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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Comedies of Courtship, by Anthony Hope
+
+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: Comedies of Courtship
+
+Author: Anthony Hope
+
+Release Date: April 4, 2008 [EBook #24985]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK COMEDIES OF COURTSHIP ***
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+COMEDIES OF COURTSHIP
+
+By Anthony Hope
+
+
+
+  "It is a familiar fact that the intensity of a passion varies
+   with the proximity of the appropriate object."
+    Mr. Leslie Stephen, 'Science of Ethics'
+
+  "How the devil is it that fresh features
+   Have such a charm for us poor human creatures?"
+    Lord Byron, 'Don Juan'
+
+
+Charles Scribner's Sons New York 1896
+
+Copyright, 1896 Charles Scribner's Sons
+
+Copyright, 1894, 1896, by Anthony Hope
+
+
+NOTE
+
+"The Wheel of Love," published in Scribner's Magazine during the past
+year, and "The Lady of the Pool," both protected by American copyright,
+are here printed for the first time in book form. The four other
+stories appeared without their author's consent or knowledge, with
+their titles changed beyond recognition, and combined with other
+unauthorized material, in a small volume printed by an American firm.
+They are here given for the first time in their proper form and by my
+authority.
+
+Anthony Hope.
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+The Wheel of Love The Lady of the Pool The Curate of Poltons A
+Three-Volume Novel The Philosopher in the Apple Orchard The Decree of
+Duke Deodonato
+
+
+
+THE WHEEL OF LOVE
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+THE VIRTUOUS HYPOCRITES
+
+
+AT first sight they had as little reason for being unhappy as it is
+possible to have in a world half full of sorrow. They were young and
+healthy; half a dozen times they had each declared the other more than
+common good-looking; they both had, and never knew what it was not to
+have, money enough for comfort and, in addition that divine little
+superfluity wherefrom joys are born. The house was good to look at and
+good to live in; there were horses to ride, the river to go a-rowing
+on, and a big box from Mudie's every week. No one worried them; Miss
+Bussey was generally visiting the poor; or, as was the case at this
+moment, asleep in her arm-chair, with Paul, the terrier, in his basket
+beside her, and the cat on her lap. Lastly, they were plighted lovers,
+and John was staying with Miss Bussey for the express purpose of
+delighting and being delighted by his fiancée, Mary Travers. For these
+and all their mercies certainly they should have been truly thankful.
+
+However the heart of man is wicked. This fact alone can explain why
+Mary sat sadly in the drawing-room, feeling a letter that was tucked
+inside her waistband and John strode moodily up and down the gravel
+walk, a cigar, badly bitten, between his teeth, and his hand over and
+again covertly stealing toward his breast-pocket and pressing a scented
+note that lay there. In the course of every turn John would pass the
+window of the drawing-room; then Mary would look up with a smile and
+blow him a kiss, and he nodded and laughed and returned the salute.
+But, the window passed, both sighed deeply and returned to lingering
+those hidden missives.
+
+"Poor little girl! I must keep it up," said John.
+
+"Dear good John! He must never know," thought Mary.
+
+And the two fell to thinking just what was remarked a few lines back,
+namely, that the human heart is very wicked; they were shocked at
+themselves; the young often are.
+
+Miss Bussey awoke, sat up, evicted the cat, and found her spectacles.
+
+"Where are those children?" said she. "Billing and cooing somewhere, I
+suppose. Bless me, why don't they get tired of it?"
+
+They had--not indeed of billing and cooing in general, for no one at
+their age does or ought to get tired of that--but of billing and cooing
+with one another.
+
+It will be observed that the situation promised well for a tragedy.
+Nevertheless this is not the story of an unhappy marriage.
+
+If there be one thing which Government should forbid, it is a secret
+engagement. Engagements should be advertised as marriages are; but
+unless we happen to be persons of social importance, or considerable
+notoriety, no such precautions are taken. Of course there are
+engagement rings; but a man never knows one when he sees it on a lady's
+hand--it would indeed be impertinent to look too closely--and when he
+goes out alone he generally puts his in his pocket, considering that
+the evening will thus be rendered more enjoyable. The Ashforth--Travers
+engagement was not a secret now, but it had been, and had been too
+long. Hence, when Mary went to Scotland and met Charlie Ellerton, and
+when John went to Switzerland and met Dora Bellairs-the truth is, they
+ought never to have separated, and Miss Bussey (who was one of the
+people in the secret) had been quite right when she remarked that it
+seemed a curious arrangement. John and Mary had scoffed at the idea of
+a few weeks' absence having any effect on their feelings except, if
+indeed it were possible, that of intensifying them.
+
+"I really think I ought to go and find them," said Miss Bussey. "Come,
+Paul!"
+
+She took a parasol, for the April sun was bright, and went into the
+garden. "When she came to the drawing-room window John was away at the
+end of the walk. She looked at him: he was reading a letter. She looked
+in at the window: Mary was reading a letter.
+
+"Well!" exclaimed Miss Bussey. "Have they had a tiff?" And she slowly
+waddled (truth imposes this word-she was very stout) toward the
+unconscious John. He advanced toward her still reading; not only did he
+not see her, but he failed to notice that Paul had got under his feet.
+He fell over Paul, and as he stumbled the letter fluttered out of his
+hand. Paul seized it and began to toss it about in great glee.
+
+"Good doggie!" Cried Miss Bussey. "Come then! Bring it to me, dear.
+Good Paul!"
+
+John's face was distorted with agony. He darted toward Paul, fell on
+him, and gripped him closely. Paul yelped and Miss Bussey observed, in
+an indignant tone, that John need not throttle the dog. John muttered
+something.
+
+"Is the letter so very precious?" asked his hostess ironically.
+
+"Precious!" cried John. "Yes!--No!--It's nothing at all."
+
+But he opened Paul's mouth and took out his treasure with wonderful
+care.
+
+"And why," inquired Miss Bussey, "are you not with Mary, young man?
+You're very neglectful."
+
+"Neglectful! Surely, Miss Bussey, you haven't noticed anything--like
+neglect? Don't say----"
+
+"Bless the boy! I was only joking. You're a model lover."
+
+"Thank you, thank you. I'll go to her at once," and he sped towards the
+window, opened it and walked up to Mary. Miss Bussey followed him and
+arrived just in time to see the lovers locked in one another's arms,
+their faces expressing all appropriate rapture.
+
+"There's nothing much wrong," said Miss Bussey; wherein Miss Bussey
+herself was much wrong.
+
+"What a shame! I've left you alone for more than an hour!" said John.
+"Have you been very unhappy?" and he added, "darling." It sounded like
+an afterthought.
+
+"I have been rather unhappy," answered Mary, and her answer was true.
+As she said it she tucked in a projecting edge of her letter. John had
+hurriedly slipped his (it was rather the worse for its mauling) into
+his trousers-pocket.
+
+"You--you didn't think me neglectful?"
+
+"Oh, no."
+
+"I was thinking of you all the time,"
+
+"And I was thinking of you, dear."
+
+"Are you very happy?"
+
+"Yes, John; aren't you?"
+
+"Of course I am. Happy! I should think so," and he kissed her with
+unimpeachable fervor.
+
+When a conscientious person makes up his mind that he ought, for good
+reasons, to deceive somebody, there is no one like him for
+thorough-paced hypocrisy. When two conscientious people resolve; to
+deceive one another, on grounds of duty, the acme of duplicity is in a
+fair way to be reached. John Ashforth and Mary Travers illustrated this
+proposition. The former had been all his life a good son, and was now a
+trustworthy partner, to his father, who justly relied no less on his
+character than on his brains. The latter, since her parents' early
+death had left her to her aunt's care, had been the comfort and prop of
+Miss Bussey's life. It is difficult to describe good people without
+making them seem dull; but luckily nature is defter than novelists, and
+it is quite possible to be good without being dull. Neither Mary nor
+John was dull; a trifle limited, perhaps, they were, a thought severe
+in their judgments of others as well as of themselves; a little
+exacting with their friends and more than a little with themselves.
+One description paints them both; doubtless their harmony of mind had
+contributed more than Mary's sweet expression and finely cut features,
+or John's upstanding six feet, and honest capable face, to produce that
+attachment between them which had, six months before this story begins,
+culminated in their engagement. Once arrived at, this ending seemed to
+have been inevitable. Everybody discovered that they had foretold it
+from the first, and modestly disclaimed any credit for anticipating a
+union between a couple so obviously made for one another.
+
+The distress into which lovers such as these fell when they discovered
+by personal experience that sincerely to vow eternal love is one thing,
+and sincerely to give it quite another, may be well imagined, and may
+well be left to be imagined. They both went through a terrible period
+of temptation, wherein they listened longingly to the seductive
+pleading of their hearts; but both emerged triumphant, resolved to
+stifle their mad fancy, to prefer good faith to mere inclination, and
+to avoid, at all costs, wounding one to whom they had sworn to be true.
+Thus far their steadfastness carried them, but not beyond. They could
+part from their loved ones, and they did; but they could not leave them
+without a word. Each wrote, after leaving Scotland and Switzerland
+respectively, a few lines of adieu, confessing the love they felt, but
+with resolute sadness saying farewell forever. They belonged to another.
+
+It was the answers that Mary and John were reading when Miss Bussey
+discovered them.
+
+Mary's ran:
+
+
+"MY DEAR MISS TRAVERS: I have received your letter. I can't tell you
+what it means to me. You say all must be over between us. Don't be
+offended--but I won't say that yet. It can't be your duty to marry a
+man you don't love. You forbid me to write or come to you; and you ask
+only for a word of good-by. I won't say good-by.  I'll say _Au
+revoir--au revoir_, my darling."
+
+"Charlie."
+
+"Burn this."
+
+
+This was John's:
+
+"MY DEAR MR. ASHFORTH: What am I to say to you? Oh, why, why didn't you
+tell me before? I oughtn't to say that, but it is too late to conceal
+anything from you. Yes, you are right. It must be good-by.  Yes, I will
+try to forget you. But oh, John, it's very, very, very difficult. I
+don't know how to sign this--so I won't. You'll know who it comes from,
+won't you?  Good-by.  Burn this."
+
+
+These letters, no doubt, make it plain that there had been at least a
+momentary weakness both in Mary and in John; but in a true and
+charitable view their conduct in rising superior to temptation finally
+was all the more remarkable and praiseworthy. They had indeed, for the
+time, been carried away. Even now Mary found it hard not to make
+allowances for herself, little as she was prone to weakness when she
+thought of the impetuous _abandon_ and conquering whirl with which
+Charlie Ellerton had wooed her; and John confessed that flight alone, a
+hasty flight from Interlaken after a certain evening spent in gazing at
+the Jungfrau, had saved him from casting everything to the winds and
+yielding to the slavery of Dora Bellairs's sunny smiles and charming
+coquetries. He had always thought that that sort of girl had no
+attractions for him, just as Mary had despised 'butterfly-men' like
+Charlie Ellerton. Well, they were wrong. The only comfort was that
+shallow natures felt these sorrows less; it would have broken Mary's
+heart (thought John), or John's (thought Mary), but Dora and Charlie
+would soon find consolation in another. But here, oddly enough, John
+generally swore heartily and Mary always began to search for her
+handkerchief. "They're as affectionate as one could wish when they're
+together," mused Miss Bussey, as she stroked the cat, "but at other
+times they're gloomy company. I suppose they can't be happy apart.
+Dear! dear!" and the good old lady fell to wondering whether she had
+ever been so foolish herself.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+SYMPATHY IN SORROW
+
+
+"Give me," observed Sir Roger Deane, "Cannes, a fine day, a good set to
+look at, a beehive chair, a good cigar, a cocktail on one side and a
+nice girl on the other, and there I am!  I don't want anything else."
+
+General Bellairs pulled his white mustache and examined Sir Roger's
+figure and surroundings with a smile.
+
+"Then only Lady Deane is wanting to your complete happiness," said he.
+
+"Maud is certainly a nice girl, but when she deserts me----"
+
+"Where is she?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"I do," interposed a young man, who wore an eye--glass and was in
+charge of a large jug. "She's gone to Monte."
+
+"I might have known," said Sir Roger. "Being missed here always means
+you've gone to Monte--like not being at church means you've gone to
+Brighton."
+
+"Surely she doesn't play?" asked the General.
+
+"Not she! She's going to put it in a book. She writes books you know.
+She put me in the last--made me a dashed fool, too, by Jove!"
+
+"That was unkind," said the General, "from your wife."
+
+"Oh, Lord love you, she didn't mean it. I was the hero. That's how I
+came to be such an ass. The dear girl meant everything that was kind.
+Who's taken her to Monte?"
+
+"Charlie Ellerton," said the young man with the eye-glass.
+
+"There! I told you she was a kind girl. She's trying to pull old
+Charlie up a peg or two. He's had the deuce of a facer, you know."
+
+"I thought he seemed less cheerful than usual."
+
+"Oh, rather. He met a girl somewhere or other--I always forget
+places--Miss--Miss--hang it, I can't remember names--and got awfully
+smitten, and everything went pleasantly and she took to him like
+anything--, and at last old Charlie spoke up like a man, and----" Sir
+Roger paused dramatically.
+
+"Well?" asked the General.
+
+"She was engaged to another fellow. Rough, wasn't it? She told old
+Charlie she liked him infernally, but promises were promises, don't you
+know, and she'd thank him to take his hook. And he had to take it, by
+Gad! Rough, don't you know? So Maud's been cheering him up. The devil!"
+
+"What's the matter now?" inquired the General.
+
+"Why, I've just remembered that I promised to say nothing about it. I
+say, don't you repeat it, General, nor you either, Laing."
+
+The General laughed.
+
+"Well," said Sir Roger, "he oughtn't to have been such a fool as to
+tell me. He knows I never remember to keep things dark. It's not my
+fault."
+
+A girl came out of the hotel and strolled up to where the group was.
+She was dark, slight, and rather below middle height; her complexion at
+this moment was a trifle sallow and her eyes listless, but it seemed
+rather as though she had dressed her face into a tragic cast, the set
+of the features being naturally mirthful. She acknowledged the men's
+salutations and sat down with a sigh.
+
+"Not on to-day?" asked Sir Roger, waving his cigar toward the
+lawn-tennis courts.
+
+"No," said Miss Bellairs.
+
+"Are you seedy, Dolly?" inquired the General.
+
+"No," said Miss Bellairs.
+
+Mr. Laing fixed his eye-glass and surveyed the young lady.
+
+"Are you taking any?" said he, indicating the jug.
+
+"I don't see any fun in vulgarity," observed Miss Bellairs.
+
+The General smiled. Sir Roger's lips assumed the shape for a whistle.
+
+"That's a nasty one for me," said Laing.
+
+"Ah, here you are, Roger," exclaimed a fresh clear voice from behind
+the chairs. "I've been looking for you everywhere. We've seen
+everything--Mr. Ellerton was most kind--and I do so want to tell you my
+impressions."
+
+The new-comer was Lady Deane, a tall young woman, plainly dressed in a
+serviceable cloth walking-gown. By her side stood Charlie Ellerton in a
+flannel suit of pronounced striping; he wore a little yellow mustache,
+had blue eyes and curly hair, and his face was tanned a wholesome
+ruddy-brown. He looked very melancholy.
+
+"Letters from Hell," murmured Sir Roger.
+
+"But I was so distressed," continued his wife. "Mr. Ellerton would
+gamble, and he lost ever so much money."
+
+"A fellow must amuse himself," remarked Charlie gloomily, and with
+apparent unconsciousness he took a glass from Laing and drained it.
+
+"Gambling and drink--what does that mean?" asked Sir Roger.
+
+"Shut up, Deane," said Charlie.
+
+Miss Bellairs rose suddenly and walked away. Her movement expressed
+impatience with her surroundings. After a moment Charlie Ellerton
+slowly sauntered after her. She sat down on a garden-seat some way off.
+Charlie placed himself at the opposite end. A long pause ensued.
+
+"I'm afraid I'm precious poor company," said Charlie.
+
+"I didn't want you to be company at all," answered Miss Bellairs, and
+she sloped her parasol until it obstructed his view of her face.
+
+"I'm awfully sorry, but I can't stand the sort of rot Deane and Laing
+are talking."
+
+"Can't you?   Neither can I."
+
+"They never seem to be serious about anything, you know," and Charlie
+sighed deeply, and for three minutes there was silence.
+
+"Do you know Scotland at all?" asked Charlie at last.
+
+"Only a little."
+
+"There last year?"
+
+"No, I was in Switzerland."
+
+"Oh."
+
+"Do you know Interlaken?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Oh."
+
+"May I have a cigarette?"
+
+"Of course, if you like."
+
+Charlie lit his cigarette and smoked silently for a minute or two.
+
+"I call this a beastly place," said he.
+
+"Yes, horrid," she answered, and the force of sympathy made her move
+the parasol and turn her face towards her companion. "But I thought,"
+she continued, "you came here every spring?"
+
+"Oh, I don't mind the place so much. It's the people."
+
+"Yes, isn't it? I know what you mean."
+
+"You can't make a joke of everything, can you?"
+
+"Indeed no," sighed Dora.
+
+Charlie looked at his cigarette, and, his eyes carefully fixed on it,
+said in a timid tone:
+
+"What's the point, for instance, of talking as if love was all bosh?"
+
+Dora's parasol swept down again swiftly, but Charlie was still looking
+at the cigarette and he did not notice its descent, nor could he see
+that Miss Bellairs's cheek was no longer sallow.
+
+"It's such cheap rot," he continued, "and when a fellow's--I say, Miss
+Bellairs, I'm not boring you?"
+
+The parasol wavered and finally moved.
+
+"No," said Miss Bellairs.
+
+"I don't know whether you--no, I mustn't say that; but I know what it
+is to be in love, Miss Bellairs; but what's the good of talking about
+it? Everybody laughs."
+
+Miss Bellairs put down her parasol.
+
+"I shouldn't laugh," she said softly. "It's horrid to laugh at people
+when they're in trouble," and her eyes were very sympathetic.
+
+"You are kind. I don't mind talking about it to you. You know I'm not
+the sort of fellow who falls in love with every girl he meets; so of
+course it's worse when I do."
+
+"Was it just lately?" murmured Dora.
+
+"Last summer."
+
+"Ah! And--and didn't she----?"
+
+"Oh, I don't know. Yes, hang it, I believe she did. She was perfectly
+straight, Miss Bellairs. I don't say a word against her. She-I think
+she didn't know her own feelings until--until I spoke, you know--and
+then----"
+
+"Do go on, if--if it doesn't----"
+
+"Why, then, the poor girl cried and said it couldn't be because
+she--she was engaged to another fellow; and she sent me away."
+
+Miss Bellairs was listening attentively.
+
+"And," continued Charlie, "she wrote and said it must be good-by
+and--and----"
+
+"And you think she----?"
+
+"She told me so," whispered Charlie. "She said she couldn't part
+without telling me. Oh, I say, Miss Bellairs, isn't it all damnable?  I
+beg your pardon."
+
+Dora was tracing little figures on the gravel with her parasol.
+
+"Now what would you do?" cried Charlie. "She loves me, I know she does,
+and she's going to marry this other fellow because she promised him
+first. I don't suppose she knew what love was then."
+
+"Oh, I'm sure she didn't," exclaimed Dora earnestly.
+
+"You can't blame her, you know. And it's absurd to--to--to--not
+to--well, to marry a fellow you don't care for when you care for
+another fellow, you know!"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Of course you can hardly imagine yourself in that position, but
+suppose a man liked you and-and was placed like that, you know, what
+should you feel you ought to do?"
+
+"Oh, I don't know," exclaimed Dora, clasping her hands. "Oh, do tell me
+what you think!  I'd give the world to know!"
+
+Charlie's surprised glance warned her of her betrayal. "You mustn't ask
+me." she exclaimed hastily.
+
+"I won't ask a word. I--I'm awfully sorry, Miss Bellairs."
+
+"Nobody knows," she murmured.
+
+"Nobody shall through me."
+
+"You're not very--? I'm very ashamed."
+
+"Why? And because of me! After what I've told you!"
+
+Charlie rose suddenly.
+
+"I'm not going to stand it," he announced.
+
+Dora looked up eagerly.
+
+"What? You're going to----?"
+
+"I'm going to have a shot at it. Am I to stand by and see her----?  I'm
+hanged if I do. Could that be right?"
+
+"I should like to know what one's _duty_ is?"
+
+"This talk with you has made me quite clear. We've reasoned it out, you
+see. They're not to be married for two or three months. A lot can be
+done in that time."
+
+"Ah, you're a man!"
+
+"I shall write first. If that doesn't do, I shall go to her."
+
+Dora shook her head mournfully.
+
+"Now, look here, Miss Bellairs you don't mind me advising you?"
+
+"I ought not to have let you see, but as it is--"
+
+"You do as I do, you stick to it. Confound it, you know, when one's
+life's happiness is at stake--"
+
+"Oh, yes, yes!"
+
+"One mustn't be squeamish, must one?"
+
+And Dora Bellairs, in a very low whisper, answered, "No."
+
+"I shall write to-night."
+
+"Oh!  To-night?"
+
+"Yes. Now promise me you will too."
+
+"It's harder for me than you."
+
+"Not if he really----."
+
+"Oh, indeed, he really does, Mr. Ellerton."
+
+"Then you'll write?"
+
+"Perhaps."
+
+"No. Promise!"
+
+"Well--it must be right. Yes, I will."
+
+"I feel the better for our talk, Miss Bellairs, don't you?"
+
+"I do a little."
+
+"We shall be friends now, you know; even if I bring it off I shan't be
+content unless you do too. Won't you give me your good wishes?"
+
+"Indeed I will."
+
+"Shake hands on it."
+
+They shook hands and began to stroll back to the tennis-courts.
+
+"They look a little better," observed Sir Roger Deane, who had been
+listening to an eloquent description of the gaming-tables.
+
+Dora and Charlie walked on towards the hotel.
+
+"Hi!" shouted Sir Roger. "Tea's coming out here."
+
+"I've got a letter to write," said Charlie.
+
+"Well, Miss Bellairs, you must come. Who's to pour it out?"
+
+"I must catch the post, Sir Roger," answered Dora.
+
+They went into the house together. In the hall they parted.
+
+"You'll let me know what happens, Mr. Ellerton, won't you? I'm so
+interested."
+
+"And you?"
+
+"Oh--well, perhaps," and the sallow of her cheeks had turned to a fine
+dusky red as she ran upstairs.
+
+Thus it happened that a second letter for John Ashforth and a second
+letter for Mary Travers left Cannes that night.
+
+And if it seems a curious coincidence that Dora and Charlie should meet
+at Cannes, it can only be answered that they were each of them just as
+likely to be at Cannes as anywhere else. Besides, who knows that these
+things are all coincidence?
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+A PROVIDENTIAL DISCLOSURE
+
+
+On Wednesday the eleventh of April, John Ashforth rose from his bed
+full of a great and momentous resolution. There is nothing very strange
+in that, perhaps it is just the time of day when such things come to a
+man, and, in ordinary cases, they are very prone to disappear with the
+relics of breakfast. But John was of sterner stuff.  He had passed a
+restless night, tossed to and fro by very disturbing gusts of emotion,
+and he arose with the firm conviction that if he would escape shipwreck
+he must secure his bark by immovable anchors while he was, though not
+in honor, yet in law and fact, free; he could not trust himself.
+Sorrowfully admitting his weakness, he turned to the true, the right,
+the heroic remedy.
+
+"I'll marry Mary to--day fortnight," said he. "When we are man and wife
+I shall forget this madness and love her as I used to."
+
+He went down to breakfast, ate a bit of toast and drank a cup of very
+strong tea. Presently Mary appeared and greeted him with remarkable
+tenderness. His heart smote him, and his remorse strengthened his
+determination.
+
+"I want to speak to you after breakfast," he told her.
+
+His manner was so significant that a sudden gleam of hope flashed into
+her mind. Could it be that he had seen, that he would be generous? She
+banished the shameful hope. She would not accept generosity at the
+expense of pain to him.
+
+Miss Bussey, professing to find bed the best place in the world, was in
+the habit of taking her breakfast there. The lovers were alone, and,
+the meal ended, they passed together into the conservatory. Mary sat
+down and John leant against the glass door opposite her.
+
+"Well?" said she, smiling at him.
+
+It suddenly struck John that, in a scene of this nature, it
+ill-befitted him to stand three yards from the lady. He took a chair
+and drew it close beside her. The thing had to be done and it should be
+done properly.
+
+"We've made a mistake, Mary," he announced, taking her hand and
+speaking in a rallying tone.
+
+"A mistake!" she cried; "oh, how?"
+
+"In fixing our marriage----."
+
+"So soon?"
+
+"My darling!" said John (and it was impossible to deny admiration to
+the tone he said it in), "no. So late! What are we waiting for? Why are
+we wasting all this precious time?"
+
+Mary could not speak, but consternation passed for an appropriate
+confusion, and John pursued his passionate pleadings. As Mary felt his
+grasp and looked into his honest eyes, her duty lay plain before her.
+She would not stoop to paltry excuses on the score of clothes,
+invitations, or such trifles. She had made up her mind to the thing;
+surely she ought to do it in the way most gracious and most pleasing to
+her lover.
+
+"If Aunt consents," she murmured at last, "do as you like, John dear,"
+and the embrace which each felt to be inevitable at such a crisis
+passed between them.
+
+A discreet cough separated them. The butler stood in the doorway, with
+two letters on a salver. One he handed to Mary, the other to John, and
+walked away with a twinkle in his eye. However even our butlers do not
+know everything that happens in our houses (to say nothing of our
+hearts), although much they may think they do.
+
+John looked at his letter, started violently and crushed it into his
+pocket. He glanced at Mary; her letter lay neglected on her lap. She
+was looking steadily out of the window.
+
+"Well, that's settled," said John. "I--I think I'll have a cigar, dear."
+
+"Yes, do, darling," said Mary, and John went out.
+
+These second letters were unfortunately so long as to make it
+impossible to reproduce them. They were also very affecting, Dora's
+from its pathos, Charlie's from its passion. But the waves of emotion
+beat fruitlessly on the rock-built walls of conscience. At almost the
+same moment, Mary, brushing away a tear, and John, blowing his nose,
+sat down to write a brief, a final answer. "We are to be married
+today fortnight," they said. They closed the envelopes without a
+moment's delay and went to drop their letters in the box. The servant
+was already waiting to go to the post with them and a second later the
+fateful documents were on their way to Cannes.
+
+"Now," said John, with a ghastly smile, "we can have a glorious long
+day together!"
+
+Mary was determined to leave herself no loophole.
+
+"We must tell Aunt what--what we have decided upon this morning," she
+reminded him. "It means that the wedding must be very quiet."
+
+"I shan't mind that. Shall you?"
+
+"I shall like it of all things." she answered. "Come and find Aunt
+Sarah."
+
+Miss Bussey had always--or at least for a great many years
+back--maintained the general proposition that young people do not know
+their own minds. This morning's news confirmed her opinion.
+
+"Why the other day you both agreed that the middle of June would do
+perfectly. Now you want it all done in a scramble."
+
+The pair stood before her, looking very guilty.
+
+"What is the meaning of this--this (she very nearly said 'indecent')
+extraordinary haste?"
+
+Miss Bussey asked only one indulgence from her friends. Before she did
+a kind thing she liked to be allowed to say one or two sharp ones. Her
+niece was aware of this fancy of hers and took refuge in silence.
+John, less experienced in his hostess's ways, launched into the
+protests appropriate to an impatient lover.
+
+"Well," said Miss Bussey, "I must say you look properly ashamed of
+yourself [John certainly did], so I'll see what can be done. What a
+fluster we shall live in! Upon my word you might as well have made it
+tomorrow. The fuss would have been no worse and a good deal shorter."
+
+The next few days passed, as Miss Bussey had predicted, in a fluster.
+Mary was running after dress makers, John after licenses, Cook's
+tickets, a best man, and all the impedimenta of a marriage. The
+intercourse of the lovers was much interrupted, and to this Miss Bussey
+attributed the low spirits that Mary sometimes displayed.
+
+"There, there, my dear," she would say impatiently--for the cheerful
+old lady hated long faces--"you'll have enough of him and to spare by
+and by."
+
+Curiously this point of view did not comfort Mary. She liked John very
+much, she esteemed him even more than she liked him, he would, she
+thought, have made an ideal brother. Ah, why had she not made a brother
+of him while there was time? Then she would have enjoyed his constant
+friendship all her life; for it was not with him as with that foolish
+boy Charlie, all or nothing. John was reasonable; he would not have
+threatened--well, reading--his letter one way, Charlie almost seemed to
+be tampering with propriety. John would never have done that. And these
+reflections, all of which should have pleaded for John, ended in
+weeping over the lost charms of Charlie.
+
+One evening, just a week before the wedding, she roused herself from
+some such sad meditations, and, duty-driven, sought John in the
+smoking-room. The door was half open and she entered noiselessly. John
+was sitting at the table; his arms were outspread on it, and his face
+buried in his hands. Thinking he was asleep she approached on tiptoe
+and leant over his shoulder. As she did so her eyes fell on a sheet of
+note-paper; it was clutched in John's right hand, and the encircling
+grasp covered it, save at the top. The top was visible, and Mary,
+before she knew what she was doing, had read the embossed
+heading--nothing else, just the embossed heading--Hotel de Luxe,
+Cannes, Alpes Maritimes.
+
+The drama teaches us how often a guilty mind rushes, on some trifling
+cause, to self-revelation. Like a flash came the conviction that
+Charlie had written to John, that her secret was known, and John's
+heartbroken. In a moment she fell on her knees crying, "Oh, how wicked
+I've been! Forgive me, do forgive me! Oh, John, can you forgive me?"
+
+John was not asleep, he also was merely meditating; but if he had been
+a very Rip Van Winkle this cry of agony would have roused him.  He
+started violently--as well he might--from his seat, looked at Mary, and
+crumpled the letter into a shapeless ball.
+
+"You didn't see?" he asked hoarsely.
+
+"No, but I know. I mean I saw the heading, and knew it must be from
+him. Oh, John!"
+
+"From him!"
+
+"Yes. He's--he's staying there. Oh, John! Really I'll never see or
+speak to him again. Really I won't. Oh, you can trust me, John. See!
+I'll hide nothing. Here's his letter! You see I've sent him away?"
+
+And she took from her pocket Charlie's letter, and in her noble
+fidelity (to John--the less we say about poor Charlie the better)
+handed it to him.
+
+"What's this?" asked John, in bewilderment. "Who's it from?"
+
+"Charlie Ellerton," she stammered.
+
+"Who's Charlie Ellerton? I never heard--but am I to read it?"
+
+"Yes, please, I--I think you'd better."
+
+John read it; Mary followed his eyes, and the moment they reached the
+end, without giving him time to speak, she exclaimed, "There, you see I
+spoke the truth.  I had sent him away. What does he say to you, John?"
+
+"I never heard of him in my life before."
+
+"John! Then who is your letter from?"
+
+He hesitated. He felt an impulse to imitate her candor, but prudence
+suggested that he should be sure of his ground first.
+
+"Tell me all," he said, sitting down. "Who is this man, and what has he
+to do with you?"
+
+"Why don't you show me his letter? I don't know what he's said about
+me."
+
+"What could he say about you?"
+
+"Well he--he might say that--that I cared for him, John."
+
+"And do you?" demanded John, and his voice was anxious.
+
+Duty demanded a falsehood; Mary did her very best to satisfy its
+imperious commands. It was no use.
+
+"Oh, John," she murmured, and then began to cry.
+
+For a moment wounded pride struggled with John's relief; but then a
+glorious vision of what this admission of Mary's might mean to him
+swept away his pique.
+
+"Read this," he said, giving her Dora Bellairs's letter, "and then
+we'll have an explanation."
+
+Half an hour later Miss Bussey was roused from a pleasant snooze. John
+and Mary stood beside her, hand in hand. They wore brother and sister
+now--that was an integral part of the arrangement--and so they stood
+hand in hand. Their faces were radiant.
+
+"We came to tell you, Auntie dear, that we have decided that we're not
+suited to one another," began Mary.
+
+"Not at all," said John decisively.
+
+Miss Bussey stared helplessly from one to the other.
+
+"It's all right, Miss Bussey," remarked John cheerfully. "We've had an
+explanation; we part by mutual consent."
+
+"John," said Mary, "is to be just my brother and I his sister. Oh, and
+Auntie, I want to go with him to Cannes."
+
+This last suggestion, which naturally did not appear to any
+well-regulated mind to harmonize with what had gone before, restored
+voice to Miss Bussey.
+
+"What's the matter with you? Are you mad?" she demanded.
+
+John sat down beside her. His friends anticipated a distinguished
+Parliamentary career for John; he could make anything sound reasonable.
+Miss Bussey was fascinated by his suave and fluent narrative of what
+had befallen Mary and himself; she could not but admire his just
+remarks on the providential disclosure of the true state of the case
+before it was too late, and sympathized with the picture of suffering
+nobly suppressed which grew under his skilful hand; she was inflamed
+when he ardently declared his purpose of seeking out Dora; she was
+touched when he kissed Mary's hand and declared that the world held no
+nobler woman. Before John's eloquence even the stern facts of a public
+engagement, of invited guests, of dresses ordered and presents
+received, lost their force, and the romantic spirit, rekindled, held
+undivided sway in Miss Bussey's heart.
+
+"But," she said, "why does Mary talk of going to Cannes with you?"
+
+"Mr. Ellerton is at Cannes, Aunt," murmured Mary, shyly.
+
+"But you can't travel with John."
+
+"Oh, but you must come too."
+
+"It looks as if you were running after him."
+
+"I'll chance Charlie thinking that," cried Mary, clasping her hands in
+glee.
+
+Miss Bussey pretended to be reluctant to undertake the journey, but she
+was really quite ready to yield, and soon everything was settled on the
+new basis.
+
+"And now to write and tell people," said Miss Bussey. "That's the worst
+part of it."
+
+"Poor dear! We'll help," cried Mary. "But I must write to Cannes."
+
+"Wire!" cried John.
+
+"Of course, wire!" echoed Mary.
+
+"The first thing tomorrow."
+
+"Before breakfast."
+
+"Mary, I shall never forget----."
+
+"No, John, it's you who----." and they went off in a torrent of mutual
+laudation.
+
+Miss Bussey shook her head.
+
+"If they think all that of one another why don't they marry?" she said.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+THE TALE OF A POSTMARK
+
+
+"Yes," said Lady Deane, "we leave today week: Roger has to be back the
+first week in May, and I want to stop at one or two places en route."
+
+"Let's see. To-day's the 19th, no, the 20th; there's nothing to remind
+one of time here. That'll be the 27th. That's about my date; we might
+go together if you and Deane have no objection."
+
+"Oh, I should be delighted, General; and shall you stay at all in
+Paris?"
+
+"A few days--just to show Dolly the sights."
+
+"How charming! And you and I must have some expeditions together.
+Roger is so odd about not liking to take me."
+
+"We'll do the whole thing, Lady Deane," answered General Bellairs,
+heartily. "Notre Dame, the Versailles, the Invalides, Eiffel Tower."
+
+Lady Deane's broad white brow showed a little pucker.
+
+"That wasn't quite what I meant," said she. "Oh, but Roger could take
+Dora to those, couldn't he, while you and I made a point of seeing some
+of the real life of the people? Of studying them in their ordinary
+resorts, their places of recreation and amusement."
+
+"Oh, the Francais, and the opera, and so on, of course."
+
+"No, no, no," exclaimed Lady Deane, tapping her foot impatiently and
+fixing her gray eyes on the General's now puzzled face. "Not the same
+old treadmill in Paris as in London! Not that, General!"
+
+"What then, my dear lady?" asked he. "Your wish is law to me," and it
+was true that he had become very fond of his earnest young friend.
+"What do you want to see? The Chamber of Deputies?"
+
+Sir Roger's voice struck in.
+
+"I'm not a puritanical husband, Bellairs, but I must make a stand
+somewhere. Not the Chamber of Deputies."
+
+"Don't be silly, Roger dear," said Lady Deane, in her usual tone of
+dispassionate reproof.
+
+"I can't find out where she does want to go to," remarked the General.
+
+"I can tell you," said Sir Roger, and he leant down and whispered a
+name; in the General's ear.  The General jumped.
+
+"Good heavens!" he exclaimed. "I haven't been there since the fifties.
+Is it still like what it used to be?"
+
+"How should I know?" inquired Sir Roger. "I'm not a student of social
+phenomena. Maud is, so she wants to go."
+
+Lady Deane was looking on with a quiet smile.
+
+"She never mentioned it," protested the General.
+
+"Oh, of course if there's a worse place now!" conceded Sir Roger.
+
+"I'll make up my mind when we arrive," observed Lady Deane. "Anyhow I
+shall rely on you, General."
+
+The General looked a little uncomfortable.
+
+"If Deane doesn't object----."
+
+"I shouldn't think of taking my wife to such places."
+
+Suddenly Dora Bellairs rushed up to them.
+
+"Have you seen Mr. Ellerton?" she cried. "Where is he?"
+
+"In the smoking-room," answered Sir Roger. "Do you want him?"
+
+"Would you mind? I can't go in there: it's full of men."
+
+"After all we must be somewhere," pleaded Sir Roger as he went on his
+errand.
+
+"Dolly," said the General, "I've just made a charming arrangement.
+Lady Deane and Sir Roger start for Paris to-day week, and we're going
+with them. You said you'd like another week here."
+
+"It's charming our being able to go together, isn't it?" said Lady
+Deane. Dora's face did not express rapture, yet she liked the Deanes
+very much.
+
+"Oh, but----" she began.
+
+"Well?" asked her father.
+
+"I rather want to go a little sooner."
+
+"I'm afraid," said Lady Deane, "we shan't get Roger to move before
+then. He's bent on seeing the tennis tournament through.  When did you
+want to go, Dora?"
+
+"Well, in fact--to--night."
+
+"My dear Dolly, what a weathercock you are!  It's impossible.  I'm
+dining with the Grand Duke on Monday. You must make up your mind to
+stay, young woman."
+
+"Oh, please, papa----."
+
+"But why do you want to go?" asked the General, rather impatiently.
+
+Dora had absolutely no producible reason for her eagerness to go. And
+yet--Oh, if they only knew what was at stake! "We're to be married in a
+fortnight!" She could see the words dancing before her eyes. And she
+must waste a precious week here!
+
+"Do you want me, Miss Bellairs?" asked Charlie Ellerton, coming up to
+them.
+
+"Yes. I want--oh, I want to go to Rumpelmayer's."
+
+"All right. Come along. I'm delighted to go with you."
+
+They walked off in silence. Dora was in distress. She saw that the
+General was immovable.
+
+Suddenly Charlie turned to her and remarked,
+
+"Well, it's all over with me, Miss Bellairs."
+
+"What?  How do you mean?"
+
+"My chance is gone. They're to be married in a fortnight. I had a
+letter to say so this morning."
+
+Dora turned suddenly to him.
+
+"Oh, but it's too extraordinary," she cried. "So had I!"
+
+"What?"
+
+"Why, a letter to say they were to be married in a fortnight."
+
+"Nonsense!"
+
+"Yes. Mr. Ellerton--who--who is your friend?"
+
+"Her name's Mary Travers."
+
+"And who is she going--to marry?"
+
+"Ah! She hasn't told me that."
+
+A suspicion of the truth struck them both. Charlie produced his letter.
+
+"She writes," he said, showing the postmark, "from Dittington."
+
+"It is! It is!" she cried. "It must be Mary Travers that Mr. Ashforth
+is going to marry!"
+
+"Is that your friend?"
+
+"Yes. Is she pretty, Mr. Ellerton?"
+
+"Oh, awfully. What sort of a fellow is he?"
+
+"Splendid!"
+
+"Isn't it a deuced queer thing?"
+
+"Most extraordinary. And when we told one another we never thought----."
+
+"How could we?"
+
+"Well, no, we couldn't, of course."
+
+A pause followed. Then Charlie observed: "I suppose there's nothing to
+be done."
+
+"Nothing to be done, Mr. Ellerton! Why if I were a man I'd leave for
+England tonight."
+
+"And why can't you?"
+
+"Papa won't. But you might."
+
+"Ye--es, I suppose I might. It would look rather odd, wouldn't it?"
+
+"Why, you yourself suggested it!"
+
+"Yes, but the marriage was a long way off then."
+
+"There's the more reason now for haste."
+
+"Of course, that's true, but----."
+
+"Oh, if papa would only take me!" A sudden idea seemed to strike
+Charlie; he assumed an air of chivalrous sympathy. "When shall you go?"
+he asked. "Not till to-day week," she said.  "We shan't get to England
+till three or four days before it."  Dora knew nothing of the proposed
+stay in Paris.
+
+"Look here, Miss Bellairs," said Charlie, "we agreed to stand by one
+another. I shall wait and go when you do."
+
+"But think----."
+
+"I've thought."
+
+"You're risking everything."
+
+"If she'll break it off ten days before, she'll do the same four days
+before."
+
+"If she really loves you she will."
+
+"Anyhow we'll stand or fall together."
+
+"Oh, I oughtn't to let you, but I can't refuse.  How kind you are!"
+
+"Then that's settled," said Charlie, "And we must try to console one
+another till then."
+
+"The suspense is awful, isn't it?"
+
+"Of course. But we must appear cheerful.  We mustn't betray ourselves."
+
+"Not for the world! I can never thank you enough. You'll come with us
+all the way?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Thank you again."
+
+She gave him her hand, which he pressed gently.
+
+"Hullo!" said he. "We seem to have got up by the church somewhere.
+Where were we going to?"
+
+"Why, to Rumpelmayer's."
+
+"Oh, ah! Well, let's go back to the hotel."
+
+Wonderings on the extraordinary coincidence, with an occasional
+reference to the tender tie of a common sorrow which bound them
+together, beguiled the journey back, and when they reached the hotel
+Dora was quite calm. Charlie seemed distinctly cheerful, and when his
+companion left him he sat down by Deane and remarked in a careless way,
+just as if he neither knew nor cared what the rest of them were going
+to do, "Well, I shall light out of here in a few days.  I suppose
+you're staying some time longer?"
+
+"Off in a week," said Sir Roger.
+
+"Oh, by Jove, that's about my mark. Going back to England?"
+
+"Yes, I suppose--so--ultimately. We shall stay a few days in Paris en
+route. The Bellairs' go with us."
+
+"Oh, do they?"
+
+Sir Roger smiled gently.
+
+"Surprised?" he asked.
+
+Charlie ignored the question.
+
+"And you aren't going to hurry?" he inquired.
+
+"Why should we?"
+
+Charlie sat silent.  It was tolerably plain that, unless the few days
+en route were very few indeed, John Ashforth and Mary Travers were in a
+fair way to be prosperously and peacefully married before Dora Bellairs
+set foot in England. And if he stayed with the Bellairs', before he
+did, either! Charlie lit a cigarette and sat puffing and thinking.
+
+"Dashed nice girl, Dora Bellairs," observed Sir Roger.
+
+"Think so?"
+
+"I do. She's the only girl I ever saw that Laing was smitten with."
+
+"Laing!" said Charlie.
+
+"Well, what's the matter? He's an uncommon good chap, Laing--one of the
+best chaps I know--and he's got lots of coin. I don't expect she'd
+sneeze at Laing."
+
+It is, no doubt, taking a very serious responsibility to upset an
+arrangement arrived at deliberately and carried almost to a conclusion.
+A man should be very sure that he can make a woman happy--happier than
+any other man could-before he asks her to face the turmoil and the
+scandal of breaking off her marriage only a week before its
+celebration. Sure as he may be of his own affection, he must be equally
+sure of hers, equally sure that their mutual love is deep and
+permanent. He must consider his claims to demand such a sacrifice. What
+remorse will be his if, afterwards, he discovers that what he did was
+not, in truth, for her real happiness! He must be on his guard against
+mere selfishness or mere vanity masquerading in the garb of a genuine
+passion.
+
+As these thoughts occurred to Charlie Ellerton he felt that he was at a
+crisis of his life. He also felt glad that he had still a quiet week at
+Cannes in which to revolve these considerations in his mind. Above all,
+he must do nothing hastily.
+
+Dora came out, a book in her hand. Her soft white frock fluttered in
+the breeze, and she pushed back a loose lock of dark hair that caressed
+her check.
+
+"A dashed nice girl, upon my honor," said Sir Roger Deane.
+
+"Oh, very."
+
+"I say, old chap, I suppose you're in no hurry. You'll put in a few
+days in Paris? We might have a day out, mightn't we?"
+
+"I don't know yet," said Charlie, and, when Deane left him, he sat on
+in solitude.
+
+Was it possible that in the space of a week--? No, it was impossible.
+And yet, with a girl like that----.
+
+"I did the right thing in waiting to go with her, anyhow," said
+Charlie, comforting himself.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+A SECOND EDITION
+
+
+"Don't you think it's an interesting sort of title?" inquired Lady
+Deane of Mr. Laing.
+
+Laing was always a little uneasy in her presence. He felt not only that
+she was analyzing him, but that the results of the analysis seemed to
+her to be a very small residuum, of solid matter. Besides, he had been
+told that she had described him as a "commonplace young man," a thing
+nobody could be expected to like.
+
+"Capital!" he answered, nervously fingering his eye glass. "The
+Transformation of Giles Brockleton! Capital!"
+
+"I think it will do," said Lady Deane complacently.
+
+"Er--what was he transformed into, Lady Deane?"
+
+"A man," replied the lady emphatically.
+
+"Of course. I see," murmured Laing apologetically, stifling a desire to
+ask what Giles had been before.
+
+A moment later the author enlightened him.
+
+"Yes," said she, "into a man, from a useless, mischievous, contemptible
+idler, a parasite, Mr. Laing, a creature to whom----"
+
+"What did it, Lady Deane?" interrupted Laing hastily. He felt somehow
+as if he were being catalogued.
+
+"Just a woman's influence."
+
+Laing's face displayed relief; he felt that he was in his depth again.
+
+"Oh, got married, you mean? Well, of course, he'd have to pull up a
+bit, wouldn't he? Hang it, I think it's a fellow's duty.
+
+"You don't quite understand me," observed Lady Deane coldly. "He did
+not marry the woman."
+
+"What, did she give him the--I mean, wouldn't she have him, Lady Deane?"
+
+"She would have married him; but beside her he saw himself in his true
+colors. Knowing what he was, how could he dare? That was his
+punishment, and punishment brought transformation."
+
+As Lady Deane sketched her idea, her eyes kindled and her tone became
+animated. Laing admired both her and her idea, and he expressed his
+feeling's by saying:
+
+"Remarkable sort of chap, Lady Deane. I shall read it all right, you
+know."
+
+"I think you ought," said she, rising, and leaving him to wonder
+whether she had "meant anything."
+
+He gave himself a little shake, as though to escape from the atmosphere
+of seriousness which she had diffused about him, and looked round. A
+little way off he saw Dora Bellairs and Charlie Ellerton sitting side
+by side. His brow clouded. Before Charlie came it had been his
+privilege to be Miss Bellairs's cavalier, and although he never hoped,
+nor, to tell the truth, desired more than a temporary favor in her
+eyes, he did not quite like being ousted.
+
+"Pretty good for a fellow who's just had the bag!" he remarked
+scornfully, referring to Roger Deane's unauthorized revelation.
+
+It was the day before the exodus to Paris. Dora's period of weary
+waiting had worn itself away, and she was acknowledging to Charlie that
+the last two or three days had passed quicker than she had ever thought
+they could.
+
+"The first two days I was wretched, the next two gloomy, but these last
+almost peaceful. In spite of--you know what--I think you've done me
+good on the whole."
+
+"Don't mention it," said Charlie, flinging his arm over the back of the
+seat and looking at his companion.
+
+"And now--in the end," pursued Dora, "I'm actually a little sorry to
+leave all this; it's so beautiful," and she waved her parasol vaguely
+at the hills and the islands, while with the other hand she took off
+her hat and allowed the breeze to blow through her hair.
+
+"It is jolly, isn't it?" she asked.
+
+"I should rather think it was," said Charlie. "The jolliest I've ever
+seen." It was evident that he did not refer to the scenery.
+
+"Oh, you promised you wouldn't," cried Dora reproachfully.
+
+"Well, then, I'll promise again," he replied, smiling amiably.
+
+"What must I think of you, when only a week or so ago----?  Oh, and
+what must you think of me to suppose I could? Oh, Mr. Ellerton!"
+
+"Like to know what I think of you?" inquired Charlie, quite unperturbed
+by this passionate rebuke.
+
+"Certainly not," said she, with dignity, and turned away. A moment
+later, however, she attacked him again.
+
+"And you've done nothing," she said indignantly, "but suggest to papa
+interesting places to stop at on the way, and things he ought to see in
+Paris. Yes, and you actually suggested going home by sea from
+Marseilles. And all the time you knew it was vital to me to get home as
+soon as possible. To me? Yes, and to you _last week_. Shall I tell you
+something, Mr. Ellerton?"
+
+"Please," said Charlie. "Whisper it in my ear," and he offered his head
+in fitting proximity.
+
+"I shouldn't mind who heard," she declared.  "I despise you, Mr.
+Ellerton."
+
+Charlie was roused to a protest.
+
+"For downright unfairness give me a girl!" said he. "Here have I taken
+the manly course! After a short period of weakness--I admit that--I
+have conquered my feelings; I have determined not to distress Miss
+Travers by intruding upon her; I have overcome the promptings of a
+cowardly despair; I have turned my back resolutely on a past devoid of
+hope. I am, after a sore struggle, myself again. And my reward, Miss
+Bellairs, is to be told that you despise me. Upon my honor, you'll be
+despising Simon Stylites next."
+
+"And you wrote and told Miss Travers you were coming!"
+
+"All right. I shall write and toll her I'm not coming. I shall say,
+Miss Bellairs, that it seems to me to be an undignified thing----"
+
+"To do what I'm going to do? Thank you, Mr. Ellerton."
+
+"Oh, I forgot."
+
+"The irony of it is that you persuaded me to do it yourself."
+
+"I was a fool; but I didn't know you so well then."
+
+"What's that got to do with it?"
+
+"Everything."
+
+"You didn't know yourself, I'm afraid," she remarked. "You thought you
+were a man of some--some depth of feeling, some constancy, a man
+whose--whose regard a girl would value, instead of being----"
+
+"Just a poor devil who worships the ground you tread on."
+
+Dora laughed scornfully.
+
+"Second edition!" said she. "The first dedicated to Miss Travers."
+
+And then Charlie (and it is thing's like these which shake that faith
+in human nature that we try to cling to) said in a low but quite
+distinct voice:
+
+"Oh, d----n Miss Travers!"
+
+Dora shot--it almost looked as if something had shot her, as it used,
+in old days, Miss Zazel--up from her seat.
+
+"I thought I was talking to a _gentleman_," said she, "I suppose you'll
+use that--expression--about me in a week."
+
+"In a good deal less, if you treat me like this," said Charlie, and his
+air was one of hopeless misery.
+
+We all recollect that Anne ended by being tolerably kind to wicked King
+Richard. After all, Charlie had the same excuse.
+
+"I don't want to be unkind," said Dora more gently.
+
+"I'll do anything in the world to please you."
+
+"Then make papa go straight to Paris, and straight on from Paris," said
+Dora, using her power mercilessly.
+
+"Oh, I say, I didn't mean that, Miss Bellairs."
+
+"You said you'd do anything I liked."
+
+Charlie looked at her thoughtfully.
+
+"I suppose you've no pity?" he inquired.
+
+"For you?  Not a bit,"
+
+"You probably don't know how beautiful you are?"
+
+"Don't be foolish, and--and impertinent."
+
+She was standing opposite to him. With a sudden motion, he sprang
+forward, fell on one knee, seized her ungloved hand, covered it with
+kisses, sprang up, and hastened away, crying as he went:
+
+"All right.  I'll do it."
+
+Dora stood where he left her. First she looked at her hand, then at
+Charlie's retreating back, then again at her hand. Her cheek was
+flushed and she trembled a little.
+
+"John never did that," she said, "at least, not without asking. And
+even then, not quite like that."
+
+She walked on slowly, then stopped and exclaimed:
+
+"I wonder if he ever did that to Mary Travers."
+
+And her last reflection was:
+
+"Poor boy.  He must be--oh, dear me!"
+
+When Charlie reached the tennis-courts, he was, considering the moving
+scene through which he had passed, wonderfully calm. In fact he was
+smiling and whistling. Espying Sir Roger Deane, he went and sat down by
+him.
+
+"Roger," said he, "I'm going with you and the Bellairs' to-morrow."
+
+"I know that."
+
+"Miss Bellairs wants to go straight through to England without stopping
+anywhere."
+
+"She'll have to want, I expect."
+
+"And I've promised to try and get the General to do what she wants."
+
+"Have you though?"
+
+"I suppose, Roger, old fellow--you know you've great influence with
+him--I suppose it's no use asking you to say a word to him?"
+
+"Not a bit."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because Maud particularly wants him to stay with us in Paris."
+
+"Oh, of course, if Lady Deane wishes it, I mustn't say a word. She's
+quite made up her mind about it, has she?"
+
+"Well, I suppose so."
+
+"She's strong on it, I mean? Not likely to change?"
+
+"I think not, Charlie."
+
+"She'd ask him to stay, as a favor to her?"
+
+"I shouldn't at all wonder."
+
+"Oh, well then, my asking him won't make much difference."
+
+"Frankly, I don't see why it should."
+
+"Thanks. I only wanted to know. You're not in a hurry, Roger? I mean,
+you won't ask your wife to go straight on?"
+
+"No, I shan't, Charlie. I want to stop myself."
+
+"Thanks, old chap! See you at dinner," and Charlie strolled off with a
+reassured air.
+
+Sir Roger sat and thought.
+
+"I see his game," he said to himself at last, "but I'm hanged if I see
+hers. Why does she want to get back to England? Perhaps if I delay her
+as much as I can, she'll tell me.  Hanged if I don't!  Anyhow I'm glad
+to see old Charlie getting convalescent."
+
+The next morning the whole party left Cannes by the early train. The
+Bellairs, the Deanes, and Charlie Ellerton travelled together. Laing
+announced his intention of following by the afternoon train.
+
+"Oh," said Lady Deane, "you'll get to Paris sooner than we do." Dora
+looked gloomy; so did Charlie, after a momentary, hastily smothered
+smile.
+
+The porter approached and asked for an address. They told him the Grand
+Hotel, Paris.
+
+"If anything comes to-day, I'll bring it on," said Laing.
+
+"Yes, do; we shall have no address before Paris," answered General
+Bellairs.
+
+They drove off, and Laing, feeling rather solitary, returned to his
+cigar. An hour later the waiter brought him two telegrams, one for Dora
+and one for Charlie, he looked at the addresses.
+
+"Just too late, by Jove! All right, garçon, I'll take 'em," and he
+thrust them into the pocket of his flannel jacket. And when, after
+lunch, he could not stand the dullness any longer and went to Monte
+Carlo, he left the telegrams in the discarded flannels, where they lay
+till--the time when they were discovered. For Mr. Laing clean forgot
+all about them!
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+A MAN WITH A THEORY
+
+
+Even Miss Bussey was inclined to think that all had happened for the
+best. John's eloquence had shaken her first disapprobation; the visible
+happiness of the persons chiefly concerned pleaded yet more
+persuasively. What harm, after all, was done, except for a little
+trouble and a little gossip? To these Mary and John were utterly
+indifferent. At first they had been rather shy in referring, before one
+another, to their loves, but custom taught them to mention the names
+without confusion, and ere long they had exchanged confidences as to
+their future plans. John's arrangement was obviously the more prudent
+and becoming. He discountenanced Mary's suggestion of an unannounced
+descent on Cannes, and persuaded her to follow his example and inform
+her lover that she would await news from him in Paris. They were to put
+up at the European, and telegrams there from Cannes would rind them on
+and after April 28th. All this valuable information was contained in
+the dispatches, which lay, with their priceless messages, on the said
+April 28th, in Mr. Arthur Laing's flannel jacket, inside his
+portmanteau, on the way to Paris.
+
+Paris claims to be the centre of the world, and if it be, the world has
+a very good centre. Anyhow Paris becomes, from this moment, the centre
+of this drama. Not only was Arthur Laing being whirled there by the
+Nice express, and Miss Bussey's party proceeding thither by the eleven
+o'clock train from Victoria--Mary laughed as she thought it might have
+been her honeymoon she was starting on--but the Bellairs and their
+friends were heading for the same point. Miss Bussey's party had the
+pleasanter journey; they were all of one mind; Miss Bussey was eager to
+reach Paris because it was the end of the journey; John and Mary
+desired nothing but the moment when with trembling fingers they should
+tear open their telegrams in the hall of the hotel. The expedition from
+the south did not enjoy a like unanimity; but before following their
+steps we may, in the interest of simplicity, land the first detachment
+safely at its destination.
+
+When Mary and John, followed by Miss Bussey--they outstripped her in
+their eagerness--entered the hotel, a young man with an eye-glass was
+just engaging a bedroom. John took his place beside the stranger, and
+asked in a voice, which he strove to render calm, if there were any
+letters for----.
+
+"Beg pardon, sir. In one moment," said the clerk, and he added to
+Laing, "Number 37, sir." Laing--Oh, the irony of things!--turned on
+John and his companion just that one supercilious glance which we
+bestow on other tourists, and followed his baggage upstairs.
+
+"Anything," resumed John, "for Miss Travers or Mr. Ashforth?" And he
+succeeded in looking as if he did not care a straw whether there were
+or not.
+
+After a search the porter answered, "Nothing, sir."
+
+"What?" exclaimed John, aghast? "Oh, nonsense, look again."
+
+Another search followed; it was without result.
+
+John saw Mary's appealing eyes fixed on him.
+
+"Nothing," he said tragically.
+
+"Oh, John!"
+
+"Have you taken the rooms, Mr. Ash forth?" inquired Miss Bussey.
+
+"No.  I'm sorry.  I forgot all about them."
+
+Miss Bussey was tired; she had been seasick, and the train always made
+her feel queer.
+
+"Has neither of you got an ounce of wits about you?" she demanded, and
+plunged forward to the desk. John and Mary received their numbers in
+gloomy silence, and mounted the stairs.
+
+Now Arthur Laing in his hasty survey of the party had arrived at a not
+unnatural but wholly erroneous conclusion. He had seen a young man,
+rather nervous, a young woman, looking anxious and shy, and an elderly
+person, plainly dressed (Miss Bussey was no dandy) sitting (Miss Bussey
+always sat as soon as she could) on, a trunk. He took John and Mary for
+a newly married couple, and Miss Bussey for an old family servant
+detailed to look after her young mistress's entry into independent
+housekeeping.
+
+"More infernal honeymooners," he said to himself, as he washed his
+hands. "The place is always full of 'em. Girl wasn't bad-looking,
+though."
+
+The next morning, unhappily, confirmed him in his mistake. For Miss
+Bussey, overcome by the various trials of the day before, kept her bed,
+and when Laing came down, the first sight which met his eyes was a
+breakfast-table, whereat Mary and John sat tête-à-tête. He eyed them
+with that mixture of scorn and envy which their supposed situation
+awakens in a bachelor's heart, and took a place from which he could
+survey them at leisure. There is a bright side to everything; and that
+of Laing's mistake was the pleasure he derived from his delusion.
+Sticking his glass firmly in his eye, he watched like a cat for those
+playful little endearments which his cynical mood--he was, like many of
+us, not at his best in the morning--led him to anticipate. He watched
+in vain. The young people were decorum itself; more than that, they
+showed signs of preoccupation; they spoke only occasionally, and then
+with a business-like brevity.
+
+Suddenly the waiter entered, with a hand fid of letters which he
+proceeded to distribute. Laing expected none, and kept his gaze on his
+honeymooners. To his surprise they showed animation enough now; their
+eyes were first on the waiter's approaching form; the bridegroom even
+rose an inch or two from his seat; both stretched out their hands.
+
+Alas, with a little bow, a smile, and a shrug, the waiter passed by,
+and the disappointed couple sank back, with looks of blank despair.
+
+Surely here was enough to set any open-minded man on the right track!
+Yes; but not enough to free one who was tied and bound to his own
+theory.
+
+"She's dashed anxious to hoar from home!" mused Laing. "Poor girl! It
+ain't over and above flattering to him, though."
+
+He finished his breakfast and went out to smoke. Presently he saw his
+friends come out also; they went to the porter's desk and he hoard one
+of them say "telegram." A sudden idea struck him.
+
+"I am an ass!" said he. "Tell you what it is they've wired for rooms
+somewhere--Monte, most likely--and can't start till they get an answer."
+
+He was so pleased with his explanation that his last doubt vanished and
+he watched Mary and John start for a walk--the fraternal relations they
+had established would have allowed such a thing even in London, much
+more in Paris--with quite a benevolent smile.
+
+"Aunt Sarah is really quite poorly," remarked Mary as they crossed the
+road and entered the Tuileries Gardens. "She'll have to stay in all
+to-day and perhaps tomorrow. Isn't it hard upon her? Paris amuses her
+so much."
+
+John expressed his sympathy.
+
+"Now if it had been you or I," he ended, "we shouldn't have minded.
+Paris doesn't amuse us just now."
+
+"Oh, but, John, we must be ready to start at any moment."
+
+"You can't start without Miss Bussey,"
+
+"I think that in a wagon-lit----" began Mary.
+
+"But what's the good of talking?" cried John, bitterly. "Why is there
+no news from her?"
+
+"He _might_ have wired--John, is it possible our telegrams went astray?"
+
+"Well, we must wait a day or two; or, if you like, we can wire again."
+
+Mary hesitated.
+
+"I--I can't do that, John. Suppose he'd received the first, and--and--"
+
+"Yes, I see. I don't want to humiliate myself either."
+
+"We'll wait a day, anyhow. And, now, John, let's think no more about
+them! Oh, well, that's nonsense; but let's enjoys ourselves as well as
+we can."
+
+They managed to enjoy themselves very well. The town was new to Mary,
+and John found a pleasure in showing it off to her. After a morning of
+sight-seeing, they drove in the Bois, and ended the day at the theatre.
+Miss Bussey, unfortunately, was no better. She had sent for an English
+doctor and he talked vaguely about two or three days in bed. Mary
+ventured to ask whether her aunt could travel.
+
+"Oh, if absolutely necessary, perhaps; but much better not," was the
+answer.
+
+Well, it was not absolutely necessary yet, for no letter and no
+telegram arrived. This was the awful fact that greeted them when they
+came in from the theatre.
+
+"We'll wire the first thing to-morrow," declared John, in a resolute
+tone. "Write yours to-night, Mary, and I'll give, them to the porter--"
+
+"Oh, not mine, please," cried Mary, in shrinking bashfulness. "I can't
+let the porter see mine!"
+
+"Well, then, we'll take them out before breakfast to-morrow."
+
+To this Mary agreed, and they sat down and wrote their dispatches.
+While they were so engaged Laing jumped out of a cab and entered the
+room. He seized an English paper, and, flinging himself into a chair,
+began to study the sporting news. Presently he stole a glance at Mary.
+It so chanced that just at the same moment she was stealing a glance at
+him. Mary dropped her eyes with a blush; Laing withdrew behind his
+paper.
+
+"Shy, of course. Anybody would be," he thought, with a smile.
+
+"Did you like the piece, Mary?" asked John.
+
+"Oh, very much. I wish Aunt Sarah could have seen it. She missed so
+much fun."
+
+"Well, she could hardly have come with us, could she?" remarked John.
+
+"Oh, no," said Mary.
+
+"Well, I should rather think not," whispered Laing, who failed to
+identify 'Aunt Sarah' with the elderly person on the trunk.
+
+"I shouldn't have been happy if she had," said Mary.
+
+"I simply wouldn't have let her," said John, in that authoritative tone
+which so well became him.
+
+"No more would I in your place, old chap," murmured Mr. Laing.
+
+Mary rose.
+
+"Thanks for all your kindness, John. Good-night."
+
+"I'm so glad you've had a pleasant day. Good-night, Mary."
+
+So they parted--with a good-night as calm, as decorous, as frankly
+fraternal as one could wish (or wish otherwise). Yet its very virtues
+undid it in the prematurely suspicious eyes of Arthur Laing. For no
+sooner was he left alone than he threw down his paper and began to
+chuckle.
+
+"All for my benefit, that, eh? 'Goodnight, Mary!' 'Good-night, John!'
+Lord! Lord!" and he rose, lit a cigarette, and ordered a
+brandy-and-soda.  And ever and again he smiled. He felt very acute
+indeed.
+
+So vain is it for either wisdom or simplicity, candor or
+diplomacy--nay, for facts themselves--to struggle against a Man with a
+Theory.  Mr. Laing went to bed no more doubting that Mary and John were
+man and wife than he doubted that he had 'spotted' the winner of the
+Derby.  Certitude could no farther go.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+THE SIGHTS OF AVIGNON
+
+
+"It's a curious thing," observed Roger Deane, "but this fellow Baedeker
+always travels the opposite way to what I do. When I'm coming back,
+he's always going out, and vice versa. It makes him precious difficult
+to understand, I can tell you, Miss Dora. However I think I've got him
+now. Listen to this! 'Marseilles to Arles (Amphitheatre starred) one
+day. Arles to Avignon (Palace of the Popes starred) two days--slow
+going that--Avignon to----'"
+
+"Do you want to _squat_ in this wretched country, Sir Roger?" demanded
+Dora angrily.
+
+A faint smile played round Sir Roger's lips.
+
+"You're the only one who's in a hurry." he remarked.
+
+"No, I'm not. Mr. Ellerton is in just as much of a hurry."
+
+"Then he bears disappointment better."
+
+"What in the world did papa and--well, and Lady Deane, you know--want
+to stop here for?"
+
+"You don't seem to understand how interesting Marseilles is. Let me
+read you a passage. 'Marseilles was a colony founded about 600
+B.C.'--What? Oh, all right! We'll skip a bit. 'In 1792 hordes of
+galley-slaves were sent hence to Paris, where they committed frightful
+excesses.' That's what Maud and your father are going to do. 'It was
+for them that Rouget--' I say, what's the matter, Miss Dora?"
+
+"I don't know why you should enjoy teasing me, but you _have_ nearly
+made me cry, so perhaps you'll be happy now."
+
+"You tried to take me in. I pretended to be taken in. That's all."
+
+"Well, it was very unkind of you."
+
+"So, after all, it's not a matter of indifference to you at what rate
+we travel, as you said in the train to-day?"
+
+"Oh, I had to. I--I couldn't let papa see."
+
+"And why are you in a hurry?"
+
+"I can't tell you; but I must--oh, I must!--be in England in four days."
+
+"You'll hardly get your father to give up a day at Avignon."
+
+"Well, one day there; then we should just do it, if we only slept in
+Paris."
+
+"Yes, but my wife----"
+
+"Oh, you can stay. Don't say anything about Paris yet. Help me to get
+there. I'll make papa go on. Please do, Sir Roger. I shall be so
+awfully obliged to you; so will Mr. Ellerton."
+
+"Charlie Ellerton? Not he! He's in no hurry."
+
+"What do you mean? Didn't you hear him to-day urging papa to travel
+straight through?"
+
+"Oh, yes, I heard that."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"You were there then."
+
+"What of that?"
+
+"He's not so pressing when you're away."
+
+"I don't understand. Why should he pretend to be in a hurry when he
+isn't?"
+
+"Ah, I don't know.  Don't you?"
+
+"Not in the least, Sir Roger. But never mind Mr. Ellerton. Will you
+help me?"
+
+"As far as Paris. You must look out for yourself there."
+
+These terms Dora accepted. Surely at Paris she would hear some news of
+or from John Ashforth. She thought he must have written one line in
+response to her last letter, and that his answer must have been so far
+delayed as to arrive at Cannes after her departure; it would be waiting
+for her at Paris and would tell her whether she was in time or whether
+there was no more use in hurrying. The dread that oppressed her was
+lest, arriving too late in Paris, she should find that she had missed
+happiness by reason of this wretched dawdling in Southern France.
+
+Seeing her meditative, Deane slipped away to his cigar, and she sat in
+the hotel hall, musing. Deane's revelation of Charlie's treachery
+hardly surprised her; she meant to upbraid him severely, but she was
+conscious that, if little surprised, she was hardly more than a little
+angry. His conduct was indeed contemptible; it revealed an utter
+instability and fickleness of mind which made her gravely uneasy as to
+Mary Travers's chances of permanent happiness. Yes, scornful one might
+b; but who could be seriously angry with the poor boy? And perhaps,
+after all, she did him injustice. Some natures were more prone than
+others to sudden passions; it really did not follow that a feeling must
+be either shallow or short-lived because it was sudden; whether it
+survived or passed away would depend chiefly on the person who excited
+it. It was clear that Mary Travers was incapable of maintaining a
+permanent hold over Charlie's affections, but another girl might--might
+have. If so, it would perhaps be a pity if Charlie and Mary Travers
+were to come together again. She doubted very much if they were suited
+to one another. She pictured Mary as a severe, rather stern young
+woman; and she hardly knew whether to laugh or groan at the thought of
+Charlie adapting himself to such a mate. Meanwhile her own position was
+certainly very difficult, and she acknowledged its thorniness with a
+little sigh. To begin with, the suspense was terrible; at times she
+would have been almost relieved to hear that John was married beyond
+recall. Then Charlie was a great and a growing difficulty. He had not
+actually repeated the passionate indiscretion, of which he had been
+guilty at Cannes, but more and more watchfulness and severity were
+needed to keep him within the bounds proper to their relative
+positions, and it was odious to be disagreeable to a fellow-traveller,
+especially when he was such a good and devoted friend as Charlie.
+
+Sir Roger loyally carried out his bargain. Lady Deane was hurried on,
+leaving Marseilles, with its varied types of humanity and its profound
+social significance, practically unexplored; Aries and Amphitheatre, in
+spite of the beckoning "star," were dropped out of the programme, and
+the next day found the party at Avignon. And now they were once more
+for a moment in harmony. Dora could spare twenty-four hours; Lady Deane
+and the General were mollified by conscious unselfishness; the prospect
+of a fresh struggle at Paris lay well in the background and was
+discreetly ignored; Charlie Ellerton, who had reached the most
+desperate stage of love, looked neither back nor forward. It was enough
+for him to have wrung four-and-twenty hours of Dora's company from
+fate's reluctant grasp. He meant to make the most of it.
+
+She and he sat, on the afternoon of their arrival, in the gardens, hard
+by the Cathedral, where Lady Deane and the General wore doing their
+duty. Sir Roger had chartered a cab and gone for a drive on the
+boulevards.
+
+"And we shall really be in Paris to-morrow night?" said Dora. "And in
+England, I hope, six-and-thirty hours afterwards. I want papa to cross
+the next evening. Mr. Ellerton, I believe we shall be in time."
+
+Charlie said nothing. He seemed to be engrossed by the magnificent view
+before him.
+
+"Well? Have you nothing to say?" she asked.
+
+"It's a sin to rush through a place like this," he observed. "We ought
+to stay a week. There's no end to see. It's an education!"
+
+By way, probably, of making the most of his brief opportunity, he went
+on gazing, across the river which flowed below, now towards the heights
+of Mont Ventoux, now at the ramparts of Villeneuve. Dora, on the other
+hand, fixed pensive eyes on his curly hatless head, which leant forward
+as he rested his elbows on his knees. He had referred to the
+attractions of Avignon in tones of almost overpowering emotion.
+
+Presently he turned his head towards her with a quick jerk.
+
+"I don't want to be in time," he said, and, with equal rapidity, he
+returned to his survey of Villeneuve.
+
+Dora made no answer, unless a perplexed wrinkle on her brow might serve
+for one. A long silence followed. It was broken at last by Charlie. He
+left the landscape with a sigh of satisfaction, as though he could not
+reproach himself with having neglected it, and directed his gaze into
+his companion's eyes. Dora blushed and pulled the brim of her hat a
+little lower down over her brow.
+
+"What's more," said Charlie, in deliberate tones, and as if no pause
+had occurred between this remark and his last, "I don't believe you do."
+
+Dora started and straightened herself in her seat; it looked as if the
+rash remark were to be met with a burst of indignation, but, a second
+later, she leant back again and smiled scornfully.
+
+"How can you be so silly, Mr. Ellerton?" she asked.
+
+"We both of us," pursued Charlie, "see now that we made up our minds to
+be very foolish; we both of us mistook our real feelings; we're
+beginning--at least I began some time ago, and you're beginning now--to
+understand the true state of affairs."
+
+"Oh, I know what you mean, and I ought to be very angry, I suppose; but
+it's too absurd."
+
+"Not in the least. The absurd thing is your fancying that you care
+about this follow Ashforth."
+
+"No, you must really stop, you must indeed. I don't----"
+
+"I know the sort of fellow he is--a dull dry chap, who makes love as if
+he was dancing a minuet."
+
+"You're quite wrong."
+
+"And kisses you as if it was part of the church service."
+
+This last description, applied to John Ashforth's manner of wooing, had
+enough of aptness to stir Dora into genuine resentment.
+
+"A Girl doesn't like a man less because he respects her; nor more
+because he ridicules better men than himself."
+
+"Don't be angry. I'm only saying what's true. Why should I want to run
+him down?"
+
+"I suppose--well, I suppose because----"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"You're a little bit--but I don't think I ought to talk about it."
+
+"Jealous, you were going to say."
+
+"Was I?"
+
+"And that shows you know what I mean."
+
+"Well, by now I suppose I do. I can't help your doing it or I would."
+
+Charlie moved closer, and leaning forward till his face was only a yard
+from hers, while his hand, sliding along the back of the seat, almost
+touched her, said in a low voice, "Are you sure you would?"
+
+Dora's answer was a laugh--a laugh with a hint of nervousness in it.
+Perhaps she knew what was in it, for she looked away towards the river.
+
+"Dolly," he whispered, "shall I go back to Cannes? Shall I?"
+
+Perhaps the audacity of this per saltum advance from the distance of
+Miss 'Bellairs' to the ineffable assumption involved in 'Dolly' made
+the subject of it dumb.
+
+"I will, if you ask me," he said, us she, was silent for a space.
+
+Then with profile towards him and eyes away, she murmured,
+
+"What would Miss Travers say if you turned back now?"
+
+The mention of Mary did not on this occasion evoke any unseemly words.
+On the contrary, Charlie smiled. He glanced at his companion. He
+glanced behind him and round him. Then, drilling his deep design into
+the semblance of an uncontrollable impulse, he seized Dora's hand in
+his and, before she could stir, kissed her cheek.
+
+She leapt to her feet.
+
+"How dare you?" she cried.
+
+"How could I help it?"
+
+"I'll never speak to you again. No gentleman would have--oh, I do hope
+you're ashamed of yourself!"
+
+Her words evidently struck home. With an air of contrition he sank on
+the seat.
+
+"I'm a beast," he said ruefully. "You're quite right, Miss Bellairs.
+Don't have anything more to say to me. I wish I was--I wish I had
+some--some self-control--and self-respect, you know.  If I were a
+fellow like Ashforth now, I should never have done that! Of course you
+can't forgive me," and, in his extremity of remorse, he buried his face
+in his hands.
+
+Dora stood beside him. She made one step as if to leave him; a glance
+at him brought her back, and she looked down at him for a minute.
+Presently a troubled doubtful little smile appeared on her face; when
+she realized it was there, she promptly banished it. Alas! It was too
+late. The rascal had been peeping through his fingers, and, with a
+ringing laugh, he sprang to his feet, caught both her hands, and cried,
+"Shocking, wasn't it? Awful?"
+
+"Let me go, Mr. Ellerton."
+
+"Must I?"
+
+"Yes, yes."
+
+"Why? Why, when you----?"
+
+"Sir Roger's coming. Look behind you."
+
+"Oh, the deuce!"
+
+An instant later they were sitting demurely at opposite ends of the
+seat, inspecting Villeneuve with interest.
+
+In another moment Deane stood before them, puffing a cigarette, and
+wearing an expression of amiability tempered by boredom.
+
+"Wonderful old place, isn't it, Deane?" asked Charlie.
+
+"Such a view, Sir Roger!" cried Dora, in almost breathless enthusiasm.
+
+"You certainly," assented Deane, "do see some wonderful sights on this
+Promenade. I'm glad I came up. The air's given you quite a color, Miss
+Dora."
+
+"It's tea-time," declared Dora suddenly. "Take me down with you, Sir
+Roger. Mr. Ellerton, go and tell the others we're going home to tea."
+
+Charlie started off, and Sir Roger strolled along by Miss Bellairs's
+side. Presently he said:
+
+"Still anxious to get to Paris?"
+
+"Why shouldn't I be?" she asked quickly.
+
+"I thought perhaps the charms of Avignon would have decided you to
+linger. Haven't you been tempted?"
+
+Dora glanced at him, but his face betrayed no secondary meaning.
+
+"Tempted? Oh, perhaps," she answered, with the same nervous little
+laugh, "but not quite led astray.  I'm going on."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+MR. AND MRS. ASHFORTH (1)
+
+
+All that evening Miss Bellairs was not observed--and Deane watched her
+very closely--to address a word to Charlie Ellerton; even 'good-night'
+was avoided by a premature disappearance and unexpected failure to
+return. Perhaps it was part of the same policy of seclusion which made
+her persuade Lady Deane to travel to Paris with her in one compartment
+and relegate the men to another--a proposal which the banished accepted
+by an enthusiastic majority of two to one. The General foresaw an
+infinity of quiet naps and Deane uninterrupted smoking; Charlie alone
+chafed against the necessary interruption of his bold campaign, but, in
+face of Dora's calm coldness of aspect, he did not dare to lift up his
+voice.
+
+Lady Deane was so engrossed in the study--or the search for
+opportunities of study--of sides of life with which she was unfamiliar
+as to be, for the most part, blind to what took place immediately
+around her. General Bellairs himself (who vaguely supposed that some
+man might try to make love to his daughter five years hence, and
+thereupon be promptly sent off with a flea in his ear) was not more
+unconscious than she that there was, had been, or might be anything, as
+the phrase runs, 'between' the two junior members of the party.  Lady
+Deane had no hints to give and no questions to ask; she seated herself
+placidly in a corner and began to write in a large note-book.  She had
+been unwillingly compelled to 'scamp' Marseilles, but, as she wrote,
+she found that the rough notes she was copying, aided by fresh memory,
+supplied her with an ample fund of material. Alternately she smiled
+contentedly to herself, and gazed out of the window with a preoccupied
+air. Clearly a plot was brewing-, and the author was grateful to Dora
+for restricting her interruptions to an occasional impatient sigh and
+the taking up and dropping again of her Tauchnitz.
+
+With the men tongues moved more.
+
+"Well, General," said Deane, "what's Miss Dora's ultimatum about your
+staying in Paris?"
+
+Charlie pricked up his ears and buried his face behind La Vie
+Parisienne.
+
+"You'll think me very weak, Deane," rejoined the General, with an
+apologetic laugh, "but I've promised to go straight on if she wants me
+to."
+
+"And does she?"
+
+"I don't know what the child has got in her head, but she says she'll
+tell me when she gets to Paris. We shall have a day with you anyhow; I
+don't think she's so set on not staying as she was, but I don't profess
+to understand her fancies. Still, as you see, I yield to them."
+
+"Man's task in the world," said Deane. "Eh, Charlie? What are you
+hiding behind that paper for?"
+
+"I was only looking at the pictures."
+
+"Quite enough too. You're going to stay in Paris, aren't you?"
+
+"Don't know yet, old fellow. It depends on whether I get a letter
+calling me back or not."
+
+"Hang it, one might as well be in a house where the shooting turns out
+a fraud. Nobody knows that he won't have a wire any morning and have to
+go back to town. My wife 'll be furious if you desert her, General."
+
+"Oh, I hope it won't come to that."
+
+"I hope awfully that I shall be able to stay," said Charlie, with
+obvious sincerity.
+
+"Then," observed Deane with a slight smile, "if the General and Miss
+Bellairs leave us you can take my wife about."
+
+"I should think you might take her yourself," and he gently kicked
+Deane. He was afraid of arousing the General's dormant suspicions.
+
+It was late at night when they arrived in Paris, but the faithful Laing
+was on the platform to meet them, and received them with a warm
+greeting. While the luggage was being collected by Deane's man, they
+stood and talked on the platform. Presently the General, struck by a
+sudden thought, asked:
+
+"I suppose nothing came for us at Cannes, oh, Laing? You said you'd
+bring anything on, you know."
+
+Laing interrupted a pretty speech which he was trying to direct into
+Dora's inattentive ears.
+
+"Beg pardon, General?"
+
+"No letters for any of us before you left Cannes?"
+
+"No, Gen--" he began, but suddenly stopped. His mouth remained open and
+his glass fell from his eye.
+
+The General, not waiting to hear more than the first word, had rushed
+of to hail a cab and Deane was escorting his wife. Dora and Charlie
+stood waiting for the unfinished speech.
+
+The end came slowly and with a prodigious emphasis of despair.
+
+"Oh, by Jove!"
+
+"Well, Mr. Laing?" said Dora.
+
+"The morning you left--just after--there were two telegrams."
+
+"For me?" said each of his auditors.
+
+"One for each of you, but
+
+"Oh, give me mine."
+
+"Hand over mine, old chap."
+
+"I--I haven't got 'em."
+
+"What?"
+
+"I--I'm awfully sorry, I.----I forgot 'em."
+
+"Oh, how tiresome of you, Mr. Laing!"
+
+"Send 'em round first thing to-morrow, Laing."
+
+"But--but I don't know where I put 'em. I know I laid 'em down. Then I
+took 'em up. Then I put 'em--where the deuce did I put 'em? Here's a
+go, Miss Bellairs! I say, I am an ass!"
+
+No contradiction assailed him. His victims glared reproachfully at him.
+
+"I must have left them at Cannes. I'll wire first thing in the morning,
+Miss Bellairs; I'll get up as soon as ever the office is open.  I say,
+do forgive me."
+
+"Well, Mr. Laing, I'll try, but----"
+
+"Laing! Here! My wife wants you," shouted Sir Roger, and the criminal,
+happy to escape, ran away, leaving Dora and Charlie alone.
+
+"They must have been from _them_," murmured Dora.
+
+"No doubt; and that fool Laing----"
+
+"What has he done with them?"
+
+"Lit his pipe with them, I expect."
+
+"Oh, what shall we do?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"What--what do you think they said, Mr. Ellerton?"
+
+"How can I tell? Perhaps that the marriage was off!"
+
+"Oh!" escaped from Dora.
+
+"Perhaps that it was going on."
+
+"It's worse than ever. They may have asked for answers."
+
+"Probably."
+
+"And they won't have written here!"
+
+"Sure not to have."
+
+"And--and I shan't know what to do. I--I believe it was to say he had
+broken off the marriage."
+
+"Is the wish father to the thought?"
+
+The lights of the station flickered, but Charlie saw, or thought he
+saw, a hasty unpremeditated gesture of protest.
+
+"Dolly!" he whispered.
+
+"Hush, hush! How can you now--before we know?"
+
+"The cab's waiting," called Deane. "Come along."
+
+They got in in silence. The General and the Deanes went first, and the
+three young people followed in a second vehicle. It was but just
+twelve, and the boulevards were gay and full of people.
+
+Suddenly, as they were near the Opera, they saw the tall figure of an
+unmistakable Englishman walking away from them down the Avenue de
+l'Opera. Dora clutched Charlie's arm with a convulsive grip.
+
+"Hullo, what's the--" he began, but a second pinch enforced silence.
+
+"See that chap?" asked Laing, pointing to the figure.  "He's at my
+hotel."
+
+"Is he?" said Dora in a faint voice.
+
+"Yes, I've got a good deal of amusement out of him. He oughtn't to be
+out so late though, and by himself, too!"
+
+"Who is it?" asked Charlie.
+
+"I don't know his name."
+
+"And why oughtn't he to be out?"
+
+"Because he's on his honeymoon,"
+
+"What?" cried Dora.
+
+"Just married," explained Laing. "Wife's a tallish girl, fair, rather
+good-looking; looks standoffish though."
+
+"You--you're sure they're married, Mr. Laing?" gasped Dora, and
+Charlie, in whom her manner had awakened a suspicion of the truth, also
+waited eagerly for the reply.
+
+"What, Miss Bellairs?" asked Laing in surprise.
+
+"Oh, I mean--I mean you haven't made a mistake?"
+
+"Well, they're together all day, and nobody's with them except a
+lady's-maid. I should think that's good enough."
+
+With a sigh Dora sank back against the cushions. They were at the hotel
+now; the others had already entered, and, bidding Laing a hearty
+good-night, Dora ran in, followed closely by Charlie. He did not
+overtake her before she found her father.
+
+"Well, Dolly," said the General, "there's no letter."
+
+"Oh," cried Dolly, "I'll stay as long as ever you like, papa."
+
+"That's right," said Deane. "And you, Charlie?"
+
+Charlie took his cue.
+
+"A month if you like."
+
+"Capital! Now for a wash--come along, Maud--and then supper!"
+
+Dora lingered behind the others, and Charlie with her. Directly they
+were alone, he asked:
+
+"What does it all mean?"
+
+She sat down, still panting with agitation.
+
+"Why--why, that man we saw--the man Mr. Laing says is on his honeymoon,
+is--is----"
+
+"Yes, yes?"
+
+"Mr. Ashforth!"
+
+"Dolly! And his wife! By Jove! It's an exact description of Mary
+Travers!"
+
+"The telegrams were to say the marriage was to be at once."
+
+"Yes, and--they're married!"
+
+"Yes!"
+
+A short pause marked the astounding conclusion. Then Charlie came up
+very close and whispered:
+
+"Are you broken-hearted, Dolly?"
+
+She turned her face away with a blush.
+
+"Are you, Dolly?"
+
+"I'm very much ashamed of myself," she murmured. "Oh, Mr. Ellerton, not
+just yet!" and in deference to her entreaty Charlie had the grace to
+postpone what he was about to do.
+
+When the supper was ready Sir Roger Deane looked round the table
+inquiringly.
+
+"Well," said he, "what is it to be?"
+
+"Champagne--champagne in magnums!" cried Charlie Ellerton, with a
+ringing laugh.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+MR. AND MRS. ASHFORTH (2)
+
+
+Miss Bussey was much relieved when the doctor pronounced her
+convalescent and allowed her to come downstairs. To fall ill on an
+outing is always exasperating, but beyond that she felt that her
+enforced seclusion was particularly unfortunate at the moment. Here
+were two young people, not engaged nor going to be engaged to one
+another; and for three days or more circumstances had abandoned them to
+an inevitable and unchaperoned tête-à-tête! Mary made light of it; she
+relied on the fraternal relationship, but that was, after all, a
+fiction, quite incapable, in Miss Bussey's opinion, of supporting the
+strain to which It had been subjected. Besides Mary's sincerity
+appeared doubtful; the kind girl, anxious to spare her aunt worry, made
+light of the difficulties of her position, but Miss Bussey detected a
+restlessness in her manner which clearly betrayed uneasiness. Here, of
+course, Miss Bussey was wrong; neither Mary nor John were the least
+self-conscious; they felt no embarrassment, but, poor creatures, wore
+out their spirits in a useless vigil over the letter-rack.
+
+Miss Bussey was restored to active life on the morning after the party
+from Cannes arrived in Paris, and she hastened to emphasize the fact of
+her return to complete health by the unusual effort of coming down to
+breakfast. She was in high feather, and her cheery conversation lifted,
+to some extent, the gloom which had settled on her young friends. While
+exhorting to patience she was full of hope, and dismissed as chimerical
+all the darker explanations which the disconsolate lovers invented to
+account for the silence their communications had met with. Under her
+influence the breakfast-table became positively cheerful, and at last
+all the three burst into a hearty laugh at one of the old lady's little
+jokes.
+
+At this moment Arthur Laing entered the room. His brow was clouded. He
+had searched his purse, his cigar-case, the lining of his hat--in fact
+every depository where a careful man would be likely to bestow
+documents whose existence he wished to remember; as no careful man
+would put such things in the pocket of his 'blazer', he had not
+searched there; thus the telegrams had not appeared, and the culprit
+was looking forward, with some alarm, to the reception which would
+await him when he 'turned up' to lunch with his friends, as he had
+promised to do. Hardly, however, had he sat down to his coffee when his
+sombre thoughts were cleared away by the extraordinary spectacle of
+young Mr. and Mrs. Ashforth hobnobbing with their maid, the latter lady
+appearing quite at home and leading the gayety and the conversation.
+Laing laid down his roll and his knife and looked at them in
+undisguised amazement.
+
+For a moment doubt of his cherished theory began to assail his mind.
+He heard the old lady call Ashforth "John;" that was a little strange,
+and it was rather strange that John answered by saying: "That must be
+as you wish; I am entirely at your disposal." And yet, reflected Laing,
+was it very strange, after all? In his own family they had an old
+retainer who called all the children, whatever their age, by their
+Christian names, and was admitted to a degree of intimacy hardly
+distinguishable from that accorded to a relative.
+
+Laing, weighing the evidence pro and contra, decided that there was an
+overwhelming balance in favor of his old view, and dismissed the matter
+with the comment that, if it ever befell him to go on a wedding-tour,
+he would ask his wife to take a maid with rather less claims on her
+kindness and his toleration.
+
+That same morning the second pair of telegrams, forwarded by post from
+Cannes, duly arrived. Dora and Charlie, reading them in the light of
+their recent happy information, found them most kind and comforting,
+although in reality they, apart from their missing forerunners, told
+the recipients nothing at all. John's ran: "Am in Paris at European.
+Please write. Anxious to hear. Everything decided for the best.--John."
+Mary's to Charlie was even briefer; it said, "Am here at European.  Why
+no answer to last?"
+
+"It's really very kind of Mr. Ashforth," said Dora to Charlie, as they
+strolled in the garden of the Tuileries, "to make such a point of what
+I think. I expect the wire that stupid Mr. Laing lost was just to tell
+me the date of the marriage."
+
+"Not a doubt of it. Miss Tr--Mrs. Ashforth's wire to me makes that
+clear. They want to hear that we're not desperately unhappy. Well, we
+aren't, are we, Dolly?"
+
+"Well, perhaps not."
+
+"Isn't it extraordinary how we mistook our feelings? Of course, though,
+it's natural in you. You had never been through anything of the sort
+before. How could you tell whether it was the real thing or not?"
+
+Dora shot a glance out of the corner of her eye at her lover, but did
+not disclaim the innocence he imputed to her; she knew men liked to
+think that, and why shouldn't they, poor things? She seized on his
+implied admission and carried the war into his country.
+
+"But you,--you who are so experienced--how did you come to make such a
+mistake?"
+
+Charlie was not at a loss.
+
+"It wasn't a mistake _then_," he said. "I was quite right then. Mary
+Travers was about the nicest girl I had ever seen. I thought her as
+charming as a girl could be."
+
+"Oh, you did! Then why----"
+
+"My eyes have been opened since then."
+
+"What did that?"
+
+"Why don't you ever pronounce my name?"
+
+"Never mind your name. What opened your eyes?"
+
+"Why, yours, of course."
+
+"What nonsense! They're very nice about it, aren't they? Do you think
+we ought to call?"
+
+"Shall you feel it awkward?"
+
+"Yes, a little. Shan't you? Still we must let them know we're here.
+Will you write to Mrs. Ashforth?"
+
+"I suppose I'd better. After lunch 'll do, won't it?"
+
+"Oh, yes. And I'll write a note to him. I expect they won't be staying
+here long."
+
+"I hope not. Hullo, it's a quarter past twelve. We must be getting
+back. Laing's coming to lunch."
+
+"Where arc the Deanes?"
+
+"Lady Deane's gone to Belleville with your father to see slums, and
+Roger's playing tennis with Laing. He said we weren't to wait lunch.
+Are you hungry, Dolly?"
+
+"Not very. It seems only an hour since breakfast."
+
+"How charming of you! We've been walking here since ten o'clock."
+
+"Mr. Ellerton, will you be serious for a minute? I want to say
+something important. When we meet the Ashforths there mustn't be a word
+said about--about--you know."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Oh, I couldn't! So soon! Surely you see that. Why, it would be hardly
+civil to them, would it, apart from anything else?"
+
+"Well, it might look rather casual."
+
+"And I positively couldn't face John Ashforth. You promise, don't you?"
+
+"It's a nuisance, because, you see, Dolly----
+
+"You're not to get into the habit of saying 'Dolly'. At least not yet."
+
+"Presently?"
+
+"If you're good. Now promise!"
+
+"All right."
+
+"We're not engaged."
+
+"All right."
+
+"Nor thinking of it,"
+
+"Rather not."
+
+"That's very nice of you, and when the Ashforths are gone----"
+
+"I shall be duly rewarded?"
+
+"Oh, we'll see. Do come along. Papa hates being kept waiting for his
+meals, and they must have finished their slums long ago."
+
+They found Lady Deane and the General waiting for them, and the latter
+proposed an adjournment to a famous restaurant near the Opera. Thither
+they repaired, and ordered their lunch.
+
+"Deane and Laing will find out where we've gone and follow," said the
+General. "We won't wait," and he resumed his conversation with Lady
+Deane on the events of the morning.
+
+A moment later the absentees came in; Sir Roger in his usual leisurely
+fashion, Laing; hurriedly. The latter held in his hand two telegrams,
+or the crumpled débris thereof. He rushed up to the table and panted
+out, "Found 'em in the pocket of my blazer--must have put 'em
+there--stupid ass--never thought of it--put it on for tennis--awfully
+sorry."
+
+Wasting no time in reproaches, Dora and Charlie grasped their recovered
+property.
+
+"Excuse me!" they cried simultaneously, and opened the envelopes. A
+moment later both leant back in their chairs, the pictures of helpless
+bewilderment.
+
+Dora had read: "Marriage broken off. Coming to you 28th. Write
+directions--European, Paris."
+
+Charlie had read: "Engagement at end. Aunt and I coming to
+Paris--European, on 28th. Can you meet?"
+
+Lady Deane was writing in her notebook. The General, Sir Roger, and
+Laing were busy with the waiter, the menu, and the wine-list. Quick as
+thought the lovers exchanged telegrams. They read, and looked at one
+another.
+
+"What does it mean?" whispered Dora.
+
+"You never saw anything like the lives those ragpickers lead, Dora,"
+observed Lady Deane, looking up from her task. "I was talking to one
+this morning and he said----"
+
+"Maitre d'hotel for me," broke in Sir Roger.
+
+"I haven't a notion," murmured Charlie.
+
+"Look here, what's your liquor, Laing?"
+
+"Anything; with this thirst on me----"
+
+"There are ample materials for a revolution more astonishing and
+sanguinary----"
+
+"Nonsense, General, yon must have something to drink."
+
+"Can they have changed their minds again, Dolly?"
+
+"They must have, if Mr. Laing is----"
+
+"Dry? I should think I was. So would you be, if you'd been playing
+tennis."
+
+Laing cut across the currents of conversation:
+
+"Hope no harm done, Miss Bellairs, about that wire?"
+
+"I--I--I don't think so."
+
+"Or yours, Charlie?"
+
+Charlie took a hopeful view.
+
+"Upon my honor, Laing, I'm glad you hid it."
+
+"Oh, I see!" cried Laing. "Tip for the wrong 'un, eh, and too late to
+put it on now?"
+
+"You're not far off," answered Charlie Ellerton.
+
+"Roger, is it to-night that the General is going to take me to the----"
+
+"Hush! Not before Miss Bellairs, my dear! Consider her filial feelings.
+You and the General must make a quiet bolt of it. We're only going to
+the Palais-Royal."
+
+The arrival of fish brought a momentary pause, but the first mouthful
+was hardly swallowed when Arthur Laing started, hunted hastily for his
+eyeglass, and stuck it in his eye.
+
+"Yes, it is them," said he. "See, Charlie, that table over there.
+They've got their backs to us, but lean see 'em in the mirror."
+
+"See who?" asked Charlie in an irritable tone.
+
+"Why, those honeymooners. I say, Lady Deane, it's a queer thing to have
+a lady's-maid to breakf--Why, by Jove, she's with them now!  Look!"
+
+His excited interest aroused the attention of the whole party, and they
+looked across the long room.
+
+"Ashforth's their name," concluded Laing. "I heard the Abigail call him
+Ashforth; and the lady is----"
+
+He was interrupted by the clatter of a knife and fork falling on a
+plate. He turned in the direction whence the sound came.
+
+Dora Bellairs leant back in her chair, her hands in her lap; Charlie
+Ellerton had hidden himself behind the wine-list. Lady Deane, her
+husband, and the General gazed inquiringly at Dora.
+
+At the same instant there came a shrill little cry from the other end
+of the room. The mirror had served Mary Travers as well as it had
+Laing. For a moment she spoke hastily to her companion; then she and
+John rose, and, with radiant smiles on their faces, advanced toward
+their friends. The long-expected meeting had come; at last.
+
+Dora sat still, in consternation. Charlie, peeping out from behind his
+menu, saw the approach.
+
+"Now, in Heaven's name," he groaned, "are they married or aren't they?"
+and having said this he awaited the worst.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+MR. AND NOT MRS. ASHFORTH
+
+
+Suum cuique: to the Man belongeth courage in great things, but in
+affairs of small moment Woman is pre-eminent. Charlie Ellerton was
+speechless; Dora Bellairs, by a supreme effort, rose on shaking legs
+and advanced with outstretched hands to meet John Ashforth.
+
+"Mr. Ashforth, I declare! Who would have thought of meeting you here?"
+she exclaimed; and she added in an almost imperceptible, mysterious
+whisper, "Hush!"
+
+John at once understood that he was to make no reference to the
+communications which had resulted in this happy meeting. He expressed a
+friendly gratification in appropriate words. Dora began to breathe
+again; everything was passing off well. Suddenly she glanced from John
+to Mary. Mary stood alone, about three yards from the table, gazing at
+Charlie. Charlie sat as though paralyzed. He would ruin everything.
+
+"Mr. Ellerton," she called sharply. Charlie started up, but before he
+could reach Dora's side, the latter had turned to Mary and was holding
+out a friendly hand. Mary responded with alacrity.
+
+"Miss Bellairs, isn't it? We ought to know one another. I'm so glad to
+meet you."
+
+Charlie was by them now.
+
+"And how do you do, Mr. Ellerton?" went on Mary, rivalling Dora in
+composure. And she also added a barely visible and quite inaudible
+"Hush!"
+
+"Who are they?" asked Deane in a low voice.
+
+"Their name's Ashforth," answered Laing.
+
+"God bless my soul!" exclaimed the General. "I remember him now. We
+made his acquaintance at Interlaken, but his name had slipped from my
+memory. And that's his wife? Fine girl, too. I must speak to him." And
+full of kindly intent he bustled off and shook John warmly by the hand.
+
+"My dear Ashforth, delighted to meet you again, and under such
+delightful conditions, too! Ah, well, it only comes once in a lifetime,
+does it?--in your case anyhow, I hope. I see Dora has introduced
+herself. You must present me. When was it?"
+
+Portions of this address puzzled John considerably, but he thought it
+best to do as he was told.
+
+"Mary," he said, "let me introduce General Bellairs--Miss Bellairs's
+father--to you. General Bell--"
+
+The General interrupted him by addressing Mary with much, effusion.
+
+"Delighted to meet you. Ah, you know our young friend Ellerton?
+Everybody does, it seems to me. Come, you must join us. Waiter, two
+more places. Lady Deane, let me introduce Mr. Ashforth. They're on
+their----"
+
+He paused. An inarticulate sound had proceeded from Mary's lips.
+
+"Beg pardon?" said the General.
+
+A pin might have been heard to drop, while Mary, recovering herself,
+said coldly:
+
+"I think there's some mistake. I'm not Mrs. Ashforth."
+
+"Gad, it's the old 'un!" burst in a stage whisper from Arthur Laing,
+who seemed determined that John Ashforth should have a wife.
+
+The General looked to his daughter for an explanation. Dora dared not
+show the emotion pictured on her face, and her back was towards the
+party. Charlie Ellerton was staring with a vacant look at the lady who
+was not Mrs. Ashforth. The worst had happened.
+
+John came to the rescue. With an awkward laugh he said:
+
+"Oh, you--you attribute too much happiness to me. This is Miss Travers.
+I--I--Her aunt, Miss Bussey, and she have kindly allowed me to join
+their travelling party. Miss Bussey is at that table," and he pointed
+to "the old 'un."
+
+Perhaps it was as well that at this moment the pent-up feelings which
+the situation, and above all the remorseful horror with which Laing was
+regarding his fictitious lady's-maid, overcame Roger Deane. He burst
+into a laugh. After a moment the General followed heartily.  Laing was
+the next, bettering his examples in his poignant mirth. Sir Roger
+sprang up.
+
+"Come, Miss Travers," he said, "sit down. Here's the fellow who gave
+you your new name. Blame him," and he indicated Laing, Then he cried,
+"General, we must have Miss Bussey, too."
+
+The combined party, however, was not, when fully constituted by the
+addition of Miss Bussey, a success. Two of its members ate nothing and
+alternated between gloomy silence and forced gayety; who these were may
+well be guessed. Mary and John found it difficult to surmount their
+embarrassment at the contretemps which had attended the introduction,
+or their perplexity over the cause of it. Laing was on thorns lest his
+distributions of parts and stations in life should be disclosed. The
+only bright feature was the congenial feeling which appeared at once to
+unite Miss Bussey and Sir Roger Deane. They sat together, and, aided by
+the General's geniality and Lady Deane's supramundane calm, carried the
+meal to a conclusion without an actual breakdown, ending up with a
+friendly wrangle over the responsibility for the bill. Finally it was
+on Sir Roger's proposal that they all agreed to meet at five o'clock
+and take coffee, or what they would, together at a café by the water in
+the Bois de Boulogne. With this understanding the party broke up.
+
+Dora and Charlie, lagging behind, found themselves alone. They hardly
+dared to look at one another, lest their composure should fail.
+
+"They're not married," said Charlie.
+
+"No."
+
+"They've broken it off!"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Because of us."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"While we----"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well, in all my life, I never----"
+
+"Oh, do be quiet."
+
+"What an infernal ass that fellow Laing----"
+
+"Do you think they saw anything?"
+
+"No. I half wish they had."
+
+"Oh, Mr. Ellerton, what shall we do? They're still in love with us!"
+
+"Rather. They've been waiting for us."
+
+Dora entered the hotel gates and sank into a chair in the court-yard.
+
+"Well? she asked helplessly; but Charlie had no suggestion to offer.
+
+"How could they?" she broke out indignantly. "How could they break off
+their marriage at the last moment like that? They--they were as good as
+married. It's really hardly--people should know their own minds."
+
+She caught sight of a rueful smile on Charlie's face.
+
+"Oh, I know, but it's different," she added impatiently. "One expects
+it of you, but I didn't expect it of John Ashforth."
+
+"And of yourself?" he asked softly.
+
+"It's all your fault, you wicked boy," she answered.
+
+Charlie sighed heavily.
+
+"We must break it to them," said he. "Mary will understand; she has
+such delicacy of feeling that----"
+
+"You're always praising that girl. I believe you're in love with her
+still."
+
+"Well, you as good as told me I wasn't fit to black Ashforth's boots."
+
+"Anyhow he wouldn't have--have--have tried to make a girl care for him
+when he knew she cared for somebody else."
+
+"Hang it, it seems to me Ashforth isn't exactly immaculate. Why, in
+Switzerland----"
+
+"Never mind Switzerland, Mr. Ellerton, please."
+
+A silence ensued. Then Charlie remarked, with a reproachful glance at
+Dora's averted face, "And this is the sequel to Avignon! I shouldn't
+have thought a girl could change so in forty-eight hours."
+
+Dora said nothing. She held her head very high in the air and looked
+straight in front of her.
+
+"When you gave me that kiss----" resumed Charlie.
+
+Now this form of expression was undoubtedly ambiguous; to give a kiss
+may mean: 1. What it literally says--to bestow a kiss. 2. To offer
+one's self to be kissed. 3. To accept willingly a proffered kiss; and,
+without much straining of words, 4. Merely to refrain from angry
+expostulation and a rupture of acquaintance when one is kissed--this
+last partaking rather of the nature of the ratification of an
+unauthorized act, and being, in fact, the measure of Dora's
+criminality. But the other shades of meaning caught her attention.
+
+"You know it's untrue; I never did," she cried angrily. "I told you at
+the time that no gentleman would have done it."
+
+"Oh, you mean Ashforth, I suppose? It's always Ashforth."
+
+"Well, he wouldn't."
+
+"And some girls I know wouldn't forgive a man on Monday and round on
+him on Wednesday."
+
+"Oh, you needn't trouble to mention names. I know the paragon you're
+thinking of!"
+
+They were now at the hotel.
+
+"Going in?" asked Charlie.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I suppose we shall go to the Bois together?"
+
+"I shall ask papa or Sir Roger to take me."
+
+"Then I'll go with Lady Deane."
+
+"I don't mind who you go with, Mr. Ellerton."
+
+"I'll take care that you're annoyed as little as possible by my
+presence,"
+
+"It doesn't annoy me."
+
+"Doesn't it, D----?"
+
+"I don't notice it one way or the other."
+
+"Oh."
+
+"Good-by for the present, Mr. Ellerton."
+
+"Good-by, Miss Bellairs; but I ought to thank you."
+
+"What for?"
+
+"For making it easy to me to do what's right," and Charlie turned on
+his heel and made rapidly for the nearest café, where he ordered an
+absinthe.
+
+Dora went wearily up to her bedroom, and, sitting down, reviewed the
+recent conversation. She could not make out how, or why, or where they
+had begun to quarrel. Yet they had certainly not only begun but made
+very fair progress, considering the time at their disposal. It had all
+been Charlie's fault. He must be fond of that girl after all; if so, it
+was not likely that she would let him see that she minded. Let him go
+to Mary Travers, if--if he liked that sort of prim creature. She, Dora
+Bellairs, would not interfere. She would have no difficulty in finding
+someone who did care for her. Poor John! How happy he looked when he
+saw her! It was quite touching.
+
+He really looked almost--almost. To her sudden annoyance and alarm she
+found herself finishing the sentence thus, "almost as Charlie did at
+Avignon."
+
+"Oh, he's worth a thousand of Charlie," she exclaimed, impatiently.
+
+At half-past four Sir Roger Deane was waiting; in the hall. Presently
+Dora appeared.
+
+"Where are the others?" she asked.
+
+"Charlie's having a drink. Your father and Maud aren't coming. They're
+going to rest."
+
+"Oh, well, we might start."
+
+"Excuse me, Miss Dora, there's some powder on your nose."
+
+"Oh, is there? Thanks."
+
+"What have you been powdering for?"
+
+"Really, Sir Roger! Besides the sun has ruined my complexion."
+
+"Oh, the sun,"
+
+"Yes. Don't be horrid. Do let's start."
+
+"But Charlie--"
+
+"I hate riding three in a cab."
+
+"Oh, and I like riding alone in one, so----"
+
+"No, no. You must come with me. Mr. Ellerton can follow us. He's always
+drinking, isn't he? I dislike it so."
+
+Sir Roger, with a wink at an unresponsive plaster bust of M. le
+President, followed her to the door. They had just got into their
+little victoria when Charlie appeared, cigarette in hand.
+
+"Charlie," observed Deane, "Miss Bell airs thinks you'll be more
+comfortable by yourself than perched on this front seat."
+
+"Especially as you're smoking," added Dora. "Allez, cocher."
+
+Charlie hailed another vehicle and got in. As he did so he remarked
+between his teeth, "I'm d----d if I stand it."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+A DYNAMITE OUTRAGE
+
+
+On one side of the Lake Dora mid John walked together, on the other
+Mary and Charlie. Miss Bussey and Roger Deane sat in the garden of the
+café. The scene round them was gay. Carriages constantly drove up,
+discharging daintily attired ladies and their cavaliers. There was a
+constant stream of bicycles, some of them steered by fair riders in
+neat bloomer-suits; the road-waterers spread a grateful coolness in
+their ambit, for the afternoon was hot for the time of year, and the
+dust had an almost autumnal volume. Miss Bussey had been talking for
+nearly ten minutes on end, and now she stopped with an exhausted air,
+and sipped her coffee. Deane lit another cigar and sat silently looking
+on at the life that passed and repassed before him.
+
+"It's a curious story," he observed at last.
+
+"Very; but I suppose it's all ended happily now. Look at them, Sir
+Roger."
+
+"Oh, I see them."
+
+"Their troubles are over at last, poor children; and really I think
+they've all behaved very well. And yet----"
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"I should have thought Mary and Mr. Ashforth so suited to one another.
+Well, well, the heart's an unaccountable thing--to an old spinster,
+anyhow."
+
+"You're right, Miss Bussey. Take my wife and me. You wouldn't have
+thought we should have hit it off, would you? First year I knew her I
+hardly dared to speak to her--used to mug up Browning and--(Sir Roger
+here referred to an eminent living writer) and chaps like that, before
+I went to see her, you know. No use! I bored her to death. At last I
+chucked it up."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"And I went one day and talked about the Grand National for half an
+hour by the clock. Well, she asked me to come again next day, and I
+went, and told her all about the last burlesque and--and so on, you
+know. And then I asked her to marry me."
+
+"And she said 'Yes'?"
+
+"Not directly. She said there was an impassable gulf between us--an
+utter want of sympathy in our tastes and an irreconcilable difference
+of intellectual outlook."
+
+"Dear me! Didn't that discourage you?"
+
+"I said I didn't care a dash; she was the only girl I ever cared for
+(all right, Miss Bussey, don't laugh), and I'd have any outlook she
+liked. I said I knew I was an ass, but I thought I knew a pretty girl
+when I saw one, and I'd go away if she'd show me a prettier one."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Well, she didn't."
+
+Miss Bussey laughed a little.
+
+"Of course," resumed Sir Roger, "I've got money, you know, and all
+that, and perhaps----"
+
+"Sir Roger! What a thing to say of your wife!"
+
+"Well, with another girl--but hang it, I don't believe Maud would.
+Still, you see, it's so dashed queer that sometimes----"
+
+"I'm sure she's very fond of you," said Miss Bussey, rather surprised
+fit the nature of the confidence which she was receiving.
+
+"I expect it's all right," resumed Deane, more cheerfully, "and that
+brings us back to where we started, doesn't it?"
+
+"And we started in bewilderment."
+
+"You're puzzled that Dora, Bellairs and Ashforth should pair off
+together, and----?"
+
+"Well, the other combination would seem more natural, wouldn't it?
+Doesn't it surprise you a little?"
+
+"I'm never surprised at anything till I know it's true," said Sir Roger.
+
+"What, you----?"
+
+They were interrupted by the return of their friends, and a move was
+made. Three vehicles were necessary to take them back, for the twos
+could, obviously, neither be separated from one another nor united with
+anybody else, and in procession, Miss Bussey and Deane leading, they
+filed along the avenues back to the Arc de Triomphe.
+
+They had hardly passed the open Place when their progress was suddenly
+arrested. A crowd spread almost across the broad road, and
+sergents-de-ville imperiously commanded a halt. There was a babble of
+tongues, great excitement, and a thousand eager fingers pointing at a
+house. The doorway was in ruins, and workmen were busy shoring it up
+with beams. In the middle of the crowd there was an open circle,
+surrounded by gendarmes, and kept clear of people. In the middle of it
+lay a thing like a rather tall slim watering-pot, minus the handle. The
+crowd, standing on tiptoe and peeping over the shoulders of their
+guardians, shook their fists at this harmless-looking article and
+apostrophised it with a wonderful wealth of passionate invectives.
+
+"What in the world's the matter?" cried Miss Bussey, who was nervous in
+a crowd.
+
+"Revolution, I suppose;" responded Deane calmly, mid turning to his
+nearest neighbor, he continued in the first French that came to him,
+"Une autre révolution, n'est-ce-pas, Monsieur?"
+
+The man stared, but a woman near him burst into a voluble explanation,
+from the folds of which unlearned English ears disentangled, at the
+third reiteration, the ominous word, "Dynamite;" and she pointed to the
+watering-pot.
+
+"Oh, it'll go off!" shrieked Miss Bussey.
+
+"It's gone off," said Sir Roger. "We're too late," and there was a
+touch of disappointment in his voice, as he turned and shouted to the
+others, "Keep your seats! It's all over. Only an explosion."
+
+"Only!" shuddered Miss Bussey. "It's a mercy we weren't killed."
+
+It appeared that this mercy had not stopped at Miss Bussey and her
+friends. Nobody had been killed--not even the magistrate on the third
+floor for whose discipline and reformation the occurrence had been
+arranged; and presently the carriages were allowed to proceed.
+
+Lady Deane's grief at having missed so interesting an occasion was very
+poignant.
+
+"No, Roger," said she, "it is not a mere craving for horrors, or a
+morbid love of excitement; I wish I had been there to observe the
+crowd, because it's just at such moments that people reveal their true
+selves. The veil is lifted--the veil of hypocrisy and convention--and
+you see the naked soul."
+
+"You could hear it too, Maud," observed Sir Roger. "Fine chance of
+improving your French vocabulary. Still, I daresay you're right."
+
+"I'm sure I am."
+
+Deane looked at his wife meditatively.
+
+"You think," he asked, "that being in danger might make people----"
+
+"Reveal their inmost natures and feelings? I'm sure of it."
+
+"Gad! Then we might try."
+
+"What do you mean, Roger?"
+
+"Nothing. You're going out with the General to-night? Very well, I
+shall take a turn on my own hook."
+
+As he strolled toward the smoking-room, he met Charlie Ellerton.
+
+"Well, old fellow, had a pleasant afternoon?"
+
+"Glorious!" answered Charlie in a husky voice.
+
+"Are we to congratulate you?"
+
+"I--I--well, it's not _absolutely_ settled yet, Deane, but--soon, I
+hope."
+
+"That's right. Miss Bussey told me the whole story, and I think you're
+precious lucky to get such a girl."
+
+"Yes, aren't I?"
+
+"You don't look over and above radiant."
+
+"Do you want me to go grinning about the hotel like an infernal hyena?"
+
+"I think a chastened joy would be appropriate."
+
+"Don't be an ass, Deane. I suppose you think you're funny."
+
+Sir Roger passed on, with a smile on his lips. As he passed the
+reading-room Dora Bellairs came out.
+
+"Well, Miss Dora, enjoyed your afternoon?"
+
+"Oh, awfully--except that dreadful explosion."
+
+"You must excuse a friend, you know. I'm awfully glad it's all come
+right in the end."
+
+"You--you're very kind, Sir Roger. It's--it's--there's nothing quite
+settled yet."
+
+"Oh, of course not, but still----! Well, I heard all about it and I
+think he's worthy of you. I can't say more. He seems a capital fellow."
+
+"Yes, isn't he? I----"
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"Oh, I'm very, very, _very_ happy," and, after making this declaration
+in a shaky voice, she fairly ran away down the passage. Deane watched
+her as she went.
+
+"Maud's right," said he. "She always is. There's nothing for it but
+dynamite. I wonder where it's to be got?"
+
+General Bellairs clapped him on the shoulders.
+
+"Inclined for a turn, Deane? I'm going to see an old servant of
+mine--Painter's his name. He married my poor wife's French maid, and
+set up as a restaurant-keeper in the Palais-Royal. I always look him up
+when I come to Paris."
+
+"I'm your man," answered Deane, and they set out for Mr. Painter's
+establishment. It proved to be a neat little place, neither of the very
+cheap nor of the very sumptuous class, and the General was soon
+promising to bring the whole party to dejeuner there. Painter was
+profuse in thanks and called Madame to thank the General. The General
+at once entered into conversation with the trim little woman.
+
+"Nice place yours, Painter," observed Deane.
+
+"Pleased to hear you say so, Sir Roger."
+
+"Very nice. Ah--er--heard of the explosion?"
+
+"Yes, Sir Roger. Abominable thing, sir. These Socialists----"
+
+"Quite so. Never had one here, I suppose?"
+
+"No, sir. We're pretty well looked after in here."
+
+"Like one?" asked Deane.
+
+"Beg pardon, sir. Ha-ha. No, sir."
+
+"Because I want one."
+
+"You--beg pardon, sir?"
+
+"Look here, Painter. I'll drop in here after dinner for some coffee. I
+want to talk to you. See? Not a word to the General."
+
+"Glad to see you, Sir Roger, but----"
+
+"All right. I'll put you up to it. Here they come. Present me to
+Madame."
+
+They went away, haying; arranged with the Painters for luncheon and a
+private room on the next day but one.
+
+"Lunch for eight," said Deane. "At least, General, I thought we might
+ask our friends from the European."
+
+"Yes--and young Laing."
+
+"Oh, I forgot him. Yes, Laing, of course. For nine--neuf, you know,
+please, madame."
+
+"That's all right," said the General, "I'm glad to do him a turn."
+
+"Yes, that's all right," assented Sir Roger, with the slightest
+possible chuckle. "We shall have a jolly lunch, eh, General?"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+ANOTHER!
+
+
+"I shall never, never forgot your generosity, John."
+
+"No, Mary. It was your honesty and courage that did it."
+
+"I told Mr. Ellerton the whole story, and he seemed positively
+astonished."
+
+"And Miss Bellairs admitted that when she wrote she considered such a
+tiling utterly impossible. She's changed a little, Mary. She's not so
+cheerful and light-hearted as she used to be."
+
+"Think what she's gone through. I've noticed just the same in Mr.
+Ellerton, but--"
+
+"You hope to restore him soon?"
+
+"Oh, well, I expect Miss Bellairs--what a pretty girl she is,
+John--will soon revive too, now she is with you again. John, have; you
+observed anything peculiar in Aunt Sarah's manner?"
+
+"To tell you the truth, I fancied she was rather short with me once or
+twice at dinner."
+
+"I believe she is--isn't pleased at--at what's happened. She hasn't
+taken much to Mr. Ellerton, and you know she liked you so much, that I
+think she still wants you as one of the family."
+
+John laughed: then he leant forward and said in a low voice:
+
+"Have you settled anything about dates?"
+
+"No. Mr. Ellerton--well he didn't introduce the subject: so of course I
+didn't. Have you?"
+
+"No, we haven't. I made some suggestion of the kind, but Miss Bellairs
+didn't fall in with it. She won't even let me ask her father's consent
+just yet."
+
+"Mr. Ellerton proposes not to announce our--anything--for a few days."
+
+"Well," said John, "I shall insist on an announcement very shortly, and
+you ought to do the same, Mary. We know the evils--" He checked
+himself, but Mary was not embarrassed.
+
+"Of secret engagements?" she said calmly. "We do indeed."
+
+"Besides it's a bore. I couldn't go with Miss Bellairs to the theatre
+to-night, because she said it would look too marked."
+
+"Yes, and Mr. Ellerton said that if he dined here he might as well
+announce our engagement from the statue of Strasburg."
+
+John frowned, and Mary perceiving the bent of his thoughts ventured to
+say, though with a timid air unusual to her:
+
+"I think they're the least little bit inconsiderate, don't you,
+John--after all we have done for them?"
+
+"Well, I don't mind admitting that I do feel that. I do not consider
+that Miss Bellairs quite appreciates the effort I have made."
+
+Mary sighed.
+
+"We mustn't expect too much of them, must we?" she asked.
+
+"I suppose not," John conceded; but he still frowned.
+
+When we consider how simple the elements of perfect happiness appear to
+be, regarded in the abstract, it becomes surprising to think how
+difficult it is to attain them in the concrete. A kind magician may
+grant us all we ask, may transport us whither we would go, dower us
+with all we lack, bring to us one desired companion after another, but
+something is wrong. We have a toothache, or in spite of our rich
+curtains there's a draught, or the loved one haps not to be at the
+moment congenial: and we pitifully pray the wizard to wave his wand
+again. Would any magician wave his for these four troublesome folk? It
+must be admitted that they hardly deserved it.
+
+Nevertheless a magician was at work, and, with the expiration of the
+next night, his train was laid. At eleven o'clock in the forenoon of
+Friday, Roger Deane had a final interview with the still hesitating
+Painter.
+
+"But if the police should come, Sir Roger?" urged the fearful man.
+
+"Why, you'll look a fool, that's all. Isn't the figure high enough?"
+
+"Most liberal, Sir Roger, but--but it will alarm my wife."
+
+"If you come to that, it'll alarm my wife."
+
+"Very true, Sir Roger." Painter seemed to derive some comfort from this
+indirect community of feeling with the aristocracy.
+
+"It'll alarm everybody, I hope. That's what it's for. Now mind--2.30
+sharp--and when the coffee's been in ten minutes. Not before! I must
+have time for coffee."
+
+"Very good, Sir Roger."
+
+"Is the ladder ready?"
+
+"Yes, Sir Roger."
+
+"And the what's-its-name?"
+
+"Quite ready, Sir Roger."
+
+"Let's see it."
+
+It was inspected and pronounced satisfactory. Then Roger Deane set out
+to return to his hotel, murmuring contentedly:
+
+"If that don't make up their minds for 'em, I don't know what will."
+
+Then he paused suddenly.
+
+"Gad! Will the women have hysterics?" he asked, but in a moment he
+added, reassuring himself, "Maud never has, and, hang it, we must
+chance the rest."
+
+Arrived at home he found Arthur Laing kicking his heels in the
+smoking-room.
+
+"Lunching with you to-day, ain't I, somewhere in the Palais-Royal?"
+asked the visitor.
+
+"Yes, some place the General's found out. Look here, Laing, are you a
+nervous man?"
+
+"Nervous! What do you take me for?"
+
+"Lose your head in moments of excitement?"
+
+"I never have 'em."
+
+"Oh, well, hang you! I say, Laing, you're not a fool. Just look here.
+Anything I say--anything, mind--at lunch today, you're not to
+contradict. You're to back me up."
+
+"Right you are, old chap."
+
+"And the more infernal nonsense it sounds, the more you're to take your
+oath about it."
+
+"I'm there."
+
+"And finally, you're on no account to lay a finger either on Miss
+Travers or on Dora Bellairs."
+
+"Hullo! I'm not in the habit of beating women at any time, let alone at
+a lunch-party."
+
+"I mean what I say: you're not to touch either of them. If you do
+you'll spoil it. You're to go for Miss Bussey."
+
+"She's not done me any harm."
+
+"Never mind. As soon as the row begins and I say, 'Save the ladies!'
+you collar Miss Bussey. See?"
+
+"Oh, I see. Seems to me we're going to have a lively lunch. Am I to
+carry the old lady?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Oh, by Jove! How's my biceps? Just feel, will you?"
+
+Deane felt and gravely pronounced the muscle to be equal to its task.
+Laing was much gratified, and awaited the unknown future with
+philosophic patience.
+
+Sir Roger had predicted "a jolly lunch," but, in its early stages, the
+entertainment hardly earned this description. Something was wrong
+somewhere; Dora started by refusing, very pointedly, to sit near
+Charlie Ellerton; and yet, when she found herself between Ashforth and
+Laing, she was absent, silent, and melancholy. Charlie, on the other
+hand, painfully practised a labored attentiveness to Mary Travers which
+contrasted ill with his usual spontaneous and gay courtesy. Miss Bussey
+wore an air of puzzled gravity, and Laing kept looking at her with a
+calculating eye. He seemed to be seeking the best grip. Lady Deane and
+the General, engrossed in a tête-à-tête discussion, did little to
+promote the hilarity of the table, and it was left to Deane to maintain
+the flow of conversation as he best could. Apparently he found the task
+a heavy one, for, before long, he took a newspaper out of his pocket,
+and, à propos to one of his own remarks, began to read a highly
+decorated account of the fearful injuries under which the last victim
+of the last diabolical explosion had been in danger of succumbing. Sir
+Roger read his gruesome narrative with much emphasis, and as he laid
+down the paper he observed:
+
+"Well, I hope I'm not more of a coward than most men, but in face of
+dynamite--ugh!" and he shuddered realistically.
+
+"I should make for the door," said Laing.
+
+"Yes, but in this case the bomb was at the door!"
+
+"Then," said Laing, "I should exit by the window."
+
+"But this poor man." remarked Mary Travers, "stayed to rescue the woman
+he loved," and her eyes rested for an instant in confident affection on
+Charlie Ellerton.
+
+"We should all do as much, I trust," said John, glancing at Dora
+Bellairs.
+
+"I'm sure I hope you won't have to," said Dora, rather ungraciously.
+
+"Think what a convincing test of affection it would be," suggested
+Deane persuasively. "After that you could never doubt that the man
+loved you."
+
+"My good Sir Roger," observed Miss Bussey, "it would be common
+humanity."
+
+"Suppose there were two girls," said Laing, "and you couldn't take 'em
+both!"
+
+Deane hastily interposed.
+
+"Haven't we had enough of this dreary subject?" he asked, and he
+frowned slightly at Laing.
+
+"Isn't it about time for coffee?" the General suggested.
+
+Deane looked at his watch.
+
+"What does the time matter, Deane, if we're ready?"
+
+"Not a bit. 2.20. That's all right," and he rang the bell.
+
+Painter came in with the coffee: the little man looked rather pale and
+nervous, but succeeded in serving the company without upsetting the
+cups. He came to Deane last.
+
+"Is everything ready?" whispered that gentleman, and receiving a
+trembling "Yes, sir," he added, "in ten minutes."
+
+"This," he observed out loud, "has been a pleasant gathering--a
+pleasant end to our outing."
+
+"What? You're going?" asked Miss Bussey.
+
+"Yes: my wife and I cross to England to-morrow."
+
+"I shall go the next day," announced the General, "if Dora is ready."
+
+John threw a glance toward Dora, but she was busy drinking her coffee.
+
+"Well," said Deane, "I hope we may soon meet again, under equally
+delightful circumstances, in London. At any rate," he added with a
+laugh, "there we shall be safe from----"
+
+Crash! A loud noise came from the door, as if of some metallic
+substance thrown against the panels.
+
+"Hullo!" said Laing.
+
+"Oh, somebody tumbled downstairs," said Deane reassuringly. "Don't
+move, Miss Bussey."
+
+"Oh, but Sir Roger, what is it? What do you think? It didn't sound at
+all like what you say."
+
+The General laughed.
+
+"Come, Miss Bussey, I don't suppose it's----"
+
+As he spoke the form of Painter appeared at the open window. He was
+breathless, and shrieked hastily:
+
+"Dynamite, dynamite! Save yourselves! It'll be off in a minute."
+
+"Then I shall be off in half a minute," said Laing.
+
+There was a rush to the door, and Laing, remembering his instructions,
+joined hastily in it.
+
+"No, no. The bomb's there!" cried Painter, excitedly.
+
+They stood still in horror for ten seconds.
+
+"To the window, to the window, for your lives! Save the ladies!" cried
+Sir Roger Deane.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+FAITHFUL TO DEATH
+
+
+The ladies looked at one another. Even in that awful moment, the
+becoming, the seemly, the dignified had its claims. The window was
+narrow: the ladder--Mary Travers had gone to look at it--was steep: a
+little, curious, excited crowd was gathering below. Deane saw their
+hesitation. He rushed to the door and cautiously opened it. The thing
+was there! Across the very entrance--that villainous oblong case! And
+from below came a shriek--it was Madame's voice, and a cry of "Quick!
+quick!"
+
+"This," said the General firmly (he had been through the Mutiny), "is
+not a time for punctilio. Excuse me," and he lifted Lady Deane in his
+stalwart arms and bore her toward the window.
+
+With a distant reminiscence of the ball room, Arthur Laing approached
+Miss Bussey, murmuring "May I have the--" and with a mighty effort
+swung the good lady from the ground. She clutched his cravat wildly,
+crying "Save me!"
+
+Mary Travers was calmness itself. With quiet mien and unfaltering
+voice, she laid her hand on Charlie's arm and murmured:
+
+"I am ready, Charlie."
+
+At the same moment John Ashforth, the light of heroism in his eye,
+whispered to Dora, "You must trust yourself implicitly to me."
+
+"Quick, quick!" cried Deane, "or it's all up with you. Quick, Ashforth!
+Quick, Charlie, quick, man!"
+
+There was one more pause. Mary's hand pressed a little harder. John's
+arm was advancing towards Dora's waist. Sir Roger looked on with
+apparent impatience.
+
+"Are you never going?" he called. "Must I----"
+
+Suddenly a loud cry rang out. It came from Miss Bellairs.
+
+"Oh, Charlie, save me, save me!" she cried, and then and there flung
+herself into his arms.
+
+"My darling!" he whispered loudly, and catching her up made for the
+window. As they disappeared through it, Deane softly and swiftly opened
+the door and disappeared in his turn. Mary and John were left alone.
+Then Mary's composure gave way. Sinking into a chair she cried:
+
+"And I am left! Nobody cares for me. What shall I do?"
+
+In an instant John's strong arm was round her. "I care for you!" he
+cried, and raising her almost senseless form, he rushed to the window.
+The ladder was gone!
+
+"Gone!" he shrieked. "Where is it?"
+
+There was no answer. The little crowd had gone too.
+
+"We are lost," he said.
+
+Mary opened her eyes.
+
+"Lost!" she echoed.
+
+"Lost! Abandoned--by those who loved--ah, no, no, Mary. In the hour of
+danger--then we see the truth!"
+
+Mary's arms clasped him closer.
+
+"Ah, John, John," she said, "we must die together, dear."
+
+John stooped and kissed her.
+
+Suddenly the door was opened and Deane entered. He wore a comically
+apologetic look, and carried an oblong metal vessel in his right hand.
+
+"Excuse me," he said. "There's been--er--slight but very natural
+mistake. It wasn't--er--exactly dynamite--it's--er--a preserved-peach
+tin. That fool Painter----"
+
+"Then we're safe!" cried Mary.
+
+"Yes, thank Heaven," answered Deane fervently.
+
+"Oh, John!" she cried.
+
+Sir Roger, with a smile, retired and closed the door after him.
+
+Downstairs Lady Deane and Miss Bussey, forgetful of their sufferings,
+were restoring Madame Painter to her senses; Painter was uncorking a
+bottle of champagne for Arthur Laing; Sir Roger Deane was talking in a
+low voice and persuasive tones to an imposing representative of the
+police. "What passed between them is unknown; possibly only words,
+possibly something else; at any rate, after a time, Deane smiled, the
+great man smiled responsively, saluted, and disappeared, murmuring
+something about Anglais, milords, and drôles. The precise purport of
+his reflections could not be distinctly understood by those in the
+house, for civility made him inarticulate, but when he was safely
+outside he looked at a piece of crisp paper in his hand, then, with his
+thumb pointing over his shoulder, he gave an immense shrug, and
+exclaimed:
+
+"Mais voilà, un fou!" and to this day he considers Roger Deane the very
+type of a maniac.
+
+Mary and John descended. As soon as they appeared Dora jumped up from
+her seat and ran towards John, crying, "Oh, Mr. Ashforth!"
+
+While Charlie, advancing more timidly to Mary, murmured: "Forgive me,
+but--"
+
+Mary with a slight bow, John with a lift of his hat, both without a
+halt or a word, passed through the room, arm-in-arm, and vanished from
+Mr. Painter's establishment.
+
+Sir Roger had seized on Laing's champagne and was pouring it out. He
+stopped now, and looked at Dora. A sudden gleam of intelligence glanced
+from her eyes. Rushing up to him, she whispered, "You did it all? It
+was all a hoax?"
+
+He nodded.
+
+"And why?"
+
+"Ask Charlie Ellerton," he answered.
+
+"Oh, but Mr. Ashforth and Mary Travers are so angry!"
+
+"With one another?"
+
+"No, with us."
+
+Sir Roger looked her mercilessly full in the face, regardless of her
+blushes.
+
+"That," he observed with emphasis, "is exactly what you wanted, Miss
+Bellairs."
+
+Then he turned to the company, holding a full glass in his hand.
+"Ladies and gentlemen," said he, "some of us have had a narrow escape.
+Whether we shall be glad of it or sorry hereafter, I don't know--do
+you, Charlie? But hero's a health to----"
+
+But Dora, glancing apprehensively at the General, whispered, "Not yet!"
+
+"To Dynamite!" said Sir Roger Deane.
+
+
+
+POSTSCRIPT
+
+
+It should be added that a fuller, more graphic, and more sensational
+account of the outrage in the Palais-Royal than this pen has been
+capable of inscribing will appear, together with much other curious and
+enlightening matter, in Lady Deane's next work. The author also takes
+occasion in that work--and there is little doubt that the subject was
+suggested by the experiences of some of her friends--to discuss the
+nature, quality, and duration of the Passion of Love. She concludes--if
+it be permissible thus far to anticipate the publication of her
+book--that all True Love is absolutely permanent and indestructible,
+untried by circumstance and untouched by time; and this opinion is, she
+says, indorsed by every woman who has ever been in love. Thus
+fortified, the conclusion seems beyond cavil. If, therefore, any
+incidents here recorded appear to conflict with it, we must imitate the
+discretion of Plato and say, either these persons were not Sons of the
+Gods--that is. True Lovers--or they did not do such things.
+Unfortunately, however, Lady Deane's proof-sheets were accessible too
+late to allow of the title of this story being changed.  So it must
+stand--"The Wheel of Love;" but if any lady (men are worse than
+useless) will save the author's credit by proving that wheels do not go
+round, he will be very much obliged--and will offer her every facility.
+
+
+
+
+THE LADY OF THE POOL
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+A FIRM BELIEVER
+
+
+"I see Mr. Vansittart Merceron's at the Court again, mamma."
+
+"Yes, dear. Lady Merceron told me he was coming. She wanted to consult
+him about Charlie."
+
+"She's always consulting him about Charlie, and it never makes any
+difference."
+
+Mrs. Bushell looked up from her needlework; her hands were full with
+needle and stuff, and a couple of pins protruded from her lips. She
+glanced at her daughter, who stood by the window in the bright blaze of
+a brilliant sunset, listlessly hitting the blind-cord and its tassel to
+and fro.
+
+"The poor boy's very young still," mumbled Mrs. Bushell through her
+pins.
+
+"He's twenty-five last month," returned Millicent. "I know, because
+there's exactly three years between him and me."
+
+The sinking rays defined Miss Bushell's form with wonderful clearness.
+She was very tall, and the severe well-cut cloth gown she wore set off
+the stately lines of her figure. She had a great quantity of fair hair
+and a handsome face, spoilt somewhat by a slightly excessive breadth
+across the cheeks; as her height demanded or excused, her hands and
+feet were not small, though well shaped. Would Time have arrested his
+march for ever, there would have been small fault to find with Nature's
+gifts to Miss Bushell; but, as her mother said, Millie was just what
+she had been at twenty-one; and Mrs. Bushell was now extremely stout.
+Millie escaped the inference by discrediting her mother's recollection.
+
+The young lady wore her hat, and presently she turned away from the
+window, remarking:
+
+"I think I shall go for a stroll. I've had no exercise to-day."
+
+Either inclination, or perhaps that threatening possibility from which
+she strove to avert her eyes, made Millie a devotee of active pursuits.
+She hunted, she rode, she played lawn-tennis, and, when at the seaside,
+golf; when all failed, she walked resolutely four or five miles on the
+high-road, swinging along at a healthy pace, and never pausing save to
+counsel an old woman or rebuke a truant urchin. On such occasions her
+manner (for we may not suppose that her physique aided the impression)
+suggested the benevolent yet stern policeman, and the vicar
+acknowledged in her an invaluable assistant. By a strange coincidence
+she seemed to suit the house she lived in--one of those large white
+square dwelling's, devoid of ornament, yet possessing every substantial
+merit, and attaining, by virtue of their dimensions and simplicity, an
+effect of handsomeness denied to many more tricked-out building's. The
+house satisfied; so did Millie, unless the judge were very critical.
+
+"I shall just walk round by the Pool and back," she added as she opened
+the door.
+
+"My dear, it's four miles!"
+
+"Well, it's only a little after six, and we don't dine till eight."
+
+Encountering no further opposition than a sigh of admiration--three
+hundred yards was the limit of pleasure in a walk to her mother--Millie
+Bushell started on her way, dangling a neat ebony stick in her hand,
+and setting her feet down with a firm decisive tread. It did not take
+her long to cover the two miles between her and her destination.
+Leaving the road, she entered the grounds of the Court and, following a
+little path which ran steeply down hill, she found herself by the
+willows and reeds fringing the edge of the Pool. Opposite to her, on
+the higher bank, some seven or eight feet above the water, rose the
+temple, a small classical erection, used now, when at all, as a
+summer-house, but built to commemorate the sad fate of Agatha Merceron.
+The sun had just sunk, and the Pool looked chill and gloomy; the deep
+water under the temple was black and still. Millie's robust mind was
+not prone to superstition, yet she was rather relieved to think that,
+with the sun only just gone, there was a clear hour before Agatha
+Merceron would come out of the temple, slowly and fearfully descend the
+shallow flight of marble steps, and lay herself down in the water to
+die. That happened every evening, according to the legend, an hour
+after sunset--every evening, for the last two hundred years, since poor
+Agatha, bereft and betrayed, had found the Pool kinder than the world,
+and sunk her sorrow and her shame and her beauty there--such shame and
+such beauty as had never been before or after in all the generations of
+the Mercerons.
+
+"What nonsense it all is!" said Millie aloud. "But I'm afraid Charlie
+is silly enough to believe it."
+
+As she spoke her eye fell on a Canadian canoe, which lay at the foot of
+the steps. She recognized it as Charlie Merceron's, and, knowing that
+approach to the temple from the other side was to be gained only by a
+difficult path through a tangled wood, and that the canoe usually lay
+under a little shed a few yards from where she stood, she concluded
+that Charlie was in the temple. There was nothing surprising in that:
+it was a favorite haunt of his. She raised her voice; and called to
+him. At first no answer came, and she repeated:
+
+"Charlie! Charlie!"
+
+After a moment of waiting a head was thrust out of a window in the side
+of the temple--a head in a straw hat.
+
+"Hullo!" said Charlie; Merceron in tones of startled surprise. Then,
+seeing the visitor, he added: "Oh, it's you, Millie! How did you know I
+was here?"
+
+"By the canoe, of course."
+
+"Hang the canoe!" muttered Charlie, and his head disappeared. A second
+later he came out of the doorway and down the steps. Standing on the
+lowest, he shouted--the Pool was about sixty feet across--"What do you
+want?"
+
+"How rude you are!" shouted Miss Bushell in reply.
+
+Charlie got into the canoe and began to paddle across. He had just
+reached the other side, when Millie screamed:
+
+"Look, look, Charlie!" she cried. "The temple!"
+
+"What?"
+
+"I--I saw something white at the window."
+
+Charlie got out of the canoe; hastily.
+
+"What?" he asked again, walking up to Miss Bushell.
+
+"I declare I saw something white at the window. Oh, Charlie! But it's
+all----"
+
+"Bosh? Of course it is. There's nothing in the temple."
+
+"Well, I thought--I wonder you like to be there."
+
+"Why shouldn't I?"
+
+The mysterious appearance not being repeated, Millie's courage returned.
+
+"I thought you believed in the ghost," she said, smiling.
+
+"So I do, but I don't mind it."
+
+"You've never seen it?"
+
+"Supposing I haven't? That doesn't prove it's not true."
+
+"But you're often here at the time?"
+
+"Never," answered Charlie with emphasis. "I always go away before the
+time."
+
+"Then you'd better come now. Put the canoe to bed and walk with me."
+
+Charlie Merceron thrust his hands into his pockets and smiled at his
+companion. He was tall also, and just able to look down on her.
+
+"No," he said, "I'm not going yet."
+
+"How rude--oh, there it is again, Charlie! I saw it! I'm--I'm
+frightened," and her healthy color paled a trifle, as she laid a hand
+on Charlie's arm.
+
+"I tell you what," observed Charlie. "If you have fancies of this kind
+you'd better not come here any more--not in the evening, at all events.
+You know people who think they're going to see things always do see
+'em."
+
+"My heart is positively beating," said Miss Bushell. "I--I don't quite
+like walking back alone."
+
+"I'll see you as far as the road," Charlie conceded, and with
+remarkable promptitude he led the way, turning his head over his
+shoulder to remark:
+
+"Really, if you're so nervous, you oughtn't to come here."
+
+"I never will again--not alone, I mean."
+
+Charlie had breasted the hill with such goodwill that they were already
+at the road.
+
+"And you're really going back?" she asked.
+
+"Oh, just for a few minutes. I left my book in the temple--I was
+reading there. She's not due for half an hour yet, you know."
+
+"What--what happens if you see her?"
+
+"Oh, you die," answered Charlie. "Goodnight;" and with a smile and a
+nod he ran down the hill towards the Pool.
+
+Miss Bushell, cavalierly deserted, made her way home at something more
+than her usual rate of speed. She had never believed in that nonsense,
+but there was certainly something white at that window--something white
+that moved. Under the circumstances, Charlie really might have seen her
+home, she thought, for the wood-fringed road was gloomy, and dusk
+coming on apace. Besides, where was the hardship in being her escort?
+
+Doubtless none, Charlie would have answered, unless a man happened to
+have other fish to fry. The pace at which the canoe crossed the Pool
+and brought up at its old moorings witnessed that he had no leisure to
+spend on Miss Bushell. Leaping out, he ran up the stops into the
+temple, crying in a loud whisper:
+
+"She's gone!"
+
+The temple was empty, and Charlie, looking round in vexation, added:
+
+"So has she, by Jingo!"
+
+He sat down disconsolately on the low marble seat that ran round the
+little shrine.
+
+There were no signs of the book of which he had spoken to Millie
+Bushell. There were no signs of anybody whom he could have meant to
+address. Stay! One sign there was: a long hat-pin lay on the floor.
+Charlie picked it tip with a sad smile.
+
+"Agatha's," he said to himself.
+
+And yet, as everyone in the neighborhood knew, poor Agatha Merceron
+went nightly to her phantom death bareheaded and with golden locks
+tossed by the wind. Moreover, the pin was of modern manufacture;
+moreover, ghosts do not wear--but there is no need to enter on
+debatable ground; the pin was utterly modern.
+
+"Now, if uncle Van," mused Charlie, "came here and saw this--!" He
+carefully put the pin in his breast-pocket, and looked at his watch.
+It was exactly Agatha Merceron's time; yet Charlie leant back on his
+cold marble seat, put his hands in his pockets, and gazed up at the
+ceiling with the happiest possible smile on his face. For one steeped
+in family legends, worshipping the hapless lady's memory with warm
+devotion, and reputed a sincere believer in her ghostly wanderings, he
+awaited her coming with marvellous composure. In point of fact he had
+forgotten all about her, and there was nothing to prevent her coming,
+slipping down the steps, and noiselessly into the water, all unnoticed
+by him. His eyes were glued to the ceiling, the smile played on his
+lips, his ears were filled with sweet echoes, and his thoughts were far
+away. Perhaps the dead lady came and passed unseen. That Charlie did
+not see her was ridiculously slight evidence whereon to damn so ancient
+and picturesque a legend. He thought the same himself, for that night
+at dinner--he came in late for dinner--he maintained the credit of the
+story with fierce conviction against Mr. Vansittart Merceron's
+scepticism.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+MISS WALLACE'S FRIEND
+
+
+In old days the Mercerons had been great folk. They had held the
+earldom of Langbury and the barony of Warmley. A failure of direct
+descent in the male line extinguished the earldom; the Lady Agatha was
+the daughter of the last earl, and would have been Baroness Warmley had
+she lived. On her death that title passed to her cousin, and continued
+in that branch till the early days of the present century.  Then came
+another break. The Lord Warmley of that day, a Regency dandy, had a
+son, but not one who could inherit his honors, and away went the barony
+to a yet younger branch, where, falling a few years later into female
+hands, it was merged in a brand-new viscounty, and was now waiting till
+chance again should restore it to an independent existence. From the
+Mercerons of the Court it was gone for ever, and the blot on their
+escutcheon which lost it them was a sore point, from which it behooved
+visitors and friends to refrain their tongues. The Regent had, indeed,
+with his well-known good nature, offered a baronetcy to hide the stain;
+but pride forbade, and the Mercerons now held no titles, save the
+modest dignity which Charlie's father, made a K.C.B. for services in
+the North-West Provinces, had left behind him to his widow. But the old
+house was theirs, and a comfortable remnant of the lands, and the
+pictures of the extinct earls and barons, down to him whose sins had
+robbed the line of its surviving rank and left it in a position, from
+an heraldic point of view, of doubtful respectability. Lady Merceron
+felt so acutely on the subject that she banished this last nobleman to
+the smoking-room. There was, considering everything, an appropriateness
+in that position, and he no longer vexed her eyes as she sat at meat in
+the dining room. She had purposed a like banishment for Lady Agatha;
+but here Charlie had interceded, and the unhappy beauty hung still
+behind his mother's chair and opposite his own. It was just to remember
+that but for poor Agatha's fault and fate the present branch might
+never have enjoyed the honors at all; so Charlie urged to Lady
+Merceron, catching at any excuse for keeping Lady Agatha. Lady
+Merceron's way of judging pictures may seem peculiar, but the fact is
+that she lacked what is called the sense of historical perspective: she
+did not see why our ancestors should be treated so tenderly and
+allowed, with a charitable reference to the change in manners,
+forgiveness for what no one to-day could hope to win a pardon. Mr.
+Vansittart Merceron smiled at his sister-in-law and shrugged his
+shoulders; but in vain. To the smoking-room went the wicked Lord
+Warmley, and Lady Agatha was remarkably lucky in that she did not
+follow him.
+
+Mr. Vansittart, half-brother to the late Sir Victor, and twenty years
+younger than he, was a short thick-set man, with a smooth round white
+face, and a way of speaking so deliberate and weighty that it imparted
+momentousness to nothings and infallibility to nonsense. When he really
+had something sensible to say, and that was very fairly often, the
+effect was enormous. He was now forty-four, a widower, well off by his
+marriage, and a Member of Parliament. Naturally, Lady Merceron relied
+much, on his advice, especially in what concerned her son; she was hazy
+about the characters and needs of young men, not knowing how they
+should be treated or what appealed to them. Amid her haziness, one fact
+only stood out clear. To deal with a young man, you wanted a man of the
+world. In this capacity Mr. Vansittart had now been sent for to the
+Court, the object of his visit being nothing less than the arrangement
+and satisfactory settlement of Charlie's future.
+
+Mr. Vansittart approached the future through the present and the past.
+"Yon wasted your time at school, you wasted your time at Oxford, you're
+wasting your time now," he remarked, when Charlie and he were left
+alone after dinner.
+
+Charlie was looking at Lady Agatha's picture. "With a sigh he turned to
+his uncle.
+
+"That's all very well," he said tolerantly, "but what is there for me
+to do?"
+
+"If you took more interest in country pursuits it might be different.
+But you don't hunt, you shoot very seldom----"
+
+"And very badly."
+
+"And not at all well, as you admit. You say you won't become a
+magistrate, you show no interest in politics or--or--social questions.
+You simply moon about."
+
+Charlie was vividly reminded of a learned judge whom he had once heard
+pronouncing sentence of death. His uncle's denunciation seemed to lack
+its appropriate conclusion--that he should be hanged by the neck till
+he was dead. He was roused to defend himself.
+
+"You're quite wrong, uncle," he said. "I'm working hard. I'm writing a
+history of the family."
+
+"A history of the family!" groaned Mr. Vansittart. "Who wants one?
+Who'll read one?"
+
+"From an antiquarian point of view--" began Charlie stoutly.
+
+"Of all ways of wasting time, antiquarianism is perhaps the most
+futile;" and Mr. Vansittart wiped his mouth with an air of finality.
+
+"Now the Agatha Merceron story," continued Charlie, "is in itself---"
+
+"Perhaps we'd better finish our talk tomorrow. The ladies will, expect
+us in the garden."
+
+"All right," said Charlie, with much content. He enjoyed himself more
+in the garden, for, while Lady Merceron and her brother in law took
+counsel, he strolled through the moonlit shrubberies with Mrs. Marland,
+and Mrs. Marland was very sympathetically interested in him and his
+pursuits. She was a little eager woman, the very antithesis in body and
+mind to Millie Bushell; she had plenty of brains but very little sense,
+a good deal of charm but no beauty, and, without any counterbalancing
+defect at all, a hearty liking for handsome young men. She had also a
+husband in the City.
+
+"Ghost-hunting again to-night, Mr. Merceron?" she asked, glancing up at
+Charlie, who was puffing happily at a cigar.
+
+"Yes," he answered, "I'm very regular."
+
+"And did you see anyone?
+
+"I saw Millie Bushell."
+
+"Miss Bushell's hardly ghost-like, is she?"
+
+"We'll," said Charlie meditatively, "I suppose if one was fat oneself
+one's ghost would be fat, wouldn't it?"
+
+Mrs. Marland, letting the problem alone, laughed softly.
+
+"Poor Miss Bushell! If she heard you say that! Or if Lady Merceron
+heard you!"
+
+"It would hardly surprise my mother to hear that I thought Millie
+Bushell plump. She is plump, you know;" and Charlie's eyes expressed a
+candid homage to truth.
+
+"Oh, I know what's being arranged for you."
+
+"So do I."
+
+"And you'll do it. Oh, you think you won't, but you will. Men always
+end by doing what they're told."
+
+"Does Mr. Marland?"
+
+"He begins by it," laughed his wife.
+
+"Is that why he's not coming till Saturday week?"
+
+"Mr. Merceron! But what was Miss Bushell doing at the Pool? Did she
+come to find you?"
+
+"Oh, no; just for a walk."
+
+"Poor girl!"
+
+"Why--it's good for her."
+
+"I didn't mean the walk,"
+
+"I'd blush if there was light enough to make it any use, Mrs. Marland."
+
+"Oh, but I know there's something. You don't go there every evening to
+look for a dead lady, Mr. Merceron."
+
+Charlie stopped short, and took his cigar from his mouth.
+
+"What?" he asked, a little abruptly.
+
+"Well, I shall follow you some day, and I shouldn't be surprised if I
+met--not Agatha--but----"
+
+"Well?" asked Charlie, with an uncertain smile.
+
+"Why, poor Miss Bushell!"
+
+Charlie laughed and replaced his cigar.
+
+"What are we standing still for?" he said.
+
+"I don't know. You stopped. She'd be such an ideal match for you."
+
+"Then I should never have done for you, Mrs. Marland."
+
+"My dear boy, I was married when you were still in Eton collars."
+
+They had completed the circuit of the garden, and now approached where
+Lady Merceron sat, enveloped in a shawl.
+
+"Charlie!" she called. "Here's a letter from Victor Button. He's coming
+to-morrow."
+
+"I didn't know you'd asked him," said Charlie, with no sign of pleasure
+at the news. Victor had been at school and college with Charlie, and
+often, in his holidays, at the Court, for he was Sir Victor's godson.
+Yet Charlie did not love him. For the rest, he was very rich, and was
+understood to cut something of a figure in London society.
+
+"Mr. Sutton? Oh, I know him," exclaimed Mrs. Marland. "He's charming!"
+
+"Then you shall entertain him," said Charlie. "I resign him."
+
+"I can't think why you're not more pleased to have him here, Charlie,"
+remarked Lady Merceron. "He's very popular in London, isn't he,
+Vansittart?"
+
+"I've met him at some very good houses," answered Mr. Vansittart. And
+that, he seemed to imply, is better than mere popularity.
+
+"The Bushells were delighted with him last time he was here," continued
+Lady Merceron.
+
+"There! A rival for you!" Mrs. Marland whispered.
+
+Charlie laughed cheerfully. Sutton would be no rival of his, he
+thought; and if he and Millie liked one another, by all means let them
+take one another. A month before he would hardly have dismissed the
+question in so summary a fashion, for the habit of regarding Millie as
+a possibility and her readiness as a fact had grown strong by the
+custom of years, and, far as he was from a passion, he might not have
+enjoyed seeing her allegiance transferred to Victor Sutton. Certainly
+he would have suffered defeat from that hand with very bad grace. Now,
+however, everything was changed.
+
+"Vansittart," said Lady Merceron, "Charlie and I want to consult you
+(she often coupled Charlie's hypothetical desire for advice with her
+own actual one in appeals to Mr. Vansittart) about Mr. Prime's rent."
+
+"Oh, at the old farm?"
+
+"Yes. He wants another reduction."
+
+"He'll want to be paid for staying there next."
+
+"Well, poor man, he's had to take lodgers this summer--a thing he's
+never done before. Charlie, did you know that?"
+
+"Yes," said Charlie, interrupting an animated conversation which he had
+started with Mrs. Marland.
+
+"Do you know who they are?" pursued his mother, wandering from Mr.
+Prime's rent to the more interesting subject of his lodgers.
+
+"Ladies from London," answered Charlie.
+
+"Rather vague," commented Mr. Vansittart. "Young ladies or old ladies,
+Charlie?"
+
+"Why does he want to know?" asked Mrs. Marland; but chaff had about as
+much effect on Mr. Vansittart as it would have on an ironclad. He
+seemed not to hear, and awaited an answer with a bland smile. In truth,
+he thought Mrs. Marland a silly woman.
+
+"Young, I believe," answered Charlie, in a careless tone.
+
+"It's curious I've not seen them about," said Lady Merceron. "I pass
+the farm almost every day. Who are they, Charlie?"
+
+"One's a Miss Wallace. She's engaged to Willie Prime."
+
+"To Willie? Fancy!"
+
+"H'm! I think," remarked Mr. Vansittart, "that, from the point of view
+of a reduction of rent, these lodgers are a delusion. Of course she
+stays with Prime if she's going to many his son."
+
+"Fancy Willie!" reiterated Lady Merceron. "Surely he can't afford to
+marry? He's in a bank, you know, Vansittart, and he only gets a hundred
+and twenty pounds a year."
+
+"One blessing of the country is that everybody knows his neighbor's
+income," observed Mr. Vansittart.
+
+"Perhaps the lady has money," suggested Mrs. Marland. "But, Mr.
+Merceron, who's the other lady?"
+
+"A friend of Miss Wallace's, I believe. I don't know her name."
+
+"Oh, they're merely friends of Prime's?" Mr. Vansittart concluded. "If
+that's all he bases his claim for a reduction on---"
+
+"Hang it! He might as well have it," interrupted Charlie. "He talks to
+me about it for half an hour every time we meet."
+
+"But, my dear Charlie, you have more time than money to waste--at
+least, so it seems."
+
+His uncle's sarcasm never affected Charlie's temper.
+
+"I'll turn him on to you, uncle," he replied, "and you can see how you
+like it."
+
+"I'll go and call on him tomorrow. You'd better come too, Charlie."
+
+"And then you can see the ladies from London," added Mrs. Marland.
+"Perhaps the one who isn't young Mr. Prime's will be interesting."
+
+"Or," said Charlie, "as mostly happens in this woeful world, the one
+who is."
+
+"I think the less we see of that sort of person at all, the better,"
+observed Lady Merceron, with gentle decision. "They can hardly be quite
+what we're accustomed to."
+
+"That sort of person!"
+
+Charlie went to bed with the phrase ringing in his horror-struck ears.
+If to be the most beautiful, the most charming, and the most refined,
+the daintiest, the wittiest and prettiest, the kindest and the
+sweetest, the merriest and most provoking creature in the whole
+world--if to be all this were yet not to weigh against being 'that sort
+of person'--if it were not, indeed, to outweigh, banish, and obliterate
+everything else why, the world was not fit to live in, and he no true
+Merceron! For the Merceron men had always pleased themselves.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+ALL NONSENSE
+
+
+On the evening of the next day, while the sun was still on the Pool,
+and its waters, forgetful of darker moods and bygone tragedies, smiled
+under the tickling of darting golden gleams, a girl sat on the broad
+lowest step of the temple. She had rolled the sleeves of her white gown
+above her elbow, up well-nigh to her shoulder, and, the afternoon being
+sultry, from time to time dipped her arms in the water and, taking them
+out again, amused herself by watching the bright drops race down to her
+rosy fingertips. The sport was good, apparently, for she laughed and
+flung back her head so that the stray locks of hair might not spoil her
+sight of it. On either side of this lowest step there was a margin of
+smooth level grass, and, being unable as she sat to bathe both arms at
+once, presently she moved on to the grass and lay down, sinking her
+elbows in the pond and leaning her face over the edge of it. The
+posture had another advantage she had not thought of, and she laughed
+again when she saw her own eyes twinkling at her from the depths. As
+she lay there a longing came upon her.
+
+"If I could be sure he wouldn't come I'd dip my feet," she murmured.
+
+As, however, he had come every evening for a fortnight past the fancy
+was not to be indulged, and she consoled herself by a deeper dive yet
+of her arms and by drooping her head till her nose and the extreme
+fringe of her eyelashes were wetted, and the stray locks floated on
+either side.
+
+Presently, as she still looked, she saw another shadow on the water,
+and exchanged with her image a confidential glance.
+
+"You again?" she asked.
+
+The other shadow nodded.
+
+"Why didn't you come in the canoe?"
+
+"Because people see it."
+
+It struck her that her attitude was unconventional, and by a lithe
+complicated movement, whereof Charlie noticed only the elegance and not
+the details, she swept round and, sitting, looked up at him.
+
+"I know who she was," she observed.
+
+"She very nearly knew who you were. You oughtn't to have come to the
+window."
+
+"She thought I was the ghost."
+
+"You shouldn't reckon on people being foolish."
+
+"Shouldn't I? Yet I reckoned on your coming--or there'd have been some
+more of me in the water."
+
+"I wish I were an irregular man," said Charlie.
+
+She was slowly turning down her sleeves, and, ignoring his remark,
+said, with a question in her tones:
+
+"Nettie Wallace says that Willie Prime says that everybody says that
+you're going to marry that girl."
+
+"I believe it's quite true."
+
+"Oh!" and she looked across the Pool.
+
+"True that everybody says so," added Charlie. "Why do you turn down
+your sleeves?"
+
+"How funny I must have looked, sprawling on the bank like that!" she
+remarked.
+
+"Awful!" said Charlie, sitting down.
+
+She looked at him with uneasiness in her eye.
+
+"Nothing but an ankle, I swear," he answered.
+
+She blushed and smiled.
+
+"I think you should whistle, or something, as you come."
+
+"Not I," said Charlie, with decision.
+
+Suddenly she turned to him with a serious face, or one that tried to be
+serious.
+
+"Why do you come?" she asked.
+
+"Why do I eat?" he returned.
+
+"And yet you were angry the first time."
+
+"Nobody likes to be caught ranting out poetry especially his own."
+
+"I believe you were frightened--you thought I was Agatha. The poetry
+was about her, wasn't it?"
+
+"It's not at all a bad poem," observed Charlie.
+
+"You remember I liked it so much that I clapped my hands."
+
+"And I jumped!"
+
+The girl laughed.
+
+"Ah, well," she said, "it's time to go home."
+
+"Oh, dear, no," said Charlie!
+
+"But I've promised to be early, because Willie Prime's coming, and I'm
+to be introduced to him."
+
+"Willie Prime can wait. He's got Miss Wallace to comfort him, and I've
+got nobody to comfort me."
+
+"Oh, yes. Miss Bushell."
+
+"You know her name?"
+
+"Yes--and yours--your surname, I mean; you told me the other."
+
+"That's more than you've done for me."
+
+"I told you my name was Agatha."
+
+"Ah, but that was a joke. I'd been talking about Agatha Merceron."
+
+"Very well. I'm sorry it doesn't satisfy you. If you won't believe
+me--!"
+
+"But your surname?"
+
+"Oh, mine? Why, mine's Brown."
+
+"Brown!" re-echoed Charlie, with a tinge of disappointment in his tone.
+
+"Don't you like it?" asked Miss Agatha Brown with a smile.
+
+"Oh, it will do for the present," laughed Charlie.
+
+"Well, I don't mean to keep it all my life. I've spent to-day, Mr.
+Merceron, in spying out your house. Nettie Wallace and I ventured quite
+near. It's very pretty."
+
+"Rather dilapidated, I'm afraid."
+
+"What's the time, Mr. Merceron?"
+
+"Half-past six. Oh, by Jove!"
+
+"Well? Afraid of seeing poor Agatha?"
+
+"I should see nobody but you, if you were here. No. I forgot that.
+I've got to meet someone at the station at a quarter-past seven."
+
+"Oh, do tell me who?"
+
+"You'd be none the wiser. It's a Mr. Victor Sutton."
+
+"Victor Sutton!" she exclaimed, with a glance at Charlie which passed
+unnoticed by him. "Is he a friend of yours?"
+
+"I suppose so. Of my family's, anyhow."
+
+"Good-by. I'm going," she announced.
+
+"You'll be here to-morrow?"
+
+"Yes. For the last time."
+
+She dropped this astounding thunderbolt on Charlie's head as though it
+had been the most ordinary remark in the world.
+
+"The last time! Oh, Miss---" No: somehow he could not lay his tongue to
+that "Miss Brown."
+
+"I can't spend all my life in Lang Marsh," said she.
+
+"Agatha," he burst out.
+
+"No, no. This is not the last time. Sha'n't we keep that?" she asked,
+with a provokingly light-hearted smile.
+
+"You promise to be here to-morrow?"
+
+"Oh, yes."
+
+"I shall have something to say to you then," Charlie announced with a
+significant air.
+
+"Oh, you never lack conversation."
+
+"You'll be here at five?"
+
+"Precisely," she answered with mock gravity; "and now I'm gone!"
+
+Charlie took off his straw hat, stretched out his right hand, and took
+hers. For a moment she drew back, but he looked very handsome and
+gallant as he bowed his head down to her hand, and she checked the
+movement.
+
+"Oh, well!" she murmured; she was protesting against any importance
+being attached to the incident.
+
+Charlie, having paid his homage, walked, or rather ran, swiftly away.
+To begin with, he had none too much time if he was to meet Victor
+Sutton; secondly, he was full of a big resolve, and that generally
+makes a man walk fast.
+
+The lady pursued a more leisurely progress. Swinging her hat in her
+hand, she made her way through the tangled wood back to the high-road,
+and turned towards Mr. Prime's farm. She went slowly along, thinking
+perhaps of the attractive young fellow she had left behind her,
+wondering perhaps why she had promised to meet him again. She did not
+know why, for there was sure to happen at that last meeting the one
+thing which she did not, she supposed, wish to happen. However, a
+promise is a promise. She heard the sound of wheels behind her, and,
+turning, found the farmer's spring-cart hard on her heels. The farmer
+was driving, and by his side sat a nice-looking girl dressed in the
+extreme of fashion. On the back seat was a young man in a very light
+suit, with a fine check pattern, and a new pair of brown leather shoes.
+The cart pulled up.
+
+"We can make room for ye, Miss," said old Mr. Prime.
+
+Nettie Wallace jumped tip and stood with her foot on the step. Willie
+Prime jumped down and effected her transfer to the back seat. Agatha
+climbed up beside the farmer and stretched her hand back to greet
+Willie. Willie took it rather timidly. He did not quite 'savvy' (as he
+expressed it to himself); his fiancée's friend was very simply attired,
+infinitely more simply than Nettie herself. Nettie had told him that
+her friend was 'off and on'(a vague and rather obscure qualification of
+the statement) in the same line as herself--namely, Court and
+high-class dressmaking. Yet there was a difference between Nettie and
+her friend.
+
+"Anybody else arrived by the train?" asked Agatha.
+
+"A visitor for the Court. A good-looking gentleman, wasn't he, Willie?"
+
+Nettie was an elegant creature and, but for the 'gentleman' and that
+slight but ineradicable twang that clings like Nessus' shirt to the
+cockney, all effort and all education notwithstanding (it will even
+last three generations, and is audible, perhaps, now and then in the
+House of Lords), her speech was correct and even dainty in its prim
+nicety.
+
+"Ah!" said Agatha.
+
+"His name's Sutton," said Willie; "Mr. Charles--young Mr.
+Merceron--told me so when he was talking to me on the platform."
+
+"You know young Mr. Merceron?" asked Agatha.
+
+"Why, they was boys together," interrupted the old farmer, who made
+little of the refinements of speech. In his youth no one, from the lord
+to the laborer, spoke grammar in the country. "Used to larn to swim
+together in the Pool, didn't you, Willie?"
+
+"I must have a dip there to-morrow," cried Willie; and Agatha wondered
+what time he would choose. "And I'll take you there, Nettie. Ever been
+yet?"
+
+"No. They--they say it's haunted, don't they, Willie?"
+
+"That's nonsense," said Willie. London makes a man sceptical. The old
+farmer shook his head and grunted doubtfully. His mother had seen poor
+Agatha Merceron; this was before the farmer was born--a little while
+before--and the shock had come nigh to being most serious to him. The
+whole countryside knew it.
+
+"Why do you call it nonsense, Mr. Prime?" asked Agatha.
+
+"Oh, I don't know, Miss---"
+
+"Miss Brown, Willie," said Nettie.
+
+"Miss Brown. Anyway, we needn't go the time the ghost comes."
+
+"I should certainly avoid that," laughed Agatha.
+
+"We'll go in the morning, Nettie, and I'll have my swim in the evening."
+
+Agatha frowned. It would be particularly inconvenient if Willie Prime
+took his swim in the evening.
+
+"Oh, don't, Willie," cried Nettie. "She--she might do you some harm."
+
+Willie was hard to persuade. He was not above liking to appear a
+daredevil; and the discussion was still raging when they reached the
+farm. The two girls went upstairs to the little rooms which they
+occupied. Agatha turned into hers, and Nettie Wallace followed her.
+
+"Your Willie is very nice," said Agatha, sitting on her bed.
+
+Nettie smiled with pleasure.
+
+"And now that you've other company I shall go."
+
+"You're going, Miss?"
+
+"Not Miss."
+
+Nettie laughed.
+
+"I forget sometimes," she said.
+
+"Well, you must remember just over tomorrow. I shall go next day. I
+must meet my grandfather in London."
+
+Nettie offered no opposition. On the contrary, she appeared rather
+relieved.
+
+"Nettie, did you like Mr. Sutton's looks?" asked Agatha after a pause.
+
+"He's too black and blue for my taste," answered Nettie.
+
+Willie Prime was red and yellow.
+
+"Blue? Oh: you mean his cheeks?"
+
+"Yes. But he's a handsome gentleman all the same; and you should have
+seen his luggage! Such a dressing-bag--cost fifty pounds, I daresay."
+
+"Oh, dear, me," said Agatha, "Yes, Nettie, I shall go the day after
+to-morrow."
+
+"Mr. Merceron asked to be introduced to me," said Nettie proudly. "And
+he asked where you were--he said he'd seen you at the window."
+
+"Did he?" said Agatha negligently; and Nettie, finding the conversation
+flag, retired to her own room.
+
+Agatha sat a moment longer on the bed.
+
+"What a very deceitful young man," she exclaimed at last. "I must be a
+very strict secret indeed. Well, I suppose I should be."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+A CATASTROPHE AT THE POOL
+
+
+Mr. Vansittart Merceron was not quite sure that Victor Sutton had any
+business to call him "Merceron." He was nearly twenty years older than
+Victor, and a man of considerable position; nor was he, as some
+middle-aged men are, flattered by the implication of
+contemporaneousness carried by the mode of address. But it is hard to
+give a hint to a man who has no inkling that there is room for one; and
+when Mr. Vansittart addressed Victor as 'Mr. Sutton' the latter
+graciously told him to "hang the Mister." Reciprocity was inevitable,
+and the elder man asked himself, with a sardonic grin, how soon he
+would be "Van."
+
+"Coming to bathe, Merceron?" he heard under his window at eight o'clock
+the next morning. "We're off to the Pool."
+
+Mr. Vansittart shouted an emphatic negative, and the two young fellows
+started off by themselves. Charlie's manner was affected by the
+ceremonious courtesy which a well-bred host betrays towards a guest not
+very well-beloved, but Victor did not notice this. It seldom occurred
+to him that people did not like him.
+
+"Yes," he was saying, "I'm just twenty-nine. I've had my fling,
+Charlie, and now I shall get to business."
+
+Charlie was relieved to find that according to this reckoning he had
+several more years 'fling' before him.
+
+"Next year," pursued Victor, "I shall marry; then I shall go into
+Parliament, and then I shall go ahead."
+
+"I didn't know you were engaged."
+
+"No, I'm not, but I'm going to be. I can please myself, you see; I've
+got lots of coin."
+
+"Oh, yes, but can you please the lady?" asked Charlie.
+
+"My dear boy," began Victor, "when you've seen a little more of the
+world----
+
+"Here we are," said Charlie. "Why, hullo! Who's that?"
+
+A dripping head and a blowing mouth were visible in the middle of the
+Pool.
+
+"Willie Prime by Jove! 'Morning Willie;" and Charlie set about flinging
+off his flannels, Victor following his example in a more leisurely
+fashion.
+
+Willie Prime was a little puzzled to know how he ought to treat
+Charlie. 'Charlie' he had been in very old days--then Master Charlie
+(that was Willie's mother's doing)--then Mr. Charles. But now Willie
+had set up for himself. He had played billiards with a lord, and
+football against the Sybarites, and, incidentally, hobnobbed with quite
+great people. It is not very easy to assert a social position when one
+has nothing on, and only one's head out of water, but Willie did it.
+
+"Good-morning--er--Merceron," said he.
+
+Victor heard him, and put up his eyeglass in amazement; but he, in his
+turn, had only a shirt on, and the hauteur was a failure. Charlie
+utterly failed to notice the incident.
+
+"Is it cold?" he shouted.
+
+"Beastly," answered Willie. The man who has got in always tells the man
+who is going to get in that it is "beastly cold."
+
+"Here goes!" cried Charlie; and a minute later he was treading water by
+Willie's side.
+
+"Miss Wallace all fit?" he asked.
+
+"Thank you, yes, she's all right."
+
+"And her friend?"
+
+"All right, I believe."
+
+"And when is it to be, old fellow?"
+
+"Soon as I get a rise."
+
+"What?" asked the unsophisticated Charlie, who knew the phrase chiefly
+in connection with fish.
+
+"A rise of screw, you know."
+
+"Oh, ah, yes--what a fool I am!" and Charlie disappeared beneath the
+waves.
+
+When they were all on the bank, drying, Willie, encouraged by not being
+discouraged (save by Sutton's silence) in his advances, ventured
+further, and asked in a joking tone:
+
+"And aren't you marked off yet? We've been expecting to hear of it for
+the last twelve months."
+
+"What do you mean'?"
+
+"Why, you and Miss Bushell."
+
+Charlie struggled through his shirt, and then answered, with his first
+touch of distance:
+
+"Nothing in it. People've got no business to gossip."
+
+"It's damned impertinent," observed Victor Sutton in slow and
+deliberate tones.
+
+Willie flushed.
+
+"I beg pardon," he said gruffly. "I only repeated what I heard."
+
+"My dear fellow, no harm's done," cried Charlie. "Who was the fool?"
+
+"Well--in fact--my father."
+
+The situation was awkward, but they wisely eluded it by laughter. But a
+thought struck Charlie.
+
+"I say, did your father state it as a fact?"
+
+"Oh no; but as a certainty, you know."
+
+"When?"
+
+"Last night at supper."
+
+Charlie's brow clouded. Miss B--that is, Agatha, was certain to have
+been at supper. However, all that could be put right in the
+evening--that one blessed evening left to him. He looked at Willie and
+opened his mouth to speak; but he shut it again. It did not seem to him
+that he could question Willie Prime about the lady. She had chosen to
+tell him nothing, and her will was his law. But he was yearning to know
+what she was and how she came there. He refrained; and this time virtue
+really had a reward beyond itself, for Willie would blithely have told
+him that she was a dressmaker (he called Nettie, however, the manager
+of a Court modiste's business), and that would not have pleased Charlie.
+
+It was all very well for Charlie to count on that blessed evening; but
+he reckoned without his host--or rather without his guests.
+
+The Bushells came to lunch, Millie driving her terrified mother in a
+lofty gig; and at lunch Millie recounted her vision of Agatha Merceron.
+She did not believe it, of course; but it was queer, wasn't it? Victor
+Sutton rose to the bait at once.
+
+"We'll investigate it," he cried. "Merceron," (he meant the patient Mr.
+Vansittart), "didn't yon once write an article on 'Apparitions' for
+_Intellect_?"
+
+"Yes, I proved there were none," answered Mr. Vansittart.
+
+"That's impossible, you know," remarked Mrs. Marland gently.
+
+"We'll put you to the proof this very evening," declared Mr. Sutton.
+
+Charlie started.
+
+"Are you game, Miss Bushell?" continued Victor.
+
+"Ye--yes, if you'll keep quite near me, answered Millie, with a playful
+shudder. Charlie reflected how ill playfulness became her, and frowned.
+But Millie was pleased to see him frown; she enjoyed showing him that
+other men liked to keep quite near to her.
+
+"Then this evening we'll go in a body to the Pool."
+
+"I shall not go," shuddered Mrs. Marland.
+
+"An hour after sunset!"
+
+"Half an hour. She might be early--and we'll stay half an hour after.
+We'll give her a fair show."
+
+"Come," thought Charlie. "I shall get an hour with Agatha."
+
+"You'll come, Charlie?" asked Victor.
+
+"Oh, all right," he answered, hiding all signs of vexation. He could
+get back by six and join the party. But why was Mrs. Marland looking at
+him?
+
+The first step, however, towards getting back is to get there, and
+Charlie found this none so easy. After lunch came lawn-tennis, and he
+was impressed. Mr. Vansittart played a middle-aged game, and Victor had
+found little leisure for this modest sport among his more ambitious
+amusements. Charlie had to balance Millie Bushell, and he spent a very
+hot and wearying afternoon. They would go on: Victor declared it was
+good for him, Uncle Van delighted in a hard game (it appeared to be a
+very hard game to him from the number of strokes he missed), and Millie
+grew in vigor, ubiquity, and (it must be added) intensity of color as
+the hours wore away. It was close on five before Charlie, with a groan,
+could throw down his racquet.
+
+"Poor boy!" said Mrs. Marland.
+
+"Charlie, dear," called Lady Merceron, who had been talking comfortably
+to Mrs. Bushell in the shade, "come and hand the tea. I'm sure you must
+all want some. Millie, my dear, how hot you look!"
+
+"She never will take any care of her complexion, complained Mrs.
+Bushell.
+
+"Take care of your stom--your health--and your complexion will take
+care of itself," observed Mr. Vansittart.
+
+"Charlie! Where; is the boy?" called Lady Merceron again.
+
+The boy was gone. He was flying as fast as his legs would take him to
+the Pool. Where was that cherished interview now? He could hope only
+for a few wretched minutes--hardly enough to say good-by once--before
+he must hustle--yes, positively hustle--Agatha out of sight. He had
+heard that abominable Sutton remark that they might as well start
+directly after tea.
+
+He was breathless when he burst through the willows. But there he came
+to a sudden, a dead stop, and then drew back into shelter again. There
+on the bank, scarcely a dozen feet from it, sat two people--a. young
+man with his arm round a young woman's waist. Willie Prime and Nettie
+Wallace, "by all that's damnable!" as Sir Peter says! Charlie said
+something quite as forcible.
+
+He felt for his watch, but he had left it with his waistcoat on the
+lawn. What was the time? Was it going quickly or slowly? Could he
+afford to wait, or must he run round to the road and intercept Agatha?
+Five minutes passed in vacillation.
+
+"I'll go and stop her," he said, and began a cautious retreat. As he
+moved he heard Willie's voice.
+
+"Well, my dear, let's be off," said Willie.
+
+Nettie rose with a sigh of content, adjusted her hat coquettishly, and
+smoothed her skirts.
+
+"I'm ready, Willie. It's been beautiful, hasn't it?"
+
+They came towards Charlie. Evidently they intended to regain the road
+by the same path as he had chosen. Indeed, from that side of the Pool
+there was no choice, unless one clambered round by the muddy bank.
+
+"We must make haste," said Willie. "Father'll want his tea."
+
+If they made haste they would be close on his heels. Charlie shrank
+back behind a willow and let them go by; then, quick as thought, rushed
+to his canoe and paddled across--up the steps and into the temple he
+rushed. She wasn't there! Fate is too hard for the best of us
+sometimes. Charlie sat down and, stretching out his legs, stared
+gloomily at his toes.
+
+Thus he must have sat nearly ten minutes, when a head was put round the
+Corinthian pilaster of the doorway.
+
+"Poor boy! Am I very late?"
+
+Charlie leapt up and forward, breathlessly blurting out joy tempered by
+uneasiness.
+
+Agatha gathered the difficulty of the position.
+
+"Well," said she, smiling, "I must disappear, and you must go back to
+your friends."
+
+"No," said Charlie. "I must talk to you."
+
+"But they may come any moment."
+
+"I don't care!"
+
+"Oh, but I do. Charlie, what's the matter? Oh, didn't I ever call you
+'Charlie' before? Well, Charlie, if you love me (yes, I know!) you'll
+not let these people see me."
+
+"All right! Come along. I'll take you to the road and come back.
+Hullo! What's that?"
+
+"It's them!" exclaimed the lady.
+
+It was. The pair dived back into the temple. On the opposite bank stood
+Millie Bushell, Mr. Vansittart, and Victor Sutton.
+
+"Hullo, there, Charlie, you thief!" cried Victor. "Bring that canoe
+over here. Miss Bushell wants to get to the temple."
+
+"Hush! Don't move!" whispered Agatha.
+
+"But they know I'm here; they see that confounded canoe."
+
+"Charlie! Charlie!" was shouted across in three voices.
+
+"What the devil--," muttered Charlie.
+
+"They mustn't see me," urged Agatha.
+
+Victor Sutton's voice rose clear and distinct,
+
+"I'll unearth him!" he cried. "I know the way round. You wait here with
+Miss Bushell, Merceron."
+
+"Oh, he's coming round!"
+
+"I must chance it," said Charlie, and he came out of hiding. A cry
+greeted him. Victor was already started, but stopped. Charlie embarked
+and shot across.
+
+"You villain! You gave us the slip," cried Uncle Van.
+
+Miss Bushell began quietly to embark. Uncle Van followed her example.
+
+"Oh, Mr. Merceron, you'll sink us!" cried Millie.
+
+Charlie sat glum and silent. The situation beat him completely.
+
+Uncle Van drew back. Millie seized the paddle and propelled the canoe
+out from the bank.
+
+"You come round with me, Merceron," called Sutton, and the two men
+turned to the path. "No," added Victor. "Look here, we can climb round
+here," and he pointed to the bank. There was a little narrow muddy
+track, but it was enough.
+
+The canoe was half-way across; the two men--Victor leading at a good
+pace--were half-way round. Charlie glanced at the window of the temple
+and caught a fleeting glance of a despairing face. "If you love me,
+they mustn't see me!"
+
+"Here, give me the paddle!" he exclaimed, and reached forward for it.
+
+"No, I can do it," answered Millie, lifting the instrument out of his
+reach.
+
+Charlie stepped forward--rather, he jumped forward, as a man jumps over
+a ditch. There was a shriek from Millie; the canoe swayed, tottered,
+and upset. In a confused mass, Millie Bushell and Charlie were hurled
+into the water. Victor and Uncle Van, hardly five yards from the steps,
+turned in amazement.
+
+"Help! help!" screamed Millie.
+
+"Help!" echoed Charlie. "I can't hold her up. Victor, come and help me!
+Uncle Van, come along!"
+
+"The devil!" murmured Uncle Van,
+
+"Quick, quick!" called Charlie; and Victor, with a vexed laugh, peeled
+off his coat and jumped in. Mr. Vansittart stood with a puzzled air.
+Then a happy thought struck him. He turned and trotted back the way he
+had come. He would get a rope!
+
+As he went, as Victor reached the stragglers in the water, a slim
+figure in white, with a smile on her face, stole cautiously from the
+temple and disappeared in the wood behind. Charlie saw her go, but he
+held poor Millie's head remorselessly tight towards the other bank.
+
+And that was the last he saw of the Lady of the Pool.
+
+Millie Bushell landed, her dripping clothes clinging round her.  Victor
+was shivering, for the evening had turned chilly. Uncle Van had a bit
+of rope from the boat-shed in his hand, and a doubtful smile on his
+face.
+
+"We'd best get Miss Bushel home," he suggested, and they started in
+gloomy procession. Charlie, in remorse, gave Millie his arm.
+
+"Oh, how could you?" she murmured piteously. She was cold, she was wet,
+and she was sure that she looked frightful.
+
+I--I didn't do it on purpose, "Charlie blurted out eagerly.
+
+"On purpose! Well, I suppose not," she exclaimed, bewildered.  Charlie
+flushed. Victor shot a swift glance at him.
+
+Half-way home they met Mrs. Marland and the whole affair had to be
+explained to her. Charlie essayed the task.
+
+"Still, I don't see how you managed to upset the canoe," observed Mrs.
+Marland.
+
+"No more do I," said Victor Sutton.  Charlie gave it up.
+
+"I'm so sorry, Millie," he whispered. "You must try to forgive me."
+
+So, once again, the coast was left clear for Agatha Merceron, if she
+came that night. But, whether she did or not, the other Agatha came no
+more, and Charlie's great resolve went unfulfilled. Yet the next
+evening he went: alone to the temple, and he found, lying on the floor,
+a little handkerchief trimmed with lace and embroidered with the name
+of "Agatha." This he put in his pocket, thanking heaven that his
+desperate manoeuvre had kept the shrine inviolate the day before.
+
+"Poor Millie!" said he. "But then I had to do it."
+
+"I hear," remarked Lady Merceron a few days later, "that one of Mr.
+Prime's friends has left him--not Willie's young lady--the other."
+
+"Has she?" asked Charlie.
+
+No one pursued the subject, and, after a moment's pause, Mrs. Marland,
+who was sitting next to Charlie, asked him in a low voice whether he
+had been to the Pool that evening--.
+
+"No," answered Charlie. "I don't go every night."
+
+"Oh, poor dear Miss Bushell!" laughed Mrs. Marland; and, when Charlie
+looked inquiringly at her, she shook her head.
+
+"You see, I know something of young men," she explained.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+AN UNFORESEEN CASE
+
+
+"I wish to goodness," remarked the Reverend Sigismund Taylor rubbing
+the bridge of his nose with a corner of the Manual, "that the Vicar had
+never introduced auricular confession. It may be in accordance with the
+practice of the Primitive Church, but--one does meet with such very
+curious cases. There's nothing the least like it, in the Manual."
+
+He opened the book and searched its pages over again. No, the case had
+not been foreseen. It must be included in those which were "left to the
+discretion of the priest."
+
+"It's a poor Manual," said Mr. Taylor, throwing it down and putting his
+hands in the pocket of his cassock. "Poor girl! She was quite
+distressed, too. I must have something to tell her when she comes next
+week."
+
+Mr. Taylor had, in face of the difficulty, taken time to consider, and
+the penitent had gone away in suspense. To represent oneself as a
+dressmaker--well, there was nothing very outrageous in that; it was
+unbecoming, but venial, to tell sundry fibs by way of supporting the
+assumed character--the Manual was equal to that; but the rest of the
+disclosure was the crux. Wrong, no doubt, was the conduct--but how
+wrong? That made all the difference. And then there followed another
+question: What ought to be done? She had asked for advice about that
+also, and, although such counsel was not strictly incumbent on him, he
+felt that he ought not to refuse it. Altogether he was puzzled. At
+eight-and-twenty one cannot be ready for everything; yet she had
+implored him to consult nobody else, and decide for her himself. "I've
+such trust in you," she had said, wiping away an incipient teardrop;
+and, although Mr. Taylor told her that the individual was nothing and
+the Office everything, he had been rather gratified. Thinking that a
+turn in the open air might clear his brain and enable him better to
+grapple with this very thorny question, he changed his cassock for a
+long tailed coat, put on his wide awake, and, leaving the precincts of
+St. Edward Confessor, struck across Park Lane and along the Row. He
+passed several people he knew, both men and women: Mrs. Marland was
+there, attended by two young men, and, a little farther on, he saw old
+Lord Thrapston tottering along on his stick. Lord Thrapston hated a
+parson, and scowled at poor Mr. Taylor as he went by. Mr. Taylor shrank
+from meeting his eye, and hurried along till he reached the Serpentine,
+where he stood still for a few minutes, drinking in the fresh breeze.
+But the breeze could not blow his puzzle out of his brain. Was it a
+crime, or merely an escapade? What had she said to the young man? What
+had her feelings been or become towards the young man?  Moreover, what
+had she caused the young man's feelings to be for her?  When he came to
+think it over, Mr. Taylor discovered, with a shock of surprise, that on
+all these distinctly material points the confession had been singularly
+incomplete. He was ashamed of this, for, of course, it was his business
+to make the confession full and exhaustive. He could only plead that,
+at the moment, it had seemed thorough and candid--an unreserved
+revelation. Yet those points did, as a fact, remain obscure.
+
+"I wish I knew a little more about human nature," sighed Mr. Taylor: he
+was thinking of one division of human nature, and it is likely enough
+that he knew next to nothing of it.
+
+A hand clapped him on the shoulder, and, with a start, he turned round.
+A tall young man, in a new frock-coat and a faultless hat, stood by
+him, smiling at him.
+
+"What, Charlie, old fellow!" cried Taylor; "where do you spring from?"
+
+Charlie explained that he was up in town for a month or two.
+
+"It's splendid to meet you first day! I was going to look you up," he
+said.
+
+Sigismund Taylor and Charlie had been intimate friends at Oxford,
+although Charlie was, as time counts there, very considerably the
+junior. For the last two or three years they had hardly met.
+
+"But what are you up for?"
+
+"Oh, well, you see, my uncle wants me to get called to the Bar, or
+something, so I ran tip to have a look into it."
+
+"Will that take a month?"
+
+"Look here, old fellow, I've got nothing else to do--I don't see why I
+shouldn't stretch it to three months. Besides, I want to spend some
+time with my ancestors."
+
+"With your ancestors?"
+
+"In the British Museum: I'm writing a book about them. Queer lot some
+of them were, too. Of course I'm specially interested in Agatha
+Merceron; but I suppose you never heard of her."
+
+Mr. Taylor confessed his ignorance, and Charlie, taking his arm, walked
+him up and down the bank, while he talked on his pet subject.  Agatha
+Merceron was always interesting, and just now anything about the Pool
+was interesting; for there was one reason for his visit to London which
+he had not disclosed. Nettie Wallace had, when he met her one day,
+incautiously dropped a word which seemed to imply that the other Agatha
+was often in London. Nettie tried to recall her words; but the mischief
+was done, and Charlie became more than ever convinced that he would
+grow rusty if he stayed always at Langbury Court. In fact, he could
+suffer it no longer, and to town he went.
+
+For a long while Sigismund Taylor listened with no more than average
+interest to Charlie's story, but it chanced that one word caught his
+notice.
+
+"She comes out of the temple," said Charlie, in the voice of hushed
+reverence with which he was wont to talk of the unhappy lady.
+
+"Out of where?" asked Mr. Taylor.
+
+"The temple. Oh, I forgot, the temple is--" and Charlie gave a
+description which need not be repeated.
+
+Temple! temple! Where had he heard of a temple lately? Mr. Taylor
+cudgelled his brains. Why--why--yes, she had spoken of a temple. She
+said they met in a temple. It was a strange coincidence: the word had
+struck him at the time. But then everybody knows that, at a certain
+period, it was common enough to put up these little classical erections
+as a memorial or merely as an ornament to pleasure-grounds.  It must be
+a mere coincidence. But--Mr. Taylor stopped short.
+
+"What's up?" asked Charlie, who had finished his narrative, and was now
+studying the faces of the ladies who rode past.
+
+"Nothing," answered Mr. Taylor.
+
+And really it was not much--taken by itself, entirely unworthy of
+notice; even taken in conjunction with the temple, of no real
+significance, that he could see. Still, it was a whimsical thing that,
+as had just struck him, Charlie's spectre should be named Agatha. But
+it came; to nothing: how could the name of Charlie's spectre have
+anything to do with that of his penitent?
+
+Presently Charlie, too, fell into silence. He beat his stick moodily
+against his leg and looked glum and absent.
+
+"Ah, well," he said at last, "poor Agatha was hardly used: she paid
+part of the debt we owe woman."
+
+Mr. Taylor raised his brows and smiled at this gloomily misogynistic
+sentiment. He had the perception to grasp in a moment what it
+indicated. His young friend was, or had lately been, or thought he was
+likely to be, a lover, and an unhappy one. But he did not press
+Charlie. Confessions were no luxury to him.
+
+Presently they began to walk back, and Charlie, saying he had to dine
+with Victor Button, made an appointment to see Taylor again, and left
+him, striking across the Row. Taylor strolled on, and, finding Mrs.
+Marland still in her seat, sat down by her. She was surprised and
+pleased to hear that Charlie was in town.
+
+"I left him at home in deep dumps. You've never been to Langbury Court,
+have you?"
+
+Taylor shook his head.
+
+"Such a sweet old place! But, of course, rather dull for a young man,
+with nobody hut his mother and just one or two slow country neighbors."
+
+"Oh, a run 'll do him good."
+
+"Yes; he was quite moped;" and Mrs. Marland glanced at her companion.
+She wanted only a very little encouragement to impart her suspicions to
+him. It must, in justice to Mrs. Marland, be remembered that she had
+always found the simplest explanation of Charlie's devotion to the Pool
+hard to accept, and the most elaborate demonstration of how a Canadian
+canoe may be upset unconvincing.
+
+"You're a great friend of his, aren't you?" pursued Mrs. Marland. "So I
+suppose there's no harm in mentioning my suspicions to you. Indeed, I
+daresay you could be of use to him--I mean, persuade him to be wise.
+I'm afraid, Mr. Taylor, that he is in some entanglement."
+
+"Dear, dear!" murmured Mr. Taylor.
+
+"Oh, I've no positive proof, but I fear so--and a very undesirable
+entanglement, too, with someone quite beneath him. Yes, I think I had
+better tell you about it."
+
+Mr. Taylor sat silent and, save for a start or two, motionless while
+his companion detailed her circumstantial evidence. Whether it was
+enough to prove Mrs. Marland's case or not--whether, that is, it is
+inconceivable that a young man should go to any place fourteen evenings
+running, and upset a friend of his youth out of a canoe, except there
+be a lady involved, is perhaps doubtful; but it was more than enough to
+show Mr. Sigismund Taylor that the confession he had listened to was
+based upon fact, and that Charlie Merceron was the other party to those
+stolen interviews, into whose exact degree of heinousness he was now
+inquiring. This knowledge caused Mr. Taylor to feel that he was in an
+awkward position.
+
+"Now," asked Mrs. Marland, "candidly, Mr. Taylor, can you suppose
+anything else than that our friend Charlie was carrying on a very
+pronounced flirtation with this dressmaker?"
+
+"Dressmaker?"
+
+"Her friend was, and I believe she was too. Something of the kind,
+anyhow."
+
+"You--you never saw the--the other person?"
+
+"No; she kept out of the way. That looks bad, doesn't it? No doubt she
+was a tawdry vulgar creature. But a man never notices that!"
+
+At this moment two people were seen approaching. One of them was a man
+of middle height and perhaps five-and-thirty years of age; he was stout
+and thick-built; he had a fat face with bulging cheeks; his eyes were
+rather like a frog's; he leant very much forward as he walked, and
+swayed gently from side to side with a rolling swagger; and as his body
+rolled, his eye rolled too, and he looked this way and that with a
+jovial leer and a smile of contentment and amusement on his face. The
+smile and the merry eye redeemed his appearance from blank ugliness,
+but neither of them indicated a spiritual or exalted mind.
+
+By his side walked a girl, dressed, as Mrs. Marland enviously admitted,
+as really very few women in London could dress, and wearing, in virtue
+perhaps of the dress, perhaps of other more precious gifts, an air of
+assured perfection and dainty disdain. She was listening to her
+companion's conversation, and did not notice Sigismund Taylor, with
+whom she was well acquainted.
+
+"Dear me, who are those, I wonder?" exclaimed Mrs. Marland. "She's very
+distinguée."
+
+"It's Miss Glyn," answered he.
+
+"What--Miss Agatha, Glyn?"
+
+"Yes," he replied, wondering whether that little coincidence as to the
+'Agatha' would suggest itself to anyone else.
+
+"Lord Thrapston's granddaughter?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Horrid old man, isn't he?"
+
+"I know him very slightly."
+
+"And the man--who's he?"
+
+"Mr. Calder Wentworth."
+
+"To be sure. Why, they're engaged, aren't they? I saw it in the paper."
+
+"I'm sure I don't know," said Mr. Taylor, in a voice more troubled than
+the matter seemed to require. "I saw it in the paper too."
+
+"He's no beauty, at any rate; but he's a great match, I suppose?"
+
+"Oh, perhaps it isn't true."
+
+"You speak as if you wished it wasn't. I've heard about Mr. Wentworth
+from Victor Sutton--you know who I mean?" and Mrs. Marland proceeded to
+give some particulars of Calder Wentworth's career.
+
+Meanwhile that gentleman himself was telling Agatha Glyn a very
+humorous story. Agatha did not laugh. Suddenly she interrupted him.
+
+"Why don't you ask me more about it?"
+
+"I thought you'd tell me if you wanted me to know," he answered.
+
+"You are the most insufferable man. Don't you care in the least what I
+do or where I go?"
+
+"Got perfect confidence in you," said Calder politely.
+
+"I don't deserve it."
+
+"Oh, I daresay not; but it's so much more comfortable for me."
+
+"I disappeared--simply disappeared--for a fortnight; and you've never
+asked where I went, or what I did, or--or anything."
+
+"Haven't I? Where did you go?"
+
+"I can't tell you."
+
+"There, you see! What the dickens was the good of my asking?"
+
+"If you knew what I did I suppose you'd never speak to me again."
+
+"All right. Keep it dark then, please."
+
+"For one tiling, I met--No, I won't."
+
+"I never asked you to, you know."
+
+They walked on a little way in silence.
+
+"Met young Sutton at lunch," observed Calder. "He's been rusticating
+with some relations of old Van Merceron's. They've got a nice place
+apparently."
+
+"I particularly dislike Mr. Sutton."
+
+"All right. He sha'n't come when we're married. Eh? What?"
+
+"I didn't speak," said Miss Glyn, who had certainly done something.
+
+"Beg pardon," smiled Calder. "Victor told me rather a joke. It appears
+there's a young Merceron, and the usual rustic beauty, don't you
+know--forget the name--but a fat girl, Victor said, and awfully gone on
+young Merceron. Well, there's a pond or something----"
+
+"How long will this story last?" asked Miss Glyn with a tragic air.
+
+"It's an uncommon amusing one," protested Calder. "He upset her in the
+pond, and----"
+
+"Do you mind finishing it some other time?"
+
+"Oh, all right. Thought it'd interest you."
+
+"It doesn't."
+
+"Never knew such a girl! No sense of humor!" commented Calder, with a
+shake of his head and a backward roll of his eye towards his companion.
+
+But it makes such a difference whether a story is new to the hearer.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+THERE WAS SOMEBODY
+
+
+Two worlds and half a dozen industries had conspired to shower gold on
+Calder Wentworth's head. There was land in the family, brought by his
+grandmother; there was finance on the paternal side (whence came a
+Portuguese title, carefully eschewed by Calder); there had been a
+London street, half a watering-place, a South African mine, and the
+better part of an American railway. The street and the watering-place
+remained; the mine and the railway had been sold at the top of the
+market. About the same time the family name became Wentworth--it had
+been Stripes, which was felt to be absurd--and the family itself began
+to take an exalted place in society. The rise was the easier because,
+when old Mr. Stripes-Wentworth died, young Mr. Calder S. Wentworth
+became the only representative; and a rich young bachelor can rise
+lightly to heights inaccessible to the feet of less happily situated
+folk. It seemed part of Providence's benevolence that when Lady
+Forteville asked how many 'Stripes women' there were, the answer could
+be 'None'; whereupon the countess at once invited Mr. Calder Wentworth
+to dinner. Calder went, and rolled his frog's eyes with much amusement
+when the lady asked him to what Wentworths he belonged, for, as he
+observed to Miss Glyn, whom he had the pleasure of escorting, his
+Wentworths were an entirely new brand, and Lady Forteville knew it as
+well as if she had read the letters patent and invented the
+coat-of-arms.
+
+"Mr. Wentworth--Mr. Merceron," said Victor Sutton, with a wave of his
+hand.
+
+"I believe I know an uncle of yours--an uncommon clever fellow," said
+Calder, unfolding his napkin and glancing round the dining-room of the
+Themis Club.
+
+"Oh, Uncle Van? Yes, we consider him our----"
+
+"Leading article? Quite so. I've heard a bit about you too--something
+about a canoe, eh?"
+
+Charlie looked somewhat disturbed.
+
+"Oughtn't Sutton to have told me? Well, it's too late now because I've
+told half a dozen fellows."
+
+"But there's nothing to tell."
+
+"Well, I told it to old Thrapston--you don't know him, do you?
+Cunningest old boy in London. Upon my honor, you know, I shouldn't like
+to be like old Thrapston, not when I was getting old, you know.  He's
+too----"
+
+"Well, what did he say?" asked Victor.
+
+"He said what you never had the sense to see, my boy; but I expect Mr.
+Merceron won't be obliged to me for repeating it."
+
+"I should like to hear it," said Charlie, with necessary politeness.
+
+"Well, it's not me, its old Thrapston; and if you say it's wrong, I'll
+believe yon. Old Thrapston--hang it, Victor, that old man ought to be
+hanged! Why, only the other day I saw him----"
+
+"Do stick to the point," groaned Victor.
+
+"All right. Well, he said, 'I'll lay a guinea there was a'--and he
+winked his sinful old eye, you know, for all the world like a
+what-d'ye-call-it in a cathedral one of those hideous--I say, what is
+the word, Victor? I saw 'em when Agatha took me--beg pardon, Merceron?"
+
+Was the world full of Agathas? If so, it would be well not to start
+whenever one was mentioned. Charlie recovered himself.
+
+"I think you must mean a gargoyle," he said, wondering who this Agatha
+might be.
+
+"Of course I do. Fancy forgetting that! Gargoyle, of course. Well, old
+Thrapston said, 'I'll lay a guinea there was a woman in that dashed
+summer house, Calder, my boy.'"
+
+Victor Button's eyes lighted with a gleam,
+
+"Well, I'm hanged if I ever thought of that! Charlie, you held us all!"
+
+"Bosh!" said Charlie Merceron. "There was no one there."
+
+"All right. But there ought to have been, you know--to give interest to
+the position."
+
+"Honor bright, Charlie?" asked Victor Sutton.
+
+"Shut up, Sutton," interposed Calder, "He's not in the Divorce Court,
+Let's change the subject."
+
+Charlie was in a difficulty, but the better course seemed to be to
+allow the subject to be changed, in spite of the wink that accompanied
+Calder's suggestion.
+
+"All right," said Victor. "How is Miss Glyn, Wentworth?"
+
+"Oh, she's all right. She's been in the country for a bit, but she's
+back now."
+
+"And when is the happy event to be?"
+
+Calder laid down his knife and fork and remarked deliberately:
+
+"I haven't, my dear boy, the least idea."
+
+"I should hurry her up," laughed Sutton.
+
+"I'd just like--now I should just like to put you in my shoes for half
+an hour, and see you hurry up Agatha."
+
+"She couldn't eat me."
+
+"Eat you? No, but she'd flatten you out so that you'd go under that
+door and leave room for the jolly draught there is all the same."
+
+Sutton laughed complacently.
+
+"Well, you're a patient man," he observed. "For my part, I like a thing
+to be off or on."
+
+It came to Charlie Merceron almost as a surprise to find that Victor's
+impudence--he could call it by no other name--was not reserved for his
+juniors or for young men from the country; but Calder took it quite
+good-humoredly, contenting himself with observing, "Well, it was very
+soon off in your case, wasn't it, old fellow?"
+
+Sutton flushed.
+
+"I've told you before that that's not true," he said angrily.
+
+Calder laughed.
+
+"All right, all right. We used to think, once upon a time, Merceron,
+you know, that old Victor here was a bit smitten himself; but he hasn't
+drugged my champagne yet, so of course, as he says, it was all a
+mistake."
+
+After dinner the three separated. Victor had to go to a party. Calder
+Wentworth proposed to Charlie that they should take a stroll together
+with a view to seeing whether, when they came opposite to the door of a
+music-hall, they would 'feel like' dropping in to see part of the
+entertainment. Charlie agreed, and, having lit their cigars, they set
+out. He found his now friend amusing, and Calder, for his part, took a
+liking for Charlie, largely on account of his good looks; like many
+plain people, he was extremely sensitive to the influence of beauty in
+women and men alike.
+
+"I say, old fellow," he said, pressing Charlie's arm as if he had known
+him all his life, "there was somebody in that summer-house, eh?"
+
+Charlie turned with a smile and a blush. He felt confidential.
+
+"Yes, there was, only Victor----"
+
+"Oh, I know. I nearly break his head whenever he mentions any girl I
+like."
+
+"You know what he'd have thought--and it wasn't anything like that
+really."
+
+"Who was she, then?"
+
+"I--I don't know."
+
+"Oh, I don't mean her name, of course. But what was she?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"Where did she come from?"
+
+"London, I believe."
+
+"Oh! I say, that's a queer go, Merceron."
+
+"I don't know what to think about it. She's simply vanished," said poor
+Charlie, and no one should wonder if his voice faltered a little.
+Calder Wentworth laughed at many things, but he did not laugh now at
+Charlie Merceron. Indeed he looked unusually grave.
+
+"I should drop it," he remarked. "It don't look--well--healthy."
+
+"Ah, you've never seen her," said Charlie.
+
+"No, and I tell you what--it won't be a bad thing if you don't see her
+again."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because you're just in the state of mind to marry her."
+
+"And why shouldn't I?"
+
+Mr. Wentworth made no answer, and they walked on till they readied
+Piccadilly Circus. Then Charlie suddenly darted forward.
+
+"Hullo, what's up?" cried Calder, following him.
+
+Charlie was talking eagerly to a very smart young lady who had just got
+down from an omnibus.
+
+"By Jove! he can't have found, her!" thought Calder.
+
+It was not the unknown, but her friend Nettie Wallace, whom Charlie's
+quick eye had discerned; and the next moment Willie Prime made his
+appearance. Charlie received them both almost with enthusiasm, and the
+news from Lang Marsh was asked and given. Calder drew near, and Charlie
+presented his friends to one another with the intent that he might get
+a word with Nettie while Calder engrossed her fiances attention.
+
+"Have--have you heard from Miss Brown lately?" he was just beginning,
+when Calder, who had been looking steadily at Nettie, burst out:
+
+"Hullo, I say, Miss Wallace, we've met before, haven't we? You know me,
+don't you?"
+
+Nettie laughed.
+
+"Oh, yes, I know you, sir. You're---"
+
+She paused abruptly, and glanced from Charlie to Calder, and back from
+Calder to Charlie. Then she blushed very red indeed.
+
+"Well, who am I?"
+
+"I--I saw you at--at Miss Glyn's, Mr. Wentworth."
+
+"'Course you did--that's it;" and, looking curiously at the girl's
+flushed face, he added: "Don't be afraid to mention Miss Glyn; Mr.
+Merceron knows all about it."
+
+"All about it, does he, sir?" cried Nettie. "Well, I'm glad of that. I
+haven't been easy in my mind ever since."
+
+Calder's conformation of eye enabled him to express much surprise by
+facial expression, and at this moment he used his power to the full.
+
+"Awfully kind of you, Miss Wallace," said he, "but I don't see where
+your responsibility comes in. Ever since what?"
+
+Nettie shot a glance of inquiry at Charlie, but here too she met only
+bewilderment.
+
+"Does he know that Miss Glyn is---" she began.
+
+"Engaged to me? Certainly."
+
+"Oh!"
+
+Willie stood by in silence. He had never heard of this Miss Glyn.
+Charlie, puzzled as he was, was too intent on Miss Brown to spend much
+time wondering why Miss Glyn's affairs should have been a trouble to
+Nettie.
+
+"You'll let me know if you hear about her, won't you?" he asked in a
+low voice.
+
+Nettie gave up the hope of understanding. She shook her head.
+
+"I'll ask her, if I see her, whether she wishes it," she whispered
+back; and, with a hasty good-night, she seized Willie's arm and hurried
+him off. Charlie was left alone with Calder.
+
+"What the deuce did she mean?" asked Calder.
+
+"I don't know," answered Charlie.
+
+"Where did you meet her?"
+
+"Oh, down at home. The fellow she was with is a son of a tenant of
+ours; she's going to marry him."
+
+"She's a nice little girl, but I'm hanged if I know what she meant."
+
+And, as the one was thinking exclusively of Agatha Glyn, and the other
+spared a thought for no one but Agatha Brown, they did not arrive at an
+explanation.
+
+One result, however, that chance encounter had. The next morning Miss
+Agatha Glyn received a letter in the following terms:
+
+
+"Madam:--I hope you will excuse me intruding, but I think you would
+wish to know that Mr. Charles Merceron is in London, and that I met him
+this evening with Mr. Wentworth. As you informed me that you had passed
+Mr. Merceron on the road two or three times during your visit to Lang
+Marsh, I think you may wish to be informed of the above. I may add that
+Mr. Merceron is aware that you are engaged to Mr. Wentworth, but I
+could not make out how far he was aware of what happened at Lang Marsh.
+I think he does not know it. Of course you will know whether Mr.
+Wentworth is aware of your visit there. I should be much obliged if you
+would be so kind as to tell me what to say if I meet the gentlemen
+again. Mr. Merceron is very pressing in asking me for news of you. I am
+to be married in a fortnight from the present date, and I am, Madam,
+yours respectfully, Nettie Wallace."
+
+
+"In London, and with Calder!" exclaimed Agatha Glyn. "Oh dear! oh dear!
+oh dear! What is to be done? I wish I'd never gone near the wretched
+place!"
+
+Then she took up the letter and reread it.
+
+"He and I mustn't meet, that's all," she said.
+
+Then she slowly tore the letter into very small pieces and put them in
+the waste-paper basket.
+
+"Calder has no idea where I was," she said, and she sat down by the
+window and looked out over the Park for nearly ten minutes.
+
+"Ah, well! I should like to see him just once again. Dear old Pool."
+said she.
+
+Then she suddenly began to laugh--an action only to be excused in one
+in her position, and burdened with her sins, by the fact of her having
+at the moment a peculiarly vivid vision of Millie Bushell going head
+first out of a canoe.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+THE INEVITABLE MEETING
+
+
+The first Viscount Thrapston had been an eminent public character, and
+the second a respectable private person; the third had been neither.
+And yet there was some good in the third. He had loved his only son
+with a fondness rare to find; and for ten whole years, while the young
+man was between seventeen and twenty-seven, the old lord lived, for his
+sake, a life open to no reproach. Then the son died, leaving a lately
+married wife and a baby-girl, and Lord Thrapston, deprived at once of
+hope and of restraint, returned to his old courses, till age came upon
+him and drove him from practice into reminiscence. Mrs. Glyn had
+outlived her husband fifteen years and then followed him, fairly
+snubbed to death, some said, by her formidable father-in-law. The
+daughter was of sterner stuff, and early discovered for herself that
+nothing worse than a scowl or a snarl was to be feared. On her, indeed,
+descended a relic of that tenderness her father had enjoyed, and Agatha
+used to the full the advantages it gave her. She knew her own
+importance. It is not every girl who will be a peeress in her own
+right, and she amused her grandfather by calmly informing him that it
+was not on the whole a subject for regret that she had not been a boy.
+"You see," said she, "we get rid of the new viscounty, and it's much
+better to be Warmley than Thrapston."
+
+The fact that she was some day to be 'Warmley' was the mainspring of
+that hairbrained jaunt to Lang Marsh in company with Nettie Wallace.
+Nettie was the daughter of Lord Thrapston's housekeeper, and the two
+girls had been intimate in youth, much as Charlie Merceron and Willie
+Prime had been at the Court; and when Nettie, scorning servitude, set
+up in life for herself, Agatha gave her her custom and did not withdraw
+her friendship. In return, she received an allegiance which refused
+none of her behests, and a regard which abolished all formality between
+them, except when Nettie got a pen in her hand and set herself to
+compose a polite letter. The expedition was, of course, to see the
+Court--the old home of the Warmleys, for which Agatha felt a
+sentimental attraction. She had told herself that some day, if she were
+rich (and, Lord Thrapston not being rich, she must have had some other
+resource in her mind), she would buy back Langbury Court and get rid of
+the Mercerons altogether. There were only a widow and a boy, she had
+heard, and they should have their price. So she went to the Court in
+the business-like mood of a possible purchaser (Calder could afford
+anything), as well as in the romantic mood of a girl escaped from
+every-day surroundings and plunging into a past full of interest to
+her. Had not she also read of Agatha Merceron? And in this mixed mood
+she remained till one evening at the Pool she had met 'the boy', when
+the mood became more mixed still. She dared not now look back on the
+struggles she had gone through before her meeting with the boy became
+first a daily event, and then the daily event. She had indulged herself
+for once. It was not to last; but for once it was overpoweringly sweet
+to be gazed at by eyes that did not remind her of a frog's, and to see
+swiftly darting towards her a lithe straight figure crowned with a head
+that (so she said) reminded her of Lord Byron's. But alas! alas! why
+had nobody told her that the boy was like that before she went? Why did
+her grandfather take no care of her? Why did Calder never show any
+interest in what she did? Why, in fine, was everybody so cruel as to
+let her do exactly what she liked, and thereby get into a scrape like
+this?
+
+One thing was certain. If that boy were in London, she must avoid him.
+They must never meet. It was nonsense for Mr. Sigismund Taylor to talk
+of making a. clean breast of it--of a dignified apology to Charlie,
+coupled with a no less dignified intimation that their acquaintance
+must be regarded as closed. Mr. Taylor knew nothing of the world. He
+even wanted her to tell Calder! No. She was truly and properly
+penitent, and she hoped that she received all he said in that line in a
+right spirit; but when it came to a question of expediency, she would
+rather have Mrs. Blunt's advice than that of a thousand Mr. Taylors. So
+she wrote to Mrs. Blunt and asked herself to lunch, and Mrs. Blunt,
+being an accomplished painstaking hostess, and having no reason to
+suppose that her young friend desired a confidential interview, at once
+cast about for some one whom Agatha would like to meet. She did not ask
+Calder Wentworth--she was not so commonplace as that--but she invited
+Victor Sutton, and, delighting in a happy flash of inspiration, she
+added Mr. Vansittart Merceron. The families were connected in some way,
+she knew, and Agatha certainly ought to know Mr. Merceron.
+
+Accordingly, when Agatha arrived, she found Victor, and she had not
+been there five minutes before the butler, throwing open the door,
+announced "Mr. Merceron."
+
+Uncle Van had reached that state of body when he took his time over
+stairs, and between the announcement and his entrance there was time
+for Agatha to exclaim, quite audibly, "Oh!"
+
+"What's the matter, dear?" asked Mrs. Blunt; but Uncle Van's entrance
+forbade a reply, and left Agatha blushing but relieved.
+
+Was she never to hear the end of that awful story? It might be natural
+that, her hereditary connection with the Mercerons being disclosed, Mr.
+Vansittart should discourse of Langbury Court, of the Pool, and of
+Agatha Merceron; but was it necessary that Victor Sutton should chime
+in with the whole history of the canoe and Miss Bushell, or joke with
+Mr. Merceron about his nephew's 'assignations'? The whole topic seemed
+in bad taste, and she wondered that Mrs. Blunt did not discourage it.
+But what horrible creatures men were! Did they really think it
+impossible for a girl to like to talk to a man for an hour or so in the
+evening without----?
+
+"You must let me bring my nephew to meet Miss Glyn," said Uncle Van
+graciously to his hostess. "She is so interested in the family history
+that she and Charlie would get on like wildfire. He's mad about it."
+
+"In fact," sniggered Victor (Miss Glyn always detested that man), "so
+interested that, as you hear, he went to meet Agatha Merceron every
+evening for a fortnight!"
+
+"You'll be delighted to meet him, won't you, Agatha? We must arrange a
+day," said Mrs. Blunt.
+
+"Calder knows him," added Victor.
+
+"He's an idle young dog," said Uncle Van, "but a nice fellow. A little
+flighty and fanciful, as boys will be, but no harm in him. You mustn't
+attach too much importance to our chaff about his meetings at the Pool,
+Miss Glyn; we don't mean any harm."
+
+Agatha tried to smile, but the attempt was not a brilliant success.
+She stammered that she would be delighted to meet Mr. Charles Merceron,
+swearing in her heart that she would sooner start for Tierra del Fuego.
+But her confession to Mrs. Blunt would save her, if only these odious
+men would go. They had had their coffee, and their liqueurs, and their
+cigarettes. What more, in Heaven's name, could even a man want to
+propitiate the god of his idolatry?
+
+Apparently the guests themselves became aware that they were
+trespassing, for Uncle Van, turning to his hostess with his blandest
+smile, remarked, "I hope we're not staying too long. The fact is, my
+dear Mrs. Blunt, you're always so kind that we took the liberty of
+telling Calder Wentworth to call for us here. He ought to have come by
+now."
+
+Mrs. Blunt declared that she would be offended if they thought of going
+before Calder came. Agatha rose in despair: the confession must be put
+off. She held out her hand to her hostess. At this moment the door-bell
+rang.
+
+"That's him," said Victor.
+
+"Sit down again for a minute, dear," urged Mrs. Blunt.
+
+There was renewed hope for the confession. Agatha sat down. But hardly
+had she done so before the strangest presentiment came over her. She
+heard the door below open and shut, and it was borne in upon her mind
+that two men had entered. How she guessed it, she could not tell, but,
+as she sat there, she had no doubt at all that Charlie Merceron had
+come with Calder Went worth. Escape was impossible, but she walked
+across to the window and stood there, with her back to the door.
+
+"Mr. Wentworth!" she heard, and then, cutting the servant short, came
+Calder's voice.
+
+"I took the liberty---" he began: and she did not know how he went on,
+for her head was swimming.
+
+"Agatha! Agatha, dear!" called Mrs. Blunt.
+
+Perforce she turned, passing her hand quickly across her brow. Yes! It
+was so. There he stood by Calder's side, and Calder was saying, "My
+dear Agatha, this is Charlie Merceron."
+
+She would not look at Charlie. She moved slowly forward, her eyes fixed
+on Calder, and bowed with a little set smile. Luckily people pay slight
+attention to one another's expressions on social occasions, or they
+must all have noticed her agitation. As it was, only Calder Wentworth
+looked curiously at her before he turned aside to shake hands with
+Uncle Van.
+
+Then she felt Charlie Merceron coining nearer, and, a second later, she
+heard his voice.
+
+"Is it possible that it's you?" he asked, in a low tone.
+
+Then she looked at him. His face was pale and his eyes eagerly
+straining to read what might be in hers.
+
+"Hush!" she whispered. "Yes. Hush! hush!"
+
+"But--but he told me your name was Glyn?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And he says you're engaged to him."
+
+Agatha clasped her hands, and Calder's voice broke in, between them:
+"Come along, Merceron, we're waiting for you."
+
+"They've got into antiquities already," smiled Mrs. Blunt. "You must
+come again, Mr. Merceron, and meet Miss Glyn. Mustn't he, Agatha?"
+
+Agatha threw one glance at him.
+
+"If he will," she said.
+
+Charlie pulled himself together, muttered something appropriate, and
+shuffled out tinder his uncle's wing. Mr. Vansittart was surprised to
+find him a trifle confused and awkward in society.
+
+Outside the house, Charlie ranged up beside Calder "Wentworth, leaving
+Uncle Van and Sutton together.
+
+"Well, what do you think of her?" asked Calder.
+
+Charlie gave no opinion. He asked just one question:
+
+"How long have you been engaged to her?"
+
+"How long? Oh, let's see. About--yes, just about a year. I never knew
+that there was a sort of connection between you and her--sort of
+relationship, you know. I ain't strong on the Peerage."
+
+"A sort of connection!" There was that in more senses than the one
+Calder had been told of by Uncle Van. There was a connection that poor
+Charlie thought Heaven itself had tied on those summer evenings by the
+Pool, which to strengthen and confirm forever he had sallied from his
+home, like a knight in search of his mistress the world over in olden
+days. And he found her--such as this girl must be! Stay! He did not
+know all yet. Perhaps she had been forced into a bond she hated. He
+knew that happened. Did not stories tell of it, and moralists declaim
+against it? This man--this creature, Calder Wentworth--was buying her
+with his money, forcing himself on her, brutally capturing her. Of
+course! How could he have doubted her? Charlie dropped Calder's arm as
+though it had been made of red-hot iron.
+
+"Hullo!" exclaimed that worthy fellow, unconscious of offence.
+
+Charlie stopped short.  "I can't come," he said. "I--I've remembered an
+engagement;" and without more he turned away and shot out of sight
+round the nearest corner.
+
+"Well, I'm hanged!" said Calder Wentworth, and, with a puzzled frown,
+he joined his other friends.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+THE MORAL OF IT
+
+
+Left alone with Mrs. Blunt, Agatha sank into the nearest chair.
+
+"A very handsome young man, isn't he?" asked the good lady, pushing a
+chair back into its place. "He'll be an acquisition, I think."
+
+Agatha made no answer, and Mrs. Blunt, glancing at her, found her
+devouring the carpet with a stony stare.
+
+"What on earth's the matter, child?"
+
+"I'm the wretchedest wickedest girl alive," declared Agatha.
+
+"Good gracious!"
+
+"Mrs. Blunt, who do you think was in the summer-house when Mr. Merceron
+went there?"
+
+"My dear, are you ill? You jump about so from subject to subject."
+
+"It's all one subject, Mrs. Blunt. There was a girl there."
+
+"Well, my dear, and if there was? Boys will be boys; and I'm sure there
+was no harm."
+
+"No harm! Oh!"
+
+"Agatha, are you crazy?" demanded Mrs. Blunt, with an access of
+sternness.
+
+"Could I fancy," pursued Agatha, in despairing playfulness mimicking
+Uncle Van's manner, "how Miss Bushell looked, and how Victor looked,
+and how everybody looked? Could I fancy it? Why, I was there!"
+
+"There! Where?"
+
+"Why, in that wretched little temple. I was the girl, Mrs. Blunt.
+I--I--I was the milkmaid, as Mr. Sutton says. I was the country wench!
+Oh dear! oh dear! oh dear!"
+
+Mrs. Blunt, knowing her sex, held out a bottle of salts.
+
+"I'm not mad," said Agatha.
+
+"You're nearly hysterical."
+
+Agatha took a long sniff.
+
+"I think I can tell you now," she said more calmly. "But was ever a
+girl in such an awful position before?"
+
+It is needless to repeat what Mrs. Blunt said. Her censures will have
+been long ago anticipated by every right-thinking person, and if she
+softened them down a little more than strict justice allowed, it must
+have been because Agatha was an old favorite of hers, and Lord
+Thrapston an old antipathy. Upon her word, she always wondered that the
+poor child, brought up by that horrid old man, was not twice as bad as
+she was.
+
+"But what am I to do about them?" cried Agatha.
+
+'Them' evidently meant Calder and Charlie.
+
+"Do! Why, there's nothing to do. You must just apologize to Mr.
+Merceron, and tell him that an end had better be put--"
+
+"Oh, I know--Mr. Taylor said that; but, Mrs. Blunt, I don't want an end
+to be put to our acquaintance. I like him very very much. Oh, and he
+thinks me horrid! Oh!"
+
+"Take another sniff," advised Mrs. Blunt, "Of course, if Mr. Merceron
+is willing to let bygones be bygones, and just be an acquaintance----"
+
+"Oh, but I know he won't. If you knew Charlie
+
+"Knew who, Agatha?"
+
+"Mr. Merceron," said Agatha, in a very humble voice. "If you knew him
+at all, you'd know he wouldn't do that."
+
+"Then you must send him about his business. Oh, yes, I know. You've
+treated him atrociously, but Calder Wentworth must be considered first;
+that is, if you care two straws for the poor fellow, which I begin to
+doubt."
+
+"Oh, I do, Mrs. Blunt!"
+
+"Agatha, you shameless girl, which of these men---?"
+
+"Don't talk as if there were a dozen of them, dear Mrs. Blunt. There
+are only two."
+
+"One too many."
+
+"Yes, I know. You--you see I'm--I'm accustomed to Calder."
+
+"Oh, are you?"
+
+"Yes. Don't be unkind, Mrs. Blunt. And then Charlie was something so
+new--such a charming change--that----"
+
+"Upon my word, you might be your grandfather. Talk about heredity, and
+Ibsen, and all that!"
+
+"Can't you help me, dear Mrs. Blunt?"
+
+"I can't give you two husbands, if that's what you want. There, child,
+don't cry. Never mind me. Have another sniff."
+
+"I shall go home," said Agatha. "Perhaps grandpapa may be able to
+advise me."
+
+"Your grandfather! Gracious goodness, girl, you're never going to tell
+him?"
+
+"Yes, I shall. Grandpapa's had a lot of experience: he says so."
+
+"I should think he had!" whispered Mrs. Blunt with uplifted hands.
+
+"Good-by, Mrs. Blunt. You don't know how unhappy I am. Thanks, yes, a
+hansom, please. Mrs. Blunt, are you going to ask Mr. Merceron here
+again?"
+
+Mrs. Blunt's toleration was exhausted.
+
+"Be off with you!" she said sternly, pointing a forefinger at the door.
+
+By great good fortune Agatha found Lord Thrapston at home. Drawing a
+footstool beside his chair, she sat down. Her agitation was past, and
+she wore a gravely business like air.
+
+"Grandpapa," she began, "I have got something to tell you."
+
+"Go ahead, my dear," said the old gentleman, stroking her golden hair.
+Her father had curls like that when he was a boy.
+
+"Something dreadful I've done, you know. But you won't be very angry,
+will you?"
+
+"We'll see."
+
+"You oughtn't to be, because you're not very good yourself, are you?"
+and she first glanced up into his burnt-out old eyes and then pressed
+her lips on his knotted lean old hand.
+
+"Aggy," said he, "I expect you play the deuce with the young fellows,
+don't you?"
+
+Agatha laughed softly, but a frown succeeded.
+
+"That's just it," she said. "Now, you're to listen and not interrupt,
+or I shall never be able to manage it. And you're not to look at me,
+grandpapa."
+
+The narrative--that thrice-told tale--began. As the comments of Mr.
+Taylor and Mrs. Blunt were omitted, those of Lord Thrapston may well
+receive like treatment, more especially as they tended not to
+edification; but before his granddaughter had finished her story the
+old man had sworn softly four times and chuckled audibly twice.
+
+"I knew there was a girl in that temple, soon as Calder told me," said
+he.
+
+"But you didn't know who it was. Oh, and Calder doesn't?"
+
+"Not he. Well, you've made a pretty little fool of yourself, missie.
+What are you going to do now?"
+
+"That's what you've got to tell me."
+
+"I? Oh, I dare say. No, no; you got into the scrape and you can get out
+of it. And---" He suddenly recollected his duties. "Look here, Agatha,
+I must--hang it, Agatha, I shouldn't be doing my duty as--as a
+grandfather if I didn't say that it's a monstrous disgraceful thing of
+you to have done. Yes, d----d disgraceful;" and he took a pinch of
+snuff with an air of severe virtue.
+
+"Yes, dear; but you shouldn't swear, should you?"
+
+Lord Thrapston felt that he had spoilt the moral effect of his reproof,
+and, without dwelling further on that aspect of the subject, he
+addressed his mind to the more practical question. The outcome,
+different as the source was, was the same old verdict.
+
+"We must tell Calder, my dear. It isn't right to keep him in the dark."
+
+"I can't tell him. Why must he be told?"
+
+"Well," said Lord Thrapston, "it's just possible, Aggy, that he may
+have something to say to it, isn't it?"
+
+"I don't mind what he says," declared Agatha.
+
+"Eh? Why, I thought you were so fond of him."
+
+"So I am."
+
+"And as you're going to marry him
+
+"I never said I was going to marry him. I only said he might be engaged
+to me, if he liked."
+
+"Oho! So this young Merceron----"
+
+"Not at all, grandpapa. Oh, I do wish somebody would help me!"
+
+Lord Thrapston rose from his seat.
+
+"You must do what you like," he said. "I'm going to tell Calder."
+
+"Oh, why?"
+
+"Because," he answered, "I'm a man of honor."
+
+Before the impressive invocation of her grandfather's one religion,
+Agatha's opposition collapsed.
+
+"I suppose he must be told," she admitted mournfully. "I expect he'll
+never speak to me again, and I'm sure Mr. Merceron won't;" and she sat
+on the footstool, the picture of dejection.
+
+Lord Thrapston was moved to enunciate a solemn truth.
+
+"Aggy," said he, shaking his finger at her, "in this world you can't
+have your fun for nothing." But then he spoilt it by adding
+regretfully, "More's the pity!" and off he hobbled to the club, intent
+on finding Calder Wentworth.
+
+For some time after he went, Agatha sat on her stool in deep thought.
+Then she rose, sat down at the writing-table, took a pen, and began to
+bite the end of it. At last she started to write:
+
+"I don't know whether I ought to write or not, but I must tell you how
+it happened. Oh, don't think too badly of me! I came down just because
+I had heard so much about the Court and I wanted to see it, and I came
+as I did with Nettie Wallace just for fun. I never meant to say I was a
+dress-maker, you know; but people would ask questions and I had to say
+something. I never, never thought of you. I thought you were about
+fifteen. And you know--oh, you must know--that I met you quite by
+accident, and was just as surprised as you were. And the rest was all
+your fault. I didn't want to come again; you know I refused ever so
+many times; and you promised you wouldn't come if I came, and then you
+did come. It was really all your fault. And I'm very, very sorry, and
+you must please try to forgive me, dear Mr. Merceron, and not think me
+a very wicked girl. I had no idea of coming every evening, but you
+persuaded me. You know you persuaded me. And how could I tell you I was
+engaged? You know you never asked me. I would have told you if you had.
+I am telling Mr. Wentworth all about it, and I don't think you ought to
+have persuaded me to meet you as you did. It wasn't really kind or nice
+of you, was it? Because, of course, I'm not very old, and I don't know
+much about the world, and I never thought of all the horrid things
+people would say. Do, please, keep this quite a secret.  I felt I must
+write you just a line. I wonder what you're thinking about me, or
+whether you're thinking about me at all. You must never think of me
+again. I am very, very unhappy, and I do most earnestly hope, dear Mr.
+Merceron, that I have not made you unhappy. We were both very much to
+blame, weren't we? But we slipped into it without knowing. Good-by. I
+don't think I shall ever forget the dear old Pool, and the temple,
+and--the rest. But you must please forget me and forgive me. I am very
+miserable about it and about everything. I think we had better not know
+each other any more, so please don't answer this. Just put it in the
+fire and think no more about it or me. I wanted to tell you all this
+when I saw you to-day, but I couldn't.  Good-by. Why did we ever meet?"
+
+"Agatha Glyn."
+
+
+She read this rather confused composition over twice, growing more
+sorry for herself each time. Then she put it in an envelope, addressed
+it to Charlie, looked out Uncle Van in the Directory, and sent it under
+cover to his residence. Then she went and lay down on the hearth-rug,
+and began to cry, and through her tears she said aloud to herself,
+
+"I wonder whether he'll write or come."
+
+Because it seemed to her entirely impossible that, in spite of her
+prayer, he should put the letter in the fire and let her go. Surely he
+too remembered the dear old Pool, and the temple, and--the rest!
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+TWO MEN OF SPIRIT
+
+
+"The fact is," observed Lord Thrapston complacently, "the girl very
+much resembles me in disposition."
+
+Calder's eyes grew larger and rounder.
+
+"Do you really think so?" he asked anxiously.
+
+"Well, this little lark of hers--hang me, it's just what I should have
+enjoyed doing fifty years ago."
+
+"Ah--er--Lord--Thrapston, have you noticed the resemblance you speak of
+in any other way?"
+
+"That girl, except that she is a girl, is myself over again--myself
+over again."
+
+"The deuce!"
+
+"I beg your pardon, Calder; I grow hard of hearing."
+
+"Nothing. Lord Thrapston. Look here, Lord Thrapston----"
+
+"Well, well, my dear boy?"
+
+"Oh, nothing; that is--"
+
+"But she'll be all right in your hands, my boy. You must keep an eye;
+on her, don't you know: she'll need a bit o' driving; but I really
+don't see why you should come to grief. I don't, 'pon my soul. No.
+With tact on your part, you might very well pull through."
+
+"How d'ye mean tact, Lord Thrapston?"
+
+"Oh, amuse her. Let her travel; give her lots of society; don't bother
+her with domestic affairs. Don't let her feel she's under any
+obligation. That's what she kicks against. So do I; always did."
+
+Calder pulled his mustache. Lord Thrapston had briefly sketched the
+exact opposite of his ideal of married life.
+
+"The fact is," continued the old man, "the boy's an uncommon handsome
+boy. She can't resist that. No more can I; never could."
+
+There chanced to be a mirror opposite Calder, and he impartially
+considered himself. There was, he concluded, every prospect of Miss
+Glyn resisting any engrossing passion for him.
+
+"It's very good of you to have told, me all about it," he remarked,
+rising. "I'll think it over."
+
+"Yes, do. Of course, I admit she's given you a perfectly good reason
+for breaking off your engagement if you like. Mind that. We don't feel
+aggrieved, Calder. Act as you think best. We admit we're in the wrong,
+but we must stand by what we've done."
+
+"I shouldn't like to give her any pain--"
+
+"Pain! Oh, dear me, no, my dear boy. She won't fret. Make your mind
+easy about that."
+
+Calder felt a sudden impulse to disclose to Lord Thrapston his secret
+opinion of him, and he recollected, with a pang, that in the course of
+so doing he would have to touch on more than one characteristic shared
+by the old man and Agatha. Where were his visions of a quiet home in
+the country, of freedom from the irksome duties of society, of an
+obedient and devoted wife, surrounded by children and flanked by
+jampots? He had once painted this picture for Agatha, shortly after she
+had agreed to that arrangement which she declined to call a promise of
+marriage; and it occurred to him now that she had allowed the subject
+to drop without any expression of concurrence. He took leave of Lord
+Thrapston and went for a solitary walk. He wanted to think. But the
+position of affairs was such that other persons also felt the need of
+reflection, and Calder had not been walking by the Row very long
+before, lifting his eyes, he saw a young man approaching. The young man
+was not attired as he ought to have been: he wore a light suit, a
+dissolute necktie, and a soft wideawake crammed down low on his head.
+He had obviously forsworn the vanities of the world and was wearing the
+willow. He came up to Calder and held out his hand.
+
+"Wentworth," he said, "I left you rudely the other day. I was doing you
+an injustice. I have heard the truth from Mrs. Blunt. You are free from
+all blame. We--we are fellow-sufferers."
+
+His tones were so mournful that Calder shook his hand with warm
+sympathy, and remarked, "Pretty rough, on us both, ain't it?"
+
+"For me," declared Charlie, "everything is over. My trust in woman is
+destroyed; my pleasure in life is--"
+
+"Well, I don't feel A1 myself, old chap," said Calder.
+
+"I have written to--to her, to say good-by."
+
+"No, have yon, though?"
+
+"What else could I do? Wentworth, do you suppose that, even if she was
+free, I would think of her for another moment? Can there be love where
+there is no esteem, no trust, no confidence?"
+
+"I was just thinking that when you came up," said Calder.
+
+"No, at whatever cost, I--every self-respecting man--must consider
+first of all what he owes to his name, to his family, to
+his--Wentworth, to his unborn children."
+
+Calder nodded.
+
+"You, of course," pursued Charlie, "will be guided by your own
+judgment. As to that, the circumstances seal my lips."
+
+"I don't like it, you know," said Calder.
+
+"As regards you, she may or may not have excuses. I don't know; but she
+wilfully and grossly deceived me. I have done with her."
+
+"Gad, I believe you're right, Merceron, old chap! A chap ought to stand
+up for himself, by Jove! You'd never feel safe with her, would you, by
+Jove?"
+
+"Good-by," said Charlie suddenly. "I leave Paddington by the 4.15."
+
+"Where are you off to?"
+
+"Hell--I mean home," answered Charlie.
+
+Calder beat his stick against his leg.
+
+"I can't stay here either," he said moodily.
+
+Charlie stretched out his hand again.
+
+"Come with me," said he.
+
+"Eh? what?"
+
+"Come with me; we'll forget her together."
+
+Calder looked at him.
+
+"Well, you are a good chap. Dashed if I don't. Yes, I will. We'll enjoy
+ourselves like thunder. But I say, Merceron, I--I ought to write to
+her, oughtn't I?"
+
+"I am just going to write myself."
+
+"To--to say good-by, eh?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I shall write and break it off."
+
+"Come along. We'll go to your rooms and got the thing done, and then
+catch the train. My luggage is at the station now."
+
+"It won't take me a minute to get mine."
+
+"Wentworth, I'm glad to be rid of her."
+
+"All--oh, well--so am I," said Calder.
+
+Late that evening the butler presented Miss Agatha Glyn with two
+letters on a salver. As her eye fell on the addresses, she started.
+Her heart began to beat. She sat and looked at the two momentous
+missives.
+
+"Now which," she thought, "shall I read first? And what shall I do, if
+they are both obstinate?"
+
+There was another contingency which Miss Glyn did not contemplate.
+
+After a long hesitation, she took up Charlie's letter, and opened it.
+It was very short, and began abruptly without any words of address:
+
+"I have received your letter. Your excuses make it worse. I could
+forgive everything except deceit. I leave London to-day. Good-by.--C.
+M."
+
+"Deceit!" cried Agatha. "How dare he? What a horrid boy!"
+
+She was walking up and down the room in a state of great indignation.
+She had never been talked to like that in her life before. It was
+ungentlemanly, cruel, brutal. She flung Charlie's letter angrily down
+on the table.
+
+"I am sure poor dear old Calder won't treat me like that!" she
+exclaimed, taking up his letter.
+
+It ran thus: "My dear Agatha:--I hope you will believe that I write
+this without any feeling of anger towards you. My regard for you
+remains very great, and I hope we shall always be very good friends;
+but, after long and careful consideration, I have come to the
+conclusion that the story Lord Thrapston told, me shows conclusively
+what I have been fearing for some time past--namely, that I have not
+been so lucky as to win a real affection from you, and that we are not
+likely to make one another happy. Therefore, thanking you very much for
+your kindness in the past, I think I had better restore your liberty to
+you. I shall hear with, very great pleasure of your happiness. I leave
+town to day for a little while, in order that you may not be exposed to
+the awkwardness of meeting me.
+
+"Always your most sincerely,
+
+"Calder Wentworth."
+
+Agatha passed her hand across her brow; then she reread Calder's
+letter, and then Charlie's. Yes, there, was not the least doubt about
+it! Both of the gentlemen had well, what they had done did not admit of
+being put into tolerable words. With a little shriek, Agatha flung
+herself on the sofa.
+
+The door opened and Lord Thrapston entered.
+
+"Well, Aggy, what's the news? Still bothered by your two young men?
+Hullo! what's wrong?"
+
+"Read them!" cried Agatha, with a gesture towards the table.
+
+"Eh? Head what? Oh, I see."
+
+He sat down at the table and put on his glasses. Agatha turned her face
+towards the wall; for her also everything was over. For a time no sound
+was audible save an occasional crackle of the note-paper in Lord
+Thrapston's shaking fingers. Then, to Agatha's indescribable
+indignation, there came another sort of crackle--a dry, grating,
+derisive chuckle--from that flinty-hearted old man, her grandfather.
+
+"Good, monstrous good, 'pon my life!" said he.
+
+"You're laughing at me!" she cried, leaping up.
+
+"Well, my dear, I'm afraid I am."
+
+"Oh, how cruel men are!"
+
+"H'm! They're both men of spirit evidently."
+
+"Calder I can just understand. I--perhaps I did treat Calder rather
+badly---"
+
+"Oh, you go so far as to admit that, do you, Aggy?"
+
+"But Charlie! Oh, to think that Charlie should treat me like that!" and
+she threw herself on the sofa again.
+
+Lord Thrapston sat quite still. Presently Agatha rose, came to the
+table, and took up her two letters. She looked at them both; and the
+old man, seeming to notice nothing, yet kept his eye on her.
+
+"I shall destroy these things," said she; and she tore Calder's letter
+into tiny fragments, and flung them on the fire. Charlie's she crumpled
+up and held in her hand.
+
+"Good-night, grandpapa," she said wearily, and kissed him.
+
+"Good-night, my dear," he answered.
+
+And, whatever she did when she went upstairs, Lord Thrapston was in a
+position to swear that Charlie's letter was not destroyed in the
+drawing-room.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+THE INCARNATION OF LADY AGATHA
+
+
+"She's such a dear good girl, Mr. Wentworth," said Lady Merceron.
+"She's the greatest comfort I have."
+
+It was after luncheon at Langbury Court. Lady Merceron and Calder sat
+on the lawn: Mrs. Marland and Millie Bushell were walking up and down;
+Charlie was lying in a hammock. A week had passed since the two young
+men had startled Lady Merceron by their unexpected arrival, and since
+then the good lady had been doing her best to entertain them; for, as
+she could not help noticing-, they seemed a little dull. It was a great
+change from the whirl of London to the deep placidity of the Court, and
+Lady Merceron could not quite understand why Charlie had tired so soon
+of his excursion, or why his friend persisted with so much fervor that
+anything was better than London, and the Court was the most charming
+place he had ever seen. Of the two Charlie seemed to feel the ennui
+much the more severely. Yet, while Mr. Wentworth spoke of returning to
+town in a few weeks, Charlie asseverated that he had paid his last
+visit to that revolting and disappointing place. Lady Merceron wished
+she had Uncle Van by her side to explain these puzzling
+inconsistencies. However, there was a bright side to the affair: the
+presence of the young men was a godsend to poor Millie, who, by reason
+of the depressed state of agriculture, had been obliged this year to go
+without her usual six weeks of London in the season.
+
+"And she never grumbles about it," said Lady Merceron admiringly. "She
+looks after her district, and takes a ride, and plays tennis, when she
+can get a game, poor girl, and is always cheerful and happy. She'd be a
+treasure of a wife to any man."
+
+"You'd better persuade Charlie of that, Lady Merceron."
+
+"Oh, Charlie never thinks of such a thing as marrying. He thinks of
+nothing but his antiquities."
+
+"Doesn't he?" asked Calder, with apparent sympathy and a covert sad
+amusement.
+
+"Mr. Wentworth," said Mrs. Marland, approaching, "I believe it's
+actually a fact that you've been here a week and have never yet been to
+the Pool."
+
+At this fateful word, Calder looked embarrassed, Charlie raised his
+head from the hammock, and Millie glanced involuntarily towards him.
+
+"We must take you," pursued Mrs. Marland, "this very evening. You'll
+come, Miss Bushell?"
+
+"I don't think I care very much about the Pool," said Millie.
+
+"We won't let Mr. Merceron take you in his canoe this time."
+
+Charlie rolled out of the hammock and came up to them.
+
+"You must take us to the Pool. I don't believe you've been there since
+you came back. Poor Agatha will quite---"
+
+"Agatha?" exclaimed Calder.
+
+"Agatha Merceron, you know. Why, haven't you heard---?"
+
+"Oh, ah! Yes, of course. I beg your pardon."
+
+"I hate that beastly Pool," said Charlie.
+
+"How can you?" smiled Mrs. Marland. "You used to spend hours there
+every evening."
+
+Charlie glanced uneasily at Calder, who turned very red.
+
+"Times have changed, have they?" Mrs. Marland asked archly. "You've got
+tired of looking in vain for Agatha?"
+
+"Oh, all right," said Charlie crossly, "we'll go after tea."
+
+Anything seemed better than this rallying mood of Mrs. Marland's.
+
+Presently the two young men went off together to play a game at
+billiards; but after half a dozen strokes Charlie plumped down in a
+chair.
+
+"I say, Calder, old chap, how do you feel?" he asked.
+
+Calder licked his cigar meditatively.
+
+"Better," said he at last.
+
+"Oh!"
+
+"And you?"
+
+"Worse--worse every day. I can't stand it, old chap. I shall go back."
+
+"What, to her?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"That's hardly sticking to our bargain, you know."
+
+"But, hang it, what's the good of our both cutting her?"
+
+"Oh, I thought you did it because you were disgusted with her. That was
+my reason."
+
+"So it was mine, but---"
+
+"Probably she's got some other fellow by now," observed Calder calmly.
+
+"The devil!" cried Charlie. "What makes you think so?"
+
+"Oh, nothing. I know her way, you see."
+
+"You think she's that sort of girl? Good heavens!"
+
+"Well, if she wasn't, I'd like to know where you'd be, my friend. I
+shouldn't have the honor of your acquaintance."
+
+Charlie ignored this point.
+
+"And yet you wanted, to marry her?"
+
+"I dare say I was an ass--like better men before me and--er--since me."
+
+"Hang it!" cried Charlie. "I'm sick of the whole thing. I'm sick of
+life. I'm sick of all the nonsense of it. For two straws I'd have done
+with it, and marry Millie Bushell."
+
+"What! Look here, Charlie--"
+
+Calder left his sentence unfinished.
+
+"Well?" said Charlie.
+
+"If," said Calder slowly, "there are any girls, either down here or in
+London, whom you're quite sure you'll never want to marry, I should
+like to be introduced to one of 'em, Charlie, if you've no objections."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"Why, in fact, during this last week, Charlie, I have come to have a
+great esteem for Miss Bushell. There's about her a something--a
+solidity---"
+
+"She can't help that, poor girl."
+
+"A solidity of mind," said Calder, a little stiffly.
+
+"Oh, I beg pardon. But I say, Calder, what are you driving at?"
+
+"Charlie! Charlie!" sounded from outside. "Tea's ready."
+
+Calder rose and took Charlie by the arm.
+
+"Should I be safe," he asked solemnly, "in allowing myself to fall in
+love with Miss Bushell, or are you likely to step in again?"
+
+"You mean it? Honor bright, Calder?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Where's Bradshaw? By Jove, where's Bradshaw?"
+
+"Bradshaw? What the devil has Bradshaw----?"
+
+"Why, a train, man--a train to town."
+
+"I don't want to go to town, bless the man---"
+
+"You! No, but I do. To town, Calder--to Agatha, you old fool."
+
+"Oh, that's your lay?"
+
+"Yes, of course. I couldn't go back on you, but if you're off---"
+
+"Charlie, old fellow, think again."
+
+"Go to the deuce! Where's that---?"
+
+"Charlie, Charlie! Tea!"
+
+"Hang tea!" he cried; but Calder dragged him off, telling him that
+to-morrow would do for Bradshaw.
+
+At tea Charlie's spirits were very much better, and it was observed
+that Calder Wentworth paid marked attention to Millie Bushell, so that,
+when they started for the Pool, Millie was prevailed upon to be one of
+the party, on the understanding that Mr. Went worth would take care of
+her. This time the expedition went off more quietly than it had
+previously, but at the last moment the ladies declared that they would,
+be late for dinner if they waited till it was time for Agatha Merceron
+to come.
+
+"Oh, nonsense!" said Calder. "Come over to the temple, Miss Bushell. I
+won't upset the canoe."
+
+"Well, if you insist," said Millie.
+
+Then Mrs. Marland remarked in the quietest voice in the world---
+
+"There's some one in the temple."
+
+"What?" cried Millie.
+
+"Eh?" exclaimed Calder.
+
+"Nonsense!" said Charlie.
+
+"I saw a face at the window," insisted Mrs. Marland.
+
+"Oh, Mrs. Marland! Was it very awful?"
+
+"Not at all, Millie--very pretty," and she gave Charlie a look full of
+meaning.
+
+"Look, look!" cried Millie in strong agitation.
+
+And, as they looked, a slim figure in white came quietly out of the
+temple, a smile--and, alas! no vestige of a blush--on her face, walked
+composedly down the steps, and, standing on the lowest one, thence--did
+not throw herself into the water--but called, in the most natural voice
+in the world, "Which of you is coming to fetch me?"
+
+Charlie looked at Calder. Calder said,
+
+"I think you'd better put her across, old man. And--er--we might as
+well walk on."
+
+They turned away, Millie's eyes wide in surprise, Mrs. Marland smiling
+the smile of triumphant sagacity.
+
+"I was coming to you to-morrow," cried Charlie the moment his canoe
+bumped against the stops.
+
+"What do you mean, sir, by staying away a whole week? How could you?"
+
+"I don't know," said Charlie. "You see, I couldn't come till Calder----
+
+"Oh, what about Calder?"
+
+"He's all right."
+
+"What? Miss--the girl you upset out of the canoe?"
+
+"I think so," said Charlie.
+
+"Ah, well!" said Agatha. "But how very curious!" Then she smiled at
+Charlie, and asked, "But what love can there be, Mr. Merceron, where
+there is deceit?"
+
+Charlie took no notice at all of this question.
+
+"Do you mind Calder going?" he whispered.
+
+"Well, not much," said Miss Glyn.
+
+Thus it was that the barony of Warmley returned to the house of
+Merceron, and the portrait of the wicked lord came to hang once more in
+the dining-room. So the curtain falls on the comedy; and what happened
+afterwards behind the scenes, whether another comedy, or a tragedy, or
+a mixed half-and-half sort of entertainment, now grave, now gay,
+sometimes perhaps delightful, and again of tempered charm--why, as to
+all this, what reck the spectators who are crowding out of the theatre
+and home to bed?
+
+But it seems as if, in spite of certain drawbacks in Agatha Merceron's
+character, nothing very dreadful can have happened, because Mr. and
+Mrs. Wentworth, who are very particular folk, went to stay at the Court
+the other day, and their only complaint was that Charlie and his bride
+were always at the Pool!
+
+And, for his own part, if he may be allowed a word (which some people
+say he ought not to be) here, just at the end, the writer begs to say
+that he once knew Agatha, and--he would have taken the risks. However,
+a lady to whom he has shown this history differs entirely from him, and
+thinks that no sensible man would have married her. But, then, that is
+not the question.
+
+
+
+
+THE CURATE OF POLTONS
+
+
+I must confess at once that at first, at least, I very much admired the
+curate. I am not referring to my admiration of his fine figure--six
+feet high and straight as an arrow--nor of his handsome, open,
+ingenuous countenance, or his candid blue eye, or his thick curly hair.
+No; what won my heart from an early period of my visit to my cousins,
+the Poltons of Poltons Park, was the fervent, undisguised, unashamed,
+confident, and altogether matter-of-course manner in which he made love
+to Miss Beatrice Queenborough, only daughter and heiress of the wealthy
+shipowner Sir Wagstaff Queenborough, Bart., and Eleanor his wife. It
+was purely the manner of the curate's advances that took my fancy: in
+the mere fact of them there was nothing remarkable. For all the men in
+the house (and a good many outside) made covert.  stealthy, and
+indirect steps in the same direction; for Trix (as her friends called
+her) was, if not wise, at least pretty and witty, displaying to the
+material eye a charming figure, and to the mental a delicate
+heartlessness--both attributes which challenge a self-respecting mans
+best efforts. But then came the fatal obstacle. From heiresses in
+reason a gentleman need neither shrink nor let himself be driven; but
+when it comes to something like twenty thousand a year--the reported
+amount of Trix's dot--he distrusts his own motives almost as much as
+the lady's relatives distrust them for him. We all felt this--Stanton,
+Rippleby, and I; and, although I will not swear that we spoke no tender
+words and gave no meaning glances, yet we reduced such concessions to
+natural weakness to a minimum, not only when Lady Queenborough was by,
+but at all times. To say truth, we had no desire to see our scalps
+affixed to Miss Trix's pretty belt, nor to have our hearts broken (like
+that of the young man in the poem) before she went to Homburg in the
+autumn. With the curate it was otherwise.  He--Jack Ives, by the way,
+was his name--appeared to rush, not only upon his fate, but in the face
+of all possibility and of Lady Queenborough. My cousin and hostess,
+Dora Polton, was very much distressed about him.  She said that he was
+such a nice young fellow, and that it was a great pity to see him
+preparing such unhappiness for himself. Nay, I happen to know that she
+spoke very seriously to Trix, pointing out the wickedness of trifling
+with him; whereupon Trix, who maintained a bowing acquaintance with her
+conscience, avoided him for a whole afternoon and endangered all Algy
+Stanton's prudent resolutions by taking him out in the Canadian canoe.
+This demonstration in no way perturbed the curate. He observed that, as
+there was nothing better to do, we might as well play billiards, and
+proceeded to defeat me in three games of a hundred up (no, it is quite
+immaterial whether we played for anything or not), after which he told
+Dora that the vicar was taking the evening service--it happened to be
+the day when there was one at the parish church--a piece of information
+only relevant in so far as it suggested that Mr. Ives could accept an
+invitation to dinner if one were proffered to him. Dora, very weakly,
+rose to the bait; Jack Ives, airily remarking that there was no use in
+ceremony among friends, seized the place next to Trix at dinner (her
+mother was just opposite) and walked on the terrace after dinner with
+her in the moonlight. When the ladies retired he came into the
+smoking-room, drank a whiskey-and-soda, said that Miss Queenborough was
+really a very charming companion, and apologized for leaving us early
+on the ground that his sermon was still unwritten. My good cousin, the
+squire, suggested rather grimly that a discourse on the vanity of human
+wishes might be appropriate.
+
+"I shall preach." said Mr. Ives thoughtfully, "on the opportunities of
+wealth."
+
+This resolution he carried out on the next day but one, that being a
+Sunday. I had the pleasure of sitting next to Miss Trix, and I watched
+her with some interest as Mr. Ives developed his theme. I will not try
+to reproduce the sermon, which would have seemed by no means a bad one,
+had any of our party been able to ignore the personal application which
+we read into it: for its main burden was no other than this--that
+wealth should be used by those who were fortunate enough to possess it
+(here Trix looked down and fidgeted with her prayer-book) as a means of
+promoting greater union between themselves and the less richly endowed,
+and not--as, alas, had too often been the case--as though it were a new
+barrier set up between them and their fellow--creatures.  (Here Miss
+Trix blushed slightly, and had recourse to her smelling-bottle.) "You,"
+said the curate, waxing rhetorical as he addressed an imaginary, but
+bloated, capitalist, "have no more right to your money than I have. It
+is intrusted to you to be shared with me." At this point I heard Lady
+Queenborough sniff, and Algy Stanton snigger. I stole a glance at Trix
+and detected a slight waver in the admirable lines of her mouth.
+
+"A very good sermon, didn't you think?" I said to her, as we walked
+home.
+
+"Oh, very, she replied demurely.
+
+"Ah, if we followed all we heard in church!" I sighed.
+
+Miss Trix walked in silence for a few yards. By dint of never becoming
+anything else, we had become very good friends; and presently she
+remarked, quite confidentially, "He's very silly, isn't he?"
+
+"Then you ought to snub him," said I, severely.
+
+"So I do--sometimes. He's rather amusing, though.
+
+"Of course, if you're prepared to make the sacrifice involved---"
+
+"Oh, what nonsense!"
+
+"Then you've no business to amuse yourself with him."
+
+"Dear, dear! how moral you are!" said Trix.
+
+The next development in the situation was this. My cousin Dora received
+a letter from the Marquis of Newhaven, with whom she was acquainted,
+praying her to allow him to run down to Poltons for a few days: he
+reminded her that she had once given him a general invitation: if it
+would not be inconvenient--and so forth. The meaning of this
+communication did not, of course, escape my cousin, who had witnessed
+the writers attentions to Trix in the preceding season, nor did it
+escape the rest of us (who had talked over the said attentions at the
+club) when she told us about it, and announced that Lord Newhaven would
+arrive in the middle of next day. Trix affected dense unconsciousness;
+her mother allowed herself a mysterious smile--which, however, speedily
+vanished when the curate (he was taking lunch with us) observed in a
+cheerful tone, "Newhaven! oh, I remember the chap at the
+House--ploughed twice in Smalls--stumpy fellow, isn't he? Not a bad
+chap, though, you know, barring his looks. I'm glad he's coming."
+
+"You won't be soon, young man," Lady Queenborough's angry eye seemed to
+say.
+
+"I remember him," pursued Jack, "awfully smitten with a tobacconist's
+daughter in the Corn--oh, it's all right, Lady Queenborough--she
+wouldn't look at him."
+
+This quasi-apology was called forth by the fact of Lady Queenborough
+pushing back her chair and making for the door. It did not at all
+appease her to hear of the scorn of the tobacconist's daughter. She
+glared sternly at Jack, and disappeared. He turned to Trix and reminded
+her--without diffidence and coram populo, as his habit was, that she
+had promised him a stroll in the west wood.
+
+What happened on that stroll I do not know; but meeting Miss Trix on
+the stairs later in the afternoon, I ventured to remark, "I hope you
+broke it to him gently, Miss Queenborough?"
+
+"I don't know what you mean," replied Trix, haughtily.
+
+"You were out nearly two hours," said I.
+
+"Were we?" asked Trix with a start. "Good gracious! Where was mamma,
+Mr. Wynne?"
+
+"On the lawn--watch in hand."
+
+Miss Trix went slowly upstairs, and there is not the least doubt that
+something serious passed between her and her mother, for both of them
+were in the most atrocious of humors that evening; fortunately the
+curate was not there.  He had a Bible class.
+
+The next day Lord Newhaven arrived. I found him on the lawn when I
+strolled up, after a spell of letter-writing, about four o'clock.
+Lawn-tennis was the order of the day, and we were all in flannels.
+
+"Oh, here's Mark," cried Dora, seeing me.
+
+"Now, Mark, you and Mr. Ives had better play against Trix and Lord
+Newhaven. That'll make a very good set."
+
+"No, no, Mrs. Polton," said Jack Ives. "They wouldn't have a chance.
+Look here, I'll play with Miss Queenborough against Lord Newhaven and
+Wynne."
+
+Newhaven--whose appearance, by the way, though hardly distinguished,
+was not quite so unornamental as the curate had led us to
+expect--looked slightly displeased, but Jack gave him no time for
+remonstrance. He whisked Trix off, and began to serve all in a moment.
+I had a vision of Lady Queenborough approaching from the house with
+face aghast. The set went on; and, owing entirely to Newhaven's absurd
+chivalry in sending all the balls to Jack Ives instead of following the
+well-known maxim to "pound away at the lady," they beat us. Jack wiped
+his brow, strolled up to the tea-table with Trix, and remarked in
+exultant tones:
+
+"We make a perfect couple, Miss Queenborough; we ought never to be
+separated."
+
+Dora did not ask the curate to dinner that night, but he dropped in
+about nine o'clock to ask her opinion as to the hymns on Sunday; and
+finding Miss Trix and Newhaven in the small drawing-room he sat down
+and talked to them. This was too much for Trix; she had treated him
+very kindly and had allowed him to amuse her; but it was impossible to
+put up with presumption of that kind. Difficult as it was to discourage
+Mr. Ives, she did it, and he went away with a disconsolate, puzzled
+expression. At the last moment, however, Trix so far relented as to
+express a hope that he was coming to tennis to-morrow, at which he
+brightened up a little. I do not wish to be uncharitable--least of all
+to a charming young lady--but my opinion is that Miss Trix did not wish
+to set the curate altogether adrift. I think, however, that Lady
+Queenborough must have spoken again, for when Jack did come to tennis,
+Trix treated him with the most freezing civility and a hardly disguised
+disdain, and devoted herself to Lord Newhaven with as much assiduity as
+her mother could wish. We men, over our pipes, expressed the opinion
+that Jack Ives's little hour of sunshine was passed, and that nothing
+was left to us but to look on at the prosperous uneventful course of
+Lord Newhaven's wooing. Trix had had her fun (so Algy Stanton bluntly
+phrased it) and would now settle down to business.
+
+"I believe, though," he added, "that she likes the curate a bit, you
+know."
+
+During the whole of the next day--Wednesday--Jack Ives kept away; he
+had, apparently, accepted the inevitable, and was healing his wounded
+heart by a strict attention to his parochial duties. Newhaven remarked
+on his absence with an air of relief; and Miss Trix treated it as a
+matter of no importance; Lady Queenborough was all smiles; and Dora
+Polton restricted herself to exclaiming, as I sat by her at tea, in a
+low tone and à propos of nothing in particular, "Oh, well--poor Mr.
+Ives!"
+
+But on Thursday there occurred an event, the significance of which
+passed at the moment unperceived, but which had, in fact, most
+important results. This was no other than the arrival of little Mrs.
+Wentworth, an intimate friend of Dora's. Mrs. Wentworth had been left a
+widow early in life; she possessed a comfortable competence; she was
+not handsome, but she was vivacious, amusing, and, above all,
+sympathetic.  She sympathized at once with Lady Queenborough in her
+maternal anxieties, with Trix on her charming romance, with Newhaven on
+his sweet devotedness, with the rest of us in our obvious
+desolation--and, after a confidential chat with Dora; she sympathized
+most strongly with poor Mr. Ives on his unfortunate attachment.
+Nothing would satisfy her, so Dora told me, except the opportunity of
+plying Mr. Ives with her soothing balm; and Dora was about to sit down
+and write him a note, when he strolled in through the drawing-room
+window, and announced that his cooks mother was ill, and that he should
+be very much obliged if Mrs. Polton would give him some dinner that
+evening. Trix and Newhaven happened to enter by the door at the same
+moment, and Jack darted up to them, and shook hands with the greatest
+effusion. He had evidently buried all unkindness--and with it, we
+hoped, his mistaken folly. However that might be, he made no effort to
+engross Trix, but took his seat most docilely by his hostess--and she,
+of course, introduced him to Mrs. Wentworth. His behavior, was, in
+fact, so exemplary, that even Lady Queenborough relaxed her severity,
+and condescended to cross-examine him on the morals and manners of the
+old women of the parish. "Oh, the Vicar looks after them," said Jack;
+and he turned to Mrs. Wentworth again.
+
+There can be no doubt that Mrs. Wentworth had a remarkable power of
+sympathy. I took her into dinner, and she was deep in the subject of my
+"noble and inspiring art," before the soup was off the table.  Indeed,
+I'm sure that my life's ambitions would have been an open book to her
+by the time that the joint arrived, had not Jack Ives, who was sitting
+on the lady's other side, cut into the conversation just as Mrs.
+Wentworth was comparing my early struggles with those of Mr. Carlyle.
+After this intervention of Jack's I had not a chance. I ate my dinner
+without the sauce of sympathy, substituting for it a certain amusement
+which I derived from studying the face of Miss Trix Queenborough, who
+was placed on the opposite side of the table. And if Trix did look now
+and again at Mrs. Wentworth and Jack Ives, I cannot say that her
+conduct was unnatural. To tell the truth, Jack was so obviously
+delighted with his new friend that it was quite pleasant--and, as I
+say, under the circumstances, rather amusing--to watch them.  We felt
+that the Squire was justified in having a hit at Jack when Jack said,
+in the smoking-room, that he found himself rather at a loss for a
+subject for his next sermon.
+
+"What do you say," suggested my cousin, puffing at his pipe, "to taking
+constancy as your text?"
+
+Jack considered the idea for a moment, but then he shook his head.
+
+"No. I think," he said, reflectively, "that I shall preach on the power
+of sympathy."
+
+That sermon afforded me--I must confess it, at the risk of seeming
+frivolous--very great entertainment. Again I secured a place by Miss
+Trix--on her left, Newhaven being on her right, and her face was worth
+study when Jack Ives gave us a most eloquent description of the
+wonderful gift in question. It was, he said, the essence and the crown
+of true womanliness, and it showed itself--well, to put it quite
+plainly, it showed itself, according to Jack Ives, in exactly that sort
+of manner and bearing which so honorably and gracefully distinguished
+Mrs. Wentworth. The lady was not, of course, named, but she was clearly
+indicated. "Your gift, your precious gift," cried the curate,
+apostrophizing the impersonation of sympathy, "is given to you, not for
+your profit, but for mine. It is yours, but it is a trust to be used
+for me. It is yours, in fact, to share with me." At this climax, which
+must have struck upon her ear with a certain familiarity, Miss Trix
+Queenborough, notwithstanding the place and occasion, tossed her pretty
+head and whispered to me, "What horrid stuff!"
+
+In the ensuing week Jack Ives was our constant companion; the continued
+illness of his servant's mother left him stranded, and Dora's kind
+heart at once offered him the hospitality of her roof. For my part I
+was glad, for the little drama which now began was not without its
+interest. It was a pleasant change to see Jack genially polite to Trix
+Queenborough, but quite indifferent to her presence or absence, and
+content to allow her to take Newhaven for her partner at tennis as
+often as she pleased. He himself was often an absentee from our games.
+
+Mrs. Wentworth did not play, and Jack would sit under the trees with
+her, or take her out in the canoe. What Trix thought I did not know,
+but it is a fact that she treated poor Newhaven like dirt beneath her
+feet, and that Lady Queenborough's face began to lose its transiently
+pleasant expression. I had a vague idea that a retribution was working
+itself out, and disposed myself to see the process with all the
+complacency induced by the spectacle of others receiving punishment for
+their sins.
+
+A little scene which occurred after lunch one day was significant. I
+was sitting on the terrace, ready booted and breeched, waiting for my
+horse to be brought round. Trix came out and sat down by me.
+
+"Where's Newhaven?" I asked.
+
+"Oh, I don't always want Lord Newhaven," she exclaimed petulantly; "I
+sent him off for a walk--I'm going out in the Canadian canoe with Mr.
+Ives."
+
+"Oh, you are, are you?" said I smiling. As I spoke, Jack Ives ran up to
+us.
+
+"I say, Miss Queenborough," he cried, "I've just got your message
+saying you'd let me take you on the lake."
+
+"Is it a great bore?" asked Trix, with a glance--a glance that meant
+mischief.
+
+"I should like it awfully, of course," said Jack; "but the fact is I've
+promised to take Mrs. Wentworth--before I got your message, you know."
+
+Trix drew herself up.
+
+"Of course, if Mrs. Wentworth---" she began.
+
+"I'm very sorry," said Jack.
+
+Then Miss Queenborough, forgetting--as I hope--or choosing--to
+disregard my presence, leant forward and asked in her most coaxing
+tones, "Don't you ever forget a promise, Mr. Ives?"
+
+Jack looked at her. I suppose her dainty prettiness struck him afresh,
+for he wavered and hesitated.
+
+"She's gone upstairs," pursued the tempter, "and we shall be safe away
+before she comes down again."
+
+Jack shuffled with one foot on the gravel.
+
+"I tell you what," he said. "I'll ask her if she minds me taking you
+for a little while before I----"
+
+I believe he really thought that he had hit upon a compromise
+satisfactory to all parties. If so, lie was speedily undeceived. Trix
+flushed rod and answered angrily, "Pray don't trouble.  I don't want to
+go."
+
+"Perhaps afterwards you might--" suggested the curate, but now rather
+timidly.
+
+"I'm going out with Lord Newhaven," said she. And she added in an
+access of uncontrollable annoyance, "Go, please go. I--I don't want
+you."
+
+Jack sheered off, with a look of puzzled shamefacedness. He disappeared
+into the house. Nothing passed between Miss Trix and myself. A moment
+later Newhaven came out.
+
+"Why, Miss Queenborough," said he, in apparent surprise, "Ives is going
+with Mrs. Wentworth in the canoe!"
+
+In an instant I saw what she had done. In rash presumption she had told
+Newhaven that she was going with the curate--and now the curate had
+refused to take her--and Ives had met him in search of Mrs. Wentworth.
+What could she do? Well, she rose--or fell--to the occasion. In the
+coldest of voices she said, "I thought you'd gone for your walk."
+
+"I was just starting," he answered apologetically, "when I met Ives.
+But, as you weren't going with him---" He paused, an inquiring look in
+his eyes. He was evidently asking himself why she had not gone with the
+curate.
+
+"I'd rather be left alone, if you don't mind," said she. And then,
+flushing red again, she added. "I changed my mind and refused to go
+with Mr. Ives. So he went off to get Mrs. Wentworth instead."
+
+I started. Newhaven looked at her for an instant, and then turned on
+his heel. She turned to me, quick as lightning and with her face all
+aflame, "If you tell, I'll never speak to you again," she whispered.
+
+After this there was silence for some minutes.
+
+"Well?" she said, without looking at me.
+
+"I have no remark to offer, Miss Queenborough," I returned.
+
+"I suppose that was a lie, wasn't it?" she asked, defiantly.
+
+"It's not my business to say what it was," was my discreet answer.
+
+"I know what you're thinking."
+
+"I was thinking-," said I, "which I would rather be--the man you will
+marry, or the man you would like---"
+
+"How dare you? It's not true. Oh, Mr. Wynne, indeed it's not true!"
+
+Whether it were true or not I did not know. But if it had been, Miss
+Trix Queenborough might have been expected to act very much in the way
+in which she proceeded to act: that is to say, to be extravagantly
+attentive to Lord Newhaven when Jack Ives was present, and markedly
+neglectful of him in the curate's absence. It also fitted in very well
+with the theory which I had ventured to hint, that her bearing towards
+Mrs. Went worth was distinguished by a stately civility, and her
+remarks about that lady by a superfluity of laudation; for if these be
+not two distinguishing marks of rivalry in the well-bred, I must go
+back to my favorite books and learn from them--more folly. And if
+Trix's manners were all that they should be, praise no less high must
+be accorded to Mrs. Wentworth's; she attained an altitude of admirable
+unconsciousness, and conducted her flirtation (the poverty of language
+forces me to the word, but it is over flippant) with the curate in a
+staid, quasi-maternal way. She called him a delightful boy, and said
+that she was intensely interested in all his aims and hopes.
+
+"What does she want?" I asked Dora, despairingly. "She can't want to
+marry him." I was referring to Trix Queenborough, not to Mrs. Wentworth.
+
+"Good gracious, no!" answered Dora, irritably. "It's simple jealousy.
+She won't let the poor boy alone till he's in love with her again.
+It's a horrible shame!"
+
+"Oh, well, he has great recuperative power," said I.
+
+"She'd better be careful, though. It's a very dangerous game. How do
+you suppose Lord Newhaven likes it?"
+
+Accident gave me that very day a hint how little Lord Newhaven liked
+it, and a glimpse of the risk Miss Trix was running. Entering the
+library suddenly, I heard Newhaven's voice raised above his ordinary
+tones.
+
+"I won't stand it," he was declaring. "I never know how she'll treat me
+from one minute to the next."
+
+My entrance, of course, stopped the conversation very abruptly.
+Newhaven had come to a stand in the middle of the room, and Lady
+Queenborough sat on the sofa, a formidable frown on her brow.
+Withdrawing myself as rapidly as possible, I argued the probability of
+a severe lecture for Miss Trix, ending in a command to try her noble
+suitor's patience no longer. I hope all this happened, for I, not
+seeing why Mrs. Wentworth should monopolize the grace of sympathy, took
+the liberty of extending mine to Newhaven. He was certainly in love
+with Trix, not with her money, and the treatment he underwent must have
+been as trying to his feelings as it was galling to his pride.
+
+My sympathy was not premature, for Miss Trix's fascinations, which were
+indubitably great, began to have their effect. The scene about the
+canoe was re-enacted, but with a different denouement. This time the
+promise was forgotten, and the widow forsaken. Then Mrs. Wentworth put
+on her armor. We had, in fact, reached this very absurd situation that
+these two ladies were contending for the favors of, or the domination
+over, such an obscure, poverty-stricken, hopelessly ineligible person
+as the curate of Poltons undoubtedly was. The position seemed to me
+then, and still seems, to indicate some remarkable qualities in that
+young man.
+
+At last Newhaven made a move. At breakfast, on Wednesday morning, he
+announced that, reluctant as he should be to leave Poltons Park, he was
+due at his aunt's place, in Kent, on Saturday evening, and must
+therefore make his arrangements to leave by noon on that day. The
+significance was apparent. Had he come down to breakfast with "Now or
+Never!" stamped in fiery letters across his brow, it would have been
+more obtrusive, indeed, but not a whit plainer. We all looked down at
+our plates, except Jack Ives. He flung one glance (I saw it out of the
+corner of my left eye) at Newhaven, another at Trix; then he remarked
+kindly--
+
+"We shall be uncommonly sorry to lose you, Newhaven."
+
+Events began to happen now, and I will tell them as well as I am able,
+supplementing my own knowledge by what I learnt afterwards from
+Dora--she having learnt it from the actors in the scene.  In spite of
+the solemn warning conveyed in Newhaven's intimation, Trix, greatly
+daring, went off immediately after lunch for what she described as 'a
+long ramble' with Mr. Ives. There was, indeed, the excuse of an old
+woman at the end of the ramble, and Trix provided Jack with a small
+basket of comforts for the useful old body; but the ramble was, we
+felt, the thing, and I was much annoyed at not being able to accompany
+the walkers in the cloak of darkness or other invisible contrivance.
+The ramble consumed three hours--full measure. Indeed, it was half-past
+six before Trix alone, walked up the drive. Newhaven, a solitary
+figure, paced up and down the terrace fronting the drive. Trix came on,
+her head thrown back and a steady smile on her lips. She saw Newhaven:
+he stood looking at her for a moment with what she afterwards described
+as an indescribable smile on his face, but not, as Dora understood from
+her, by any means a pleasant one. Yet, if not pleasant, there is not
+the least doubt in the world that it was highly significant; for she
+cried out nervously, "Why are you looking at me like that? What's the
+matter?"
+
+Newhaven, still saying nothing, turned his back on her and made as if
+he would walk into the house and leave her there, ignored, discarded,
+done with. She, realizing the crisis which had come, forgetting
+everything except the imminent danger of losing him once for all,
+without time for long explanation or any round--about seductions, ran
+forward, laying her hand on his arm and blurting out, "But I've refused
+him."
+
+I do not know what Newhaven thinks now, but I sometimes doubt whether
+he would not have been wiser to shake off the detaining hand and pursue
+his lonely way, first into the house, and ultimately to his aunt's. But
+(to say nothing of the twenty thousand a year, which, after all, and
+lie you as romantic as you may please to be, is not a thing to be
+sneezed at) Trix's face, its mingled eagerness and shame, its flushed
+cheeks and shining eyes, the piquancy of its unwonted humility,
+overcame him. He stopped dead.
+
+"I--I was obliged to give him an--an opportunity," said Miss Trix,
+having the grace to stumble a little in her speech. "And--and it's all
+your fault."
+
+The war was thus, by happy audacity, carried into Newhaven's own
+quarters.
+
+"My fault!" he exclaimed. "My fault that you walk all day with that
+curate!"
+
+Then Miss Trix--and let no irrelevant considerations mar the
+appreciation of line acting--dropped her eyes and murmured softly,
+"I--I was so terribly afraid of seeming to expect you."
+
+Wherewith she (and not he) ran away, lightly, up the stairs, turning
+just one glance downwards as she reached the landing. Newhaven was
+looking up from below with an 'enchanted' smile--the word is Trix's
+own: I should probably have used a different one.
+
+Was then the curate of Poltons utterly defeated--brought to his knees,
+only to lie spurned? It seemed so: and he came down to dinner that
+night with a subdued and melancholy expression. Trix, on the other
+hand, was brilliant and talkative to the last degree, and the gayety
+spread from her all round the table, leaving untouched only the
+rejected lover and Mrs. Wentworth; for the last-named lady, true to her
+distinguishing quality, had begun to talk to poor Jack Ives in low
+soothing tones.
+
+After dinner Trix was not visible; but the door of the little boudoir
+beyond stood half-open, and very soon Newhaven edged his way through.
+Almost at the same moment Jack Ives and Mrs. Wentworth passed out of
+the window and began to walk up and down the gravel. Nobody but myself
+appeared to notice these remarkable occurrences, but I watched them
+with keen interest. Half an hour passed and then there smote on my
+watchful ear the sound of a low laugh from the boudoir. It was followed
+almost immediately by a stranger sound from the gravel walk.  Then, all
+in a moment, two things happened. The boudoir door opened, and Trix,
+followed by Newhaven, came in smiling; from the window entered Jack
+Ives and Mrs. Wentworth. My eyes were on the curate. He gave one sudden
+comprehending glance towards the other couple; then he took the widows
+hand, led her up to Dora, and said, in low yet penetrating tones, "Will
+you wish us joy, Mrs. Polton?" The Squire, Rippleby, and Algy Stanton
+were round them in an instant. I kept my place, watching now the face
+of Trix Queenborough. She turned first flaming red, then very pale. I
+saw her turn to Newhaven and speak one or two urgent imperative words
+to him. Then, drawing herself up to her full height, she crossed the
+room to where the group was assembled round Mrs. Wentworth and Jack
+Ives.
+
+"What's the matter? What are you saying?" she asked.
+
+Mrs. Wentworth's eyes were modestly cast down, but a smile played round
+her mouth. No one spoke for a moment. Then Jack Ives said, "Mrs.
+Wentworth has promised to be my wife. Miss Queenborough."
+
+For a moment, hardly perceptible. Trix hesitated; then, with the most
+winning, touching, sweetest smile in the world, she said, "So you took
+my advice, and our afternoon walk was not wasted after all!"
+
+Mrs. Polton is not used to these fine flights of diplomacy; she had
+heard before dinner something of what had actually happened in the
+afternoon; and the simple woman positively jumped. Jack Ives met Trix's
+scornful eyes full and square.
+
+"Not at all wasted," said he with a smile. "Not only has it shown me
+where my true happiness lies, but it has also given me a juster idea of
+the value and sincerity of your regard for me, Miss Queenborough."
+
+"It is as real, Mr. Ives, as it is sincere," said she.
+
+"It is like yourself, Miss Queenborough," said he, with a little bow;
+and he turned from her and began to talk to his fiancée.
+
+Trix Queenborough moved slowly towards where I sat. Newhaven was
+watching her from where he stood alone on the other side; of the room.
+
+"And have you no news for us?" I asked, in low tones.
+
+"Thank you," she said haughtily; "I don't care that mine should be a
+pendant to the great tidings about the little widow and the curate."
+
+After a moment's pause she went on:
+
+"He lost no time, did he? He was wise to secure her before what
+happened this afternoon could leak out. Nobody can tell her now."
+
+"This afternoon?"
+
+"He asked me to marry him this afternoon."
+
+"And you refused?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well, his behavior is in outrageously bad taste, but---"
+
+She laid a hand on my arm, and said in calm level tones,
+
+"I refused him because I dared not have him; but I told him I cared for
+him, and he said he loved me. And I let him kiss me. Good-night, Mr.
+Wynne."
+
+I sat still and silent. Newhaven came across to us. Trix put out her
+hand and caught him by the sleeve.
+
+"Fred," she said, "my dear honest old Fred, you love me, don't you?"
+
+Newhaven, much embarrassed and surprised, looked at me in alarm. But
+her hand was in his now, and her eyes imploring him.
+
+"I should rather think I did, my dear," said he.
+
+I really hope that Lord and Lady Newhaven will not be very unhappy,
+while Mrs. Ives quite worships her husband, and is convinced that she
+eclipsed the brilliant and wealthy Miss Queenborough. Perhaps she
+did--perhaps not. There are, as I have said, great qualities in the
+curate of Poltons, but I have not quite made up my mind precisely what
+they are. I ought, however, to say that Dora takes a more favorable
+view of him and a less lenient view of Trix than I. That is perhaps
+natural.  Besides, Dora does not know the precise manner in which the
+curate was refused. By the way, he preached next Sunday on the text,
+"The children of this world are wiser in their generation than the
+children of light."
+
+
+
+
+A THREE-VOLUME NOVEL
+
+
+It was, I believe, mainly as a compliment to me that Miss Audrey Liston
+was asked to Poltons. Miss Liston and I were very good friends, and my
+cousin Dora Polton thought, as she informed me, that it would be nice
+for me to have someone I could talk to about "books and so on." I did
+not complain. Miss Liston was a pleasant young woman of six-and-twenty;
+I liked her very much except on paper, and I was aware that she made it
+a point of duty to read something at least of what I wrote. She was in
+the habit of describing herself as an "authoress in a small way." If it
+were pointed out that six three-volume novels in three years (the term
+of her literary activity at the time of which I write) could hardly be
+called "a small way." she would smile modestly and say that it was not
+really much; and if she were told that the English language embraced no
+such word as "authoress," she would smile again and say that it ought
+to, a position towards the bugbear of correctness with which, I
+confess, I sympathize in some degree. She was very diligent; she worked
+from ten to one every day while she was at Poltons; how much she wrote
+is between her and her conscience.
+
+There was another impeachment which Miss Liston was hardly at the
+trouble to deny. "Take my characters from life!" she would exclaim.
+"Surely every artist (Miss Liston often referred to herself as an
+artist) must!" And she would proceed to maintain--what is perhaps true
+sometimes--that people rather liked being put into books, just as they
+liked being photographed, for all that they grumble and pretend to be
+afflicted when either process is levied against them. In discussing
+this matter with Miss Liston I felt myself on delicate ground, for it
+was notorious that I figured in her first book in the guise of a
+misogynistic genius; the fact that she lengthened (and thickened) my
+hair, converted it from an indeterminate brown to a dusty black, gave
+me a drooping mustache, and invested my very ordinary work-a-day eyes
+with a strange magnetic attraction, availed nothing; I was at once
+recognized, and, I may remark in passing, an uncommonly disagreeable
+fellow she made me. Thus I had passed through the fire. I felt
+tolerably sure that I presented no other aspect of interest, real or
+supposed, and I was quite content that Miss Liston should serve all the
+rest of her acquaintance as she had served me. I reckoned they would
+last her, at the present rate of production, about five years.
+
+Fate was kind to Miss Liston, and provided her with most suitable
+patterns for her next piece of work at Poltons itself. There were a
+young man and a young woman staying in the house--Sir Gilbert
+Chillington and Miss Pamela Myles. The moment Miss Liston was appraised
+of a possible romance; she began the study of the protagonists. She was
+looking out, she told me, for some new types (if it were any
+consolation--and there is a sort of dignity about it--to be called a
+type, Miss Liston's victims were always welcome to so much), and she
+had found them in Chillington and Pamela. The former appeared to my
+dull eye to offer no salient novelty; he was tall, broad, handsome, and
+he possessed a manner of enviable placidity.  Pamela, I allowed, was
+exactly the heroine Miss Liston loved--haughty, capricious, difficile,
+but sound and true at heart (I was mentally skimming Volume I.). Miss
+Liston agreed with me in my conception of Pamela, but declared that I
+did not do justice to the artistic possibilities latent in Chillington;
+he had a curious attraction which it would tax her skill (so she
+gravely informed me) to the utmost to reproduce. She proposed that I
+also should make a study of him, and attributed my hurried refusal to a
+shrinking from the difficulties of the task.
+
+"Of course," she observed, looking at our young friends who were
+talking nonsense at the other side of the lawn, "they must have a
+misunderstanding."
+
+"Why, 'of course'," said I, lighting my pipe. "What should you say to
+another man?"
+
+"Or another woman?" said Miss Liston.
+
+"It comes to the same thing," said I. (About a volume and a half I
+meant.)
+
+"But it's more interesting'. Do you think she'd better be a married
+woman?" And Miss Liston looked at me inquiringly.
+
+"The age prefers them married," I remarked.
+
+This conversation happened on the second day of Miss Liston's visit,
+and she lost no time in beginning to study her subjects. Pamela, she
+said, she found pretty plain sailing, but Chillington continued to
+puzzle her. Again, she could not make up her mind whether to have a
+happy or a tragic ending. In the interests of a tender-hearted public,
+I pleaded for marriage-bells.
+
+"Yes, I think so," said Miss Liston, but she sighed, and I think she
+had an idea or two for a heart-broken separation, followed by mutual,
+life-long, hopeless devotion.
+
+The complexity of young Sir Gilbert did not, in Miss Liston's opinion,
+appear less on further acquaintance; and indeed, I must admit that she
+was not altogether wrong in considering him worthy of attention. As I
+came to know him better, I discerned in him a smothered
+self-appreciation, which came to light in response to the least tribute
+of interest or admiration, but was yet far remote from the
+aggressiveness of a commonplace vanity. In a moment of indiscretion I
+had chaffed him--he was very good-natured--on the risks he ran at Miss
+Liston's hands; he was not disgusted, but neither did he plume himself
+or spread his feathers. He received the suggestions without surprise,
+and without any attempt at disclaiming fitness for the purpose; but he
+received it as a matter which entailed a responsibility on him. I
+detected the conviction that, if the portrait was to be painted, it was
+due to the world that it should be well painted; the subject must give
+the artist full opportunities.
+
+"What does she know about me?" he asked, in meditative tones.
+
+"She's very quick; she'll soon pick up as much as she wants," I assured
+him.
+
+"She'll probably go all wrong," he said, sombrely; and of course I
+could not tell him that it was of no consequence if she did. He would
+not have believed me, and would have done precisely what he proceeded
+to do, and that was to afford Miss Liston every chance of appraising
+his character and plumbing the depths of his soul.
+
+I may say at once that I did not regret this course of action; for the
+effect of it was to allow me a chance of talking to Pamela Myles, and
+Pamela was exactly the sort of a girl to beguile the long pleasant
+morning hours of a holiday in the country. No one had told Pamela that
+she was going to be put in a book, and I don't think it would have made
+any difference had she been told. Pamela's attitude towards books was
+one of healthy scorn, confidently based on admitted ignorance. So we
+never spoke of them, and my cousin Dora condoled with me more than once
+on the way in which Miss Liston, false to the implied terms of her
+invitation, deserted me in favor of Sir Gilbert, and left me to the
+mercies of a frivolous girl. Pamela appeared to be as little aggrieved
+as I was. I imagined that she supposed that Chillington would ask her
+to marry him some day before very long, and I was sure she would accept
+him; but it was quite plain that, if Miss Liston persisted in making
+Pamela her heroine, she would have to supply from her own resources a
+large supplement of passion. Pamela was far too deficient in the
+commodity to be made anything of, without such reinforcement, even by
+an art more adept at making much out of nothing than Miss Liston's
+straightforward method could claim to be.
+
+A week passed, and then, one Friday morning, a new light burst on me.
+Miss Liston came into the garden at eleven o'clock and sat down by me
+on the lawn. Chillington and Pamela had gone riding with the squire,
+Dora was visiting the poor. We were alone. The appearance of Miss
+Liston at this hour (usually sacred to the use of the pen), no less
+than her puzzled look, told me that an obstruction had occurred in the
+novel. Presently she let me know what it was.
+
+"I'm thinking of altering the scheme of my story, Mr. Wynne," said she.
+"Have you ever noticed how sometimes a man thinks he's in love when he
+isn't really?"
+
+"Such a case sometimes occurs," I acknowledged.
+
+"Yes, and he doesn't find out his mistake----"
+
+"Till they're married?"
+
+"Sometimes, yes," she said, rather as though she were making an
+unwilling admission. "But sometimes he sees it before--when he meets
+somebody else."
+
+"Very true," said I, with a grave nod.
+
+"The false can't stand against the real." pursued Miss Liston; and then
+she fell into meditative silence. I stole a glance at her face; she was
+smiling. Was it in the pleasure of literary creation--an artistic
+ecstasy? I should have liked to answer yes, but I doubted it very much.
+Without pretending to Miss Liston's powers, I have the little subtlety
+that is needful to show me that more than one kind of smile may be seen
+on the human face, and that there is one very different from others;
+and finally, that that one is not evoked, as a rule, merely by the
+evolution of the troublesome encumbrance in pretty writing, vulgarly
+called a "plot."
+
+"If," pursued Miss Liston, "some one comes who can appreciate him and
+draw out what is best in him----"
+
+"That's all very well," said I, "but what of the first girl?"
+
+"Oh, she's--she can be made shallow, you know; and I can put in a man
+for her. People needn't be much interested in her."
+
+"Yes, you could manage it that way," said I, thinking how Pamela--I
+took the liberty of using her name for the shallow girl--would like
+such treatment.
+
+"She will really be valuable mainly as a foil," observed Miss Liston;
+and she added generously, "I shall make her nice, you know, but
+shallow--not worthy of him."
+
+"And what are you going to make the other girl like?" I asked.
+
+Miss Liston started slightly; also she colored very slightly, and she
+answered, looking away from me across the lawn, "I haven't quite made
+up my mind yet, Mr. Wynne."
+
+With the suspicion which this conversation aroused fresh in my mind, it
+was curious to hear Pamela laugh, as she said to me on the afternoon of
+the same day, "Aren't Sir Gilbert and Audrey Liston funny?  I tell you
+what, Mr. Wynne, I believe they're writing a novel together."
+
+"Perhaps Chillington's giving her the materials for one," I suggested.
+
+"I shouldn't think," observed Pamela, in her dispassionate way, "that
+anything very interesting had ever happened to him."
+
+"I. thought you liked him," I remarked, humbly.
+
+"So I do. What's that got to do with it?" asked Pamela.
+
+It was beyond question that Chillington enjoyed Miss Liston's society;
+the interest she showed in him was incense to his nostrils. I used to
+overhear fragments of his ideas about himself, which he was revealing
+in answer to her tactful inquiries. But neither was it doubtful that he
+had by no means lost his relish for Pamela's lighter talk; in fact, he
+seemed to turn to her with some relief--perhaps it is refreshing to
+escape from self-analysis, even when the process is conducted in the
+pleasantest possible manner--and the hours which Miss Liston gave to
+work were devoted by Chillington to maintaining his cordial relations
+with the lady whose comfortable and not over-tragical disposal was
+taxing Miss Liston's skill. For she had definitely decided all her
+plot; she told me so a few days later. It was all planned out; nay, the
+scene in which the truth as to his own feelings bursts on Sir Gilbert
+(I forget at the moment what name the novel gave him) was, I
+understood, actually written; the shallow girl was to experience
+nothing worse than a wound to her vanity, and was to turn with as much
+alacrity as decency allowed to the substitute whom Miss Liston had now
+provided. All this was poured into my sympathetic ear, and I say
+sympathetic with all sincerity; for, although I may occasionally treat
+Miss Liston's literary efforts with less than proper respect, she
+herself was my friend, and the conviction under which she was now
+living would, I knew, unless it were justified, bring her into much of
+that unhappiness in which one generally found her heroine plunged about
+the end of Volume II. The heroine generally got out all right, and the
+knowledge that she would enabled the reader to preserve cheerfulness.
+But would poor little Miss Liston get out? I was none too sure of it.
+
+Suddenly a change came in the state of affairs. Pamela produced it. It
+must have struck her that the increasing intimacy of Miss Liston and
+Chillington might become something other than "funny." To put it
+briefly and metaphorically, she whistled her dog back to her heels. I
+am not skilled in understanding or describing the artifices of ladies;
+but even I saw the transformation in Pamela. She put forth her strength
+and put on her prettiest gowns; she refused to take her place in the
+see-saw of society, which Chillington had recently established for his
+pleasure. If he spent an hour with Miss Liston, Pamela would have
+nothing of him for a day; she met his attentions with scorn unless they
+were undivided. Chillington seemed at first puzzled; I believe that he
+never regarded his talks with Miss Liston in other than a business
+point of view, but directly he understood that Pamela claimed him, and
+that she was prepared, in case he did not obey her call, to establish a
+grievance against him, he lost no time in manifesting his obedience. A
+whole day passed in which, to my certain knowledge, he was not alone a
+moment with Miss Liston, and did not, save at the family meals,
+exchange a word with her. As he walked off with Pamela, Miss Liston's
+eyes followed him in wistful longing; she stole away upstairs and did
+not come down till five o'clock. Then finding me strolling about with a
+cigarette, she joined me.
+
+"Well, how goes the book?" I asked.
+
+"I haven't done much to it just lately," she answered, in a low voice.
+"I--it's--I don't quite know what to do with it."
+
+"I thought you'd settled?"
+
+"So I had, but--oh, don't let's talk about it, Mr. Wynne!"
+
+But a moment later she went on talking about it.
+
+"I don't know why I should make it end happily," she said. "I'm sure
+life isn't always happy, is it?"
+
+"Certainly not," I answered. "You mean your man might stick to the
+shallow girl after all?"
+
+"Yes," I just heard her whisper.
+
+"And be miserable afterwards?" I pursued.
+
+"I don't know," said Miss Liston. "Perhaps he wouldn't."
+
+"Then you must make him shallow himself."
+
+"I can't do that," she said quickly. "Oh, how difficult it is!"
+
+She may have meant merely the art of writing--when I cordially agreed
+with her--but I think she meant also the way of the world, which does
+not make me withdraw my assent. I left her walking up and down in front
+of the drawing-room windows, a rather forlorn little figure, thrown
+into distinctness by the cold rays of the setting sun.
+
+All was not over yet. That evening Chillington broke away. Led by
+vanity, or interest, or friendliness, I know not which--tired maybe of
+paying court (the attitude in which Pamela kept him), and thinking it
+would be pleasant to play the other part for a while--after dinner he
+went straight to Miss Liston, talked to her while we had coffee on the
+terrace, and then walked about with her. Pamela sat by me; she was very
+silent; she did not appear to be angry, but her handsome mouth wore a
+resolute expression. Chillington and Miss Liston wandered on into the
+shrubbery, and did not come into sight again for nearly half an hour.
+
+"I think it's cold," said Pamela, in her cool, quiet tones. "And it's
+also, Mr. Wynne, rather slow. I shall go to bed."
+
+I thought it a little impertinent of Pamela to attribute the 'slowness'
+(which had undoubtedly existed) to me, so I took my revenge by saying,
+with, an assumption of innocence purposely and obviously unreal, "Oh,
+but won't you wait and bid Miss Liston and Chillington good-night?"
+
+Pamela looked at me for a moment. I made bold to smile.
+
+Pamela's face broke slowly into an answering smile.
+
+"I don't know what you mean, Mr. Wynne," said she.
+
+"No?" said I.
+
+"No," said Pamela, and she turned away. But before she went she looked
+over her shoulder, and, still smiling, said, "Wish Miss Liston
+good-night for me, Mr. Wynne. Anything I have to say to Sir Gilbert
+will wait very well till to-morrow."
+
+She had hardly gone in when the wanderers came out of the shrubbery and
+rejoined me. Chillington wore his usual passive look, but Miss Liston's
+face was happy and radiant. Chillington passed on into the
+drawing-room. Miss Liston lingered a moment by me.
+
+"Why, you look," said I, "as if you'd invented the finest scene ever
+written."
+
+She did not answer me directly, but stood looking up at the stars.
+Then she said in a dreamy tone, "I think I shall stick to my old idea
+in the book."
+
+As she spoke Chillington came out. Even in the dim light I saw a frown
+on his face.
+
+"I say, Wynne," said he, "where's Miss Myles?"
+
+"She's gone to bed," I answered. "She told me to wish you good-night
+for her, Miss Liston. No message for you, Chillington."
+
+Miss Liston's eyes were on him. He took no notice of her; he stood
+frowning for an instant, then, with some muttered ejaculation, he
+strode back into the house. We hoard his heavy tread across the
+drawing-room; we heard the door slammed behind him, and I found myself
+looking on Miss Liston's altered face.
+
+"What does he want her for, I wonder?" she said, in an agitation that
+made my presence, my thoughts, my suspicions, nothing to her. "He said
+nothing to me about wanting to speak to her to-night." And she walked
+slowly into the house, her eyes on the ground, and all the light gone
+from her face and the joy dead in it. Whereupon I, left alone, began to
+rail at the gods that a dear, silly little soul like Miss Liston should
+bother her poor, silly little head about a hulking fool; in which
+reflections I did, of course, immense injustice not only to an eminent
+author, but also to a perfectly honorable, though somewhat dense and
+decidedly conceited, gentleman.
+
+The next morning Sir Gilbert Chillington ate dirt--there is no other
+way of expressing it--in great quantities and with infinite humility.
+My admirable friend Miss Pamela was severe. I saw him walk six yards
+behind her for the length of the terrace; not a look nor a turn of her
+head gave him leave to join her. Miss Liston had gone upstairs, and I
+watched the scene from the window of the smoking-room. At last, at the
+end of the long walk, just where the laurel-bushes mark the beginning
+of the shrubberies--on the threshold of the scene of his crime--Pamela
+turned round suddenly and faced the repentant sinner. The most
+interesting things in life are those which, perhaps by the inevitable
+nature of the case, one does not hear; and I did not hear the scene
+which followed. For a while they stood talking--rather, he talked and
+she listened. Then she turned again and walked slowly into the
+shrubbery. Chillington followed. It was the end of a chapter, and I
+laid down the book.
+
+How and from whom Miss Liston heard the news, which Chillington himself
+told me without a glimmer of shame or a touch of embarrassment some two
+hours later, I do not know; but hear it she did before luncheon; for
+she came down, ready armed with the neatest little speeches for both
+the happy lovers. I did not expect Pamela to show an ounce more feeling
+than the strictest canons of propriety demanded, and she fulfilled my
+expectations to the letter; but I had hoped, I confess, that
+Chillington would have displayed some little consciousness. He did not;
+and it is my belief that, throughout the events which I have recorded,
+he retained, and that he still retains, the conviction that Miss
+Liston's interest in him was purely literary and artistic, and that she
+devoted herself to his society simply because he offered an interesting
+problem and an inspiring theme. An ingenious charity may find in that
+attitude evidence of modesty; to my thinking it argues a more subtle
+and magnificent conceit than if he had fathomed the truth, as many
+humbler men in his place would have done.
+
+On the day after the engagement was accomplished Miss Liston left us to
+return to London. She came out in her hat and jacket and sat down by
+me; the carriage was to be round in ten minutes. She put on her gloves
+slowly and buttoned them carefully. This done, she said, "By the way,
+Mr. Wynne, I've adopted your suggestion. The man doesn't find out."
+
+"Then you've made him a fool?" I asked bluntly.
+
+"No," she answered. "I--I think it might happen though he wasn't a
+fool."
+
+She sat with her hands in her lap for a moment or two, then she went on
+in a lower voice, "I'm going to make him find out afterwards."
+
+I felt her glance on me, but I looked straight in front of me.
+
+"What! after he's married the shallow girl?"
+
+"Yes," said Miss Liston.
+
+"Rather too late, isn't it? At least if you mean there is to be a happy
+ending."
+
+Miss Liston enlaced her fingers.
+
+"I haven't decided about the ending yet," said she.
+
+"If you're intent is to be tragical--which is the fashion--you'll do as
+you stand," said I.
+
+"Yes," she answered slowly, "if I'm tragical I shall do as I stand."
+
+There was another pause, and rather a long one; the wheels of the
+carriage were audible on the gravel of the front drive. Miss Liston
+stood up. I rose and held out my hand.
+
+"Of course," said Miss Liston, still intent on her novel, "I could--"
+She stopped again, and looked apprehensively at me. My face, I believe,
+expressed nothing more than polite attention and friendly interest.
+
+"Of course," she began again, "the shallow girl--his wife--might--might
+die, Mr. Wynne."
+
+"In novels," said I, with a smile, "while there's death there's hope."
+
+"Yes, in novels," she answered, giving me her hand.
+
+The poor little woman was very unhappy. Unwisely, I dare say, I
+pressed, her hand. It was enough; the tears leapt to her eyes; she gave
+my great fist a hurried squeeze. I have seldom been more touched by any
+thanks, however warm or eloquent, and hurried away.
+
+I have read the novel. It came out a little while ago. The man finds
+out after the marriage; the shallow girl dies un regretted (she turns
+out as badly as possible); the real love comes, and all ends joyfully.
+It is simple story, prettily told in its little way, and the scene of
+the reunion is written with genuine feeling--nay, with a touch of real
+passion. But then Sir Gilbert Chillington never meets Miss Liston now.
+And Lady Chillington not only behaves with her customary propriety, but
+is in the enjoyment of most excellent health and spirits.
+
+True art demands an adaptation, not a copy, of life. I saw that remark
+somewhere the other day. It seems correct, if Miss Liston be any
+authority.
+
+
+
+
+THE PHILOSOPHER IN THE APPLE ORCHARD
+
+
+It was a charmingly mild and balmy day. The sun shone beyond the
+orchard, and the shade was cool inside. A light breeze stirred the
+boughs of the old apple-tree under which the philosopher sat. None of
+these things did the philosopher notice, unless it might be when the
+wind blew about the leaves of the large volume on his knees, and he had
+to find his place again. Then he would exclaim against the wind,
+shuffle the leaves till he got the right page, and settle to his
+reading. The book was a treatise on ontology; it was written by another
+philosopher, a friend of this philosopher's; it bristled with
+fallacies, and this philosopher was discovering them all, and noting
+them on the fly-leaf at the end. He was not going to review the book
+(as some might have thought from his behavior), or even to answer it in
+a work of his own. It was just that he found a pleasure in stripping
+any poor fallacy naked and crucifying it. Presently a girl in a white
+frock came into the orchard. She picked up an apple, bit it, and found
+it ripe. Holding it in her hand, she walked up to where the philosopher
+sat, and looked at him. He did not stir. She took a bite out of the
+apple, munched it, and swallowed it. The philosopher crucified a
+fallacy on the fly-leaf. The girl flung the apple away.
+
+"Mr. Jerningham," said she, "are you very busy?"
+
+The philosopher, pencil in hand, looked up.
+
+"No, Miss May," said he, "not very."
+
+"Because I want your opinion."
+
+"In one moment," said the philosopher, apologetically.
+
+He turned back to the fly-leaf and began to nail the last fallacy a
+little tighter to the cross. The girl regarded him, first with amused
+impatience, then with a vexed frown, finally with a wistful regret. He
+was so very old for his age, she thought; he could not be much beyond
+thirty; his hair was thick and full of waves, his eyes bright and
+clear, his complexion not yet divested of all youth's relics.
+
+"Now, Miss May, I'm at your service," said the philosopher, with a
+lingering look at his impaled fallacy; and he closed the book, keeping
+it, however, on his knee.
+
+The girl sat down just opposite to him.
+
+"It's a very important thing I want to ask you," she began, tugging at
+a tuft of grass, "and it's very--difficult, and you mustn't tell any
+one I asked you; at least, I'd rather you didn't."
+
+"I shall not speak of it; indeed, I shall probably not remember it,"
+said the philosopher.
+
+"And you mustn't look at me, please, while I'm asking you."
+
+"I don't think I was looking at you, but if I was I beg your pardon,"
+said the philosopher, apologetically.
+
+She pulled the tuft of grass right out of the ground, and flung it from
+her with all her force.
+
+"Suppose a man--" she began. "No, that's not right."
+
+"You can take any hypothesis you please," observed the philosopher,
+"but you must verify it afterward, of course."
+
+"Oh, do let me go on. Suppose a girl, Mr. Jerningham--I wish you
+wouldn't nod."
+
+"It was only to show that I followed you."
+
+"Oh, of course you 'follow me', as you call it. Suppose a girl had two
+lovers--you're nodding again--or, I ought to say, suppose there were
+two men who might be in love with a girl."
+
+"Only two?" asked the philosopher. "You see, any number of men might be
+in love with--
+
+"Oh, we can leave the rest out," said Miss May, with a sudden dimple;
+"they don't matter."
+
+"Very well," said the philosopher, "if they are irrelevant we will put
+them aside."
+
+"Suppose, then, that one of these men was, oh, _awfully_ in love with
+the girl, and--and proposed, you know--"
+
+"A moment!" said the philosopher, opening a note-book. "Let me take
+down his proposition. What was it?"
+
+"Why, proposed to her--asked her to marry him," said the girl, with a
+stare.
+
+"Dear me! How stupid of me! I forgot that special use of the word.
+Yes?"
+
+"The girl likes him pretty well, and her people approve of him, and all
+that, you know."
+
+"That simplifies the problem," said the philosopher, nodding again.
+
+"But she's not in--in love with him, you know. She doesn't really care
+for him--much. Do you understand?"
+
+"Perfectly. It is a most natural state of mind."
+
+"Well then, suppose that there's another man--what are you writing?"
+
+"I only put down (B)--like that," pleaded the philosopher, meekly
+exhibiting his note-book.
+
+She looked at him in a sort of helpless exasperation, with just a smile
+somewhere in the background of it.
+
+"Oh, you really are--" she exclaimed. "But let me go on. The other man
+is a friend of the girl's: he's very clever--oh, fearfully clever--and
+he's rather handsome. You needn't put that down."
+
+"It is certainly not very material," admitted the philosopher, and he
+crossed out 'handsome'; 'clever' he left.
+
+"And the girl is most awfully--she admires him tremendously; she thinks
+him just the greatest man that ever lived, you know. And she--she--"
+The girl paused.
+
+"I'm following," said the philosopher, with pencil poised.
+
+"She'd think it better than the whole world if--if she could be
+anything to him, you know."
+
+"You mean become his wife?"
+
+"Well, of course I do--at least, I suppose I do."
+
+"You spoke rather vaguely, you know."
+
+The girl cast one glance at the philosopher as she replied:
+
+"Well, yes; I did mean become his wife."
+
+"Yes. Well?"
+
+"But," continued the girl, starting on another tuft of grass, "he
+doesn't think much about those things. He likes her. I think he likes
+her-"
+
+"Well, doesn't dislike her?" suggested the philosopher. "Shall we call
+him indifferent?"
+
+"I don't know. Yes, rather indifferent. I don't think he thinks about
+it, you know. But she--she's pretty. You needn't put that down."
+
+"I was not about to do so," observed the philosopher.
+
+"She thinks life with him would be just heaven; and-and she thinks she
+would make him awfully happy. She would-would be so proud of him, you
+see."
+
+"I see. Yes?"
+
+"And--I don't know how to put it, quite--she thinks that if he ever
+thought about it at all he might care for her; because he doesn't care
+for anybody else, and she's pretty--"
+
+"You said that before."
+
+"Oh dear, I dare say I did. And most men care for somebody, don't they?
+Some girl, I mean."
+
+"Most men, no doubt," conceded the philosopher.
+
+"Well then, what ought she to do? It's not a real thing, you know, Mr.
+Jerningham. It's in--in a novel I was reading." She said this hastily,
+and blushed as she spoke.
+
+"Dear me! And it's quite an interesting case! Yes, I see. The question
+is, Will she act most wisely in accepting the offer of the man who
+loves her exceedingly, but for whom she entertains only a moderate
+affection--"
+
+"Yes; just a liking. He's just a friend."
+
+"Exactly. Or in marrying the other whom she loves ex--"
+
+"That's not it. How can she marry him? He hasn't--he hasn't asked her,
+you see."
+
+"True; I forgot. Let us assume, though, for the moment, that he has
+asked her. She would then have to consider which marriage would
+probably be productive of the greater sum total of--"
+
+"Oh, but you needn't consider that."
+
+"But it seems the best logical order. We can afterward make allowance
+for the element of uncertainty caused by--"
+
+"Oh no; I don't want it like that. I know perfectly well which she'd do
+if he-the other man you know-asked her."
+
+"You apprehend that--"
+
+"Never mind what I 'apprehend'. Take it as I told you."
+
+"Very good. A has asked her hand, B has not."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"May I take it that, but for the disturbing influence of B, A would be
+a satisfactory--er--candidate?"
+
+"Ye--es; I think so."
+
+"She therefore enjoys a certainty of considerable happiness if she
+marries A?"
+
+"Ye--es; not perfect, because of--B, you know."
+
+"Quite so, quite so; but still a fair amount of happiness. Is it not
+so?"
+
+"I don't--well, perhaps."
+
+"On the other hand, if B did ask her, we are to postulate a higher
+degree of happiness for her?"
+
+"Yes, please, Mr. Jerningham--much higher."
+
+"For both of them?"
+
+"For her. Never mind him."
+
+"Very well. That again simplifies the problem. But his asking her is a
+contingency only?"
+
+"Yes, that's all."
+
+The philosopher spread out his hands.
+
+"My dear young lady," he said, "it becomes a question of degree. How
+probable or improbable is it?"
+
+"I don't know; not very probable--unless--"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Unless he did happen to notice, you know."
+
+"Ah, yes; we supposed that, if he thought of it, he would probably take
+the desired step-at least, that he might be led to do so. Could she
+not--er--indicate her preference?"
+
+"She might try--no, she couldn't do much. You see, he--he doesn't think
+about such things."
+
+"I understand precisely. And it seems to me, Miss May, that in that
+very fact we find our solution."
+
+"Do we?" she asked.
+
+"I think so. He has evidently no natural inclination toward
+her--perhaps not toward marriage at all. Any feeling aroused in him
+would be necessarily shallow and, in a measure, artificial, and in all
+likelihood purely temporary. Moreover, if she took steps to arouse his
+attention one of two things would be likely to happen. Are you
+following me?"
+
+"Yes, Mr. Jerningham."
+
+"Either he would be repelled by her overtures, which you must admit is
+not improbable, and then the position would be unpleasant, and even
+degrading, for her; or, on the other hand, he might, through a
+misplaced feeling of gallantry--"
+
+"Through what?"
+
+"Through a mistaken idea of politeness, or a mistaken view of what was
+kind, allow himself to be drawn into a connection for which he had no
+genuine liking. You agree with me that one or other of these things
+would be likely?"
+
+"Yes, I suppose they would, unless he did come to care for her."
+
+"Ah, you return to that hypothesis. I think it's an extremely fanciful
+one. No, she need not marry A, but she must let B alone."
+
+The philosopher closed his book, took off his glasses, wiped them,
+replaced them, and leaned back against the trunk of the apple-tree.
+The girl picked a dandelion in pieces. After a long pause she asked:
+
+"You think B's feelings wouldn't be at all likely to--to change?"
+
+"That depends on the sort of man he is. But if he is an able man, with
+intellectual interests which engross him-a man who has chosen his path
+in life--a man to whom women's society is not a necessity--"
+
+"He's just like that," said the girl, and she bit the head off a daisy.
+
+"Then," said the philosopher, "I see not the least reason for supposing
+that his feelings will change."
+
+"And would you advise her to marry the other--A?"
+
+"Well, on the whole, I should. A is a good fellow (I think we made A a
+good fellow), he is a suitable match, his love for her is true and
+genuine--"
+
+"It's tremendous!"
+
+"Yes--and--er--extreme. She likes him. There is every reason to hope
+that her liking will develop into a sufficiently deep and stable
+affection.  She will get rid of her folly about B, and make A a good
+wife. Yes, Miss May, if I were the author of your novel I should make
+her marry A, and I should call that a happy ending."
+
+A silence followed. It was broken by the philosopher.
+
+"Is that all you wanted my opinion about, Miss May?" he asked, with his
+finger between the leaves of the treatise on ontology.
+
+"Yes, I think so. I hope I haven't bored you?"
+
+"I've enjoyed the discussion extremely. I had no idea that novels
+raised points of such psychological interest. I must find time to read
+one."
+
+The girl had shifted her position till, instead of her full face, her
+profile was turned toward him. Looking away toward the paddock that lay
+brilliant in sunshine on the skirts of the apple orchard, she asked in
+low slow tones, twisting her hands in her lap:
+
+"Don't you think that perhaps if B found out afterward-when she had
+married A, you know--that she had cared for him so very, very much, he
+might be a little sorry?"
+
+"If he were a gentleman he would regret it deeply."
+
+"I mean--sorry on his own account; that--that he had thrown away all
+that, you know?"
+
+The philosopher looked meditative.
+
+"I think," he pronounced, "that it is very possible he would. I can
+well imagine it."
+
+"He might never find anybody to love him like that again," she said,
+gazing on the gleaming paddock.
+
+"He probably would not," agreed the philosopher.
+
+"And--and most people like being loved, don't they?"
+
+"To crave for love is an almost universal instinct, Miss May."
+
+"Yes, almost," she said, with a dreary little smile. "You see, he'll
+get old, and-and have no one to look after him."
+
+"He will."
+
+"And no home."
+
+"Well, in a sense, none," corrected the philosopher, smiling. "But
+really you'll frighten me. I'm a bachelor myself, you know, Miss May."
+
+"Yes," she whispered, just audibly.
+
+"And all your terrors are before me."
+
+"Well, unless--"
+
+"Oh, we needn't have that 'unless'," laughed the philosopher,
+cheerfully. "There's no 'unless' about it, Miss May."
+
+The girl jumped to her feet; for an instant she looked at the
+philosopher. She opened her lips as if to speak, and at the thought of
+what lay at her tongue's tip her face grew red. But the philosopher was
+gazing past her, and his eyes rested in calm contemplation on the
+gleaming paddock.
+
+"A beautiful thing, sunshine, to be sure," said he.
+
+Her blush faded away into paleness; her lips closed. Without speaking,
+she turned and walked slowly away, her head drooping. The philosopher
+heard the rustle of her skirt in the long grass of the orchard; he
+watched her for a few moments.
+
+"A pretty, graceful creature," said he, with a smile. Then he opened
+his book, took his pencil in his hand, and slipped in a careful
+forefinger to mark the fly-leaf.
+
+The sun had passed mid-heaven and began to decline westward before he
+finished the book. Then he stretched himself and looked at his watch.
+
+"Good gracious, two o'clock! I shall be late for lunch!" and he hurried
+to his feet.
+
+He was very late for lunch.
+
+"Everything's cold," wailed his hostess. "Where have you been, Mr.
+Jerningham?"
+
+"Only in the orchard--reading."
+
+"And you've missed May!"
+
+"Missed Miss May? How do you mean? I had a long talk with her this
+morning-a most interesting talk."
+
+"But you weren't here to say good-by. Now you don't mean to say that
+you forgot that she was leaving by the two-o'clock train? What a man
+you are!"
+
+"Dear me! To think of my forgetting it!" said the philosopher,
+shamefacedly.
+
+"She told me to say good-bye to you for her."
+
+"She's very kind. I can't forgive myself."
+
+His hostess looked at him for a moment; then she sighed, and smiled,
+and sighed again.
+
+"Have you everything you want?" she asked.
+
+"Everything, thank you," said he, sitting down opposite the cheese, and
+propping his book (he thought he would just run through the last
+chapter again) against the loaf; "everything in the world that I want,
+thanks."
+
+His hostess did not tell him that the girl had come in from the apple
+orchard and run hastily upstairs, lest her friend should see what her
+friend did see in her eyes. So that he had no suspicion at all that he
+had received an offer of marriage-and refused it. And he did not refer
+to anything of that sort when he paused once in his reading and
+exclaimed:
+
+"I'm really sorry I missed Miss May. That was an interesting case of
+hers. But I gave the right answer; the girl ought to marry A."
+
+And so the girl did.
+
+
+
+
+THE DECREE OF DUKE DEODONATO
+
+
+"It is a most anxious thing--to be an absolute ruler," said Duke
+Deodonato, "but I have made up my mind. The Doctor has convinced me
+(here Dr. Fusbius, Ph.D., bowed very low) that marriage is the best,
+noblest, wholesomest, and happiest of human conditions."
+
+"Your Highness will remember--" began the President of the Council.
+
+"My lord, I have made up my mind," said Duke Deodonato.
+
+Thus speaking, the Duke took a large sheet of foolscap paper, and wrote
+rapidly for a moment or two.
+
+"There," he said, pushing the paper over to the President, "is the
+decree."
+
+"The decree, sir?"
+
+"I think three weeks afford ample space," said Duke Deodonato.
+
+"Three weeks, sir?"
+
+"For every man over twenty-one years of age in this Duchy to find
+himself a wife."
+
+"Your Highness," observed Dr. Fusbius with deference, "will consider
+that between an abstract proposition and a practical measure--"
+
+"There is to the logical mind no stopping-place," interrupted Duke
+Deodonato.
+
+"But, sir," cried the President, "imagine the consternation which
+this--!"
+
+"Let it be gazetted to-night," said Duke Deodonato.
+
+"I would venture," said the President, "to remind your Highness that
+you are yourself a bachelor."
+
+"Laws," said Duke Deodonato, "do not bind the Crown unless the Crown is
+expressly mentioned."
+
+"True, sir; but I humbly conceive that it would be pessimi exempli--"
+
+"You are right; I will marry myself," said Duke Deodonato.
+
+"But, sir, three weeks! The hand of a princess cannot be requested and
+granted in--"
+
+"Then find me somebody else," said Deodonato; "and pray leave me. I
+would be alone;" and Duke Deodonato waved his hand to the door.
+
+Outside the door the President said to the Doctor,
+
+"I could wish, sir, that you had not convinced his Highness."
+
+"My lord," rejoined the Doctor, "truth is my only preoccupation."
+
+"Sir," said the President, "are you married?"
+
+"My lord," answered the Doctor, "I am not."
+
+"I thought not," said the President, as he folded up the decree, and
+put it in his pocket.
+
+It is useless to deny that Duke Deodonato's decree caused considerable
+disturbance in the Duchy. In the first place, the Crown lawyers raised
+a puzzle of law. Did the word 'man' as used in the decree, include
+'woman'?
+
+The President shook his head, and referred the question to his Highness.
+
+"It seems immaterial," observed the Duke. "If a man marries, a woman
+marries."
+
+"Ex vi terminorum," assented the Doctor.
+
+"But, sir," said the President, "there are more women than men in the
+Duchy."
+
+Duke Deodonato threw down his pen. "This is very provoking," said he.
+"Why was it allowed? I'm sure it happened before _I_ came to the
+throne."
+
+The Doctor was about to point out that it could hardly have been
+guarded against, when the President (who was a better courtier)
+anticipated him.
+
+"We did not foresee that your Highness, in your Highness's wisdom,
+would issue this decree," he said humbly.
+
+"True," said Duke Deodonato, who was a just man.
+
+"Would your Highness vouchsafe any explanation--?"
+
+"What are the Judges for?" asked Duke Deodonato. "There is the law--let
+them interpret it."
+
+Whereupon the Judges held that a 'man' was not a 'woman' and that
+although every man must marry, no woman need.
+
+"It will make no difference," said the President.
+
+"None at all," said Dr. Fusbius.
+
+Nor, perhaps, would it, seeing that women are ever kind, and in no way
+by nature averse from marriage, had it not become known that Duke
+Deodonato himself intended to choose a wife from the ladies of his own
+dominions, and to choose her (according to the advice of Dr. Fusbius,
+who, in truth, saw little whither his counsel would in the end carry
+the Duke) without regard to such adventitious matters as rank or
+wealth, and purely for her beauty, talent, and virtue. Which resolve
+being proclaimed, straightway all the ladies of the Duchy, of
+whatsoever station, calling, age, appearance, wit, or character,
+conceiving each of them that she, and no other, should become the
+Duchess, sturdily refused all offers of marriage (although they were
+many of them as desperately enamored as virtuous ladies may be), and
+did nought else than walk, drive, ride, and display their charms in the
+park before the windows of the ducal palace. And thus it fell out that
+when a week had gone by, no man had obeyed Duke Deodonato's decree, and
+they were, from sheer want of brides, like to fall into contempt of the
+law and under the high displeasure of the Duke.
+
+Upon this the President and Dr. Fusbius sought audience of his
+Highness, and humbly laid before him the unforeseen obstacle which had
+occurred.
+
+"Woman is ever ambitious," said Dr. Fusbius.
+
+"Nay," corrected the President, "they have seen his Highness's person
+as his Highness has ridden through the city."
+
+Duke Deodonato threw down his pen.
+
+"This is very tiresome," said he, knitting his brows. "My lord, I would
+be further advised on this matter. Return at the same hour to-morrow."
+
+The next day Duke Deodonato's forehead had regained its customary
+smoothness, and his manner was tranquil and assured.
+
+"Our pleasure is," said he to the President, "that, albeit no woman
+shall be compelled to marry if so be that she be not invited thereunto;
+yet, if bidden, she shall in no wise refuse, but straightway espouse
+that man who first after the date of these presents shall solicit her
+hand."
+
+The President bowed in admiration.
+
+"It is, if I may humbly say so, a practical and wise solution, sir," he
+said.
+
+"I apprehend that it will remedy the mischief," said Duke Deodonato,
+not ill-pleased.
+
+And doubtless it would have had an effect as altogether satisfactory,
+excellent, beneficial, salutary, and universal as the wisdom of Duke
+Deodonato had anticipated from it, had it not fallen out that, on the
+promulgation of the decree, all the aforesaid ladies of the Duchy, of
+whatsoever station, calling, age, appearance, wit, or character,
+straightway, and so swiftly that no man had time wherein to pay his
+court to them, fled to and shut and bottled and barricaded themselves
+in houses, castles, cupboards, cellars, stables, lofts, churches,
+chapels, chests, and every other kind of receptacle whatsoever, and
+there remained beyond reach of any man, be he whom he would, lest haply
+one, coming, should ask their hand in marriage, and thus they should
+lose all prospect of wedding the Duke.
+
+When Duke Deodonato was apprised of this lamentable action on the part
+of the ladies of the Duchy, he frowned and laid down his pen.
+
+"This is very annoying," said he.  "There appears to be a disposition
+to thwart Our endeavors for the public good."
+
+"It is gross contumacy," said Dr. Fusbius.
+
+"Yet," remarked the President, "inspired by a natural, if
+ill-disciplined, admiration for his Highness's person."
+
+"The decree is now a fortnight old," observed Duke Deodonato. "Leave
+me, I will consider further of this matter."
+
+Now even as his Highness spoke a mighty uproar arose under the palace
+windows, and Duke Deodonato, looking out of the window (which, be it
+remembered, but for the guidance of Heaven he might not have done),
+beheld a maiden of wonderful charms struggling in the clutches of two
+halberdiers of the guard, who were haling her off to prison.
+
+"Bring hither that damsel," said Deodonato.
+
+Presently the damsel, still held by the soldiers, entered the room.
+Her robe was dishevelled and rent, her golden hair hung loose on her
+shoulders, and her eyes were full of tears.
+
+"At whose suit is she arrested?" asked Deodonato.
+
+"At the suit of the most learned Dr. Fusbius, may it please your
+Highness."
+
+"Sir," said Dr. Fusbius, "it is true. This lady, grossly contemning
+your Highness's decree, has refused my hand in marriage."
+
+"Is it true, damsel?" asked Duke Deodonato.
+
+"Hear me, your Highness!" answered she "I left my dwelling but an
+instant, for we were in sore straits for--"
+
+"Bread?" asked Deodonato, a touch of sympathy in his voice.
+
+"May it please your Highness, no--pins wherewith to fasten our hair.
+And, as I ran to the merchant's, this aged man--"
+
+"I am but turned of fifty," interrupted Fusbius.
+
+"And have not yet learnt silence?" asked Deodonato severely. "Damsel,
+proceed!"
+
+"Caught me by my gown as I ran and--"
+
+"I proposed marriage to her," said Fusbius.
+
+"Nay, if you proposed marriage, she shall marry you," said Deodonato.
+"By the crown of my fathers, she shall marry you. But what said he,
+damsel?"
+
+"May it please your Highness, he said that I had the prettiest face in
+all the Duchy, and that he would have no wife but me; and thereupon he
+kissed me; and I would have none of him, and I struck him and escaped."
+
+"Send for the Judges," said Duke Deodonato. "And meanwhile keep this
+damsel and let no man propose marriage to her until Our pleasure be
+known."
+
+Now when the Judges were come, and the maiden was brought in and set
+over against them on the right hand, and the learned Doctor took his
+stand on the left, Deodonato prayed the Judges that they would perpend
+carefully and anxiously of the question--using all lore, research,
+wisdom, discretion, and justice--whether Dr. Fusbius had proposed
+marriage unto the maiden or no.
+
+"Thus shalt Our mind be informed, and We shall deal profitably with
+this matter," concluded Duke Deodonato.
+
+Upon which arose great debate. For there was one part of the learned
+men which leant upon the letter and found no invitation to marriage in
+the words of Dr. Fusbius; while another part would have it that in all
+things the  spirit and mind of the utterer must be regarded, and that
+it sorted not with the years, virtues, learning, and position of the
+said most learned Doctor to suppose that he had spoken such words and
+sealed the same with a kiss, save under the firm impression, thought,
+and conviction that he was offering his hand in marriage; which said
+impression, thought, and conviction were fully and reasonably declared
+and evident in his actions, manner, bearing, air, and conduct.
+
+"This is very perplexing," said Duke Deodonato, and he knit his brows;
+for as he gazed upon the beauty of the damsel, it seemed to him a thing
+unnatural, undesirable, unpalatable, unpleasant, and unendurable, that
+she should wed Dr. Fusbius. Yet if such were the law--Duke Deodonato
+sighed, and he glanced at the damsel: and it chanced that the damsel
+glanced at Duke Deodonato, and, seeing that he was a proper man and
+comely, and that his eye spoke his admiration of her, she blushed; and
+her cheek that had gone white when those of the Judges who favored the
+learned Doctor were speaking, went red as a rose again, and she strove
+to order her hair and to conceal the rent that was in her robe. And
+Duke Deodonato sighed again.
+
+"My Lord," he said to the President, "we have heard these wise and
+erudite men; and, forasmuch as the matter is difficult, they are
+divided among themselves, and the staff whereon we leant is broken.
+Speak, therefore, your mind."
+
+Then the President of the Council looked earnestly at Duke Deodonato,
+but the Duke veiled his face with his hand.
+
+"Answer truly," said he, "without fear or favor; so shall you fulfil
+Our pleasure."
+
+And the President, looking round upon the company, said:
+
+"It is, Your Highness, by all reasonable, honest, just, proper, and
+honorable intendment, as good, sound, full, and explicit an offer of
+marriage as hath ever been had in this Duchy."
+
+"So be it," said Duke Deodonato; and Dr. Fusbius smiled in triumph,
+while the maiden grew pale again.
+
+"And," pursued the President, "it binds, controls, and rules every man,
+woman, and child in these Your Highness's dominions, and hath the force
+of law over all."
+
+"So be it," said Deodonato again.
+
+"Saving," added the President, "Your Highness only."
+
+There was a movement among the company.
+
+"For," pursued the President, "by the ancient laws, customs, manners,
+and observances of the Duchy, no decree or law shall in any way
+whatsoever impair, alter, lessen, or derogate from the high rights,
+powers, and prerogatives of Your Highness, whom may Heaven long
+preserve. Although, therefore, it be, by and pursuant to Your
+Highness's decree, the sure right of every man in this Duchy to be
+accepted in marriage of any damsel whom he shall invite thereunto, yet
+is this right in all respects subject to and controlled by the natural,
+legal, inalienable, unalterable, and sovereign prerogative of Your
+Highness to marry what damsel so ever it shall be Your pleasure to bid
+share your throne. Hence I, in obedience to Your Highness's commands,
+pronounce and declare that this damsel is lawfully and irrevocably
+bound and affianced to the learned Dr. Fusbius, unless and until it
+shall please Your Highness yourself to demand her hand in marriage. May
+what I have spoken please Your Highness." And the President sat down.
+
+Duke Deodonato sat awhile in thought, and there was silence in the
+hall. Then he spoke:
+
+"Let all withdraw, saving the damsel only."
+
+And they one and all withdrew, and Duke Deodonato was left alone with
+the damsel.
+
+Then he arose and gazed long on the damsel; but the damsel would not
+look on Duke Deodonato.
+
+"How are you called, lady?" asked Duke Deodonato.
+
+"I am called Dulcissima," said she.
+
+"Well named!" said Deodonato softly, and he went to the damsel, and he
+laid his hand, full gently, on her robe, and he said, "Dulcissima, you
+have the prettiest face in all the Duchy, and I will have no wife but
+you;" and Duke Deodonato kissed the damsel.
+
+The damsel forbore to strike Duke Deodonato, as she had struck Dr.
+Fusbius. Again her cheek went red, and again pale, and she said, "I wed
+no man on compulsion."
+
+"Madam, I am Your Sovereign," said Duke Deodonato; and his eyes were on
+the damsel.
+
+"If you were an Archangel--!" cried the damsel.
+
+"Our House is not wont to be scorned of ladies," said Deodonato. "Am I
+crooked, or baseborn, or a fool?"
+
+"This day in your Duchy women are slaves, and men their masters by your
+will," said she.
+
+"It is the order of nature," said Deodonato.
+
+"It is not my pleasure," said the damsel.
+
+Then Deodonato laid his hand on his silver bell, for he was very angry.
+
+"Fusbius waits without," said he.
+
+"I will wed him and kill him," cried Dulcissima.
+
+Deodonato gazed on her.
+
+"You had no chance of using the pins," said he, "and the rent in your
+gown is very sore."
+
+And upon this the eyes of the damsel lost their fire and sought the
+floor; and she plucked at her girdle, and would not look on Deodonato.
+And they said outside, "It is very still in the Hall of the Duke."
+
+Then said Deodonato,
+
+"Dulcissima, what would you?"
+
+"That you repeal your decrees," said she.
+
+Deodonato's brow grew dark; he did not love to go back.
+
+"What I have decreed, I have decreed," said he.
+
+"And what I have resolved, I have resolved," said she.
+
+Deodonato drew near to her.
+
+"And if I repeal the decrees?" said he.
+
+"You will do well," said she.
+
+"And you will wed--?"
+
+"Whom I will," said she.
+
+Deodonato turned to the window, and for a space he looked out; and the
+damsel smoothed her hair and drew her robe, where it was whole, across
+the rent; and she looked on Deodonato as he stood, and her bosom rose
+and fell. And she prayed a prayer that no man heard or, if he heard,
+might be so base as to tell. But she saw the dark locks of Deodonato's
+hair and his form, straight as an arrow and tall as a six-foot wand, in
+the window. And again, outside, they said, "It is strangely still in
+the Hall of the Duke."
+
+Then Deodonato turned, and he pressed with his hand on the silver bell,
+and straightway the Hall was filled with the Councillors, the Judges,
+and the halberdiers, attentive to hear the will of Deodonato and the
+fate of the damsel. And the small eyes of Fusbius glowed and the calm
+eyes of the President smiled.
+
+"My Cousins, Gentlemen, and my faithful Guard," said Deodonato, "Time,
+which is Heaven's mighty Instrument, brings counsel. Say! what the Duke
+has done, shall any man undo?"
+
+Then cried they all, save one, "No man!"
+
+And the President said, "Saving the Duke."
+
+"The decrees which I made," said Deodonato, "I unmake. Henceforth let
+men and maidens in my Duchy marry or not marry as they will, and God
+give them joy of it."
+
+And all, save Fusbius, cried "Amen." But Fusbius cried, "Your Highness,
+it is demonstrated beyond cavil, ay, to the satisfaction of your
+Highness--"
+
+"This is very tedious," said Deodonato. "Let him speak no more."
+
+And again he drew near to Dulcissima, and there, before them all, he
+fell on his knee. And a murmur ran through the hall.
+
+"Madam," said Deodonato, "if you love me, wed me. And, if you love me
+not, depart in peace and in honor; and I, Deodonato, will live my life
+alone."
+
+Then the damsel trembled, and barely did Deodonato catch her words:
+
+"There are many men here," said she.
+
+"It is not given to Princes," said Deodonato, "to be alone.
+Nevertheless, if you will, leave me alone."
+
+And the damsel bent low, so that the breath of her mouth stirred the
+hair on Deodonato's head, and he shivered as he knelt.
+
+"My Prince and my King!" said she.
+
+And Deodonato shot to his feet, and before them all he kissed her, and,
+turning, spoke:
+
+"As I have wooed, let every man in this Duchy woo. As I have won, let
+every man that is worthy win. For, unless he so woo, and unless he so
+win, vain is his wooing and vain is his winning, and a fig for his
+wedding, say I, Deodonato! I, that was Deodonato, and now am--Deodonato
+and Dulcissima."
+
+And a great cheer rang out in the Hall, and Fusbius fled to the door;
+and they tore his gown as he went and cursed him for a knave. But the
+President raised his voice aloud and cried--"May Heaven preserve your
+Highnesses--and here's a blessing on all windows!"
+
+And that is the reason why you will find (if you travel there, as I
+trust you may, for nowhere are the ladies fairer or the men so gallant)
+more windows in the Duchy of Deodonato than anywhere in the wide world
+besides. For the more windows, the wider the view; and the wider the
+view, the more pretty damsels do you see; and the more pretty damsels
+you see, the more jocund a thing is life-and that is what the men of
+the Duchy love--and not least Duke Deodonato, whom, with his bride
+Dulcissima, may Heaven long preserve!
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Comedies of Courtship, by Anthony Hope
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