by H. G. Wells
CHAPTER XVII.
IN THE RAPHAEL GALLERY.
It was nearly three o'clock, and in the Biological Laboratory thelamps were all alight. The class was busy with razors cutting sectionsof the root of a fern to examine it microscopically. A certain silentfrog-like boy, a private student who plays no further part in thisstory, was working intently, looking more like a frog than usual--hisexpression modest with a touch of effort. Behind Miss Heydinger, jadedand untidy in her early manner again, was a vacant seat, an abandonedmicroscope and scattered pencils and note-books.
On the door of the class-room was a list of those who had passed theChristmas examination. At the head of it was the name of the aforesaidfrog-like boy; next to him came Smithers and one of the girlsbracketed together. Lewisham ingloriously headed the second class, andMiss 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 theRaphael cartoons sat Lewisham, plunged in gloomy meditation. Anegligent hand pulled thoughtfully at the indisputable moustache, withparticular attention to such portions as were long enough to gnaw.
He was trying to see the situation clearly. As he was just smartingacutely under his defeat, this speaks little for the clearness of hismind. The shadow of that defeat lay across everything, blotted out thelight of his pride, shaded his honour, threw everything into a newperspective. The rich prettiness of his love-making had fled to someremote quarter of his being. Against the frog-like youngster he felt asavage animosity. And Smithers had betrayed him. He was angry,bitterly angry, with "swats" and "muggers" who spent their whole timegrinding for these foolish chancy examinations. Nor had the practicalexamination been altogether fair, and one of the questions in thewritten portion was quite outside the lectures. Biver, ProfessorBiver, was an indiscriminating ass, he felt assured, and so too wasWeeks, the demonstrator. But these obstacles could not blind hisintelligence to the manifest cause of his overthrow, the waste of morethan half his available evening, the best time for study in thetwenty-four hours, day after day. And that was going on steadily, aperpetual leakage of time. To-night he would go to meet her again, andbegin to accumulate to himself ignominy in the second part of thecourse, the botanical section, also. And so, reluctantly rejecting onecloudy excuse after another, he clearly focussed the antagonismbetween his relations to Ethel and his immediate ambitions.
Things had come so easily to him for the last two years that he hadtaken his steady upward progress in life as assured. It had neveroccurred to him, when he went to intercept Ethel after that _seance_,that he went into any peril of that sort. Now he had had a sharpreminder. He began to shape a picture of the frog-like boy at home--hewas a private student of the upper middle class--sitting in aconvenient study with a writing-table, book-shelves, and a shadedlamp--Lewisham worked at his chest of drawers, with his greatcoat on,and his feet in the lowest drawer wrapped in all his availablelinen--and in the midst of incredible conveniences the frog-like boywas working, working, working. Meanwhile Lewisham toiled through thefoggy streets, Chelsea-ward, or, after he had left her, trampedhomeward--full of foolish imaginings.
He began to think with bloodless lucidity of his entire relationshipto Ethel. His softer emotions were in abeyance, but he told himself nolies. He cared for her, he loved to be with her and to talk to her andplease her, but that was not all his desire. He thought of the bitterwords of an orator at Hammersmith, who had complained that in ourpresent civilisation even the elemental need of marriage wasdenied. Virtue had become a vice. "We marry in fear and trembling, sexfor a home is the woman's traffic, and the man comes to his heart'sdesire when his heart's desire is dead." The thing which had seemed amere flourish, came back now with a terrible air of truth. Lewishamsaw that it was a case of divergent ways. On the one hand that shiningstaircase to fame and power, that had been his dream from the verydawn of his adolescence, and on the other hand--Ethel.
And if he chose Ethel, even then, would he have his choice? What wouldcome of it? A few walks more or less! She was hopelessly poor, he washopelessly poor, and this cheat of a Medium was her stepfather! Afterall she was not well-educated, she did not understand his work and hisaims....
He suddenly perceived with absolute conviction that after the _seance_he should have gone home and forgotten her. Why had he felt thatirresistible impulse to seek her out? Why had his imagination spunsuch a strange web of possibilities about her? He was involved now,foolishly involved.... All his future was a sacrifice to thistransitory ghost of love-making in the streets. He pulled spitefullyat his moustache.
His picture began to shape itself into Ethel, and her mysteriousmother, and the vague dexterous Chaffery holding him back, entangledin an impalpable net from that bright and glorious ascent toperformance and distinction. Leaky boots and the splash of cabs forall his life as his portion! Already the Forbes Medal, the immediatestep, was as good as lost....
What on earth had he been thinking about? He fell foul of hisupbringing. Men of the upper or middle classes were put up to thesethings by their parents; they were properly warned against involvingthemselves in this love nonsense before they were independent. It wasmuch better....
Everything was going. Not only his work--his scientific career, butthe Debating Society, the political movement, all his work forHumanity.... Why not be resolute--even now?... Why not put the thingclearly and plainly to her? Or write? If he wrote now he could get theadvantage of the evening at the Library. He must ask her to forgothese walks home--at least until the next examination. _She_ wouldunderstand. He had a qualm of doubt whether she would understand....He grew angry at this possibility. But it was no good mincingmatters. If once he began to consider her--Why should he consider herin 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. Andshe 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 ofLystra" and gnaw lips and nails and moustache, and scowl and glare atthat masterpiece, saw him rise suddenly to his feet with an air ofresolution, spin on his heel, and set off with a quick step out of thegallery. He looked neither to the right nor the left. He passed out ofsight down the staircase.
"Gone to get some more moustache to eat, I suppose," said thepoliceman reflectively....
"One 'ud think something had bit him."
After some pensive moments the policeman strolled along down thegallery and came to a stop opposite the cartoon.
"Figgers is a bit big for the houses," said the policeman, anxious todo impartial justice. "But that's Art. I lay '_e_ couldn't doanything ... not arf so good."
