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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Limit, by Ada Leverson
+
+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: The Limit
+
+Author: Ada Leverson
+
+Release Date: March 31, 2009 [EBook #28465]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LIMIT ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Ewa Jaros, Suzanne Shell and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Transcriber's Note:
+
+
+The original spelling and punctuation were retained,
+except for a few issues that were believed to be
+typographical mistakes. The full list of corrections
+can be found at the end of this document.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+THE LIMIT
+
+
+
+
+
+
+    =THE LIMIT=
+
+        BY
+
+    ADA LEVERSON
+
+      LONDON
+  CHAPMAN & HALL
+
+Originally published 1911 by Grant Richards Ltd.
+Reissued 1950 by arrangement with the Richards Press Ltd.
+
+Printed by Brueder Rosenbaum, Vienna, Austria
+Cat. No. 5085/4
+
+
+
+
+TO ROBERT ROSS
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+Chapter                          Page
+
+I       VALENTIA                   11
+
+II      HARRY                      24
+
+III     VAN BUREN                  32
+
+IV      THE ELDER MRS. WYBURN      37
+
+V       ROMER                      43
+
+VI      HARRY'S ENTERTAINMENT      47
+
+VII     DAPHNE                     62
+
+VIII    IN FANCY DRESS             70
+
+IX      A CELEBRITY AT HOME        79
+
+X       MISCHIEF                   87
+
+XI      THE FRIENDS               105
+
+XII     A HOME CHAT               115
+
+XIII    VALENTIA'S VISIT          123
+
+XIV     A SUGGESTION              131
+
+XV      MISS WALMER               137
+
+XVI     MRS. FOSTER               144
+
+XVII    ENGAGED                   156
+
+XVIII   AT THE CARLTON            163
+
+XIX     AT MISS WESTBURY'S        170
+
+XX      A PROPOSAL                177
+
+XXI     HEREFORD VAUGHAN          183
+
+XXII    GILLIE INTERFERES         189
+
+XXIII   THE BALD-FACED STAG       196
+
+XXIV    THE GREEN GATE            203
+
+XXV     A SUNDAY AFTERNOON        211
+
+XXVI    IN THE ROSE GARDEN        223
+
+XXVII   SEEING THE SUN RISE       230
+
+XXVIII  "REPLY PAID"              235
+
+XXIX    GLADYS                    241
+
+XXX     "THE ANGLES"              248
+
+XXXI    AT EDGWARE                256
+
+XXXII   TENSION                   263
+
+XXXIII  GOOD-BYE                  268
+
+XXXIV   ROMER OVERHEARS           274
+
+XXXV    THE LIMIT                 286
+
+XXXVI   RECONCILIATION            291
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+VALENTIA
+
+
+"Romer, are you listening?"
+
+"Valentia, do I ever do anything else?"
+
+"I've almost decided and absolutely made up my mind that it will look
+ever so much better if you don't go with me to Harry's dinner after
+all."
+
+"Really?"
+
+"Yes. We two--you _and_ I--always seem to make such an enormous family
+party! Of course, I know we have to go about in these huge batches
+sometimes--to your mother, and that sort of thing, but in this case it
+will look better not."
+
+Valentia made this rather ungracious suggestion, looking so pretty, so
+serious, and yet with such a conciliating smile that it would have been
+almost impossible for even the most touchy person to have been offended.
+
+The tall, significant-looking husband stopped in his stroll across the
+room.
+
+It was a charming room, with pale grey walls and a pale green carpet,
+and very little in it except, let in as a panel, a delicate low-toned
+portrait of the mistress of the house, vaguely appearing through
+vaporous curtains, holding pale flowers, and painted with a rather
+mysterious effect by that talented young amateur, her cousin, Harry de
+Freyne. It had been his sole success in art, and had been exhibited at
+the Grafton Galleries under the name of The Gilded Lily. No one had ever
+known or was ever likely to know whether the title referred to the
+decorative, if botanically impossible, blossom in her hand, or to the
+golden hair of the seductive sitter.
+
+Romer Wyburn paused a moment--he always paused before speaking--and then
+said very slowly--
+
+"Oh! Really? You think it will look better if I don't go with you?"
+
+He invariably spoke with the greatest deliberation, and with no
+expression whatever.
+
+"Oh yes, dear, I'm sure it would," she repeated coaxingly.
+
+"Do you mean if you go without me?"
+
+"What else can I mean?"
+
+"It'll look better, you think; eh? Is that the idea?"
+
+He sat down opposite the portrait, lighted a cigarette, and thought.
+Then he said with ruminating interest--
+
+"I don't see why. Why will it look so much better for me not to go with
+you?"
+
+"Oh, Romer dear, really! It's one of those things that are almost
+impossible to explain. Oh, if you'd only do just what I advise--if you'd
+only _go_ by me, and not want these long tedious explanations, how much
+better it would be! You see, Harry is giving this dinner _on purpose_ so
+that Daphne shall meet Van Buren by accident. You know all about Van
+Buren, _the_ Van Buren--the millionaire, who turns out to be a dear
+creature and quite charming! and has taken the _greatest_ fancy to
+Harry, and clings on to him, and keeps on and on asking him to ask him
+to meet people. You must own it would be rather jolly for Daphne,
+because, of course, you can't _think_ how he's run after--I mean Van
+Buren--and he isn't an ordinary American snob, and it really and truly
+isn't only his millionairishness, but he's a real person, and
+good-looking and nice as well; and though, Heaven knows, I'm as romantic
+as anybody--for myself--I wouldn't be so selfish as to be romantic for
+her too, and I can't help feeling it's our duty, being in the place of
+parents to her, to give the angel a sporting chance! Of course, the
+point is, Van Buren has told Harry he only likes nice English girls very
+well brought up, and he wants to settle down in England, and he thinks
+that any relation of Harry's must be perfect; and, naturally, I'm
+pleased. I feel exactly like a mother to Daphne, although she's only six
+years younger."
+
+"Well, that's all right. I see all that."
+
+Romer seemed rather bored, as men naturally are at a long catalogue of
+another man's advantages. "Now, look here. Why would it look better for
+me not to go?"
+
+There was some excuse for his insistence on this point, for in a
+superficial way Romer was very effective, fair and good-looking,
+well-made and distinguished; but the entire absence of all expression
+from his empty, regular face, and of all animation from his dry,
+colourless voice and manner, soon counteracted the effectiveness.
+Valentia often said that Romer should never do more than walk through a
+room or look in for a few minutes where there were other people--even at
+a club--and then go away immediately, when he would leave a striking
+impression. If he stayed longer he became alarming. His personality was
+so extraordinarily _nil_ that it was quite oppressive. Obviously kind
+and not in the least pompous, yet his silence made him formidable,
+especially to most of his wife's friends who, though they could hardly
+be reproached with want of pluck as a general rule, had one great fear
+in life--the fear of being bored. It was on this ground that they were
+all terrified of Romer.
+
+"Don't you think, Romer, if we both go it will look too marked? Almost
+as if we were vulgarly trying to get Daphne married? A horrid idea!
+Besides, if you don't turn up Harry can ask some one amusing in your
+place. You see, he's promised to show Van Buren _interesting_ people....
+No, darling, I don't mean it in that way. I'm sure you're interesting
+enough, but I mean queer people, and celebrities and things. That's what
+Van Buren wants, and that's what he must have. And that's one reason why
+he's so delighted with Harry, because Harry can get them all, through
+being a sort of artist, you see. What a good thing, after all, that he
+didn't drift into diplomacy! As he's an American you can't expect Van
+Buren to be really modern, and he has all the old-fashioned ideas about
+what _he_ calls culture. He wants to go in for being intellectual and
+artistic and knowing what he calls people with brains who really count.
+I mean he wants to meet people like Seymour Hicks and Waller, and Thomas
+Hardy, and so on, and not only celebrities and people who have made
+their name, but even people with a future, and, in fact, any peculiar,
+well-educated creatures--anything out of the way."
+
+Romer looked rather dazed.
+
+"Really? Then will Hicks or Hardy be asked in my place?"
+
+Valentia laughed. "Don't be so absurdly literal and hopelessly idiotic,
+darling! No, of course not. But I dare say Harry will get--well--perhaps
+Rathbone, the tattooed man, his Oxford friend."
+
+"Really! And will this chap's being tattooed make the party go off
+better?"
+
+"Oh yes, Romer dear; in a sort of way, because it makes him interesting,
+although you can't see it. When he was quite young he was always having
+lifelong passions for people, and being tattooed in their honour. He has
+blue chain bracelets with initials on his left wrist, and a heart and an
+anchor with other initials on his right arm, and a flight of
+swallows--oh, and goodness knows what! In fact, when you come to think
+of it Mr. Rathbone is really a kind of serial story--with illustrations.
+I wonder Lord Northcliffe doesn't bring him out in monthly parts!" She
+laughed again. "Harry might even get Hereford Vaughan, the man who has
+written all the plays that are going on now. Harry knows him quite well,
+and Van Buren would be so pleased."
+
+"Does Daphne want to many this American chap?"
+
+"Good gracious, no! The idea! Why, she doesn't even know him!... Yes, of
+course she does, naturally."
+
+"Oh!"
+
+Romer, though he never by any chance smiled at his wife's careless
+irresponsible chatter, nor laughed at her trivial jests, took the
+deepest interest in them, and would listen, as if under a charm, by the
+hour, to subtleties and frivolities that one would never have imagined
+he would enjoy. Sometimes the faint shadow of a smile would illuminate
+his face like a cold ray of wintry moonlight, but that was when she had
+ceased speaking. The smile was the effect of having watched the sparkle
+of her grey eyes, the expression of her pretty mouth, and her brilliant,
+sunshiny grace.
+
+"It's very sweet of Harry," she said thoughtfully, "to do all this for
+me. It's all for me, or rather it's all for Daphne; he's so fond of
+Daphne."
+
+"Really? Why doesn't he marry her himself?"
+
+She looked surprised and blushed slightly.
+
+"Harry? Why, he never marries!"
+
+"He doesn't as a rule, I know," Romer admitted.
+
+"Then, why should he make an exception for Daphne? He's fond of her--of
+us--in fact, devoted--just like a brother. Not that I ever saw a devoted
+brother. Besides, Harry's made to be a bachelor, and he isn't well off
+enough to marry."
+
+"Really? Hard up? Poor chap! Never saw any sign of it."
+
+"Hard up? No; how like you! Of course, he has plenty of money, for
+_him_, but he spends it all, poor boy. Anyhow, of course, he's not
+really rich like Van Buren. It's on a totally different scale--a
+different sort of thing altogether. But, of course, Van Buren may not
+care for Daphne; people have such funny tastes; and not only that, but
+if he adores and worships the ground she treads on I shan't let her
+dream of marrying him unless she absolutely returns it--at least, unless
+she likes him fairly well."
+
+All this seemed to absorb Romer, and after a pause he said--
+
+"I suppose you'll get Daphne a new dress for Harry's beano?"
+
+Valentia smiled pityingly.
+
+"Yes, of course, you would think that. No! Why, that would be _l'enfance
+de l'art_! First of all, Daphne looks ever so much better when she's
+dressed really simply, not the latest fashion; on the very verge of
+dowdiness! It suits her--shows her off. It would be silly to dress her
+up like a doll or make her look _endimanchee_ on Thursday, or arranged
+and got up expensively, on purpose for Van Buren. I wouldn't, for
+instance, for anything, let her wear her new tulle dress from Armand!
+He'd see through it. Besides, I want her to contrast with me as if I'd
+taken any amount of trouble about my own appearance and none about hers.
+It'll make him pity her a little, and think how well she'd look in the
+sort of clothes he could give her. Besides, I myself am not going to be
+very smart--just tidy."
+
+"Paquin?"
+
+"How clever of you to guess! Well, now I must go and see Harry and hear
+all about the dinner, and tell him how sorry you are you can't come. And
+you're going to lunch at the Club, aren't you? And won't you go and dine
+with your mother on that evening?"
+
+"I may as well."
+
+"_Do_, Romer dear! I can't bear you to neglect her, although I never
+think it's safe to let you dine with her without me. She always takes
+advantage of my absence to be horrid about me, and then you _will_
+defend me, although I've implored you not to heaps of times, and then
+you quarrel. If, this time, she says I'm frivolous and worldly and an
+utter fool and very deep, you must agree with every word. I'm so fond
+of her, she's such a dear thing, it's too bad to worry her by
+contradicting her, and she has such a vile temper! Telephone and invite
+yourself--a pressing invitation, and give her my very best love."
+
+Romer promised all she asked and then went out to the Club.
+
+Valentia watched him through the window as he went. She thought he
+looked very well through a window, and ought by rights always to be seen
+in that way--as it were, under glass. She felt quite proud of him, of
+his smart appearance. In his way, he was an elaborate dandy, and spent
+years at his tailor's, slowly choosing the right thing. She remembered
+she had married him chiefly because of his fine presence and mysterious
+silence. She had thought at the time there must be so much at the back
+of it all, so much in him. He was in love with her and seemed difficult
+to understand. What could be more attractive? And now--well, he was
+ideally kind and good-natured. And she certainly felt sometimes that she
+couldn't even yet quite make him out. Then she gave a slight sigh, went
+to the door and called Daphne.
+
+Daphne came in, trimming a hat. She had lived with the Wyburns ever
+since their marriage five years ago, and Valentia, having no children
+and a most passionately tender disposition--far too much natural
+affection to expend on Romer alone--lavished devotion on her sister. And
+Daphne was so nice and so pretty, almost as pretty as herself, in a
+satisfactorily different way. Valentia with her short straight features,
+grey eyes under dark brows, low forehead almost hidden by wavy fair
+hair, and a mouth curved and curled into subtle and complicated lines,
+was the type loved by Rossetti and Burne-Jones. She had a wonderful fair
+complexion, against which her long eyelashes showed, when she looked
+down, dark and effective, and though she was rather tall, slim and very
+modishly dressed, she never looked like a fashion-plate and had no air
+of being a mere mannequin for clothes, but seemed essentially real, with
+a suggestion in her personality of a beauty at once pagan and
+spiritual--the pagan predominating. Her pictorial appearance had no
+doubt made easier the artist's task, and the pale exquisite portrait had
+truly been described as a whispering likeness.
+
+Daphne, who was not quite eighteen, was a good deal taller, and more
+slender. She had dark brown eyes, smooth dark hair, parted in the
+middle, a rather bright colour and features of the classic type. Her
+chin was rather long, and she had a brilliant, sudden smile, and all
+the attractive freshness and slight abruptness of her age, with an
+occasionally subdued air, caused by the shadow that had fallen on their
+youth by the death of their beautiful mother. Her gentle grace and touch
+of premeditated _naivete_ made her charming. Beyond question she would
+be a great success.
+
+"Romer can't go on Thursday," Valentia said, taking the needle and hat
+out of her sister's hand and beginning to sew. "I must go and see Harry
+and tell him to get some one else. Really, Daphne, you go too far! It's
+all very well to be clever with your needle, but you needn't tear a
+Lewis hat to pieces and turn it inside out without asking my advice."
+
+"Oh, I wasn't! I was only squashing in the brim and trying to make the
+hat smaller. It seems to have got larger since I put it away."
+
+"Don't be perfectly absurd, darling. It's because you've been seeing
+smaller hats lately."
+
+"Oh yes, I see. Who's going instead of Romer?"
+
+"How should I know? We'll see."
+
+"It's just as you like, darling," said Daphne in her level voice; "but
+in case the American hates me, and I hate him, and Harry's talking to
+you all the time, and I'm frightened of the celebrities, isn't anything
+going to be done for me?"
+
+"Of course not. What do you want? That Foster boy again? Don't look down
+and blush, it makes me sick. All right, perhaps, if there's room. He's a
+nice, decorative boy, but remember they don't dance at dinner, and
+that's the only thing he can do."
+
+"Indeed it isn't!" cried Daphne.
+
+"I'm very sorry to hear it. Suppose Foster's engaged, or at Aldershot?"
+
+"He won't be. It's too sweet of Romer not going. Did you marry him
+because you knew he would do whatever you told him?"
+
+"I don't think it was that so much," said Valentia, thoughtfully, trying
+on the hat in front of the glass. "I thought he was a strong silent man,
+a man with an orange up his sleeve, as it were. But I've never seen the
+orange."
+
+"How funny of you! I should hate a mysterious person. You don't want
+your husband to be a kind of conjurer."
+
+"Yes, I do, as long as he doesn't wear a conjurer's evening dress. I
+like being surprised. Now let's go and surprise Harry at his studio; we
+must be quick, he's expecting us."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+HARRY
+
+
+Harry de Freyne stood in his usual position, smoking a cigarette, and
+leaning a little forward, with his back to the mirror as if to resist
+the temptation of looking into it. The family good looks were acutely
+accentuated in this young man. He had the smooth, glossy dark hair,
+white teeth, and speaking dark grey eyes that women like; clearly-cut
+features, and the rather prominent chin, generally and mistakenly
+supposed to show strength of character. His pleasant, clean-shaven,
+slightly sunburnt face bore an expression of animation with a certain
+humorous anxiety natural in a man who was generally a good deal in debt
+and always a little in love. Further he had the advantage of a tall,
+strong yet supple figure, with a natural grace of movement and much
+personal charm. Harry knew he was good-looking and did not undervalue
+the fact, but regarded it solely as an asset, not as a private
+satisfaction. He regarded everything as an asset. He was no fop,
+although he wore a single eye-glass rather as a concession to some ideal
+of dandyism than as a help to clear vision. He could see remarkably
+well, with or without it.
+
+The long Empire mirror was placed above a delightful early English large
+open fireplace, in which burnt a Parisian-looking wood fire. Harry was
+the possessor of a fine--indeed, a magnificent studio, full of good old
+things, chiefly other people's, and bad new things, principally his own.
+The theory that all bad art is the result of sincere feeling was
+certainly not exemplified in his case. The portrait of his cousin that
+had been regarded as so full of promise was, as he always, said, the
+only decent piece of work he had ever done. He had been educated for
+diplomacy, and learnt eight languages, some of which he spoke fluently,
+and in all of which he could look with expression.
+
+The room was no mere exhibition of bric-a-brac, but was a cosy, shadowy,
+miscellaneous place, not without an ecclesiastical touch here and there.
+One felt every subject could be gone into there, from stockbroking to
+love, and that everything could be done there, whether it was praying,
+eating, singing, or flirting--everything except perhaps painting.
+
+When the servant announced Mrs. Wyburn and Miss de Freyne one might have
+fancied Harry looked slightly disappointed, but he greeted the pretty
+creatures with suitable effusion and high spirits.
+
+They both sat down rather carefully in the corner seats by the fire.
+
+"Romer can't come, he's dining with his mother," announced Valentia. "He
+ought to, you know, now and then."
+
+"I don't like her," said Daphne, "she abuses every one."
+
+"I know she does, but she's really not so bad, dear, all the same; there
+are many worse. She's rather spiteful, but warmhearted--awfully kind if
+you break your leg," said Valentia.
+
+"But you don't break your leg," said Harry.
+
+"Oh, sometimes you do. At any rate you might. Don't encourage Daphne to
+argue, Harry. Who did you say you'd ask instead if we couldn't get
+Romer?"
+
+"Rathbone's just written to accept in his place," said Harry, taking out
+a letter. "But--don't you think we could persuade Romer if we tried
+hard? However, you know best."
+
+He took out a list. "Hereford Vaughan, Van Buren, Rathbone and
+me--that's four; you two, Lady Walmer, and Miss Luscombe, the actress. I
+think that'll do."
+
+"Lady Walmer?" repeated Valentia. "Why?"
+
+"And a real actress!" murmured Daphne.
+
+"Not a real actress. She's walked on at all the principal theatres in
+London, and somebody's always going to take a theatre for her, but
+there's no danger. I told Van Buren that on the stage they think she's
+in society, and in society they believe she's on the stage. And he
+thinks it's real cute, and an extraordinary English type."
+
+"How are you getting on with him?"
+
+"Beautifully,--if he weren't so beastly intelligent and inquisitive. He
+always wants to know all the news and all the latest gossip. What do you
+think he asked me last night? Why Big Ben was called Big Ben! How on
+earth should I know!"
+
+"Big who?"
+
+"Not big anybody;--the place, the thing;--the clock. He said no doubt I
+must think him dreadfully ignorant for not knowing, but he felt he must
+ask."
+
+Smiling at the recollection, Harry lighted another cigarette.
+
+"What did you say?" Daphne asked.
+
+"If it had been the afternoon I think I'd have taken the risk and told
+him I didn't know, but as it was the evening--he always gets rather
+excited in the evening after dinner and so much Perrier water,--walking
+back to the Ritz in the moonlight, and talking about London, I invented
+a long story.--No, he won't repeat it, don't be frightened; it was
+really rather awful; and when Van Buren gives you his word of honour not
+to tell a thing ..."
+
+"You're all right! That must be a great help," said Valentia
+sympathetically.
+
+"It shows he has a nice loyal nature," Daphne remarked. "I admire that
+sort of thing very much."
+
+"A nice loyal nature! I should think he has! He hates spreading scandal,
+and he wouldn't say a single word now to take away the character of Big
+Ben--if it was----"
+
+"What?"
+
+"Oh, if it was ever so! You ought to make Daphne wear one of those thin
+tulle veils to match her hat. They're jolly--you can get them at that
+shop close to me."
+
+"Oh, she needn't, she's going to be manicured, and she's coming back
+here for me in a quarter of an hour."
+
+"Good-bye, darling," said Daphne, standing up, and she made a kind of
+face, which Valentia understood to mean the word Foster.
+
+"What is the child playing at?" said Harry. "If you two have a code it
+would be as well to learn it."
+
+"All right," said Valentia to Daphne.
+
+Harry walked with her to the door and she ran out, saying, "I won't be
+long."
+
+"She wants Foster, the baby Guardsman," explained Valentia.
+
+"Oh, why didn't you say so at first? Of course I suppose they've
+arranged it. At any rate it's as good as done. Then there must be one
+more woman. But never mind now."
+
+Harry sat down beside her and said, in a different voice--he had a very
+good voice, especially when he spoke caressingly--
+
+"How interesting you are! One of your eyebrows is a little thicker than
+the other."
+
+"Oh, Harry!..."
+
+"How are we all going to get home that evening?"
+
+"What do you think?" she asked.
+
+"Well, it's like this, as you may say. We'll all meet at the Ritz and
+dine there. Good. Then we drive in separate vehicles to here, and have
+some music. Then I see you both home, and--well, I think that's all.
+It's not much."
+
+"I don't quite like the way Lady Walmer looks at you, Harry."
+
+"Oh, Valentia! If it comes to that, how do you fondly imagine I shall
+like the way Rathbone is sure to look at you?"
+
+"Oh, Harry! Why, he's tattooed!"
+
+"You see," went on Harry seriously, "I really am making a dash for it
+about Daphne. She'll really be happy with Van Buren, and _I_ shall be
+ever so much happier,--with Van Buren and everyone else,--because,
+through Daphne being always with you, I never see you alone for one
+single second."
+
+"Oh, you exaggerate, Harry!"
+
+"I know I do. I don't see you for half a second."
+
+"Romer has been so nice lately," she answered gently.
+
+"Very amusing, I suppose?"
+
+"But--I often think how very nice he really is."
+
+"Oh, don't say that, even in fun. I'm coming to stay with you in the
+summer--at the Green Gate--unless you'd rather ask Rathbone instead."
+
+"Or unless you'd rather go yachting with the Walmers," she remarked.
+"They have a daughter, haven't they?"
+
+"Oh, Valentia, be anything but blasphemous!..."
+
+"Really?... Oh, Harry!"
+
+"Do you mean to say you need my saying it?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Then, I will. Valentia, I--"
+
+She got up and opened the door so that Daphne should not have to ring
+when she returned.
+
+When the two sisters left a few minutes later, Harry sat down again as
+if in deep thought and lighted a cigarette. His servant came in.
+
+"Please, sir, Mr. Van Buren is at the telephone."
+
+"Oh well, tell him ... Oh no--, all right--I'll go."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+VAN BUREN
+
+
+"It's extremely kind of you, Harry, to let me come around like this in
+the morning. I dare say you want to be working sometimes. I'm really
+afraid of being in the way, but I was rather at a loose end this morning
+and I wanted to have a talk with you," said Van Buren apologetically.
+
+"Rot. Awfully glad to see you, old chap. Have a cigarette?"
+
+"Thanks, Harry, no. I find I'm very much better if I don't smoke till
+after tea.... We're intimate friends now, and yet you never call me
+anything but my surname, or 'old chap'. That reminds me, there's a
+little request I'd like to make of you, Harry."
+
+"What's that?"
+
+"Call me Matthew--no, call me plain Mat. It would give me real
+pleasure."
+
+Harry smiled rather loudly--
+
+"My dear fellow, I couldn't call you plain Mat. It wouldn't be
+suitable! You're too good-looking!"
+
+Van Buren smiled and shook his head. In its way it was a handsome head
+in the fair, clean-shaven American style, with shining blond hair. He
+had very broad shoulders, and a very thin waist, and that naive
+worldliness of air so captivating in many of his countrymen.
+
+Except that he wore a buttonhole of Parma violets, he was dressed in
+every particular exactly like Harry. But no one would have believed
+it--he looked so much better dressed.
+
+"That's your chaff, Harry. I'm not a Gibson man, and I don't pretend to
+be."
+
+He looked at his hands, which were small and white, the finger-tips
+brilliantly polished, and said meditatively--
+
+"I'm very much looking forward to meeting your cousin, Harry. I expect
+she's the ideal of a young English lady. Dark, did you say?"
+
+"Rather dark, and very pretty."
+
+"It's a curious thing, Harry, that to me a broonette has always more
+fascination than a blonde. It seems--I may be wrong--as though there's
+more piquancy, more character."
+
+"I quite agree with you," said Harry. "Now the sister--the married
+one--is very fair."
+
+"And she's quite what you call a professional beauty, isn't she?" asked
+Van Buren with great relish.
+
+"My dear fellow, I don't call anyone a professional beauty, and you
+mustn't either. There's no such thing. I can't think how in America you
+get hold of these prehistoric phrases! The expression must have been
+dead long before either of us was born!... Still, she is a beauty all
+the same."
+
+"Is that so? Mind you, Harry, there's something very attractive about a
+blonde, too. To me golden hair and blue eyes suggest gentleness and
+womanliness.... What is Mrs. Wyburn like?"
+
+"Well, she's rather like an angel on a Christmas card, with her hair
+down--I mean she was, as a little girl," said Harry quickly. "Now she's
+considered like 'Love among the Roses' by Burne-Jones."
+
+"Do you really mean that, Harry? Why, she must be more beautiful than
+Miss de Freyne!"
+
+"I wouldn't worry about her, if I were you," Harry said.
+
+"Why not, Harry?"
+
+"Well, you see she's got a husband," said Harry, looking at the ceiling
+as he puffed his cigarette.
+
+"And a cousin," replied Van Buren with unexpected quickness. He then
+burst out laughing.
+
+"What do you mean?" asked Harry, not laughing.
+
+"Harry, I do beg of you to forgive my indiscretion. I'm afraid you'll
+think it shows great want of delicacy on my part. It was only meant for
+English chaff. Don't be angry, Harry." Van Buren was quite distressed.
+
+"That's all right, old chap."
+
+"You see, I know you painted her portrait, and if you _had_ felt a
+little sentiment for her, who could blame you? Of course, I'm well aware
+that you're far too much a man of high principle to come any way between
+a woman and her husband, or even to let her know if you had a fancy in
+that direction.... I thoroughly do you justice there, Harry."
+
+"I regard them as sisters," answered Harry.
+
+Van Buren went to the window and stood looking out for a few minutes.
+
+"Well, they are sisters.... What a wonderful place your London is!" he
+said. "Now there's the sort of thing I never can understand, which has
+just happened. A lady called a taxicab. Just as it came up a man--at
+least I suppose he calls himself a man--opened the door. I thought he
+meant to help her in. No! He got in himself and drove away.--Now, Harry,
+how do you account for that?"
+
+"I suppose he could walk quicker," said Harry.
+
+"It's the one fault I have to find with you Englishmen, Harry--the
+single fault. You're not gallant enough to the ladies. Nor is there, in
+my opinion, quite enough respect shown to them. I am always astonished,
+I admit, that they don't resent it. Why, in New York----."
+
+"My dear fellow, they complain bitterly that there's too much respect
+shown to them already," said Harry. "A little more, and they'd do
+without us altogether!"
+
+Van Buren laughed cheerily, and clapped Harry on the shoulder.
+
+"What a fellow you are for chaff! Now, will you come around and have
+lunch with me?"
+
+"When? Now? Thanks, old chap."
+
+"That's real good, Harry," said Van Buren, his eyes sparkling with joy,
+"and we'll walk down Piccadilly together. I must say ..."
+
+"What?"
+
+"I shan't feel we're real pals till you call me Mat!"
+
+Harry shivered ostentatiously.
+
+They went out, both laughing with great cordiality.
+
+At the corner Van Buren stopped to throw away his buttonhole. He saw
+they were not being worn.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+THE ELDER MRS. WYBURN
+
+
+Romer's mother usually received him with a sarcastic remark, such as
+"Oh, so you remember that I'm not dead yet?" or "I wonder you find time
+to come at all," or something of the same nature, calculated to cast a
+gloom over any visit.
+
+The widow of a rich brewer, Mrs. Wyburn lived in a bad-tempered looking
+old house in Curzon Street, with a harassed footman, a domineering maid,
+a cross cook, and other servants that were continually changing. She was
+one of those excellent housekeepers who spend most of their time "giving
+notice" and "taking up" characters. She nearly always wore a
+hard-looking black silk dress. She had parted black hair, long earrings,
+and a knot of rare old imitation lace at her throat. Eagerness,
+impatience, love of teasing and sharp wit were visible in her face to
+one who could read between the lines. But, notwithstanding this, as she
+had a soft heart and plenty of hard cash, she was not altogether
+unpopular. People enjoyed going to hear the nasty things she said about
+their friends. She had a real _succes de scandale_ on her Wednesdays,
+notwithstanding the fact that a more highly respectable lady had never
+existed in the world.
+
+She adored Romer, although his slow speech and long pauses often drove
+her to the very verge of violence.
+
+"Thought I'd look in," he remarked, rather heavily taking a seat in the
+dark drawing-room, and he proceeded by slow stages to tell her that he
+was coming to dinner on Thursday because Valentia was going out.
+
+She gave him a quick look, combined of motherly pride and annoyance.
+
+"Delighted, of course, dear. Who did you say was Valentia's hostess?"
+
+"She's going with Daphne. Harry's dinner. At some restaurant."
+
+"Oh, indeed!... Well, if you approve of these Bohemian arrangements it's
+not _my_ business. I have my own opinion of Harry de Freyne; I always
+have had--and I shall keep it."
+
+"Do," said Romer, unconsciously epigrammatic.
+
+She waited a minute and then said--
+
+"I don't wish to worry you, my dear ..."
+
+"No?"
+
+"... But I, personally, if I were a man ... perhaps I oughtn't to say
+it--if I saw my wife so much in the society of a person like Harry de
+Freyne--upon my word, I should begin to ask myself what were their
+relations!"
+
+"Cousins," said Romer.
+
+He began to tap his foot slowly against the rail of the chair, but
+remembered Valentia's constant advice, and decided he would not quarrel.
+
+"Well, you know your affairs best, dear. I'm only an interfering
+disagreeable old woman, who knows very little of modern customs and
+ways."
+
+He nodded sympathetically, without answering.
+
+"I love and admire Valentia--in many ways. She's so pretty, but not a
+mere doll! And we women--even the happiest of us--have to go through so
+much! Does she go through the housekeeping books herself, dear?" Mrs.
+Wyburn inquired, with dangerous sweetness.
+
+"Shouldn't think so."
+
+"Ah! that seems rather a pity. Still, I'm just to every one, and I will
+say that she's not extravagant--but has so much cleverness that she
+could manage very well on half the allowance you give her!"
+
+"Is that new--that china bird?" Romer asked, getting up to look at a
+strange, shiny, abnormal-looking parrot on a twig that adorned the
+mantelpiece.
+
+"Do you like it?" she asked.
+
+"It seems all right. Rather jolly."
+
+"Oh! Well, it's funny you haven't noticed it before. Considering it's
+been there all your life, and you used to play with it when you were
+four, it's odd it's escaped your notice. You played with it when you
+were four!" she repeated, growing rather heated.
+
+"Did I though?"
+
+"But things do escape your notice--that's just the point. I sometimes
+wish I didn't see so much myself."
+
+"So do I," he answered. "May I smoke, mother?"
+
+"Of course you may, dear. You may do anything on earth you like. Have
+some tea? _I_ never have anything but China tea, so it won't do you any
+harm."
+
+"I hate China tea," he answered reflectively, after what seemed to his
+mother about half an hour's deep thought.
+
+... "But what I always have said about Valentia is that though we all
+admit, dear, that she has charming manners, is bright and amusing and
+very sweet----"
+
+He smiled.
+
+"_Outwardly_, is there anything behind it all? Has she any depth?" She
+quickly answered her own question, "_I_ think she has; a great deal. I
+believe Valentia is extremely clever in her own way; she turns _you_
+round her little finger. But that wouldn't matter so much--anything's
+better than quarrelling and snapping and finding fault
+continually--which is a thing I hate. But, really, there's one point I'm
+quite anxious about--in fact, I often lie awake the whole night--the
+entire night--and wake up in the morning utterly worn out through
+thinking about it, Romer dear. There's nothing like a mother's
+heart--and this does make me anxious, I own."
+
+"What?"
+
+"Why, that she should ever be talked about! That she should be
+considered a flirt--and that sort of thing! I couldn't bear the idea of
+my son's wife having her name coupled with that of any young man--or any
+nonsense of that sort. It would be most painful to me. I'm sure I ask
+every one who knows her if anything of that kind is ever said."
+
+Romer threw away the cigarette and stood up.
+
+"What infernal rot!" he said, with a heightened colour.
+
+Her eyes brightened with pleasure. She was delighted to have irritated
+him at last out of his calmness.
+
+"Well, well, perhaps I'm a little over-anxious. It's all love, all
+devotion to you, dear. Of course, people do talk. There's no doubt about
+that; but good gracious! we all know there's nothing in it. Don't we?
+Don't be cross with your poor old mother, Romer."
+
+"That's all right. I must be off. Eight on Thursday, eh?"
+
+She kissed him affectionately, walked with him to the landing, where she
+kept him for about ten minutes complaining of the awful worry she had
+had about the under-housemaid, and of the sickening impossibility of
+getting a piano-tuner to attend to the instrument properly without
+making any sound.
+
+"For I'm a mass of nerves, my dear. Give my best love to dear
+Valentia."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+ROMER
+
+
+Romer walked back, trying to throw off the irritating effect of his
+mother's pin-pricks. As was his usual custom when he was a little
+depressed, he went home and sat down in front of his wife's portrait. He
+often sat there for an hour when she was out, looking at it. Any one
+watching him would have thought he was in a state of calm and stupid
+content. In reality, he was worshipping. His passion for his wife was
+his one romance, his one interest, his one thought. He had been married
+five years, and had never yet expressed it in words. He was one of the
+unfortunate people who are not gifted with the power of expression,
+either in word or look. He was practically inarticulate.
+
+As he gazed at the picture--he was feeling a little sad--the sadness
+melted away. The frail figure, bright yet dim, vaguely appearing through
+vaporous curtains, holding an impossible gold flower, had the effect on
+him of a beautiful Madonna on a deeply devout Catholic. It produced in
+him a form of religious ecstasy. He adored her with passion, and with
+the selfishness and jealousy of passion, but circumstances and his
+temperament caused it to take the outward form, principally, of care for
+her happiness. When she was actually present, she still dazzled him so
+much that he could show his feeling only by listening to and agreeing
+with every word she said, by doing what she asked him, and by trying to
+protect her, often without her knowledge, from any kind of pain or
+trouble. She would have been amazed had she realised the violence of his
+devotion to her. Apparently cool and matter-of-fact, he was in reality a
+reticent fanatic. He neither analysed nor showed his sentiment, nor did
+he himself know its extent. He wondered why certain people, certain
+subjects gave him pain. He trusted Valentia absolutely, nor could she in
+his eyes do wrong, and it was only with the subconscious second sight of
+love that he sometimes felt a curious and melancholy presentiment. He
+did not know himself that this suffering was jealousy.
+
+What nonsense his mother talked!...
+
+Harry!... Harry was the best fellow in the world--almost like a brother,
+his greatest friend, though not exactly an intimate friend. Romer was
+too shy to be intimate with any one. Harry was lively, amusing, a
+brilliant talker; kind, good-natured, a capital chap. He appreciated
+Valentia, or he could not have painted that portrait. Romer was very
+grateful for the portrait; yet it sometimes hurt him to think Harry had
+painted it. It showed how well Harry understood Valentia.
+
+This thought Romer always suppressed. He thought it was mean, and he
+could not be mean.
+
+He looked out of the window. It was raining--a chilly spring shower--but
+there was a stir in the air, a rattle in the town, a sense of something
+that was going to happen; summer was not far off, and in the summer, at
+the end of the season, they would go down to the Green Gate, the lovely
+country house with the dream garden as Valentia called it, all built,
+planted, and arranged on purpose for her. Valentia was more herself at
+the Green Gate than anywhere else. Leisure suited her, and roses.
+
+Every year Romer silently counted the weeks until they went back there.
+It was where he was happiest. Of course, they were not alone. Dear
+little Daphne was always with them, dear little thing (she was nearly
+six feet high)--and other people, very often, and Harry--always Harry.
+Perhaps Daphne would marry soon, but what about Harry?
+
+Romer felt rather wearied when he remembered Valentia had said Harry
+was made to be a bachelor. Was he tired of Harry? Not a bit! Harry was a
+capital chap; besides, he didn't see so very much of him in London.
+
+Heaps of people admired Valentia, and that did not annoy Romer at all
+(though it did not please him particularly), but he knew, again
+subconsciously, that Valentia cared less than nothing for any admirers,
+but she certainly was awfully fond of Harry. And no wonder! Harry was
+the best fellow in the world--lively, amusing, quite a brilliant talker;
+kind, good natured, and he appreciated Valentia, or he could not have
+painted that portrait....
+
+Round and round the same thoughts passed through his brain.
+
+It was raining--a chilly spring shower. Had Valentia got her wrap with
+her?
+
+He got up, went into the hall, and saw her fur cloak hanging on a peg.
+
+She evidently didn't care for it. She was tired of it--perhaps it was
+out of fashion; if so, she would never wear it. She might catch cold.
+
+He was not a prompt man, but he went at once to the telephone and gave
+orders to a shop in Bond Street that would result in a collection of
+fur-lined cloaks being sent for her choice that evening. This would
+please her; she would smile and try them on. Besides, it would prevent
+her catching cold.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+HARRY'S ENTERTAINMENT
+
+
+Van Buren, who was a business man, was an idealist; while Harry de
+Freyne, the artist--was, emphatically, not.
+
+Van Buren had been brought up on Thackeray and Dickens, above all on old
+pictures from _Punch_; Du Maurier's drawings enjoyed at an early age had
+made him romantic about everything connected with London. As soon as he
+was able to leave his bank in New York--in fact, the moment he had
+retired from business--he had realised his dream and come to live in
+London. And Harry seemed to him the incarnation of everything
+delightfully, amusingly English. He had a real hero-worship for Harry,
+who was so astonishingly clever as well. Van Buren was not a snobbish
+Anglomaniac, at least his snobbishness was not of the common quality nor
+about the obvious things; he was a little ashamed of his money, but he
+did not worship rank and titles; it was Intellect--but Intellect that
+had the stamp of fashion--that held a glamour for him. So did everything
+that he supposed to be modern, previous, and up-to-date. No one could
+ever, whether in New York or in London, have been in life less modern
+than poor Van Buren, though he was eminently contemporary and perhaps
+even in advance in matters connected with business. For business he had
+genius, and yet, curiously, no passion; he was unconsciously brilliant
+on the subject; it was hereditary. But in his innermost heart he
+believed that it was vulgar to be an American millionaire! And he had a
+childish horror of vulgarity, and an innocent belief that an Englishman
+who had been to Eton and Oxford and who was _dans le mouvement_, smart
+and good-looking, and had deserted diplomacy for art, must of necessity
+be refined, superior, cultured, everything that Van Buren wanted to be.
+
+Of course he soon found out that Harry was frightfully hard up, and in
+the most delicate manner imaginable--a delicacy rather wasted on his
+friend--implored, as a special favour, to be allowed to be his banker.
+But Harry had refused, having vague ideas of much more important extent
+than a mere loan with regard to making Van Buren useful. He had thus
+gone up in his friend's estimation, at the same time placing him under
+a great and deeply felt obligation by gratifying his fancy for knowing
+clever people and celebrities.
+
+At last the friendship had culminated in Harry's suggestion of a
+marriage between his young cousin, Daphne, and Van Buren. Harry felt
+that if he could compass this arrangement he would at one stroke give
+fortune to Daphne, freedom to himself--the child was very much in his
+way in Valentia's house--and make Van Buren eternally grateful.
+
+Harry really liked Van Buren and respected him; he regarded him as
+touching, but also, at times, as a menace. A shadow sometimes came over
+their friendship, the alarming shadow of the future bore. What was now
+to his cynical mind screamingly funny about the American--his sensitive
+delicate feelings, his high standard of morals with regard to what he
+called the ladies, and illusions that one would rarely find in London in
+a girl of seventeen, might some day develop into priggishness and
+tediousness, and--especially--would take up too much time. For since
+Harry had been intimate with Van Buren he had discovered that the
+tradition of American hustling was, like most traditions, a fiction.
+Americans always have time; Englishmen never. The leisurely way in which
+Van Buren talked was an example of this--it was the way he thought; his
+brain worked slowly. Harry and his like have no time to drawl; they have
+to keep appointments.
+
+On the evening of the Ritz dinner-party Harry was not in a particularly
+good temper, and thought to himself he was rather like a Barnum as he
+introduced his guests one by one to the modest millionaire, who said to
+them all, "Pleased to meet you", and fixed his admiring glance with a
+sentimental respect on Daphne, an undisguised admiration on Valentia,
+and an almost morbid curiosity on Miss Luscombe, the first actress he
+had ever met.
+
+Miss Luscombe was a conventional, rather untidy-looking creature, very
+handsome, with loose hair parted and waved over her ears, and with
+apparently no design or general idea either in her dress or manner. She
+varied from minute to minute from being what she thought theatrical to
+appearing what she supposed to be social. She evidently hadn't settled
+on her pose, always a disastrous moment for a natural woman who wishes
+to be artificial. Practically she always wore evening dress except in
+the evening, so while at her own flat in the afternoon she was
+photographed in a _decolletee_ tea-gown, this evening she was dressed as
+if for Ascot, except for the hat, with an emaciated feather boa and a
+tired embroidered _crepe de Chine_ scarf thrown over her shoulders,
+also a fan, long gloves, and a rose in her hair by way of hedging. To
+these ornaments she added a cold, of which she complained as soon as she
+saw the other guests. But no one listened. No one ever listened to Miss
+Luscombe, no one ever could, and yet in a way she was popular--a kind of
+pet among a rather large circle of people. Women never disliked her
+because she created no jealousy and always unconsciously put herself at
+a disadvantage; men did not mind her prattle and coquettish airs, being
+well aware that nothing was expected of them. For Miss Luscombe, though
+vain, was a pessimist, and quite good-natured. She was also a standing
+joke.
+
+The other guests besides Valentia in yellow and Daphne in pink--both
+looking as fresh as daisies and as civilised as orchids--consisted of
+Lady Walmer, a smart, good-looking, commonplace woman, rather fatter
+than she wished to be, but very straight-fronted, straightforward, and
+sporting, with dark red hair and splendid jewels; a faded yet powerful
+beauty who had been admired in the eighties, but had only had real
+success since she turned forty-six.
+
+With her was her daughter, a girl who at the first glance looked eight
+feet high, but who really was not very much above the average length.
+She was a splendid athlete, and her talk was principally of hockey. She
+wore a very smart white dress and had a dark brown neck, pretty fair
+hair, and an entirely unaffected bonhomie that quite carried off the
+harshness of her want of style or charm--in fact it had a charm of its
+own. Besides, it was well known that her grandmother had left her an
+estate in the country and L 7000 a year, and that Lady Walmer was
+anxious to get her married. Hence Miss Walmer never wanted for partners
+at balls nor for attention anywhere, but--it was always for _le bon
+motif_. As Valentia said, she was the sort of girl (poor girl!) that one
+could only marry.
+
+Hereford Vaughan, who was an object of considerable curiosity to several
+of the guests on account of his phenomenal success in having eleven
+plays at the same time being performed in London, New York, Berlin,
+Paris, and every other European city, was, to those who did not know him
+before, an agreeable surprise. Heaven knows what exactly people expected
+of him; perhaps the men feared 'side' and the women that he would be
+overpowering after so many triumphs, but he was merely a rather pale,
+dark, and rather handsome young man. He behaved like anybody else,
+except that perhaps his manner was a little quieter than the average.
+Unless one was very observant (which one isn't), or unless one listened
+to what he said, he did not at first appear too alarmingly clever. He
+had one or two characteristics which must have at times led to
+misunderstandings. One was that whatever or whoever he looked at, his
+dark opaque eyes were so full of vivid expression that women often
+mistook for admiration what was often merely observation. For instance,
+when he glanced at Lady Walmer she at once became quite confused, and
+intensely flattered, nearly blushed and asked him to dinner. While, if
+she had but known, behind that dark glance was merely the thought, "So
+that's the woman that Royalty ... What extraordinary taste!"
+
+Hereford Vaughan, who was himself thirty-four, did not share in the
+modern taste for the battered as a charm in itself, though he could
+forgive it--or, indeed, anything else--if he were amused.
+
+Knowing that Miss Luscombe, hoping for a part, would be painfully nice
+to Vaughan, Harry had good-naturedly placed them as far apart as
+possible. Nevertheless she leaned across the table and said--
+
+"How _do_ you think of all these clever things, Mr. Vaughan? I can't
+think how you do it!"
+
+"Yes, indeed, we'd all like to know that," said Captain Foster, the baby
+Guardsman, as Valentia called him. He spoke enviously. He was a
+perfectly beautiful blond, delightfully stupid, and had been longing for
+enough money to marry somebody ever since he was seventeen.
+
+"I'm sure I'd jolly soon write a play if I only knew how."
+
+"It's perfectly easy, really," said Vaughan; "it's just a knack."
+
+"Is it though?"
+
+"That's all."
+
+"How do you get the things taken?"
+
+"Oh, that's a mere fluke--a bit of luck," said Vaughan.
+
+Every one who heard this sighed with relief to think that was how he
+regarded it.
+
+Vaughan always used this exaggerated modesty as an armour against envy,
+for envy, as a rule, is of success rather than of merit. No one would
+have objected to his talent deserving recognition--only to his getting
+it.
+
+"Now what do you think of Miss Luscombe?" Valentia asked the dramatist.
+
+"I don't think of her. I never regard people on the stage as real
+people," Vaughan answered.
+
+"Don't you, really? Well, you ought to know. You have made a sort of
+corner in 'leading ladies'. What curious clothes she wears!"
+
+"Doesn't she? On the stage she dresses like an actress, and off the
+stage she doesn't dress like a lady. She's so extraordinarily vague," he
+said.
+
+"Yes; and yet I've heard that, though she's so dreamy and romantic,
+she's quite wonderfully practical, really. She never accepts an
+engagement unless she gets a large salary--and all that sort of thing."
+
+"I see. She lives in the clouds, but she insists on their having a
+silver lining," said Vaughan. "Who's the pink young man she's confiding
+in now?"
+
+"It's Mr. Rathbone. He likes theatres--at least he collects programmes
+and posters, I think. Besides, he's tattooed."
+
+"Oh, yes. That must be a great help in listening to Miss Luscombe. He's
+been trained to suffer."
+
+Miss Luscombe was talking rather loudly and most confidentially to
+Rathbone, who had an expression of willing--but agonised--martyrdom on
+his fair pink, clean-shaven features.
+
+"I _told_ dear George Alexander that I would have been only _too_
+pleased to understudy Irene in the new piece--in fact, it would have
+just suited me, Mr. Rathbone, and left me plenty of time for my social
+engagements too. Besides, if I once got a chance of a part like that I
+feel I should have made a hit. Oh, it was a cruel disappointment! After
+being too charming to me--or, at any rate, I was charming to him at the
+Cashmores' reception, you know--I remember he was standing in the
+refreshment-room with Mrs. Cashmore, and I went _straight_ up to him and
+said, 'Don't you remember me, Mr. Alexander?'--and after all this he
+only promised me--and that conditionally--a horrid, silly little part in
+the curtain-raiser in No. 2 B Company on tour. On tour! Of course I
+refused that--one must keep up one's prestige, Mr. Rathbone. There's a
+great deal of injustice in the profession. Talent counts for
+nothing--it's all influence. But I've always had a great ambition ever
+since I was a little girl." Miss Luscombe put her head on one side and
+talked as she had to the interviewer of _The Perfect Lady_. "It was
+always my dream--do you know?--to marry a great actor--or, at any rate,
+to be his great friend--like Irving and Ellen Terry--that sort of
+thing--a great, lifelong friendship! And as a child I was madly in love
+with the elder George Grossmith, but I don't think he ever knew it. Too
+bad!"
+
+She pouted childishly, gave her arch musical laugh with its three
+soprano notes and upward inflection, and then accepted a quail with a
+heavy sigh.
+
+"When I was a boy," said Rathbone in a low concentrated voice of
+reminiscence--he spoke rather quickly, for he had been trying in vain
+during the whole of dinner to get a word in edgeways and feared to lose
+his chance now--"when I was a boy I was in love, too, with some one
+on the stage. Between ourselves--you won't mention it, will you, Miss
+Luscombe?----"
+
+"You can trust me," she said earnestly, with a look of Julia Neilson.
+
+"Good! Well, I was in love, and I've got her initials--C. L.--tattooed
+on me now!"
+
+"Impossible! How exciting! Who is C. L.?"
+
+He looked round the table and murmured in a low voice, "Cissie Loftus.
+Isn't it odd? I wrote and told her about it, but I never received an
+answer to my letter."
+
+"Poor, poor boy! I call that really touching! Will you show me the
+initials some day?"
+
+"Oh no. Impossible." He was stern, adamantine. She hastily went on. "So
+you're very keen--interested in the stage, Mr. Rathbone?"
+
+"Well, in the stage door. I collect programmes, and I haven't missed a
+first night since I was twenty!"
+
+"Fancy! Then I ought to remember your face, at all the theatres!"
+
+"I mean at the Gaiety," he said, "only the Gaiety."
+
+"Oh, the Gaiety!" she turned her shoulder to him.
+
+       *     *     *     *     *
+
+"Yes, Miss Daphne, if you would come out to New York you'd have a real
+good time. You'd turn all the young fellow's heads. I'm afraid you'd do
+a terrible amount of damage there. I should like to show you and Mrs.
+Wyburn Newport in the season, too. You ladies have it all your own way
+over the other side of----may I say, the herringpond?"
+
+"Oh, please do; yes, _do_ say the herringpond!"
+
+Daphne leant forward and said to Harry:
+
+"Do you know who is that very distinguished-looking man who has just
+come in--rather weary and a little grey on the temples? He bowed and
+kissed the woman's hand so charmingly--at the next table to us. Looks
+like a great diplomatist."
+
+"Then he must be a stockbroker," said Valentia decidedly. "Every one
+with the grand manner always is."
+
+"Really! I can't say; I don't know any stockbrokers," said Miss
+Luscombe.
+
+"How distinguished that sounds!" murmured Vaughan.
+
+"It's very clever of you, Miss Luscombe," said Lady Walmer; "I don't see
+how you can help it! I know nobody else. I always tell Alec she'll have
+to marry one, and when she says she doesn't want to, 'My dear child,' I
+say, 'you can't marry people you don't see!' And almost the only people
+she ever sees at our house _are_ stockbrokers--except a few soldiers
+who never have a penny."
+
+Alec was the daughter, named after her distinguished godmother.
+
+"It's quite gone out to be snobbish now," Lady Walmer continued in a
+lower voice to Harry. "We're all only too glad to take all we can get in
+exchange for anything we give!"
+
+"And you don't call that snobbish?" said Harry.
+
+"My dear, no!--of course, we give as little as possible. I talk like
+this and yet I married for love--and you know the result! Walmer's
+always gambling, always running after--goodness knows what--and leaves
+me--not quite in the gutter, but certainly on the kerb!"
+
+"Don't you want Alec to marry for love?"
+
+"I'm afraid she'll have to, my dear--she's not very attractive. It's a
+blessing she's an heiress. But if she's allowed to play hockey, and
+skate, and fence, and dance, and the husband is fairly kind to her, I'm
+sure she'll be happy--I mean, I have no idea of her marrying a duke,
+Harry. I shall be satisfied if he's a charming man, and not too
+selfish." She lowered her voice still more to add--"You know she likes
+you, poor child, don't you?"
+
+"You're making fun of me, dear Lady Walmer."
+
+"No, I'm not.... Walmer's taken 'Flying Fish' again, and after Cowes
+we're going for a long cruise. You must come with us. Her father will be
+all right. He lets me have my own way about her. Well, aren't you
+coming?"
+
+"You're too frightfully kind, Lady Walmer, of course. But----"
+
+"My dear boy, of course you're going to the Green Gate, but I wish you'd
+listen to a woman of the world. That," she gave Valentia a piercing
+glance, "can't go on for ever! You will find Romer making a row some
+day, and that will be a bore for you. He's just the sort of man who
+would."
+
+Valentia, noticing their confidential tone and feeling instinctively
+that some treachery was in the air, looked once angrily at Harry and
+then became apparently absorbed in the conversation of Vaughan.
+
+Every one was talking volubly and gaily. Only Daphne and Captain Foster
+were silent as they sat side by side looking at their plates. But they
+were the only people who had found the dinner a real success.
+
+Harry, who with all his _usage du monde_ was peculiarly subject to
+sudden obscure impulses as of the primitive man, became pale with a
+strange and painful sensation as he looked at Valentia.
+
+She was flirting with Vaughan, or so every one present must be thinking.
+Of course it was only from pique, and he would soon put a stop to it.
+
+And Vaughan, with his ironical glance and quiet manner, why did he look
+into her eyes all the time?
+
+What was he saying?
+
+Harry asked them all to come back to the studio for some music, but even
+as he made the arrangement to drive Valentia, he remembered that, _a la
+fin des fins_, he would have to leave her at her husband's house. Would
+Romer be sitting up? What an ass he was! What rot the whole dinner was!
+It was all through Van Buren. Van Buren was a fool. Confound Romer!
+
+Harry was jealous.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+DAPHNE
+
+
+"More flowers from Van Buren? Let me look at them. A spray of lilies of
+the valley; how touching! He expects you to wear them at the opera. I
+think it's _such_ a mistake to wear real flowers on an evening dress.
+They have a damp, chilly look, like fresh vegetables, at first, and when
+they begin to fade they make you look faded, too. Never mind, Daphne; I
+think perhaps you'd better wear them just to-night," said Valentia.
+
+"Yesterday," said Daphne, "he sent me that basket of American Beauty
+roses. The day before he sent me Ella Wheeler Wilcox's poems."
+
+Valentia smiled. "Poor darling!--I mean Van Buren's a poor darling, not
+you. You see, he's got the nice sort of Boston idea that a man ought
+only to send a girl flowers or books, or music. He thinks it's
+respectful. But, anyway, it's a very good sign."
+
+"A good sign? But I thought there was so much of that sort of thing--I
+mean fuss and attention, to girls in America. I thought that didn't mean
+anything. I mean anything particular."
+
+"Daphne, dear, don't blind yourself; don't shut your eyes to obvious
+facts. It isn't a matter of what you think or what I think, or of
+speculation at all. I _happen to know_ that Van Buren _is_ going to
+propose to you. He'll probably do it at Henley or at Sandown, or in the
+Park. He's certain to want it to be on a typically English background;
+but you can take it from me, for a dead cert, that it's bound to come."
+
+Daphne sat down and looked serious.
+
+"Valentia, it's no good. Don't let him do it. It will be so frightfully
+uncomfortable meeting him afterwards."
+
+"Frightfully uncomfortable meeting the man to whom you're engaged? Why?"
+
+"Because I shan't be engaged to him."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"I shall never marry, Valentia."
+
+Valentia stared at her in silence.
+
+"What is your idea, darling? Why, you won't be eighteen till June. You
+can't be sure you'll never want to marry!"
+
+"Well, I don't care for Van Buren."
+
+"I thought you liked him so much?"
+
+"Well, he seems all right at first. But I simply couldn't stand him
+always about."
+
+"Couldn't you? Poor pet! But he mightn't _be_ always about."
+
+"Well, I couldn't stand his marked attention. Valentia, I _hate_ marked
+attention."
+
+"Do you, really? Who'd have thought it?"
+
+"Well--and he'd always be so considerate and so thoughtful and so
+respectful!"
+
+"That mightn't last when you were married," said Valentia consolingly.
+
+"Perhaps he might not be so bad after we were once married.... But I
+shouldn't like to risk it. And the engagement! Oh! I couldn't simply
+_stand_ the engagement! Just think of the ring, and the sentiment, and
+the fuss, and the letters! Oh, he'd enjoy it all so much! Oh, it would
+make me simply sick to see how pleased he'd be!"
+
+"I know that feeling," said Valentia sympathetically, nodding her head.
+
+"Oh, and don't you see how he'd think he was engaged to a
+well-brought-up, nice English girl who was a relation of Harry's, and
+knew all the right people, and all that sort of thing? And he'd take a
+big house--he's hinted this to me already--most likely in Park
+Lane--anyhow, something just like a millionaire in a book. It's all so
+dull, and cut-and-dried."
+
+"Some of these cut-and-dried obvious things turn out quite jolly
+afterwards. It's the uncomfortable, romantic things that are more often
+failures. And you know, Daphne, you do like pretty things and clothes,
+and going everywhere, and--not only that, he's really such a dear, and a
+good sort, and so good-looking! And you'd put me into a very awkward
+position with Harry if you refuse him. But, of course, darling, you must
+do as you like."
+
+"Well, then, Valentia, don't _let_ me refuse him. I don't want to. Don't
+let it come to that. I'm sure I should loathe to hear him propose."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"It would make me sick."
+
+"What can I tell Harry really as your reason for not being able to stand
+Van?"
+
+"I'm sure _I_ don't know!"
+
+"He bores you," announced Valentia. "That's what's the matter. He
+doesn't amuse you."
+
+"It isn't that, it isn't that!" cried Daphne vehemently. "I don't _want_
+to be amused. Do you think I like a man because he's clever, or funny,
+and always making jokes? That bores me frightfully. Harry's way of being
+lively and clever bores me to _death_! I don't want to marry a
+professional entertainer! No, Valentia, that's more the sort of thing
+you'd like. _You're_ quite sorry Romer's not like that."
+
+"I don't suggest that it would be ideal to marry Harry Lauder, Daphne
+dear. But wouldn't you really like someone fairly intelligent?"
+
+"No. Why should I? Do you think I want to marry a man so horribly clever
+that he wouldn't understand a word I said?"
+
+"Let's have it out, dear. What do you think you want?" Valentia answered
+herself; "It's Foster, of course! That dull, empty-headed, commonplace,
+hard-up, handsome boy. You can't marry him. He's just twenty-two, and
+has only a miserable allowance, and is in an expensive regiment, and
+you, darling, will only have three hundred a year. I should love to see
+you happy in your own way and having your wish, but don't you think it's
+a childish fancy? You're both children. Of course he hasn't suggested
+marriage, yet, has he? He knows perfectly well it's out of the
+question."
+
+"Valentia! Darling! Why, he proposed to me the day we were
+introduced--at Prince's, and he's been doing it ever since."
+
+"Oh, how utterly absurd of him! Well, anyhow, you must wait and see.
+Even if he could afford it, I don't think it would be a success. Why,
+there's nothing in the boy! What do you see in him?"
+
+"I like the way he laughs," said Daphne, after a pause.
+
+"Do you mind telling me one thing straight out? I'm being very nice to
+you about this, dear. I ought to scold you. But, at any rate, you must
+treat me with complete confidence."
+
+"Of course, of course, dear."
+
+"Tell me, he hasn't ever kissed you, has he?"
+
+"Oh, Valentia!"
+
+"I beg your pardon, darling. I felt sure he hadn't."
+
+"Of course he has."
+
+"He has!--Where?"
+
+"How do you mean, where? Oh! at every dance where we've ever met. He
+always does, whenever he can. Is it so dreadful? He's such a boy!"
+
+"Fancy your liking him enough for that!" said Valentia, stupefied.
+
+"Oh, he's a darling; and the only person I ever could possibly marry."
+
+"It's rather serious," said Valentia; "and poor Van who is so devoted!"
+
+"He isn't, really," said Daphne decidedly.
+
+"Don't you think so? Why?"
+
+"Oh, the whole thing's an _idea_--the sort of thing he _wants to do_.
+It's not genuine."
+
+"I should have thought the feelings of a man of thirty-four who could
+marry any one he chose would be more real than the fancy of a mere boy!
+Boys like anybody."
+
+"Van isn't genuine like Cyril," said Daphne.
+
+"Who on earth's Cyril?"
+
+"Captain Foster."
+
+Valentia walked round the room and then said--
+
+"And you really suppose you're going to adore him all your life?"
+
+"I _suppose_ so. I really don't know. I know about now. Oh, Valentia, be
+a darling and let him come to the fancy ball with us." She kissed her.
+"And, oh, do tell Harry to explain to Van that it can't go on, that he
+must put it out of his head. Do, darling Valentia. Any well-brought-up
+young girl will do for him just as well!"
+
+"And wouldn't any well-brought-up young girl do for Cyril?"
+
+"I don't know. But only Cyril will do for me. Oh! the jolly way he has
+of saying 'Righto' and 'You're all right,' and calling me 'little girl!'
+Oh, he _is_ a dear!"
+
+"Oh, well, if he says such brilliant things as _that_!"
+
+"It isn't what he _says_----"
+
+"Oh, hush, Daphne, here is Romer. I shan't tell him a word about it.
+Well, I'll think it over." She called Daphne back and said in a
+half-hearted way--
+
+"I suppose it wouldn't do just to sort of please Harry by marrying Van,
+and then seeing that silly boy now and then. You'd so soon get tired of
+him--but, no! that wouldn't be right. Forget that I said it--I don't
+mean it."
+
+"I couldn't stand Van at all," said Daphne definitely, "whether I saw
+Cyril or not."
+
+"Then you shan't be bothered with him. But can't you give up Cyril? I
+know I'm right about it. It isn't only the hard-upness and the
+impossibility--of course, I know he's got relations and all that--but,
+it's he himself. You'll get bored with him, too, in a different way."
+
+"I like him so much _now_," pleaded Daphne.
+
+Romer came in and Valentia merely told him at great length every word of
+the foregoing conversation with lavish comments by herself. Secretly
+Romer was bitterly disappointed when he realised that the possibility of
+his being left alone with his wife was more remote, but of course he
+agreed with Valentia, as she changed her mind a dozen times on the
+subject, and as usual the conversation ended in a telephone message to
+Harry to come round at once.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+IN FANCY DRESS
+
+
+Van Buren had had many pleasures, many gratifications since he had been
+in London; his dreams--the dreams inspired by Du Maurier's drawings when
+he was a little boy--had been very nearly realised. Perhaps the greatest
+triumph that he had had yet was the evening of the Artists' Fancy Ball.
+
+He had succeeded in making up a party to go in costume. He was always
+making up parties, and he had for many years been obsessed by a longing
+to dress up.
+
+Harry, in mockery of his passion for everything English, had advised him
+to go as an Ancient Briton, with a coat of blue paint. Scorning such
+ribald chaff, he had ordered a magnificent costume of chain armour.
+Greatly to his satisfaction he had persuaded Hereford Vaughan to go as
+Shakespeare, Valentia and Daphne respectively as Portia in scarlet and
+Rosalind in green.
+
+A large party were to dine at Van Buren's rooms before the ball. Fancy
+dress has the effect of bringing out odd, unexpected little
+characteristics in people. For example, Harry, good-looking and a dandy,
+quite a romantic type, hated dressing up, and cared nothing whatever
+about his costume; while Romer, the sober and serious, enjoyed it
+immensely, and appeared to think his appearance of the utmost
+importance--almost a matter of life and death.
+
+The women were far less self-conscious in costume than the men, and
+cared far less how they looked, probably because women are always more
+or less in fancy dress, and it was not so much of a novelty to them.
+
+Valentia had pointed out that Shakespeare, to be quite correct, should
+wear ear-rings; so Vaughan called at her house on the way to Van
+Buren's, as she had promised to lend him some.
+
+"He won't know how to put them on," said Daphne, drawing on her long
+boots. "Probably he hasn't had his ears pierced; you must go and screw
+them on for him."
+
+Valentia ran down. Just as she was screwing the long coral and pearl
+ear-rings with rather painful energy on to the unfortunate young man's
+ears, the servant, with a slight expression of terror that could not be
+concealed, announced--
+
+"Mrs. Wyburn."
+
+The situation was really rather comic. Romer's mother, who was going to
+a dinner-party in the same street, could not forgo the pleasure of
+calling unexpectedly on them at half-past seven, vaguely hoping that it
+might be inconvenient to them, and that she would catch them in
+something they didn't want her to know--a true mother's instinct. But
+not in her wildest dreams had she expected what she saw when she entered
+the drawing-room--her daughter-in-law in her red mortar-board, red cloak
+and bands, with, apparently, her arms round the neck of a young man in
+purple silk stockings and jewelled embroidered gloves with rings outside
+them.
+
+Mrs. Wyburn literally sank into a chair.
+
+Valentia was perfectly equal to the occasion. She thoroughly enjoyed the
+baffling of Mrs. Wyburn.
+
+"I can't think why Romer didn't tell you," she repeated several times,
+"that Van Buren is giving a dinner for the fancy ball!" and she rang and
+gave orders that her husband and sister were to come down immediately.
+
+Romer had been four hours dressing; Daphne about ten minutes.
+
+"I do think you ought to have a little make-up. Will you?" said Valentia
+to Vaughan.
+
+"I should love to," he answered, to Mrs. Wyburn's disgust and horror,
+looking in the glass and taking very little notice of the indignant old
+lady.
+
+"He _does_ need just a touch of lip-salve and a little black under the
+eyes, don't you think so?" Valentia asked, caressingly, pretending to
+consult Mrs. Wyburn.
+
+"I can't say, I'm sure. I've no idea what he wants," said Mrs. Wyburn
+with a snap.
+
+"But don't you think it would improve him, darling?" Valentia went on,
+holding her head on one side and holding up her hand as if she were
+looking at a picture.
+
+"Not at all," said Mrs. Wyburn.
+
+"Then do you think his lips are red enough already?" asked Valentia.
+
+Vaughan hastily interrupted the absurd discussion.
+
+"The human lip is never red enough," he said decidedly; "they ought to
+be bright, light scarlet."
+
+"That's just what I think. I've got some lovely scarlet stuff--the
+colour of sealing-wax. Shall I fetch it for you?"
+
+"Yes, do," he said.
+
+"But won't it look rather----"
+
+"No; merely decent," said the young man decidedly.
+
+"And what does Romer say to _all this_?" said Mrs. Wyburn with a forced
+smile and a voice trembling with uncontrollable rage.
+
+"Oh, he likes it, darling. He loves it. No one's been so keen about
+their dress as Romer. I'll go and fetch him, and my roll of parchment--I
+had forgotten my roll of parchment."
+
+She ran upstairs and came down saying--
+
+"Romer won't be a minute, dear; he's awfully anxious for you to see his
+dress. He's just darkening his eyelashes. That's all. He's Louis XIX or
+something, you know."
+
+She then deliberately and openly drew Vaughan to the window where there
+was still bright June daylight and painted his lips a brilliant scarlet
+to their mutual satisfaction and Mrs. Wyburn's unspeakable horror.
+
+"Mad," murmured Mrs. Wyburn, half to herself, "quite mad! I shall be
+quite upset for the Trott-Hellyers' dinner-party. It's Dr.
+Trott-Hellyers' birthday. He only _lives_ three doors from you" (she
+said this rather reproachfully), "and I dine with him _every_ year on
+his birthday! And to think I only came in to see my son for a minute or
+two, because I couldn't bear to pass his door ... his very door...."
+
+"Sweet of you," said Valentia.
+
+... "And then to think I should find----" She screamed suddenly.
+
+Daphne had come in, in her green cloak, doublet and hose, and little
+green cap, Romer in paint and powder, patches and lace ruffles, sword
+and snuffbox. There was a lavish amount of rouge on his cheeks and his
+eyes were blacked almost to the temples.
+
+Hearing that his mother was there he had finished the left eye rather
+hurriedly, the result being that he looked as if he had been fighting.
+
+While the poor lady was trying to adjust herself to this sight, and
+explaining for the sixth time why she was there, and making bitter
+remarks about a young girl going to a ball in what she (Mrs. Wyburn)
+called trousers, and while Daphne kept on wrapping herself in the folds
+of her cloak and then undoing them again to show her nice high boots,
+she was still more distressed at the arrival of her _bete noire_ and
+mortal enemy, Harry de Freyne.
+
+Van Buren had sent his motor for them, containing Harry.
+
+Had his name not been announced by the servant, Mrs. Wyburn would
+certainly not have recognised Harry. He was a pierrot in white satin,
+with a violet tulle ruffle round his neck and a black velvet mask. One
+would know him solely by his single eye-glass, his pleasant voice, and
+fluent conversation.
+
+Pretending to be a clown he jumped in, bowed low to Mrs. Wyburn, and
+kissed first Daphne and then Valentia.
+
+With a last-straw expression Mrs. Wyburn drew herself up to her full
+height.
+
+"Give me my cloak, Romer. I must go. No, don't come to the carriage with
+me. Suppose the Trott-Hellyers were to see you--they'd never get over
+it!"
+
+"Why, it's all right, mother," Romer answered. "I'm all right. I'm a
+courtier--of the tenth century--you know. I'm all right."
+
+"And you approve of your young sister-in-law going to a public ball
+dressed up as a man?"
+
+"Rosalind wasn't a man, mother. You forget; you must read the _Midsummer
+Night's Dream_ again. You've forgotten it."
+
+"I shan't find Rosalind there. But that's not the point. When I came in
+I found Valentia with that man--the man who writes in purple
+knickerbockers----"
+
+"No, he doesn't--he never writes in purple knickerbockers."
+
+"Is this meant to be witty?" she asked with a freezing glare.
+
+"What? No, I shouldn't think so."
+
+"I found _your wife_," she said in a low hissing voice, as they passed
+through the hall where there was a large looking-glass--Romer's
+attention wandered--"within an inch of that young man's face, putting
+ear-rings in his ears!"
+
+"Well, she couldn't put them in a mile off," said Romer absently.
+
+He was now frankly turning his back on his mother, and staring at his
+face in the glass.
+
+"Hang it all! I don't look so bad, do I?"
+
+"You look a gentleman," she answered coldly; "any son of mine must look
+a gentleman. Of course, you look ridiculous--and, as far as that goes,
+you _are_ ridiculous; but that doesn't matter quite so much as long as
+you look a gentleman."
+
+"Oh, rot!"
+
+Romer was trying to move a patch from one corner of his eye to the
+other.
+
+"But as to Harry de Freyne?... And shall you allow your wife to dance
+with him in that costume?"
+
+"Of course--why not? And--_doesn't_ Valentia look--jolly?"
+
+"I think the scarlet with her golden hair is rather too--striking," she
+answered spitefully.
+
+"Oh, _she's_ all right!"
+
+"I think you're all mad!" she answered as she reached the door.
+
+The servant opened it.
+
+"Oh, we're all right. Good night, mother. You'll be late for the
+Trott-Hellyers."
+
+Drawing her cloak over her narrow shoulders, Mrs. Wyburn stepped angrily
+into the brougham.
+
+Although it was only three doors from her son's house, she would not for
+the world have walked.
+
+When she arrived there, still in a very bad temper at all she had seen,
+she nevertheless boasted to her neighbour about how remarkably
+distinguished and handsome her son and daughter-in-law had looked in
+costume, and of their success, charm, perfect domestic happiness, and
+importance and perfection generally.
+
+She succeeded in depressing the fossils on both sides of her, but they
+smiled at each other, indulgent to the feminine weakness of so amiable
+and devoted a mother.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+A CELEBRITY AT HOME
+
+
+Miss Luscombe lived with her mother in a species of tank, or rather in a
+flat that gave that impression because it was in the basement. It was
+dark, and such glimpses as they had of people passing on the pavement
+were extremely odd; it seemed a procession of legs and skirts, like
+something in a pantomime or a cinematograph.
+
+The Luscombes lived, as it were, beneath the surface; but that did not
+prevent their being very much _dans le mouvement_, and coming up with
+great frequency to the surface to breathe. And when one had once walked
+down the steps and found one's way into the tank, it was an extremely
+pleasant one, and quite artistic. It seemed original, too. There was
+something almost freakish in being answered by the parlourmaid (who was
+suitably like a fish in manner and profile), "Miss Luscombe is at home,
+and will you please step downstairs?" when one had rung the bell on the
+ground floor. And Miss Luscombe's ringing laugh with its three soprano
+notes and upward cadence always greeted one charmingly and cordially,
+and one always liked her; one couldn't help it. Her great fault was that
+she was never alone. She existed in an atmosphere of teaparties and
+'afternoons'; like the Lotus-Eaters, she lived in 'that land where it
+was always afternoon'.
+
+For an obscure person she led a singularly public life. In her existence
+there seemed no secrets, no shadows, no contrasts, and no domesticity.
+One could never imagine her except in what she regarded as full dress,
+nor without, by her side, a perpetual bamboo table with three little
+shelves in it, in which were distributed small cut pieces of very yellow
+cake with very black currants, sandwiches, made of rather warm thin
+bread and butter, pink and white cocoanut biscuits, and constant relays
+of strong dark tea made in a drab china teapot. On crowded
+afternoons--in fact, every other Thursday--little coffee cups containing
+lumpy iced coffee were also handed round. When they had music there were
+lemonade, mustard and cress sandwiches, and a buffet.
+
+Even when Miss Luscombe was entirely alone she did not seem so. She had
+got into the habit of talking always as if she were surrounded by
+crowds, and said so much about the celebrities who ought to have turned
+up that one felt almost as depressed as if they had really been there.
+Sometimes they came, for there was no one like Miss Luscombe for
+firmness. Also, she was never offended and was hospitality itself, and
+she had a way of greeting one that was a reward for all one's
+trouble--it seemed much more trouble than it really was, somehow, just
+to step down into the tank. And she was so charming no one could help
+being flattered till the next visitor arrived, when she was even more
+charming.
+
+After the Fancy Ball she had got hold of Valentia, who came to see her
+on one of those Thursdays that she had pointed out as peculiarly her
+own--one of _my_ Thursdays. She really believed that for any one else to
+receive on that day was a kind of infringement of copyright.
+
+Miss Luscombe was wearing on this occasion a drab taffeta silk dress
+with transparent sleeves and a low neck. She wore a rose in her hair, a
+necklace, and long gloves, because she said she wouldn't have time to
+dress again before going out to dinner.
+
+About a dozen people were there--vague shamefaced young men with nothing
+to say, and confident, satirical, fluent young men with a great deal to
+laugh at. Most of the older women seemed a shade patronising in tone,
+and looked as if they had never been there before. On the faces of the
+young women and the girls could be read the resolution never to go there
+again.
+
+Mrs. Luscombe, the mother, was so refined that there was scarcely
+anything of her; her presence was barely perceptible. She had learnt the
+art of self-effacement to the point of showing no trace of being there
+at all. To add to the effect of not being noticeable, she wore a dress
+exactly the same colour as the sofa on which she sat--like those insects
+who, when hiding from their foes, become the colour of the leaves on
+which they live. She was practically invisible.
+
+On the other hand, Miss Luscombe herself was very much there--very much
+_en evidence_. Smiling, greeting, archly laughing, sweetly pouting;
+coquetting, eating, playing, singing, acting--almost dancing--an ideal
+and delightful hostess.
+
+She said to every one as they arrived how sweet it was of them to come
+so early, or how naughty it was of them to come so late, or how horrid
+it was of them not to come last time, or how dear it would be of them if
+they came next. She always introduced people to each other who were not
+on speaking terms, and had intentionally cut each other for years. She
+had a real genius for making people accidentally meet who had just
+broken off their engagement, or had some other awkward reason for not
+wishing to see each other--and then pushing them together so that they
+could not get away. At heart she was intensely a peacemaker, but people
+who had met there rarely made up their quarrels.
+
+When the favourite actor arrived she introduced him to every one till he
+was ready to drop, and when the great singer telegraphed he couldn't
+come, she showed the wire to everybody. Most of the guests preferred his
+not coming. Very few could have endured her triumph had he really
+arrived. On the other hand, they would themselves have far preferred to
+receive a telegram of refusal rather than not to hear from him at all.
+
+When these entertainments were over and the mother and daughter were
+left alone, the daughter became far more thoroughly artificial than she
+was when surrounded by her friends. There was no throwing off the mask;
+on the contrary, it was fixed more firmly on, and Miss Luscombe gave
+free vent to her sham passion for imitation comedy.
+
+On this particular Thursday, as soon as Flora Luscombe had laughed her
+last visitor archly to the door, she knelt by her mother's side, put her
+arms round her, and said--
+
+"Dear, dear Mummy, how sweet it is to be alone!"
+
+Mrs. Luscombe shrank back a little. This pet name, only too appropriate,
+always got a little on her nerves, but she felt bound to play up in an
+amateurish sort of way to a certain extent.
+
+"Hadn't you better go and take off that beautiful dress?" she said.
+"You're not really dining out, are you?"
+
+"No, dearest, I managed to get out of it, but alas! I've got to go to
+the Reception--you know--that horrid Royal Institution of Water
+Colours--afterwards. It isn't worth while to change again. Oh, how weary
+one does get of the continual round! And then to-morrow!" She sighed.
+
+"What is it to-morrow?"
+
+"To-morrow! Don't talk of it! There's Mrs. Morris's At Home in Maida
+Hill, and then right at the other end of London the Hyslop-Dunn's in
+Victoria Grove. Oh, dear! And yet one feels one must be _seen_ at all
+these places, darling, or else it's remarked at once."
+
+"You live too much for the world," replied her mother, tidying up some
+half-finished watercress sandwiches with a sharp knife. She wondered if,
+thus repaired, they would do for next Thursday.
+
+"You know, Mummy dear, that's the worst of our terrible profession. We
+must keep before the public, or else we drop out and are forgotten. What
+a sweet creature Valentia Wyburn is! I thought she was quite, quite
+dear. And the husband and the cousin are darlings too. Of course they
+wouldn't come; I couldn't get them to an afternoon."
+
+She got up and looked in the glass.
+
+"What a crowd there was to-day! Three people came up to the front door
+at the same time. I think they enjoyed themselves, don't you? Though I
+feel I can't pay every one proper attention when there's such a crush,
+but I do my little best.... Mr. Simpson came up to me and told me I
+looked quite wonderful. But he's a silly thing." She pouted and put her
+head on one side. "Did I look too hideous, darling?"
+
+"Beautiful, of course. The only thing is ..."
+
+Miss Luscombe clapped her hands and laughed.
+
+"Did its little girlie really look as nice as all that? Oh, Mummy,
+Mummy!"
+
+"Charming, dear, I only wish that ..."
+
+"It's too proud of its little daughter, that's what it is," said Miss
+Luscombe, sitting on the arm of her mother's chair. "It's a silly, vain,
+conceited mother, that it is. It can't see any fault in its pet."
+
+She tried to pat her mother's cheek. Mrs. Luscombe moved aside with
+justifiable irritation.
+
+"Don't do that, Flora! Yes, dear, of course, I think you're wonderful,
+and looked sweet to-day; but I do wish ..."
+
+"No, no, it doesn't want anything," said Flora.
+
+"I should be so pleased--if you'd put on just a little less lip-salve
+and not quite so much of that bluish powder."
+
+Having succeeded in completing her sentence, her mother got up and faded
+quickly out of the room and shut the door, leaving Flora looking quite
+surprised and rather upset with being found fault with.
+
+Indeed, she did not quite recover her equanimity until she had looked
+over the cards in the hall and put on a great deal more powder and
+lip-salve, after which she told her mother perhaps she was right, and in
+any case she, Flora, would always do what she asked, and would always
+follow her dear, dear Mummy's advice.
+
+She was so charming and amiable that Mrs. Luscombe pretended to believe
+her, and said it was _sweet_ of her to take it all off and go out that
+evening without any adventitious aids to beauty; and this she said in
+spite of the obvious fact that Flora had evidently put on considerably
+more than usual.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+MISCHIEF
+
+
+The elder Mrs. Wyburn was seated at the gloomy window of her
+sulky-looking house in Curzon Street one bright day in the season,
+looking out with some anxiety.
+
+"Of course she's late; but if that woman doesn't come I'll never forgive
+her. She's a silly fool, but at least she does hear what's going on,"
+she reflected.
+
+At this moment an old-fashioned-looking victoria drove up, drawn by two
+large grey horses. In it sat a rather fat and important-looking lady,
+with greyish red hair, a straight decided mouth, and several firm chins.
+Her most marked characteristic was her intense decision on trivialities.
+She was always curiously definite on the vaguest of subjects, and
+extraordinarily firm and sensible about nothing in particular.
+
+Miss Westbury was a rich unmarried woman, with a peculiarly matronly
+appearance, a good-natured love of giving advice, and with views that
+obviously dated--one did not know exactly from when. If she had some of
+the Victorian severities of the sixties, she had also many of the
+sentimental vagaries of the eighties. The serious business of her life
+was gossip. In her lighter moments she collected autographs. But her
+gossip differed from that of the nervous, impatient Mrs. Wyburn in that
+it was far more pompous and moral, and not nearly so spiteful and
+accurate.
+
+Miss Westbury sailed in--I need hardly say she was dressed in
+heliotrope--and sat down rather seriously in a large--and the only
+comfortable--armchair.
+
+"My dear Millie, how extremely good of you to come!" exclaimed Mrs.
+Wyburn.
+
+Miss Westbury had been christened Maria, but Millie was the name which
+she had chosen to be called by her friends.
+
+"I am very pleased to come, dear Isabella. To call on you on one of your
+Wednesdays is, I know, quite hopeless if one has anything to say. To
+call on any one on a day at home, except as a mere matter of form, I do
+not consider sensible."
+
+"Quite so. Will you have some tea?"
+
+Mrs. Wyburn rang the bell rather fretfully. She did not care for
+Millie's made conversation, and hated her way of gaining time.
+
+"I will have what I always have, dear Mrs. Wyburn, at five o'clock, if I
+may--hot water with one teaspoonful of milk, and a saccharine tablet
+which I bring with me. I am not a faddist, and I think all those sort of
+fancies about what is and what is not good for one are exceedingly
+foolish; but when I go in for a regime, dear, I give it a fair chance.
+Otherwise there is no sense in it!"
+
+She settled herself still more sensibly and decidedly in her chair.
+
+"I wonder," said Mrs. Wyburn nervously--one could see she was not
+listening, and thought Miss Westbury was merely drivelling on--"whether
+you will come to the point at once? It would be a great comfort if you
+would. I have been feeling quite anxious about your visit. I rather
+foolishly took some coffee after lunch, and it kept me awake the whole
+afternoon--either that, or my anxiety."
+
+"If you take coffee after lunch," replied Miss Westbury, "you should
+take it made as I do. Two teaspoonfuls of coffee in a large
+breakfast-cup full of hot water, a saccharine tablet, and a teaspoonful
+of condensed----"
+
+"What was it you really heard, Millie dear, about my daughter-in-law?"
+interrupted Mrs. Wyburn sharply.
+
+Here the footman brought in the tea. Miss Westbury frowned, and
+ostentatiously changed the subject.
+
+"Have you been to the Grafton? I was persuaded to go. I think, myself,
+there's a great deal too much fuss made about pictures nowadays. When
+one thinks of the money that's wasted on them, when it might be sent to
+a hospital, it makes one's blood boil! And some of those that are made
+the most fuss about--both the Old Masters and the very new ones--these
+post-men, or whatever they're called--seem to me perfect nonsense. A
+daub and a splash--no real trouble taken--and then you're expected to
+rave about it. There's one man--some one wants me to buy a picture of
+his--he paints all his pictures in tiny squares of different colours;
+when you're close you can't see anything, but it seems that if you walk
+five feet away it forms into a kind of pattern. It seems it's the
+tessellated school, and they tell me that in a few years nothing else
+will count. And what I thought was a mountain in a mist turns out to be
+'A Nun with cows grazing.' Silly nonsense I call it!"
+
+"Was the nun grazing, or the cows?" asked Mrs. Wyburn.
+
+"Goodness knows, dear. Then there was that other one called Waning Day,
+or something. Two people in a boat sailing on dry land! Then that
+picture of a purple man with a green beard! Oh, my dear! The people who
+took me there told me it was full of--something French--_essayage_, or
+_mouvement_, I think. The man who tried to make me buy it said it was
+symbolical. But of course I refused. You know I never have anything to
+do with nonsense. Well now, my dear----" Taking pity on Mrs. Wyburn's
+extreme impatience, Miss Westbury came a little nearer. "What I heard
+was simply this. My cousin, Jane Totness, took her little boy, who is in
+London for the holidays, to the British Museum. She always likes to
+improve his mind as much as possible; besides, he had been promised a
+treat after having a tooth out; the first week of the holidays he always
+has a tooth out and a treat after. Jane is like that; she's a sensible
+woman, and I must say I think she brings her boys up very well. I myself
+might have been more inclined to take him to Madame Tussaud's, or even
+to a matinee, or to have an ice at Buzzard's; but I dare say I'm
+old-fashioned enough in some ways, and Jane knows her own business
+best."
+
+"No doubt she does," said Mrs. Wyburn, quivering with impatience,
+tapping her foot on the floor, and trying to restrain herself. "And so
+she took the little boy--Charlie, isn't it?--to the British Museum? Go
+on, dear!"
+
+"Not Charlie, Mrs. Wyburn. It was little Laurence--little Laurence. He
+was called Laurence after his grandfather, Lord Dorking. It's the rule
+in the Totness family; the second son is always called after the
+grandfather, the eldest son after his father, and the third son--I mean,
+of course, if there is one--after the mother's father. Don't you think
+it's a very sensible plan, dear?"
+
+Mrs. Wyburn gave her friend first a sympathetic smile, and then a
+murderous glance.
+
+"Yes. Well?"
+
+"Oh yes. Well, she was just pointing out something to little
+Laurence--he's an intelligent boy, and I dare say he was enjoying it
+very much--when, to her great surprise, _who_ should she see but Mrs.
+Romer Wyburn, talking away like anything on a seat with--who do you
+think?"
+
+"Who?"
+
+"That young man Harry de Freyne--her cousin, isn't it?"
+
+"How extraordinary!" exclaimed Mrs. Wyburn. "Did they seem uncomfortable
+when they saw Jane?"
+
+"Oh dear, no, my dear. They seemed most comfortable. Jane bowed to
+them--of course rather coldly, she says--and they smiled and nodded, and
+Valentia kissed her hand to Laurence. Of course, Jane was very much
+pained and shocked about it all. I must say her first thought, dear, was
+that I should tell you. Jane Totness is a thoroughly good woman--so
+thoughtful."
+
+"Do you see anything so very peculiar about it?" said Mrs. Wyburn. "You
+know, the young man--I disapprove of him as strongly as any one can--but
+he's an artist, and she is his cousin, and perhaps he wanted to show her
+something in the British Museum?"
+
+"My dear Mrs. Wyburn, far be it from me to look on the dark side of
+things, but, as Jane said, who on earth would go to the British Museum,
+unless they were dragged there by force, except to have a private
+interview?"
+
+"But if he wanted to speak to her alone, I don't see why he shouldn't
+call on her."
+
+"That's just it. If it were a simple, innocent, harmless conversation,
+that is what he would have done. But it was quite clear that there was
+something clandestine about it, and you may be quite sure Romer knew
+nothing of it. Besides, they are always together."
+
+"It does look odd," said Mrs. Wyburn. "What would you advise me to do?
+Shall I speak to my son or my daughter-in-law about it?"
+
+"To neither, my dear. If you speak only to your son, he will tell her,
+and she will get round him, and prove there's nothing in it. If you
+speak to her she will get round you, and say that Romer knew all about
+it. My advice is, if you really want to put a stop to this
+flirtation--I'm sure it's gossiped about--even Jane, who is the last
+person in the world to talk, speaks of it to every one. If I were you, I
+would speak to the young man himself."
+
+"To Harry de Freyne? Yes, it's rather a good idea."
+
+It struck Mrs. Wyburn that to do this would, perhaps, cause more
+annoyance than anything else. She was now anxious to get rid of Miss
+Westbury, who evidently had nothing more to impart. But that lady was
+not so easy to dispose of. She broke into a long monologue on the
+subject of regime, servants, and little dressmakers, occasionally
+returning to the subject of the British Museum, and the shocking
+frivolity there.
+
+Mrs. Wyburn was just thinking of having a violent toothache or some
+other ill, when Miss Westbury suddenly made up her mind to depart.
+
+As soon as she had gone Mrs. Wyburn flew to the Blue Book, looked up
+Harry's address, and wrote him the following note:--
+
+     "Dear Mr. de Freyne,
+
+     "Probably you hardly remember me, but I have met you on two or
+     three occasions at the house of my daughter-in-law, Mrs. Romer
+     Wyburn. There is something I want to say to you which I hardly
+     like to write. I should be glad if you would come and see me
+     to-morrow afternoon at four o'clock. I shall not keep you long.
+     You may think this a strange request, knowing you so slightly as
+     I do, but when we meet, I am sure you will understand.
+
+                                             "Yours truly,
+                                             "ISABELLA WYBURN."
+
+Having written this note, Mrs. Wyburn felt too impatient to send it by
+post; she was simply longing to know that Harry was feeling
+uncomfortable, as he was very certain to feel when he got the letter.
+Although she had a great suspicion and general dislike of the Messenger
+Boy Service, she relented for once in their favour so far as to make use
+of them, and the letter was sent by hand.
+
+She was rewarded for thus conquering her prejudice. Harry was at home,
+and accepted her invitation with most respectful alacrity. His
+manners--especially on paper--were, with old and young ladies, always
+equally perfect--unless he was out of temper.
+
+Mrs. Wyburn eagerly hoped Harry would see Valentia, or somehow convey to
+her about the letter, because it would be sure to make her uneasy also.
+
+       *     *     *     *     *
+
+The next day the young man was punctual to the moment. The old lady left
+him alone for a few minutes in the dark, dismal drawing-room. She
+thought it would have a salutary effect.
+
+She found him, when she came in, stroking the china bird, and looking at
+himself in the mirror above it.
+
+He received her with such charming grace that she felt almost
+disconcerted, and as if she ought to apologise.
+
+"You received my letter?" she said, rather abruptly.
+
+"With great pleasure. That is why I am here."
+
+He was still standing, smiling delightfully.
+
+"Sit down," she said, with cold graciousness. "I hope you are not in a
+great hurry?"
+
+"All my day belongs to you," he replied with a low bow, taking the seat
+she had indicated. He looked at her with soft deference under his long
+eyelashes.
+
+She found what she had to say more difficult than she had expected. She
+spoke quietly, in a low yet rasping voice, with a sharp dignity.
+
+"I will come straight to the point. To put it plainly, a report has
+reached my ears, Mr. de Freyne, which has caused me very great pain and
+anxiety--I mean, as a mother. And I wondered whether you----"
+
+"As a mother? Surely, Mrs. Wyburn, nothing against Romer? I'm sure I, as
+one of his oldest friends...."
+
+"Against Romer!" She drew herself up stiffly. "Most certainly not!
+There's never been a word breathed otherwise than in dear Romer's favour
+since he was a little boy."
+
+Harry appeared much relieved.
+
+"It's a great comfort to hear you say that. It's only what I was going
+to assure you."
+
+"Besides, do you suppose for one moment that if I had any fault to find
+with my son I should send for you?"
+
+She already had an annoying fancy that he was defeating her, laughing at
+her, and turning the tables.
+
+"It seemed certainly rather strange," Harry said.
+
+"No, indeed! When I say I was troubled as a mother, I meant it in a
+very different sense. What I'm afraid of is that dear Romer might be
+worried if he heard the report to which I refer."
+
+"And that is?..."
+
+She looked at him spitefully, yet with a reluctant admiration.
+
+He was irritatingly good-looking, good-humoured, and at his ease, and
+particularly well-dressed, without appearing in the least conscious of
+it. She wished immensely that he had been plain, or awkward, or even out
+at elbows, or absurdly dandified, or looked _nouveau riche_, or
+something! She felt jealous of him for Romer, and, at the back of her
+brain, she grudgingly and perversely sympathised a little with her
+daughter-in-law. Harry radiated a peculiar charm for women of all ages.
+He did not study them nor try very much to please them; the fascination
+was involuntary; he simply used it.
+
+"And that is, that you and my daughter-in-law, Valentia, were seen
+_alone_----" she paused a moment, showing a latent instinct for dramatic
+effect.
+
+He smiled a little more, and bent his head forward with every sign of
+intelligent interest.
+
+She spoke with emphasis.
+
+"_Alone_--the other morning--at the British Museum!"
+
+Somehow she felt the shot had missed fire. It had fallen flat. It was
+less effective than she had hoped. It did not sound so very shocking
+after all.
+
+He continued to smile with the air of waiting for the climax. She
+gathered herself together and went on--
+
+"I heard it from Miss Westbury, so it is a fact!"
+
+Harry thought of saying that he preferred an old wives' tale any day to
+an old maid's fact, but he only smiled on.
+
+"Of course, if this is untrue, Mr. de Freyne--if it is a mistake, or a
+false report, you have merely to deny it. Assure me it is incorrect--on
+your word of honour--and I will then contradict it in the proper
+quarter."
+
+He decided on his line. "My dear lady, pray don't contradict it. As a
+report it is a gem--it is unique. Not merely because it's absolutely
+true--for, as a matter of fact, I think most reports are--but because of
+its utter unimportance! It seems to me so trivial--so dull--so wanting
+in interest to the general public."
+
+"You think reports are usually true, Mr. de Freyne?"
+
+"I am convinced they are. I believe firmly in the no-smoke-without-fire
+theory. Oh, do you know, I think it is _so_ true!... This certainly is
+true--it's a solemn fact."
+
+"You admit it?"
+
+"I do indeed! Surely I could hardly refuse to go when I was asked?"
+
+"Oh, you were asked?"
+
+"Certainly. And Romer is really such a very old friend of mine, I could
+hardly refuse his request. I may be wrong, but I think one should always
+be ready to take a little trouble for an old friend."
+
+"No doubt you have very strict ideas on the duties and obligations of
+friendship! At _his_ request--my son's?"
+
+"Yes; your son asked me to go and escort Valentia."
+
+"It is very peculiar; you must see that your explanation sounds
+extremely odd."
+
+"Not at all odd," he answered softly, "if you will allow me to
+contradict you." He thought a moment. Then he went on: "You may have
+heard, perhaps, about the dance that little American, Mrs. Newhaven, is
+getting up at the Grafton Galleries for _Deaf and Dumb Dogs and Cats_.
+No? Well, every one is going, and they're arranging to have, by way of
+novelty, Quadrilles of different nationalities. Romer and his wife are
+to dance in the Egyptian Quadrille, and he asked me to take her to the
+British Museum to look round and see if we could find some inspiration
+for Egyptian costumes that wouldn't be too impossible. But when we got
+there, we suddenly remembered the awful story about one of the mummies
+being unlucky, so we went into the Print Room and remained there."
+
+De Freyne paused.
+
+"Of course, if that is all--if my son knows of your going, and even
+asked you to go, there's nothing more to be said ... though I think it
+very foolish, and I don't approve of any of that sort of thing at all."
+
+"What, not of Egyptian quadrilles, Mrs. Wyburn?" asked Harry, with
+surprised innocence and in a coaxing voice. "Why, I'm sure it will be
+frightfully harmless--in fact, very invigorating to the mind. It's not
+as though the dresses were becoming! We saw the most hideous things at
+the Museum. We met Lady Totness, who was dragging a wretched little boy
+about--I suppose as a punishment for something."
+
+Mrs. Wyburn smiled slightly. She began to feel rather inclined to relent
+at the implication that Lady Totness was hideous.
+
+"There you really are wrong, Mr. de Freyne. The boy was taken there as a
+treat."
+
+"A _treat_! For whom? For him? What a strange idea--I mean, to think it
+could be a treat to go anywhere with her, Mrs. Wyburn."
+
+"It is, rather," she acknowledged.
+
+"Well, then, if that is really all that was troubling you, I do hope
+you're happy now?"
+
+He said this with one of his subtle, insinuating changes of tone that
+were always so effective. Musicians will understand when I say it was
+like a change from the common chord in the minor to the dominant in the
+major. It was partly from force of habit, partly because he really
+wished to win Mrs. Wyburn over.
+
+"Of course, now you've given the explanation it's, _so far_, all right.
+You'll have a cup of tea with me, won't you?"
+
+"I should enjoy it particularly. Let me ring." After a minute or two she
+said--
+
+"But perhaps I might venture to suggest it might be better--more
+prudent--if you were to go about a little less with Valentia?... Of
+course, I quite see now that you're so devoted to Romer, and like a
+brother and so forth, but I can't help considering what people say."
+
+"Don't call Lady Totness people, Mrs. Wyburn! Think what a disagreeable,
+insincere woman she is--not a bit _femme du monde_, and so exceptionally
+stupid and spiteful!"
+
+Harry stayed with her for an hour, having tea, chatting, telling her
+stories against every one she didn't like, and speaking with a kind of
+tender and admiring familiarity of both Valentia and Romer, in a way
+that at once reassured and flattered her.
+
+Finally, she actually found herself begging Harry to use his influence
+with the young couple to be less frivolous and mondains, and not to be
+always going out, which he promised to do. She even confided to him her
+great wish that they had two or three children, which would steady them
+down, and he warmly agreed with her, but said that he felt that on that
+subject it was, perhaps, hardly for him to interfere.
+
+Of course he confided in her, in his turn, how frightfully hard up one
+was, with no one buying pictures, and outsiders winning all the big
+races after having no earthly chance on any form they had shown that
+season. Mrs. Wyburn positively tried to talk racing with him for a
+minute or two--rather pathetically--but soon got out of her depth and
+fell back on Art. She said she thought, candidly, that Harry's portrait
+of his cousin was a pity.
+
+They parted excellent friends, she even asking him as a favour not to
+tell Romer the reason of his visit. To Valentia he might mention it, as
+Mrs. Wyburn thought it might be a lesson to her.
+
+Harry professed, at first, some little scruple on the point. He scarcely
+liked, he said, the idea of concealing it from Romer. They always told
+each other everything. But Mrs. Wyburn was afraid of her son's
+anger--which she could not endure, unless _she_ was in the right--and
+of appearing ridiculously meddling. Harry owned that her conduct
+_might_ seem rather malicious and absurd. At last he consented, and it
+was agreed that neither of them should ever say anything about it to
+Romer at all.
+
+It is scarcely necessary to say that Harry kept his promise of silence
+to the letter. Had he not done so the story would at least have had the
+interest of novelty, for Romer had never yet heard anything about the
+expedition to the British Museum, and he never did.
+
+A week or two later, when Mrs. Newhaven's ball at the Grafton Galleries
+was described in the paper, Mrs. Wyburn, who read the account, observed
+that there was no reference whatever to quadrilles of various
+nationalities--Egyptian or otherwise; and she rather wondered at the
+omission. But it did not occur to her to suppose that this portion of
+the entertainment had been entirely imaginary--a lurid figment of
+Harry's vivid fancy and fertile invention.
+
+He left, it must be said, on the old lady a lasting impression--by no
+means an unfavourable one. Even when she had reason to grow seriously
+anxious again on the same subject, she never could bring herself in her
+own mind to blame Harry--she could not at heart think ill of him. She
+was only extremely angry with Romer and Valentia.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+THE FRIENDS
+
+
+Harry had baffled Mrs. Wyburn for the time. He always dealt with his
+difficulties one by one as they cropped up, not _en masse_, and
+invariably in a manner that relieved the tension for a short time
+only--he rarely did anything radical.
+
+His financial position was, however, growing rather serious, and
+occasionally the thought of Miss Walmer flitted through his mind.
+
+To marry Miss Walmer would be far the quickest and simplest way out of
+his difficulties, and she would really be very little trouble, as little
+trouble, perhaps, as any wife could be. Besides, Harry had, with reason,
+great confidence in his own powers of dealing with women--getting
+whatever it was that he wanted from them, and afterwards preventing
+their being a nuisance. But he did not much like the idea of this
+mercenary marriage, because he was not in the least tired of his romance
+with Valentia, and saw great difficulties in the way of keeping it up
+later on. He had worrying doubts as to her consenting to revive it
+afterwards if he married.
+
+Her grey eyes and soft fair hair with its dense waves held a lasting
+fascination for him. It has been well said that for each individual
+there exists in some other being some detail which he or she could find
+only in this particular person. It might be the merest trifle. Harry
+knew what it was in Val that had a specially compelling charm to him--it
+was the way her hair grew on her forehead. And there was something
+childlike in her expression that made a peculiar appeal to him. The
+power her face had over him was undiminished--it had begun seriously
+when he painted her portrait, and had grown gradually since then. And
+she was the only woman he had ever met whose affection for him did not
+cool his own enthusiasm. On the contrary, it was one of the things which
+held him to her most.
+
+In a sense he was even loyal to her. Harry was not one of those
+extravagant Don Juans who made conquests solely for the gratification of
+their vanity by adding to their collection. Essentially cool and
+calculating, he used his attractiveness only when he thought it would be
+of some genuine value to him, or some real satisfaction. As a Lovelace
+he was economical.
+
+Though a great connoisseur of feminine charm and beauty, and
+superficially susceptible and excitable, with all this, as many women
+knew, Harry was as hard as nails.
+
+Valentia was the only woman for whom he had ever felt, besides the
+physical attraction, a kind of indulgent tenderness. This was partly, no
+doubt, because they had been fond of each other as children, and because
+of a racial sympathy, a _sentiment de famille_ due to their
+relationship. But it was not really to be depended on.
+
+No one could be a more charmingly devoted lover than Harry. There was no
+one like him for little attentions and inattentions, charming little
+thoughts, caressing words, and the little jealous scenes that women
+value. It was not the mere mechanically experienced love-making that
+women see through and to which they often prefer a clumsy sincerity. It
+was natural, spontaneous. He had, in fact, a genius for love-making, but
+he had not, like Romer, a genius for love. Harry had all the gift of
+expression--poor Romer had only the gift of feeling.
+
+But notwithstanding Harry's magnetism, a woman once disillusioned by him
+was disillusioned for ever. Women never forgave him. His romances
+generally ended suddenly, and always irrevocably.
+
+       *     *     *     *     *
+
+Harry had no great love of truth in the abstract, but, at least, he
+never deceived himself. He saw through his own unscrupulousness, and
+rather despised it just as he despised his own work as a painter. He had
+grown really fond of Van Buren for the simple, sincere qualities in
+which Harry knew himself to be deficient; and the American's
+whole-hearted admiration--almost infatuation--for him gave Harry the
+pleasure one feels in the frank devotion of a child. It touched him,
+even while he intended to make use of it, because it was his nature to
+make use of everything. It is an infallible sign of the second-rate in
+nature and intellect to make use of everything and every one. The genius
+is incapable of making use of people. It is for the second-rate clever
+people to make use of him.
+
+One morning Harry had heard unexpectedly that he had sold a picture--a
+thing that rarely happened--and was looking at the cheque he had
+received, when Van Buren came into the studio. Harry told the news.
+
+"Well, Harry, I do congratulate you, with all my heart! What are you
+going to do with that?"
+
+"Frame it," said Harry. "It's the only one I've had for three years.
+It's a curiosity."
+
+The American laughed.
+
+"Harry, I guess what you're really going to do--you're going to give
+yourself the humble joy of paying some of the more pressing liabilities.
+I know you!"
+
+"My dear fellow, that would be mad extravagance! Oh no. You see, this
+cheque is--just enough to be no earthly use."
+
+Van Buren sat down.
+
+"Harry, if you'd only let me.... But I know that vexes you, so I won't
+talk of it. You're Quixotic, that's what's the matter with you." He
+smiled, pleased with the word. "Yes, Quixotic! I want to speak to you
+about your cousin--I mean Miss Daphne, the beauteous broo-nette."
+
+"Well, how do you think you're getting on?" asked Harry, who already
+knew from Valentia that it was hopeless.
+
+"Not as well as I should like, Harry. I can't say I feel I'm making any
+very great progress. She's a dream, but I'm afraid she regards me as a
+heavy-weight. She's only a child, really, I know. She would prefer a
+little boy of her own age who would make her laugh. Maybe she thinks I'm
+too old. What do you say?"
+
+"You must give her time."
+
+"I pay her every little attention that I can," said Van Buren seriously.
+
+"Perhaps you're too attentive."
+
+"I'd give her anything in the world she wanted, Harry, if she'd let me."
+
+"Well, give her a miss for safety."
+
+"What's that?"
+
+"Why--this evening you're going to meet her at a dance, aren't you--at
+the Walmers'?"
+
+"Yes; I'm looking forward to that."
+
+"Well, don't go--don't turn up. Then she'll miss you. Say, to-morrow,
+you were prevented."
+
+Van Buren began to smile.
+
+"I see what you mean. It's an idea. You do hand me some good advice! Is
+it what you would do yourself, Harry?"
+
+"It's what I'm always doing."
+
+"But then I don't like the idea of being rude. One always wants to give
+the impression of being well-bred, no matter what the facts maybe."
+
+"It won't be rude. She'll be thinking about you much more than if you
+were there, wondering why you're not."
+
+"You mean it will keep her guessing, Harry?"
+
+"That's the idea. I shan't say you're not coming. I'll pretend to be
+expecting you too."
+
+"Well, perhaps I'll try that. I know I've only got an outside chance.
+She counts me as one of the also-rans."
+
+"Are you really very devoted, old chap? Would you break your heart if it
+didn't come off?"
+
+Van Buren thought a moment, then said with his scrupulous truthfulness--
+
+"Well, no: I can hardly say that, Harry. I'm not so far gone as all
+that. But I think she's a very beautiful, charming, well-brought-up
+young lady--a typical English girl--a June rose, a real peach. She's the
+ideal of the sort of girl I'd like to marry. But if she's out of my
+reach--well, I should resign myself."
+
+"Would you try for some one else? There are probably about a million
+girls just like that, you know, who would be only too delighted."
+
+Van Buren shook his head.
+
+"She's the only girl I should care about marrying. If it doesn't come
+off I shall go back to New York. And I do wish you'd come with me. A
+fellow with your talents would do splendidly there. Why, I'd find you a
+place in the Bank in New York. I'd see you made your fortune pretty
+quick. But you'd never leave London."
+
+"I'm not so sure. Anyway, we'll give it a chance till the autumn."
+
+"Yes, I must see it to a finish."
+
+"If you don't settle down here, then, would you marry an American girl?"
+
+"No. In that case I shan't marry at all. I shall settle down to the life
+of a lonely bachelor--choose the broad and easy path that leads to
+single misery, Harry." He laughed.
+
+"Instead of the straight and narrow road that leads to married
+unhappiness," said Harry. "So you _are_ very keen on Daphne?"
+
+"Not exactly that, perhaps. But it must be her or no one for a
+life-partner. She's the only girl who ever made any appeal to me from
+the point of view of domestic life. When I think of a happy home and a
+fireside with her, it makes me curl like an autumn leaf."
+
+"What a curious chap you are," said Harry, smiling.
+
+"See here," said Van Buren, taking a letter out of his pocket. "I've got
+a letter from a lady--it's signed Flora Luscombe--but I don't seem to
+remember anything about her."
+
+Harry took the letter. It was written on mauve paper in a somewhat
+straggling hand, and was dated from "Dimsdale Mansions, St. Stephen's
+Road, North Kensington." It was a pathetic, yet cheery invitation to
+tea.
+
+"It's Miss Luscombe, of the Tank, as we call it," said Harry.
+
+"Oh, the actress? Well, I think I shall go, Harry. I've never had the
+opportunity of mixing much in dramatic circles. It's real kind of her to
+have asked me, I must say. I didn't even remember her."
+
+"No one ever remembers her. But it's amusing and absurd. You'll meet
+some of the people you like. Flora will show you round--point out all
+the obscurities there, and so forth. Oh, she's a good soul--old Flora."
+
+"Is she old, Harry?"
+
+"About twenty-three, or thirty-three. I like her, though she's rather a
+snob."
+
+"Ah, they say all Americans are snobs, Harry, but I feel sure I'm not.
+Still, if I really liked a man I can't say I should turn against him
+even if he had a title."
+
+"And if I really hated a person I should never get to like him, even if
+he had a bad reputation."
+
+Van Buren looked surprised and impressed, also delighted.
+
+"Is that a paradox, or an epigram, Harry?"
+
+"I can't think!"
+
+"Won't you tell me what it is?"
+
+"It's bosh," said Harry impressively, "mere bosh!"
+
+"Tell me what you really mean by it."
+
+"How should I know? I haven't the very slightest idea," Harry said,
+stretching himself.
+
+Van Buren looked thoughtfully out of the window.
+
+"How do you suppose our ro-mances will end?"
+
+"As badly as possible; romances always do," said Harry. "We ought to be
+only too thankful that they end at all."
+
+"Why, I'm afraid you're a pessimist! How do you define a pessimist,
+Harry?"
+
+"What a mania you have for definition, old chap! I think I agree with
+the little girl who said that an optimist is the man who looks after
+your eyes, and the pessimist the person who looks after your feet."
+
+"Why, that's very subtle. I quite see what she means. There's a lot in
+that idea, Harry." He thought gravely.
+
+"Is there? Well, come out to lunch."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+A HOME CHAT
+
+
+"Yes, Romer, on the whole I don't think our season's been a success.
+With any amount of struggle, worry, bother, clothes, motoring, and
+making up parties, we've just succeeded in not getting Daphne married to
+Van Buren, and putting your mother in a perpetual, constant, lasting bad
+temper."
+
+"Have we?" said Romer.
+
+He was sitting in an arm-chair listening, as usual, while Valentia
+talked. He did not always understand what she was saying, nor did he
+even always know the subject she was discussing, but he loved to hear
+her voice, that was like an incantation in his ears. He said a few words
+occasionally, desiring that the musical sound should continue.
+
+"All our old friends seem to have grown dull and sensible except Harry,
+and he's been rather jerky and unsatisfactory--and all the new ones have
+turned out complete failures. When I say they're complete failures, of
+course I mean they've bored me. But, of course, it may not have been
+their object in life to do anything else."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Look at Mr. Rathbone--a man like that, tattooed, and collecting old
+programmes of theatres. Well, he's as dull as ditchwater, perfectly
+stupid and always saying the right thing to the wrong people. Then
+Captain Foster, who seemed perfectly harmless and only decorative, turns
+out to be really dangerous, and to count. He's in love with Daphne, and
+he has got his mother, who is very weak and foolish and sentimental,
+round on his side, and Daphne's always going to tea or to lunch there,
+and they've utterly spoilt her--at least, her taste in hats has gone all
+wrong, and she told me that Mrs. Foster had pink paper shavings in her
+drawing-room fireplace, and asked me why I didn't have them too!"
+
+"Really?"
+
+"Yes. And though she's very good, I know it'll end in our having to give
+in, and a pretty wedding, and a tiny flat, and utter wretchedness! And
+Daphne will get to like old Mrs. Foster better than me, and they'll have
+five hundred a year at the most; and even if they aren't really
+miserable she'll have to gradually grow suburban, and come up to the
+theatre and have to rush off so as to catch the last train back to
+Boshan or Doddington or somewhere! I mean if they take a little house
+out of town--near Mrs. Foster. However, I'm not going to give in just
+yet.... I could understand a slight sacrifice--or even a big one if I
+were in love with Captain Foster, but I'm not. I suppose you'll say that
+I needn't be, but that isn't the point. The utter absurdity is that all
+Daphne wants of him she could see now. No one minds her seeing him. But
+why should she break up her life and spoil her future for it? Of course,
+_that_ part is _his_ idea. He is so selfish that he isn't satisfied with
+the harmless fun they have now, but wants her to live all her life in a
+sort of workman's cottage or tenement building just for the sake of the
+joy, privilege, and honour of having every meal with him!"
+
+"What a brute!" said Romer mildly.
+
+"Isn't he? And suppose a war broke out, and that darling, handsome boy
+perhaps put an end to suddenly by a bullet, or mentioned in despatches,
+or something, and promoted--oh, please don't talk to me about it any
+more, Romer. I hate the life. But I suppose she'll have to go her own
+way."
+
+Valentia paused and looked pensively in the glass.
+
+"And dear Van Buren, he's been pretty badly treated, I think. I suppose
+he knows it isn't my fault or Harry's. I try to make up for it in lots
+of ways--by getting him an introduction to the man who wants to fly
+across the Atlantic. I really hoped he would say to Van Buren, 'Fly with
+me!' but he didn't, and in the most roundabout way and by the most
+fearful lot of trouble--chiefly through me--he was asked to dinner to
+meet that other man--I forget his name, the one who keeps on discovering
+the North Pole. And it seems he is a dear, and awfully good-looking. And
+then he--Van, I mean--has met Bernard Shaw, and Graham White, and Lloyd
+George, and Thomas Hardy, and Sargent, and Lord Roberts, and Henry
+James, and even Gabrielle Ray, so he hasn't had such a bad time in
+London. I don't see that he has anything to complain of, do you, Romer?"
+
+"Shouldn't think so."
+
+"That was what he wanted, you know," continued Valentia. "But if we
+couldn't get him a wife as well, it's not our fault. I'm sure we've
+tried our best. He's such a dear, and very fond of England. He has been
+most useful to Harry, I'm sure; and----I think the new fashions are
+simply frightful. The new way they're going to do the hair will be
+revoltingly unbecoming, and the whole thing will make every one look
+hopelessly dowdy. The smarter you are, the more of a frump you will
+look!"
+
+"Oh, I say, Val!"
+
+"Yes, you will--I mean I will, but I won't.... Because I'm not going to
+follow the fashion like a sheep. And if you're not very careful I shall
+dress in a style of my own."
+
+"Like a sheep! Do sheep follow the fashion?"
+
+"Of course they do. Didn't you know that? What one does all the rest do.
+Of course it doesn't change so often--even in the best Southdown
+circles--at least _we_ don't notice the change. When a new kind of 'baa'
+comes in and they all echo it we don't see any difference, but I don't
+suppose they see any difference in our fashions either. Oh, and Romer,
+I've been worried because I feel I've got so frightfully empty-headed
+and unintellectual through just _living_, never reading or thinking,
+when we go down to the Green Gate I shall read a lot of serious books.
+I'm going to read H. G. Wells, and Hichens, and Aristotle, and some
+history, and all sorts of 'improving' things. When are we going?"
+
+"As soon as possible," said Romer, brightening up. "Let's go next
+Wednesday."
+
+"Oh, I can't be ready quite as soon as that, Romer dear! Let's go on
+Tuesday. I'll arrange it all."
+
+"Good!" said Romer, beaming.
+
+"And I'll get Harry to come down with us."
+
+"Thought he was going yachting with the Walmers?"
+
+"Oh no, he's not, after all.... He doesn't really care for the sea."
+
+"Oh!"
+
+"Harry, of course, is sorry for Van Buren," continued Valentia. "And yet
+he takes Daphne's part about Cyril Foster. He knows it's spoiling her,
+but he thinks she ought to be spoilt; he's so fond of Daphne."
+
+"Why doesn't he marry her himself?" asked Romer.
+
+"Harry?" She looked at him in surprise. "Why, Romer, what a harpist you
+are. If I've told you once, I've told you a hundred times, he never
+marries! Harry has a great many bad habits, goodness knows. But marrying
+isn't one of them."
+
+"Do you think he's keen on some one else?" asked Romer after a rather
+long pause.
+
+She seemed annoyed at the question, then smiled again.
+
+"I don't know! The other day I called at the studio unexpectedly to ask
+for something I'd forgotten, and found Harry improvising at the
+piano--you know that way he has of improvising from memory--an
+inaccurate memory--of some well-known composer. I've never known him do
+it except when he wanted to--please some woman. Well, Lady Walmer was
+there, leaning over the piano and listening. Should you think from that
+he's keen, as you call it, on her?"
+
+"Lady Walmer! At her age!"
+
+"Why, Romer, she's no older than anybody else! It doesn't matter
+nowadays in the very slightest degree whether one is twenty-eight, or
+thirty-eight, or even forty-eight. To a modern man it's all exactly the
+same. Of course, if a flapper is what is required, well then, naturally,
+he must be shown to another department. But apart from that--why, Lady
+Walmer would be quite as dangerous a rival for me as a woman ten years
+or twenty years younger. And I'm not twenty-five yet."
+
+"Rival to _you_? What do you mean?"
+
+Romer stared at her, a spark of his fanatic admiration showing in his
+eyes.
+
+She laughed and hurried on.
+
+"Nothing. I never mean anything. I know what you think, Harry is not a
+marrying man, but he might become one. But a girl like Alec Walmer! With
+the figure of a suffragette and the mind of a canary who plays cricket,
+or a goose who goes in for golf----"
+
+"Heaps of cash."
+
+"Yes, I know. But Harry's an artist--he needs sympathy."
+
+"He's got his head screwed on the right way."
+
+"But his heart's in the right place."
+
+"What is the right place?"
+
+"Don't be irritating, Romer. We'll go to the Green Gate on Monday then.
+And now I must go out and order a short tweed skirt, and a garden
+roller, and a few other things that we shall need in the country. Leave
+it all to me! No, I never forget anything; even your mother says I'm
+practical. And oh, do let's try and put her in a good temper before we
+go away. You'd better go and see her and say good-bye to-day, early in
+the afternoon, alone. And then I'll go in late and take away the
+impression of anything you've said wrong. Do you see, darling? Dear
+Romer!"
+
+She went out of the room like a sunbeam in a hurry.
+
+Romer followed her with a wondering expression. To him her movements,
+her hair, her eyes seemed to suggest some fascinating language he had
+not yet learnt. She seemed to him almost a magic creature.
+
+As usual, he showed his sensations simply by obeying. He went to say
+good-bye to his mother.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+VALENTIA'S VISIT
+
+
+Romer's mother, looking intensely cross--it was her form of deep
+thought--was re-embroidering, with extra little stitches, and
+unnecessary little French knots, and elaborate little buttonholes that
+would never see a button, a large and fine piece of embroidery on which
+she had been working for many months. She had that decadent love of
+minute finish in the unessential so often seen in persons of a nervous
+yet persistent temperament.
+
+She was expecting her daughter-in-law. Romer had said, "Val will look in
+this afternoon."
+
+       *     *     *     *     *
+
+Valentia arrived, delightfully dressed, and, to the casual observer,
+looking just as usual, but in her costume there was just that nuance of
+difference--what was it?--extra sobriety, a more subdued look--some
+trifle that she had worn last year to suggest to the seeing eye a hint
+of praiseworthy economy?--at any rate, a shade that other young married
+women would recognise at once as the right note when calling on one's
+mother-in-law.
+
+Mrs. Wyburn greeted her with real pleasure, and with far more warmth
+than she ever showed to her son (her affection for him being authentic).
+The sight of Valentia, however, always genuinely raised her spirits. She
+was fascinated by her, and had an obscure desire to gain Valentia's
+liking, and even admiration--by force, if necessary! At the same time
+she felt jealousy, disapproval, an odd pride in the girl's charming
+appearance, and a venomous desire to give her slight pain.
+
+"Romer has been here, I see--I mean, I guess he has by the cigarette.
+He's the only person who's allowed to smoke here. Yes, Mrs. Wyburn,
+we're off on Wednesday. Won't you miss us awfully? But I shall be very
+glad to go. I've really had enough of the season." Val spoke with a
+shade of weariness.
+
+"No wonder! I suppose you've hardly had one quiet evening at home the
+last three weeks?"
+
+"Very likely not one. Even when we're quite alone Harry comes round, and
+often his American friend too."
+
+This was a challenge.
+
+Valentia was sitting opposite the light, dressed in blue, in a black
+hat of moderate size, looking straight at the elder lady with a smile,
+and stirring her cup of tea.
+
+Mrs. Wyburn admired her pluck and the fit of her dress.
+
+"Yes, exactly--just what I should have thought. You know what a horror I
+have of displaying anything in the shape or form of _interference_, dear
+Valentia. But, since you've mentioned it yourself, may I just say,
+doesn't it seem almost a pity that you should never be alone with your
+husband?"
+
+Valentia began to laugh.
+
+"Oh, really, Mrs. Wyburn, why do you assume that? But of course we're
+longing for a quiet time. That is why we're going away so early. What
+_delicious_ China tea! Yours is the only house where one gets it quite
+like this."
+
+She put down her cup, which was more than half full, with a slight sigh.
+
+"Romer hates China tea too," said Mrs. Wyburn. "It would be really
+better for your nerves if you'd drink it, my dear."
+
+"And when do you go to Bournemouth?"
+
+"The first week in August. So I shall be able to come down one day--as
+Romer asked me--before I go, and just have a peep at what you're all
+doing at the Green Gate."
+
+She smiled with grotesque playfulness.
+
+"Oh, that will be nice," said Valentia. "It must be looking lovely now.
+Did Romer say anything else of any importance?"
+
+"He never says much, as you know, important or not! He's very like his
+poor father, who really used to sit opposite to me for hours at a time
+without opening his lips."
+
+"A strong, silent man," murmured Val sympathetically. "I know so well
+what you mean."
+
+"Indeed you don't," snapped Mrs. Wyburn. "He was the weakest
+creature--_morally_, I mean, poor dear--that ever breathed. He was a
+very tall, fine man, but yet any pretty woman could turn him round her
+little finger! It was his most marked characteristic."
+
+"Fancy! Devoted to you, of course. Romer's often told me."
+
+"I'm sure he hasn't. What can Romer know of my domestic troubles, as he
+was just four when he lost his poor father? But however that may be, I
+do hope, Valentia, you will wear warm, _sensible_ clothes for the
+garden. I never quite like the idea of your sitting out on that little
+terrace late in the evening with practically nothing on your shoulders.
+People should be so careful of the night air."
+
+"How thoughtful of you, Mrs. Wyburn! But I have a wrap--I never sit out
+without a wrap."
+
+"Pink chiffon, I suppose?"
+
+"Now how did you know? You seem to have second sight!"
+
+"Yes; I guessed as much. Very candidly, dear Valentia, I don't approve
+of pink chiffon. But we women of an elder generation are never listened
+to, though our advice is worth hearing, I can tell you."
+
+"Oh no, Mrs. Wyburn, don't say that. What would you advise instead
+then--a red crochet woollen shawl? I'll get one, of course. How lovely
+that embroidery is getting that you're doing! I remember last February
+thinking that it was as beautiful as it could be, and now it is more
+wonderful still. Let me look."
+
+She bent down her pretty head to admire it.
+
+"Is it my fancy, or the light, or hasn't your hair grown a little
+brighter in colour lately, Valentia dear?"
+
+"Oh, do you really think so? I'm so glad. I was afraid it was just the
+same--just as it was in Harry's portrait of me, you know."
+
+"It does look very like the portrait. But, very frankly--you won't mind
+my saying so?--I think that if it were not quite so fair it would be an
+improvement."
+
+"Oh, naughty Mrs. Wyburn! Fancy your wanting me to touch up my
+hair--make it dark at the roots, I suppose, as so many people seem to
+do! Oh! I wouldn't! What would Romer say? He likes it like this."
+
+Before the elder lady had quite recovered from the blow, Valentia went
+on carelessly--
+
+"Daphne sent her love to you. She mayn't have time to come and see you
+before we leave."
+
+"Has she been going to any more fancy balls as Rosalind?" asked Mrs.
+Wyburn sarcastically.
+
+"No, oh no. There haven't been any more."
+
+"I heard a report--oh, only a report--that Mr. Van Buren is a great
+admirer of your sister's; indeed, it was even said that they were going
+to be engaged."
+
+This was really a sore subject to Valentia. Her temper began to waver
+slightly. It had been a very pet scheme of hers, and only Daphne herself
+had defeated it by refusing the millionaire. But of course she knew
+better than to tell Mrs. Wyburn that.
+
+"Oh yes, you heard that. I believe he does admire her very much. But I
+hope I'm not going to lose Daphne yet."
+
+Something in her expression warned Mrs. Wyburn, who said
+affectionately--
+
+"Well, there's plenty of time; she's _so_ young. I don't believe in
+girls marrying till they're sensible women and know something of
+housekeeping, and are fitted to deal with their servants."
+
+"I hope you haven't been having any more trouble with yours lately?"
+
+"Indeed I have! I had just sent for the housemaid to give her notice
+because she never dusts the lustres properly, when she turned round and
+gave it--notice, I mean--to _me_!"
+
+"What a blessing! It saved you the trouble."
+
+"On the contrary, if you knew anything of domestics, Valentia, you would
+see that it put me in a most awkward position--most awkward; and now I
+shall have to live at Mrs. Hunt's!"
+
+"To live at Mrs. Hunt's?" repeated Val, as if stupefied. "Why, you're
+not going to leave your charming house? And who is Mrs. Hunt?--an old
+friend of yours?"
+
+"Don't you really know who Mrs. Hunt is, Valentia?" Mrs. Wyburn's voice
+trembled.
+
+"No; I haven't the faintest idea."
+
+"She's a Registry Off----Well, may you never know! Certainly I'm not
+going to leave my house. The idea of such a thing!"
+
+"Oh, I'm _so_ glad," said Val, getting up. "I'm afraid I must leave it,
+though. I have so many little things to do before I go. Now, Mrs.
+Wyburn, take great care of yourself, and I do _hope_ you'll get a nice
+housemaid quite soon. That sort of thing is so worrying, isn't it?"
+
+Mrs. Wyburn accompanied her to the door, and as usual stood on the
+landing with her, complaining of various troubles, and finally parted
+with caressing words and advice about going for country clothes to "a
+little dressmaker--quite near here--who runs up one's blouses and
+skirts."
+
+"Does she? Fancy! She must be small! Good-bye!"...
+
+... "What a woman!" murmured Val as she got into the carriage.
+
+"What a wife for Romer!" exclaimed Mrs. Wyburn as the door shut.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+A SUGGESTION
+
+
+Miss Luscombe, humming a tune, was wandering round her drawing-room,
+arranging it. She always hummed a little tune when she was alone, if
+possible some quaint old French air. Not that she was really alone now;
+only her invisible mother was with her. To do her justice, Flora took as
+much trouble to impress this almost imperceptible audience as if she
+represented a large crowd.
+
+"There!" she said. She dusted a little blue vase and put it further
+back. "Now you're nice and tidy. No, you go back there, you ugly thing!"
+pouting at a photograph, "you're not wanted to-day! Come out more in the
+light, Lady Charles! We want you to be seen. _That's_ better!"
+
+From the depths of an arm-chair, where she was hidden, Mrs. Luscombe,
+who was watching her with intense irritation, said sharply--
+
+"Who do you expect to-day?"
+
+"Oh! how you startled me, Mummy! I didn't know you were there.... Isn't
+it funny, when you wear that dark red dress, _just_ the colour of the
+armchair, one doesn't see you?"
+
+She went on humming in the low, sweet voice, "_La violette double,
+double--la violette double-ra-ra._"
+
+"Pray stop that, Flora. My nerves won't bear it. Who did you say you
+expect?"
+
+"Mr. Rathbone, darling, if you _must_ know. Mr. John Ryland Rathbone, to
+be exact. You know he's one of the Catford Rathbones, don't you, Mummy?"
+
+"What's a Catford Rathbone?"
+
+"Dear mamma!" she laughed. "It's quite a good old family. One of the
+untitled aristocracy."
+
+"I thought you told me his father was a farmer?"
+
+"No, dear--that's a little mistake. I told you his father had _taken_ to
+farming--as a hobby. Besides, that's just what I mean--a fine old yeoman
+stock--the backbone of the country."
+
+"Why are you praising up this Mr. Backbone--or Rathbone--so much? Is he
+in love with you?"
+
+Flora laughed coquettishly, putting on her Russian Princess manner. It
+was voluble, disdainful, and condescending. She often changed, quite
+suddenly, from an _ingenue_ to a _grande dame_, and then to an
+adventuress and back again before you knew where you were.
+
+"Of course he's in love with me. What of that? Poor boy, he must take
+his chance like the others! '_La violette double, double----_' Oh, I
+forgot, dear. I beg your pardon."
+
+"What's he coming here for?" pursued the relentless mother.
+
+Miss Luscombe now became a soubrette of a somewhat hooligan type, and
+pretended to throw a little feather duster she was holding into the
+depths of the arm-chair.
+
+"That remains to be seen. But I'm a girl who knows how to take care of
+herself. I shall keep him in his place, old dear. Don't you worry."
+
+"I don't."
+
+There was a ring at the door. Flora blushed genuinely, and put some
+powder on. She became sweet and tactful again, and refined, the amiable
+woman of the world. She helped her mother out of the arm-chair, quite
+unnecessarily, but perhaps to hurry her departure.
+
+"You'd better leave us alone now, darling," she said, "and girlie will
+tell you all about it afterwards."
+
+Mrs. Luscombe ran like a hare through a side door.
+
+The servant announced, throwing open the folding doors, "Mr. Rathbone."
+
+In two seconds the feather-duster was behind a screen, and Flora,
+looking really very handsome--she was, as usual in the daytime, in
+semi-evening dress--was reading a little book covered in old vellum, and
+kept for the purpose of her being found reading it. She put it down and
+welcomed her guest charmingly.
+
+Rathbone, looking very fair and pink and rather determined, had brought
+with him a kind of case containing his collection of old theatre
+programmes, so that he gave the impression of being a diplomat of high
+importance with a portfolio.
+
+She helped him prettily to show her the programmes, and was pleased to
+see that there was something else on his mind.
+
+She gave him a cigarette and they had tea. He told her the ancient story
+of his writing to Cissie Loftus, and how he had never received an
+answer. She welcomed the anecdote as though it combined the brilliance
+of a jewel with the freshness of a daisy.
+
+Then he spoke in a somewhat thick voice and with that rather gruff
+manner that she associated with sincerity.
+
+"Miss Luscombe, I ..."--he sighed deeply. "To tell you the truth,
+there's something--for a long time I've wanted to ask you."
+
+He fixed on her intently his blue eyes, in which there was an ardent
+glare.
+
+"Really, Mr. Rathbone? What can I do for you?"
+
+"A great deal. The question is, what would you do for me?"
+
+"Oh, that depends," she said, smiling, looking down, and enjoying
+herself.
+
+"Not to put too fine a point upon it, Miss Luscombe----"; he stopped
+nervously.
+
+"Miss Luscombe sounds so formal," she murmured.
+
+"You wouldn't allow me to call you Flora, would you?"
+
+He smiled, but she thought he looked disappointed. Perhaps he was a man
+who needed difficulties--opposition.
+
+"Well ... I ... it depends," she said.
+
+"Look here, Flora, you're a very charming woman. I have a great
+admiration for you. What is more, I believe you to be a thoroughly
+good----" he hesitated again; was he going to say 'woman,'
+'actress?'--he decided on 'sort.'
+
+"Oh!"
+
+"Now I'll reveal to you the dream of my life, which I wouldn't tell to
+anybody else."
+
+"I wonder if I can guess it?" she said, wishing he would hurry up. Lady
+Charles was coming at half-past five to get the address of that fur
+place Flora knew of, where you got things practically for nothing--and
+they were worth it, too.
+
+"I know I'm not so very young," continued the young man.
+
+"Why, you're only about thirty-four, aren't you? I call that young."
+
+"Do you--do you really? Now I was afraid I was getting rather too old to
+begin, as it were, a fresh life. Well now"--he came a little nearer and
+touched her hand, which lay on the table; it was a pretty hand, thin and
+bony, with pink polished nails and a garnet ring--"will you do it for
+me? will you help me? will you not think me foolish--too daring--too
+sanguine?..."
+
+"What?"
+
+"Yes. I see you've guessed. Yes. I want to go on the stage."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+MISS WALMER
+
+
+"And so you see, don't you, Lady Walmer, that I really simply couldn't
+do it--I mean I must do it. They're expecting me there for the whole
+summer. How could I throw them over at the last minute?"
+
+Harry spoke in his most convincing voice. He was calling on Lady Walmer,
+and they were both sitting in her little yellow boudoir. She had just
+come in from a bazaar, and was wearing a rather angry-looking hat, very
+much turned up on one side, with enormous purple feathers. She was
+looking very far from pleased. Her handsome chin appeared squarer than
+usual. There was a look in her eyes that more than one man besides Harry
+would have been by no means anxious to meet.
+
+She drew off her gloves, stroked one over the other thoughtfully, and
+said--
+
+"Why did you promise to come on the yacht? The whole summer's spoilt for
+Alec."
+
+"I hoped I could--I thought I could manage it. Surely you
+understand----"
+
+"But it's got to come to that sooner or later, Harry. You can't make an
+omelette without breaking eggs. If you want to be a respectable, dull
+married man, you'll have to dissolve your romance, you know. I should
+have thought you were the last person to be weak about anybody else's
+feelings!--No, it's your own, my dear boy."
+
+Harry's colour rose a little.
+
+"My dear Lady Walmer! I'm going to tell--my cousin Valentia--all about
+it--I mean about my hopes. I'm certain that she will be charming about
+it--only too glad, for my sake."
+
+"Oh! And yet I thought she was human! Or--is there some one else?"
+
+"Certainly there's some one else--there's Romer. She's very devoted to
+him."
+
+"Harry, my boy, we should get on so very much better if you wouldn't
+tell so many unnecessary fibs," remarked the lady.
+
+She stood up and drew the hatpins out of her hat.
+
+He said, "I'm quite frank with you. I don't think I've been anything
+else. And, after all, I only ask to do it in my own way--at my own time.
+To choose my moment. Really, one can't behave like an _impossible_
+bounder."
+
+"Oh, can't one? Well, perhaps not."
+
+She took the hat off and put it on a table, giving the impression
+suddenly, without it, of being smooth, a little bald, and very
+good-tempered.
+
+"Then you'll forgive me, Lady Walmer--you'll understand? I should think
+that in about three or four weeks I shall be able to join you somewhere.
+But, about fixing the date--that's impossible. Can't I see Alec to-day?"
+
+She smiled graciously.
+
+"Certainly you may; I want you to. You must cheer her up and say nice
+things to her. Poor child, I wish she weren't so ridiculously pleased
+with you. You don't care two straws for her."
+
+"I give you my word of honour that I will make her happy."
+
+"I suppose you'll make her as happy as any one would. It's always
+something to get one's wish, even if the wish is a failure."
+
+"Now, why do you say that? It won't be a failure."
+
+"All right. I'll send her to you. Now be a good boy, Harry. I'm
+jealous--for Alec--of the Green Gate." She smiled in her attractive way.
+"Will there be an absolute rupture between you and your ... cousins, do
+you think?"
+
+"Oh, good heavens, Lady Walmer, no!" said Harry rather irritably. "We
+shall all be perfect friends, of course ... what impossible things you
+expect."
+
+"I expect only what is certain."
+
+She went away.
+
+Vanity was as elemental in Harry as in any other good-looking young man.
+With him, though, it was not a mere useless pursuit--an
+art-for-art's-sake joy--but invariably calculated and used as a means to
+an end.
+
+He looked in the glass earnestly, then started as Alec came in.
+
+He was always surprised and even a little _gene_ each time he saw her,
+by her immense apparent height. It seemed so much greater than it was
+because of the somewhat monotonous lines of her figure and her rather
+bird-like face.
+
+Harry watched her, listened to her as she chattered away her hurried,
+inexpressive unmeaning slang, and looked at him with her bright, small,
+beadlike eyes.
+
+He did not appreciate her. He did not know that behind the jerky manner
+and inexpressive face there was a Soul.
+
+She had not been trained to talk sentiment, and she could not express
+her ideas; so, though she adored Harry, she only said to her mother in
+confidence, when in a serious mood, that he was all right; and when in a
+more playful frame of mind to her girl-friends, that he was a little
+_bit_ of all right.
+
+"Alec," he said, making her sit down in the lowest chair (he could not
+bear her towering over him), "isn't it a bore that I can't come on the
+yacht?"
+
+"Pretty useless," she answered.
+
+He took her hand.
+
+"You won't forget me while I'm away, will you, Alec?"
+
+"What do _you_ think?" she answered in a trembling voice, and then gave
+a loud laugh.
+
+"I don't think--I don't know."
+
+"Oh, shut up!"
+
+"Will you be just as nice when I see you again?" continued Harry, in a
+carefully-modulated voice.
+
+"Why do you ask me all this rot?" she said, with another uneasy laugh.
+"Of course I shall."
+
+"Good."
+
+Harry couldn't think of anything else to say. Then he remembered....
+
+"When I join you again I'm going to bring you a ring. What's your
+favourite stone?"
+
+"Rubies and diamonds," she answered without a moment's hesitation. "I
+say, how sporting of you! That'll be ripping!"
+
+He tried to feel touched by her artless joy. He knew he was not an
+ideally ardent suitor.
+
+"Well, we'll have a good time later on, eh?" he said in her own tone.
+
+"Don't be a silly ass!" replied the girl, her eyes full of tears and
+tenderness, and her heart of the most sincere joy and affection.
+
+Harry laughed.
+
+"Tell me, Alec, is your mother a soothing companion? Is she a nice woman
+to live with?"
+
+"Oh! _she's_ all right. A bit off colour sometimes. At least--well, she
+_is_ all right, if you understand--and yet she's _not_--if you know what
+I mean."
+
+"Ah! that is a dark saying. You are pleased to be
+mysterious--sphinx-like."
+
+"You _are_ a rotter, Harry!"
+
+"How subtle you are, Alec. How elusive is the lightning-play of your
+wit!"
+
+"_How_ much?"
+
+"The random poppy of paradox grows too often in the golden cornfield of
+your conversation," Harry went on, taking her hand.
+
+"Oh, rats!" exclaimed the artless girl. "Can't make out what you're
+driving at half the time, when you go on like that. Don't believe you
+know yourself."
+
+"Don't I? Really now, you know, we're almost--well--privately engaged.
+May I kiss you, Alec?"
+
+She blushed crimson, turned her face away, and said, "Please yourself."
+
+Unable to help laughing, he kissed the top of her head, told her to
+write to him, and left the house, feeling like an entirely new and
+recently-discovered kind of bounder.
+
+He hated the double game. It didn't amuse him a bit. But now he felt he
+was free for a month's holiday, during which he had, however, the
+unpleasant holiday task of breaking the news to Valentia.
+
+He was driving home, but changed his mind and called out to the cabman
+to drive to Valentia's house.
+
+He found her trying on furs--furs in mid-summer!
+
+She greeted the arrival of his exquisite discrimination and taste with
+clapped hands, soft, beaming eyes, and her smile--Valentia's smile. Miss
+Walmer couldn't smile at all--she didn't know how. She could only
+laugh.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+MRS. FOSTER
+
+
+Daphne had come to say good-bye to Mrs. Foster.
+
+This lady lived in a kind of model cottage in a garden in Ham Common. It
+was not at all like the ideal, 'quaint' model cottages that one sees
+advertised by well-known firms of furnishers, though it might have been.
+Mrs. Foster was rebellious to Waring, and sincerely disliked anything
+modern.
+
+The little drawing-room, and indeed every other room in the house, was
+principally furnished by photographs and groups of her son Cyril--Cyril
+as a very plain boy, in a skirt, with hardly any eyes or hair, and a
+pout; Cyril as a 'perfect pet' of a sailor, at six. Then Cyril in
+cricketing groups (how he stood out against the other ordinary
+boys!)--in Etons (looking neat and supercilious), and then in his
+uniform, in which he looked simply lovely.
+
+Daphne had an intense and growing desire to please his mother. In fact,
+curiously, she was more anxious to gain her approbation than that of
+Cyril himself. To this end she usually remade her hats, when possible,
+in the train on her way to Ham Common, and her pocket when she arrived
+there was usually filled with artificial flowers, feathers, or other
+ornaments that she had taken off her hat, so as to look simple. Also she
+turned it down all the way round to make it look as if it were merely a
+protection from the sun--not a hat.
+
+To-day she wore a pink-spotted muslin dress and a straw hat, with pink
+ribbon. She certainly looked extremely pretty, and not at all what she
+had such a dread of before Mrs. Foster, smart. Mrs. Foster had a horror
+of smartness in the _jeune fille_.
+
+Daphne delighted her. She was a very sentimental woman, with a strong
+theoretical bias for the practical. She was by way of teaching Daphne
+housekeeping and how to manage on a small income (of which art she knew
+very little herself, but was supposed to know a great deal because she
+wore a kind of cap). She had a pretty, delicate, kind face, and was
+wearing large wash-leather gloves, in case she should wish to do a
+little gardening later on.
+
+Daphne had still much of the child in her, and there was nothing she
+enjoyed quite so much as gardening with Mrs. Foster, and occasionally
+stopping to eat a gingerbread-nut, and hear something about Cyril and
+the brilliant remarks he had made as a child.
+
+Mrs. Foster had a chiffonnier of a kind Daphne had never seen before,
+which fascinated her because such queer delightful things came out of it
+in the middle of the morning--slices of seed cake, apples, and the
+gingerbread-nuts. There were pink shavings in the fireplace, and
+wherever there was not a photograph of Cyril there was one of the Prince
+Imperial. Evidently he had been the passion of Mrs. Foster's earlier
+life. She loved to tell the story of how she had seen him at
+Chislehurst, and how she thought he had looked at her.
+
+There were other nice things in the cottage: there were two rather large
+vases of pink china on which were reproduced photographs of Cyril's
+great-uncle and great-aunt--one in whiskers, the other in parted but
+raised hair with an Alexandra curl on the left shoulder. In these vases
+folded slips of paper called spills were kept. A modern note was struck
+by the presence of a baby Grand--a jolly, clumsy, disproportioned
+youthful piano, rather like a colt, on which Daphne played Chopin to
+Mrs. Foster, and sometimes The Chocolate Soldier to Cyril; and Mrs.
+Foster, at twilight, sometimes played and even sang, "_I cannot sing
+the old songs, they are too dear to me,_" which her mother used to sing,
+or, coming a little nearer to the present, "_Ask nothing more, nothing
+more, all I can give thee, I give,_" a passionate song of the early
+eighties.
+
+No one, except Daphne, ever did ask any more.
+
+The whole thing was, to Daphne, a treat. Something in the atmosphere of
+Ladysmith Cottage--that was its name--fascinated and amused her.
+
+Mrs. Foster was a widow. Her husband had been a distinguished soldier.
+Almost the whole of her extremely small income had been devoted to
+Cyril's education, and with the assistance of an uncle who took interest
+in him, he had been got into the Guards, where he existed happily with a
+comparatively small allowance.
+
+Mrs. Foster had not been at all surprised or annoyed at his wishing to
+marry at twenty-two. She thought it extremely natural. It seemed to her
+very sensible of Daphne to accept him, and that she was the most
+fortunate girl in existence.
+
+"I hope your sister doesn't mind my taking you away from the gay,
+fashionable world for a day?" she archly asked.
+
+"Oh no, of course not. We're going in the country next week, so I wanted
+to see you."
+
+"Cyril's at Aldershot. I don't think he'll be able to come down this
+afternoon. He can't get away this week, I'm afraid."
+
+"I shall see him before I go," said Daphne.
+
+"Do you have a letter from him every day, darling?"
+
+"Oh yes, a few lines."
+
+"He is a noble boy!" said Mrs. Foster enthusiastically. "How he always
+hated writing letters! I remember how I guided his little hand to write
+his first letter to his uncle, General Rayner. Just as we got to the end
+of the letter Cyril suddenly jumped up and threw over the table. The
+letter was simply drenched in ink. Dear boy! I've got it still.... Oh,
+you must come into the garden, Daphne. I've something new to show you. A
+friend of mine has just let her house. She didn't know what to do with
+her dovecot--nobody wanted it--so she's given it to me. Come and see the
+dear little creatures--they are so pretty."
+
+They went out into the garden and stood looking at a sort of depressed
+pigeon-house.
+
+Mrs. Foster made strange noises, which she thought suitable to attract
+the inmates, and Daphne saw two doves who struck her as if they had
+married in haste and were repenting at leisure.
+
+"Why don't you let them go free?" suggested the girl. "Just think how
+happy and delighted they'd be."
+
+"I doubt it. I don't think they'd know what to do with their freedom.
+They're not used to my garden yet, that's what's the matter. I do wish
+they would coo; perhaps they will a little later on." (This was a
+favourite expression of Mrs. Foster's.) "I want to see one perched on
+your shoulder, Daphne. It would make such a pretty picture."
+
+"I'd rather give them something to eat," said Daphne.
+
+Mrs. Foster started.
+
+"Oh yes, of course. I fed them all yesterday afternoon, but I forgot
+about them this morning. Henry! Henry!"
+
+The smallest boy appeared that had ever been called by that name.
+
+"Henry, feed the doves."
+
+"Yes, ma'am."
+
+"Then bring the watering-can. We're going to water the flowers."
+
+Henry, who seemed of a morose nature, went to obey.
+
+"I'm obliged to have a boy for the knives, and he acts as a gardener
+when I'm busy," explained Mrs. Foster. "There isn't much of a kitchen
+garden, only a few gooseberries and apples, as you know, dear, but it's
+nice to think they grow there, isn't it?"
+
+"Very."
+
+"Of course, I can't make much show with them. Henry always eats them
+before they're ripe, which is _rather_ hard. But he's a good, honest
+boy. One of his sisters has gone in for making blouses--in the village,
+you know. She's a brave girl, and I feel sure will get on."
+
+"She must be! Have you ever ...?"
+
+"Oh _no_. Of course not. _I_ couldn't. When a woman reaches a certain
+age, my dear, a certain style is necessary. I don't mean great expense,
+but simple little things that would suit you, darling, wouldn't do for
+me. Now that little pink thing that you're wearing--I should look
+_nothing_ in it, and yet I dare say Henry's sister.... Where did you get
+it, dear?"
+
+"Well, it _came_ from Paquin's," said Daphne. "It's not new."
+
+"Oh! Well, we mustn't be always talking of chiffons together, that's
+very frivolous. You're fond of poetry, aren't you?"
+
+"Not so very," said Daphne truthfully.
+
+"But you would like to hear mine; I know you would, dear," said Mrs.
+Foster, nodding, and patting her hand. "Dear girl, you shall. I've got a
+tiny little volume, all in manuscript. It's quite a secret, darling.
+Hardly any one--now--knows that I was poetical. But I can tell you
+anything--you're so sympathetic. I had at one time a great wish to be a
+sort of--not exactly Elizabeth Barrett Browning, or Christina
+Rossetti--you know who I mean, don't you?"
+
+"Oh yes."
+
+"But a singer of songs--songs of feeling. Well, let us go into the
+garden. I will show it to you later."
+
+They sprinkled a few dead flowers, picked a few weeds, and then Mrs.
+Foster became thoughtful, took off her gloves, and went to her room and
+remained there for some time. She came down with a manuscript book in
+her hand. It had a shiny cover, and in the right-hand corner a piece of
+the cover was cut out. On the paper, showing through, was written in
+Mrs. Foster's delicate handwriting, "Fireflies of Fancy."
+
+"This," she said, patting it, "is my little book, and after lunch I'll
+read you some of the poems, dear Daphne, though I'm not at all sure that
+all of them are quite suitable for you to hear."
+
+"Oh, Mrs. Foster!" Daphne found difficulty in believing it.
+
+"You see," continued the delicate-looking old lady, in her sweet,
+refined voice, "I was very much under the influence of the Passionate
+School--Swinburne, Rossetti, Ella Wheeler Wilcox, and so on--at the time
+that I wrote. My husband never wished me to publish them. He didn't like
+them--he didn't understand them. I don't mind admitting to you, dear,
+that since I lost him I have sent one or two of the less--well--shall we
+say strongly coloured?--poems to the magazines at times, of course under
+a _nom de plume_. But they were all returned. I think they were
+considered too--well, too----However, I've given up the idea of making
+a name as a poetess now, and very rarely show them to anybody; _very_
+rarely."
+
+Daphne answered, with absolute sincerity, that she was dying to see
+them.
+
+After lunch, when they retired to the little drawing-room, Mrs. Foster
+sat down with her back to the light, and a slight flush on her cheek,
+and took up the book.
+
+Daphne sat in a low little crimson arm-chair exactly opposite her,
+clasping her knees, her brown eyes fixed with the greatest interest as
+Mrs. Foster turned and turned the pages as if unable to select a
+suitable verse.
+
+Then she began to read, in her soft, yet rather high voice, which seemed
+suited only to gentle greetings and adieux, or quavering orders to
+Henry.
+
+    "NIGHT TIME
+
+    _He glanced as he passed,
+    And I hope, and I quiver,
+    I howl and I shudder with pains;
+    And like a she-tiger
+    Or overcharged river,
+    My blood rushes on through my veins._"
+
+She stopped suddenly.
+
+"No, no, dear. I won't read this. Wait a minute. I remember now that was
+the one that was returned because it was too--er----I'll find you
+another one."
+
+"Oh, do finish that one," said Daphne, "please! Isn't the light too much
+for your eyes?"
+
+She jumped up quickly and pulled down the blind an inch or two, and then
+came back, having controlled herself.
+
+Mrs. Foster looked at her rather sharply, and took no notice of what she
+supposed was emotion.
+
+"Ah, here is something more suited to you, darling."
+
+    SPRING
+
+    A QUESTION, AND AN ANSWER
+
+    _Will all the year be summer-time,
+    And each night have a moon?
+    Ah no, the Spring will quickly go,
+    And winter cometh soon._
+
+    _And will your clasp warm mine like wine?
+    And will you love me true?
+    Ah no, the autumn leaves arrive,
+    And we must bid adieu._
+
+"That's a rather pretty thing, in its way, isn't it?" she said.
+
+"Very."
+
+"Here's one more.
+
+    A REMEMBRANCE
+
+    _Seems it well to see
+    A wild honey bee
+    Gold in the sun,
+    Ere day is done,
+    Sitting on a rose,
+    As the summer time grows._
+
+    _Ah, the bold, brave days,
+    Ere the glass of Time
+    'Neath the sun's rays,
+    Like a flame of fire,--
+    And the_ ..."
+
+She stopped again.
+
+"No, I don't think this is quite----"
+
+"Do, do go on!"
+
+Mrs. Foster looked at her.
+
+"You have a great deal of sensibility, Daphne. I believe you have tears
+in your eyes."
+
+"No, I haven't really." She turned away her head, nearly choking.
+
+A loud knock was heard at the front door.
+
+Mrs. Foster looked out of the window.
+
+"It's Cyril!" she exclaimed. "He's got away after all. Quick! Quick!"
+She threw the book under a cushion and sat on it. With trembling
+fingers she took up some needlework out of a basket.
+
+"Not a word--not a word! Go and meet him in the hall, dear. He's come to
+give us a surprise. I'll wait."
+
+Blushing and laughing Daphne ran downstairs.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+ENGAGED
+
+
+Daphne and Cyril sat in the garden together. The conditions seemed
+ideal. It was a lovely afternoon; the sun was hot, but a gay
+irresponsible little west wind stirred the trees; bees hummed
+industriously, butterflies darted casually about among the few flowers,
+and even the reticent doves cooed from time to time, condescendingly.
+Peeping through the blind Mrs. Foster thought the two young people made
+a perfect picture, and was reminded of the Golden Age. Indeed, they had
+very much the charming, almost improbable air of the figures in a Summer
+Number of an illustrated paper. Perhaps the conditions were too perfect:
+the lovers had, of course, nothing to sit on but a rustic seat--Mrs.
+Foster would have thought it a crime to have anything else in a garden,
+and rustic seats are, no doubt, picturesque, but they are very
+uncomfortable; they seem to consist of nothing but points and knobs,
+gnarls and corners.
+
+When Daphne was alone with Cyril like this she felt contented and
+peaceful at first, and then she began to wonder why she wasn't happier
+still--why she didn't feel ecstatic. She was proud of Cyril; he looked
+very handsome in flannels, his regular features, smooth fair hair, small
+head and small feet all added to his resemblance to the hero in the
+holiday number.
+
+Cyril said--
+
+"Dear little girl!" and took her hand.
+
+She laughed and answered--
+
+"Dear old boy!"
+
+Then he said--
+
+"By Jove! you do look ripping, Daphne."
+
+She smiled.
+
+"Jolly being here like this, isn't it?" said Cyril.
+
+"Isn't it?" she answered.
+
+"Jolly day, too."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Wasn't it lucky I was able to get away?"
+
+"Rather."
+
+"It was a fearful rush."
+
+"It must have been."
+
+"Jove, it is hot!"
+
+There was a pause.
+
+"Darling!"
+
+"Dear boy!"
+
+"May I smoke a cigarette, dear?"
+
+"Yes, do."
+
+He lit a cigarette, and then put his arm round her waist.
+
+"Don't, Cyril."
+
+"Why not?" he asked, removing it.
+
+"Oh, I don't know. Henry or some one might see."
+
+"What's Henry?"
+
+"A sort of gardener boy--the boy whose sort of sister makes kind of
+blouses in the village."
+
+"Oh, does he matter?"
+
+Cyril was wondering if he could ask for a drink.
+
+When they were left entirely alone, on purpose to be free, he always
+felt rather shy and awkward, and intensely thirsty.
+
+Daphne began to think about what time it was, and about her train
+back--subjects that never occurred to her when she was alone with Mrs.
+Foster.
+
+"I'm afraid I shall soon have to be going," she said.
+
+"Oh, I say! What, the moment I've arrived?"
+
+He tried not to feel a little relieved. He wondered why he hadn't more
+to say to her. He had been desperate to get consent to their engagement,
+and was always extremely anxious and counting the minutes till they met,
+and when they were together, alone after much elaborate scheming, he
+felt a little embarrassed, and, like his fiancee, was surprised he
+wasn't happier.
+
+"I say, Daphne!"
+
+"Yes, dear."
+
+"You do look sweet."
+
+"Do you really think so?"
+
+"Simply ripping! I say!"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Won't it be jolly when we're married?"
+
+"Yes; lovely."
+
+"It will be all the time just like this, you see--only nicer ... I say!
+Isn't it hot?"
+
+They sat holding hands, he looking at her admiringly, she feeling mildly
+pleased that such a dear, handsome boy should be so fond of her. In the
+minds of both was another sensation, which they did not recognise, or,
+at all events, would not admit to themselves. They both, especially
+Cyril, counted the minutes to these _tete-a-tetes_, and immediately
+afterwards looked back on them with regret, feeling they had missed
+something. They wrote to each other frequent, short, but intensely
+affectionate letters about the happiness these interviews had given
+them. Yet, while they actually lasted, both Cyril and Daphne, had they
+only known it, were really rather bored. The next day, or the same
+evening, Cyril would write to her:--
+
+"My own Darling,--How jolly it was having you a little to myself
+to-day! And to think that you really care for me!" and so on.
+
+And she would enjoy writing back:--
+
+"Dearest,--Didn't we have a heavenly time in the garden yesterday?" and
+so forth.
+
+       *     *     *     *     *
+
+As a matter of fact, they had not had a heavenly time at all; when he
+kissed her, which he sometimes did, she did not really like it, though
+she knew she ought, and it gave her a sort of mental gratification to
+think that he _had_ given this manifestation of love, as she knew it was
+considered the right thing.
+
+He did not really regard her as a woman at all, but more as a lovely
+doll, or sweet companion, and it pleased his vanity immensely to think
+he should be allowed this privilege, which at the same time seemed to
+him a little unnecessary, and even derogatory to her, though he enjoyed
+it very much too, in a somewhat uncomfortable way.
+
+The fact that their engagement was so indefinite, that they had hardly
+any hope of being married for at least two years, perhaps added a little
+to the _gene_ of these meetings. The instant they were separated he
+began to long to see her alone again. Daphne felt sure she must be
+really in love because she took comparatively little interest in
+anything that was not more or less connected with the idea of Cyril.
+Perhaps she enjoyed the things she associated with him more than his
+actual presence. Talking about him to Valentia, or hearing about him
+from his mother, seemed more amusing and exciting than sitting with him
+alone and holding his hand. She would have liked best never to see him
+except in evening dress at a party, only to hear about him or think
+about him all day.
+
+Cyril was sure that his feeling was real love, because he did not care
+two straws how hard up they should be when they were married, and
+because if he heard any one sing a sentimental song, however badly, he
+immediately thought of her with the greatest tenderness. He believed he
+missed her every moment of the day, and he took great trouble to see
+her, especially when there was a chance of their being alone. But, as a
+matter of fact, he was rather glad when Mrs. Foster came out into the
+garden; and when he had seen Daphne off at the station, although it was
+a pang to see her go away without him, it was perhaps also a slight
+relief.
+
+When Val came to meet her at the station, full of news about the
+extraordinary number of exciting things that had happened in the day,
+and they dashed back to dress for a dinner Harry was giving before going
+to a dance, Daphne felt a tinge of sentiment and regret for the idyllic
+happiness in the garden, and began to count the hours until they should
+meet alone again. The glamour always returned an hour or so after they
+had been separated.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+AT THE CARLTON
+
+
+With characteristic amiability, combined with that courage which had
+caused impatient people, who snubbed her in vain, to say she had the
+hide of a rhinoceros, Miss Luscombe had accepted the blow of Rathbone's
+proposal--the proposal which she had taken for an offer of marriage, but
+which was really an offer to go on the stage. She set to work at once
+making little efforts (most of which she knew to be futile) to arrange
+the matter. After all, if she should succeed in getting him some sort of
+a part, mightn't he, out of gratitude?... And she saw visions. Again, he
+had evidently got it very badly, this mania for acting and dressing up,
+and he had really quite enough money, if he chose to devote it to this
+object only; why shouldn't he take a theatre--make himself the manager
+and _jeune premier_, or, for the matter of that, _vieux dernier_--it
+really didn't matter--and let her be the leading lady? That was if he
+failed in every other scheme. She wrote letters to various people whom
+she knew on the stage, mentioning Rathbone's enormous willingness to
+take _anything_, his gentlemanly appearance, and, she felt sure, really
+_some_ talent, though no experience. Most people took no notice, but
+after a while she received an offer for him to play one of the gentlemen
+in the chorus of _Our Miss Gibbs_ in a second-rate little touring
+company of the smaller northern provincial towns.
+
+It was an excuse for an interview, certainly; but this for a man who
+wished to play Romeo! And if, in his enthusiasm, he should actually
+accept it, it would take him away from her. However, hearing that she
+had some news for him, he, in his delighted gratitude, asked her to tea
+at the Carlton.
+
+       *     *     *     *     *
+
+They were seated in the Palm Court eating their tea-cakes and sandwiches
+to the sound of "The Teddy Bear's Picnic," which made one feel cheerful
+and reckless, followed by "Simple Aveu," a thin, sentimental solo on the
+violin that made one feel resigned and melancholy. It was played by a
+man with a three-cornered face and a very bald head, who gazed at the
+ceiling as if in a kind of swoon--a swoon that might have been induced
+either by tender ecstasy or acute boredom.
+
+All around them were noisy Americans, neatly dressed, and a good many
+prim, self-conscious ladies on the stage who had come on from their
+_matinees_ and were accompanied mostly either by very young and rather
+chinless adorers, or by fat, fatuous men with dark moustaches, hair
+inclined to curl, and clothes a shade too gorgeous.
+
+Here and there a simple, provincial-looking family were to be seen who
+had come up for a few days and had been to an afternoon performance, and
+were talking with great animation of the rights and wrongs of the hero
+and heroine of the play. It was characteristic of the provincials that
+they were really excited about the play itself, hardly knowing who were
+performing, while the suburbanites took interest only in the actors, all
+of whom they knew well by name and reputation, even their private
+life--at least, as much of it as got into the _Prattler_, _The Perfect
+Lady_, and _Home Chirps_.
+
+On the whole it was a very characteristic London crowd, in that it
+consisted almost entirely of desirable aliens. Here and there, indeed,
+one saw a thin, slim, pretty woman with a happy but bothered-looking
+young man, both obviously English, who talked in low tones, and were
+evidently at some stage or other of a rose-coloured romance; but they
+were the exception.
+
+Amidst this noisy and confused clientele, with its showy clothes and
+obvious feminine charms, Miss Luscombe looked a strange, stray, untidy
+hothouse plant. She was odd and artificial, and dressed like nothing on
+earth, in pale and faded colours; but she was not vulgar. She was rather
+queer and delicate, and intensely amiable. Her self-consciousness made
+no claim on one; she was not exacting--always pleased and good-tempered.
+Rathbone recognised these qualities in her, and liked her better to-day,
+amidst the scent of the tea-cakes and cigarettes and the whine of the
+violin, than he had ever liked her before.
+
+Pink, fair, calm, clean, and really hardly anything else, except
+extremely correct, and always good form, without being too noticeably
+so, no one would have dreamed that this quiet young man, who looked like
+a shy subaltern, was simply dying to disport himself on the stage, and
+that it was the dream of his life to make an utter ass of himself as
+Hamlet, or a hopeless fool of himself as (say) the hero in _Still Waters
+Run Deep_--a play he had seen as a boy and had always longed to act in.
+
+She had broken the news to him.
+
+"Miss Luscombe, do you mean to say that is the very best you can do for
+me?"
+
+She explained the difficulties.
+
+He was only one of so many! Unless the name was known it was
+frightfully difficult--even for geniuses--to get on. Of course, he might
+try, and go and see the various managers himself, but, frankly, probably
+nothing would come of it.
+
+He was deeply depressed. What should she suggest?
+
+"Might I ask if you care very, very much?" she asked.
+
+"You might. I do." Yes. His heart was set on it.
+
+Was it really? Well, if he simply hadn't the strength to go on living
+another day without going on the stage, the only thing, clearly, was
+just to hire a theatre and _go_ on! A _matinee_, perhaps. Why not Romeo?
+
+"And why not Juliet?" said he, rather rashly.
+
+"Oh, that would be lovely!"
+
+Her attention wandered at this moment. A very pretty, fair woman was
+rising from behind a palm where she had been seated with her back to the
+room. She went out rather quickly, followed by a good-looking young man
+with a single eye-glass.
+
+"They have been trying to hide!" she exclaimed. "What a joke! It's that
+sweet Valentia Wyburn and Harry de Freyne. They must have been here when
+we arrived, for we should have seen them come in. I wonder what they
+came for?"
+
+"To have tea, perhaps?" suggested Rathbone, after deep thought,
+shrewdly.
+
+"Yes, yes, I know. But why hide like that?"
+
+"Perhaps they didn't want to be seen," said Rathbone brilliantly.
+
+"Yes, of course, but why not? I hope it doesn't show...."
+
+"Well, it shows there's nothing in it, or they wouldn't come here."
+
+"Does it?" said Miss Luscombe, rather disappointed.
+
+"Well, where's the harm in being here? Ain't we here?"
+
+"Oh yes, of course; but that's different. They're cousins, too, of
+course; I had forgotten."
+
+"I don't see why you should worry if Romer doesn't," said Rathbone.
+
+Before they left Rathbone had very nearly promised to see about engaging
+a theatre, and either for a charity or as an invitation _matinee_, rope,
+as he expressed it, all his friends in, lock the door, and force them to
+see him play Romeo to Miss Luscombe's Juliet.
+
+Flora was deliriously happy at the idea, but had too much experience to
+rely on it, and was quite prepared to be thrown over for another more
+professional actress, and asked to play one of the ladies at the ball in
+the first act instead, probably in a mask. She went home and read over
+her one good notice--a great treasure--that had appeared in an evening
+paper, and had spoken of her as "_a young actress with a bright and
+winsome personality_." That was in a very small part, ten years ago.
+Would she ever get another real chance?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+AT MISS WESTBURY'S
+
+
+Mrs. Wyburn found Miss Westbury being sensible and decided and holding
+forth about things in general to one or two friends over the tea-cups.
+Something in the way the old lady sat down and unfastened her mantle, so
+as to be sure to feel the benefit of it when she went out again, made
+the other women present feel that they were not wanted, and Miss
+Westbury did not attempt to detain them. For (though she would not have
+put it like that) she knew that she would get more fun out of her
+friend's _mechancete_ if they were alone. Scandal, gossip made tedious
+by morality, is only really enjoyable _en tete-a-tete_.
+
+"I do so hope, Isabella, that you haven't had any more annoyance about
+the silly things that are being said about your pretty daughter-in-law,"
+remarked Miss Westbury, leaning back with the comfortable amiability of
+a fat woman who expects to be amused.
+
+Mrs. Wyburn looked round the room.
+
+"Curious you never have your ceiling painted," she said. "I've often
+wondered why it is. It looks--you'll forgive me for saying so, Millie,
+won't you?--as if you left it in its present state from motives of, may
+I say, economy? But, of course, I know it isn't that--I always say, it's
+simply that you haven't noticed it. Thanks, no--no tea."
+
+Miss Westbury's serenity was slightly disturbed, as her friend intended.
+
+"I certainly don't spend my whole time lying on my back looking at the
+ceiling," she answered rather brusquely. "I have far too much to do."
+
+"I never suggested that you should," quickly replied Mrs. Wyburn. "Such
+a thing never occurred to me for a single moment. And please don't think
+I wish to interfere, or to make remarks about anything that doesn't
+concern me. It merely struck me that if, at any time, you thought by
+some curious chance of having the house done up, it might be a pity to
+leave out the ceiling. But that was all. I do assure you, Millie, I
+never dreamt of hurting your feelings."
+
+Miss Westbury laughed with a rather cackling sound--a sound Mrs. Wyburn
+recognised with satisfaction. It showed just the degree of slight
+annoyance she loved to cause in any one to whom she was speaking. Miss
+Westbury, however, waived the question and became hospitable.
+
+"Do let me persuade you to have a toasted bun. Our baker makes them in a
+special way on purpose for me. There's nothing in the world more
+sensible with one's tea than a small toasted currant bun. I was speaking
+to Dr. Gribling about it only the other day, oddly enough, and he quite
+agreed with me."
+
+"Why _only the other day_? and why _oddly enough_, Millie?--I dare say
+you speak to him constantly about it and about other equally urgent
+matters." She spoke with what she meant to be a slight sneer, in reply
+to which Miss Westbury behaved in a manner that is sometimes described
+as bridling up. She gave a movement meant to be a toss of the head and
+placed her lips firmly together.
+
+"I like Dr. Gribling, Isabella, because he's a thoroughly sensible
+man--a man you can say anything to."
+
+Mrs. Wyburn thought that Miss Westbury would say anything to any one,
+and she shrewdly suspected that Millie was probably the one gleam of
+amusement in poor old Dr. Gribling's dreary round. However, she waved
+the eminent physician aside and said--
+
+"About Valentia. She and Romer have gone down to the country, you know."
+
+"Oh, indeed! Quite early to go. Very nice. Have they a large party
+there, do you know? The Green Gate is such a charming place--so
+picturesque."
+
+"Have you ever seen it?" Mrs. Wyburn asked.
+
+"Only in the _Daily Mail_--I mean accounts of week-ends there, and that
+sort of thing. But I believe it's quite charming. It seems almost a pity
+though, doesn't it, at the end of the season to begin the same
+frivolities and gaieties all over again. I wonder they don't take a
+little rest."
+
+"I believe they are resting. Valentia wrote to me that no one was
+staying there at all, except, of course, Daphne."
+
+"And Harry de Freyne?"
+
+"Yes, and Mr. de Freyne."
+
+"Strange," said Miss Westbury comfortably. "Curious that extraordinary
+infatuation of your--son for this young man. But he's a very charming
+man, isn't he? Most agreeable?"
+
+"He's not absolutely unpleasant."
+
+"I suppose he brightens them up--amuses them? Probably he has very high
+spirits. Perhaps he has the _jar de veev_." Miss Westbury had a private
+pronunciation of foreign expressions all her own. "It is unfortunate,
+but do you know one often sees that in unprincipled people, Isabella."
+
+"He knows that he's not quite a gentleman, and is trying to laugh it
+off," said Mrs. Wyburn.
+
+"Does he really? Dear, dear--what a sad thing!--and yet he certainly
+_ought_ to be a gentleman, you know. On his mother's side he is
+connected with the----"
+
+"That's not the point," snapped Mrs. Wyburn. "And of course I don't mean
+to say that--outwardly--he's not. His manner and appearance are
+distinguished. It's the soul that's vulgar."
+
+"Ah, I see! You mean you're afraid he isn't one of _nature's_
+gentlemen?"
+
+"Nature? How do you mean? He has nothing to do with nature. He's a man
+about town."
+
+"Oh, I beg your pardon--I understood he was an artist. And sometimes,
+you know, artists are extremely fond of nature; in fact, far _too_
+fond."
+
+"I believe all that painting is only done to throw dust in people's
+eyes--an excuse for idleness. Candidly, I don't like studios; I don't
+think they're respectable."
+
+"I know what you mean; but still, after all"--Miss Westbury made a
+feeble attempt at a good-natured defence--"after all, if they all like
+it--I mean to say, if they're all so happy, why should we----"
+
+"I doubt if my son is happy."
+
+"Oh, really, really? Do you think he's _ever noticed anything?_ Isn't he
+devoted to Harry de Freyne?"
+
+"Of course he hates him like poison," replied the mother.
+
+Miss Westbury started in delighted horror, and replied sharply, "How do
+you know that? Did he tell you?"
+
+"Tell me! He would never tell me. Besides, he couldn't tell me--he
+doesn't know it."
+
+"And how do you know it?"
+
+"Mothers know everything," she replied.
+
+After a minute's pause, Miss Westbury said--
+
+"But if you feel sure that Romer isn't happy, and that he, almost
+unconsciously perhaps, doesn't really like this young man being always
+about, mightn't it some day end in some trouble--some explosion?"
+
+"It's quite possible."
+
+"Then I wonder what Romer would do?"
+
+"I know what he would do."
+
+"Good heavens, Isabella, you don't mean to say that he would ever bring
+a----"
+
+"It's really strange," said Mrs. Wyburn, "that at your age you should
+still be so silly. Will you never learn to understand anything at all?
+Of course not. He would protect her."
+
+"Can't something be done? Why don't you speak to Valentia?"
+
+"The advice of a relative-in-law in a case of this kind has never yet
+been known to be of any real use, Millie. I can only hope the whole
+thing may gradually wear itself out."
+
+"May it be so, my dear!" echoed Miss Westbury, unctuously.
+
+Mrs. Wyburn got up to go.
+
+Miss Westbury helped her to fasten her mantle.
+
+"I'm so glad you loosened it, or else you might not feel the benefit of
+it when you go out, Isabella," she observed, for she was not one to miss
+an opportunity of making a remark of this kind. "And _do_ look on the
+bright side. I always say that things of this sort may not be true, and
+even if they are, everything may be for the best in the end."
+
+Mrs. Wyburn liked to excite Millie's interest, and yet somehow loathed
+her sympathy.
+
+"Yes; do you know, I really _should_ have the ceiling painted, if I were
+you," she said, as if it were a new idea. "Otherwise your house is
+looking so nice--quite charming. I think it such an excellent plan not
+to have flowers in the windows, only ever-greens."
+
+"So glad you think so. It _is_ rather a good arrangement, because, you
+see, they always look exactly the same all the year round."
+
+"That they certainly do--and nevergreens would be a better name for
+them," spitefully said Mrs. Wyburn to herself as she drove off.
+
+"What a tiresome mood Isabella was in to-day," said Miss Westbury to
+herself. "I must go and see Jane Totness and tell her what she said....
+Ceiling, indeed! She _was_ nasty!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+A PROPOSAL
+
+
+Miss Luscombe was looking out of the window, looking up to the street,
+waiting. At last she saw from her basement (the "tank," as her friends
+called it) a glimpse on the pavement of a pair of feet that she knew.
+They were the feet of Mr. John Ryland Rathbone. She hastened to prepare
+herself for his visit.
+
+It is obvious that people who live in a basement must look at life from
+a different point of view from all others. The proudest of women in that
+position must necessarily see it _de bas en haut_. The woman looking out
+of the drawing-room or higher for the person she is expecting to see
+gets more or less of a bird's-eye view. She sees the top of a hat first,
+and the person necessarily foreshortened. From the dining-room or
+ground-floor window she sees the approaching visitor through glass, but
+practically on a level, almost face to face, and therefore is incapable
+of judging him on the whole or of taking a very large view, since any
+object placed close to the eye deprives one of a sense of
+proportion--shuts out everything else. But from a basement window things
+are very different. It is wonderful how much character one learns to see
+in feet, and it is still more curious how, to the accustomed eye, their
+expression can vary from time to time. Flora saw at a glance by the
+obstinate stamp, the bad-tempered look of his boots, by the nervous
+impatience of his stride, that Mr. Rathbone was coming to see her in a
+state of agitation. One would hardly have believed that, without having
+seen his face at all, she would be so prepared for his behaviour when he
+arrived as to greet him anxiously from the door, even before he came in,
+with "Good heavens, what _is_ the matter?"
+
+"How do you know anything is the matter?"
+
+"I guessed. I saw your steps."
+
+"Everything is going wrong about the play. The expenses get larger every
+day. To sell even _one_ ticket for a charity, they tell me, is simply
+out of the question! I must invite everybody, and even then most of them
+won't come. Just think, my dear Miss Luscombe, all this trouble, worry,
+and expense for amateurs to play _Romeo and Juliet_ at an invitation
+performance to an absolutely empty house!"
+
+"Why do you think it will be empty?... Your friends?"
+
+"My friends? You're my only friend! Every chap at the Club I have spoken
+to about it said they would be out of town that day. One or two said
+they would come on afterwards and join me at supper. Supper! I said it
+was a _matinee_; so then they suggested I should give a dinner
+afterwards. And even women, they're quite as bad. I mentioned it to Lady
+Walmer. She is always so keen on going everywhere, and makes a hobby of
+odd charities and things. She said she was going yachting that day, and
+also that she was going to a wedding."
+
+"What does it matter just about Lady Walmer?"
+
+"Nothing, but it's an indication. Do we want to have no one in a theatre
+but the dressmakers who made the costumes? Miss Luscombe--Flora! I am
+beginning to think we'd better chuck it."
+
+"Oh, Mr. Rathbone! The waste and the disappointment!"
+
+"It would be a greater waste to make an utter fool of oneself in an
+empty house than to postpone it. I'm nervous. I'm really frightened. I'm
+beginning to see that I've been a fool. As to disappointment, _that_,
+Flora, you could console me for if you chose."
+
+"Oh, Mr. Rathbone!"
+
+"You really have been so sweet, so patient, it's my opinion that you are
+an angel!"
+
+"Oh, indeed I'm not!"
+
+"Well, you have the patience of one. You never think about yourself.
+You're all kindness and sweetness and thought for other people. To speak
+perfectly frankly, you have only one tiny fault, Flora. And that is,
+that you seem a _little_ artificial. But it's my opinion that such
+affectations as you have are natural to you and you can't help them, and
+you would be an ideal wife."
+
+Flora was actually silent with gratification. She did not even laugh.
+
+"Look here, Flora, we'd better chuck the performance altogether. Let's
+give it up, and have a show instead at St. George's, Hanover Square."
+
+"Are you making fun of me?" she asked, in a trembling voice, "because
+that would not be right. It wouldn't be nice of you--in fact, it would
+be rather cruel."
+
+"You don't mean to say you care for me the least little bit?" He took
+both her hands and stared hard at her face. "Is there something real
+about you then?" he continued.
+
+Tears came to her eyes. She turned her head away.
+
+"This seems too good to be true," she murmured.
+
+"Let's be married," he cried, "on the day we were going to have the
+show. Let's go to Oberammergau for our honeymoon, and don't let us ever
+go near the theatre again. Will you, dear? Or am I dreaming?"
+
+"Of course. I always have," she answered ingenuously; "but I hadn't a
+scrap of hope, and I didn't know how much I cared for you."
+
+"Dear Flora, I shall give up the stage and devote all my time to you."
+
+"So will I," she said. "I shall never want to act again."
+
+"Nor I, never--never!"
+
+"I shall rush home and countermand everything," he cried.
+
+"Oh, go not yet; it is not yet near day," she quoted in the tender voice
+she used for recitation.
+
+He burst into peals of laughter, and put his arms round her and kissed
+her impetuously.
+
+"Oh, Flora, what a fool I have been all this time! And you knew it--you
+knew it perfectly well. I thought when we were rehearsing that once you
+said the words, 'O Romeo, wherefore art _thou_ Romeo?' with rather
+marked emphasis on the 'thou'...."
+
+"Do you know that I never cared for any one but you in my life, Flora?"
+
+"Oh, oh! Why is 'C. L.' tattooed on your wrist?"
+
+"I'll have it taken out. I'll have Flora put on instead. I'll have
+anything you like tattooed in your honour--a hunting scene, a snap-shot
+of the Coronation--anything you like."
+
+"No, please not. I don't like it; I can't bear it. It's the only thing I
+ever haven't liked about you. But we'll forget it now, won't we?" she
+said.
+
+"And I'll forget the stage. Oh, Flora, how I have worried you! Forgive
+me. We won't think of anything but each other now."
+
+They repeated this sentiment again and again in these and other words
+for about an hour and a half, and forgot to turn up lights and ring the
+bell.
+
+       *     *     *     *     *
+
+The first real love scene Flora had ever acted in was a triumphant
+success.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+HEREFORD VAUGHAN
+
+
+To have eleven plays, all written out of one's own head, and all being
+performed simultaneously in American, in Eskimo, and even in Turkish,
+besides in every known European language; to have money rolling in, and
+the strange world of agents and managers pursuing you by every post and
+imploring for more contracts by every Marconigram; and these triumphs to
+have come quite suddenly, was really enough to have turned the head of
+any young man; yet Hereford Vaughan's (known by his very few intimate
+friends as Gillie) had remained remarkably calm. He was not even
+embittered by success.
+
+To know his jokes were being got over the footlights of so many lands
+was a curious sensation, and it often made him laugh suddenly to reflect
+how wicked certain quips must sound in, say, Japanese. Perhaps his
+friends were rather inclined to resent the way he retained his balance
+after what was really an almost unheard-of hit. They would have been
+readier to pardon it had he shown some sign of boring fatuity; or
+perhaps they thought he might at least have had a temporary nervous
+breakdown; taking the form (for choice) of losing all sense of the value
+of money and wildly throwing bank-notes and gold at every one he saw.
+But he remained quiet, reserved, and as apparently modest as ever.
+
+Modesty is a valuable merit (as I think Schopenhauer has discovered) in
+people who have no other, and the appearance of it is extremely useful
+to those who have, but I am not suggesting that Vaughan was not human,
+and there was, no doubt, many a moment when he smiled to himself, and
+felt that he was a great man.
+
+He was rather secretive and mysterious than blatant or dashing, and
+this, of course, made him, on the whole, more interesting to women. The
+fact that he had made a fortune and lived alone in a charming house with
+nothing but housekeepers, secretaries, telephones, typewriters, and
+cooks, of course made all the women of his acquaintance who had the
+match-making instinct (and what woman has not?) desire to see him
+married. As he showed no sign of doing so, they tried to console
+themselves by pretending that he had some secret romance. Old ladies
+hoped he had a broken heart for some fiancee who was lying under the
+daisies, having died of decline in the classical middle-Victorian way.
+Young ladies thought that he was probably fixed up in some way that
+would be sure in time to dissolve, and that he would marry later on. Far
+the most popular theory was that he didn't marry simply because he _was_
+married, privately; and that he had, no doubt, hurriedly espoused,
+before he was of age (and before the Registrar), some barmaid or
+chorus-girl, or other dreadful person, who had turned out far too
+respectable to divorce, and that he was thus a young man marred. They
+had no grounds for the rumour except that clever and promising young men
+often did these things, and he had always been a particularly promising
+young man, and in this unfortunate case had probably kept his promise.
+
+Vaughan was sitting one morning reading his notices (never believe the
+greatest men when they tell you that they don't do that!), when Muir
+Howard came cheerily, almost boisterously, into the room. He was an old
+school friend who had been devoted to Gillie long before his arrival,
+and of whose faults, virtues, cheeriness, and admiration Vaughan had
+made a confirmed habit.
+
+Muir was a very good-looking barrister, with vague parliamentary
+ambitions and a definite love of machinery. He always had pink cheeks,
+and wore a pink carnation, and looked as flourishing, gay, and yet,
+somehow, battered, as Vaughan looked pale, fresh, and sardonic. One of
+the things that surprised the general public was that Vaughan could not
+live without the continuous society of a person who certainly could not
+understand a word he wrote or much that he said. They didn't realise
+that Vaughan was so accustomed to not listening to Muir's long
+confidences, to disputing every proposition he made, and contradicting
+every word he said, that he always felt lost when his friend was away.
+Muir regarded him as a combination of hero, genius, pet, and child, and
+was always giving him advice and imploring him not to do too much. To
+Vaughan he was, as I have said, a habit, and there is always something
+agreeable in a habit of which one is a little tired.
+
+He had arrived this morning on his bicycle, and came in bringing a whiff
+of heartiness, self-complacency, and fresh air, saying, "Hallo! hallo!
+hallo! Priceless to find you in, Gillie!" All he got for it was that
+Vaughan looked up and said--
+
+"You used to be only breezy. Now you're becoming a thorough draught.
+Fold up and keep quiet, can't you?"
+
+"Nervous, I suppose," said Muir, in a sympathetic voice. "I wonder you
+don't take that stuff that you see in the papers about what is good
+for----"
+
+"Sudden pains in the back on washing-day, bending over the tub, and so
+forth? The portraits of the people before taking the remedy and after
+decided me. It seems, by the pictures, to make your hair grow long and
+give you whiskers and a ghastly squint. Ruins your clothes, too. Your
+collars get the wrong shape."
+
+"Oh well, leave it alone, then. Perhaps you're right.... You haven't
+asked me about the Walmers' dance. I took Miss de Freyne to supper. The
+American chap never turned up, and I was getting on with her simply
+rippingly, when _what_ do you think she said? Confided in me that she
+was privately engaged to and frightfully keen on that boy you met at
+Harry's. The baby Guardsman. Isn't it sickening?"
+
+"What did Miss Walmer do?" asked Vaughan.
+
+"She sort of hung about, waiting for Harry, who seemed to be getting on
+all right with the two strings to his bow, or two stools, or two bundles
+of hay, or whatever it is. What luck some people have!"
+
+"Not in this case. He'll lose them both."
+
+"Really? Why?"
+
+"He's not a diplomatist, and he wants such a lot for himself. He wants
+too much. No self-restraint."
+
+"Pretty useless for Mrs. Wyburn. I like her. She looked topping last
+night, too. But I dare say it'll be all right. Romer's a good chap.
+Awfully dull."
+
+"Most interesting. Are you going to stay here much longer, Muir?"
+
+"Why? Yes."
+
+Vaughan got up.
+
+"All right. Do. I'm going out."
+
+"Where?"
+
+Vaughan did not answer, but gave the heap of notices to his friend, and
+said--
+
+"Just divide the sheep and goats for me, will you? That's just what they
+are, the critics--either sheep or goats."
+
+"Of course I will. But, I say--I came here to have a talk."
+
+"I know you did. You have talked."
+
+He went out. Muir smiled to himself, enjoying this treatment as an
+eccentricity of genius.
+
+Five minutes later Gillie came back.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+GILLIE INTERFERES
+
+
+He was not much surprised to find Muir proudly examining the invitation
+cards on the mantelpiece. Muir started and turned round as he came in.
+
+"Back again? Capital!"
+
+"Well, of all the snobs!" said Vaughan.
+
+"Hang it, Gillie, it's only for you. I'm pleased you're getting on,
+that's all."
+
+"No words can tell you how I despise your point of view. Just tell me
+something I want to know. Wasn't there a sort of little scene at this
+dance last night?"
+
+"I didn't see anything," he answered.
+
+"You never do."
+
+"Oh, I remember now, I heard something. It appears that Romer left his
+wife and Daphne at the dance and then came back in an hour to fetch
+them, and she wasn't there."
+
+"Who wasn't where?"
+
+"Val and Harry had gone for a little fresh air in a taxi for about a
+quarter of an hour, that's all. They came back and explained it."
+
+"They would. Don't apologise."
+
+"But just the few minutes that Romer was looking for them made--well,
+rather a fuss. It was perfectly all right afterwards. They all had
+supper together. So there wasn't much talk about it, except, as I say,
+while Romer was waiting for them. I never in my life saw any one look so
+ghastly as that chap did."
+
+Vaughan sat down and looked thoughtful.
+
+"Only you, Muir, would leave out the only thing of the slightest
+importance that you had to tell me, which I hear the second I leave the
+house from that round-faced tattooed idiot, Rathbone, at the corner of
+the street."
+
+"But I tell you it's all right, old chap."
+
+"All right? Don't you see that this sort of thing constantly happening
+will gradually undermine ...? I like Valentia. It's a great shame."
+
+"Harry certainly isn't worth smashing up a happy home for," Muir
+answered, "if that's what you're afraid of. But ... when he marries Miss
+Walmer it'll be all right. Val will forget about him, and settle down
+with Romer again. I'm deeper than you think, Gillie ... ah, I don't say
+much, but I can see as far through a brick wall as most people!"
+
+"Just about as far, I should think," said Vaughan contemptuously.
+
+"What do you propose to do about it?"
+
+"It's likely I'd tell you." Gillie sat down to his desk and rang a bell.
+
+"I suppose I've got to go now, eh?"
+
+"Almost time, I should think."
+
+"Ha, ha, ha! Capital! Well, so long! Be good."
+
+Muir went away as heartily as he had arrived.
+
+The bell was answered by the entrance of the housekeeper, Mrs. Mills.
+She was a muddle-headed, elderly woman in black silk, whom Vaughan kept
+because her extraordinary tactlessness amused him. She invariably
+managed to do and say the wrong thing at the right time. To-day it was a
+hot morning in July. She came in holding in her hand a little card
+covered with frost and robins.
+
+"Mr. Vaughan, sir, I appened to be going through my things, and I come
+across this, sir. I thought pre-aps you'd like it. It is pretty."
+
+She insisted on his taking it.
+
+"Charming, Mrs. Mills, but I don't quite see----"
+
+"Oh, look at the words, sir! They're what I call so appropriate! Do read
+them."
+
+He read the beautiful words--
+
+     _Wishing you a blithe and gladsome Yule._
+
+"What on earth----?"
+
+"Well, sir, I only thought they was pretty, and pre-aps you'd like to
+keep it, sir, or send it to one of your young ladies; but I'll take it
+away if you don't like it." She put it back in her pocket.
+
+"Frankly, I don't. What a genius you have for the wrong thing! Are you
+going to give me plum pudding and turkey on Midsummer Day?"
+
+"I shouldn't dream of such a thing, sir."
+
+Gillie had scribbled a letter.
+
+"Go and ring up a messenger boy, will you?"
+
+"May I send Johnson, sir? I don't old with telephones. They buzz at you
+or makes you jump. And the young person keeps on saying ave you got
+them? before you've ad time to breathe, in a manner of speaking."
+
+She took the note. Vaughan sat down on a sofa to wait for the answer,
+glanced at the clock, and said, "Confound Muir! He's made me waste
+another morning."
+
+When the answer came, Gillie went out and strolled towards Mount Street.
+
+He found Valentia at home, evidently flattered and fluttered at seeing
+him.
+
+"How sweet of you to come!" she said.
+
+"You'll stay to lunch, of course?"
+
+"I'm afraid I can't."
+
+"Oh! lunching with a leading lady, I suppose?"
+
+"No."
+
+"With whom?"
+
+"With Romeike and Curtice."
+
+"Not really? What fun! What are they like?"
+
+"Oh, Romeike is all right. I don't care so much about Curtice."
+
+She gave him a cigarette.
+
+"I never in my life," said Vaughan, "before to-day, attempted to
+interfere in anybody else's affairs."
+
+She stared at him.
+
+"But in this case it--may I really smoke?--does seem such a pity! Of
+course you know what I mean, don't you?"
+
+"Do I?"
+
+"You see, I feel so certain that if you were, let's say--married to
+_Harry_ and met Romer after, you'd be so wildly in love with Romer."
+
+"So I was," she said in a low voice. "Tremendously! I thought he was a
+strong silent man with a great deal in him.... Oh! I've told you."
+
+"Yes, but so he is. It's commonplace of you, really, Val, not to see
+it."
+
+"I'm awfully sorry.... I do love Romer, and I think I appreciate him.
+But somehow it's a little dull. It's not exciting as I thought it would
+be."
+
+"Well! if you _must_ have fun, and amusement, and make a hero of
+somebody, why just Harry? Why not a superior man? Me, for instance?"
+
+He was laughing.
+
+"I've been told that an adoration for you would be hopeless, utterly
+hopeless." She smiled. "And we're friends. I can't imagine----"
+
+"Nor I. Of course I know it's utterly absurd to come and give people
+advice on these subjects, and one can't dispute about tastes and all
+that. But my practical mind revolts to see any one so delightful as you
+throwing away the substance for the shadow. You see, I'm a mass of
+platitudes."
+
+"Shadows are very attractive sometimes."
+
+"But they go away too. And then where are you?"
+
+She was silent.
+
+"They do, really. I know what I'm talking about." He stood up. "Think
+over what I've said."
+
+"You're kind, but you're rather depressing, Gillie," said Val. She
+looked a little frightened, but very pretty.
+
+"When do you go back to the country?"
+
+"Oh, to-day. We're there now. We only came up for the dance. We're
+motoring down to the Green Gate.... All of us."
+
+"Oh yes.... I'm afraid you must think me very impertinent."
+
+"Indeed I don't."
+
+"And when I've gone you will give orders that you're never at home to me
+again. But, somehow, I couldn't help it. If it makes you hate me to
+remember what I've said, forget it."
+
+She laughed as he rose to go.
+
+"That's all right, Gillie; but what I want to know is, where you're
+really going."
+
+"I'll tell you, exactly. I'm going home to lunch, because I've an urgent
+appointment immediately afterwards."
+
+"More plays, I suppose? What sort this time?"
+
+"A light comedy, with a very slight love interest," he answered, "all
+dialogue, no action.... At least, so far."
+
+"Oh, then it isn't finished yet?"
+
+"Not quite. Good-bye. And if you ever want a change, remember--a
+_superior_ man!"
+
+They both laughed insincerely.
+
+He left her looking thoughtfully out of the window.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+THE BALD-FACED STAG
+
+
+Vaughan went home, and after lunching, chiefly on a newspaper and a cup
+of coffee, he got into a taxicab and gave a direction.
+
+The vehicle flew smoothly along down Park Lane, past the Marble Arch
+into the Edgware Road, and on from there between houses and shops,
+growing gradually uglier and uglier, to Maida Vale, up Shoot-up Hill,
+and so on until there was a glimpse of suburban country, and gasworks,
+and glaring posters of melodramas on hoardings, till it stopped suddenly
+at a real little old roadside inn, straight out of Dickens--"The
+Bald-faced Stag at Edgware." Edgware suggested _John Gilpin_, Gillie's
+favourite poem.
+
+Here he got out, and was positively welcomed, and heartily, by a real
+roadside innkeeper--also out of Dickens--resembling the elder Weller--a
+local magnate called Tom Brill, who looked a relic of the coaching days,
+though really he never did anything but stand in front of the inn in
+his shirt-sleeves and welcome people.
+
+Vaughan, obviously an habitue, walked through the inn into a perfectly
+adorable garden, which was so large, so quiet, and so full of pinks,
+hollyhocks, and other old-fashioned flowers, so absolutely peaceful and
+sleepy, that one could have imagined oneself miles away in the country.
+
+The garden belonged as much to the Dickens period as the inn itself. It
+contained a great many wooden arbours in which one could imagine ladies
+in crinolines archly accepting tea, or refusing sips of shrub (whatever
+that may be) with whiskered gentlemen. There was a large cage full of
+Persian pheasants with gorgeous Indian colouring, which always suggested
+to Vaughan--he didn't know why--the Crimean War. There was a parlour
+covered with coloured prints of racehorses and boxing matches, and in
+which was a little round table painted as a draught-board, and furnished
+with a set of Indian chessmen of red and white ivory. The whole thing,
+though only twenty minutes' drive from Mayfair, was unknown, unspoilt,
+and apparently had not altered in any particular since about 1856. Its
+great charm was that it was utterly unself-conscious; it had no idea
+that it was quaint.
+
+Vaughan sat down on a rustic seat and plunged into the atmosphere of the
+period that he loved, revelling in the soothing, delightful calm, and in
+the fact that nobody there knew who he was (though they knew him well by
+name), and that none of his friends and acquaintances would have dreamt
+that he was there.
+
+A large field beyond the garden contained cows, hay, and other rustic
+things.
+
+Presently Tom Brill came up to him, and he asked after Mrs. Brill, whom
+her husband always described, with confidential pride, as "Though I say
+it that shouldn't say it, as fine a woman as you'll meet in a day's
+march."
+
+Vaughan always assented to this proposition. As he had never himself in
+his life been for a day's march, and probably never would, he certainly
+would have had no right to contradict Mr. Brill on the subject.
+
+"Is Miss Brill at home?" he presently asked. "May I see her?"
+
+"Certainly, sir, of course you shall. She's helping her mother. I'll
+call her. Don't move, sir, don't move."
+
+Miss Brill, who had been helping her mother to look out of the window,
+now came into the garden, which immediately became idyllic.
+
+She was not in any way like the innkeeper's daughter of Comic Opera.
+She was a schoolgirl of sixteen, with a long, fair plait, a short serge
+skirt, and a seraphic oval face. She ought to have been called Fanny or
+Clara. Unluckily her name was Gladys.
+
+She said in a very sweet voice--
+
+"You're quite a stranger, sir." And she amplified the assertion by
+adding, "You haven't been here not this ever so long."
+
+"I know I haven't, but I've been longing to come."
+
+"Not you!" she said ironically.
+
+She was standing opposite him, with her hands behind her back. Without a
+hat, in the glaring afternoon sun, with the complexion, pale pink and
+white, of a china doll that had never made up, she was a refreshing
+sight after the theatrical world in London, not to speak of society.
+Vaughan seemed to think so.
+
+"Well, how did you enjoy the play?" he asked.
+
+"It was very kind of you to send us the tickets. Mother enjoyed it."
+
+"You didn't care much for the piece yourself?"
+
+"I thought it was rather silly," she answered.
+
+He had never had a criticism on his work that pleased him more.
+
+"I mean," she went on, "I shouldn't have thought--well, nobody would go
+on like that."
+
+"Go on how?"
+
+"Why, go on so silly."
+
+"You wouldn't like to see another play, written by the same man, then?"
+
+"I wouldn't mind another one. Wild horses wouldn't drag me to see that
+again."
+
+"Wild horses are not likely to try," he observed. At which jest she
+laughed loudly and charmingly, showing marvellous teeth. She had no
+cockney accent, though she occasionally and fitfully dropped an H.
+
+"Oh, Gladys, do take me for a walk in the field."
+
+"Want to see the calf?"
+
+"No; I can live without seeing the calf. I want to sit in the field with
+you."
+
+"You are a caution! Come on then, but I can't stay long."
+
+They climbed the gate, which she seemed to think a quicker mode of
+entrance than sending for the key, and sat in the field, from which Mr.
+Brill always declared you could see three counties. Perhaps you could;
+if so, they all looked exactly alike.
+
+"It's quiet here, isn't it? I shan't have much more of it," she
+remarked.
+
+"Oh, Gladys! Don't say you're going away!"
+
+"Of course I am. Don't you know I'm going to be a manicure in Bond
+Street?"
+
+"Bond Street? How revolting! Is that your ambition?"
+
+"Why, I think it would be very nice. I must do something. Father's
+settled about it. First I'm going to pay to learn it, and then I shall
+earn quite a lot. It's a great hairdresser's."
+
+"I think it's horrible, Gladys. Perhaps you'll fall in love with a
+German hairdresser, and be lost to me for ever."
+
+"I shan't fall in love with no foreigners, don't you fret."
+
+"I'm not fretting. Will you have your hair done up?" he asked, lifting
+the long plait.
+
+"Well, of course I shall, and waved, and that."
+
+"Gladys, they'll spoil you."
+
+The conversation went on in this strain for some time. She alternately
+repeated the exclamation, "How you do go on!" or accused him of the
+mysterious crime of being a caution, but she never stopped looking
+perfectly beautiful and seraphic.
+
+When they went back to the garden a few other visitors had straggled in.
+They all seemed to come in high dog-carts, and they always ordered eggs,
+jam, and watercress with their tea, and were immensely impressed by the
+Persian pheasants.
+
+Vaughan went back to London feeling refreshed, and already, strangely,
+counting the days till he could come back.
+
+There was not a woman in the world he knew whom he would have taken the
+slightest trouble to see except Gladys, the innkeeper's daughter. She
+was an illiterate schoolgirl; and though she had a lovely face, she was
+stupid, and probably not so angelic as she looked; but he always felt a
+little disappointed as he drove back. He wished she were in love with
+him.
+
+And this ungratified wish was, in all his full life with its brilliant
+success, perhaps his greatest real pleasure.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+THE GREEN GATE
+
+
+When Harry came down to breakfast, a little late, he found Valentia
+waiting to pour out his coffee, and some letters on his plate. She
+watched him as he opened them. Most of them looked like bills. On the
+envelope of one was a little blue flag. Harry put this letter in his
+pocket, and went on eating.
+
+"It's a lovely morning, Harry. So fresh; just the sort of day not to do
+anything at all."
+
+"Ah! that's what's so delightful about you all," he answered. "You never
+say, 'What shall we do?' and neither of you have ever said yet that this
+is Liberty Hall, which means, as a rule, in a country house, 'Breakfast
+at eight o'clock sharp, you won't mind it being a little cold if you're
+late, and then we are going for a motor drive at 9.30.' Still, I think,
+perhaps, one ought to take a little exercise. I feel almost equal to a
+game of croquet this afternoon--later on--when I'm stronger. Is any one
+coming down to-day?"
+
+"No. And only Van Buren, and Vaughan and Muir Howard on Sunday. I see
+you've heard from the Walmers. What do they say?"
+
+"It's sure to be nothing of interest. How I love your hair parted on one
+side! It makes you look like a boy."
+
+"Not a principal boy, I hope. Why not read the letter?"
+
+Harry got up and fetched himself something from the sideboard.
+
+"I don't feel quite strong enough yet. When I've had breakfast. I should
+like to paint you as you're looking now, Val. I think I'll do a sketch
+of you in the rose garden, all in black and white, like a Beardsley,
+with the balustrades and steps and things behind you. Will you sit to
+me?"
+
+"That's all very well. But why don't you read your letter?"
+
+"There's sure to be nothing in it."
+
+"How can you tell till you've opened it?"
+
+"I know. I always feel what's in a letter without opening it. Don't you?
+I absorb the essence, as it were, through the covers of the envelope, as
+somebody or other--Macaulay, I think--used to absorb all the important
+things through the covers of a book. Or wasn't it Macaulay? Anyhow, it
+doesn't matter. It was some tiresome person whom one oughtn't to talk
+about on a morning like this."
+
+Harry evidently was not quite at his ease.
+
+"But why not read it?" She spoke playfully.
+
+"How persistent women are, just like children. To tease you I just
+shan't."
+
+"Oh, Harry!"
+
+"I shan't read it now at all," he went on. "I can answer it without
+reading it."
+
+"It's only that I should like to know how the Walmers are enjoying
+themselves on _Flying Fish_. Lady Walmer was a little afraid they
+mightn't like it."
+
+Here Romer came up to the window and called out--
+
+"I say, Val, come here a minute. I want to ask you something."
+
+"Here I am, dear," and she vanished into the garden.
+
+The second she had gone Harry opened the letter very carefully, and
+read--
+
+     "Dearest Harry,
+
+     "You are a rotter never to write. I'm having _such_ a time. Weather
+     priceless, but very sick at not hearing from you. Algie Thynne is
+     here. Do you know him? He's rather a nut. Wish you were here. No
+     more to-day. Bye-bye, old son.
+
+                                             "Your loving "ALEC."
+
+     "P.S.--Do write. The moonlight nights are simply topping. Just like
+     a picture. I think you'd like it; otherwise everything is beastly.
+
+     "I love you more than ever.
+
+                                                             "A."
+
+He put the letter back in the untorn envelope and carefully fastened it
+up again. He then placed it on the mantelpiece, and having finished his
+breakfast, lit a cigarette.
+
+He looked thoughtful.
+
+"Algie Thynne, indeed!" he said to himself. "How pathetic, trying to
+make me jealous! Well, it's a pretty letter, and what's more, it must be
+answered."
+
+Val came back.
+
+"Romer wants the lawn mown," she said. "He's perfectly mad on the
+subject of mowing the lawn. He seems to think it ought to be shaved
+every day. It's the only thing he knows about the country. Well, have
+you read your letter?"
+
+"There it is," said Harry. "You can read it if you like." He watched her
+carefully as she took it from the mantelpiece.
+
+"I don't want to read it," she said, holding it.
+
+"Nor do I," said Harry.
+
+"Harry, tell me honestly, wouldn't you really mind if I tore it into
+little bits and put it in the waste-paper basket--just as it is?"
+
+"Not a straw," said Harry, shaking his head.
+
+She clapped her hands, tore it into tiny pieces, and threw it in the
+basket. Then she said, in a low voice of deep gratitude--
+
+"Oh, Harry, you are sweet! Do forgive me."
+
+"I don't see that there's anything to forgive," said Harry.
+
+"Yes, there is; lots. I'm afraid I've been horrid. I'll never bother you
+about any thing again."
+
+She was simply beaming.
+
+"Good," answered Harry indifferently.
+
+But as he followed her into the garden he looked rather perplexed. He
+felt that this sort of thing was not leading up very well to what he
+would have to tell her soon. However, why spoil a lovely day by thinking
+of it?
+
+Like a schoolboy with his holiday task before him, he put it off as long
+as possible.
+
+Though he didn't own it to himself, and was disdainfully amused at
+Alec's letter, still the thought of Algie Thynne, moonlight nights on
+the yacht, topping weather, and his own neglect, gave him some cause for
+alarm. Algie Thynne was _crible_ with debts, and probably keen on
+marrying for money. Contemptible young ass! Why didn't he _work_? Harry
+despised him.
+
+At the earliest opportunity (which, by the way, did not arise until he
+had made an excuse to go into the village, where he wrote at the post
+office) the answer was sent.
+
+Even Harry found the beginning of the letter too difficult, so he always
+began (as Valentia might have said) without a beginning, which impressed
+Miss Walmer much more. Ever since he had reached the age of discretion,
+which, in his case, was at his majority, Harry had been thoroughly
+trained in the habit of writing letters that gratified the recipient
+enormously without compromising the writer in the slightest degree. The
+habitual dread of those _betes noires_ of Don Juan--the breach of
+promise case and the Divorce Court--had got him into the way of writing
+the sort of letter that he would have had no objection to hear read
+aloud in court. Perhaps that was why the sentences were always polished,
+and the meaning a little vague.
+
+     "... I don't speak your language, perhaps, but I understand your
+     letter, reading between the lines. It came like a whiff of fresh
+     sea air. Yes, it would be delightful to be on board _Flying Fish_
+     now. However, no doubt Algie Thynne--(_how_ eloquently, by the way,
+     you describe him! putting all the complications of his character
+     and the dazzling charm of his personality in a nutshell by the
+     simple sentence '_He's rather a nut!_')--amply compensates for my
+     absence. You ask if I know him. I do, though perhaps more by
+     reputation than anything else. We have met once or twice. Where? I
+     can't quite recall. Perhaps at the Oratory, or at the Supper Club
+     or some place of that sort. But somehow I never pursued his
+     acquaintance, nor did it ever ripen into friendship. I felt,
+     instinctively, that he was too clever for me.
+
+     "I trust all the same that his brilliance will not altogether
+     overshadow your memory of _others_. I should not like to think that
+     we were drifting apart. Still, if it should be so, I must resign
+     myself. I could still be happy in thinking of you, Alec.
+
+         _'Love that is love at all
+         Asks for no earthly coronal'_--
+
+     but, I remember, you once expressed to me your opinion that _all
+     poetry is rot_. So I will not bore you with quotations. It is
+     pleasant here, and my cousins are very kind, and leave me alone to
+     think as much as I like. I'm not, somehow, quite in the mood for
+     the usual gaieties and frivolities of a country house. Last night
+     we played Musical Chairs until two in the morning, and to-day I am
+     a little weary. Your postscript gave me joy. I need not say that I
+     reciprocate it, need I?...
+
+     "I feel all that you are feeling, and somehow even know what you
+     are doing, and if you did not write again until we meet, I should
+     not be anxious. I have a trusting nature. But when you wire,
+     remember that the telegraph boy has a good way to walk, and when
+     telegrams arrive after midnight, it causes a sensation and much
+     inquiry. Also I cannot help feeling that every one in the village,
+     as well as at the Green Gate, has read the words I would like to
+     keep to myself alone. I have a curious love of mystery--isn't
+     mystery the great charm of all romance?--So to gratify this fancy
+     of mine, sign your next telegram 'Johnson.' I know you won't mind.
+
+     "When we meet again, all, I trust, will be clear and definite
+     before us. Best love to dear Lady Walmer, and to yourself what I am
+     sure you will know. Don't be angry with me for not writing oftener.
+     I find it very difficult to express my thoughts, for alas, I have
+     no command of language. Not only that, the pens here have one great
+     fault--they won't write. Otherwise they're quite excellent.... Yes,
+     your note has given me, as the French say, 'furiously to think.'
+
+     "Hoping that all will go well with you, and looking forward, think
+     me as always,
+
+                                    "Yours, faithfully,
+                                    "HARRY BROKE DE FREYNE."
+
+"There! that ought to keep her quiet for a month," he thought as he
+posted the letter, and with a sigh of relief turned back towards the
+Green Gate.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+A SUNDAY AFTERNOON
+
+
+By this time Van Buren was entirely in Harry's confidence; that is to
+say, Harry had gradually trained him to bear without flinching the
+situation as Harry represented it. He believed Harry had a hopeless
+romantic affection for Mrs. Romer Wyburn which he was trying to stifle,
+and that Miss Walmer being hopelessly in love with _him_, he was doing
+his best to marry her, partly, as he candidly admitted, on worldly
+grounds.
+
+Van Buren was deeply touched at Harry's trust in him, and was always
+trying to keep him up to his good resolutions by pointing out that any
+understanding (however Platonic) between the pretty Valentia and the
+handsome guest was dishonourable, a breach of hospitality towards Romer,
+that silent but admirable host.
+
+Indeed, he repeated to Harry so often and so firmly, "It can't be done;
+one can't make love to the wife of a friend," that Harry was driven to
+the point of replying that he hardly saw whom else, as a matter of fact,
+one _could_ very well make love to; it being impossible to have romances
+with people one didn't know. And in this case the fact that Harry was
+very fond of Romer made the temptation far greater, as he explained;
+Harry being (as he pointed out) so very sensitive and highly strung that
+he could never, somehow, be really attracted by a woman whose husband
+was not sympathetic to him. Which point of view Van Buren, shaking his
+head, regarded as unsound.
+
+Harry now spent much time giving picturesque sketches and impressions of
+his feelings to his friend, for he had an almost feminine love of
+talking over personal affairs to the sympathetic. In his benevolence Van
+Buren longed to protect Valentia and Romer, and to give Miss Walmer all
+she wanted; but most of all his idea was to save Harry from himself, so
+he always accepted with alacrity invitations to the Green Gate for
+altruistic reasons. Besides, his desire to see Daphne, although she was
+now becoming more and more remote to him, was still persistent, if a
+little less vivid.
+
+"I've had a beautiful womanly letter from Alec to-day," Harry confided
+in Van as soon as he arrived. "You know the sort of thing she writes:
+all in jerks and subaltern's slang. With sincere sentiment showing
+between the lines. And I answered it."
+
+"A beautiful manly letter, I hope? I'm sure you could do that as well as
+any one, Harry."
+
+Harry smiled.
+
+"Oh, just some vague, cautious slosh, not unamusing in its way--it'll
+_get_ there all right."
+
+"Yes, Harry, I know, but I do hope----Ah, Miss Daphne, how beautiful
+your England is looking to-day! In America we never have a day like
+this, warm and yet cool, with all those nice, white, fleecy clouds in
+the sky. Our atmosphere is always so hard and clear. Now this garden
+with those large trees is just like a Corot. They _are_ fine trees.
+Poplars, I presume?"
+
+"You _do_ presume," smiled Daphne; "I don't know what they are, but I'm
+perfectly sure they're not poplars."
+
+"Oh yes--I'm wrong. They're oaks, I've no doubt." He hummed, "'The oak
+and the ash and the bonny ivy tree.' Do let's walk over and look at them
+closer, Miss Daphne."
+
+"I'm afraid I can't. Tea's ready."
+
+To his annoyance Van was obliged to follow Daphne and join the group
+round the tea-table. He declined with some formality of manner to accept
+the glass of iced water Daphne offered him, and looked at her with that
+look of tender, fixed, respectful reproach that had the effect of
+irritating her very nearly to the point of incivility.
+
+She turned to Muir Howard, who was looking very pink and cheery. Muir
+was a popular man for his great ease in making conversation, the kind
+that is as the pudding part in a plum pudding, and without which the
+plums, however delightful, could hardly stick together. Though the great
+majority of people talk commonplaces, their banalities are by no means
+always the kind that help. Muir's particular way of opening open doors,
+flogging dead horses, and genially enjoying any spark of fun in his
+friends, coupled with his good looks and pleasant, hearty disposition,
+made him a most useful and welcome guest, as a sort of super. He was
+quite decorative, and could be turned on to talk newspaper politics to
+dull men, pretty platitudes to plain women; to make himself generally
+useful, and altogether to help things to go. In this way he was
+invaluable. Young girls always liked him; he was a great favourite with
+elderly ladies, and with men of his own age also, who were, however,
+occasionally bored with his worship for his friend Vaughan. He found it
+very difficult not to mention Gillie less than once in every five
+minutes.
+
+That distinguished young man, who was beginning to look a little jaded
+with incense, was engrossed with his hostess. Whenever he was there
+Harry always became particularly devoted in his manner to Valentia, and
+scarcely ever left her other side. This was one of the reasons that she
+enjoyed Gillie's presence, besides that she was, now that she knew him
+well, particularly fond of him. His conversation and personality in
+general had a special flavour.
+
+Every one was talking and laughing with the light intoxication produced
+by tea and cigarettes in the open air on a fine Sunday afternoon,
+excepting only Romer, who as usual said hardly anything, absorbed in
+admiration of his wife. He suddenly remarked--
+
+"I say, Val. The Campbells are coming."
+
+He wondered why this statement produced a burst of irresponsible
+laughter.
+
+"What fun! Will there be bagpipes?" Vaughan asked.
+
+"No, no. Romer means the Prebendary Campbell, or at least his wife and
+daughter. They're coming to see us this afternoon. I had quite
+forgotten. Please all behave nicely. They've been a long time making up
+their minds. I believe they think we're frivolous."
+
+"Not really? How could they? It reminds one of the story of Henry
+James." Vaughan stopped to light a cigarette.
+
+"Go on."
+
+"It appears that for some time his near neighbours in the country
+looked a little coldly on him on the grounds that, being a writer, he
+must be Bohemian. At last the local doctor's wife and clergyman's wife
+called on him, and finding him perfectly respectable, stayed for many
+hours. They were particularly tedious and rather self-righteous. When
+they had gone, he said thoughtfully to some one who was pitying him for
+being bored, 'One of those poor wantons has a certain cadaverous
+grace.'"
+
+The story was well received, except by Van Buren, who seemed painfully
+shocked.
+
+Daphne, who had gone into the house to fetch some snapshots, now came
+running back saying--
+
+"Val, Val! The Campbells are arriving in a fly, and they seem to have
+brought their foreigner with them--that man Miss Campbell told me about.
+He's a kind of Belgian, and awfully clever--he's invented something."
+
+"What's he invented?"
+
+"Brussels sprouts?" suggested Harry rather sleepily.
+
+"But they've been invented already."
+
+"Why shouldn't he invent them over again? Give him a chance."
+
+Muir began to sing softly, "Young Lochinvar has come out of the West,"
+which he appeared to think a suitable serenade, but he stopped suddenly
+at Gillie's entreaty.
+
+"I don't mind anything Muir does, as long as he doesn't sing," he always
+explained.
+
+"It's awful hard lines. I've got a ripping baritone voice, but I never
+have a chance to use it," murmured Muir.
+
+"You shall sing to me this afternoon. I'll accompany you," whispered
+Daphne.
+
+Muir had gratefully answered that it was frightfully decent of her, when
+the servant announced--
+
+"Mrs. and Miss Campbell. Mr.----" He left a blank, unable to pronounce
+the name.
+
+But Mrs. Campbell introduced Mynheer von Stoendyck.
+
+       *     *     *     *     *
+
+Mrs. Campbell was an amiable, colourless woman, with a greyish brown
+fringe that looked as if it were made of Berlin wool. Though she was not
+yet forty-five, she wore a bonnet with violet velvet strings, and had a
+very long waist. Also, her skirt, in reality quite normal, looked, to
+the eye used to contemporary fashion, grotesquely wide at the end.
+
+Her daughter was an ordinary Rectory girl, spoilt by a dash of culture.
+At a glance all present saw she was in love with Mr. Stoendyck. He was a
+well-set-up man of about thirty-five, with a military manner and
+scientific eye-glasses, also a turned-up light moustache. He spoke all
+languages with one rasping accent, but Mrs. Campbell seemed to suffer
+under the delusion that he could only understand broken English. So
+whenever people spoke to him she translated their remarks into a sort of
+baby language that seemed singularly out of place from her.
+
+"I'm afraid you must think me dreadfully worldly, calling on you on a
+Sunday," said Mrs. Campbell, laughing socially as she sat down. "But
+what the Prebendary always says is, the better the day the better the
+deed."
+
+"Oh, does he always say that?" Harry asked with great apparent interest,
+waking up. He had been overpowered with languor ever since lunch.
+
+"Yes, and I felt sure you wouldn't mind our bringing our friend, Mr.
+Stoendyck. He is so clever. He's come over to England about an
+invention."
+
+Val thought of Brussels sprouts, but did not suggest it.
+
+Mrs. Campbell apparently couldn't take her eyes off the Belgian, whom
+she watched as one watches a rather dangerous pet, though he appeared
+particularly safe.
+
+Muir, for an unknown reason addressing the Belgian as Professor, was
+asking him his impressions of England. Mrs. Campbell bent forward, and
+said with a nod--
+
+"E ope you like it--Angleterre, you know"--and nodded idiotically.
+
+"I find it most interesting," said Mr. Stoendyck raspingly, in admirable
+English. "There are opportunities in this country for the pursuance of
+science, art, and social intercourse which one would hardly have
+expected. I do not take tea, I thank you much."
+
+"Have a glass of beer?" said Romer, suddenly inspired.
+
+Simple as the sentence was, Mrs. Campbell thought it necessary to
+translate it with more nods.
+
+"E ask you, ave beer. _Biere_, you know! Glass," and then she went on in
+her usual tone, "Most thoughtful of Mr. Wyburn, I'm sure. What a
+charming place this is of yours, Mrs. Wyburn. I always say the Green
+Gate is the most picturesque place in the neighbourhood. And Mr. de
+Freyne, I understand, is an artist. Do you know my daughter, Marion, is
+_so_ interested in art! And my younger son, Garstin, though he is only
+twelve years old, shows great artistic talent, too. He did a map of
+Buckinghamshire that really surprised me, almost any one would recognise
+it at a glance. I always say I'm sure some day Garstin will be in the
+Royal Academy."
+
+Van Buren had approached and began to talk to Mrs. Campbell. Val went
+over to the Belgian, but she heard the American beginning a sentence as
+usual with, "Pleased to meet you. I've never had the opportunity of
+mixing much in clerical circles in New York, Mrs. Campbell," and felt
+sure he was going to ask impossible questions about Prebendaries and
+Rural Deans.
+
+The rasping Belgian, on whom both the mother and daughter cast continual
+anxious and admiring eyes, though he seemed thoroughly able to take care
+of himself, said to Muir, who was taking him on--
+
+"No, I do not spend my entire time over my invention. Mrs. Campbell is
+so kind as to take me for drives in the environment, to give me a right
+impression of the beauties of Hertfordshire. For relaxation I play the
+piano."
+
+"Ha! Musical, eh, Professor?" asked Muir shrewdly. "That's right; so am
+I. I'm awfully keen on music." He spoke reassuringly.
+
+Mr. Stoendyck looked at him through his glasses, and said without
+interest--
+
+"Indeed. I find Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, even on the piano,
+extraordinarily satisfying and refreshing to the mind after the strain
+of looking at English scenery." He drank a long draught of iced lager.
+
+"Oh! Classical, eh? I'm not up to that. Queen's Hall, eh? That sort of
+thing."
+
+"I beg your pardon? Is there----Has the Queen a hall in this
+neighbourhood?"
+
+"How do you mean, Professor?"
+
+"What do you say?"
+
+"I beg your pardon?"
+
+Mrs. Campbell, who managed to hear through her own conversation with Van
+Buren, called out--
+
+"E say e no understand," and nodded smilingly, seeming to think she had
+helped matters considerably.
+
+Miss Campbell talked of tennis, matins, hats and the opera to Daphne,
+but appeared to be absent, and occasionally smiled at the foreigner, who
+ignored her.
+
+At last the Campbells and their Belgian withdrew, Mrs. Campbell saying
+that the Prebendary wished them to go to Evensong. Their departure left,
+as such visits do, a blank and a reaction. Our friends were silent for a
+minute.
+
+Then Vaughan said--
+
+"I feel crushed, and a little flattened out, too."
+
+"_I_ feel as if my brain were made of cotton wool," said Harry.
+
+"Come and sing," suggested Daphne to Muir, and they went off to the
+drawing-room, from which strains were soon heard about _It IS not
+because_,--something or other.
+
+In the middle of the song Daphne played a wrong note, stopped, and
+said--
+
+"Oh, I wish Cyril was here!"
+
+"So do I. If he can accompany, I wish he was here."
+
+"Oh, go on!"
+
+"_It IS not because thy heart is mine_"....
+
+       *     *     *     *     *
+
+The party in the garden listened with a worried expression.
+
+"How about croquet?" suggested Val. "The tapping noise will take it
+off."
+
+"Yes. Come on."
+
+"You can't," said Romer. "The lawn wants mowing."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+IN THE ROSE GARDEN
+
+
+"How lovely this place must look at dawn!"
+
+"By Jove! That's an idea, Gillie," said Harry. "It must look glorious."
+
+They were sitting in the rose garden with Valentia. It was still quite
+light, though the sunset glow had nearly faded. There was a rich mellow
+tone in the sky, a promise of peace, a feeling that it was the end of
+the day, which, combined with the almost cloyingly sweet scent of the
+roses, was enough to make any one feel poetical.
+
+"To think we've never seen the sun rise here!" exclaimed Valentia.
+
+Romer here joined them, smoking a cigarette.
+
+"Hasn't Romer ever seen the sun rise here?" Vaughan asked.
+
+"Never," said Romer.
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"I don't know. I suppose because it always happens after I've gone to
+bed," he answered drily.
+
+"Let's sit up all night and see it to-morrow," suggested Valentia.
+
+"Yes. Capital! Do let us!" said Harry.
+
+Romer did not appear much taken with this scheme.
+
+"Oh no, you mustn't _sit_ up," said Vaughan. "That's not the way to see
+it."
+
+"Is there so much difference between staying up and getting up then?"
+Val asked.
+
+"Yes, indeed, all the difference in the world. You must get up fresh,
+with the birds."
+
+"What time do birds get up? Is it _very_ early?"
+
+"It would do if you were out at three this time of the year, or even at
+four."
+
+"Well, let's do it!"
+
+"Oh, I don't think I shall," said Harry.
+
+He looked at Valentia.
+
+She answered--
+
+"You might make a sketch, you know, of the early birds getting up to
+catch the worms. But--I don't think I shall. Anyhow, not _to-morrow_ at
+_half-past three_."
+
+"All right," said Harry with a nod, "we won't. Don't tell Daphne, or
+she'll be out at 3.15 to the tick, to take a snapshot of the dawn."
+
+"A snapshot of the dawn! Wouldn't that be sacrilege?"
+
+"Young girls are always inclined to that. They're so prosaic," said
+Harry, getting up. "I must go and see what Van is doing."
+
+He walked away with his usual quick, supple step and casual bearing.
+They watched his slim figure as he went. Then Romer followed him,
+slowly.
+
+Vaughan turned to Valentia and said: "I shouldn't if I were you."
+
+"Wouldn't what?"
+
+"Why, meet Harry at half-past three to-morrow morning in the rose
+garden."
+
+"Good gracious! I never thought of doing such a thing. Besides, it was
+your idea.... As a matter of fact, I really assure you it wouldn't be
+here. It would be in the orchard if anywhere. There is the loveliest
+cherry-tree there, with a seat all round it."
+
+"How jolly! I'd like to see it. Will you give me the key?"
+
+"Who told you it was kept locked?"
+
+She looked rather annoyed.
+
+"You did, but not intentionally."
+
+"I don't see that you have really any right to suppose----Why
+shouldn't I go in my own orchard, at any hour I like?"
+
+"But, Val--of course you ought to go in your own orchard. But why don't
+you meet Romer there?"
+
+"Oh, Gillie, really!..."
+
+"He is so straight, so good-looking, and, under all that manner, he's
+exactly like Vesuvius. Yes. Fancy, you're living with a volcano and you
+don't appreciate it!"
+
+"Gillie, it's really rather stupid of you to put things like that. It
+isn't a question of liking either one person _or_ another. If Romer were
+ill, or anything like that, don't you _know_----"
+
+"I know you'd devote yourself to him, like a sister or a mother. You'd
+put Harry aside for a time as a pleasure that mustn't be indulged in.
+Now that's just where you're wrong. No! _I_ want to see you being ever
+so good and kind to dear Harry as a duty to a ne'er-do-well of a cousin;
+and regarding Romer----"
+
+She did not answer.
+
+"My point is," he went on, "that it's really too distressingly
+conventional of you to suppose that because you happen to be legally
+married there can be no sort of romance. Only comradeship, or perhaps
+affectionate sentiment? That's what you believe."
+
+"Isn't it always so?"
+
+"Most often, I grant. That's generally through the man's point of view.
+But Romer is an exception. He's as much in love as if he had no hope of
+ever being within a mile of you."
+
+She seemed rather flattered. "Do you really think so? But even that
+isn't everything."
+
+"Oh, there's a great deal to be done with Romer," was Vaughan's reply.
+
+He spoke with dreamy significance, and she was silent. Then she
+exclaimed, turning round suddenly--
+
+"I suppose what you really mean is that Harry doesn't care a bit about
+me?"
+
+"No, I don't. But he cares a bit about a lot of people, and things. He's
+superficial, and he has no courage."
+
+"No courage? _Harry!_"
+
+"He'd crumble up in a crisis if a strong man took him in hand."
+
+"That's all nonsense." She was growing angry. "Hasn't he been up in an
+aeroplane, and done--oh, all sorts of things? I call Harry daring and
+brave!"
+
+"That's all vanity. All that is show and vanity. Oh, Valentia, do
+forgive me."
+
+"I'll try.... here he is."
+
+He was seen coming towards them again. Her anger flickered out at once.
+
+"I suppose he thinks we've been here long enough," she said, smiling as
+women do at such symptoms.
+
+"Of course he does. Vanity--just vanity." Vaughan strolled away.
+
+"Look here! What were you two talking about?"
+
+"Nothing. About you, Harry."
+
+"Rubbish. What was he talking about?"
+
+"You, only you."
+
+"I can't see that that chap's so brilliant! It seems to me he's just
+like anybody else. And his work shows it too, really. No soul, no real
+heart in it. All from the outside."
+
+"Nonsense, Harry, nobody is more kind-hearted, more----"
+
+"Look here, Val, I won't have it. Do you hear?"
+
+"Have what, Harry?"
+
+He lowered his voice. "I won't have it. You must go back. It isn't that
+_I_ mind. But Romer will soon think it extraordinary, your sitting out
+alone so long."
+
+"No, he won't."
+
+"All right then, he won't. He must be an ass," said Harry angrily. "I
+don't know what he's thinking of. Hasn't he got eyes?"
+
+"Yes, of course he has."
+
+"And eyelids too," said Harry. "I dare say he pretends not to see that
+Vaughan admires you. Too indolent to bother about it."
+
+"Really. Harry--you go too far. Are you thinking of pointing it out?"
+
+She got up.
+
+"One second," said Harry pleadingly. "It's cruel of you to go now."
+
+"I thought you said we'd better get back?"
+
+"Your hands look so lovely by this light," he spoke in his softest
+voice.
+
+"We really must go."
+
+"Then at half-past three. I'll bring my sketchbook. Do you know where
+the key is? Perhaps you've lost it. You are so dreadfully careless." He
+now spoke in the tone of a reproving husband.
+
+"I've got it. Do you think we'd better? I'm rather tired. Shall you be
+able to wake?"
+
+Harry turned away.
+
+"All right, it doesn't matter, Val. I shall be going soon, and then----"
+
+She followed him quickly.
+
+"No, no, Harry. Of course."
+
+He gave her a grateful look. They joined the group on the little
+verandah in front of the house. Van Buren was sitting in the corner and
+seemed in the depths of depression. From the windows could be heard once
+more strains of music. Daphne was playing an accompaniment. Muir had
+again begun the song, and got a little further into it--"_It is not
+because thy heart is mine, mine only, mine alone._" But Vaughan came up
+promptly and stopped it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+SEEING THE SUN RISE
+
+
+What a delicate air there was in the garden! There had been a little
+rain in the night, but Valentia supposed it to be dew. Every little
+sound seemed the softest music, to the sound of which little dainty
+things seemed to be dancing in the air. The Green Gate, a red Georgian
+house, seen in the early glamour with all its blinds down, except one,
+seemed like a thing half asleep with one eye open.
+
+For a moment she was a little frightened. He was late. She had perhaps
+got up for nothing. But no, it was worth it. It was lovely here.
+
+Another eye of the house slowly opened, and soon Romeo, or Paolo, or
+Faust, appeared. True, he was disguised as a flannelled fool, with a
+sketch-book under his arm. But it _was_ Faust, or Romeo, or Paolo, all
+the same. He looked very handsome. The thought of scoring off other
+people in the house had raised his spirits and had even made him wake up
+in time. Valentia's conversation with Vaughan, whom she knew to be
+honest and believed to be brilliant, had left a certain insidious
+influence on her which would tell gradually, and yet their talk had had
+rather a contradictory effect for the moment. She wanted to prove to
+herself that he was wrong. And Harry felt that his time was growing
+short. Very soon he must put an end to it all.
+
+This thought made him more affectionate. It occurred to him for a moment
+that he would tell her in the orchard; but, of course, he didn't. Every
+day he thought he would tell her, and something always happened to
+prevent it. Besides, there would have to be a quarrel anyhow at the end,
+so why make it longer than necessary?
+
+They sat down under the cherry-tree.
+
+"Fancy you, Valentia, a minion of the moon, rising before dawn! Let me
+look at you. You fill me with wonder and joy."
+
+"Did you mind getting up _very_ much, Harry?"
+
+"It _was_ rather hard. Listen!... That's a thrush, making a scene with
+another thrush in the tree."
+
+"Is it? How do you know?"
+
+"Of course it is! How do _you_ know things? How did you know exactly
+what to wear, Val? I knew you had clothes for every possible occasion;
+but still, to choose the _exact_ right dress to put on to meet your
+cousin at dawn in the orchard seems--well, rather extraordinary. Pinkish
+blue--or is it bluish pink?--to match the sky. How jolly! It fastens in
+front."
+
+"Well, of course I couldn't expect Ogburn to get up in the middle of the
+night."
+
+"And no hatpins for once, thank goodness."
+
+"Well, if we _sat up_ till now I shouldn't be wearing a hat, should I?"
+
+"Don't argue. It's too early."
+
+"It isn't really early. It's very late."
+
+"Oh, Val! You're being logical."
+
+He took her hands and looked at them, and quoted--
+
+    "_They are pale with the pallor of ivories,
+    But they blush at the tips like a curved sea-shell._"
+
+"Oh, Harry!"
+
+He was thinking. He looked almost miserable. "I don't see--I must
+admit--how I shall ever be able to leave your hands!"
+
+She looked at him suspiciously.
+
+"Why should you? What do you mean?"
+
+"Nothing. I only meant I couldn't...."
+
+"Oh!"
+
+"What's that?... Some one coming along the lawn."
+
+"Doesn't it sound curious?" she said--"so _rustly_!"
+
+"Who can it be? Surely your friend Vaughan couldn't get up at this
+hour."
+
+"Nonsense! Of course not. They're coming here." She jumped up.
+
+"Go and open the gate at once," said Harry, giving her the key. "I'll
+wait here a minute." While she obeyed he used a good deal of language.
+He now felt that he would give all he possessed to keep her there five
+minutes longer.
+
+"Fancy! It's Romer!" exclaimed Valentia. "He hasn't seen me yet."
+
+"Go to him at _once_. Tell him you got up to see the sun rise. I'll come
+directly and join you. Oh, confound it! _Do_ look sharp. Seem pleased to
+see him." He spoke in a harsh tone of command.
+
+She ran to meet Romer, saying jokingly, "Fancy meeting you!"
+
+"I thought you'd be here. I went to your room and found you were out.
+Thought I'd get up early."
+
+"I'm so glad. _Isn't_ it lovely and worth seeing here? Come and pick
+some fruit in the orchard."
+
+"No, thanks."
+
+"Oh, _do_! Harry's devouring gooseberries. He's sketching the sky."
+
+"Why doesn't Harry come?" said Romer.
+
+He had no expression, and it was always impossible to guess by his
+looks or his tone what he was thinking or feeling, except when he
+smiled.
+
+"Here he is."
+
+Harry joined them.
+
+"Good gracious, old boy! Who in the world--! What on earth made you come
+out so early?"
+
+Romer now smiled and looked at Valentia admiringly.
+
+"Gardener's not up yet. Thought perhaps I'd mow the lawn," he said
+apologetically.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+"REPLY PAID"
+
+
+Valentia had been hurt at the tone in which Harry had given his orders,
+and turned from him to help to find the mowing-machine.
+
+"Doesn't she look jolly at sunrise? All that pink and mauve in the sky
+tones in so well. It seems to suit her. That's how she really should be
+painted," said Harry, in the tone of an artist admiring his model.
+"Don't you think so?"
+
+"Yes," said Romer.
+
+"She looks like a golden rose," Harry went on. He wanted to please Val,
+who he saw was annoyed with him, and to emphasise the openness of his
+admiration to Romer. "Doesn't she?"
+
+"Quite," said her husband.
+
+Harry felt the morning was spoilt and the situation absurd. He could not
+bear to be thwarted in any way. He went back to his own room, bounced
+angrily on to his bed, and went to sleep again, after having seen
+Valentia through the window helping to push the mower, and saying to
+himself--
+
+"How like a woman! I shall go up to town with Van Buren and send a wire
+to Alec."
+
+This was his revenge.
+
+Their momentary fears about Romer were completely dissipated. He seemed
+exactly as usual. As a rule he was even-tempered. Not many people had
+seen him put out, though he could be very angry, except with Valentia.
+During this day he seemed, for him, a little irritable. Perhaps, Val
+thought, through getting up too early.
+
+Harry went up to town with Van Buren for the day, intending to return
+the same evening. He soon recovered himself in the course of copious
+confidences in the train. As soon as he had arrived in London he began
+to count the minutes before he should go back.
+
+Valentia expected the elder Mrs. Wyburn to lunch.
+
+"What shall we do with her to-day?" Val asked Daphne. "She must be kept
+in a good temper, because it's the last time she'll come down before
+going to Bournemouth. It's rather a pity they've all gone. Romer is sure
+to say the wrong thing to her--let out some trifle that we have been
+carefully concealing for months--praise up Harry, or something."
+
+"Doesn't she like Harry?"
+
+"Since he went to see her she likes him for herself, but not for me."
+
+"What cheek! But he's not here."
+
+"No, if he were she might like him again all right. Then, Romer talks
+too slowly for her. Her mind works quicker than his, and one can only
+deal with him by racing on in front, and turning round to beckon. With
+Mrs. Wyburn there are only two things that are any use--dash and
+volubility. It's difficult to keep the thing going when she's alone with
+us."
+
+"Well, why not pass the time this afternoon by returning the Campbells'
+visit, and take Mrs. Wyburn with us to 'The Angles'?" Daphne suggested.
+
+"Oh no! It's treating them almost like royalty to go so soon. And
+there's the Belgian man."
+
+"Doesn't she like Belgians then, Val?"
+
+"I've never asked her. Only, don't you see, it isn't that but the
+Belgian is what Harry calls a blighter--a beano-blighter; and so is Mrs.
+Wyburn, and it doesn't do to have two beano-blighters in the same
+party."
+
+"Ah, I see; they'd clash. What _is_ a beano-blighter exactly, Val?"
+
+"A person who blights beanos. Who makes every one a little
+uncomfortable, casts a gloom over entertainments--has to be taken in
+hand and dealt with separately from the others--doesn't blend, you
+know."
+
+"You mean some one who isn't the life and soul of the party?"
+
+"No, I don't. That's almost as bad in its way. In fact, the
+life-and-soul-of-the-party person casts almost as great a gloom on the
+rest as a blighter."
+
+"Oh dear! Yes, I see."
+
+"We must meet her at the station in the motor. I shall put on my blue
+serge and my plain sailor. She mustn't see me in the garden without a
+hat, nor in a real one. You do the same, Daphne."
+
+"But my sailor's too large in the head, and that makes it fall over my
+eyes, and that gives it a Frenchy look, like _L'Art et la Mode_,"
+protested Daphne.
+
+"Stuff it with paper. Here's the _Bystander_."
+
+"Oh, isn't it a pity? There's such a pretty picture of----"
+
+"Oh, don't bother."
+
+Mrs. Wyburn was gracious to-day, and all was going well when, about
+half-past five, a telegram, reply paid, was brought. It was addressed to
+Harry.
+
+"What shall we do?"
+
+"Why, keep it till he comes. He'll be back to dinner," Romer said.
+
+"Suppose it's something urgent," said Val, seeming a little agitated.
+"Don't you think perhaps we ought to open it? He won't mind."
+
+"You can't. It's addressed to Harry," said Romer.
+
+Mrs. Wyburn's quick eyes took in some signs of tension, but she
+continued giving them advice about the garden. She thought the flowers
+too florid, and was always a little shocked at the extravagant scent and
+exuberance of the roses. She seemed to think they should be kept more in
+their place--not allowed to climb all over the house, and romp or lean
+about the garden doing just what they liked. She had winced in the
+drawing-room, relented in the dining-room, and refrained, really, only
+in the kitchen, that she had insisted upon seeing. It was the only room
+to the decoration of which she gave whole-hearted praise and approval.
+The cooking at the Green Gate she admitted to be perfect, without
+pretension. In fact, she thought everything in the house a little
+overdone, except the mutton.
+
+"I can't think who that wire can be from," Val said several times to
+Daphne when her mother-in-law had gone. She meant that she could think.
+
+"Well, you'll know directly. Harry's arriving."
+
+Harry found it in the hall, and came in with it.
+
+"You open it for me," he said, giving it to Val.
+
+Since his last instructions to Alec he felt perfectly safe.
+
+She read--
+
+     "_Thousand thanks awfully bucked at letter at Queens' Hotel Cowes
+     for three days could you join us there wire reply fondest love and
+     kisses._
+
+                                                  _Johnson_."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+GLADYS
+
+
+On arriving in London, Vaughan found his secretary with the usual
+heaps of letters. One envelope, addressed in a large and rather
+infantine hand, was put aside for him. The note ran--
+
+                                         "The Baldfaced Stag,
+                                              Edgware.
+
+     "Dear Mr. Vaughan,
+
+     "I eard only yesterday that the play you kindly sent me and mother
+     to was wrote by you, I call it a shame you didn't tell me before,
+     we saw the name on the programme, but never thought it could be the
+     same but yesterday mother saw a piece in the paper about you in the
+     weekly dispatch and she said it was the same, I'm sory I said the
+     people in the play went on silly I beg pardon for calling the play
+     silly I wouldnt have done it if Id known, so hope youre not angry,
+     they seemed to me to go on silly, but I dont reelly know much
+     about those kind of ladies and gentlemen, we saw the piece in the
+     paper only yesterday and mother said it was the same, we hope you
+     will soon come again to tea the calf is better believe me yours
+     truly
+
+                                      "GLADIS ADELAIDE BRILL."
+
+He instantly wrote back--
+
+     "Dear Miss Brill,
+
+     "I am _so_ relieved and thankful to hear the calf is better, all
+     the more because I had no idea it had been indisposed. I fancied,
+     though, it was looking a little pale the last time I had the
+     pleasure of meeting it in the field. Please don't think again of
+     your criticism. It gave me very great pleasure. You must think me
+     very foolish. You could say nothing that I would not like except to
+     ask me not to come and see you. I am very busy just now and so have
+     little time for afternoon calls, but will come one of these days
+     soon.
+
+                                          "Yours always,
+                                    "GILBERT HEREFORD VAUGHAN."
+
+
+
+He waited a moment, and then added--
+
+     "I will turn up to-morrow at four. Try not to forget me till then."
+
+For the rest of the day he was in high spirits. The letter seemed to
+keep him up through the various little bothers of the day. He had been
+going to France for the summer. He admitted to himself that this
+semi-flirtation was keeping him in England. He didn't like the idea of
+going away very long from the possibility of turning up at the
+"Bald-faced Stag."
+
+The explanation Harry gave about Johnson's telegram satisfied Valentia
+for the time, as he declined the invitation to Cowes, but the incident
+left an uneasy feeling in Val's mind. She could not bear to own to
+herself that he was deceiving her, and he hadn't the courage to give it
+away yet, not that he cared so very much about hurting her, but he was
+happier at the Green Gate than anywhere else. He liked the house, the
+atmosphere, and Romer; but what kept him most was, of course, that
+curious charm Valentia had for him, which was perhaps stronger than ever
+because he knew that the end was not far off. He often thought he was a
+fool not to have taken the opportunity to break it off on this occasion.
+He couldn't stand the idea of not seeing her, just because of the way
+her hair grew on her forehead! So low, and in such thick waves! Alec
+Walmer's hair, also fair, was thin and unmeaning. She had a low
+forehead, and yet the hair began high up. In the evening when it was
+carefully arranged, and the iron had entered into it, it looked like a
+stiff transformation, even worse than when left to nature.
+
+But of course, in spite of the reconciliation, a residue of mistrust
+remained, and on his side a sensation of restlessness which left him
+irritable; less amiable and pleasant than usual.
+
+They were sitting on the little terrace. He was smoking and reading the
+paper. He suddenly threw it down and said--
+
+"How quiet you are, Val! Why don't you talk?"
+
+"I don't think I've got anything to say."
+
+"You seem depressed," he said, rather aggressively.
+
+"I feel a little depressed."
+
+Harry gave expression to the usual injustice of the unfaithful.
+
+"What a mistake women make in being gloomy! How foolish it is. Shall I
+tell you the key of the whole situation between men and women?"
+
+"Do."
+
+"Well, dear, it's just--a _smile_. Never be dull, never be ill, never be
+depressed. Be gay--always gay. That's what men like--that's the one
+thing that they go out for and come in for--a smile."
+
+"Your ideal of a woman seems to be a Cheshire cat," she answered,
+looking rather amused. "Your motto is, like the man in _The Arcadians_:
+Always Merry and Bright. Well, I'm sure there's a good deal in it. But
+I'm not usually accused of being a dreary person."
+
+"Of course you're not; you're charming, lively, amusing, sympathetic.
+That's your great attraction, Val. But the last few days you seem rather
+to have lost it."
+
+"You can hardly resent my feeling a little down, Harry. One or two
+little things that have happened lately have made me anxious."
+
+"Never be anxious. You ought to trust, trust--always trust."
+
+"Oh, that's all very well! That wire...."
+
+"Are we going to have that all over again? I thought I'd explained." He
+assumed the air of a patient martyr.
+
+"I know you _explained_ all right. Well, I won't think about it any
+more. Don't be horrid, Harry.... Have you seen this week's _Punch_?
+There's something in it simply _too_ heavenly--such a joke! Let me read
+it to you."
+
+"It's very sweet of you--but do you ever realise----I wonder if it's
+ever struck you, Val, that men aren't always in the mood for heavenly
+jokes? There are times when one likes to think--to see life as it is--to
+discuss abstract things, even."
+
+"Oh! Well ... what do you think of Daphne's dress? Isn't it pretty? It
+was made by Ogburn, all out of nothing, in no time."
+
+He looked at Daphne, who was sitting under a tree reading Cyril's last
+letter over again.
+
+"It's all right. It suits _her_. I don't call _that_ a serious subject."
+
+"What subject would you like, then?"
+
+"Well--Romer, for instance. Where is he?"
+
+"Talking to the gardener about mowing. Do you want him? I'll call him if
+you like."
+
+"Dear Val, it's not quite like you to be ironical to _me_.... You ought
+not to laugh at Romer either. I'm complex, perhaps--I know I am; but it
+jars on me when you do that."
+
+She stared at him.
+
+"Look here--I know I'm tiresome," said Harry, returning to his usual
+caressing manner. "Don't take any notice of it. It's--the weather, I
+think, or want of exercise. I'll go and improvise a little."
+
+He pushed back his chair, and, with a parting look of forgiveness, he
+went into the house and began to improvise (rather dismally) a
+well-known funeral march. Or perhaps it was only a coincidence. Perhaps
+he would have thought of it if Chopin hadn't.
+
+Harry was only musical by fits and starts, and generally either to
+impress some one or because he was out of temper. Val never regarded it
+as a good sign when he grappled with the Steinway.
+
+In ten minutes he had grown tired of his mood of melody, and strolled
+into the rose garden with a book.
+
+Yes, certainly Harry was restless.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+THE ANGLES
+
+
+"You're very quiet, Val," remarked Daphne, as they flew along in the
+motor on their way to call on the Prebendary's wife at The Angles.
+
+Both sisters wore little cottage bonnets, blue motor-veils, and large
+loose white coats with high collars.
+
+"How can I talk when we're exceeding the speed limit?" said Valentia.
+
+"You usually do. Is anything the matter?"
+
+"No, nothing at all.... Harry's been horrid lately."
+
+"I suppose he _is_ occasionally."
+
+"No, he's not. He's got the artistic temperament, and of course he can't
+always be the same, poor dear."
+
+"What a pity one can't be an artist without having the artistic
+temperament! It always seems to mean being late for meals, and losing
+your temper, or being amusing when every one wants to go to bed."
+
+"As a matter of fact," said Valentia, "I never knew any one with less of
+it than Harry. There isn't a more hard-headed business man in the world
+in his way, though he _has_ read poetry and plays the piano sometimes,
+and paints. He is an artist too ... but--well, not in any of the
+recognised arts.... I hear Miss Luscombe and Rathbone--I mean Mr. and
+Mrs. Rathbone--have gone to Oberammergau for their honeymoon."
+
+"Oh! Is that the latest thing to do?"
+
+"Of course not, Daphne, but she thinks it is. Miss Luscombe has spent
+her life in trying to catch the last omnibus and always just missing it,
+and she's not going to leave off now just because she happens to be
+married. Here we are!"
+
+The Prebendary's wife received them very graciously. Her waist looked
+longer than ever, and her skirt seemed more than usually abnormal in
+width. She did all that she could to entertain them. She showed them her
+son Garstin's map of Buckinghamshire, and then said--
+
+"I'll send for Mr. Stoendyck. He's upstairs inventing. You can't _think_
+how clever he is and how hard he works. It's really wonderful! We often
+leave him alone for hours to think things out, and sometimes he plays
+sonatas; he says it refreshes him. He really is an extraordinary man."
+
+Mr. Stoendyck came in, looking very martial and scientific and pleased
+with himself, as though he had just invented gunpowder. Mrs. Campbell
+began as usual to talk baby language, and play a kind of Dumb Crambo at
+him. He never seemed able to guess the word.
+
+"I hope we haven't interrupted you in your studies," said Val politely.
+
+"She say she ope she not interrupt. Work, you know. Oeuvre--Arbeit."
+
+"I was just amusing myself with the very witty paper from Germany,
+_Kladderadatsch_. It is very funny," he said.
+
+"It sounds funny," said Val sympathetically.
+
+"What I find in England is that you're all wonderfully serious,
+wonderfully courteous, wonderfully kind"--he bowed to his hostess; "but,
+you'll excuse my saying so, I don't find enough wit or lightness for my
+temperament. For humour I have to go to Belgium or Germany."
+
+He spoke with intense solemnity.
+
+Mrs. Campbell now began to translate him even to himself.
+
+"You say you like fun, wit--just fun to make laugh?" She made strange
+signs with her fingers.
+
+He did not appear to understand the code. He stared at her with a frown,
+and rasped on seriously--
+
+"I find a few comical jokes occasionally a great relief after my heavy
+work. It is very deep work."
+
+"I suppose it would be indiscreet to ask what the invention is?" said
+Valentia, smiling.
+
+"Not at all. There is nothing indiscreet whatever in your curiosity,
+Mrs. Wyburn."
+
+He took a scone covered with butter and swallowed it in an
+extraordinarily short time, and in an ingenious manner.
+
+"No, there's no indiscretion in the matter at all. Do not trouble
+yourself on that score. It is merely the natural interest that a
+cultivated and intellectual English lady would naturally take when she
+hears of an extraordinary invention from another country." He bowed, and
+having thus explained her to herself, he then ate another scone.
+
+"She say she want to know, you know," nodded Mrs. Campbell, putting up a
+playful and threatening finger with dignified coquetry and a stony
+smile. (She was subject to fits of this kind of marble archness
+unexpectedly.)
+
+"Yes. So I understood."
+
+The Belgian was looking at Daphne with distinct admiration. Of course
+Miss Campbell came and sat down beside him. Women always follow their
+instinct to come and sit on the other side of any man whom they regard
+as their property. They seem to think that merely by sitting on the
+other side they protect him from freebooters. As a matter of fact, it
+would be more sensible, if to distract his attention were the object, to
+sit opposite with some one else.
+
+Mr. Stoendyck turned his back on her completely, and said to Daphne--
+
+"Very charming, those motor-veils, and the whole costume. At the same
+time, while being thoroughly practical and sensible, it is, if I may say
+so, extremely becoming."
+
+He bowed with a condescending air, and went on--
+
+"The English young girl--at least, such specimens as I have seen in the
+neighbourhood, especially in the country--seems to me a wonderfully
+beautiful object. In Belgium we are getting on, but we have not reached,
+as yet, the point of freedom combined with modesty that you constantly
+see over here. Particularly, as I say, in rural districts."
+
+He then made what can only be described, vulgarly, as a distinct 'eye.'
+
+Both the Campbells looked uneasy.
+
+"The Prebendary will be in soon," said Mrs. Campbell. "He promised
+faithfully to come back to tea to-day. He also is a very busy man. He
+come in soon," she spoke reassuringly.
+
+Daphne was suddenly taken with a _fou rire_ and began to laugh
+helplessly. Val, seeing her condition, and knowing that when she once
+started there was no hope but in immediate flight, took leave.
+
+They were cordially asked to come again by Mrs. Campbell. But Mr.
+Stoendyck invited them to lunch, and wanted to fix a day and hour. Mrs.
+Campbell, however, declined his invitation for them. Mrs. Wyburn, she
+said, must have a great many engagements.
+
+They left Stoendyck standing in the hall, looking sentimental.
+
+"All foreigners not of the Latin race go on like that," said Val, as
+they drove back. "They may be scientific, or soldiers, philosophers, or
+musicians, but if they're Germans or Belgians or Austrians, or anything
+of that sort, they always get bowled over by a young girl, a blue
+ribbon, plumpness, or fair hair."
+
+"But I'm very thin and dark," said Daphne angrily.
+
+"I don't care if you are. You're a pretty girl, you're unmarried, you've
+got blue chiffon round your head--and there it is.... I don't mean
+Prussian officers, of course."
+
+"_They_ would appreciate _you_, I suppose you mean!"
+
+"One can't say. They'd probably take on anything."
+
+Valentia took out the little looking-glass from her motor-bag, looked at
+it, put it back, and added--
+
+"Anything possible, I mean."
+
+"Go on, Val."
+
+"Go on how?"
+
+"Telling me things. You're so interesting, you know such a lot. Now,
+about the Latin races--wouldn't they like--er--me?"
+
+"Of course they would. But they'd like you better if you were married to
+Cyril or any one. Frenchmen and Italians always want their love-making
+or flirtations to have something in it of the nature of a _score_. They
+love scoring off a third person, whoever it may be,--whether it's their
+friend's wife, or their wife's friend, or anything."
+
+"They're not sincere, then?"
+
+"Don't be silly. If they weren't sincere, why are there nothing but
+unwritten-law crimes all over France and Italy? And why do Parisians
+think and talk of ... nothing else! They're _sincere_ all right: it's
+their hobby. Italians, of course, are more jealous and faithful, and
+Parisians are frightfully vain--there's a good deal of a sort of
+snobbism about it. They love to show off. That's why they're so keen on
+dress."
+
+"Do you think," said Daphne, with sudden anxiety, "that if you don't
+dress to perfection you can't keep a man's love? I _do_ hope not! I mean
+because when I'm married to Cyril I shan't be able to afford to wear
+anything at all, except a clean blouse which I shall have to iron out
+myself, like in _Hearth and Home_."
+
+Valentia shook her head.
+
+"Dressing to perfection doesn't make men love you, silly. It only makes
+women hate you. And I never have yet seen the advantage of that."
+
+"Oh, then, do Parisians want other women to hate you?" asked Daphne. Her
+sister hesitated.
+
+"Sometimes. Very often they don't. They want you to be admired by other
+people, whoever they are, men or women. But in Paris dress counts in a
+different sort of way--it means more--it stands for more. Oh, don't
+bother!"
+
+"Well, give me a straightforward Englishman!" exclaimed Daphne.
+
+"Yes, indeed!" replied Val. "That Belgian Herr, anyhow, doesn't count. I
+can't think why Mrs. Preb. and Miss Campbell are so much in love with
+him."
+
+"Isn't it funny? Why do you think it is, Val?"
+
+"Perhaps it's because he's a man. You see, they're accustomed to
+curates."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI
+
+AT EDGWARE
+
+
+Miss Brill had twisted up her hair and put on her Sunday dress to
+receive Vaughan.
+
+To harmonise with the Dickens's garden it ought to have been white
+muslin with flounces and a pink sash. But it was a quite long, dark blue
+Liberty satin, made by a smart dressmaker in the Finchley Road. It had a
+high collar, an Empire waist, and gathers.
+
+Her mother was delighted with it. Gladys had not been quite satisfied
+herself, and had tried to tie it in round the ankles with concealed
+string, to make it look more like a nobble skirt, as she called it.
+
+Her almost too abundant hair had been piled over a pad, which gave her
+the appearance of having a swollen head. Yet even so she looked lovely,
+rather like an old-fashioned picture in the Academy of _I'se Gan'ma_, or
+something of the kind, suggesting a baby disguised as a
+grown-up-person.
+
+Vaughan went through the usual ritual of asking after Mrs. Brill--he
+rather hurried Mr. Brill over his remark about the finest woman one
+would see in a day's march--then admired the weather, ordered tea, and
+asked for Miss Brill.
+
+Gladys came and sat down with a rather shy, self-conscious air.
+
+She soon lost it, however, and began to get natural again.
+
+"Oh, Mr. Vaughan! I _never_ was more surprised than I was at that piece
+in the paper! And mother come over quite queer, she was so surprised.
+You were kind in your letter to forgive me for being rude. Who'd ever
+have thought you was clever?"
+
+"Who, indeed! But, Gladys, why this get-up? Why are you dressed up in
+satin and dark colours on a summer day?"
+
+"Why, mother said a nice navy blue was always useful. I'd rather have
+had a Cambridge blue myself. Mother says navy blue's so ladylike. Don't
+you like it?"
+
+"Charming. But I don't like what you've done to your hair."
+
+"Don't you, though? Fancy! Well, I don't seem to care much for it
+myself. It's a Pompadour, you know--a pad."
+
+"Take it off," said Vaughan.
+
+"Oh, I can't!"
+
+"All right, _I_ will. Come in the field."
+
+"Well, I don't mind if you do. I'll say I took my hair down because it
+was heavy."
+
+"You've tried to spoil yourself, but you haven't succeeded. Why did you
+do it, Gladys?"
+
+"Seeing you was clever, I thought pr'aps I'd better try to look more
+grown-up."
+
+"Ah! what a mistake! Your great charm is that you're such a regular
+J.F."
+
+"What's that?"
+
+"A _jeune fille_."
+
+"What does that mean? What's a J.F. in English?"
+
+"A jolly flapper."
+
+"Oh, I say!"
+
+       *     *     *     *     *
+
+In the field Vaughan, with several interruptions and reproaches for
+being a caution, managed to take the pad off her head and to throw it in
+the field. But an unfortunate thing happened. All the corn-coloured hair
+fell down over his face and he had kissed her--by accident--before he
+knew it.
+
+"Oh, I say! You are a caution!" was her only remark. But she did not
+laugh, and as she hastily did a little amateur coiffing, he thought she
+looked slightly annoyed. At any rate, she hadn't much more to say to
+him, and he went back to London almost immediately, feeling quite
+absurdly agitated about such an unimportant trifle.
+
+       *     *     *     *     *
+
+An hour later, when quietly at home in his study, Vaughan was suddenly
+seized by that species of madness that has been known to wreck careers, "to
+launch a thousand ships," to cause all kinds of chaos. It was that terrible
+_once-on-board-the-lugger-and-the-girl-is-mine-I-must-and-shall-possess-her_
+feeling in its most acute form. Most men have known it at some time in
+their lives. He thought of Harry de Freyne, and felt noble and superior
+in contrast to what _his_ conduct would have been, as he sat down and
+wrote with intense pleasure--
+
+     "Darling Gladys,
+
+     "I love you. Will you marry me? Please try. I'm writing to your
+     father. Don't keep me waiting long for the answer.
+
+                                            "Yours for always,
+                                                "GILLIE."
+
+He then wrote a long and sensible letter to Mr. Brill; all business,
+respect, and urgency, saying he knew that Gladys was very young, but
+that he would make her happy, and so forth.
+
+These two letters he sent off by express messenger in a taxicab to the
+"Bald-faced Stag," and then sat down to dinner.
+
+What a dinner! And what an evening he spent! He planned a long
+journey--what fun to show the child new places and things! Why shouldn't
+he marry the charming, refined, and beautiful daughter of an
+hotel-keeper? He decided even on alterations in the house, and he meant
+to be ecstatically happy.
+
+What did he care for people? He had never lived either to _epater_ the
+_bourgeois_ or to satisfy the ideal of the gentleman next door. He was
+going to do something _he_ liked!...
+
+       *     *     *     *     *
+
+He woke up the next morning at six o'clock with a ghastly chilly horror
+on him. What had he done? Had he been mad? To marry Miss Brill, the
+daughter of the landlord of a little suburban public-house! A girl of
+sixteen, pretty enough certainly, but with no pretensions to being a
+lady, no possibility of having anything in common with him. But it
+wasn't so much the question of what people would say--of course, most of
+the women he knew would drop him, and the men would laugh at him and
+make love to her--but, how long would it last? How long would this
+strange mania endure? Perhaps not a week. The poor child would have an
+awful time, too. She was much happier as she was.
+
+Well! He was a sportsman, and had taken the risk. He must wait now. At
+the back of his mind he was wondering how he could get out of it.
+
+He had not to wait long. His letters were answered by the first post.
+Evidently, the "Bald-faced Stag" had been kept up late that night to
+reply in time.
+
+Gladys wrote very respectfully that she was very sorry she hadn't told
+him before, but she was privately engaged to the son of the landlord of
+the Green Man at Stanmore: the Eldest Son, she wrote with pride (as
+though he would inherit the title). She was awfully sorry. Besides, she
+was going to be a manicure, first, for two years, and then settle down
+at Stanmore. Her fiance was twenty-one. She hoped Mr. Vaughan would come
+over to tea very soon, and she thought his letter was very kind, and
+remained his truly, Gladys Brill.
+
+Mr. Brill had written a long and slightly rambling letter which
+suggested rough copies and even some assistance from the old vintages of
+the "Bald-faced Stag." He refused most firmly, though thoroughly
+sensible of the honour done him by Mr. Vaughan's offer, but he couldn't
+go back on his word to his friend at the Green Man. The arrangement had
+been made, when Gladys and the son were in their cradles, by him and
+his pal of the Green Man and he couldn't go back on his word. And Gladys
+liked the young chap; and it was a great honour, indeed, that Mr.
+Vaughan had done them, and it would have been splendid for Gladys in the
+worldly sense. But there! it was better, perhaps, not to mix up
+Stations. Mr. Brill repeated this sentiment over and over again, always
+using a capital S for station--(as though Vaughan had expressed an
+insane desire to confuse Victoria with the Great Western). And he
+remained very respectfully, Tom Brill.
+
+"A manicure in Bond Street and then the landlady of a common country
+inn! Never! She shan't! I'll go down and persuade her. I'll make them
+come round."
+
+Vaughan was so hurt and disappointed that he felt he could never smile
+again.
+
+But he did.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII
+
+TENSION
+
+
+When the sisters came back from their drive Harry was sitting on the
+little marble terrace reading _Count Florio and Phillis K._ and smoking
+cigarettes. With almost conjugal unfairness he complained that Valentia
+always went out just before he arrived. In fact, he had begged her to
+get the visit over that afternoon, as he intended to be late.
+
+Valentia sat down and began a lively account of "The Angles," but he
+implored her not to describe those awful people at home, and
+particularly not to tell him anything about that poisonous Belgian. Then
+he told Val that blue didn't suit her, and, when she agreed with him,
+petulantly complained that she had no ideas of her own.
+
+"But I had an idea of my own; only now you say it's wrong."
+
+"So it is. But, even if it is wrong, you should stick to it. You should
+have more individuality."
+
+"What an awful word," she said.
+
+"What's the matter with the word?"
+
+"Nothing. It's so long."
+
+"You're talking nonsense, Valentia."
+
+"Well, why shouldn't I talk nonsense? I'm sure I've heard you say
+there's nothing so depressing as a woman with no nonsense about her."
+
+"I know. But there needn't be nothing else."
+
+"Harry, are you trying to quarrel? If so I'd better go away."
+
+"Oh, all right! Very well! Do as you like," said Harry. "It seems a
+curious way to treat a guest: to go out when you expect him, and then
+the moment you come in to make an excuse to leave him alone again. But
+please yourself!"
+
+He took up his book and turned away.
+
+Valentia went into the house, to her room, and sat down opposite the
+looking-glass with a sigh. It was at moments like these that she
+sometimes thought, with a slight reaction, of Romer. Romer was never
+capricious, never irritable, never trying. It was true that he rarely
+answered her except in monosyllables, but yet she knew that he delighted
+in and tacitly encouraged her fluency. He did not respond to every idea
+she expressed as Harry did (when Harry was in a good temper), but she
+knew she had no better audience. His extreme quietness might be
+admitted, occasionally, to cast a slight gloom, but negatively what
+enormous advantages his silence had! Romer never scolded, never laid
+down the law; never thought it necessary to give her long, minute,
+detailed accounts of his impressions of art, or life, or literature;
+never insisted on pointing out, as if it were a matter of life and
+death, precisely where he differed in his opinions of a book, a play, or
+an incident, from the criticisms in the daily papers. Nor did he refer
+to some annoying past incident half a dozen times a day as a sealed
+subject. He had other qualities. He could take tickets, he could sign
+cheques (and even seemed to like doing it). He could see about things.
+He wasn't selfish. Yes, Valentia thought, when she saw Harry at his
+worst, that perhaps she didn't really quite appreciate her husband. How
+irritating Harry would have been in that capacity!
+
+Daphne came in, and Valentia went on, as usual, with her thoughts aloud.
+
+"Wouldn't Harry be a maddening husband?" she said as she brushed out her
+hair.
+
+"Oh! Would he? In what way?"
+
+"He'd be so selfish, so obtrusive--he'd always want you to do exactly
+what he liked, just when he liked, and never when he didn't, or when you
+liked, I mean."
+
+"How could he like you to do what he liked when he didn't like? That
+would be expecting too much. I don't see what you mean, Val."
+
+"I only mean that when he's in a bad temper Harry's tiresome, and if he
+were married he'd be in one oftener."
+
+"Oh dear! Are most men bad-tempered when they're married, Val?"
+
+"Yes. Nearly always."
+
+"_What?_ Then, will Cyril ..."
+
+"Cyril's a pleasant, easy-going boy, but, as you won't have enough
+money, he's sure to be bad-tempered at times."
+
+"Then aren't married men bad-tempered when they have plenty of money,
+Val?"
+
+"Oh, if they have a great deal they're awfully bad-tempered, too;
+because, you see, then they lose it, or if they don't do that they're
+always trying to enjoy themselves with it and finding the enjoyment
+flat, and then they blame their wives. Besides, anyhow, having enough
+money leads to all sorts of complications."
+
+"Oh dear! Then what do you advise?" Daphne hung on Valentia's words,
+respecting her superior knowledge and experience.
+
+"Oh, I advise enough, anyhow. It can't make you happy, but it can avoid
+certain troubles. Love in a cottage is only all right for the week-end
+when you have a nice house in London as well, and a season ticket or a
+motor, and electric light and things, and a telephone. Oh, by the way,
+our telephone here is eating its head off. We never use it. Go and ring
+up to the grocer, not to forget to send the things, will you, dear? He's
+got a telephone, too--the only tradesman in the village who has."
+
+"What things isn't he to forget to send?"
+
+"How should I know?--the usual things. He never does forget, but it
+looks well to remind him, and the 'phone needs exercise."
+
+"All right. But before I go, Val--suppose you can't have the sort of
+love-in-a-cottage you mean, and there's no fear of your being so rich
+that it makes you miserable, what is the best thing to do?"
+
+"Why, I suppose the old business in the old novels, a competence with
+the man of your heart, would do all right."
+
+Daphne looked pleased.
+
+"For six months, anyhow. Or a year or two, perhaps," Val added.
+
+"Oh dear!" cried Daphne again, as she left the room.
+
+"Poor pet," Val murmured to herself. "I hope I'm not teaching her to be
+cynical."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII
+
+GOOD-BYE
+
+
+The only person in the family who did not thoroughly approve of Gladys's
+decision was her mother. Mrs. Brill thought it sheer madness to decline
+proposals of a 'gentleman from the West End,' as she called him; so
+clever and so rich, so handsome and so much in love. She was romantic
+and yet worldly in her views, and was much excited at the idea of the
+rivalry for her daughter. There were bitter scenes between Mr. and Mrs.
+Brill on the subject. Mr. Brill was not romantic nor worldly, but he was
+very sentimental, and he didn't hold with breaking his word to the Green
+Man, nor indeed with that mixing up of Stations to which he had already
+alluded.
+
+Between the opposing views of her parents Gladys became somewhat
+bewildered. She liked the son of the Green Man (he was in reality only a
+green boy, but good-looking, and she had always known him), and she
+wished to be loyal to him. Yet her mother's remarks about Mr. Vaughan
+began to appeal to her imagination, such as it was. She was rather
+dazzled and began to weaken. She was at the age when one can really be
+in love with anybody, and she was flattered. Though she felt she would
+feel more at home with her childhood's friend, she began, very slightly,
+to look down upon him when she compared him with Gillie.
+
+Vaughan came down the day after he had received her letter, and behaved
+precisely as usual.
+
+Mr. Brill, meeting him with a rather shamefaced air in the garden, said
+straightforwardly--
+
+"Very pleased indeed to see you, Mr. Vaughan. You got my letter, sir?"
+
+"Yes, indeed. To my sorrow. I want to talk to you about it."
+
+"Well, I was sorry to write it, sir, if you take my meaning. But there!
+Well, Mrs. Brill 'as expressed a wish for a few words with you, if you
+wouldn't mind."
+
+"I shall be delighted, of course. But--may I see Gladys?"
+
+"Why, yes, sir. Tea and bread and butter? The usual thing?"
+
+"Yes, please. As usual." Mr. Brill lingered.
+
+"Ave some watercress with it, sir," he added sympathetically, "or we've
+got some very nice little radishes. Ow about them?"
+
+Vaughan nearly laughed.
+
+"No, thank you! I'm afraid they wouldn't be any use to me, Mr. Brill."
+
+"Ha, ha! You will have your joke!"
+
+Mr. Brill went in and told his wife that Mr. Vaughan was "sitting there
+looking that miserable it was enough to make one's heart ache."
+
+With this satisfactory intelligence he sent Gladys into the garden.
+
+She was all blushes and shyness. Her hair had gone back into the long
+plait, and she wore her schoolgirl dress again.
+
+"You're too proud, Gladys!" he said reproachfully. "Why did you never
+tell me of your engagement?"
+
+"Why, I didn't ardly count it to interest you, Mr. Vaughan. Besides,
+it's not to be for two years."
+
+"Are you in love with him?"
+
+"Why, what a question! I _like_ him. He's a nice boy."
+
+"I suppose he's very much in love with you?"
+
+"Oh, he's all right."
+
+"That was a very cruel letter you wrote me, Gladys."
+
+"I was afraid you'd think it rude," she answered apologetically.
+
+"No, dear. It isn't rude to refuse a proposal. You can't accept them
+all, can you?"
+
+"You've made a wretched tea, Mr. Vaughan. Is there anything else you'd
+like?"
+
+"Yes, I want to go in the field again, like the day before yesterday."
+
+"Was it only the day before yesterday? So it was. A lot seems to ave
+appened since. Well, come along."
+
+She looked such an absolute child as she climbed the gate that Gillie
+felt almost ashamed of his proposal, and thought that probably her
+father was quite right.... But her face was so exactly like Sir Joshua
+Reynolds' angels' heads, she might have sat for them. She was too
+absurdly pretty. And sweet, too, he thought. She had no vulgar
+pretensions, she was simple. She only wanted a little polish. He could
+teach her everything necessary. No task could have been more
+congenial....
+
+"So you think I'm too old for you. Is that it?"
+
+"No, it isn't. It isn't that. It's what father told you."
+
+"Would you hate to go for a long journey with me, to see other places,
+other countries?"
+
+"Oh no; I'd like it. We went to Clacton last summer. It _was_ fun."
+
+He thought a little.
+
+"Gladys, as you're so young, won't you leave the whole thing in abeyance
+for a time?"
+
+"In what, did you say?"
+
+"Undecided. Let me come and talk to you about it in six months. The only
+thing I can't bear you to do is to be a manicure. I'm going to speak to
+your mother about it. I can't stand it."
+
+"Oh, why, Mr. Vaughan? I should have thought it was nice for me to sort
+of better myself."
+
+"Nonsense. Far better stay here. Well, will you agree to that?"
+
+"To give up the manicuring and to leave the engagement open like? Is
+that what you mean?"
+
+"That's the idea."
+
+She thought a minute.
+
+"I really don't see how I can. And--my boy would feel it something cruel
+if I put him off like that."
+
+"When do you see him?" he asked jealously.
+
+"Why, on Sundays. Only on Sundays."
+
+"Ah, that's why I've never seen him. I wondered why I'd never met my
+hated rival."
+
+She laughed.
+
+"Oh, now, you're going on silly, like the people in the play!... I don't
+believe you alf mean it."
+
+"Don't you believe I love you?"
+
+"How can you? You don't ardly know me, except as a friend."
+
+"I'll tell you why I love you if you like, dearest."
+
+"Well, why?" She spoke with girlish curiosity.
+
+"Because you're lovely, and lovable, and sweet. Because you're a
+darling."
+
+"Oh, I say!"
+
+"Doesn't your boy, as you call him, say these things to you?"
+
+"Not like that. I only see him on Sundays."
+
+"And does he kiss you on Sundays?"
+
+"Oh yes."
+
+Vaughan got up.
+
+"All right, I won't worry you any more.... I'll let you be happy in your
+own way, dear.... I must go now."
+
+"Oh, _must_ you?"
+
+She seemed very disappointed.
+
+"Yes, I'm going to France."
+
+"What, to-day?"
+
+"No, next week."
+
+"Oh, I am sorry."
+
+"Good-bye, dear."
+
+He went in and bid adieu to Mr. and Mrs. Brill and the "Bald-faced Stag"
+for ever. He said to her father that he was resigned.
+
+       *     *     *     *     *
+
+As soon as he had gone, Gladys went upstairs to her room, looked in the
+glass, then burst out crying.
+
+She had fallen in love with Gillie.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV
+
+ROMER OVERHEARS
+
+
+Romer started to go by himself for a five-mile walk, leaving Daphne,
+Valentia and Harry in the garden, but a nail in his boot hurt so much
+that, after the first half-mile, Romer decided he couldn't stand it any
+longer, and would walk back, go quietly in, and then surprise them by
+coming to tea in the garden.
+
+He was gone a very short time, but he hastened his steps, looking
+forward immensely to the removal of the boot, and also to seeing
+Valentia again.
+
+Lately he had been more than ever devoted to her. Ever since they had
+been at the Green Gate she had been specially gentle and charming--but
+not nearly so lively as usual. Sometimes she looked quite anxious and
+preoccupied. He thought, too, that she was occasionally irritable; which
+was unlike her--and her spirits varied continually.
+
+He asked her one day what was the matter, and she assured him that
+there was nothing, so he believed her. But he was always thinking about
+her, trying to find some means to please her. He was dissatisfied about
+her.
+
+He came back, went into his room, and his spirits incalculably raised by
+the cessation of the torture, he went and sat by the window, and looked
+out at the lovely garden.
+
+It was a hot summer day; a little wind was in the trees.
+
+Exactly under the window, on the little verandah, sat Harry with
+Valentia. Daphne was no longer there.
+
+They were talking; and talking, it seemed to him, in an agitated way.
+
+Leaning a little over he could see Valentia on a bamboo chair. To his
+horror he saw that she was crying.
+
+Harry, speaking in a suppressed but rather angry voice, appeared to be
+trying to comfort her.
+
+Without a second's hesitation or a moment's scruple, Romer intently
+listened. He did not hide or draw behind the curtain. He remained in
+full view, in the window, so that they could see him easily if they
+happened to look up. But they did not; they were far too much
+preoccupied.... He heard Harry speaking volubly, saying, in a tone of
+irritated apology and explanation--
+
+"My dear girl, I do wish to heaven you wouldn't take it like that. I
+haven't changed--I never shall. I don't care two straws about Miss
+Walmer. But really, it is such a splendid chance for me! You ought no
+more to expect me to give it up than any other good business opportunity
+that might crop up."
+
+"I should never see you again," she answered, her voice broken by sobs.
+
+"Yes, you would. We should be the same as ever. You know we can't do
+without each other. You're part of my life."
+
+He spoke casually, but with irritation, as if mentioning a self-evident
+fact.
+
+"Oh yes, you say that," she answered sadly. "But nothing could alter the
+fact that you wish to be treacherous, and throw me over--and just for
+money! It's simply degrading. It's all nonsense to say it will be just
+the same!"
+
+"Well, of course--for a time--immediately after the marriage--it
+couldn't be; but it would gradually drift into very much the same."
+
+"It wouldn't, even if it could, because I should never see you again,"
+she repeated.
+
+Harry stood up with his hands in his pockets, his shoulders raised.
+
+Romer could see his face quite plainly, and wondered at its hard,
+selfish, almost cruel expression.
+
+"Well, if you won't you won't," he said. "How can I waste all my life
+dangling after a woman who is married to somebody else? I should be only
+too delighted--if I could afford it. But I can't, and that's the brutal
+truth. And then, you know, there has been a little talk. That
+mother-in-law of yours has been gossiping about us. Some day, Romer's
+bound to get hold of it, and then where shall we be? Don't you see,
+dear," he went on more gently, "this will stop all that? Wouldn't it be
+better for me to be married--just in this official sort of way--to
+remain in England, and be able to see you just the same as ever--very
+soon--than to go out to the colonies or somewhere, and never see you
+again at all? There's no doubt I've got to do something. I'm in a
+frightful hole. Seven thousand a year--a place in the country--and a
+decent sort of girl, dropped down on me, as it were, from heaven! I
+hadn't the slightest idea of such luck--and hadn't any pretensions to
+it. But the girl has taken a liking to me, and her mother wants to get
+her married. It's ugly--unromantic--but there are the facts. If you
+cared for me really, I shouldn't think you would want to stand in my
+way."
+
+"Very well, do it, then," she said, drying her eyes. "If you can speak
+in this heartless way it shows you are very different from what I
+believed you. But it will kill me; I shall never get over it."
+
+She was rushing away when Harry caught her hand and stopped her.
+
+"Listen," he said, in an impressive voice. "Go to your room, bathe your
+eyes, and calm yourself down. Make no more scenes, for heaven's sake,
+and we'll see what can be done."
+
+"Oh, Harry, really--_is_ there any hope? Or are you deceiving me again?"
+
+"I've almost agreed to it, you know," he said. "Still, there's not what
+one could call an actual engagement yet. At any rate, it might be
+delayed. I'll see; I'll think--really if I weren't so hard up I wouldn't
+do it."
+
+"Oh, Harry!" A gleam of joy came into her eyes, and she clasped her
+hands.
+
+"Then you won't worry me any more about it for the next few days?" he
+asked.
+
+"I promise;" and smiling sweetly through her tears she left him, going
+into the house. Her room, on the same floor as Romer's, was at the other
+end of the corridor, so she did not even pass his door, and had not the
+slightest idea that he was at home.
+
+He was still at the window, looking out apparently at the garden.
+
+Harry gave an impatient sigh, lit a cigarette and strolled off through
+the garden.
+
+It had been about three o'clock when Romer had come in and sat down by
+the window. He was still there in precisely the same position at seven,
+when his valet brought his hot water.
+
+But Romer could not dress and go down to dinner. He could not see them
+till he had made up his mind what to do. He always thought slowly, and
+now he was acutely anxious to make no mistake. He felt that by the
+slightest wrong move he might lose Valentia altogether. That, at least,
+was his instinctive dread. He sent Valentia a message that he had to go
+up to London to see his mother, and would be back the next day. He
+arranged that she did not get the message till he was driving to the
+station--just before dinner.
+
+He went up to London and stayed at an hotel, but did not go to his
+mother's, and thought nearly all night till he had made a resolution.
+Then he slept till nine o'clock, feeling much happier. He remembered
+clearly that Harry was coming to town and going to the studio on this
+day, as he often did. He calculated that he would be likely to arrive by
+the quick early morning train, and was standing waiting at the door of
+the studio at twelve o'clock when Harry drove up, looking intensely
+surprised, with hand outstretched, cordial and delighted.
+
+"My dear fellow, how jolly of you to remember I was coming up! Come in,
+come in! I've only got this bothering business to attend to, then we'll
+lunch together, and go back by the four train, shall we? You won't have
+to stop on here, will you?"
+
+"I don't know," said Romer, as he followed Harry.
+
+"Your mother's not ill, I hope," said Harry, throwing himself into an
+arm-chair.
+
+"I don't think so," said Romer; "she's at Bournemouth."
+
+"Bournemouth! How like her! But you haven't been down there to see her?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Are you going?"
+
+"Don't think so."
+
+"Then it isn't your mother that brought you up to town, old chap?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Is anything wrong?" asked Harry, after a moment's pause.
+
+It struck him that Romer looked very odd, and as he noted a slightly
+greyish tinge in Romer's face, he turned pale himself under his becoming
+sunburn.
+
+"What is the matter?" repeated Harry, who could not be quiet. His
+weakness lay in the fact that he never, under any circumstances, could
+entirely "hold his tongue."
+
+Romer put down his stick and hat, which he had been holding, took a
+chair exactly opposite Harry, stared him in the face, and said in a dry,
+hard voice, much less slowly than usual--
+
+"There's something I wish you to do."
+
+"You wish me to----"
+
+"Yes. Write to Miss Walmer definitely breaking off your engagement."
+
+"My--engagement?"
+
+"I heard what you said yesterday afternoon. I came back from my
+walk--there was a nail in my boot. I heard every word from the window in
+my room."
+
+"You listened?"
+
+"Yes, I listened."
+
+"Romer, my dear fellow, I swear to you that ..."
+
+"Don't swear anything to me," said Romer quietly. "And don't dare to
+defend Valentia to me.... I advise you not."
+
+Harry was silent, utterly bewildered.
+
+"I find that your----friendship, instead of being a pleasure to her, is
+making her miserable. For some reason she likes to have you about. She
+doesn't wish you to marry Miss Walmer. Well, you shan't! Do you hear
+that? You shan't! You're not going to marry that girl and then come
+dangling about again."
+
+He waited a minute and then said--
+
+"Valentia's got to be happy. You're not going to have everything _you_
+want. You can surely make a little sacrifice to be her friend!" Then for
+one moment only Romer nearly lost his control. He said--
+
+"We've been married five years, and I've never said a word or done a
+thing that she didn't like. And _you_ made her cry. You! You made her
+cry!"
+
+"My dear Romer, I assure you it's all ..."
+
+Romer interrupted him in a low voice, impatiently.
+
+"Oh, shut up, will you? I want no talk or discussion. I want only one
+thing. You're to write immediately, definitely putting an end to this
+engagement. While you write the letter I'll wait, and then I'll post it
+myself. Will you do it?"
+
+"My dear fellow, of course I'll do anything. But how strange you are! I
+should have thought----"
+
+"I don't want to know what you would have thought, and I don't care a
+straw what you think of my attitude. On condition you do what I say, I
+shall never refer to the subject again, and everything shall be as it
+has been."
+
+Harry was obviously greatly relieved.
+
+"I will do whatever you wish," he said, looking and feeling ashamed of
+himself.
+
+Seeing that Romer was evidently in a hurry for the letter, he drew
+writing materials to him.
+
+Then Romer said--
+
+"One more thing. You are not to tell Valentia anything about this. She's
+not to know I overheard. I won't have her distressed. Remember that."
+
+"I give you my word of honour," said Harry.
+
+"Very well. And when I've posted the letter we'll wipe out the whole
+thing. Don't even say you saw me in town."
+
+"Of course I won't."
+
+As Harry bent his head low over the writing-table, Romer, who was
+sitting motionless, looked at a curious dagger that was hanging on the
+wall, with a horrible sudden longing to plunge it in Harry's neck....
+Horrified at his own fancy, he looked away from it and thought of
+Valentia. Valentia would smile and be happy now, and everything would go
+smoothly again. He would not have to say anything painful to her; she
+would never be uncomfortable in his presence. In time she would probably
+grow tired of Harry and could turn to him, Romer, again, with more
+affection than if anything painful had passed between them.... His
+attitude had been extraordinarily unselfish, and yet it had its root in
+the deep scheming selfishness and subtle calculation of the passion of
+love. To get Valentia back, as he vaguely hoped, some time, however
+distant, he had acted most wisely, and he knew it. For he cared for her
+far too much ever to have conventional thoughts on the subject. It never
+even occurred to him to try to act as the husband ought to act, or as by
+the incessant insidious influence of plays and novels most of us have
+been brought up to think he ought to act. Most people are far more
+guided than they know in their views of life by the artificial
+conventions of the theatre and of literature, or by tradition. In fact,
+most people are other people. Romer was himself. He thought simply for
+himself, like a child. And so it happened that he acted in a crisis
+terrible to him, more wisely for his own interest than the most
+sophisticated of men....
+
+       *     *     *     *     *
+
+"Here is the letter. Will you read it?"
+
+Romer read it and put it back in the envelope. Then he said--
+
+"All right. You're going back to the Green Gate this afternoon?"
+
+"If I may."
+
+"I shall be back to-morrow," said Romer, in his ordinary voice.
+
+Harry accompanied him to the door and held out his hand.
+
+Romer hesitated a moment. Then he said--
+
+"Good-bye," with a nod, and went away, taking no notice of it.
+
+       *     *     *     *     *
+
+"By Jove!" said Harry, to himself.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV
+
+THE LIMIT
+
+
+Romer went back to his hotel that evening feeling happier than he had
+ever expected to be again. He felt sure now that everything would be
+perfectly right. He refused to allow himself to dwell for a moment on
+possibilities, and on what had been, or on what might have been. But he
+was like a man who had been slightly stunned by a blow on the head and
+was beginning to feel the pain the next day. Yet the pain was not very
+acute; he did not quite realise it, but, unconsciously, it made him
+feverish. And he was still a little stupefied. It did not occur to him
+to go to the Club, or to look up any friends, and he remained in the
+little hotel in Jermyn Street, filled at this time of the year
+principally by Americans, and he dined alone there--dined well, and
+smoked a long cigar. Then he went for a walk. London at the beginning of
+August was not empty, but stale, crowded, untidy, hot--unlike itself. He
+tried not to think of the garden of the Green Gate. Suddenly, with a
+stab, he imagined Harry and Valentia; probably now he was telling her
+that the engagement was broken off, and she was smiling and happy. Well!
+it was what he wished. Since what had happened he felt his great love
+for Valentia was much less vivid than it had been. He cared for her more
+remotely. She seemed at a great distance. He thought that he felt more
+to her as if she were a dear sister and living far away. Yes, that was
+it; he loved her now like a sister.
+
+Surprised at his own calm, and much pleased with his behaviour in the
+matter, he retired to bed. The instant he had closed his eyes he seemed
+to see, with the clearness of an hallucination, Harry's head bending low
+over the writing-table, and, hanging above him on the wall of the
+studio, the curious dagger; a Japanese weapon that was one of Harry's
+treasures. And Romer felt again precisely the same horrible longing that
+he had felt that morning at the studio--the sudden longing to plunge it
+into Harry's neck. Horrified at the fancy and at himself, he turned up
+the light and tried to read. He could not fix his attention on a word of
+the article "Silk and Stuff" in the _Pall Mall_....
+
+Of course he was not angry with Valentia; how could she help it? She
+must be made happy. But she seemed dim, distant, remote. It was an
+effort to recall her face.... Harry--Harry did not seem very real to him
+either. It was all unreal. But he, Romer, had done the right thing.
+Harry would never make her cry again.
+
+Everything would go on as before. And _he_ had never said a word that it
+would be painful for them both to remember. There was nothing
+uncomfortable between them. He felt she would grow tired of Harry of her
+own accord, and would then return to him, Romer, with no disagreeable
+recollection of scenes, nor of their having said horrible things to one
+another. Yes, he had been quite right. Yet she did not seem to him so
+near as she used to be. He was not angry with her.... No, of course not.
+He was not jealous. Perhaps she seemed more remote, more distant,
+because he felt a certain coldness, and--yes--the coldness was there
+because he was a little hurt perhaps.... And then he tried to go to
+sleep again. But instantly his insane vision came back, and he got up
+and walked round the room and tried to banish it.... At last he really
+went to sleep, and awoke trembling with horror. He had had a horrible
+dream. He dreamt that Harry was writing a letter, and that he had taken
+the dagger from the wall of the studio and killed him. This was simply
+horrible.
+
+Then he began to realise the reason. It was subconscious jealousy. Then
+he saw that he had set himself a task too big for him, and that he could
+not endure to see Harry with Valentia now. It would be impossible to
+bear it. He would have to tell him to go. He had mistaken his own
+feelings. What he had heard on the verandah, what he had imagined, could
+never be obliterated. Indeed, he saw clearly that if he tried to endure
+it he would break down. The effort would lead to madness.--It was
+impossible.... He had sent Harry back to her! He had actually sent him;
+it was unbearable.
+
+He would go back the next day, take Harry aside, and tell him that he
+had found he couldn't bear it, and that on some pretext he must go away.
+He would tell him that he had reached the limit of his endurance and
+could bear no more. He would never speak of it to Valentia. Valentia
+would be sad--but that could not be helped. He knew, now, that he could
+not endure the sight of Harry again.
+
+Having made this resolution, he became much calmer. But the dream
+recurred each time he went to sleep until, in dread of it, he resolved
+to sleep no more. His nerves felt shattered.
+
+And then, he began to count the minutes till he could be back at the
+Green Gate. To see Valentia again and to banish Harry for ever! And all
+the obvious, human feelings that he thought he was free from had come
+back. He broke down; bitter tears of self-pity, of sentiment, and of
+heartbroken humiliation fell from his eyes. He remembered their
+engagement and their honeymoon, and then the eternal and everlasting
+amusing cousin; Harry, and his sickening good looks and ceaseless
+chatter. No more of it, by heaven! It would be something worth having
+lived for to have no more of the brilliant Harry. He saw now that he had
+always been subconsciously jealous of him--that he had always loathed
+and hated him. And rightly, by instinct; for not only had he done the
+most unpardonable injury one friend can do to another, without a scruple
+and without a hesitation, but he had shown the same baseness to her. He
+made her unhappy. He made her cry. He wanted to marry for money and come
+back again, treacherous to every one--hard, heartless, selfish, vulgar
+in mind and in attitude to life. Romer hated him.
+
+Well! Romer would tell him that very day that he had changed his mind
+and that he was to go anywhere--anyhow--only to go. Neither he nor
+Valentia should ever see him again.
+
+Valentia seemed a long way off. She seemed remote and distant. That was
+because he was still hurt and angry. When Harry had once gone, perhaps
+she would seem near again.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI
+
+RECONCILIATION
+
+
+Romer had made one mistake in his calculations. He had forgotten that
+Harry was a talker. He fully believed that the young man would go back
+and get all possible credit from Valentia for breaking off the
+engagement, and would adhere to the very letter of their strange
+agreement. This, indeed, Harry fully intended to do. When he first went
+back he told her, to her immense joy and satisfaction, merely that he
+had broken it off. But when some people who had come to dinner had gone
+away and she and Harry could be alone, the habit of confidential gossip,
+the habit, especially, of impressing and surprising her, and, above all,
+the inability to keep to himself anything so amazing, was too strong for
+him.
+
+Picturesquely, vividly, and quite amusingly Harry told her every word of
+the story; first exacting a solemn promise not to repeat it.
+
+"Isn't he _impayable_? Isn't he a marvel? No, Valentia, don't look so
+grave, or I shall think you've lost your sense of humour."
+
+"But do you believe he really thinks----"
+
+"He doesn't think," said Harry, stopping her. "He won't think. You're
+faultless in his eyes. He would never allow himself to imagine you
+anything else. Valentia, this is a wonderful situation--you don't
+appreciate it! It's unheard of! He particularly wished that everything
+should go on as before."
+
+He took her hand. She immediately took it away and drew back coldly.
+
+"A wonderful situation! Do you think Van Buren will enjoy it?" she asked
+satirically.
+
+"Van Buren! What on earth do you mean, Val? Do you suppose for a minute
+that I'd talk about it?"
+
+"I know you will. You couldn't resist it. It's _impayable_ you say....
+Oh, but it was mean of you to tell me!"
+
+"Mean!" cried Harry indignantly. "Why, it was very generous! I might
+easily have pleased you very much more by saying I broke it off quite of
+my own accord."
+
+"That wasn't why you told me. You wanted me to laugh at Romer and think
+him ridiculous."
+
+"I don't at all. I was in the ridiculous position. Be a woman of the
+world, Val. Don't talk bosh! We shall soon forget it happened."
+
+"I shall never forget," she answered. "And things _can't_ go on as they
+were, because I think he's behaved magnificently, because I think he's
+heroic. And if I didn't appreciate the way he spared me I should be....
+Why, don't you realise what it must have been for him, Harry, to hear
+every word we said? And yet he didn't try to make me suffer for it!"
+
+"He complained that _I_ made you cry!" said Harry with a ghost of a
+smile.
+
+"Look here, Harry, it's no good. I see I was right about Romer from the
+first. I married him because I thought there was something
+remarkable--something finer than other people about him. And I was
+right."
+
+"If you talk like that, I shall know you're in love with him," said
+Harry tauntingly and angrily. "_I_ was a fool to tell you. You're just
+upset, my dear," he added, "at the idea of his knowing of the whole
+thing. By to-morrow, when he comes back, everything will have calmed
+down."
+
+"I want to be left alone," said Valentia.
+
+Harry was annoyed, for he himself was not just now in the mood for
+reverie, and even in the smallest things he disliked giving up his own
+wishes.
+
+"Oh, very well," he said ungraciously; "perhaps it's a pity I wrote the
+letter."
+
+"Perhaps it is," she answered as she went away and shut the door.
+
+Harry sat up late, swearing at his own indiscretion and the
+unaccountability of women. But he was not prepared for what followed.
+
+The next morning, as he was dressing, a note was given to him. It said--
+
+     "Dear Harry,
+
+     "After what you told me yesterday, I feel I never wish to see you
+     again. This is not anger; but it's incurable. I can't account for
+     it, but it is there. How you could have been so stupid as to think
+     I could remain with both you and Romer in the house with this
+     knowledge between us, I simply can't understand. How could I help
+     contrasting his generosity with your self-interested selfishness? I
+     am not angry any more about Miss Walmer. I'm quite indifferent. If
+     you married her to-morrow it would give me no pain. The only kind
+     thing you can do for me now, and the one thing I implore, is to go
+     away on any pretext you like and without seeing me again. To put it
+     perfectly plainly, Harry, I have changed entirely since last night.
+     I see everything differently. Everything _is_ different. Forgive
+     me, but I don't wish to see you any more.      "VALENTIA.
+
+     "P.S.--I will send your photographs and other things to the studio.
+     I should like you to burn mine, but do not send them back. I don't
+     want to look at anything that reminds me of you. Do not be angry--I
+     can't help it. I am so unhappy.
+
+                                                            V.
+
+     "If you don't go I know I shall be seriously ill."
+
+After reading this letter Harry was probably about a thousand times more
+in love with Valentia than he had ever been in his life. Indeed, he felt
+that he had never cared for her before. He pretended even to himself to
+laugh at it, and walked up and down his room, saying to himself: "What a
+couple! What a woman! What a man! They're unique. No, they're too
+wonderful!"
+
+But he didn't succeed in deceiving himself. He _knew_ that letter was
+final. He did not give it up at once. He wrote her three letters. The
+first, one of indignant reproach: "_You never really cared for me_," and
+so forth, which she did not answer; the second, witty and trivial, with
+allusions to mountains and molehills and tragedy queens; the third,
+desperately imploring her to see him once before he went away. To the
+third one she sent a reply, simply saying--
+
+"Please, please go as soon as possible."
+
+After all his emotion and passionate correspondence it was by this time
+only about half-past ten. Harry packed, dressed, and went off to the
+station, mad with rage. He left no word for Romer at all. He felt he had
+better leave all that to the wife. He had lost her absolutely and for
+ever--and Miss Walmer too.
+
+In prompt response to his wire Van Buren met him at the station.
+
+And what a wonderful consolation it was to tell him all about it!
+
+Certainly no man ever had a better audience; no one more impressed,
+shocked, delighted, horrified, amused, grieved, pleased and sympathetic
+ever listened to a confidence. For Van Buren it was as good as a _cause
+celebre_, a musical comedy, a _feuilleton_ in the _Daily Mail_ and a
+series of snapshots from the homes of the upper classes--all in one.
+Never in his life had he heard anything so intensely English. The story
+gave him the acute, objective, artistic joy that one takes in the best
+literature, an intellectual pleasure that is usually more or less
+mingled with the merely spiteful satisfaction that we are accused of
+taking in the misfortunes of our best friends. And how well Harry told
+it!
+
+His style was perfect. It was brilliancy, charm, humour, and pathos; he
+laughed at himself, and yet made himself an object of real sympathy,
+without losing either his dignity or his dash.
+
+He knew that his confidence aroused enormous interest, and to him that
+was a great gratification. And so Harry drowned his sorrows in talk, as
+other men drown theirs in wine, or in sport, or in taking some violent
+step. He intoxicated and soothed himself with conversation.
+
+But Harry was not an unpractical man--not one of those for whom words
+take place of actions--and he could face facts. Valentia was irrevocably
+lost to him. To attempt to regain Miss Walmer, although it might perhaps
+not be impossible, would make him ridiculous. The letter he had written
+at Romer's dictation had been too definite. He would give himself away
+hopelessly as a fortune-hunter if he tried to go back on that. Besides,
+he was absolutely sick of it all, and if he was more in love with
+Valentia than he had ever supposed himself to be because she no longer
+wanted him, he disliked the thought of Miss Walmer far more than he ever
+had before, because he was convinced she would forgive him and be
+devoted to him even now.
+
+Van Buren had taken the knock, as he expressed it, using with relish the
+English slang phrase, with regard to Daphne, and he had made up his mind
+to return to New York. Under the circumstances he now had little
+difficulty in persuading Harry to come out with him right away. He
+undertook to provide for his friend's future, and that he should make a
+fortune in the Bank, and perhaps when this was agreed upon Van Buren
+had never been so happy. He was far more genuinely a man's man than was
+Harry. He regarded women from the point of view of the well-bred
+American--with deference, a sort of distant tenderness, a most
+chivalrous and gentle respect. He looked upon them as ornamental and as
+delightful adjuncts to life, like flowers in a ball-room, but not
+seriously as part of it. Nor, either, as mere toys. He placed women far
+more highly than Harry did; he thought everything should be done for
+them, given to them, that they had a right to any position they were
+able to hold, that they should be treated with reverence, consideration,
+liberality ... and even justice; but--he could do without them. Harry
+couldn't. And so they would always continue to fall in love with Harry,
+and to find Van Buren a little dull.
+
+       *     *     *     *     *
+
+When Romer arrived at the Green Gate that afternoon he found Valentia
+sitting alone in the drawing-room. Her hands were clasped, she had a
+serious, anxious, thoughtful expression that he had never seen before.
+He was surprised at the painful start it gave him to see her again, but
+he came in defying this sensation.
+
+"Hallo!" he said, in what he meant to be a perfectly easy manner.
+
+He glanced round the room.
+
+"Where's Harry?"
+
+"Harry's gone," said Valentia, in a low voice.
+
+"Oh, has he?"
+
+Romer walked to the window. He looked at her dress, a white dress that
+he liked, but did not meet her eyes. Then he said--
+
+"Oh, he's gone. When is he coming back?"
+
+"Never," she said.
+
+Romer didn't answer, nor ask why.
+
+After a minute he said--
+
+"Where's Daphne?"
+
+"Gone to stay with Mrs. Foster for a week."
+
+"Oh! Who's coming down to-day?"
+
+"Nobody. I thought perhaps you wouldn't mind--being alone, I mean." She
+spoke without her usual fluency.
+
+He stood staring out of the window into the quiet, damp garden. Then he
+turned slowly round and looked at her. He looked at her little feet in
+their little white laced shoes; at the slim, narrow line of the white
+dress; at the hands clasped in her lap....
+
+And he felt a sudden pang of cruel, realistic jealousy. But he looked at
+her eyes and saw tears in them, and, pitying her, he crushed it down for
+ever.
+
+The marvellous instinct with which women are usually credited seems too
+often to desert them on the only occasions when it would be of any real
+use. One would say it was there for trivialities only, since in a crisis
+they are usually dense, fatally doing the wrong thing. It is hardly too
+much to say that most domestic tragedies are caused by the feminine
+intuition of men and the want of it in women. Fortunately, Valentia's
+feeling of remorseful tenderness towards Romer enabled her to read him
+now. Of course she would have loved to cry, to explain at great length,
+to beg him to forgive her and have a reconciliation. But something told
+her that he could not have borne it; that the subject must never be
+touched; that she must spare him any reference to it--any scene.
+
+So she said nothing.
+
+       *     *     *     *     *
+
+And, during the curious silence, he gradually and slowly took in the
+soothing facts. He regained his sense of proportion, of perspective. He
+saw she was disillusioned about Harry; he felt that the infatuation was
+over; and, what was more, he realised, to his unutterable relief, that
+she was not going to talk about it. How he dreaded that terrible
+explicitness of women, their passion for tidying up, their love of
+labels! He would not even have to hear it called a sealed subject, and
+he would not have to say anything at all.
+
+       *     *     *     *     *
+
+He looked out of the window again, began to whistle in a slightly
+embarrassed way, and then said casually--
+
+"Let's come out, Val. The lawn wants mowing."
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Transcriber's Notes
+
+
+The original spelling and punctuation were retained, except for
+a few issues that were believed to be typographical mistakes.
+
+The full list of corrections is as follows:
+
++------+--------------------+--------------------+-------------------+
+| page | original text      | corrected to       | explanation       |
++------+--------------------+--------------------+-------------------+
+|  15  | old-fashoned       | old-fashioned      | a misspelling     |
+|      |                    |                    |                   |
+|  32  | ,old chap'         | 'old chap'         | comma corrected   |
+|      |                    |                    |   to single quote |
+|      |                    |                    |                   |
+| 142  | of colour          | off colour         | a misspelling     |
+|      |                    |                    |                   |
+| 144  | CAPTER             | CHAPTER            | a misspelling     |
+|      |                    |                    |                   |
+| 153  | darling.           | darling."          | Double quote      |
+|      |                    |                    | added.            |
+|      |                    |                    |                   |
+| 181  | on the 'thou.'"... | on the 'thou.'..." | The position of   |
+|      |                    |                    | ellipsis was      |
+|      |                    |                    | changed.          |
+|      |                    |                    |                   |
+| 201  | airdresser's       | hairdresser's      | a misspelling     |
+|      |                    |                    |                   |
+| 220  | "Ha! musical,      | "Ha! Musical,      | Lowercase         |
+|      |                    |                    | corrected         |
+|      |                    |                    | to uppercase.     |
+|      |                    |                    |                   |
+| 256  | Dicken's           | Dickens's          | a misspelling     |
+|      |                    |                    |                   |
+| 273  | things to you?'    | things to you?"    | Single quote      |
+|      |                    |                    | corrected to      |
+|      |                    |                    | double quote.     |
++------+--------------------+--------------------+-------------------+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Limit, by Ada Leverson
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