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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of In Luck at Last, by Walter Besant
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: In Luck at Last
+
+Author: Walter Besant
+
+Release Date: June 25, 2005 [EBook #16129]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IN LUCK AT LAST ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Bill Tozier, Barbara Tozier, Sankar Viswanathan
+and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                           IN LUCK AT LAST.
+
+
+
+
+                           BY WALTER BESANT.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                               NEW YORK:
+                   GEORGE MUNRO'S SONS, PUBLISHERS,
+                      17 TO 27 VANDEWATER STREET.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+WITHIN THREE WEEKS
+
+
+If everyone were allowed beforehand to choose and select for himself
+the most pleasant method of performing this earthly pilgrimage, there
+would be, I have always thought, an immediate run upon that way of
+getting to the Delectable Mountains which is known as the Craft and
+Mystery of Second-hand Bookselling. If, further, one were allowed to
+select and arrange the minor details--such, for instance, as the
+"pitch" and the character of the shop, it would seem desirable that,
+as regards the latter, the kind of bookselling should be neither too
+lofty nor too mean--that is to say, that one's ambition would not
+aspire to a great collector's establishment, such as one or two we
+might name in Piccadilly, the Haymarket, or New Bond Street; these
+should be left to those who greatly dare and are prepared to play the
+games of Speculation and of Patience; nor, on the other hand, would
+one choose an open cart at the beginning of the Whitechapel Road, or
+one of the shops in Seven Dials, whose stock-in-trade consists wholly
+of three or four boxes outside the door filled with odd volumes at
+twopence apiece. As for "pitch" or situation, one would wish it to be
+somewhat retired, but not too much; one would not, for instance,
+willingly be thrown away in Hoxton, nor would one languish in the
+obscurity of Kentish Town; a second-hand bookseller must not be so far
+removed from the haunts of men as to place him practically beyond the
+reach of the collector; nor, on the other hand, should he be planted
+in a busy thoroughfare--the noise of many vehicles, the hurry of quick
+footsteps, the swift current of anxious humanity are out of harmony
+with the atmosphere of a second-hand bookshop. Some suggestion of
+external repose is absolutely necessary; there must be some stillness
+in the air; yet the thing itself belongs essentially to the city--no
+one can imagine a second-hand bookshop beside green fields--so that
+there should be some murmur and perceptible hum of mankind always
+present in the ear. Thus there are half-a-dozen bookshops in King
+William Street, Strand, which seem to enjoy every possible advantage
+of position, for they are in the very heart of London, but yet are not
+exposed to the full noise and tumult of that overflowing tide which
+surges round Charing Cross. Again, there are streets north of Holborn
+and Oxford Street most pleasantly situated for the second-hand
+bookseller, and there are streets where he ought not to be, where he
+has no business, and where his presence jars. Could we, for instance,
+endure to see the shop of a second-hand bookseller established in
+Cheapside?
+
+Perhaps, however, the most delightful spot in all London for a
+second-hand bookshop is that occupied by Emblem's in the King's Road,
+Chelsea.
+
+It stands at the lower end of the road, where one begins to realize
+and thoroughly feel the influences of that ancient and lordly suburb.
+At this end of the road there are rows of houses with old-fashioned
+balconies; right and left of it there are streets which in the summer
+and early autumn are green, yellow, red, and golden with their masses
+of creepers; squares which look as if, with the people living in them,
+they must belong to the year eighteen hundred; neither a day before
+nor a day after; they lie open to the road, with their gardens full of
+trees. Cheyne Walk and the old church, with its red-brick tower, and
+the new Embankment, are all so close that they seem part and parcel of
+the King's Road. The great Hospital is within five minutes' walk, and
+sometimes the honest veterans themselves may be seen wandering in the
+road. The air is heavy with associations and memories. You can
+actually smell the fragrance of the new-made Chelsea buns, fresh from
+the oven, just as you would a hundred years ago. You may sit with
+dainty damsels, all hoops and furbelows, eating custards at the
+Bun-house; you may wander among the rare plants of the Botanic
+Gardens. The old great houses rise, shadowy and magnificent, above the
+modern terraces; Don Saltero's Coffee-House yet opens its hospitable
+doors; Sir Thomas More meditates again on Cheyne Walk; at dead of
+night the ghosts of ancient minuet tunes may be heard from the Rotunda
+of Ranelagh Gardens, though the new barracks stand upon its site; and
+along the modern streets you may fancy that if you saw the ladies with
+their hoop petticoats, and the gentlemen with their wigs and their
+three-cornered hats and swords, you would not be in the least
+astonished.
+
+Emblem's is one of two or three shops which stand together, but it
+differs from its neighbors in many important particulars. For it has
+no plate-glass, as the others have; nor does it stand like them with
+open doors; nor does it flare away gas at night; nor is it bright with
+gilding and fresh paint; nor does it seek to attract notice by posters
+and bills. On the contrary, it retains the old, small, and
+unpretending panes of glass which it has always had; in the evening it
+is dimly lighted, and it closes early; its door is always shut, and
+although the name over the shop is dingy, one feels that a coat of
+paint, while it would certainly freshen up the place, would take
+something from its character. For a second-hand bookseller who
+respects himself must present an exterior which has something of faded
+splendor, of worn paint and shabbiness. Within the shop, books line
+the walls and cumber the floor. There are an outer and an inner shop;
+in the former a small table stands among the books, at which Mr.
+James, the assistant, is always at work cataloguing, when he is not
+tying up parcels; sometimes even with gum and paste repairing the
+slighter ravages of time--foxed bindings and close-cut margins no man
+can repair. In the latter, which is Mr. Emblem's sanctum, there are
+chairs and a table, also covered with books, a writing-desk, a small
+safe, and a glass case, wherein are secured the more costly books in
+stock. Emblem's, as must be confessed, is no longer quite what it was
+in former days; twenty, thirty, or forty years ago that glass case was
+filled with precious treasures. In those days, if a man wanted a book
+of county history, or of genealogy, or of heraldry, he knew where was
+his best chance of finding it, for Emblem's, in its prime and heyday,
+had its specialty. Other books treating on more frivolous subjects,
+such as science, belles lettres, art, or politics, he would consider,
+buy, and sell again; but he took little pride in them. Collectors of
+county histories, however, and genealogy-hunters and their kind, knew
+that at Emblem's, where they would be most likely to get what they
+wanted, they would have to pay the market price for it.
+
+There is no patience like the patience of a book-collector; there is
+no such industry given to any work comparable with the thoughtful and
+anxious industry with which he peruses the latest catalogues; there is
+no care like unto that which rends his mind before the day of auction
+or while he is still trying to pick up a bargain; there are no eyes so
+sharp as those which pry into the contents of a box full of old books,
+tumbled together, at sixpence apiece. The bookseller himself partakes
+of the noble enthusiasm of the collector, though he sells his
+collection; like the amateur, the professional moves heaven and earth
+to get a bargain: like him, he rejoices as much over a book which has
+been picked up below its price, as over a lost sheep which has
+returned into the fold. But Emblem is now old, and Emblem's shop is no
+longer what it was to the collector of the last generation.
+
+It was an afternoon in late September, and in this very year of grace,
+eighteen hundred and eighty-four. The day was as sunny and warm as any
+of the days of its predecessor Augustus the Gorgeous, but yet there
+was an autumnal feeling in the air which made itself felt even in
+streets where there were no red and yellow Virginia creepers, no
+square gardens with long trails of mignonette and banks of flowering
+nasturtiums. In fact, you cannot anywhere escape the autumnal feeling,
+which begins about the middle of September. It makes old people think
+with sadness that the grasshopper is a burden in the land, and that
+the almond-tree is about to flourish; but the young it fills with a
+vinous and intoxicated rejoicing, as if the time of feasting, fruits,
+harvests, and young wine, strong and fruity, was upon the world. It
+made Mr. James--his surname has never been ascertained, but man and
+boy, Mr. James has been at Emblem's for twenty-five years and
+more--leave his table where he was preparing the forthcoming
+catalogue, and go to the open door, where he wasted a good minute and
+a half in gazing up at the clear sky and down the sunny street. Then
+he stretched his arms and returned to his work, impelled by the sense
+of duty rather than by the scourge of necessity, because there was no
+hurry about the catalogue and most of the books in it were rubbish,
+and at that season of the year few customers could be expected, and
+there were no parcels to tie up and send out. He went back to his
+work, therefore, but he left the door partly open in order to enjoy
+the sight of the warm sunshine. Now for Emblem's to have its door
+open, was much as if Mr. Emblem himself should so far forget his
+self-respect as to sit in his shirt-sleeves. The shop had been rather
+dark, the window being full of books, but now through the open door
+there poured a little stream of sunshine, reflected from some far off
+window. It fell upon a row of old eighteenth century volumes, bound in
+dark and rusty leather, and did so light up and glorify the dingy
+bindings and faded gold, that they seemed fresh from the binder's
+hands, and just ready for the noble purchaser, long since dead and
+gone, whose book plate they bore. Some of this golden stream fell also
+upon the head of the assistant--it was a red head, with fiery red
+eyes, red eyebrows, bristly and thick, and sharp thin features to
+match--and it gave him the look of one who is dragged unwillingly into
+the sunlight. However, Mr. James took no notice of the sunshine, and
+went on with his cataloguing almost as if he liked that kind of work.
+There are many people who seem to like dull work, and they would not
+be a bit more unhappy if they were made to take the place of Sisyphus,
+or transformed into the damsels who are condemned to toil continually
+at the weary work of pouring water into a sieve. Perhaps Sisyphus does
+not so much mind the continual going up and down hill. "After all," he
+might say, "this is better than the lot of poor Ixion. At all events,
+I have got my limbs free." Ixion, on the other hand, no doubt, is full
+of pity for his poor friend Sisyphus. "I, at least," he says, "have no
+work to do. And the rapid motion of the wheel is in sultry weather
+sometimes pleasant."
+
+Behind the shop, where had been originally the "back parlor," in the
+days when every genteel house in Chelsea had both its front and back
+parlor--the latter for sitting and living in, the former for the
+reception of company--sat this afternoon the proprietor, the man whose
+name had stood above the shop for fifty years, the original and only
+Emblem. He was--nay, he is--for you may still find him in his place,
+and may make his acquaintance over a county history any day in the
+King's Road--he is an old man now, advanced in the seventies, who was
+born before the battle of Waterloo was fought, and can remember
+Chelsea when it was full of veterans wounded in battles fought long
+before the Corsican Attila was let loose upon the world. His face
+wears the peaceful and wise expression which belongs peculiarly to his
+profession. Other callings make a man look peaceful, but not all other
+callings make him look wise. Mr. Emblem was born by nature of a calm
+temperament,--otherwise he would not have been happy in his business;
+a smile lies generally upon his lips, and his eyes are soft and
+benign; his hair is white, and his face, once ruddy, is pale, yet not
+shrunk and seamed with furrows as happens to so many old men, but
+round and firm; like his chin and lips it is clean shaven; he wears a
+black coat extraordinarily shiny in the sleeve, and a black silk stock
+just as he used to wear in the thirties when he was young, and
+something of a dandy, and would show himself on a Saturday evening in
+the pit of Drury Lane; and the stock is fastened behind with a silver
+buckle. He is, in fact, a delightful old gentleman to look at and
+pleasant to converse with, and on his brow every one who can read may
+see, visibly stamped, the seal of a harmless and honest life. At the
+contemplation of such a man, one's opinion of humanity is sensibly
+raised, and even house-agents, plumbers, and suburban builders, feel
+that, after all, virtue may bring with, it some reward.
+
+The quiet and warmth of the afternoon, unbroken to his accustomed ear,
+as it would be to a stranger, by the murmurous roll of London, made
+him sleepy. In his hand he held a letter which he had been reading for
+the hundredth time, and of which he knew by heart every word; and as
+his eyes closed he went back in imagination to a passage in the past
+which it recalled.
+
+He stood, in imagination, upon the deck of a sailing-ship--an emigrant
+ship. The year was eighteen hundred and sixty-four, a year when very
+few were tempted to try their fortunes in a country torn by civil war.
+With him were his daughter and his son-in-law, and they were come to
+bid the latter farewell.
+
+"My dear--my dear," cried the wife, in her husband's arms, "come what
+may, I will join you in a year."
+
+Her husband shook his head sadly.
+
+"They do not want me here," he said; "the work goes into stronger and
+rougher hands. Perhaps over there we may get on better, and besides,
+it seems an opening."
+
+If the kind of work which he wanted was given to stronger and rougher
+hands than his in England, far more would it be the case in young and
+rough America. It was journalistic work--writing work--that he wanted;
+and he was a gentleman, a scholar, and a creature of retired and
+refined tastes and manners. There are, perhaps, some still living who
+have survived the tempestuous life of the ordinary Fleet Street
+"newspaper man" of twenty or thirty years ago; perhaps one or two
+among these remember Claude Aglen--but he was so short a time with
+them that it is not likely; those who do remember him will understand
+that the way to success, rough and thorny for all, for such as Aglen
+was impossible.
+
+"But you will think every day of little Iris?" said his wife. "Oh, my
+dear, if I were only going with you! And but for me you would be at
+home with your father, well and happy."
+
+Then in his dream, which was also a memory, the old man saw how the
+young husband kissed and comforted his wife.
+
+"My dear," said Claude, "if it were not for you, what happiness could
+I have in the world? Courage, my wife, courage and hope. I shall think
+of you and Iris all day and all night until we meet again."
+
+And so they parted and the ship sailed away.
+
+The old man opened his eyes and looked about him. It was a dream.
+
+"It was twenty years ago," he said, "and Iris was a baby in arms.
+Twenty years ago, and he never saw his wife again. Never again!
+Because she died," he added after a pause; "my Alice died."
+
+He shed no tears, being so old that the time of tears was well-nigh
+past--at seventy-five the eyes are drier than at forty, and one is no
+longer surprised or disappointed, and seldom even angry, whatever
+happens.
+
+But he opened the letter in his hand and read it again mechanically.
+It was written on thin foreign paper, and the creases of the folds had
+become gaping rents. It was dated September, 1866, just eighteen years
+back.
+
+"When you read these lines," the letter said, "I shall be in the
+silent land, whither Alice, my wife, has gone before me. It would be a
+strange thing only to think upon this journey which lies before me,
+and which I must take alone, had I time left for thinking. But I have
+not. I may last a week, or I may die in a few hours. Therefore, to the
+point.
+
+"In one small thing we deceived you, Alice and I--my name is not Aglen
+at all; we took that name for certain reasons. Perhaps we were wrong,
+but we thought that as we were quite poor, and likely to remain poor,
+it would be well to keep our secret to ourselves. Forgive us both this
+suppression of the truth. We were made poor by our own voluntary act
+and deed, and because I married the only woman I loved.
+
+"I was engaged to a girl whom I did not love. We had been brought up
+like brother and sister together, but I did not love her, though I was
+engaged to her. In breaking this engagement I angered my father. In
+marrying Alice I angered him still more.
+
+"I now know that he has forgiven me; he forgave me on his death-bed;
+he revoked his former will and made me his sole heir--just as if
+nothing had happened to destroy his old affection--subject to one
+condition--viz., that the girl to whom I was first engaged should
+receive the whole income until I, or my heirs, should return to
+England in order to claim the inheritance.
+
+"It is strange. I die in a wooden shanty, in a little Western town,
+the editor of a miserable little country paper. I have not money
+enough even to bury me, and yet, if I were at home, I might be called
+a rich man, as men go. My little Iris will be an heiress. At the very
+moment when I learn that I am my father's heir, I am struck down by
+fever; and now I know that I shall never get up again.
+
+"It is strange. Yet my father sent me his forgiveness, and my wife is
+dead, and the wealth that has come is useless to me. Wherefore,
+nothing now matters much to me, and I know that you will hold my last
+wishes sacred.
+
+"I desire that Iris shall be educated as well and thoroughly as you
+can afford; keep her free from rough and rude companions; make her
+understand that her father was a gentleman of ancient family; this
+knowledge will, perhaps, help to give her self-respect. If any
+misfortune should fall upon you, such as the loss of health or wealth,
+give the papers inclosed to a trustworthy solicitor, and bid him act
+as is best in the interests of Iris. If, as I hope, all will go well
+with you, do not open the papers until my child's twenty-first
+birthday; do not let her know until then that she is going to be rich;
+on her twenty-first birthday, open the papers and bid her claim her
+own.
+
+"To the woman I wronged--I know not whether she has married or
+not--bid Iris carry my last message of sorrow at what has happened. I
+do not regret, and I have never regretted, that I married Alice. But,
+I gave her pain, for which I have never ceased to grieve. I have been
+punished for this breach of faith. You will find among the papers an
+account of all the circumstances connected with this engagement. There
+is also in the packet my portrait, taken when I was a lad of sixteen;
+give her that as well; there is the certificate of my marriage, my
+register of baptism, that of Iris's baptism, my signet ring--" "His
+arms"--the old man interrupted his reading--"his arms were: quarterly:
+first and fourth, two roses and a boar's head, erect; second and
+third, gules and fesse between--between--but I cannot remember what it
+was between--" He went on reading: "My father's last letter to me;
+Alice's letters, and one or two from yourself. If Iris should
+unhappily die before her twenty-first birthday, open these papers,
+find out from them the owner's name and address, seek her out, and
+tell her that she will never now be disturbed by any claimants to the
+estate."
+
+The letter ended here abruptly, as if the writer had designed to add
+more, but was prevented by death.
+
+For there was a postscript, in another hand, which stated: "Mr. Aglen
+died November 25th, 1866, and is buried in the cemetery of Johnson
+City, Ill."
+
+The old man folded the letter carefully, and laid it on the table.
+Then he rose and walked across the room to the safe, which stood with
+open door in the corner furthest from the fireplace. Among its
+contents was a packet sealed and tied up in red tape, endorsed: "For
+Iris. To be given to her on her twenty-first birthday. From her
+father."
+
+"It will be her twenty-first birthday," he said, "in three weeks. Then
+I must give her the packet. So--so--with the portrait of her father,
+and his marriage-certificate." He fell into a fit of musing, with the
+papers in his hand. "She will be safe, whatever happens to me; and as
+for me, if I lose her--of course I shall lose her. Why, what will it
+matter? Have I not lost all, except Iris? One must not be selfish. Oh,
+Iris, what a surprise--what a surprise I have in store for you!"
+
+He placed the letter he had been reading within the tape which
+fastened the bundle, so that it should form a part of the
+communication to be made on Iris's birthday.
+
+"There," he said, "now I shall read this letter no more. I wonder how
+many times I have read it in the last eighteen years, and how often I
+have wondered what the child's fortune would be? In three weeks--in
+three short weeks. Oh, Iris, if you only knew!"
+
+He put back the letters and the packet, locked the safe, and resumed
+his seat.
+
+The red-eyed assistant, still gumming and pasting his slips with
+punctilious regard to duty, had been following his master's movements
+with curiosity.
+
+"Counting his investments again as usual," Mr. James murmured. "Ah!
+and adding 'em up! Always at it. Oh, what a trade it must have been
+once!"
+
+Just then there appeared in the door a gentleman. He was quite shabby,
+and even ragged in his dress, but he was clearly a gentleman. He was
+no longer young; his shoulders were bent, and he had the unmistakable
+stamp and carriage of a student.
+
+"Guv'nor's at home," said the assistant briefly.
+
+The visitor walked into the sanctum. He had under his arm half-a-dozen
+volumes, which, without a word, he laid before Mr. Emblem, and untied
+the string.
+
+"You ought to know this book," he said without further introduction.
+
+Mr. Emblem looked doubtfully at the visitor.
+
+"You sold it to me twenty-five years ago," he went on, "for five
+pounds."
+
+"I did. And I remember now. You are Mr. Frank Farrar. Why, it is
+twenty-five years ago!"
+
+"I have bought no more books for twenty years and more," he replied.
+
+"Sad--sad! Dear me--tut, tut!--bought no books? And you, Mr. Farrar,
+once my best customer. And now--you do not mean to say that you are
+going to sell--that you actually want to sell--this precious book?"
+
+"I am selling, one by one, all my books," replied the other with a
+sigh. "I am going down hill, Emblem, fast."
+
+"Oh, dear, dear!" replied the bookseller. "This is very sad. One
+cannot bear to think of the libraries being dispersed and sold off.
+And now yours, Mr. Farrar? Really, yours? Must it be?"
+
+"'Needs must,'" Mr. Farrar said with a sickly smile, "needs must when
+the devil drives. I have parted with half my books already. But I
+thought you might like to have this set, because they were once your
+own."
+
+"So I should"--Mr. Emblem laid a loving hand upon the volumes--"so I
+should, Mr. Farrar, but not from you; not from you, sir. Why, you were
+almost my best customer--I think almost my very best--thirty years
+ago, when my trade was better than it is now. Yes, you gave me five
+pounds--or was it five pounds ten?--for this very work. And it is
+worth twelve pounds now--I assure you it is worth twelve pounds, if it
+is worth a penny."
+
+"Will you give me ten pounds for it, then?" cried the other eagerly;
+"I want the money badly."
+
+"No, I can't; but I will send you to a man who can and will. I do not
+speculate now; I never go to auctions. I am old, you see. Besides, I
+am poor. I will not buy your book, but I will send you to a man who
+will give you ten pounds for it, I am sure, and then he will sell it
+for fifteen." He wrote the address on a slip of paper. "Why, Mr.
+Farrar, if an old friend, so to speak, can put the question, why in
+the world--"
+
+"The most natural thing," replied Mr. Farrar with a cold laugh; "I am
+old, as I told you, and the younger men get all the work. That is all.
+Nobody wants a genealogist and antiquary."
+
+"Dear me, dear me! Why, Mr. Farrar, I remember now; you used to know
+my poor son-in-law, who is dead eighteen years since. I was just
+reading the last letter he ever wrote to me, just before he died. You
+used to come here and sit with him in the evening. I remember now. So
+you did."
+
+"Thank you for your good will," said Mr. Farrar. "Yes, I remember your
+son-in-law. I knew him before his marriage."
+
+"Did you? Before his marriage? Then--" He was going to add, "Then you
+can tell me his real name," but he paused, because it is a pity ever
+to acknowledge ignorance, and especially ignorance in such elementary
+matters as your son-in-law's name.
+
+So Mr. Emblem checked himself.
+
+"He ought to have been a rich man," Mr. Farrar continued; "but he
+quarreled with his father, who cut him off with a shilling, I
+suppose."
+
+Then the poor scholar, who could find no market for his learned
+papers, tied up his books again and went away with hanging head.
+
+"Ugh!" Mr. James, who had been listening, groaned as Mr. Farrar passed
+through the door. "Ugh! Call that a way of doing business? Why, if it
+had been me, I'd have bought the book off of that old chap for a
+couple o' pounds, I would. Ay, or a sov, so seedy he is, and wants
+money so bad. And I know who'd have given twelve pound for it, in the
+trade too. Call that carrying on business? He may well add up his
+investments every day, it he can afford to chuck such chances. Ah, but
+he'll retire soon." His fiery eyes brightened, and his face glowed
+with the joy of anticipation. "He must retire before long."
+
+There came another visitor. This time it was a lanky boy, with, a blue
+bag over his shoulder and a notebook and pencil-stump in his hand. He
+nodded to the assistant as to an old friend with whom one may be at
+ease, set down his bag, opened his notebook, and nibbled his stump.
+Then he read aloud, with a comma or semicolon between each, a dozen or
+twenty titles. They were the names of the books which his employer
+wished to pick up. The red-eyed assistant listened, and shook his
+head. Then the boy, without another word, shouldered his bag and
+departed, on his way to the next second-hand book-shop.
+
+He was followed, at a decent interval, by another caller. This time it
+was an old gentleman who opened the door, put in his head, and looked
+about him with a quick and suspicious glance. At sight of the
+assistant he nodded and smiled in the most friendly way possible, and
+came in.
+
+"Good-morning, Mr. James; good-morning, my friend. Splendid weather.
+Pray don't disturb yourself. I am just having a look round--only a
+look round, you know. Don't move, Mr. James."
+
+He addressed Mr. James, but he was looking at the shelves as he spoke,
+and, with the habit of a book-hunter, taking down the volumes, looking
+at the title-pages and replacing them; under his arm he carried a
+single volume in old leather binding.
+
+Mr. James nodded his head, but did disturb himself; in fact, he rose
+with a scowl upon his face, and followed this polite old gentlemen all
+round the shop, placing himself close to his elbow. One might almost
+suppose that he suspected him, so close and assiduous was his
+assistance. But the visitor, accepting these attentions as if they
+were customary, and the result of high breeding, went slowly round the
+shelves, taking down book after book, but buying none. Presently he
+smiled again, and said that he must be moving on, and very politely
+thanked Mr. James for his kindness.
+
+"Nowhere," he was so good as to say, "does one get so much personal
+kindness and attention as at Emblem's. Good-morning, Mr. James;
+good-morning, my friend."
+
+Mr. James grunted; and closed the door after him.
+
+"Ugh!" he said with disgust, "I know you; I know your likes. Want to
+make your set complete--eh? Want to sneak one of our books to do it
+with, don't you? Ah!" He looked into the back shop before he returned
+to his paste and his slips. "That was Mr. Potts, the great Queen Anne
+collector, sir. Most notorious book-snatcher in all London, and the
+most barefaced. Wanted our fourth volume of the 'Athenian Oracle.' I
+saw his eyes reached out this way, and that way, and always resting on
+that volume. I saw him edging along to the shelf. Got another odd
+volume just like it in his wicked old hand, ready to change it when I
+wasn't looking."
+
+"Ah," said Mr. Emblem, waking up from his dream of Iris and her
+father's letter; "ah, they will try it on. Keep your eyes open,
+James."
+
+"No thanks, as usual," grumbled Mr. James as he returned to his gum
+and his scissors. "Might as well have left him to snatch the book."
+
+Here, however, James was wrong, because it is the first duty of an
+assistant to hinder and obstruct the book-snatcher, who carries on his
+work by methods of crafty and fraudulent exchange rather than by plain
+theft, which is a mere brutal way. For, first, the book-snatcher marks
+his prey; he finds the shop which has a set containing the volume
+which is missing in his own set; next, he arms himself with a volume
+which closely resembles the one he covets, and then, on pretense of
+turning over the leaves, he watches his opportunity to effect an
+exchange, and goes away rejoicing, his set complete. No collector, as
+is very well known, whether of books, coins, pictures, medals, fans,
+scarabs, book-plates, autographs, stamps, or anything else, has any
+conscience at all. Anybody can cut out slips and make a catalogue, but
+it requires a sharp assistant, with eyes all over his head like a
+spider, to be always on guard against this felonious and unscrupulous
+collector.
+
+Next, there came two schoolboys together, who asked for and bought a
+crib to "Virgil;" and then a girl who wanted some cheap French
+reading-book. Just as the clock began to strike five, Mr. Emblem
+lifted his head and looked up. The shop-door opened, and there stepped
+in, rubbing his shoes on the mat as if he belonged to the house, an
+elderly gentleman of somewhat singular appearance. He wore a fez cap,
+but was otherwise dressed as an Englishman--in black frock coat, that
+is, buttoned up--except that his feet were incased in black cloth
+shoes, so that he went noiselessly. His hair was short and white, and
+he wore a small white beard; his skin was a rather dark brown; he was,
+in fact, a Hindoo, and his name was Lala Roy.
+
+He nodded gravely to Mr. James and walked into the back shop.
+
+"It goes well," he asked, "with the buying and the selling?"
+
+"Surely, Lala, surely."
+
+"A quiet way of buying and selling; a way fit for one who meditates,"
+said the Hindoo, looking round. "Tell me, my friend, what ails the
+child? Is she sick?"
+
+"The child is well, Lala."
+
+"Her mind wandered this morning. She failed to perceive a simple
+method which I tried to teach her. I feared she might be ill."
+
+"She is not ill, my friend, but I think her mind is troubled."
+
+"She is a woman. We are men. There is nothing in the world that is
+able to trouble the mind of the philosopher."
+
+"Nothing," said Mr. Emblem manfully, as if he, too, was a disciple.
+"Nothing; is there now?"
+
+The stoutness of the assertion was sensibly impaired by the question.
+
+"Not poverty, which is a shadow; nor pain, which passes; nor the loss
+of woman's love, which is a gain; nor fall from greatness--nothing.
+Nevertheless," his eyes did look anxious in spite of his philosophy,
+"this trouble of the child--will it soon be over?"
+
+"I hope this evening," said Mr. Emblem. "Indeed I am sure that it will
+be finished this evening."
+
+"If the child had a mother, or a brother, or any protectors but
+ourselves, my friend, we might leave her to them. But she has nobody
+except you and me. I am glad that she is not ill."
+
+He left Mr. Emblem, and passing through the door of communication
+between house and shop, went noiselessly up the stairs.
+
+One more visitor--unusual for so many to call on a September
+afternoon. This time it was a youngish man of thirty or so, who
+stepped into the shop with an air of business, and, taking no notice
+at all of the assistant, walked swiftly into the back shop and shut
+the door behind him.
+
+"I thought so," murmured Mr. James. "After he's been counting up his
+investments, his lawyer calls. More investments."
+
+Mr. David Chalker was a solicitor and, according to his friends, who
+were proud of him, a sharp practitioner. He was, in fact, one of those
+members of the profession who, starting with no connection, have to
+make business for themselves. This, in London, they do by encouraging
+the county court, setting neighbors by the ears, lending money in
+small sums, fomenting quarrels, charging commissions, and generally
+making themselves a blessing and a boon to the district where they
+reside. But chiefly Mr. Chalker occupied himself with lending money.
+
+"Now, Mr. Emblem," he said, not in a menacing tone, but as one who
+warns; "now, Mr. Emblem."
+
+"Now, Mr. Chalker," the bookseller repeated mildly.
+
+"What are you going to do for me?"
+
+"I got your usual notice," the old bookseller began, hesitating, "six
+months ago."
+
+"Of course you did. Three fifty is the amount. Three fifty, exactly."
+
+"Just so. But I am afraid I am not prepared to pay off the bill of
+sale. The interest, as usual, will be ready."
+
+"Of course it will. But this time the principal must be ready too."
+
+"Can't you get another client to find the money?"
+
+"No, I can't. Money is tight, and your security, Mr. Emblem, isn't so
+good as it was."
+
+"The furniture is there, and so is the stock."
+
+"Furniture wears out; as for the stock--who knows what that is worth?
+All your books together may not be worth fifty pounds, for what I
+know."
+
+"Then what am I to do?"
+
+"Find the money yourself. Come, Mr. Emblem, everybody knows--your
+grandson himself told me--all the world knows--you've been for years
+saving up for your granddaughter. You told Joe only six months
+ago--you can't deny it--that whatever happened to you she would be
+well off."
+
+Mr. Emblem did not deny the charge. But he ought not to have told this
+to his grandson, of all people in the world.
+
+"As for Joe," Mr. Chalker went on, "you are going to do nothing for
+him. I know that. But is it business like, Mr. Emblem, to waste good
+money which you might have invested for your granddaughter?"
+
+"You do not understand. Mr. Chalker. You really do not, and I cannot
+explain. But about this bill of sale--never mind my granddaughter."
+
+"You the aforesaid Richard Emblem"--Mr. Chalker began to recite,
+without commas--"have assigned to me David Chalker aforesaid his
+executors administrators and assigns all and singular the several
+chattels and things specifically described in the schedule hereto
+annexed by way of security for the payment of the sum of three hundred
+and fifty pounds and interest thereon at the rate of eight per cent.
+per annum."
+
+"Thank you, Mr. Chalker. I know all that."
+
+"You can't complain, I'm sure. It is five years since you borrowed the
+money."
+
+"It was fifty pounds and a box of old law books out of your office,
+and I signed a bill for a hundred."
+
+"You forget the circumstances."
+
+"No, I do not. My grandson was a rogue. One does not readily forget
+that circumstance. He was also your friend, I remember."
+
+"And I held my tongue."
+
+"I have had no more money from you, and the sum has become three
+hundred and fifty."
+
+"Of course you don't understand law, Mr. Emblem. How should you! But
+we lawyers don't work for nothing. However it isn't what you got, but
+what I am to get. Come, my good sir, it's cutting off your nose to
+spite your face. Settle and have done with it, even if it does take a
+little slice off your granddaughter's fortune? Now look here"--his
+voice became persuasive--"why not take me into your confidence? Make a
+friend of me. You want advice; let me advise you. I can get you good
+investments--far better than you know anything of--good and safe
+investments--at six certain, and sometimes seven and even eight per
+cent. Make me your man of business--come now. As for this trumpery
+bill of sale--this trifle of three fifty, what is it to you?
+Nothing--nothing. And as for your intention to enrich your
+granddaughter, and cut off your grandson with a shilling, why I honor
+you for it--there, though he was my friend. For Joe deserves it
+thoroughly. I've told him so, mind. You ask him. I've told him so a
+dozen times. I've said: 'The old man's right, Joe.' Ask him if I
+haven't."
+
+This was very expansive, but somehow Mr. Emblem did not respond.
+
+Presently, however, he lifted his head.
+
+"I have three weeks still."
+
+"Three weeks still."
+
+"And if I do not find the money within three weeks?"
+
+"Why--but of course you will--but if you do not--I suppose there will
+be only one thing left to do--realize the security, sell up--sticks
+and books and all."
+
+"Thank you, Mr. Chalker. I will look round me, and--and--do my best.
+Good day, Mr. Chalker."
+
+"The best you can do, Mr. Emblem," returned the solicitor, "is to take
+me as your adviser. You trust David Chalker."
+
+"Thank you. Good-day, Mr. Chalker."
+
+On his way out, Mr. Chalker stopped for a moment and looked round the
+shop.
+
+"How's business?" he asked the assistant.
+
+"Dull, sir," replied Mr. James. "He throws it all away, and neglects
+his chances. Naturally, being so rich--"
+
+"So rich, indeed," the solicitor echoed.
+
+"It will be bad for his successor," Mr. James went on, thinking how
+much he should himself like to be that successor. "The goodwill won't
+be worth half what it ought to be, and the stock is just falling to
+pieces."
+
+Mr. Chalker looked about him again thoughtfully, and opened his mouth
+as if about to ask a question, but said nothing. He remembered, in
+time, that the shopman was not likely to know the amount of his
+master's capital or investments.
+
+"There isn't a book even in the glass-case that's worth a five-pound
+note," continued Mr. James, whispering, "and he don't look about for
+purchases any more. Seems to have lost his pluck."
+
+Mr. Chalker returned to the back-shop.
+
+"Within three weeks, Mr. Emblem," he repeated, and then departed.
+
+Mr. Emblem sat in his chair. He had to find three hundred and fifty
+pounds in three weeks. No one knew better than himself that this was
+impossible. Within three weeks! But, in three weeks, he would open the
+packet of letters, and give Iris her inheritance. At least, she would
+not suffer. As for himself--He looked round the little back shop, and
+tried to recall the fifty years he had spent there, the books he had
+bought and sold, the money which had slipped through his fingers, the
+friends who had come and gone. Why, as for the books, he seemed to
+remember them every one--his joy in the purchase, his pride in
+possession, and his grief at letting them go. All the friends gone
+before him, his trade sunk to nothing.
+
+"Yet," he murmured, "I thought it would last my time."
+
+But the clock struck six. It was his tea-time. He rose mechanically,
+and went upstairs to Iris.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+FOX AND WOLF.
+
+
+Mr. James, left to himself, attempted, in accordance with his daily
+custom, to commit a dishonorable action.
+
+That is to say, he first listened carefully to the retreating
+footsteps of his master, as he went up the stairs; then he left his
+table, crept stealthily into the back shop, and began to pull the
+drawers, turn the handle of the safe, and try the desk. Everything was
+carefully locked. Then he turned over all the papers on the table, but
+found nothing that contained the information he looked for. It was his
+daily practice thus to try the locks, in hope that some day the safe,
+or the drawers, or the desk would be left open by accident, when he
+might be able to solve a certain problem, the doubt and difficulty of
+which sore let and hindered him--namely, of what extent, and where
+placed, were those great treasures, savings, and investments which
+enabled his master to be careless over his business. It was, further,
+customary with him to be thus frustrated and disappointed. Having
+briefly, therefore, also in accordance with his usual custom,
+expressed his disgust at this want of confidence between master and
+man, Mr. James returned to his paste and scissors.
+
+About a quarter past six the shop door was cautiously opened, and a
+head appeared, which looked round stealthily. Seeing nobody about
+except Mr. James, the head nodded, and presently followed by its body,
+stepped into the shop.
+
+"Where's the admiral, Foxy?" asked the caller.
+
+"Guv'nor's upstairs, Mr. Joseph, taking of his tea with Miss Iris,"
+replied Mr. James, not at all offended by the allusion to his
+craftiness. Who should resemble the fox if not the second-hand
+bookseller? In no trade, perhaps, can the truly admirable qualities of
+that animal--his patience, his subtlety and craft, his pertinacity,
+his sagacity--be illustrated more to advantage. Mr. James felt a glow
+of virtue--would that he could grow daily and hourly, and more and
+more toward the perfect fox. Then, indeed, and not till then would he
+be able to live truly up to his second-hand books.
+
+"Having tea with Iris; well--"
+
+The speaker looked as if it required some effort to receive this
+statement with resignation.
+
+"He always does at six o'clock. Why shouldn't he?" asked Mr. James.
+
+"Because, James, he spends the time in cockering up that gal whom he's
+ruined and spoiled--him and the old nigger between them--so that her
+mind is poisoned against her lawful relations, and nothing will
+content her but coming into all the old man's money, instead of going
+share and share alike, as a cousin should, and especially a
+she-cousin, while there's a biscuit left in the locker and a drop of
+rum in the cask."
+
+"Ah!" said Mr. James with a touch of sympathy, called forth, perhaps,
+by mention of the rum, which is a favorite drink with second-hand
+booksellers' assistants.
+
+"Nothing too good for her," the other went on; "the best of education,
+pianos to play upon, and nobody good enough for her to know. Not on
+visiting terms, if you please, with her neighbors; waiting for
+duchesses to call upon her. And what is she, after all? A miserable
+teacher!"
+
+Mr. Joseph Gallop was a young man somewhere between twenty and thirty,
+tall, large-limbed, well set-up, and broad-shouldered. A young man
+who, at first sight, would seem eminently fitted to push his own
+fortunes. Also, at first sight, a remarkably handsome fellow, with
+straight, clear-cut features and light, curly hair. When he swung
+along the street, his round hat carelessly thrown back, and his
+handsome face lit up by the sun, the old women murmured a blessing
+upon his comely head--as they used to do, a long time ago, upon the
+comely and curly head of Absalom--and the young women looked meaningly
+at one another--as was also done in the case of Absalom--and the
+object of their admiration knew that they were saying to each other,
+in the feminine way, where a look is as good as a whisper, "There goes
+a handsome fellow." Those who knew him better, and had looked more
+closely into his face, said that his mouth was bad and his eyes
+shifty. The same opinion was held by the wiser sort as regards his
+character. For, on the one hand, some averred that to their certain
+knowledge Joe Gallop had shown himself a monster of ingratitude toward
+his grandfather, who had paid his debts and done all kinds of things
+for him; on the other hand there were some who thought he had been
+badly treated; and some said that no good would ever come of a young
+fellow who was never able to remain in the same situation more than a
+month or so; and others said that he had certainly been unfortunate,
+but that he was a quick and clever young man, who would some day find
+the kind of work that suited him, and then he would show everybody of
+what stuff he was composed. As for us, we have only to judge of him by
+his actions.
+
+"Perhaps, Mr. Joseph," said Mr. James, "perhaps Miss Iris won't have
+all bequeathed to her?"
+
+"Do you know anything?" Joe asked quickly. "Has he made a new will
+lately?"
+
+"Not that I know of. But Mr. Chalker has been here off and on a good
+bit now."
+
+"Ah! Chalker's a close one, too. Else he'd tell me, his old friend.
+Look here, Foxy," he turned a beaming and smiling face upon the
+assistant. "If you should see anything or find anything out, tell me,
+mind. And, remember, I'll make it worth your while."
+
+Mr. James looked as it he was asking himself how Joseph could make it
+worth his while, seeing that he got nothing more from his grandfather,
+and by his own showing never would have anything more.
+
+"It's only his will I'm anxious to know about; that, and where he's
+put away all his money. Think what a dreadful thing it would be for
+his heirs if he were to go and die suddenly, and none of us to know
+where his investments are. As for the shop, that is already disposed
+of, as I dare say you know."
+
+"Disposed of? The shop disposed of! Oh, Lord!" The assistant turned
+pale. "Oh, Mr. Joseph," he asked earnestly, "what will become of the
+shop? And who is to have it?"
+
+"I am to have it," Mr. Joseph replied calmly. This was the lie
+absolute, and he invented it very cleverly and at the right moment--a
+thing which gives strength and life to a lie, because he already
+suspected the truth and guessed the secret hope and ambition which
+possesses every ambitious assistant in this trade--namely, to get the
+succession. Mr. James looked upon himself as the lawful and rightful
+heir to the business. But sometimes he entertained grievous doubts,
+and now indeed his heart sunk into his boots. "I am to have it," Joe
+repeated.
+
+"Oh, I didn't know. You are to have it, then? Oh!"
+
+If Mr. James had been ten years younger, I think he would have burst
+into tears. But at the age of forty weeping no longer presents itself
+as a form of relief. It is more usual to seek consolation in a swear.
+He stammered, however, while he turned pale, and then red, and then
+pale again.
+
+"Yes, quite proper, Mr. Joseph, I'm sure, and a most beautiful
+business may be made again here by one who understands the way. Oh,
+you are a lucky man, Mr. Joseph. You are indeed, sir, to get such a
+noble chance."
+
+"The shop," Joe went on, "was settled--settled upon me, long ago." The
+verb "to settle" is capable of conveying large and vague impressions.
+"But after all, what's the good of this place to a sailor?"
+
+"The good--the good of this place?" Mr. James's cheek flushed. "Why, to
+make money, to be sure--to coin money in. If I had this place to
+myself--why--why, in two years I would be making as much as two
+hundred a year. I would indeed."
+
+"You want to make money. Bah! That's all you fellows think of. To sit
+in the back shop all day long and to sell moldy books! We jolly sailor
+boys know better than that, my lad."
+
+There really was something nautical about the look of the man. He wore
+a black-silk tie, in a sailor's running-knot, the ends loose; his
+waistcoat was unbuttoned, and his coat was a kind of jacket; not to
+speak of his swinging walk and careless pose. In fact, he had been a
+sailor; he had made two voyages to India and back as assistant-purser,
+or purser's clerk, on board a P. and O. boat, but some disagreement
+with his commanding officer concerning negligence, or impudence, or
+drink, or laziness--he had been charged in different situations and at
+different times with all these vices, either together or
+separately--caused him to lose his rating on the ship's books.
+However, he brought away from his short nautical experience, and
+preserved, a certain nautical swagger, which accorded well with his
+appearance, and gave him a swashbuckler air, which made those who knew
+him well lament that he had not graced the Elizabethan era, when he
+might have become a gallant buccaneer, and so got himself shot through
+the head; or that he had not flourished under the reign of good Queen
+Anne, when he would probably have turned pirate and been hanged; or
+that, being born in the Victorian age, he had not gone to the Far
+West, where he would, at least, have had the chance of getting shot in
+a gambling-saloon.
+
+"As for me, when I get the business," he continued, "I shall look
+about for some one to carry it on until I am able to sell it for what
+it will fetch. Books at a penny apiece all round, I suppose"--James
+gasped--"shop furniture thrown in"--James panted--"and the goodwill
+for a small lump sum." James wondered how far his own savings, and
+what he could borrow, might go toward that lump sum, and how much
+might "remain." "My grandfather, as you know, of course, is soon going
+to retire from business altogether." This was another lie absolute, as
+Mr. Emblem had no intention whatever of retiring.
+
+"Soon, Mr. Joseph? He has never said a word to me about it."
+
+"Very soon, now--sooner than you expect. At seventy-five, and with
+all his money, why should he go on slaving any longer? Very soon,
+indeed. Any day."
+
+"Mr. Joseph," the assistant positively trembled with eagerness and
+apprehension.
+
+"What is it, James? Did you really think that a man like me was going
+to sit in a back shop among these moldy volumes all day? Come, that's
+too good. You might have given me credit for being one cut above a
+counter, too. I am a gentleman, James, if you please; I am an officer
+and a gentleman."
+
+He then proceeded to explain, in language that smacked something of
+the sea, that his ideas soared far above trade, which was, at best, a
+contemptible occupation, and quite unworthy of a gentleman,
+particularly an officer and a gentleman; and that his personal friends
+would never condescend even to formal acquaintance, not to speak of
+friendship, with trade. This discourse may be omitted. When one reads
+about such a man as Joe Gallop, when we are told how he looked and
+what he said and how he said it, with what gestures and in what tone,
+we feel as if it would be impossible for the simplest person in the
+world to be mistaken as to his real character. My friends, especially
+my young friends, so far from the discernment of character being easy,
+it is, on the contrary, an art most difficult, and very rarely
+attained. Nature's indications are a kind of handwriting the
+characters in which are known to few, so that, for instance, the
+quick, enquiring glance of an eye, in which one may easily read--who
+knows the character--treachery, lying, and deception, just as in the
+letter Beth was originally easily discerned the effigies of a house,
+may very easily pass unread by the multitude. The language, or rather
+the alphabet, is much less complicated than the cuneiform of the Medes
+and Persians, yet no one studies it, except women, most of whom are
+profoundly skilled in this lore, which makes them so fearfully and
+wonderfully wise. Thus it is easy for man to deceive his brother man,
+but not his sister woman. Again, most of us are glad to take everybody
+on his own statements; there are, or may be, we are all ready to
+acknowledge, with sorrow for erring humanity, somewhere else in the
+world, such things as pretending, swindling, acting a part, and
+cheating, but they do not and cannot belong to our own world. Mr.
+James, the assistant, very well knew that Mr. Emblem's grandson had
+already, though still young, as bad a record as could be desired by
+any; that he had been turned out of one situation after another; that
+his grandfather had long since refused to help him any more; that he
+was always to be found in the Broad Path which leadeth to destruction.
+When he had money he ran down that path as fast as his legs could
+carry him; when he had none, he only walked and wished he could run.
+But he never left it, and never wished to leave it. Knowing all this,
+the man accepted and believed every word of Joe's story. James
+believed it, because he hoped it. He listened respectfully to Joe's
+declamation on the meanness of trade, and then he rubbed his hands,
+and said humbly that he ventured to hope, when the sale of the
+business came on, Mr. Joseph would let him have a chance.
+
+"You?" asked Joe. "I never thought of you. But why not? Why not, I
+say? Why not you as well as anybody else?"
+
+"Nobody but me, Mr. Joseph, knows what the business is, and how it
+might be improved; and I could make arrangements for paying by regular
+instalments."
+
+"Well, we'll talk about it when the time comes. I won't forget.
+Sailors, you know, can't be expected to understand the value of shops.
+Say, James, what does the commodore do all day?"
+
+"Sits in there and adds up his investments."
+
+"Always doing that--eh? Always adding 'em up? Ah, and you've never got
+a chance of looking over his shoulder, I suppose?"
+
+"Never."
+
+"You may find that chance, one of these days. I should like to know,
+if only for curiosity, what they are and where they are. He sits in
+there and adds 'em up. Yes--I've seen him at it. There must be
+thousands by this time."
+
+"Thousands," said the assistant, in the belief that the more you add
+up a sum the larger it grows.
+
+Joe walked into the back shop and tried the safe.
+
+"Where are the keys?" he asked.
+
+"Always in his pocket or on the table before him. He don't leave them
+about."
+
+"Or you'd ha' known pretty sharp all there is to know--eh, my lad?
+Well, you're a foxy one, you are, if ever there was one. Let's be
+pals, you and me. When the old man goes, you want the shop--well, I
+don't see why you shouldn't have the shop. Somebody must have the
+shop; and it will be mine to do what I please with. As for his
+savings, he says they are all for Iris--well, wills have been set
+aside before this. Do you think now, seriously, do you think, James
+that the old man is quite right--eh? Don't answer in a hurry. Do you
+think, now, that he is quite right in his chump?"
+
+James laughed.
+
+"He's right enough, though he throws away his chances."
+
+"Throws away his chances. How the deuce can he be all right then? Did
+you ever hear of a bookseller in his right mind throwing away his
+chances?"
+
+"Why--no--for that matter--"
+
+"Very well, then; for that matter, don't forget that you've seen him
+throw away all his chances--all his chances, you said. You are ready
+to swear to that. Most important evidence, that, James." James had not
+said "all," but he grunted, and the other man went on: "It may come in
+useful, this recollection. Keep your eyes wide-open, my red haired
+pirate. As for the moldy old shop, you may consider it as good as your
+own. Why, I suppose you'll get somebody else to handle the paste-brush
+and the scissors, and tie up the parcels, and water the shop--eh?
+You'll be too proud to do that for yourself, you will."
+
+Mr. James grinned and rubbed his hands.
+
+"All your own--eh? Well, you'll wake 'em up a bit, won't you?"
+
+Mr. James grinned again--he continued grinning.
+
+"Go on, Mr. Joseph," he said; "go on--I like it."
+
+"Consider the job as settled, then. As for terms they shall be easy;
+I'm not a hard man. And--I say, Foxy, about that safe?"
+
+Mr. James suddenly ceased grinning, because he observed a look in his
+patron's eyes which alarmed him.
+
+"About that safe. You must find out for me where the old man has put
+his money, and what it is worth. Do you hear? Or else--"
+
+"How can I find out? He won't tell me any more than you."
+
+"Or else you must put me in the way of finding out." Mr. Joseph
+lowered his voice to a whisper. "He keeps the keys on the table before
+him. When a customer takes him out here, he leaves the keys behind
+him. Do you know the key of the safe?"
+
+"Yes, I know it."
+
+"What is to prevent a clever, quick-eyed fellow like you, mate,
+stepping in with a bit of wax--eh? While he is talking, you know. You
+could rush it in a moment."
+
+"It's--it's dangerous, Mr. Joseph."
+
+"So it is--rather dangerous--not much. What of that?"
+
+"I would do anything I could to be of service to you, Mr. Joseph; but
+that's not honest, and it's dangerous."
+
+"Dangerous! There's danger in the briny deep and shipwreck on the
+blast, if you come to danger. Do we, therefore, jolly mariners afloat
+ever think of that? Never. As to honesty, don't make a man sick."
+
+"Look here, Mr. Joseph. If you'll give me a promise in writing, that
+I'm to have the shop, as soon as you get it, at a fair valuation and
+easy terms--say ten per cent down, and--"
+
+"Stow it, mate; write what you like, and I'll sign it. Now about that
+key?"
+
+"Supposing you was to get a duplicate key, and supposing you was to
+get into trouble about it, Mr. Joseph, should you--should you--I only
+put it to you--should you up and round upon the man as got you that
+key?"
+
+"Foxy, you are as suspicious as a Chinaman. Well, then, do it this
+way. Send it me in a letter, and then who is to know where the letter
+came from?"
+
+The assistant nodded.
+
+"Then I think I can do the job, though not, perhaps, your way. But I
+think I can do it. I won't promise for a day or two."
+
+"There you spoke like an honest pal and a friendly shipmate.
+Dangerous! Of course it is. When the roaring winds do blow--Hands upon
+it, brother. Foxy, you've never done a better day's work. You are too
+crafty for any sailor--you are, indeed. Here, just for a little key--"
+
+"Hush, Mr. Joseph! Oh, pray--pray don't talk so loud! You don't know
+who may be listening. There's Mr. Lala Roy. You never hear him
+coming."
+
+"Just for a trifle of a key, you are going to get possession of the
+best book-shop in all Chelsea. Well, keep your eyes skinned and the
+wax ready, will you? And now, James, I'll be off."
+
+"Oh, I say, Mr. Joseph, wait a moment!" James was beginning to realize
+what he had promised. "If anything dreadful should come of this? I
+don't know what is in the safe. There may be money as well as papers."
+
+"James, do you think I would steal? Do you mean to insinuate that I am
+a thief, sir? Do you dare to suspect that I would take money?"
+
+James certainly looked as if he had thought even that possible.
+
+"I shall open the safe, take out the papers, read them, and put them
+back just as I found them. Will that do for you?"
+
+He shook hands again, and took himself off.
+
+At seven o'clock Mr. Emblem came down-stairs again.
+
+"Has any one been?" he asked as usual.
+
+"Only Mr. Joseph."
+
+"What might Mr. Joseph want?"
+
+"Nothing at all."
+
+"Then," said his grandfather, "Mr. Joseph might just as well have kept
+away."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Let us anticipate a little. James spent the next day hovering about in
+the hope that an opportunity would offer of getting the key in his
+possession for a few moments. There was no opportunity. The bunch of
+keys lay on the table under the old man's eyes all day, and when he
+left the table he carried them with him. But the day afterward he got
+his chance. One of the old customers called to talk over past bargains
+and former prizes. Mr. Emblem came out of the back shop with his
+visitor, and continued talking with him as far as the door. As he
+passed the table--James's table--he rested the hand which carried the
+keys on it, and left them there. James pounced upon them and slipped
+them into his pocket noiselessly. Mr. Emblem returned to his own chair
+and thought nothing of the keys for an hour and a half by the clock,
+and during this period James was out on business. When Mr. Emblem
+remembered his keys, he felt for them in their usual place and missed
+them, and then began searching about and cried out to James that he
+had lost his bunch of keys.
+
+"Why, sir," said James, bringing them to him, after a little search,
+and with a very red face, "here they are; you must have left them on
+my table."
+
+And in this way the job was done.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+IRIS THE HERALD.
+
+
+By a somewhat remarkable coincidence it was on this very evening that
+Iris first made the acquaintance of her pupil, Mr. Arnold Arbuthnot.
+These coincidences, I believe, happen oftener in real life than they
+do even on the stage, where people are always turning up at the very
+nick of time and the critical moment.
+
+I need little persuasion to make me believe that the first meeting of
+Arnold Arbuthnot and Iris, on the very evening when her cousin was
+opening matters with the Foxy one, was nothing short of Providential.
+You shall see, presently, what things might have happened if they had
+not met. The meeting was, in fact, the second of the three really
+important events in the life of a girl. The first, which is seldom
+remembered with the gratitude which it deserves, is her birth; the
+second, the first meeting with her future lover; the third, her
+wedding-day; the other events of a woman's life are interesting,
+perhaps, but not important.
+
+Certain circumstances, which will be immediately explained, connected
+with this meeting, made it an event of very considerable interest to
+Iris, even though she did not suspect its immense importance. So much
+interest that she thought of nothing else for a week beforehand; that
+as the appointed hour drew near she trembled and grew pale; that when
+her grandfather came up for his tea, she, who was usually so quick to
+discern the least sign of care or anxiety in his face, actually did
+not observe the trouble, plainly written in his drooping head and
+anxious eyes, which was due to his interview with Mr. David Chalker.
+
+She poured out the tea, therefore, without one word of sympathy. This
+would have seemed hard if her grandfather had expected any. He did
+not, however, because he did not know that the trouble showed in his
+face, and was trying to look as if nothing had happened. Yet in his
+brain were ringing and resounding the words, "Within three
+weeks--within three weeks," with the regularity of a horrid clock at
+midnight, when one wants to go to sleep.
+
+"Oh," cried Iris, forced, as young people always are, to speak of her
+own trouble, "oh, grandfather, he is coming to-night."
+
+"Who is coming to-night, my dear?" and then he listened again for the
+ticking of the clock: "Within three weeks--within three weeks." "Who
+is coming to-night, my dear?"
+
+He took the cup of tea from her, and sat down with an old man's
+deliberation, which springs less from wisdom and the fullness of
+thought that from respect to rheumatism.
+
+The iteration of that refrain, "Within three weeks," made him forget
+everything, even the trouble of his granddaughter's mind.
+
+"Oh, grandfather, you cannot have forgotten!"
+
+She spoke with the least possible touch of irritation, because she had
+been thinking of this thing for a week past, day and night, and it was
+a thing of such stupendous interest to her, that it seemed impossible
+that anyone who knew of it could forget what was coming.
+
+"No, no." The old man was stimulated into immediate recollection by
+the disappointment in her eyes. "No, no, my dear, I have not
+forgotten. Your pupil is coming. Mr. Arbuthnot is coming. But, Iris,
+child, don't let that worry you. I will see him for you, if you like."
+
+"No; I must see him myself. You see, dear, there is the awful
+deception. Oh, how shall I tell him?"
+
+"No deception at all," he said stoutly. "You advertised in your own
+initials. He never asked if the initials belonged to a man or to a
+woman. The other pupils do not know. Why should this one? What does it
+matter to him if you have done the work for which he engaged your
+services?"
+
+"But, oh, he is so different! And the others, you know, keep to the
+subject."
+
+"So should he, then. Why didn't he?"
+
+"But he hasn't. And I have been answering him, and he must think that
+I was drawing him on to tell me more about himself; and now--oh, what
+will he think? I drew him on and on--yet I didn't mean to--till at
+last he writes to say that he regards me as the best friend and the
+wisest adviser he has ever had. What will he think and say?
+Grandfather, it is dreadful!"
+
+"What did you tell him for, Iris, my dear? Why couldn't you let things
+go on? And by telling him you will lose your pupil."
+
+"Yes, of course; and, worse still, I shall lose his letters. We live
+so quietly here that his letters have come to me like news of another
+world. How many different worlds are there all round one in London? It
+has been pleasant to read of that one in which ladies go about
+beautifully dressed always, and where the people have nothing to do
+but to amuse themselves. He has told me about this world in which he
+lives, and about his own life, so that I know everything he does, and
+where he goes; and"--here she sighed heavily--"of course it could not
+go on forever; and I should not mind so much if it had not been
+carried on under false pretenses."
+
+"No false pretenses at all, my dear. Don't think it."
+
+"I sent back his last check," she said, trying to find a little
+consolation for herself. "But yet--"
+
+"Well, Iris," said her grandfather, "he wanted to learn heraldry, and
+you have taught him."
+
+"For the last three months"--the girl blushed as if she was confessing
+her sins--"for the last three months there has not been a single word
+in his letters about heraldry. He tells me that he writes because he
+is idle, or because he wants to talk, or because he is alone in his
+studio, or because he wants his unknown friend's advice. I am his
+unknown friend, and I have been giving him advice."
+
+"And very good advice, too," said her grandfather benevolently. "Who
+is so wise as my Iris?"
+
+"I have answered all his letters, and never once told him that I am
+only a girl."
+
+"I am glad you did not tell him, Iris," said her grandfather; but he
+did not say why he was glad. "And why can't he go on writing his
+letters without making any fuss?"
+
+"Because he says he must make the acquaintance of the man--the man, he
+says--with whom he has been in correspondence so long. This is what he
+says."
+
+She opened a letter which lay upon a table covered with papers, but
+her grandfather stopped her.
+
+"Well, my dear, I do not want to know what he says. He wishes to make
+your acquaintance. Very good, then. You are going to see him, and to
+tell him who you are. That is enough. But as for deceiving"--he
+paused, trying to understand this extreme scrupulosity of
+conscience--"if you come to deceiving--well, in a kind sort of a way
+you did allow him to think his correspondent a man. I admit that. What
+harm is done to him? None. He won't be so mean, I suppose, as to ask
+for his money back again."
+
+"I think he ought to have it all back," said Iris; "yes, all from the
+very beginning. I am ashamed that I ever took any money from him. My
+face burns when I think of it."
+
+To this her grandfather made no reply. The returning of money paid for
+services rendered was, to his commercial mind, too foolish a thing to
+be even talked about. At the same time, Iris was quite free to manage
+her own affairs. And then there was that roll of papers in the safe.
+Why, what matter if she sent away all her pupils? He changed the
+subject.
+
+"Iris, my dear," he said, "about this other world, where the people
+amuse themselves; the world which lives in the squares and in the big
+houses on the Chelsea Embankment here, you know--how should you like,
+just for a change, to belong to that world and have no work to do?"
+
+"I don't know," she replied carelessly, because the question did not
+interest her.
+
+"You would have to leave me, of course. You would sever your
+connection, as they say, with the shop."
+
+"Please, don't let us talk nonsense, grandfather."
+
+"You would have to be ashamed, perhaps, of ever having taught for your
+living."
+
+"Now that I never should be--never, not if they made me a duchess."
+
+"You would go dressed in silk and velvet. My dear, I should like to
+see you dressed up just for once, as we have seen them at the
+theater."
+
+"Well, I should like one velvet dress in my life. Only one. And it
+should be crimson--a beautiful, deep, dark crimson."
+
+"Very good. And you would drive in a carriage instead of an omnibus;
+you would sit in the stalls instead of the upper circle; you would
+give quantities of money to poor people; and you would buy as many
+second hand books as you pleased. There are rich people, I believe,
+ostentatious people, who buy new books. But you, my dear, have been
+better brought up. No books are worth buying till they have stood the
+criticism of a whole generation at least. Never buy new books, my
+dear."
+
+"I won't," said Iris. "But, you dear old man, what have you got in
+your head to-night? Why in the world should we talk about getting
+rich?"
+
+"I was only thinking," he said, "that perhaps, you might be so much
+happier--"
+
+"Happier? Nonsense! I am as happy as I can be. Six pupils already. To
+be sure I have lost one," she sighed; "and the best among them all."
+
+When her grandfather left her, Iris placed candles on the
+writing-table, but did not light them, though it was already pretty
+dark. She had half an hour to wait; and she wanted to think, and
+candles are not necessary for meditation. She sat at the open window
+and suffered her thoughts to ramble where they pleased. This is a
+restful thing to do, especially if your windows look upon a tolerably
+busy but not noisy London road. For then, it is almost as good as
+sitting beside a swiftly-running stream; the movement of the people
+below is like the unceasing flow of the current; the sound of the
+footsteps is like the whisper of the water along the bank; the echo of
+the half heard talk strikes your ear like the mysterious voices wafted
+to the banks from the boats as they go by; and the lights of the shops
+and the street presently become spectral and unreal like lights seen
+upon the river in the evening.
+
+Iris had a good many pupils--six, in fact, as she had boasted; why,
+then, was she so strangely disturbed on account of one?
+
+An old tutor by correspondence may be, and very likely is, indifferent
+about his pupils, because he has had so many; but Iris was a young
+tutor, and had as yet known few. One of her pupils, for instance, was
+a gentleman in the fruit and potato line, in the Borough. By reason of
+his early education, which had not been neglected so much as entirely
+omitted, he was unable to personally conduct his accounts. Now a
+merchant without his accounts is as helpless as a tourist without his
+Cook. So that he desired, in his mature age, to learn book keeping,
+compound addition, subtraction, and multiplication. He had no
+partners, so that he did not want division. But it is difficult--say,
+well-nigh impossible--for a middle-aged merchant, not trained in the
+graces of letter-writing, to inspire a young lady with personal
+regard, even though she is privileged to follow the current of his
+thoughts day by day, and to set him his sums.
+
+Next there was a young fellow of nineteen or twenty, who was beginning
+life as an assistant-teacher in a commercial school at Lower Clapton.
+This way is a stony and a thorny path to tread; no one walks upon it
+willingly; those who are compelled to enter upon it speedily either
+run away and enlist, or they go and find a secluded spot in which to
+hang themselves. The smoother ways of the profession are only to be
+entered by one who is the possessor of a degree, and it was the
+determination of this young man to pass the London University
+Examinations, and to obtain the degree of Bachelor. In this way his
+value in the educational market would be at once doubled, and he could
+command a better place and lighter work. He showed himself, in his
+letters, to be an eminently practical, shrewd, selfish, and
+thick-skinned young man, who would quite certainly get on in the
+world, and was resolved to lose no opportunities, and, with that view,
+he took as much work out of his tutor as he could get for the money.
+Had he known that the "I.A." who took such a wonderful amount of
+trouble with his papers was only a woman, he would certainly have
+extorted a great deal more work for his money. All this Iris read in
+his letters and understood. There is no way in which a man more surely
+and more naturally reveals his true character than in his
+correspondence, so that after awhile, even though the subject of the
+letters be nothing more interesting than the studies in hand, those
+who write the letters may learn to know each other if they have but
+the mother wit to read between the lines. Certainly this young
+schoolmaster did not know Iris, nor did he desire to discover what she
+was like, being wholly occupied with the study of himself. Strange and
+kindly provision of Nature. The less desirable a man actually appears
+to others, the more fondly he loves and believes in himself. I have
+heard it whispered that Narcissus was a hunchback.
+
+Then there was another pupil, a girl who was working her very hardest
+in order to become, as she hoped, a first-class governess, and who,
+poor thing! by reason of her natural thickness would never reach even
+the third rank. Iris would have been sorry for her, because she worked
+so fiercely, and was so stupid, but there was something hard and
+unsympathetic in her nature which forbade pity. She was miserably
+poor, too, and had an unsuccessful father, no doubt as stupid as
+herself, and made pitiful excuses for not forwarding the slender fees
+with regularity.
+
+Everybody who is poor should be, on that ground alone, worthy of pity
+and sympathy. But the hardness and stupidity, and the ill-temper, all
+combined and clearly shown in her letters, repelled her tutor. Iris,
+who drew imaginary portraits of her pupils, pictured the girl as plain
+to look upon, with a dull eye, a leathery, pallid cheek, a forehead
+without sunshine upon it, and lips which seldom parted with a smile.
+
+Then there was, besides, a Cambridge undergraduate. He was neither
+clever, nor industrious, nor very ambitious; he thought that a
+moderate place was quite good enough for him to aim at, and he found
+that his unknown and obscure tutor by correspondence was cheap and
+obliging, and willing to take trouble, and quite as efficacious for
+his purposes as the most expensive Cambridge coach. Iris presently
+discovered that he was lazy and luxurious, a deceiver of himself, a
+dweller in Fool's Paradise and a constant shirker of work. Therefore,
+she disliked him. Had she actually known him and talked with him, she
+might have liked him better in spite of these faults and shortcomings,
+for he was really a pleasant, easygoing youth, who wallowed in
+intellectual sloth, but loved physical activity; who will presently
+drop easily, and comfortably, and without an effort or a doubt, into
+the bosom of the Church, and will develop later on into an admirable
+country parson, unless they disestablish the Establishment: in which
+case, I do not know what he will do.
+
+But this other man, this man who was coming for an explanation, this
+Mr. Arnold Arbuthnot, was, if you please, a very different kind of
+pupil. In the first place he was a gentleman, a fact which he
+displayed, not ostentatiously, in every line of his letters; next, he
+had come to her for instruction--the only pupil she had in that
+science, in heraldry, which she loved. It is far more pleasant to be
+describing a shield and settling questions in the queer old language
+of this queer old science, than in solving and propounding problems in
+trigonometry and conic sections. And then--how if your pupil begins to
+talk round the subject and to wander into other things? You cannot
+very well talk round a branch of mathematics, but heraldry is a
+subject surrounded by fields, meadows, and lawns, so to speak, all
+covered with beautiful flowers. Into these the pupil wandered, and
+Iris not unwillingly followed. Thus the teaching of heraldry by
+correspondence became the most delightful interchange of letters
+imaginable, set off and enriched with a curious and strange piquancy,
+derived from the fact that one of them, supposed to be an elderly man,
+was a young girl, ignorant of the world except from books, and the
+advice given her by two old men, who formed all her society. Then, as
+was natural, what was at first a kind of play, became before long a
+serious and earnest confidence on the one side, and a hesitating
+reception on the other.
+
+Latterly he more than once amused himself by drawing an imaginary
+portrait of her; it was a pleasing portrait, but it made her feel
+uneasy.
+
+"I know you," he said, "from your letters, but yet I want to know you
+in person. I think you are a man advanced in years." Poor Iris! and
+she not yet twenty-one. "You sit in your study and read; you wear
+glasses, and your hair is gray; you have a kind heart and a cheerful
+voice; you are not rich--you have never tried to make yourself rich;
+you are therefore little versed in the ways of mankind; you take your
+ideas chiefly from books; the few friends you have chosen are true and
+loyal; you are full of sympathy, and quick to read the thoughts of
+those in whom you take an interest." A very fine character, but it
+made Iris's cheek to burn and her eyes to drop. To be sure she was not
+rich, nor did she know the world; so far her pupil was right, but yet
+she was not gray nor old. And, again, she was not, as he thought, a
+man.
+
+Letter-writing is not extinct, as it is a commonplace to affirm, and
+as people would have us believe. Letters are written still--the most
+delightful letters--letters as copious, as charming, as any of the
+last century; but men and women no longer write their letters as
+carefully as they used to do in the old days, because they were then
+shown about, and very likely read aloud. Our letters, therefore,
+though their sentences are not so balanced nor their periods so
+rounded, are more real, more truthful, more spontaneous, and more
+delightful than the laborious productions of our ancestors, who had to
+weigh every phrase, and to think out their bon mots, epigrams, and
+smart things for weeks beforehand, so that the letter might appear
+full of impromptu wit. I should like, for instance, just for once, to
+rob the outward or the homeward mail, in order to read all the
+delightful letters which go every week backward and forward between
+the folk in India and the folk at home.
+
+"I shall lose my letters," Iris recollected, and her heart sunk. Not
+only did her correspondent begin to draw these imaginary portraits of
+her, but he proceeded to urge upon her to come out of her concealment,
+and to grant him an interview. This she might have refused, in her
+desire to continue a correspondence which brightened her monotonous
+life. But there came another thing, and this decided her. He began to
+give, and to ask, opinions concerning love, marriage, and such
+topics--and then she perceived it could not possibly be discussed with
+him, even in domino and male disguise. "As for love," her pupil wrote,
+"I suppose it is a real and not a fancied necessity of life. A man, I
+mean, may go on a long time without it, but there will come a time--do
+not you think so?--when he is bound to feel the incompleteness of life
+without a woman to love. We ought to train our boys and girls from the
+very beginning to regard love and marriage as the only things really
+worth having, because without them there is no happiness. Give me your
+own experience. I am sure you must have been in love at some time or
+other in your life."
+
+Anybody will understand that Iris could not possibly give her own
+experience in love-matters, nor could she plunge into speculative
+philosophy of this kind with her pupil. Obviously the thing must come
+to an end. Therefore she wrote a letter to him, telling him that
+"I.A." would meet him, if he pleased, that very evening at the hour of
+eight.
+
+It is by this time sufficiently understood that Iris Aglen professed
+to teach--it is an unusual combination--mathematics and heraldry; she
+might also have taught equally well, had she chosen, sweetness of
+disposition, goodness of heart, the benefits conferred by pure and
+lofty thoughts on the expression of a girl's face, and the way to
+acquire all the other gracious, maidenly virtues; but either there is
+too limited a market for these branches of culture, or--which is
+perhaps the truer reason--there are so many English girls, not to
+speak of Americans, who are ready and competent to teach them, and do
+teach them to their brothers, and their lovers, and to each other, and
+to their younger sisters all day long.
+
+As for her heraldry, it was natural that she should acquire that
+science, because her grandfather knew as much as any Pursuivant or
+King-at-Arms, and thought that by teaching the child a science which
+is nowadays cultivated by so few, he was going to make her fortune.
+Besides, ever mindful of the secret packet, he thought that an heiress
+ought to understand heraldry. It was, indeed, as you shall see, in
+this way that her fortune was made; but yet not quite in the way he
+proposed to make it. Nobody ever makes a fortune quite in the way at
+first intended for him.
+
+As for her mathematics, it is no wonder that she was good in this
+science, because she was a pupil of Lala Roy.
+
+This learned Bengalee condescended to acknowledge the study of
+mathematics as worthy even of the Indian intellect, and amused himself
+with them when he was not more usefully engaged in chess. He it was
+who, being a lodger in the house, taught Iris almost as soon as she
+could read how letters placed side by side may be made to signify and
+accomplish stupendous things, and how they may disguise the most
+graceful and beautiful curves, and how they may even open a way into
+boundless space, and there disclose marvels. This wondrous world did
+the philosopher open to the ready and quick-witted girl; nor did he
+ever lead her to believe that it was at all an unusual or an
+extraordinary thing for a girl to be so quick and apt for science as
+herself, nor did he tell her that if she went to Newnham or to Girton,
+extraordinary glories would await her, with the acclamations of the
+multitude in the Senate House and the praise of the Moderators. Iris,
+therefore, was not proud of her mathematics, which seemed part of her
+very nature. But of her heraldry she was, I fear, extremely
+proud--proud even to sinfulness. No doubt this was the reason why,
+through her heraldry, the humiliation of this evening fell upon her.
+
+"If he is young," she thought, "if he is young--and he is sure to be
+young--he will be very angry at having opened his mind to a girl"--it
+will be perceived that, although she knew so much mathematics, she was
+really very ignorant of the opposite sex, not to know that a young man
+likes nothing so much as the opening of his mind to a young lady. "If
+he is old, he will be more humiliated still"--as if any man at any age
+was ever humiliated by confessing himself to a woman. "If he is a
+proud man, he will never forgive me. Indeed, I am sure that he can
+never forgive me, whatever kind of man he is. But I can do no more
+than tell him I am sorry. If he will not forgive me then, what more
+can I say? Oh, if he should be vindictive!"
+
+When the clock began to strike the hour of eight, Iris lighted her
+candles, and before the pulsation of the last stroke had died away,
+she heard the ringing of the house-bell.
+
+The door was opened by her grandfather himself, and she heard his
+voice.
+
+"Yes," he said, "you will find your tutor, in the first floor front,
+alone. If you are inclined to be vindictive, when you hear all,
+please ring the bell for me."
+
+The visitor mounted the stairs, and Iris, hearing his step, began to
+tremble and to shake for fear.
+
+When the door opened she did not at first look up. But she knew that
+her pupil was there, and that he was looking for his tutor.
+
+"Pardon me"--the voice was not unpleasant--"pardon me. I was directed
+to this room. I have an appointment with my tutor."
+
+"If," said Iris, rising, for the time for confession had at length
+arrived, "if you are Mr. Arnold Arbuthnot, your appointment is, I
+believe, with me."
+
+"It is with my tutor," he said.
+
+"I am your tutor. My initials are I.A."
+
+The room was only lighted by two candles, but they showed him the
+hanging head and the form of a woman, and he thought she looked young,
+judging by the outline. Her voice was sweet and clear.
+
+"My tutor? You?"
+
+"If you really are Mr. Arnold Arbuthnot, the gentleman who has
+corresponded with I.A. for the last two years on heraldry, and--and
+other things, I am your tutor."
+
+She had made the dreaded confession. The rest would be easy. She even
+ventured to raise her eyes, and she perceived, with a sinking of the
+heart, that her estimate of her pupil's age was tolerably correct. He
+was a young man, apparently not more than five or six and twenty.
+
+It now remained to be seen if he was vindictive.
+
+As for the pupil, when he recovered a little from the blow of this
+announcement, he saw before him a girl, quite young, dressed in a
+simple gray or drab colored stuff, which I have reason to believe is
+called Carmelite. The dress had a crimson kerchief arranged in folds
+over the front, and a lace collar, and at first sight it made the
+beholder feel that, considered merely as a setting of face and figure,
+it was remarkably effective. Surely this is the true end and aim of
+all feminine adornment, apart from the elementary object of keeping
+one warm.
+
+"I--I did not know," the young man said, after a pause, "I did not
+know at all that I was corresponding with a lady."
+
+Here she raised her eyes again, and he observed that the eyes were
+very large and full of light--"eyes like the fishpools of
+Heshbon"--dove's eyes.
+
+"I am very sorry," she said meekly. "It was my fault."
+
+He observed other things now, having regained the use of his senses.
+Thus he saw that she wore her hair, which was of a wonderful chestnut
+brown color, parted at the side like a boy's, and that she had not
+committed the horrible enormity of cutting it short. He observed, too,
+that while her lips were quivering and her cheek was blushing, her
+look was steadfast. Are dove's eyes, he asked himself, always
+steadfast?
+
+"I ought to have told you long ago, when you began to write
+about--about yourself and other things, when I understood that you
+thought I was a man--oh, long ago I ought to have told you the truth!"
+
+"It is wonderful!" said the young man, "it is truly wonderful!" He
+was thinking of the letters--long letters, full of sympathy, and a
+curious unworldly wisdom, which she had sent him in reply to his own,
+and he was comparing them with her youthful face, as one involuntarily
+compares a poet's appearance with his poetry--generally a
+disappointing thing to do, and always a foolish thing.
+
+"I am very sorry," she repeated.
+
+"Have you many pupils, like myself?"
+
+"I have several pupils in mathematics. It does not matter to them
+whether they are taught by a man or a woman. In heraldry I had only
+one--you."
+
+He looked round the room. One end was occupied by shelves, filled with
+books; in one of the windows was a table, covered with papers and
+adorned with a type-writer, by means of which Iris carried on her
+correspondence. For a moment the unworthy thought crossed his mind
+that he had been, perhaps, artfully lured on by a siren for his
+destruction. Only for a moment, however, because she raised her face
+and met his gaze again, with eyes so frank and innocent, that he could
+not doubt them. Besides, there was the clear outline of her face, so
+truthful and so honest. The young man was an artist, and therefore
+believed in outline. Could any sane and intelligent creature doubt
+those curves of cheek and chin?
+
+"I have put together," she said, "all your letters for you. Here they
+are. Will you, please, take them back? I must not keep them any
+longer." He took them, and bowed. "I made this appointment, as you
+desired, to tell you the truth, because I have deceived you too long:
+and to beg you to forgive me; and to say that, of course, there is an
+end to our correspondence."
+
+"Thank you. It shall be as you desire. Exactly," he repeated, "as you
+desire."
+
+He ought to have gone at once. There was nothing more to say. Yet he
+lingered, holding the letters in his hand.
+
+"To write these letters," he said, "has been for a long time one of
+my greatest pleasures, partly because I felt that I was writing to a
+friend, and so wrote in full trust and confidence; partly because they
+procured me a reply--in the shape of your letters. Must I take back
+these letters of mine?"
+
+She made no answer.
+
+"It is hard, is it not, to lose a friend so slowly acquired, thus
+suddenly and unexpectedly?"
+
+"Yes," she said, "it is hard. I am very sorry. It was my fault."
+
+"Perhaps I have said something, in my ignorance--something which ought
+not to have been said or written--something careless--something which
+has lowered me in your esteem--"
+
+"Oh, no--no!" said Iris quickly. "You have never said anything that a
+gentleman should not have said."
+
+"And if you yourself found any pleasure in answering my letters--"
+
+"Yes," said Iris with frankness, "it gave me great pleasure to read
+and to answer your letters, as well as I could."
+
+"I have not brought back your letters. I hope you will allow me to
+keep them. And, if you will, why should we not continue our
+correspondence as before?" But he did not ask the question
+confidently.
+
+"No," said Iris decidedly "it can never be continued as before. How
+could it, when once we have met, and you have learned the truth?"
+
+"Then," he continued, "if we cannot write to each other any more, can
+we not talk?"
+
+She ought to have informed him on the spot that the thing was quite
+impossible, and not to be thought of for one moment. She should have
+said, coldly, but firmly--every right-minded and well-behaved girl
+would have said--"Sir, it is not right that you should come alone to a
+young lady's study. Such things are not to be permitted. It we meet in
+society, we may, perhaps, renew our acquaintance."
+
+But girls do go on sometimes as if there was no such thing as
+propriety at all, and such cases are said to be growing more frequent.
+Besides, Iris was not a girl who was conversant with social
+convenances. She looked at her pupil thoughtfully and frankly.
+
+"Can we?" she asked. She who hesitates is lost, a maxim which cannot
+be too often read, said, and studied. It is one of the very few golden
+rules omitted from Solomon's Proverbs. "Can we? It would be pleasant."
+
+"It you will permit me," he blushed and stammered, wondering at her
+ready acquiescence, "if you will permit me to call upon you
+sometimes--here, if you will allow me, or anywhere else. You know my
+name. I am by profession an artist, and I have a studio close at hand
+in Tite Street."
+
+"To call upon me here?" she repeated.
+
+Now, when one is a tutor, and has been reading with a pupil for two
+years, one regards that pupil with a feeling which may not be exactly
+parental, but which is unconventional. If Arnold had said, "Behold me!
+May I, being a young man, call upon you, a young woman?" she would
+have replied: "No, young man, that can never be." But when he said,
+"May I, your pupil, call sometimes upon you, my tutor?" a distinction
+was at once established by which the impossible became possible.
+
+"Yes," she said, "I think you may call. My grandfather has his tea
+with me every evening at six. You may call then if it will give you
+any pleasure."
+
+"You really will let me come here?"
+
+The young man looked as if the permission was likely to give him the
+greatest pleasure.
+
+"Yes; if you wish it."
+
+She spoke just exactly like an Oxford Don giving an undergraduate
+permission to take an occasional walk with him, or to call for
+conversation and advice at certain times in his rooms. Arnold noticed
+the manner, and smiled.
+
+"Still," he said, "as your pupil."
+
+He meant to set her at her ease concerning the propriety of these
+visits. She thought he meant a continuation of a certain little
+arrangement as to fees, and blushed.
+
+"No," she said; "I must not consider you as a pupil any longer. You
+have put an end to that yourself."
+
+"I do not mind, if only I continue your friend."
+
+"Oh," she said, "but we must not pledge ourselves rashly to
+friendship. Perhaps you will not like me when you once come to know
+me."
+
+"Then I remain your disciple."
+
+"Oh no," she flushed again, "you must already think me presumptuous
+enough in venturing to give you advice. I have written so many foolish
+things--"
+
+"Indeed, no," he interrupted, "a thousand times no. Let me tell you
+once for all, if I may, that you have taught me a great deal--far more
+than you can ever understand, or than I can explain. Where did you get
+your wisdom? Not from the Book of Human Life. Of that you cannot know
+much as yet."
+
+"The wisdom is in your imagination, I think. You shall not be my pupil
+nor my disciple, but--well--because you have told me so much, and I
+seem to have known you so long, and, besides, because you must never
+feel ashamed of having told me so much, you shall come, if you please,
+as my brother."
+
+It was not till afterward that she reflected on the vast
+responsibilities she incurred in making this proposal, and on the
+eagerness with which her pupil accepted it.
+
+"As your brother!" he cried, offering her his hand. "Why, it is
+far--far more than I could have ventured to hope. Yes, I will come as
+your brother. And now, although you know so much about me, you have
+told me nothing about yourself--not even your name."
+
+"My name is Iris Aglen."
+
+"Iris! It is a pretty name!"
+
+"It was, I believe, my grandmother's. But I never saw her, and I do
+not know who or what my father's relations are."
+
+"Iris Aglen!" he repeated. "Iris was the Herald of the Gods, and the
+rainbow was constructed on purpose to serve her for a way from Heaven
+to the Earth."
+
+"Mathematicians do not allow that," said the girl, smiling.
+
+"I don't know any mathematics. But now I understand in what school you
+learned your heraldry. You are Queen-at-Arms at least, and Herald to
+the Gods of Olympus."
+
+He wished to add something about the loveliness of Aphrodite, and the
+wisdom of Athene, but he refrained, which was in good taste.
+
+"Thank you, Mr. Arbuthnot," Iris replied. "I learned my heraldry of my
+grandfather, who taught himself from the books he sells. And my
+mathematics I learned of Lala Roy, who is our lodger, and a learned
+Hindoo gentleman. My father is dead--and my mother as well--and I have
+no friends in the world except these two old men, who love me, and
+have done their best to spoil me."
+
+Her eyes grew humid and her voice trembled.
+
+No other friends in the world! Strange to say, this young man felt a
+little sense of relief. No other friends. He ought to have sympathized
+with the girl's loneliness; he might have asked her how she could
+possibly endure life without companionship, but he did not; he only
+felt that other friends might have been rough and ill-bred; this girl
+derived her refinement, not only from nature, but also from separation
+from the other girls who might in the ordinary course have been her
+friends and associates. And if no other friends, then no lover.
+Arnold was only going to visit the young lady as her brother; but
+lovers do not generally approve the introduction of such novel effects
+as that caused by the appearance of a brand-new and previously
+unsuspected brother. He was glad, on the whole, that there was no
+lover.
+
+Then he left her, and went home to his studio, where he sat till
+midnight, sketching a thousand heads one after the other with rapid
+pencil. They were all girls' heads, and they all had hair parted on
+the left side, with a broad, square forehead, full eyes, and straight,
+clear-cut features.
+
+"No," he said, "it is no good. I cannot catch the curve of her
+mouth--nobody could. What a pretty girl! And I am to be her brother!
+What will Clara say? And how--oh, how in the world can she be, all at
+the same time, so young, so pretty, so learned, so quick, so
+sympathetic, and so wise?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+THE WOLF AT HOME.
+
+
+There is a certain music-hall, in a certain street, leading out of a
+certain road, and this is quite clear and definite enough. Its
+distinctive characteristics, above any of its fellows, is a vulgarity
+so profound, that the connoisseur or student in that branch of mental
+culture thinks that here at last he has reached the lowest depths. For
+this reason one shrinks from actually naming it, because it might
+become fashionable, and then, if it fondly tried to change its
+character to suit its changed audience, it might entirely lose its
+present charm, and become simply commonplace.
+
+Joe Gallop stood in the doorway of this hall, a few days after the
+Tempting of Mr. James. It was about ten o'clock, when the
+entertainments were in full blast. He had a cigarette between his
+lips, as becomes a young man of fashion, but it had gone out, and he
+was thinking of something. To judge from the cunning look in his eyes,
+it was something not immediately connected with the good of his
+fellow-creatures. Presently the music of the orchestra ceased, and
+certain female acrobats, who had been "contorting" themselves
+fearfully and horribly for a quarter of an hour upon the stage, kissed
+their hands, which were as hard as ropes, from the nature of their
+profession, and smiled a fond farewell. There was some applause, but
+not much, because neither man nor woman cares greatly for female
+acrobats, and the performers themselves are with difficulty persuaded
+to learn their art, and generally make haste to "go in" again as soon
+as they can, and try henceforward to forget that they have ever done
+things with ropes and bars.
+
+Joe, when they left the stage, ceased his meditations, whatever may
+have been their subject, lit a fresh cigarette, and assumed an air of
+great expectation, as if something really worth seeing and hearing
+were now about to appear. And when the chairman brought down the
+hammer with the announcement that Miss Carlotta Claradine, the
+People's Favorite, would now oblige, it was Joe who loudly led the way
+for a tumultuous burst of applause. Then the band, which at this
+establishment, and others like unto it, only plays two tunes, one for
+acrobats, and one for singers, struck up the second air, and the
+People's Favorite appeared. She may have had by nature a sweet and
+tuneful voice; perhaps it was in order to please her friends, the
+people, that, she converted it into a harsh and rasping voice, that
+she delivered her words with even too much gesture, and that she
+uttered a kind of shriek at the beginning of every verse, which was
+not in the composer's original music, but was thrown in to compel
+attention. She was dressed with great simplicity, in plain frock,
+apron, and white cap, to represent a fair young Quakeress, and she
+sung a song about her lover with much "archness"--a delightful quality
+in woman.
+
+"Splendid, splendid! Bravo!" shouted Joseph at the end of the first
+verse. "That fetches 'em, don't it, sir? Positively drags 'em, in,
+sir."
+
+He addressed his words, without turning his head, to a man who had
+just come in, and was gazing at him with unbounded astonishment.
+
+"You here, Joe??" he said.
+
+Joe started.
+
+"Why, Chalker, who'd have thought to meet you in this music-hall?"
+
+"It's a good step, isn't it? And what are you doing, Joe? I heard
+you'd left the P. and O. Company."
+
+"Had to," said Joe. "A gentleman has no choice but to resign. Ought
+never to have gone there. There's no position, Chalker--no position at
+all in the service. That is what I felt. Besides, the uniform, for a
+man of my style, is unbecoming. And the captain was a cad."
+
+"Humph! and what are you doing then? Living on the old man again?"
+
+"Never you mind, David Chalker," replied Joe with dignity; "I am not
+likely to trouble you any more after the last time I called upon you."
+
+"Well, Joe," said the other, without taking offense, "it is not my
+business to lend money without a security, and all you had to offer
+was your chance of what your grandfather might leave you--or might
+not."
+
+"And a very good security too, if he does justice to his relations."
+
+"Yes; but how did I know whether he was going to do justice? Come,
+Joe, don't be shirty with an old friend."
+
+There was a cordiality in the solicitor's manner which boded well. Joe
+was pretty certain that Mr. Chalker was not a man to cultivate
+friendship unless something was to be got out of it. It is only the
+idle and careless who can waste time over unprofitable friendships.
+With most men friendship means assisting in each other's little games,
+so that every man must become, on occasion, bonnet, confederate, and
+pal, for his friend, and may expect the same kindly office for
+himself.
+
+If Chalker wished to keep up his old acquaintance with Joe Gallop,
+there must be some good reason. Now the only reason which suggested
+itself to Joe at that moment was that Chalker had lately drawn a new
+will for the old man, and that he himself might be in it. Here he was
+wrong. The only reason of Mr. Chalker's friendly attitude was
+curiosity to know what Joe was doing, and how he was living.
+
+"Look here, Chalker," Joe whispered, "you used to pretend to be a pal.
+What's the good of being a pal if you won't help a fellow? You see my
+grandfather once a week or so; you shut the door and have long talks
+with him. If you know what he's going to do with his money, why not
+tell a fellow? Let's make a business matter of it."
+
+"How much do you know, Joe, and what is your business proposal worth?"
+
+"Nothing at all; that's the honest truth--I know nothing. The old
+man's as tight as wax. But there's other business in the world besides
+his. Suppose I know of something a precious sight better than his
+investments, and suppose--just suppose--that I wanted a lawyer to
+manage it for me?"
+
+"Well, Joe?"
+
+"Encore! Bravo! Encore! Bravo!" Joe banged his stick on the floor and
+shouted because the singer ended her first song. He looked so fierce
+and big, that all the bystanders made haste to follow his example.
+
+"Splendid, isn't she?" he said.
+
+"Hang the singer! What do you mean by other business?"
+
+"Perhaps it's nothing. Perhaps there will be thousands in it. And
+perhaps I can get on without you, after all."
+
+"Very well, Joe. Get on without me if you like."
+
+"Look here, Chalker," Joe laid a persuasive hand on the other's arm,
+"can't we two be friendly? Why don't you give a fellow a lift? All I
+want to know is where the old man's put his money, and how he's left
+it."
+
+"Suppose I do know," Mr. Chalker replied, wishing ardently that he
+did, "do you think I am going to betray trust--a solicitor betray
+trust--and for nothing? But if you want to talk real business, Joe,
+come to my office. You know where that is."
+
+Joe knew very well; in fact, there had been more than one difficulty
+which had been adjusted through Mr. Chalker's not wholly disinterested
+aid.
+
+Then the singer appeared again attired in a new and startling dress,
+and Joe began once more to applaud again with voice and stick. Mr.
+Chalker, surprised at this newly-developed enthusiasm for art, left
+him and walked up the hall, and sat down beside the chairman, whom he
+seemed to know. In fact, the chairman was also the proprietor of the
+show, and Mr. Chalker was acting for him in his professional capacity,
+much as he had acted for Mr. Emblem.
+
+"Who is your new singer?" he asked.
+
+"She calls herself Miss Carlotta Claradine. She's a woman, let me tell
+you, Mr. Chalker, who will get along. Fine figure, plenty of cheek,
+loud voice, flings herself about, and don't mind a bit when the words
+are a leetle strong. That's the kind of singer the people like. That's
+her husband, at the far end of the room--the big, good-looking chap
+with the light mustache and the cigarette in his mouth."
+
+"Whew!" Mr. Chalker whistled the low note which indicates Surprise.
+"That's her husband, is it? The husband of Miss Carlotta Claradine, is
+it? Oho! oho! Her husband! Are you sure he is her husband?"
+
+"Do you know him, then?"
+
+"Yes, I know him. What was the real name of the girl?"
+
+"Charlotte Smithers. This is her first appearance on any stage--and we
+made up the name for her when we first put her on the posters. I made
+it myself--out of Chlorodyne, you know, which is in the
+advertisements. Sounds well, don't it? Carlotta Claradine."
+
+"Very well, indeed. By Jove! Her husband, is he?"
+
+"And, I suppose," said the chairman, "lives on his wife's salary.
+Bless you, Mr. Chalker, there's a whole gang about every theater and
+music hall trying to get hold of the promising girls. It's a regular
+profession. Them as have nothing but their good looks may do for the
+mashers, but these chaps look out for the girls who'll bring in the
+money. What's a pretty face to them compared with the handling of a
+big salary every week? That's the sort Carlotta's husband belongs to."
+
+"Well, the life will suit him down to the ground."
+
+"And jealous with it, if you please. He comes here every night to
+applaud and takes her home himself. Keeps himself sober on purpose."
+
+And then the lady appeared again in a wonderful costume of blue silk
+and tights, personating the Lion Masher. It was her third and last
+song.
+
+In the applause which followed, Mr. Chalker could discern plainly the
+stick as well as the voice of his old friend. And he thought how
+beautiful is the love of husband unto wife, and he smiled, thinking
+that when Joe came next to see him, he might, perhaps, hear truths
+which he had thought unknown, and, for certain reasons, wished to
+remain unknown.
+
+Presently he saw the singer pass down the hall, and join her husband,
+who now, his labors ended, was seeking refreshment at the bar. She was
+a good-looking girl--still only a girl, and apparently under
+twenty--quietly dressed, yet looking anything but quiet. But that
+might have been due to her fringe, which was, so to speak, a
+prominent-feature in her face. She was tall and well-made, with large
+features, an ample cheek, a full eye, and a wide mouth. A
+good-natured-looking girl, and though her mouth was wide, it suggested
+smiles. The husband was exchanging a little graceful badinage with the
+barmaid when she joined him, and perhaps this made her look a little
+cross. "She's jealous, too," said Mr. Chalker, observant; "all the
+better." Yet a face which, on the whole, was prepossessing and good
+natured, and betokened a disposition to make the best of the world.
+
+"How long has she been married?" Mr. Chalker asked the proprietor.
+
+"Only about a month or so."
+
+"Ah!"
+
+Mr. Chalker proceeded to talk business, and gave no further hint of
+any interest in the newly-married pair.
+
+"Now, Joe," said the singer, with a freezing glance at the barmaid,
+"are you going to stand here all night?"
+
+Joe drank off his glass and followed his wife into the street. They
+walked side by side in silence, until they reached their lodgings.
+Then she threw off her hat and jacket, and sat down on the horsehair
+sofa and said abruptly:
+
+"I can't do it, Joe; and I won't. So don't ask me."
+
+"Wait a bit--wait a bit, Lotty, my love. Don't be in a hurry, now.
+Don't say rash things, there's a good girl." Joe spoke quite softly,
+as if he were not the least angry, but, perhaps, a little hurt.
+"There's not a bit of a hurry. You needn't decide to-day, nor yet
+to-morrow."
+
+"I couldn't do it," she said. "Oh, it's a dreadful, wicked thing even
+to ask me. And only five weeks to-morrow since we married!"
+
+"Lotty, my dear, let us be reasonable." He still spoke quite softly.
+"If we are not to go on like other people; if we are to be continually
+bothering our heads about honesty, and that rubbish, we shall be
+always down in the world. How do other people make money and get on?
+By humbug, my dear. By humbug. As for you, a little play-acting is
+nothing."
+
+"But I am not the man's daughter, and my own father's alive and well."
+
+"Look here, Lotty. You are always grumbling about the music-halls."
+
+"Well, and good reason to grumble. If you heard those ballet girls
+talk, and see how they go on at the back, you'd grumble. As for the
+music--" She laughed, as if against her will. "If anybody had told me
+six months ago--me, that used to go to the Cathedral Service every
+afternoon--that I should be a Lion Masher at a music-hall and go on
+dressed in tights, I should have boxed his ears for impudence."
+
+"Why, you don't mean to tell me, Lotty, that you wish you had stuck to
+the moldy old place, and gone on selling music over the counter?"
+
+"Well, then, perhaps I do."
+
+"No, no, Lotty; your husband cannot let you say that."
+
+"My husband can laugh and talk with barmaids. That makes him happy."
+
+"Lotty," he said, "you are a little fool. And think of the glory.
+Posters with your name in letters a foot and a half long--'The
+People's Favorite.' Why, don't they applaud you till their hands drop
+off?"
+
+She melted a little.
+
+"Applaud! As if that did any good! And me in tights!"
+
+"As for the tights," Joe replied with dignity, "the only person whom
+you need consult on that subject is your husband; and since I do not
+object, I should like to see the man who does. Show me that man,
+Lotty, and I'll straighten him out for you. You have my perfect
+approval, my dear. I honor you for the tights."
+
+"My husband's approval!"
+
+She repeated his words again in a manner which had been on other
+occasions most irritating to him. But to-night he refused to be
+offended.
+
+"Of course," he went on, "as soon as I get a berth on another ship I
+shall take you off the boards. It is the husband's greatest delight,
+especially if he is a jolly sailor, to brave all dangers for his wife.
+Think, Lotty, how pleasant it would be not to do any more work."
+
+"I should like to sing sometimes, to sing good music, at the great
+concerts. That's what I thought I was going to do."
+
+"You shall; you shall sing as little or as often as you like. 'A
+sailor's wife a sailor's star should be.' You shall be a great lady,
+Lotty, and you shall just command your own line. Wait a bit, and you
+shall have your own carriage, and your own beautiful house, and go to
+as many balls as you like among the countesses and the swells."
+
+"Oh, Joe!" she laughed. "Why, if we were as rich as anything, I should
+never get ladies to call upon me. And as for you, no one would ever
+take you to be a gentleman, you know."
+
+"Why, what do you call me, now?"
+
+He laughed, but without much enjoyment. No one likes to be told that
+he is not a gentleman, whatever his own suspicions on the subject may
+be.
+
+"Never mind. I know a gentleman when I see one. Go on with your
+nonsense about being rich."
+
+"I shall make you rich, Lotty, whether you like it or not," he said,
+still with unwonted sweetness.
+
+She shook her head.
+
+"Not by wickedness," she said stoutly.
+
+"I've got there," he pulled a bundle of papers out of his pockets,
+"all the documents wanted to complete the case. All I want now is for
+the rightful heiress to step forward."
+
+"I'm not the rightful heiress, and I'm not the woman to step forward,
+Joe; so don't you think it."
+
+"I've been to-day," Joe continued, "to Doctors' Commons, and I've seen
+the will. There's no manner of doubt about it; and the money--oh,
+Lord, Lotty, if you only knew how much it is!"
+
+"What does it matter, Joe, how much it is, if it is neither yours nor
+mine?"
+
+"It matters this: that it ought all to be mine."
+
+"How can that be, if it was not left to you?"
+
+Joe was nothing if not a man of resource. He therefore replied without
+hesitation or confusion:
+
+"The money was left to a certain man and to his heirs. That man is
+dead. His heiress should have succeeded, but she was kept out of her
+rights. She is dead, and I am her cousin, and entitled to all her
+property, because she made no will."
+
+"Is that gospel truth, Joe? Is she dead? Are you sure?"
+
+"Quite sure," he replied. "Dead as a door-nail."
+
+"Is that the way you got the papers?"
+
+"That's the way, Lotty."
+
+"Then why not go to a lawyer and make him take up the case for you,
+and honestly get your own?"
+
+"You don't know law, my dear, or you wouldn't talk nonsense about
+lawyers. There are two ways. One is to go myself to the present
+unlawful possessor and claim the whole. It's a woman; she would be
+certain to refuse, and then we should go to law, and very likely lose
+it all, although the right is on our side. The other way is for some
+one--say you--to go to her and say: 'I am that man's daughter. Here
+are my proofs. Here are all his papers. Give me back my own.' That you
+could do in the interests of justice, though I own it is not the exact
+truth."
+
+"And if she refuses then?"
+
+"She can't refuse, with the man's daughter actually standing before
+her. She might make a fuss for a bit. But she would have to give in at
+last."
+
+"Joe, consider. You have got some papers, whatever they may contain.
+Suppose that it is all true that you have told me--"
+
+"Lotty, my dear, when did I ever tell you an untruth?"
+
+"When did you ever tell me the truth, my dear? Don't talk wild.
+Suppose it is all true, how are you going to make out where your
+heiress has been all this time, and what she has been doing?"
+
+"Trust me for that."
+
+"I trust you for making up something or other, but--oh, Joe, you
+little think, you clever people, how seldom you succeed in deceiving
+any one."
+
+"I've got such a story for you, Lotty, as would deceive anybody.
+Listen now. It's part truth, and part--the other thing. Your father--"
+
+"My father, poor dear man," Lotty interrupted, "is minding his
+music-shop in Gloucester, and little thinking what wickedness his
+daughter is being asked to do."
+
+"Hang it! the girl's father, then. He died in America, where he went
+under another name, and you were picked up by strangers and reared
+under that name, in complete ignorance of your own family. All which
+is true and can be proved."
+
+"Who brought her up?"
+
+"People in America. I'm one of 'em."
+
+"Who is to prove that?"
+
+"I am. I am come to England on purpose. I am her guardian."
+
+"Who is to prove that you are the girl's guardian?"
+
+"I shall find somebody to prove that."
+
+His thoughts turned to Mr. Chalker, a gentleman whom he judged capable
+of proving anything he was paid for.
+
+"And suppose they ask me questions?"
+
+"Don't answer 'em. You know very little. The papers were only found
+the other day. You are not expected to know anything."
+
+"Where was the real girl?"
+
+"With her grandfather."
+
+"Where was the grandfather?"
+
+"What does that matter?" he replied; "I will tell you afterward."
+
+"When did the real girl die?"
+
+"That, too, I will tell you afterward."
+
+Lotty leaned her cheek upon her hand, and looked at her husband
+thoughtfully.
+
+"Let us be plain, Joe."
+
+"You can never be plain, my dear," he replied with the smile of a
+lover, not a husband; "never in your husband's eyes; not even in
+tights."
+
+But she was not to be won by flattery.
+
+"Fine words," she said, "fine words. What do they amount to? Oh, Joe,
+little I thought when you came along with your beautiful promises,
+what sort of a man I was going to marry."
+
+"A very good sort of a man," he said. "You've got a jolly sailor--an
+officer and a gentleman. Come now, what have you got to say to this?
+Can't you be satisfied with an officer and a gentleman?"
+
+He drew himself up to his full height. Well, he was a handsome fellow:
+there was no denying it.
+
+"Good looks and fine words," his wife went on. "Well, and now I've got
+to keep you, and if you could make me sing in a dozen halls every
+night, you would, and spend the money on yourself--joyfully you
+would."
+
+"We would spend it together, my dear. Don't turn rusty, Lotty."
+
+He was not a bad-tempered man, and this kind of talk did not anger him
+at all. So long as his wife worked hard and brought in the coin for
+him to spend, what mattered for a few words now and then? Besides, he
+wanted her assistance.
+
+"What are you driving at?" he went on. "I show you a bit of my hand,
+and you begin talking round and round. Look here, Lotty. Here's a
+splendid chance for us. I must have a woman's help. I would rather
+have your help than any other woman's--yes, than any other woman's in
+the world. I would indeed. If you won't help me, why, then, of course,
+I must go to some other woman."
+
+His wife gasped and choked. She knew already, after only five weeks'
+experience, how bad a man he was--how unscrupulous, false, and
+treacherous, how lazy and selfish. But, after a fashion, she loved
+him; after a woman's fashion, she was madly jealous of him. Another
+woman! And only the other night she had seen him giving
+brandy-and-soda to one of the music-hall ballet-girls. Another woman!
+
+"If you do, Joe," she said; "oh, if you do--I will kill her and you
+too!"
+
+He laughed.
+
+"If I do, my dear, you don't think I shall be such a fool as to tell
+you who she is. Do you suppose that no woman has ever fallen in love
+with me before you? But then, my pretty, you see I don't talk about
+them; and do you suppose--oh, Lotty, are you such a fool as to suppose
+that you are the first girl I ever fell in love with?"
+
+"What do you want me to do? Tell me again."
+
+"I have told you already. I want you to become, for the time, the
+daughter of the man who died in America; you will claim your
+inheritance; I will provide you with all the papers; I will stand by
+you; I will back you up with such a story as will disarm all
+suspicion. That is all."
+
+"Yes. I understand. Haven't people been sent to prison for less, Joe?"
+
+"Foolish people have. Not people who are well advised and under good
+management. Mind you, this business is under my direction. I am boss."
+
+She made no reply, but took her candle and went off to bed.
+
+In the dead of night she awakened her husband.
+
+"Joe," she said, "is it true that you know another girl who would do
+this for you?"
+
+"More than one, Lotty," he replied, this man of resource, although he
+was only half awake. "More than one. A great many more. Half-a-dozen,
+I know, at least."
+
+She was silent. Half an hour afterward she woke him up again.
+
+"Joe," she said, "I've made up my mind. You sha'n't say that I refused
+to do for you what any other girl in the world would have done."
+
+As a tempter it will be seen that Joe was unsurpassed.
+
+It was now a week since he had received, carefully wrapped in wool,
+and deposited in a wooden box dispatched by post, a key, newly made.
+It was, also, very nearly a week since he had used that key. It was
+used during Mr. Emblem's hour for tea, while James waited and watched
+outside in an agony of terror. But Joe did not find what he wanted.
+There were in the safe one or two ledgers, a banker's book, a
+check-book, and a small quantity of money. But there were not any
+records at all of monies invested. There were no railway certificates,
+waterwork shares, transfers, or notes of stock, mortgages, loans, or
+anything at all. The only thing that he saw was a roll of papers tied
+up with red tape. On the roll was written: "For Iris. To be given to
+her on her twenty-first birthday."
+
+"What the deuce is this, I wonder?" Joe took this out and looked at it
+suspiciously. "Can he be going to give her all his money before he
+dies? Is he going to make her inherit it at once?" The thought was so
+exasperating that he slipped the roll into his pocket. "At all
+events," he said, "she sha'n't have them until I have read them first.
+I dare say they won't be missed for a day or two."
+
+He calculated that he could read and master the contents that night,
+and put back the papers in the safe in the morning while James was
+opening the shop.
+
+"There's nothing, James," he whispered as he went out, the safe being
+locked again. "There is nothing at all. Look here, my lad, you must
+try another way of finding out where the money is."
+
+"I wish I was sure that he hasn't carried off something in his
+pocket," James murmured.
+
+Joe spent the whole evening alone, contrary to his usual practice,
+which was, as we have seen, to spend it at a certain music-hall. He
+read the papers over and over again.
+
+"I wish," he said at length, "I wish I had known this only two months
+ago. I wish I had paid more attention to Iris. What a dreadful thing
+it is to have a grandfather who keeps secrets from his grandson. What
+a game we might have had over this job! What a game we might have
+still if--"
+
+And here he stopped, for the first germ or conception of a magnificent
+coup dawned upon him, and fairly dazzled him so that his eyes saw a
+bright light and nothing else.
+
+"If Lotty would," he said. "But I am afraid she won't hear of it." He
+sprung to his feet and caught sight of his own face in the looking
+glass over the fireplace. He smiled. "I will try," he said, "I think
+I know by this time, how to get round most of 'em. Once they get to
+feel there are other women in the world besides themselves, they're
+pretty easy worked. I will try."
+
+One has only to add to the revelations already made that Joe paid a
+second visit to the shop, this time early in the morning. The shutters
+were only just taken down. James was going about with that remarkable
+watering-pot only used in shops, which has a little stream running out
+of it, and Mr. Emblem was upstairs slowly shaving and dressing in his
+bedroom. He walked in, nodded to his friend the assistant, opened the
+safe, and put back the roll.
+
+"Now," he murmured, "if the old man has really been such a
+dunder-headed pump as not to open the packet all these years, what the
+devil can he know? The name is different; he hasn't got any clew to
+the will; he hasn't got the certificate of his daughter's marriage, or
+of the child's baptism--both in the real name. He hasn't got anything.
+As for the girl here, Iris, having the same christian-name, that's
+nothing. I suppose there is more than one woman with such a fool of a
+name as that about in the world.
+
+"Foxy," he said cheerfully, "have you found anything yet about the
+investments? Odd, isn't it? Nothing in the safe at all. You can have
+your key back."
+
+He tossed him the key carelessly and went away.
+
+The question of his grandfather's savings was grown insignificant
+beside this great and splendid prize which lay waiting for him. What
+could the savings be? At best a few thousands; the slowly saved thrift
+of fifty years; nobody knew better than Joe himself how much his own
+profligacies had cost his grandfather; a few thousands, and those
+settled on his Cousin Iris, so that, to get his share, he would have
+to try every kind of persuasion unless he could get up a case for law.
+But the other thing--why, it was nearly all personal estate, so far as
+he could learn by the will, and he had read it over and over again in
+the room at Somerset House, with the long table in it, and the
+watchful man who won't let anybody copy anything. What a shame, he
+thought, not to let wills be copied! Personalty sworn under a hundred
+and twenty thousand, all in three per cents, and devised to a certain
+young lady, the testator's ward, in trust, for the testator's son, or
+his heirs, when he or they should present themselves. Meantime, the
+ward was to receive for her own use and benefit, year by year, the
+whole income.
+
+"It is unfortunate," said Joe, "that we can't come down upon her for
+arrears. Still, there's an income, a steady income, of three thousand
+six hundred a year when the son's heirs present themselves. I should
+like to call myself a solicitor, but that kite won't fly, I'm afraid.
+Lotty must be the sole heiress. Dressed quiet, without any powder, and
+her fringe brushed flat, she'd pass for a lady anywhere. Perhaps it's
+lucky, after all, that I married her, though if I had had the good
+sense to make up to Iris, who's a deuced sight prettier, she'd have
+kept me going almost as well with her pupils, and set me right with
+the old man and handed me over this magnificent haul for a finish. If
+only the old man hasn't broken the seals and read the papers!"
+
+The old man had not, and Joe's fears were, therefore, groundless.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+AS A BROTHER.
+
+
+Arnold immediately began to use the privilege accorded to him with a
+large and liberal interpretation. If, he argued, a man is to be
+treated as a brother, there should be the immediate concession of the
+exchange of christian-names, and he should be allowed to call as often
+as he pleases. Naturally he began by trying to read the secret of a
+life self-contained, so dull, and yet so happy, so strange to his
+experience.
+
+"Is this, Iris?" he asked, "all your life? Is there nothing more?"
+
+"No," she said; "I think you have seen all. In the morning I have my
+correspondence; in the afternoon I do my sewing, I play a little, I
+read, or I walk, sometimes by myself, and sometimes with Lala Roy; in
+the evening I play again, or I read again, or I work at the
+mathematics, while my grandfather and Lala Roy have their chess. We
+used to go to the theater sometimes, but of late my grandfather has
+not gone. At ten we go to bed. That is all my life."
+
+"But, Iris, have you no friends at all, and no relations? Are there no
+girls of your own age who come to see you?"
+
+"No, not one; I have a cousin, but he is not a good man at all. His
+father and mother are in Australia. When he comes here, which is very
+seldom, my grandfather falls ill only with thinking about him and
+looking at him. But I have no other relations, because, you see, I do
+not know who my father's people were."
+
+"Then," said Arnold, "you may be countess in your own right; you may
+have any number of rich people and nice people for your cousins. Do
+you not sometimes think of that?"
+
+"No" said Iris; "I never think about things impossible."
+
+"If I were you, I should go about the streets, and walk round the
+picture-galleries looking for a face like your own. There cannot be
+many. Let me draw your face, Iris, and then we will send it to the
+Grosvenor, and label it, 'Wanted, this young lady's cousins.' You must
+have cousins, if you could only find them out."
+
+"I suppose I must. But what if they should turn out to be rough and
+disagreeable people?"
+
+"Your cousins could not be disagreeable, Iris," said Arnold.
+
+She shook her head.
+
+"One thing I should like," she replied. "It would be to find that my
+cousins, if I have any, are clever people--astronomers,
+mathematicians, great philosophers, and writers. But what nonsense it
+is even to talk of such things; I am quite alone, except for my
+grandfather and Lala Roy."
+
+"And they are old," murmured Arnold.
+
+"Do not look at me with such pity," said the girl. "I am very happy. I
+have my own occupation; I am independent; I have my work to fill my
+mind; and I have these two old gentlemen to care for and think
+of. They have taken so much care of me that I ought to think of
+nothing else but their comfort; and then there are the books
+down-stairs--thousands of beautiful old books always within my reach."
+
+"But you must have some companions, if only to talk and walk with."
+
+"Why, the books are my companions; and then Lala Roy goes for walks
+with me; and as for talking, I think it is much more pleasant to
+think."
+
+"Where do you walk?"
+
+"There is Battersea Park; there are the squares; and if you take an
+omnibus, there are the Gardens and Hyde Park."
+
+"But never alone, Iris?"
+
+"Oh, yes, I am often alone. Why not?"
+
+"I suppose," said Arnold, shirking the question, because this is a
+civilized country, and in fact, why not? "I suppose that it is your
+work which keeps you from feeling life dull and monotonous."
+
+"No life," she said, looking as wise as Newton, if Newton was ever
+young and handsome--"no life can be dull when one is thinking about
+mathematics all day. Do you study mathematics?"
+
+"No; I was at Oxford, you know."
+
+"Then perhaps you prefer metaphysics? Though Lala Roy says that the
+true metaphysics, which he has tried to teach me, can only be reached
+by the Hindoo intellect."
+
+"No, indeed; I have never read any metaphysics whatever. I have only
+got the English intellect." This he said with intent satirical, but
+Iris failed to understand it so, and thought it was meant for a
+commendable humility.
+
+"Physical science, perhaps?"
+
+"No, Iris. Philosophy, mathematics, physics, metaphysics, or science
+of any kind have I never learned, except only the science of Heraldry,
+which you have taught me, with a few other things."
+
+"Oh!" She wondered how a man could exist at all without learning these
+things. "Not any science at all? How can any one live without some
+science?"
+
+"I knew very well," he said, "that as soon as I was found out I should
+be despised."
+
+"Oh, no, not despised. But it seems such a pity--"
+
+"There is another kind of life, Iris, which you do not know. You must
+let me teach you. It is the life of Art. If you would only condescend
+to show the least curiosity about me, Iris, I would try to show you
+something of the Art life."
+
+"How can I show curiosity about you, Arnold? I feel none."
+
+"No; that is just the thing which shames me. I have felt the most
+lively curiosity about you, and I have asked you thousands of
+impertinent questions."
+
+"Not impertinent, Arnold. If you want to ask any more, pray do. I dare
+say you cannot understand my simple life."
+
+"And you ask me nothing at all about myself. It isn't fair, Iris."
+
+"Why should I? I know you already."
+
+"You know nothing at all about me."
+
+"Oh, yes, I know you very well indeed. I knew you before you came
+here. You showed me yourself in your letters. You are exactly like the
+portrait I drew of you. I never thought, for instance, that you were
+an old gentleman, as you thought me." He laughed. It was a new thing
+to see Iris using, even gently, the dainty weapons of satire.
+
+"But you do not know what I am, or what is my profession, or anything
+at all about me."
+
+"No; I do not care to know. All that is not part of yourself. It is
+outside you."
+
+"And because you thought you knew me from those letters, you suffer me
+to come here and be your disciple still? Yet you gave me back my
+letters?"
+
+"That was because they were written to me under a wrong impression."
+
+"Will you have them back again?"
+
+She shook her head.
+
+"I know them all by heart," she said simply.
+
+There was not the slightest sign of coquetry or flattery in her voice,
+or in her eyes, which met his look with clear and steady gaze.
+
+"I cannot ask you to read my portrait to me as you drew it from those
+pictures."
+
+"Why not?" She began to read him his portrait as readily as if she
+were stating the conclusion of a problem. "I saw that you were young
+and full of generous thoughts; sometimes you were indignant with
+things as they are, but generally you laughed at them and accepted
+them. It is, it seems, the nature of your friends to laugh a great
+deal at things which they ought to remedy if they could; not laugh at
+them. I thought that you wanted some strong stimulus to work; anybody
+could see that you were a man of kindly nature and good-breeding. You
+were careful not to offend by anything that you wrote, and I was
+certain that you were a man of honor. I trusted you, Arnold, before I
+saw your face, because I knew your soul."
+
+"Trust me still, Iris," he said in rather a husky voice.
+
+"Of course I did not know, and never thought, what sort of a man you
+were to look at. Yet I ought to have known that you were handsome. I
+should have guessed that from the very tone of your letters. A
+hunchback or a cripple could not have written in so light-hearted a
+strain, and I should have discovered, if I had thought of such a
+thing, that you were very well satisfied with your personal
+appearance. Young men should always be that, at least, if only to give
+them confidence."
+
+"Oh, Iris--oh! Do you really think me conceited?"
+
+"I did not say that. I only said that you were satisfied with
+yourself. That, I understand now, was clear, from many little natural
+touches in your letters."
+
+"What else did you learn?"
+
+"Oh, a great deal--much more than I can tell you. I knew that you go
+into society, and I learned from you what society means; and though
+you tried to be sarcastic, I understood easily that you liked social
+pleasure."
+
+"Was I sarcastic?"
+
+"Was it not sarcastic to tell me how the fine ladies, who affect so
+much enthusiasm for art, go to see the galleries on the private-view
+day, and are never seen in them again? Was it not sarcastic--"
+
+"Spare me, Iris. I will never do it again. And knowing so much, do you
+not desire to know more?"
+
+"No, Arnold. I am not interested in anything else."
+
+"But my position, my profession, my people--are you not curious to
+know them?"
+
+"No. They are not you. They are accidents of yourself."
+
+"Philosopher! But you must know more about me. I told you I was an
+artist. But you have never inquired whether I was a great artist or a
+little one."
+
+"You are still a little artist," she said. "I know that, without being
+told. But perhaps you may become great when you learn to work
+seriously."
+
+"I have been lazy," he replied with something like a blush, "but that
+is all over now. I am going to work. I will give up society. I will
+take my profession seriously, if only you will encourage me."
+
+Did he mean what he said? When he came away he used at this period to
+ask himself that question, and was astonished at the length he had
+gone. With any other girl in the world, he would have been taken at
+his word, and either encouraged to go on, or snubbed on the spot. But
+Iris received these advances as if they were a confession of weakness.
+
+"Why do you want me to encourage you?" she asked. "I know nothing
+about Art. Can't you encourage yourself, Arnold?"
+
+"Iris, I must tell you something more about myself. Will you listen
+for a moment? Well, I am the son of a clergyman who now holds a
+colonial appointment. I have got the usual number of brothers and
+sisters, who are doing the usual things. I will not bore you with
+details about them."
+
+"No," said Iris, "please do not."
+
+"I am the adopted son, or ward, or whatever you please, of a certain
+cousin. She is a single lady with a great income, which she promises
+to bequeath to me in the future. In the meantime, I am to have
+whatever I want. Do you understand the position, Iris?"
+
+"Yes, I think so. It is interesting, because it shows why you will
+never be a great artist. But it is very sad."
+
+"A man may rise above his conditions, Iris," said Arnold meekly.
+
+"No," she went on; "it is only the poor men who do anything good. Lala
+Roy says so."
+
+"I will pretend to be poor--indeed, I am poor. I have nothing. If it
+were not for my cousin, I could not even profess to follow Art."
+
+"What a pity," she said, "that you are rich! Lala Roy was rich once."
+
+Arnold repressed an inclination to desire that Lala Roy might be kept
+out of the conversation.
+
+"But he gave up all his wealth and has been happy, and a philosopher,
+ever since."
+
+"I can't give up my wealth, Iris, because I haven't got any--I owe my
+cousin everything. But for her, I should never even have known you."
+
+He watched her at her work in the morning when she sat patiently
+answering questions, working out problems, and making papers. She
+showed him the letters of her pupils, exacting, excusing,
+petulant--sometimes dissatisfied and even ill-tempered, he watched her
+in the afternoon while she sewed or read. In the evening he sat with
+her while the two old men played their game of chess. Regularly every
+evening at half-past nine the Bengalee checkmated Mr. Emblem. Up to
+that hour he amused himself with his opponent, formed ingenious
+combinations, watched openings, and gradually cleared the board until
+he found himself as the hour of half-past nine drew near, able to
+propose a simple problem to his own mind, such as, "White moves first,
+to mate in three, four, or five moves," and then he proceeded to solve
+that problem, and checkmated his adversary.
+
+No one, not even Iris, knew how Lala Roy lived, or what he did in the
+daytime. It was rumored that he had been seen at Simpson's in the
+Strand, but this report wanted confirmation. He had lived in Mr.
+Emblem's second floor for twenty years; he always paid his bills with
+regularity, and his long spare figure and white mustache and fez were
+as well known in Chelsea as any red-coated lounger among the old
+veterans of the Hospital.
+
+"It is quiet for you in the evenings," said Arnold.
+
+"I play to them sometimes. They like to hear me play during the game.
+Look at them."
+
+She sat down and played. She had a delicate touch, and played soft
+music, such as soothes, not excites the soul. Arnold watched her, not
+the old men. How was it that refinement, grave, self-possession,
+manners, and the culture of a lady, could be found in one who knew no
+ladies? But then Arnold did not know Lala Roy, nor did he understand
+the old bookseller.
+
+"You are always wondering about me," she said, talking while she
+played; "I see it in your eyes. Can you not take me as I am, without
+thinking why I am different from other girls? Of course I am
+different, because I know none of them."
+
+"I wish they were all like you," he said.
+
+"No; that would be a great pity. You want girls who understand your
+own life, and can enter into your pursuits--you want companions who
+can talk to you; go back to them, Arnold, as soon as you are tired of
+coming here."
+
+And yet his instinct was right which told him that the girl was not a
+coquette. She had no thought--not the least thought--as yet that
+anything was possible beyond the existing friendship. It was pleasant,
+but Arnold would get tired of her, and go back to his own people. Then
+he would remain in her memory as a study of character. This she did
+not exactly formulate, but she had that feeling. Every woman makes a
+study of character about every man in whom she becomes ever so little
+interested. But we must not get conceited, my brothers, over this
+fact. The converse, unhappily, does not hold true. Very few men ever
+study the character of a woman at all. Either they fall in love with
+her before they have had time to make more than a sketch, and do not
+afterward pursue the subject, or they do not fall in love with her at
+all; and in the latter case it hardly seems worth while to follow up a
+first rough draft.
+
+"Checkmate," said Lala Roy.
+
+The game was finished and the evening over. "Would you like," he
+said, another evening, "to see my studio, or do you consider my studio
+outside myself?"
+
+"I should very much like to see an artist's studio," she replied with
+her usual frankness, leaving it an open question whether she would not
+be equally pleased to see any other studio.
+
+She came, however, accompanied by Lala Roy, who had never been in a
+studio before, and indeed had never looked at a picture, except with
+the contemptuous glance which the philosopher bestows upon the follies
+of mankind. Yet he came, because Iris asked him. Arnold's studio is
+one of the smallest of those in Tite Street. Of course it is built of
+red brick, and of course it has a noble staircase and a beautiful
+painting-room or studio proper all set about with bits of tapestry,
+armor, pictures, and china, besides the tools and properties of the
+craft. He had portfolios full of sketches; against the wall stood
+pictures, finished and unfinished; on an easel was a half-painted
+picture representing a group taken from a modern novel. Most painters
+only draw scenes from two novels--the "Vicar of Wakefield" and "Don
+Quixote;" but Arnold knew more. The central figure was a girl, quite
+unfinished--in fact, barely sketched in.
+
+Iris looked at everything with the interest which belongs to the new
+and unexpected.
+
+Arnold began to show the pictures in the portfolios. There were
+sketches of peasant life in Norway and on the Continent; there were
+landscapes, quaint old houses, and castles; there were ships and
+ports; and there were heads--hundreds of heads.
+
+"I said you might be a great artist," said Iris. "I am sure now that
+you will be if you choose."
+
+"Thank you, Iris. It is the greatest compliment you could pay me."
+
+"And what is this?" she was before the easel on which stood the
+unfinished picture.
+
+"It is a scene from a novel. But I cannot get the principal face. None
+of the models are half good enough. I want a sweet face, a serious
+face, a face with deep, beautiful eyes. Iris"--it was a sudden
+impulse, an inspiration--"let me put your face there. Give me my first
+commission."
+
+She blushed deeply. All these drawings, the multitudinous faces and
+heads and figures in the portfolio were a revelation to her. And just
+at the very moment when she discovered that Arnold was one of those
+who worship beauty--a thing she had never before understood--he told
+her that her face was so beautiful that he must put in his picture.
+
+"Oh, Arnold," she said, "my face would be out of place in that
+picture."
+
+"Would it? Please sit down, and let me make a sketch."
+
+He seized his crayons and began rapidly.
+
+"What do you say, Lala Roy?" he asked by way of diversion.
+
+"The gifts of the understanding," said the Sage, "are the treasures of
+the Lord; and He appointeth to every one his portion."
+
+"Thank you," replied Arnold. "Very true and very apt, I'm sure. Iris,
+please, your face turned just a little. So. Ah, if I can but do some
+measure of justice to your eyes!"
+
+When Iris went away, there was for the first time the least touch of
+restraint or self-consciousness in her. Arnold felt it. She showed it
+in her eyes and in the touch of her fingers when he took her hand at
+parting. It was then for the first time also that Arnold discovered a
+truth of overwhelming importance. Every new fact--everything which
+cannot be disputed or denied, is, we all know, of the most enormous
+importance. He discovered no less a truth than that he was in love
+with Iris. So important is this truth to a young man that it reduces
+the countless myriads of the world to a single pair--himself and
+another; it converts the most arid waste of streets into an Eden; and
+it blinds the eyes to ambition, riches, and success. Arnold sat down
+and reasoned out this truth. He said coldly and "squarely:"
+
+"This is a girl whom I have known only a fortnight or so; she lives
+over a second-hand bookshop; she is a teacher by profession; she knows
+none of the ways of society; she would doubtless be guilty of all
+kinds of queer things, if she were suddenly introduced to good people;
+probably, she would never learn our manners," with more to the same
+effect, which may be reasonably omitted. Then his Conscience woke up,
+and said quite simply: "Arnold, you are a liar." Conscience does
+sometimes call hard names. She is feminine, and therefore privileged
+to call hard names. Else we would sometimes kick and belabor
+Conscience. "Arnold, don't tell more lies. You have been gradually
+learning to know Iris, through the wisest and sweetest letters that
+were ever written, for a whole year. You gradually began to know her,
+in fact, when you first began to interlard your letters with conceited
+revelations about yourself. You knew her to be sympathetic, quick, and
+of a most kind and tender heart. You are quite sure, though you try to
+disguise the fact, that she is as honest as the day, and as true as
+steel. As for her not being a lady, you ought to be ashamed of
+yourself for even thinking such a thing. Has she not been tenderly
+brought up by two old men who are full of honor, and truth, and all
+the simple virtues? Does she not look, move, and speak like the most
+gracious lady in the land?" "Like a goddess," Arnold confessed. "As
+for the ways and talk of society, what are these worth? and cannot
+they be acquired? And what are her manners save those of the most
+perfect refinement and purity?" Thus far Conscience. Then Arnold, or
+Arnold's secret _advocatus diaboli_, began upon another and quite
+different line. "She must have schemed at the outset to get me into
+her net; she is a siren; she assumes the disguise of innocence and
+ignorance the better to beguile and to deceive. She has gone home
+to-day elated because she thinks she has landed a gentleman."
+
+Conscience said nothing; there are some things to which Conscience has
+no reply in words to offer; yet Conscience pointed to the portrait of
+the girl, and bade the most unworthy of all lovers look upon even his
+own poor and meager representation of her eyes and face, and ask
+whether such blasphemies could ever be forgiven.
+
+After a self abasement, which for shame's sake we must pass over, the
+young man felt happier.
+
+Henry the Second felt much the same satisfaction the morning after
+his scourging at the hands of the monks, who were as muscular as they
+were vindictive.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+COUSIN CLARA.
+
+
+That man who spends his days in painting a girl's portrait, in talking
+to her, and in gazing upon the unfinished portrait when she is not
+with him, and occupies his thoughts during the watches of the night in
+thinking about her, is perilously near to taking the last and fatal
+step. Flight for such a man is the only thing left, and he so seldom
+thinks of flight until it is too late.
+
+Arnold was at this point.
+
+"I am possessed by this girl," he might have said had he put his
+thoughts into words. "I am haunted by her eyes; her voice lingers on
+my ears; I dream of her face, the touch of her fingers is like the
+touch of an electric battery." What symptoms are these, so common that
+one is almost ashamed to write them down, but the infallible symptoms
+of love? And yet he hesitated, not because he doubted himself any
+longer, but because he was not independent, and such an engagement
+might deprive him at one stroke of all that he possessed. Might? It
+certainly would. Yes, the new and beautiful studio, all the things in
+it, all his prospects for the future, would have to be given up. "She
+is worth more than that," said Arnold, "and I should find work
+somehow. But yet, to plunge her into poverty--and to make Clara the
+most unhappy of women!"
+
+The reason why Clara would be made the most unhappy of women, was that
+Clara was his cousin and his benefactor, to whom he owed everything.
+She was the kindest of patrons, and she liked nothing so much as the
+lavishing upon her ward everything that he could desire. But she also,
+unfortunately, illustrated the truth of Chaucer's teaching, in that
+she loved power more than anything else, and had already mapped out
+Arnold's life for him.
+
+It was his custom to call upon her daily, to use her house as his own.
+When they were separated, they wrote to each other every day; the
+relations between them were of the most intimate and affectionate
+kind. He advised in all her affairs, while she directed his; it was
+understood that he was her heir, and though she was not more than five
+and forty or so, and had, apparently, a long life still before her, so
+that the succession was distant, the prospect gave him importance. She
+had been out of town, and perhaps the fact of a new acquaintance with
+so obscure a person as a simple tutor by correspondence, seemed to
+Arnold not worth mentioning. At all events, he had not mentioned it in
+his daily letters.
+
+And now she was coming home; she was actually arrived; he would see
+her that evening. Her last letter was lying before him.
+
+     "I parted from dear Stella yesterday. She goes to stay with
+     the Essex Mainwarings for a month; after that, I hope that
+     she will give me a long visit. I do not know where one could
+     find a sweeter girl, or one more eminently calculated to
+     make a man happy. Beautiful, strictly speaking, she is not,
+     perhaps, but of excellent connections, not without a
+     portion, young, clever, and ambitious. With such a wife, my
+     dear Arnold, a man may aspire to anything."
+
+"To anything!" repeated Arnold; "what is her notion of anything? She
+has arrived by this time." He looked at his watch and found it was
+past five. "I ought to have been at the station to meet her. I must go
+round and see her, and I must dine with her to-night." He sighed
+heavily. "It would be much pleasanter to spend the evening with Iris."
+
+Then a carriage stopped at his door. It was his cousin, and the next
+minute he was receiving and giving the kiss of welcome. For his own
+part, he felt guilty, because he could put so little heart into that
+kiss, compared with all previous embraces. She was a stout, hearty
+little woman, who could never have been in the least beautiful, even
+when she was young. Now on the middle line, between forty and fifty,
+she looked as if her face had been chopped out of the marble by a rude
+but determined artist, one who knew what he wanted and would tolerate
+no conventional work. So that her face, at all events, was, if not
+unique, at least unlike any other face one had ever seen. Most faces,
+we know, can be reduced to certain general types--even Iris's face
+might be classified--while of yours, my brother, there are, no doubt,
+multitudes. Miss Holland, however, had good eyes--bright, clear
+gray--the eyes of a woman who knows what she wants and means to get it
+if she can.
+
+"Well, my dear," she said, taking the one comfortable chair in the
+studio, "I am back again, and I have enjoyed my journey very much; we
+will have all the travels this evening. You are looking splendid,
+Arnold!"
+
+"I am very well indeed. And you, Clara? But I need not ask."
+
+"No, I am always well. I told you about dear Stella, did I not? I
+never had a more delightful companion."
+
+"So glad you liked her."
+
+"If only, Arnold, you would like her too. But I know"--for Arnold
+changed color--"I know one must not interfere in these matters. But
+surely one may go so far with a young man one loves as to say, 'Here
+is a girl of a million.' There is not, Arnold, I declare, her equal
+anywhere; a clearer head I never met, or a better educated girl, or
+one who knows what a man can do, and how he can be helped to do it."
+
+"Thank you, Clara," Arnold said coldly; "I dare say I shall discover
+the young lady's perfections in time."
+
+"Not, I think, without some help. She is not an ordinary girl. You
+must draw her out, my dear boy."
+
+"I will," he said listlessly. "I will try to draw her out, if you
+like."
+
+"We talked a great deal of you, Arnold," Clara went on. "I confided to
+her some of my hopes and ambitions for you; and I am free to confess
+to you that she has greatly modified all my plans and calculations."
+
+"Oh!" Arnold was interested in this "But, my dear Clara, I have my
+profession. I must follow my profession."
+
+"Surely--surely! Listen, Arnold, patiently. Anybody can become an
+artist--anybody, of course, who has the genius. And all kinds of
+people, gutter people, have the genius."
+
+"The sun," said Arnold, just as if he had been Lala Roy, "shines on
+all alike."
+
+"Quite so; and there is an immense enthusiasm for art everywhere; but
+there is no art leader. There is no one man recognized as the man most
+competent to speak on art of every kind. Think of that. It is Stella's
+idea entirely. This man, when he is found, will sway enormous
+authority; he will become, if he has a wife able to assist him, an
+immense social power."
+
+"And you want me to become that man?"
+
+"Yes, Arnold. I do not see why you should not become that man. Cease
+to think of becoming President of the Royal Academy, yet go on
+painting; prove your genius, so as to command respect; cultivate the
+art of public speaking; and look about for a wife who will be your
+right hand. Think of this seriously. This is only a rough sketch, we
+can fill in the details afterward. But think of it. Oh, my dear boy!
+if I were only a man, and five-and-twenty, with such a chance before
+me! What a glorious career is yours, if you choose! But of course you
+will choose. Good gracious, Arnold! who is that?"
+
+She pointed to the canvas on the easel, where Iris's face was like the
+tale of Cambuscan, half told.
+
+"It is no one you know, Clara."
+
+"One of your models?" She rose and examined it more closely through
+her glasses. "The eyes are wonderful, Arnold. They are eyes I know. As
+if I could ever forget them! They are the same eyes, exactly the same
+eyes. I have never met with any like them before. They are the eyes of
+my poor, lost, betrayed Claude Deseret. Where did you pick up this
+girl, Arnold? Is she a common model?"
+
+"Not at all. She is not a model. She is a young lady who teaches by
+correspondence. She is my tutor--of course I have so often talked to
+you about her--who taught me the science of Heraldry, and wrote me
+such charming letters."
+
+"Your tutor! You said your tutor was an old gentleman."
+
+"So I thought, Clara. But I was wrong. My tutor is a young lady, and
+this is her portrait, half-finished. It does not do her any kind of
+justice."
+
+"A young lady!" She looked suspiciously at Arnold, whose telltale
+cheek flushed. "A young lady! Indeed! And you have made her
+acquaintance."
+
+"As you see, Clara; and she does me the honor to let me paint her
+portrait."
+
+"What is her name, Arnold?"
+
+"She is a Miss Aglen."
+
+"Strange. The Deserets once intermarried with the Aglens. I wonder if
+she is any connection. They were Warwickshire Aglens. But it is
+impossible--a teacher by correspondence, a mere private governess! Who
+are her people?"
+
+"She lives with her grandfather. I think her father was a tutor or
+journalist of some kind, but he is dead; and her grandfather keeps a
+second-hand bookshop in the King's Road close by."
+
+"A bookshop! But you said, Arnold, that she was a young lady."
+
+"So she is, Clara," he replied simply.
+
+"Arnold!" for the first time in his life Arnold saw his cousin angry
+with him. She was constantly being angry with other people, but never
+before had she been angry with him. "Arnold, spare me this nonsense.
+If you have been playing with this shop-girl I cannot help it, and I
+beg that you will tell me no more about it, and do not, to my face,
+speak of her as a lady."
+
+"I have not been playing with her, I think," said Arnold gravely; "I
+have been very serious with her."
+
+"Everybody nowadays is a young lady. The girl who gives you a cup of
+tea in a shop; the girl who dances in the ballet; the girl who makes
+your dresses."
+
+"In that case, Clara, you need not mind my calling Miss Aglen a young
+lady."
+
+"There is one word left, at least: women of my class are gentlewomen."
+
+"Miss Aglen is a gentlewoman."
+
+"Arnold, look me in the face. My dear boy, tell me, are you mad? Oh,
+think of my poor unhappy Claude, what he did, and what he must have
+suffered!"
+
+"I know what he did. I do not know what he suffered. My case, however,
+is different from his. I am not engaged to any one."
+
+"Arnold, think of the great scheme of life I have drawn out for you.
+My dear boy, would you throw that all away?"
+
+She laid her hands upon his arm and looked in his eyes with a pitiful
+gaze. He took her hands in his.
+
+"My dear, every man must shape his life for himself, or must live out
+the life shaped for him by his fate, not by his friends. What if I see
+a life more delightful to me than that of which you dream?"
+
+"You talk of a delightful life, Arnold; I spoke of an honorable
+career."
+
+"Mine will be a life of quiet work and love. Yours, Clara, would be of
+noisy and troublesome work without love."
+
+"Without love, Arnold? You are infatuated."
+
+She sunk into the chair and buried her face in her hands. First, it
+was her lover who had deserted her for the sake of a governess, the
+daughter of some London tradesman; and now her adopted son, almost the
+only creature she loved, for whom she had schemed and thought for
+nearly twenty years, was ready to give up everything for the sake of
+another governess, also connected with the lower forms of commercial
+interests.
+
+"It is very hard, Arnold," she said. "No, don't try to persuade me. I
+am getting an old woman, and it is too late for me to learn that a
+gentleman can be happy unless he marries a lady. You might as well ask
+me to look for happiness with a grocer."
+
+"Not quite," said Arnold.
+
+"It is exactly the same thing. Pray, have you proposed to this--this
+young lady of the second-hand bookshop?"
+
+"No, I have not."
+
+"You are in love with her, however?"
+
+"I am, Clara."
+
+"And you intend to ask her--in the shop, I dare say, among the
+second-hand books--to become your wife?"
+
+"That is my serious intention, Clara."
+
+"Claude did the same thing. His father remonstrated with him in vain,
+he took his wife to London, where, for a time, he lived in misery and
+self-reproach."
+
+"Do you know that he reproached himself?"
+
+"I know what must have happened when he found out his mistake. Then he
+went to America, where he died, no doubt in despair, although his
+father had forgiven him."
+
+"The cases are hardly parallel," said Arnold. "Still, will you permit
+me to introduce Miss Aglen to you, if she should do me the honor of
+accepting me? Be generous, Clara. Do not condemn the poor girl without
+seeing her."
+
+"I condemn no one--I judge no one, not even you, Arnold. But I will
+not receive that young woman."
+
+"Very well, Clara."
+
+"How shall you live, Arnold?" she asked coldly.
+
+It was the finishing stroke--the dismissal.
+
+"I suppose we shall not marry; but, of course, I am talking as if--"
+
+"As if she was ready to jump into your arms. Go on."
+
+"We shall not marry until I have made some kind of a beginning in my
+work. Clara, let us have no further explanation. I understand
+perfectly well. But, my dear Clara," he laid his arm upon her neck and
+kissed her, "I shall not let you quarrel with me. I owe you too much,
+and I love you too well. I am always your most faithful of servants."
+
+"No; till you are married--then--Oh, Arnold! Arnold!"
+
+A less strong-minded woman would have burst into tears. Clara did not.
+She got into her carriage and drove home. She spent a miserable
+evening and a sleepless night. But she did not cry.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+ON BATTERSEA TERRACE.
+
+
+If a woman were to choose any period of her life which she pleased,
+for indefinite prolongation, she would certainly select that period
+which lies between the first perception of the first symptoms--when
+she begins to understand that a man has begun to love her--and the day
+when he tells her so.
+
+Yet women who look back to this period with so much fondness and
+regret forget their little tremors and misgivings--the self-distrust,
+the hopes and fears, the doubts and perplexities, which troubled this
+time. For although it is acknowledged, and has been taught by all
+philosophers from King Lemuel and Lao-Kiun downward, that no greater
+prize can be gained by any man than the love of a good woman, which is
+better than a Peerage--better than a Bonanza mine--better than Name
+and Fame, Kudos and the newspaper paragraph, and is arrived at by much
+less exertion, being indeed the special gift of the gods to those
+they love; yet all women perfectly understand the other side to this
+great truth--namely, that no greater happiness can fall to any woman
+than the love of a good man. So that, in all the multitudinous and
+delightful courtships which go on around us, and in our midst, there
+is, on both sides, both with man and with maid, among those who truly
+reach to the right understanding of what this great thing may mean, a
+continual distrust of self, with humility and anxiety. And when, as
+sometimes happens, a girl has been brought up in entire ignorance of
+love, so that the thought of it has never entered her head, the thing
+itself, when it falls upon her, is overwhelming, and infolds her as
+with a garment from head to foot, and, except to her lover, she
+becomes as a sealed fountain. I know not how long this season of
+expectation would have lasted for Iris, but for Arnold's conversation
+with his cousin, which persuaded him to speak and bring matters to a
+final issue. To this girl, living as secluded as if she was in an
+Oriental harem, who had never thought of love as a thing possible for
+herself, the consciousness that Arnold loved her was bewildering and
+astonishing, and she waited, knowing that sooner or later something
+would be said, but trembling for fear that it should be said.
+
+After all, it was Lala Roy, and not Clara, who finally determined
+Arnold to wait no longer.
+
+He came every day to the studio with Iris when she sat for her
+portrait. This was in the afternoon. But he now got into the habit of
+coming in the morning, and would sit in silence looking on. He came
+partly because he liked the young man, and partly because the
+painter's art was new to him, and it amused him to watch a man giving
+his whole time and intellect to the copying or faces and things on
+canvas. Also, he was well aware by this time that it was not to see
+Mr. Emblem or himself that Arnold spent every evening at the house,
+and he was amused to watch the progress of an English courtship. In
+India, we know, they manage matters differently, and so as to give the
+bridegroom no more trouble than is necessary. This young man, however,
+took, he observed, the most wonderful pains and the most extraordinary
+trouble to please.
+
+"Do you know, Lala Roy," Arnold said one morning after a silence of
+three hours or so, "do you know that this is going to be the portrait
+of the most beautiful woman in the world, and the best?"
+
+"It is well," said the Philosopher, "when a young man desires virtue
+as well as beauty."
+
+"You have known her all her life. Don't trouble yourself to speak,
+Lala. You can nod your head if there isn't a maxim ready. You began to
+lodge in the house twenty years ago, and you have seen her every day
+since. If she is not the best, as well as the most beautiful girl in
+the world, you ought to know and can contradict me. But you do know
+it."
+
+"Happy is the man," said the Sage, "who shall call her wife; happy the
+children who shall call her mother."
+
+"I suppose, Lala," Arnold went on with an ingenuous blush, "I suppose
+that you have perceived that--that--in fact--I love her."
+
+The Philosopher inclined his head.
+
+"Do you think--you who know her so well--that she suspects or knows
+it?"
+
+"The thoughts of a maiden are secret thoughts. As well may one search
+for the beginnings of a river as inquire into the mind of a woman.
+Their ways are not our ways, nor are their thoughts ours, nor have we
+wit to understand, nor have they tongue to utter the things they
+think. I know not whether she suspects."
+
+"Yet you have had experience, Lala Roy?"
+
+A smile stole over the Sage's features.
+
+"In the old days when I was young, I had experience, as all men have.
+I have had many wives. Yet to me, as to all others, the thoughts of
+the harem are unknown."
+
+"Yet, Iris--surely you know the thoughts of Iris, your pupil."
+
+"I know only that her heart is the abode of goodness, and that she
+knows not any evil thought. Young man, beware. Trouble not the clear
+fountain."
+
+"Heaven knows," said Arnold, "I would not--" And here he stopped.
+
+"Youth," said the Sage presently, "is the season for love. Enjoy the
+present happiness. Woman is made to be loved. Receive with gratitude
+what Heaven gives. The present moment is your own. Defer not until the
+evening what you may accomplish at noon."
+
+With these words the oracle became silent, and Arnold sat down and
+began to think it all over again.
+
+An hour later he presented himself at the house in the King's Road.
+Iris was alone, and she was playing.
+
+"You, Arnold? It is early for you."
+
+"Forgive me, Iris, for breaking in on your afternoon; but I
+thought--it is a fine afternoon--I thought that, perhaps--You have
+never taken a walk with me."
+
+She blushed, I think in sympathy with Arnold, who looked confused and
+stammered, and then she said she would go with him.
+
+They left the King's Road by the Royal Avenue, where the leaves were
+already thin and yellow, and passed through the Hospital and its broad
+grounds down to the river-side; then they turned to the right, and
+walked along the embankment, where are the great new red houses, to
+Cheyne Walk, and so across the Suspension Bridge. Arnold did not speak
+one word the whole way. His heart was so full that he could not trust
+himself to speak. Who would not be four-and-twenty again, even with
+all the risks and dangers of life before one, the set traps, the
+gaping holes, and the treacherous quicksands, if it were only to feel
+once more the overwhelming spirit of the mysterious goddess of the
+golden cestus? In silence they walked side by side over the bridge.
+Half-way across, they stopped and looked up the river. The tide was
+running in with a swift current, and the broad river was nearly at the
+full; the strong September sun fell upon the water, which was broken
+into little waves under a fresh breeze meeting the current from the
+north-west. There were lighters and barges majestically creeping up
+stream, some with brown three-cornered sails set in the bows and
+stern, some slowly moving with the tide, their bows kept steady by
+long oars, and some, lashed one to the other, forming a long train,
+and pulled along by a noisy little tug, all paddle wheel and engine.
+There was a sculler vigorously practicing for his next race, and
+dreaming, perhaps, of sending a challenge to Hanlan; there were some
+boys in a rowing-boat, laughing and splashing each other; on the north
+bank there was the garden of the Embankment, with its young trees
+still green, for the summer lasted into late September this year, and,
+beyond, the red brick tower of the old church, with its flag post on
+the top. These details are never so carefully marked as when one is
+anxious, and fully absorbed in things of great importance. Perhaps
+Arnold had crossed the bridge a hundred times before, but to day, for
+the first time, he noticed the common things of the river. One may be
+an artist, and yet may miss the treasures that lie at the very feet.
+This is a remark which occurs to one with each new Academy Show. With
+every tide the boats go up and down with their brown sails, and always
+the tower of Chelsea Church rises above the trees, and the broad river
+never forgets to sparkle and to glow in the sunshine when it gets the
+chance. Such common things are for the most part unheeded, but, when
+the mind is anxious and full, they force themselves upon one. Arnold
+watched boats, and river, and sunshine on the sails, with a strange
+interest and wonder, as one sees visions in a dream. He had seen all
+these things before, yet now he noticed them for the first time, and
+all the while he was thinking what he should say to Iris, and how he
+should approach the subject. I know not whether Iris, like him, saw
+one thing and noticed another. The thoughts of a maiden, as Lala Roy
+said, are secret thoughts. She looked upon the river from the bridge
+with Arnold. When he turned, she turned with him, and neither spoke.
+
+They left the bridge, and passed through the wooden gate at the
+Battersea end of it, and across the corner where the stone columns
+lie, like an imitation of Tadmor in the Desert, and so to the broad
+terrace overlooking the river.
+
+There is not, anywhere, a more beautiful terrace than this of
+Battersea Park, especially when the tide is high. Before it lies the
+splendid river, with the barges which Arnold had seen from the bridge.
+They are broad, and flat, and sometimes squat, and sometimes black
+with coal, and sometimes they go up and down sideways, in lubberly
+Dutch fashion, but they are always picturesque; and beyond the river
+is the Embankment, with its young trees, which will before many years
+be tall and stately trees; and behind the trees are the new red
+palaces; and above the houses, at this time of the year and day, are
+the flying clouds, already colored with the light of the sinking sun.
+Behind the terrace are the trees, and lawns of the best-kept park in
+London.
+
+In the afternoon of a late September day, there are not many who walk
+in these gardens. Arnold and Iris had the terrace almost to
+themselves, save for half-a-dozen girls with children, and two or
+three old men making the most of the last summer they were ever likely
+to see, though it would have been cruel to tell them so.
+
+"This is your favorite walk, Iris," said Arnold at last, breaking the
+silence.
+
+"Yes; I come here very often. It is my garden. Sometimes in the
+winter, and when the east wind blows up the river, I have it all to
+myself."
+
+"A quiet life, Iris," he said, "and a happy life."
+
+"Yes; a happy life."
+
+"Iris, will you change it for a life which will not be so quiet?" He
+took her hand, but she made no reply. "I must tell you, Iris, because
+I cannot keep it from you any longer. I love you--oh, my dear, I
+cannot tell you how I love you."
+
+"Oh, Arnold!" she whispered. It had come, the thing she feared to
+hear!
+
+"May I go on? I have told you now the most important thing, and the
+rest matters little. Oh, Iris, may I go on and tell you all?"
+
+"Go on," she said; "tell me all."
+
+"As for telling you everything," He said with a little laugh, "that is
+no new thing. I have told you all that is in my mind for a year and
+more. It seems natural that I should tell you this too, even if it did
+not concern you at all, but some other girl; though that would be
+impossible. I love you, Iris; I love you--I should like to say nothing
+more. But I must tell you as well that I am quite a poor man; I am an
+absolute pauper; I have nothing at all--no money, no work, nothing. My
+studio and all must go back to her; and yet, Iris, in spite of this, I
+am so selfish as to tell you that I love you. I would give you, if I
+could, the most delightful palace in the world, and I offer you a
+share in the uncertain life of an artist, who does not know whether he
+has any genius, or whether he is fit even to be called an artist."
+
+She gave him her hand with the frankness which was her chief charm,
+and with a look in her eyes so full of trust and truth that his heart
+sunk within him for very fear lest he should prove unworthy of so much
+confidence.
+
+"Oh, Arnold," she said, "I think that I have loved you all along, ever
+since you began to write to me. And yet I never thought that love
+would come to me."
+
+He led her into that bosky grove set with seats convenient for lovers,
+which lies romantically close to the Italian Restaurant, where they
+sell the cocoa and the ginger beer. There was no one in the place
+besides themselves, and here, among the falling leaves, and in a
+solitude as profound as on the top of a Dartmoor tor, Arnold told the
+story of his love again, and with greater coherence, though even more
+passion.
+
+"Oh," said Iris again, "how could you love me, Arnold--how could you
+love any girl so? It is a shame, Arnold; we are not worth so much.
+Could any woman," she thought, "be worth the wealth of passion and
+devotion which her lover poured out for her?"
+
+"My tutor," he went on, "if you only knew what things you have taught
+me, a man of experience! If I admired you when I thought you must be a
+man, and pictured an old scholar full of books and wisdom, what could
+I do when I found that a young girl had written those letters? You
+gave mine back to me; did you think that I would ever part with yours?
+And you owned--oh, Iris, what would not the finished woman of the
+world give to have the secret of your power?--you owned that you knew
+all my letters, every one, by heart. And after all, you will love me,
+your disciple and pupil, and a man who has his way to make from the
+very beginning and first round of the ladder. Think, Iris, first. Is
+it right to throw away so much upon a man who is worth so little?"
+
+"But I am glad that you are poor. If you were rich I should have been
+afraid--oh, not of you, Arnold--never of you, but of your people. And,
+besides it is so good--oh, so very good for a young man--a young man
+of the best kind, not my cousin's kind--to be poor. Nobody ought ever
+to be allowed to become rich before he is fifty years of age at the
+very least. Because now you will have to work in earnest, and you will
+become a great artist--yes, a truly great artist, and we shall be
+proud of you."
+
+"You shall make of me what you please, and what you can. For your
+sake, Iris, I wish I were another Raphael. You are my mistress and my
+queen. Bid me to die, and I will dare--Iris, I swear that the words of
+the extravagant old song are real to me."
+
+"Nay," she said, "not your queen, but your servant always. Surely love
+cannot command. But, I think," she added softly, with a tender blush;
+"I think--nay, I am sure and certain that it can obey."
+
+He stooped and kissed her fingers.
+
+"My love," he murmured; "my love--my love!"
+
+The shadows lengthened and the evening fell; but those two foolish
+people sat side by side, and hand in hand, and what they said further
+we need not write down, because to tell too much of what young lovers
+whisper to each other is a kind of sacrilege.
+
+At last Arnold became aware that the sun was actually set, and he
+sprung to his feet.
+
+They walked home again across the Suspension Bridge. In the western
+sky was hanging a huge bank of cloud all bathed in purple, red and
+gold; the river was ablaze; the barges floated in a golden haze; the
+light shone on their faces, and made them all glorious, like the face
+of Moses, for they, too, had stood--nay, they were still standing--at
+the very gates of Heaven.
+
+"See, Iris," said the happy lover, "the day is done; your old life is
+finished; it has been a happy time, and it sets in glory and splendor.
+The red light in the west is a happy omen of the day to come."
+
+So he took her hand, and led her over the river, and then to his own
+studio in Tite Street. There, in the solemn twilight, he held her in
+his arms, and renewed the vows of love with kisses and fond caresses.
+
+"Iris, my dear--my dear--you are mine and I am yours. What have I done
+to deserve this happy fate?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+THE DISCOVERY.
+
+
+At nine o'clock that evening, Mr. Emblem looked up from the chess
+board.
+
+"Where is Mr. Arbuthnot this evening, my dear?" he asked.
+
+It would be significant in some houses when a young man is expected
+every evening. Iris blushed, and said that perhaps he was not coming.
+But he was, and his step was on the stair as she spoke.
+
+"You are late, Mr. Arbuthnot," said Mr. Emblem, reproachfully, "you
+are late, sir, and somehow we get no music now until you come. Play us
+something, Iris. It is my move, Lala--"
+
+Iris opened the piano and Arnold sat down beside her, and their eyes
+met. There was in each the consciousness of what had passed.
+
+"I shall speak to him to-night, Iris," Arnold whispered. "I have
+already written to my cousin. Do not be hurt if she does not call upon
+you."
+
+"Nothing of that sort will hurt me," Iris said, being ignorant of
+social ways, and without the least ambition to rise in the world. "If
+your cousin does not call upon me I shall not be disappointed. Why
+should she want to know me? But I am sorry, Arnold, that she is angry
+with you."
+
+Lala Roy just then found himself in presence of a most beautiful
+problem--white to move and checkmate in three moves. Mr. Emblem found
+the meshes of fate closing round him earlier than usual, and both bent
+their heads closely over the table.
+
+"Checkmate!" said Lala Roy. "My friend, you have played badly this
+evening."
+
+"I have played badly," Mr. Emblem replied, "because to-morrow will be
+an important day for Iris, and for myself. A day, Iris, that I have
+been looking forward to for eighteen years, ever since I got your
+father's last letter, written upon his death-bed. It seems a long
+time, but like a lifetime," said the old man of seventy-five, "it is
+as nothing when it is gone. Eighteen years, and you were a little
+thing of three, child!"
+
+"What is going to happen to me, grandfather, except that I shall be
+twenty-one?"
+
+"We shall see to-morrow. Patience, my dear--patience."
+
+He spread out his hands and laughed. What was going to happen to
+himself was a small thing compared with the restoration of Iris to her
+own.
+
+"Mr. Emblem," said Arnold, "I also have something of importance to
+say."
+
+"You, too, Mr. Arbuthnot? Cannot yours wait also until to-morrow?"
+
+"No; it is too important. It cannot wait an hour."
+
+"Well, sir"--Mr. Emblem pushed up his spectacles and leaned back in
+his chair--"well, Mr. Arbuthnot, let us have it."
+
+"I think you may guess what I have to say, Mr. Emblem. I am sure that
+Lala Roy has already guessed it."
+
+The philosopher inclined his head in assent.
+
+"It is that I have this afternoon asked Iris to marry me, Mr. Emblem.
+And she has consented."
+
+"Have you consented, Iris, my dear?" said her grandfather.
+
+She placed her hand in Arnold's for reply.
+
+"Do you think you know him well enough, my dear?" Mr. Emblem asked
+gravely, looking at her lover. "Marriage is a serious thing: it is a
+partnership for life. Children, think well before you venture on the
+happiness or ruin of your whole lives. And you are so young. What a
+pity--what a thousand pities that people were not ordained to marry at
+seventy or so!"
+
+"We have thought well," said Arnold. "Iris has faith in me."
+
+"Then, young man, I have nothing to say. Iris will marry to please
+herself, and I pray that she may be happy. As for you, I like your
+face and manners, but I do not know who you are, nor what your means
+may be. Remember that I am poor--I am so poor--I can tell you all now,
+that to-morrow we shall--well, patience--to-morrow I shall most likely
+have my very stock seized and sold."
+
+"Your stock sold? Oh, grandfather!" cried Iris; "and you did not tell
+me! And I have been so happy."
+
+"Friend," said Lala, "was it well to hide this from me?"
+
+"Foolish people," Mr. Emblem went on, "have spread reports that I am
+rich, and have saved money for Iris. It is not true, Mr. Arbuthnot. I
+am not rich. Iris will come to you empty-handed."
+
+"And as for me, I have nothing," said Arnold, "except a pair of hands
+and all the time there is. So we have all to gain and nothing to
+lose."
+
+"You have your profession," said Iris, "and I have mine. Grandfather,
+do not fear, even though we shall all four become poor together."
+
+It seemed natural to include Lala Roy, who had been included with them
+for twenty years.
+
+"As for Iris being empty-handed," said Arnold, "how can that ever be?
+Why, she carries in her hands an inexhaustible cornucopia, full of
+precious things."
+
+"My dear," said the old man, holding out his arms to her, "I could not
+keep you always. Some day I knew you would leave me; it is well that
+you should leave me when I am no longer able to keep a roof over your
+head."
+
+"But we shall find a roof for you, grandfather, somewhere. We shall
+never part."
+
+"The best of girls always," said Mr. Emblem; "the best of girls! Mr.
+Arbuthnot, you are a happy man."
+
+Then the Sage lifted up his voice and said solemnly:
+
+"On her tongue dwelleth music; the sweetness of honey floweth from her
+lips; humility is like a crown of glory about her head; her eye
+speaketh softness and love; her husband putteth his heart in her bosom
+and findeth joy."
+
+"Oh, you are all too good to me," murmured Iris.
+
+"A friend of mine," said Mr. Emblem, "now, like nearly all my friends,
+beneath the sod, used to say that a good marriage was a happy blending
+of the finest Wallsend with the most delicate Silkstone. But he was in
+the coal trade. For my own part I have always thought that it is like
+the binding of two scarce volumes into one."
+
+"Oh, not second-hand volumes, grandfather," said Iris.
+
+"I don't know. Certainly not new ones. Not volumes under
+one-and-twenty, if you please. Mr. Arbuthnot, I am glad; you will know
+why very soon. I am very glad that Iris made her choice before her
+twenty-first birthday. Whatever may happen now, no one can say that
+either of you was influenced by any expectations. You both think
+yourself paupers; well, I say nothing, because I know nothing. But,
+children, if a great thing happen to you, and that before
+four-and-twenty hours have passed, be prepared--be prepared, I say--to
+receive it with moderate rejoicing."
+
+"To-morrow?" Iris asked. "Why to-morrow? Why not to-night, if you have
+a secret to tell us?"
+
+"Your father enjoined in his last letter to wait till you were
+twenty-one. The eve of your birthday, however, is the same thing as
+your birthday. We will open the papers to-night. What I have to tell
+you, Iris, shall be told in the presence of your lover, whatever it
+is--good or bad."
+
+He led the way down-stairs into the back shop. Here he lit the gas,
+and began to open his case, slowly and cautiously.
+
+"Eighteen years ago, Iris, my child, I received your father's last
+letter, written on his death bed. This I have already told you. He set
+down, in that letter, several things which surprised me very much. We
+shall come to these things presently. He also laid down certain
+instructions for your bringing up, my dear. I was, first of all, to
+give you as good an education as I could afford; I was to keep you as
+much as possible separated from companions who might not be thought
+afterward fit to be the friends of a young lady. You have as good an
+education as Lala Roy and I could devise between us. From him you have
+learned mathematics, so as to steady your mind and make you exact; and
+you have learned the science of heraldry from me, so that you may at
+once step into your own place in the polite world, where, no doubt, it
+is a familiar and a necessary study. You have also learned music,
+because that is an accomplishment which every one should possess. What
+more can any girl want for any station? My dear, I am happy to think
+that a gentleman is your lover. Let him tell us, now--Lala Roy and
+me--to our very faces, if he thinks we have, between us, made you a
+lady."
+
+Arnold stooped and kissed her hand.
+
+"There is no more perfect lady," he said, "in all the land."
+
+"Iris's father, Mr. Arbuthnot, was a gentleman of honorable and
+ancient family, and I will tell you, presently, as soon as I find it
+out myself, his real name. As for his coat-of-arms, he bore Quarterly,
+first and fourth, two roses and a boar's head erect; second and third,
+gules and fesse between--strange, now that I have forgotten what it
+was between. Everybody calls himself a gentleman nowadays; even Mr.
+Chalker, who is going to sell me up, I suppose; but everybody, if you
+please, is not armiger. Iris, your father was armiger. I suppose I am
+a gentleman on Sundays, when I go to church with Iris, and wear a
+black coat. But your father, my dear, though he married my daughter,
+was a gentleman by birth. And one who knows heraldry respects a
+gentleman by birth." He laid his hand now on the handle of the safe,
+as if the time were nearly come for opening it, but not quite. "He
+sent me, with this last letter, a small parcel for you, my dear, not
+to be opened until you reached the age of twenty-one. As for the
+person who had succeeded to his inheritance, she was to be left in
+peaceable possession for a reason which he gave--quite a romantic
+story, which I will tell you presently--until you came of age. He was
+very urgent on this point. If, however, any disaster of sickness or
+misfortune fell upon me, I was to act in your interests at once,
+without waiting for time. Children," the old man added solemnly, "by
+the blessing of Heaven--I cannot take it as anything less--I have been
+spared in health and fortune until this day. Now let me depart in
+peace, for my trust is expired, and my child is safe, her inheritance
+secured, with a younger and better protector." He placed the key in
+the door of the safe. "I do not know, mind," he said, still hesitating
+to take the final step; "I do not know the nature of the inheritance;
+it may be little or maybe great. The letter does not inform me on this
+point. I do not even know the name of the testator, my son-in-law's
+father. Nor do I know the name of my daughter's husband. I do not even
+know your true name, Iris, my child. But it is not Aglen."
+
+"Then, have I been going under a false name all my life?"
+
+"It was the name your father chose to bear for reasons which seemed
+good and sufficient to him, and these are part of the story which I
+shall have to tell you. Will you have this story first, or shall we
+first open the safe and read the contents of the parcel?"
+
+"First," said Arnold, "let us sit down and look in each other's
+faces."
+
+It was a practical suggestion. But, as it proved, it was an unlucky
+one, because it deprived them of the story.
+
+"Iris," he said, while they waited, "this is truly wonderful!"
+
+"Oh, Arnold! What am I to do with an inheritance?"
+
+"That depends on what it is. Perhaps it is a landed estate; in which
+case we shall not be much better off, and can go on with our work;
+perhaps there will be houses; perhaps it will be thousands of pounds,
+and perhaps hundreds. Shall we build a castle in the air to suit our
+inheritance?"
+
+"Yes; let us pretend. Oh, grandfather, stop one moment! Our castle,
+Arnold, shall be, first of all, the most beautiful studio in the world
+for you. You shall have tapestry, blue china, armor, lovely glass,
+soft carpets, carved doors and painted panels, a tall mantelshelf,
+old wooden cabinets, silver cups, and everything else what one ought
+to like, and you shall choose everything for yourself, and never get
+tired of it. But you must go on painting; you must never stop working,
+because we must be proud of you as well that you like. Oh, but I have
+not done yet. My grandfather is to have two rooms for himself, which
+he can fill with the books he will spend his time in collecting; Lala
+Roy will have two more rooms, quite separate, where he can sit by
+himself whenever he does not choose to sit with me; I shall have my
+own study to myself, where I shall go on reading mathematics; and we
+shall all have, between us, the most beautiful dining-room and
+drawing-room that you ever saw; and a garden and a fountain,
+and--yes--money to give to people who are not so fortunate as
+ourselves. Will that do, Arnold?"
+
+"Yes, but you have almost forgotten yourself, dear. There must be
+carriages for you, and jewels, and dainty things all your own, and a
+boudoir, and nobody shall think of doing or saying anything in the
+house at all, except for your pleasure; will that do, Iris?"
+
+"I suppose we shall have to give parties of some kind, and to go to
+them. Perhaps one may get to like society. You will teach me
+lawn-tennis, Arnold; and I should like, I think, to learn dancing. I
+suppose I must leave off making my own dresses, though I know that I
+shall never be so well dressed if I do. And about the cakes and
+puddings--but, oh, there is enough pretending."
+
+"It is difficult," said Lala Roy, "to bear adversity. But to be
+temperate in prosperity is the height of wisdom."
+
+"And now suppose, Iris," said Arnold "that the inheritance, instead
+of being thousands a year, is only a few hundreds."
+
+"Ah, then, Arnold, it will be ever so much simpler. We shall have
+something to live upon until you begin to make money for us all."
+
+"Yes; that is very simple. But suppose, again, that the inheritance is
+nothing but a small sum of money."
+
+"Why, then," said Iris, "we will give it all to grandfather, who will
+pay off his creditor, and we will go on as if nothing had happened."
+
+"Child!" said Mr. Emblem, "do you think that I would take your little
+all?"
+
+"And suppose, again," Arnold went on, "that the inheritance turns out
+a delusion, and that there is nothing at all?"
+
+"That cannot be supposed," said Mr. Emblem quickly; "that is absurd!"
+
+"If it were," said Iris, "we shall only be, to-morrow, just exactly
+what we are to-day. I am a teacher by correspondence, with five
+pupils. Arnold is looking for art-work, which will pay; and between
+us, my dear grandfather and Lala Roy, we are going to see that you
+want nothing."
+
+Always Lala Roy with her grandfather, as if their interests were
+identical, and, indeed, he had lived so long with them that Iris could
+not separate the two old men.
+
+"We will all live together," Iris continued, "and when our fortune is
+made we will all live in a palace. And now, grandfather, that we have
+relieved our feelings, shall we have the story and the opening of the
+papers in the safe?"
+
+"Which will you have first?" Mr. Emblem asked again.
+
+"Oh, the safe," said Arnold. "The story can wait. Let us examine the
+contents of the safe."
+
+"The story," said Mr. Emblem, "is nearly all told in your father's
+letter, my dear. But there is a little that I would tell you first,
+before I read that letter. You know, Iris, that I have never been
+rich; my shop has kept me up till now, but I have never been able to
+put by money. Well--my daughter Alice, your poor mother, my dear, who
+was as good and clever as you are, was determined to earn her own
+living, and so she went out as a governess. And one day she came home
+with her husband; she had been married the day before, and she told me
+they had very little money, and her husband was a scholar and a
+gentleman, and wanted to get work by writing. He got some, but not
+enough, and they were always in a poor way, until one day he got a
+letter from America--it was while the Civil War was raging--from an
+old Oxford friend, inviting him to emigrate and try fortune as a
+journalist out there. He went, and his wife was to join him. But she
+died, my dear; your mother died, and a year later I had your father's
+last letter, which I am now going to read to you."
+
+"One moment, sir," said Arnold. "Before you open the safe and take out
+the papers, remember that Iris and I can take nothing--nothing at all
+for ourselves until all your troubles are tided over."
+
+"Children--children," cried Mr. Emblem.
+
+"Go, my son, to the Desert," observed the Sage, standing solemnly
+upright like a Prophet of Israel. "Observe the young stork of the
+wilderness, how he beareth on his wings his aged sire and supplieth
+him with food. The piety of a child is sweeter than the incense of
+Persia offered to the sun; yea, more delicious is it than the odors
+from a field of Arabian spice."
+
+"Thank you, Lala," said Mr. Emblem. "And now, children, we will
+discover the mystery."
+
+He unlocked the safe and threw it open with somewhat of a theatrical
+air. "The roll of papers." He took it out. "'For Iris to be opened on
+her twenty-first birthday.' And this is the eve of it. But where is
+the letter? I tied the letter round it, with a piece of tape. Very
+strange. I am sure I tied the letter with a piece of tape. Perhaps it
+was--Where is the letter?"
+
+He peered about in the safe; there was nothing else in it except a few
+old account books; but he could not find the letter! Where could it
+be?
+
+"I remember," he said--"most distinctly I remember tying up the
+letter with the parcel. Where can it be gone to?"
+
+A feeling of trouble to come seized him. He was perfectly sure he had
+tied up the letter with the parcel, and here was the parcel without
+the letter, and no one had opened the safe except himself.
+
+"Never mind about the letter, grandfather," said Iris; "we shall find
+that afterward."
+
+"Well, then, let us open the parcel."
+
+It was a packet about the size of a crown-octavo volume, in brown
+paper, carefully fastened up with gum, and on the face of it was a
+white label inscribed: "For Iris, to be opened on her twenty-first
+birthday." Everybody in turn took it, weighed it, so to speak, looked
+at it curiously, and read the legend. Then they returned it to Mr.
+Emblem, who laid it before him and produced a penknife. With this, as
+carefully and solemnly as if he were offering up a sacrifice or
+performing a religious function, he cut the parcel straight through.
+
+"After eighteen years," he said; "after eighteen years. The ink will
+be faded and the papers yellow. But we shall see the certificates of
+the marriage and of your baptism, Iris; there will also be letters to
+different people, and a true account of the rupture with his father,
+and the cause, of which his letter spoke. And of course we shall find
+out what was his real name and what is the kind of inheritance which
+has been waiting for you so long, my dear. Now then."
+
+The covering incase of the packet was a kind of stiff cardboard or
+millboard, within brown paper. Mr. Emblem laid it open. It was full of
+folded papers. He took up the first and opened it. The paper was
+blank. The next, it was blank; the third, it was blank; the fourth,
+and fifth, and sixth, and so on throughout. The case, which had been
+waiting so long, waiting for eighteen years, to be opened on Iris's
+twenty-first birthday, was full of blank papers. They were all half
+sheets of note-paper.
+
+Mr. Emblem looked surprised at the first two or three papers; then he
+turned pale; then he rushed at the rest. When he had opened all, he
+stared about him with bewilderment.
+
+"Where is the letter?" he asked again. Then he began with trembling
+hands to tear out the contents of the safe and spread them upon the
+table. The letter was nowhere.
+
+"I am certain," he said, for the tenth time, "I am quite certain that
+I tied up the letter with red tape, outside the packet. And no one has
+been at the safe except me."
+
+"Tell us," said Arnold, "the contents of the letter as well as you
+remember them. Your son-in-law was known to you under the name of
+Aglen, which was not his real name. Did he tell you his real name?"
+
+"No."
+
+"What did he tell you? Do you remember the letter?"
+
+"I remember every word of the letter."
+
+"If you dictate it, I will write it down. That may be a help."
+
+Mr. Emblem began quickly, and as if he was afraid of forgetting:
+
+"'When you read these lines, I shall be in the Silent Land, whither
+Alice, my wife, has gone before me.'"
+
+Then Mr. Emblem began to stammer.
+
+"'In one small thing we deceived you, Alice and I. My name is not
+Aglen'--is not Aglen--"
+
+And here a strange thing happened. His memory failed him at this
+point.
+
+"Take time," said Arnold; "there is no hurry."
+
+Mr. Emblem shook his head.
+
+"I shall remember the rest to-morrow, perhaps," he said.
+
+"Is there anything else you have to help us?" asked Arnold: "never
+mind the letter, Mr. Emblem. No doubt that will come back presently.
+You see we want to find out, first, who Iris's father really was, and
+what is her real name. There was his coat-of-arms. That will connect
+her with some family, though it may be a family with many branches."
+
+"Yes--oh yes! his coat-of-arms. I have seen his signet-ring a dozen
+times. Yes, his coat; yes, first and fourth, two roses and a boar's
+head erect; second and third--I forget."
+
+"Humph! Was there any one who knew him before he was married?"
+
+"Yes, yes," Mr. Emblem sat up eagerly. "Yes, there is--there is; he is
+my oldest customer. But I forget his name, I have forgotten
+everything. Perhaps I shall get back my memory to-morrow. But I am
+old. Perhaps it will never get back."
+
+He leaned his head upon his hands, and stared about him with
+bewildered eyes.
+
+"I do not know, young man," he said presently, addressing Arnold, "who
+you are. If you come from Mr. Chalker, let me tell you it is a day too
+soon. To-morrow we will speak of business." Then he sprung to his feet
+suddenly, struck with a thought which pierced him like a dagger.
+"To-morrow! It is the day when they will come to sell me up. Oh, Iris!
+what did that matter when you were safe? Now we are all paupers
+together--all paupers."
+
+He fell back in his chair white and trembling. Iris soothed him;
+kissed his cheek and pressed his hand; but the terror and despair of
+bankruptcy were upon him. This is an awful specter, which is ever
+ready to appear before the man who has embarked his all in one
+venture. A disastrous season, two or three unlucky ventures, a
+succession of bad debts, and the grisly specter stands before them.
+He had no terror for the old man so long as he thought that Iris was
+safe. But now--
+
+"Idle talk, Iris--idle talk, child," he said, when they tried to
+comfort him. "How can a girl make money by teaching? Idle talk, young
+man. How can money be made by painting? It's as bad a trade as
+writing. How can money be made anyhow but in an honest shop? And
+to-morrow I shall have no shop, and we shall all go into the street
+together!"
+
+Presently, when lamentations had yielded to despair, they persuaded
+him to go to bed. It was past midnight. Iris went upstairs with him,
+while Lala Roy and Arnold waited down below. And then Arnold made a
+great discovery. He began to examine the folded papers which were in
+the packet. I think he had some kind of vague idea that they might
+contain secret and invisible writing. They were all sheets of
+note-paper, of the same size, folded in the same way--namely, doubled
+as if for a square envelope. On holding one to the light, he read the
+water-mark:
+
+     HIEROGLYPHICA
+     A Vegetable Vellum.
+     M.S. & Co.
+
+They all had the same water-mark. He showed the thing to the Hindoo,
+who did not understand what it meant.
+
+Then Iris came down again. Her grandfather was sleeping. Like a child,
+he fell asleep the moment his head fell upon the pillow.
+
+"Iris," he said, "this is no delusion of your grandfather's. The
+parcel has been robbed."
+
+"How do you know, Arnold?"
+
+"The stupid fellow who stole and opened the packet no doubt thought he
+was wonderfully clever to fill it up again with paper. But he forgot
+that the packet has been lying for eighteen years in the safe, and
+that this note-paper was made the day before yesterday."
+
+"How do you know that?"
+
+"You can tell by the look and feel of the paper; they did not make
+paper like this twenty years ago; besides, look at the water-mark;" he
+held it to the light, and Iris read the mystic words. "That is the
+fashion of to-day. One house issues a new kind of paper, with a fancy
+name, and another imitates them. To-morrow, I will ascertain exactly
+when this paper was made."
+
+"But who would steal it, Arnold? Who could steal it?"
+
+"It would not probably be of the least use to any one. But it might be
+stolen in order to sell it back. We may see an advertisement carefully
+worded, guarded, or perhaps--Iris, who had access to the place, when
+your grandfather was out?"
+
+"No one but James, the shopman. He has been here five-and-twenty
+years. He would not, surely, rob his old master. No one else comes
+here except the customers and Cousin Joe."
+
+"Joe is not, I believe, quite--"
+
+"Joe is a very bad man. He has done dreadful things. But then, even if
+Joe were bad enough to rob the safe, how could he get at it? My
+grandfather never leaves it unlocked. Oh, Arnold, Arnold, that all
+this trouble should fall upon us on the very day--"
+
+"My dear, is it not better that it should fall upon you when I am
+here, one more added to your advisers? If you have lost a fortune, I
+have found one. Think that you have given it to me."
+
+"Oh, the fortune may go," she said. "The future is ours, and we are
+young. But who shall console my grandfather in his old age for his
+bankruptcy?"
+
+"As the stream," said Lala Roy, "which passeth from the mountains to
+the ocean, kisseth every meadow on its way, yet tarries not in any
+place, so Fortune visits the sons of men; she is unstable as the wind;
+who shall hold her? Let not adversity tear off the wings of hope."
+
+They could do nothing more. Arnold replaced the paper in the packet,
+and gave it to Iris; they put back the ledgers and account-books in
+the safe, and locked it up, and then they went upstairs.
+
+"You shall go to bed, Iris," said Arnold, "and you, too, Lala Roy. I
+shall stay here, in case Mr. Emblem should--should want anything."
+
+He was, in reality, afraid that "something would happen" to the old
+man. His sudden loss of memory, his loss of self-control when he spoke
+of his bankruptcy, the confusion of his words, told clearly of a mind
+unhinged. He could not go away and leave Iris with no better
+protection than one other weak old man.
+
+He remained, but Iris sat with him, and in the silent watches of the
+night they talked about the future.
+
+Under every roof are those who talk about the future, and those who
+think about the past; so the shadow of death is always with us and the
+sunshine of life. Not without reason is the Roman Catholic altar
+incomplete without a bone of some dead man. As for the thing which had
+been stolen, that affected them but little. What does it matter--the
+loss of what was promised but five minutes since?
+
+It was one o'clock in the morning when Lala Roy left them. They sat at
+the window, hand-in-hand, and talked. The street below them was very
+quiet; now and then a late cab broke the silence, or the tramp of a
+policeman; but there were no other sounds. They sat in darkness
+because they wanted no light. The hours sped too swiftly for them. At
+five the day began to dawn.
+
+"Iris," said Arnold, "leave me now, and try to sleep a little. Shall
+we ever forget this night of sweet and tender talk?"
+
+When she was gone, he began to be aware of footsteps overhead in the
+old man's room. What was he going to do? Arnold waited at the door.
+Presently the door opened, and he heard careful steps upon the stairs.
+They were the steps of Mr. Emblem himself. He was fully dressed, with
+his usual care and neatness, his black silk stock buckled behind, and
+his white hair brushed.
+
+"Ah, Mr. Arbuthnot," he said cheerfully, "you are early this morning!"
+as if it was quite a usual thing for his friends to look in at six in
+the morning.
+
+"You are going down to the shop, Mr. Emblem?"
+
+"Yes, certainly--to the shop. Pray come with me."
+
+Arnold followed him.
+
+"I have just remembered," said the old man, "that last night we did
+not look on the floor. I will have one more search for the letter, and
+then, if I cannot find it, I will write it all out--every word. There
+is not much, to be sure, but the story is told without the names."
+
+"Tell me the story, Mr. Emblem, while you remember it."
+
+"All in good time, young man. Youth is impatient."
+
+He drew up the blind and let in the morning light; then he began his
+search for the letter on the floor, going on his hands and knees, and
+peering under the table and chairs with a candle. At length he
+desisted.
+
+"I tied it up," he said, "with the parcel, with red tape. Very
+well--we must do without it. Now, Mr. Arbuthnot, my plan is this.
+First, I will dictate the letter. This will give you the outlines of
+the story. Next, I will send you to--to my old customer, who can tell
+you my son-in-law's real name. And then I will describe his
+coat-of-arms. My memory was never so clear and good as I feel it
+to-day. Strange that last night I seemed, for the moment, to forget
+everything! Ha, ha! Ridiculous, wasn't it? I suppose--But there is no
+accounting for these queer things. Perhaps I was disappointed to find
+nothing in the packet. Do you think, Mr. Arbuthnot, that I--" Here he
+began to tremble. "Do you think that I dreamed it all? Old men think
+strange things. Perhaps--"
+
+"Let us try to remember the letter, Mr. Emblem."
+
+"Yes, yes--certainly--the letter. Why it went--ahem!--as follows--"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Arnold laid down the pen in despair. The poor old man was mad. He had
+poured out the wildest farrago without sense, coherence, or story.
+
+"So much for the letter, Mr. Arbuthnot." He was mad without doubt, yet
+he knew Arnold, and knew, too, why he was in the house. "Ah, I knew it
+would come back to me. Strange if it did not. Why I read that letter
+once every quarter or so for eighteen years. It is a part of myself. I
+could not forget it."
+
+"And the name of your son-in-law's old friend?"
+
+"Oh, yes, the name!"
+
+He gave some name, which might have been the lost name, but as Mr.
+Emblem changed it the next moment, and forgot it again the moment
+after, it was doubtful; certainly not much to build upon.
+
+"And the coat-of-arms?"
+
+"We are getting on famously, are we not? The coat, sir, was as
+follows."
+
+He proceeded to describe an impossible coat--a coat which might have
+been drawn by a man absolutely ignorant of science.
+
+All this took a couple of hours. It was now eight o'clock.
+
+"Thank you, Mr. Emblem," said Arnold. "I have no doubt now that we
+shall somehow bring Iris to her own again, in spite of your loss.
+Shall we go upstairs and have some breakfast?"
+
+"It is all right, Iris," cried the old man gleefully. "It is all
+right. I have remembered everything, and Mr. Arbuthnot will go out
+presently and secure your inheritance."
+
+Iris looked at Arnold.
+
+"Yes, dear," she said. "You shall have your breakfast. And then you
+shall tell me all about it when Arnold goes; and you will take a
+holiday, won't you--because I am twenty-one to-day?"
+
+"Aha!" He was quite cheerful and mirthful, because he had recovered
+his memory. "Aha, my dear, all is well! You are twenty-one, and I am
+seventy-five; and Mr. Arbuthnot will go and bring home the--the
+inheritance. And I shall sit here all day long. It was a good dream
+that came to me this morning, was it not? Quite a voice from Heaven,
+which said: 'Get up and write down the letter while you remember it.'
+I got up; I found by the--by the merest accident, Mr. Arbuthnot on the
+stairs, and we have arranged everything for you--everything."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+DR. WASHINGTON.
+
+
+Arnold returned to his studio, sat down and fell fast asleep.
+
+He was awakened about noon by his Cousin Clara.
+
+"Oh, Arnold," she cried, shaking him wrathfully by the arm, "this is a
+moment of the greatest excitement and importance to me, and you are my
+only adviser, and you are asleep!"
+
+He sprung to his feet.
+
+"I am awake now, Clara. Anxiety and trouble? On account of our talk
+yesterday?"
+
+He saw that she had been crying. In her hands she had a packet of
+letters.
+
+"Oh, no, no; it is far more important than that. As for our talk--"
+
+"I am engaged to her, Clara."
+
+"So I expected," she replied coldly. "But I am not come here about
+your engagement. And you do not want my congratulations, I suppose?"
+
+"I should like to have your good wishes, Clara."
+
+"Oh, Arnold, that is what my poor Claude said when he deserted me and
+married the governess. You men want to have your own way, and then
+expect us to be delighted with it."
+
+"I expect nothing, Clara. Pray understand that."
+
+"I told Claude, when he wrote asking forgiveness, that he had my good
+wishes, whatever he chose to do, but that I would not on any account
+receive his wife. Very well, Arnold; that is exactly what I say to
+you."
+
+"Very well, Clara. I quite understand. As for the studio, and all the
+things that you have given me, they are, of course, yours again. Let
+me restore what I can to you."
+
+"No, Arnold, they are yours. Let me hear no more about things that are
+your own. Of course, your business, as you call it, is exciting. But
+as for this other thing, it is far more important. Something has
+happened; something I always expected; something that I looked
+forward to for years; although it has waited on the way so long, it
+has actually come at last, when I had almost forgotten to look for it.
+So true it is, Arnold, that good fortune and misfortune alike come
+when we least expect them."
+
+Arnold sat down. He knew his cousin too well to interrupt her. She had
+her own way of telling a story, and it was a roundabout way.
+
+"I cannot complain, after twenty years, can I? I have had plenty of
+rope, as you would say. But still it has come at last. And naturally,
+when it does come, it is a shock."
+
+"Is it hereditary gout, Clara?"
+
+"Gout! Nonsense, Arnold! When the will was read, I said to myself,
+'Claude is certain to come back and claim his own. It is his right,
+and I hope he will come. But for my own part, I have not the least
+intention of calling upon the governess.' Then three or four years
+passed away, and I heard--I do not remember how--that he was dead. And
+then I waited for his heirs, his children, or their guardians. But
+they did not come."
+
+"And now they have really come? Oh, Clara, this is indeed a
+misfortune."
+
+"No, Arnold; call it a restitution, not a misfortune. I have been
+living all these years on the money which belongs to Claude's heirs."
+
+"There was a son, then. And now he has dropped upon us from the
+clouds?"
+
+"It is a daughter, not a son. But you shall hear. I received a letter
+this morning from a person called Dr. Joseph Washington, stating that
+he wrote to me on account of the only child and heiress of the late
+Claude Deseret."
+
+"Who is Dr. Joseph Washington?"
+
+"He is a physician, he says, and an American."
+
+"Yes; will you go on?"
+
+"I do not mind it, Arnold; I really do not. I must give up my house
+and put down my carriage, but it is for Claude's daughter. I rejoice
+to think that he has left some one behind him. Arnold, that face upon
+your canvas really has got eyes wonderfully like his, if it was not a
+mere fancy, when I saw it yesterday. I am glad, I say, to give up
+everything to the child of Claude."
+
+"You think so kindly of him, Clara, who inflicted so much pain on
+you."
+
+"I can never think bitterly of Claude. We were brought up together; we
+were like brother and sister; he never loved me in any other way. Oh,
+I understood it all years ago. To begin with, I was never beautiful;
+and it was his father's mistake. Well: this American followed up his
+letter by a visit. In the letter he merely said he had come to London
+with the heiress. But he called an hour ago, and brought me--oh,
+Arnold, he brought me one more letter from Claude. It has been waiting
+for me for eighteen years. After all that time, after eighteen years,
+my poor dead Claude speaks to me again. My dear, when I thought he was
+miserable on account of his marriage, I was wrong. His wife made him
+happy, and he died because she died." The tears came into her eyes
+again. "Poor boy! Poor Claude! The letter speaks of his child. It
+says--" She opened and read the letter. "He says: 'Some day my child
+will, I hope, come to you, and say: Cousin Clara, I am Iris
+Deseret.'"
+
+"Iris?" said Arnold.
+
+"It is her name, Arnold. It was the child's grandmother's name."
+
+"A strange coincidence," he said. "Pray go on."
+
+"'She will say: Cousin Clara, I am Iris Deseret. Then you will be
+kind to her, as you would to me, if I were to come home again.' I
+cannot read any more, my dear, even to you."
+
+"Did this American give you any other proof of what he asserts?"
+
+"He gave me a portrait of Claude, taken years ago, when he was a boy
+of sixteen, and showed me the certificate of marriage, and the child's
+certificate of baptism, and letters from his wife. I suppose nothing
+more can be wanted."
+
+"I dare say it is all right, Clara. But why was not the child brought
+over before?"
+
+"Because--this is the really romantic part of the story--when her
+father died, leaving the child, she was adopted by these charitable
+Americans, and no one ever thought of examining the papers, which were
+lying in a desk, until the other day."
+
+"You have not seen the young lady."
+
+"No; he is to bring her to-morrow."
+
+"And what sort of a man is this American? Is he a gentleman?"
+
+"Well, I do not quite know. Perhaps Americans are different from
+Englishmen. If he was an Englishman, I should say without any
+hesitation that he is not a gentleman, as we count good breeding and
+good manners. He is a big man, handsome and burly, and he seems
+good-tempered. When I told him what was the full amount of Iris's
+inheritance--"
+
+"Iris's inheritance!" Arnold repeated. "I beg your pardon, Clara; pray
+go on; but it seems like a dream."
+
+"He only laughed, and said he was glad she would have so much. The
+utmost they hoped, he said, was that it might be a farm, or a house or
+two, or a few hundreds in the stocks. He is to bring her to-morrow,
+and of course I shall make her stay with me. As for himself, he says
+that he is only anxious to get back home to his wife and his
+practice."
+
+"He wants nothing for himself, then? That seems a good sign."
+
+"I asked him that question, and he said that he could not possibly
+take money for what he and his family had done for Iris; that is to
+say, her education and maintenance. This was very generous of him.
+Perhaps he is really a gentleman by birth, but has provincial manners.
+He said, however, that he had no objection to receiving the small
+amount of money spent on the voyage and on Iris's outfit, because they
+were not rich people, and it was a serious thing to fit out a young
+lady suitably. So of course I gave him what he suggested, a check for
+two hundred pounds. No one, he added with true feeling, would grudge a
+single dollar that had been spent upon the education of the dear girl;
+and this went to my heart."
+
+"She is well educated, then?"
+
+"She sings well," he says, "and has had a good plain education. He
+said I might rest assured that she was ladylike, because she had been
+brought up among his own friends."
+
+"That is a very safe guarantee," said Arnold, laughing. "I wonder if
+she is pretty?"
+
+"I asked him that question too, and he replied very oddly that she had
+a most splendid figure, which fetched everybody. Is not that rather a
+vulgar expression?"
+
+"It is, in England. Perhaps in America it belongs to the first
+circles, and is a survival of the Pilgrim Fathers. So you gave him a
+check for two hundred pounds?"
+
+"Yes; surely I was not wrong, Arnold. Consider the circumstances, the
+outfit and the voyage, and the man's reluctance and delicacy of
+feeling."
+
+"I dare say you were quite right, but--well, I think I should have
+seen the young lady first. Remember, you have given the money to a
+stranger, on his bare word."
+
+"Oh, Arnold, this man is perfectly honest. I would answer for his
+truth and honesty. He has frank, honest eyes. Besides, he brought me
+all those letters. Well, dear, you are not going to desert me because
+you are engaged, are you, Arnold? I want you to be present when she
+comes to-morrow morning."
+
+"Certainly I will be present, with the greatest--no, not the greatest
+pleasure. But I will be present--I will come to luncheon, Clara."
+
+When she was gone he thought again of the strange coincidence, both of
+the man and of the inheritance. Yet what had his Iris in common with a
+girl who had been brought up in America? Besides, she had lost her
+inheritance, and this other Iris had crossed the ocean to receive
+hers. Yet a very strange coincidence. It was so strange that he told
+it to Iris and to Lala Roy. Iris laughed, and said she did not know
+she had a single namesake. Lala did not laugh; but he sat thinking in
+silence. There was no chess for him that night; instead of playing his
+usual game, Mr. Emblem, in his chair, laughed and chuckled in rather a
+ghastly way.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+"IT IS MY COUSIN."
+
+
+"Well, Joe," said his wife, "and how is it going to finish? It looks
+to me as if there was a prison-van and a police-court at the end.
+Don't you think we had better back out of it while there is time?"
+
+"You're a fool!" her husband replied--it was the morning after his
+visit to Clara; "you know nothing about it. Now listen."
+
+"I do nothing but listen; you've told me the story till I know it by
+heart. Do you think anybody in the world will be so green as to
+believe such a clumsy plan as that?"
+
+"Now look here, Lotty; if there's another word said--mind, now--you
+shall have nothing more to do with the business at all. I'll give it
+to a girl I know--a clever girl, who will carry it through with flying
+colors."
+
+She set her lips hard, and drummed her fingers on the table. He knew
+how to rule his wife.
+
+"Go on," she said, "since we can't be honest."
+
+"Be reasonable, then; that's all I ask you. Honest! who is honest?
+Ain't we every one engaged in getting round our neighbors? Isn't the
+whole game, all the world over, lying and deceit? Honest! you might as
+well go on the boards without faking up your face, as try to live
+honest. Hold your tongue, then." He growled and swore, and after his
+fashion called on the Heavens to witness and express their
+astonishment.
+
+The girl bent her head, and made no reply for a space. She was cowed
+and afraid. Presently she looked up and laughed, but with a forced
+laugh.
+
+"Don't be cross, Joe; I'll do whatever you want me to do, and
+cheerfully, too, if it will do you any good. What is a woman good for
+but to help her husband? Only don't be cross, Joe."
+
+She knew what her husband was by this time--a false and unscrupulous
+man. Yet she loved him. The case is not rare by any means, so that
+there is hope for all of us, from the meanest and most wriggling worm
+among us to the most hectoring ruffian.
+
+"Why there, Lotty," he said, "that is what I like. Now listen. The old
+lady is a cake--do you understand? She is a sponge, she swallows
+everything, and is ready to fall on your neck and cry over you for
+joy. As for doubt or suspicion, not a word. I don't think there will
+be a single question asked. No, it's all 'My poor dear Claude'--that's
+your father, Lotty--and 'My poor dear Iris'--that's you, Lotty."
+
+"All right, Joe, go on. I am Iris--I am anybody you like. Go on."
+
+"The more I think about it, the more I'm certain we shall do the
+trick. Only keep cool over the job and forget the music-hall. You are
+Iris Deseret, and you are the daughter of Claude Deseret, deceased. I
+am Dr. Washington, one of the American family who brought you up.
+You're grateful, mind. Nothing can be more lively than your gratitude.
+We've been brother and sister, you and me, and I've got a wife and
+young family and a rising practice at home in the State of Maine, and
+I am only come over here to see you into your rights at great personal
+expense. Paid a substitute. Yes, actually paid a substitute. We only
+found the papers the other day, which is the reason why we did not
+come over before, and I am going home again directly."
+
+"You are not really going away, Joe, are you?"
+
+"No, I am going to stay here; but I shall pretend to go away. Now
+remember, we've got no suspicion ourselves, and we don't expect to
+meet any. If there is any, we are surprised and sorry. We don't come
+to the lady with a lawyer or a blunderbuss; we come as friends, and we
+shall arrange this little business between ourselves. Oh, never you
+fear, we shall arrange it quite comfortably, without lawyers."
+
+"How much do you think we shall get out of it, Joe?"
+
+"Listen, and open your eyes. There's nearly a hundred and twenty
+thousand pounds and a small estate in the country. Don't let us
+trouble about the estate more than we can help. Estates mean lawyers.
+Money doesn't."
+
+He spoke as if small sums like a hundred thousand pounds are carried
+about in the pocket.
+
+"Good gracious! And you've got two hundred of it already, haven't
+you?"
+
+"Yes, but what is two hundred out of a hundred and twenty thousand? A
+hundred and twenty thousand! There's spending in it, isn't there,
+Lotty? Gad, we'll make the money spin, I calculate! It may be a few
+weeks before the old lady transfers the money--I don't quite know
+where it is, but in stocks or something--to your name. As soon as it
+is in your name I've got a plan. We'll remember that you've got a
+sweetheart or something in America, and you'll break your heart for
+wanting to see him. And then nothing will do but you must run across
+for a trip. Oh, I'll manage, and we'll make the money fly."
+
+He was always adding new details to his story, finding something to
+embellish it and heighten the effect, and now having succeeded in
+getting the false Iris into the house, he began already to devise
+schemes to get her out again.
+
+"A hundred thousand pounds? Why, Joe, it is a terrible great sum of
+money. Good gracious! What shall we do with it, when we get it?"
+
+"I'll show you what to do with it, my girl."
+
+"And you said, Joe--you declared that it is your own by rights."
+
+"Certainly it is my own. It would have been bequeathed to me by my own
+cousin. But she didn't know it. And she died without knowing it, and I
+am her heir."
+
+Lotty wondered vaguely and rather sadly how much of this statement was
+true. But she did not dare to ask. She had promised her assistance.
+Every night she woke with a dreadful dream of a policeman knocking at
+the door; whenever she saw a man in blue she trembled; and she knew
+perfectly well that, if the plot failed, it was she herself, in all
+probability, and not her husband at all, who would be put in the dock.
+She did not believe a word about the cousin; she knew she was going to
+do a vile and dreadful wickedness, but she was ready to go through
+with it, or with anything else, to pleasure a husband who already, the
+honeymoon hardly finished, showed the propensities of a rover.
+
+"Very well, Lotty; we are going there at once. You need take nothing
+with you, but you won't come back here for a good spell. In fact, I
+think I shall have to give up these lodgings, for fear of accidents. I
+shall leave you with your cousin."
+
+"Yes; and I'm to be quiet, and behave pretty, I suppose?"
+
+"You'll be just as quiet and demure as you used to be when you were
+serving in the music shop. No loud laughing, no capers, no comic
+songs, and no dancing."
+
+"And am I to begin at once by asking for the money to be--what do you
+call it, transferred?"
+
+"No; you are not on any account to say a word about the money; you are
+to go on living there without hinting at the money--without showing
+any desire to discuss the subject--perhaps for months, until there
+can't be the shadow of a doubt that you are the old woman's cousin.
+You are to make much of her, flatter her, cocker her up, find out all
+the family secrets, and get the length of her foot; but you are not
+to say one single word about the money. As for your manners, I'm not
+afraid of them, because when you like, you can look and talk like a
+countess."
+
+"I know now." She got up and changed her face so that it became at
+once subdued and quiet, like a quiet serving-girl behind a counter.
+"So, is that modest enough, Joe? And as for singing, I shall sing for
+her, but not music-hall trash. This kind of thing. Listen."
+
+There was a piano in the room, and she sat down and sang to her own
+accompaniment, with a sweet, low voice, one of the soft, sad German
+songs.
+
+"That'll do," cried Joe. "Hang me! what a clever girl you are, Lotty!
+That's the kind of thing the swells like. As for me, give me ten
+minutes of Jolly Nash. But you know how to pull 'em in, Lotty."
+
+It was approaching twelve, the hour when they were due. Lotty retired
+and arrayed herself in her quietest and most sober dress, a costume in
+some brown stuff, with a bonnet to match. She put on her best gloves
+and boots, having herself felt the inferiority of the shop-girl to the
+lady in those minor points, and she modified and mitigated her fringe,
+which, she knew, was rather more exaggerated than young ladies in
+society generally wear.
+
+"You're not afraid, Lotty?" said Joe, when at last she was ready to
+start.
+
+"Afraid? Not I, Joe. Come along. I couldn't look quieter, not if I was
+to make up as I do in the evening as a Quakeress. Come along. Oh, Joe,
+it will be awful dull! Don't forget to send word to the hall that I am
+ill. Afraid? Not I!" She laughed, but rather hysterically.
+
+There would be, however, she secretly considered, some excitement when
+it came to the finding out, which would happen, she was convinced, in
+a very few hours. In fact, she had no faith at all in the story being
+accepted and believed by anybody; to be sure, she herself had been
+trained, as ladies in shops generally are, to mistrust all mankind,
+and she could not understand at all the kind of confidence which comes
+of having the very thing presented to you which you ardently desire.
+When they arrived in Chester Square, she found waiting for her a lady,
+who was certainly not beautiful, but she had kind eyes, which looked
+eagerly at the strange face, and with an expression of disappointment.
+
+"It can't be the fringe," thought Lotty.
+
+"Cousin Clara," she said softly and sweetly, as her husband had taught
+her, "I am Iris Deseret, the daughter of your old playfellow, Claude."
+
+"Oh, my dear, my dear," cried Clara with enthusiasm, "come to my arms!
+Welcome home again!"
+
+She kissed and embraced her. Then she held her by both hands, and
+looked at her face again.
+
+"My dear," she said, "you have been a long time coming. I had almost
+given up hoping that Claude had any children. But you are welcome,
+after all--very welcome. You are in your own house, remember, my dear.
+This house is yours, and the plate, and furniture, and everything, and
+I am only your tenant."
+
+"Oh!" said Lotty, overwhelmed. Why, she had actually been taken on her
+word, or rather the word of Joe.
+
+"Let me kiss you again. Your face does not remind me as yet, in any
+single feature, of your father's. But I dare say I shall find
+resemblance presently. And indeed, your voice does remind me of him
+already. He had a singularly sweet and delicate voice."
+
+"Iris has a remarkably sweet and delicate voice," said Joe, softly.
+"No doubt she got it from her father. You will hear her sing
+presently."
+
+Lotty hardly knew her husband. His face was preternaturally solemn,
+and he looked as if he was engaged in the most serious business of his
+life.
+
+"All her father's ways were gentle and delicate," said Clara.
+
+"Just like hers," said Joe. "When all of us--American boys and girls,
+pretty rough at times--were playing and larking about, Iris would be
+just sittin' out like a cat on a carpet, quiet and demure. I suppose
+she got that way, too, from her father."
+
+"No doubt; and as for your face, my dear, I dare say I shall find a
+likeness presently. But just now I see none. Will you take off your
+bonnet?"
+
+When the girl's bonnet was off, Clara looked at her again, curiously,
+but kindly.
+
+"I suppose I can't help looking for a likeness, my dear. But you must
+take after your mother, whom I never saw. Your father's eyes were full
+and limpid; yours are large, and clear, and bright; very good eyes, my
+dear, but they are not limpid. His mouth was flexible and mobile, but
+yours is firm. Your hair, however, reminds me somewhat of his, which
+was much your light shade of brown when he was young. And now,
+sir"--she addressed Joe--"now that you have brought this dear girl all
+the way across the Atlantic, what are you going to do?"
+
+"Well, I don't exactly know that there's anything to keep me," said
+Joe. "You see, I've got my practice to look after at home--I am a
+physician, as I told you--and my wife and children; and the sooner I
+get back the better, now that I can leave Iris with her friends, safe
+and comfortable. Stay," he added, "there are all those papers which I
+promised you--the certificates, and the rest of them. You had better
+take them all, miss, and keep them for Iris."
+
+"Thank you," said Clara, touched by this confidence; "Iris will be
+safe with me. It is very natural that you should want to go home
+again. And you will be content to stay with me, my dear, won't you?
+You need not be afraid, sir; I assure you that her interests will not
+in any way suffer. Tell her to write and let you know exactly what is
+done. Let her, however, since she is an English girl, remain with
+English friends, and get to know her cousins and relations. You can
+safely trust her with me, Dr. Washington."
+
+"Thank you," said Joe. "You know that when one has known a girl all
+her life, one is naturally anxious about her happiness. We are almost
+brother and sister."
+
+"I know; and I am sure, Mr. Washington, we ought to be most grateful
+to you. As for the money you have expended upon her, let me once more
+beg of you--"
+
+Joe waved his hand majestically.
+
+"As for that," he said, "the money is spent. Iris is welcome to it, if
+it were ten times as much. Now, madam, you trusted me, the very first
+day that you saw me, with two hundred pounds sterling. Only an English
+lady would have done that. You trusted me without asking me who or
+what I was, or doubting my word. I assure you, madam, I felt that
+kindness, and that trust, very much indeed, and in return, I have
+brought you Iris herself. After all expenses paid of coming over and
+getting back, buying a few things for Iris, if I find that there's
+anything over, I shall ask you to take back the balance. Madam, I
+thank you for the money, but I am sure I have repaid you--with Iris."
+
+This was a very clever speech. If there had been a shadow of doubt
+before it in Clara's heart (which there was not), it would vanish now.
+She cordially and joyfully accepted her newly-found cousin.
+
+"And now, Iris," he said with a manly tremor in his voice, "I do not
+know if I shall see you again before I go away. If not, I shall take
+your fond love to all of them at home--Tom, and Dick, and Harry, and
+Harriet, and Prissy, and all of them"--Joe really was carrying the
+thing through splendidly--"and perhaps, my dear, when you are a grand
+lady in England, you will give a thought--a thought now and again--to
+your old friends across the water."
+
+"Oh, Joe!" cried Lotty, really carried away with admiration, and
+ashamed of her skeptical spirit. "Oh," she whispered, "ain't you
+splendid!"
+
+"But you must not go, Dr. Washington," said Clara, "without coming
+again to say farewell. Will you not dine with us to-night? Will you
+stay and have lunch?"
+
+"No, madam, I thank you. It will be best for me to leave Iris alone
+with you. The sooner she learns your English ways and forgets American
+ways, the better."
+
+"But you are not going to start away for Liverpool at once? You will
+stay a day or two in London--"
+
+The American physician said that perhaps he might stay a week longer
+for scientific purposes.
+
+"Have you got enough money, Joe?" asked the new Iris thoughtfully.
+
+Joe gave her a glance of infinite admiration.
+
+"Well," he said, "the fact is that I should like to buy a few books
+and things. Perhaps--"
+
+"Cousin," said Lotty eagerly, "please give him a check for a hundred
+pounds. Make it a hundred. You said everything was mine. No, Joe, I
+won't hear a word about repayment, as if a little thing like fifty
+pounds, or a hundred pounds, should want to be repaid! As if you and I
+could ever talk about repayment!"
+
+Clara did as she was asked readily and eagerly. Then Joe departed,
+promising to call and say farewell before he left England, and
+resolving that in his next visit--his last visit--there should be
+another check. But he had made one mistake; he had parted with the
+papers. No one in any situation of life should ever give up the power,
+until he has secured the substance. But it is human to err.
+
+"And now, my dear," said Clara warmly, "sit down and let us talk.
+Arnold is coming to lunch with us, and to make your acquaintance."
+
+When Arnold came a few minutes later, he was astonished to find his
+cousin already on the most affectionate terms with the newly-arrived
+Iris Deseret. She was walking about the room showing her the pictures
+of her grandfather and other ancestors, and they were hand-in-hand.
+
+"Arnold," said Clara, "this is Iris, and I hope you will both be great
+friends; Iris, this is my cousin, but he is not yours."
+
+"I don't pretend to know how that may be," said the young lady. "But
+then I am glad to know all your cousins, whether they are mine or not;
+only don't bother me with questions, because I don't remember
+anything, and I don't know anything. Why, until the other day I did
+not even know that I was an English lady, not until they found those
+papers."
+
+A strange accent for an American! and she certainly said "laidy" for
+"lady," and "paipper" for "paper," like a cockney. Alas! This comes of
+London Music Halls even to country-bred damsels!
+
+Arnold made a mental observation that the new-comer might be called
+anything in the world, but could not be called a lady. She was
+handsome, certainly, but how could Claude Deseret's daughter have
+grown into so common a type of beauty? Where was the delicacy of
+feature and manner which Clara had never ceased to commend in speaking
+of her lost cousin?
+
+"Iris," said Clara, "is our little savage from the American Forest.
+She is Queen Pocahontas, who has come over to conquer England and to
+win all our hearts. My dear, my Cousin Arnold will help me to make you
+an English girl."
+
+She spoke as in the State of Maine was still the hunting-ground of
+Sioux and Iroquois.
+
+Arnold thought that a less American-looking girl he had never seen;
+that she did not speak or look like a lady was to be expected,
+perhaps, if she had, as was probable, been brought up by rough and
+unpolished people. But he had no doubt, any more than Clara herself,
+as to the identity of the girl. Nobody ever doubts a claimant. Every
+impostor, from Demetrius downward, has gained his supporters and
+partisans by simply living among them and keeping up the imposition.
+It is so easy, in fact, to be a claimant, that it is wonderful there
+are not more of them.
+
+Then luncheon was served, and the young lady not only showed a noble
+appetite, but to Arnold's astonishment, confessed to an ardent love
+for bottled stout.
+
+"Most American ladies," he said impertinently, "only drink water, do
+they not?"
+
+Lotty perceived that she had made a mistake.
+
+"I only drink stout," she said, "when the doctor tells me. But I like
+it all the same."
+
+She certainly had no American accent. But she would not talk much; she
+was, perhaps, shy. After luncheon, however, Clara asked her if she
+would sing, and she complied, showing considerable skill with her
+accompaniment, and singing a simple song in good taste and with a
+sweet voice. Arnold observed, however, that there was some weakness
+about the letter "h," less common among Americans than among the
+English. Presently he went away, and the girl, who had been aware that
+he was watching her, breathed more easily.
+
+"Who is your Cousin Arnold?" she asked.
+
+"My dear, he is my cousin but not yours. You will not see him often,
+because he is going to be married, I am sorry to say, and to be
+married beneath him--oh, it is dreadful! to some tradesman's girl, my
+dear."
+
+"Dreadful!" said Iris with a queer look in her eyes. "Well, cousin, I
+don't want to see much of him. He's a good-looking chap, too, though
+rather too finicking for my taste. I like a man who looks as if he
+could knock another man down. Besides, he looks at me as if I was a
+riddle, and he wanted to find out the answer."
+
+In the evening Arnold found that no change had come over the old man.
+He was, however, perfectly happy, so that, considering the ruin of his
+worldly prospects, it was, perhaps, as well that he had parted, for a
+time, at least, with his wits. Some worldly misfortunes there are
+which should always produce this effect.
+
+"You told me," said Lala Roy, "that another Iris had just come from
+America to claim an inheritance of your cousin."
+
+"Yes; it is a very strange coincidence."
+
+"Very strange. Two Englishmen die in America at the same time, each
+having a daughter named Iris, and each daughter entitled to some kind
+of inheritance."
+
+Lala Roy spoke slowly, and with meaning.
+
+"Oh!" cried Arnold. "It is more than strange. Do you think--is it
+possible--"
+
+He could not for the moment clothe his thoughts in words.
+
+"Do you know if any one has brought this girl to England?"
+
+"Yes; she was brought over by a young American physician, one of the
+family who adopted and brought her up."
+
+"What is he like--the young American physician?"
+
+"I have not seen him."
+
+"Go, my young friend, to-morrow morning, and ask your cousin if this
+photograph resembles the American physician."
+
+It was the photograph of a handsome young fellow, with strongly marked
+features, apparently tall and well-set-up.
+
+"Lala, you don't really suspect anything--you don't think--"
+
+"Hush! I know who has stolen the papers. Perhaps the same man has
+produced the heiress."
+
+"And you think--you suspect that the man who stole the papers is
+connected with--But then those papers must be--oh, it cannot be! For
+then Iris would be Clara's cousin--Clara's cousin--and the other an
+impostor."
+
+"Even so; everything is possible. But silence. Do not speak a word,
+even to Iris. If the papers are lost, they are lost. Say nothing to
+her yet; but go--go, and find out if that photograph resembles the
+American physician. The river wanders here and there, but the sea
+swallows it at last."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+MR. JAMES MAKES ATONEMENT.
+
+
+James arrived as usual in the morning at nine o'clock, in order to
+take down the shutters. To his astonishment, he found Lala Roy and
+Iris waiting for him in the back shop. And they had grave faces.
+
+"James," said Iris, "your master has suffered a great shock, and is
+not himself this morning. His safe has been broken open by some one,
+and most important papers have been taken out."
+
+"Papers, miss--papers? Out of the safe?"
+
+"Yes. They are papers of no value whatever to the thief, whoever he
+may be. But they are of the very greatest importance to us. Your
+master seems to have lost his memory for a while, and cannot help us
+in finding out who has done this wicked thing. You have been a
+faithful servant for so long that I am sure you will do what you can
+for us. Think for us. Try to remember if anybody besides yourself has
+had access to this room when your master was out of it."
+
+James sat down. He felt that he must sit down, though Lala Roy was
+looking at him with eyes full of doubt and suspicion. The whole
+enormity of his own guilt, though he had not stolen anything, fell
+upon him. He had got the key; he had given it to Mr. Joseph; and he
+had received it back again. In fact, at that very moment, it was lying
+in his pocket. The worst that he had feared had happened. The safe was
+robbed.
+
+He was struck with so horrible a dread, and so fearful a looking
+forward to judgment and condemnation, that his teeth chattered and his
+eye gave way.
+
+"You will think it over, James," said Iris; "think it over, and tell
+us presently if you can remember anything."
+
+"Think it over, Mr. James," Lala Roy repeated in his deepest tone, and
+with an emphatic gesture of his right forefinger. "Think it over
+carefully. Like a lamp that is never extinguished are the eyes of the
+faithful servant."
+
+They left him, and James fell back into his chair with hollow cheek
+and beating heart.
+
+"He told me," he murmured--"oh, the villain!--he swore to me that he
+had taken nothing from the safe. He said he only looked in it, and
+read the contents. The scoundrel! He has stolen the papers! He must
+have known they were there. And then, to save himself, he put me on to
+the job. For who would be suspected if not--oh, Lord!--if not me?"
+
+He grasped his paste brush, and attacked his work with a feverish
+anxiety to find relief in exertion; but his heart was not in it, and
+presently a thought pierced his brain, as an arrow pierceth the heart,
+and under the pang and agony of it, his face turned ashy-pale, and the
+big drops stood upon his brow.
+
+"For," he thought, "suppose that the thing gets abroad; suppose they
+were to advertise a reward; suppose the man who made the key were to
+see the advertisement or to hear about it! And he knows my name, too,
+and my business; and he'll let out for a reward--I know he will--who
+it was ordered that key of him."
+
+Already he saw himself examined before a magistrate; already he saw in
+imagination that locksmith's man who made the key kissing the
+Testament, and giving his testimony in clear and distinct words, which
+could not be shaken.
+
+"Oh, Lord! oh, Lord!" he groaned. "No one will believe me, even if I
+do confess the truth: and as for him, I know him well; if I go to him,
+he'll only laugh at me. But I must go to him--I must!"
+
+He was so goaded by his terror that he left the shop unprotected--a
+thing he had never thought to do--and ran as fast as he could to Joe's
+lodgings. But he had left them; he was no longer there; he had not
+been there for six weeks; the landlady did not know his address, or
+would not give it. Then James felt sick and dizzy, and would have sat
+down on the doorstep and cried but for the look of the thing. Besides,
+he remembered the unprotected shop. So he turned away sadly and walked
+back, well understanding now that he had fallen like a tool into a
+trap, artfully set to fasten suspicion and guilt upon himself.
+
+When he returned he found the place full of people. Mr. Emblem was
+sitting in his customary place, and he was smiling. He did not look in
+the least like a man who had been robbed. He was smiling pleasantly
+and cheerfully. Mr. Chalker was also present, a man with whom no one
+ever smiled, and Lala Roy, solemn and dignified, and a man--an unknown
+man--who sat in the outer shop, and seemed to take no interest at all
+in the proceedings. Were they come, he asked himself, to arrest him on
+the spot?
+
+Apparently they were not, for no one took the least notice of him, and
+they were occupied with something else. How could they think of
+anything else? Yet Mr. Chalker, standing at the table, was making a
+speech, which had nothing to do with the robbery.
+
+"Here I am, you see, Mr. Emblem," he said; "I have told you already
+that I don't want to do anything to worry you. Let us be friends all
+round. This gentleman, your friend from India, will advise you, I am
+sure, for your own good, not to be obstinate. Lord! what is the
+amount, after all, to a substantial man like yourself? A substantial
+man, I say." He spoke confidently, but he glanced about the shop with
+doubtful eyes. "Granted that it was borrowed to get your grandson out
+of a scrape--supposing he promised to pay it back and hasn't done so;
+putting the case that it has grown and developed itself as bills will
+do, and can't help doing, and can't be stopped; it isn't the fault of
+the lawyers, but the very nature of a hill to go on growing--it's like
+a baby for growing. Why, after all, you were your grandson's
+security--you can't escape that. And when I would no longer renew, you
+gave of your own accord--come now, you can't deny that--a Bill of Sale
+on goods and furniture. Now, Mr. Emblem, didn't, you? Don't let us
+have any bitterness or quarreling. Let's be friends, and tell me I may
+send away the man."
+
+Mr. Emblem smiled pleasantly, but did not reply.
+
+"A Bill of Sale it was, dated January the 25th, 1883, just before that
+cursed Act of Parliament granted the five days' notice. Here is the
+bailiff's man in possession. You can pay the amount, which is, with
+costs and Sheriff's Poundage, three hundred and fifty-one pounds
+thirteen shillings and fourpence, at once, or you may pay it five days
+hence. Otherwise the shop, and furniture, and all, will be sold off in
+seven days."
+
+"Oh," James gasped, listening with bewilderment, "we can't be going to
+be sold up! Emblem's to be sold up!"
+
+"Three hundred and fifty pounds!" said Mr. Emblem. "My friend, let us
+rather speak of thousands. This is a truly happy day for all of us.
+Sit down, Mr. Chalker--my dear friend, sit down. Rejoice with us. A
+happy morning."
+
+"What the devil is the matter with him?" asked the money-lender.
+
+"There was something, Mr. Chalker," Mr. Emblem went on cheerfully,
+"something said about my grandson. Joe was always a bad lot; lucky his
+father and mother are out of the way in Australia. You came to me
+about that business, perhaps? Oh, on such a joyful day as this I
+forgive everybody. Tell Joe I do not want to see him, but I have
+forgiven him."
+
+"Oh, he's mad!" growled James; "he's gone stark staring mad!"
+
+"You don't seem quite yourself this morning, Mr. Emblem," said Mr.
+Chalker. "Perhaps this gentleman, your friend from India, will advise
+you when I am gone. You don't understand, Mister," he addressed Lala
+Roy, "the nature of a bill. Once you start a bill, and begin to renew
+it, it's like planting a tree, for it grows and grows of its own
+accord, and by Act of Parliament, too, though they do try to hack and
+cut it down in the most cruel way. You see Mr. Emblem is obstinate.
+He's got to pay off that bill, which is a Bill of Sale, and he won't
+do it. Make him write the check and have done with it."
+
+"This is the best day's work I ever did," Mr. Emblem went on.
+"To remember the letter, word for word, and everything!
+Mr. Arbuthnot has, very likely, finished the whole business
+by now. Thousands--thousands--and all for Iris!"
+
+"Look here, Mr. Emblem," said the lawyer angrily. "You'll not only be
+a bankrupt if you go on like this, but you'll be a fraudulent bankrupt
+as well. Is it honest, I want to know, to refuse to pay your just
+debts when you've put by thousands, as you boast--you actually
+boast--for your granddaughter?"
+
+"Yes," said the old man, "Iris will have thousands."
+
+"I think, sir," said Lala Roy, "that you are under an illusion. Mr.
+Emblem does not possess any such savings or investments as you
+imagine."
+
+"Then why does he go on talking about thousands?"
+
+"He has had a shock; he cannot quite understand what has happened. You
+had better leave him for the present."
+
+"Leave him! And nothing but these moldy old books! Here, you sir--you
+James--you shopman--come here! What is the stock worth?"
+
+"It depends upon whether you are buying or selling," said James. "If
+you were to sell it under the hammer, in lots, it wouldn't fetch a
+hundred pounds."
+
+"There, you hear--you hear, all of you! Not a hundred pounds, and my
+Bill of Sale is three-fifty."
+
+"Pray, sir," said Lala Roy, "who told you that Mr. Emblem was so
+wealthy?"
+
+"His grandson."
+
+"Then, sir perhaps it would be well to question the grandson further,
+he may know things of which we have heard nothing."
+
+The Act of 1882, which came into operation in the following January,
+is cruel indeed, I am told, to those who advanced money on Bills of
+Sale before that date, for it allows--it actually allows the debtor
+five clear days during which he may, if he can, without being caught,
+make away with portions of his furniture and belongings--the smaller
+and the more precious portion; or he may find some one else to lend
+him the money, and so get off clear and save his sticks. It is, as the
+modern Shylock declares, a most wicked and iniquitous Act, by which
+the shark may be balked, and many an honest tradesman, who would
+otherwise have been most justly ruined, is enabled to save his stock,
+and left to worry along until the times become more prosperous. To a
+man like Mr. David Chalker, such an Act of Parliament is most
+revolting.
+
+He went away at length, leaving the man--the professional
+person--behind. Then Lala Roy persuaded Mr. Emblem to go upstairs
+again. He did so without any apparent consciousness that there was a
+Man in Possession.
+
+"James," said Lala Roy, "you have heard that your master has been
+robbed. You are reflecting and meditating on this circumstance.
+Another thing is that a creditor has threatened to sell off everything
+for a debt. Most likely, everything will be sold, and the shop closed.
+You will, therefore, lose the place you have had for five-and-twenty
+years. That is a very bad business for you. You are unfortunate this
+morning. To lose your place--and then this robbery. That seems also a
+bad business."
+
+"It is," said James with a hollow groan. "It is, Mr. Lala Roy. It is a
+dreadful bad business."
+
+"Pray, Mr. James," continued this man with grave, searching eyes which
+made sinners shake in their shoes, "pray, why did you run away, and
+where did you go after you opened the shop this morning? You went to
+see Mr. Emblem's grandson, did you not?"
+
+"Yes, I did," said James.
+
+"Why did you go to see him?"
+
+"I w--w--went--oh, Lord!--I went to tell him what had happened,
+because he is master's grandson, and I thought he ought to know," said
+James.
+
+"Did you tell him?"
+
+"No; he has left his lodgings. I don't know where he is--oh, and he
+always told me the shop was his--settled on him," he said.
+
+"He is the Father of Lies; his end will be confusion. Shame and
+confusion shall wait upon all who have hearkened unto him or worked
+with him, until they repent and make atonement."
+
+"Don't, Mister Lala Roy--don't; you frighten me," said James. "Oh,
+what a dreadful liar he is!"
+
+All the morning the philosopher sat in the bookseller's chair, and
+James, in the outer shop, felt that those deep eyes were resting
+continually upon him, and knew that bit by bit his secret would be
+dragged from him. If he could get up and run away--if a customer
+would come--if the dark gentleman would go upstairs--if he could
+think of something else! But none of these things happened, and James,
+at his table with the paste before him, passed a morning compared with
+which any seat anywhere in Purgatory would have been comfortable.
+Presently a strange feeling came over him, as if some invisible force
+was pushing and dragging him and forcing him to leave his chair, and
+throw himself at the Philosopher's feet and confess everything. This
+was the mesmeric effect of those reproachful eyes fixed steadily upon
+him. And in the doorway, like some figure in a nightmare--a figure
+incongruous and out of place--the Man in Possession sitting, passive
+and unconcerned, with one eye on the street and the other on the shop.
+Upstairs Mr. Emblem was sitting fast asleep; joy had made him sleepy;
+and Iris was at work among her pupils' letters, compiling sums for the
+Fruiterer, making a paper on Conic Sections for the Cambridge man, and
+working out Trigonometrical Equations for the young schoolmaster, and
+her mind full of a solemn exultation and glory, for she was a woman
+who was loved. The other things troubled her but little. Her
+grandfather would get back his equilibrium of mind; the shop might be
+shut up, but that mattered little. Arnold, and Lala Roy, and her
+grandfather, and herself, would all live together, and she and Arnold
+would work. The selfishness of youth is really astonishing.
+Nothing--except perhaps toothache--can make a girl unhappy who is
+loved and newly betrothed. She may say what she pleases, and her face
+may be a yard long when she speaks of the misfortunes of others, but
+all the time her heart is dancing.
+
+To Lala Roy, the situation presented a problem with insufficient data,
+some of which would have to be guessed. A letter, now lost, said that
+a certain case contained papers necessary to obtain an unknown
+inheritance for Iris. How then to ascertain whether anybody was
+expecting or looking for a girl to claim an inheritance? Then there
+was half a coat-of-arms, and lastly there was a certain customer of
+unknown name, who had been acquainted with Iris's father before his
+marriage. So far for Iris. As for the thief, Lala Roy had no doubt at
+all. It was, he was quite certain, the grandson, whose career he had
+watched for some years with interest and curiosity. Who else was there
+who would steal the papers? And who would help him, and give him
+access to the safe? He did not only suspect, he was certain that James
+was in some way cognizant of the deed. Why else did he turn so pale?
+Why did he rush off to Joe's lodgings? Why did he sit trembling?
+
+At half-past twelve Lala Roy rose.
+
+"It is your dinner-hour," he said to James, and it seemed to the
+unhappy man as it he was saying, "I know all." "It is your dinner
+hour; go, eat, refresh the body. Whom should suspicion affright except
+the guilty?"
+
+James put on his hat and sneaked--he felt that he was sneaking--out of
+the shop.
+
+During his dinner-hour, Joseph himself called. It was an unusual thing
+to see him at any time; in fact, as he was never wont to call upon his
+grandfather, unless he was in a scrape and wanted money, no one ever
+made the poor young man welcome, or begged him to come more often.
+
+But this morning, he walked upstairs and appeared so cheerful, so
+entirely free from any self-reproach for past sins, and so easy in his
+mind, without the least touch of the old hang-dog look, that Iris
+began to reproach herself for thinking badly of her cousin.
+
+When he was told about the robbery, he expressed the greatest surprise
+that any one in the world could be so wicked as to rob an old man like
+his grandfather. Besides his abhorrence of crime in the abstract, he
+affirmed that the robbery of a safe was a species of villainy for
+which hanging was too mild--much too mild a punishment. He then asked
+his grandfather what were the contents of the packet stolen, and when
+he received no answer except a pleasant and a cheery laugh, he asked
+Iris, and learned to his sorrow that the contents were unknown, and
+could not, therefore, be identified even if they were found. This, he
+said, was a thousand pities, because, if they had been known, a reward
+might have been offered. For his own part he would advise the greatest
+caution. Nothing at all should be done at first; no step should be
+taken which might awaken suspicion; they should go on as if the papers
+were without value. As for that, they had no real proof that there was
+any robbery. Iris thought of telling him about the water-mark of the
+blank pages, but refrained. Perhaps there was no robbery after
+all--who was to prove what had been inside the packet? But if there
+had been papers, and it they were valueless except to the rightful
+owners, they would, perhaps, be sent back voluntarily; or after a
+time, say a year or two, they might be advertised for; not as if the
+owners were very anxious to get them, and not revealing the nature of
+the papers, but cautiously; and presently, if they had not been
+destroyed, the holders of the papers would answer the advertisement,
+and then a moderate reward might, after a while, be offered; and so
+on, giving excellent advice. While he was speaking, Lala Roy entered
+the room in his noiseless manner, and took his accustomed chair.
+
+"And what do you think, sir?" said Joseph, when he had finished. "You
+have heard my advice. You are not an Englishman, but I suppose you've
+got some intelligence."
+
+Lala bowed and spread his hands, but replied not.
+
+"Your opinion should be asked," Joseph went on, "because you see, as
+the only other person, besides my grandfather and my cousin, in the
+house, you might yourself be suspected. Indeed," he added, "I have no
+doubt you will be suspected. When I talk over the conduct of the case,
+which will be my task, I suppose, it will, perhaps, be my duty to
+suspect you."
+
+Lala bowed again and again, spread his hands, but did not speak.
+
+In fact, Joseph now perceived that he was having the conversation
+wholly to himself. His grandfather sat passive, listening as one who,
+in a dream, hears voices but does not heed what they are saying, yet
+smiling politely. Iris listened, but paid no heed. She thought that a
+great deal of fuss was being made about papers, which, perhaps, were
+worth nothing. And as for her inheritance, why, as she never expected
+to get any, she was not going to mourn the loss of what, perhaps, was
+worth nothing.
+
+"Very well, then," said Joseph, "that's all I've got to say. I've
+given you the best advice I can, and I suppose I may go. Have you
+lost your voice, Iris?"
+
+"No; but I think you had better go, Joseph. My grandfather is not able
+to talk this morning, and I dare say your advice is very good, but we
+have other advisers."
+
+"As for you, Mr. Lala Roy, or whatever you call yourself," said Joe
+roughly, "I've warned you. Suspicion certainly will fall upon you, and
+what I say is--take care. For my own part I never did believe in
+niggers, and I wouldn't have one in my house."
+
+Lala Roy bowed again and spread his fingers.
+
+Then Joseph went away. The door between the shop and the hall was half
+open, and he looked in. A strange man was sitting in the outer shop, a
+pipe in his mouth, and James was leaning his head upon his hands, with
+wild and haggard eyes gazing straight before him.
+
+"Poor devil," murmured Joseph. "I feel for him, I do indeed. He had
+the key made--for himself; he certainly let me use it once, but only
+once, and who's to prove it? And he's had the opportunity every day of
+using it himself. That's very awkward, Foxy, my boy. If I were Foxy, I
+should be in a funk, myself."
+
+He strolled away, thinking that all promised well. Lotty most
+favorably and unsuspiciously received in her new character; no one
+knowing the contents of the packet; his grandfather gone silly; and
+for himself, he had had the opportunity of advising exactly what he
+wished to be done--namely, that silence and inaction should be
+observed for a space, in order to give the holders of the property a
+chance of offering terms. What better advice could he give? And what
+line of action would be better or safer for himself?
+
+If James had known who was in the house-passage, the other side of the
+door, there would, I think, have been a collision of two solid bodies.
+But he did not know, and presently Lala Roy came back, and the torture
+began again. James took down books and put them up again; he moved
+about feverishly, doing nothing, with a duster in his hand; but all
+the time he felt those deep accusing eyes upon him with a silence
+worse than a thousand questions. He knew--he was perfectly
+certain--that he should be found out. And all the trouble for nothing!
+and the Bailiff's man in possession, and the safe robbed, and those
+eyes upon him, saying, as plain as eyes could speak, "Thou art the
+Man!"
+
+"And Joe is the man," said James; "not me at all. What I did was
+wrong, but I was tempted. Oh, what a precious liar and villain he is!
+And what a fool I've been!"
+
+The day passed more slowly than it seemed possible for any day to
+pass; always the man in the shop; always the deep eyes of the silent
+Hindoo upon him. It was a relief when, once, Mr. Chalker looked in and
+surveyed the shelves with a suspicious air, and asked if the old man
+had by this time listened to reason.
+
+It is the business of him who makes plunder out of other men's
+distresses--as the jackal feeds upon the offal and the putrid
+carcass--to know as exactly as he can how his fellow-creatures are
+situated. For this reason such a one doth diligently inquire, listen,
+pick up secrets, put two and two together, and pry curiously into
+everybody's affairs, being never so happy as when he gets an
+opportunity of going to the rescue of a sinking man. Thus among those
+who lived in good repute about the lower end of the King's Road, none
+had a better name than Mr. Emblem, and no one was considered to have
+made more of his chances. And it was with joy that Mr. Chalker
+received Joe one evening and heard from him the dismal story, that if
+he could not find fifty pounds within a few hours, he was ruined. The
+fifty pounds was raised on a bill bearing Mr. Emblem's name. When it
+was presented, however, and the circumstances explained, the old
+gentleman, who had at first refused to own the signature, accepted it
+meekly, and told no one that his grandson had written it himself,
+without the polite formality of asking permission to sign for him. In
+other words Joseph was a forger, and Mr. Chalker knew it, and this
+made him the more astonished when Mr. Emblem did not take up the bill,
+but got it renewed quarter after quarter, substituting at length a
+bill of sale, as if he was determined to pay as much as possible for
+his grandson's sins.
+
+"Where is he?" asked the money-lender angrily. "Why doesn't he come
+down and face his creditors?"
+
+"Master's upstairs," said James, "and you've seen yourself, Mr.
+Chalker, that he is off his chump. And oh, sir, who would have thought
+that Emblem's would have come to ruin?"
+
+"But there's something, James--Come, think--there must be something."
+
+"Mr. Joseph said there were thousands. But he's a terrible liar--oh,
+Mr. Chalker, he's a terrible liar and villain! Why, he's even deceived
+me!"
+
+"What? Has he borrowed your money?"
+
+"Worse--worse. Do you know where I could find him, sir?"
+
+"Well, I don't know--" Mr. Chalker was not in the habit of giving
+addresses, but in this case, perhaps Joe might be squeezed as well as
+his grandfather. Unfortunately that bill with the signature had been
+destroyed. "I don't know. Perhaps if I find out I may tell you. And,
+James, if you can learn anything--this rubbish won't fetch half the
+money--I'll make it worth your while, James, I will indeed."
+
+"I'll make him take his share," said James to himself. "If I have to
+go to prison, he shall go too. They sha'n't send me without sending
+him."
+
+He looked round. The watchful eyes were gone. The Hindoo had gone away
+noiselessly. James breathed again.
+
+"After all," he said, "how are they to find out? How are they to prove
+anything? Mr. Joseph took the things, and I helped him to a key; and
+he isn't likely to split, and--oh, Lord, if they were to find it!" For
+at that moment he felt the duplicate key in his waistcoat-pocket. "If
+they were to find it!"
+
+He took the key out, and looked at the bright and innocent-looking
+thing, as a murderer might look at his blood stained dagger.
+
+Just then, as he gazed upon it, holding it just twelve inches in front
+of his nose, one hand was laid upon his shoulder, and another took the
+key from between his fingers.
+
+He turned quickly, and his knees gave way, and he sunk upon the floor,
+crying:
+
+"Oh, Mr. Lala Roy, sir, Mr. Lala Roy, I am not the thief! I am
+innocent! I will tell you all about it! I will confess all to you! I
+will indeed! I will make atonement! Oh, what a miserable fool I've
+been!"
+
+"Upon the heels of Folly," said the Sage, "treadeth Shame. You will
+now be able to understand the words of wisdom, which say of the wicked
+man, 'The curse of iniquity pursueth him; he liveth in continual fear;
+the anxiety of his mind taketh vengeance upon him.' Stand up and
+speak."
+
+The Man in Possession looked on as if an incident of this kind was too
+common in families for him to take any notice of it. Nothing, in fact,
+is able to awaken astonishment in the heart of the Man in Possession,
+because nothing is sacred to him except the "sticks" he has to guard.
+To Iris, the event was, however, of importance, because it afforded
+Lala Roy a chance of giving Arnold that photograph, no other than an
+early portrait of Mr. Emblem's grandson.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+IS THIS HIS PHOTOGRAPH?
+
+
+The best way to get a talk with his cousin was to dine with her.
+Arnold therefore went to Chester Square next day with the photograph
+in his pocket. It was half an hour before dinner when he arrived, and
+Clara was alone.
+
+"My dear," she cried with enthusiasm, "I am charmed--I am
+delighted--with Iris."
+
+"I am glad," said Arnold mendaciously.
+
+"I am delighted with her--in every way. She is more and better than I
+could have expected--far more. A few Americanisms, of course--"
+
+"No doubt," said Arnold. "When I saw her I thought they rather
+resembled Anglicisms. But you have had opportunities of judging. You
+have in your own possession," he continued, "have you not, all the
+papers which establish her identity?"
+
+"Oh, yes; they are all locked up in my strong-box. I shall be very
+careful of them. Though, of course, there is no one who has to be
+satisfied except myself. And I am perfectly satisfied. But then I
+never had any doubt from the beginning. How could there be any doubt?"
+
+"How, indeed?"
+
+"Truth, honor, loyalty, and candor, as well as gentle descent, are
+written on that girl's noble brow, Arnold, plain, so that all may
+read. It is truly wonderful," she went on, "how the old gentle blood
+shows itself, and will break out under the most unexpected conditions.
+In her face she is not much like her father; that is true; though
+sometimes I catch a momentary resemblance, which instantly disappears
+again. Her eyes are not in the least like his, nor has she his manner,
+or carriage, or any of his little tricks and peculiarities--though,
+perhaps, I shall observe traces of some of them in time. But
+especially she resembles him in her voice. The tone--the
+timbre--reminds me every moment of my poor Claude."
+
+"I suppose," said Arnold, "that one must inherit something, if it is
+only a voice, from one's father. Have you said anything to her yet
+about money matters, and a settlement of her claims?"
+
+"No, not yet. I did venture, last night, to approach the subject, but
+she would not hear of it. So I dropped it. I call that true delicacy,
+Arnold--native, instinctive, hereditary delicacy."
+
+"Have you given any more money to the American gentleman who brought
+her home?"
+
+"Iris made him take a hundred pounds, against his will, to buy books
+with, for he is not rich. Poor fellow! It went much against the grain
+with him to take the money. But she made him take it. She said he
+wanted books and instruments, and insisted on his having at least a
+hundred pounds. It was generous of her. Yes; she is--I am convinced--a
+truly generous girl, and as open-handed as the day. Now, would a
+common girl, a girl of no descent, have shown so much delicacy and
+generosity?"
+
+"By the way, Clara, here is a photograph. Does it belong to you? I--I
+picked it up."
+
+He showed the photograph which Lala Roy had given him.
+
+"Oh, yes; it is a likeness of Dr. Washington, Iris's adopted brother
+and guardian. She must have dropped it. I should think it was taken a
+few years back, but it is still a very good likeness. A handsome man,
+is he not? He grows upon one rather. His parting words with Iris
+yesterday were very dignified and touching."
+
+"I will give it to her presently," he replied, without further
+comment.
+
+There was, then, no doubt. The woman was an impostor, and the man was
+the thief, and the papers were the papers which had been stolen from
+the safe, and Iris Deseret was no other than his own Iris. But he must
+not show the least sign of suspicion.
+
+"What are you thinking about, Arnold?" asked Clara. "Your face is as
+black as thunder. You are not sorry that Iris has returned, are you?"
+
+"I was thinking of my engagement, Clara."
+
+"Why, you are not tired of it already? An engaged man, Arnold, ought
+not to look so gloomy as that."
+
+"I am not tired of it yet. But I am unhappy as regards some
+circumstances connected with it. Your disapproval, Clara, for one. My
+dear cousin, I owe so much to you, that I want to owe you more. Now, I
+have a proposition--a promise--to make to you. I am now so sure, so
+very sure and certain, that you will want me to marry Miss Aglen--and
+no one else--when you once know her, that I will engage solemnly not
+to marry her unless you entirely approve. Let me owe my wife to you,
+as well as everything else."
+
+"Arnold, you are not in earnest."
+
+"Quite in earnest."
+
+"But I shall never approve. Never--never--never! I could not bring
+myself, under any circumstances that I can conceive, to approve of
+such a connection."
+
+"My dear cousin, I am, on the other hand, perfectly certain that you
+will approve. Why, if I were not quite certain, do you think I should
+have made this promise? But to return to your newly-found cousin. Tell
+me more about her."
+
+"Well, I have discovered that she is a really very clever and gifted
+girl. She can imitate people in the most wonderful way, especially
+actresses, though she has only been to a theater once or twice in her
+life. At Liverpool she heard some one sing what she calls a Tropical
+Song, and this she actually remembers--she carried it away in her
+head, every word--and she can sing it just as they sing it on the
+stage, with all the vulgarity and gestures imitated to the very life.
+Of course I should not like her to do this before anybody else, but it
+is really wonderful."
+
+"Indeed!" said Arnold. "It must be very clever and amusing."
+
+"Of course," said Clara, with colossal ignorance, "an American lady
+can hardly be expected to understand English vulgarities. No doubt
+there is an American variety."
+
+Arnold thought that a vulgar song could be judged at its true value by
+any lady, either American or English, but he said nothing.
+
+And then the young lady herself appeared. She had been driving about
+with Clara among various shops, and now bore upon her person the
+charming result of these journeys, in the shape of a garment, which
+was rich in texture, and splendid in the making. And she really was a
+handsome girl, only with a certain air of being dressed for the stage.
+But Arnold, now more than suspicious, was not dazzled by the gorgeous
+raiment, and only considered how his cousin could for a moment imagine
+this person to be a lady, and how it would be best to break the news.
+
+"Clara's cousin," she said, "I have forgotten your name; but how do
+you do, again?"
+
+And then they went in to dinner.
+
+"You have learned, I suppose," said Arnold, "something about the
+Deseret family by this time?"
+
+"Oh, yes, I have heard all about the family-tree. I dare say I shall
+get to know it by heart in time. But you don't expect me all at once,
+to care much for it."
+
+"Little Republican!" said Clara. "She actually does not feel a pride
+in belonging to a good old family."
+
+The girl made a little gesture.
+
+"Your family can't do much for you, that I can see, except to make you
+proud, and pretend not to see other women in the shop. That is what
+the county ladies do."
+
+"Why, my dear, what on earth do you know of the county ladies?"
+
+Lotty blushed a little. She had made a mistake. But she quickly
+recovered.
+
+"I only know what I've read, cousin, about any kind of English ladies.
+But that's enough, I'm sure. Stuck-up things!"
+
+And again she observed, from Clara's pained expression, that she had
+made another mistake.
+
+If she showed a liking for stout at lunch, she manifested a positive
+passion for champagne at dinner.
+
+"I do like the English custom," she said, "of having two dinners in
+the day."
+
+"Ladies in America, I suppose," said Clara, "dine in the middle of the
+day?"
+
+"Always."
+
+"But I have visited many families in New York and Boston who dined
+late," said Arnold.
+
+"Dare say," she replied carelessly. "I'm going to have some more of
+that curry stuff, please. And don't ask any more questions, anybody,
+till I've worried through with it. I'm a wolf at curry."
+
+"She likes England, Arnold," said Clara, covering up this remark, so
+to speak. "She likes the country, she says, very much."
+
+"At all events," said the girl, "I like this house, which is
+first-class--fine--proper. And the furniture, and pictures, and
+all--tiptop. But I'm afraid it is going to be awful dull, except at
+meals, and when the Boy is going." Her own head was just touched by
+the "Boy," and she was a little off her guard.
+
+"My dear child," said Clara, "you have only just come, and you have
+not yet learned to know and love your own home and your father's
+friends. You must take a little time."
+
+"Oh, I'll take time. As long as you like. But I shall soon be tired of
+sitting at home. I want to go about and see things--theaters and
+music-halls, and all kinds of places."
+
+"Ladies, in England, do not go to music-halls," said Arnold.
+
+"Gentlemen do. Why not ladies, then? Answer me that. Why can't ladies
+go, when gentlemen go? What is proper for gentlemen is proper for
+ladies. Very well, then, I want to go somewhere every night. I want to
+see everything there is to see, and to hear all that there is to
+hear."
+
+"We shall go, presently, a good deal into society," said Clara
+timidly. "Society will come back to town very soon now--at least, some
+of it."
+
+"Oh, yes, I dare say. Society! No, thank you, with company manners. I
+want to laugh, and talk, and enjoy myself."
+
+The champagne, in fact, had made her forget the instructions of her
+tutor. At all events, she looked anything but "quiet," with her face
+flushed and her eyes bright. Suddenly she caught Arnold's expression
+of suspicion and watchfulness, and resolutely subdued a rising
+inclination to get up from the table and have a walk round with a
+snatch of a Topical Song.
+
+"Forgive me, Clara," she murmured in her sweetest tone, "forgive me,
+cousin. I feel as if I must break out a bit, now and then. Yankee
+manners, you know. Let me stay quiet with you for a while. You know
+the thought of starched and stiff London society quite frightens me. I
+am not used to anything stiff. Let me stay at home quiet, with you."
+
+"Dear girl!" cried Clara, her eyes filling with tears; "she has all
+Claude's affectionate softness of heart."
+
+"I believe," said Arnold, later on in the evening, "that she must have
+been a circus rider, or something of that sort. What on earth does
+Clara mean by the gentle blood breaking out? We nearly had a breaking
+out at dinner, but it certainly was not due to the gentle blood."
+
+After dinner, Arnold found her sitting on a sofa with Clara, who was
+telling her something about the glories of the Deseret family. He was
+half inclined to pity the girl, or to laugh--he was not certain
+which--for the patience with which she listened, in order to make
+amends for any bad impression she might have produced at dinner. He
+asked her, presently, if she would play. She might be, and certainly
+was, vulgar; but she could play well and she knew good music. People
+generally think that good music softens manners, and does not permit
+those who play and practice it to be vulgar. But, concerning this
+young person, so much could not be said with any truth.
+
+"You play very well. Where did you learn? Who was your master?" Arnold
+asked.
+
+She began to reply, but stopped short. He had very nearly caught her.
+
+"Don't ask questions," she said. "I told you not to ask questions
+before. Where should I learn, but in America? Do you suppose no one
+can play the piano, except in England? Look here," she glanced at her
+cousin. "Do you, Mr. Arbuthnot, always spend your evenings like this?"
+
+"How like this?"
+
+"Why, going around in a swallow tail to drawing-rooms with the women,
+like a tame tom-cat. If you do, you must be a truly good young man. If
+you don't, what do you do?"
+
+"Very often I spend my evenings in a drawing-room."
+
+"Oh, Lord! Do most young Englishmen carry on in the same proper way?"
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Don't they go to music-halls, please, and dancing cribs, and such?"
+
+"Perhaps. But what does it concern us to know what some men do?"
+
+"Oh, not much. Only if I were a man like you, I wouldn't consent to be
+a tame tom-cat--that is all; but perhaps you like it."
+
+She meant to insult and offend him so that he should not come any
+more.
+
+But she did not succeed. He only laughed, feeling that he was getting
+below the surface, and sat down beside the piano.
+
+"You amuse me," he said, "and you astonish me. You are, in fact, the
+most astonishing person I ever met. For instance, you come from
+America, and you talk pure London slang with a cockney twang. How did
+it get there?"
+
+In fact, it was not exactly London slang, but a patois or dialect,
+learned partly from her husband, partly from her companions, and
+partly brought from Gloucester.
+
+"I don't know--I never asked. It came wrapped up in brown paper,
+perhaps, with a string round it."
+
+"You have lived in America all your life, and you look more like an
+Englishwoman than any other girl I have ever seen."
+
+"Do I? So much the better for the English girls; they can't do better
+than take after me. But perhaps--most likely, in fact--you think that
+American girls all squint, perhaps, or have got humpbacks? Anything
+else?"
+
+"You were brought up in a little American village, and yet you play in
+the style of a girl who has had the best masters."
+
+She did not explain--it was not necessary to explain--that her master
+had been her father who was a teacher of music.
+
+"I can't help it, can I?" she asked; "I can't help it if I turned out
+different to what you expected. People sometimes do, you know. And
+when you don't approve of a girl, it's English manners, I suppose, to
+tell her so--kind of encourages her to persevere, and pray for better
+luck next time, doesn't it? It's simple too, and prevents any foolish
+errors--no mistake afterward, you see. I say, are you going to come
+here often; because, if you are, I shall go away back to the States or
+somewhere, or stay upstairs in my own room. You and me won't get on
+very well together, I am afraid."
+
+"I don't think you will see me very often," he replied. "That is
+improbable; yet I dare say I shall come here as often as I usually
+do."
+
+"What do you mean by that?" She looked sharply and suspiciously at
+him. He repeated his words, and she perceived that there was meaning
+in them, and she felt uneasy.
+
+"I don't understand at all," she said; "Clara tells me that this house
+is mine. Now--don't you know--I don't intend to invite any but my own
+friends to visit me in my own house?"
+
+"That seems reasonable. No one can expect you to invite people who are
+not your friends."
+
+"Well, then, I ain't likely to call you my friend"--Arnold inclined
+his head--"and I am not going to talk riddles any more. Is there
+anything else you want to say?"
+
+"Nothing more, I think, at present, thank you."
+
+"If there is, you know, don't mind me--have it out--I'm nobody, of
+course. I'm not expected to have any manners--I'm only a girl. You can
+say what you please to me, and be as rude as you please; Englishmen
+always are as rude as they can be to American girls--I've always heard
+that."
+
+Arnold laughed.
+
+"At all events," he said, "you have charmed Clara, which is the only
+really important thing. Good-night, Miss--Miss Deseret."
+
+"Good-night, old man," she said, laughing, because she bore no malice,
+and had given him a candid opinion; "I dare say when you get rid of
+your fine company manners, and put off your swallow tail, you're not a
+bad sort, after all. Perhaps, if you would confess, you are as fond of
+a kick-up on your way home as anybody. Trust you quiet chaps!"
+
+Clara had not fortunately heard much of this conversation, which,
+indeed, was not meant for her, because the girl was playing all the
+time some waltz music, which enabled her to talk and play without
+being heard at the other end of the room.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Well, there was now no doubt. The American physician and the subject
+of the photograph were certainly the same man. And this man was also
+the thief of the safe, and Iris Aglen was Iris Deseret. Of that,
+Arnold had no longer any reasonable doubt. There was, however, one
+thing more. Before leaving Clara's house, he refreshed his memory as
+to the Deseret arms. The quarterings of the shield were, so far,
+exactly what Mr. Emblem recollected.
+
+"It is," said Lala Roy, "what I thought. But, as yet, not a word to
+Iris."
+
+He then proceeded to relate the repentance, the confession, and the
+atonement proposed by the remorseful James. But he did not tell quite
+all. For the wise man never tells all. What really happened was this.
+When James had made a clean breast and confessed his enormous share
+in the villainy, Lala Roy bound him over to secrecy under pain of Law,
+Law the Rigorous, pointing out that although they do not, in England,
+exhibit the Kourbash, or bastinado the soles of the feet, they make
+the prisoner sleep on a hard board, starve him on skilly, set him to
+work which tears his nails from his fingers, keep him from
+conversation, tobacco, and drink, and when he comes out, so hedge him
+around with prejudice and so clothe him with a robe of shame, that no
+one will ever employ him again, and he is therefore doomed to go back
+again to the English Hell. Lala Roy, though a man of few words, drew
+so vivid a description of the punishment which awaited his penitent
+that James, foxy as he was by nature, felt constrained to resolve that
+henceforth, happen what might, then and for all future, he would range
+himself on the side of virtue, and as a beginning he promised to do
+everything that he could for the confounding of Joseph and the
+bringing of the guilty to justice.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+HIS LAST CHANCE.
+
+
+Three days elapsed, during which nothing was done. That cause is
+strongest which can afford to wait. But in those three days several
+things happened.
+
+First of all, Mr. David Chalker, seeing that the old man was obdurate,
+made up his mind to lose most of his money, and cursed Joe continually
+for having led him to build upon his grandfather's supposed wealth.
+Yet he ought to have known. Tradesmen do not lock up their savings in
+investments for their grandchildren, nor do they borrow small sums at
+ruinous interest of money-lending solicitors; nor do they give Bills
+of Sale. These general rules were probably known to Mr. Chalker. Yet
+he did not apply them to this particular case. The neglect of the
+General Rule, in fact, may lead the most astute of mankind into ways
+of foolishness.
+
+James, for his part, stimulated perpetually by fear of prison and loss
+of character and of situation--for who would employ an assistant who
+got keys made to open the safe?--showed himself the most repentant of
+mortals. Dr. Joseph Washington, lulled into the most perfect security,
+enjoyed all those pleasures which the sum of three hundred pounds
+could purchase. Nobody knew where he was, or what he was doing. As for
+Lotty, she had established herself firmly in Chester Square, and
+Cousin Clara daily found out new and additional proofs of the gentle
+blood breaking out!
+
+On the fourth morning Lala Roy sallied forth. He was about to make a
+great Moral Experiment, the nature of which you will immediately
+understand. None but a philosopher who had studied Confucius and Lao
+Kiun, would have conceived so fine a scheme.
+
+First he paid a visit to Mr. Chalker.
+
+The office was the ground-floor front room, in one of the small
+streets north of the King's Road. It was not an imposing office, nor
+did it seem as if much business was done there; and one clerk of
+tender years sufficed for Mr. Chalker's wants.
+
+"Oh!" he said, "it's our friend from India. You're a lodger of old
+Emblem's, ain't you?"
+
+"I have lived with him for twenty years. I am his friend."
+
+"Very well. I dare say we shall come to terms, if he's come to his
+senses. Just take a chair and sit down. How is the old man?"
+
+"He has not yet recovered the use of his intellect."
+
+"Oh! Then how can you act for him if he's off his head?"
+
+"I came to ask an English creditor to show mercy."
+
+"Mercy? What is the man talking about? Mercy! I want my money. What
+has that got to do with mercy?"
+
+"Nothing, truly; but I will give you your money. I will give you
+justice, and you shall give me mercy. You lent Mr. Emblem fifty
+pounds. Will you take your fifty pounds, and leave us in peace?"
+
+He drew a bag out of his pocket--a brown banker's bag--and Mr. Chalker
+distinctly heard the rustling of notes.
+
+This is a sound which to some ears is more delightful than the finest
+music in the world. It awakens all the most pleasurable emotions; it
+provokes desire and hankering after possession; and it fills the soul
+with the imaginary enjoyment of wealth.
+
+"Certainly not," said Mr. Chalker, confident that better terms than
+those would be offered. "If that is all you have to say, you may go
+away again."
+
+"But the rest is usury. Think! To give fifty, and ask three hundred
+and fifty, is the part of an usurer."
+
+"Call it what you please. The bill of sale is for three hundred and
+fifty pounds. Pay that three hundred and fifty, with costs and
+sheriff's poundage, and I take away my man. If you don't pay it, then
+the books on the shelves and the furniture of the house go to the
+hammer."
+
+"The books, I am informed," said Lala Roy, "will not bring as much as
+a hundred pounds if they are sold at auction. As for the furniture,
+some of it is mine, and some belongs to Mr. Emblem's granddaughter."
+
+"His granddaughter! Oh, it's a swindle," said Mr. Chalker angrily. "It
+is nothing more or less than a rank swindle. The old man ought to be
+prosecuted, and, mind you, I'll prosecute him, and you too, for
+conspiring with him."
+
+"A prosecution," said the Hindoo, "will not hurt him, but it might
+hurt you. For it would show how you lent him fifty pounds five years
+ago; how you made him give you a bill for a hundred; how you did not
+press him to pay that bill, but you continually offered to renew it
+for him, increasing the amount on each time of renewal; and at last
+you made him give you a bill of sale for three hundred and fifty. This
+is, I suppose, one of the many ways in which Englishmen grow rich.
+There are also usurers in India, but they do not, in my country, call
+themselves lawyers. A prosecution. My friend, it is for us to
+prosecute. Shall we show that you have done the same thing with many
+others? You are, by this time, well known in the neighborhood, Mr.
+Chalker, and you are so much beloved that there are many who would be
+delighted to relate their experiences and dealings with so clever a
+man. Have you ever studied, one asks with wonder, the Precepts of the
+great Sage who founded your religion?"
+
+"Oh, come, don't let us have any religious nonsense!"
+
+"I assure you they are worth studying. I am, myself, an humble
+follower of Gautama, but I have read those precepts with profit. In
+the kingdom imagined by that preacher, there is no room for usurers,
+Mr. Chalker. Where, then, will be your kingdom? Every man must be
+somewhere. You must have a kingdom and a king."
+
+"This is tomfoolery!" Mr. Chalker turned red, and looked very
+uncomfortable. "Stick to business. Payment in full. Those are my
+terms."
+
+"You think, then, that the Precepts of your Sage are only intended for
+men while they sit in the church? Many Englishmen think so, I have
+observed."
+
+"Payment in full, mister. That's what I want."
+
+He banged his fist on the table.
+
+"No abatement? No mercy shown to an old man on the edge of the grave?
+Think, Mr. Chalker. You will soon be as old as Mr. Emblem, your hair
+as white, your reason as unsteady--"
+
+"Payment in full, and no more words."
+
+"It is well. Then, Mr. Chalker, I have another proposal to make to
+you."
+
+"I thought we should come to something more. Out with it!"
+
+"I believe you are a friend of Mr. Emblem's grandson?"
+
+"Joe? Oh yes, I know Joe."
+
+"You know him intimately?"
+
+"Yes, I may say so."
+
+"You know that he forged his grandfather's name; that he is a
+profligate and a spendthrift, and that he has taken or borrowed from
+his grandfather whatever money he could get, and that--in short, he is
+a friend of your own?"
+
+It was not until after his visitor had gone that Mr. Chalker
+understood, and began to resent this last observation.
+
+"Go on," he said. "I know all about Joe."
+
+"Good. Then, if you can tell me anything about him which may be of use
+to me I will do this. I will pay you double the valuation of Mr.
+Emblem's shop, in return, for a receipt in full. If you can not, you
+may proceed to sell everything by auction."
+
+Mr. Chalker hesitated. A valuation would certainly give a higher
+figure than a forced sale, and then that valuation doubled!
+
+"Well," he said, "I don't know. It's a cruel hard case to be done out
+of my money. How am I to find out whether anything I tell you would be
+of use to you or not? What kind of thing do you want? How do I know
+that if you get what you want, you won't swear it is of no use to
+you?"
+
+"You have the word of one who never broke his word."
+
+Mr. Chalker laughed derisively.
+
+"Why," he said, "I wouldn't take the word of an English bishop--no,
+nor of an archbishop--where money is concerned. What is it--what is
+the kind of thing you want to know?"
+
+"It is concerned with a certain woman."
+
+"Oh, well, if it is only a woman! I thought it might be something
+about money. Joe, you see, like a good many other people, has got his
+own ideas about money, and perhaps he isn't so strict in his dealings
+as he might be--few men are--and I should not like to let out one or
+two things that only him and me know." In fact, Mr. Chalker saw, in
+imagination, the burly form of Joe in his office, brandishing a stick,
+and accusing him of friendship's trust betrayed.
+
+"But as it is only a woman--which of 'em is it?"
+
+"This is a young woman, said to be handsome, tall, and finely-made;
+she has, I am told, light brown hair and large eyes. That is the
+description of her given to me."
+
+"I know the girl you mean. Splendid figure, and goes well in tights?"
+
+"I have not been informed on that subject. Can you tell me any more
+about her?"
+
+"I suspect, mister," said Joe's friend, with cunning eyes, "that
+you've made the acquaintance of a certain widow that was--married
+woman that is. I remember now, I've seen Hindoos about her lodgings,
+down Shadwell way."
+
+"Perhaps," said Lala, "and perhaps not." His face showed not the least
+sign which could be read. "You can tell me afterward what you know of
+the woman at Shadwell."
+
+"Well, then, Joe thinks I know nothing about it. Else I wouldn't tell
+you. Because I don't want a fight with Joe. Is this any use to you? He
+is married to the girl as well as to the widow."
+
+"He is married to the girl as well as to the widow. He has, then, two
+wives. It is against the English custom, and breaks the English law.
+The young wife who is beautiful, and the old wife who has the
+lodging-house. Very good. What is the address of this woman?"
+
+Mr. Chalker looked puzzled.
+
+"Don't you know it, then? What are you driving at?"
+
+"What is the name and address of this Shadwell woman?"
+
+"Well, then"--he wrote an address and handed it over--"you may be as
+close as you like. I don't care. It isn't my business. But you won't
+make me believe you don't know all about her. Look here, whatever
+happens, don't say I told you."
+
+"It shall be a secret," said Lala, taking out the bag of notes. "Let
+us complete the business at once, Mr. Chalker. Here is another offer.
+I will give you two hundred pounds in discharge of your whole claim,
+or you shall have a valuation made, if you prefer it, and I will
+double the amount."
+
+Mr. Chalker chose the former promptly, and in a few moments handed
+over the necessary receipts, and sent his clerk to recall the Man in
+Possession.
+
+"What are you going to do with Joe?" he asked. "No good turn, I'll
+swear. And a more unforgiving face than yours I never set eyes on. It
+isn't my business, but I'll give you one warning. If you make Joe
+desperate, he'll turn on you; and Lord help your slender ribs if Joe
+once begins. Don't make him desperate. And now I'll tell you another
+thing. First, the woman at Shadwell is horribly jealous. She'll make a
+row. Next, the young one, who sings at a music-hall, she's desperately
+in love with her husband--more than he is with her--and if a woman's
+in love with a man, there's one thing she never forgives. You
+understand what that is. Between the pair, Joe's likely to have a
+rough time."
+
+"I do. I have had many wives myself."
+
+"Oh, Lord, he says he's had many wives! How many?"
+
+Lala Roy read the receipt, and put it in his pocket. Then he rose and
+remarked, with a smile of supreme superiority:
+
+"It is a pleasure to give money to you, and to such as you, Mr.
+Chalker."
+
+"Is it?" he replied with a grin. "Give me some more, then."
+
+"You are one of those who, the richer they become, the less harm they
+do. Many Englishmen are of this disposition. When they are poor they
+are jackals, hyenas, wolves, and man-eating tigers; when they are rich
+they are benevolent and charitable, and show mercy unto the wretched
+and the poor. So that, in their case, the words of the Wise Man are
+naught, when he says that the earth is barren of good things where she
+hoardeth treasure; and that where gold is in her bowels no herb
+groweth. Pray, Mr. Chalker, pray earnestly for gold in order that you
+may become virtuous."
+
+Mr. Chalker grinned, but looked uncomfortable.
+
+"I will, mister," he said, "I will pray with all my might."
+
+Nevertheless, he remained for the space of the whole morning in
+uneasiness. The words of the Philosopher troubled him. I do not go so
+far as to say that his mind went back to the days when he was young
+and innocent, because he was still young, and he never had been
+innocent; nor do I say that a tear rose to his eyes and trickled down
+his cheek, because nothing brought tears into his eyes except a speck
+of dust; or that he resolved to confine himself for the future to
+legitimate lawyer's work, because he would then have starved. I only
+say that he felt uncomfortable and humiliated, and chiefly so because
+an old man with white hair and a brown skin--hang it! a common
+nigger--had been able to bring discord into the sweet harmony of his
+thoughts.
+
+Lala Roy then betook himself to Joe's former lodgings, and asked for
+that gentleman's present address.
+
+The landlady professed to know nothing.
+
+"You do know, however," he persisted, reading knowledge in her eyes.
+
+"Is it trouble you mean for him?" asked the woman, "and him such a
+fine, well-set-up young man, too! Is it trouble? Oh, dear, I always
+thought he got his money on the cross. Look here. I ain't going to
+round on him, though he has gone away and left a comfortable room. So
+there! And you may go."
+
+Lala Roy opened his hand. There were at least five golden sovereigns
+glorifying his dingy palm.
+
+"Can gold," the moralist asked, "ever increase the virtue of man?
+Woman, how much?"
+
+"Is it trouble?" she repeated, looking greedily at the money. "Will
+the young man get copped?"
+
+Lala understood no London slang. But he showed his hand again.
+
+"How much? Who so is covetous let him know that his heart is poor. How
+much?"
+
+"Poor young man! I'll take them all, please, sir. What's he done?"
+
+"Where does he live?"
+
+"I know where he lives," she said, "because our Bill rode away with
+him at the back of his cab, and saw where he got out. He's married
+now, and his wife sings at the music-hall, and he lives on her
+earnings. Quite the gentleman he is now, and smokes cigars all day
+long. There's his address, and thank you for the money. Oh," she said
+with a gasp. "To think that people can earn five pounds so easy."
+
+"May the gold procure you happiness--such happiness as you desire!"
+said Lala Roy.
+
+"It will nearly pay the quarter's rent. And that's about happiness
+enough for one morning."
+
+Joe was sitting in his room alone, half asleep. In fact, he had a head
+upon him. He sprung to his feet, however, when he saw Lala Roy.
+
+"Hallo!" he cried. "You here, Nig? How the devil did you find out my
+address?"
+
+There was not only astonishment, but some alarm upon his countenance.
+
+"Never mind. I want a little conversation with you, Mr. Joseph."
+
+"Well, sit down and let us have it out. I say, have you come to tell
+me that you did sneak those papers, after all? What did you get for
+them?"
+
+"I have not come to tell you that. I dare say, however, we shall be
+able, some day, to tell you who did steal the papers--if any were
+stolen, that is."
+
+"Quite so, my jolly mariner. If any were stolen. Ho, ho! you've got to
+prove that first, haven't you? How's the old man?"
+
+"He is ill; he is feeble with age; he is weighed down with misfortune.
+I am come, Mr. Joseph, to ask your help for him."
+
+"My help for him? Why, can't he help himself?"
+
+"Four or five years ago he incurred a debt for one who forged his
+name. He needed not to have paid that money, but he saved a man from
+prison."
+
+"Who was that? Who forged his name?"
+
+"I do not name that man, whose end will be confusion, unless he repent
+and make amends. This debt has grown until it is too large for him to
+pay it. Unless it is paid, his whole property, his very means of
+living, will be sold by the creditor."
+
+"How can I pay him back? It is three hundred and fifty pounds now,"
+said Joseph.
+
+"Man, thou hast named thyself."
+
+Joseph stammered but blustered still.
+
+"Well--then--what the devil do you mean--you and your forgery?"
+
+"Forgery is one crime: you have since committed, perhaps, others.
+Think. You have been saved once from prison. Will any one save you a
+second time? How have you shown your gratitude? Will you now do
+something for your benefactor?"
+
+"What do you mean, I say? What do you mean by your forgery and prison?
+Hang me, if I oughtn't to kick you out of the room. I would, too, if
+you were ten years younger. Do you know, sir, that you are addressing
+an officer and a gentleman?"
+
+"There is sometimes, even at the very end, a door opened for
+repentance. The door is open now. Young man, once more, consider. Your
+grandfather is old and destitute. Will you help him?"
+
+Joseph hesitated.
+
+"I don't believe he is poor. He has saved up all his money for the
+girl; let her help him."
+
+"You are wrong. He has saved nothing. His granddaughter maintains
+herself by teaching. He has not a penny. You have got from him, and
+you have spent all the money he had."
+
+"He ought to have saved."
+
+"He could, at least, have lived by his calling but for you and for
+this debt which was incurred by you. He is ruined by it. What will you
+do for him?"
+
+"I am not going to do anything for him," said Joseph. "Is it likely?
+Did he ever have anything but a scowl for me?"
+
+"He who injures another is always in the wrong. You will, then, do
+nothing? Think. It is the open door. He is your grandfather; he has
+kept you from starvation when you were turned out of office for drink
+and dishonesty. I heard that you now have money. I have been told that
+you have been seen to show a large sum of money. Will you give him
+some?"
+
+As a matter of fact, Joe had been, the night before, having a festive
+evening at the music-hall, from which his wife was absent, owing to
+temporary indisposition. While there, he took so much Scotch whisky
+and water that his tongue was loosened and he became boastful; and
+that to so foolish an extent that he actually brandished in the eyes
+of the multitude a whole handful of banknotes. He now remembered this,
+and was greatly struck by the curious fact that Lala Roy should seem
+to know it.
+
+"I haven't got any money. It was all brag last night. I couldn't help
+my grandfather if I wanted to."
+
+"You have what is left of three hundred pounds," said Lala Roy.
+
+"If I said that last night," replied Joe, "I must have been drunker
+than I thought. You old fool! the flimsies were duffers. Where do you
+think I could raise three hundred pounds? No, no--I'm sorry for the
+old man, but I can't help him. I'm going to see him again in a day or
+two. We jolly sailors don't make much money, but if a pound or two,
+when I come home, will be of any use to him, he's only got to say the
+word. After all, I believe it's a kid, got up between you. The old man
+must have saved something."
+
+"You will suffer him, then, even to be taken to the workhouse?"
+
+"Why, I can't help it, and I suppose you'll have to go there too. Ho,
+ho! I say, Nig!" He began to laugh. "Ho, ho! They won't let you wear
+that old fez of yours at the workhouse. How beautiful you'll look in
+the workhouse uniform, won't you? I'll come home, and bring you some
+'baccy. Now you can cheese it, old 'un."
+
+"I will go, if that is what you mean. It is the last time that you
+will be asked to help your grandfather. The door is closed. You have
+had one more chance, and you have thrown it away."
+
+So he departed, and Joe, who was of a self-reliant and sanguine
+disposition, thought nothing of the warning, which was therefore
+thrown away and wasted.
+
+As for Lala, he called a cab, and drove to Shadwell. And if any man
+ever felt that he was an instrument set apart to carry out a scheme of
+vengeance, that Hindoo philosopher felt like one. The Count of Monte
+Cristo himself was not more filled with the faith and conviction of
+his divine obligation.
+
+In the afternoon he returned to Chelsea, and perhaps one who knew him
+might have remarked upon his face something like a gleam of
+satisfaction. He had done his duty.
+
+It was now five days since the fatal discovery. Mr. Emblem still
+remained upstairs in his chair; but he was slowly recovering. He
+clearly remembered that he had been robbed, and the principal sign of
+the shock was his firm conviction that by his own exercise of memory
+Iris had been enabled to enter into possession of her own.
+
+As regards the Bill of Sale, he had clean forgotten it. Now, in the
+morning, there happened a thing which surprised James very much. The
+Man in Possession was recalled. He went away. So that the money must
+have been paid. James was so astonished that he ran upstairs to tell
+Iris.
+
+"Then," said the girl, "we shall not be turned out after all. But who
+has paid the money?"
+
+It could have been no other than Arnold. Yet when, later in the day,
+he was taxed with having committed the good action, Arnold stoutly
+denied it. He had not so much money in the world, he said; in fact, he
+had no money at all.
+
+"The good man," said the Philosopher, "has friends of whom he knoweth
+not. As the river returns its waters to the sea, so the heart
+rejoiceth in returning benefits received."
+
+"Oh, Lala," said Iris. "But on whom have we conferred any benefits?"
+
+"The moon shines upon all alike," said Lala, "and knows not what she
+illumines."
+
+"Lala Roy," said Arnold, suddenly getting a gleam of intelligence, "it
+is you who have paid this money."
+
+"You, Lala?"
+
+"No one else could have paid it," said Arnold.
+
+"But I thought--I thought--" said Iris.
+
+"You thought I had no money at all. Children, I have some. One may
+live without money in Hindostan, but in England even the Philosopher
+cannot meditate unless he can pay for food and shelter. I have money,
+Iris, and I have paid the usurer enough to satisfy him. Let us say no
+more."
+
+"Oh, Lala!" The tears came to Iris's eyes. "And now we shall go on
+living as before."
+
+"I think not," he replied. "In the generations of Man, the seasons
+continue side by side; but spring does not always continue with
+winter."
+
+"I know, now," interrupted Mr. Emblem, suddenly waking into life and
+recollection; "I could not remember at first. Now I know very well,
+but I cannot tell how, that the man who stole my papers is my own
+grandson. James would not steal. James is curious; he wants to read
+over my shoulders what I am writing. He would pry and find out. But he
+would not steal. It doesn't matter much--does it?--since I was able to
+repair the loss--I always had a most excellent memory--and Iris has
+now received her inheritance; but it is my grandson Joe who has stolen
+the papers. My daughter's son came home from Australia when--but this
+I learned afterward--he had already disgraced himself there. He ran
+into debt, and I paid his debts; he forged my name and I accepted the
+bill; he took all the money I could let him have, and still he asked
+for more. There is no one in the world who would rob me of those
+papers except Joseph."
+
+Now, the door was open to the staircase, and the door of communication
+between the shop and the house-passage was also open. This seems a
+detail hardly worth noting; yet it proved of the greatest importance.
+From such small trifles follow great events. Observe that as yet no
+positive proof was in the hands of the two conspirators which would
+actually connect Iris with Claude Deseret. The proofs were in the
+stolen papers, and though Clara had those papers, who was to show that
+these papers were actually those in the sealed packet?
+
+When Mr. Emblem finished speaking, no one replied, because Arnold and
+Lala knew the facts already, but did not wish to spread them abroad:
+and next, because to Iris it was nothing new that her cousin was a bad
+man, and because she thought, now that the Man in Possession was gone,
+they might just as well forget the papers, and go on as if all this
+fuss had not happened.
+
+In the silence that followed this speech, they heard the voice of
+James down-stairs, saying:
+
+"I am sorry to say, sir, that Mr. Emblem is ill upstairs, and you
+can't see him to-day."
+
+"Ill, is he? I am very sorry. Take him my compliments, James. Mr.
+Frank Farrar's compliments, and tell him--"
+
+And then Mr. Emblem sprung to his feet, crying:
+
+"Stop him! stop him! Go down-stairs, some one, and stop him! I don't
+know where he lives. Stop him! stop him!"
+
+Arnold rushed down the stairs. He found in the shop an elderly
+gentleman, carrying a bundle of books. It was, in fact, Mr. Farrar
+come to negotiate the sale of another work from his library.
+
+"I beg your pardon, sir," said Arnold, "Mr. Emblem is most anxious to
+see you. Would you step upstairs?"
+
+"Quick, Mr. Farrar--quick," the old man held him tight by the hand.
+"Tell me before my memory runs away with me again--tell me. Listen,
+Iris! Yet it doesn't matter, because you have already--Tell me--" He
+seemed about to wander again, but he pulled himself together with a
+great effort. "You knew my son-in-law before his marriage?"
+
+"Surely, Mr. Emblem; I knew your son-in-law, and his father, and all
+his people."
+
+"And his name was not Aglen, at all?" asked Arnold.
+
+"No; he took the name of Aglen from a fancied feeling of pride when he
+quarreled with his father about--well, it was about his marriage, as
+you know, Mr. Emblem; he came to London, and tried to make his way by
+writing, and thought to do it, and either to hide a failure or
+brighten a success, by using a pseudonym. People were more jealous
+about their names in those days. He had better," added the
+unsuccessful veteran of letters, "he had far better have made his
+living as a--as a"--he looked about him for a fitting simile--"as a
+bookseller."
+
+"Then, sir," said Arnold, "what was his real name?"
+
+"His name was Claude Deseret, of course."
+
+"Iris," said Arnold, taking her hand, "this is the last proof. We have
+known it for four or five days, but we wanted the final proof, and now
+we have it. My dear, you are the cousin of Clara Holland, and all her
+fortune, by her grandfather's will, is yours. This is the secret of
+the safe. This was what the stolen papers told you."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+THE HAND OF FATE.
+
+
+At the first stroke of noon next day, Arnold arrived at his cousin's
+house in Chester Square. He was accompanied by Iris, by Lala Roy, and
+by Mr. Frank Farrar.
+
+"Pray, Arnold, what is meant by all this mystery?" asked Clara,
+receiving him and his party with considerable surprise.
+
+"I will explain all in a few minutes, my dear Clara. Meanwhile, have
+you done what you promised?"
+
+"Yes, I wrote to Dr. Washington. He will be here, I expect, in a few
+minutes."
+
+"You wrote exactly in the form of words you promised me?"
+
+"Yes, exactly. I asked him to meet me here this morning at a quarter
+past twelve, in order to discuss a few points connected with Iris's
+future arrangements, before he left for America, and I wrote on the
+envelope, 'Immediate and important.'"
+
+"Very well. He will be sure to come, I think. Perhaps your cousin will
+insist upon another check for fifty pounds being given to him."
+
+"Arnold, you are extremely suspicious and most ungenerous about Dr.
+Washington, on whose truth and disinterested honesty I thoroughly
+rely."
+
+"We shall see. Meanwhile, Clara, I desire to present to you a young
+lady of whom we have already spoken. This is Miss Aglen, who is, I
+need hardly say, deeply anxious to win your good opinion. And this is
+Lala Roy, an Indian gentleman who knew her father, and has lived in
+the same house with her for twenty years. Our debt--I shall soon be
+able to say your debt--of gratitude to this gentleman for his long
+kindness to Miss Aglen--is one which can never be repaid."
+
+Clara gave the most frigid bow to both Iris and Lala Roy.
+
+"Really, Arnold, you are talking in enigmas this morning. What am I to
+understand? What has this gentleman to do with my appointment with Dr.
+Washington?"
+
+"My dear cousin, I am so happy this morning that I wonder I do not
+talk in conundrums, or rondeaux, or terza rima. It is a mere chance, I
+assure you. Perhaps I may break out in rhymes presently. This evening
+we will have fireworks in the square, roast a whole ox, invite the
+neighbors, and dance about a maypole. You shall lead off the dance,
+Clara."
+
+"Pray go on, Arnold. All this is very inexplicable."
+
+"This gentleman, however, is a very old friend of yours, Clara. Do you
+not recognize Mr. Frank Farrar, who used to stay at the Hall in the
+old days?
+
+"I remember Mr. Farrar very well." Clara gave him her hand. "But I
+should not have known him. Why have we never met in society during all
+these years, Mr. Farrar?"
+
+"I suppose because I have been out of society, Miss Holland," said the
+scholar. "When a man marries, and has a large family, and a small
+income, and grows old, and has to see the young fellows shoving him
+out at every point, he doesn't care much about society. I hope you are
+well and happy."
+
+"I am very well, and I ought to be happy, because I have recovered
+Claude's lost heiress, my cousin, Iris Deseret, and she is the best
+and most delightful of girls, with the warmest heart and the sweetest
+instincts of a lady by descent and birth."
+
+She looked severely at Arnold, who said nothing, but smiled
+incredulously.
+
+Mr. Farrar looked from Iris to Miss Holland, bewildered.
+
+"And why do you come to see me to-day, Mr. Farrar--and with Arnold?"
+
+"Because I have undertaken to answer one question presently, which Mr.
+Arbuthnot is to ask me. That is why I am here. Not but what it gives
+me the greatest pleasure to see you again, Miss Holland, after so many
+years."
+
+"Our poor Claude died in America, you know, Mr. Farrar."
+
+"So I have recently heard."
+
+"And left one daughter."
+
+"That also I have learned." He looked at Iris.
+
+"She is with me, here in this house, and has been with me for a week.
+You may understand, Mr. Farrar, the happiness I feel in having with me
+Claude's only daughter."
+
+Mr. Farrar looked from her to Arnold with increasing amazement. But he
+said nothing.
+
+"I have appointed this morning, at Arnold's request," Clara went on,
+"to have an interview, perhaps the last, with the gentleman who
+brought my dear Iris from America. I say, at Arnold's request, because
+he asked me to do this, and I have always trusted him implicitly, and
+I hope he is not going to bring trouble upon us now, although I do
+not, I confess, understand the presence of his friends or their
+connection with my cousin."
+
+"My dear Clara," said Arnold again, "I ask for nothing but patience.
+And that only for a few moments. As for the papers, you have them all
+in your possession?"
+
+"Yes; they are locked up in my strong-box."
+
+"Do not, on any account, give them to anybody. However, after this
+morning you will not be asked. Have you taken as yet any steps at all
+for the transference of your property to--to the rightful heir?"
+
+"Not yet."
+
+"Thank goodness! And now, Clara, I will ask you, as soon as Dr.
+Washington and--your cousin--are in the drawing-room, to ring the
+bell. You need not explain why. We will answer the summons, and we
+will give all the explanations that may be required."
+
+"I will not have my cousin vexed, Arnold."
+
+"You shall not. Your cousin shall never be vexed by me as long as I
+live."
+
+"And Dr. Washington must not be in any way offended. Consider the
+feelings of an American gentleman, Arnold. He is my guest."
+
+"You may thoroughly rely upon my consideration for the feelings of an
+American gentleman. Go; there is a knock at the door. Go to receive
+him, and, when both are in the room, ring the bell."
+
+Joe was in excellent spirits that morning. His interview with Lala Roy
+convinced him that nothing whatever was known of the papers, therefore
+nothing could be suspected. What a fool, he thought, must be his
+grandfather, to have had these papers in his hands for eighteen years
+and never to have opened the packet, in obedience to the injunction of
+a dead man! Had it been his own case, he would have opened the papers
+without the least delay, mastered the contents, and instantly claimed
+the property. He would have gone on to use it for his own purposes and
+private gain, and with an uninterrupted run of eighteen years, he
+would most certainly have made a very pretty thing out of it.
+
+However, everything works well for him who greatly dares. His wife
+would manage for him better than he could do it for himself. Yet a few
+weeks, and the great fortune would fall into his hands. He walked all
+the way to Chester Square, considering how he should spend the money.
+There are some forms of foolishness, such as, say, those connected
+with art, literature, charity, and work for others, which attract some
+rich men, but which he was not at all tempted to commit. There were
+others, however, connected with horses, races, betting, and gambling,
+which tempted him strongly. In fact, Joseph contemplated spending this
+money wholly on his own pleasures. Probably it would be a part of his
+pleasure to toss a few crumbs to his wife.
+
+It is sad to record that Lotty, finding herself received with so much
+enthusiasm, had already begun to fall off in her behavior. Even Clara,
+who thought she discovered every hour some new point of resemblance in
+the girl to her father, was fain to admit that the "Americanisms" were
+much too pronounced for general society.
+
+Her laugh was louder and more frequent; her jests were rough and
+common; she used slang words freely; her gestures were extravagant,
+and she walked in the streets as if she wished every one to notice
+her. It is the walk of the Music-Hall stage, and the trick of it
+consists chiefly in giving, so to speak, prominence to the shoulders
+and oscillation to the skirts. In fact, she was one of those ladies
+who ardently desire that all the world should notice them.
+
+Further, in her conversation, she showed an acquaintance with certain
+phases of the English lower life which was astonishing in an American
+girl. But Clara had no suspicion--none whatever. One thing the girl
+did which pleased her mightily.
+
+She was never tired of hearing about her father, and his way of
+looking, standing, walking, folding his hands, and holding himself.
+And constantly more and more Clara detected these little tricks in his
+daughter. Perhaps she learned them.
+
+"My dear," she said, "to think that I ever thought you unlike your
+dear father!"
+
+So that it made her extremely uncomfortable to detect a certain
+reserve in Arnold toward the girl, and then a dislike of Arnold in the
+girl herself. However, she was accustomed to act by Arnold's advice,
+and consented, when he asked her, to arrange so that Arnold might meet
+Dr. Washington. As if anything that so much as looked like suspicion
+could be thought of for a moment!
+
+But the bell rang, and Arnold, followed by his party, led the way from
+the morning room to the drawing room. Dr. Joseph Washington was
+standing with his back to the door. The girl was dressed as if she had
+just come from a walk, and was holding Clara's hand.
+
+"Yes, madam," he was saying softly, "I return to-morrow to America,
+and my wife and my children. I leave our dear girl in the greatest
+confidence in your hands. I only venture to advise that, to avoid
+lawyers' expenses, you should simply instruct somebody--the right
+person--to transfer the property from your name to the name of Iris.
+Then you will be saved troubles and formalities of every kind. As for
+me, my home is in America--"
+
+"No, Joseph," said Lala Roy gently; "it is in Shadwell."
+
+"It is a lie!" he cried, starting; "it is an infernal lie!"
+
+"Iris," said Arnold, "lift your veil, my dear. Mr. Farrar, who is this
+young lady? Look upon this face, Clara."
+
+"This is the daughter of Claude Deseret," said Mr. Farrar, "if she is
+the daughter of the man who married Alice Emblem, and went by the name
+of Aglen."
+
+Clara turned a terrified face to Arnold.
+
+"Arnold, help me!"
+
+"Whose face is this?" he repeated.
+
+"It is--good Heavens!--it is the face of your portrait. It is Claude's
+face again. They are his very eyes--" She covered her face with her
+hands. "Oh, Arnold, what is it! Who is this other?"
+
+"This other lady, Clara, is a Music-Hall Singer, who calls herself
+Carlotta Claridane, wife of this man, who is not an American at all,
+but the grandson of Mr. Emblem, the bookseller, and therefore cousin
+of Iris. It is he who robbed his grandfather of the papers which you
+have in your possession, Clara. And this is an audacious conspiracy,
+which we have been so fortunate as to unearth and detect, step by
+step."
+
+"Oh, can such wickedness be?" said Clara; "and in my house, too?"
+
+"Joe," said Lotty, "the game is up. I knew it wouldn't last."
+
+"Let them prove it," said Joe; "let them prove it. I defy you to prove
+it."
+
+"Don't be a fool, Joe," said his wife. "Remember," she whispered,
+"you've got a pocketful of money. Let us go peaceably."
+
+"As for you, Nigger," said Joe, "I'll break every bone in your body."
+
+"Not here," said Arnold; "there will be no breaking of bones in this
+house."
+
+Lotty began to laugh.
+
+"The gentle blood always shows itself, doesn't it?" she said. "I've
+got the real instincts of a lady, haven't I? Oh, it was beautiful
+while it lasted. And every day more and more like my father."
+
+"Arnold," cried poor Clara, crushed, "help me!"
+
+"Come," said Arnold, "you had better go at once."
+
+"I won't laugh at you," said Lotty. "It's a shame, and you're a good
+old thing. But it did me good, it really did, to hear all about the
+gentle blood. Come, Joe. Let us go away quietly."
+
+She took her husband's arm. Joe was standing sullen and desperate. Mr.
+Chalker was right. It wanted very little more to make him fall upon
+the whole party, and go off with a fight.
+
+"Young woman," said Lala Roy, "you had better not go outside the house
+with the man. It will be well for you to wait until he has gone."
+
+"Why? He is my husband, whatever we have done, and I'm not ashamed of
+him."
+
+"Is he your husband? Ask him what I meant when I said his home was at
+Shadwell."
+
+"Come, Lotty," said Joe, with a curious change of manner. "Let us go
+at once."
+
+"Wait," Lala repeated. "Wait, young woman, let him go first.
+Pray--pray let him go first."
+
+"Why should I wait? I go with my husband."
+
+"I thought to save you from shame. But if you will go with him, ask
+him again why his home is at Shadwell, and why he left his wife."
+
+Lotty sprung upon her husband, and caught his wrists with both hands.
+
+"Joe, what does he mean? Tell me he is a liar."
+
+"That would be useless," said Lala Roy. "Because a very few minutes
+will prove the contrary. Better, however, that he should go to prison
+for marrying two wives than for robbing his grandfather's safe."
+
+"It's a lie!" Joe repeated, looking as dangerous as a wild boar
+brought to bay.
+
+"There was a Joseph Gallop, formerly assistant purser in the service
+of the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company," continued
+the man of fate, "who married, nine months ago, a certain widow at
+Shadwell. He was turned out of the service, and he married her because
+she had a prosperous lodging-house."
+
+"Oh--h!" cried Lotty. "You villain! You thought to live upon my
+earnings, did you? You put me up to pretend to be somebody else. Miss
+Holland"--she fell upon her knees, literally and simply, and without
+any theatrical pretense at all--"forgive me! I am properly punished.
+Oh, he is made of lies! He told me that the real Iris was dead and
+buried, and he was the rightful heir; and as for you"--she sprung to
+her feet and turned upon her husband--"I know it is true. I know it is
+true--I can see it within your guilty eyes."
+
+"If you have any doubt," said Lala, "here is a copy of the
+marriage-certificate."
+
+She took it, read it, and put it in her pocket. Then she went out of
+the room without another word, but with rage and revenge in her eyes.
+
+Joseph followed her, saying no more. He had lost more than he thought
+to lose. But there was still time to escape, and he had most of the
+money in his pocket.
+
+But another surprise awaited him.
+
+The lady from Shadwell, in fact, was waiting for him outside the door.
+With her were a few Shadwell friends, of the seafaring profession,
+come to see fair play. It was a disgraceful episode in the history of
+Chester Square. After five minutes or so, during which no welsher on a
+race-course was ever more hardly used, two policemen interfered to
+rescue the man of two wives, and there was a procession all the way to
+the police-court, where, after several charges of assault had been
+preferred and proved against half a dozen mariners, Joseph was himself
+charged with bigamy, both wives giving evidence, and committed for
+trial.
+
+His old friend, Mr. David Chalker, one is sorry to add, refused to
+give bail, so that he remained in custody, and will now endure
+hardness for a somewhat lengthened period.
+
+"Clara," said Arnold, "Iris will stay with you, if you ask her. We
+shall not marry, my dear, without your permission. I have promised
+that already, have I not?"
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+A YACHTSMAN'S YARN.
+
+
+"I've knocked off the sea now for some years, but I was yachting along
+with all sorts of gentlemen and in all sorts of craft, from three to
+one hundred and twenty tons, ever since the top of my head was no
+higher than your knee; and as boy, man, and master, I'll allow there's
+no one who has seen much more than I have. Yet, spite of that, I can
+recall but one extraordinary circumstance. Daresay when I've told it
+you, you won't believe it; but I sha'n't be able to help that. Truth's
+truth, no consequence how sing'lar its appearance may be; and so now
+to begin.
+
+"No matter the port, no matter the yacht's name, no matter her owner's
+calling, no matter nothing. Terms and dates and the like shall be
+imaginary, and so let the vessel be a schooner of one hundred tons
+called the 'Evangeline,' and her owner Mr. Robinson, and me, who was
+captain of her, Jacob Williams. This'll furnish a creep you may go on
+sweeping with till Doomsday without raising what's dead and gone,
+though not forgotten, mind ye, from the bottom. Well, for a whole
+fortnight had the 'Evangeline' been moored in a snug berth alongside a
+pier wall. The English Channel was wide there, and it didn't need much
+sailing to find the Atlantic Ocean. I began to think all cruising was
+to come to an end; for Mr. Robinson was a man fond of keeping the sea,
+and I had never found a fortnight's lying by to his taste at all. But
+matters explained themselves after I'd seen him two or three times
+walking about with a very fine-looking female party. Mr. Robinson was
+a bachelor, his age I dare say about forty, with handsome whiskers,
+and one of those voices that show breeding in a man; ay, and the
+humblest ear that hears 'em recognizes them. I didn't take much notice
+of _her_, though I reckoned her large black eyes the beautifullest I
+had ever beheld in a female countenance. She seemed young--not more
+than eight-and-twenty--with what they call a fine figure, though,
+speaking for myself, I never had much opinion of small waists. Give
+me _bong poine_, as my old master, Sir Arthur Jones, used to say; and
+he ought to have known, for he had been studying female beauty for
+eighty year, and died, I reckon, of it.
+
+"I considered it to be a case of courting, for she was a lady; there
+was no mistaking that; she held her head up like one, and dressed as
+real ladies do, expensively but plainly--ay, old Jacob knows; he
+didn't go yachting for years for nothing. But it wasn't for me to form
+opinions. My berth was an easy one--just a sprawl all day long with a
+pipe in my mouth, and a good night's rest to follow; and that was all
+it was my duty to think about.
+
+"Well, one afternoon Mr. Robinson comes aboard alone, and says to me,
+'Williams, at what hour will the tide serve to-morrow night?'
+
+"'Why, sir,' says I, after thinking, 'there'll be plenty of water at
+nine o'clock.'
+
+"'Then,' says he, 'see all ready, Williams, to get away to-morrow at
+that hour. We're off to ----,' and he names a Mediterranean port.
+
+"Right, sir,' says I, though wondering a bit to myself, for the season
+was pretty well advanced, and I couldn't have guessed, from what I
+knew and had heard of him, that he would have pushed so far south.
+
+"Well, at half past eight that evening the deck was hailed by a boat
+alongside, and up he comes handing a lady on board, thickly veiled,
+and they both went below as if they were in a hurry. Some parcels and
+a bit of a bandbox or so were chucked up to us by the watermen, who
+then shoved off. There was a nice little off-shore breeze a-blowing,
+and soon after nine we were clear of the harbor and sailing quietly
+along, the sea smooth and the moon rising red out of a smother of
+mist. Mr. Robinson came on deck and looked aloft to see what sail was
+made; I was at the tiller, and stepping up to me, he says--
+
+"'What d'yer think of the weather, Williams?'
+
+"'Why,' says I, 'it seems as if it was going to keep fair.'
+
+"'There can't come too much wind for me,' says he, 'short of a
+hurricane. Don't spare your cloths, let it blow as it may. You
+understand that?'
+
+"'Quite easily,' says I.
+
+"Now, this order I took to be as singular as our going to the
+Mediterranean, for Mr. Robinson was never a man to carry on; there was
+no racing in him; quiet sailing was his pleasure, and what his hurry
+was all of a sudden I couldn't imagine, though I guessed that the
+party in the cabin might have something to do with it. She came on
+deck after we had been under way about three quarters of an hour, this
+time without a veil, with what they call a turban hat on her head.
+There was plenty of moonlight, and I tell you that the very shadow she
+cast, and that lay like a carving of jet on ivory, looked beautiful on
+the white deck, so fine her figure was. Lord, how her big eyes
+flashed, too, when she drew my way and turned 'em to the moon! Being a
+sober, 'spectable man myself, with correct views on the bringing up of
+daughters, it seemed to be a queer start that if so be this young lady
+was keeping company with Mr. Robinson--being courted by him, you
+know--that her mother or some female connection wasn't along with her.
+P'raps they were married, I thought; might have been spliced that very
+morning. She had no gloves on, and whenever she walked with Mr.
+Robinson near to me, I'd take a long squint at her left hand; but
+there was no distinguishing a wedding-ring by moonshine, and even had
+it been broad daylight it would have been all the same, for the jewels
+lay so thick on her fingers you'd have fancied them sparkling with
+dew.
+
+"Well, all that night it blew a soft, quiet wind, but for hours next
+day 'twas all dead calm, a light swell, the sunlight coming off the
+water hot as steam, and the yacht slewing round and round as if, like
+the rest of us, she was trying to find out where the wind meant to
+come from next. I never saw any man fret more over a calm than Mr.
+Robinson did over that. The lady didn't appear discomposed; she sat
+under the awning reading, and once when Mr. Robinson turned to look at
+her she ran her shining black eyes with a smiling roll around the sea,
+that was just the same as if she had said, 'Isn't it big enough?' for
+hang me if even I couldn't read the language in them sparklers of hers
+when she chose to lift the eyelashes off their meaning, unaccustomed
+as Jacob Williams ever was to female ways and the customs they pursue!
+But Mr. Robinson couldn't keep quiet. He kept on asking of me when I
+thought the wind was coming, and he was constantly getting up and
+staring round, and I'd notice he was always letting his cigar go out,
+which is a sure sign that either a man don't care about smoking, or
+else he's got something weighing upon his spirits. P'raps, thought I,
+it's stipulated that he's not to get married anywhere but in the port
+we're bound to, and that the license don't run so long as to allow for
+calms; but this I said to myself, with a wink at my own thoughts, for,
+though there's a good many things in this 'ere yearth that I don't
+understand, I must tell you Jacob Williams wasn't born without a mind.
+
+"Well, time went on, and then a head-wind sprung up, with a short,
+spiteful sea. I kept the yacht under a press, according to orders, and
+the driving of her close-hauled, every luff trembling and the foam to
+leeward as high as the rail, fairly smothered the vessel forward;
+whilst as to her movements, it was dreary and aching enough, I can
+tell you, the wind sweeping out of clouds of spray forward and
+splitting with shrieks upon the ropes, and the canvas soaking up the
+damp till every stretch might have been owned for the matter of color
+by a coalman. 'Twas 'bout ship often enough, Mr. Robinson being full
+of anxiety and impatience, and watching the compass for a shift of
+wind as if he was a cat and there was a mouse in the binnacle. I could
+have sworn the handsome party would have been beam-ended by the dance;
+it turned the stomachs of two of the crew, anyhow, and one of them
+said that if he had known the 'Evangeline' was to cross the bay, he'd
+have found another ship; yet the lady took no notice of the weather.
+She'd come up dressed in waterproofs, and her beautiful face shining
+with the big eyes in it out of a hood; and the more the sea troubled
+the schooner, the more the vessel labored and showed herself uneasy,
+the more the lady would look pleased, laughing out at times, with
+plenty of music in her voice, I allow, but with a something in it and
+in the gleaming stare she'd keep on the plunging and streaming bows,
+that made me calculate--don't know why, I'm sure--that lovely as she
+was and beautiful as she was shaped, there was no more heart inside of
+her than there's pearls in cockles.
+
+"Well, we had two days of this, passing a good many vessels; both
+steam and sail, that were getting all they could out of what was
+baffling us; then there was a shift of wind; it fell light, everything
+turned dry, and we went along with all cloths showing, sailing about
+five knots--not more, and I don't think less. When the change of
+weather came Mr. Robinson looked more cheerful. Seemed happier, he
+did, and I overheard him say to the party as they stood looking over
+the starn at the wake that ran away in two white lines with a gull, or
+two circling within a stone's throw in waiting for whatever the cook
+had to heave overboard--I heard him say:
+
+"'Every mile'll make it more difficult; besides,' says he, with a
+sweep of his hand, 'what a waste this is! Williams,' he sings out to
+me, 'how fur off's the horizon?'
+
+"'Why,' I answered, 'from this height I should say a matter of six
+mile and a half.'"
+
+'And how fur distant, Captain Williams,' says the lady, smiling
+sweetly, and pretty nigh confusing my brains by the beautiful look she
+gave me, 'would a vessel like ours be seen?'
+
+"I took time to think, with a squint at our mastheads--for we carried
+long sticks--and said, 'Well, call it twelve mile, mum. It's
+impossible to speak to a nicety.'
+
+"'And what,' I heard Mr. Robinson observe, as I turned away, 'is
+twelve miles in this here watery wilderness of leagues?'
+
+"'And then she gave a laugh, as if some one had made her feel glad;
+and it was all like music and poetry, I can tell you, her laughing,
+and his softness, and the water smooth, and the yacht sailing along as
+if she enjoyed it, like a hard-worked vessel out for a holiday.
+
+"Time passed till it come on four o'clock on the afternoon of that
+day. There was a redness in the western heavens that betokened more
+wind, though the sun still stood high. Meanwhile the breeze hung
+steady. There was the smoke of a steamer away on our starboard
+quarter, and there was nothing else in sight. I took no notice of it,
+for smoke's not uncommon nowadays on the ocean; but whatever the
+vessel might be, the glances I'd take at her now and again made me see
+she was driving through it properly; for three-quarters of an hour
+after we had sighted it, the smoke was abeam, and the funnel raised
+up, showing that her course was something to the eastward of ours. I
+pointed the glass at her, and made out a yellow chimney and
+pole-masts--hull still below the horizon.
+
+"'Either a yacht, sir, or a Government dispatch boat--something of
+that kind, sir,' says I to Mr. Robinson, who was sitting near me with
+the lady.
+
+"He jumped up and took a look, and whilst he was working away with the
+telescope, the breeze comes along right out of the red sky abeam where
+the steamer was, with twice its former strength, roughening the blue
+water into hollows, and bowing down the yacht till the slope of her
+deck was like a roof. The crew jumped about shortening canvas, and the
+yacht began to snore as she felt the wind. On a sudden, and as if the
+steamer had only just then spied us, she altered her course by three
+or four points, as one could see by the swift rising of her hull,
+till, whilst the sun was still hanging a middling height over the sea
+line, you could see the whole of the vessel--a long, low craft of
+about one hundred and fifty tons--sweeping through the seas like an
+arrow, the smoke streaming black and fat from her small, yellow
+funnel, and her hull sinking out of sight one moment and reappearing
+the next in a sort of jump of the whole foaming wash, as if, by Jove,
+her screw would thrust her clean out of the water.
+
+"The lady looked at her with a sort of indifference; but Mr. Robinson
+was pale enough as he handed me the glass, and said, 'Williams, see if
+you know her.'
+
+"I took a look at her, and answered, 'It's hard to tell those steamers
+till you see their names, sir; but if she's not the Violet,
+belonging to General Coldsteel (of course these are false names),
+she's uncommonly like her. But, law bless us! how they're driving
+her! Why, there'll be a bust up if they don't look out. They'll blow
+the boilers out of her!'"
+
+'Indeed, I never before saw any vessel rush so. She'd shear clear
+through some of the larger seas, and you didn't need watch her long to
+make you reckon you'd seen the last of her. Then Mr. Robinson, talking
+like a man half in a rage, half in a fright, orders me to pack sail on
+the schooner; but it was already blowing a single-reef breeze, and I
+had no idea of losing our spars, and so I told him very firmly that
+the yacht had all she needed, and that more would only stop her by
+burying her: and I had my way. But we were foaming through it, too; we
+wanted no more pressure; the freshening wind had worked the schooner
+into a fair nine knots, and it was first-rate sailing too, considering
+the character of the sea and the weight of the breeze. 'Twas now
+certain beyond all question that the steamer meant to close us, though
+I thought she had a queer way of doing it, for sometimes she'd head
+right at us, and then put her helm down and keep on a course parallel
+with ours, forging well ahead and then shifting the helm for a fresh
+run at us. There was no anxiety that I could see in the lady's looks,
+but Mr. Robinson was quite mightily bothered and worried and pale
+enough to make me suppose that all this meant a pursuit, with a
+capture to follow; and it was certain that whatever intentions the
+steamer had, there was nothing in the night which was approaching to
+promise us a chance of sneaking clear, for the sky was pure as glass,
+and it wouldn't be long after sundown before the moon would be filling
+the air with a light like morning.
+
+Well, sir, fathom by fathom the steamer had her way of us. She had
+drawn close enough to let Mr. Robinson make out the people abroad. As
+for me, I was at the helm; for there was something in the maneuvering
+of the steamer that made me suspicious, and I wasn't going to trust
+any man but myself at the tiller. We held on as we were; we couldn't
+improve the schooner's speed by bringing the wind anywhere else than
+where it was; and no good was to be done by cracking on, even though
+it had, come to our dragging what we couldn't carry; for the steamer's
+speed was a fair fourteen if it was a mile, and our yacht was not
+going to do that, you know, or anything like it. The moon had arisen,
+and the sea ran like heaving snow from the windward, and by this time
+the steamer was about half a mile ahead of us, about three points on
+the weather bow. She was as plain as if daylight lay on her. All the
+time the party and Mr. Robinson had kept the deck, she taking a view
+now and then of the steamer with an opera-glass.
+
+"Suddenly I yelled out, 'Mr. Robinson, by all that's holy, sir, that
+vessel there means to run us down! Lads,' I shouted, 'tumble aft
+quick, and see the boats all ready for lowering!'
+
+"The lady jumped up with a scream, and seized hold of Mr. Robinson's
+arm, who seeming to forget what he was about, shook her off, and fell
+to raving to me to see that the steamer didn't touch us. By thunder,
+sir, there was the cowardly brute slanting her flying length as though
+to cross our hawse, but clearly aiming to strike us right amidships.
+I shouted to the men to make ready and 'bout ship, and a minute after
+I shoved the tiller over, and the yacht rounded like a woman waltzing.
+But before we had gathered way the steamer was after us. The lady sent
+up scream after scream. Mr. Robinson stood motionless, seeing as plain
+as I that if the steamer meant to sink us there was no seamanship in
+this wide world that could stop her; and I saw the men throwing off
+their shoes and half stripping themselves, ready for what was to come.
+
+"The steamer headed dead to strike our weather-beam; she rushed at us
+with the foam boiling over her bows; once more I chucked the schooner
+right up into the wind, and the steamer went past us like a rocket
+under our stern. I looked at her and sha'n't ever forget what I saw.
+There was a white-haired man, with white whiskers and bareheaded,
+roaring and raging at us in the grasp of three or four seamen. 'Twas
+like a death-struggle. A chap who looked as if he had just seized the
+wheel was grinding it hard over to get away from us; and so the
+steamer fled past, more like a nightmare than a reality, and in a few
+minutes was standing with full speed to the norrard, where, in less
+than a quarter of an hour, she faded slick out of sight.
+
+"It was some time after I had left the 'Evangeline' and was at home
+before I got to know the meaning of this here wonderful adventure. The
+party, it turned out, was no less than the wife of the general as
+owned the 'Violet,' and she was running away with Mr. Robinson. May be
+our men had talked about our going to the Mediterranean, but anyhow
+the general who was in London at the time, got scent that his wife had
+bolted with Mr. Robinson in the 'Evangeline,' and in less than
+twenty-four hours he was after us in his steamer. He tracked us by
+speaking the vessels we passed; and the light airs and calms we had
+encountered easily allowed him to overhaul quickly. And it turned out
+that when he had fairly sighted us, he sent the man at the wheel
+forward, and took the helm himself. The crew dursn't express their
+wonder aloud, though they knew he was no hand at steering, not to
+mention the mad agitation he was in, and they let him have his way
+when he headed the steamer for us, expecting that he merely wished to
+close us in order to speak; but when I put my helm down and the
+steamer passed, and they spied the general rounding his craft
+evidently to run us down, they threw themselves upon him to save their
+own lives as well as ours. That was the sight I saw as the steamer
+rushed past. A few moments after they had gone clear the poor old
+fellow was seized with an attack of apoplexy, which killed him right
+off, and thereupon they headed right away to England with the dead
+body aboard.
+
+"What do you think of this for a yarn? Would any one suppose such
+vengefulness could exist in a white-haired man that had known his
+seventieth birthday? What did he want to go and try and drown me and
+my mates for? _We_ weren't running away with the female party. But the
+world's full of romantic capering, sir; and I tell you what it
+is--'tain't all fair sailing even in yachts, modest and pretty as the
+divarsion is."
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of In Luck at Last, by Walter Besant
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