Chương Chương 17 · IN THE RAPHAEL GALLERY.

. IN THE RAPHAEL GALLERY.

It was nearly three o'clock, and in the Biological Laboratory the

lamps were all alight. The class was busy with razors cutting sections

of the root of a fern to examine it microscopically. A certain silent

frog-like boy, a private student who plays no further part in this

story, was working intently, looking more like a frog than usual--his

expression modest with a touch of effort. Behind Miss Heydinger, jaded

and untidy in her early manner again, was a vacant seat, an abandoned

microscope and scattered pencils and note-books.

On the door of the class-room was a list of those who had passed the

Christmas examination. At the head of it was the name of the aforesaid

frog-like boy; next to him came Smithers and one of the girls

bracketed together. Lewisham ingloriously headed the second class, and

Miss Heydinger's name did not appear--there was, the list asserted,

"one failure." So the student pays for the finer emotions.

And in the spacious solitude of the museum gallery devoted to the

Raphael cartoons sat Lewisham, plunged in gloomy meditation. A

negligent hand pulled thoughtfully at the indisputable moustache, with

particular attention to such portions as were long enough to gnaw.

He was trying to see the situation clearly. As he was just smarting

acutely under his defeat, this speaks little for the clearness of his

mind. The shadow of that defeat lay across everything, blotted out the

light of his pride, shaded his honour, threw everything into a new

perspective. The rich prettiness of his love-making had fled to some

remote quarter of his being. Against the frog-like youngster he felt a

savage animosity. And Smithers had betrayed him. He was angry,

bitterly angry, with "swats" and "muggers" who spent their whole time

grinding for these foolish chancy examinations. Nor had the practical

examination been altogether fair, and one of the questions in the

written portion was quite outside the lectures. Biver, Professor

Biver, was an indiscriminating ass, he felt assured, and so too was

Weeks, the demonstrator. But these obstacles could not blind his

intelligence to the manifest cause of his overthrow, the waste of more

than half his available evening, the best time for study in the

twenty-four hours, day after day. And that was going on steadily, a

perpetual leakage of time. To-night he would go to meet her again, and

begin to accumulate to himself ignominy in the second part of the

course, the botanical section, also. And so, reluctantly rejecting one

cloudy excuse after another, he clearly focussed the antagonism

between his relations to Ethel and his immediate ambitions.

Things had come so easily to him for the last two years that he had

taken his steady upward progress in life as assured. It had never

occurred to him, when he went to intercept Ethel after that _séance_,

that he went into any peril of that sort. Now he had had a sharp

reminder. He began to shape a picture of the frog-like boy at home--he

was a private student of the upper middle class--sitting in a

convenient study with a writing-table, book-shelves, and a shaded

lamp--Lewisham worked at his chest of drawers, with his greatcoat on,

and his feet in the lowest drawer wrapped in all his available

linen--and in the midst of incredible conveniences the frog-like boy

was working, working, working. Meanwhile Lewisham toiled through the

foggy streets, Chelsea-ward, or, after he had left her, tramped

homeward--full of foolish imaginings.

He began to think with bloodless lucidity of his entire relationship

to Ethel. His softer emotions were in abeyance, but he told himself no

lies. He cared for her, he loved to be with her and to talk to her and

please her, but that was not all his desire. He thought of the bitter

words of an orator at Hammersmith, who had complained that in our

present civilisation even the elemental need of marriage was

denied. Virtue had become a vice. "We marry in fear and trembling, sex

for a home is the woman's traffic, and the man comes to his heart's

desire when his heart's desire is dead." The thing which had seemed a

mere flourish, came back now with a terrible air of truth. Lewisham

saw that it was a case of divergent ways. On the one hand that shining

staircase to fame and power, that had been his dream from the very

dawn of his adolescence, and on the other hand--Ethel.

And if he chose Ethel, even then, would he have his choice? What would

come of it? A few walks more or less! She was hopelessly poor, he was

hopelessly poor, and this cheat of a Medium was her stepfather! After

all she was not well-educated, she did not understand his work and his

aims....

He suddenly perceived with absolute conviction that after the _séance_

he should have gone home and forgotten her. Why had he felt that

irresistible impulse to seek her out? Why had his imagination spun

such a strange web of possibilities about her? He was involved now,

foolishly involved.... All his future was a sacrifice to this

transitory ghost of love-making in the streets. He pulled spitefully

at his moustache.

His picture began to shape itself into Ethel, and her mysterious

mother, and the vague dexterous Chaffery holding him back, entangled

in an impalpable net from that bright and glorious ascent to

performance and distinction. Leaky boots and the splash of cabs for

all his life as his portion! Already the Forbes Medal, the immediate

step, was as good as lost....

What on earth had he been thinking about? He fell foul of his

upbringing. Men of the upper or middle classes were put up to these

things by their parents; they were properly warned against involving

themselves in this love nonsense before they were independent. It was

much better....

Everything was going. Not only his work--his scientific career, but

the Debating Society, the political movement, all his work for

Humanity.... Why not be resolute--even now?... Why not put the thing

clearly and plainly to her? Or write? If he wrote now he could get the

advantage of the evening at the Library. He must ask her to forgo

these walks home--at least until the next examination. _She_ would

understand. He had a qualm of doubt whether she would understand....

He grew angry at this possibility. But it was no good mincing

matters. If once he began to consider her--Why should he consider her

in that way? Simply because she was unreasonable!

Lewisham had a transitory gust of anger.

Yet that abandonment of the walks insisted on looking mean to him. And

she would think it mean. Which was very much worse, somehow. _Why_

mean? Why should she think it mean? He grew angry again.

The portly museum policeman who had been watching him furtively,

wondering why a student should sit in front of the "Sacrifice of

Lystra" and gnaw lips and nails and moustache, and scowl and glare at

that masterpiece, saw him rise suddenly to his feet with an air of

resolution, spin on his heel, and set off with a quick step out of the

gallery. He looked neither to the right nor the left. He passed out of

sight down the staircase.

"Gone to get some more moustache to eat, I suppose," said the

policeman reflectively....

"One 'ud think something had bit him."

After some pensive moments the policeman strolled along down the

gallery and came to a stop opposite the cartoon.

"Figgers is a bit big for the houses," said the policeman, anxious to

do impartial justice. "But that's Art. I lay '_e_ couldn't do

anything ... not arf so good."