Then, as though choosing contrasts, follows a fair, laughing face. I saw it in the life only a few hours ago--at least, not it, but the poor daub that Evil has painted over it, hating the sweetness underlying. And as I stand gazing at it, wishing it were of the dead who change not, there drifts back from the shadows that other face, the one of the wicked mouth and the tender eyes, so that I stand again helpless between the two I loved so well, he from whom I learned my first steps in manhood, she from whom I caught my first glimpse of the beauty and the mystery of woman. And again the cry rises from my heart, "Whose fault was it--yours or hers?" And again I hear his mocking laugh as he answers, "Whose fault? God made us." And thinking of her and of the love I bore her, which was as the love of a young pilgrim to a saint, it comes into my blood to hate him. But when I look into his eyes and see the pain that lives there, my pity grows stronger than my misery, and I can only echo his words, "God made us."
Merry faces and sad, fair faces and foul, they ride upon the wind; but the centre round which they circle remains always the one: a little lad with golden curls more suitable to a girl than to a boy, with shy, awkward ways and a silent tongue, and a grave, old-fashioned face.
And, turning from him to my old brick friend, I ask: "Would he know me, could he see me, do you think?"
"How should he," answers the old House, "you are so different to what he would expect. Would you recognise your own ghost, think you?"
"It is sad to think he would not recognise me," I say.
"It might be sadder if he did," grumbles the old House.
We both remained silent for awhile; but I know of what the old House is thinking. Soon it speaks as I expected.
"You--writer of stories, why don't you write a book about him? There is something that you know."
It is the favourite theme of the old House. I never visit it but it suggests to me this idea.
"But he has done nothing?" I say.
"He has lived," answers the old House. "Is not that enough?"
"Aye, but only in London in these prosaic modern times," I persist.
"How of such can one make a story that shall interest the people?"
The old House waxes impatient of me.
"'The people!'" it retorts, "what are you all but children in a dim-lit room, waiting until one by one you are called out to sleep.
And one mounts upon a stool and tells a tale to the others who have gathered round. Who shall say what will please them, what will not."
Returning home with musing footsteps through the softly breathing streets, I ponder the words of the old House. Is it but as some foolish mother thinking all the world interested in her child, or may there lie wisdom in its counsel? Then to my guidance or misguidance comes the thought of a certain small section of the Public who often of an evening commands of me a story; and who, when I have told her of the dreadful giants and of the gallant youths who slay them, of the wood-cutter's sons who rescue maidens from Ogre-guarded castles; of the Princesses the most beautiful in all the world, of the Princes with magic swords, still unsatisfied, creeps closer yet, saying: "Now tell me a real story," adding for my comprehending: "You know: about a little girl who lived in a big house with her father and mother, and who was sometimes naughty, you know."
So perhaps among the many there may be some who for a moment will turn aside from tales of haughty Heroes, ruffling it in Court and Camp, to listen to the story of a very ordinary lad who lived with very ordinary folk in a modern London street, and who grew up to be a very ordinary sort of man, loving a little and grieving a little, helping a few and harming a few, struggling and failing and hoping; and if any such there be, let them come round me.
But let not those who come to me grow indignant as they listen, saying: "This rascal tells us but a humdrum story, where nothing is as it should be;" for I warn all beforehand that I tell but of things that I have seen. My villains, I fear, are but poor sinners, not altogether bad; and my good men but sorry saints. My princes do not always slay their dragons; alas, sometimes, the dragon eats the prince. The wicked fairies often prove more powerful than the good.
The magic thread leads sometimes wrong, and even the hero is not always brave and true.
So let those come round me only who will be content to hear but their own story, told by another, saying as they listen, "So dreamt I. Ah, yes, that is true, I remember."