Under St Paul's: A Romance. Dowling Richard
say, a thousand or two miles of rope.' 'But I should fancy a man with your enormous experience of travel would prefer a wife who could talk over the many places you had seen, and the customs you had observed.' The blue eyes of the speaker were fixed earnestly on the traveller. 'Well, I don't know. It would be a fascinating novelty to have a wife who had never been beyond the village-green. But the thing might grow monotonous after awhile. There was only one woman who ever made me think of settling down. When I speak of settling down, I mean on a continent or two.' 'And what was she?' 'A great go-about, like myself.' 'Like the lady who sat opposite you at dinner, to-day?' The steadfast blue eyes never moved from the face of the other man. Nevill bent his head forward, and said, in a dropped voice, so that the others could not hear, – 'It was she. I thought seriously of staying in New-York, and trying if I could make any impression on her.' 'And why did you not?' The blue eyes now fell to the ground. 'Well, you see, the States, Canada, Spain, and Algiers were all waiting for me.' 'And so you did not make love to her?' 'Couldn't, my dear boy. Hadn't time.' 'And where do you go to from London?' 'India.' 'When?' 'That will depend upon my luck.' 'Your luck with what?' 'Miss Gordon. I think I shall give myself a holiday, and a chance of settling down this time. Come, let us join the ladies.' They reached the drawing-room. Nevill, leaning on the arm of Osborne, walked to where Miss Gordon sat on a couch. When he came in front of her, he said, – 'Allow me, Miss Gordon, to present to you my old and valued friend, Mr Simeon Stylites. He has, to honour your arrival in London, just stepped down from his pillar on which he was born, and where he has spent all his life.' 'A descendant of the saint?' she asked archly. 'No; a descendant of the pillar. But really, Miss Gordon, Mr Osborne is a most remarkable man, and I recommend him to your best consideration. He is the Captain Cook of our time, and the enlightened savages have a savoury treat in store for them.' 'A great traveller?' she asked, with a look of interest. 'No. But his is the best performance on record at staying at home.' 'Really!' with a soft laugh. She held out her hand frankly to him. 'I am glad to meet someone who is not travel-worn, and tired of half the world.' 'This is the first time Mr Osborne has ever been fifty miles from home, and his home is a small town in the Midlands, Stratford-on-Avon.' 'I am delighted to have met you,' she said, looking him full in the face with those marvellous dark eyes. 'Do you know, Mr Osborne, you were going to say something to me at dinner, and you did not? And I should like to know what it was.' He stood for a moment mute. She curious to know what he had been about to say! It flushed him, and made the blood at his wrists tingle. It confused his head, and took his intellect away. He stammered out, – 'I really cannot remember. Something not worth your thinking of.' His face was now pale. Nevill observed the change. 'My dear Osborne, you look ill. Run to the front door for a moment and the air will put you right. Shall I go with you?' 'No, thank you. It is nothing.' After a few minutes' silence, he said, – 'I think I shall take a stroll.' 'Do,' said Nevill heartily; 'that is what will fix you up. Run off.' When he had gone, Miss Gordon said to Nevill, – 'Your friend must be ill. I am afraid he must suffer much, for he forgot me when leaving.' 'No one who has once seen you could ever forget you, Miss Gordon,' said Nevill, by way of beginning the attack. 'That is a humdrum compliment,' said she. 'You must be more original, or I shall find you dull.' George Osborne walked, he knew not whither. He felt dazed and dull. At last he paused on a bridge. He stood awhile and thought. Then he said to himself, – 'What perfume of romance have I drunk that she should make me mad?'
CHAPTER II.
A LESSON IN FLIRTATION
The Sunday dinner at Mrs Barclay's was early, and when George Osborne found himself for the first time in his life with the Thames beneath his feet, it was a little after three o'clock. 'What an amazing thing it is to be in London for the first time, and with the knowledge of eight-and-twenty years! Those who are born in London never fathom its depths, its influence, its strength, its significance, its import. 'Those who come to London young are cowed at first by its proportions, become familiar with half one district, and treat all other districts into which accident may drag them as pagan regions beyond the pale of the true civilisation. 'But I confront London for the first time in the mature years of youth, with book knowledge of all its wonders, and a feeling of brotherhood for it. Greater England is my father, but this London is my most beloved sister, of whom I am proud. 'The universe, hung by God in the viewless vault of space, and man are the most wonderful of His disclosed works, and I bow down in worship before the creator of these miracles. This London, the noblest monument of man, was reared by the hands of my brothers of Greater Britain. I am their fellow, their equal. We it was who did it. 'Under Him whom I adore, nothing fills me with such emotions of worship as the spirit of this great concrete empire, of which London is the sign-manual on earth. 'In the still meadowlands around Stratford, I have led a quiet if not a blameless life. Now and then I have been here and there-Birmingham, Coventry, Wolverhampton, Leamington, Warwick, Oxford, Lichfield, Burton, Leicester; but all put together do not equal London. If I have kept away from this town until now, it was from no want of opportunities to visit it. I might have come any month. But I did not wish to come until I could stay. I deliberately did not avail myself of the opportunities I enjoyed. I studied the place afar off. I might have often come to London, but I did not. I kept aloof. I wished not to see it with my bodily eyes until I had qualified to appreciate it; just as I deferred reading Shakespeare until I thought I should be able to understand him. 'I know all the things around me. This is Blackfriars Bridge, that is Waterloo Bridge, that is the Temple, that is Somerset House, that is St Paul's. I have reverenced their spirits from afar. To-day their spirits have taken shape, and I am among the saintly shrines of my imagination. I have reverenced beauty from afar. To-day I have drunk a potion and am mad. 'Am I in love? Not I. I have a splendid madness upon me. I do not want her. I do not want her love. I want only the image as I see it. He may marry her if he will. I shall never try. I have her image, and neither tyrant nor thief can take that away from me. I make her high-priestess in the temple of my dreams. She is too sacred for me to touch. As I see her now, her image is immortal, immutable. In a few years she will change. I place my goddess with the unalterable deities of the ideal. She shall never be other to me than she is. I shall marry some day, I suppose; but I shall never marry her. The emotions which lead men to marriage have no connection with what I now feel. While I am under the spell of her presence I shall enjoy this madness. When she is gone I shall live in the light of a memory. 'I shall stay in London. I shall take chambers and live alone, that is, unless I marry. I shall lead my old life, read by night, and wander about by day. This money, into which I have just come, will yield me fifteen hundred a year; and, married or single, I shall be able to live comfortably on that. I shall live in London and cherish my image, and when I die I hope I may be found no worse than my fellow-man, and may fall within the mercy of God and the pity of my Saviour; for I must not let the little money, or London, or this wonder at the hotel turn my head and darken up my heart against the great matter of life. What fools men are to throw away the great object of all this life, either with carelessness or deliberation! No, no. I shall, I hope, retain my taste for books, and the simple faith in which I was brought up-and her image for ever.' He turned away from the parapet and crossed to the Surrey side. 'There is no great hurry,' he mused, 'for my leaving Barclay's. I can stay there a few weeks, until I get more accustomed to the crush and uproar of all London. 'Can it be Sunday? Can this be the day of rest in the capital of the British Empire? I can scarcely believe it. Here are shops open, cabs and tramcars trading just as on any other day. While I stood on the bridge I saw the steamboats crowded with people. Sunday! why, it is more like a fair! You only want the booths and the jugglers to make it a mop. I wonder these things are not stopped. All this traffic is surely against the law. It is bad in itself, and worse as an example. It ought to be stopped. It could be stopped by law, and it ought to be stopped. Why is it not stopped? 'This is Blackfriars Road. It leads into St George's Circus. I know from maps, but how different these places are from what I fancied. 'Gordon. Yes, the name is Scotch, and Marie is French. I wonder what religion she is. She has a maid, an Irish maid. The Irish are Roman Catholics, the maid is sure to be a Roman Catholic. The chances are the mistress is too, for her mother was a French Canadian. Or stop, are the French Canadians Huguenots or not? That I don't know. 'When she ceases to speak I always hear music; and when the music stops the air seems to listen for more. I wonder does such a beauty know how she fills the veins with wonder and joy? No, no. She could not know and carry her head in that way. She would have more consideration for those whose fate it is to see her a little while and lose her for ever. Because,