And Mary, lifting her eyes, met his look of appeal
with more than a friend’s confidence.
From chambers in Staple Inn, Lionel Tarrant looked
forth upon the laborious world with a dainty enjoyment
of his own limitless leisure. The old gables
fronting upon Holborn pleased his fancy; he liked
to pass under the time-worn archway, and so, at a step,
estrange himself from commercial tumult,—to
be in the midst of modern life, yet breathe an atmosphere
of ancient repose.
He belonged to an informal club of young men who called
themselves, facetiously, the Hodiernals. Vixi hodie!
The motto, suggested by some one or other after a
fifth tumbler of whisky punch, might bear more than
a single interpretation. Harvey Munden, the one
member of this genial brotherhood who lived by the
sweat of his brow, proposed as a more suitable title,
Les Faineants; that, however, was judged pedantic,
not to say offensive. For these sons of the Day
would not confess to indolence; each deemed himself,
after his own fashion, a pioneer in art, letters,
civilisation. They had money of their own, or
were supported by some one who could afford that privilege;
most of them had, ostensibly, some profession in view;
for the present, they contented themselves with living,
and the weaker brethren read in their hodiernity an
obligation to be ‘up to date.’
Tarrant professed himself critical of To-day, apprehensive
of To-morrow; he cast a backward eye. None the
less, his avowed principle was to savour the passing
hour. When night grew mellow, and the god of
whisky inspired his soul, he shone in a lyrical egoism
which had but slight correspondence with the sincerities
of his solitude. His view of woman—the
Hodiernals talked much of woman—differed
considerably from his thoughts of the individual women
with whom he associated; protesting oriental sympathies,
he nourished in truth the chivalry appropriate to
his years and to his education, and imaged an ideal
of female excellence whereof the prime features were
moral and intellectual.
He had no money of his own. What could be saved
for him from his father’s squandered estate—the
will established him sole inheritor—went
in the costs of a liberal education, his grandmother
giving him assurance that he should not go forth into
the world penniless. This promise Mrs. Tarrant
had kept, though not exactly in the manner her grandson
desired. Instead of making him a fixed allowance,
the old lady supplied him with funds at uncertain
intervals; with the unpleasant result that it was sometimes
necessary for him to call to her mind his dependent
condition. The cheques he received varied greatly
in amount,—from handsome remittances of
a hundred pounds or so, down to minim gifts which
made the young man feel uncomfortable when he received
them. Still, he was provided for, and it could
not be long before this dependency came to an end.
