Through stained glass Part 13

"It's not quite side-tracked--yet," he said.

"Ah, boy, never look back," said Leighton. "But, no; do. Do look back.

You're young yet. Tell me about it."

Then for a long time Lewis talked of Nadir: of the life there, of the Reverend Orme, grown morose through unnamed troubles; of Mrs. Leighton, withered away till naught but patience was left; of happy mammy, grown sad; of Natalie, friend, playmate, and sacrifice.

"So they wanted to marry your little pal into motherhood twenty times over, ready-made," said Leighton. "And you fought them, told 'em what you thought of it. You were right, boy; you were right. The wilderness must have turned their heads. But you ought to have stayed with it. Why didn't you stay with it? You're no quitter."

"There were things I said to the Reverend Orme," said Lewis, slowly--"things I knew, that made it impossible for me to stay."

"Things you knew? What things?"

Lewis did not answer.

It was on a gray Sunday that they entered London. In a four-wheeler, the roof of which groaned under a pyramid of baggage, they started out into the mighty silence of deserted streets. The _plunk! plunk!_ of the horse's shod hoofs crashed against the blank walls of the shuttered houses and reverberated ahead of them until sound dribbled away down the gorge of the all-embracing nothing. Gray, gray; heaven and earth and life were gray.

Lewis felt like crying, but Leighton came to the rescue. He was in high spirits.

"Boy, look out of the window. Is there anywhere in the world a youth spouting verse on a street corner?"

"No," said Lewis.

"Or an orator shooting himself to give point to an impa.s.sioned speech?"

"No."

"Or women shaking their bangles into the melting-pot for the cause of freedom?"

"No."

"I should say not. This is Sunday in London. Take off your hat. You are in the graveyard of all the emotions of the earth."

Up one flight of stairs, over a tobacconist's shop, Leighton raised and dropped the ma.s.sive bronze knocker on a deep-set door. He saw Lewis's eyes fix on the ponderous knocker.

"Strong door to stand it, eh? They don't make 'em that way any more."

The door swung open. A man-servant in black bowed as Leighton entered.

"Glad to welcome you back, sir. I hope you are well, sir."

"Thanks, Nelton, I'm well as well. So is Master Lewis. Got his room ready? Show him the bath."

Lewis, looking upon Nelton, suddenly remembered a little room in the Sul Americano at Bahia. He felt sure that when Nelton opened his mouth it would be to say, "Will you be wearing the white flannels to-night, sir, or the dinner-jacket?"

By lunch-time Leighton's high spirits were on the decline, by four o'clock they had struck bottom. He kept walking to the windows, only to turn his back quickly on what he saw. At last he said:

"D'you know what a 'hundred to one shot' is?"

"No, sir," said Lewis.

"Well," said Leighton, "watch me play one." He sat down, wrote a hurried note, and sent it out by Nelton. "The chances, my boy, are one hundred to one that the lady's out of town."

When Nelton came back with an answer, Leighton scarcely stopped to open it.

"Come on, boy," he called, and was off. By the time Lewis reached the street, his father was stepping into a cab. Lewis scrambled after him.

"Doesn't seem proper, Dad, to rush through a graveyard this way."

"Graveyard? It isn't a graveyard any more. I'll prove it to you in a minute."

It was more than a minute before they pulled up at a house that seemed to belie Leighton's promise. Its door was under a ma.s.sive portico the columns of which rose above the second story. The portico was flanked by a parapeted balcony, upon which faced, on each side, a row of French windows, closed and curtained, but not shuttered.

CHAPTER XVII

Leighton rang. The door was opened by a man in livery. So pompous was he that Lewis gazed at him open-mouthed. He could hardly tear his eyes from him to follow his father, who was being conducted by a second footman across the gla.s.sy, waxed hall into a vast drawing-room.

The drawing-room might have been a tomb for kings, but Lewis felt more awed by it than depressed. It was a room of distances. Upon its stately walls hung only six paintings and a tapestry. Leighton did not tell his son that the walls carried seven fortunes, because he happened to be one of those who saw them only as seven things of joy.

There were other things in the room besides the pictures: a few chairs, the brocade of which matched the tapestry on the wall; an inlaid spinet; three bronzes. Before one of the bronzes Lewis stopped involuntarily.

From its ma.s.sive, columned base to the tip of the living figure it was in one piece. Out of the pedestal itself writhed the tortured, reaching figure--aspiring man held to earth. Lewis stretched out a reverent hand as though he would touch it.

The lackey had thrown open a door and stood waiting. Leighton turned and called:

"Come on, boy."

Lewis followed them through a second drawing-room and into a library.

Here they were asked to sit. Never had Lewis dreamed of such a room. It was all in oak--in oak to which a century of ripening had given a rare flower.

There was only one picture, and that was placed over the great fireplace. It was the portrait of a beautiful woman--waves of gray hair above a young face and bright black eyes. The face laughed at them and at the rows upon rows of somber books that reached from floor to ceiling.

Before the fireplace were two leather chairs and a great leather couch.

At each end of the couch stood lighted lamps, shaded to a deep-amber glow.

The lackey returned.

"Her ladys.h.i.+p waits for you in her room, sir."

Leighton nodded, and led Lewis down a short hall. The library had been dark, the hall was darker. Lewis felt depressed. He heard his father knock on a door and then open it. Lewis caught his breath.

The door had opened on a little realm of light. Fresh blue and white cretonnes and chintzes met his unaccustomed eyes; straight chairs, easy-chairs, and deep, low comfy chairs; airy tables, the preposterously slender legs of which looked frail and were not; books, paper-backed, and gay magazines; a wondrous, limpid cheval-gla.s.s.

Across the farther side of the room was a very wide window. Through its slender gothic panes one saw a walled lawn and a single elm. Beside the window and half turned toward it, so that the light fell across her face, sat the woman of the portrait.