when I recalled her. A dreadful, hateful, 
 ruined face. A woman to pity and avoid. 
 
 Naturally enough, she had not seemed so 
 dreadful at first as she became when I knew 
 of Pole's connection with her. We pass 
 people in the street every day with abso- 
 lutely no feeling, w^ho would inspire us with 
 an awful terror and aversion if they were in 
 any way wound about our own lives, or the 
 lives of our friends. 
 
 Then, naturally enough again, I began to 
 regard my friend with different eyes, and 
 with new light upon him began to see and 
 to understand things which I had not hitherto 
 noticed. His ordinary idle and tranquil ways 
 deceived me no more, and I saw in him chiefly 
 a settled determination not to be cast down. 
 Being impelled to notice him as I was, I 
 began to see also that his apparent ease of 
 demeanour covered a good deal of shyness. 
 
 VOL. I H
 
 98 THE WEAKER VESSEL chap. 
 
 His lounging air gave somehow an impres- 
 sion of complete coolness and savoir faire, 
 but this on closer knowledge of him became 
 transparent. Perhaps in the warmth of my 
 sympathy I exaggerated what I saw in him, 
 but I began to think him far more sensitive, 
 more retiring and sympathetic, than a score 
 of people I knew who more or less laid claim 
 to these qualities, and I came to regard him 
 as a man rather unusually prone to suffer, 
 though uncommonly well able to conceal his 
 pains. 
 
 The regatta week came, the house-boat 
 was towed up to Henley, and Mr. Gold- 
 smith arrived with a great kit of the most 
 amazing, glaring river costumes I ever yet 
 beheld. Pole treated him with a remarkable 
 coolness, and yet on more than one occasion 
 I came upon them talking with great serious- 
 ness and an air of confidence. Their conver- 
 sation always came to an immediate end with 
 my appearance, and somehow, without know- 
 ing very precisely why, I associated Goldsmith
 
 VI THE WEAKER VESSEL 99 
 
 with Poles unhappy union, and supposed 
 that their talks together in some way related 
 to it. 
 
 There was no man on the river who was 
 quite as aquatic in his aspect as Goldsmith, 
 but he was the most useless of cockneys in a 
 boat. On the second day of the regatta he 
 was making prodigious efforts to get out of 
 the course, and was being objurgated from a 
 score of quarters at once, when he ran full 
 tilt into a very handsome and delicate craft, 
 in which were seated two ladies and a gentle- 
 man, the latter very jovial to look at, but 
 short in temper as it proved. The handsome 
 craft was lying immediately below our house- 
 boat, and Pole, who had cast aside his usual 
 quiet for the moment, was roaring unheeded 
 instructions to the fat little Jew to back water 
 and to look where he was going, and so on. 
 The proprietor of the endangered craft was 
 vainly striving to get past the ladies to break 
 the shock of the advancing boat, when crash 
 it came, started a plank or two, and threw
 
 loo THE WEAKER VESSEL chap. 
 
 the ladies and their companion into a strug- 
 gHng heap. The gentleman first emerged 
 from the pile, and had a dreadfijl struggle 
 with himself not to say things which should 
 prejudice him for ever in the eyes of his 
 companions. I knew so well the kind of 
 relief for which his nature at that moment 
 clamoured, that I trembled for him. But in 
 a while he dared to give utterance to his 
 feelings. 
 
 ' Go home, sir,' he said to the wretched 
 Goldsmith. ' You have no business here ; 
 go home, sir.' 
 
 He spoke with a very loud voice, and laid 
 a tremendous emphasis on the aspirate in 
 ' home.' 
 
 Goldsmith, who had bumped the back of 
 his head on the bottom of the dingey — 
 he had a lump as large as a hen's ^^^ there 
 half an hour later — murmured in confused 
 apology. 
 
 'Go home, sir,' shouted the other; 'go 
 home.' And not a word beyond that would
 
 VI THE WEAKER VESSEL loi 
 
 the infuriate man trust himself to utter. 
 'Go home, sir; go home.' 
 
 Somehow the author of this disaster 
 scrambled aboard the house-boat, and so 
 drew upon Pole and myself the attention of 
 the crowd, and at the same time induced the 
 sufferer to include us with Goldsmith in a 
 common condemnation. 
 
 We went inside for a moment with Gold- 
 smith, who was half-stupid from the shock, 
 and then Pole returned to the angry man and 
 entered into speech with him. 
 
 ' I hope the boat isn't much injured,' I 
 heard him say. ' If you'll let me know the 
 amount of the damage I will see that it is 
 paid.' 
 
 ' Send him home, sir,' said the angr)^ man, 
 refusing at present to be mollified ; ' send him 
 home.' 
 
 ' Sir,' said Pole in suavest tones, 'he shall 
 be sent. I hope the ladies are not hurt.' 
 
 The ladies replied that they were not hurt 
 at all ; but looking through the window, I
 
 I02 THE WEAKER VESSEL chap. 
 
 was aware of one of them very ruefully re- 
 garding a pretty straw hat which was crushed 
 out of all shape. Pole sympathised very 
 warmly, and I heard him insinuating that 
 really after that shock a glass of wine — he 
 must really be permitted. He must really 
 be allowed to insist. He came into the boat, 
 took a bottle of champagne which had been 
 lying in ice for luncheon, gathered some 
 glasses together, and went out again. I in 
 the meantime was preparing vinegar and 
 brown paper for Goldsmith, and doctoring 
 him as well as I could. He was dreadfully 
 sulky, and when I was finished with him, I 
 went outside and found Pole fraternising with 
 the three strangers, all politeness and regret 
 for the accident, and solicitude for the ladies. 
 The sufferer, all things considered, turned 
 out an extremely amiable fellow ; and what 
 between Pole's soothing and the champagne, 
 he came back to himself. He cast some 
 piteous glances at the boat, which was new 
 and of an expensive make, but he said no
 
 VI THE WEAKER VESSEL 103 
 
 more until Pole, after an audible altercation 
 with Goldsmith, brought the latter out to 
 apologise, and to promise all reasonable com- 
 pensation. But Goldsmith was unfortunate 
 in his way of putting the thing, and the 
 sufferer by his clumsiness was hard upon 
 him. 
 
 'It is not a matter for apology, sir,' he 
 said, ' or for compensation. You have no 
 business here. You had better take the 
 advice I gave you, and go home.' 
 
 ' I've apologised,' said Goldsmith, half- 
 way through his nose, 'and I've offered to 
 pay ; that's all one gentleman can do for 
 adother, and if the other ain't reasonable 
 about it, all I've got to say is he's no gentle- 
 man.' 
 
 Then there was an altercation in which I 
 felt that I sounded the depths of shame, Mr. 
 Goldsmith conducted himself so little to my 
 fancy. It was ended by Pole, who bundled 
 the Jew into the interior of the boat. 
 
 ' We hired the thing from that fellow for
 
 I04 THE WEAKER VESSEL chap. 
 
 the season,' he explained, evidently not 
 caring any more than I did to be identified 
 with our companion. ' He made a point of 
 coming up to Henley, and I gave way. His 
 breaking your boat was an accident. Per- 
 haps the fact that he's a blackguard may be 
 accidental too.' 
 
 There was an exchange of cards between 
 Pole and the stranger, and then the damaged 
 boat was rowed away. Pole marched, with 
 every appearance of tranquillity, into the 
 presence of our guest and landlord, and 
 began, with a quiet dogmatism which must 
 have been painful and exasperating to Gold- 
 smith, to express his opinion of him. 
 
 'You are really,' he said, 'a very horrid 
 little person, and after your behaviour of to- 
 day I won't have you about.' 
 
 ' How could I help running into the man's 
 boat ? ' snarled Goldsmith. The cunning, 
 smiling, self -approving little man was all 
 changed, and he ruffled and swelled, and 
 grew red about the head like a turkey-cock.
 
 VI THE WEAKER VESSEL 105 
 
 * You could have helped using bad lan- 
 guage before ladies,' said Pole. 
 
 ' No I couldn't,' said Goldsmith, who was 
 ready to contradict anything. 
 
 'That is a trifle worse than ever,' said 
 Pole. ' The man who cannot help using 
 bad language before ladies is a man to be 
 avoided. I must ask you to go.' 
 
 ' I won't go,' the little man almost 
 shrieked. ' It's my boat. I'll stop." 
 
 ' If you are not gone in half an hour,' 
 Pole responded, ' I shall drop you overboard. 
 I have spoken.' 
 
 At that we returned to the deck, and in 
 a while Goldsmith began to pack up his 
 effects. He interrupted himself to come out 
 and address us. He said it was part of the 
 bargain he had made that he was to have a 
 week at Henley. He had but three days, 
 and he demanded a guinea a day for four 
 days more. He added that he thought the 
 request was moderate. 
 
 Pole counted out four pounds four
 
 io6 THE WEAKER VESSEL chap. 
 
 shillings and dropped the money in his hand. 
 He took it with no evidence of shame^ and 
 went indoors to continue his packing. But 
 by and by he was back again, blazing. 
 
 ' Look here/ he began, ' you're taking a 
 very high and mighty air with me, Mr. Pole, 
 but I'll be even with you. I know a thing 
 or two that you don't think I know, and I'll 
 spoil your game, as sure as I'm alive. It 
 wasn't in my line to denounce anybody, let 
 alone a customer, but I'll spoil your game, as 
 sure as I'm alive. Oh, you needn't stare at 
 me ! I ain't afraid of you. I haven't got 
 to do the thing myself. I've only got to put 
 the missis on to you. She'll jolly sharp put 
 a stopper on you, see if she don't. You go 
 fooling about with Miss Delamere any 
 more ' 
 
 Pole had been lolling against the door- 
 post, regarding the man with a look of 
 complete indifference up to this, but here he 
 darted at him, and before another word was 
 spoken, and before I could intervene, Gold-
 
 VI THE WEAKER VESSEL 107 
 
 smith was splashing in the water. He came 
 up screaming and spouting, and swam to 
 land, and, standing on the bank, threatened 
 Pole in a most horrible manner, stamping 
 and spluttering with rage. All eyes were 
 turned, and all necks were craned to see 
 what was the matter. Pole pushed me in- 
 doors and followed, closing the door behind 
 him, and when the Jew had screamed his 
 fill and had gathered an eager and excited 
 crowd, he was moved away. A man came, 
 half an hour later, from one of the hotels, 
 asking for his baggage. 
 
 ' I think,' said Pole, observing that a con- 
 siderable number of people still seemed to 
 linger near us, and to find us interesting and 
 curious, ' I have had enough of publicity for 
 to-day. I shall go up to chambers. Will 
 you come ? ' 
 
 I assented willingly, and we went away 
 together. Neither he nor I made any 
 allusion to the quarrel, but it dwelt in my 
 mind heavily, and I was unable to forget it.
 
 io8 THE WEAKER VESSEL chap. 
 
 We went to a concert in the evening, but I 
 heard little of the music, and was wonder- 
 ing, whether I would or no, what the Jew's 
 sayings might mean. Later on, in my 
 room, Pole opened his mind a little, but not 
 much. 
 
 ' I shall have some trouble over that 
 fellow,' he said, after guarding silence for a 
 full hour. 'He's a solicitor and money- 
 lender, and his father did some business 
 for my wife before we married, and seemed 
 really to have behaved kindly to her. When 
 we two had to go our separate ways I 
 wanted somebody to stand between us, 
 and make her the necessary payments, and 
 so forth. I went to look for the old man 
 and found the young one. He did as well 
 as anybody. The old man is dead, and the 
 young one has the business. Then my wife 
 is one of their own people. I shall have to 
 find somebody else, I suppose. I dare say 
 you wondered why I had him down at 
 Henley ?'
 
 VI 777^ WEAKER VESSEL 109 
 
 I did — a little — I confessed. 
 
 ' He has a curious Influence with my 
 wife. He can keep her quiet when nobody 
 else can. I thought she might find us out 
 at a place like Henley. I didn't want a 
 scene. He was to have looked out for her. 
 It's a melancholy sort of business, Isn't It ? ' 
 he asked, as If he were merely tired. 
 
 I thought It very melancholy Indeed, and 
 answered so. 
 
 ' Well,' he said, shrugging his shoulders, 
 ' I've made my bed, and I must He on it. 
 It's all In the day's work. Good-night, old 
 chap.' 
 
 He would confess to nothing, would make 
 no show, but I thought how heart -sore he 
 must be, and was profoundly sorry for him, 
 not for the last time. But whether I would 
 have it there or no, I could not get ]\IIss 
 Delamere's name out of my head, and my 
 mind strayed here and there In fruitless 
 conjecture. But I could think no 111 of 
 Pole, and certalnlv I could think no 111 of
 
 no THE WEAKER VESSEL chap, vi 
 
 the one Miss Delamere I knew. My dreams 
 defied me, and I saw Pole leading Miss 
 Delamere to the altar, and saw the Jew 
 pounce out from behind one pillar of the 
 building, whilst Pole's wife pounced out from 
 behind another, crying out so shrilly that 
 they awoke me. 
 
 After that I lay awake the greater part 
 of the night, wondering if Pole had fallen 
 in love with Miss Delamere in his unhappy 
 loneliness, and if that were the reason of 
 his avoidance of her.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 About three weeks after the events just re- 
 lated, when we had got our floating residence 
 back into its old quarters, there came up the 
 river, one lovely tranquil morning, a fussy 
 and important steam - launch, with a dozen 
 ladies and gentlemen aboard, and a bright 
 striped awning of pink and white and blue, 
 which shone very prettily and gaily in the 
 sunshine. Pole and I were waiting to enter 
 the lock when this vessel came scream- 
 ing along to signal to the lock-keeper, 
 and we were still there when she came 
 up. She halted alongside our quieter and 
 less imposing craft, and when the wet 
 gates swung slowly open and we passed 
 into the shadow and cool between the
 
 112 THE WEAKER VESSEL chap. 
 
 gleaming walls, she glided slowly after 
 us. 
 
 We were just beginning to float upwards 
 when a female voice said, speaking above us, 
 ' Good -morning, Mr. Pole,' and looking up 
 I was aware of a white-haired elderly lady 
 who was bending over the rail of the launch 
 and smiling downwards. Pole snatched off 
 his cap and smiled back again, and was 
 exchanging greetings with her when no 
 less a person than Sebastian Dolmer Jones 
 appeared beside her, and waved a friendly 
 hand to both of us. 
 
 'This is lucky,' said Jones, 'we are two 
 men short. Come on board. We are going 
 as far as Pangbourne. Leave your boat 
 here. You can call for it on your way back. 
 We are going to have a jolly day and leave 
 dull care behind us.' 
 
 * Pray come, Mr. Pole,' said the elderly 
 lady. ' We are lamentably short of gentle- 
 men.' 
 
 Then two or three other people whom
 
 VII THE WEAKER VESSEL 113 
 
 Pole knew, but who were strano-e to me, 
 joined very cordially in this invitation, and 
 we had just confessed that we had nothing 
 particular to do, and were not bound 
 especially anywhere, when Mr. Delamere 
 and his daughter, neither of whom had 
 hitherto come within our range of vision, 
 appeared also. Mr. Delamere blessed us, 
 as it were, from his superior height, and 
 said — 
 
 ' Glad to see you, Pole. Glad to see you. 
 Glad to see yotc, Denham. Glad to see you. 
 Come on board, by all means. By all 
 means, come on board.' 
 
 As if he waived all possible objections 
 which somebody was going to offer to our 
 society, and were quite resolved not to hear 
 them spoken of It was, of course, too late 
 to hesitate, and so we went on board, though 
 I did so with mixed feelings. Pole shook 
 hands with ]\Ir. Delamere with a rather chill 
 politeness, I thought ; but then I was looking 
 out for that, and I dare say that nobody else 
 VOL. I 1
 
 114 THE WEAKER VESSEL chap. 
 
 noticed it. I had not time for the moment 
 to remark anything further. Mr. Jones 
 took me round and told me people's names, 
 and told people my name, in that pleasant 
 and simple fashion which then obtained. 
 The old fashion had at least the merit of 
 preventing nervous young men and women, 
 who thought they must be entertaining, from 
 saying smart things to the wrong people and 
 about the wrong people. 
 
 Then I had to give instructions to the 
 lock-keeper about the boat, and when this 
 was done we all steamed away together up 
 the sunny river, and I had time to look about 
 me, and see what manner of people I had 
 fallen amongst. They all seemed agreeable 
 and amiable and bent upon enjoying them- 
 selves, and, with the exception of Mr. Dela- 
 mere and the lady who had first accosted 
 Pole, the party was entirely composed of 
 young and youngish people. 
 
 Miss Delamere was talking to Pole, 
 and he was answering her in a manner to
 
 VII THE WEAKER VESSEL 115 
 
 dissipate any fancies of romance between 
 them. 
 
 ' You have developed a very unlooked-for 
 characteristic, Mr. Pole,' she said, with that 
 air of harmless impudence which we all think 
 so charming in a beautiful girl. ' You grow 
 retiring.' 
 
 'Grow!' answered Pole, with equal light- 
 ness and gaiety of demeanour. ' I am grown. 
 Denham and I are hermits. We are a sort 
 of double Diogenes. You passed our tub a 
 quarter of a mile below the lock.' 
 
 ' Is your choice of the life final .'^' she asked 
 him smilingly. ' Are your friends never to 
 see you again ?' 
 
 ' We have forgotten the world,' he 
 answered, with a slight humorous exaggera- 
 tion of tone, 'and supposed ourselves for- 
 gotten by it. Perhaps when nature grows 
 unkind we may be driven back to the world 
 we have abjured. I don't know yet how 
 strong we are.' 
 
 * Nature at her severest did not drive you
 
 ii6 THE WEAKER VESSEL chap. 
 
 our way in the winter time,' she said, smiHng 
 and nodding her head at him. 
 
 Pole's gaiety failed him for a mere second, 
 and he blushed and looked guilty. 
 
 'Now, Mr. Denham,'said Miss Delamere, 
 withdrawing her attack on Pole in what I 
 thought a very ready and graceful way — 
 though it was my habit by this time to think 
 very highly of this young lady and of all she 
 might do — ' Mr. Denham has been delight- 
 fully regular. You, I trust,' addressing me- 
 directly, ' are not going to turn permanent 
 hermit.' 
 
 I thought not, looking at the bright eyes 
 and beautiful face. Not the presence of all 
 the Dolmer Jones's and elderly male Dela- 
 meres in the world could rob a room of its 
 charm whilst that delightful countenance 
 decorated it. I left these reflections un- 
 spoken, but I assured her that I had no inten- 
 tion of turning hermit at all — that on the 
 whole I was rather fond of the world, and 
 thought it an agreeable sort of place.
 
 VII THE WEAKER VESSEL 117 
 
 'When I was little,' said Miss Delamere, 
 ' I was told that it was very stimulating to 
 virtue to let it be plainly seen and known 
 that people were expected to be good. You 
 are expected to be very good to-day, Mr. 
 Pole.' 
 
 ' I will try,' he answered, * to make the 
 expectation stimulating. In point of fact, I 
 will be good.' 
 
 He did in effect become exceedingly bright 
 and gay, and was spoken of as being a great 
 acquisition. There is always at a picnic 
 somebody who is described as being the life 
 and soul of the party, and Pole set all the 
 young people chaffing and laughing so suc- 
 cessfully, that before the day was over that 
 title was his by common consent. Mr. Dela- 
 mere' s high-bred and lofty quiet would have 
 sat a little heavily on some of us, I fancy, 
 had it not been for his detestor's presence. 
 Only every now and again to my mind Pole 
 seemed to flag and to go unusually gloomy. 
 It needed but a word to bring him back to
 
 ii8 THE WEAKER VESSEL chap. 
 
 his air of gaiety, and he said a hundred 
 bright things, not of the sort which are 
 worth keeping and will sparkle in any set- 
 ting, but of the smaller sort which make 
 people laugh when they are disposed to 
 laughter, but might seem perhaps a little 
 poor and commonplace if they were recorded. 
 They were Paris brilliants perhaps, but then 
 they made no pretence of being Koh-i-noors, 
 and in that sunlight of youth and high 
 spirits and summer holiday they sparkled, as 
 I remember, very brightly. This was a new 
 side of him to me, and the sight of it set me 
 thinking gravely once or twice how very 
 happy and handsome and genial he might 
 have been if that dark chapter of his life I 
 knew of had never been written. 
 
 After luncheon there was displayed a tend- 
 ency which I had remarked before, and 
 have since observed at such gatherings — a 
 tendency, namely, to get into couples, and to 
 wander away from the centre. Pole and 
 Miss Delamere were companions, and for my
 
 VII THE WEAKER VESSEL 119 
 
 own part I was attracted by haphazard to 
 the society of a certain Miss Clara Grantley, 
 in speaking of whom I shall have to be care- 
 ful, since the lady's eye will assuredly rest 
 upon these pages, and her introduction to 
 this narrative is already expected. She was, 
 then, the most charming young person of her 
 sex whom I had yet had the pleasure of be- 
 holding. I established my own discernment 
 by almost immediately falling in love w^ith 
 her, and I shall remember that sunlit river 
 and those happy fields as long as I remember 
 anything. She was only eighteen and I was 
 barely half a dozen years older, so that we 
 were both very young, and we were both 
 certainly very shy. Shyness is less the 
 fashion among young people than it used to 
 be, I fancy. 
 
 I remember that at first we talked mostly 
 about Pole, and that I spoke very highly of 
 him. She told me that a brother of hers, 
 then in India, had been at school with Pole, 
 and was very fond of him. I answered that
 
 I20 THE WEAKER VESSEL chap. 
 
 everybody must be ; and so, with Pole as a 
 kind of conversational walking-stick, we be- 
 gan to get along together very nicely. It 
 dawned upon me at moments that the young 
 lady was very pretty, and I had the sense to 
 think myself a lucky dog in having secured 
 a partner in all ways so agreeable. She had 
 blue-gray eyes and hair of a golden-yellowish 
 hue, a beauty which has grown much more 
 common than it used to be before the chemist 
 came in and invented an auricomous hair- 
 wash. I do not believe that in those ancient 
 days that delusive compound had been in- 
 vented — ladies should be told that we of 
 the other sex are always able to distinguish 
 art from nature in that particular — and even 
 if it had been, my companion was one of the 
 people who are favoured by nature with the 
 best of all possible reasons for not using it. 
 She had a very fair complexion and a freckle 
 or two, which to my thinking made the 
 fairness prettier to look at. I shall abide 
 by the freckles, whatever editorial revision
 
 VII THE WEAKER VESSEL 121 
 
 may be attempted. I remember them dis- 
 tinctly. 
 
 This charming young person had a mother 
 who was something of an invahd, and was in 
 the country for her health. They were great 
 friends of the Delameres ; and ^Irs. Dela- 
 mere (who had been dead for many years) 
 and mamma had been schoolgirls together. 
 So now the charming young person was stay- 
 ing in the Delameres' house, and Miss Dela- 
 mere had care of her. She did not seem 
 ver)' much to like Mr. Delamere, which, in its 
 way, was a sort of bond of union between 
 us, and she said she did not think Jones was 
 ver\' nice, which was indisputably another. 
 She had some awe of Delamere, whom she 
 regarded as being supematurally learned and 
 clever, but she thcHjght he undervalued the 
 other kinds of learning and cleverness which 
 other people had. Jones and he seemed to 
 be very great friends indeed, and Jones was a 
 great deal about the house ; in fact he almost 
 lived there. Her tone seemed to express
 
 THE WEAKER VESSEL 
 
 something of a regret for this fact ; at least 
 I so construed it, and it soothed me. I 
 should have been disappointed in a girl 
 otherwise so charming if she had liked 
 Jones. 
 
 We strolled about that beautiful afternoon, 
 and I sculled her about the river, where she 
 was at first a little timid, though she soon 
 grew accustomed and fearless, and became 
 interested in learning to steer. I should 
 have been an egregious young coxcomb if I 
 had at this time even begun to have a notion 
 of what was really happening to me, but I 
 took the fever naturally, and at first kindly. 
 There never had been surely so charming a 
 companion. There never had been such a 
 pretty girl. And so far that was all. 
 
 Now, I myself am, if I may be forgiven for 
 mentioning the fact, a swarthy man of a 
 muddy complexion, and, as old experience 
 proves, therefore all the likelier to find blue- 
 gray eyes and yellowish hair and rosy cheeks 
 — not peony, if you please, but rosy, the
 
 VII THE WEAKER VESSEL 123 
 
 most delicate, wholesome, rose-leaf bloom in 
 the world — I was all the more likely, I say, 
 to find these charms attractive and supreme. 
 And then, of course, I admired the shy, 
 gentle, sweet nature and the arch, timid 
 face, and had never known anything so de- 
 lightful. And whether you like to believe it 
 or not, madame, for whose especial behoof 
 this page is, and one or two that have pre- 
 ceded it are wTitten, I had never fallen in 
 love before. That is in any way worth speak- 
 ing of. 
 
 We found in a while two others of our 
 party on the bank, but whether they pre- 
 ferred solitude or were too benevolent to 
 spoil our enjoyment, they declined our hypo- 
 critical invitation to join us, and strolled 
 away among the trees ; and, like the Ancient 
 Mariner with the water -snakes, I blessed 
 them unaware. 
 
 It was altogether a day to remember, but 
 it faded as all days will. The steam-whistle 
 sounded, and we all assembled at the launch,
 
 124 THE WEAKER VESSEL chap. 
 
 and went away down stream again. I hoped 
 with all my heart all the time that Miss 
 Delamere would give me an invitation, and 
 I was, I am afraid, very ingratiatory with 
 her. She gladdened me by doing what I 
 wanted very kindly and graciously. So 
 pretty a girl, and so charming a companion ! 
 I wanted to see as much of that beauty as I 
 could, and to have more of that charming 
 companionship. 
 
 At the lock where we had met them all 
 we took leave of them. A mile or two far- 
 ther down stream they would betake them- 
 selves to the rail, and so back to town and 
 dinner. Pole and I, perched on the lock 
 gate, waved farewell with our caps so long 
 as we could see the flutter of the departing 
 handkerchiefs. There had been a jolly affec- 
 tation of heart-break between Pole and the 
 old lady at losing one another, and it was 
 because of this that the signals of good-bye 
 were thus prolonged. 
 
 Whilst we were still waving and smiling
 
 VII THE WEAKER VESSEL 125 
 
 we turned to look at each other, and waved 
 and smiled no more. We both went mighty 
 solemn with a ludicrous suddenness. When 
 we looked at each other next we laughed, 
 but oh ! we were serious afterwards. We 
 pulled down to our aquatic residence, and 
 went gloomily about our business of cooking 
 and eating. The pleasant day was over. 
 
 We lit our pipes and sat in the twilight, 
 whilst the land grew duskier and duskier, 
 and the stars grew brighter and brighter. 
 And one of us was filled with I don't know 
 how many hopes and projects and fancies. 
 There was the magic cauldron which Youth, 
 Health, Hope, and Co. will lend to anybody, 
 and all the projects and fancies bubbling in 
 it. and I watching for the projection, and the 
 consequent wonderful wild -fowl. And here 
 was the other of us looking at the magic 
 cauldron cracked and dry, and beyond refill- 
 ing or mending. Strange how near we can 
 be to one another, and how far away !
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 A DAY or two later, when I told Pole that 
 I had received an invitation to Cromwell 
 Terrace, he made no answer beyond that 
 which might be conveyed in an enigmatical 
 grunt. But a week further on, when I w^ent 
 up to chambers, he accompanied me, and in 
 the evening, somewhere about ten o'clock, 
 just as I was about to set off, he turned up, 
 dressed, and announced that he was going 
 with me. I was very glad to have him, and 
 I supposed that, after the day on the launch, 
 he had made up his mind that Delamere's 
 society was bearable, and had effected his 
 peace with Delamere's daughter. 
 
 The house was crowded, and there was 
 the greatest difficulty in getting about.
 
 CHAP. VIII THE WEAKER VESSEL 127 
 
 There had been a highly select and dis- 
 tinguished dinner-party, and now there was 
 such a cram as, in my limited experience, 
 I had not seen. The stairs were full, the 
 conservatory half-way up was full, the land- 
 ings were full, and the rooms were only a 
 thought less crowded. Pretty Miss Grantley 
 was talking to a bald-headed old gentleman 
 in the very last corner I came to, and she 
 gave me a blush and a smile of recognition 
 when she caught sight of me. The corner 
 was defended — barricaded, as it were — by 
 two big china jars, of the shape of a cask, 
 and a capacity, as I should judge, of some 
 twelve gallons. One of these made a suffi- 
 ciently comfortable seat ; and when the old 
 gentleman (who may have had the surprising 
 good sense to think that a couple of young 
 people who greeted each other blushing and 
 smiling might be as happy without him as 
 with him) — when the old gentleman had 
 withdrawn through a momentary crack in 
 the crowd, I took the seat he had vacated,
 
 128 THE WEAKER VESSEL chap. 
 
 and entered into talk about the water party 
 of a little while ago, and other matters of 
 equal interest and moment. 
 
 This, of course, was all very delightful, 
 but was not allowed to last. I felt a hand 
 laid upon my shoulder, and looking up saw 
 the venerable Dr. Fish beside me beaming 
 through his gold-rimmed glasses. He shuffled 
 into our corner, and with no doubt the most 
 benevolent intentions, he stayed there and 
 talked until Miss Grantley slipped away. 
 Then I, not daring to follow, and being 
 held by this nice old man by the lappel 
 of the coat whilst I thought unutterable 
 things of him, sat there in silent torture 
 for a time and answered, I fear, very much 
 at random. But by and by he interested 
 me. 
 
 * I see Pole here again,' he said. ' I am 
 glad to see him here. You will meet people 
 here, Denham, who will improve your mind. 
 Pole is looking very well. You and he are 
 great companions, I believe } '
 
 VIII THE WEAKER VESSEL 129 
 
 'Oh yes/ I answered, 'we are great 
 friends.' 
 
 ' I am very glad of that,' he went on. 
 * Of course no honest man will choose his 
 friends because they are rich and influential ; 
 but wealth and influence are valuable things, 
 and rightly used, you know, Denham, rightly 
 used ' 
 
 He rubbed his hands and looked seriously 
 and sagely at me. 
 
 I had not known that Pole's wealth, or his 
 influence either, was at all beyond the com- 
 mon, and I said as much ; but the Doctor 
 broke in ea^erlv. 
 
 * My dear young sir, don't you know that 
 there is but a single life between him and 
 the title ? You didn't know ? Dear me ! 
 It's quite a vast fortune — really an excep- 
 tional thing ! You didn't know that .-^ Dear 
 me ! How reticent your friend must be ! ' 
 
 I admitted that my friend was reticent ; 
 but I urged that human life was a somewhat 
 uncertain thing to build calculations upon, 
 
 VOL. I K
 
 I30 THE WEAKER VESSEL chap. 
 
 and that Pole was about the last man I knew 
 to speculate upon it. 
 
 * Oh dear, dear no,' said Doctor Fish, 
 shaking his head with a mournful look ; 
 * there is no such extreme element of uncer- 
 tainty as you imagine, Mr. Denham. The 
 remaining life is dreadfully frail ; the poor 
 fellow is hardly expected to last a year — 
 they're moving him to the Riviera now, I 
 believe.' 
 
 This was news certainly ; but I was not in 
 the least degree surprised that Pole had said 
 nothing of it. I thought it indeed most 
 natural m him to be silent. 
 
 It helped to make him more of a personage 
 in my eyes, but not as I fancy the good old 
 Doctor meant it to do. It seemed certainly 
 to make his position the more pitiable, though 
 this was assuredly to take a most unjust and 
 foolish view of things, for to be wealthy and 
 to hold a place of high consideration in the 
 world are at least among the aids to happi- 
 ness. But the promise of wealth and rank
 
 viii THE WEAKER VESSEL 131 
 
 seemed to emphasise his trouble. The smile 
 of fortune's sunshine did but throw the shade 
 into more sombre relief I did not ask 
 whether it would do so for him ; it did it 
 for me in my conception of him. 
 
 I learned that the owner of the life which 
 stood between Pole and the title was a cousin 
 Reginald of his, who had been always reck- 
 oned feeble. This Reginald's father had 
 been dead but a few months. He was a 
 stalwart man of middle age, and when he 
 came to his end by an accident in the hunt- 
 ing-field had been upon the eve of a second 
 marriage. Three years earlier, the Doctor 
 told me, no man would have given a shilling 
 for Pole's chance, but four sound lives had 
 fallen unexpectedly away, and now there was 
 nobody left but this cousin, who had been 
 bred as a stranger to him. 
 
 When I had time to think of it, I liked 
 Pole the better for not having spoken to me 
 of this matter. It argued a certain delicacy 
 in him to be silent. I knew, and I still
 
 132 THE WEAKER VESSEL chap. 
 
 know, a great many men who would have 
 been loud about it, and would have basked 
 in their glories beforehand, whose feet would 
 have itched for the feeble man's shoes. 
 
 The Doctor found me out later that even- 
 ing and told me that he had heard news of 
 Reginald Pole. There was little hope for 
 him. The doctors had decided that he should 
 go southwards, but by very easy stages, and 
 the hand of death, so the old gentleman 
 said impressively, seemed on the poor boy 
 already. 
 
 ' Delamere told me of it,' said Dr. Fish. 
 He had spoken of the poor lad who had 
 come so near to high fortune and was now 
 slipping away from it into an early grave 
 with becoming solemnity ; but here, at the 
 mention of Delamere, he began to twinkle. 
 ' Our host,' he said, ' will be glad to see Pole 
 back again now, I fancy. I hardly know 
 how it came about ; but I fancy they took a 
 dislike to each other. But Delamere won't 
 throw away a chance like that. Of course
 
 VIII THE WEAKER VESSEL 133 
 
 Delamere's a very high-minded man and so 
 forth, and has a very lofty idea of Hfe, but 
 I suppose he has no objection to seeing Miss 
 Delamere well settled. He is distinctly more 
 amiable to Pole than he used to be. That is 
 how the world goes, my young friend. Do 
 well, thrive, get on in the world, and you 
 will find people agreeable to you.' 
 
 He went on, eminently w^ell satisfied with 
 himself, and I listened in a sort of stupor. 
 That awful marriage of Pole's w^as a secret. 
 Nobody knew of it who knew him well. 
 
 ' I am getting elderly,' said the babbling 
 and indiscreet divine, who was certainly old 
 enough to have known better than to take so 
 close an interest as he did in other people's 
 affairs, I thought. ' I am elderly, but I feel 
 an interest in youth. I am looking on at a 
 good many things with a great deal of plea- 
 sure. Do me the credit to remember this 
 enigmatical utterance in a year or two's 
 time, Denham, and ask me what I meant 
 by it.'
 
 134 THE WEAKER VESSEL chap. 
 
 * I think I know what you mean, sir,' I 
 returned. 
 
 ' Do you ? ' he asked, nodding his bene- 
 volent bald head and smiling. ' Ah ! you're 
 a friend of his. Exactly.' 
 
 ' I think you are altogether wrong, sir,' 
 I said ; * I am sure you are altogether wrong. 
 Pray do not spread any idea of that kind.' 
 
 ' Pooh, pooh ! ' responded the Doctor. ' I 
 have known them both for years. I have 
 seen it growing on both sides.' 
 
 1 spoke before I knew it, and the Doctor 
 stared at me. 
 
 ' I hope not ; oh, I hope not ! ' 
 
 ' Dear me,' he said, in some confusion. 
 ' Let us change the theme.' He took me 
 very kindly and confidentially by the arm, 
 and gave his grip a little friendly pressure. 
 ' I beg your pardon, my boy, I beg your 
 pardon. I am a foolish, indiscreet old fellow. 
 There, there, let us say no more ; let us say 
 no more.' 
 
 I thought it best to leave him to any fancy
 
 viii THE WEAKER VESSEL i35 
 
 he might form. The question was dangerous. 
 If he chose to think that I was in love with 
 Miss Delamere, it mattered Httle ; and since 
 he w^as so ready to leap at conclusions, it was 
 likely that his suspicions about Pole to the 
 same effect were as well founded as they 
 were of me. I am inclined to think — if I 
 may take advantage of the liberty this nar- 
 rative affords me — that I was rather an 
 unusual young man in some respects, and 
 that I took rather unusually serious views of 
 things. But the idea of Pole and Miss Dela- 
 mere really growing to care for each other, 
 with that insuperable barrier between them, 
 was terrible. 
 
 There was never the faintest little doubt 
 of Pole's honour in my mind. If there had 
 been a reasonable ground for thinking that 
 Miss Delamere had had a fancy concerning 
 him, such as an innocent girl might not have 
 about a man who was already married, I 
 believed that he would have cut his hand 
 off, or burned it in the fire, rather than en-
 
 136 THE WEAKER VESSEL chap. 
 
 courage it to her damage. I had so lofty a 
 belief in his honour, and made him so much 
 of a hero in my mind, that any thought of 
 carelessness in this regard in him was out- 
 side my conjectures. And as for mere cox- 
 combry, I was a very much smaller creature 
 than Pole, and even I despised it. What 
 was he likely to feel about it ? 
 
 Now if anybody thinks that the pressure 
 of these reflections kept me for more than 
 ten minutes at the outside from seeking 
 anew the charming society of Miss Clara 
 Grantley, he gives me credit for an unselfish- 
 ness of friendship to which I lay no claim. 
 Pole's affairs interested me very deeply, and 
 I was growing more and more attached to 
 him, but I was not quite shut out from the 
 contemplation of my own affairs. 
 
 The crowd was not so dense as it had 
 been, and I was able to make my way about 
 the rooms without so much of diplomatic 
 effort as I had been compelled to exert 
 earlier in the evening. As I moved about,
 
 VIII THE WEAKER VESSEL 137 
 
 looking for Miss Grantley, I saw Pole in 
 conversation with our hostess. Miss Dela- 
 mere summoned me by a smile and a wave 
 of her fan, and I joined them for a few 
 minutes. There was nothing very notice- 
 able in their talk, and certainly nothing in 
 their bearing towards each other which 
 would indicate more than the merest ami- 
 able acquaintanceship. 
 
 I succeeded in finding Miss Grantley — 
 there is a pleasure in using that obsolete 
 form — and I fell more pronouncedly and 
 decidedly in love with every minute spent in 
 her society. It was all pleasant, all charm- 
 ing as yet, and I had not the slightest inten- 
 tion to struggle against the influence which 
 was stealing over me. Timxe came when I 
 got into a state of mind no less than dread- 
 ful, and could not eat my meals. 
 
 Pole and I walked home together. We 
 started in starlight, but before we got home 
 the sky was light above us, and its ethereal 
 blue was lined with beautiful faint streaks of
 
 138 THE WEAKER VESSEL chap. 
 
 rose. We talked a great deal as we walked, 
 and one thing that Pole said I recalled many 
 and many a time afterwards. 
 
 * The best way with danger is to treat it 
 as if you did not believe in it.' 
 
 ' If a man aimed a pistol at your head, 
 you'd dodge, wouldn't you?' I asked him; 
 ' or strike up the weapon, or behave in some 
 way as if you believed in the danger ?' 
 
 'Exactly,' he said; 'there is no saying 
 so wise that you can't make it look foolish 
 by a question of that sort. But I'm not 
 talking of pistols, though even there you 
 may come to grief if you believe too much 
 in danger. Come along, my Denham. 
 Shoulders square. Head well up. March ! 
 And your blood-curdling fever is flown ten 
 miles away.' 
 
 He clapped me on the shoulder, and we 
 turned into the courtyard together at that 
 instant. 
 
 ' All the same,' I said, ' it isn't good 
 counsel for everybody. There are some
 
 VIII THE WEAKER VESSEL 139 
 
 whose nerves might fail at the pinch, and for 
 them it might be safest to treat danger as if 
 they beheved in it very earnestly. Spare 
 the weaker vessel. Don't tow her into action 
 too desperately.' 
 
 He turned to look at me as if he sought to 
 read some special meaning in my words, and 
 knowing that his eyes were upon me I felt 
 confused. I had not meant it so, but re- 
 membering Dr. Fish's talk, it flashed upon 
 me that Pole might accept my chance simile 
 as an impertinent warning. The more I 
 blushed the more he looked at me, and 
 the more he looked the more confused I 
 felt. 
 
 ' What did you mean by that ? ' he 
 asked. 
 
 * Nothing!' I said; * absolutely nothing 
 when I said it. But you seemed to find a 
 meaning in it.' 
 
 ' And so you find a meaning in it, too, 
 eh?' 
 
 I made some gesture with my hands to
 
 I40 THE WEAKER VESSEL chap, viii 
 
 signify that the thing was not worth think- 
 ing of, and stammered something to that 
 effect. 
 
 ' Come inside,' he said ; ' let us have a talk 
 about this.'
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 I WENT Upstairs to Pole's chamber feeling 
 guilty and ashamed, though I was altogether 
 innocent. He lit the gas — for the dawn 
 without had not yet found its way into his 
 chambers — took off his overcoat, chose a 
 cigar, and seated himself, all with quiet de- 
 liberation, and then spoke. 
 
 ' My finding a meaning seemed to help 
 you to find a meaning. That is — if I found 
 one. Let us have it out, John.' 
 
 It was by no means easy to have it out. 
 
 ' My dear Pole,' I said, ' I meant nothing 
 whatever beyond the plain sense of the words 
 I used.' 
 
 'Quite so,' he answered. 'You won't 
 think so ill of me as to fancy I'm angry be-
 
 142 THE WEAKER VESSEL chap. 
 
 cause you have your own thoughts about 
 me. But I want to know what they are.' 
 
 'Well,' I told him, after a moment's un- 
 easy thinking, ' the best thing for you to do 
 will be to ask me exactly what you want to 
 know, and I will answer you quite honestly.' 
 
 ' You asked me — innocently and as a mere 
 figure of speech — not to tow the weaker 
 vessel into danger. Then, on my looking at 
 you, you identified the weaker vessel so 
 clearly that you seemed to yourself to have 
 been guilty of an impertinence.' 
 
 * That is exactly what happened.' I was 
 grateful to him for translating me so per- 
 fectly. 
 
 ' Have you yourself noticed anything that 
 would lead you to suppose that I was towing 
 anybody into danger.'^' 
 
 There was a slight flush upon his face, and 
 I could see that it was difficult for him to ask 
 the question. 
 
 ' I have noticed nothing that would lead 
 me to that opinion,' I answered.
 
 IX THE WEAKER VESSEL 143 
 
 ' Then the idea has been put into your 
 head by somebody else ?' 
 
 'Yes.' 
 
 ' May I ask who the somebody is ?' 
 
 ' I would rather not say. It was said in 
 perfect friendship, and in something very like 
 congratulation.' 
 
 ' And you believed it ?' he asked. 
 
 'No. I can't say I believed it. I had 
 seen nothing to justify me in believing it." 
 
 ' I suppose it was Fish who spoke to you 
 of it ? Never mind. Don't answer if you 
 don't care to. He is not the wisest of man- 
 kind, but he is a very Q^ood old foolish sort 
 of fellow, and loves to chatter. You and I 
 are getting to be very close friends, and I 
 can say things to you that I can't say to any- 
 body else. I left oft' visiting Delamere's 
 house not in the least degree because I dis- 
 liked the man, though I do dislike him very 
 heartily, but because I thought I was getting 
 into danger. I went back again because, 
 after a good deal of thinking about it, 1
 
 144 THE WEAKER VESSEL chap. 
 
 came to the conclusion that I was not Hkely 
 to get into danger. There is the whole 
 story.' 
 
 There was one side of the story, I 
 thought, but I said nothing. A man would 
 have to come to something of an extremity 
 in coxcombry before he would hide himself 
 from the society of women he cared for lest 
 they should fall hopelessly in love with him. 
 Pole was as little likely to be affected in that 
 way as anybody I could call to mind, and as 
 for the old doctor, with his statement that 
 he had seen affection growing on both sides, 
 I declined to value him at all. I had seen 
 Miss Delamere and Pole together twice, had 
 noticed pretty closely, and was quite sure 
 that she at least was heart-whole. I had been 
 determined to be sure of it, but could really 
 find nothing in the world to contradict my 
 surety. 
 
 ' I dare say,' Pole went on after a pause, 
 ' that you are still in the land of romance, 
 John. I left it some time ago. I was kicked
 
 IX THE WEAKER VESSEL 145 
 
 out of it, and am in no hurry to pass its 
 borders again. Perhaps I might like to go 
 back — to speak plain truth — if there were 
 any chance of doing it. But the fox was 
 wise after all, and when the grapes are out 
 of reach, one can't do better than think 
 them sour. When you have been flung 
 downstairs and have had the door slammed 
 behind you, it's sensible to believe that 
 you don't want the entree to the establish- 
 ment.' 
 
 The dawn was broadening now. and the 
 gas-lamp had taken a sickly tinge. He rose 
 and turned out the light, and threw the 
 window open and leaned out. A solitary 
 footstep which had sounded dimly until then 
 struck sharply on the ear. A key tapped 
 smartly upon the iron bars of the gate which 
 separated the court from the inn, and I heard 
 the door of the porter's box open, and the 
 porter's yawn. I got up and stood by Pole's 
 side, and looked down into the courtyard. 
 A litde old gentleman in black was standing 
 
 VOL. I L
 
 146 772^^ WEAKER VESSEL chap. 
 
 at the gate, and the porter was in the act of 
 unlocking it. The gate swung open, and 
 the little old gentleman looked up casually as 
 he started to pass through. He paused with 
 a startled air and spoke. 
 
 ' May I step up to your rooms for a 
 moment, Mr. Pole ?' 
 
 ' Certainly, sir,' Pole answered, and the 
 old gentleman entered briskly at the open 
 door below. Pole threw open his own door 
 to receive him, and he came briskly up the 
 stairs. 
 
 ' I had certainly not expected to find you 
 awake at such an hour,' he said, ' but I 
 looked up at your chambers in passing be- 
 cause you were in my mind. I have just 
 come from the death-bed of your poor cousin 
 Reginald.' 
 
 ' His death-bed ?' Pole asked, in a voice 
 which sounded awe-struck. 
 
 ' His death-bed,' the old gentleman an- 
 swered. ' Lord Worborough and other rela- 
 tives were already in town, intending to
 
 IX THE WEAKER VESSEL 147 
 
 see him off this morning to the Riviera. He 
 was seized with a terrible fit of coughing, 
 and broke a blood-vessel at two o'clock yes- 
 terday afternoon. Everything was done that 
 could be done, but he died half an hour 
 ago.' 
 
 Pole looked round at me very seriously, 
 and then looked back to his visitor, but said 
 nothing. 
 
 ' I do not know if I am personally known 
 to you, Mr. Pole ?' the visitor went on in- 
 terrogatively. Pole shook his head. ' Allow 
 me to offer you my card. I am Lord Wor- 
 borough's solicitor.' Pole took the card, and, 
 having glanced at it, laid it quietly upon the 
 table. ' I was charged to carry to you the 
 melancholy intelligence, and to express to 
 you his lordship's desire to meet you at your 
 earliest convenience. I think,' he said hesi- 
 tatingly, * that you are not as yet known to 
 each other ?' 
 
 * I have never met Lord Worborough,' 
 Pole answered. His voice and face were still
 
 148 THE WEAKER VESSEL chap. 
 
 very solemn, and though he was not in any 
 way shaken by the tidings, it was evident 
 that they moved him deeply. 
 
 * His lordship will himself write to you 
 to-morrow, and you will of course attend the 
 funeral.' 
 
 * Of course, Mr. Fairfield,' said Pole, again 
 glancing at the card beside him. 
 
 ' I would not have intruded at this hour,' 
 said the solicitor, ' but for the accident of 
 seeing you at the window. I do not think 
 I have anything more to say at present, but 
 I will ask you for an interview to-morrow. 
 At what hour may I call V 
 
 Pole gave him an appointment at noon, 
 the two then shook hands, and Mr. Fair- 
 field, with a slight bow to me, took his leave 
 and went briskly down the stairs. My 
 friend and I sat down facing each other, 
 and for a while neither of us spoke. Pole 
 was the first to break silence. 
 
 * This is a strange thing to have hap- 
 pened,' he said. * I hardly knew the poor
 
 IX THE WEAKER VESSEL 149 
 
 fellow, and his dying — if I should live a year 
 or two longer — makes me rich, I don't know 
 how rich, and gives me a title. Poor 
 fellow !' He pulled thoughtfully at his cigar 
 and went on talking. ' I used to have 
 dreams when I was a boy of being great and 
 rich. I had a sort of fanciful notion that I 
 should meet somebody one day who would 
 tell me that I had been reared for my own 
 good under false pretences, and that I was 
 Duke or Prince of something somewhere. 
 I was to have passed my probation and have 
 come out triumphant, and then the truth 
 was to come as my reward.' He got up 
 and threw the cigar into the courtyard, and 
 then closed the window. Then he fell to 
 walking up and down with his hands in his 
 pockets. ' I've passed my probation and 
 come out a failure, and here's the announce- 
 ment. Poor Reggy! I'd rather he'd have 
 lived. I feel as if fate were having a satiric 
 grin at me. '* Here you are, my boy. You've 
 thrown away all the chances you had to
 
 I50 THE WEAKER VESSEL chap. 
 
 Start with, and now here's the biggest prize 
 in the basket for you. There are thousands 
 who'd jump at it, and it's no good to you. 
 Take it!"' 
 
 ' You don't deserve that you should say 
 these things of yourself or think them,' I 
 replied. 'You are not answerable for your 
 troubles.' 
 
 ' I don't know,' he resumed, still walking 
 up and down. ' I believe I knew as well 
 at the time as I know it now that I was 
 marrying a woman who could make no man 
 happy. There's a kind of sane madness, 
 Denham, which some men suffer from. I 
 knew I wasn't going to be happy. I more 
 than guessed that I was going to wreck 
 myself I didn't even particularly care for 
 her, but I felt myself bound in honour, and 
 I married her. Well, it's of no use to talk, 
 and I know that also. I haven't bored any- 
 body else with it. You're the only man I 
 ever opened my lips to.' 
 
 He would not say — of course he would
 
 IX THE WEAKER VESSEL 151 
 
 not say — what this meant, but I knew it. I 
 had begun to think of late that amidst the 
 crowd of his acquaintance he counted a single 
 friend, and that I was the man. I knew 
 I loved him, but in those days I thought 
 disparagingly of myself. That early modesty 
 has developed (as it often does) into rather 
 more than an average certainty of personal 
 merit. As a matter of fact, it arose from 
 my fear lest I might think as highly of my- 
 self as I somehow thought I ought to do. 
 But I was uncertain of my own deserts, and 
 thought his friendship a high honour, as any 
 man might have done. As honest, valiant, 
 and stalwart a heart as ever beat, I know 
 he had. 
 
 We said good-night to each other after 
 this wath no renewal of our earlier conversa- 
 tion, and I went down to my rooms, and so to 
 bed. He was closeted with the lawyer for an 
 hour or two, I learned afterwards, and in the 
 evening he went by appointment to see Lord 
 Worborough. I myself made the elderly
 
 152 THE WEAKER VESSEL chap. 
 
 peer's acquaintance a week later, after Regi- 
 nald Pole's funeral. He called at Warwick 
 Court when I happened to be in Pole's rooms 
 — a bent, courteous, mild old man, with an 
 affectionate, sad smile. I was introduced to 
 him, and was received with an unexpected 
 cordiality. 
 
 ' Mr. Pole has spoken to me of you, Mr. 
 Denham,' he said. ' I am very pleased to 
 meet you. You would seem to be great 
 friends, you two young gentlemen. I do not 
 find that I make many friends nowadays, and 
 I have outlived most of the old ones.' 
 
 He watched Pole rather closely, as I 
 noticed, and wore, to my mind, an air of 
 criticism. It was natural that he should 
 desire to know what manner of man was 
 coming after him, though it was out of his 
 power to alter the succession. 
 
 ' I came here, Walter, on purpose to ask 
 you to come down into the country and stay 
 with me a while,' he said, looking from one to 
 the other of us. * I want your friend to come
 
 IX THE WEAKER VESSEL 153 
 
 also. One judges a man by the company he 
 keeps. It would be a shame to ask a pair of 
 young fellows out Into the country at this time 
 of year under ordinary circumstances, but you 
 see, Walter, you can naturally go nowhere 
 and do nothing for a time, and it will be well 
 that we should know each other. You will 
 come, Mr. Denham ? When do you think, 
 Walter, that vou and vour friend can be 
 ready ? ' 
 
 For my own part, I was a good deal taken 
 aback by this unexpected invitation, but I 
 accepted It, and we arranged that all three of 
 us should go down to Worborough Court 
 next day. The old lord stayed and talked 
 for an hour or two. He was bookish In an 
 old-fashioned way. He had read no theology 
 newer than Paley, no philosophy later than 
 Locke, no fiction since Sir Walter's, and no 
 verse since Byron's. All the new people 
 were mere names to him, and he did not care 
 to make their acquaintance ; but he was 
 pleased to find that we knew his favourites
 
 154 THE WEAKER VESSEL chap. 
 
 as well as he did, a litde better, perhaps, with 
 our fresher memories, and he told us simply 
 that he was glad to find that we were not 
 trivial-minded. 
 
 * Books are a great resource,' he said, with 
 his mild smile. ' I don't read much now, but 
 I find a pleasure in remembering. Something 
 put Commodore Trunnion into my head as I 
 drove down here, and I laughed. I hardly 
 knew poor Reginald,' he added suddenly with 
 an almost alarmed air of apology and explana- 
 tion. ' He was so confirmed an invalid.' 
 
 When he had gone away, Pole and I set 
 to work to pack in readiness for the morrow's 
 journey, and next day we met the old lord at 
 Paddington at the appointed hour, and went 
 down into Devonshire. A carriage awaited 
 us, and a brake for our baggage, and leaving 
 the latter to follow us, we were bowled away 
 through a wide road with beautiful overhang- 
 ing hedges until the lodge gates were thrown 
 open to us and we swept into a splendid 
 avenue of forest trees.
 
 IX THE WEAKER VESSEL 155 
 
 'There is the first gHmpse of the house,' 
 said Lord Worborough, laying one hand upon 
 his successor's arm, and pointing with the 
 other, with a long withered white finger ex- 
 tended, the delicate old hand trembling. ' It 
 is a ver}^ noble old place, and I hope you will 
 be happy there when your time comes.' 
 
 There was something touchino^, to mv 
 mind, in this informal handing over, as it 
 were, of the ancestral place to the young 
 fellow who until lately had been so complete 
 a stranofer. 
 
 Pole looked at the house, and Lord Wor- 
 borough, with his gold -rimmed pince-nez 
 balanced on his nose, looked at Pole with that 
 air of watchful regard I had noticed the day 
 before. 
 
 'Yes,' said the heir-apparent, ' it is a noble 
 old place.' He had been unusually thoughtful 
 and quiet during the whole journey, and now 
 there was a settled shadow upon him. 
 
 I saw, as we came nearer, that it was 
 indeed a noble old place. It had a westward
 
 156 THE WEAKER VESSEL chap, ix 
 
 aspect, and all its long lines of windows shone 
 like burnished gold in the light of the declin- 
 ing sun, gleaming the brighter by contrast 
 with their sombre setting of purplish brown 
 tone. Pole sighed as he stepped from the 
 carriage. 
 
 * I shall leave you now,' said our host as 
 he entered the hall. He drew out his watch 
 and consulted it. ' Forty -five minutes to 
 dinner. Ample time.' 
 
 We were shown to rooms which were in 
 communication with each other, and when the 
 servants had brought up our luggage, and 
 everything was laid out in readiness, we were 
 left alone. Pole marched through the open 
 doors of the two intervening dressing-rooms 
 into my bed-chamber, and there, with his 
 head resting against the wall and his hands in 
 his pockets, stood silent for a minute or two. 
 
 ' I suppose,' he said then, ' that if I should 
 live long enough for it to come to that. Lady 
 Worborough will have a right to come here.'
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 Whenever I found time to think of it, I used 
 to be astonished at my own position whilst I 
 stayed at Worborough Court. I had three 
 hundred a year of my own, came of a family 
 of no distinction, plain yeomen for half a 
 dozen generations, and had as much hope of 
 forming aristocratic associations as I had of 
 being suddenly translated to the moon, and 
 almost as much desire for the one as for the 
 other. But the differences in the life were so 
 slight and trivial that I was reconciled to my 
 new place insensibly and at once. To ride in 
 a carriage instead of a dog-cart or a cab — to 
 have a man behind one's chair at dinner every 
 evening instead of having him there on 
 special occasions only — to have another man
 
 158 THE WEAKER VESSEL chap. 
 
 to fold, and lay out, and brush one's clothes, 
 instead of performing those small offices with 
 one's own hands, were the main changes, and 
 were easily to be borne with. Lord Wor- 
 borough was not only kind, but companion- 
 able, and very like any other amiable, 
 cultivated, and good old gentleman. I think 
 I had vaguely expected everything to be 
 very different from my old experiences ; I 
 know I found everything very much the same 
 as it had always been. 
 
 Lord Worborough and Pole were a good 
 deal together. The heir-apparent was being 
 familiarised with the possessions which would 
 one day be his own. His lordship had 
 always kept his affairs for the main part in 
 his own hands, and he and Pole spent hours 
 in going over business papers together. At 
 such times I was thrown upon my own 
 resources, and since in my boyhood riding 
 had been my greatest joy, and I had not 
 been able to afford a horse in London, I 
 took advantage of the chances offered me,
 
 X THE WEAKER VESSEL 159 
 
 and spent most of my spare hours in the 
 saddle. 
 
 I was riding one tranquil afternoon towards 
 the village, thinking of a certain day at Pang- 
 bourne for the most part, and recalling with 
 great clearness all that had been said and 
 done, and how somebody had looked at every 
 turn of head and hand, when I saw, far away 
 across the fields, the crawling line of white 
 steam which betrayed the progress of the after- 
 noon down train. From the distance at which 
 I saw it, it looked like an emblem of peace 
 and quiet, and seemed to travel very slowly, 
 but by and by rounding a great curve it came 
 charging down towards me with increasing 
 swiftness and a growing roar. My horse 
 showed so decided a trepidation at the ad- 
 vancing monster that I turned him into a by- 
 lane out of sight of it, and did not return to 
 the road I had been travelling until the train 
 had paused at the station, and the whistle 
 had announced its departure. Then I went 
 on towards the station. I saw without any
 
 i6o THE WEAKER VESSEL chap. 
 
 special interest the little handful of country- 
 people dispersing from the station door, and a 
 gentleman farmer of the neighbourhood climb 
 into a dog-cart which had been in waiting 
 for him and drive away. The moving of the 
 dog-cart revealed three people, a man and 
 woman, the woman very fashionably attired, 
 and a railway porter whose hand was pointing 
 straight down the road by which I was 
 approaching the group. In a minute or so 
 I came near enough to see them clearly, and 
 in a sort of horror I recognised the lady I had 
 seen aboard the house-boat. Her companion 
 was the little Jew solicitor. Goldsmith. 
 
 For a moment I was completely shaken 
 out of my self-possession, and could think of 
 nothing. My horse bore me on towards them, 
 and I saw that I was recognised. I have no 
 doubt my face displayed my sensations quite 
 plainly, for Mr. Goldsmith looked up at me 
 with a leer of self-approval, and wagged his 
 head in what I felt to be a triumphing deri- 
 sion. His companion, who carried herself
 
 X THE WEAKER VESSEL i6i 
 
 with the old harsh air of self-disdain, and 
 disdain of everything, stared me scornfully in 
 the face. I was quite certain that their 
 purpose here was to annoy Pole, and when 
 they had passed me but a little way I wheeled 
 round and overtook them. 
 
 ' You'd better carry the good news ahead 
 of us, Bister Denham,' said the little Jew. 
 'We're going to make a little call at Wor- 
 borough Court.' 
 
 'I shall have great pleasure,' I responded 
 as drily as I could. He laughed jeeringly, 
 and I rode on with but a sinQ^le glance at the 
 bitter face beside him. Once out of sight and 
 hearing, I put my horse from a trot into a 
 gallop, and reached the Court a good half- 
 hour before they could well be expected. I 
 asked for Pole, and learned that he was 
 closeted with Lord Worborough. The horse 
 I had ridden was soft with want of exercise, 
 and was in a lather of foam with his gallop 
 of two and a half miles, and my own air was 
 doubtless a good deal flurried, for the man 
 
 VOL. 1 M
 
 i62 THE WEAKER VESSEL chap. 
 
 whom I questioned looked oddly at me as if 
 he suspected that something was amiss. For 
 the moment I was altogether nonplussed. It 
 would look odd to disturb Pole by sending 
 for him, and Lord Worborough would prob- 
 ably think It an impertinence. Then It 
 struck me that I could give the man at the 
 lodofe instructions to detain the visitors there, 
 and permit them to do no more than send 
 their business to the house, leaving it at 
 Pole's option to do what he chose with them 
 afterwards. Luckily, whilst I was hurriedly 
 turning this suggestion up and down in my 
 mind, I heard a step upon the great staircase 
 leading to the hall, and there was Pole him- 
 self, lounging down with his hands in his 
 pockets as usual, and his lithe and active 
 figure swaying Into the Idlest postures. 
 
 ' Here Is Mr. Pole, sir,' said the servant, 
 and withdrew. 
 
 ' Hillo!' said Pole. ' Anything the matter .-^ 
 You look scared.' I told him my news, and 
 looking before him, with eyes half-closed and
 
 X THE WEAKER VESSEL 163 
 
 lips drawn inward, he nodded twice or thrice. 
 'We'll go and meet them,' he said then, slid- 
 ing an arm through mine, and taking a hat 
 from the stand as we went by. 
 
 We walked in silence down the long 
 avenue, passed the gates, and came upon 
 the dusty road in silence. I looked at my 
 companion pretty often, and if I had not 
 known his real reasons for disturbance I 
 should never have guessed them from his 
 face. His arm gave a little sudden twitch 
 as w^e turned a corner of the road. 
 
 ' Here they are,' he said. I had looked 
 up already and had seen them a hundred 
 yards away. They walked on leisurely to 
 meet us, and I could see that Goldsmith was 
 disturbed by the thought of the coming inter- 
 view. He stared about him with an uneasy 
 pretence of not having seen us, flourished his 
 handkerchief, cocked his hat, pulled out his 
 watch, and drew a glove off and on. When 
 he could no longer evade the knowledge of 
 us he fell ever so little behind his companion,
 
 i64 THE WEAKER VESSEL chap. 
 
 who walked on steadily with an unchanging 
 look until we halted within a yard of each 
 other. 
 
 'Well,' said Pole. I could feel his hand 
 trembling slightly, with a strong quick tremor, 
 but his face and voice were altogether com- 
 monplace and indifferent. ' What does this 
 mean '^. ' 
 
 * I am spending a day or two in the coun- 
 try,' she answered mockingly. ' I wanted to 
 exchange congratulations with you. Do you 
 think the old man will last long ? ' 
 
 ' I have been expecting this visit,' Pole re- 
 turned, with an air of everyday. ' I want you 
 to understand that I shan't allow another.' 
 
 'Indeed!' she asked with a cold sneer, 
 . ' and how do you propose to exercise your 
 authority ? ' 
 
 ' Well,' he said, drawing his arm from 
 mine, and tilting his hat over his eyebrows, 
 ' I hold the purse strings, and until you 
 promise to leave me absolutely unmolested, 
 I shall pay no more.'
 
 X THE WEAKER VESSEL 165 
 
 ' I have taken a house down here,' she 
 answered, 'and I am going to Hve in it.' 
 
 'Very well,' said Pole, throwing his head 
 back, and looking at her from under the brim 
 of his hat. ' We understand each other. 
 We needn't waste words about it. You will 
 do as you please, and I shall use the only 
 power I have.' 
 
 * We will see about the power you have,' 
 said his wife. ' At the first delay of a day 
 I shall instruct Mr. Goldsmith to sue for 
 maintenance.' 
 
 ' That's what we shall do,' said Mr. Gold- 
 smith, still looking behind her shoulder. 'We 
 shall sue for maintenance.' 
 
 'You threatened that before,' Pole an- 
 swered, ' and I give you the answer I gave 
 then. The moment you move in that way 
 I shall go abroad. As for the property here 
 I never coveted it, or expected it, and I can 
 do without it. I can make it over by deed 
 of gift to the next heir. I shan't pay a 
 penny until you have ceased to annoy me.
 
 i66 THE WEAKER VESSEL chap. 
 
 It's the only power I have, and I shall 
 use it.' 
 
 I could see by her eyes that there was no 
 mischief she would not have done him if she 
 had had the power. 
 
 ' You have a third of my income now,' he 
 went on, and I could see that his steadfast 
 refusal to be angry or shaken was beginning 
 to exasperate her horribly. ' In due time, if 
 we should both live, and I should be un- 
 molested, your allowance will be increased, 
 to what extent I cannot tell at present, but 
 considerably. You must choose for yourself 
 between a comfortable provision for life and 
 nothing at all. Good-day, Adelaide.' 
 
 He turned to go, but she sprang forward 
 and intercepted him. 
 
 * You want war } ' she said, with some- 
 thing of a stagy air and accent, but with an 
 obviously genuine passion. ' You shall have 
 it, then.' 
 
 > * No,' he answered wearily and quietly. 
 * I want peace, and I mean to have it.' He
 
 X THE WEAKER VESSEL 167 
 
 made a movement to walk round her, but she 
 intercepted him again. He Ht a cigarette 
 and sat down upon the turfy bank by the 
 roadside, with his feet apart and his hands 
 clasped between his knees. 
 
 ' I will have my rights/ she said, ' and I 
 will make your life a burden to you.' 
 
 He looked up at her and responded with 
 a dr}^ simplicity, answering her last words 
 only. 
 
 ' I know you will.' 
 
 ' I suppose you fancy,' she went on, with 
 a strange and dreadful distortion of the face, 
 ' that I know nothing of your doings. I know 
 everything. I know why you go to Crom- 
 well Terrace. I know why you stopped away. 
 I know how much you wish me dead, and 
 how you hate the sight of me. Do you think 
 I care whether you hate me or not ? Not I ! 
 Why should I ? ' 
 
 I drew Goldsmith a little aside, and ven- 
 tured to ask him if he thought any good 
 purpose was being served by the prolonga-
 
 i68 THE WEAKER VESSEL chap. 
 
 tion of this scene. I pointed out that it could 
 only lead to an exasperation of feeling on 
 both sides, and begged him to use his influ- 
 ence in getting his client away. He grinned 
 unamiably and shrugged his fat shoulders. 
 
 Mf Bister Pole doesn't like it,' he said, 
 * Bister Pole's got himself to thank for it, and 
 nobody else.' ■ 
 
 'As to that,' I answered, trying to be as 
 diplomatic as I could, ' I am not in a position 
 to form an opinion. But if you have your 
 client's interest at heart, Mr. Goldsmith, I 
 am sure you will persuade her to go away. I 
 understand that Mrs. Pole has no means of 
 her own, and if her husband should be so far 
 irritated as to fulfil his threat, your own hopes 
 of payment might be seriously affected.' 
 
 ' I ain't afraid,' said Mr. Goldsmith. 'We 
 can come on the estate. It's a legal claim, 
 ain't it ? Very well, then. What's the use 
 of talking ? If you want a man's fredly ser- 
 vices you shouldn't chuck him in the river.' 
 
 ' I want you both to understand,' Pole
 
 THE WEAKER VESSEL 
 
 broke in here, rising to his feet. His wife 
 was still talking with a slow, bitter intensity, 
 but she stopped at the sound of his voice and 
 listened, looking from her husband's face to 
 Goldsmith's and back again. ' You can make 
 a public scandal of the thing, of course. You 
 can drive me out of England, and make it 
 impossible for me to return, but you can't 
 get money from a man who is determined at 
 all costs not to pay it. Now I am determined 
 at all costs not to pay it — please understand 
 that quite clearly, and once for all — unless I 
 have quiet secured to me. On the first return 
 of annoyance I shall go away, and leave you 
 to your own devices.' 
 
 His face was very pale and his eyes glit- 
 tered, but he spoke with a steady voice, and 
 it was plain to see that he produced an effect 
 on both of them. Goldsmith looked uneasily 
 at his client, and she, with her handsome, 
 dreadful face as white as Pole's, looked back 
 at him, her chin raised, and her pencilled 
 eyelids drooping, till the eyes shone through
 
 I70 THE WEAKER VESSEL chap. 
 
 a mere slit. I could not help thinking that 
 there was a something posed and studied in 
 her look and attitude, and in my own mind 
 I pictured her as rehearsing this and similar 
 scenes with a hungry relish for the excitement 
 of quarrel. 
 
 'Now, Goldsmith,' Pole went on, 'you 
 know your client. If you advise her to her 
 present course, you must take the conse- 
 quences — you can guess what they will be.' 
 
 Mr. Goldsmith showed signs of faltering. 
 His client opened her eyes in a studied dis- 
 dain and amazement, and, turning her head 
 aside from him slowly, kept her glance fixed 
 upon his face for a while and then withdrew 
 it with a practised scorn. 
 
 ' It's no use looking at me like that,' said 
 Mr. Goldsmith fretfully. 'Of course I'm 
 devoted to your interests, Mrs. Pole. I want 
 to make the best of things for you ; but it's 
 no use cutting your nose off to spite your 
 face. Now, is it ? ' 
 
 ' Come, Denham,' said Pole, taking me by
 
 X THE WEAKER VESSEL 171 
 
 the arm and moving away. This time his 
 wife made no attempt to stay him, and the 
 last I saw of the pair we left behind was that 
 the little Jew was standing bare-headed and 
 proffering his arm, whilst his client turned 
 disdainfully away from him and stood stock 
 still in the middle of the dusty road. 
 
 We walked in silence for some two or 
 three hundred yards, and then Pole spoke. 
 
 ' If they drive me to it I will keep my 
 word. I dare say you thought that I was 
 harsh. I don't care much what people think, 
 as a general rule — perhaps I care too little — 
 and if I justify myself to you you must take 
 it as a compliment.' 
 
 I knew very well he was not thinking 
 flippantly, however he might speak. 
 
 ' I have suffered enough already, and I 
 cant aftbrd to have this misery hanging over 
 me, threatening to come down at any moment. 
 I must use the only power I have.' 
 
 I hastened to assure him that I did not 
 see what other course lay open to him. In
 
 172 THE WEAKER VESSEL CHAr. x 
 
 his new position at least, whatever it had 
 been in his old one, it was impossible, or 
 almost impossible, to hide his whereabouts. 
 I thought he had an absolute right to 
 offer the bargain he had set before his wife, 
 and that if she would not accept it he was 
 clear of responsibility for her action. 
 
 * I am glad you think so,' he answered. 
 ' It helps me to think so. Let us say no 
 more about it.' 
 
 But the new hint of Pole's interest in Miss 
 Delamere disturbed me, and the more I 
 thought about it the less assured I felt, and 
 the more grieved and anxious. I felt my 
 own thoughts intrusive and impatient, but I 
 could not banish them.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 The Mornino^ Post had announced the fact 
 of the arrival of Mr. Pole and Mr. John Den- 
 ham at Worborough Court, and after a space 
 of some six weeks, during which nothing of 
 importance to my history happened beyond 
 the scenes already indicated, it announced the 
 departure for London of the same dis- 
 tinguished pair. We went back to town 
 and resumed our old quarters and our old 
 ways. Before we left, Lord Worborough 
 had taken the warmest sort of liking to Pole, 
 and had, it appeared, been anxious to press 
 an allowance upon him, and to induce him to" 
 take up a residence more in accord with his 
 prospects and the social position they im- 
 posed upon him. But Pole protested that he
 
 174 THE WEAKER VESSEL chap. 
 
 had as much as he wanted, and preferred for 
 the present to remain in his old quarters, and 
 so, to my great satisfaction, we went back to 
 an unchanged life. 
 
 If my friend had been situated like most 
 young men of his age, had been free to carve 
 out his own career and dispose of his own 
 destiny, I am sure that I should have been 
 able to rejoice in the fortune which had be- 
 fallen him with my whole heart. But having 
 such solid ground for thinking poorly of his 
 high fortune on one side, I allowed myself to 
 think poorly of it on another. My thoughts 
 and feelings here were purely selfish, as I am 
 quite willing to admit. My own means gave 
 me no right to mix on terms of equality with 
 people of such exceptional wealth as would at 
 one time or another come into my friend's 
 possession. I did not altogether like the idea 
 of his having that enormous income and that 
 imposing title, and I felt as if these things 
 forced us apart already. But the difference 
 — if difference there was — was wholly on my
 
 xr THE WEAKER VESSEL 175 
 
 side. Pole showed not the sHghtest sign of 
 being touched by it. 
 
 It rained one evening pretty heavily, and 
 I had business abroad. The days were begin- 
 ning to draw in, and it was dusk in the court 
 when I got to the open doorway of the house 
 and stood there unfolding my umbrella. The 
 lamps were lit, and gleamed rawly in the 
 faint light. There was something noticeably 
 dismal in the chill mingling of gaslight with 
 what remained of daylight, and the whining 
 wind, which wrinkled the puddles on the stone 
 pavement, and the relentless plashing rain 
 intensified the feeling. I was conscious, in 
 an absent-minded way, of a further note of 
 emphasis — a single figure in the otherwise 
 deserted court, a man who, with a frock-coat 
 shining w^th rain, and a shapeless old silk 
 hat, from whose battered brim the drops fell 
 on his nose, stood lurching by the opposite 
 railings, looking upward. As I put up my 
 umbrella and stepped out into the rain he 
 gave ever so slight a start, of nervousness, as
 
 176 THE WEAKER VESSEL chap. 
 
 I conjectured, and made off in the direction 
 of Holborn. He looked abject and deserted, 
 and I gave him a sidelong glance in passing. 
 He gave a sidelong glance at me, and shot 
 his eyes away from mine in a mere fraction 
 of a second. He was sufficiently miserable 
 to look at, but just respectable enough to 
 have a right to be offended by an offer of 
 charity. I half expected his step to quicken, 
 and could almost hear in fancy the thick voice 
 which I knew must go along with that bibu- 
 lous nose and the bibulous unsteady lips he 
 had, murmuring the known formula about the 
 poor man and the night's lodging. He came 
 slopping on behind me, with the peculiar 
 sucking noise at each footstep which broken 
 boots make on a wet and level pavement, and 
 I gave him a passing thought of pity and for- 
 got him, as we have to forget scores of such 
 phantoms every day in a great city. 
 
 I went to Bloomsbury Square, I remem- 
 ber, to call upon an acquaintance of mine, a 
 musician, who had set some verses of mine to
 
 XI THE WEAKER VESSEL 177 
 
 music, and who had given me an appoint- 
 ment that evening to hear a professional tenor 
 rehearse the song. I stayed an hour, I dare 
 say, and then left. There, planted against 
 the railings, was a dim gleaming figure, at 
 such a distance that I should have not noticed 
 him at all but for the chance light a gas-lamp 
 cast upon his wet arm and shoulder, and his 
 seedy shining hat. He would appear to have 
 gone to sleep there, but the noise of the door 
 which, escaping the maid-servant's fingers, 
 slammed loudly behind me, made him jump 
 into a bolt upright attitude, and I thought of 
 the man in the court. 
 
 So far there was nothing in the world to 
 make me believe that it was worth anybody's 
 while to stalk me about London, and so I 
 fancied this second sight of the man to be an 
 accident. I went home and forgot him again. 
 But next day about noon I turned to look at 
 something in the street, and there was the 
 man once more, slouching a score of yards 
 behind. He turned away when I saw him, 
 
 VOL. I N
 
 178 THE WEAKER VESSEL chap. 
 
 and made believe to stare at a shop-window, 
 but I observed one or two furtive glances in 
 my own direction, and began to grow a little 
 curious. I sauntered on and went round a 
 corner, and then dropping my pace to a mere 
 lounge, I went round a second corner and 
 there waited. The shabby man almost walked 
 against me — recoiled with a start, and then 
 took the other side of the road. I affected 
 to take no notice of him and lounged on 
 again, and coming in a while to another main 
 street, saw my man behind me still, this time 
 by the aid of a big mirror in the shop-window 
 of a carver and gilder. The shop-window 
 was at a corner, and the mirror stood at an 
 angle in it, giving a clear view of the road 
 for two score yards. I began to suspect the 
 shabby man of shadowing me for a purpose, 
 and I walked about with no other meaning 
 at all than to see if he would follow still, 
 taking pains not to look as if I knew any- 
 thing of his presence. It became quite clear 
 at last that the man was really following me ;
 
 XI THE WEAKER VESSEL 179 
 
 and when I had led him a long ramble I bent 
 my way homewards. When I had come 
 within a minute's walk of Warwick Court I 
 quickened my steps to a good round pace, 
 and once within its shelter, ran. I passed 
 the iron gate, turned to the left, and then 
 marched leisurely down Brownlow Street 
 back into Holborn. There, at the corner of 
 Chancery Lane, was my man in converse 
 with another, a gentleman in a skin cap, short 
 trousers, and big highlows. My original fol- 
 lower went down Chancery Lane, the man in 
 the skin cap crossed the street and took up 
 his stand at a corner of the entrance to the 
 court. I went away to luncheon, pretty cer- 
 tain of finding him there when I came back 
 again, wondering what on earth this evident 
 espionage meant, and perhaps exciting myself 
 about it a little more than necessary. 
 
 Late in the afternoon I went back to 
 chambers, and after waiting for half an hour, 
 took another ramble. As I expected, the 
 man in the highlows was so good as to fol-
 
 i8o THE WEAKER VESSEL chap. 
 
 low me everywhere, to wait outside a house 
 in which I made a prolonged call, ^ and to 
 accompany me at a judicious distance home 
 again. I went straight up to Pole's chambers, 
 and found him engaged with a book and a 
 cigar. He opened the door with the book 
 in his hand, and threw it on to the sofa as 
 he entered the sitting-room before me. 
 
 'Well,' he said cheerfully, 'what's the 
 news '^, ' 
 
 I told him my curious experience of the 
 last four-and-twenty hours. At first he said, 
 ' Nonsense,' and laughed, but when I began 
 to describe the experience in detail he grew 
 serious, and proposed that we should at once 
 go out together and investigate the matter. 
 I consented to this quite eagerly. I de- 
 scribed the men before we started, so that 
 he should be able easily to identify them. 
 We walked into Holborn and caught no sight 
 of either of them. 
 
 * Let us take a quiet way,' I said, ' and see 
 what happens.'
 
 XI THE WEAKER VESSEL i8i 
 
 We steered our course for the great west- 
 central squares, which at that hour lay silent 
 and almost deserted. We walked slowly, 
 both keeping a keen look-out, and before we 
 had made half a dozen turnings Pole began 
 to think that there was something in it. A 
 pinched, wispy little man, in disreputable 
 black, took the same way as ourselves, with 
 a persistence which would have been very 
 singular if it had been accidental. When we 
 began to be pretty sure of him we veered 
 about and met him. He passed us without 
 a look or a sign, and two minutes later he 
 was following us upon our backward track. 
 
 'There is no doubt about it,' Pole con- 
 fessed. ' You are being followed. What is 
 the meaning of it } ' 
 
 I could not make a guess, but my nerves 
 began to thrill a little at the notion of this 
 unwearying stealthy watch. There was a 
 mystery in it which was certainly not alto- 
 gether agreeable, and was yet not without its 
 charm.
 
 1 82 THE WEAKER VESSEL chap. 
 
 'We will discomfit this gentleman,' said 
 Pole. ' I am going to ask him what he 
 means by it.' 
 
 I asked him to wait a moment. I 
 thought I saw a better way than he sug- 
 gested. There could be nothing got out 
 of the man by questioning him, but I pro- 
 posed to hunt the hunter and find out 
 where he went and by whom he was em- 
 ployed. It was absurd to suppose that 
 he and his comrades were tracking me 
 for the mere amusement of the adventure. 
 They were set on by somebody and paid 
 by somebody, though it was out of my 
 power to guess why anybody should think 
 it worth his while to mark me down in this 
 way. 
 
 We stood at a dark corner discussing this 
 question. 
 
 ' Depend upon it, Pole,' I said, and before 
 I could get any further the pinched little 
 man slunk by us without a glance at either. 
 'We will part here,' I whispered a moment
 
 xr THE WEAKER VESSEL 183 
 
 later. ' Keep an eye on the fellow. See if 
 he follows me aeain.' 
 
 We agreed upon this, said ' Good-night ' 
 to each other loudly, and took different ways. 
 
 I lit a cigar and sauntered slowly, to give 
 my man a chance of keeping up with me. I 
 was almost as anxious not to be lost sight 
 of as I judged him to be to keep sight of me. 
 I heard no following footsteps though the 
 square was as silent as a desert, and I con- 
 fess to many curious little shudderings as I 
 went. I have never had any very distin- 
 guished opportunity of learning whether I 
 am brave or a coward, and I am rather in- 
 clined to fancy that nobody can be sure of 
 his own courage until it has been tested, but 
 I think that most people would have felt 
 nervous under the circumstances. It was 
 not that I anticipated any bodily harm, for 
 I was a match for the wispy old man and 
 half a dozen like him, but imagination came 
 into play, and a score of tingling adventures 
 happened every minute.
 
 1 84 THE WEAKER VESSEL chap. 
 
 I walked softly, and listened with all my 
 might. I heard hundreds of imaginary 
 sounds, but not a single noise which could 
 reasonably be translated into that of a pur- 
 suing footstep, and at last I paused and 
 turned. I was in a long, deserted, silent 
 street, and from end to end there was not a 
 living creature to be seen. I retraced my 
 steps, and saw nothing, and after a time it 
 became evident to my mind that the inex- 
 plicable pursuit had been abandoned. After 
 lingering long to be assured of this, and 
 having attracted the wondering regard of 
 more than one policeman by my suspicious 
 loiterings, I went home. Pole was there 
 before me. 
 
 * The hunt is over for the time,' he said. 
 ' I fancy the fellow understood the meaning 
 of our manoeuvre, and declined to be followed 
 in his turn. Any way he made no further 
 attempt to follow you, and I lost sight of 
 him.' 
 
 We talked about the theme until we wore
 
 XI THE WEAKER VESSEL 185 
 
 it altogether threadbare, and then we went 
 to bed. For a day or two as I went about 
 the streets I looked around me to find some 
 trace of the old watch, but seeing none I 
 forgot it, until one evening, emerging from 
 Warwick Court, I saw, sneaking along the 
 opposite side of the way, my friend in the fur 
 cap. I was naturally interested in him, and 
 at first it tickled me somewhat to observe 
 that he was slinking, and pausing, and peer- 
 ing, as if in pursuit of the old business 
 with a new unconscious quarry ahead of him. 
 I crossed over and dropped behind him, 
 and, following his constant glances in one 
 direction, discovered, with a sudden chill 
 and start, that he was hunting my companion. 
 
 * And now,' said I to myself, ' we will 
 find out what this extraordinary business 
 means if I follow for a week.' 
 
 I had not to follow for a week as it turned 
 out, but I got through as dull and weary an 
 evening as I ever remember to have passed 
 in my life. Pole turned into a restaurant,
 
 i86 THE WEAKER VESSEL chap. 
 
 and this reminded me that I myself was 
 hungry, and that the object of my excursion 
 from my chambers had been dinner. The 
 man in the fur cap took up his post within 
 sight of the entrance and waited there. I 
 took up my post in sight of him, and waited 
 also. The man smoked several pipes, and 
 danced many shuffling dances on the pave- 
 ment. The streams of traffic flowed this 
 way and that, clocks boomed and clanged 
 the quarters through the noises of the streets 
 with a most unreasonable interval between. 
 I grew absurdly hungry, and everybody who 
 left the restaurant looked like Pole. I got 
 to dread the eye of the policeman on his 
 beat, and knew that I was a suspicious 
 character. When I had waited an hour and 
 a half, which felt like a dreary day, Pole 
 emerged from the swinging doors and went 
 home. The man in the fur cap followed 
 him, and I followed the man in the fur cap. 
 
 At the foot of Warwick Court the spy 
 found an associate, and after a whispered
 
 XI THE WEAKER VESSEL 187 
 
 word or two with him moved off at a good 
 round pace, leaving his confederate behind. 
 I went after number one, determined to 
 find where he might go. I had a second 
 wait whilst he refreshed himself at a public- 
 house. I peered through the glass door, 
 and saw him engaged with a pork pie and a 
 pewter pot. It began to rain, and if the 
 whole thing had been less mysterious and had 
 seemed less important I could have easily 
 found it in my heart to resign the chase. 
 
 At last patience was rewarded, and the 
 man coming again upon the street, turned 
 up his collar against the rain, plucked the 
 fur cap over his eyes, and walked away with 
 an air of decision. He paused after a 
 lengthy walk before a private house in a 
 respectable street, knocked, and was ad- 
 mitted. The door was no sooner closed 
 behind him than I ran to it, and by the light 
 of a near lamp read the inscription upon the 
 brass plate : 
 
 Mr. Goldsmith, Solicitor.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 I STOOD at the door for a time sunk deep 
 in thought, and by and by I began to get a 
 glimmering of insight, though no more. I 
 had only just begun to move away when the 
 door re-opened and the man in the fur cap 
 and the big highlows came out and passed 
 me. I touched him on the arm and he 
 turned his head and paused. 
 
 * I want a word or two with you, if you 
 please,' I said. 
 
 'What if I don't please ?' he asked. He 
 had not actually brought his footsteps to a 
 halt, but was moving on lingeringly with a 
 backward stare at me. 
 
 ' I think you will,' I answered, persua- 
 sively jingling a handful of silver in my
 
 CHAP. XII THE WEAKER VESSEL 189 
 
 pocket, ' if I make it worth your while. 
 Have you any objections to a drink, to 
 begin with ? ' 
 
 Well, no, he said he hadn't, not so far as 
 he knowed. I asked him to be so good as 
 to pilot me to a place where we might have a 
 moment's talk in quiet. 
 
 'I'll show you the way, right enough,' he 
 answered, ' but you needn't think as you're 
 agoing to get anything out o' me. I can pay 
 for my own drinks when I want 'em.' 
 
 I made no response to this, and he, turn- 
 ing a corner, led me down a by-street and 
 into a public-house. A barman dozed behind 
 the pewter counter, and but for him the 
 place was empty. I gave my spy a glass 
 of hot rum and water, and for form's sake 
 asked for a bottle of lemonade. When I 
 paid for these I pulled out all the money 
 I had in my pocket precisely as ]\Ir. Gold- 
 smith would have done. I had perhaps 
 three pounds about me, and I saw my 
 friend of the fur cap looking at it as
 
 I90 THE WEAKER VESSEL chap. 
 
 if he would like it to change hands, I 
 thought. 
 
 ' Now,' I asked him, * you don't believe in 
 selling anything for nothing, do you ? ' 
 
 * No,' he said, shivering agreeably after 
 his first gulp of hot rum and water ; ' I ain't 
 one o' that sort.' 
 
 Nobody would have expected anything of 
 the sort, I told him, from so shrewd-looking a 
 fellow. I thought of the Inspector Buckett, 
 and was resolved to be complimentary. 
 
 * But now,' I said, * I want you to tell 
 me one or two things.' I put a half-crown 
 on the pewter counter and looked at him. 
 He shook his head decisively. I set another 
 on the top of it, and looked at him again, 
 and again he shook his head, this time with 
 something of a mournful sneer. He still 
 made negative signs when four half-crowns 
 lay one upon another before him, but they 
 were less decided than before. 'Very well,' 
 I said, feigning to observe plain acquiescence 
 in his manner. * Half to begin with, the
 
 XII THE WEAKER VESSEL 191 
 
 Other half afterwards.' I held out five 
 shillings towards him. He lingered for a 
 moment, but no more. 
 
 ' What is it ? ' he asked, as he pouched the 
 coins. 
 
 ' You are employed by Mr. Goldsmith ? ' 
 I asked. He contented himself with a nod. 
 * He set you on to follow me?' He shook 
 his head and smiled. ' Who set you on to 
 follow me ? ' 
 
 ' Nobody,' he answered ; ' that was a 
 herror.' 
 
 ' Ah ! I thought so. You were employed 
 to follow Mr. Pole ? ' 
 
 Again he nodded. 
 
 * Why do you follow Mr. Pole ? ' 
 ' I'm paid for it,' he answered. 
 
 * Exactly. But what do you \vant to find 
 out about him ? ' 
 
 The man looked about him suspiciously, 
 finished his drink, and moved towards the 
 door with an almost imperceptible nod of 
 invitation for me to follow. I obeyed the
 
 192 THE WEAKER VESSEL chap. 
 
 signal, and he led me through a little maze 
 of streets. I stopped him at length by de- 
 claring that I would go no farther. 
 
 'The potman was a-listening,' he said 
 wheezily ; ' I could see it by the way he 'eld 
 'is ed. My place is worth a lot more than 
 ten shilling.' 
 
 ' Very likely,* I answered ; ' but I don't 
 want you to lose your place. I want you to 
 keep it. Tell me, what do you want to find 
 out about Mr. Pole ? ' 
 
 ' The orders is,' he answered, leaning 
 forward and pouring his spirituous breath 
 into my face, ' to see where he goes, and 
 who he meets — specially one place and one 
 person.' 
 
 ' What is the place ? ' I asked. 
 
 ' House in Cromwell Terrace,' he an- 
 swered. 
 
 * And the person ? ' 
 
 * A young female as live in the house.' 
 
 ' Of course you know no reason why this 
 is beino- done ? '
 
 XII THE WEAKER VESSEL 193 
 
 ' The governor don't tell me a lot ; you 
 can bet your 'at on that, sir.' 
 
 There was no more to be made of him for 
 the time, and I paid him his five shillings 
 and parted from him, but not before I had 
 ascertained that he knew my name and 
 address, and had arranged with him to com- 
 municate with me in case anything should 
 come to his knowledge. I had very little 
 compunction in employing this personage to 
 act against his original employer, and as I 
 walked home, Spenser's line about entire 
 affection hating nicer hands came into my 
 mind, and justified me altogether. 
 
 It was embarrassing to take the news of 
 my discovery to Pole, and I was conscious of 
 a feeling which I knew of course to be alto- 
 gether ridiculous, that I was interfering in 
 his affairs, and prying into concerns which 
 he desired to keep secret. But it was not a 
 matter for any foolish delicacy, and I seized 
 the first chance I had of laying it before him. 
 
 He tried hard to preserve his ordinary 
 
 VOL. T O
 
 194 THE WEAKER VESSEL chap. 
 
 look of impassivity, and listened with his 
 shoulders lounging against the wall, his 
 hands in his pockets, and his head leaning 
 sideways. 
 
 ' You ask me nothing ! ' he said when I 
 had done. 
 
 ' Why should I ask you anything ? ' I 
 demanded in return. 
 
 ' You must think it all very exceptional 
 and strange.' 
 
 Of course it was exceptional and strange, 
 and I admitted as much to myself and to 
 him. 
 
 ' Don't take my silence as a sign of indif- 
 ference or unfriendliness,' I said at last. 'I 
 will ask you that, but I don't care to ask you 
 any more.' 
 
 He left his lounging place by the wall and 
 took several turns about the room. Then 
 he stopped and laid a hand upon my shoulder. 
 
 * There are no suspicions, no accusations, 
 in your mind ? ' 
 
 ' My dear fellow, no.'
 
 XII THE WEAKER VESSEL 195 
 
 * Denham ! ' he said suddenly, seating 
 himself before me, ' I don't know what to 
 do. I don't know how I ought to act.' 
 
 I did not know, I answered, that my 
 advice could be of service to him. 
 
 ' In plain English,' he said after a time, 
 ' here is my trouble. Ought I to publish 
 the fact of this miserable, marriage ? ' 
 
 I had thought over this question so often 
 and so long that I had my answer ready. 
 
 ' The reasons against the publication are 
 obvious enough. What are the reasons for 
 it?' 
 
 ' They are obvious enough also — some of 
 them. Here is the name of a most spotless 
 and admirable lady coupled with mine. You 
 coupled them together in your mind, once at 
 least ; my wife couples them. That old snob 
 and tuft-hunter Delamere is tr\'ing his hardest 
 to couple them, in fact. Dr. Fish is full of 
 hints and smiles. I don't believe — I don't 
 believe Miss Delamere cares two straws for 
 me. I suppose I must have let it be seen at
 
 196 THE WEAKER VESSEL chap. 
 
 one time that I cared a great deal more than 
 two straws for Miss Delamere.' 
 
 It cost him a great effort to say this. He 
 spoke in a tone of affected Hghtness, which 
 afforded as poor and thin a disguise as I can 
 remember to have known. When I looked 
 at him his face was pale, and he was looking 
 fixedly before him. The confession came 
 upon me with a great shock, and I under- 
 stood in the light of it many things which 
 had hitherto been dark to me. Here was 
 half the tragedy I had been afraid of. 
 
 ' I made that wretched marriage,' he 
 went on, after a lengthy silence — ' never 
 mind why. I thought I was acting very 
 nobly and loftily, and so on, and I found out 
 that I had acted like a fool. Who is it says 
 we reserve our keenest repentances for our 
 virtues ? I was married, anyhow, and tied 
 for life. You have seen my wife, and there's 
 no need to describe her to you, or to talk 
 about her at all. We lived together for a 
 month, and then parted. I met Miss Dela-
 
 XI r THE WEAKER VESSEL 197 
 
 mere some time afterwards. I wont say 
 that I fell in love with her.' He was talk- 
 ing in a hard, dry voice, and with a manner 
 as dry and hard as solid people of deep- 
 rooted feeling do when they are greatly 
 moved. ' I formed a very high opinion of 
 her. I thought her the most admirable 
 woman I had ever known, and,' he added 
 very doggedly, ' I think so still. In a while 
 I began to see that other people were becom- 
 ing aware of my opinion. Her father was 
 aware of it, and resented it as an imperti- 
 nence, until an accidental death or tw^o put 
 me in reasonable distance of a great future 
 and a peerage. Then he changed his mind, 
 as might have been expected of him.' 
 
 He rose then and paced steadily to and 
 fro with his chin upon his breast. 
 
 'One night,' he went on, 'old Dr. Fish 
 poked a foolish joke at me about an approach- 
 ing marriage, and that decided me. I never 
 went near the Delameres' house again until 
 I went with you, and then I thought the
 
 THE WEAKER VESSEL 
 
 folly had blown over. It seems to have 
 revived and sprung to life again, and I must 
 stop away again and put an end to it.' 
 
 ' It will certainly be wise to do so,' I said. 
 
 ' It's rather hard lines too,' he added, with 
 that irritating assumption of not caring, which, 
 after all, I was compelled to admire. For my 
 own part when I am hurt I cry out prodigi- 
 ously. When I am in trouble I want some- 
 body to whom to pour out my complaints — 
 a friend to share my burden. ' It's brutally 
 hard lines when you come to think of it.' 
 
 ' I fancy,' I said, ' that your wife and Gold- 
 smith can have but little knowledge of you.' 
 
 ' My wife and Goldsmith have very little 
 knowledge of me,' he answered. ' They 
 have but very little knowledge of the case at 
 all, it would seem. I don't think I'm much 
 of a coxcomb, Denham ? ' 
 
 He put this question with something very 
 like his usual natural air, and I laughed as I 
 answered. Not much of a coxcomb, I was 
 inclined to fancy.
 
 XII THE WEAKER VESSEL 199 
 
 ' Then I can say what is on my mind to 
 say. It's no compliment to a man when a 
 woman falls in love with him, because women 
 constantly fall in love with utterly worthless 
 people. They fall in love with ugly fellows, 
 they fall in love with men who are dazzlingly 
 stupid, or mean, or base. It's quite on the 
 cards that a woman might fall in love with 
 me. It's a recognisable possibility. Eh ?' 
 
 ' Quite a recognisable possibility.' 
 
 ' Then what should the sensitive creature 
 da who desires to save a hypothetical young 
 woman from wasting her affections ? What 
 should a tender-hearted man in my position, 
 reading the first signs of dawning affection, 
 do to shield the poor creature from the 
 blight ? ' 
 
 ' For Heaven's sake, Pole,' I besought 
 him, ' don't talk in this bitter way. Upon 
 my soul, you are worse than wormwood.' 
 
 ' Yes,' said Pole drily, biting off the end 
 of a cigar. 'I'm a great deal worse than 
 wormwood.'
 
 200 THE WEAKER VESSEL chap. 
 
 ' Look here, Pole,' I said, rising and 
 laying a hand upon him. ' It's no use beat- 
 ing about the bush any longer, and hurting 
 each other with pretences. You'd best let 
 it be known at Cromwell Terrace that you 
 are married, and then all the trouble, and all 
 the chance of trouble will be over.' 
 
 ' I said just now I wasn't a coxcomb,' 
 he answered with a bitter lightness. Then 
 looking sideways at me with a face as white 
 as marble, he asked, ' You think she cares ? ' 
 
 * I think she may. I know nothing. I 
 have seen nothing. She may come to care.' 
 
 'All right,' he answered, throwing the 
 cigar into the fireplace. ' Go and cry it on 
 the housetops. Look here, old chap.' He 
 gripped my arm, and pushed me to and fro 
 more strongly than he knew. ' We won't 
 say any more about it now. I've got some 
 letters I ought to write, and — and some 
 things to think about. Come up to-morrow, 
 will you ? Good-night.' 
 
 We shook hands, and I left him. I don't
 
 XII THE WEAKER VESSEL 201 
 
 suppose I could feel anybody's grief to-day 
 as I felt his then. We grow selfish as we 
 grow older, and our own cares absorb us. 
 But at that time I had no trouble of my own 
 that was worth the thinking of, and it is 
 simple truth that I loved him like a brother. 
 I went away heavy-hearted, and in my 
 own lonely room I listened to the sound of 
 his footsteps overhead, to the unnumbered 
 little noises which bespoke disordered and 
 hasty movements and a troubled mind for 
 hours. 
 
 In the morning, among my letters I found 
 a note from Pole. 
 
 ' I have been thinking,' he wrote, ' of 
 our last night's talk. I have come to the 
 conclusion that it will be best to make a 
 clean breast of it. I am going down to 
 Worborough. The old man will be grieved, 
 I know, but I must tell him with my own 
 lips. I authorise you to speak about the 
 matter where you will. There is no need 
 for discretion, and you may tell anybody.
 
 202 THE WEAKER VESSEL chap, xii 
 
 Tell Fish, and he will save you all further 
 trouble.' 
 
 If there was anything made clear by the 
 resolve thus expressed, it was Pole's fear lest 
 Mary Delamere should come to care for him 
 in her ignorance of his position. And if any- 
 body who knows the facts chooses to think 
 the fear coxcombical, I need hardly say that 
 I am very far indeed from being in agree- 
 ment with him.
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 I COULD not remember to have had a task 
 more embarrassing laid upon me. It was 
 not merely embarrassing, but downright pain- 
 ful, even in the mere contemplation of it. 
 And yet it was so evidently the only thing 
 to be done that it was not to be evaded. 
 Pole went down to Worborough Court as he 
 had promised, and I was left alone to fulfil 
 my part of the bargain made between us. 
 
 I had let almost the whole of the first day 
 slide by without action, and had constantly 
 tested myself with rehearsals of the dis- 
 closure I had to make. The fact that I was 
 fully authorised to make it had next to no 
 effect upon my mind. Look at it how I 
 would it seemed to wear the air of an in-
 
 204 THE WEAKER VESSEL chap. 
 
 tolerable impertinence. But, as I wandered 
 disconsolate down Piccadilly that night, try- 
 ing to summon up resolution to get the 
 matter over, I encountered no less a person 
 than the Reverend Doctor Fish. He was 
 beaming, as he always beamed, and over- 
 flowing with that fatuous and indiscriminat- 
 ing kindliness which marked his aspect in the 
 world at large. We shook hands with great 
 cordiality. 
 
 ' How do you do, my young friend, how 
 do you do ? Rambling ? Philosophising? 
 A charming night for the time of year, but 
 cold.' 
 
 ' Doctor Fish,' said I, plunging in medias 
 res, ' I have something to say to you.' 
 
 The old gentleman stopped short and 
 looked at me with an almost ludicrous air of 
 alarm. I became awkwardly aware of a 
 somewhat too tragic intensity in my own tone 
 and manner. 
 
 ' I have been asked,' I continued, taking 
 him by the arm and leading him along,
 
 XIII THE WEAKER VESSEL 205 
 
 ' to make public a certain painful piece of 
 news.' 
 
 The old gentleman, with his hat perched 
 on the back of his head and his face turned 
 up to mine with an expression of alarmed 
 bewilderment, ambled beside me. 
 
 'Pole,' I said, 'has gone down to Wor- 
 borough Court to see Lord Worborough, and 
 to make to him the same statement which 
 he authorises me to make to his friends in 
 general.' 
 
 ' God bless my soul I ' said Dr. Fish. 
 
 ' There were reasons.' I went on, delaying, 
 in a sufficiently lame and impotent fashion, 
 what I had to say, ' why the thing should not 
 have been made generally known before. 
 But there are now reasons — ver}- urgent 
 reasons — why it should be known.' 
 
 Dr. Fish said 'God bless my soul I" again, 
 and ambled on, holding his umbrella tightly 
 at the middle, and gasping at me open- 
 mouthed. 
 
 ' Pole,' I said, making quite a desperate
 
 2o6 THE WEAKER VESSEL chap. 
 
 ''effort, ' some years back contracted a most 
 miserable and unhappy marriage.' 
 
 The doctor stopped, withdrew his arm, 
 and faced me in speechless amazement. 
 
 ' His wife is living still. I have met her 
 twice, and I can thoroughly understand the 
 reasons which prompted him to concealment. 
 But now his changed position, and certain 
 other circumstances which it is not necessary 
 that we should talk about ' 
 
 * My dear young friend,' said the doctor, 
 laying his hand upon my arm, ' we will say 
 nothing whatever about them.' I had not 
 expected so much delicacy from him. ' I can 
 see reasons; I can see one or two reasons. 
 The poor misguided boy ! Dear me ! Such 
 prospects ! This will be a blow to his lord- 
 ship. Quite right and wise on the poor boy's 
 part to make the thing known. Quite right 
 and wise. But who is the lady .^ Is she — 
 is she — anybody ?' 
 
 I told him that I knew nothing whatever 
 of Mrs. Pole's antecedents ; that she looked
 
 XIII THE WEAKER VESSEL 207 
 
 and spoke as if she might have been a lady ; 
 but, I added, whatever her antecedents might 
 have been, she was utterly impossible as a 
 life-companion for her husband. 
 
 I had always known the old gentleman to 
 be of a feeling and sympathetic turn, but I 
 seemed now to have done him less than 
 justice. He was very much moved indeed 
 by the intelligence I had given him, and 
 when we had resumed our progress westward 
 he walked in silence for full five minutes, 
 sighing every now and again, and shaking 
 his head quite mournfully. After this, how- 
 ever, I fancied that I began to discern a sort 
 of sad complacency in his manner, and I do 
 not think I am far wrong in supposing that 
 he found a compensation for this mournful 
 news in the fact that he was authorised to 
 spread it abroad. 
 
 'There is, of course,' he said, 'no possi- 
 bility of a mistake in this ? You understand, 
 John, that if this story is to be repeated it 
 must be no guess-work.'
 
 2o8 THE WEAKER VESSEL chap. 
 
 I told him anew that Pole himself desired 
 the fact to be made known, and parted from 
 him shortly afterwards with a feeling that I 
 had been unwarrantably meddling with my 
 friend's affairs. So far as the casting abroad 
 of the news could go, the thing was over and 
 done with. It was quite certain, as I knew, 
 that the intelligence would reach all for whom 
 it was intended, and a few chance thousands 
 outside that limited circle. As a matter of 
 fact it was public property in a week, for the 
 earliest precursor of the great tribe of society 
 journals got hold of it, and printed it in a 
 paragraph, the purposed mystery of which 
 blinded nobody. We have grown quite ac- 
 customed nowadays to the invasion of what 
 used to be called the sanctity of private life ; 
 but at this time the publication of this kind 
 of detail was new in our experience, and Pole 
 and I were not unnaturally angry at it. 
 
 It served Pole's purpose in one marked 
 way, however, inasmuch as it brought under 
 Mr. Goldsmith's notice the fact that all
 
 XIII THE WEAKER VESSEL 209 
 
 attempt to preserve secrecy had been aban- 
 doned, and so took one weapon out of hands 
 which. were not Hkely to be over-scrupulous. 
 It did this very completely, for the final line 
 of the paragraph ran thus : — ' It is a signifi- 
 cant fact that the husband has himself decided 
 to publish the news of the marriage he has 
 hitherto so successfully concealed.' I thought 
 it probable at the time that the writer might 
 not altogether know of what the fact was 
 significant, and I have since remarked that 
 the journalistic capacity for indicating signifi- 
 cances and incapacity for actually seeing 
 them, are a part of the newspaper man's 
 mental outfit. 
 
 When once I had set the news afloat I 
 became actually tormented by the desire to 
 know how^ it was received in Cromwell 
 Terrace. The very force of my sympathy 
 served to keep me away for a week or two, 
 and I felt so awkward about the whole 
 melancholy business that if it had not been 
 for Clara's presence in the house I should 
 VOL. I p
 
 THE WEAKER VESSEL 
 
 probably have avoided Mr. Delamere's resi- 
 dence for ever. I have said nothing of the 
 progress of my own personal affairs during 
 the last month or two, and yet that progress 
 was noticeable and rapid. Looking back to 
 almost any period of life, and taking up any 
 thread of existence, it is curious to notice 
 how the contemplation of that one line will, 
 for the moment, belittle the others. By dint 
 of thinking of it you may make almost any 
 episode of your life look disproportionately 
 large, and I suppose that one of the chief 
 difficulties to be surmounted in the relation 
 of one's own history is provided by this very 
 tendency. I will be careful at least not to 
 exaggerate one line. To go back to all those 
 tender hopes and foolish fears, to recall them 
 for but a minute or two in the silence of my 
 own study, is at once to make them dominate 
 all other incidents and feelings in my re- 
 membrance of the time. Pole was my 
 friend, and I shall not easily be persuaded 
 that many men have found a friend more
 
 XIII THE WEAKER VESSEL 211 
 
 entirely and devotedly at their service in 
 heart and deed. But. after all. he occupied 
 but a mere corner of my life, and every other 
 nook and cranny of it was crammed full of 
 Clara. 
 
 I have it on the authority of my wife that 
 I might have spared myself all the ecstasies 
 of despair in which at this time I revelled. 
 I respond by declaring that, though I might 
 have wished to escape them then, I should 
 have been a most mistaken man to do it. 
 Curious I How one looks back from the 
 haven of middle age, where no tempest 
 can toss the heart's barque on that vexed 
 ocean any more, and thinks how enviable 
 that despairing, wrecked, and drowning 
 mariner really was ! What happy, fairy 
 islands of safety sprang up sometimes in 
 mid-ocean, when the tempest was at its 
 loudest I What gleams of heavenly blue 
 broke through the dividing storm I Every- 
 body but the most insensible knows these 
 things, everybody loves to recall them. The
 
 212 THE WEAKER VESSEL chap. 
 
 love-stories of purely fictitious personages 
 make up ninety per cent of the world's litera- 
 ture, and one finds, now and again, the most 
 elderly, sober-minded, and commonplace old 
 people renewing their own youth in a pretty, 
 rose-coloured No Man's Land which has Jack 
 and Jill for inhabitants. 
 
 These sentimental reflections will have 
 ma.de it clear to any person of average dis- 
 cernment that a prolonged absence from the 
 house graced by Miss Grantley's presence 
 was impossible to the present writer. He 
 stayed away, this present writer, until he 
 could stay away no longer ; a full ten days, 
 as I remember ; and then, with a trans- 
 parent pretence of having some reason apart 
 from the only one he acted on, he made a 
 call. 
 
 I had seemed to be guilty of an imperti- 
 nence in speaking of Pole's affairs, though he 
 had authorised me to do it, but the sense 
 I felt then of my own insolent intrusiveness 
 was not a thousandth part so strong as that
 
 XIII THE WEAKER VESSEL 213 
 
 which suddenly assailed me when I saw Miss 
 Delamere. A great change had fallen upon 
 her. Her beauty had never been of the 
 robustest order, but now, to my terror and 
 sorrow, she had grown shadowy, so pale and 
 ethereal she looked. She smiled with all her 
 accustomed sweetness when she shook hands 
 with me. There was not the faintest hint of 
 any expression in her face which asked for 
 pity, and yet I knew that she had passed 
 through a time of dreadful trouble. I have 
 had intuitions enough in my time to know 
 that they can be true, and to be certain that 
 they can be absurd. Yet not even the after- 
 proof of knowledge added or could add to 
 the certainty of her love for Pole, which 
 at that instant flooded and filled my mind. 
 I knew it, and I was, beyond expression, 
 ashamed of myself for knowing it. 
 
 I contrived, in a roundabout way, to in- 
 quire if ^liss Grantley were at home, and 
 learned that she was out on a visit to some 
 old friends of her mother's in the neiehbour-
 
 214 THE WEAKER VESSEL chap. 
 
 hood. I do not think now that there was 
 any intention in Miss Delamere's manner, 
 but I thought so then ; and between my own 
 shyness and my pity for her I fell into a state 
 of complete discomfort. Under these con- 
 ditions, even the arrival of Jones was a thing 
 to be welcomed. He came in with Mr. Dela- 
 mere ; and Mary, taking out some trifle of 
 embroidery, assumed an abstracted air, and 
 feigned to be closely occupied with it. I 
 suppose it is not easy for a woman of brains 
 and sensibility to throw her whole soul Into 
 the contemplation of stitches, and it was 
 very evident to me that, however closely 
 she might seem to be engaged upon her 
 task, she followed the talk which took place 
 amongst us. 
 
 Mr. Delamere was unusually magnificent 
 that evening. He had an air of having done, 
 or undertaken to do, some act of Christian 
 magnanimity towards somebody, and was full 
 of pitying condescensions to the world at 
 large. Jones was in something of the same
 
 XIII THE WEAKER VESSEL 215 
 
 mood, but in him it was tempered by a rare 
 hilarity. 
 
 'I suppose,' said Mr. Delamere, 'that 
 there could be nothing more stupid than to 
 be angry at stupidity. There is a sense in 
 which patience is the best of the virtues. A 
 wise discrimination lies at the root of a vir- 
 tuous patience. One is not angry because 
 a fifty-six pound shot has not the lightness 
 of a feather, or because a feather has not the 
 ponderosity of the shot. In fine, one accepts 
 thinofs.' 
 
 Jones smiled at this. 
 
 'One accepts things,' he said, 'on one of 
 two conditions.' 
 
 'Your conditions?' demanded Mr. Dela- 
 mere, leaning back in his chair and setting 
 the tips of his fingers delicately together. 
 
 ' That the things accepted should be either 
 unavoidable or in themselves acceptable.' 
 
 They were both clever men, Delamere and 
 Jones, but they were a weariness to my flesh 
 and spirit. They would sit for hours solemnly
 
 2i6 THE WEAKER VESSEL chap. 
 
 trotting out for one another's admiration their 
 commonplaces of the philosophical copy-book, 
 until I tingled from head to foot. It seemed 
 to me that the kind of converse they took 
 delight in was either not very acceptable in 
 itself, or quite unalterable, and I knew that 
 they were working their way towards the 
 question of Pole's marriage just as well as 
 they did. 
 
 ' Human nature,' said Mr. Delamere, with 
 that air of catholic wisdom and plenary 
 allowance which is of all human aspects the 
 most irritating and hateful to my mind ; 
 * human nature is a poor mixed thing.' 
 
 ' Subtly compounded, sir,' said Jones ; 
 ' subtly compounded.' 
 
 ' Solomon touches it,' said Delamere. 
 ' The fly in the ointment ; the fly in the 
 ointment. One may have known a man for 
 years — have watched him, have analysed him, 
 boasted to oneself one's understanding of 
 him, when there comes some unlooked-for 
 injection, and the chemical character of the
 
 XIII THE WEAKER VESSEL 217 
 
 whole human mass is changed. Now, for 
 instance ' 
 
 Miss Delamere was busy at her embroidery, 
 and I at a Httle distance sat watchinof her as 
 I Hstened. She had looked up once, and 
 until now once only, and then our eyes had 
 encountered. A glance need not endure long 
 to express many things, and for a very little 
 space of time indeed, whilst she was un- 
 conscious of my gaze, her own expressed a 
 most mournful lassitude and despondency ; 
 but becoming aware of me she gave one of 
 her bright, customary smiles of recognition, 
 and went back to her embroidery. Now 
 again, at this * for instance ' of her father's, 
 she looked up from her work, her forehead 
 faintly knitted, and her whole face pained 
 and puzzled. 
 
 ' For instance,' Delamere went on, not 
 noticing her, but turning with a gracious con- 
 descension upon me, ' this affair of your 
 friend Pole's, Denham. I rather pride my- 
 self, not altogether, as I fancy, without reason,
 
 2i8 THE WEAKER VESSEL chap. 
 
 Upon being something of a judge of character. 
 I should have supposed your friend Pole to 
 have been a man whose whole instincts would 
 have been diametrically opposed to the facts 
 as we now know them. I should have re- 
 garded any such union as he has formed as 
 being quite outside the sphere of possibility 
 for him.' 
 
 'May one ask,' said Jones, 'what virtues 
 Mr. Pole was specially gifted with which 
 would have seemed to make this step im- 
 possible for him ? ' 
 
 'In the first place,' said Delamere, 'no 
 man of lofty honour can contract a secret 
 marriage. I had supposed Pole to be a man 
 of lofty honour.' 
 
 I said, in something like a tone of chal- 
 lenge, I am afraid, that Pole was a man of 
 lofty honour. I added, warmly, that I knew 
 no man whose code of honour was purer, or 
 who better acted up to it. Before I had well 
 spoken I was angrier with myself for having 
 done so than I was at the stupidity of the
 
 XIII THE WEAKER VESSEL 219 
 
 pair who could not see that they were stick- 
 ing pins and needles into the heart of their 
 silent listener. 
 
 Mr. Delamere raised his glasses in a way 
 that indicated that he was not to be disturbed 
 from his own philosophical serenity by the 
 intrusion of any inferior intelligence upon 
 his sphere of thought. The observation of 
 this helped to cool me a little, for it threw 
 a touch of humour into my thoughts ; and 
 though the humour was a little bitter it was 
 more agreeable than mere anger. 
 
 'A man who contracts a secret marriaofe,' 
 pursued Delamere, ' necessarily imposes him- 
 self upon society under false pretences. A 
 man with such a tie upon him has no right 
 to go into the world and move about in it as 
 though he were unfettered. In a country 
 whose social institutions resemble those of 
 England ; in a country, that is to say, where 
 young people of both sexes meet and mingle 
 in a constant innocent freedom of intercourse, 
 and where marriages are made, not by the
 
 220 THE WEAKER VESSEL chap. 
 
 manoeuvring of parents, but chiefly by the 
 choice and free will of the contracting parties, 
 the secret marriage of a young man of wealth 
 and position amounts to nothing less than a 
 crime against society. You, or you,' he 
 turned from Jones to me, and addressed us 
 each in turn, ' may be excused for supposing 
 that a young lady in her choice of an asso- 
 ciate for life ought not to be actuated by 
 pecuniary consideration or influenced by 
 rank. I do not stop to consider now whether 
 a young lady should or should not permit her 
 mind to be influenced by wealth and rank. 
 I content myself by affirming that the very 
 large majority are as a matter of fact so 
 influenced.' 
 
 I felt bound, for two reasons, one of which 
 was a great deal stronger than the other, to 
 take a part in the talk and to fight Pole's 
 battle. The first reason, though it counted 
 very little for the moment, was founded on 
 the friendship he and I had for one another. 
 The second and the stronger was this : if I
 
 XIII THE WEAKER VESSEL 221 
 
 kept silence I was in danger of appearing to 
 give a special significance to Delamere's 
 attack, and I was afraid that his daughter 
 might attribute my silence to a fear of hurt- 
 ing her. So, in my guilty knowledge of her 
 own sad secret, 1 had to take my share in 
 wounding her in order not to wound. 
 
 ' I beg your pardon, ]\Ir. Delamere,' I 
 said, with as respectful an air as I could 
 muster, ' but you forget that Pole himself 
 divulged the secret, just as soon as wealth 
 and rank seemed to be coming his way. 
 What his reasons for concealment were at 
 first I do not pretend to know, but you 
 argue what you do know into what you 
 can't know in judging of a man as in judg- 
 ing of anything. Pole is a man of high 
 honour — ergo, Pole had nothing dishonour- 
 able in his mind when he kept his marriage 
 secret under conditions of which we are 
 ignorant.' 
 
 I was so placed that I could see Miss 
 Delamere's face in the mirror, and I caught
 
 222 THE WEAKER VESSEL chap. 
 
 a look of gratitude for my defence of my 
 friend. 
 
 ' I for one,' said Mr. Delamere coldly, 
 ' am not Inclined to be overstrained in my 
 ideal of social duty, but I think your friend's 
 conduct inexcusable. Do you happen to 
 know, Denham,' he asked a moment later, 
 ' who is the — the person he has married ?' 
 
 I answered in the negative, looking as 
 natural and unembarrassed as I could. Was 
 it possible, I asked myself, that he could be 
 blind to his daughter's pallor and languor 
 and ignorant of their cause ? Every word 
 we spoke must have been a pain to her, but 
 nothing could be so painful as to guess that 
 I knew of what she suffered. The two com- 
 placent philosophers went on, and I was 
 compelled to look as stupid as they were in 
 fact. My only chance for tact lay in seem- 
 ing quite tactless, and I succeeded well 
 enough to disarm suspicion in Miss Dela- 
 mere's mind. 
 
 ' For my own part,' she said quietly and
 
 XIII 777^ WEAKER JESSEL 223 
 
 with complete self-possession, ' I think ?^Ir. 
 Pole very much to be pitied. I do not know 
 if he is to be blamed as well. That is quite 
 possible, of course, but I don't think it very 
 probable.' 
 
 'My dear Mary,' returned her father, 'it 
 is ver}' necessary that you should form just 
 views upon such a question as this. What 
 are the conceivable reasons for a clandestine 
 marriage ? First, a vK^salliance on one side 
 or the other. Next, an evasion of authority 
 on one side or the other. Then consider that 
 the deceit is carried into life, and becomes a 
 part of it. Xo, no ; I cannot conceive of a 
 secret marriage as the act of a high-minded 
 man. I can understand, Denham, that you 
 find the theme a painful one, and I admit 
 that it would be Quixotic to quarrel with a 
 friend who will one day be able so favourably 
 to influence your own career.' 
 
 I suppose it really would have been Quix- 
 otic to have closed Delamere's doors against 
 myself by resenting his implied opinion of
 
 224 THE WEAKER VESSEL chap. 
 
 the value of my friendship. Any way I kept 
 silence, though Jones's smile of assent almost 
 forced me to unclose my lips. I had hardly 
 ever been so angry in my life as this dull 
 couple made me, but fortunately there came 
 a diversion, and the question was laid on 
 one side. Miss Grantley came in, and after 
 a time Delamere challenging Jones to a game 
 at chess, they retired together to the smoking- 
 room ; and a little later Mary, gathering her 
 belongings into a little basket of quilted silk- 
 work, slipped from the room, leaving us 
 together for a time. 
 
 Clara and I had come to that stage in 
 which young people are aware already of 
 what is uppermost in each other's minds and 
 are forced into an unusual air of ca7iieraderie 
 and freedom. We talked with great gaiety, 
 with grisly silences between, and would rather 
 break these pauses by any kind of nonsense 
 than leave them to grow intolerable. 
 
 ' You used constantly to talk of your 
 friend Mr. Pole, Mr. Denham,' said Clara in
 
 XIII THE WEAKER VESSEL 225 
 
 one such moment of extremity. ' You have 
 not spoken of him all the evening.' 
 
 ' We were talking of him at the moment 
 of your arrival,' I answered. ' Mr. Delamere 
 spoke ver)^ angrily of him and I defended 
 him.' 
 
 ' You ought not to have defended him,' 
 she answered warmly. ' I think he has be- 
 haved— — ' 
 
 She went no farther, but it was enough 
 for confirmation. 
 
 'I cannot see,' I answered, 'that he be- 
 haved ill in any way. I know that he is 
 profoundly unhappy, though he allows nobody 
 to see it.' 
 
 'A man may be unhappy,' she rejoined, 
 
 ' but he has no right ' And there she 
 
 paused again. 
 
 I was guilty of an indiscretion, but I can 
 find ample excuses for myself. 
 
 ' Xo right to do what ? ' I asked. She 
 gave no answer. ' No right to make others 
 unhappy? Do you think, Miss Grantley, 
 
 VOL. I Q
 
 226 THE WEAKER VESSEL chap. 
 
 that he ever guessed it ? He Is not a cox- 
 comb who goes about in fear of breaking 
 ladies' hearts.' 
 
 ' You say very odd things, Mr. Denham,' 
 she answered with an air of fine simpHcity, 
 and the most barefaced pretence of not under- 
 standing me, and of having offered no provo- 
 cation for this outburst. * I am not Hkely to 
 be brought to your opinion of Mr. Pole. I 
 think him very horrid.' 
 
 'You are quite wise not to understand 
 me,' I answered, and turned the conversation. 
 She was content to escape from her own 
 share of the responsibility of entering upon 
 it, but as our intimacy grew this broken 
 beginning of confidence was taken up again. 
 I don't know at this day how our own court- 
 ship would have grown if it had not been 
 for the unhappy heart -affairs of Pole and 
 Mary Delamere. We should have found 
 some other way to sympathy, no doubt, but as 
 it happened that was the road we travelled. 
 Her love for Mary and my affection for Pole
 
 XIII THE WEAKER VESSEL 227 
 
 led US back to the theme a thousand times, 
 and by and by we talked of it openly to each 
 other and with no pretence of disguise. She 
 was Mary Delamere's one confidante, and 
 even she, it seems, was left to guess a pro- 
 digious deal more than she was told. Of 
 course I knew we were a sinfully indiscreet 
 and curious young couple to talk of the affairs 
 of others as we did ; but then we had countless 
 examples, and we were on such a footing of 
 intimacy that we had no secrets from each 
 other, with the exception of one which was 
 rather less of a secret to our world at large 
 than even to ourselves.
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 Jones, who in Pole's phrase came Sebastian 
 Dolmering into my chambers pretty often, 
 came down one day about a month after the 
 disclosure in a more than commonly sprightly 
 humour. I had never liked him from the 
 first hour, but he seemed to be altogether 
 unconscious of a want of friendly warmth on 
 my part, and was himself so uniformly amiable 
 that it was impossible to quarrel with him. 
 There was indeed nothing special about which 
 we could have quarrelled. Jones was a hum- 
 bug, but then there are so many humbugs in 
 the world that if a man took it upon himself 
 to quarrel with all of them whom he en- 
 countered he would have his hands full. 
 The sterner sort of moralist may, if he
 
 CHAP. XIV THE WEAKER VESSEL 229 
 
 pleases, decline to hold intercourse with all 
 men who do not come up to his own lofty- 
 standard. The average creature, conscious 
 of his own imperfections, must rub along 
 with such society as he can get, and take 
 folks as he finds them. Considering how 
 very little Jones ever cared for me, and 
 considering that I had at best a dormant 
 contempt for Jones, it was really remarkable 
 to see how well we got on together. 
 
 He was always wonderfully attired, and 
 his appointments were as finished and natty 
 as those of the finest fine lady. He used to 
 smoke cigarettes of scented tobacco bound 
 in rose-coloured paper, and he carried about 
 him numberless little nicknacks for personal 
 use. One of his favourite occupations was 
 to polish his nails, and for that purpose he 
 carried about with him a tiny gold-plated box 
 of some sort of powder and a little pad of 
 leather. He would polish and polish whilst 
 he talked of art and the destinies of humanity 
 and other noble and inspiring themes, and
 
 230 THE WEAKER VESSEL chap. 
 
 would make his shining nails gleam this way 
 and that way by turning them against the 
 light, and would admire them with his head 
 on one side, whilst he paused for a descriptive 
 phrase or rounded a denunciatory period. 
 
 Early in our acquaintance I used to have 
 almost unconquerable impulses to assault 
 Jones whilst he aired these engaging little 
 ways of his. But in a while they ceased to 
 exasperate, and in a little while further began 
 to amuse, and then to soothe. It was con- 
 solatory to reflect that in the depth of one's 
 daily descents into imbecility, one never fell 
 to that ; so that at the most despondent 
 moments Jones came as a sort of invigorator, 
 toning the moral system, and bringing en- 
 couragement to the feeble. 
 
 On this particular day he came in, as I 
 have said, in an unusually sprightly humour. 
 He cracked a gentle joke or two, and that 
 bespoke the very highest spirits in him, an 
 almost reckless abandonment to gaiety. As 
 a rule, Jones was afraid of a joke, and would
 
 XIV THE WEAKER VESSEL 231 
 
 almost as soon have sat In the same room 
 with a humorist as with a mixed barrel of 
 lucifer-matches and fireworks. Pole, for in- 
 stance, who had much more of a habit of 
 thinking than of talking humorously, made 
 Jones uncomfortable by his very aspect. He 
 looked dangerous. There was never any 
 knowing when, and in what direction, he 
 might explode, and Jones's mental parlour 
 was trim and decorous, and full of frao^ile 
 curios. He had no liking for the exhibition 
 of Catherine -wheels and sky-rockets in that 
 delicately furnished, but limited enclosure. 
 
 I told him how bright he looked, and how 
 uncommonly gay he was, and he smiled back, 
 well pleased, pulling off his pretty lemon- 
 coloured gloves In the finest and most lady- 
 like manner. He examined his finger-nails 
 with scrupulous exactitude, smiled in the 
 mirror to inspect his teeth, arranged his hair 
 with a few dexterous feminine coaxinors of 
 the palms and fingers, and then lit one of his 
 pretty little cigarettes, and sat down. I was
 
 232 THE WEAKER VESSEL chap. 
 
 positively pleased to see him. For the first 
 time I realised for myself the peculiar nature 
 of his charm. 
 
 I felt it at once a duty and a privilege to 
 make the most of him, and I tried to start 
 him upon the question of the proposed revo- 
 lution in the cut and colour of evening dress. 
 Here he disappointed me. He spoke of it 
 with a fervour which was too obviously un- 
 real. The stream was too far from its source, 
 and it flowed with a mournful paucity and 
 languor. I tried to start him on the larger 
 theme of the regeneration of the soul by 
 means of Japanese lacquer and the best 
 Dresden. Even here he would not dance 
 to my piping with anything of his accustomed 
 spirit and agility. In fine, it became evident 
 that there was something upon Jones's mind, 
 and in a while, after a circuitous fashion, it 
 came out. 
 
 * Strange,' said Jones, after a pause of 
 some duration, ' how closely the development 
 of the individual soul follows the laws which
 
 XIV THE WEAKER VESSEL 233 
 
 govern the development of the inert con- 
 glomerate mass.' 
 
 I assented, and, like Brer Rabbit, I lay 
 low, and waited. 
 
 'Conditions,' said Jones, 'which even an 
 acute observer would suppose to be per- 
 manent turn out to be transitory. When 
 one says permanent,' he added with his 
 explanatory air, which was always delightfully 
 comforting to his listener's amour pi^opre, 
 'one doesn't use the word, of course, with 
 any pretence to scientific accuracy. Perma- 
 nence, like other conditions, is only relative, 
 and is impossible in the abstract.' 
 
 I said that it was very nice to know this ; 
 and Jones, who was too firmly seated on horse- 
 back to take note of any pebble in his conver- 
 sational charger's track, rode on unregardful. 
 
 ' I had supposed myself to be fully con- 
 vinced upon one or two social questions upon 
 which I now discover that my mind has 
 undergone a change, imperceptible to myself 
 in its processes, and yet radical.'
 
 234 THE WEAKER VESSEL chap. 
 
 I said that I was very pleased to hear it, I 
 was sure ; and he went on, taking no more 
 note of me than if he had been the hero in a 
 Greek drama and I the Chorus. 
 
 * Take, for instance,' said Jones delicately, 
 * the question of marriage. I am not, as a 
 matter of course, so mad or so blind as to 
 attach any value to the absurd sanctions of 
 the Church or the fallacious conclusions of 
 society.' 
 
 I was quite sure that Jones was superior 
 to those feeblenesses, and I said as much 
 with warmth. For the first time he took 
 notice of me, and seemed gratified by this 
 testimonial. 
 
 At this moment Pole, who had been back 
 from Worborough Court a week or two, 
 strolled in without announcement of himself, 
 and took a seat with one leg on either side 
 a chair and his elbows on the back of it. He 
 nodded to each of us, but said nothing. 
 Jones, I thought, was momentarily discon- 
 certed by the sight of him, but went on
 
 XIV THE WEAKER VESSEL 235 
 
 directly, with some exaggeration of his best 
 lady-like tone and manner. 
 
 *Yet,' he continued, 'I have begun to 
 think of late that it is not well too suddenly 
 to combat the preconceptions of average 
 mankind. One can, of course, use satire, but 
 it needs to be delicate and veiled, and the 
 average man is, I fancy, unsusceptible to 
 satire.' 
 
 'There are people,' I ventured to say at 
 this juncture, seeing that Jones was perhaps 
 a little unsteady in his seat to his own fancy, 
 and needed bolstering there — 'there are 
 people on whom satire produces little effect. 
 Some of them are clever in a way ; rooted 
 fools by nature, who bear a weedy little 
 blossom of wit, and suppose themselves to 
 flower all over, like rhododendrons in the 
 season.' 
 
 'There,' said Jones, 'you touch the very 
 men I have in mind. The average stupid 
 man is not half so bad to deal with as the 
 man who bears that single flower of wit you
 
 236 THE WEAKER VESSEL chap. 
 
 speak of. For my own part, I am a bit of a 
 philosopher. I am not merely open to con- 
 viction, which is the first attitude of common- 
 sense, but I am willing to give and take, to 
 pay tithe of mint, and anise, and cummin, 
 even to the false deity of popular convention. 
 I am willing to concede that though by lend- 
 ing the force of one's example to a doubtful 
 practice one may delay the hour of its aboli- 
 tion, yet it is possible to subscribe to a social 
 usage if it should not be too harmful to the 
 general interest, and, having subscribed to it, 
 still hold the right of holding up one's 
 testimony against it. Marriage,' he con- 
 tinued, passing his hand through his lustrous 
 Italian locks, and dividing them tenderly, 
 ^ has become precisely one of those questions 
 to my mind, though a little while ago I 
 should scarcely have thought such an allow- 
 ance possible or desirable.' 
 
 ' He has come in out of the desert,' said 
 Pole. ' He has consented to be taken in 
 and curry-combed.'
 
 XIV 77^5" WEAKER VESSEL 237 
 
 I do not think that the Reverend Laurence 
 Sterne was likely to be one of Jones's literary 
 favourites, and so it is possible that the true 
 nuance of Pole's allusion escaped him. He 
 went on, apparently unmoved. 
 
 'There are men,' he said, *so pachyder- 
 matous by nature, and by cultivation or the 
 want of it, that they are not to be touched 
 by any shaft of reason.' 
 
 ' You might,' said Pole, ' explode a lifty- 
 six pound shell in the interior of some of them, 
 and they'd go on quite calmly without the 
 merest notion that anything had happened.' 
 
 Jones assented cordially. 
 
 * Upon my word,' he said, ' there are 
 people of that pattern. But, for my own 
 part, as I said before, I am open to convic- 
 tion. I am willing to give and take.' 
 
 ' I am willing,' said Pole, who w^as evidently 
 in a bitter humour, and ready to relieve him- 
 self by any persiflage which might occur to 
 him, 'to take anything I can lay my hands 
 on.'
 
 238 THE WEAKER VESSEL chap. 
 
 Jones cast a side way glance of friendly 
 allowance at him. 
 
 ' In this matter of marriage,' he pursued, 
 ' the whole question, as a matter of course, is 
 a matter of contract. There are two person- 
 alities to be considered, and the stronger 
 has, by reason of its very strength, a right to 
 be allowing and indulgent to the weaker 
 vessel.' 
 
 I knew that there was nothing in Jones's 
 speech up till now to give me the merest 
 hint of the intention he was trying in his 
 own roundabout way to express. But that 
 phrase about the weaker vessel hit me hard. 
 I had used it to Pole by hazard, and it was 
 its employment which had led to the explana- 
 tion between us. I looked at Pole nervously, 
 but he had evidently allowed it to pass 
 without notice, as was only natural. I was 
 so certain in my own mind of the truth of 
 my own fancy, and was so embarrassed by 
 it, that I began at once to move about the 
 room as if the conversation had reached a
 
 XIV THE WEAKER VESSEL 239 
 
 natural end, and there was no more to say. 
 But Pole, having no share in my fancies and 
 no divination of them, carried on the theme. 
 He had grown very mocking and bitter of 
 late, even with me, though never against me. 
 
 * I suppose,' he said, looking at Jones, 
 ' you haven't been so cruel as to make the 
 tidings of your conversion public property ? ' 
 
 ' So cruel ? ' said Jones inquiringly. 
 
 ' So cruel,' answered Pole. ' You haven't 
 awakened expectations in a million tender 
 bosoms which can only be fulfilled for one ? ' 
 Jones said nothing, but smilingly lit a new 
 cigarette, and cast the remnant of the old 
 one into the fire. * You're going to get 
 married, Jones?' Pole went on. 'I say, 
 Denham, there's a public-house at the corner. 
 Let's go down, all three of us, and drink a 
 pot of stout apiece to the health of Jones's 
 future missis.' 
 
 'Upon my word, Pole,' said Jones, 'one 
 would hardly think that you had been bred 
 a gentleman.'
 
 340 THE WEAKER VESSEL chap. 
 
 * We're all of the same base metal, Jones,' 
 Pole answered ; ' but the electroplate gets 
 rubbed off some of us. There's an epergne 
 belonging to a bachelor uncle of mine in 
 which all the cherubs' noses are flat with 
 their faces, though they are made of solid 
 silver. I dare say they had the prettiest out- 
 lines once upon a time. There's no knowing 
 what even you may come to. When I 
 contrast what you are with what you might 
 have been, and what you may be, I could 
 weep, upon my word of honour.' 
 
 It seemed to me so very probable that 
 Jones would by and by become aware of 
 Pole's intention to insult him, and the inten- 
 tion in itself was so very obvious to me, that 
 I feigned suddenly to remember an appoint- 
 ment. At this Jones got up to go, and I left 
 with him, bidding him good-bye at the end 
 of the court, and darting into Chancery 
 Lane as if in a mighty hurry. When the 
 threatened quarrel was averted I was still 
 very far from being at ease ; and though I
 
 XIV THE WEAKER VESSEL 241 
 
 tried to attach no more value to my fancies 
 than I could help, they clung to me with a 
 ridiculous persistence. They worried me so 
 much at last that, when I had dined alone, I 
 betook myself to Cromwell Terrace. Mr. 
 Delamere was dining out that evening, and 
 Mary and Clara were alone together. When 
 we had talked for a little while, our hostess 
 slipped away, as she had got into a habit of 
 doing, and left the two young people to 
 themselves. 
 
 I had no ground to go on, but the question 
 was so near my heart that I must needs 
 approach it. 
 
 * Mr. Jones,' I said as lightly as I could, 
 'honoured my rooms this afternoon.' 
 
 ' Pray,' returned Clara, with an acerbity 
 and decision I had never noticed in her till 
 then, 'don't talk to me of Mr. Jones. I 
 have heard enough of Mr. Jones to last my 
 lifetime.' 
 
 In spite of this command I ventured to 
 ask if Jones had distinguished himself in 
 
 VOL. I R
 
 242 THE WEAKER VESSEL chap. 
 
 such a way of late as to earn this marked 
 increase of her displeasure. 
 
 * Now, Mr. Denham,' said Miss Grantley 
 decisively, ' I want you to understand that 
 I shall look upon any pressure on this point 
 as being unfriendly. I am literally dying to 
 tell you all about it, and if you press me I 
 shall give way. I know I shall, and I know 
 that I ought not to. I'm sure that you are not 
 the man to endanger a poor girl's self-respect. ' 
 
 Whether the reader choose to believe it 
 or not I accepted this as a prohibition, and 
 found another theme for converse. But Miss 
 Grantley fidgeted and, if one can say it of so 
 gentle a creature, grew absolutely snappish. 
 The dull, inapprehensive male intelligence 
 was at a loss. I was meek and submissive, 
 but full of doubts and wonders, not guessing 
 what I could possibly have done to ruffle a 
 temper commonly so gentle. 
 
 ' You are very stupid this evening, Mr. 
 Denham,' she said with a voice of dreary 
 resignation.
 
 XIV THE WEAKER VESSEL 243 
 
 ' Am I ? ' I answered. * I am afraid I am. 
 You seem vexed. What have I done to vex 
 you : 
 
 I went on to say that I would rather do a 
 variety of particularised dreadful things than 
 cause her a moment's annoyance. She re- 
 lented and explained, though still with a 
 lingering touch of ill-humour. 
 
 *I tell you,' she said, 'that I am dying 
 to tell you something, and I tell you that I 
 ought not to say anything about it." 
 
 'You begged me not to press you," I 
 answered, 'and I did not.' 
 
 ' Precisely,' she said, dropping back into 
 a corner of the sofa in a sort of languid comic 
 despair. 
 
 * Oh !' I said, beginning to be enlightened, 
 ' I ought to have asked ? I ought to have 
 pressed you .-^ ' A gleam of returning cheer- 
 fulness displayed itself in her countenance, 
 and was instantly dismissed. ' Let me beg 
 of you to tell me,' I implored with mock 
 earnestness. ' I am consumed by curiosity.
 
 244 THE WEAKER VESSEL chap. 
 
 If you refuse this prayer I cannot answer for 
 the consequences.' 
 
 ' In that case,' she replied demurely, ' I 
 can reveal my secret. I cannot bear to see 
 a fellow-creature suffer.' 
 
 She clasped her hands and, leaning for- 
 ward, murmured with a subdued intensity of 
 scorn, 
 
 ' Mr. Jones has had the insolence to pro- 
 pose to Mary Delamere.' 
 
 'I hope with all my heart,' said I, 'that 
 Miss Delamere will not throw herself away 
 upon him.' 
 
 ' I told her, when I heard of it,' said this 
 resolute young person, who was sprouting 
 this evening with unexpected characteristics, 
 * that I would never speak to her again if 
 she did. There was not the slightest need to 
 say so, for Mary has no more thought of 
 uniting herself to that tinkling cymbal than 
 I have.' 
 
 I confess that I was not in the least sorry 
 for Jones's blighted hopes. I did not think
 
 XIV THE WEAKER VESSEL 245 
 
 that any purpose he might form was likely to 
 take great hold upon him. His sentiments 
 were not of the sort that plant a terrible fixed 
 foot, and are not rooted up without blood. 
 I could fancy Jones deserting any sandy 
 anchorage he might find, and getting under 
 way with little compunction or regret for 
 other shores. 
 
 'Mary,' said Clara decisively, but with a 
 touch of very warm and very real sympathy, 
 ' has troubles enough of her own and to spare 
 already. As for what they are, that is no 
 business of yours or mine or anybody's. I 
 don't know, I'm sure, how such a girl came to 
 have such a father. Mr. Delamere is wrapped 
 up in his precious godson. They sit together, 
 and the Sounding Brass flatters the Tinkling 
 Cymbal, and the Tinkling Cymbal flatters the 
 Sounding Brass, until I declare that my fingers 
 itch to box the ears of both of them. I give 
 you my word of honour, Mr. Denham,' 
 she concluded, with an air of deep contrition, 
 ' there are moments when the contemplation
 
 246 THE WEAKER VESSEL chap. 
 
 of that pair makes me feel quite unlady- 
 like.' 
 
 I had never allowed myself so much 
 latitude of expression with respect to 
 Messrs. Delamere and Jones, but I ac- 
 cepted Miss Grantley's description with 
 such cordiality that she was encouraged to 
 continue. 
 
 ' We have had a lecture from papa this 
 morning,' she said. ' It was my privilege to 
 hear it.' She assumed, upon a sudden, .so 
 ludicrous a resemblance to the Delamere voice 
 and manner that I laughed aloud. I saw the 
 dangled pince-nez swinging to and fro in the 
 imitative fingers. It perched at times with a 
 solemn grace upon the pert and pretty little 
 nose, which somehow, to my wonderment, 
 contrived for the moment to look like the 
 aristocratically-refined beak of the great critic. 
 But the words to me were the richest part of 
 the imitation. * Strange,' she began in the 
 Delamere voice, 'how closely the develop- 
 ment of the individual soul follows the laws
 
 XIV THE WEAKER VESSEL 247 
 
 which govern the development of the inert, 
 conglomerate mass.' 
 
 * Wait, wait ! ' I cried. ' Allow me. Con- 
 ditions,' I pursued, ' which even an acute 
 observer would suppose to be permanent 
 turn out to be transitory. When one says 
 permanent, one does not use the word, of 
 course, with any pretence of scientific accur- 
 acy.' 
 
 Her eyes glittered, and she rose to her 
 feet, dancing in a very revel of mirth. 
 
 ' He has been with you this afternoon,' she 
 said. ' He has poured all this out upon you. 
 Oh, they're delicious ! They make me so 
 angry that I feel ashamed and wicked. But 
 oh ! I wouldn't miss them for the world ! ' 
 
 On the very top of this declaration Jones 
 entered smilingly. I blessed my stars for his 
 sake that he had not arrived a moment 
 earlier. He had the run of the house, and 
 came in and out like a member of the family, 
 so that perhaps it was a little dangerous to 
 discuss him with too much freedom there.
 
 248 THE WEAKER VESSEL chap, xiv 
 
 Miss Grantley's mirth was changed by a 
 most sudden transformation. To have looked 
 at her a second after Jones's arrival, one 
 would have supposed her incapable of merri- 
 ment. 
 
 * Miss Delamere?' said Jones, in his silvery 
 voice, smiling from one to the other of us. 
 
 * I believe,' replied Miss Grantley, with a 
 sudden overwhelming stateliness, 'that Miss 
 Delamere has retired to her own room. I 
 think it is not her intention to return again 
 this evening. I wish you good-night, Mr. 
 Denham.' 
 
 With that she sailed from the apartment, 
 leaving Jones and myself looking at each 
 other a trifle foolishly.
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 The winter had been unusually severe, and 
 the spring seemed to delay itself unconscion- 
 ably. Every week the newspapers recorded 
 the death of some elderly celebrity. Fog, 
 rain, protracted frost, east winds, made havoc 
 amongst the old and feeble. Lord Wor- 
 borough was going. The impending title and 
 great fortune hung over Pole, it would have 
 seemed, like a threatening shadow. I am 
 certain that he w^as so far from desiring either 
 of them that if he could have seen a reason- 
 able way of evading them he would willingly 
 have taken it. Twice he went down to Wor- 
 borough Court, and each time spent a week 
 there in expectation of the old man's demise. 
 His lordship rallied, and Pole came back
 
 2 so THE WEAKER VESSEL chap. 
 
 again, melancholy and bitter. He told me, 
 at a moment when his mood was a little less 
 harsh than it had grown commonly to be in 
 those days, that Lord Worborough laid that 
 unhappy marriage very much to heart. He 
 was the seventh holder of the title, and had 
 hoped that it would be transmitted through a 
 long line. 
 
 * It's a dream,' said Pole. ' It doesn't 
 matter much to him, poor old fellow. Whether 
 the line may be extended or cut short will 
 make no difference to him when he is tucked 
 away under his green bed-clothes.' 
 
 He spoke very affectionately of the old 
 man always, and to any one who had seen 
 them together it was evident that his lordship, 
 however disappointed he might be, had formed 
 a very strong liking for the man who was to 
 come after him. 
 
 It was raining heavens hard one memor- 
 able afternoon late in April, when Pole and 
 I sat reading together, or making a pretence 
 to read, in his chambers. A knock sounded
 
 XV THE WEAKER VESSEL 251 
 
 at the door, and I, being the nearer of the 
 two, rose to open it. The visitor, of all un- 
 expected men in the world, was the little Jew 
 solicitor, Goldsmith. He wore a mackintosh, 
 shining with rain from heel to shoulder, and 
 carried a dripping umbrella in his hand. 
 There was a very unusual and remarkable 
 expression in his face, a look which impressed 
 me very strongly, though I could neither 
 analyse nor define it. He was pale, and 
 labouring under some strongly suppressed 
 excitement. He mio-ht, bv the look of him, 
 have been going to be hanged. 
 
 He walked past me into the room, leaving 
 his umbrella in the stand, and when I had 
 closed the door and entered after him, he was 
 standing beside Pole, who, with an expression 
 of surprised disdain, was looking at him over 
 one shoulder. 
 
 'Well,' said Pole, curtly and contemp- 
 tuously, ' what is your business ? ' 
 
 ' Bister Pole,' said Goldsmith, whose 
 breathing was hard and thick, like that of a
 
 252 THE WEAKER VESSEL chap. 
 
 man who has been running beyond his pace, 
 ' there are moments when rancour comes to 
 nothing betweed gentlemen.' 
 
 * Are there indeed ? ' asked Pole. 
 ' There are, indeed,' Goldsmith responded. 
 The little Jew's aspect had an influence 
 upon Pole, as I could see plainly. He rose 
 with an indefinable look, and wheeling his 
 chair half round, rested one knee upon the 
 seat, and with both hands grasping the back, 
 surveyed the intruder. 
 
 ' I suppose,' he said, ' that you have some 
 sort of business here. Will you be good 
 enough to get it over ? ' 
 
 For sole answer Goldsmith, with trembling 
 fingers, began to unbutton his wet waterproof. 
 The noise of his breathing, the ticking of a 
 clock upon the mantelpiece, and the clatter of 
 a burning coal which fell upon the fender, 
 were the only audible sounds. Either Gold- 
 smith's agitation made him clumsy, or the 
 buttons of the waterproof were unusually 
 refractory. He conquered them at last, and
 
 XV THE WEAKER VESSEL 253 
 
 producing a pocket - book from an inner 
 pocket, he advanced a step or two and laid it 
 on the table. It opened with a spring clasp, 
 and revealed a bulky mass of papers. His 
 agitated fingers wandered among these, leav- 
 ing wet marks upon them, until at last he 
 selected one from the rest, opened it, and laid 
 it upon the table before Pole. I looked at 
 Pole's face, and saw a sudden dreadful change 
 in it. He glanced from the paper to Gold- 
 smith, from Goldsmith to me, and back 
 to the paper again, like a man dazed by a 
 blow upon the head. Then recovering, he 
 took the paper — a long blue slip — in both 
 hands, and stared at it for a minute. After 
 this he stretched it out to me, saying nothing. 
 Goldsmith's strained manner, and Pole's 
 extraordinary reception of the document, had 
 prepared me to find curious matter in it, but 
 I had not in the least expected what I saw. 
 It was a copy of the certificate of the death of 
 Adelaide Pole. I looked at the date, and saw 
 that the event had happened a week ago.
 
 254 
 
 THE WEAKER VESSEL chap. 
 
 ' She seebs,' said Goldsmith, who was more 
 moved than I should have fancied possible 
 about such a matter, ' to have gone off very 
 quietly at the finish, poor thing.' 
 
 I glanced at the certificate again, and saw 
 that spinal injury and shock were assigned as 
 the causes of death. Pole took the paper 
 from my fingers and sat down, as if to study 
 it. The certificate rustled in his hands, and 
 in a little while he laid it on the table and 
 looked up at Goldsmith. 
 
 ' How is it,' he asked, ' that I did not learn 
 of this before ? ' 
 
 Goldsmith, before answering, turned over 
 the papers from his pocket-book and selected 
 another from amongst them. His hands 
 were trembling more than ever, and his face 
 was curiously mottled. 
 
 * I was in the country when the thing took 
 place. Bister Pole,' he said in a choked voice. 
 * I was goig about from one town to another 
 on business, and my letters got delayed. I 
 didn't hear of the melancholy circubstance till
 
 XV THE WEAKER VESSEL 255 
 
 four days after it occurred. Then I despatched 
 this telegram to my chief clerk. I only got 
 back to town this morning. I thought it was 
 best to bring the news personally.' 
 
 Pole took the telegram the little Jew ex- 
 tended to him, and having glanced over it, 
 handed it to me. It ran thus: 'Moss, 215 
 Hatton Garden. From Goldsmith, Chester. 
 Let funeral be decently conducted. Will my- 
 self communicate with husband.' 
 
 'This,' said Goldsmith, fumbling anew 
 amongst his papers and selecting a third 
 document, ' is the certificate of burial. I 
 don't know. Bister Pole, whether you'd care 
 to have any sort of memorial set up, or 
 whether you'll take that into your own 
 hands .^ ' 
 
 His voice grew more muffled and tremu- 
 lous as he spoke, and he had some ado to 
 gather up the papers he had scattered about 
 the table. I had never expected to find such 
 signs of sensibility in the man, and I thought 
 that his emotion did him credit. It was quite
 
 256 THE WEAKER VESSEL chap. 
 
 possible that he might have supposed Mrs. 
 Pole to be a deeply-injured woman, and that 
 in the course of the services he had rendered 
 her he had grown to be a partisan. The 
 poor thing had no doubt told her story to her 
 own advantage, had exculpated herself, and 
 cast all blame upon her husband. That, of 
 course, was natural, and it was not unnatural 
 that Goldsmith should have believed in her, 
 and have been shocked and grieved at her 
 sudden and early death. He must at least, I 
 thought, have cared vastly more for her than 
 the ordinary solicitor cares for an ordinary 
 client. 
 
 He had gathered his belongings together, 
 and stood prepared to go. Pole had risen to 
 his feet, and was walking slowly and thought- 
 fully up and down the room. 
 
 ' There's a mere matter of business. Bister 
 Pole,' said Goldsmith haltingly, * if I might 
 bedtion it at such a tibe. I've sent your 
 cheque for Mrs. Pole's quarterly income to 
 my bankers in the ordinary course. The
 
 XV THE WEAKER VESSEL 257 
 
 poor lady only drew on me for a fortnight, 
 and there'll be something left when every- 
 thing is paid. I'll send in my account, and 
 a cheque for the balance. I wish you good 
 afternoon, Bister Pole — good afternoon, 
 Bister Denham.' 
 
 We both returned his parting salutation, 
 and Pole's voice had a tone of unusual gentle- 
 ness in it, almost of apology. The little Jew- 
 went his way and we were left to ourselves. 
 
 For a long time not a word was spoken — 
 I dare say, indeed, that we sat in silence for 
 an hour. Pole had mechanically taken up his 
 book again, and sat staring at the open pages ; 
 but he never turned a leaf When at last he 
 looked up at me his eyes were moist, and 
 there was a softened look in his face. 
 
 'Jack,' he said, 'will you come out with 
 me ? ' 
 
 I answering in the affirmative, he promised 
 to join me in five minutes, and I went down- 
 stairs to my own rooms, and there made 
 ready for out-of-doors. It was raining in 
 VOL. I S
 
 258 THE WEAKER VESSEL chap. 
 
 torrents still when we turned out upon Hol- 
 born. Pole hailed a cab, and gave the cab- 
 man instructions to drive to the cemetery at 
 Kensal Green. The rain pelted down mono- 
 tonously, racing in little rivulets down the 
 glass before us, and blotting out the land- 
 scape of the streets. We were both un- 
 usually subdued, and neither had anything to 
 say to the other. It was too early after the 
 receipt of the news to experience anything of 
 that sense of relief which it was ultimately 
 bound to bring, and for my own part I should 
 have resented any such sensation in myself 
 as an impiety. I thought of the poor crea- 
 ture's threat to Pole, ' I will make your life a 
 burden to you,' and I reflected on its futility, 
 and on the uncertainty of all human promise, 
 whether for good or evil. Her life must needs 
 have been profoundly wretched to have left 
 such an impress on her face as I remembered. 
 The certificate of death gave her age at 
 twenty-eight years. I had supposed her to 
 be much older, for the set scorn and hatred
 
 XV THE WEAKER VESSEL 259 
 
 and hard misery of her face seemed scarcely 
 possible for one so young. Looking back 
 upon the face as I remembered it, it was 
 evident that it had once been superbly hand- 
 some. I thought of youth and beauty de- 
 faced and ruined by self-will and the one vice 
 to which the unhappy woman had clung, and 
 now that she was gone, and could work no 
 evil any more, I pitied that brief life-tragedy 
 profoundly. I knew — there was no need of 
 words between us — that Pole s thoughts ran 
 in the same channel as my own. Once, his 
 hand falling accidentally upon mine, he 
 clasped it very strongly and firmly ; but that 
 was the only sign that was made on either 
 side. _ 
 
 We reached the cemeter)', and having 
 made inquiries at the lodge as to the where- 
 abouts of the grave, we walked towards it. 
 The rain-soaked mound of newly-turned earth 
 looked very raw and desolate. There is 
 nothing in the world so desolate to look at as 
 a new-made grave. I have looked on many
 
 26o THE WEAKER VESSEL chap. 
 
 since that day, and some of them have covered 
 the remains of those who have been very 
 dear to me, yet I have never felt the sense 
 so clearly. 
 
 We turned away in silence and went home. 
 The man at the lodge stood sheltered from 
 the rain in his own doorway, and looked at 
 us, I thought, a little callously. Yet, of course, 
 it was no affair of his, and usage makes the 
 griefs of others of little weight to us. 
 
 In my affection for Pole, and in the ardour 
 with which I espoused his cause, I had gone 
 as near to hating that unhappy wife of his 
 as I had ever gone to hating anybody. But 
 now that she could work no more mischief, 
 my thoughts softened towards her. In the 
 course of a day or two Pole began to talk 
 about her in a chastened way, and it became 
 evident that he had once held a very real 
 affection for her. He told me, bit by bit, 
 the whole story of their separation. It is not 
 necessary to repeat it here, and there are too 
 many cases like it in the world to make it
 
 XV THE WEAKER VESSEL 261 
 
 novel enough to be worth the telHng. The 
 sordid, miserable history of drink and an 
 ungovernable temper, the sorriest, meanest, 
 ugliest of tragedies, a tale worth no man's 
 relating and no man's hearing. He told it 
 gently and with pity, and when it was once 
 told we closed the page which held the story, 
 and resolved (as we thought) to turn back to 
 it no more. 
 
 My friend charged me with the perform- 
 ance of the last dues of respect, and went 
 down to Worborough Court, leaving me alone 
 in London. I followed the instructions he 
 left with me, and in the meantime his letters 
 bore but one allusion to the event of his wife's 
 death. 'Lord Worborough,' he wTOte, 'was 
 relieved at the news I had to give him, and 
 I sincerely believe that the mere fact of this 
 grief being lifted from his mind may add a 
 year or two to his life. He has taken an 
 extraordinary liking to me, and I could find 
 it in my heart to wish that we had know^n 
 each other longer. I shall probably spend
 
 262 THE WEAKER VESSEL chap. 
 
 most of my time with him now, for the old 
 boy clings to me, and he is really such a fine 
 and noble old fellow that I am almost as fond 
 of him as he of me. He suffers a great deal, 
 but he is very game about it, and altogether 
 he is the very finest specimen of the fine old 
 English gentleman it has been my luck to 
 encounter anywhere. I hope he'll fiourish 
 for many a day to come.' 
 
 It is not good to think of the death of any 
 human creature being hailed, no matter with 
 what inward reluctance, as a relief, but Mrs. 
 Pole's departure lifted a dreadful shadow 
 from the hearts of those who had been most 
 concerned with her, and it would have been 
 a sheer hypocrisy to have professed to mourn 
 her. To forgive, and then, as speedily as 
 might be, to forget, was all she could have 
 asked from the world. 
 
 Six or seven weeks later, when the skies 
 had cleared, and the long - deferred early 
 summer was upon us, shining with such a
 
 XV THE WEAKER VESSEL 263 
 
 splendour as half obliterated the memory of 
 cold and storm, I paid a second and a final 
 visit to the cemetery at Kensal Green. I 
 had a companion — a companion too light and 
 young for a visit to that home of mournful 
 memories. But Clara and I had spoken so 
 often of Pole's freedom, and in the mind of 
 each there was so evident a result to spring 
 from it, that she had grown as interested as 
 I myself was ; and when I made that final, 
 necessary visit to the place to see that Pole's 
 injunctions had been properly fulfilled, she 
 needed little persuasion to accompany me. 
 
 When I had last seen the place it had 
 seemed the very home of desolation ; but 
 now^ with the bright May sunshine and the 
 bright May fiowers, and the chirping of in- 
 numerable birds, it had another aspect, and 
 seemed to speak with a voice of tender 
 reconciliation to the inevitable doom. God's 
 Acre ! 
 
 The grave was neatly railed. The new- 
 laid turf was bright and green, and fiowers
 
 264 THE WEAKER VESSEL chap. 
 
 shone above it and diffused their gentle 
 odours. The stone bore a simple inscrip- 
 tion — 'In Memory of Adelaide Pole' — then 
 the date of death and the age, and below the 
 three words, ' Here is Rest ! ' Rest was pos- 
 sible for the living as well as for the dead, 
 and I suppose that Pole had chosen that 
 brief inscription with some eye to its double 
 meaning. 
 
 As we had walked together I had related 
 to Clara, as far as I could do without shock- 
 ing her, the story Pole had told me. She 
 had been very strongly prejudiced against 
 him, and had been more inclined to champion 
 the wife's cause than the husband's. I had 
 ventured to hint shyly of my certainty of 
 Pole's affections for Miss Delamere, and I 
 went so far as to indicate my belief that the 
 affection was returned. We were both sad- 
 dened and solemnised by our visit to the 
 place, and yet there was a sense of our own 
 affection in our minds. My wife has told 
 me, long ago, that she was certain even before
 
 XV THE WEAKER VESSEL 265 
 
 that day of my love for her, and I remember 
 well a sort of trembling certainty of hers. 
 We walked about the place of graves in the 
 sunshine with our own hearts beating to that 
 eternal, beautiful tune to whose music the 
 whole world marches. It was more solemn 
 than it often sounds, and gentler, but it 
 sounded all the same. 
 
 I pleaded Pole's cause with her. It was 
 unlikely that he would speak for a long time 
 to come, but I begged her not to use any 
 influence she might have with 2^1 iss Delamere 
 against him. 
 
 ' If she cares for him,' I urged, 'you can 
 only grieve her, but can never change her 
 mind.' And, standing before the tomb- 
 stone, I appealed to her. ' There is rest 
 here,' I said. ' Let the living have rest as 
 well.' 
 
 She answered in a subdued voice, 
 
 ' I believe that ^^lary cared for him before 
 she knew of this unhappy marriage. I be- 
 lieve that she will never care for anvbodv else.
 
 266 THE WEAKER VESSEL chap, xv 
 
 I am quite sure that nothing any one could 
 say could alter her, for she is not a girl to be 
 moved by anybody's words.' 
 
 'Then, at least,' I answered, * you will say 
 nothing that could give her pain. There is 
 no higher-minded, nobler-hearted m^an in the 
 world than Pole.' 
 
 ' Why should I say a word to hurt her ? ' 
 she asked me. ' She is the dearest friend I 
 have in the world.' 
 
 END OF VOL. I 
 
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