Children of To-Morrow. A romance

Front matter

BY THE SAME AUTHOR. Dante Gabriel Rosetti : A Record and Study. Shelley : A Biographical Study. Life of Heine. The Life, Works, and Correspondence of Joseph Severn. In Two Vols. (In preparation.) The Human Inheritance : and other Poems. {Out of print.) Earth's Voices : Transcripts from Nature. Romantic Ballads : and Poems of Phantasy. 2d Ed. Sonnets of This Century. With Essay on the History and Characteristics of the Sonnet. (New Edition. 30th Thousand.) American Sonnets. A ROMANCE HY WILLIAM SHARP K- " How leapt we into this Labyrinth of Love ? " Giov. Florio, Seconde Frutes. " We, who live more intensely and suffer more acutely than others, are the Children of To-Morrow, for in us the new forces of the future are already astir or even dominant." H. P. SiwXarmill. ILonfcan CHATTO & WINDUS, PICCADILLY 1 TSaflantgne prejs* BALLANTVNE, HANSON AND CO. EDINBURGH AND LONDON DEDICATED IN FRIENDSHIP AND ESTEEM TO JAMES SUTHERLAND COTTON, M.A., FELLOW AND LECTURER OF QUEEN'S COLLEGE, OXFORD, AUTHOR OF "INDIA, etc., etc.

Chapter I

The twilight of a raw evening early in May dimly pervaded Felix Dane's studio, sombre with the drawn blue-black window-screens. The fire smoul dered in the grate, although every now and again the flame spurted upward and cast fantastic flickerings athwart the walls, or ruddy gleams upon the figures, carven in marble or wrought in clay, which occupied so much of the underspace of the lofty apartment. The shadows were so deep that neither the size of the room nor what it contained would have been obvious to any intruder — to whom little would have been visible but the partial outlines of various sculptures, a white mass upon the floor, and a man, with bent body and face shrouded in his hands, seated in an arm-chair, a few yards from the fire. By the side of the chair, to the right, was a low table, whereon stood a cup of untasted coffee, A several unopened letters, a copy of a weekly paper, and a slim parchment-covered volume, with the printed contents downward, as though the reader had been interrupted, and had so placed the book for easier resumption.

Had any of Felix Dane's friends observed him at this moment he or she would have concluded that the sculptor was asleep. It could scarcely have been imagined that he was in any strait of wretchedness. Successful men are not supposed to suffer from any profound sense of despair — the lot, by common consent, of the ill-equipped, the baffled, the already doomed. And that he was, in a sense, greatly successful, not even his rivals and detractors could deny. Was he not still young — only in his thirty-fifth year? Had he not achieved almost phenomenal success as a sculptor ? Had he not in Lydia Dane a wife as handsome as she was distinguished ; blessed, moreover, with several hundreds a year in her own right, and with influential family connections ? To be dissatisfied in the face of such weal would surely be iniquitous ; to sit in an arm-chair in the dusk, with hands shrouding drawn features, and a dull sense of despair and self-con tempt aching at the heart, would be folly as weak as that of the Oriental king who, after having en graved There is no reality but Allah upon his palacewall, fled from his harem and vast wealth to dwell solitary in waste places.

Yet the silent occupant of the studio was not asleep or physically exhausted. He, Felix Dane, the most successful, and at one time the most pro mising, of English sculptors, the friend of the leading painters, poets, and novelists of the day, was so sick at heart, there in his well-known Hampstead studio, the Sycamores, that he would fain, in deepest earnest and without affectation of renunciation, have forfeited position, compara tive wealth, and the still more cherished things of his life, if only the old impulse, the old in sight, the old passion, might be his again, and the hope and dream of his soul be once more no idle fantasy. He was suddenly startled from his attitude of dejection by the abrupt entry of some evidently unexpected visitor. The room was so enveloped in shadow that the new-comer did not see the look of chagrin and momentary anger that changed Dane's expression.

" Are you there, Felix ? Why, what are you sitting here for in this gloom ? The fire is almost out, and it is wretchedly cold." "That's just it: the fire is almost out," Dane muttered as he rose and advanced towards his wife. "What is all this on the floor, Felix? Has there been an accident ? " " Nothing that you need trouble about, Lydia. Let us go into the house : you should not come along that cold passage or into this place." " No ; light the lamp." Without a word, Dane turned and lit a large chain-lamp which swung from the ceiling, and thereafter the candles on the projecting shelf of the fireplace. As he did so, his face was reflected in the antique Italian mirror which hung above it, and Mrs. Dane found herself curiously regarding it — as one might look for the first time at a stranger in whom one was more than ordinarily interested and had heard much discussed.

The face was that of a man who while still young in years and energy had yet lived rapidly. The features were fairly regular, the nose slightly aquiline, the complexion pale, the forehead broad rather than high, the eyes large and lustrous, but of such an indeterminate hue that they at different times appeared as dark-grey, purple-black, or gipsy brown. The hair that clustered about the forehead was of a deep brown, every here and there just threaded with grey. The general impression given by the features was of mingled sensitiveness and strength — as of one whose nerves were very mortal indeed, but whose will was potent and beyond the sway of other minds. A characteristic poise of the head — backward thrown, half-interrogatively, half defiantly — added to the effect of keen mental alert ness which his personality had upon most people.

Tall, and powerfully built, he appeared more robust than he actually was. As his wife looked at his mirrored face she noticed that some recent powerful emotion had left its traces. She was too well accustomed to signs of weariness upon these handsome features not to know that the strained lines about the forehead and mouth betokened no ordinary ennui. Nor was it to be wondered at that casual acquaintances and strangers regarded the twain as a couple blessed by the gods. Mrs. Dane was what many people called beautiful. She was certainly un usually handsome, and had an air of distinction, of hereditary refinement, which in itself was full of charm. With the advent of her thirtieth year she had lost little of that which makes early woman hood so exquisite, for she had never been youth ful save in years ; and those who remembered her on her twentieth birthday, when as Miss Lydia Falconer she was presented at Court by her worldly old aunt, Lady Margaret Trevor, could see little change, save that of the inevitable, however slow, growth towards maturity, in the Mrs. Felix Dane of thirty.

Somewhat above the average height of her sex, she had the further advantage of a good figure : her features were regular, and her hazel eyes could do everything but glow with tenderness. The pale-brown hair, which she habitually wore coiled in broad plaits, exactly suited her complexion, which was of almost waxen delicacy ; but composed and dignified as she was with the stagnation ot a sterile spiritual nature, her voice betrayed that gentleness was not her most dominant trait. It was firm, almost bell-like, in ordinary utterance ; at other times it was apt to be hard and metallic. When Dane turned from the fireplace and looked at his wife, the ghost of a mocking smile played for a moment about his mouth. She was staring now at him, now at what lay in a heap upon the floor — a mass of shape less clay, yet in parts showing some human curve or contour, a fragment of an arm, a divided torso.

" I thought that something was the matter. Was that due to an accident ? " and Mrs. Dane's voice was almost tender, for she could understand what a blow it would be to a sculptor to have his best year's work suddenly brought to ruin ; almost as tragical, to her, as the loss of valuable jewellery or the failure of one of those monetary speculations wherewith she delighted to stimulate her sluggish excitement. " No, Lydia, it's my own doing." " Your own doing ! What foolery is this, Felix ? You are no longer the moonstruck boy who used to vapour about ideal life and all that kind of thing : you do not mean to tell me that you have been so insane as to destroy that ' Hertha ' over which you have already wasted so much time ? " " Do not excite yourself, my dear Lydia. It is my affair, and not yours.

The wretched thing is destroyed, and there's an end of it." " But it Is my affair. You have done almost nothing for months save to work away at ' Hertha:' it was to be a great feature at next year's Academy, and to bring you increased prosperity and influence, and in all probability would have assured you the next R.A.-ship." "That is an honour I can very well dispense with, ma chere. I know too many Academicians to be in the least degree desirous of official associa tion with them. I admit, however, that if I had not demolished ' Hertha ' she would probably have brought about my election. She was so deadly commonplace that she would have enraptured the academical mind." " I have no patience with you, Felix. You throw away all your best chances ; indeed, it is a wonder to me how you have gained your present reputation.

I suppose some of your precious poets or fledgling artists have been persuading you to be truer to yourself, whatever that may mean. I see you have the Metropolitan there : I noticed that some scribbler, who had much better have attended to his own business, said you might have done, and even yet might do, this, that, and the other thing, but that, like many another man in art and literature, you had sold your genius for excess of gold. And you allow yourself to be influenced by that kind of folly ! You pay attention to the patronising nonsense of an art critic who would only too thankfully sell his genius for what he calls excess of gold, and " " Permit me to interrupt your eloquent denuncia tions, Lydia, to inform you that the article in the Metropolitan is written by Harold Field, whom you as well as I know to be sincere as a man, loyal as a friend, and one of the truest and keenest critics we have."

" I do not call a man a friend who could write that article, and I shall tell Mr. Field so when next I see him." "He wrote it because he is my friend, and because he believes in me notwithstanding all the poor work I have turned out." Lydia looked contemptuously at her husband, as she daintily picked her way through the debris of what was once Hertha, the Earth-Goddess, and stood between the fire and the low table. " I hate mock modesty." Dane made no reply, but looked quietly at his wife, with such a curious mocking light in his eyes that she felt uncomfortable. " And now, Lydia, perhaps you will allow me to escort you to the drawing-room. This is the night of Sarasate's concert, is it not ? I under stand that Adama Acosta, the ' amateur-genius ' of one society chronicler, the ' mad Jew ' of another, will for the first time play in public — persuaded thereto by Sarasate, it is said."

Lydia listened with sullen disdain, and partly to show her indifference, partly from that craving of jealous curiosity which consumes such natures as hers, lifted the slim down-turned volume which lay upon the little table. As she did so, one of the letters fell to the floor, to be immediately picked up and opened by her husband. The latter was interrupted in perusal by an abrupt exclamation. " Sanpriel ? Who is Sanpriel ? " " I know no more than you do ; for I see that you have read the inscription on the fly-leaf." "What impertinence ! — ' To Felix Dane, in admira tion of his earlier work.' " As she scornfully commented on the inscription she glanced at the first page, which bore the curious title, " White Nights — by Sanpriel — Printed for the Author," followed by the printers' name and the date.

"Ah, some budding poet or soulful maiden who is in mortal fear of the critics, or in dread, perhaps, of what ' papa ' would say ! I congratulate you upon your new admirer, Felix." Dane was too familiar with his wife's habit of sneering at all the things he most cared for, to pay, as a rule, any attention to her scornful re marks, but for some reason he was deeply annoyed at what she had just said. " Give me that book, if you please, Lydia. There are things you should not interfere with, and this is one of them." "Ah, here is a clue to the mystery! A poem called ' Hertha,' and turned down at a certain page. . . . So, it is this yroung person's rhymed nonsense that has made you dissatisfied with your ' Hertha ' ? " " I did not mean to tell ycm, for I knew that you could not, or would not, understand ; but as you have discovered what you call the clue, I may assure you that you have at last gained the information you want.

In that poem of ' Hertha,' Sanpriel, whoever he or she may be, has a finer conception than ever mine was. I was vaguely dissatisfied with my work from the outset, and latterly came to despise both it and myself; and when this afternoon I gave up in despair, and having glanced at that book, which had been sent to me, found there a higher conception of ' Hertha,' I had the good taste as well as the strong impulse to destroy my handiwork. Hence forth I'll do nothing in ideal sculpture that I do not know to be good ; and if I cannot succeed, why, then, I'll restrict myself to portrait-sculpture." " I do not think our marriage has brought us much happiness, Felix. You have disappointed me. 1 thought you would make a great name for your self, though I always did consider you were foolish to discard painting for sculpture.

Why couldn't you have kept up both, for that matter ? And now you are going to throw away all the chances you — and I — have so laboriously won. And for what ? For an ideal that does not exist, for a phantom of your imagination ! If you would be like other men, you would be much happier, much more re spected, much wealthier and more influential, and would make me much more content with my life." " How tenderly considerate of you, Lydia ! But you see, as I told you even before I married you, I love my art above everything else — and not even to please you can I discredit such talent as I may possess. But as I have already said, let us leave this cold room ; and don't you think, my dear, that we might as well bury the tomahawk ? We have long ago threshed out this subject of loyalty to artistic ideals, and as we shall never agree, we but waste our breath in vain assertions and denials."

While he was speaking, his wife glanced through the sextains on the pages which had wrought him to such wrath with his own work : — All things before her were laid bare, All k?iowledge and all power she had; She knew no sorrow, felt no care, Had perfect vision, and was glad: Even as in a glass she saw The evolution of one law. She watched the life of nations grow, She heard the sound of puny wars, Each mockery of triumph blow Beneath the same unchanging stars : She heard the sound of prayers rise, Felt the old stillness 'midst the skies. Within her brain each thought that passed Within the minds of men was held; Her gaze on each new dream was cast, To her the mists were all dispelled; She saw in flawless nakedness Each truth that man would curse or bless. She had strange dreams, she felt the throb Of the great world-heart pulse and swing; She heard the low continuous sob Which universal death did wring Amidst the loud discordaitt strife For ever echoing from life.

To her all passions were as things Of little heed, like leaves that fall, Dead leaves the wind takes up and flings Aside : der her they had no thrall — She knew their heights and depths, but wise, She looked through each with cold calm eyes. How little seemed each living thing How puny life of man — brute — flower : And yet, how wonderful the Spring That with regenerative power Swept roitnd the earth — how vast, how great, Humanity co?ifederate ! This Hertha saw, a?id was content : What mattered each small life was vain When all in one great whole were blent, When all were links in one vast chain That rose from earth's remotest sod And passed the stars and reached to God ! " They may be fine and may be poor : to me they are simply meaningless." " Lydia, did you hear me ask for that book ? Be so good as to return it to me."

With a sudden passionate gesture Mrs. Dane threw it backward on to the smouldering fire. Whether by the momentary draught thus caused, or accidentally, a red tongue of flame spurted forth, hungrily licked the leaves, and before Felix was able to snatch it away it was ablaze. To Mrs. Dane's surprise — an agreeable surprise, for she had expected bitter reproaches for what she could not but realise was malicious folly— her husband took her action very quietly. He had tried to rescue the slim booklet from destruction, but had only succeeded in tearing away the outer cover and the fly-leaf : the former he threw back upon the coals, evanescently aflame again, and the latter, curled at the edges with heat and partially browned, he leisurely folded and placed in his breast-pocket. He then lifted his letters, and crossed the studio to the door, which he opened and stood beside till his wife should pass out.

" If you have anything to say to me, Felix, I should prefer it to this solemn silence ? " " I have nothing to say to you, except to remark that I forbid you on any pretext whatever, unless invited by myself, to enter my studio again. I must emphasise this command by the further condition, that if you pay no attention to it I shall work elsewhere." Without a word, husband and wife walked along the tiled and covered passage which connected the studio and the house. When they entered the latter they walked across the hall — beautiful with a falling fountain and a mass of greenery, and, on pedestals, various replicas of famous sculptures — and upstairs to the drawing-room, a large and handsome apartment, which, notwithstanding the refinement and taste displayed in its decoration, had 3'et not the appearance of a room habitually lived in by occupants who felt at home.

" Some of Dane's marble has got into his draw ing-room," a friend once remarked to Arlo Spence, the famous impressionist and wit, who had at 'once replied, "Yes, his 'Lydia' is there." There was a pause for some minutes after entrance. Lydia reclined on a couch, and played idly with a paper-knife ; Felix stood by the fire and read his hitherto unopened letters. When he had finished he glanced at his wife, and was half bewildered, half-amused to find himself admiring her. The subdued light, roseate in hue, from the huge lamp on the book-table threw a warm gleam upon her face ; the firelight shone and cast flickering shadow's upon her graceful figure ; and as she lay there, Lydia Dane appeared the embodiment of re fined grace and beauty. As Felix looked at her he realised, all the more vividly on account of the gulf which separated them, how fair to look upon his wife was ; and how, though it never had appealed, though it did not now strongly appeal to him, her beauty was of a nature that fascinated many men.

" There are two kinds of women," he caught himself repeating under his breath — " there are two kinds of women— so says the Persian poet: those who are made of fire, and those who are made of water. Those created from fire know how to love, and as a reward their hearts become as molten gold, and they enjoy the second life : those created from water are but semblances of women — their hearts grow colder and colder till they be come blocks of ice — and when the wind of Death comes they melt into nothingness, like the rime of frost before the sun." " Felix." " Well ? " "Was it not Gabriel Ford who commissioned that ' Hertha ' ? " " Yes. Why do you ask ? " " Because I presume that he will hold you to your bargain. You cannot substitute some other work, whether inferior or superior, for it. More over, he is to dine with us to-night, and accom pany us to the concert ; so it might be as well if you were prepared with your answer in case he should ask to see or inquire about ' Hertha.' " " You need not be uneasy.

Ford commissioned it, it is true, but only conditionally on my part. I said that if I sold it at all, he should have the option of purchase. I warned him that I might not sell it at all, or that I might never go on with it. Moreover, I am not anxious for any of my work to go to Ford ; nor do I imagine that his wish to ' patronise ' me is wholly dis interested." There was no sneer in Dane's concluding words, and he did not even look at his wife as he spoke ; yet she flushed, and a swift look of passing anger came into her eyes. He knew that her fair skin had reddened, and that her eyes were momentarily alight ; and, though his gaze was averted, she too knew that he knew it. For though never a hint of the matter had crossed the lips of either, bosh were aware that Gabriel Ford entertained a more than merely friendly admiration for Lydia.

Felix himself was indifferent, partly because his wife had alienated herself from his sympathies, partly because he felt assured that no breath of passion could do more than ruffle for a moment the frozen calm of her nature. Ford, the handsome and accomplished but reputedly unscrupulous son of the millionaire banker who controlled the great house of Fiora vante & Co., was not a man for whom he cared, though the extreme interest which the history of Israel and most things Judaic had for Felix Dane B had prompted him to familiarity with Gabriel Ford, who was quite unaware of the kind of interest he excited, and, indeed, would have resented it, for he never voluntarily admitted anything more than a business relationship with the Hebrew merchant-princes and bankers. In truth, Dane's apprehension of the facts was based rather upon vague surmise than upon actual knowledge.

Not that Ford was an ordinary Jew. Neither he nor his father, Sir Lewis, belonged to the Jewish community in London ; nor did either give in adherence to any religion, save such as might be implied in a greater largess to the Church of England than to other ecclesiastical institu tions. But racially both were Jews, and none the less so though in features they were Caucasian rather than Semitic. The Fords, the Montagues, the Despards, and a few other wealthy families occupied a strange position. They were not Christian, nor were they Jewish, in faith ; yet they never intermarried save with the sons and daughters of Israel. The orthodox Semites regarded them jealously, hating them because they mixed mainly in Christian society, and made their wives and children cease from attendance at the synagogue, but eager not to offend them on account of their paramount influence and also, to no slight extent, because of their reputed earnest though disguised sympathies with Judaic federation.

The silence which had ensued upon Dane's words was broken by the entry of a servant, who announced Mr. Gabriel Ford. A tall, fair-haired man, slender of build, smooth of face, and of a complexion that was almost girlishly olive - toned, bowed as he approached and took Mrs. Dane's hand in his own. Though handsome, he would not have been a noteworthy man but for his eyes, which were impenetrably dark — black as night, though 'the deep night of the South, not that of the North, blankly nigrescent. In the interval which elapsed before Felix — who had left the room as soon as he had greeted the visitor — returned in evening-dress, Lydia alluded to the " Hertha " incident. Ford listened, with a curious smile on his face — a smile that somehow displeased his listener, for she suddenly became more reserved.

Then, as if he had not apprehended what she had said, and without preamble, he looked at her intently as he uttered a remark whose abrupt irre levancy startled her. " I do not understand ? " " I repeat : it is just ten years ago, Lydia, since you and I first met. You had not then encountered Dane. Your excellent aunt yearned after the Fioravante coffers, but mistrusted the keeper's in tentions. Eh ? Has it ever occurred to — to — you that as your aunt dropped a goodly flavouring of gall into your pot of honey, you should discard the mixture and select a new jar for yourself? " " You are as fond of enigmas as ever, Gabriel. All that I concern myself about is — that the past is the past. You and I might have — but why talk of ' mights ' ? There is now a depth between us which is bridgeless. But even in our friend ship you must be more careful.

I know that my husband suspects your attitude towards me. By the way, Gabriel, do you know what he told me, I suppose in some fit of prejudice ? He said you were a Jew." "What then?" "What then? Why, of course, I contradicted him ; and with that arrogant gravity of his, he went on to state that though you and Sir Lewis were what is called ' enfranchised Jews,' you were racially so exclusive that neither you nor any of your set would, in any possible circumstances, marry a Christian." " Well ? " " You are very laconic, my good Gabriel. Of course it is not true ? " " It is not true." " What is not true ? " asked Felix, who at this moment entered the room. " That I am about to conduct the Paris house of Fioravante & Co.," Ford answered with quiet readi ness ; " for though London has more drawbacks than any other great city, it is yet the best place to live in."

" The best for us, Ford, perhaps ; but not for the three million or so of people of limited means and of no means. A great city is a great ulcer." " Heine says our civilisation is cancerous, you know." "Heine's own 'cancer of life' made him say many such things. Lydia, did you reply to the Walfords that it would be impossible for me to accept their invitation just now ; and have you made up your mind as to whether you are going or not ? " " Yes ; I am to join them in Dorset to-morrow. I told them you could not accompany me. Are you going to the Cranes' ? You promised Sir Arthur, that day you introduced him to me at the Gros venor Gallery, that you would spend a few days at Forest Manor. Mr. Ford is going; you might journey to-morrow in company." " No. I do not feel inclined to go anywhere at present.

I have too much to do." " So it would seem," Lydia replied, in a low sarcastic tone. " Ah, there's the gong ; let us go down to dinner." So emphatic had Felix been in his determination not to pay his promised visit to Sir Arthur Crane, that Lydia was very considerably surprised when, later, during the homeward drive, her husband informed her that he too would leave home on the morrow for a few days, and accompany Gabriel Ford to the Cranes' place near Grantley.