initial commit of ebook 39324HEAD main

author: Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> 2025-10-14 20:12:27 -0700
committer: Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> 2025-10-14 20:12:27 -0700
commit: 9c18edfd1ef2ed1e589565666a5b4583b2033a38 (patch)
tree: ca6ce0b60e4ee95410c017a6889eed92fc5b00d9
11 files changed, 25077 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6833f05
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.gitattributes
@@ -0,0 +1,3 @@
+* text=auto
+*.txt text
+*.md text
diff --git a/39324-8.txt b/39324-8.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..3ca0cb2
--- /dev/null
+++ b/39324-8.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,7509 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Literary Sense, by E. Nesbit
+
+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 Literary Sense
+
+Author: E. Nesbit
+
+Release Date: April 1, 2012 [EBook #39324]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LITERARY SENSE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Suzanne Shell, Emmy and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images generously made available by The
+Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE LITERARY SENSE
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+THE LITERARY SENSE
+
+BY E. NESBIT
+
+AUTHOR OF "THE RED HOUSE" AND "THE WOULD-BE-GOODS"
+
+    New York
+    THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
+    LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., LTD.
+    1903
+
+    _All rights reserved_
+
+
+
+
+    COPYRIGHT, 1903,
+    BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.
+
+    Set up, electrotyped, and published September, 1903.
+
+
+    Norwood Press
+    J. S. Cushing & Co.--Berwick & Smith Co.
+    Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.
+
+
+
+
+    TO
+    DOROTHEA DEAKIN
+    WITH
+    THE AUTHOR'S LOVE
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+                                              PAGE
+
+    THE UNFAITHFUL LOVER                         1
+
+    ROUNDING OFF A SCENE                        13
+
+    THE OBVIOUS                                 29
+
+    THE LIE ABSOLUTE                            49
+
+    THE GIRL WITH THE GUITAR                    65
+
+    THE MAN WITH THE BOOTS                      79
+
+    THE SECOND BEST                             91
+
+    THE HOLIDAY                                105
+
+    THE FORCE OF HABIT                         123
+
+    THE BRUTE                                  147
+
+    DICK, TOM, AND HARRY                       165
+
+    MISS EDEN'S BABY                           187
+
+    THE LOVER, THE GIRL, AND THE ONLOOKER      209
+
+    THE DUEL                                   229
+
+    CINDERELLA                                 253
+
+    WITH AN E                                  275
+
+    UNDER THE NEW MOON                         299
+
+    THE LOVE OF ROMANCE                        309
+
+
+
+
+THE LITERARY SENSE
+
+
+
+
+THE UNFAITHFUL LOVER
+
+
+SHE was going to meet her lover. And the fact that she was to meet him
+at Cannon Street Station would almost, she feared, make the meeting
+itself banal, sordid. She would have liked to meet him in some green,
+cool orchard, where daffodils swung in the long grass, and primroses
+stood on frail stiff little pink stalks in the wet, scented moss of the
+hedgerow. The time should have been May. She herself should have been a
+poem--a lyric in a white gown and green scarf, coming to him through the
+long grass under the blossomed boughs. Her hands should have been full
+of bluebells, and she should have held them up to his face in maidenly
+defence as he sprang forward to take her in his arms. You see that she
+knew exactly how a tryst is conducted in the pages of the standard
+poets and of the cheaper weekly journals. She had, to the full limit
+allowed of her reading and her environment, the literary sense. When she
+was a child she never could cry long, because she always wanted to see
+herself cry, in the glass, and then of course the tears always stopped.
+Now that she was a young woman she could never be happy long, because
+she wanted to watch her heart's happiness, and it used to stop then,
+just as the tears had.
+
+He had asked her to meet him at Cannon Street; he had something to say
+to her, and at home it was difficult to get a quiet half-hour because of
+her little sisters. And, curiously enough, she was hardly curious at all
+about what he might have to say. She only wished for May and the
+orchard, instead of January and the dingy, dusty waiting-room, the
+plain-faced, preoccupied travellers, the dim, desolate weather. The
+setting of the scene seemed to her all-important. Her dress was brown,
+her jacket black, and her hat was home-trimmed. Yet she looked
+entrancingly pretty to him as he came through the heavy swing-doors. He
+would hardly have known her in green and white muslin and an orchard,
+for their love had been born and bred in town--Highbury New Park, to be
+exact. He came towards her; he was five minutes late. She had grown
+anxious, as the one who waits always does, and she was extremely glad to
+see him, but she knew that a late lover should be treated with a
+provoking coldness (one can relent prettily later on), so she gave him a
+limp hand and no greeting.
+
+"Let's go out," he said. "Shall we walk along the Embankment, or go
+somewhere on the Underground?"
+
+It was bitterly cold, but the Embankment was more romantic than a
+railway carriage. He ought to insist on the railway carriage: he
+probably would. So she said--
+
+"Oh, the Embankment, please!" and felt a sting of annoyance and
+disappointment when he acquiesced.
+
+They did not speak again till they had gone through the little back
+streets, past the police station and the mustard factory, and were on
+the broad pavement of Queen Victoria Street.
+
+He had been late: he had offered no excuse, no explanation. She had done
+the proper thing; she had awaited these with dignified reserve, and now
+she was involved in the meshes of a silence that she could not break.
+How easy it would have been in the orchard! She could have snapped off a
+blossoming branch and--and made play with it somehow. Then he would have
+had to say something. But here--the only thing that occurred to her was
+to stop and look in one of the shops till he should ask her what she was
+looking at. And how common and mean that would be compared with the
+blossoming bough; and besides, the shops they were passing had nothing
+in the windows except cheap pastry and models of steam-engines.
+
+Why on earth didn't he speak? He had never been like this before. She
+stole a glance at him, and for the first time it occurred to her that
+his "something to say" was not a mere excuse for being alone with her.
+He had something to say--something that was trying to get itself said.
+The keen wind thrust itself even inside the high collar of her jacket.
+Her hands and feet were aching with cold. How warm it would have been in
+the orchard!
+
+"I'm freezing," she said suddenly; "let's go and have some tea."
+
+"Of course, if you like," he said uncomfortably; yet she could see he
+was glad that she had broken that desolate silence.
+
+Seated at a marble table--the place was nearly empty--she furtively
+watched his face in the glass, and what she saw there thrilled her. Some
+great sorrow had come to him. And she had been sulking! The girl in the
+orchard would have known at a glance. _She_ would gently, tenderly, with
+infinite delicacy and the fine tact of a noble woman, have drawn his
+secret from him. She would have shared his sorrow, and shown herself
+"half wife, half angel from heaven" in this dark hour. Well, it was not
+too late. She could begin now. But how? He had ordered the tea, and her
+question was still unanswered. Yet she must speak. When she did her
+words did not fit the mouth of the girl in the orchard--but then it
+would have been May there, and this was January. She said--
+
+"How frightfully cold it is!"
+
+"Yes, isn't it?" he said.
+
+The fine tact of a noble woman seemed to have deserted her. She resisted
+a little impulse to put her hand in his under the marble table, and to
+say, "What is it, dearest? Tell me all about it. I can't bear to see you
+looking so miserable," and there was another silence.
+
+The waitress brought the two thick cups of tea, and looked at him with a
+tepid curiosity. As soon as the two were alone again he leaned his
+elbows on the marble and spoke.
+
+"Look here, darling, I've got something to tell you, and I hope to God
+you'll forgive me and stand by me, and try to understand that I love you
+just the same, and whatever happens I shall always love you."
+
+This preamble sent a shiver of dread down her spine. What had he done--a
+murder--a bank robbery--married someone else?
+
+It was on the tip of her tongue to say that she would stand by him
+whatever he had done; but if he had married someone else this would be
+improper, so she only said, "Well?" and she said it coldly.
+
+"Well--I went to the Simpsons' dance on Tuesday--oh, why weren't you
+there, Ethel?--and there was a girl in pink, and I danced three or four
+times with her--she was rather like you, side-face--and then, after
+supper, in the conservatory, I--I talked nonsense--but only a very
+little, dear--and she kept looking at me so--as if she expected me
+to--to--and so I kissed her. And yesterday I had a letter from her, and
+she seems to expect--to think--and I thought I ought to tell you,
+darling. Oh, Ethel, do try to forgive me! I haven't answered her
+letter."
+
+"Well?" she said.
+
+"That's all," said he, miserably stirring his tea.
+
+She drew a deep breath. A shock of unbelievable relief tingled through
+her. So that was all! What was it, compared with her fears? She almost
+said, "Never mind, dear. It was hateful of you, and I wish you hadn't,
+but I know you're sorry, and I'm sorry; but I forgive you, and we'll
+forget it, and you'll never do it again." But just in time she
+remembered that nice girls must not take these things too lightly. What
+opinion would he form of the purity of her mind, the innocence of her
+soul, if an incident like this failed to shock her deeply? He himself
+was evidently a prey to the most rending remorse. He had told her of the
+thing as one tells of a crime. As the confession of a crime she must
+receive it. How should she know that he had only told her because he
+feared that she would anyhow hear it through the indiscretion of the
+girl in pink, or of that other girl in blue who had seen and smiled? How
+could she guess that he had tuned his confession to the key of what he
+believed would be an innocent girl's estimate of his misconduct?
+
+Following the tingle of relief came a sharp, sickening pinch of jealousy
+and mortification. These inspired her.
+
+"I don't wonder you were afraid to tell me," she began. "You don't love
+me--you've never loved me--I was an idiot to believe you did."
+
+"You know I do," he said; "it was hateful of me--but I couldn't help
+it."
+
+Those four true words wounded her more than all the rest.
+
+"Couldn't help it? Then how can I ever trust you? Even if we were
+married I could never be sure you weren't kissing some horrid girl or
+other. No--it's no use--I can never, never forgive you--and it's all
+over. And I _believed_ in you so, and trusted you--I thought you were
+the soul of honour."
+
+He could not say, "And so I am, on the whole," which was what he
+thought. Her tears were falling hot and fast between face and veil, for
+she had talked till she was very sorry indeed for herself.
+
+"Forgive me, dear," he said.
+
+Then she rose to the occasion. "Never," she said, her eyes flashing
+through her tears. "You've deceived me once--you'd do it again! No, it's
+all over--you've broken my heart and destroyed my faith in human nature.
+I hope I shall never see you again. Some day you'll understand what
+you've done, and be sorry!"
+
+"Do you think I'm not sorry now?"
+
+She wished that they were at home, and not in this horrible tea-shop,
+under the curious eyes of the waitresses. At home she could at least
+have buried her face in the sofa cushions and resisted all his
+pleading,--at last, perhaps, letting him take one cold passive hand and
+shower frantic kisses upon it.
+
+He would come to-morrow, however, and then-- At present the thing to
+compass was a dignified parting.
+
+"Good-bye," she said; "I'm going home. And it's good-bye for ever.
+No--it's only painful for both of us. There's no more to be said; you've
+betrayed me. I didn't think a decent man could do such things." She was
+pulling on her gloves. "Go home and gloat over it all! And that poor
+girl--you've broken _her_ heart too." This really was a master stroke of
+nobility.
+
+He stood up suddenly. "Do you mean it?" he said, and his tone should
+have warned her. "Are you really going to throw me over for a thing like
+this?"
+
+The anger in his eyes frightened her, and the misery of his face wrung
+her heart; but how could she say--
+
+"No, of course I'm not! I'm only talking as I know good girls ought to
+talk"?
+
+So she said--
+
+"Yes. Good-bye!"
+
+He stood up suddenly. "Then good-bye," he said, "and may God forgive you
+as I do!" And he strode down between the marble tables and out by the
+swing-door. It was a very good exit. At the corner he remembered that he
+had gone away without paying for the tea, and his natural impulse was
+to go back and remedy that error. And if he had they would certainly
+have made it up. But how could he go back to say, "We are parting for
+ever; but still, I must insist on the sad pleasure of paying for our
+tea--for the last time"? He checked the silly impulse. What was tea, and
+the price of tea, in this cataclysmic overthrowing of the Universe? So
+she waited for him in vain, and at last paid for the tea herself, and
+went home to wait there--and there, too, in vain, for he never came back
+to her. He loved her with all his heart, and he, also, had what she had
+never suspected in him--the literary sense. Therefore he, never dreaming
+that the literary sense had inspired her too, perceived that to the
+jilted lover two courses only are possible--suicide or "the front." So
+he enlisted, and went to South Africa, and he never came home covered
+with medals and glory, which was rather his idea, to the few simple
+words of explanation that would have made all straight, and repaid her
+and him for all the past. Because Destiny is almost without the literary
+sense, and Destiny carelessly decreed that he should die of enteric in a
+wretched hut, without so much as hearing a gun fired. Literary to the
+soul, she has taken no other lover, but mourns him faithfully to this
+hour. Yet perhaps, after all, that is not because of the literary sense.
+It may be because she loved him. I think I have not mentioned before
+that she did love him.
+
+
+
+
+ROUNDING OFF A SCENE
+
+
+A SOFT rain was falling. Umbrellas swayed and gleamed in the light of
+the street lamps. The brightness of the shop windows reflected itself in
+the muddy mirror of the wet pavements. A miserable night, a dreary
+night, a night to tempt the wretched to the glimmering Embankment, and
+thence to the river, hardly wetter or cleaner than the gutters of the
+London streets. Yet the sight of these same streets was like wine in the
+veins to a man who drove through them in a hansom piled with Gladstone
+bags and P. and O. trunks. He leaned over the apron of the hansom and
+looked eagerly, longingly, lovingly, at every sordid detail: the crowd
+on the pavement, its haste as intelligible to him as the rush of ants
+when their hill is disturbed by the spade; the glory and glow of corner
+public-houses; the shifting dance of the gleaming wet umbrellas. It was
+England, it was London, it was home--and his heart swelled till he felt
+it in his throat. After ten years--the dream realised, the longing
+appeased. London--and all was said.
+
+His cab, delayed by a red newspaper cart, jammed in altercative contact
+with a dray full of brown barrels, paused in Cannon Street. The eyes
+that drank in the scene perceived a familiar face watching on the edge
+of the pavement for a chance to cross the road under the horses'
+heads--the face of one who ten years ago had been the slightest of
+acquaintances. Now time and home-longing juggled with memory till the
+face seemed that of a friend. To meet a friend--this did, indeed, round
+off the scene of the home-coming. The man in the cab threw back the
+doors and leapt out. He crossed under the very nose-bag of a stationed
+dray horse. He wrung the friend--last seen as an acquaintance--by the
+hand. The friend caught fire at the contact. Any passer-by, who should
+have been spared a moment for observation by the cares of umbrella and
+top-hat, had surely said, "Damon and Pythias!" and gone onward smiling
+in sympathy with friends long severed and at last reunited.
+
+The little scene ended in a cordial invitation from the impromptu Damon,
+on the pavement, to Pythias, of the cab, to a little dance that evening
+at Damon's house, out Sydenham way. Pythias accepted with enthusiasm,
+though at his normal temperature, he was no longer a dancing man. The
+address was noted, hands clasped again with strenuous cordiality, and
+Pythias regained his hansom. It set him down at the hotel from which ten
+years before he had taken cab to Fenchurch Street Station. The menu of
+his dinner had been running in his head, like a poem, all through the
+wet shining streets. He ordered, therefore, without hesitation--
+
+                 Ox-tail Soup.
+         Boiled Cod and Oyster Sauce.
+         Roast Beef and Horse-radish.
+      Boiled Potatoes.    Brussels Sprouts.
+               Cabinet Pudding.
+              Stilton.    Celery.
+
+The cabinet pudding was the waiter's suggestion. Anything that called
+itself "pudding" would have pleased as well. He dressed hurriedly, and
+when the soup and the wine card appeared together before him he ordered
+draught bitter--a pint.
+
+"And bring it in a tankard," said he.
+
+The drive to Sydenham was, if possible, a happier dream than had been
+the drive from Fenchurch Street to Charing Cross. There were many
+definite reasons why he should have been glad to be in England, glad to
+leave behind him the hard work of his Indian life, and to settle down as
+a landed proprietor. But he did not think definite thoughts. The whole
+soul and body of the man were filled and suffused by the glow that
+transfuses the blood of the schoolboy at the end of the term.
+
+The lights, the striped awning, the red carpet of the Sydenham house
+thrilled and charmed him. Park Lane could have lent them no further
+grace--Belgrave Square no more subtle witchery. This was England,
+England, England!
+
+He went in. The house was pretty with lights and flowers. There was
+music. The soft-carpeted stair seemed air as he trod it. He met his
+host--was led up to girls in blue and girls in pink, girls in satin and
+girls in silk-muslin--wrote brief _pr�cis_ of their toilets on his
+programme. Then he was brought face to face with a tall dark-haired
+woman in white. His host's voice buzzed in his ears, and he caught only
+the last words--"old friends." Then he was left staring straight into
+the eyes of the woman who ten years ago had been the light of his: the
+woman who had jilted him, his vain longing for whom had been the spur to
+drive him out of England.
+
+"May I have another?" was all he found to say after the bow, the
+conventional request, and the scrawling of two programmes.
+
+"Yes," she said, and he took two more.
+
+The girls in pink, and blue, and silk, and satin found him a good but
+silent dancer. On the opening bars of the eighth waltz he stood before
+her. Their steps went together like song and tune, just as they had
+always done. And the touch of her hand on his arm thrilled through him
+in just the old way. He had, indeed, come home.
+
+There were definite reasons why he should have pleaded a headache or
+influenza, or any lie, and have gone away before his second dance with
+her. But the charm of the situation was too great. The whole thing was
+so complete. On his very first evening in England--to meet her! He did
+not go, and half-way through their second dance he led her into the
+little room, soft-curtained, soft-cushioned, soft-lighted, at the bend
+of the staircase.
+
+Here they sat silent, and he fanned her, and he assured himself once
+more that she was more beautiful than ever. Her hair, which he had known
+in short, fluffy curls, lay in soberly waved masses, but it was still
+bright and dark, like a chestnut fresh from the husk. Her eyes were the
+same as of old, and her hands. Her mouth only had changed. It was a sad
+mouth now, in repose--and he had known it so merry. Yet he could not but
+see that its sadness added to its beauty. The lower lip had been,
+perhaps, too full, too flexible. It was set now, not in sternness, but
+in a dignified self-control. He had left a Greuze girl--he found a
+Madonna of Bellini. Yet those were the lips he had kissed--the eyes
+that--
+
+The silence had grown to the point of embarrassment. She broke it, with
+his eyes on her.
+
+"Well," she said, "tell me all about yourself."
+
+"There's nothing much to tell. My cousin's dead, and I'm a full-fledged
+squire with estates and things. I've done with the gorgeous East, thank
+God! But you--tell me about yourself."
+
+"What shall I tell you?" She had taken the fan from him, and was furling
+and unfurling it.
+
+"Tell me"--he repeated the words slowly--"tell me the truth! It's all
+over--nothing matters now. But I've always been--well--curious. Tell me
+why you threw me over!"
+
+He yielded, without even the form of a struggle, to the impulse which he
+only half understood. What he said was true: he _had_ been--well--curious.
+But it was long since anything alive, save vanity, which is immortal,
+had felt the sting of that curiosity. But now, sitting beside this
+beautiful woman who had been so much to him, the desire to bridge over
+the years, to be once more in relations with her outside the
+conventionalities of a ball-room, to take part with her in some scene,
+discreet, yet flavoured by the past with a delicate poignancy, came upon
+him like a strong man armed. It held him, but through a veil, and he
+did not see its face. If he had seen it, it would have shocked him very
+much.
+
+"Tell me," he said softly, "tell me now--at last--"
+
+Still she was silent.
+
+"Tell me," he said again; "why did you do it? How was it you found out
+so very suddenly and surely that we weren't suited to each other--that
+was the phrase, wasn't it?"
+
+"Do you really want to know? It's not very amusing, is it--raking out
+dead fires?"
+
+"Yes, I do want to know. I've wanted it every day since," he said
+earnestly.
+
+"As you say--it's all ancient history. But you used not to be stupid.
+Are you sure the real reason never occurred to you?"
+
+"Never! What was it? Yes, I know: the next waltz is beginning. Don't go.
+Cut him, whoever he is, and stay here and tell me. I think I have a
+right to ask that of you."
+
+"Oh--rights!" she said. "But it's quite simple. I threw you over, as you
+call it, because I found out you didn't care for me."
+
+"_I_--not care for _you_?"
+
+"Exactly."
+
+"But even so--if you believed it--but how could you? Even so--why not
+have told me--why not have given me a chance?" His voice trembled.
+
+Hers was firm.
+
+"I _was_ giving you a chance, and I wanted to make sure that you would
+take it. If I'd just said, 'You don't care for me,' you'd have said,
+'Oh, yes I do!' And we should have been just where we were before."
+
+"Then it wasn't that you were tired of me?"
+
+"Oh, no," she said sedately, "it wasn't that!"
+
+"Then you--did you really care for me still, even when you sent back the
+ring and wouldn't see me, and went to Germany, and wouldn't open my
+letters, and all the rest of it?"
+
+"Oh, yes!"--she laughed lightly--"I loved you frightfully all that time.
+It does seem odd now to look back on it, doesn't it? but I nearly broke
+my heart over you."
+
+"Then why the devil--"
+
+"You mustn't swear," she interrupted; "I never heard you do that before.
+Is it the Indian climate?"
+
+"Why did you send me away?" he repeated.
+
+"Don't I keep telling you?" Her tone was impatient. "I found out you
+didn't care, and--and I'd always despised people who kept other people
+when they wanted to go. And I knew you were too honourable, generous,
+soft-hearted--what shall I say?--to go for your own sake, so I thought,
+for your sake, I would make you believe you were to go for mine."
+
+"So you lied to me?"
+
+"Not exactly. We _weren't_ suited--since you didn't love me."
+
+"_I_ didn't love you?" he echoed again.
+
+"And somehow I'd always wanted to do something really noble, and I never
+had the chance. So I thought if I set you free from a girl you didn't
+love, and bore the blame myself, it _would_ be rather noble. And so I
+did it."
+
+"And did the consciousness of your own nobility sustain you
+comfortably?" The sneer was well sneered.
+
+"Well--not for long," she admitted. "You see, I began to doubt after a
+while whether it was really _my_ nobleness after all. It began to seem
+like some part in a play that I'd learned and played--don't you know
+that sort of dreams where you seem to be reading a book and acting the
+story in the book at the same time? It was a little like that now and
+then, and I got rather tired of myself and my nobleness, and I wished
+I'd just told you, and had it all out with you, and both of us spoken
+the truth and parted friends. That was what I thought of doing at first.
+But then it wouldn't have been noble! And I really did want to be
+noble--just as some people want to paint pictures, or write poems, or
+climb Alps. Come, take me back to the ball-room. It's cold here in the
+Past."
+
+But how could he let the curtain be rung down on a scene half finished,
+and so good a scene?
+
+"Ah, no! tell me," he said, laying his hand on hers; "why did you think
+I didn't love you?"
+
+"I knew it. Do you remember the last time you came to see me? We
+quarrelled--we were always quarrelling--but we always made it up. That
+day we made it up as usual, but you were still a little bit angry when
+you went away. And then I cried like a fool. And then you came back,
+and--you remember--"
+
+"Go on," he said. He had bridged the ten years, and the scene was going
+splendidly. "Go on; you must go on."
+
+"You came and knelt down by me," she said cheerfully. "It was as good as
+a play--you took me in your arms and told me you couldn't bear to leave
+me with the slightest cloud between us. You called me your heart's
+dearest, I remember--a phrase you'd never used before--and you said such
+heaps of pretty things to me! And at last, when you had to go, you swore
+we should never quarrel again--and that came true, didn't it?"
+
+"Ah, but _why_?"
+
+"Well, as you went out I saw you pick up your gloves off the table, and
+I _knew_--"
+
+"Knew what?"
+
+"Why, that it was the gloves you had come back for and not me--only when
+you saw me crying you were sorry for me, and determined to do your duty
+whatever it cost you. Don't! What's the matter?"
+
+He had caught her wrists in his hands and was scowling angrily at her.
+
+"Good God! was _that_ all? I _did_ come back for you. I never thought
+of the damned gloves. I don't remember them. If I did pick them up, it
+must have been mechanically and without noticing. And you ruined my life
+for _that_?"
+
+He was genuinely angry; he was back in the past, where he had a right to
+be angry with her. Her eyes grew soft.
+
+"Do you mean to say that I was _wrong_--that it was all my fault--that
+you _did_ love me?"
+
+"Love you?" he said roughly, throwing her hands from him; "of course I
+loved you--I shall always love you. I've never left off loving you. It
+was you who didn't love me. It was all your fault."
+
+He leaned his elbows on his knees and his chin on his hands. He was
+breathing quickly. The scene had swept him along in its quickening flow.
+He shut his eyes, and tried to catch at something to steady
+himself--some rope by which he could pull himself to land again.
+Suddenly an arm was laid on his neck, a face laid against his face. Lips
+touched his hand, and her voice, incredibly softened and tuned to the
+key of their love's overture, spoke--
+
+"Oh, forgive me, dear, forgive me! If you love me still--it's too good
+to be true--but if you do--ah, you do!--forgive me, and we can forget it
+all! Dear, forgive me! I love you so!"
+
+He was quite still, quite silent.
+
+"Can't you forgive me?" she began again. He suddenly stood up.
+
+"I'm married," he said. He drew a long breath and went on hurriedly,
+standing before her, but not looking at her. "I can't ask you to forgive
+me--I shall never forgive myself."
+
+"It doesn't matter," she said, and she laughed; "I--I wasn't serious. I
+saw you were trying to play the old comedy, and I thought I had better
+play up to you. If I'd known you were married--but it was only your
+glove, and we're such old acquaintances! There's another dance
+beginning. Please go--I've no doubt my partner will find me."
+
+He bowed, gave her one glance, and went. Halfway down the stairs he
+turned and came back. She was still sitting as he had left her. The
+angry eyes she raised to him were full of tears. She looked as she had
+looked ten years before, when he had come back to her, and the cursed
+gloves had spoiled everything. He hated himself. Why had he played with
+fire and raised this ghost to vex her? It had been such pretty fire, and
+such a beautiful ghost. But she had been hurt--he had hurt her. She
+would blame herself now for that old past; as for the new past, so
+lately the present, it would not bear thinking of.
+
+The scene must be rounded off somehow. He had let her wound her pride,
+her self-respect. He must heal them. The light touch would be best.
+
+"Look here," he said, "I just wanted to tell you that I knew you weren't
+serious just now. As you say, it was nothing between two such old
+friends. And--and--" He sought about for some further consolation.
+Ill-inspired, with the touch of her lips still on his hand, he said,
+"And about the gloves. Don't blame yourself about that. It was not your
+fault. You were perfectly right. It _was_ the gloves I came back for."
+
+He left her then, and next day journeyed to Scotland to rejoin his wife,
+of whom he was, by habit, moderately fond. He still keeps the white
+glove she kissed, and at first reproached himself whenever he looked at
+it. But now he only sentimentalises over it now and then, if he happens
+to be a little under the weather. He feels that his foolish behaviour at
+that Sydenham dance was almost atoned for by the nobility with which he
+lied to spare her, the light, delicate touch with which he rounded off
+the scene.
+
+He certainly did round it off. By a few short, easy words he
+accomplished three things. He destroyed an ideal of himself which she
+had cherished for years; he killed a pale bud of hope which she had
+loved to nurse--the hope that perhaps in that old past it had been she
+who was to blame, and not he, whom she loved; he trampled in the mud the
+living rose which would have bloomed her life long, the belief that he
+had loved, did love her--the living rose that would have had magic to
+quench the fire of shame kindled by that unasked kiss, a fire that frets
+for ever like hell-fire, burning, but not consuming, her self-respect.
+
+He did, without doubt, round off the scene.
+
+
+
+
+THE OBVIOUS
+
+
+HE had the literary sense, but he had it as an inverted instinct. He had
+a keen perception of the dramatically fitting in art, but no
+counteracting vision of the fitting in life. Life and art, indeed, he
+found from his earliest years difficult to disentwine, and later,
+impossible to disentangle. And to disentangle and disentwine them became
+at last the point of honour to him.
+
+He first knew that he loved her on the occasion of her "coming of age
+party." His people and hers lived in the same sombre London square:
+their Haslemere gardens were divided only by a sunk fence. He had known
+her all his life. Her coming of age succeeded but by a couple of days
+his return from three years of lazy philosophy--study in Germany--and
+the sight of her took his breath away. In the time-honoured _clich�_ of
+the hurried novelist--too hurried to turn a new phrase for an idea as
+old as the new life of spring--he had left a child: he found a woman.
+She wore a soft satiny-white gown, that showed gleams of rose colour
+through its folds. There were pink hollyhock blossoms in the bright
+brown of her hair. Her eyes were shining with the excitement of this
+festival of which she was the goddess. He lost his head, danced with her
+five times, and carried away a crumpled hollyhock bloom that had fallen
+from her hair during the last Lancers, through which he had watched her.
+All his dances with her had been waltzes. It was not till, alone again
+at his hotel, he pulled out the hollyhock flower with his ball programme
+that he awoke to a complete sense of the insipid flatness of the new
+situation.
+
+He had fallen in love--was madly _�pris_, at any rate--and the girl was
+the girl whose charms, whose fortune, whose general suitability as a
+match for him had been dinned into his ears ever since he was a callow
+boy at Oxford, and she a long-black-silk-legged, short-frocked tom-boy
+of fourteen. Everyone had always said that it was the obvious thing. And
+now he had, for once, done exactly what was expected of him, and his
+fine literary sense revolted. The worst of all was that she seemed not
+quite to hate him. Better, a thousand times better, that he should have
+loved and longed, and never won a smile from her--that he should have
+sacrificed something, anything, and gone his lonely way. But she had
+smiled on him, undoubtedly she had smiled, and he did not want to play
+the part so long ago assigned to him by his people. He wanted to be
+Sidney Carton. Darnay's had always seemed to him the inferior r�le.
+
+Yet he could not keep his thoughts from her, and for what was left of
+the year his days and nights were a restless see-saw of longing and
+repulsion, advance and retreat. His moods were reflected in hers, but
+always an interview later; that is to say, if he were cold on Tuesday
+she on Thursday would be colder. If on Thursday he grew earnest, Sunday
+would find her kind. But he, by that time, was frigid. So that they
+never, after the first wildly beautiful evening when their hearts went
+out to each other in a splendour of primitive frankness, met in moods
+that chimed.
+
+This safe-guarded him. It irritated her. And it most successfully
+bewitched them both.
+
+His people and her people looked on, and were absolutely and sadly
+convinced that--as her brother put it to his uncle--it was "no go."
+Thereupon, a certain young-old cotton broker appearing on the scene and
+bringing gifts with him, her people began to put pressure on her. She
+loathed the cotton-broker, and said so. One afternoon everyone was by
+careful accident got out of the way, and the cotton-broker caught her
+alone. That night there was a scene. Her father talked a little too much
+of obedience and of duty, her mother played the hysterical symphony with
+the loud pedal hard down, and next morning the girl had vanished,
+leaving the conventional note of farewell on the pincushion.
+
+Now the two families, being on all accounts close allies, had bought
+jointly a piece of land near the Littlestone golf links, and on it had
+built a bungalow, occupied by members of either house in turn, according
+to any friendly arrangement that happened to commend itself. But at this
+time of the year folk were keeping Christmas season dismally in their
+town houses.
+
+It was on the day when the cotton-broker made his failure that the whole
+world seemed suddenly worthless to the man with the hollyhock bloom in
+his pocket-book, because he had met her at a dance, and he had been
+tender, but she, reflecting his mood of their last meeting, had been
+glacial. So he lied roundly to his people, and told them that he was
+going to spend a week or two with an old chum who was staying up for the
+vacation at Cambridge, and instead, he chose the opposite point of the
+compass, and took train to New Romney, and walked over to the squat,
+one-storied bungalow near the sea. Here he let himself in with the
+family latch-key, and set to work, with the help of a box from the
+stores, borne behind him with his portmanteau on a hand-cart, to keep
+Christmas by himself. This, at least, was not literary. It was not in
+the least what a person in a book would do. He lit a fire in the
+dining-room, and the chimney was damp and smoked abominably, so that
+when he had fed full on tinned meats he was fain to let the fire go out
+and to sit in his fur-lined overcoat by the be-cindered grate, now fast
+growing cold, and smoke pipe after pipe of gloomy reflection. He
+thought of it all. The cursed countenance which his people were ready to
+give to the match that he couldn't make--her maddening indecisions--his
+own idiotic variableness. He had lighted the lamp, but it smelt vilely,
+and he blew it out, and did not light candles because it was too much
+trouble. So the early winter dusk deepened into night, and the bitter
+north wind had brought the snow, and it drifted now in feather-soft
+touches against the windows.
+
+He thought of the good warm dining-room in Russell Square--of the
+gathering of aunts and uncles and cousins, uncongenial, perhaps, but
+still human, and he shivered in his fur-lined coat and his icy solitude,
+damning himself for the fool he knew he was.
+
+And even as he damned, his breath was stopped, and his heart leaped at
+the sound, faint but unmistakable, of a key in the front door. If a man
+exist not too remote from his hairy ancestors to have lost the habit of
+the pricking ear, he was that man. He pricked his ears, so far as the
+modern man may, and listened.
+
+The key grated in the lock--grated and turned; the door was opened, and
+banged again. Something was set down in the little passage, set down
+thumpingly and wholly without precaution. He heard a hand move along the
+partition of match-boarding. He heard the latch of the kitchen door rise
+and fall--and he heard the scrape and spurt of a struck match.
+
+He sat still. He would catch this burglar red-handed.
+
+Through the ill-fitting partitions of the jerry-built bungalow he could
+hear the intruder moving recklessly in the kitchen. The legs of chairs
+and tables grated on the brick floor. He took off his shoes, rose, and
+crept out through the passage towards the kitchen door. It stood ajar. A
+clear-cut slice of light came from it. Treading softly in his stockinged
+feet, he came to it and looked in. One candle, stuck in a tea-saucer,
+burned on the table. A weak blue-and-yellow glimmer came from some
+sticks in the bottom of the fireplace.
+
+Kneeling in front of this, breathless with the endeavour to blow the
+damp sticks to flame, crouched the burglar. A woman. A girl. She had
+laid aside hat and cloak. The first sight of her was like a whirlwind
+sweeping over heart and brain. For the bright brown hair that the
+candle-light lingered in was like Her dear brown hair--and when she rose
+suddenly, and turned towards the door, his heart stood still, for it was
+She--her very self.
+
+She had not seen him. He retreated, in all the stillness his tortured
+nerves allowed, and sat down again in the fur coat and the dining-room.
+She had not heard him. He was, for some moments, absolutely stunned,
+then he crept to the window. In the poignant stillness of the place he
+could hear the heavy flakes of snow dabbing softly at the glass.
+
+She was here. She, like him, had fled to this refuge, confident in its
+desertion at this season by both the families who shared a right to it.
+She was there--he was there. Why had she fled? The question did not wait
+to be answered; it sank before the other question. What was he to do?
+The whole literary soul of the man cried out against either of the
+obvious courses of action.
+
+"I can go in," he said, "and surprise her, and tell her I love her, and
+then walk out with dignified propriety, and leave her alone here.
+That's conventional and dramatic. Or I can sneak off without her knowing
+I've been here at all, and leave her to spend the night unprotected in
+this infernal frozen dog-hutch. That's conventional enough, heaven
+knows! But what's the use of being a reasonable human being with
+free-will if you can't do anything but the literarily and romantically
+obvious?"
+
+Here a sudden noise thrilled him. Next moment he drew a long breath of
+relief. She had but dropped a gridiron. As it crashed and settled down
+with a rhythmic rattle on the kitchen flags, the thought flowed through
+him like a river of Paradise. "If she did love me--if I loved her--what
+an hour and what a moment this would be!"
+
+Meantime she, her hands helpless with cold, was dropping clattering
+gridirons not five yards from him.
+
+Suppose he went out to the kitchen and suddenly announced himself!
+
+How flat--how obvious!
+
+Suppose he crept quietly away and went to the inn at New Romney!
+
+How desperately flat! How more than obvious!
+
+Suppose he--but the third course refused itself to the desperate clutch
+of his drowning imagination, and left him clinging to the bare straw of
+a question. What should he do?
+
+Suddenly the really knightly and unconventional idea occurred to him, an
+idea that would save him from the pit of the obvious, yawning on each
+side.
+
+There was a bicycle shed, where, also, wood was stored and coal, and
+lumber of all sorts. He would pass the night there, warm in his fur
+coat, and his determination not to let his conduct be shaped by what
+people in books would have done. And in the morning--strong with the
+great renunciation of all the possibilities that this evening's meeting
+held--he would come and knock at the front door--just like anybody
+else--and--_qui vivra verra_. At least, he would be watching over her
+rest--and would be able to protect the house from tramps.
+
+Very gently and cautiously, all in the dark, he pushed his bag behind
+the sofa, covered the stores box with a liberty cloth from a side
+table, crept out softly, and softly opened the front door; it opened
+softly, that is, but it shut with an unmistakable click that stung in
+his ears as he stood on one foot on the snowy doorstep struggling with
+the knots of his shoe laces.
+
+The bicycle shed was uncompromisingly dark, and smelt of coal sacks and
+paraffin. He found a corner--between the coals and the wood--and sat
+down on the floor.
+
+"Bother the fur coat," was his answer to the doubt whether coal dust and
+broken twigs were a good down-setting for that triumph of the Bond
+Street art. There he sat, full of a chastened joy at the thought that he
+watched over her--that he, sleepless, untiring, was on guard, ready, at
+an instant's warning, to spring to her aid, should she need protection.
+The thought was mightily soothing. The shed was cold. The fur coat was
+warm. In five minutes he was sleeping peacefully as any babe.
+
+When he awoke it was with the light of a big horn lantern in his eyes,
+and in his ears the snapping of wood.
+
+She was there--stooping beside the heaped faggots, breaking off twigs to
+fill the lap of her up-gathered blue gown; the shimmery silk of her
+petticoat gleamed greenly. He was partly hidden by a derelict bicycle
+and a watering-can.
+
+He hardly dared to draw breath.
+
+Composedly she broke the twigs. Then like a flash she turned towards
+him.
+
+"Who's there?" she said.
+
+An inspiration came to him--and this, at least, was not flat or obvious.
+He writhed into the darkness behind a paraffin cask, slipped out of his
+fur coat, and plunged his hands in the dust of the coal.
+
+"Don't be 'ard on a pore cove, mum," he mumbled, desperately rubbing the
+coal dust on to his face; "you wouldn't go for to turn a dawg out on a
+night like this, let alone a pore chap outer work!"
+
+Even as he spoke he admired the courage of the girl. Alone, miles from
+any other house, she met a tramp in an outhouse as calmly as though he
+had been a fly in the butter.
+
+"You've no business here, you know," she said briskly. "What did you
+come for?"
+
+"Shelter, mum--I won't take nothing as don't belong to me--not so much
+as a lump of coal, mum, not if it was ever so!"
+
+She turned her head. He almost thought she smiled.
+
+"But I can't have tramps sleeping here," she said.
+
+"It's not as if I was a reg'lar tramp," he said, warming to his part as
+he had often done on the stage in his A.D.C. days. "I'm a respectable
+working-man, mum, as 'as seen better days."
+
+"Are you hungry?" she said. "I'll give you something to eat before you
+go if you'll come to the door in five minutes."
+
+He could not refuse--but when she was gone into the house he could bolt.
+So he said--
+
+"Now may be the blessing! It's starving I am, mum, and on Christmas
+Eve!"
+
+This time she did smile: it was beyond a doubt. He had always thought
+her smile charming. She turned at the door, and her glance followed the
+lantern's rays as they pierced the darkness where he crouched.
+
+The moment he heard the house door shut, he sprang up, and lifted the
+fur coat gingerly to the wood-block. Flight, instant flight! Yet how
+could he present himself at New Romney with a fur coat and a face like a
+collier's? He had drawn a bucket of water from the well earlier in the
+day; some would be left; it was close by the back door. He tiptoed over
+the snow and washed, and washed, and washed. He was drying face and
+hands with a pocket-handkerchief that seemed strangely small and cold
+when the door opened suddenly, and there, close by him, was she,
+silhouetted against the warm glow of fire and candles.
+
+"Come in," she said; "you can't possibly see to wash out there."
+
+Before he knew it her hand was on his arm, and she had drawn him to the
+warmth and light.
+
+He looked at her--but her eyes were on the fire.
+
+"I'll give you some warm water, and you can wash at the sink," she said,
+closing the door and taking the kettle from the fire.
+
+He caught sight of his face in the square of looking-glass over the sink
+tap.
+
+Was it worth while to go on pretending? Yet his face was still very
+black. And she evidently had not recognised him. Perhaps--surely she
+would have the good taste to retire while the tramp washed, so that he
+could take his coat off? Then he could take flight, and the situation
+would be saved from absolute farce.
+
+But when she had poured the hot water into a bowl she sat down in the
+Windsor chair by the fire and gazed into the hot coals.
+
+He washed.
+
+He washed till he was quite clean.
+
+He dried face and hands on the rough towel.
+
+He dried them till they were scarlet and shone. But he dared not turn
+around.
+
+There seemed no way out of this save by the valley of humiliation. Still
+she sat looking into the fire.
+
+As he washed he saw with half a retroverted eye the round table spread
+with china and glass and silver.
+
+"As I live--it's set for two!" he told himself. And, in an instant,
+jealousy answered, once and for all, the questions he had been asking
+himself since August.
+
+"Aren't you clean yet?" she said at last.
+
+How could he speak?
+
+"Aren't you clean _yet_?" she repeated, and called him by his name. He
+turned then quickly enough. She was leaning back in the chair laughing
+at him.
+
+"How did you know me?" he asked angrily.
+
+"Your tramp-voice might have deceived me," she said, "you did do it most
+awfully well! But, you see, I'd been looking at you for ages before you
+woke."
+
+"Then good night," said he.
+
+"Good night!" said she; "but it's not seven yet!"
+
+"You're expecting someone," he said, pointing dramatically to the table.
+
+"Oh, _that_!" she said; "yes--that was for--for the poor man as had seen
+better days! There's nothing but eggs--but I couldn't turn a dog from my
+door on such a night--till I'd fed it!"
+
+"Do you really mean--?"
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"It's glorious!"
+
+"It's a picnic."
+
+"But?" said he.
+
+"Oh--well! Go if you like!" said she.
+
+It was not only eggs: it was all sorts of things from that stores box.
+They ate, and they talked. He told her that he had been bored in town
+and had sought relief in solitude. That, she told him, was her case
+also. He told her how he had heard her come in, and how he had hated to
+take either the obvious course of following her to the kitchen, saying
+"How do you do?" and retiring to New Romney; or the still more obvious
+course of sneaking away without asking her how she did. And he told her
+how he had decided to keep watch over her from the bicycle shed. And how
+the coal-black inspiration had come to him. And she laughed.
+
+"That was much more literary than anything else you could have thought
+of," said she; "it was exactly like a book. And oh--you've no idea how
+funny you looked."
+
+They both laughed, and there was a silence.
+
+"Do you know," he said, "I can hardly believe that this is the first
+meal we've ever had alone together? It seems as though--"
+
+"It _is_ funny," she said, smiling hurriedly at him.
+
+He did not smile. He said: "I want you to tell me why you were so
+angel-good--why did you let me stay? Why did you lay the pretty table
+for two?"
+
+"Because we've never been in the same mood at the same time," she said
+desperately; "and somehow I thought we should be this evening."
+
+"What mood?" he asked inexorably.
+
+"Why--jolly--cheerful," she said, with the slightest possible
+hesitation.
+
+"I see."
+
+There was another silence. Then she said in a voice that fluttered a
+little--
+
+"My old governess, Miss Pettingill--you remember old Pet? Well, she's
+coming by the train that gets in at three. I wired to her from town. She
+ought to be here by now--"
+
+"Ought she?" he cried, pushing back his chair and coming towards
+her--"ought she? Then, by heaven! before she comes I'm going to tell you
+something--"
+
+"No, don't!" she cried. "You'll spoil everything. Go and sit down again.
+You shall! I insist! Let _me_ tell _you_! I always swore I would some
+day!"
+
+"Why?" said he, and sat down.
+
+"Because I knew _you'd_ never make up your mind to tell _me_--"
+
+"To tell you what?"
+
+"_Anything_--for fear you should have to say it in the same way someone
+else had said it before!"
+
+"Said what?"
+
+"Anything! Sit still! Now _I'm_ going to tell _you_."
+
+She came slowly round the table and knelt on one knee beside him, her
+elbows on the arm of his chair.
+
+"You've never had the courage to make up your mind to anything," she
+began.
+
+"Is that what you were going to tell me?" he asked, and looked in her
+eyes till she dropped their lids.
+
+"No--yes--no! I haven't anything to tell you really. Good night."
+
+"Aren't you going to tell me?"
+
+"There isn't anything to tell," she said.
+
+"Then I'll tell you," said he.
+
+She started up, and the little brass knocker's urgent summons resounded
+through the bungalow.
+
+"Here she is!" she cried.
+
+He also sprang to his feet.
+
+"And we haven't told each other anything!" he said.
+
+"Haven't we? Ah, no--don't! Let me go! There--she's knocking again. You
+must let me go!"
+
+He let her slip through his arms.
+
+At the door she paused to flash a soft, queer smile at him.
+
+"It _was_ I who told you, after all!" she said. "Aren't you glad?
+Because that wasn't a bit literary."
+
+"You didn't. I told you," he retorted.
+
+"Not you!" she said scornfully. "That would have been too obvious."
+
+
+
+
+THE LIE ABSOLUTE
+
+
+THE tradesmen's books, orderly spread, lay on the rose-wood
+writing-table, each adorned by its own just pile of gold and silver
+coin. The books at the White House were paid weekly, and paid in cash.
+It had always been so. The brown holland blinds were lowered half-way.
+The lace curtains almost met across the windows. Thus, while, without,
+July blazed on lawns and paths and borders, in this room a cool twilight
+reigned. A leisured quiet, an ordered ease, reigned there too, as they
+had done for every day of Dorothea's thirty-five years. The White House
+was one of those to which no change comes. None but Death, and Death,
+however he may have wrung the heart or stunted the soul of the living,
+had been powerless to change outward seemings. Dorothea had worn a black
+dress for a while, and she best knew what tears she had wept and for
+what long months the light of life had gone out of all things. But the
+tears had not blinded her eyes to the need of a mirror-polish on the old
+mahogany furniture, and all through those months there had been, at
+least, the light of duty. The house must be kept as her dead mother had
+kept it. The three prim maids and the gardener had been "in the family"
+since Dorothea was a girl of twenty--a girl with hopes and dreams and
+fond imaginings that, spreading bright wings, wandered over a world far
+other than this dainty, delicate, self-improving, coldly charitable,
+unchanging existence. Well, the dreams and the hopes and the fond
+imaginings had come home to roost. He who had set them flying had gone
+away: he had gone to see the world. He had not come back. He was seeing
+it still; and all that was left of a girl's first romance was in certain
+neat packets of foreign letters in the drawer of the rose-wood table,
+and in the disciplined soul of the woman who sat before it "doing the
+books." Monday was the day for this. Every day had its special duties:
+every duty its special hour. While the mother had stayed there had been
+love to give life to this life that was hardly life at all. Now the
+mother was gone it sometimes seemed to Dorothea that she had not lived
+for these fifteen years--and that even the life before had been less
+life than a dream of it. She sighed.
+
+"I'm old," she said, "and I'm growing silly."
+
+She put her pen neatly in the inkstand tray: it was an old silver pen,
+and an old inkstand of S�vres porcelain. Then she went out into the
+garden by the French window, muffled in jasmine, and found herself face
+to face with a stranger, a straight well-set-up man of forty or
+thereabouts, with iron-grey hair and a white moustache. Before his hand
+had time to reach the Panama hat she knew him, and her heart leaped up
+and sank sick and trembling. But she said:--
+
+"To whom have I the pleasure--?"
+
+The man caught her hands.
+
+"Why, Dolly," he said, "don't you know me? I should have known you
+anywhere."
+
+A rose-flush deepened on her face.
+
+"It can't be Robert?"
+
+"Can't it? And how are you, Dolly? Everything's just the same--By Jove!
+the very same heliotropes and pansies in the very same border--and the
+jasmine and the sundial and everything."
+
+"They tell me the trees have grown," she said. "I like to think it's all
+the same. Why didn't you tell me you were coming home? Come in."
+
+She led him through the hall with the barometer and the silver-faced
+clock and the cases of stuffed birds.
+
+"I don't know. I wanted to surprise you--and, by George! I've surprised
+myself. It's beautiful. It's all just as it used to be, Dolly."
+
+The tears came into her eyes. No one had called her Dolly since the
+mother went, whose going had made everything, for ever, other than it
+used to be.
+
+"I'll tell them you're staying for lunch."
+
+She got away on that, and stood a moment in the hall, before the stuffed
+fox with the duck in its mouth, to catch strongly at her lost composure.
+
+If anyone had had the right to ask the reason of her agitation, and had
+asked it, Dorothea would have said that the sudden happening of
+anything was enough to upset one in whose life nothing ever happened.
+But no one had the right.
+
+She went into the kitchen to give the necessary orders.
+
+"Not the mince," she said; "or, stay. Yes, that would do, too. You must
+cook the fowl that was for to-night's dinner--and Jane can go down to
+the village for something else for to-night. And salad and raspberries.
+And I will put out some wine. My cousin, Mr. Courtenay, has come home
+from India. He will lunch with me."
+
+"Master Bob," said the cook, as the kitchen door closed, "well, if I
+ever did! He's a married man by this time, with young folkses growing up
+around him, I shouldn't wonder. He never did look twice the same side of
+the road where she was. Poor Miss Dolly!"
+
+Most of us are mercifully ignorant of the sympathy that surrounds us.
+
+"It's wonderful," he said, when she rejoined him in the drawing-room. "I
+feel like the Prodigal Son. When I think of the drawing-rooms I've seen.
+The gim-crack trumpery, the curtains and the pictures and the furniture
+constantly shifted, the silly chatter, the obvious curios, the
+commonplace rarities, the inartistic art, and the brainless empty
+chatter, spiteful as often as not, and all the time _this_ has been
+going on beautifully, quietly, perfectly. Dolly, you're a lucky girl!"
+
+To her face the word brought a flush that almost justified it.
+
+They talked: and he told her how all these long years he had wearied for
+the sight of English fields, and gardens, of an English home like
+this--till he almost believed that he was speaking the truth.
+
+He looked at Dorothea with long, restful hands quietly folded, as she
+talked in the darkened drawing-room, at Dorothea with busy, skilful
+hands among the old silver and the old glass and the old painted china
+at lunch. He listened through the drowsy afternoon to Dorothea's gentle,
+high-bred, low-toned voice, to the music of her soft, rare laugh, as
+they sat in the wicker-chairs under the weeping ash on the lawn.
+
+And he thought of other women--a crowd of them, with high, shrill tones
+and constant foolish cackle of meaningless laughter; of the atmosphere
+of paint, powder, furbelows, flirtation, empty gaiety, feverish
+flippancy. He thought, too, of women, two and three, whose faces stood
+out from the crowd and yet were of it. And he looked at Dorothea's
+delicate worn face and her honest eyes with the faint lines round them.
+
+As he went through the hush of the evening to his rooms at the "Spotted
+Dog" the thought of Dorothea, of her house, her garden, her peaceful
+ordered life stirred him to a passion of appreciation. Out of the waste
+and desert of his own life, with its memories of the far country and the
+husks and the swine, he seemed to be looking through a window at the
+peaceful life--as a hungry, lonely tramp may limp to a lamp-lit window,
+and peering in, see father and mother and round-faced children, and the
+table spread whitely, and the good sure food that to these people is a
+calm certainty, like breathing or sleeping, not a joyous accident, or
+one of the great things that man was taught to pray for. The tramp turns
+away with a curse or a groan, according to his nature, and goes on his
+way cursing or groaning, or, if the pinch be fierce, he tries the back
+door or the unguarded window. With Robert the pang of longing was keen,
+and he was minded to try any door--not to beg for the broken meats of
+cousinly kindness, but to enter as master into that "better place"
+wherein Dorothea had found so little of Paradise.
+
+It was no matter of worldly gain. The Prodigal had not wasted his
+material substance on the cheap husks that cost so dear. He had money
+enough and to spare: it was in peace and the dignity of life that he now
+found himself to be bankrupt.
+
+As for Dorothea, when she brushed her long pale hair that night she
+found that her hands were not so steady as usual, and in the morning she
+was quite shocked to note that she had laid her hair-pins on the
+left-hand side of the pin-cushion instead of on the right, a thing she
+had not done for years.
+
+It was at the end of a week, a week of long sunny days and dewy dark
+evenings spent in the atmosphere that had enslaved him. Dinner was over.
+Robert had smoked his cigar among the garden's lengthening shadows. Now
+he and Dorothea were at the window watching the light of life die
+beautifully on the changing face of the sky.
+
+They had talked as this week had taught them to talk--with the intimacy
+of old friends and the mutual interest of new unexplored acquaintances.
+This is the talk that does not weary--the talk that can only be kept
+alive by the daring of revelation, and the stronger courage of
+unconquerable reserve.
+
+Now there came a silence--with it seemed to come the moment. Robert
+spoke--
+
+"Dorothea," he said, and her mind pricked its ears suspiciously because
+he had not called her Dolly.
+
+"Well?"
+
+"I wonder if you understand what these days have been to me? I was so
+tired of the world and its follies--this is like some calm haven after a
+stormy sea."
+
+The words seemed strangely familiar. He had a grating sense of talking
+like a book, and something within him sneered at the scruple, and said
+that Dolly would not notice it.
+
+But she said: "I'm sure I've read something like that in a school
+reading book, but it's very touching, of course."
+
+"Oh--if you're going to mock my holiest sentiments," he said
+lightly--and withdrew from the attack.
+
+The moment seemed to flutter near again when she said good night to him
+in the porch where the violet clematis swung against his head as he
+stood. This time his opening was better inspired.
+
+"Dolly, dear," he said, "how am I ever to go away?"
+
+Her heart leaped against her side, for his tone was tender. But so may a
+cousin's tone be--even a second cousin's, and when one is thirty-five
+she has little to fear from the pitying tenderness of her relations.
+
+"I am so glad you have liked being here," she said sedately. "You must
+come again some time."
+
+"I don't want to go away at all," he said. "Dolly, won't you let me
+stay--won't you marry me?"
+
+Almost as he took her hand she snatched it from him.
+
+"You must be mad!" she said. "Why on earth should you want to marry me?"
+Also she said: "I am old and plain, and you don't love me." But she said
+it to herself.
+
+"I do want it," he said, "and I want it more than I want anything."
+
+His tone was convincing.
+
+"But why? but why?"
+
+An impulse of truth-telling came to Robert.
+
+"Because it's all so beautiful," he said with straightforward
+enthusiasm. "All your lovely quiet life--and the house, and these old
+gardens, and the dainty, delicate, firm way you have of managing
+everything--the whole thing's my ideal. It's perfect--I can't bear any
+other life."
+
+"I'm afraid you'll have to," she said with bitter decision. "I am not
+going to marry a man just because he admires my house and garden, and is
+good enough to appreciate my methods of household management. Good
+night."
+
+She had shaken his hand coolly and shut the front door from within
+before he could find a word. He found one as the latch clicked.
+
+"Fool!" he said to himself, and stamped his foot.
+
+Dorothea ran up the stairs two at a time to say the same word to herself
+in the stillness of her bedroom.
+
+"Fool--fool--fool!" she said. "Why couldn't I have said 'No' quietly?
+Why did I let him see I was angry? Why should I be angry? It's better to
+be wanted because you're a good manager than not to be wanted at all. At
+least, I suppose it is. No--it _isn't_! it isn't! it isn't! And
+nothing's any use now. It's all gone. If he'd wanted to marry me when I
+was young and pretty I could have made him love me. And I _was_
+pretty--I know I was--I can remember it perfectly well!"
+
+Her quiet years had taken from her no least little touch of girlish
+sentiment. The longing to be loved was as keen in her as it had been at
+twenty. She cried herself to sleep, and had a headache the next day.
+Also her eyes looked smaller than usual and her nose was pink. She went
+and sat in the black shade of a yew, and trusted that in that deep
+shadow her eyes and nose would not make Robert feel glad that she had
+said "No." She wished him to be sorry. She had put on the prettiest gown
+she had, in the hope that he _would_ be sorry; then she was ashamed of
+the impulse; also its pale clear greenness seemed to intensify the
+pinkness of her nose. So she went back to the trailing grey gown. Her
+wearing of her best Honiton lace collar seemed pardonable. He would
+never notice it--or know that real lace is more becoming than anything
+else. She waited for him in the deep shadow, and it was all the morning
+that she waited. For he knew the value of suspense, and he had not the
+generosity that disdains the use of the obvious weapon. He was right so
+far, that before he came she had had time to wonder whether it was her
+life's one chance of happiness that she had thrown away. But he drove
+the knife home too far, for when at last she heard the click of the gate
+and saw the gleam of flannels through the shrubbery, the anxious
+questioning, "Will he come?" "Have I offended him beyond recall?"
+changed at one heart-beat to an almost perfect understanding of his
+reasons for delay. She greeted him coldly. That he expected. But he
+saw--or believed he saw--the relief under the coldness--and he brought
+up his forces for the attack.
+
+"Dear," he said--almost at once--"forgive me for last night. It was
+true, and if I had expressed it better you'd have understood. It isn't
+just the house and garden, and the perfect life. It's _you_! Don't you
+understand what it is to come back from the world to all this, and
+you--you--you--the very centre of the star?"
+
+"It's all very well," she said, "but that wasn't what you said last
+night."
+
+"It's what I meant," said he. "Dear, don't you see how much I want you?"
+
+"But--I'm old--and plain, and--"
+
+She looked at him with eyes still heavy from last night's tears, and he
+experienced an unexpected impulse of genuine tenderness.
+
+"My dear," he said, "when I first remember your mother she was about
+your age. I used to think she was the most beautiful person in the
+world. She seemed to shed happiness and peace around her--like--like a
+lamp sheds light. And you are just like her. Ah--don't send me away."
+
+"Thank you," she said, struggling wildly with the cross currents of
+emotion set up by his words. "Thank you. I have not lived single all
+these years to be married at last because I happen to be like my
+mother."
+
+The words seemed a treason to the dead, and the tears filled Dorothea's
+eyes.
+
+He saw them; he perceived that they ran in worn channels, and the
+impulse of tenderness grew.
+
+Till this moment he had spoken only the truth. His eyes took in the
+sunny lawn beyond the yew shadow, the still house: the whir of the
+lawn-mower was music at once pastoral and patriotic. He heard the break
+in her voice; he saw the girlish grace of her thin shape, the pathetic
+charm of her wistful mouth. And he lied with a good heart.
+
+"My dear," he said, with a tremble in his voice that sounded like
+passion, "my dear--it's not for that--I love you, Dolly--I think I must
+have loved you all my life!"
+
+And at the light that leaped into her eyes he suddenly felt that this
+lie was nearer truth than he had known.
+
+"I love you, dear--I love you," he repeated, and the words were oddly
+pleasant to say. "Won't you love me a little, too?"
+
+She covered her face with her hands. She could no more have doubted him
+than she could have doubted the God to whom she had prayed night and
+morning for all these lonely years.
+
+"Love you a little?" she said softly. "Ah! Robert, don't you know that
+I've loved you all my life?"
+
+So a lie won what truth could not gain. And the odd thing is that the
+lie has now grown quite true, and he really believes that he has always
+loved her, just as he certainly loves her now. For some lies come true
+in the telling. But most of them do not, and it is not wise to try
+experiments.
+
+
+
+
+THE GIRL WITH THE GUITAR
+
+
+THE last strains of the ill-treated, ill-fated "Intermezzo" had died
+away, and after them had died away also the rumbling of the wheels of
+the murderous barrel-organ that had so gaily executed that, along with
+the nine other tunes of its repertory, to the admiration of the
+housemaid at the window of the house opposite, and the crowing delight
+of the two babies next door.
+
+The young man drew a deep breath of relief, and lighted the wax candles
+in the solid silver candlesticks on his writing-table, for now the late
+summer dusk was falling, and that organ, please Heaven, made full the
+measure of the day's appointed torture. There had been five organs since
+dinner--and seven in the afternoon--one and all urgently thumping their
+heavy melodies into his brain, to the confusion of the thoughts that
+waited there, eager to marshal themselves, orderly and firm, into the
+phalanx of an article on "The Decadence of Criticism."
+
+He filled his pipe, drew paper towards him, dipped his pen, and wrote
+his title on the blank page. The silence came round him, soothing as a
+beloved presence, the scent of the may bushes in the suburban gardens
+stole in pleasantly through the open windows. After all, it was a "quiet
+neighbourhood" as the advertisement had said--at any rate, in the
+evening: and in the evening a man's best efforts--
+
+_Thrum_, tum, tum--_Thrum_, tum, tum came the defiant strumming of a
+guitar close to the window. He sprang to his feet--this was, indeed, too
+much! But before he could draw back the curtains and express himself to
+the intruder, the humming of the guitar was dominated by the first words
+of a song--
+
+    "Oh picerella del vieni al'mare
+         Nella barchetta veletto di fiore
+     La biancha prora somiglia al'altare
+     Tutte le stelle favellan d'amor,"
+
+and so forth. The performer was evidently singing "under her voice," but
+the effect was charming. He stood with his hand on the curtain,
+listening--and with a pleasure that astonished him. The song came to an
+end with a chord in which all the strings twanged their best. Then there
+was silence--then a sigh, and the sound of light moving feet on the
+gravel. He threw back the curtain and leaned out of the window.
+
+"Here!" he called to the figure that moved slowly towards the gate. She
+turned quickly, and came back two steps. She wore the dress of a
+Contadina, a very smart dress indeed, and her hands looked small and
+white.
+
+"Won't you sing again?" he asked.
+
+She hesitated, then struck a chord or two and began another of those
+little tuneful Italian songs, all stars and flowers and hearts of gold.
+And again he listened with a quiet pleasure.
+
+"I should like to hear her voice at its full strength," he thought--and
+now it was time to give the vagrant a few coppers, and, shutting the
+window, to leave her to go on to the next front garden.
+
+Never had any act seemed so impossible. He had watched her through the
+singing of this last song, and he had grown aware of the beauty of her
+face's oval--of the fine poise of her head--and of the grace of hands
+and arms.
+
+"Aren't you tired?" he said. "Wouldn't you like to sit down and rest?
+There is a seat in the garden at the side of the house."
+
+Again she hesitated. Then she turned towards the quarter indicated and
+disappeared round the laurel bushes.
+
+He was alone in the house--his people and the servants were in the
+country; the woman who came to "do for him" had left for the night. He
+went into the dining-room, dark with mahogany and damask, found wine and
+cake in the sideboard cupboard, put them on a tray, and took them out
+through the garden door and round to the corner where, almost sheltered
+by laburnums and hawthorns from the view of the people next door, the
+singer and her guitar rested on the iron seat.
+
+"I have brought you some wine--will you have it?"
+
+Again that strange hesitation--then quite suddenly the girl put her
+hands up to her face and began to cry.
+
+"Here--I say, you know--don't--" he said. "Oh, Lord! This is awful. I
+hardly know a word of Italian, and apparently she has no English. Here,
+signorina, ecco, prendi--vino--gatto--No, gatto's a cat. I was thinking
+of French. Oh, Lord!"
+
+The Contadina had pulled out a very small handkerchief, and was drying
+her eyes with it. She rose.
+
+"No--don't go," he said eagerly. "I can see you are tired out. Sai
+fatigue� non � vero? Io non parlate Italiano, sed vino habet, et cake
+ante vous partez."
+
+She looked at him and spoke for the first time.
+
+"It serves me right," she said in excellent, yet unfamiliar, English. "I
+don't understand a single word you say! I might have known I couldn't do
+it, though it's just what girls in books would do. It would have turned
+out all right with them. Let me go--thank you very much. I am sure you
+meant to be kind." And then she began to cry again.
+
+"Look here," he said, "this is all nonsense, you know. You are tired
+out--and there's something wrong. What is it? Do drink this, and then
+tell me. Perhaps I can help you."
+
+She drank obediently. Then she said: "I have not had anything to eat
+since last night--"
+
+He hurriedly cut cake and pressed it upon her. He had no time to think,
+but he was aware that this was the most exciting adventure that had ever
+happened to him.
+
+"It's no use--and it all sounds so silly."
+
+"Ah--but do tell me!" His voice was kinder than he meant it to be. Her
+eyes filled again with tears.
+
+"You don't know how horrid everyone has been. Oh--I never knew before
+what devils people are to you when you're poor--"
+
+"Is it only that you're poor? Why, that's nothing. I'm poor, too."
+
+She laughed. "I'm _not_ poor--not really."
+
+"What is it, then? You've quarrelled with your friends, and--Ah, tell
+me--and let me try to help you."
+
+"You _are_ kind--but--Well, then--it's like this. My father brought me
+to England from the States a month ago: he's 'made his pile': it was in
+pork, and I always wish he'd made it of something else, even canned
+fruit would be better, but that doesn't matter--We didn't know anyone
+here, of course, and directly we got here, he was wired
+for--business--and he had to go home again."
+
+"But surely he didn't leave you without money."
+
+Her little foot tapped the gravel impatiently.
+
+"I'm coming to that," she said. "Of course he didn't. He told me to stay
+on at the hotel, and I did--and then one night when I was at the theatre
+my maid--a horrid French thing we got in Paris--packed up all my trunks
+and took all my money, and paid the bill, and went. The hotel folks let
+her go--I can't think how people can be so silly. But they wouldn't let
+me stay, and I wired to papa--and there was no answer, and I don't know
+whatever's the matter with him. I know it all sounds as if I was making
+it up as I go along--"
+
+She stopped short, and looked at him through the dusk. He did not speak,
+but whatever she saw in his face it satisfied her. She said again: "You
+_are_ kind."
+
+"Go on," he said, "tell me all about it."
+
+"Well, then, I went into lodgings; that wicked woman had left me one
+street suit--and to-day they turned me out because my money was all
+gone. I had a little money in my purse--and this dress had been ordered
+for a fancy ball--it _is_ smart, isn't it?--and it came after that
+wretch had gone--and the guitar, too--and I thought I could make a
+little money. I really _can_ sing, though you mightn't think it. And
+I've been at it since five o'clock--and I've only got one shilling and
+seven pence. And no one but you has ever even thought of thinking
+whether I was tired or hungry or anything--and papa always took such
+care of me. I feel as if I had been beaten."
+
+"Let me think," he said. "Oh--how glad I am that you happened to come
+this way."
+
+He reflected a moment. Then he said--
+
+"I shall lock up all the doors and windows in the house--and then I
+shall give you my latch-key, and you can let yourself in and stay the
+night here--there is no one in the house. I will catch the night train,
+and bring my mother up to-morrow. Then we will see what can be done."
+
+The only excuse for this rash young man is to be found in the fact that
+while he was feeding his strange guest with cake and wine she was
+feeding, with her beauty, the first fire of his first love. Love at
+first sight is all nonsense, we know--we who have come to forty
+year--but at twenty-one one does not somehow recognise it for the
+nonsense it is.
+
+"But don't you know anyone in London?" he asked in a sensible
+postscript.
+
+It was not yet so dark but that he could see the crimson flush on her
+face.
+
+"Not _know_," she said. "Papa wouldn't like me to spoil my chances of
+knowing the right people with any foolishness like this. There's no one
+I could _let_ know. You see, papa's so very rich, and at home they
+expect me to--to get acquainted with dukes and things--and--"
+
+She stopped.
+
+"American heiresses are expected to marry English dukes," he said, with
+a distinct physical pain at his heart.
+
+"It wasn't I who said that," said the girl, smiling; "but that's so,
+anyhow." And then she sighed.
+
+"So it's your destiny to marry a duke, is it?" the young man spoke
+slowly. "All the same," he added irrelevantly, "you shall have the
+latch-key."
+
+"You _are_ kind," she said for the third time, and reached her hand out
+to him. He did not kiss it then, only took it in his, and felt how small
+and cold it was. Then it was taken away.
+
+He says that he only talked to her for half an hour--but the neighbours,
+from whose eyes suburban hawthorns and laburnums are powerless to
+conceal the least of our actions, declare that he sat with the guitar
+player on the iron seat till well after midnight; further, that when
+they parted he kissed her hand, and that she then put her hands on his
+shoulders--"quite shamelessly, you know"--and kissed him lightly on both
+cheeks. It is known that he passed the night prowling in our suburban
+lanes, and caught the 6.25 train in the morning to the place where his
+people were staying.
+
+The lady and the guitar certainly passed the night at Hill View Villa,
+but when his mother, very angry and very frightened, came up with him at
+about noon, the house looked just as usual, and no one was there but
+the charwoman.
+
+"An adventuress! I told you so!" said his mother at once--and the young
+man sat down at his study table and looked at the title of his article
+on "The Decadence of Criticism." It was surely a very long time ago that
+he had written that. And he sat there thinking, till his mother's voice
+roused him.
+
+"The silver is all right, thank goodness," she said, "but your banjo
+girl has taken a pair of your sister's silk stockings, and those new
+shoes of hers with the silver buckles--and she's left _these_."
+
+She held out a pair of little patent leather shoes, very worn and
+dusty--the slender silken web of a black stocking, brown with dust, hung
+from her hand. He answered nothing. She spent the rest of that day in
+searching the house for further losses, but all things were in their
+place, except the silver-handled button-hook--and that, as even his
+sister owned, had been missing for months.
+
+Yet his family would never leave him to keep house alone again: they
+said he is not to be trusted. And perhaps they are right. The half
+dozen pairs of embroidered silk stockings and the dainty French
+silver-buckled shoes, which arrived a month later addressed to Miss
+----, Hill View Villa, only confirmed their distrust. _He_ must have had
+them sent--that tambourine girl could never have afforded these--why,
+they were pure silk--and the quality! It was plain that his castanet
+girl--his mother and sister took a pleasure in crediting her daily with
+some fresh and unpleasing instrument--could have had neither taste,
+money, nor honesty to such a point as this.
+
+As for the young man, he bore it all very meekly, only he was glad when
+his essays on the decadence of things in general led to a berth on the
+staff of a big daily, and made it possible for him to take rooms in
+town--because he had grown weary of living with his family, and of
+hearing so constantly that She played the bones and the big drum and the
+concertina, and that She was a twopenny adventuress who stole his
+sister's shoes and stockings. He prefers to sit in his quiet room in the
+Temple, and to remember that she played the guitar and sang
+sweetly--that she had a mouth like a tired child's mouth, that her eyes
+were like stars, and that she kissed him--on both cheeks--and that he
+kissed--her hand only--as the scandalised suburb knows.
+
+
+
+
+THE MAN WITH THE BOOTS
+
+
+A YOUNG man with a little genius, a gift of literary expression, and a
+distaste not only for dissipation, but for the high-toned social
+functions of his suburban acquaintances, may go far--once he has chosen
+journalism for a profession, and has realised that to success in any
+profession a heart-whole service is necessary. A certain young man,
+having been kissed in his own garden by a girl with a guitar, ceased to
+care for evening parties, and devoted himself steadily to work. His
+relaxations were rowing down the Thames among the shipping, and thinking
+of the girl. In two years he was sent to Paris by the Thunderer--to
+ferret out information about a certain financial naughtiness which
+threatened a trusting public in general, and, in particular, a little
+band of blameless English shareholders.
+
+The details of the scheme are impertinent to the present narrative.
+
+The young man went to Paris and began to enjoy himself.
+
+He had good introductions. He had once done a similar piece of business
+before--but then luck aided him. As I said, he enjoyed himself, but he
+did not see his way to accomplishing his mission. But his luck stood by
+him, as you will see, in a very remarkable manner. At a masked ball he
+met a very charming Corsican lady. She was dressed as a nun, but the
+eyes that sparkled through her mask might have taxed the resources of
+the most competent abbess. She spoke very agreeable English, and she was
+very kind to the young man, indicated the celebrities--she seemed to
+know everyone--whom she recognised quite easily in their carnival
+disguises, and at last she did him the kindness to point out a stout
+cardinal, and named the name of the very Jew who was pulling the strings
+of the very business which had brought the young man to Paris.
+
+The young man's lucky star shone full on him, and dazzled him to a
+seeming indiscretion.
+
+"He looks rather a beast," he said.
+
+The nun clapped her hands.
+
+"Oh--he _is_!" she said. "If you knew all that I could tell you about
+him!"
+
+It was with the distinct idea of knowing all that the lady could tell
+about the Jew that our hero devoted himself to her throughout that
+evening, and promised to call on her the next day. He made himself very
+amiable indeed, and if you think that he should not have done this, I
+can only say that I am sorry, but facts are facts.
+
+When he put her into her carriage--a very pretty little brougham--he
+kissed her hand. He did not do this because he desired to do it, as in
+the case of the Girl with the Guitar, but purely as a matter of
+business. If you blame him here I can only say "� la guerre comme � la
+guerre--"
+
+Next day he called on her. She received him in a charming yellow silk
+boudoir and gave him tea and sweets. Unmasked, the lady was seen to be
+of uncommon beauty. He did not make love to her--but he was very nice,
+and she asked him to come again.
+
+It was at their third interview that his star shone again, and again
+dazzled him to indiscreetness. He told the beautiful lady exactly why he
+wanted to know all that she could tell him about the Jew financier. The
+beautiful lady clapped her hands till all her gold bangles rattled
+musically, and said--
+
+"But I will tell you all--everything! I felt that you wished to
+know--but I thought ... however ... are you sure it will all be in your
+paper?"
+
+"But yes, Madame!" said he.
+
+Then she folded her hands on the greeny satin lap of her tea-gown, and
+told him many things. And as she spoke he pieced things together, and
+was aware that she spoke the truth.
+
+When she had finished speaking, his mission was almost accomplished. His
+luck had done all this for him. The lady promised even documents and
+evidence. Then he thanked her, and she said--
+
+"No thanks, please. I suppose this will ruin him?"
+
+"I'm afraid it will," said he.
+
+She gave a little sigh of contentment.
+
+"But why--?" he asked.
+
+"I don't mind, somehow, telling _you_ anything," she said, and indeed as
+it seemed with some truth. "He--he did me the honour to admire me--and
+now he has behaved like the pig he is."
+
+"And so you have betrayed him--told me the things he told you when he
+loved you?"
+
+She snapped her fingers, and the opals and rubies of her rings shone
+like fire.
+
+"Love!" she said scornfully.
+
+Then he began to be a little ashamed and sorry for his part in this
+adventure, and he said so.
+
+"Ah--don't be sorry," she said softly. "I _wanted_ to betray him. I was
+simply longing to do it--only I couldn't think of the right person to
+betray him to! But you are the right person, Monsieur. I am indeed
+fortunate!"
+
+A little shiver ran through him. But he had gone too far to retreat.
+
+"And the documents, Madame?"
+
+"I will give you them to-morrow. There is a ball at the American
+Embassy. I can get you a card."
+
+"I have one." He had indeed made it his first business to get one--was
+not the Girl with the Guitar an American, and could he dare to waste the
+least light chance of seeing her again?
+
+"Well--be there at twelve, and you shall have everything. But," she
+looked sidelong at him, "will Monsieur be very kind--very attentive--in
+short, devote himself to me--for this one evening? _He_ will be there."
+
+He murmured something banal about the devotion of a lifetime, and went
+away to his lodging in a remote suburb, which he had chosen because he
+loved boating.
+
+The next night at twelve saw him lounging, a gloomy figure, on a seat in
+an ante-room at the Embassy. He knew that the Lady was within, yet he
+could not go to her. He sat there despairingly, trying to hope that even
+now something might happen to save him. Yet, as it seemed, nothing short
+of a miracle could. But his star shone, and the miracle happened. For,
+as he sat, a radiant vision, all white lace and diamonds, detached
+itself from the arm of a grey-bearded gentleman, and floated towards
+him.
+
+"It _is_ you!" said the darling vision, and the next moment his
+hands--both hands--were warmly clasped by little white-gloved ones, and
+he was standing looking into the eyes of the Girl.
+
+"I knew I should see you somewhere--this continent _is_ so tiny," she
+said. "Come right along and be introduced to Papa--that's him over
+there."
+
+"I--I can't," he answered, in an agony. "I--my pocket's been picked--"
+
+"Do tell!" said the Girl, laughing; "but Papa doesn't want tipping--he's
+got all he wants--come right along."
+
+"I can't," he said, hoarse with the misery of the degrading confession;
+"it wasn't my money--it was my _shoes_. I came up in boots, brown boots;
+distant suburb; train; my shoes were in my overcoat pocket--I meant to
+change in the cab. I must have dropped them or they were taken out. And
+here I am in these things." He looked down at his bright brown boots.
+"And all the shops are shut--and my whole future depends on my getting
+into that room within the next half-hour. But never mind! Why should
+_you_ bother?--Besides, what does it matter? I've seen you again. You'll
+speak to me as you come back? I'll wait all night for a word."
+
+"Don't be so silly," said the Girl; but she smiled very prettily, and
+her dear eyes sparkled. "If it's _really_ important, I'll fix it for
+you! But why does your future depend on it, and all that?"
+
+"I have to meet a lady," said the wretched young man.
+
+"The one you were with at the masked ball? The nun? Yes--I made Papa
+take me. _Is_ it that one?" Her tone was imperious, but it was anxious
+too.
+
+He looked imploringly at her. "Yes, but--"
+
+"You shall have the shoes, all the same," she interrupted, and turned
+away before he could add a word.
+
+A moment later the grey-bearded gentleman was bowing to him.
+
+"My girl tells me you're in a corner for want of shoes, Sir. Mine are at
+your service--we seem about of a size--we can change behind that
+pillar."
+
+"But," stammered the young man, "it's too much--I can't--"
+
+"It's nothing at all, Sir," said the man with the grey beard warmly;
+"nothing compared to the way you stood by my girl! Shake! John B. Warner
+don't forget."
+
+"I can't thank you," said the other, when they had shaken hands. "If you
+will--just for a short time! I'll be back in half an hour--"
+
+He was back in two minutes. The first face he saw when he had made his
+duty bows was the face of the Beautiful Lady. She was radiant: and
+beside her stood her Jew, also radiant. _They had made it up._ And what
+is more--though he never knew it--they had made it up in that half-hour
+of delay caused by the Boots. The Lady passed our hero without a word or
+even a glance to acknowledge acquaintanceship, and he saw that the game
+was absolutely up. He swore under his breath. But the next moment he
+laughed to himself with a free heart. After all--for any documents, any
+evidence, for any success in any walk of life, how could he have borne
+to devote himself, as he had promised to do, to that Corsican lady,
+while the Girl, _the_ Girl, was in the room? And he perceived now that
+he should not even use the information he already had. It did not seem
+fitting that one to whom the Girl stooped to speak, for ever so brief a
+moment, should play the part of a spy--in however good a cause.
+
+"Back already?" said the old gentleman.
+
+"Thank you--my business is completed."
+
+The young man resumed his brown boots.
+
+"Now, Papa," said the Girl, "just go right along and do your devoirs in
+there--and I'll stay and talk to _him_--"
+
+The father went obediently.
+
+"Have you quarrelled with her, then?" asked the Girl, her eyes on the
+diamond buckles of her satin shoes.
+
+He told her everything--or nearly.
+
+"Well," she said decisively, "I'm glad you're out of it, anyway. Don't
+worry about it. It's a nasty trade. Papa'll find you a berth. Come out
+to the States and edit one of his papers!"
+
+"You told me he was a millionaire! I suppose everything went all right?
+He didn't lose his money or anything?" His tone was wistful.
+
+"Not he! You don't know Papa!" said the Girl; "but, say, you're not
+going to be too proud to be acquainted with a self-made man?"
+
+He didn't answer.
+
+"Say," said she again, "I don't take so much stock in dukes as I used
+to." She laid a hand on his arm.
+
+"Don't make a fool of me," said the young man, speaking very low.
+
+"I won't,"--her voice was a caress,--"but Papa shall make Something of
+you. You don't know Papa! He can make men's fortunes as easily as other
+folks make men's shoes. And he always does what I tell him. Aren't you
+glad to see me again? And don't you remember--?" said she, looking at
+him so kindly that he lost his head and--
+
+"Ah! haven't you forgotten?" said he.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+That is about all there is of the story. He is now a Something--and he
+has married the Girl. If you think that a young man of comparatively
+small income should not marry the girl he loves because her father
+happens to have made money in pork, I can only remind you that your
+opinion is not shared by the bulk of our English aristocracy. And they
+don't even bother about the love, as often as not.
+
+
+
+
+THE SECOND BEST
+
+
+THE letter was brief and abrupt.
+
+"I am in London. I have just come back from Jamaica. Will you come and
+see me? I can be in at any time you appoint."
+
+There was no signature, but he knew the handwriting well enough. The
+letter came to him by the morning post, sandwiched between his tailor's
+bill and a catalogue of Rare and Choice Editions.
+
+He read it twice. Then he got up from the breakfast-table, unlocked a
+drawer, and took out a packet of letters and a photograph.
+
+"I ought to have burned them long ago," he said; "I'll burn them now."
+He did burn them but first he read them through, and as he read them he
+sighed, more than once. They were passionate, pretty letters,--the
+phrases simply turned, the endearments delicately chosen. They breathed
+of love and constancy and faith, a faith that should move mountains, a
+love that should shine like gold in the furnace of adversity, a
+constancy that death itself should be powerless to shake. And he sighed.
+No later love had come to draw with soft lips the poison from this old
+wound. She had married Benoliel, the West Indian Jew. It is a far cry
+from Jamaica to London, but some whispers had reached her jilted lover.
+The kindest of them said that Benoliel neglected his wife, the harshest,
+that he beat her.
+
+He looked at the photograph. It was two years since he had seen the
+living woman. Yet still, when he shut his eyes, he could see the
+delicate tints, the coral, and rose, and pearl, and gold that went to
+the making up of her. He could always see these. And now he should see
+the reality. Would the two years have dulled that bright hair, withered
+at all that flower-face? For he never doubted that he must go to her.
+
+He was a lawyer; perhaps she wanted that sort of help from him, wanted
+to know how to rid herself of the bitter bad bargain that she had made
+in marrying the Jew. Whatever he could do he would, of course, but--
+
+He went out at once and sent a telegram to her.
+
+"Four to-day."
+
+And at four o'clock he found himself on the doorstep of a house in Eaton
+Square. He hated the wealthy look of the house, the footman who opened
+the door, and the thick carpets of the stairs up which he was led. He
+hated the soft luxury of the room in which he was left to wait for her.
+Everything spoke, decorously and without shouting, but with unmistakable
+distinctness, of money, Benoliel's money: money that had been able to
+buy all these beautiful things, and, as one of them, to buy her.
+
+She came in quietly. Long simple folds of grey trailed after her: she
+wore no ornament of any kind. Her fingers were ringless, every one. He
+saw all this, but before he saw anything else he saw that the two years
+had taken nothing from her charm, had indeed but added a wistful patient
+look that made her seem more a child than when he had last seen her.
+
+The meaningless contact of their hands was over, and still neither had
+spoken. She was looking at him questioningly. The silence appeared
+silly; there was, and there could be, no emotion to justify, to
+transfigure it. He spoke.
+
+"How do you do?" he said.
+
+She drew a deep breath, and lifted her eyebrows slightly.
+
+"Won't you sit down?" she said; "you are looking just like you used to."
+She had the tiniest lisp; once it had used to charm him.
+
+"You, too, are quite your old self," he said. Then there was a pause.
+
+"Aren't you going to say anything?" she said.
+
+"It was you who sent for me," said he.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Why did you?"
+
+"I wanted to see you." She opened her pretty child-eyes at him, and he
+noted, only to bitterly resent, the appeal in them. He remembered that
+old appealing look too well.
+
+"No, Madam," he said inwardly, "not again! You can't whistle the dog to
+heel at your will and pleasure. I was a fool once, but I'm not fool
+enough to play the fool with Benoliel's wife."
+
+Aloud he said, smiling--
+
+"I suppose you did, or you would not have written. And now what can I do
+for you?"
+
+She leaned forward to look at him.
+
+"Then you really have forgotten? You didn't grieve for me long! You used
+to say you would never leave off loving me as long as you lived."
+
+"My dear Mrs. Benoliel," he said, "if I ever said anything so
+thoughtless as that, I certainly _have_ forgotten it."
+
+"Very well," she said; "then go!"
+
+This straight hitting embarrassed him mortally.
+
+"But," he said, "I've not forgotten that you and I were once friends for
+a little while, and I do beg you to consider me as a friend. Let me help
+you. You must have some need of a friend's services, or you would not
+have sent for me. I assure you I am entirely at your commands. Come,
+tell me how I can help you--"
+
+"You can't help me at all," she said hopelessly, "nobody can now."
+
+"I've heard--I hope you'll forgive me for saying so--I've heard that
+your married life has been--hasn't been--"
+
+"My married life has been hell," she said; "but I don't want to talk
+about that. I deserved it all."
+
+"But, my dear lady, why not get a divorce or, at least, a separation? My
+services--anything I can do to advise or--"
+
+She sprang from her chair and knelt beside him.
+
+"Oh, how _could_ you think that of me? How could you? He's
+dead--Benoliel's dead. I thought you'd understand that by my sending to
+you. Do you think I'd ever have seen you again as long as _he_ was
+alive? I'm not a wicked woman, dear, I'm only a fool."
+
+She had caught the hand that lay on the arm of his chair, her face was
+pressed on it, and on it he could feel her tears and her kisses.
+
+"Don't," he said harshly, "don't." But he could not bring himself to
+draw his hand away otherwise than very gently, and after a decent pause.
+He stood up and held out his hand. She put hers in it, he raised her to
+her feet and put her back in her chair, and artfully entrenching himself
+behind a little table, sat down in a very stiff chair with a high seat
+and gilt legs.
+
+She laughed. "Oh, don't trouble! You needn't barricade yourself like a
+besieged castle. Don't be afraid of me. You're really quite safe. I'm
+not so mad as you think. Only, you know, all this time I've never been
+able to get the idea out of my head--"
+
+He was afraid to ask what idea.
+
+"I always believed you meant it; that you always would love me, just as
+you said. I was wrong, that's all. Now go! Do go!"
+
+He was afraid to go.
+
+"No," he said, "let's talk quietly, and like the old friends we were
+before we--"
+
+"Before we weren't. Well?"
+
+He was now afraid to say anything.
+
+"Look here," she said suddenly, "let _me_ talk. There are some things I
+do really want to say, since you won't let it go without saying. One is
+that I know now you're not so much to blame as I thought, and I _do_
+forgive you. I mean it, really, not just pretending forgiveness; I
+forgive you altogether--"
+
+"_You_--forgive _me_?"
+
+"Yes, didn't you understand that that was what I meant? I didn't want to
+_say_ 'I forgive you,' and I thought if I sent for you you'd
+understand."
+
+"You seem to have thought your sending for me a more enlightening move
+than I found it."
+
+"Yes--because you don't care now. If you had, you'd have understood."
+
+"I really think I should like to understand."
+
+"What?"
+
+"Exactly what it is you're kind enough to forgive."
+
+"Why--your never coming to see me. Benoliel told me before we'd been
+married a month that he had got my aunt to stop your letters and mine,
+so I don't blame you now as I did then. But you might have come when you
+found I didn't write."
+
+"I did come. The house was shut up, and the caretaker could give no
+address."
+
+"Did you really? And there was no address? I never thought of that."
+
+"I don't suppose you did," he said savagely; "you never _did_ think!"
+
+"Oh, I _was_ a fool! I was!"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"But I have been punished."
+
+"Not you!" he said. "You got what you wanted--money, money, money--the
+only thing I couldn't give you. If it comes to that, why didn't _you_
+come and see _me_? I hadn't gone away and left no address."
+
+"I never thought of it."
+
+"No, of course not."
+
+"And, besides, you wouldn't have been there--"
+
+"I? I sat day after day waiting for a letter."
+
+"I never thought of it," she said again.
+
+And again he said: "No, of course you didn't; you wouldn't, you know--"
+
+"Ah, don't! please don't! Oh, you don't know how sorry I've been--"
+
+"But why did you marry him?"
+
+"To spite you--to show you I didn't care--because I was in a
+rage--because I was a fool! You might as well tell me at once that
+you're in love with someone else."
+
+"Must one always be in love, then?" he sneered.
+
+"I thought men always were," she said simply. "Please tell me."
+
+"No, I'm not in love with anybody. I have had enough of that to last me
+for a year or two."
+
+"Then--oh, won't you try to like me again? Nobody will ever love you so
+much as I do--you said I looked just the same--"
+
+"Yes, but you _aren't_ the same."
+
+"Yes I am. I think really I'm better than I used to be," she said
+timidly.
+
+"You're _not_ the same," he went on, growing angrier to feel that he had
+allowed himself to grow angry with her. "You were a girl, and my
+sweetheart; now you're a widow--that man's widow! You're not the same.
+The past can't be undone so easily, I assure you."
+
+"Oh," she cried, clenching her hands, "I know there must be something I
+could say that you would listen to--oh, I wish I could think what! I
+suppose as it is I'm saying things no other woman ever would have
+said--but I don't care! I won't be reserved and dignified, and leave
+everything to you, like girls in books. I lost too much by that before.
+I will say every single thing I can think of. I will! Dearest, you said
+you would always love me--you don't care for anyone else. I _know_ you
+would love me again if you would only let yourself. Won't you forgive
+me?"
+
+"I can't," he said briefly.
+
+"Have you never done anything that needed to be forgiven? I would
+forgive you anything in the world! Didn't you care for other people
+before you knew me? And I'm not angry about it. And I never cared for
+him."
+
+"That only makes it worse," he said.
+
+She sprang to her feet. "It makes it worse for me! But if you loved me
+it ought to make it better for you. If you had loved me with your heart
+and mind you would be glad to think how little it was, after all, that I
+did give to that man."
+
+"Sold--not gave--"
+
+"Oh, don't spare me! But there's no need to tell _you_ not to spare me.
+But I don't care what you say. You've loved other women. I've never
+loved anyone but you. And yet you can't forgive me!"
+
+"It's not the same," he repeated dully.
+
+"I _am_ the same--only I'm more patient, I hope, and not so selfish. But
+your pride is hurt, and you think it's not quite the right thing to
+marry a rich man's widow. And you want to go home and feel how strong
+and heroic you've been, and be proud of yourself because you haven't let
+me make a fool of you."
+
+It was so nearly true that he denied it instantly.
+
+"I don't," he said. "I could have forgiven you anything, however wicked
+you'd been--but I can't forgive you for having been--"
+
+"Been a fool? I can't forgive myself for that, either. My dear, my dear,
+you don't love anyone else; you don't hate me. Do you know that your
+eyes are quite changed from what they were when you came in? And your
+voice, and your face--everything. Think, dear, if I am not the same
+woman you loved, I'm still more like her than anyone else in the world.
+And you did love me--oh, don't hate me for anything I've said. Don't you
+see I'm fighting for my life? Look at me. I am just like your old
+sweetheart, only I love you more, and I can understand better now how
+not to make you unhappy. Ah, don't throw everything away without
+thinking. I _am_ more like the woman you loved than anyone else can ever
+be. Oh, my God! my God! what shall I say to him? Oh, God help me!"
+
+She had said enough. The one phrase "If I am not the same woman you
+loved, still I am more like her than anyone else in the world" had
+struck straight at his heart. It was true. What if this, the second
+best, were now the best life had to offer? If he threw this away, would
+any other woman be able to inspire him with any sentiment more like love
+than this passion of memory, regret, tenderness, pity--this desire to
+hold, protect, and comfort, with which, ever since her tears fell on his
+hand, he had been fighting in fierce resentment. He looked at the
+huddled grey figure. He must decide--now, at this moment--he must decide
+for two lives.
+
+But before he had time to decide anything he found that he had taken her
+in his arms.
+
+"My own, my dear," he was saying again and again, "I didn't mean it. It
+wasn't true. I love you better than anything. Let's forget it all. I
+don't care for anything now I have you again."
+
+"Then why--"
+
+"Oh, don't let's ask each other questions--let's begin all over again at
+two years ago. We'll forget all the rest--my dear--my own!"
+
+Of course neither has ever forgotten it, but they always pretend to each
+other that they have.
+
+Her defiance of the literary sense in him and in her was justified. His
+literary sense, or some deeper instinct, prompted him to refuse to use
+Benoliel's money--but her acquiescence in his decision reversed it. And
+they live very comfortably on the money to this day.
+
+The odd thing is that they are extremely happy. Perhaps it is not, after
+all, such a bad thing to be quite sure, before marriage, that the
+second-best happiness is all you are likely to get in this world.
+
+
+
+
+A HOLIDAY
+
+
+THE month was June, the street was Gower Street, the room was an attic.
+And in it a poet sat, struggling with the rebellious third act of the
+poetic drama that was to set him in the immediate shadow of Shakespeare,
+and on the level of those who ring Parnassus round just below the
+summit. The attic roof sloped, the furniture was vilely painted in
+grained yellow, the arm-chair's prickly horsehair had broken to let
+loose lumps of dark-coloured flock. The curtains were dark and damask
+and dusty. The carpet was Kidderminster and sand-coloured. It had holes
+in it; so had the Dutch hearthrug. The poet's penholder was the kind at
+twopence the dozen. The ink was in a penny bottle. Outside on a
+blackened flowerless lilac a strayed thrush sang madly of spring and
+hope and joy and love.
+
+The clear strong June sunshine streamed in through the window and turned
+the white of the poet's page to a dazzling silver splendour.
+
+"Hang it all!" he cried, and he threw down the yellow-brown penholder.
+"It's too much! It's not to be borne! It's not human!"
+
+He turned out his pockets. Two-and-seven-pence. He could draw the price
+of an ode and a roundelay from the _Spectator_--but not to-day, for this
+was a Bank Holiday, Whit Monday, in fact. Then he thought of his tobacco
+jar. Sure enough, there lurked some halfpence among the mossy shag,
+and--oh, wonder and joy and cursed carelessness for ever to be
+blessed--a gleaming coy half-sovereign. In the ticket-pocket of his
+overcoat a splendid unforeseen shilling--a florin and a sixpence in the
+velveteen jacket he had not worn since last year. Ten--and two--and
+one--and two and sevenpence and sixpence--sixteen shillings and a penny.
+Enough, more than enough, to take him out of this world of burst
+horsehair chairs and greedy foolscap, of arid authorship and burst
+bubbles of dreams to the real world, where spring, still laughing,
+shrank from the kisses of summer, where white may blossomed and thrushes
+sang.
+
+"I'll have a holiday," he said, "who knows--I may get an idea for a
+poem!"
+
+He cleaned his boots with ink; they were not shiny after it, but they
+were at least black. He put on his last clean shirt and the greeny-blue
+Liberty tie that his sister had sent him for his April birthday. He
+brushed his soft hat--counted his money again--found for it a pocket
+still lacking holes--and went out whistling. The front door slammed
+behind him with a cheerful conclusive bang.
+
+From the top of an omnibus he noted the town gilded with June sunlight.
+And it was very good.
+
+He bought food, and had it packed in decent brown paper, so that it
+looked like something superfluous from the stores.
+
+And he caught the ten something train to Halstead. He only just caught
+it.
+
+He blundered into a third-class carriage, and nearly broke his neck over
+an umbrella which lay across the door like an amateur trap for undesired
+company.
+
+By some extraordinary apotheosis of Bank Holiday mismanagement, there
+was only one person in the carriage--the owner of the trap-umbrella. A
+girl, of course. That was inevitable in this magic weather. He had
+knocked her basket off the seat, and had only just saved himself from
+buffeting her with his uncontrolled shoulder before he saw that she was
+a girl. He took off his hat and apologised. She smiled, murmured, and
+blushed.
+
+He settled himself in his corner, and unfolded the evening paper of
+yesterday which, by the most fortunate chance, happened to be in his
+pocket.
+
+Over it he glanced at her. She was pretty--with a vague unawakened
+prettiness. Her eyes and hair were dark. Her hat seemed dowdy, yet
+becoming. Her gloves were rubbed at the fingers. Her blouse was light
+and bright. Her skirt obscure and severe. He decided that she was not
+well off.
+
+His eyes followed a dull leader on the question of the government of
+India. But he did not want to read. He wanted to talk. On this June day,
+when the life of full-grown spring thrilled one to the finger tips, how
+could one feed one's vitality, one's over-mastering joy of life, with
+printer's ink and the greyest paper in London?
+
+He glanced at her again. She was looking out of the window at the sordid
+little Bermondsey houses, where the red buds of the Virginia creeper
+were already waking to their green summer life-work. He spoke. And no
+one would have guessed from his speech that he was a poet.
+
+"What a beautiful day!" he said.
+
+"Yes, very," said she, and her tone gave no indication of any exuberant
+spring expansiveness to match his own.
+
+He looked at her again. No. Yes. Yes, he would try the experiment he had
+long wanted to try--had often in long, silent, t�te-�-t�te journeys
+dreamed of trying. He would skip all the pitiful formalities of chance
+acquaintanceship. He would speak as one human being to another--would
+assume the sure bond of a common kinship. He said--
+
+"It is such a beautiful day that I want to talk about it! Mayn't I talk
+to you? Don't you feel that you want to say how beautiful it is--just
+as much as I do?"
+
+The girl looked at him. A scared fold in her brow warned him of the idea
+that had seized her.
+
+"I'm really not mad," he said; "but it does seem so frightfully silly
+that we should travel all the way to--to wherever you are going, and not
+tell each other how good June weather is."
+
+"Well--it is!" she owned.
+
+He eagerly spoke: he wanted to entangle her in talk before her
+conventional shrinking from chance acquaintanceship should shrivel her
+interest past hope.
+
+"I often think how silly people are," he said, "not to talk in railway
+carriages. One can't read without blinding oneself. I've seen women
+knit, but that's unspeakable. Many a time in frosty, foggy weather, when
+the South Eastern has taken two hours to get from Cannon Street to
+Blackheath, I've looked round the carriage and wanted to say,
+'Gentlemen, seeing that we are thus delayed, let us each contribute to
+the general hilarity by telling a story--we might gather them into a
+Christmas number afterwards--in the manner of the late Mr. Charles
+Dickens,' then I've looked round the carriage full of city-centred
+people, and wondered how they'd deal with the lunatic who ventured to
+suggest such an All-the-year-round idea. But nobody could be
+city-centred on such a day, and so early. So let's talk."
+
+She had laughed, as he had meant her to laugh. Now she seemed to throw
+away some scruple in the gesture with which she shrugged her shoulders
+and turned to him.
+
+"Very well," she said, and she was smiling. "Only I've nothing to say."
+
+"Never mind; I have," he rejoined, and proceeded to say it. It seemed
+amusing to him as an experiment to talk to this girl, this perfect
+stranger, with a delicate candour that he would not have shown to his
+oldest friend. It seemed interesting to lay bare, save for a veiling of
+woven transparent impersonality, his inmost mind. It _was_ interesting,
+for the revelation drew her till they were talking together in a world
+where it seemed no more than natural for her to show him her soul: and
+she had no skill to weave veils for it.
+
+Such talk is rare: so rare and so keen a pleasure, indeed, as to leave
+upon one's life, if one be not a poet, a mark strong and never to be
+effaced.
+
+The slackening of the train at Halstead broke the spell which lay on
+both with a force equal in strength, if diverse in kind.
+
+"Oh!" she said, "I get out here. Good-bye, good-bye."
+
+He would not spoil the parting by banalities of hat-raising amid the
+group of friends or relations who would doubtless meet her.
+
+"Good-bye," he said, and his eyes made her take his offered hand.
+"Good-bye. I shall never forget you. Never!"
+
+And then it seemed to him that the farewell lacked fire: and he lifted
+her hand to his face. He did not kiss it. He laid it against his cheek,
+sighed, and dropped it. The action was delicate and very effective. It
+suggested the impulse, almost irresistible yet resisted, the well-nigh
+overwhelming longing to kiss the hand, kept in check by a respect that
+was almost devotion.
+
+She should have torn her hand away. She took it away gently, and went.
+
+Leisurely he got out of the train. She had disappeared. Well--the bright
+little interlude was over. Still, it would give food for dreams among
+the ferny woods. The first lines of a little song hummed themselves in
+his brain--
+
+    "Eyes like stars in the night of life,
+     Seen but a moment and seen for ever."
+
+He would finish them and send them to the _Pall Mall Gazette_. That
+would be a guinea.
+
+He wished the journey had been longer. He would never see her again.
+Perhaps it was just as well. He crushed that last thought. It would be
+good to dwell through the day on the thought of her--the almost loved,
+the wholly lost.
+
+    "That could but have happened once
+     And we missed it, lost it for ever!"
+
+Her eyes were very pretty, especially when they opened themselves so
+widely as she tried to express the thoughts that no one but he had ever
+cared to hear expressed. The definite biography--dead father, ailing
+mother--hard work--hard life--hard-won post as High School Mistress,
+were but as the hoarding on which was pasted the artistic poster of
+their meeting--their parting. He sighed as he walked along the platform.
+The promise of June had fulfilled itself: he was rich in a sorrow that
+did not hurt--a regret that did not sting. Poor little girl! Poor pretty
+eyes! Poor timid, brave maiden-soul!
+
+Suddenly in his walk he stopped short.
+
+Obliquely through the door of the booking-office he saw her. She was
+alone. No troops of friends or relations had borne her off. She was
+waiting for someone; and someone had not come.
+
+What was to be done? He felt an odd chill. If he had only not taken her
+hand in that silly way which had seemed at the time so artistically
+perfect. The railway carriage talk might have been prolonged prettily,
+indefinitely. But that foolish contact had rung up the curtain on a
+transformation scene, whose footlights needed, at least, a good make-up
+for the facing of them.
+
+She stood there--looking down the road; in every line of her figure was
+dejection; hopelessness itself had drawn the line of her head's sideward
+droop. His make-up need be but of the simplest.
+
+She had expected to meet someone, and someone had not come.
+
+His chivalric impulses, leaping to meet the occasion's call, bade him
+substitute a splendid replacement--himself, for the laggard
+tryst-breaker. Even though he knew that that touch of the hand must
+inaugurate the second volume of the day's romance.
+
+He came behind her and spoke.
+
+"Hasn't he come?" He did not like himself for saying "he"--but he said
+it. It belonged to the second volume.
+
+She turned with a start and a lighting of eyes and lips that almost
+taught him pity. Not quite: for the poet's nature is hard to teach.
+
+"He?" she said, decently covering the light of lips and eyes as soon as
+might be. "It was a friend. She was to come from Sevenoaks. She ought to
+be here. We were to have a little picnic together." She glanced at her
+basket. "I didn't know you were getting out here. Why--" The question
+died on trembling lips.
+
+"Why?" he repeated. There was a pause.
+
+"And now, what are you going to do?" he asked, and his voice was full of
+tender raillery for her lost tryst with the girl friend, and for her
+pretty helplessness.
+
+"I--I don't know," she said.
+
+"But I do!" he looked in her eyes. "You are going to be kind. Life is so
+cruel. You are going to help me to cheat Life and Destiny. You are going
+to leave your friend to the waste desolation of this place, if she comes
+by the next train: but she won't--she's kept at home by toothache, or a
+broken heart, or some little foolish ailment like that,"--he prided
+himself on the light touch here,--"and you are going to be adorably kind
+and sweet and generous, and to let me drink the pure wine of life for
+this one day."
+
+Her eyes drooped. Fully inspired, he struck a master-chord in the
+lighter key.
+
+"You have a basket. I have a brown paper parcel. Let me carry both, and
+we will share both. We'll go to Chevening Park. It will be fun. Will
+you?"
+
+There was a pause: he wondered whether by any least likely chance the
+chord had not rung true. Then--
+
+"Yes," she said half defiantly. "I don't see why I shouldn't--Yes."
+
+"Then give me the basket," he said, "and hey for the green wood!"
+
+The way led through green lanes--through a green park, where tall red
+sorrel and white daisies grew high among the grass that was up for hay.
+The hawthorns were silvery, the buttercups golden. The gold sun shone,
+the blue sky arched over a world of green and glory. And so through
+Knockholt, and up the narrow road to the meadow whose path leads to the
+steep wood-way where Chevening Park begins.
+
+They walked side by side, and to both of them--for he was now wholly
+lost in the delightful part for which this good summer world was the
+fitting stage--to both of them it seemed that the green country was
+enchanted land, and they under a spell that could never break.
+
+They talked of all things under the sun: he, eager to impress her with
+that splendid self of his; she, anxious to show herself not wholly
+unworthy. She, too, had read her Keats and her Shelley and her
+Browning--and could cap and even overshadow his random quotations.
+
+"There is no one like you," he said as they passed the stile above the
+wood; "no one in this beautiful world."
+
+Her heart replied--
+
+"If there is anyone like you I have never met him, and oh, thank God,
+thank God, that I have met you now."
+
+Aloud she said--
+
+"There's a place under beech trees--a sort of chalk plateau--I used to
+have picnics there with my brothers when I was a little girl--"
+
+"Shall we go there?" he asked. "Will you really take me to the place
+that your pretty memories haunt? Ah--how good you are to me."
+
+As they went down the steep wood-path she slipped, stumbled--he caught
+her.
+
+"Give me your hand!" he said. "This path's not safe for you."
+
+It was not. She gave him her hand, and they went down into the wood
+together.
+
+The picnic was gay as an August garden. After a life of repression--to
+meet someone to whom one might be oneself! It was very good.
+
+She said so. That was when he did kiss her hand.
+
+When lunch was over they sat on the sloped, short turf and watched the
+rabbits in the warren below. They sat there and they talked. And to the
+end of her days no one will know her soul as he knew it that day, and no
+one ever knew better than she that aspect of his soul which he chose
+that day to represent as its permanent form.
+
+The hours went by, and when the shadows began to lengthen and the sun to
+hide behind the wood they were sitting hand in hand. All the
+entrenchments of her life's training, her barriers of maidenly reserve,
+had been swept away by the torrent of his caprice, his indolently formed
+determination to drink the delicate sweet cup of this day to the full.
+
+It was in silence that they went back along the wood-path--her hand in
+his, as before. Yet not as before, for now he held it pressed against
+his heart.
+
+"Oh, what a day--what a day of days!" he murmured. "Was there ever such
+a day? Could there ever have been? Tell me--tell me! Could there?"
+
+And she answered, turning aside a changed, softened, transfigured face.
+
+"You know--you know!"
+
+So they reached the stile at the top of the wood--and here, when he had
+lent her his hand to climb it, he paused, still holding in his her hand.
+
+Now or never, should the third volume begin--and end. Should he? Should
+he not? Which would yield the more perfect memory--the one kiss to crown
+the day, or the kiss renounced, the crown refused? Her eyes, beseeching,
+deprecating, fearing, alluring, decided the question. He framed her soft
+face in his hands and kissed her, full on the lips. Then not so much for
+insurance against future entanglement as for the sound of the phrase,
+which pleased him--he was easily pleased at the moment--he said--
+
+"A kiss for love--for memory--for despair!"
+
+It was almost in silence that they went through lanes still and dark,
+across the widespread park lawns and down the narrow road to the
+station. Her hand still lay against his heart. The kiss still thrilled
+through them both. They parted at the station. He would not risk the
+lessening of the day's charming impression by a railway journey. He
+could go to town by a later train. He put her into a crowded carriage,
+and murmured with the last hand pressure--
+
+"Thank God for this one day. I shall never forget. You will never
+forget. This day is all our lives--all that might have been."
+
+"I shall never forget," she said.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In point of fact, she never has forgotten. She has remembered all, even
+to the least light touch of his hand, the slightest change in his soft
+kind voice. That is why she has refused to marry the excellent solicitor
+who might have made her happy, and, faded and harassed, still teaches to
+High School girls the Euclid and Algebra which they so deeply hate to
+learn.
+
+As for him, he went home in a beautiful dream, and in the morning he
+wrote a song about her eyes which was so good that he sent it to the
+_Athen�um_, and got two guineas for it--so that his holiday was really
+not altogether wasted.
+
+
+
+
+THE FORCE OF HABIT
+
+
+FROM her very earliest teens every man she met had fallen at her feet.
+Her father in paternal transports--dignified and symbolic as the
+adoration of the Magi, uncles in forced unwilling tribute, cousins
+according to their kind, even brothers, resentful of their chains yet
+still enslaved, lovers by the score, persons disposed to marriage by the
+half-dozen.
+
+And she had smiled on them all, because it was so nice to be loved, and
+if one could make those who loved happy by smiling, why, smiles were
+cheap! Not cheap like inferior soap, but like the roses from a full June
+garden.
+
+To one she gave something more than smiles--herself to wit--and behold
+her at twenty, married to the one among her slaves to whom she had
+deigned to throw the handkerchief--real Brussels, be sure! Behold her
+happy in the adoration of the one, the only one among her adorers whom
+she herself could adore. His name was John, of course, and it was a
+foregone conclusion that he should be a stock-broker.
+
+All the same, he was nice, which is something: and she loved him, which
+is everything.
+
+The little new red-brick Queen Anne villa was as the Garden of Eden to
+the man and the woman--but the jerry builder is a reptile more cursed
+than the graceful serpent who, in his handsome suit of green and gold,
+pulled out the lynch-pin from the wedding chariot of our first parents.
+The new house--"Cloudesley" its name was--was damp as any cloud, and the
+Paradise was shattered, not by any romantic serpent-and-apple business,
+but by plain, honest, every-day rheumatism. It was, indeed, as near
+rheumatic fever as one may go without tumbling over the grisly fence.
+
+The doctor said "Buxton." John could not leave town. There was a boom or
+a slump or something that required his personal supervision.
+
+So her old nurse was called up from out of the mists of the grey past
+before he and she were hers and his, and she went to Buxton in a
+specially reserved invalid carriage. She went, with half her dainty
+trousseau clothes--a helpless invalid.
+
+Now I don't want to advertise Buxton waters as a cure for rheumatism,
+but I know for a fact that she had to be carried down to her first bath.
+It was a marble bath, and she felt like a Roman empress in it. And
+before she had had ten days of marble baths she was almost her own man
+again, and the youth in her danced like an imprisoned bottle-imp. But
+she was dull because there was no one to adore her. She had always been
+fed on adoration, and she missed her wonted food--without the shadow of
+a guess that it was this she was missing. It was, perhaps, unfortunate
+that her old nurse should have sprained a stout ankle in the very first
+of those walks on the moors which the Doctor recommended for the
+completion of the cure so magnificently inaugurated by the Marble Roman
+Empress baths.
+
+She wrote to her John every day. Long letters. But when the letter was
+done, what else was there left to do with what was left of the day? She
+was very, very bored.
+
+One must obey one's doctor. Else why pay him guineas?
+
+So she walked out, after pretty apologies to the nurse, left lonely,
+across the wonder-wide moors. She learned the springy gait of the true
+hill climber, and drank in health and strength from the keen hill air.
+The month was March. She seemed to be the only person of her own dainty
+feather in Buxton. So she walked the moors alone. All her life joy had
+come to her in green elm and meadow land, and this strange grey-stone
+walled rocky country made her breathless with its austere challenge. Yet
+life was good; strength grew. No longer she seemed to have a body to
+care for. Soul and spirit were carried by something so strong as to
+delight in the burden. A month, her town doctor had said. A fortnight
+taught her to wonder why he had said it. Yet she felt lonely--too small
+for those great hills.
+
+The old nurse, patient, loving, urged her lamb to "go out in the fresh
+air"; and the lamb went.
+
+It was on a grey day, when the vast hill slopes seemed more than ever
+sinister and reluctant to the little figure that braved them. She wore
+an old skirt and an old jacket--her husband had slipped them in when he
+strapped her boxes.
+
+"They're warm," he had said; "you may need them."
+
+She had a rainbow-dyed neckerchief and a little fur hat, perky with a
+peacock's iridescent head and crest.
+
+She was very pretty. The paleness of her illness lent her a new charm.
+And she walked the lonely road with an air. She had never been a great
+walker, and she was proud of each of the steps that this clear hill air
+gave her the courage to take.
+
+And it was glorious, after all, to be alone--the only human thing on
+these wide moors, where the curlews mewed as if the place belonged to
+them. There was a sound behind her. The rattle of wheels.
+
+She stopped. She turned and looked. Far below her lay the valley--all
+about her was the immense quiet of the hills. On the white road, quite a
+long way off, yet audible in that noble stillness, hoofs rang, wheels
+whirred. She waited for the thing to pass, for its rings of sound to die
+out in that wide pool of silence.
+
+The wheels and the hoofs drew near. The rattle and jolt grew louder. She
+saw the horse and cart grow bigger and plainer. In a moment it would
+have passed. She waited.
+
+It drew near. In another moment it would be gone, and she be left alone
+to meet again the serious inscrutable face of the grey landscape.
+
+But the cart--as it drew near--drew up, the driver tightened rein, and
+the rough brown horse stopped--his hairy legs set at a strong angle.
+
+"Have a lift?" asked the driver.
+
+There was something subtly coercive in the absolute carelessness of the
+tone. There was the hearer on foot--here was the speaker in a cart. She
+being on foot and he on wheels, it was natural that he should offer her
+a lift in his cart--it was a greengrocer's cart. She could see celery,
+cabbages, a barrel or two, and the honest blue eyes of the man who drove
+it--the man who, seeing a fellow creature at a disadvantage, instantly
+offered to share such odds as Fate had allotted to him in life's dull
+handicap.
+
+The sudden new impossible situation appealed to her. If lifts were
+offered--well--that must mean that lifts were generally accepted. In
+Rome one does as Rome does. In Derbyshire, evidently, a peacock crested
+toque might ride, unreproved by social criticism, in a greengrocer's
+cart. A tea-tray on wheels it seemed to her.
+
+She was a born actress; she had that gift of throwing herself at a
+moment's notice into a given part which in our silly conventional jargon
+we nickname tact.
+
+"Thank you," she said, "I should like it very much."
+
+The box on which he arranged a seat for her contained haddocks. He
+cushioned it with a sack and his own shabby greatcoat, and lent her a
+thick rough hand for the mounting.
+
+"Which way were you going?" he asked, and his voice was not the soft
+Peak sing-song--but something far more familiar.
+
+"I was only going for a walk," she said, "but it's much nicer to drive.
+I wasn't going anywhere. Only I want to get back to Buxton some time."
+
+"I live there," said he. "I must be home by five. I've a goodish round
+to do. Will five be soon enough for you?"
+
+"Quite," she said, and considered within herself what r�le it would be
+kindest, most tactful, most truly gentlewomanly to play. She sought to
+find, in a word, the part to play that would best please the man who was
+with her. That was what she had always tried to find. With what success
+let those who love her tell.
+
+"I mustn't seem too clever," she said to herself; "I must just be
+interested in what he cares about. That's true politeness: mother always
+said so."
+
+So she talked of the price of herrings and the price of onions, and of
+trade, and of the difficulty of finding customers who had at once
+appreciation and a free hand.
+
+When he drew up in some lean grey village, or at the repellent gates of
+some isolated slate-roofed house, he gave her the reins to hold, while
+he, with his samples of fruit and fish laid out on basket lids, wooed
+custom at the doors.
+
+She experienced a strangely crescent interest in his sales.
+
+Between the sales they talked. She found it quite easy, having swept
+back and penned in the major part of her knowledges and interests, to
+leave a residuum that was quite enough to meet his needs.
+
+As the chill dusk fell in cloudy folds over the giant hill shoulders and
+the cart turned towards home, she shivered.
+
+"Are you cold?" he asked solicitously. "The wind strikes keen down
+between these beastly hills."
+
+"Beastly?" she repeated. "Don't you think they're beautiful?"
+
+"Yes," he said, "of course I see they're beautiful--for other folks, but
+not for me. What I like is lanes an' elm trees and farm buildings with
+red tiles and red walls round fruit gardens--and cherry orchards and
+thorough good rich medders up for hay, and lilac bushes and bits o'
+flowers in the gardens, same what I was used to at home."
+
+She thrilled to the homely picture.
+
+"Why, that's what I like too!" she said. "These great hills--I don't see
+how they can feel like home to anyone. There's a bit of an orchard--one
+end of it is just a red barn wall--and there are hedges round, and it's
+all soft warm green lights and shadows--and thrushes sing like mad.
+That's home!"
+
+He looked at her.
+
+"Yes," he said slowly, "that's home."
+
+"And then," she went on, "the lanes with the high green hedges,
+dog-roses and brambles and may bushes and traveller's joy--and the grey
+wooden hurdles, and the gates with yellow lichen on them, and the white
+roads and the light in the farm windows as you come home from work--and
+the fire--and the smell of apples from the loft."
+
+"Yes," he said, "that's it--I'm a Kentish man myself. You've got a lot
+o' words to talk with."
+
+When he put her down at the edge of the town she went to rejoin her
+nurse feeling that to one human being, at least, she had that day been
+the voice of the home-ideal, and of all things sweet and fair. And, of
+course, this pleased her very much.
+
+Next morning she woke with the vague but sure sense of something
+pleasant to come. She remembered almost instantly. She had met a man on
+whom it was pleasant to smile, and whom her smiles and her talk
+pleased. And she thought,--quite honestly,--that she was being very
+philanthropic and lightening a dull life.
+
+She wrote a long loving letter to John, did a little shopping, and
+walked out along a road. It was the road by which he had told her that
+he would go the next day. He overtook her and pulled up with a glad
+face, that showed her the worth of her smiles and almost repaid it.
+
+"I was wondering if I'd see you," he said; "was you tired yesterday?
+It's a fine day to-day."
+
+"Isn't it glorious!" she returned, blinking at the pale clear sun.
+
+"It makes everything look a heap prettier, doesn't it? Even this country
+that looks like as if it had had all the colour washed out of it in
+strong soda and suds."
+
+"Yes," she said. And then he spoke of yesterday's trade--he had done
+well; and of the round he had to go to-day. But he did not offer her a
+lift.
+
+"Won't you give me a drive to-day?" she asked suddenly. "I enjoyed it so
+much."
+
+"_Will_ you?" he cried, his face lighting up as he moved to arrange the
+sacks. "I didn't like to offer. I thought you'd think I was takin' too
+much on myself. Come up--reach me your hand. Right oh!"
+
+The cart clattered away.
+
+"I was thinking ever since yesterday when I see you how is it you can
+think o' so many words all at once. It's just as if you was seeing it
+all--the way you talked about the red barns and the grey gates and all
+such."
+
+"I _do_ see it," she said, "inside my mind, you know. I can see it all
+as plainly as I see these great cruel hills."
+
+"Yes," said he, "that's just what they are--they're cruel. And the
+fields and woods is kind--like folks you're friends with."
+
+She was charmed with the phrase. She talked to him, coaxing him to make
+new phrases. It was like teaching a child to walk.
+
+He told her about his home. It was a farm in Kent--"red brick with the
+glorydyjohn rose growin' all up over the front door--so that they never
+opened it."
+
+"The paint had stuck it fast," said he, "it was quite a job to get it
+open to get father's coffin out. I scraped the paint off then, and oiled
+the hinges, because I knew mother wouldn't last long. And she didn't
+neither."
+
+Then he told her how there had been no money to carry on the
+fruit-growing, and how his sister had married a greengrocer at Buxton,
+and when everything went wrong he had come to lend a hand with their
+business.
+
+"And now I takes the rounds," said he; "it's more to my mind nor mimming
+in the shop and being perlite to ladies."
+
+"You're very polite to _me_," she said.
+
+"Oh, yes," he said, "but you're not a lady--leastways, I'm sure you are
+in your 'art--but you ain't a regular tip-topper, are you, now?"
+
+"Well, no," she said, "perhaps not that."
+
+It piqued her that he should not have seen that she _was_ a lady--and
+yet it pleased her too. It was a tribute to her power of adapting
+herself to her environment.
+
+The cart rattled gaily on--he talked with more and more confidence; she
+with a more and more pleased consciousness of her perfect tact. As they
+went a beautiful idea came to her. She would do the thing
+thoroughly--why not? The episode might as well be complete.
+
+"I wish you'd let me help you to sell the things," she said. "I should
+like it."
+
+"Wouldn't you be above it?" he asked.
+
+"Not a bit," she answered gaily. "Only I must learn the prices of
+things. Tell me. How much are the herrings?"
+
+He told her--and at the first village she successfully sold seven
+herrings, five haddocks, three score of potatoes, and so many separate
+pounds of apples that she lost count.
+
+He was lavish of his praises.
+
+"You might have been brought up to it from a girl," he said, and she
+wondered how old he thought she was then.
+
+She yawned no more over dull novels now--Buxton no longer bored her. She
+had suddenly discovered a new life--a new stage on which to play a part,
+her own ability in mastering which filled her with the pleasure of a
+clever child, or a dog who has learned a new trick. Of course, it was
+not a new trick; it was the old one.
+
+It was impossible not to go out with the greengrocer every day. What
+else was there to do? How else could she exercise her most perfectly
+developed talent--that of smiling on people till they loved her? We all
+like to do that which we can do best. And she never felt so contented as
+when she was exercising this incontestable talent of hers. She did not
+know the talent for what it was. She called it "being nice to people."
+
+So every day saw her, with roses freshening in her cheeks, driving over
+the moors in the wheeled tea-tray. And now she sold regularly. One day
+he said--
+
+"What a wife you'd make for a business chap!" But even that didn't warn
+her, because she happened to be thinking of Jack--and she thought how
+good a wife she meant to be to him. _He_ was a "business chap" too.
+
+"What are you really--by trade, I mean?" he said on another occasion.
+
+"Nothing in particular. What did you think I was?" she said.
+
+"Oh--I dunno--I thought a lady's maid, as likely as not, or maybe in the
+dressmaking. You aren't a common sort--anyone can see that."
+
+Again pique and pleasure fought in her.
+
+She never so much as thought of telling him that she was married. She
+saw no reason for it. It was her r�le to enter into his life, not to
+dazzle him with visions of hers.
+
+At last that happened which was bound to happen. And it happened under
+the shadow of a great rock, in a cleft, green-grown and sheltered, where
+the road runs beside the noisy, stony, rapid, unnavigable river.
+
+He had drawn the cart up on the grass, and she had got down and was
+sitting on a stone eating sandwiches, for her nurse had persuaded her to
+take her lunch with her so as to spend every possible hour on these
+life-giving moors. He had eaten bread and cheese standing by the horse's
+head. It was a holiday. He was not selling fish and vegetables. He was
+in his best, and she had never liked him so little. As she finished her
+last dainty bite he threw away the crusts and rinds of his meal and came
+over to her.
+
+"Well," he said, with an abrupt tenderness that at once thrilled and
+revolted her, "don't you think it's time as we settled something betwixt
+us?"
+
+"I don't know what you mean," she said. But, quite suddenly and
+terribly, she did.
+
+"Why," he said, "I know well enough you're miles too good for a chap
+like me--but if you don't think so, that's all right. And I tell you
+straight, you're the only girl I ever so much as fancied."
+
+"Oh," she breathed, "do you mean--"
+
+"You know well enough what I mean, my pretty," he said; "but if you want
+it said out like in books, I've got it all on my tongue. I love every
+inch of you, and your clever ways, and your pretty talk. I haven't
+touched a drop these eight months--I shall get on right enough with you
+to help me--and we'll be so happy as never was. There ain't ne'er a man
+in England'll set more store by his wife nor I will by you, nor be
+prouder on her. You shan't do no hard work--I promise you that. Only
+just drive out with me and turn the customers round your finger. I don't
+ask no questions about you nor your folks. I _know_ you're an honest
+girl, and I'd trust you with my head. Come, give me a kiss, love, and
+call it a bargain."
+
+She had stood up while he was speaking, but she literally could not
+find words to stop the flow of his speech. Now she shrank back and said,
+"No--no!"
+
+"Don't you be so shy, my dear," he said. "Come--just one! And then I'll
+take you home and interduce you to my sister. You'll like her. I've told
+her all about you."
+
+Waves of unthinkable horror seemed to be closing over her head. She
+struck out bravely, and it seemed as though she were swimming for her
+life.
+
+"No," she cried, "it's impossible! You don't understand! You don't
+know!"
+
+"I know you've been keeping company with me these ten days," he said,
+and his voice had changed. "What did you do it for if you didn't mean
+nothing by it?"
+
+"I didn't know," she said wretchedly. "I thought you liked being
+friends."
+
+"If it's what you call 'friends,' being all day long with a chap, I
+don't so call it," he said. "But come--you're playing skittish now,
+ain't you? Don't tease a chap like this. Can't you see I love you too
+much to stand it? I know it sounds silly to say it--but I love you
+before all the world--I do--my word I do!"
+
+He held out his arms.
+
+"I see--I see you do," she cried, all her tact washed away by this
+mighty sea that had suddenly swept over her. "But I can't. I'm--I'm
+en--I'm promised to another young man."
+
+"I wonder what he'll say to this," he said slowly.
+
+"I'm so--so sorry," she said; "I'd no idea--"
+
+"I see," he said, "you was just passing the time with me--and you never
+wanted me at all. And I thought you did. Get in, miss. I'll take you
+back to the town. I've just about had enough holiday for one day."
+
+"I _am_ so sorry," she kept saying. But he never answered.
+
+"Do forgive me!" she said at last. "Indeed, I didn't mean--"
+
+"Didn't mean," said he, lashing up the brown horse; "no--and it don't
+matter to you if I think about you and want you every day and every
+night so long as I live. It ain't nothing to you. You've had your fun.
+And you've got your sweetheart. God, I wish him joy of you!"
+
+"Ah--don't," she said, and her soft voice even here, even now, did not
+miss its effect. "I _do_ like you very, very much--and--"
+
+She had never failed. She did not fail now. Before they reached the town
+he had formally forgiven her.
+
+"I don't suppose you meant no harm," he said grudgingly; "though coming
+from Kent you ought to know how it is about walking out with a chap. But
+you say you didn't, and I'll believe you. But I shan't get over this,
+this many a long day, so don't you make no mistake. Why, I ain't thought
+o' nothing else but you ever since I first set eyes on you. There--don't
+you cry no more. I can't abear to see you cry."
+
+He was blinking himself.
+
+Outside the town he stopped.
+
+"Good-bye," he said. "I haven't got nothing agin you--but I wish to Lord
+above I'd never seen you. I shan't never fancy no one else after you."
+
+"Don't be unhappy," she said. And then she ought to have said good-bye.
+But the devil we call the force of habit would not let her leave well
+alone.
+
+"I want to give you something," she said; "a keepsake, to show I shall
+always be your friend. Will you call at the house where I'm staying this
+evening at eight? I'll have it ready for you. Don't think too unkindly
+of me! Will you come?"
+
+He asked the address, and said "Yes." He wanted to see her--just once
+again, and he would certainly like the keepsake.
+
+She went home and looked out a beautiful book of Kentish photographs. It
+was a wedding present, and she had brought it with her to solace her in
+her exile by pictures of the home-land. Her unconscious thought was
+something like this: "Poor fellow; poor, poor fellow! But he behaved
+like a gentleman about it. I suppose there is something in the influence
+of a sympathetic woman--I am glad I was a good influence."
+
+She bathed her burning face, cooled it with soft powder, and slipped
+into a tea-gown. It was a trousseau one of rich, heavy, yellow silk and
+old lace and fur. She chose it because it was warm, and she was
+shivering with agitation and misery. Then she went and sat with the old
+nurse, and a few minutes before eight she ran out and stood by the front
+door so as to open it before he should knock. She achieved this.
+
+"Come in," she said, and led him into the lodging-house parlour and
+closed the door.
+
+"It was good of you to come," she said, taking the big, beautiful book
+from the table. "This is what I want you to take, just to remind you
+that we're friends."
+
+She had forgotten the tea-gown. She was not conscious that the
+accustomed suavity of line, the soft richness of texture influenced
+voice, gait, smile, gesture. But they did. Her face was flushed after
+her tears, and the powder, which she had forgotten to dust off, added
+the last touch to her beauty.
+
+He took the book, but he never even glanced at the silver and
+tortoise-shell of its inlaid cover. He was looking at her, and his eyes
+were covetous and angry.
+
+"Are you an actress, or what?"
+
+"No," she said, shrinking. "Why?"
+
+"What the hell are you, then?" he snarled furiously.
+
+"I'm--I'm--a--"
+
+The old nurse, scared by the voice raised beyond discretion, had dragged
+herself to the door of division between her room and the parlour, and
+now stood clinging to the door handle.
+
+"She's a lady, young man," said the nurse severely; "and her aunt's a
+lady of title, and don't you forget it!"
+
+"Forget it," he cried, with a laugh that Jack's wife remembers still;
+"she's a lady, and she's fooled me this way? I won't forget it, nor she
+shan't neither! By God, I'll give her something to forget!"
+
+With that he caught the silken tea-gown and Jack's trembling wife in his
+arms and kissed her more than once. They were horrible kisses, and the
+man smelt of onions and hair-oil.
+
+"And I loved her--curse her!" he cried, flinging her away, so that she
+fell against the arm of the chair by the fire.
+
+He went out, slamming both doors. She had softened and bewitched him to
+the forgiving of the outrage that her indifference was to his love. The
+outrage of her station's condescension to his was unforgivable.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+She went back to her Jack next day. She was passionately glad to see
+him. "Oh, Jack," she said, "I'll never, never go away from you again!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But the greengrocer from Kent reeled down the street to the nearest
+public-house. At closing time he was telling, in muffled, muddled
+speech, the wondrous tale, how his girl was a real lady, awfully gone on
+him, pretty as paint, and wore silk dresses every day.
+
+"She's a real lady--she is," he said.
+
+"Ay!" said the chucker out, "we know all about them sort o' ladies.
+Time, please!"
+
+"I tell you she is--her aunt's a lady of title, and the gal's that gone
+on me I expect I'll have to marry her to keep her quiet."
+
+"I'll have to chuck you out to keep _you_ quiet," returned the other.
+"Come on--outside!"
+
+
+
+
+THE BRUTE
+
+
+THE pearl of the dawn was not yet dissolved in the gold cup of the
+sunshine, but in the northwest the dripping opal waves were ebbing fast
+to the horizon, and the sun was already half risen from his couch of
+dull crimson. She leaned out of her window. By fortunate chance it was a
+jasmine-muffled lattice, as a girl's window should be, and looked down
+on the dewy stillness of the garden. The cloudy shadows that had clung
+in the earliest dawn about the lilac bushes and rhododendrons had faded
+like grey ghosts, and slowly on lawn and bed and path new black shadows
+were deepening and intensifying.
+
+She drew a deep breath. What a picture! The green garden, the awakened
+birds, the roses that still looked asleep, the scented jasmine stars!
+She saw and loved it all. Nor was she unduly insensible to the charm of
+the central figure, the girl in the white lace-trimmed gown who leaned
+her soft arms on the window-sill and looked out on the dawn with large
+dark eyes. Of course, she knew that her eyes were large and dark, also
+that her hair was now at its prettiest, rumpled and tumbled from the
+pillow, and far prettier so than one dared to allow it to be in the
+daytime. It seemed a pity that there should be no one in the garden save
+the birds, no one who had awakened thus early just that he might gather
+a rose and cover it with kisses and throw it up to the window of his
+pretty sweetheart. She had but recently learned that she was pretty. It
+was on the evening after the little dance at the Rectory. She had worn
+red roses at her neck, and when she had let down her hair she had picked
+up the roses from her dressing-table and stuck them in the loose, rough,
+brown mass, and stared into the glass till she was half mesmerised by
+her own dark eyes. She had come to herself with a start, and then she
+had known quite surely that she was pretty enough to be anyone's
+sweetheart. When she was a child a well-meaning aunt had told her that
+as she would never be pretty or clever she had better try to be good,
+or no one would love her. She had tried, and she had never till that
+red-rose day doubted that such goodness as she had achieved must be her
+only claim to love. Now she knew better, and she looked out of her
+window at the brightening sky and the deepening shadows. But there was
+no one to throw her a rose with kisses on it.
+
+"If I were a man," she said to herself, but in a very secret shadowy
+corner of her inmost heart, and in a wordless whisper, "if I were a man,
+I would go out this minute and find a sweetheart. She should have dark
+eyes, too, and rough brown hair, and pink cheeks."
+
+In the outer chamber of her mind she said briskly--
+
+"It's a lovely morning. It's a shame to waste it indoors. I'll go out."
+
+The sun was fully up when she stole down through the still sleeping
+house and out into the garden, now as awake as a lady in full dress at
+the court of the King.
+
+The garden gate fell to behind her, and the swing of her white skirts
+went down the green lane. On such a morning who would not wear white?
+She walked with the quick grace of her nineteen years, and as she went
+fragments of the undigested poetry that had been her literary diet of
+late swirled in her mind--
+
+    "With tears and smiles from heaven again,
+     The maiden spring upon the plain
+     Came in a sunlit fall of rain,"
+
+and so on, though this was July, and not spring at all. And--
+
+    "A man had given all other bliss
+     And all his worldly work for this,
+     To waste his whole heart in one kiss
+       Upon her perfect lips."
+
+Her own lips were not perfect, yet, as lips went, they were well enough,
+and, anyway, kisses would not be wasted on them.
+
+She went down the lane, full of the anxious trembling longing that is
+youth's unrecognised joy, and at the corner, where the lane meets the
+high white road, she met him. That is to say, she stopped short, as the
+whispering silence of the morning was broken by a sudden rattle and a
+heavy thud, not pleasant to hear. And he and his bicycle fell together,
+six yards from her feet. The bicycle bounded, and twisted, and settled
+itself down with bold, resentful clatterings. The man lay without
+moving.
+
+Her Tennyson quotations were swept away. She ran to help.
+
+"Oh, are you hurt?" she said. He lay quite still. There was blood on his
+head, and one arm was doubled under his back. What could she do? She
+tried to lift him from the road to the grass edge of it. He was a big
+man, but she did succeed in raising his shoulders, and freeing that
+right arm. As she lifted it, he groaned. She sat down in the dust of the
+road, and lowered his shoulders till his head lay on her lap. Then she
+tied her handkerchief round his head, and waited till someone should
+pass on the way to work. Three men and a boy came after the long half
+hour in which he lay unconscious, the red patch on her handkerchief
+spreading slowly, and she looking at him, and getting by heart every
+line of the pale, worn, handsome face. She spoke to him, she stroked his
+hair. She touched his white cheek with her finger-tips, and wondered
+about him, and pitied him, and took possession of him as a new and
+precious appanage of her life, so that when the labourers appeared, she
+said--
+
+"He's very badly hurt. Go and fetch some more men and a hurdle, and the
+boy might run for the doctor. Tell him to come to the White House. It's
+nearest, and it may be dangerous to move him further."
+
+"The 'Blue Lion' ain't but a furlong further, miss," said one of the
+men, touching his cap.
+
+"It's much more than that," said she, who had but the vaguest notion of
+a furlong's length. "Do go and do what I tell you."
+
+They went, and, as they went, remorselessly dissected, with the bluntest
+instruments, her motives and her sentiments. It was not hidden from
+them, that wordless whisper in the shadowy inner chamber of her heart.
+"Perhaps the 'Blue Lion' isn't so very much further, but I can't give
+him up. No, I can't." But it was almost hidden from _her_. In her mind's
+outer hall she said--
+
+"I'm sure I ought to take him home. No girl in a book would hesitate.
+And I can make it all right with mother. It would be cruel to give him
+up to strangers."
+
+Deep in her heart the faint whisper followed--
+
+"I found him; he's mine. I won't let him go."
+
+He stirred a little before they came back with the hurdle, and she took
+his uninjured hand, and pressed it firmly and kindly, and told him it
+was "all right," he would feel better presently.
+
+She did have him carried home, and when the doctor had set the arm and
+the collar-bone, and had owned that it would be better not to move him
+at present, she knew that her romance would not be cut short just yet.
+She did not nurse him, because it is only in books that young girls of
+the best families act as sick-nurses to gentlemen. But her mother--dear,
+kind, clever, foolish gentlewoman--did the nursing, and the daughter
+gathered flowers daily to brighten his room. And when he was better, yet
+still not well enough to resume the bicycle tour so sharply interrupted
+by a flawed nut, she read to him, and talked to him, and sat with him in
+the hushed August garden. Up to this point, observe, her interest had
+been purely romantic. He was a man of forty-five. Perhaps he had a
+younger brother, a splendid young man, and the brother would like her
+because she had been kind. _He_ had lived long abroad, had no relatives
+in England. He knew her Cousin Reginald at Johannesburg--everyone knew
+everyone else out there. The brother--there really was a brother--would
+come some day to thank her mother for all her goodness, and she would be
+at the window and look down, and he would look up, and the lamp of life
+would be lighted. She longed, with heart-whole earnestness, to be in
+love with someone, for as yet she was only in love with love.
+
+But on the evening when there was a full moon--the time of madness as
+everybody knows--her mother falling asleep after dinner in her cushioned
+chair in the lamp lit drawing-room, he and she wandered out into the
+garden. They sat on the seat under the great apple tree. He was talking
+gently of kindness and gratitude, and of how he would soon be well
+enough to go away. She listened in silence, and presently he grew
+silent, too, under the spell of the moonlight. She never knew exactly
+how it was that he took her hand, but he was holding it gently,
+strongly, as if he would never let it go. Their shoulders touched. The
+silence grew deeper and deeper. She sighed involuntarily; not because
+she was unhappy, but because her heart was beating so fast. Both were
+looking straight before them into the moonlight. Suddenly he turned, put
+his other hand on her shoulder, and kissed her on the lips. At that
+instant her mother called her, and she went into the lamp-light. She
+said good night at once. She wanted to be alone, to realise the great
+and wonderful awakening of her nature, its awakening to love--for this
+was love, the love the poets sang about--
+
+    "A kiss, a touch, the charm, was snapped."
+
+She wanted to be alone to think about him. But she did not think. She
+hugged to her heart the physical memory of that strong magnetic
+hand-clasp, the touch of those smooth sensitive lips on hers--held it
+close to her till she fell asleep, still thrilling with the ecstasy of
+her first lover's kiss.
+
+Next day they were formally engaged, and now her life became an
+intermittent delirium. She longed always to be alone with him, to touch
+his hands, to feel his cheek against hers. She could not understand the
+pleasure which he said he felt in just sitting near her and watching
+her sewing or reading, as he sat talking to her mother of dull
+things--politics, and the war, and landscape gardening. If she had been
+a man, she said to herself, always far down in her heart, she would have
+found a way to sit near the beloved, so that at least hands might meet
+now and then unseen. But he disliked public demonstrations, and he loved
+her. She, however, was merely in love with him.
+
+That was why, when he went away, she found it so difficult to write to
+him. She thought his letters cold, though they told her of all his work,
+his aims, ambitions, hopes, because not more than half a page was filled
+with lover's talk. He could have written very different letters--indeed,
+he had written such in his time, and to more than one address; but he
+was wise with the wisdom of forty years, and he was beginning to tremble
+for her happiness, because he loved her.
+
+When she complained that his letters were cold he knew that he had been
+wise. She found it very difficult to write to him. It was far easier to
+write to Cousin Reginald, who always wrote such long, interesting
+letters, all about interesting things--Cousin Reginald who had lived
+with them at the White House till a year ago, and who knew all the
+little family jokes, and the old family worries.
+
+They had been engaged for eight months when he came down to see her
+without any warning letter.
+
+She was alone in the drawing-room when he was announced, and with a cry
+of joy, she let fall her work on the floor, and ran to meet him with
+arms outstretched. He caught her wrists.
+
+"No," he said, and the light of joy in her face made it not easy to say
+it. "My dear, I've come to say something to you, and I mustn't kiss you
+till I've said it."
+
+The light had died out.
+
+"You're not tired of me?"
+
+He laughed. "No, not tired of you, my little princess, but I am going
+away for a year. If you still love me when I come back we'll be married.
+But before I go I must say something to you."
+
+Her eyes were streaming with tears.
+
+"Oh, how can you be so cruel?" she said, and her longing to cling to
+him, to reassure herself by personal contact, set her heart beating
+wildly.
+
+"I don't want to be cruel," he said; "you understand, dear, that I love
+you, and it's just because I love you that I must say it. Now sit down
+there and let me speak. Don't interrupt me if you can help it. Consider
+it a sort of lecture you're bound to sit through."
+
+He pushed her gently towards a chair. She sat down sulkily, awkwardly,
+and he stood by the window, looking out at the daffodils and early
+tulips.
+
+"Dear, I am afraid I have found something out. I don't think you love
+me--"
+
+"Oh, how can you, how can you?"
+
+"Be patient," he said. "I've wondered almost from the first. You're
+almost a child, and I'm an old man--oh, no, I don't mean that that's any
+reason why you shouldn't love me, but it's a reason for my making very
+sure that you _do_ before I let you marry me. It's your happiness I have
+to think of most. Now shall I just go away for a year, or shall I speak
+straight out and tell you everything? If your father were alive I would
+try to tell him; I can't tell your mother, she wouldn't understand. You
+can understand. Shall I tell you?"
+
+"Yes," she said, looking at him with frightened eyes.
+
+"Well: look back. You think you love me. Haven't my letters always bored
+you a little, though they were about all the things I care for most?"
+
+"I don't understand politics," she said sullenly.
+
+"And I don't understand needle-work, but I could sit and watch you sew
+for ever and a day."
+
+"Well, go on. What other crime have I committed besides not going into
+raptures over Parliament?"
+
+She was growing angry, and he was glad. It is not so easy to hurt people
+when they are angry.
+
+"And when I am talking to your mother, that bores you too, and when we
+are alone, you don't care to talk of anything, but--but--"
+
+This task was harder than he had imagined possible.
+
+"I've loved you too much, and I've shown it too plainly," she said
+bitterly.
+
+"My dear, you've never loved me at all. You have only been in love with
+me."
+
+"And isn't that the same thing?"
+
+"Oh! it's no use," he said, "I must _be_ a brute then. No, it's not the
+same thing. It's your poets and novelists who pretend it is. It's they
+who have taught you all wrong. It's only half of love, and the worst
+half, the most untrustworthy, the least lasting. My little girl, when I
+kissed you first, you were just waking up to your womanhood, you were
+ready for love, as a flower-bud is ready for sunshine, and I happened to
+be the first man who had the chance to kiss you and hold your dear
+little hands."
+
+"Do you mean that I should have liked anyone else as well if he had only
+been kind enough to kiss me?"
+
+"No, no; but ... I wish girls were taught these things out of books. If
+you only knew what it costs me to be honest with you, how I have been
+tempted to let you marry me and chance everything! Don't you see you're
+a woman now--women were made to be kissed, and when a man behaves like a
+brute and kisses a girl without even asking first, or finding out first
+whether she loves him, it's not fair on the girl. I shall never forgive
+myself. Don't you see I took part of you by storm, the part of you that
+is just woman nature, not yours but everyone's; and how were you to know
+that you didn't love me, that it was only the awakening of your woman
+nature?"
+
+"I hate you," she said briefly.
+
+"Yes," he answered simply, "I knew you would. Hate is only one step from
+passion."
+
+She rose in a fury. "How dare you use that word to me!" she cried. "Oh,
+you are a brute! You are quite right: I don't love you--I hate you, I
+despise you. Oh, you brute!"
+
+"Don't," he said; "I only used that word because it's what people call
+the thing when it's a man who feels it. With you it's what I said, the
+unconscious awakening of the womanhood God gave you. Try to forgive me.
+Have I said anything so very dreadful? It's a very little thing, dear,
+the sweet kindness you've felt for me. It's nothing to be ashamed or
+angry about. It's not a hundredth part of what I have felt when you have
+kissed me. It's because it's such a poor foundation to build a home on
+that I am frightened for you. Suppose you got tired of my kisses, and
+there was nothing more in me that you did care for. And that sort of ...
+lover's love doesn't last for ever--without the other kind of love--"
+
+"Oh, don't say any more," she cried, jumping up from her chair. "I did
+love you with all my heart. I was sorry for you. I thought you were so
+different. Oh, how could you say these things to me? Go!"
+
+"Shall I come back in a year?" he asked, smiling rather sadly.
+
+"Come back? _Never!_ I'll never speak to you again. I'll never see you
+again. I hope to God I shall never hear your name again. Go at once!"
+
+"You'll be grateful to me some day," he said, "when you've found out
+that love and being in love are not the same thing."
+
+"What is love, then? The kind of love _you'd_ care for?"
+
+"I care for it all," he said. "I think love is tenderness, esteem,
+affection, interest, pity, protection, and passion. Yes, you needn't be
+frightened by the word; it is the force that moves the world, but it's
+only a part of love. Oh, I see it's no good. God bless you, child:
+you'll understand some day!"
+
+She does understand now; she has married her Cousin Reginald, and she
+understands deeply and completely. But she only admits this in that
+deep, shadowy, almost disowned corner of her heart. In the reception
+room of her mind she still thinks of her first lover as "That Brute!"
+
+
+
+
+DICK, TOM, AND HARRY
+
+
+"AND so I look in to see her whenever I can spare half an hour. I fancy
+it cheers her up a bit to have some one to talk to about Edinburgh--and
+all that. You say you're going to tell her about its having been my
+doing, your getting that berth. Now, I won't have it. You promised you
+wouldn't. I hate jaw, as you know, and I don't want to have her gassing
+about gratitude and all that rot. I don't like it, even from you. So
+stow all that piffle. You'd do as much for me, any day. I suppose
+Edinburgh _is_ a bit dull, but you've got all the higher emotions of our
+fallen nature to cheer you up. Essex Court is dull, if you like! It's
+three years since I had the place to myself, and I tell you it's pretty
+poor sport. I don't seem to care about duchesses or the gilded halls
+nowadays. Getting old, I suppose. Really, my sole recreation is going to
+see another man's girl, and letting her prattle prettily about him.
+Lord, what fools these mortals be! Sorry I couldn't answer your letter
+before. I suppose you'll be running up for Christmas! So long! I'm
+taking her down those Ruskins she wanted. Here's luck!"
+
+The twisted knot of three thin initials at the end of the letter stood
+for one of the set of names painted on the black door of the Temple
+Chambers. The other names were those of Tom, who had strained a slender
+competence to become a barrister, and finding the achievement
+unremunerative, had been glad enough to get the chance of sub-editing a
+paper in Edinburgh.
+
+Dick enveloped and stamped his letter, threw it on the table, and went
+into his bedroom. When he came back in a better coat and a newer tie he
+looked at the letter and shrugged his shoulders, and he frowned all the
+way down the three flights and as far as Brick Court. Here he posted the
+letter. Then he shrugged his shoulders again, but after the second shrug
+the set of them was firmer.
+
+As his hansom swung through the dancing lights of the Strand, he
+shrugged his shoulders for the third time.
+
+And, at that, his tame devil came as at a signal, and drew a pretty
+curtain across all thoughts save one--the thought of the "other man's
+girl." Indeed, hardly a thought was left, rather a sense of her--of
+those disquieting soft eyes of hers--the pretty hands, the frank
+laugh--the long, beautiful lines her gowns took on--the unexpected
+twists and curves of her hair--above all, the reserve, veiling
+tenderness as snowflakes might veil a rose, with which she spoke of the
+other man.
+
+Dick had known Tom for all of their men's lives, and they had been
+friends. Both had said so often enough. But now he thought of him as the
+"other man."
+
+The lights flashed past. Dick's eyes were fixed on a picture. A pleasant
+room--an artist's room--prints, sketches, green curtains, the sparkle of
+old china, fire and candle light. A girl in a long straight dress; he
+could see the little line where it would catch against her knee as she
+came forward to meet him with both hands outstretched. Would it be both
+hands? He decided that it would--to-night.
+
+He was right, even to the little line in the sea-blue gown.
+
+Both hands; such long, thin, magnetic hands.
+
+"You _are_ good," she said at once. "Oh--you must let me thank you.
+Tom's told me who it was that got him that splendid berth. Oh--what a
+friend you are! And lending him the money and everything. I can't tell
+you--It's too much--You are--"
+
+"Don't," he said; "it's nothing at all."
+
+"It's everything," said she. "Tom's told me quite all about it, mind! I
+know we owe everything to you."
+
+"My dear Miss Harcourt," he began. But she interrupted him.
+
+"Why not Harry?" she asked. "I thought--"
+
+"Yes. Thank you. But it was nothing. You see I couldn't let poor old Tom
+go on breaking his heart in silence, when just writing a letter or two
+would put him in a position to speak."
+
+She had held his hands, or he hers, or both, all this time. Now she
+moved away to the fire.
+
+"Come and sit down and be comfortable," she said. "This is the chair you
+like. And I've got some cigarettes, your very own kind, from the
+Stores."
+
+She remembered a time when she had thought that it was he, Dick, who
+might break his heart for her. The remembrance of that vain thought was
+a constant pin-prick to her vanity, a constant affront to her modesty.
+She had tried to snub him in those days--to show him that his hopes were
+vain. And after all he hadn't had any hopes: he'd only been anxious
+about Tom! In the desolation of her parting from Tom she had longed for
+sympathy. Dick had given it, and she had been kinder to him than she had
+ever been to any man but her lover--first, because he was her lover's
+friend, and, secondly, because she wanted to pretend to herself that she
+had never fancied that there was any reason for not being kind to him.
+
+She sat down in the chair opposite to his.
+
+"Now," she said, "I won't thank you any more, if you hate it so; but you
+are good, and neither of us will ever forget it."
+
+He sat silent for a moment. He had played for this--for this he had
+delayed to answer the letter wherein Tom announced his intention of
+telling Harriet the whole fair tale of his friend's goodness. He had won
+the trick. Yet for an instant he hesitated to turn it over. Then he
+shrugged his shoulders--I will not mention this again, but it was a
+tiresome way he had when the devil or the guardian angel were working
+that curtain I told you of--and said--
+
+"Dear little lady--you make me wish that I _were_ good."
+
+Then he sighed: it was quite a real sigh, and she wondered whether he
+could possibly not be good right through. Was it possible that he was
+wicked in some of those strange, mysterious ways peculiar to men:
+billiards--barmaids--opera-balls flashed into her mind. Perhaps she
+might help him to be good. She had heard the usual pretty romances about
+the influence of a good woman.
+
+"Come," she said, "light up--and tell me all about everything."
+
+So he told her many things. And now and then he spoke of Tom, just to
+give himself the pleasure-pain of that snow-veiled-rose aspect.
+
+He kissed her hand when he left her--a kiss of studied brotherliness.
+Yet the kiss had in it a tiny heart of fire, fierce enough to make her
+wonder, when he had left her, whether, after all.... But she put the
+thought away hastily. "I may be a vain fool," she said, "but I won't be
+fooled by my vanity twice over."
+
+And she kissed Tom's portrait and went to bed.
+
+Dick went home in a heavenly haze of happiness--so he told himself as he
+went. When he woke up at about three o'clock, and began to analyse his
+sensations, he had cooled enough to call it an intoxication of
+pleasurable emotion. At three in the morning, if ever, the gilt is off
+the ginger-bread.
+
+Dick lay on his back, his hands clenched at his sides, and, gazing
+open-eyed into the darkness, he saw many things. He saw all the old
+friendship: the easy, jolly life in those rooms, the meeting with
+Harriet Harcourt--it was at a fancy-ball, and she wore the
+white-and-black dress of a Beardsley lady; he remembered the contrast of
+the dress with her eyes and mouth.
+
+He saw the days when his thoughts turned more and more to every chance
+of meeting her, as though each had been his only chance of life. He saw
+the Essex Court sitting-room as it had looked on the night when Tom had
+announced that Harriet was the only girl in the world--adding, at
+almost a night's length, that impassioned statement of his hopeless,
+financial condition. He could hear Tom's voice as he said--
+
+"And I _know_ she cares!"
+
+Dick felt again the thrill of pleasure that had come with the impulse to
+be, for once, really noble, to efface himself, to give up the pursuit
+that lighted his days, the dream that enchanted his nights. His own
+voice, too, he heard--
+
+"Cheer up, old chap! We'll find a lucrative post for you in five
+minutes, and set the wedding bells a-ringing in half an hour, or less!
+Why on earth didn't you tell me before?"
+
+The glow of conscious nobility had lasted a long while--nearly a week,
+if he recollected aright. Then had come the choice of two openings for
+Tom, one in London, and one, equally good, in Edinburgh. Dick had chosen
+to offer to his friend the one in Edinburgh. He had told himself then
+that both lovers would work better if they were not near enough to waste
+each other's time, and he had almost believed--he was almost sure, even
+now, that he had almost believed--that this was the real reason.
+
+But when Tom had gone there had been frank tears in the lovers' parting,
+and Dick had walked up the platform to avoid the embarrassment of
+witnessing them.
+
+"You beast, you brute, you hound!" said Dick to himself, lying rigid and
+wretched in the darkness. "You knew well enough that you wanted him out
+of the way. And you promised to look after her and keep her from being
+dull. And you've done all you can to keep your word, haven't you? She
+hasn't been dull, I swear. And you've been playing for your own
+hand--and that poor stupid honest chap down there slaving away and
+trusting you as he trusts God. And you've written him lying letters
+twice a week, and betrayed him, as far as you got the chance, every day,
+and seen what a cur you are, every night, as you see it now. Oh,
+yes--you're succeeding splendidly. She forgets to think of Tom when
+she's talking to you. How often did _she_ mention him last night? It was
+_you_ every time. You're not fit to speak to a decent man, you reptile!"
+
+He relaxed the clenched hands.
+
+"Can't you stop this infernal see-saw?" he asked, pounding at his
+pillow; "light and fire every day, and hell-black ice every night. Look
+at it straight, you coward! If you're game to face the music, why, face
+it! Marry her, and friendship and honesty be damned! Or perhaps you
+might screw yourself up to another noble act--not a shoddy one this
+time."
+
+Still sneering, he got up and pottered about in slippers and pyjamas
+till he had stirred together the fire and made himself cocoa. He drank
+it and smoked two pipes. This is very unromantic, but so it was. He
+slept after that.
+
+When he woke in the morning all things looked brighter. He almost
+succeeded in pretending that he did not despise himself.
+
+But there was a letter from Tom, and the guardian angel took charge of
+the curtain again.
+
+He was tired, brain and body. The prize seemed hardly worth the cost.
+The question of relative values, at any rate, seemed debatable. The day
+passed miserably.
+
+At about five o'clock he was startled to feel the genuine throb of an
+honest impulse. Such an impulse in him at that hour of the day, when
+usually the devil was arranging the curtain for the evening's
+tragi-comedy, was so unusual as to rouse in him a psychologic interest
+strong enough to come near to destroying its object. But the flame of
+pleasure lighted by the impulse fought successfully against the cold
+wind of cynical analysis, and he stood up.
+
+"Upon my word," said he, "the copy-books are right--'Be virtuous and you
+will be happy.' At least if you aren't, you won't. And if you are....
+One could but try!"
+
+He packed a bag. He went out and sent telegrams to his people at King's
+Lynn, and to all the folk in town with whom he ought in these next weeks
+to have danced and dined, and he wrote a telegram to her. But that went
+no further than the floor of the Fleet Street Post Office, where it lay
+in trampled, scattered rhomboids.
+
+Then he dined in Hall--he could not spare from his great renunciation
+even such a thread of a thought as should have decided his choice of a
+restaurant; and he went back to the gloomy little rooms and wrote a
+letter to Tom.
+
+It seemed, until his scientific curiosity was aroused by the seeming,
+that he wrote with his heart's blood. After the curiosity awoke, the
+heart's blood was only highly-coloured water.
+
+     "Look here. I can't stand it any longer. I'm a brute and I know
+     it, and I know you'll think so. The fact is I've fallen in love
+     with your Harry, and I simply can't bear it seeing her every
+     day almost and knowing she's yours and not mine" (there the
+     analytic demon pricked up its ears and the scratching of the
+     pen ceased). "I have fought against this," the letter went on
+     after a long pause. "You don't know how I've fought, but it's
+     stronger than I am. I love her--impossibly, unbearably--the
+     only right and honourable thing to do is to go away, and I'm
+     going. My only hope is that she'll never know.
+
+                                                  "Your old friend."
+
+As he scrawled the signatory hieroglyphic, his only hope was that she
+_would_ know it, and that the knowledge would leaven, with tenderly
+pitying thoughts of him, the heroic figure, her happiness with Tom, the
+commonplace.
+
+He addressed and stamped the envelope; but he did not close it.
+
+"I might want to put in another word or two," he said to himself. And
+even then in his inmost heart he hardly knew that he was going to her.
+He knew it when he was driving towards Chenies Street, and then he told
+himself that he was going to bid her good-bye--for ever.
+
+Angel and devil were so busy shifting the curtain to and fro that he
+could not see any scene clearly.
+
+He came into her presence pale with his resolution to be noble, to leave
+her for ever to happiness--and Tom. It was difficult though, even at
+that supreme moment, to look at her and to couple those two ideas.
+
+"I've come to say good-bye," he said.
+
+"_Good-bye?_" the dismay in her eyes seemed to make that unsealed letter
+leap in his side pocket.
+
+"Yes--I'm going--circumstances I can't help--I'm going away for a long
+time."
+
+"Is it bad news? Oh--I _am_ sorry. When are you going?"
+
+"To-morrow," he said, even as he decided to say, "to-night."
+
+"But you can stay a little now, can't you? Don't go like this. It's
+dreadful. I shall miss you so--"
+
+He fingered the letter.
+
+"I must go and post a letter; then I'll come back, if I may. Where did I
+put that hat of mine?"
+
+As she turned to pick up the hat from the table, he dropped the
+letter--the heart's blood written letter--on the floor behind him.
+
+"I'll be back in a minute or two," he said, and went out to walk up and
+down the far end of Chenies Street and to picture her--alone with his
+letter.
+
+She saw it at the instant when the latch of her flat clicked behind him.
+She picked it up, and mechanically turned it over to look at the
+address.
+
+He, in the street outside, knew just how she would do it. Then she saw
+that the letter was unfastened.
+
+How often had Tom said that there were to be no secrets between them!
+This was _his_ letter. But it might hold Dick's secrets. But then, if
+she knew Dick's secrets she might be able to help him. He was in
+trouble--anyone could see that--awful trouble. She turned the letter
+over and over in her hands.
+
+He, without, walking with half-closed eyes, felt that she was so turning
+it.
+
+Suddenly she pulled the letter out and read it. He, out in the gas-lit
+night, knew how it would strike at her pity, her tenderness, her strong
+love of all that was generous and noble. He pictured the scene that must
+be when he should re-enter her room, and his heart beat wildly. He held
+himself in; he was playing the game now in deadly earnest. He would give
+her time to think of him, to pity him--time even to wonder whether,
+after all, duty and honour had not risen up in their might to forbid him
+to dare to try his faith by another sight of her. He waited, keenly
+aware that long as the waiting was to him, who knew what the ending was
+to be, it must be far, far longer for her, who did not know.
+
+At last he went back to her. And the scene that he had pictured in the
+night where the east wind swept the street was acted out now, exactly as
+he had foreseen it.
+
+She held in her hand the open letter. She came towards him, still
+holding it.
+
+"I've read your letter," she said.
+
+In her heart she was saying, "I must be brave. Never mind modesty and
+propriety. Tom could never love me like this. _He's_ a hero--my hero."
+
+In the silence that followed her confession he seemed to hear almost the
+very words of her thought.
+
+He hung his head and stood before her in the deep humility of a chidden
+child.
+
+"I am sorry," he said. "I am ashamed. Forgive me. I couldn't help it. No
+one could. Good-bye. Try to forgive me--"
+
+He turned to go, but she caught him by the arms. He had been almost sure
+she would.
+
+"You mustn't go," she said. "Oh--I _am_ sorry for Tom--but it's not the
+same for him. There are lots of people he'd like just as well--but
+you--"
+
+"Hush!" he said gently, "don't think of me. I shall be all right. I
+shall get over it."
+
+His sad, set smile assured her that he never would--never, in this world
+or the next.
+
+Her eyes were shining with the stress of the scene: his with the charm
+of it.
+
+"You are so strong, so brave, so good," she made herself say. "I can't
+let you go. Oh--don't you see--I can't let you suffer. You've suffered
+so much already--you've been so noble. Oh--it's better to know now. If
+I'd found out later--"
+
+She hung her head and waited.
+
+But he would not spare her. Since he had sold his soul he would have the
+price: the full price, to the last blush, the last tear, the last
+tremble in the pretty voice.
+
+"Let me go," he said, and his voice shook with real passion, "let me
+go--I can't bear it." He took her hands gently from his arms and held
+them lightly.
+
+Next moment they were round his neck, and she was clinging wildly to
+him.
+
+"Don't be unhappy! I can't bear it. Don't you see? Ah--don't you see?"
+
+Then he allowed himself to let her know that he did see. When he left
+her an hour later she stood in the middle of her room and drew a long
+breath.
+
+"_Oh!_" she cried. "What have I done? What _have_ I done?"
+
+He walked away with the maiden fire of her kisses thrilling his lips.
+"I've won--I've won--I've won!" His heart sang within him.
+
+But when he woke in the night--these months had taught him the habit of
+waking in the night and facing his soul--he said--
+
+"It was very easy, after all--very, very easy. And was it worth while?"
+
+But the next evening, when they met, neither tasted in the other's
+kisses the bitterness of last night's regrets. And in three days Tom was
+to come home. He came. All the long way in the rattling, shaking train a
+song of delight sang itself over and over in his brain. He, too, had his
+visions: he was not too commonplace for those. He saw her, her bright
+beauty transfigured by the joy of reunion, rushing to meet him with
+eager hands and gladly given lips. He thought of all he had to tell her.
+The fifty pounds saved already. The Editor's probable resignation, his
+own almost certain promotion, the incredibly dear possibility of their
+marriage before another year had passed. It seemed a month before he
+pressed the electric button at her door, and pressed it with a hand that
+trembled for joy.
+
+The door opened and she met him, but this was not the radiant figure of
+his vision. It seemed to be not she, but an image of her--an image
+without life, without colour.
+
+"Come in," she said; "I've something to tell you."
+
+"What is it?" he asked bluntly. "What's happened, Harry? What's the
+matter?"
+
+"I've found out," she said slowly, but without hesitation: had she not
+rehearsed the speech a thousand times in these three days? "I've found
+out that it was a mistake, Tom. I--I love somebody else. Don't ask who
+it is. I love him. Ah--_don't_!"
+
+For his face had turned a leaden white, and he was groping blindly for
+something to hold on to.
+
+He sat down heavily on the chair where Dick had knelt at her feet the
+night before. But now it was she who was kneeling.
+
+"Oh, _don't_, Tom, dear--don't. I can't bear it. I'm not worth it. He's
+so brave and noble--and he loves me so."
+
+"And don't _I_ love you?" said poor Tom, and then without ado or
+disguise he burst into tears.
+
+She had ceased to think or to reason. Her head was on his shoulder, and
+they clung blindly to each other and cried like two children.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When Tom went to the Temple that night he carried a note from Harry to
+Dick. With sublime audacity and a confidence deserved she made Tom her
+messenger.
+
+"It's a little secret," she said, smiling at him, "and you're not to
+know."
+
+Tom thought it must be something about a Christmas present for himself.
+He laughed--a little shakily--and took the note.
+
+Dick read it and crushed it in his hand while Tom poured out his full
+heart.
+
+"There's been some nonsense while I was away," he said; "she must have
+been dull and unhinged--you left her too much alone, old man. But it's
+all right now. She couldn't care for anyone but me, after all, and she
+knew it directly she saw me again. And we're to be married before next
+year's out, if luck holds."
+
+"Here's luck, old man!" said Dick, lifting his whisky. When Tom had gone
+to bed, weary with the quick sequence of joy and misery and returning
+joy, Dick read the letter again.
+
+"I can't do it," said the letter, "it's not in me. He loves me too much.
+And I _am_ fond of him. He couldn't bear it. He's weak, you see. He's
+not like you--brave and strong and noble. But I shall always be better
+because you've loved me. I'm going to try to be brave and noble and
+strong like you. And you must help me, Dear. God bless you. Good-bye."
+
+"After all," said Dick, as he watched the white letter turn in the fire
+to black, gold spangled, "after all, it was not so easy. And oh, how it
+would have been worth while!"
+
+
+
+
+MISS EDEN'S BABY
+
+
+MISS EDEN'S life-history was a sad one. She told it to her employer
+before she had been a week at the Beeches. Mrs. Despard came into the
+school-room and surprised the governess in tears. No one could ever
+resist Mrs. Despard--I suppose she has had more confidences than any
+woman in Sussex. Anyhow, Miss Eden dried her tears and faltered out her
+poor little story.
+
+She had been engaged to be married--Mrs. Despard's was a face trained to
+serve and not to betray its owner, so she did not look astonished,
+though Miss Eden was so very homely, poor thing, that the idea of a
+lover seemed almost ludicrous--she had been engaged to be married: and
+her lover had been killed at Elendslaagte, and her father had died of
+heart disease--an attack brought on by the shock of the news, and his
+partner had gone off with all his money, and now she had to go out as a
+governess: her mother and sister were living quietly on the mother's
+little fortune. There was enough for two but not enough for three. So
+Miss Eden had gone governessing.
+
+"But you needn't pity me for that," she said, when Mrs. Despard said
+something kind, "because, really, it's better for me. If I were at home
+doing nothing I should just sit and think of _him_--for hours and hours
+at a time. He was so brave and strong and good--he died cheering his men
+on and waving his sword, and he did love me so. We were to have been
+married in August."
+
+She was weeping again, more violently than before; Mrs. Despard
+comforted her--there is no one who comforts so well--and the governess
+poured out her heart. When the dressing-bell rang Miss Eden pulled
+herself together with a manifest effort.
+
+"I've been awfully weak and foolish," she said, "and you've been most
+kind. Please forgive me--and--and I think I'd rather not speak of it any
+more--ever. It's been a relief, just this once--but I'm going to be
+brave. Thank you, thank you for all your goodness to me. I shall never
+forget it."
+
+And now Miss Eden went about her duties with a courageous smile, and
+Mrs. Despard could not but see and pity the sad heart beneath the
+bravely assumed armour. Miss Eden was fairly well educated, and she
+certainly was an excellent teacher. The children made good progress. She
+worshipped Mrs. Despard--but then every one did that--and she made
+herself pleasures of the little things she was able to do for
+her--mending linen, arranging flowers, running errands, and nursing the
+Baby. She adored the Baby. She used to walk by herself in the Sussex
+lanes, for Mrs. Despard often set her free for two or three hours at a
+time, and more than once the mother and children, turning some leafy
+corner in their blackberrying or nutting expeditions, came upon Miss
+Eden walking along with a far-away look in her eyes, and a face set in a
+mask of steadfast endurance. She would sit sewing on the lawn with Mabel
+and Gracie playing about her, answering their ceaseless chatter with a
+patient smile. To Mrs. Despard she was a pathetic figure. Mr. Despard
+loathed her, but then he never liked women unless they were pretty.
+
+"I ought to be used to your queer pets by now," he said; "but really
+this one is almost too much. Upon my soul, she's the ugliest woman I've
+ever seen."
+
+She certainty was not handsome. Her eyes were fairly good, but mouth and
+nose were clumsy, and hers was one of those faces that seem to have no
+definite outline. Her complexion was dull and unequal. Her hair was
+straight and coarse, and somehow it always looked dusty. Her figure was
+her only good point, and, as Mr. Despard observed, "If a figure without
+a face is any good, why not have a dressmaker's dummy, and have done
+with it?"
+
+Mr. Despard was very glad when he heard that a little legacy had come
+from an uncle, and that Miss Eden was going to give up governessing and
+live with her people.
+
+Miss Eden left in floods of tears, and she clung almost frantically to
+Mrs. Despard.
+
+"You have been so good to me," she said. "I may write to you, mayn't I?
+and come and see you sometimes? You will let me, won't you?"
+
+Tears choked her, and she was driven off in the station fly. And a new
+governess, young, commonplacely pretty, and entirely heart-whole, came
+to take her place, to the open relief of Mr. Despard, and the little
+less pronounced satisfaction of the little girls.
+
+"She'll write to you by every post now, I suppose," said Mr. Despard
+when the conventional letter of thanks for kindness came to his wife.
+But Miss Eden did not write again till Christmas. Then she wrote to ask
+Mrs. Despard's advice. There was a gentleman, a retired tea-broker, in a
+very good position. She liked him--did Mrs. Despard think it would be
+fair to marry him when her heart was buried for ever in that grave at
+Elendslaagte?
+
+"But I don't want to be selfish, and poor Mr. Cave is so devoted. My
+dear mother thinks he would never be the same again if I refused him."
+
+Mr. Despard read the letter, and told his wife to tell the girl to take
+the tea-broker, for goodness' sake, and be thankful. She'd never get
+such another chance. His wife told him not to be coarse, and wrote a
+gentle, motherly letter to Miss Eden.
+
+On New Year's Day came a beautiful and very expensive
+handkerchief-sachet for Mrs. Despard, and the news that Miss Eden was
+engaged. "And already," she wrote, "I feel that I can really become
+attached to Edward. He is goodness itself. Of course, it is not like the
+other. That only comes once in a woman's life, but I believe I shall
+really be happy in a quiet, humdrum way."
+
+After that, news of Miss Eden came thick and fast. Edward was building a
+house for her. Edward had bought her a pony-carriage. Edward had to call
+his house No. 70, Queen's Road--a new Town Council resolution--and it
+wasn't in a street at all, but quite in the country, only there was
+going to be a road there some day. And she had so wanted to call it the
+Beeches, after dear Mrs. Despard's house, where she had been so happy.
+The wedding-day was fixed, and would Mrs. Despard come to the wedding?
+Miss Eden knew it was a good deal to ask; but if she only would!
+
+"It would add more than you can possibly guess to my happiness," she
+said, "if you could come. There is plenty of room in my mother's little
+house. It is small, but very convenient, and it has such a lovely old
+garden, so unusual, you know, in the middle of a town; and if only dear
+Mabel and Gracie might be among my little bridesmaids! The dresses are
+to be half-transparent white silk over rose colour. Dear Edward's father
+insists on ordering them himself from Liberty's. The other bridesmaids
+will be Edward's little nieces--such sweet children. Mother is giving me
+the loveliest trousseau. Of course, I shall make it up to her; but she
+will do it, and I give way, just to please her. It's not pretentious,
+you know, but everything so _good_. Real lace on all the under things,
+and twelve of everything, and--"
+
+The letter wandered on into a maze of _lingerie_ and millinery and silk
+petticoats.
+
+Mr. and Mrs. Despard were still debating the question of the bridesmaids
+whose dresses were to come from Liberty's when a telegraph boy crossed
+the lawn.
+
+Mrs. Despard tore open the envelope.
+
+"Oh--how frightfully sad!" she said. "I _am_ sorry! 'Edward's father
+dangerously ill. Wedding postponed.'"
+
+The next letter was black-edged, and was not signed "Eden." Edward's
+father had insisted on the marriage taking place before he died--it had,
+in fact, been performed by his bedside. It had been a sad time, but Mrs.
+Edward was very happy now.
+
+     "My husband is so good to me, his thoughtful kindness is beyond
+     belief," she wrote. "He anticipates my every wish. I should be
+     indeed ungrateful if I did not love him dearly. Dear Mrs.
+     Despard, this gentle domestic love is very beautiful. I hope I
+     am not treacherous to my dead in being as happy as I am with
+     Edward. Ah! I hear the gate click--I must run and meet him. He
+     says it is not like coming home unless my face is the first he
+     sees when he comes in. Good-bye. A thousand thanks for ever for
+     all your goodness.
+
+                                    "Your grateful Ella Cave."
+
+"Either their carriage drive is unusually long, or her face was _not_
+the first," said Mr. Despard. "Why didn't she go and meet the man, and
+not stop to write all that rot?"
+
+"Don't, Bill," said his wife. "You were always so unjust to that girl."
+
+"Girl!" said Mr. Despard.
+
+And now the letters were full of detail: the late Miss Eden wrote a good
+hand, and expressed herself with clearness. Her letters were a pleasure
+to Mrs. Despard.
+
+"Poor dear!" she said. "It really rejoices my heart to think of her
+being so happy. She describes things very well. I almost feel as though
+I knew every room in her house; it must be very pretty with all those
+Liberty muslin blinds, and the Persian rugs, and the chair-backs
+Edward's grandmother worked--and then the beautiful garden. I think I
+must go to see it all. I do love to see people happy."
+
+"You generally do see them happy," said her husband; "it's a way people
+have when they're near you. Go and see her, by all means."
+
+And Mrs. Despard would have gone, but a letter, bearing the same date as
+her own, crossed it in the post; it must have been delayed, for it
+reached her on the day when she expected an answer to her own letter,
+offering a visit. But the late Miss Eden had evidently not received
+this, for her letter was a mere wail of anguish.
+
+"Edward is ill--typhoid. I am distracted. Write to me when you can. The
+very thought of you comforts me."
+
+"Poor thing," said Mrs. Despard, "I really did think she was going to be
+happy."
+
+Her sympathetic interest followed Edward through all the stages of
+illness and convalescence, as chronicled by his wife's unwearying pen.
+
+Then came the news of the need of a miniature trousseau, and the letters
+breathed of head-flannels, robes, and the charm of tiny embroidered
+caps. "They were Edward's when he was a baby--the daintiest embroidery
+and thread lace. The christening cap is Honiton. They are a little
+yellow with time, of course, but I am bleaching them on the sweet-brier
+hedge. I can see the white patches on the green as I write. They look
+like some strange sort of flowers, and they make me dream of the
+beautiful future."
+
+In due season Baby was born and christened; and then Miss Eden, that
+was, wrote to ask if she might come to the Beeches, and bring the
+darling little one.
+
+Mrs. Despard was delighted. She loved babies. It was a beautiful
+baby--beautifully dressed, and it rested contentedly in the arms of a
+beautifully dressed lady, whose happy face Mrs. Despard could hardly
+reconcile with her recollections of Miss Eden. The young mother's
+happiness radiated from her, and glorified her lips and eyes. Even Mr.
+Despard owned, when the pair had gone, that marriage and motherhood had
+incredibly improved Miss Eden.
+
+And now, the sudden departure of a brother for the other side of the
+world took Mrs. Despard to Southampton, whence his boat sailed, and
+where lived the happy wife and mother, who had been Miss Eden.
+
+When the tears of parting were shed, and the last waving handkerchief
+from the steamer's deck had dwindled to a sharp point of light, and from
+a sharp point of light to an invisible point of parting and sorrow, Mrs.
+Despard dried her pretty eyes, and thought of trains. There was no
+convenient one for an hour or two.
+
+"I'll go and see Ella Cave," said she, and went in a hired carriage.
+"No. 70, Queen's Road," she said. "I think it's somewhere outside the
+town."
+
+"Not it," said the driver, and presently set her down in a horrid little
+street, at a horrid little shop, where they sold tobacco and sweets and
+newspapers and walking-sticks.
+
+"This can't be it! There must be some other Queen's Road?" said Mrs.
+Despard.
+
+"No there ain't," said the man. "What name did yer want?"
+
+"Cave," said Mrs. Despard absently; "Mrs. Edward Cave."
+
+The man went into the shop. Presently he returned.
+
+"She don't live here," he said; "she only calls here for letters."
+
+Mrs. Despard assured herself of this in a brief interview with a frowsy
+woman across a glass-topped show-box of silk-embroidered cigar-cases.
+
+"The young person calls every day, mum," she said; "quite a respectable
+young person, mum, I should say--if she was after your situation."
+
+"Thank you," said Mrs. Despard mechanically, yet with her own
+smile--the smile that still stamps her in the frowsy woman's memory as
+"that pleasant-spoken lady."
+
+She paused a moment on the dirty pavement, and then gave the cabman the
+address of the mother and sister, the address of the little
+house--small, but very convenient--and with a garden--such a lovely old
+garden--and so unusual in the middle of a town.
+
+The cab stopped at a large, sparkling, plate-glassy shop--a very
+high-class fruiterer's and greengrocer's.
+
+The name on the elaborately gilded facia was, beyond any doubt,
+Eden--Frederick Eden.
+
+Mrs. Despard got out and walked into the shop. To this hour the scent of
+Tangerine oranges brings to her a strange, sick, helpless feeling of
+disillusionment.
+
+A stout well-oiled woman, in a very tight puce velveteen bodice with
+bright buttons and a large yellow lace collar, fastened with a blue
+enamel brooch, leaned forward interrogatively.
+
+"Mrs. Cave?" said Mrs. Despard.
+
+"Don't know the name, madam."
+
+"Wasn't that the name of the gentleman Miss Eden married?"
+
+"It seems to me you're making a mistake, madam. Excuse me, but might I
+ask your name?"
+
+"I'm Mrs. Despard. Miss Eden lived with me as governess."
+
+"Oh, yes"--the puce velvet seemed to soften--"very pleased to see you,
+I'm sure! Come inside, madam. Ellen's just run round to the
+fishmonger's. I'm not enjoying very good health just now"--the glance
+was intolerably confidential--"and I thought I could fancy a bit of
+filleted plaice for my supper, or a nice whiting. Come inside, do!"
+
+Mrs. Despard, stunned, could think of no course save that suggested. She
+followed Mrs. Eden into the impossible parlour that bounded the shop on
+the north.
+
+"Do sit down," said Mrs. Eden hospitably, "and the girl shall get you a
+cup of tea. It's full early, but a cup of tea's always welcome, early or
+late, isn't it?"
+
+"Yes, indeed," said Mrs. Despard, automatically. Then she roused herself
+and added, "But please don't trouble, I can't stay more than a few
+minutes. I hope Miss Eden is well?"
+
+"Oh, yes--she's all right. She lives in clover, as you might say, since
+her uncle on the mother's side left her that hundred a year. Made it all
+in fried fish, too. I should have thought it a risk myself, but you
+never know."
+
+Mrs. Despard was struggling with a sensation as of sawdust in the
+throat--sawdust, and a great deal of it, and very dry.
+
+"But I heard that Miss Eden was married--"
+
+"Not she!" said Mrs. Eden, with the natural contempt of one who was.
+
+"I understood that she had married a Mr. Cave."
+
+"It's some other Eden, then. There isn't a Cave in the town, so far as I
+know, except Mr. Augustus; he's a solicitor and Commissioner for Oaths,
+a very good business, and of course he'd never look the same side of the
+road as she was, nor she couldn't expect it."
+
+"But really," Mrs. Despard persisted, "I do think there must be some
+mistake. Because she came to see me--and--and she brought her baby."
+
+Mrs. Eden laughed outright.
+
+"Her baby? Oh, really! But she's never so much as had a young man after
+her, let alone a husband. It's not what she could look for, either, for
+she's no beauty--poor girl!"
+
+Yet the Baby was evidence--of a sort. Mrs. Despard hated herself for
+hinting that perhaps Mrs. Eden did not know everything.
+
+"I don't know what you mean, madam." The puce bodice was visibly moved.
+"That was _my_ baby, bless his little heart. Poor Ellen's a respectable
+girl--she's been with me since she was a little trot of six--all except
+the eleven months she was away with you--and then my Fred see her to the
+door, and fetched her from your station. She _would_ go--though not
+_our_ wish. I suppose she wanted a change. But since then she's never
+been over an hour away, except when she took my Gustavus over to see
+you. She must have told you whose he was--but I suppose you weren't
+paying attention. And I must say I don't think it's becoming in you, if
+you'll excuse me saying so, to come here taking away a young girl's
+character. At least, if she's not so young as she was, of course--we
+none of us are, not even yourself, madam, if you'll pardon me saying
+so."
+
+"I beg your pardon," said Mrs. Despard. She had never felt so
+helpless--so silly. The absurd parlour, ponderous with plush, dusky with
+double curtains, had for her all the effect of a nightmare.
+
+She felt that she was swimming blindly in a sea of disenchantment.
+
+"Don't think me inquisitive," she said, "but Miss Eden was engaged,
+wasn't she, some time ago, to someone who was killed in South Africa?"
+
+"Never--in all her born days," said Mrs. Eden, with emphasis. "I suppose
+it's her looks. I've had a good many offers myself, though I'm not what
+you might call anything out of the way--but poor Ellen--never had so
+much as a nibble."
+
+Mrs. Despard gasped. She clung against reason to the one spar of hope in
+this sea of faiths dissolved. It might be--it must be--some mistake!
+
+"You see, poor Ellen"--Mrs. Eden made as much haste to smash up the spar
+as though she had seen it--"poor Ellen, when her mother and father died
+she was but six. There was only her and my Fred, so naturally we took
+her, and what little money the old lady left we spent on her, sending
+her to a good school, and never counting the bit of clothes and
+victuals. She was always for learning something, and above her station,
+and the Rev. Mrs. Peterson at St. Michael, and All Angels--she made a
+sort of pet of Ellen, and set her up, more than a bit."
+
+Mrs. Despard remembered that Mrs. Peterson had been Miss Eden's
+reference.
+
+"And then she _would_ come to you--though welcome to share along with
+us, and you can see for yourself it's a good business--and when that
+little bit was left her, of course, she'd no need to work, so she came
+home here, and I must say she's always been as handy a girl and obliging
+as you could wish, but wandering, too, in her thoughts. Always pens and
+ink. I shouldn't wonder but what she wrote poetry. Yards and yards of
+writing she does. I don't know what she does with it all."
+
+But Mrs. Despard knew.
+
+Mrs. Eden talked on gaily and gladly--till not even a straw was left for
+her hearer to cling to.
+
+"Thank you very much," she said. "I see it was all a mistake. I must
+have been wrong about the address." She spoke hurriedly--for she had
+heard in the shop a step that she knew.
+
+For one moment a white face peered in at the glass door--then vanished;
+it was Miss Eden's face--her face as it had been when she told of her
+lost lover who died waving his sword at Elendslaagte! But the telling of
+that tale had moved Mrs. Despard to no such passion of pity as this. For
+from that face now something was blotted out, and the lack of it was
+piteous beyond thought.
+
+"Thank you very much. I am so sorry to have troubled you," she said, and
+somehow got out of the plush parlour, and through the shop,
+fruit-filled, orange-scented.
+
+At the station there was still time, and too much time. The bookstall
+yielded pencil, paper, envelope, and stamp. She wrote--
+
+"Ella, dear, whatever happens, I am always your friend. Let me
+know--can I do anything for you? I know all about everything now. But
+don't think I'm angry--I am only so sorry for you, dear--so very, very
+sorry. Do let me help you."
+
+She addressed the letter to Miss Eden at the greengrocer's. Afterwards
+she thought that she had better have left it alone. It could do no good,
+and it might mean trouble with her sister-in-law, for Miss Eden, late
+Mrs. Cave, the happy wife and mother. She need not have troubled
+herself--for the letter came back a week later with a note from Mrs.
+Eden of the bursting, bright-buttoned, velvet bodice. Ellen had gone
+away--no one knew where she had gone.
+
+Mrs. Despard will always reproach herself for not having rushed towards
+the white face that peered through the glass door. She could have done
+something--anything. So she thinks, but I am not sure.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"And it was none of it true, Bill," she said piteously, when, Mabel and
+Gracie safely tucked up in bed, she told him all about it. "I don't know
+how she could. No dead lover--no retired tea-broker--no pretty house,
+and sweet-brier hedge with ... and no Baby."
+
+"She was a lying lunatic," said Bill. "I never liked her. Hark! what's
+that? All right, Love-a-duck--daddy's here!"
+
+He went up the stairs three at a time to catch up his baby, who had a
+way of wandering, with half-awake wailings, out of her crib in the small
+hours.
+
+"All right, Kiddie-winks, daddy's got you," he murmured, coming back
+into the drawing-room with the little soft, warm, flannelly bundle
+cuddled close to him.
+
+"She's asleep again already," he said, settling her comfortably in his
+arms. "Don't worry any more about that Eden girl, Molly--she's not worth
+it."
+
+His wife knelt beside him and buried her face against his waistcoat and
+against the little flannel night-gown.
+
+"Oh, Bill," she said, and her voice was thick with tears, "don't say
+things like that. Don't you see? It was cruel, cruel! She was all
+alone--no mother, no sister, no lover. She was made so that no one could
+ever love her. And she wanted love so much--so frightfully much, so
+that she just _had_ to pretend that she had it."
+
+"And what about the Baby?" asked Mr. Despard, taking one arm from his
+own baby to pass it round his wife's shoulders. "Don't be a darling
+idiot, Molly. What about the Baby?"
+
+"Oh--don't you see?" Mrs. Despard was sobbing now in good earnest. "She
+wanted the Baby more than anything else. Oh--don't say horrid things
+about her, Bill! We've got everything--and she'd got nothing at
+all--don't say things--don't!"
+
+Mr. Despard said nothing. He thumped his wife sympathetically on the
+back. It was the baby who spoke.
+
+"Want mammy," she said sleepily, and at the transfer remembered her
+father, "and daddy too," she added politely.
+
+Miss Eden was somewhere or other. Wherever she was she was alone.
+
+And these three were together.
+
+"I daresay you're right about that girl," said Mr. Despard. "Poor
+wretch! By Jove, she was ugly!"
+
+
+
+
+THE LOVER, THE GIRL, AND THE ONLOOKER
+
+
+The two were alone in the grassy courtyard of the ruined castle. The
+rest of the picnic party had wandered away from them, or they from it.
+Out of the green-grown mound of fallen masonry by the corner of the
+chapel a great may-bush grew, silvered and pearled on every scented,
+still spray. The sky was deep, clear, strong blue above, and against the
+blue, the wallflowers shone bravely from the cracks and crevices of
+ruined arch and wall and buttress.
+
+"They shine like gold," she said. "I wish one could get at them!"
+
+"Do you want some?" he said, and on the instant his hand had found a
+strong jutting stone, his foot a firm ledge--and she saw his figure,
+grey flannel against grey stone, go up the wall towards the yellow
+flowers.
+
+"Oh, don't!" she cried. "I don't _really_ want them--please not--I
+wish--"
+
+Then she stopped, because he was already some twelve feet from the
+ground, and she knew that one should not speak to a man who is climbing
+ruined walls. So she clasped her hands and waited, and her heart seemed
+to go out like a candle in the wind, and to leave only a dark, empty,
+sickening space where, a moment before, it had beat in anxious joy. For
+she loved him, had loved him these two years, had loved him since the
+day of their first meeting. And that was just as long as he had loved
+her. But he had never told his love. There is a code of honour, right or
+wrong, and it forbids a man with an income of a hundred and fifty a year
+to speak of love to a girl who is reckoned an heiress. There are plenty
+who transgress the code, but they are in all the other stories. He drove
+his passion on the curb, and mastered it. Yet the questions--Does she
+love me? Does she know I love her? Does she wonder why I don't speak?
+and the counter-questions--Will she think I don't care? Doesn't she
+perhaps care at all? Will she marry someone else before I've earned the
+right to try to make her love me? afforded a see-saw of reflection,
+agonising enough, for those small hours of wakefulness when we let our
+emotions play the primitive games with us. But always the morning
+brought strength to keep to his resolution. He saw her three times a
+year, when Christmas, Easter, and Midsummer brought her to stay with an
+aunt, brought him home to his people for holidays. And though he had
+denied himself the joy of speaking in words, he had let his eyes speak
+more than he knew. And now he had reached the wallflowers high up, and
+was plucking them and throwing them down so that they fell in a wavering
+bright shower round her feet. She did not pick them up. Her eyes were on
+him; and the empty place where her heart used to be seemed to swell till
+it almost choked her.
+
+He was coming down now. He was only about twenty-five feet from the
+ground. There was no sound at all but the grating of his feet as he set
+them on the stones, and the movement, now and then, of a bird in the
+ivy. Then came a rustle, a gritty clatter, loud falling stones: his foot
+had slipped, and he had fallen. No--he was hanging by his hands above
+the great refectory arch, and his body swung heavily with the impetus
+of the checked fall. He was moving along now, slowly--hanging by his
+hands; now he grasped an ivy root--another--and pulled himself up till
+his knee was on the moulding of the arch. She would never have believed
+anyone who had told her that only two minutes had been lived between the
+moment of his stumble and the other moment when his foot touched the
+grass and he came towards her among the fallen wallflowers. She was a
+very nice girl and not at all forward, and I cannot understand or excuse
+her conduct. She made two steps towards him with her hands held
+out--caught him by the arms just above the elbow--shook him angrily, as
+one shakes a naughty child--looked him once in the eyes and buried her
+face in his neck--sobbing long, dry, breathless sobs.
+
+Even then he tried to be strong.
+
+"Don't!" he said tenderly, "don't worry. It's all right--I was a fool.
+Pull yourself together--there's someone coming."
+
+"I don't care," she said, for the touch of his cheek, pressed against
+her hair, told her all that she wanted to know. "Let them come, I don't
+care! Oh, how could you be so silly and horrid? Oh, thank God, thank
+God! Oh, how could you?"
+
+Of course, a really honourable young man would have got out of the
+situation somehow. He didn't. He accepted it, with his arms round her
+and his lips against the face where the tears now ran warm and salt. It
+was one of the immortal moments.
+
+The picture was charming, too--a picture to wring the heart of the
+onlooker with envy, or sympathy, according to his nature. But there was
+only one onlooker, a man of forty, or thereabouts, who paused for an
+instant under the great gate of the castle and took in the full charm
+and meaning of the scene. He turned away, and went back along the green
+path with hell in his heart. The other two were in Paradise. The
+Onlooker fell like the third in Eden--the serpent, in fact. Two miles
+away he stopped and lit a pipe.
+
+"It's got to be borne, I suppose," he said, "like all the rest of it.
+_She's_ happy enough. I ought to be glad. Anyway, I can't stop it."
+Perhaps he swore a little. If he did, the less precise and devotional
+may pardon him. He had loved the Girl since her early teens, and it was
+only yesterday's post that had brought him the appointment that one
+might marry on. The appointment had come through her father, for whom
+the Onlooker had fagged at Eton. He went back to London, hell burning
+briskly. Moral maxims and ethereal ideas notwithstanding, it was
+impossible for him to be glad that she was happy--like that.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Lover who came to his love over strewn wallflowers desired always,
+as has been seen, to act up to his moral ideas. So he took next day a
+much earlier train than was at all pleasant, and called on her father to
+explain his position and set forth his prospects. His coming was
+heralded by a letter from her. One must not quote it--it is not proper
+to read other people's letters, especially letters to a trusted father,
+from a child, only and adored. Its effect may be indicated briefly. It
+showed the father that the Girl's happiness had had two long years in
+which to learn to grow round the thought of the young man, whom he now
+faced for the first time. Odd, for to the father he seemed just like
+other young men. It seemed to him that there were so many more of the
+same pattern from whom she might have chosen. And many of them well off,
+too. However, the letter lay in the prosperous pocket-book in the breast
+of the father's frock-coat, and the Lover was received as though that
+letter were a charm to ensure success. A faulty, or at least a
+slow-working, charm, however, for the father did not lift a bag of gold
+from his safe and say: "Take her, take this also--be happy"--he only
+consented to a provisional engagement, took an earnest interest in the
+young man's affairs, and offered to make his daughter an annual
+allowance on her marriage.
+
+"At my death she will have more," he said, "for, of course, I have
+insured my life. You, of course, will insure yours."
+
+"Of course I will," the Lover echoed warmly; "does it matter what
+office?"
+
+"Oh, any good office--the Influential, if you like. I'm a director, you
+know."
+
+The young man made a reverent note of the name, and the interview seemed
+played out.
+
+"It's a complicated nuisance," the father mused; "it isn't even as if I
+knew anything of the chap. I oughtn't to have allowed the child to make
+these long visits to her aunt. Or I ought to have gone with her. But I
+never could stand my sister Fanny. Well, well," and he went back to his
+work with the plain unvarnished heartache of the anxious father--not
+romantic and pretty like the lover's pangs, but as uncomfortable as
+toothache, all the same.
+
+He had another caller that afternoon; he whom we know as the Onlooker
+came to thank him for the influence that had got him the appointment as
+doctor to the Influential Insurance Company.
+
+The father opened his heart to the Onlooker--and the Onlooker had to
+bear it. It was an hour full of poignant sentiments. The only definite
+thought that came to the Onlooker was this--"I must hold my tongue. I
+must hold my tongue." He held it.
+
+Three days later he took up his new work. And the very first man who
+came to him for medical examination was the man in whose arms he had
+seen the girl he loved.
+
+The Onlooker asked the first needful questions automatically. To himself
+he was saying: "The situation is dramatically good; but I don't see how
+to develop the action. It really is rather amusing that I--_I_ should
+have to tap his beastly chest, and listen to his cursed lungs, and ask
+sympathetic questions about his idiotic infant illnesses--one thing, he
+ought to be able to remember those pretty vividly--the confounded pup."
+
+The Onlooker had never done anything wronger than you have done, my good
+reader, and he never expected to meet a giant temptation, any more than
+you do. A man may go all his days and never meet Apollyon. On the other
+hand, Apollyon may be waiting for one round the corner of the next
+street. The devil was waiting for the Onlooker in the answers to his
+careless questions--"Father alive? No? What did he die of?" For the
+answer was "Heart," and in it the devil rose and showed the Onlooker the
+really only true and artistic way to develop the action in this
+situation, so dramatic in its possibilities. The illuminative flash of
+temptation was so sudden, so brilliant, that the Doctor-Onlooker closed
+his soul's eyes and yielded without even the least pretence of
+resistance.
+
+He took his stethoscope from the table, and he felt as though he had
+picked up a knife to stab the other man in the back. As, in fact, he
+had.
+
+Ten minutes later, the stabbed man was reeling from the Onlooker's
+consulting room. Mind and soul reeled, that is, but his body was stiffer
+and straighter than usual. He walked with more than his ordinary
+firmness of gait, as a man does who is just drunk enough to know that he
+must try to look sober.
+
+He walked down the street, certain words ringing in his ears--"Heart
+affected--probably hereditary weakness. No office in the world would
+insure you."
+
+And so it was all over--the dreams, the hopes, the palpitating faith in
+a beautiful future. His days might be long, they might be brief; but be
+his life long or short, he must live it alone. He had a little fight
+with himself as he went down Wimpole Street; then he hailed a hansom,
+and went and told her father, who quite agreed with him that it was all
+over. The father wondered at himself for being more sorry than glad.
+
+Then the Lover went and told the Girl. He had told the father first to
+insure himself against any chance of yielding to what he knew the Girl
+would say. She said it, of course, with her dear arms round his neck.
+
+"I won't give you up just because you're ill," she said; "why, you want
+me more than ever!"
+
+"But I may die at any moment."
+
+"So may I! And you may live to be a hundred--I'll take my chance. Oh,
+don't you see, too, that if there _is_ only a little time we ought to
+spend it together?"
+
+"It's impossible," he said, "it's no good. I must set my teeth and bear
+it. And you--I hope it won't be as hard for you as it will for me."
+
+"But you _can't_ give me up if I won't _be_ given up, can you?"
+
+His smile struck her dumb. It was more convincing than his words.
+
+"But why?" she said presently. "Why--why--_why_?"
+
+"Because I won't; because it's wrong. My father ought never to have
+married. He had no right to bring me into the world to suffer like this.
+It's a crime. And I'll not be a criminal. Not even for you--not even for
+you. You'll forgive me--won't you? I didn't know--and--oh, what's the
+use of talking?"
+
+Yet they talked for hours. Conventionally he should have torn himself
+away, unable to bear the strain of his agony. As a matter of fact, he
+sat by her holding her hand. It was for the last time--the last, last
+time. There was really a third at that interview. The Onlooker had
+imagination enough to see the scene between the parting lovers.
+
+They parted.
+
+And now the Onlooker dared not meet her--dared not call at the house as
+he had used to do. At last--the father pressed him--he went. He met her.
+And it was as though he had met the ghost of her whom he had loved. Her
+eyes had blue marks under them, her chin had grown more pointed, her
+nose sharper. There was a new line on her forehead, and her eyes had
+changed.
+
+Over the wine he heard from the father that she was pining for the
+Lover who had inherited heart disease.
+
+"I suppose it was you who saw him, by the way," said he, "a tall,
+well-set-up young fellow--dark--not bad looking."
+
+"I--I don't remember," lied the Onlooker, with the eyes of his memory on
+the white face of the man he had stabbed.
+
+Now the Lover and the Onlooker had each his own burden to bear. And the
+Lover's was the easier. He worked still, though there was now nothing to
+work for more; he worked as he had never worked in his life, because he
+knew that if he did not take to work he should take to drink or worse
+devils, and he set his teeth and swore that her Lover should not be
+degraded. He knew that she loved him, and there was a kind of fierce
+pain-pleasure--like that of scratching a sore--in the thought that she
+was as wretched as he was, that, divided in all else, they were yet
+united in their suffering. He thought it made him more miserable to know
+of her misery. But it didn't. He never saw her, but he dreamed of her,
+and sometimes the dreams got out of hand, and carried him a thousand
+worlds from all that lay between them. Then he had to wake up. And that
+was bad.
+
+But the Onlooker was no dreamer, and he saw her about three times a
+week. He saw how the light of life that his lying lips had blown out was
+not to be rekindled by his or any man's breath. He saw her slenderness
+turn to thinness, the pure, healthy pallor of her rounded cheek change
+to a sickly white, covering a clear-cut mask of set endurance. And there
+was no work that could shut out that sight--no temptation of the world,
+the flesh, or the devil to give him even the relief of a fight. He had
+no temptations; he had never had but the one. His soul was naked to the
+bitter wind of the actual; and the days went by, went by, and every day
+he knew more and more surely that he had lied and thrown away his soul,
+and that the wages of sin were death, and no other thing whatever. And
+gradually, little by little, the whole worth of life seemed to lie in
+the faint, far chance of his being able to undo the one triumphantly
+impulsive and unreasoning action of his life.
+
+But there are some acts that there is no undoing. And the hell that had
+burned in his heart so fiercely when he had seen her in the other man's
+arms burned now with new bright lights and infernal flickering flame
+tongues.
+
+And at last, out of hell, the Onlooker reached out his hands and caught
+at prayer. He caught at it as a drowning man catches at a white gleam in
+the black of the surging sea about him--it may be a painted spar, it may
+be empty foam. The Onlooker prayed.
+
+And that very evening he ran up against the Lover at the Temple Station,
+and he got into the same carriage with him.
+
+He said, "Excuse me. You don't remember me?"
+
+"I'm not likely to have forgotten you," said the Lover.
+
+"I fear my verdict was a great blow. You look very worried, very ill.
+News like that is a great shock."
+
+"It _is_ a little unsettling," said the Lover.
+
+"Are you still going on with your usual work?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Speaking professionally, I think you are wrong. You lessen your chances
+of life! Why don't you try a complete change?"
+
+"Because--if you must know, my chances of life have ceased to interest
+me."
+
+The Lover was short with the Onlooker; but he persisted.
+
+"Well, if one isn't interested in one's life, one may be interested in
+one's death--or the manner of it. In your place, I should enlist. It's
+better to die of a bullet in South Africa than of fright in London."
+
+That roused the Lover, as it was meant to do.
+
+"I don't really know what business it is of yours, sir," he said; "but
+it's your business to know that they wouldn't pass a man with a heart
+like mine."
+
+"I don't know. They're not so particular just now. They want men. I
+should try it if I were you. If you don't have a complete change you'll
+go all to pieces. That's all."
+
+The Onlooker got out at the next station. Short of owning to his own
+lie, he had done what he could to insure its being found out for the lie
+it was--or, at least, for a mistake. And when he had done what he could,
+he saw that the Lover might not find it out--might be passed for the
+Army--might go to the Front--might be killed--and then--"Well, I've
+done my best, anyhow," he said to himself--and himself answered him:
+"Liar--you have _not_ done your best! You will have to eat your lie.
+Yes--though it will smash your life and ruin you socially and
+professionally. You will have to tell him you lied--and tell him why.
+You will never let him go to South Africa without telling him the
+truth--and you know it."
+
+"Well--you know best, I suppose," he said to himself.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"But are you perfectly certain?"
+
+"Perfectly. I tell you, man, you're sound's a bell, and a fine fathom of
+a young man ye are, too. Certain? Losh, man--ye can call in the whole
+College of Physeecians in consultation, an' I'll wager me professional
+reputation they'll endorse me opeenion. Yer hairt's as sound's a roach.
+T'other man must ha' been asleep when ye consulted him. Ye'll mak' a
+fine soldier, my lad."
+
+"I think not," said the Lover--and he went out from the presence. This
+time he reeled like a man too drunk to care how drunk he looks.
+
+He drove in cabs from Harley Street to Wimpole Street, and from Wimpole
+Street to Brooke Street--and he saw Sir William this and Sir Henry that,
+and Mr. The-other-thing, the great heart specialist.
+
+And then he bought a gardenia, and went home and dressed himself in his
+most beautiful frock-coat and his softest white silk tie, and put the
+gardenia in his button-hole--and went to see the Girl.
+
+"Looks like as if he was going to a wedding," said his landlady.
+
+When he had told the Girl everything, and when she was able to do
+anything but laugh and cry and cling to him with thin hands, she said--
+
+"Dear--I do so hate to think badly of anyone. But do you really think
+that man was mistaken? He's very, very clever."
+
+"My child--Sir Henry--and Sir William and Mr.--"
+
+"Ah! I don't mean _that_. I _know_ you're all right. Thank God! Oh,
+thank God! I mean, don't you think he may have lied to you to prevent
+your--marrying me?"
+
+"But why should he?"
+
+"He asked me to marry him three weeks ago. He's a very old friend of
+ours. I do hate to be suspicious--but--it is odd. And then his trying to
+get you to South Africa. I'm certain he wanted you out of the way. He
+wanted you to get killed. Oh, how can people be so cruel!"
+
+"I believe you're right," said the Lover thoughtfully; "I couldn't have
+believed that a man could be base like that, through and through. But I
+suppose some people _are_ like that--without a gleam of feeling or
+remorse or pity."
+
+"You ought to expose him."
+
+"Not I--we'll just cut him. That's all I'll trouble to do. I've got
+_you_--I've got you in spite of him--I can't waste my time in hunting
+down vermin."
+
+
+
+
+THE DUEL
+
+
+"BUT I wasn't doing any harm," she urged piteously. She looked like a
+child just going to cry.
+
+"He was holding your hand."
+
+"He wasn't--I was holding his. I was telling him his fortune. And,
+anyhow, it's not your business."
+
+She had remembered this late and phrased it carelessly.
+
+"It is my Master's business," said he.
+
+She repressed the retort that touched her lips. After all, there was
+something fine about this man, who, in the first month of his
+ministrations as Parish Priest, could actually dare to call on her, the
+richest and most popular woman in the district, and accuse her of--well,
+most people would hardly have gone so far as to call it flirting.
+Propriety only knew what the Reverend Christopher Cassilis might be
+disposed to call it.
+
+They sat in the pleasant fire-lit drawing-room looking at each other.
+
+"He's got a glorious face," she thought. "Like a Greek god--or a
+Christian martyr! I wonder whether he's ever been in love?"
+
+He thought: "She is abominably pretty. I suppose beauty _is_ a
+temptation."
+
+"Well," she said impatiently, "you've been very rude indeed, and I've
+listened to you. Is your sermon quite done? Have you any more to say? Or
+shall I give you some tea?"
+
+"I have more to say," he answered, turning his eyes from hers. "You are
+beautiful and young and rich--you have a kind heart--oh, yes--I've heard
+little things in the village already. You are a born general. You
+organise better than any woman I ever knew, though it's only dances and
+picnics and theatricals and concerts. You have great gifts. You could do
+great work in the world, and you throw it all away; you give your life
+to the devil's dance you call pleasure. Why do you do it?"
+
+"Is that your business too?" she asked again.
+
+And again he answered--
+
+"It is my Master's business."
+
+Had she read his words in a novel they would have seemed to her
+priggish, unnatural, and superlatively impertinent. Spoken by those
+thin, perfectly curved lips, they were at least interesting.
+
+"That wasn't what you began about," she said, twisting the rings on her
+fingers. The catalogue of her gifts and graces was less a novelty to her
+than the reproaches to her virtue.
+
+"No--am I to repeat what I began about? Ah--but I will. I began by
+saying what I came here to say: that you, as a married woman, have no
+right to turn men's heads and make them long for what can never be."
+
+"But you don't know," she said. "My husband--"
+
+"I don't wish to know," he interrupted. "Your husband is alive, and you
+are bound to be faithful to him, in thought, word, and deed. What I saw
+and heard in the little copse last night--"
+
+"I do wish you wouldn't," she said. "You talk as if--"
+
+"No," he said, "I'm willing--even anxious, I think--to believe that you
+would not--could not--"
+
+"Oh," she cried, jumping up, "this is intolerable! How dare you!"
+
+He had risen too.
+
+"I'm not afraid of you," he said. "I'm not afraid of your anger, nor of
+your--your other weapons. Think what you are! Think of your great
+powers--and you are wasting them all in making fools of a pack of young
+idiots--"
+
+"But what could I do with my gifts--as you call them?"
+
+"Do?--why, you could endow and organise and run any one of a hundred
+schemes for helping on God's work in the world."
+
+"For instance?" Her charming smile enraged him.
+
+"For instance? Well--_for instance_--you might start a home for those
+women who began as you have begun, and who have gone down into hell, as
+you will go--unless you let yourself be warned."
+
+She was for the moment literally speechless. Then she remembered how he
+had said: "I am not afraid of--your weapons." She drew a deep breath
+and spoke gently--
+
+"I believe you don't mean to be insulting--I believe you mean kindly to
+me. Please say no more now. I'll think over it all. I'm not
+angry--only--do you really think you understand everything?"
+
+He might have answered that he did not understand her. She did not mean
+him to understand. She knew well enough that she was giving him
+something to puzzle over when she smiled that beautiful, troubled,
+humble, appealing half-smile.
+
+He did not answer at all. He stood a moment twisting his soft hat in his
+hands: she admired his hands very much.
+
+"Forgive me if I've pained you more than was needed," he said at last,
+"it is only because--" here her smile caught him, and he ended vaguely
+in a decreasing undertone. She heard the words "king's jewels," "pearl
+of great price."
+
+When he was gone she said "_Well!_" more than once. Then she ran to the
+low mirror over the mantelpiece, and looked earnestly at herself.
+
+"You do look rather nice to-day," she said. "And so he's not afraid of
+any of your weapons! And I'm not afraid of any of his. It's a fair duel.
+Only all the provocation came from him--so the choice of weapons is
+mine. And they shall be _my_ weapons: he has weapons to match them right
+enough, only the poor dear doesn't know it." She went away to dress for
+dinner, humming gaily--
+
+    "My love has breath o' roses,
+     O' roses, o' roses;
+     And arms like lily posies
+     To fold a lassie in!"
+
+Not next day--she was far too clever for that, but on the day after that
+he received a note. Her handwriting was charming; no extravagances,
+every letter soberly but perfectly formed.
+
+"I have been thinking of all you said the other day. You are quite
+mistaken about some things--but in some you are right. Will you show me
+how to work? I will do whatever you tell me."
+
+Then the Reverend Christopher was glad of the courage that had inspired
+him to denounce to his parishioners all that seemed to him amiss in
+them.
+
+"I am glad," he said to himself, "that I had the courage to treat her
+exactly as I have done the others--even if she _has_ beautiful hair, and
+eyes like--like--"
+
+He stopped the thought before he found the simile--not because he
+imagined that there could be danger in it, but because he had been
+trained to stop thoughts of eyes and hair as neatly as a skilful boxer
+stops a blow.
+
+She had not been so trained, and she admired his eyes and hair quite as
+much as he might have admired hers if she had not been married.
+
+So now the Reverend Christopher had a helper in his parish work; and he
+needed help, for his plain-speaking had already offended half his
+parish. And his helper was, as he had had the sense to know she could
+be, the most accomplished organiser in the country. She ran the parish
+library, she arranged the school treat, she started evening classes for
+wood carving and art needlework. She spent money like water, and time as
+freely as money. Quietly, persistently, relentlessly, she was making
+herself necessary to the Reverend Christopher. He wrote to her every
+day--there were so many instructions to give--but he seldom spoke with
+her. When he called she was never at home. Sometimes they met in the
+village and exchanged a few sentences. She was always gravely sweet,
+intensely earnest. There was a certain smile which he remembered--a
+beautiful, troubled, appealing smile. He wondered why she smiled no
+more.
+
+Her friends shrugged their shoulders over her new fancy.
+
+"It is odd," her bosom friend said. "It can't be the parson, though he's
+as beautiful as he can possibly be, because she sees next to nothing of
+him. And yet I can't think that Betty of all people could really--"
+
+"Oh--I don't know," said the bosom friend of her bosom friend. "Women
+often do take to that sort of thing, you know, when they get tired of--"
+
+"Of?"
+
+"The other sort of thing, don't you know!"
+
+"How horrid you are," said Betty's bosom friend. "I believe you're a
+most dreadful cynic, really."
+
+"Not at all," said the friend, complacently stroking his moustache.
+
+Betty certainly was enjoying herself. She had the great gift of enjoying
+thoroughly any new game. She enjoyed, first, the newness; and, besides,
+the hidden lining of her new masquerade dress enchanted her. But as her
+new industries developed she began to enjoy the things for themselves.
+It is always delightful to do what we can do well, and the Reverend
+Christopher had been right when he said she was a born general.
+
+"How easy it all is," she said, "and what a fuss those clergy-hags make
+about it! What a wife I should be for a bishop!" She smiled and sighed.
+
+It was pleasant, too, to wake in the morning, not to the recollection of
+the particular stage which yesterday's flirtation happened to have
+reached, but to the sense of some difficulty overcome, some object
+achieved, some rough place made smooth for her Girls' Friendly, or her
+wood carvers, or her Parish Magazine. And within it all the secret charm
+of a purpose transfiguring with its magic this eager, strenuous, working
+life.
+
+Her avoidance of the Reverend Christopher struck him at first as modest,
+discreet, and in the best possible taste. But presently it seemed to him
+that she rather overdid it. There were many things he would have liked
+to discuss with her, but she always evaded talk with him. Why? he began
+to ask himself why. And the question wormed through his brain more and
+more searchingly. He had seen her at work now; he knew her powers, and
+her graces--the powers and the graces that made her the adored of her
+Friendly girls and her carving boys. He remembered, with hot ears and
+neck crimson above his clerical collar, that interview. The things he
+had said to her! How could he have done it? Blind idiot that he had
+been! And she had taken it all so sweetly, so nobly, so humbly. She had
+only needed a word to turn her from the frivolities of the world to
+better things. It need not have been the sort of word he had used. And
+at a word she had turned. That it should have been at _his_ word was not
+perhaps a very subtle flattery--but the Reverend Christopher swallowed
+it and never tasted it. He was not trained to distinguish the flavours
+of flatteries. He never tasted it, but it worked in his blood, for all
+that. And why, why, why would she never speak to him? Could it be that
+she was afraid that he would speak to her now as he had once spoken? He
+blushed again.
+
+Next time he met her she was coming up to the church with a big basket
+of flowers for the altar. He took the basket from her and carried it in.
+
+"Let me help you," he said.
+
+"No," she said in that sweet, simple, grave way of hers. "I can do it
+very well. Indeed, I would rather."
+
+He had to go. The arrangement of the flowers took more than an hour, but
+when she came out with the empty basket, he was waiting in the porch.
+Her heart gave a little joyful jump.
+
+"I want to speak to you," said he.
+
+"I'm rather late," she said, as usual; "couldn't you write?"
+
+"No," he said, "I can't write this. Sit down a moment in the porch."
+
+She loved the masterfulness of his tone. He stood before her.
+
+"I want you to forgive me for speaking to you as I did--once. I'm
+afraid you're afraid that I shall behave like that again. You needn't
+be."
+
+"Score number one," she said to herself. Aloud she said--
+
+"I am not afraid," and she said it sweetly, seriously.
+
+"I was wrong," he went on eagerly. "I was terribly wrong. I see it quite
+plainly now. You do forgive me--don't you?"
+
+"Yes," said she soberly, and sighed.
+
+There was a little silence. Her serious eyes watched the way of the wind
+dimpling the tall, feathery grass that grew above the graves.
+
+"Are you unhappy?" he asked; "you never smile now."
+
+"I am too busy to smile, I suppose!" she said, and smiled the beautiful,
+humble, appealing smile he had so longed to see again, though he had not
+known the longing by its right name.
+
+"Can't we be friends?" he ventured. "You--I am afraid you can never
+trust me again."
+
+"Yes, I can," she said. "It was very bitter at the time, but I thought
+it was so brave of you--and kind, too--to care what became of me. If
+you remember, I did want to trust you, even on that dreadful day, but
+you wouldn't let me."
+
+"I was a brute," he said remorsefully.
+
+"I do want to tell you one thing. Even if that boy had been holding my
+hand I should have thought I had a right to let him, if I liked--just as
+much as though I were a girl, or a widow."
+
+"I don't understand. But tell me--please tell me anything you _will_
+tell me." His tone was very humble.
+
+"My husband was a beast," she said calmly. "He betrayed me, he beat me,
+he had every vile quality a man can have. No, I'll be just to him: he
+was always good tempered when he was drunk. But when he was sober he
+used to beat me and pinch me--"
+
+"But--but you could have got a separation, a divorce," he gasped.
+
+"A separation wouldn't have freed me--really. And the Church doesn't
+believe in divorce," she said demurely. "_I_ did, however, and I left
+him, and instructed a solicitor. But the brute went mad before I could
+get free from him; and now, I suppose, I'm tied for life to a mad dog."
+
+"Good God!" said the Reverend Christopher.
+
+"I thought it all out--oh, many, many nights!--and I made up my mind
+that I would go out and enjoy myself. I never had a good time when I was
+a girl. And another thing I decided--quite definitely--that if ever I
+fell in love I would--I should have the right to--I mean that I wouldn't
+let a horrible, degraded brute of a lunatic stand between me and the man
+I loved. And I was quite sure that I was right."
+
+"And do you still think this?" he asked in a low voice.
+
+"Ah," she said, "you've changed everything! I don't think the same about
+anything as I used to do. I think those two years with him must have
+made me nearly as mad as he is. And then I was so young! I am only
+twenty-three now, you know--and it did seem hard never to have had any
+fun. I did want so much to be happy."
+
+She had not intended to speak like this, but even as she spoke she saw
+that this truth-telling far outshone the lamp of lies she had trimmed
+ready.
+
+"You _will_ be happy," he said; "there are better things in the world
+than--"
+
+"Yes," she said; "oh, yes!"
+
+Betty did nothing by halves. She had kept a barrier between her and him
+till she had excited him to break it down. The barrier once broken, she
+let it lie where he had thrown it, and became, all at once, in the most
+natural, matter-of-fact, guileless way, his friend.
+
+She consulted him about everything. Let him call when he would, she
+always received him. She surrounded him with the dainty feminine spider
+webs from which his life, almost monastic till now, had been quite free.
+She imported a knitting aunt, so that he should not take fright at long
+t�te-�-t�tes. The knitting aunt was deafish and blindish, and did not
+walk much in the rose garden. Betty knew a good deal about roses, and
+she taught the Reverend Christopher all she knew. She knew a little of
+the hearts of men, and she gently pushed him on the road to forgiveness
+from that half of the parish whom his first enthusiastic denunciations
+had offended. She rounded his angles. She turned a wayward ascetic into
+a fairly good parish priest. And he talked to her of ideals and honour
+and the service of God and the work of the world. And she listened, and
+her beauty spoke to him so softly that he did not know that he heard.
+
+One day after long silence she turned quickly and met his eyes. After
+that she ceased to spin webs, for she saw. Yet she was as blind as he,
+though she did not know it any more than he did.
+
+At last he saw, in his turn, and the flash of the illumination nearly
+blinded him.
+
+It was late evening: Betty was nailing up a trailing rose, and he was
+standing by the ladder holding the nails and the snippets of scarlet
+cloth. The ladder slipped, and he caught her in his arms. As soon as she
+had assured him that she was not hurt, he said good night and left her.
+
+Betty went indoors and cried. "What a pity!" she said. "Oh, what a pity!
+Now he'll be frightened, and it's all over. He'll never come again."
+
+But the next evening he came, and when they had walked through the rose
+garden and had come to the sun-dial he stopped and spoke--
+
+"I've been thinking of nothing else since I saw you. When I caught you
+last night. Forgive me if I'm a fool--but when I held you--don't be
+angry--but it seemed to me that you loved me--"
+
+"Nothing of the sort," said Betty very angrily.
+
+"Then I must be mad," he said; "the way you caught my neck with your
+arm, and your face was against mine, and your hair crushed up against my
+ear. Oh, Betty, if you don't love me, what shall I do? For I can't live
+without you."
+
+Betty had won.
+
+"But--even if I had loved you--I'm married," she urged softly.
+
+"Yes--do you suppose I've forgotten that? But you remember what you
+said--about being really free, and not being bound to that beast. I see
+that you were right--right, right. It's the rest of the world that's
+wrong. Oh, my dear--I can't live without you. Couldn't you love me?
+Let's go away--right away together. No one will love you as I do. No
+one knows you as I do--how good and strong and brave and unselfish you
+are. Oh, try to love me a little!"
+
+Betty had leaned her elbows on the sun-dial, and her chin on her hands.
+
+"But you used to think ..." she began.
+
+"Ah--but I know better now. You've taught me everything. Only I never
+knew it till last night when I touched you. It was like a spark to a
+bonfire that I've been piling up ever since I've known you. You've
+taught me what life is, and love. Love can't be wrong. It's only wrong
+when it's stealing. We shouldn't be robbing anybody. We should both work
+better--happiness makes people work--I see that now. I should have to
+give up parish work--but there's plenty of good work wants doing. Why,
+I've nearly finished that book of mine. I've worked at it night after
+night--with the thought of you hidden behind the work. If you were my
+wife, what work I could do! Oh, Betty, if you only loved me!"
+
+She lifted her face and looked at him gravely. He flung his arm round
+her shoulders and turned her face up to his. She was passive to his
+kisses. At last she kissed him, once, and drew herself from his arms.
+
+"Come," she said.
+
+She led him to the garden seat in the nut-avenue.
+
+"Now," she said, when he had taken his place beside her, "I'm going to
+tell you the whole truth. I was very angry with you when you came to me
+that first day. You were quite right. That boy had been holding my hand:
+what's more, he had been kissing it. It amused me, and if it hurt him I
+didn't care. Then you came. And you said things. And then you said you
+weren't afraid of me or my weapons. It was a challenge. And I determined
+to make you love me. It was all planned, the helping in your work--and
+keeping out of your way at first was to make you wish to see me. And,
+you see, I succeeded. You _did_ love me."
+
+"I do," he said. He caught her hand and held it fiercely. "I deserved it
+all. I was a brute to you."
+
+"I meant you to love me--and you did love me. I lied to you in almost
+everything--at first."
+
+"About that man--was that a lie?" he asked fiercely.
+
+"No," she laughed drearily. "That was true enough. You see, it was more
+effective than any lie I could have invented. No lie could have added a
+single horror to _that_ story! And so I've won--as I swore I would!"
+
+"Is that all," he said, "all the truth?"
+
+"It's all there's any need for," she said.
+
+"I want it all. I want to know where I am--whether I really was mad last
+night. Betty--in spite of all your truth I can't believe one thing. I
+can't believe that you don't love me."
+
+"Man's vanity," she began, with a flippant laugh.
+
+"Don't!" he said harshly. "How dare you try to play with me? Man's
+vanity! But it's your honour! I know you love me. If you didn't you
+would be--"
+
+"How do you know I'm not?"
+
+"Silence," he said. "If you can't speak the truth hold your tongue and
+let me speak it. I love you--and you love me--and we are going to be
+happy."
+
+"I will speak the truth," said Betty, giving him her other hand. "You
+love me--and I love you, and we are going to be miserable. Yes--I will
+speak. Dear, I can't do it. Not even for you. I used to think I thought
+I could. I was bitter. I think I wanted to be revenged on life and God
+and everything. I thought I didn't believe in God, but I wanted to spite
+Him all the same. But when you came--after that day in the porch--when
+you came and talked to me about all the good and beautiful things--why,
+then I knew that I really did believe in them, and I began to love you
+because you had believed them all the time, and because.... And I didn't
+try to make you love me--after that day in the porch--at least, not very
+much--oh, I do want to speak the truth! I used to try so _not_ to try.
+I--I did want you to love me, though; I didn't want you to love anyone
+else. I wanted you to love me just enough to make you happy, and not
+enough to make you miserable. And so long as you didn't know you loved
+me it was all right: and when you caught me last night I knew that you
+would know, and it would be all over. You made up your mind to teach me
+that there are better things in the world than love--truth and honour
+and--and--things like that. And you've taught it me. It was a duel, and
+you've won."
+
+"And you meant to teach me that love is stronger than anything in the
+world. And you have won too."
+
+"Yes," she said, "we've both won. That's the worst of it--or the best."
+
+"What is to become of us?" he said. "Oh, my dear--what are we to do? Do
+you forgive me? If you are right, I must be wrong--but I can't see
+anything now except that I want you so."
+
+"I'm glad you loved me enough to be silly," she said; "but, oh, my dear,
+how glad I am that I love you too much to let you."
+
+"But what are we to do?"
+
+"Do? Nothing. Don't you see we've taught each other everything we know.
+We've given each other everything we can give. Isn't it good to love
+like this--even if this has to be all?"
+
+"It's all very difficult," he said; "but everything shall be as you
+choose, only somehow I think it's worse for me than for you. I loved you
+before--and now I adore you. I seem to have made a saint of you--but
+you've made me a man."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+One wishes with all one's heart that that lunatic would die. The
+situation is, one would say--impossible. Yet the lovers do not find it
+so. They work together, and parish scandal has almost ceased to patter
+about their names. There is a subtle pleasure for both in the
+ceremonious courtesy with which ever since that day they treat each
+other. It contrasts so splendidly with the living flame upon each
+heart-altar. So far the mutual passion has improved the character of
+each. All the same, one wishes that the lunatic would die--for she is
+not so much of a saint as he thinks her, and he is more of a man than
+she knows.
+
+
+
+
+CINDERELLA
+
+
+"HOOTS!" said the gardener, "there's nae sense in't. The suppression o'
+the truth's bad as a lee. Indeed, I doot mair hae been damned for t'ane
+than t'ither."
+
+"Law! Mr. Murchison, you do use language, I'm sure!" tittered the
+parlourmaid.
+
+"I say nae mair than the truth," he answered, cutting bloom after bloom
+quickly yet tenderly. "To bring hame a new mistress to the hoose and
+never to tell your bairn a word aboot the matter till all's made
+fast--it's a thing he'll hae to answer for to his Maker, I'm thinking.
+Here's the flowers, wumman; carry them canny. I'll send the lad up wi'
+the lave o' the flowers an' a bit green stuff in a wee meenit. And mind
+you your flaunting streamers agin the pots."
+
+The parlourmaid gathered her skirts closely, and delicately tip-toed to
+the door of the hothouse. Here she took the basket of bright beauty
+from his hand and walked away across the green blaze of the lawn.
+
+Mr. Murchison grunted relief. He was not fond of parlourmaids, no matter
+how pretty and streamered.
+
+He left the hot, sweet air of the big hothouse and threaded his way
+among the glittering glasshouses to the potting-shed. At its door a
+sound caught his ear.
+
+"Hoots!" he said again, but this time with a gentle, anxious intonation.
+
+"Eh! ma lammie," said he, stepping quickly forward, "what deevilment hae
+ye been after the noo, and wha is't's been catching ye at it?"
+
+The "lammie" crept out from under the potting-shelf; a pair of small
+arms went round Murchison's legs, and a little face, round and red and
+very dirty, was lifted towards his. He raised the child in his arms and
+set her on the shelf, so that she could lean her flushed face on his
+shirt-front.
+
+"Toots, toots!" said he, "noo tell me--"
+
+"It isn't true, is it?" said the child.
+
+"Hoots!" said Murchison for the third time, but he said it under his
+breath. Aloud he said--
+
+"Tell old Murchison a' aboot it, Miss Charling, dearie."
+
+"It was when I wanted some more of the strawberries," she began, with
+another sob, "and the new cook said not, and I was a greedy little pig:
+and I said I'd rather be a greedy little pig than a spiteful old cat!"
+The tears broke out afresh.
+
+"And you eight past! Ye should hae mair sense at siccan age than to ca'
+names." The head gardener spoke reprovingly, but he stroked her rough
+hair.
+
+"I didn't--not one single name--not even when she said I was enough to
+make a cat laugh, even an old one--and she wondered any good servant
+ever stayed a week in the place."
+
+"And what was ye sayin'?"
+
+"I said, 'Guid ye may be, but ye're no bonny'--I've heard you say that,
+Murchison, so I know it wasn't wrong, and then she said I was a minx,
+and other things, and I wanted keeping in order, and it was a very good
+thing I had a new mamma coming home to-day, to keep me under a bit, and
+a lot more--and--and things about my own, own mother, and that father
+wouldn't love me any more. But it's not true, is it? Oh! it isn't true?
+She only just said it?"
+
+"Ma lammie," said he gravely, kissing the top of the head nestled
+against him, "it's true that yer guid feyther, wha' never crossed ye
+except for yer ain sake syne the day ye were born, is bringing hame a
+guid wife the day, but ye mun be a wumman and no cry oot afore ye're
+hurted. I'll be bound it's a kind, genteel lady he's got, that'll love
+ye, and mak' much o' ye, and teach ye to sew fine--aye, an' play at the
+piano as like's no."
+
+The child's mouth tightened resentfully, but Murchison did not see it.
+
+"Noo, ye'll jest be a douce lassie," he went on, "and say me fair that
+ye'll never gie an unkind word tae yer feyther's new lady. Noo, promise
+me that, an' fine I ken ye'll keep tae it."
+
+"No, I won't say anything unkind to her," she answered, and Murchison
+hugged himself on a victory, for a promise was sacred to Charling. He
+did not notice the child's voice as she gave it.
+
+When the tears were quite dried he gave her a white geranium to plant in
+her own garden, and went back to his work.
+
+Charling took the geranium with pretty thanks and kisses, but she felt
+it a burden, none the less. For her mind was quite made up. When she had
+promised never to say anything unkind to her "father's new lady," she
+meant to keep the promise--by never speaking to her or seeing her at
+all. She meant to run away. How could she bear to be "kept under" by
+this strange lady, who would come and sit in her own mother's place, and
+wear her own mother's clothes, and no doubt presently burn her own
+mother's picture, and make Charling wash the dishes and sweep the
+kitchen like poor dear Cinderella in the story? True, Cinderella's
+misfortunes ended in marriage with a prince, but then Charling did not
+want to be married, and she had but little faith in princes, and,
+besides, she had no fairy godmother. Her godmother was dead, her own,
+own mother was dead, and only father was left; and now he had done this
+thing, and he would not want his Charling any more.
+
+So Charling went indoors and washed her face and hands and smoothed her
+hair, which never would be smoothed, put a few treasures in her
+pocket--all her money, some coloured chalks, a stone with crystal
+inside that showed where it was broken, and went quietly out at the
+lodge gate, carrying the white geranium in her arms, because when you
+are running away you cannot possibly leave behind you the last gift of
+somebody who loves you. But the geranium in its pot was very heavy--and
+it seemed to get heavier and heavier as she walked along the dry, dusty
+road, so that presently Charling turned through the swing gate into the
+field-way, for the sake of the shadow of the hedge; and the field-way
+led past the church, and when she reached the low, mossy wall of the
+churchyard, she set the pot on it and rested. Then she said--
+
+"I think I will leave it with mother to take care of." So she took the
+pot in her hands again and carried it to her mother's grave. Of course,
+they had told Charling that her mother was an angel now and was not in
+the churchyard at all, but in heaven; only heaven was a very long way
+off, and Charling preferred to think that mother was only asleep under
+the green counterpane with the daisies on it. There had been a green
+coverlet to the bed in mother's room, only it had white lilac on it,
+and not daisies. So Charling set down the pot, and she knelt down beside
+it, and wrote on it with a piece of blue chalk from her pocket: "_From
+Charling to mother to take care of._" Then she cried a little bit more,
+because she was so sorry for herself; and then she smelt the thyme and
+wondered why the bees liked it better than white geraniums; and then she
+felt that she was very like a little girl in a book, and so she forgot
+to cry, and told herself that she was the third sister going out to seek
+her fortune.
+
+After that it was easy to go on, especially when she had put the crystal
+stone, which hung heavy and bumpy in the pocket, beside the geranium
+pot. Then she kissed the tombstone where it said, "Helen, beloved wife
+of----" and went away among the green graves in the sunshine.
+
+Mother had died when she was only five, so that she could not remember
+her very well; but all these three years she had loved and thought of a
+kind, beautiful Something that was never tired and never cross, and
+always ready to kiss and love and forgive little girls, however naughty
+they were, and she called this something "mother" in her heart, and it
+was for this something that she left her kisses on the gravestone. And
+the gravestone was warm to her lips as she kissed it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was on a wide, furze-covered down, across which a white road wound
+like a twisted ribbon, that Charling's courage began to fail her. The
+white road looked so very long; there were no houses anywhere, and no
+trees, only far away across the down she saw the round tops of some big
+elms. "They look like cabbages," she said to herself.
+
+She had walked quite a long way, and she was very tired. Her dinner of
+sweets and stale cakes from the greeny-glass bottles in the window of a
+village shop had not been so nice as she expected; the woman at the shop
+had been cross because Charling had no pennies, only the five-shilling
+piece father had given her when he went away, and the woman had no
+change. And she had scolded so that Charling had grown frightened and
+had run away, leaving the big, round piece of silver on the dirty little
+counter. This was about the time when she was missed at home, and the
+servants began to search for her, running to and fro like ants whose
+nest is turned up by the spade.
+
+A big furze bush cast a ragged square yard of alluring shade on the
+common. Charling flung herself down on the turf in the shadow. "I wonder
+what they are doing at home?" she said to herself after a while. "I
+don't suppose they've even missed me. They think of nothing but making
+the place all flowery for _her_ to see. Nobody wants me--"
+
+At home they were dragging the ornamental water in the park; old
+Murchison directing the operation with tears running slow and unregarded
+down his face.
+
+Charling lay and looked at the white road. Somebody must go along it
+presently. Roads were made for people to go along. Then when any people
+came by she would speak to them, and they would help her and tell her
+what to do. "I wonder what a girl ought to do when she runs away from
+home?" said Charling to herself. "Boys go to sea, of course; but I don't
+suppose a pirate would care about engaging a cabin-girl--" She fell
+a-musing, however, on the probable woes of possible cabin-girls, and
+their chances of becoming admirals, as cabin-boys always did in the
+stories; and so deep were her musings that she positively jumped when a
+boy, passing along the road, began suddenly to whistle. It was the air
+of a comic song, in a minor key, and its inflections were those of a
+funeral march. It went to Charling's heart. Now she knew, as she had
+never known before, how lonely and miserable she was.
+
+She scrambled to her feet and called out, "Hi! you boy!"
+
+The boy also jumped. But he stopped and said, "Well?" though in a tone
+that promised little.
+
+"Come here," said Charling. "At least, of course, I mean come, if you
+please."
+
+The boy shrugged his shoulders and came towards her.
+
+"Well?" he said again, very grumpily, Charling thought; so she said,
+"Don't be cross. I wish you'd talk to me a little, if you are not too
+busy. If you please, I mean, of course."
+
+She said it with her best company manner, and the boy laughed, not
+unkindly, but still in a grudging way. Then he threw himself down on
+the turf and began pulling bits of it up by the roots. "Go ahead!" said
+he.
+
+But Charling could not go ahead. She looked at his handsome, sulky face,
+his knitted brow, twisted into fretful lines, and the cloud behind his
+blue eyes frightened her.
+
+"Oh! go away!" she said. "I don't want you! Go away; you're very
+unkind!"
+
+The boy seemed to shake himself awake at the sight of the tears that
+rushed to follow her words.
+
+"I say, don't-you-know, I say;" but Charling had flung herself face down
+on the turf and took no notice.
+
+"I say, look here," he said; "I am not unkind, really. I was in an awful
+wax about something else, and I didn't understand. Oh! drop it. I say,
+look here, what's the matter? I'm not such a bad sort, really. Come,
+kiddie, what's the row?"
+
+He dragged himself on knees and elbows to her side and began to pat her
+on the back, with some energy: "There, there," he said; "don't cry,
+there's a dear. Here, I've got a handkerchief, as it happens," for
+Charling was feeling blindly and vainly among the coloured chalks. He
+thrust the dingy handkerchief into her hands, and she dried her eyes,
+still sobbing.
+
+"That's the style," said he. "Look here, we're like people in a book.
+Two travellers in misfortune meet upon a wild moor and exchange
+narratives. Come, tell me what's up?"
+
+"You tell first," said Charling, rubbing her eyes very hard; "but swear
+eternal friendship before you begin, then we can't tell each other's
+secrets to the enemy."
+
+He looked at her with a nascent approval. She understood how to play,
+then, this forlorn child in the torn white frock.
+
+He took her hand and said solemnly--
+
+"I swear."
+
+"Your name," she interrupted. "I, N or M, swear, you know."
+
+"Oh, yes. Well, I, Harry Basingstoke, swear to you--"
+
+"Charling," she interpolated; "the other names don't matter. I've got
+six of them."
+
+"That we will support--no, maintain--eternal friendship."
+
+"And I, Charling, swear the same to you, Harry."
+
+"Why do they call you Charling?"
+
+"Oh! because my name's Charlotte, and mother used to sing a song about
+Charlie being her darling, and I was her darling, only I couldn't speak
+properly then; and I got it mixed up into Charling, father says. But
+let's go on. Tell me your sad history, poor fellow-wanderer."
+
+"My father was a king," said Harry gravely; but Charling turned such sad
+eyes on him that he stopped.
+
+"Won't you tell me the real true truth?" she said. "I will you."
+
+"Well," said he, "the real true truth is, Charling, I've run away from
+home, and I'm going to sea."
+
+Charling clapped her hands. "Oh! so have I! So am I! Let me come with
+you. Would they take a cabin-girl on the ship where you're going to, do
+you think? And why did you run away? Did they beat you and starve you at
+home? Or have you a cruel stepmother, or stepfather, or something?"
+
+"No," said he grimly; "I haven't any step-relations, and I'm jolly well
+not going to have any, either. I ran away because I didn't choose to
+have a strange chap set over me, and that's all I am going to tell you.
+But about you? How far have you come to-day?"
+
+"About ninety miles, I should think," said Charling; "at least, my legs
+feel exactly like that."
+
+"And what made you do such a silly thing?" he said, smiling at her, and
+she thought his blue eyes looked quite different now, so that she did
+not mind his calling her silly. "You know, it's no good girls running
+away; they always get caught, and then they put them into convents or
+something."
+
+She slipped her hand confidingly under his arm, and put her head against
+the sleeve of his Norfolk jacket.
+
+"Not girls with eternal friends, they don't," she said. "You'll take
+care of me now? You won't let them catch me?"
+
+"Tell me why you did it, then."
+
+Charling told him at some length.
+
+"And father never told me a word about it," she ended; "and I wasn't
+going to stay to be made to wash the dishes and things, like Cinderella.
+I wouldn't stand that, not if I had to run away every day for a year.
+Besides, nobody wants me; nobody will miss me."
+
+This was about the time when they found the white geranium in the
+churchyard, and began to send grooms about the country on horses. And
+Murchison was striding about the lanes gnawing his grizzled beard and
+calling on his God to take him, too, if harm had come to the child.
+
+"But perhaps the stepmother would be nice," the boy said.
+
+"Not she. Stepmothers never are. I know just what she'll be like--a
+horrid old hag with red hair and a hump!"
+
+"Then you've not seen her?"
+
+"No."
+
+"You might have waited till you had."
+
+"It would have been too late then," said Charling tragically.
+
+"But your father wouldn't have let you be treated unkindly, silly."
+
+"Fathers generally die when the stepmother comes; or else they can't
+help themselves. You know that as well as I do."
+
+"I suppose your father is a good sort?"
+
+"He's the best man there is," said Charling indignantly, "and the
+kindest and bravest, and cleverest and amusingest, and he can sit any
+horse like wax; and he can fence with real swords, and sing all the
+songs in all the world. There!"
+
+Harry was silent, racking his brain for arguments.
+
+"Look here, kiddie," he said slowly, "if your father's such a good sort,
+he'd have more sense than to choose a stepmother who wasn't nice. He's a
+much finer chap than the fathers in fairy tales. You never read of
+_them_ being able to do all the things your father can do."
+
+"No," said Charling, "that's true."
+
+"He's sure to have chosen someone quite jolly, really," Harry went on,
+more confidently.
+
+Charling looked up suddenly. "Who was it chose the chap that you weren't
+going to stand having set over you?" she said.
+
+The boy bit his lip.
+
+"I swore eternal friendship, so I can never tell your secrets, you
+know," said Charling softly, "and _I've_ told _you_ every single thing."
+
+"Well, it's my sister, then," said he abruptly, "and she's married a
+chap I've never seen--and I'm to go and live with them, if you please;
+and she told me once she was never going to marry, and it was always
+going to be just us two; and now she's found this fellow she knew when
+she was a little girl, and he was a boy--as it might be us, you
+know--and she's forgotten all about what she said, and married him. And
+I wasn't even asked to the beastly wedding because they wanted to be
+married quietly; and they came home from their hateful honeymoon this
+evening, and the holidays begin to-day, and I was to go to this new
+chap's house to spend them. And I only got her letter this morning, and
+I just took my journey money and ran away. My boxes were sent on
+straight from school, though--so I've got no clothes but these. I'm just
+going to look at the place where she's to live, and then I'm off to
+sea."
+
+"Why didn't she tell you before?"
+
+"She says she meant it to be a pleasant surprise, because we've been
+rather hard up since my father died, and this chap's got horses and
+everything, and she says he's going to adopt me. As if I wanted to be
+adopted by any old stuck-up money-grubber!"
+
+"But you haven't seen him," said Charling gently. "If _I'm_ silly, _you_
+are too, aren't you?"
+
+She hid her face on her sleeve to avoid seeing the effect of this daring
+shot. Only silence answered her.
+
+Presently Harry said--
+
+"Now, kiddie, let me take you home, will you? Give the stepmother a fair
+show, anyhow."
+
+Charling reflected. She was very tired. She stroked Harry's hand
+absently, and after a while said--
+
+"I will if you will."
+
+"Will what?"
+
+"Go back and give your chap a fair show."
+
+And now the boy reflected.
+
+"Done," he said suddenly. "After all, what's sauce for the goose is
+sauce for the gander. Come on."
+
+He stood up and held out his hand. This was about the time when the cook
+packed her box and went off, leaving it to be sent after her. Public
+opinion in the servants' hall was too strong to be longer faced.
+
+The shadows of the trees lay black and level across the pastures when
+the two children reached the lodge gates. A floral arch was above the
+gate, and wreaths of flowers and flags made the avenue gay. Charling had
+grown very tired, and Harry had carried her on his back for the last
+mile or two--resting often, because Charling was a strong, healthy
+child, and, as he phrased it, "no slouch of a weight."
+
+Now they paused at the gate of the lodge.
+
+"This is my house," said Charling. "They've put all these things up for
+_her_, I suppose. If you'll write down your address I'll give you mine,
+and we can write and tell each other what _they_ are like afterwards.
+I've got a bit of chalk somewhere."
+
+She fumbled in the dusty confusion of her little pocket while Harry
+found the envelope of his sister's letter and tore it in two. Then, one
+on each side of the lodge gate-post, the children wrote, slowly and
+carefully, for some moments. Presently they exchanged papers, and each
+read the words written by the other. Then suddenly both turned very red.
+
+"But this is _my_ address," said she. "The Grange, Falconbridge."
+
+"It's where my sister's gone to live, anyhow," said he.
+
+"Then--then--"
+
+Conviction forced itself first on the boy.
+
+"What a duffer I've been! It's _him_ she's married."
+
+"Your sister?"
+
+"Yes. Are you _sure_ your father's a good sort?"
+
+"How dare you ask!" said Charling. "It's your sister I want to know
+about."
+
+"She's the dearest old darling!" he cried. "Oh! kiddie, come along; run
+for all you're worth, and perhaps we can get in the back way, and get
+tidied up before they come, and they need never know."
+
+He held out his hand; Charling caught at it, and together they raced up
+the avenue. But getting in the back way was impossible, for Murchison
+met them full on the terrace, and Charling ran straight into his arms.
+There should have been scolding and punishment, no doubt, but Charling
+found none.
+
+And, now, who so sleek and demure as the runaways, he in Eton jacket and
+she in spotless white muslin, when the carriage drew up in front of the
+hall, amid the cheers of the tenants and the bowing of the orderly,
+marshalled servants?
+
+And then a lady, pretty as a princess in a fairy tale, with eyes as blue
+as Harry's, was hugging him and Charling both at once; while a man, whom
+Harry at once owned to _be_ a man, stood looking at the group with
+grave, kind eyes.
+
+"We'll never, never tell," whispered the boy. The servants had been
+sworn to secrecy by Murchison.
+
+Charling whispered back, "Never as long as we live."
+
+But long before bedtime came each of the runaways felt that concealment
+was foolish in the face of the new circumstances, and with some
+embarrassment, a tear or two, and a little gentle laughter, the tale was
+told.
+
+"Oh, Harry! how could you?" said the stepmother, and went quietly out by
+the long window with her arm round her brother's shoulders.
+
+Charling was left alone with her father.
+
+"Why didn't you tell me, father?"
+
+"I wish I had, childie; but I thought--you see--I was going away--I
+didn't want to leave you alone for a fortnight to think all sorts of
+nonsense. And I thought my little girl could trust me." Charling hid her
+face in her hands. "Well! it's all right now! don't cry, my girlie." He
+drew her close to him.
+
+"And you'll love Harry very much?"
+
+"I will. He brought you back."
+
+"And I'll love _her_ very much. So that's all settled," said Charling
+cheerfully. Then her face fell again. "But, father, don't you love
+mother any more? Cook said you didn't."
+
+He sighed and was silent. At last he said, "You are too little to
+understand, sweetheart. I have loved the lady who came home to-day all
+my life long, and I shall love your mother as long as I live."
+
+"Cook said it was like being unkind to mother. Does mother mind about
+it, really?"
+
+He muttered something inaudible--to the cook's address.
+
+"I don't think they either of them mind, my darling Charling," he said.
+"You cannot understand it, but I think they both understand."
+
+
+
+
+WITH AN E
+
+
+SHE had been thinking of him all day--of the incredible insignificance
+of the point on which they had quarrelled; the babyish folly of the
+quarrel itself, the silly pride that had made the quarrel strong till
+the very memory of it was as a bar of steel to keep them apart. Three
+years ago, and so much had happened since then. Three years! and not a
+day of them all had passed without some thought of him; sometimes a
+happy, quiet remembrance transfigured by a wise forgetfulness; sometimes
+a sudden recollection, sharp as a knife. But not on many days had she
+allowed the quiet remembrance to give place to the knife-thrust, and
+then kept the knife in the wound, turning it round with a scientific
+curiosity, which, while it ran an undercurrent of breathless pleasure
+beneath the pain, yet did not lessen this--intensified it, rather.
+To-day she had thought of him thus through the long hours on deck, when
+the boat sped on even keel across the blue and gold of the Channel, in
+the dusty train from Ostend--even in the little open carriage that
+carried her and her severely moderate luggage from the station at Bruges
+to the H�tel du Panier d'Or. She had thought of him so much that it was
+no surprise to her to see him there, drinking coffee at one of the
+little tables which the hotel throws out like tentacles into the Grande
+Place.
+
+There he sat, in a grey flannel suit. His back was towards her, but she
+would have known the set of his shoulders anywhere, and the turn of his
+head. He was talking to someone--a lady, handsome, but older than
+he--oh! evidently much older.
+
+Elizabeth made the transit from carriage to hotel door in one swift,
+quiet movement. He did not see her, but the lady facing him put up a
+tortoiseshell-handled _lorgnon_ and gazed through it and through
+narrowed eyelids at the new comer.
+
+Elizabeth reappeared no more that evening. It was the waiter who came
+out to dismiss the carriage and superintend the bringing in of the
+luggage. Elizabeth, stumbling in a maze of forgotten French, was met at
+the stair-foot by a smiling welcome, and realised in a spasm of
+grateful surprise that she need not have brought her dictionary. The
+hostess of the "Panier d'Or," like everyone else in Belgium, spoke
+English, and an English far better than Elizabeth's French had been.
+
+She secured a tiny bedroom, and a sitting room that looked out over the
+Place, so that whenever he drank coffee she might, with luck, hope to
+see the back of his dear head.
+
+"Idiot!" said Elizabeth, catching this little thought wandering in her
+mind, and with that she slapped the little thought and put it away in
+disgrace. But when she woke in the night, it woke, too, and cried a
+little.
+
+That night it seemed to her that she would have all her meals served in
+the little sitting-room, and never go downstairs at all, lest she should
+meet him. But in the morning she perceived that one does not save up
+one's money for a year in order to have a Continental holiday, and
+sweeten all one's High-school teaching with one thought of that holiday,
+in order to spend its precious hours between four walls, just
+because--well, for any reason whatsoever.
+
+So she went down to take her coffee and rolls humbly, publicly, like
+other people.
+
+The dining-room was dishevelled, discomposed; chairs piled on tables and
+brooms all about. It was in the hotel _caf�_, where the marble-topped
+little tables were, that Mademoiselle would be served. Here was a
+marble-topped counter, too, where later in the day _ap�ritifs_ and
+_petits verres_ would be handed. On this, open for the police to read,
+lay the list of those who had spent the night at the "Panier d'Or."
+
+The room was empty. Elizabeth caught up the list. Yes, his name was
+there, at the very top of the column--Edward Brown, and below it "_Mrs.
+Brown_--"
+
+Elizabeth dropped the paper as though it had bitten her, and, turning
+sharply, came face to face with that very Edward Brown. He raised his
+hat gravely, and a shiver of absolute sickness passed over her, for his
+glance at her in passing was the glance of a stranger. It was not
+possible.... Yet it was true. He had forgotten her. In three little
+years! They had been long enough years to her, but now she called them
+little. In three little years he had forgotten her very face.
+
+Elizabeth, chin in air, marched down the room and took possession of the
+little table where her coffee waited her.
+
+She began to eat. It was not till the sixth mouthful that her face
+flushed suddenly to so deep a crimson that she dared not raise her eyes
+to see how many of the folk now breaking their rolls in her company had
+had eyes for her face. As a matter of fact, only one observed the sudden
+colour, and he admired and rejoiced, for he had seen such a colour in
+that face before.
+
+"She is angry--good!" said he, and poured out more coffee with a steady
+hand.
+
+The thought that flooded Elizabeth's face and neck and ears with damask
+was one quite inconsistent with the calm eating of bread-and-butter. She
+laid down her knife and walked out, chin in air to the last. Alone in
+her sitting-room she buried her face in a hard cushion and went as near
+to swearing as a very nice girl may.
+
+"Oh! oh! oh!--oh! _bother!_ Why did I go down? I ought to have fled to
+the uttermost parts of the earth: or even to Ghent. Of course. Oh, what
+a fool I am! It's because he's married that he won't speak to me. You
+fool! you fool! you fool! Yes, of course, you knew he was married; only
+you thought you'd like the silly satisfaction of hearing his voice speak
+to you, and yours speaking to him. But--oh! fool! fool! fool!"
+
+Elizabeth put on the thickest veil she had, and the largest hat, and
+went blindly out. She walked very fast, never giving a glance to the
+step-and-stair gables of the old houses, the dominant strength of the
+belfry, the curious, un-English groups in the streets. Presently she
+came to a bridge--a canal--overhanging houses--balconies--a glimpse like
+the pictures of Venice. She leaned her elbows on the parapet and
+presently became aware of the prospect.
+
+"It _is_ pretty," she said grudgingly, and at the same moment turned
+away, for in a flower-hung balcony across the water she saw _him_.
+
+"This is too absurd," she said. "I must get out of the place--at least,
+for the day. I'll go to Ghent."
+
+He had seen her, and a thrill of something very like gratified vanity
+straightened his shoulders. When a girl has jilted you, it is comforting
+to find that even after three years she has not forgotten you enough to
+be indifferent, no matter how you may have consoled yourself in the
+interval.
+
+Elizabeth walked fast, but she did not get to the railway station,
+because she took the wrong turning several times. She passed through
+street after strange street, and came out on a wide quay; another canal;
+across it showed old, gabled, red-roofed houses. She walked on and came
+presently to a bridge, and another quay, and a little puffing, snorting
+steamboat.
+
+She hurriedly collected a few scattered items of her school vocabulary--
+
+"_Est-ce que--est-ce que--ce bateau � vapeur va--va_--anywhere?"
+
+A voluble assurance that it went at twelve-thirty did not content her.
+She gathered her forces again.
+
+"_Oui; mais o� est-ce qu'il va aller--?_"
+
+The answer sounded something like "Sloosh," and the speaker pointed
+vaguely up the green canal.
+
+Elizabeth went on board. This was as good as Ghent. Better. There was an
+element of adventure about it. "Sloosh" might be anywhere; one might not
+reach it for days. But the boat had not the air of one used to long
+cruises; and Elizabeth felt safe in playing with the idea of an
+expedition into darkest Holland.
+
+And now by chance, or because her movements interested him as much as
+his presence repelled her, this same Edward Brown also came on board,
+and, concealed by the deep daydream into which she had fallen, passed
+her unseen.
+
+When she shook the last drops of the daydream from her, she found
+herself confronting the boat's only other passenger--himself.
+
+She looked at him full and straight in the eyes, and with the look her
+embarrassment left her and laid hold on him.
+
+He remembered her last words to him--
+
+"If ever we meet again, we meet as strangers." Well, he had kept to the
+very letter of that bidding, and she had been angry. He had been very
+glad to see that she was angry. But now, face to face for an hour and a
+half--for he knew the distance to Sluys well enough--could he keep
+silence still and yet avoid being ridiculous? He did not intend to be
+ridiculous; yet even this might have happened. But Elizabeth saved him.
+
+She raised her chin and spoke in chill, distant courtesy.
+
+"I think you must be English, because I saw you at the 'Panier d'Or';
+everyone's English there. I can't make these people understand anything.
+Perhaps you could be so kind as to tell me how long the boat takes to
+get to wherever it does get to?"
+
+It was a longer speech than she would have made had he been the stranger
+as whom she proposed to treat him, but it was necessary to let him
+understand at the outset what was the part she intended to play.
+
+He did understand, and assumed his r�le instantly.
+
+"Something under two hours, I think," he said politely, still holding in
+his hand the hat he had removed on the instant of her breaking silence.
+"How cool and pleasant the air is after the town!" The boat was moving
+now quickly between grassy banks topped by rows of ash trees. The
+landscape on each side spread away like a map intersected with avenues
+of tall, lean, wind-bent trees, that seemed to move as the boat moved.
+
+"Good!" said she to herself; "he means to talk. We shan't sit staring at
+each other for two hours like stuck pigs. And he really doesn't know me?
+Or is it the wife? Oh! I wish I'd never come to this horrible country!"
+Aloud she said, "Yes, and how pretty the trees and fields are--"
+
+"So--so nice and green, aren't they?" said he.
+
+And she said, "Yes."
+
+Each inwardly smiled. In the old days each had been so eager for the
+other's good opinion, so afraid of seeming commonplace, that their
+conversations had been all fine work, and their very love-letters too
+clever by half. Now they did not belong to each other any more, and he
+said the trees were green, and she said "Yes."
+
+"There seem to be a great many people in Bruges," said she.
+
+"Yes," he said, in eager assent. "Quite a large number."
+
+"There is a great deal to be seen in these old towns. So quaint, aren't
+they?"
+
+She remembered his once condemning in a friend the use of that word. Now
+he echoed it.
+
+"So very quaint," said he. "And the dogs drawing carts! Just like the
+pictures, aren't they?"
+
+"You can get pictures of them on the illustrated post-cards. So nice to
+send to one's relations at home."
+
+She was getting angry with him. He played the game too well.
+
+"Ah! yes," he answered, "the dear people like these little tokens, don't
+they?"
+
+"He's getting exactly like a curate," she thought, and a doubt assailed
+her. Perhaps he was not playing the game at all. Perhaps in these three
+years he had really grown stupid.
+
+"How different it all is from England, isn't it?"
+
+"Oh, quite!" said he.
+
+"Have you ever been in Holland?"
+
+"Yes, once."
+
+"What was it like?" she asked.
+
+That was a form of question they had agreed to hate--once, long ago.
+
+"Oh, extremely pleasant," he said warmly. "We met some most agreeable
+people at some of the hotels. Quite the best sort of people, you know."
+
+Another phrase once banned by both.
+
+The sun sparkled on the moving duckweed of the canal. The sky was blue
+overhead. Here and there a red-roofed farm showed among the green
+pastures. Ahead the avenues tapered away into distance, and met at the
+vanishing point. Elizabeth smiled for sheer pleasure at the sight of two
+little blue-smocked children solemnly staring at the boat as it passed.
+Then she glanced at him with an irritated frown. It was his turn to
+smile.
+
+"You called the tune, my lady," he said to himself, "and it is you shall
+change it, not I."
+
+"Foreign countries are very like England, are they not?" he said. "The
+same kind of trees, you know, and the same kind of cows, and--and
+everything. Even the canals are very like ours."
+
+"The canal system," said Elizabeth instructively, "is the finest in the
+world."
+
+"_Adieu, Canal, canard, canaille_," he quoted. They had always barred
+quotations in the old days.
+
+"I don't understand Latin," said she. Then their eyes met, and he got up
+abruptly and walked to the end of the boat and back. When he sat down
+again, he sat beside her.
+
+"Shall we go on?" he said quietly. "I think it is your turn to choose a
+subject--"
+
+"Oh! have you read _Alice in Wonderland_?" she said, with simple
+eagerness. "Such a pretty book, isn't it?"
+
+He shrugged his shoulders. She was obstinate; all women were. Men were
+not. He would be magnanimous. He would not compel her to change the
+tune. He had given her one chance; and if she wouldn't--well, it was not
+possible to keep up this sort of conversation till they got to Sluys. He
+would--
+
+But again she saved him.
+
+"I won't play any more," she said. "It's not fair. Because you may think
+me a fool. But I happen to know that you are Mr. Brown, who writes the
+clever novels. You were pointed out to me at the hotel; and--oh! do tell
+me if you always talk like this to strangers?"
+
+"Only to English ladies on canal boats," said he, smiling. "You see, one
+never knows. They might wish one to talk like that. We both did it very
+prettily. Of course, more know Tom Fool than Tom Fool knows, but I
+think I may congratulate you on your first attempt at the English-abroad
+conversation."
+
+"Do you know, really," she said, "you did it so well that if I hadn't
+known who you were, I should have thought it was the real you. The
+felicitations are not all mine. But won't you tell me about Holland?
+That bit of yours about the hotel acquaintances was very brutal. I've
+heard heaps of people say that very thing. You just caught the tone. But
+Holland--"
+
+"Well, this is Holland," said he; "but I saw more of it than this, and
+I'll tell you anything you like if you won't expect me to talk clever,
+and turn the phrase. That's a lost art, and I won't humiliate myself in
+trying to recover it. To begin with, Holland is flat."
+
+"Don't be a geography book," Elizabeth laughed light-heartedly.
+
+"The coinage is--"
+
+"No, but seriously."
+
+"Well, then," said he, and the talk lasted till the little steamer
+bumped and grated against the quay-side at Sluys.
+
+When they had landed the two stood for a moment on the grass-grown quay
+in silence.
+
+"Well, good afternoon," said Elizabeth suddenly. "Thank you so much for
+telling me all about Holland." And with that she turned and walked away
+along the narrow street between the trim little houses that look so like
+a child's toy village tumbled out of a white wood box. Mr. Edward Brown
+was left, planted there.
+
+"Well!" said he, and spent the afternoon wandering about near the
+landing-stage, and wondering what would be the next move in this game of
+hers. It was a childish game, this playing at strangers, yet he owned
+that it had a charm.
+
+He ate currant bread and drank coffee at a little inn by the quay,
+sitting at the table by the door and watching the boats. Two o'clock
+came and went. Four o'clock came, half-past four, and with that went the
+last return steamer for Bruges. Still Mr. Edward Brown sat still and
+smoked. Five minutes later Elizabeth's blue cotton dress gleamed in the
+sunlight at the street corner.
+
+He rose and walked towards her.
+
+"I hope you have enjoyed yourself in Holland," he said.
+
+"I lost my way," said she. He saw that she was very tired, even before
+he heard it in her voice. "When is the next boat?"
+
+"There are no more boats to-day. The last left about ten minutes ago."
+
+"You might have told me," she said resentfully.
+
+"I beg your pardon," said he. "You bade me good-bye with an abruptness
+and a decision which forbade me to tell you anything."
+
+"I beg your pardon," she said humbly. "Can I get back by train?"
+
+"There are no trains."
+
+"A carriage?"
+
+"There are none. I have inquired."
+
+"But you," she asked suddenly, "how did you miss the boat? How are you
+going to get back?"
+
+"I shall walk," said he, ignoring the first question. "It's only eleven
+miles. But for you, of course, that's impossible. You might stay the
+night here. The woman at this inn seems a decent old person."
+
+"I can't. There's a girl coming to join me. She's in the sixth at the
+High School where I teach. I've promised to chaperon and instruct her.
+I must meet her at the station at ten. She's been ten years at the
+school. I don't believe she knows a word of French. Oh! I must go. She
+doesn't know the name of my hotel, or anything. I must go. I must walk."
+
+"Have you had any food?"
+
+"No; I never thought about it."
+
+She did not realise that she was explaining to him that she had been
+walking to get away from him and from her own thoughts, and that food
+had not been among these.
+
+"Then you will dine now; and, if you will allow me, we will walk back
+together."
+
+Elizabeth submitted. It was pleasant to be taken care of. And to be
+"ordered about," that was pleasant, too. Curiously enough, that very
+thing had been a factor in the old quarrel. At nineteen one is so
+independent.
+
+She was fed on omelettes and strange, pale steak, and Mr. Brown insisted
+on beer. The place boasted no wine cellar.
+
+Then the walk began. For the first mile or two it was pleasant. Then
+Elizabeth's shoes began to hurt her. They were smart brown shoes, with
+deceitful wooden heels. In her wanderings over the cobblestones of
+Sluys streets one heel had cracked itself. Now it split altogether. She
+began to limp.
+
+"Won't you take my arm?" said he.
+
+"No, thank you. I don't really need it. I'll rest a minute, though, if I
+may." She sat down, leaning against a tree, and looked out at the
+darting swallows, dimpling here and there the still green water. The
+level sunlight struck straight across the pastures, turning them to
+gold. The long shadows of the trees fell across the canal and lay black
+on the reeds at the other side. The hour was full of an ample dignity of
+peace.
+
+They walked another mile. Elizabeth could not conceal her growing
+lameness.
+
+"Something is wrong with your foot," said he. "Have you hurt it?"
+
+"It's these silly shoes; the heel's broken."
+
+"Take them off and let me see."
+
+She submitted without a protest, sat down, took off the shoes, and gave
+them to him. He looked at them kindly, contemptuously.
+
+"Silly little things!" he said, and she, instead of resenting the
+impertinence, smiled.
+
+Then he tore off the heels and dug out the remaining bristle of nails
+with his pocket-knife.
+
+"That'll be better," said he cheerfully. Elizabeth put on the damp
+shoes. The evening dew lay heavy on the towing-path, and she hardly
+demurred at all to his fastening the laces. She was very tired.
+
+Again he offered his arm; again she refused it.
+
+Then, "Elizabeth, take my arm at once!" he said sharply.
+
+She took it, and they had kept step for some fifty paces before she
+said--
+
+"Then you knew all the time?"
+
+"Am I blind or in my dotage? But you forbade me to meet you except as a
+stranger. I have an obedient nature."
+
+They walked on in silence. He held her hand against his side strongly,
+but, as it seemed, without sentiment. He was merely helping a tired
+woman-stranger on a long road. But the road seemed easier to Elizabeth
+because her hand lay so close to him; she almost forgot how tired she
+was, and lost herself in dreams, and awoke, and taught herself to dream
+again, and wondered why everything should seem so different just
+because one's hand lay on the sleeve of a grey flannel jacket.
+
+"Why should I be so abominably happy?" she asked herself, and then
+lapsed again into the dreams that were able to wipe away three years, as
+a kind hand might wipe three little tear-drops from a child's slate,
+scrawled over with sums done wrong.
+
+When she remembered that he was married, she salved her conscience
+innocently. "After all," she said, "it can't be wrong if it doesn't make
+_him_ happy; and, of course, he doesn't care, and I shall never see him
+again after to-night."
+
+So on they went, the deepening dusk turned to night, and in Elizabeth's
+dreams it seemed that her hand was held more closely; but unless one
+moved it ever so little one could not be sure; and she would not move it
+ever so little.
+
+The damp towing-path ended in a road cobblestoned, the masts of ships,
+pointed roofs, twinkling lights. The eleven miles were nearly over.
+
+Elizabeth's hand moved a little, involuntarily, on his arm. To cover the
+movement she spoke instantly.
+
+"I am leaving Bruges to-morrow."
+
+"No; your sixth-form girl will be too tired, and besides--"
+
+"Besides?"
+
+"Oh, a thousand things! Don't leave Bruges yet; it's so 'quaint,' you
+know; and--and I want to introduce you to--"
+
+"I won't," said Elizabeth almost violently.
+
+"You won't?"
+
+"No; I don't want to know your wife."
+
+He stopped short in the street--not one of the "quaint" streets, but a
+deserted street of tall, square-shuttered, stern, dark mansions, wherein
+a gas-lamp or two flickered timidly.
+
+"My _wife_?" he said; "it's my _aunt_."
+
+"It said 'Mrs. Brown' in the visitors' list," faltered Elizabeth.
+
+"Brown's such an uncommon name," he said; "my aunt spells hers with an
+E."
+
+"Oh! with an E? Yes, of course. I spell my name with an E too, only it's
+at the wrong end."
+
+Elizabeth began to laugh, and the next moment to cry helplessly.
+
+"Oh, Elizabeth! and you looked in the visitors' list and--" He caught
+her in his arms there in the street. "No; you can't get away. I'm wiser
+than I was three years ago. I shall never let you go any more, my dear."
+
+The girl from the sixth looked quite resentfully at the two faces that
+met her at the station. It seemed hardly natural or correct for a
+classical mistress to look so happy.
+
+Elizabeth's lover schemed for and got a goodnight word with her at the
+top of the stairs, by the table where the beautiful brass candlesticks
+lay waiting in shining rows.
+
+"Sleep well, you poor, tired little person," he said, as he lighted the
+candle; "such little feet, such wicked little shoes, such a long, long,
+long walk."
+
+"You must be tired, too," she said.
+
+"Tired? with eleven miles, and your hand against my heart for eight of
+them? I shall remember that walk when we're two happy old people nodding
+across our own hearthrug at each other."
+
+So he had felt it too; and if he had been married, how wicked it would
+have been! But he was not married--yet.
+
+"I am not very, very tired, really," she said. "You see, it _was_ my
+hand against--I mean your arm was a great help--"
+
+"It _was_ your hand," he said. "Oh, you darling!"
+
+It was her hand, too, that was kissed there, beside the candlesticks,
+under the very eyes of the chambermaid and two acid English tourists.
+
+
+
+
+UNDER THE NEW MOON
+
+
+THE white crescent of the little new moon blinked at us through the yew
+boughs. As you walk up the churchyard you see thirteen yews on each side
+of you, and yet, if you count them up, they make twenty-seven, and it
+has been pointed out to me that neither numerical fact can be without
+occult significance. The jugglery in numbers is done by the seventh yew
+on the left, which hides a shrinking sister in the amplitude of its
+shadow.
+
+The midsummer day was dying in a golden haze. Amid the gathering shadows
+of the churchyard her gown gleamed white, ghostlike.
+
+"Oh, there's the new moon," she said. "I am so glad. Take your hat off
+to her and turn the money in your pocket, and you will get whatever you
+wish for, and be rich as well."
+
+I obeyed with a smile, half of whose meaning she answered.
+
+"No," she said, "I am not really superstitious; I'm not at all sure that
+the money is any good, or the hat, but of course everyone knows it's
+unlucky to see it through glass."
+
+"Seen through glass," I began, "a hat presents a gloss which on closer
+inspection--"
+
+"No, no, not a hat, the moon, of course. And you might as well pretend
+that it's lucky to upset the salt, or to kill a spider, especially on a
+Tuesday, or on your hat."
+
+"Hats," I began again, "certainly seem to--"
+
+"It's not the hat," she answered, pulling up the wild thyme and crushing
+it in her hands, "you know very well it's the spider. Doesn't that smell
+sweet?"
+
+She held out the double handful of crushed sun-dried thyme, and as I
+bent my face over the cup made by her two curved hands, I was
+constrained to admit that the fragrance was delicious.
+
+"Intoxicating even," I added.
+
+"Not that. White lilies intoxicate you, so does mock-orange; and white
+may too, only it's unlucky to bring it into the house."
+
+I smiled again.
+
+"I don't see why you should call it superstitious to believe in facts,"
+she said. "My cousin's husband's sister brought some may into her house
+last year, and her uncle died within the month."
+
+    "My husband's uncle's sister's niece
+     Was saved from them by the police.
+     She says so, so I know it's true--"
+
+I had got thus far in my quotation when she interrupted me.
+
+"Oh, well, if you're going to sneer!" she said, and added that it was
+getting late, and that she must go home.
+
+"Not yet," I pleaded. "See how pretty everything is. The sky all pink,
+and the red sunset between the yews, and that good little moon. And how
+black the shadows are under the buttresses. Don't go home--already they
+will have lighted the yellow shaded lamps in your drawing-room. Your
+sister will be sitting down to the piano. Your mother is trying to match
+her silks. Your brother has got out the chess board. Someone is drawing
+the curtains. The day is over for them, but for us, here, there is a
+little bit of it left."
+
+We were sitting on the lowest step of a high, square tomb, moss-grown
+and lichen-covered. The yellow lichens had almost effaced the long list
+of the virtues of the man on whose breast this stone had lain, as itself
+in round capitals protested, since the year of grace 1703. The
+sharp-leafed ivy grew thickly over one side of it, and the long, uncut
+grass came up between the cracks of its stone steps.
+
+"It's all very well," she said severely.
+
+"Don't be angry," I implored. "How can you be angry when the bats are
+flying black against the rose sky, when the owl is waking up--his is a
+soft, fluffy awakening--and wondering if it's breakfast time?"
+
+"I won't be angry," she said. "Besides the owl, it's disrespectful to
+the dear, sleepy, dead people to be angry in a churchyard. But if I were
+really superstitious, you know, I should be afraid to come here at
+night."
+
+"At the end of the day," I corrected. "It is not night yet. Tell me
+before the night comes all the wonderful things you believe. Recite your
+_credo_."
+
+"Don't be flippant. I don't suppose I believe more unlikely things than
+you do. You believe in algebra and Euclid and log--what's-his-names. Now
+I don't believe a word of all that."
+
+"We have it on the best authority that by getting up early you can
+believe six impossible things before breakfast."
+
+"But they're not impossible. Don't you see that's just it? The things I
+like to believe are the very things that _might_ be true. And they're
+relics of a prettier time than ours, a time when people believed in
+ghosts and fairies and witches and the devil--oh, yes! and in God and
+His angels, too. Now the times are bound in yellow brick, and we believe
+in nothing but ... Euclid and--and company prospectuses and patent
+medicines."
+
+When she is a little angry she is very charming, but it was too dark for
+me to see her face.
+
+"Then," I asked, "it is merely the literary sense that leads you to make
+the Holy Sign when you find two knives crossed on your table, or to
+knock under the table and cry 'Unberufen' when you have provoked the
+Powers with some kind word of the destiny they have sent you?"
+
+"I don't," she said. "I don't talk foreign languages."
+
+"You say, 'unbecalled for,' I know, but this is mere subterfuge. Is it
+the literary sense that leads you to treasure farthings, to refuse to
+give pins, to object to a dinner party of thirteen, to fear the plucking
+of the golden elder, to avoid coming back to the house when once you've
+started, even if you've forgotten your prayer-book or your umbrella, to
+decline to pass under a ladder--"
+
+"I always go under a ladder," she interrupted, ignoring the other
+counts; "it only means you won't be married for seven years."
+
+"I never go under ladders. Tell me, is it the literary sense?"
+
+"Bother the literary sense," she said. "Bother" is not a pretty word,
+but this did not strike me till I came to write it down. "Look," she
+went on, "at the faint primrose tint over the pine trees and those last
+pink clouds high up in the sky."
+
+I could see the outline of her lifted chin and her throat against the
+yew shadows, but I determined to be wise. I looked at the pine trees and
+said--
+
+"I want you to instruct me. Why is it unlucky to break a looking-glass?
+and what is the counter-charm?"
+
+"I don't know"--there was some awe in her voice--"I don't think there is
+any counter-charm. If I broke a looking-glass I believe I should have to
+give up believing in these things altogether. It would make me too
+unhappy."
+
+I was discreet enough to pass by the admission.
+
+"And why is it unlucky to wear black at a wedding? And if anyone did
+wear black at your wedding, what would you do?"
+
+"You are very tiresome this evening," she said. "Why don't you keep to
+the point? Nobody was talking of weddings, and if you must wander, why
+not stray in more amusing paths? Why don't you talk of something
+interesting? Why do you try to be disagreeable? If you think I'm silly
+to believe all these nice picturesque things, why don't you give me your
+solid, dull, dry, scientific reasons for not believing them?"
+
+"Your wish is my law," I responded with alacrity. "Superstition, then,
+is the result of the imperfect recognition in unscientific ages of the
+relations of cause and effect. To persons unaccustomed correctly to
+assign causes, one cause is as likely as another to produce a given
+effect. Hallucinations of the senses have also, doubtless--"
+
+"And now you're only dull," she said.
+
+The light had slowly faded while we spoke till the churchyard was almost
+dark, the grass was heavy with dew, and sadness had crept like a shadow
+over the quiet world.
+
+"I am sorry. Everything I say is wrong to-night. I was born under an
+unlucky star. Forgive me."
+
+"It was I who was cross," she admitted at once very cheerfully, but,
+indeed, not without some truth. "But it doesn't do anyone any harm to
+play at believing things; honestly, I'm not sure whether I believe them
+or not, but they have some colour about them in an age grown grey in its
+hateful laboratories and workshops. I do want to try to tell you if you
+really want to know about it. I can't think why, but if I meet a flock
+of sheep I know it is lucky, and I'm cheered; and if a hare crosses the
+path I feel it is unlucky, and I'm sad; and if I see the new moon
+through glass I'm positively wretched. But all the same, I'm not
+superstitious. I'm not afraid of ghosts or dead people, or things like
+that"--I'm not sure that she did not add, "So there!"
+
+"Would you dare to go to the church door at twelve at night and knock
+three times?" I asked, with some severity.
+
+"Yes," she said stoutly, though I know she quailed, "I would. Now you'll
+admit that I'm not superstitious."
+
+"Yes," I said, and here I offer no excuse. The devil entered into me,
+and though I see now what a brute beast I was, I cannot be sorry. "I own
+that you are not superstitious. How dark it is growing. The ivy has
+broken the stone away just behind your head: there is quite a large hole
+in the side of the tomb. No, don't move, there's nothing there. If you
+were superstitious you might fancy, on a still, dark, sweet evening like
+this, that the dead man might wake and want to come up out of his
+coffin. He might crouch under the stone, and then, trying to come out,
+he might very slowly reach out his dead fingers and touch your neck.
+Ah!"
+
+The awakened wind had moved an ivy spray to the suggested touch. She
+sprang up with a cry, and the next moment she was clinging wildly to me,
+as I held her in my arms.
+
+"Don't cry, my dear, oh, don't! Forgive me, it was the ivy."
+
+She caught her breath.
+
+"How could you! how could you!"
+
+And still I held her fast, with--as she grew calmer--a question in the
+clasp of my arms, and, presently, on my lips.
+
+"Oh, my dear, forgive me! And is it true--do you?--do you?"
+
+"Yes--no--I don't know.... No, no, not through my veil, it _is_ so
+unlucky!"
+
+
+
+
+THE LOVE OF ROMANCE
+
+
+SHE opened the window, at which no light shone. All the other windows
+were darkly shuttered. The night was still: only a faint breath moved
+among the restless aspen leaves. The ivy round the window whispered
+hoarsely as the casement, swung back too swiftly, rested against it. She
+had a large linen sheet in her hands. Without hurry and without
+delayings she knotted one corner of it to the iron staple of the window.
+She tied the knot firmly, and further secured it with string. She let
+the white bulk of the sheet fall between the ivy and the night, then she
+climbed on to the window-ledge, and crouched there on her knees. There
+was a heart-sick pause before she grasped the long twist of the sheet as
+it hung--let her knees slip from the supporting stone and swung
+suddenly, by her hands. Her elbows and wrists were grazed against the
+rough edge of the window-ledge--the sheet twisted at her weight, and
+jarred her shoulder heavily against the house wall. Her arms seemed to
+be tearing themselves from their sockets. But she clenched her teeth,
+felt with her feet for the twisted ivy stems on the side of the house,
+found foothold, and the moment of almost unbearable agony was over. She
+went down, helped by feet and hands, and by ivy and sheet, almost
+exactly as she had planned to do. She had not known it would hurt so
+much--that was all. Her feet felt the soft mould of the border: a stout
+geranium snapped under her tread. She crept round the house, in the
+house's shadow--found the gardener's ladder--and so on to the high brick
+wall. From this she dropped, deftly enough, into the suburban lane:
+dropped, too, into the arms of a man who was waiting there. She hid her
+face in his neck, trembling, and said, "Oh, Harry--I wish I hadn't!"
+Then she began to cry helplessly. The man, receiving her embrace with
+what seemed in the circumstances a singularly moderated enthusiasm, led
+her with one arm still lightly about her shoulders down the lane: at
+the corner he stood still, and said in a low voice--
+
+"Hush--stop crying at once! I've something to say to you."
+
+She tore herself from his arm, and gasped.
+
+"It's _not_ Harry," she said. "Oh, how dare you!" She had been brave
+till she had dropped into his arms. Then the need for bravery had seemed
+over. Now her tears were dried swiftly and suddenly by the blaze of
+anger and courage in her eyes.
+
+"Don't be unreasonable," he said, and even at that moment of
+disappointment and rage his voice pleased her. "I had to get you away
+somehow. I couldn't risk an explanation right under your aunt's windows.
+Harry's sprained his knee--cricket. He couldn't come."
+
+A sharp resentment stirred in her against the lover who could play
+cricket on the very day of an elopement.
+
+"_He_ told you to come? Oh, how could he betray me!"
+
+"My dear girl, what was he to do? He couldn't leave you to wait out here
+alone--perhaps for hours."
+
+"I shouldn't have waited long," she said sharply; "you came to tell me:
+now you've told me--you'd better go."
+
+"Look here," he said with gentle calm, "I do wish you'd try not to be
+quite so silly. I'm Harry's doctor--and a middle-aged man. Let me help
+you. There must be some better way out of your troubles than a midnight
+flight and a despairingly defiant note on the pin-cushion."
+
+"I didn't," she said. "I put it on the mantelpiece. Please go. I decline
+to discuss anything with you."
+
+"Ah, don't!" he said; "I knew you must be a very romantic person, or you
+wouldn't be here; and I knew you must be rather sill--well, rather
+young, or you wouldn't have fallen in love with Harry. But I did not
+think, after the brave and practical manner in which you kept your
+appointment, I did _not_ think that you'd try to behave like the heroine
+of a family novelette. Come, sit down on this heap of stones--there's
+nobody about. There's a light in your house now. You can't go back yet.
+Here, let me put my Inverness round you. Keep it up round your chin, and
+then if anyone sees you they won't know who you are. I can't leave you
+alone here. You know what a lot of robberies there have been in the
+neighbourhood lately; there may be rough characters about. Come now,
+let's think what's to be done. You know you can't get back unless I help
+you."
+
+"I don't want you to help me; and I won't go back," she said.
+
+But she sat down and pulled the cloak up round her face.
+
+"Now," he said, "as I understand the case--it's this. You live rather a
+dull life with two tyrannical aunts--and the passion for romance...."
+
+"They're not tyrannical--only one's always ill and the other's always
+nursing her. She makes her get up and read to her in the night. That's
+her light you saw--"
+
+"Well, I pass the aunts. Anyhow, you met Harry--somehow--"
+
+"It was at the Choral Society. And then they stopped my going--because
+he walked home with me one wet night."
+
+"And you have never seen each other since?"
+
+"Of course we have."
+
+"And communicated by some means more romantic than the post?"
+
+"It wasn't romantic. It was tennis-balls."
+
+"Tennis-balls?"
+
+"You cut a slit and squeeze it and put a note in, and it shuts up and no
+one notices it. It wasn't romantic at all. And I don't know why I should
+tell you anything about it."
+
+"And then, I suppose, there were glances in church, and stolen meetings
+in the passionate hush of the rose-scented garden."
+
+"There's nothing in the garden but geraniums," she said, "and we always
+talked over the wall--he used to stand on their chicken house, and I
+used to turn our dog kennel up on end and stand on that. You have no
+right to know anything about it, but it was not in the least romantic."
+
+"No--that sees itself! May I ask whether it was you or he who proposed
+this elopement?"
+
+"Oh, how _dare_ you!" she said, jumping up; "you have no right to insult
+me like this."
+
+He caught her wrist. "Sit down, you little firebrand," he said. "I
+gather that he proposed it. You, at any rate, consented, no doubt after
+the regulation amount of proper scruples. It's all very charming and
+idyllic and--what are you crying for? Your lost hopes of a happy life
+with a boy you know nothing of, a boy you've hardly seen, a boy you've
+never talked to about anything but love's young dream?"
+
+"I'm _not_ crying," she said passionately, turning her streaming eyes on
+him, "you know I'm not--or if I am, it's only with rage. You may be a
+doctor--though I don't believe you are--but you're not a gentleman. Not
+anything like one!"
+
+"I suppose not," he said; "a gentleman would not make conditions. I'm
+going to make one. You can't go to Harry, because his Mother would be
+seriously annoyed if you did; and so, believe me, would he--though you
+don't think it. You can get up and leave me, and go 'away into the
+night,' like a heroine of fiction--but you can't keep on going away into
+the night for ever and ever. You must have food and clothes and lodging.
+And the sun rises every day. You must just quietly and dully go home
+again. And you can't do it without me. And I'll help you if you'll
+promise not to see Harry, or write to him for a year."
+
+"He'll see me. He'll write to me," she said with proud triumph.
+
+"I think not. I exacted the promise from _him_ as a condition of my
+coming to meet you."
+
+"And he promised?"
+
+"Evidently."
+
+There was a long silence. She broke it with a voice of concentrated
+fury.
+
+"If he doesn't mind, _I_ don't," she said. "I'll promise. Now let me go
+back. I wish you hadn't come--I wish I was dead."
+
+"Come," he said, "don't be so angry with me. I've done what I could for
+you both."
+
+"On conditions!"
+
+"You must see that they are good, or you wouldn't have accepted them so
+soon. I thought it would have taken me at least an hour to get you to
+consent. But no--ten minutes of earnest reflection are enough to settle
+the luckless Harry's little hash. You're quite right--he doesn't deserve
+more! I am pleased with myself, I own. I must have a very convincing
+manner."
+
+"Oh," she cried passionately, "I daresay you think you've been very
+clever. But I wish you knew what I think of you. And I'd tell you for
+twopence."
+
+"I'm a poor man, gentle lady--won't you tell me for love?" His voice was
+soft and pleading beneath the laugh that stung her.
+
+"Yes, I _will_ tell you--for nothing," she cried. "You're a brute, and a
+hateful, interfering, disagreeable, impertinent old thing, and I only
+hope you'll have someone be as horrid to you as you've been to me,
+that's all!"
+
+"I think I've had that already--quite as horrid," he said grimly. "This
+is not the moment for compliments--but you have great powers. You are
+brave, and I never met anyone who could be more 'horrid,' as you call
+it, in smaller compass, all with one little tiny adjective. My
+felicitations. You _are_ clever. Come--don't be angry any more--I had to
+do it--you'll understand some day."
+
+"You wouldn't like it yourself," she said, softening to something in his
+voice.
+
+"I shouldn't have liked it at your age," he said;
+"sixteen--fifteen--what is it?"
+
+"I'm nineteen next birthday," she said with dignity.
+
+"And the date?"
+
+"The fifteenth of June--I don't know what you mean by asking me."
+
+"And to-day's the first of July," he said, and sighed. "Well, well!--if
+your Highness will allow me, I'll go and see whether your aunt's light
+is out, and if it is, we'll attempt the re-entrance."
+
+He went. She shivered, waiting for what felt like hours. And the
+resentment against her aunts grew faint in the light of her resentment
+against her lover's messenger, and this, in its turn, was outshone by
+her anger against her lover. He had played cricket. He had risked his
+life--on the very day whose evening should have crowned that life by
+giving her to his arms. She set her teeth. Then she yawned and shivered
+again. It was an English July, and very cold. And the slow minutes crept
+past. What a fool she had been! Why had she not made a fight for her
+liberty--for her right to see Harry if she chose to see him? The aunts
+would never have stood up against a well-planned, determined,
+disagreeable resistance. In the light of this doctor's talk the whole
+thing did seem cowardly, romantic, and, worst of all, insufferably
+young. Well--to-morrow everything should change; she would fight for her
+Love, not merely run away to him. But the promise? Well, Harry was
+Harry, and a promise was only a promise!
+
+There were footsteps in the lane. The man was coming back to her. She
+rose.
+
+"It's all right," he said. "Come."
+
+In silence they walked down the lane. Suddenly he stopped.
+
+"You'll thank me some day," he said. "Why should you throw yourself away
+on Harry? You're worth fifty of him. And I only wish I had time to
+explain this to you thoroughly, but I haven't!"
+
+She, too, had stopped. Now she stamped her foot.
+
+"Look here," she said, "I'm not going to promise anything at all. You
+needn't help me if you don't want to--but I take back that promise.
+Go!--do what you like! I mean to stick to Harry--and I'll write and tell
+him so to-night. So there!"
+
+He clapped his hands very softly. "Bravo!" he said; "that's the right
+spirit. Plucky child! Any other girl would have broken the promise
+without a word to me. Harry's luckier even than I thought. I'll help
+you, little champion! Come on."
+
+He helped her over the wall; carried the ladder to her window, and
+steadied it while she mounted it. When she had climbed over the
+window-ledge she turned and leaned out of the window, to see him slowly
+mounting the ladder. He threw his head back with a quick gesture that
+meant "I have something more to say--lean out!"
+
+She leaned out. His face was on a level with hers.
+
+"You've slept soundly all night--don't forget that--it's important," he
+whispered, "and--you needn't tell Harry--one-sided things are so
+trivial, but I can't help it. _I_ have the passion for romance too!"
+
+With that he caught her neck in the curve of his arm, and kissed her
+lightly but fervently.
+
+"Good-bye!" he said; "thank you so much for a very pleasant evening!" He
+dropped from the ladder and was gone. She drew her curtain with angry
+suddenness. Then she lighted candles and looked at herself in the
+looking-glass. She thought she had never looked so pretty. And she was
+right. Then she went to bed, and slept like a tired baby.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Next morning the suburb was electrified by the discovery, made by the
+nursing aunt, that all the silver and jewels and valuables from the safe
+at the top of the stairs had vanished.
+
+"The villains must have come through your room, child," she said to
+Harry's sweetheart; "the ladder proves that. Slept sound all night, did
+you? Well, that was a mercy! They might have murdered you in your bed if
+you'd happened to be awake. You ought to be humbly thankful when you
+think of what might have happened."
+
+The girl did not think very much of what might have happened. What _had_
+happened gave her quite food enough for reflection. Especially when to
+her side of the night's adventures was added the tale of Harry's.
+
+He had not played cricket, he had not hurt his knee, he had merely
+confided in his father's valet, and had given that unprincipled villain
+a five-pound note to be at the Cross Roads--in the orthodox style--with
+a cab for the flight, a post-chaise being, alas! out of date. Instead of
+doing this, the valet, with a confederate, had gagged and bound young
+Harry, and set him in a convenient corner against the local waterworks
+to await events.
+
+"I never would have believed it of him," added Harry, in an agitated
+india-rubber-ball note, "he always seemed such a superior person, you'd
+have thought he was a gentleman if you'd met him in any other position."
+
+"I should. I did," she said to herself. "And, oh, how frightfully
+clever! And the way he talked! And all the time he was only keeping me
+out of the way while they stole the silver and things. I wish he hadn't
+taken the ruby necklace: it does suit me so. And what nerve! He actually
+talked about the robberies in the neighbourhood. He must have done them
+all. Oh, what a pity! But he was a dear. And how awfully wicked he was,
+too--but I'll never tell Harry!"
+
+She never has.
+
+Curiously enough, her Burglar Valet Hero was not caught, though the
+police most intelligently traced his career, from his being sent down
+from Oxford to his last best burglary.
+
+She was married to Harry, with the complete consent of everyone
+concerned, for Harry had money, and so had she, and there had never been
+the slightest need for an elopement, save in youth's perennial passion
+for romance. It was on her birthday that she received a registered
+postal packet. It had a good many queer postmarks on it, and the stamps
+were those of a South American republic. It was addressed to her by her
+new name, which was as good as new still. It came at breakfast-time, and
+it contained the ruby necklace, several gold rings, and a diamond
+brooch. All were the property of her late aunts. Also there was an
+india-rubber ball, and in it a letter.
+
+"Here is a birthday present for you," it said. "Try to forgive me. Some
+temptations are absolutely irresistible. That one was. And it was worth
+it. It rounded off the whole thing so perfectly. That last indiscretion
+of mine nearly ruined everything. There was a policeman in the lane. I
+only escaped by the merest fluke. But even then it would have been worth
+it. At least, I should like you to believe that I think so."
+
+"His last indiscretion," said Harry, who saw the note but not the
+india-rubber ball, "that means stealing your aunts' things, of course,
+unless it was dumping me down by the waterworks, but, of course, that
+wasn't the last one. But worth it? Why, he'd have had seven years if
+they'd caught him--worth it? He _must_ have a passion for burglary."
+
+She did not explain to Harry, because he would never have understood.
+But the burglar would have found it quite easy to understand that or
+anything. She was so shocked to find herself thinking this that she went
+over to Harry and kissed him with more affection even than usual.
+
+"Yes, dear," he said, "I don't wonder you're pleased to get something
+back out of all those things. I quite understand."
+
+"Yes, dear," said she. "I know. You always do!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Transcriber's Notes:
+
+Obvious punctuation errors repaired.
+
+Page 219, repeated word "for" deleted from text. Original read: (it will
+for for me)
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Literary Sense, by E. Nesbit
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LITERARY SENSE ***
+
+***** This file should be named 39324-8.txt or 39324-8.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        http://www.gutenberg.org/3/9/3/2/39324/
+
+Produced by Suzanne Shell, Emmy and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images generously made available by The
+Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
+
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+http://gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+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
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+http://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at http://pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit http://pglaf.org
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations.
+To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     http://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
diff --git a/39324-8.zip b/39324-8.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..43f5442
--- /dev/null
+++ b/39324-8.zip
diff --git a/39324-h.zip b/39324-h.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..3da9e25
--- /dev/null
+++ b/39324-h.zip
diff --git a/39324-h/39324-h.htm b/39324-h/39324-h.htm
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..c0de502
--- /dev/null
+++ b/39324-h/39324-h.htm
@@ -0,0 +1,10043 @@
+<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
+    "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
+
+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en">
+  <head>
+    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" />
+    <meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" />
+    <title>
+      The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Literary Sense, by E. Nesbit.
+    </title>
+    <style type="text/css">
+
+    p {margin-top: .75em;
+       text-align: justify;
+       text-indent: 1.25em;
+       margin-bottom: .75em;
+        }
+    img {border: 0;}
+    .tnote      {border: dashed 1px; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; padding-bottom: .5em; padding-top: .5em;
+                  padding-left: .5em; padding-right: .5em;}
+    ins {text-decoration:none;  border-bottom: thin dotted gray;}
+    h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 {
+         text-align: center; /* all headings centered */
+         clear: both;
+         }
+    hr {  margin-top: 2em;
+	 margin-bottom: 2em;
+         margin-left: auto;
+         margin-right: auto;
+         clear: both;
+       }
+
+    table {margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;}
+
+    body{margin-left: 10%;
+         margin-right: 10%;
+        }
+
+    .pagenum  { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */
+            /*  visibility: hidden;  */
+                position: absolute;
+                left: 92%;
+                font-size: smaller;
+                text-align: right;
+              } /* page numbers */
+     .copyright {text-align: center; font-size: 70%;}
+    .blockquot{margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 10%; text-align: justify;}
+
+    .bbox     {border: solid 2px; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; padding-bottom: .5em; padding-top: .5em;
+                  padding-left: .5em; padding-right: .5em;}
+     .small   {font-size: 70%;}
+     .big   {font-size: 110%;}
+     .adtitle2  {font-size: 150%; font-weight: bold; text-align: center;}
+     .adtitle   {font-size: 200%; font-weight: bold; text-align: center;}
+
+     .author   {font-size: 120%; text-align: center;}
+    .center   {text-align: center;}
+    .smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
+     .chaptertitle {text-align: center; font-size: 110%; font-weight: bold; margin-bottom: 1.5em;}
+
+    .caption  {font-weight: bold; font-size: 90%;}
+
+    .figcenter   {margin: auto; text-align: center;}
+
+    .figleft     {float: left; clear: left; margin-left: 0; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top:
+                 1em; margin-right: 1em; padding: 0; text-align: center;}
+
+    .figright    {float: right; clear: right; margin-left: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em;
+                 margin-top: 1em; margin-right: 0; padding: 0; text-align: center;}
+
+    .unindent {margin-top: .75em;
+       text-align: justify;
+       margin-bottom: .75em;
+        }
+    .right    {text-align: right;}
+    .poem      {margin-left: 30%; text-align: left;}
+    .poem2   {margin-left: 15%; text-align: left;}
+    .sig    {margin-right: 10%; text-align: right;}
+    .u        {text-decoration: underline;}
+
+    .linenum  {position: absolute; top: auto; left: 4%;} /* poetry number */
+    .sidenote {width: 20%; padding-bottom: .5em; padding-top: .5em;
+               padding-left: .5em; padding-right: .5em; margin-left: 1em;
+               float: right; clear: right; margin-top: 1em;
+               font-size: smaller; color: black; background: #eeeeee; border: dashed 1px;}
+
+    .footnotes        {border: dashed 1px;}
+    .footnote         {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 0.9em;}
+    .fnanchor         {vertical-align:baseline;
+        position: relative;
+        bottom: 0.33em;
+        font-size: .8em;
+        text-decoration: none;}
+    .hang1 {text-indent: -3em; margin-left: 3em;}
+   .cap:first-letter {float: left; clear: left; margin: -0.2em 0.1em  0; margin-top: 0%;
+        padding: 0;  line-height: .75em; font-size: 300%; text-align: justify;}
+   .cap {text-align: justify;}
+
+    </style>
+  </head>
+<body>
+
+
+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Literary Sense, by E. Nesbit
+
+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 Literary Sense
+
+Author: E. Nesbit
+
+Release Date: April 1, 2012 [EBook #39324]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LITERARY SENSE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Suzanne Shell, Emmy and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images generously made available by The
+Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 390px;">
+<img src="images/cover.jpg" width="390" height="600" alt="" />
+</div>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_i" id="Page_i">[i]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="chap" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_ii" id="Page_ii">[ii]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 200px;">
+<img src="images/emblem.png" width="200" height="77" alt="emblem" />
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_iii" id="Page_iii">[iii]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h1>THE LITERARY SENSE</h1>
+
+<div class='center'><br /><br />BY<br />
+<span class='author'>E. NESBIT</span><br />
+
+<span class='small'>AUTHOR OF "THE RED HOUSE" AND "THE WOULD-BE-GOODS"</span><br />
+
+<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
+<b>New York</b><br />
+THE MACMILLAN COMPANY<br />
+<span class='small'>LONDON: MACMILLAN &amp; CO., <span class="smcap">Ltd.</span></span><br />
+1903<br />
+<br />
+<span class='small'><i>All rights reserved</i></span><br />
+</div><hr class="chap" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_iv" id="Page_iv">[iv]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<div class='copyright'>
+<span class="smcap">Copyright, 1903,<br />
+By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.</span><br />
+<br />
+Set up, electrotyped, and published September, 1903.<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Norwood Press<br />
+J. S. Cushing &amp; Co.&mdash;Berwick &amp; Smith Co.<br />
+Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.<br />
+</div><hr class="chap" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v">[v]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+TO<br />
+<span class='big'>DOROTHEA DEAKIN</span><br />
+WITH<br />
+THE AUTHOR'S LOVE<br />
+</div><hr class="chap" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[vii]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2>CONTENTS</h2>
+
+
+
+<div class="center">
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="Contents">
+<tr><td align="left">&nbsp;</td><td align="right"><span class='small'>PAGE</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">The Unfaithful Lover</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_1">1</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">Rounding off a Scene</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_13">13</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">The Obvious</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_29">29</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">The Lie Absolute</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_49">49</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">The Girl with the Guitar&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_65">65</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">The Man with the Boots</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_79">79</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">The Second Best</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_91">91</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">The Holiday</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_105">105</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">The Force of Habit</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_123">123</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">The Brute</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_147">147</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">Dick, Tom, and Harry</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_165">165</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">Miss Eden's Baby</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_187">187</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">The Lover, the Girl, and the Onlooker</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_209">209</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">The Duel</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_229">229</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">Cinderella</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_253">253</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">With an E</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_275">275</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">Under the New Moon</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_299">299</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">The Love of Romance</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_309">309</a></td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<hr class="chap" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[1]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2>THE LITERARY SENSE</h2>
+
+
+
+
+<h2>THE UNFAITHFUL LOVER</h2>
+
+
+<div class='cap'>SHE was going to meet her lover. And the
+fact that she was to meet him at Cannon
+Street Station would almost, she feared, make
+the meeting itself banal, sordid. She would
+have liked to meet him in some green, cool
+orchard, where daffodils swung in the long grass,
+and primroses stood on frail stiff little pink
+stalks in the wet, scented moss of the hedgerow.
+The time should have been May. She herself
+should have been a poem&mdash;a lyric in a white
+gown and green scarf, coming to him through
+the long grass under the blossomed boughs. Her
+hands should have been full of bluebells, and she
+should have held them up to his face in maidenly
+defence as he sprang forward to take her in his
+arms. You see that she knew exactly how a
+tryst is conducted in the pages of the standard<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[2]</a></span>
+poets and of the cheaper weekly journals. She
+had, to the full limit allowed of her reading and
+her environment, the literary sense. When she
+was a child she never could cry long, because she
+always wanted to see herself cry, in the glass,
+and then of course the tears always stopped.
+Now that she was a young woman she could
+never be happy long, because she wanted to
+watch her heart's happiness, and it used to stop
+then, just as the tears had.</div>
+
+<p>He had asked her to meet him at Cannon Street;
+he had something to say to her, and at home it
+was difficult to get a quiet half-hour because of
+her little sisters. And, curiously enough, she
+was hardly curious at all about what he might
+have to say. She only wished for May and the
+orchard, instead of January and the dingy, dusty
+waiting-room, the plain-faced, preoccupied travellers,
+the dim, desolate weather. The setting
+of the scene seemed to her all-important. Her
+dress was brown, her jacket black, and her hat
+was home-trimmed. Yet she looked entrancingly
+pretty to him as he came through the
+heavy swing-doors. He would hardly have
+known her in green and white muslin and an<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[3]</a></span>
+orchard, for their love had been born and bred
+in town&mdash;Highbury New Park, to be exact.
+He came towards her; he was five minutes late.
+She had grown anxious, as the one who waits
+always does, and she was extremely glad to see
+him, but she knew that a late lover should be
+treated with a provoking coldness (one can
+relent prettily later on), so she gave him a limp
+hand and no greeting.</p>
+
+<p>"Let's go out," he said. "Shall we walk
+along the Embankment, or go somewhere on
+the Underground?"</p>
+
+<p>It was bitterly cold, but the Embankment
+was more romantic than a railway carriage.
+He ought to insist on the railway carriage: he
+probably would. So she said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, the Embankment, please!" and felt a
+sting of annoyance and disappointment when he
+acquiesced.</p>
+
+<p>They did not speak again till they had gone
+through the little back streets, past the police
+station and the mustard factory, and were on
+the broad pavement of Queen Victoria Street.</p>
+
+<p>He had been late: he had offered no excuse,
+no explanation. She had done the proper thing;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[4]</a></span>
+she had awaited these with dignified reserve,
+and now she was involved in the meshes of a
+silence that she could not break. How easy it
+would have been in the orchard! She could
+have snapped off a blossoming branch and&mdash;and
+made play with it somehow. Then he
+would have had to say something. But here&mdash;the
+only thing that occurred to her was to stop
+and look in one of the shops till he should ask
+her what she was looking at. And how common
+and mean that would be compared with
+the blossoming bough; and besides, the shops
+they were passing had nothing in the windows
+except cheap pastry and models of steam-engines.</p>
+
+<p>Why on earth didn't he speak? He had never
+been like this before. She stole a glance at him,
+and for the first time it occurred to her that his
+"something to say" was not a mere excuse for
+being alone with her. He had something to say&mdash;something
+that was trying to get itself said.
+The keen wind thrust itself even inside the high
+collar of her jacket. Her hands and feet were
+aching with cold. How warm it would have
+been in the orchard!</p>
+
+<p>"I'm freezing," she said suddenly; "let's go
+and have some tea."</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Of course, if you like," he said uncomfortably;
+yet she could see he was glad that
+she had broken that desolate silence.</p>
+
+<p>Seated at a marble table&mdash;the place was
+nearly empty&mdash;she furtively watched his face
+in the glass, and what she saw there thrilled
+her. Some great sorrow had come to him.
+And she had been sulking! The girl in the
+orchard would have known at a glance. <i>She</i>
+would gently, tenderly, with infinite delicacy
+and the fine tact of a noble woman, have drawn
+his secret from him. She would have shared his
+sorrow, and shown herself "half wife, half angel
+from heaven" in this dark hour. Well, it was
+not too late. She could begin now. But how?
+He had ordered the tea, and her question was
+still unanswered. Yet she must speak. When
+she did her words did not fit the mouth of the
+girl in the orchard&mdash;but then it would have
+been May there, and this was January. She
+said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"How frightfully cold it is!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, isn't it?" he said.</p>
+
+<p>The fine tact of a noble woman seemed to
+have deserted her. She resisted a little impulse<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a></span>
+to put her hand in his under the marble table,
+and to say, "What is it, dearest? Tell me all
+about it. I can't bear to see you looking so
+miserable," and there was another silence.</p>
+
+<p>The waitress brought the two thick cups of
+tea, and looked at him with a tepid curiosity.
+As soon as the two were alone again he leaned
+his elbows on the marble and spoke.</p>
+
+<p>"Look here, darling, I've got something to tell
+you, and I hope to God you'll forgive me and
+stand by me, and try to understand that I love
+you just the same, and whatever happens I shall
+always love you."</p>
+
+<p>This preamble sent a shiver of dread down
+her spine. What had he done&mdash;a murder&mdash;a
+bank robbery&mdash;married someone else?</p>
+
+<p>It was on the tip of her tongue to say that
+she would stand by him whatever he had done;
+but if he had married someone else this would
+be improper, so she only said, "Well?" and she
+said it coldly.</p>
+
+<p>"Well&mdash;I went to the Simpsons' dance on
+Tuesday&mdash;oh, why weren't you there, Ethel?&mdash;and
+there was a girl in pink, and I danced three
+or four times with her&mdash;she was rather like<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span>
+you, side-face&mdash;and then, after supper, in the
+conservatory, I&mdash;I talked nonsense&mdash;but only
+a very little, dear&mdash;and she kept looking at me
+so&mdash;as if she expected me to&mdash;to&mdash;and so I
+kissed her. And yesterday I had a letter from
+her, and she seems to expect&mdash;to think&mdash;and
+I thought I ought to tell you, darling. Oh,
+Ethel, do try to forgive me! I haven't answered
+her letter."</p>
+
+<p>"Well?" she said.</p>
+
+<p>"That's all," said he, miserably stirring his tea.</p>
+
+<p>She drew a deep breath. A shock of unbelievable
+relief tingled through her. So that
+was all! What was it, compared with her
+fears? She almost said, "Never mind, dear. It
+was hateful of you, and I wish you hadn't, but
+I know you're sorry, and I'm sorry; but I forgive
+you, and we'll forget it, and you'll never do
+it again." But just in time she remembered that
+nice girls must not take these things too lightly.
+What opinion would he form of the purity of
+her mind, the innocence of her soul, if an incident
+like this failed to shock her deeply? He
+himself was evidently a prey to the most rending
+remorse. He had told her of the thing as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span>
+one tells of a crime. As the confession of a
+crime she must receive it. How should she
+know that he had only told her because he
+feared that she would anyhow hear it through
+the indiscretion of the girl in pink, or of that
+other girl in blue who had seen and smiled?
+How could she guess that he had tuned his confession
+to the key of what he believed would be
+an innocent girl's estimate of his misconduct?</p>
+
+<p>Following the tingle of relief came a sharp,
+sickening pinch of jealousy and mortification.
+These inspired her.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't wonder you were afraid to tell me,"
+she began. "You don't love me&mdash;you've never
+loved me&mdash;I was an idiot to believe you did."</p>
+
+<p>"You know I do," he said; "it was hateful of
+me&mdash;but I couldn't help it."</p>
+
+<p>Those four true words wounded her more than
+all the rest.</p>
+
+<p>"Couldn't help it? Then how can I ever
+trust you? Even if we were married I could
+never be sure you weren't kissing some horrid
+girl or other. No&mdash;it's no use&mdash;I can never,
+never forgive you&mdash;and it's all over. And I
+<i>believed</i> in you so, and trusted you&mdash;I thought
+you were the soul of honour."</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>He could not say, "And so I am, on the
+whole," which was what he thought. Her tears
+were falling hot and fast between face and veil,
+for she had talked till she was very sorry indeed
+for herself.</p>
+
+<p>"Forgive me, dear," he said.</p>
+
+<p>Then she rose to the occasion. "Never,"
+she said, her eyes flashing through her tears.
+"You've deceived me once&mdash;you'd do it again!
+No, it's all over&mdash;you've broken my heart and
+destroyed my faith in human nature. I hope I
+shall never see you again. Some day you'll
+understand what you've done, and be sorry!"</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think I'm not sorry now?"</p>
+
+<p>She wished that they were at home, and not
+in this horrible tea-shop, under the curious eyes
+of the waitresses. At home she could at least
+have buried her face in the sofa cushions and
+resisted all his pleading,&mdash;at last, perhaps, letting
+him take one cold passive hand and shower
+frantic kisses upon it.</p>
+
+<p>He would come to-morrow, however, and
+then&mdash; At present the thing to compass was
+a dignified parting.</p>
+
+<p>"Good-bye," she said; "I'm going home.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span>
+And it's good-bye for ever. No&mdash;it's only painful
+for both of us. There's no more to be said;
+you've betrayed me. I didn't think a decent
+man could do such things." She was pulling on
+her gloves. "Go home and gloat over it all!
+And that poor girl&mdash;you've broken <i>her</i> heart
+too." This really was a master stroke of
+nobility.</p>
+
+<p>He stood up suddenly. "Do you mean it?"
+he said, and his tone should have warned her.
+"Are you really going to throw me over for a
+thing like this?"</p>
+
+<p>The anger in his eyes frightened her, and the
+misery of his face wrung her heart; but how
+could she say&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"No, of course I'm not! I'm only talking as
+I know good girls ought to talk"?</p>
+
+<p>So she said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Good-bye!"</p>
+
+<p>He stood up suddenly. "Then good-bye," he
+said, "and may God forgive you as I do!" And
+he strode down between the marble tables and
+out by the swing-door. It was a very good exit.
+At the corner he remembered that he had gone
+away without paying for the tea, and his natural<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span>
+impulse was to go back and remedy that error.
+And if he had they would certainly have made it
+up. But how could he go back to say, "We are
+parting for ever; but still, I must insist on the
+sad pleasure of paying for our tea&mdash;for the last
+time"? He checked the silly impulse. What
+was tea, and the price of tea, in this cataclysmic
+overthrowing of the Universe? So she waited
+for him in vain, and at last paid for the tea herself,
+and went home to wait there&mdash;and there,
+too, in vain, for he never came back to her. He
+loved her with all his heart, and he, also, had
+what she had never suspected in him&mdash;the
+literary sense. Therefore he, never dreaming
+that the literary sense had inspired her too, perceived
+that to the jilted lover two courses only
+are possible&mdash;suicide or "the front." So he
+enlisted, and went to South Africa, and he never
+came home covered with medals and glory, which
+was rather his idea, to the few simple words of
+explanation that would have made all straight,
+and repaid her and him for all the past. Because
+Destiny is almost without the literary sense, and
+Destiny carelessly decreed that he should die of
+enteric in a wretched hut, without so much as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span>
+hearing a gun fired. Literary to the soul, she has
+taken no other lover, but mourns him faithfully
+to this hour. Yet perhaps, after all, that is not
+because of the literary sense. It may be because
+she loved him. I think I have not mentioned
+before that she did love him.</p><hr class="chap" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2>ROUNDING OFF A SCENE</h2>
+
+
+<div class='cap'>A SOFT rain was falling. Umbrellas swayed
+and gleamed in the light of the street
+lamps. The brightness of the shop windows
+reflected itself in the muddy mirror of the wet
+pavements. A miserable night, a dreary night,
+a night to tempt the wretched to the glimmering
+Embankment, and thence to the river, hardly wetter
+or cleaner than the gutters of the London
+streets. Yet the sight of these same streets was
+like wine in the veins to a man who drove
+through them in a hansom piled with Gladstone
+bags and P. and O. trunks. He leaned over the
+apron of the hansom and looked eagerly, longingly,
+lovingly, at every sordid detail: the crowd
+on the pavement, its haste as intelligible to him
+as the rush of ants when their hill is disturbed by
+the spade; the glory and glow of corner public-houses;
+the shifting dance of the gleaming wet
+umbrellas. It was England, it was London, it<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span>
+was home&mdash;and his heart swelled till he felt it
+in his throat. After ten years&mdash;the dream realised,
+the longing appeased. London&mdash;and all
+was said.</div>
+
+<p>His cab, delayed by a red newspaper cart,
+jammed in altercative contact with a dray full
+of brown barrels, paused in Cannon Street.
+The eyes that drank in the scene perceived a
+familiar face watching on the edge of the pavement
+for a chance to cross the road under the
+horses' heads&mdash;the face of one who ten years
+ago had been the slightest of acquaintances.
+Now time and home-longing juggled with memory
+till the face seemed that of a friend. To
+meet a friend&mdash;this did, indeed, round off the
+scene of the home-coming. The man in the cab
+threw back the doors and leapt out. He crossed
+under the very nose-bag of a stationed dray
+horse. He wrung the friend&mdash;last seen as an
+acquaintance&mdash;by the hand. The friend caught
+fire at the contact. Any passer-by, who should
+have been spared a moment for observation by
+the cares of umbrella and top-hat, had surely
+said, "Damon and Pythias!" and gone onward
+smiling in sympathy with friends long severed
+and at last reunited.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The little scene ended in a cordial invitation
+from the impromptu Damon, on the pavement,
+to Pythias, of the cab, to a little dance that
+evening at Damon's house, out Sydenham way.
+Pythias accepted with enthusiasm, though at his
+normal temperature, he was no longer a dancing
+man. The address was noted, hands clasped
+again with strenuous cordiality, and Pythias
+regained his hansom. It set him down at the
+hotel from which ten years before he had taken
+cab to Fenchurch Street Station. The menu of
+his dinner had been running in his head, like a
+poem, all through the wet shining streets. He
+ordered, therefore, without hesitation&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class='center'>
+Ox-tail Soup.<br />
+Boiled Cod and Oyster Sauce.<br />
+Roast Beef and Horse-radish.<br />
+Boiled Potatoes.  &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;  Brussels Sprouts.<br />
+Cabinet Pudding.<br />
+Stilton.    Celery.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>The cabinet pudding was the waiter's suggestion.
+Anything that called itself "pudding"
+would have pleased as well. He dressed hurriedly,
+and when the soup and the wine card<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span>
+appeared together before him he ordered draught
+bitter&mdash;a pint.</p>
+
+<p>"And bring it in a tankard," said he.</p>
+
+<p>The drive to Sydenham was, if possible, a happier
+dream than had been the drive from Fenchurch
+Street to Charing Cross. There were
+many definite reasons why he should have been
+glad to be in England, glad to leave behind him
+the hard work of his Indian life, and to settle
+down as a landed proprietor. But he did not
+think definite thoughts. The whole soul and
+body of the man were filled and suffused by the
+glow that transfuses the blood of the schoolboy
+at the end of the term.</p>
+
+<p>The lights, the striped awning, the red carpet
+of the Sydenham house thrilled and charmed him.
+Park Lane could have lent them no further grace&mdash;Belgrave
+Square no more subtle witchery. This
+was England, England, England!</p>
+
+<p>He went in. The house was pretty with lights
+and flowers. There was music. The soft-carpeted
+stair seemed air as he trod it. He met his
+host&mdash;was led up to girls in blue and girls in
+pink, girls in satin and girls in silk-muslin&mdash;wrote
+brief <i>pr�cis</i> of their toilets on his programme.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span>
+Then he was brought face to face
+with a tall dark-haired woman in white. His
+host's voice buzzed in his ears, and he caught
+only the last words&mdash;"old friends." Then he
+was left staring straight into the eyes of the
+woman who ten years ago had been the light of
+his: the woman who had jilted him, his vain
+longing for whom had been the spur to drive
+him out of England.</p>
+
+<p>"May I have another?" was all he found to
+say after the bow, the conventional request, and
+the scrawling of two programmes.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," she said, and he took two more.</p>
+
+<p>The girls in pink, and blue, and silk, and
+satin found him a good but silent dancer. On
+the opening bars of the eighth waltz he stood
+before her. Their steps went together like song
+and tune, just as they had always done. And
+the touch of her hand on his arm thrilled
+through him in just the old way. He had, indeed,
+come home.</p>
+
+<p>There were definite reasons why he should
+have pleaded a headache or influenza, or any lie,
+and have gone away before his second dance
+with her. But the charm of the situation was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span>
+too great. The whole thing was so complete.
+On his very first evening in England&mdash;to meet
+her! He did not go, and half-way through their
+second dance he led her into the little room,
+soft-curtained, soft-cushioned, soft-lighted, at the
+bend of the staircase.</p>
+
+<p>Here they sat silent, and he fanned her, and
+he assured himself once more that she was
+more beautiful than ever. Her hair, which he
+had known in short, fluffy curls, lay in soberly
+waved masses, but it was still bright and dark,
+like a chestnut fresh from the husk. Her eyes
+were the same as of old, and her hands. Her
+mouth only had changed. It was a sad mouth
+now, in repose&mdash;and he had known it so merry.
+Yet he could not but see that its sadness added
+to its beauty. The lower lip had been, perhaps,
+too full, too flexible. It was set now, not in
+sternness, but in a dignified self-control. He
+had left a Greuze girl&mdash;he found a Madonna of
+Bellini. Yet those were the lips he had kissed&mdash;the
+eyes that&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>The silence had grown to the point of embarrassment.
+She broke it, with his eyes on
+her.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Well," she said, "tell me all about yourself."</p>
+
+<p>"There's nothing much to tell. My cousin's
+dead, and I'm a full-fledged squire with estates
+and things. I've done with the gorgeous East,
+thank God! But you&mdash;tell me about yourself."</p>
+
+<p>"What shall I tell you?" She had taken the
+fan from him, and was furling and unfurling it.</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me"&mdash;he repeated the words slowly&mdash;"tell
+me the truth! It's all over&mdash;nothing
+matters now. But I've always been&mdash;well&mdash;curious.
+Tell me why you threw me over!"</p>
+
+<p>He yielded, without even the form of a struggle,
+to the impulse which he only half understood.
+What he said was true: he <i>had</i> been&mdash;well&mdash;curious.
+But it was long since anything alive,
+save vanity, which is immortal, had felt the
+sting of that curiosity. But now, sitting beside
+this beautiful woman who had been so much to
+him, the desire to bridge over the years, to be
+once more in relations with her outside the conventionalities
+of a ball-room, to take part with
+her in some scene, discreet, yet flavoured by the
+past with a delicate poignancy, came upon him
+like a strong man armed. It held him, but<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span>
+through a veil, and he did not see its face.
+If he had seen it, it would have shocked him
+very much.</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me," he said softly, "tell me now&mdash;at
+last&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Still she was silent.</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me," he said again; "why did you do
+it? How was it you found out so very suddenly
+and surely that we weren't suited to each
+other&mdash;that was the phrase, wasn't it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Do you really want to know? It's not very
+amusing, is it&mdash;raking out dead fires?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I do want to know. I've wanted it
+every day since," he said earnestly.</p>
+
+<p>"As you say&mdash;it's all ancient history. But
+you used not to be stupid. Are you sure the
+real reason never occurred to you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Never! What was it? Yes, I know: the
+next waltz is beginning. Don't go. Cut him,
+whoever he is, and stay here and tell me. I
+think I have a right to ask that of you."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh&mdash;rights!" she said. "But it's quite
+simple. I threw you over, as you call it, because
+I found out you didn't care for me."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>I</i>&mdash;not care for <i>you?</i>"</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Exactly."</p>
+
+<p>"But even so&mdash;if you believed it&mdash;but how
+could you? Even so&mdash;why not have told me&mdash;why
+not have given me a chance?" His voice
+trembled.</p>
+
+<p>Hers was firm.</p>
+
+<p>"I <i>was</i> giving you a chance, and I wanted to
+make sure that you would take it. If I'd just
+said, 'You don't care for me,' you'd have said,
+'Oh, yes I do!' And we should have been
+just where we were before."</p>
+
+<p>"Then it wasn't that you were tired of me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no," she said sedately, "it wasn't that!"</p>
+
+<p>"Then you&mdash;did you really care for me still,
+even when you sent back the ring and wouldn't
+see me, and went to Germany, and wouldn't
+open my letters, and all the rest of it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes!"&mdash;she laughed lightly&mdash;"I loved
+you frightfully all that time. It does seem odd
+now to look back on it, doesn't it? but I nearly
+broke my heart over you."</p>
+
+<p>"Then why the devil&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You mustn't swear," she interrupted; "I
+never heard you do that before. Is it the
+Indian climate?"</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Why did you send me away?" he repeated.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't I keep telling you?" Her tone was
+impatient. "I found out you didn't care, and&mdash;and
+I'd always despised people who kept other
+people when they wanted to go. And I knew
+you were too honourable, generous, soft-hearted&mdash;what
+shall I say?&mdash;to go for your own sake,
+so I thought, for your sake, I would make you
+believe you were to go for mine."</p>
+
+<p>"So you lied to me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not exactly. We <i>weren't</i> suited&mdash;since you
+didn't love me."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>I</i> didn't love you?" he echoed again.</p>
+
+<p>"And somehow I'd always wanted to do something
+really noble, and I never had the chance.
+So I thought if I set you free from a girl you
+didn't love, and bore the blame myself, it <i>would</i>
+be rather noble. And so I did it."</p>
+
+<p>"And did the consciousness of your own
+nobility sustain you comfortably?" The sneer
+was well sneered.</p>
+
+<p>"Well&mdash;not for long," she admitted. "You
+see, I began to doubt after a while whether it was
+really <i>my</i> nobleness after all. It began to seem
+like some part in a play that I'd learned and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span>
+played&mdash;don't you know that sort of dreams
+where you seem to be reading a book and acting
+the story in the book at the same time? It
+was a little like that now and then, and I got
+rather tired of myself and my nobleness, and I
+wished I'd just told you, and had it all out with
+you, and both of us spoken the truth and parted
+friends. That was what I thought of doing at
+first. But then it wouldn't have been noble!
+And I really did want to be noble&mdash;just as
+some people want to paint pictures, or write
+poems, or climb Alps. Come, take me back to
+the ball-room. It's cold here in the Past."</p>
+
+<p>But how could he let the curtain be rung
+down on a scene half finished, and so good a
+scene?</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, no! tell me," he said, laying his hand
+on hers; "why did you think I didn't love you?"</p>
+
+<p>"I knew it. Do you remember the last time
+you came to see me? We quarrelled&mdash;we were
+always quarrelling&mdash;but we always made it up.
+That day we made it up as usual, but you were
+still a little bit angry when you went away.
+And then I cried like a fool. And then you
+came back, and&mdash;you remember&mdash;"</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Go on," he said. He had bridged the ten
+years, and the scene was going splendidly. "Go
+on; you must go on."</p>
+
+<p>"You came and knelt down by me," she said
+cheerfully. "It was as good as a play&mdash;you
+took me in your arms and told me you couldn't
+bear to leave me with the slightest cloud between
+us. You called me your heart's dearest, I remember&mdash;a
+phrase you'd never used before&mdash;and
+you said such heaps of pretty things to me!
+And at last, when you had to go, you swore we
+should never quarrel again&mdash;and that came true,
+didn't it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, but <i>why?</i>"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, as you went out I saw you pick up
+your gloves off the table, and I <i>knew</i>&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Knew what?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, that it was the gloves you had come
+back for and not me&mdash;only when you saw me
+crying you were sorry for me, and determined
+to do your duty whatever it cost you. Don't!
+What's the matter?"</p>
+
+<p>He had caught her wrists in his hands and
+was scowling angrily at her.</p>
+
+<p>"Good God! was <i>that</i> all? I <i>did</i> come back<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span>
+for you. I never thought of the damned gloves.
+I don't remember them. If I did pick them up,
+it must have been mechanically and without
+noticing. And you ruined my life for <i>that?</i>"</p>
+
+<p>He was genuinely angry; he was back in the
+past, where he had a right to be angry with her.
+Her eyes grew soft.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you mean to say that I was <i>wrong</i>&mdash;that
+it was all my fault&mdash;that you <i>did</i> love me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Love you?" he said roughly, throwing her
+hands from him; "of course I loved you&mdash;I
+shall always love you. I've never left off loving
+you. It was you who didn't love me. It
+was all your fault."</p>
+
+<p>He leaned his elbows on his knees and his chin
+on his hands. He was breathing quickly. The
+scene had swept him along in its quickening flow.
+He shut his eyes, and tried to catch at something
+to steady himself&mdash;some rope by which he could
+pull himself to land again. Suddenly an arm
+was laid on his neck, a face laid against his
+face. Lips touched his hand, and her voice,
+incredibly softened and tuned to the key of
+their love's overture, spoke&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, forgive me, dear, forgive me! If you love<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span>
+me still&mdash;it's too good to be true&mdash;but if you do&mdash;ah,
+you do!&mdash;forgive me, and we can forget
+it all! Dear, forgive me! I love you so!"</p>
+
+<p>He was quite still, quite silent.</p>
+
+<p>"Can't you forgive me?" she began again.
+He suddenly stood up.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm married," he said. He drew a long breath
+and went on hurriedly, standing before her, but
+not looking at her. "I can't ask you to forgive
+me&mdash;I shall never forgive myself."</p>
+
+<p>"It doesn't matter," she said, and she
+laughed; "I&mdash;I wasn't serious. I saw you
+were trying to play the old comedy, and I
+thought I had better play up to you. If I'd
+known you were married&mdash;but it was only
+your glove, and we're such old acquaintances!
+There's another dance beginning. Please go&mdash;I've
+no doubt my partner will find me."</p>
+
+<p>He bowed, gave her one glance, and went.
+Halfway down the stairs he turned and came
+back. She was still sitting as he had left her.
+The angry eyes she raised to him were full of
+tears. She looked as she had looked ten years
+before, when he had come back to her, and the
+cursed gloves had spoiled everything. He hated<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span>
+himself. Why had he played with fire and
+raised this ghost to vex her? It had been such
+pretty fire, and such a beautiful ghost. But
+she had been hurt&mdash;he had hurt her. She
+would blame herself now for that old past; as
+for the new past, so lately the present, it would
+not bear thinking of.</p>
+
+<p>The scene must be rounded off somehow.
+He had let her wound her pride, her self-respect.
+He must heal them. The light touch would be
+best.</p>
+
+<p>"Look here," he said, "I just wanted to tell
+you that I knew you weren't serious just now.
+As you say, it was nothing between two such
+old friends. And&mdash;and&mdash;" He sought about
+for some further consolation. Ill-inspired, with
+the touch of her lips still on his hand, he said,
+"And about the gloves. Don't blame yourself
+about that. It was not your fault. You were
+perfectly right. It <i>was</i> the gloves I came back
+for."</p>
+
+<p>He left her then, and next day journeyed to
+Scotland to rejoin his wife, of whom he was,
+by habit, moderately fond. He still keeps the
+white glove she kissed, and at first reproached<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span>
+himself whenever he looked at it. But now he
+only sentimentalises over it now and then, if he
+happens to be a little under the weather. He
+feels that his foolish behaviour at that Sydenham
+dance was almost atoned for by the nobility
+with which he lied to spare her, the light,
+delicate touch with which he rounded off the
+scene.</p>
+
+<p>He certainly did round it off. By a few
+short, easy words he accomplished three things.
+He destroyed an ideal of himself which she had
+cherished for years; he killed a pale bud of
+hope which she had loved to nurse&mdash;the hope
+that perhaps in that old past it had been she
+who was to blame, and not he, whom she
+loved; he trampled in the mud the living rose
+which would have bloomed her life long, the
+belief that he had loved, did love her&mdash;the
+living rose that would have had magic to
+quench the fire of shame kindled by that unasked
+kiss, a fire that frets for ever like hell-fire,
+burning, but not consuming, her self-respect.</p>
+
+<p>He did, without doubt, round off the scene.</p><hr class="chap" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2>THE OBVIOUS</h2>
+
+
+<div class='cap'>HE had the literary sense, but he had it as
+an inverted instinct. He had a keen perception
+of the dramatically fitting in art, but no
+counteracting vision of the fitting in life. Life
+and art, indeed, he found from his earliest years
+difficult to disentwine, and later, impossible to
+disentangle. And to disentangle and disentwine
+them became at last the point of honour to him.</div>
+
+<p>He first knew that he loved her on the occasion
+of her "coming of age party." His people
+and hers lived in the same sombre London
+square: their Haslemere gardens were divided
+only by a sunk fence. He had known her all
+his life. Her coming of age succeeded but by
+a couple of days his return from three years of
+lazy philosophy&mdash;study in Germany&mdash;and the
+sight of her took his breath away. In the time-honoured
+<i>clich�</i> of the hurried novelist&mdash;too
+hurried to turn a new phrase for an idea as old<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span>
+as the new life of spring&mdash;he had left a child:
+he found a woman. She wore a soft satiny-white
+gown, that showed gleams of rose colour
+through its folds. There were pink hollyhock
+blossoms in the bright brown of her hair. Her
+eyes were shining with the excitement of this
+festival of which she was the goddess. He lost
+his head, danced with her five times, and carried
+away a crumpled hollyhock bloom that
+had fallen from her hair during the last Lancers,
+through which he had watched her. All his
+dances with her had been waltzes. It was not
+till, alone again at his hotel, he pulled out the
+hollyhock flower with his ball programme that
+he awoke to a complete sense of the insipid
+flatness of the new situation.</p>
+
+<p>He had fallen in love&mdash;was madly <i>�pris</i>, at
+any rate&mdash;and the girl was the girl whose
+charms, whose fortune, whose general suitability
+as a match for him had been dinned into his
+ears ever since he was a callow boy at Oxford,
+and she a long-black-silk-legged, short-frocked
+tom-boy of fourteen. Everyone had always said
+that it was the obvious thing. And now he
+had, for once, done exactly what was expected<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span>
+of him, and his fine literary sense revolted.
+The worst of all was that she seemed not quite
+to hate him. Better, a thousand times better,
+that he should have loved and longed, and never
+won a smile from her&mdash;that he should have
+sacrificed something, anything, and gone his
+lonely way. But she had smiled on him,
+undoubtedly she had smiled, and he did not
+want to play the part so long ago assigned to
+him by his people. He wanted to be Sidney
+Carton. Darnay's had always seemed to him
+the inferior r�le.</p>
+
+<p>Yet he could not keep his thoughts from her,
+and for what was left of the year his days and
+nights were a restless see-saw of longing and
+repulsion, advance and retreat. His moods were
+reflected in hers, but always an interview later;
+that is to say, if he were cold on Tuesday she
+on Thursday would be colder. If on Thursday
+he grew earnest, Sunday would find her kind.
+But he, by that time, was frigid. So that they
+never, after the first wildly beautiful evening
+when their hearts went out to each other in a
+splendour of primitive frankness, met in moods
+that chimed.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>This safe-guarded him. It irritated her.
+And it most successfully bewitched them both.</p>
+
+<p>His people and her people looked on, and
+were absolutely and sadly convinced that&mdash;as
+her brother put it to his uncle&mdash;it was "no go."
+Thereupon, a certain young-old cotton broker
+appearing on the scene and bringing gifts with
+him, her people began to put pressure on her.
+She loathed the cotton-broker, and said so. One
+afternoon everyone was by careful accident got
+out of the way, and the cotton-broker caught
+her alone. That night there was a scene.
+Her father talked a little too much of obedience
+and of duty, her mother played the hysterical
+symphony with the loud pedal hard down, and
+next morning the girl had vanished, leaving the
+conventional note of farewell on the pincushion.</p>
+
+<p>Now the two families, being on all accounts
+close allies, had bought jointly a piece of land
+near the Littlestone golf links, and on it had
+built a bungalow, occupied by members of
+either house in turn, according to any friendly
+arrangement that happened to commend itself.
+But at this time of the year folk were keeping
+Christmas season dismally in their town houses.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>It was on the day when the cotton-broker
+made his failure that the whole world seemed
+suddenly worthless to the man with the hollyhock
+bloom in his pocket-book, because he had
+met her at a dance, and he had been tender,
+but she, reflecting his mood of their last
+meeting, had been glacial. So he lied roundly
+to his people, and told them that he was
+going to spend a week or two with an
+old chum who was staying up for the vacation
+at Cambridge, and instead, he chose the
+opposite point of the compass, and took train to
+New Romney, and walked over to the squat,
+one-storied bungalow near the sea. Here he let
+himself in with the family latch-key, and set to
+work, with the help of a box from the stores,
+borne behind him with his portmanteau on a
+hand-cart, to keep Christmas by himself. This,
+at least, was not literary. It was not in the
+least what a person in a book would do. He lit
+a fire in the dining-room, and the chimney was
+damp and smoked abominably, so that when he
+had fed full on tinned meats he was fain to let
+the fire go out and to sit in his fur-lined overcoat
+by the be-cindered grate, now fast growing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span>
+cold, and smoke pipe after pipe of gloomy reflection.
+He thought of it all. The cursed countenance
+which his people were ready to give to the
+match that he couldn't make&mdash;her maddening
+indecisions&mdash;his own idiotic variableness. He
+had lighted the lamp, but it smelt vilely, and he
+blew it out, and did not light candles because it
+was too much trouble. So the early winter dusk
+deepened into night, and the bitter north wind
+had brought the snow, and it drifted now in
+feather-soft touches against the windows.</p>
+
+<p>He thought of the good warm dining-room in
+Russell Square&mdash;of the gathering of aunts and
+uncles and cousins, uncongenial, perhaps, but still
+human, and he shivered in his fur-lined coat and
+his icy solitude, damning himself for the fool he
+knew he was.</p>
+
+<p>And even as he damned, his breath was
+stopped, and his heart leaped at the sound, faint
+but unmistakable, of a key in the front door.
+If a man exist not too remote from his hairy
+ancestors to have lost the habit of the pricking
+ear, he was that man. He pricked his ears, so
+far as the modern man may, and listened.</p>
+
+<p>The key grated in the lock&mdash;grated and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span>
+turned; the door was opened, and banged again.
+Something was set down in the little passage,
+set down thumpingly and wholly without precaution.
+He heard a hand move along the partition
+of match-boarding. He heard the latch of
+the kitchen door rise and fall&mdash;and he heard
+the scrape and spurt of a struck match.</p>
+
+<p>He sat still. He would catch this burglar red-handed.</p>
+
+<p>Through the ill-fitting partitions of the jerry-built
+bungalow he could hear the intruder moving
+recklessly in the kitchen. The legs of chairs
+and tables grated on the brick floor. He took
+off his shoes, rose, and crept out through the passage
+towards the kitchen door. It stood ajar.
+A clear-cut slice of light came from it. Treading
+softly in his stockinged feet, he came to it and
+looked in. One candle, stuck in a tea-saucer,
+burned on the table. A weak blue-and-yellow
+glimmer came from some sticks in the bottom
+of the fireplace.</p>
+
+<p>Kneeling in front of this, breathless with the
+endeavour to blow the damp sticks to flame,
+crouched the burglar. A woman. A girl. She
+had laid aside hat and cloak. The first<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span>
+sight of her was like a whirlwind sweeping
+over heart and brain. For the bright brown
+hair that the candle-light lingered in was like
+Her dear brown hair&mdash;and when she rose suddenly,
+and turned towards the door, his heart
+stood still, for it was She&mdash;her very self.</p>
+
+<p>She had not seen him. He retreated, in all
+the stillness his tortured nerves allowed, and
+sat down again in the fur coat and the dining-room.
+She had not heard him. He was, for
+some moments, absolutely stunned, then he crept
+to the window. In the poignant stillness of the
+place he could hear the heavy flakes of snow
+dabbing softly at the glass.</p>
+
+<p>She was here. She, like him, had fled to this
+refuge, confident in its desertion at this season
+by both the families who shared a right to it.
+She was there&mdash;he was there. Why had she
+fled? The question did not wait to be answered;
+it sank before the other question. What
+was he to do? The whole literary soul of the
+man cried out against either of the obvious
+courses of action.</p>
+
+<p>"I can go in," he said, "and surprise her, and
+tell her I love her, and then walk out with dignified<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span>
+propriety, and leave her alone here. That's
+conventional and dramatic. Or I can sneak off
+without her knowing I've been here at all, and
+leave her to spend the night unprotected in this
+infernal frozen dog-hutch. That's conventional
+enough, heaven knows! But what's the use of
+being a reasonable human being with free-will
+if you can't do anything but the literarily and
+romantically obvious?"</p>
+
+<p>Here a sudden noise thrilled him. Next
+moment he drew a long breath of relief. She
+had but dropped a gridiron. As it crashed
+and settled down with a rhythmic rattle on the
+kitchen flags, the thought flowed through him
+like a river of Paradise. "If she did love me&mdash;if
+I loved her&mdash;what an hour and what
+a moment this would be!"</p>
+
+<p>Meantime she, her hands helpless with cold,
+was dropping clattering gridirons not five yards
+from him.</p>
+
+<p>Suppose he went out to the kitchen and suddenly
+announced himself!</p>
+
+<p>How flat&mdash;how obvious!</p>
+
+<p>Suppose he crept quietly away and went to
+the inn at New Romney!</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>How desperately flat! How more than
+obvious!</p>
+
+<p>Suppose he&mdash;but the third course refused
+itself to the desperate clutch of his drowning
+imagination, and left him clinging to the bare
+straw of a question. What should he do?</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly the really knightly and unconventional
+idea occurred to him, an idea that would
+save him from the pit of the obvious, yawning
+on each side.</p>
+
+<p>There was a bicycle shed, where, also, wood
+was stored and coal, and lumber of all sorts.
+He would pass the night there, warm in his fur
+coat, and his determination not to let his conduct
+be shaped by what people in books would
+have done. And in the morning&mdash;strong with
+the great renunciation of all the possibilities that
+this evening's meeting held&mdash;he would come
+and knock at the front door&mdash;just like anybody
+else&mdash;and&mdash;<i>qui vivra verra</i>. At least, he would
+be watching over her rest&mdash;and would be able
+to protect the house from tramps.</p>
+
+<p>Very gently and cautiously, all in the dark, he
+pushed his bag behind the sofa, covered the
+stores box with a liberty cloth from a side table,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span>
+crept out softly, and softly opened the front
+door; it opened softly, that is, but it shut with
+an unmistakable click that stung in his ears as
+he stood on one foot on the snowy doorstep
+struggling with the knots of his shoe laces.</p>
+
+<p>The bicycle shed was uncompromisingly dark,
+and smelt of coal sacks and paraffin. He found
+a corner&mdash;between the coals and the wood&mdash;and
+sat down on the floor.</p>
+
+<p>"Bother the fur coat," was his answer to the
+doubt whether coal dust and broken twigs were
+a good down-setting for that triumph of the
+Bond Street art. There he sat, full of a chastened
+joy at the thought that he watched over
+her&mdash;that he, sleepless, untiring, was on guard,
+ready, at an instant's warning, to spring to her
+aid, should she need protection. The thought
+was mightily soothing. The shed was cold.
+The fur coat was warm. In five minutes he
+was sleeping peacefully as any babe.</p>
+
+<p>When he awoke it was with the light of a big
+horn lantern in his eyes, and in his ears the snapping
+of wood.</p>
+
+<p>She was there&mdash;stooping beside the heaped
+faggots, breaking off twigs to fill the lap of her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span>
+up-gathered blue gown; the shimmery silk of
+her petticoat gleamed greenly. He was partly
+hidden by a derelict bicycle and a watering-can.</p>
+
+<p>He hardly dared to draw breath.</p>
+
+<p>Composedly she broke the twigs. Then like
+a flash she turned towards him.</p>
+
+<p>"Who's there?" she said.</p>
+
+<p>An inspiration came to him&mdash;and this, at
+least, was not flat or obvious. He writhed into
+the darkness behind a paraffin cask, slipped out
+of his fur coat, and plunged his hands in the dust
+of the coal.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't be 'ard on a pore cove, mum," he
+mumbled, desperately rubbing the coal dust on
+to his face; "you wouldn't go for to turn a
+dawg out on a night like this, let alone a pore
+chap outer work!"</p>
+
+<p>Even as he spoke he admired the courage of
+the girl. Alone, miles from any other house,
+she met a tramp in an outhouse as calmly as
+though he had been a fly in the butter.</p>
+
+<p>"You've no business here, you know," she
+said briskly. "What did you come for?"</p>
+
+<p>"Shelter, mum&mdash;I won't take nothing as
+don't belong to me&mdash;not so much as a lump of
+coal, mum, not if it was ever so!"</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>She turned her head. He almost thought she
+smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"But I can't have tramps sleeping here," she
+said.</p>
+
+<p>"It's not as if I was a reg'lar tramp," he said,
+warming to his part as he had often done on the
+stage in his A.D.C. days. "I'm a respectable
+working-man, mum, as 'as seen better days."</p>
+
+<p>"Are you hungry?" she said. "I'll give you
+something to eat before you go if you'll come to
+the door in five minutes."</p>
+
+<p>He could not refuse&mdash;but when she was gone
+into the house he could bolt. So he said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Now may be the blessing! It's starving I am,
+mum, and on Christmas Eve!"</p>
+
+<p>This time she did smile: it was beyond a
+doubt. He had always thought her smile charming.
+She turned at the door, and her glance
+followed the lantern's rays as they pierced the
+darkness where he crouched.</p>
+
+<p>The moment he heard the house door shut, he
+sprang up, and lifted the fur coat gingerly to the
+wood-block. Flight, instant flight! Yet how
+could he present himself at New Romney with
+a fur coat and a face like a collier's? He had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span>
+drawn a bucket of water from the well earlier in
+the day; some would be left; it was close by
+the back door. He tiptoed over the snow and
+washed, and washed, and washed. He was
+drying face and hands with a pocket-handkerchief
+that seemed strangely small and cold when
+the door opened suddenly, and there, close by
+him, was she, silhouetted against the warm glow
+of fire and candles.</p>
+
+<p>"Come in," she said; "you can't possibly see
+to wash out there."</p>
+
+<p>Before he knew it her hand was on his arm,
+and she had drawn him to the warmth and
+light.</p>
+
+<p>He looked at her&mdash;but her eyes were on the
+fire.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll give you some warm water, and you can
+wash at the sink," she said, closing the door and
+taking the kettle from the fire.</p>
+
+<p>He caught sight of his face in the square of
+looking-glass over the sink tap.</p>
+
+<p>Was it worth while to go on pretending?
+Yet his face was still very black. And she evidently
+had not recognised him. Perhaps&mdash;surely
+she would have the good taste to retire<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span>
+while the tramp washed, so that he could take
+his coat off? Then he could take flight, and the
+situation would be saved from absolute farce.</p>
+
+<p>But when she had poured the hot water into
+a bowl she sat down in the Windsor chair by
+the fire and gazed into the hot coals.</p>
+
+<p>He washed.</p>
+
+<p>He washed till he was quite clean.</p>
+
+<p>He dried face and hands on the rough towel.</p>
+
+<p>He dried them till they were scarlet and shone.
+But he dared not turn around.</p>
+
+<p>There seemed no way out of this save by the
+valley of humiliation. Still she sat looking into
+the fire.</p>
+
+<p>As he washed he saw with half a retroverted
+eye the round table spread with china and glass
+and silver.</p>
+
+<p>"As I live&mdash;it's set for two!" he told himself.
+And, in an instant, jealousy answered,
+once and for all, the questions he had been
+asking himself since August.</p>
+
+<p>"Aren't you clean yet?" she said at last.</p>
+
+<p>How could he speak?</p>
+
+<p>"Aren't you clean <i>yet?</i>" she repeated, and
+called him by his name. He turned then quickly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span>
+enough. She was leaning back in the chair
+laughing at him.</p>
+
+<p>"How did you know me?" he asked angrily.</p>
+
+<p>"Your tramp-voice might have deceived me,"
+she said, "you did do it most awfully well!
+But, you see, I'd been looking at you for ages
+before you woke."</p>
+
+<p>"Then good night," said he.</p>
+
+<p>"Good night!" said she; "but it's not seven
+yet!"</p>
+
+<p>"You're expecting someone," he said, pointing
+dramatically to the table.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, <i>that!</i>" she said; "yes&mdash;that was for&mdash;for
+the poor man as had seen better days!
+There's nothing but eggs&mdash;but I couldn't turn
+a dog from my door on such a night&mdash;till I'd
+fed it!"</p>
+
+<p>"Do you really mean&mdash;?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why not?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's glorious!"</p>
+
+<p>"It's a picnic."</p>
+
+<p>"But?" said he.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh&mdash;well! Go if you like!" said she.</p>
+
+<p>It was not only eggs: it was all sorts of things
+from that stores box. They ate, and they talked.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span>
+He told her that he had been bored in town and
+had sought relief in solitude. That, she told him,
+was her case also. He told her how he had
+heard her come in, and how he had hated to
+take either the obvious course of following her
+to the kitchen, saying "How do you do?" and
+retiring to New Romney; or the still more obvious
+course of sneaking away without asking
+her how she did. And he told her how he had
+decided to keep watch over her from the bicycle
+shed. And how the coal-black inspiration had
+come to him. And she laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"That was much more literary than anything
+else you could have thought of," said she; "it
+was exactly like a book. And oh&mdash;you've no
+idea how funny you looked."</p>
+
+<p>They both laughed, and there was a silence.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know," he said, "I can hardly believe
+that this is the first meal we've ever had alone
+together? It seems as though&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"It <i>is</i> funny," she said, smiling hurriedly at
+him.</p>
+
+<p>He did not smile. He said: "I want you to
+tell me why you were so angel-good&mdash;why did<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span>
+you let me stay? Why did you lay the pretty
+table for two?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because we've never been in the same mood
+at the same time," she said desperately; "and
+somehow I thought we should be this evening."</p>
+
+<p>"What mood?" he asked inexorably.</p>
+
+<p>"Why&mdash;jolly&mdash;cheerful," she said, with the
+slightest possible hesitation.</p>
+
+<p>"I see."</p>
+
+<p>There was another silence. Then she said in
+a voice that fluttered a little&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"My old governess, Miss Pettingill&mdash;you remember
+old Pet? Well, she's coming by the
+train that gets in at three. I wired to her from
+town. She ought to be here by now&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Ought she?" he cried, pushing back his chair
+and coming towards her&mdash;"ought she? Then,
+by heaven! before she comes I'm going to tell
+you something&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"No, don't!" she cried. "You'll spoil everything.
+Go and sit down again. You shall! I
+insist! Let <i>me</i> tell <i>you!</i> I always swore I
+would some day!"</p>
+
+<p>"Why?" said he, and sat down.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Because I knew <i>you'd</i> never make up your
+mind to tell <i>me</i>&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"To tell you what?"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Anything</i>&mdash;for fear you should have to say
+it in the same way someone else had said it
+before!"</p>
+
+<p>"Said what?"</p>
+
+<p>"Anything! Sit still! Now <i>I'm</i> going to
+tell <i>you</i>."</p>
+
+<p>She came slowly round the table and knelt
+on one knee beside him, her elbows on the arm
+of his chair.</p>
+
+<p>"You've never had the courage to make up
+your mind to anything," she began.</p>
+
+<p>"Is that what you were going to tell me?"
+he asked, and looked in her eyes till she dropped
+their lids.</p>
+
+<p>"No&mdash;yes&mdash;no! I haven't anything to tell
+you really. Good night."</p>
+
+<p>"Aren't you going to tell me?"</p>
+
+<p>"There isn't anything to tell," she said.</p>
+
+<p>"Then I'll tell you," said he.</p>
+
+<p>She started up, and the little brass knocker's
+urgent summons resounded through the bungalow.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Here she is!" she cried.</p>
+
+<p>He also sprang to his feet.</p>
+
+<p>"And we haven't told each other anything!"
+he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Haven't we? Ah, no&mdash;don't! Let me go!
+There&mdash;she's knocking again. You must let
+me go!"</p>
+
+<p>He let her slip through his arms.</p>
+
+<p>At the door she paused to flash a soft, queer
+smile at him.</p>
+
+<p>"It <i>was</i> I who told you, after all!" she said.
+"Aren't you glad? Because that wasn't a bit
+literary."</p>
+
+<p>"You didn't. I told you," he retorted.</p>
+
+<p>"Not you!" she said scornfully. "That
+would have been too obvious."</p><hr class="chap" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2>THE LIE ABSOLUTE</h2>
+
+
+<div class='cap'>THE tradesmen's books, orderly spread, lay on
+the rose-wood writing-table, each adorned
+by its own just pile of gold and silver coin.
+The books at the White House were paid weekly,
+and paid in cash. It had always been so. The
+brown holland blinds were lowered half-way.
+The lace curtains almost met across the windows.
+Thus, while, without, July blazed on lawns and
+paths and borders, in this room a cool twilight
+reigned. A leisured quiet, an ordered ease,
+reigned there too, as they had done for every
+day of Dorothea's thirty-five years. The White
+House was one of those to which no change
+comes. None but Death, and Death, however
+he may have wrung the heart or stunted the
+soul of the living, had been powerless to change
+outward seemings. Dorothea had worn a black
+dress for a while, and she best knew what tears
+she had wept and for what long months the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span>
+light of life had gone out of all things. But the
+tears had not blinded her eyes to the need of a
+mirror-polish on the old mahogany furniture,
+and all through those months there had been, at
+least, the light of duty. The house must be
+kept as her dead mother had kept it. The three
+prim maids and the gardener had been "in the
+family" since Dorothea was a girl of twenty&mdash;a
+girl with hopes and dreams and fond imaginings
+that, spreading bright wings, wandered over
+a world far other than this dainty, delicate, self-improving,
+coldly charitable, unchanging existence.
+Well, the dreams and the hopes and the
+fond imaginings had come home to roost. He
+who had set them flying had gone away: he
+had gone to see the world. He had not come
+back. He was seeing it still; and all that was
+left of a girl's first romance was in certain neat
+packets of foreign letters in the drawer of the
+rose-wood table, and in the disciplined soul of
+the woman who sat before it "doing the books."
+Monday was the day for this. Every day had
+its special duties: every duty its special hour.
+While the mother had stayed there had been
+love to give life to this life that was hardly life<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span>
+at all. Now the mother was gone it sometimes
+seemed to Dorothea that she had not lived for
+these fifteen years&mdash;and that even the life before
+had been less life than a dream of it. She
+sighed.</div>
+
+<p>"I'm old," she said, "and I'm growing
+silly."</p>
+
+<p>She put her pen neatly in the inkstand tray:
+it was an old silver pen, and an old inkstand of
+S�vres porcelain. Then she went out into the
+garden by the French window, muffled in jasmine,
+and found herself face to face with a
+stranger, a straight well-set-up man of forty or
+thereabouts, with iron-grey hair and a white
+moustache. Before his hand had time to reach
+the Panama hat she knew him, and her heart
+leaped up and sank sick and trembling. But
+she said:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"To whom have I the pleasure&mdash;?"</p>
+
+<p>The man caught her hands.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Dolly," he said, "don't you know me?
+I should have known you anywhere."</p>
+
+<p>A rose-flush deepened on her face.</p>
+
+<p>"It can't be Robert?"</p>
+
+<p>"Can't it? And how are you, Dolly? Everything's<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span>
+just the same&mdash;By Jove! the very
+same heliotropes and pansies in the very same
+border&mdash;and the jasmine and the sundial and
+everything."</p>
+
+<p>"They tell me the trees have grown," she said.
+"I like to think it's all the same. Why didn't
+you tell me you were coming home? Come in."</p>
+
+<p>She led him through the hall with the barometer
+and the silver-faced clock and the cases
+of stuffed birds.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know. I wanted to surprise you&mdash;and,
+by George! I've surprised myself. It's
+beautiful. It's all just as it used to be, Dolly."</p>
+
+<p>The tears came into her eyes. No one had
+called her Dolly since the mother went, whose
+going had made everything, for ever, other than
+it used to be.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll tell them you're staying for lunch."</p>
+
+<p>She got away on that, and stood a moment in
+the hall, before the stuffed fox with the duck
+in its mouth, to catch strongly at her lost
+composure.</p>
+
+<p>If anyone had had the right to ask the reason
+of her agitation, and had asked it, Dorothea
+would have said that the sudden happening of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span>
+anything was enough to upset one in whose life
+nothing ever happened. But no one had the
+right.</p>
+
+<p>She went into the kitchen to give the necessary
+orders.</p>
+
+<p>"Not the mince," she said; "or, stay. Yes,
+that would do, too. You must cook the fowl
+that was for to-night's dinner&mdash;and Jane can go
+down to the village for something else for to-night.
+And salad and raspberries. And I will
+put out some wine. My cousin, Mr. Courtenay,
+has come home from India. He will lunch with
+me."</p>
+
+<p>"Master Bob," said the cook, as the kitchen
+door closed, "well, if I ever did! He's a married
+man by this time, with young folkses growing
+up around him, I shouldn't wonder. He never
+did look twice the same side of the road where
+she was. Poor Miss Dolly!"</p>
+
+<p>Most of us are mercifully ignorant of the
+sympathy that surrounds us.</p>
+
+<p>"It's wonderful," he said, when she rejoined
+him in the drawing-room. "I feel like the
+Prodigal Son. When I think of the drawing-rooms
+I've seen. The gim-crack trumpery, the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span>
+curtains and the pictures and the furniture constantly
+shifted, the silly chatter, the obvious
+curios, the commonplace rarities, the inartistic
+art, and the brainless empty chatter, spiteful as
+often as not, and all the time <i>this</i> has been
+going on beautifully, quietly, perfectly. Dolly,
+you're a lucky girl!"</p>
+
+<p>To her face the word brought a flush that
+almost justified it.</p>
+
+<p>They talked: and he told her how all these
+long years he had wearied for the sight of English
+fields, and gardens, of an English home like
+this&mdash;till he almost believed that he was speaking
+the truth.</p>
+
+<p>He looked at Dorothea with long, restful
+hands quietly folded, as she talked in the darkened
+drawing-room, at Dorothea with busy,
+skilful hands among the old silver and the old
+glass and the old painted china at lunch. He
+listened through the drowsy afternoon to Dorothea's
+gentle, high-bred, low-toned voice, to the
+music of her soft, rare laugh, as they sat in the
+wicker-chairs under the weeping ash on the lawn.</p>
+
+<p>And he thought of other women&mdash;a crowd of
+them, with high, shrill tones and constant foolish<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span>
+cackle of meaningless laughter; of the atmosphere
+of paint, powder, furbelows, flirtation,
+empty gaiety, feverish flippancy. He thought,
+too, of women, two and three, whose faces stood
+out from the crowd and yet were of it. And
+he looked at Dorothea's delicate worn face and
+her honest eyes with the faint lines round them.</p>
+
+<p>As he went through the hush of the evening
+to his rooms at the "Spotted Dog" the thought
+of Dorothea, of her house, her garden, her peaceful
+ordered life stirred him to a passion of appreciation.
+Out of the waste and desert of his
+own life, with its memories of the far country
+and the husks and the swine, he seemed to be
+looking through a window at the peaceful life&mdash;as
+a hungry, lonely tramp may limp to a
+lamp-lit window, and peering in, see father and
+mother and round-faced children, and the table
+spread whitely, and the good sure food that to
+these people is a calm certainty, like breathing
+or sleeping, not a joyous accident, or one of the
+great things that man was taught to pray for.
+The tramp turns away with a curse or a groan,
+according to his nature, and goes on his way
+cursing or groaning, or, if the pinch be fierce,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span>
+he tries the back door or the unguarded window.
+With Robert the pang of longing was
+keen, and he was minded to try any door&mdash;not
+to beg for the broken meats of cousinly kindness,
+but to enter as master into that "better
+place" wherein Dorothea had found so little of
+Paradise.</p>
+
+<p>It was no matter of worldly gain. The
+Prodigal had not wasted his material substance
+on the cheap husks that cost so dear. He had
+money enough and to spare: it was in peace
+and the dignity of life that he now found
+himself to be bankrupt.</p>
+
+<p>As for Dorothea, when she brushed her long
+pale hair that night she found that her hands
+were not so steady as usual, and in the morning
+she was quite shocked to note that she had
+laid her hair-pins on the left-hand side of the
+pin-cushion instead of on the right, a thing she
+had not done for years.</p>
+
+<p>It was at the end of a week, a week of long
+sunny days and dewy dark evenings spent in
+the atmosphere that had enslaved him. Dinner
+was over. Robert had smoked his cigar among
+the garden's lengthening shadows. Now he and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span>
+Dorothea were at the window watching the
+light of life die beautifully on the changing face
+of the sky.</p>
+
+<p>They had talked as this week had taught
+them to talk&mdash;with the intimacy of old friends
+and the mutual interest of new unexplored acquaintances.
+This is the talk that does not
+weary&mdash;the talk that can only be kept alive
+by the daring of revelation, and the stronger
+courage of unconquerable reserve.</p>
+
+<p>Now there came a silence&mdash;with it seemed
+to come the moment. Robert spoke&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Dorothea," he said, and her mind pricked
+its ears suspiciously because he had not called
+her Dolly.</p>
+
+<p>"Well?"</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder if you understand what these days
+have been to me? I was so tired of the world
+and its follies&mdash;this is like some calm haven
+after a stormy sea."</p>
+
+<p>The words seemed strangely familiar. He
+had a grating sense of talking like a book, and
+something within him sneered at the scruple,
+and said that Dolly would not notice it.</p>
+
+<p>But she said: "I'm sure I've read something<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span>
+like that in a school reading book, but it's
+very touching, of course."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh&mdash;if you're going to mock my holiest
+sentiments," he said lightly&mdash;and withdrew
+from the attack.</p>
+
+<p>The moment seemed to flutter near again
+when she said good night to him in the porch
+where the violet clematis swung against his head
+as he stood. This time his opening was better
+inspired.</p>
+
+<p>"Dolly, dear," he said, "how am I ever to go
+away?"</p>
+
+<p>Her heart leaped against her side, for his tone
+was tender. But so may a cousin's tone be&mdash;even
+a second cousin's, and when one is thirty-five
+she has little to fear from the pitying tenderness
+of her relations.</p>
+
+<p>"I am so glad you have liked being here,"
+she said sedately. "You must come again some
+time."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't want to go away at all," he said.
+"Dolly, won't you let me stay&mdash;won't you
+marry me?"</p>
+
+<p>Almost as he took her hand she snatched it
+from him.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"You must be mad!" she said. "Why on
+earth should you want to marry me?" Also
+she said: "I am old and plain, and you don't
+love me." But she said it to herself.</p>
+
+<p>"I do want it," he said, "and I want it more
+than I want anything."</p>
+
+<p>His tone was convincing.</p>
+
+<p>"But why? but why?"</p>
+
+<p>An impulse of truth-telling came to Robert.</p>
+
+<p>"Because it's all so beautiful," he said with
+straightforward enthusiasm. "All your lovely
+quiet life&mdash;and the house, and these old gardens,
+and the dainty, delicate, firm way you have of
+managing everything&mdash;the whole thing's my
+ideal. It's perfect&mdash;I can't bear any other
+life."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm afraid you'll have to," she said with
+bitter decision. "I am not going to marry a
+man just because he admires my house and
+garden, and is good enough to appreciate my
+methods of household management. Good
+night."</p>
+
+<p>She had shaken his hand coolly and shut the
+front door from within before he could find a
+word. He found one as the latch clicked.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Fool!" he said to himself, and stamped his
+foot.</p>
+
+<p>Dorothea ran up the stairs two at a time to
+say the same word to herself in the stillness of
+her bedroom.</p>
+
+<p>"Fool&mdash;fool&mdash;fool!" she said. "Why
+couldn't I have said 'No' quietly? Why did
+I let him see I was angry? Why should I be
+angry? It's better to be wanted because you're
+a good manager than not to be wanted at all.
+At least, I suppose it is. No&mdash;it <i>isn't!</i> it isn't!
+it isn't! And nothing's any use now. It's all
+gone. If he'd wanted to marry me when I was
+young and pretty I could have made him love
+me. And I <i>was</i> pretty&mdash;I know I was&mdash;I can
+remember it perfectly well!"</p>
+
+<p>Her quiet years had taken from her no least
+little touch of girlish sentiment. The longing to
+be loved was as keen in her as it had been at
+twenty. She cried herself to sleep, and had a
+headache the next day. Also her eyes looked
+smaller than usual and her nose was pink. She
+went and sat in the black shade of a yew, and
+trusted that in that deep shadow her eyes and
+nose would not make Robert feel glad that she<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span>
+had said "No." She wished him to be sorry.
+She had put on the prettiest gown she had, in
+the hope that he <i>would</i> be sorry; then she was
+ashamed of the impulse; also its pale clear
+greenness seemed to intensify the pinkness of her
+nose. So she went back to the trailing grey
+gown. Her wearing of her best Honiton lace
+collar seemed pardonable. He would never notice
+it&mdash;or know that real lace is more becoming
+than anything else. She waited for him in
+the deep shadow, and it was all the morning
+that she waited. For he knew the value of suspense,
+and he had not the generosity that disdains
+the use of the obvious weapon. He was right so
+far, that before he came she had had time to
+wonder whether it was her life's one chance
+of happiness that she had thrown away. But he
+drove the knife home too far, for when at last
+she heard the click of the gate and saw the
+gleam of flannels through the shrubbery, the
+anxious questioning, "Will he come?" "Have
+I offended him beyond recall?" changed at one
+heart-beat to an almost perfect understanding
+of his reasons for delay. She greeted him coldly.
+That he expected. But he saw&mdash;or believed he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span>
+saw&mdash;the relief under the coldness&mdash;and he
+brought up his forces for the attack.</p>
+
+<p>"Dear," he said&mdash;almost at once&mdash;"forgive
+me for last night. It was true, and if I had
+expressed it better you'd have understood. It
+isn't just the house and garden, and the perfect
+life. It's <i>you!</i> Don't you understand what it
+is to come back from the world to all this, and
+you&mdash;you&mdash;you&mdash;the very centre of the
+star?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's all very well," she said, "but that wasn't
+what you said last night."</p>
+
+<p>"It's what I meant," said he. "Dear, don't
+you see how much I want you?"</p>
+
+<p>"But&mdash;I'm old&mdash;and plain, and&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>She looked at him with eyes still heavy from
+last night's tears, and he experienced an unexpected
+impulse of genuine tenderness.</p>
+
+<p>"My dear," he said, "when I first remember
+your mother she was about your age. I used to
+think she was the most beautiful person in the
+world. She seemed to shed happiness and peace
+around her&mdash;like&mdash;like a lamp sheds light.
+And you are just like her. Ah&mdash;don't send
+me away."</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Thank you," she said, struggling wildly with
+the cross currents of emotion set up by his words.
+"Thank you. I have not lived single all these
+years to be married at last because I happen to
+be like my mother."</p>
+
+<p>The words seemed a treason to the dead, and
+the tears filled Dorothea's eyes.</p>
+
+<p>He saw them; he perceived that they ran in
+worn channels, and the impulse of tenderness
+grew.</p>
+
+<p>Till this moment he had spoken only the
+truth. His eyes took in the sunny lawn beyond
+the yew shadow, the still house: the whir of the
+lawn-mower was music at once pastoral and
+patriotic. He heard the break in her voice; he
+saw the girlish grace of her thin shape, the
+pathetic charm of her wistful mouth. And he
+lied with a good heart.</p>
+
+<p>"My dear," he said, with a tremble in his
+voice that sounded like passion, "my dear&mdash;it's
+not for that&mdash;I love you, Dolly&mdash;I think I
+must have loved you all my life!"</p>
+
+<p>And at the light that leaped into her eyes he
+suddenly felt that this lie was nearer truth than
+he had known.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I love you, dear&mdash;I love you," he repeated,
+and the words were oddly pleasant to say.
+"Won't you love me a little, too?"</p>
+
+<p>She covered her face with her hands. She
+could no more have doubted him than she could
+have doubted the God to whom she had prayed
+night and morning for all these lonely years.</p>
+
+<p>"Love you a little?" she said softly. "Ah!
+Robert, don't you know that I've loved you all
+my life?"</p>
+
+<p>So a lie won what truth could not gain. And
+the odd thing is that the lie has now grown
+quite true, and he really believes that he has
+always loved her, just as he certainly loves her
+now. For some lies come true in the telling.
+But most of them do not, and it is not wise to
+try experiments.</p><hr class="chap" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2>THE GIRL WITH THE GUITAR</h2>
+
+
+<div class='cap'>THE last strains of the ill-treated, ill-fated
+"Intermezzo" had died away, and after
+them had died away also the rumbling of the
+wheels of the murderous barrel-organ that had
+so gaily executed that, along with the nine other
+tunes of its repertory, to the admiration of the
+housemaid at the window of the house opposite,
+and the crowing delight of the two babies next
+door.</div>
+
+<p>The young man drew a deep breath of relief,
+and lighted the wax candles in the solid silver
+candlesticks on his writing-table, for now the
+late summer dusk was falling, and that organ,
+please Heaven, made full the measure of the
+day's appointed torture. There had been five
+organs since dinner&mdash;and seven in the afternoon&mdash;one
+and all urgently thumping their
+heavy melodies into his brain, to the confusion
+of the thoughts that waited there, eager to marshal<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span>
+themselves, orderly and firm, into the
+phalanx of an article on "The Decadence of
+Criticism."</p>
+
+<p>He filled his pipe, drew paper towards him,
+dipped his pen, and wrote his title on the blank
+page. The silence came round him, soothing
+as a beloved presence, the scent of the may
+bushes in the suburban gardens stole in pleasantly
+through the open windows. After all,
+it was a "quiet neighbourhood" as the advertisement
+had said&mdash;at any rate, in the evening:
+and in the evening a man's best efforts&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><i>Thrum</i>, tum, tum&mdash;<i>Thrum</i>, tum, tum came
+the defiant strumming of a guitar close to the
+window. He sprang to his feet&mdash;this was,
+indeed, too much! But before he could draw
+back the curtains and express himself to the
+intruder, the humming of the guitar was dominated
+by the first words of a song&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class='poem'>
+"Oh picerella del vieni al'mare<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Nella barchetta veletto di fiore</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">La biancha prora somiglia al'altare</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Tutte le stelle favellan d'amor,"</span><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'>and so forth. The performer was evidently
+singing "under her voice," but the effect was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span>
+charming. He stood with his hand on the
+curtain, listening&mdash;and with a pleasure that
+astonished him. The song came to an end with
+a chord in which all the strings twanged their
+best. Then there was silence&mdash;then a sigh,
+and the sound of light moving feet on the
+gravel. He threw back the curtain and leaned
+out of the window.</div>
+
+<p>"Here!" he called to the figure that moved
+slowly towards the gate. She turned quickly,
+and came back two steps. She wore the dress
+of a Contadina, a very smart dress indeed, and
+her hands looked small and white.</p>
+
+<p>"Won't you sing again?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>She hesitated, then struck a chord or two and
+began another of those little tuneful Italian
+songs, all stars and flowers and hearts of gold.
+And again he listened with a quiet pleasure.</p>
+
+<p>"I should like to hear her voice at its full
+strength," he thought&mdash;and now it was time to
+give the vagrant a few coppers, and, shutting the
+window, to leave her to go on to the next front
+garden.</p>
+
+<p>Never had any act seemed so impossible. He
+had watched her through the singing of this last<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span>
+song, and he had grown aware of the beauty of
+her face's oval&mdash;of the fine poise of her head&mdash;and
+of the grace of hands and arms.</p>
+
+<p>"Aren't you tired?" he said. "Wouldn't you
+like to sit down and rest? There is a seat in
+the garden at the side of the house."</p>
+
+<p>Again she hesitated. Then she turned towards
+the quarter indicated and disappeared round the
+laurel bushes.</p>
+
+<p>He was alone in the house&mdash;his people and
+the servants were in the country; the woman
+who came to "do for him" had left for the
+night. He went into the dining-room, dark with
+mahogany and damask, found wine and cake in
+the sideboard cupboard, put them on a tray, and
+took them out through the garden door and round
+to the corner where, almost sheltered by laburnums
+and hawthorns from the view of the people
+next door, the singer and her guitar rested on
+the iron seat.</p>
+
+<p>"I have brought you some wine&mdash;will you
+have it?"</p>
+
+<p>Again that strange hesitation&mdash;then quite
+suddenly the girl put her hands up to her face
+and began to cry.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Here&mdash;I say, you know&mdash;don't&mdash;" he
+said. "Oh, Lord! This is awful. I hardly
+know a word of Italian, and apparently she has
+no English. Here, signorina, ecco, prendi&mdash;vino&mdash;gatto&mdash;No,
+gatto's a cat. I was thinking
+of French. Oh, Lord!"</p>
+
+<p>The Contadina had pulled out a very small
+handkerchief, and was drying her eyes with it.
+She rose.</p>
+
+<p>"No&mdash;don't go," he said eagerly. "I can see
+you are tired out. Sai fatigue� non � vero? Io
+non parlate Italiano, sed vino habet, et cake ante
+vous partez."</p>
+
+<p>She looked at him and spoke for the first
+time.</p>
+
+<p>"It serves me right," she said in excellent,
+yet unfamiliar, English. "I don't understand
+a single word you say! I might have known
+I couldn't do it, though it's just what girls in
+books would do. It would have turned out all
+right with them. Let me go&mdash;thank you very
+much. I am sure you meant to be kind." And
+then she began to cry again.</p>
+
+<p>"Look here," he said, "this is all nonsense,
+you know. You are tired out&mdash;and there's<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span>
+something wrong. What is it? Do drink this,
+and then tell me. Perhaps I can help you."</p>
+
+<p>She drank obediently. Then she said: "I
+have not had anything to eat since last
+night&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He hurriedly cut cake and pressed it upon
+her. He had no time to think, but he was
+aware that this was the most exciting adventure
+that had ever happened to him.</p>
+
+<p>"It's no use&mdash;and it all sounds so silly."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah&mdash;but do tell me!" His voice was
+kinder than he meant it to be. Her eyes filled
+again with tears.</p>
+
+<p>"You don't know how horrid everyone has
+been. Oh&mdash;I never knew before what devils
+people are to you when you're poor&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Is it only that you're poor? Why, that's
+nothing. I'm poor, too."</p>
+
+<p>She laughed. "I'm <i>not</i> poor&mdash;not really."</p>
+
+<p>"What is it, then? You've quarrelled with
+your friends, and&mdash;Ah, tell me&mdash;and let me
+try to help you."</p>
+
+<p>"You <i>are</i> kind&mdash;but&mdash;Well, then&mdash;it's
+like this. My father brought me to England
+from the States a month ago: he's 'made his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span>
+pile': it was in pork, and I always wish he'd
+made it of something else, even canned fruit
+would be better, but that doesn't matter&mdash;We
+didn't know anyone here, of course, and directly
+we got here, he was wired for&mdash;business&mdash;and
+he had to go home again."</p>
+
+<p>"But surely he didn't leave you without
+money."</p>
+
+<p>Her little foot tapped the gravel impatiently.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm coming to that," she said. "Of course
+he didn't. He told me to stay on at the hotel,
+and I did&mdash;and then one night when I was at
+the theatre my maid&mdash;a horrid French thing
+we got in Paris&mdash;packed up all my trunks and
+took all my money, and paid the bill, and went.
+The hotel folks let her go&mdash;I can't think how
+people can be so silly. But they wouldn't let
+me stay, and I wired to papa&mdash;and there was
+no answer, and I don't know whatever's the
+matter with him. I know it all sounds as if I
+was making it up as I go along&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>She stopped short, and looked at him through
+the dusk. He did not speak, but whatever she
+saw in his face it satisfied her. She said again:
+"You <i>are</i> kind."</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Go on," he said, "tell me all about it."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then, I went into lodgings; that
+wicked woman had left me one street suit&mdash;and
+to-day they turned me out because my money
+was all gone. I had a little money in my purse&mdash;and
+this dress had been ordered for a fancy
+ball&mdash;it <i>is</i> smart, isn't it?&mdash;and it came after
+that wretch had gone&mdash;and the guitar, too&mdash;and
+I thought I could make a little money. I
+really <i>can</i> sing, though you mightn't think it.
+And I've been at it since five o'clock&mdash;and I've
+only got one shilling and seven pence. And no
+one but you has ever even thought of thinking
+whether I was tired or hungry or anything&mdash;and
+papa always took such care of me. I feel
+as if I had been beaten."</p>
+
+<p>"Let me think," he said. "Oh&mdash;how glad I
+am that you happened to come this way."</p>
+
+<p>He reflected a moment. Then he said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I shall lock up all the doors and windows in
+the house&mdash;and then I shall give you my latch-key,
+and you can let yourself in and stay the
+night here&mdash;there is no one in the house. I will
+catch the night train, and bring my mother up
+to-morrow. Then we will see what can be
+done."</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The only excuse for this rash young man is to
+be found in the fact that while he was feeding
+his strange guest with cake and wine she was
+feeding, with her beauty, the first fire of his first
+love. Love at first sight is all nonsense, we
+know&mdash;we who have come to forty year&mdash;but
+at twenty-one one does not somehow recognise it
+for the nonsense it is.</p>
+
+<p>"But don't you know anyone in London?"
+he asked in a sensible postscript.</p>
+
+<p>It was not yet so dark but that he could see
+the crimson flush on her face.</p>
+
+<p>"Not <i>know</i>," she said. "Papa wouldn't like
+me to spoil my chances of knowing the right
+people with any foolishness like this. There's
+no one I could <i>let</i> know. You see, papa's so very
+rich, and at home they expect me to&mdash;to get
+acquainted with dukes and things&mdash;and&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>She stopped.</p>
+
+<p>"American heiresses are expected to marry
+English dukes," he said, with a distinct physical
+pain at his heart.</p>
+
+<p>"It wasn't I who said that," said the girl,
+smiling; "but that's so, anyhow." And then
+she sighed.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"So it's your destiny to marry a duke, is it?"
+the young man spoke slowly. "All the same,"
+he added irrelevantly, "you shall have the latch-key."</p>
+
+<p>"You <i>are</i> kind," she said for the third time,
+and reached her hand out to him. He did not
+kiss it then, only took it in his, and felt how
+small and cold it was. Then it was taken away.</p>
+
+<p>He says that he only talked to her for half an
+hour&mdash;but the neighbours, from whose eyes
+suburban hawthorns and laburnums are powerless
+to conceal the least of our actions, declare
+that he sat with the guitar player on the iron
+seat till well after midnight; further, that when
+they parted he kissed her hand, and that she
+then put her hands on his shoulders&mdash;"quite
+shamelessly, you know"&mdash;and kissed him
+lightly on both cheeks. It is known that he
+passed the night prowling in our suburban lanes,
+and caught the 6.25 train in the morning to the
+place where his people were staying.</p>
+
+<p>The lady and the guitar certainly passed the
+night at Hill View Villa, but when his mother,
+very angry and very frightened, came up with
+him at about noon, the house looked just as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span>
+usual, and no one was there but the charwoman.</p>
+
+<p>"An adventuress! I told you so!" said his
+mother at once&mdash;and the young man sat down
+at his study table and looked at the title of his
+article on "The Decadence of Criticism." It
+was surely a very long time ago that he had
+written that. And he sat there thinking, till his
+mother's voice roused him.</p>
+
+<p>"The silver is all right, thank goodness," she
+said, "but your banjo girl has taken a pair of
+your sister's silk stockings, and those new shoes
+of hers with the silver buckles&mdash;and she's left
+<i>these</i>."</p>
+
+<p>She held out a pair of little patent leather
+shoes, very worn and dusty&mdash;the slender silken
+web of a black stocking, brown with dust, hung
+from her hand. He answered nothing. She
+spent the rest of that day in searching the house
+for further losses, but all things were in their
+place, except the silver-handled button-hook&mdash;and
+that, as even his sister owned, had been
+missing for months.</p>
+
+<p>Yet his family would never leave him to keep
+house alone again: they said he is not to be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span>
+trusted. And perhaps they are right. The half
+dozen pairs of embroidered silk stockings and
+the dainty French silver-buckled shoes, which
+arrived a month later addressed to Miss &mdash;&mdash;,
+Hill View Villa, only confirmed their distrust.
+<i>He</i> must have had them sent&mdash;that tambourine
+girl could never have afforded these&mdash;why, they
+were pure silk&mdash;and the quality! It was plain
+that his castanet girl&mdash;his mother and sister
+took a pleasure in crediting her daily with some
+fresh and unpleasing instrument&mdash;could have
+had neither taste, money, nor honesty to such a
+point as this.</p>
+
+<p>As for the young man, he bore it all very
+meekly, only he was glad when his essays on
+the decadence of things in general led to a berth
+on the staff of a big daily, and made it possible
+for him to take rooms in town&mdash;because he had
+grown weary of living with his family, and of
+hearing so constantly that She played the bones
+and the big drum and the concertina, and that
+She was a twopenny adventuress who stole his
+sister's shoes and stockings. He prefers to sit
+in his quiet room in the Temple, and to remember
+that she played the guitar and sang sweetly&mdash;that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span>
+she had a mouth like a tired child's
+mouth, that her eyes were like stars, and that
+she kissed him&mdash;on both cheeks&mdash;and that he
+kissed&mdash;her hand only&mdash;as the scandalised
+suburb knows.</p><hr class="chap" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2>THE MAN WITH THE BOOTS</h2>
+
+
+<div class='cap'>A YOUNG man with a little genius, a gift of
+literary expression, and a distaste not
+only for dissipation, but for the high-toned social
+functions of his suburban acquaintances, may go
+far&mdash;once he has chosen journalism for a profession,
+and has realised that to success in any
+profession a heart-whole service is necessary. A
+certain young man, having been kissed in his
+own garden by a girl with a guitar, ceased to
+care for evening parties, and devoted himself
+steadily to work. His relaxations were rowing
+down the Thames among the shipping, and
+thinking of the girl. In two years he was sent
+to Paris by the Thunderer&mdash;to ferret out information
+about a certain financial naughtiness
+which threatened a trusting public in general,
+and, in particular, a little band of blameless
+English shareholders.</div><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The details of the scheme are impertinent to
+the present narrative.</p>
+
+<p>The young man went to Paris and began to
+enjoy himself.</p>
+
+<p>He had good introductions. He had once
+done a similar piece of business before&mdash;but
+then luck aided him. As I said, he enjoyed
+himself, but he did not see his way to accomplishing
+his mission. But his luck stood by
+him, as you will see, in a very remarkable manner.
+At a masked ball he met a very charming
+Corsican lady. She was dressed as a nun, but
+the eyes that sparkled through her mask might
+have taxed the resources of the most competent
+abbess. She spoke very agreeable English, and
+she was very kind to the young man, indicated
+the celebrities&mdash;she seemed to know everyone&mdash;whom
+she recognised quite easily in their
+carnival disguises, and at last she did him the
+kindness to point out a stout cardinal, and
+named the name of the very Jew who was
+pulling the strings of the very business which
+had brought the young man to Paris.</p>
+
+<p>The young man's lucky star shone full on him,
+and dazzled him to a seeming indiscretion.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"He looks rather a beast," he said.</p>
+
+<p>The nun clapped her hands.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh&mdash;he <i>is!</i>" she said. "If you knew all
+that I could tell you about him!"</p>
+
+<p>It was with the distinct idea of knowing all
+that the lady could tell about the Jew that our
+hero devoted himself to her throughout that evening,
+and promised to call on her the next day.
+He made himself very amiable indeed, and if
+you think that he should not have done this,
+I can only say that I am sorry, but facts are
+facts.</p>
+
+<p>When he put her into her carriage&mdash;a very
+pretty little brougham&mdash;he kissed her hand.
+He did not do this because he desired to do
+it, as in the case of the Girl with the Guitar,
+but purely as a matter of business. If you
+blame him here I can only say "� la guerre
+comme � la guerre&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Next day he called on her. She received him
+in a charming yellow silk boudoir and gave him
+tea and sweets. Unmasked, the lady was seen
+to be of uncommon beauty. He did not make
+love to her&mdash;but he was very nice, and she
+asked him to come again.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>It was at their third interview that his star
+shone again, and again dazzled him to indiscreetness.
+He told the beautiful lady exactly why
+he wanted to know all that she could tell him
+about the Jew financier. The beautiful lady
+clapped her hands till all her gold bangles
+rattled musically, and said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"But I will tell you all&mdash;everything! I felt
+that you wished to know&mdash;but I thought ...
+however ... are you sure it will all be in your
+paper?"</p>
+
+<p>"But yes, Madame!" said he.</p>
+
+<p>Then she folded her hands on the greeny
+satin lap of her tea-gown, and told him many
+things. And as she spoke he pieced things together,
+and was aware that she spoke the
+truth.</p>
+
+<p>When she had finished speaking, his mission
+was almost accomplished. His luck had done
+all this for him. The lady promised even documents
+and evidence. Then he thanked her, and
+she said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"No thanks, please. I suppose this will ruin
+him?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm afraid it will," said he.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>She gave a little sigh of contentment.</p>
+
+<p>"But why&mdash;?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't mind, somehow, telling <i>you</i> anything,"
+she said, and indeed as it seemed with
+some truth. "He&mdash;he did me the honour to
+admire me&mdash;and now he has behaved like the
+pig he is."</p>
+
+<p>"And so you have betrayed him&mdash;told
+me the things he told you when he loved
+you?"</p>
+
+<p>She snapped her fingers, and the opals and
+rubies of her rings shone like fire.</p>
+
+<p>"Love!" she said scornfully.</p>
+
+<p>Then he began to be a little ashamed and
+sorry for his part in this adventure, and he
+said so.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah&mdash;don't be sorry," she said softly. "I
+<i>wanted</i> to betray him. I was simply longing to
+do it&mdash;only I couldn't think of the right person
+to betray him to! But you are the right person,
+Monsieur. I am indeed fortunate!"</p>
+
+<p>A little shiver ran through him. But he had
+gone too far to retreat.</p>
+
+<p>"And the documents, Madame?"</p>
+
+<p>"I will give you them to-morrow. There is a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span>
+ball at the American Embassy. I can get you a
+card."</p>
+
+<p>"I have one." He had indeed made it his first
+business to get one&mdash;was not the Girl with the
+Guitar an American, and could he dare to waste
+the least light chance of seeing her again?</p>
+
+<p>"Well&mdash;be there at twelve, and you shall have
+everything. But," she looked sidelong at him,
+"will Monsieur be very kind&mdash;very attentive&mdash;in
+short, devote himself to me&mdash;for this one
+evening? <i>He</i> will be there."</p>
+
+<p>He murmured something banal about the
+devotion of a lifetime, and went away to his
+lodging in a remote suburb, which he had chosen
+because he loved boating.</p>
+
+<p>The next night at twelve saw him lounging, a
+gloomy figure, on a seat in an ante-room at the
+Embassy. He knew that the Lady was within,
+yet he could not go to her. He sat there despairingly,
+trying to hope that even now something
+might happen to save him. Yet, as it
+seemed, nothing short of a miracle could. But
+his star shone, and the miracle happened. For,
+as he sat, a radiant vision, all white lace and
+diamonds, detached itself from the arm of a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span>
+grey-bearded gentleman, and floated towards
+him.</p>
+
+<p>"It <i>is</i> you!" said the darling vision, and the
+next moment his hands&mdash;both hands&mdash;were
+warmly clasped by little white-gloved ones, and
+he was standing looking into the eyes of the
+Girl.</p>
+
+<p>"I knew I should see you somewhere&mdash;this
+continent <i>is</i> so tiny," she said. "Come right
+along and be introduced to Papa&mdash;that's him
+over there."</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;I can't," he answered, in an agony. "I&mdash;my
+pocket's been picked&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Do tell!" said the Girl, laughing; "but
+Papa doesn't want tipping&mdash;he's got all he
+wants&mdash;come right along."</p>
+
+<p>"I can't," he said, hoarse with the misery of
+the degrading confession; "it wasn't my money&mdash;it
+was my <i>shoes</i>. I came up in boots, brown
+boots; distant suburb; train; my shoes were in
+my overcoat pocket&mdash;I meant to change in the
+cab. I must have dropped them or they were
+taken out. And here I am in these things."
+He looked down at his bright brown boots.
+"And all the shops are shut&mdash;and my whole<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span>
+future depends on my getting into that room
+within the next half-hour. But never mind!
+Why should <i>you</i> bother?&mdash;Besides, what does
+it matter? I've seen you again. You'll speak
+to me as you come back? I'll wait all night for
+a word."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't be so silly," said the Girl; but she
+smiled very prettily, and her dear eyes sparkled.
+"If it's <i>really</i> important, I'll fix it for you!
+But why does your future depend on it, and
+all that?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have to meet a lady," said the wretched
+young man.</p>
+
+<p>"The one you were with at the masked ball?
+The nun? Yes&mdash;I made Papa take me. <i>Is</i>
+it that one?" Her tone was imperious, but it
+was anxious too.</p>
+
+<p>He looked imploringly at her. "Yes, but&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You shall have the shoes, all the same," she
+interrupted, and turned away before he could
+add a word.</p>
+
+<p>A moment later the grey-bearded gentleman
+was bowing to him.</p>
+
+<p>"My girl tells me you're in a corner for want
+of shoes, Sir. Mine are at your service&mdash;we<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span>
+seem about of a size&mdash;we can change behind
+that pillar."</p>
+
+<p>"But," stammered the young man, "it's too
+much&mdash;I can't&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"It's nothing at all, Sir," said the man with
+the grey beard warmly; "nothing compared to
+the way you stood by my girl! Shake! John
+B. Warner don't forget."</p>
+
+<p>"I can't thank you," said the other, when
+they had shaken hands. "If you will&mdash;just
+for a short time! I'll be back in half an
+hour&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He was back in two minutes. The first face
+he saw when he had made his duty bows was
+the face of the Beautiful Lady. She was
+radiant: and beside her stood her Jew, also
+radiant. <i>They had made it up.</i> And what is
+more&mdash;though he never knew it&mdash;they had
+made it up in that half-hour of delay caused
+by the Boots. The Lady passed our hero without
+a word or even a glance to acknowledge
+acquaintanceship, and he saw that the game
+was absolutely up. He swore under his breath.
+But the next moment he laughed to himself
+with a free heart. After all&mdash;for any documents,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span>
+any evidence, for any success in any
+walk of life, how could he have borne to devote
+himself, as he had promised to do, to that
+Corsican lady, while the Girl, <i>the</i> Girl, was in
+the room? And he perceived now that he
+should not even use the information he already
+had. It did not seem fitting that one to whom
+the Girl stooped to speak, for ever so brief a
+moment, should play the part of a spy&mdash;in
+however good a cause.</p>
+
+<p>"Back already?" said the old gentleman.</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you&mdash;my business is completed."</p>
+
+<p>The young man resumed his brown boots.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, Papa," said the Girl, "just go right
+along and do your devoirs in there&mdash;and I'll
+stay and talk to <i>him</i>&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>The father went obediently.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you quarrelled with her, then?" asked
+the Girl, her eyes on the diamond buckles of
+her satin shoes.</p>
+
+<p>He told her everything&mdash;or nearly.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," she said decisively, "I'm glad you're
+out of it, anyway. Don't worry about it. It's
+a nasty trade. Papa'll find you a berth. Come
+out to the States and edit one of his papers!"</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"You told me he was a millionaire! I suppose
+everything went all right? He didn't lose
+his money or anything?" His tone was wistful.</p>
+
+<p>"Not he! You don't know Papa!" said the
+Girl; "but, say, you're not going to be too
+proud to be acquainted with a self-made man?"</p>
+
+<p>He didn't answer.</p>
+
+<p>"Say," said she again, "I don't take so much
+stock in dukes as I used to." She laid a hand
+on his arm.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't make a fool of me," said the young
+man, speaking very low.</p>
+
+<p>"I won't,"&mdash;her voice was a caress,&mdash;"but
+Papa shall make Something of you. You don't
+know Papa! He can make men's fortunes as
+easily as other folks make men's shoes. And
+he always does what I tell him. Aren't you
+glad to see me again? And don't you remember&mdash;?"
+said she, looking at him so
+kindly that he lost his head and&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! haven't you forgotten?" said he.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>That is about all there is of the story. He
+is now a Something&mdash;and he has married the
+Girl. If you think that a young man of comparatively<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span>
+small income should not marry the girl
+he loves because her father happens to have made
+money in pork, I can only remind you that
+your opinion is not shared by the bulk of our
+English aristocracy. And they don't even bother
+about the love, as often as not.</p><hr class="chap" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2>THE SECOND BEST</h2>
+
+
+<div class='cap'>THE letter was brief and abrupt.</div>
+
+<p>"I am in London. I have just come back
+from Jamaica. Will you come and see me? I
+can be in at any time you appoint."</p>
+
+<p>There was no signature, but he knew the
+handwriting well enough. The letter came to
+him by the morning post, sandwiched between
+his tailor's bill and a catalogue of Rare and
+Choice Editions.</p>
+
+<p>He read it twice. Then he got up from the
+breakfast-table, unlocked a drawer, and took
+out a packet of letters and a photograph.</p>
+
+<p>"I ought to have burned them long ago," he
+said; "I'll burn them now." He did burn them
+but first he read them through, and as he read
+them he sighed, more than once. They were
+passionate, pretty letters,&mdash;the phrases simply
+turned, the endearments delicately chosen. They
+breathed of love and constancy and faith, a faith<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span>
+that should move mountains, a love that should
+shine like gold in the furnace of adversity,
+a constancy that death itself should be powerless
+to shake. And he sighed. No later love
+had come to draw with soft lips the poison
+from this old wound. She had married Benoliel,
+the West Indian Jew. It is a far cry
+from Jamaica to London, but some whispers
+had reached her jilted lover. The kindest of
+them said that Benoliel neglected his wife, the
+harshest, that he beat her.</p>
+
+<p>He looked at the photograph. It was two
+years since he had seen the living woman. Yet
+still, when he shut his eyes, he could see the
+delicate tints, the coral, and rose, and pearl,
+and gold that went to the making up of her.
+He could always see these. And now he should
+see the reality. Would the two years have
+dulled that bright hair, withered at all that
+flower-face? For he never doubted that he
+must go to her.</p>
+
+<p>He was a lawyer; perhaps she wanted that
+sort of help from him, wanted to know how to
+rid herself of the bitter bad bargain that she had
+made in marrying the Jew. Whatever he could
+do he would, of course, but<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span>&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>He went out at once and sent a telegram to
+her.</p>
+
+<p>"Four to-day."</p>
+
+<p>And at four o'clock he found himself on the
+doorstep of a house in Eaton Square. He hated
+the wealthy look of the house, the footman who
+opened the door, and the thick carpets of the
+stairs up which he was led. He hated the soft
+luxury of the room in which he was left to wait
+for her. Everything spoke, decorously and without
+shouting, but with unmistakable distinctness,
+of money, Benoliel's money: money that had been
+able to buy all these beautiful things, and, as one
+of them, to buy her.</p>
+
+<p>She came in quietly. Long simple folds of
+grey trailed after her: she wore no ornament of
+any kind. Her fingers were ringless, every one.
+He saw all this, but before he saw anything else
+he saw that the two years had taken nothing
+from her charm, had indeed but added a wistful
+patient look that made her seem more a child
+than when he had last seen her.</p>
+
+<p>The meaningless contact of their hands was
+over, and still neither had spoken. She was
+looking at him questioningly. The silence<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span>
+appeared silly; there was, and there could be,
+no emotion to justify, to transfigure it. He
+spoke.</p>
+
+<p>"How do you do?" he said.</p>
+
+<p>She drew a deep breath, and lifted her eyebrows
+slightly.</p>
+
+<p>"Won't you sit down?" she said; "you are
+looking just like you used to." She had the
+tiniest lisp; once it had used to charm him.</p>
+
+<p>"You, too, are quite your old self," he said.
+Then there was a pause.</p>
+
+<p>"Aren't you going to say anything?" she said.</p>
+
+<p>"It was you who sent for me," said he.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Why did you?"</p>
+
+<p>"I wanted to see you." She opened her
+pretty child-eyes at him, and he noted, only to
+bitterly resent, the appeal in them. He remembered
+that old appealing look too well.</p>
+
+<p>"No, Madam," he said inwardly, "not again!
+You can't whistle the dog to heel at your will
+and pleasure. I was a fool once, but I'm not
+fool enough to play the fool with Benoliel's
+wife."</p>
+
+<p>Aloud he said, smiling<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span>&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose you did, or you would not have
+written. And now what can I do for you?"</p>
+
+<p>She leaned forward to look at him.</p>
+
+<p>"Then you really have forgotten? You didn't
+grieve for me long! You used to say you would
+never leave off loving me as long as you lived."</p>
+
+<p>"My dear Mrs. Benoliel," he said, "if I ever
+said anything so thoughtless as that, I certainly
+<i>have</i> forgotten it."</p>
+
+<p>"Very well," she said; "then go!"</p>
+
+<p>This straight hitting embarrassed him mortally.</p>
+
+<p>"But," he said, "I've not forgotten that you
+and I were once friends for a little while, and I
+do beg you to consider me as a friend. Let me
+help you. You must have some need of a
+friend's services, or you would not have sent for
+me. I assure you I am entirely at your commands.
+Come, tell me how I can help you&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You can't help me at all," she said hopelessly,
+"nobody can now."</p>
+
+<p>"I've heard&mdash;I hope you'll forgive me for
+saying so&mdash;I've heard that your married life
+has been&mdash;hasn't been&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"My married life has been hell," she said;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span>
+"but I don't want to talk about that. I deserved
+it all."</p>
+
+<p>"But, my dear lady, why not get a divorce or,
+at least, a separation? My services&mdash;anything
+I can do to advise or&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>She sprang from her chair and knelt beside
+him.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, how <i>could</i> you think that of me? How
+could you? He's dead&mdash;Benoliel's dead. I
+thought you'd understand that by my sending to
+you. Do you think I'd ever have seen you again
+as long as <i>he</i> was alive? I'm not a wicked
+woman, dear, I'm only a fool."</p>
+
+<p>She had caught the hand that lay on the arm
+of his chair, her face was pressed on it, and on
+it he could feel her tears and her kisses.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't," he said harshly, "don't." But he
+could not bring himself to draw his hand away
+otherwise than very gently, and after a decent
+pause. He stood up and held out his hand.
+She put hers in it, he raised her to her feet
+and put her back in her chair, and artfully
+entrenching himself behind a little table, sat
+down in a very stiff chair with a high seat and
+gilt legs.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>She laughed. "Oh, don't trouble! You
+needn't barricade yourself like a besieged castle.
+Don't be afraid of me. You're really quite safe.
+I'm not so mad as you think. Only, you know,
+all this time I've never been able to get the idea
+out of my head&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He was afraid to ask what idea.</p>
+
+<p>"I always believed you meant it; that you
+always would love me, just as you said. I was
+wrong, that's all. Now go! Do go!"</p>
+
+<p>He was afraid to go.</p>
+
+<p>"No," he said, "let's talk quietly, and like
+the old friends we were before we&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Before we weren't. Well?"</p>
+
+<p>He was now afraid to say anything.</p>
+
+<p>"Look here," she said suddenly, "let <i>me</i> talk.
+There are some things I do really want to say,
+since you won't let it go without saying. One is
+that I know now you're not so much to blame
+as I thought, and I <i>do</i> forgive you. I mean it,
+really, not just pretending forgiveness; I forgive
+you altogether&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>You</i>&mdash;forgive <i>me?</i>"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, didn't you understand that that was
+what I meant? I didn't want to <i>say</i> 'I forgive<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span>
+you,' and I thought if I sent for you you'd
+understand."</p>
+
+<p>"You seem to have thought your sending for
+me a more enlightening move than I found it."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;because you don't care now. If you
+had, you'd have understood."</p>
+
+<p>"I really think I should like to understand."</p>
+
+<p>"What?"</p>
+
+<p>"Exactly what it is you're kind enough to
+forgive."</p>
+
+<p>"Why&mdash;your never coming to see me. Benoliel
+told me before we'd been married a month
+that he had got my aunt to stop your letters and
+mine, so I don't blame you now as I did then.
+But you might have come when you found I
+didn't write."</p>
+
+<p>"I did come. The house was shut up, and
+the caretaker could give no address."</p>
+
+<p>"Did you really? And there was no address?
+I never thought of that."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't suppose you did," he said savagely;
+"you never <i>did</i> think!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I <i>was</i> a fool! I was!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"But I have been punished."</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Not you!" he said. "You got what you
+wanted&mdash;money, money, money&mdash;the only
+thing I couldn't give you. If it comes to that,
+why didn't <i>you</i> come and see <i>me?</i> I hadn't gone
+away and left no address."</p>
+
+<p>"I never thought of it."</p>
+
+<p>"No, of course not."</p>
+
+<p>"And, besides, you wouldn't have been
+there&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I? I sat day after day waiting for a letter."</p>
+
+<p>"I never thought of it," she said again.</p>
+
+<p>And again he said: "No, of course you didn't;
+you wouldn't, you know&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, don't! please don't! Oh, you don't
+know how sorry I've been&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"But why did you marry him?"</p>
+
+<p>"To spite you&mdash;to show you I didn't care&mdash;because
+I was in a rage&mdash;because I was a fool!
+You might as well tell me at once that you're in
+love with someone else."</p>
+
+<p>"Must one always be in love, then?" he
+sneered.</p>
+
+<p>"I thought men always were," she said simply.
+"Please tell me."</p>
+
+<p>"No, I'm not in love with anybody. I have<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span>
+had enough of that to last me for a year or
+two."</p>
+
+<p>"Then&mdash;oh, won't you try to like me again?
+Nobody will ever love you so much as I do&mdash;you
+said I looked just the same&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, but you <i>aren't</i> the same."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes I am. I think really I'm better than I
+used to be," she said timidly.</p>
+
+<p>"You're <i>not</i> the same," he went on, growing
+angrier to feel that he had allowed himself to
+grow angry with her. "You were a girl, and
+my sweetheart; now you're a widow&mdash;that
+man's widow! You're not the same. The past
+can't be undone so easily, I assure you."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," she cried, clenching her hands, "I know
+there must be something I could say that you
+would listen to&mdash;oh, I wish I could think what!
+I suppose as it is I'm saying things no other
+woman ever would have said&mdash;but I don't care!
+I won't be reserved and dignified, and leave
+everything to you, like girls in books. I lost
+too much by that before. I will say every single
+thing I can think of. I will! Dearest, you said
+you would always love me&mdash;you don't care for
+anyone else. I <i>know</i> you would love me again if<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span>
+you would only let yourself. Won't you forgive
+me?"</p>
+
+<p>"I can't," he said briefly.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you never done anything that needed
+to be forgiven? I would forgive you anything
+in the world! Didn't you care for other people
+before you knew me? And I'm not angry about
+it. And I never cared for him."</p>
+
+<p>"That only makes it worse," he said.</p>
+
+<p>She sprang to her feet. "It makes it worse
+for me! But if you loved me it ought to make
+it better for you. If you had loved me with
+your heart and mind you would be glad to think
+how little it was, after all, that I did give to that
+man."</p>
+
+<p>"Sold&mdash;not gave&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, don't spare me! But there's no need to
+tell <i>you</i> not to spare me. But I don't care what
+you say. You've loved other women. I've
+never loved anyone but you. And yet you can't
+forgive me!"</p>
+
+<p>"It's not the same," he repeated dully.</p>
+
+<p>"I <i>am</i> the same&mdash;only I'm more patient, I
+hope, and not so selfish. But your pride is hurt,
+and you think it's not quite the right thing to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span>
+marry a rich man's widow. And you want to
+go home and feel how strong and heroic you've
+been, and be proud of yourself because you
+haven't let me make a fool of you."</p>
+
+<p>It was so nearly true that he denied it instantly.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't," he said. "I could have forgiven
+you anything, however wicked you'd been&mdash;but
+I can't forgive you for having been&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Been a fool? I can't forgive myself for
+that, either. My dear, my dear, you don't love
+anyone else; you don't hate me. Do you know
+that your eyes are quite changed from what
+they were when you came in? And your
+voice, and your face&mdash;everything. Think, dear,
+if I am not the same woman you loved, I'm
+still more like her than anyone else in the world.
+And you did love me&mdash;oh, don't hate me for
+anything I've said. Don't you see I'm fighting
+for my life? Look at me. I am just like your
+old sweetheart, only I love you more, and I can
+understand better now how not to make you
+unhappy. Ah, don't throw everything away
+without thinking. I <i>am</i> more like the woman
+you loved than anyone else can ever be. Oh,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span>
+my God! my God! what shall I say to him?
+Oh, God help me!"</p>
+
+<p>She had said enough. The one phrase "If I
+am not the same woman you loved, still I am
+more like her than anyone else in the world"
+had struck straight at his heart. It was true.
+What if this, the second best, were now the
+best life had to offer? If he threw this away,
+would any other woman be able to inspire him
+with any sentiment more like love than this
+passion of memory, regret, tenderness, pity&mdash;this
+desire to hold, protect, and comfort, with
+which, ever since her tears fell on his hand, he
+had been fighting in fierce resentment. He
+looked at the huddled grey figure. He must
+decide&mdash;now, at this moment&mdash;he must decide
+for two lives.</p>
+
+<p>But before he had time to decide anything
+he found that he had taken her in his arms.</p>
+
+<p>"My own, my dear," he was saying again and
+again, "I didn't mean it. It wasn't true. I
+love you better than anything. Let's forget it
+all. I don't care for anything now I have you
+again."</p>
+
+<p>"Then why&mdash;"</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Oh, don't let's ask each other questions&mdash;let's
+begin all over again at two years ago.
+We'll forget all the rest&mdash;my dear&mdash;my
+own!"</p>
+
+<p>Of course neither has ever forgotten it, but
+they always pretend to each other that they
+have.</p>
+
+<p>Her defiance of the literary sense in him and
+in her was justified. His literary sense, or some
+deeper instinct, prompted him to refuse to use
+Benoliel's money&mdash;but her acquiescence in his
+decision reversed it. And they live very comfortably
+on the money to this day.</p>
+
+<p>The odd thing is that they are extremely
+happy. Perhaps it is not, after all, such a bad
+thing to be quite sure, before marriage, that the
+second-best happiness is all you are likely to
+get in this world.</p><hr class="chap" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2>A HOLIDAY</h2>
+
+
+<div class='cap'>THE month was June, the street was Gower
+Street, the room was an attic. And in it
+a poet sat, struggling with the rebellious third act
+of the poetic drama that was to set him in the
+immediate shadow of Shakespeare, and on the
+level of those who ring Parnassus round just
+below the summit. The attic roof sloped, the
+furniture was vilely painted in grained yellow,
+the arm-chair's prickly horsehair had broken to
+let loose lumps of dark-coloured flock. The
+curtains were dark and damask and dusty. The
+carpet was Kidderminster and sand-coloured.
+It had holes in it; so had the Dutch hearthrug.
+The poet's penholder was the kind at twopence
+the dozen. The ink was in a penny bottle.
+Outside on a blackened flowerless lilac a strayed
+thrush sang madly of spring and hope and joy
+and love.</div><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The clear strong June sunshine streamed in
+through the window and turned the white of
+the poet's page to a dazzling silver splendour.</p>
+
+<p>"Hang it all!" he cried, and he threw down
+the yellow-brown penholder. "It's too much!
+It's not to be borne! It's not human!"</p>
+
+<p>He turned out his pockets. Two-and-seven-pence.
+He could draw the price of an ode and
+a roundelay from the <i>Spectator</i>&mdash;but not to-day,
+for this was a Bank Holiday, Whit Monday, in
+fact. Then he thought of his tobacco jar. Sure
+enough, there lurked some halfpence among the
+mossy shag, and&mdash;oh, wonder and joy and
+cursed carelessness for ever to be blessed&mdash;a
+gleaming coy half-sovereign. In the ticket-pocket
+of his overcoat a splendid unforeseen shilling&mdash;a
+florin and a sixpence in the velveteen jacket
+he had not worn since last year. Ten&mdash;and
+two&mdash;and one&mdash;and two and sevenpence and
+sixpence&mdash;sixteen shillings and a penny.
+Enough, more than enough, to take him out of
+this world of burst horsehair chairs and greedy
+foolscap, of arid authorship and burst bubbles
+of dreams to the real world, where spring, still<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span>
+laughing, shrank from the kisses of summer,
+where white may blossomed and thrushes sang.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll have a holiday," he said, "who knows&mdash;I
+may get an idea for a poem!"</p>
+
+<p>He cleaned his boots with ink; they were not
+shiny after it, but they were at least black. He
+put on his last clean shirt and the greeny-blue
+Liberty tie that his sister had sent him for his
+April birthday. He brushed his soft hat&mdash;counted
+his money again&mdash;found for it a pocket
+still lacking holes&mdash;and went out whistling.
+The front door slammed behind him with a
+cheerful conclusive bang.</p>
+
+<p>From the top of an omnibus he noted the
+town gilded with June sunlight. And it was
+very good.</p>
+
+<p>He bought food, and had it packed in decent
+brown paper, so that it looked like something
+superfluous from the stores.</p>
+
+<p>And he caught the ten something train to
+Halstead. He only just caught it.</p>
+
+<p>He blundered into a third-class carriage, and
+nearly broke his neck over an umbrella which
+lay across the door like an amateur trap for
+undesired company.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>By some extraordinary apotheosis of Bank
+Holiday mismanagement, there was only one
+person in the carriage&mdash;the owner of the trap-umbrella.
+A girl, of course. That was inevitable
+in this magic weather. He had knocked
+her basket off the seat, and had only just saved
+himself from buffeting her with his uncontrolled
+shoulder before he saw that she was a girl. He
+took off his hat and apologised. She smiled,
+murmured, and blushed.</p>
+
+<p>He settled himself in his corner, and unfolded
+the evening paper of yesterday which, by the
+most fortunate chance, happened to be in his
+pocket.</p>
+
+<p>Over it he glanced at her. She was pretty&mdash;with
+a vague unawakened prettiness. Her eyes
+and hair were dark. Her hat seemed dowdy, yet
+becoming. Her gloves were rubbed at the
+fingers. Her blouse was light and bright. Her
+skirt obscure and severe. He decided that she
+was not well off.</p>
+
+<p>His eyes followed a dull leader on the question
+of the government of India. But he did
+not want to read. He wanted to talk. On this
+June day, when the life of full-grown spring<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span>
+thrilled one to the finger tips, how could one
+feed one's vitality, one's over-mastering joy of
+life, with printer's ink and the greyest paper in
+London?</p>
+
+<p>He glanced at her again. She was looking out
+of the window at the sordid little Bermondsey
+houses, where the red buds of the Virginia
+creeper were already waking to their green
+summer life-work. He spoke. And no one
+would have guessed from his speech that he was
+a poet.</p>
+
+<p>"What a beautiful day!" he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, very," said she, and her tone gave no
+indication of any exuberant spring expansiveness
+to match his own.</p>
+
+<p>He looked at her again. No. Yes. Yes, he
+would try the experiment he had long wanted
+to try&mdash;had often in long, silent, t�te-�-t�te
+journeys dreamed of trying. He would skip all
+the pitiful formalities of chance acquaintanceship.
+He would speak as one human being to another&mdash;would
+assume the sure bond of a common
+kinship. He said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"It is such a beautiful day that I want to
+talk about it! Mayn't I talk to you? Don't<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span>
+you feel that you want to say how beautiful it
+is&mdash;just as much as I do?"</p>
+
+<p>The girl looked at him. A scared fold in her
+brow warned him of the idea that had seized
+her.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm really not mad," he said; "but it does
+seem so frightfully silly that we should travel
+all the way to&mdash;to wherever you are going, and
+not tell each other how good June weather is."</p>
+
+<p>"Well&mdash;it is!" she owned.</p>
+
+<p>He eagerly spoke: he wanted to entangle her
+in talk before her conventional shrinking from
+chance acquaintanceship should shrivel her interest
+past hope.</p>
+
+<p>"I often think how silly people are," he said,
+"not to talk in railway carriages. One can't
+read without blinding oneself. I've seen women
+knit, but that's unspeakable. Many a time in
+frosty, foggy weather, when the South Eastern
+has taken two hours to get from Cannon Street
+to Blackheath, I've looked round the carriage
+and wanted to say, 'Gentlemen, seeing that we
+are thus delayed, let us each contribute to the
+general hilarity by telling a story&mdash;we might
+gather them into a Christmas number afterwards&mdash;in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span>
+the manner of the late Mr. Charles Dickens,'
+then I've looked round the carriage full of
+city-centred people, and wondered how they'd
+deal with the lunatic who ventured to suggest
+such an All-the-year-round idea. But nobody
+could be city-centred on such a day, and so
+early. So let's talk."</p>
+
+<p>She had laughed, as he had meant her to
+laugh. Now she seemed to throw away some
+scruple in the gesture with which she shrugged
+her shoulders and turned to him.</p>
+
+<p>"Very well," she said, and she was smiling.
+"Only I've nothing to say."</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind; I have," he rejoined, and proceeded
+to say it. It seemed amusing to him as
+an experiment to talk to this girl, this perfect
+stranger, with a delicate candour that he would
+not have shown to his oldest friend. It seemed
+interesting to lay bare, save for a veiling of
+woven transparent impersonality, his inmost
+mind. It <i>was</i> interesting, for the revelation drew
+her till they were talking together in a world
+where it seemed no more than natural for her to
+show him her soul: and she had no skill to
+weave veils for it.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Such talk is rare: so rare and so keen a
+pleasure, indeed, as to leave upon one's life, if
+one be not a poet, a mark strong and never to
+be effaced.</p>
+
+<p>The slackening of the train at Halstead broke
+the spell which lay on both with a force equal
+in strength, if diverse in kind.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" she said, "I get out here. Good-bye,
+good-bye."</p>
+
+<p>He would not spoil the parting by banalities
+of hat-raising amid the group of friends or relations
+who would doubtless meet her.</p>
+
+<p>"Good-bye," he said, and his eyes made her
+take his offered hand. "Good-bye. I shall
+never forget you. Never!"</p>
+
+<p>And then it seemed to him that the farewell
+lacked fire: and he lifted her hand to his face.
+He did not kiss it. He laid it against his cheek,
+sighed, and dropped it. The action was delicate
+and very effective. It suggested the impulse,
+almost irresistible yet resisted, the well-nigh
+overwhelming longing to kiss the hand, kept in
+check by a respect that was almost devotion.</p>
+
+<p>She should have torn her hand away. She
+took it away gently, and went.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Leisurely he got out of the train. She had
+disappeared. Well&mdash;the bright little interlude
+was over. Still, it would give food for dreams
+among the ferny woods. The first lines of a
+little song hummed themselves in his brain&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class='poem'>
+"Eyes like stars in the night of life,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Seen but a moment and seen for ever."</span><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'>He would finish them and send them to the <i>Pall
+Mall Gazette</i>. That would be a guinea.</div>
+
+<p>He wished the journey had been longer. He
+would never see her again. Perhaps it was just
+as well. He crushed that last thought. It
+would be good to dwell through the day on the
+thought of her&mdash;the almost loved, the wholly
+lost.</p>
+
+<div class='poem'>
+"That could but have happened once<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">And we missed it, lost it for ever!"</span><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>Her eyes were very pretty, especially when
+they opened themselves so widely as she tried
+to express the thoughts that no one but he had
+ever cared to hear expressed. The definite biography&mdash;dead
+father, ailing mother&mdash;hard work&mdash;hard
+life&mdash;hard-won post as High School
+Mistress, were but as the hoarding on which<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span>
+was pasted the artistic poster of their meeting&mdash;their
+parting. He sighed as he walked along
+the platform. The promise of June had fulfilled
+itself: he was rich in a sorrow that did not hurt&mdash;a
+regret that did not sting. Poor little girl!
+Poor pretty eyes! Poor timid, brave maiden-soul!</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly in his walk he stopped short.</p>
+
+<p>Obliquely through the door of the booking-office
+he saw her. She was alone. No troops
+of friends or relations had borne her off. She
+was waiting for someone; and someone had
+not come.</p>
+
+<p>What was to be done? He felt an odd chill.
+If he had only not taken her hand in that silly
+way which had seemed at the time so artistically
+perfect. The railway carriage talk might have
+been prolonged prettily, indefinitely. But that
+foolish contact had rung up the curtain on a
+transformation scene, whose footlights needed,
+at least, a good make-up for the facing of them.</p>
+
+<p>She stood there&mdash;looking down the road; in
+every line of her figure was dejection; hopelessness
+itself had drawn the line of her head's
+sideward droop. His make-up need be but of
+the simplest.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>She had expected to meet someone, and someone
+had not come.</p>
+
+<p>His chivalric impulses, leaping to meet the
+occasion's call, bade him substitute a splendid
+replacement&mdash;himself, for the laggard tryst-breaker.
+Even though he knew that that touch
+of the hand must inaugurate the second volume
+of the day's romance.</p>
+
+<p>He came behind her and spoke.</p>
+
+<p>"Hasn't he come?" He did not like himself
+for saying "he"&mdash;but he said it. It belonged
+to the second volume.</p>
+
+<p>She turned with a start and a lighting of
+eyes and lips that almost taught him pity.
+Not quite: for the poet's nature is hard to
+teach.</p>
+
+<p>"He?" she said, decently covering the light
+of lips and eyes as soon as might be. "It was
+a friend. She was to come from Sevenoaks.
+She ought to be here. We were to have a
+little picnic together." She glanced at her
+basket. "I didn't know you were getting
+out here. Why&mdash;" The question died on
+trembling lips.</p>
+
+<p>"Why?" he repeated. There was a pause.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"And now, what are you going to do?" he
+asked, and his voice was full of tender raillery
+for her lost tryst with the girl friend, and for
+her pretty helplessness.</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;I don't know," she said.</p>
+
+<p>"But I do!" he looked in her eyes. "You
+are going to be kind. Life is so cruel. You
+are going to help me to cheat Life and Destiny.
+You are going to leave your friend to the waste
+desolation of this place, if she comes by the
+next train: but she won't&mdash;she's kept at home
+by toothache, or a broken heart, or some little
+foolish ailment like that,"&mdash;he prided himself
+on the light touch here,&mdash;"and you are going to
+be adorably kind and sweet and generous, and
+to let me drink the pure wine of life for this
+one day."</p>
+
+<p>Her eyes drooped. Fully inspired, he struck
+a master-chord in the lighter key.</p>
+
+<p>"You have a basket. I have a brown paper
+parcel. Let me carry both, and we will share
+both. We'll go to Chevening Park. It will be
+fun. Will you?"</p>
+
+<p>There was a pause: he wondered whether by
+any least likely chance the chord had not rung
+true. Then<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span>&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," she said half defiantly. "I don't see
+why I shouldn't&mdash;Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Then give me the basket," he said, "and hey
+for the green wood!"</p>
+
+<p>The way led through green lanes&mdash;through
+a green park, where tall red sorrel and white
+daisies grew high among the grass that was up
+for hay. The hawthorns were silvery, the buttercups
+golden. The gold sun shone, the blue sky
+arched over a world of green and glory. And
+so through Knockholt, and up the narrow road
+to the meadow whose path leads to the steep
+wood-way where Chevening Park begins.</p>
+
+<p>They walked side by side, and to both of them&mdash;for
+he was now wholly lost in the delightful
+part for which this good summer world was the
+fitting stage&mdash;to both of them it seemed that
+the green country was enchanted land, and they
+under a spell that could never break.</p>
+
+<p>They talked of all things under the sun: he,
+eager to impress her with that splendid self of
+his; she, anxious to show herself not wholly
+unworthy. She, too, had read her Keats and
+her Shelley and her Browning&mdash;and could cap
+and even overshadow his random quotations.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"There is no one like you," he said as they
+passed the stile above the wood; "no one in this
+beautiful world."</p>
+
+<p>Her heart replied&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"If there is anyone like you I have never
+met him, and oh, thank God, thank God, that I
+have met you now."</p>
+
+<p>Aloud she said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"There's a place under beech trees&mdash;a sort of
+chalk plateau&mdash;I used to have picnics there with
+my brothers when I was a little girl&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Shall we go there?" he asked. "Will you
+really take me to the place that your pretty
+memories haunt? Ah&mdash;how good you are to
+me."</p>
+
+<p>As they went down the steep wood-path she
+slipped, stumbled&mdash;he caught her.</p>
+
+<p>"Give me your hand!" he said. "This path's
+not safe for you."</p>
+
+<p>It was not. She gave him her hand, and they
+went down into the wood together.</p>
+
+<p>The picnic was gay as an August garden.
+After a life of repression&mdash;to meet someone to
+whom one might be oneself! It was very good.</p>
+
+<p>She said so. That was when he did kiss her
+hand.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>When lunch was over they sat on the sloped,
+short turf and watched the rabbits in the warren
+below. They sat there and they talked. And
+to the end of her days no one will know her soul
+as he knew it that day, and no one ever knew
+better than she that aspect of his soul which he
+chose that day to represent as its permanent form.</p>
+
+<p>The hours went by, and when the shadows
+began to lengthen and the sun to hide behind
+the wood they were sitting hand in hand. All
+the entrenchments of her life's training, her barriers
+of maidenly reserve, had been swept away
+by the torrent of his caprice, his indolently
+formed determination to drink the delicate sweet
+cup of this day to the full.</p>
+
+<p>It was in silence that they went back along
+the wood-path&mdash;her hand in his, as before. Yet
+not as before, for now he held it pressed against
+his heart.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, what a day&mdash;what a day of days!" he
+murmured. "Was there ever such a day?
+Could there ever have been? Tell me&mdash;tell
+me! Could there?"</p>
+
+<p>And she answered, turning aside a changed,
+softened, transfigured face.</p><hr class="chap" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"You know&mdash;you know!"</p>
+
+<p>So they reached the stile at the top of the
+wood&mdash;and here, when he had lent her his hand
+to climb it, he paused, still holding in his her
+hand.</p>
+
+<p>Now or never, should the third volume begin&mdash;and
+end. Should he? Should he not?
+Which would yield the more perfect memory&mdash;the
+one kiss to crown the day, or the kiss renounced,
+the crown refused? Her eyes, beseeching,
+deprecating, fearing, alluring, decided the
+question. He framed her soft face in his hands
+and kissed her, full on the lips. Then not so
+much for insurance against future entanglement
+as for the sound of the phrase, which pleased
+him&mdash;he was easily pleased at the moment&mdash;he
+said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"A kiss for love&mdash;for memory&mdash;for despair!"</p>
+
+<p>It was almost in silence that they went
+through lanes still and dark, across the widespread
+park lawns and down the narrow road to
+the station. Her hand still lay against his heart.
+The kiss still thrilled through them both. They
+parted at the station. He would not risk the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</a></span>
+lessening of the day's charming impression by a
+railway journey. He could go to town by a
+later train. He put her into a crowded carriage,
+and murmured with the last hand pressure&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Thank God for this one day. I shall never
+forget. You will never forget. This day is all
+our lives&mdash;all that might have been."</p>
+
+<p>"I shall never forget," she said.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>In point of fact, she never has forgotten. She
+has remembered all, even to the least light touch
+of his hand, the slightest change in his soft kind
+voice. That is why she has refused to marry
+the excellent solicitor who might have made her
+happy, and, faded and harassed, still teaches to
+High School girls the Euclid and Algebra which
+they so deeply hate to learn.</p>
+
+<p>As for him, he went home in a beautiful
+dream, and in the morning he wrote a song
+about her eyes which was so good that he sent
+it to the <i>Athen�um</i>, and got two guineas for it&mdash;so
+that his holiday was really not altogether
+wasted.</p>
+<hr class='chap' /><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[123]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<h2>THE FORCE OF HABIT</h2>
+
+
+<div class='cap'>FROM her very earliest teens every man she
+met had fallen at her feet. Her father in
+paternal transports&mdash;dignified and symbolic as
+the adoration of the Magi, uncles in forced unwilling
+tribute, cousins according to their kind,
+even brothers, resentful of their chains yet still
+enslaved, lovers by the score, persons disposed to
+marriage by the half-dozen.</div>
+
+<p>And she had smiled on them all, because it was
+so nice to be loved, and if one could make those
+who loved happy by smiling, why, smiles were
+cheap! Not cheap like inferior soap, but like the
+roses from a full June garden.</p>
+
+<p>To one she gave something more than smiles&mdash;herself
+to wit&mdash;and behold her at twenty,
+married to the one among her slaves to whom
+she had deigned to throw the handkerchief&mdash;real
+Brussels, be sure! Behold her happy in the
+adoration of the one, the only one among her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[124]</a></span>
+adorers whom she herself could adore. His
+name was John, of course, and it was a foregone
+conclusion that he should be a stock-broker.</p>
+
+<p>All the same, he was nice, which is something:
+and she loved him, which is everything.</p>
+
+<p>The little new red-brick Queen Anne villa was
+as the Garden of Eden to the man and the
+woman&mdash;but the jerry builder is a reptile more
+cursed than the graceful serpent who, in his
+handsome suit of green and gold, pulled out the
+lynch-pin from the wedding chariot of our first
+parents. The new house&mdash;"Cloudesley" its
+name was&mdash;was damp as any cloud, and the
+Paradise was shattered, not by any romantic serpent-and-apple
+business, but by plain, honest,
+every-day rheumatism. It was, indeed, as near
+rheumatic fever as one may go without tumbling
+over the grisly fence.</p>
+
+<p>The doctor said "Buxton." John could not
+leave town. There was a boom or a slump or
+something that required his personal supervision.</p>
+
+<p>So her old nurse was called up from out of the
+mists of the grey past before he and she were
+hers and his, and she went to Buxton in a specially
+reserved invalid carriage. She went, with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[125]</a></span>
+half her dainty trousseau clothes&mdash;a helpless
+invalid.</p>
+
+<p>Now I don't want to advertise Buxton waters
+as a cure for rheumatism, but I know for a fact
+that she had to be carried down to her first bath.
+It was a marble bath, and she felt like a Roman
+empress in it. And before she had had ten days
+of marble baths she was almost her own man
+again, and the youth in her danced like an imprisoned
+bottle-imp. But she was dull because
+there was no one to adore her. She had always
+been fed on adoration, and she missed her wonted
+food&mdash;without the shadow of a guess that it
+was this she was missing. It was, perhaps, unfortunate
+that her old nurse should have sprained
+a stout ankle in the very first of those walks on
+the moors which the Doctor recommended for
+the completion of the cure so magnificently inaugurated
+by the Marble Roman Empress baths.</p>
+
+<p>She wrote to her John every day. Long
+letters. But when the letter was done, what else
+was there left to do with what was left of the
+day? She was very, very bored.</p>
+
+<p>One must obey one's doctor. Else why pay
+him guineas?</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[126]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>So she walked out, after pretty apologies to
+the nurse, left lonely, across the wonder-wide
+moors. She learned the springy gait of the true
+hill climber, and drank in health and strength
+from the keen hill air. The month was March.
+She seemed to be the only person of her own
+dainty feather in Buxton. So she walked the
+moors alone. All her life joy had come to her
+in green elm and meadow land, and this strange
+grey-stone walled rocky country made her breathless
+with its austere challenge. Yet life was
+good; strength grew. No longer she seemed to
+have a body to care for. Soul and spirit were
+carried by something so strong as to delight in
+the burden. A month, her town doctor had said.
+A fortnight taught her to wonder why he had
+said it. Yet she felt lonely&mdash;too small for those
+great hills.</p>
+
+<p>The old nurse, patient, loving, urged her lamb
+to "go out in the fresh air"; and the lamb
+went.</p>
+
+<p>It was on a grey day, when the vast hill
+slopes seemed more than ever sinister and
+reluctant to the little figure that braved them.
+She wore an old skirt and an old jacket&mdash;her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[127]</a></span>
+husband had slipped them in when he strapped
+her boxes.</p>
+
+<p>"They're warm," he had said; "you may need
+them."</p>
+
+<p>She had a rainbow-dyed neckerchief and a
+little fur hat, perky with a peacock's iridescent
+head and crest.</p>
+
+<p>She was very pretty. The paleness of her
+illness lent her a new charm. And she walked
+the lonely road with an air. She had never
+been a great walker, and she was proud of each
+of the steps that this clear hill air gave her the
+courage to take.</p>
+
+<p>And it was glorious, after all, to be alone&mdash;the
+only human thing on these wide moors,
+where the curlews mewed as if the place belonged
+to them. There was a sound behind her.
+The rattle of wheels.</p>
+
+<p>She stopped. She turned and looked. Far
+below her lay the valley&mdash;all about her was the
+immense quiet of the hills. On the white road,
+quite a long way off, yet audible in that noble
+stillness, hoofs rang, wheels whirred. She
+waited for the thing to pass, for its rings of
+sound to die out in that wide pool of silence.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[128]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The wheels and the hoofs drew near. The
+rattle and jolt grew louder. She saw the horse
+and cart grow bigger and plainer. In a moment
+it would have passed. She waited.</p>
+
+<p>It drew near. In another moment it would
+be gone, and she be left alone to meet again the
+serious inscrutable face of the grey landscape.</p>
+
+<p>But the cart&mdash;as it drew near&mdash;drew up,
+the driver tightened rein, and the rough brown
+horse stopped&mdash;his hairy legs set at a strong
+angle.</p>
+
+<p>"Have a lift?" asked the driver.</p>
+
+<p>There was something subtly coercive in the
+absolute carelessness of the tone. There was
+the hearer on foot&mdash;here was the speaker in a
+cart. She being on foot and he on wheels, it
+was natural that he should offer her a lift in his
+cart&mdash;it was a greengrocer's cart. She could
+see celery, cabbages, a barrel or two, and the
+honest blue eyes of the man who drove it&mdash;the
+man who, seeing a fellow creature at a disadvantage,
+instantly offered to share such odds as Fate
+had allotted to him in life's dull handicap.</p>
+
+<p>The sudden new impossible situation appealed
+to her. If lifts were offered&mdash;well&mdash;that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[129]</a></span>
+must mean that lifts were generally accepted.
+In Rome one does as Rome does. In Derbyshire,
+evidently, a peacock crested toque might
+ride, unreproved by social criticism, in a greengrocer's
+cart. A tea-tray on wheels it seemed to
+her.</p>
+
+<p>She was a born actress; she had that gift of
+throwing herself at a moment's notice into a
+given part which in our silly conventional jargon
+we nickname tact.</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you," she said, "I should like it very
+much."</p>
+
+<p>The box on which he arranged a seat for her
+contained haddocks. He cushioned it with a
+sack and his own shabby greatcoat, and lent her
+a thick rough hand for the mounting.</p>
+
+<p>"Which way were you going?" he asked, and
+his voice was not the soft Peak sing-song&mdash;but
+something far more familiar.</p>
+
+<p>"I was only going for a walk," she said, "but
+it's much nicer to drive. I wasn't going anywhere.
+Only I want to get back to Buxton
+some time."</p>
+
+<p>"I live there," said he. "I must be home by
+five. I've a goodish round to do. Will five be
+soon enough for you?"</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[130]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Quite," she said, and considered within herself
+what r�le it would be kindest, most tactful,
+most truly gentlewomanly to play. She sought
+to find, in a word, the part to play that would
+best please the man who was with her. That
+was what she had always tried to find. With
+what success let those who love her tell.</p>
+
+<p>"I mustn't seem too clever," she said to herself;
+"I must just be interested in what he cares
+about. That's true politeness: mother always
+said so."</p>
+
+<p>So she talked of the price of herrings and the
+price of onions, and of trade, and of the difficulty
+of finding customers who had at once appreciation
+and a free hand.</p>
+
+<p>When he drew up in some lean grey village,
+or at the repellent gates of some isolated slate-roofed
+house, he gave her the reins to hold,
+while he, with his samples of fruit and fish
+laid out on basket lids, wooed custom at the
+doors.</p>
+
+<p>She experienced a strangely crescent interest
+in his sales.</p>
+
+<p>Between the sales they talked. She found it
+quite easy, having swept back and penned in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</a></span>
+major part of her knowledges and interests, to
+leave a residuum that was quite enough to meet
+his needs.</p>
+
+<p>As the chill dusk fell in cloudy folds over the
+giant hill shoulders and the cart turned towards
+home, she shivered.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you cold?" he asked solicitously. "The
+wind strikes keen down between these beastly
+hills."</p>
+
+<p>"Beastly?" she repeated. "Don't you think
+they're beautiful?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he said, "of course I see they're beautiful&mdash;for
+other folks, but not for me. What I
+like is lanes an' elm trees and farm buildings
+with red tiles and red walls round fruit gardens&mdash;and
+cherry orchards and thorough good rich
+medders up for hay, and lilac bushes and bits o'
+flowers in the gardens, same what I was used to
+at home."</p>
+
+<p>She thrilled to the homely picture.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, that's what I like too!" she said.
+"These great hills&mdash;I don't see how they can
+feel like home to anyone. There's a bit of an
+orchard&mdash;one end of it is just a red barn wall&mdash;and
+there are hedges round, and it's all soft<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[132]</a></span>
+warm green lights and shadows&mdash;and thrushes
+sing like mad. That's home!"</p>
+
+<p>He looked at her.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he said slowly, "that's home."</p>
+
+<p>"And then," she went on, "the lanes with the
+high green hedges, dog-roses and brambles and
+may bushes and traveller's joy&mdash;and the grey
+wooden hurdles, and the gates with yellow
+lichen on them, and the white roads and the
+light in the farm windows as you come home
+from work&mdash;and the fire&mdash;and the smell of
+apples from the loft."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he said, "that's it&mdash;I'm a Kentish
+man myself. You've got a lot o' words to
+talk with."</p>
+
+<p>When he put her down at the edge of the
+town she went to rejoin her nurse feeling that
+to one human being, at least, she had that day
+been the voice of the home-ideal, and of all
+things sweet and fair. And, of course, this
+pleased her very much.</p>
+
+<p>Next morning she woke with the vague but
+sure sense of something pleasant to come. She
+remembered almost instantly. She had met a
+man on whom it was pleasant to smile, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</a></span>
+whom her smiles and her talk pleased. And
+she thought,&mdash;quite honestly,&mdash;that she was
+being very philanthropic and lightening a dull
+life.</p>
+
+<p>She wrote a long loving letter to John, did a
+little shopping, and walked out along a road.
+It was the road by which he had told her that
+he would go the next day. He overtook her and
+pulled up with a glad face, that showed her the
+worth of her smiles and almost repaid it.</p>
+
+<p>"I was wondering if I'd see you," he said;
+"was you tired yesterday? It's a fine day
+to-day."</p>
+
+<p>"Isn't it glorious!" she returned, blinking at
+the pale clear sun.</p>
+
+<p>"It makes everything look a heap prettier,
+doesn't it? Even this country that looks like
+as if it had had all the colour washed out of
+it in strong soda and suds."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," she said. And then he spoke of yesterday's
+trade&mdash;he had done well; and of the
+round he had to go to-day. But he did not offer
+her a lift.</p>
+
+<p>"Won't you give me a drive to-day?" she
+asked suddenly. "I enjoyed it so much."</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"<i>Will</i> you?" he cried, his face lighting up as
+he moved to arrange the sacks. "I didn't like
+to offer. I thought you'd think I was takin' too
+much on myself. Come up&mdash;reach me your
+hand. Right oh!"</p>
+
+<p>The cart clattered away.</p>
+
+<p>"I was thinking ever since yesterday when I
+see you how is it you can think o' so many
+words all at once. It's just as if you was
+seeing it all&mdash;the way you talked about the
+red barns and the grey gates and all such."</p>
+
+<p>"I <i>do</i> see it," she said, "inside my mind, you
+know. I can see it all as plainly as I see these
+great cruel hills."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said he, "that's just what they are&mdash;they're
+cruel. And the fields and woods is kind&mdash;like
+folks you're friends with."</p>
+
+<p>She was charmed with the phrase. She talked
+to him, coaxing him to make new phrases. It
+was like teaching a child to walk.</p>
+
+<p>He told her about his home. It was a farm
+in Kent&mdash;"red brick with the glorydyjohn rose
+growin' all up over the front door&mdash;so that they
+never opened it."</p>
+
+<p>"The paint had stuck it fast," said he, "it was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[135]</a></span>
+quite a job to get it open to get father's coffin
+out. I scraped the paint off then, and oiled the
+hinges, because I knew mother wouldn't last
+long. And she didn't neither."</p>
+
+<p>Then he told her how there had been no
+money to carry on the fruit-growing, and how
+his sister had married a greengrocer at Buxton,
+and when everything went wrong he had come
+to lend a hand with their business.</p>
+
+<p>"And now I takes the rounds," said he; "it's
+more to my mind nor mimming in the shop and
+being perlite to ladies."</p>
+
+<p>"You're very polite to <i>me</i>," she said.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes," he said, "but you're not a lady&mdash;leastways,
+I'm sure you are in your 'art&mdash;but
+you ain't a regular tip-topper, are you, now?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, no," she said, "perhaps not that."</p>
+
+<p>It piqued her that he should not have seen
+that she <i>was</i> a lady&mdash;and yet it pleased her too.
+It was a tribute to her power of adapting herself
+to her environment.</p>
+
+<p>The cart rattled gaily on&mdash;he talked with
+more and more confidence; she with a more
+and more pleased consciousness of her perfect
+tact. As they went a beautiful idea came to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[136]</a></span>
+her. She would do the thing thoroughly&mdash;why
+not? The episode might as well be complete.</p>
+
+<p>"I wish you'd let me help you to sell the
+things," she said. "I should like it."</p>
+
+<p>"Wouldn't you be above it?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Not a bit," she answered gaily. "Only I
+must learn the prices of things. Tell me. How
+much are the herrings?"</p>
+
+<p>He told her&mdash;and at the first village she successfully
+sold seven herrings, five haddocks, three
+score of potatoes, and so many separate pounds
+of apples that she lost count.</p>
+
+<p>He was lavish of his praises.</p>
+
+<p>"You might have been brought up to it from
+a girl," he said, and she wondered how old he
+thought she was then.</p>
+
+<p>She yawned no more over dull novels now&mdash;Buxton
+no longer bored her. She had suddenly
+discovered a new life&mdash;a new stage on which to
+play a part, her own ability in mastering which
+filled her with the pleasure of a clever child, or
+a dog who has learned a new trick. Of course,
+it was not a new trick; it was the old one.</p>
+
+<p>It was impossible not to go out with the
+greengrocer every day. What else was there to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[137]</a></span>
+do? How else could she exercise her most perfectly
+developed talent&mdash;that of smiling on
+people till they loved her? We all like to do
+that which we can do best. And she never felt
+so contented as when she was exercising this incontestable
+talent of hers. She did not know the
+talent for what it was. She called it "being
+nice to people."</p>
+
+<p>So every day saw her, with roses freshening
+in her cheeks, driving over the moors in the
+wheeled tea-tray. And now she sold regularly.
+One day he said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"What a wife you'd make for a business
+chap!" But even that didn't warn her, because
+she happened to be thinking of Jack&mdash;and she
+thought how good a wife she meant to be to
+him. <i>He</i> was a "business chap" too.</p>
+
+<p>"What are you really&mdash;by trade, I mean?"
+he said on another occasion.</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing in particular. What did you think
+I was?" she said.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh&mdash;I dunno&mdash;I thought a lady's maid, as
+likely as not, or maybe in the dressmaking. You
+aren't a common sort&mdash;anyone can see that."</p>
+
+<p>Again pique and pleasure fought in her.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[138]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>She never so much as thought of telling him
+that she was married. She saw no reason for it.
+It was her r�le to enter into his life, not to dazzle
+him with visions of hers.</p>
+
+<p>At last that happened which was bound to happen.
+And it happened under the shadow of a
+great rock, in a cleft, green-grown and sheltered,
+where the road runs beside the noisy, stony,
+rapid, unnavigable river.</p>
+
+<p>He had drawn the cart up on the grass, and
+she had got down and was sitting on a stone
+eating sandwiches, for her nurse had persuaded
+her to take her lunch with her so as to spend
+every possible hour on these life-giving moors.
+He had eaten bread and cheese standing by
+the horse's head. It was a holiday. He was
+not selling fish and vegetables. He was in his
+best, and she had never liked him so little. As
+she finished her last dainty bite he threw away
+the crusts and rinds of his meal and came over
+to her.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," he said, with an abrupt tenderness
+that at once thrilled and revolted her, "don't
+you think it's time as we settled something
+betwixt us?"</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I don't know what you mean," she said.
+But, quite suddenly and terribly, she did.</p>
+
+<p>"Why," he said, "I know well enough you're
+miles too good for a chap like me&mdash;but if you
+don't think so, that's all right. And I tell you
+straight, you're the only girl I ever so much as
+fancied."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," she breathed, "do you mean&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You know well enough what I mean, my
+pretty," he said; "but if you want it said out
+like in books, I've got it all on my tongue. I
+love every inch of you, and your clever ways,
+and your pretty talk. I haven't touched a drop
+these eight months&mdash;I shall get on right enough
+with you to help me&mdash;and we'll be so happy as
+never was. There ain't ne'er a man in England'll
+set more store by his wife nor I will by
+you, nor be prouder on her. You shan't do no
+hard work&mdash;I promise you that. Only just
+drive out with me and turn the customers round
+your finger. I don't ask no questions about you
+nor your folks. I <i>know</i> you're an honest girl,
+and I'd trust you with my head. Come, give
+me a kiss, love, and call it a bargain."</p>
+
+<p>She had stood up while he was speaking, but<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[140]</a></span>
+she literally could not find words to stop the
+flow of his speech. Now she shrank back and
+said, "No&mdash;no!"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you be so shy, my dear," he said.
+"Come&mdash;just one! And then I'll take you
+home and interduce you to my sister. You'll
+like her. I've told her all about you."</p>
+
+<p>Waves of unthinkable horror seemed to be
+closing over her head. She struck out bravely,
+and it seemed as though she were swimming for
+her life.</p>
+
+<p>"No," she cried, "it's impossible! You don't
+understand! You don't know!"</p>
+
+<p>"I know you've been keeping company with
+me these ten days," he said, and his voice had
+changed. "What did you do it for if you didn't
+mean nothing by it?"</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't know," she said wretchedly. "I
+thought you liked being friends."</p>
+
+<p>"If it's what you call 'friends,' being all
+day long with a chap, I don't so call it," he
+said. "But come&mdash;you're playing skittish now,
+ain't you? Don't tease a chap like this. Can't
+you see I love you too much to stand it? I
+know it sounds silly to say it&mdash;but I love<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[141]</a></span>
+you before all the world&mdash;I do&mdash;my word I
+do!"</p>
+
+<p>He held out his arms.</p>
+
+<p>"I see&mdash;I see you do," she cried, all her tact
+washed away by this mighty sea that had suddenly
+swept over her. "But I can't. I'm&mdash;I'm
+en&mdash;I'm promised to another young man."</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder what he'll say to this," he said
+slowly.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm so&mdash;so sorry," she said; "I'd no
+idea&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I see," he said, "you was just passing the
+time with me&mdash;and you never wanted me at
+all. And I thought you did. Get in, miss. I'll
+take you back to the town. I've just about
+had enough holiday for one day."</p>
+
+<p>"I <i>am</i> so sorry," she kept saying. But he
+never answered.</p>
+
+<p>"Do forgive me!" she said at last. "Indeed,
+I didn't mean&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Didn't mean," said he, lashing up the brown
+horse; "no&mdash;and it don't matter to you if I
+think about you and want you every day and
+every night so long as I live. It ain't nothing
+to you. You've had your fun. And you've got<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[142]</a></span>
+your sweetheart. God, I wish him joy of
+you!"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah&mdash;don't," she said, and her soft voice
+even here, even now, did not miss its effect.
+"I <i>do</i> like you very, very much&mdash;and&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>She had never failed. She did not fail now.
+Before they reached the town he had formally
+forgiven her.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't suppose you meant no harm," he
+said grudgingly; "though coming from Kent you
+ought to know how it is about walking out
+with a chap. But you say you didn't, and I'll
+believe you. But I shan't get over this, this
+many a long day, so don't you make no mistake.
+Why, I ain't thought o' nothing else but you
+ever since I first set eyes on you. There&mdash;don't
+you cry no more. I can't abear to see you
+cry."</p>
+
+<p>He was blinking himself.</p>
+
+<p>Outside the town he stopped.</p>
+
+<p>"Good-bye," he said. "I haven't got nothing
+agin you&mdash;but I wish to Lord above I'd never
+seen you. I shan't never fancy no one else after
+you."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't be unhappy," she said. And then she<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</a></span>
+ought to have said good-bye. But the devil we
+call the force of habit would not let her leave
+well alone.</p>
+
+<p>"I want to give you something," she said;
+"a keepsake, to show I shall always be your
+friend. Will you call at the house where I'm
+staying this evening at eight? I'll have it
+ready for you. Don't think too unkindly of
+me! Will you come?"</p>
+
+<p>He asked the address, and said "Yes." He
+wanted to see her&mdash;just once again, and he
+would certainly like the keepsake.</p>
+
+<p>She went home and looked out a beautiful
+book of Kentish photographs. It was a wedding
+present, and she had brought it with her
+to solace her in her exile by pictures of the
+home-land. Her unconscious thought was something
+like this: "Poor fellow; poor, poor fellow!
+But he behaved like a gentleman about
+it. I suppose there is something in the influence
+of a sympathetic woman&mdash;I am glad I
+was a good influence."</p>
+
+<p>She bathed her burning face, cooled it with
+soft powder, and slipped into a tea-gown. It
+was a trousseau one of rich, heavy, yellow silk<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[144]</a></span>
+and old lace and fur. She chose it because it
+was warm, and she was shivering with agitation
+and misery. Then she went and sat with
+the old nurse, and a few minutes before eight
+she ran out and stood by the front door so as
+to open it before he should knock. She
+achieved this.</p>
+
+<p>"Come in," she said, and led him into the
+lodging-house parlour and closed the door.</p>
+
+<p>"It was good of you to come," she said,
+taking the big, beautiful book from the table.
+"This is what I want you to take, just to
+remind you that we're friends."</p>
+
+<p>She had forgotten the tea-gown. She was
+not conscious that the accustomed suavity of
+line, the soft richness of texture influenced
+voice, gait, smile, gesture. But they did. Her
+face was flushed after her tears, and the powder,
+which she had forgotten to dust off, added the
+last touch to her beauty.</p>
+
+<p>He took the book, but he never even glanced
+at the silver and tortoise-shell of its inlaid cover.
+He was looking at her, and his eyes were covetous
+and angry.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you an actress, or what?"</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[145]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"No," she said, shrinking. "Why?"</p>
+
+<p>"What the hell are you, then?" he snarled
+furiously.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm&mdash;I'm&mdash;a&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>The old nurse, scared by the voice raised beyond
+discretion, had dragged herself to the door
+of division between her room and the parlour,
+and now stood clinging to the door handle.</p>
+
+<p>"She's a lady, young man," said the nurse
+severely; "and her aunt's a lady of title, and
+don't you forget it!"</p>
+
+<p>"Forget it," he cried, with a laugh that
+Jack's wife remembers still; "she's a lady, and
+she's fooled me this way? I won't forget it,
+nor she shan't neither! By God, I'll give her
+something to forget!"</p>
+
+<p>With that he caught the silken tea-gown and
+Jack's trembling wife in his arms and kissed her
+more than once. They were horrible kisses, and
+the man smelt of onions and hair-oil.</p>
+
+<p>"And I loved her&mdash;curse her!" he cried,
+flinging her away, so that she fell against the
+arm of the chair by the fire.</p>
+
+<p>He went out, slamming both doors. She had
+softened and bewitched him to the forgiving of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[146]</a></span>
+the outrage that her indifference was to his love.
+The outrage of her station's condescension to his
+was unforgivable.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>She went back to her Jack next day. She
+was passionately glad to see him. "Oh, Jack,"
+she said, "I'll never, never go away from you
+again!"</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>But the greengrocer from Kent reeled down
+the street to the nearest public-house. At closing
+time he was telling, in muffled, muddled
+speech, the wondrous tale, how his girl was a
+real lady, awfully gone on him, pretty as paint,
+and wore silk dresses every day.</p>
+
+<p>"She's a real lady&mdash;she is," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Ay!" said the chucker out, "we know all
+about them sort o' ladies. Time, please!"</p>
+
+<p>"I tell you she is&mdash;her aunt's a lady of title,
+and the gal's that gone on me I expect I'll have
+to marry her to keep her quiet."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll have to chuck you out to keep <i>you</i> quiet,"
+returned the other. "Come on&mdash;outside!"</p><hr class="chap" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[147]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2>THE BRUTE</h2>
+
+
+<div class='cap'>THE pearl of the dawn was not yet dissolved
+in the gold cup of the sunshine, but in the
+northwest the dripping opal waves were ebbing
+fast to the horizon, and the sun was already half
+risen from his couch of dull crimson. She leaned
+out of her window. By fortunate chance it was
+a jasmine-muffled lattice, as a girl's window
+should be, and looked down on the dewy stillness
+of the garden. The cloudy shadows that
+had clung in the earliest dawn about the lilac
+bushes and rhododendrons had faded like grey
+ghosts, and slowly on lawn and bed and path
+new black shadows were deepening and intensifying.</div>
+
+<p>She drew a deep breath. What a picture!
+The green garden, the awakened birds, the roses
+that still looked asleep, the scented jasmine
+stars! She saw and loved it all. Nor was she
+unduly insensible to the charm of the central<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[148]</a></span>
+figure, the girl in the white lace-trimmed gown
+who leaned her soft arms on the window-sill and
+looked out on the dawn with large dark eyes.
+Of course, she knew that her eyes were large
+and dark, also that her hair was now at its
+prettiest, rumpled and tumbled from the pillow,
+and far prettier so than one dared to allow it to
+be in the daytime. It seemed a pity that there
+should be no one in the garden save the birds,
+no one who had awakened thus early just that
+he might gather a rose and cover it with kisses
+and throw it up to the window of his pretty
+sweetheart. She had but recently learned that
+she was pretty. It was on the evening after the
+little dance at the Rectory. She had worn red
+roses at her neck, and when she had let down
+her hair she had picked up the roses from her
+dressing-table and stuck them in the loose, rough,
+brown mass, and stared into the glass till she
+was half mesmerised by her own dark eyes.
+She had come to herself with a start, and then
+she had known quite surely that she was pretty
+enough to be anyone's sweetheart. When she
+was a child a well-meaning aunt had told her
+that as she would never be pretty or clever she<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[149]</a></span>
+had better try to be good, or no one would love
+her. She had tried, and she had never till that
+red-rose day doubted that such goodness as she
+had achieved must be her only claim to love.
+Now she knew better, and she looked out of her
+window at the brightening sky and the deepening
+shadows. But there was no one to throw
+her a rose with kisses on it.</p>
+
+<p>"If I were a man," she said to herself, but
+in a very secret shadowy corner of her inmost
+heart, and in a wordless whisper, "if I were a
+man, I would go out this minute and find a
+sweetheart. She should have dark eyes, too,
+and rough brown hair, and pink cheeks."</p>
+
+<p>In the outer chamber of her mind she said
+briskly&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"It's a lovely morning. It's a shame to waste
+it indoors. I'll go out."</p>
+
+<p>The sun was fully up when she stole down
+through the still sleeping house and out into
+the garden, now as awake as a lady in full dress
+at the court of the King.</p>
+
+<p>The garden gate fell to behind her, and the
+swing of her white skirts went down the green
+lane. On such a morning who would not wear<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[150]</a></span>
+white? She walked with the quick grace of
+her nineteen years, and as she went fragments
+of the undigested poetry that had been her literary
+diet of late swirled in her mind&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class='poem'>
+"With tears and smiles from heaven again,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">The maiden spring upon the plain</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Came in a sunlit fall of rain,"</span><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'>and so on, though this was July, and not spring
+at all. And&mdash;</div>
+
+<div class='poem'>
+"A man had given all other bliss<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">And all his worldly work for this,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">To waste his whole heart in one kiss</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Upon her perfect lips."</span><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>Her own lips were not perfect, yet, as lips
+went, they were well enough, and, anyway,
+kisses would not be wasted on them.</p>
+
+<p>She went down the lane, full of the anxious
+trembling longing that is youth's unrecognised
+joy, and at the corner, where the lane meets the
+high white road, she met him. That is to say,
+she stopped short, as the whispering silence of
+the morning was broken by a sudden rattle and
+a heavy thud, not pleasant to hear. And he and
+his bicycle fell together, six yards from her feet.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[151]</a></span>
+The bicycle bounded, and twisted, and settled
+itself down with bold, resentful clatterings.
+The man lay without moving.</p>
+
+<p>Her Tennyson quotations were swept away.
+She ran to help.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, are you hurt?" she said. He lay quite
+still. There was blood on his head, and one
+arm was doubled under his back. What could
+she do? She tried to lift him from the road
+to the grass edge of it. He was a big man, but
+she did succeed in raising his shoulders, and freeing
+that right arm. As she lifted it, he groaned.
+She sat down in the dust of the road, and lowered
+his shoulders till his head lay on her lap.
+Then she tied her handkerchief round his head,
+and waited till someone should pass on the way
+to work. Three men and a boy came after the
+long half hour in which he lay unconscious, the
+red patch on her handkerchief spreading slowly,
+and she looking at him, and getting by heart
+every line of the pale, worn, handsome face.
+She spoke to him, she stroked his hair. She
+touched his white cheek with her finger-tips, and
+wondered about him, and pitied him, and took
+possession of him as a new and precious appanage<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[152]</a></span>
+of her life, so that when the labourers
+appeared, she said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"He's very badly hurt. Go and fetch some
+more men and a hurdle, and the boy might run
+for the doctor. Tell him to come to the White
+House. It's nearest, and it may be dangerous to
+move him further."</p>
+
+<p>"The 'Blue Lion' ain't but a furlong further,
+miss," said one of the men, touching his cap.</p>
+
+<p>"It's much more than that," said she, who
+had but the vaguest notion of a furlong's length.
+"Do go and do what I tell you."</p>
+
+<p>They went, and, as they went, remorselessly
+dissected, with the bluntest instruments, her
+motives and her sentiments. It was not hidden
+from them, that wordless whisper in the shadowy
+inner chamber of her heart. "Perhaps the 'Blue
+Lion' isn't so very much further, but I can't give
+him up. No, I can't." But it was almost hidden
+from <i>her</i>. In her mind's outer hall she said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sure I ought to take him home. No
+girl in a book would hesitate. And I can make
+it all right with mother. It would be cruel to
+give him up to strangers."</p>
+
+<p>Deep in her heart the faint whisper followed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[153]</a></span>&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I found him; he's mine. I won't let
+him go."</p>
+
+<p>He stirred a little before they came back with
+the hurdle, and she took his uninjured hand, and
+pressed it firmly and kindly, and told him it was
+"all right," he would feel better presently.</p>
+
+<p>She did have him carried home, and when the
+doctor had set the arm and the collar-bone, and
+had owned that it would be better not to move
+him at present, she knew that her romance
+would not be cut short just yet. She did not
+nurse him, because it is only in books that
+young girls of the best families act as sick-nurses
+to gentlemen. But her mother&mdash;dear,
+kind, clever, foolish gentlewoman&mdash;did the
+nursing, and the daughter gathered flowers daily
+to brighten his room. And when he was better,
+yet still not well enough to resume the bicycle
+tour so sharply interrupted by a flawed nut, she
+read to him, and talked to him, and sat with
+him in the hushed August garden. Up to this
+point, observe, her interest had been purely
+romantic. He was a man of forty-five. Perhaps
+he had a younger brother, a splendid young
+man, and the brother would like her because she<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[154]</a></span>
+had been kind. <i>He</i> had lived long abroad, had
+no relatives in England. He knew her Cousin
+Reginald at Johannesburg&mdash;everyone knew
+everyone else out there. The brother&mdash;there
+really was a brother&mdash;would come some day to
+thank her mother for all her goodness, and she
+would be at the window and look down, and he
+would look up, and the lamp of life would be
+lighted. She longed, with heart-whole earnestness,
+to be in love with someone, for as yet she
+was only in love with love.</p>
+
+<p>But on the evening when there was a full
+moon&mdash;the time of madness as everybody
+knows&mdash;her mother falling asleep after dinner
+in her cushioned chair in the lamp lit drawing-room,
+he and she wandered out into the garden.
+They sat on the seat under the great apple tree.
+He was talking gently of kindness and gratitude,
+and of how he would soon be well enough to go
+away. She listened in silence, and presently he
+grew silent, too, under the spell of the moonlight.
+She never knew exactly how it was that
+he took her hand, but he was holding it gently,
+strongly, as if he would never let it go. Their
+shoulders touched. The silence grew deeper and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[155]</a></span>
+deeper. She sighed involuntarily; not because
+she was unhappy, but because her heart was
+beating so fast. Both were looking straight
+before them into the moonlight. Suddenly he
+turned, put his other hand on her shoulder, and
+kissed her on the lips. At that instant her
+mother called her, and she went into the lamp-light.
+She said good night at once. She wanted
+to be alone, to realise the great and wonderful
+awakening of her nature, its awakening to love&mdash;for
+this was love, the love the poets sang
+about&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class='center'>
+"A kiss, a touch, the charm, was snapped."<br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'>She wanted to be alone to think about him.
+But she did not think. She hugged to her heart
+the physical memory of that strong magnetic
+hand-clasp, the touch of those smooth sensitive
+lips on hers&mdash;held it close to her till she fell
+asleep, still thrilling with the ecstasy of her first
+lover's kiss.</div>
+
+<p>Next day they were formally engaged, and
+now her life became an intermittent delirium.
+She longed always to be alone with him, to
+touch his hands, to feel his cheek against hers.
+She could not understand the pleasure which he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[156]</a></span>
+said he felt in just sitting near her and watching
+her sewing or reading, as he sat talking to her
+mother of dull things&mdash;politics, and the war,
+and landscape gardening. If she had been a
+man, she said to herself, always far down in her
+heart, she would have found a way to sit near
+the beloved, so that at least hands might meet
+now and then unseen. But he disliked public
+demonstrations, and he loved her. She, however,
+was merely in love with him.</p>
+
+<p>That was why, when he went away, she found
+it so difficult to write to him. She thought his
+letters cold, though they told her of all his work,
+his aims, ambitions, hopes, because not more
+than half a page was filled with lover's talk.
+He could have written very different letters&mdash;indeed,
+he had written such in his time, and to
+more than one address; but he was wise with
+the wisdom of forty years, and he was beginning
+to tremble for her happiness, because he
+loved her.</p>
+
+<p>When she complained that his letters were
+cold he knew that he had been wise. She found
+it very difficult to write to him. It was far
+easier to write to Cousin Reginald, who always<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[157]</a></span>
+wrote such long, interesting letters, all about
+interesting things&mdash;Cousin Reginald who had
+lived with them at the White House till a year
+ago, and who knew all the little family jokes,
+and the old family worries.</p>
+
+<p>They had been engaged for eight months when
+he came down to see her without any warning
+letter.</p>
+
+<p>She was alone in the drawing-room when he
+was announced, and with a cry of joy, she let
+fall her work on the floor, and ran to meet him
+with arms outstretched. He caught her wrists.</p>
+
+<p>"No," he said, and the light of joy in her face
+made it not easy to say it. "My dear, I've come
+to say something to you, and I mustn't kiss you
+till I've said it."</p>
+
+<p>The light had died out.</p>
+
+<p>"You're not tired of me?"</p>
+
+<p>He laughed. "No, not tired of you, my little
+princess, but I am going away for a year. If
+you still love me when I come back we'll be
+married. But before I go I must say something
+to you."</p>
+
+<p>Her eyes were streaming with tears.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, how can you be so cruel?" she said, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[158]</a></span>
+her longing to cling to him, to reassure herself
+by personal contact, set her heart beating wildly.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't want to be cruel," he said; "you
+understand, dear, that I love you, and it's just
+because I love you that I must say it. Now sit
+down there and let me speak. Don't interrupt
+me if you can help it. Consider it a sort of
+lecture you're bound to sit through."</p>
+
+<p>He pushed her gently towards a chair. She
+sat down sulkily, awkwardly, and he stood by
+the window, looking out at the daffodils and
+early tulips.</p>
+
+<p>"Dear, I am afraid I have found something
+out. I don't think you love me&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, how can you, how can you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Be patient," he said. "I've wondered almost
+from the first. You're almost a child, and I'm
+an old man&mdash;oh, no, I don't mean that that's
+any reason why you shouldn't love me, but it's
+a reason for my making very sure that you <i>do</i>
+before I let you marry me. It's your happiness
+I have to think of most. Now shall I just
+go away for a year, or shall I speak straight out
+and tell you everything? If your father were
+alive I would try to tell him; I can't tell your<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[159]</a></span>
+mother, she wouldn't understand. You can understand.
+Shall I tell you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," she said, looking at him with frightened
+eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Well: look back. You think you love me.
+Haven't my letters always bored you a little,
+though they were about all the things I care for
+most?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't understand politics," she said sullenly.</p>
+
+<p>"And I don't understand needle-work, but I
+could sit and watch you sew for ever and a
+day."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, go on. What other crime have I committed
+besides not going into raptures over Parliament?"</p>
+
+<p>She was growing angry, and he was glad. It
+is not so easy to hurt people when they are
+angry.</p>
+
+<p>"And when I am talking to your mother, that
+bores you too, and when we are alone, you don't
+care to talk of anything, but&mdash;but&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>This task was harder than he had imagined
+possible.</p>
+
+<p>"I've loved you too much, and I've shown it
+too plainly," she said bitterly.</p><hr class="chap" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[160]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"My dear, you've never loved me at all. You
+have only been in love with me."</p>
+
+<p>"And isn't that the same thing?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! it's no use," he said, "I must <i>be</i> a brute
+then. No, it's not the same thing. It's your
+poets and novelists who pretend it is. It's they
+who have taught you all wrong. It's only half
+of love, and the worst half, the most untrustworthy,
+the least lasting. My little girl, when
+I kissed you first, you were just waking up to
+your womanhood, you were ready for love, as
+a flower-bud is ready for sunshine, and I happened
+to be the first man who had the chance
+to kiss you and hold your dear little hands."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you mean that I should have liked anyone
+else as well if he had only been kind enough
+to kiss me?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, no; but ... I wish girls were taught
+these things out of books. If you only knew
+what it costs me to be honest with you, how I
+have been tempted to let you marry me and
+chance everything! Don't you see you're a
+woman now&mdash;women were made to be kissed,
+and when a man behaves like a brute and kisses
+a girl without even asking first, or finding out<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[161]</a></span>
+first whether she loves him, it's not fair on the
+girl. I shall never forgive myself. Don't you
+see I took part of you by storm, the part of you
+that is just woman nature, not yours but everyone's;
+and how were you to know that you
+didn't love me, that it was only the awakening
+of your woman nature?"</p>
+
+<p>"I hate you," she said briefly.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he answered simply, "I knew you
+would. Hate is only one step from passion."</p>
+
+<p>She rose in a fury. "How dare you use that
+word to me!" she cried. "Oh, you are a brute!
+You are quite right: I don't love you&mdash;I hate
+you, I despise you. Oh, you brute!"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't," he said; "I only used that word
+because it's what people call the thing when
+it's a man who feels it. With you it's what I
+said, the unconscious awakening of the womanhood
+God gave you. Try to forgive me. Have
+I said anything so very dreadful? It's a very
+little thing, dear, the sweet kindness you've
+felt for me. It's nothing to be ashamed or
+angry about. It's not a hundredth part of what
+I have felt when you have kissed me. It's because
+it's such a poor foundation to build a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[162]</a></span>
+home on that I am frightened for you. Suppose
+you got tired of my kisses, and there was nothing
+more in me that you did care for. And that
+sort of ... lover's love doesn't last for ever&mdash;without
+the other kind of love&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, don't say any more," she cried, jumping
+up from her chair. "I did love you with all
+my heart. I was sorry for you. I thought you
+were so different. Oh, how could you say these
+things to me? Go!"</p>
+
+<p>"Shall I come back in a year?" he asked,
+smiling rather sadly.</p>
+
+<p>"Come back? <i>Never!</i> I'll never speak to
+you again. I'll never see you again. I hope to
+God I shall never hear your name again. Go
+at once!"</p>
+
+<p>"You'll be grateful to me some day," he said,
+"when you've found out that love and being in
+love are not the same thing."</p>
+
+<p>"What is love, then? The kind of love <i>you'd</i>
+care for?"</p>
+
+<p>"I care for it all," he said. "I think love is
+tenderness, esteem, affection, interest, pity, protection,
+and passion. Yes, you needn't be
+frightened by the word; it is the force that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[163]</a></span>
+moves the world, but it's only a part of love.
+Oh, I see it's no good. God bless you, child:
+you'll understand some day!"</p>
+
+<p>She does understand now; she has married
+her Cousin Reginald, and she understands deeply
+and completely. But she only admits this in
+that deep, shadowy, almost disowned corner
+of her heart. In the reception room of her
+mind she still thinks of her first lover as "That
+Brute!"</p>
+<hr class='chap' /><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[165]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2>DICK, TOM, AND HARRY</h2>
+
+
+<div class='cap'>"AND so I look in to see her whenever I can
+spare half an hour. I fancy it cheers her
+up a bit to have some one to talk to about Edinburgh&mdash;and
+all that. You say you're going to
+tell her about its having been my doing, your
+getting that berth. Now, I won't have it. You
+promised you wouldn't. I hate jaw, as you
+know, and I don't want to have her gassing
+about gratitude and all that rot. I don't like it,
+even from you. So stow all that piffle. You'd
+do as much for me, any day. I suppose Edinburgh
+<i>is</i> a bit dull, but you've got all the higher
+emotions of our fallen nature to cheer you up.
+Essex Court is dull, if you like! It's three years
+since I had the place to myself, and I tell you
+it's pretty poor sport. I don't seem to care about
+duchesses or the gilded halls nowadays. Getting
+old, I suppose. Really, my sole recreation is
+going to see another man's girl, and letting her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[166]</a></span>
+prattle prettily about him. Lord, what fools
+these mortals be! Sorry I couldn't answer your
+letter before. I suppose you'll be running up
+for Christmas! So long! I'm taking her down
+those Ruskins she wanted. Here's luck!"</div>
+
+<p>The twisted knot of three thin initials at the
+end of the letter stood for one of the set of
+names painted on the black door of the Temple
+Chambers. The other names were those of Tom,
+who had strained a slender competence to
+become a barrister, and finding the achievement
+unremunerative, had been glad enough to get the
+chance of sub-editing a paper in Edinburgh.</p>
+
+<p>Dick enveloped and stamped his letter, threw
+it on the table, and went into his bedroom.
+When he came back in a better coat and a newer
+tie he looked at the letter and shrugged his
+shoulders, and he frowned all the way down the
+three flights and as far as Brick Court. Here he
+posted the letter. Then he shrugged his shoulders
+again, but after the second shrug the set of
+them was firmer.</p>
+
+<p>As his hansom swung through the dancing
+lights of the Strand, he shrugged his shoulders for
+the third time.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[167]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>And, at that, his tame devil came as at a
+signal, and drew a pretty curtain across all
+thoughts save one&mdash;the thought of the "other
+man's girl." Indeed, hardly a thought was left,
+rather a sense of her&mdash;of those disquieting soft
+eyes of hers&mdash;the pretty hands, the frank laugh&mdash;the
+long, beautiful lines her gowns took on&mdash;the
+unexpected twists and curves of her hair&mdash;above
+all, the reserve, veiling tenderness as snowflakes
+might veil a rose, with which she spoke of
+the other man.</p>
+
+<p>Dick had known Tom for all of their men's
+lives, and they had been friends. Both had said
+so often enough. But now he thought of him as
+the "other man."</p>
+
+<p>The lights flashed past. Dick's eyes were
+fixed on a picture. A pleasant room&mdash;an
+artist's room&mdash;prints, sketches, green curtains,
+the sparkle of old china, fire and candle light.
+A girl in a long straight dress; he could see the
+little line where it would catch against her knee
+as she came forward to meet him with both
+hands outstretched. Would it be both hands?
+He decided that it would&mdash;to-night.</p>
+
+<p>He was right, even to the little line in the
+sea-blue gown.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[168]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Both hands; such long, thin, magnetic hands.</p>
+
+<p>"You <i>are</i> good," she said at once. "Oh&mdash;you
+must let me thank you. Tom's told me who
+it was that got him that splendid berth. Oh&mdash;what
+a friend you are! And lending him the
+money and everything. I can't tell you&mdash;It's
+too much&mdash;You are&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't," he said; "it's nothing at all."</p>
+
+<p>"It's everything," said she. "Tom's told me
+quite all about it, mind! I know we owe everything
+to you."</p>
+
+<p>"My dear Miss Harcourt," he began. But she
+interrupted him.</p>
+
+<p>"Why not Harry?" she asked. "I thought&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Thank you. But it was nothing.
+You see I couldn't let poor old Tom go on breaking
+his heart in silence, when just writing a
+letter or two would put him in a position to
+speak."</p>
+
+<p>She had held his hands, or he hers, or both,
+all this time. Now she moved away to the fire.</p>
+
+<p>"Come and sit down and be comfortable,"
+she said. "This is the chair you like. And
+I've got some cigarettes, your very own kind,
+from the Stores."</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[169]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>She remembered a time when she had thought
+that it was he, Dick, who might break his heart
+for her. The remembrance of that vain thought
+was a constant pin-prick to her vanity, a constant
+affront to her modesty. She had tried to
+snub him in those days&mdash;to show him that his
+hopes were vain. And after all he hadn't had
+any hopes: he'd only been anxious about Tom!
+In the desolation of her parting from Tom she
+had longed for sympathy. Dick had given it,
+and she had been kinder to him than she had
+ever been to any man but her lover&mdash;first, because
+he was her lover's friend, and, secondly,
+because she wanted to pretend to herself that
+she had never fancied that there was any reason
+for not being kind to him.</p>
+
+<p>She sat down in the chair opposite to his.</p>
+
+<p>"Now," she said, "I won't thank you any
+more, if you hate it so; but you are good, and
+neither of us will ever forget it."</p>
+
+<p>He sat silent for a moment. He had played
+for this&mdash;for this he had delayed to answer the
+letter wherein Tom announced his intention of
+telling Harriet the whole fair tale of his friend's
+goodness. He had won the trick. Yet for an<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[170]</a></span>
+instant he hesitated to turn it over. Then he
+shrugged his shoulders&mdash;I will not mention this
+again, but it was a tiresome way he had when
+the devil or the guardian angel were working
+that curtain I told you of&mdash;and said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Dear little lady&mdash;you make me wish that I
+<i>were</i> good."</p>
+
+<p>Then he sighed: it was quite a real sigh, and
+she wondered whether he could possibly not be
+good right through. Was it possible that he was
+wicked in some of those strange, mysterious ways
+peculiar to men: billiards&mdash;barmaids&mdash;opera-balls
+flashed into her mind. Perhaps she might
+help him to be good. She had heard the usual
+pretty romances about the influence of a good
+woman.</p>
+
+<p>"Come," she said, "light up&mdash;and tell me all
+about everything."</p>
+
+<p>So he told her many things. And now and
+then he spoke of Tom, just to give himself the
+pleasure-pain of that snow-veiled-rose aspect.</p>
+
+<p>He kissed her hand when he left her&mdash;a kiss
+of studied brotherliness. Yet the kiss had in it
+a tiny heart of fire, fierce enough to make her
+wonder, when he had left her, whether, after<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[171]</a></span>
+all.... But she put the thought away hastily.
+"I may be a vain fool," she said, "but I won't
+be fooled by my vanity twice over."</p>
+
+<p>And she kissed Tom's portrait and went to
+bed.</p>
+
+<p>Dick went home in a heavenly haze of happiness&mdash;so
+he told himself as he went. When he
+woke up at about three o'clock, and began to
+analyse his sensations, he had cooled enough to
+call it an intoxication of pleasurable emotion.
+At three in the morning, if ever, the gilt is off
+the ginger-bread.</p>
+
+<p>Dick lay on his back, his hands clenched at
+his sides, and, gazing open-eyed into the darkness,
+he saw many things. He saw all the old
+friendship: the easy, jolly life in those rooms,
+the meeting with Harriet Harcourt&mdash;it was at
+a fancy-ball, and she wore the white-and-black
+dress of a Beardsley lady; he remembered the
+contrast of the dress with her eyes and mouth.</p>
+
+<p>He saw the days when his thoughts turned
+more and more to every chance of meeting her,
+as though each had been his only chance of life.
+He saw the Essex Court sitting-room as it had
+looked on the night when Tom had announced<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[172]</a></span>
+that Harriet was the only girl in the world&mdash;adding,
+at almost a night's length, that impassioned
+statement of his hopeless, financial condition.
+He could hear Tom's voice as he said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"And I <i>know</i> she cares!"</p>
+
+<p>Dick felt again the thrill of pleasure that had
+come with the impulse to be, for once, really
+noble, to efface himself, to give up the pursuit
+that lighted his days, the dream that enchanted
+his nights. His own voice, too, he heard&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Cheer up, old chap! We'll find a lucrative
+post for you in five minutes, and set the wedding
+bells a-ringing in half an hour, or less! Why on
+earth didn't you tell me before?"</p>
+
+<p>The glow of conscious nobility had lasted a
+long while&mdash;nearly a week, if he recollected
+aright. Then had come the choice of two openings
+for Tom, one in London, and one, equally
+good, in Edinburgh. Dick had chosen to offer
+to his friend the one in Edinburgh. He had
+told himself then that both lovers would work
+better if they were not near enough to waste
+each other's time, and he had almost believed&mdash;he
+was almost sure, even now, that he had almost
+believed&mdash;that this was the real reason.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[173]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>But when Tom had gone there had been frank
+tears in the lovers' parting, and Dick had walked
+up the platform to avoid the embarrassment of
+witnessing them.</p>
+
+<p>"You beast, you brute, you hound!" said
+Dick to himself, lying rigid and wretched in the
+darkness. "You knew well enough that you
+wanted him out of the way. And you promised
+to look after her and keep her from being dull.
+And you've done all you can to keep your word,
+haven't you? She hasn't been dull, I swear.
+And you've been playing for your own hand&mdash;and
+that poor stupid honest chap down there
+slaving away and trusting you as he trusts God.
+And you've written him lying letters twice a
+week, and betrayed him, as far as you got the
+chance, every day, and seen what a cur you are,
+every night, as you see it now. Oh, yes&mdash;you're
+succeeding splendidly. She forgets to
+think of Tom when she's talking to you. How
+often did <i>she</i> mention him last night? It was
+<i>you</i> every time. You're not fit to speak to a
+decent man, you reptile!"</p>
+
+<p>He relaxed the clenched hands.</p>
+
+<p>"Can't you stop this infernal see-saw?" he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[174]</a></span>
+asked, pounding at his pillow; "light and fire
+every day, and hell-black ice every night. Look
+at it straight, you coward! If you're game to
+face the music, why, face it! Marry her, and
+friendship and honesty be damned! Or perhaps
+you might screw yourself up to another noble act&mdash;not
+a shoddy one this time."</p>
+
+<p>Still sneering, he got up and pottered about in
+slippers and pyjamas till he had stirred together
+the fire and made himself cocoa. He drank it
+and smoked two pipes. This is very unromantic,
+but so it was. He slept after that.</p>
+
+<p>When he woke in the morning all things
+looked brighter. He almost succeeded in pretending
+that he did not despise himself.</p>
+
+<p>But there was a letter from Tom, and the
+guardian angel took charge of the curtain again.</p>
+
+<p>He was tired, brain and body. The prize
+seemed hardly worth the cost. The question of
+relative values, at any rate, seemed debatable.
+The day passed miserably.</p>
+
+<p>At about five o'clock he was startled to feel
+the genuine throb of an honest impulse. Such
+an impulse in him at that hour of the day, when
+usually the devil was arranging the curtain for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[175]</a></span>
+the evening's tragi-comedy, was so unusual as to
+rouse in him a psychologic interest strong enough
+to come near to destroying its object. But the
+flame of pleasure lighted by the impulse fought
+successfully against the cold wind of cynical
+analysis, and he stood up.</p>
+
+<p>"Upon my word," said he, "the copy-books
+are right&mdash;'Be virtuous and you will be happy.'
+At least if you aren't, you won't. And if you
+are.... One could but try!"</p>
+
+<p>He packed a bag. He went out and sent telegrams
+to his people at King's Lynn, and to all
+the folk in town with whom he ought in these
+next weeks to have danced and dined, and he
+wrote a telegram to her. But that went no
+further than the floor of the Fleet Street
+Post Office, where it lay in trampled, scattered
+rhomboids.</p>
+
+<p>Then he dined in Hall&mdash;he could not spare
+from his great renunciation even such a thread
+of a thought as should have decided his choice of
+a restaurant; and he went back to the gloomy
+little rooms and wrote a letter to Tom.</p>
+
+<p>It seemed, until his scientific curiosity was
+aroused by the seeming, that he wrote with his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[176]</a></span>
+heart's blood. After the curiosity awoke, the
+heart's blood was only highly-coloured water.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"Look here. I can't stand it any longer. I'm
+a brute and I know it, and I know you'll think
+so. The fact is I've fallen in love with your
+Harry, and I simply can't bear it seeing her
+every day almost and knowing she's yours and
+not mine" (there the analytic demon pricked up
+its ears and the scratching of the pen ceased).
+"I have fought against this," the letter went on
+after a long pause. "You don't know how I've
+fought, but it's stronger than I am. I love her&mdash;impossibly,
+unbearably&mdash;the only right and
+honourable thing to do is to go away, and I'm
+going. My only hope is that she'll never know.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+"Your old friend."<br />
+</div></blockquote>
+
+<p>As he scrawled the signatory hieroglyphic, his
+only hope was that she <i>would</i> know it, and that
+the knowledge would leaven, with tenderly pitying
+thoughts of him, the heroic figure, her happiness
+with Tom, the commonplace.</p>
+
+<p>He addressed and stamped the envelope; but
+he did not close it.</p>
+
+<p>"I might want to put in another word or<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[177]</a></span>
+two," he said to himself. And even then in his
+inmost heart he hardly knew that he was going
+to her. He knew it when he was driving
+towards Chenies Street, and then he told himself
+that he was going to bid her good-bye&mdash;for ever.</p>
+
+<p>Angel and devil were so busy shifting the curtain
+to and fro that he could not see any scene
+clearly.</p>
+
+<p>He came into her presence pale with his resolution
+to be noble, to leave her for ever to happiness&mdash;and
+Tom. It was difficult though, even
+at that supreme moment, to look at her and to
+couple those two ideas.</p>
+
+<p>"I've come to say good-bye," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Good-bye?</i>" the dismay in her eyes seemed to
+make that unsealed letter leap in his side pocket.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;I'm going&mdash;circumstances I can't help&mdash;I'm
+going away for a long time."</p>
+
+<p>"Is it bad news? Oh&mdash;I <i>am</i> sorry. When
+are you going?"</p>
+
+<p>"To-morrow," he said, even as he decided to
+say, "to-night."</p>
+
+<p>"But you can stay a little now, can't you?
+Don't go like this. It's dreadful. I shall miss
+you so&mdash;"</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[178]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>He fingered the letter.</p>
+
+<p>"I must go and post a letter; then I'll come
+back, if I may. Where did I put that hat of
+mine?"</p>
+
+<p>As she turned to pick up the hat from the
+table, he dropped the letter&mdash;the heart's blood
+written letter&mdash;on the floor behind him.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll be back in a minute or two," he said,
+and went out to walk up and down the far end
+of Chenies Street and to picture her&mdash;alone
+with his letter.</p>
+
+<p>She saw it at the instant when the latch of
+her flat clicked behind him. She picked it up,
+and mechanically turned it over to look at the
+address.</p>
+
+<p>He, in the street outside, knew just how she
+would do it. Then she saw that the letter was
+unfastened.</p>
+
+<p>How often had Tom said that there were to
+be no secrets between them! This was <i>his</i> letter.
+But it might hold Dick's secrets. But then,
+if she knew Dick's secrets she might be able to
+help him. He was in trouble&mdash;anyone could
+see that&mdash;awful trouble. She turned the letter
+over and over in her hands.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[179]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>He, without, walking with half-closed eyes,
+felt that she was so turning it.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly she pulled the letter out and read it.
+He, out in the gas-lit night, knew how it would
+strike at her pity, her tenderness, her strong love
+of all that was generous and noble. He pictured
+the scene that must be when he should re-enter
+her room, and his heart beat wildly. He held
+himself in; he was playing the game now in
+deadly earnest. He would give her time to
+think of him, to pity him&mdash;time even to wonder
+whether, after all, duty and honour had not
+risen up in their might to forbid him to dare to
+try his faith by another sight of her. He waited,
+keenly aware that long as the waiting was to him,
+who knew what the ending was to be, it must
+be far, far longer for her, who did not know.</p>
+
+<p>At last he went back to her. And the scene
+that he had pictured in the night where the east
+wind swept the street was acted out now, exactly
+as he had foreseen it.</p>
+
+<p>She held in her hand the open letter. She
+came towards him, still holding it.</p>
+
+<p>"I've read your letter," she said.</p>
+
+<p>In her heart she was saying, "I must be brave.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[180]</a></span>
+Never mind modesty and propriety. Tom could
+never love me like this. <i>He's</i> a hero&mdash;my
+hero."</p>
+
+<p>In the silence that followed her confession he
+seemed to hear almost the very words of her
+thought.</p>
+
+<p>He hung his head and stood before her in the
+deep humility of a chidden child.</p>
+
+<p>"I am sorry," he said. "I am ashamed. Forgive
+me. I couldn't help it. No one could.
+Good-bye. Try to forgive me&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He turned to go, but she caught him by the
+arms. He had been almost sure she would.</p>
+
+<p>"You mustn't go," she said. "Oh&mdash;I <i>am</i> sorry
+for Tom&mdash;but it's not the same for him. There
+are lots of people he'd like just as well&mdash;but
+you&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Hush!" he said gently, "don't think of me.
+I shall be all right. I shall get over it."</p>
+
+<p>His sad, set smile assured her that he never
+would&mdash;never, in this world or the next.</p>
+
+<p>Her eyes were shining with the stress of the
+scene: his with the charm of it.</p>
+
+<p>"You are so strong, so brave, so good," she
+made herself say. "I can't let you go. Oh&mdash;don't<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[181]</a></span>
+you see&mdash;I can't let you suffer. You've
+suffered so much already&mdash;you've been so noble.
+Oh&mdash;it's better to know now. If I'd found out
+later&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>She hung her head and waited.</p>
+
+<p>But he would not spare her. Since he had
+sold his soul he would have the price: the full
+price, to the last blush, the last tear, the last
+tremble in the pretty voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Let me go," he said, and his voice shook with
+real passion, "let me go&mdash;I can't bear it." He
+took her hands gently from his arms and held
+them lightly.</p>
+
+<p>Next moment they were round his neck, and
+she was clinging wildly to him.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't be unhappy! I can't bear it. Don't
+you see? Ah&mdash;don't you see?"</p>
+
+<p>Then he allowed himself to let her know that
+he did see. When he left her an hour later she
+stood in the middle of her room and drew a
+long breath.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Oh!</i>" she cried. "What have I done?
+What <i>have</i> I done?"</p>
+
+<p>He walked away with the maiden fire of her
+kisses thrilling his lips. "I've won&mdash;I've<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[182]</a></span>
+won&mdash;I've won!" His heart sang within
+him.</p>
+
+<p>But when he woke in the night&mdash;these
+months had taught him the habit of waking
+in the night and facing his soul&mdash;he said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"It was very easy, after all&mdash;very, very easy.
+And was it worth while?"</p>
+
+<p>But the next evening, when they met, neither
+tasted in the other's kisses the bitterness of last
+night's regrets. And in three days Tom was to
+come home. He came. All the long way in the
+rattling, shaking train a song of delight sang
+itself over and over in his brain. He, too, had
+his visions: he was not too commonplace for
+those. He saw her, her bright beauty transfigured
+by the joy of reunion, rushing to meet
+him with eager hands and gladly given lips. He
+thought of all he had to tell her. The fifty
+pounds saved already. The Editor's probable
+resignation, his own almost certain promotion,
+the incredibly dear possibility of their marriage
+before another year had passed. It seemed a
+month before he pressed the electric button at
+her door, and pressed it with a hand that trembled
+for joy.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[183]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The door opened and she met him, but this
+was not the radiant figure of his vision. It
+seemed to be not she, but an image of her&mdash;an
+image without life, without colour.</p>
+
+<p>"Come in," she said; "I've something to tell
+you."</p>
+
+<p>"What is it?" he asked bluntly. "What's
+happened, Harry? What's the matter?"</p>
+
+<p>"I've found out," she said slowly, but without
+hesitation: had she not rehearsed the speech
+a thousand times in these three days? "I've
+found out that it was a mistake, Tom. I&mdash;I
+love somebody else. Don't ask who it is. I
+love him. Ah&mdash;<i>don't!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>For his face had turned a leaden white, and
+he was groping blindly for something to hold
+on to.</p>
+
+<p>He sat down heavily on the chair where Dick
+had knelt at her feet the night before. But
+now it was she who was kneeling.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, <i>don't</i>, Tom, dear&mdash;don't. I can't bear
+it. I'm not worth it. He's so brave and noble&mdash;and
+he loves me so."</p>
+
+<p>"And don't <i>I</i> love you?" said poor Tom, and
+then without ado or disguise he burst into tears.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[184]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>She had ceased to think or to reason. Her
+head was on his shoulder, and they clung blindly
+to each other and cried like two children.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>When Tom went to the Temple that night
+he carried a note from Harry to Dick. With
+sublime audacity and a confidence deserved she
+made Tom her messenger.</p>
+
+<p>"It's a little secret," she said, smiling at him,
+"and you're not to know."</p>
+
+<p>Tom thought it must be something about a
+Christmas present for himself. He laughed&mdash;a
+little shakily&mdash;and took the note.</p>
+
+<p>Dick read it and crushed it in his hand while
+Tom poured out his full heart.</p>
+
+<p>"There's been some nonsense while I was
+away," he said; "she must have been dull and
+unhinged&mdash;you left her too much alone, old
+man. But it's all right now. She couldn't
+care for anyone but me, after all, and she knew
+it directly she saw me again. And we're to be
+married before next year's out, if luck holds."</p>
+
+<p>"Here's luck, old man!" said Dick, lifting
+his whisky. When Tom had gone to bed,
+weary with the quick sequence of joy and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[185]</a></span>
+misery and returning joy, Dick read the letter
+again.</p>
+
+<p>"I can't do it," said the letter, "it's not in
+me. He loves me too much. And I <i>am</i> fond
+of him. He couldn't bear it. He's weak, you
+see. He's not like you&mdash;brave and strong and
+noble. But I shall always be better because
+you've loved me. I'm going to try to be brave
+and noble and strong like you. And you must
+help me, Dear. God bless you. Good-bye."</p>
+
+<p>"After all," said Dick, as he watched the
+white letter turn in the fire to black, gold
+spangled, "after all, it was not so easy. And
+oh, how it would have been worth while!"</p><hr class="chap" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[187]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2>MISS EDEN'S BABY</h2>
+
+
+<div class='cap'>MISS EDEN'S life-history was a sad one.
+She told it to her employer before she had
+been a week at the Beeches. Mrs. Despard came
+into the school-room and surprised the governess
+in tears. No one could ever resist Mrs. Despard&mdash;I
+suppose she has had more confidences than
+any woman in Sussex. Anyhow, Miss Eden
+dried her tears and faltered out her poor little
+story.</div>
+
+<p>She had been engaged to be married&mdash;Mrs.
+Despard's was a face trained to serve and not to
+betray its owner, so she did not look astonished,
+though Miss Eden was so very homely, poor
+thing, that the idea of a lover seemed almost
+ludicrous&mdash;she had been engaged to be married:
+and her lover had been killed at Elendslaagte,
+and her father had died of heart disease&mdash;an
+attack brought on by the shock of the
+news, and his partner had gone off with all his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[188]</a></span>
+money, and now she had to go out as a governess:
+her mother and sister were living quietly
+on the mother's little fortune. There was
+enough for two but not enough for three. So
+Miss Eden had gone governessing.</p>
+
+<p>"But you needn't pity me for that," she said,
+when Mrs. Despard said something kind, "because,
+really, it's better for me. If I were at
+home doing nothing I should just sit and think
+of <i>him</i>&mdash;for hours and hours at a time. He
+was so brave and strong and good&mdash;he died
+cheering his men on and waving his sword,
+and he did love me so. We were to have been
+married in August."</p>
+
+<p>She was weeping again, more violently than
+before; Mrs. Despard comforted her&mdash;there is
+no one who comforts so well&mdash;and the governess
+poured out her heart. When the dressing-bell
+rang Miss Eden pulled herself together with
+a manifest effort.</p>
+
+<p>"I've been awfully weak and foolish," she said,
+"and you've been most kind. Please forgive
+me&mdash;and&mdash;and I think I'd rather not speak of
+it any more&mdash;ever. It's been a relief, just this
+once&mdash;but I'm going to be brave. Thank you,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[189]</a></span>
+thank you for all your goodness to me. I shall
+never forget it."</p>
+
+<p>And now Miss Eden went about her duties
+with a courageous smile, and Mrs. Despard could
+not but see and pity the sad heart beneath the
+bravely assumed armour. Miss Eden was fairly
+well educated, and she certainly was an excellent
+teacher. The children made good progress. She
+worshipped Mrs. Despard&mdash;but then every one
+did that&mdash;and she made herself pleasures of the
+little things she was able to do for her&mdash;mending
+linen, arranging flowers, running errands, and
+nursing the Baby. She adored the Baby. She
+used to walk by herself in the Sussex lanes, for
+Mrs. Despard often set her free for two or three
+hours at a time, and more than once the mother
+and children, turning some leafy corner in their
+blackberrying or nutting expeditions, came upon
+Miss Eden walking along with a far-away look
+in her eyes, and a face set in a mask of steadfast
+endurance. She would sit sewing on the
+lawn with Mabel and Gracie playing about
+her, answering their ceaseless chatter with a
+patient smile. To Mrs. Despard she was a
+pathetic figure. Mr. Despard loathed her, but<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[190]</a></span>
+then he never liked women unless they were
+pretty.</p>
+
+<p>"I ought to be used to your queer pets by
+now," he said; "but really this one is almost
+too much. Upon my soul, she's the ugliest
+woman I've ever seen."</p>
+
+<p>She certainty was not handsome. Her eyes
+were fairly good, but mouth and nose were
+clumsy, and hers was one of those faces that
+seem to have no definite outline. Her complexion
+was dull and unequal. Her hair was
+straight and coarse, and somehow it always
+looked dusty. Her figure was her only good
+point, and, as Mr. Despard observed, "If a figure
+without a face is any good, why not have a
+dressmaker's dummy, and have done with it?"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Despard was very glad when he heard
+that a little legacy had come from an uncle, and
+that Miss Eden was going to give up governessing
+and live with her people.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Eden left in floods of tears, and she
+clung almost frantically to Mrs. Despard.</p>
+
+<p>"You have been so good to me," she said. "I
+may write to you, mayn't I? and come and see
+you sometimes? You will let me, won't you?"</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[191]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Tears choked her, and she was driven off in
+the station fly. And a new governess, young,
+commonplacely pretty, and entirely heart-whole,
+came to take her place, to the open relief of Mr.
+Despard, and the little less pronounced satisfaction
+of the little girls.</p>
+
+<p>"She'll write to you by every post now, I suppose,"
+said Mr. Despard when the conventional
+letter of thanks for kindness came to his wife.
+But Miss Eden did not write again till Christmas.
+Then she wrote to ask Mrs. Despard's
+advice. There was a gentleman, a retired tea-broker,
+in a very good position. She liked him&mdash;did
+Mrs. Despard think it would be fair to
+marry him when her heart was buried for ever
+in that grave at Elendslaagte?</p>
+
+<p>"But I don't want to be selfish, and poor Mr.
+Cave is so devoted. My dear mother thinks he
+would never be the same again if I refused him."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Despard read the letter, and told his wife
+to tell the girl to take the tea-broker, for goodness'
+sake, and be thankful. She'd never get
+such another chance. His wife told him not to
+be coarse, and wrote a gentle, motherly letter
+to Miss Eden.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[192]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>On New Year's Day came a beautiful and
+very expensive handkerchief-sachet for Mrs. Despard,
+and the news that Miss Eden was engaged.
+"And already," she wrote, "I feel that I can
+really become attached to Edward. He is goodness
+itself. Of course, it is not like the other.
+That only comes once in a woman's life, but
+I believe I shall really be happy in a quiet,
+humdrum way."</p>
+
+<p>After that, news of Miss Eden came thick and
+fast. Edward was building a house for her.
+Edward had bought her a pony-carriage. Edward
+had to call his house No. 70, Queen's Road&mdash;a
+new Town Council resolution&mdash;and it
+wasn't in a street at all, but quite in the country,
+only there was going to be a road there some
+day. And she had so wanted to call it the
+Beeches, after dear Mrs. Despard's house, where
+she had been so happy. The wedding-day was
+fixed, and would Mrs. Despard come to the
+wedding? Miss Eden knew it was a good deal
+to ask; but if she only would!</p>
+
+<p>"It would add more than you can possibly
+guess to my happiness," she said, "if you could
+come. There is plenty of room in my mother's<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[193]</a></span>
+little house. It is small, but very convenient,
+and it has such a lovely old garden, so unusual,
+you know, in the middle of a town; and if only
+dear Mabel and Gracie might be among my
+little bridesmaids! The dresses are to be half-transparent
+white silk over rose colour. Dear
+Edward's father insists on ordering them himself
+from Liberty's. The other bridesmaids will
+be Edward's little nieces&mdash;such sweet children.
+Mother is giving me the loveliest trousseau. Of
+course, I shall make it up to her; but she will
+do it, and I give way, just to please her. It's
+not pretentious, you know, but everything so
+<i>good</i>. Real lace on all the under things, and
+twelve of everything, and&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>The letter wandered on into a maze of <i>lingerie</i>
+and millinery and silk petticoats.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. and Mrs. Despard were still debating the
+question of the bridesmaids whose dresses were
+to come from Liberty's when a telegraph boy
+crossed the lawn.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Despard tore open the envelope.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh&mdash;how frightfully sad!" she said. "I
+<i>am</i> sorry! 'Edward's father dangerously ill.
+Wedding postponed.'"</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[194]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The next letter was black-edged, and was not
+signed "Eden." Edward's father had insisted
+on the marriage taking place before he died&mdash;it
+had, in fact, been performed by his bedside.
+It had been a sad time, but Mrs. Edward was
+very happy now.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"My husband is so good to me, his thoughtful
+kindness is beyond belief," she wrote. "He
+anticipates my every wish. I should be indeed
+ungrateful if I did not love him dearly. Dear
+Mrs. Despard, this gentle domestic love is very
+beautiful. I hope I am not treacherous to my
+dead in being as happy as I am with Edward.
+Ah! I hear the gate click&mdash;I must run and
+meet him. He says it is not like coming home
+unless my face is the first he sees when he comes
+in. Good-bye. A thousand thanks for ever for
+all your goodness.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+"Your grateful Ella Cave."<br />
+</div></blockquote>
+
+<p>"Either their carriage drive is unusually long,
+or her face was <i>not</i> the first," said Mr. Despard.
+"Why didn't she go and meet the man, and not
+stop to write all that rot?"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't, Bill," said his wife. "You were always
+so unjust to that girl."</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[195]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Girl!" said Mr. Despard.</p>
+
+<p>And now the letters were full of detail: the
+late Miss Eden wrote a good hand, and expressed
+herself with clearness. Her letters were a pleasure
+to Mrs. Despard.</p>
+
+<p>"Poor dear!" she said. "It really rejoices my
+heart to think of her being so happy. She describes
+things very well. I almost feel as though
+I knew every room in her house; it must be very
+pretty with all those Liberty muslin blinds, and
+the Persian rugs, and the chair-backs Edward's
+grandmother worked&mdash;and then the beautiful
+garden. I think I must go to see it all. I do
+love to see people happy."</p>
+
+<p>"You generally do see them happy," said her
+husband; "it's a way people have when they're
+near you. Go and see her, by all means."</p>
+
+<p>And Mrs. Despard would have gone, but a
+letter, bearing the same date as her own, crossed
+it in the post; it must have been delayed, for it
+reached her on the day when she expected an
+answer to her own letter, offering a visit. But
+the late Miss Eden had evidently not received
+this, for her letter was a mere wail of anguish.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[196]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Edward is ill&mdash;typhoid. I am distracted.
+Write to me when you can. The very thought
+of you comforts me."</p>
+
+<p>"Poor thing," said Mrs. Despard, "I really
+did think she was going to be happy."</p>
+
+<p>Her sympathetic interest followed Edward
+through all the stages of illness and convalescence,
+as chronicled by his wife's unwearying
+pen.</p>
+
+<p>Then came the news of the need of a miniature
+trousseau, and the letters breathed of
+head-flannels, robes, and the charm of tiny embroidered
+caps. "They were Edward's when
+he was a baby&mdash;the daintiest embroidery and
+thread lace. The christening cap is Honiton.
+They are a little yellow with time, of course,
+but I am bleaching them on the sweet-brier
+hedge. I can see the white patches on the
+green as I write. They look like some strange
+sort of flowers, and they make me dream of
+the beautiful future."</p>
+
+<p>In due season Baby was born and christened;
+and then Miss Eden, that was, wrote to ask if
+she might come to the Beeches, and bring the
+darling little one.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[197]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Despard was delighted. She loved
+babies. It was a beautiful baby&mdash;beautifully
+dressed, and it rested contentedly in the arms
+of a beautifully dressed lady, whose happy face
+Mrs. Despard could hardly reconcile with her
+recollections of Miss Eden. The young mother's
+happiness radiated from her, and glorified her
+lips and eyes. Even Mr. Despard owned, when
+the pair had gone, that marriage and motherhood
+had incredibly improved Miss Eden.</p>
+
+<p>And now, the sudden departure of a brother
+for the other side of the world took Mrs.
+Despard to Southampton, whence his boat
+sailed, and where lived the happy wife and
+mother, who had been Miss Eden.</p>
+
+<p>When the tears of parting were shed, and the
+last waving handkerchief from the steamer's
+deck had dwindled to a sharp point of light,
+and from a sharp point of light to an invisible
+point of parting and sorrow, Mrs. Despard
+dried her pretty eyes, and thought of trains.
+There was no convenient one for an hour or
+two.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll go and see Ella Cave," said she, and
+went in a hired carriage. "No. 70, Queen's<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[198]</a></span>
+Road," she said. "I think it's somewhere outside
+the town."</p>
+
+<p>"Not it," said the driver, and presently set
+her down in a horrid little street, at a horrid
+little shop, where they sold tobacco and sweets
+and newspapers and walking-sticks.</p>
+
+<p>"This can't be it! There must be some
+other Queen's Road?" said Mrs. Despard.</p>
+
+<p>"No there ain't," said the man. "What
+name did yer want?"</p>
+
+<p>"Cave," said Mrs. Despard absently; "Mrs.
+Edward Cave."</p>
+
+<p>The man went into the shop. Presently he
+returned.</p>
+
+<p>"She don't live here," he said; "she only
+calls here for letters."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Despard assured herself of this in a
+brief interview with a frowsy woman across a
+glass-topped show-box of silk-embroidered cigar-cases.</p>
+
+<p>"The young person calls every day, mum,"
+she said; "quite a respectable young person,
+mum, I should say&mdash;if she was after your
+situation."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you," said Mrs. Despard mechanically,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[199]</a></span>
+yet with her own smile&mdash;the smile that
+still stamps her in the frowsy woman's memory
+as "that pleasant-spoken lady."</p>
+
+<p>She paused a moment on the dirty pavement,
+and then gave the cabman the address of the
+mother and sister, the address of the little
+house&mdash;small, but very convenient&mdash;and with
+a garden&mdash;such a lovely old garden&mdash;and so
+unusual in the middle of a town.</p>
+
+<p>The cab stopped at a large, sparkling, plate-glassy
+shop&mdash;a very high-class fruiterer's and
+greengrocer's.</p>
+
+<p>The name on the elaborately gilded facia
+was, beyond any doubt, Eden&mdash;Frederick
+Eden.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Despard got out and walked into the
+shop. To this hour the scent of Tangerine
+oranges brings to her a strange, sick, helpless
+feeling of disillusionment.</p>
+
+<p>A stout well-oiled woman, in a very tight
+puce velveteen bodice with bright buttons and
+a large yellow lace collar, fastened with a blue
+enamel brooch, leaned forward interrogatively.</p>
+
+<p>"Mrs. Cave?" said Mrs. Despard.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't know the name, madam."</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[200]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Wasn't that the name of the gentleman
+Miss Eden married?"</p>
+
+<p>"It seems to me you're making a mistake,
+madam. Excuse me, but might I ask your
+name?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm Mrs. Despard. Miss Eden lived with
+me as governess."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes"&mdash;the puce velvet seemed to soften&mdash;"very
+pleased to see you, I'm sure! Come
+inside, madam. Ellen's just run round to the
+fishmonger's. I'm not enjoying very good
+health just now"&mdash;the glance was intolerably
+confidential&mdash;"and I thought I could fancy a
+bit of filleted plaice for my supper, or a nice
+whiting. Come inside, do!"</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Despard, stunned, could think of no
+course save that suggested. She followed Mrs.
+Eden into the impossible parlour that bounded
+the shop on the north.</p>
+
+<p>"Do sit down," said Mrs. Eden hospitably,
+"and the girl shall get you a cup of tea. It's
+full early, but a cup of tea's always welcome,
+early or late, isn't it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, indeed," said Mrs. Despard, automatically.
+Then she roused herself and added, "But please<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[201]</a></span>
+don't trouble, I can't stay more than a few
+minutes. I hope Miss Eden is well?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes&mdash;she's all right. She lives in
+clover, as you might say, since her uncle on the
+mother's side left her that hundred a year.
+Made it all in fried fish, too. I should have
+thought it a risk myself, but you never
+know."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Despard was struggling with a sensation
+as of sawdust in the throat&mdash;sawdust, and a
+great deal of it, and very dry.</p>
+
+<p>"But I heard that Miss Eden was married&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Not she!" said Mrs. Eden, with the natural
+contempt of one who was.</p>
+
+<p>"I understood that she had married a Mr.
+Cave."</p>
+
+<p>"It's some other Eden, then. There isn't a
+Cave in the town, so far as I know, except Mr.
+Augustus; he's a solicitor and Commissioner for
+Oaths, a very good business, and of course he'd
+never look the same side of the road as she was,
+nor she couldn't expect it."</p>
+
+<p>"But really," Mrs. Despard persisted, "I do
+think there must be some mistake. Because<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[202]</a></span>
+she came to see me&mdash;and&mdash;and she brought her
+baby."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Eden laughed outright.</p>
+
+<p>"Her baby? Oh, really! But she's never so
+much as had a young man after her, let alone a
+husband. It's not what she could look for,
+either, for she's no beauty&mdash;poor girl!"</p>
+
+<p>Yet the Baby was evidence&mdash;of a sort. Mrs.
+Despard hated herself for hinting that perhaps
+Mrs. Eden did not know everything.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know what you mean, madam."
+The puce bodice was visibly moved. "That was
+<i>my</i> baby, bless his little heart. Poor Ellen's a
+respectable girl&mdash;she's been with me since she
+was a little trot of six&mdash;all except the eleven
+months she was away with you&mdash;and then my
+Fred see her to the door, and fetched her from
+your station. She <i>would</i> go&mdash;though not <i>our</i>
+wish. I suppose she wanted a change. But since
+then she's never been over an hour away, except
+when she took my Gustavus over to see you.
+She must have told you whose he was&mdash;but I
+suppose you weren't paying attention. And I
+must say I don't think it's becoming in you, if
+you'll excuse me saying so, to come here taking<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[203]</a></span>
+away a young girl's character. At least, if she's
+not so young as she was, of course&mdash;we none
+of us are, not even yourself, madam, if you'll
+pardon me saying so."</p>
+
+<p>"I beg your pardon," said Mrs. Despard. She
+had never felt so helpless&mdash;so silly. The
+absurd parlour, ponderous with plush, dusky
+with double curtains, had for her all the effect of
+a nightmare.</p>
+
+<p>She felt that she was swimming blindly in a
+sea of disenchantment.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't think me inquisitive," she said, "but
+Miss Eden was engaged, wasn't she, some time
+ago, to someone who was killed in South
+Africa?"</p>
+
+<p>"Never&mdash;in all her born days," said Mrs.
+Eden, with emphasis. "I suppose it's her looks.
+I've had a good many offers myself, though I'm
+not what you might call anything out of the
+way&mdash;but poor Ellen&mdash;never had so much as a
+nibble."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Despard gasped. She clung against
+reason to the one spar of hope in this sea of
+faiths dissolved. It might be&mdash;it must be&mdash;some
+mistake!</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[204]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"You see, poor Ellen"&mdash;Mrs. Eden made as
+much haste to smash up the spar as though she
+had seen it&mdash;"poor Ellen, when her mother and
+father died she was but six. There was only
+her and my Fred, so naturally we took her, and
+what little money the old lady left we spent on
+her, sending her to a good school, and never
+counting the bit of clothes and victuals. She
+was always for learning something, and above
+her station, and the Rev. Mrs. Peterson at St.
+Michael, and All Angels&mdash;she made a sort of
+pet of Ellen, and set her up, more than a bit."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Despard remembered that Mrs. Peterson
+had been Miss Eden's reference.</p>
+
+<p>"And then she <i>would</i> come to you&mdash;though
+welcome to share along with us, and you can see
+for yourself it's a good business&mdash;and when that
+little bit was left her, of course, she'd no need to
+work, so she came home here, and I must say
+she's always been as handy a girl and obliging as
+you could wish, but wandering, too, in her
+thoughts. Always pens and ink. I shouldn't
+wonder but what she wrote poetry. Yards and
+yards of writing she does. I don't know what
+she does with it all."</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[205]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>But Mrs. Despard knew.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Eden talked on gaily and gladly&mdash;till
+not even a straw was left for her hearer to cling
+to.</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you very much," she said. "I see
+it was all a mistake. I must have been wrong
+about the address." She spoke hurriedly&mdash;for
+she had heard in the shop a step that she knew.</p>
+
+<p>For one moment a white face peered in at the
+glass door&mdash;then vanished; it was Miss Eden's
+face&mdash;her face as it had been when she told of
+her lost lover who died waving his sword at
+Elendslaagte! But the telling of that tale had
+moved Mrs. Despard to no such passion of pity
+as this. For from that face now something was
+blotted out, and the lack of it was piteous
+beyond thought.</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you very much. I am so sorry to
+have troubled you," she said, and somehow got
+out of the plush parlour, and through the shop,
+fruit-filled, orange-scented.</p>
+
+<p>At the station there was still time, and too
+much time. The bookstall yielded pencil, paper,
+envelope, and stamp. She wrote&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Ella, dear, whatever happens, I am always<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[206]</a></span>
+your friend. Let me know&mdash;can I do anything
+for you? I know all about everything now.
+But don't think I'm angry&mdash;I am only so sorry
+for you, dear&mdash;so very, very sorry. Do let me
+help you."</p>
+
+<p>She addressed the letter to Miss Eden at the
+greengrocer's. Afterwards she thought that she
+had better have left it alone. It could do no
+good, and it might mean trouble with her sister-in-law,
+for Miss Eden, late Mrs. Cave, the happy
+wife and mother. She need not have troubled
+herself&mdash;for the letter came back a week later
+with a note from Mrs. Eden of the bursting,
+bright-buttoned, velvet bodice. Ellen had gone
+away&mdash;no one knew where she had gone.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Despard will always reproach herself
+for not having rushed towards the white face
+that peered through the glass door. She could
+have done something&mdash;anything. So she thinks,
+but I am not sure.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>"And it was none of it true, Bill," she said
+piteously, when, Mabel and Gracie safely tucked
+up in bed, she told him all about it. "I don't
+know how she could. No dead lover&mdash;no retired<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[207]</a></span>
+tea-broker&mdash;no pretty house, and sweet-brier
+hedge with ... and no Baby."</p>
+
+<p>"She was a lying lunatic," said Bill. "I never
+liked her. Hark! what's that? All right, Love-a-duck&mdash;daddy's
+here!"</p>
+
+<p>He went up the stairs three at a time to catch
+up his baby, who had a way of wandering, with
+half-awake wailings, out of her crib in the small
+hours.</p>
+
+<p>"All right, Kiddie-winks, daddy's got you," he
+murmured, coming back into the drawing-room
+with the little soft, warm, flannelly bundle cuddled
+close to him.</p>
+
+<p>"She's asleep again already," he said, settling
+her comfortably in his arms. "Don't worry any
+more about that Eden girl, Molly&mdash;she's not
+worth it."</p>
+
+<p>His wife knelt beside him and buried her face
+against his waistcoat and against the little flannel
+night-gown.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Bill," she said, and her voice was thick
+with tears, "don't say things like that. Don't
+you see? It was cruel, cruel! She was all
+alone&mdash;no mother, no sister, no lover. She was
+made so that no one could ever love her. And<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[208]</a></span>
+she wanted love so much&mdash;so frightfully much,
+so that she just <i>had</i> to pretend that she had it."</p>
+
+<p>"And what about the Baby?" asked Mr.
+Despard, taking one arm from his own baby
+to pass it round his wife's shoulders. "Don't
+be a darling idiot, Molly. What about the
+Baby?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh&mdash;don't you see?" Mrs. Despard was
+sobbing now in good earnest. "She wanted the
+Baby more than anything else. Oh&mdash;don't say
+horrid things about her, Bill! We've got everything&mdash;and
+she'd got nothing at all&mdash;don't say
+things&mdash;don't!"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Despard said nothing. He thumped his
+wife sympathetically on the back. It was the
+baby who spoke.</p>
+
+<p>"Want mammy," she said sleepily, and at the
+transfer remembered her father, "and daddy
+too," she added politely.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Eden was somewhere or other. Wherever
+she was she was alone.</p>
+
+<p>And these three were together.</p>
+
+<p>"I daresay you're right about that girl," said
+Mr. Despard. "Poor wretch! By Jove, she was
+ugly!"</p><hr class="chap" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[209]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2>THE LOVER, THE GIRL, AND THE ONLOOKER</h2>
+
+
+<div class='cap'>The two were alone in the grassy courtyard
+of the ruined castle. The rest of the picnic
+party had wandered away from them, or they
+from it. Out of the green-grown mound of
+fallen masonry by the corner of the chapel a
+great may-bush grew, silvered and pearled on
+every scented, still spray. The sky was deep,
+clear, strong blue above, and against the blue,
+the wallflowers shone bravely from the cracks
+and crevices of ruined arch and wall and buttress.</div>
+
+<p>"They shine like gold," she said. "I wish
+one could get at them!"</p>
+
+<p>"Do you want some?" he said, and on the
+instant his hand had found a strong jutting
+stone, his foot a firm ledge&mdash;and she saw his
+figure, grey flannel against grey stone, go up the
+wall towards the yellow flowers.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, don't!" she cried. "I don't <i>really</i> want
+them&mdash;please not&mdash;I wish&mdash;"</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[210]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Then she stopped, because he was already
+some twelve feet from the ground, and she
+knew that one should not speak to a man who
+is climbing ruined walls. So she clasped her
+hands and waited, and her heart seemed to go
+out like a candle in the wind, and to leave only
+a dark, empty, sickening space where, a moment
+before, it had beat in anxious joy. For she
+loved him, had loved him these two years, had
+loved him since the day of their first meeting.
+And that was just as long as he had loved her.
+But he had never told his love. There is a code
+of honour, right or wrong, and it forbids a man
+with an income of a hundred and fifty a year to
+speak of love to a girl who is reckoned an heiress.
+There are plenty who transgress the code, but
+they are in all the other stories. He drove his
+passion on the curb, and mastered it. Yet the
+questions&mdash;Does she love me? Does she know
+I love her? Does she wonder why I don't
+speak? and the counter-questions&mdash;Will she
+think I don't care? Doesn't she perhaps care
+at all? Will she marry someone else before
+I've earned the right to try to make her love
+me? afforded a see-saw of reflection, agonising<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[211]</a></span>
+enough, for those small hours of wakefulness
+when we let our emotions play the primitive
+games with us. But always the morning
+brought strength to keep to his resolution.
+He saw her three times a year, when Christmas,
+Easter, and Midsummer brought her to
+stay with an aunt, brought him home to his
+people for holidays. And though he had denied
+himself the joy of speaking in words, he
+had let his eyes speak more than he knew. And
+now he had reached the wallflowers high up,
+and was plucking them and throwing them
+down so that they fell in a wavering bright
+shower round her feet. She did not pick them
+up. Her eyes were on him; and the empty
+place where her heart used to be seemed to
+swell till it almost choked her.</p>
+
+<p>He was coming down now. He was only
+about twenty-five feet from the ground. There
+was no sound at all but the grating of his feet
+as he set them on the stones, and the movement,
+now and then, of a bird in the ivy. Then came
+a rustle, a gritty clatter, loud falling stones: his
+foot had slipped, and he had fallen. No&mdash;he
+was hanging by his hands above the great refectory<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[212]</a></span>
+arch, and his body swung heavily with
+the impetus of the checked fall. He was moving
+along now, slowly&mdash;hanging by his hands; now
+he grasped an ivy root&mdash;another&mdash;and pulled
+himself up till his knee was on the moulding of
+the arch. She would never have believed anyone
+who had told her that only two minutes had
+been lived between the moment of his stumble
+and the other moment when his foot touched
+the grass and he came towards her among the
+fallen wallflowers. She was a very nice girl
+and not at all forward, and I cannot understand
+or excuse her conduct. She made two steps
+towards him with her hands held out&mdash;caught
+him by the arms just above the elbow&mdash;shook
+him angrily, as one shakes a naughty child&mdash;looked
+him once in the eyes and buried her face
+in his neck&mdash;sobbing long, dry, breathless sobs.</p>
+
+<p>Even then he tried to be strong.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't!" he said tenderly, "don't worry. It's
+all right&mdash;I was a fool. Pull yourself together&mdash;there's
+someone coming."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't care," she said, for the touch of his
+cheek, pressed against her hair, told her all that
+she wanted to know. "Let them come, I don't<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[213]</a></span>
+care! Oh, how could you be so silly and horrid?
+Oh, thank God, thank God! Oh, how could
+you?"</p>
+
+<p>Of course, a really honourable young man
+would have got out of the situation somehow.
+He didn't. He accepted it, with his arms round
+her and his lips against the face where the tears
+now ran warm and salt. It was one of the
+immortal moments.</p>
+
+<p>The picture was charming, too&mdash;a picture to
+wring the heart of the onlooker with envy, or
+sympathy, according to his nature. But there
+was only one onlooker, a man of forty, or
+thereabouts, who paused for an instant under
+the great gate of the castle and took in the full
+charm and meaning of the scene. He turned
+away, and went back along the green path
+with hell in his heart. The other two were
+in Paradise. The Onlooker fell like the third
+in Eden&mdash;the serpent, in fact. Two miles
+away he stopped and lit a pipe.</p>
+
+<p>"It's got to be borne, I suppose," he said,
+"like all the rest of it. <i>She's</i> happy enough.
+I ought to be glad. Anyway, I can't stop it."
+Perhaps he swore a little. If he did, the less<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[214]</a></span>
+precise and devotional may pardon him. He
+had loved the Girl since her early teens, and it
+was only yesterday's post that had brought him
+the appointment that one might marry on. The
+appointment had come through her father, for
+whom the Onlooker had fagged at Eton. He
+went back to London, hell burning briskly.
+Moral maxims and ethereal ideas notwithstanding,
+it was impossible for him to be glad that
+she was happy&mdash;like that.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>The Lover who came to his love over strewn
+wallflowers desired always, as has been seen, to
+act up to his moral ideas. So he took next day
+a much earlier train than was at all pleasant,
+and called on her father to explain his position
+and set forth his prospects. His coming was
+heralded by a letter from her. One must not
+quote it&mdash;it is not proper to read other people's
+letters, especially letters to a trusted father, from
+a child, only and adored. Its effect may be indicated
+briefly. It showed the father that the
+Girl's happiness had had two long years in
+which to learn to grow round the thought of
+the young man, whom he now faced for the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[215]</a></span>
+first time. Odd, for to the father he seemed
+just like other young men. It seemed to him
+that there were so many more of the same
+pattern from whom she might have chosen.
+And many of them well off, too. However, the
+letter lay in the prosperous pocket-book in the
+breast of the father's frock-coat, and the Lover
+was received as though that letter were a charm
+to ensure success. A faulty, or at least a slow-working,
+charm, however, for the father did not
+lift a bag of gold from his safe and say: "Take
+her, take this also&mdash;be happy"&mdash;he only consented
+to a provisional engagement, took an
+earnest interest in the young man's affairs, and
+offered to make his daughter an annual allowance
+on her marriage.</p>
+
+<p>"At my death she will have more," he said,
+"for, of course, I have insured my life. You,
+of course, will insure yours."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course I will," the Lover echoed warmly;
+"does it matter what office?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, any good office&mdash;the Influential, if you
+like. I'm a director, you know."</p>
+
+<p>The young man made a reverent note of the
+name, and the interview seemed played out.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[216]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"It's a complicated nuisance," the father
+mused; "it isn't even as if I knew anything
+of the chap. I oughtn't to have allowed the
+child to make these long visits to her aunt. Or
+I ought to have gone with her. But I never
+could stand my sister Fanny. Well, well," and
+he went back to his work with the plain unvarnished
+heartache of the anxious father&mdash;not
+romantic and pretty like the lover's pangs, but
+as uncomfortable as toothache, all the same.</p>
+
+<p>He had another caller that afternoon; he
+whom we know as the Onlooker came to thank
+him for the influence that had got him the
+appointment as doctor to the Influential Insurance
+Company.</p>
+
+<p>The father opened his heart to the Onlooker&mdash;and
+the Onlooker had to bear it. It was an
+hour full of poignant sentiments. The only
+definite thought that came to the Onlooker was
+this&mdash;"I must hold my tongue. I must hold
+my tongue." He held it.</p>
+
+<p>Three days later he took up his new work.
+And the very first man who came to him for
+medical examination was the man in whose
+arms he had seen the girl he loved.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[217]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The Onlooker asked the first needful questions
+automatically. To himself he was saying: "The
+situation is dramatically good; but I don't see
+how to develop the action. It really is rather
+amusing that I&mdash;<i>I</i> should have to tap his
+beastly chest, and listen to his cursed lungs, and
+ask sympathetic questions about his idiotic infant
+illnesses&mdash;one thing, he ought to be able
+to remember those pretty vividly&mdash;the confounded
+pup."</p>
+
+<p>The Onlooker had never done anything wronger
+than you have done, my good reader, and he
+never expected to meet a giant temptation, any
+more than you do. A man may go all his days
+and never meet Apollyon. On the other hand,
+Apollyon may be waiting for one round the
+corner of the next street. The devil was waiting
+for the Onlooker in the answers to his
+careless questions&mdash;"Father alive? No? What
+did he die of?" For the answer was "Heart,"
+and in it the devil rose and showed the Onlooker
+the really only true and artistic way to develop
+the action in this situation, so dramatic in its possibilities.
+The illuminative flash of temptation
+was so sudden, so brilliant, that the Doctor-Onlooker<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[218]</a></span>
+closed his soul's eyes and yielded without
+even the least pretence of resistance.</p>
+
+<p>He took his stethoscope from the table, and
+he felt as though he had picked up a knife to
+stab the other man in the back. As, in fact,
+he had.</p>
+
+<p>Ten minutes later, the stabbed man was reeling
+from the Onlooker's consulting room. Mind
+and soul reeled, that is, but his body was stiffer
+and straighter than usual. He walked with
+more than his ordinary firmness of gait, as a
+man does who is just drunk enough to know
+that he must try to look sober.</p>
+
+<p>He walked down the street, certain words
+ringing in his ears&mdash;"Heart affected&mdash;probably
+hereditary weakness. No office in the world
+would insure you."</p>
+
+<p>And so it was all over&mdash;the dreams, the
+hopes, the palpitating faith in a beautiful future.
+His days might be long, they might be brief;
+but be his life long or short, he must live it
+alone. He had a little fight with himself as
+he went down Wimpole Street; then he hailed
+a hansom, and went and told her father, who
+quite agreed with him that it was all over.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[219]</a></span>
+The father wondered at himself for being more
+sorry than glad.</p>
+
+<p>Then the Lover went and told the Girl. He
+had told the father first to insure himself against
+any chance of yielding to what he knew the Girl
+would say. She said it, of course, with her
+dear arms round his neck.</p>
+
+<p>"I won't give you up just because you're ill,"
+she said; "why, you want me more than ever!"</p>
+
+<p>"But I may die at any moment."</p>
+
+<p>"So may I! And you may live to be a hundred&mdash;I'll
+take my chance. Oh, don't you see,
+too, that if there <i>is</i> only a little time we ought
+to spend it together?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's impossible," he said, "it's no good. I
+must set my teeth and bear it. And you&mdash;I
+hope it won't be as hard for you as it will for
+me."</p>
+
+<p>"But you <i>can't</i> give me up if I won't <i>be</i> given
+up, can you?"</p>
+
+<p>His smile struck her dumb. It was more
+convincing than his words.</p>
+
+<p>"But why?" she said presently. "Why&mdash;why&mdash;<i>why?</i>"</p>
+
+<p>"Because I won't; because it's wrong. My<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[220]</a></span>
+father ought never to have married. He had
+no right to bring me into the world to suffer
+like this. It's a crime. And I'll not be a
+criminal. Not even for you&mdash;not even for you.
+You'll forgive me&mdash;won't you? I didn't know&mdash;and&mdash;oh,
+what's the use of talking?"</p>
+
+<p>Yet they talked for hours. Conventionally he
+should have torn himself away, unable to bear
+the strain of his agony. As a matter of fact, he
+sat by her holding her hand. It was for the last
+time&mdash;the last, last time. There was really a
+third at that interview. The Onlooker had
+imagination enough to see the scene between the
+parting lovers.</p>
+
+<p>They parted.</p>
+
+<p>And now the Onlooker dared not meet her&mdash;dared
+not call at the house as he had used to do.
+At last&mdash;the father pressed him&mdash;he went.
+He met her. And it was as though he had met
+the ghost of her whom he had loved. Her eyes
+had blue marks under them, her chin had grown
+more pointed, her nose sharper. There was a
+new line on her forehead, and her eyes had
+changed.</p>
+
+<p>Over the wine he heard from the father that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[221]</a></span>
+she was pining for the Lover who had inherited
+heart disease.</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose it was you who saw him, by the
+way," said he, "a tall, well-set-up young fellow&mdash;dark&mdash;not
+bad looking."</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;I don't remember," lied the Onlooker,
+with the eyes of his memory on the white face
+of the man he had stabbed.</p>
+
+<p>Now the Lover and the Onlooker had each his
+own burden to bear. And the Lover's was the
+easier. He worked still, though there was now
+nothing to work for more; he worked as he had
+never worked in his life, because he knew that if
+he did not take to work he should take to drink
+or worse devils, and he set his teeth and swore
+that her Lover should not be degraded. He
+knew that she loved him, and there was a kind
+of fierce pain-pleasure&mdash;like that of scratching a
+sore&mdash;in the thought that she was as wretched
+as he was, that, divided in all else, they were yet
+united in their suffering. He thought it made
+him more miserable to know of her misery. But
+it didn't. He never saw her, but he dreamed of
+her, and sometimes the dreams got out of hand,
+and carried him a thousand worlds from all that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[222]</a></span>
+lay between them. Then he had to wake up.
+And that was bad.</p>
+
+<p>But the Onlooker was no dreamer, and he saw
+her about three times a week. He saw how the
+light of life that his lying lips had blown out
+was not to be rekindled by his or any man's
+breath. He saw her slenderness turn to thinness,
+the pure, healthy pallor of her rounded cheek
+change to a sickly white, covering a clear-cut
+mask of set endurance. And there was no work
+that could shut out that sight&mdash;no temptation
+of the world, the flesh, or the devil to give him
+even the relief of a fight. He had no temptations;
+he had never had but the one. His soul
+was naked to the bitter wind of the actual; and
+the days went by, went by, and every day he
+knew more and more surely that he had lied and
+thrown away his soul, and that the wages of sin
+were death, and no other thing whatever. And
+gradually, little by little, the whole worth of life
+seemed to lie in the faint, far chance of his being
+able to undo the one triumphantly impulsive and
+unreasoning action of his life.</p>
+
+<p>But there are some acts that there is no undoing.
+And the hell that had burned in his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[223]</a></span>
+heart so fiercely when he had seen her in the
+other man's arms burned now with new bright
+lights and infernal flickering flame tongues.</p>
+
+<p>And at last, out of hell, the Onlooker reached
+out his hands and caught at prayer. He caught
+at it as a drowning man catches at a white gleam
+in the black of the surging sea about him&mdash;it
+may be a painted spar, it may be empty foam.
+The Onlooker prayed.</p>
+
+<p>And that very evening he ran up against the
+Lover at the Temple Station, and he got into the
+same carriage with him.</p>
+
+<p>He said, "Excuse me. You don't remember
+me?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not likely to have forgotten you," said
+the Lover.</p>
+
+<p>"I fear my verdict was a great blow. You
+look very worried, very ill. News like that is a
+great shock."</p>
+
+<p>"It <i>is</i> a little unsettling," said the Lover.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you still going on with your usual work?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Speaking professionally, I think you are
+wrong. You lessen your chances of life! Why
+don't you try a complete change?"</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[224]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Because&mdash;if you must know, my chances of
+life have ceased to interest me."</p>
+
+<p>The Lover was short with the Onlooker; but
+he persisted.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, if one isn't interested in one's life, one
+may be interested in one's death&mdash;or the manner
+of it. In your place, I should enlist. It's better
+to die of a bullet in South Africa than of fright
+in London."</p>
+
+<p>That roused the Lover, as it was meant to do.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't really know what business it is of
+yours, sir," he said; "but it's your business to
+know that they wouldn't pass a man with a
+heart like mine."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know. They're not so particular
+just now. They want men. I should try it if
+I were you. If you don't have a complete
+change you'll go all to pieces. That's all."</p>
+
+<p>The Onlooker got out at the next station.
+Short of owning to his own lie, he had done
+what he could to insure its being found out for
+the lie it was&mdash;or, at least, for a mistake.
+And when he had done what he could, he saw
+that the Lover might not find it out&mdash;might be
+passed for the Army&mdash;might go to the Front&mdash;might<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[225]</a></span>
+be killed&mdash;and then&mdash;"Well, I've
+done my best, anyhow," he said to himself&mdash;and
+himself answered him: "Liar&mdash;you have
+<i>not</i> done your best! You will have to eat your
+lie. Yes&mdash;though it will smash your life and
+ruin you socially and professionally. You will
+have to tell him you lied&mdash;and tell him why.
+You will never let him go to South Africa without
+telling him the truth&mdash;and you know it."</p>
+
+<p>"Well&mdash;you know best, I suppose," he said
+to himself.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>"But are you perfectly certain?"</p>
+
+<p>"Perfectly. I tell you, man, you're sound's
+a bell, and a fine fathom of a young man ye are,
+too. Certain? Losh, man&mdash;ye can call in the
+whole College of Physeecians in consultation, an'
+I'll wager me professional reputation they'll
+endorse me opeenion. Yer hairt's as sound's a
+roach. T'other man must ha' been asleep when
+ye consulted him. Ye'll mak' a fine soldier, my
+lad."</p>
+
+<p>"I think not," said the Lover&mdash;and he went
+out from the presence. This time he reeled like
+a man too drunk to care how drunk he looks.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[226]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>He drove in cabs from Harley Street to Wimpole
+Street, and from Wimpole Street to Brooke
+Street&mdash;and he saw Sir William this and Sir
+Henry that, and Mr. The-other-thing, the great
+heart specialist.</p>
+
+<p>And then he bought a gardenia, and went
+home and dressed himself in his most beautiful
+frock-coat and his softest white silk tie, and put
+the gardenia in his button-hole&mdash;and went to
+see the Girl.</p>
+
+<p>"Looks like as if he was going to a wedding,"
+said his landlady.</p>
+
+<p>When he had told the Girl everything, and
+when she was able to do anything but laugh
+and cry and cling to him with thin hands, she
+said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Dear&mdash;I do so hate to think badly of anyone.
+But do you really think that man was
+mistaken? He's very, very clever."</p>
+
+<p>"My child&mdash;Sir Henry&mdash;and Sir William
+and Mr.&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! I don't mean <i>that</i>. I <i>know</i> you're all
+right. Thank God! Oh, thank God! I mean,
+don't you think he may have lied to you to prevent
+your&mdash;marrying me?"</p><hr class="chap" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[227]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"But why should he?"</p>
+
+<p>"He asked me to marry him three weeks
+ago. He's a very old friend of ours. I do hate
+to be suspicious&mdash;but&mdash;it is odd. And then
+his trying to get you to South Africa. I'm certain
+he wanted you out of the way. He wanted
+you to get killed. Oh, how can people be so
+cruel!"</p>
+
+<p>"I believe you're right," said the Lover
+thoughtfully; "I couldn't have believed that
+a man could be base like that, through and
+through. But I suppose some people <i>are</i> like
+that&mdash;without a gleam of feeling or remorse or
+pity."</p>
+
+<p>"You ought to expose him."</p>
+
+<p>"Not I&mdash;we'll just cut him. That's all I'll
+trouble to do. I've got <i>you</i>&mdash;I've got you in
+spite of him&mdash;I can't waste my time in hunting
+down vermin."</p>
+<hr class='chap' /><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[229]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2>THE DUEL</h2>
+
+
+<div class='cap'>"BUT I wasn't doing any harm," she urged
+piteously. She looked like a child just
+going to cry.</div>
+
+<p>"He was holding your hand."</p>
+
+<p>"He wasn't&mdash;I was holding his. I was telling
+him his fortune. And, anyhow, it's not
+your business."</p>
+
+<p>She had remembered this late and phrased it
+carelessly.</p>
+
+<p>"It is my Master's business," said he.</p>
+
+<p>She repressed the retort that touched her lips.
+After all, there was something fine about this
+man, who, in the first month of his ministrations
+as Parish Priest, could actually dare to call on
+her, the richest and most popular woman in the
+district, and accuse her of&mdash;well, most people
+would hardly have gone so far as to call it flirting.
+Propriety only knew what the Reverend
+Christopher Cassilis might be disposed to call it.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[230]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>They sat in the pleasant fire-lit drawing-room
+looking at each other.</p>
+
+<p>"He's got a glorious face," she thought. "Like
+a Greek god&mdash;or a Christian martyr! I wonder
+whether he's ever been in love?"</p>
+
+<p>He thought: "She is abominably pretty. I
+suppose beauty <i>is</i> a temptation."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," she said impatiently, "you've been
+very rude indeed, and I've listened to you. Is
+your sermon quite done? Have you any more
+to say? Or shall I give you some tea?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have more to say," he answered, turning
+his eyes from hers. "You are beautiful and
+young and rich&mdash;you have a kind heart&mdash;oh,
+yes&mdash;I've heard little things in the village
+already. You are a born general. You organise
+better than any woman I ever knew, though it's
+only dances and picnics and theatricals and concerts.
+You have great gifts. You could do
+great work in the world, and you throw it all
+away; you give your life to the devil's dance you
+call pleasure. Why do you do it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Is that your business too?" she asked
+again.</p>
+
+<p>And again he answered<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[231]</a></span>&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"It is my Master's business."</p>
+
+<p>Had she read his words in a novel they
+would have seemed to her priggish, unnatural,
+and superlatively impertinent. Spoken by those
+thin, perfectly curved lips, they were at least
+interesting.</p>
+
+<p>"That wasn't what you began about," she
+said, twisting the rings on her fingers. The
+catalogue of her gifts and graces was less a
+novelty to her than the reproaches to her
+virtue.</p>
+
+<p>"No&mdash;am I to repeat what I began about?
+Ah&mdash;but I will. I began by saying what I
+came here to say: that you, as a married
+woman, have no right to turn men's heads
+and make them long for what can never be."</p>
+
+<p>"But you don't know," she said. "My husband&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't wish to know," he interrupted.
+"Your husband is alive, and you are bound
+to be faithful to him, in thought, word, and
+deed. What I saw and heard in the little copse
+last night&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I do wish you wouldn't," she said. "You
+talk as if&mdash;"</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[232]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"No," he said, "I'm willing&mdash;even anxious,
+I think&mdash;to believe that you would not&mdash;could
+not&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," she cried, jumping up, "this is intolerable!
+How dare you!"</p>
+
+<p>He had risen too.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not afraid of you," he said. "I'm not
+afraid of your anger, nor of your&mdash;your other
+weapons. Think what you are! Think of your
+great powers&mdash;and you are wasting them all
+in making fools of a pack of young idiots&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"But what could I do with my gifts&mdash;as
+you call them?"</p>
+
+<p>"Do?&mdash;why, you could endow and organise
+and run any one of a hundred schemes for helping
+on God's work in the world."</p>
+
+<p>"For instance?" Her charming smile enraged
+him.</p>
+
+<p>"For instance? Well&mdash;<i>for instance</i>&mdash;you
+might start a home for those women who began
+as you have begun, and who have gone down
+into hell, as you will go&mdash;unless you let yourself
+be warned."</p>
+
+<p>She was for the moment literally speechless.
+Then she remembered how he had said: "I am<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[233]</a></span>
+not afraid of&mdash;your weapons." She drew a
+deep breath and spoke gently&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I believe you don't mean to be insulting&mdash;I
+believe you mean kindly to me. Please say no
+more now. I'll think over it all. I'm not
+angry&mdash;only&mdash;do you really think you understand
+everything?"</p>
+
+<p>He might have answered that he did not
+understand her. She did not mean him to understand.
+She knew well enough that she was
+giving him something to puzzle over when she
+smiled that beautiful, troubled, humble, appealing
+half-smile.</p>
+
+<p>He did not answer at all. He stood a moment
+twisting his soft hat in his hands: she admired
+his hands very much.</p>
+
+<p>"Forgive me if I've pained you more than was
+needed," he said at last, "it is only because&mdash;"
+here her smile caught him, and he ended vaguely
+in a decreasing undertone. She heard the words
+"king's jewels," "pearl of great price."</p>
+
+<p>When he was gone she said "<i>Well!</i>" more
+than once. Then she ran to the low mirror
+over the mantelpiece, and looked earnestly at
+herself.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[234]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"You do look rather nice to-day," she said.
+"And so he's not afraid of any of your weapons!
+And I'm not afraid of any of his. It's a fair
+duel. Only all the provocation came from him&mdash;so
+the choice of weapons is mine. And they
+shall be <i>my</i> weapons: he has weapons to match
+them right enough, only the poor dear doesn't
+know it." She went away to dress for dinner,
+humming gaily&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class='poem'>
+"My love has breath o' roses,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">O' roses, o' roses;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">And arms like lily posies</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">To fold a lassie in!"</span><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>Not next day&mdash;she was far too clever for
+that, but on the day after that he received a
+note. Her handwriting was charming; no extravagances,
+every letter soberly but perfectly
+formed.</p>
+
+<p>"I have been thinking of all you said the
+other day. You are quite mistaken about some
+things&mdash;but in some you are right. Will you
+show me how to work? I will do whatever
+you tell me."</p>
+
+<p>Then the Reverend Christopher was glad of
+the courage that had inspired him to denounce<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[235]</a></span>
+to his parishioners all that seemed to him amiss
+in them.</p>
+
+<p>"I am glad," he said to himself, "that I had
+the courage to treat her exactly as I have done
+the others&mdash;even if she <i>has</i> beautiful hair, and
+eyes like&mdash;like&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He stopped the thought before he found the
+simile&mdash;not because he imagined that there
+could be danger in it, but because he had been
+trained to stop thoughts of eyes and hair as
+neatly as a skilful boxer stops a blow.</p>
+
+<p>She had not been so trained, and she admired
+his eyes and hair quite as much as he might have
+admired hers if she had not been married.</p>
+
+<p>So now the Reverend Christopher had a helper
+in his parish work; and he needed help, for his
+plain-speaking had already offended half his
+parish. And his helper was, as he had had
+the sense to know she could be, the most
+accomplished organiser in the country. She
+ran the parish library, she arranged the school
+treat, she started evening classes for wood carving
+and art needlework. She spent money like
+water, and time as freely as money. Quietly,
+persistently, relentlessly, she was making herself<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[236]</a></span>
+necessary to the Reverend Christopher. He
+wrote to her every day&mdash;there were so many instructions
+to give&mdash;but he seldom spoke with
+her. When he called she was never at home.
+Sometimes they met in the village and exchanged
+a few sentences. She was always gravely sweet,
+intensely earnest. There was a certain smile
+which he remembered&mdash;a beautiful, troubled,
+appealing smile. He wondered why she smiled
+no more.</p>
+
+<p>Her friends shrugged their shoulders over her
+new fancy.</p>
+
+<p>"It is odd," her bosom friend said. "It can't
+be the parson, though he's as beautiful as he can
+possibly be, because she sees next to nothing of
+him. And yet I can't think that Betty of all
+people could really&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh&mdash;I don't know," said the bosom friend
+of her bosom friend. "Women often do take to
+that sort of thing, you know, when they get tired
+of&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Of?"</p>
+
+<p>"The other sort of thing, don't you know!"</p>
+
+<p>"How horrid you are," said Betty's bosom
+friend. "I believe you're a most dreadful cynic,
+really."</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[237]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Not at all," said the friend, complacently
+stroking his moustache.</p>
+
+<p>Betty certainly was enjoying herself. She
+had the great gift of enjoying thoroughly any
+new game. She enjoyed, first, the newness;
+and, besides, the hidden lining of her new masquerade
+dress enchanted her. But as her new
+industries developed she began to enjoy the
+things for themselves. It is always delightful
+to do what we can do well, and the Reverend
+Christopher had been right when he said she was
+a born general.</p>
+
+<p>"How easy it all is," she said, "and what a
+fuss those clergy-hags make about it! What
+a wife I should be for a bishop!" She smiled
+and sighed.</p>
+
+<p>It was pleasant, too, to wake in the morning,
+not to the recollection of the particular stage
+which yesterday's flirtation happened to have
+reached, but to the sense of some difficulty overcome,
+some object achieved, some rough place
+made smooth for her Girls' Friendly, or her wood
+carvers, or her Parish Magazine. And within
+it all the secret charm of a purpose transfiguring
+with its magic this eager, strenuous, working life.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[238]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Her avoidance of the Reverend Christopher
+struck him at first as modest, discreet, and in
+the best possible taste. But presently it seemed
+to him that she rather overdid it. There were
+many things he would have liked to discuss with
+her, but she always evaded talk with him. Why?
+he began to ask himself why. And the question
+wormed through his brain more and more searchingly.
+He had seen her at work now; he knew
+her powers, and her graces&mdash;the powers and
+the graces that made her the adored of her
+Friendly girls and her carving boys. He remembered,
+with hot ears and neck crimson above
+his clerical collar, that interview. The things
+he had said to her! How could he have done
+it? Blind idiot that he had been! And she
+had taken it all so sweetly, so nobly, so humbly.
+She had only needed a word to turn her from
+the frivolities of the world to better things. It
+need not have been the sort of word he had used.
+And at a word she had turned. That it should
+have been at <i>his</i> word was not perhaps a very
+subtle flattery&mdash;but the Reverend Christopher
+swallowed it and never tasted it. He was not
+trained to distinguish the flavours of flatteries.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[239]</a></span>
+He never tasted it, but it worked in his blood,
+for all that. And why, why, why would she
+never speak to him? Could it be that she was
+afraid that he would speak to her now as he had
+once spoken? He blushed again.</p>
+
+<p>Next time he met her she was coming up to
+the church with a big basket of flowers for the
+altar. He took the basket from her and carried
+it in.</p>
+
+<p>"Let me help you," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"No," she said in that sweet, simple, grave
+way of hers. "I can do it very well. Indeed,
+I would rather."</p>
+
+<p>He had to go. The arrangement of the flowers
+took more than an hour, but when she came out
+with the empty basket, he was waiting in the
+porch. Her heart gave a little joyful jump.</p>
+
+<p>"I want to speak to you," said he.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm rather late," she said, as usual; "couldn't
+you write?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," he said, "I can't write this. Sit down
+a moment in the porch."</p>
+
+<p>She loved the masterfulness of his tone. He
+stood before her.</p>
+
+<p>"I want you to forgive me for speaking to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[240]</a></span>
+you as I did&mdash;once. I'm afraid you're afraid
+that I shall behave like that again. You
+needn't be."</p>
+
+<p>"Score number one," she said to herself.
+Aloud she said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I am not afraid," and she said it sweetly,
+seriously.</p>
+
+<p>"I was wrong," he went on eagerly. "I was
+terribly wrong. I see it quite plainly now.
+You do forgive me&mdash;don't you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said she soberly, and sighed.</p>
+
+<p>There was a little silence. Her serious eyes
+watched the way of the wind dimpling the tall,
+feathery grass that grew above the graves.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you unhappy?" he asked; "you never
+smile now."</p>
+
+<p>"I am too busy to smile, I suppose!" she
+said, and smiled the beautiful, humble, appealing
+smile he had so longed to see again, though
+he had not known the longing by its right name.</p>
+
+<p>"Can't we be friends?" he ventured. "You&mdash;I
+am afraid you can never trust me again."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I can," she said. "It was very bitter
+at the time, but I thought it was so brave of
+you&mdash;and kind, too&mdash;to care what became of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[241]</a></span>
+me. If you remember, I did want to trust you,
+even on that dreadful day, but you wouldn't let
+me."</p>
+
+<p>"I was a brute," he said remorsefully.</p>
+
+<p>"I do want to tell you one thing. Even if
+that boy had been holding my hand I should
+have thought I had a right to let him, if I liked&mdash;just
+as much as though I were a girl, or a
+widow."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't understand. But tell me&mdash;please
+tell me anything you <i>will</i> tell me." His tone
+was very humble.</p>
+
+<p>"My husband was a beast," she said calmly.
+"He betrayed me, he beat me, he had every vile
+quality a man can have. No, I'll be just to
+him: he was always good tempered when he
+was drunk. But when he was sober he used
+to beat me and pinch me&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"But&mdash;but you could have got a separation,
+a divorce," he gasped.</p>
+
+<p>"A separation wouldn't have freed me&mdash;really.
+And the Church doesn't believe in divorce,"
+she said demurely. "<i>I</i> did, however,
+and I left him, and instructed a solicitor. But
+the brute went mad before I could get free from<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[242]</a></span>
+him; and now, I suppose, I'm tied for life to a
+mad dog."</p>
+
+<p>"Good God!" said the Reverend Christopher.</p>
+
+<p>"I thought it all out&mdash;oh, many, many
+nights!&mdash;and I made up my mind that I would
+go out and enjoy myself. I never had a good
+time when I was a girl. And another thing I
+decided&mdash;quite definitely&mdash;that if ever I fell
+in love I would&mdash;I should have the right to&mdash;I
+mean that I wouldn't let a horrible, degraded
+brute of a lunatic stand between me and the
+man I loved. And I was quite sure that I was
+right."</p>
+
+<p>"And do you still think this?" he asked in
+a low voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah," she said, "you've changed everything!
+I don't think the same about anything as I used
+to do. I think those two years with him must
+have made me nearly as mad as he is. And
+then I was so young! I am only twenty-three
+now, you know&mdash;and it did seem hard never to
+have had any fun. I did want so much to be
+happy."</p>
+
+<p>She had not intended to speak like this, but
+even as she spoke she saw that this truth-telling<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[243]</a></span>
+far outshone the lamp of lies she had trimmed
+ready.</p>
+
+<p>"You <i>will</i> be happy," he said; "there are
+better things in the world than&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," she said; "oh, yes!"</p>
+
+<p>Betty did nothing by halves. She had kept a
+barrier between her and him till she had excited
+him to break it down. The barrier once broken,
+she let it lie where he had thrown it, and became,
+all at once, in the most natural, matter-of-fact,
+guileless way, his friend.</p>
+
+<p>She consulted him about everything. Let
+him call when he would, she always received
+him. She surrounded him with the dainty feminine
+spider webs from which his life, almost
+monastic till now, had been quite free. She
+imported a knitting aunt, so that he should not
+take fright at long t�te-�-t�tes. The knitting
+aunt was deafish and blindish, and did not walk
+much in the rose garden. Betty knew a good
+deal about roses, and she taught the Reverend
+Christopher all she knew. She knew a little of
+the hearts of men, and she gently pushed him
+on the road to forgiveness from that half of the
+parish whom his first enthusiastic denunciations<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[244]</a></span>
+had offended. She rounded his angles. She
+turned a wayward ascetic into a fairly good parish
+priest. And he talked to her of ideals and
+honour and the service of God and the work of
+the world. And she listened, and her beauty
+spoke to him so softly that he did not know
+that he heard.</p>
+
+<p>One day after long silence she turned quickly
+and met his eyes. After that she ceased to spin
+webs, for she saw. Yet she was as blind as he,
+though she did not know it any more than he
+did.</p>
+
+<p>At last he saw, in his turn, and the flash of
+the illumination nearly blinded him.</p>
+
+<p>It was late evening: Betty was nailing up a
+trailing rose, and he was standing by the ladder
+holding the nails and the snippets of scarlet
+cloth. The ladder slipped, and he caught her in
+his arms. As soon as she had assured him that
+she was not hurt, he said good night and left
+her.</p>
+
+<p>Betty went indoors and cried. "What a
+pity!" she said. "Oh, what a pity! Now he'll
+be frightened, and it's all over. He'll never
+come again."</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[245]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>But the next evening he came, and when they
+had walked through the rose garden and had
+come to the sun-dial he stopped and spoke&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I've been thinking of nothing else since I
+saw you. When I caught you last night. Forgive
+me if I'm a fool&mdash;but when I held you&mdash;don't
+be angry&mdash;but it seemed to me that you
+loved me&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing of the sort," said Betty very angrily.</p>
+
+<p>"Then I must be mad," he said; "the way
+you caught my neck with your arm, and your
+face was against mine, and your hair crushed up
+against my ear. Oh, Betty, if you don't love
+me, what shall I do? For I can't live without
+you."</p>
+
+<p>Betty had won.</p>
+
+<p>"But&mdash;even if I had loved you&mdash;I'm
+married," she urged softly.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;do you suppose I've forgotten that?
+But you remember what you said&mdash;about being
+really free, and not being bound to that beast.
+I see that you were right&mdash;right, right. It's
+the rest of the world that's wrong. Oh, my
+dear&mdash;I can't live without you. Couldn't you
+love me? Let's go away&mdash;right away together.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[246]</a></span>
+No one will love you as I do. No one knows
+you as I do&mdash;how good and strong and brave
+and unselfish you are. Oh, try to love me a
+little!"</p>
+
+<p>Betty had leaned her elbows on the sun-dial,
+and her chin on her hands.</p>
+
+<p>"But you used to think ..." she began.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah&mdash;but I know better now. You've
+taught me everything. Only I never knew it
+till last night when I touched you. It was like
+a spark to a bonfire that I've been piling up ever
+since I've known you. You've taught me what
+life is, and love. Love can't be wrong. It's
+only wrong when it's stealing. We shouldn't
+be robbing anybody. We should both work
+better&mdash;happiness makes people work&mdash;I see
+that now. I should have to give up parish work&mdash;but
+there's plenty of good work wants doing.
+Why, I've nearly finished that book of mine.
+I've worked at it night after night&mdash;with the
+thought of you hidden behind the work. If you
+were my wife, what work I could do! Oh,
+Betty, if you only loved me!"</p>
+
+<p>She lifted her face and looked at him gravely.
+He flung his arm round her shoulders and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[247]</a></span>
+turned her face up to his. She was passive to
+his kisses. At last she kissed him, once, and
+drew herself from his arms.</p>
+
+<p>"Come," she said.</p>
+
+<p>She led him to the garden seat in the nut-avenue.</p>
+
+<p>"Now," she said, when he had taken his place
+beside her, "I'm going to tell you the whole
+truth. I was very angry with you when you
+came to me that first day. You were quite right.
+That boy had been holding my hand: what's
+more, he had been kissing it. It amused me,
+and if it hurt him I didn't care. Then you
+came. And you said things. And then you
+said you weren't afraid of me or my weapons.
+It was a challenge. And I determined to make
+you love me. It was all planned, the helping
+in your work&mdash;and keeping out of your way at
+first was to make you wish to see me. And,
+you see, I succeeded. You <i>did</i> love me."</p>
+
+<p>"I do," he said. He caught her hand and
+held it fiercely. "I deserved it all. I was a
+brute to you."</p>
+
+<p>"I meant you to love me&mdash;and you did love
+me. I lied to you in almost everything&mdash;at first."</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[248]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"About that man&mdash;was that a lie?" he
+asked fiercely.</p>
+
+<p>"No," she laughed drearily. "That was
+true enough. You see, it was more effective
+than any lie I could have invented. No lie
+could have added a single horror to <i>that</i> story!
+And so I've won&mdash;as I swore I would!"</p>
+
+<p>"Is that all," he said, "all the truth?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's all there's any need for," she said.</p>
+
+<p>"I want it all. I want to know where I
+am&mdash;whether I really was mad last night.
+Betty&mdash;in spite of all your truth I can't believe
+one thing. I can't believe that you don't love
+me."</p>
+
+<p>"Man's vanity," she began, with a flippant
+laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't!" he said harshly. "How dare you
+try to play with me? Man's vanity! But it's
+your honour! I know you love me. If you
+didn't you would be&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"How do you know I'm not?"</p>
+
+<p>"Silence," he said. "If you can't speak the
+truth hold your tongue and let me speak it. I
+love you&mdash;and you love me&mdash;and we are going
+to be happy."</p><hr class="chap" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[249]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I will speak the truth," said Betty, giving
+him her other hand. "You love me&mdash;and I
+love you, and we are going to be miserable.
+Yes&mdash;I will speak. Dear, I can't do it. Not
+even for you. I used to think I thought I
+could. I was bitter. I think I wanted to be
+revenged on life and God and everything. I
+thought I didn't believe in God, but I wanted
+to spite Him all the same. But when you came&mdash;after
+that day in the porch&mdash;when you came
+and talked to me about all the good and beautiful
+things&mdash;why, then I knew that I really did
+believe in them, and I began to love you because
+you had believed them all the time, and because....
+And I didn't try to make you love me&mdash;after
+that day in the porch&mdash;at least, not very
+much&mdash;oh, I do want to speak the truth! I
+used to try so <i>not</i> to try. I&mdash;I did want you
+to love me, though; I didn't want you to love
+anyone else. I wanted you to love me just
+enough to make you happy, and not enough to
+make you miserable. And so long as you didn't
+know you loved me it was all right: and when
+you caught me last night I knew that you
+would know, and it would be all over. You<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[250]</a></span>
+made up your mind to teach me that there are
+better things in the world than love&mdash;truth and
+honour and&mdash;and&mdash;things like that. And
+you've taught it me. It was a duel, and you've
+won."</p>
+
+<p>"And you meant to teach me that love is
+stronger than anything in the world. And you
+have won too."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," she said, "we've both won. That's
+the worst of it&mdash;or the best."</p>
+
+<p>"What is to become of us?" he said. "Oh,
+my dear&mdash;what are we to do? Do you forgive
+me? If you are right, I must be wrong&mdash;but
+I can't see anything now except that I want
+you so."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm glad you loved me enough to be silly,"
+she said; "but, oh, my dear, how glad I am that
+I love you too much to let you."</p>
+
+<p>"But what are we to do?"</p>
+
+<p>"Do? Nothing. Don't you see we've taught
+each other everything we know. We've given
+each other everything we can give. Isn't it
+good to love like this&mdash;even if this has to
+be all?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's all very difficult," he said; "but everything<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[251]</a></span>
+shall be as you choose, only somehow I
+think it's worse for me than for you. I loved
+you before&mdash;and now I adore you. I seem to
+have made a saint of you&mdash;but you've made me
+a man."</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>One wishes with all one's heart that that
+lunatic would die. The situation is, one would
+say&mdash;impossible. Yet the lovers do not find it
+so. They work together, and parish scandal has
+almost ceased to patter about their names.
+There is a subtle pleasure for both in the ceremonious
+courtesy with which ever since that
+day they treat each other. It contrasts so
+splendidly with the living flame upon each
+heart-altar. So far the mutual passion has improved
+the character of each. All the same, one
+wishes that the lunatic would die&mdash;for she is
+not so much of a saint as he thinks her, and he
+is more of a man than she knows.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[253]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2>CINDERELLA</h2>
+
+
+<div class='cap'>"HOOTS!" said the gardener, "there's nae
+sense in't. The suppression o' the truth's
+bad as a lee. Indeed, I doot mair hae been
+damned for t'ane than t'ither."</div>
+
+<p>"Law! Mr. Murchison, you do use language,
+I'm sure!" tittered the parlourmaid.</p>
+
+<p>"I say nae mair than the truth," he answered,
+cutting bloom after bloom quickly yet tenderly.
+"To bring hame a new mistress to the hoose
+and never to tell your bairn a word aboot the
+matter till all's made fast&mdash;it's a thing he'll
+hae to answer for to his Maker, I'm thinking.
+Here's the flowers, wumman; carry them canny.
+I'll send the lad up wi' the lave o' the flowers
+an' a bit green stuff in a wee meenit. And mind
+you your flaunting streamers agin the pots."</p>
+
+<p>The parlourmaid gathered her skirts closely,
+and delicately tip-toed to the door of the hothouse.
+Here she took the basket of bright<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[254]</a></span>
+beauty from his hand and walked away across
+the green blaze of the lawn.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Murchison grunted relief. He was not
+fond of parlourmaids, no matter how pretty and
+streamered.</p>
+
+<p>He left the hot, sweet air of the big hothouse
+and threaded his way among the glittering
+glasshouses to the potting-shed. At its door
+a sound caught his ear.</p>
+
+<p>"Hoots!" he said again, but this time with
+a gentle, anxious intonation.</p>
+
+<p>"Eh! ma lammie," said he, stepping quickly
+forward, "what deevilment hae ye been after
+the noo, and wha is't's been catching ye at it?"</p>
+
+<p>The "lammie" crept out from under the
+potting-shelf; a pair of small arms went round
+Murchison's legs, and a little face, round and
+red and very dirty, was lifted towards his. He
+raised the child in his arms and set her on the
+shelf, so that she could lean her flushed face on
+his shirt-front.</p>
+
+<p>"Toots, toots!" said he, "noo tell me&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"It isn't true, is it?" said the child.</p>
+
+<p>"Hoots!" said Murchison for the third time,
+but he said it under his breath. Aloud he said<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[255]</a></span>&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Tell old Murchison a' aboot it, Miss Charling,
+dearie."</p>
+
+<p>"It was when I wanted some more of the
+strawberries," she began, with another sob, "and
+the new cook said not, and I was a greedy little
+pig: and I said I'd rather be a greedy little pig
+than a spiteful old cat!" The tears broke out
+afresh.</p>
+
+<p>"And you eight past! Ye should hae mair
+sense at siccan age than to ca' names." The
+head gardener spoke reprovingly, but he stroked
+her rough hair.</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't&mdash;not one single name&mdash;not even
+when she said I was enough to make a cat laugh,
+even an old one&mdash;and she wondered any good
+servant ever stayed a week in the place."</p>
+
+<p>"And what was ye sayin'?"</p>
+
+<p>"I said, 'Guid ye may be, but ye're no bonny'&mdash;I've
+heard you say that, Murchison, so I know
+it wasn't wrong, and then she said I was a minx,
+and other things, and I wanted keeping in order,
+and it was a very good thing I had a new mamma
+coming home to-day, to keep me under a bit, and
+a lot more&mdash;and&mdash;and things about my own,
+own mother, and that father wouldn't love me<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[256]</a></span>
+any more. But it's not true, is it? Oh! it isn't
+true? She only just said it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ma lammie," said he gravely, kissing the top
+of the head nestled against him, "it's true that
+yer guid feyther, wha' never crossed ye except
+for yer ain sake syne the day ye were born, is
+bringing hame a guid wife the day, but ye mun
+be a wumman and no cry oot afore ye're hurted.
+I'll be bound it's a kind, genteel lady he's got,
+that'll love ye, and mak' much o' ye, and teach
+ye to sew fine&mdash;aye, an' play at the piano as
+like's no."</p>
+
+<p>The child's mouth tightened resentfully, but
+Murchison did not see it.</p>
+
+<p>"Noo, ye'll jest be a douce lassie," he went on,
+"and say me fair that ye'll never gie an unkind
+word tae yer feyther's new lady. Noo, promise
+me that, an' fine I ken ye'll keep tae it."</p>
+
+<p>"No, I won't say anything unkind to her,"
+she answered, and Murchison hugged himself on
+a victory, for a promise was sacred to Charling.
+He did not notice the child's voice as she gave it.</p>
+
+<p>When the tears were quite dried he gave her
+a white geranium to plant in her own garden,
+and went back to his work.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[257]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Charling took the geranium with pretty thanks
+and kisses, but she felt it a burden, none the less.
+For her mind was quite made up. When she
+had promised never to say anything unkind to
+her "father's new lady," she meant to keep the
+promise&mdash;by never speaking to her or seeing her
+at all. She meant to run away. How could she
+bear to be "kept under" by this strange lady,
+who would come and sit in her own mother's
+place, and wear her own mother's clothes, and no
+doubt presently burn her own mother's picture,
+and make Charling wash the dishes and sweep
+the kitchen like poor dear Cinderella in the
+story? True, Cinderella's misfortunes ended in
+marriage with a prince, but then Charling did not
+want to be married, and she had but little faith
+in princes, and, besides, she had no fairy godmother.
+Her godmother was dead, her own, own
+mother was dead, and only father was left; and
+now he had done this thing, and he would not
+want his Charling any more.</p>
+
+<p>So Charling went indoors and washed her
+face and hands and smoothed her hair, which
+never would be smoothed, put a few treasures
+in her pocket&mdash;all her money, some coloured<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[258]</a></span>
+chalks, a stone with crystal inside that showed
+where it was broken, and went quietly out at
+the lodge gate, carrying the white geranium in
+her arms, because when you are running away
+you cannot possibly leave behind you the last
+gift of somebody who loves you. But the geranium
+in its pot was very heavy&mdash;and it seemed
+to get heavier and heavier as she walked along
+the dry, dusty road, so that presently Charling
+turned through the swing gate into the field-way,
+for the sake of the shadow of the hedge;
+and the field-way led past the church, and when
+she reached the low, mossy wall of the churchyard,
+she set the pot on it and rested. Then she
+said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I think I will leave it with mother to take
+care of." So she took the pot in her hands
+again and carried it to her mother's grave. Of
+course, they had told Charling that her mother
+was an angel now and was not in the churchyard
+at all, but in heaven; only heaven was a
+very long way off, and Charling preferred to
+think that mother was only asleep under the
+green counterpane with the daisies on it. There
+had been a green coverlet to the bed in mother's<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[259]</a></span>
+room, only it had white lilac on it, and not
+daisies. So Charling set down the pot, and she
+knelt down beside it, and wrote on it with a
+piece of blue chalk from her pocket: "<i>From
+Charling to mother to take care of.</i>" Then she
+cried a little bit more, because she was so sorry
+for herself; and then she smelt the thyme and
+wondered why the bees liked it better than
+white geraniums; and then she felt that she
+was very like a little girl in a book, and so she
+forgot to cry, and told herself that she was the
+third sister going out to seek her fortune.</p>
+
+<p>After that it was easy to go on, especially
+when she had put the crystal stone, which hung
+heavy and bumpy in the pocket, beside the geranium
+pot. Then she kissed the tombstone where
+it said, "Helen, beloved wife of&mdash;&mdash;" and went
+away among the green graves in the sunshine.</p>
+
+<p>Mother had died when she was only five, so
+that she could not remember her very well; but
+all these three years she had loved and thought
+of a kind, beautiful Something that was never
+tired and never cross, and always ready to kiss
+and love and forgive little girls, however naughty
+they were, and she called this something "mother"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[260]</a></span>
+in her heart, and it was for this something that
+she left her kisses on the gravestone. And the
+gravestone was warm to her lips as she kissed it.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>It was on a wide, furze-covered down, across
+which a white road wound like a twisted ribbon,
+that Charling's courage began to fail her. The
+white road looked so very long; there were no
+houses anywhere, and no trees, only far away
+across the down she saw the round tops of some
+big elms. "They look like cabbages," she said
+to herself.</p>
+
+<p>She had walked quite a long way, and she
+was very tired. Her dinner of sweets and stale
+cakes from the greeny-glass bottles in the window
+of a village shop had not been so nice as
+she expected; the woman at the shop had been
+cross because Charling had no pennies, only the
+five-shilling piece father had given her when he
+went away, and the woman had no change. And
+she had scolded so that Charling had grown
+frightened and had run away, leaving the big,
+round piece of silver on the dirty little counter.
+This was about the time when she was missed at
+home, and the servants began to search for her,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[261]</a></span>
+running to and fro like ants whose nest is turned
+up by the spade.</p>
+
+<p>A big furze bush cast a ragged square yard
+of alluring shade on the common. Charling
+flung herself down on the turf in the shadow.
+"I wonder what they are doing at home?" she
+said to herself after a while. "I don't suppose
+they've even missed me. They think of nothing
+but making the place all flowery for <i>her</i> to see.
+Nobody wants me&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>At home they were dragging the ornamental
+water in the park; old Murchison directing the
+operation with tears running slow and unregarded
+down his face.</p>
+
+<p>Charling lay and looked at the white road.
+Somebody must go along it presently. Roads
+were made for people to go along. Then when
+any people came by she would speak to them,
+and they would help her and tell her what to
+do. "I wonder what a girl ought to do when
+she runs away from home?" said Charling to
+herself. "Boys go to sea, of course; but I don't
+suppose a pirate would care about engaging a
+cabin-girl&mdash;" She fell a-musing, however, on
+the probable woes of possible cabin-girls, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[262]</a></span>
+their chances of becoming admirals, as cabin-boys
+always did in the stories; and so deep
+were her musings that she positively jumped
+when a boy, passing along the road, began suddenly
+to whistle. It was the air of a comic
+song, in a minor key, and its inflections were
+those of a funeral march. It went to Charling's
+heart. Now she knew, as she had never known
+before, how lonely and miserable she was.</p>
+
+<p>She scrambled to her feet and called out, "Hi!
+you boy!"</p>
+
+<p>The boy also jumped. But he stopped and
+said, "Well?" though in a tone that promised
+little.</p>
+
+<p>"Come here," said Charling. "At least, of
+course, I mean come, if you please."</p>
+
+<p>The boy shrugged his shoulders and came
+towards her.</p>
+
+<p>"Well?" he said again, very grumpily, Charling
+thought; so she said, "Don't be cross. I
+wish you'd talk to me a little, if you are not too
+busy. If you please, I mean, of course."</p>
+
+<p>She said it with her best company manner,
+and the boy laughed, not unkindly, but still in
+a grudging way. Then he threw himself down<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[263]</a></span>
+on the turf and began pulling bits of it up by
+the roots. "Go ahead!" said he.</p>
+
+<p>But Charling could not go ahead. She looked
+at his handsome, sulky face, his knitted brow,
+twisted into fretful lines, and the cloud behind
+his blue eyes frightened her.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! go away!" she said. "I don't want
+you! Go away; you're very unkind!"</p>
+
+<p>The boy seemed to shake himself awake at
+the sight of the tears that rushed to follow her
+words.</p>
+
+<p>"I say, don't-you-know, I say;" but Charling
+had flung herself face down on the turf and took
+no notice.</p>
+
+<p>"I say, look here," he said; "I am not unkind,
+really. I was in an awful wax about something
+else, and I didn't understand. Oh! drop it. I
+say, look here, what's the matter? I'm not such
+a bad sort, really. Come, kiddie, what's the
+row?"</p>
+
+<p>He dragged himself on knees and elbows to
+her side and began to pat her on the back, with
+some energy: "There, there," he said; "don't
+cry, there's a dear. Here, I've got a handkerchief,
+as it happens," for Charling was feeling<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[264]</a></span>
+blindly and vainly among the coloured chalks.
+He thrust the dingy handkerchief into her hands,
+and she dried her eyes, still sobbing.</p>
+
+<p>"That's the style," said he. "Look here, we're
+like people in a book. Two travellers in misfortune
+meet upon a wild moor and exchange
+narratives. Come, tell me what's up?"</p>
+
+<p>"You tell first," said Charling, rubbing her
+eyes very hard; "but swear eternal friendship
+before you begin, then we can't tell each other's
+secrets to the enemy."</p>
+
+<p>He looked at her with a nascent approval.
+She understood how to play, then, this forlorn
+child in the torn white frock.</p>
+
+<p>He took her hand and said solemnly&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I swear."</p>
+
+<p>"Your name," she interrupted. "I, N or M,
+swear, you know."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes. Well, I, Harry Basingstoke, swear
+to you&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Charling," she interpolated; "the other
+names don't matter. I've got six of them."</p>
+
+<p>"That we will support&mdash;no, maintain&mdash;eternal
+friendship."</p>
+
+<p>"And I, Charling, swear the same to you,
+Harry."</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[265]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Why do they call you Charling?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! because my name's Charlotte, and
+mother used to sing a song about Charlie being
+her darling, and I was her darling, only I couldn't
+speak properly then; and I got it mixed up into
+Charling, father says. But let's go on. Tell
+me your sad history, poor fellow-wanderer."</p>
+
+<p>"My father was a king," said Harry gravely;
+but Charling turned such sad eyes on him that
+he stopped.</p>
+
+<p>"Won't you tell me the real true truth?" she
+said. "I will you."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said he, "the real true truth is, Charling,
+I've run away from home, and I'm going to
+sea."</p>
+
+<p>Charling clapped her hands. "Oh! so have
+I! So am I! Let me come with you. Would
+they take a cabin-girl on the ship where you're
+going to, do you think? And why did you run
+away? Did they beat you and starve you at
+home? Or have you a cruel stepmother, or stepfather,
+or something?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," said he grimly; "I haven't any step-relations,
+and I'm jolly well not going to have
+any, either. I ran away because I didn't choose<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[266]</a></span>
+to have a strange chap set over me, and that's
+all I am going to tell you. But about you?
+How far have you come to-day?"</p>
+
+<p>"About ninety miles, I should think," said
+Charling; "at least, my legs feel exactly like
+that."</p>
+
+<p>"And what made you do such a silly thing?"
+he said, smiling at her, and she thought his blue
+eyes looked quite different now, so that she did not
+mind his calling her silly. "You know, it's no
+good girls running away; they always get caught,
+and then they put them into convents or something."</p>
+
+<p>She slipped her hand confidingly under his
+arm, and put her head against the sleeve of his
+Norfolk jacket.</p>
+
+<p>"Not girls with eternal friends, they don't,"
+she said. "You'll take care of me now? You
+won't let them catch me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me why you did it, then."</p>
+
+<p>Charling told him at some length.</p>
+
+<p>"And father never told me a word about it,"
+she ended; "and I wasn't going to stay to be
+made to wash the dishes and things, like Cinderella.
+I wouldn't stand that, not if I had to run<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[267]</a></span>
+away every day for a year. Besides, nobody
+wants me; nobody will miss me."</p>
+
+<p>This was about the time when they found the
+white geranium in the churchyard, and began to
+send grooms about the country on horses. And
+Murchison was striding about the lanes gnawing
+his grizzled beard and calling on his God to take
+him, too, if harm had come to the child.</p>
+
+<p>"But perhaps the stepmother would be nice,"
+the boy said.</p>
+
+<p>"Not she. Stepmothers never are. I know
+just what she'll be like&mdash;a horrid old hag with
+red hair and a hump!"</p>
+
+<p>"Then you've not seen her?"</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"You might have waited till you had."</p>
+
+<p>"It would have been too late then," said Charling
+tragically.</p>
+
+<p>"But your father wouldn't have let you be
+treated unkindly, silly."</p>
+
+<p>"Fathers generally die when the stepmother
+comes; or else they can't help themselves. You
+know that as well as I do."</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose your father is a good sort?"</p>
+
+<p>"He's the best man there is," said Charling<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[268]</a></span>
+indignantly, "and the kindest and bravest, and
+cleverest and amusingest, and he can sit any
+horse like wax; and he can fence with real
+swords, and sing all the songs in all the world.
+There!"</p>
+
+<p>Harry was silent, racking his brain for arguments.</p>
+
+<p>"Look here, kiddie," he said slowly, "if your
+father's such a good sort, he'd have more sense
+than to choose a stepmother who wasn't nice.
+He's a much finer chap than the fathers in fairy
+tales. You never read of <i>them</i> being able to do
+all the things your father can do."</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Charling, "that's true."</p>
+
+<p>"He's sure to have chosen someone quite jolly,
+really," Harry went on, more confidently.</p>
+
+<p>Charling looked up suddenly. "Who was it
+chose the chap that you weren't going to stand
+having set over you?" she said.</p>
+
+<p>The boy bit his lip.</p>
+
+<p>"I swore eternal friendship, so I can never tell
+your secrets, you know," said Charling softly,
+"and <i>I've</i> told <i>you</i> every single thing."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, it's my sister, then," said he abruptly,
+"and she's married a chap I've never seen&mdash;and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[269]</a></span>
+I'm to go and live with them, if you please; and
+she told me once she was never going to marry,
+and it was always going to be just us two; and
+now she's found this fellow she knew when she
+was a little girl, and he was a boy&mdash;as it might
+be us, you know&mdash;and she's forgotten all about
+what she said, and married him. And I wasn't
+even asked to the beastly wedding because they
+wanted to be married quietly; and they came
+home from their hateful honeymoon this evening,
+and the holidays begin to-day, and I was to go
+to this new chap's house to spend them. And I
+only got her letter this morning, and I just took
+my journey money and ran away. My boxes
+were sent on straight from school, though&mdash;so
+I've got no clothes but these. I'm just going to
+look at the place where she's to live, and then
+I'm off to sea."</p>
+
+<p>"Why didn't she tell you before?"</p>
+
+<p>"She says she meant it to be a pleasant surprise,
+because we've been rather hard up since
+my father died, and this chap's got horses and
+everything, and she says he's going to adopt me.
+As if I wanted to be adopted by any old stuck-up
+money-grubber!"</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[270]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"But you haven't seen him," said Charling
+gently. "If <i>I'm</i> silly, <i>you</i> are too, aren't you?"</p>
+
+<p>She hid her face on her sleeve to avoid seeing
+the effect of this daring shot. Only silence
+answered her.</p>
+
+<p>Presently Harry said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Now, kiddie, let me take you home, will
+you? Give the stepmother a fair show, anyhow."</p>
+
+<p>Charling reflected. She was very tired. She
+stroked Harry's hand absently, and after a while
+said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I will if you will."</p>
+
+<p>"Will what?"</p>
+
+<p>"Go back and give your chap a fair show."</p>
+
+<p>And now the boy reflected.</p>
+
+<p>"Done," he said suddenly. "After all, what's
+sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.
+Come on."</p>
+
+<p>He stood up and held out his hand. This
+was about the time when the cook packed her
+box and went off, leaving it to be sent after her.
+Public opinion in the servants' hall was too
+strong to be longer faced.</p>
+
+<p>The shadows of the trees lay black and level<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[271]</a></span>
+across the pastures when the two children
+reached the lodge gates. A floral arch was
+above the gate, and wreaths of flowers and flags
+made the avenue gay. Charling had grown very
+tired, and Harry had carried her on his back for
+the last mile or two&mdash;resting often, because
+Charling was a strong, healthy child, and, as he
+phrased it, "no slouch of a weight."</p>
+
+<p>Now they paused at the gate of the lodge.</p>
+
+<p>"This is my house," said Charling. "They've
+put all these things up for <i>her</i>, I suppose. If
+you'll write down your address I'll give you
+mine, and we can write and tell each other
+what <i>they</i> are like afterwards. I've got a bit
+of chalk somewhere."</p>
+
+<p>She fumbled in the dusty confusion of her
+little pocket while Harry found the envelope of
+his sister's letter and tore it in two. Then, one
+on each side of the lodge gate-post, the children
+wrote, slowly and carefully, for some moments.
+Presently they exchanged papers, and each read
+the words written by the other. Then suddenly
+both turned very red.</p>
+
+<p>"But this is <i>my</i> address," said she. "The
+Grange, Falconbridge."</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[272]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"It's where my sister's gone to live, anyhow,"
+said he.</p>
+
+<p>"Then&mdash;then&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Conviction forced itself first on the boy.</p>
+
+<p>"What a duffer I've been! It's <i>him</i> she's
+married."</p>
+
+<p>"Your sister?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Are you <i>sure</i> your father's a good
+sort?"</p>
+
+<p>"How dare you ask!" said Charling. "It's
+your sister I want to know about."</p>
+
+<p>"She's the dearest old darling!" he cried.
+"Oh! kiddie, come along; run for all you're
+worth, and perhaps we can get in the back way,
+and get tidied up before they come, and they
+need never know."</p>
+
+<p>He held out his hand; Charling caught at it,
+and together they raced up the avenue. But
+getting in the back way was impossible, for
+Murchison met them full on the terrace, and
+Charling ran straight into his arms. There
+should have been scolding and punishment, no
+doubt, but Charling found none.</p>
+
+<p>And, now, who so sleek and demure as the
+runaways, he in Eton jacket and she in spotless<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[273]</a></span>
+white muslin, when the carriage drew up in
+front of the hall, amid the cheers of the tenants
+and the bowing of the orderly, marshalled
+servants?</p>
+
+<p>And then a lady, pretty as a princess in a fairy
+tale, with eyes as blue as Harry's, was hugging
+him and Charling both at once; while a man,
+whom Harry at once owned to <i>be</i> a man, stood
+looking at the group with grave, kind eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"We'll never, never tell," whispered the boy.
+The servants had been sworn to secrecy by
+Murchison.</p>
+
+<p>Charling whispered back, "Never as long as
+we live."</p>
+
+<p>But long before bedtime came each of the
+runaways felt that concealment was foolish in
+the face of the new circumstances, and with
+some embarrassment, a tear or two, and a little
+gentle laughter, the tale was told.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Harry! how could you?" said the stepmother,
+and went quietly out by the long window
+with her arm round her brother's shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>Charling was left alone with her father.</p>
+
+<p>"Why didn't you tell me, father?"</p>
+
+<p>"I wish I had, childie; but I thought&mdash;you<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[274]</a></span>
+see&mdash;I was going away&mdash;I didn't want to
+leave you alone for a fortnight to think all sorts
+of nonsense. And I thought my little girl could
+trust me." Charling hid her face in her hands.
+"Well! it's all right now! don't cry, my girlie."
+He drew her close to him.</p>
+
+<p>"And you'll love Harry very much?"</p>
+
+<p>"I will. He brought you back."</p>
+
+<p>"And I'll love <i>her</i> very much. So that's all
+settled," said Charling cheerfully. Then her
+face fell again. "But, father, don't you love
+mother any more? Cook said you didn't."</p>
+
+<p>He sighed and was silent. At last he said,
+"You are too little to understand, sweetheart.
+I have loved the lady who came home to-day all
+my life long, and I shall love your mother as
+long as I live."</p>
+
+<p>"Cook said it was like being unkind to mother.
+Does mother mind about it, really?"</p>
+
+<p>He muttered something inaudible&mdash;to the
+cook's address.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think they either of them mind, my
+darling Charling," he said. "You cannot understand
+it, but I think they both understand."</p><hr class="chap" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[275]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2>WITH AN E</h2>
+
+
+<div class='cap'>SHE had been thinking of him all day&mdash;of
+the incredible insignificance of the point on
+which they had quarrelled; the babyish folly of
+the quarrel itself, the silly pride that had made
+the quarrel strong till the very memory of it was
+as a bar of steel to keep them apart. Three
+years ago, and so much had happened since then.
+Three years! and not a day of them all had
+passed without some thought of him; sometimes
+a happy, quiet remembrance transfigured
+by a wise forgetfulness; sometimes a sudden
+recollection, sharp as a knife. But not on many
+days had she allowed the quiet remembrance to
+give place to the knife-thrust, and then kept the
+knife in the wound, turning it round with a scientific
+curiosity, which, while it ran an undercurrent
+of breathless pleasure beneath the pain,
+yet did not lessen this&mdash;intensified it, rather.
+To-day she had thought of him thus through the
+long hours on deck, when the boat sped on even<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[276]</a></span>
+keel across the blue and gold of the Channel, in
+the dusty train from Ostend&mdash;even in the little
+open carriage that carried her and her severely
+moderate luggage from the station at Bruges to
+the H�tel du Panier d'Or. She had thought of
+him so much that it was no surprise to her to see
+him there, drinking coffee at one of the little
+tables which the hotel throws out like tentacles
+into the Grande Place.</div>
+
+<p>There he sat, in a grey flannel suit. His back
+was towards her, but she would have known the
+set of his shoulders anywhere, and the turn of
+his head. He was talking to someone&mdash;a lady,
+handsome, but older than he&mdash;oh! evidently
+much older.</p>
+
+<p>Elizabeth made the transit from carriage to
+hotel door in one swift, quiet movement. He did
+not see her, but the lady facing him put up a tortoiseshell-handled
+<i>lorgnon</i> and gazed through it
+and through narrowed eyelids at the new comer.</p>
+
+<p>Elizabeth reappeared no more that evening.
+It was the waiter who came out to dismiss the
+carriage and superintend the bringing in of the
+luggage. Elizabeth, stumbling in a maze of forgotten
+French, was met at the stair-foot by a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[277]</a></span>
+smiling welcome, and realised in a spasm of
+grateful surprise that she need not have brought
+her dictionary. The hostess of the "Panier
+d'Or," like everyone else in Belgium, spoke English,
+and an English far better than Elizabeth's
+French had been.</p>
+
+<p>She secured a tiny bedroom, and a sitting
+room that looked out over the Place, so that
+whenever he drank coffee she might, with luck,
+hope to see the back of his dear head.</p>
+
+<p>"Idiot!" said Elizabeth, catching this little
+thought wandering in her mind, and with that
+she slapped the little thought and put it away in
+disgrace. But when she woke in the night, it
+woke, too, and cried a little.</p>
+
+<p>That night it seemed to her that she would
+have all her meals served in the little sitting-room,
+and never go downstairs at all, lest she
+should meet him. But in the morning she perceived
+that one does not save up one's money for
+a year in order to have a Continental holiday,
+and sweeten all one's High-school teaching with
+one thought of that holiday, in order to spend
+its precious hours between four walls, just because&mdash;well,
+for any reason whatsoever.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[278]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>So she went down to take her coffee and rolls
+humbly, publicly, like other people.</p>
+
+<p>The dining-room was dishevelled, discomposed;
+chairs piled on tables and brooms all about. It
+was in the hotel <i>caf�</i>, where the marble-topped
+little tables were, that Mademoiselle would be
+served. Here was a marble-topped counter, too,
+where later in the day <i>ap�ritifs</i> and <i>petits verres</i>
+would be handed. On this, open for the police
+to read, lay the list of those who had spent the
+night at the "Panier d'Or."</p>
+
+<p>The room was empty. Elizabeth caught up
+the list. Yes, his name was there, at the very
+top of the column&mdash;Edward Brown, and below
+it "<i>Mrs. Brown</i>&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Elizabeth dropped the paper as though it had
+bitten her, and, turning sharply, came face to
+face with that very Edward Brown. He raised
+his hat gravely, and a shiver of absolute sickness
+passed over her, for his glance at her in passing
+was the glance of a stranger. It was not possible....
+Yet it was true. He had forgotten her.
+In three little years! They had been long enough
+years to her, but now she called them little. In
+three little years he had forgotten her very face.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[279]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Elizabeth, chin in air, marched down the room
+and took possession of the little table where her
+coffee waited her.</p>
+
+<p>She began to eat. It was not till the sixth
+mouthful that her face flushed suddenly to so
+deep a crimson that she dared not raise her eyes
+to see how many of the folk now breaking their
+rolls in her company had had eyes for her face.
+As a matter of fact, only one observed the sudden
+colour, and he admired and rejoiced, for he had
+seen such a colour in that face before.</p>
+
+<p>"She is angry&mdash;good!" said he, and poured
+out more coffee with a steady hand.</p>
+
+<p>The thought that flooded Elizabeth's face and
+neck and ears with damask was one quite inconsistent
+with the calm eating of bread-and-butter.
+She laid down her knife and walked out, chin in
+air to the last. Alone in her sitting-room she
+buried her face in a hard cushion and went as
+near to swearing as a very nice girl may.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! oh! oh!&mdash;oh! <i>bother!</i> Why did I go
+down? I ought to have fled to the uttermost
+parts of the earth: or even to Ghent. Of course.
+Oh, what a fool I am! It's because he's married
+that he won't speak to me. You fool! you fool!<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[280]</a></span>
+you fool! Yes, of course, you knew he was
+married; only you thought you'd like the silly
+satisfaction of hearing his voice speak to you, and
+yours speaking to him. But&mdash;oh! fool! fool!
+fool!"</p>
+
+<p>Elizabeth put on the thickest veil she had, and
+the largest hat, and went blindly out. She
+walked very fast, never giving a glance to the
+step-and-stair gables of the old houses, the dominant
+strength of the belfry, the curious, un-English
+groups in the streets. Presently she came
+to a bridge&mdash;a canal&mdash;overhanging houses&mdash;balconies&mdash;a
+glimpse like the pictures of Venice.
+She leaned her elbows on the parapet and presently
+became aware of the prospect.</p>
+
+<p>"It <i>is</i> pretty," she said grudgingly, and at the
+same moment turned away, for in a flower-hung
+balcony across the water she saw <i>him</i>.</p>
+
+<p>"This is too absurd," she said. "I must get
+out of the place&mdash;at least, for the day. I'll go
+to Ghent."</p>
+
+<p>He had seen her, and a thrill of something very
+like gratified vanity straightened his shoulders.
+When a girl has jilted you, it is comforting to
+find that even after three years she has not forgotten<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[281]</a></span>
+you enough to be indifferent, no matter how
+you may have consoled yourself in the interval.</p>
+
+<p>Elizabeth walked fast, but she did not get to
+the railway station, because she took the wrong
+turning several times. She passed through street
+after strange street, and came out on a wide
+quay; another canal; across it showed old,
+gabled, red-roofed houses. She walked on and
+came presently to a bridge, and another quay,
+and a little puffing, snorting steamboat.</p>
+
+<p>She hurriedly collected a few scattered items
+of her school vocabulary&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Est-ce que&mdash;est-ce que&mdash;ce bateau � vapeur va&mdash;va</i>&mdash;anywhere?"</p>
+
+<p>A voluble assurance that it went at twelve-thirty
+did not content her. She gathered her
+forces again.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Oui; mais o� est-ce qu'il va aller&mdash;?</i>"</p>
+
+<p>The answer sounded something like "Sloosh,"
+and the speaker pointed vaguely up the green
+canal.</p>
+
+<p>Elizabeth went on board. This was as good
+as Ghent. Better. There was an element of
+adventure about it. "Sloosh" might be anywhere;
+one might not reach it for days. But<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[282]</a></span>
+the boat had not the air of one used to long
+cruises; and Elizabeth felt safe in playing with
+the idea of an expedition into darkest Holland.</p>
+
+<p>And now by chance, or because her movements
+interested him as much as his presence
+repelled her, this same Edward Brown also came
+on board, and, concealed by the deep daydream
+into which she had fallen, passed her unseen.</p>
+
+<p>When she shook the last drops of the daydream
+from her, she found herself confronting
+the boat's only other passenger&mdash;himself.</p>
+
+<p>She looked at him full and straight in the
+eyes, and with the look her embarrassment left
+her and laid hold on him.</p>
+
+<p>He remembered her last words to him&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"If ever we meet again, we meet as strangers."
+Well, he had kept to the very letter of that
+bidding, and she had been angry. He had
+been very glad to see that she was angry. But
+now, face to face for an hour and a half&mdash;for
+he knew the distance to Sluys well enough&mdash;could
+he keep silence still and yet avoid being
+ridiculous? He did not intend to be ridiculous;
+yet even this might have happened. But Elizabeth
+saved him.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[283]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>She raised her chin and spoke in chill, distant
+courtesy.</p>
+
+<p>"I think you must be English, because I
+saw you at the 'Panier d'Or'; everyone's
+English there. I can't make these people understand
+anything. Perhaps you could be so
+kind as to tell me how long the boat takes to
+get to wherever it does get to?"</p>
+
+<p>It was a longer speech than she would have
+made had he been the stranger as whom she
+proposed to treat him, but it was necessary to
+let him understand at the outset what was
+the part she intended to play.</p>
+
+<p>He did understand, and assumed his r�le
+instantly.</p>
+
+<p>"Something under two hours, I think," he
+said politely, still holding in his hand the hat
+he had removed on the instant of her breaking
+silence. "How cool and pleasant the air
+is after the town!" The boat was moving
+now quickly between grassy banks topped by
+rows of ash trees. The landscape on each side
+spread away like a map intersected with
+avenues of tall, lean, wind-bent trees, that
+seemed to move as the boat moved.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[284]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Good!" said she to herself; "he means to
+talk. We shan't sit staring at each other for
+two hours like stuck pigs. And he really doesn't
+know me? Or is it the wife? Oh! I wish I'd
+never come to this horrible country!" Aloud
+she said, "Yes, and how pretty the trees and
+fields are&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"So&mdash;so nice and green, aren't they?" said he.</p>
+
+<p>And she said, "Yes."</p>
+
+<p>Each inwardly smiled. In the old days each
+had been so eager for the other's good opinion,
+so afraid of seeming commonplace, that their
+conversations had been all fine work, and their
+very love-letters too clever by half. Now they
+did not belong to each other any more, and he
+said the trees were green, and she said "Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"There seem to be a great many people in
+Bruges," said she.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he said, in eager assent. "Quite a
+large number."</p>
+
+<p>"There is a great deal to be seen in these old
+towns. So quaint, aren't they?"</p>
+
+<p>She remembered his once condemning in a
+friend the use of that word. Now he echoed it.</p>
+
+<p>"So very quaint," said he. "And the dogs<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[285]</a></span>
+drawing carts! Just like the pictures, aren't
+they?"</p>
+
+<p>"You can get pictures of them on the illustrated
+post-cards. So nice to send to one's relations
+at home."</p>
+
+<p>She was getting angry with him. He played
+the game too well.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! yes," he answered, "the dear people like
+these little tokens, don't they?"</p>
+
+<p>"He's getting exactly like a curate," she
+thought, and a doubt assailed her. Perhaps he
+was not playing the game at all. Perhaps in
+these three years he had really grown stupid.</p>
+
+<p>"How different it all is from England, isn't
+it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, quite!" said he.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you ever been in Holland?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, once."</p>
+
+<p>"What was it like?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>That was a form of question they had agreed
+to hate&mdash;once, long ago.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, extremely pleasant," he said warmly.
+"We met some most agreeable people at some
+of the hotels. Quite the best sort of people, you
+know."</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[286]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Another phrase once banned by both.</p>
+
+<p>The sun sparkled on the moving duckweed of
+the canal. The sky was blue overhead. Here
+and there a red-roofed farm showed among the
+green pastures. Ahead the avenues tapered
+away into distance, and met at the vanishing
+point. Elizabeth smiled for sheer pleasure at
+the sight of two little blue-smocked children
+solemnly staring at the boat as it passed. Then
+she glanced at him with an irritated frown. It
+was his turn to smile.</p>
+
+<p>"You called the tune, my lady," he said to
+himself, "and it is you shall change it, not I."</p>
+
+<p>"Foreign countries are very like England, are
+they not?" he said. "The same kind of trees,
+you know, and the same kind of cows, and&mdash;and
+everything. Even the canals are very like
+ours."</p>
+
+<p>"The canal system," said Elizabeth instructively,
+"is the finest in the world."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Adieu, Canal, canard, canaille</i>," he quoted.
+They had always barred quotations in the old
+days.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't understand Latin," said she. Then
+their eyes met, and he got up abruptly and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[287]</a></span>
+walked to the end of the boat and back. When
+he sat down again, he sat beside her.</p>
+
+<p>"Shall we go on?" he said quietly. "I think
+it is your turn to choose a subject&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! have you read <i>Alice in Wonderland?</i>"
+she said, with simple eagerness. "Such a pretty
+book, isn't it?"</p>
+
+<p>He shrugged his shoulders. She was obstinate;
+all women were. Men were not. He
+would be magnanimous. He would not compel
+her to change the tune. He had given her one
+chance; and if she wouldn't&mdash;well, it was not
+possible to keep up this sort of conversation till
+they got to Sluys. He would&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>But again she saved him.</p>
+
+<p>"I won't play any more," she said. "It's not
+fair. Because you may think me a fool. But I
+happen to know that you are Mr. Brown, who
+writes the clever novels. You were pointed out
+to me at the hotel; and&mdash;oh! do tell me if you
+always talk like this to strangers?"</p>
+
+<p>"Only to English ladies on canal boats," said
+he, smiling. "You see, one never knows. They
+might wish one to talk like that. We both did
+it very prettily. Of course, more know Tom<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[288]</a></span>
+Fool than Tom Fool knows, but I think I may
+congratulate you on your first attempt at the
+English-abroad conversation."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know, really," she said, "you did it
+so well that if I hadn't known who you were, I
+should have thought it was the real you. The
+felicitations are not all mine. But won't you
+tell me about Holland? That bit of yours
+about the hotel acquaintances was very brutal.
+I've heard heaps of people say that very thing.
+You just caught the tone. But Holland&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, this is Holland," said he; "but I saw
+more of it than this, and I'll tell you anything
+you like if you won't expect me to talk clever,
+and turn the phrase. That's a lost art, and I
+won't humiliate myself in trying to recover it.
+To begin with, Holland is flat."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't be a geography book," Elizabeth
+laughed light-heartedly.</p>
+
+<p>"The coinage is&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"No, but seriously."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then," said he, and the talk lasted till
+the little steamer bumped and grated against the
+quay-side at Sluys.</p>
+
+<p>When they had landed the two stood for a
+moment on the grass-grown quay in silence.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[289]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Well, good afternoon," said Elizabeth suddenly.
+"Thank you so much for telling me
+all about Holland." And with that she turned
+and walked away along the narrow street between
+the trim little houses that look so like a
+child's toy village tumbled out of a white wood
+box. Mr. Edward Brown was left, planted there.</p>
+
+<p>"Well!" said he, and spent the afternoon
+wandering about near the landing-stage, and wondering
+what would be the next move in this game
+of hers. It was a childish game, this playing at
+strangers, yet he owned that it had a charm.</p>
+
+<p>He ate currant bread and drank coffee at a
+little inn by the quay, sitting at the table by
+the door and watching the boats. Two o'clock
+came and went. Four o'clock came, half-past
+four, and with that went the last return
+steamer for Bruges. Still Mr. Edward Brown
+sat still and smoked. Five minutes later
+Elizabeth's blue cotton dress gleamed in the
+sunlight at the street corner.</p>
+
+<p>He rose and walked towards her.</p>
+
+<p>"I hope you have enjoyed yourself in Holland,"
+he said.</p>
+
+<p>"I lost my way," said she. He saw that she<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[290]</a></span>
+was very tired, even before he heard it in her
+voice. "When is the next boat?"</p>
+
+<p>"There are no more boats to-day. The last
+left about ten minutes ago."</p>
+
+<p>"You might have told me," she said resentfully.</p>
+
+<p>"I beg your pardon," said he. "You bade
+me good-bye with an abruptness and a decision
+which forbade me to tell you anything."</p>
+
+<p>"I beg your pardon," she said humbly. "Can
+I get back by train?"</p>
+
+<p>"There are no trains."</p>
+
+<p>"A carriage?"</p>
+
+<p>"There are none. I have inquired."</p>
+
+<p>"But you," she asked suddenly, "how did
+you miss the boat? How are you going to get
+back?"</p>
+
+<p>"I shall walk," said he, ignoring the first
+question. "It's only eleven miles. But for you,
+of course, that's impossible. You might stay
+the night here. The woman at this inn seems
+a decent old person."</p>
+
+<p>"I can't. There's a girl coming to join me.
+She's in the sixth at the High School where I
+teach. I've promised to chaperon and instruct<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[291]</a></span>
+her. I must meet her at the station at ten.
+She's been ten years at the school. I don't
+believe she knows a word of French. Oh! I
+must go. She doesn't know the name of my
+hotel, or anything. I must go. I must walk."</p>
+
+<p>"Have you had any food?"</p>
+
+<p>"No; I never thought about it."</p>
+
+<p>She did not realise that she was explaining to
+him that she had been walking to get away
+from him and from her own thoughts, and that
+food had not been among these.</p>
+
+<p>"Then you will dine now; and, if you will
+allow me, we will walk back together."</p>
+
+<p>Elizabeth submitted. It was pleasant to be
+taken care of. And to be "ordered about," that
+was pleasant, too. Curiously enough, that very
+thing had been a factor in the old quarrel. At
+nineteen one is so independent.</p>
+
+<p>She was fed on omelettes and strange, pale
+steak, and Mr. Brown insisted on beer. The
+place boasted no wine cellar.</p>
+
+<p>Then the walk began. For the first mile or
+two it was pleasant. Then Elizabeth's shoes
+began to hurt her. They were smart brown
+shoes, with deceitful wooden heels. In her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[292]</a></span>
+wanderings over the cobblestones of Sluys
+streets one heel had cracked itself. Now it
+split altogether. She began to limp.</p>
+
+<p>"Won't you take my arm?" said he.</p>
+
+<p>"No, thank you. I don't really need it. I'll
+rest a minute, though, if I may." She sat down,
+leaning against a tree, and looked out at the
+darting swallows, dimpling here and there the
+still green water. The level sunlight struck
+straight across the pastures, turning them to
+gold. The long shadows of the trees fell across
+the canal and lay black on the reeds at the
+other side. The hour was full of an ample
+dignity of peace.</p>
+
+<p>They walked another mile. Elizabeth could
+not conceal her growing lameness.</p>
+
+<p>"Something is wrong with your foot," said he.
+"Have you hurt it?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's these silly shoes; the heel's broken."</p>
+
+<p>"Take them off and let me see."</p>
+
+<p>She submitted without a protest, sat down,
+took off the shoes, and gave them to him. He
+looked at them kindly, contemptuously.</p>
+
+<p>"Silly little things!" he said, and she, instead
+of resenting the impertinence, smiled.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[293]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Then he tore off the heels and dug out the remaining
+bristle of nails with his pocket-knife.</p>
+
+<p>"That'll be better," said he cheerfully. Elizabeth
+put on the damp shoes. The evening dew
+lay heavy on the towing-path, and she hardly
+demurred at all to his fastening the laces. She
+was very tired.</p>
+
+<p>Again he offered his arm; again she refused it.</p>
+
+<p>Then, "Elizabeth, take my arm at once!" he
+said sharply.</p>
+
+<p>She took it, and they had kept step for some
+fifty paces before she said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Then you knew all the time?"</p>
+
+<p>"Am I blind or in my dotage? But you forbade
+me to meet you except as a stranger. I
+have an obedient nature."</p>
+
+<p>They walked on in silence. He held her hand
+against his side strongly, but, as it seemed, without
+sentiment. He was merely helping a tired
+woman-stranger on a long road. But the road
+seemed easier to Elizabeth because her hand
+lay so close to him; she almost forgot how tired
+she was, and lost herself in dreams, and awoke,
+and taught herself to dream again, and wondered
+why everything should seem so different just because<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[294]</a></span>
+one's hand lay on the sleeve of a grey
+flannel jacket.</p>
+
+<p>"Why should I be so abominably happy?"
+she asked herself, and then lapsed again into
+the dreams that were able to wipe away three
+years, as a kind hand might wipe three little
+tear-drops from a child's slate, scrawled over
+with sums done wrong.</p>
+
+<p>When she remembered that he was married,
+she salved her conscience innocently. "After
+all," she said, "it can't be wrong if it doesn't
+make <i>him</i> happy; and, of course, he doesn't
+care, and I shall never see him again after to-night."</p>
+
+<p>So on they went, the deepening dusk turned
+to night, and in Elizabeth's dreams it seemed
+that her hand was held more closely; but unless
+one moved it ever so little one could not be
+sure; and she would not move it ever so little.</p>
+
+<p>The damp towing-path ended in a road cobblestoned,
+the masts of ships, pointed roofs, twinkling
+lights. The eleven miles were nearly over.</p>
+
+<p>Elizabeth's hand moved a little, involuntarily,
+on his arm. To cover the movement she spoke
+instantly.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[295]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I am leaving Bruges to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>"No; your sixth-form girl will be too tired,
+and besides&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Besides?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, a thousand things! Don't leave Bruges
+yet; it's so 'quaint,' you know; and&mdash;and I
+want to introduce you to&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I won't," said Elizabeth almost violently.</p>
+
+<p>"You won't?"</p>
+
+<p>"No; I don't want to know your wife."</p>
+
+<p>He stopped short in the street&mdash;not one of
+the "quaint" streets, but a deserted street of tall,
+square-shuttered, stern, dark mansions, wherein
+a gas-lamp or two flickered timidly.</p>
+
+<p>"My <i>wife?</i>" he said; "it's my <i>aunt</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"It said 'Mrs. Brown' in the visitors' list,"
+faltered Elizabeth.</p>
+
+<p>"Brown's such an uncommon name," he said;
+"my aunt spells hers with an E."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! with an E? Yes, of course. I spell
+my name with an E too, only it's at the wrong
+end."</p>
+
+<p>Elizabeth began to laugh, and the next moment
+to cry helplessly.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Elizabeth! and you looked in the visitors'<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[296]</a></span>
+list and&mdash;" He caught her in his arms
+there in the street. "No; you can't get away.
+I'm wiser than I was three years ago. I shall
+never let you go any more, my dear."</p>
+
+<p>The girl from the sixth looked quite resentfully
+at the two faces that met her at the station.
+It seemed hardly natural or correct for
+a classical mistress to look so happy.</p>
+
+<p>Elizabeth's lover schemed for and got a goodnight
+word with her at the top of the stairs,
+by the table where the beautiful brass candlesticks
+lay waiting in shining rows.</p>
+
+<p>"Sleep well, you poor, tired little person,"
+he said, as he lighted the candle; "such little
+feet, such wicked little shoes, such a long, long,
+long walk."</p>
+
+<p>"You must be tired, too," she said.</p>
+
+<p>"Tired? with eleven miles, and your hand
+against my heart for eight of them? I shall
+remember that walk when we're two happy old
+people nodding across our own hearthrug at
+each other."</p>
+
+<p>So he had felt it too; and if he had been
+married, how wicked it would have been! But
+he was not married&mdash;yet.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[297]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I am not very, very tired, really," she said.
+"You see, it <i>was</i> my hand against&mdash;I mean
+your arm was a great help&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"It <i>was</i> your hand," he said. "Oh, you
+darling!"</p>
+
+<p>It was her hand, too, that was kissed there,
+beside the candlesticks, under the very eyes of
+the chambermaid and two acid English tourists.</p><hr class="chap" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[299]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2>UNDER THE NEW MOON</h2>
+
+
+<div class='cap'>THE white crescent of the little new moon
+blinked at us through the yew boughs. As
+you walk up the churchyard you see thirteen
+yews on each side of you, and yet, if you count
+them up, they make twenty-seven, and it has
+been pointed out to me that neither numerical
+fact can be without occult significance. The
+jugglery in numbers is done by the seventh yew
+on the left, which hides a shrinking sister in the
+amplitude of its shadow.</div>
+
+<p>The midsummer day was dying in a golden
+haze. Amid the gathering shadows of the
+churchyard her gown gleamed white, ghostlike.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, there's the new moon," she said. "I
+am so glad. Take your hat off to her and turn
+the money in your pocket, and you will get
+whatever you wish for, and be rich as well."</p>
+
+<p>I obeyed with a smile, half of whose meaning
+she answered.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[300]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"No," she said, "I am not really superstitious;
+I'm not at all sure that the money is any good,
+or the hat, but of course everyone knows it's
+unlucky to see it through glass."</p>
+
+<p>"Seen through glass," I began, "a hat presents
+a gloss which on closer inspection&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"No, no, not a hat, the moon, of course. And
+you might as well pretend that it's lucky to
+upset the salt, or to kill a spider, especially on a
+Tuesday, or on your hat."</p>
+
+<p>"Hats," I began again, "certainly seem to&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"It's not the hat," she answered, pulling up
+the wild thyme and crushing it in her hands,
+"you know very well it's the spider. Doesn't
+that smell sweet?"</p>
+
+<p>She held out the double handful of crushed
+sun-dried thyme, and as I bent my face over the
+cup made by her two curved hands, I was constrained
+to admit that the fragrance was
+delicious.</p>
+
+<p>"Intoxicating even," I added.</p>
+
+<p>"Not that. White lilies intoxicate you, so
+does mock-orange; and white may too, only it's
+unlucky to bring it into the house."</p>
+
+<p>I smiled again.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[301]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I don't see why you should call it superstitious
+to believe in facts," she said. "My
+cousin's husband's sister brought some may into
+her house last year, and her uncle died within
+the month."</p>
+
+<div class='poem'>
+"My husband's uncle's sister's niece<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Was saved from them by the police.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">She says so, so I know it's true&mdash;"</span><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'>I had got thus far in my quotation when she
+interrupted me.</div>
+
+<p>"Oh, well, if you're going to sneer!" she
+said, and added that it was getting late, and
+that she must go home.</p>
+
+<p>"Not yet," I pleaded. "See how pretty
+everything is. The sky all pink, and the red
+sunset between the yews, and that good little
+moon. And how black the shadows are under
+the buttresses. Don't go home&mdash;already they
+will have lighted the yellow shaded lamps in
+your drawing-room. Your sister will be sitting
+down to the piano. Your mother is trying to
+match her silks. Your brother has got out the
+chess board. Someone is drawing the curtains.
+The day is over for them, but for us, here, there
+is a little bit of it left."</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[302]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>We were sitting on the lowest step of a high,
+square tomb, moss-grown and lichen-covered.
+The yellow lichens had almost effaced the long
+list of the virtues of the man on whose breast
+this stone had lain, as itself in round capitals
+protested, since the year of grace 1703. The
+sharp-leafed ivy grew thickly over one side of
+it, and the long, uncut grass came up between
+the cracks of its stone steps.</p>
+
+<p>"It's all very well," she said severely.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't be angry," I implored. "How can
+you be angry when the bats are flying black
+against the rose sky, when the owl is waking
+up&mdash;his is a soft, fluffy awakening&mdash;and wondering
+if it's breakfast time?"</p>
+
+<p>"I won't be angry," she said. "Besides the
+owl, it's disrespectful to the dear, sleepy, dead
+people to be angry in a churchyard. But if I
+were really superstitious, you know, I should
+be afraid to come here at night."</p>
+
+<p>"At the end of the day," I corrected. "It
+is not night yet. Tell me before the night
+comes all the wonderful things you believe.
+Recite your <i>credo</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't be flippant. I don't suppose I believe<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[303]</a></span>
+more unlikely things than you do. You believe
+in algebra and Euclid and log&mdash;what's-his-names.
+Now I don't believe a word of all that."</p>
+
+<p>"We have it on the best authority that by
+getting up early you can believe six impossible
+things before breakfast."</p>
+
+<p>"But they're not impossible. Don't you see
+that's just it? The things I like to believe are
+the very things that <i>might</i> be true. And they're
+relics of a prettier time than ours, a time when
+people believed in ghosts and fairies and witches
+and the devil&mdash;oh, yes! and in God and His
+angels, too. Now the times are bound in yellow
+brick, and we believe in nothing but ... Euclid
+and&mdash;and company prospectuses and patent
+medicines."</p>
+
+<p>When she is a little angry she is very charming,
+but it was too dark for me to see her face.</p>
+
+<p>"Then," I asked, "it is merely the literary
+sense that leads you to make the Holy Sign
+when you find two knives crossed on your table,
+or to knock under the table and cry 'Unberufen'
+when you have provoked the Powers with
+some kind word of the destiny they have sent
+you?"</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[304]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I don't," she said. "I don't talk foreign
+languages."</p>
+
+<p>"You say, 'unbecalled for,' I know, but this
+is mere subterfuge. Is it the literary sense that
+leads you to treasure farthings, to refuse to give
+pins, to object to a dinner party of thirteen, to
+fear the plucking of the golden elder, to avoid
+coming back to the house when once you've
+started, even if you've forgotten your prayer-book
+or your umbrella, to decline to pass under
+a ladder&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I always go under a ladder," she interrupted,
+ignoring the other counts; "it only means you
+won't be married for seven years."</p>
+
+<p>"I never go under ladders. Tell me, is it the
+literary sense?"</p>
+
+<p>"Bother the literary sense," she said. "Bother"
+is not a pretty word, but this did not strike me
+till I came to write it down. "Look," she went
+on, "at the faint primrose tint over the pine
+trees and those last pink clouds high up in the sky."</p>
+
+<p>I could see the outline of her lifted chin and
+her throat against the yew shadows, but I determined
+to be wise. I looked at the pine trees
+and said<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[305]</a></span>&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I want you to instruct me. Why is it unlucky
+to break a looking-glass? and what is the
+counter-charm?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know"&mdash;there was some awe in
+her voice&mdash;"I don't think there is any counter-charm.
+If I broke a looking-glass I believe
+I should have to give up believing in these
+things altogether. It would make me too unhappy."</p>
+
+<p>I was discreet enough to pass by the admission.</p>
+
+<p>"And why is it unlucky to wear black at a
+wedding? And if anyone did wear black at
+your wedding, what would you do?"</p>
+
+<p>"You are very tiresome this evening," she
+said. "Why don't you keep to the point?
+Nobody was talking of weddings, and if you
+must wander, why not stray in more amusing
+paths? Why don't you talk of something
+interesting? Why do you try to be disagreeable?
+If you think I'm silly to believe all these nice
+picturesque things, why don't you give me your
+solid, dull, dry, scientific reasons for not believing
+them?"</p>
+
+<p>"Your wish is my law," I responded with
+alacrity. "Superstition, then, is the result of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[306]</a></span>
+imperfect recognition in unscientific ages of the
+relations of cause and effect. To persons unaccustomed
+correctly to assign causes, one cause
+is as likely as another to produce a given effect.
+Hallucinations of the senses have also, doubtless&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"And now you're only dull," she said.</p>
+
+<p>The light had slowly faded while we spoke
+till the churchyard was almost dark, the grass
+was heavy with dew, and sadness had crept like
+a shadow over the quiet world.</p>
+
+<p>"I am sorry. Everything I say is wrong
+to-night. I was born under an unlucky star.
+Forgive me."</p>
+
+<p>"It was I who was cross," she admitted at
+once very cheerfully, but, indeed, not without
+some truth. "But it doesn't do anyone any
+harm to play at believing things; honestly, I'm
+not sure whether I believe them or not, but
+they have some colour about them in an age
+grown grey in its hateful laboratories and workshops.
+I do want to try to tell you if you
+really want to know about it. I can't think
+why, but if I meet a flock of sheep I know it
+is lucky, and I'm cheered; and if a hare crosses<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[307]</a></span>
+the path I feel it is unlucky, and I'm sad; and
+if I see the new moon through glass I'm positively
+wretched. But all the same, I'm not
+superstitious. I'm not afraid of ghosts or dead
+people, or things like that"&mdash;I'm not sure that
+she did not add, "So there!"</p>
+
+<p>"Would you dare to go to the church door
+at twelve at night and knock three times?" I
+asked, with some severity.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," she said stoutly, though I know she
+quailed, "I would. Now you'll admit that I'm
+not superstitious."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," I said, and here I offer no excuse.
+The devil entered into me, and though I see
+now what a brute beast I was, I cannot be sorry.
+"I own that you are not superstitious. How
+dark it is growing. The ivy has broken the
+stone away just behind your head: there is
+quite a large hole in the side of the tomb. No,
+don't move, there's nothing there. If you were
+superstitious you might fancy, on a still, dark,
+sweet evening like this, that the dead man might
+wake and want to come up out of his coffin.
+He might crouch under the stone, and then,
+trying to come out, he might very slowly reach<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[308]</a></span>
+out his dead fingers and touch your neck.
+Ah!"</p>
+
+<p>The awakened wind had moved an ivy spray
+to the suggested touch. She sprang up with a
+cry, and the next moment she was clinging
+wildly to me, as I held her in my arms.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't cry, my dear, oh, don't! Forgive me,
+it was the ivy."</p>
+
+<p>She caught her breath.</p>
+
+<p>"How could you! how could you!"</p>
+
+<p>And still I held her fast, with&mdash;as she grew
+calmer&mdash;a question in the clasp of my arms,
+and, presently, on my lips.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, my dear, forgive me! And is it true&mdash;do
+you?&mdash;do you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;no&mdash;I don't know.... No, no, not
+through my veil, it <i>is</i> so unlucky!"</p><hr class="chap" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[309]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2>THE LOVE OF ROMANCE</h2>
+
+
+<div class='cap'>SHE opened the window, at which no light
+shone. All the other windows were darkly
+shuttered. The night was still: only a faint
+breath moved among the restless aspen leaves.
+The ivy round the window whispered hoarsely
+as the casement, swung back too swiftly, rested
+against it. She had a large linen sheet in her
+hands. Without hurry and without delayings
+she knotted one corner of it to the iron staple
+of the window. She tied the knot firmly, and
+further secured it with string. She let the
+white bulk of the sheet fall between the ivy
+and the night, then she climbed on to the window-ledge,
+and crouched there on her knees.
+There was a heart-sick pause before she grasped
+the long twist of the sheet as it hung&mdash;let her
+knees slip from the supporting stone and swung
+suddenly, by her hands. Her elbows and wrists<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[310]</a></span>
+were grazed against the rough edge of the window-ledge&mdash;the
+sheet twisted at her weight,
+and jarred her shoulder heavily against the
+house wall. Her arms seemed to be tearing
+themselves from their sockets. But she clenched
+her teeth, felt with her feet for the twisted ivy
+stems on the side of the house, found foothold,
+and the moment of almost unbearable agony
+was over. She went down, helped by feet and
+hands, and by ivy and sheet, almost exactly as
+she had planned to do. She had not known it
+would hurt so much&mdash;that was all. Her feet
+felt the soft mould of the border: a stout geranium
+snapped under her tread. She crept round
+the house, in the house's shadow&mdash;found the
+gardener's ladder&mdash;and so on to the high brick
+wall. From this she dropped, deftly enough,
+into the suburban lane: dropped, too, into the
+arms of a man who was waiting there. She
+hid her face in his neck, trembling, and said,
+"Oh, Harry&mdash;I wish I hadn't!" Then she
+began to cry helplessly. The man, receiving her
+embrace with what seemed in the circumstances
+a singularly moderated enthusiasm, led her with
+one arm still lightly about her shoulders down<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[311]</a></span>
+the lane: at the corner he stood still, and said
+in a low voice&mdash;</div>
+
+<p>"Hush&mdash;stop crying at once! I've something
+to say to you."</p>
+
+<p>She tore herself from his arm, and gasped.</p>
+
+<p>"It's <i>not</i> Harry," she said. "Oh, how dare
+you!" She had been brave till she had dropped
+into his arms. Then the need for bravery had
+seemed over. Now her tears were dried swiftly
+and suddenly by the blaze of anger and courage
+in her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't be unreasonable," he said, and even at
+that moment of disappointment and rage his voice
+pleased her. "I had to get you away somehow.
+I couldn't risk an explanation right under your
+aunt's windows. Harry's sprained his knee&mdash;cricket.
+He couldn't come."</p>
+
+<p>A sharp resentment stirred in her against the
+lover who could play cricket on the very day of
+an elopement.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>He</i> told you to come? Oh, how could he
+betray me!"</p>
+
+<p>"My dear girl, what was he to do? He
+couldn't leave you to wait out here alone&mdash;perhaps
+for hours."</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[312]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I shouldn't have waited long," she said
+sharply; "you came to tell me: now you've
+told me&mdash;you'd better go."</p>
+
+<p>"Look here," he said with gentle calm, "I do
+wish you'd try not to be quite so silly. I'm
+Harry's doctor&mdash;and a middle-aged man. Let
+me help you. There must be some better way
+out of your troubles than a midnight flight and
+a despairingly defiant note on the pin-cushion."</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't," she said. "I put it on the mantelpiece.
+Please go. I decline to discuss anything
+with you."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, don't!" he said; "I knew you must be
+a very romantic person, or you wouldn't be here;
+and I knew you must be rather sill&mdash;well, rather
+young, or you wouldn't have fallen in love with
+Harry. But I did not think, after the brave and
+practical manner in which you kept your appointment,
+I did <i>not</i> think that you'd try to behave
+like the heroine of a family novelette.
+Come, sit down on this heap of stones&mdash;there's
+nobody about. There's a light in your house
+now. You can't go back yet. Here, let me put
+my Inverness round you. Keep it up round
+your chin, and then if anyone sees you they<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[313]</a></span>
+won't know who you are. I can't leave you
+alone here. You know what a lot of robberies
+there have been in the neighbourhood lately;
+there may be rough characters about. Come
+now, let's think what's to be done. You know
+you can't get back unless I help you."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't want you to help me; and I won't
+go back," she said.</p>
+
+<p>But she sat down and pulled the cloak up
+round her face.</p>
+
+<p>"Now," he said, "as I understand the case&mdash;it's
+this. You live rather a dull life with two
+tyrannical aunts&mdash;and the passion for romance...."</p>
+
+<p>"They're not tyrannical&mdash;only one's always
+ill and the other's always nursing her. She
+makes her get up and read to her in the night.
+That's her light you saw&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I pass the aunts. Anyhow, you met
+Harry&mdash;somehow&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"It was at the Choral Society. And then
+they stopped my going&mdash;because he walked
+home with me one wet night."</p>
+
+<p>"And you have never seen each other since?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course we have."</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[314]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"And communicated by some means more
+romantic than the post?"</p>
+
+<p>"It wasn't romantic. It was tennis-balls."</p>
+
+<p>"Tennis-balls?"</p>
+
+<p>"You cut a slit and squeeze it and put a note
+in, and it shuts up and no one notices it. It
+wasn't romantic at all. And I don't know why
+I should tell you anything about it."</p>
+
+<p>"And then, I suppose, there were glances in
+church, and stolen meetings in the passionate
+hush of the rose-scented garden."</p>
+
+<p>"There's nothing in the garden but geraniums,"
+she said, "and we always talked over the wall&mdash;he
+used to stand on their chicken house, and I
+used to turn our dog kennel up on end and stand
+on that. You have no right to know anything
+about it, but it was not in the least romantic."</p>
+
+<p>"No&mdash;that sees itself! May I ask whether
+it was you or he who proposed this elopement?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, how <i>dare</i> you!" she said, jumping up;
+"you have no right to insult me like this."</p>
+
+<p>He caught her wrist. "Sit down, you little
+firebrand," he said. "I gather that he proposed
+it. You, at any rate, consented, no doubt after
+the regulation amount of proper scruples. It's<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[315]</a></span>
+all very charming and idyllic and&mdash;what are
+you crying for? Your lost hopes of a happy life
+with a boy you know nothing of, a boy you've
+hardly seen, a boy you've never talked to about
+anything but love's young dream?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm <i>not</i> crying," she said passionately, turning
+her streaming eyes on him, "you know I'm
+not&mdash;or if I am, it's only with rage. You may
+be a doctor&mdash;though I don't believe you are&mdash;but
+you're not a gentleman. Not anything like
+one!"</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose not," he said; "a gentleman would
+not make conditions. I'm going to make one.
+You can't go to Harry, because his Mother would
+be seriously annoyed if you did; and so, believe
+me, would he&mdash;though you don't think it. You
+can get up and leave me, and go 'away into the
+night,' like a heroine of fiction&mdash;but you can't
+keep on going away into the night for ever and
+ever. You must have food and clothes and lodging.
+And the sun rises every day. You must
+just quietly and dully go home again. And you
+can't do it without me. And I'll help you if
+you'll promise not to see Harry, or write to him
+for a year."</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[316]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"He'll see me. He'll write to me," she said
+with proud triumph.</p>
+
+<p>"I think not. I exacted the promise from
+<i>him</i> as a condition of my coming to meet
+you."</p>
+
+<p>"And he promised?"</p>
+
+<p>"Evidently."</p>
+
+<p>There was a long silence. She broke it with
+a voice of concentrated fury.</p>
+
+<p>"If he doesn't mind, <i>I</i> don't," she said. "I'll
+promise. Now let me go back. I wish you
+hadn't come&mdash;I wish I was dead."</p>
+
+<p>"Come," he said, "don't be so angry with me.
+I've done what I could for you both."</p>
+
+<p>"On conditions!"</p>
+
+<p>"You must see that they are good, or you
+wouldn't have accepted them so soon. I thought
+it would have taken me at least an hour to get
+you to consent. But no&mdash;ten minutes of earnest
+reflection are enough to settle the luckless Harry's
+little hash. You're quite right&mdash;he doesn't deserve
+more! I am pleased with myself, I own.
+I must have a very convincing manner."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," she cried passionately, "I daresay you
+think you've been very clever. But I wish you<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[317]</a></span>
+knew what I think of you. And I'd tell you for
+twopence."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm a poor man, gentle lady&mdash;won't you
+tell me for love?" His voice was soft and
+pleading beneath the laugh that stung her.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I <i>will</i> tell you&mdash;for nothing," she cried.
+"You're a brute, and a hateful, interfering, disagreeable,
+impertinent old thing, and I only hope
+you'll have someone be as horrid to you as
+you've been to me, that's all!"</p>
+
+<p>"I think I've had that already&mdash;quite as
+horrid," he said grimly. "This is not the moment
+for compliments&mdash;but you have great
+powers. You are brave, and I never met anyone
+who could be more 'horrid,' as you call it,
+in smaller compass, all with one little tiny
+adjective. My felicitations. You <i>are</i> clever.
+Come&mdash;don't be angry any more&mdash;I had to
+do it&mdash;you'll understand some day."</p>
+
+<p>"You wouldn't like it yourself," she said,
+softening to something in his voice.</p>
+
+<p>"I shouldn't have liked it at your age," he
+said; "sixteen&mdash;fifteen&mdash;what is it?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm nineteen next birthday," she said with
+dignity.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[318]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"And the date?"</p>
+
+<p>"The fifteenth of June&mdash;I don't know what
+you mean by asking me."</p>
+
+<p>"And to-day's the first of July," he said, and
+sighed. "Well, well!&mdash;if your Highness will
+allow me, I'll go and see whether your aunt's
+light is out, and if it is, we'll attempt the re-entrance."</p>
+
+<p>He went. She shivered, waiting for what felt
+like hours. And the resentment against her aunts
+grew faint in the light of her resentment against
+her lover's messenger, and this, in its turn, was
+outshone by her anger against her lover. He
+had played cricket. He had risked his life&mdash;on
+the very day whose evening should have
+crowned that life by giving her to his arms.
+She set her teeth. Then she yawned and
+shivered again. It was an English July, and
+very cold. And the slow minutes crept past.
+What a fool she had been! Why had she not
+made a fight for her liberty&mdash;for her right to
+see Harry if she chose to see him? The aunts
+would never have stood up against a well-planned,
+determined, disagreeable resistance. In
+the light of this doctor's talk the whole thing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[319]</a></span>
+did seem cowardly, romantic, and, worst of all,
+insufferably young. Well&mdash;to-morrow everything
+should change; she would fight for her
+Love, not merely run away to him. But the
+promise? Well, Harry was Harry, and a promise
+was only a promise!</p>
+
+<p>There were footsteps in the lane. The man
+was coming back to her. She rose.</p>
+
+<p>"It's all right," he said. "Come."</p>
+
+<p>In silence they walked down the lane. Suddenly
+he stopped.</p>
+
+<p>"You'll thank me some day," he said. "Why
+should you throw yourself away on Harry?
+You're worth fifty of him. And I only wish I
+had time to explain this to you thoroughly, but
+I haven't!"</p>
+
+<p>She, too, had stopped. Now she stamped her
+foot.</p>
+
+<p>"Look here," she said, "I'm not going to
+promise anything at all. You needn't help me
+if you don't want to&mdash;but I take back that
+promise. Go!&mdash;do what you like! I mean
+to stick to Harry&mdash;and I'll write and tell him
+so to-night. So there!"</p>
+
+<p>He clapped his hands very softly. "Bravo!"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[320]</a></span>
+he said; "that's the right spirit. Plucky child!
+Any other girl would have broken the promise
+without a word to me. Harry's luckier even
+than I thought. I'll help you, little champion!
+Come on."</p>
+
+<p>He helped her over the wall; carried the
+ladder to her window, and steadied it while
+she mounted it. When she had climbed over the
+window-ledge she turned and leaned out of the
+window, to see him slowly mounting the ladder.
+He threw his head back with a quick gesture
+that meant "I have something more to say&mdash;lean
+out!"</p>
+
+<p>She leaned out. His face was on a level
+with hers.</p>
+
+<p>"You've slept soundly all night&mdash;don't forget
+that&mdash;it's important," he whispered, "and&mdash;you
+needn't tell Harry&mdash;one-sided things are so
+trivial, but I can't help it. <i>I</i> have the passion
+for romance too!"</p>
+
+<p>With that he caught her neck in the curve of
+his arm, and kissed her lightly but fervently.</p>
+
+<p>"Good-bye!" he said; "thank you so much
+for a very pleasant evening!" He dropped
+from the ladder and was gone. She drew her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[321]</a></span>
+curtain with angry suddenness. Then she lighted
+candles and looked at herself in the looking-glass.
+She thought she had never looked so
+pretty. And she was right. Then she went to
+bed, and slept like a tired baby.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>Next morning the suburb was electrified by
+the discovery, made by the nursing aunt, that
+all the silver and jewels and valuables from the
+safe at the top of the stairs had vanished.</p>
+
+<p>"The villains must have come through your
+room, child," she said to Harry's sweetheart;
+"the ladder proves that. Slept sound all night,
+did you? Well, that was a mercy! They
+might have murdered you in your bed if you'd
+happened to be awake. You ought to be
+humbly thankful when you think of what might
+have happened."</p>
+
+<p>The girl did not think very much of what
+might have happened. What <i>had</i> happened
+gave her quite food enough for reflection.
+Especially when to her side of the night's adventures
+was added the tale of Harry's.</p>
+
+<p>He had not played cricket, he had not hurt
+his knee, he had merely confided in his father's<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[322]</a></span>
+valet, and had given that unprincipled villain
+a five-pound note to be at the Cross Roads&mdash;in
+the orthodox style&mdash;with a cab for the flight,
+a post-chaise being, alas! out of date. Instead
+of doing this, the valet, with a confederate, had
+gagged and bound young Harry, and set him in
+a convenient corner against the local waterworks
+to await events.</p>
+
+<p>"I never would have believed it of him,"
+added Harry, in an agitated india-rubber-ball
+note, "he always seemed such a superior person,
+you'd have thought he was a gentleman if you'd
+met him in any other position."</p>
+
+<p>"I should. I did," she said to herself. "And,
+oh, how frightfully clever! And the way he
+talked! And all the time he was only keeping
+me out of the way while they stole the silver
+and things. I wish he hadn't taken the ruby
+necklace: it does suit me so. And what nerve!
+He actually talked about the robberies in the
+neighbourhood. He must have done them all.
+Oh, what a pity! But he was a dear. And
+how awfully wicked he was, too&mdash;but I'll never
+tell Harry!"</p>
+
+<p>She never has.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[323]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Curiously enough, her Burglar Valet Hero was
+not caught, though the police most intelligently
+traced his career, from his being sent down from
+Oxford to his last best burglary.</p>
+
+<p>She was married to Harry, with the complete
+consent of everyone concerned, for Harry had
+money, and so had she, and there had never been
+the slightest need for an elopement, save in
+youth's perennial passion for romance. It was
+on her birthday that she received a registered
+postal packet. It had a good many queer postmarks
+on it, and the stamps were those of a
+South American republic. It was addressed to
+her by her new name, which was as good as
+new still. It came at breakfast-time, and it
+contained the ruby necklace, several gold rings,
+and a diamond brooch. All were the property
+of her late aunts. Also there was an india-rubber
+ball, and in it a letter.</p>
+
+<p>"Here is a birthday present for you," it said.
+"Try to forgive me. Some temptations are
+absolutely irresistible. That one was. And it
+was worth it. It rounded off the whole thing
+so perfectly. That last indiscretion of mine
+nearly ruined everything. There was a policeman<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">[324]</a></span>
+in the lane. I only escaped by the merest
+fluke. But even then it would have been worth
+it. At least, I should like you to believe that I
+think so."</p>
+
+<p>"His last indiscretion," said Harry, who saw
+the note but not the india-rubber ball, "that
+means stealing your aunts' things, of course,
+unless it was dumping me down by the waterworks,
+but, of course, that wasn't the last one.
+But worth it? Why, he'd have had seven years
+if they'd caught him&mdash;worth it? He <i>must</i> have
+a passion for burglary."</p>
+
+<p>She did not explain to Harry, because he
+would never have understood. But the burglar
+would have found it quite easy to understand
+that or anything. She was so shocked to find
+herself thinking this that she went over to Harry
+and kissed him with more affection even than
+usual.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, dear," he said, "I don't wonder you're
+pleased to get something back out of all those
+things. I quite understand."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, dear," said she. "I know. You always
+do!"</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+<div class='tnote'>
+<div class='center'><b>Transcriber's Notes:</b></div>
+
+<p>Obvious punctuation errors repaired.</p>
+
+<p><a href="#Page_219">Page 219</a>, repeated word "for" deleted from text. Original read:  (it will for for me)</p>
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Literary Sense, by E. Nesbit
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LITERARY SENSE ***
+
+***** This file should be named 39324-h.htm or 39324-h.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        http://www.gutenberg.org/3/9/3/2/39324/
+
+Produced by Suzanne Shell, Emmy and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images generously made available by The
+Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
+
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+http://gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+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
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+http://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at http://pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit http://pglaf.org
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations.
+To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     http://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
+
+
+</pre>
+
+</body>
+</html>
diff --git a/39324-h/images/cover.jpg b/39324-h/images/cover.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..822e07d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/39324-h/images/cover.jpg
diff --git a/39324-h/images/emblem.png b/39324-h/images/emblem.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..35892a8
--- /dev/null
+++ b/39324-h/images/emblem.png
diff --git a/39324.txt b/39324.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..3b3ae2d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/39324.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,7509 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Literary Sense, by E. Nesbit
+
+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 Literary Sense
+
+Author: E. Nesbit
+
+Release Date: April 1, 2012 [EBook #39324]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LITERARY SENSE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Suzanne Shell, Emmy and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images generously made available by The
+Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE LITERARY SENSE
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+THE LITERARY SENSE
+
+BY E. NESBIT
+
+AUTHOR OF "THE RED HOUSE" AND "THE WOULD-BE-GOODS"
+
+    New York
+    THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
+    LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., LTD.
+    1903
+
+    _All rights reserved_
+
+
+
+
+    COPYRIGHT, 1903,
+    BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.
+
+    Set up, electrotyped, and published September, 1903.
+
+
+    Norwood Press
+    J. S. Cushing & Co.--Berwick & Smith Co.
+    Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.
+
+
+
+
+    TO
+    DOROTHEA DEAKIN
+    WITH
+    THE AUTHOR'S LOVE
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+                                              PAGE
+
+    THE UNFAITHFUL LOVER                         1
+
+    ROUNDING OFF A SCENE                        13
+
+    THE OBVIOUS                                 29
+
+    THE LIE ABSOLUTE                            49
+
+    THE GIRL WITH THE GUITAR                    65
+
+    THE MAN WITH THE BOOTS                      79
+
+    THE SECOND BEST                             91
+
+    THE HOLIDAY                                105
+
+    THE FORCE OF HABIT                         123
+
+    THE BRUTE                                  147
+
+    DICK, TOM, AND HARRY                       165
+
+    MISS EDEN'S BABY                           187
+
+    THE LOVER, THE GIRL, AND THE ONLOOKER      209
+
+    THE DUEL                                   229
+
+    CINDERELLA                                 253
+
+    WITH AN E                                  275
+
+    UNDER THE NEW MOON                         299
+
+    THE LOVE OF ROMANCE                        309
+
+
+
+
+THE LITERARY SENSE
+
+
+
+
+THE UNFAITHFUL LOVER
+
+
+SHE was going to meet her lover. And the fact that she was to meet him
+at Cannon Street Station would almost, she feared, make the meeting
+itself banal, sordid. She would have liked to meet him in some green,
+cool orchard, where daffodils swung in the long grass, and primroses
+stood on frail stiff little pink stalks in the wet, scented moss of the
+hedgerow. The time should have been May. She herself should have been a
+poem--a lyric in a white gown and green scarf, coming to him through the
+long grass under the blossomed boughs. Her hands should have been full
+of bluebells, and she should have held them up to his face in maidenly
+defence as he sprang forward to take her in his arms. You see that she
+knew exactly how a tryst is conducted in the pages of the standard
+poets and of the cheaper weekly journals. She had, to the full limit
+allowed of her reading and her environment, the literary sense. When she
+was a child she never could cry long, because she always wanted to see
+herself cry, in the glass, and then of course the tears always stopped.
+Now that she was a young woman she could never be happy long, because
+she wanted to watch her heart's happiness, and it used to stop then,
+just as the tears had.
+
+He had asked her to meet him at Cannon Street; he had something to say
+to her, and at home it was difficult to get a quiet half-hour because of
+her little sisters. And, curiously enough, she was hardly curious at all
+about what he might have to say. She only wished for May and the
+orchard, instead of January and the dingy, dusty waiting-room, the
+plain-faced, preoccupied travellers, the dim, desolate weather. The
+setting of the scene seemed to her all-important. Her dress was brown,
+her jacket black, and her hat was home-trimmed. Yet she looked
+entrancingly pretty to him as he came through the heavy swing-doors. He
+would hardly have known her in green and white muslin and an orchard,
+for their love had been born and bred in town--Highbury New Park, to be
+exact. He came towards her; he was five minutes late. She had grown
+anxious, as the one who waits always does, and she was extremely glad to
+see him, but she knew that a late lover should be treated with a
+provoking coldness (one can relent prettily later on), so she gave him a
+limp hand and no greeting.
+
+"Let's go out," he said. "Shall we walk along the Embankment, or go
+somewhere on the Underground?"
+
+It was bitterly cold, but the Embankment was more romantic than a
+railway carriage. He ought to insist on the railway carriage: he
+probably would. So she said--
+
+"Oh, the Embankment, please!" and felt a sting of annoyance and
+disappointment when he acquiesced.
+
+They did not speak again till they had gone through the little back
+streets, past the police station and the mustard factory, and were on
+the broad pavement of Queen Victoria Street.
+
+He had been late: he had offered no excuse, no explanation. She had done
+the proper thing; she had awaited these with dignified reserve, and now
+she was involved in the meshes of a silence that she could not break.
+How easy it would have been in the orchard! She could have snapped off a
+blossoming branch and--and made play with it somehow. Then he would have
+had to say something. But here--the only thing that occurred to her was
+to stop and look in one of the shops till he should ask her what she was
+looking at. And how common and mean that would be compared with the
+blossoming bough; and besides, the shops they were passing had nothing
+in the windows except cheap pastry and models of steam-engines.
+
+Why on earth didn't he speak? He had never been like this before. She
+stole a glance at him, and for the first time it occurred to her that
+his "something to say" was not a mere excuse for being alone with her.
+He had something to say--something that was trying to get itself said.
+The keen wind thrust itself even inside the high collar of her jacket.
+Her hands and feet were aching with cold. How warm it would have been in
+the orchard!
+
+"I'm freezing," she said suddenly; "let's go and have some tea."
+
+"Of course, if you like," he said uncomfortably; yet she could see he
+was glad that she had broken that desolate silence.
+
+Seated at a marble table--the place was nearly empty--she furtively
+watched his face in the glass, and what she saw there thrilled her. Some
+great sorrow had come to him. And she had been sulking! The girl in the
+orchard would have known at a glance. _She_ would gently, tenderly, with
+infinite delicacy and the fine tact of a noble woman, have drawn his
+secret from him. She would have shared his sorrow, and shown herself
+"half wife, half angel from heaven" in this dark hour. Well, it was not
+too late. She could begin now. But how? He had ordered the tea, and her
+question was still unanswered. Yet she must speak. When she did her
+words did not fit the mouth of the girl in the orchard--but then it
+would have been May there, and this was January. She said--
+
+"How frightfully cold it is!"
+
+"Yes, isn't it?" he said.
+
+The fine tact of a noble woman seemed to have deserted her. She resisted
+a little impulse to put her hand in his under the marble table, and to
+say, "What is it, dearest? Tell me all about it. I can't bear to see you
+looking so miserable," and there was another silence.
+
+The waitress brought the two thick cups of tea, and looked at him with a
+tepid curiosity. As soon as the two were alone again he leaned his
+elbows on the marble and spoke.
+
+"Look here, darling, I've got something to tell you, and I hope to God
+you'll forgive me and stand by me, and try to understand that I love you
+just the same, and whatever happens I shall always love you."
+
+This preamble sent a shiver of dread down her spine. What had he done--a
+murder--a bank robbery--married someone else?
+
+It was on the tip of her tongue to say that she would stand by him
+whatever he had done; but if he had married someone else this would be
+improper, so she only said, "Well?" and she said it coldly.
+
+"Well--I went to the Simpsons' dance on Tuesday--oh, why weren't you
+there, Ethel?--and there was a girl in pink, and I danced three or four
+times with her--she was rather like you, side-face--and then, after
+supper, in the conservatory, I--I talked nonsense--but only a very
+little, dear--and she kept looking at me so--as if she expected me
+to--to--and so I kissed her. And yesterday I had a letter from her, and
+she seems to expect--to think--and I thought I ought to tell you,
+darling. Oh, Ethel, do try to forgive me! I haven't answered her
+letter."
+
+"Well?" she said.
+
+"That's all," said he, miserably stirring his tea.
+
+She drew a deep breath. A shock of unbelievable relief tingled through
+her. So that was all! What was it, compared with her fears? She almost
+said, "Never mind, dear. It was hateful of you, and I wish you hadn't,
+but I know you're sorry, and I'm sorry; but I forgive you, and we'll
+forget it, and you'll never do it again." But just in time she
+remembered that nice girls must not take these things too lightly. What
+opinion would he form of the purity of her mind, the innocence of her
+soul, if an incident like this failed to shock her deeply? He himself
+was evidently a prey to the most rending remorse. He had told her of the
+thing as one tells of a crime. As the confession of a crime she must
+receive it. How should she know that he had only told her because he
+feared that she would anyhow hear it through the indiscretion of the
+girl in pink, or of that other girl in blue who had seen and smiled? How
+could she guess that he had tuned his confession to the key of what he
+believed would be an innocent girl's estimate of his misconduct?
+
+Following the tingle of relief came a sharp, sickening pinch of jealousy
+and mortification. These inspired her.
+
+"I don't wonder you were afraid to tell me," she began. "You don't love
+me--you've never loved me--I was an idiot to believe you did."
+
+"You know I do," he said; "it was hateful of me--but I couldn't help
+it."
+
+Those four true words wounded her more than all the rest.
+
+"Couldn't help it? Then how can I ever trust you? Even if we were
+married I could never be sure you weren't kissing some horrid girl or
+other. No--it's no use--I can never, never forgive you--and it's all
+over. And I _believed_ in you so, and trusted you--I thought you were
+the soul of honour."
+
+He could not say, "And so I am, on the whole," which was what he
+thought. Her tears were falling hot and fast between face and veil, for
+she had talked till she was very sorry indeed for herself.
+
+"Forgive me, dear," he said.
+
+Then she rose to the occasion. "Never," she said, her eyes flashing
+through her tears. "You've deceived me once--you'd do it again! No, it's
+all over--you've broken my heart and destroyed my faith in human nature.
+I hope I shall never see you again. Some day you'll understand what
+you've done, and be sorry!"
+
+"Do you think I'm not sorry now?"
+
+She wished that they were at home, and not in this horrible tea-shop,
+under the curious eyes of the waitresses. At home she could at least
+have buried her face in the sofa cushions and resisted all his
+pleading,--at last, perhaps, letting him take one cold passive hand and
+shower frantic kisses upon it.
+
+He would come to-morrow, however, and then-- At present the thing to
+compass was a dignified parting.
+
+"Good-bye," she said; "I'm going home. And it's good-bye for ever.
+No--it's only painful for both of us. There's no more to be said; you've
+betrayed me. I didn't think a decent man could do such things." She was
+pulling on her gloves. "Go home and gloat over it all! And that poor
+girl--you've broken _her_ heart too." This really was a master stroke of
+nobility.
+
+He stood up suddenly. "Do you mean it?" he said, and his tone should
+have warned her. "Are you really going to throw me over for a thing like
+this?"
+
+The anger in his eyes frightened her, and the misery of his face wrung
+her heart; but how could she say--
+
+"No, of course I'm not! I'm only talking as I know good girls ought to
+talk"?
+
+So she said--
+
+"Yes. Good-bye!"
+
+He stood up suddenly. "Then good-bye," he said, "and may God forgive you
+as I do!" And he strode down between the marble tables and out by the
+swing-door. It was a very good exit. At the corner he remembered that he
+had gone away without paying for the tea, and his natural impulse was
+to go back and remedy that error. And if he had they would certainly
+have made it up. But how could he go back to say, "We are parting for
+ever; but still, I must insist on the sad pleasure of paying for our
+tea--for the last time"? He checked the silly impulse. What was tea, and
+the price of tea, in this cataclysmic overthrowing of the Universe? So
+she waited for him in vain, and at last paid for the tea herself, and
+went home to wait there--and there, too, in vain, for he never came back
+to her. He loved her with all his heart, and he, also, had what she had
+never suspected in him--the literary sense. Therefore he, never dreaming
+that the literary sense had inspired her too, perceived that to the
+jilted lover two courses only are possible--suicide or "the front." So
+he enlisted, and went to South Africa, and he never came home covered
+with medals and glory, which was rather his idea, to the few simple
+words of explanation that would have made all straight, and repaid her
+and him for all the past. Because Destiny is almost without the literary
+sense, and Destiny carelessly decreed that he should die of enteric in a
+wretched hut, without so much as hearing a gun fired. Literary to the
+soul, she has taken no other lover, but mourns him faithfully to this
+hour. Yet perhaps, after all, that is not because of the literary sense.
+It may be because she loved him. I think I have not mentioned before
+that she did love him.
+
+
+
+
+ROUNDING OFF A SCENE
+
+
+A SOFT rain was falling. Umbrellas swayed and gleamed in the light of
+the street lamps. The brightness of the shop windows reflected itself in
+the muddy mirror of the wet pavements. A miserable night, a dreary
+night, a night to tempt the wretched to the glimmering Embankment, and
+thence to the river, hardly wetter or cleaner than the gutters of the
+London streets. Yet the sight of these same streets was like wine in the
+veins to a man who drove through them in a hansom piled with Gladstone
+bags and P. and O. trunks. He leaned over the apron of the hansom and
+looked eagerly, longingly, lovingly, at every sordid detail: the crowd
+on the pavement, its haste as intelligible to him as the rush of ants
+when their hill is disturbed by the spade; the glory and glow of corner
+public-houses; the shifting dance of the gleaming wet umbrellas. It was
+England, it was London, it was home--and his heart swelled till he felt
+it in his throat. After ten years--the dream realised, the longing
+appeased. London--and all was said.
+
+His cab, delayed by a red newspaper cart, jammed in altercative contact
+with a dray full of brown barrels, paused in Cannon Street. The eyes
+that drank in the scene perceived a familiar face watching on the edge
+of the pavement for a chance to cross the road under the horses'
+heads--the face of one who ten years ago had been the slightest of
+acquaintances. Now time and home-longing juggled with memory till the
+face seemed that of a friend. To meet a friend--this did, indeed, round
+off the scene of the home-coming. The man in the cab threw back the
+doors and leapt out. He crossed under the very nose-bag of a stationed
+dray horse. He wrung the friend--last seen as an acquaintance--by the
+hand. The friend caught fire at the contact. Any passer-by, who should
+have been spared a moment for observation by the cares of umbrella and
+top-hat, had surely said, "Damon and Pythias!" and gone onward smiling
+in sympathy with friends long severed and at last reunited.
+
+The little scene ended in a cordial invitation from the impromptu Damon,
+on the pavement, to Pythias, of the cab, to a little dance that evening
+at Damon's house, out Sydenham way. Pythias accepted with enthusiasm,
+though at his normal temperature, he was no longer a dancing man. The
+address was noted, hands clasped again with strenuous cordiality, and
+Pythias regained his hansom. It set him down at the hotel from which ten
+years before he had taken cab to Fenchurch Street Station. The menu of
+his dinner had been running in his head, like a poem, all through the
+wet shining streets. He ordered, therefore, without hesitation--
+
+                 Ox-tail Soup.
+         Boiled Cod and Oyster Sauce.
+         Roast Beef and Horse-radish.
+      Boiled Potatoes.    Brussels Sprouts.
+               Cabinet Pudding.
+              Stilton.    Celery.
+
+The cabinet pudding was the waiter's suggestion. Anything that called
+itself "pudding" would have pleased as well. He dressed hurriedly, and
+when the soup and the wine card appeared together before him he ordered
+draught bitter--a pint.
+
+"And bring it in a tankard," said he.
+
+The drive to Sydenham was, if possible, a happier dream than had been
+the drive from Fenchurch Street to Charing Cross. There were many
+definite reasons why he should have been glad to be in England, glad to
+leave behind him the hard work of his Indian life, and to settle down as
+a landed proprietor. But he did not think definite thoughts. The whole
+soul and body of the man were filled and suffused by the glow that
+transfuses the blood of the schoolboy at the end of the term.
+
+The lights, the striped awning, the red carpet of the Sydenham house
+thrilled and charmed him. Park Lane could have lent them no further
+grace--Belgrave Square no more subtle witchery. This was England,
+England, England!
+
+He went in. The house was pretty with lights and flowers. There was
+music. The soft-carpeted stair seemed air as he trod it. He met his
+host--was led up to girls in blue and girls in pink, girls in satin and
+girls in silk-muslin--wrote brief _precis_ of their toilets on his
+programme. Then he was brought face to face with a tall dark-haired
+woman in white. His host's voice buzzed in his ears, and he caught only
+the last words--"old friends." Then he was left staring straight into
+the eyes of the woman who ten years ago had been the light of his: the
+woman who had jilted him, his vain longing for whom had been the spur to
+drive him out of England.
+
+"May I have another?" was all he found to say after the bow, the
+conventional request, and the scrawling of two programmes.
+
+"Yes," she said, and he took two more.
+
+The girls in pink, and blue, and silk, and satin found him a good but
+silent dancer. On the opening bars of the eighth waltz he stood before
+her. Their steps went together like song and tune, just as they had
+always done. And the touch of her hand on his arm thrilled through him
+in just the old way. He had, indeed, come home.
+
+There were definite reasons why he should have pleaded a headache or
+influenza, or any lie, and have gone away before his second dance with
+her. But the charm of the situation was too great. The whole thing was
+so complete. On his very first evening in England--to meet her! He did
+not go, and half-way through their second dance he led her into the
+little room, soft-curtained, soft-cushioned, soft-lighted, at the bend
+of the staircase.
+
+Here they sat silent, and he fanned her, and he assured himself once
+more that she was more beautiful than ever. Her hair, which he had known
+in short, fluffy curls, lay in soberly waved masses, but it was still
+bright and dark, like a chestnut fresh from the husk. Her eyes were the
+same as of old, and her hands. Her mouth only had changed. It was a sad
+mouth now, in repose--and he had known it so merry. Yet he could not but
+see that its sadness added to its beauty. The lower lip had been,
+perhaps, too full, too flexible. It was set now, not in sternness, but
+in a dignified self-control. He had left a Greuze girl--he found a
+Madonna of Bellini. Yet those were the lips he had kissed--the eyes
+that--
+
+The silence had grown to the point of embarrassment. She broke it, with
+his eyes on her.
+
+"Well," she said, "tell me all about yourself."
+
+"There's nothing much to tell. My cousin's dead, and I'm a full-fledged
+squire with estates and things. I've done with the gorgeous East, thank
+God! But you--tell me about yourself."
+
+"What shall I tell you?" She had taken the fan from him, and was furling
+and unfurling it.
+
+"Tell me"--he repeated the words slowly--"tell me the truth! It's all
+over--nothing matters now. But I've always been--well--curious. Tell me
+why you threw me over!"
+
+He yielded, without even the form of a struggle, to the impulse which he
+only half understood. What he said was true: he _had_ been--well--curious.
+But it was long since anything alive, save vanity, which is immortal,
+had felt the sting of that curiosity. But now, sitting beside this
+beautiful woman who had been so much to him, the desire to bridge over
+the years, to be once more in relations with her outside the
+conventionalities of a ball-room, to take part with her in some scene,
+discreet, yet flavoured by the past with a delicate poignancy, came upon
+him like a strong man armed. It held him, but through a veil, and he
+did not see its face. If he had seen it, it would have shocked him very
+much.
+
+"Tell me," he said softly, "tell me now--at last--"
+
+Still she was silent.
+
+"Tell me," he said again; "why did you do it? How was it you found out
+so very suddenly and surely that we weren't suited to each other--that
+was the phrase, wasn't it?"
+
+"Do you really want to know? It's not very amusing, is it--raking out
+dead fires?"
+
+"Yes, I do want to know. I've wanted it every day since," he said
+earnestly.
+
+"As you say--it's all ancient history. But you used not to be stupid.
+Are you sure the real reason never occurred to you?"
+
+"Never! What was it? Yes, I know: the next waltz is beginning. Don't go.
+Cut him, whoever he is, and stay here and tell me. I think I have a
+right to ask that of you."
+
+"Oh--rights!" she said. "But it's quite simple. I threw you over, as you
+call it, because I found out you didn't care for me."
+
+"_I_--not care for _you_?"
+
+"Exactly."
+
+"But even so--if you believed it--but how could you? Even so--why not
+have told me--why not have given me a chance?" His voice trembled.
+
+Hers was firm.
+
+"I _was_ giving you a chance, and I wanted to make sure that you would
+take it. If I'd just said, 'You don't care for me,' you'd have said,
+'Oh, yes I do!' And we should have been just where we were before."
+
+"Then it wasn't that you were tired of me?"
+
+"Oh, no," she said sedately, "it wasn't that!"
+
+"Then you--did you really care for me still, even when you sent back the
+ring and wouldn't see me, and went to Germany, and wouldn't open my
+letters, and all the rest of it?"
+
+"Oh, yes!"--she laughed lightly--"I loved you frightfully all that time.
+It does seem odd now to look back on it, doesn't it? but I nearly broke
+my heart over you."
+
+"Then why the devil--"
+
+"You mustn't swear," she interrupted; "I never heard you do that before.
+Is it the Indian climate?"
+
+"Why did you send me away?" he repeated.
+
+"Don't I keep telling you?" Her tone was impatient. "I found out you
+didn't care, and--and I'd always despised people who kept other people
+when they wanted to go. And I knew you were too honourable, generous,
+soft-hearted--what shall I say?--to go for your own sake, so I thought,
+for your sake, I would make you believe you were to go for mine."
+
+"So you lied to me?"
+
+"Not exactly. We _weren't_ suited--since you didn't love me."
+
+"_I_ didn't love you?" he echoed again.
+
+"And somehow I'd always wanted to do something really noble, and I never
+had the chance. So I thought if I set you free from a girl you didn't
+love, and bore the blame myself, it _would_ be rather noble. And so I
+did it."
+
+"And did the consciousness of your own nobility sustain you
+comfortably?" The sneer was well sneered.
+
+"Well--not for long," she admitted. "You see, I began to doubt after a
+while whether it was really _my_ nobleness after all. It began to seem
+like some part in a play that I'd learned and played--don't you know
+that sort of dreams where you seem to be reading a book and acting the
+story in the book at the same time? It was a little like that now and
+then, and I got rather tired of myself and my nobleness, and I wished
+I'd just told you, and had it all out with you, and both of us spoken
+the truth and parted friends. That was what I thought of doing at first.
+But then it wouldn't have been noble! And I really did want to be
+noble--just as some people want to paint pictures, or write poems, or
+climb Alps. Come, take me back to the ball-room. It's cold here in the
+Past."
+
+But how could he let the curtain be rung down on a scene half finished,
+and so good a scene?
+
+"Ah, no! tell me," he said, laying his hand on hers; "why did you think
+I didn't love you?"
+
+"I knew it. Do you remember the last time you came to see me? We
+quarrelled--we were always quarrelling--but we always made it up. That
+day we made it up as usual, but you were still a little bit angry when
+you went away. And then I cried like a fool. And then you came back,
+and--you remember--"
+
+"Go on," he said. He had bridged the ten years, and the scene was going
+splendidly. "Go on; you must go on."
+
+"You came and knelt down by me," she said cheerfully. "It was as good as
+a play--you took me in your arms and told me you couldn't bear to leave
+me with the slightest cloud between us. You called me your heart's
+dearest, I remember--a phrase you'd never used before--and you said such
+heaps of pretty things to me! And at last, when you had to go, you swore
+we should never quarrel again--and that came true, didn't it?"
+
+"Ah, but _why_?"
+
+"Well, as you went out I saw you pick up your gloves off the table, and
+I _knew_--"
+
+"Knew what?"
+
+"Why, that it was the gloves you had come back for and not me--only when
+you saw me crying you were sorry for me, and determined to do your duty
+whatever it cost you. Don't! What's the matter?"
+
+He had caught her wrists in his hands and was scowling angrily at her.
+
+"Good God! was _that_ all? I _did_ come back for you. I never thought
+of the damned gloves. I don't remember them. If I did pick them up, it
+must have been mechanically and without noticing. And you ruined my life
+for _that_?"
+
+He was genuinely angry; he was back in the past, where he had a right to
+be angry with her. Her eyes grew soft.
+
+"Do you mean to say that I was _wrong_--that it was all my fault--that
+you _did_ love me?"
+
+"Love you?" he said roughly, throwing her hands from him; "of course I
+loved you--I shall always love you. I've never left off loving you. It
+was you who didn't love me. It was all your fault."
+
+He leaned his elbows on his knees and his chin on his hands. He was
+breathing quickly. The scene had swept him along in its quickening flow.
+He shut his eyes, and tried to catch at something to steady
+himself--some rope by which he could pull himself to land again.
+Suddenly an arm was laid on his neck, a face laid against his face. Lips
+touched his hand, and her voice, incredibly softened and tuned to the
+key of their love's overture, spoke--
+
+"Oh, forgive me, dear, forgive me! If you love me still--it's too good
+to be true--but if you do--ah, you do!--forgive me, and we can forget it
+all! Dear, forgive me! I love you so!"
+
+He was quite still, quite silent.
+
+"Can't you forgive me?" she began again. He suddenly stood up.
+
+"I'm married," he said. He drew a long breath and went on hurriedly,
+standing before her, but not looking at her. "I can't ask you to forgive
+me--I shall never forgive myself."
+
+"It doesn't matter," she said, and she laughed; "I--I wasn't serious. I
+saw you were trying to play the old comedy, and I thought I had better
+play up to you. If I'd known you were married--but it was only your
+glove, and we're such old acquaintances! There's another dance
+beginning. Please go--I've no doubt my partner will find me."
+
+He bowed, gave her one glance, and went. Halfway down the stairs he
+turned and came back. She was still sitting as he had left her. The
+angry eyes she raised to him were full of tears. She looked as she had
+looked ten years before, when he had come back to her, and the cursed
+gloves had spoiled everything. He hated himself. Why had he played with
+fire and raised this ghost to vex her? It had been such pretty fire, and
+such a beautiful ghost. But she had been hurt--he had hurt her. She
+would blame herself now for that old past; as for the new past, so
+lately the present, it would not bear thinking of.
+
+The scene must be rounded off somehow. He had let her wound her pride,
+her self-respect. He must heal them. The light touch would be best.
+
+"Look here," he said, "I just wanted to tell you that I knew you weren't
+serious just now. As you say, it was nothing between two such old
+friends. And--and--" He sought about for some further consolation.
+Ill-inspired, with the touch of her lips still on his hand, he said,
+"And about the gloves. Don't blame yourself about that. It was not your
+fault. You were perfectly right. It _was_ the gloves I came back for."
+
+He left her then, and next day journeyed to Scotland to rejoin his wife,
+of whom he was, by habit, moderately fond. He still keeps the white
+glove she kissed, and at first reproached himself whenever he looked at
+it. But now he only sentimentalises over it now and then, if he happens
+to be a little under the weather. He feels that his foolish behaviour at
+that Sydenham dance was almost atoned for by the nobility with which he
+lied to spare her, the light, delicate touch with which he rounded off
+the scene.
+
+He certainly did round it off. By a few short, easy words he
+accomplished three things. He destroyed an ideal of himself which she
+had cherished for years; he killed a pale bud of hope which she had
+loved to nurse--the hope that perhaps in that old past it had been she
+who was to blame, and not he, whom she loved; he trampled in the mud the
+living rose which would have bloomed her life long, the belief that he
+had loved, did love her--the living rose that would have had magic to
+quench the fire of shame kindled by that unasked kiss, a fire that frets
+for ever like hell-fire, burning, but not consuming, her self-respect.
+
+He did, without doubt, round off the scene.
+
+
+
+
+THE OBVIOUS
+
+
+HE had the literary sense, but he had it as an inverted instinct. He had
+a keen perception of the dramatically fitting in art, but no
+counteracting vision of the fitting in life. Life and art, indeed, he
+found from his earliest years difficult to disentwine, and later,
+impossible to disentangle. And to disentangle and disentwine them became
+at last the point of honour to him.
+
+He first knew that he loved her on the occasion of her "coming of age
+party." His people and hers lived in the same sombre London square:
+their Haslemere gardens were divided only by a sunk fence. He had known
+her all his life. Her coming of age succeeded but by a couple of days
+his return from three years of lazy philosophy--study in Germany--and
+the sight of her took his breath away. In the time-honoured _cliche_ of
+the hurried novelist--too hurried to turn a new phrase for an idea as
+old as the new life of spring--he had left a child: he found a woman.
+She wore a soft satiny-white gown, that showed gleams of rose colour
+through its folds. There were pink hollyhock blossoms in the bright
+brown of her hair. Her eyes were shining with the excitement of this
+festival of which she was the goddess. He lost his head, danced with her
+five times, and carried away a crumpled hollyhock bloom that had fallen
+from her hair during the last Lancers, through which he had watched her.
+All his dances with her had been waltzes. It was not till, alone again
+at his hotel, he pulled out the hollyhock flower with his ball programme
+that he awoke to a complete sense of the insipid flatness of the new
+situation.
+
+He had fallen in love--was madly _epris_, at any rate--and the girl was
+the girl whose charms, whose fortune, whose general suitability as a
+match for him had been dinned into his ears ever since he was a callow
+boy at Oxford, and she a long-black-silk-legged, short-frocked tom-boy
+of fourteen. Everyone had always said that it was the obvious thing. And
+now he had, for once, done exactly what was expected of him, and his
+fine literary sense revolted. The worst of all was that she seemed not
+quite to hate him. Better, a thousand times better, that he should have
+loved and longed, and never won a smile from her--that he should have
+sacrificed something, anything, and gone his lonely way. But she had
+smiled on him, undoubtedly she had smiled, and he did not want to play
+the part so long ago assigned to him by his people. He wanted to be
+Sidney Carton. Darnay's had always seemed to him the inferior role.
+
+Yet he could not keep his thoughts from her, and for what was left of
+the year his days and nights were a restless see-saw of longing and
+repulsion, advance and retreat. His moods were reflected in hers, but
+always an interview later; that is to say, if he were cold on Tuesday
+she on Thursday would be colder. If on Thursday he grew earnest, Sunday
+would find her kind. But he, by that time, was frigid. So that they
+never, after the first wildly beautiful evening when their hearts went
+out to each other in a splendour of primitive frankness, met in moods
+that chimed.
+
+This safe-guarded him. It irritated her. And it most successfully
+bewitched them both.
+
+His people and her people looked on, and were absolutely and sadly
+convinced that--as her brother put it to his uncle--it was "no go."
+Thereupon, a certain young-old cotton broker appearing on the scene and
+bringing gifts with him, her people began to put pressure on her. She
+loathed the cotton-broker, and said so. One afternoon everyone was by
+careful accident got out of the way, and the cotton-broker caught her
+alone. That night there was a scene. Her father talked a little too much
+of obedience and of duty, her mother played the hysterical symphony with
+the loud pedal hard down, and next morning the girl had vanished,
+leaving the conventional note of farewell on the pincushion.
+
+Now the two families, being on all accounts close allies, had bought
+jointly a piece of land near the Littlestone golf links, and on it had
+built a bungalow, occupied by members of either house in turn, according
+to any friendly arrangement that happened to commend itself. But at this
+time of the year folk were keeping Christmas season dismally in their
+town houses.
+
+It was on the day when the cotton-broker made his failure that the whole
+world seemed suddenly worthless to the man with the hollyhock bloom in
+his pocket-book, because he had met her at a dance, and he had been
+tender, but she, reflecting his mood of their last meeting, had been
+glacial. So he lied roundly to his people, and told them that he was
+going to spend a week or two with an old chum who was staying up for the
+vacation at Cambridge, and instead, he chose the opposite point of the
+compass, and took train to New Romney, and walked over to the squat,
+one-storied bungalow near the sea. Here he let himself in with the
+family latch-key, and set to work, with the help of a box from the
+stores, borne behind him with his portmanteau on a hand-cart, to keep
+Christmas by himself. This, at least, was not literary. It was not in
+the least what a person in a book would do. He lit a fire in the
+dining-room, and the chimney was damp and smoked abominably, so that
+when he had fed full on tinned meats he was fain to let the fire go out
+and to sit in his fur-lined overcoat by the be-cindered grate, now fast
+growing cold, and smoke pipe after pipe of gloomy reflection. He
+thought of it all. The cursed countenance which his people were ready to
+give to the match that he couldn't make--her maddening indecisions--his
+own idiotic variableness. He had lighted the lamp, but it smelt vilely,
+and he blew it out, and did not light candles because it was too much
+trouble. So the early winter dusk deepened into night, and the bitter
+north wind had brought the snow, and it drifted now in feather-soft
+touches against the windows.
+
+He thought of the good warm dining-room in Russell Square--of the
+gathering of aunts and uncles and cousins, uncongenial, perhaps, but
+still human, and he shivered in his fur-lined coat and his icy solitude,
+damning himself for the fool he knew he was.
+
+And even as he damned, his breath was stopped, and his heart leaped at
+the sound, faint but unmistakable, of a key in the front door. If a man
+exist not too remote from his hairy ancestors to have lost the habit of
+the pricking ear, he was that man. He pricked his ears, so far as the
+modern man may, and listened.
+
+The key grated in the lock--grated and turned; the door was opened, and
+banged again. Something was set down in the little passage, set down
+thumpingly and wholly without precaution. He heard a hand move along the
+partition of match-boarding. He heard the latch of the kitchen door rise
+and fall--and he heard the scrape and spurt of a struck match.
+
+He sat still. He would catch this burglar red-handed.
+
+Through the ill-fitting partitions of the jerry-built bungalow he could
+hear the intruder moving recklessly in the kitchen. The legs of chairs
+and tables grated on the brick floor. He took off his shoes, rose, and
+crept out through the passage towards the kitchen door. It stood ajar. A
+clear-cut slice of light came from it. Treading softly in his stockinged
+feet, he came to it and looked in. One candle, stuck in a tea-saucer,
+burned on the table. A weak blue-and-yellow glimmer came from some
+sticks in the bottom of the fireplace.
+
+Kneeling in front of this, breathless with the endeavour to blow the
+damp sticks to flame, crouched the burglar. A woman. A girl. She had
+laid aside hat and cloak. The first sight of her was like a whirlwind
+sweeping over heart and brain. For the bright brown hair that the
+candle-light lingered in was like Her dear brown hair--and when she rose
+suddenly, and turned towards the door, his heart stood still, for it was
+She--her very self.
+
+She had not seen him. He retreated, in all the stillness his tortured
+nerves allowed, and sat down again in the fur coat and the dining-room.
+She had not heard him. He was, for some moments, absolutely stunned,
+then he crept to the window. In the poignant stillness of the place he
+could hear the heavy flakes of snow dabbing softly at the glass.
+
+She was here. She, like him, had fled to this refuge, confident in its
+desertion at this season by both the families who shared a right to it.
+She was there--he was there. Why had she fled? The question did not wait
+to be answered; it sank before the other question. What was he to do?
+The whole literary soul of the man cried out against either of the
+obvious courses of action.
+
+"I can go in," he said, "and surprise her, and tell her I love her, and
+then walk out with dignified propriety, and leave her alone here.
+That's conventional and dramatic. Or I can sneak off without her knowing
+I've been here at all, and leave her to spend the night unprotected in
+this infernal frozen dog-hutch. That's conventional enough, heaven
+knows! But what's the use of being a reasonable human being with
+free-will if you can't do anything but the literarily and romantically
+obvious?"
+
+Here a sudden noise thrilled him. Next moment he drew a long breath of
+relief. She had but dropped a gridiron. As it crashed and settled down
+with a rhythmic rattle on the kitchen flags, the thought flowed through
+him like a river of Paradise. "If she did love me--if I loved her--what
+an hour and what a moment this would be!"
+
+Meantime she, her hands helpless with cold, was dropping clattering
+gridirons not five yards from him.
+
+Suppose he went out to the kitchen and suddenly announced himself!
+
+How flat--how obvious!
+
+Suppose he crept quietly away and went to the inn at New Romney!
+
+How desperately flat! How more than obvious!
+
+Suppose he--but the third course refused itself to the desperate clutch
+of his drowning imagination, and left him clinging to the bare straw of
+a question. What should he do?
+
+Suddenly the really knightly and unconventional idea occurred to him, an
+idea that would save him from the pit of the obvious, yawning on each
+side.
+
+There was a bicycle shed, where, also, wood was stored and coal, and
+lumber of all sorts. He would pass the night there, warm in his fur
+coat, and his determination not to let his conduct be shaped by what
+people in books would have done. And in the morning--strong with the
+great renunciation of all the possibilities that this evening's meeting
+held--he would come and knock at the front door--just like anybody
+else--and--_qui vivra verra_. At least, he would be watching over her
+rest--and would be able to protect the house from tramps.
+
+Very gently and cautiously, all in the dark, he pushed his bag behind
+the sofa, covered the stores box with a liberty cloth from a side
+table, crept out softly, and softly opened the front door; it opened
+softly, that is, but it shut with an unmistakable click that stung in
+his ears as he stood on one foot on the snowy doorstep struggling with
+the knots of his shoe laces.
+
+The bicycle shed was uncompromisingly dark, and smelt of coal sacks and
+paraffin. He found a corner--between the coals and the wood--and sat
+down on the floor.
+
+"Bother the fur coat," was his answer to the doubt whether coal dust and
+broken twigs were a good down-setting for that triumph of the Bond
+Street art. There he sat, full of a chastened joy at the thought that he
+watched over her--that he, sleepless, untiring, was on guard, ready, at
+an instant's warning, to spring to her aid, should she need protection.
+The thought was mightily soothing. The shed was cold. The fur coat was
+warm. In five minutes he was sleeping peacefully as any babe.
+
+When he awoke it was with the light of a big horn lantern in his eyes,
+and in his ears the snapping of wood.
+
+She was there--stooping beside the heaped faggots, breaking off twigs to
+fill the lap of her up-gathered blue gown; the shimmery silk of her
+petticoat gleamed greenly. He was partly hidden by a derelict bicycle
+and a watering-can.
+
+He hardly dared to draw breath.
+
+Composedly she broke the twigs. Then like a flash she turned towards
+him.
+
+"Who's there?" she said.
+
+An inspiration came to him--and this, at least, was not flat or obvious.
+He writhed into the darkness behind a paraffin cask, slipped out of his
+fur coat, and plunged his hands in the dust of the coal.
+
+"Don't be 'ard on a pore cove, mum," he mumbled, desperately rubbing the
+coal dust on to his face; "you wouldn't go for to turn a dawg out on a
+night like this, let alone a pore chap outer work!"
+
+Even as he spoke he admired the courage of the girl. Alone, miles from
+any other house, she met a tramp in an outhouse as calmly as though he
+had been a fly in the butter.
+
+"You've no business here, you know," she said briskly. "What did you
+come for?"
+
+"Shelter, mum--I won't take nothing as don't belong to me--not so much
+as a lump of coal, mum, not if it was ever so!"
+
+She turned her head. He almost thought she smiled.
+
+"But I can't have tramps sleeping here," she said.
+
+"It's not as if I was a reg'lar tramp," he said, warming to his part as
+he had often done on the stage in his A.D.C. days. "I'm a respectable
+working-man, mum, as 'as seen better days."
+
+"Are you hungry?" she said. "I'll give you something to eat before you
+go if you'll come to the door in five minutes."
+
+He could not refuse--but when she was gone into the house he could bolt.
+So he said--
+
+"Now may be the blessing! It's starving I am, mum, and on Christmas
+Eve!"
+
+This time she did smile: it was beyond a doubt. He had always thought
+her smile charming. She turned at the door, and her glance followed the
+lantern's rays as they pierced the darkness where he crouched.
+
+The moment he heard the house door shut, he sprang up, and lifted the
+fur coat gingerly to the wood-block. Flight, instant flight! Yet how
+could he present himself at New Romney with a fur coat and a face like a
+collier's? He had drawn a bucket of water from the well earlier in the
+day; some would be left; it was close by the back door. He tiptoed over
+the snow and washed, and washed, and washed. He was drying face and
+hands with a pocket-handkerchief that seemed strangely small and cold
+when the door opened suddenly, and there, close by him, was she,
+silhouetted against the warm glow of fire and candles.
+
+"Come in," she said; "you can't possibly see to wash out there."
+
+Before he knew it her hand was on his arm, and she had drawn him to the
+warmth and light.
+
+He looked at her--but her eyes were on the fire.
+
+"I'll give you some warm water, and you can wash at the sink," she said,
+closing the door and taking the kettle from the fire.
+
+He caught sight of his face in the square of looking-glass over the sink
+tap.
+
+Was it worth while to go on pretending? Yet his face was still very
+black. And she evidently had not recognised him. Perhaps--surely she
+would have the good taste to retire while the tramp washed, so that he
+could take his coat off? Then he could take flight, and the situation
+would be saved from absolute farce.
+
+But when she had poured the hot water into a bowl she sat down in the
+Windsor chair by the fire and gazed into the hot coals.
+
+He washed.
+
+He washed till he was quite clean.
+
+He dried face and hands on the rough towel.
+
+He dried them till they were scarlet and shone. But he dared not turn
+around.
+
+There seemed no way out of this save by the valley of humiliation. Still
+she sat looking into the fire.
+
+As he washed he saw with half a retroverted eye the round table spread
+with china and glass and silver.
+
+"As I live--it's set for two!" he told himself. And, in an instant,
+jealousy answered, once and for all, the questions he had been asking
+himself since August.
+
+"Aren't you clean yet?" she said at last.
+
+How could he speak?
+
+"Aren't you clean _yet_?" she repeated, and called him by his name. He
+turned then quickly enough. She was leaning back in the chair laughing
+at him.
+
+"How did you know me?" he asked angrily.
+
+"Your tramp-voice might have deceived me," she said, "you did do it most
+awfully well! But, you see, I'd been looking at you for ages before you
+woke."
+
+"Then good night," said he.
+
+"Good night!" said she; "but it's not seven yet!"
+
+"You're expecting someone," he said, pointing dramatically to the table.
+
+"Oh, _that_!" she said; "yes--that was for--for the poor man as had seen
+better days! There's nothing but eggs--but I couldn't turn a dog from my
+door on such a night--till I'd fed it!"
+
+"Do you really mean--?"
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"It's glorious!"
+
+"It's a picnic."
+
+"But?" said he.
+
+"Oh--well! Go if you like!" said she.
+
+It was not only eggs: it was all sorts of things from that stores box.
+They ate, and they talked. He told her that he had been bored in town
+and had sought relief in solitude. That, she told him, was her case
+also. He told her how he had heard her come in, and how he had hated to
+take either the obvious course of following her to the kitchen, saying
+"How do you do?" and retiring to New Romney; or the still more obvious
+course of sneaking away without asking her how she did. And he told her
+how he had decided to keep watch over her from the bicycle shed. And how
+the coal-black inspiration had come to him. And she laughed.
+
+"That was much more literary than anything else you could have thought
+of," said she; "it was exactly like a book. And oh--you've no idea how
+funny you looked."
+
+They both laughed, and there was a silence.
+
+"Do you know," he said, "I can hardly believe that this is the first
+meal we've ever had alone together? It seems as though--"
+
+"It _is_ funny," she said, smiling hurriedly at him.
+
+He did not smile. He said: "I want you to tell me why you were so
+angel-good--why did you let me stay? Why did you lay the pretty table
+for two?"
+
+"Because we've never been in the same mood at the same time," she said
+desperately; "and somehow I thought we should be this evening."
+
+"What mood?" he asked inexorably.
+
+"Why--jolly--cheerful," she said, with the slightest possible
+hesitation.
+
+"I see."
+
+There was another silence. Then she said in a voice that fluttered a
+little--
+
+"My old governess, Miss Pettingill--you remember old Pet? Well, she's
+coming by the train that gets in at three. I wired to her from town. She
+ought to be here by now--"
+
+"Ought she?" he cried, pushing back his chair and coming towards
+her--"ought she? Then, by heaven! before she comes I'm going to tell you
+something--"
+
+"No, don't!" she cried. "You'll spoil everything. Go and sit down again.
+You shall! I insist! Let _me_ tell _you_! I always swore I would some
+day!"
+
+"Why?" said he, and sat down.
+
+"Because I knew _you'd_ never make up your mind to tell _me_--"
+
+"To tell you what?"
+
+"_Anything_--for fear you should have to say it in the same way someone
+else had said it before!"
+
+"Said what?"
+
+"Anything! Sit still! Now _I'm_ going to tell _you_."
+
+She came slowly round the table and knelt on one knee beside him, her
+elbows on the arm of his chair.
+
+"You've never had the courage to make up your mind to anything," she
+began.
+
+"Is that what you were going to tell me?" he asked, and looked in her
+eyes till she dropped their lids.
+
+"No--yes--no! I haven't anything to tell you really. Good night."
+
+"Aren't you going to tell me?"
+
+"There isn't anything to tell," she said.
+
+"Then I'll tell you," said he.
+
+She started up, and the little brass knocker's urgent summons resounded
+through the bungalow.
+
+"Here she is!" she cried.
+
+He also sprang to his feet.
+
+"And we haven't told each other anything!" he said.
+
+"Haven't we? Ah, no--don't! Let me go! There--she's knocking again. You
+must let me go!"
+
+He let her slip through his arms.
+
+At the door she paused to flash a soft, queer smile at him.
+
+"It _was_ I who told you, after all!" she said. "Aren't you glad?
+Because that wasn't a bit literary."
+
+"You didn't. I told you," he retorted.
+
+"Not you!" she said scornfully. "That would have been too obvious."
+
+
+
+
+THE LIE ABSOLUTE
+
+
+THE tradesmen's books, orderly spread, lay on the rose-wood
+writing-table, each adorned by its own just pile of gold and silver
+coin. The books at the White House were paid weekly, and paid in cash.
+It had always been so. The brown holland blinds were lowered half-way.
+The lace curtains almost met across the windows. Thus, while, without,
+July blazed on lawns and paths and borders, in this room a cool twilight
+reigned. A leisured quiet, an ordered ease, reigned there too, as they
+had done for every day of Dorothea's thirty-five years. The White House
+was one of those to which no change comes. None but Death, and Death,
+however he may have wrung the heart or stunted the soul of the living,
+had been powerless to change outward seemings. Dorothea had worn a black
+dress for a while, and she best knew what tears she had wept and for
+what long months the light of life had gone out of all things. But the
+tears had not blinded her eyes to the need of a mirror-polish on the old
+mahogany furniture, and all through those months there had been, at
+least, the light of duty. The house must be kept as her dead mother had
+kept it. The three prim maids and the gardener had been "in the family"
+since Dorothea was a girl of twenty--a girl with hopes and dreams and
+fond imaginings that, spreading bright wings, wandered over a world far
+other than this dainty, delicate, self-improving, coldly charitable,
+unchanging existence. Well, the dreams and the hopes and the fond
+imaginings had come home to roost. He who had set them flying had gone
+away: he had gone to see the world. He had not come back. He was seeing
+it still; and all that was left of a girl's first romance was in certain
+neat packets of foreign letters in the drawer of the rose-wood table,
+and in the disciplined soul of the woman who sat before it "doing the
+books." Monday was the day for this. Every day had its special duties:
+every duty its special hour. While the mother had stayed there had been
+love to give life to this life that was hardly life at all. Now the
+mother was gone it sometimes seemed to Dorothea that she had not lived
+for these fifteen years--and that even the life before had been less
+life than a dream of it. She sighed.
+
+"I'm old," she said, "and I'm growing silly."
+
+She put her pen neatly in the inkstand tray: it was an old silver pen,
+and an old inkstand of Sevres porcelain. Then she went out into the
+garden by the French window, muffled in jasmine, and found herself face
+to face with a stranger, a straight well-set-up man of forty or
+thereabouts, with iron-grey hair and a white moustache. Before his hand
+had time to reach the Panama hat she knew him, and her heart leaped up
+and sank sick and trembling. But she said:--
+
+"To whom have I the pleasure--?"
+
+The man caught her hands.
+
+"Why, Dolly," he said, "don't you know me? I should have known you
+anywhere."
+
+A rose-flush deepened on her face.
+
+"It can't be Robert?"
+
+"Can't it? And how are you, Dolly? Everything's just the same--By Jove!
+the very same heliotropes and pansies in the very same border--and the
+jasmine and the sundial and everything."
+
+"They tell me the trees have grown," she said. "I like to think it's all
+the same. Why didn't you tell me you were coming home? Come in."
+
+She led him through the hall with the barometer and the silver-faced
+clock and the cases of stuffed birds.
+
+"I don't know. I wanted to surprise you--and, by George! I've surprised
+myself. It's beautiful. It's all just as it used to be, Dolly."
+
+The tears came into her eyes. No one had called her Dolly since the
+mother went, whose going had made everything, for ever, other than it
+used to be.
+
+"I'll tell them you're staying for lunch."
+
+She got away on that, and stood a moment in the hall, before the stuffed
+fox with the duck in its mouth, to catch strongly at her lost composure.
+
+If anyone had had the right to ask the reason of her agitation, and had
+asked it, Dorothea would have said that the sudden happening of
+anything was enough to upset one in whose life nothing ever happened.
+But no one had the right.
+
+She went into the kitchen to give the necessary orders.
+
+"Not the mince," she said; "or, stay. Yes, that would do, too. You must
+cook the fowl that was for to-night's dinner--and Jane can go down to
+the village for something else for to-night. And salad and raspberries.
+And I will put out some wine. My cousin, Mr. Courtenay, has come home
+from India. He will lunch with me."
+
+"Master Bob," said the cook, as the kitchen door closed, "well, if I
+ever did! He's a married man by this time, with young folkses growing up
+around him, I shouldn't wonder. He never did look twice the same side of
+the road where she was. Poor Miss Dolly!"
+
+Most of us are mercifully ignorant of the sympathy that surrounds us.
+
+"It's wonderful," he said, when she rejoined him in the drawing-room. "I
+feel like the Prodigal Son. When I think of the drawing-rooms I've seen.
+The gim-crack trumpery, the curtains and the pictures and the furniture
+constantly shifted, the silly chatter, the obvious curios, the
+commonplace rarities, the inartistic art, and the brainless empty
+chatter, spiteful as often as not, and all the time _this_ has been
+going on beautifully, quietly, perfectly. Dolly, you're a lucky girl!"
+
+To her face the word brought a flush that almost justified it.
+
+They talked: and he told her how all these long years he had wearied for
+the sight of English fields, and gardens, of an English home like
+this--till he almost believed that he was speaking the truth.
+
+He looked at Dorothea with long, restful hands quietly folded, as she
+talked in the darkened drawing-room, at Dorothea with busy, skilful
+hands among the old silver and the old glass and the old painted china
+at lunch. He listened through the drowsy afternoon to Dorothea's gentle,
+high-bred, low-toned voice, to the music of her soft, rare laugh, as
+they sat in the wicker-chairs under the weeping ash on the lawn.
+
+And he thought of other women--a crowd of them, with high, shrill tones
+and constant foolish cackle of meaningless laughter; of the atmosphere
+of paint, powder, furbelows, flirtation, empty gaiety, feverish
+flippancy. He thought, too, of women, two and three, whose faces stood
+out from the crowd and yet were of it. And he looked at Dorothea's
+delicate worn face and her honest eyes with the faint lines round them.
+
+As he went through the hush of the evening to his rooms at the "Spotted
+Dog" the thought of Dorothea, of her house, her garden, her peaceful
+ordered life stirred him to a passion of appreciation. Out of the waste
+and desert of his own life, with its memories of the far country and the
+husks and the swine, he seemed to be looking through a window at the
+peaceful life--as a hungry, lonely tramp may limp to a lamp-lit window,
+and peering in, see father and mother and round-faced children, and the
+table spread whitely, and the good sure food that to these people is a
+calm certainty, like breathing or sleeping, not a joyous accident, or
+one of the great things that man was taught to pray for. The tramp turns
+away with a curse or a groan, according to his nature, and goes on his
+way cursing or groaning, or, if the pinch be fierce, he tries the back
+door or the unguarded window. With Robert the pang of longing was keen,
+and he was minded to try any door--not to beg for the broken meats of
+cousinly kindness, but to enter as master into that "better place"
+wherein Dorothea had found so little of Paradise.
+
+It was no matter of worldly gain. The Prodigal had not wasted his
+material substance on the cheap husks that cost so dear. He had money
+enough and to spare: it was in peace and the dignity of life that he now
+found himself to be bankrupt.
+
+As for Dorothea, when she brushed her long pale hair that night she
+found that her hands were not so steady as usual, and in the morning she
+was quite shocked to note that she had laid her hair-pins on the
+left-hand side of the pin-cushion instead of on the right, a thing she
+had not done for years.
+
+It was at the end of a week, a week of long sunny days and dewy dark
+evenings spent in the atmosphere that had enslaved him. Dinner was over.
+Robert had smoked his cigar among the garden's lengthening shadows. Now
+he and Dorothea were at the window watching the light of life die
+beautifully on the changing face of the sky.
+
+They had talked as this week had taught them to talk--with the intimacy
+of old friends and the mutual interest of new unexplored acquaintances.
+This is the talk that does not weary--the talk that can only be kept
+alive by the daring of revelation, and the stronger courage of
+unconquerable reserve.
+
+Now there came a silence--with it seemed to come the moment. Robert
+spoke--
+
+"Dorothea," he said, and her mind pricked its ears suspiciously because
+he had not called her Dolly.
+
+"Well?"
+
+"I wonder if you understand what these days have been to me? I was so
+tired of the world and its follies--this is like some calm haven after a
+stormy sea."
+
+The words seemed strangely familiar. He had a grating sense of talking
+like a book, and something within him sneered at the scruple, and said
+that Dolly would not notice it.
+
+But she said: "I'm sure I've read something like that in a school
+reading book, but it's very touching, of course."
+
+"Oh--if you're going to mock my holiest sentiments," he said
+lightly--and withdrew from the attack.
+
+The moment seemed to flutter near again when she said good night to him
+in the porch where the violet clematis swung against his head as he
+stood. This time his opening was better inspired.
+
+"Dolly, dear," he said, "how am I ever to go away?"
+
+Her heart leaped against her side, for his tone was tender. But so may a
+cousin's tone be--even a second cousin's, and when one is thirty-five
+she has little to fear from the pitying tenderness of her relations.
+
+"I am so glad you have liked being here," she said sedately. "You must
+come again some time."
+
+"I don't want to go away at all," he said. "Dolly, won't you let me
+stay--won't you marry me?"
+
+Almost as he took her hand she snatched it from him.
+
+"You must be mad!" she said. "Why on earth should you want to marry me?"
+Also she said: "I am old and plain, and you don't love me." But she said
+it to herself.
+
+"I do want it," he said, "and I want it more than I want anything."
+
+His tone was convincing.
+
+"But why? but why?"
+
+An impulse of truth-telling came to Robert.
+
+"Because it's all so beautiful," he said with straightforward
+enthusiasm. "All your lovely quiet life--and the house, and these old
+gardens, and the dainty, delicate, firm way you have of managing
+everything--the whole thing's my ideal. It's perfect--I can't bear any
+other life."
+
+"I'm afraid you'll have to," she said with bitter decision. "I am not
+going to marry a man just because he admires my house and garden, and is
+good enough to appreciate my methods of household management. Good
+night."
+
+She had shaken his hand coolly and shut the front door from within
+before he could find a word. He found one as the latch clicked.
+
+"Fool!" he said to himself, and stamped his foot.
+
+Dorothea ran up the stairs two at a time to say the same word to herself
+in the stillness of her bedroom.
+
+"Fool--fool--fool!" she said. "Why couldn't I have said 'No' quietly?
+Why did I let him see I was angry? Why should I be angry? It's better to
+be wanted because you're a good manager than not to be wanted at all. At
+least, I suppose it is. No--it _isn't_! it isn't! it isn't! And
+nothing's any use now. It's all gone. If he'd wanted to marry me when I
+was young and pretty I could have made him love me. And I _was_
+pretty--I know I was--I can remember it perfectly well!"
+
+Her quiet years had taken from her no least little touch of girlish
+sentiment. The longing to be loved was as keen in her as it had been at
+twenty. She cried herself to sleep, and had a headache the next day.
+Also her eyes looked smaller than usual and her nose was pink. She went
+and sat in the black shade of a yew, and trusted that in that deep
+shadow her eyes and nose would not make Robert feel glad that she had
+said "No." She wished him to be sorry. She had put on the prettiest gown
+she had, in the hope that he _would_ be sorry; then she was ashamed of
+the impulse; also its pale clear greenness seemed to intensify the
+pinkness of her nose. So she went back to the trailing grey gown. Her
+wearing of her best Honiton lace collar seemed pardonable. He would
+never notice it--or know that real lace is more becoming than anything
+else. She waited for him in the deep shadow, and it was all the morning
+that she waited. For he knew the value of suspense, and he had not the
+generosity that disdains the use of the obvious weapon. He was right so
+far, that before he came she had had time to wonder whether it was her
+life's one chance of happiness that she had thrown away. But he drove
+the knife home too far, for when at last she heard the click of the gate
+and saw the gleam of flannels through the shrubbery, the anxious
+questioning, "Will he come?" "Have I offended him beyond recall?"
+changed at one heart-beat to an almost perfect understanding of his
+reasons for delay. She greeted him coldly. That he expected. But he
+saw--or believed he saw--the relief under the coldness--and he brought
+up his forces for the attack.
+
+"Dear," he said--almost at once--"forgive me for last night. It was
+true, and if I had expressed it better you'd have understood. It isn't
+just the house and garden, and the perfect life. It's _you_! Don't you
+understand what it is to come back from the world to all this, and
+you--you--you--the very centre of the star?"
+
+"It's all very well," she said, "but that wasn't what you said last
+night."
+
+"It's what I meant," said he. "Dear, don't you see how much I want you?"
+
+"But--I'm old--and plain, and--"
+
+She looked at him with eyes still heavy from last night's tears, and he
+experienced an unexpected impulse of genuine tenderness.
+
+"My dear," he said, "when I first remember your mother she was about
+your age. I used to think she was the most beautiful person in the
+world. She seemed to shed happiness and peace around her--like--like a
+lamp sheds light. And you are just like her. Ah--don't send me away."
+
+"Thank you," she said, struggling wildly with the cross currents of
+emotion set up by his words. "Thank you. I have not lived single all
+these years to be married at last because I happen to be like my
+mother."
+
+The words seemed a treason to the dead, and the tears filled Dorothea's
+eyes.
+
+He saw them; he perceived that they ran in worn channels, and the
+impulse of tenderness grew.
+
+Till this moment he had spoken only the truth. His eyes took in the
+sunny lawn beyond the yew shadow, the still house: the whir of the
+lawn-mower was music at once pastoral and patriotic. He heard the break
+in her voice; he saw the girlish grace of her thin shape, the pathetic
+charm of her wistful mouth. And he lied with a good heart.
+
+"My dear," he said, with a tremble in his voice that sounded like
+passion, "my dear--it's not for that--I love you, Dolly--I think I must
+have loved you all my life!"
+
+And at the light that leaped into her eyes he suddenly felt that this
+lie was nearer truth than he had known.
+
+"I love you, dear--I love you," he repeated, and the words were oddly
+pleasant to say. "Won't you love me a little, too?"
+
+She covered her face with her hands. She could no more have doubted him
+than she could have doubted the God to whom she had prayed night and
+morning for all these lonely years.
+
+"Love you a little?" she said softly. "Ah! Robert, don't you know that
+I've loved you all my life?"
+
+So a lie won what truth could not gain. And the odd thing is that the
+lie has now grown quite true, and he really believes that he has always
+loved her, just as he certainly loves her now. For some lies come true
+in the telling. But most of them do not, and it is not wise to try
+experiments.
+
+
+
+
+THE GIRL WITH THE GUITAR
+
+
+THE last strains of the ill-treated, ill-fated "Intermezzo" had died
+away, and after them had died away also the rumbling of the wheels of
+the murderous barrel-organ that had so gaily executed that, along with
+the nine other tunes of its repertory, to the admiration of the
+housemaid at the window of the house opposite, and the crowing delight
+of the two babies next door.
+
+The young man drew a deep breath of relief, and lighted the wax candles
+in the solid silver candlesticks on his writing-table, for now the late
+summer dusk was falling, and that organ, please Heaven, made full the
+measure of the day's appointed torture. There had been five organs since
+dinner--and seven in the afternoon--one and all urgently thumping their
+heavy melodies into his brain, to the confusion of the thoughts that
+waited there, eager to marshal themselves, orderly and firm, into the
+phalanx of an article on "The Decadence of Criticism."
+
+He filled his pipe, drew paper towards him, dipped his pen, and wrote
+his title on the blank page. The silence came round him, soothing as a
+beloved presence, the scent of the may bushes in the suburban gardens
+stole in pleasantly through the open windows. After all, it was a "quiet
+neighbourhood" as the advertisement had said--at any rate, in the
+evening: and in the evening a man's best efforts--
+
+_Thrum_, tum, tum--_Thrum_, tum, tum came the defiant strumming of a
+guitar close to the window. He sprang to his feet--this was, indeed, too
+much! But before he could draw back the curtains and express himself to
+the intruder, the humming of the guitar was dominated by the first words
+of a song--
+
+    "Oh picerella del vieni al'mare
+         Nella barchetta veletto di fiore
+     La biancha prora somiglia al'altare
+     Tutte le stelle favellan d'amor,"
+
+and so forth. The performer was evidently singing "under her voice," but
+the effect was charming. He stood with his hand on the curtain,
+listening--and with a pleasure that astonished him. The song came to an
+end with a chord in which all the strings twanged their best. Then there
+was silence--then a sigh, and the sound of light moving feet on the
+gravel. He threw back the curtain and leaned out of the window.
+
+"Here!" he called to the figure that moved slowly towards the gate. She
+turned quickly, and came back two steps. She wore the dress of a
+Contadina, a very smart dress indeed, and her hands looked small and
+white.
+
+"Won't you sing again?" he asked.
+
+She hesitated, then struck a chord or two and began another of those
+little tuneful Italian songs, all stars and flowers and hearts of gold.
+And again he listened with a quiet pleasure.
+
+"I should like to hear her voice at its full strength," he thought--and
+now it was time to give the vagrant a few coppers, and, shutting the
+window, to leave her to go on to the next front garden.
+
+Never had any act seemed so impossible. He had watched her through the
+singing of this last song, and he had grown aware of the beauty of her
+face's oval--of the fine poise of her head--and of the grace of hands
+and arms.
+
+"Aren't you tired?" he said. "Wouldn't you like to sit down and rest?
+There is a seat in the garden at the side of the house."
+
+Again she hesitated. Then she turned towards the quarter indicated and
+disappeared round the laurel bushes.
+
+He was alone in the house--his people and the servants were in the
+country; the woman who came to "do for him" had left for the night. He
+went into the dining-room, dark with mahogany and damask, found wine and
+cake in the sideboard cupboard, put them on a tray, and took them out
+through the garden door and round to the corner where, almost sheltered
+by laburnums and hawthorns from the view of the people next door, the
+singer and her guitar rested on the iron seat.
+
+"I have brought you some wine--will you have it?"
+
+Again that strange hesitation--then quite suddenly the girl put her
+hands up to her face and began to cry.
+
+"Here--I say, you know--don't--" he said. "Oh, Lord! This is awful. I
+hardly know a word of Italian, and apparently she has no English. Here,
+signorina, ecco, prendi--vino--gatto--No, gatto's a cat. I was thinking
+of French. Oh, Lord!"
+
+The Contadina had pulled out a very small handkerchief, and was drying
+her eyes with it. She rose.
+
+"No--don't go," he said eagerly. "I can see you are tired out. Sai
+fatiguee non e vero? Io non parlate Italiano, sed vino habet, et cake
+ante vous partez."
+
+She looked at him and spoke for the first time.
+
+"It serves me right," she said in excellent, yet unfamiliar, English. "I
+don't understand a single word you say! I might have known I couldn't do
+it, though it's just what girls in books would do. It would have turned
+out all right with them. Let me go--thank you very much. I am sure you
+meant to be kind." And then she began to cry again.
+
+"Look here," he said, "this is all nonsense, you know. You are tired
+out--and there's something wrong. What is it? Do drink this, and then
+tell me. Perhaps I can help you."
+
+She drank obediently. Then she said: "I have not had anything to eat
+since last night--"
+
+He hurriedly cut cake and pressed it upon her. He had no time to think,
+but he was aware that this was the most exciting adventure that had ever
+happened to him.
+
+"It's no use--and it all sounds so silly."
+
+"Ah--but do tell me!" His voice was kinder than he meant it to be. Her
+eyes filled again with tears.
+
+"You don't know how horrid everyone has been. Oh--I never knew before
+what devils people are to you when you're poor--"
+
+"Is it only that you're poor? Why, that's nothing. I'm poor, too."
+
+She laughed. "I'm _not_ poor--not really."
+
+"What is it, then? You've quarrelled with your friends, and--Ah, tell
+me--and let me try to help you."
+
+"You _are_ kind--but--Well, then--it's like this. My father brought me
+to England from the States a month ago: he's 'made his pile': it was in
+pork, and I always wish he'd made it of something else, even canned
+fruit would be better, but that doesn't matter--We didn't know anyone
+here, of course, and directly we got here, he was wired
+for--business--and he had to go home again."
+
+"But surely he didn't leave you without money."
+
+Her little foot tapped the gravel impatiently.
+
+"I'm coming to that," she said. "Of course he didn't. He told me to stay
+on at the hotel, and I did--and then one night when I was at the theatre
+my maid--a horrid French thing we got in Paris--packed up all my trunks
+and took all my money, and paid the bill, and went. The hotel folks let
+her go--I can't think how people can be so silly. But they wouldn't let
+me stay, and I wired to papa--and there was no answer, and I don't know
+whatever's the matter with him. I know it all sounds as if I was making
+it up as I go along--"
+
+She stopped short, and looked at him through the dusk. He did not speak,
+but whatever she saw in his face it satisfied her. She said again: "You
+_are_ kind."
+
+"Go on," he said, "tell me all about it."
+
+"Well, then, I went into lodgings; that wicked woman had left me one
+street suit--and to-day they turned me out because my money was all
+gone. I had a little money in my purse--and this dress had been ordered
+for a fancy ball--it _is_ smart, isn't it?--and it came after that
+wretch had gone--and the guitar, too--and I thought I could make a
+little money. I really _can_ sing, though you mightn't think it. And
+I've been at it since five o'clock--and I've only got one shilling and
+seven pence. And no one but you has ever even thought of thinking
+whether I was tired or hungry or anything--and papa always took such
+care of me. I feel as if I had been beaten."
+
+"Let me think," he said. "Oh--how glad I am that you happened to come
+this way."
+
+He reflected a moment. Then he said--
+
+"I shall lock up all the doors and windows in the house--and then I
+shall give you my latch-key, and you can let yourself in and stay the
+night here--there is no one in the house. I will catch the night train,
+and bring my mother up to-morrow. Then we will see what can be done."
+
+The only excuse for this rash young man is to be found in the fact that
+while he was feeding his strange guest with cake and wine she was
+feeding, with her beauty, the first fire of his first love. Love at
+first sight is all nonsense, we know--we who have come to forty
+year--but at twenty-one one does not somehow recognise it for the
+nonsense it is.
+
+"But don't you know anyone in London?" he asked in a sensible
+postscript.
+
+It was not yet so dark but that he could see the crimson flush on her
+face.
+
+"Not _know_," she said. "Papa wouldn't like me to spoil my chances of
+knowing the right people with any foolishness like this. There's no one
+I could _let_ know. You see, papa's so very rich, and at home they
+expect me to--to get acquainted with dukes and things--and--"
+
+She stopped.
+
+"American heiresses are expected to marry English dukes," he said, with
+a distinct physical pain at his heart.
+
+"It wasn't I who said that," said the girl, smiling; "but that's so,
+anyhow." And then she sighed.
+
+"So it's your destiny to marry a duke, is it?" the young man spoke
+slowly. "All the same," he added irrelevantly, "you shall have the
+latch-key."
+
+"You _are_ kind," she said for the third time, and reached her hand out
+to him. He did not kiss it then, only took it in his, and felt how small
+and cold it was. Then it was taken away.
+
+He says that he only talked to her for half an hour--but the neighbours,
+from whose eyes suburban hawthorns and laburnums are powerless to
+conceal the least of our actions, declare that he sat with the guitar
+player on the iron seat till well after midnight; further, that when
+they parted he kissed her hand, and that she then put her hands on his
+shoulders--"quite shamelessly, you know"--and kissed him lightly on both
+cheeks. It is known that he passed the night prowling in our suburban
+lanes, and caught the 6.25 train in the morning to the place where his
+people were staying.
+
+The lady and the guitar certainly passed the night at Hill View Villa,
+but when his mother, very angry and very frightened, came up with him at
+about noon, the house looked just as usual, and no one was there but
+the charwoman.
+
+"An adventuress! I told you so!" said his mother at once--and the young
+man sat down at his study table and looked at the title of his article
+on "The Decadence of Criticism." It was surely a very long time ago that
+he had written that. And he sat there thinking, till his mother's voice
+roused him.
+
+"The silver is all right, thank goodness," she said, "but your banjo
+girl has taken a pair of your sister's silk stockings, and those new
+shoes of hers with the silver buckles--and she's left _these_."
+
+She held out a pair of little patent leather shoes, very worn and
+dusty--the slender silken web of a black stocking, brown with dust, hung
+from her hand. He answered nothing. She spent the rest of that day in
+searching the house for further losses, but all things were in their
+place, except the silver-handled button-hook--and that, as even his
+sister owned, had been missing for months.
+
+Yet his family would never leave him to keep house alone again: they
+said he is not to be trusted. And perhaps they are right. The half
+dozen pairs of embroidered silk stockings and the dainty French
+silver-buckled shoes, which arrived a month later addressed to Miss
+----, Hill View Villa, only confirmed their distrust. _He_ must have had
+them sent--that tambourine girl could never have afforded these--why,
+they were pure silk--and the quality! It was plain that his castanet
+girl--his mother and sister took a pleasure in crediting her daily with
+some fresh and unpleasing instrument--could have had neither taste,
+money, nor honesty to such a point as this.
+
+As for the young man, he bore it all very meekly, only he was glad when
+his essays on the decadence of things in general led to a berth on the
+staff of a big daily, and made it possible for him to take rooms in
+town--because he had grown weary of living with his family, and of
+hearing so constantly that She played the bones and the big drum and the
+concertina, and that She was a twopenny adventuress who stole his
+sister's shoes and stockings. He prefers to sit in his quiet room in the
+Temple, and to remember that she played the guitar and sang
+sweetly--that she had a mouth like a tired child's mouth, that her eyes
+were like stars, and that she kissed him--on both cheeks--and that he
+kissed--her hand only--as the scandalised suburb knows.
+
+
+
+
+THE MAN WITH THE BOOTS
+
+
+A YOUNG man with a little genius, a gift of literary expression, and a
+distaste not only for dissipation, but for the high-toned social
+functions of his suburban acquaintances, may go far--once he has chosen
+journalism for a profession, and has realised that to success in any
+profession a heart-whole service is necessary. A certain young man,
+having been kissed in his own garden by a girl with a guitar, ceased to
+care for evening parties, and devoted himself steadily to work. His
+relaxations were rowing down the Thames among the shipping, and thinking
+of the girl. In two years he was sent to Paris by the Thunderer--to
+ferret out information about a certain financial naughtiness which
+threatened a trusting public in general, and, in particular, a little
+band of blameless English shareholders.
+
+The details of the scheme are impertinent to the present narrative.
+
+The young man went to Paris and began to enjoy himself.
+
+He had good introductions. He had once done a similar piece of business
+before--but then luck aided him. As I said, he enjoyed himself, but he
+did not see his way to accomplishing his mission. But his luck stood by
+him, as you will see, in a very remarkable manner. At a masked ball he
+met a very charming Corsican lady. She was dressed as a nun, but the
+eyes that sparkled through her mask might have taxed the resources of
+the most competent abbess. She spoke very agreeable English, and she was
+very kind to the young man, indicated the celebrities--she seemed to
+know everyone--whom she recognised quite easily in their carnival
+disguises, and at last she did him the kindness to point out a stout
+cardinal, and named the name of the very Jew who was pulling the strings
+of the very business which had brought the young man to Paris.
+
+The young man's lucky star shone full on him, and dazzled him to a
+seeming indiscretion.
+
+"He looks rather a beast," he said.
+
+The nun clapped her hands.
+
+"Oh--he _is_!" she said. "If you knew all that I could tell you about
+him!"
+
+It was with the distinct idea of knowing all that the lady could tell
+about the Jew that our hero devoted himself to her throughout that
+evening, and promised to call on her the next day. He made himself very
+amiable indeed, and if you think that he should not have done this, I
+can only say that I am sorry, but facts are facts.
+
+When he put her into her carriage--a very pretty little brougham--he
+kissed her hand. He did not do this because he desired to do it, as in
+the case of the Girl with the Guitar, but purely as a matter of
+business. If you blame him here I can only say "a la guerre comme a la
+guerre--"
+
+Next day he called on her. She received him in a charming yellow silk
+boudoir and gave him tea and sweets. Unmasked, the lady was seen to be
+of uncommon beauty. He did not make love to her--but he was very nice,
+and she asked him to come again.
+
+It was at their third interview that his star shone again, and again
+dazzled him to indiscreetness. He told the beautiful lady exactly why he
+wanted to know all that she could tell him about the Jew financier. The
+beautiful lady clapped her hands till all her gold bangles rattled
+musically, and said--
+
+"But I will tell you all--everything! I felt that you wished to
+know--but I thought ... however ... are you sure it will all be in your
+paper?"
+
+"But yes, Madame!" said he.
+
+Then she folded her hands on the greeny satin lap of her tea-gown, and
+told him many things. And as she spoke he pieced things together, and
+was aware that she spoke the truth.
+
+When she had finished speaking, his mission was almost accomplished. His
+luck had done all this for him. The lady promised even documents and
+evidence. Then he thanked her, and she said--
+
+"No thanks, please. I suppose this will ruin him?"
+
+"I'm afraid it will," said he.
+
+She gave a little sigh of contentment.
+
+"But why--?" he asked.
+
+"I don't mind, somehow, telling _you_ anything," she said, and indeed as
+it seemed with some truth. "He--he did me the honour to admire me--and
+now he has behaved like the pig he is."
+
+"And so you have betrayed him--told me the things he told you when he
+loved you?"
+
+She snapped her fingers, and the opals and rubies of her rings shone
+like fire.
+
+"Love!" she said scornfully.
+
+Then he began to be a little ashamed and sorry for his part in this
+adventure, and he said so.
+
+"Ah--don't be sorry," she said softly. "I _wanted_ to betray him. I was
+simply longing to do it--only I couldn't think of the right person to
+betray him to! But you are the right person, Monsieur. I am indeed
+fortunate!"
+
+A little shiver ran through him. But he had gone too far to retreat.
+
+"And the documents, Madame?"
+
+"I will give you them to-morrow. There is a ball at the American
+Embassy. I can get you a card."
+
+"I have one." He had indeed made it his first business to get one--was
+not the Girl with the Guitar an American, and could he dare to waste the
+least light chance of seeing her again?
+
+"Well--be there at twelve, and you shall have everything. But," she
+looked sidelong at him, "will Monsieur be very kind--very attentive--in
+short, devote himself to me--for this one evening? _He_ will be there."
+
+He murmured something banal about the devotion of a lifetime, and went
+away to his lodging in a remote suburb, which he had chosen because he
+loved boating.
+
+The next night at twelve saw him lounging, a gloomy figure, on a seat in
+an ante-room at the Embassy. He knew that the Lady was within, yet he
+could not go to her. He sat there despairingly, trying to hope that even
+now something might happen to save him. Yet, as it seemed, nothing short
+of a miracle could. But his star shone, and the miracle happened. For,
+as he sat, a radiant vision, all white lace and diamonds, detached
+itself from the arm of a grey-bearded gentleman, and floated towards
+him.
+
+"It _is_ you!" said the darling vision, and the next moment his
+hands--both hands--were warmly clasped by little white-gloved ones, and
+he was standing looking into the eyes of the Girl.
+
+"I knew I should see you somewhere--this continent _is_ so tiny," she
+said. "Come right along and be introduced to Papa--that's him over
+there."
+
+"I--I can't," he answered, in an agony. "I--my pocket's been picked--"
+
+"Do tell!" said the Girl, laughing; "but Papa doesn't want tipping--he's
+got all he wants--come right along."
+
+"I can't," he said, hoarse with the misery of the degrading confession;
+"it wasn't my money--it was my _shoes_. I came up in boots, brown boots;
+distant suburb; train; my shoes were in my overcoat pocket--I meant to
+change in the cab. I must have dropped them or they were taken out. And
+here I am in these things." He looked down at his bright brown boots.
+"And all the shops are shut--and my whole future depends on my getting
+into that room within the next half-hour. But never mind! Why should
+_you_ bother?--Besides, what does it matter? I've seen you again. You'll
+speak to me as you come back? I'll wait all night for a word."
+
+"Don't be so silly," said the Girl; but she smiled very prettily, and
+her dear eyes sparkled. "If it's _really_ important, I'll fix it for
+you! But why does your future depend on it, and all that?"
+
+"I have to meet a lady," said the wretched young man.
+
+"The one you were with at the masked ball? The nun? Yes--I made Papa
+take me. _Is_ it that one?" Her tone was imperious, but it was anxious
+too.
+
+He looked imploringly at her. "Yes, but--"
+
+"You shall have the shoes, all the same," she interrupted, and turned
+away before he could add a word.
+
+A moment later the grey-bearded gentleman was bowing to him.
+
+"My girl tells me you're in a corner for want of shoes, Sir. Mine are at
+your service--we seem about of a size--we can change behind that
+pillar."
+
+"But," stammered the young man, "it's too much--I can't--"
+
+"It's nothing at all, Sir," said the man with the grey beard warmly;
+"nothing compared to the way you stood by my girl! Shake! John B. Warner
+don't forget."
+
+"I can't thank you," said the other, when they had shaken hands. "If you
+will--just for a short time! I'll be back in half an hour--"
+
+He was back in two minutes. The first face he saw when he had made his
+duty bows was the face of the Beautiful Lady. She was radiant: and
+beside her stood her Jew, also radiant. _They had made it up._ And what
+is more--though he never knew it--they had made it up in that half-hour
+of delay caused by the Boots. The Lady passed our hero without a word or
+even a glance to acknowledge acquaintanceship, and he saw that the game
+was absolutely up. He swore under his breath. But the next moment he
+laughed to himself with a free heart. After all--for any documents, any
+evidence, for any success in any walk of life, how could he have borne
+to devote himself, as he had promised to do, to that Corsican lady,
+while the Girl, _the_ Girl, was in the room? And he perceived now that
+he should not even use the information he already had. It did not seem
+fitting that one to whom the Girl stooped to speak, for ever so brief a
+moment, should play the part of a spy--in however good a cause.
+
+"Back already?" said the old gentleman.
+
+"Thank you--my business is completed."
+
+The young man resumed his brown boots.
+
+"Now, Papa," said the Girl, "just go right along and do your devoirs in
+there--and I'll stay and talk to _him_--"
+
+The father went obediently.
+
+"Have you quarrelled with her, then?" asked the Girl, her eyes on the
+diamond buckles of her satin shoes.
+
+He told her everything--or nearly.
+
+"Well," she said decisively, "I'm glad you're out of it, anyway. Don't
+worry about it. It's a nasty trade. Papa'll find you a berth. Come out
+to the States and edit one of his papers!"
+
+"You told me he was a millionaire! I suppose everything went all right?
+He didn't lose his money or anything?" His tone was wistful.
+
+"Not he! You don't know Papa!" said the Girl; "but, say, you're not
+going to be too proud to be acquainted with a self-made man?"
+
+He didn't answer.
+
+"Say," said she again, "I don't take so much stock in dukes as I used
+to." She laid a hand on his arm.
+
+"Don't make a fool of me," said the young man, speaking very low.
+
+"I won't,"--her voice was a caress,--"but Papa shall make Something of
+you. You don't know Papa! He can make men's fortunes as easily as other
+folks make men's shoes. And he always does what I tell him. Aren't you
+glad to see me again? And don't you remember--?" said she, looking at
+him so kindly that he lost his head and--
+
+"Ah! haven't you forgotten?" said he.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+That is about all there is of the story. He is now a Something--and he
+has married the Girl. If you think that a young man of comparatively
+small income should not marry the girl he loves because her father
+happens to have made money in pork, I can only remind you that your
+opinion is not shared by the bulk of our English aristocracy. And they
+don't even bother about the love, as often as not.
+
+
+
+
+THE SECOND BEST
+
+
+THE letter was brief and abrupt.
+
+"I am in London. I have just come back from Jamaica. Will you come and
+see me? I can be in at any time you appoint."
+
+There was no signature, but he knew the handwriting well enough. The
+letter came to him by the morning post, sandwiched between his tailor's
+bill and a catalogue of Rare and Choice Editions.
+
+He read it twice. Then he got up from the breakfast-table, unlocked a
+drawer, and took out a packet of letters and a photograph.
+
+"I ought to have burned them long ago," he said; "I'll burn them now."
+He did burn them but first he read them through, and as he read them he
+sighed, more than once. They were passionate, pretty letters,--the
+phrases simply turned, the endearments delicately chosen. They breathed
+of love and constancy and faith, a faith that should move mountains, a
+love that should shine like gold in the furnace of adversity, a
+constancy that death itself should be powerless to shake. And he sighed.
+No later love had come to draw with soft lips the poison from this old
+wound. She had married Benoliel, the West Indian Jew. It is a far cry
+from Jamaica to London, but some whispers had reached her jilted lover.
+The kindest of them said that Benoliel neglected his wife, the harshest,
+that he beat her.
+
+He looked at the photograph. It was two years since he had seen the
+living woman. Yet still, when he shut his eyes, he could see the
+delicate tints, the coral, and rose, and pearl, and gold that went to
+the making up of her. He could always see these. And now he should see
+the reality. Would the two years have dulled that bright hair, withered
+at all that flower-face? For he never doubted that he must go to her.
+
+He was a lawyer; perhaps she wanted that sort of help from him, wanted
+to know how to rid herself of the bitter bad bargain that she had made
+in marrying the Jew. Whatever he could do he would, of course, but--
+
+He went out at once and sent a telegram to her.
+
+"Four to-day."
+
+And at four o'clock he found himself on the doorstep of a house in Eaton
+Square. He hated the wealthy look of the house, the footman who opened
+the door, and the thick carpets of the stairs up which he was led. He
+hated the soft luxury of the room in which he was left to wait for her.
+Everything spoke, decorously and without shouting, but with unmistakable
+distinctness, of money, Benoliel's money: money that had been able to
+buy all these beautiful things, and, as one of them, to buy her.
+
+She came in quietly. Long simple folds of grey trailed after her: she
+wore no ornament of any kind. Her fingers were ringless, every one. He
+saw all this, but before he saw anything else he saw that the two years
+had taken nothing from her charm, had indeed but added a wistful patient
+look that made her seem more a child than when he had last seen her.
+
+The meaningless contact of their hands was over, and still neither had
+spoken. She was looking at him questioningly. The silence appeared
+silly; there was, and there could be, no emotion to justify, to
+transfigure it. He spoke.
+
+"How do you do?" he said.
+
+She drew a deep breath, and lifted her eyebrows slightly.
+
+"Won't you sit down?" she said; "you are looking just like you used to."
+She had the tiniest lisp; once it had used to charm him.
+
+"You, too, are quite your old self," he said. Then there was a pause.
+
+"Aren't you going to say anything?" she said.
+
+"It was you who sent for me," said he.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Why did you?"
+
+"I wanted to see you." She opened her pretty child-eyes at him, and he
+noted, only to bitterly resent, the appeal in them. He remembered that
+old appealing look too well.
+
+"No, Madam," he said inwardly, "not again! You can't whistle the dog to
+heel at your will and pleasure. I was a fool once, but I'm not fool
+enough to play the fool with Benoliel's wife."
+
+Aloud he said, smiling--
+
+"I suppose you did, or you would not have written. And now what can I do
+for you?"
+
+She leaned forward to look at him.
+
+"Then you really have forgotten? You didn't grieve for me long! You used
+to say you would never leave off loving me as long as you lived."
+
+"My dear Mrs. Benoliel," he said, "if I ever said anything so
+thoughtless as that, I certainly _have_ forgotten it."
+
+"Very well," she said; "then go!"
+
+This straight hitting embarrassed him mortally.
+
+"But," he said, "I've not forgotten that you and I were once friends for
+a little while, and I do beg you to consider me as a friend. Let me help
+you. You must have some need of a friend's services, or you would not
+have sent for me. I assure you I am entirely at your commands. Come,
+tell me how I can help you--"
+
+"You can't help me at all," she said hopelessly, "nobody can now."
+
+"I've heard--I hope you'll forgive me for saying so--I've heard that
+your married life has been--hasn't been--"
+
+"My married life has been hell," she said; "but I don't want to talk
+about that. I deserved it all."
+
+"But, my dear lady, why not get a divorce or, at least, a separation? My
+services--anything I can do to advise or--"
+
+She sprang from her chair and knelt beside him.
+
+"Oh, how _could_ you think that of me? How could you? He's
+dead--Benoliel's dead. I thought you'd understand that by my sending to
+you. Do you think I'd ever have seen you again as long as _he_ was
+alive? I'm not a wicked woman, dear, I'm only a fool."
+
+She had caught the hand that lay on the arm of his chair, her face was
+pressed on it, and on it he could feel her tears and her kisses.
+
+"Don't," he said harshly, "don't." But he could not bring himself to
+draw his hand away otherwise than very gently, and after a decent pause.
+He stood up and held out his hand. She put hers in it, he raised her to
+her feet and put her back in her chair, and artfully entrenching himself
+behind a little table, sat down in a very stiff chair with a high seat
+and gilt legs.
+
+She laughed. "Oh, don't trouble! You needn't barricade yourself like a
+besieged castle. Don't be afraid of me. You're really quite safe. I'm
+not so mad as you think. Only, you know, all this time I've never been
+able to get the idea out of my head--"
+
+He was afraid to ask what idea.
+
+"I always believed you meant it; that you always would love me, just as
+you said. I was wrong, that's all. Now go! Do go!"
+
+He was afraid to go.
+
+"No," he said, "let's talk quietly, and like the old friends we were
+before we--"
+
+"Before we weren't. Well?"
+
+He was now afraid to say anything.
+
+"Look here," she said suddenly, "let _me_ talk. There are some things I
+do really want to say, since you won't let it go without saying. One is
+that I know now you're not so much to blame as I thought, and I _do_
+forgive you. I mean it, really, not just pretending forgiveness; I
+forgive you altogether--"
+
+"_You_--forgive _me_?"
+
+"Yes, didn't you understand that that was what I meant? I didn't want to
+_say_ 'I forgive you,' and I thought if I sent for you you'd
+understand."
+
+"You seem to have thought your sending for me a more enlightening move
+than I found it."
+
+"Yes--because you don't care now. If you had, you'd have understood."
+
+"I really think I should like to understand."
+
+"What?"
+
+"Exactly what it is you're kind enough to forgive."
+
+"Why--your never coming to see me. Benoliel told me before we'd been
+married a month that he had got my aunt to stop your letters and mine,
+so I don't blame you now as I did then. But you might have come when you
+found I didn't write."
+
+"I did come. The house was shut up, and the caretaker could give no
+address."
+
+"Did you really? And there was no address? I never thought of that."
+
+"I don't suppose you did," he said savagely; "you never _did_ think!"
+
+"Oh, I _was_ a fool! I was!"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"But I have been punished."
+
+"Not you!" he said. "You got what you wanted--money, money, money--the
+only thing I couldn't give you. If it comes to that, why didn't _you_
+come and see _me_? I hadn't gone away and left no address."
+
+"I never thought of it."
+
+"No, of course not."
+
+"And, besides, you wouldn't have been there--"
+
+"I? I sat day after day waiting for a letter."
+
+"I never thought of it," she said again.
+
+And again he said: "No, of course you didn't; you wouldn't, you know--"
+
+"Ah, don't! please don't! Oh, you don't know how sorry I've been--"
+
+"But why did you marry him?"
+
+"To spite you--to show you I didn't care--because I was in a
+rage--because I was a fool! You might as well tell me at once that
+you're in love with someone else."
+
+"Must one always be in love, then?" he sneered.
+
+"I thought men always were," she said simply. "Please tell me."
+
+"No, I'm not in love with anybody. I have had enough of that to last me
+for a year or two."
+
+"Then--oh, won't you try to like me again? Nobody will ever love you so
+much as I do--you said I looked just the same--"
+
+"Yes, but you _aren't_ the same."
+
+"Yes I am. I think really I'm better than I used to be," she said
+timidly.
+
+"You're _not_ the same," he went on, growing angrier to feel that he had
+allowed himself to grow angry with her. "You were a girl, and my
+sweetheart; now you're a widow--that man's widow! You're not the same.
+The past can't be undone so easily, I assure you."
+
+"Oh," she cried, clenching her hands, "I know there must be something I
+could say that you would listen to--oh, I wish I could think what! I
+suppose as it is I'm saying things no other woman ever would have
+said--but I don't care! I won't be reserved and dignified, and leave
+everything to you, like girls in books. I lost too much by that before.
+I will say every single thing I can think of. I will! Dearest, you said
+you would always love me--you don't care for anyone else. I _know_ you
+would love me again if you would only let yourself. Won't you forgive
+me?"
+
+"I can't," he said briefly.
+
+"Have you never done anything that needed to be forgiven? I would
+forgive you anything in the world! Didn't you care for other people
+before you knew me? And I'm not angry about it. And I never cared for
+him."
+
+"That only makes it worse," he said.
+
+She sprang to her feet. "It makes it worse for me! But if you loved me
+it ought to make it better for you. If you had loved me with your heart
+and mind you would be glad to think how little it was, after all, that I
+did give to that man."
+
+"Sold--not gave--"
+
+"Oh, don't spare me! But there's no need to tell _you_ not to spare me.
+But I don't care what you say. You've loved other women. I've never
+loved anyone but you. And yet you can't forgive me!"
+
+"It's not the same," he repeated dully.
+
+"I _am_ the same--only I'm more patient, I hope, and not so selfish. But
+your pride is hurt, and you think it's not quite the right thing to
+marry a rich man's widow. And you want to go home and feel how strong
+and heroic you've been, and be proud of yourself because you haven't let
+me make a fool of you."
+
+It was so nearly true that he denied it instantly.
+
+"I don't," he said. "I could have forgiven you anything, however wicked
+you'd been--but I can't forgive you for having been--"
+
+"Been a fool? I can't forgive myself for that, either. My dear, my dear,
+you don't love anyone else; you don't hate me. Do you know that your
+eyes are quite changed from what they were when you came in? And your
+voice, and your face--everything. Think, dear, if I am not the same
+woman you loved, I'm still more like her than anyone else in the world.
+And you did love me--oh, don't hate me for anything I've said. Don't you
+see I'm fighting for my life? Look at me. I am just like your old
+sweetheart, only I love you more, and I can understand better now how
+not to make you unhappy. Ah, don't throw everything away without
+thinking. I _am_ more like the woman you loved than anyone else can ever
+be. Oh, my God! my God! what shall I say to him? Oh, God help me!"
+
+She had said enough. The one phrase "If I am not the same woman you
+loved, still I am more like her than anyone else in the world" had
+struck straight at his heart. It was true. What if this, the second
+best, were now the best life had to offer? If he threw this away, would
+any other woman be able to inspire him with any sentiment more like love
+than this passion of memory, regret, tenderness, pity--this desire to
+hold, protect, and comfort, with which, ever since her tears fell on his
+hand, he had been fighting in fierce resentment. He looked at the
+huddled grey figure. He must decide--now, at this moment--he must decide
+for two lives.
+
+But before he had time to decide anything he found that he had taken her
+in his arms.
+
+"My own, my dear," he was saying again and again, "I didn't mean it. It
+wasn't true. I love you better than anything. Let's forget it all. I
+don't care for anything now I have you again."
+
+"Then why--"
+
+"Oh, don't let's ask each other questions--let's begin all over again at
+two years ago. We'll forget all the rest--my dear--my own!"
+
+Of course neither has ever forgotten it, but they always pretend to each
+other that they have.
+
+Her defiance of the literary sense in him and in her was justified. His
+literary sense, or some deeper instinct, prompted him to refuse to use
+Benoliel's money--but her acquiescence in his decision reversed it. And
+they live very comfortably on the money to this day.
+
+The odd thing is that they are extremely happy. Perhaps it is not, after
+all, such a bad thing to be quite sure, before marriage, that the
+second-best happiness is all you are likely to get in this world.
+
+
+
+
+A HOLIDAY
+
+
+THE month was June, the street was Gower Street, the room was an attic.
+And in it a poet sat, struggling with the rebellious third act of the
+poetic drama that was to set him in the immediate shadow of Shakespeare,
+and on the level of those who ring Parnassus round just below the
+summit. The attic roof sloped, the furniture was vilely painted in
+grained yellow, the arm-chair's prickly horsehair had broken to let
+loose lumps of dark-coloured flock. The curtains were dark and damask
+and dusty. The carpet was Kidderminster and sand-coloured. It had holes
+in it; so had the Dutch hearthrug. The poet's penholder was the kind at
+twopence the dozen. The ink was in a penny bottle. Outside on a
+blackened flowerless lilac a strayed thrush sang madly of spring and
+hope and joy and love.
+
+The clear strong June sunshine streamed in through the window and turned
+the white of the poet's page to a dazzling silver splendour.
+
+"Hang it all!" he cried, and he threw down the yellow-brown penholder.
+"It's too much! It's not to be borne! It's not human!"
+
+He turned out his pockets. Two-and-seven-pence. He could draw the price
+of an ode and a roundelay from the _Spectator_--but not to-day, for this
+was a Bank Holiday, Whit Monday, in fact. Then he thought of his tobacco
+jar. Sure enough, there lurked some halfpence among the mossy shag,
+and--oh, wonder and joy and cursed carelessness for ever to be
+blessed--a gleaming coy half-sovereign. In the ticket-pocket of his
+overcoat a splendid unforeseen shilling--a florin and a sixpence in the
+velveteen jacket he had not worn since last year. Ten--and two--and
+one--and two and sevenpence and sixpence--sixteen shillings and a penny.
+Enough, more than enough, to take him out of this world of burst
+horsehair chairs and greedy foolscap, of arid authorship and burst
+bubbles of dreams to the real world, where spring, still laughing,
+shrank from the kisses of summer, where white may blossomed and thrushes
+sang.
+
+"I'll have a holiday," he said, "who knows--I may get an idea for a
+poem!"
+
+He cleaned his boots with ink; they were not shiny after it, but they
+were at least black. He put on his last clean shirt and the greeny-blue
+Liberty tie that his sister had sent him for his April birthday. He
+brushed his soft hat--counted his money again--found for it a pocket
+still lacking holes--and went out whistling. The front door slammed
+behind him with a cheerful conclusive bang.
+
+From the top of an omnibus he noted the town gilded with June sunlight.
+And it was very good.
+
+He bought food, and had it packed in decent brown paper, so that it
+looked like something superfluous from the stores.
+
+And he caught the ten something train to Halstead. He only just caught
+it.
+
+He blundered into a third-class carriage, and nearly broke his neck over
+an umbrella which lay across the door like an amateur trap for undesired
+company.
+
+By some extraordinary apotheosis of Bank Holiday mismanagement, there
+was only one person in the carriage--the owner of the trap-umbrella. A
+girl, of course. That was inevitable in this magic weather. He had
+knocked her basket off the seat, and had only just saved himself from
+buffeting her with his uncontrolled shoulder before he saw that she was
+a girl. He took off his hat and apologised. She smiled, murmured, and
+blushed.
+
+He settled himself in his corner, and unfolded the evening paper of
+yesterday which, by the most fortunate chance, happened to be in his
+pocket.
+
+Over it he glanced at her. She was pretty--with a vague unawakened
+prettiness. Her eyes and hair were dark. Her hat seemed dowdy, yet
+becoming. Her gloves were rubbed at the fingers. Her blouse was light
+and bright. Her skirt obscure and severe. He decided that she was not
+well off.
+
+His eyes followed a dull leader on the question of the government of
+India. But he did not want to read. He wanted to talk. On this June day,
+when the life of full-grown spring thrilled one to the finger tips, how
+could one feed one's vitality, one's over-mastering joy of life, with
+printer's ink and the greyest paper in London?
+
+He glanced at her again. She was looking out of the window at the sordid
+little Bermondsey houses, where the red buds of the Virginia creeper
+were already waking to their green summer life-work. He spoke. And no
+one would have guessed from his speech that he was a poet.
+
+"What a beautiful day!" he said.
+
+"Yes, very," said she, and her tone gave no indication of any exuberant
+spring expansiveness to match his own.
+
+He looked at her again. No. Yes. Yes, he would try the experiment he had
+long wanted to try--had often in long, silent, tete-a-tete journeys
+dreamed of trying. He would skip all the pitiful formalities of chance
+acquaintanceship. He would speak as one human being to another--would
+assume the sure bond of a common kinship. He said--
+
+"It is such a beautiful day that I want to talk about it! Mayn't I talk
+to you? Don't you feel that you want to say how beautiful it is--just
+as much as I do?"
+
+The girl looked at him. A scared fold in her brow warned him of the idea
+that had seized her.
+
+"I'm really not mad," he said; "but it does seem so frightfully silly
+that we should travel all the way to--to wherever you are going, and not
+tell each other how good June weather is."
+
+"Well--it is!" she owned.
+
+He eagerly spoke: he wanted to entangle her in talk before her
+conventional shrinking from chance acquaintanceship should shrivel her
+interest past hope.
+
+"I often think how silly people are," he said, "not to talk in railway
+carriages. One can't read without blinding oneself. I've seen women
+knit, but that's unspeakable. Many a time in frosty, foggy weather, when
+the South Eastern has taken two hours to get from Cannon Street to
+Blackheath, I've looked round the carriage and wanted to say,
+'Gentlemen, seeing that we are thus delayed, let us each contribute to
+the general hilarity by telling a story--we might gather them into a
+Christmas number afterwards--in the manner of the late Mr. Charles
+Dickens,' then I've looked round the carriage full of city-centred
+people, and wondered how they'd deal with the lunatic who ventured to
+suggest such an All-the-year-round idea. But nobody could be
+city-centred on such a day, and so early. So let's talk."
+
+She had laughed, as he had meant her to laugh. Now she seemed to throw
+away some scruple in the gesture with which she shrugged her shoulders
+and turned to him.
+
+"Very well," she said, and she was smiling. "Only I've nothing to say."
+
+"Never mind; I have," he rejoined, and proceeded to say it. It seemed
+amusing to him as an experiment to talk to this girl, this perfect
+stranger, with a delicate candour that he would not have shown to his
+oldest friend. It seemed interesting to lay bare, save for a veiling of
+woven transparent impersonality, his inmost mind. It _was_ interesting,
+for the revelation drew her till they were talking together in a world
+where it seemed no more than natural for her to show him her soul: and
+she had no skill to weave veils for it.
+
+Such talk is rare: so rare and so keen a pleasure, indeed, as to leave
+upon one's life, if one be not a poet, a mark strong and never to be
+effaced.
+
+The slackening of the train at Halstead broke the spell which lay on
+both with a force equal in strength, if diverse in kind.
+
+"Oh!" she said, "I get out here. Good-bye, good-bye."
+
+He would not spoil the parting by banalities of hat-raising amid the
+group of friends or relations who would doubtless meet her.
+
+"Good-bye," he said, and his eyes made her take his offered hand.
+"Good-bye. I shall never forget you. Never!"
+
+And then it seemed to him that the farewell lacked fire: and he lifted
+her hand to his face. He did not kiss it. He laid it against his cheek,
+sighed, and dropped it. The action was delicate and very effective. It
+suggested the impulse, almost irresistible yet resisted, the well-nigh
+overwhelming longing to kiss the hand, kept in check by a respect that
+was almost devotion.
+
+She should have torn her hand away. She took it away gently, and went.
+
+Leisurely he got out of the train. She had disappeared. Well--the bright
+little interlude was over. Still, it would give food for dreams among
+the ferny woods. The first lines of a little song hummed themselves in
+his brain--
+
+    "Eyes like stars in the night of life,
+     Seen but a moment and seen for ever."
+
+He would finish them and send them to the _Pall Mall Gazette_. That
+would be a guinea.
+
+He wished the journey had been longer. He would never see her again.
+Perhaps it was just as well. He crushed that last thought. It would be
+good to dwell through the day on the thought of her--the almost loved,
+the wholly lost.
+
+    "That could but have happened once
+     And we missed it, lost it for ever!"
+
+Her eyes were very pretty, especially when they opened themselves so
+widely as she tried to express the thoughts that no one but he had ever
+cared to hear expressed. The definite biography--dead father, ailing
+mother--hard work--hard life--hard-won post as High School Mistress,
+were but as the hoarding on which was pasted the artistic poster of
+their meeting--their parting. He sighed as he walked along the platform.
+The promise of June had fulfilled itself: he was rich in a sorrow that
+did not hurt--a regret that did not sting. Poor little girl! Poor pretty
+eyes! Poor timid, brave maiden-soul!
+
+Suddenly in his walk he stopped short.
+
+Obliquely through the door of the booking-office he saw her. She was
+alone. No troops of friends or relations had borne her off. She was
+waiting for someone; and someone had not come.
+
+What was to be done? He felt an odd chill. If he had only not taken her
+hand in that silly way which had seemed at the time so artistically
+perfect. The railway carriage talk might have been prolonged prettily,
+indefinitely. But that foolish contact had rung up the curtain on a
+transformation scene, whose footlights needed, at least, a good make-up
+for the facing of them.
+
+She stood there--looking down the road; in every line of her figure was
+dejection; hopelessness itself had drawn the line of her head's sideward
+droop. His make-up need be but of the simplest.
+
+She had expected to meet someone, and someone had not come.
+
+His chivalric impulses, leaping to meet the occasion's call, bade him
+substitute a splendid replacement--himself, for the laggard
+tryst-breaker. Even though he knew that that touch of the hand must
+inaugurate the second volume of the day's romance.
+
+He came behind her and spoke.
+
+"Hasn't he come?" He did not like himself for saying "he"--but he said
+it. It belonged to the second volume.
+
+She turned with a start and a lighting of eyes and lips that almost
+taught him pity. Not quite: for the poet's nature is hard to teach.
+
+"He?" she said, decently covering the light of lips and eyes as soon as
+might be. "It was a friend. She was to come from Sevenoaks. She ought to
+be here. We were to have a little picnic together." She glanced at her
+basket. "I didn't know you were getting out here. Why--" The question
+died on trembling lips.
+
+"Why?" he repeated. There was a pause.
+
+"And now, what are you going to do?" he asked, and his voice was full of
+tender raillery for her lost tryst with the girl friend, and for her
+pretty helplessness.
+
+"I--I don't know," she said.
+
+"But I do!" he looked in her eyes. "You are going to be kind. Life is so
+cruel. You are going to help me to cheat Life and Destiny. You are going
+to leave your friend to the waste desolation of this place, if she comes
+by the next train: but she won't--she's kept at home by toothache, or a
+broken heart, or some little foolish ailment like that,"--he prided
+himself on the light touch here,--"and you are going to be adorably kind
+and sweet and generous, and to let me drink the pure wine of life for
+this one day."
+
+Her eyes drooped. Fully inspired, he struck a master-chord in the
+lighter key.
+
+"You have a basket. I have a brown paper parcel. Let me carry both, and
+we will share both. We'll go to Chevening Park. It will be fun. Will
+you?"
+
+There was a pause: he wondered whether by any least likely chance the
+chord had not rung true. Then--
+
+"Yes," she said half defiantly. "I don't see why I shouldn't--Yes."
+
+"Then give me the basket," he said, "and hey for the green wood!"
+
+The way led through green lanes--through a green park, where tall red
+sorrel and white daisies grew high among the grass that was up for hay.
+The hawthorns were silvery, the buttercups golden. The gold sun shone,
+the blue sky arched over a world of green and glory. And so through
+Knockholt, and up the narrow road to the meadow whose path leads to the
+steep wood-way where Chevening Park begins.
+
+They walked side by side, and to both of them--for he was now wholly
+lost in the delightful part for which this good summer world was the
+fitting stage--to both of them it seemed that the green country was
+enchanted land, and they under a spell that could never break.
+
+They talked of all things under the sun: he, eager to impress her with
+that splendid self of his; she, anxious to show herself not wholly
+unworthy. She, too, had read her Keats and her Shelley and her
+Browning--and could cap and even overshadow his random quotations.
+
+"There is no one like you," he said as they passed the stile above the
+wood; "no one in this beautiful world."
+
+Her heart replied--
+
+"If there is anyone like you I have never met him, and oh, thank God,
+thank God, that I have met you now."
+
+Aloud she said--
+
+"There's a place under beech trees--a sort of chalk plateau--I used to
+have picnics there with my brothers when I was a little girl--"
+
+"Shall we go there?" he asked. "Will you really take me to the place
+that your pretty memories haunt? Ah--how good you are to me."
+
+As they went down the steep wood-path she slipped, stumbled--he caught
+her.
+
+"Give me your hand!" he said. "This path's not safe for you."
+
+It was not. She gave him her hand, and they went down into the wood
+together.
+
+The picnic was gay as an August garden. After a life of repression--to
+meet someone to whom one might be oneself! It was very good.
+
+She said so. That was when he did kiss her hand.
+
+When lunch was over they sat on the sloped, short turf and watched the
+rabbits in the warren below. They sat there and they talked. And to the
+end of her days no one will know her soul as he knew it that day, and no
+one ever knew better than she that aspect of his soul which he chose
+that day to represent as its permanent form.
+
+The hours went by, and when the shadows began to lengthen and the sun to
+hide behind the wood they were sitting hand in hand. All the
+entrenchments of her life's training, her barriers of maidenly reserve,
+had been swept away by the torrent of his caprice, his indolently formed
+determination to drink the delicate sweet cup of this day to the full.
+
+It was in silence that they went back along the wood-path--her hand in
+his, as before. Yet not as before, for now he held it pressed against
+his heart.
+
+"Oh, what a day--what a day of days!" he murmured. "Was there ever such
+a day? Could there ever have been? Tell me--tell me! Could there?"
+
+And she answered, turning aside a changed, softened, transfigured face.
+
+"You know--you know!"
+
+So they reached the stile at the top of the wood--and here, when he had
+lent her his hand to climb it, he paused, still holding in his her hand.
+
+Now or never, should the third volume begin--and end. Should he? Should
+he not? Which would yield the more perfect memory--the one kiss to crown
+the day, or the kiss renounced, the crown refused? Her eyes, beseeching,
+deprecating, fearing, alluring, decided the question. He framed her soft
+face in his hands and kissed her, full on the lips. Then not so much for
+insurance against future entanglement as for the sound of the phrase,
+which pleased him--he was easily pleased at the moment--he said--
+
+"A kiss for love--for memory--for despair!"
+
+It was almost in silence that they went through lanes still and dark,
+across the widespread park lawns and down the narrow road to the
+station. Her hand still lay against his heart. The kiss still thrilled
+through them both. They parted at the station. He would not risk the
+lessening of the day's charming impression by a railway journey. He
+could go to town by a later train. He put her into a crowded carriage,
+and murmured with the last hand pressure--
+
+"Thank God for this one day. I shall never forget. You will never
+forget. This day is all our lives--all that might have been."
+
+"I shall never forget," she said.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In point of fact, she never has forgotten. She has remembered all, even
+to the least light touch of his hand, the slightest change in his soft
+kind voice. That is why she has refused to marry the excellent solicitor
+who might have made her happy, and, faded and harassed, still teaches to
+High School girls the Euclid and Algebra which they so deeply hate to
+learn.
+
+As for him, he went home in a beautiful dream, and in the morning he
+wrote a song about her eyes which was so good that he sent it to the
+_Athenaeum_, and got two guineas for it--so that his holiday was really
+not altogether wasted.
+
+
+
+
+THE FORCE OF HABIT
+
+
+FROM her very earliest teens every man she met had fallen at her feet.
+Her father in paternal transports--dignified and symbolic as the
+adoration of the Magi, uncles in forced unwilling tribute, cousins
+according to their kind, even brothers, resentful of their chains yet
+still enslaved, lovers by the score, persons disposed to marriage by the
+half-dozen.
+
+And she had smiled on them all, because it was so nice to be loved, and
+if one could make those who loved happy by smiling, why, smiles were
+cheap! Not cheap like inferior soap, but like the roses from a full June
+garden.
+
+To one she gave something more than smiles--herself to wit--and behold
+her at twenty, married to the one among her slaves to whom she had
+deigned to throw the handkerchief--real Brussels, be sure! Behold her
+happy in the adoration of the one, the only one among her adorers whom
+she herself could adore. His name was John, of course, and it was a
+foregone conclusion that he should be a stock-broker.
+
+All the same, he was nice, which is something: and she loved him, which
+is everything.
+
+The little new red-brick Queen Anne villa was as the Garden of Eden to
+the man and the woman--but the jerry builder is a reptile more cursed
+than the graceful serpent who, in his handsome suit of green and gold,
+pulled out the lynch-pin from the wedding chariot of our first parents.
+The new house--"Cloudesley" its name was--was damp as any cloud, and the
+Paradise was shattered, not by any romantic serpent-and-apple business,
+but by plain, honest, every-day rheumatism. It was, indeed, as near
+rheumatic fever as one may go without tumbling over the grisly fence.
+
+The doctor said "Buxton." John could not leave town. There was a boom or
+a slump or something that required his personal supervision.
+
+So her old nurse was called up from out of the mists of the grey past
+before he and she were hers and his, and she went to Buxton in a
+specially reserved invalid carriage. She went, with half her dainty
+trousseau clothes--a helpless invalid.
+
+Now I don't want to advertise Buxton waters as a cure for rheumatism,
+but I know for a fact that she had to be carried down to her first bath.
+It was a marble bath, and she felt like a Roman empress in it. And
+before she had had ten days of marble baths she was almost her own man
+again, and the youth in her danced like an imprisoned bottle-imp. But
+she was dull because there was no one to adore her. She had always been
+fed on adoration, and she missed her wonted food--without the shadow of
+a guess that it was this she was missing. It was, perhaps, unfortunate
+that her old nurse should have sprained a stout ankle in the very first
+of those walks on the moors which the Doctor recommended for the
+completion of the cure so magnificently inaugurated by the Marble Roman
+Empress baths.
+
+She wrote to her John every day. Long letters. But when the letter was
+done, what else was there left to do with what was left of the day? She
+was very, very bored.
+
+One must obey one's doctor. Else why pay him guineas?
+
+So she walked out, after pretty apologies to the nurse, left lonely,
+across the wonder-wide moors. She learned the springy gait of the true
+hill climber, and drank in health and strength from the keen hill air.
+The month was March. She seemed to be the only person of her own dainty
+feather in Buxton. So she walked the moors alone. All her life joy had
+come to her in green elm and meadow land, and this strange grey-stone
+walled rocky country made her breathless with its austere challenge. Yet
+life was good; strength grew. No longer she seemed to have a body to
+care for. Soul and spirit were carried by something so strong as to
+delight in the burden. A month, her town doctor had said. A fortnight
+taught her to wonder why he had said it. Yet she felt lonely--too small
+for those great hills.
+
+The old nurse, patient, loving, urged her lamb to "go out in the fresh
+air"; and the lamb went.
+
+It was on a grey day, when the vast hill slopes seemed more than ever
+sinister and reluctant to the little figure that braved them. She wore
+an old skirt and an old jacket--her husband had slipped them in when he
+strapped her boxes.
+
+"They're warm," he had said; "you may need them."
+
+She had a rainbow-dyed neckerchief and a little fur hat, perky with a
+peacock's iridescent head and crest.
+
+She was very pretty. The paleness of her illness lent her a new charm.
+And she walked the lonely road with an air. She had never been a great
+walker, and she was proud of each of the steps that this clear hill air
+gave her the courage to take.
+
+And it was glorious, after all, to be alone--the only human thing on
+these wide moors, where the curlews mewed as if the place belonged to
+them. There was a sound behind her. The rattle of wheels.
+
+She stopped. She turned and looked. Far below her lay the valley--all
+about her was the immense quiet of the hills. On the white road, quite a
+long way off, yet audible in that noble stillness, hoofs rang, wheels
+whirred. She waited for the thing to pass, for its rings of sound to die
+out in that wide pool of silence.
+
+The wheels and the hoofs drew near. The rattle and jolt grew louder. She
+saw the horse and cart grow bigger and plainer. In a moment it would
+have passed. She waited.
+
+It drew near. In another moment it would be gone, and she be left alone
+to meet again the serious inscrutable face of the grey landscape.
+
+But the cart--as it drew near--drew up, the driver tightened rein, and
+the rough brown horse stopped--his hairy legs set at a strong angle.
+
+"Have a lift?" asked the driver.
+
+There was something subtly coercive in the absolute carelessness of the
+tone. There was the hearer on foot--here was the speaker in a cart. She
+being on foot and he on wheels, it was natural that he should offer her
+a lift in his cart--it was a greengrocer's cart. She could see celery,
+cabbages, a barrel or two, and the honest blue eyes of the man who drove
+it--the man who, seeing a fellow creature at a disadvantage, instantly
+offered to share such odds as Fate had allotted to him in life's dull
+handicap.
+
+The sudden new impossible situation appealed to her. If lifts were
+offered--well--that must mean that lifts were generally accepted. In
+Rome one does as Rome does. In Derbyshire, evidently, a peacock crested
+toque might ride, unreproved by social criticism, in a greengrocer's
+cart. A tea-tray on wheels it seemed to her.
+
+She was a born actress; she had that gift of throwing herself at a
+moment's notice into a given part which in our silly conventional jargon
+we nickname tact.
+
+"Thank you," she said, "I should like it very much."
+
+The box on which he arranged a seat for her contained haddocks. He
+cushioned it with a sack and his own shabby greatcoat, and lent her a
+thick rough hand for the mounting.
+
+"Which way were you going?" he asked, and his voice was not the soft
+Peak sing-song--but something far more familiar.
+
+"I was only going for a walk," she said, "but it's much nicer to drive.
+I wasn't going anywhere. Only I want to get back to Buxton some time."
+
+"I live there," said he. "I must be home by five. I've a goodish round
+to do. Will five be soon enough for you?"
+
+"Quite," she said, and considered within herself what role it would be
+kindest, most tactful, most truly gentlewomanly to play. She sought to
+find, in a word, the part to play that would best please the man who was
+with her. That was what she had always tried to find. With what success
+let those who love her tell.
+
+"I mustn't seem too clever," she said to herself; "I must just be
+interested in what he cares about. That's true politeness: mother always
+said so."
+
+So she talked of the price of herrings and the price of onions, and of
+trade, and of the difficulty of finding customers who had at once
+appreciation and a free hand.
+
+When he drew up in some lean grey village, or at the repellent gates of
+some isolated slate-roofed house, he gave her the reins to hold, while
+he, with his samples of fruit and fish laid out on basket lids, wooed
+custom at the doors.
+
+She experienced a strangely crescent interest in his sales.
+
+Between the sales they talked. She found it quite easy, having swept
+back and penned in the major part of her knowledges and interests, to
+leave a residuum that was quite enough to meet his needs.
+
+As the chill dusk fell in cloudy folds over the giant hill shoulders and
+the cart turned towards home, she shivered.
+
+"Are you cold?" he asked solicitously. "The wind strikes keen down
+between these beastly hills."
+
+"Beastly?" she repeated. "Don't you think they're beautiful?"
+
+"Yes," he said, "of course I see they're beautiful--for other folks, but
+not for me. What I like is lanes an' elm trees and farm buildings with
+red tiles and red walls round fruit gardens--and cherry orchards and
+thorough good rich medders up for hay, and lilac bushes and bits o'
+flowers in the gardens, same what I was used to at home."
+
+She thrilled to the homely picture.
+
+"Why, that's what I like too!" she said. "These great hills--I don't see
+how they can feel like home to anyone. There's a bit of an orchard--one
+end of it is just a red barn wall--and there are hedges round, and it's
+all soft warm green lights and shadows--and thrushes sing like mad.
+That's home!"
+
+He looked at her.
+
+"Yes," he said slowly, "that's home."
+
+"And then," she went on, "the lanes with the high green hedges,
+dog-roses and brambles and may bushes and traveller's joy--and the grey
+wooden hurdles, and the gates with yellow lichen on them, and the white
+roads and the light in the farm windows as you come home from work--and
+the fire--and the smell of apples from the loft."
+
+"Yes," he said, "that's it--I'm a Kentish man myself. You've got a lot
+o' words to talk with."
+
+When he put her down at the edge of the town she went to rejoin her
+nurse feeling that to one human being, at least, she had that day been
+the voice of the home-ideal, and of all things sweet and fair. And, of
+course, this pleased her very much.
+
+Next morning she woke with the vague but sure sense of something
+pleasant to come. She remembered almost instantly. She had met a man on
+whom it was pleasant to smile, and whom her smiles and her talk
+pleased. And she thought,--quite honestly,--that she was being very
+philanthropic and lightening a dull life.
+
+She wrote a long loving letter to John, did a little shopping, and
+walked out along a road. It was the road by which he had told her that
+he would go the next day. He overtook her and pulled up with a glad
+face, that showed her the worth of her smiles and almost repaid it.
+
+"I was wondering if I'd see you," he said; "was you tired yesterday?
+It's a fine day to-day."
+
+"Isn't it glorious!" she returned, blinking at the pale clear sun.
+
+"It makes everything look a heap prettier, doesn't it? Even this country
+that looks like as if it had had all the colour washed out of it in
+strong soda and suds."
+
+"Yes," she said. And then he spoke of yesterday's trade--he had done
+well; and of the round he had to go to-day. But he did not offer her a
+lift.
+
+"Won't you give me a drive to-day?" she asked suddenly. "I enjoyed it so
+much."
+
+"_Will_ you?" he cried, his face lighting up as he moved to arrange the
+sacks. "I didn't like to offer. I thought you'd think I was takin' too
+much on myself. Come up--reach me your hand. Right oh!"
+
+The cart clattered away.
+
+"I was thinking ever since yesterday when I see you how is it you can
+think o' so many words all at once. It's just as if you was seeing it
+all--the way you talked about the red barns and the grey gates and all
+such."
+
+"I _do_ see it," she said, "inside my mind, you know. I can see it all
+as plainly as I see these great cruel hills."
+
+"Yes," said he, "that's just what they are--they're cruel. And the
+fields and woods is kind--like folks you're friends with."
+
+She was charmed with the phrase. She talked to him, coaxing him to make
+new phrases. It was like teaching a child to walk.
+
+He told her about his home. It was a farm in Kent--"red brick with the
+glorydyjohn rose growin' all up over the front door--so that they never
+opened it."
+
+"The paint had stuck it fast," said he, "it was quite a job to get it
+open to get father's coffin out. I scraped the paint off then, and oiled
+the hinges, because I knew mother wouldn't last long. And she didn't
+neither."
+
+Then he told her how there had been no money to carry on the
+fruit-growing, and how his sister had married a greengrocer at Buxton,
+and when everything went wrong he had come to lend a hand with their
+business.
+
+"And now I takes the rounds," said he; "it's more to my mind nor mimming
+in the shop and being perlite to ladies."
+
+"You're very polite to _me_," she said.
+
+"Oh, yes," he said, "but you're not a lady--leastways, I'm sure you are
+in your 'art--but you ain't a regular tip-topper, are you, now?"
+
+"Well, no," she said, "perhaps not that."
+
+It piqued her that he should not have seen that she _was_ a lady--and
+yet it pleased her too. It was a tribute to her power of adapting
+herself to her environment.
+
+The cart rattled gaily on--he talked with more and more confidence; she
+with a more and more pleased consciousness of her perfect tact. As they
+went a beautiful idea came to her. She would do the thing
+thoroughly--why not? The episode might as well be complete.
+
+"I wish you'd let me help you to sell the things," she said. "I should
+like it."
+
+"Wouldn't you be above it?" he asked.
+
+"Not a bit," she answered gaily. "Only I must learn the prices of
+things. Tell me. How much are the herrings?"
+
+He told her--and at the first village she successfully sold seven
+herrings, five haddocks, three score of potatoes, and so many separate
+pounds of apples that she lost count.
+
+He was lavish of his praises.
+
+"You might have been brought up to it from a girl," he said, and she
+wondered how old he thought she was then.
+
+She yawned no more over dull novels now--Buxton no longer bored her. She
+had suddenly discovered a new life--a new stage on which to play a part,
+her own ability in mastering which filled her with the pleasure of a
+clever child, or a dog who has learned a new trick. Of course, it was
+not a new trick; it was the old one.
+
+It was impossible not to go out with the greengrocer every day. What
+else was there to do? How else could she exercise her most perfectly
+developed talent--that of smiling on people till they loved her? We all
+like to do that which we can do best. And she never felt so contented as
+when she was exercising this incontestable talent of hers. She did not
+know the talent for what it was. She called it "being nice to people."
+
+So every day saw her, with roses freshening in her cheeks, driving over
+the moors in the wheeled tea-tray. And now she sold regularly. One day
+he said--
+
+"What a wife you'd make for a business chap!" But even that didn't warn
+her, because she happened to be thinking of Jack--and she thought how
+good a wife she meant to be to him. _He_ was a "business chap" too.
+
+"What are you really--by trade, I mean?" he said on another occasion.
+
+"Nothing in particular. What did you think I was?" she said.
+
+"Oh--I dunno--I thought a lady's maid, as likely as not, or maybe in the
+dressmaking. You aren't a common sort--anyone can see that."
+
+Again pique and pleasure fought in her.
+
+She never so much as thought of telling him that she was married. She
+saw no reason for it. It was her role to enter into his life, not to
+dazzle him with visions of hers.
+
+At last that happened which was bound to happen. And it happened under
+the shadow of a great rock, in a cleft, green-grown and sheltered, where
+the road runs beside the noisy, stony, rapid, unnavigable river.
+
+He had drawn the cart up on the grass, and she had got down and was
+sitting on a stone eating sandwiches, for her nurse had persuaded her to
+take her lunch with her so as to spend every possible hour on these
+life-giving moors. He had eaten bread and cheese standing by the horse's
+head. It was a holiday. He was not selling fish and vegetables. He was
+in his best, and she had never liked him so little. As she finished her
+last dainty bite he threw away the crusts and rinds of his meal and came
+over to her.
+
+"Well," he said, with an abrupt tenderness that at once thrilled and
+revolted her, "don't you think it's time as we settled something betwixt
+us?"
+
+"I don't know what you mean," she said. But, quite suddenly and
+terribly, she did.
+
+"Why," he said, "I know well enough you're miles too good for a chap
+like me--but if you don't think so, that's all right. And I tell you
+straight, you're the only girl I ever so much as fancied."
+
+"Oh," she breathed, "do you mean--"
+
+"You know well enough what I mean, my pretty," he said; "but if you want
+it said out like in books, I've got it all on my tongue. I love every
+inch of you, and your clever ways, and your pretty talk. I haven't
+touched a drop these eight months--I shall get on right enough with you
+to help me--and we'll be so happy as never was. There ain't ne'er a man
+in England'll set more store by his wife nor I will by you, nor be
+prouder on her. You shan't do no hard work--I promise you that. Only
+just drive out with me and turn the customers round your finger. I don't
+ask no questions about you nor your folks. I _know_ you're an honest
+girl, and I'd trust you with my head. Come, give me a kiss, love, and
+call it a bargain."
+
+She had stood up while he was speaking, but she literally could not
+find words to stop the flow of his speech. Now she shrank back and said,
+"No--no!"
+
+"Don't you be so shy, my dear," he said. "Come--just one! And then I'll
+take you home and interduce you to my sister. You'll like her. I've told
+her all about you."
+
+Waves of unthinkable horror seemed to be closing over her head. She
+struck out bravely, and it seemed as though she were swimming for her
+life.
+
+"No," she cried, "it's impossible! You don't understand! You don't
+know!"
+
+"I know you've been keeping company with me these ten days," he said,
+and his voice had changed. "What did you do it for if you didn't mean
+nothing by it?"
+
+"I didn't know," she said wretchedly. "I thought you liked being
+friends."
+
+"If it's what you call 'friends,' being all day long with a chap, I
+don't so call it," he said. "But come--you're playing skittish now,
+ain't you? Don't tease a chap like this. Can't you see I love you too
+much to stand it? I know it sounds silly to say it--but I love you
+before all the world--I do--my word I do!"
+
+He held out his arms.
+
+"I see--I see you do," she cried, all her tact washed away by this
+mighty sea that had suddenly swept over her. "But I can't. I'm--I'm
+en--I'm promised to another young man."
+
+"I wonder what he'll say to this," he said slowly.
+
+"I'm so--so sorry," she said; "I'd no idea--"
+
+"I see," he said, "you was just passing the time with me--and you never
+wanted me at all. And I thought you did. Get in, miss. I'll take you
+back to the town. I've just about had enough holiday for one day."
+
+"I _am_ so sorry," she kept saying. But he never answered.
+
+"Do forgive me!" she said at last. "Indeed, I didn't mean--"
+
+"Didn't mean," said he, lashing up the brown horse; "no--and it don't
+matter to you if I think about you and want you every day and every
+night so long as I live. It ain't nothing to you. You've had your fun.
+And you've got your sweetheart. God, I wish him joy of you!"
+
+"Ah--don't," she said, and her soft voice even here, even now, did not
+miss its effect. "I _do_ like you very, very much--and--"
+
+She had never failed. She did not fail now. Before they reached the town
+he had formally forgiven her.
+
+"I don't suppose you meant no harm," he said grudgingly; "though coming
+from Kent you ought to know how it is about walking out with a chap. But
+you say you didn't, and I'll believe you. But I shan't get over this,
+this many a long day, so don't you make no mistake. Why, I ain't thought
+o' nothing else but you ever since I first set eyes on you. There--don't
+you cry no more. I can't abear to see you cry."
+
+He was blinking himself.
+
+Outside the town he stopped.
+
+"Good-bye," he said. "I haven't got nothing agin you--but I wish to Lord
+above I'd never seen you. I shan't never fancy no one else after you."
+
+"Don't be unhappy," she said. And then she ought to have said good-bye.
+But the devil we call the force of habit would not let her leave well
+alone.
+
+"I want to give you something," she said; "a keepsake, to show I shall
+always be your friend. Will you call at the house where I'm staying this
+evening at eight? I'll have it ready for you. Don't think too unkindly
+of me! Will you come?"
+
+He asked the address, and said "Yes." He wanted to see her--just once
+again, and he would certainly like the keepsake.
+
+She went home and looked out a beautiful book of Kentish photographs. It
+was a wedding present, and she had brought it with her to solace her in
+her exile by pictures of the home-land. Her unconscious thought was
+something like this: "Poor fellow; poor, poor fellow! But he behaved
+like a gentleman about it. I suppose there is something in the influence
+of a sympathetic woman--I am glad I was a good influence."
+
+She bathed her burning face, cooled it with soft powder, and slipped
+into a tea-gown. It was a trousseau one of rich, heavy, yellow silk and
+old lace and fur. She chose it because it was warm, and she was
+shivering with agitation and misery. Then she went and sat with the old
+nurse, and a few minutes before eight she ran out and stood by the front
+door so as to open it before he should knock. She achieved this.
+
+"Come in," she said, and led him into the lodging-house parlour and
+closed the door.
+
+"It was good of you to come," she said, taking the big, beautiful book
+from the table. "This is what I want you to take, just to remind you
+that we're friends."
+
+She had forgotten the tea-gown. She was not conscious that the
+accustomed suavity of line, the soft richness of texture influenced
+voice, gait, smile, gesture. But they did. Her face was flushed after
+her tears, and the powder, which she had forgotten to dust off, added
+the last touch to her beauty.
+
+He took the book, but he never even glanced at the silver and
+tortoise-shell of its inlaid cover. He was looking at her, and his eyes
+were covetous and angry.
+
+"Are you an actress, or what?"
+
+"No," she said, shrinking. "Why?"
+
+"What the hell are you, then?" he snarled furiously.
+
+"I'm--I'm--a--"
+
+The old nurse, scared by the voice raised beyond discretion, had dragged
+herself to the door of division between her room and the parlour, and
+now stood clinging to the door handle.
+
+"She's a lady, young man," said the nurse severely; "and her aunt's a
+lady of title, and don't you forget it!"
+
+"Forget it," he cried, with a laugh that Jack's wife remembers still;
+"she's a lady, and she's fooled me this way? I won't forget it, nor she
+shan't neither! By God, I'll give her something to forget!"
+
+With that he caught the silken tea-gown and Jack's trembling wife in his
+arms and kissed her more than once. They were horrible kisses, and the
+man smelt of onions and hair-oil.
+
+"And I loved her--curse her!" he cried, flinging her away, so that she
+fell against the arm of the chair by the fire.
+
+He went out, slamming both doors. She had softened and bewitched him to
+the forgiving of the outrage that her indifference was to his love. The
+outrage of her station's condescension to his was unforgivable.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+She went back to her Jack next day. She was passionately glad to see
+him. "Oh, Jack," she said, "I'll never, never go away from you again!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But the greengrocer from Kent reeled down the street to the nearest
+public-house. At closing time he was telling, in muffled, muddled
+speech, the wondrous tale, how his girl was a real lady, awfully gone on
+him, pretty as paint, and wore silk dresses every day.
+
+"She's a real lady--she is," he said.
+
+"Ay!" said the chucker out, "we know all about them sort o' ladies.
+Time, please!"
+
+"I tell you she is--her aunt's a lady of title, and the gal's that gone
+on me I expect I'll have to marry her to keep her quiet."
+
+"I'll have to chuck you out to keep _you_ quiet," returned the other.
+"Come on--outside!"
+
+
+
+
+THE BRUTE
+
+
+THE pearl of the dawn was not yet dissolved in the gold cup of the
+sunshine, but in the northwest the dripping opal waves were ebbing fast
+to the horizon, and the sun was already half risen from his couch of
+dull crimson. She leaned out of her window. By fortunate chance it was a
+jasmine-muffled lattice, as a girl's window should be, and looked down
+on the dewy stillness of the garden. The cloudy shadows that had clung
+in the earliest dawn about the lilac bushes and rhododendrons had faded
+like grey ghosts, and slowly on lawn and bed and path new black shadows
+were deepening and intensifying.
+
+She drew a deep breath. What a picture! The green garden, the awakened
+birds, the roses that still looked asleep, the scented jasmine stars!
+She saw and loved it all. Nor was she unduly insensible to the charm of
+the central figure, the girl in the white lace-trimmed gown who leaned
+her soft arms on the window-sill and looked out on the dawn with large
+dark eyes. Of course, she knew that her eyes were large and dark, also
+that her hair was now at its prettiest, rumpled and tumbled from the
+pillow, and far prettier so than one dared to allow it to be in the
+daytime. It seemed a pity that there should be no one in the garden save
+the birds, no one who had awakened thus early just that he might gather
+a rose and cover it with kisses and throw it up to the window of his
+pretty sweetheart. She had but recently learned that she was pretty. It
+was on the evening after the little dance at the Rectory. She had worn
+red roses at her neck, and when she had let down her hair she had picked
+up the roses from her dressing-table and stuck them in the loose, rough,
+brown mass, and stared into the glass till she was half mesmerised by
+her own dark eyes. She had come to herself with a start, and then she
+had known quite surely that she was pretty enough to be anyone's
+sweetheart. When she was a child a well-meaning aunt had told her that
+as she would never be pretty or clever she had better try to be good,
+or no one would love her. She had tried, and she had never till that
+red-rose day doubted that such goodness as she had achieved must be her
+only claim to love. Now she knew better, and she looked out of her
+window at the brightening sky and the deepening shadows. But there was
+no one to throw her a rose with kisses on it.
+
+"If I were a man," she said to herself, but in a very secret shadowy
+corner of her inmost heart, and in a wordless whisper, "if I were a man,
+I would go out this minute and find a sweetheart. She should have dark
+eyes, too, and rough brown hair, and pink cheeks."
+
+In the outer chamber of her mind she said briskly--
+
+"It's a lovely morning. It's a shame to waste it indoors. I'll go out."
+
+The sun was fully up when she stole down through the still sleeping
+house and out into the garden, now as awake as a lady in full dress at
+the court of the King.
+
+The garden gate fell to behind her, and the swing of her white skirts
+went down the green lane. On such a morning who would not wear white?
+She walked with the quick grace of her nineteen years, and as she went
+fragments of the undigested poetry that had been her literary diet of
+late swirled in her mind--
+
+    "With tears and smiles from heaven again,
+     The maiden spring upon the plain
+     Came in a sunlit fall of rain,"
+
+and so on, though this was July, and not spring at all. And--
+
+    "A man had given all other bliss
+     And all his worldly work for this,
+     To waste his whole heart in one kiss
+       Upon her perfect lips."
+
+Her own lips were not perfect, yet, as lips went, they were well enough,
+and, anyway, kisses would not be wasted on them.
+
+She went down the lane, full of the anxious trembling longing that is
+youth's unrecognised joy, and at the corner, where the lane meets the
+high white road, she met him. That is to say, she stopped short, as the
+whispering silence of the morning was broken by a sudden rattle and a
+heavy thud, not pleasant to hear. And he and his bicycle fell together,
+six yards from her feet. The bicycle bounded, and twisted, and settled
+itself down with bold, resentful clatterings. The man lay without
+moving.
+
+Her Tennyson quotations were swept away. She ran to help.
+
+"Oh, are you hurt?" she said. He lay quite still. There was blood on his
+head, and one arm was doubled under his back. What could she do? She
+tried to lift him from the road to the grass edge of it. He was a big
+man, but she did succeed in raising his shoulders, and freeing that
+right arm. As she lifted it, he groaned. She sat down in the dust of the
+road, and lowered his shoulders till his head lay on her lap. Then she
+tied her handkerchief round his head, and waited till someone should
+pass on the way to work. Three men and a boy came after the long half
+hour in which he lay unconscious, the red patch on her handkerchief
+spreading slowly, and she looking at him, and getting by heart every
+line of the pale, worn, handsome face. She spoke to him, she stroked his
+hair. She touched his white cheek with her finger-tips, and wondered
+about him, and pitied him, and took possession of him as a new and
+precious appanage of her life, so that when the labourers appeared, she
+said--
+
+"He's very badly hurt. Go and fetch some more men and a hurdle, and the
+boy might run for the doctor. Tell him to come to the White House. It's
+nearest, and it may be dangerous to move him further."
+
+"The 'Blue Lion' ain't but a furlong further, miss," said one of the
+men, touching his cap.
+
+"It's much more than that," said she, who had but the vaguest notion of
+a furlong's length. "Do go and do what I tell you."
+
+They went, and, as they went, remorselessly dissected, with the bluntest
+instruments, her motives and her sentiments. It was not hidden from
+them, that wordless whisper in the shadowy inner chamber of her heart.
+"Perhaps the 'Blue Lion' isn't so very much further, but I can't give
+him up. No, I can't." But it was almost hidden from _her_. In her mind's
+outer hall she said--
+
+"I'm sure I ought to take him home. No girl in a book would hesitate.
+And I can make it all right with mother. It would be cruel to give him
+up to strangers."
+
+Deep in her heart the faint whisper followed--
+
+"I found him; he's mine. I won't let him go."
+
+He stirred a little before they came back with the hurdle, and she took
+his uninjured hand, and pressed it firmly and kindly, and told him it
+was "all right," he would feel better presently.
+
+She did have him carried home, and when the doctor had set the arm and
+the collar-bone, and had owned that it would be better not to move him
+at present, she knew that her romance would not be cut short just yet.
+She did not nurse him, because it is only in books that young girls of
+the best families act as sick-nurses to gentlemen. But her mother--dear,
+kind, clever, foolish gentlewoman--did the nursing, and the daughter
+gathered flowers daily to brighten his room. And when he was better, yet
+still not well enough to resume the bicycle tour so sharply interrupted
+by a flawed nut, she read to him, and talked to him, and sat with him in
+the hushed August garden. Up to this point, observe, her interest had
+been purely romantic. He was a man of forty-five. Perhaps he had a
+younger brother, a splendid young man, and the brother would like her
+because she had been kind. _He_ had lived long abroad, had no relatives
+in England. He knew her Cousin Reginald at Johannesburg--everyone knew
+everyone else out there. The brother--there really was a brother--would
+come some day to thank her mother for all her goodness, and she would be
+at the window and look down, and he would look up, and the lamp of life
+would be lighted. She longed, with heart-whole earnestness, to be in
+love with someone, for as yet she was only in love with love.
+
+But on the evening when there was a full moon--the time of madness as
+everybody knows--her mother falling asleep after dinner in her cushioned
+chair in the lamp lit drawing-room, he and she wandered out into the
+garden. They sat on the seat under the great apple tree. He was talking
+gently of kindness and gratitude, and of how he would soon be well
+enough to go away. She listened in silence, and presently he grew
+silent, too, under the spell of the moonlight. She never knew exactly
+how it was that he took her hand, but he was holding it gently,
+strongly, as if he would never let it go. Their shoulders touched. The
+silence grew deeper and deeper. She sighed involuntarily; not because
+she was unhappy, but because her heart was beating so fast. Both were
+looking straight before them into the moonlight. Suddenly he turned, put
+his other hand on her shoulder, and kissed her on the lips. At that
+instant her mother called her, and she went into the lamp-light. She
+said good night at once. She wanted to be alone, to realise the great
+and wonderful awakening of her nature, its awakening to love--for this
+was love, the love the poets sang about--
+
+    "A kiss, a touch, the charm, was snapped."
+
+She wanted to be alone to think about him. But she did not think. She
+hugged to her heart the physical memory of that strong magnetic
+hand-clasp, the touch of those smooth sensitive lips on hers--held it
+close to her till she fell asleep, still thrilling with the ecstasy of
+her first lover's kiss.
+
+Next day they were formally engaged, and now her life became an
+intermittent delirium. She longed always to be alone with him, to touch
+his hands, to feel his cheek against hers. She could not understand the
+pleasure which he said he felt in just sitting near her and watching
+her sewing or reading, as he sat talking to her mother of dull
+things--politics, and the war, and landscape gardening. If she had been
+a man, she said to herself, always far down in her heart, she would have
+found a way to sit near the beloved, so that at least hands might meet
+now and then unseen. But he disliked public demonstrations, and he loved
+her. She, however, was merely in love with him.
+
+That was why, when he went away, she found it so difficult to write to
+him. She thought his letters cold, though they told her of all his work,
+his aims, ambitions, hopes, because not more than half a page was filled
+with lover's talk. He could have written very different letters--indeed,
+he had written such in his time, and to more than one address; but he
+was wise with the wisdom of forty years, and he was beginning to tremble
+for her happiness, because he loved her.
+
+When she complained that his letters were cold he knew that he had been
+wise. She found it very difficult to write to him. It was far easier to
+write to Cousin Reginald, who always wrote such long, interesting
+letters, all about interesting things--Cousin Reginald who had lived
+with them at the White House till a year ago, and who knew all the
+little family jokes, and the old family worries.
+
+They had been engaged for eight months when he came down to see her
+without any warning letter.
+
+She was alone in the drawing-room when he was announced, and with a cry
+of joy, she let fall her work on the floor, and ran to meet him with
+arms outstretched. He caught her wrists.
+
+"No," he said, and the light of joy in her face made it not easy to say
+it. "My dear, I've come to say something to you, and I mustn't kiss you
+till I've said it."
+
+The light had died out.
+
+"You're not tired of me?"
+
+He laughed. "No, not tired of you, my little princess, but I am going
+away for a year. If you still love me when I come back we'll be married.
+But before I go I must say something to you."
+
+Her eyes were streaming with tears.
+
+"Oh, how can you be so cruel?" she said, and her longing to cling to
+him, to reassure herself by personal contact, set her heart beating
+wildly.
+
+"I don't want to be cruel," he said; "you understand, dear, that I love
+you, and it's just because I love you that I must say it. Now sit down
+there and let me speak. Don't interrupt me if you can help it. Consider
+it a sort of lecture you're bound to sit through."
+
+He pushed her gently towards a chair. She sat down sulkily, awkwardly,
+and he stood by the window, looking out at the daffodils and early
+tulips.
+
+"Dear, I am afraid I have found something out. I don't think you love
+me--"
+
+"Oh, how can you, how can you?"
+
+"Be patient," he said. "I've wondered almost from the first. You're
+almost a child, and I'm an old man--oh, no, I don't mean that that's any
+reason why you shouldn't love me, but it's a reason for my making very
+sure that you _do_ before I let you marry me. It's your happiness I have
+to think of most. Now shall I just go away for a year, or shall I speak
+straight out and tell you everything? If your father were alive I would
+try to tell him; I can't tell your mother, she wouldn't understand. You
+can understand. Shall I tell you?"
+
+"Yes," she said, looking at him with frightened eyes.
+
+"Well: look back. You think you love me. Haven't my letters always bored
+you a little, though they were about all the things I care for most?"
+
+"I don't understand politics," she said sullenly.
+
+"And I don't understand needle-work, but I could sit and watch you sew
+for ever and a day."
+
+"Well, go on. What other crime have I committed besides not going into
+raptures over Parliament?"
+
+She was growing angry, and he was glad. It is not so easy to hurt people
+when they are angry.
+
+"And when I am talking to your mother, that bores you too, and when we
+are alone, you don't care to talk of anything, but--but--"
+
+This task was harder than he had imagined possible.
+
+"I've loved you too much, and I've shown it too plainly," she said
+bitterly.
+
+"My dear, you've never loved me at all. You have only been in love with
+me."
+
+"And isn't that the same thing?"
+
+"Oh! it's no use," he said, "I must _be_ a brute then. No, it's not the
+same thing. It's your poets and novelists who pretend it is. It's they
+who have taught you all wrong. It's only half of love, and the worst
+half, the most untrustworthy, the least lasting. My little girl, when I
+kissed you first, you were just waking up to your womanhood, you were
+ready for love, as a flower-bud is ready for sunshine, and I happened to
+be the first man who had the chance to kiss you and hold your dear
+little hands."
+
+"Do you mean that I should have liked anyone else as well if he had only
+been kind enough to kiss me?"
+
+"No, no; but ... I wish girls were taught these things out of books. If
+you only knew what it costs me to be honest with you, how I have been
+tempted to let you marry me and chance everything! Don't you see you're
+a woman now--women were made to be kissed, and when a man behaves like a
+brute and kisses a girl without even asking first, or finding out first
+whether she loves him, it's not fair on the girl. I shall never forgive
+myself. Don't you see I took part of you by storm, the part of you that
+is just woman nature, not yours but everyone's; and how were you to know
+that you didn't love me, that it was only the awakening of your woman
+nature?"
+
+"I hate you," she said briefly.
+
+"Yes," he answered simply, "I knew you would. Hate is only one step from
+passion."
+
+She rose in a fury. "How dare you use that word to me!" she cried. "Oh,
+you are a brute! You are quite right: I don't love you--I hate you, I
+despise you. Oh, you brute!"
+
+"Don't," he said; "I only used that word because it's what people call
+the thing when it's a man who feels it. With you it's what I said, the
+unconscious awakening of the womanhood God gave you. Try to forgive me.
+Have I said anything so very dreadful? It's a very little thing, dear,
+the sweet kindness you've felt for me. It's nothing to be ashamed or
+angry about. It's not a hundredth part of what I have felt when you have
+kissed me. It's because it's such a poor foundation to build a home on
+that I am frightened for you. Suppose you got tired of my kisses, and
+there was nothing more in me that you did care for. And that sort of ...
+lover's love doesn't last for ever--without the other kind of love--"
+
+"Oh, don't say any more," she cried, jumping up from her chair. "I did
+love you with all my heart. I was sorry for you. I thought you were so
+different. Oh, how could you say these things to me? Go!"
+
+"Shall I come back in a year?" he asked, smiling rather sadly.
+
+"Come back? _Never!_ I'll never speak to you again. I'll never see you
+again. I hope to God I shall never hear your name again. Go at once!"
+
+"You'll be grateful to me some day," he said, "when you've found out
+that love and being in love are not the same thing."
+
+"What is love, then? The kind of love _you'd_ care for?"
+
+"I care for it all," he said. "I think love is tenderness, esteem,
+affection, interest, pity, protection, and passion. Yes, you needn't be
+frightened by the word; it is the force that moves the world, but it's
+only a part of love. Oh, I see it's no good. God bless you, child:
+you'll understand some day!"
+
+She does understand now; she has married her Cousin Reginald, and she
+understands deeply and completely. But she only admits this in that
+deep, shadowy, almost disowned corner of her heart. In the reception
+room of her mind she still thinks of her first lover as "That Brute!"
+
+
+
+
+DICK, TOM, AND HARRY
+
+
+"AND so I look in to see her whenever I can spare half an hour. I fancy
+it cheers her up a bit to have some one to talk to about Edinburgh--and
+all that. You say you're going to tell her about its having been my
+doing, your getting that berth. Now, I won't have it. You promised you
+wouldn't. I hate jaw, as you know, and I don't want to have her gassing
+about gratitude and all that rot. I don't like it, even from you. So
+stow all that piffle. You'd do as much for me, any day. I suppose
+Edinburgh _is_ a bit dull, but you've got all the higher emotions of our
+fallen nature to cheer you up. Essex Court is dull, if you like! It's
+three years since I had the place to myself, and I tell you it's pretty
+poor sport. I don't seem to care about duchesses or the gilded halls
+nowadays. Getting old, I suppose. Really, my sole recreation is going to
+see another man's girl, and letting her prattle prettily about him.
+Lord, what fools these mortals be! Sorry I couldn't answer your letter
+before. I suppose you'll be running up for Christmas! So long! I'm
+taking her down those Ruskins she wanted. Here's luck!"
+
+The twisted knot of three thin initials at the end of the letter stood
+for one of the set of names painted on the black door of the Temple
+Chambers. The other names were those of Tom, who had strained a slender
+competence to become a barrister, and finding the achievement
+unremunerative, had been glad enough to get the chance of sub-editing a
+paper in Edinburgh.
+
+Dick enveloped and stamped his letter, threw it on the table, and went
+into his bedroom. When he came back in a better coat and a newer tie he
+looked at the letter and shrugged his shoulders, and he frowned all the
+way down the three flights and as far as Brick Court. Here he posted the
+letter. Then he shrugged his shoulders again, but after the second shrug
+the set of them was firmer.
+
+As his hansom swung through the dancing lights of the Strand, he
+shrugged his shoulders for the third time.
+
+And, at that, his tame devil came as at a signal, and drew a pretty
+curtain across all thoughts save one--the thought of the "other man's
+girl." Indeed, hardly a thought was left, rather a sense of her--of
+those disquieting soft eyes of hers--the pretty hands, the frank
+laugh--the long, beautiful lines her gowns took on--the unexpected
+twists and curves of her hair--above all, the reserve, veiling
+tenderness as snowflakes might veil a rose, with which she spoke of the
+other man.
+
+Dick had known Tom for all of their men's lives, and they had been
+friends. Both had said so often enough. But now he thought of him as the
+"other man."
+
+The lights flashed past. Dick's eyes were fixed on a picture. A pleasant
+room--an artist's room--prints, sketches, green curtains, the sparkle of
+old china, fire and candle light. A girl in a long straight dress; he
+could see the little line where it would catch against her knee as she
+came forward to meet him with both hands outstretched. Would it be both
+hands? He decided that it would--to-night.
+
+He was right, even to the little line in the sea-blue gown.
+
+Both hands; such long, thin, magnetic hands.
+
+"You _are_ good," she said at once. "Oh--you must let me thank you.
+Tom's told me who it was that got him that splendid berth. Oh--what a
+friend you are! And lending him the money and everything. I can't tell
+you--It's too much--You are--"
+
+"Don't," he said; "it's nothing at all."
+
+"It's everything," said she. "Tom's told me quite all about it, mind! I
+know we owe everything to you."
+
+"My dear Miss Harcourt," he began. But she interrupted him.
+
+"Why not Harry?" she asked. "I thought--"
+
+"Yes. Thank you. But it was nothing. You see I couldn't let poor old Tom
+go on breaking his heart in silence, when just writing a letter or two
+would put him in a position to speak."
+
+She had held his hands, or he hers, or both, all this time. Now she
+moved away to the fire.
+
+"Come and sit down and be comfortable," she said. "This is the chair you
+like. And I've got some cigarettes, your very own kind, from the
+Stores."
+
+She remembered a time when she had thought that it was he, Dick, who
+might break his heart for her. The remembrance of that vain thought was
+a constant pin-prick to her vanity, a constant affront to her modesty.
+She had tried to snub him in those days--to show him that his hopes were
+vain. And after all he hadn't had any hopes: he'd only been anxious
+about Tom! In the desolation of her parting from Tom she had longed for
+sympathy. Dick had given it, and she had been kinder to him than she had
+ever been to any man but her lover--first, because he was her lover's
+friend, and, secondly, because she wanted to pretend to herself that she
+had never fancied that there was any reason for not being kind to him.
+
+She sat down in the chair opposite to his.
+
+"Now," she said, "I won't thank you any more, if you hate it so; but you
+are good, and neither of us will ever forget it."
+
+He sat silent for a moment. He had played for this--for this he had
+delayed to answer the letter wherein Tom announced his intention of
+telling Harriet the whole fair tale of his friend's goodness. He had won
+the trick. Yet for an instant he hesitated to turn it over. Then he
+shrugged his shoulders--I will not mention this again, but it was a
+tiresome way he had when the devil or the guardian angel were working
+that curtain I told you of--and said--
+
+"Dear little lady--you make me wish that I _were_ good."
+
+Then he sighed: it was quite a real sigh, and she wondered whether he
+could possibly not be good right through. Was it possible that he was
+wicked in some of those strange, mysterious ways peculiar to men:
+billiards--barmaids--opera-balls flashed into her mind. Perhaps she
+might help him to be good. She had heard the usual pretty romances about
+the influence of a good woman.
+
+"Come," she said, "light up--and tell me all about everything."
+
+So he told her many things. And now and then he spoke of Tom, just to
+give himself the pleasure-pain of that snow-veiled-rose aspect.
+
+He kissed her hand when he left her--a kiss of studied brotherliness.
+Yet the kiss had in it a tiny heart of fire, fierce enough to make her
+wonder, when he had left her, whether, after all.... But she put the
+thought away hastily. "I may be a vain fool," she said, "but I won't be
+fooled by my vanity twice over."
+
+And she kissed Tom's portrait and went to bed.
+
+Dick went home in a heavenly haze of happiness--so he told himself as he
+went. When he woke up at about three o'clock, and began to analyse his
+sensations, he had cooled enough to call it an intoxication of
+pleasurable emotion. At three in the morning, if ever, the gilt is off
+the ginger-bread.
+
+Dick lay on his back, his hands clenched at his sides, and, gazing
+open-eyed into the darkness, he saw many things. He saw all the old
+friendship: the easy, jolly life in those rooms, the meeting with
+Harriet Harcourt--it was at a fancy-ball, and she wore the
+white-and-black dress of a Beardsley lady; he remembered the contrast of
+the dress with her eyes and mouth.
+
+He saw the days when his thoughts turned more and more to every chance
+of meeting her, as though each had been his only chance of life. He saw
+the Essex Court sitting-room as it had looked on the night when Tom had
+announced that Harriet was the only girl in the world--adding, at
+almost a night's length, that impassioned statement of his hopeless,
+financial condition. He could hear Tom's voice as he said--
+
+"And I _know_ she cares!"
+
+Dick felt again the thrill of pleasure that had come with the impulse to
+be, for once, really noble, to efface himself, to give up the pursuit
+that lighted his days, the dream that enchanted his nights. His own
+voice, too, he heard--
+
+"Cheer up, old chap! We'll find a lucrative post for you in five
+minutes, and set the wedding bells a-ringing in half an hour, or less!
+Why on earth didn't you tell me before?"
+
+The glow of conscious nobility had lasted a long while--nearly a week,
+if he recollected aright. Then had come the choice of two openings for
+Tom, one in London, and one, equally good, in Edinburgh. Dick had chosen
+to offer to his friend the one in Edinburgh. He had told himself then
+that both lovers would work better if they were not near enough to waste
+each other's time, and he had almost believed--he was almost sure, even
+now, that he had almost believed--that this was the real reason.
+
+But when Tom had gone there had been frank tears in the lovers' parting,
+and Dick had walked up the platform to avoid the embarrassment of
+witnessing them.
+
+"You beast, you brute, you hound!" said Dick to himself, lying rigid and
+wretched in the darkness. "You knew well enough that you wanted him out
+of the way. And you promised to look after her and keep her from being
+dull. And you've done all you can to keep your word, haven't you? She
+hasn't been dull, I swear. And you've been playing for your own
+hand--and that poor stupid honest chap down there slaving away and
+trusting you as he trusts God. And you've written him lying letters
+twice a week, and betrayed him, as far as you got the chance, every day,
+and seen what a cur you are, every night, as you see it now. Oh,
+yes--you're succeeding splendidly. She forgets to think of Tom when
+she's talking to you. How often did _she_ mention him last night? It was
+_you_ every time. You're not fit to speak to a decent man, you reptile!"
+
+He relaxed the clenched hands.
+
+"Can't you stop this infernal see-saw?" he asked, pounding at his
+pillow; "light and fire every day, and hell-black ice every night. Look
+at it straight, you coward! If you're game to face the music, why, face
+it! Marry her, and friendship and honesty be damned! Or perhaps you
+might screw yourself up to another noble act--not a shoddy one this
+time."
+
+Still sneering, he got up and pottered about in slippers and pyjamas
+till he had stirred together the fire and made himself cocoa. He drank
+it and smoked two pipes. This is very unromantic, but so it was. He
+slept after that.
+
+When he woke in the morning all things looked brighter. He almost
+succeeded in pretending that he did not despise himself.
+
+But there was a letter from Tom, and the guardian angel took charge of
+the curtain again.
+
+He was tired, brain and body. The prize seemed hardly worth the cost.
+The question of relative values, at any rate, seemed debatable. The day
+passed miserably.
+
+At about five o'clock he was startled to feel the genuine throb of an
+honest impulse. Such an impulse in him at that hour of the day, when
+usually the devil was arranging the curtain for the evening's
+tragi-comedy, was so unusual as to rouse in him a psychologic interest
+strong enough to come near to destroying its object. But the flame of
+pleasure lighted by the impulse fought successfully against the cold
+wind of cynical analysis, and he stood up.
+
+"Upon my word," said he, "the copy-books are right--'Be virtuous and you
+will be happy.' At least if you aren't, you won't. And if you are....
+One could but try!"
+
+He packed a bag. He went out and sent telegrams to his people at King's
+Lynn, and to all the folk in town with whom he ought in these next weeks
+to have danced and dined, and he wrote a telegram to her. But that went
+no further than the floor of the Fleet Street Post Office, where it lay
+in trampled, scattered rhomboids.
+
+Then he dined in Hall--he could not spare from his great renunciation
+even such a thread of a thought as should have decided his choice of a
+restaurant; and he went back to the gloomy little rooms and wrote a
+letter to Tom.
+
+It seemed, until his scientific curiosity was aroused by the seeming,
+that he wrote with his heart's blood. After the curiosity awoke, the
+heart's blood was only highly-coloured water.
+
+     "Look here. I can't stand it any longer. I'm a brute and I know
+     it, and I know you'll think so. The fact is I've fallen in love
+     with your Harry, and I simply can't bear it seeing her every
+     day almost and knowing she's yours and not mine" (there the
+     analytic demon pricked up its ears and the scratching of the
+     pen ceased). "I have fought against this," the letter went on
+     after a long pause. "You don't know how I've fought, but it's
+     stronger than I am. I love her--impossibly, unbearably--the
+     only right and honourable thing to do is to go away, and I'm
+     going. My only hope is that she'll never know.
+
+                                                  "Your old friend."
+
+As he scrawled the signatory hieroglyphic, his only hope was that she
+_would_ know it, and that the knowledge would leaven, with tenderly
+pitying thoughts of him, the heroic figure, her happiness with Tom, the
+commonplace.
+
+He addressed and stamped the envelope; but he did not close it.
+
+"I might want to put in another word or two," he said to himself. And
+even then in his inmost heart he hardly knew that he was going to her.
+He knew it when he was driving towards Chenies Street, and then he told
+himself that he was going to bid her good-bye--for ever.
+
+Angel and devil were so busy shifting the curtain to and fro that he
+could not see any scene clearly.
+
+He came into her presence pale with his resolution to be noble, to leave
+her for ever to happiness--and Tom. It was difficult though, even at
+that supreme moment, to look at her and to couple those two ideas.
+
+"I've come to say good-bye," he said.
+
+"_Good-bye?_" the dismay in her eyes seemed to make that unsealed letter
+leap in his side pocket.
+
+"Yes--I'm going--circumstances I can't help--I'm going away for a long
+time."
+
+"Is it bad news? Oh--I _am_ sorry. When are you going?"
+
+"To-morrow," he said, even as he decided to say, "to-night."
+
+"But you can stay a little now, can't you? Don't go like this. It's
+dreadful. I shall miss you so--"
+
+He fingered the letter.
+
+"I must go and post a letter; then I'll come back, if I may. Where did I
+put that hat of mine?"
+
+As she turned to pick up the hat from the table, he dropped the
+letter--the heart's blood written letter--on the floor behind him.
+
+"I'll be back in a minute or two," he said, and went out to walk up and
+down the far end of Chenies Street and to picture her--alone with his
+letter.
+
+She saw it at the instant when the latch of her flat clicked behind him.
+She picked it up, and mechanically turned it over to look at the
+address.
+
+He, in the street outside, knew just how she would do it. Then she saw
+that the letter was unfastened.
+
+How often had Tom said that there were to be no secrets between them!
+This was _his_ letter. But it might hold Dick's secrets. But then, if
+she knew Dick's secrets she might be able to help him. He was in
+trouble--anyone could see that--awful trouble. She turned the letter
+over and over in her hands.
+
+He, without, walking with half-closed eyes, felt that she was so turning
+it.
+
+Suddenly she pulled the letter out and read it. He, out in the gas-lit
+night, knew how it would strike at her pity, her tenderness, her strong
+love of all that was generous and noble. He pictured the scene that must
+be when he should re-enter her room, and his heart beat wildly. He held
+himself in; he was playing the game now in deadly earnest. He would give
+her time to think of him, to pity him--time even to wonder whether,
+after all, duty and honour had not risen up in their might to forbid him
+to dare to try his faith by another sight of her. He waited, keenly
+aware that long as the waiting was to him, who knew what the ending was
+to be, it must be far, far longer for her, who did not know.
+
+At last he went back to her. And the scene that he had pictured in the
+night where the east wind swept the street was acted out now, exactly as
+he had foreseen it.
+
+She held in her hand the open letter. She came towards him, still
+holding it.
+
+"I've read your letter," she said.
+
+In her heart she was saying, "I must be brave. Never mind modesty and
+propriety. Tom could never love me like this. _He's_ a hero--my hero."
+
+In the silence that followed her confession he seemed to hear almost the
+very words of her thought.
+
+He hung his head and stood before her in the deep humility of a chidden
+child.
+
+"I am sorry," he said. "I am ashamed. Forgive me. I couldn't help it. No
+one could. Good-bye. Try to forgive me--"
+
+He turned to go, but she caught him by the arms. He had been almost sure
+she would.
+
+"You mustn't go," she said. "Oh--I _am_ sorry for Tom--but it's not the
+same for him. There are lots of people he'd like just as well--but
+you--"
+
+"Hush!" he said gently, "don't think of me. I shall be all right. I
+shall get over it."
+
+His sad, set smile assured her that he never would--never, in this world
+or the next.
+
+Her eyes were shining with the stress of the scene: his with the charm
+of it.
+
+"You are so strong, so brave, so good," she made herself say. "I can't
+let you go. Oh--don't you see--I can't let you suffer. You've suffered
+so much already--you've been so noble. Oh--it's better to know now. If
+I'd found out later--"
+
+She hung her head and waited.
+
+But he would not spare her. Since he had sold his soul he would have the
+price: the full price, to the last blush, the last tear, the last
+tremble in the pretty voice.
+
+"Let me go," he said, and his voice shook with real passion, "let me
+go--I can't bear it." He took her hands gently from his arms and held
+them lightly.
+
+Next moment they were round his neck, and she was clinging wildly to
+him.
+
+"Don't be unhappy! I can't bear it. Don't you see? Ah--don't you see?"
+
+Then he allowed himself to let her know that he did see. When he left
+her an hour later she stood in the middle of her room and drew a long
+breath.
+
+"_Oh!_" she cried. "What have I done? What _have_ I done?"
+
+He walked away with the maiden fire of her kisses thrilling his lips.
+"I've won--I've won--I've won!" His heart sang within him.
+
+But when he woke in the night--these months had taught him the habit of
+waking in the night and facing his soul--he said--
+
+"It was very easy, after all--very, very easy. And was it worth while?"
+
+But the next evening, when they met, neither tasted in the other's
+kisses the bitterness of last night's regrets. And in three days Tom was
+to come home. He came. All the long way in the rattling, shaking train a
+song of delight sang itself over and over in his brain. He, too, had his
+visions: he was not too commonplace for those. He saw her, her bright
+beauty transfigured by the joy of reunion, rushing to meet him with
+eager hands and gladly given lips. He thought of all he had to tell her.
+The fifty pounds saved already. The Editor's probable resignation, his
+own almost certain promotion, the incredibly dear possibility of their
+marriage before another year had passed. It seemed a month before he
+pressed the electric button at her door, and pressed it with a hand that
+trembled for joy.
+
+The door opened and she met him, but this was not the radiant figure of
+his vision. It seemed to be not she, but an image of her--an image
+without life, without colour.
+
+"Come in," she said; "I've something to tell you."
+
+"What is it?" he asked bluntly. "What's happened, Harry? What's the
+matter?"
+
+"I've found out," she said slowly, but without hesitation: had she not
+rehearsed the speech a thousand times in these three days? "I've found
+out that it was a mistake, Tom. I--I love somebody else. Don't ask who
+it is. I love him. Ah--_don't_!"
+
+For his face had turned a leaden white, and he was groping blindly for
+something to hold on to.
+
+He sat down heavily on the chair where Dick had knelt at her feet the
+night before. But now it was she who was kneeling.
+
+"Oh, _don't_, Tom, dear--don't. I can't bear it. I'm not worth it. He's
+so brave and noble--and he loves me so."
+
+"And don't _I_ love you?" said poor Tom, and then without ado or
+disguise he burst into tears.
+
+She had ceased to think or to reason. Her head was on his shoulder, and
+they clung blindly to each other and cried like two children.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When Tom went to the Temple that night he carried a note from Harry to
+Dick. With sublime audacity and a confidence deserved she made Tom her
+messenger.
+
+"It's a little secret," she said, smiling at him, "and you're not to
+know."
+
+Tom thought it must be something about a Christmas present for himself.
+He laughed--a little shakily--and took the note.
+
+Dick read it and crushed it in his hand while Tom poured out his full
+heart.
+
+"There's been some nonsense while I was away," he said; "she must have
+been dull and unhinged--you left her too much alone, old man. But it's
+all right now. She couldn't care for anyone but me, after all, and she
+knew it directly she saw me again. And we're to be married before next
+year's out, if luck holds."
+
+"Here's luck, old man!" said Dick, lifting his whisky. When Tom had gone
+to bed, weary with the quick sequence of joy and misery and returning
+joy, Dick read the letter again.
+
+"I can't do it," said the letter, "it's not in me. He loves me too much.
+And I _am_ fond of him. He couldn't bear it. He's weak, you see. He's
+not like you--brave and strong and noble. But I shall always be better
+because you've loved me. I'm going to try to be brave and noble and
+strong like you. And you must help me, Dear. God bless you. Good-bye."
+
+"After all," said Dick, as he watched the white letter turn in the fire
+to black, gold spangled, "after all, it was not so easy. And oh, how it
+would have been worth while!"
+
+
+
+
+MISS EDEN'S BABY
+
+
+MISS EDEN'S life-history was a sad one. She told it to her employer
+before she had been a week at the Beeches. Mrs. Despard came into the
+school-room and surprised the governess in tears. No one could ever
+resist Mrs. Despard--I suppose she has had more confidences than any
+woman in Sussex. Anyhow, Miss Eden dried her tears and faltered out her
+poor little story.
+
+She had been engaged to be married--Mrs. Despard's was a face trained to
+serve and not to betray its owner, so she did not look astonished,
+though Miss Eden was so very homely, poor thing, that the idea of a
+lover seemed almost ludicrous--she had been engaged to be married: and
+her lover had been killed at Elendslaagte, and her father had died of
+heart disease--an attack brought on by the shock of the news, and his
+partner had gone off with all his money, and now she had to go out as a
+governess: her mother and sister were living quietly on the mother's
+little fortune. There was enough for two but not enough for three. So
+Miss Eden had gone governessing.
+
+"But you needn't pity me for that," she said, when Mrs. Despard said
+something kind, "because, really, it's better for me. If I were at home
+doing nothing I should just sit and think of _him_--for hours and hours
+at a time. He was so brave and strong and good--he died cheering his men
+on and waving his sword, and he did love me so. We were to have been
+married in August."
+
+She was weeping again, more violently than before; Mrs. Despard
+comforted her--there is no one who comforts so well--and the governess
+poured out her heart. When the dressing-bell rang Miss Eden pulled
+herself together with a manifest effort.
+
+"I've been awfully weak and foolish," she said, "and you've been most
+kind. Please forgive me--and--and I think I'd rather not speak of it any
+more--ever. It's been a relief, just this once--but I'm going to be
+brave. Thank you, thank you for all your goodness to me. I shall never
+forget it."
+
+And now Miss Eden went about her duties with a courageous smile, and
+Mrs. Despard could not but see and pity the sad heart beneath the
+bravely assumed armour. Miss Eden was fairly well educated, and she
+certainly was an excellent teacher. The children made good progress. She
+worshipped Mrs. Despard--but then every one did that--and she made
+herself pleasures of the little things she was able to do for
+her--mending linen, arranging flowers, running errands, and nursing the
+Baby. She adored the Baby. She used to walk by herself in the Sussex
+lanes, for Mrs. Despard often set her free for two or three hours at a
+time, and more than once the mother and children, turning some leafy
+corner in their blackberrying or nutting expeditions, came upon Miss
+Eden walking along with a far-away look in her eyes, and a face set in a
+mask of steadfast endurance. She would sit sewing on the lawn with Mabel
+and Gracie playing about her, answering their ceaseless chatter with a
+patient smile. To Mrs. Despard she was a pathetic figure. Mr. Despard
+loathed her, but then he never liked women unless they were pretty.
+
+"I ought to be used to your queer pets by now," he said; "but really
+this one is almost too much. Upon my soul, she's the ugliest woman I've
+ever seen."
+
+She certainty was not handsome. Her eyes were fairly good, but mouth and
+nose were clumsy, and hers was one of those faces that seem to have no
+definite outline. Her complexion was dull and unequal. Her hair was
+straight and coarse, and somehow it always looked dusty. Her figure was
+her only good point, and, as Mr. Despard observed, "If a figure without
+a face is any good, why not have a dressmaker's dummy, and have done
+with it?"
+
+Mr. Despard was very glad when he heard that a little legacy had come
+from an uncle, and that Miss Eden was going to give up governessing and
+live with her people.
+
+Miss Eden left in floods of tears, and she clung almost frantically to
+Mrs. Despard.
+
+"You have been so good to me," she said. "I may write to you, mayn't I?
+and come and see you sometimes? You will let me, won't you?"
+
+Tears choked her, and she was driven off in the station fly. And a new
+governess, young, commonplacely pretty, and entirely heart-whole, came
+to take her place, to the open relief of Mr. Despard, and the little
+less pronounced satisfaction of the little girls.
+
+"She'll write to you by every post now, I suppose," said Mr. Despard
+when the conventional letter of thanks for kindness came to his wife.
+But Miss Eden did not write again till Christmas. Then she wrote to ask
+Mrs. Despard's advice. There was a gentleman, a retired tea-broker, in a
+very good position. She liked him--did Mrs. Despard think it would be
+fair to marry him when her heart was buried for ever in that grave at
+Elendslaagte?
+
+"But I don't want to be selfish, and poor Mr. Cave is so devoted. My
+dear mother thinks he would never be the same again if I refused him."
+
+Mr. Despard read the letter, and told his wife to tell the girl to take
+the tea-broker, for goodness' sake, and be thankful. She'd never get
+such another chance. His wife told him not to be coarse, and wrote a
+gentle, motherly letter to Miss Eden.
+
+On New Year's Day came a beautiful and very expensive
+handkerchief-sachet for Mrs. Despard, and the news that Miss Eden was
+engaged. "And already," she wrote, "I feel that I can really become
+attached to Edward. He is goodness itself. Of course, it is not like the
+other. That only comes once in a woman's life, but I believe I shall
+really be happy in a quiet, humdrum way."
+
+After that, news of Miss Eden came thick and fast. Edward was building a
+house for her. Edward had bought her a pony-carriage. Edward had to call
+his house No. 70, Queen's Road--a new Town Council resolution--and it
+wasn't in a street at all, but quite in the country, only there was
+going to be a road there some day. And she had so wanted to call it the
+Beeches, after dear Mrs. Despard's house, where she had been so happy.
+The wedding-day was fixed, and would Mrs. Despard come to the wedding?
+Miss Eden knew it was a good deal to ask; but if she only would!
+
+"It would add more than you can possibly guess to my happiness," she
+said, "if you could come. There is plenty of room in my mother's little
+house. It is small, but very convenient, and it has such a lovely old
+garden, so unusual, you know, in the middle of a town; and if only dear
+Mabel and Gracie might be among my little bridesmaids! The dresses are
+to be half-transparent white silk over rose colour. Dear Edward's father
+insists on ordering them himself from Liberty's. The other bridesmaids
+will be Edward's little nieces--such sweet children. Mother is giving me
+the loveliest trousseau. Of course, I shall make it up to her; but she
+will do it, and I give way, just to please her. It's not pretentious,
+you know, but everything so _good_. Real lace on all the under things,
+and twelve of everything, and--"
+
+The letter wandered on into a maze of _lingerie_ and millinery and silk
+petticoats.
+
+Mr. and Mrs. Despard were still debating the question of the bridesmaids
+whose dresses were to come from Liberty's when a telegraph boy crossed
+the lawn.
+
+Mrs. Despard tore open the envelope.
+
+"Oh--how frightfully sad!" she said. "I _am_ sorry! 'Edward's father
+dangerously ill. Wedding postponed.'"
+
+The next letter was black-edged, and was not signed "Eden." Edward's
+father had insisted on the marriage taking place before he died--it had,
+in fact, been performed by his bedside. It had been a sad time, but Mrs.
+Edward was very happy now.
+
+     "My husband is so good to me, his thoughtful kindness is beyond
+     belief," she wrote. "He anticipates my every wish. I should be
+     indeed ungrateful if I did not love him dearly. Dear Mrs.
+     Despard, this gentle domestic love is very beautiful. I hope I
+     am not treacherous to my dead in being as happy as I am with
+     Edward. Ah! I hear the gate click--I must run and meet him. He
+     says it is not like coming home unless my face is the first he
+     sees when he comes in. Good-bye. A thousand thanks for ever for
+     all your goodness.
+
+                                    "Your grateful Ella Cave."
+
+"Either their carriage drive is unusually long, or her face was _not_
+the first," said Mr. Despard. "Why didn't she go and meet the man, and
+not stop to write all that rot?"
+
+"Don't, Bill," said his wife. "You were always so unjust to that girl."
+
+"Girl!" said Mr. Despard.
+
+And now the letters were full of detail: the late Miss Eden wrote a good
+hand, and expressed herself with clearness. Her letters were a pleasure
+to Mrs. Despard.
+
+"Poor dear!" she said. "It really rejoices my heart to think of her
+being so happy. She describes things very well. I almost feel as though
+I knew every room in her house; it must be very pretty with all those
+Liberty muslin blinds, and the Persian rugs, and the chair-backs
+Edward's grandmother worked--and then the beautiful garden. I think I
+must go to see it all. I do love to see people happy."
+
+"You generally do see them happy," said her husband; "it's a way people
+have when they're near you. Go and see her, by all means."
+
+And Mrs. Despard would have gone, but a letter, bearing the same date as
+her own, crossed it in the post; it must have been delayed, for it
+reached her on the day when she expected an answer to her own letter,
+offering a visit. But the late Miss Eden had evidently not received
+this, for her letter was a mere wail of anguish.
+
+"Edward is ill--typhoid. I am distracted. Write to me when you can. The
+very thought of you comforts me."
+
+"Poor thing," said Mrs. Despard, "I really did think she was going to be
+happy."
+
+Her sympathetic interest followed Edward through all the stages of
+illness and convalescence, as chronicled by his wife's unwearying pen.
+
+Then came the news of the need of a miniature trousseau, and the letters
+breathed of head-flannels, robes, and the charm of tiny embroidered
+caps. "They were Edward's when he was a baby--the daintiest embroidery
+and thread lace. The christening cap is Honiton. They are a little
+yellow with time, of course, but I am bleaching them on the sweet-brier
+hedge. I can see the white patches on the green as I write. They look
+like some strange sort of flowers, and they make me dream of the
+beautiful future."
+
+In due season Baby was born and christened; and then Miss Eden, that
+was, wrote to ask if she might come to the Beeches, and bring the
+darling little one.
+
+Mrs. Despard was delighted. She loved babies. It was a beautiful
+baby--beautifully dressed, and it rested contentedly in the arms of a
+beautifully dressed lady, whose happy face Mrs. Despard could hardly
+reconcile with her recollections of Miss Eden. The young mother's
+happiness radiated from her, and glorified her lips and eyes. Even Mr.
+Despard owned, when the pair had gone, that marriage and motherhood had
+incredibly improved Miss Eden.
+
+And now, the sudden departure of a brother for the other side of the
+world took Mrs. Despard to Southampton, whence his boat sailed, and
+where lived the happy wife and mother, who had been Miss Eden.
+
+When the tears of parting were shed, and the last waving handkerchief
+from the steamer's deck had dwindled to a sharp point of light, and from
+a sharp point of light to an invisible point of parting and sorrow, Mrs.
+Despard dried her pretty eyes, and thought of trains. There was no
+convenient one for an hour or two.
+
+"I'll go and see Ella Cave," said she, and went in a hired carriage.
+"No. 70, Queen's Road," she said. "I think it's somewhere outside the
+town."
+
+"Not it," said the driver, and presently set her down in a horrid little
+street, at a horrid little shop, where they sold tobacco and sweets and
+newspapers and walking-sticks.
+
+"This can't be it! There must be some other Queen's Road?" said Mrs.
+Despard.
+
+"No there ain't," said the man. "What name did yer want?"
+
+"Cave," said Mrs. Despard absently; "Mrs. Edward Cave."
+
+The man went into the shop. Presently he returned.
+
+"She don't live here," he said; "she only calls here for letters."
+
+Mrs. Despard assured herself of this in a brief interview with a frowsy
+woman across a glass-topped show-box of silk-embroidered cigar-cases.
+
+"The young person calls every day, mum," she said; "quite a respectable
+young person, mum, I should say--if she was after your situation."
+
+"Thank you," said Mrs. Despard mechanically, yet with her own
+smile--the smile that still stamps her in the frowsy woman's memory as
+"that pleasant-spoken lady."
+
+She paused a moment on the dirty pavement, and then gave the cabman the
+address of the mother and sister, the address of the little
+house--small, but very convenient--and with a garden--such a lovely old
+garden--and so unusual in the middle of a town.
+
+The cab stopped at a large, sparkling, plate-glassy shop--a very
+high-class fruiterer's and greengrocer's.
+
+The name on the elaborately gilded facia was, beyond any doubt,
+Eden--Frederick Eden.
+
+Mrs. Despard got out and walked into the shop. To this hour the scent of
+Tangerine oranges brings to her a strange, sick, helpless feeling of
+disillusionment.
+
+A stout well-oiled woman, in a very tight puce velveteen bodice with
+bright buttons and a large yellow lace collar, fastened with a blue
+enamel brooch, leaned forward interrogatively.
+
+"Mrs. Cave?" said Mrs. Despard.
+
+"Don't know the name, madam."
+
+"Wasn't that the name of the gentleman Miss Eden married?"
+
+"It seems to me you're making a mistake, madam. Excuse me, but might I
+ask your name?"
+
+"I'm Mrs. Despard. Miss Eden lived with me as governess."
+
+"Oh, yes"--the puce velvet seemed to soften--"very pleased to see you,
+I'm sure! Come inside, madam. Ellen's just run round to the
+fishmonger's. I'm not enjoying very good health just now"--the glance
+was intolerably confidential--"and I thought I could fancy a bit of
+filleted plaice for my supper, or a nice whiting. Come inside, do!"
+
+Mrs. Despard, stunned, could think of no course save that suggested. She
+followed Mrs. Eden into the impossible parlour that bounded the shop on
+the north.
+
+"Do sit down," said Mrs. Eden hospitably, "and the girl shall get you a
+cup of tea. It's full early, but a cup of tea's always welcome, early or
+late, isn't it?"
+
+"Yes, indeed," said Mrs. Despard, automatically. Then she roused herself
+and added, "But please don't trouble, I can't stay more than a few
+minutes. I hope Miss Eden is well?"
+
+"Oh, yes--she's all right. She lives in clover, as you might say, since
+her uncle on the mother's side left her that hundred a year. Made it all
+in fried fish, too. I should have thought it a risk myself, but you
+never know."
+
+Mrs. Despard was struggling with a sensation as of sawdust in the
+throat--sawdust, and a great deal of it, and very dry.
+
+"But I heard that Miss Eden was married--"
+
+"Not she!" said Mrs. Eden, with the natural contempt of one who was.
+
+"I understood that she had married a Mr. Cave."
+
+"It's some other Eden, then. There isn't a Cave in the town, so far as I
+know, except Mr. Augustus; he's a solicitor and Commissioner for Oaths,
+a very good business, and of course he'd never look the same side of the
+road as she was, nor she couldn't expect it."
+
+"But really," Mrs. Despard persisted, "I do think there must be some
+mistake. Because she came to see me--and--and she brought her baby."
+
+Mrs. Eden laughed outright.
+
+"Her baby? Oh, really! But she's never so much as had a young man after
+her, let alone a husband. It's not what she could look for, either, for
+she's no beauty--poor girl!"
+
+Yet the Baby was evidence--of a sort. Mrs. Despard hated herself for
+hinting that perhaps Mrs. Eden did not know everything.
+
+"I don't know what you mean, madam." The puce bodice was visibly moved.
+"That was _my_ baby, bless his little heart. Poor Ellen's a respectable
+girl--she's been with me since she was a little trot of six--all except
+the eleven months she was away with you--and then my Fred see her to the
+door, and fetched her from your station. She _would_ go--though not
+_our_ wish. I suppose she wanted a change. But since then she's never
+been over an hour away, except when she took my Gustavus over to see
+you. She must have told you whose he was--but I suppose you weren't
+paying attention. And I must say I don't think it's becoming in you, if
+you'll excuse me saying so, to come here taking away a young girl's
+character. At least, if she's not so young as she was, of course--we
+none of us are, not even yourself, madam, if you'll pardon me saying
+so."
+
+"I beg your pardon," said Mrs. Despard. She had never felt so
+helpless--so silly. The absurd parlour, ponderous with plush, dusky with
+double curtains, had for her all the effect of a nightmare.
+
+She felt that she was swimming blindly in a sea of disenchantment.
+
+"Don't think me inquisitive," she said, "but Miss Eden was engaged,
+wasn't she, some time ago, to someone who was killed in South Africa?"
+
+"Never--in all her born days," said Mrs. Eden, with emphasis. "I suppose
+it's her looks. I've had a good many offers myself, though I'm not what
+you might call anything out of the way--but poor Ellen--never had so
+much as a nibble."
+
+Mrs. Despard gasped. She clung against reason to the one spar of hope in
+this sea of faiths dissolved. It might be--it must be--some mistake!
+
+"You see, poor Ellen"--Mrs. Eden made as much haste to smash up the spar
+as though she had seen it--"poor Ellen, when her mother and father died
+she was but six. There was only her and my Fred, so naturally we took
+her, and what little money the old lady left we spent on her, sending
+her to a good school, and never counting the bit of clothes and
+victuals. She was always for learning something, and above her station,
+and the Rev. Mrs. Peterson at St. Michael, and All Angels--she made a
+sort of pet of Ellen, and set her up, more than a bit."
+
+Mrs. Despard remembered that Mrs. Peterson had been Miss Eden's
+reference.
+
+"And then she _would_ come to you--though welcome to share along with
+us, and you can see for yourself it's a good business--and when that
+little bit was left her, of course, she'd no need to work, so she came
+home here, and I must say she's always been as handy a girl and obliging
+as you could wish, but wandering, too, in her thoughts. Always pens and
+ink. I shouldn't wonder but what she wrote poetry. Yards and yards of
+writing she does. I don't know what she does with it all."
+
+But Mrs. Despard knew.
+
+Mrs. Eden talked on gaily and gladly--till not even a straw was left for
+her hearer to cling to.
+
+"Thank you very much," she said. "I see it was all a mistake. I must
+have been wrong about the address." She spoke hurriedly--for she had
+heard in the shop a step that she knew.
+
+For one moment a white face peered in at the glass door--then vanished;
+it was Miss Eden's face--her face as it had been when she told of her
+lost lover who died waving his sword at Elendslaagte! But the telling of
+that tale had moved Mrs. Despard to no such passion of pity as this. For
+from that face now something was blotted out, and the lack of it was
+piteous beyond thought.
+
+"Thank you very much. I am so sorry to have troubled you," she said, and
+somehow got out of the plush parlour, and through the shop,
+fruit-filled, orange-scented.
+
+At the station there was still time, and too much time. The bookstall
+yielded pencil, paper, envelope, and stamp. She wrote--
+
+"Ella, dear, whatever happens, I am always your friend. Let me
+know--can I do anything for you? I know all about everything now. But
+don't think I'm angry--I am only so sorry for you, dear--so very, very
+sorry. Do let me help you."
+
+She addressed the letter to Miss Eden at the greengrocer's. Afterwards
+she thought that she had better have left it alone. It could do no good,
+and it might mean trouble with her sister-in-law, for Miss Eden, late
+Mrs. Cave, the happy wife and mother. She need not have troubled
+herself--for the letter came back a week later with a note from Mrs.
+Eden of the bursting, bright-buttoned, velvet bodice. Ellen had gone
+away--no one knew where she had gone.
+
+Mrs. Despard will always reproach herself for not having rushed towards
+the white face that peered through the glass door. She could have done
+something--anything. So she thinks, but I am not sure.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"And it was none of it true, Bill," she said piteously, when, Mabel and
+Gracie safely tucked up in bed, she told him all about it. "I don't know
+how she could. No dead lover--no retired tea-broker--no pretty house,
+and sweet-brier hedge with ... and no Baby."
+
+"She was a lying lunatic," said Bill. "I never liked her. Hark! what's
+that? All right, Love-a-duck--daddy's here!"
+
+He went up the stairs three at a time to catch up his baby, who had a
+way of wandering, with half-awake wailings, out of her crib in the small
+hours.
+
+"All right, Kiddie-winks, daddy's got you," he murmured, coming back
+into the drawing-room with the little soft, warm, flannelly bundle
+cuddled close to him.
+
+"She's asleep again already," he said, settling her comfortably in his
+arms. "Don't worry any more about that Eden girl, Molly--she's not worth
+it."
+
+His wife knelt beside him and buried her face against his waistcoat and
+against the little flannel night-gown.
+
+"Oh, Bill," she said, and her voice was thick with tears, "don't say
+things like that. Don't you see? It was cruel, cruel! She was all
+alone--no mother, no sister, no lover. She was made so that no one could
+ever love her. And she wanted love so much--so frightfully much, so
+that she just _had_ to pretend that she had it."
+
+"And what about the Baby?" asked Mr. Despard, taking one arm from his
+own baby to pass it round his wife's shoulders. "Don't be a darling
+idiot, Molly. What about the Baby?"
+
+"Oh--don't you see?" Mrs. Despard was sobbing now in good earnest. "She
+wanted the Baby more than anything else. Oh--don't say horrid things
+about her, Bill! We've got everything--and she'd got nothing at
+all--don't say things--don't!"
+
+Mr. Despard said nothing. He thumped his wife sympathetically on the
+back. It was the baby who spoke.
+
+"Want mammy," she said sleepily, and at the transfer remembered her
+father, "and daddy too," she added politely.
+
+Miss Eden was somewhere or other. Wherever she was she was alone.
+
+And these three were together.
+
+"I daresay you're right about that girl," said Mr. Despard. "Poor
+wretch! By Jove, she was ugly!"
+
+
+
+
+THE LOVER, THE GIRL, AND THE ONLOOKER
+
+
+The two were alone in the grassy courtyard of the ruined castle. The
+rest of the picnic party had wandered away from them, or they from it.
+Out of the green-grown mound of fallen masonry by the corner of the
+chapel a great may-bush grew, silvered and pearled on every scented,
+still spray. The sky was deep, clear, strong blue above, and against the
+blue, the wallflowers shone bravely from the cracks and crevices of
+ruined arch and wall and buttress.
+
+"They shine like gold," she said. "I wish one could get at them!"
+
+"Do you want some?" he said, and on the instant his hand had found a
+strong jutting stone, his foot a firm ledge--and she saw his figure,
+grey flannel against grey stone, go up the wall towards the yellow
+flowers.
+
+"Oh, don't!" she cried. "I don't _really_ want them--please not--I
+wish--"
+
+Then she stopped, because he was already some twelve feet from the
+ground, and she knew that one should not speak to a man who is climbing
+ruined walls. So she clasped her hands and waited, and her heart seemed
+to go out like a candle in the wind, and to leave only a dark, empty,
+sickening space where, a moment before, it had beat in anxious joy. For
+she loved him, had loved him these two years, had loved him since the
+day of their first meeting. And that was just as long as he had loved
+her. But he had never told his love. There is a code of honour, right or
+wrong, and it forbids a man with an income of a hundred and fifty a year
+to speak of love to a girl who is reckoned an heiress. There are plenty
+who transgress the code, but they are in all the other stories. He drove
+his passion on the curb, and mastered it. Yet the questions--Does she
+love me? Does she know I love her? Does she wonder why I don't speak?
+and the counter-questions--Will she think I don't care? Doesn't she
+perhaps care at all? Will she marry someone else before I've earned the
+right to try to make her love me? afforded a see-saw of reflection,
+agonising enough, for those small hours of wakefulness when we let our
+emotions play the primitive games with us. But always the morning
+brought strength to keep to his resolution. He saw her three times a
+year, when Christmas, Easter, and Midsummer brought her to stay with an
+aunt, brought him home to his people for holidays. And though he had
+denied himself the joy of speaking in words, he had let his eyes speak
+more than he knew. And now he had reached the wallflowers high up, and
+was plucking them and throwing them down so that they fell in a wavering
+bright shower round her feet. She did not pick them up. Her eyes were on
+him; and the empty place where her heart used to be seemed to swell till
+it almost choked her.
+
+He was coming down now. He was only about twenty-five feet from the
+ground. There was no sound at all but the grating of his feet as he set
+them on the stones, and the movement, now and then, of a bird in the
+ivy. Then came a rustle, a gritty clatter, loud falling stones: his foot
+had slipped, and he had fallen. No--he was hanging by his hands above
+the great refectory arch, and his body swung heavily with the impetus
+of the checked fall. He was moving along now, slowly--hanging by his
+hands; now he grasped an ivy root--another--and pulled himself up till
+his knee was on the moulding of the arch. She would never have believed
+anyone who had told her that only two minutes had been lived between the
+moment of his stumble and the other moment when his foot touched the
+grass and he came towards her among the fallen wallflowers. She was a
+very nice girl and not at all forward, and I cannot understand or excuse
+her conduct. She made two steps towards him with her hands held
+out--caught him by the arms just above the elbow--shook him angrily, as
+one shakes a naughty child--looked him once in the eyes and buried her
+face in his neck--sobbing long, dry, breathless sobs.
+
+Even then he tried to be strong.
+
+"Don't!" he said tenderly, "don't worry. It's all right--I was a fool.
+Pull yourself together--there's someone coming."
+
+"I don't care," she said, for the touch of his cheek, pressed against
+her hair, told her all that she wanted to know. "Let them come, I don't
+care! Oh, how could you be so silly and horrid? Oh, thank God, thank
+God! Oh, how could you?"
+
+Of course, a really honourable young man would have got out of the
+situation somehow. He didn't. He accepted it, with his arms round her
+and his lips against the face where the tears now ran warm and salt. It
+was one of the immortal moments.
+
+The picture was charming, too--a picture to wring the heart of the
+onlooker with envy, or sympathy, according to his nature. But there was
+only one onlooker, a man of forty, or thereabouts, who paused for an
+instant under the great gate of the castle and took in the full charm
+and meaning of the scene. He turned away, and went back along the green
+path with hell in his heart. The other two were in Paradise. The
+Onlooker fell like the third in Eden--the serpent, in fact. Two miles
+away he stopped and lit a pipe.
+
+"It's got to be borne, I suppose," he said, "like all the rest of it.
+_She's_ happy enough. I ought to be glad. Anyway, I can't stop it."
+Perhaps he swore a little. If he did, the less precise and devotional
+may pardon him. He had loved the Girl since her early teens, and it was
+only yesterday's post that had brought him the appointment that one
+might marry on. The appointment had come through her father, for whom
+the Onlooker had fagged at Eton. He went back to London, hell burning
+briskly. Moral maxims and ethereal ideas notwithstanding, it was
+impossible for him to be glad that she was happy--like that.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Lover who came to his love over strewn wallflowers desired always,
+as has been seen, to act up to his moral ideas. So he took next day a
+much earlier train than was at all pleasant, and called on her father to
+explain his position and set forth his prospects. His coming was
+heralded by a letter from her. One must not quote it--it is not proper
+to read other people's letters, especially letters to a trusted father,
+from a child, only and adored. Its effect may be indicated briefly. It
+showed the father that the Girl's happiness had had two long years in
+which to learn to grow round the thought of the young man, whom he now
+faced for the first time. Odd, for to the father he seemed just like
+other young men. It seemed to him that there were so many more of the
+same pattern from whom she might have chosen. And many of them well off,
+too. However, the letter lay in the prosperous pocket-book in the breast
+of the father's frock-coat, and the Lover was received as though that
+letter were a charm to ensure success. A faulty, or at least a
+slow-working, charm, however, for the father did not lift a bag of gold
+from his safe and say: "Take her, take this also--be happy"--he only
+consented to a provisional engagement, took an earnest interest in the
+young man's affairs, and offered to make his daughter an annual
+allowance on her marriage.
+
+"At my death she will have more," he said, "for, of course, I have
+insured my life. You, of course, will insure yours."
+
+"Of course I will," the Lover echoed warmly; "does it matter what
+office?"
+
+"Oh, any good office--the Influential, if you like. I'm a director, you
+know."
+
+The young man made a reverent note of the name, and the interview seemed
+played out.
+
+"It's a complicated nuisance," the father mused; "it isn't even as if I
+knew anything of the chap. I oughtn't to have allowed the child to make
+these long visits to her aunt. Or I ought to have gone with her. But I
+never could stand my sister Fanny. Well, well," and he went back to his
+work with the plain unvarnished heartache of the anxious father--not
+romantic and pretty like the lover's pangs, but as uncomfortable as
+toothache, all the same.
+
+He had another caller that afternoon; he whom we know as the Onlooker
+came to thank him for the influence that had got him the appointment as
+doctor to the Influential Insurance Company.
+
+The father opened his heart to the Onlooker--and the Onlooker had to
+bear it. It was an hour full of poignant sentiments. The only definite
+thought that came to the Onlooker was this--"I must hold my tongue. I
+must hold my tongue." He held it.
+
+Three days later he took up his new work. And the very first man who
+came to him for medical examination was the man in whose arms he had
+seen the girl he loved.
+
+The Onlooker asked the first needful questions automatically. To himself
+he was saying: "The situation is dramatically good; but I don't see how
+to develop the action. It really is rather amusing that I--_I_ should
+have to tap his beastly chest, and listen to his cursed lungs, and ask
+sympathetic questions about his idiotic infant illnesses--one thing, he
+ought to be able to remember those pretty vividly--the confounded pup."
+
+The Onlooker had never done anything wronger than you have done, my good
+reader, and he never expected to meet a giant temptation, any more than
+you do. A man may go all his days and never meet Apollyon. On the other
+hand, Apollyon may be waiting for one round the corner of the next
+street. The devil was waiting for the Onlooker in the answers to his
+careless questions--"Father alive? No? What did he die of?" For the
+answer was "Heart," and in it the devil rose and showed the Onlooker the
+really only true and artistic way to develop the action in this
+situation, so dramatic in its possibilities. The illuminative flash of
+temptation was so sudden, so brilliant, that the Doctor-Onlooker closed
+his soul's eyes and yielded without even the least pretence of
+resistance.
+
+He took his stethoscope from the table, and he felt as though he had
+picked up a knife to stab the other man in the back. As, in fact, he
+had.
+
+Ten minutes later, the stabbed man was reeling from the Onlooker's
+consulting room. Mind and soul reeled, that is, but his body was stiffer
+and straighter than usual. He walked with more than his ordinary
+firmness of gait, as a man does who is just drunk enough to know that he
+must try to look sober.
+
+He walked down the street, certain words ringing in his ears--"Heart
+affected--probably hereditary weakness. No office in the world would
+insure you."
+
+And so it was all over--the dreams, the hopes, the palpitating faith in
+a beautiful future. His days might be long, they might be brief; but be
+his life long or short, he must live it alone. He had a little fight
+with himself as he went down Wimpole Street; then he hailed a hansom,
+and went and told her father, who quite agreed with him that it was all
+over. The father wondered at himself for being more sorry than glad.
+
+Then the Lover went and told the Girl. He had told the father first to
+insure himself against any chance of yielding to what he knew the Girl
+would say. She said it, of course, with her dear arms round his neck.
+
+"I won't give you up just because you're ill," she said; "why, you want
+me more than ever!"
+
+"But I may die at any moment."
+
+"So may I! And you may live to be a hundred--I'll take my chance. Oh,
+don't you see, too, that if there _is_ only a little time we ought to
+spend it together?"
+
+"It's impossible," he said, "it's no good. I must set my teeth and bear
+it. And you--I hope it won't be as hard for you as it will for me."
+
+"But you _can't_ give me up if I won't _be_ given up, can you?"
+
+His smile struck her dumb. It was more convincing than his words.
+
+"But why?" she said presently. "Why--why--_why_?"
+
+"Because I won't; because it's wrong. My father ought never to have
+married. He had no right to bring me into the world to suffer like this.
+It's a crime. And I'll not be a criminal. Not even for you--not even for
+you. You'll forgive me--won't you? I didn't know--and--oh, what's the
+use of talking?"
+
+Yet they talked for hours. Conventionally he should have torn himself
+away, unable to bear the strain of his agony. As a matter of fact, he
+sat by her holding her hand. It was for the last time--the last, last
+time. There was really a third at that interview. The Onlooker had
+imagination enough to see the scene between the parting lovers.
+
+They parted.
+
+And now the Onlooker dared not meet her--dared not call at the house as
+he had used to do. At last--the father pressed him--he went. He met her.
+And it was as though he had met the ghost of her whom he had loved. Her
+eyes had blue marks under them, her chin had grown more pointed, her
+nose sharper. There was a new line on her forehead, and her eyes had
+changed.
+
+Over the wine he heard from the father that she was pining for the
+Lover who had inherited heart disease.
+
+"I suppose it was you who saw him, by the way," said he, "a tall,
+well-set-up young fellow--dark--not bad looking."
+
+"I--I don't remember," lied the Onlooker, with the eyes of his memory on
+the white face of the man he had stabbed.
+
+Now the Lover and the Onlooker had each his own burden to bear. And the
+Lover's was the easier. He worked still, though there was now nothing to
+work for more; he worked as he had never worked in his life, because he
+knew that if he did not take to work he should take to drink or worse
+devils, and he set his teeth and swore that her Lover should not be
+degraded. He knew that she loved him, and there was a kind of fierce
+pain-pleasure--like that of scratching a sore--in the thought that she
+was as wretched as he was, that, divided in all else, they were yet
+united in their suffering. He thought it made him more miserable to know
+of her misery. But it didn't. He never saw her, but he dreamed of her,
+and sometimes the dreams got out of hand, and carried him a thousand
+worlds from all that lay between them. Then he had to wake up. And that
+was bad.
+
+But the Onlooker was no dreamer, and he saw her about three times a
+week. He saw how the light of life that his lying lips had blown out was
+not to be rekindled by his or any man's breath. He saw her slenderness
+turn to thinness, the pure, healthy pallor of her rounded cheek change
+to a sickly white, covering a clear-cut mask of set endurance. And there
+was no work that could shut out that sight--no temptation of the world,
+the flesh, or the devil to give him even the relief of a fight. He had
+no temptations; he had never had but the one. His soul was naked to the
+bitter wind of the actual; and the days went by, went by, and every day
+he knew more and more surely that he had lied and thrown away his soul,
+and that the wages of sin were death, and no other thing whatever. And
+gradually, little by little, the whole worth of life seemed to lie in
+the faint, far chance of his being able to undo the one triumphantly
+impulsive and unreasoning action of his life.
+
+But there are some acts that there is no undoing. And the hell that had
+burned in his heart so fiercely when he had seen her in the other man's
+arms burned now with new bright lights and infernal flickering flame
+tongues.
+
+And at last, out of hell, the Onlooker reached out his hands and caught
+at prayer. He caught at it as a drowning man catches at a white gleam in
+the black of the surging sea about him--it may be a painted spar, it may
+be empty foam. The Onlooker prayed.
+
+And that very evening he ran up against the Lover at the Temple Station,
+and he got into the same carriage with him.
+
+He said, "Excuse me. You don't remember me?"
+
+"I'm not likely to have forgotten you," said the Lover.
+
+"I fear my verdict was a great blow. You look very worried, very ill.
+News like that is a great shock."
+
+"It _is_ a little unsettling," said the Lover.
+
+"Are you still going on with your usual work?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Speaking professionally, I think you are wrong. You lessen your chances
+of life! Why don't you try a complete change?"
+
+"Because--if you must know, my chances of life have ceased to interest
+me."
+
+The Lover was short with the Onlooker; but he persisted.
+
+"Well, if one isn't interested in one's life, one may be interested in
+one's death--or the manner of it. In your place, I should enlist. It's
+better to die of a bullet in South Africa than of fright in London."
+
+That roused the Lover, as it was meant to do.
+
+"I don't really know what business it is of yours, sir," he said; "but
+it's your business to know that they wouldn't pass a man with a heart
+like mine."
+
+"I don't know. They're not so particular just now. They want men. I
+should try it if I were you. If you don't have a complete change you'll
+go all to pieces. That's all."
+
+The Onlooker got out at the next station. Short of owning to his own
+lie, he had done what he could to insure its being found out for the lie
+it was--or, at least, for a mistake. And when he had done what he could,
+he saw that the Lover might not find it out--might be passed for the
+Army--might go to the Front--might be killed--and then--"Well, I've
+done my best, anyhow," he said to himself--and himself answered him:
+"Liar--you have _not_ done your best! You will have to eat your lie.
+Yes--though it will smash your life and ruin you socially and
+professionally. You will have to tell him you lied--and tell him why.
+You will never let him go to South Africa without telling him the
+truth--and you know it."
+
+"Well--you know best, I suppose," he said to himself.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"But are you perfectly certain?"
+
+"Perfectly. I tell you, man, you're sound's a bell, and a fine fathom of
+a young man ye are, too. Certain? Losh, man--ye can call in the whole
+College of Physeecians in consultation, an' I'll wager me professional
+reputation they'll endorse me opeenion. Yer hairt's as sound's a roach.
+T'other man must ha' been asleep when ye consulted him. Ye'll mak' a
+fine soldier, my lad."
+
+"I think not," said the Lover--and he went out from the presence. This
+time he reeled like a man too drunk to care how drunk he looks.
+
+He drove in cabs from Harley Street to Wimpole Street, and from Wimpole
+Street to Brooke Street--and he saw Sir William this and Sir Henry that,
+and Mr. The-other-thing, the great heart specialist.
+
+And then he bought a gardenia, and went home and dressed himself in his
+most beautiful frock-coat and his softest white silk tie, and put the
+gardenia in his button-hole--and went to see the Girl.
+
+"Looks like as if he was going to a wedding," said his landlady.
+
+When he had told the Girl everything, and when she was able to do
+anything but laugh and cry and cling to him with thin hands, she said--
+
+"Dear--I do so hate to think badly of anyone. But do you really think
+that man was mistaken? He's very, very clever."
+
+"My child--Sir Henry--and Sir William and Mr.--"
+
+"Ah! I don't mean _that_. I _know_ you're all right. Thank God! Oh,
+thank God! I mean, don't you think he may have lied to you to prevent
+your--marrying me?"
+
+"But why should he?"
+
+"He asked me to marry him three weeks ago. He's a very old friend of
+ours. I do hate to be suspicious--but--it is odd. And then his trying to
+get you to South Africa. I'm certain he wanted you out of the way. He
+wanted you to get killed. Oh, how can people be so cruel!"
+
+"I believe you're right," said the Lover thoughtfully; "I couldn't have
+believed that a man could be base like that, through and through. But I
+suppose some people _are_ like that--without a gleam of feeling or
+remorse or pity."
+
+"You ought to expose him."
+
+"Not I--we'll just cut him. That's all I'll trouble to do. I've got
+_you_--I've got you in spite of him--I can't waste my time in hunting
+down vermin."
+
+
+
+
+THE DUEL
+
+
+"BUT I wasn't doing any harm," she urged piteously. She looked like a
+child just going to cry.
+
+"He was holding your hand."
+
+"He wasn't--I was holding his. I was telling him his fortune. And,
+anyhow, it's not your business."
+
+She had remembered this late and phrased it carelessly.
+
+"It is my Master's business," said he.
+
+She repressed the retort that touched her lips. After all, there was
+something fine about this man, who, in the first month of his
+ministrations as Parish Priest, could actually dare to call on her, the
+richest and most popular woman in the district, and accuse her of--well,
+most people would hardly have gone so far as to call it flirting.
+Propriety only knew what the Reverend Christopher Cassilis might be
+disposed to call it.
+
+They sat in the pleasant fire-lit drawing-room looking at each other.
+
+"He's got a glorious face," she thought. "Like a Greek god--or a
+Christian martyr! I wonder whether he's ever been in love?"
+
+He thought: "She is abominably pretty. I suppose beauty _is_ a
+temptation."
+
+"Well," she said impatiently, "you've been very rude indeed, and I've
+listened to you. Is your sermon quite done? Have you any more to say? Or
+shall I give you some tea?"
+
+"I have more to say," he answered, turning his eyes from hers. "You are
+beautiful and young and rich--you have a kind heart--oh, yes--I've heard
+little things in the village already. You are a born general. You
+organise better than any woman I ever knew, though it's only dances and
+picnics and theatricals and concerts. You have great gifts. You could do
+great work in the world, and you throw it all away; you give your life
+to the devil's dance you call pleasure. Why do you do it?"
+
+"Is that your business too?" she asked again.
+
+And again he answered--
+
+"It is my Master's business."
+
+Had she read his words in a novel they would have seemed to her
+priggish, unnatural, and superlatively impertinent. Spoken by those
+thin, perfectly curved lips, they were at least interesting.
+
+"That wasn't what you began about," she said, twisting the rings on her
+fingers. The catalogue of her gifts and graces was less a novelty to her
+than the reproaches to her virtue.
+
+"No--am I to repeat what I began about? Ah--but I will. I began by
+saying what I came here to say: that you, as a married woman, have no
+right to turn men's heads and make them long for what can never be."
+
+"But you don't know," she said. "My husband--"
+
+"I don't wish to know," he interrupted. "Your husband is alive, and you
+are bound to be faithful to him, in thought, word, and deed. What I saw
+and heard in the little copse last night--"
+
+"I do wish you wouldn't," she said. "You talk as if--"
+
+"No," he said, "I'm willing--even anxious, I think--to believe that you
+would not--could not--"
+
+"Oh," she cried, jumping up, "this is intolerable! How dare you!"
+
+He had risen too.
+
+"I'm not afraid of you," he said. "I'm not afraid of your anger, nor of
+your--your other weapons. Think what you are! Think of your great
+powers--and you are wasting them all in making fools of a pack of young
+idiots--"
+
+"But what could I do with my gifts--as you call them?"
+
+"Do?--why, you could endow and organise and run any one of a hundred
+schemes for helping on God's work in the world."
+
+"For instance?" Her charming smile enraged him.
+
+"For instance? Well--_for instance_--you might start a home for those
+women who began as you have begun, and who have gone down into hell, as
+you will go--unless you let yourself be warned."
+
+She was for the moment literally speechless. Then she remembered how he
+had said: "I am not afraid of--your weapons." She drew a deep breath
+and spoke gently--
+
+"I believe you don't mean to be insulting--I believe you mean kindly to
+me. Please say no more now. I'll think over it all. I'm not
+angry--only--do you really think you understand everything?"
+
+He might have answered that he did not understand her. She did not mean
+him to understand. She knew well enough that she was giving him
+something to puzzle over when she smiled that beautiful, troubled,
+humble, appealing half-smile.
+
+He did not answer at all. He stood a moment twisting his soft hat in his
+hands: she admired his hands very much.
+
+"Forgive me if I've pained you more than was needed," he said at last,
+"it is only because--" here her smile caught him, and he ended vaguely
+in a decreasing undertone. She heard the words "king's jewels," "pearl
+of great price."
+
+When he was gone she said "_Well!_" more than once. Then she ran to the
+low mirror over the mantelpiece, and looked earnestly at herself.
+
+"You do look rather nice to-day," she said. "And so he's not afraid of
+any of your weapons! And I'm not afraid of any of his. It's a fair duel.
+Only all the provocation came from him--so the choice of weapons is
+mine. And they shall be _my_ weapons: he has weapons to match them right
+enough, only the poor dear doesn't know it." She went away to dress for
+dinner, humming gaily--
+
+    "My love has breath o' roses,
+     O' roses, o' roses;
+     And arms like lily posies
+     To fold a lassie in!"
+
+Not next day--she was far too clever for that, but on the day after that
+he received a note. Her handwriting was charming; no extravagances,
+every letter soberly but perfectly formed.
+
+"I have been thinking of all you said the other day. You are quite
+mistaken about some things--but in some you are right. Will you show me
+how to work? I will do whatever you tell me."
+
+Then the Reverend Christopher was glad of the courage that had inspired
+him to denounce to his parishioners all that seemed to him amiss in
+them.
+
+"I am glad," he said to himself, "that I had the courage to treat her
+exactly as I have done the others--even if she _has_ beautiful hair, and
+eyes like--like--"
+
+He stopped the thought before he found the simile--not because he
+imagined that there could be danger in it, but because he had been
+trained to stop thoughts of eyes and hair as neatly as a skilful boxer
+stops a blow.
+
+She had not been so trained, and she admired his eyes and hair quite as
+much as he might have admired hers if she had not been married.
+
+So now the Reverend Christopher had a helper in his parish work; and he
+needed help, for his plain-speaking had already offended half his
+parish. And his helper was, as he had had the sense to know she could
+be, the most accomplished organiser in the country. She ran the parish
+library, she arranged the school treat, she started evening classes for
+wood carving and art needlework. She spent money like water, and time as
+freely as money. Quietly, persistently, relentlessly, she was making
+herself necessary to the Reverend Christopher. He wrote to her every
+day--there were so many instructions to give--but he seldom spoke with
+her. When he called she was never at home. Sometimes they met in the
+village and exchanged a few sentences. She was always gravely sweet,
+intensely earnest. There was a certain smile which he remembered--a
+beautiful, troubled, appealing smile. He wondered why she smiled no
+more.
+
+Her friends shrugged their shoulders over her new fancy.
+
+"It is odd," her bosom friend said. "It can't be the parson, though he's
+as beautiful as he can possibly be, because she sees next to nothing of
+him. And yet I can't think that Betty of all people could really--"
+
+"Oh--I don't know," said the bosom friend of her bosom friend. "Women
+often do take to that sort of thing, you know, when they get tired of--"
+
+"Of?"
+
+"The other sort of thing, don't you know!"
+
+"How horrid you are," said Betty's bosom friend. "I believe you're a
+most dreadful cynic, really."
+
+"Not at all," said the friend, complacently stroking his moustache.
+
+Betty certainly was enjoying herself. She had the great gift of enjoying
+thoroughly any new game. She enjoyed, first, the newness; and, besides,
+the hidden lining of her new masquerade dress enchanted her. But as her
+new industries developed she began to enjoy the things for themselves.
+It is always delightful to do what we can do well, and the Reverend
+Christopher had been right when he said she was a born general.
+
+"How easy it all is," she said, "and what a fuss those clergy-hags make
+about it! What a wife I should be for a bishop!" She smiled and sighed.
+
+It was pleasant, too, to wake in the morning, not to the recollection of
+the particular stage which yesterday's flirtation happened to have
+reached, but to the sense of some difficulty overcome, some object
+achieved, some rough place made smooth for her Girls' Friendly, or her
+wood carvers, or her Parish Magazine. And within it all the secret charm
+of a purpose transfiguring with its magic this eager, strenuous, working
+life.
+
+Her avoidance of the Reverend Christopher struck him at first as modest,
+discreet, and in the best possible taste. But presently it seemed to him
+that she rather overdid it. There were many things he would have liked
+to discuss with her, but she always evaded talk with him. Why? he began
+to ask himself why. And the question wormed through his brain more and
+more searchingly. He had seen her at work now; he knew her powers, and
+her graces--the powers and the graces that made her the adored of her
+Friendly girls and her carving boys. He remembered, with hot ears and
+neck crimson above his clerical collar, that interview. The things he
+had said to her! How could he have done it? Blind idiot that he had
+been! And she had taken it all so sweetly, so nobly, so humbly. She had
+only needed a word to turn her from the frivolities of the world to
+better things. It need not have been the sort of word he had used. And
+at a word she had turned. That it should have been at _his_ word was not
+perhaps a very subtle flattery--but the Reverend Christopher swallowed
+it and never tasted it. He was not trained to distinguish the flavours
+of flatteries. He never tasted it, but it worked in his blood, for all
+that. And why, why, why would she never speak to him? Could it be that
+she was afraid that he would speak to her now as he had once spoken? He
+blushed again.
+
+Next time he met her she was coming up to the church with a big basket
+of flowers for the altar. He took the basket from her and carried it in.
+
+"Let me help you," he said.
+
+"No," she said in that sweet, simple, grave way of hers. "I can do it
+very well. Indeed, I would rather."
+
+He had to go. The arrangement of the flowers took more than an hour, but
+when she came out with the empty basket, he was waiting in the porch.
+Her heart gave a little joyful jump.
+
+"I want to speak to you," said he.
+
+"I'm rather late," she said, as usual; "couldn't you write?"
+
+"No," he said, "I can't write this. Sit down a moment in the porch."
+
+She loved the masterfulness of his tone. He stood before her.
+
+"I want you to forgive me for speaking to you as I did--once. I'm
+afraid you're afraid that I shall behave like that again. You needn't
+be."
+
+"Score number one," she said to herself. Aloud she said--
+
+"I am not afraid," and she said it sweetly, seriously.
+
+"I was wrong," he went on eagerly. "I was terribly wrong. I see it quite
+plainly now. You do forgive me--don't you?"
+
+"Yes," said she soberly, and sighed.
+
+There was a little silence. Her serious eyes watched the way of the wind
+dimpling the tall, feathery grass that grew above the graves.
+
+"Are you unhappy?" he asked; "you never smile now."
+
+"I am too busy to smile, I suppose!" she said, and smiled the beautiful,
+humble, appealing smile he had so longed to see again, though he had not
+known the longing by its right name.
+
+"Can't we be friends?" he ventured. "You--I am afraid you can never
+trust me again."
+
+"Yes, I can," she said. "It was very bitter at the time, but I thought
+it was so brave of you--and kind, too--to care what became of me. If
+you remember, I did want to trust you, even on that dreadful day, but
+you wouldn't let me."
+
+"I was a brute," he said remorsefully.
+
+"I do want to tell you one thing. Even if that boy had been holding my
+hand I should have thought I had a right to let him, if I liked--just as
+much as though I were a girl, or a widow."
+
+"I don't understand. But tell me--please tell me anything you _will_
+tell me." His tone was very humble.
+
+"My husband was a beast," she said calmly. "He betrayed me, he beat me,
+he had every vile quality a man can have. No, I'll be just to him: he
+was always good tempered when he was drunk. But when he was sober he
+used to beat me and pinch me--"
+
+"But--but you could have got a separation, a divorce," he gasped.
+
+"A separation wouldn't have freed me--really. And the Church doesn't
+believe in divorce," she said demurely. "_I_ did, however, and I left
+him, and instructed a solicitor. But the brute went mad before I could
+get free from him; and now, I suppose, I'm tied for life to a mad dog."
+
+"Good God!" said the Reverend Christopher.
+
+"I thought it all out--oh, many, many nights!--and I made up my mind
+that I would go out and enjoy myself. I never had a good time when I was
+a girl. And another thing I decided--quite definitely--that if ever I
+fell in love I would--I should have the right to--I mean that I wouldn't
+let a horrible, degraded brute of a lunatic stand between me and the man
+I loved. And I was quite sure that I was right."
+
+"And do you still think this?" he asked in a low voice.
+
+"Ah," she said, "you've changed everything! I don't think the same about
+anything as I used to do. I think those two years with him must have
+made me nearly as mad as he is. And then I was so young! I am only
+twenty-three now, you know--and it did seem hard never to have had any
+fun. I did want so much to be happy."
+
+She had not intended to speak like this, but even as she spoke she saw
+that this truth-telling far outshone the lamp of lies she had trimmed
+ready.
+
+"You _will_ be happy," he said; "there are better things in the world
+than--"
+
+"Yes," she said; "oh, yes!"
+
+Betty did nothing by halves. She had kept a barrier between her and him
+till she had excited him to break it down. The barrier once broken, she
+let it lie where he had thrown it, and became, all at once, in the most
+natural, matter-of-fact, guileless way, his friend.
+
+She consulted him about everything. Let him call when he would, she
+always received him. She surrounded him with the dainty feminine spider
+webs from which his life, almost monastic till now, had been quite free.
+She imported a knitting aunt, so that he should not take fright at long
+tete-a-tetes. The knitting aunt was deafish and blindish, and did not
+walk much in the rose garden. Betty knew a good deal about roses, and
+she taught the Reverend Christopher all she knew. She knew a little of
+the hearts of men, and she gently pushed him on the road to forgiveness
+from that half of the parish whom his first enthusiastic denunciations
+had offended. She rounded his angles. She turned a wayward ascetic into
+a fairly good parish priest. And he talked to her of ideals and honour
+and the service of God and the work of the world. And she listened, and
+her beauty spoke to him so softly that he did not know that he heard.
+
+One day after long silence she turned quickly and met his eyes. After
+that she ceased to spin webs, for she saw. Yet she was as blind as he,
+though she did not know it any more than he did.
+
+At last he saw, in his turn, and the flash of the illumination nearly
+blinded him.
+
+It was late evening: Betty was nailing up a trailing rose, and he was
+standing by the ladder holding the nails and the snippets of scarlet
+cloth. The ladder slipped, and he caught her in his arms. As soon as she
+had assured him that she was not hurt, he said good night and left her.
+
+Betty went indoors and cried. "What a pity!" she said. "Oh, what a pity!
+Now he'll be frightened, and it's all over. He'll never come again."
+
+But the next evening he came, and when they had walked through the rose
+garden and had come to the sun-dial he stopped and spoke--
+
+"I've been thinking of nothing else since I saw you. When I caught you
+last night. Forgive me if I'm a fool--but when I held you--don't be
+angry--but it seemed to me that you loved me--"
+
+"Nothing of the sort," said Betty very angrily.
+
+"Then I must be mad," he said; "the way you caught my neck with your
+arm, and your face was against mine, and your hair crushed up against my
+ear. Oh, Betty, if you don't love me, what shall I do? For I can't live
+without you."
+
+Betty had won.
+
+"But--even if I had loved you--I'm married," she urged softly.
+
+"Yes--do you suppose I've forgotten that? But you remember what you
+said--about being really free, and not being bound to that beast. I see
+that you were right--right, right. It's the rest of the world that's
+wrong. Oh, my dear--I can't live without you. Couldn't you love me?
+Let's go away--right away together. No one will love you as I do. No
+one knows you as I do--how good and strong and brave and unselfish you
+are. Oh, try to love me a little!"
+
+Betty had leaned her elbows on the sun-dial, and her chin on her hands.
+
+"But you used to think ..." she began.
+
+"Ah--but I know better now. You've taught me everything. Only I never
+knew it till last night when I touched you. It was like a spark to a
+bonfire that I've been piling up ever since I've known you. You've
+taught me what life is, and love. Love can't be wrong. It's only wrong
+when it's stealing. We shouldn't be robbing anybody. We should both work
+better--happiness makes people work--I see that now. I should have to
+give up parish work--but there's plenty of good work wants doing. Why,
+I've nearly finished that book of mine. I've worked at it night after
+night--with the thought of you hidden behind the work. If you were my
+wife, what work I could do! Oh, Betty, if you only loved me!"
+
+She lifted her face and looked at him gravely. He flung his arm round
+her shoulders and turned her face up to his. She was passive to his
+kisses. At last she kissed him, once, and drew herself from his arms.
+
+"Come," she said.
+
+She led him to the garden seat in the nut-avenue.
+
+"Now," she said, when he had taken his place beside her, "I'm going to
+tell you the whole truth. I was very angry with you when you came to me
+that first day. You were quite right. That boy had been holding my hand:
+what's more, he had been kissing it. It amused me, and if it hurt him I
+didn't care. Then you came. And you said things. And then you said you
+weren't afraid of me or my weapons. It was a challenge. And I determined
+to make you love me. It was all planned, the helping in your work--and
+keeping out of your way at first was to make you wish to see me. And,
+you see, I succeeded. You _did_ love me."
+
+"I do," he said. He caught her hand and held it fiercely. "I deserved it
+all. I was a brute to you."
+
+"I meant you to love me--and you did love me. I lied to you in almost
+everything--at first."
+
+"About that man--was that a lie?" he asked fiercely.
+
+"No," she laughed drearily. "That was true enough. You see, it was more
+effective than any lie I could have invented. No lie could have added a
+single horror to _that_ story! And so I've won--as I swore I would!"
+
+"Is that all," he said, "all the truth?"
+
+"It's all there's any need for," she said.
+
+"I want it all. I want to know where I am--whether I really was mad last
+night. Betty--in spite of all your truth I can't believe one thing. I
+can't believe that you don't love me."
+
+"Man's vanity," she began, with a flippant laugh.
+
+"Don't!" he said harshly. "How dare you try to play with me? Man's
+vanity! But it's your honour! I know you love me. If you didn't you
+would be--"
+
+"How do you know I'm not?"
+
+"Silence," he said. "If you can't speak the truth hold your tongue and
+let me speak it. I love you--and you love me--and we are going to be
+happy."
+
+"I will speak the truth," said Betty, giving him her other hand. "You
+love me--and I love you, and we are going to be miserable. Yes--I will
+speak. Dear, I can't do it. Not even for you. I used to think I thought
+I could. I was bitter. I think I wanted to be revenged on life and God
+and everything. I thought I didn't believe in God, but I wanted to spite
+Him all the same. But when you came--after that day in the porch--when
+you came and talked to me about all the good and beautiful things--why,
+then I knew that I really did believe in them, and I began to love you
+because you had believed them all the time, and because.... And I didn't
+try to make you love me--after that day in the porch--at least, not very
+much--oh, I do want to speak the truth! I used to try so _not_ to try.
+I--I did want you to love me, though; I didn't want you to love anyone
+else. I wanted you to love me just enough to make you happy, and not
+enough to make you miserable. And so long as you didn't know you loved
+me it was all right: and when you caught me last night I knew that you
+would know, and it would be all over. You made up your mind to teach me
+that there are better things in the world than love--truth and honour
+and--and--things like that. And you've taught it me. It was a duel, and
+you've won."
+
+"And you meant to teach me that love is stronger than anything in the
+world. And you have won too."
+
+"Yes," she said, "we've both won. That's the worst of it--or the best."
+
+"What is to become of us?" he said. "Oh, my dear--what are we to do? Do
+you forgive me? If you are right, I must be wrong--but I can't see
+anything now except that I want you so."
+
+"I'm glad you loved me enough to be silly," she said; "but, oh, my dear,
+how glad I am that I love you too much to let you."
+
+"But what are we to do?"
+
+"Do? Nothing. Don't you see we've taught each other everything we know.
+We've given each other everything we can give. Isn't it good to love
+like this--even if this has to be all?"
+
+"It's all very difficult," he said; "but everything shall be as you
+choose, only somehow I think it's worse for me than for you. I loved you
+before--and now I adore you. I seem to have made a saint of you--but
+you've made me a man."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+One wishes with all one's heart that that lunatic would die. The
+situation is, one would say--impossible. Yet the lovers do not find it
+so. They work together, and parish scandal has almost ceased to patter
+about their names. There is a subtle pleasure for both in the
+ceremonious courtesy with which ever since that day they treat each
+other. It contrasts so splendidly with the living flame upon each
+heart-altar. So far the mutual passion has improved the character of
+each. All the same, one wishes that the lunatic would die--for she is
+not so much of a saint as he thinks her, and he is more of a man than
+she knows.
+
+
+
+
+CINDERELLA
+
+
+"HOOTS!" said the gardener, "there's nae sense in't. The suppression o'
+the truth's bad as a lee. Indeed, I doot mair hae been damned for t'ane
+than t'ither."
+
+"Law! Mr. Murchison, you do use language, I'm sure!" tittered the
+parlourmaid.
+
+"I say nae mair than the truth," he answered, cutting bloom after bloom
+quickly yet tenderly. "To bring hame a new mistress to the hoose and
+never to tell your bairn a word aboot the matter till all's made
+fast--it's a thing he'll hae to answer for to his Maker, I'm thinking.
+Here's the flowers, wumman; carry them canny. I'll send the lad up wi'
+the lave o' the flowers an' a bit green stuff in a wee meenit. And mind
+you your flaunting streamers agin the pots."
+
+The parlourmaid gathered her skirts closely, and delicately tip-toed to
+the door of the hothouse. Here she took the basket of bright beauty
+from his hand and walked away across the green blaze of the lawn.
+
+Mr. Murchison grunted relief. He was not fond of parlourmaids, no matter
+how pretty and streamered.
+
+He left the hot, sweet air of the big hothouse and threaded his way
+among the glittering glasshouses to the potting-shed. At its door a
+sound caught his ear.
+
+"Hoots!" he said again, but this time with a gentle, anxious intonation.
+
+"Eh! ma lammie," said he, stepping quickly forward, "what deevilment hae
+ye been after the noo, and wha is't's been catching ye at it?"
+
+The "lammie" crept out from under the potting-shelf; a pair of small
+arms went round Murchison's legs, and a little face, round and red and
+very dirty, was lifted towards his. He raised the child in his arms and
+set her on the shelf, so that she could lean her flushed face on his
+shirt-front.
+
+"Toots, toots!" said he, "noo tell me--"
+
+"It isn't true, is it?" said the child.
+
+"Hoots!" said Murchison for the third time, but he said it under his
+breath. Aloud he said--
+
+"Tell old Murchison a' aboot it, Miss Charling, dearie."
+
+"It was when I wanted some more of the strawberries," she began, with
+another sob, "and the new cook said not, and I was a greedy little pig:
+and I said I'd rather be a greedy little pig than a spiteful old cat!"
+The tears broke out afresh.
+
+"And you eight past! Ye should hae mair sense at siccan age than to ca'
+names." The head gardener spoke reprovingly, but he stroked her rough
+hair.
+
+"I didn't--not one single name--not even when she said I was enough to
+make a cat laugh, even an old one--and she wondered any good servant
+ever stayed a week in the place."
+
+"And what was ye sayin'?"
+
+"I said, 'Guid ye may be, but ye're no bonny'--I've heard you say that,
+Murchison, so I know it wasn't wrong, and then she said I was a minx,
+and other things, and I wanted keeping in order, and it was a very good
+thing I had a new mamma coming home to-day, to keep me under a bit, and
+a lot more--and--and things about my own, own mother, and that father
+wouldn't love me any more. But it's not true, is it? Oh! it isn't true?
+She only just said it?"
+
+"Ma lammie," said he gravely, kissing the top of the head nestled
+against him, "it's true that yer guid feyther, wha' never crossed ye
+except for yer ain sake syne the day ye were born, is bringing hame a
+guid wife the day, but ye mun be a wumman and no cry oot afore ye're
+hurted. I'll be bound it's a kind, genteel lady he's got, that'll love
+ye, and mak' much o' ye, and teach ye to sew fine--aye, an' play at the
+piano as like's no."
+
+The child's mouth tightened resentfully, but Murchison did not see it.
+
+"Noo, ye'll jest be a douce lassie," he went on, "and say me fair that
+ye'll never gie an unkind word tae yer feyther's new lady. Noo, promise
+me that, an' fine I ken ye'll keep tae it."
+
+"No, I won't say anything unkind to her," she answered, and Murchison
+hugged himself on a victory, for a promise was sacred to Charling. He
+did not notice the child's voice as she gave it.
+
+When the tears were quite dried he gave her a white geranium to plant in
+her own garden, and went back to his work.
+
+Charling took the geranium with pretty thanks and kisses, but she felt
+it a burden, none the less. For her mind was quite made up. When she had
+promised never to say anything unkind to her "father's new lady," she
+meant to keep the promise--by never speaking to her or seeing her at
+all. She meant to run away. How could she bear to be "kept under" by
+this strange lady, who would come and sit in her own mother's place, and
+wear her own mother's clothes, and no doubt presently burn her own
+mother's picture, and make Charling wash the dishes and sweep the
+kitchen like poor dear Cinderella in the story? True, Cinderella's
+misfortunes ended in marriage with a prince, but then Charling did not
+want to be married, and she had but little faith in princes, and,
+besides, she had no fairy godmother. Her godmother was dead, her own,
+own mother was dead, and only father was left; and now he had done this
+thing, and he would not want his Charling any more.
+
+So Charling went indoors and washed her face and hands and smoothed her
+hair, which never would be smoothed, put a few treasures in her
+pocket--all her money, some coloured chalks, a stone with crystal
+inside that showed where it was broken, and went quietly out at the
+lodge gate, carrying the white geranium in her arms, because when you
+are running away you cannot possibly leave behind you the last gift of
+somebody who loves you. But the geranium in its pot was very heavy--and
+it seemed to get heavier and heavier as she walked along the dry, dusty
+road, so that presently Charling turned through the swing gate into the
+field-way, for the sake of the shadow of the hedge; and the field-way
+led past the church, and when she reached the low, mossy wall of the
+churchyard, she set the pot on it and rested. Then she said--
+
+"I think I will leave it with mother to take care of." So she took the
+pot in her hands again and carried it to her mother's grave. Of course,
+they had told Charling that her mother was an angel now and was not in
+the churchyard at all, but in heaven; only heaven was a very long way
+off, and Charling preferred to think that mother was only asleep under
+the green counterpane with the daisies on it. There had been a green
+coverlet to the bed in mother's room, only it had white lilac on it,
+and not daisies. So Charling set down the pot, and she knelt down beside
+it, and wrote on it with a piece of blue chalk from her pocket: "_From
+Charling to mother to take care of._" Then she cried a little bit more,
+because she was so sorry for herself; and then she smelt the thyme and
+wondered why the bees liked it better than white geraniums; and then she
+felt that she was very like a little girl in a book, and so she forgot
+to cry, and told herself that she was the third sister going out to seek
+her fortune.
+
+After that it was easy to go on, especially when she had put the crystal
+stone, which hung heavy and bumpy in the pocket, beside the geranium
+pot. Then she kissed the tombstone where it said, "Helen, beloved wife
+of----" and went away among the green graves in the sunshine.
+
+Mother had died when she was only five, so that she could not remember
+her very well; but all these three years she had loved and thought of a
+kind, beautiful Something that was never tired and never cross, and
+always ready to kiss and love and forgive little girls, however naughty
+they were, and she called this something "mother" in her heart, and it
+was for this something that she left her kisses on the gravestone. And
+the gravestone was warm to her lips as she kissed it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was on a wide, furze-covered down, across which a white road wound
+like a twisted ribbon, that Charling's courage began to fail her. The
+white road looked so very long; there were no houses anywhere, and no
+trees, only far away across the down she saw the round tops of some big
+elms. "They look like cabbages," she said to herself.
+
+She had walked quite a long way, and she was very tired. Her dinner of
+sweets and stale cakes from the greeny-glass bottles in the window of a
+village shop had not been so nice as she expected; the woman at the shop
+had been cross because Charling had no pennies, only the five-shilling
+piece father had given her when he went away, and the woman had no
+change. And she had scolded so that Charling had grown frightened and
+had run away, leaving the big, round piece of silver on the dirty little
+counter. This was about the time when she was missed at home, and the
+servants began to search for her, running to and fro like ants whose
+nest is turned up by the spade.
+
+A big furze bush cast a ragged square yard of alluring shade on the
+common. Charling flung herself down on the turf in the shadow. "I wonder
+what they are doing at home?" she said to herself after a while. "I
+don't suppose they've even missed me. They think of nothing but making
+the place all flowery for _her_ to see. Nobody wants me--"
+
+At home they were dragging the ornamental water in the park; old
+Murchison directing the operation with tears running slow and unregarded
+down his face.
+
+Charling lay and looked at the white road. Somebody must go along it
+presently. Roads were made for people to go along. Then when any people
+came by she would speak to them, and they would help her and tell her
+what to do. "I wonder what a girl ought to do when she runs away from
+home?" said Charling to herself. "Boys go to sea, of course; but I don't
+suppose a pirate would care about engaging a cabin-girl--" She fell
+a-musing, however, on the probable woes of possible cabin-girls, and
+their chances of becoming admirals, as cabin-boys always did in the
+stories; and so deep were her musings that she positively jumped when a
+boy, passing along the road, began suddenly to whistle. It was the air
+of a comic song, in a minor key, and its inflections were those of a
+funeral march. It went to Charling's heart. Now she knew, as she had
+never known before, how lonely and miserable she was.
+
+She scrambled to her feet and called out, "Hi! you boy!"
+
+The boy also jumped. But he stopped and said, "Well?" though in a tone
+that promised little.
+
+"Come here," said Charling. "At least, of course, I mean come, if you
+please."
+
+The boy shrugged his shoulders and came towards her.
+
+"Well?" he said again, very grumpily, Charling thought; so she said,
+"Don't be cross. I wish you'd talk to me a little, if you are not too
+busy. If you please, I mean, of course."
+
+She said it with her best company manner, and the boy laughed, not
+unkindly, but still in a grudging way. Then he threw himself down on
+the turf and began pulling bits of it up by the roots. "Go ahead!" said
+he.
+
+But Charling could not go ahead. She looked at his handsome, sulky face,
+his knitted brow, twisted into fretful lines, and the cloud behind his
+blue eyes frightened her.
+
+"Oh! go away!" she said. "I don't want you! Go away; you're very
+unkind!"
+
+The boy seemed to shake himself awake at the sight of the tears that
+rushed to follow her words.
+
+"I say, don't-you-know, I say;" but Charling had flung herself face down
+on the turf and took no notice.
+
+"I say, look here," he said; "I am not unkind, really. I was in an awful
+wax about something else, and I didn't understand. Oh! drop it. I say,
+look here, what's the matter? I'm not such a bad sort, really. Come,
+kiddie, what's the row?"
+
+He dragged himself on knees and elbows to her side and began to pat her
+on the back, with some energy: "There, there," he said; "don't cry,
+there's a dear. Here, I've got a handkerchief, as it happens," for
+Charling was feeling blindly and vainly among the coloured chalks. He
+thrust the dingy handkerchief into her hands, and she dried her eyes,
+still sobbing.
+
+"That's the style," said he. "Look here, we're like people in a book.
+Two travellers in misfortune meet upon a wild moor and exchange
+narratives. Come, tell me what's up?"
+
+"You tell first," said Charling, rubbing her eyes very hard; "but swear
+eternal friendship before you begin, then we can't tell each other's
+secrets to the enemy."
+
+He looked at her with a nascent approval. She understood how to play,
+then, this forlorn child in the torn white frock.
+
+He took her hand and said solemnly--
+
+"I swear."
+
+"Your name," she interrupted. "I, N or M, swear, you know."
+
+"Oh, yes. Well, I, Harry Basingstoke, swear to you--"
+
+"Charling," she interpolated; "the other names don't matter. I've got
+six of them."
+
+"That we will support--no, maintain--eternal friendship."
+
+"And I, Charling, swear the same to you, Harry."
+
+"Why do they call you Charling?"
+
+"Oh! because my name's Charlotte, and mother used to sing a song about
+Charlie being her darling, and I was her darling, only I couldn't speak
+properly then; and I got it mixed up into Charling, father says. But
+let's go on. Tell me your sad history, poor fellow-wanderer."
+
+"My father was a king," said Harry gravely; but Charling turned such sad
+eyes on him that he stopped.
+
+"Won't you tell me the real true truth?" she said. "I will you."
+
+"Well," said he, "the real true truth is, Charling, I've run away from
+home, and I'm going to sea."
+
+Charling clapped her hands. "Oh! so have I! So am I! Let me come with
+you. Would they take a cabin-girl on the ship where you're going to, do
+you think? And why did you run away? Did they beat you and starve you at
+home? Or have you a cruel stepmother, or stepfather, or something?"
+
+"No," said he grimly; "I haven't any step-relations, and I'm jolly well
+not going to have any, either. I ran away because I didn't choose to
+have a strange chap set over me, and that's all I am going to tell you.
+But about you? How far have you come to-day?"
+
+"About ninety miles, I should think," said Charling; "at least, my legs
+feel exactly like that."
+
+"And what made you do such a silly thing?" he said, smiling at her, and
+she thought his blue eyes looked quite different now, so that she did
+not mind his calling her silly. "You know, it's no good girls running
+away; they always get caught, and then they put them into convents or
+something."
+
+She slipped her hand confidingly under his arm, and put her head against
+the sleeve of his Norfolk jacket.
+
+"Not girls with eternal friends, they don't," she said. "You'll take
+care of me now? You won't let them catch me?"
+
+"Tell me why you did it, then."
+
+Charling told him at some length.
+
+"And father never told me a word about it," she ended; "and I wasn't
+going to stay to be made to wash the dishes and things, like Cinderella.
+I wouldn't stand that, not if I had to run away every day for a year.
+Besides, nobody wants me; nobody will miss me."
+
+This was about the time when they found the white geranium in the
+churchyard, and began to send grooms about the country on horses. And
+Murchison was striding about the lanes gnawing his grizzled beard and
+calling on his God to take him, too, if harm had come to the child.
+
+"But perhaps the stepmother would be nice," the boy said.
+
+"Not she. Stepmothers never are. I know just what she'll be like--a
+horrid old hag with red hair and a hump!"
+
+"Then you've not seen her?"
+
+"No."
+
+"You might have waited till you had."
+
+"It would have been too late then," said Charling tragically.
+
+"But your father wouldn't have let you be treated unkindly, silly."
+
+"Fathers generally die when the stepmother comes; or else they can't
+help themselves. You know that as well as I do."
+
+"I suppose your father is a good sort?"
+
+"He's the best man there is," said Charling indignantly, "and the
+kindest and bravest, and cleverest and amusingest, and he can sit any
+horse like wax; and he can fence with real swords, and sing all the
+songs in all the world. There!"
+
+Harry was silent, racking his brain for arguments.
+
+"Look here, kiddie," he said slowly, "if your father's such a good sort,
+he'd have more sense than to choose a stepmother who wasn't nice. He's a
+much finer chap than the fathers in fairy tales. You never read of
+_them_ being able to do all the things your father can do."
+
+"No," said Charling, "that's true."
+
+"He's sure to have chosen someone quite jolly, really," Harry went on,
+more confidently.
+
+Charling looked up suddenly. "Who was it chose the chap that you weren't
+going to stand having set over you?" she said.
+
+The boy bit his lip.
+
+"I swore eternal friendship, so I can never tell your secrets, you
+know," said Charling softly, "and _I've_ told _you_ every single thing."
+
+"Well, it's my sister, then," said he abruptly, "and she's married a
+chap I've never seen--and I'm to go and live with them, if you please;
+and she told me once she was never going to marry, and it was always
+going to be just us two; and now she's found this fellow she knew when
+she was a little girl, and he was a boy--as it might be us, you
+know--and she's forgotten all about what she said, and married him. And
+I wasn't even asked to the beastly wedding because they wanted to be
+married quietly; and they came home from their hateful honeymoon this
+evening, and the holidays begin to-day, and I was to go to this new
+chap's house to spend them. And I only got her letter this morning, and
+I just took my journey money and ran away. My boxes were sent on
+straight from school, though--so I've got no clothes but these. I'm just
+going to look at the place where she's to live, and then I'm off to
+sea."
+
+"Why didn't she tell you before?"
+
+"She says she meant it to be a pleasant surprise, because we've been
+rather hard up since my father died, and this chap's got horses and
+everything, and she says he's going to adopt me. As if I wanted to be
+adopted by any old stuck-up money-grubber!"
+
+"But you haven't seen him," said Charling gently. "If _I'm_ silly, _you_
+are too, aren't you?"
+
+She hid her face on her sleeve to avoid seeing the effect of this daring
+shot. Only silence answered her.
+
+Presently Harry said--
+
+"Now, kiddie, let me take you home, will you? Give the stepmother a fair
+show, anyhow."
+
+Charling reflected. She was very tired. She stroked Harry's hand
+absently, and after a while said--
+
+"I will if you will."
+
+"Will what?"
+
+"Go back and give your chap a fair show."
+
+And now the boy reflected.
+
+"Done," he said suddenly. "After all, what's sauce for the goose is
+sauce for the gander. Come on."
+
+He stood up and held out his hand. This was about the time when the cook
+packed her box and went off, leaving it to be sent after her. Public
+opinion in the servants' hall was too strong to be longer faced.
+
+The shadows of the trees lay black and level across the pastures when
+the two children reached the lodge gates. A floral arch was above the
+gate, and wreaths of flowers and flags made the avenue gay. Charling had
+grown very tired, and Harry had carried her on his back for the last
+mile or two--resting often, because Charling was a strong, healthy
+child, and, as he phrased it, "no slouch of a weight."
+
+Now they paused at the gate of the lodge.
+
+"This is my house," said Charling. "They've put all these things up for
+_her_, I suppose. If you'll write down your address I'll give you mine,
+and we can write and tell each other what _they_ are like afterwards.
+I've got a bit of chalk somewhere."
+
+She fumbled in the dusty confusion of her little pocket while Harry
+found the envelope of his sister's letter and tore it in two. Then, one
+on each side of the lodge gate-post, the children wrote, slowly and
+carefully, for some moments. Presently they exchanged papers, and each
+read the words written by the other. Then suddenly both turned very red.
+
+"But this is _my_ address," said she. "The Grange, Falconbridge."
+
+"It's where my sister's gone to live, anyhow," said he.
+
+"Then--then--"
+
+Conviction forced itself first on the boy.
+
+"What a duffer I've been! It's _him_ she's married."
+
+"Your sister?"
+
+"Yes. Are you _sure_ your father's a good sort?"
+
+"How dare you ask!" said Charling. "It's your sister I want to know
+about."
+
+"She's the dearest old darling!" he cried. "Oh! kiddie, come along; run
+for all you're worth, and perhaps we can get in the back way, and get
+tidied up before they come, and they need never know."
+
+He held out his hand; Charling caught at it, and together they raced up
+the avenue. But getting in the back way was impossible, for Murchison
+met them full on the terrace, and Charling ran straight into his arms.
+There should have been scolding and punishment, no doubt, but Charling
+found none.
+
+And, now, who so sleek and demure as the runaways, he in Eton jacket and
+she in spotless white muslin, when the carriage drew up in front of the
+hall, amid the cheers of the tenants and the bowing of the orderly,
+marshalled servants?
+
+And then a lady, pretty as a princess in a fairy tale, with eyes as blue
+as Harry's, was hugging him and Charling both at once; while a man, whom
+Harry at once owned to _be_ a man, stood looking at the group with
+grave, kind eyes.
+
+"We'll never, never tell," whispered the boy. The servants had been
+sworn to secrecy by Murchison.
+
+Charling whispered back, "Never as long as we live."
+
+But long before bedtime came each of the runaways felt that concealment
+was foolish in the face of the new circumstances, and with some
+embarrassment, a tear or two, and a little gentle laughter, the tale was
+told.
+
+"Oh, Harry! how could you?" said the stepmother, and went quietly out by
+the long window with her arm round her brother's shoulders.
+
+Charling was left alone with her father.
+
+"Why didn't you tell me, father?"
+
+"I wish I had, childie; but I thought--you see--I was going away--I
+didn't want to leave you alone for a fortnight to think all sorts of
+nonsense. And I thought my little girl could trust me." Charling hid her
+face in her hands. "Well! it's all right now! don't cry, my girlie." He
+drew her close to him.
+
+"And you'll love Harry very much?"
+
+"I will. He brought you back."
+
+"And I'll love _her_ very much. So that's all settled," said Charling
+cheerfully. Then her face fell again. "But, father, don't you love
+mother any more? Cook said you didn't."
+
+He sighed and was silent. At last he said, "You are too little to
+understand, sweetheart. I have loved the lady who came home to-day all
+my life long, and I shall love your mother as long as I live."
+
+"Cook said it was like being unkind to mother. Does mother mind about
+it, really?"
+
+He muttered something inaudible--to the cook's address.
+
+"I don't think they either of them mind, my darling Charling," he said.
+"You cannot understand it, but I think they both understand."
+
+
+
+
+WITH AN E
+
+
+SHE had been thinking of him all day--of the incredible insignificance
+of the point on which they had quarrelled; the babyish folly of the
+quarrel itself, the silly pride that had made the quarrel strong till
+the very memory of it was as a bar of steel to keep them apart. Three
+years ago, and so much had happened since then. Three years! and not a
+day of them all had passed without some thought of him; sometimes a
+happy, quiet remembrance transfigured by a wise forgetfulness; sometimes
+a sudden recollection, sharp as a knife. But not on many days had she
+allowed the quiet remembrance to give place to the knife-thrust, and
+then kept the knife in the wound, turning it round with a scientific
+curiosity, which, while it ran an undercurrent of breathless pleasure
+beneath the pain, yet did not lessen this--intensified it, rather.
+To-day she had thought of him thus through the long hours on deck, when
+the boat sped on even keel across the blue and gold of the Channel, in
+the dusty train from Ostend--even in the little open carriage that
+carried her and her severely moderate luggage from the station at Bruges
+to the Hotel du Panier d'Or. She had thought of him so much that it was
+no surprise to her to see him there, drinking coffee at one of the
+little tables which the hotel throws out like tentacles into the Grande
+Place.
+
+There he sat, in a grey flannel suit. His back was towards her, but she
+would have known the set of his shoulders anywhere, and the turn of his
+head. He was talking to someone--a lady, handsome, but older than
+he--oh! evidently much older.
+
+Elizabeth made the transit from carriage to hotel door in one swift,
+quiet movement. He did not see her, but the lady facing him put up a
+tortoiseshell-handled _lorgnon_ and gazed through it and through
+narrowed eyelids at the new comer.
+
+Elizabeth reappeared no more that evening. It was the waiter who came
+out to dismiss the carriage and superintend the bringing in of the
+luggage. Elizabeth, stumbling in a maze of forgotten French, was met at
+the stair-foot by a smiling welcome, and realised in a spasm of
+grateful surprise that she need not have brought her dictionary. The
+hostess of the "Panier d'Or," like everyone else in Belgium, spoke
+English, and an English far better than Elizabeth's French had been.
+
+She secured a tiny bedroom, and a sitting room that looked out over the
+Place, so that whenever he drank coffee she might, with luck, hope to
+see the back of his dear head.
+
+"Idiot!" said Elizabeth, catching this little thought wandering in her
+mind, and with that she slapped the little thought and put it away in
+disgrace. But when she woke in the night, it woke, too, and cried a
+little.
+
+That night it seemed to her that she would have all her meals served in
+the little sitting-room, and never go downstairs at all, lest she should
+meet him. But in the morning she perceived that one does not save up
+one's money for a year in order to have a Continental holiday, and
+sweeten all one's High-school teaching with one thought of that holiday,
+in order to spend its precious hours between four walls, just
+because--well, for any reason whatsoever.
+
+So she went down to take her coffee and rolls humbly, publicly, like
+other people.
+
+The dining-room was dishevelled, discomposed; chairs piled on tables and
+brooms all about. It was in the hotel _cafe_, where the marble-topped
+little tables were, that Mademoiselle would be served. Here was a
+marble-topped counter, too, where later in the day _aperitifs_ and
+_petits verres_ would be handed. On this, open for the police to read,
+lay the list of those who had spent the night at the "Panier d'Or."
+
+The room was empty. Elizabeth caught up the list. Yes, his name was
+there, at the very top of the column--Edward Brown, and below it "_Mrs.
+Brown_--"
+
+Elizabeth dropped the paper as though it had bitten her, and, turning
+sharply, came face to face with that very Edward Brown. He raised his
+hat gravely, and a shiver of absolute sickness passed over her, for his
+glance at her in passing was the glance of a stranger. It was not
+possible.... Yet it was true. He had forgotten her. In three little
+years! They had been long enough years to her, but now she called them
+little. In three little years he had forgotten her very face.
+
+Elizabeth, chin in air, marched down the room and took possession of the
+little table where her coffee waited her.
+
+She began to eat. It was not till the sixth mouthful that her face
+flushed suddenly to so deep a crimson that she dared not raise her eyes
+to see how many of the folk now breaking their rolls in her company had
+had eyes for her face. As a matter of fact, only one observed the sudden
+colour, and he admired and rejoiced, for he had seen such a colour in
+that face before.
+
+"She is angry--good!" said he, and poured out more coffee with a steady
+hand.
+
+The thought that flooded Elizabeth's face and neck and ears with damask
+was one quite inconsistent with the calm eating of bread-and-butter. She
+laid down her knife and walked out, chin in air to the last. Alone in
+her sitting-room she buried her face in a hard cushion and went as near
+to swearing as a very nice girl may.
+
+"Oh! oh! oh!--oh! _bother!_ Why did I go down? I ought to have fled to
+the uttermost parts of the earth: or even to Ghent. Of course. Oh, what
+a fool I am! It's because he's married that he won't speak to me. You
+fool! you fool! you fool! Yes, of course, you knew he was married; only
+you thought you'd like the silly satisfaction of hearing his voice speak
+to you, and yours speaking to him. But--oh! fool! fool! fool!"
+
+Elizabeth put on the thickest veil she had, and the largest hat, and
+went blindly out. She walked very fast, never giving a glance to the
+step-and-stair gables of the old houses, the dominant strength of the
+belfry, the curious, un-English groups in the streets. Presently she
+came to a bridge--a canal--overhanging houses--balconies--a glimpse like
+the pictures of Venice. She leaned her elbows on the parapet and
+presently became aware of the prospect.
+
+"It _is_ pretty," she said grudgingly, and at the same moment turned
+away, for in a flower-hung balcony across the water she saw _him_.
+
+"This is too absurd," she said. "I must get out of the place--at least,
+for the day. I'll go to Ghent."
+
+He had seen her, and a thrill of something very like gratified vanity
+straightened his shoulders. When a girl has jilted you, it is comforting
+to find that even after three years she has not forgotten you enough to
+be indifferent, no matter how you may have consoled yourself in the
+interval.
+
+Elizabeth walked fast, but she did not get to the railway station,
+because she took the wrong turning several times. She passed through
+street after strange street, and came out on a wide quay; another canal;
+across it showed old, gabled, red-roofed houses. She walked on and came
+presently to a bridge, and another quay, and a little puffing, snorting
+steamboat.
+
+She hurriedly collected a few scattered items of her school vocabulary--
+
+"_Est-ce que--est-ce que--ce bateau a vapeur va--va_--anywhere?"
+
+A voluble assurance that it went at twelve-thirty did not content her.
+She gathered her forces again.
+
+"_Oui; mais ou est-ce qu'il va aller--?_"
+
+The answer sounded something like "Sloosh," and the speaker pointed
+vaguely up the green canal.
+
+Elizabeth went on board. This was as good as Ghent. Better. There was an
+element of adventure about it. "Sloosh" might be anywhere; one might not
+reach it for days. But the boat had not the air of one used to long
+cruises; and Elizabeth felt safe in playing with the idea of an
+expedition into darkest Holland.
+
+And now by chance, or because her movements interested him as much as
+his presence repelled her, this same Edward Brown also came on board,
+and, concealed by the deep daydream into which she had fallen, passed
+her unseen.
+
+When she shook the last drops of the daydream from her, she found
+herself confronting the boat's only other passenger--himself.
+
+She looked at him full and straight in the eyes, and with the look her
+embarrassment left her and laid hold on him.
+
+He remembered her last words to him--
+
+"If ever we meet again, we meet as strangers." Well, he had kept to the
+very letter of that bidding, and she had been angry. He had been very
+glad to see that she was angry. But now, face to face for an hour and a
+half--for he knew the distance to Sluys well enough--could he keep
+silence still and yet avoid being ridiculous? He did not intend to be
+ridiculous; yet even this might have happened. But Elizabeth saved him.
+
+She raised her chin and spoke in chill, distant courtesy.
+
+"I think you must be English, because I saw you at the 'Panier d'Or';
+everyone's English there. I can't make these people understand anything.
+Perhaps you could be so kind as to tell me how long the boat takes to
+get to wherever it does get to?"
+
+It was a longer speech than she would have made had he been the stranger
+as whom she proposed to treat him, but it was necessary to let him
+understand at the outset what was the part she intended to play.
+
+He did understand, and assumed his role instantly.
+
+"Something under two hours, I think," he said politely, still holding in
+his hand the hat he had removed on the instant of her breaking silence.
+"How cool and pleasant the air is after the town!" The boat was moving
+now quickly between grassy banks topped by rows of ash trees. The
+landscape on each side spread away like a map intersected with avenues
+of tall, lean, wind-bent trees, that seemed to move as the boat moved.
+
+"Good!" said she to herself; "he means to talk. We shan't sit staring at
+each other for two hours like stuck pigs. And he really doesn't know me?
+Or is it the wife? Oh! I wish I'd never come to this horrible country!"
+Aloud she said, "Yes, and how pretty the trees and fields are--"
+
+"So--so nice and green, aren't they?" said he.
+
+And she said, "Yes."
+
+Each inwardly smiled. In the old days each had been so eager for the
+other's good opinion, so afraid of seeming commonplace, that their
+conversations had been all fine work, and their very love-letters too
+clever by half. Now they did not belong to each other any more, and he
+said the trees were green, and she said "Yes."
+
+"There seem to be a great many people in Bruges," said she.
+
+"Yes," he said, in eager assent. "Quite a large number."
+
+"There is a great deal to be seen in these old towns. So quaint, aren't
+they?"
+
+She remembered his once condemning in a friend the use of that word. Now
+he echoed it.
+
+"So very quaint," said he. "And the dogs drawing carts! Just like the
+pictures, aren't they?"
+
+"You can get pictures of them on the illustrated post-cards. So nice to
+send to one's relations at home."
+
+She was getting angry with him. He played the game too well.
+
+"Ah! yes," he answered, "the dear people like these little tokens, don't
+they?"
+
+"He's getting exactly like a curate," she thought, and a doubt assailed
+her. Perhaps he was not playing the game at all. Perhaps in these three
+years he had really grown stupid.
+
+"How different it all is from England, isn't it?"
+
+"Oh, quite!" said he.
+
+"Have you ever been in Holland?"
+
+"Yes, once."
+
+"What was it like?" she asked.
+
+That was a form of question they had agreed to hate--once, long ago.
+
+"Oh, extremely pleasant," he said warmly. "We met some most agreeable
+people at some of the hotels. Quite the best sort of people, you know."
+
+Another phrase once banned by both.
+
+The sun sparkled on the moving duckweed of the canal. The sky was blue
+overhead. Here and there a red-roofed farm showed among the green
+pastures. Ahead the avenues tapered away into distance, and met at the
+vanishing point. Elizabeth smiled for sheer pleasure at the sight of two
+little blue-smocked children solemnly staring at the boat as it passed.
+Then she glanced at him with an irritated frown. It was his turn to
+smile.
+
+"You called the tune, my lady," he said to himself, "and it is you shall
+change it, not I."
+
+"Foreign countries are very like England, are they not?" he said. "The
+same kind of trees, you know, and the same kind of cows, and--and
+everything. Even the canals are very like ours."
+
+"The canal system," said Elizabeth instructively, "is the finest in the
+world."
+
+"_Adieu, Canal, canard, canaille_," he quoted. They had always barred
+quotations in the old days.
+
+"I don't understand Latin," said she. Then their eyes met, and he got up
+abruptly and walked to the end of the boat and back. When he sat down
+again, he sat beside her.
+
+"Shall we go on?" he said quietly. "I think it is your turn to choose a
+subject--"
+
+"Oh! have you read _Alice in Wonderland_?" she said, with simple
+eagerness. "Such a pretty book, isn't it?"
+
+He shrugged his shoulders. She was obstinate; all women were. Men were
+not. He would be magnanimous. He would not compel her to change the
+tune. He had given her one chance; and if she wouldn't--well, it was not
+possible to keep up this sort of conversation till they got to Sluys. He
+would--
+
+But again she saved him.
+
+"I won't play any more," she said. "It's not fair. Because you may think
+me a fool. But I happen to know that you are Mr. Brown, who writes the
+clever novels. You were pointed out to me at the hotel; and--oh! do tell
+me if you always talk like this to strangers?"
+
+"Only to English ladies on canal boats," said he, smiling. "You see, one
+never knows. They might wish one to talk like that. We both did it very
+prettily. Of course, more know Tom Fool than Tom Fool knows, but I
+think I may congratulate you on your first attempt at the English-abroad
+conversation."
+
+"Do you know, really," she said, "you did it so well that if I hadn't
+known who you were, I should have thought it was the real you. The
+felicitations are not all mine. But won't you tell me about Holland?
+That bit of yours about the hotel acquaintances was very brutal. I've
+heard heaps of people say that very thing. You just caught the tone. But
+Holland--"
+
+"Well, this is Holland," said he; "but I saw more of it than this, and
+I'll tell you anything you like if you won't expect me to talk clever,
+and turn the phrase. That's a lost art, and I won't humiliate myself in
+trying to recover it. To begin with, Holland is flat."
+
+"Don't be a geography book," Elizabeth laughed light-heartedly.
+
+"The coinage is--"
+
+"No, but seriously."
+
+"Well, then," said he, and the talk lasted till the little steamer
+bumped and grated against the quay-side at Sluys.
+
+When they had landed the two stood for a moment on the grass-grown quay
+in silence.
+
+"Well, good afternoon," said Elizabeth suddenly. "Thank you so much for
+telling me all about Holland." And with that she turned and walked away
+along the narrow street between the trim little houses that look so like
+a child's toy village tumbled out of a white wood box. Mr. Edward Brown
+was left, planted there.
+
+"Well!" said he, and spent the afternoon wandering about near the
+landing-stage, and wondering what would be the next move in this game of
+hers. It was a childish game, this playing at strangers, yet he owned
+that it had a charm.
+
+He ate currant bread and drank coffee at a little inn by the quay,
+sitting at the table by the door and watching the boats. Two o'clock
+came and went. Four o'clock came, half-past four, and with that went the
+last return steamer for Bruges. Still Mr. Edward Brown sat still and
+smoked. Five minutes later Elizabeth's blue cotton dress gleamed in the
+sunlight at the street corner.
+
+He rose and walked towards her.
+
+"I hope you have enjoyed yourself in Holland," he said.
+
+"I lost my way," said she. He saw that she was very tired, even before
+he heard it in her voice. "When is the next boat?"
+
+"There are no more boats to-day. The last left about ten minutes ago."
+
+"You might have told me," she said resentfully.
+
+"I beg your pardon," said he. "You bade me good-bye with an abruptness
+and a decision which forbade me to tell you anything."
+
+"I beg your pardon," she said humbly. "Can I get back by train?"
+
+"There are no trains."
+
+"A carriage?"
+
+"There are none. I have inquired."
+
+"But you," she asked suddenly, "how did you miss the boat? How are you
+going to get back?"
+
+"I shall walk," said he, ignoring the first question. "It's only eleven
+miles. But for you, of course, that's impossible. You might stay the
+night here. The woman at this inn seems a decent old person."
+
+"I can't. There's a girl coming to join me. She's in the sixth at the
+High School where I teach. I've promised to chaperon and instruct her.
+I must meet her at the station at ten. She's been ten years at the
+school. I don't believe she knows a word of French. Oh! I must go. She
+doesn't know the name of my hotel, or anything. I must go. I must walk."
+
+"Have you had any food?"
+
+"No; I never thought about it."
+
+She did not realise that she was explaining to him that she had been
+walking to get away from him and from her own thoughts, and that food
+had not been among these.
+
+"Then you will dine now; and, if you will allow me, we will walk back
+together."
+
+Elizabeth submitted. It was pleasant to be taken care of. And to be
+"ordered about," that was pleasant, too. Curiously enough, that very
+thing had been a factor in the old quarrel. At nineteen one is so
+independent.
+
+She was fed on omelettes and strange, pale steak, and Mr. Brown insisted
+on beer. The place boasted no wine cellar.
+
+Then the walk began. For the first mile or two it was pleasant. Then
+Elizabeth's shoes began to hurt her. They were smart brown shoes, with
+deceitful wooden heels. In her wanderings over the cobblestones of
+Sluys streets one heel had cracked itself. Now it split altogether. She
+began to limp.
+
+"Won't you take my arm?" said he.
+
+"No, thank you. I don't really need it. I'll rest a minute, though, if I
+may." She sat down, leaning against a tree, and looked out at the
+darting swallows, dimpling here and there the still green water. The
+level sunlight struck straight across the pastures, turning them to
+gold. The long shadows of the trees fell across the canal and lay black
+on the reeds at the other side. The hour was full of an ample dignity of
+peace.
+
+They walked another mile. Elizabeth could not conceal her growing
+lameness.
+
+"Something is wrong with your foot," said he. "Have you hurt it?"
+
+"It's these silly shoes; the heel's broken."
+
+"Take them off and let me see."
+
+She submitted without a protest, sat down, took off the shoes, and gave
+them to him. He looked at them kindly, contemptuously.
+
+"Silly little things!" he said, and she, instead of resenting the
+impertinence, smiled.
+
+Then he tore off the heels and dug out the remaining bristle of nails
+with his pocket-knife.
+
+"That'll be better," said he cheerfully. Elizabeth put on the damp
+shoes. The evening dew lay heavy on the towing-path, and she hardly
+demurred at all to his fastening the laces. She was very tired.
+
+Again he offered his arm; again she refused it.
+
+Then, "Elizabeth, take my arm at once!" he said sharply.
+
+She took it, and they had kept step for some fifty paces before she
+said--
+
+"Then you knew all the time?"
+
+"Am I blind or in my dotage? But you forbade me to meet you except as a
+stranger. I have an obedient nature."
+
+They walked on in silence. He held her hand against his side strongly,
+but, as it seemed, without sentiment. He was merely helping a tired
+woman-stranger on a long road. But the road seemed easier to Elizabeth
+because her hand lay so close to him; she almost forgot how tired she
+was, and lost herself in dreams, and awoke, and taught herself to dream
+again, and wondered why everything should seem so different just
+because one's hand lay on the sleeve of a grey flannel jacket.
+
+"Why should I be so abominably happy?" she asked herself, and then
+lapsed again into the dreams that were able to wipe away three years, as
+a kind hand might wipe three little tear-drops from a child's slate,
+scrawled over with sums done wrong.
+
+When she remembered that he was married, she salved her conscience
+innocently. "After all," she said, "it can't be wrong if it doesn't make
+_him_ happy; and, of course, he doesn't care, and I shall never see him
+again after to-night."
+
+So on they went, the deepening dusk turned to night, and in Elizabeth's
+dreams it seemed that her hand was held more closely; but unless one
+moved it ever so little one could not be sure; and she would not move it
+ever so little.
+
+The damp towing-path ended in a road cobblestoned, the masts of ships,
+pointed roofs, twinkling lights. The eleven miles were nearly over.
+
+Elizabeth's hand moved a little, involuntarily, on his arm. To cover the
+movement she spoke instantly.
+
+"I am leaving Bruges to-morrow."
+
+"No; your sixth-form girl will be too tired, and besides--"
+
+"Besides?"
+
+"Oh, a thousand things! Don't leave Bruges yet; it's so 'quaint,' you
+know; and--and I want to introduce you to--"
+
+"I won't," said Elizabeth almost violently.
+
+"You won't?"
+
+"No; I don't want to know your wife."
+
+He stopped short in the street--not one of the "quaint" streets, but a
+deserted street of tall, square-shuttered, stern, dark mansions, wherein
+a gas-lamp or two flickered timidly.
+
+"My _wife_?" he said; "it's my _aunt_."
+
+"It said 'Mrs. Brown' in the visitors' list," faltered Elizabeth.
+
+"Brown's such an uncommon name," he said; "my aunt spells hers with an
+E."
+
+"Oh! with an E? Yes, of course. I spell my name with an E too, only it's
+at the wrong end."
+
+Elizabeth began to laugh, and the next moment to cry helplessly.
+
+"Oh, Elizabeth! and you looked in the visitors' list and--" He caught
+her in his arms there in the street. "No; you can't get away. I'm wiser
+than I was three years ago. I shall never let you go any more, my dear."
+
+The girl from the sixth looked quite resentfully at the two faces that
+met her at the station. It seemed hardly natural or correct for a
+classical mistress to look so happy.
+
+Elizabeth's lover schemed for and got a goodnight word with her at the
+top of the stairs, by the table where the beautiful brass candlesticks
+lay waiting in shining rows.
+
+"Sleep well, you poor, tired little person," he said, as he lighted the
+candle; "such little feet, such wicked little shoes, such a long, long,
+long walk."
+
+"You must be tired, too," she said.
+
+"Tired? with eleven miles, and your hand against my heart for eight of
+them? I shall remember that walk when we're two happy old people nodding
+across our own hearthrug at each other."
+
+So he had felt it too; and if he had been married, how wicked it would
+have been! But he was not married--yet.
+
+"I am not very, very tired, really," she said. "You see, it _was_ my
+hand against--I mean your arm was a great help--"
+
+"It _was_ your hand," he said. "Oh, you darling!"
+
+It was her hand, too, that was kissed there, beside the candlesticks,
+under the very eyes of the chambermaid and two acid English tourists.
+
+
+
+
+UNDER THE NEW MOON
+
+
+THE white crescent of the little new moon blinked at us through the yew
+boughs. As you walk up the churchyard you see thirteen yews on each side
+of you, and yet, if you count them up, they make twenty-seven, and it
+has been pointed out to me that neither numerical fact can be without
+occult significance. The jugglery in numbers is done by the seventh yew
+on the left, which hides a shrinking sister in the amplitude of its
+shadow.
+
+The midsummer day was dying in a golden haze. Amid the gathering shadows
+of the churchyard her gown gleamed white, ghostlike.
+
+"Oh, there's the new moon," she said. "I am so glad. Take your hat off
+to her and turn the money in your pocket, and you will get whatever you
+wish for, and be rich as well."
+
+I obeyed with a smile, half of whose meaning she answered.
+
+"No," she said, "I am not really superstitious; I'm not at all sure that
+the money is any good, or the hat, but of course everyone knows it's
+unlucky to see it through glass."
+
+"Seen through glass," I began, "a hat presents a gloss which on closer
+inspection--"
+
+"No, no, not a hat, the moon, of course. And you might as well pretend
+that it's lucky to upset the salt, or to kill a spider, especially on a
+Tuesday, or on your hat."
+
+"Hats," I began again, "certainly seem to--"
+
+"It's not the hat," she answered, pulling up the wild thyme and crushing
+it in her hands, "you know very well it's the spider. Doesn't that smell
+sweet?"
+
+She held out the double handful of crushed sun-dried thyme, and as I
+bent my face over the cup made by her two curved hands, I was
+constrained to admit that the fragrance was delicious.
+
+"Intoxicating even," I added.
+
+"Not that. White lilies intoxicate you, so does mock-orange; and white
+may too, only it's unlucky to bring it into the house."
+
+I smiled again.
+
+"I don't see why you should call it superstitious to believe in facts,"
+she said. "My cousin's husband's sister brought some may into her house
+last year, and her uncle died within the month."
+
+    "My husband's uncle's sister's niece
+     Was saved from them by the police.
+     She says so, so I know it's true--"
+
+I had got thus far in my quotation when she interrupted me.
+
+"Oh, well, if you're going to sneer!" she said, and added that it was
+getting late, and that she must go home.
+
+"Not yet," I pleaded. "See how pretty everything is. The sky all pink,
+and the red sunset between the yews, and that good little moon. And how
+black the shadows are under the buttresses. Don't go home--already they
+will have lighted the yellow shaded lamps in your drawing-room. Your
+sister will be sitting down to the piano. Your mother is trying to match
+her silks. Your brother has got out the chess board. Someone is drawing
+the curtains. The day is over for them, but for us, here, there is a
+little bit of it left."
+
+We were sitting on the lowest step of a high, square tomb, moss-grown
+and lichen-covered. The yellow lichens had almost effaced the long list
+of the virtues of the man on whose breast this stone had lain, as itself
+in round capitals protested, since the year of grace 1703. The
+sharp-leafed ivy grew thickly over one side of it, and the long, uncut
+grass came up between the cracks of its stone steps.
+
+"It's all very well," she said severely.
+
+"Don't be angry," I implored. "How can you be angry when the bats are
+flying black against the rose sky, when the owl is waking up--his is a
+soft, fluffy awakening--and wondering if it's breakfast time?"
+
+"I won't be angry," she said. "Besides the owl, it's disrespectful to
+the dear, sleepy, dead people to be angry in a churchyard. But if I were
+really superstitious, you know, I should be afraid to come here at
+night."
+
+"At the end of the day," I corrected. "It is not night yet. Tell me
+before the night comes all the wonderful things you believe. Recite your
+_credo_."
+
+"Don't be flippant. I don't suppose I believe more unlikely things than
+you do. You believe in algebra and Euclid and log--what's-his-names. Now
+I don't believe a word of all that."
+
+"We have it on the best authority that by getting up early you can
+believe six impossible things before breakfast."
+
+"But they're not impossible. Don't you see that's just it? The things I
+like to believe are the very things that _might_ be true. And they're
+relics of a prettier time than ours, a time when people believed in
+ghosts and fairies and witches and the devil--oh, yes! and in God and
+His angels, too. Now the times are bound in yellow brick, and we believe
+in nothing but ... Euclid and--and company prospectuses and patent
+medicines."
+
+When she is a little angry she is very charming, but it was too dark for
+me to see her face.
+
+"Then," I asked, "it is merely the literary sense that leads you to make
+the Holy Sign when you find two knives crossed on your table, or to
+knock under the table and cry 'Unberufen' when you have provoked the
+Powers with some kind word of the destiny they have sent you?"
+
+"I don't," she said. "I don't talk foreign languages."
+
+"You say, 'unbecalled for,' I know, but this is mere subterfuge. Is it
+the literary sense that leads you to treasure farthings, to refuse to
+give pins, to object to a dinner party of thirteen, to fear the plucking
+of the golden elder, to avoid coming back to the house when once you've
+started, even if you've forgotten your prayer-book or your umbrella, to
+decline to pass under a ladder--"
+
+"I always go under a ladder," she interrupted, ignoring the other
+counts; "it only means you won't be married for seven years."
+
+"I never go under ladders. Tell me, is it the literary sense?"
+
+"Bother the literary sense," she said. "Bother" is not a pretty word,
+but this did not strike me till I came to write it down. "Look," she
+went on, "at the faint primrose tint over the pine trees and those last
+pink clouds high up in the sky."
+
+I could see the outline of her lifted chin and her throat against the
+yew shadows, but I determined to be wise. I looked at the pine trees and
+said--
+
+"I want you to instruct me. Why is it unlucky to break a looking-glass?
+and what is the counter-charm?"
+
+"I don't know"--there was some awe in her voice--"I don't think there is
+any counter-charm. If I broke a looking-glass I believe I should have to
+give up believing in these things altogether. It would make me too
+unhappy."
+
+I was discreet enough to pass by the admission.
+
+"And why is it unlucky to wear black at a wedding? And if anyone did
+wear black at your wedding, what would you do?"
+
+"You are very tiresome this evening," she said. "Why don't you keep to
+the point? Nobody was talking of weddings, and if you must wander, why
+not stray in more amusing paths? Why don't you talk of something
+interesting? Why do you try to be disagreeable? If you think I'm silly
+to believe all these nice picturesque things, why don't you give me your
+solid, dull, dry, scientific reasons for not believing them?"
+
+"Your wish is my law," I responded with alacrity. "Superstition, then,
+is the result of the imperfect recognition in unscientific ages of the
+relations of cause and effect. To persons unaccustomed correctly to
+assign causes, one cause is as likely as another to produce a given
+effect. Hallucinations of the senses have also, doubtless--"
+
+"And now you're only dull," she said.
+
+The light had slowly faded while we spoke till the churchyard was almost
+dark, the grass was heavy with dew, and sadness had crept like a shadow
+over the quiet world.
+
+"I am sorry. Everything I say is wrong to-night. I was born under an
+unlucky star. Forgive me."
+
+"It was I who was cross," she admitted at once very cheerfully, but,
+indeed, not without some truth. "But it doesn't do anyone any harm to
+play at believing things; honestly, I'm not sure whether I believe them
+or not, but they have some colour about them in an age grown grey in its
+hateful laboratories and workshops. I do want to try to tell you if you
+really want to know about it. I can't think why, but if I meet a flock
+of sheep I know it is lucky, and I'm cheered; and if a hare crosses the
+path I feel it is unlucky, and I'm sad; and if I see the new moon
+through glass I'm positively wretched. But all the same, I'm not
+superstitious. I'm not afraid of ghosts or dead people, or things like
+that"--I'm not sure that she did not add, "So there!"
+
+"Would you dare to go to the church door at twelve at night and knock
+three times?" I asked, with some severity.
+
+"Yes," she said stoutly, though I know she quailed, "I would. Now you'll
+admit that I'm not superstitious."
+
+"Yes," I said, and here I offer no excuse. The devil entered into me,
+and though I see now what a brute beast I was, I cannot be sorry. "I own
+that you are not superstitious. How dark it is growing. The ivy has
+broken the stone away just behind your head: there is quite a large hole
+in the side of the tomb. No, don't move, there's nothing there. If you
+were superstitious you might fancy, on a still, dark, sweet evening like
+this, that the dead man might wake and want to come up out of his
+coffin. He might crouch under the stone, and then, trying to come out,
+he might very slowly reach out his dead fingers and touch your neck.
+Ah!"
+
+The awakened wind had moved an ivy spray to the suggested touch. She
+sprang up with a cry, and the next moment she was clinging wildly to me,
+as I held her in my arms.
+
+"Don't cry, my dear, oh, don't! Forgive me, it was the ivy."
+
+She caught her breath.
+
+"How could you! how could you!"
+
+And still I held her fast, with--as she grew calmer--a question in the
+clasp of my arms, and, presently, on my lips.
+
+"Oh, my dear, forgive me! And is it true--do you?--do you?"
+
+"Yes--no--I don't know.... No, no, not through my veil, it _is_ so
+unlucky!"
+
+
+
+
+THE LOVE OF ROMANCE
+
+
+SHE opened the window, at which no light shone. All the other windows
+were darkly shuttered. The night was still: only a faint breath moved
+among the restless aspen leaves. The ivy round the window whispered
+hoarsely as the casement, swung back too swiftly, rested against it. She
+had a large linen sheet in her hands. Without hurry and without
+delayings she knotted one corner of it to the iron staple of the window.
+She tied the knot firmly, and further secured it with string. She let
+the white bulk of the sheet fall between the ivy and the night, then she
+climbed on to the window-ledge, and crouched there on her knees. There
+was a heart-sick pause before she grasped the long twist of the sheet as
+it hung--let her knees slip from the supporting stone and swung
+suddenly, by her hands. Her elbows and wrists were grazed against the
+rough edge of the window-ledge--the sheet twisted at her weight, and
+jarred her shoulder heavily against the house wall. Her arms seemed to
+be tearing themselves from their sockets. But she clenched her teeth,
+felt with her feet for the twisted ivy stems on the side of the house,
+found foothold, and the moment of almost unbearable agony was over. She
+went down, helped by feet and hands, and by ivy and sheet, almost
+exactly as she had planned to do. She had not known it would hurt so
+much--that was all. Her feet felt the soft mould of the border: a stout
+geranium snapped under her tread. She crept round the house, in the
+house's shadow--found the gardener's ladder--and so on to the high brick
+wall. From this she dropped, deftly enough, into the suburban lane:
+dropped, too, into the arms of a man who was waiting there. She hid her
+face in his neck, trembling, and said, "Oh, Harry--I wish I hadn't!"
+Then she began to cry helplessly. The man, receiving her embrace with
+what seemed in the circumstances a singularly moderated enthusiasm, led
+her with one arm still lightly about her shoulders down the lane: at
+the corner he stood still, and said in a low voice--
+
+"Hush--stop crying at once! I've something to say to you."
+
+She tore herself from his arm, and gasped.
+
+"It's _not_ Harry," she said. "Oh, how dare you!" She had been brave
+till she had dropped into his arms. Then the need for bravery had seemed
+over. Now her tears were dried swiftly and suddenly by the blaze of
+anger and courage in her eyes.
+
+"Don't be unreasonable," he said, and even at that moment of
+disappointment and rage his voice pleased her. "I had to get you away
+somehow. I couldn't risk an explanation right under your aunt's windows.
+Harry's sprained his knee--cricket. He couldn't come."
+
+A sharp resentment stirred in her against the lover who could play
+cricket on the very day of an elopement.
+
+"_He_ told you to come? Oh, how could he betray me!"
+
+"My dear girl, what was he to do? He couldn't leave you to wait out here
+alone--perhaps for hours."
+
+"I shouldn't have waited long," she said sharply; "you came to tell me:
+now you've told me--you'd better go."
+
+"Look here," he said with gentle calm, "I do wish you'd try not to be
+quite so silly. I'm Harry's doctor--and a middle-aged man. Let me help
+you. There must be some better way out of your troubles than a midnight
+flight and a despairingly defiant note on the pin-cushion."
+
+"I didn't," she said. "I put it on the mantelpiece. Please go. I decline
+to discuss anything with you."
+
+"Ah, don't!" he said; "I knew you must be a very romantic person, or you
+wouldn't be here; and I knew you must be rather sill--well, rather
+young, or you wouldn't have fallen in love with Harry. But I did not
+think, after the brave and practical manner in which you kept your
+appointment, I did _not_ think that you'd try to behave like the heroine
+of a family novelette. Come, sit down on this heap of stones--there's
+nobody about. There's a light in your house now. You can't go back yet.
+Here, let me put my Inverness round you. Keep it up round your chin, and
+then if anyone sees you they won't know who you are. I can't leave you
+alone here. You know what a lot of robberies there have been in the
+neighbourhood lately; there may be rough characters about. Come now,
+let's think what's to be done. You know you can't get back unless I help
+you."
+
+"I don't want you to help me; and I won't go back," she said.
+
+But she sat down and pulled the cloak up round her face.
+
+"Now," he said, "as I understand the case--it's this. You live rather a
+dull life with two tyrannical aunts--and the passion for romance...."
+
+"They're not tyrannical--only one's always ill and the other's always
+nursing her. She makes her get up and read to her in the night. That's
+her light you saw--"
+
+"Well, I pass the aunts. Anyhow, you met Harry--somehow--"
+
+"It was at the Choral Society. And then they stopped my going--because
+he walked home with me one wet night."
+
+"And you have never seen each other since?"
+
+"Of course we have."
+
+"And communicated by some means more romantic than the post?"
+
+"It wasn't romantic. It was tennis-balls."
+
+"Tennis-balls?"
+
+"You cut a slit and squeeze it and put a note in, and it shuts up and no
+one notices it. It wasn't romantic at all. And I don't know why I should
+tell you anything about it."
+
+"And then, I suppose, there were glances in church, and stolen meetings
+in the passionate hush of the rose-scented garden."
+
+"There's nothing in the garden but geraniums," she said, "and we always
+talked over the wall--he used to stand on their chicken house, and I
+used to turn our dog kennel up on end and stand on that. You have no
+right to know anything about it, but it was not in the least romantic."
+
+"No--that sees itself! May I ask whether it was you or he who proposed
+this elopement?"
+
+"Oh, how _dare_ you!" she said, jumping up; "you have no right to insult
+me like this."
+
+He caught her wrist. "Sit down, you little firebrand," he said. "I
+gather that he proposed it. You, at any rate, consented, no doubt after
+the regulation amount of proper scruples. It's all very charming and
+idyllic and--what are you crying for? Your lost hopes of a happy life
+with a boy you know nothing of, a boy you've hardly seen, a boy you've
+never talked to about anything but love's young dream?"
+
+"I'm _not_ crying," she said passionately, turning her streaming eyes on
+him, "you know I'm not--or if I am, it's only with rage. You may be a
+doctor--though I don't believe you are--but you're not a gentleman. Not
+anything like one!"
+
+"I suppose not," he said; "a gentleman would not make conditions. I'm
+going to make one. You can't go to Harry, because his Mother would be
+seriously annoyed if you did; and so, believe me, would he--though you
+don't think it. You can get up and leave me, and go 'away into the
+night,' like a heroine of fiction--but you can't keep on going away into
+the night for ever and ever. You must have food and clothes and lodging.
+And the sun rises every day. You must just quietly and dully go home
+again. And you can't do it without me. And I'll help you if you'll
+promise not to see Harry, or write to him for a year."
+
+"He'll see me. He'll write to me," she said with proud triumph.
+
+"I think not. I exacted the promise from _him_ as a condition of my
+coming to meet you."
+
+"And he promised?"
+
+"Evidently."
+
+There was a long silence. She broke it with a voice of concentrated
+fury.
+
+"If he doesn't mind, _I_ don't," she said. "I'll promise. Now let me go
+back. I wish you hadn't come--I wish I was dead."
+
+"Come," he said, "don't be so angry with me. I've done what I could for
+you both."
+
+"On conditions!"
+
+"You must see that they are good, or you wouldn't have accepted them so
+soon. I thought it would have taken me at least an hour to get you to
+consent. But no--ten minutes of earnest reflection are enough to settle
+the luckless Harry's little hash. You're quite right--he doesn't deserve
+more! I am pleased with myself, I own. I must have a very convincing
+manner."
+
+"Oh," she cried passionately, "I daresay you think you've been very
+clever. But I wish you knew what I think of you. And I'd tell you for
+twopence."
+
+"I'm a poor man, gentle lady--won't you tell me for love?" His voice was
+soft and pleading beneath the laugh that stung her.
+
+"Yes, I _will_ tell you--for nothing," she cried. "You're a brute, and a
+hateful, interfering, disagreeable, impertinent old thing, and I only
+hope you'll have someone be as horrid to you as you've been to me,
+that's all!"
+
+"I think I've had that already--quite as horrid," he said grimly. "This
+is not the moment for compliments--but you have great powers. You are
+brave, and I never met anyone who could be more 'horrid,' as you call
+it, in smaller compass, all with one little tiny adjective. My
+felicitations. You _are_ clever. Come--don't be angry any more--I had to
+do it--you'll understand some day."
+
+"You wouldn't like it yourself," she said, softening to something in his
+voice.
+
+"I shouldn't have liked it at your age," he said;
+"sixteen--fifteen--what is it?"
+
+"I'm nineteen next birthday," she said with dignity.
+
+"And the date?"
+
+"The fifteenth of June--I don't know what you mean by asking me."
+
+"And to-day's the first of July," he said, and sighed. "Well, well!--if
+your Highness will allow me, I'll go and see whether your aunt's light
+is out, and if it is, we'll attempt the re-entrance."
+
+He went. She shivered, waiting for what felt like hours. And the
+resentment against her aunts grew faint in the light of her resentment
+against her lover's messenger, and this, in its turn, was outshone by
+her anger against her lover. He had played cricket. He had risked his
+life--on the very day whose evening should have crowned that life by
+giving her to his arms. She set her teeth. Then she yawned and shivered
+again. It was an English July, and very cold. And the slow minutes crept
+past. What a fool she had been! Why had she not made a fight for her
+liberty--for her right to see Harry if she chose to see him? The aunts
+would never have stood up against a well-planned, determined,
+disagreeable resistance. In the light of this doctor's talk the whole
+thing did seem cowardly, romantic, and, worst of all, insufferably
+young. Well--to-morrow everything should change; she would fight for her
+Love, not merely run away to him. But the promise? Well, Harry was
+Harry, and a promise was only a promise!
+
+There were footsteps in the lane. The man was coming back to her. She
+rose.
+
+"It's all right," he said. "Come."
+
+In silence they walked down the lane. Suddenly he stopped.
+
+"You'll thank me some day," he said. "Why should you throw yourself away
+on Harry? You're worth fifty of him. And I only wish I had time to
+explain this to you thoroughly, but I haven't!"
+
+She, too, had stopped. Now she stamped her foot.
+
+"Look here," she said, "I'm not going to promise anything at all. You
+needn't help me if you don't want to--but I take back that promise.
+Go!--do what you like! I mean to stick to Harry--and I'll write and tell
+him so to-night. So there!"
+
+He clapped his hands very softly. "Bravo!" he said; "that's the right
+spirit. Plucky child! Any other girl would have broken the promise
+without a word to me. Harry's luckier even than I thought. I'll help
+you, little champion! Come on."
+
+He helped her over the wall; carried the ladder to her window, and
+steadied it while she mounted it. When she had climbed over the
+window-ledge she turned and leaned out of the window, to see him slowly
+mounting the ladder. He threw his head back with a quick gesture that
+meant "I have something more to say--lean out!"
+
+She leaned out. His face was on a level with hers.
+
+"You've slept soundly all night--don't forget that--it's important," he
+whispered, "and--you needn't tell Harry--one-sided things are so
+trivial, but I can't help it. _I_ have the passion for romance too!"
+
+With that he caught her neck in the curve of his arm, and kissed her
+lightly but fervently.
+
+"Good-bye!" he said; "thank you so much for a very pleasant evening!" He
+dropped from the ladder and was gone. She drew her curtain with angry
+suddenness. Then she lighted candles and looked at herself in the
+looking-glass. She thought she had never looked so pretty. And she was
+right. Then she went to bed, and slept like a tired baby.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Next morning the suburb was electrified by the discovery, made by the
+nursing aunt, that all the silver and jewels and valuables from the safe
+at the top of the stairs had vanished.
+
+"The villains must have come through your room, child," she said to
+Harry's sweetheart; "the ladder proves that. Slept sound all night, did
+you? Well, that was a mercy! They might have murdered you in your bed if
+you'd happened to be awake. You ought to be humbly thankful when you
+think of what might have happened."
+
+The girl did not think very much of what might have happened. What _had_
+happened gave her quite food enough for reflection. Especially when to
+her side of the night's adventures was added the tale of Harry's.
+
+He had not played cricket, he had not hurt his knee, he had merely
+confided in his father's valet, and had given that unprincipled villain
+a five-pound note to be at the Cross Roads--in the orthodox style--with
+a cab for the flight, a post-chaise being, alas! out of date. Instead of
+doing this, the valet, with a confederate, had gagged and bound young
+Harry, and set him in a convenient corner against the local waterworks
+to await events.
+
+"I never would have believed it of him," added Harry, in an agitated
+india-rubber-ball note, "he always seemed such a superior person, you'd
+have thought he was a gentleman if you'd met him in any other position."
+
+"I should. I did," she said to herself. "And, oh, how frightfully
+clever! And the way he talked! And all the time he was only keeping me
+out of the way while they stole the silver and things. I wish he hadn't
+taken the ruby necklace: it does suit me so. And what nerve! He actually
+talked about the robberies in the neighbourhood. He must have done them
+all. Oh, what a pity! But he was a dear. And how awfully wicked he was,
+too--but I'll never tell Harry!"
+
+She never has.
+
+Curiously enough, her Burglar Valet Hero was not caught, though the
+police most intelligently traced his career, from his being sent down
+from Oxford to his last best burglary.
+
+She was married to Harry, with the complete consent of everyone
+concerned, for Harry had money, and so had she, and there had never been
+the slightest need for an elopement, save in youth's perennial passion
+for romance. It was on her birthday that she received a registered
+postal packet. It had a good many queer postmarks on it, and the stamps
+were those of a South American republic. It was addressed to her by her
+new name, which was as good as new still. It came at breakfast-time, and
+it contained the ruby necklace, several gold rings, and a diamond
+brooch. All were the property of her late aunts. Also there was an
+india-rubber ball, and in it a letter.
+
+"Here is a birthday present for you," it said. "Try to forgive me. Some
+temptations are absolutely irresistible. That one was. And it was worth
+it. It rounded off the whole thing so perfectly. That last indiscretion
+of mine nearly ruined everything. There was a policeman in the lane. I
+only escaped by the merest fluke. But even then it would have been worth
+it. At least, I should like you to believe that I think so."
+
+"His last indiscretion," said Harry, who saw the note but not the
+india-rubber ball, "that means stealing your aunts' things, of course,
+unless it was dumping me down by the waterworks, but, of course, that
+wasn't the last one. But worth it? Why, he'd have had seven years if
+they'd caught him--worth it? He _must_ have a passion for burglary."
+
+She did not explain to Harry, because he would never have understood.
+But the burglar would have found it quite easy to understand that or
+anything. She was so shocked to find herself thinking this that she went
+over to Harry and kissed him with more affection even than usual.
+
+"Yes, dear," he said, "I don't wonder you're pleased to get something
+back out of all those things. I quite understand."
+
+"Yes, dear," said she. "I know. You always do!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Transcriber's Notes:
+
+Obvious punctuation errors repaired.
+
+Page 219, repeated word "for" deleted from text. Original read: (it will
+for for me)
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Literary Sense, by E. Nesbit
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LITERARY SENSE ***
+
+***** This file should be named 39324.txt or 39324.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        http://www.gutenberg.org/3/9/3/2/39324/
+
+Produced by Suzanne Shell, Emmy and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images generously made available by The
+Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
+
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+http://gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+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
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+http://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at http://pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit http://pglaf.org
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations.
+To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     http://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
diff --git a/39324.zip b/39324.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..919dcd5
--- /dev/null
+++ b/39324.zip
diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6312041
--- /dev/null
+++ b/LICENSE.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,11 @@
+This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements,
+metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be
+in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES.
+
+Procedures for determining public domain status are described in
+the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org.
+
+No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in
+jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize
+this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright
+status under the laws that apply to them.
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..a46a6f9
--- /dev/null
+++ b/README.md
@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #39324 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/39324)
author	Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org>	2025-10-14 20:12:27 -0700
committer	Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org>	2025-10-14 20:12:27 -0700
commit	9c18edfd1ef2ed1e589565666a5b4583b2033a38 (patch)
tree	ca6ce0b60e4ee95410c017a6889eed92fc5b00d9