Part 4

"Why, she has found out that he is really a Nihilist--just think of a Nihilist going about loose like this, and playing tennis at the rectory and all the good houses! And not only that, but she says he is altogether a dangerous, unprincipled man with a dreadful temper. You can't think how unhappy she is about poor Gertrude, and so am I, for we were at school together and have always been friends."

"I am very sorry to hear about it," said Mr. Blackthorne, "but I don't see that anything can be done. You see, one does not like to interfere in these sort of things. It seems officious rather, and meddlesome."

"Yes, that is the worst of it," she replied, with a sigh. "I suppose we can do nothing. Still, it has been a great relief just to tell you about it and get it off my mind. I suppose we can only hope that something may put a stop to it all--we must just leave it to chance."

This sentiment amused me not a little. Leave it to chance indeed! Had she not caused me to grow stronger and larger by every word she uttered? And had not the conversation revealed to me Mr. Blackthorn's one vulnerable part? I knew well enough that I should be able to dominate his thoughts as I had done hers. Finding me burdensome, she had passed me on to somebody else with additions that vastly increased my working powers, and then she talked of leaving it to chance! The way in which mortals practise pious frauds on themselves is really delightful! And yet Lena Houghton was a good sort of girl, and had from her childhood repeated the catechism words which proclaim that, "My duty to my neighbour is to love him as myself . . . To keep my tongue from evil-speaking, lying, and slandering." What is more, she took great pains to teach these words to a big class of Sunday School children, and went, rain or shine, to spend two hours each Sunday in a stuffy school- room for that purpose. It was strange that she should be so ready to believe evil of her neighbour, and so eager to spread the story. But my progenitor is clever, and doubtless knows very well, whom to select as his tools.

By this time they had reached a comfortable-looking, red-brick house with white stone facings, and in the discussion of the arrangements for the choir treat I was entirely forgotten.

MY THIRD STAGE

Alas! such is our weakness, that we often more readily believe and speak of another that which is evil than that which is good. But perfect men do not easily give credit to every report; because they know man's weakness, which is very prone to evil, and very subject to fail in words.

THOMAS A KEMPIS.

All through that evening, and through the first part of the succeeding day, I was crowded out of the curate's mind by a host of thoughts with which I had nothing in common; and though I hovered about him as he taught in the school, and visited several sick people, and argued with an habitual drunkard, and worked at his Sunday sermon, a Power, which I felt but did not understand, baffled all my attempts to gain an entrance and attract his notice. I made a desperate attack on him after lunch as he sat smoking and enjoying a well-earned rest, but it was of no avail. I followed him to a large garden-party later on, but to my great annoyance he went about talking to every one in the pleasantest way imaginable, though I perceived that he was longing to play tennis instead.

At length, however, my opportunity came. Mr. Blackthorne was talking to the lady of the house, Mrs. Courtenay, when she suddenly exclaimed:--

"Ah, here is Mr. Zaluski just arriving. I began to be afraid that he had forgotten the day, and he is always such an acquisition. How do you do, Mr. Zaluski?" she said, greeting my victim warmly as he stepped on to the terrace. "So glad you were able to come. You know Mr. Blackthorne, I think."

Zaluski greeted the curate pleasantly, and his dark eyes lighted up with a gleam of amusement.

"Oh, we are great friends," he said laughingly. "Only, you know, I sometimes shock him a little--just a very little."

"That is very unkind of you, I am sure," said Mrs. Courtenay, smiling.

"No, not at all," said Zaluski, with the audacity of a privileged being. "It is just my little amusement, very harmless, very--what you call innocent. Mr. Blackthorne cannot make up his mind about me. One day I appear to him to be Catholic, the next Comtist, the next Orthodox Greek, the next a convert to the Anglican communion. I am a mystery, you see! And mysteries are as indispensable in life as in a romance."

He laughed. Mrs. Courtenay laughed too, and a little friendly banter was carried on between them, while the curate stood by feeling rather out of it.

I drew nearer to him, perceiving that my prospects bid fair to improve. For very few people can feel out of it without drifting into a self-regarding mood, and then they are the easiest prey imaginable. Undoubtedly a man like Zaluski, with his easy nonchalance, his knowledge of the world, his genuine good-nature, and the background of sterling qualities which came upon you as a surprise because he loved to make himself seem a mere idler, was apt to eclipse an ordinary mortal like James Blackthorne. The curate perceived this and did not like to be eclipsed--as a matter of fact, nobody does. It seemed to him a little unfair that he, who had hitherto been made much of, should be called to play second fiddle to this rich Polish fellow who had never done anything for Muddleton or the neighbourhood. And then, too, Sigismund Zaluski had a way of poking fun at him which he resented, and would not take in good part.

Something of this began to stir in his mind; and he cordially hated the Pole when Jim Courtenay, who arranged the tennis, came up and asked him to play in the next set, passing the curate by altogether.

Then I found no difficulty at all in taking possession of him; indeed he was delighted to have me brought back to his memory, he positively gloated over me, and I grew apace.

Zaluski, in the seventh heaven of happiness, was playing with Gertrude Morley, and his play was so good and so graceful that every one was watching it with pleasure. His partner, too, played well; she was a pretty, fair-haired girl, with soft grey eyes like the eyes of a dove; she wore a white tennis dress and a white sailor hat, and at her throat she had fastened a cluster of those beautiful orange-coloured roses known by the prosaic name of 'William Allan Richardson.'

If Mr. Blackthorne grew angry as he watched Sigismund Zaluski, he grew doubly angry as he watched Gertrude Morley. He said to himself that it was intolerable that such a girl should fall a prey to a vain, shallow, unprincipled foreigner, and in a few minutes he had painted such a dark picture of poor Sigismund that my strength increased tenfold.

"Mr. Blackthorne," said Mrs. Courtenay, "would you take Mrs. Milton-Cleave to have an ice?"

Now Mrs. Milton-Cleave had always been one of the curate's great friends. She was a very pleasant, talkative woman of six-and-thirty, and a general favourite. Her popularity was well deserved, for she was always ready to do a kind action, and often went out of her way to help people who had not the slightest claim upon her. There was, however, no repose about Mrs. Milton-Cleave, and an acute observer would have discovered that her universal readiness to help was caused to some extent by her good heart, but in a very large degree by her restless and over-active brain. Her sphere was scarcely large enough for her, she would have made an excellent head of an orphan asylum or manager of some large institution, but her quiet country life offered far too narrow a field for her energy.

"It is really quite a treat to watch Mr. Zaluski's play," she remarked as they walked to the refreshment tent at the other end of the lawn. "Certainly foreigners know how to move much better than we do: our best players look awkward beside them."

"Do you think so?" said Mr. Blackthorne. "I am afraid I am full of prejudice, and consider that no one can equal a true-born Briton."

"And I quite agree with you in the main," said Mrs. Milton-Cleave. "Though I confess that it is rather refreshing to have a little variety."

The curate was silent, but his silence merely covered his absorption in me, and I began to exercise a faint influence through his mind on the mind of his companion. This caused her at length to say:

"I don't think you quite like Mr. Zaluski. Do you know much about him?"