Part 63

Barty, as we know, started for Riffrath at Martia's written command, his head full of perplexing thoughts.

Who was Martia? What was she? "A disembodied conscience?" Whose? Not his own, which counselled the opposite course.

He had once seen a man at a show with a third rudimentary leg sticking out behind, and was told this extra limb belonged to a twin, the remaining portions of whom had not succeeded in getting themselves begotten and born. Could Martia be a frustrated and undeveloped twin sister of his own, that interested herself in his affairs, and could see with his eyes and hear with his ears, and had found the way of communicating with him during his sleep--and was yet apart from him, as phenomenal twins are apart from each other, however closely linked--and had, moreover, not managed to have any part of her body born into this world at all?

She wrote like him; her epistolary style was his very own, every turn of phrase, every little mannerism. The mystery of it overwhelmed him again, though he had grown somewhat accustomed to the idea during the last twelvemonth. Why was she so anxious he should marry Julia? Had he, situated as he was, the right to win the love of this splendid creature, in the face of the world's opposition and her family's--he, a beggar and a bastard? Would it be right and honest and fair to her?

And then, again, was he so desperately in love with her, after all, that he should give up the life of art and toil he had planned for himself and go through existence as the husband of a rich and beautiful woman belonging, first of all, to the world and society, of which she was so brilliant an ornament that her husband must needs remain in the background forever, even if he were a gartered duke or a belted earl?

What success of his own would he ever hope to achieve, handicapped as he would be by all the ease and luxury she would bring him? He had grown to love the poverty which ever lends such strenuousness to endeavor. He thought of an engraving he had once taken a fancy to in Brussels, and purchased and hung up in his bedroom. I have it now! It is after Gallait, and represents a picturesquely poor violinist and his violin in a garret, and underneath is written "Art et liberté."

Then he thought of Julia's lovely face and magnificent body--and all his manhood thrilled as he recalled the look in her eyes when they met his the day before.

This was the strongest kind of temptation by which his nature could ever be assailed--he knew himself to be weak as water when that came his way, the ten-thousandth face (and the figure to match)! He had often prayed to Martia to deliver him from such a lure. But here was Martia on the side of the too sweet enemy!

The train stopped for a few minutes at Neanderthal, and he thought he could think better if he got out and walked in that beautiful valley an hour or two--there was no hurry; he would take another train later, in time to meet Julia at Beresford Duff's, where she was sure to be. So he walked among the rocks, the lonely rocks, and sat and pondered in the famous cave where the skull was found--that simple prehistoric cranium which could never have been so pathetically nonplussed by such a dilemma as this when it was a human head!

And the more he pondered the less he came to a conclusion. It seemed as though there were the "tug of war" between Martia and all that he felt to be best in himself--his own conscience, his independence as a man, his sense of honor. He took her letter out of his pocket to re-read, and with it came another letter; it was from my sister, Ida Maurice. It told him when they would arrive in Düsseldorf.

He jumped up in alarm--it was that very day. He had quite forgotten!

He ran off to the station, and missed a train, and had to wait an hour for another; but he got himself to the Rhine station in Düsseldorf a few minutes before the train from Belgium arrived.

Everything was ready for the Gibson party--lodgings and tea and supper to follow--he had seen to all that before; so there he walked up and down, waiting, and still revolving over and over again in his mind the troublous question that so bewildered and oppressed him. Who was Martia? what was she--that he should take her for a guide in the most momentous business of his life; and what were her credentials?

And what was love? Was it love he felt for this young goddess with yellow hair and light-blue eyes so like his own, who towered in her full-blown frolicsome splendor among the sons and daughters of men, with her moist, ripe lips so richly framed for happy love and laughter--that royal milk-white fawn that had only lain in the roses and fed on the lilies of life?

"Oh, Mr. Nobody of Nowhere! be at least a man; let no one ever call you the basest thing an able-bodied man can become, a fortune-hunting adventurer!"

Then a bell rang, and the smoke of the coming train was visible--ten minutes late. The tickets were taken, and it slowed into the station and stopped. Ida's head and face were seen peering through one of the second-class windows, on the lookout, and Barty opened the door and there was a warm and affectionate greeting between them; the meeting was joy to both.

Then he was warmly greeted by Mrs. Gibson, who introduced him to her mother; then he was conscious of somebody he had not seen yet because she stood at his blind side (indeed, he had all but forgotten her existence); namely, the presence of a very tall and most beautiful dark-haired young lady, holding out her slender gloved hand and gazing up into his face with the most piercing and strangest and blackest eyes that ever were; yet so soft and quick and calm and large and kind and wise and gentle that their piercingness was but an added seduction; one felt they could never pierce too deep for the happiness of the heart they pronged and riddled and perforated through and through!

Involuntarily came into Barty's mind, as he shook the slender hand, a little song of Schubert's he had just learnt:

"Du dist die Ruh', der Friede mild!"

And wasn't it odd?--all his doubts and perplexities resolved themselves at once, as by some enchantment, into a lovely, unexpected chord of extreme simplicity; and Martia was gently but firmly put aside, and the divine Julia quietly relegated to the gilded throne which was her fit and proper apanage.

Barty saw to the luggage, and sent it on, and they all went on foot behind it.

The bridge of boats across the Rhine was open in the middle to let a wood-raft go by down stream. This raft from some distant forest was so long they had to wait nearly twenty minutes; and the prow of it had all but lost itself in the western purple and gold and dun of sky and river while it was still passing the bridge.

All this was new and delightful to the Londoners, who were also delighted with the rooms Barty had taken for them in the König's Allee and the tea that awaited them there. Leah made tea, and gave a cup to Barty. That was a good cup of tea, better even than the tea Julia was making (that very moment, no doubt) at Beresford Duff's.

Then the elder ladies rested, and Barty took Leah and Ida for a walk in the Hof gardens. They were charmed with everything--especially the fire-flies at dusk. Leah said little; she was not a very talkative person outside her immediate family circle. But Ida and Barty had much to say.

Then home to supper at the Gibsons' lodgings, and Barty sat opposite Leah, and drank in the beauty of her face, which had so wonderfully ripened and accentuated and individualized itself since he had seen her last, three years before.

As he discreetly gazed, whenever she was not looking his way, saying to himself, like Geraint: "'Here by God's rood is the one maid for me,'" he suddenly felt the north, and started with a kind of terror as he remembered Martia. He bade the company a hasty good-night, and went for a long walk by the Rhine, and had a long talk with his Egeria.

"Martia," said he, in a low but audible voice, "it's no good, I can't; c'est plus fort que moi. I can't sell myself to a woman for gold; besides, I can't fall in love with Julia; I don't know why, but I can't; I will never marry her. I don't deserve that she should care for me; perhaps she doesn't, perhaps you're quite mistaken, and if she does, it's only a young girl's fancy. What does a girl of that age really know about her own heart? and how base I should be to take advantage of her innocence and inexperience!"

And then he went on in a passionate and eager voice to explain all he had thought of during the day and still further defend his recalcitrancy.