Treasure of Heaven E-Book

Marie Corelli

• Herausgeber: Ktoczyta.pl
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

A well-written book by Marie Corelli detailing the life of millionaire David Helmsley, who gave up his wealth to live as a drifter and found his inner self in a small village in Somerset. The author shows that the acquisition of wealth does not bring satisfaction, and in a simple life you can get joy.

Leseprobe

Contents

AUTHOR’S NOTE

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X

CHAPTER XI

CHAPTER XII

CHAPTER XIII

CHAPTER XIV

CHAPTER XV

CHAPTER XVI

CHAPTER XVII

CHAPTER XVIII

CHAPTER XIX

CHAPTER XX

CHAPTER XXI

CHAPTER XXII

CHAPTER XXIII

CHAPTER XXIV

AUTHOR’S NOTE

By the special request of the Publishers, a portrait of myself, taken in the spring of this year, 1906, forms the Frontispiece to the present volume. I am somewhat reluctant to see it so placed, because it has nothing whatever to do with the story which is told in the following pages, beyond being a faithful likeness of the author who is responsible for this, and many other previous books which have had the good fortune to meet with a friendly reception from the reading public. Moreover, I am not quite able to convince myself that my pictured personality can have any interest for my readers, as it has always seemed to me that an author’s real being is more disclosed in his or her work than in any portrayed presentment of mere physiognomy.

But–owing to the fact that various gross, and I think I may say libellous and fictitious misrepresentations of me have been freely and unwarrantably circulated throughout Great Britain, the Colonies, and America, by certain “lower” sections of the pictorial press, which, with a zeal worthy of a better and kinder cause, have striven by this means to alienate my readers from me,–it appears to my Publishers advisable that an authentic likeness of myself, as I truly am to-day, should now be issued in order to prevent any further misleading of the public by fraudulent inventions. The original photograph from which Messrs. Dodd, Mead & Co. have reproduced the present photogravure, was taken by Mr. G. Gabell of Eccleston Street, London, who, at the time of my submitting myself to his camera, was not aware of my identity. I used, for the nonce, the name of a lady friend, who arranged that the proofs of the portrait should be sent to her at various different addresses,–and it was not till this “Romance of Riches” was on the verge of publication that I disclosed the real position to the courteous artist himself. That I thus elected to be photographed as an unknown rather than a known person was in order that no extra pains should be taken on my behalf, but that I should be treated just as an ordinary stranger would be treated, with no less, but at the same time certainly no more, care.

I may add, in conclusion, for the benefit of those few who may feel any further curiosity on the subject, that no portraits resembling me in any way are published anywhere, and that invented sketches purporting to pass as true likenesses of me, are merely attempts to obtain money from the public on false pretences. One picture of me, taken in my own house by a friend who is an amateur photographer, was reproduced some time ago in the Strand Magazine, The Boudoir, Cassell’s Magazine, and The Rapid Review; but beyond that, and the present one in this volume, no photographs of me are on sale in any country, either in shops or on postcards. My objection to this sort of “picture popularity” has already been publicly stated, and I here repeat and emphasise it. And I venture to ask my readers who have so generously encouraged me by their warm and constant appreciation of my literary efforts, to try and understand the spirit in which the objection is made. It is simply that to myself the personal “Self” of me is nothing, and should be, rightly speaking, nothing to any one outside the circle of my home and my intimate friends; while my work and the keen desire to improve in that work, so that by my work alone I may become united in sympathy and love to my readers, whoever and wherever they may be, constitutes for me the Everything of life.

MARIE CORELLI

Stratford-on-AvonJuly, 1906

CHAPTER I

London,–and a night in June. London, swart and grim, semi-shrouded in a warm close mist of mingled human breath and acrid vapour steaming up from the clammy crowded streets,–London, with a million twinkling lights gleaming sharp upon its native blackness, and looking, to a dreamer’s eye, like some gigantic Fortress, built line upon line and tower upon tower,–with huge ramparts raised about it frowningly as though in self-defence against Heaven. Around and above it the deep sky swept in a ring of sable blue, wherein thousands of stars were visible, encamped after the fashion of a mighty army, with sentinel planets taking their turns of duty in the watching of a rebellious world. A sulphureous wave of heat half asphyxiated the swarms of people who were hurrying to and fro in that restless undetermined way which is such a predominating feature of what is called a London “season,” and the general impression of the weather was, to one and all, conveyed in a sense of discomfort and oppression, with a vague struggling expectancy of approaching thunder. Few raised their eyes beyond the thick warm haze which hung low on the sooty chimney-pots, and trailed sleepily along in the arid, dusty parks. Those who by chance looked higher, saw that the skies above the city were divinely calm and clear, and that not a cloud betokened so much as the shadow of a storm.

The deep bell of Westminster chimed midnight, that hour of picturesque ghostly tradition, when simple village maids shudder at the thought of traversing a dark lane or passing a churchyard, and when country folks of old-fashioned habits and principles are respectably in bed and for the most part sleeping. But so far as the fashionable “West End” was concerned, it might have been midday. Everybody assuming to be Anybody, was in town. The rumble of carriages passing to and fro was incessant,–the swift whirr and warning hoot of coming and going motor vehicles, the hoarse cries of the newsboys, and the general insect-like drone and murmur of feverish human activity were as loud as at any busy time of the morning or the afternoon. There had been a Court at Buckingham Palace,–and a “special” performance at the Opera,–and on account of these two functions, entertainments were going on at almost every fashionable house in every fashionable quarter. The public restaurants were crammed with luxury-loving men and women,–men and women to whom the mere suggestion of a quiet dinner in their own homes would have acted as a menace of infinite boredom,–and these gilded and refined eating-houses were now beginning to shoot forth their bundles of well-dressed, well-fed folk into the many and various conveyances waiting to receive them. There was a good deal of needless shouting, and much banter between drivers and policemen. Now and again the melancholy whine of a beggar’s plea struck a discordant note through the smooth-toned compliments and farewells of hosts and their departing guests. No hint of pause or repose was offered in the ever-changing scene of uneasy and impetuous excitation of movement, save where, far up in the clear depths of space, the glittering star-battalions of a wronged and forgotten God held their steadfast watch and kept their hourly chronicle. London with its brilliant “season” seemed the only living fact worth recognising; London, with its flaring noisy streets, and its hot summer haze interposed like a grey veil between itself and the higher vision. Enough for most people it was to see the veil,–beyond it the view is always too vast and illimitable for the little vanities of ordinary mortal minds.

Amid all the din and turmoil of fashion and folly seeking its own in the great English capital at the midnight hour, a certain corner of an exclusively fashionable quarter seemed strangely quiet and sequestered, and this was the back of one of the row of palace-like dwellings known as Carlton House Terrace. Occasionally a silent-wheeled hansom, brougham, or flashing motor-car sped swiftly along the Mall, towards which the wide stone balcony of the house projected,–or the heavy footsteps of a policeman walking on his beat crunched the gravel of the path beneath, but the general atmosphere of the place was expressive of solitude and even of gloom. The imposing evidences of great wealth, written in bold headlines on the massive square architecture of the whole block of huge mansions, only intensified the austere sombreness of their appearance, and the fringe of sad-looking trees edging the road below sent a faint waving shadow in the lamplight against the cold walls, as though some shuddering consciousness of happier woodland scenes had suddenly moved them to a vain regret. The haze of heat lay very thickly here, creeping along with slow stealth like a sluggish stream, and a suffocating odour suggestive of some subtle anæsthetic weighed the air with a sense of nausea and depression. It was difficult to realise that this condition of climate was actually summer in its prime–summer with all its glowing abundance of flower and foliage as seen in fresh green lanes and country dells,–rather did it seem a dull nightmare of what summer might be in a prison among criminals undergoing punishment. The house with the wide stone balcony looked particularly prison-like, even more so than some of its neighbours, perhaps because the greater number of its many windows were shuttered close, and showed no sign of life behind their impenetrable blackness. The only strong gleam of light radiating from the inner darkness to the outer, streamed across the balcony itself, which by means of two glass doors opened directly from the room behind it. Here two men sat, or rather half reclined in easy-cushioned lounge chairs, their faces turned towards the Mall, so that the illumination from the apartment in the background created a Rembrandt-like effect in partially concealing the expression of the one from the other’s observation. Outwardly, and at a first causal glance, there was nothing very remarkable about either of them. One was old; the other more than middle-aged. Both were in evening-dress,–both smoked idly, and apparently not so much for the pleasure of smoking as for lack of something better to do, and both seemed self-centred and absorbed in thought. They had been conversing for some time, but now silence had fallen between them, and neither seemed disposed to break the heavy spell. The distant roar of constant traffic in the busy thoroughfares of the metropolis sounded in their ears like muffled thunder, while every now and again the soft sudden echo of dance music, played by a string band in evident attendance at some festive function in a house not far away, shivered delicately through the mist like a sigh of pleasure. The melancholy tree-tops trembled,–a single star struggled above the sultry vapours and shone out large and bright as though it were a great signal lamp suddenly lit in heaven. The elder of the two men seated on the balcony raised his eyes and saw it shining. He moved uneasily,–then lifting himself a little in his chair, he spoke as though taking up a dropped thread of conversation, with the intention of deliberately continuing it to the end. His voice was gentle and mellow, with a touch of that singular pathos in its tone which is customary to the Celtic rather than to the Saxon vocal cords.

“I have given you my full confidence,” he said, “and I have put before you the exact sum total of the matter as I see it. You think me irrational,–absurd. Good. Then I am content to be irrational and absurd. In any case you can scarcely deny that what I have stated is a simple fact,–a truth which cannot be denied?”

“It is a truth, certainly,” replied his companion, pulling himself upright in his chair with a certain vexed vehemence of action and flinging away his half-smoked cigar, “but it is one of those unpleasant truths which need not be looked at too closely or too often remembered. We must all get old–unfortunately,–and we must all die, which in my opinion is more unfortunate still. But we need not anticipate such a disagreeable business before its time.”

“Yet you are always drawing up Last Wills and Testaments,” observed the other, with a touch of humour in his tone.

“Oh well! That, of course, has to be done. The youngest persons should make their wills if they have anything to leave, or else run the risk of having all their household goods and other belongings fought for with tooth and claw by their ‘dearest’ relations. Dearest relations are, according to my experience, very much like wild cats: give them the faintest hope of a legacy, and they scratch and squawl as though it were raw meat for which they have been starving. In all my long career as a solicitor I never knew one ‘dearest relation’ who honestly regretted the dead.”

“There you meet me on the very ground of our previous discussions,” said the elder man. “It is not the consciousness of old age that troubles me, or the inevitable approach of that end which is common to all,–it is merely the outlook into the void,–the teasing wonder as to who may step into my place when I am gone, and what will be done with the results of my life’s labour.”

He rose as he spoke, and moved towards the balcony’s edge, resting one hand upon its smooth stone. The change of attitude allowed the light from the interior room to play more fully on his features, and showed him to be well advanced in age, with a worn, yet strong face and deep-set eyes, over which the shelving brows stooped benevolently as though to guard the sinking vital fire in the wells of vision below. The mouth was concealed by an ashen-grey moustache, while on the forehead and at the sides of the temples the hair was perfectly white, though still abundant. A certain military precision of manner was attached to the whole bearing of the man,–his thin figure was well-built and upright, showing no tendency to feebleness,–his shoulders were set square, and his head was poised in a manner that might have been called uncompromising, if not obstinate. Even the hand that rested on the balcony, attenuated and deeply wrinkled as it was, suggested strength in its shape and character, and a passing thought of this flitted across the mind of his companion who, after a pause, said slowly:–

“I really see no reason why you should brood on such things. What’s the use? Your health is excellent for your time of life. Your end is not imminent. You are voluntarily undergoing a system of self-torture which is quite unnecessary. We’ve known each other for years, yet I hardly recognise you in your present humour. I thought you were perfectly happy. Surely you ought to be,–you, David Helmsley,–‘King’ David, as you are sometimes called–one of the richest men in the world!”

Helmsley smiled, but with a suspicion of sadness.

“Neither kings nor rich men hold special grants of happiness,” he answered, quietly: “Your own experience of humanity must have taught you that. Personally speaking, I have never been happy since my boyhood. This surprises you? I daresay it does. But, my dear Vesey, old friend as you are, it sometimes happens that our closest intimates know us least! And even the famous firm of Vesey and Symonds, or Symonds and Vesey,–for your partner is one with you and you are one with your partner,–may, in spite of all their legal wisdom, fail to pierce the thick disguises worn by the souls of their clients. The Man in the Iron Mask is a familiar figure in the office of his confidential solicitor. I repeat, I have never been happy since my boyhood–”

“Your happiness then was a mere matter of youth and animal spirits,” interposed Vesey.

“I thought you would say that!”–and again a faint smile illumined Helmsley’s features. “It is just what every one would say. Yet the young are often much more miserable than the old; and while I grant that youth may have had something to do with my past joy in life, it was not all. No, it certainly was not all. It was simply that I had then what I have never had since.”

He broke off abruptly. Then stepping back to his chair he resumed his former reclining position, leaning his head against the cushions and fixing his eyes on the solitary bright star that shone above the mist and the trembling trees.

“May I talk out to you?” he inquired suddenly, with a touch of whimsicality. “Or are you resolved to preach copybook moralities at me, such as ‘Be good and you will be happy?’”

Vesey, more ceremoniously known as Sir Francis Vesey, one of the most renowned of London’s great leading solicitors, looked at him and laughed.

“Talk out, my dear fellow, by all means!” he replied. “Especially if it will do you any good. But don’t ask me to sympathise very deeply with the imaginary sorrows of so enormously wealthy a man as you are!”

“I don’t expect any sympathy,” said Helmsley. “Sympathy is the one thing I have never sought, because I know it is not to be obtained, even from one’s nearest and dearest. Sympathy! Why, no man in the world ever really gets it, even from his wife. And no man possessing a spark of manliness ever wants it, except–sometimes–”

He hesitated, looking steadily at the star above him,–then went on.

“Except sometimes,–when the power of resistance is weakened–when the consciousness is strongly borne in upon us of the unanswerable wisdom of Solomon, who wrote–‘I hated all my labour which I had taken under the sun, because I should leave it to the man that should be after me. And who knows whether he shall be a wise man or a fool?’”

Sir Francis Vesey, dimly regretting the half-smoked cigar he had thrown away in a moment of impatience, took out a fresh one from his pocket-case and lit it.

“Solomon has expressed every disagreeable situation in life with remarkable accuracy,” he murmured placidly, as he began to puff rings of pale smoke into the surrounding yellow haze, “but he was a bit of a misanthrope.”

“When I was a boy,” pursued Helmsley, not heeding his legal friend’s comment, “I was happy chiefly because I believed. I never doubted any stated truth that seemed beautiful enough to be true. I had perfect confidence in the goodness of God and the ultimate happiness designed by Him for every living creature. Away out in Virginia where I was born, before the Southern States were subjected to Yankeedom, it was a glorious thing merely to be alive. The clear, pure air, fresh with the strong odour of pine and cedar,–the big plantations of cotton and corn,–the colours of the autumn woods when the maple trees turned scarlet, and the tall sumachs blazed like great fires on the sides of the mountains,–the exhilarating climate–the sweetness of the south-west wind,–all these influences of nature appealed to my soul and kindled a strange restlessness in it which has never been appeased. Never!–though I have lived my life almost to its end, and have done all those things which most men do who seek to get the utmost satisfaction they can out of existence. But I am not satisfied; I have never been satisfied.”

“And you never will be,” declared Sir Francis firmly. “There are some people to whom Heaven itself would prove disappointing.”

“Well, if Heaven is the kind of place depicted by the clergy, the poorest beggar might resent its offered attractions,” said Helmsley, with a slight, contemptuous shrug of his shoulders. “After a life of continuous pain and struggle, the pleasures of singing for ever and ever to one’s own harp accompaniment are scarcely sufficient compensation.”

Vesey laughed cheerfully.

“It’s all symbolical,” he murmured, puffing away at his cigar, “and really very well meant! Positively now, the clergy are capital fellows! They do their best,–they keep it up. Give them credit for that at least, Helmsley,–they do keep it up!”

Helmsley was silent for a minute or two.

“We are rather wandering from the point,” he said at last. “What I know of the clergy generally has not taught me to rely upon them for any advice in a difficulty, or any help out of trouble. Once–in a moment of weakness and irresolution–I asked a celebrated preacher what suggestion he could make to a rich man, who, having no heirs, sought a means of disposing of his wealth to the best advantage for others after his death. His reply–”

“Was the usual thing, of course,” interposed Sir Francis blandly. “He said, ‘Let the rich man leave it all to me, and God will bless him abundantly!’”

“Well, yes, it came to that,”–and Helmsley gave a short impatient sigh. “He evidently guessed that the rich man implied was myself, for ever since I asked him the question, he has kept me regularly supplied with books and pamphlets relating to his Church and various missions. I daresay he’s a very good fellow. But I’ve no fancy to assist him. He works on sectarian lines, and I am of no sect. Though I confess I should like to believe in God–- if I could.”

Sir Francis, fanning a tiny wreath of cigar smoke away with one hand, looked at him curiously, but offered no remark.

“You said I might talk out to you,” continued Helmsley–”and it is perhaps necessary that I should do so, since you have lately so persistently urged upon me the importance of making my will. You are perfectly right, of course, and I alone am to blame for the apparently stupid hesitation I show in following your advice. But, as I have already told you, I have no one in the world who has the least claim upon me,–no one to whom I can bequeath, to my own satisfaction, the wealth I have earned. I married,–as you know,–and my marriage was unhappy. It ended,–and you are aware of all the facts–in the proved infidelity of my wife, followed by our separation (effected quietly, thanks to you, without the vulgar publicity of the divorce court), and then–in her premature death. Notwithstanding all this, I did my best for my two sons,–you are a witness to this truth,–and you remember that during their lifetime I did make my will,–in their favour. They turned out badly; each one ran his own career of folly, vice, and riotous dissipation, and both are dead. Thus it happens that here I am,–alone at the age of seventy, without any soul to care for me, or any creature to whom I can trust my business, or leave my fortune. It is not my fault that it is so; it is sheer destiny. How, I ask you, can I make any ‘Last Will and Testament’ under such conditions?”

“If you make no will at all, your property goes to the Crown,” said Vesey bluntly.

“Naturally. I know that. But one might have a worse heir than the Crown! The Crown may be trusted to take proper care of money, and this is more than can often be said of one’s sons and daughters. I tell you it is all as Solomon said–‘vanity and vexation of spirit.’ The amassing of great wealth is not worth the time and trouble involved in the task. One could do so much better–”

Here he paused.

“How?” asked Vesey, with a half-smile. “What else is there to be done in this world except to get rich in order to live comfortably?”

“I know people who are not rich at all, and who never will be rich, yet who live more comfortably than I have ever done,” replied Helmsley–”that is, if to ‘live comfortably’ implies to live peacefully, happily, and contentedly, taking each day as it comes with gladness as a real ‘living’ time. And by this, I mean ‘living,’ not with the rush and scramble, fret and jar inseparable from money-making, but living just for the joy of life. Especially when it is possible to believe that a God exists, who designed life, and even death, for the ultimate good of every creature. This is what I believed–once–‘out in ole Virginny, a long time ago!’”

He hummed the last words softly under his breath,–then swept one hand across his eyes with a movement of impatience.

“Old men’s brains grow addled,” he continued. “They become clouded with a fog through which only the memories of the past and the days of their youth shine clear. Sometimes I talk of Virginia as if I were home-sick and wanted to go back to it,–yet I never do. I wouldn’t go back to it for the world,–not now. I’m not an American, so I can say, without any loss of the patriotic sense, that I loathe America. It is a country to be used for the making of wealth, but it is not a country to be loved. It might have been the most lovable Father-and-Mother-Land on the globe if nobler men had lived long enough in it to rescue its people from the degrading Dollar-craze. But now, well!–those who make fortunes there leave it as soon as they can, shaking its dust off their feet and striving to forget that they ever experienced its incalculable greed, vice, cunning, and general rascality. There are plenty of decent folk in America, of course, just as there are decent folk everywhere, but they are in the minority. Even in the Southern States the ‘old stock’ of men is decaying and dying-out, and the taint of commercial vulgarity is creeping over the former simplicity of the Virginian homestead. No,–I would not go back to the scene of my boyhood, for though I had something there once which I have since lost, I am not such a fool as to think I should ever find it again.”

Here he looked round at his listener with a smile so sudden and sweet as to render his sunken features almost youthful.

“I believe I am boring you, Vesey!” he said.

“Not the least in the world,–you never bore me,” replied Sir Francis, with alacrity. “You are always interesting, even in your most illogical humour.”

“You consider me illogical?”

“In a way, yes. For instance, you abuse America. Why? Your misguided wife was American, certainly, but setting that unfortunate fact aside, you made your money in the States. Commercial vulgarity helped you along. Therefore be just to commercial vulgarity.”

“I hope I am just to it,–I think I am,” answered Helmsley slowly; “but I never was one with it. I never expected to wring a dollar out of ten cents, and never tried. I can at least say that I have made my money honestly, and have trampled no man down on the road to fortune. But then–I am not a citizen of the ‘Great Republic.’”

“You were born in America,” said Vesey.

“By accident,” replied Helmsley, with a laugh, “and kindly fate favoured me by allowing me to see my first daylight in the South rather than in the North. But I was never naturalised as an American. My father and mother were both English,–they both came from the same little sea-coast village in Cornwall. They married very young,–theirs was a romantic love-match, and they left England in the hope of bettering their fortunes. They settled in Virginia and grew to love it. My father became accountant to a large business firm out there, and did fairly well, though he never was a rich man in the present-day meaning of the term. He had only two children,–myself and my sister, who died at sixteen. I was barely twenty when I lost both father and mother and started alone to face the world.”

“You have faced it very successfully,” said Vesey; “and if you would only look at things in the right and reasonable way, you have really very little to complain of. Your marriage was certainly an unlucky one–”

“Do not speak of it!” interrupted Helmsley, hastily. “It is past and done with. Wife and children are swept out of my life as though they had never been! It is a curious thing, perhaps, but with me a betrayed affection does not remain in my memory as affection at all, but only as a spurious image of the real virtue, not worth considering or regretting. Standing as I do now, on the threshold of the grave, I look back,–and in looking back I see none of those who wronged and deceived me,–they have disappeared altogether, and their very faces and forms are blotted out of my remembrance. So much so, indeed, that I could, if I had the chance, begin a new life again and never give a thought to the old!”

His eyes flashed a sudden fire under their shelving brows, and his right hand clenched itself involuntarily.

“I suppose,” he continued, “that a kind of harking back to the memories of one’s youth is common to all aged persons. With me it has become almost morbid, for daily and hourly I see myself as a boy, dreaming away the time in the wild garden of our home in Virginia,–watching the fireflies light up the darkness of the summer evenings, and listening to my sister singing in her soft little voice her favourite melody–‘Angels ever bright and fair.’ As I said to you when we began this talk, I had something then which I have never had since. Do you know what it was?”

Sir Francis, here finishing his cigar, threw away its glowing end, and shook his head in the negative.

“You will think me as sentimental as I am garrulous,” went on Helmsley, “when I tell you that it was merely–love!”

Vesey raised himself in his chair and sat upright, opening his eyes in astonishment.

“Love!” he echoed. “God bless my soul! I should have thought that you, of all men in the world, could have won that easily!”

Helmsley turned towards him with a questioning look.

“Why should I ‘of all men in the world’ have won it?” he asked. “Because I am rich? Rich men are seldom, if ever, loved for themselves–only for what they can give to their professing lovers.”

His ordinarily soft tone had an accent of bitterness in it, and Sir Francis Vesey was silent.

“Had I remained poor,–poor as I was when I first started to make my fortune,” he went on, “I might possibly have been loved by some woman, or some friend, for myself alone. For as a young fellow I was not bad-looking, nor had I, so I flatter myself, an unlikable disposition. But luck always turned the wheel in my favour, and at thirty-five I was a millionaire. Then I ‘fell’ in love,–and married on the faith of that emotion, which is always a mistake. ‘Falling in love’ is not loving. I was in the full flush of my strength and manhood, and was sufficiently proud of myself to believe that my wife really cared for me. There I was deceived. She cared for my millions. So it chances that the only real love I have ever known was the unselfish ‘home’ affection,–the love of my mother and father and sister ‘out in ole Virginny,’ ‘a love so sweet it could not last,’ as Shelley sings. Though I believe it can and does last,–for my soul (or whatever that strange part of me may be which thinks beyond the body) is always running back to that love with a full sense of certainty that it is still existent.”

His voice sank and seemed to fail him for a moment. He looked up at the large, bright star shining steadily above him.

“You are silent, Vesey,” he said, after a pause, speaking with an effort at lightness; “and wisely too, for I know you have nothing to say–that is, nothing that could affect the position. And you may well ask, if you choose, to what does all this reminiscent old man’s prattle tend? Simply to this–that you have been urging me for the last six months to make my will in order to replace the one which was previously made in favour of my sons, and which is now destroyed, owing to their deaths before my own,–and I tell you plainly and frankly that I don’t know how to make it, as there is no one in the world whom I care to name as my heir.”

Sir Francis sat gravely ruminating for a moment;–then he said:–

“Why not do as I suggested to you once before–adopt a child? Find some promising boy, born of decent, healthy, self-respecting parents,–educate him according to your own ideas, and bring him up to understand his future responsibilities. How would that suit you?”

“Not at all,” replied Helmsley drily. “I haveheard of parents willing to sell their children, but I should scarcely call them decent or self-respecting. I know of one case where a couple of peasants sold their son for five pounds in order to get rid of the trouble of rearing him. He turned out a famous man,–but though he was, in due course, told his history, he never acknowledged the unnatural vendors of his flesh and blood as his parents, and quite right too. No,–I have had too much experience of life to try such a doubtful business as that of adopting a child. The very fact of adoption by so miserably rich a man as myself would buy a child’s duty and obedience rather than win it. I will have no heir at all, unless I can discover one whose love for me is sincerely unselfish and far above all considerations of wealth or worldly advantage.”

“It is rather late in the day, perhaps,” said Vesey after a pause, speaking hesitatingly, “but–but–you might marry?”

Helmsley laughed loudly and harshly.

“Marry! I! At seventy! My dear Vesey, you are a very old friend, and privileged to say what others dare not, or you would offend me. If I had ever thought of marrying again I should have done so two or three years after my wife’s death, when I was in the fifties, and not waited till now, when my end, if not actually near, is certainly well in sight. Though I daresay there are plenty of women who would marry me–even me–at my age,–knowing the extent of my income. But do you think I would take one of them, knowing in my heart that it would be a mere question of sale and barter? Not I!–I could never consent to sink so low in my own estimation of myself. I can honestly say I have never wronged any woman. I shall not begin now.”

“I don’t see why you should take that view of it,” murmured Sir Francis placidly. “Life is not lived nowadays as it was when you first entered upon your career. For one thing, men last longer and don’t give up so soon. Few consider themselves old at seventy. Why should they? There’s a learned professor at the Pasteur Institute who declares we ought all to live to a hundred and forty. If he’s right, you are still quite a young man.”

Helmsley rose from his chair with a slightly impatient gesture.

“We won’t discuss any so-called ‘new theories,’” he said. “They are only echoes of old fallacies. The professor’s statement is merely a modern repetition of the ancient belief in the elixir of life. Shall we go in?”

Vesey got up from his lounging position more slowly and stiffly than Helmsley had done. Some ten years younger as he was, he was evidently less active.

“Well,” he said, as he squared his shoulders and drew himself erect, “we are no nearer a settlement of what I consider a most urgent and important affair than when we began our conversation.”

Helmsley shrugged his shoulders.

“When I come back to town, we will go into the question again,” he said.

“You are off at the end of the week?”

“Yes.”

“Going abroad?”

“I–I think so.”

The answer was given with a slight touch of hesitation.

“Your last ‘function’ of the season is the dance you are giving to-morrow night, I suppose,” continued Sir Francis, studying with a vague curiosity the spare, slight figure of his companion, who had turned from him and, with one foot on the sill of the open French window, was just about to enter the room beyond.

“Yes. It is Lucy’s birthday.”

“Ah! Miss Lucy Sorrel! How old is she?”

“Just twenty-one.”

And, as he spoke, Helmsley stepped into the apartment from which the window opened out upon the balcony, and waited a moment for Vesey to follow.

“She has always been a great favourite of yours,” said Vesey, as he entered. “Now, why–”

“Why don’t I leave her my fortune, you would ask?” interrupted Helmsley, with a touch of sarcasm. “Well, first, because she is a woman, and she might possibly marry a fool or a wastrel. Secondly, because though I have known her ever since she was a child of ten, I have no liking for her parents or for any of her family connections. When I first took a fancy to her she was playing about on the shore at a little seaside place on the Sussex coast,–I thought her a pretty little creature, and have made rather a pet of her ever since. But beyond giving her trinkets and bon-bons, and offering her such gaieties and amusements as are suitable to her age and sex, I have no other intentions concerning her.”

Sir Francis took a comprehensive glance round the magnificent drawing-room in which he now stood,–a drawing-room more like a royal reception-room of the First Empire than a modern apartment in the modern house of a merely modern millionaire. Then he chuckled softly to himself, and a broad smile spread itself among the furrows of his somewhat severely featured countenance.

“Mrs. Sorrel would be sorry if she knew that,” he said. “I think–I really think, Helmsley, that Mrs. Sorrel believes you are still in the matrimonial market!”

Helmsley’s deeply sunken eyes flashed out a sudden searchlight of keen and quick inquiry, then his brows grew dark with a shadow of scorn.

“Poor Lucy!” he murmured. “She is very unfortunate in her mother, and equally so in her father. Matt Sorrel never did anything in his life but bet on the Turf and gamble at Monte Carlo, and it’s too late for him to try his hand at any other sort of business. His daughter is a nice girl and a pretty one,–but now that she has grown from a child into a woman I shall not be able to do much more for her. She will have to do something for herself in finding a good husband.”

Sir Francis listened with his head very much on one side. An owl-like inscrutability of legal wisdom seemed to have suddenly enveloped him in a cloud. Pulling himself out of this misty reverie he said abruptly:–

“Well–good-night! or rather good-morning! It’s past one o’clock. Shall I see you again before you leave town?”

“Probably. If not, you will hear from me.”

“You won’t reconsider the advisability of–”

“No, I won’t!” And Helmsley smiled. “I’m quite obstinate on that point. If I die suddenly, my property goes to the Crown,–if not, why then you will in due course receive your instructions.”

Vesey studied him with thoughtful attention.

“You’re a queer fellow, David!” he said, at last. “But I can’t help liking you. I only wish you were not quite so–so romantic!”

“Romantic!” Helmsley looked amused. “Romance and I said good-bye to each other years ago. I admit that I used to be romantic–but I’m not now.”

“You are!” And Sir Francis frowned a legal frown which soon brightened into a smile. “A man of your age doesn’t want to be loved for himself alone unless he’s very romantic indeed! And that’s what you do want!–and that’s what I’m afraid you won’t get, in your position–not as this world goes! Good-night!”

“Good-night!”

They walked out of the drawing-room to the head of the grand staircase, and there shook hands and parted, a manservant being in waiting to show Sir Francis to the door. But late as the hour was, Helmsley did not immediately retire to rest. Long after all his household were in bed and sleeping, he sat in the hushed solitude of his library, writing many letters. The library was on a line with the drawing-room, and its one window, facing the Mall, was thrown open to admit such air as could ooze through the stifling heat of the sultry night. Pausing once in the busy work of his hand and pen, Helmsley looked up and saw the bright star he had watched from the upper balcony, peering in upon him steadily like an eye. A weary smile, sadder than scorn, wavered across his features.

“That’s Venus,” he murmured half aloud. “The Eden star of all very young people,–the star of Love!”

CHAPTER II

On the following evening the cold and frowning aspect of the mansion in Carlton House Terrace underwent a sudden transformation. Lights gleamed from every window; the strip of garden which extended from the rear of the building to the Mall, was covered in by red and white awning, and the balcony where the millionaire master of the dwelling had, some few hours previously, sat talking with his distinguished legal friend, Sir Francis Vesey, was turned into a kind of lady’s bower, softly carpeted, adorned with palms and hothouse roses, and supplied with cushioned chairs for the voluptuous ease of such persons of opposite sexes as might find their way to this suggestive “flirtation” corner. The music of a renowned orchestra of Hungarian performers flowed out of the open doors of the sumptuous ballroom which was one of the many attractions of the house, and ran in rhythmic vibrations up the stairs, echoing through all the corridors like the sweet calling voices of fabled nymphs and sirens, till, floating still higher, it breathed itself out to the night,–a night curiously heavy and sombre, with a blackness of sky too dense for any glimmer of stars to shine through. The hum of talk, the constant ripple of laughter, the rustle of women’s silken garments, the clatter of plates and glasses in the dining-room, where a costly ball-supper awaited its devouring destiny,–the silvery tripping and slipping of light dancing feet on a polished floor–all these sounds, intermingling with the gliding seductive measure of the various waltzes played in quick succession by the band, created a vague impression of confusion and restlessness in the brain, and David Helmsley himself, the host and entertainer of the assembled guests, watched the brilliant scene from the ballroom door with a weary sense of melancholy which he knew was unfounded and absurd, yet which he could not resist,–a touch of intense and utter loneliness, as though he were a stranger in his own home.

“I feel,” he mused, “like some very poor old fellow asked in by chance for a few minutes, just to see the fun!”

He smiled,–yet was unable to banish his depression. The bare fact of the worthlessness of wealth was all at once borne in upon him with overpowering weight. This magnificent house which his hard earnings had purchased,–this ballroom with its painted panels and sculptured friezes, crowded just now with kaleidoscope pictures of men and women whirling round and round in a maze of music and movement,–the thousand precious and costly things he had gathered about him in his journey through life,–must all pass out of his possession in a few brief years, and there was not a soul who loved him or whom he loved, to inherit them or value them for his sake. A few brief years! And then–darkness. The lights gone out,–the music silenced–the dancing done! And the love that he had dreamed of when he was a boy–love, strong and great and divine enough to outlive death–where was it? A sudden sigh escaped him–

“DearMr. Helmsley, you look so verytired!” said a woman’s purring voice at his ear. “Dogo and rest in your own room for a few minutes before supper! You have been so kind!–Lucy is quite touched and overwhelmed by allyour goodness to her,–no lovercould do more for a girl, I’m sure! But really you mustspare yourself! What shouldwe do without you!”

“What indeed!” he replied, somewhat drily, as he looked down at the speaker, a cumbrous matron attired in an over-frilled and over-flounced costume of pale grey, which delicate Quakerish colour rather painfully intensified the mottled purplish-red of her face. “But I am not at all tired, Mrs. Sorrel, I assure you! Don’t trouble yourself about me–I’m very well.”

“Areyou?” And Mrs. Sorrel looked volumes of tenderest insincerity. “Ah! But you know we oldpeople mustbe careful! Young folks can do anything and everything–but we, at ourage, need to be over-particular!”

“Youshouldn’t call yourself old, Mrs. Sorrel,” said Helmsley, seeing that she expected this from him, “you’re quite a young woman.”

Mrs. Sorrel gave a little deprecatory laugh.

“Oh dear no!” she said, in a tone which meant “Oh dear yes!” “I wasn’t married at sixteen, you know!”

“No? You surprise me!”

Mrs. Sorrel peered at him from under her fat eyelids with a slightly dubious air. She was never quite sure in her own mind as to the way in which “old Gold-Dust,” as she privately called him, regarded her. An aged man, burdened with an excess of wealth, was privileged to have what are called “humours,” and certainly he sometimes had them. It was necessary–or so Mrs. Sorrel thought–to deal with him delicately and cautiously–neither with too much levity, nor with an overweighted seriousness. One’s plan of conduct with a multi-millionaire required to be thought out with sedulous care, and entered upon with circumspection. And Mrs Sorrel did not attempt even as much as a youthful giggle at Helmsley’s half-sarcastically implied compliment with its sarcastic implication as to the ease with which she supported her years and superabundance of flesh tissue. She merely heaved a short sigh.

“I was just one year younger than Lucy is to-day,” she said, “and I really thought myself quite an oldbride! I was a mother at twenty-one.”

Helmsley found nothing to say in response to this interesting statement, particularly as he had often heard it before.

“Who is Lucy dancing with?” he asked irrelevantly, by way of diversion.

“Oh, my dearMr. Helmsley, who is she notdancing with!” and Mrs. Sorrel visibly swelled with maternal pride. “Every young man in the room has rushed at her–positively rushed!–and her programme was full five minutes after she arrived! Isn’t she looking lovely to-night?–a perfect sylph! Dotell me you think she is a sylph!”

David’s old eyes twinkled.

“I have never seen a sylph, Mrs. Sorrel, so I cannot make the comparison,” he said; “but Lucy is a very beautiful girl, and I think she is looking her best this evening. Her dress becomes her. She ought to find a good husband easily.”

“She ought,–indeed she ought! But it is very difficult–very, very difficult! All the men marry for money nowadays, not for love–ah!–how different it was when you and I were young, Mr. Helmsley! Love was everything then,–and there was so much romance and poetical sentiment!”

“Romance is a snare, and poetical sentiment a delusion,” said Helmsley, with sudden harshness. “I proved that in my marriage. I should think you had equally proved it in yours!”

Mrs. Sorrel recoiled a little timorously. “Old Gold-Dust” often said unpleasant things–truthful, but eminently tactless,–and she felt that he was likely to say some of those unpleasant things now. Therefore she gave a fluttering gesture of relief and satisfaction as the waltz-music just then ceased, and her daughter’s figure, tall, slight, and marvellously graceful, detached itself from the swaying crowd in the ballroom and came towards her.

“Dearest child!” she exclaimed effusively, “are you not quitetired out?”

The “dearest child” shrugged her white shoulders and laughed.

“Nothing tires me, mother–you know that!” she answered–then with a sudden change from her air of careless indifference to one of coaxing softness, she turned to Helmsley.

“Youmust be tired!” she said. “Why have you been standing so long at the ballroom door?”

“I have been watching you, Lucy,” he replied gently. “It has been a pleasure for me to see you dance. I am too old to dance with you myself, otherwise I should grudge all the young men the privilege.”

“I will dance with you, if you like,” she said, smiling. “There is one more set of Lancers before supper. Will you be my partner?”

He shook his head.

“Not even to please you, my child!” and taking her hand he patted it kindly. “There is no fool like an old, fool, I know, but I am not quite so foolish as that.”

“I see nothing at all foolish in it,” pouted Lucy. “You are my host, and it’s my coming-of-age party.”

Helmsley laughed.

“So it is! And the festival must not be spoilt by any incongruities. It will be quite sufficient honour for me to take you in to supper.”

She looked down at the flowers she wore in her bodice, and played with their perfumed petals.

“I like you better than any man here,” she said suddenly.

A swift shadow crossed his face. Glancing over his shoulder he saw that Mrs. Sorrel had moved away. Then the cloud passed from his brow, and the thought that for a moment had darkened his mind, yielded to a kinder impulse.

“You flatter me, my dear,” he said quietly. “But I am such an old friend of yours that I can take your compliment in the right spirit without having my head turned by it. Indeed, I can hardly believe that it is eleven years ago since I saw you playing about on the seashore as a child. You seem to have grown up like a magic rose, all at once from a tiny bud into a full blossom. Do you remember how I first made your acquaintance?”

“As if I should ever forget!” and she raised her lovely, large dark eyes to his. “I had been paddling about in the sea, and I had lost my shoes and stockings. You found them for me, and you put them on!”

“True!” and he smiled. “You had very wet little feet, all rosy with the salt of the sea–and your long hair was blown about in thick curls round the brightest, sweetest little face in the world. I thought you were the prettiest little girl I had ever seen in my life, and I think just the same of you now.”

A pale blush flitted over her cheeks, and she dropped him a demure curtsy.

“Thank you!” she said. “And if you won’t dance the Lancers, which are just beginning, will you sit them out with me?”

“Gladly!” and he offered her his arm. “Shall we go up to the drawing-room? It is cooler there than here.”

She assented, and they slowly mounted the staircase together. Some of the evening’s guests lounging about in the hall and loitering near the ballroom door, watched them go, and exchanged significant glances. One tall woman with black eyes and a viperish mouth, who commanded a certain exclusive “set” by virtue of being the wife of a dissolute Earl whose house was used as a common gambling resort, found out Mrs. Sorrel sitting among a group of female gossips in a corner, and laid a patronising hand upon her shoulder.

“Dotell me!” she softly breathed. “Isit a case?”

Mrs. Sorrel began to flutter immediately.

“DearestLady Larford! What doyou mean!”

“Surely you know!” And the wide mouth of her ladyship grew still wider, and the black eyes more steely. “Will Lucy get him, do you think?”

Mrs. Sorrel fidgeted uneasily in her chair. Other people were listening.

“Really,” she mumbled nervously–”really, dearLady Larford!–you put things so veryplainly!–I–I cannot say!–you see–he is more like her father–”

Lady Larford showed all her white teeth in an expansive grin.

“Oh, that’s very safe!” she said. “The ‘father’ business works very well when sufficient cash is put in with it. I know several examples of perfect matrimonial bliss between old men and young girls–absolutely perfect! One is bound to be happy with heaps of money!”

And keeping her teeth still well exposed, Lady Larford glided away, her skirts exhaling an odour of civet-cat as she moved. Mrs. Sorrel gazed after her helplessly, in a state of worry and confusion, for she instinctively felt that her ladyship’s pleasure would now be to tell everybody whom she knew, that Lucy Sorrel, “the new girl who was presented at Court last night,” was having a “try” for the Helmsley millions; and that if the “try” was not successful, no one living would launch more merciless and bitter jests at the failure and defeat of the Sorrels than this same titled “leader” of a section of the aristocratic gambling set. For there has never been anything born under the sun crueller than a twentieth-century woman of fashion to her own sex–except perhaps a starving hyæna tearing asunder its living prey.

Meanwhile, David Helmsley and his young companion had reached the drawing-room, which they found quite unoccupied. The window-balcony, festooned with rose-silk draperies and flowers, and sparkling with tiny electric lamps, offered itself as an inviting retreat for a quiet chat, and within it they seated themselves, Helmsley rather wearily, and Lucy Sorrel with the queenly air and dainty rustle of soft garments habitual to the movements of a well-dressed woman.

“I have not thanked you half enough,” she began, “for all the delightful things you have done for my birthday–”

“Pray spare me!” he interrupted, with a deprecatory gesture–”I would rather you said nothing.”

“Oh, but I must say something!” she went on. “You are so generous and good in yourself that of course you cannot bear to be thanked–I know that–but if you will persist in giving so much pleasure to a girl who, but for you, would have no pleasure at all in her life, you must expect that girl to express her feelings somehow. Now, mustn’t you?”

She leaned forward, smiling at him with an arch expression of sweetness and confidence. He looked at her attentively, but said nothing.

“When I got your lovely present the first thing this morning,” she continued, “I could hardly believe my eyes. Such an exquisite necklace!–such perfect pearls! Dear Mr. Helmsley, you quite spoil me! I’m not worth all the kind thought and trouble you take on my behalf.”

Tears started to her eyes, and her lips quivered. Helmsley saw her emotion with only a very slight touch of concern. Her tears were merely sensitive, he thought, welling up from a young and grateful heart, and as the prime cause of that young heart’s gratitude he delicately forbore to notice them. This chivalrous consideration on his part caused some little disappointment to the shedder of the tears, but he could not be expected to know that.

“I’m glad you are pleased with my little gift,” he said simply, “though I’m afraid it is quite a conventional and ordinary one. Pearls and girls always go together, in fact as in rhyme. After all, they are the most suitable jewels for the young–for they are emblems of everything that youth should be–white and pure and innocent.”

Her breath came and went quickly.

“Do you think youth is always like that?” she asked.

“Not always,–but surely most often,” he answered. “At any rate, I wish to believe in the simplicity and goodness of all young things.”

She was silent. Helmsley studied her thoughtfully,–even critically. And presently he came to the conclusion that as a child she had been much prettier than she now was as a woman. Yet her present phase of loveliness was of the loveliest type. No fault could be found with the perfect oval of her face, her delicate white-rose skin, her small seductive mouth, curved in the approved line of the “Cupid’s bow,” her deep, soft, bright eyes, fringed with long-lashes a shade darker than the curling waves of her abundant brown hair. But her features in childhood had expressed something more than the beauty which had developed with the passing of years. A sweet affection, a tender earnestness, and an almost heavenly candour had made the attractiveness of her earlier age quite irresistible, but now–or so Helmsley fancied–that fine and subtle charm had gone. He was half ashamed of himself for allowing this thought to enter his mind, and quickly dismissing it, he said–

“How did your presentation go off last night? Was it a full Court?”

“I believe so,” she replied listlessly, unfurling a painted fan and waving it idly to and fro–”I cannot say that I found it very interesting. The whole thing bored me dreadfully.”

He smiled.

“Bored you! Is it possible to be bored at twenty-one?”

“I think every one, young or old, is bored more or less nowadays,” she said. “Boredom is a kind of microbe in the air. Most society functions are deadly dull. And where’s the fun of being presented at Court? If a woman wears a pretty gown, all the other women try to tread on it and tear it off her back if they can. And the Royal people only speak to their own special ‘set,’ and not always the best-looking or best-mannered set either.”

Helmsley looked amused.

“Well, it’s what is called an entréeinto the world,”–he replied. “For my own part, I have never been ‘presented,’ and never intend to be. I see too much of Royalty privately, in the dens of finance.”

“Yes–all the kings and princes wanting to borrow money,” she said quickly and flippantly. “And you must despise the lot. Youare a real ‘King,’ bigger than any crowned head, because you can do just as you like, and you are not the servant of Governments or peoples. I am sure you must be the happiest man in the world!”

She plucked off a rose from a flowering rose-tree near her, and began to wrench out its petals with a quick, nervous movement. Helmsley watched her with a vague sense of annoyance.

“I am no more happy,” he said suddenly, “than that rose you are picking to pieces, though it has never done you any harm.”

She started, and flushed,–then laughed.

“Oh, the poor little rose!” she exclaimed–”I’m sorry! I’ve had so many roses to-day, that I don’t think about them. I suppose it’s wrong.”

“It’s not wrong,” he answered quietly; “it’s merely the fault of those who give you more roses than you know how to appreciate.”

She looked at him inquiringly, but could not fathom his expression.

“Still,” he went on, “I would not have your life deprived of so much as one rose. And there is a very special rose that does not grow in earthly gardens, which I should like you to find and wear on your heart, Lucy,–I hope I shall see you in the happy possession of it before I die,–I mean the rose of love.”

She lifted her head, and her eyes shone coldly.

“Dear Mr. Helmsley,” she said, “I don’t believe in love!”

A flash of amazement, almost of anger, illumined his worn features.

“You don’t believe in love!” he echoed. “O child, what doyou believe in, then?”

The passion of his tone moved her to a surprised smile.

“Well, I believe in being happy while you can,” she replied tranquilly. “And love isn’t happiness. All my girl and men friends who are what they call ‘in love’ seem to be thoroughly miserable. Many of them get perfectly ill with jealousy, and they never seem to know whether what they call their ‘love’ will last from one day to another. I shouldn’t care to live at such a high tension of nerves. My own mother and father married ‘for love,’ so I am always told,–and I’m sure a more quarrelsome couple never existed. I believe in friendship more than love.”