LITMIR.BIZ

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across it—softly, gently, tenderly, as it might have kissed the forehead of the dead.

V

       A SYMPOSIUM

       Table of Contents

      Adrian Sorio sat opposite his friend over a warm brightly burning fire.

      Baltazar Stork was a slight frail man of so delicate and dainty an appearance that many people were betrayed into behaving towards him as gently and considerately as if he had been a girl. This, though a compliment to his fragility, was bad policy in those who practised it, for Baltazar was an egoist of inflexible temper and under his velvet glove carried a hand of steel.

      The room in which the two friends conversed was furnished in exquisite and characteristic taste. Old prints, few in number and rare in quality, adorned its walls. Precious pieces of china, invaluable statuettes in pottery and metal, stood charmingly arranged, with due space round each, in every corner. On either side of the mantelpiece was a Meissen-ware figure of engaging aspect and Watteau-like design, while in the centre, in the place where a clock is usually to be found, was a piece of statuary of ravishing delicacy and grace representing the escape of Syrinx from the hands of Pan.

      The most remarkable picture in the room, attracting the attention at once of all who entered, was a dark, richly coloured, oval-shaped portrait—a portrait of a young man in a Venetian cloak, with a broad, smooth forehead, heavy-lidded penetrating eyes, and pouting disdainful mouth. This picture, said to have been painted under the influence of Giorgione by that incomparable artist’s best loved friend, passed for a portrait of Eugenio Flambard, the favourite secretary of the Republic’s most famous ambassador during his residence at the Papal Court.

      The majority of these treasures had been picked up by Baltazar during certain prolonged holidays in various parts of the Continent. This, however, was several years ago before the collapse of the investment, or whatever it was, which he inherited from Herman Renshaw.

      Since that time he had been more or less dependent upon Brand, a dependence which nothing but his happy relations with Brand’s mother and sister and his unfailing urbanity could have made tolerable.

      “Adrian, you old villain, why didn’t you tell me you’d seen Philippa. Brand informed me yesterday that you’ve seen her twice. This isn’t the kind of thing that pleases me at all. I don’t approve of these clandestine meetings. Do you hear me, you old reprobate? You don’t think it’s very nice, do you, for me to learn by accident—by a sort of wretched accident—of an event like this? If you must be at these little games you might at least be open about them. Besides, I have a brotherly interest in Philippa. I don’t want to have her innocence corrupted by an old satyr like you.”

      Sorio contented himself by murmuring the word “Rats.”

      “It’s all very well for you to cry ‘Rats!’ in that tone,” went on the other. “The truth is, this affair is going to become serious. You don’t suppose for a moment, do you, that your Nance is going to lie down, as they say, and let my extraordinary sister walk over her?”

      Adrian got up from his seat and began pacing up and down the little room.

      “It’s absurd,” he muttered, “it’s all absurd. I feel as if the whole thing were a kind of devilish dream. Yes, the whole thing! It’s all because I’ve got nothing to do but walk up and down these damned sands!”

      Baltazar watched him with a serene smile, his soft chin supported by his feminine fingers and his fair, curly head tilted a little on one side.

      “But you know, mon enfant,” he threw in with a teasing caress in his voice, “you know very well you’re the last person to talk of work. It was work that did for you in America. You don’t want to start that over again, do you?”

      Adrian stood still and glared at him.

      “Do you think I’m going to let that—as you call it—finish me forever? My life’s only begun. In London it was different. By God! I wish I’d stayed in London! Nance feels just the same. I know she does. She’ll have to get something, too, or we shall both go mad. It’s this cursed sea of yours! I’ve a good mind to marry her, out of hand, and clear off. We’d find something—somewhere—anywhere—to keep body and soul together.”

      “Why did you come to us at all, my dear, if you find us so dreadful?” laughed Baltazar, bending down to tie his shoe-string and pull up more tightly one of his silk socks.

      Adrian made no answer but continued his ferocious pacing of the room.

      “You’ll knock something over if you’re not careful,” protested his friend, shrugging his shoulders. “You’re the most troublesome fellow. You accept a person’s offer and make no end of a fuss over it, and then a couple of weeks later you roar like a bull and send us all to the devil. What’s the matter with us? What’s the matter with the place? Why can’t you and your precious Nance behave like ordinary people and make love to one another and be happy? She’s got all her time to herself and you’ve got all your time to yourself. Why can’t you enjoy yourselves and collect seaweed or starfish or something?”

      Adrian paused in his savage prowl for the second time.

      “It’s your confounded sea that’s at the bottom of it,” he shouted. “It gets on her nerves and it gets on mine. Little Linda was perfectly right to be scared of it.”

      “I fancied,” drawled the other, selecting a cigarette from an enamelled box and turning up the lamp, “you found little Linda’s fears rather engaging than otherwise.”

      “It works upon us,” Sorio went on, heedless of the interruption, “it works upon us in some damnable kind of way! Nance says she hears it in her sleep. I’m sure I do. I hear it without a moment’s cessation. Listen to the thing now—shish, shish, shish, shish! Why can’t it make some other noise? Why can’t it stop altogether? It makes me long for the whole damned farce to end. It annoys me, Tassar, it annoys me!”

      “Sorry you find the elements so trying, Adriano,” replied the other languidly, “but I really don’t know what I can do to help you—I can only advise you to keep out of Philippa’s way. She’s an element more troublesome than any of them.”

      “Tassar!” shouted the enraged man in a burst of fury, “if you don’t stop dragging Philippa in, I’ll murder you! What’s Philippa to me? I hate her—do you hear? I hate the very sound of her name!”

      “Her name?” murmured Stork, meditatively, “her name? Oh, I think you’re quite wrong to hate that. Her name suggests all sorts of interesting things. Her name has quite a historic sound. It’s mediæval in colour and Greek in form. It makes me think of Euripides.”

      “This whole damned Rodmoor of yours,” moaned Adrian, “gets too much for me. Where on earth else, could a man find it so hard to collect his thoughts and look at things as they are? There’s something here which works upon the mind, Tassar, something which works upon the mind.”

      “What’s working on your mind, my friend,” laughed Baltazar Stork, “is not anything so vague as dreams or anything so simple as the sea. It’s just the quite definite but somewhat complicated business of managing two love affairs at the same time! I’m sorry for you, little Adrian, I’m extremely sorry for you. It’s a situation not unknown in the history of the world, in fact, it might be called quite common. But I’m afraid that doesn’t make it any pleasanter for you. However, it can be dealt with, with a little skill, Adrian, with just a little skill!”

      The man accused in this teasing manner turned furiously round, an angry outburst of blind protest trembling on his tongue. At that moment there was a low knock at the outer door. Baltazar jumped to his feet. “That must be Raughty,” he cried. “I begged him to come round to-night. I so longed for you to meet him.” He hastened out

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