valign="top">The Difficult Path

THE DAUGHTER PAYS

CHAPTER I

THE MAN IN THE GALLERY

"Yes, I have felt like some deserted world
That God hath done with, and had cast aside
Untilled, no use, no pleasure, not desired ...
Could such a world have hope that, some blest day,
God would remember her, and fashion her
Anew?"—Jean Ingelow.

The full sunshine of late June, tempered by the medium of London atmosphere, illumined the long extent of Gallery Number Sixteen at Hertford House.

It was a pay-day, and there were, in consequence, but few visitors. The expanse of polished floor glimmered with a suggestion of coolness, a hint of ice; and the summer light touched with brilliance the rich colour on the walls, the mellow harmonies of the bits of old furniture ranged below.

The space and solitude, the silence and sunlight, emphasised and threw into strong relief the figures of two girls, deep in contemplation before the portrait of Isabella, wife of Paul de Vos.

Though these were modern, even ultra-modern, Nattier and Boucher, great interpreters of an artificial age, might have hailed them as kindred spirits. They seemed eloquent of all that luxury could produce in the way of exotic perfection. But for the absence of rouge and powder, they were as far removed from the dingy, the commonplace, or the underbred, as any pre-Revolution marquise, smiling from the windows of her château upon a world dark with misery, convulsed with pain, and all unconscious of its very existence.

Far indeed from these hot-house blooms seemed the seamy side. They were of those who feed on the roses and lie in the lilies of life. They belonged to the class which a novelist of our own day has so happily described as expensive. They were the fine flower of our epoch, and unconscious of their own supreme selfishness.

One was of the petite type, gipsy brown and captivating, from the tip of her plumes to the shoes and stockings which matched her gown, and upon whose buckles the light winked. The other was taller and more willowy. She was not big, but formed with the lithe grace of the modern Atalanta. Something in the veiled loveliness of her soft eye suggested a dove. Her hair was fair, and her face, wide across the brows, and tapering at the chin, seemed designed to make an involuntary appeal to the heartstrings of any man who looked at her. Every movement of this girl was graceful. Yet one would have felt certain that her grace was unstudied; she was not self-conscious; her attentions seemed entirely absorbed by the beauty of the paintings at which she gazed.

Thus she stood, her chin uplifted; and a man who entered, with halting step, from Gallery Fifteen, shot a keen glance and stopped short.

He was not a young man, and his dress, for London, was negligent; whilst his long black moustache gave him a slightly out-of-date, or provincial, aspect. His black hair showed some grey at the temples, but he appeared to be in vigorous health.

For some long moments he stood in absorbed contemplation of the girlish figure isolated against the dim, dignified background of the gallery: and as he gazed there crept into his face an expression which made it almost devilish. Every feature hardened—the mouth took on a sneer, the eyes glowed with some concentration of feeling which altered his whole face for the worse.

As yet unconscious of his presence, the girl gazed on; and after a minute her smaller, darker friend strolled up and joined her. She said something that made the other laugh. The chime of their mirth sounded sweetly through the empty space, but brought to the lips of the watcher a curl of contempt. He began to move forward slowly, seemingly intent upon the pictures, but always coming nearer, until he stood where he could hear the girls' light, careless talk.

"My dear," said the smaller girl, "I am thinking all the time what a fancy dress this would make, for anybody that could wear it." They were standing before Mierevelt's lovely portrait of the young nameless lady in the ruff.

As her companion did not immediately reply, she added insistently: "Virginia! Did you hear?"

The lame man started, or, as it were, winced at the sound of the name; yet a certain satisfaction crept into his eyes, as of one who only reflects: "I thought so! I was not mistaken."

Virginia, thus appealed to, brought her dreamy gaze from the portrait of the burgomaster who sits with his small son. "What? A fancy dress? Oh, Mims, yes! That little bit of stiffened lace round the back of her hair is an inspiration. I could make it, too—I see just how it's done."

The two proceeded to examine the head-dress in detail, with girlish talk about the way to copy it. "Gold embroidery all down the front of her gown. How sweet!" sighed Virginia admiringly. "But that ruff—would it do?"

"For you? Of course! You could wear it, for you have a throat. But what did little people like me do, when they had all that between their chin and their chest?"

Virginia was much amused. "No, Mims, you were not made for a ruff! But then, en revanche, you can wear all those lovely Venetian reds and ambers that I can't touch!"

Childish talk, but with no suspicion of a critical listener! The lame man heard every word. As the eager girl turned to point across the gallery to a picture exemplifying the colours she meant, she slightly brushed against him, for he was standing within a few feet of her. He stepped back, raising his hat in acknowledgment of her gentle apology; and his eyes, full of something between hostility and contempt, met hers hardly, as if in a challenge, for a puzzling instant before he turned away and limped to another place.

Virginia's colour rose and her lips set, as if an unspoken insult had reached her. She was not used to read hostility in the eyes of men. She recovered, however, in a moment, and continued her study of the pictures, moving round for some minutes longer, until Miriam, leaning near her, murmured:

"Shall we go into the next room? There is a custodian there, and that man keeps on staring odiously."

"Yes; let us go and look at the Greuzes," replied Virginia.

It was not long before the unknown man followed them. He was now more careful, however, and kept his eyes for the beauties of the catalogue instead of allowing them to roam towards the beauties of his own day.

"I don't think he meant to be rude," presently said Virginia doubtfully. "He looked at me almost as though he thought he knew