Mike Fletcher | Page 7

to himself; and knowing the porter could not interfere, he wondered what he would think if he knew all. "If she comes nothing can save her, she must and shall be mine."
Waterloo Bridge stood high above the river, level and lovely. Over Charing Cross the brightness was full of spires and pinnacles, but Southwark shore was lost in flat dimness. Then the sun glowed and Westminster ascended tall and romantic, St. Thomas's and St. John's floating in pale enchantment, and beneath the haze that heaved and drifted, revealing coal-barges moored by the Southwark shore, lay a sheet of gold. The candour of the morning laughed upon the river; and there came a little steamer into the dazzling water, her smoke heeling over, coiling and uncoiling like a snake, and casting tremendous shadow--in her train a line of boats laden to the edge with deal planks. Then the haze heaved and London disappeared, became again a gray city, faint and far away--faint as spires seem in a dream. Again and again the haze wreathed and went out, discovering wharfs and gold inscriptions, uncovering barges aground upon the purple slime of the Southwark shore, their yellow yards pointing like birds with outstretched necks.
The smoke of the little steamer curled and rolled over, now like a great snake, now like a great bird hovering with a snake in its talons; and the little steamer made pluckily for Blackfriars. Carts and hansoms, vans and brewers' vans, all silhouetting. Trains slip past, obliterating with white whiffs the delicate distances, the perplexing distances that in London are delicate and perplexing as a spider's web. Great hay-boats yellow in the sun, brown in the shadow--great hay-boats came by, their sails scarce filled with the light breeze; standing high, they sailed slowly and picturesquely, with men thrown in all attitudes; somnolent in sunshine and pungent odour--one only at work, wielding the great rudder.
"Ah! if she would not disappoint me; if she would only come; I would give my life not to be disappointed.... Three o'clock! She said she would be here by three, if she came at all. I think I could love her--I am sure of it; it would be impossible to weary of her--so frail--a white blonde. She said she would come, I know she wanted to.... This waiting is agony! Oh, if I were only good-looking! Whatever power I have over women I have acquired; it was the desire to please women that gave me whatever power I possess; I was as soft as wax, and in the fingers of desire was modified and moulded. You did not know me when I was a boy--I was hideous. It seemed to me impossible that women could love men. Women seemed to me so beautiful and desirable, men so hideous and revolting. Could they touch us without a revulsion of feeling? Could they really desire us? That is why I could not bear to give women money, nor a present of any kind--no, not even a flower. If I did all my pleasure was gone; I could not help thinking it was for what they got out of me that they liked me. I longed to penetrate the mystery of women's life. It seemed to me cruel that the differences between the sexes should never be allowed to dwindle, but should be strictly maintained through all the observances of life. There were beautiful beings walking by us of whom we knew nothing--irreparably separated from us. I wanted to be with this sex as a shadow is with its object."
"You didn't find many opportunities of gratifying your tastes in Cashel?"
"No, indeed! Of course the women about the town were not to be thought of." Unpleasant memories seemed to check his flow of words.
Without noticing his embarrassment, Frank said--
"After France it must have been a horrible change to come to Ireland. How old were you?"
"About fourteen. I could not endure the place. Every day was so appallingly like the last. There was nothing for me to do but to dream; I dreamed of everything. I longed to get alone and let my fancy wander--weaving tales of which I was the hero, building castles of which I was the lord."
"I remember always hearing of your riding and shooting. No one knew of your literary tastes. I don't mind telling you that Mount Rorke often suspected you of being a bit of a poacher."
Mike laughed.
"I believe I have knocked down a pheasant or two. I was an odd mixture--half a man of action, half a man of dreams. My position in Cashel was unbearable. My mother was a lady; my father--you know how he had let himself down. You cannot imagine the yearnings of a poor boy; you were brought up in all elegance and refinement. That beautiful park! On afternoons