CHAPTER XXX

Flying from port to port to effect an exchange of stewards (the endless

occupation of a yacht proprietor), Wilfrid had no tidings from

Brookfield. The night before the gathering on Besworth Lawn he went to

London and dined at his Club--a place where youths may drink largely of

the milk of this world's wisdom. Wilfrid's romantic sentiment was always

corrected by an hour at his Club. After dinner he strolled to a not

perfectly regulated theatre, in company with a brother officer; and when

they had done duty before the scenes for a space of time, they lounged

behind to disenchant themselves, in obedience to that precocious cynicism

which is the young man's extra-Luxury. The first figure that caught

Wilfrid's attention there was Mr. Pericles, in a white overcoat,

stretched along a sofa--his eyelids being down, though his eyes were

evidently vigilant beneath. A titter of ladies present told of some

recent interesting commotion.

"Only a row between that rich Greek fellow who gave the supper, and

Marion," a vivacious dame explained to Wilfrid. "She's in one of her

jealous fits; she'd be jealous if her poodle-dog went on its hind-legs to

anybody else."

"Poodle, by Jove!" said Wilfrid. "Pericles himself looks like an

elongated poodle shaved up to his moustache. Look at him. And he plays

the tyrant, does he?"

"Oh! she stands that. Some of those absurd women like it, I think. She's

fussing about another girl."

"You wouldn't?"

"What man's worth it?"

"But, would you?"

"It depends upon the 'him,' monsieur.

"Depends upon his being very handsome!"

"And good."

"And rich?"

"No!" the lady fired up. "There you don't know us."

The colloquy became almost tender, until she said, "Isn't this gassy, and

stifling? I confess I do like a carriage, and Richmond on a Sunday. And

then, with two daughters, you know! But what I complain of is her folly

in being in love, or something like it, with a rich fellow."

"Love the poor devil--manage the rich, you mean."

"Yes, of course; that makes them both happy."

"It's a method of being charitable to two."

A rather fleshy fairy now entered, and walked straight up to the

looking-glass to examine her paint--pronouncedly turning her back to the

sofa, where Mr. Pericles still lay at provoking full length. Her panting

was ominous of a further explosion.

"Innocent child!" in the mockery of a foreign accent, commenced it; while

Wilfrid thought how unjustly and coldly critically he had accused his

little Emilia of vulgarity, now that he had this feminine display of it

swarming about him.

"Innocent child, indeed! Be as deaf as you like, you shall hear. And

sofas are not made for men's dirty boots, in this country. I believe

they're all pigs abroad--the men; and the women--cats! Oh! don't open

your eyes--don't speak, pray. You're certain I must go when the bell

rings. You're waiting for that, you unmanly dog!"

"A pig," Mr. Pericles here ventured to remind her, murmuring as one in a

dream.

"A peeg!" she retorted mildly, somewhat mollified by her apparent

success. But Mr. Pericles had relapsed into his exasperating composure.

The breath of a deliberate and undeserved peacefulness continued to be

drawn in by his nostrils.

At the accustomed warning there was an ostentatious rustle of retiring

dresses; whereat Mr. Pericles chose to proclaim himself awake. The astute

fairy-fury immediately stepped before him.

"Now you can't go on pretending sleep. You shall hear, and everybody

shall hear. You know you're a villain! You're a wolf seeking..."

Mr. Pericles waved his hand, and she was caught by the wrist and told

that the scene awaited her.

"Let them wait!" she shouted, and, sharpening her cry as she was dragged

off, "Dare to take that girl to Italy! I know what that means, with you.

An Englishman might mean right--but you! You think you've been dealing

with a fool! Why, I can stop this in a minute, and I will. It's you're

the fool! Why, I know her father: he plays in the orchestra. I know her

name--Belloni!"

Up sprang the Greek like a galvanized corpse; while two violent jerks

from the man hauling her out rattled the laugh of triumph which burst

from her. At the same time Wilfrid strove forward, with the frown of one

still bent listening, and he and Pericles were face to face. The eyebrows

of the latter shot up in a lively arch. He made a motion toward the

ceremony of 'shake-hands;' but, perceiving no correspondent overture,

grinned, "It is warm--ha?"

"You feel the heat? Step outside a minute," said Wilfrid.

"Oh, no!" Mr. Pericles looked pleasantly sagacious. Ze draught--a cold."

"Will you come?" pursued Wilfrid.

"Many sanks!"

Wilfrid's hand was rising. At this juncture his brother officer slipped

out some languid words in his ear, indicative of his astonishment that he

should be championing a termagant, and horror at the idea of such a thing

being publicly imagined, tamed Wilfrid quickly. He recovered himself with

his usual cleverness. Seeing the signs of hostility vanish, Mr. Pericles

said, "You are on a search for your father? You have found him? Hom! I

should say a maladie of nerfs will come to him. A pin fall--he start! A

storm at night--he is out dancing among his ships of venture! Not a bid

of corage!--which is bad. If you shall find Mr. Pole for to-morrow on ze

lawn, vary glad."

With a smile compounded of sniffing dog and Parisian obsequiousness, Mr.

Pericles passed, thinking "He has not got her:" for such was his

deduction if he saw that a man could flush for a woman's name.

Wilfrid stood like a machine with a thousand wheels in revolt. Sensations

pricked at ideas, and immediately left them to account for their

existence as they best could. The ideas committed suicide without a

second's consideration. He felt the great gurgling sea in which they were

drowned heave and throb. Then came a fresh set, that poised better on the

slack-rope of his understanding. By degrees, a buried dread in his brain

threw off its shroud. The thought that there was something wrong with his

father stood clearly over him, to be swallowed at once in the less

tangible belief that a harm had come to Emilia--not was coming, but had

come. Passion thinks wilfully when it thinks at all. That night he lay in

a deep anguish, revolving the means by which he might help and protect

her. There seemed no way open, save by making her his own; and did he

belong to himself? What bound him to Lady Charlotte? She was not lovely

or loving. He had not even kissed her hand; yet she held him in a chain.

The two men composing most of us at the outset of actual life began their

deadly wrestle within him, both having become awakened. If they wait for

circumstance, that steady fire will fuse them into one, who is commonly a

person of some strength; but throttling is the custom between them, and

we are used to see men of murdered halves. These men have what they

fought for: they are unaware of any guilt that may be charged against

them, though they know that they do not embrace Life; and so it is that

we have vague discontent too universal. Change, O Lawgiver! the length of

our minority, and let it not end till this battle is thoroughly fought

out in approving daylight. The period of our duality should be one as

irresponsible in your eyes as that of our infancy. Is he we call a young

man an individual--who is a pair of alternately kicking scales? Is he

educated, when he dreams not that he is divided? He has drunk Latin like

a vital air, and can quote what he remembers of Homer; but how has he

been fortified for this tremendous conflict of opening manhood, which is

to our life here what is the landing of a soul to the life to come?

Meantime, it is a bad business when the double-man goes about kneeling at

the feet of more than one lady. Society (to give that institution its

due) permits him to seek partial invulnerability by dipping himself in a

dirty Styx, which corrects, as we hear said, the adolescent tendency to

folly. Wilfrid's sentiment had served him (well or ill as it may be), by

keeping him from a headlong plunge in the protecting river; and his folly

was unchastened. He did not even contemplate an escape from the net at

Emilia's expense. The idea came. The idea will come to a young man in

such a difficulty. "My mistress! My glorious stolen fruit! My dark angel

of love!" He deserves a little credit for seeing that Emilia never could

be his mistress, in the debased sense of the term. Union with her meant

life-long union, he knew. Ultimate mental subjection he may also have

seen in it, unconsciously. For, hazy thoughts of that nature may mix with

the belief that an alliance with her degrades us, in this curious

hotch-potch of emotions known to the world as youthful man. A wife

superior to her husband makes him ridiculous wilfully, if the wretch is

to be laughed at; but a mistress thus ill-matched cannot fail to cast the

absurdest light on her monstrous dwarf-custodian. Wilfrid had the

sagacity to perceive, and the keen apprehension of ridicule to shrink

from, the picture. Besides, he was beginning to love Emilia. His struggle

now was to pluck his passion from his heart; and such was already his

plight that he saw no other way of attempting it than by taking horse and

riding furiously in the direction of Besworth.