The Hypocrite

"I have a beautiful idea," said Sturtevant, after a pause.

"Yes?"

"Look here, you know all the High Church goings-on at Oxford, don't you?"

"Yes, but why?"

"There's a paper run in London called The Protesting Protestant, which discovers a new popish plot every week. Well, you supply me with enough facts and names to prove that there is widespread conspiracy going on to Romanize the undergraduates. See?"

"Ripping!"

"Yes, but wait a minute, the best part is to come. Then you go to the opposition High Church paper with a letter of introduction from Father Gray, and answer my attack and so on for the next few weeks, and divide the swag"; and he leaned back in his chair with a cigarette, with an air of conscious merit.

"This is more than smartness, Sturtevant," said Gobion, wagging his head at the tobacco-jar, "this is genius."

"We must be careful in what we say. It would be unpleasant to be imprisoned for a portion of our unnatural lives."

"Yes, we will hint more than we state. Style is the art of leaving out."

They went on like this for a good part of the night, arranging their plans, inventing new scandal, and making notes of useful lies.

Towards morning they had settled enough for a week's continuous work; only proposing, however, to deal with the less reputable papers, for they both knew well that there was no chance with any respectable sheet.

Just as Gobion was going, Sturtevant said, "What about typing? we can't send them in MSS."

"I think I can manage that," said Gobion; "a man called Wild, the sub-editor of The Pilgrim, is living with that girl Blanche Huntley, who was mixed up in the Wrampling case. She used to be a typewriter, and she has a machine still. Moreover she'd be glad to earn a pound or two for pocket money; Wild isn't generous. I wonder, by the way, if any of the things we propose to write are true?"

"Possibly; nature is always committing a breach of promise against the journalist."

They arranged not to begin the work till the Friday morning, as Gobion wished to have a day to spend with Marjorie.

In the morning he called in Kensington, and Mr. Lovering, with a chilly Christian smile, in which perchance lingered some reminiscence of his youth, left the two young people together.

Soon after, Gobion was sitting at Marjorie's side, with his arm round her waist and her head delightfully near his. Melodiously he whispered his joy at seeing her again, holding her little, tender, perfumed hand. He called forth all his powers of pleasing, and paid her delicate compliments, like kisses through a veil, compliments such as girls love, the refinements of adoration arranged neatly in a bouquet.

Marjorie was a damsel of many flirtatious loves, though perhaps Gobion was her especial favourite, he was so extremely good-looking; but she was the sort of girl that took nothing but chocolates seriously. As her mother had died when she was quite young, she had been sent to a boarding school, and had caught the note. She had no mind – girls of this sort never have – but she was adorably pretty, which, to most men, is much better.

They both pretended they were very fond of one another, Marjorie because she liked to be kissed and adored, and Gobion because, after bought loves, he found a pleasant freshness. It was not only better and holier, but more piquant. At times, now past, he had persuaded himself that her influence was ennobling and purifying, but the cynicism engendered by evil was burning this feeling out.

He was rapidly getting into the condition when everything loses its savour. Despite his emotional and sympathetic nature, the least glimpse of higher things was going, and though he put the thought from him, he knew in his inmost soul that the time was approaching when life would have nothing more left. Meanwhile it was pleasant to linger in this last gleam of sunshine – to run his fingers through his lady's hair.

He spent the day at the house, meeting old Mrs. Lovering at lunch. She was a lady of the old school, with a black knitted shawl, and the three graces pictured on a cornelian brooch. She disapproved of her granddaughter as too modern, and taking things too much for granted. Indeed, the old lady had a dim idea that Marjorie must be one of the "new" women she had read of in the papers, though if she had ever seen that sexless oddity she would have rescinded her opinion with a gasp of relief.

After a drive in the park, sitting on the front seat of the barouche with Marjorie, and holding her hand under the carriage rug, Gobion went home. The fire had gone out, leaving the room dark and cheerless, in sympathy with his thoughts. But then came a stroll for a few yards in the bright and animated street to the "copy shop," and by the time he got there his spirits had returned.

They were all there, and he soon forgot everything else in the pride of dominating them and making his presence felt.

Sturtevant, who was known in the place, came in, and they had a jolly riotous time, the estimable Mr. Heath having to be sent home in a cab long before closing time.

Sturtevant drank till he was white and shaking, but kept quite sober, and was as caustic as ever. Wild dramatically related, amid shouts of laughter, how he had first met his protègè Blanche Huntley, when he was reporting in the divorce court. It was one of his dearest memories. Altogether it was a most successful evening.

Then came a week of terribly arduous work, from nine in the morning till late at night, varied for Gobion by two or three flying visits to the Loverings. Night after night they wrote with the whiskey bottle between them. MS. after MS. was finished and sent off to be typed; and then when they had produced a number of articles, paragraphs, and stories, possibly unequalled in London for their brilliancy and falsity, they both went to bed in Sturtevant's rooms for a day and a half, utterly speechless and worn out.

When the copy was despatched, for Gobion there was a period of peace and Marjorie. And for three or four days, while Sturtevant sat in his rooms and drank, Gobion sunned himself in a cleaner air, while the "copy shop" was deserted.

CHAPTER V

A PSYCHOLOGICAL MOMENT

There was once a wood-louse, who, being dissatisfied with his position, called himself a Pterygobranchiate. This arrogation of dignity was much resented by his friends. "You belong to the Bourgeoisie," they said to him, "and we cannot call to mind that you have done anything to warrant an assumption of this aristocratic title." "My good fools," said the wood-louse, "you mistake the term 'Bourgeoisie.' The Bourgeoisie are not a class. A Bourgeois is merely a man who has time to sit down, a chair is not a caste." So saying he took another glass of log-juice, and looked his friends steadily in the face. He was an epigrammatic wood-louse.

They returned somewhat abashed, and for a time, though he was not liked, he was asked about a good deal; for as people said, "To have a Pterygobranchiate in one's rooms lends a party such an air of distinction."

Our friend made some mistakes at first, for he could not resist the dishes of dried wood á la Française and the '74 log-juice that were of frequent occurrence at the tables of the great. The result of this was that Nemesis, in the shape of gastric pains, overtook him, and he had to moderate his appetites.

"Indigestion," he said, "is charged by God with the enforcement of morality on the stomach, I will reform my habits." Another reason also contributed to this wise decision, for one day, when going to the kitchen for his boots, he heard the cook (an elderly wood-louse of uncertain temper) say to the boy wood-louse who cleaned the knives and helped in the garden: "Master's that independent and 'e smell so of drink since 'e 's been a Pterygobranchiate, there's no bearin' with 'im." He realized how foolish he must look in the eyes of many good people, so he pitched his new visiting cards into a rabbit-hole, and once more returned to middle-class respectability and happiness.

This story has seven morals, only one of which is wanted here, and that is: "Any divergence from habit is generally attended with disastrous results." This was the case with Gobion, who, in an unguarded moment, told Mr. Lovering something approaching the truth, and so gave himself away.

The three or four days at the close of the Loverings' visit were very enjoyable to him, especially after the hard work of the last week; but unfortunately Mr. Lovering could not quite understand what he was doing in London, and after a time bluntly asked him the reason for this change of plans. Thereupon Gobion admitted that he had had a disagreement with his father, and the parson putting two and two together arrived at a guess that was not far short of the truth.

Both of them were humbugs, but with this difference, that while Gobion knew it and made it pay, Mr. Lovering prayed night and morning that he might not find it out. The result was that the clergyman, who, as the father of a most attractive damsel, naturally desired to sell her to an eligible bidder, took Marjorie home at once, telling her that he had been "greatly deceived" in Gobion, and dictating a polite little note which she sent him.

He got the letter while he was at breakfast, and read it slowly, trying in vain to feel it as a blow. It was of no use, however, for it did not even lessen his hunger for the meal before him.

Then in a flash he realized what this callousness meant. It meant simply this, that the actual moment had arrived when all higher aspirations had deserted him, that he was inevitably and firmly bound to sin, while his mind was allowed to realize the horror of it.

His soul had passed into the twilight.

He knew all this in the space of time that it took to pour out a cup of coffee, but not a muscle of his face moved.

He knew the reaction would be torture when it came – the torture of a man damned before death – but until then there was the hideous joy of absolute unrestraint. There would be no more even shadowy scruples, he would frolic in evil over the corpse of a dead conscience.

He rang the bell for some more bacon and a morning paper. While he was reading a "Drama of the Day" article by Clement Scott, the landlady knocked at the door, and said, "Please, sir, a boy messenger has brought this, and is there any answer?" He took the note.

"Dear Mr. Yardly Gobion, – I and Veda are going to The Liars to-night, and we want you to escort us. Come to dinner first if you can.

    "Yours, E."

He scribbled an acceptance and sent it back by the boy. The invitation came from a Mrs. Ella Picton, the wife of Lionel Picton, the editor of the well-known paper The Spy. Gobion had been to her house several times, and she had petted and made much of him.

Her husband was a clever, sardonic man, who let his pretty wife do exactly as she liked. He said that marriage resembled vaccination, it might take well or ill, and as for him he put up with the result for quietness. To his great amusement, his wife had almost persuaded herself that she was in love with Gobion. He looked so young and fresh, with such a pretty mouth, and such expressive eyes. She felt a desire to taste all this dawn.

Picton quite understood, and resolved to use Gobion for his own purposes, as it seemed necessary to have him in the house. Accordingly after dinner he asked him a good many questions about The Pilgrim and its editor. His tongue being loosened by champagne, Gobion made fun of Heath, an easy subject of ridicule, and blasphemed against The Pilgrim.

"Heath is a sort of literary fat boy, an urchin Rabelais," he said.

"Look here, I'll give you ten guineas for a column in The Spy, showing up Heath and The Pilgrim. You needn't give names. Just make it racy, and cut into the old elephant. You'll excuse my talkin' shop in my own house, but I should like to have you on The Spy very much."