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+                             LADY PENELOPE
+
+
+
+
+This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
+most other parts of the world 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
+http://www.gutenberg.org/license. If you are not located in the United
+States, you’ll have to check the laws of the country where you are
+located before using this ebook.
+
+
+
+Title: Lady Penelope
+Author: Morley Roberts
+Release Date: May 14, 2014 [EBook #45648]
+Language: English
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LADY PENELOPE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Al Haines.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Cover art]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: LADY PENELOPE BRADING Who had ideas of her own]
+
+
+
+
+                             Lady Penelope
+
+
+                                   By
+
+                             Morley Roberts
+
+              _Author of_ "Rachel Marr," "The Promotion of
+                           the Admiral," etc.
+
+
+
+                            _Illustrated by_
+                          Arthur William Brown
+
+
+
+                          L. C. Page & Company
+                                _Boston_
+                               _Mdccccv_
+
+
+
+
+                        _Copyright, 1904, 1903_
+                        BY L. C. PAGE & COMPANY
+                             (INCORPORATED)
+
+                         _All rights reserved_
+
+
+                        Published February, 1905
+
+                            _COLONIAL PRESS
+            Electrotyped and Printed by C. H. Simonds & Co.
+                         Boston, Mass., U.S.A._
+
+
+
+
+                        *LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS*
+
+
+LADY PENELOPE BRADING . . . . . . . . . _Frontispiece_
+       Who had ideas of her own.
+
+CAPTAIN PLANTAGENET GOBY, V.C., LATE OF THE GUARDS
+       Who was ordered to read poetry.
+
+LEOPOLD NORFOLK GORDON
+       Some said his real name was Isaac Levi.
+
+AUSTIN DE VERE
+       He wrote poetry, and abhorred bulldogs and motor-cars.
+
+THE MARQUIS DE RIVAULX
+       Anti-Semite to his manicured finger-tips.
+
+RUFUS Q. PLANT
+       Born in Virginia.
+
+CARTERET WILLIAMS, WAR CORRESPONDENT
+       He wrote with a red picturesqueness which was horribly
+       attractive.
+
+JIMMY CAREW, A.R.A.
+       He was the best looking of the whole "horde"
+
+THE EARL OF PULBOROUGH
+       Clever; but indolent.
+
+
+
+
+                            *LADY PENELOPE*
+
+
+
+                              *CHAPTER I.*
+
+
+All the absurd birthday celebrations were over, and Penelope was
+twenty-one.
+
+She declared that her whole life was to be devoted to reform.  She meant
+to reform society, to make it good and useful and straightforward, and
+simple and utterly delightful.
+
+She let it be understood that men were in great need of her particular
+attention.  They were too selfish and self-centred, too extravagant, too
+critical of each other, too vain.  They acknowledged it humbly when she
+mentioned it, for Lady Penelope Brading’s beauty was something to see
+and to talk of; major and minor poets agreed about it; artists desired
+to paint her and failed, as they always do when true loveliness shines
+on them.  She had the colour of a Titian; the contours of a Correggio;
+the witchery of a Reynolds, and under wonderful raiment the muscles of a
+young Greek athlete.  She wiped out any society in which she moved.
+When sweet Eclipse showed herself, the rest were nowhere.  The other
+girls did not exist; she even made married beauties quake; as for the
+men, they endured everything she said, and worshipped her all the more.
+She was strange and new and a tonic. She had no sense of humour
+whatsoever; she could not understand a joke even if it was explained by
+an expert on the staff of _Punch_.  This made her utterly delightful.
+Her beautiful seriousness was as refreshing as logic in a sermon.  She
+believed in clergymen, in politicians, in the Deceased Wife’s Sister, in
+all eminent physicians, in the London County Council, in the City of
+Westminster, in the British Constitution, in herself, and hygiene.  She
+read the _Times_, the _Athenæum_, the Encyclopædia Britannica, Herbert
+Spencer, Mr. Kidd, and the late Mr. Drummond.  She used Sandow’s
+exercises and cold water.  She was opposed to war; she admired the
+leader of the opposition and the lord mayor; she subscribed to a society
+for establishing a national theatre to play Mr. Bernard Shaw’s
+tragedies, and to the nearest hospital.  She was the most delightful
+person in England, and was against vaccination.  She had money and lands
+and houses and ideas.
+
+"We ought all to do something; to be something," said Lady Penelope
+Brading.
+
+It was an amazing statement, a shocking statement, and clean against all
+class tradition when she interpreted it to the alarmed.  Was it not to
+be something if one was rich, let us say?  Was it not to do something if
+one spent one’s money on horses and sport and dress and bridge?  Heaven
+defend us all if anything more is asked of man or woman than killing
+time and killing beasts!  Hands went up to heaven when Penelope
+preached.
+
+Not that she preached at length.  Her sermons lasted five seconds by any
+clock, save at the times when she warmed her ankles by the fire with
+some pet friend of hers, and took into consideration how she was to use
+her power for the regeneration of the world which was hers.  Now she was
+with Ethel Mytton, a remote relative of the celebrated Mytton who drank
+eight bottles of port a day, and was a sportsman of the character which
+makes all Englishmen prouder of sport than of their history. Ten
+thousand on a football field would put him higher than Sir Richard
+Grenville.  Sidney was a fool to him.  Her father was a cabinet
+minister.
+
+But Ethel was meek and mild, and followed Penelope at a humble distance,
+modelling herself on that sweet mould of revolution.  So might a penny
+candle imitate an arc-light; so a glowworm worship the big moon.
+
+"But you’ll get married, dear," said Ethel, "of course you’ll get
+married."
+
+Penelope was pensive.
+
+"There are other things than marriage," said Penelope.
+
+"Oh, are there?" sighed Ethel.  She did not think so, for she was in
+love.  Penelope loved theories best.
+
+"Which of them will you marry?" asked Ethel.
+
+"Which what?"
+
+"Silly, them," said Ethel.  "What the duchess calls your ’horde.’"
+
+"I don’t know," replied Penelope.  "I’m like Diogenes, and I’m looking
+for an honest man."
+
+"Oh, honesty,—yes, of course, I know what you mean.  But there are
+plenty of them, Pen dear.
+
+"Boo!" said Pen; "so the other Greeks said to the man in the tub."
+
+Ethel sighed.
+
+"What Greeks and what man in what tub?" she inquired, plaintively.
+
+And Penelope did not enlighten her darkness, for in came the Duchess of
+Goring, her aunt, whose Christian name was Titania.  She weighed sixteen
+stone in glittering bead armour, and had a voice exactly like Rose Le
+Clerc’s in "The Duchess of Bayswater."  She rarely stopped talking, and
+was ridiculously moral and conventional, and, except for her voice, she
+might have been a shopkeeper’s wife in any suburb.
+
+"My dear Penelope," said Titania, "I’m glad to see you again.  You look
+positively sweet, my darling, after all these parties and carryings-on,
+and what not, and now at last you are quite grown up and yourself and
+your own and twenty-one.  I wish I was.  I was nine stone then
+exactly,—not a pound more.  Oh, and it’s you, Ethel.  I hope your dear
+papa is not overworking himself, now he’s a cabinet minister.  Cabinet
+ministers will overwork themselves.  I’ve known them die of it.  Tell
+him what I say, will you?  But of course he will pay no attention, and
+in time will die like the rest. It’s no use advising men to be sensible.
+I’ve given it up.  Ah, here at last is Lord Bradstock."
+
+Titania flowed on wonderfully; she flowed exactly like the twisting
+piece of glass in a mechanical clock which mimics a jet of water.  She
+turned round and never advanced.  But Augustin, Lord Bradstock, was as
+calm as a mill-pond, as a mere in the mountains.  He was tall and thin
+and ruddy and white-haired at fifty.  He had been twice a widower.
+
+"Why at last, Titania?" he yawned, as he stood with Penelope’s hand in
+his.  He was still her guardian in his heart, though she was out of
+tutelage.
+
+"I say at last, Augustin, because you were not here before me," cried
+Titania.  "And I expected you to be here before me from what you said
+this morning.  I told you I meant to come in and speak quietly and
+seriously to Penelope, and you said you would come, too."
+
+Penelope’s eyes thanked her guardian, and they smiled at him
+half-secretly, saying as plain as any words: "What a dear you are to
+come in and dilute aunty for me!"
+
+"Yes," said Bradstock, "I think I said I would prepare her."
+
+"I’ve not had a single chance lately to say a word for her good," cried
+Titania, "what with this person and that person and the horde.  I think
+it is time now, Penelope, that you reorganized your amazing circle of
+acquaintances, mostly men, by the way. While Augustin was responsible
+for you, of course you were obstinate, but now you are in a position of
+greater freedom you will see the advisability of being guided by your
+aunt.  I’m sure, I’m positive of it."
+
+Now the real sore point with the duchess was this matter of the "horde."
+It was the only picturesque phrase she ever invented in her life, and
+without any doubt it did characterize in some measure the remarkable
+collection of men who were pretenders to Penelope’s hand and fortune.
+
+"Out of the entire, the entire—"
+
+"Caboodle," said Bradstock, suggestively.
+
+The duchess shook her head like a horse in fly-time.
+
+"No, Augustin, not caboodle; pray, what is caboodle?  Out of the
+entire—lot, Penelope, there are hardly three who belong to your class.
+I entreat you to go through them and dismiss those of whom we can’t
+approve, I and Lord Bradstock."
+
+"Don’t drag me in," said Bradstock.  "They are all very good fellows; I
+approve of them all."
+
+"Tut, tut," said Titania, "is this the way you help, Augustin?  You are
+a hindrance.  I believe it is entirely owing to you that Penelope has
+these strange and alarming ideas.  Yes, my dear, I’m afraid it is.  He
+is not the kind of man who should have been your guardian.  I ought to
+have been consulted.  I knew a bishop who would have been admirable,
+most admirable.  He’s dead, dear man, and the present one is a scandal
+to the Protestant Church, what with incense and processions and candles
+and confession-boxes.  But, as I was saying, I do hope you will dismiss
+some of these men.  And I hope you will be sensible and not say shocking
+things.  No one should say shocking things till they are married, and
+even then with discretion.  Socialism and reform and marriage!  Dear me,
+you really must not talk about marriage, but you must get married to a
+suitable person.  I’m sure, Augustin, we should have no insuperable
+objection to, let us say, young Bramber.  He’ll be an earl by and by.
+And you mustn’t talk about reforming society, my dear love.  It is quite
+impossible to reform society without abolishing it, my pet.  Ethel
+darling, many cabinet ministers have owned as much to me with much
+alarm, almost with tears.  It’s no use trying.  Tell your dear father
+so, Ethel.  I forgot to mention it the other day when we discussed the
+London County Council and its terrible extravagance compared with the
+economy of the government.  We talked, too, about the War Office, and I
+told him that it couldn’t be reformed without abolishing it, which was
+not to be thought of for an instant. What should we do without a War
+Office, as we are always fighting?  He sighed deeply, poor man. Dr.
+Lumsden Griff says sighing is cardiac in its origin, and I wish your
+father would see him, Ethel. He’s the first doctor in London for the
+ventricles of the heart.  So every one says.  But about your ideas,
+Penelope—"
+
+"Good heavens, aunty, I haven’t any left," said Penelope.  This was not
+in the least surprising, for Titania reduced any ordinary gathering to
+idiocy at the shortest notice.
+
+"Oh, but you have," said Titania, "and society cannot endure ideas, my
+love.  Anything but ideas, darling."
+
+"Well, well," sighed Bradstock, "what is the use of talking to her,
+Titania?  Pen is Pen, and there’s an end of it."
+
+"I wish there was," cried the duchess.  "But she rails against marriage.
+And she’s only twenty-one.  Dear, dear me!"
+
+"She pays too much attention to you married women," said Bradstock.
+"How’s the duke, by the way?"
+
+As the duke was engaged in running two theatres at the same time, not
+wholly in the interests of art or finance, Bradstock might have asked
+after his health at some other juncture.  Titania ignored him.
+
+"She rails against marriage," lamented Titania.
+
+"I don’t," said Penelope.
+
+"You do," said her aunt.
+
+"It’s only the horrible publicity," said Penelope, "and the way things
+are done, and the ghastly presents and the bishops and the newspaper men
+and the horrible crowd outside and the worse crowd inside, and all the
+horrid fluff and flummery of it. If I’m ever married, I’ll get it done
+in a registrar’s office."
+
+"Oh, Penelope," wailed Ethel.
+
+But Titania became terrible.
+
+"You shall not be, Penelope," she cried.  "I could not stand it.  As
+your aunt, my dear—  Oh, my love, I knew some one who was married in
+that way, and it was a most shocking affair, and of course it turned out
+that he had been married before and was a bigamist.  The scandal was
+hushed up, and the first wife, who was the sweetest girl, and died of
+consumption shortly afterward at her father’s vicarage in Kent or
+Yorkshire, near Pevensey or Pontefract; at any rate it began with a P,
+and the man, though a villain, was a gentleman, for he married the
+second one all over again in a foreign place, with a chaplain
+officiating; much better than a registrar, who can marry you, I’m told,
+in pajamas if he likes, though not like a bishop, which one might have
+expected in his case.  You all knew him slightly, at any rate.  Never,
+my dear, get married at a registrar’s."
+
+"It’s better than the open shame of a cathedral and a bishop," said
+Penelope.  "Being married is one’s private business, and it’s nothing
+but horrid savagery to have crowds there!"
+
+"Bravo!" said Bradstock, and Titania turned on him.
+
+"Did I not say all this was your fault, Augustin? You were no more fit
+to be her guardian than you are to be Archbishop of Canterbury.  Am I a
+savage, Penelope? and did I not get married in a cathedral, a most
+beautiful cathedral, all Gothic and newly restored at a vast expense?
+My dear, I am amazed and horrified and shocked to think that you should
+not perceive the quite exquisite fitness of being married in a piece of
+lovely Gothic architecture, to the very loveliest music, breathing over
+Eden, and so on, while all your dearest friends shed tears of purest
+joy—"
+
+"To see her got rid of," said Bradstock.
+
+And even Ethel Mytton laughed.
+
+"Augustin!  Ethel Mytton!  How can you say such things and laugh?  It’s
+wicked; it’s indecent!"
+
+"Yes," said Penelope, "that’s what I say. There’s nothing to choose
+between your way and the American way the millionaire women have over
+there, when they hold a flower-show in a gilded room, and get married
+under a bell of roses at the cost of a hundred thousand dollars.  I’d
+rather be knocked down by a nice savage, or run away with by a viking,
+or caught by a pirate.  I won’t be breathed over in Eden by a stuffy
+crowd.  If—if—"
+
+"Oh, if what?" gasped Titania.
+
+"If I ever do get married," said Penelope, "I’ll never tell any of you
+beforehand!"
+
+"Good heavens!" said the duchess, "you won’t tell us?"
+
+"I won’t."
+
+"You’ll let us find out!  Shall I know nothing of the marriage of my
+brother’s child till I read it in the _Times_?  It shall not be!
+Augustin, does she mean it?"
+
+Augustin lighted a cigarette and walked to the window, which looked down
+on the traffic of Piccadilly.
+
+"I give it up," said Augustin.  "When could I answer riddles?  Do you
+mean it, Pen?"
+
+And Penelope, rising up, stood on the hearthrug and, looking like the
+descendant of a viking and some fair Venetian, declared that she did
+mean it.  And she further went on to say, in great haste and with a most
+remarkable flow of words, that it shouldn’t be in the _Times_ or any
+other paper. And she said that if Titania, Duchess of Goring, was her
+aunt, it couldn’t be helped, and that her principles were more to her
+than any one’s approval. Though she loved her aunt and her dear sweet
+guardian, these same principles were even dearer than they were.  And
+she said that they had no principles ("not even Guardy dear"), and that
+they only thought of a demon thing called Society, which was at once a
+fetich and a phantom.  And she became so excited that she talked like a
+real woman orator upon a platform, and expressed her intention of using
+her influence to bring about reform, especially in such matters and with
+regard to young men who did nothing, and seemed to think they had been
+created for that very purpose.  And, as she talked, there wasn’t a man
+in the world who would not have yearned to take his coat off and ask for
+a pick and shovel at the least, for she was as beautiful as any young
+goddess fresh from Grecian foam or from high Olympus.  Even Bradstock
+sighed to think that he had never done anything for the human race,
+which required so much help, but sit in the Upper House, a speechless
+phantom. And Ethel Mytton cried with an imparted enthusiasm, while the
+duchess wept with horror.
+
+"And more than that," said Penelope, who broke down in her eloquence and
+resorted to the tone of conversation, "more than that, I’ll never, never
+let you know whom I marry!  I mean it!  That—that’s flat!"
+
+And after this damp but awful peroration, she sat down with heaving
+bosom, and poor, bewildered Titania shook her head till it looked as if
+it would come off.  She found no flow of words to oppose Penelope with.
+The biggest river is nothing when it flows into the sea, and, if Titania
+was the Amazon, Pen was the South Atlantic.
+
+"Not who he is?" said the duchess, as feebly as if she were no more than
+a brook in a meadow.
+
+"I will not," said Penelope, like a sea in a cyclone.
+
+"Not—  Oh, I must go home," piped Titania. "Augustin, she’s capable of
+marrying a chauffeur, because he can drive at sixty miles an hour,—or—or
+a groom!"
+
+"I’d rather marry either or both," said Pen, furiously, "than be mobbed
+and musicked into matrimony with a grinning crowd of idiots looking on."
+
+"This is immoral," said Titania, "it’s very immoral; you couldn’t marry
+both.  I’ll go home, Bradstock."
+
+And Bradstock took her there.
+
+"You’ve done it, Titania," he said, as they drove. "She’s as obstinate
+and as violent as a passive resister.  You’ve put her bristles up, and
+Pen never goes back from what she says."
+
+"You are very like a man, Augustin," sobbed the duchess.
+
+"She’s more like a woman than I’m like a man," growled Bradstock.
+
+He had never risen to eminence, and only once to his feet in the Upper
+House, and sometimes this rankled.
+
+"Yes, I mean it, I mean it," said Penelope.
+
+"And I wanted to be your bridesmaid," sobbed Ethel.
+
+"You never will be, and you can tell every one what I say."
+
+"I won’t," said Ethel, "I won’t."
+
+And she went away and told them.
+
+
+
+
+                             *CHAPTER II.*
+
+
+In spite of what good conventional people said, there was nothing
+abnormal in Penelope’s character. The walking world appears abnormal to
+an institute for cripples; good going is an absurdity, and as for
+running—  The truth is that Penelope, by some unimaginable freak of
+fortune, had been born quite sound and sane, barring her one lack, that
+of humour.  The providential death of her parents at an early age saved
+her from a deal of teaching. Bradstock saved her from a great deal more,
+and she saw to the rest.  It pleased Augustin, Lord Bradstock, to play
+with gunpowder, in spite of what he said about dynamite.  He encouraged
+her to trust to herself in a way that every well-regulated woman
+considered highly dangerous, and he used to enrage her in order to hear
+what she had to say to him.  There was a period in which she swore
+vigorously.  She learnt her language from an old stableman, who adored
+her even more than he did any horse.  This was at the age of three.  Her
+first interview with her aunt, the Duchess of Goring, was positively so
+shocking to Titania, who was mid-Victorian, and never got over it, that
+the poor thing almost fainted when Penelope, a shining brat of three,
+damned her eyes with terrific vigour. Goring, who was that very curious
+and absurd survival of a thousand ages, known as a sportsman, roared
+with laughter.  There was humanity in him.  There was none in Titania,
+though there might have been if she had married any one but a duke.  And
+Penelope damned her eyes for saying she mustn’t go to the stables
+without a retinue, an escort, a bodyguard of footmen and nurses and
+governesses.
+
+"I haven’t a governeth now," lisped Penelope. "I thacked the latht one,
+didn’t I, Bradstock?"
+
+Lady Bradstock, number two, was then reigning without governing as far
+as Bradstock was concerned, and governing without reigning as far as
+another was concerned, and she paid no attention to Penelope, except to
+encourage her to amuse her guardian.  Thus Penelope grew like a tree in
+the open, and there were no Dutch gardeners to clip her.  At fifteen she
+greeted her last governess, a lady of great learning and no ability,
+with the news that she had had her luggage got ready, and that there was
+the carriage at the door for her.  There is no defending such conduct.
+Pen never defended it herself in later years.  She acknowledged she had
+been a brute to Miss Mackarness, and gave her a position as housekeeper
+in one of her own houses, that she never visited, with permission to
+receive the shillings some visitors paid to see a mansion like a
+sarcophagus, with one treasure of a Turner in it.
+
+The trouble was that Penelope was natural.  She had not been trained to
+become so; she grew so. There is no more painful and laborious a process
+than to learn to be natural in later life.  But to grow like it!  Ah,
+that was splendid, and many unthinking people laughed to hear Pen when
+she swore, or cried, or begged for pardon, or dominated the whole little
+world around her.  The world indeed smiled on Pen, and now she was
+twenty-one and splendid, mobile, gracious, Venetian, strong, and as rich
+as an American heiress, and she already had as many wooers as Penelope
+of old.  But the little bow of Cupid was too much for them. Other
+defence was too good.  And now these strange notions grew up in her.
+There was some natural shame in her heart that the crowd of duchesses
+and what not could not understand.  When He came at last, riding
+gallantly, a brave male, virile, strong, and bold, armed in shining
+armour, should she lead him out into Piccadilly, investing him in a
+frock coat for his armour and a cylinder for his helmet, and marry him
+in a crowd, while a paid organist played something about Eden?  Oh,
+where was Eden?
+
+Here’s romance then, and in a new guise in a young woman.  For the true
+romantic age is the age of feminine desperation.  When one has been
+"taught" all one’s best years, it’s hard to be romantic till one wears
+through one’s fetters at the very foot of the scaffold, when it’s too
+late.  How many sweet women sour in cream-jugs, and escape the cat, or
+some roaring lion, for nothing but sourest contemplation.  They crowd
+feminine churches.
+
+Pen’s brother, or, rather, half-brother, was ten years her senior, and
+played a suitable part in the orchestra of the House of Lords as Lord
+Brading. He voted for the government when it was conservative, and
+against it when it was liberal with perfect certainty and good-will.
+There was nothing remarkable about Brading but the strange, almost
+awestruck admiration with which he worshipped Penelope.  A man even of
+the most absurd conservative solidity must be a radical and an anarchist
+somewhere, and indeed he pretended to be something of a socialist.
+Nevertheless, he had humour.  Brading thought his half-sister a wonder,
+and had no criticism for her.  Indeed it is believed that he helped the
+groom mentioned above to teach her unrefinements of the English language
+peculiarly shocking to early and mid Victorians.  But in his heart
+"Bill" Brading considered Pen’s mother accounted for, excused
+everything.  The last Lady Brading was an American who wallowed in
+money, which she invested in repairing her husband’s character and his
+castles.  When he died, and nothing could be done for his character but
+suppress biographers, she invested in ancient demesnes on Pen’s behalf,
+and bought her rat-riddled and ghost-haunted mansions of historic
+character till there were few (and among them Penelope could not be
+counted) who could tell how many of them she owned.  Then Lady Brading
+went to a newer world than the United States, and left Pen to the care
+of Augustin, Lord Bradstock, a man of brains and no voice when on his
+legs.  It is reported that he learnt a speech of his own composing by
+heart, and when he rose to deliver it all he said was, "Good God," in an
+astonished whisper, and collapsed, struck by a form of paralysis which
+rarely attacks fools and which bores cannot suffer from.
+
+Penelope was richer than her half-brother, for her mother, having paid
+her husband’s debts, rebuilt Brading House, and saved his life from
+being written after a very quiet and gentlemanly departure, considered
+she had done her duty to the family. She left her stepson five thousand
+pounds, it is true, and, with a want of ostentation not peculiarly
+American, she left another five to Penelope, and modestly made her
+residuary legatee.  The residue was considerably over a million dollars.
+And then there were the houses, most of them ineligible properties in
+ring-fences, fit for immediate occupation after they had been restored.
+For poor Lady Brading had a passion for ruins, and collected castles as
+some do bric-à-brac.  The two great griefs of her life were that she
+could not buy Haddon Hall and Arundel Castle.
+
+Well, there is the situation plainly outlined.  Pen was as savage as
+Pocahontas, so some said, and she could, an she liked, wallow in money.
+She owned property all over England, to say nothing of a chateau near
+Tours, a palazzo in Venice, and a building in New York which brought in
+more than the rest cost to keep up.  She had a brother, a peer with a
+voice, a guardian a peer without one, an aunt who was a duchess, and
+strange ideas of her own which got up and talked on the most unsuitable
+occasions.
+
+But then there was her beauty as clamant as a rose of fire, as sweet as
+violet or verbena!  The rose can be gilded it seems, like a lily, and
+the gold was a power to her, giving authority over men. She who had
+enough to command the work of many thousands at current wages (for this
+is money truly) commanded that strange respect for power as well as love
+for herself.  Her lovers were numberless, so people said, and there was
+this truth in their being beyond arithmetic that no one troubled to
+count them.  Marriageable beauties of a lesser order of loveliness
+prayed for her extinction in matrimony.  Mothers of the marriageable
+prayed for it with a fervour only equalled by the fervour of her
+hopeless lovers, if there can be fervour without hope.  It is the
+command of true beauty that it can.  Had not all the painters, all the
+sculptors, from Pheidias down to the unselected classics of our own
+time, met together when she rose, a newer Aphrodite from the sea of the
+unknown!  Her loveliness was sweet and intolerable; one ached at it.
+Cowards shrank from it.  Brave men cried for her.  There are strange
+tales!
+
+What a strange motley gathering she selected. They had one thing in
+common, to be discovered shortly, one would think.  She discovered their
+qualities by inspection.  Many would-bes she drove away overcliff.  She
+knew men of many classes adored her, wondering and humble.  One great
+lover of hers, who was very good to horses, and only reasonably bitter
+against motor-cars, was her groom, Timothy Bunting.  He didn’t know he
+loved her.  Indeed, he imagined he loved her maid.  But there is this
+quality in a great love, that it asks all or nothing.  Tim was perhaps
+as great as the greatest, but he rode behind her even when the Marquis
+de Rivaulx or Rufus Q. Plant rode alongside her with a quiet and
+unjealous mind.  There was much in Timothy, as much or more than there
+was in the French marquis, who rode "well enough," as Tim said, or as in
+Plant, who rode "all over ’is ’orse," as became one bred in Arizona.
+These must show themselves by and by.  They had the quality, at any
+rate.  Even Tim knew it.
+
+But what was it that gave permission to Mr. Austin de Vere to join the
+throng?  He wrote poetry.  He followed her as close as a rhyme in a
+couplet.  He never wrote her any, for which she was pleased to be
+flatteringly thankful.  There are some things that cannot be set down in
+verse even by the greatest, and the poet De Vere acknowledged this
+humbly.  He had the character of being the most conceited and
+immitigable ass in England, and when he was with Penelope he was as
+humble as a puppy in leash.  There was something great in his mighty
+subjection.  Not even Goby, late of the Guards, was so mitigable and so
+mitigated when Pen was by.  And Goby’s V.C. was almost as much valued by
+him as his clothes and boots. He gained it by a fit of angry rage, such
+as had led him to pay several sovereigns at a desk in a back office at a
+police-station, and came out of his temper to discover he was a hero.
+So much for luck when a big man, with the quality and temper of a bull,
+gets into a row in a sangar without any police to stay his hand.
+
+"As for that De Vere," said Goby, "why, I could crush him with one
+hand."
+
+"And he could make you sore with a few words," said Penelope.
+
+"He couldn’t," bragged Goby.
+
+Penelope smiled.
+
+"No, perhaps he couldn’t," she said, pensively, and Goby was pleased
+with her opinion of his bull’s hide.  Europa had at any rate scratched
+him.  He indicated the sea of matrimony with inarticulate bellows.  But
+of course he was really quite possible. As Chloe Cadwallader said, his
+boots were inspiration, polished, and his Christian name was
+Plantagenet.  He had some obscure right to it.
+
+Then there was Lord Bramber.  Some folks said if she married any one,
+she would marry Bramber, because his father was the Earl of Pulborough.
+They forgot all the rest of the aristocratic mob. If any title pleased
+her democratic soul, she could pick strawberries.  One senile and one
+merely silly duke pursued her panting.  But she certainly liked Bramber,
+and showed her partiality for him or her unpartiality with frankness.
+She had hopes of him, though he appeared hopeless now at the age of
+twenty-seven.  She maintained that men were half their age and women
+twice it, at the least.
+
+"Dear Titania is ninety," said Penelope, "and Guardy is twenty-five.
+Lord Bramber will perhaps think of doing some work when he is fifteen."
+
+There came with these, with and not after, Jimmy Carew, who was an
+A.R.A.  He painted portraits, and talked about art with eloquence till
+no one, even an artist, could guess what he meant.  But he believed
+things with such faith that many of his fair sitters agreed with him.
+He was the best looking of the whole "horde," as Titania called Pen’s
+adorers.
+
+The "horde" included Leopold Norfolk Gordon, who had a house in Park
+Lane and ever so many people’s money to keep it up with.  As may be
+guessed from his name, he was a Jew.  Several people, with whom he could
+not share the money he had acquired by unsullied dishonesty, said his
+real name was Isaac Levi.  Goby, who hated him bitterly, consoled him
+when a less successful Israelite called him "Ikey," at Ascot, by saying:
+
+"It’s damned hard lines, Gordon.  A man may be born in Whitechapel
+without being a Jew."
+
+So near may insolence come to wit.  When this was pointed out to Goby,
+he told the story everywhere with many chuckles.  But it was impossible
+to deny certain attributes to poor Gordon, whether his name was Levi or
+Moses, or Ehrenbreitstein, for that matter.  Penelope had no racial
+prejudices, and anti-Semitism was unnatural and abhorrent to her.  She
+said things about negroes to Rufus Q. Plant (born in Virginia) which
+made his flesh creep almost as badly as if he had been born in Delaware.
+So in spite of Gordon’s looking somewhat Semitic, she asserted there
+were the qualities she required in the poor man, who indeed was not
+bumptious or loud or peculiarly offensive in her presence.  He that
+stole millions feared a girl.  He polished his last week’s hat with
+trembling hands, that had signed death-warrants in the city, when he
+spoke with her.
+
+And to round off the "horde" with another sample, there came in Carteret
+Williams.  He was the biggest of the lot, and had a voice like a
+toastmaster’s, or that of the man who announces the train at Zurich.  It
+is worth going there to hear him, by the way.  Many good Americans
+travel for less.  Williams was a writer, a journalist, a
+war-correspondent, or, as he said, a "battle vulture."  When he could
+dip his pen in blood, he wrote with a red picturesqueness which was
+horribly attractive. He belonged to a very decent family, and took to
+his present trade by nature.  That gives some hint of why Penelope liked
+him.
+
+What was the secret, then, the secret that brought young Bramber, and
+Rufus Quintus Plant, and "Ikey Levi," alias Leopold Norfolk Gordon, and
+Captain Plantagenet Goby, and the verse-making De Vere, together with
+the Marquis de Rivaulx and Jimmy Carew, under one table-cloth, so to
+speak, at the Tattenham Corner of wooing?  Some said Penelope wouldn’t
+have anything to do with any one who was not a Man.  It is true she
+abhorred those who were not men; but so much depends upon a definition.
+In the West (and the East, for that matter) a Man goes for what he is
+worth, and is common currency, as he should be, and a "White Man" is the
+gold.  To be called a White Man is the true compliment, and
+implies,—well, it implies what the "horde" implied.  They were men and
+Man, and "White," so Penelope said when she had picked up the
+picturesque figure from Rufus Q. Plant.  They might be asses (and some
+were, or at least mules), but they meant to run straight.  They were
+lazy, or some were, but the laziest lay under the delusion that laziness
+was their godlike duty.  They needed the spur.  They might be brutes in
+the way of business (you should read what has been written in a New York
+paper about Plant, or hear what a certain disembowelled set in the city
+say of Gordon, who turned them inside out), but they played the game.
+They knew what cricket was, even when it was played with red-hot shot,
+and not to carry one’s bat meant blue ruin. After saying that they were
+all this, which implies they were men of honour, each according to the
+code of their fellows (for this is honour), I shall show you how they
+came, or how many of them came, to utter grief in curious ways under
+very odd stresses.  What can a man of honour do in an entirely new
+position, one not provided for in any code?  It would puzzle a jury of
+archangels to say.
+
+"Have you heard?" asked Goby, with wondering eyes.
+
+"What she says?" replied Gordon.
+
+"Shade of Titian!" cried Jimmy Carew.
+
+"Well, I’m damned!" said Carteret Williams.
+
+"This is romance," sighed the De Vere.
+
+"I’m—I’m—that’s what I am," whistled Rufus Q. Plant.
+
+"Imphm!" murmured Lord Bramber.
+
+"Sapristi!" shrieked the French marquis.
+
+Wasn’t it enough to make them exclaim when it was reported all over
+London, and in the country, and in papers and cables to New York that
+Penelope Brading had sworn, with a great oath, that she meant to upset
+the holy apple-cart of all tradition (at least since Adam) by never
+letting any one know who her husband was!  They knew her, and knew her
+word was sacred.  Now let all unwhite men, all unrealities, all ghosts,
+all vain folks vanish one by one.
+
+With one voice the "horde" exclaimed, as they set their teeth:
+
+"Well, we don’t care!"
+
+What does this say for Penelope’s faculties of distinguishing men from
+monkeys, and white from gray?
+
+
+
+
+                             *CHAPTER III.*
+
+
+All that happened now only shows one how the greatest sense of modesty
+may end in the biggest advertisement.  Penelope, though determined to do
+her duty, which was mainly to educate mankind, meant doing it
+unobtrusively, and there was not a man or woman in the British Isles or
+in the United States who did not hear of her quiet intention.  The
+cables hummed with Penelope’s name; it was whispered in the great deeps
+of the sea; wireless telegraphists caught Lady Penelope Brading out of
+Hertzian waves; ships ploughed the ocean laden with Penelope and copy
+about her.
+
+In two twos the notoriety hunters in London sank into insignificance;
+professional beauties were neglected, and the sale of their photographs
+fell off. There was an immense demand for Penelope’s, which, luckily, no
+one could satisfy until an enterprising New Yorker flooded the United
+States with portraits.  Before it was found out that this particular
+photograph was one of a young actress whom he proposed introducing to
+the public shortly, he sold amazing quantities of them.  When there was
+one in every inquiring household from Hudson Bay to the Gulf of Mexico,
+the real sitter for it wrote to the papers and complained bitterly.  She
+is now playing to crowded houses.  There are many paths to fame.
+
+Poor Pen was at first horribly shocked.  She was young.  And yet she was
+human.  She said: "Oh, dear, oh, dear!" and, swearing that she would
+never read a word about herself, she subscribed to a newspaper cutting
+agency.
+
+From the New York papers alone one could cull a highly coloured account
+of her whole history. And they gave Bradstock’s history, too, not
+omitting his two-word exclamatory speech in the House of Lords.
+Bradstock stood it like a Trojan, like a Spartan.  He never turned a
+hair even when they said that he was going to marry Penelope himself.
+They gave a full biography of Titania, with a real photograph.  When the
+duchess saw it, she was silent for full five minutes, such was the shock
+it gave her.  Then she talked for five hours, and called on the American
+ambassador.
+
+"Cannot you do anything for me?" asked Titania, perorating.
+
+"I’m afraid not, your Grace," said the ambassador, wearily.  He said it
+was an awful thing to be an ambassador sometimes, though it had its
+points.
+
+Being discomfited for once by an ambassador, she turned on Bradstock,
+and rent him limb from limb.  And then she went to Penelope.
+
+"I’m only doing my duty," said Penelope, with her beautiful lips as firm
+as Grecian marble.
+
+"Your duty!" shrieked the duchess; "and look at the papers!"
+
+"I can’t help what they say, aunt.  One’s duty—"
+
+"They tell my weight," said Titania.  "How did they know?"
+
+"They must have guessed it," said Penelope.
+
+"I don’t _look_ it," pleaded the duchess, now suddenly plaintive.
+
+"No, no, dear auntie, you don’t," said poor Penelope.  "Oh, it’s cruel
+of them."
+
+"Help me, then," said Titania.  "Get married at once in a cathedral, and
+all this will stop.  I’ll ask the dear archbishop to officiate,
+Penelope.  Oh, my darling!"
+
+But Penelope became Pentelican marble again; she froze into a severe
+goddess, and she saw Titania weep.
+
+"It’s scandalous!  Oh, and they have a list of them all," said Titania.
+
+Indeed, the _New York Dustman_ had the "horde" set out in a row like the
+entries for the Derby. They said the betting was on Rufus Q. Plant, of
+course.  They gave a short and succulent biography of them all.  They
+headed the list "The Lady Penelope Handicap."  They used some slang
+about "weight for age."
+
+"Great heavens!" said Titania, "all town is ringing with it.  If this is
+the result of looking on marriage as one’s private business, give me
+publicity!"
+
+There would have been less of it if a prince had married a publican’s
+daughter in St. Paul’s, and had presented the dean with a set of pewter
+pots.
+
+"And if she does what she says!"
+
+The only men who did not talk much about Penelope were naturally those
+who aspired to win her.  Every one neglected politics and sport to
+discuss her.  She became politics and sport.  Huge sums of money were at
+stake as to whether she would keep her word; as to the length of time
+she would keep the secret, and as to who the man was to be.  There were
+public and private books made on the series of events.  And there was a
+Penelope party and an opposition.  Many young people who were
+revolutionary in their sentiments said she was right.  There was a
+Penelope Cave in the House of Commons.  Some of those who fought year in
+and year out for the Deceased Wife’s Sister backed her up.  It was
+whispered that the prince was a Penelopian; two princesses threatened
+with objectionable persons of the royal blood were heard to observe that
+there was something in what she said. Penelope was within measurable
+distance of becoming a national, or even an international, question.
+Mrs. X. wrote an article in the _Fortnightly_ on "Secret Marriage in
+History."  Mr. Z. sat down and wrote a novel, bristling with "wit and
+epigram," in ten days, which ran into the third edition of two hundred
+and fifty copies in thirty.  It was said that questions were to be asked
+in the House. A play on the subject was forbidden by the lord
+chamberlain.  The wittiest article on the subject was written by a Mr.
+Shaw.  He argued that no really beautiful woman had any right to be
+married at all.  He said plaintively that it wasn’t fair, and convinced
+the ugly in two syllogisms.
+
+And, as the result of this, Penelope went away into the country, though
+it was May, with Ethel Mytton and Mrs. Cadwallader, who was called
+Chloe, and stood by Pen remorselessly in every difficulty.  For Pen had
+helped her out of an awful mess, the history of which would make a whole
+story of itself.  As a result of it, Cadwallader was in the Rocky
+Mountains shooting, and a certain young soldier was taking too much
+liquor and too little quinine in Nigeria, and Chloe got her diamonds
+back from Messrs. Attenborough, and was eternally grateful to Penelope
+in consequence.
+
+"And I shall send for them one by one," said Penelope.  "They can come
+down by the ten o’clock train from Paddington, and go back by the five
+o’clock one from here.  And after lunch I shall explain my ideas to
+them."
+
+"And I’ll be with you," said Chloe, who was as dark-locked as a raven’s
+wing.
+
+"Oh, I don’t mind," said Penelope; "of course you will.  I’m too young,
+am I not, to be left alone, Chloe?  Is it true, Chloe, that the older a
+woman gets the bigger fool she is?"
+
+Chloe said it was true.
+
+"I’ll ask Titania to let Bob come over," said Penelope.  "He’s the
+wisest person I know."
+
+Bob was Titania’s grandson, and was certainly young enough to be wise,
+as he was only fourteen. He had been sent to three of the great public
+schools, and had been taken away because of his fighting capabilities.
+He never knew when he had enough, and it is quite impossible to keep a
+boy at any school if he breaks out of bounds to fight some young butcher
+or baker in a back alley at least once a week.  Now he had a tutor who
+had been an amateur boxer of great merit.  It began to take the tutor
+all his time to handle his pupil.  But if Bob was knocked endways about
+three times a week, it sobered him and made him do his work.  He did not
+yet know whether he wanted to be a prize-fighter or the
+commander-in-chief.  But he loved Penelope.
+
+"I’ll send for Bob," said Penelope.
+
+And Bob came with Mr. Guthrie, his tutor, and Titania was glad to get
+rid of him for a time.
+
+"Oh, Pen," said Bob, "how jolly kind of you to ask me.  I’m sick of
+grandmother; she worries me to death.  Always says, ’Robert, you
+mustn’t.’  I say, have you read Kip’s ’Cat that Walked by Himself’?  Mr.
+Guthrie says it’s splendid, and I say it’s rot.  But old Guth likes
+Virgil and Horace.  Isn’t that strange, for he can box like anything.
+Baker, the groom, says he can.  And Baker’s awful good with the mitts.
+But I say, Pen, what’s all this about you in the papers?  Grandmother
+wails when she sees one now.  I ain’t sure I like having you so much in
+the papers, Pen."
+
+"I don’t like it, either," said Penelope, "but I can’t help it."
+
+"Is it true that you’re going to be married and never tell any one?"
+demanded Bob from the bottom of a huge rocking-chair, as they sat on the
+lawn.  They were in one of Pen’s habitable houses, and the lawn ran down
+to the Thames.
+
+"I won’t if I don’t want to," said Penelope. "But you’re a boy, Bob, and
+don’t understand these things."
+
+Bob snorted and smiled, not unsubtly.
+
+"Oh, Pen, don’t be like grandmother.  I understand pretty nearly
+everything now.  Granny’s always saying that, and it’s jolly rot.  You
+can’t be like me, turned out of three schools, and not know something.
+Are you going to get married soon?"
+
+Pen shook her head.
+
+"She’s very savage at your knowing that Jew cad, Gordon, but grandfather
+isn’t.  He says that Gordon may be a Jew, of course, but he’s all right.
+I asked him if I could get put on a board as a director, and he was so
+mad with me.  I think Gordon’s asked him to be a director, and he’d like
+to only he daren’t.  He’s got none too much money, you know, Pen.  But
+about all these chaps, Pen?"
+
+He went through the horde seriatim, and pronounced upon them all with
+ineffable wisdom.
+
+"Goby’s an ass, but a good ass, Pen," he said, as he kicked with his
+legs.  "He gave me a thick-un a year ago when I was in difficulties.
+But he hasn’t the brains to make a good corporal.  Baker says that.
+Baker was a sergeant in the Dublin Fusiliers. I like Plant, though, Pen.
+Baker says he rides in a rummy fashion, more like a circus man than
+anything else, but he can stick to a horse.  And there’s your Frenchman.
+I say, how does he come to be called Rivaulx?  Was he called after
+Rivaulx in Yorkshire, or was it called after him?  Ask him if he shoots
+larks in his native country.  All Frenchmen do, old Guth says.  He says
+he read a book the other day in which a French priest says he never sees
+a lark without wanting to shoot it.  What a miserable rotter, wasn’t he?
+But Rivaulx isn’t so bad, though.  He’s a gentleman, at any rate, though
+he is French.  I say, why do foreigners never look like gentlemen?
+Dashed if I know.  I’ve often wondered, because grandfather likes them,
+through his having been an ambassador.  Sometimes a German does, though.
+And Bramber’s all right, Pen. I don’t think I’d mind your marrying him."
+
+"I won’t marry any one who isn’t a useful citizen," said Pen.
+
+"He’s all right," urged Bob.  "He’s as strong as a bull.  Baker says
+he’d peel better than most prize-fighters.  What is a useful citizen?  I
+say, if you get married, you’ll tell me who it is?"
+
+"No," said Penelope.
+
+"I call that mean," said Bob.  "I’d not tell any one, and I’d help like
+fun."
+
+"I’m sure you would, Bob.  But I may never get married."
+
+"Rot," said Bob, "a girl like you not get married! Oh, I say!"
+
+And he continued to say for some hours, and proved himself most
+entertaining company, quoting Baker, who had been a sergeant in the
+Dublin Fusiliers, and had been very severely knocked about by Jem Mace,
+and appealing to Mr. Guthrie, who came over with him to get him to look
+at a book in the mornings, to back him up.  He was really very modest
+and gentlemanly, at the same time that he was exceedingly bumptious and
+arrogant, after the best manner of the extremely healthy English boy.
+
+And at twelve o’clock he came running to Penelope and Chloe by the
+river-bank in wild excitement.
+
+"I say, Pen, I say, Pen, there’s old Goby coming, and with that
+miserable rotter who makes poetry. What’s brought ’em here?"
+
+"I asked them to lunch," said Pen.
+
+"Eh, what?" cried Bob.  "Goby and that rotter, Austin de Vere!  I say,
+Mr. Guthrie—"
+
+He ran off to Guthrie, bawling:
+
+"I say, Mr. Guthrie, here’s that poet chap, Austin de Vere, come.
+Didn’t you say he mostly wrote rot?"
+
+And Goby and De Vere came across the lawn together, like a mastiff and a
+Maltese in company. They made each other as nervous as cats, and
+couldn’t for their lives understand why they were asked together.
+
+"The clumsy brute," said De Vere.
+
+"The verse-making monkey," said Goby.
+
+But tailors could have admired them both.  They were perfect.  And lunch
+was a most painful function, only endurable to Penelope because she was
+on the track of her duty, and to Chloe because she laughed internally,
+and to Mr. Guthrie (who was really a clever man) because he liked to
+study men and manners, and to Bob because he talked all the time, owing
+to the silence of the others.
+
+"I say, Captain Goby, I’ve got a splendid bull-pup.  Baker got him for
+me, cheap, for a quid,—a sovereign, I mean.  You remember Baker.  He was
+a sergeant,—oh, I told you that just now. Do you like bulldogs, Mr. de
+Vere?"
+
+De Vere was politely sulky.
+
+"Bulldogs, oh, ah, well, I do not know that I do."
+
+He looked at Goby, who was also sulky and feeling very much out of it.
+But the subject of bulldogs appealed to him, because he saw it didn’t
+amuse his rival.
+
+"I’ll give you a real good pup, Bob," he said, good-naturedly; "one that
+no one could get for a sovereign.
+
+"A real pedigree pup?"
+
+"With a pedigree as long as your own," said Goby.
+
+Bob sighed, and laid his hand on Goby’s.
+
+"I say, Pen, isn’t Captain Goby a real good ’un?" he asked.  "Baker
+says—"
+
+But what Baker said does not come into this history, as the lunch
+finished, and they all went into the garden.  Goby spoke to Bob as they
+went out.
+
+"I say, Bob, get hold of that ass De Vere, and talk to him as hard as
+the very deuce, will you?"
+
+"You meant that about the pup?" said Bob.
+
+"Of course, Bob."
+
+"I’ll talk his beastly head off," said Bob.
+
+And this was why Penelope spoke confidentially to Captain Goby before
+she did so to the poet.  She was exceedingly pale and very dignified,
+but she lost no time in getting to the point.
+
+"Captain Goby," she said, "you have asked me to marry you at least three
+times."
+
+Goby sighed.
+
+"Is it only three?" he demanded, and he added, firmly, "it will be more
+yet."
+
+"And I said ’no’ because I had no idea of marrying any one."
+
+"That was rot," said Goby.  "For, if you married no one else, you would
+marry me."
+
+"Certainly not as you are," retorted Penelope. "I want you and all men
+(that I know) to reform."
+
+Goby was not astonished at anything Penelope said.
+
+"I reformed long ago," he said.  "As soon as I saw you, I said I’d
+reform and I did.  It was a great deal of trouble, but I did it.  Oh,
+you’ve no idea how I suffered.  But I said, ’Plantagenet, my boy, if you
+are to be worthy, you must buck up!’"
+
+This was encouraging.
+
+"I’m glad I’ve had so much influence," said Pen, who didn’t quite know
+what his reforms had been. "But there are other things.  This is merely
+negative.  What are you doing to be useful to the state? Are you loafing
+about on your money?  Do you do any work?  Are you educating yourself?"
+
+Goby gasped.
+
+"I say, come, Lady Penelope, I’ve done all that! Education! why, I had a
+horrid time at school and at a crammer’s—"
+
+"Do you read?" asked Pen, severely.
+
+"Why, of course," said Goby.
+
+"What?"
+
+Goby rubbed his cropped hair with two fingers.
+
+"Papers?"
+
+"Anything?" said Pen.
+
+"Well, I read the _Sportsman_ and the _Pink Un_ (at least, I did before
+I reformed) and the _Referee_," said Goby.
+
+"Books?"
+
+"Not many," said Goby.  "But I will.  What do you recommend?"
+
+"I think Tennyson and Shelley would do you good," said Pen, "but you had
+better ask Mr. de Vere.  And do you do anything useful?"
+
+"De Vere!  Oh, Lord!" cried Goby.  "Anything useful?  Why, I was in the
+army—"
+
+"And now you do nothing.  Well," said Penelope, "I think you had better
+begin at once.  Any man I know has to do something useful.  You must go
+to the War Office and ask to be made something again.  I think a
+colonelcy of a militia regiment would suit you.  And I am going to ask
+Mr. de Vere to take an interest in your reading."
+
+"The devil!" said Goby.  "I say, my dear Lady Penelope, I can’t stand
+him.  Why, you may have seen we are barely civil to each other."
+
+"I shall speak to him firmly," said Penelope, "and it’s for his good,
+too.  He leads an unhealthy indoor life.  I want you to change all that.
+You row a great deal still, don’t you?"
+
+"Since I reformed I began again," said Goby. He felt the muscles of his
+right arm with complacency.
+
+"Take him out and make him row, then," said Pen, "and while he rows you
+can read poetry to him, and so on.  It will be good for both of you."
+
+"But—" said Goby.
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"If I do this, will you marry me?"
+
+Penelope shook her head.
+
+"If you do it, I’ll think whether I’ll marry you."
+
+"Oh," said the soldier, "and if I just can’t hit it off with that poet?"
+
+"Then I won’t think about it," replied Pen. "I’ll never, never consider
+the possibility of marrying any one who isn’t leading a useful life, and
+educating himself, and living on less than a thousand a year.  Can you
+do that, too?"
+
+"Dashed if I see how it can be done," said Plantagenet Goby.  "But I’ll
+try, oh, yes, I’ll try."
+
+"Now you talk to Chloe," said Penelope, and she went away to the rescue
+of the poet.  For Bob had got him in a corner.
+
+[Illustration: CAPTAIN PLANTAGENET GOBY, V.C., LATE OF THE GUARDS. Who
+was ordered to read poetry]
+
+"I say, Mr. de Vere, wasn’t that ripping of old Goby to say he’d give me
+a real pedigree bull-pup? He knows a bull-pup from a window-shutter, as
+Baker says.  You don’t like them?  No, but you would if you had one.  I
+feed mine myself, and I wear thick gloves, so’s not to get hydrophobia
+when he bites.  He’s a most interesting dog, and not so good-tempered as
+most bulldogs.  When he sees a cat, oh, my, it’s fun!  Look here, when
+Goby gives me the new pup with the pedigree, you can have mine, if you
+like, cheap.  I know you have a place in the country, and you must want
+a bulldog. Will you buy him?"
+
+"Good heavens, no!" said the poet.
+
+"Humph!" cried Bob, who of course had quite forgotten that he was doing
+all this for Goby, and was just enjoying himself.  "Why, what do you do
+in the country without a dog?  Do you ride?"
+
+"No," said De Vere.
+
+"Well, of all—I say, Mr. de Vere, what do you do?  Do you walk about and
+make poetry, and do you like making it?  Old Guth, I mean Mr. Guthrie,
+he’s my tutor, and he’s over there talking to Mrs. Cadwallader, he reads
+a lot, and some of yours, too."
+
+"Oh, does he!" said De Vere, who began to take some interest.  "Does
+he?"
+
+"Oh, a lot of yours, he says; most of it, I think."
+
+"And does he like it?"
+
+Bob put his head on one side.
+
+"Well, he says it’s not bad, some of it."
+
+De Vere flinched at this faint praise.
+
+"Indeed!  And what does he like best?" he asked.
+
+"Oh, the beastliest rot," returned Bob, "Browning and Shelley, and I
+say, do you see that bulge in his pocket?  That’s Catullus.  He reads
+him all day.  But here comes Pen.  I say, won’t you have my bull-pup?
+I’ll let you have him for half a sovereign; I got him for a sovereign,
+at least, Baker did.  _I_ think your poetry’s very fine, sir; Mr.
+Guthrie lent me some."
+
+But Penelope came across the lawn, and De Vere forgot Bob and the
+bull-pup, and fell down and worshipped.  And the goddess took hold of
+him, and stripped a lot of his poetry away, and set a few facts before
+him and made him gasp.
+
+"I heard a very strange rumour, Lady Penelope," he said, when he was
+once more standing upright before Aphrodite.  "I heard—oh, but it was
+absurd!  I can’t believe it."
+
+"Then it is probably true," said the goddess, breathlessly, "for I mean
+to have my own way and to initiate a reform in marriages, Mr. de Vere. I
+have been reading the accounts of some fashionable weddings lately, and
+they made me ill.  What you have heard is quite true."
+
+The poet shook his head.
+
+"I have had the honour to beg you to believe a thousand times that I am
+devoted to you—"
+
+"Three times, I think," said Pen, who was good at arithmetic.
+
+"Is it only thrice?  But do I understand that, if I were to have the
+inexpressible delight of winning your love, Lady Penelope, that the
+marriage would be a secret one, that no one would know of it?"
+
+"I mean that," said Penelope, enthusiastically. "It is a new departure,
+an assertion of a just individualism, although I am a socialist.  I
+abhor ceremonies, and will not be interfered with.  I have stated with
+the utmost clarity to all my relations that I shall not consult them or
+let them know until I choose, and I shall only get married (if I ever
+do) on these terms."
+
+"I agree to them," said the poet.  "Lady Penelope, will you do me the
+inexpressible honour to be my wife?"
+
+"Oh, dear, no," said Pen.  "Why, certainly not, Mr. de Vere.  I don’t
+love any one yet, and perhaps I never shall.  But what I say is this:
+I’ll think as to whether I shall marry you if you do as I wish about
+this matter and about others."
+
+"My blessed lady," said the poet, "is there anything I would not dare or
+do?"
+
+"I’ve told Captain Goby exactly the same thing," said Penelope, thereby
+putting her pretty foot upon the sudden flowers of De Vere’s
+imagination, "and what I want of you is to be more an out-of-door man.
+You live too much in rooms, hothouses, Mr. de Vere, and in your own
+garden."
+
+"I was in a garden, I a poet, with one who was (oh, and is) an angel,"
+said De Vere, "but now I dwell in arid deserts, shall I say the Desert
+of Gobi?  What have I to do with him?  Shall he dare to pretend to you,
+dear lady?"
+
+"He’s a very good chap," said Pen, quite shortly, "and I think it would
+do you good to associate with him more.  I’ve told him so, and he
+agrees. I want you to make him read a little, and exercise his
+imagination.  And he can take you out rowing and shooting perhaps, and I
+think a little hunting wouldn’t do you harm.  You might ask him to stay
+with you, and he’ll ask you.  And I want you to go out in motor-cars."
+
+"Good heavens!" said De Vere.
+
+"I know it will be hard," said Pen, consolingly. "But you know what I
+want.  It’s not enough to be rich and write poetry, Mr. de Vere.  I
+think you might read statistics; statistics are a tonic, and I want you
+to be a useful citizen, too.  There are things to be done.  Just look at
+my cousin Bob. Now he’ll be a splendid man."
+
+"He wanted to sell me a bull-pup," murmured the poet.
+
+"He’s a good boy," said Pen, affectionately, "and his instincts are to
+be trusted.  I think a bulldog would do you good perhaps.  And I shall
+expect to hear you have asked Captain Goby to stay with you.  And don’t
+forget the statistics."
+
+"I’ll do it," said the unhappy poet, "for while the One Hope I have
+exists, and until ’vain desire at last and vain regret go hand in hand
+to death,’ I am your slave."
+
+And, as he went away, he called Bob to him.
+
+"I’ll give you half a sovereign for that bulldog," he said, bitterly.
+
+"Oh, I say.  But Baker says he’s worth two sovereigns," cried Bob.
+
+"I’ll give you two," said the poet.
+
+And Bob danced on the lawn.
+
+
+
+
+                             *CHAPTER IV.*
+
+
+If Penelope had had any sense of humour, she would have deprived the
+round world of much to laugh at in sad times, when laughter was wanted.
+But thanks be to whatever gods there are, some folks have no humour, and
+some have a little, and a few much, and thus the world gets on in spite
+of the spirit of gravity, which, as may be remembered by students of
+philosophy, Nietzsche branded as the enemy.  Pen went ahead, bent on
+cutting her own swath in the hay-field, and she cut a big one.  Goby and
+the poet must stand as exemplars of her clear and childlike method.  It
+was Pen’s Short Way with Her Lovers.  She got Rivaulx, who was
+Nationalist and Anti-Semite to his manicured finger-tips, and had been
+mixed up in the Dreyfus case, and set him cheek by jowl with Gordon,
+alias Isaac Levi.
+
+She made them dine together in public, and the poor marquis, being head
+over heels in love with the earnest creature who was so beautiful,
+submitted like a lamb.
+
+"Very well, I will," said Rivaulx.  There were almighty shrieks in the
+Paris press.  The _Journal_ had an article that was wonderful.  The
+affair woke up anti-Semitism again.  Rivaulx had been bought by Jewry;
+France was once more betrayed; the bottom of the world was falling out.
+
+Pen, with no sense of humour, had a native capacity for discovering
+every one’s real weakness. As the Frenchman would rather have died than
+dine as he did, so Gordon would almost prefer to die suddenly than to
+run the risk of it.  He had wonderful brains, and was a power in
+finance: he could risk a million when he hadn’t it or when he had it as
+coolly as most men can risk a penny on the chance of a slot-machine
+working.  But physically he was timid.  Rivaulx went ballooning.  He
+intended to rival Santos-Dumont.
+
+"You must go with him, Mr. Gordon," said Penelope.  Gordon nearly
+fainted, but Pen was firm, as firm as a rock.  Gordon offered to
+subscribe to all the hospitals in London if she would let him off.  He
+offered to build a small one and endow it; he even suggested that he
+would build a church. But the poor man had to go.  It was now thoroughly
+understood that any man who refused to do exactly what she told him was
+struck off the list.  The comic papers were almost comic about it.  On
+the day that Gordon went up with Rivaulx in an entirely non-dirigible
+balloon, the Crystal Palace grounds were crowded with all the Frenchmen
+and all the Jews in London.  The balloon came down in a turnip-field
+fifteen miles from anywhere, and Gordon got back to London and went to
+bed. He was consoled by a telegram from Penelope, who congratulated him
+on overcoming his natural cowardice, and suggested he should do it
+again.
+
+"I’ll give her up first," said Gordon, knowing all the time that he
+could no more do it than give up finance.  He went out and robbed a lot
+of his friends as a compensation for disturbance, and found himself a
+hero.  In about forty-eight hours the sensation of being looked on as a
+man of exceptional grit so pleased him that he adored Penelope more than
+ever.  He was as proud of having been in a balloon as Rivaulx was of
+having dined _tête-à-tête_ with him in the open.
+
+She sent for Rufus Q. Plant, and she introduced him to Lord Bramber.
+Plant was a big American with the common delusion among Americans that
+he had an entirely English accent.  But he hated aristocrats.  Bramber
+had an Oxford accent (Balliol variety), and disliked Americans more than
+getting up in the morning.  He was a fine-looking young fellow with a
+good skull, who did nothing with it.  He had the tendencies of a citizen
+of Sybaris, and got up at noon.  Plant rose at dawn. Bramber loved
+horses and hated motor-cars.  Plant had a manufactory of motors.  Pen
+sent them away together on a little tour, and hinted delicately to Plant
+that his English accent would be improved by a little Oxford polish.
+
+"And as for you, Lord Bramber, when you come back, I hope you will be
+more ready to acknowledge that you don’t know everything.  Mr. Plant
+will do you good, and will teach you to drive a motor!"
+
+She had never been so beautiful.  She showed at her best when her
+interest in humanity made her courageous and brutal.  The colour in her
+cheeks was splendid; her eyes were as earnest as the sea.  If Bramber
+choked, he submitted, though he blasphemed awfully when he got alone.
+
+"Go at once," said Penelope.
+
+She paired off Carteret Williams with Jimmy Carew, A.R.A.  Williams knew
+as much about art as a hog does of harmony.  Jimmy thought the war
+correspondent a howling Philistine, as indeed he was, and believed
+anything that could not be painted was a mere by-product of the
+universe.
+
+"You’ll do each other good," said Pen, clasping her beautiful hands
+together with enthusiasm. Jimmy wanted to draw her at once.  Williams
+wished for an immediate invasion, so that he could save her life and
+write a flamboyant article about it.
+
+"Show him pictures, Mr. Carew, beginning with Turner and Whistler."
+
+"Make him understand that art isn’t everything, Mr. Williams."
+
+She sent them away together, and was wonderfully pleased with herself.
+
+"They are all fine men," she said, thoughtfully, "but it is curious that
+every man I know thinks every other man more or less of a fool or an
+idiot, or a cad.  They are dreadfully one-sided.  When they come back
+they will be much improved.  This is my work in the world, and I don’t
+care a bit what people say."
+
+People said lots, though after a bit the fun died down, except among her
+own people.  And even they laughed at last.  At least, every one did but
+Titania, and she had no more sense of humour than Penelope herself.
+Indeed, she had less, for Penelope could understand a joke when it was
+explained to her carefully, and Titania couldn’t.  And in after years
+Pen came to see the humourous side of things. She even appreciated a
+joke against herself, which is the crucial test of humour.  But Titania
+died maintaining that life was a serious business, and should be taken
+like medicine.
+
+"I never heard of more insane proceedings," said Titania, "never!  The
+notion of sending that poor Jew up in a balloon with that mad Frenchman!
+Balloons at the best are blasphemous.  And to make Captain Goby read
+with poor little De Vere!  I’m sure there will be murder done before
+she’s married.  And now it’s an understood thing that she will marry one
+of them.  And Brading laughs!  If he is only her half-brother, I
+consider him responsible.  And Augustin smiles and smokes and smokes and
+smiles.  And Chloe Cadwallader, whom I never approved of and never
+shall, backs her up, of course. One of these days I shall tell Chloe
+Cadwallader what I think of her!"
+
+"I say, granny, what do you think of her?" asked Bob.
+
+"Never mind," said Titania; "there are things that you know nothing of,
+Robert."
+
+"Oh, are there?" said Bob.  "I say, granny, I ain’t sure of that.  I’ve
+been expelled from three schools, and Baker says—"
+
+"Oh, bother Baker," cried his exasperated grandmother.  "I think Mr.
+Guthrie might keep you away from Baker."
+
+"He can’t," said Bob, cheerfully.  "Old Guth and I have made a treaty.
+I do what he tells me between ten and twelve, and what I like afterward.
+If we are reading Latin, and the clock strikes twelve, I say, ’Mr.
+Guthrie, don’t you think Latin’s rot?’ and he says, ’Oh, is it twelve?
+I thought it was only eleven!’  I get on with Guth, I tell you."
+
+And he was very thick with Goby, who had given him the pedigree
+bull-pup.  Mr. de Vere now owned the interesting one which had to be fed
+with gloves on, and loathed it with an exceeding hatred only exceeded by
+his hatred for Goby.
+
+"I say, Pen, you go it," said Bob.  "There’s heaps of fun in this.  They
+all tip me now like winking."
+
+But Pen did not see the fun.  It was a serious business.  She looked
+after her lovers with the greatest care.  They brought her reports; they
+complained of each other.  She smoothed over difficulties, and explained
+what they were to do.
+
+"How the devil am I to live on a thousand a year!" said Goby.  But he
+tried it and found it quite exciting.  It exercised his self-control
+wonderfully.  He went into the War Office once a week and demanded some
+kind of job, and was put off with all kinds of regulations.  He sent a
+telegram to Penelope the first week, saying that according to his
+accounts he had spent no more than £20. She wired congratulations, and
+received another wire:
+
+
+"Have made a mistake.  Forgot to include a few bills.  Will be more
+careful in future.
+
+"GOBY."
+
+
+Plant said:
+
+"What, a thousand a year!  That’s easy.  I can live on thirty shillings
+a week.  My dear Lady Penelope, I’ve done it on half a dollar a day.
+I’ll show you."
+
+He took one room in Bloomsbury, and sent in his bills and accounts to
+her weekly.  She suggested he should find out if his great success in
+the United States had ruined any one in particular, and if so that he
+should compensate them.  This cost him a hundred thousand dollars.
+Almost every other day she got a telegram something like this:
+
+"Have found another person I ruined.  Am cabling five thousand dollars
+to widow and orphans. Man is dead."
+
+Or,—
+
+"Another find.  Man said to be a lunatic, but perfectly sane except on
+point of Trusts.  Have cabled for his transfer to more comfortable
+asylum."
+
+Or,—
+
+"Widow refuses money with insults.  Have settled it on daughter, and
+have given son job."
+
+Or,—
+
+"Man in question has given amount cabled to Republicans of New York.
+Has recovered and has started a Trust himself."
+
+This was very satisfactory.  Penelope saw she was doing good.  In the
+middle of her joy, she received a wire from Goby.
+
+
+"May I stop poetry with De Vere?  Doctor says I am overdoing it.  GOBY."
+
+
+She also received one at the same time from De Vere:
+
+
+"If I could have a week to myself to write satire, should be eternally
+grateful.  Doctor says rowing may be carried to excess.  The bulldog is
+well.
+
+"DE VERE."
+
+
+The Marquis de Rivaulx, after a fortnight with Gordon, asked to be
+allowed to go over to Paris to see his mother.  But he acknowledged that
+Gordon was not a bad chap, though he was as white as a sheet in the
+balloon.
+
+"And he told me, my dear lady, what to buy. He knows very well what to
+buy and what to sell. He is immensely clevair, oh, yes.  And may I go
+and see _maman_?"
+
+She let him go, but not before he promised to take no part in any
+further anti-Semitic proceedings.  She told Gordon not to brag so much
+of having been in a balloon.
+
+"You know you were afraid," she said.  "The marquis said you were."
+
+"Of course I was," said Gordon, "but I went, didn’t I?"
+
+That was unanswerable.
+
+She had an "at home" once a week.  It was understood that no one but her
+own relatives and members of the horde were to call on that day. She
+then issued any directions that she thought of during the week.
+Bradstock was now openly and recklessly on her side.
+
+"I believe you’re doing good, real good," said Augustin.  "I’m proud of
+you.  Don’t mind my laughing, Pen.  Oh, but you are wonderful."
+
+He gave her advice.
+
+"Kick young Bramber into public life," he said. "He’s got brains."
+
+"Lord Bramber," said Pen, "you are to go into Parliament at once.  Speak
+to Lord Bradstock about it, and I’ll talk to Mrs. Mytton on your behalf.
+I expect you to be an Under-Secretary of State at once."
+
+"Damn!  this is worse than Plant," said the obedient Bramber.
+Nevertheless, he owned that Plant was a man, and a real good sort.
+
+"I go to see him, Lady Penelope, in his room in Bloomsbury.  He’s living
+on about half a crown a day.  I—oh—yes, I’m coming down to the thousand
+by degrees.  And of course if you want me to go into the House, I’ll
+go."
+
+Carteret Williams was there, and was put through his paces by Pen about
+art.  He had learnt something about it by rote.
+
+"The Academy is composed of painters," he said, mechanically, "but there
+are few artists in it. I quite agree with Carew, who had his pictures
+chucked before they made him an associate through fear.  Turner is a
+very great artist.  He shows how near the sublime can get to the
+ridiculous.  Whistler is also great.  He shows how near the ridiculous
+can go to the sublime.  Art is a combination of the material and the
+spiritual.  So Carew says.  He showed me a lot of Blake, and he says
+that the beauty of Blake is that you can’t understand him by any
+ordinary means, such as the intellect.  I’m not up to Blake yet.  The
+old masters are very fine. I admit it.  Velasquez is dry, but wonderful.
+Rembrandt appeals to me because he is very dark; I think he would be
+better if he were darker.  We go to the National Gallery every day, and
+then I take him to the Press Club, where he hears about real life."
+
+When Carew came, he owned that Williams wasn’t a bad sort.
+
+"And he’s doing his level best to understand," said Carew, with
+enthusiasm.  "He stands before a picture of mine every day for an hour
+while I explain it.  He sees something in it at last.  And he’s reading
+about art, and is beginning to see why a photograph isn’t the last word
+of things.  He’s led a wonderful life, Lady Penelope, and when he gets
+on what he’s seen and done, I feel almost ashamed to live as I do."
+
+"That’s right," said Pen; "every artist should. And every man who is not
+an artist should be sorry that he is not.  We are far from perfect yet."
+
+How beautiful she looked, thought Carew.
+
+"She lives in the world of the ideal, and so do I."
+
+"I am very much pleased with everything," said Pen at large to the
+assembly, and De Vere, who was having a holiday for his satire, was
+pleased too.  And Goby was delighted at being let off poetry for awhile.
+
+"Not but what there’s something in it, I admit," said Goby, critically.
+"Robert Lindsay Gordon is a fair snorter at it.  I can’t say I’m up to
+Shelley yet.  De Vere read me the Epi-something-or-other."
+
+"’Epipsychidion,’" said Pen.
+
+"That’s it, a regular water-jump of a word," said Goby, "and he took it
+in his stride, while I boggled on the bank.  However, I’m coming up hand
+over hand with him.  I’m reading Keats with him.  He’s all right when
+you get to know him, Lady Penelope, and rowing’s doing him no end of
+good.  He’s a well-made little chap, and getting some good muscle.  If
+I’m not dead by the time I can take the Epi-what’s-his-name, I’ll make a
+man of him."
+
+Rivaulx, who had come in with Gordon on his return from seeing his
+mother in Paris, was very proud of himself.
+
+"A year ago I should not have had the courage to show myself with a
+Jew," said Rivaulx, triumphantly.  "Lady, dear lady, I thought I should
+have died when I asked him to dinner.  But now I like him.  He is
+wonderful.  When he says ’buy,’ I buy, and heigh, presto! the shares go
+up like my balloon.  And when he says ’sell,’ I sell, and they go down
+like a barometer when you go up. Oh, yes, and all your aristocracy
+admire him.  I saw seven great lords with him the other day, and they
+said: ’What company am I to be a director of, Gordon?’ and he said he’d
+ask his clerk.  But I have refused to be a director.  I should not like
+_maman_ to know I know him.  She is very dreadful against Jews, owing to
+the _affaire_ in France."
+
+And that was the celebrated afternoon that Penelope, who found that she
+was doing good in every way to all mankind by obliterating all class and
+professional jealousies, raised passion and curiosity to its highest
+point by saying, with the sweetest blush:
+
+"Very well, then, I promise to marry one of you!"
+
+
+
+
+                              *CHAPTER V.*
+
+
+Penelope was the swan, and all her relations were the ducks.  The noise
+they made was simply unendurable.  For, besides Titania, she had cousins
+and other aunts, or people who were in the position of aunts, and she
+had friends who had been friends of her mother, and they came down on
+her like the Assyrian.  They objected to publicity, especially for other
+people, and for a young woman to become a public character was something
+worse than immorality.  Nothing but Penelope’s entire singleness of
+character and her humourous want of humour enabled her to meet and
+overcome them. And even she felt at times that flight was the only thing
+left.  She sent to her solicitor for a list of all the houses and
+mansions and castles that she owned, and she took her motor-car and her
+pet chauffeur, and, having borrowed Bob from his grandmother, she set
+off on a tour.  She disappeared for a week at a time.  Then she
+disappeared for two weeks.  She was even lost for a month.
+
+"She ought to be in an asylum," said Titania, "and I have to let Bob go
+with her.  He is some kind of a safeguard.  How do I know she isn’t
+married already?  Bob, dear Bob, has ceased to confide in me.  When I
+interrogate him, he puts me off.  I get nothing out of him.  The only
+thing that I can congratulate myself on is that now, instead of ’Baker
+says,’ it is ’Pen says.’  And I doubt, I own I doubt, and I cannot help
+it, whether Bob is not being done serious harm to, considering that he
+will one day be a duke.  A duke should be brought up properly.  Goring
+was brought up badly, I deeply regret to say.  He laughs at Penelope’s
+behaviour, and says girls will be girls.  I say they will be women, and
+he says, ’Thank the Lord,’ and I don’t know what he means.  But, as I
+say, this wretched girl may be married by now.  It is already months
+since she said, in my hearing, to a whole crowd of men, ’I promise to
+marry one of you!’  Was there ever an aunt in a more unfortunate
+position?  I feel as if I should become a lunatic.  Augustin, do you
+hear me, I am rapidly becoming insane."
+
+"Oh, ah," said Augustin, who always knew more about Pen’s actions than
+any one else.  She wrote to him from a hundred places.
+
+"Keep your eye upon Mr. Gordon," she said. "And what are people saying
+about Lord Bramber’s speech?  I shall be up in town in time to see Mr.
+Carew’s new picture.  I got a letter from Mr. de Vere, saying that
+Captain Goby was learning Wordsworth’s ode on the ’Intimations of
+Immortality in Childhood’ by heart.  Mr. de Vere says he is doing what I
+told him, and is keeping his eye on Mr. Roosevelt.  I told him to model
+himself on the President of the United States.  He says he rows and has
+bought a Sandow exerciser, and he says it does not make him so tired
+now. Mr. Williams told me when I was last in town that he was thinking
+of writing a guide to Dulwich Gallery if war didn’t break out.  I am
+afraid he hopes it will.  Mr. Plant’s last weekly accounts were only
+10*s*. 6*d*.  I advised him to see a doctor if he thought it was doing
+him harm.  The marquis has written a very good article in the _Revue des
+Deux Mondes_ against anti-Semitism.  I am greatly pleased with this.  I
+hope Mr. Carew’s picture is intelligible. I told him it was no absolute
+sign of genius to be entirely incomprehensible.  He took it very well. I
+think Mr. Williams will have a good effect on him.  I have visited ten
+mansions, seven castles (two with moats; mother used to love moats,
+because there are none in America), and several other houses of mine.
+Most need repairs.  I shall be home next week.  Tell aunt that Bob is
+very well and brown, and is learning to drive my car at full speed down
+a narrow road with sharp turns in it. Smith says he will be the best
+driver in England when he is grown up, if he goes on and doesn’t have
+his nerve broken up early by an accident.  But I think his nerve is
+good, though I can’t always tell, as I shut my eyes when we go very
+fast. Good-bye now, dear Guardy.
+
+"Your loving
+       "PENELOPE.
+
+"P. S. I am sure I am doing good!"
+
+
+Bob was very sure of it, too.
+
+"I say, Pen, old Guth will be lonely, won’t he? But he’s all right if he
+has a bally Catullus in his pocket, and he draws his screw just the
+same. Granny is very decent to him, take it all around. And I like him
+because he likes dogs.  I must wire to Baker to hear how ’Captain’ is
+getting on.  I called him Captain because old Goby gave him to me.  I
+say, Pen, don’t you think Smith is a ripping good driver?  He says that
+he’ll be my chauffeur when I’m a duke, if you don’t want him.  He says
+him and me’ll win every bally race.  I’d like to do that.  I begin to
+think horse-racing is rot.  You see three or four people can’t ride a
+race-horse, and the responsibility of driving you fast when the road’s
+crooked is the fun.  Every time I miss a cart, Pen, I feel as happy as
+if I’d hit Rhodes for four every time he sent a ball down to me.  That
+would be fun.  Baker says—no, I mean Smith says that all other sports
+are rot of the worst kind. He says if he’s ever rich, he’ll go through
+the city every day as fast as he can.  He hates the police, and some of
+them hate him.  He rode over a sergeant in the Kingston Road once, but
+he didn’t hurt him much.  When shall we leave this castle and go to
+another one?  I hope the next is a long way off.  Smith says he wants a
+good road to show what she’ll do when she’s out to the last notch. And
+it must be down-hill."
+
+And in town, while Pen was going about the country, people’s tongues ran
+as fast as any motorcar.
+
+"It is nonsense," said one; "she’s married already."
+
+"I know she’s not.  I paid a shilling and looked it up at Somerset
+House."
+
+"That’s nothing," said a barrister.  "They could have been married under
+wrong names."
+
+"That wouldn’t be legal."
+
+"Yes, it would.  It’s only illegal if a false name is used and one of
+the parties doesn’t know.  Then the one who is deceived can get a
+declaration of nullity," said the barrister.
+
+"Oh, well, but who is it?"
+
+"It’s no one.  I don’t believe she’ll marry at all."
+
+"She’s a crank."
+
+"It’s madness.  I hear the Duchess of Goring has taken to her bed."
+
+"Well, Goring hasn’t.  I saw him at the Frivolity."
+
+"Who is it now?"
+
+"I don’t know her name.  But where’s Lady Penelope?"
+
+No one knew but Bradstock, and even Augustin was behind by a post or
+two.  None of the "horde" knew, and they began to get suspicious of each
+other.  Goby watched De Vere, and De Vere kept his eye on Goby.  It was
+obvious from the newspapers that Bramber was in the House.  Gordon was
+seen at his Club.  And then Carteret Williams was missing.  Carew hunted
+for him in vain at the Press Club and at the office of the _Morning
+Hour_.  There was no war yet, though there were rumours of it in the
+Balkans as usual.
+
+It got about that she had married Williams, though he had only run away
+from Carew for a week.
+
+"The very worst of the lot," wailed Titania. "I knew it would be
+Williams.  He’s hardly a gentleman, though he comes of a good family.
+Being a war correspondent makes a man brutal. I knew, I knew, I knew it
+was Williams, and now I shall never speak to her; and he will beat her
+in time, I know it, and there will be a horrible scandal; and what, oh,
+what can she have done with Bob? Augustin, go at once and find where Bob
+is.  I knew it would be Williams!  Didn’t I always say it would be
+Williams?  I could have forgiven her any one else."
+
+Gordon came to ask Bradstock if it was true. And Bradstock had a sense
+of humour, if Pen had none.
+
+"My dear sir," he said, "how can I tell?  She liked him very much, took
+a great interest in him. She told me he was writing a guide to the art
+of Dulwich Gallery.  Do you think that a bad sign?"
+
+Gordon groaned.
+
+"It looks bad, Lord Bradstock.  But I don’t believe she takes much
+interest in him.  She takes an interest in me, my lord!  Why, I went up
+in a balloon all on her account.  I went with that madman, the French
+marquis, and as sure as my name’s Le—  I mean Gordon, there’s not
+another woman in the world I’d have done it for.  Don’t you think that
+going up in a balloon, when you’d rather die than do it, ought to touch
+a woman’s heart?  I give you my word that she as good as said, ’Go up in
+a balloon and I’ll—’ well, or words to that effect.  I tell you what,
+Lord Bradstock, I know you ain’t a rich man, not a very rich one, that
+is, but, if you’ll be on my side, I’ll put you on to a good thing, the
+best thing in the market.  It’s going up like—oh, like a beastly
+balloon, sir,—my lord, I mean.  I’m making it go up, and I’ll tell you
+when to sell.  Oh, Lord, I’m very unhappy, my lord.  I love the ground
+she walks on.  I’d like to buy it at the price of a city frontage.  Come
+in with me, my lord, and you shall have a tip that half a dozen dukes
+are dying for.  There’s a room full of bally dukes waiting to see me
+now, and I gave them the slip.  Will you come in with me?  Do, do!"
+
+He was a lamentable object, and there was a spot upon his hat which did
+not shine.  He worked at it eagerly with his sleeve, and stood waiting
+for a reply.
+
+"I don’t mind telling you," said Bradstock, "that my income is only five
+thousand a year."
+
+"Poor beggar!" murmured Gordon.
+
+"But I only spend four.  And if I had more what could I do with it?"
+
+"Give it me," said Gordon, eagerly, "and I’ll make more of it for you.
+Man alive,—my lord, I mean—I can make it millions."
+
+There was a faint suspicion of the "millionth" in the word.
+
+"I can make it millionth," said Gordon.  "I’ve put a pound or two into
+that Frenchman’s pocket, I can tell you, though he did take me up in a
+balloon, and I’ll put fifty for one into yourth, so help me."
+
+"I don’t want it."
+
+"Well, you can give it away," shrieked Gordon. "They’ll make you a duke
+if you only give away enough.  If there wathn’t a faint thuspithion of
+Jewish blood in me, I’d be a baron now at leathth. Give it away to
+hospithalths, build a lunatic asylum, finanth your party.  And if that
+don’t thucktheed, go into beer or biscuits, and you’ll be made anything
+you like."
+
+"If they would make me thirty, I’d do it," said Bradstock.
+
+"Thirty dukes?" asked Gordon, in bewilderment.
+
+"Thirty years old," said Bradstock.
+
+[Illustration: LEOPOLD NORFOLK GORDON. Some said his real name was Isaac
+Levi]
+
+Gordon advanced on him and took him by a button.
+
+"My lord," he said, solemnly, "money ith youth and strength and
+everything except Lady Penelope. If you had a million, you’d feel
+twenty-five.  When I had a measly hundred thousand, I was thin and
+always going to doctors.  When I got two, I got fatter and gave ’em up.
+Now I’m worth two millionth."
+
+But Bradstock said, brutally: "No, Mr. Gordon, I don’t want money, and I
+don’t want you to marry Lady Penelope.  If I had a million, I’d rather
+lose it than see her do so."
+
+"Did you tell her that?" asked Gordon.
+
+"I did."
+
+"I’m damned glad," said Gordon.  "If you want a cat to go one way, pull
+its tail the other."
+
+"Tut, tut," said Bradstock, and Gordon went away sorrowfully, for he had
+great riches, and saw no good in them without Pen.
+
+Bradstock had to interview all the lovers one after one.  They came to
+implore his vote and interest.  He saw Rivaulx, whose great desire was
+to look like an Englishman and act like one. Rivaulx adopted a stony
+calm, which sat upon him like a title on a Jew, but did not stick so
+tight. He ended a talk which began most conventionally in a wild and
+impassioned waltz around Bradstock’s room, with despair for a partner.
+He tore at his hair, but, having had it clipped till it was like a
+shaved blacking-brush, he could not get hold of it.
+
+"I must wed her," he howled.  "I told _maman_ so, or I shall perish.  I
+will become an Englishman. _Mon Dieu_, I am sad.  I am fearfully
+mournful.  I weep exceedingly.  Have I not done all?  I have eaten
+largely in public with Mr. Gordon.  I have bought his shares and have
+sold them, but in my heart I cannot.  When I return to Paris, I shall
+fight duels because I have written for Dreyfus with tears in my eye and
+my tongue in my cheek for sorrow.  Where is she, Lord Bradstock?  Tell
+me where she is?  I will go to her and say I have done all and can no
+more!"
+
+De Vere tackled him, too.
+
+"My dear chap," said Bradstock, "I don’t know her mind."
+
+"She knows her own," said De Vere, with much bitterness, "and so does
+that boy Bob.  I bought a bulldog of him, because she said she thought
+one would do me good.  I don’t know why, and now Bob sells me dogs by
+telegram, and I daren’t refuse ’em."
+
+"Great Scott!" said his host; "but why?"
+
+"That young ruffian has an influence over her," mourned the poet.  "He
+is always with her.  He is capable of saying I am a ’rotter’; yes, a
+rotter, a dozen times a day if I refuse, and to have him doing that
+would be more than I can endure.  I want her to love me, and so I buy
+his dogs.  I have a bulldog which hasn’t done me any good.  All he has
+done is to tear my trousers and trample over my flower-beds.  I have an
+Irish terrier who is now being cured of bulldog bites by a veterinary
+surgeon.  I’ve a retriever who howls at night and makes the bulldog
+unhappy.  I have a Borzois with bronchitis and no hair on his tail.  Bob
+wrote to say the hair would grow if I put hair-wash on it myself.  He
+said men couldn’t be trusted to do it. And then I’ve Goby on my hands.
+I speak in confidence, Lord Bradstock."
+
+"Of course," said Bradstock.
+
+"Then I own I loathe Goby," said De Vere, viciously.  "He has less
+brains than my bulldog, and I think the bulldog has less brains than the
+retriever.  He reads poetry because she said he was to, and he makes me
+explain mine to him.  Explain it!  And he makes me row every day he’s
+with me, and he says I’m not imitating Roosevelt if I don’t. She said I
+was to imitate Roosevelt.  Why should I?  I loathe Republicans.  She
+also told me I was to imitate Sven Hedin.  On inquiry I found Sven Hedin
+was an ass who explored deserts, and went without water for many days.
+Goby can do that, as my wine-cellar can testify.  He says he only tastes
+water when he cleans his teeth, and then it makes him sick.  And, though
+I keep wine for my friends, I am a water-drinker.  How can I do without
+it?  I am very unhappy."
+
+"I should chuck Goby and give it up," said Bradstock.
+
+"I wish I could," said the poet, "but my nature is an enduring one.  We
+learn in suffering Gobies and bulldogs what we teach in song.  A dog may
+be the friend of man, but a bulldog is a tailor’s enemy.  And I believe
+they gave Goby the V.C. to get rid of him.  Do they ever give
+decorations to get rid of people?"
+
+Bradstock said he thought so, and wondered what he could give De Vere.
+
+And then the poet sighed and rose.
+
+"I have to meet Goby and lunch with him.  And afterward we read Shelley
+together, and then he will teach me billiards at his club.  I loathe
+billiards. It is the most foolish game on earth except keeping bulldogs.
+And Goby’s friends are not sympathetic. They are sportsmen, and ought to
+be hunted with bulldogs."
+
+He went away sadly, and Bradstock lay on a sofa and laughed till he
+cried.
+
+"Pen will be my death and the death of a dozen," he said.  "And as for
+Bob—"
+
+No sooner had De Vere departed than young Bramber was announced.
+
+"Conceited young ass," said Bradstock.  But Bramber was in the House,
+and was supposed to be doing very well.  He had brains, no doubt, and
+the manner of Oxford (Balliol variety, as aforesaid) sat on him well.
+He made speeches, and Mr. Mytton congratulated him on one of them.
+Nothing but his passion for Penelope prevented him being as conceited as
+Bradstock supposed him to be.  But it must be remembered that Bradstock
+couldn’t make speeches.
+
+"I thought I’d come and look you up," said Bramber.  "I thought you
+could tell me something about Lady Penelope."
+
+"I can’t," replied Bradstock.  "I spend all my afternoons in saying so.
+I’ve had Rivaulx and Austin de Vere and Gordon here already, and after
+you go I don’t doubt that Goby or Plant will turn up.  How do you get on
+with Plant?  Do you know, Bramber, I believe Plant is the best man of
+the lot of you."
+
+Bramber frowned.
+
+"He has an accent that can be cut into slabs, to use his own dialect,"
+said Bramber.
+
+"Your own accent is equally disagreeable to an American," said
+Bradstock, who had been in the United States several times.
+
+"I have no accent," said Bramber, haughtily.
+
+"Oh," returned Bradstock.  "And how do you get along with Plant?"
+
+Bramber was obviously more jealous of Plant than any one.  But he made a
+tremendous effort to be fair.
+
+"He’s a very able man," he said at last, "but there’s no man I should
+find it so hard to get on with.  He says just what he thinks in the most
+awful way.  And because Lady Penelope said he was not to spend more than
+twenty-five pounds a week, he is living on ten shillings out of bravado.
+I hate bravado.  He made me dine with him in Soho, and our dinners came
+to elevenpence each. Where is Lady Penelope?"
+
+"I don’t know," said Bradstock.
+
+"I didn’t see Plant yesterday," said Bramber, uneasily.
+
+"The devil!"
+
+"You don’t think?"
+
+"I don’t know what to think," said Bradstock, wickedly.  "I hear that
+Jimmy Carew hasn’t been seen for days, either."
+
+Bramber fidgeted on his chair.
+
+"She _can’t_ marry Carew.  He’s a thorough outsider."
+
+"Women don’t understand the word, my dear chap.  How are you getting on
+in the House?  And have you been motoring with Plant?"
+
+"Yes," said Bramber; "we killed three fowls and a dog yesterday.  And
+Plant was fined ten pounds a week ago.  He said he would wire to Lady
+Penelope to know if that was business expenses.  I believe he wants to
+break my neck."
+
+"I shouldn’t be surprised," said Bradstock. "Has he gone out alone
+to-day, do you think?  I suppose you know Penelope is doing a lot of it
+now?"
+
+"The devil she is!" said Bramber.  "I think I’ll go and look up Plant."
+
+Bradstock got some amusement out of the situation, if Titania didn’t.
+
+
+
+
+                             *CHAPTER VI.*
+
+
+Penelope came back to town about a week later and saw every one.
+
+"I wonder whom I love," said Pen, "for I’m sure I love some one.  And
+they are all so kind and sweet and good.  I’m sorry I shall have to hurt
+so many of them, for the poor dears all adore me."
+
+It was marvellous how they had developed in a short time under Pen’s
+system, which was evidently sound, as Bradstock declared.  Plant, under
+his ten-and-sixpence-a-week scheme, had lost a stone weight, and was as
+hard and fine as a coil of wire. His search after the people he had
+ruined gave him a peace of mind to which he had long been a stranger,
+for American millionaires in business have no peace of mind.
+
+"I feel good," said Plant, meaning it both ways, "and my endurance of
+young Bramber has stiffened my moral fibre."
+
+"Whether I marry you or not, Mr. Plant," said Penelope, "I am awfully
+pleased with you.  And how has Lord Bramber behaved?"
+
+"He’s been death on what he called my accent," said Plant, a little
+bitterly, "and it is notorious I’ve none to speak of; and, for that
+matter, his own you could cut with a knife.  However, I think he’s a
+good boy, and will discover he has brains.  I’ve talked to him straight,
+Lady Penelope.  I told him you meant me to.  I said he might be a lord
+and the son of an earl, but that he was a lazy, loafing scallawag, and
+that, if he’d been my son, I’d have cowhided him.  That did him good; it
+made him sit up, I tell you.  Oh, he fairly fizzled and felt like going
+for me, but he knew better.  He has brains, and I’ve talked with members
+of your legislature who say he’ll do well.  Put this down to me, Lady
+Penelope.  Credit me with this.  I’ve looked after him like a baby, and
+I’ve hustled him around in my motor till he can’t help going when he’s
+out of it.  You and me together, my dear young lady, could educate the
+entire universe.  If you’ll only marry me, I’ll start a university on
+these lines of yours."
+
+The idea was a pleasing one, but of course Pen pointed out to him that
+it was his duty to do it whether she married him or not.
+
+"Duty is duty," said Pen.  "I’m doing all this out of a sense of duty."
+
+"Don’t marry out of a sense of it," retorted Plant.  "I just want to be
+loved.  I’m going around feeling I want to be loved.  I’ve never been
+loved properly all my life, and I begin to hanker after it wildly.  And,
+if you do marry me, Lady Penelope, I want you to understand right here
+and now that I don’t want you to do your duty by me.  If you begin to do
+that, I’ll take a Colt’s forty-five and scatter my brains out.  I want
+love, that’s what I want.  I want it straight, without water in it."
+
+"I see what you mean," said Penelope.  "I think you are a very
+noble-hearted man, Mr. Plant."
+
+And away went poor Plant to draw up a scheme for a university.
+
+"I think I could almost love him," said the pensive Penelope.  "I
+could—almost—"
+
+Her contemplations were interrupted by Captain Goby.  He was a little
+paler than usual, and perhaps a trifle more intelligent.  And he was
+more in love than ever.
+
+"I’ve done everything you told me," he said, as he sat down and eyed her
+wistfully.  "I’ve gone into poetry like a bull at a hedge, Lady
+Penelope. I begin to see what it means.  Old Austin (poor old josser)
+has taken the deuce’s own pains over me.  He’s read ’The Lady of the
+Garden’ to me seventeen times.  He wrote it ten years ago.  He says he
+wonders how he did it, and so do I.  I’ve been trying to write poetry to
+you, do you know. That showed me there must be some special gift in it,
+for I never did anything worth the horrid trouble. And I’ve been
+worrying the War Office like a bulldog.  They say they’ll think of me,
+and haven’t gone any further, and talking of bulldogs, Bob’s bulldog bit
+Austin de Vere, and he swore like a man.  I was surprised.  But if I
+were you, I’d tell Bob to stop sending him more dogs.  He’s very kind to
+them, but they worry him.  Bob’s prices are very high, too.  How is Bob?
+Oh, by the way, I’m living on ten pounds a week.  Need I reckon tailor’s
+bills in, do you think?  Oh, yes, this bulge is the Golden Treasury.  I
+take it out and read a lyric between meals.  The chaps at the Rag chaff
+me like blazes, but I don’t mind so long as I improve.  I want to
+improve so as to be worthy of your intellect, Lady Penelope."
+
+"The poor dear," said Pen, when he was gone, "I think I could almost
+love him!"
+
+As luck would have it, Bob and Austin de Vere came in almost at the same
+minute.  For now Titania couldn’t keep Bob away.  For the matter of
+that, she did not want to.  Bob was to be Penelope’s safeguard.  He was
+much better than Chloe Cadwallader, said Titania.
+
+However, De Vere came in first.  He held Penelope’s hand no longer than
+a poet should, as poets naturally hold girls’ hands rather longer than
+other people.
+
+"You are looking really well, Mr. de Vere," said Penelope, when she was
+free.
+
+"I am well," said the poet, "exceedingly well in a way.  My dear lady of
+the beautiful garden, I owe all that to you.  At first I was afraid of
+Captain Goby.  I told Lord Bradstock so the other day.  I’m afraid I
+left him under a false impression as to my feelings to Goby, by the way.
+I’m quite proud of Goby.  He says I am really a powerful man, and he
+made me row till I was worn out. And then he insisted that I should use
+Sandow’s exerciser.  I own I did it with reluctance.  I pointed out to
+Goby that I did not wish to look like Mr. Sandow.  Goby always stopped
+by the posters in which Mr. Sandow is lifting ten tons or so, and
+pointed out certain muscles to me as ideals.  I was recalcitrant, for,
+although I admire Mr. Sandow immensely, I think muscle can be overdone.
+However, I used the machine, which is ingenious and elastic, and only
+dangerous if the hook comes out of the wall, and I’ve found I rather
+like it.  I should miss it now.  I think it imparts a certain vigour to
+verse, if not overdone.  Oh—"
+
+For in came Bob.  He rushed at Pen and kissed her hair, and then bounced
+at the poet.
+
+"I say is it true the bulldog bit you?  I saw Goby yesterday in the
+park, and he said so," asked Bob, in great excitement.
+
+"It is true," said the poet.
+
+Penelope shook her head at the late owner of the dog.
+
+"Oh, Bob!  Mr. de Vere, I’m very sorry."
+
+"So was I," said De Vere.
+
+"Where did he bite you?" asked Bob, anxiously. "Was it the arm or the
+leg?  And did he hang on like a proper bulldog?  Baker says that if a
+bulldog once gets hold, you have to use a red-hot poker to make him let
+go.  Did you use a red-hot poker?"
+
+"He only snapped and fetched blood," said De Vere.
+
+"Ah!" cried Bob, "I always thought he wasn’t a real good bulldog."
+
+"At any rate, he bit the Irish terrier," said the poet.  "I mean the one
+you sold to me for three pounds."
+
+"I’m glad he did, sir.  That Irish terrier, though he’s splendidly bred,
+Baker says, has an awful temper and is very troublesome.  Does Rollo,
+the retriever, howl much at night, sir?"
+
+"Oh, not so very much," said De Vere.  "It’s only when the moon is near
+the full that he does his best."
+
+"I never thought of that," said Bob, "but now I remember that it was
+very moony when I sent him over to you.  Baker said you’d like him.  His
+kennel is next to Baker’s house."
+
+"I’m much obliged to Baker," said De Vere. "But the tail of the Borzois
+is still bald, Bob."
+
+Bob opened his eyes wide.
+
+"Oh, dear, I thought you would have cured him by now; and how about his
+bronchitis?"
+
+"That’s better, I hope and trust," said the poet. And Penelope, who was
+very greatly touched by his kindness to all these dogs, sent Bob into
+the library.
+
+"It’s so good of you to be kind to Bob," she said.  "Bob’s a dear, and
+he adores me.  He says that he’s going to live with me always, even when
+I’m married."
+
+[Illustration: AUSTIN DE VERE. He wrote poetry, and abhorred bulldogs
+and motor-cars]
+
+"Oh!" gasped De Vere.  "We were talking about Goby, I think, when dear
+Bob came in.  You’ll find him much improved, I’m sure, my dear Lady
+Penelope.  He has read a great deal of Shelley and Keats and Browning
+with me.  He was especially struck with ’Sordello.’  I read it to him
+and he sat with his hand to his forehead taking it all in.  And every
+now and again he said, ’Great Scott!’ which is his way of expressing
+wonderment and admiration.  I do not know its origin.  I’ve written to
+Doctor Murray to ask him if he knows. And Goby, oh, yes, you’ll find him
+improved.  I’ve done my best with him, and I’ve really struggled hard.
+Any improvement you notice is, I really believe, under you and
+Providence, due to me."
+
+And when he went, Penelope sat thinking.
+
+"The poor dear, how nicely he took the bulldog bites and the howling of
+the retriever.  I think—I think I could almost love him!"
+
+And that afternoon and evening she saw Bramber and Carteret Williams and
+Jimmy Carew and Gordon, and they were all most marvellously improved.
+Bramber was alert and bright, and began to show that he had some
+ambition in him, and, if he did not tell Penelope his exact mind about
+Plant, he did show some little appreciation of the American’s qualities.
+
+"Associating with him has done you good," said Pen.  "I see it has.  You
+lived far too much for yourself, Lord Bramber.  I cannot endure
+selfishness."
+
+"I’m not selfish any more, I think," said Bramber. "I rather like Plant.
+He seems a man, take him all around.  He is abrupt, perhaps, and brutal.
+I own I’ve found him trying, and he says things one finds it hard to
+forgive."
+
+"Yes, he told me," said Pen, delightedly.  "Oh, he told me he said you
+ought to be beaten severely, and he said you took it very nicely.  Did
+you?"
+
+Bramber bit his lip.
+
+"I did."
+
+"That’s right," said Pen.  "Oh, I’m improving you all so much.  You’ve
+no idea how much improved you are.  Mr. Mytton said he’d make something
+out of you, Lord Bramber."
+
+"Did he really?"
+
+"Oh, yes.  He said he made fair successes out of very much worse
+material.
+
+"He’s quite a dear," she sighed, when he was gone, but, before she could
+add that she might almost love him, Carew and Williams came in together.
+And before she could greet them, Gordon came, too.  Williams eyed him
+with strange ferocity, for he was by nature a hater of Hebrews, and
+wanted to dust the floor with him.  Pen, who was as quick as lightning,
+caught his glances and said to him, sweetly:
+
+"I think you would get on nicely with Mr. Gordon."
+
+And Williams blenched visibly.
+
+"Oh, I couldn’t leave Carew," he said.  "I’m deep in art, very deep; I
+adore it.  Carew has introduced me to several Academicians, and I have
+bought a box of paints.  One Academician took me home with him and
+showed me his pictures. He doesn’t agree with Jimmy altogether, and he
+says Jimmy will alter his opinions presently.  His idea is that when a
+man is an A.R.A., he is only beginning, you see.  He also explained to
+me the attitude of the R.A. with regard to the Chantrey Bequest.  He
+says that if they found a good picture not by an Academician, they would
+buy it, which is interesting, isn’t it?  He was painting a picture
+called ’War,’ and wanted my opinion.  I said I’d ask Jimmy, because I
+didn’t know anything about war except what I’d seen.  I don’t know why
+he was chuffy about it.  I find artists get chuffy and huffy very quick,
+and I don’t know what for. Do you think there will be war soon?"
+
+Penelope didn’t know, and said she wanted eternal peace and happiness
+for every one, and meant having it if it could be got by any legitimate
+influence.
+
+"War is horrible!"
+
+"It is," said Carew, who joined in just here, after getting away from
+Gordon, who told him to buy Hittites at 3-1/8.  "War is horrid.
+Williams is always talking of it."
+
+"I’m not," said Williams, angrily.  "I want peace, eternal peace and
+happiness for every one."
+
+"Ah, so do I," put in Gordon.  "My idea is to have a peaceful life, far
+from the roar of London, in a deep green vale, where I shall hear no one
+talking of shares, and where mines are unknown, and there are no Chinese
+or crushing reports.  Why is it that most reports from mines are
+crushing? I wish I knew."
+
+"Ah, how sweet it would all be," said beautiful Penelope.  "You could
+keep cows, Mr. Gordon."
+
+"I adore them," said Gordon.  "There is a breed without horns, isn’t
+there?"
+
+"They look incomplete," said Jimmy.
+
+"What are you painting now?" asked Pen.
+
+"I’m not really painting, I’m modelling in clay, as you told me," said
+the obsequious lover.  "Don’t you remember saying I was to model in
+clay?  I’m doing Williams in clay.  He looks very well in it. I’m also
+doing a bull going at a gate.  When I get tired of Williams, I do the
+bull, and when I’m fatigued by the bull I go back to Williams."
+
+"And are they like?" asked Penelope.
+
+"Oh, exactly," replied Carew.
+
+And the interesting conversation was interrupted by Chloe and Ethel.
+But Penelope said to herself that they were all dears.
+
+"Mr. Williams is greatly improved," she murmured happily.  "And Mr.
+Carew looks more healthy and less engrossed in himself.  I was awfully
+glad to hear Mr. Gordon speak like that about a peaceful life."
+
+And Williams slipped Carew on the door-step and went to his club.  He
+roared of war till two o’clock in the morning, and then got three
+out-of-work war correspondents in the corner and told them the great
+story of his love.  But Jimmy went down to Chelsea, and damned modelling
+in clay to other impressionist painters, and had a real good time.  As
+for Gordon of the "deep green vale," he went home and found a clerk
+waiting with a bundle of cables from all quarters of the mining globe.
+He sent a wire to Bramber to be let off an engagement to hear a debate
+on drains.
+
+On the whole, every one was tolerably happy, if we do not include
+Titania and the retriever who howled at nights.
+
+
+
+
+                             *CHAPTER VII.*
+
+
+It is possible that Penelope never enjoyed herself so much as she did at
+this period.  She was so busy that she had no time to worry; her team
+took all her time.  She was young, she was beautiful, she was adored,
+she was popular, she was even notorious.  A dozen reporters dogged her
+footsteps, and when they lost her they followed her lovers.  They
+haunted her door-step armed with kodaks; they invented paragraphs; they
+hunted her men and her maids.  They made love to the girls, and seduced
+the men into neighbouring bars.  One newspaper man, who belonged to the
+_Mayfair Daily_, got into her establishment as a footman, and was
+discovered by the butler drawing Penelope at dinner when he should have
+been drawing corks.  A search in his clothes revealed some pencils and a
+note-book and another book of drawings.  They were of such a character
+that the reporter was put outside into the street.  The butler could
+have forgiven the sketch of his mistress: there was one of himself that
+no man could forgive.
+
+The great desire of all these men was to spot the winner.  Penelope’s
+maid, Harriet Weekes, who was more or less engaged to Timothy Bunting,
+the groom (a sad _mésalliance_, by the way), found it impossible to go
+out without being accosted respectfully by a new admirer, who tried to
+lead the conversation around to her mistress.
+
+"If you please, my lady, another of them spoke to me to-day.  I hope, my
+lady, you don’t think it my fault," said Weekes.
+
+"What do they say?" asked Penelope, curiously. She took great interest
+in the manners and customs of other classes, perhaps with a view of
+altering them when she got time.
+
+"Oh, my lady, they always say the same thing. I think men are very much
+the same all over the world.  They say ’It’s a fine day,’ even if it’s
+raining, and of course it is, and they say they want to walk a little
+way with me (begging your pardon), and that I am very beautiful, and
+that they have long loved me, if you please, my lady, and have been
+trying to speak about it for years.  And I tell ’em I don’t want ’em,
+and I don’t, to be sure, though one (he’s on the _Piccadilly Circus
+Gazette_) is a very handsome man with a heagle’s glance, dressed in gray
+tweeds.  And they won’t be put off, I assure you, my lady.  Men on
+newspapers are hextremely persevering with a fine flow of language.  And
+if, being persuaded to take a little walk, for they are difficult to put
+off by trade, I do take one, they begin to ask, begging your pardon, I’m
+sure, my lady, if I am your sister, and I’m sure I’m as like you as a
+butterfly is to a beetle, as Mr. Bunting says, though he adores the
+ground I walk on, if he’s to be believed, which I’m not sure of yet, and
+the butler is very angry with me about the whole affair.  And one, who
+said he was the editor of the _Times_, which I don’t believe in the
+least, because it doesn’t seem likely, does it, my lady, that the editor
+of the _Times_ would do such things himself? said he wanted to marry me
+and put me on the staff as his lovely bride.  I must say he spoke most
+beautifully, and he said he knew Captain Goby, and also Mr. Gordon, and
+he said they were getting thin he thought.  And another, quite the
+gentleman, though by his trousers poor and careful, said he owned most
+of the _Daily Telegraph_. And I couldn’t help looking at his clothes.
+He was very quick, and said that was owing to the competition of the
+half-penny papers.  Would I save the _Daily Telegraph_ from himpending
+ruin by telling him which it would be, he said.  And I said flatly that
+I wouldn’t.  I never saw such wicked impudence.  Oh, yes, my lady, your
+hair’s done now, and it’s as lovely as a dream."
+
+And, as Miss Weekes finished, she wondered, quite as much as any of the
+newspaper men, who it was to be.
+
+"It’s my belief," she said to Timothy, a little later, "that my lady is
+beginning to incline to one of ’em.  I’ve noticed she’s quieter like and
+more gentle.  And there’s a soft sadness in her eye and a colour that
+comes and goes."
+
+"There ain’t one of the biling worthy of her," said Timothy, bitterly.
+"But there, Miss Weekes, there ain’t no man worthy of a real beautiful,
+good lidy.  A fair wonder how I dares to hope that some day far off,
+when motor-cars has killed every ’orse, you’ll be Mrs. Bunting."
+
+"It’s a great come down, Tim," said Harriet. "Mr. Gubbles says he
+wonders, too."
+
+"If he wasn’t the butler, and old, I’d plug ’im," said Timothy, crossly.
+"It’s all right for me to wonder, but he ain’t in it."
+
+"Ah, but class distinctions is hard to get over, Mr. Bunting," said
+Harriet.  "You must pardon a butler’s feelings.  Even Mr. Gubbles has
+his feelings.  And he agrees with you that there’s no one but a duke
+ought to marry our dear lady.  And she demeaning herself (if I dare say
+so) with Academicians and war correspondencies and Jew men; not but what
+Mr. Gordon is very gentlemanly and generous.  Only yesterday, Mr.
+Bunting, he says to me when he met me outside, ’Do you read?’  And I
+says, ’Yes, sir,’ being some flustered, and he says, ’You read that.’
+And it was a five-pound note.  And he adds something about ’your vote
+and hinfluence.’  But I can’t do it, Mr. Bunting, I can’t. If it was
+Captain Goby, I might, and if it was young Lord Bramber I might more so,
+and even if it was Mr. de Vere, with a duke remote in his family, but
+for a Jewish man I can’t.  So I said, ’Thank you, sir,’ and he went off.
+But some one is beginnin’ to rise up in my lady’s mind, I saw it plainly
+when I was dressing her.  It would be worth more than five pounds to
+know who is risin’."
+
+"Yes," said Timothy.  "’Ow much would it run to, do you think?"
+
+"I believe it would be worth a public ’ouse."
+
+"Beer and spirits?" asked Timothy, eagerly.
+
+"And a corner ’ouse at that," replied Harriet, nodding her head.
+
+"Oh, ’Arriet," said Timothy, with a gasp, "you fairly dazzle me."
+
+The newspaper men had dazzled Harriet.
+
+But indeed what she said seemed true to her. And it seemed true to Lord
+Bradstock, who had, like the man of the _Circus Gazette_, an eagle’s
+glance.
+
+"She has been playing fair," said Bradstock, "but one of them is drawing
+ahead, Titania."
+
+"Good heavens, who is he, and how do you know?" asked Titania.
+
+"It’s intuition," said Bradstock, "intuition combined with, or founded
+on, a little observation. She’s different, Titania.  She takes no
+interest in the London County Council."
+
+"You don’t say so!" cried the duchess, in alarm.
+
+Bradstock nodded.
+
+"It’s a fact.  I asked her if she had read the last debate, and she
+hadn’t, and when I mentioned the Deceased Wife’s Sister she yawned."
+
+"That looks bad," said Titania, "for only a week ago she raved about
+her, and Goring said he’d vote for her if she insisted on it.  And she
+did insist, and tears came in her eyes about the poor thing."
+
+"Well, I told you so," said Bradstock, "and I do hope it isn’t Williams.
+I’m afraid of Williams. He’s capable of knocking her down and carrying
+her off on his shoulder.  Do you remember with what joy she read us the
+account of the savage tribe somewhere (was it the east of London?) where
+they do that?"
+
+"It made me shiver with apprehension," said Titania.  "Oh, if she was
+only married safely to a good duke, one not like Goring!  Is there a
+good duke, Augustin?"
+
+"Several, so I’m informed," replied Bradstock, "and there are quite a
+number of good earls, some quite admirable.  But I wish you’d get hold
+of Chloe Cadwallader, and find out something."
+
+Titania bristled like a porcupine.
+
+"There is no need to find out anything about Mrs. Cadwallader," she
+said.  "If Penelope wasn’t too dangerously innocent to be single, she
+would not have anything to do with her."
+
+"I’m sure the poor woman was only silly," said Bradstock.  "Haven’t we
+all been silly in our time, Titania?  Didn’t I marry twice?  And you
+married once."
+
+"I’ll speak to her," said the duchess, hastily. "If we can only find out
+who it is, we can, I’m sure, prevent her doing as she says and making a
+secret marriage of it.  The scandal would be horrid.  Oh, Augustin,
+suppose she did it, and had a large family suddenly.  I should die of
+it."
+
+"Good heavens," said Bradstock, "you alarm me, Titania, you are so
+gloomy.  She would surely acknowledge her marriage then?"
+
+Titania threw up her hands.
+
+"Augustin, I’m sure of nothing with Penelope. I cannot answer for her.
+She will bring my gray hairs with sorrow—"
+
+"To cremation," said Bradstock.  "She has invested money in a
+crematorium."
+
+"I thought it was dairy-farming," cried Titania. "Oh, but think,
+Augustin, of the horror of the situation as it might be!  What would her
+Royal Highness say to me?  Imagine her marrying and keeping it dark, and
+having, as I say, a large family suddenly without a husband producible
+on the moment to answer natural inquiries!  Imagine her saying _then_
+that her marriage was her own business, and her certificate of marriage
+firmly withheld by a young and obstinate mother in a safe!  She has a
+safe.  She has a safe, Augustin, with many keys. I wish I could get at
+it, and find things out that are in it.  I wish I knew a burglar, a good
+honest and reliable burglar, married and trustworthy, that I could send
+in to break it open.  Most girls have a desk with an ordinary key, easy
+to open, but Penelope has a Lord Milner’s safe with patent things to
+keep it shut.  It’s not natural, it’s wicked. Oh, I did hope, when I
+found out what the duke was like and what his ways were, that I knew the
+extent of my troubles, but there is no end to them, and Penelope begins
+where Goring leaves off."
+
+"Is it as bad as that?" asked Bradstock.
+
+"And then there’s Bob—"
+
+"By Jove," said Augustin, "I believe Bob’s the key to the safe!
+Titania, he’s more likely to find something out than any one."
+
+Titania nodded solemnly.
+
+"Augustin, you are right.  I’ll speak to Bob."
+
+"Let me do it."
+
+"No, no, Augustin.  He is very quick and suspicious, and he loves her,
+he adores her.  This requires a feminine intelligence.  I will work upon
+him quietly."
+
+And she went away to work upon Bob quietly.
+
+
+
+
+                            *CHAPTER VIII.*
+
+
+Now Titania believed that she was very smart and very clever, and that
+she would do things subtly and do them better than Bradstock or a
+barrister, even if he was a K.C.  And as it is the most invariably weak
+point in people that they think young people fools, or at any rate
+easily hoodwinked, she really believed that Bob, her dearly beloved
+young scoundrel of a grandson, would be as easy to work on as butter.
+And yet she had the sense to see that Bob adored Penelope.
+
+"I am very greatly troubled about Penelope, Bob," she said to him, as
+soon as she got him alone.
+
+"Don’t you worry about Pen, granny," replied Bob, cheerfully, "she can
+take care of herself. Why, she can drive a motor-car now up to about
+thirty miles an hour, and Geordie Smith says she’s all there.  And so
+does old Guth.  He had long talks with her, and he says she has brains.
+I tell you old Guth knows ’em when he sees ’em."
+
+Titania nodded.
+
+"Oh, I know she is clever, dear, but her ideas are so extraordinary."
+
+"Ain’t they?" said Bob.  "I do wonder which of ’em she’ll marry, don’t
+you?"
+
+"Indeed I do," replied his grandmother.  "Have you any idea, Bob, which
+she likes best?"
+
+Bob shook his head.
+
+"Not me.  I wish it was Goby; old Goby is a ripping good sort.  He knows
+what’s what, does old Goby."
+
+Goby tipped him freely and frequently, and Bob sold him a spavined pony,
+aged fifteen years.
+
+"He’s a bit of a fool, of course," said Bob, thoughtfully.  "Do you
+know, granny, he isn’t the judge of horses you’d think he is?"
+
+"Does Penelope ever confide in you, Bob?" asked Titania.
+
+There was a touch of anxiety in her voice that the boy felt at once.  He
+put his head on one side and looked at her out of the corner of his eye.
+He didn’t answer the question.
+
+"I say, granny, don’t you think I can have a bigger allowance now?  I
+find mine much too little.  If I had ten shillings a week more, I could
+get on for a bit."
+
+"You shall have it," said Titania.  "Does she ever confide in you, Bob?"
+
+"Some," said Bob, carelessly.
+
+"Which do you think she likes best?" asked Titania.
+
+"I don’t know," said Bob, "but I dare say I could find out.  I say,
+should you be very angry if it was Gordon?"
+
+Titania uttered a little scream.
+
+"Great heavens, Bob, I should die of it!"
+
+Bob sat down and looked at her.
+
+"He’s not bad, granny, not half mean, oh, no, not at all!"
+
+He had given Bob as much as he gave Miss Harriet Weekes about three days
+before.
+
+"I rather like him," said Bob.  "Pen thinks he’s much improved since she
+put him in harness with the Frenchy.  It touched her his going up in a
+balloon.  I say, may I go up in a balloon?  Rivaulx said I might."
+
+"No!" screamed his grandmother.  "Oh, Bob, you wouldn’t?"
+
+"I won’t if you don’t want me to," sighed Bob, "but it’s a horrid
+disappointment.  He says going up in one is jolly, and London underneath
+is ripping.  If I don’t, will you ask grandfather to give me another
+hunter?"
+
+"Yes, of course," said poor Titania; "but what do you think about
+Penelope?  Could you find out anything, Bob, if I let you go and stay
+with her?"
+
+Bob’s eyes gleamed.
+
+"Rather," he said, "of course.  But I needn’t worry about old Guth if I
+do?  I’ve been working very hard, and I think a holiday would do him
+good, too.  I’m very much overworked.  Do I look tired, granny?  I
+always feel tired now in my head. Guth says a breakdown from overwork is
+much worse than most fatal diseases."
+
+"You shall go to Penelope if she’ll have you," said his anxious
+grandmother.  "Do you have headaches, Bob?"
+
+"Not headaches," said Bob, "I shouldn’t call ’em headaches exactly.
+They’re pains, and old Guth says he had ’em when he was at Oxford. They
+get worse, he says, and then the breakdown comes, and you have to take a
+very long rest.  I’ll go on working if you like, though."
+
+He sighed.
+
+"You shall go to your cousin’s," said Titania, "and my dear, dear Bob,
+keep your eye on Penelope and tell me all you discover.  Her ideas are
+very strange, you know, and we are all so anxious about her future."
+
+"So am I," said Bob.  "If she married the wrong one I shall be out of
+it.  I couldn’t get on well with old De Vere, and if she married him I’m
+quite convinced he wouldn’t buy any more dogs.  I want her to marry Goby
+or Bramber. But I think Bramber is rather mean in some ways, and very
+thoughtless of others.  I told him I wanted some salmon fishing at his
+father’s place in Scotland, and he’s said nothing about it since."
+
+"I shouldn’t mind Lord Bramber so much," said Titania.  "But I’m afraid
+it won’t be Bramber."
+
+"Cheer up," said her grandson.  "I’ll look after her.  But don’t forget
+about the extra ten shillings and the horse.  Could you give me the ten
+shillings for six weeks now, granny?"
+
+And he went off to Penelope’s house and marched in on her.
+
+"Pen, I’m coming to stay with you if you’ll have me," he said.
+
+"Of course I will," said Penelope.  "But how did you manage it?"
+
+"I’m overworked," said Bob, solemnly, "and sitting on chairs and
+learning Latin don’t agree with me.  I want more open air, I think, or I
+shall get consumption."
+
+He was fat and ruddy and as strong as a bull-calf. He put his arm around
+Pen’s neck.
+
+"I say, Pen, I do love you," he said.  "I think it’s rot I’m so young,
+or I’d have married you myself.  Granny’s in an awful state about you,
+Pen.  She asked me if I knew who it was you liked best, and she threw
+out hints a foot wide that I was to find out if I could."
+
+"Indeed," said Pen; "and what did you say?"
+
+Bob chuckled.
+
+"I said the best thing would be for me to come and stay with you.  And
+that’s why I’m here.  But I say, Pen, I’ll never sneak, not even if you
+marry Mr. de Vere.  Granny’s raised my allowance ten bob a week, and I’m
+to have another hunter.  I got too big for the pony, so I sold him to
+Goby; Goby looked very melancholy, but he said he wanted him badly for
+some reason.  And he said he hoped I’d be his friend always.  I like
+poor old Goby.  I think I’ll go into the park, Pen.  My things will be
+here by and by.  Couldn’t we go to the theatre to-night?  There’s a
+ripping farce with a fight in it at the Globe.  And will you have plum
+pudding for dinner, and ice meringues?"
+
+He went into the park and met Williams there.
+
+"I say, Mr. Williams, where’s Mr. Carew?" he asked.
+
+"Damn Carew," said Williams.  "I don’t know where he is, and I don’t
+want to."
+
+"I’m staying at my cousin’s," said Bob.
+
+"At Lady Penelope’s?" asked the war correspondent.
+
+"That’s it," said Bob.  "Would you like to know what theatre we are
+going to to-night?"
+
+"Yes," said Williams, eagerly.
+
+Bob shook his head.
+
+"I don’t suppose I ought to tell you.  Tell me something very exciting
+about some bloody war, Mr. Williams."
+
+Williams grunted.
+
+"Or an execution.  Have you ever seen heads chopped off with a sword?"
+
+"Often in China, Bob."
+
+"I say, what fun!" said Bob.  "Tell me all about it.  Is it true they
+smoke cigarettes while they are being chopped?  And do they mind?  Could
+I see one if I went out?  I say, if you’ll describe it, I’ll see if I
+can tell you about the theatre."
+
+Carteret Williams described it.
+
+"Seventeen!" said Bob.  "By Jove, I’ll tell this to Penelope.  She’ll be
+greatly interested.  Do you think I could be a war correspondent, Mr.
+Williams?  I’d like to be, because Latin wouldn’t be needed.  I’m
+awfully sorry for war correspondents in those days when no one but the
+Roman chaps did any fighting.  I’ve enjoyed that story of yours more
+than anything I’ve heard for years, Mr. Williams. When they write about
+these things in books, why don’t they describe the blood the way you do?
+It’s the Globe we’re going to; there’s a ripping farce there.  I wish
+they would do an execution of pirates.  I say, don’t tell Pen I told
+you; she might be waxy with me.  Think of something else to tell me.
+Good-bye."
+
+And he went to look at the ducks.
+
+"Williams is all right," said Bob; "I wonder if it is Williams."
+
+And at home Pen began to know who it was. And Ethel Mytton began to know
+it was some one.  And so did Chloe Cadwallader.
+
+Miss Weekes was right, there is no mistake about that.
+
+
+
+
+                             *CHAPTER IX.*
+
+
+Penelope was certainly on the verge of being in love, to go no farther
+than that.  She discovered that certain of the horde had a curious
+tendency to disappear from her mind, though none of them lost any
+opportunity of appearing in her drawing-room. She was so sorry for those
+she didn’t love that her kindness to them increased.  Her dread of the
+one she began to adore forbade her to show how soft she had grown to
+him.  Not even Ethel and Chloe together could make anything out of it,
+which shows every one, of course, that they were two simple idiots, or
+that Penelope had a very remarkable character.  It seems to me that the
+latter must have been the case, for Chloe was no fool in spite of the
+folly she had shown on one particular occasion.
+
+"Am I a fool?" she asked Ethel Mytton, "or is Penelope the deepest,
+darkest mystery of modern times?  I am convinced she has made her
+choice."
+
+"Oh, which do you think?" asked Ethel, with much anxiety.  "Do you—do
+you think it is Captain Goby?"
+
+"I don’t know," replied Chloe; "it may be.  I give it up.  I shall ask
+Bob."
+
+"I’ve asked him," said Ethel, "and he won’t say anything.  I think he
+knows more than we do. He’s a sweet boy, but just as cunning as a
+ferret."
+
+But of course Bob knew no more than they did, though he would never own
+to it.  He threw out casual hints that he was wiser than his elders, and
+the only one he was in the least frank with was Lord Bradstock, who
+asked him to lunch and was infinitely amused with him.
+
+"I say, Lord Bradstock, if you’ll keep it dark, I’ll tell you
+something!"
+
+Bradstock promised to keep it as dark as a dry plate.
+
+"All these women think I know who Penelope’s sweet on, and I don’t.
+And, what’s more, I wouldn’t tell if I did.  Would you?"
+
+"Certainly not," said Bradstock.
+
+"You can’t think how I’m chased," said Bob. "Ethel Mytton is the worst.
+She’s dead nuts on poor Goby, and Goby doesn’t see her when Pen’s in the
+room.  And Mrs. Cadwallader, she’s always mugging up to me with
+chocolates or something to get things out of me.  And the newspaper
+Johnnies are on me, too.  And Williams takes me out, and Carew (I don’t
+care for Carew), and I like Goby best.  Mr. de Vere is a rotter, don’t
+you think? The marquis was at Pen’s, and he said that if Pen didn’t
+marry him he’d go up in a balloon and never come back.  I want him to
+take me in a balloon. Don’t you think I might go?  Granny’s cross when I
+speak of it.  I’ve always wanted to go in a balloon, and I think it hard
+lines I can’t go because she doesn’t like ’em.  Pen won’t go, either.
+She thinks that if she did, Rivaulx would never let her come down again,
+or something.  I daresay he wouldn’t; he’s quite mad, I think,
+sometimes.  Baker says all Frenchmen are mad.  Do you think so?"
+
+Bradstock didn’t know; he wasn’t sure of it, though he owned to thinking
+it was possible.
+
+"After all, Bob," he said, when Bob went at last, "and after all I dare
+say Penelope won’t marry any of them."
+
+And of course that is what a good many people said.  They said it was
+Lady Penelope’s fun.  The Marchioness of Rigsby, who settled every one’s
+affairs, said so to Titania.
+
+"Why wasn’t she beaten, my dear, when she was young?" asked the
+marchioness.  "I was severely beaten; it did me good; it gave me sense.
+I always used to beat my girls with the flat of my hand, and now they
+are _most_ sensible and married excellently, although I own they are not
+beauties.  I can afford to own it now.  I shall speak to Penelope
+myself."
+
+She did it and was routed.  Pen was direct; she beat no one, and
+certainly did not beat about the bush.  She had no fear of the world,
+and dreaded no marchioness.
+
+"I’ll attend to my own affairs, thank you," said Pen.
+
+"My dear love," said the marchioness, "you ought to have been beaten
+while you were still young. This conduct of yours is a scandal.  It is
+merely a means of attracting public notice.  And I am old enough to
+speak about it.  I will speak about it."
+
+Pen left her speaking and went out.
+
+"She is distinctly rude," said the marchioness, viciously.  "I wish she
+was about ten and I was her mother!"
+
+But Pen could not endure being spoken to.
+
+"I love him," said Pen, "and what business is it of theirs?  If they
+disapprove I shall hate them! If they approve I shall hate them worse.
+Oh, I almost wish I was going to marry some one who would make them
+die!"
+
+"Mark me," said the marchioness to Titania, "this will end in her
+marrying a groom.  Has she a good-looking one?"
+
+Titania started.
+
+"Oh, a very good-looking one," she cried.
+
+"What did I say?  Remember what I said," said the marchioness, darkly.
+"No really good girl could act as she does.  She will marry a groom!"
+
+She went around saying so in revenge for Penelope’s want of politeness.
+The journalists took Timothy Bunting’s photograph, and Miss Weekes was
+proud till she heard the dreadful rumour. Timothy beat a man on a paper,
+and Bob was delighted.  Titania took to her bed, and said the end of the
+world was at hand.  Bradstock laughed till he cried, and cut the
+marchioness in the park. Her husband was very much pleased at this, and
+said it served her right.  Chloe Cadwallader wrote her first letter
+since the scandal to Cadwallader in the Rockies, for she felt he would
+be the only man in the world who hadn’t heard of it.  Ethel lay wait for
+Captain Goby, and asked him to kill some one.  There was not a soul in
+London who did not hear of it.  And then Timothy quarrelled with Harriet
+Weekes.  He went to Penelope, and with a crimson face and bated breath
+and much humbleness asked to be sent down to the country.
+
+"You shall go," said Penelope, with great decision.  "I can trust you, I
+know."
+
+"My lady, you can trust me with untold gold and diamonds," replied
+Timothy Bunting, almost with tears.
+
+"I shall send you to a house of mine you have never heard of," said
+Penelope.  "And I expect you, Bunting, not to write to any one from
+there. I do not wish any one to know I live there."
+
+"I’ll not tell the Harchbishop of Canterbury ’imself, my lady, not if he
+begged me on his knees, with lighted candles in his ’and," said Bunting.
+"And, above all, my lady, I’ll not tell it to Miss Weekes.  Her and me
+’ave quarrelled, and ’ave parted for hever.  And I wouldn’t trust her,
+my lady, not farther than you can sling a bull by the tail, my lady.
+I’ve trusted her to my rueing, so I have, and if she finds out hanything
+she’ll sell it to the _Times_, which ’ave promised her a public ’ouse at
+a corner."
+
+This revelation of the methods of Printing House Square shocked Penelope
+dreadfully.
+
+"Oh, I always thought the _Times_ was a respectable journal," she said.
+
+But Timothy Bunting shook his head.
+
+"Their sportin’ tips ain’t a patch on many of the penny papers, my lady.
+But don’t you forget what I says of Miss Weekes.  She’s a serpent in
+your boodore a-coiling everywhere, and speaking to newspaper men outside
+the harea like an ’ousemaid. Not but that I knows an ’ousemaid far above
+such dirty work, my lady."
+
+A little encouragement might have led him to say more about the
+housemaid who would not condescend to talk with journalists.  But
+Penelope gave him an address, verbally.
+
+"You will go to this place to-morrow," she said. "There are no horses
+now, but there will be next week.  I trust you to do what I tell you."
+
+"Miss—my lady, I mean," said Timothy, proudly, "I wouldn’t reveal where
+I was if the Hemperor of Germany crawled to me for that purpose all
+along of the ground, making speeches as he went."
+
+Penelope smiled at her faithful henchman kindly, and she wondered how it
+happened that he thought of placing the emperor in such an absurd
+position; a position, too, which was very unlikely.
+
+"Now are you sure you remember, Bunting?" she asked.
+
+"Miss Mackarness, Moat ’Ouse, near Spilsby, Lincolnshire," repeated
+Timothy.
+
+"And you will speak personally to Miss Mackarness, who will give you
+every instruction," said his young mistress.  "I hope you don’t drink,
+Bunting?"
+
+"Never," said Bunting, promptly, "at least I won’t from now on till you
+give the word, my lady. But, my lady, as I’m goin’ from here I don’t
+mind revealin’ to you that Mr. Gubbles does.  Mr. Gubbles ’as been very
+unkind to me, and—"
+
+"That will do," said Penelope.  "Good-bye, Bunting.  I expect to see you
+in about a month.  It may be less."
+
+"I ’opes, my lady, it will be much less," said the groom, and as he went
+away he nodded his close-cropped head.
+
+"This is a damned rum start," he murmured. "Wot’s up, I wonder?  This
+’ere Miss Mackarness was ’ousekeeper at Upwell Castle, and I’m a
+Dutchman if any one of us ’as ever ’eard of Moat ’Ouse. She’s goin’ to
+do it, as she said, goin’ to be married and keep it dark.  Women is
+wonderful strange and, so to speak, dreadful.  I thot I knew ’Arriet
+Weekes through and through, and she turned out to be a serpent with
+false teeth, ready to sell Lady Penelope to the _Times_.  And my lady
+’as turned me round ’er finger.  I’m knee-deep in secret hoaths, and,
+without knowin’ what I was doin’, I’ve swore off drink.  Well, I always
+did like ginger-beer!"
+
+But he sighed all the same.  And that afternoon he packed up and
+disappeared, and no one knew what had become of him.  Neither he nor any
+one of those who hunted for news had any notion of the fame which would
+presently be his. Nor did Penelope see quite what she had done when this
+nice-looking young man suddenly vanished by her orders.
+
+But Penelope was in love.
+
+
+
+
+                              *CHAPTER X.*
+
+
+Love is a pathological state which can only be cured by one means.  It
+is a disease, and robs the most humourous of their humour.  When
+Rabelais was in love he no doubt wrote poems which he afterward
+destroyed.  When Dante was in love he did the Paradiso.  When he cheered
+up he wrote the Inferno.  Neither of these is any joke.  But then, Dante
+had no more humour than Penelope. It can be imagined (or it cannot be
+imagined) how unhumourous Pen became when she found she had made her
+choice between Plant and De Vere and Goby and Carew and Williams and
+Bramber and Gordon and Rivaulx.  She wept at night over those she could
+not marry.  And it added grief to grief to think that the unmarried
+would probably relapse into their evil ways.
+
+"What can one poor girl do with so many?" she asked.  "I’m sure they
+will turn around on me, and once more follow their dreadful instincts!
+And they have improved so much!"
+
+The result of her sorrow was such pity that every poor wretch of them
+all was convinced she loved him better and better.  They were quite
+cheerful. They looked at each other almost sympathetically. They grieved
+for each other, and struggled on the hard cinder-path of duty, with
+Penelope at least a long lap ahead.  The amount of good they did was
+wonderful.  Plant got his university started, Rivaulx went over to Paris
+and asked Dreyfus to dinner, Goby was deep in Imperial Yeomanry and
+rifle ranges, Bramber spoke on every opportunity in the House and voted
+with the insistence of a whip.  De Vere wrote a monograph on outdoor
+sports, with an appendix on bulldogs.  He also owned that poetry was not
+everything, and went so far as to say that the poet laureate was a very
+good fellow.  Gordon floated a company without any water in the capital,
+and ran the whole affair with absolute honesty and no waiver clause.
+Carew learned to draw, and spoke sober truth about the Chantry Bequest.
+
+Williams never swore in public, and painted in water-colours.  And none
+of them played bridge or went into good society.
+
+"And when they know?" said poor Penelope.
+
+"I wonder if I ought not to sacrifice him and myself on the altar of
+duty?" said Pen.  But she was in love, and the motor-car in which she
+was to disappear stood ready.  She made weekly trips in it with Bob.
+Sometimes they stayed away for three days, sometimes even for a week.
+
+"Oh, Bob, I’m so unhappy: so happy," said Pen.
+
+And Bob looked at her critically.
+
+"Well, you look stunning, anyhow," he replied, "you get better looking
+every day, Pen.  Old De Vere said so.  He let on that you were a cross
+between a lily and a rose, or some such rot.  You mark me, Pen, he’ll go
+back to poetry if you marry him, and give up dogs.  I don’t want him to
+do that. Baker has some pups coming on, a new kind of very savage dog,
+and I’m halves in ’em.  Can’t you give me a tip as to whether it’s De
+Vere?  If it is, I’ll sell him one now, cheap."
+
+But Pen looked beautiful and kept her mouth shut.  Neither Bob nor
+Titania nor Bradstock could extract a word from her.  And, nevertheless,
+the whole world grew suspicious.  The society papers said she had made
+her choice.  The sporting papers gave tips.  They said, "For the _Lady
+Penelope Stakes_ we give Plant or Bramber," or at least one of them did.
+Others selected De Vere, and one rude man said a rank outsider would get
+it.  Of course he didn’t believe in Pen’s word.  But then, no one did.
+
+And still Pen kept her teeth shut and was as obstinate as a government
+mule to all persuasion. Ethel cried and said:
+
+"Oh, is it Captain Goby?"
+
+Chloe laughed and laid traps for Penelope saying:
+
+"Oh, by the way, I saw Lord Bramber just now."
+
+Or it might be De Vere or Carew or Williams. But no one got a rise out
+of Penelope.
+
+"I am entirely determined to give a lead to those who wish to be married
+without publicity.  I shall found a society presently," said Penelope.
+
+When Titania, whom nothing could discourage, went at her furiously,
+Bradstock smiled.
+
+"If she has a daughter, some day we shall see the girl married in
+Westminster Abbey," said Bradstock. But even he was very curious.
+
+"Have you found out anything yet, Bob?" he asked that young financier.
+
+"I’m on the way," said Bob, "give me time, Lord Bradstock.  I feel sure
+it’s not De Vere.  He’s buying all the dogs I offer him.  If he was
+sure, he wouldn’t."
+
+But Bradstock wasn’t certain.  Penelope might have no humour, but she
+was quite equal to ordering De Vere to buy in order to blind Bob.
+
+"I never thought of that," said Bob.  "I frankly own Pen’s a deal worse
+than Euclid.  And I never thought to say that of anything."
+
+And upon a certain day in June, when June was doing its best to live up
+to the poet’s ideal, Pen disappeared, by herself, leaving Bob at home
+with Guthrie, who now came over each day to keep the young vagabond
+doing something.  She came back after lunch, and Bob found her
+abnormally silent. She had nothing to say, and there was a curious
+far-off look in her eyes.  Her interest in dogs was nil; she showed no
+appreciation of ferrets; when he spoke she said "Oh" and "Ah" and
+"what’s that you say?"  And Bob had no suspicion whatsoever, just as
+clever people never have when they might be expected to show their
+wisdom.
+
+When she did speak, though, it was to the point.
+
+"I think, Bob, it is time you went back to your grandmother’s," she
+declared, suddenly, and back he went in spite of all his cajoleries.
+Pen was very strange, he thought, and rather beastly.  There certainly
+was a change in her, for she dismissed Harriet Weekes with a douceur
+which did not really sweeten that lady’s departure.
+
+And in the afternoon Pen casually remarked to Chloe that she was going
+out of town for three days.  When she said so the motor-car was at the
+door, and Geordie Smith was there too.
+
+If Timothy Bunting had known that Smith was as deep in his lady’s
+confidence as he was himself, he would have been jealous.  But he must
+have been, for Pen said to him, when they were out of Piccadilly:
+
+"How long will it take to get to Spilsby, Smith?"
+
+"My lady, with this new racing-car I’ll get there when you like,"
+replied Smith, firmly.
+
+Pen remembered that Bob said Smith’s ambition was to ride through the
+city regardless of fines.
+
+"I wouldn’t try to do it under three hours," she said.
+
+"Unless we are followed," said Smith.  "If we are followed, my lady, may
+I let her go?"
+
+"Yes," said Penelope.
+
+Geordie Smith nodded to himself.
+
+"Fines be damned, and legal limits ditto," said Smith to himself; "wait,
+my darling, till we get through the traffic."
+
+He meant "darling" for his new car.  He adored it as much as he did his
+mistress.  He used to dream of it at night and had nightmares about it.
+Dream ruffians cut up his tires; he was in the middle of Salisbury Plain
+without petrol; "she" refused to spark; he was held up by gigantic
+policemen with stop watches the size of a church clock. But now she
+moved under him smooth and cosy, with a vast reserve of power; she was
+quick, swift, docile, intelligent, fearless of policemen, careless of
+the limping law.
+
+"If my lady wants to go quick, I’m the man," said Geordie.  "But I
+wonder what’s up?"
+
+Geordie played the car as Joachim plays the violin, or Paderewski the
+piano.  She skated, she swam, she shot like a water-beetle, she was
+responsive to his lightest touch.  He heard her music as every engineer
+does, and found it as lovely as a dream song.
+
+"Oh, for a clear road," said the player.  He found some of it clear
+before they reached Barnet, and then he fingered the keyboard, as it
+were, like a master.
+
+"Horses, horses," said Smith, "the poor miserable things!  Ain’t I sorry
+for Tim Bunting!  Here we go, my lady."
+
+He broke the law magnificently, and with such skill that Penelope
+wondered.  But only once he ran against the law in the shape of a
+policeman, north of Hatfield, who saw him coming and signalled to him to
+stop.
+
+"Shall I?" said Smith.
+
+"No!" shrieked Pen, against the tide of wind.
+
+They passed him flying and saw him run as they passed.
+
+"He’ll wire to Hitchin and have us there," said Smith.  But he knew his
+roads.  "Oh, will he?"
+
+He took the right fork of the roads at Welwyn and roared through
+Stevenage to Baldock and found the main road again at Sandy.  They
+reached Huntington, sixty miles from town, in an hour and three
+quarters.
+
+"And I’ve never let her out but once," said Smith; "she’s a daisy!"
+
+The eighteen miles to Spilsborough they did at a speed that made
+Penelope bend her head.  She felt wonderful: she was on a shooting-star.
+They slackened on the outskirts of the cathedral city and rolled through
+it delicately.  She looked about her and remembered the dear bishop who
+had christened her when he was no more than a vicar.
+
+"We’ll go by Crowland and Spalding, Smith."  A car followed them out of
+Spilsborough, and Smith, going easy, looked back and saw it.
+
+"Catch us, my son," he said, contemptuously. But when they were well
+clear of town and he turned her loose, so to speak, Pen’s nerve went, or
+it appeared to go.
+
+"Don’t go so fast, Smith," she commanded.
+
+And Smith obeyed sorrowfully.
+
+"They can’t stand it," he said; "none of ’em can stand it really.  They
+let on they can, but it’s no go.  A few hot miles gives them the
+mulligrubs."
+
+But nevertheless they were running over thirty miles an hour.  The car
+behind crawled up to them.
+
+"All I’ve got to do, my lady, is to ask her to shake ’em off, and away
+we go and leave ’em," he suggested.
+
+"Oh, no, no," said Pen.
+
+At Spalding the pursuer, if he were one, was not a hundred yards behind.
+But in the town Smith got ahead.  He did not see Penelope trembling.
+Smith had taken a look at the one behind.
+
+"There’s power there," he said, savagely.  "If he lets her out and my
+lady squeals, I’m passed!"
+
+She did "squeal" the other side of Spalding, but not for herself.  The
+other car had to stop.
+
+"That’s done ’em," said Smith; "they’re in the ditch."  He gained ten
+miles on them, and Penelope wept.
+
+And just as they were coming into Boston at an easy gait, Smith turned
+and saw the other car coming up behind like a meteor, with the dust
+astern of her in a fume.
+
+"That chap can drive after all," said Smith. "Won’t you try to let me
+get away from him before we get to Spilsby, my lady?"
+
+"I—I don’t want to," said Pen.
+
+And five miles outside of Spilsby the pursuing car drew up with them.
+Two indistinguishable monsters drove it, and through his glaring goggles
+Smith glared at them as they came alongside.
+
+"Stop," said Penelope, suddenly.  "Stop, Smith."
+
+And the other car stopped too.
+
+"I’ll go on with the other car," said Penelope. She took her place by
+the most unrecognizable portent of the two, and disappeared in a sudden
+and terrific cloud of dust.
+
+"Damned if I know who it is, even now," said Smith.
+
+
+
+
+                             *CHAPTER XI.*
+
+
+It was Friday when Penelope disappeared from London in a motor-car, and
+was carried off by a motor pirate, unknown to any one, because he wore a
+peak cap, a fur coat with the fur outside, and gigantic goggles, making
+him resemble a diver or a cuttlefish.
+
+It was Monday when she returned to town in a motor-car with Geordie
+Smith.  And all the way into town Geordie said:
+
+"Blessed if I’d ha’ thought it.  I always reckoned it would have been
+one of the others.  I lose money on this, but if I do, it warms the
+cockles of my heart to see my lady happy.  Bless her sweet face, I wish
+she’d leave the blooming world alone and have a good time.  I never set
+eyes on such an aggravatin’ beautiful sweet lady for interferin’ with
+men.  Just as if the queen herself could alter our ways!  Women always
+gas that they can or mean to, and they’re just like hens with men for
+ducks."
+
+If he had been a classical scholar he might have remembered Ariadne up
+to her knees in the sea, with her lover on the deep in a boat.
+
+"When I saw who it was at Moat House," said Geordie, "you could have
+knocked me endwise with something less than a steel spanner.  And that
+horse-whipping ass of a Bunting was equal took aback.  For somehow we
+never spotted him as likely to make the non-stop run.  Humph, humph!"
+
+And he left Penelope at her house just in time for afternoon tea.  As
+she lay on the sofa she handed a paper to Chloe Cadwallader, saying:
+
+"I wish you would send out cards to all these people for Thursday
+night."
+
+"That’s very short notice, darling," said Chloe.
+
+"They’ll come," said Pen.
+
+And when Chloe looked at the list she found it included only Pen’s
+particular friends, her most bitter relations, and the whole of the
+"horde."
+
+"I wonder—" said Chloe, and she wondered somewhat later with Ethel.
+
+"Is it?" said Ethel.
+
+"Can it be?" cried Chloe.
+
+"It can’t be," said Ethel.
+
+"Who knows?" asked Chloe.  "She is so plain and so simple and
+straightforward that there is no certainty about anything she does.  I
+understand the wicked and the weak, but Penelope—"
+
+She threw up her hands, and presently wrote out the cards.  And Penelope
+was trying "to a degree," as Chloe said all Monday and Tuesday and
+Wednesday. And on Thursday she sent for Bob, who came helter-skelter in
+a hansom.
+
+"You’ll stand by me, Bob," said Pen, clutching him.
+
+Bob put his hands in his pockets and stood straddle-legs.  He stared at
+her.  What was hidden from the wisdom of Chloe was revealed to the
+simplicity of this boy.
+
+"Pen," said Bob, solemnly, "I’ll stick by you till death.  But ain’t you
+going to tell me who it is?"
+
+"Who what is?" asked Pen, feebly.
+
+"Him," said Bob.  "Pen, you’ve been and gone and done it."
+
+Pen, the strong and mighty Pen, wept a little.
+
+"Don’t snivel," said Bob.  "It can’t be helped now, I suppose, unless
+you get a divorce.  Do you want one?"
+
+"Oh, no!" said Pen.  "Not at all!"
+
+Bob considered the matter for a few minutes.
+
+"I say, what makes you cry?" he asked.
+
+"I—I don’t know," said Penelope.
+
+"Girls are very rum.  Baker says they are.  He’s not married, you know.
+He says mules are easy to them.  He drove mules once in India, he says.
+You know you are doing all this off your own bat, Pen, ain’t you?  Why
+don’t you chuck it?"
+
+"Chuck what, dear?"
+
+"Oh, this notion of not letting on.  Baker says it’s the rummest start
+he ever knew, and he says he’s seen some rum things in his life,
+especially when he was a sergeant in the Dublin Fusiliers. Can’t you
+chuck it?"
+
+"Oh, no, certainly not," said Pen, firmly.  "It’s only, Bob, that I’m
+not used to it yet, you see."
+
+"Of course not," said Bob.  "Being married is strange at first, I
+suppose.  Baker says he knew a woman who was married four times, and by
+the fourth time she wasn’t nervous to speak of.  But is it true, Pen,
+that you won’t tell any one who it is?"
+
+"I won’t," said Pen.
+
+"Bravo," cried Bob.  "Stick to it.  Oh, it will make granny so savage!
+Has Bill spoken about it to you?"
+
+"He laughs," said Pen.  "He always does laugh."
+
+"He tells rattling good stories," said Bob.  "He told me a splendid one
+about a man who stole a parrot the other day.  I’ll tell it you sometime
+when I remember it.  Is anything going to happen to-night, Pen?"
+
+Pen shivered.
+
+"Oh, dear, I don’t know.  Mind you come, too, Bob."
+
+Bob vowed he wouldn’t miss coming for worlds.
+
+"I believe you’re thinking of telling ’em you’ve done it," he said, and
+Pen said she was thinking of telling them.
+
+"You won’t tell me who it is?  I’m as close as wax," urged Bob.
+
+"I can’t, dear," said Pen.
+
+"Oh, by Jove, I remember Bill’s parrot story, Pen.  A man stole a
+parrot, and when he was caught he said he took it for a lark.  And the
+man who owned it said he’d make a bally fine judge at a bird-show."
+
+"Oh," said Pen, rather blankly; "but if he only took it for a lark, I
+suppose they let him off.  Did they?"
+
+"Let him off what?"
+
+"Why—going to prison, of course," said Pen.
+
+"I don’t know," replied Bob, staring.  "Don’t you see it’s a joke?"
+
+"Yes, I see, of course," said Pen.  "Why, the man said it was a lark,
+and it was a parrot.  I think it’s a very good story, Bob."
+
+And Bob went away wondering whether it was or not.
+
+"I’ll tell it to Baker," he said, thoughtfully.
+
+He turned up at nine o’clock that night with Titania, who was in a state
+of mind requiring instant attention from a physician.
+
+"Good heavens, what is it, I wonder," said Titania.  "Robert, I wonder
+what it is?  But what do you know?  I am in a tremble; I am sure she
+will do or say something even more scandalous than she has done yet.  I
+put it all on Bradstock; to make him her guardian was a fatal error.  My
+nerves—but I have none.  I quiver like a jelly; I shake; I must be pale
+as a ghost.  Why should we take so much trouble over anything?  I must
+think of myself.  I will go to bed and stay there for a week, and send
+for Dr. Lumsden Griff."
+
+But Bradstock was as calm as a philosopher without anything in the
+objective world to worry him.
+
+"What does it matter?" he inquired.  "Does anything matter?"
+
+Brading, whom no one had seen for many months, as he had spent the whole
+winter in a yacht down the Mediterranean, was perfectly good-humoured.
+
+"You see, she’s a dear, but only my half-sister after all," he said to
+Bradstock, "and women are so wonderful!  I can tell you a story by and
+by of a Greek lady, and one about a Spaniard.  And, to tell the truth, I
+almost agree with Pen.  I’m a bit of a socialist, or an anarchist, if
+you like.  Have you read Nietzsche?"
+
+"Who wrote it?" asked Bradstock.
+
+But the horde came in one by one, and Penelope, who was dressed in the
+most unremarkable costume at her disposal, and looked like a lily,
+received them at the door.
+
+"A most awful and improper situation," said Titania.
+
+"I say, I’ll tell you about that Greek girl," said Brading.  "Do you
+think Pen could stick a knife in a fellow?"
+
+Bradstock didn’t think so, and listened to the story of the lady who
+suggested the notion.
+
+"Right through my coat and waistcoat," said Brading.  "Only a very stiff
+piece of starch saved my life!"
+
+"Good heavens!" cried Bradstock.
+
+The room was full, and Bob buzzed around it like a bluebottle in an
+orchard.
+
+"Oh, I say," he cried to every one.  He told the story of the parrot
+after he had asked Brading whether he had it right.  He tried it on De
+Vere and failed.  Goby roared handsomely.  Bramber was absent-minded
+with his eye on Penelope. Gordon said, "Yes, yes, a ripping good story."
+The Marquis de Rivaulx balked at it, but was led to understand it.
+
+"And when can I go up in a balloon?" asked Bob.  He waited for no
+answer, but told it to Williams, suggesting that the war correspondent
+might pay for it by a story with blood and torture in it, please.  And
+all of a sudden it was noticed that the hostess had slipped out of the
+room.
+
+"Where—where is Penelope?" asked trembling Titania.  "Mrs. Cadwallader,
+where is Lady Penelope?"
+
+Bob ran her to earth in her bedroom, and after many appeals he was let
+in.
+
+"Oh, dear, oh, dear," said Penelope.  "Bob, let me take hold of you.  Do
+I tremble?"
+
+"Rather," said Bob.  "I’ll bet you couldn’t drink a glass of wine
+without spilling it.  What’s wrong?  Buck up.  Ain’t you comin’ in to
+tell ’em? I’ve broken it a bit for you."
+
+Pen screamed.
+
+"You wretched boy, what have you done?"
+
+"Bless you, nothing to speak of," said Bob.  "I only said you would make
+’em sit up presently. They think I know something, and want to bribe me.
+I say, Pen, if you say nothing for a few days, I believe old Gordon will
+make me a director. Can you?  I want to make money and restore the
+family property.  I say, do."
+
+But Pen paid no attention to him.  She groaned instead.
+
+"Where’s the pain?" asked Bob, anxiously. "Shall I get you some brandy?"
+
+"No, no, Bob!  I _must_ go in and tell them."
+
+"Come on, then," said Bob, eagerly.  "I don’t care about the
+directorship.  They’re all white and shaking.  I _guess_ they _are_ in a
+stew."
+
+But still Pen did not move, and when Chloe came she sent her away,
+saying, "In a moment, in a moment!"
+
+Then Bob had a brilliant idea.
+
+"I say, Pen, I’ll do it!"
+
+"Do what?"
+
+"I’ll go in and tell ’em you’ve done it.  It would be a lark!"
+
+But Pen shook her head.
+
+"No, I must, I will be brave.  If a woman has ideas she must live up to
+them.  I have done good so far.  Are they not very much improved, Bob?"
+
+"Some, I think," said Bob, carelessly.  "But I dare say they’ll go
+regular muckers now.  Come on, Pen, I do want to see their jaws drop."
+
+And Pen went with him.  She stayed outside the door, and Bob went in
+first.
+
+"She’s coming," said Bob.  And Pen entered with her eyes on the floor.
+Bob took her hand.
+
+"Buck up and spit it out," he said, in an encouraging whisper, which was
+audible in the farthest corner of the room.  Some of the horde turned
+pale; Titania fell back in her chair; Bradstock leant against the wall.
+Brading put up his eyeglass, and then told Bradstock Pen reminded him of
+a girl who had once tried to smother him with a pillow.
+
+"She had Penelope’s straightforwardness, and never gave in, just like
+Pen," said Brading, thoughtfully.
+
+And now Penelope took hold of her courage, so to speak, and opened her
+mouth.
+
+"S-sh," said Bob, who looked on himself as the master of the ceremonies,
+"s-sh, I say."
+
+And he took hold of Pen’s hand.
+
+"I’m so glad to see you here to-night," said the reformer, "for I am so
+much interested in you all, you see.  And you’ve all been so brave."
+
+"Hear, hear," said Bob.
+
+"So brave in different ways, about balloons and motor-cars and curing
+yourselves of your weak points," went on Penelope.  "That’s what I hoped
+my influence would do.  I said I was only a girl, but even a girl ought
+to do something, and I knew you all liked me very much, for you all said
+so, and I said, what can I do for you?  And I did my best, and you did
+yours, I’m sure, for I’ve heard from every one of you all about the
+others."
+
+This made many of them look rather queer, as no doubt it might.
+
+"And months ago I said—I said—"
+
+"Go ahead, Pen," whispered Bob.  "You mean you said you’d marry one of
+’em."
+
+"I said I’d—marry one of you."
+
+Titania groaned in the corner of a vast settee. Bradstock and Brading
+whistled, or it seemed so. But the other poor wretches stared at
+Penelope, and saw no one, heard no one, but her.
+
+"And I wanted you to come to-night so that I could ask you all to go on
+in the path of rectitude and simplicity and courage, balloons and hard
+work and healthiness and thought for others, even if I was married,"
+said Pen, with a gasp.  "Will you, oh, will you?"
+
+"We will," said the crowd, Goby leading with a deep bass voice and tears
+in his eyes.
+
+"Oh, I’m so glad," said Penelope, "for I shall not have lived in vain
+even if I died to-night.  And now—and now—I have to tell you something."
+
+"Great heavens," said Titania, in an awestricken and penetrating
+whisper, "what is she going to say now?"
+
+"I have kept my word," said Penelope, with her eyes on the floor.  "I
+have kept my word!"
+
+"What—what word?" asked the collapsed duchess, and Pen tried to say what
+word she had kept.
+
+"Speak up," said Bob, "speak up, Pen!"
+
+And she did speak up.
+
+"For—for," gasped Penelope, "for, you see, I _have_ married one of you!"
+
+Titania uttered a scream and promptly fainted. The men looked at each
+other furiously and suspiciously, while Pen was on her knees beside the
+poor duchess.  At that moment a message was brought in for Gordon, and
+an urgent note from the whip for Bramber.  Brading stood in a corner and
+whistled.  Bradstock shrugged his shoulders, and Bob buzzed all over the
+room like a wasp in a bottle.  By dint of water and smelling-salts and
+the slapping of hands Titania was brought to, and when she had recovered
+consciousness to the extent of knowing what it was that had bowled her
+over, she uttered words on the spur of the moment which were almost as
+much of a bombshell as those Penelope had spoken.
+
+"I don’t believe she’s married at all," said Titania.
+
+
+
+
+                             *CHAPTER XII.*
+
+
+To talk about the grounds of certainty is to talk metaphysically, and
+metaphysics being the highest form of nonsense, becomes sense in that
+altitude, as it must be if Hegel is to be believed.  But in the conduct
+of life the grounds of certainty are an estate beyond the rainbow.  If
+Penelope believed any one thing with more fervour than another, it was
+that her truthfulness must be self-evident.  The course of events after
+the evening on which Titania fainted and recovered so sharply showed her
+that nothing was certain, not even self-evident truths. For though she
+said she was married, few, if any, believed her.  Titania, who believed
+in her intuitions, as all right-minded women must, because reason is
+only an attribute of man, declared that Penelope had lied, to put it
+plainly.  She invented an hypothesis to account for it.
+
+"She found out she didn’t want to marry any of them, and her courage to
+say so failed her.  This notion of hers gives her time, and of course,
+my dear, as you see from what I say, she’s not married in the least."
+
+Bradstock, who was a philosopher, disagreed with her, and agreed with
+Bob.
+
+"Not married in the least, eh?" said Bradstock. "What is the least
+degree of marriage which would meet with your moral approval, Titania?"
+
+"Don’t talk nonsense, Augustin," replied Titania, tartly.
+
+"I cannot help it," said Augustin, "the situation is so absurd."
+
+And so it was for every one but the Duchess and Penelope, who did not
+understand a joke even with illustrations.  And they undoubtedly had the
+illustrations.  There were leading articles in several papers on the
+subject of marriage, with discreet allusions to Penelope’s case.  There
+was a long and rabid correspondence in the _Daily Turncoat_, a new
+halfpenny paper, to which every lady with a past or a future
+contributed.  The editor of the _Dictator_ wrote a moral essay with his
+own hand, obvious to every student of his immemorial style, which proved
+that another such case would knock the bottom out of the British Empire
+and bring on protection.  He showed that marriage, open and
+unadulterated, in a chapel, at the least, was the minimum on which
+morality could exist, and he pointed out with sad firmness that the
+ethical standards of the true Briton were the only decent ones at
+present unfurled in the universe, and that they were in great danger of
+being rolled up and put away.  As every one knows, all he said was
+undoubtedly fact.  The true Briton is the only moral person in the
+world. As a result Penelope felt that she wasn’t a true Briton, and it
+made her very mournful, as it should have done.  Nothing but her native
+obstinacy, which was imperial if not British, made her stick to her
+ideas, when her half-brother came to her and asked her crudely to
+"chuck" it.  For, though he was humourous, it was past a joke now, and
+his admiration of Pen was tinged with alarm.
+
+"I say, old girl, chuck it," said Bill.
+
+"I can’t!  I won’t!" said Penelope.
+
+"Nobody believes you."
+
+Penelope couldn’t help that.
+
+"I’ve spoken the truth."
+
+"Why, even the other men don’t believe it," said her brother.  "Why, I
+met three of ’em to-day, and they all said, ’Oh, yes, we understand.’  I
+say, Pen, this is too much.  Chuck it!"
+
+"Once for all, dear, I won’t," said Penelope. "Much as I dislike this
+publicity, I see it is doing good.  I get letters every day from scores
+of people saying that I am doing good.  Three to-day declared that they
+were following my example in a registrar’s office, and three more are
+thinking of it.  One lady writes, saying she hopes I would go in for
+abolishing marriage altogether when public opinion was prepared for the
+extinction of the race. I don’t agree with her, but she was
+enthusiastic, and enthusiasm is a great thing."
+
+"I shall go yachting for a year," said Bill.
+
+"I wish you would, dear Bill," replied Penelope. "It will do you good.
+You look quite pale, and I don’t like you to do that.  Have you any
+cough?"
+
+"Damn it, no," said Brading, crossly.
+
+And he went yachting again without publicity but with a lady.  He was no
+true Briton, and never read the _Dictator_.
+
+His departure took one thing off Pen’s hands, but none of her lovers
+departed.  Titania’s words had sunk deep in their minds.
+
+"She’s not married," they said.  "And if she says she is, it is only to
+try us."
+
+They all interviewed Bob, and made things very pleasant for that rising
+statesman.  If he believed Pen was married there was no reason to say so
+openly.
+
+"Am I old enough to be a director, do you think?" he asked Gordon.
+"What I want is to make pots of money and rebuild Goring, which is a
+bally ruin."
+
+"You don’t answer my questions," said Gordon.
+
+"Oh, about Pen," said Bob.  "She’s queer.  I don’t know, Mr. Gordon, I
+can’t tell.  She may be, for all I know.  She’s so clever, I don’t know
+that she hasn’t married you, and put you up to coming and asking me
+questions."
+
+Gordon couldn’t help grinning.
+
+"I think you’ll be a director of something some day," said he.  "I can’t
+make you one now, but if you have a hundred pounds I’ll invest it in
+something for you, my son, that will make your hair curl."
+
+"Like yours?" asked Bob, curiously, and Gordon flinched.
+
+"Well," went on Bob, without waiting for an answer, "I haven’t a hundred
+pounds, but I’ve an idea how to get it."
+
+"Yes?" said the financier.  "What’s your idea, Bob?"
+
+"It’s a safe and a certain investment, is it?"
+
+"Why, of course," replied Gordon.
+
+"Then I’ll tell you what, you lend it me," said Bob, brightly, "and
+invest it for me."
+
+"Damned if I don’t," cried Gordon.  "Bob, when you are twenty-one I’ll
+make you a director and ask your advice!  And you’ll come and tell me if
+you find out anything about Lady Penelope?"
+
+Bob looked at him and shook his head.
+
+"I say, you’re so clever, I don’t know how to take you.  I dare say it’s
+you!"
+
+The flattered financier smiled.
+
+"Oh, by the way," said Bob, rather in a hurry, "I suppose I should get
+nearly as much if I invested ninety pounds as if I put in a hundred?"
+
+"Nearly," said Gordon, who hoped to be let off a little, "only ten per
+cent. less."
+
+"That’ll do me," said Bob.  "Then you can give me the tenner now, Mr.
+Gordon, and put in the rest for me."
+
+"I wish I had a boy like that," said Gordon. He went away ten pounds
+poorer, but with a great admiration for Bob, who was determined to
+restore the faded splendour of Goring.
+
+"Hanged if I know who it is," said Bob.  "It may be Gordon after all.
+And every one but De Vere and Bramber have been at me.  Is it one of
+these?"
+
+He had a remarkable list of all those who had pretended to Penelope’s
+hand, for he was very curious, like all the rest of the world.  He was
+also a little sore with Pen for not confiding in him.
+
+"I told her I’d find out," he said, "and I will."
+
+This was his list, and a curious document it was, written in a big,
+round hand that "old Guth" could never get him to modify.  His spelling
+was almost ducal in its splendour.
+
+
+"_Plant_.  It isn’t Mr. Plant, because he said would I like to go out in
+a motor, a new one, ninety-horse power, and I said rather, if he’d let
+her rip.  And he looked anshious I thought.  He tiped me.
+
+"_Goby_.  It isn’t Goby, Goby says he’ll always be my friend.  He said
+had I another pony not sound, to experiment with.  He stamped up and
+down, some.  He tiped me.
+
+"_Williams_.  It isn’t Williams, he took me to lunch and told me lots of
+things about the Chinese that his paper wouldn’t print.  They were
+orful. He said if I’d keep in with him he knew worse.  He didn’t tip me
+this time because the lunch was so much.  I had turtell three times.
+
+"_Rivaulx_.  It isn’t the Frenchy because he tore his hair, and said I
+could go up in a baloon any day.  At least, he didn’t tear his hair;
+it’s too short. He keeps it up with Gordon too but looks horrid. He
+tiped me.
+
+"_Carew_.  It isn’t him.  He’s very anxshus and says he can’t paint:
+says the crittics are right.  He was a sad sight to see, walking around
+in his studio. He said would I sit to him for an angel.  He stops
+walking and tries to do Pen quick.  I think it’s muck. I wouldn’t like a
+tip from him, for if an artist can’t paint through grief what becomes of
+him? Do the others buy him for the Chantrey Bequest?"
+
+
+"That’s the lot so far," said Bob.  And he added to his notes:
+
+
+"_Gordon_.  It isn’t Gordon.  He lent me a hundred pounds to invest in
+something to make hair curl.  I said make it ninety and give me ten now,
+and he did.  He didn’t tip me, but I don’t think him mean on that
+account."
+
+
+"That leaves only De Vere and Bramber," said Bob, "and she never seemed
+much stuck on either to my mind.  But if they don’t say anything to me I
+shall begin to suspect."
+
+He said so to Bradstock, who called him a young devil.
+
+But about three days later Bob added to his notes:
+
+
+"_Bramber_.  It isn’t Bramber.  I met him in the park.  He took me to
+the House and gave me a beastly lunch.  But he didn’t notice it as he
+couldn’t eat and looked very pale and savidge.  He tiped me.
+
+"_De Vere_.  It’s not the poetry rotter.  He wants me to stay with him
+and look after the dogs.  He said if I had a sick one he’d rather have
+it than not. He said he was desprit.  I don’t know why, but suppose it’s
+Pen.  He tiped me."
+
+
+"Now where am I at?" he said, blankly.  "I’ve written down it isn’t any
+of ’em.  And that’s what granny says.  But I don’t believe her."
+
+He chewed his pencil till it was in rags, and then a sudden idea struck
+him.
+
+"I’ll buy all Sherlock Holmes and read him right through," said Bob.
+"That’s the way to find out anything.  I wish I knew the man that wrote
+him. I wonder if De Vere knows him?  I’ll ask Baker to get a sick dog
+from the vet’s, and I’ll go down and stay with De Vere if I can make
+granny say ’yes.’  I wonder why old De Vere wants a sick dog, though.  I
+can’t understand poets."
+
+It was no wonder Gordon wished he had a boy like Bob.
+
+
+
+
+                            *CHAPTER XIII.*
+
+
+It was all very well for Bob to declare that his grandmother was
+altogether "off it" when she said that Penelope wasn’t married at all.
+For, little by little, after furious discussions in ten thousand houses,
+in the court, the camp, and the grove, that came to be the general
+opinion.
+
+Titania expressed the general opinion:
+
+"She is mad, of course.  What can one expect when her mother was an
+American?  All Americans are mad.  Bradstock assures me there is a
+something in the air of the United States (oh, even in Canada) which
+makes one take entirely new views of everything.  And that, of course,
+is madness, my dear, madness undoubted and dangerous.  He assured me,
+poor fellow, that six months in that absurd country made him tremble for
+his belief in a constitutional monarchy!  He adds that he has only
+partially recovered, by firmly fixing his eyes on what a limited monarch
+might be, if he tried. Yes, she was an American, and adored our
+aristocracy, not knowing what we are, poor thing. And yet where
+Penelope’s ideas come from I do not know.  I firmly believe Bradstock is
+the cause of them.  When she was a little girl he would take her on his
+knee and pour anarchism into her innocent ears.  You know his way; he
+runs counter to everything, though now comparatively silent.  And
+Penelope was always ready to go against me, though she loves me.  This
+was an early idea of hers; Augustin owns that he suggested it
+humourously to her years ago.  There is nothing so dangerous as humour;
+it is always liable to be taken seriously. Mr. Browning, the poet, said
+so to me at a garden-party; he said he was a humourist, and he said Mr.
+Tennyson (oh, yes, Lord Tennyson) lacked humour, while he himself had
+too much of it.  He explained Sordello to me, and made me laugh
+heartily.  But as I was saying, Penelope took up the idea and gave it
+out, and now is sorry, and, not having the courage to say so, she has
+taken refuge in what I am reluctantly compelled to characterize as a
+lie, and it is a great relief to me.  The scandal will blow over;
+already the halfpenny papers are tired of her.  I expect she will marry
+by and by. Oh, no, of course she isn’t married!"
+
+And as Penelope’s ideas were in every way absolutely contrary to what
+one has a right to expect, it is only natural that, proof of the
+contrary being lacking, the whole world began gradually to come around
+to Titania’s opinion.  A duchess has a great deal of influence if she
+only likes to use it, and the public is no more proof against her than
+the public offices are.
+
+And Pen set her teeth together and ignored every one, and had very
+little to say to society.  Her apparent passion was for motor-cars, and
+she went out in the sixty-horse Panhard almost every day. And every end
+of the week she disappeared, coming back on Monday or Tuesday.
+
+"I could tell ’em something," said Geordie Smith, "couldn’t I, old
+girl?"
+
+The "old girl" he referred to was the machine he loved next best, at
+least, to Lady Penelope.
+
+"Me and Bunting could wake ’em up some," he said.  "I’d like Bunting if
+he’d only get rid of the notion that horses are everything.  I hope to
+see the time when there won’t be any except in parks, running wild like
+deer."
+
+It was an awful notion, and it was a wonder that he and Bunting got on
+without fighting.
+
+"My lady _uses_ your bloomin’ tracking engine," said Tim,
+contemptuously, "but she _loves_ ’orses. You can’t give carrots to your
+old thing, and it ain’t got no smooth and silky muzzle to pat. Faugh!
+the smell of it makes me sick; give me the ’ealthy hodour of the stable,
+Smith!"
+
+"Find me a horse that’d carry her and me a hundred and twenty miles in
+three hours and damn the expense in fines," replied Smith, "and I’m with
+you.  My lady loves this car a’most as much as I do.  Who can catch her
+and me, flying along? Let ’em come, let ’em try, and I’ll put her out to
+the top notch and let her sizzle.  You come out and try, Tim; one drive
+and you’ll be another man, looking on horses as what they are, mere
+animals and not up to date.  My lady’s up to date and beyond it."
+
+"When I go in your bally machine hit’ll be by my lady’s horders," said
+Timothy, "and it’ll be tryin’ my hallegiance very ’ard.  Come and ’ave a
+drink, if you hain’t too advanced for that!  ’Ave you been chased lately
+as you brought my lady ’ome?"
+
+"I thought I was," replied Smith, "but I shook ’em off.  I’m egging her
+on to get a ninety-horse in case.  That young cousin of hers let on to
+me that she’ll be followed up some day, and I told her. She’ll do it!"
+
+"I wonder what’s her game?" said Tim. "Blowed if I hunderstand."
+
+"So far’s I see," replied Smith, "it’s a general notion that a party’s
+private biz is their private biz.  And the others says it isn’t, and
+there’s where the trouble begins.  I agree with her in a measure, don’t
+you?"
+
+"I agrees with my lady hevery time," said Tim. "She’s a sweet lady, and,
+my word, if I didn’t I’d get the sack, which I don’t want.  What she
+says she sticks to, bein’ in that different to hany woman I never met.
+That’s what the trouble is, that and reformin’ lovers and husbands and
+law and so hon!"
+
+But the real trouble was that what she said she stuck to.  She began to
+care much less for reform, and now never read Herbert Spencer and the
+greater philosopher, who has discovered that man doesn’t think so much
+of yesterday as he does of to-morrow. She forgot the Deceased Wife’s
+Sister, and ignored the London County Council, and didn’t read the
+_Times_ except on great occasions.  She spent the days in dreaming, and,
+except when she was devouring the space between London and Lincolnshire,
+she lay about on sofas and read poetry or listened to Bob, and looked
+ten thousand times more beautiful than ever, like the Eastern beauties,
+of whom one reads in the Arabian Nights, returning from the bath.  She
+was wonderfully affectionate to Bob, who was a most considerate boy, and
+didn’t worry her when he had once discovered that asking questions was
+no use.  He told her of his vain efforts to find out whom she had
+married, and was very amusing.  He began to have great ambitions.
+
+"Mr. Gordon says I’ve a great future before me, Pen.  He thinks no end
+of me.  He says being a duke by and by is all very well, but I agree
+with him there are greater things than merely being one. He says the men
+with power are the rulers of the world.  He told me how he and
+Rothschild stopped a war in a hurry.  He didn’t say which war.  I asked
+him why he didn’t stop the South African War, and he said that was
+different.  I asked him did he bring it on then, and he said ’No.’  But
+I think he did, somehow.  Will you ask old Sir Henry if he did?  I don’t
+like Sir Henry, though, do you?"
+
+He went on to tell her about Sherlock Holmes.
+
+"I’m reading him through again, Pen.  And when I go down to De Vere’s I
+shall ask De Vere to invite the man that wrote him.  I’m going to De
+Vere’s to take him a sick dog.  He said he wanted one, and I’ve got one
+from Baker.  Baker says he must want to vivisect him, and he doesn’t
+like the idea.  Baker’s a very kind man to animals, but I’ve given my
+word that the dog sha’n’t be vivisected.  You don’t think a poet would,
+do you? Did you tell him to learn to be a vet or anything? If you did,
+that would explain it.  I’ve been through the whole list, Pen, and,
+though I won’t worry you, I’ve come to the conclusion so far that I
+don’t know which you’ve married.  If I find out I won’t tell."
+
+"You’re a dear," said Pen, languidly.
+
+"I’ve got a notion how to find out, though," said Bob.  "At least, I
+shall have when I’ve finished Sherlock Holmes.  I’d rather be Sherlock
+Holmes than a duke.  It seems to me that unless you are the Duke of
+Norfolk or the Duke of Devonshire you are out of it.  Being a common
+duke is dull, but being Holmes must be very exciting."
+
+One thing that he told her made her think furiously.
+
+"Not one of ’em really believes you, Pen, and they’re much more jealous
+of each other than they were.  I believe they’ll be fighting presently."
+
+"Don’t talk nonsense," said Pen, anxiously.
+
+Bob shrugged his shoulders, a trick he had caught from the marquis.
+
+"It’s not nonsense.  I can see bloodshed in their eyes.  The marquis
+looks awfully ferocious, and Williams, too.  Of course, I don’t say that
+Gordon would fight much.  And I should snigger to see old De Vere in a
+duel, shouldn’t you?  But if Bramber and the marquis and Williams and
+Goby get together, I shouldn’t be surprised if they fought with swords
+or guns.  I think Rivaulx would like that. He would stick them all and
+make ’em squeal, I can tell you.  He’s a whale at fencing.  He took me
+to see him once, and when he stamped and said ’Ha-ha,’ like a war-horse,
+I wondered the other man didn’t run."
+
+"If they had a duel, any of them, I shouldn’t speak to them again," said
+Penelope.  "I abhor duels and warfare and weapons, and think they should
+be abolished in universal peace.  And as I am married now, Bob, I hope
+you will do what you can to make them believe it."
+
+"You can make ’em believe it at once," said Bob.  "I do think this is
+absurd.  And don’t you see it’s funny, too, Pen?"
+
+"No," said Pen, "it’s not.  It’s right, and what is right can’t be
+funny."
+
+Bob reflected.
+
+"Well, there’s something in that.  It ain’t much fun generally."
+
+And he returned to Sherlock Holmes.
+
+"I wonder what he would do," said Bob to himself, pensively.  "There
+ain’t any footsteps or blood in this.  I suppose he’d take a look at Pen
+and then have a smoke and go out in a hansom and come back very tired.
+I’ve looked at Pen a lot, but smoking still makes me sick, and I don’t
+know where to go in a hansom.  And I think Holmes would think it mean to
+follow her when she goes off with Smith in her car.  Besides, a hansom
+can’t catch a sixty-horse Panhard unless it breaks down.  I think he
+would get at it by looking at the men."
+
+That put him on the track of a dreadful scheme, a most wicked and
+immoral scheme, that his hero would have disapproved of.
+
+"I believe I have it," said Bob, starting up in wild excitement.  "If I
+go around to them all and say that I’m sure she’s not married, but that
+she loves the one they hate most, they will jump and be in a rage, won’t
+they?  I should be, I know.  And the one that doesn’t jump will be him.
+I dare say De Vere won’t jump, but he’s not a jumping sort, but he’ll
+cry, likely.  Rivaulx _will_ snort if it isn’t him."
+
+He sat and pondered over this lovely scheme.
+
+"But if she loves one of ’em, why don’t she own it to him, and why this
+mystery?  They’ll ask that, of course.  Oh, but that doesn’t matter;
+they’ll do the snorting first.  And, besides, I could let on that not
+all of them are in earnest.  Ain’t it possible that the one she loves
+won’t ask her now, and she’s covering up her disappointment?  That would
+make Rivaulx fairly howl, I know.  He’s a real good chap, and between
+howling and weeping he says he wants her to be happy.  I’ll do it."
+
+He went off to do it at once.
+
+"Ha, ha, my beautiful boy," said the Marquis of Rivaulx, whom he found
+in his rooms in Piccadilly, "have you come with news for me, the devoted
+and despairing?"
+
+"Well, I don’t know, marquis," returned Bob, soberly.  "I’ve been
+thinking about it, and I’m in a state of puzzle."
+
+"And I am in a state of the devil himself," replied Rivaulx.  "I suspect
+every one.  I am enraged. I suspect you, Bob, my boy."
+
+Bob shook his head.
+
+"I suspect you, too.  I’ve never got over thinking that it may be you,"
+he said, "for you are all just like each other, and it’s obvious some
+one is telling me lies."
+
+Rivaulx smiled, a deep and dark French smile, which was agonizing to
+behold.  It puzzled Bob dreadfully.
+
+"There," he said, "you smile, and so does Pen, and you all smile.  But I
+believe I’ve discovered something."
+
+"About who or which?" asked Rivaulx.  "Is it about that Goby?"
+
+He might loathe Gordon, but he was jealous of Goby.  He promenaded the
+room, and was already in a rage.
+
+"Yes," said Bob, boldly.  "I believe she’s not married, and I believe
+she likes him best."
+
+"The hound, the vile one, the unmeasured beast," roared Rivaulx, "it
+cannot be.  If she loves him (no, I can’t believe it), why does she not
+wed him? I shall slay him.  Is she unhappy?  Does she weep? I adore her,
+but if she loves him he shall marry her or I will stab him to the
+heart."
+
+"I dare say he’s not in earnest," said Bob.  And the marquis ground his
+teeth and foamed at the mouth, and again tried to tear his close-cropped
+hair without the least success.
+
+"Not—oh, sacred dog of a man,—ha—let me kill him!"
+
+He tore around the room and knocked two ornaments off the mantelpiece
+and upset a table, which Bob laboriously restored to its place.  After
+he had put it back three times, he gave it up and cowered under the
+storm.
+
+"I shouldn’t be surprised if this was put on," said Bob, rather
+gloomily.  "I know he can act like blazes; Pen says he can.  She said he
+was finer than Irving or Toole in a tragedy.  I don’t think it has the
+true ring of sincerity."
+
+And making his escape from the cyclone, he went off to see Goby, who was
+hideously jealous of Carteret Williams.
+
+"I hope he won’t be as mad as the marquis," said Bob.  "That table
+barked my shins horribly the last time it fell.  I wish Frenchmen
+wouldn’t shout so when they’re angry; I’m nearly deaf."
+
+There was the devil to pay with Goby.  He announced his intention of
+assaulting Williams at once.
+
+"Oh, I say, you mustn’t," cried Bob, in great alarm.  "She’ll never
+forgive you."
+
+"That Williams!" said Goby.  "I always did hate war correspondents.  I
+don’t believe it."
+
+But it looked as if he did.
+
+"I dare say you are putting it on," cried Bob. "I don’t know where I
+am."
+
+Goby said he didn’t, either, but that if this turned out to be true he
+would wring Williams’s neck in the park the first fine Sunday in June.
+
+"He would have acted just the same if he was married to her, and thought
+she loved Williams best after all," said Bob to himself.  "I’ll try
+Bramber and Williams, and then give it up."
+
+Bramber was in a furious temper, and when Bob assured him that Penelope
+loved Gordon best of any one, he swore horribly.  As he rarely swore,
+this was very impressive, and Bob almost shivered.
+
+"I say, you mustn’t kick Gordon," he urged. "After all, I may be
+mistaken."
+
+"I wish you were dead," said Bramber, "and you will be if you don’t get
+out."
+
+Bob got out, and when he was in the open air he sighed.
+
+"I don’t think I’ll try Williams," he said, thoughtfully.  "He’s much
+bigger and stronger even than Goby, and they say he’s a terror when he’s
+very angry.  My scheme doesn’t seem to work; there’s something wrong
+with it."
+
+But there was nothing wrong with it, and it worked marvellously.  The
+report that Bob said positively that Pen wasn’t married carried much
+weight. Goby and Rivaulx both gave it away.  And all the men now loathed
+each other openly.  Rivaulx cut Goby and Goby cut Williams and Bramber
+sneered at Gordon, and there was great likelihood of there being the
+devil to pay.  Pen tried to patch up peace among them, and failed, and
+wept about it, seeing so much of the good she had done melt like sugar
+in warm rain.  At last she announced her intention of leaving them and
+the world alone.
+
+"I almost think I’ll give up reform," she sighed.
+
+And the season went by and the autumn came, and Titania found herself at
+Goring in October with a large house-party which didn’t include
+Penelope.
+
+"She is, of course, somewhat ashamed of herself," said Titania, happily.
+"This comes of having ideas and foolishly attempting to carry them into
+practice.  Now that I am certain she is not married and that she only
+says so, I feel quite different.  I no longer abhor the poor, foolish
+men who are so much in love with her.  I see plainly (for I, too, am
+naturally a democrat of the proper kind) that they have fine qualities.
+I have marked my sense of this in a way which appears to amuse Lord
+Bradstock for some reason that I do not follow,—but then, I never could
+follow Augustin, poor fellow,—by asking them all down here.  I dare say
+they think Penelope will come, for they have all accepted.  I am
+delighted, for I really admire them.  Mr. Carew is the handsomest young
+man in London, and will paint my portrait between meals. I wonder
+whether I shall try to get thinner by eating less, or will it be better
+to tell Mr. Carew to make me thinner in his picture.  That seems the
+easiest course; for if Penelope’s conduct has not made me thin, what
+would?  Neither hot weather nor despair has the least effect upon me.  I
+shall trust to Mr. Carew’s idea of what is right and proper.  I wish I
+could rely with equal confidence upon poor, dear, misguided Penelope."
+
+There was much discontent in the camp when the lovers learnt that their
+beloved was not one of Titania’s house-party.  They were not civil to
+each other, and with difficulty were civil to Titania.
+
+"Confound the old harridan," said Goby.  This was wicked, for Titania
+was very sweet, and retained much more than a trace of her youthful
+beauty.  She belonged to the modern band of those who sternly refuse to
+grow old.
+
+"Great Scott!" said Carteret Williams.  The others made equally
+appropriate exclamations.  They damned Goring in heaps, and looked at
+each other like a crowd of strange dogs.  Owing to Penelope’s influence
+they all came in motor-cars.  Even De Vere turned up in one which was
+guaranteed by age and its maker not to go more than ten miles an hour.
+There wasn’t room to get them into the temporary garage out of the wet.
+But the marquis did not come in a balloon or a flying-machine.  That was
+something, at any rate, though Bob growled about it bitterly.  Pen’s
+request that he should do his best to make the world believe she was
+married was entirely forgotten.  Without quite meaning to say so, he
+practically asserted in every word that she was not.
+
+"After all," said Bob, "I believe she is capable of deceiving even me,
+for she is a woman.  Horace, in his Odes, seems to think that.  It seems
+to me that classical authors had a very poor opinion of women."
+
+He went to Rivaulx crossly.
+
+"I say, I think you ought to have come in a flying-machine.  Why didn’t
+you?  Pen will be mad."
+
+He introduced De Vere to Baker (who had been a sergeant in the Dublin
+Fusiliers), and left him with him, discussing hydrophobia and bulldogs.
+
+"Baker says he has a great admiration for you, sir," said Bob.  "He has
+lots of pups for you to look at.  There’s a very queer spotted one that
+Pen said she was sure you would like.  It’s very cheap for a spotted dog
+of the kind, Baker says."
+
+But they were an unhappy crowd, and even the shooting, which was fairly
+good for a poor duke’s place, hardly consoled them.
+
+At night the women, who all gambled, naturally were very cross.  It
+appeared that not one of the men would play bridge, because Penelope had
+made them swear off.  There were only three men in the house not in love
+with Penelope.  Titania had a dreadful time, and much regretted her
+hospitality. Carew was furious, of course, and his notions of colour
+were very morbid.  And he appeared to see the duchess as she was, in
+spite of the hints the poor woman threw out to the desperate painter,
+who looked at her sorrowfully and sighed as he shook his head.
+
+"Being painted is an ordeal," she said.  Not one of the others consoled
+her.  De Vere wept with her in the drawing-room; Williams wrecked her
+orchids in the hothouse; Plant and Gordon quarrelled in the
+smoking-room.  And Bramber, who was only there for four days, looked
+horridly sorry for himself, and sneered at every one.  The marquis went
+around the park in a ninety-horse-power racer seventeen times between
+breakfast and lunch.  The chauffeurs quarrelled furiously; they even
+fought in the stable yard with Baker as umpire and Bob as timekeeper.
+
+At the dinner-table was the only time of peace, and then it was too
+peaceful.  Nobody but Bob and Ethel Mytton and Titania did any talking.
+Bob spoke of very little but Penelope, which was natural but awkward.
+He told them what Baker said, till they all desired to go out and
+strangle Baker. Bradstock encouraged him, for Bradstock was the only man
+there who had any apparent desire to be amused.  The rest of them played
+with the soup, toyed with the _entrées_, fooled with the roasts, choked
+over the birds, and went out and oversmoked themselves.  Then they met
+in the big hall and the drawing-room, and Titania had to assure them all
+one after the other, that she was certain Penelope was not married.
+
+"Then why does she say she is?" they asked, bitterly.
+
+"It must be to try you," said Titania.  "Augustin, don’t you think it is
+to try them?"
+
+Bradstock made that sound which the English write as "Humph" and the
+Scotch put down as "Imphm."  It means a great deal, but is intelligible
+to the intelligent.
+
+"Yes, it is to try you," said Titania.  "She is a dear, sweet thing, but
+has ideas which do not commend themselves to me.  I understand them, of
+course, but regret them.  It may be, of course, that she does not love
+any of you, and is trying to get out of it.  By and by you will find out
+if that is so.  She is enthusiastic and impulsive.  Oh, these impulses
+of youth!  How well I remember the delightful impulses of youth, when
+one feels as if one could fly with wings!  Even now I get impulses.
+Poor Penelope!  Ah, dear, I wish she would come.  I have written again
+and again to ask her, but I’m afraid she will not."
+
+And, indeed, no one at that moment knew where she was, unless, indeed,
+it was Timothy and Geordie Smith and Miss Mackarness and the pirate in
+goggles of the motor-car who carried her off.
+
+Titania and Bob between them, at any rate, accomplished one thing.  No
+one pretended to assign a satisfactory reason for Pen’s conduct, but
+every one, except one, perhaps, believed she was still single.  They
+were sure of it, and grew surer every day.  As a result, they recovered
+some little peace of mind; they quarrelled less and ate more and shot
+straighter. Rivaulx only went fifteen times around the park before
+lunch; De Vere bought more dogs; Plant agreed to go into some scheme of
+trust robbery with Gordon, who assured the rest of them that he had
+Rothschild up his sleeve.  Williams stamped less on flower-beds and
+swore half as much as usual.  Goby and Bramber went out walks together
+with Bob and Ethel Mytton.  Titania’s barometer went up and her size
+went down in Carew’s picture.  He saw her less yellow, and did not
+insist on her wrinkles. Augustin sat in the library and read books which
+were of so humourous a character that they compelled him to put them
+down and laugh continually. It was certainly a most amusing house-party.
+
+"I thought there would have been duels in the park," said Augustin.  "I
+wonder what the deuce Pen would think of them if she saw them now."
+
+And then one day something serious happened. It was on a Sunday, and on
+Sundays the post came in at half-past ten, just at the time they were
+all having breakfast before going to church.  They were just about as
+happy as they could ever hope to be till Penelope married one or all of
+them.  Bob, who was especially greedy that morning, was eating against
+time and winning.  Only Ethel was sad, for Goby seemed quite cheerful.
+When he was mournful she was happier always.  Titania flowed
+wonderfully.  Augustin was saying the kind of thing he could say when
+sitting down.  Goring himself was eating as if he was in rivalry with
+Bob.  He never said anything, but looked like a duke, which is a very
+fine thing when a man is a duke, and can afford it with care.  Gordon
+was eating bacon as if he had no great appetite for it.
+
+"Oh, here’s the post," said Titania.  Augustin took Saturday’s _Times_
+and opened it.
+
+"I wonder whether dear Penelope has written to me," said Titania.  The
+"horde" looked up; they hoped even yet that Penelope would give in and
+come at last.
+
+"Any news?" grunted Goring.
+
+"I don’t see any," replied Augustin.
+
+"What are Jack Sheppard’s United?" asked Gordon, slipping a piece of
+bacon into his pocket.
+
+And Augustin made his celebrated speech over again, his single speech in
+the House of Lords.
+
+"Good God!" said Augustin, and he turned almost as white as the _Times_
+paper before it went through the machines.  Every one stared at him.
+
+"What is it?" screamed Titania.  Bob jumped up and deserted a pig’s
+cheek just as it was showing signs of utter defeat.
+
+"It’s—it’s—" said Augustin, and he stammered vainly.
+
+"I say, let’s look," cried Bob.  "Granny, it’s something in the Births,
+Marriages, and Deaths!"
+
+"Good heavens, speak, Augustin!" implored Titania.
+
+The band of lovers went as white as Augustin; they stood up
+simultaneously.
+
+"I see it, I see it," said Bob, and he actually snatched the paper from
+Lord Bradstock’s hand.
+
+"Is she married?  Is she dead?" asked Titania.
+
+"No, no," said Bob, sputtering and aflame with wild excitement; "it’s
+’Brading—Lady Penelope Brading on the 18th of a son!’"
+
+
+
+
+                             *CHAPTER XIV.*
+
+
+There are blows which stun; this was, of course, one of them.  Titania
+did not shriek or faint at the awful intelligence conveyed by the
+Thunderer of Printing House Square.  She nodded her head as if she was
+partially paralyzed, and at last murmured in a dry whisper:
+
+"Of a son!  Of a son!"
+
+Bradstock’s eyebrows were as high as they would go, and he stared at
+Titania, and then look around on the circle of men and women.  Ethel
+squeaked a little squeak, like a mouse behind the wainscot and was
+silent.
+
+"Oh—of a son," said Goby, sighing and looking at the floor.
+
+"Of a son!" said Plant, eyeing the ceiling.
+
+"_Un fils!_" shrieked Rivaulx.
+
+Gordon said "Damnation;" De Vere shook like a stranded jelly-fish;
+Bramber went as scarlet as a lobster, and then as white as cotton;
+Carteret Williams looked blue, and Carew looked green, and Bob said: "My
+eye!"
+
+There is something organic in any given number of people acting under
+the same shock or the same impulse.  What one thinks another thinks; and
+now all the room fixed their eyes on Titania, whose lips moved in
+silence.
+
+"This is dreadful!" said Titania to herself.  "I don’t believe she’s
+married at all.  One of these men is a scoundrel, a ruffian, a seducer!"
+
+No one heard what she said, but as she thought it the men looked at each
+other with awful suspicions.  And then Titania, whose mind was whirling,
+said feebly:
+
+"We—we must hush it up!"
+
+And there lay the _Times_!  Hush it up indeed! And Bradstock recovered
+some of his equanimity.
+
+"Nonsense!  She’s married, as she says," he remarked, with comparative
+coolness.
+
+But no one believed it.  The men drew apart from each other.  De Vere
+moved his chair, because Goby was looking at him like a demon. Carew
+shrank from Carteret Williams.  Gordon went livid under Plant’s eyes.
+Bramber looked at them all as if he would die on the spot.  Rivaulx rose
+up and waltzed around the room.  It was a happy chance that he did so;
+it is possible that he saved immediate bloodshed.  Bradstock and Bob
+caught the Frenchman in their arms, and led him outside to the lawn,
+where there was ample room for a frantic _pas seul_.
+
+"Steady, old chap!" said Bradstock, "steady! Her husband _must_
+acknowledge now who he is!"
+
+"Oh, no," said Bob, in immense delight, "not much!  If she’s married at
+all, she’s sworn him not to.  She told me she’d swear him not to!  And
+she said if he broke his oath she’d never see him again!"
+
+"Great heavens!" said Bradstock, "so she did. I remember now, she _did_
+speak of oaths, dreadful oaths!"
+
+Rivaulx danced over a flower-bed, came in contact with a fence, fell
+over it, and uttered a howl which brought every one into the garden.  He
+tumbled into a ditch, fortunately a comparatively dry one, and lay
+there, using the very worst French language.
+
+The gloomy crowd lined the ditch and listened, and wished they
+understood.  As a matter of fact, only Bradstock and Bramber knew
+sufficient decent French to guess what Rivaulx said, and they shivered.
+In the background Titania and Ethel hung to each other and wept; old
+Goring remained inside sucking at an unlighted cigar.
+
+"The terrible, terrible disgrace!" said Titania. She believed the very
+worst at once.  "Is it the marquis?  Is he smitten with remorse?"
+
+Rivaulx got out of the ditch on the wrong side, and walked out into the
+park, where he addressed a commination service to a nice little herd of
+Jersey cows.  After five minutes of this exercise, he returned toward
+the house and climbed the fence. Then he shook his fist at the others.
+
+"One of you is a _scélerat_," he howled, "a scoundrrrel!  I challenge
+you all to fight!  Ha, ha!"
+
+Bradstock took him by the arm and led him away.
+
+"One of us is a hound!" said Goby.
+
+"Yes," said the others, "yes!"
+
+They glared at each other horribly, and clenched their fists.  Bob ran
+around them in the wildest excitement.
+
+"Look here, I say, Captain Goby.  Oh, Mr. de Vere!  I say, Mr. Plant, if
+you want to fight, come into the stables.  Granny says you mustn’t fight
+here."
+
+He grabbed several of them, and was hurled into space at once.  He
+finally laid hold of De Vere, who wasn’t capable of hurling a ladybird
+off his finger.
+
+"You shall fight Goby if you want to," he roared.
+
+[Illustration: THE MARQUIS DE RIVAULX. Anti-Semite to his manicured
+finger-tips]
+
+"But I don’t want to," shrieked the poet. "What shall I do?  My heart is
+broken!"
+
+"Oh, what rot!" said Bob.  "I don’t understand what the row is about.
+Pen said she married, and she’s got a kid.  It will make her happy, for
+she always loved kids."
+
+But then the notice in her maiden name!  Was it not awful, horrible,
+brazen, peculiar, anti-social, against all law?  It was wicked, immoral,
+indecent. Behind it there must be a dreadful story.
+
+"By God!" said Bradstock, speaking at large to all but Rivaulx, who was
+breaking up a cane chair at a short distance, "I do think, oaths or
+none, that the man who is married to her should tell the duchess in
+confidence."
+
+But Rivaulx heard in the intervals of destruction, and stayed his hand.
+
+"Ha, ha!" he said aloud, "I love her!  I am a man!  I love her!  What
+shall I do?"
+
+He threw the fragments of the chair into a fountain, kicked over a
+flower-pot, and ran again into the park, taking the fence in his stride.
+
+"I believe it’s remorse," said Titania.  "I begin to suspect the
+marquis!"
+
+But everybody suspected everybody, and yet at the very height of their
+rage what Bradstock said sank into their hearts.  Pen had selected them
+with care for their inherent nobility.  They said to themselves that
+they would show how noble they were. With one accord they straightened
+themselves up, and an air of desperate resolve was upon every man’s
+face.
+
+"I will think it out and make up my mind this afternoon," said each of
+them.  They walked away in different directions, and in five minutes not
+one of them was in sight but the marquis, who was knocking his head
+against a sapling in a way that caused the herd of Jerseys to revise
+their estimate of humanity.  Even he gave up at last, and went off into
+the distance with great strides.
+
+"I say," said Bob, "I don’t know what to make of this.  Where are they
+going, and what are they going to do?  I wish I knew where Pen is; I’d
+send her a telegram."
+
+The rest of the party said nothing.  Titania wept. Old Goring asked
+Bradstock for a light, and at last got his cigar going.  He said nothing
+whatsoever. Ethel Mytton was in a fearful state of nervousness, and
+shook with it.  Bradstock walked up and down whistling.  The men who
+were not in it gathered in the billiard-room, and said they thought they
+had better have urgent calls to town.  They wanted to discuss the
+scandal in their clubs.  They knew that there wasn’t a house in England
+that would not consider their presence in the light of a tremendous
+favour, considering all that had occurred at Goring while they were
+there.  They went, and regretted it afterward, for much occurred that
+very afternoon that no man could have foreseen.
+
+Not a soul came in to lunch but Bob and Bradstock and the old duke.
+
+"Augustin, my boy," said Goring, "these are surprising events, very
+surprising events.  I thought I understood something about women, but I
+find I’m as ignorant as a two-year-old.  What the devil does Penelope
+mean?"
+
+Bob intervened.
+
+"I believe, grandfather, that she wants to make you all sit up," he
+said, eagerly.
+
+"Shut up, Bob," said the duke.  "Eat pie and hold your tongue.
+Augustin, is she married, or isn’t she?"
+
+"I’m sure of it," said Bradstock, "but—"
+
+"I think it’s a damn silly business," said the duke.  "I can’t remember
+any parallel except when Miss Wimple, who was a devilish pretty girl
+fifty years ago, married Prince Scharfskopf morganatically, and kept it
+dark in spite of twins.  There was a devil of a fuss, but it was kept
+quiet, no announcements in papers, and so on.  The emperor boxed
+Scharfskopf’s ears in court when it came out, for it upset his
+diplomatic apple-cart, as Scharfskopf was to have married Princess
+Hedwig of Wigstein.  She was virtuous and particular, and made trouble,
+being thirty-five.  Do you think Penelope has married any damn prince,
+for instance?"
+
+Bradstock didn’t think so.
+
+"Was any prince sneaking about, eh?"
+
+"Oh, I say," cried Bob, who was listening eagerly, "there was the Rajah
+of Jugpore!"
+
+"Good heavens!" said Goring, "so there was. I say, Bradstock, what have
+you to say to that? I’d like to have a look at the infant.  Damme, it’s
+a wonderful world!"
+
+And this bore its fruit afterward in scandal and conjecture, for Bob
+threw out hints about it.  But in the meantime they could only talk, and
+presently they saw the marquis coming across the lawn.  He kept on
+stopping and looking up at the sky, as if for help or a balloon, and he
+smote his breast repeatedly in a very peculiar fashion.
+
+"Queer cuss, Rivaulx," said Goring.  "Takes it hard.  Give me a light,
+Bob.  Look at the Johnny smiting himself in the chest.  What’s he
+thinking of now?  Looks as if he was bound upon a desperate deed.  Dear
+me, I hope there will be no bloodshed, Bradstock!  I’m too old for
+bloodshed now.  I won’t have duels in the immediate neighbourhood of the
+house, Bradstock, mind that."
+
+"All right," said Augustin, still looking at Rivaulx gesticulating
+violently in front of a large laurestinus.  "Bob, give me those
+glasses."
+
+Through the glass Rivaulx’s face was plain to see.
+
+"Damn!" said Augustin to himself, "what’s up?  He’s going to do
+something, something desperate.  He is looking like a hero on a
+scaffold. He has an air of sad nobility.  Oh, Pen, Pen!"
+
+Rivaulx advanced on the house with his head up.  He came in and sent
+word to the collapsed duchess that he desired most humbly an audience
+with her.  Bob listened.
+
+"He wanted to see granny," said Bob.
+
+"Let him," said the duke.  "I don’t; I want peace."
+
+Titania sent down word that she would see him.
+
+"Poor sad Penelope, poor mournful Penelope!" said Rivaulx.  "Ha, but I
+will save her from further woe!"
+
+He found Titania on a sofa, and he kissed her hand.  This pleased poor
+Titania; it reminded her of her youth.
+
+"Oh, marquis, I am in despair!" she cried.
+
+"Despair not," said Rivaulx, as he stood up and smote his forehead,
+"despair not.  All is not lost.  But for me, I stand between two
+dreadful alternatives, and I have resolved to do my duty."
+
+There was an air of tragedy about him that covered him like a robe.
+Titania shivered.
+
+"What is it?  What have you to tell me?"
+
+"Ah, what!" cried Rivaulx.  "But I shall do it.  I shall do it at once,
+immediately, if not sooner, as your poet says."
+
+"You won’t kill any one, at least not here," shrieked Titania.
+
+"Far from it," replied the marquis.  "Oh, but it is terrible, for I have
+to smash, to break an oath. I swore not to reveal what I am about to
+reveal."
+
+"Good heavens!" said Titania.  "Oh, what? Is it—can it be—no—"
+
+"Yes, yes," cried Rivaulx, "it is true; I own it!"
+
+"Own what, marquis?"
+
+He smote his breast and looked above her.
+
+"I am the man!"
+
+"Oh, what man?" squealed the duchess.
+
+"I am the husband—and—and—the father," said Rivaulx, with a gulp, as if
+he were swallowing an apple whole.
+
+"Of my Penelope?"
+
+"Yes, yes," said the marquis.  "Say nothing. It is a secret, full of
+oaths.  Why, I know not, but she, the dear, insists, and what am I?"
+
+Titania lay and gasped.  The relief was tremendous.  Three hours ago she
+would have refused to think of Rivaulx as Pen’s husband.  Now she
+welcomed the notion; she sighed and almost fainted.  Rivaulx muttered
+strange things to himself.
+
+"Can I announce it?"
+
+"No," said the marquis, "it is a secret.  But it is all right.  I go."
+
+"Take my blessing," said Titania.  "Go to her quickly, poor dear, and
+implore her to let me come to her, and bid her tell all the world.  What
+is her address?"
+
+"I cannot give it," said Rivaulx, pallidly.  "It is a secret.  But I go,
+I hasten.  Adieu, duchess; I am distracted.  Oh, my mother and my
+country!"
+
+He fled from the room, and, leaving his man to bring on his things, went
+away at an illegal speed toward London.
+
+"Well, well," said Titania, with a gasp, "I cannot understand anything.
+But, after all, the marquis is a fine man and of a good family.  I could
+almost sleep a little."
+
+But just as she was composing herself to rest, Mr. Plant sent up word
+that he wished to see her for a few moments on urgent business before he
+went back to town.
+
+"Let him come up," said the duchess.  When Plant entered, he stood bolt
+upright in front of her, with a strange air of determination.
+
+"I shall surprise you, I reckon," he said, in an American accent as
+thick as petrol fumes.  "I know I shall."
+
+"No, you won’t," said Titania.  "Nothing can surprise me now, I assure
+you."
+
+"I shall surprise you, ma’am," said Plant, "and you’ll have to own it.
+Prepare yourself and remember that what I tell you is in the nature of a
+secret.  I can stand it no longer.  I have to let it out.  To hear Lady
+Penelope, whom I adore, spoken of as I do, makes my blood boil.  She may
+have made some mistakes, but I’ve made some, too. I am going to surprise
+you—"
+
+"No, you are not, Mr. Plant," said Titania.
+
+"I—I am Lady Penelope’s husband," said Plant, desperately, fixing his
+eyes on space.
+
+"You are _what_?" shrieked Titania.
+
+"Her husband—and—the parent of the announcement in the _Times_," said
+Plant, firmly.
+
+"Am I mad?" asked Titania.
+
+"No, but I am," said Plant, who was as pale as a traditional ghost.
+"I’m mad both ways.  I want to kill."
+
+"You mustn’t," cried Titania, feebly.  "I don’t know where I am.  What
+did you say?  Oh, say it again!"
+
+He said it again, and before she could say anything further, he rushed
+from the room and bounded down-stairs.  She heard him turn his motor-car
+loose, and knew that in twenty seconds he was a mile away.
+
+"What’s wrong with everything, and me, and them?" asked Titania.  "I
+wish I was a dairy-maid in a quiet farm, and had no relations.  Am I
+mad?  Did the marquis say it?  Or did I dream it?"
+
+Lord Bramber was announced.
+
+"Oh, oh, oh!" said Titania.  "Yes, I’ll see him."
+
+Bramber came in fuming, and, like the others, fixed his eyes over her
+head.  He was nervous and abrupt.
+
+"I can’t stand any more, duchess," he began.
+
+"I can’t stand much," said Titania.
+
+"It’s a secret of course," said Bramber, "and I’m breaking my word!"
+
+"Are you the husband of Penelope?" asked Titania.
+
+"I—I am," replied Bramber, "and the cause, so to speak, of the notice in
+the _Times_."
+
+"I thought so," said Titania.  "Look at me, Ronald.  Do I look mad? does
+my hair stand on end? do I seem wild and wandering?"
+
+"No, of course not," said Bramber.  "I’m telling you this because I feel
+I ought to.  Now I’m going to her at once.  This last news was rather
+unexpected, of course.  Good-bye—"
+
+"Stay!" shrieked Titania, but she was too late. Bramber was down-stairs
+and bounded into his motor-car and let her rip.
+
+"What’s the matter with everybody?" wailed Titania.  "The marquis made
+me happy, but now I’m confused, very sadly confused, and I can’t think
+she’s married them all."
+
+Gordon was announced, and in about three sentences he told her that,
+though the affair was a secret, he was Penelope’s husband.
+
+"I knew you were," said Titania.  "When I heard you wanted to see me, I
+knew you were coming to say so.  Oh, good-bye.  Ask Lord Bradstock to
+send for a doctor.  Good-bye, Mr. Gordon. Go now."
+
+And Gordon went, just as De Vere came in.
+
+"You have come to say you have married Penelope, I _know_," said
+Titania.  "I feel sure you have."
+
+"I have a heart for sorrow, for disgrace, for all things lovely.  I—I am
+responsible for everything, even the _Times_," said De Vere, who was as
+pale as plaster.
+
+"Leave me," said Titania.  "Go and see her at once.  Settle who it is.
+Go!"
+
+And when he had gone, Carteret Williams and Carew came one after the
+other with the same confession.  And she received them sadly, and
+appeared to wander.  When the house was empty, she sent for Bradstock.
+
+"Augustin, dear Augustin," she said, "you won’t let them put me in an
+asylum.  Have me taken care of at home, won’t you?  Don’t let Goring
+give me cruel keepers.  I am quite gentle and broken down!"
+
+"I won’t let anything beastly be done," said Bradstock.  "But, my dear
+child, what’s the matter?"
+
+And Titania told him:
+
+"By the Lord," said Bradstock, "they are damned good chaps! but where
+the devil are we?"
+
+He went down-stairs when the doctor came and told everything to Goring.
+And Goring told Bob. For Titania forgot to mention to Augustin that all
+the husbands had insisted it was a dead secret.
+
+"I say," said Bob, "of all the larks I’ve ever heard of, this takes the
+cake!  I wonder what I ought to do.  I think I’ll ask Baker."
+
+And he asked Baker.  And in less than twenty-four hours the world knew
+all about it.
+
+
+
+
+                             *CHAPTER XV.*
+
+
+But when it is said that all the world knew of it, Penelope herself must
+be excepted.  She knew nothing for some time, and, whoever her husband
+was, he certainly never acquainted her with the horrible details of all
+the good men who sacrificed their honour in the noble attempt to save
+her from the results of the terrible misfortune they believed had
+happened to her.  It was, indeed, Miss Mackarness who told her about it,
+and Miss Mackarness was the old governess whom Penelope had once sacked
+and sent away.  The poor woman was in a terrible state of mind about the
+affair, and in that was no different from all the rest of the world. To
+her went Timothy Bunting with the strange story.
+
+"If you please, ma’am, Geordie Smith ’as just brought in a paper wiv a
+true and pertic’ler account of ’ow all the gents that was courtin’ our
+lady told the Duchess of Goring as ’ow they ’as married ’er!"
+
+"What!" said Miss Mackarness.
+
+"A true and perticuler account as ’ow they ’ad hall married our lady,
+sayin’ as they ’ad concealed it till they could no longer!" repeated
+Timothy more loudly.
+
+"Good heavens!" said Miss Mackarness, trembling very much, "I fear it
+will upset Lady Penelope, to say nothing of the infant.  Do they all
+claim the infant, Bunting?"
+
+"I presume so, ma’am," said Bunting.  "It looks likely."
+
+"Under these circumstances, Bunting," cried Miss Mackarness, "I feel it
+is my duty to communicate the facts to our lady.  Give me the paper,
+Bunting!"
+
+Bunting said he would get it, and came back with a hatful of fragments.
+
+"If you please, ma’am, this is hall I can rescue of the details.  The
+cook and the parlour-maid and the two ’ousemaids ’ave fought over it in
+the servants’ ’all, and are now in tears, not ’aving read a word."
+
+And Miss Mackarness took the hatful up to Penelope, who sat with her
+nurse and the cause of all the trouble in a south room overlooking the
+moat.
+
+"In the name of all that is wonderful, what’s in that hat?" asked
+Penelope.
+
+"It is Timothy Bunting’s hat, my lady," replied the Mackarness.
+
+"So I perceive," said Penelope.  "Is a bird in it?"
+
+"Oh, no, my lady.  It’s the bits of a newspaper," replied the
+housekeeper, as if she served up the _Times_ in a groom’s hat every day.
+"It’s Timothy’s hat, but a clean new one."
+
+"But why do you bring it, and why do you put newspaper in it?" asked
+Penelope.
+
+"If you please, my lady, I cannot help it.  The cook and the
+parlour-maid and the two housemaids fought over it in the servants’
+hall, and are now in tears, not having read a word of it."
+
+To all appearance the housekeeper had lost her senses.  Though this was
+no wonder, Penelope wondered at it.
+
+"Well," she said at last, "I see what’s in the hat, but what’s in the
+newspaper?"
+
+"If you please, my lady, according to Timothy Bunting and Smith, who
+appear to have read it, it contains the true account of what happened at
+Goring House the other day, when all the gentlemen staying there,
+hearing from the _Times_ that your ladyship had a fine boy on the
+eighteenth, and no husband named by your ladyship’s particular
+directions, all got up one after the other, and, requesting private
+interviews with her upset Grace, the duchess, declared upon their oaths,
+though in secret, that they had married you themselves!"
+
+She recited this in a strange, mechanical way, which would have been
+extremely effective upon the stage, as a picture of hopeless
+conventionality wounded to death, and at last dying in sheer
+indifference to all things.
+
+"Dear me!" said Penelope, "dear me!"
+
+"It furthermore appears, my lady, begging your pardon for mentioning it,
+and I have reproved Bunting bitterly for daring to do so, though I
+haven’t read the fragments in the hat, that no one believes your
+ladyship’s word at all as to your being married."
+
+"Oh, how shameful!" said Penelope.  "Why, here’s baby!"
+
+The nurse coughed and hid her mouth with her hand.
+
+"Yes, my lady, so he is," said Miss Mackarness. "There doesn’t seem any
+doubt whatsoever about that, but—"
+
+And Penelope sighed.  Suddenly her face lighted up.
+
+"Ah!" she said, "I see why they said it to aunty.  How very, very noble
+of them!  I knew they were all splendid men; men of the highest
+character and attainments and possibilities.  Will you have telegrams
+written out to all of them, saying, ’Your conduct is noble, and I am
+deeply grateful’?"
+
+"Yes, my lady," replied the housekeeper, "and how will you sign it?"
+
+"Sign it Penelope Brading," said Penelope. "And tell Smith to take his
+car as quickly as he can to Spilsborough, and send them from there."
+
+She lay back in her pillows.
+
+"They are noble fellows," she said.  "I have done them an immense amount
+of good.  A year ago not one of them could have risen to such heights of
+abnegation, such love, such tenderness.  I shall see them bringing in a
+new era yet.  Leopold Gordon will inaugurate a new and pure finance.
+The dear marquis will abolish anti-Semitism and duelling in France.  De
+Vere will write poems of a purity appealing equally to Brixton and
+Belgravia, and my dear friend Carew will vindicate the Royal Academy’s
+policy of showing that charity begins at home.  And the rest—ah, me!
+Poor dear aunty, how I love her!"
+
+And by the time that she had pondered over a renewed world, Geordie
+Smith was sending off the wires from Spilsborough with wonderful
+results.
+
+"I like this," said Smith.  "This is what I like! There’s nothing dull
+about it.  I wonder what’ll happen now?  I’ll lay five to one I can
+guess!"
+
+He guessed right as to some, for in about four hours Rufus Plant arrived
+in Spilsborough on his racing-car, and put up at the Grand Hotel.
+
+"I guess she must be somewhere in this neighbourhood," said Plant.  "And
+here I stay till I find her.  And by the tail of the sacred bull,
+whatever happens, I’ll marry her right here in this hyer noble pile of a
+cathedral.  And if she’ll do it, I’ll restore it for the authorities
+free of charge, till it’s as gawdy as a breastpin and right up to date."
+
+He ran against Gordon, and the two men fell back in horrible surprise.
+
+"You—"
+
+"You!"
+
+"Oh, yes," said Plant, "I’m here on business connected with the
+cathedral."
+
+"And I’m to see the—bishop, who will join the board on allotment,"
+mumbled Gordon.
+
+And then Goby roared into town on his motorcar. The others saw him, and
+he saw them, and ignored them palely.  He, too, put up at the Grand, but
+never spoke to them.  And De Vere came in while they were at dinner, and
+sat down opposite to Goby.  He said, "Oh!" and, rising, at once bolted
+from the table.
+
+"I’m damned," said Goby, and he lost his appetite.
+
+"How many more of us?" they asked themselves.
+
+They looked up at every one who entered.
+
+"Bramber will be in any moment," said Plant.
+
+Poor De Vere sat in his bedroom and was ill.
+
+"If I look out into the corridor, I know I shall see that beast
+Williams," he sobbed.
+
+"Where’s that French fool, Rivaulx?" asked Gordon.  They all believed
+the other was the scoundrel of the dreadful drama.
+
+And then the evening papers came in.  They declared in big lines that
+there had been "A Fracas in High Life."  They added that it had taken
+place in the Row at four o’clock that very afternoon. They went on to
+say that Lord Bramber and the Marquis de Rivaulx, well known as a great
+sportsman and a balloonist, had fought in a flower-bed, and had been
+torn from each other’s arms and a big rhododendron by two dukes, three
+earls, and a viscount.  They further declared that it was a matter of
+public notoriety that all the trouble rose out of the mystery connected
+with the _Times_ and Lady Penelope Brading.  They promised more details
+in later editions.
+
+"They’ll fight," said Gordon, savagely.  "I hope they’ll kill each
+other.  But especially I hope that the marquis will be killed first and
+most!"
+
+And about eleven o’clock Rivaulx turned up with his chauffeur and a bad
+black eye.
+
+"He shall fight me here," said Rivaulx.  "This is a quiet town.  No one
+will think of Spilsborough!  He does not know that _she_ sent me a
+telegram from here!"
+
+He put up at the Angel, and escaped seeing the others for the time.  On
+his way up he had sent a defiant telegram to Bramber, desiring him to
+come to Spilsborough, and fight there with swords or pistols or any
+weapon that commended itself to him. This telegram Bramber never got,
+for, on reaching home and washing away the traces of the struggle in
+Hyde Park before all the loveliness of London, he had found his telegram
+from Spilsborough sent by Geordie Smith.  After looking in the ABC
+guide, and finding no good train, he pelted off in his motor-car,
+leaving a note for Rivaulx, saying that, though duels were absurd and
+illegal, he would not refuse to meet the marquis in France or Belgium,
+if he desired to make a bigger fool of himself than he had already done
+in the park.
+
+"Curse and confound them all," said Bramber, who was horribly cross and
+exceedingly sick of the whole world, even including Penelope.  "I wonder
+what she means by this telegram.  I wish I was dead!  Is she at
+Spilsborough?"
+
+Just in the middle of Spilsborough he met Rivaulx and pulled up short,
+not having the least notion, of course, that he would meet him there.
+But Rivaulx grinned a ghastly smile and raised his hat, as Bramber
+stopped.
+
+"Ha, I am pleased to see you," said the French marquis.  "You have come
+quickly.  It is a fine night, there is a moon, and close by here under
+the shadow of the cathedral there is a most beautiful piece of grass.
+There we will fight.  I have brought swords with me.  Or have you
+brought guns?"
+
+"I haven’t brought guns," said Bramber, who was entirely stunned and at
+a loss for a word.
+
+The marquis bowed.
+
+"We will fight with swords, my lord.  I think this hotel is good; the
+lady is amiable; there are rooms to spare.  When the moon rises, ha!  I
+will call you forth."
+
+And Bramber went to the hotel to think what he should do.
+
+"The ass! the lunatic!  How did he get here? I can’t get out of fighting
+him."
+
+He sat outside in his car.
+
+"No, I won’t.  I’m damned if I do!" he said.
+
+He went in and wrote a note for Rivaulx, who was out in the cathedral
+close picking what he considered a good place for a duel.  The spot he
+chose was not far from the dean’s house.
+
+"I wish it had been Mr. Plant," he said.  "Of Bramber, who is a young
+ass, I am not jealous. But of Plant I am horribly jealous, and he is a
+bad man.  If I met Plant I would say, ’Fight me at once now, and I will
+put off Lord Bramber till another day.’"
+
+And, going around the corner, he ran right into Plant, who was raging
+about the town, wondering where Penelope was and how everything was
+going to end.
+
+"The scoundrel is that marquis," said Plant. And he ran into the
+scoundrel’s arms.
+
+And just while Bramber was shaking the dust of Spilsborough from the
+tires of his motor-car, Bob himself came into the town in a hired
+Daimler, full of the most extraordinary news.  And Titania was having a
+series of fits down at Goring, with Dr. Lumsden Griff in attendance.
+
+
+
+
+                             *CHAPTER XVI.*
+
+
+It cannot be imagined that Titania, who had survived so many shocks, was
+ill for nothing.  When Bob discovered what she was ill of, he stood
+outside on the lawn with his hands deep in his pockets and with his legs
+wide apart.
+
+"I must tell ’em this at once," said Bob, gloomily. "If I don’t tell
+Gordon, he’ll forget he’s invested a hundred of mine in something to
+make hair curl, and I shall lose the money.  I mean to make money to
+keep up Goring by and by.  And he said he’d make me a director, too.
+For the sake of the family, I can’t neglect him.  Or De Vere, either.
+Or any of ’em.  But—but I never thought it of Pen!"
+
+With his pockets full of money derived from the sale of dogs to De Vere,
+he rushed off to the station and caught a train for town.  When he
+reached London, he sent a wire to "Old Guth."
+
+"I’m in town on important business.  Break it to grandmother between
+fits.  I hope to be back to-morrow."
+
+He rushed off to Park Lane to find Gordon.
+
+"Mr. Gordon has gone to Spilsborough, sir," said Gordon’s man.
+
+"D—  I mean confound it!" said Bob.  He went to Plant’s.
+
+"Mr. Plant went to Spilsborough in a great hurry this afternoon, sir,"
+said Plant’s landlady. The American millionaire still lived in
+Bloomsbury, though not on ten shillings a week.
+
+"Oh," said Bob, "I wonder what this means. There’s a secret here!"
+
+He drove in a hansom to find Bramber.  A very ingenuous piece of
+humanity in buttons told Bob that Lord Bramber came in about four
+o’clock torn to ribbons, and found a telegram waiting him.
+
+"And off he went in his motor-car."
+
+"Where?" asked Bob.
+
+"I don’t know," said the buttons.  But on Bob’s going to Bramber’s room,
+he found the ABC open on the table at the page with Spilsborough on it.
+
+"Sherlock Holmes would say he has gone to Spilsborough," cried Bob.
+"And if Gordon and Plant have gone there, too, I’ll bet all the rest
+have gone.  I’ll go, too."
+
+But there was no train for three hours!
+
+"I’m done," said Bob, "No, I’m not.  I’ll hire a motor-car."
+
+He went to the nearest place in Regent Street and hired one.
+
+"Very well, sir," said the man, "but it’s rather expensive, you know."
+
+Bob pulled out a handful of sovereigns.
+
+"Take as many as you think fair," he said, grandly.  "And don’t forget I
+want a speedy one, and a man that can drive, and I’ll pay the fines of
+course!"
+
+That was how he came to Spilsborough just in time and about the hour
+when the moon was to rise.  He passed a motor-car in the ditch about ten
+miles out of the cathedral city, and did not stop to find out what was
+the matter.  He thus missed the discovery that Bramber and his chauffeur
+were both sitting upon the wreck, using very awful language to each
+other on the subject of losing the way and coming bolt down a side road
+into the opposing hedge.  It is astonishing how an accident at thirty
+miles an hour brings owners and mechanics down to the same human level.
+
+When Bob reached Spilsborough, he was covered with dust, but was as spry
+as a grasshopper and awfully full of his news.
+
+"You _can_ drive," said Bob to his man.  "I’m very much pleased with
+you.  Stop at this hotel."
+
+He went into the Angel, and staggered blithely to the office.
+
+"Is Mr. Gordon here, or Mr. Plant, or the Marquis of Rivaulx?" he
+demanded.
+
+He thus discovered the marquis.
+
+He drove off to the Grand, and found Plant and Goby and De Vere and
+Gordon were there.  They were all in bed but Plant, and Plant had gone
+to see the cathedral by moonlight.
+
+"All right, we’ll put up here," said Bob, "and I’ll see if I can find
+Plant.  I say, I wonder what Baker will think of this?  It beats me!"
+
+He got to the cathedral precincts just about an hour after Rivaulx and
+Plant had run into each other’s arms.  Much had occurred since then.
+
+For Rivaulx started back from Plant and almost forgot the existence of
+Bramber.
+
+"You are a scoundrrrel," said Rivaulx, rolling his r’s in the most
+fearful manner.
+
+"You are a lunatic," replied Plant, coolly; "when did you escape?"
+
+"I have not escaped, I am here," snorted Rivaulx, "but you shall not
+escape.  I meant to kill Lord Bramber upon this spot, but I prefer to
+keel you.  I let him go; he is nothing.  You are the scoundrrel!"
+
+"Oh, dry up!" said Plant, crossly.  "You tire me, you fatigue me very
+much.  I am exhausted by looking at you.  Go home, or I will break you
+in three pieces and eat them!"
+
+Rivaulx foamed at the mouth.
+
+"Do you refuse to fight me, sare?"
+
+"Certainly not," said Plant.  "Take your coat off and hang it on a
+tombstone, and I’ll leave nothing of you but a smear."
+
+"I do not fight with fists," said Rivaulx, contemptuously.  "I fight
+with swords, with steel, with guns or pistols."
+
+Plant shook his head.
+
+"I’ve none of ’em about me, my son!"
+
+"At the hotel I have swords," cried Rivaulx, eagerly.  "I brought them
+to kill Bramber, who punched my eye in the Rotten Row, and we rolled in
+bushes.  But I will first fight you.  Wait and I fetch the swords."
+
+He ran violently into the darkness, and Plant sat on a railing.
+
+"What am I to do?  Am I to wait and fight a lunatic?  Or shall I go back
+to the hotel?  I think I’ll go back.  If that raging idiot is found
+prancing about here with swords, they will run him in."
+
+But he did not know how fast the marquis could run and how near the
+hotel was.  Before he had made up his mind to go, Rivaulx came back
+again. He flung the swords at Plant’s feet.
+
+"Take one and let us begin," he said.
+
+"I think on the whole I’ll have both," said Plant, suiting the action to
+the word.  "Now go home, marquis, like a good little boy, and come to
+the Grand Hotel in the morning and tell me why you want to be hanged in
+England."
+
+He put both the weapons under his arm.
+
+"You will not fight?" said the marquis, gasping like a dying dolphin.
+
+"What kind of a galoot do you reckon me?" asked Plant, quite
+unintelligibly.
+
+"Ha!" said the marquis, "I know not what a galoot is, but I will fight
+you here and leave your body on the grass."
+
+Neither of them had observed the approach of a portly and pleasant
+gentleman behind them.  He was now leaning upon the railing, watching
+them with a great deal of kindly curiosity.
+
+"I think, gentlemen, that the dean will object," he said at length, and
+they both turned around suddenly.
+
+"You must not interfere," said Rivaulx; "we do not know you."
+
+[Illustration: RUFUS Q. PLANT. Born in Virginia]
+
+"To be sure, to be sure," replied the gentleman, who was dressed very
+curiously, as Rivaulx noticed. "I hate interfering, especially with
+anything belonging to a dean.  Deans, gentlemen, are very touchy about
+matters connected with their cathedrals.  Now Dean Briggs, gentlemen,
+takes the very greatest care of that grass on which you both are now
+illegally trampling, and I understand that he has made a rule never to
+have duels upon it. He is very firm on that point.  Do I mistake you if
+I say that it looks to an unprejudiced observer as if you were going to
+fight a duel?"
+
+Rivaulx bowed.
+
+"I do not know you, sare, and I do not want to. I want to keel this man,
+who is a scoundrrel."
+
+The stranger addressed Plant.
+
+"And are you equally anxious to break this very rigid rule of the
+dean’s?" he asked, suavely.
+
+"Certainly not," replied Plant; "I want to go to bed."
+
+"I am delighted to hear it.  I am intensely gratified to hear it.  If
+one duellist, having possession of both deadly weapons, desires to go to
+bed, I cannot see anything to hinder him, unless, indeed, he wants to
+lie down on Mr. Dean’s grass.  You see, gentlemen, I am a bishop, and a
+bishop’s first desire is to be on good terms with the dean.  If Mr. Dean
+heard that I encouraged any one to break his rules about duelling or
+going to bed in the precincts of this cathedral, I should _not_ be on
+good terms with him, I assure you."
+
+"I do not understand," said Rivaulx.  "I want to fight, that is all I
+want to do!"
+
+"Stay!" said the bishop, mildly.  "If the somewhat excited gentleman,
+who is, I gather, not an Englishman, will accompany me a few yards, we
+will go to the dean’s, with whom I have been dining, and will refer the
+matter to him."
+
+"Of course," said Plant, "that is the right thing to do.  Marquis, his
+lordship the bishop suggests the only course open to gentlemen.  I trust
+you will accept his offer, and, if you do, I undertake to fight you if
+the dean gives his permission."
+
+"Stay, sare, my lord the bishop," said Rivaulx, "one moment, sare, the
+bishop.  Is this dean of whom you speak a gentleman?"
+
+"Certainly, certainly," replied the bishop, hastily. "He is of the
+highest breeding, and in his youth he fenced like a fencing-master."
+
+"Then he understands the code of honour, sare the bishop?"
+
+"Absolutely, for a dean," replied his lordship.
+
+"Then I agree, sir lord," cried Rivaulx.
+
+"Ha, we will go to his house, then," said the bishop, "if you will step
+over this railing.  But stop here one moment and observe the moon rising
+over Mr. Dean’s cathedral.  Is it not a peaceful, pleasant spot,
+gentlemen?"
+
+"It beats thunder," said Plant.
+
+"It does, it does," nodded his lordship.  "Many Americans, who admire
+this cathedral immensely, have made the same acute observation.  May I
+ask your names, gentlemen?  I am the bishop of this diocese."
+
+"My name is Plant, Rufus Q. Plant, and my friend is the Marquis of
+Rivaulx."
+
+"Indeed," returned the bishop, "is the gentleman the French nobleman who
+is interested in balloons?"
+
+"Yes," said Plant.
+
+"Dear me!  I am delighted," said his lordship. "I, too, am interested in
+balloons.  I saw one go up once."
+
+"You like them?" asked Rivaulx, warmly. "That is good!  I will take you
+up in one."
+
+"We will talk of it later," said the bishop, rather hastily for a man of
+his gentle flowing speech. "But this is the dean’s house.  If I knock at
+this window, he will put his head out."
+
+He knocked at the window, and Mr. Dean did put his head out.
+
+"I am _so_ loath to disturb you, Mr. Dean," said his lordship, "but, as
+I was leaving you and taking a little stroll before retiring, I met two
+gentlemen, one from the United States and one a French marquis, who were
+engaged in a warm discussion on a point of honour.  I am ignorant of the
+exact point, and I dare say there is no necessity for our knowing.  As a
+result of this discussion, the French marquis desired to fight a duel
+with swords (you will observe them under the arm of the gentleman from
+the United States), and I ventured to intervene, as the duel was to take
+place upon your grass."
+
+"Humph, indeed!" said the dean, in great astonishment. "And what did you
+say?"
+
+"I said that it was against your rules to allow any one to fight duels
+there.  Was I not right?"
+
+"Rather!" said the dean.  "I should say so."
+
+"And on the other hand," continued the bishop, "the gentleman from
+across the Atlantic wished to go to bed."
+
+"Then why the—why doesn’t he?" asked the dean.
+
+"It seemed to me that the gentleman from across the water wanted to go
+to bed upon your grass," said the bishop.  "I pointed out to him that
+there was a very old and strict rule dating from the time beyond record
+which forbade this.  Was I not right?"
+
+"You were," said the dean.  "I never go to bed on the grass myself, and
+do not permit others to do so.  I never fight duels there, either, and
+do not allow it."
+
+"You see, gentlemen," said the bishop, but before he could add another
+word Bob rushed right upon the group outside the dean’s windows, and saw
+that Plant made one of them.  He saw the swords also, and then
+recognized Rivaulx.
+
+"Oh, I say," said Bob, "you were going to fight a duel about Pen!  I’ve
+come in time!  It’s no good. She has married Timothy Bunting, her
+groom!"
+
+
+
+
+                            *CHAPTER XVII.*
+
+
+It was such an awful shock to Plant and Rivaulx, and, for the matter of
+that, to his lordship the Bishop of Spilsborough, that they all gasped
+dreadfully. Plant took the bishop by the sleeve.  Rivaulx lay down upon
+the grass under the dean’s window, and howled as he tore at the turf.
+The dean said:
+
+"I’ll come out!  This is becoming serious!"
+
+He came out, and, as he opened the door, the light of the hall lamp fell
+upon Bob’s face.
+
+"Good heavens!" said the bishop, "I thought I knew the voice.  Is that
+you, Robert Goring?"
+
+Bob said it was, but added that he didn’t know the bishop.
+
+"Boy, I christened you," said the bishop.  "Is all this trouble about
+Penelope Brading, whom I also christened?"
+
+"Yes," replied Bob; "shall I tell you about it?"
+
+"Let us retire a few paces, and you can tell me," said the bishop.  "In
+the meantime, Mr. Dean, I beg you to exercise patience with the French
+nobleman on the grass.  Come, Bob."
+
+"Well, it’s awful rot, you know," said Bob, speaking very rapidly.  "We
+don’t know where we are in the family, and grandmother is lying on a
+sofa screaming."
+
+"Why, Bob?"
+
+"You must have heard of it."
+
+The bishop had heard a great deal, but not all.
+
+"Pen says she’s married and has a kid," said Bob, "and she won’t say who
+it is.  And all these jossers, including Plant, he’s the American over
+there, and the marquis chewing the grass, said they had married her
+themselves.  Do you see, sir,—my lord, I mean?"
+
+"I see," said the bishop, putting his finger-tips together.  "It was, I
+think, very noble of them."
+
+"But granny said it was very trying, and it made her ill, for she wasn’t
+any further than before, unless Pen had married them all.  And
+grandfather, who kept cool, said that was unlikely."
+
+"It certainly seems unlikely," said the bishop. "But when you came to
+us, you made some very astonishing remarks about a groom, one Bunting, I
+think.  Now what is there to know about him?"
+
+"Weekes said that, the beast!" cried Bob.
+
+"Who is the beast Weekes?" asked the bishop.
+
+Bob told him who Miss Harriet Weekes was.
+
+"And not an hour after these had said they were married to Pen, this
+Weekes woman came in black and in a cab and said she must see granny.
+And granny saw her, and is now in fits, with the doctor feeling her
+pulse and giving her brandy.  For Weekes was very solemn (I listened),
+and she said: ’Your Grace, I shall reveal the truth, which lies upon my
+bosom like a tombstone.  Her ladyship treated me cruel, and gave me the
+sack moreover, and I’ve no call to be silent no more ’avin’ diskivered
+the truth.’  She talks like that.  Weekes is an uneducated beast, and
+why Pen ever had her as a maid I can’t tell.  And granny was confused
+with the others, having said they were all married to Pen, and she
+waggled her head awfully.  ’I shall surprise your Grace,’ said Weekes,
+and granny said she wouldn’t.  And she said, ’I shall surprise your
+Grace, for I’ve to reveal that I know the man, the serpent, that her
+ladyship ’as married.’  And granny smiled very curiously, and said,
+’Weekes, who do you say it is?’  And then Weekes cried, the crocodile,
+and she said that Penelope had married Timothy Bunting, the groom, and
+that Timothy had been engaged to her, and had as good as told her that
+he was looking high and despised a public-house at a corner.  I don’t
+know what she meant. And she was so solemn and furious that granny
+believed her, and went off into fit after fit most awful, my lord, and
+they sent for the doctor, and I came away, for I knew the others would
+fight when they learnt that all of them had said the same thing.  And I
+believe it is Timothy myself."
+
+"Dear, dear me!" said the bishop, "this is even more remarkable than I
+anticipated from the very strange reports in the papers.  But I think
+you have done well, Robert, and I do not regret having christened you by
+any means, which is more than I can say for some of the aristocracy.
+Let us return to the dean, who is, I am afraid, having some trouble with
+the French marquis.  He is not accustomed to foreign noblemen and to
+Americans, except when they come here to see his cathedral."
+
+They turned toward the deanery, where Rivaulx was still rolling on the
+grass.
+
+"Do you think it is Timothy?" asked Bob.
+
+The bishop shook his head gently.
+
+"I do not see what grounds we have to go on, Robert.  Here we have an
+American who states, if I understand you rightly, that he has married my
+poor Penelope, and a French marquis of high repute who also states the
+same.  And there are others—"
+
+"Five or six!" said Bob.
+
+"And there are five or six others who commit themselves to the same
+statement.  And then a lady’s maid says she knows that Penelope has
+married a groom.  I do not see what logical grounds we have for
+concluding anything more than that some one has told a lie, or that
+Penelope has been breaking the law by marrying more than one man at a
+time.  Speaking _a priori_, I think this latter alternative unlikely,
+and, as a matter of probability, I am forced to believe that only one at
+least out of seven (is it seven?) gentlemen of unblemished reputation
+has told the truth."
+
+It was all very sad.  But there were practical details to be attended
+to.  Though the marquis had ceased to raise the echoes of the stilly
+night, to say nothing of the echoes of the cathedral’s west front, he
+was still in a fearfully mournful condition.  He was now weeping in the
+dean’s arms, and the dean was endeavouring to soothe him as best he
+could. When the bishop came back, Mr. Dean seemed much relieved.
+
+"Don’t you think you could get them to go away, bishop?" he inquired,
+pathetically.  "This kind of thing is beyond my experience, and I am
+extremely fatigued by it."
+
+"I will do my best," replied the bishop.
+
+Turning to the marquis, he said:
+
+"Get up, marquis.  I will walk with you to the hotel.  Mr. Plant, please
+follow with Robert, and be good enough to take care of those lethal
+instruments, which are, I rejoice to say, little understood in a quiet
+cathedral town.  It appears to me we are all in a state of mind which
+needs repose.  On the morrow, after I have slept upon it, I shall be
+happy to receive you all and give you the best advice in my power.  Now,
+marquis, I am waiting for you. The grass is damp."
+
+And they walked to the hotel, leaving the dean staring open-mouthed.
+
+"This is very unusual," sighed the dean.  "I cannot recollect anything
+exactly like it in my long experience."
+
+No more could the bishop.  Plant was in the same state of mind.  Rivaulx
+wept silently.  Bob was in the seventh heaven of delight, in spite of
+Bunting.  He thoroughly believed in what Harriet Weekes said.  Neither
+Plant nor Rivaulx knew that he knew they both claimed to be Pen’s
+husband.
+
+"This story of Bunting is a goldarned lie," said Plant, hoarsely.  Bob
+did not reply.  He was sorry for them all, and relied on the bishop.
+What he relied on him for he did not know.  All he did know was that the
+bishop seemed fully equal to the situation.
+
+"How many more of you are there, Mr. Plant?" he asked at length.
+
+"Gordon and Goby and De Vere," replied Plant, miserably.
+
+"I must see Mr. Gordon," said Bob.  And then they came to the Angel.  By
+this time Rivaulx and the bishop were great friends, for Rivaulx was a
+clerical in his heart of hearts, and, if there wasn’t a Catholic bishop
+to lean on, a Protestant one was a good substitute.  He stopped weeping,
+and held the bishop’s hand.
+
+"You are a good man, sare bishop," he said. "I wish I was a good bishop,
+but I cannot.  Life is a very terrible thing.  I wish I could cut my
+throat.  I am weary."
+
+"I should go to bed," said the bishop, "and I’ll look in and see you in
+the morning.  Bed is the best place when one is weary.  I assure you
+that I am not wholly ignorant of the world, or of the desire to cut my
+throat, but I find that after a good night’s rest the wish to do so
+evaporates, and one determines to live for another twelve hours at
+least. But before you go, I hope you will give me your word that you
+will cut no one else’s."
+
+"I give it," said Rivaulx.  "The desire to kill Mr. Plant has left me.
+I am no longer furious, even with Bramber.  I am simply sad and
+fearfully mournful.  I thank you, sare; good night."
+
+"Good night," said the bishop.  "Stay, marquis, I think Mr. Plant has
+the weapons."
+
+The marquis waved them off.
+
+"I have no need of them.  I give them you, sare bishop.  Take them."
+
+And when the bishop had bidden Plant and Bob good night, and had
+arranged to see Bob in the morning, the curious sight might have been
+witnessed of a great ornament of the Episcopal bench walking through the
+precincts of the cathedral to his palace, with a couple of
+duelling-swords under his arm.
+
+"This has been a very interesting evening," said the bishop.  "I very
+much wonder what Ridley will think when he sees me come in.  A butler’s
+mind is naturally limited."
+
+He went in and gave the swords to Ridley.
+
+"Take these," said his lordship.
+
+"Yes, m’lord," said Ridley, stolidly.
+
+"I think you can hang them up in the dining-room, Ridley."
+
+"Yes, m’lord."
+
+"They are trophies, Ridley."
+
+"So I perceive, m’lord," said Ridley.
+
+"What are trophies, Ridley?"
+
+"These, m’lord," said Ridley.
+
+"Exactly so," said his lordship.
+
+And while he was taking off his gaiters and thinking of Penelope, Bob
+was sitting on the edge of Gordon’s bed and telling him all about it.
+
+"Why are you here?" asked Bob.
+
+"She sent me a telegram," said poor Gordon.
+
+"I say, what about?"
+
+"Sayin’ I wath a noble character and so on," replied Gordon, miserably,
+"and I came here at onth becauth the telegram came from here."
+
+As the sleep went out of his eyes, he talked less Hebraically.
+
+"I thought she might be here," he added, shaking his curly head.
+
+Bob thought very hard.
+
+"I say, this is awfully mixed, Mr. Gordon, because I know you told
+granny you were married to Pen!"
+
+Gordon gulped something down.  It was probably very bad language.
+
+"So—so I am," he said, sternly, without looking at Bob.
+
+"Rivaulx says so, too."
+
+"The devil!" cried Gordon.
+
+"And so does Goby and Rivaulx and Bramber and De Vere and all of ’em!"
+
+Gordon fell back on his pillows.
+
+"So you see," said Bob, "we’re no further than we were, except that
+Weekes, who used to be Pen’s maid, came to granny this afternoon and
+told her, the beast, that Pen had married Timothy Bunting!"
+
+Gordon bounced out of bed in his night-shirt.
+
+"Who the devil is Timothy Bunting?" he roared.
+
+Bob told him.
+
+"It’s a lie—a lie!"
+
+"Of course it must be, if you’ve married her, as you say," said Bob.
+"But perhaps I’m disturbing you.  Would you like to go to sleep?"
+
+"Very much indeed," replied Gordon.  "I should like to go to sleep and
+stay asleep.  I wish you’d go and serve Goby and De Vere as you’ve
+served me!"
+
+"I’m so sorry," said Bob, "but you always said you wanted any news, and
+that’s why I told you first."
+
+Gordon held out his hand, and Bob shook it warmly.
+
+"By the way," he asked, "what about the hair restorer?"
+
+"What hair restorer?" asked the astonished Hebrew.
+
+"The one you put ninety pounds of mine in, sir."
+
+"It wasn’t in a hair restorer.  What makes you say so?"
+
+"Well," replied Bob, "I thought it was.  You said it would make my hair
+curl.  How much did it make, whatever it was?"
+
+A glow of pleasure spread over Gordon’s sad countenance.  Making money
+was something even in despair.
+
+"My boy, I bought you Amalekites at half a crown, five hundred and sixty
+of ’em, and now they’re at £4."
+
+"Dear me," said Bob, "how much does that make?  Why, it’s £2,240."
+
+"Less commission," agreed the financier.
+
+"By Jove, that’s a very, very good beginning," said Bob.  "Do you think
+they will go up more, Mr. Gordon?"
+
+Gordon looked at him and sighed.
+
+"They might.  But don’t you think it would be safer to get out now,
+Bob?"
+
+Bob shook his head.
+
+"I’ll follow your advice, sir, of course.  If it was only myself, I’d
+take the money, but I’m thinking of Goring, when my father and
+grandfather and uncle die.  What I want is fifty thousand, at least.
+Grandfather often says that is the least that can put the house on its
+legs again.  Let me see, £2,240 is eight times four times £90.  That’s
+thirty-two times £90.  What’s thirty-two times £2,240?"
+
+"Seventy-one thousand six hundred and eighty," replied Gordon, promptly.
+
+"That would do very well indeed," said Bob. "Please go on, sir, till
+it’s that.  Or shall I take half and ask Mr. Plant to do something with
+it? He offered to help me."
+
+"Certainly not," replied Gordon, angrily. "Plant’s a reckless speculator
+and a liar, and he’ll wake up some day worth half a million less than
+nothing.  I’ll do my best for you and Goring, Bob."
+
+"I’m sure you will, sir," said Bob.  "Good night, Mr. Gordon.  I’m sorry
+if I’ve worried you."
+
+And he went off to worry Goby.  Gordon walked up and down the room
+weeping.
+
+"If I only had a boy like that!" he cried.  "By Moses and all the
+prophets, I’ll put Amalekites up sky-high, and squeeze the bears till
+they howl.  Oh, Pen, Pen!"
+
+
+
+
+                            *CHAPTER XVIII.*
+
+
+By breakfast-time or a little later, Goby and Gordon and De Vere and
+Rivaulx knew not only what was said about Timothy Bunting, but also that
+every one of them had told the Duchess of Goring that he was married to
+Penelope.  When the bishop looked in to see the marquis, he found him
+exceedingly difficult to manage.  He wanted the duelling-swords back in
+order to fight every one.  His especial desire now was to put cold steel
+through Gordon, and this led to a general evacuation of Spilsborough.
+
+"I say, Mr. Gordon," said Bob, rushing in upon the financier while he
+was shaving, "I’ve just met the bishop, and he wanted to know if I knew
+you, and I said ’rather,’ and he said would I ask you, in the interests
+of peace, to go back to London, because the marquis wanted to cut your
+throat with swords hanging in the bishop’s dining-room.  I say, will you
+go, or stay and fight?"
+
+Gordon cut himself, and then, as Bob said, "cut his stick" and went back
+to town shaved on one side and not on the other.  As a result of this,
+several men in the city sold bears of everything that Gordon was
+interested in, and they got left most horribly, especially on
+Amalekites.  Never afterward did they venture to think that any
+financier was on the borders of ruin if he came into the city partially
+shaved.  In fact, three very shady Jews, with some wildcat stock to
+boom, played the trick successfully, and, through not being shaved
+themselves, they shaved others.
+
+But this is all by the way, and it only shows that a real financier in
+love or in despair is just as dangerous as at other times.  Bob and the
+bishop talked the situation over in Spilsborough while Gordon was going
+to town, and the result was what might have been expected.
+
+"All we know is that Penelope, poor dear Penelope is near Spilsborough,"
+said the bishop.
+
+"And that she’s married," said Bob.
+
+"We infer that from general grounds, our knowledge of her character,"
+said the logical bishop. "Strictly we cannot be said to know it.  It is
+not a primary datum of consciousness, nor is it a judgment or a purely
+rational conclusion, Bob."
+
+"Oh," said Bob, "well, perhaps not."
+
+"I think," said the bishop, "that I shall write to her—"
+
+"Where to?"
+
+"To everywhere," said the bishop, "and ask her to come and confide in
+me.  And in the meantime, as the others have gone, and your presence
+here is no longer necessary, I think you should go home and console your
+grandmother, and apply yourself to work."
+
+"All right," said Bob; "I don’t think it’s interesting here any more.
+But are you glad I came in time to stop the duel?"
+
+"I am glad," said the bishop.  "But, to tell the truth, Robert, I should
+not have allowed a duel on Mr. Dean’s ancient grass and under his
+immemorial elms without a remonstrance, even a physical remonstrance."
+
+Within the memory of this portly and admirable pillar of the Church to
+which the British Empire owes all its greatness, and to which it pays a
+great deal of its money, were many fierce encounters at Oxford, that
+haunt of ancient peace and modern progress.
+
+"Would you have knocked ’em down?" asked Bob, eagerly.
+
+"Certainly," said the bishop.  "I would have knocked them as flat as a
+flounder."
+
+And Bob bade him good-bye.
+
+"I think he’s a ripping good bishop," said Bob. "I’ll ask Mr. Gordon to
+help restore the cathedral."
+
+He got back to Goring to find Titania no longer suffering from fits.
+Fits were not equal to the situation.  All her friends were writing to
+her to condole with her on the marriage of Penelope to Timothy Bunting.
+They came down in droves to condole and to get the latest intelligence,
+while gamekeepers and grooms were keeping journalists out of the grounds
+with guns and pitchforks.
+
+For the world was absolutely certain that Miss Weekes was right, and
+Pen’s _ci-devant_ maid was making the salary of a star at the Empire by
+according interviews to those halfpenny papers which are England’s glory
+and her hope.  The editors endeavoured to interview the lovers, but they
+were stern and savage.  They would not speak to each other and avoided
+strangers.  But it was no secret now that they each claimed to be Lady
+Penelope’s husband.  As the acutest journalist of them all remarked,
+this was hardly possible.  The only theory that held water (or, at
+least, "good" water, as the Baboo pleader remarked) was the Bunting
+theory. But if Bunting was the man, where was he? and why this mystery?
+A journalist solved it, or said he did.  Bunting was a very handsome
+man.  There was no doubt of that.  But he was an uneducated man.  That
+was quite certain.  If a lady of Penelope’s standing married a man of
+Bunting’s, what would she do?  The answer was easy.  She would send him
+to Oxford to acquire the accent and the aplomb and the insolence which
+have rendered Oxford men the idols of the mob, and have put them into
+every position where tact with inferior races is a _sine qua non_.  This
+is what the journalist said. He ought to have known, as he had been
+brought up in the Yorkshire Dissenting College, and dissented from all
+other codes of manners, except those popular with the non-conformist
+conscience, which, equally with the Church of England, has made the
+empire what it is and what it should be.
+
+But this journalist knew his market.  The eyes of the civilized world
+once more turned to Oxford.
+
+"If it’s Bunting, I’ll kill him," said all the lovers who were not
+married to Penelope.  "She has made a mistake, if it’s true, and he must
+be got rid of."
+
+Now was the time of the Marchioness of Rigsby’s glory.
+
+"Did I not tell you she had married her groom?" she demanded of Titania.
+"Penelope was extremely rude to me.  I am almost glad she has married a
+groom.  If he is a nice groom, he may improve her manners."
+
+"She hasn’t married any groom," cried Titania, furiously.  "I am
+perfectly certain it is the Marquis of Rivaulx."
+
+She was certain of nothing.  Bradstock was certain of nothing.  They
+both asked Bob what he was certain of, and Bob replied all the lovers
+were in such a state of mind that it couldn’t be any of them.  And then
+at last Titania hit upon a certain truth.
+
+"Whoever it is would be just as miserable as all the others," she said.
+"He’ll be sorry now that he agreed to it, and he’ll be asking her to
+give in, and she won’t.  And they’ll quarrel."
+
+"You’re right, Titania," cried Bradstock, slapping his thigh.  "Bob, I
+believe the most miserable of them all is the man.  Which is the most
+miserable?"
+
+Bob thought.
+
+"Gordon cried a little."
+
+"Ha!" said the duchess.
+
+"But Rivaulx cried a good deal," said Bob.
+
+"Oh," said the duchess.  "But which do you think it is, Robert?"
+
+"I think it’s Timothy Bunting," said Bob. "And I want to go to Oxford to
+find out if he’s there.  Baker says—"
+
+"Do you discuss these matters with Baker?" demanded his grandmother,
+haughtily.
+
+"He knows a great deal about the world," said Bob, "and about Bunting,
+you know.  Baker says—"
+
+"You may go to Oxford," cried Titania, "and I will go to bed and stay
+there.  I am a most unhappy woman, and Goring does not care!"
+
+So Bob went to Oxford all by himself, and called upon an undergraduate
+who had just come up from Harrow, one of the schools which Bob had been
+requested to leave on account of pugilism.  Jack Harcourt was four years
+Bob’s senior, but could not fight so well in spite of that, and there
+was much more equality between them than would seem possible at first
+sight.  But then it is almost impossible to feel very much superior to a
+boy who has knocked you absolutely senseless, as Bob did Harcourt.  And
+Bob was one of those boys who make all the world equal.  He was familiar
+with princes, and said "Baker says" to cabinet ministers.  And if his
+uncle didn’t marry, he was bound to be a duke.  Dukes are very important
+people, somehow, and the fact that Bob never showed any side was much in
+his favour over and above that important fact.
+
+"I say, is there a man up here called Bunting?" asked Bob.
+
+And Harcourt, after consulting a calendar, said there was.
+
+"Timothy Bunting?" asked Bob, jumping as if he were shot.
+
+"Thomas," said Harcourt.
+
+"Oh, he’d say Thomas, I dare say," said Bob. And he told Harcourt all
+about it.
+
+"Do you think she’s married him?" asked the undergraduate.
+
+"Who knows what girls will do?" said Bob. "Don’t you remember the
+black-eyed one in the pastry-cook’s at Harrow who wouldn’t look at you
+and was in love with that beast Black?"
+
+Harcourt did remember, but changed the conversation as quickly as
+possible.
+
+"This fellow is at All Saints," he said.  "I dare say, they’d let a
+groom in there."
+
+"Let’s go and find him," said Bob.  "Poor old Bunting will be sick to
+see me.  I’m very sorry for him if he is a presumptuous beast.  It will
+be very awkward for the family.  But we must know.  The uncertainty is
+killing my grandmother, and Baker says it’s always best to know the
+worst at once. Baker’s the best judge of dogs and horses I know. He was
+a sergeant in the Dublin Fusiliers.  Oh, I told you that!"
+
+And when they got into the High Street, they ran right into Plant, who
+smiled a sickly smile and said he had come up to have a look at Oxford.
+
+"I say, Mr. Plant, what’s the matter with your clothes?" asked Bob.
+"Have you fallen downstairs?"
+
+Plant murmured something unintelligible and hurried away, leaving Bob
+staring.
+
+"That’s one of ’em, Harcourt," he said to his friend.  "He’s a
+millionaire."
+
+"Then I think he might afford a hat without a dint in it," replied
+Harcourt.
+
+Bob shook his head.
+
+"I can’t make it out.  He’s very particular," he said.  "But let’s get
+on."
+
+Around the next corner they bumped into Gordon, who also announced that
+he had been struck with a wild desire to have a look at the ancient
+university city.  Bob shook his head.
+
+"I say, Mr. Gordon, you want brushing badly. Do you know you look as if
+you had fallen downstairs?" he asked.
+
+Gordon said, "Do I?" and bolted.
+
+"I can’t make this out," said Bob.  "This has all the appearance of a
+mystery, Harcourt."
+
+"It has," said Harcourt.  As they entered All Saints, they saw a man run
+across the grass and disappear under the far archway which led out into
+the Turl.
+
+"That looked very much like De Vere," said Bob, "very much.  Only I
+never saw him run except that time when the bulldog chased him.  And
+then he ran differently.  But of course it can’t be De Vere."
+
+After asking two reverend-looking members of the university, who looked
+as if they knew all about the subjective world, and a scout with every
+appearance of a deep acquaintance with the objective one, they
+discovered Mr. Bunting’s rooms.
+
+"I think he’s havin’ some gents to lunch, though I’m not his scout, sir,
+and they seems to be enjoying themselves now very much," said the scout.
+"Mr. Bunting is readin’ ’ard, so I ’ear, but he’s relaxin’ a little
+to-day.  Just now I see a gentleman drop hout of ’is window, sir.  And
+you’re the third lot I’ve directed there.  This is ’is staircase, gents,
+first floor.  Thank you, sir, I’m sure.  I’ll drink your ’ealth."
+
+And here Harcourt said he thought he’d leave Bob.  So Bob went up about
+six dark steps by himself, and then he stopped.
+
+"Whoever he is, he’s making a devil of a row," said Bob, pausing, "a
+devil of a row.  I wonder if it is Bunting.  I think Harcourt might have
+stayed.  But he never did like fighting or rows."
+
+He climbed up another step or two, and heard a mighty uproar.
+
+"I think they must be having a boxing party," said Bob.  And then he
+heard a door open on the landing above him.
+
+"Confound you, sir! to the devil with you, sir!" said a voice that he
+certainly did not recognize.  Then he heard a noise which was presently
+explained by the fact that Carteret Williams fell down the stairs,
+turning a crooked corner most wonderfully in company with a very large
+Liddell and Scott’s Dictionary of that beautiful language, Greek.
+
+"Oh, is that you, Mr. Williams?" asked Bob.
+
+Williams appeared rather confused.
+
+"Yes, Bob," he said, as he hugged the dictionary. "I—I think so."
+
+"Why have you fallen down-stairs?" asked Bob.
+
+"That damn groom threw me down," said Williams. "At least, he threw this
+book at me, and I came down."
+
+[Illustration: CARTERET WILLIAMS, WAR CORRESPONDENT. He wrote with a red
+picturesqueness which was horribly attractive]
+
+"What, is it really Bunting?" roared Bob, eagerly.
+
+"He says his name’s Bunting," replied Williams. "But he’s very difficult
+to handle."
+
+"Oh, Tim can box," said Bob.  "But is he our Bunting?"
+
+"Whichever Bunting he is, you are welcome to him," said the enraged war
+correspondent.
+
+"I must go up and see," said Bob.  "Do you think he threw Mr. Plant and
+Mr. Gordon down, too?  I met ’em just now, and they looked as if he
+had."
+
+"I’m sure he’s capable of it," said Williams, bitterly.  "Here, take
+this book with you.  I don’t want it."
+
+And Bob climbed up, hugging several pounds’ weight of Greek with him.
+He stood at the door and listened, and heard a man inside snorting
+violently and slamming things about as if he was very much disturbed in
+his mind.  Bob knocked at the door, and it was opened suddenly.  The man
+who opened it was in deep shadow.
+
+"It is—it is.  No, it isn’t," said Bob, quite aloud.
+
+"Are you another of ’em?" asked the occupier of the rooms.
+
+"Oh, it isn’t," said Bob.  And, choking down his disappointment, his
+politeness returned.
+
+"Is this your Greek dictionary?" he asked, courteously.  "I found it
+lying on Mr. Carteret Williams on the next landing, and he said he
+didn’t want it."
+
+The man named Bunting seized the dictionary, and then took Bob by the
+shoulder and led him in. Bob went like a lamb, for this Mr. Bunting was
+six feet high, about three feet across the chest, more or less, and had
+a grip like clip-hooks on a bale.
+
+"Was that man named Williams?" he asked.
+
+"Yes," said Bob.
+
+"You know him?"
+
+"Why, of course," said Bob.  "I know ’em all."
+
+"All I’ve thrown down-stairs this afternoon?"
+
+"I think so," said Bob, modestly.  "At least, I met Mr. Plant and Mr.
+Gordon, who looked very much as if they had fallen down-stairs.  And I
+think the little gentleman you dropped out of the window on the grass
+must have been Mr. Austin de Vere."
+
+"Oh," said Mr. Bunting, "sit down, boy, and look at me.  Do I look mad?"
+
+Bob looked at him and then at the room.
+
+"The room looks mad," he replied.  And it certainly did.
+
+"That was the last one," said Mr. Bunting. "He was very troublesome."
+
+"He’s a war correspondent," said Bob.  "But why is your name Bunting?"
+
+"How the devil do I know?" asked the other, in reply.  "Perhaps, as you
+seem to know them, you can explain what it all means?"
+
+"I will try, sir, if you will tell me what occurred," said Bob.
+
+"First of all," said the outraged member of All Saints, "the American
+person knocked and came in, and he said: ’Is your name Bunting?’  And I
+said, ’Yes, confound you, for your infernal impudence, and what is
+yours?’  And he said, ’What the devil do you mean by saying you have
+married her?’  And I said I’d said nothing of the kind, and I said if he
+didn’t get out in two shakes of a lamb’s tail, I’d throw him out.  And
+he was furious, and couldn’t and wouldn’t explain, so I did throw him
+out.  And, as he tumbled down-stairs, he said he’d married her himself.
+And he went away, and I sat down to read Thucydides.  He’s under the
+sofa now somewhere.  And then the Jew came, and he said: ’You mutht
+contradict the report of your being married to her at onth,’ and that
+made me very cross, and I said I wouldn’t, and that made him very wild,
+so I said I was married to her just as he said he was—"
+
+"Oh," said Bob, "and are you?  Oh, dear, I am so confused!  Are you
+really, really married to Pen?"
+
+"I shall drop you out of the window in a minute," said Mr. Bunting.  "I
+said it to annoy him, and it did, and he said I was a liar.  So I opened
+the door and took him by the neck and dropped him down-stairs, and he
+howled awfully.  And I said to him over the bannisters, ’I am married to
+her, and have been married for years to her, and she loves me very much,
+and we are going to acknowledge it as soon as I’ve taken my B.A.’  And
+he went away holding his neck, and then the little man came in.  Did you
+say he was a poet?"
+
+"A very good poet, too," said Bob.  "And I sell him bulldogs."
+
+"Oh," said Mr. Bunting, blankly, "you do, do you?  Why?"
+
+"Because Pen thought they would do him good."
+
+Mr. Bunting shook his head.
+
+"Thicksides is lucid compared with this!" he murmured.  "But patience,
+patience, and I shall construe it yet."
+
+"And what did Mr. de Vere say?" asked Bob.
+
+"The same thing.  He stood there and said I must contradict it.  And he
+said of course it was very kind of her to have me educated, but that, if
+I had a spark of decency, I should know that a man who had once occupied
+the position I had couldn’t possibly marry her.  And, by the way, what
+position had I occupied in regard to her?"
+
+"A groom," said Bob.  "You were supposed to have been a groom."
+
+"Dear me," said Mr. Bunting, "how interesting and remarkable.  Still no
+light, no real light!  And of course I said I had married her, and I
+asked him did he think I would desert the lady now?  And he went
+scarlet.  Why did he go scarlet do you think?"
+
+"I know," said Bob, "it must have been on account of the baby!"
+
+Mr. Bunting smote his forehead.
+
+"So it must," he said.  "I never thought of that. What a fearful
+complication!  And then he, too, said I was a liar.  So I took him by
+the collar and led him to the window, and I opened it and dropped him
+out.  And then the one you call Williams came, and he also was
+indignant, and said I was to deny it, and I wouldn’t of course.  And
+then we fought, and the furniture was much disarranged and Thicksides
+went under the sofa, and at last I got him outside, and finished him
+with Liddell and Scott. And now you know all!  In your turn you can
+explain what it means.  I beg you to do it, and then we will have some
+tea."
+
+And Bob explained the whole story.
+
+"You might have seen it in the papers," said Bob.
+
+"I don’t read ’em," said Bunting, "except to turn a _Times_ leader into
+Greek.  But it seems a complicated situation, doesn’t it?"
+
+"It is very complicated," sighed Bob, "and my grandmother is very ill
+about it.  And now she will wonder if it’s you, after all!"
+
+"Dear me, so she will," said Bunting.  "Have some tea."
+
+They had tea, and Bob rose to go.
+
+"Will you write to the _Times_, and say you haven’t married her?" he
+asked.
+
+"Certainly not," said Mr. Bunting.  "Didn’t I say to the others that I
+threw down-stairs that I _had_ married her?"
+
+"So you did," said Bob.  "But of course you haven’t?"
+
+Bunting smiled.
+
+"Good-bye.  When you come to Oxford again, come and see me.  I must
+crawl under the sofa now."
+
+"What for?" asked Bob.
+
+"For Thucydides, of course," replied Mr. Bunting.
+
+And when Bob was in the train for London, he turned very pale.
+
+"Good heavens!" he said, "how do I know it isn’t this Bunting, after
+all?"
+
+
+
+
+                             *CHAPTER XIX.*
+
+
+After this, things by no means cleared up, as they should have done
+considering the amount of trouble that all the world took to find out
+the truth.  Every one said something different from some one else. Bob
+gave horribly imaginative accounts of his adventures at Oxford, and
+threw out suggestions that Pen was really married to a Bunting, if not
+to Timothy Bunting.  But when he appealed for corroboration to Gordon,
+that gentleman shuffled and prevaricated dreadfully, as he did not like
+to acknowledge he had been thrown down-stairs.  There was a very curious
+scene, in which Gordon and Bob had the best part of a row before
+Titania, who came up to town to be near Dr. Lumsden Griff, who knew all
+about the left or right ventricle of her heart.  As his jealous
+confrères said he knew nothing else, perhaps he did.  However, that is
+by the way.
+
+"Tell it me again, Robert," said Titania.
+
+Bob told her again.
+
+"He said he was married to her?"
+
+"He said he said so to Mr. Plant and Mr. Gordon, and Williams and De
+Vere," said Bob, gloating over the details of the row.  "And he slung
+’em all down-stairs.  He’s about six feet six high, and as broad as a
+billiard-table, and as strong as three Sandows, I should say."
+
+"I am much confused again," said Titania, plaintively.  "I had come to
+the point where certain news of her marriage to a groom would have been
+a relief to me.  Where are we now?"
+
+As she asked, Gordon was announced.  Bob rushed at him.
+
+"I say, Mr. Gordon, tell us how he threw you down-stairs, and what he
+said?"
+
+"He didn’t throw me down-stairs," said Gordon, quite crossly.  "I threw
+myself down—I mean I slipped."
+
+"Tell us how you slipped, then, and why," said Bob.
+
+But Gordon wouldn’t.
+
+"Oh, I say!" said Bob.
+
+Titania begged Gordon to tell her.
+
+"But then he told me he had married Pen," she said to herself.  "What is
+the use of asking any one anything?"
+
+"How did you find him?" asked Bob.
+
+"I looked him up," said Gordon.
+
+"Why did you look him up?"
+
+"Because I wanted to find him out," returned Gordon, sulkily.  "But I
+didn’t come to be cross-examined by you, Bob."
+
+In spite of the large sums of money which Gordon owed Bob, Bob was on
+the point of an explosion.  But trouble was averted by Plant’s entrance.
+Before he could say a word, a telegram was brought to Titania, and she
+read it at once and uttered dismal groans.
+
+"What is it?" chorused the two men and Bob.
+
+"It’s from Penelope."
+
+"Please read it out."
+
+Bob read it for his grandmother.
+
+
+"Am exceedingly displeased with latest reports and news.  Contradict at
+once.  Am not married to Bunting, who is much upset by report, and can
+hardly look me in the face.  PENELOPE."
+
+
+"Bunting is with her!" said Titania.
+
+"Which Bunting?" asked Bob.  "He—I mean the one at Oxford—told Mr.
+Gordon and Mr. de Vere that he was married to her."
+
+Gordon groaned, and, seizing his hat, fled from the room.  He came back
+again.
+
+"Where does the wire come from?"
+
+"From Spilsborough," said Bob.  "Granny, I wonder if the bishop is in
+it."
+
+Gordon groaned and went.  And went a little too early, for another wire
+came.  It was a very long one.
+
+Titania looked at the signature first, and she sat up.
+
+"It’s from Penelope’s husband," she cried.
+
+"Who is he really?" shrieked Bob.
+
+"It’s signed Penelope’s husband, I mean," said Titania, "and he seems
+very unhappy."
+
+The telegram read:
+
+
+"Am in great distress.  Penelope is furious because told you confidence
+that was married to her. She has heard this, and has learnt that others,
+lying scoundrels, said they were, too.  She says their noble conduct
+saved her, and will not speak at present, though holding out hopes of
+reconciliation later to her and infant, which is doing well, if I say
+nothing and do not fight with others, but do my duty, which I find hard
+under peculiar circumstances.  Hence am precluded from confirming what I
+told you, and can only communicate anonymously, as Penelope threatens to
+have divorce or equivalent, being headstrong, as you are aware, and I am
+in distress about it.  Wire reply.
+
+"PENELOPE’S HUSBAND."
+
+
+"He’s mad," said Titania.  "How can I wire reply to a man I know nothing
+of?"
+
+She turned to Plant.
+
+"You told me in confidence, Mr. Plant.  Did you send this?"
+
+Plant turned all the colours of the rainbow.
+
+"Yes," he said, desperately, and he bolted from the room and the house
+and disappeared, while Bob gasped, and Titania nodded her head in a most
+awe-inspiring manner.
+
+"Get some telegraph forms," she said.  And when Bob brought them, she
+dictated telegrams to all the horde in the diplomatic form of identic
+notes.
+
+
+"Have received sad telegram signed Penelope’s husband.  Recognize under
+painful circumstances he cannot reveal himself.  Am much composed and
+have given up hope.  It appears it cannot be Bunting, though Bunting is
+with her.  Contradict this; also the rumour that it is the Rajah of
+Jugpore.
+
+"TITANIA GORING."
+
+
+"Send them," she said, "and let me rest.  I presume that the right one
+will get it.  The only trouble is that six of the wrong ones will, too."
+
+"Goby will go insane," said Bob.  "I know he will.  I can’t see how this
+will end without murder."
+
+And Titania laughed dreadfully.  She laughed so queerly that Doctor
+Griff was sent for, and refused to allow her to see De Vere and Goby and
+Bramber and Gordon and Plant and Williams and Carew.  The last turned up
+first in a hansom cab, with a large palette knife in his hand.  He had
+forgotten to put it down.  As hansom after hansom came up and discharged
+one furious lover after another at the steps of Titania’s town house, it
+looked as if Bob’s foreseen murder would occur there and then.  It is
+possible that nothing but the timely arrival of Bradstock saved London
+from the desirable news of a murder in high life and Belgrave Square.
+He got hold of the men one by one, and sent them away.  As they went, a
+telegraph boy came to the house with another telegram addressed to
+Titania.
+
+"I shall open this, Bob," said Bradstock.  It was another from Pen.
+
+
+"Have just learnt that you and others have been trying to discover my
+whereabouts.  If I am pursued, I shall leave and go elsewhere.  This is
+final.
+
+PENELOPE."
+
+
+"From Spilsborough, Bob," said Bradstock.
+
+"She’s heard that I and Goby and Rivaulx and the others were there,"
+said Bob.  "Do you think the bishop knows where she is?"
+
+"I wouldn’t trust a bishop," said Bradstock. "I daresay he does.  It is
+said that bishops steal Elzevirs and umbrellas, Bob.  I think I shall go
+to Spilsborough myself.  Have you seen the evening papers, Bob?"
+
+Bob had seen none of them.
+
+"Some say now that she is married to Jugpore, and others say it is a
+morganatic marriage to the mediatized Prince of Bodenstrau."
+
+"Oh, I say, Pen will be mad," cried Bob.  "Isn’t he a real bad un?"
+
+"The very worst," said Bradstock.
+
+"And are you really going to Spilsborough, Lord Bradstock?"
+
+"I really think so," said Bradstock.  "I begin to think I must do
+something."
+
+He stood pondering.
+
+"May I come with you?"
+
+Bradstock declined the honour.
+
+"If I don’t succeed, you may go again if you like," he said.  And that
+very afternoon he went to Liverpool Street and took the train for
+Spilsborough to call on the bishop.
+
+"My dear Bradstock, I am delighted to see you," said his lordship.  "I
+presume you, too, have come here about Penelope?"
+
+"I have," said Bradstock, "every one does."
+
+"Did young Bob tell you all about the peculiar occurrences which took
+place here only lately? They were quite remarkable."
+
+Bradstock agreed that they were remarkable.
+
+"A duel on the dean’s grass, now!  Who would have thought of that but a
+Frenchman?  Have you seen the marquis lately, and that very agreeable
+financier, the American?  I was much grieved not to be able to ask him
+to dinner, owing to his sudden departure.  He showed considerable skill
+in grasping the essentials of the situation, for, when the marquis, who
+was literally foaming at the mouth, offered him the choice of swords in
+a violent but perfectly gentlemanly way, he chose both of them, and put
+them under his arm.  It is not every one who could have displayed such
+readiness in preventing violence.  One would not have expected it in an
+American, for I understand disorder and disturbances leading to
+bloodshed are quite common even in Washington."
+
+"I have frequently seen most bloodthirsty duels behind the Capitol
+during the sessions of Congress," said Bradstock, gravely.
+
+"Ah, so I understand," replied the bishop.  "But is there no news of
+dear Penelope?"
+
+"Come, bishop, let us be frank," said Bradstock. "Have you no idea whom
+she has married?"
+
+The gentle bishop looked much surprised.
+
+"I?  My dear Bradstock, I haven’t the least idea. But I gather that both
+the gentlemen I interrupted the other day claim to be her husband, to
+say nothing of many others whom I have not yet set eyes on."
+
+"And you have no notion where she is?"
+
+The bishop lifted his hands.
+
+"I think she must be near this place," he said. "I consider there can be
+no doubt of that, owing to matters with which Bob made me acquainted. By
+the way, I think this young Bob a very remarkable boy, Bradstock."
+
+"So do I, bishop," said Bradstock.
+
+"A very remarkable boy.  The dean, who saw very little of him, came to
+that conclusion.  He said he would be an ornament to the House of Lords,
+or the biggest young rip that ever disgraced it."
+
+"Your dean must be a clever man," said Bradstock.
+
+"Do not call him my dean," replied the bishop. "He is the cathedral’s
+dean, and very difficult to handle.  However, he is said to be clever,
+and I dare say is clever, especially about grass and a choir and things
+material.  But, as I was going on to say, I consider it quite easy to
+find out where Penelope is, provided we go about it skilfully.  I cannot
+but remember that I christened her, and I still take an interest in
+her."
+
+"How do you propose to discover her whereabouts?" asked Bradstock.
+
+"She sends telegrams from our Spilsborough post-office, does she not?"
+
+"Yes," said Bradstock.
+
+"Then some one should watch the post-office for her messenger.  It seems
+probable that you would know him, as she is not likely to confide in
+strangers. Who can say that the very man she has married does not send
+them?"
+
+That was easily disposed of, for, to Bradstock’s certain knowledge, all
+the lovers were in town when the last wires came.
+
+"Well, I suggest you watch the post-office," said the bishop.  "It is, I
+opine, a perfectly legitimate thing to do."
+
+Bradstock objected that she mightn’t send any more for weeks.
+
+A brilliant idea struck the bishop.
+
+"Send her one which requires an answer, Bradstock."
+
+"Where to?" asked Bradstock.
+
+"Tut, tut!" said the bishop, "how foolish of me.  Stay, I have it.  Put
+something in the _Times_ which requires an answer."
+
+"I will," said Bradstock.
+
+"And send for young Bob to watch," said the bishop.  "It is time that
+this scandal was stopped. I am exceedingly grieved with Penelope for
+getting married in a registrar’s office.  I will offer to marry her all
+over again in this very cathedral.  And now you shall come and have
+lunch, and I will show you the swords given me by the marquis."
+
+After lunch and an inspection of the trophies in the dining-room,
+Bradstock and the bishop drafted an advertisement for the _Times_,
+imploring Pen to telegraph to Bradstock, saying how she was, as there
+was a rumour afloat that she didn’t feel well. This was sent by wire to
+town, and was accompanied in its flight by one to Bob, asking him to
+come up in a motor-car at once.
+
+"I think," said the bishop, "that I should like to go in a motor-car.
+There must be something delightful in speeding through the country
+feeling that steel and petrol do not suffer any of the strain that comes
+on horses.  I shall ask young Bob to take me out."
+
+"He will be delighted," said Bradstock.  "I’m sure he will be delighted.
+They say he is an enterprising driver for his youth."
+
+"I love enterprise," murmured the bishop.  "I am surprised now to think
+of my own.  I entered the Church meaning to be a bishop, and I am a
+bishop.  I love enterprise.  All curates seem full of it.  Deans, I
+regret to say, are seldom vigorously enterprising.  Archdeacons, too,
+have a tendency to take things easily, too easily."
+
+"What do you think of the Higher Criticism?" asked Bradstock.
+
+"Ha!" said the bishop, "ha!  I think—oh, I think a great deal of it.
+That is, I think of it a great deal.  I do not think all enterprise is
+praiseworthy.  Would you like to know the dean?"
+
+They spent the afternoon in the dean’s cathedral, and walked on the
+dean’s grass, and about six o’clock Bob rolled into the cathedral close
+in a fifteen-horse-power Daimler, and drew up in front of the bishop’s
+palace.
+
+"Have you found her out?" he demanded, eagerly, of Bradstock.
+
+"No, but you shall," said Bradstock.
+
+
+
+
+                             *CHAPTER XX.*
+
+
+The bishop was very kind and amiable to Bob. Some people say that
+bishops are always kind and good to people who will be dukes by and by.
+One never knows what a duke can do for one later, and, of course, a
+bishop wants to be an archbishop.  That is only natural: even a cardinal
+wants to be Pope, although he almost always says he is sorry he became
+one when he finds himself at the end of his tether.  The bishop was a
+human being, but a nice one, and he really liked Bob, who suggested
+youth and strength and the future, all of them agreeable things to those
+who are not young and see their future behind them.  So he talked to Bob
+almost as if he was one of the Bench of Bishops.  He was familiar and
+jovial, and told some good stories of other bishops and even one of an
+archbishop.  And he suggested to Bob that he rather wanted to see what a
+motor-car was like.
+
+"There is a prejudice against them here," said the bishop.  "Perhaps a
+natural prejudice among those who own chickens and dogs and children.
+But Providence works in a mysterious way, and I should be the last to
+hasten to blame even the gentleman known as a road hog.  I begin to
+perceive an unwonted sprightliness in the villagers as the elimination
+of the unfit, the rheumatic, the undecided, and the foolish proceeds
+apace.  A young man, who told me that he had in the course of his career
+as an owner of cars killed nearly a thousand dogs, two thousand five
+hundred fowls, several aged persons, some idiots, and a policeman, said
+that he noticed nowadays an air of bright alertness in his immediate
+neighbourhood which was at once a pleasure and an encouragement.  He
+asserted that the dogs who remained were of a higher type of intellect
+than the others; and he said that even the fowls now stood sideways in
+the road and used their natural advantage of looking both ways at once.
+There was, too, a great improvement in village children and even in
+policemen.  Oh, yes, I think much may be said for the motor-car."
+
+"I should very much like to take you out in one, my lord," said Bob.
+
+The bishop smiled graciously.
+
+"You shall, my boy, as soon as this matter of Penelope is settled.  I
+shall greatly enjoy passing rapidly through the country.  I think of
+buying one for purposes of my pastoral visitations.  Perhaps I may wake
+up some of my more somnolent clergy. I may even raise their general
+intellectual average, which is low, really low."
+
+Bob’s chauffeur put up at the Angel, but Bob himself had a bed in the
+palace, and dined in state with the bishop and Bradstock.  They
+discussed Penelope all dinner-time, even before Ridley, for, as the
+bishop explained, Ridley took no interest in anything whatever but wine.
+
+"I believe," said the bishop, with a chuckle, "that I might venture in
+his presence to advocate the disestablishment of the Church, or to give
+vent to heretical or even atheistical sentiments without his being aware
+that I was doing anything surprising, improper, or unusual.  By all
+means, let us talk before Ridley.  How do you think Bob should proceed,
+Bradstock?"
+
+"He must stay in his car near, but not too near, the post-office," said
+Bradstock.  "If Bob is properly goggled, this George Smith, whom we
+suppose to bring Pen’s letters and telegrams, will not notice him.
+Shall you know him, Bob?"
+
+"Rather," said Bob.  "He walks very queerly. I could tell him a mile
+off."
+
+"Very well, then," Bradstock continued, "when he goes, you will follow
+him at a distance.  He must not be lost sight of."
+
+"I much underrate our young friend’s enterprise if he loses him," said
+the bishop.  "There are occasions when exceeding the legal limit becomes
+a duty, Bob."
+
+"Rather," said Bob.  "Oh, I’ll do it."
+
+They calculated that the _Times_ would reach Pen about noon, as they
+believed she must be within twenty miles of Spilsborough.  Bob
+accordingly arranged to take up his watch at the post-office before one
+o’clock.
+
+"And perhaps to-morrow night the mystery will be solved," said the
+bishop.  "It is really remarkable.  I am not at all able to follow
+Penelope’s mind."
+
+Bob explained it to him.
+
+"They ragged her," he said,—by "they" meaning Titania and others,—"and
+she loves peace and hates showing off, and she’s as obstinate as a pig.
+And grandmother said she was to be married in Westminster Abbey by a
+bishop, and that put her back up.  Oh, Pen’s easy to understand, I
+think."
+
+"You have no idea whom she has really married?" asked the bishop.
+
+"Not much," said Bob.  "I give it up.  I’ve thought it was all of ’em,
+and every one has done or said something that could be taken both ways.
+I was sure it was Goby, and then I was certain it was Bramber, and then
+I fairly knew it was Rivaulx, and I could have sworn it was Plant.  And
+I’m very much worried by what occurred at Oxford. This new Bunting was
+very surprising."
+
+The bishop had not heard of the new Bunting, and listened to Bob’s story
+with great interest.
+
+"The world is a very surprising place," said the bishop, with emphasis;
+"a very surprising place indeed.  We do not need to go to Africa for new
+things.  We are surrounded by the unexpected, by the marvellous.  Bob’s
+delightful story makes me feel that no one can reckon with certainty
+upon anything.  I am half-inclined to think that this new Bunting must
+be a relation of the other Bunting, and that Penelope has met him, been
+struck with him, and has married him and lives in temporary retirement,
+while her husband struggles with Thucydides under a sofa.  But after
+to-morrow we shall know more."
+
+"I hope so," said Bradstock.
+
+"I feel sure of it," said the bishop.
+
+And Bob went to bed.
+
+"Do you know, Bradstock," said the bishop, as he stroked his leg, which
+was a very reasonable leg for a bishop, "I wonder you didn’t think I had
+married Penelope."
+
+"Good heavens!" said Bradstock, "have you?"
+
+"Certainly not," replied the bishop, "but it is odd she should be near
+Spilsborough, isn’t it?"
+
+"She must be somewhere," said Bradstock, rather irritably.  "Hang it!
+the girl must be somewhere."
+
+"When you think of it, she must," said the bishop.  "Yes, yes, you are
+right.  Still, Spilsborough—yes, it’s odd, but not remarkable.  As you
+say, she must be somewhere.  I hope it’s not the Jew, Bradstock."
+
+So did Bradstock.
+
+"It looks very much as if she was ashamed of him.  But I’m incapable of
+judging, not having been married," said the bishop.
+
+"I’ve been married twice," said Bradstock, "and Pen is a woman, which
+means she resembles no other woman in any respect whatever as regards
+her ways, manners, customs, and thoughts."
+
+"You say that coolly?" asked the bishop.
+
+"Icily," replied Bradstock.
+
+The bishop shook his head.
+
+"You surprise me," said the bishop, "and I think I will go to bed."
+
+Bradstock went to bed, too.
+
+"I shouldn’t be surprised if she had married the bishop and was under
+this roof now," said Bradstock.  "Nothing would surprise me unless I
+discover she’s married to Rivaulx or Bramber.  I don’t think I should
+mind either of ’em."
+
+And next day at half-past twelve Bob and his chauffeur took up a
+position near the post-office.  As Geordie Smith knew Bradstock, he kept
+quietly at the palace.  But the interested bishop who had not married
+Penelope kept bustling about the neighbourhood in quite an excitement.
+
+"I wish I was coming with you, Bob."
+
+"Oh, do!" said Bob.
+
+"I almost think it would be advisable," said the bishop.  "What I said
+would have weight with Penelope, I believe."
+
+"I rather wish you’d come," cried Bob.  "It would be fun, and you said
+you’d like to go in a motor-car."
+
+"So I did," said the bishop, "but I’ve never been in one.  No one has
+seen me in one.  I fear a crowd would assemble."
+
+"At any rate, my lord, you might get in and sit down a minute."
+
+The bishop looked around.
+
+"I really think I will," he said.  And he entered the car.
+
+"This is really comfortable, Bob, very comfortable, quite like an
+armchair.  Is your driver a good one?"
+
+"A ripper," said Bob.  "The best they have where I got the car.  It’s
+not mine, but when I get all the money that Gordon owes me, I’ll buy
+one."
+
+The chauffeur got down and did something inexplicable to the machinery
+with a spanner.  And the spanner broke.
+
+"I’ll just run across and get a new one, sir," said the chauffeur.
+
+"It’s getting late," said Bob.  "Don’t be long, and before you go start
+her up."
+
+The driver set her going, and the bishop caught hold of Bob.
+
+"You’re not off?  This is very surprising.  It makes a very curious
+noise."
+
+"There won’t be any to speak of when we get her moving," said Bob.  "You
+see the engine is going, and when we like we can start at once."
+
+He was happy, bright, and eager.
+
+"There’s a motor-car coming," whispered the bishop.
+
+Bob jumped.
+
+"I say, it’s yellow like Pen’s big new one," he said.  And the car
+stopped in front of the post-office ten yards away.  Bob grabbed the
+bishop’s arm.
+
+"That’s Geordie Smith," he said.  "That’s Geordie getting out.  I could
+tell his legs a mile off.  Where’s my man?"
+
+But the man didn’t come, and Geordie was back in his car.  He went off
+sweetly.
+
+"The north road," said Bob.  "I’m sure he’ll take it.  He’s going quick.
+We can’t wait for my man."
+
+He grabbed the steering-wheel, shifted the lever, and the car moved off
+on the first speed.
+
+"I’ll—I’ll go a little way with you," said the bishop.
+
+"You’ll have to unless you jump," replied Bob. "I’ll keep in sight if I
+die for it."
+
+This encouraged the bishop very much, of course, and it is possible that
+he might have jumped if he had not caught sight of the dean and a minor
+canon, who were staring hard at him with their mouths as wide open as
+the grotesque muzzle of a Gothic gargoyle.
+
+"I’ll not jump," said the bishop, and he waved his hand to Mr. Dean.
+"No, I’ll not jump before the dean if I die for it."
+
+Before he knew it, they were out on the road, and the dust of the yellow
+car in front was like the pillar of smoke to the Hebrews in the desert.
+Bob let her out to the second speed, and the bishop gasped.
+
+"We go very quick," he said.
+
+"Oh, not at all," replied Bob.  "I don’t want to go fast.  If Geordie
+thinks he’s being followed, he’ll go sixty miles an hour, and I don’t
+think I can do more than forty-five in this."
+
+"Can’t you?" asked the bishop.  "I’m almost glad you can’t."
+
+"Is this the great north road?" asked Bob.
+
+"No," said the bishop, "it’s the road to Crowland and Spalding.  I’ve
+often driven on it, but never so fast as this."
+
+Geordie’s car drew ahead, and Bob put his car on the third speed.
+
+"Bob!" cried the bishop, as he clutched the sides of his seat.  "Bob!"
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"Isn’t this an illegal speed?"
+
+"Rather," said Bob.
+
+"I cannot aid and abet you in going at it, then," said the bishop, as
+firmly as he could.  "I must request you to be legal."
+
+Bob kept his eyes ahead.
+
+"Please don’t talk," he roared, "or I shall have an accident.  You must
+remember I’m not at all experienced."
+
+What could the poor bishop do?  He groaned and sat very tight indeed,
+and, seeing the landscape eaten up by this monster at the rate of thirty
+miles an hour, came to the conclusion that there was nothing stable in
+the universe, not even theology.  And about a mile ahead of them rose a
+pillar of dust.
+
+"This is a remarkable situation," thought the bishop; "a situation which
+requires some firmness of mind.  I am a bishop, and I am no better than
+half my clergy who break the law regularly.  This must be nearly a
+hundred miles an hour!  I wish, I almost wish Penelope had died soon
+after I christened her.  This Bob is an infernal young ruffian; his
+manner is not respectful.  I should like to cane him.  But how can I
+stop him?  I do not understand these strange brass things.  I could as
+soon play the big organ in the cathedral that I wish I was in.  If I
+pull Bob he will have an accident.  If I speak to him, I may divert his
+attention—oh!"
+
+They executed a fowl which had not learnt to stand sideways, and slammed
+through a village, scattering several ancient inhabitants who were
+enjoying a gossip in the middle of the road.  As a matter of fact, they
+were damning Geordie Smith in heaps when the pursuing Bob fell upon
+them. They passed a church, and the bishop saw a clergyman staring over
+the wall.  The village fell into the category of things which had been
+and slid away behind them.
+
+"We are stopping still and the world slides," said the bishop, "but that
+was Griggs, I know, and he knew me.  He has eyes like a hawk’s.  I am
+much surprised at myself.  I have seventeen engagements this afternoon.
+Ridley will be alarmed. The dean—oh!"
+
+They slammed a barking dog into the middle of the week after next.
+
+"That was a near shave," roared Bob, exulting. "I’ve seen a smaller dog
+than that capsize a bigger car than this!"
+
+"May I speak now?" implored the bishop.
+
+"Righto," said Bob.  "Here’s a good straight bit.  What is it?"
+
+He was the superior: he was a big bird and the bishop was a beetle.  He
+was the head master; his lordship of the see of Spilsborough was a new
+boy. The bishop felt small, terrified, amazed, humiliated.
+
+"Are we going a hundred miles an hour?" asked the bishop.
+
+"Rot!" said Bob, "we’re only doing about thirty."
+
+They scorched through quiet Crowland.
+
+"Please put me down," implored the humble bishop.
+
+"I can’t stop," said Bob.  "I’m afraid he’s getting ahead.  Sit tight,
+bishop, I’m going faster now."
+
+"You mustn’t, you can’t," said the bishop.
+
+Bob stooped for an answer and turned on the fourth speed.  The bishop
+felt the machine sailing underneath him.  He fell back and lost all
+ordinary consciousness.
+
+"It is true," said his mind deep inside him; "it is true that all things
+are illusion!  I have sometimes suspected it.  We are a mode of motion;
+we are affections of the ether.  I believe Professor Osborne Reynolds is
+right.  I am a kind of vortex spinning in piled grains of ether.  Bob is
+a vortex. We are in a vortex.  We are straws in ether; we are shadows.
+I have a real non-existent pain in my real imaginary non-existent
+stomach.  I am not alive and I am not dead.  I am brave; I am a coward;
+I am a bishop.  This is very wonderful. I shall preach about it when I
+return to earth.  Is that a hedge?  Did I see a cow?—a strange,
+elongated, horned, lowing, permanent, impermanent possibility of
+sensation and milk in a field made of matter, which is energy, which is
+an illusion. I become calm; motion is relative.  I almost enjoy it.  I
+become a Hegelian.  I see that being equals non-being; that pain becomes
+pleasure if you only have enough of it.  I no longer pity those who
+suffer sufficiently.  There is apparently too little pain in the
+universe.  Torquemada did his best to remedy it.  Oh, was that a dog?  I
+quite enjoy myself.  I wonder if he can go faster.  If he can, I wish he
+would.  We are going slow, too slow!"
+
+And, as Geordie’s dust showed up much nearer, Bob put his car again at
+the third speed, and the bishop gasped.
+
+"How do you like it?" asked Bob, as they spun through Spalding.
+
+The bishop’s face was a fine glowing crimson; his bloodshot eyes
+glittered like opals; he was intoxicated with movement and with new
+lights on philosophy.
+
+"I—I should like to go a thousand miles an hour at night," said the
+bishop.  "I think it is wonderful, Bob.  Are you Bob, and I a bishop?
+Where is Spilsborough?  Is there a Spilsborough?"
+
+"Steady on!" said Bob.  "I say, you’re excited!"
+
+"I am," replied the bishop.  "I am excited; I feel peculiar.  I think I
+can originate a new philosophy.  Why are we doing this?"
+
+"We are trying to find out where Penelope is," said Bob.
+
+"Penelope, Penelope," said the bishop.  "Penelope is a vortex.  Yes, she
+is a vortex.  Men and women are vortices.  I shall study mathematics and
+apply it to theology."
+
+"Hello!" said Bob, and he stopped almost dead. For Geordie’s dust had
+suddenly died down.
+
+"I’ll bet he has a puncture," said Bob.  And the bishop sighed and
+stared about him, as if he were just awakened.
+
+"Where are we?" he asked.
+
+"Blessed if I know," said Bob.  "But you ought to know."
+
+"I don’t," said the bishop.  And he got out and stood on the dusty road.
+He reeled, and the dean would have said he was intoxicated.  And so he
+was.
+
+"Geordie’s off again," said Bob.  "Come, jump in."
+
+"I won’t," said the bishop.  "Certainly I won’t. That machine is a kind
+of devil.  It undermines the strongest convictions.  I am afraid of it.
+I shall have to resign my bishopric if I ride another mile."
+
+"Oh, rot!" said Bob.  "Aren’t you coming? I can’t wait."
+
+"Take the devilish thing away," cried the bishop. "Anathema maranatha
+and all the rest of it!"
+
+Without another word, Bob pulled the lever and sailed off up the road,
+leaving a trail of petrol vapour behind him.
+
+"Mentally and physically, I don’t know where I am," said the bishop.  "I
+don’t know who I am, either.  From my clothes I conclude I am a bishop,
+but to come to that conclusion I have to assume that I have the right to
+wear them.  I have had a remarkable experience.  Yes, I am a bishop.
+This is the earth and very dusty.  It is hot, and I am miles from
+anywhere."
+
+He looked up the road and saw a far cloud of dust.
+
+"Under that dust is Bob," said the bishop.  "As I said, Penelope is a
+vortex.  Everything is much more remarkable than I thought, much more
+remarkable.  I shall write to the professor to discover what he means.
+It is dreadful that what may be called a mere physical experience should
+incline me to look on some of my fellow bishops and the higher criticism
+with a more lenient eye.  I don’t see how any dogma can survive a
+hundred miles an hour.  But Bob has not treated me altogether well.  He
+plumps me down somewhere between Spalding and Spilsby or Boston or some
+other dreadful locality under the ghostly influence of my brother of
+Lincoln, and disappears in dust and smell.  He was distinctly
+disrespectful.  He said, ’Sit down, bishop,’ in a very authoritative
+manner. He told me I was excited.  I own I was, but I resented being
+told so by a boy, because he was a boy, or was it because I am a bishop?
+An unaccustomed bishop in a motor-car is plainly nobody compared with an
+experienced boy in one.  I wish Penelope was a sensible person, or that
+I had never known her, or that she hadn’t been born!  I wonder what I am
+to do.  I must walk; I may be overtaken by a cart and get a ride in one.
+I anticipate much talk in Spilsborough about this.  I wonder what Ridley
+will say.  Ridley is a stoic; perhaps he will say nothing.  I wish I was
+near Ridley; I am thirsty.  This road is dusty.  It also appears long
+and interminable.  I am as dry as convocation.  I much resent Bob’s
+treatment of me.  I wish Bradstock was here, and I was where Bradstock
+is. Bradstock is in my library, in my chair, with a book in his hand and
+a whiskey and soda by his side. He takes things with great calmness.  I
+wish he was here to take this with calmness."
+
+And he walked south for three hours and got back to Spalding, and there
+took a train for Spilsborough.
+
+
+
+
+                             *CHAPTER XXI.*
+
+
+"I don’t think I quite understand the bishop," said Bob, as he left the
+dignitary of the Church stranded long miles from anywhere.  "He looked
+very queer.  But I suppose they’re made bishops because they are queer,
+unless it’s on account of their legs.  I can understand the gaiters, but
+the apron licks me.  I’ll ask him about it some day. But I wonder where
+we are, and how much longer Geordie will go on.  It’s luck I’ve had no
+puncture and no breakdown.  I thought it was all up when I sent that dog
+over the hedge.  He did fly. I wonder whether any bobbies have spotted
+my number.  I don’t care.  Gordon owes me a lot of money by now.  What’s
+thirty-two times two thousand odd?  Oh, I can’t remember.  I’m getting
+rather tired."
+
+But he stuck to Geordie like a burr to a sheep, and between the two of
+them they stirred up more ancient peace and the haunts of it than any
+other two cars in the United Kingdom.  They fairly bounded through
+sleepy old Boston, and a policeman, waked up from sleep by Geordie, was
+wide-awake enough by the time Bob came through to call on him to stop.
+
+"I wouldn’t stop for an army of policemen," said Bob, recklessly.  "I
+don’t care.  I’ll catch Geordie if I die for it.  Gordon will pay my
+fines. I wonder how the bishop is.  This is the Spilsby road, is it?  I
+wonder whether Pen’s at Spilsby? Will she be very cross with me?  Oh,
+that was a hen!  I _do_ think hens shouldn’t be allowed in a road."
+
+A dog stood in the middle of the way and barked. In the middle of his
+second bark, the front wheel caught him.  He ended his bark in the
+ditch, and was very dreamy about the whole affair for some time
+afterward.
+
+"That was a dog," said Bob.  "I _do_ think dogs shouldn’t be allowed in
+a road."
+
+He missed a horse by a hairbreadth a mile farther on, and felt very
+cross.  He said horses shouldn’t be allowed in a road.  He said the same
+of carts and of a carriage, of children and agricultural labourers.
+They were so slow.  For now Geordie was going pretty fast, and Bob had
+to go on the fourth speed, which is highly illegal and wicked and very
+dangerous.  He had never enjoyed himself so much before, and he was
+undoubtedly the happiest boy in the three kingdoms.
+
+"Geordie doesn’t know I’m after him," he said. "I’ll bet he’s riding
+along easy.  That car of Pen’s can go like lightning if he lets her out.
+He will be mad when I come up."
+
+And suddenly he perceived down a long, white road that Geordie was going
+more slowly.
+
+"This must be Spilsby," said Bob.  He saw Geordie’s dust go off at a
+right angle toward the right.
+
+"I’ve done it," said the exultant boy.  "We must be near Pen’s now."
+
+For to turn to the right in the neighbourhood of Spilsby means to go
+toward the North Sea.
+
+Bob ran into Spilsby quite meekly on the second speed, and turned after
+Geordie.  A mile farther on, Bob saw a house in some trees, and all of a
+sudden there was no more dust from Geordie’s car. Bob pulled up in the
+middle of the road.
+
+"By Jove, I’ve done it, I know," said Bob, "and now I feel a bit
+nervous.  I wonder what Pen will say, and whether her husband is there,
+and what the kid’s like.  Well, here’s for it!  She can’t do more than
+eat me."
+
+And he drove on till he came to the house, which was an ivy-covered
+building like a square barrack, and would have been hideous without its
+creepers. There was a moat around it and big elms hid it from a
+distance.  The gate was open, and by the front door stood Geordie and
+his car.  Bob gave a view-halloo, and, twisting through the gate, came
+to a standstill alongside Pen’s big yellow racer.
+
+And Penelope herself came to the door, and saw not only Geordie, whom
+she recognized simply by the fact that he was in a car she knew, but an
+undistinguishable stranger also.
+
+"Oh!" said Bob.
+
+"Eh?" said Geordie.
+
+"Who—" said Penelope.
+
+And Bob staggered out of his machine, and fairly reeled when he stood
+upright.  He had no notion that no one, not even Titania, could have
+recognized him.  He forgot his goggles, and he forgot he was so dusty
+that one might have planted cabbages on his cheeks.  He did not know
+that he weighed several pounds more than usual, owing to the amount of
+Lincolnshire that he carried on him. He had no idea that he was awful,
+hideous, a goggled, dirty portent.  He smiled, and the dirt cracked upon
+him, and Penelope shrank back.
+
+"Oh, I say, Pen, are you mad with me?" he asked.
+
+And Penelope shrieked and ran to him, and, falling upon him, embraced
+him with horrible results to her clothes.
+
+"Oh, Bob, Bob, is it you?" she cried.
+
+"It’s me, right enough," said Bob.  "I say, can I have a drink?  I’m
+dying!  Am I dusty?  Yes, so I am.  Oh, Pen, it’s come off on you!  I
+say, I do want a drink.  It’s such a warm day, and Geordie would go so
+fast.  I followed Geordie."
+
+Geordie looked horribly disgusted, but neither Pen nor Bob paid the
+least attention to him.
+
+"Followed up by a boy," groaned Geordie, "and in that thing!"
+
+He regarded the mean fifteen-horse-power concern with great contempt.
+"Well, I’m blessed!"
+
+"Oh, come in, Bob, dear Bob," said Pen.
+
+"Are you glad to see me?"
+
+"Oh, I’ve been dying to see you."
+
+"Upon your honour?" asked Bob.
+
+"Yes, yes," said Penelope.  "I want to ask you so much, and I’ve got so
+much to say.  But tell me, tell me quick.  Does any one else know where
+I am?"
+
+Bob shook dust out of his head.
+
+"Not a soul, unless it’s the bishop," he replied.
+
+"What bishop?"
+
+"The Bishop of Spilsborough," replied Bob.  "I left him on the road."
+
+"Oh!" gasped Pen, "is he following you?"
+
+"Not much," said Bob.  "He got scared and got out and wouldn’t get in
+again, and he talked such rot I thought he was mad, for a bishop, so I
+left him, and suppose he’s walking home again."
+
+Pen almost shook him.
+
+"But what was he doing with you?"
+
+"He wanted to come part of the way in my car, so I let him, and he was
+awfully funky.  I don’t think much of bishops if they’re all like him,
+though he did stop Plant and Rivaulx fighting with swords in the
+cathedral."
+
+"Fighting? with swords?  Oh, what—" said Penelope.
+
+"To be sure, I forgot you very likely didn’t know.  I’ll tell you by and
+by.  Bradstock’s at Spilsborough.  Where’s my drink, Pen?  I say, did
+you hear of Mr. Bunting at Oxford?  That was fun.  He threw De Vere out
+of the window, and knocked Carteret Williams down with Liddell and
+Scott."
+
+"What Mr. Bunting?"
+
+"They thought he was Timothy Bunting, but he wasn’t.  I had tea with him
+afterward.  I’ll tell you by and by.  Do you know grandmother had fits
+about it all?"
+
+Penelope knew nothing, or very little, and as the results of her fatal
+conduct were thus revealed to her in dreadful incomplete chunks, her
+heart almost failed her and she half-forgot her own terrible troubles.
+
+"Am I mad, or is Bob?" she asked.  "Oh, the bishop and Guardy and duels
+and fits and Mr. Bunting and windows and Liddell and Bob having tea!"
+
+She ran for a drink herself, and poured it over Bob in her eagerness for
+more news.
+
+"I say, Pen, be careful!  That went down my neck," said Bob, "and
+outside it, too.  I say, who’ve you married?  Tell me.  Where’s the kid?
+May I see it?  I say, Pen, you look splendid, but sad somehow and rather
+worried.  I feel better now.  I don’t mind what went down outside.  I’ll
+have a bath soon.  Where’s the kid?  They _do_ talk a lot about it in
+town.  They say, some of ’em, that you’ve married the Rajah of Jugpore,
+the little beast, and that the baby is black, or partly black.  Is it?
+I know it isn’t."
+
+"Oh, oh!" said Pen, "how horrible of them!"
+
+She rushed at the bell, and when the servant came she commanded the
+instant appearance of the baby and the nurse.
+
+"You know they said you married Timothy Bunting," said Bob.
+
+Penelope flushed crimson.
+
+"It was wicked of them."
+
+"That beast Weekes told granny you had.  She said she knew it.  That’s
+how I had tea with Mr. Bunting at Oxford, after he’d chucked Plant and
+Gordon down-stairs.  They were sick.  Oh, oh! is this the kid?"
+
+Pen took the precious infant in her arms, and told the nurse she might
+go and have tea.  When she had disappeared, Pen burst into tears.
+
+"He’s—he’s all I’ve got," she said, sobbing.
+
+Bob started.
+
+"I say, what do you mean?  You don’t mean you aren’t married at all?"
+
+"No, no," said Penelope.  "I mean—oh, it’s terrible!  Oh, baby, I love
+you!"
+
+She kissed the baby, who was certainly a very fine baby, and wept again.
+Bob inspected the boy with great interest.
+
+"I say, I rather think it’s like Plant," he said.
+
+Pen gasped.
+
+"But in this light, it’s rather like Gordon."
+
+"Oh!" said Penelope.
+
+"And its forehead is like De Vere’s a little. I say, won’t you tell me
+who you’ve married?"
+
+Penelope hugged the baby and howled.
+
+"I can’t, I can’t.  We’ve q-quarrelled," she said, "and he’s furious,
+and I’m f-furious with him."
+
+"Why?" asked Bob, still inspecting the baby for signs of his male
+parentage, "why?  Oh, I say, sideways he reminds me of Williams and
+Rivaulx, and upside down he’s a little like Carew and Goby. But why have
+you quarrelled, Pen?"
+
+Pen explained with tears how it had happened.
+
+"You see, I said he wasn’t to tell," she said. "And he went to your
+grandmother and told!"
+
+"So did all the rest," said Bob, "and that was where granny got very
+confused.  I listened.  I know it was a sneak thing to do, but I was
+thinking of your interests, and she said to the last of ’em: ’I know
+you’ve come to say you’ve married dear Penelope.’  It was very pathetic,
+Pen.  I never thought granny could be pathetic before.  She usually
+makes me pathetic instead, or she used to. But was he one of ’em?"
+
+"He was," sniffed Pen, "and he broke his solemn oath.  The others were
+noble.  I sent them telegrams to say they were noble."
+
+"That’s why they all went to Spilsborough, where you sent the telegrams
+from," said Bob, "and that’s why Plant and Rivaulx fought with swords
+under the cathedral, till the bishop and the dean stopped them.  I tell
+you the dean _was_ mad."
+
+"Oh, dear, dear!" said Penelope.  "I wish they wouldn’t.  Did they hurt
+each other?"
+
+"Not much, I think," replied Bob.  "I didn’t see any blood.  But when I
+told ’em you’d married Timothy Bunting, Rivaulx lay on the grass and
+tried to bite it and howled dreadfully."
+
+"Poor marquis!" said Pen.  "But why did you tell them so dreadful a
+story?"
+
+Bob shook his head.
+
+"I’m sorry, Pen, but I believed it.  Weekes said she _knew_, and granny
+had fits.  There’s something about fits that makes you believe almost
+anything. But you haven’t told me who it is.  I say, with the light
+sideways on that baby, he reminds me of Bramber.  But who is it?"
+
+"We’ve p-parted," said Penelope.  "He came and said he’d told, and I was
+very f-furious, and we had a r-row.  And he was so cross and mad,
+because without me he couldn’t prove it.  For we were married in other
+names, and I wrote my name in another handwriting, and I said I would
+deny it.  And he flew into a passion and into a motor-car and went away.
+And I’ve only my p-pride and b-baby left.  And I’m so sorry for every
+one.  And how did you find me?"
+
+Bob told her how he had done it, and told her of Bradstock’s
+advertisement, and told her about the bishop, and more about Mr. Bunting
+of All Saints, Oxford, who was the strongest man he had ever seen.
+Carteret Williams was nothing in his hands.
+
+"And now I’ve told you everything, won’t you tell me who it is?"
+
+"No," said poor Penelope; "it would humiliate me to tell now, and I
+won’t."
+
+"But they must know here," said Bob.
+
+"Only three," replied Penelope.  "Miss Mackarness and Geordie Smith and
+Timothy.  And Timothy was so unhappy when he heard he had married me
+that I sent him away to Upwell, where there are more horses.  But he’s
+back now.  And Miss Mackarness and Geordie Smith have sworn not to tell.
+And I expect you not to ask them."
+
+Bob snorted a little at this.
+
+"Oh, all right, but I shall have to say where you are when I go back to
+Spilsborough."
+
+"Oh, you won’t," said Pen.
+
+"I must," said Bob.  "Bradstock is terribly worried about it now, and
+thinks you’ve treated him badly, and the bishop is very curious, and he
+asks questions in a way that it’s difficult not to answer somehow.  And
+besides there’s granny and all the rest.  I say, do you know Gordon has
+been speculating for me, and has made seventy thousand pounds for me?"
+
+"You don’t say so?" cried Pen.
+
+"I think it must be Gordon," said Bob.  "When the shadow’s on that kid,
+he looks rather like Gordon, if you can think of Gordon as a baby, which
+is hard.  But when I’m a duke, I shall rebuild Goring and pay off some
+of the mortgages.  Whoever you’ve married, I’m very grateful to you,
+Pen, about Gordon and De Vere.  De Vere bought the spotted dog I told
+you of.  I found Goby weeping with Ethel.  That made me think it wasn’t
+him. But now you say you’ve quarrelled with him, I’m not sure again.  I
+say, I’m very sleepy.  May I stay to-night?"
+
+"Of course," said Penelope.  And then a brilliant idea struck her.
+
+"Bob, you do love me, don’t you?"
+
+"What rot! of course," said Bob.
+
+"Then stay here altogether for a time," said Pen.
+
+"By Jove, what fun!" cried Bob.  "I’ll send ’em a wire, and I will.  Can
+Geordie go somewhere else but Spilsborough and send one?"
+
+"Certainly," said Penelope.  And it was arranged that Geordie should go
+to Lincoln to send it from there.  This is the telegram Bob sent to Lord
+Bradstock:
+
+"I have found Penelope.  She won’t say who it is because she has
+quarrelled with him, and she won’t let me come back yet.  I will take
+care of her. Tell grandmother and Guthrie.  She quarrelled with him
+because he said he was married to her. But the baby is not black."
+
+And Bradstock swore.  The bishop was too tired to swear, perhaps, but he
+was very cross.  So were all the others, including her husband.
+
+
+
+
+                            *CHAPTER XXII.*
+
+
+They had relied greatly upon Bob.  The bishop, though rather bitter on
+the subject of Bob, tried to be fair to him, and said he was a very
+promising boy.
+
+"I think it most remarkable," said his lordship, when his fine but tired
+legs were beneath the mahogany once more, "that he should be able to
+drive these dreadful machines with such skill.  He missed a great many
+things that he might have hit, but, as he said, he ’boosted’ one dog
+over a hedge in a most skilful way.  He said ’boosted,’ a very peculiar
+word.  I must write to Doctor Murray about it.  But I do not think he
+has been brought up with care.  He was not altogether respectful to me,
+Bradstock."
+
+"I much regret it," said Bradstock, "but what can you expect at Goring?
+On the whole, his manners are not so bad.  Perhaps you annoyed him. He
+does not like being annoyed."
+
+"Indeed," said the bishop, "indeed!  Well, I may have worried him in a
+way that I do not quite understand.  But I have to own that for a boy to
+put his hand on my shoulder and say, ’Sit down, bishop,’ in a most
+authoritative way, made me a little cross.  And when I refused to enter
+the motorcar again, I think he might have given me more time to reflect
+on the fact that I was a very long way from anywhere.  He was very short
+and peremptory with me.  It was most curious, and I regret I did not go
+on with him, for I am extremely anxious to put an end to this scandal.
+One never knows what will happen.  The duel in the moonlight under the
+cathedral was most remarkable.  I wonder when Bob will return."
+
+"So do I," said Bradstock, drily.
+
+"Why do you say so in that tone?" asked the bishop.
+
+"Because I doubt whether he will return at all if he finds Penelope,"
+replied Bradstock.
+
+"Good heavens!" cried the bishop, "but he went for the very purpose of
+discovering her."
+
+"You don’t know Pen," said Bradstock, "and he worships her.  If she
+doesn’t want to be discovered, she will keep him.  I am certain of it."
+
+This showed that Bradstock, though a silent peer, was a very sensible
+one.  The bishop frowned and smote the table.
+
+"I shall be extremely angry with Bob if you turn out to be right," he
+said, firmly.  "I shall be extremely angry with him."
+
+"Much he will care about that," said Bradstock. "You ought to have gone
+on with him."
+
+"I believe I ought to have done so.  Yes, you are right, Bradstock; it
+was an error of judgment. I was a coward.  I was afraid to die.  I did
+not like the idea of being ’boosted’ over a hedge.  I am ashamed of
+myself."
+
+"Never mind," said Bradstock, consolingly, "I have seen heroes quail in
+a motor-car.  I myself have quailed in one."
+
+The bishop shook his head.
+
+"Nevertheless, I blame myself.  I ought not to have been afraid, even
+though I felt peculiar and unwonted sensations in my gaiters," he
+murmured.
+
+He smote the table again.
+
+"I will make amends, Bradstock.  I will devote myself to the task of
+finding Penelope at any speed that is necessary.  I cannot quite
+reconcile myself to the notion that I am a coward.  I will find her if
+Bob deceives us."
+
+"You can’t," said Bradstock, rather gloomily.
+
+"I can, I will," said the bishop.  "I will use my brains."
+
+It was a happy thought.  The bishop mused. There was a knock at the
+outer door.  It was a double, a telegraphic knock.
+
+"From the duchess?" asked the bishop.
+
+"From Bob, or I am a bishop," said the peer.
+
+And Ridley gave him a telegram.  Bradstock read it slowly, lifted his
+eyebrows, rubbed his handsome white head, and handed it to the bishop.
+
+"From Bob, bishop, a very remarkable Bobbish document."
+
+The bishop read it.
+
+"It certainly is a remarkable document, a very remarkable document,
+indeed," said his lordship. "I see it was handed in at Lincoln.  She
+won’t say who it is because she has quarrelled with him. With her
+husband, that is to say.  She will not let Bob come back.  She
+quarrelled with _him_ because he said he was married to _her_.  Very
+remarkable! Somewhat confusing.  But it is a relief to hear that the
+baby is not black, Bradstock."
+
+Bradstock was pessimistic.
+
+"It may be half-black," he said, mournfully.
+
+"Which half?" asked the bishop, with alarm. "If it is, I hope it will
+not be the top half."
+
+"Absurd!" said Bradstock.  "I mean it may be dun or yellowish."
+
+"Let us trust not," replied the bishop.  "I am inclined to think Bob
+would have said it was not very black if it had been at all coloured.  I
+think we may dismiss the Jugpore legend."
+
+"I trust we may," said Bradstock.
+
+"I have an idea," said the bishop, "I have a luminous idea.  Let us go
+to the library."
+
+They adjourned to the library, and Bradstock lighted a cigar.
+
+"What is your idea?" he asked.
+
+"I will tell you in a few minutes," said the bishop, as he laid a big
+atlas upon his table. Bradstock watched him curiously.  The bishop
+opened the atlas and laid a flat ruler on it.  He shifted it once or
+twice, nodded his head, said "Ah!" and nodded it again.
+
+"I believe I have it," said the bishop.  "It will be worth trying, at
+any rate."
+
+"What is it?" asked Bradstock.
+
+"Come and look at the atlas," said the bishop, and Bradstock did as he
+was asked.
+
+The bishop put his finger-tips together and began:
+
+"Bob was following this person named Smith, and went north, did he not?
+Let us say north. I believe it is technically north by east.  He put me
+out, or, to be fair even to Bob, I got out and was asked to return very
+casually, north of Spalding in the Boston road, miles from anywhere.
+This Smith was going back to Penelope.  For while Bob and I were away,
+you got her telegram dated Spilsborough, sent to London and
+re-telegraphed to you here, saying that she was well, in reply to your
+_Times_ advertisement.  Obviously, Penelope lives somewhere north of the
+spot where Bob left me without time for argument.  Do you follow me?"
+
+"Certainly," said Bradstock.  "It is all as clear as quaternions."
+
+"Now we get this very remarkable document from Lincoln."
+
+"We do, bishop."
+
+"It is obvious she doesn’t live at Lincoln.  She has sent this very fast
+Smith there to send off Bob’s telegram.  Is that not so?"
+
+"Of course," said Bradstock.
+
+"Let us imagine that Lincoln is nearly as far from where she is as
+Spilsborough is."
+
+"Let us imagine it," said Bradstock.  "I am willing to imagine it."
+
+"What conclusion do you draw?" asked the bishop.
+
+Bradstock shook his head.
+
+"Really, Bradstock," said the bishop, "I am surprised at you.  If she is
+between Spalding and Lough, as I’m sure she is, an equal distance from
+her to Lincoln and from her to Spilsborough would place her about
+Boston, or perhaps farther north. Now, if on inquiry we find she is not
+near Boston, she must be near a decent road fit for motor-cars to
+Lincoln.  Do you follow me?"
+
+"I do," said Bradstock.
+
+"Then if she is not near Boston, where is she?" Bradstock studied the
+map.
+
+"I should say Burgh, or Warnfleet, or Spilsby."
+
+"Right," said the bishop.  "I am almost sure of it.  For if she had been
+farther north, she would not have chosen Spilsborough to telegraph from
+in the first instance.  What do you say to that?"
+
+"I say that I am not surprised that you are a bishop, though I may
+wonder why you are in the Church," said Bradstock.
+
+"What do you mean by that, Bradstock?" asked his lordship.
+
+"Nothing, nothing at all," replied Bradstock, hastily.  "I agree with
+you.  What shall we do?"
+
+The bishop eyed him a little doubtfully, but returned to his muttons.
+
+"I want to bowl out Bob," he said.
+
+"A bishop is a human being, after all," thought Bradstock.
+
+"He might have reasoned with me," said the bishop.  "I am quite free the
+day after to-morrow, and we will go to Boston and make inquiries.  If
+they fail, we will try Warnfleet and Spilsby and Burgh."
+
+"We will," said Bradstock.  "I think this idea of yours exceedingly
+clever, bishop."
+
+"You do?"
+
+"Certain, I do."
+
+"I forgive your recent gibe," said the bishop. "It was clearer than
+quaternions to me, and much clearer than Bob’s rudeness, which I
+continue to find inexplicable.  And now I think the duchess should be
+informed of his telegram.  It will console her, I am sure, to learn that
+this fatherless infant is not black."
+
+"Not very black," insisted Bradstock.
+
+And the bishop sent a wire to Titania, saying that Bob had disappeared
+into space, but had telegraphed saying that he had found Penelope with a
+normal infant.
+
+"After all, he only said it wasn’t black," sighed Bradstock.
+
+But the bishop would not listen to him.  So he went out and sent a wire
+to Titania himself.
+
+"I should like to make Bob black and blue," the bishop said.  For his
+legs still ached.
+
+
+
+
+                            *CHAPTER XXIII.*
+
+
+Next morning the bishop had an hysteric telegram from Titania.  It was
+obscure and of great length:
+
+"Do not understand anything, but have hopes. Your telegram arrived
+before Augustin’s.  You say normal; he says Robert’s words do not convey
+anything but negation of extreme blackness. Jugpore going back to India,
+owing to scandalous conduct at music-hall.  India Office furious.
+Secretary of State in bed.  Rumour now affirms infant not Penelope’s.
+Says adopted.  Have just seen Plant and Gordon and Carteret Williams,
+and expect the others.  They say they knew it all the time.  Say they
+gave her the infant.  Am confused, but hope you and Augustin will clear
+up details and find Penelope.  Am exceedingly vexed with Robert. De Vere
+has just come, weeps, but seems pleased. Bramber wires wishes to see me,
+but father is ill at Pulborough, doctors (three) giving up hope. Goby
+just left.  Will come to Spilsborough myself to-day if doctor permits,
+owing to palpitations. Keep me informed."
+
+"Dear me!" said the bishop, "this seems quite a new development, a very
+surprising one.  But I am sorry to see, Bradstock, that you sent another
+telegram without consulting me."
+
+"I didn’t want you to give her too much hope," replied Bradstock.  "You
+were so certain.  Your telegram was not logical.  What is not black is
+not necessarily white, for not-black may be green, or blue, or magenta."
+
+"You are a pessimist," said the bishop.  "However, I forgive you.  What
+surprises me is this adoption story.  I don’t believe it."
+
+Bradstock was fractious.
+
+"Well, I don’t know, bishop.  She always said if she had none of her own
+she would adopt one."
+
+"Nonsense!" said the bishop.
+
+"It is not nonsense," said Bradstock.
+
+"Why don’t you say they are twins?" demanded the bishop.
+
+"What are twins?"
+
+"It," said the bishop.  "Really, Bradstock, don’t you see you are
+unreasonable?  You will believe anything."
+
+"And this from a bishop," murmured Bradstock. "Why should I say it was
+twins?"
+
+"If she adopted one, she might adopt two," said the bishop.
+
+"That is ridiculous.  I never heard of twins being adopted," cried
+Bradstock.  "Besides, Bob says ’the baby.’"
+
+"Well, well," said the bishop, "do not let us argue passionately about a
+detail."
+
+"I do not see that twins can be called a detail," said Bradstock,
+crossly.
+
+"Very well, call them what you like," said the bishop, hastily.  "But I
+expect the duchess will be here any moment."
+
+Bradstock said he shouldn’t wonder if she was.
+
+"She will insist on coming with us to-morrow," he said.
+
+The bishop started.
+
+"Bradstock, we will go to-day.  I will put off my business and go at
+once.  The duchess is a remarkable woman, but she talks too much."
+
+And such was his lordship’s energy that they started by train for Boston
+in less than half an hour.
+
+"I rather enjoy this," said the bishop.  "This is an unusual event in a
+life like mine, Bradstock. I wonder whether we shall succeed, and I
+wonder what the young rascal will say when he sees me. He will be rather
+abashed, I fancy."
+
+"Do you fancy that?" asked Bradstock.  "Is imagination necessary, by the
+way, for the clerical or episcopal life?"
+
+"It is highly necessary, but rare," said the bishop.
+
+"So I should imagine," said Bradstock.
+
+"What do you mean by that?" asked the bishop, a little warmly.
+
+Bradstock said he meant nothing by it, except that he was glad it was
+necessary.  Nevertheless, the bishop looked at him sternly for some
+minutes, and he felt rather uncomfortable.
+
+"I should not be surprised if Titania was now at the palace," he said,
+to change the conversation.
+
+"Ridley and my housekeeper must deal with her," said the bishop.
+"Ridley deals with every one calmly.  Kings and curates come equally and
+easily within his powers.  Ridley may most distinctly be called an
+adequate butler.  He will offer her my best spare bedroom, or arrange
+for her sojourn at the Grand.  I do not believe an archbishop in a fit
+would throw Ridley off his balance. I rather wondered whether it would
+disturb him to see me come in with two duelling-swords under my arm upon
+that memorable occasion of the duel, but Ridley was as calm as—as an
+adequate butler. I rejoice in Ridley.  If we fail to-day, I think I will
+ask his advice.  He is a sound and solid thinker.  I hardly think I
+should have been a bishop to-day, but for Ridley.  When I was a vicar of
+St. Mary’s at Ray Pogis, he came to me, then deeply engaged in smashing
+Harnack into dust, and said: ’Sir, the Prime Minister is staying at
+Pogis House.’  I knew if he was at Pogis House, he would attend New
+Pogis church.  The incumbent at New Pogis was one of those men whom it
+would require much courage to make an archdeacon of, and he was under
+great obligations to me.  I spoke to him.  He fell ill most opportunely.
+I preached a sermon which had every appearance of spontaneity, though I
+had spent months upon it, keeping it by me for some such occasion, as it
+dealt with the duties of men in high position, and three months later I
+was offered Spilsborough. But for Ridley, I might still be a vicar.
+This, I believe, Bradstock, is Boston."
+
+They left the train and began to make inquiries just about the time that
+Ridley was dealing with the duchess.  He knew all about her, all about
+the duke, all about Penelope, all about Bradstock, and all about the
+"horde."  He had read all the telegrams, those which were sent and those
+which he had picked out of the bishop’s waste-paper basket.
+
+"Yes, your Grace," said Ridley, "his lordship the bishop was called away
+early with Lord Bradstock on important business.  He wrote a letter
+which his lordship has probably taken away in his pocket, and desired me
+to ask your Grace whether you would prefer to stay here or at the Grand.
+The Grand is comfortable, but this is quiet."
+
+"I will stay here," said the duchess.  "I should like to lie down at
+once."
+
+And when she was comfortable, Ridley cross-examined her maid about
+everything, and was soon on firm ground.
+
+"You may rely on his lordship," said Ridley. "With me at his back, he
+will be an archbishop yet.  No, certainly not.  The baby is not black if
+his lordship says so."
+
+"But they do say she’s not married and it isn’t hers," said the lady’s
+maid, shaking her head. "They say now that she has adopted it."
+
+"When I hear of young ladies adopting infants in obscure parts of the
+country, I know what to think," said Ridley.
+
+"Lord, Mr. Ridley, but I can’t believe it of her," urged the maid.
+
+"I am alleging nothing against her young ladyship," said Ridley.  "She
+states it is hers.  I said that if she stated that she had adopted it, I
+should know what to think.  When she states it, I will tell you what I
+think.  And in the meantime I may say that I expect every one connected
+with this unseemly business to be here shortly.  I am a man of some
+discernment.  This adoption rumour will encourage these poor gentlemen,
+who are all mad, and they will follow her Grace here, or I am a mere
+footman in a poor family and my name’s not Ridley."
+
+It apparently was Ridley, for there was a very loud knock at the door.
+
+"Mr. Ridley, will you see this gentleman?" said the footman, handing the
+butler a card, on which was engraved the name of Leopold Norfolk Gordon.
+"He seems very excited.  I think he’s a Jew."
+
+"A Jew!" said Ridley.
+
+"By the looks of ’im a Jew," said the footman. And her Grace’s maid gave
+them a few details of Mr. Gordon’s career.
+
+"Oh, yes, of course," said Ridley.  "I remember. Let him wait, Johnson.
+He can wait in the little room.  As a Christian, I confess to feeling
+bitter against Jews, especially as I once borrowed money from one."
+
+"This is a very nice one, though," said the lady’s maid, "and Mr. Robert
+is quite fond of him."
+
+"I cannot stomach the idea," said Ridley.  "I thought better of the boy.
+But I suppose I must see what he wants, though I can guess."
+
+He interviewed Gordon in the little room.
+
+"I want to see his lordship the bishop," said Gordon.
+
+"His lordship the bishop is absent on important business, sir," said
+Ridley.  He added to himself, "As the butler of a Christian bishop, I
+object to calling him ’sir;’ but as a butler in the habstract I must."
+
+"Where has he gone?" asked Gordon.  "Do you know?"
+
+"He has gone to look for her young ladyship, sir."
+
+"Ah!  I guessed it!  With Lord Bradstock?"
+
+"Yes, sir, with his lordship."
+
+"Which way has he gone?"
+
+"I don’t think, sir, that I should be justified in mentioning which way,
+sir," said Ridley.
+
+"Oh, yes, you would," said Gordon.  He put his hand in his pocket.
+
+"I do not think so, sir.  At least, I have doubts," said Ridley, with
+modified firmness.
+
+Gordon took out a sovereign and scratched his nose with it.
+
+"Which way?"
+
+"Boston way," said Ridley.  "Thank you, sir. But I do not think you can
+find him or catch him. Could I assist you in any manner, sir?  Things
+are mixed, sir.  Have you heard the news that Mr. Robert sent?"
+
+"What news?" asked Gordon.
+
+"I ’ardly think I should be justified in repeating it, sir," said
+Ridley.
+
+"Oh, yes, you would," said Gordon, as he put his hand in his pocket.
+
+And Ridley told him all about everything. Gordon knew very little beyond
+the fact that Bob had sent a telegram to Bradstock, who had sent it to
+the duchess, who had published it on the wires that the infant was not
+black.  And of course he knew the fresh London rumour that Penelope had
+adopted it.
+
+"Her Grace the Duchess of Goring is now in the palace, sir," said
+Ridley.  "And between you and me, sir, I should not be surprised if all
+the other gentlemen came.  I suppose you heard of the duel, sir?"
+
+"What duel?" asked Gordon.
+
+"I do not think I should be justified in saying which duel, sir," said
+Ridley.
+
+"Oh, yes, you would," said Gordon, thinking that a Christian butler was
+a very expensive person to deal with.  And Ridley told him.
+
+"You’ll send me word to the Grand when his lordship comes back?" said
+Gordon.
+
+"I should hardly be—"
+
+"Of course, you would be," said Gordon.
+
+"Very well, I will, sir," said Ridley.
+
+Gordon went back to the hotel, and Ridley went back to the others.
+
+"He’s not at all bad for a Jew," he said, contemplatively, "not at all
+bad.  I only hope that the Christian gentlemen whom I expect every
+moment will be as reasonable."
+
+Before the evening was over, he interviewed with varying results Mr.
+Rufus Q. Plant, Mr. de Vere, Captain Goby, and Mr. Carteret Williams.
+He knew that Lord Bramber couldn’t come on account of the illness of the
+earl, and he heard that Carew was down with influenza and delirious on
+the subject of Penelope.  He told the others what he thought of them
+all.
+
+"Mr. Plant is a man I should like to meet often," said Ridley.  "I have
+heard people say unpleasant things of Americans.  It may be true that
+they know little of cathedrals.  I myself have heard an American speak
+of our best Norman harches as vurry elegant Gothic.  I have known one
+voluble with hadmiration of a beastly bit of late perpendic’lar. But a
+man may know little of harchitecture and be a very worthy person for all
+that.  This Mr. Plant has ways that I’ve heard described as befitting a
+nobleman.  My own opinion is that very few noblemen have ideas befitting
+an American millionaire.  Dukes are often mean; earls also.  I am
+acquainted with one viscount who is viciously careful.  Mr. Plant is a
+gentleman far above the others, even above Captain Goby, who has a
+generous mind.  Mr. Williams is peculiar, but, for a poor man, not mean.
+His second cousin, Lord Carteret, when I knew him, was as fine an
+open-handed, swearing nobleman as one would wish to meet.  Mr. Austin de
+Vere is peculiar; mad, I think, about dogs especially.  Young Mr. Robert
+told me he collected bulldogs.  He said it with a wink which I did not
+understand.  I wonder where his lordship is now."
+
+His lordship the bishop and Lord Bradstock were both cross.  They had
+drawn Boston blank, and found it too late and too hot to go on to
+Spilsby and Waynfleet and Burgh.
+
+"Well," said the bishop, "we have proved a certain amount.  She isn’t at
+Boston."
+
+"Nor at Windsor or Manchester or Bristol or Plymouth," said Bradstock,
+whose temper was rapidly going.
+
+"I am surprised at you," said the bishop, who felt it necessary not to
+be cross when Bradstock was.  "We have also proved that a yellow car
+comes through here very often, mostly without disastrous results.  She
+is farther north.  We will go to Spilsby to-morrow, I think."
+
+"I think I will stay at home," replied Bradstock, "or at your place, and
+I’ll read theology."
+
+The bishop raised his eyebrows.
+
+"It will do you good, if you can understand it," he said, a little
+tartly.
+
+"I do not expect to understand it," said Bradstock.
+
+"Then why read it?"
+
+"Only to see if the theologians understand it," replied Bradstock.
+
+It was quite evident that events were proving too much for Bradstock.
+It was also evident that Bradstock was proving too much for the bishop.
+
+"As a layman, you had better stick to Paley," said the bishop, tartly.
+"But let us return to Spilsborough.  I own my temper is a little touchy
+to-day, Bradstock."
+
+Bradstock’s heart softened.
+
+"Bishop, I apologize for touching it," he said. "Penelope is rather too
+much for me."
+
+"She is too much for all of us, I fear," said the bishop.
+
+They took the train for home, and, as they moved out of the station, a
+man in the waterproof clothing of a chauffeur came on the platform.  He
+was not wearing goggles.
+
+"Bishop," said Bradstock, "that man is Geordie Smith."
+
+"Do you think he saw us?"
+
+"How do I know?"
+
+"I didn’t ask how you could know.  I only asked what your opinion was,"
+said the bishop.
+
+"My opinion is worthless," said Bradstock.
+
+"Dear me!" said the bishop, blandly.
+
+
+
+
+                            *CHAPTER XXIV.*
+
+
+England was excited, and London was more excited still.  But
+Spilsborough was the most excited of them all.  How it came out, no one
+knew, but the fact that the bishop was hunting for Lady Penelope
+Brading, who was married, who was unmarried, who had an infant which was
+black, which was white, which was adopted, was blazed all over that
+quiet episcopal town.  Dean Briggs was very much annoyed, for the
+cathedral was no longer the centre of interest in the place.  The clergy
+and the choir and the beadles and the tradesmen all discussed Lady
+Penelope.  They stood in knots and fought and wrangled and argued till
+they were metaphorically black in the face.  The lovers were pursued by
+gangs of boys who knew their names, and expected them to fight when they
+met, and followed them around in the hope of making a ring for them.
+All the world was aware that the duchess was at the palace.  As a
+result, every one called there who was on terms with the bishop.  It is
+not at all surprising that rumour ran fast, east and west and south and
+north.  It is not every day that a quiet cathedral town is the centre of
+a vast social cyclone.  Boston and Spalding had their eyes on
+Spilsborough.  Boston knew that the bishop had made an unepiscopal
+visitation there with a white-haired peer.  Spilsby heard of it, and was
+jealous. Spilsby talked of it and began to wonder who the young married
+lady at the Moat House was.  Spilsby wondered slowly.  In Lincolnshire
+things move slowly.  Lincolnshire is not fast.  Folks there are rooted
+to the soil; they consider matters firmly and stolidly.  And of course
+it has to be remembered that they belong to the see of Lincoln and do
+not think very much of Spilsborough.  Spilsborough was all very well, no
+doubt, but Lincoln was older and finer and much more wonderful.
+Nevertheless, though the Lincolnshire folks are slow, they get there at
+last.  It was all very well for Penelope to call herself Mrs. Bramwell.
+The Spilsby people began to see through the matter.  In another month
+they would have solved the problem, and would have given away the
+solution by calling Mrs. Bramwell "Your ladyship."  But this was not to
+be, for when Geordie came back from Boston, he went to Bob at once.
+
+"Mr. Robert, the gaff is pretty nigh blowed," he said, earnestly.
+
+"Is it?" asked Bob.
+
+"Safe as houses," said Geordie.  "I’ve my suspicions that the whole show
+is up the spout, or very nigh up!"
+
+"You don’t say so?" said Bob.
+
+"Blimy, but I do say it," replied Geordie.  "I saw that gaitered josser,
+the bishop, at Boston this very afternoon.  Her ladyship will be spoofed
+and smelt out.  Some one is givin’ the game away.  I don’t trust that
+bishop."
+
+"No more do I," said Bob.  "He’s very mean, Geordie.  He encouraged me
+to follow you so that I could tell them where my cousin was."
+
+"Bah!" said Geordie, "and they call him a bishop!  Her ladyship wishes
+not to be found out, and she sha’n’t be—by a bishop.  I own I don’t
+understand her ladyship’s idea."
+
+"I do," said Bob.  "Suppose some one said you couldn’t do something,
+Geordie, a hundred miles an hour for instance."
+
+Geordie shook his head.
+
+"I’d show ’em!"
+
+"And that you wouldn’t after you said you would."
+
+"I’d show ’em," repeated Geordie.
+
+"And that you shouldn’t?"
+
+"Shouldn’t be damned, beggin’ your pardon, Mr. Robert.  I’d show ’em!"
+
+"That’s my cousin’s idea," said Bob.
+
+"And a dashed good idea, too," said Geordie. "I hate interferin’ folks
+worse than policemen. I’d tell her ladyship about this here bishop.  And
+Lord Bradstock was with him, sir."
+
+"The devil!" said Bob, and he ran to Penelope bawling.
+
+"I say, Pen, you’ll have to go," he roared, bursting into the room where
+Pen was lamenting over her many griefs.  "The bishop is after you.
+Geordie’s seen him and Bradstock, too.  And I feel quite certain that
+all of ’em will be at Spilsborough now."
+
+"I won’t go," sniffed Pen.
+
+"Oh, but you must," said Bob.  "You can’t be caught here now by the
+whole lot."
+
+"I don’t seem to care," said Penelope.
+
+"Oh, what rot!" cried Bob.  "You won’t break down now, Pen, just in the
+middle of the game. I mean in the middle of your idea.  Just think how
+they’ll crow over you and the baby."
+
+That roused Penelope.
+
+"They—they sha’n’t!"
+
+"Well, they will, unless you’ve got the one you are married to here,"
+said Bob.  "Or are you going to tell me who it is?"
+
+Pen snuffled sadly.
+
+"How can I when we’ve q-quarrelled?" she demanded.
+
+"Then we’ll start at once," said Bob.  "I’ll tell Miss Mackarness and
+Tim and all of ’em, and we’ll get your car and mine and we’ll go
+somewhere else."
+
+"But where?" asked Pen.
+
+"What rot!" said Bob.  "You’ve got heaps of houses; any of ’em that are
+deserted.  Upwell Castle will do."
+
+"So it will," said Penelope, helplessly.  "But we can’t go to-day, Bob.
+Baby is always asleep at this hour.  Can’t it be to-morrow?"
+
+Bob shook his head.
+
+"It’s very dangerous, with the bishop on our track," he said; "it’s very
+dangerous.  He’s very determined, except in motor-cars.  In motor-cars,
+going fast, he’s not at all determined.  But out of ’em he’s a terror.
+I’d go to-day."
+
+"No, no, to-morrow," said Penelope, weeping.
+
+And Bob went away.
+
+"I wish Baker was here," he said.  "Baker is quite as determined as the
+bishop, and his advice would be very valuable.  I wish I knew how to
+treat Gordon.  I’m afraid he’ll be angry.  If he’s angry, he may keep my
+money.  Well, I don’t care."
+
+He told Miss Mackarness to pack up, and Miss Mackarness said she would.
+Miss Mackarness remarked that the world was not what she had imagined it
+when she was young.  It had in fact come to an end.  She said she was
+not surprised at anything and never would be again.  She said she had
+never been in a motor-car, but wanted to be in one, because death seemed
+quick and easy in a motor-car. She also said that if she escaped, and
+Lady Penelope was killed, she knew of a good opening in a lunatic asylum
+for a woman without nerves, who could not be surprised, and had been
+accustomed to the ways of the highest society.
+
+"Oh, yes, yes; we’ll be ready," said Miss Mackarness.  And Bob went away
+to instruct Geordie and Timothy Bunting, and he spent the whole
+afternoon, covered with dirty oil, dancing about the two motor-cars,
+while Geordie put them into first-class trim.
+
+"We ain’t going to be run to ground by a bishop," said Bob.
+
+"Not much we ain’t, sir," said Tim.  "I’d sooner go in one of these
+machines, so I would."
+
+It was the first time he had ever said as much, and Geordie paid him a
+compliment from under the car.
+
+"That’s the first sensible remark I’ve ever heard you make, Tim," said
+the concealed chauffeur.
+
+"Thank you," said Timothy.  "I always said you were a good chap,
+Geordie, even if you was wrapped up in muck and grease."  And an idea
+came to Bob.
+
+"I know what I’ll do about Gordon," he said. "I’ll write something about
+this now so’s to show it him afterward."
+
+He wrote:
+
+"Pen is very sad.  I fear she has quarrelled with Gordon.  I’m sure she
+has married Gordon.  I wish she would let me send to him to come, but
+she has sworn me not to.  I think the baby is very like Gordon.  It is
+clever like him, only, being younger, not so clever.  I don’t mind if it
+is Gordon. Gordon has been very kind to me, knowing how poor the family
+is.  I wish I was as clever as he is."
+
+He read it over carefully.
+
+"He’s more jealous of Rivaulx than any one. I’ll put something in about
+him."
+
+He added:
+
+"I think Rivaulx an ass because of balloons."
+
+"That will please Gordon," said Bob, as he stowed his note-book away.
+"But I do wish I knew who it is.  Women are very fond of secrets. They
+seem to like babies and secrets best.  Pen likes both together, and it’s
+very confusing to any one."
+
+They started next morning in the two cars for Upwell Castle, taking the
+whole household.  Bob installed an old villager and his wife as
+caretakers. He had selected them himself on the ground that they seemed
+the stupidest people in the village. Bob was very clever, if not so
+clever as Gordon.
+
+"I think we’ve spoofed ’em, Pen," said Bob.
+
+Penelope hugged her baby and wept.
+
+"Why are you crying?" asked Bob.
+
+"I don’t know," said Penelope.
+
+"Then don’t," said Bob.  "It makes me very uncomfortable."
+
+They devoured space, and Timothy held on to the car and to Miss
+Mackarness.  Miss Mackarness said it altered her ideas.  Tim said it
+didn’t, but then he was very conservative.
+
+"Now, let ’em all come," said Bob.
+
+
+
+
+                             *CHAPTER XXV.*
+
+
+Titania fell on Bradstock’s neck when he came back with the bishop.  She
+very nearly fell on the bishop’s neck, too, which alarmed him very much
+indeed, though he had all that confidence with women which marks the
+celibate clergy, especially when they are beautiful.
+
+"My dear-r Augustin," said Titania, "I came at once.  I felt I had to.
+I felt I must.  There is no sympathy at home for me in my troubles.  The
+duke laughs, laughs in my face, and says Penelope is damn fine sport!"
+
+"Tut, tut!" said the bishop, who was loath to think that dukes could use
+bad language.  "I very much regret to hear it."
+
+Titania waved her hands at large.
+
+"But I do not care.  I am wrapped up in woe, and in Robert.  Where is
+he?  Show me the telegram he sent."
+
+They showed her the telegram.
+
+"Not black!  Oh, Augustin, that might mean anything."
+
+"So it might.  What did I say, bishop?" asked Augustin.
+
+"Nonsense!" said the bishop.  "I do not believe it is even dark.  This
+is all waste of time. Time cannot now be wasted.  This scandal grows.
+Ridley tells me all these unfortunate gentlemen, but Lord Bramber and
+Mr. Carew, are in the town. I have had telegrams from both of those
+asking for information, most excited telegrams. Mr. Carew says he is
+delirious with fever, and I believe him.  Lord Bramber says his father
+is delirious, which I much regret.  I think the son is also delirious,
+though he does not say he is.  He implores me to remember that he is
+entitled to know first where Penelope is, as he is her husband.  This is
+the telegram."
+
+Augustin and Titania read it.
+
+"If we could only believe it," said Titania.
+
+"We cannot," said the bishop.  "Ridley declares they all say the same.
+They also say the infant is an adopted one.  I do not remember, in the
+course of all that wide experience which comes to a country clergyman in
+a place like Ray Pogis, any situation equal to this.  As a bishop with a
+wider experience, I have seen nothing so absurd even in the conduct of
+my clergy, who are indeed hard to beat in stupidity.  I regret we did
+not go on to Waynfleet and Spilsby, Bradstock."
+
+"So do I," said Bradstock, eyeing Titania.
+
+"We will go to-morrow," said the bishop.  "I have an intuition that
+to-morrow we shall find her. I feel sure of it."
+
+"I will come with you," said Titania.  "I must! I must!  I cannot help
+fearing, Augustin, that the very worst may have happened.  I have now no
+confidence whatever in dear, misguided Penelope’s morals.  I do not feel
+sure that the child is not black, or that it is adopted!"
+
+"Good heavens!" said Augustin.
+
+"Good heavens!" echoed the bishop.
+
+"I haven’t," affirmed Titania, dreadfully.  "No such thing has happened
+in our family since the time of Charles the Second, which was lamentable
+but natural, and has long since been forgiven.  I mistrust the general
+attitude of all these men, bishop.  I mistrust it!"
+
+"Certainly they seem in great distress," said the bishop.
+
+Titania rose and looked awful.
+
+"Only upon one supposition can I account for it, bishop.  This is their
+remorse.  They are remorseful.  They have treated her badly, and she has
+fled from them in her shame and will not see them!"
+
+"Ha!" said the bishop, "there is something in that!"
+
+"A great deal in it," boomed Titania, in her deepest tone of tragedy.
+"It explains everything."
+
+But Bradstock said:
+
+"Infernal nonsense, Titania!  Bishop, I am surprised at you.  They can’t
+_all_ be remorseful."
+
+"Why not?" demanded Titania; "why not, Augustin?"
+
+"Of course not," interjected the bishop, hastily.
+
+"Why not, I ask?" repeated the duchess.
+
+"Oh, well, you know," said Bradstock, "when you come to think of it,
+wouldn’t _one_ be enough to be remorseful for having behaved like a
+scoundrel?"
+
+The duchess collapsed.
+
+"Dear me! so it would," she said, weakly. "Now I come to think of it,
+one would be sufficient. Nothing is explained or can be explained till
+we find Penelope."
+
+The same feeling of desperation inspired the lovers in the various
+hotels.  Their hopeless passion grew upon them.  The sense of mystery
+deepened.  They were sorry for Penelope, for the others, for themselves.
+What did she mean by it?  They were all agreed now about the adoption
+theory, though they stuck to it manfully that they were married to her.
+Each one believed the infant was adopted, while he nobly claimed it as
+his own. They were really noble creatures, and showed themselves worthy
+of a better fate.  A peculiar feeling of sympathy grew up among them, as
+it does among the unfortunate who are yet strong enough not to be
+overwhelmed.  They spoke to each other again. Goby took De Vere’s arm
+and walked about with him.
+
+"I wish I could tell you all the truth, old chap," sighed Goby.
+
+"Ah, so do I," said the poet.  "A great passion is a wonderful thing,
+Goby."
+
+"So it is, old chap," said Goby.  "Do you remember the happy days we
+spent in your home when we read Browning and Shelley together, and you
+explained your poems to me?"
+
+Austin de Vere sighed.
+
+"Ah, they were happy days, when my nose peeled on the water and my hands
+were blistered by rowing."
+
+"Do you remember the bulldog?" asked Goby.
+
+"Ah, and the terrier he bit!"
+
+"And the howling retriever?"
+
+"And the bald, bronchitic Borzois," said De Vere, with enthusiasm.  "I
+bought them all of Bob because she loved him."
+
+"I didn’t like you then, Austin, old chap," said Goby.
+
+Austin gripped his arm.
+
+"Plantagenet, we will be friends always.  Now I can confess that I
+loathed you.  I told Bradstock so.  I said you were an ass."
+
+"So I am," said poor Goby.  "I admit now I can’t understand Browning."
+
+Austin looked about him:
+
+"My dear chap, no more do I," he said, in an alarmed whisper.  "He’s a
+much overrated man."
+
+"I never overrated him myself," said Goby, sagely.  "Look here, Austin.
+You know, of course, that I’m married to Penelope?"
+
+"Of course," said Austin.  "And you know that I am?"
+
+"We’ll quarrel about nothing now.  To-morrow we’ll look for her.
+Ridley, the bishop’s butler, told me Bradstock and the bishop were going
+to Spilsby to-morrow.  I gave him a sovereign."
+
+"So did I," said Austin.  "Let’s go in to dinner.  I’m glad we are
+friends, Plantagenet."
+
+"So am I, old chap," said Goby.
+
+At a near table to them were Rivaulx and Gordon. Farther off Plant was
+with Carteret Williams. Plant regretted that Bramber wasn’t there.
+Williams sighed for the artistic company of the delirious Carew.  Not
+one look of envy or hatred or malice passed between any of them.
+
+"Marquis," said Gordon, gloomily, "will you come to-morrow with me to
+find my—I mean, Penelope?"
+
+"I will, my dear Gordon," replied the marquis. "To Spilsby."
+
+"How did you know?"
+
+"Ridley, the bishop’s man, said it."
+
+"He told me, too.  I gave him five pounds," said Gordon.
+
+"I gave him four."
+
+"I’ll bet he’s told ’em all," said Gordon.  "I say, marquis, those were
+jolly, happy days before this misery came on, when you and I dined
+together."
+
+"And went up in balloons," said the marquis.
+
+Gordon shook his head.
+
+"Well, yes, even the balloons.  Do you know, marquis, I hated you then.
+I don’t now.  I think you a real good chap."
+
+The marquis held out his hand, and Gordon shook it.
+
+"Gordon, I used to despise you.  It was a great trial to dine with you.
+I’m glad I did it now.  I’m a wiser, better man for the trials.  I see
+that Jews can be noble by nature just as they can be barons by creation.
+I finally absolve Dreyfus.  I almost love you now!"
+
+"Good old marquis," said Gordon.  "When we get up to town, I’ll put you
+on the betht thing in the market.  I will, so help me!"
+
+Carteret Williams and Plant got on well together. They talked first of
+Bramber and Carew.
+
+"Carew’s all right," said Williams; "all right for an artist.  I was in
+the Ashanti war with an artist once.  I put his head in a bucket of
+water!"
+
+"Why?" asked Plant.
+
+"Because he was too drunk to draw," said Williams.  "He hated me when he
+got sober, and caricatured me.  I never liked artists afterward.  But
+when Penelope put me into harness with Carew, I found there was good
+stuff in him.  He could work.  He talked awful rot, but there was
+something at the back of it.  I had to own it.  How did you get on with
+Bramber?"
+
+"I thought him a damn fool," said Plant.  "But I found out he wasn’t.
+There’s stuff in Bramber. My—I mean, Penelope knew that.  I say, as he
+isn’t here, poor chap, will you come to Spilsby with me to-morrow?"
+
+Williams started.
+
+"How did you come to think of Spilsby?" he asked, suspiciously.
+
+"The bishop’s butler told me.  I gave him five pounds," said Plant.
+
+"I gave him two," said Williams.  "Yes, I’ll go with you, as Carew isn’t
+here.  I like Carew now.  Poor Carew!"
+
+"And I like Bramber, poor chap," said Plant. "And now I’ll go and shake
+hands with the marquis, who wanted to kill me last time I was here."
+
+"I wish I’d seen that," said Williams, simply. "I like seeing fights!"
+
+They spent a happy evening together and talked of Bob.  Austin was great
+upon Bob.  And so was Gordon.  Austin told them all about the dogs. Goby
+spoke about the spavined pony he had bought. Gordon told them how Bob
+had borrowed a hundred pounds of him to be put into something.
+
+"I owe him fifty thousand pounds, at least," said Gordon.  "The boy is a
+financier.  I wish I had a boy like Bob."
+
+And just then Carew walked into the room.  He looked ill, but was as
+handsome as paint.  Williams jumped to his feet.
+
+"Oh, Jimmy, I heard you were delirious," he said, anxiously.
+
+"I was," said Jimmy, "very delirious, extraordinarily so.  I’m not sure
+that I’m not delirious now."
+
+He looked around the room anxiously, and drew Williams into a corner.
+
+"Do you know anything about delirium?" he asked, anxiously.
+
+"A lot about delirium tremens," said Williams. "Most of the artists I’ve
+been with in Africa had it.  They said it was malaria.  But have you
+been drinking?"
+
+Carew shook his head.
+
+"Not much, but I see the room is full of ’em!"
+
+"Full of what?"
+
+"Things, visions, phantasms!" said Jimmy, creepily.  Williams looked
+around in alarm.
+
+"You don’t say so!"
+
+"Yes," said Jimmy.  "This influenza is awful! I could swear I see the
+marquis and Gordon and that ass Goby and De Vere!"
+
+"Pull yourself together," said Williams. "They’re here all right!"
+
+"Are they real?" asked Jimmy.  "They’re not delusions?"
+
+"Devil a bit!" said Williams.
+
+"Oh," said Jimmy, "then I think I’ll have some brandy.  What are they
+doing here?"
+
+[Illustration: JIMMY CAREW, A.R.A. He was the best looking of the whole
+"horde"]
+
+"What are we doing here?" asked Williams. "We’re mad!  Oh, but, Jimmy,
+I’m dashed glad to see you," said Williams, with a lurid string of
+emphatic war expressions.  "Those were happy days when I learnt about
+art with you, and you learnt about life with me!"
+
+"They were," said Jimmy.  "But now I’m almost sick of art."
+
+Williams implored him not to say so.
+
+"Think of Rembrandt and Velasquez and Whistler!"
+
+"I can’t think of them.  I think of Penelope!"
+
+"Try to think of Monet and Manet," said Williams.  "They’ll do you
+good."
+
+"To be sure, to be sure," sighed Jimmy.  "I’ll try to."
+
+They talked till two in the morning, and the only man missing was
+Bramber.
+
+"Perhaps he’s chucked it," said Williams.  "The last time I saw him he
+looked sick enough to chuck anything.  But I suppose the old earl is so
+rocky he can’t get away."
+
+"I hate earls," said Jimmy, jealously.  He added with extraordinary
+irrelevance, "But I’m glad she adopted him."
+
+No doubt he referred to the infant.
+
+
+
+
+                            *CHAPTER XXVI.*
+
+
+While Pen and Bob and the baby were going as fast as they could toward
+Upwell Castle, Pen wept at intervals and hugged the child that all the
+"horde" were glad she had adopted.
+
+"My only darling," said Pen, convulsively.
+
+Bob shook his head.
+
+"I say, Pen, I really don’t understand you, you know!  I say, this is
+rot!  You mustn’t cry; I can’t stand it.  And you keep on saying it’s
+your only one in a very silly way.  You irritate me very much, Pen!"
+
+"Why, Bob?" asked the desolate creature at his side.
+
+"You could stop all this if you wanted to!"
+
+"Not now," said Pen, "since we’ve quarrelled!"
+
+"Rot!" said Bob.  "You tell me who it is and I’ll bring him along.  But
+I’m glad it isn’t Timothy, you know."
+
+Timothy was now with Geordie in the other car.
+
+"I can’t tell you," said Pen.
+
+"Then don’t snivel, please," said Bob, crossly, "or I shall drive into
+something and kill the baby."
+
+"Oh!" said Pen, "oh, please don’t!"
+
+"I think it’s very hard lines," said Bob, "especially as Geordie and Tim
+know, and Miss Mackarness.  If they know, I ought to."
+
+"I had to tell them, Bob.  Besides, they knew him," said the incautious
+Pen.
+
+Bob’s eyebrows lifted, and he drove rather fast down the next straight
+bit of road.
+
+"I say," he said to himself, "I ought to make something of that."
+
+He thought very hard and did not speak for a mile.  He thought all the
+more.
+
+"Tim knows ’em all, of course.  And Geordie may, though I remember his
+saying he didn’t. But who does Miss Mackarness know?  If I can spot
+that, I can spot the winner."
+
+He went back to the time of Pen’s youth, which he only knew by hearsay,
+as he wasn’t much more than born then, and went through the list one by
+one.
+
+"By Jove!" he said, suddenly, and Penelope started.
+
+"Yes, Bob."
+
+"No," said Bob, thoughtfully; "no, I’m not sure."
+
+"What aren’t you sure of, dear?"
+
+"Him," said Bob, and Penelope sighed.
+
+After another mile’s silence, Bob spoke again.
+
+"By Jove!"
+
+"You said that before," cried Pen, irritably. He turned his eyes upon
+her, and she saw them full of strange intelligence.
+
+"Oh, what is it?" she asked, in alarm.
+
+Bob shook his head.
+
+"You’ve told me who it is," he said.
+
+"I haven’t."
+
+"You have," said Bob.  "Pen, you’re a wonder! I say, are all girls like
+you?"
+
+Penelope said she didn’t know, and demanded his meaning.
+
+"If they are, they’re interesting but trying," said Bob.  "You couldn’t
+have made more fuss about it if it had been Bunting.  Pen, you are a
+wonder.  Well, I don’t mind; I like him well enough.  He’s all right.  I
+hope Bill will like him."
+
+"You are an annoying, irritating boy," said Pen, crossly.  "And you know
+nothing."
+
+"Bar him and Miss Mackarness and Timothy and Smith, I’m the only one
+that does," said Bob, drily.  "I know you, Pen.  You were ashamed of
+him, after all you used to say.  All right, don’t get angry.  I’m all
+right.  I’ll keep it dark till you say pull up the blinds.  It’s not my
+business.  But I’m glad I know.  For granny doesn’t, and no one has
+guessed, not even Baker.  And he’s had great experience with girls in
+all parts of the world, just as he has had with dogs."
+
+Pen wept.
+
+"You are saying all this to worry me.  How can you know?" she cried.
+
+"I’ll tell you some day," said Bob.  "But because you haven’t told me
+yourself, and have made me find out, I won’t tell you who it is till I
+want to.  But one thing I’ll say, I don’t think your brother Bill really
+likes him."
+
+He whistled and let the car out till she fairly hummed.  Pen was
+exceedingly cross, and hugged the baby, hoping that they would both be
+killed at once.
+
+"I don’t know what’s going to happen," she said.  "I’ve done my best,
+and nothing but trouble comes of it.  If I had to begin again, I don’t
+think I’d try to reform anything.  I—I hate reform!"
+
+In the meantime Miss Mackarness’s ideas got sadly altered.  She did not
+mind dying at first, but when Bob really went fast, it seemed to her
+that she loved life better than she thought.
+
+"If I am to die," she said, "I would rather die in my bed, much rather.
+I want peace, and my dear lady gives me none.  This young wretch is no
+better than a murderer.  He laughs.  I can’t laugh. I can’t even speak.
+The wind stops my screaming. I want to get out and die quietly."
+
+They pulled up close to a village to let a wagon loaded with long
+timbers get into a side road.  Miss Mackarness seized her chance, and,
+opening the door, jumped to the ground.
+
+"If you please, my lady, I’m going no farther. I will come on later in a
+cart."
+
+Penelope remonstrated with her.  Bob was urgent and impatient.
+
+"We may be caught any minute," he said. "Pen, let her come on in a
+cart."
+
+"If you prefer it," said Penelope.
+
+"My lady, I much prefer it," said the housekeeper.
+
+Bob let the car go, and Geordie, coming on behind, pulled up to
+interview Miss Mackarness.
+
+"Sooner than go in one a mile farther," she said, firmly, "I would lie
+down and die."
+
+"That’s silly, ma’am," said Geordie.
+
+"I would rather live silly than die wise," replied Miss Mackarness.  "I
+may be used to much and past surprises, but I can’t stomach these cars."
+
+They left her in the road.  And now they drove fast, for Bob set the
+pace, and made it a rapid one.
+
+"I say, Geordie," said Timothy, about twenty miles farther on, "don’t
+you think you could go slower?"
+
+"How can I, with the other car ahead, man?" demanded Geordie.
+
+"Well, I feels queer inside," said poor Timothy. "I’d rather ride a
+bucking man-eater than go another yard.  Set me down!"
+
+"Not me," said Geordie.  "Be a man, Tim!"
+
+"I won’t," said Tim.  "Set me down.  I’ll walk."
+
+"Or come on in a cart," sneered Geordie. "Why, Mary here don’t mind, do
+you, Mary?"
+
+Mary did mind, but she adored Geordie, and said she didn’t.  She
+preferred to die with Geordie than to ride with Miss Mackarness in a
+cart.
+
+"I don’t care," said Tim; "if Mary wants to die in a blazin’ fiery mass
+of petrol under a wreck, I don’t.  Let me down."
+
+And Geordie let him down.
+
+"A mad bull sooner," said Tim.  "And, though I ’ates walkin’, bein’ a
+groom, I’d rather walk to hell than motor into paradise."
+
+But peace was established in the cars by now. Geordie and Mary sat side
+by side, and whenever the pace was hot, she grabbed him so tightly that
+he remonstrated.
+
+"My dear, I’d rather you hugged me when we go slow," he said at last.
+
+"Lor’, Mr. Smith, I wasn’t huggin’ you," remonstrated the blushing Mary.
+
+"To an outsider it would appear so," said Geordie.  "When a young lady
+puts her arms around a man’s neck, it looks like huggin’.  Mind I don’t
+say I object, but I _might_ run into the hedge."
+
+"What a very amusin’ gentleman you are," said Mary.  "I’ve a very small
+opinion of Mr. Bunting except upon an ’orse.  I’m surprised he preferred
+to walk."
+
+"I’m not," said Geordie.  "I expected it, and if we went really fast,
+you’d want to walk."
+
+"Never," said Mary.  "I love goin’ fast.  There’s great po’try in a
+motor-car, Mr. Smith."
+
+"Poetry, well, maybe," said Geordie.  "To my mind, there’s more
+machinery and oil.  I wonder what the next thing will be with my lady,
+Mary."
+
+"Ah," said Mary, "that’s more than I can say. She’s very sweet and kind,
+but I’ve give up tryin’ to understand ’er.  And such an ’usband, too.
+If I ’ad an ’usband, I’d like to show ’im off, if I was proud of ’im,
+and I would."
+
+"Would you be?" asked Geordie.
+
+"I ’ope so," said Mary.
+
+"I guess you’d expect him to do what you wanted, like my lady," said
+Geordie.
+
+"Oh, no, never," said Mary.  "I’d do hexactly as I was told by ’im I
+loved.  I don’t believe in a woman ’angin’ on a man and tellin’ ’im to
+do this or that!"
+
+And just then a mighty fine stretch of road opened before them, and Bob,
+half a mile in front, turned his car loose at the top speed.  Geordie
+put his on the third, and Mary squealed.
+
+"Hush your row, my dear," said Geordie. "Why, bless me, what’s the
+matter with the girl!"
+
+She had him tight by the neck.
+
+"Oh, I’m frightened, Mr. Smith.  Don’t go so fast," she screamed.
+
+"Lemme go," gasped Geordie, whom she was nearly strangling.  "Lemme go,
+girl!"
+
+"Never, never!" said Mary, settling on him tighter still.  "Stop, stop!"
+
+"I won’t," said Geordie.  "D’ye think I’ll let that young un get away
+from me?"
+
+"You must," screamed Mary, "or I’ll get out."
+
+"Then get out," said Geordie, rudely.
+
+"Oh, you cruel, cruel Mr. Smith!" wailed Mary. "Let me down before I’m
+killed."
+
+Geordie wrenched himself free.
+
+"D’ye mean it?" he asked.
+
+"Yes, you brute!" said Mary, "I does mean it."
+
+He put her down there and then.
+
+"You’re no gentleman," said Mary.
+
+"I never said I was," retorted Geordie, with his eyes on the vanishing
+Bob.
+
+"And I hate you, you coward," sobbed Mary.
+
+"There’s a village a mile up the road," said Geordie.  And he left her,
+disappearing in a whirlwind.
+
+"Oh, I’m a sad, des’late, disappinted, jilted woman, with thin shoes and
+three and tuppence in my pocket," said Mary.  "And I don’t know where I
+am!"
+
+She sat on a pile of road metal and cried bitterly. She took it much
+harder than the bishop did in a similar situation.
+
+"Well, it can’t be helped," said Geordie, "and I don’t know that I’m
+sorry.  She’d have proposed if I’d kept her at the second speed, I know
+that; so perhaps I’m well out of it."
+
+He whirled after Bob and his lady, and soon caught them up.
+
+There was peace on that car, too, for Bob hadn’t been able to keep his
+discovery to himself.
+
+"Yes, you’re right, Bob," sighed Penelope. "But what could I do after
+what I’d said?  And what can I do now?"
+
+"Cheer up!" said Bob.  "I’ll fix it for you somehow.  Do you know, Pen,
+I begin to think that after all women aren’t as difficult to understand
+as Baker says."
+
+They came to Upwell in the early afternoon, and were ignorant that the
+world was on their track. Bob sent a telegram to "Mr. Bramwell" as soon
+as they got there.
+
+
+
+
+                            *CHAPTER XXVII.*
+
+
+The bishop was excited.  There is no doubt about it.  Nor is it any
+wonder, for the sporting element exists even on the episcopal bench, and
+the hunting of Penelope was peculiar and choice sport. The clergy of his
+diocese were moderately tame, and when he pointed his episcopal gun at
+them, they said they would come down, just as the celebrated squirrel
+did when Colonel Crockett raised his weapon.  Not for a long time had he
+felt so pleased with himself.  He was quite certain that Penelope was to
+be run to earth in the neighbourhood of Spilsby, and, when he had found
+her, he proposed to speak to her like a father.
+
+"I shall certainly suggest a religious ceremony in the cathedral," he
+said, blandly.  "Oh, yes, I shall insist on it."
+
+"You’ll do what?" asked Bradstock, who was with him and the duchess in
+the early train to Spilsby.  "You’ll do what?"
+
+The bishop rubbed his hands.
+
+"As the one who christened her, I shall insist on a religious ceremony,"
+he replied.
+
+"Will you?" asked Bradstock.
+
+"To be sure I shall," said the bishop.
+
+"Did you ever hear of Mrs. Partington?" asked Bradstock, "or of King
+Canute, or of any other celebrated character in history or fiction whose
+insistence did not come off?"
+
+"I scarcely understand you, Bradstock," said the bishop, with dignity.
+"I can hardly imagine that you mean to hint, not altogether obscurely,
+that Lady Penelope will treat any suggestion of mine with disrespect."
+
+Bradstock intimated that that was what he did mean, and Titania, who had
+got up too early and felt like it, said that she expected nothing from
+Penelope now but the worst.
+
+"I don’t know why I am here, or why I am going there," she said.  "I
+cannot imagine why any of us are doing anything but hiding our disgraced
+heads in the remoter parts of the country, while Penelope flaunts a
+black, adopted, illegitimate child in some peculiar part of
+Lincolnshire, while she is being chased on motor-cars by remorseful
+scoundrels, of whom I saw about a dozen as we left Spilsborough.  Little
+did I think that I should be running after her with Augustin and you,
+bishop, while the duke stays at Goring saying she is sport, and Robert
+is with her when he ought to be at home with Mr. Guthrie learning to
+spell.  And as a result of Penelope’s being away like this, that
+disgraceful Chloe Cadwallader, of whom I shall always have the lowest
+opinion, is living in her house in Piccadilly, and I dare say spending
+her money right and left.  The marchioness said she knew, on the highest
+authority, that this was so.  The marchioness always goes on the
+principle of believing the worst, though, of course, she hopes the best.
+I hope the best for Penelope, but I’m sure the worst is before us.  I’m
+sure of it."
+
+The bishop asked her to cheer up, and Augustin stroked her hand to calm
+her.  But nothing calmed or cheered her.
+
+"I am calm," she said.  "I am even peaceful. What can be worse than the
+worst?  I am cheerful, for I believe there is a better world than this,
+in which even a duchess may find some kind of rest on the highest
+authority.  I shall be glad to go there, and leave you all."
+
+"Don’t say so," said Augustin.
+
+"I do say so," said the duchess.  "I say it firmly and with faith.  You
+don’t dare to deny there is a better world than this, Augustin?"
+
+"Certainly not, in the presence of the bishop," replied Augustin.
+"Though, in looking out of the windows, I should not be surprised to
+learn that there is a more exciting spot than Spilsby."
+
+For they had arrived.
+
+"_I_ will make inquiries," said the bishop, "while you look after the
+duchess in the waiting-room. I see that my wishes have been attended to.
+I telegraphed for a carriage to be in attendance, and it is in
+attendance.  I will speak with the driver."
+
+He spoke to the driver, who was much intimidated by the apron and the
+gaiters of the clerical dignitary.
+
+"This is the carriage I ordered, I think," said the bishop.  "I want to
+drive to—to Lady Penelope Brading’s house.  Do you know it?"
+
+"No, sir," said the driver.  "I never heard owt of it, sir."
+
+"Dear me, dear me!" said the bishop.  "Well, well!  But that is easily
+explicable, my good man, for my young friend is in the peculiar position
+of having several names.  This is rare; yes, rare I admit, but not
+altogether so very rare.  Can you tell me if there is any one lately
+come to this neighbourhood known, let us say, as Mrs.—Mrs. Plant, for
+instance?"
+
+"No, sir, there be not as I knows," said the driver.
+
+"Or Mrs. Gordon, shall I say?"
+
+The driver scratched his head.
+
+"I never heard of her," he replied.
+
+"How remarkable," said the bishop, smiling. "But I am not surprised.
+Indeed, in this last case I am almost gratified, though I withhold my
+reasons for saying so.  Are you then acquainted with any one called De
+Vere?  No; or with a Mrs. Carteret Williams?"
+
+Light dawned in the driver’s face at last. "Mrs. Williams!  Ay, sure
+enif.  She do sell sweets and tobacco."
+
+"Indeed," said the bishop, "indeed, how remarkable! But I don’t think
+she will do.  Have you heard of a Mrs. Rivaulx or a Mrs. Goby?  Perhaps
+I surprise you in this part of Lincolnshire, but in London it is not at
+all uncommon for married ladies to have several names, not at all
+uncommon."
+
+"No, sir, I never heard o’ none of ’em," returned the driver, thinking
+that this gentleman talked most remarkable "cat-blash."
+
+"Good heavens!" said the bishop, "this new custom is trying.  Do you
+then know a Mrs. Carew or Mrs. Bramber?"
+
+Again the man scratched his head and shook it. What did this strange
+person in gaiters mean?
+
+"Oh! ah!" he said at last.  "There be a Mrs. Bramwell at the Moat
+House."
+
+"Indeed," said the bishop.  "Perhaps that may be the lady.  At the Moat
+House!  Do you know Mr. Bramwell?"
+
+"I’ve seen un," said the driver.
+
+"What is he like?" asked the bishop.  "Is he fair or dark, or tall or
+short?"
+
+"He’s fairish to dark and betwixt and between," said the driver, wishing
+to be accurate, "and mostly goes in big spectacles in his engine."
+
+"Ha!" said the bishop, "we are on the scent! And what is Mrs. Bramwell
+like?"
+
+"She do mostly go in the engine with specs on, too, sir.  But my wife do
+say she be a very fine woman."
+
+The bishop nodded.
+
+"I think you may drive us to the Moat House," he said.  "I will bring my
+friends out."
+
+He rubbed his hands and congratulated himself on the skill with which he
+had discovered the object of his search.
+
+"I really believe I have found her," he said, when he entered the
+waiting-room.  "I really believe it."
+
+"No!" said the duchess.
+
+"Yes," said the bishop.  "By a series of skilful questions and the
+exercise of a little pardonable deceit, I have learnt that there is a
+Mrs. Bramwell here, who is said to be a very fine woman, and goes out in
+goggles in a motor-car with her husband, who is fairish to dark and tall
+and short and also wears goggles."
+
+Augustin nodded.
+
+"This looks like—something," he said, hopefully. "Bramwell!  Perhaps
+really Bramber, Titania."
+
+"No, no," said Titania.  "I expect disaster.  I anticipate the Jew or
+Williams."
+
+"But Bramwell—the first syllable being Bram," suggested the bishop.
+
+"I cannot build on Bram," said the duchess. "We are an unfortunate
+family.  Lord Bramber may be an earl at any minute, and she has married
+a coal-heaver, of course!  Let us go at once."
+
+When they got into the carriage, the bishop told the man to drive to the
+Moat House.
+
+"Did you say Moat House?" asked the duchess.
+
+"I did," replied the bishop.
+
+"Augustin, do you remember that Penelope’s mother loved houses with
+moats?  I think the bishop may be right.  I tremble with nervousness."
+
+She had more reason to tremble in a moment, for a big motor-car shaved
+them and scared the horse.
+
+"Perhaps—" she cried.
+
+"No," said Augustin, "it’s Plant and Williams and Carew!"
+
+The duchess gasped.  And before she could say another word, another car
+swept by them.
+
+"Perhaps—" she cried.
+
+"No," said the bishop; "in spite of goggles, I recognize the marquis and
+Mr. Gordon and Mr. Austin de Vere.  This is very remarkable, and not a
+little annoying.  We shall all descend upon Penelope at once, and I fear
+it will somewhat disturb her.  I should have much preferred to see her
+quietly in order to bring her to a just sense of her peculiar, and our
+painful, position."
+
+When they got to the house, they found all the lovers but Bramber
+assembled at the gates.  If it hadn’t been for the illness of the Earl
+of Pulborough, he would have been there, they knew.
+
+"Oh, which is it?" moaned Titania.  "They all said they were married to
+her, and I know it’s none of ’em."
+
+The bishop greeted the crowd in the most courteous manner.  He shook
+hands with those he knew, and bowed to those he hoped to know.
+
+"I think, gentleman, that, with your permission, I will go in first and
+see Lady Penelope before any one else does."
+
+And while he went up the carriage drive, Titania glared at the lovers.
+
+"Don’t look at ’em like that, Titania," said Augustin.
+
+"Like what, Augustin?"
+
+"Like a Gorgon, Titania," said Augustin.
+
+"I look as I feel," said Titania.  "I hate them all.  I shall not be
+able to restrain myself when I see Penelope.  I shall shake her.  I
+shall say what I think.  No, I won’t be wise, Augustin!  I decline to be
+wise.  I am full of bitterness.  From her earliest youth, she has been a
+thorn.  And it is your fault; you encouraged her in reform, in
+anarchism. Don’t speak to me!  I shall explode!"
+
+And Augustin got out just as the bishop rang the door-bell across the
+moat.  Instead of the kind of servant he expected to see, he was greeted
+by a bent old woman, whose chief glory was her rheumatism, though her
+claim on Bob had been her stupidity.
+
+"Is Mrs. Bramwell at home?" asked the bishop, with a beaming smile.
+
+"Naw," said the old lady, not beaming in the least.
+
+"No?  Then when will she be back?"
+
+"I don’t know," replied the caretaker.
+
+"You don’t know!  Will it be soon?"
+
+"She never said," snarled the old lady.
+
+"Did she go early?"
+
+"Maybe an hour ago, maybe two."
+
+"Will she be back late?"
+
+"Eh?  I’m ’ard of ’earin’."
+
+"Will she be back late?" roared the bishop.
+
+"She didn’t say."
+
+"What did she say, then?"
+
+"Nothin’ as I knows of."
+
+"Where did she go, my good woman?"
+
+"She didn’t say."
+
+"Dear me, how vexing!" said the bishop.
+
+"I’m ’ard of ’earin’, I tell ye," said the old dame.
+
+"Who went with her?"
+
+"All of ’em, so I ’eard."
+
+"Who were they?" asked the desperate bishop.
+
+"All as was ’ere.  There ain’t one left."
+
+"Was a boy with her?"
+
+"To be sure, a young gentleman as fetched me ’ere, and give me a
+shillin’."
+
+"What was his name?"
+
+"’E didn’t say," said the old woman, and the bishop wiped his fevered
+brow and tried again.
+
+"Was Mr. Bramwell with her?"
+
+"I never seed un."
+
+"How did they go?"
+
+"In two engines."
+
+"Ha!" sighed the bishop, "in two motor-cars."
+
+"Likely."
+
+"Will they be back to-night?"
+
+"I ’ope not," said the woman.
+
+"Why do you hope not?" asked the wretched bishop.
+
+"Because of fifteen bob a week, to be sure."
+
+"Then Mrs. Bramwell has gone, has left?"
+
+"Ain’t I been sayin’ so this last hour?" asked the exasperated old
+person.  "Me, with rheumatics, standin’ on cold stones for hours arglin’
+that she and all have gone in engines!"
+
+"Good heavens!" said the bishop, "she has escaped!  She has eluded us!
+She has kept her word and has fled!  This is remarkable; it is annoying.
+I feel nearer losing my temper than I have done with any one but the
+dean for the last ten years. I must go back and tell them."
+
+He went back to the gate.
+
+"Is it—" they cried.
+
+"This is her house," said the bishop, who looked rather flushed, "but I
+have discovered by a series of skilfully devised questions that she is
+no longer here.  Duchess, Lord Bradstock, marquis, and gentlemen, she
+went away this morning in two motorcars with all her household, leaving
+behind her no one but a caretaker who, in my humble opinion, ought to be
+taken care of in an idiot asylum!"
+
+The duchess sighed.
+
+"Then she has kept her word!  Finding out that we are still pursuing
+her, she has fled from us. Oh, I think it wicked of her, wicked to all
+of us. When I get hold of Robert, I shall take steps to show him what I
+think of him.  Do you give it up, bishop?"
+
+The bishop’s eyes flashed with indignation.
+
+"Never!" he said.  "I propose that we pursue her at once.  She cannot
+have thought we should be here so soon.  If we find out which road she
+took, we may yet overtake her."
+
+"In what?" asked Bradstock, with his hand on the ramshackle landau the
+duchess sat in.  "In this conveyance, for instance?"
+
+The bishop looked at the two big motor-cars, and at their wretched
+owners, Plant and Rivaulx.
+
+"Taking my courage in both hands," he said, bravely, "I propose that we
+lose no time.  _I_ will go in this car with the marquis, if he will take
+me."
+
+The marquis said through his clenched teeth that he would.
+
+"Bradstock, you will escort the duchess back to Spilsborough."
+
+"Certainly not," said the duchess.  "I am coming, too.  I must and I
+will.  Whatever the condition of Penelope may now be, it is my duty.  I
+come with you!"
+
+"And so do I," said Bradstock.
+
+They packed themselves in the cars, and moved away from the deserted
+house of the moat.  In the village they soon discovered that "Mrs.
+Bramwell" had gone northwest by the road to Horncastle, and a moment
+later the bishop said, "Oh!" as Rivaulx fairly launched his car into
+space.  Even Bradstock in Plant’s car said something, and the duchess,
+losing the repose which stamps all duchesses the moment they become
+duchesses, uttered a scream. Gordon consoled the bishop, being very much
+pleased to find himself with one, by saying that he had been in a
+balloon with Rivaulx, and found him careful and very trustworthy.
+
+"I do not think any one who goes in a balloon," gasped his lordship,
+"can properly be described by any such terms."
+
+Williams said he didn’t care if he was killed, as soon as Penelope had
+acknowledged she was married to him.  Gordon, who was desperately scared
+of Williams, said nothing, but gave the bishop to understand by signs
+that the war correspondent was mad.  Carew, who was still suffering from
+influenza, sat in his corner and wept at intervals.
+
+In Plant’s car the duchess and Goby and De Vere got on admirably.
+Bradstock sat by Plant and prepared to die.  The duchess held Captain
+Goby’s hand.  De Vere said some poetry before the speed was very great.
+Afterward he said his prayers, and wished he was at home with his
+bulldogs.
+
+"What does anything matter?" he asked, as he clutched Goby’s offside.
+
+And all of a sudden Rivaulx’s motor pulled up so quickly that the bishop
+was nearly precipitated upon the road.  A scared, oldish woman in
+respectable and sub-freak garments had done her best to get run over.
+Rivaulx swore terrible French oaths, and the bishop, who knew French far
+better than he dared acknowledge except in a literary conversation on
+Rabelais or _argot_, sympathized with him in awestruck silence.
+
+"You accursed old lady!  Why?" demanded Rivaulx.
+
+"Hush, hush!" said the bishop, and, leaning from the car, he said: "It
+is all right, my good woman.  I hope we have not alarmed you."
+
+Miss Mackarness said they had.  It was very hard to have got out of one
+car and then to be almost killed by another.  Then the car behind came
+up, and the duchess looked at the lady who had given her a little
+respite.  The duchess absolutely screamed again.
+
+"Augustin, it is Miss Mackarness!  I remember her well!"
+
+"Who the deuce is Miss Mackarness?" grumbled Bradstock.
+
+But Titania paid no attention to him.  Her eyes brightened.  She became
+clever all at once.
+
+"I remember," she said, "I remember!"
+
+She called to the stranger in the road.
+
+"I am so pleased to see you again after such a long time, Miss
+Mackarness," she said, kindly. "Are you still at Upwell Castle?"
+
+"I’m going there now, ma’am," said the housekeeper, who didn’t recognize
+her Grace.
+
+"Are you walking?" asked Titania, kindly. "It is a long way to walk.
+You don’t remember me, I see."
+
+"No, ma’am," said Miss Mackarness.
+
+"I am the Duchess of Goring," said Titania.
+
+"Oh, your Grace!  I beg your Grace’s pardon, but, of course, you are,"
+gasped Miss Mackarness.
+
+"And I am going to Upwell now to see my niece."
+
+Miss Mackarness gasped again and could not speak.
+
+"To see Mrs. Bramwell, you know," said Titania, sweetly.  "Of course,
+_I_ know all about it, Miss Mackarness."
+
+"To be sure, your Grace," replied her victim, not knowing what to do or
+say.
+
+"Then _good_-bye," said the duchess.  "I hope you will enjoy your walk,
+Miss Mackarness.  It’s such pleasant weather for a walk."
+
+They left the poor woman in the middle of the road, an easy victim to
+the slowest vehicle in the county.
+
+"Oh, I’ve done wrong, I know!" said Pen’s housekeeper.  "What shall I do
+now?"
+
+"I said that on purpose," said Titania, viciously. "She has known all
+along, and ought to have told me.  But now we know all about it,
+Augustin!"
+
+"What about ’Mr. Bramwell’?" asked Augustin. Goby and De Vere turned
+pale, and the duchess threw up her hands.
+
+"I might have asked her!" she cried.
+
+"Captain Goby looked at her severely," said Augustin, "and so did De
+Vere."
+
+Goby and De Vere denied it.
+
+"Never mind," said the duchess, "this time she can’t escape.  We are on
+the track."
+
+They passed a man a few miles farther on, and only Augustin noticed him.
+
+"You are right, Titania; we are certainly on the track.  That man was
+Timothy Bunting," he said.  "Pen has been shedding her retainers all
+along the road.  I suspect Bob of furious driving."
+
+A few miles farther, at the foot of a steep rise, they saw a young and
+pretty woman weeping on a heap of stones.
+
+"I wonder if that is another of ’em," said Augustin.
+
+It was Mary, whom Geordie had deposited on the road half-way between two
+villages.
+
+"Have two motor-cars gone this way?" asked Bradstock.
+
+"Yes, sir," sobbed Mary.
+
+"Why are you crying?" asked the sympathetic peer.
+
+"Because Geordie Smith is no gentleman," said Mary.
+
+"That’s Mrs. Bramwell’s driver, isn’t it?  I know her well," said
+Bradstock.
+
+"Yes, it is, and he ain’t a gentleman.  He drove so fast he frightened
+me, and I got out."
+
+"How sad," said Bradstock.  "We are going on to Upwell Castle now.  Can
+we help you?"
+
+"I would rather walk to Australia than get in another one of ’em," said
+Mary.
+
+"You are right," said Augustin.  "Titania, you are right.  In half an
+hour we shall see Penelope."
+
+"And I shall see Bob," said Titania, viciously.
+
+But the bishop felt rather pleased with Bob now. He was in a car driven
+by Rivaulx.  And Rivaulx was desperate.  And when Rivaulx was desperate
+he lacked consideration for others.
+
+
+
+
+                           *CHAPTER XXVIII.*
+
+
+As all antiquarians know, Upwell Castle consists of two wings and a kind
+of centrepiece joining two civilizations and two divergent schools of
+architecture.  The right wing is Tudor, and ruined; the left is
+Georgian, and habitable; the centre is nondescript and pseudo-Palladian.
+It cost a great deal to keep up, and nothing could keep it from falling
+down.  Penelope’s mother fell in love with it on first sight, and fell
+out with her husband about the price.  Its value has fallen since then,
+for landed property is the only stable thing which always falls.  There
+were pictures in it that connoisseurs gloated over, and some that
+picture-cleaners had restored till they were as valuable as a Gothic
+cathedral brought up to date by a resurrected Vandal.  There were
+carvings by Grinling Gibbons to be seen, and some that were not by
+Grinling Gibbons.  There were some rooms decorated by Adams that would
+have made Adam ill.  There was an oak staircase there that a thousand
+intoxicated noblemen had fallen down; there was another that no sober
+gentleman could go up.  It was ruinous, romantic, and rat-haunted;
+tapestry waved in its corridors, ghosts loved its precincts; there was a
+room stained with something that the servants said was blood, and that
+the skeptical averred to be port wine.  The only thing against the
+latter theory was that the dining-room was not stained, though some said
+it had been so flooded all over that nothing showed.  It was a
+delightful place, and Penelope never stayed there.  Miss Mackarness did,
+but then she was a Scotchwoman, and didn’t count.  Bob adored it, but
+then Bob was Bob, and nothing could change him.
+
+"I’ll fix this all up," said Bob, "and make her happy.  She’s silly.
+I’ll blow the gaff, as Baker says.  She’s up-stairs now, crying her eyes
+out, and making the baby bellow."
+
+He wandered about the grounds, and wondered where Mary and Bunting and
+Miss Mackarness were.
+
+"Silly fools!" said Bob; "the idea of being afraid of going in a
+motor-car.  By Jove, I wonder what’s become of my man at Spilsborough!
+I suppose those people in Regent Street think I’ve stolen the car.  What
+fun!"
+
+He explored the ruined wing, and ruined it a little more, and came out
+again into the Queen Anne garden.
+
+"By Jove, I do wish I knew where they all were!" he said.  "I wonder
+what granny is doing. Is she having fits, and Dr. Lumsden Griff to look
+after ’em?  I think Griff’s a soft-soapy ass.  He says, ’Well, how are
+we this morning?’  By Jove, all the rest of ’em will have fits, too.
+They will be sick.  But I’m glad they’re out of it.  I wonder where Lord
+Bradstock is.  He’ll pull my wig when he sees me.  And the bishop!
+Well, he’s not a bad old boy.  I rather like bishops, but their legs are
+queer.  By Jove, but it’s fun having skipped and done them!  If they
+ever get to Spilsby and find us gone, they’ll be mad!"
+
+He walked around the corner of the house, and _paff_ came a motor-car
+and made him jump.  Another one followed like a streak of light.  Bob
+went quite pale for a boy with a complexion like an ancient red brick,
+and made a bolt for the door. He was too late, for Bradstock and the
+bishop stood in his way.  Bob slowed down, put his hands in his pockets
+and whistled.
+
+"I say," said Bob, "how did you find this place out?"
+
+"I own to being surprised and disappointed with you, Robert," said the
+bishop; "very much surprised and greatly disappointed."
+
+Bob wagged his head to and fro.
+
+"Why, what about?" he asked.
+
+"At your not returning, sir," said his lordship. "You treated me and
+Lord Bradstock, I regret to say, with great disrespect."
+
+"I’m very sorry," said Bob, "but I couldn’t help it.  Pen—Oh, Lord!
+there’s granny!"
+
+The duchess intervened.
+
+"Robert, where is Penelope?"
+
+Bob hesitated.
+
+"Gone to—t-to London for Paris and Marseilles and Australia," said Bob,
+hurriedly.  "She said she couldn’t wait, but had an appointment there
+somewhere.  And she said I was to say she was sorry if any one called."
+
+"Robert," said the duchess, severely, "do not keep your eyes fixed upon
+the distant landscape. Look me in the face.  Are you speaking the
+truth?"
+
+Bob wriggled and shuffled.
+
+"No, I’m not," he said.  "It’s a beastly lie. But she did say the other
+day that she would go to the ends of the earth.  And that’s Australia,
+ain’t it?"
+
+"Bob," said the bishop, "this is very painful to me.  Speak the truth
+like a man."
+
+"I won’t," said Bob; "it isn’t my truth.  I won’t give Pen away to any
+one."
+
+His vision cleared, and he saw the lovers ranked behind his grandmother
+and the bishop.
+
+"Oh, Mr. Gordon," he cried, "do come and help me!  Would you tell if you
+were me?"
+
+"No," said Gordon, "no, of course not."
+
+"I always liked you," said Bob, "so I won’t."
+
+"I command you," said Titania, looking at Gordon furiously.
+
+"It’s no good," said Bob, rapidly; "Pen’s a great way off, far enough,
+that is, and I swore I’d never disclose the secret of her whereabouts to
+any one.  At least, if I didn’t swear it, I said it, and, if I said it,
+my lord, and broke my promise, it wouldn’t be honourable, would it?"
+
+"I don’t care," began Titania.
+
+"Would it, my lord?" asked Bob.
+
+"I’m afraid not," said the bishop, "though perhaps in the circumstances,
+which are very peculiar—"
+
+"Well, I won’t," said Bob, "and that’s flat. Goby wouldn’t, I know,
+would you, Captain Goby?"
+
+But the duchess waved Goby into the background.
+
+"I mean to have the truth.  Shall we listen to your foolish scruples
+now?  If you won’t tell us where she is, tell us whom she has married.
+Is it one of these gentlemen?"
+
+"I won’t give any of ’em away," said Bob.
+
+"Then you know?"
+
+"Of course I know," said Bob.
+
+"Ah," sighed the duchess, "then she is married?"
+
+"She says so," said Bob, "and, if it’s true, as I suppose, I know who it
+is.  But Pen, before she went up—before she went, said I wasn’t to
+speak."
+
+Bradstock smiled.
+
+"Titania, Penelope is in the house.  Let us go in," he said, and he
+marched up the steps.  Bob shook himself free from the duchess and
+darted indoors before Bradstock.  He bolted up-stairs to Penelope, and
+burst in upon her like a whirlwind.
+
+"Pen, they’re all here, all the gang!  I couldn’t keep ’em out!"
+
+"Who are here?" asked Pen, in awful dismay.
+
+"All of ’em, and the bishop and Bradstock and granny!"
+
+"Oh, what shall I do?" wailed Penelope.
+
+"I’ll tell you," said Bob.  "Let’s sneak down the back way and steal one
+of their cars now, and get away!"
+
+"No, no," said Penelope, "it wouldn’t be dignified.  I must be
+dignified, Bob, I must be; I will go down and see them."
+
+"No," said Bob.
+
+"I will," said Penelope.
+
+"And tell ’em the truth?"
+
+Penelope started.
+
+"I can’t, I can’t, because we’ve quarrelled.  But I will see them; I
+must."
+
+She went red and white and red again, and once more as pale as dawn.
+She kissed the sleeping, adopted, illegitimate, normal-coloured infant
+as he sprawled upon an historic bed, and went to the door.
+
+"Come with me, Bob."
+
+"I’ll hold your hand, Pen.  I say, you shake!"
+
+"Squeeze my hand till you hurt me," said Pen. "Now come!"
+
+She swept down the big staircase, with Bob in tow, and found herself in
+the presence of the entire "gang," as Bob had called them.
+
+"Penelope!" said Titania, recoiling.
+
+"Oh, Pen," said Bradstock, advancing.
+
+"My dear Lady Penelope," said the bishop, sweetly, "do you recollect
+that I christened you at the early age of three months?"
+
+"No," said Penelope.
+
+"No!" said the bishop, "no, to be sure, how could you?  But I did."
+
+"It—it was very kind of you," said Penelope. Titania recovered herself
+and advanced.  Gordon and the rest hung about in the distance, looking
+as wretched as the ruined wing of the castle.
+
+"Are you married, Penelope?" asked Titania.
+
+"Yes," said Penelope.
+
+"Of course she is," said Bob.
+
+"Hold your tongue, Robert," said his grandmother. "And to whom?"
+
+"I won’t say," replied Penelope.  "I told you I wouldn’t, and I won’t."
+
+"I said she wouldn’t," cried Bob.
+
+Titania pointed her hand at the shrinking horde.
+
+"Every single one of these gentlemen, to say nothing of Lord Bramber,
+who is with his invalid father at the present moment, came to me and
+said he was married to you!  Every one of them without an exception!"
+
+"I am very much obliged to them," said Pen. "In the circumstances, I
+think it was noble of them."
+
+"Are you alluding to the advertisement in the _Times_?" asked Titania.
+"Are you aware that every one now says that you have adopted an infant?"
+
+"What rot!" said Bob.
+
+"Robert," cried his grandmother, "be silent, I command you.  I will not
+be interrupted by you. Are you aware, Penelope, that it is said all over
+England and Europe and the blatant United States that you have adopted
+an infant?"
+
+Penelope shook her head.
+
+"It’s the first I’ve heard of it," said Penelope, who was the colour of
+a rose.
+
+"Is it true?  Do not evade my question," cried Titania.
+
+"I don’t see, granny, what right you have to ask ’em," said the
+irrepressible Bob.  "I sent you a wire to say it wasn’t black, and it
+isn’t."
+
+"Augustin, silence that boy," said Titania.
+
+But Augustin shook his head.
+
+"Don’t you answer anything, Pen," said Bob. "No one has any right to ask
+you anything."
+
+He marched over to Gordon.
+
+"Don’t look so sad, Mr. Gordon."
+
+"I can’t help it, my boy," said Gordon.  "It’s a horrid situation.  I
+don’t care whether it’s adopted or not.  If she’ll marry me, I’ll have
+her."
+
+Bob squeezed his hand.
+
+"I ain’t _absolutely_ sure it isn’t you yet," he said. "Pen hasn’t told
+me all, you know.  By the way, Mr. Gordon, did that speculation come
+off?"
+
+"Not so well as I thought by ten thousand," said Gordon.
+
+"Oh, I say," said Bob, "but, after all, it doesn’t matter.  I’ll make
+fifty or sixty thousand do."
+
+"You’re a fine boy," said Gordon.  "But, Bob, I would like to strangle
+your grandmother."
+
+"Would you?" asked Bob, eagerly.  "I dare say Pen does, too.
+Grandmothers and aunts are very trying.  At least, I find them so."
+
+The duchess’s voice rose now quite above the limits of social decency,
+except when any one is playing or singing.
+
+"I will not be put off, Penelope.  You will say who it is, and you will
+be married again by the bishop in his fine Gothic cathedral—"
+
+"Mr. Dean’s cathedral," interjected the bishop.
+
+"With a proper service and the usual hymns, breathing over Eden, or I
+will stay here till you do."
+
+"Steady, Titania," said Bradstock.  "If she won’t, she won’t."
+
+"But she shall," shrieked Titania.  "Gentlemen, which of you is it?  I
+am now entirely desperate; which of you is it?"
+
+No one said a word.
+
+"Marquis, is it you?" asked the duchess.  "You said so before."
+
+"How can I say?" asked poor Rivaulx.  "She says no one must."
+
+"Quite right," said Bradstock.  "Who will believe any one, Titania?
+Let’s have lunch and be friendly and stop this.  I’m very hungry, Pen.
+And let’s see the baby."
+
+The duchess shivered.
+
+"I cannot and will not see it," said Titania. "For by all accounts, it
+is an adopted illegitimate child.  If Penelope will send it back to the
+person she got it of, and own the truth, I will forgive her and have
+lunch, for I am very faint."
+
+"I want to see the baby, Pen," said Augustin, with his hand on Pen’s
+shoulder.  "You know, Pen, they still say it’s rather dusky."
+
+Penelope was very indignant.
+
+"He’s not," she cried.  "They sha’n’t say it any more.  Bob, tell that
+girl up-stairs to bring him down."
+
+And Bob ran up-stairs like a monkey up a stick.
+
+"I decline to see it," said Titania.  "A baby without a name is a
+terrible object to me.  It is an insult to the bishop and to the Church
+to bring one into the room.  I will retire into the open air and try to
+breathe again."
+
+Goby assisted her outside.
+
+"This is a calamity," said Titania.  "It’s a catastrophe.  What is the
+truth, Captain Goby?  Are you a liar, too?"
+
+Goby sobbed.
+
+"How can I say?" he asked.  "You know I can’t."
+
+He looked out into the park.
+
+"Here’s some one coming in a motor," he cried. They all ran to the
+windows.  But just then Bob and the nurse came down with the infant,
+who, though evidently awed by the number of creatures he saw about him,
+behaved like a gentleman, and not in the least like an adopted child.
+
+"I congratulate you, Pen," said Bradstock. "The mother must be a
+devilish pretty woman! Does she miss it much, Pen?  Oh, Pen, what a
+queer, mad darling you are!  I begin to see daylight."
+
+But nobody else did.  Penelope blushed and hugged the baby tenderly,
+while Bob danced around her in the wildest state of excitement.
+
+"I say, Captain Goby, come and look at it!  Mr. de Vere!  I say,
+marquis!  Ain’t it a ripper, and as fat as a pup, and hardly a squeal
+out of it day or night!  Granny dear, won’t you look at it?"
+
+"No, no," said Titania.  "I cannot, cannot bring myself to do so!"
+
+"You’ll soon be jolly sorry, I can tell you," cried the loving grandson.
+"I’ll bet you’ll be sorry."
+
+He ran to Pen.
+
+"I say, Pen, give the kid to me, or you’ll drop it."
+
+"Drop him!" exclaimed Penelope.  "Oh, Bob, is it likely?"
+
+"Very likely," said Bob, "if you knew that I sent a telegram to some one
+just as soon as we got here!"
+
+Pen flushed scarlet.  But not with anger.
+
+"Oh, Bob!"
+
+"I did!  You ain’t angry?"
+
+"Oh, Bob!"
+
+"I don’t care," said Bob, as he took the child. "I don’t care a hang.
+I’m ruined with all these jossers now.  De Vere will never buy any more
+dogs of me.  I say, who’s that?"
+
+A motor-car stopped outside the great hall door, and a gentleman in
+black got out.  He came up the steps rapidly, and stopped dead when he
+found all the world in front of him.
+
+"I thought so," said Bradstock.  "Now the catalogue is complete."
+
+"Lord Bramber!" cried the others.  Penelope stood in the centre of the
+great hall as if she were turned to marble.  But no marble ever had so
+sweet a colour.
+
+[Illustration: THE EARL OF PULBOROUGH. Clever; but indolent]
+
+"I believe it is now the Earl of Pulborough," said Bradstock, gravely,
+to the newcomer.
+
+"Yes," he replied.  "Penelope, you sent for me?"
+
+Pen fell upon his neck before them all and did not deny it.
+
+And, as they stood still in great amazement, Bob danced the baby up and
+down till that young gentleman made up his mind to roar as soon as he
+got his breath.
+
+"This—this is Lord Bramber," howled Bob, triumphantly.  "Now admit you
+feel sorry you spoke, granny!"
+
+He gave the baby to the nurse, and grabbed Goby by the arm.
+
+"I say, I’m awfully sorry, but it isn’t my fault, Captain Goby, and
+Ethel Mytton is a very nice girl, and dead in love with you."
+
+"Is she?" sighed Goby.
+
+"Mr. de Vere, I’ve got a bulldog—"
+
+"Damn bulldogs!" said De Vere.
+
+Bob seized Gordon.
+
+"Do you feel very bad, Mr. Gordon?" he asked, sympathetically.  "I
+almost wish it had been you."
+
+"It can’t be helped," said Gordon, gloomily.  "I never had a chance.
+Come and see me in the city next week, Bob."
+
+Rivaulx and Carew and Williams took their hats and slipped from the
+house, while Bob did what he could to soften things for them.
+
+"I’ll come and see you all very often," he cried. "Good-bye now!"
+
+An hour later, when Titania had the baby upon her capacious lap, and
+said how certain she had been the whole time that Bramber was Penelope’s
+choice, Bob walked around the garden with the bishop and Lord Bradstock.
+
+"Oh, it’s quite easy to understand," said Bob. "After all she said, you
+expected she would marry some outsider, and you see she took the pick of
+the basket, and of course was ashamed.  Oh, I know Pen."
+
+"You are a wonder, Bob," said Bradstock.
+
+The bishop said that upon adequate reflection he was inclined to agree
+with Bradstock.
+
+"Well, Pen’s all right," said Bob.
+
+
+
+                                THE END.
+
+
+
+
+           *      *      *      *      *      *      *      *
+
+
+
+
+*L. C. Page and Company’s
+Announcement List
+of New fiction*
+
+
+
+*The Flight of Georgiana*
+
+A ROMANCE OF THE DAYS OF THE YOUNG PRETENDER.  By ROBERT NEILSON
+STEPHENS, author of "The Bright Face of Danger," "An Enemy to the King,"
+"The Mystery of Murray Davenport," etc.
+
+Library 12mo, cloth decorative, illustrated . . . $1.50
+
+Mr. Stephens’s novels all bear the hall-mark of success for his men are
+always live, his women are always worthy of their cavaliers, and his
+adventures are of the sort to stir the most sluggish blood without
+overstepping the bounds of good taste.
+
+The theme of the new novel is one which will give Mr. Stephens splendid
+scope for all the powers at his command. The career of "Bonnie Prince
+Charlie" was full of romance, intrigue, and adventure; his life was a
+series of episodes to delight the soul of a reader of fiction, and Mr.
+Stephens is to be congratulated for his selection of such a promising
+subject.
+
+
+
+*Mrs. Jim and Mrs. Jimmie*
+
+By STEPHEN CONRAD, author of "The Second Mrs. Jim."
+
+Library 12mo, cloth decorative, illustrated . . . $1.50
+
+This new book is in a sense a sequel to "The Second Mrs. Jim," since it
+gives further glimpses of that delightful stepmother and her philosophy.
+This time, however, she divides the field with "Mrs. Jimmie," who is
+quite as attractive in her different way.  The book has more plot than
+the former volume, a little less philosophy perhaps, but just as much
+wholesome fun.  In many ways it is a stronger book, and will therefore
+take an even firmer hold on the public.
+
+
+
+*The Story of Red Fox*
+
+Told by CHARLES G. D. ROBERTS, author of "The Watchers of the Trails,"
+"The Kindred of the Wild," "Barbara Ladd," etc.
+
+Library 12mo, cloth decorative, with fifty illustrations and cover
+design by Charles Livingston Bull . . . $2.00
+
+Mr. Roberts’s reputation as a scientifically accurate writer, whose
+literary skill transforms his animal stories into masterpieces, stands
+unrivalled in his particular field.
+
+This is his first long animal story, and his romance of Red Fox, from
+babyhood to patriarchal old age, makes reading more fascinating than any
+work of fiction.  In his hands Red Fox becomes a personality so strong
+that one entirely forgets he is an animal, and his haps and mishaps grip
+you as do those of a person.
+
+Mr. Bull, as usual, fits his pictures to the text as hand to glove, and
+the ensemble becomes a book as near perfection as it is possible to
+attain.
+
+
+
+*Return*
+
+A STORY OF THE SEA ISLANDS IN 1739.  By ALICE MACGOWAN and GRACE
+MACGOWAN COOKE, authors of "The Last Word," etc.  With six illustrations
+by C. D. Williams.
+
+Library 12mo, cloth . . . $1.50
+
+A new romance, undoubtedly the best work yet done by Miss MacGowan and
+Mrs. Cooke.  The heroine of "Return," Diana Chaters, is the belle of the
+Colonial city of Charles Town, S.C., in the early eighteenth century,
+and the hero is a young Virginian of the historical family of Marshall.
+The youth, beauty, and wealth of the fashionable world, which first form
+the environment of the romance, are pictured in sharp contrast to the
+rude and exciting life of the frontier settlements in the Georgia
+Colony, and the authors have missed no opportunities for telling
+characterizations.  But "Return" is, above all, a love-story.
+
+We quote the opinion of Prof. Charles G. D. Roberts, who has read the
+advance sheets: "It seems to me a story of quite unusual strength and
+interest, full of vitality and crowded with telling characters.  I
+greatly like the authors’ firm, bold handling of their subject."
+
+
+
+*Lady Penelope*
+
+By MORLEY ROBERTS, author of "Rachel Marr," "The Promotion of the
+Admiral," etc.  With nine illustrations by Arthur W. Brown.
+
+Library 12mo, cloth . . . $1.50
+
+Mr. Roberts certainly has versatility, since this book has not a single
+point of similarity with either "Rachel Marr" or his well-known sea
+stories.  Its setting is the English so-called "upper crust" of the
+present day.  Lady Penelope is quite the most up-to-date young lady
+imaginable and equally charming.  As might be expected from such a
+heroine, her automobiling plays an important part in the development of
+the plot.  Lady Penelope has a large number of suitors, and her method
+of choosing her husband is original and provocative of delightful
+situations and mirthful incidents.
+
+
+
+*The Winged Helmet*
+
+By HAROLD STEELE MACKAYE, author of "The Panchronicon," etc.  With six
+illustrations by H. C. Edwards.
+
+Library 12mo, cloth . . . $1.50
+
+When an author has an original theme on which to build his story,
+ability in construction of unusual situations, skill in novel
+characterization, and a good literary style, there can be no doubt but
+that his work is worth reading.  "The Winged Helmet" is of this
+description.
+
+The author gives in this novel a convincing picture of life in the early
+sixteenth century, and the reader will be delighted with its originality
+of treatment, freshness of plot, and unexpected climaxes.
+
+
+
+*A Captain of Men*
+
+By E. ANSON MORE.
+
+Library 12mo, cloth, illustrated . . . $1.50
+
+A tale of Tyre and those merchant princes whose discovery of the value
+of tin brought untold riches into the country and afforded adventures
+without number to those daring seekers for the mines.  Merodach, the
+Assyrian, Tanith, the daughter of the richest merchant of Tyre, Miriam,
+her Hebrew slave, and the dwarf Hiram, who was the greatest artist of
+his day, are a quartette of characters hard to surpass in individuality.
+It has been said that the powerful order of Free Masons first had its
+origin in the meetings which were held at Hiram’s studio in Tyre, where
+gathered together the greatest spirits of that age and place.
+
+
+
+*The Paradise of the Wild Apple*
+
+By RICHARD LEGALLIENNE, author of "Old Love Stories Retold," "The Quest
+of the Golden Girl," etc.
+
+Library 12mo, cloth decorative . . . $1.50
+
+The theme of Mr. LeGallienne’s new romance deals with the instinct of
+wildness in human nature,—the wander spirit and impatience of tame
+domesticity, the preference for wild flowers and fruits, and the glee in
+summer storms and elemental frolics.  A wild apple-tree, high up in a
+rocky meadow, is symbolic of all this, and Mr. LeGallienne works out in
+a fashion at once imaginative and serious the romance of a young man
+well placed from the view of worldly goods and estate, who suddenly
+hungers for the "wild apples" of his youth.  The theme has limitless
+possibilities, and Mr. LeGallienne is artist enough to make adequate use
+of them.
+
+
+
+*The Grapple*
+
+Library 12mo, cloth decorative . . . $1.50
+
+This story of a strike in the coal mines of Pennsylvania gives both
+sides of the question,—the Union and its methods, and the non-Union
+workers and their loyal adherents, with a final typical clash at the
+end.  The question is an absorbing one, and it is handled fearlessly.
+
+For the present at least "The Grapple" will be issued anonymously.
+
+
+
+*Brothers of Peril*
+
+By THEODORE ROBERTS, author of "Hemming the Adventurer."
+
+Library 12mo, cloth decorative, illustrated . . . $1.50
+
+"Brothers of Peril" has an unusual plot, dealing with a now extinct
+race, the Beothic Indians of the sixteenth century, who were the
+original inhabitants of Newfoundland when that island was merely a
+fishing-station for the cod-seeking fleets of the old world.
+
+The story tells of the adventures of a young English cavalier, who, left
+behind by the fleet, finds another Englishman, with his daughter and
+servants, who is hiding from the law.  A French adventurer and pirate,
+who is an unwelcome suitor for the daughter, plays an important part.
+Encounters between the Indians and the small colony of white men on
+shore, and perilous adventures at sea with a shipload of pirates led by
+the French buccaneer, make a story of breathless interest.
+
+
+
+*The Black Barque*
+
+By T. JENKINS HAINS, author of "The Wind Jammers," "The Strife of the
+Sea," etc.  With five illustrations by W. Herbert Dunton.
+
+Library 12mo, cloth . . . $1.50
+
+According to a high naval authority who has seen the advance sheets,
+this is one of the best sea stories ever offered to the public.  "The
+Black Barque" is a story of slavery and piracy upon the high seas about
+1815, and is written with a thorough knowledge of deep-water sailing.
+This, Captain Hains’s first long sea story, realistically pictures a
+series of stirring scenes at the period of the destruction of the
+exciting but nefarious traffic in slaves, in the form of a narrative by
+a young American lieutenant, who, by force of circumstances, finds
+himself the gunner of "The Black Barque."
+
+
+
+*Cameron of Lochiel*
+
+Translated from the French of PHILIPPE AUBERT DE GASPÉ by PROF. CHARLES
+G. D. ROBERTS.
+
+Library 12mo, cloth decorative . . . $1.50
+
+The publishers are gratified to announce a new edition of a book by this
+famous author, who may be called the Walter Scott of Canada.  This
+interesting and valuable romance is fortunate in having for its
+translator Professor Roberts, who has caught perfectly the spirit of the
+original.  The French edition first appeared under the title of "Les
+Anciens Canadiens" in 1862, and was later translated and appeared in an
+American edition now out of print.
+
+Patriotism, devotion to the French-Canadian nationality, a just pride of
+race, and a loving memory for his people’s romantic and heroic past, are
+the dominant chords struck by the author throughout the story.
+
+
+
+*Castel del Monte*
+
+By NATHAN GALLIZIER.  Illustrated by H. C. Edwards.
+
+Library 12mo, cloth . . . $1.5O
+
+A powerful romance of the fall of the Hohenstaufen dynasty in Italy, and
+the overthrow of Manfred by Charles of Anjou, the champion of Pope
+Clement IV.  The Middle Ages are noted for the weird mysticism and the
+deep fatalism characteristic of a people believing in signs and portents
+and the firm hand of fate.  Mr. Gallizier has brought out these
+characteristics in a marked degree.
+
+
+
+*Slaves of Success*
+
+By ELLIOTT FLOWER, author of "The Spoilsmen," etc.  With twenty
+illustrations by different artists.
+
+Library 12mo, cloth . . . $1.50
+
+Another striking book by Mr. Flower, whose work is already so well
+known, both through his long stories and his contributions to
+_Collier’s_, the _Saturday Evening Post_, etc. Like his first success,
+"The Spoilsmen," it deals with politics, but in the broader field of
+state and national instead of municipal.  The book has recently appeared
+in condensed form as a serial in _Collier’s Magazine_, where it
+attracted wide-spread attention, and the announcement of its appearance
+in book form will be welcomed by Mr. Flower’s rapidly increasing
+audience.  The successful delineation of characters like John Wade, Ben
+Carroll, Azro Craig, and Allen Sidway throws new strong lights on the
+inside workings of American business and political "graft."
+
+
+
+*Silver Bells*
+
+By COL. ANDREW C. P. HAGGARD, author of "Hannibal’s Daughter," "Louis
+XIV. in Court and Camp," etc.  With cover design and frontispiece by
+Charles Livingston Bull.
+
+Library 12mo, cloth . . . $1.50
+
+Under the thin veneer of conventionality and custom lurks in many hearts
+the primeval instinct to throw civilization to the winds and hark back
+to the ways of the savages in the wilderness, and it often requires but
+a mental crisis or an emotional upheaval to break through the coating.
+Geoffrey Digby was such an one, who left home and kindred to seek
+happiness among the Indians of Canada, in the vast woods which always
+hold an undefinable mystery and fascination. He gained renown as a
+mighty hunter, and the tale of his life there, and the romance which
+awaited him, will be heartily enjoyed by all who like a good love-story
+with plenty of action not of the "stock" order.  "Silver Bells," the
+Indian girl, is a perfect "child of nature."
+
+
+
+
+*Selections from
+L. C. Page and Company’s
+List of Fiction*
+
+
+
+                               *WORKS OF
+                        ROBERT NEILSON STEPHENS*
+
+
+
+*Captain Ravenshaw;* OR, THE MAID OF CHEAPSIDE.  (40th thousand.)  A
+romance of Elizabethan London.  Illustrations by Howard Pyle and other
+artists.
+
+Library 12mo, cloth . . . $1.50
+
+Not since the absorbing adventures of D’Artagnan have we had anything so
+good in the blended vein of romance and comedy.  The beggar student, the
+rich goldsmith, the roisterer and the rake, the fop and the maid, are
+all here: foremost among them Captain Ravenshaw himself, soldier of
+fortune and adventurer, who, after escapades of binding interest,
+finally wins a way to fame and to matrimony.
+
+
+
+*Philip Winwood.*  (70th thousand)  A Sketch of the Domestic History of
+an American Captain in the War of Independence, embracing events that
+occurred between and during the years 1763 and 1785 in New York and
+London. Written by his Enemy in War, Herbert Russell, Lieutenant in the
+Loyalist Forces.  Presented anew by ROBERT NEILSON STEPHENS.
+Illustrated by E. W. D. Hamilton.
+
+Library 12mo, cloth . . . $1.50
+
+"One of the most stirring and remarkable romances that have been
+published in a long while, and its episodes, incidents, and actions are
+as interesting and agreeable as they are vivid and dramatic."—_Boston
+Times_.
+
+
+
+*The Mystery of Murray Davenport.*  (30th thousand.)  By ROBERT NEILSON
+STEPHENS, author of "An Enemy to the King," "Philip Winwood," etc.
+
+Library 12mo, cloth, with six full-page illustrations by H. C. Edwards .
+. . $1.50
+
+"This is easily the best thing that Mr. Stephens has yet done. Those
+familiar with his other novels can best judge the measure of this
+praise, which is generous."—_Buffalo News_.
+
+"Mr. Stephens won a host of friends through his earlier volumes, but we
+think he will do still better work in his new field if the present
+volume is a criterion."—_N. Y. Com. Advertiser_.
+
+
+
+*An Enemy to the King.*  (60th thousand.)  From the "Recently Discovered
+Memoirs of the Sieur de la Tournoire."  Illustrated by H. De M. Young.
+
+Library 12mo, cloth . . . $1.50
+
+An historical romance of the sixteenth century, describing the
+adventures of a young French nobleman at the Court of Henry III., and on
+the field with Henry of Navarre.
+
+"A stirring tale."—_Detroit Free Press_.
+
+"A royally strong piece of fiction."—_Boston Ideas_.
+
+"Interesting from the first to the last page."—_Brooklyn Eagle_.
+
+"Brilliant as a play; it is equally brilliant as a romantic
+novel."—_Philadelphia Press_.
+
+
+
+*The Continental Dragoon:* A ROMANCE OF PHILIPSE MANOR HOUSE IN 1778.
+(43d thousand.)  Illustrated by H. C. Edwards.
+
+Library 12mo, cloth . . . $1.50
+
+A stirring romance of the Revolution, the scene being laid in and around
+the old Philipse Manor House, near Yonkers, which at the time of the
+story was the central point of the so-called "neutral territory" between
+the two armies.
+
+
+
+*The Road to Paris:* A STORY OF ADVENTURE. (25th thousand.)  Illustrated
+by H. C. Edwards.
+
+Library 12mo, cloth . . . $1.50
+
+An historical romance of the 18th century, being an account of the life
+of an American gentleman adventurer of Jacobite ancestry, whose family
+early settled in the colony of Pennsylvania.
+
+
+
+*A Gentleman Player:* HIS ADVENTURES ON A SECRET MISSION FOR QUEEN
+ELIZABETH.  (38th thousand.)  Illustrated by Frank T. Merrill.
+
+Library 12mo, cloth . . . $1.50
+
+"A Gentleman Player" is a romance of the Elizabethan period.  It relates
+the story of a young gentleman who, in the reign of Elizabeth, falls so
+low in his fortune that he joins Shakespeare’s company of players, and
+becomes a friend and protégé of the great poet.
+
+
+
+
+                               *WORKS OF
+                         CHARLES G. D. ROBERTS*
+
+
+
+*Barbara Ladd.*  With four illustrations by Frank Verbeck.
+
+Library 12mo, gilt top . . . $1.50
+
+"From the opening chapter to the final page Mr. Roberts lures us on by
+his rapt devotion to the changing aspects of Nature and by his keen and
+sympathetic analysis of human character."—_Boston Transcript_.
+
+
+
+*The Kindred of the Wild.*  A BOOK OF ANIMAL LIFE.  With fifty-one
+full-page plates and many decorations from drawings by Charles
+Livingston Bull.
+
+Small quarto, decorative cover . . . $2.00
+
+"Professor Roberts has caught wonderfully the elusive individualities of
+which he writes.  His animal stories are marvels of sympathetic science
+and literary exactness.  Bound with the superb illustrations by Charles
+Livingston Bull, they make a volume which charms, entertains, and
+informs."—New York World.
+
+"... Is in many ways the most brilliant collection of animal stories
+that has appeared ... well named and well done."—_John Burroughs_.
+
+
+
+*The Forge in the Forest.*  Being the Narrative of the Acadian Ranger,
+Jean de Mer, Seigneur de Briart, and how he crossed the Black Abbé, and
+of his Adventures in a Strange Fellowship.  Illustrated by Henry
+Sandham, R.C.A.
+
+Library 12mo, cloth, gilt top . . . $1.50
+
+A romance of the convulsive period of the struggle between the French
+and English for the possession of North America. The story is one of
+pure love and heroic adventure, and deals with that fiery fringe of
+conflict that waved between Nova Scotia and New England.  The Expulsion
+of the Acadians is foreshadowed in these brilliant pages, and the part
+of the "Black Abbé’s" intrigues in precipitating that catastrophe is
+shown.
+
+
+
+*The Heart of the Ancient Wood.*  With six illustrations by James L.
+Weston.
+
+Library 12mo, decorative cover . . . $1.50
+
+"One of the most fascinating novels of recent days."—_Boston Journal_.
+
+"A classic twentieth-century romance."—_New York Commercial Advertiser_.
+
+
+
+*A Sister to Evangeline.*  Being the story of Yvonne de Lamourie, and
+how she went into Exile with the Villagers of Grand Pré.
+
+Library 12mo, cloth, gilt top, illustrated . . . $1.50
+
+This is a romance of the great expulsion of the Acadians, which
+Longfellow first immortalized in "Evangeline."  Swift action, fresh
+atmosphere, wholesome purity, deep passion, searching analysis,
+characterize this strong novel.
+
+
+
+*By the Marshes of Minas.*
+
+Library 12mo, cloth, gilt top, illustrated . . . $1.50
+
+This is a volume of romance, of love and adventure in that picturesque
+period when Nova Scotia was passing from the French to the English
+regime.  Each tale is independent of the others, but the scenes are
+similar, and in several of them the evil "Black Abbé"," well known from
+the author’s previous novels, again appears with his savages at his
+heels—but to be thwarted always by woman’s wit or soldier’s courage.
+
+
+
+*Earth’s Enigmas.*  A new edition, with the addition of three new
+stories, and ten illustrations by Charles Livingston Bull.
+
+Library 12mo, cloth, uncut edges . . . $1.50
+
+"Throughout the volume runs that subtle questioning of the cruel,
+predatory side of nature which suggests the general title of the book.
+In certain cases it is the picture of savage nature ravening for
+food—for death to preserve life; in others it is the secret symbolism of
+woods and waters prophesying of evils and misadventures to come.  All
+this does not mean, however, that Mr. Roberts is either pessimistic or
+morbid—it is nature in his books after all, wholesome in her cruel moods
+as in her tender."—_The New York Independent_.
+
+
+
+
+                               *WORKS OF
+                              LILIAN BELL*
+
+
+
+*Hope Loring.*  Illustrated by Frank T. Merrill.
+
+Library 12mo, cloth, decorative cover . . . $1.50
+
+"Lilian Bell’s new novel, ’Hope Loring,’ does for the American girl in
+fiction what Gibson has done for her in art.
+
+"Tall, slender, and athletic, fragile-looking, yet with nerves and
+sinews of steel under the velvet flesh, frank as a boy and tender and
+beautiful as a woman, free and independent, yet not bold—such is ’Hope
+Loring,’ by long odds the subtlest study that has yet been made of the
+American girl."—_Dorothy Dix, in the New York American_.
+
+
+
+*Abroad with the Jimmies.*  With a portrait, in duogravure, of the
+author.
+
+Library 12mo, cloth, decorative cover . . . $1.50
+
+"A deliciously fresh, graphic book.  The writer is so original and
+unspoiled that her point of view has value."—_Mary Hartwell Catherwood_.
+
+"Full of ozone, of snap, of ginger, of swing and momentum."—_Chicago
+Evening Post_.
+
+"... Is one of her best and cleverest novels ... filled to the brim with
+amusing incidents and experiences.  This vivacious narrative needs no
+commendation to the readers of Miss Bell’s well-known earlier
+books."—_N. Y. Press_.
+
+
+
+*The Interference of Patricia.*  With a frontispiece from drawing by
+Frank T. Merrill.
+
+Small 12mo, cloth, decorative cover . . . $1.00
+
+"There is life and action and brilliancy and dash and cleverness and a
+keen appreciation of business ways in this story."—_Grand Rapids
+Herald_.
+
+"A story full of keen and flashing satire."—_Chicago Record-Herald_.
+
+
+
+*A Book Of Girls.*  With a frontispiece.
+
+Small 12mo, cloth, decorative cover . . . $1.00
+
+"The stories are all eventful and have effective humor."—_New York Sun_.
+
+"Lilian Bell surely understands girls, for she depicts all the
+variations of girl nature so charmingly."—_Chicago Journal_.
+
+_The above two volumes boxed in special holiday dress, per set, $2.50_.
+
+
+
+*The Red Triangle.*  Being some further chronicles of Martin Hewitt,
+investigator.  By ARTHUR MORRISON, author of "The Hole in the Wall,"
+"Tales of Mean Streets," etc.
+
+Library 12mo, cloth decorative . . . $1.50
+
+This is a genuine, straightforward detective story of the kind that
+keeps the reader on the _qui vive_.  Martin Hewitt, investigator, might
+well have studied his methods from Sherlock Holmes, so searching and
+successful are they.
+
+"Better than Sherlock Holmes."—_New York Tribune_.
+
+"The reader who has a grain of fancy or imagination may be defied to lay
+this book down, once he has begun it, until the last word has been
+reached."—_Philadelphia North American_.
+
+"If you like a good detective story you will enjoy this."—_Brooklyn
+Eagle_.
+
+"We have found ’The Red Triangle’ a book of absorbing
+interest."—_Rochester Herald_.
+
+"Will be eagerly read by every one who likes a tale of mystery."—_The
+Scotsman, England_.
+
+
+
+*Prince Hagen.*  By UPTON SINCLAIR, author of "King Midas," etc.
+
+Library 12mo, cloth decorative . . . . $1.50
+
+In this book Mr. Sinclair has written a satire of the first order—one
+worthy to be compared with Swift’s biting tirades against the follies
+and abuses of mankind.
+
+"A telling satire on politics and society in modern New
+York."—_Philadelphia Public Ledger_.
+
+"The book has a living vitality and is a strong depiction of political
+New York."—_Bookseller, Newsdealer, and Stationer_.
+
+
+
+*The Silent Maid.*  By FREDERIC W. PANGBORN.
+
+Large 16mo, cloth decorative, with a frontispiece by Frank T. Merrill .
+. . $1.00
+
+A dainty and delicate legend of the brave days of old, of sprites and
+pixies, of trolls and gnomes, of ruthless barons and noble knights.
+"The Silent Maid" herself, with her strange bewitchment and wondrous
+song, is equalled only by Undine in charm and mystery.
+
+"Seldom does one find a short tale so idyllic in tone and so fanciful in
+motive.  The book shows great delicacy of imagination."—_The Criterion_.
+
+
+
+*The Spoilsmen.*  By ELLIOTT FLOWER, author of "Policeman Flynn," etc.
+
+Library 12mo, cloth . . . $1.50
+
+"The best one may hear of ’The Spoilsmen’ will be none too good.  As a
+wide-awake, snappy, brilliant political story it has few equals, its
+title-page being stamped with that elusive mark, ’success.’ One should
+not miss a word of a book like this at a time like this and in a world
+of politics like this."—_Boston Transcript_.
+
+"Elliott Flower, whose ’Policeman Flynn’ attested his acquaintance with
+certain characteristic aspects of the American city, has written a novel
+of municipal politics, which should interest many readers....  The
+characters are obviously suggested by certain actual figures in local
+politics, and while the conditions he depicts are general in large
+cities in the United States, they will be unusually familiar to local
+readers....  Ned Bell, the ’Old Man,’ or political boss; Billy Ryan, his
+lieutenant; ’Rainbow John,’ the alderman, are likely to be
+identified....  and other personages of the story are traceable to their
+prototypes."—_Chicago Evening Post_.
+
+
+
+*Stephen Holton.*  By CHARLES FELTON PIDGIN, author of "Quincy Adams
+Sawyer," "Blennerhassett," etc. The frontispiece is a portrait of the
+hero by Frank T. Merrill.
+
+One vol., library 12mo, cloth, gilt top . . . $1.50
+
+"In the delineation of rural life, the author shows that intimate
+sympathy which distinguished his first success, ’Quincy Adams
+Sawyer.’"—_Boston Daily Advertiser_.
+
+"’Stephen Holton’ stands as his best achievement."—_Detroit Free Press_.
+
+"New England’s common life seems a favorite material for this sterling
+author, who in this particular instance mixes his colors with masterly
+skill."—_Boston Globe_.
+
+
+
+*Asa Holmes;* OR, AT THE CROSS-ROADS.  A Sketch of Country Life and
+Country Humor.  By ANNIE FELLOWS JOHNSTON.  With a frontispiece by
+Ernest Fosbery.
+
+Large 16mo, cloth, gilt top . . . $1.00
+
+"’Asa Holmes; or, At the Cross-Roads’ is the most delightful, most
+sympathetic and wholesome book that has been published in a long while.
+The lovable, cheerful, touching incidents, the descriptions of persons
+and things are wonderfully true to nature."—_Boston Times_.
+
+
+
+*A Daughter Of Thespis.*  By JOHN D. BARRY, author of "The Intriguers,"
+"Mademoiselle Blanche," etc.
+
+Library 12mo, cloth decorative . . . $1.50
+
+"I should say that ’A Daughter of Thespis’ seemed so honest about actors
+and acting that it made you feel as if the stage had never been truly
+written about before."—_W. D. Howells, in Harper’s Weekly_.
+
+"This story of the experiences of Evelyn Johnson, actress, may be
+praised just because it is so true and so wholly free from melodrama and
+the claptrap which we have come to think inseparable from any narrative
+which has to do with theatrical experiences."—_Professor Harry Thurston
+Peck, of Columbia University_.
+
+"Certainly written from a close and shrewd observation of stage
+life."—_Chicago Record-Herald_.
+
+
+
+*The Golden Dog:* A ROMANCE OF QUEBEC.  By WILLIAM KIRBY.  New
+authorized edition, printed from new plates.  Illustrated by J. W.
+Kennedy.
+
+One vol., library 12mo, cloth . . . $1.25
+
+"A powerful romance of love, intrigue, and adventure in the times of
+Louis XV. and Madame de Pompadour, when the French colonies were making
+their great struggle to retain for an ungrateful court the fairest
+jewels in the colonial diadem of France.  It is a most masterly picture
+of the cruelties and the jealousies of a maiden, Angelique des
+Melloises—fair as an angel and murderous as Medea. Mr. Kirby has shown
+how false prides and ambitions stalked abroad at this time, how they
+entered the heart of man to work his destruction, and particularly how
+they influenced a beautiful demon in female form to continued
+vengeances."—_Boston Herald_.
+
+
+
+*The Last Word*.  By ALICE MACGOWAN.  Illustrated with seven portraits
+of the heroine.
+
+Library 12mo, cloth, gilt top . . . $1.50
+
+"When one receives full measure to overflowing of delight in a tender,
+charming, and wholly fascinating new piece of fiction, the enthusiasm is
+apt to come uppermost.  Miss MacGowan has been known before, but her
+best gift has here declared itself."—_Louisville Post_.
+
+"The story begins and ends in Western Texas.  Between chapters, there is
+the ostensible autobiography of a girl who makes her way in New York
+journalism.  Out of it all comes a book, vivid, bright, original—one of
+a kind and the kind most welcome to readers of the hitherto
+conventional."—_New York World_.
+
+
+
+*The Captain’s Wife.*  By W. CLARK RUSSELL, author of "The Wreck of the
+Grosvenor."  With a frontispiece by C. H. Dunton.
+
+Library 12mo, cloth decorative . . . $1.50
+
+"Mr. Russell’s descriptions of the sea are vivid and full of color, and
+he brings home to the reader the feeling that he is looking upon the
+real thing drawn by one who has seen the scenes and writes from
+knowledge."—_Brooklyn Eagle_.
+
+"Every page is readable and exciting."—_Baltimore Herald_.
+
+"This story may be considered as one of the best of his excellent tales
+of the sea."—_Chicago Post_.
+
+"There are suggestions of Marryat in it, and reminders of Charles Reade,
+but mostly it is Clark Russell, with his delightful descriptions and
+irresistible sea yarns."—_Phila. North American_.
+
+
+
+*The Mate of the Good Ship York.*  By W. CLARK RUSSELL, author of "The
+Wreck of the Grosvenor," etc.  With a frontispiece by C. H. Dunton.
+
+Library 12mo, cloth decorative . . . $1.50
+
+"One of the breeziest, most absorbing books that have come to our table
+is W. Clark Russell’s ’The Mate of the Good Ship York.’"—_Buffalo
+Commercial_.
+
+"For a rousing, absorbing, and, withal, a truthful tale of the sea,
+commend me to W. Clark Russell.  His novel, ’The Mate of the Good Ship
+York,’ is one of the best, and the love romance that runs through it
+will be appreciated by every one."—_Philadelphia North American_.
+
+"Romantic adventures, hairbreadth escapes, and astounding achievements
+keep things spinning at a lively rate and hold the reader’s attention
+throughout the breezy narrative."—_Toledo Blade_.
+
+
+
+*The Golden Kingdom.*  By ANDREW BALFOUR, author of "Vengeance Is Mine,"
+"To Arms!" etc.
+
+Library 12mo, cloth decorative . . . $1.50
+
+This is a story of adventure on land and sea, beginning in England and
+ending in South Africa, in the last days of the seventeenth century.
+The scheme of the tale at once puts the reader in mind of Stevenson’s
+"Treasure Island."
+
+"Every one imbued with the spirit of adventure and with a broad
+imaginative faculty will want to read this tale."—_Boston Transcript_.
+
+"’The Golden Kingdom’ is the rarest adventure book of them all."—_N. Y.
+World_.
+
+
+
+*The Schemers: A Tale of Modern Life.*
+
+By EDWARD F. HARKINS, author of "Little Pilgrimages Among the Men Who
+Have Written Famous Books," etc. With a frontispiece by Ernest Fosbery.
+
+Library 12mo, cloth . . . $1.50
+
+A story of a new and real phase of social life in Boston, skilfully and
+daringly handled.  There is plenty of life and color abounding, and a
+diversity of characters—shop-girls, society belles, men about town, city
+politicians, and others. The various schemers and their schemes will be
+followed with interest, and there will be some discerning readers who
+may claim to recognize in certain points of the story certain happenings
+in the shopping and the society circles of the Hub.
+
+"A faithful delineation of real shop-girl life."—_Milwaukee Sentinel_.
+
+"This comes nearer to the actual life of a modern American city, with
+all its complexities, than any other work of American fiction. The book
+shows an unusual power of observation and a still more unusual power to
+concentrate and interpret what is observed."—_St. Louis Star_.
+
+
+
+*The Promotion of The Admiral.*  By MORLEY ROBERTS, author of "The
+Colossus," "The Fugitives," "Sons of Empire," etc.
+
+Library 12mo, cloth decorative, illustrated . . . $1.50
+
+This volume contains half a dozen stories of sea life,—fresh, racy, and
+bracing,—all laid in America,—stories full of rollicking, jolly, sea-dog
+humor, tempered to the keen edge of wit.
+
+"If any one writes better sea stories than Mr. Roberts, we don’t know
+who it is; and if there is a better sea story of its kind than this it
+would be a joy to have the pleasure of reading it."—_New York Sun_.
+
+"To read these stories is a tonic for the mind; the stories are gems,
+and for pith and vigor of description they are unequalled."—_New York
+Commercial Advertiser_.
+
+"There is a hearty laugh in every one of these stories."—_The Reader_.
+
+"Mr. Roberts treats the life of the sea in a way that is intensely real
+and intensely human."—_Milwaukee Sentinel_.
+
+"The author knows his sea men from A to Z."—_Philadelphia North
+American_.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LADY PENELOPE ***
+
+
+
+
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+                             LADY PENELOPE
+
+
+
+
+This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
+most other parts of the world 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
+http://www.gutenberg.org/license. If you are not located in the United
+States, you'll have to check the laws of the country where you are
+located before using this ebook.
+
+
+
+Title: Lady Penelope
+Author: Morley Roberts
+Release Date: May 14, 2014 [EBook #45648]
+Language: English
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LADY PENELOPE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Al Haines.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Cover art]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: LADY PENELOPE BRADING Who had ideas of her own]
+
+
+
+
+                             Lady Penelope
+
+
+                                   By
+
+                             Morley Roberts
+
+              _Author of_ "Rachel Marr," "The Promotion of
+                           the Admiral," etc.
+
+
+
+                            _Illustrated by_
+                          Arthur William Brown
+
+
+
+                          L. C. Page & Company
+                                _Boston_
+                               _Mdccccv_
+
+
+
+
+                        _Copyright, 1904, 1903_
+                        BY L. C. PAGE & COMPANY
+                             (INCORPORATED)
+
+                         _All rights reserved_
+
+
+                        Published February, 1905
+
+                            _COLONIAL PRESS
+            Electrotyped and Printed by C. H. Simonds & Co.
+                         Boston, Mass., U.S.A._
+
+
+
+
+                        *LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS*
+
+
+LADY PENELOPE BRADING . . . . . . . . . _Frontispiece_
+       Who had ideas of her own.
+
+CAPTAIN PLANTAGENET GOBY, V.C., LATE OF THE GUARDS
+       Who was ordered to read poetry.
+
+LEOPOLD NORFOLK GORDON
+       Some said his real name was Isaac Levi.
+
+AUSTIN DE VERE
+       He wrote poetry, and abhorred bulldogs and motor-cars.
+
+THE MARQUIS DE RIVAULX
+       Anti-Semite to his manicured finger-tips.
+
+RUFUS Q. PLANT
+       Born in Virginia.
+
+CARTERET WILLIAMS, WAR CORRESPONDENT
+       He wrote with a red picturesqueness which was horribly
+       attractive.
+
+JIMMY CAREW, A.R.A.
+       He was the best looking of the whole "horde"
+
+THE EARL OF PULBOROUGH
+       Clever; but indolent.
+
+
+
+
+                            *LADY PENELOPE*
+
+
+
+                              *CHAPTER I.*
+
+
+All the absurd birthday celebrations were over, and Penelope was
+twenty-one.
+
+She declared that her whole life was to be devoted to reform.  She meant
+to reform society, to make it good and useful and straightforward, and
+simple and utterly delightful.
+
+She let it be understood that men were in great need of her particular
+attention.  They were too selfish and self-centred, too extravagant, too
+critical of each other, too vain.  They acknowledged it humbly when she
+mentioned it, for Lady Penelope Brading's beauty was something to see
+and to talk of; major and minor poets agreed about it; artists desired
+to paint her and failed, as they always do when true loveliness shines
+on them.  She had the colour of a Titian; the contours of a Correggio;
+the witchery of a Reynolds, and under wonderful raiment the muscles of a
+young Greek athlete.  She wiped out any society in which she moved.
+When sweet Eclipse showed herself, the rest were nowhere.  The other
+girls did not exist; she even made married beauties quake; as for the
+men, they endured everything she said, and worshipped her all the more.
+She was strange and new and a tonic. She had no sense of humour
+whatsoever; she could not understand a joke even if it was explained by
+an expert on the staff of _Punch_.  This made her utterly delightful.
+Her beautiful seriousness was as refreshing as logic in a sermon.  She
+believed in clergymen, in politicians, in the Deceased Wife's Sister, in
+all eminent physicians, in the London County Council, in the City of
+Westminster, in the British Constitution, in herself, and hygiene.  She
+read the _Times_, the _Athen�um_, the Encyclop�dia Britannica, Herbert
+Spencer, Mr. Kidd, and the late Mr. Drummond.  She used Sandow's
+exercises and cold water.  She was opposed to war; she admired the
+leader of the opposition and the lord mayor; she subscribed to a society
+for establishing a national theatre to play Mr. Bernard Shaw's
+tragedies, and to the nearest hospital.  She was the most delightful
+person in England, and was against vaccination.  She had money and lands
+and houses and ideas.
+
+"We ought all to do something; to be something," said Lady Penelope
+Brading.
+
+It was an amazing statement, a shocking statement, and clean against all
+class tradition when she interpreted it to the alarmed.  Was it not to
+be something if one was rich, let us say?  Was it not to do something if
+one spent one's money on horses and sport and dress and bridge?  Heaven
+defend us all if anything more is asked of man or woman than killing
+time and killing beasts!  Hands went up to heaven when Penelope
+preached.
+
+Not that she preached at length.  Her sermons lasted five seconds by any
+clock, save at the times when she warmed her ankles by the fire with
+some pet friend of hers, and took into consideration how she was to use
+her power for the regeneration of the world which was hers.  Now she was
+with Ethel Mytton, a remote relative of the celebrated Mytton who drank
+eight bottles of port a day, and was a sportsman of the character which
+makes all Englishmen prouder of sport than of their history. Ten
+thousand on a football field would put him higher than Sir Richard
+Grenville.  Sidney was a fool to him.  Her father was a cabinet
+minister.
+
+But Ethel was meek and mild, and followed Penelope at a humble distance,
+modelling herself on that sweet mould of revolution.  So might a penny
+candle imitate an arc-light; so a glowworm worship the big moon.
+
+"But you'll get married, dear," said Ethel, "of course you'll get
+married."
+
+Penelope was pensive.
+
+"There are other things than marriage," said Penelope.
+
+"Oh, are there?" sighed Ethel.  She did not think so, for she was in
+love.  Penelope loved theories best.
+
+"Which of them will you marry?" asked Ethel.
+
+"Which what?"
+
+"Silly, them," said Ethel.  "What the duchess calls your 'horde.'"
+
+"I don't know," replied Penelope.  "I'm like Diogenes, and I'm looking
+for an honest man."
+
+"Oh, honesty,--yes, of course, I know what you mean.  But there are
+plenty of them, Pen dear.
+
+"Boo!" said Pen; "so the other Greeks said to the man in the tub."
+
+Ethel sighed.
+
+"What Greeks and what man in what tub?" she inquired, plaintively.
+
+And Penelope did not enlighten her darkness, for in came the Duchess of
+Goring, her aunt, whose Christian name was Titania.  She weighed sixteen
+stone in glittering bead armour, and had a voice exactly like Rose Le
+Clerc's in "The Duchess of Bayswater."  She rarely stopped talking, and
+was ridiculously moral and conventional, and, except for her voice, she
+might have been a shopkeeper's wife in any suburb.
+
+"My dear Penelope," said Titania, "I'm glad to see you again.  You look
+positively sweet, my darling, after all these parties and carryings-on,
+and what not, and now at last you are quite grown up and yourself and
+your own and twenty-one.  I wish I was.  I was nine stone then
+exactly,--not a pound more.  Oh, and it's you, Ethel.  I hope your dear
+papa is not overworking himself, now he's a cabinet minister.  Cabinet
+ministers will overwork themselves.  I've known them die of it.  Tell
+him what I say, will you?  But of course he will pay no attention, and
+in time will die like the rest. It's no use advising men to be sensible.
+I've given it up.  Ah, here at last is Lord Bradstock."
+
+Titania flowed on wonderfully; she flowed exactly like the twisting
+piece of glass in a mechanical clock which mimics a jet of water.  She
+turned round and never advanced.  But Augustin, Lord Bradstock, was as
+calm as a mill-pond, as a mere in the mountains.  He was tall and thin
+and ruddy and white-haired at fifty.  He had been twice a widower.
+
+"Why at last, Titania?" he yawned, as he stood with Penelope's hand in
+his.  He was still her guardian in his heart, though she was out of
+tutelage.
+
+"I say at last, Augustin, because you were not here before me," cried
+Titania.  "And I expected you to be here before me from what you said
+this morning.  I told you I meant to come in and speak quietly and
+seriously to Penelope, and you said you would come, too."
+
+Penelope's eyes thanked her guardian, and they smiled at him
+half-secretly, saying as plain as any words: "What a dear you are to
+come in and dilute aunty for me!"
+
+"Yes," said Bradstock, "I think I said I would prepare her."
+
+"I've not had a single chance lately to say a word for her good," cried
+Titania, "what with this person and that person and the horde.  I think
+it is time now, Penelope, that you reorganized your amazing circle of
+acquaintances, mostly men, by the way. While Augustin was responsible
+for you, of course you were obstinate, but now you are in a position of
+greater freedom you will see the advisability of being guided by your
+aunt.  I'm sure, I'm positive of it."
+
+Now the real sore point with the duchess was this matter of the "horde."
+It was the only picturesque phrase she ever invented in her life, and
+without any doubt it did characterize in some measure the remarkable
+collection of men who were pretenders to Penelope's hand and fortune.
+
+"Out of the entire, the entire--"
+
+"Caboodle," said Bradstock, suggestively.
+
+The duchess shook her head like a horse in fly-time.
+
+"No, Augustin, not caboodle; pray, what is caboodle?  Out of the
+entire--lot, Penelope, there are hardly three who belong to your class.
+I entreat you to go through them and dismiss those of whom we can't
+approve, I and Lord Bradstock."
+
+"Don't drag me in," said Bradstock.  "They are all very good fellows; I
+approve of them all."
+
+"Tut, tut," said Titania, "is this the way you help, Augustin?  You are
+a hindrance.  I believe it is entirely owing to you that Penelope has
+these strange and alarming ideas.  Yes, my dear, I'm afraid it is.  He
+is not the kind of man who should have been your guardian.  I ought to
+have been consulted.  I knew a bishop who would have been admirable,
+most admirable.  He's dead, dear man, and the present one is a scandal
+to the Protestant Church, what with incense and processions and candles
+and confession-boxes.  But, as I was saying, I do hope you will dismiss
+some of these men.  And I hope you will be sensible and not say shocking
+things.  No one should say shocking things till they are married, and
+even then with discretion.  Socialism and reform and marriage!  Dear me,
+you really must not talk about marriage, but you must get married to a
+suitable person.  I'm sure, Augustin, we should have no insuperable
+objection to, let us say, young Bramber.  He'll be an earl by and by.
+And you mustn't talk about reforming society, my dear love.  It is quite
+impossible to reform society without abolishing it, my pet.  Ethel
+darling, many cabinet ministers have owned as much to me with much
+alarm, almost with tears.  It's no use trying.  Tell your dear father
+so, Ethel.  I forgot to mention it the other day when we discussed the
+London County Council and its terrible extravagance compared with the
+economy of the government.  We talked, too, about the War Office, and I
+told him that it couldn't be reformed without abolishing it, which was
+not to be thought of for an instant. What should we do without a War
+Office, as we are always fighting?  He sighed deeply, poor man. Dr.
+Lumsden Griff says sighing is cardiac in its origin, and I wish your
+father would see him, Ethel. He's the first doctor in London for the
+ventricles of the heart.  So every one says.  But about your ideas,
+Penelope--"
+
+"Good heavens, aunty, I haven't any left," said Penelope.  This was not
+in the least surprising, for Titania reduced any ordinary gathering to
+idiocy at the shortest notice.
+
+"Oh, but you have," said Titania, "and society cannot endure ideas, my
+love.  Anything but ideas, darling."
+
+"Well, well," sighed Bradstock, "what is the use of talking to her,
+Titania?  Pen is Pen, and there's an end of it."
+
+"I wish there was," cried the duchess.  "But she rails against marriage.
+And she's only twenty-one.  Dear, dear me!"
+
+"She pays too much attention to you married women," said Bradstock.
+"How's the duke, by the way?"
+
+As the duke was engaged in running two theatres at the same time, not
+wholly in the interests of art or finance, Bradstock might have asked
+after his health at some other juncture.  Titania ignored him.
+
+"She rails against marriage," lamented Titania.
+
+"I don't," said Penelope.
+
+"You do," said her aunt.
+
+"It's only the horrible publicity," said Penelope, "and the way things
+are done, and the ghastly presents and the bishops and the newspaper men
+and the horrible crowd outside and the worse crowd inside, and all the
+horrid fluff and flummery of it. If I'm ever married, I'll get it done
+in a registrar's office."
+
+"Oh, Penelope," wailed Ethel.
+
+But Titania became terrible.
+
+"You shall not be, Penelope," she cried.  "I could not stand it.  As
+your aunt, my dear--  Oh, my love, I knew some one who was married in
+that way, and it was a most shocking affair, and of course it turned out
+that he had been married before and was a bigamist.  The scandal was
+hushed up, and the first wife, who was the sweetest girl, and died of
+consumption shortly afterward at her father's vicarage in Kent or
+Yorkshire, near Pevensey or Pontefract; at any rate it began with a P,
+and the man, though a villain, was a gentleman, for he married the
+second one all over again in a foreign place, with a chaplain
+officiating; much better than a registrar, who can marry you, I'm told,
+in pajamas if he likes, though not like a bishop, which one might have
+expected in his case.  You all knew him slightly, at any rate.  Never,
+my dear, get married at a registrar's."
+
+"It's better than the open shame of a cathedral and a bishop," said
+Penelope.  "Being married is one's private business, and it's nothing
+but horrid savagery to have crowds there!"
+
+"Bravo!" said Bradstock, and Titania turned on him.
+
+"Did I not say all this was your fault, Augustin? You were no more fit
+to be her guardian than you are to be Archbishop of Canterbury.  Am I a
+savage, Penelope? and did I not get married in a cathedral, a most
+beautiful cathedral, all Gothic and newly restored at a vast expense?
+My dear, I am amazed and horrified and shocked to think that you should
+not perceive the quite exquisite fitness of being married in a piece of
+lovely Gothic architecture, to the very loveliest music, breathing over
+Eden, and so on, while all your dearest friends shed tears of purest
+joy--"
+
+"To see her got rid of," said Bradstock.
+
+And even Ethel Mytton laughed.
+
+"Augustin!  Ethel Mytton!  How can you say such things and laugh?  It's
+wicked; it's indecent!"
+
+"Yes," said Penelope, "that's what I say. There's nothing to choose
+between your way and the American way the millionaire women have over
+there, when they hold a flower-show in a gilded room, and get married
+under a bell of roses at the cost of a hundred thousand dollars.  I'd
+rather be knocked down by a nice savage, or run away with by a viking,
+or caught by a pirate.  I won't be breathed over in Eden by a stuffy
+crowd.  If--if--"
+
+"Oh, if what?" gasped Titania.
+
+"If I ever do get married," said Penelope, "I'll never tell any of you
+beforehand!"
+
+"Good heavens!" said the duchess, "you won't tell us?"
+
+"I won't."
+
+"You'll let us find out!  Shall I know nothing of the marriage of my
+brother's child till I read it in the _Times_?  It shall not be!
+Augustin, does she mean it?"
+
+Augustin lighted a cigarette and walked to the window, which looked down
+on the traffic of Piccadilly.
+
+"I give it up," said Augustin.  "When could I answer riddles?  Do you
+mean it, Pen?"
+
+And Penelope, rising up, stood on the hearthrug and, looking like the
+descendant of a viking and some fair Venetian, declared that she did
+mean it.  And she further went on to say, in great haste and with a most
+remarkable flow of words, that it shouldn't be in the _Times_ or any
+other paper. And she said that if Titania, Duchess of Goring, was her
+aunt, it couldn't be helped, and that her principles were more to her
+than any one's approval. Though she loved her aunt and her dear sweet
+guardian, these same principles were even dearer than they were.  And
+she said that they had no principles ("not even Guardy dear"), and that
+they only thought of a demon thing called Society, which was at once a
+fetich and a phantom.  And she became so excited that she talked like a
+real woman orator upon a platform, and expressed her intention of using
+her influence to bring about reform, especially in such matters and with
+regard to young men who did nothing, and seemed to think they had been
+created for that very purpose.  And, as she talked, there wasn't a man
+in the world who would not have yearned to take his coat off and ask for
+a pick and shovel at the least, for she was as beautiful as any young
+goddess fresh from Grecian foam or from high Olympus.  Even Bradstock
+sighed to think that he had never done anything for the human race,
+which required so much help, but sit in the Upper House, a speechless
+phantom. And Ethel Mytton cried with an imparted enthusiasm, while the
+duchess wept with horror.
+
+"And more than that," said Penelope, who broke down in her eloquence and
+resorted to the tone of conversation, "more than that, I'll never, never
+let you know whom I marry!  I mean it!  That--that's flat!"
+
+And after this damp but awful peroration, she sat down with heaving
+bosom, and poor, bewildered Titania shook her head till it looked as if
+it would come off.  She found no flow of words to oppose Penelope with.
+The biggest river is nothing when it flows into the sea, and, if Titania
+was the Amazon, Pen was the South Atlantic.
+
+"Not who he is?" said the duchess, as feebly as if she were no more than
+a brook in a meadow.
+
+"I will not," said Penelope, like a sea in a cyclone.
+
+"Not--  Oh, I must go home," piped Titania. "Augustin, she's capable of
+marrying a chauffeur, because he can drive at sixty miles an
+hour,--or--or a groom!"
+
+"I'd rather marry either or both," said Pen, furiously, "than be mobbed
+and musicked into matrimony with a grinning crowd of idiots looking on."
+
+"This is immoral," said Titania, "it's very immoral; you couldn't marry
+both.  I'll go home, Bradstock."
+
+And Bradstock took her there.
+
+"You've done it, Titania," he said, as they drove. "She's as obstinate
+and as violent as a passive resister.  You've put her bristles up, and
+Pen never goes back from what she says."
+
+"You are very like a man, Augustin," sobbed the duchess.
+
+"She's more like a woman than I'm like a man," growled Bradstock.
+
+He had never risen to eminence, and only once to his feet in the Upper
+House, and sometimes this rankled.
+
+"Yes, I mean it, I mean it," said Penelope.
+
+"And I wanted to be your bridesmaid," sobbed Ethel.
+
+"You never will be, and you can tell every one what I say."
+
+"I won't," said Ethel, "I won't."
+
+And she went away and told them.
+
+
+
+
+                             *CHAPTER II.*
+
+
+In spite of what good conventional people said, there was nothing
+abnormal in Penelope's character. The walking world appears abnormal to
+an institute for cripples; good going is an absurdity, and as for
+running--  The truth is that Penelope, by some unimaginable freak of
+fortune, had been born quite sound and sane, barring her one lack, that
+of humour.  The providential death of her parents at an early age saved
+her from a deal of teaching. Bradstock saved her from a great deal more,
+and she saw to the rest.  It pleased Augustin, Lord Bradstock, to play
+with gunpowder, in spite of what he said about dynamite.  He encouraged
+her to trust to herself in a way that every well-regulated woman
+considered highly dangerous, and he used to enrage her in order to hear
+what she had to say to him.  There was a period in which she swore
+vigorously.  She learnt her language from an old stableman, who adored
+her even more than he did any horse.  This was at the age of three.  Her
+first interview with her aunt, the Duchess of Goring, was positively so
+shocking to Titania, who was mid-Victorian, and never got over it, that
+the poor thing almost fainted when Penelope, a shining brat of three,
+damned her eyes with terrific vigour. Goring, who was that very curious
+and absurd survival of a thousand ages, known as a sportsman, roared
+with laughter.  There was humanity in him.  There was none in Titania,
+though there might have been if she had married any one but a duke.  And
+Penelope damned her eyes for saying she mustn't go to the stables
+without a retinue, an escort, a bodyguard of footmen and nurses and
+governesses.
+
+"I haven't a governeth now," lisped Penelope. "I thacked the latht one,
+didn't I, Bradstock?"
+
+Lady Bradstock, number two, was then reigning without governing as far
+as Bradstock was concerned, and governing without reigning as far as
+another was concerned, and she paid no attention to Penelope, except to
+encourage her to amuse her guardian.  Thus Penelope grew like a tree in
+the open, and there were no Dutch gardeners to clip her.  At fifteen she
+greeted her last governess, a lady of great learning and no ability,
+with the news that she had had her luggage got ready, and that there was
+the carriage at the door for her.  There is no defending such conduct.
+Pen never defended it herself in later years.  She acknowledged she had
+been a brute to Miss Mackarness, and gave her a position as housekeeper
+in one of her own houses, that she never visited, with permission to
+receive the shillings some visitors paid to see a mansion like a
+sarcophagus, with one treasure of a Turner in it.
+
+The trouble was that Penelope was natural.  She had not been trained to
+become so; she grew so. There is no more painful and laborious a process
+than to learn to be natural in later life.  But to grow like it!  Ah,
+that was splendid, and many unthinking people laughed to hear Pen when
+she swore, or cried, or begged for pardon, or dominated the whole little
+world around her.  The world indeed smiled on Pen, and now she was
+twenty-one and splendid, mobile, gracious, Venetian, strong, and as rich
+as an American heiress, and she already had as many wooers as Penelope
+of old.  But the little bow of Cupid was too much for them. Other
+defence was too good.  And now these strange notions grew up in her.
+There was some natural shame in her heart that the crowd of duchesses
+and what not could not understand.  When He came at last, riding
+gallantly, a brave male, virile, strong, and bold, armed in shining
+armour, should she lead him out into Piccadilly, investing him in a
+frock coat for his armour and a cylinder for his helmet, and marry him
+in a crowd, while a paid organist played something about Eden?  Oh,
+where was Eden?
+
+Here's romance then, and in a new guise in a young woman.  For the true
+romantic age is the age of feminine desperation.  When one has been
+"taught" all one's best years, it's hard to be romantic till one wears
+through one's fetters at the very foot of the scaffold, when it's too
+late.  How many sweet women sour in cream-jugs, and escape the cat, or
+some roaring lion, for nothing but sourest contemplation.  They crowd
+feminine churches.
+
+Pen's brother, or, rather, half-brother, was ten years her senior, and
+played a suitable part in the orchestra of the House of Lords as Lord
+Brading. He voted for the government when it was conservative, and
+against it when it was liberal with perfect certainty and good-will.
+There was nothing remarkable about Brading but the strange, almost
+awestruck admiration with which he worshipped Penelope.  A man even of
+the most absurd conservative solidity must be a radical and an anarchist
+somewhere, and indeed he pretended to be something of a socialist.
+Nevertheless, he had humour.  Brading thought his half-sister a wonder,
+and had no criticism for her.  Indeed it is believed that he helped the
+groom mentioned above to teach her unrefinements of the English language
+peculiarly shocking to early and mid Victorians.  But in his heart
+"Bill" Brading considered Pen's mother accounted for, excused
+everything.  The last Lady Brading was an American who wallowed in
+money, which she invested in repairing her husband's character and his
+castles.  When he died, and nothing could be done for his character but
+suppress biographers, she invested in ancient demesnes on Pen's behalf,
+and bought her rat-riddled and ghost-haunted mansions of historic
+character till there were few (and among them Penelope could not be
+counted) who could tell how many of them she owned.  Then Lady Brading
+went to a newer world than the United States, and left Pen to the care
+of Augustin, Lord Bradstock, a man of brains and no voice when on his
+legs.  It is reported that he learnt a speech of his own composing by
+heart, and when he rose to deliver it all he said was, "Good God," in an
+astonished whisper, and collapsed, struck by a form of paralysis which
+rarely attacks fools and which bores cannot suffer from.
+
+Penelope was richer than her half-brother, for her mother, having paid
+her husband's debts, rebuilt Brading House, and saved his life from
+being written after a very quiet and gentlemanly departure, considered
+she had done her duty to the family. She left her stepson five thousand
+pounds, it is true, and, with a want of ostentation not peculiarly
+American, she left another five to Penelope, and modestly made her
+residuary legatee.  The residue was considerably over a million dollars.
+And then there were the houses, most of them ineligible properties in
+ring-fences, fit for immediate occupation after they had been restored.
+For poor Lady Brading had a passion for ruins, and collected castles as
+some do bric-�-brac.  The two great griefs of her life were that she
+could not buy Haddon Hall and Arundel Castle.
+
+Well, there is the situation plainly outlined.  Pen was as savage as
+Pocahontas, so some said, and she could, an she liked, wallow in money.
+She owned property all over England, to say nothing of a chateau near
+Tours, a palazzo in Venice, and a building in New York which brought in
+more than the rest cost to keep up.  She had a brother, a peer with a
+voice, a guardian a peer without one, an aunt who was a duchess, and
+strange ideas of her own which got up and talked on the most unsuitable
+occasions.
+
+But then there was her beauty as clamant as a rose of fire, as sweet as
+violet or verbena!  The rose can be gilded it seems, like a lily, and
+the gold was a power to her, giving authority over men. She who had
+enough to command the work of many thousands at current wages (for this
+is money truly) commanded that strange respect for power as well as love
+for herself.  Her lovers were numberless, so people said, and there was
+this truth in their being beyond arithmetic that no one troubled to
+count them.  Marriageable beauties of a lesser order of loveliness
+prayed for her extinction in matrimony.  Mothers of the marriageable
+prayed for it with a fervour only equalled by the fervour of her
+hopeless lovers, if there can be fervour without hope.  It is the
+command of true beauty that it can.  Had not all the painters, all the
+sculptors, from Pheidias down to the unselected classics of our own
+time, met together when she rose, a newer Aphrodite from the sea of the
+unknown!  Her loveliness was sweet and intolerable; one ached at it.
+Cowards shrank from it.  Brave men cried for her.  There are strange
+tales!
+
+What a strange motley gathering she selected. They had one thing in
+common, to be discovered shortly, one would think.  She discovered their
+qualities by inspection.  Many would-bes she drove away overcliff.  She
+knew men of many classes adored her, wondering and humble.  One great
+lover of hers, who was very good to horses, and only reasonably bitter
+against motor-cars, was her groom, Timothy Bunting.  He didn't know he
+loved her.  Indeed, he imagined he loved her maid.  But there is this
+quality in a great love, that it asks all or nothing.  Tim was perhaps
+as great as the greatest, but he rode behind her even when the Marquis
+de Rivaulx or Rufus Q. Plant rode alongside her with a quiet and
+unjealous mind.  There was much in Timothy, as much or more than there
+was in the French marquis, who rode "well enough," as Tim said, or as in
+Plant, who rode "all over 'is 'orse," as became one bred in Arizona.
+These must show themselves by and by.  They had the quality, at any
+rate.  Even Tim knew it.
+
+But what was it that gave permission to Mr. Austin de Vere to join the
+throng?  He wrote poetry.  He followed her as close as a rhyme in a
+couplet.  He never wrote her any, for which she was pleased to be
+flatteringly thankful.  There are some things that cannot be set down in
+verse even by the greatest, and the poet De Vere acknowledged this
+humbly.  He had the character of being the most conceited and
+immitigable ass in England, and when he was with Penelope he was as
+humble as a puppy in leash.  There was something great in his mighty
+subjection.  Not even Goby, late of the Guards, was so mitigable and so
+mitigated when Pen was by.  And Goby's V.C. was almost as much valued by
+him as his clothes and boots. He gained it by a fit of angry rage, such
+as had led him to pay several sovereigns at a desk in a back office at a
+police-station, and came out of his temper to discover he was a hero.
+So much for luck when a big man, with the quality and temper of a bull,
+gets into a row in a sangar without any police to stay his hand.
+
+"As for that De Vere," said Goby, "why, I could crush him with one
+hand."
+
+"And he could make you sore with a few words," said Penelope.
+
+"He couldn't," bragged Goby.
+
+Penelope smiled.
+
+"No, perhaps he couldn't," she said, pensively, and Goby was pleased
+with her opinion of his bull's hide.  Europa had at any rate scratched
+him.  He indicated the sea of matrimony with inarticulate bellows.  But
+of course he was really quite possible. As Chloe Cadwallader said, his
+boots were inspiration, polished, and his Christian name was
+Plantagenet.  He had some obscure right to it.
+
+Then there was Lord Bramber.  Some folks said if she married any one,
+she would marry Bramber, because his father was the Earl of Pulborough.
+They forgot all the rest of the aristocratic mob. If any title pleased
+her democratic soul, she could pick strawberries.  One senile and one
+merely silly duke pursued her panting.  But she certainly liked Bramber,
+and showed her partiality for him or her unpartiality with frankness.
+She had hopes of him, though he appeared hopeless now at the age of
+twenty-seven.  She maintained that men were half their age and women
+twice it, at the least.
+
+"Dear Titania is ninety," said Penelope, "and Guardy is twenty-five.
+Lord Bramber will perhaps think of doing some work when he is fifteen."
+
+There came with these, with and not after, Jimmy Carew, who was an
+A.R.A.  He painted portraits, and talked about art with eloquence till
+no one, even an artist, could guess what he meant.  But he believed
+things with such faith that many of his fair sitters agreed with him.
+He was the best looking of the whole "horde," as Titania called Pen's
+adorers.
+
+The "horde" included Leopold Norfolk Gordon, who had a house in Park
+Lane and ever so many people's money to keep it up with.  As may be
+guessed from his name, he was a Jew.  Several people, with whom he could
+not share the money he had acquired by unsullied dishonesty, said his
+real name was Isaac Levi.  Goby, who hated him bitterly, consoled him
+when a less successful Israelite called him "Ikey," at Ascot, by saying:
+
+"It's damned hard lines, Gordon.  A man may be born in Whitechapel
+without being a Jew."
+
+So near may insolence come to wit.  When this was pointed out to Goby,
+he told the story everywhere with many chuckles.  But it was impossible
+to deny certain attributes to poor Gordon, whether his name was Levi or
+Moses, or Ehrenbreitstein, for that matter.  Penelope had no racial
+prejudices, and anti-Semitism was unnatural and abhorrent to her.  She
+said things about negroes to Rufus Q. Plant (born in Virginia) which
+made his flesh creep almost as badly as if he had been born in Delaware.
+So in spite of Gordon's looking somewhat Semitic, she asserted there
+were the qualities she required in the poor man, who indeed was not
+bumptious or loud or peculiarly offensive in her presence.  He that
+stole millions feared a girl.  He polished his last week's hat with
+trembling hands, that had signed death-warrants in the city, when he
+spoke with her.
+
+And to round off the "horde" with another sample, there came in Carteret
+Williams.  He was the biggest of the lot, and had a voice like a
+toastmaster's, or that of the man who announces the train at Zurich.  It
+is worth going there to hear him, by the way.  Many good Americans
+travel for less.  Williams was a writer, a journalist, a
+war-correspondent, or, as he said, a "battle vulture."  When he could
+dip his pen in blood, he wrote with a red picturesqueness which was
+horribly attractive. He belonged to a very decent family, and took to
+his present trade by nature.  That gives some hint of why Penelope liked
+him.
+
+What was the secret, then, the secret that brought young Bramber, and
+Rufus Quintus Plant, and "Ikey Levi," alias Leopold Norfolk Gordon, and
+Captain Plantagenet Goby, and the verse-making De Vere, together with
+the Marquis de Rivaulx and Jimmy Carew, under one table-cloth, so to
+speak, at the Tattenham Corner of wooing?  Some said Penelope wouldn't
+have anything to do with any one who was not a Man.  It is true she
+abhorred those who were not men; but so much depends upon a definition.
+In the West (and the East, for that matter) a Man goes for what he is
+worth, and is common currency, as he should be, and a "White Man" is the
+gold.  To be called a White Man is the true compliment, and
+implies,--well, it implies what the "horde" implied.  They were men and
+Man, and "White," so Penelope said when she had picked up the
+picturesque figure from Rufus Q. Plant.  They might be asses (and some
+were, or at least mules), but they meant to run straight.  They were
+lazy, or some were, but the laziest lay under the delusion that laziness
+was their godlike duty.  They needed the spur.  They might be brutes in
+the way of business (you should read what has been written in a New York
+paper about Plant, or hear what a certain disembowelled set in the city
+say of Gordon, who turned them inside out), but they played the game.
+They knew what cricket was, even when it was played with red-hot shot,
+and not to carry one's bat meant blue ruin. After saying that they were
+all this, which implies they were men of honour, each according to the
+code of their fellows (for this is honour), I shall show you how they
+came, or how many of them came, to utter grief in curious ways under
+very odd stresses.  What can a man of honour do in an entirely new
+position, one not provided for in any code?  It would puzzle a jury of
+archangels to say.
+
+"Have you heard?" asked Goby, with wondering eyes.
+
+"What she says?" replied Gordon.
+
+"Shade of Titian!" cried Jimmy Carew.
+
+"Well, I'm damned!" said Carteret Williams.
+
+"This is romance," sighed the De Vere.
+
+"I'm--I'm--that's what I am," whistled Rufus Q. Plant.
+
+"Imphm!" murmured Lord Bramber.
+
+"Sapristi!" shrieked the French marquis.
+
+Wasn't it enough to make them exclaim when it was reported all over
+London, and in the country, and in papers and cables to New York that
+Penelope Brading had sworn, with a great oath, that she meant to upset
+the holy apple-cart of all tradition (at least since Adam) by never
+letting any one know who her husband was!  They knew her, and knew her
+word was sacred.  Now let all unwhite men, all unrealities, all ghosts,
+all vain folks vanish one by one.
+
+With one voice the "horde" exclaimed, as they set their teeth:
+
+"Well, we don't care!"
+
+What does this say for Penelope's faculties of distinguishing men from
+monkeys, and white from gray?
+
+
+
+
+                             *CHAPTER III.*
+
+
+All that happened now only shows one how the greatest sense of modesty
+may end in the biggest advertisement.  Penelope, though determined to do
+her duty, which was mainly to educate mankind, meant doing it
+unobtrusively, and there was not a man or woman in the British Isles or
+in the United States who did not hear of her quiet intention.  The
+cables hummed with Penelope's name; it was whispered in the great deeps
+of the sea; wireless telegraphists caught Lady Penelope Brading out of
+Hertzian waves; ships ploughed the ocean laden with Penelope and copy
+about her.
+
+In two twos the notoriety hunters in London sank into insignificance;
+professional beauties were neglected, and the sale of their photographs
+fell off. There was an immense demand for Penelope's, which, luckily, no
+one could satisfy until an enterprising New Yorker flooded the United
+States with portraits.  Before it was found out that this particular
+photograph was one of a young actress whom he proposed introducing to
+the public shortly, he sold amazing quantities of them.  When there was
+one in every inquiring household from Hudson Bay to the Gulf of Mexico,
+the real sitter for it wrote to the papers and complained bitterly.  She
+is now playing to crowded houses.  There are many paths to fame.
+
+Poor Pen was at first horribly shocked.  She was young.  And yet she was
+human.  She said: "Oh, dear, oh, dear!" and, swearing that she would
+never read a word about herself, she subscribed to a newspaper cutting
+agency.
+
+From the New York papers alone one could cull a highly coloured account
+of her whole history. And they gave Bradstock's history, too, not
+omitting his two-word exclamatory speech in the House of Lords.
+Bradstock stood it like a Trojan, like a Spartan.  He never turned a
+hair even when they said that he was going to marry Penelope himself.
+They gave a full biography of Titania, with a real photograph.  When the
+duchess saw it, she was silent for full five minutes, such was the shock
+it gave her.  Then she talked for five hours, and called on the American
+ambassador.
+
+"Cannot you do anything for me?" asked Titania, perorating.
+
+"I'm afraid not, your Grace," said the ambassador, wearily.  He said it
+was an awful thing to be an ambassador sometimes, though it had its
+points.
+
+Being discomfited for once by an ambassador, she turned on Bradstock,
+and rent him limb from limb.  And then she went to Penelope.
+
+"I'm only doing my duty," said Penelope, with her beautiful lips as firm
+as Grecian marble.
+
+"Your duty!" shrieked the duchess; "and look at the papers!"
+
+"I can't help what they say, aunt.  One's duty--"
+
+"They tell my weight," said Titania.  "How did they know?"
+
+"They must have guessed it," said Penelope.
+
+"I don't _look_ it," pleaded the duchess, now suddenly plaintive.
+
+"No, no, dear auntie, you don't," said poor Penelope.  "Oh, it's cruel
+of them."
+
+"Help me, then," said Titania.  "Get married at once in a cathedral, and
+all this will stop.  I'll ask the dear archbishop to officiate,
+Penelope.  Oh, my darling!"
+
+But Penelope became Pentelican marble again; she froze into a severe
+goddess, and she saw Titania weep.
+
+"It's scandalous!  Oh, and they have a list of them all," said Titania.
+
+Indeed, the _New York Dustman_ had the "horde" set out in a row like the
+entries for the Derby. They said the betting was on Rufus Q. Plant, of
+course.  They gave a short and succulent biography of them all.  They
+headed the list "The Lady Penelope Handicap."  They used some slang
+about "weight for age."
+
+"Great heavens!" said Titania, "all town is ringing with it.  If this is
+the result of looking on marriage as one's private business, give me
+publicity!"
+
+There would have been less of it if a prince had married a publican's
+daughter in St. Paul's, and had presented the dean with a set of pewter
+pots.
+
+"And if she does what she says!"
+
+The only men who did not talk much about Penelope were naturally those
+who aspired to win her.  Every one neglected politics and sport to
+discuss her.  She became politics and sport.  Huge sums of money were at
+stake as to whether she would keep her word; as to the length of time
+she would keep the secret, and as to who the man was to be.  There were
+public and private books made on the series of events.  And there was a
+Penelope party and an opposition.  Many young people who were
+revolutionary in their sentiments said she was right.  There was a
+Penelope Cave in the House of Commons.  Some of those who fought year in
+and year out for the Deceased Wife's Sister backed her up.  It was
+whispered that the prince was a Penelopian; two princesses threatened
+with objectionable persons of the royal blood were heard to observe that
+there was something in what she said. Penelope was within measurable
+distance of becoming a national, or even an international, question.
+Mrs. X. wrote an article in the _Fortnightly_ on "Secret Marriage in
+History."  Mr. Z. sat down and wrote a novel, bristling with "wit and
+epigram," in ten days, which ran into the third edition of two hundred
+and fifty copies in thirty.  It was said that questions were to be asked
+in the House. A play on the subject was forbidden by the lord
+chamberlain.  The wittiest article on the subject was written by a Mr.
+Shaw.  He argued that no really beautiful woman had any right to be
+married at all.  He said plaintively that it wasn't fair, and convinced
+the ugly in two syllogisms.
+
+And, as the result of this, Penelope went away into the country, though
+it was May, with Ethel Mytton and Mrs. Cadwallader, who was called
+Chloe, and stood by Pen remorselessly in every difficulty.  For Pen had
+helped her out of an awful mess, the history of which would make a whole
+story of itself.  As a result of it, Cadwallader was in the Rocky
+Mountains shooting, and a certain young soldier was taking too much
+liquor and too little quinine in Nigeria, and Chloe got her diamonds
+back from Messrs. Attenborough, and was eternally grateful to Penelope
+in consequence.
+
+"And I shall send for them one by one," said Penelope.  "They can come
+down by the ten o'clock train from Paddington, and go back by the five
+o'clock one from here.  And after lunch I shall explain my ideas to
+them."
+
+"And I'll be with you," said Chloe, who was as dark-locked as a raven's
+wing.
+
+"Oh, I don't mind," said Penelope; "of course you will.  I'm too young,
+am I not, to be left alone, Chloe?  Is it true, Chloe, that the older a
+woman gets the bigger fool she is?"
+
+Chloe said it was true.
+
+"I'll ask Titania to let Bob come over," said Penelope.  "He's the
+wisest person I know."
+
+Bob was Titania's grandson, and was certainly young enough to be wise,
+as he was only fourteen. He had been sent to three of the great public
+schools, and had been taken away because of his fighting capabilities.
+He never knew when he had enough, and it is quite impossible to keep a
+boy at any school if he breaks out of bounds to fight some young butcher
+or baker in a back alley at least once a week.  Now he had a tutor who
+had been an amateur boxer of great merit.  It began to take the tutor
+all his time to handle his pupil.  But if Bob was knocked endways about
+three times a week, it sobered him and made him do his work.  He did not
+yet know whether he wanted to be a prize-fighter or the
+commander-in-chief.  But he loved Penelope.
+
+"I'll send for Bob," said Penelope.
+
+And Bob came with Mr. Guthrie, his tutor, and Titania was glad to get
+rid of him for a time.
+
+"Oh, Pen," said Bob, "how jolly kind of you to ask me.  I'm sick of
+grandmother; she worries me to death.  Always says, 'Robert, you
+mustn't.'  I say, have you read Kip's 'Cat that Walked by Himself'?  Mr.
+Guthrie says it's splendid, and I say it's rot.  But old Guth likes
+Virgil and Horace.  Isn't that strange, for he can box like anything.
+Baker, the groom, says he can.  And Baker's awful good with the mitts.
+But I say, Pen, what's all this about you in the papers?  Grandmother
+wails when she sees one now.  I ain't sure I like having you so much in
+the papers, Pen."
+
+"I don't like it, either," said Penelope, "but I can't help it."
+
+"Is it true that you're going to be married and never tell any one?"
+demanded Bob from the bottom of a huge rocking-chair, as they sat on the
+lawn.  They were in one of Pen's habitable houses, and the lawn ran down
+to the Thames.
+
+"I won't if I don't want to," said Penelope. "But you're a boy, Bob, and
+don't understand these things."
+
+Bob snorted and smiled, not unsubtly.
+
+"Oh, Pen, don't be like grandmother.  I understand pretty nearly
+everything now.  Granny's always saying that, and it's jolly rot.  You
+can't be like me, turned out of three schools, and not know something.
+Are you going to get married soon?"
+
+Pen shook her head.
+
+"She's very savage at your knowing that Jew cad, Gordon, but grandfather
+isn't.  He says that Gordon may be a Jew, of course, but he's all right.
+I asked him if I could get put on a board as a director, and he was so
+mad with me.  I think Gordon's asked him to be a director, and he'd like
+to only he daren't.  He's got none too much money, you know, Pen.  But
+about all these chaps, Pen?"
+
+He went through the horde seriatim, and pronounced upon them all with
+ineffable wisdom.
+
+"Goby's an ass, but a good ass, Pen," he said, as he kicked with his
+legs.  "He gave me a thick-un a year ago when I was in difficulties.
+But he hasn't the brains to make a good corporal.  Baker says that.
+Baker was a sergeant in the Dublin Fusiliers. I like Plant, though, Pen.
+Baker says he rides in a rummy fashion, more like a circus man than
+anything else, but he can stick to a horse.  And there's your Frenchman.
+I say, how does he come to be called Rivaulx?  Was he called after
+Rivaulx in Yorkshire, or was it called after him?  Ask him if he shoots
+larks in his native country.  All Frenchmen do, old Guth says.  He says
+he read a book the other day in which a French priest says he never sees
+a lark without wanting to shoot it.  What a miserable rotter, wasn't he?
+But Rivaulx isn't so bad, though.  He's a gentleman, at any rate, though
+he is French.  I say, why do foreigners never look like gentlemen?
+Dashed if I know.  I've often wondered, because grandfather likes them,
+through his having been an ambassador.  Sometimes a German does, though.
+And Bramber's all right, Pen. I don't think I'd mind your marrying him."
+
+"I won't marry any one who isn't a useful citizen," said Pen.
+
+"He's all right," urged Bob.  "He's as strong as a bull.  Baker says
+he'd peel better than most prize-fighters.  What is a useful citizen?  I
+say, if you get married, you'll tell me who it is?"
+
+"No," said Penelope.
+
+"I call that mean," said Bob.  "I'd not tell any one, and I'd help like
+fun."
+
+"I'm sure you would, Bob.  But I may never get married."
+
+"Rot," said Bob, "a girl like you not get married! Oh, I say!"
+
+And he continued to say for some hours, and proved himself most
+entertaining company, quoting Baker, who had been a sergeant in the
+Dublin Fusiliers, and had been very severely knocked about by Jem Mace,
+and appealing to Mr. Guthrie, who came over with him to get him to look
+at a book in the mornings, to back him up.  He was really very modest
+and gentlemanly, at the same time that he was exceedingly bumptious and
+arrogant, after the best manner of the extremely healthy English boy.
+
+And at twelve o'clock he came running to Penelope and Chloe by the
+river-bank in wild excitement.
+
+"I say, Pen, I say, Pen, there's old Goby coming, and with that
+miserable rotter who makes poetry. What's brought 'em here?"
+
+"I asked them to lunch," said Pen.
+
+"Eh, what?" cried Bob.  "Goby and that rotter, Austin de Vere!  I say,
+Mr. Guthrie--"
+
+He ran off to Guthrie, bawling:
+
+"I say, Mr. Guthrie, here's that poet chap, Austin de Vere, come.
+Didn't you say he mostly wrote rot?"
+
+And Goby and De Vere came across the lawn together, like a mastiff and a
+Maltese in company. They made each other as nervous as cats, and
+couldn't for their lives understand why they were asked together.
+
+"The clumsy brute," said De Vere.
+
+"The verse-making monkey," said Goby.
+
+But tailors could have admired them both.  They were perfect.  And lunch
+was a most painful function, only endurable to Penelope because she was
+on the track of her duty, and to Chloe because she laughed internally,
+and to Mr. Guthrie (who was really a clever man) because he liked to
+study men and manners, and to Bob because he talked all the time, owing
+to the silence of the others.
+
+"I say, Captain Goby, I've got a splendid bull-pup.  Baker got him for
+me, cheap, for a quid,--a sovereign, I mean.  You remember Baker.  He
+was a sergeant,--oh, I told you that just now. Do you like bulldogs, Mr.
+de Vere?"
+
+De Vere was politely sulky.
+
+"Bulldogs, oh, ah, well, I do not know that I do."
+
+He looked at Goby, who was also sulky and feeling very much out of it.
+But the subject of bulldogs appealed to him, because he saw it didn't
+amuse his rival.
+
+"I'll give you a real good pup, Bob," he said, good-naturedly; "one that
+no one could get for a sovereign.
+
+"A real pedigree pup?"
+
+"With a pedigree as long as your own," said Goby.
+
+Bob sighed, and laid his hand on Goby's.
+
+"I say, Pen, isn't Captain Goby a real good 'un?" he asked.  "Baker
+says--"
+
+But what Baker said does not come into this history, as the lunch
+finished, and they all went into the garden.  Goby spoke to Bob as they
+went out.
+
+"I say, Bob, get hold of that ass De Vere, and talk to him as hard as
+the very deuce, will you?"
+
+"You meant that about the pup?" said Bob.
+
+"Of course, Bob."
+
+"I'll talk his beastly head off," said Bob.
+
+And this was why Penelope spoke confidentially to Captain Goby before
+she did so to the poet.  She was exceedingly pale and very dignified,
+but she lost no time in getting to the point.
+
+"Captain Goby," she said, "you have asked me to marry you at least three
+times."
+
+Goby sighed.
+
+"Is it only three?" he demanded, and he added, firmly, "it will be more
+yet."
+
+"And I said 'no' because I had no idea of marrying any one."
+
+"That was rot," said Goby.  "For, if you married no one else, you would
+marry me."
+
+"Certainly not as you are," retorted Penelope. "I want you and all men
+(that I know) to reform."
+
+Goby was not astonished at anything Penelope said.
+
+"I reformed long ago," he said.  "As soon as I saw you, I said I'd
+reform and I did.  It was a great deal of trouble, but I did it.  Oh,
+you've no idea how I suffered.  But I said, 'Plantagenet, my boy, if you
+are to be worthy, you must buck up!'"
+
+This was encouraging.
+
+"I'm glad I've had so much influence," said Pen, who didn't quite know
+what his reforms had been. "But there are other things.  This is merely
+negative.  What are you doing to be useful to the state? Are you loafing
+about on your money?  Do you do any work?  Are you educating yourself?"
+
+Goby gasped.
+
+"I say, come, Lady Penelope, I've done all that! Education! why, I had a
+horrid time at school and at a crammer's--"
+
+"Do you read?" asked Pen, severely.
+
+"Why, of course," said Goby.
+
+"What?"
+
+Goby rubbed his cropped hair with two fingers.
+
+"Papers?"
+
+"Anything?" said Pen.
+
+"Well, I read the _Sportsman_ and the _Pink Un_ (at least, I did before
+I reformed) and the _Referee_," said Goby.
+
+"Books?"
+
+"Not many," said Goby.  "But I will.  What do you recommend?"
+
+"I think Tennyson and Shelley would do you good," said Pen, "but you had
+better ask Mr. de Vere.  And do you do anything useful?"
+
+"De Vere!  Oh, Lord!" cried Goby.  "Anything useful?  Why, I was in the
+army--"
+
+"And now you do nothing.  Well," said Penelope, "I think you had better
+begin at once.  Any man I know has to do something useful.  You must go
+to the War Office and ask to be made something again.  I think a
+colonelcy of a militia regiment would suit you.  And I am going to ask
+Mr. de Vere to take an interest in your reading."
+
+"The devil!" said Goby.  "I say, my dear Lady Penelope, I can't stand
+him.  Why, you may have seen we are barely civil to each other."
+
+"I shall speak to him firmly," said Penelope, "and it's for his good,
+too.  He leads an unhealthy indoor life.  I want you to change all that.
+You row a great deal still, don't you?"
+
+"Since I reformed I began again," said Goby. He felt the muscles of his
+right arm with complacency.
+
+"Take him out and make him row, then," said Pen, "and while he rows you
+can read poetry to him, and so on.  It will be good for both of you."
+
+"But--" said Goby.
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"If I do this, will you marry me?"
+
+Penelope shook her head.
+
+"If you do it, I'll think whether I'll marry you."
+
+"Oh," said the soldier, "and if I just can't hit it off with that poet?"
+
+"Then I won't think about it," replied Pen. "I'll never, never consider
+the possibility of marrying any one who isn't leading a useful life, and
+educating himself, and living on less than a thousand a year.  Can you
+do that, too?"
+
+"Dashed if I see how it can be done," said Plantagenet Goby.  "But I'll
+try, oh, yes, I'll try."
+
+"Now you talk to Chloe," said Penelope, and she went away to the rescue
+of the poet.  For Bob had got him in a corner.
+
+[Illustration: CAPTAIN PLANTAGENET GOBY, V.C., LATE OF THE GUARDS. Who
+was ordered to read poetry]
+
+"I say, Mr. de Vere, wasn't that ripping of old Goby to say he'd give me
+a real pedigree bull-pup? He knows a bull-pup from a window-shutter, as
+Baker says.  You don't like them?  No, but you would if you had one.  I
+feed mine myself, and I wear thick gloves, so's not to get hydrophobia
+when he bites.  He's a most interesting dog, and not so good-tempered as
+most bulldogs.  When he sees a cat, oh, my, it's fun!  Look here, when
+Goby gives me the new pup with the pedigree, you can have mine, if you
+like, cheap.  I know you have a place in the country, and you must want
+a bulldog. Will you buy him?"
+
+"Good heavens, no!" said the poet.
+
+"Humph!" cried Bob, who of course had quite forgotten that he was doing
+all this for Goby, and was just enjoying himself.  "Why, what do you do
+in the country without a dog?  Do you ride?"
+
+"No," said De Vere.
+
+"Well, of all--I say, Mr. de Vere, what do you do?  Do you walk about
+and make poetry, and do you like making it?  Old Guth, I mean Mr.
+Guthrie, he's my tutor, and he's over there talking to Mrs. Cadwallader,
+he reads a lot, and some of yours, too."
+
+"Oh, does he!" said De Vere, who began to take some interest.  "Does
+he?"
+
+"Oh, a lot of yours, he says; most of it, I think."
+
+"And does he like it?"
+
+Bob put his head on one side.
+
+"Well, he says it's not bad, some of it."
+
+De Vere flinched at this faint praise.
+
+"Indeed!  And what does he like best?" he asked.
+
+"Oh, the beastliest rot," returned Bob, "Browning and Shelley, and I
+say, do you see that bulge in his pocket?  That's Catullus.  He reads
+him all day.  But here comes Pen.  I say, won't you have my bull-pup?
+I'll let you have him for half a sovereign; I got him for a sovereign,
+at least, Baker did.  _I_ think your poetry's very fine, sir; Mr.
+Guthrie lent me some."
+
+But Penelope came across the lawn, and De Vere forgot Bob and the
+bull-pup, and fell down and worshipped.  And the goddess took hold of
+him, and stripped a lot of his poetry away, and set a few facts before
+him and made him gasp.
+
+"I heard a very strange rumour, Lady Penelope," he said, when he was
+once more standing upright before Aphrodite.  "I heard--oh, but it was
+absurd!  I can't believe it."
+
+"Then it is probably true," said the goddess, breathlessly, "for I mean
+to have my own way and to initiate a reform in marriages, Mr. de Vere. I
+have been reading the accounts of some fashionable weddings lately, and
+they made me ill.  What you have heard is quite true."
+
+The poet shook his head.
+
+"I have had the honour to beg you to believe a thousand times that I am
+devoted to you--"
+
+"Three times, I think," said Pen, who was good at arithmetic.
+
+"Is it only thrice?  But do I understand that, if I were to have the
+inexpressible delight of winning your love, Lady Penelope, that the
+marriage would be a secret one, that no one would know of it?"
+
+"I mean that," said Penelope, enthusiastically. "It is a new departure,
+an assertion of a just individualism, although I am a socialist.  I
+abhor ceremonies, and will not be interfered with.  I have stated with
+the utmost clarity to all my relations that I shall not consult them or
+let them know until I choose, and I shall only get married (if I ever
+do) on these terms."
+
+"I agree to them," said the poet.  "Lady Penelope, will you do me the
+inexpressible honour to be my wife?"
+
+"Oh, dear, no," said Pen.  "Why, certainly not, Mr. de Vere.  I don't
+love any one yet, and perhaps I never shall.  But what I say is this:
+I'll think as to whether I shall marry you if you do as I wish about
+this matter and about others."
+
+"My blessed lady," said the poet, "is there anything I would not dare or
+do?"
+
+"I've told Captain Goby exactly the same thing," said Penelope, thereby
+putting her pretty foot upon the sudden flowers of De Vere's
+imagination, "and what I want of you is to be more an out-of-door man.
+You live too much in rooms, hothouses, Mr. de Vere, and in your own
+garden."
+
+"I was in a garden, I a poet, with one who was (oh, and is) an angel,"
+said De Vere, "but now I dwell in arid deserts, shall I say the Desert
+of Gobi?  What have I to do with him?  Shall he dare to pretend to you,
+dear lady?"
+
+"He's a very good chap," said Pen, quite shortly, "and I think it would
+do you good to associate with him more.  I've told him so, and he
+agrees. I want you to make him read a little, and exercise his
+imagination.  And he can take you out rowing and shooting perhaps, and I
+think a little hunting wouldn't do you harm.  You might ask him to stay
+with you, and he'll ask you.  And I want you to go out in motor-cars."
+
+"Good heavens!" said De Vere.
+
+"I know it will be hard," said Pen, consolingly. "But you know what I
+want.  It's not enough to be rich and write poetry, Mr. de Vere.  I
+think you might read statistics; statistics are a tonic, and I want you
+to be a useful citizen, too.  There are things to be done.  Just look at
+my cousin Bob. Now he'll be a splendid man."
+
+"He wanted to sell me a bull-pup," murmured the poet.
+
+"He's a good boy," said Pen, affectionately, "and his instincts are to
+be trusted.  I think a bulldog would do you good perhaps.  And I shall
+expect to hear you have asked Captain Goby to stay with you.  And don't
+forget the statistics."
+
+"I'll do it," said the unhappy poet, "for while the One Hope I have
+exists, and until 'vain desire at last and vain regret go hand in hand
+to death,' I am your slave."
+
+And, as he went away, he called Bob to him.
+
+"I'll give you half a sovereign for that bulldog," he said, bitterly.
+
+"Oh, I say.  But Baker says he's worth two sovereigns," cried Bob.
+
+"I'll give you two," said the poet.
+
+And Bob danced on the lawn.
+
+
+
+
+                             *CHAPTER IV.*
+
+
+If Penelope had had any sense of humour, she would have deprived the
+round world of much to laugh at in sad times, when laughter was wanted.
+But thanks be to whatever gods there are, some folks have no humour, and
+some have a little, and a few much, and thus the world gets on in spite
+of the spirit of gravity, which, as may be remembered by students of
+philosophy, Nietzsche branded as the enemy.  Pen went ahead, bent on
+cutting her own swath in the hay-field, and she cut a big one.  Goby and
+the poet must stand as exemplars of her clear and childlike method.  It
+was Pen's Short Way with Her Lovers.  She got Rivaulx, who was
+Nationalist and Anti-Semite to his manicured finger-tips, and had been
+mixed up in the Dreyfus case, and set him cheek by jowl with Gordon,
+alias Isaac Levi.
+
+She made them dine together in public, and the poor marquis, being head
+over heels in love with the earnest creature who was so beautiful,
+submitted like a lamb.
+
+"Very well, I will," said Rivaulx.  There were almighty shrieks in the
+Paris press.  The _Journal_ had an article that was wonderful.  The
+affair woke up anti-Semitism again.  Rivaulx had been bought by Jewry;
+France was once more betrayed; the bottom of the world was falling out.
+
+Pen, with no sense of humour, had a native capacity for discovering
+every one's real weakness. As the Frenchman would rather have died than
+dine as he did, so Gordon would almost prefer to die suddenly than to
+run the risk of it.  He had wonderful brains, and was a power in
+finance: he could risk a million when he hadn't it or when he had it as
+coolly as most men can risk a penny on the chance of a slot-machine
+working.  But physically he was timid.  Rivaulx went ballooning.  He
+intended to rival Santos-Dumont.
+
+"You must go with him, Mr. Gordon," said Penelope.  Gordon nearly
+fainted, but Pen was firm, as firm as a rock.  Gordon offered to
+subscribe to all the hospitals in London if she would let him off.  He
+offered to build a small one and endow it; he even suggested that he
+would build a church. But the poor man had to go.  It was now thoroughly
+understood that any man who refused to do exactly what she told him was
+struck off the list.  The comic papers were almost comic about it.  On
+the day that Gordon went up with Rivaulx in an entirely non-dirigible
+balloon, the Crystal Palace grounds were crowded with all the Frenchmen
+and all the Jews in London.  The balloon came down in a turnip-field
+fifteen miles from anywhere, and Gordon got back to London and went to
+bed. He was consoled by a telegram from Penelope, who congratulated him
+on overcoming his natural cowardice, and suggested he should do it
+again.
+
+"I'll give her up first," said Gordon, knowing all the time that he
+could no more do it than give up finance.  He went out and robbed a lot
+of his friends as a compensation for disturbance, and found himself a
+hero.  In about forty-eight hours the sensation of being looked on as a
+man of exceptional grit so pleased him that he adored Penelope more than
+ever.  He was as proud of having been in a balloon as Rivaulx was of
+having dined _t�te-�-t�te_ with him in the open.
+
+She sent for Rufus Q. Plant, and she introduced him to Lord Bramber.
+Plant was a big American with the common delusion among Americans that
+he had an entirely English accent.  But he hated aristocrats.  Bramber
+had an Oxford accent (Balliol variety), and disliked Americans more than
+getting up in the morning.  He was a fine-looking young fellow with a
+good skull, who did nothing with it.  He had the tendencies of a citizen
+of Sybaris, and got up at noon.  Plant rose at dawn. Bramber loved
+horses and hated motor-cars.  Plant had a manufactory of motors.  Pen
+sent them away together on a little tour, and hinted delicately to Plant
+that his English accent would be improved by a little Oxford polish.
+
+"And as for you, Lord Bramber, when you come back, I hope you will be
+more ready to acknowledge that you don't know everything.  Mr. Plant
+will do you good, and will teach you to drive a motor!"
+
+She had never been so beautiful.  She showed at her best when her
+interest in humanity made her courageous and brutal.  The colour in her
+cheeks was splendid; her eyes were as earnest as the sea.  If Bramber
+choked, he submitted, though he blasphemed awfully when he got alone.
+
+"Go at once," said Penelope.
+
+She paired off Carteret Williams with Jimmy Carew, A.R.A.  Williams knew
+as much about art as a hog does of harmony.  Jimmy thought the war
+correspondent a howling Philistine, as indeed he was, and believed
+anything that could not be painted was a mere by-product of the
+universe.
+
+"You'll do each other good," said Pen, clasping her beautiful hands
+together with enthusiasm. Jimmy wanted to draw her at once.  Williams
+wished for an immediate invasion, so that he could save her life and
+write a flamboyant article about it.
+
+"Show him pictures, Mr. Carew, beginning with Turner and Whistler."
+
+"Make him understand that art isn't everything, Mr. Williams."
+
+She sent them away together, and was wonderfully pleased with herself.
+
+"They are all fine men," she said, thoughtfully, "but it is curious that
+every man I know thinks every other man more or less of a fool or an
+idiot, or a cad.  They are dreadfully one-sided.  When they come back
+they will be much improved.  This is my work in the world, and I don't
+care a bit what people say."
+
+People said lots, though after a bit the fun died down, except among her
+own people.  And even they laughed at last.  At least, every one did but
+Titania, and she had no more sense of humour than Penelope herself.
+Indeed, she had less, for Penelope could understand a joke when it was
+explained to her carefully, and Titania couldn't.  And in after years
+Pen came to see the humourous side of things. She even appreciated a
+joke against herself, which is the crucial test of humour.  But Titania
+died maintaining that life was a serious business, and should be taken
+like medicine.
+
+"I never heard of more insane proceedings," said Titania, "never!  The
+notion of sending that poor Jew up in a balloon with that mad Frenchman!
+Balloons at the best are blasphemous.  And to make Captain Goby read
+with poor little De Vere!  I'm sure there will be murder done before
+she's married.  And now it's an understood thing that she will marry one
+of them.  And Brading laughs!  If he is only her half-brother, I
+consider him responsible.  And Augustin smiles and smokes and smokes and
+smiles.  And Chloe Cadwallader, whom I never approved of and never
+shall, backs her up, of course. One of these days I shall tell Chloe
+Cadwallader what I think of her!"
+
+"I say, granny, what do you think of her?" asked Bob.
+
+"Never mind," said Titania; "there are things that you know nothing of,
+Robert."
+
+"Oh, are there?" said Bob.  "I say, granny, I ain't sure of that.  I've
+been expelled from three schools, and Baker says--"
+
+"Oh, bother Baker," cried his exasperated grandmother.  "I think Mr.
+Guthrie might keep you away from Baker."
+
+"He can't," said Bob, cheerfully.  "Old Guth and I have made a treaty.
+I do what he tells me between ten and twelve, and what I like afterward.
+If we are reading Latin, and the clock strikes twelve, I say, 'Mr.
+Guthrie, don't you think Latin's rot?' and he says, 'Oh, is it twelve?
+I thought it was only eleven!'  I get on with Guth, I tell you."
+
+And he was very thick with Goby, who had given him the pedigree
+bull-pup.  Mr. de Vere now owned the interesting one which had to be fed
+with gloves on, and loathed it with an exceeding hatred only exceeded by
+his hatred for Goby.
+
+"I say, Pen, you go it," said Bob.  "There's heaps of fun in this.  They
+all tip me now like winking."
+
+But Pen did not see the fun.  It was a serious business.  She looked
+after her lovers with the greatest care.  They brought her reports; they
+complained of each other.  She smoothed over difficulties, and explained
+what they were to do.
+
+"How the devil am I to live on a thousand a year!" said Goby.  But he
+tried it and found it quite exciting.  It exercised his self-control
+wonderfully.  He went into the War Office once a week and demanded some
+kind of job, and was put off with all kinds of regulations.  He sent a
+telegram to Penelope the first week, saying that according to his
+accounts he had spent no more than �20. She wired congratulations, and
+received another wire:
+
+
+"Have made a mistake.  Forgot to include a few bills.  Will be more
+careful in future.
+
+"GOBY."
+
+
+Plant said:
+
+"What, a thousand a year!  That's easy.  I can live on thirty shillings
+a week.  My dear Lady Penelope, I've done it on half a dollar a day.
+I'll show you."
+
+He took one room in Bloomsbury, and sent in his bills and accounts to
+her weekly.  She suggested he should find out if his great success in
+the United States had ruined any one in particular, and if so that he
+should compensate them.  This cost him a hundred thousand dollars.
+Almost every other day she got a telegram something like this:
+
+"Have found another person I ruined.  Am cabling five thousand dollars
+to widow and orphans. Man is dead."
+
+Or,--
+
+"Another find.  Man said to be a lunatic, but perfectly sane except on
+point of Trusts.  Have cabled for his transfer to more comfortable
+asylum."
+
+Or,--
+
+"Widow refuses money with insults.  Have settled it on daughter, and
+have given son job."
+
+Or,--
+
+"Man in question has given amount cabled to Republicans of New York.
+Has recovered and has started a Trust himself."
+
+This was very satisfactory.  Penelope saw she was doing good.  In the
+middle of her joy, she received a wire from Goby.
+
+
+"May I stop poetry with De Vere?  Doctor says I am overdoing it.  GOBY."
+
+
+She also received one at the same time from De Vere:
+
+
+"If I could have a week to myself to write satire, should be eternally
+grateful.  Doctor says rowing may be carried to excess.  The bulldog is
+well.
+
+"DE VERE."
+
+
+The Marquis de Rivaulx, after a fortnight with Gordon, asked to be
+allowed to go over to Paris to see his mother.  But he acknowledged that
+Gordon was not a bad chap, though he was as white as a sheet in the
+balloon.
+
+"And he told me, my dear lady, what to buy. He knows very well what to
+buy and what to sell. He is immensely clevair, oh, yes.  And may I go
+and see _maman_?"
+
+She let him go, but not before he promised to take no part in any
+further anti-Semitic proceedings.  She told Gordon not to brag so much
+of having been in a balloon.
+
+"You know you were afraid," she said.  "The marquis said you were."
+
+"Of course I was," said Gordon, "but I went, didn't I?"
+
+That was unanswerable.
+
+She had an "at home" once a week.  It was understood that no one but her
+own relatives and members of the horde were to call on that day. She
+then issued any directions that she thought of during the week.
+Bradstock was now openly and recklessly on her side.
+
+"I believe you're doing good, real good," said Augustin.  "I'm proud of
+you.  Don't mind my laughing, Pen.  Oh, but you are wonderful."
+
+He gave her advice.
+
+"Kick young Bramber into public life," he said. "He's got brains."
+
+"Lord Bramber," said Pen, "you are to go into Parliament at once.  Speak
+to Lord Bradstock about it, and I'll talk to Mrs. Mytton on your behalf.
+I expect you to be an Under-Secretary of State at once."
+
+"Damn!  this is worse than Plant," said the obedient Bramber.
+Nevertheless, he owned that Plant was a man, and a real good sort.
+
+"I go to see him, Lady Penelope, in his room in Bloomsbury.  He's living
+on about half a crown a day.  I--oh--yes, I'm coming down to the
+thousand by degrees.  And of course if you want me to go into the House,
+I'll go."
+
+Carteret Williams was there, and was put through his paces by Pen about
+art.  He had learnt something about it by rote.
+
+"The Academy is composed of painters," he said, mechanically, "but there
+are few artists in it. I quite agree with Carew, who had his pictures
+chucked before they made him an associate through fear.  Turner is a
+very great artist.  He shows how near the sublime can get to the
+ridiculous.  Whistler is also great.  He shows how near the ridiculous
+can go to the sublime.  Art is a combination of the material and the
+spiritual.  So Carew says.  He showed me a lot of Blake, and he says
+that the beauty of Blake is that you can't understand him by any
+ordinary means, such as the intellect.  I'm not up to Blake yet.  The
+old masters are very fine. I admit it.  Velasquez is dry, but wonderful.
+Rembrandt appeals to me because he is very dark; I think he would be
+better if he were darker.  We go to the National Gallery every day, and
+then I take him to the Press Club, where he hears about real life."
+
+When Carew came, he owned that Williams wasn't a bad sort.
+
+"And he's doing his level best to understand," said Carew, with
+enthusiasm.  "He stands before a picture of mine every day for an hour
+while I explain it.  He sees something in it at last.  And he's reading
+about art, and is beginning to see why a photograph isn't the last word
+of things.  He's led a wonderful life, Lady Penelope, and when he gets
+on what he's seen and done, I feel almost ashamed to live as I do."
+
+"That's right," said Pen; "every artist should. And every man who is not
+an artist should be sorry that he is not.  We are far from perfect yet."
+
+How beautiful she looked, thought Carew.
+
+"She lives in the world of the ideal, and so do I."
+
+"I am very much pleased with everything," said Pen at large to the
+assembly, and De Vere, who was having a holiday for his satire, was
+pleased too.  And Goby was delighted at being let off poetry for awhile.
+
+"Not but what there's something in it, I admit," said Goby, critically.
+"Robert Lindsay Gordon is a fair snorter at it.  I can't say I'm up to
+Shelley yet.  De Vere read me the Epi-something-or-other."
+
+"'Epipsychidion,'" said Pen.
+
+"That's it, a regular water-jump of a word," said Goby, "and he took it
+in his stride, while I boggled on the bank.  However, I'm coming up hand
+over hand with him.  I'm reading Keats with him.  He's all right when
+you get to know him, Lady Penelope, and rowing's doing him no end of
+good.  He's a well-made little chap, and getting some good muscle.  If
+I'm not dead by the time I can take the Epi-what's-his-name, I'll make a
+man of him."
+
+Rivaulx, who had come in with Gordon on his return from seeing his
+mother in Paris, was very proud of himself.
+
+"A year ago I should not have had the courage to show myself with a
+Jew," said Rivaulx, triumphantly.  "Lady, dear lady, I thought I should
+have died when I asked him to dinner.  But now I like him.  He is
+wonderful.  When he says 'buy,' I buy, and heigh, presto! the shares go
+up like my balloon.  And when he says 'sell,' I sell, and they go down
+like a barometer when you go up. Oh, yes, and all your aristocracy
+admire him.  I saw seven great lords with him the other day, and they
+said: 'What company am I to be a director of, Gordon?' and he said he'd
+ask his clerk.  But I have refused to be a director.  I should not like
+_maman_ to know I know him.  She is very dreadful against Jews, owing to
+the _affaire_ in France."
+
+And that was the celebrated afternoon that Penelope, who found that she
+was doing good in every way to all mankind by obliterating all class and
+professional jealousies, raised passion and curiosity to its highest
+point by saying, with the sweetest blush:
+
+"Very well, then, I promise to marry one of you!"
+
+
+
+
+                              *CHAPTER V.*
+
+
+Penelope was the swan, and all her relations were the ducks.  The noise
+they made was simply unendurable.  For, besides Titania, she had cousins
+and other aunts, or people who were in the position of aunts, and she
+had friends who had been friends of her mother, and they came down on
+her like the Assyrian.  They objected to publicity, especially for other
+people, and for a young woman to become a public character was something
+worse than immorality.  Nothing but Penelope's entire singleness of
+character and her humourous want of humour enabled her to meet and
+overcome them. And even she felt at times that flight was the only thing
+left.  She sent to her solicitor for a list of all the houses and
+mansions and castles that she owned, and she took her motor-car and her
+pet chauffeur, and, having borrowed Bob from his grandmother, she set
+off on a tour.  She disappeared for a week at a time.  Then she
+disappeared for two weeks.  She was even lost for a month.
+
+"She ought to be in an asylum," said Titania, "and I have to let Bob go
+with her.  He is some kind of a safeguard.  How do I know she isn't
+married already?  Bob, dear Bob, has ceased to confide in me.  When I
+interrogate him, he puts me off.  I get nothing out of him.  The only
+thing that I can congratulate myself on is that now, instead of 'Baker
+says,' it is 'Pen says.'  And I doubt, I own I doubt, and I cannot help
+it, whether Bob is not being done serious harm to, considering that he
+will one day be a duke.  A duke should be brought up properly.  Goring
+was brought up badly, I deeply regret to say.  He laughs at Penelope's
+behaviour, and says girls will be girls.  I say they will be women, and
+he says, 'Thank the Lord,' and I don't know what he means.  But, as I
+say, this wretched girl may be married by now.  It is already months
+since she said, in my hearing, to a whole crowd of men, 'I promise to
+marry one of you!'  Was there ever an aunt in a more unfortunate
+position?  I feel as if I should become a lunatic.  Augustin, do you
+hear me, I am rapidly becoming insane."
+
+"Oh, ah," said Augustin, who always knew more about Pen's actions than
+any one else.  She wrote to him from a hundred places.
+
+"Keep your eye upon Mr. Gordon," she said. "And what are people saying
+about Lord Bramber's speech?  I shall be up in town in time to see Mr.
+Carew's new picture.  I got a letter from Mr. de Vere, saying that
+Captain Goby was learning Wordsworth's ode on the 'Intimations of
+Immortality in Childhood' by heart.  Mr. de Vere says he is doing what I
+told him, and is keeping his eye on Mr. Roosevelt.  I told him to model
+himself on the President of the United States.  He says he rows and has
+bought a Sandow exerciser, and he says it does not make him so tired
+now. Mr. Williams told me when I was last in town that he was thinking
+of writing a guide to Dulwich Gallery if war didn't break out.  I am
+afraid he hopes it will.  Mr. Plant's last weekly accounts were only
+10*s*. 6*d*.  I advised him to see a doctor if he thought it was doing
+him harm.  The marquis has written a very good article in the _Revue des
+Deux Mondes_ against anti-Semitism.  I am greatly pleased with this.  I
+hope Mr. Carew's picture is intelligible. I told him it was no absolute
+sign of genius to be entirely incomprehensible.  He took it very well. I
+think Mr. Williams will have a good effect on him.  I have visited ten
+mansions, seven castles (two with moats; mother used to love moats,
+because there are none in America), and several other houses of mine.
+Most need repairs.  I shall be home next week.  Tell aunt that Bob is
+very well and brown, and is learning to drive my car at full speed down
+a narrow road with sharp turns in it. Smith says he will be the best
+driver in England when he is grown up, if he goes on and doesn't have
+his nerve broken up early by an accident.  But I think his nerve is
+good, though I can't always tell, as I shut my eyes when we go very
+fast. Good-bye now, dear Guardy.
+
+"Your loving
+       "PENELOPE.
+
+"P. S. I am sure I am doing good!"
+
+
+Bob was very sure of it, too.
+
+"I say, Pen, old Guth will be lonely, won't he? But he's all right if he
+has a bally Catullus in his pocket, and he draws his screw just the
+same. Granny is very decent to him, take it all around. And I like him
+because he likes dogs.  I must wire to Baker to hear how 'Captain' is
+getting on.  I called him Captain because old Goby gave him to me.  I
+say, Pen, don't you think Smith is a ripping good driver?  He says that
+he'll be my chauffeur when I'm a duke, if you don't want him.  He says
+him and me'll win every bally race.  I'd like to do that.  I begin to
+think horse-racing is rot.  You see three or four people can't ride a
+race-horse, and the responsibility of driving you fast when the road's
+crooked is the fun.  Every time I miss a cart, Pen, I feel as happy as
+if I'd hit Rhodes for four every time he sent a ball down to me.  That
+would be fun.  Baker says--no, I mean Smith says that all other sports
+are rot of the worst kind. He says if he's ever rich, he'll go through
+the city every day as fast as he can.  He hates the police, and some of
+them hate him.  He rode over a sergeant in the Kingston Road once, but
+he didn't hurt him much.  When shall we leave this castle and go to
+another one?  I hope the next is a long way off.  Smith says he wants a
+good road to show what she'll do when she's out to the last notch. And
+it must be down-hill."
+
+And in town, while Pen was going about the country, people's tongues ran
+as fast as any motorcar.
+
+"It is nonsense," said one; "she's married already."
+
+"I know she's not.  I paid a shilling and looked it up at Somerset
+House."
+
+"That's nothing," said a barrister.  "They could have been married under
+wrong names."
+
+"That wouldn't be legal."
+
+"Yes, it would.  It's only illegal if a false name is used and one of
+the parties doesn't know.  Then the one who is deceived can get a
+declaration of nullity," said the barrister.
+
+"Oh, well, but who is it?"
+
+"It's no one.  I don't believe she'll marry at all."
+
+"She's a crank."
+
+"It's madness.  I hear the Duchess of Goring has taken to her bed."
+
+"Well, Goring hasn't.  I saw him at the Frivolity."
+
+"Who is it now?"
+
+"I don't know her name.  But where's Lady Penelope?"
+
+No one knew but Bradstock, and even Augustin was behind by a post or
+two.  None of the "horde" knew, and they began to get suspicious of each
+other.  Goby watched De Vere, and De Vere kept his eye on Goby.  It was
+obvious from the newspapers that Bramber was in the House.  Gordon was
+seen at his Club.  And then Carteret Williams was missing.  Carew hunted
+for him in vain at the Press Club and at the office of the _Morning
+Hour_.  There was no war yet, though there were rumours of it in the
+Balkans as usual.
+
+It got about that she had married Williams, though he had only run away
+from Carew for a week.
+
+"The very worst of the lot," wailed Titania. "I knew it would be
+Williams.  He's hardly a gentleman, though he comes of a good family.
+Being a war correspondent makes a man brutal. I knew, I knew, I knew it
+was Williams, and now I shall never speak to her; and he will beat her
+in time, I know it, and there will be a horrible scandal; and what, oh,
+what can she have done with Bob? Augustin, go at once and find where Bob
+is.  I knew it would be Williams!  Didn't I always say it would be
+Williams?  I could have forgiven her any one else."
+
+Gordon came to ask Bradstock if it was true. And Bradstock had a sense
+of humour, if Pen had none.
+
+"My dear sir," he said, "how can I tell?  She liked him very much, took
+a great interest in him. She told me he was writing a guide to the art
+of Dulwich Gallery.  Do you think that a bad sign?"
+
+Gordon groaned.
+
+"It looks bad, Lord Bradstock.  But I don't believe she takes much
+interest in him.  She takes an interest in me, my lord!  Why, I went up
+in a balloon all on her account.  I went with that madman, the French
+marquis, and as sure as my name's Le--  I mean Gordon, there's not
+another woman in the world I'd have done it for.  Don't you think that
+going up in a balloon, when you'd rather die than do it, ought to touch
+a woman's heart?  I give you my word that she as good as said, 'Go up in
+a balloon and I'll--' well, or words to that effect.  I tell you what,
+Lord Bradstock, I know you ain't a rich man, not a very rich one, that
+is, but, if you'll be on my side, I'll put you on to a good thing, the
+best thing in the market.  It's going up like--oh, like a beastly
+balloon, sir,--my lord, I mean.  I'm making it go up, and I'll tell you
+when to sell.  Oh, Lord, I'm very unhappy, my lord.  I love the ground
+she walks on.  I'd like to buy it at the price of a city frontage.  Come
+in with me, my lord, and you shall have a tip that half a dozen dukes
+are dying for.  There's a room full of bally dukes waiting to see me
+now, and I gave them the slip.  Will you come in with me?  Do, do!"
+
+He was a lamentable object, and there was a spot upon his hat which did
+not shine.  He worked at it eagerly with his sleeve, and stood waiting
+for a reply.
+
+"I don't mind telling you," said Bradstock, "that my income is only five
+thousand a year."
+
+"Poor beggar!" murmured Gordon.
+
+"But I only spend four.  And if I had more what could I do with it?"
+
+"Give it me," said Gordon, eagerly, "and I'll make more of it for you.
+Man alive,--my lord, I mean--I can make it millions."
+
+There was a faint suspicion of the "millionth" in the word.
+
+"I can make it millionth," said Gordon.  "I've put a pound or two into
+that Frenchman's pocket, I can tell you, though he did take me up in a
+balloon, and I'll put fifty for one into yourth, so help me."
+
+"I don't want it."
+
+"Well, you can give it away," shrieked Gordon. "They'll make you a duke
+if you only give away enough.  If there wathn't a faint thuspithion of
+Jewish blood in me, I'd be a baron now at leathth. Give it away to
+hospithalths, build a lunatic asylum, finanth your party.  And if that
+don't thucktheed, go into beer or biscuits, and you'll be made anything
+you like."
+
+"If they would make me thirty, I'd do it," said Bradstock.
+
+"Thirty dukes?" asked Gordon, in bewilderment.
+
+"Thirty years old," said Bradstock.
+
+[Illustration: LEOPOLD NORFOLK GORDON. Some said his real name was Isaac
+Levi]
+
+Gordon advanced on him and took him by a button.
+
+"My lord," he said, solemnly, "money ith youth and strength and
+everything except Lady Penelope. If you had a million, you'd feel
+twenty-five.  When I had a measly hundred thousand, I was thin and
+always going to doctors.  When I got two, I got fatter and gave 'em up.
+Now I'm worth two millionth."
+
+But Bradstock said, brutally: "No, Mr. Gordon, I don't want money, and I
+don't want you to marry Lady Penelope.  If I had a million, I'd rather
+lose it than see her do so."
+
+"Did you tell her that?" asked Gordon.
+
+"I did."
+
+"I'm damned glad," said Gordon.  "If you want a cat to go one way, pull
+its tail the other."
+
+"Tut, tut," said Bradstock, and Gordon went away sorrowfully, for he had
+great riches, and saw no good in them without Pen.
+
+Bradstock had to interview all the lovers one after one.  They came to
+implore his vote and interest.  He saw Rivaulx, whose great desire was
+to look like an Englishman and act like one. Rivaulx adopted a stony
+calm, which sat upon him like a title on a Jew, but did not stick so
+tight. He ended a talk which began most conventionally in a wild and
+impassioned waltz around Bradstock's room, with despair for a partner.
+He tore at his hair, but, having had it clipped till it was like a
+shaved blacking-brush, he could not get hold of it.
+
+"I must wed her," he howled.  "I told _maman_ so, or I shall perish.  I
+will become an Englishman. _Mon Dieu_, I am sad.  I am fearfully
+mournful.  I weep exceedingly.  Have I not done all?  I have eaten
+largely in public with Mr. Gordon.  I have bought his shares and have
+sold them, but in my heart I cannot.  When I return to Paris, I shall
+fight duels because I have written for Dreyfus with tears in my eye and
+my tongue in my cheek for sorrow.  Where is she, Lord Bradstock?  Tell
+me where she is?  I will go to her and say I have done all and can no
+more!"
+
+De Vere tackled him, too.
+
+"My dear chap," said Bradstock, "I don't know her mind."
+
+"She knows her own," said De Vere, with much bitterness, "and so does
+that boy Bob.  I bought a bulldog of him, because she said she thought
+one would do me good.  I don't know why, and now Bob sells me dogs by
+telegram, and I daren't refuse 'em."
+
+"Great Scott!" said his host; "but why?"
+
+"That young ruffian has an influence over her," mourned the poet.  "He
+is always with her.  He is capable of saying I am a 'rotter'; yes, a
+rotter, a dozen times a day if I refuse, and to have him doing that
+would be more than I can endure.  I want her to love me, and so I buy
+his dogs.  I have a bulldog which hasn't done me any good.  All he has
+done is to tear my trousers and trample over my flower-beds.  I have an
+Irish terrier who is now being cured of bulldog bites by a veterinary
+surgeon.  I've a retriever who howls at night and makes the bulldog
+unhappy.  I have a Borzois with bronchitis and no hair on his tail.  Bob
+wrote to say the hair would grow if I put hair-wash on it myself.  He
+said men couldn't be trusted to do it. And then I've Goby on my hands.
+I speak in confidence, Lord Bradstock."
+
+"Of course," said Bradstock.
+
+"Then I own I loathe Goby," said De Vere, viciously.  "He has less
+brains than my bulldog, and I think the bulldog has less brains than the
+retriever.  He reads poetry because she said he was to, and he makes me
+explain mine to him.  Explain it!  And he makes me row every day he's
+with me, and he says I'm not imitating Roosevelt if I don't. She said I
+was to imitate Roosevelt.  Why should I?  I loathe Republicans.  She
+also told me I was to imitate Sven Hedin.  On inquiry I found Sven Hedin
+was an ass who explored deserts, and went without water for many days.
+Goby can do that, as my wine-cellar can testify.  He says he only tastes
+water when he cleans his teeth, and then it makes him sick.  And, though
+I keep wine for my friends, I am a water-drinker.  How can I do without
+it?  I am very unhappy."
+
+"I should chuck Goby and give it up," said Bradstock.
+
+"I wish I could," said the poet, "but my nature is an enduring one.  We
+learn in suffering Gobies and bulldogs what we teach in song.  A dog may
+be the friend of man, but a bulldog is a tailor's enemy.  And I believe
+they gave Goby the V.C. to get rid of him.  Do they ever give
+decorations to get rid of people?"
+
+Bradstock said he thought so, and wondered what he could give De Vere.
+
+And then the poet sighed and rose.
+
+"I have to meet Goby and lunch with him.  And afterward we read Shelley
+together, and then he will teach me billiards at his club.  I loathe
+billiards. It is the most foolish game on earth except keeping bulldogs.
+And Goby's friends are not sympathetic. They are sportsmen, and ought to
+be hunted with bulldogs."
+
+He went away sadly, and Bradstock lay on a sofa and laughed till he
+cried.
+
+"Pen will be my death and the death of a dozen," he said.  "And as for
+Bob--"
+
+No sooner had De Vere departed than young Bramber was announced.
+
+"Conceited young ass," said Bradstock.  But Bramber was in the House,
+and was supposed to be doing very well.  He had brains, no doubt, and
+the manner of Oxford (Balliol variety, as aforesaid) sat on him well.
+He made speeches, and Mr. Mytton congratulated him on one of them.
+Nothing but his passion for Penelope prevented him being as conceited as
+Bradstock supposed him to be.  But it must be remembered that Bradstock
+couldn't make speeches.
+
+"I thought I'd come and look you up," said Bramber.  "I thought you
+could tell me something about Lady Penelope."
+
+"I can't," replied Bradstock.  "I spend all my afternoons in saying so.
+I've had Rivaulx and Austin de Vere and Gordon here already, and after
+you go I don't doubt that Goby or Plant will turn up.  How do you get on
+with Plant?  Do you know, Bramber, I believe Plant is the best man of
+the lot of you."
+
+Bramber frowned.
+
+"He has an accent that can be cut into slabs, to use his own dialect,"
+said Bramber.
+
+"Your own accent is equally disagreeable to an American," said
+Bradstock, who had been in the United States several times.
+
+"I have no accent," said Bramber, haughtily.
+
+"Oh," returned Bradstock.  "And how do you get along with Plant?"
+
+Bramber was obviously more jealous of Plant than any one.  But he made a
+tremendous effort to be fair.
+
+"He's a very able man," he said at last, "but there's no man I should
+find it so hard to get on with.  He says just what he thinks in the most
+awful way.  And because Lady Penelope said he was not to spend more than
+twenty-five pounds a week, he is living on ten shillings out of bravado.
+I hate bravado.  He made me dine with him in Soho, and our dinners came
+to elevenpence each. Where is Lady Penelope?"
+
+"I don't know," said Bradstock.
+
+"I didn't see Plant yesterday," said Bramber, uneasily.
+
+"The devil!"
+
+"You don't think?"
+
+"I don't know what to think," said Bradstock, wickedly.  "I hear that
+Jimmy Carew hasn't been seen for days, either."
+
+Bramber fidgeted on his chair.
+
+"She _can't_ marry Carew.  He's a thorough outsider."
+
+"Women don't understand the word, my dear chap.  How are you getting on
+in the House?  And have you been motoring with Plant?"
+
+"Yes," said Bramber; "we killed three fowls and a dog yesterday.  And
+Plant was fined ten pounds a week ago.  He said he would wire to Lady
+Penelope to know if that was business expenses.  I believe he wants to
+break my neck."
+
+"I shouldn't be surprised," said Bradstock. "Has he gone out alone
+to-day, do you think?  I suppose you know Penelope is doing a lot of it
+now?"
+
+"The devil she is!" said Bramber.  "I think I'll go and look up Plant."
+
+Bradstock got some amusement out of the situation, if Titania didn't.
+
+
+
+
+                             *CHAPTER VI.*
+
+
+Penelope came back to town about a week later and saw every one.
+
+"I wonder whom I love," said Pen, "for I'm sure I love some one.  And
+they are all so kind and sweet and good.  I'm sorry I shall have to hurt
+so many of them, for the poor dears all adore me."
+
+It was marvellous how they had developed in a short time under Pen's
+system, which was evidently sound, as Bradstock declared.  Plant, under
+his ten-and-sixpence-a-week scheme, had lost a stone weight, and was as
+hard and fine as a coil of wire. His search after the people he had
+ruined gave him a peace of mind to which he had long been a stranger,
+for American millionaires in business have no peace of mind.
+
+"I feel good," said Plant, meaning it both ways, "and my endurance of
+young Bramber has stiffened my moral fibre."
+
+"Whether I marry you or not, Mr. Plant," said Penelope, "I am awfully
+pleased with you.  And how has Lord Bramber behaved?"
+
+"He's been death on what he called my accent," said Plant, a little
+bitterly, "and it is notorious I've none to speak of; and, for that
+matter, his own you could cut with a knife.  However, I think he's a
+good boy, and will discover he has brains.  I've talked to him straight,
+Lady Penelope.  I told him you meant me to.  I said he might be a lord
+and the son of an earl, but that he was a lazy, loafing scallawag, and
+that, if he'd been my son, I'd have cowhided him.  That did him good; it
+made him sit up, I tell you.  Oh, he fairly fizzled and felt like going
+for me, but he knew better.  He has brains, and I've talked with members
+of your legislature who say he'll do well.  Put this down to me, Lady
+Penelope.  Credit me with this.  I've looked after him like a baby, and
+I've hustled him around in my motor till he can't help going when he's
+out of it.  You and me together, my dear young lady, could educate the
+entire universe.  If you'll only marry me, I'll start a university on
+these lines of yours."
+
+The idea was a pleasing one, but of course Pen pointed out to him that
+it was his duty to do it whether she married him or not.
+
+"Duty is duty," said Pen.  "I'm doing all this out of a sense of duty."
+
+"Don't marry out of a sense of it," retorted Plant.  "I just want to be
+loved.  I'm going around feeling I want to be loved.  I've never been
+loved properly all my life, and I begin to hanker after it wildly.  And,
+if you do marry me, Lady Penelope, I want you to understand right here
+and now that I don't want you to do your duty by me.  If you begin to do
+that, I'll take a Colt's forty-five and scatter my brains out.  I want
+love, that's what I want.  I want it straight, without water in it."
+
+"I see what you mean," said Penelope.  "I think you are a very
+noble-hearted man, Mr. Plant."
+
+And away went poor Plant to draw up a scheme for a university.
+
+"I think I could almost love him," said the pensive Penelope.  "I
+could--almost--"
+
+Her contemplations were interrupted by Captain Goby.  He was a little
+paler than usual, and perhaps a trifle more intelligent.  And he was
+more in love than ever.
+
+"I've done everything you told me," he said, as he sat down and eyed her
+wistfully.  "I've gone into poetry like a bull at a hedge, Lady
+Penelope. I begin to see what it means.  Old Austin (poor old josser)
+has taken the deuce's own pains over me.  He's read 'The Lady of the
+Garden' to me seventeen times.  He wrote it ten years ago.  He says he
+wonders how he did it, and so do I.  I've been trying to write poetry to
+you, do you know. That showed me there must be some special gift in it,
+for I never did anything worth the horrid trouble. And I've been
+worrying the War Office like a bulldog.  They say they'll think of me,
+and haven't gone any further, and talking of bulldogs, Bob's bulldog bit
+Austin de Vere, and he swore like a man.  I was surprised.  But if I
+were you, I'd tell Bob to stop sending him more dogs.  He's very kind to
+them, but they worry him.  Bob's prices are very high, too.  How is Bob?
+Oh, by the way, I'm living on ten pounds a week.  Need I reckon tailor's
+bills in, do you think?  Oh, yes, this bulge is the Golden Treasury.  I
+take it out and read a lyric between meals.  The chaps at the Rag chaff
+me like blazes, but I don't mind so long as I improve.  I want to
+improve so as to be worthy of your intellect, Lady Penelope."
+
+"The poor dear," said Pen, when he was gone, "I think I could almost
+love him!"
+
+As luck would have it, Bob and Austin de Vere came in almost at the same
+minute.  For now Titania couldn't keep Bob away.  For the matter of
+that, she did not want to.  Bob was to be Penelope's safeguard.  He was
+much better than Chloe Cadwallader, said Titania.
+
+However, De Vere came in first.  He held Penelope's hand no longer than
+a poet should, as poets naturally hold girls' hands rather longer than
+other people.
+
+"You are looking really well, Mr. de Vere," said Penelope, when she was
+free.
+
+"I am well," said the poet, "exceedingly well in a way.  My dear lady of
+the beautiful garden, I owe all that to you.  At first I was afraid of
+Captain Goby.  I told Lord Bradstock so the other day.  I'm afraid I
+left him under a false impression as to my feelings to Goby, by the way.
+I'm quite proud of Goby.  He says I am really a powerful man, and he
+made me row till I was worn out. And then he insisted that I should use
+Sandow's exerciser.  I own I did it with reluctance.  I pointed out to
+Goby that I did not wish to look like Mr. Sandow.  Goby always stopped
+by the posters in which Mr. Sandow is lifting ten tons or so, and
+pointed out certain muscles to me as ideals.  I was recalcitrant, for,
+although I admire Mr. Sandow immensely, I think muscle can be overdone.
+However, I used the machine, which is ingenious and elastic, and only
+dangerous if the hook comes out of the wall, and I've found I rather
+like it.  I should miss it now.  I think it imparts a certain vigour to
+verse, if not overdone.  Oh--"
+
+For in came Bob.  He rushed at Pen and kissed her hair, and then bounced
+at the poet.
+
+"I say is it true the bulldog bit you?  I saw Goby yesterday in the
+park, and he said so," asked Bob, in great excitement.
+
+"It is true," said the poet.
+
+Penelope shook her head at the late owner of the dog.
+
+"Oh, Bob!  Mr. de Vere, I'm very sorry."
+
+"So was I," said De Vere.
+
+"Where did he bite you?" asked Bob, anxiously. "Was it the arm or the
+leg?  And did he hang on like a proper bulldog?  Baker says that if a
+bulldog once gets hold, you have to use a red-hot poker to make him let
+go.  Did you use a red-hot poker?"
+
+"He only snapped and fetched blood," said De Vere.
+
+"Ah!" cried Bob, "I always thought he wasn't a real good bulldog."
+
+"At any rate, he bit the Irish terrier," said the poet.  "I mean the one
+you sold to me for three pounds."
+
+"I'm glad he did, sir.  That Irish terrier, though he's splendidly bred,
+Baker says, has an awful temper and is very troublesome.  Does Rollo,
+the retriever, howl much at night, sir?"
+
+"Oh, not so very much," said De Vere.  "It's only when the moon is near
+the full that he does his best."
+
+"I never thought of that," said Bob, "but now I remember that it was
+very moony when I sent him over to you.  Baker said you'd like him.  His
+kennel is next to Baker's house."
+
+"I'm much obliged to Baker," said De Vere. "But the tail of the Borzois
+is still bald, Bob."
+
+Bob opened his eyes wide.
+
+"Oh, dear, I thought you would have cured him by now; and how about his
+bronchitis?"
+
+"That's better, I hope and trust," said the poet. And Penelope, who was
+very greatly touched by his kindness to all these dogs, sent Bob into
+the library.
+
+"It's so good of you to be kind to Bob," she said.  "Bob's a dear, and
+he adores me.  He says that he's going to live with me always, even when
+I'm married."
+
+[Illustration: AUSTIN DE VERE. He wrote poetry, and abhorred bulldogs
+and motor-cars]
+
+"Oh!" gasped De Vere.  "We were talking about Goby, I think, when dear
+Bob came in.  You'll find him much improved, I'm sure, my dear Lady
+Penelope.  He has read a great deal of Shelley and Keats and Browning
+with me.  He was especially struck with 'Sordello.'  I read it to him
+and he sat with his hand to his forehead taking it all in.  And every
+now and again he said, 'Great Scott!' which is his way of expressing
+wonderment and admiration.  I do not know its origin.  I've written to
+Doctor Murray to ask him if he knows. And Goby, oh, yes, you'll find him
+improved.  I've done my best with him, and I've really struggled hard.
+Any improvement you notice is, I really believe, under you and
+Providence, due to me."
+
+And when he went, Penelope sat thinking.
+
+"The poor dear, how nicely he took the bulldog bites and the howling of
+the retriever.  I think--I think I could almost love him!"
+
+And that afternoon and evening she saw Bramber and Carteret Williams and
+Jimmy Carew and Gordon, and they were all most marvellously improved.
+Bramber was alert and bright, and began to show that he had some
+ambition in him, and, if he did not tell Penelope his exact mind about
+Plant, he did show some little appreciation of the American's qualities.
+
+"Associating with him has done you good," said Pen.  "I see it has.  You
+lived far too much for yourself, Lord Bramber.  I cannot endure
+selfishness."
+
+"I'm not selfish any more, I think," said Bramber. "I rather like Plant.
+He seems a man, take him all around.  He is abrupt, perhaps, and brutal.
+I own I've found him trying, and he says things one finds it hard to
+forgive."
+
+"Yes, he told me," said Pen, delightedly.  "Oh, he told me he said you
+ought to be beaten severely, and he said you took it very nicely.  Did
+you?"
+
+Bramber bit his lip.
+
+"I did."
+
+"That's right," said Pen.  "Oh, I'm improving you all so much.  You've
+no idea how much improved you are.  Mr. Mytton said he'd make something
+out of you, Lord Bramber."
+
+"Did he really?"
+
+"Oh, yes.  He said he made fair successes out of very much worse
+material.
+
+"He's quite a dear," she sighed, when he was gone, but, before she could
+add that she might almost love him, Carew and Williams came in together.
+And before she could greet them, Gordon came, too.  Williams eyed him
+with strange ferocity, for he was by nature a hater of Hebrews, and
+wanted to dust the floor with him.  Pen, who was as quick as lightning,
+caught his glances and said to him, sweetly:
+
+"I think you would get on nicely with Mr. Gordon."
+
+And Williams blenched visibly.
+
+"Oh, I couldn't leave Carew," he said.  "I'm deep in art, very deep; I
+adore it.  Carew has introduced me to several Academicians, and I have
+bought a box of paints.  One Academician took me home with him and
+showed me his pictures. He doesn't agree with Jimmy altogether, and he
+says Jimmy will alter his opinions presently.  His idea is that when a
+man is an A.R.A., he is only beginning, you see.  He also explained to
+me the attitude of the R.A. with regard to the Chantrey Bequest.  He
+says that if they found a good picture not by an Academician, they would
+buy it, which is interesting, isn't it?  He was painting a picture
+called 'War,' and wanted my opinion.  I said I'd ask Jimmy, because I
+didn't know anything about war except what I'd seen.  I don't know why
+he was chuffy about it.  I find artists get chuffy and huffy very quick,
+and I don't know what for. Do you think there will be war soon?"
+
+Penelope didn't know, and said she wanted eternal peace and happiness
+for every one, and meant having it if it could be got by any legitimate
+influence.
+
+"War is horrible!"
+
+"It is," said Carew, who joined in just here, after getting away from
+Gordon, who told him to buy Hittites at 3-1/8.  "War is horrid.
+Williams is always talking of it."
+
+"I'm not," said Williams, angrily.  "I want peace, eternal peace and
+happiness for every one."
+
+"Ah, so do I," put in Gordon.  "My idea is to have a peaceful life, far
+from the roar of London, in a deep green vale, where I shall hear no one
+talking of shares, and where mines are unknown, and there are no Chinese
+or crushing reports.  Why is it that most reports from mines are
+crushing? I wish I knew."
+
+"Ah, how sweet it would all be," said beautiful Penelope.  "You could
+keep cows, Mr. Gordon."
+
+"I adore them," said Gordon.  "There is a breed without horns, isn't
+there?"
+
+"They look incomplete," said Jimmy.
+
+"What are you painting now?" asked Pen.
+
+"I'm not really painting, I'm modelling in clay, as you told me," said
+the obsequious lover.  "Don't you remember saying I was to model in
+clay?  I'm doing Williams in clay.  He looks very well in it. I'm also
+doing a bull going at a gate.  When I get tired of Williams, I do the
+bull, and when I'm fatigued by the bull I go back to Williams."
+
+"And are they like?" asked Penelope.
+
+"Oh, exactly," replied Carew.
+
+And the interesting conversation was interrupted by Chloe and Ethel.
+But Penelope said to herself that they were all dears.
+
+"Mr. Williams is greatly improved," she murmured happily.  "And Mr.
+Carew looks more healthy and less engrossed in himself.  I was awfully
+glad to hear Mr. Gordon speak like that about a peaceful life."
+
+And Williams slipped Carew on the door-step and went to his club.  He
+roared of war till two o'clock in the morning, and then got three
+out-of-work war correspondents in the corner and told them the great
+story of his love.  But Jimmy went down to Chelsea, and damned modelling
+in clay to other impressionist painters, and had a real good time.  As
+for Gordon of the "deep green vale," he went home and found a clerk
+waiting with a bundle of cables from all quarters of the mining globe.
+He sent a wire to Bramber to be let off an engagement to hear a debate
+on drains.
+
+On the whole, every one was tolerably happy, if we do not include
+Titania and the retriever who howled at nights.
+
+
+
+
+                             *CHAPTER VII.*
+
+
+It is possible that Penelope never enjoyed herself so much as she did at
+this period.  She was so busy that she had no time to worry; her team
+took all her time.  She was young, she was beautiful, she was adored,
+she was popular, she was even notorious.  A dozen reporters dogged her
+footsteps, and when they lost her they followed her lovers.  They
+haunted her door-step armed with kodaks; they invented paragraphs; they
+hunted her men and her maids.  They made love to the girls, and seduced
+the men into neighbouring bars.  One newspaper man, who belonged to the
+_Mayfair Daily_, got into her establishment as a footman, and was
+discovered by the butler drawing Penelope at dinner when he should have
+been drawing corks.  A search in his clothes revealed some pencils and a
+note-book and another book of drawings.  They were of such a character
+that the reporter was put outside into the street.  The butler could
+have forgiven the sketch of his mistress: there was one of himself that
+no man could forgive.
+
+The great desire of all these men was to spot the winner.  Penelope's
+maid, Harriet Weekes, who was more or less engaged to Timothy Bunting,
+the groom (a sad _m�salliance_, by the way), found it impossible to go
+out without being accosted respectfully by a new admirer, who tried to
+lead the conversation around to her mistress.
+
+"If you please, my lady, another of them spoke to me to-day.  I hope, my
+lady, you don't think it my fault," said Weekes.
+
+"What do they say?" asked Penelope, curiously. She took great interest
+in the manners and customs of other classes, perhaps with a view of
+altering them when she got time.
+
+"Oh, my lady, they always say the same thing. I think men are very much
+the same all over the world.  They say 'It's a fine day,' even if it's
+raining, and of course it is, and they say they want to walk a little
+way with me (begging your pardon), and that I am very beautiful, and
+that they have long loved me, if you please, my lady, and have been
+trying to speak about it for years.  And I tell 'em I don't want 'em,
+and I don't, to be sure, though one (he's on the _Piccadilly Circus
+Gazette_) is a very handsome man with a heagle's glance, dressed in gray
+tweeds.  And they won't be put off, I assure you, my lady.  Men on
+newspapers are hextremely persevering with a fine flow of language.  And
+if, being persuaded to take a little walk, for they are difficult to put
+off by trade, I do take one, they begin to ask, begging your pardon, I'm
+sure, my lady, if I am your sister, and I'm sure I'm as like you as a
+butterfly is to a beetle, as Mr. Bunting says, though he adores the
+ground I walk on, if he's to be believed, which I'm not sure of yet, and
+the butler is very angry with me about the whole affair.  And one, who
+said he was the editor of the _Times_, which I don't believe in the
+least, because it doesn't seem likely, does it, my lady, that the editor
+of the _Times_ would do such things himself? said he wanted to marry me
+and put me on the staff as his lovely bride.  I must say he spoke most
+beautifully, and he said he knew Captain Goby, and also Mr. Gordon, and
+he said they were getting thin he thought.  And another, quite the
+gentleman, though by his trousers poor and careful, said he owned most
+of the _Daily Telegraph_. And I couldn't help looking at his clothes.
+He was very quick, and said that was owing to the competition of the
+half-penny papers.  Would I save the _Daily Telegraph_ from himpending
+ruin by telling him which it would be, he said.  And I said flatly that
+I wouldn't.  I never saw such wicked impudence.  Oh, yes, my lady, your
+hair's done now, and it's as lovely as a dream."
+
+And, as Miss Weekes finished, she wondered, quite as much as any of the
+newspaper men, who it was to be.
+
+"It's my belief," she said to Timothy, a little later, "that my lady is
+beginning to incline to one of 'em.  I've noticed she's quieter like and
+more gentle.  And there's a soft sadness in her eye and a colour that
+comes and goes."
+
+"There ain't one of the biling worthy of her," said Timothy, bitterly.
+"But there, Miss Weekes, there ain't no man worthy of a real beautiful,
+good lidy.  A fair wonder how I dares to hope that some day far off,
+when motor-cars has killed every 'orse, you'll be Mrs. Bunting."
+
+"It's a great come down, Tim," said Harriet. "Mr. Gubbles says he
+wonders, too."
+
+"If he wasn't the butler, and old, I'd plug 'im," said Timothy, crossly.
+"It's all right for me to wonder, but he ain't in it."
+
+"Ah, but class distinctions is hard to get over, Mr. Bunting," said
+Harriet.  "You must pardon a butler's feelings.  Even Mr. Gubbles has
+his feelings.  And he agrees with you that there's no one but a duke
+ought to marry our dear lady.  And she demeaning herself (if I dare say
+so) with Academicians and war correspondencies and Jew men; not but what
+Mr. Gordon is very gentlemanly and generous.  Only yesterday, Mr.
+Bunting, he says to me when he met me outside, 'Do you read?'  And I
+says, 'Yes, sir,' being some flustered, and he says, 'You read that.'
+And it was a five-pound note.  And he adds something about 'your vote
+and hinfluence.'  But I can't do it, Mr. Bunting, I can't. If it was
+Captain Goby, I might, and if it was young Lord Bramber I might more so,
+and even if it was Mr. de Vere, with a duke remote in his family, but
+for a Jewish man I can't.  So I said, 'Thank you, sir,' and he went off.
+But some one is beginnin' to rise up in my lady's mind, I saw it plainly
+when I was dressing her.  It would be worth more than five pounds to
+know who is risin'."
+
+"Yes," said Timothy.  "'Ow much would it run to, do you think?"
+
+"I believe it would be worth a public 'ouse."
+
+"Beer and spirits?" asked Timothy, eagerly.
+
+"And a corner 'ouse at that," replied Harriet, nodding her head.
+
+"Oh, 'Arriet," said Timothy, with a gasp, "you fairly dazzle me."
+
+The newspaper men had dazzled Harriet.
+
+But indeed what she said seemed true to her. And it seemed true to Lord
+Bradstock, who had, like the man of the _Circus Gazette_, an eagle's
+glance.
+
+"She has been playing fair," said Bradstock, "but one of them is drawing
+ahead, Titania."
+
+"Good heavens, who is he, and how do you know?" asked Titania.
+
+"It's intuition," said Bradstock, "intuition combined with, or founded
+on, a little observation. She's different, Titania.  She takes no
+interest in the London County Council."
+
+"You don't say so!" cried the duchess, in alarm.
+
+Bradstock nodded.
+
+"It's a fact.  I asked her if she had read the last debate, and she
+hadn't, and when I mentioned the Deceased Wife's Sister she yawned."
+
+"That looks bad," said Titania, "for only a week ago she raved about
+her, and Goring said he'd vote for her if she insisted on it.  And she
+did insist, and tears came in her eyes about the poor thing."
+
+"Well, I told you so," said Bradstock, "and I do hope it isn't Williams.
+I'm afraid of Williams. He's capable of knocking her down and carrying
+her off on his shoulder.  Do you remember with what joy she read us the
+account of the savage tribe somewhere (was it the east of London?) where
+they do that?"
+
+"It made me shiver with apprehension," said Titania.  "Oh, if she was
+only married safely to a good duke, one not like Goring!  Is there a
+good duke, Augustin?"
+
+"Several, so I'm informed," replied Bradstock, "and there are quite a
+number of good earls, some quite admirable.  But I wish you'd get hold
+of Chloe Cadwallader, and find out something."
+
+Titania bristled like a porcupine.
+
+"There is no need to find out anything about Mrs. Cadwallader," she
+said.  "If Penelope wasn't too dangerously innocent to be single, she
+would not have anything to do with her."
+
+"I'm sure the poor woman was only silly," said Bradstock.  "Haven't we
+all been silly in our time, Titania?  Didn't I marry twice?  And you
+married once."
+
+"I'll speak to her," said the duchess, hastily. "If we can only find out
+who it is, we can, I'm sure, prevent her doing as she says and making a
+secret marriage of it.  The scandal would be horrid.  Oh, Augustin,
+suppose she did it, and had a large family suddenly.  I should die of
+it."
+
+"Good heavens," said Bradstock, "you alarm me, Titania, you are so
+gloomy.  She would surely acknowledge her marriage then?"
+
+Titania threw up her hands.
+
+"Augustin, I'm sure of nothing with Penelope. I cannot answer for her.
+She will bring my gray hairs with sorrow--"
+
+"To cremation," said Bradstock.  "She has invested money in a
+crematorium."
+
+"I thought it was dairy-farming," cried Titania. "Oh, but think,
+Augustin, of the horror of the situation as it might be!  What would her
+Royal Highness say to me?  Imagine her marrying and keeping it dark, and
+having, as I say, a large family suddenly without a husband producible
+on the moment to answer natural inquiries!  Imagine her saying _then_
+that her marriage was her own business, and her certificate of marriage
+firmly withheld by a young and obstinate mother in a safe!  She has a
+safe.  She has a safe, Augustin, with many keys. I wish I could get at
+it, and find things out that are in it.  I wish I knew a burglar, a good
+honest and reliable burglar, married and trustworthy, that I could send
+in to break it open.  Most girls have a desk with an ordinary key, easy
+to open, but Penelope has a Lord Milner's safe with patent things to
+keep it shut.  It's not natural, it's wicked. Oh, I did hope, when I
+found out what the duke was like and what his ways were, that I knew the
+extent of my troubles, but there is no end to them, and Penelope begins
+where Goring leaves off."
+
+"Is it as bad as that?" asked Bradstock.
+
+"And then there's Bob--"
+
+"By Jove," said Augustin, "I believe Bob's the key to the safe!
+Titania, he's more likely to find something out than any one."
+
+Titania nodded solemnly.
+
+"Augustin, you are right.  I'll speak to Bob."
+
+"Let me do it."
+
+"No, no, Augustin.  He is very quick and suspicious, and he loves her,
+he adores her.  This requires a feminine intelligence.  I will work upon
+him quietly."
+
+And she went away to work upon Bob quietly.
+
+
+
+
+                            *CHAPTER VIII.*
+
+
+Now Titania believed that she was very smart and very clever, and that
+she would do things subtly and do them better than Bradstock or a
+barrister, even if he was a K.C.  And as it is the most invariably weak
+point in people that they think young people fools, or at any rate
+easily hoodwinked, she really believed that Bob, her dearly beloved
+young scoundrel of a grandson, would be as easy to work on as butter.
+And yet she had the sense to see that Bob adored Penelope.
+
+"I am very greatly troubled about Penelope, Bob," she said to him, as
+soon as she got him alone.
+
+"Don't you worry about Pen, granny," replied Bob, cheerfully, "she can
+take care of herself. Why, she can drive a motor-car now up to about
+thirty miles an hour, and Geordie Smith says she's all there.  And so
+does old Guth.  He had long talks with her, and he says she has brains.
+I tell you old Guth knows 'em when he sees 'em."
+
+Titania nodded.
+
+"Oh, I know she is clever, dear, but her ideas are so extraordinary."
+
+"Ain't they?" said Bob.  "I do wonder which of 'em she'll marry, don't
+you?"
+
+"Indeed I do," replied his grandmother.  "Have you any idea, Bob, which
+she likes best?"
+
+Bob shook his head.
+
+"Not me.  I wish it was Goby; old Goby is a ripping good sort.  He knows
+what's what, does old Goby."
+
+Goby tipped him freely and frequently, and Bob sold him a spavined pony,
+aged fifteen years.
+
+"He's a bit of a fool, of course," said Bob, thoughtfully.  "Do you
+know, granny, he isn't the judge of horses you'd think he is?"
+
+"Does Penelope ever confide in you, Bob?" asked Titania.
+
+There was a touch of anxiety in her voice that the boy felt at once.  He
+put his head on one side and looked at her out of the corner of his eye.
+He didn't answer the question.
+
+"I say, granny, don't you think I can have a bigger allowance now?  I
+find mine much too little.  If I had ten shillings a week more, I could
+get on for a bit."
+
+"You shall have it," said Titania.  "Does she ever confide in you, Bob?"
+
+"Some," said Bob, carelessly.
+
+"Which do you think she likes best?" asked Titania.
+
+"I don't know," said Bob, "but I dare say I could find out.  I say,
+should you be very angry if it was Gordon?"
+
+Titania uttered a little scream.
+
+"Great heavens, Bob, I should die of it!"
+
+Bob sat down and looked at her.
+
+"He's not bad, granny, not half mean, oh, no, not at all!"
+
+He had given Bob as much as he gave Miss Harriet Weekes about three days
+before.
+
+"I rather like him," said Bob.  "Pen thinks he's much improved since she
+put him in harness with the Frenchy.  It touched her his going up in a
+balloon.  I say, may I go up in a balloon?  Rivaulx said I might."
+
+"No!" screamed his grandmother.  "Oh, Bob, you wouldn't?"
+
+"I won't if you don't want me to," sighed Bob, "but it's a horrid
+disappointment.  He says going up in one is jolly, and London underneath
+is ripping.  If I don't, will you ask grandfather to give me another
+hunter?"
+
+"Yes, of course," said poor Titania; "but what do you think about
+Penelope?  Could you find out anything, Bob, if I let you go and stay
+with her?"
+
+Bob's eyes gleamed.
+
+"Rather," he said, "of course.  But I needn't worry about old Guth if I
+do?  I've been working very hard, and I think a holiday would do him
+good, too.  I'm very much overworked.  Do I look tired, granny?  I
+always feel tired now in my head. Guth says a breakdown from overwork is
+much worse than most fatal diseases."
+
+"You shall go to Penelope if she'll have you," said his anxious
+grandmother.  "Do you have headaches, Bob?"
+
+"Not headaches," said Bob, "I shouldn't call 'em headaches exactly.
+They're pains, and old Guth says he had 'em when he was at Oxford. They
+get worse, he says, and then the breakdown comes, and you have to take a
+very long rest.  I'll go on working if you like, though."
+
+He sighed.
+
+"You shall go to your cousin's," said Titania, "and my dear, dear Bob,
+keep your eye on Penelope and tell me all you discover.  Her ideas are
+very strange, you know, and we are all so anxious about her future."
+
+"So am I," said Bob.  "If she married the wrong one I shall be out of
+it.  I couldn't get on well with old De Vere, and if she married him I'm
+quite convinced he wouldn't buy any more dogs.  I want her to marry Goby
+or Bramber. But I think Bramber is rather mean in some ways, and very
+thoughtless of others.  I told him I wanted some salmon fishing at his
+father's place in Scotland, and he's said nothing about it since."
+
+"I shouldn't mind Lord Bramber so much," said Titania.  "But I'm afraid
+it won't be Bramber."
+
+"Cheer up," said her grandson.  "I'll look after her.  But don't forget
+about the extra ten shillings and the horse.  Could you give me the ten
+shillings for six weeks now, granny?"
+
+And he went off to Penelope's house and marched in on her.
+
+"Pen, I'm coming to stay with you if you'll have me," he said.
+
+"Of course I will," said Penelope.  "But how did you manage it?"
+
+"I'm overworked," said Bob, solemnly, "and sitting on chairs and
+learning Latin don't agree with me.  I want more open air, I think, or I
+shall get consumption."
+
+He was fat and ruddy and as strong as a bull-calf. He put his arm around
+Pen's neck.
+
+"I say, Pen, I do love you," he said.  "I think it's rot I'm so young,
+or I'd have married you myself.  Granny's in an awful state about you,
+Pen.  She asked me if I knew who it was you liked best, and she threw
+out hints a foot wide that I was to find out if I could."
+
+"Indeed," said Pen; "and what did you say?"
+
+Bob chuckled.
+
+"I said the best thing would be for me to come and stay with you.  And
+that's why I'm here.  But I say, Pen, I'll never sneak, not even if you
+marry Mr. de Vere.  Granny's raised my allowance ten bob a week, and I'm
+to have another hunter.  I got too big for the pony, so I sold him to
+Goby; Goby looked very melancholy, but he said he wanted him badly for
+some reason.  And he said he hoped I'd be his friend always.  I like
+poor old Goby.  I think I'll go into the park, Pen.  My things will be
+here by and by.  Couldn't we go to the theatre to-night?  There's a
+ripping farce with a fight in it at the Globe.  And will you have plum
+pudding for dinner, and ice meringues?"
+
+He went into the park and met Williams there.
+
+"I say, Mr. Williams, where's Mr. Carew?" he asked.
+
+"Damn Carew," said Williams.  "I don't know where he is, and I don't
+want to."
+
+"I'm staying at my cousin's," said Bob.
+
+"At Lady Penelope's?" asked the war correspondent.
+
+"That's it," said Bob.  "Would you like to know what theatre we are
+going to to-night?"
+
+"Yes," said Williams, eagerly.
+
+Bob shook his head.
+
+"I don't suppose I ought to tell you.  Tell me something very exciting
+about some bloody war, Mr. Williams."
+
+Williams grunted.
+
+"Or an execution.  Have you ever seen heads chopped off with a sword?"
+
+"Often in China, Bob."
+
+"I say, what fun!" said Bob.  "Tell me all about it.  Is it true they
+smoke cigarettes while they are being chopped?  And do they mind?  Could
+I see one if I went out?  I say, if you'll describe it, I'll see if I
+can tell you about the theatre."
+
+Carteret Williams described it.
+
+"Seventeen!" said Bob.  "By Jove, I'll tell this to Penelope.  She'll be
+greatly interested.  Do you think I could be a war correspondent, Mr.
+Williams?  I'd like to be, because Latin wouldn't be needed.  I'm
+awfully sorry for war correspondents in those days when no one but the
+Roman chaps did any fighting.  I've enjoyed that story of yours more
+than anything I've heard for years, Mr. Williams. When they write about
+these things in books, why don't they describe the blood the way you do?
+It's the Globe we're going to; there's a ripping farce there.  I wish
+they would do an execution of pirates.  I say, don't tell Pen I told
+you; she might be waxy with me.  Think of something else to tell me.
+Good-bye."
+
+And he went to look at the ducks.
+
+"Williams is all right," said Bob; "I wonder if it is Williams."
+
+And at home Pen began to know who it was. And Ethel Mytton began to know
+it was some one.  And so did Chloe Cadwallader.
+
+Miss Weekes was right, there is no mistake about that.
+
+
+
+
+                             *CHAPTER IX.*
+
+
+Penelope was certainly on the verge of being in love, to go no farther
+than that.  She discovered that certain of the horde had a curious
+tendency to disappear from her mind, though none of them lost any
+opportunity of appearing in her drawing-room. She was so sorry for those
+she didn't love that her kindness to them increased.  Her dread of the
+one she began to adore forbade her to show how soft she had grown to
+him.  Not even Ethel and Chloe together could make anything out of it,
+which shows every one, of course, that they were two simple idiots, or
+that Penelope had a very remarkable character.  It seems to me that the
+latter must have been the case, for Chloe was no fool in spite of the
+folly she had shown on one particular occasion.
+
+"Am I a fool?" she asked Ethel Mytton, "or is Penelope the deepest,
+darkest mystery of modern times?  I am convinced she has made her
+choice."
+
+"Oh, which do you think?" asked Ethel, with much anxiety.  "Do you--do
+you think it is Captain Goby?"
+
+"I don't know," replied Chloe; "it may be.  I give it up.  I shall ask
+Bob."
+
+"I've asked him," said Ethel, "and he won't say anything.  I think he
+knows more than we do. He's a sweet boy, but just as cunning as a
+ferret."
+
+But of course Bob knew no more than they did, though he would never own
+to it.  He threw out casual hints that he was wiser than his elders, and
+the only one he was in the least frank with was Lord Bradstock, who
+asked him to lunch and was infinitely amused with him.
+
+"I say, Lord Bradstock, if you'll keep it dark, I'll tell you
+something!"
+
+Bradstock promised to keep it as dark as a dry plate.
+
+"All these women think I know who Penelope's sweet on, and I don't.
+And, what's more, I wouldn't tell if I did.  Would you?"
+
+"Certainly not," said Bradstock.
+
+"You can't think how I'm chased," said Bob. "Ethel Mytton is the worst.
+She's dead nuts on poor Goby, and Goby doesn't see her when Pen's in the
+room.  And Mrs. Cadwallader, she's always mugging up to me with
+chocolates or something to get things out of me.  And the newspaper
+Johnnies are on me, too.  And Williams takes me out, and Carew (I don't
+care for Carew), and I like Goby best.  Mr. de Vere is a rotter, don't
+you think? The marquis was at Pen's, and he said that if Pen didn't
+marry him he'd go up in a balloon and never come back.  I want him to
+take me in a balloon. Don't you think I might go?  Granny's cross when I
+speak of it.  I've always wanted to go in a balloon, and I think it hard
+lines I can't go because she doesn't like 'em.  Pen won't go, either.
+She thinks that if she did, Rivaulx would never let her come down again,
+or something.  I daresay he wouldn't; he's quite mad, I think,
+sometimes.  Baker says all Frenchmen are mad.  Do you think so?"
+
+Bradstock didn't know; he wasn't sure of it, though he owned to thinking
+it was possible.
+
+"After all, Bob," he said, when Bob went at last, "and after all I dare
+say Penelope won't marry any of them."
+
+And of course that is what a good many people said.  They said it was
+Lady Penelope's fun.  The Marchioness of Rigsby, who settled every one's
+affairs, said so to Titania.
+
+"Why wasn't she beaten, my dear, when she was young?" asked the
+marchioness.  "I was severely beaten; it did me good; it gave me sense.
+I always used to beat my girls with the flat of my hand, and now they
+are _most_ sensible and married excellently, although I own they are not
+beauties.  I can afford to own it now.  I shall speak to Penelope
+myself."
+
+She did it and was routed.  Pen was direct; she beat no one, and
+certainly did not beat about the bush.  She had no fear of the world,
+and dreaded no marchioness.
+
+"I'll attend to my own affairs, thank you," said Pen.
+
+"My dear love," said the marchioness, "you ought to have been beaten
+while you were still young. This conduct of yours is a scandal.  It is
+merely a means of attracting public notice.  And I am old enough to
+speak about it.  I will speak about it."
+
+Pen left her speaking and went out.
+
+"She is distinctly rude," said the marchioness, viciously.  "I wish she
+was about ten and I was her mother!"
+
+But Pen could not endure being spoken to.
+
+"I love him," said Pen, "and what business is it of theirs?  If they
+disapprove I shall hate them! If they approve I shall hate them worse.
+Oh, I almost wish I was going to marry some one who would make them
+die!"
+
+"Mark me," said the marchioness to Titania, "this will end in her
+marrying a groom.  Has she a good-looking one?"
+
+Titania started.
+
+"Oh, a very good-looking one," she cried.
+
+"What did I say?  Remember what I said," said the marchioness, darkly.
+"No really good girl could act as she does.  She will marry a groom!"
+
+She went around saying so in revenge for Penelope's want of politeness.
+The journalists took Timothy Bunting's photograph, and Miss Weekes was
+proud till she heard the dreadful rumour. Timothy beat a man on a paper,
+and Bob was delighted.  Titania took to her bed, and said the end of the
+world was at hand.  Bradstock laughed till he cried, and cut the
+marchioness in the park. Her husband was very much pleased at this, and
+said it served her right.  Chloe Cadwallader wrote her first letter
+since the scandal to Cadwallader in the Rockies, for she felt he would
+be the only man in the world who hadn't heard of it.  Ethel lay wait for
+Captain Goby, and asked him to kill some one.  There was not a soul in
+London who did not hear of it.  And then Timothy quarrelled with Harriet
+Weekes.  He went to Penelope, and with a crimson face and bated breath
+and much humbleness asked to be sent down to the country.
+
+"You shall go," said Penelope, with great decision.  "I can trust you, I
+know."
+
+"My lady, you can trust me with untold gold and diamonds," replied
+Timothy Bunting, almost with tears.
+
+"I shall send you to a house of mine you have never heard of," said
+Penelope.  "And I expect you, Bunting, not to write to any one from
+there. I do not wish any one to know I live there."
+
+"I'll not tell the Harchbishop of Canterbury 'imself, my lady, not if he
+begged me on his knees, with lighted candles in his 'and," said Bunting.
+"And, above all, my lady, I'll not tell it to Miss Weekes.  Her and me
+'ave quarrelled, and 'ave parted for hever.  And I wouldn't trust her,
+my lady, not farther than you can sling a bull by the tail, my lady.
+I've trusted her to my rueing, so I have, and if she finds out hanything
+she'll sell it to the _Times_, which 'ave promised her a public 'ouse at
+a corner."
+
+This revelation of the methods of Printing House Square shocked Penelope
+dreadfully.
+
+"Oh, I always thought the _Times_ was a respectable journal," she said.
+
+But Timothy Bunting shook his head.
+
+"Their sportin' tips ain't a patch on many of the penny papers, my lady.
+But don't you forget what I says of Miss Weekes.  She's a serpent in
+your boodore a-coiling everywhere, and speaking to newspaper men outside
+the harea like an 'ousemaid. Not but that I knows an 'ousemaid far above
+such dirty work, my lady."
+
+A little encouragement might have led him to say more about the
+housemaid who would not condescend to talk with journalists.  But
+Penelope gave him an address, verbally.
+
+"You will go to this place to-morrow," she said. "There are no horses
+now, but there will be next week.  I trust you to do what I tell you."
+
+"Miss--my lady, I mean," said Timothy, proudly, "I wouldn't reveal where
+I was if the Hemperor of Germany crawled to me for that purpose all
+along of the ground, making speeches as he went."
+
+Penelope smiled at her faithful henchman kindly, and she wondered how it
+happened that he thought of placing the emperor in such an absurd
+position; a position, too, which was very unlikely.
+
+"Now are you sure you remember, Bunting?" she asked.
+
+"Miss Mackarness, Moat 'Ouse, near Spilsby, Lincolnshire," repeated
+Timothy.
+
+"And you will speak personally to Miss Mackarness, who will give you
+every instruction," said his young mistress.  "I hope you don't drink,
+Bunting?"
+
+"Never," said Bunting, promptly, "at least I won't from now on till you
+give the word, my lady. But, my lady, as I'm goin' from here I don't
+mind revealin' to you that Mr. Gubbles does.  Mr. Gubbles 'as been very
+unkind to me, and--"
+
+"That will do," said Penelope.  "Good-bye, Bunting.  I expect to see you
+in about a month.  It may be less."
+
+"I 'opes, my lady, it will be much less," said the groom, and as he went
+away he nodded his close-cropped head.
+
+"This is a damned rum start," he murmured. "Wot's up, I wonder?  This
+'ere Miss Mackarness was 'ousekeeper at Upwell Castle, and I'm a
+Dutchman if any one of us 'as ever 'eard of Moat 'Ouse. She's goin' to
+do it, as she said, goin' to be married and keep it dark.  Women is
+wonderful strange and, so to speak, dreadful.  I thot I knew 'Arriet
+Weekes through and through, and she turned out to be a serpent with
+false teeth, ready to sell Lady Penelope to the _Times_.  And my lady
+'as turned me round 'er finger.  I'm knee-deep in secret hoaths, and,
+without knowin' what I was doin', I've swore off drink.  Well, I always
+did like ginger-beer!"
+
+But he sighed all the same.  And that afternoon he packed up and
+disappeared, and no one knew what had become of him.  Neither he nor any
+one of those who hunted for news had any notion of the fame which would
+presently be his. Nor did Penelope see quite what she had done when this
+nice-looking young man suddenly vanished by her orders.
+
+But Penelope was in love.
+
+
+
+
+                              *CHAPTER X.*
+
+
+Love is a pathological state which can only be cured by one means.  It
+is a disease, and robs the most humourous of their humour.  When
+Rabelais was in love he no doubt wrote poems which he afterward
+destroyed.  When Dante was in love he did the Paradiso.  When he cheered
+up he wrote the Inferno.  Neither of these is any joke.  But then, Dante
+had no more humour than Penelope. It can be imagined (or it cannot be
+imagined) how unhumourous Pen became when she found she had made her
+choice between Plant and De Vere and Goby and Carew and Williams and
+Bramber and Gordon and Rivaulx.  She wept at night over those she could
+not marry.  And it added grief to grief to think that the unmarried
+would probably relapse into their evil ways.
+
+"What can one poor girl do with so many?" she asked.  "I'm sure they
+will turn around on me, and once more follow their dreadful instincts!
+And they have improved so much!"
+
+The result of her sorrow was such pity that every poor wretch of them
+all was convinced she loved him better and better.  They were quite
+cheerful. They looked at each other almost sympathetically. They grieved
+for each other, and struggled on the hard cinder-path of duty, with
+Penelope at least a long lap ahead.  The amount of good they did was
+wonderful.  Plant got his university started, Rivaulx went over to Paris
+and asked Dreyfus to dinner, Goby was deep in Imperial Yeomanry and
+rifle ranges, Bramber spoke on every opportunity in the House and voted
+with the insistence of a whip.  De Vere wrote a monograph on outdoor
+sports, with an appendix on bulldogs.  He also owned that poetry was not
+everything, and went so far as to say that the poet laureate was a very
+good fellow.  Gordon floated a company without any water in the capital,
+and ran the whole affair with absolute honesty and no waiver clause.
+Carew learned to draw, and spoke sober truth about the Chantry Bequest.
+
+Williams never swore in public, and painted in water-colours.  And none
+of them played bridge or went into good society.
+
+"And when they know?" said poor Penelope.
+
+"I wonder if I ought not to sacrifice him and myself on the altar of
+duty?" said Pen.  But she was in love, and the motor-car in which she
+was to disappear stood ready.  She made weekly trips in it with Bob.
+Sometimes they stayed away for three days, sometimes even for a week.
+
+"Oh, Bob, I'm so unhappy: so happy," said Pen.
+
+And Bob looked at her critically.
+
+"Well, you look stunning, anyhow," he replied, "you get better looking
+every day, Pen.  Old De Vere said so.  He let on that you were a cross
+between a lily and a rose, or some such rot.  You mark me, Pen, he'll go
+back to poetry if you marry him, and give up dogs.  I don't want him to
+do that. Baker has some pups coming on, a new kind of very savage dog,
+and I'm halves in 'em.  Can't you give me a tip as to whether it's De
+Vere?  If it is, I'll sell him one now, cheap."
+
+But Pen looked beautiful and kept her mouth shut.  Neither Bob nor
+Titania nor Bradstock could extract a word from her.  And, nevertheless,
+the whole world grew suspicious.  The society papers said she had made
+her choice.  The sporting papers gave tips.  They said, "For the _Lady
+Penelope Stakes_ we give Plant or Bramber," or at least one of them did.
+Others selected De Vere, and one rude man said a rank outsider would get
+it.  Of course he didn't believe in Pen's word.  But then, no one did.
+
+And still Pen kept her teeth shut and was as obstinate as a government
+mule to all persuasion. Ethel cried and said:
+
+"Oh, is it Captain Goby?"
+
+Chloe laughed and laid traps for Penelope saying:
+
+"Oh, by the way, I saw Lord Bramber just now."
+
+Or it might be De Vere or Carew or Williams. But no one got a rise out
+of Penelope.
+
+"I am entirely determined to give a lead to those who wish to be married
+without publicity.  I shall found a society presently," said Penelope.
+
+When Titania, whom nothing could discourage, went at her furiously,
+Bradstock smiled.
+
+"If she has a daughter, some day we shall see the girl married in
+Westminster Abbey," said Bradstock. But even he was very curious.
+
+"Have you found out anything yet, Bob?" he asked that young financier.
+
+"I'm on the way," said Bob, "give me time, Lord Bradstock.  I feel sure
+it's not De Vere.  He's buying all the dogs I offer him.  If he was
+sure, he wouldn't."
+
+But Bradstock wasn't certain.  Penelope might have no humour, but she
+was quite equal to ordering De Vere to buy in order to blind Bob.
+
+"I never thought of that," said Bob.  "I frankly own Pen's a deal worse
+than Euclid.  And I never thought to say that of anything."
+
+And upon a certain day in June, when June was doing its best to live up
+to the poet's ideal, Pen disappeared, by herself, leaving Bob at home
+with Guthrie, who now came over each day to keep the young vagabond
+doing something.  She came back after lunch, and Bob found her
+abnormally silent. She had nothing to say, and there was a curious
+far-off look in her eyes.  Her interest in dogs was nil; she showed no
+appreciation of ferrets; when he spoke she said "Oh" and "Ah" and
+"what's that you say?"  And Bob had no suspicion whatsoever, just as
+clever people never have when they might be expected to show their
+wisdom.
+
+When she did speak, though, it was to the point.
+
+"I think, Bob, it is time you went back to your grandmother's," she
+declared, suddenly, and back he went in spite of all his cajoleries.
+Pen was very strange, he thought, and rather beastly.  There certainly
+was a change in her, for she dismissed Harriet Weekes with a douceur
+which did not really sweeten that lady's departure.
+
+And in the afternoon Pen casually remarked to Chloe that she was going
+out of town for three days.  When she said so the motor-car was at the
+door, and Geordie Smith was there too.
+
+If Timothy Bunting had known that Smith was as deep in his lady's
+confidence as he was himself, he would have been jealous.  But he must
+have been, for Pen said to him, when they were out of Piccadilly:
+
+"How long will it take to get to Spilsby, Smith?"
+
+"My lady, with this new racing-car I'll get there when you like,"
+replied Smith, firmly.
+
+Pen remembered that Bob said Smith's ambition was to ride through the
+city regardless of fines.
+
+"I wouldn't try to do it under three hours," she said.
+
+"Unless we are followed," said Smith.  "If we are followed, my lady, may
+I let her go?"
+
+"Yes," said Penelope.
+
+Geordie Smith nodded to himself.
+
+"Fines be damned, and legal limits ditto," said Smith to himself; "wait,
+my darling, till we get through the traffic."
+
+He meant "darling" for his new car.  He adored it as much as he did his
+mistress.  He used to dream of it at night and had nightmares about it.
+Dream ruffians cut up his tires; he was in the middle of Salisbury Plain
+without petrol; "she" refused to spark; he was held up by gigantic
+policemen with stop watches the size of a church clock. But now she
+moved under him smooth and cosy, with a vast reserve of power; she was
+quick, swift, docile, intelligent, fearless of policemen, careless of
+the limping law.
+
+"If my lady wants to go quick, I'm the man," said Geordie.  "But I
+wonder what's up?"
+
+Geordie played the car as Joachim plays the violin, or Paderewski the
+piano.  She skated, she swam, she shot like a water-beetle, she was
+responsive to his lightest touch.  He heard her music as every engineer
+does, and found it as lovely as a dream song.
+
+"Oh, for a clear road," said the player.  He found some of it clear
+before they reached Barnet, and then he fingered the keyboard, as it
+were, like a master.
+
+"Horses, horses," said Smith, "the poor miserable things!  Ain't I sorry
+for Tim Bunting!  Here we go, my lady."
+
+He broke the law magnificently, and with such skill that Penelope
+wondered.  But only once he ran against the law in the shape of a
+policeman, north of Hatfield, who saw him coming and signalled to him to
+stop.
+
+"Shall I?" said Smith.
+
+"No!" shrieked Pen, against the tide of wind.
+
+They passed him flying and saw him run as they passed.
+
+"He'll wire to Hitchin and have us there," said Smith.  But he knew his
+roads.  "Oh, will he?"
+
+He took the right fork of the roads at Welwyn and roared through
+Stevenage to Baldock and found the main road again at Sandy.  They
+reached Huntington, sixty miles from town, in an hour and three
+quarters.
+
+"And I've never let her out but once," said Smith; "she's a daisy!"
+
+The eighteen miles to Spilsborough they did at a speed that made
+Penelope bend her head.  She felt wonderful: she was on a shooting-star.
+They slackened on the outskirts of the cathedral city and rolled through
+it delicately.  She looked about her and remembered the dear bishop who
+had christened her when he was no more than a vicar.
+
+"We'll go by Crowland and Spalding, Smith."  A car followed them out of
+Spilsborough, and Smith, going easy, looked back and saw it.
+
+"Catch us, my son," he said, contemptuously. But when they were well
+clear of town and he turned her loose, so to speak, Pen's nerve went, or
+it appeared to go.
+
+"Don't go so fast, Smith," she commanded.
+
+And Smith obeyed sorrowfully.
+
+"They can't stand it," he said; "none of 'em can stand it really.  They
+let on they can, but it's no go.  A few hot miles gives them the
+mulligrubs."
+
+But nevertheless they were running over thirty miles an hour.  The car
+behind crawled up to them.
+
+"All I've got to do, my lady, is to ask her to shake 'em off, and away
+we go and leave 'em," he suggested.
+
+"Oh, no, no," said Pen.
+
+At Spalding the pursuer, if he were one, was not a hundred yards behind.
+But in the town Smith got ahead.  He did not see Penelope trembling.
+Smith had taken a look at the one behind.
+
+"There's power there," he said, savagely.  "If he lets her out and my
+lady squeals, I'm passed!"
+
+She did "squeal" the other side of Spalding, but not for herself.  The
+other car had to stop.
+
+"That's done 'em," said Smith; "they're in the ditch."  He gained ten
+miles on them, and Penelope wept.
+
+And just as they were coming into Boston at an easy gait, Smith turned
+and saw the other car coming up behind like a meteor, with the dust
+astern of her in a fume.
+
+"That chap can drive after all," said Smith. "Won't you try to let me
+get away from him before we get to Spilsby, my lady?"
+
+"I--I don't want to," said Pen.
+
+And five miles outside of Spilsby the pursuing car drew up with them.
+Two indistinguishable monsters drove it, and through his glaring goggles
+Smith glared at them as they came alongside.
+
+"Stop," said Penelope, suddenly.  "Stop, Smith."
+
+And the other car stopped too.
+
+"I'll go on with the other car," said Penelope. She took her place by
+the most unrecognizable portent of the two, and disappeared in a sudden
+and terrific cloud of dust.
+
+"Damned if I know who it is, even now," said Smith.
+
+
+
+
+                             *CHAPTER XI.*
+
+
+It was Friday when Penelope disappeared from London in a motor-car, and
+was carried off by a motor pirate, unknown to any one, because he wore a
+peak cap, a fur coat with the fur outside, and gigantic goggles, making
+him resemble a diver or a cuttlefish.
+
+It was Monday when she returned to town in a motor-car with Geordie
+Smith.  And all the way into town Geordie said:
+
+"Blessed if I'd ha' thought it.  I always reckoned it would have been
+one of the others.  I lose money on this, but if I do, it warms the
+cockles of my heart to see my lady happy.  Bless her sweet face, I wish
+she'd leave the blooming world alone and have a good time.  I never set
+eyes on such an aggravatin' beautiful sweet lady for interferin' with
+men.  Just as if the queen herself could alter our ways!  Women always
+gas that they can or mean to, and they're just like hens with men for
+ducks."
+
+If he had been a classical scholar he might have remembered Ariadne up
+to her knees in the sea, with her lover on the deep in a boat.
+
+"When I saw who it was at Moat House," said Geordie, "you could have
+knocked me endwise with something less than a steel spanner.  And that
+horse-whipping ass of a Bunting was equal took aback.  For somehow we
+never spotted him as likely to make the non-stop run.  Humph, humph!"
+
+And he left Penelope at her house just in time for afternoon tea.  As
+she lay on the sofa she handed a paper to Chloe Cadwallader, saying:
+
+"I wish you would send out cards to all these people for Thursday
+night."
+
+"That's very short notice, darling," said Chloe.
+
+"They'll come," said Pen.
+
+And when Chloe looked at the list she found it included only Pen's
+particular friends, her most bitter relations, and the whole of the
+"horde."
+
+"I wonder--" said Chloe, and she wondered somewhat later with Ethel.
+
+"Is it?" said Ethel.
+
+"Can it be?" cried Chloe.
+
+"It can't be," said Ethel.
+
+"Who knows?" asked Chloe.  "She is so plain and so simple and
+straightforward that there is no certainty about anything she does.  I
+understand the wicked and the weak, but Penelope--"
+
+She threw up her hands, and presently wrote out the cards.  And Penelope
+was trying "to a degree," as Chloe said all Monday and Tuesday and
+Wednesday. And on Thursday she sent for Bob, who came helter-skelter in
+a hansom.
+
+"You'll stand by me, Bob," said Pen, clutching him.
+
+Bob put his hands in his pockets and stood straddle-legs.  He stared at
+her.  What was hidden from the wisdom of Chloe was revealed to the
+simplicity of this boy.
+
+"Pen," said Bob, solemnly, "I'll stick by you till death.  But ain't you
+going to tell me who it is?"
+
+"Who what is?" asked Pen, feebly.
+
+"Him," said Bob.  "Pen, you've been and gone and done it."
+
+Pen, the strong and mighty Pen, wept a little.
+
+"Don't snivel," said Bob.  "It can't be helped now, I suppose, unless
+you get a divorce.  Do you want one?"
+
+"Oh, no!" said Pen.  "Not at all!"
+
+Bob considered the matter for a few minutes.
+
+"I say, what makes you cry?" he asked.
+
+"I--I don't know," said Penelope.
+
+"Girls are very rum.  Baker says they are.  He's not married, you know.
+He says mules are easy to them.  He drove mules once in India, he says.
+You know you are doing all this off your own bat, Pen, ain't you?  Why
+don't you chuck it?"
+
+"Chuck what, dear?"
+
+"Oh, this notion of not letting on.  Baker says it's the rummest start
+he ever knew, and he says he's seen some rum things in his life,
+especially when he was a sergeant in the Dublin Fusiliers. Can't you
+chuck it?"
+
+"Oh, no, certainly not," said Pen, firmly.  "It's only, Bob, that I'm
+not used to it yet, you see."
+
+"Of course not," said Bob.  "Being married is strange at first, I
+suppose.  Baker says he knew a woman who was married four times, and by
+the fourth time she wasn't nervous to speak of.  But is it true, Pen,
+that you won't tell any one who it is?"
+
+"I won't," said Pen.
+
+"Bravo," cried Bob.  "Stick to it.  Oh, it will make granny so savage!
+Has Bill spoken about it to you?"
+
+"He laughs," said Pen.  "He always does laugh."
+
+"He tells rattling good stories," said Bob.  "He told me a splendid one
+about a man who stole a parrot the other day.  I'll tell it you sometime
+when I remember it.  Is anything going to happen to-night, Pen?"
+
+Pen shivered.
+
+"Oh, dear, I don't know.  Mind you come, too, Bob."
+
+Bob vowed he wouldn't miss coming for worlds.
+
+"I believe you're thinking of telling 'em you've done it," he said, and
+Pen said she was thinking of telling them.
+
+"You won't tell me who it is?  I'm as close as wax," urged Bob.
+
+"I can't, dear," said Pen.
+
+"Oh, by Jove, I remember Bill's parrot story, Pen.  A man stole a
+parrot, and when he was caught he said he took it for a lark.  And the
+man who owned it said he'd make a bally fine judge at a bird-show."
+
+"Oh," said Pen, rather blankly; "but if he only took it for a lark, I
+suppose they let him off.  Did they?"
+
+"Let him off what?"
+
+"Why--going to prison, of course," said Pen.
+
+"I don't know," replied Bob, staring.  "Don't you see it's a joke?"
+
+"Yes, I see, of course," said Pen.  "Why, the man said it was a lark,
+and it was a parrot.  I think it's a very good story, Bob."
+
+And Bob went away wondering whether it was or not.
+
+"I'll tell it to Baker," he said, thoughtfully.
+
+He turned up at nine o'clock that night with Titania, who was in a state
+of mind requiring instant attention from a physician.
+
+"Good heavens, what is it, I wonder," said Titania.  "Robert, I wonder
+what it is?  But what do you know?  I am in a tremble; I am sure she
+will do or say something even more scandalous than she has done yet.  I
+put it all on Bradstock; to make him her guardian was a fatal error.  My
+nerves--but I have none.  I quiver like a jelly; I shake; I must be pale
+as a ghost.  Why should we take so much trouble over anything?  I must
+think of myself.  I will go to bed and stay there for a week, and send
+for Dr. Lumsden Griff."
+
+But Bradstock was as calm as a philosopher without anything in the
+objective world to worry him.
+
+"What does it matter?" he inquired.  "Does anything matter?"
+
+Brading, whom no one had seen for many months, as he had spent the whole
+winter in a yacht down the Mediterranean, was perfectly good-humoured.
+
+"You see, she's a dear, but only my half-sister after all," he said to
+Bradstock, "and women are so wonderful!  I can tell you a story by and
+by of a Greek lady, and one about a Spaniard.  And, to tell the truth, I
+almost agree with Pen.  I'm a bit of a socialist, or an anarchist, if
+you like.  Have you read Nietzsche?"
+
+"Who wrote it?" asked Bradstock.
+
+But the horde came in one by one, and Penelope, who was dressed in the
+most unremarkable costume at her disposal, and looked like a lily,
+received them at the door.
+
+"A most awful and improper situation," said Titania.
+
+"I say, I'll tell you about that Greek girl," said Brading.  "Do you
+think Pen could stick a knife in a fellow?"
+
+Bradstock didn't think so, and listened to the story of the lady who
+suggested the notion.
+
+"Right through my coat and waistcoat," said Brading.  "Only a very stiff
+piece of starch saved my life!"
+
+"Good heavens!" cried Bradstock.
+
+The room was full, and Bob buzzed around it like a bluebottle in an
+orchard.
+
+"Oh, I say," he cried to every one.  He told the story of the parrot
+after he had asked Brading whether he had it right.  He tried it on De
+Vere and failed.  Goby roared handsomely.  Bramber was absent-minded
+with his eye on Penelope. Gordon said, "Yes, yes, a ripping good story."
+The Marquis de Rivaulx balked at it, but was led to understand it.
+
+"And when can I go up in a balloon?" asked Bob.  He waited for no
+answer, but told it to Williams, suggesting that the war correspondent
+might pay for it by a story with blood and torture in it, please.  And
+all of a sudden it was noticed that the hostess had slipped out of the
+room.
+
+"Where--where is Penelope?" asked trembling Titania.  "Mrs. Cadwallader,
+where is Lady Penelope?"
+
+Bob ran her to earth in her bedroom, and after many appeals he was let
+in.
+
+"Oh, dear, oh, dear," said Penelope.  "Bob, let me take hold of you.  Do
+I tremble?"
+
+"Rather," said Bob.  "I'll bet you couldn't drink a glass of wine
+without spilling it.  What's wrong?  Buck up.  Ain't you comin' in to
+tell 'em? I've broken it a bit for you."
+
+Pen screamed.
+
+"You wretched boy, what have you done?"
+
+"Bless you, nothing to speak of," said Bob.  "I only said you would make
+'em sit up presently. They think I know something, and want to bribe me.
+I say, Pen, if you say nothing for a few days, I believe old Gordon will
+make me a director. Can you?  I want to make money and restore the
+family property.  I say, do."
+
+But Pen paid no attention to him.  She groaned instead.
+
+"Where's the pain?" asked Bob, anxiously. "Shall I get you some brandy?"
+
+"No, no, Bob!  I _must_ go in and tell them."
+
+"Come on, then," said Bob, eagerly.  "I don't care about the
+directorship.  They're all white and shaking.  I _guess_ they _are_ in a
+stew."
+
+But still Pen did not move, and when Chloe came she sent her away,
+saying, "In a moment, in a moment!"
+
+Then Bob had a brilliant idea.
+
+"I say, Pen, I'll do it!"
+
+"Do what?"
+
+"I'll go in and tell 'em you've done it.  It would be a lark!"
+
+But Pen shook her head.
+
+"No, I must, I will be brave.  If a woman has ideas she must live up to
+them.  I have done good so far.  Are they not very much improved, Bob?"
+
+"Some, I think," said Bob, carelessly.  "But I dare say they'll go
+regular muckers now.  Come on, Pen, I do want to see their jaws drop."
+
+And Pen went with him.  She stayed outside the door, and Bob went in
+first.
+
+"She's coming," said Bob.  And Pen entered with her eyes on the floor.
+Bob took her hand.
+
+"Buck up and spit it out," he said, in an encouraging whisper, which was
+audible in the farthest corner of the room.  Some of the horde turned
+pale; Titania fell back in her chair; Bradstock leant against the wall.
+Brading put up his eyeglass, and then told Bradstock Pen reminded him of
+a girl who had once tried to smother him with a pillow.
+
+"She had Penelope's straightforwardness, and never gave in, just like
+Pen," said Brading, thoughtfully.
+
+And now Penelope took hold of her courage, so to speak, and opened her
+mouth.
+
+"S-sh," said Bob, who looked on himself as the master of the ceremonies,
+"s-sh, I say."
+
+And he took hold of Pen's hand.
+
+"I'm so glad to see you here to-night," said the reformer, "for I am so
+much interested in you all, you see.  And you've all been so brave."
+
+"Hear, hear," said Bob.
+
+"So brave in different ways, about balloons and motor-cars and curing
+yourselves of your weak points," went on Penelope.  "That's what I hoped
+my influence would do.  I said I was only a girl, but even a girl ought
+to do something, and I knew you all liked me very much, for you all said
+so, and I said, what can I do for you?  And I did my best, and you did
+yours, I'm sure, for I've heard from every one of you all about the
+others."
+
+This made many of them look rather queer, as no doubt it might.
+
+"And months ago I said--I said--"
+
+"Go ahead, Pen," whispered Bob.  "You mean you said you'd marry one of
+'em."
+
+"I said I'd--marry one of you."
+
+Titania groaned in the corner of a vast settee. Bradstock and Brading
+whistled, or it seemed so. But the other poor wretches stared at
+Penelope, and saw no one, heard no one, but her.
+
+"And I wanted you to come to-night so that I could ask you all to go on
+in the path of rectitude and simplicity and courage, balloons and hard
+work and healthiness and thought for others, even if I was married,"
+said Pen, with a gasp.  "Will you, oh, will you?"
+
+"We will," said the crowd, Goby leading with a deep bass voice and tears
+in his eyes.
+
+"Oh, I'm so glad," said Penelope, "for I shall not have lived in vain
+even if I died to-night.  And now--and now--I have to tell you
+something."
+
+"Great heavens," said Titania, in an awestricken and penetrating
+whisper, "what is she going to say now?"
+
+"I have kept my word," said Penelope, with her eyes on the floor.  "I
+have kept my word!"
+
+"What--what word?" asked the collapsed duchess, and Pen tried to say
+what word she had kept.
+
+"Speak up," said Bob, "speak up, Pen!"
+
+And she did speak up.
+
+"For--for," gasped Penelope, "for, you see, I _have_ married one of
+you!"
+
+Titania uttered a scream and promptly fainted. The men looked at each
+other furiously and suspiciously, while Pen was on her knees beside the
+poor duchess.  At that moment a message was brought in for Gordon, and
+an urgent note from the whip for Bramber.  Brading stood in a corner and
+whistled.  Bradstock shrugged his shoulders, and Bob buzzed all over the
+room like a wasp in a bottle.  By dint of water and smelling-salts and
+the slapping of hands Titania was brought to, and when she had recovered
+consciousness to the extent of knowing what it was that had bowled her
+over, she uttered words on the spur of the moment which were almost as
+much of a bombshell as those Penelope had spoken.
+
+"I don't believe she's married at all," said Titania.
+
+
+
+
+                             *CHAPTER XII.*
+
+
+To talk about the grounds of certainty is to talk metaphysically, and
+metaphysics being the highest form of nonsense, becomes sense in that
+altitude, as it must be if Hegel is to be believed.  But in the conduct
+of life the grounds of certainty are an estate beyond the rainbow.  If
+Penelope believed any one thing with more fervour than another, it was
+that her truthfulness must be self-evident.  The course of events after
+the evening on which Titania fainted and recovered so sharply showed her
+that nothing was certain, not even self-evident truths. For though she
+said she was married, few, if any, believed her.  Titania, who believed
+in her intuitions, as all right-minded women must, because reason is
+only an attribute of man, declared that Penelope had lied, to put it
+plainly.  She invented an hypothesis to account for it.
+
+"She found out she didn't want to marry any of them, and her courage to
+say so failed her.  This notion of hers gives her time, and of course,
+my dear, as you see from what I say, she's not married in the least."
+
+Bradstock, who was a philosopher, disagreed with her, and agreed with
+Bob.
+
+"Not married in the least, eh?" said Bradstock. "What is the least
+degree of marriage which would meet with your moral approval, Titania?"
+
+"Don't talk nonsense, Augustin," replied Titania, tartly.
+
+"I cannot help it," said Augustin, "the situation is so absurd."
+
+And so it was for every one but the Duchess and Penelope, who did not
+understand a joke even with illustrations.  And they undoubtedly had the
+illustrations.  There were leading articles in several papers on the
+subject of marriage, with discreet allusions to Penelope's case.  There
+was a long and rabid correspondence in the _Daily Turncoat_, a new
+halfpenny paper, to which every lady with a past or a future
+contributed.  The editor of the _Dictator_ wrote a moral essay with his
+own hand, obvious to every student of his immemorial style, which proved
+that another such case would knock the bottom out of the British Empire
+and bring on protection.  He showed that marriage, open and
+unadulterated, in a chapel, at the least, was the minimum on which
+morality could exist, and he pointed out with sad firmness that the
+ethical standards of the true Briton were the only decent ones at
+present unfurled in the universe, and that they were in great danger of
+being rolled up and put away.  As every one knows, all he said was
+undoubtedly fact.  The true Briton is the only moral person in the
+world. As a result Penelope felt that she wasn't a true Briton, and it
+made her very mournful, as it should have done.  Nothing but her native
+obstinacy, which was imperial if not British, made her stick to her
+ideas, when her half-brother came to her and asked her crudely to
+"chuck" it.  For, though he was humourous, it was past a joke now, and
+his admiration of Pen was tinged with alarm.
+
+"I say, old girl, chuck it," said Bill.
+
+"I can't!  I won't!" said Penelope.
+
+"Nobody believes you."
+
+Penelope couldn't help that.
+
+"I've spoken the truth."
+
+"Why, even the other men don't believe it," said her brother.  "Why, I
+met three of 'em to-day, and they all said, 'Oh, yes, we understand.'  I
+say, Pen, this is too much.  Chuck it!"
+
+"Once for all, dear, I won't," said Penelope. "Much as I dislike this
+publicity, I see it is doing good.  I get letters every day from scores
+of people saying that I am doing good.  Three to-day declared that they
+were following my example in a registrar's office, and three more are
+thinking of it.  One lady writes, saying she hopes I would go in for
+abolishing marriage altogether when public opinion was prepared for the
+extinction of the race. I don't agree with her, but she was
+enthusiastic, and enthusiasm is a great thing."
+
+"I shall go yachting for a year," said Bill.
+
+"I wish you would, dear Bill," replied Penelope. "It will do you good.
+You look quite pale, and I don't like you to do that.  Have you any
+cough?"
+
+"Damn it, no," said Brading, crossly.
+
+And he went yachting again without publicity but with a lady.  He was no
+true Briton, and never read the _Dictator_.
+
+His departure took one thing off Pen's hands, but none of her lovers
+departed.  Titania's words had sunk deep in their minds.
+
+"She's not married," they said.  "And if she says she is, it is only to
+try us."
+
+They all interviewed Bob, and made things very pleasant for that rising
+statesman.  If he believed Pen was married there was no reason to say so
+openly.
+
+"Am I old enough to be a director, do you think?" he asked Gordon.
+"What I want is to make pots of money and rebuild Goring, which is a
+bally ruin."
+
+"You don't answer my questions," said Gordon.
+
+"Oh, about Pen," said Bob.  "She's queer.  I don't know, Mr. Gordon, I
+can't tell.  She may be, for all I know.  She's so clever, I don't know
+that she hasn't married you, and put you up to coming and asking me
+questions."
+
+Gordon couldn't help grinning.
+
+"I think you'll be a director of something some day," said he.  "I can't
+make you one now, but if you have a hundred pounds I'll invest it in
+something for you, my son, that will make your hair curl."
+
+"Like yours?" asked Bob, curiously, and Gordon flinched.
+
+"Well," went on Bob, without waiting for an answer, "I haven't a hundred
+pounds, but I've an idea how to get it."
+
+"Yes?" said the financier.  "What's your idea, Bob?"
+
+"It's a safe and a certain investment, is it?"
+
+"Why, of course," replied Gordon.
+
+"Then I'll tell you what, you lend it me," said Bob, brightly, "and
+invest it for me."
+
+"Damned if I don't," cried Gordon.  "Bob, when you are twenty-one I'll
+make you a director and ask your advice!  And you'll come and tell me if
+you find out anything about Lady Penelope?"
+
+Bob looked at him and shook his head.
+
+"I say, you're so clever, I don't know how to take you.  I dare say it's
+you!"
+
+The flattered financier smiled.
+
+"Oh, by the way," said Bob, rather in a hurry, "I suppose I should get
+nearly as much if I invested ninety pounds as if I put in a hundred?"
+
+"Nearly," said Gordon, who hoped to be let off a little, "only ten per
+cent. less."
+
+"That'll do me," said Bob.  "Then you can give me the tenner now, Mr.
+Gordon, and put in the rest for me."
+
+"I wish I had a boy like that," said Gordon. He went away ten pounds
+poorer, but with a great admiration for Bob, who was determined to
+restore the faded splendour of Goring.
+
+"Hanged if I know who it is," said Bob.  "It may be Gordon after all.
+And every one but De Vere and Bramber have been at me.  Is it one of
+these?"
+
+He had a remarkable list of all those who had pretended to Penelope's
+hand, for he was very curious, like all the rest of the world.  He was
+also a little sore with Pen for not confiding in him.
+
+"I told her I'd find out," he said, "and I will."
+
+This was his list, and a curious document it was, written in a big,
+round hand that "old Guth" could never get him to modify.  His spelling
+was almost ducal in its splendour.
+
+
+"_Plant_.  It isn't Mr. Plant, because he said would I like to go out in
+a motor, a new one, ninety-horse power, and I said rather, if he'd let
+her rip.  And he looked anshious I thought.  He tiped me.
+
+"_Goby_.  It isn't Goby, Goby says he'll always be my friend.  He said
+had I another pony not sound, to experiment with.  He stamped up and
+down, some.  He tiped me.
+
+"_Williams_.  It isn't Williams, he took me to lunch and told me lots of
+things about the Chinese that his paper wouldn't print.  They were
+orful. He said if I'd keep in with him he knew worse.  He didn't tip me
+this time because the lunch was so much.  I had turtell three times.
+
+"_Rivaulx_.  It isn't the Frenchy because he tore his hair, and said I
+could go up in a baloon any day.  At least, he didn't tear his hair;
+it's too short. He keeps it up with Gordon too but looks horrid. He
+tiped me.
+
+"_Carew_.  It isn't him.  He's very anxshus and says he can't paint:
+says the crittics are right.  He was a sad sight to see, walking around
+in his studio. He said would I sit to him for an angel.  He stops
+walking and tries to do Pen quick.  I think it's muck. I wouldn't like a
+tip from him, for if an artist can't paint through grief what becomes of
+him? Do the others buy him for the Chantrey Bequest?"
+
+
+"That's the lot so far," said Bob.  And he added to his notes:
+
+
+"_Gordon_.  It isn't Gordon.  He lent me a hundred pounds to invest in
+something to make hair curl.  I said make it ninety and give me ten now,
+and he did.  He didn't tip me, but I don't think him mean on that
+account."
+
+
+"That leaves only De Vere and Bramber," said Bob, "and she never seemed
+much stuck on either to my mind.  But if they don't say anything to me I
+shall begin to suspect."
+
+He said so to Bradstock, who called him a young devil.
+
+But about three days later Bob added to his notes:
+
+
+"_Bramber_.  It isn't Bramber.  I met him in the park.  He took me to
+the House and gave me a beastly lunch.  But he didn't notice it as he
+couldn't eat and looked very pale and savidge.  He tiped me.
+
+"_De Vere_.  It's not the poetry rotter.  He wants me to stay with him
+and look after the dogs.  He said if I had a sick one he'd rather have
+it than not. He said he was desprit.  I don't know why, but suppose it's
+Pen.  He tiped me."
+
+
+"Now where am I at?" he said, blankly.  "I've written down it isn't any
+of 'em.  And that's what granny says.  But I don't believe her."
+
+He chewed his pencil till it was in rags, and then a sudden idea struck
+him.
+
+"I'll buy all Sherlock Holmes and read him right through," said Bob.
+"That's the way to find out anything.  I wish I knew the man that wrote
+him. I wonder if De Vere knows him?  I'll ask Baker to get a sick dog
+from the vet's, and I'll go down and stay with De Vere if I can make
+granny say 'yes.'  I wonder why old De Vere wants a sick dog, though.  I
+can't understand poets."
+
+It was no wonder Gordon wished he had a boy like Bob.
+
+
+
+
+                            *CHAPTER XIII.*
+
+
+It was all very well for Bob to declare that his grandmother was
+altogether "off it" when she said that Penelope wasn't married at all.
+For, little by little, after furious discussions in ten thousand houses,
+in the court, the camp, and the grove, that came to be the general
+opinion.
+
+Titania expressed the general opinion:
+
+"She is mad, of course.  What can one expect when her mother was an
+American?  All Americans are mad.  Bradstock assures me there is a
+something in the air of the United States (oh, even in Canada) which
+makes one take entirely new views of everything.  And that, of course,
+is madness, my dear, madness undoubted and dangerous.  He assured me,
+poor fellow, that six months in that absurd country made him tremble for
+his belief in a constitutional monarchy!  He adds that he has only
+partially recovered, by firmly fixing his eyes on what a limited monarch
+might be, if he tried. Yes, she was an American, and adored our
+aristocracy, not knowing what we are, poor thing. And yet where
+Penelope's ideas come from I do not know.  I firmly believe Bradstock is
+the cause of them.  When she was a little girl he would take her on his
+knee and pour anarchism into her innocent ears.  You know his way; he
+runs counter to everything, though now comparatively silent.  And
+Penelope was always ready to go against me, though she loves me.  This
+was an early idea of hers; Augustin owns that he suggested it
+humourously to her years ago.  There is nothing so dangerous as humour;
+it is always liable to be taken seriously. Mr. Browning, the poet, said
+so to me at a garden-party; he said he was a humourist, and he said Mr.
+Tennyson (oh, yes, Lord Tennyson) lacked humour, while he himself had
+too much of it.  He explained Sordello to me, and made me laugh
+heartily.  But as I was saying, Penelope took up the idea and gave it
+out, and now is sorry, and, not having the courage to say so, she has
+taken refuge in what I am reluctantly compelled to characterize as a
+lie, and it is a great relief to me.  The scandal will blow over;
+already the halfpenny papers are tired of her.  I expect she will marry
+by and by. Oh, no, of course she isn't married!"
+
+And as Penelope's ideas were in every way absolutely contrary to what
+one has a right to expect, it is only natural that, proof of the
+contrary being lacking, the whole world began gradually to come around
+to Titania's opinion.  A duchess has a great deal of influence if she
+only likes to use it, and the public is no more proof against her than
+the public offices are.
+
+And Pen set her teeth together and ignored every one, and had very
+little to say to society.  Her apparent passion was for motor-cars, and
+she went out in the sixty-horse Panhard almost every day. And every end
+of the week she disappeared, coming back on Monday or Tuesday.
+
+"I could tell 'em something," said Geordie Smith, "couldn't I, old
+girl?"
+
+The "old girl" he referred to was the machine he loved next best, at
+least, to Lady Penelope.
+
+"Me and Bunting could wake 'em up some," he said.  "I'd like Bunting if
+he'd only get rid of the notion that horses are everything.  I hope to
+see the time when there won't be any except in parks, running wild like
+deer."
+
+It was an awful notion, and it was a wonder that he and Bunting got on
+without fighting.
+
+"My lady _uses_ your bloomin' tracking engine," said Tim,
+contemptuously, "but she _loves_ 'orses. You can't give carrots to your
+old thing, and it ain't got no smooth and silky muzzle to pat. Faugh!
+the smell of it makes me sick; give me the 'ealthy hodour of the stable,
+Smith!"
+
+"Find me a horse that'd carry her and me a hundred and twenty miles in
+three hours and damn the expense in fines," replied Smith, "and I'm with
+you.  My lady loves this car a'most as much as I do.  Who can catch her
+and me, flying along? Let 'em come, let 'em try, and I'll put her out to
+the top notch and let her sizzle.  You come out and try, Tim; one drive
+and you'll be another man, looking on horses as what they are, mere
+animals and not up to date.  My lady's up to date and beyond it."
+
+"When I go in your bally machine hit'll be by my lady's horders," said
+Timothy, "and it'll be tryin' my hallegiance very 'ard.  Come and 'ave a
+drink, if you hain't too advanced for that!  'Ave you been chased lately
+as you brought my lady 'ome?"
+
+"I thought I was," replied Smith, "but I shook 'em off.  I'm egging her
+on to get a ninety-horse in case.  That young cousin of hers let on to
+me that she'll be followed up some day, and I told her. She'll do it!"
+
+"I wonder what's her game?" said Tim. "Blowed if I hunderstand."
+
+"So far's I see," replied Smith, "it's a general notion that a party's
+private biz is their private biz.  And the others says it isn't, and
+there's where the trouble begins.  I agree with her in a measure, don't
+you?"
+
+"I agrees with my lady hevery time," said Tim. "She's a sweet lady, and,
+my word, if I didn't I'd get the sack, which I don't want.  What she
+says she sticks to, bein' in that different to hany woman I never met.
+That's what the trouble is, that and reformin' lovers and husbands and
+law and so hon!"
+
+But the real trouble was that what she said she stuck to.  She began to
+care much less for reform, and now never read Herbert Spencer and the
+greater philosopher, who has discovered that man doesn't think so much
+of yesterday as he does of to-morrow. She forgot the Deceased Wife's
+Sister, and ignored the London County Council, and didn't read the
+_Times_ except on great occasions.  She spent the days in dreaming, and,
+except when she was devouring the space between London and Lincolnshire,
+she lay about on sofas and read poetry or listened to Bob, and looked
+ten thousand times more beautiful than ever, like the Eastern beauties,
+of whom one reads in the Arabian Nights, returning from the bath.  She
+was wonderfully affectionate to Bob, who was a most considerate boy, and
+didn't worry her when he had once discovered that asking questions was
+no use.  He told her of his vain efforts to find out whom she had
+married, and was very amusing.  He began to have great ambitions.
+
+"Mr. Gordon says I've a great future before me, Pen.  He thinks no end
+of me.  He says being a duke by and by is all very well, but I agree
+with him there are greater things than merely being one. He says the men
+with power are the rulers of the world.  He told me how he and
+Rothschild stopped a war in a hurry.  He didn't say which war.  I asked
+him why he didn't stop the South African War, and he said that was
+different.  I asked him did he bring it on then, and he said 'No.'  But
+I think he did, somehow.  Will you ask old Sir Henry if he did?  I don't
+like Sir Henry, though, do you?"
+
+He went on to tell her about Sherlock Holmes.
+
+"I'm reading him through again, Pen.  And when I go down to De Vere's I
+shall ask De Vere to invite the man that wrote him.  I'm going to De
+Vere's to take him a sick dog.  He said he wanted one, and I've got one
+from Baker.  Baker says he must want to vivisect him, and he doesn't
+like the idea.  Baker's a very kind man to animals, but I've given my
+word that the dog sha'n't be vivisected.  You don't think a poet would,
+do you? Did you tell him to learn to be a vet or anything? If you did,
+that would explain it.  I've been through the whole list, Pen, and,
+though I won't worry you, I've come to the conclusion so far that I
+don't know which you've married.  If I find out I won't tell."
+
+"You're a dear," said Pen, languidly.
+
+"I've got a notion how to find out, though," said Bob.  "At least, I
+shall have when I've finished Sherlock Holmes.  I'd rather be Sherlock
+Holmes than a duke.  It seems to me that unless you are the Duke of
+Norfolk or the Duke of Devonshire you are out of it.  Being a common
+duke is dull, but being Holmes must be very exciting."
+
+One thing that he told her made her think furiously.
+
+"Not one of 'em really believes you, Pen, and they're much more jealous
+of each other than they were.  I believe they'll be fighting presently."
+
+"Don't talk nonsense," said Pen, anxiously.
+
+Bob shrugged his shoulders, a trick he had caught from the marquis.
+
+"It's not nonsense.  I can see bloodshed in their eyes.  The marquis
+looks awfully ferocious, and Williams, too.  Of course, I don't say that
+Gordon would fight much.  And I should snigger to see old De Vere in a
+duel, shouldn't you?  But if Bramber and the marquis and Williams and
+Goby get together, I shouldn't be surprised if they fought with swords
+or guns.  I think Rivaulx would like that. He would stick them all and
+make 'em squeal, I can tell you.  He's a whale at fencing.  He took me
+to see him once, and when he stamped and said 'Ha-ha,' like a war-horse,
+I wondered the other man didn't run."
+
+"If they had a duel, any of them, I shouldn't speak to them again," said
+Penelope.  "I abhor duels and warfare and weapons, and think they should
+be abolished in universal peace.  And as I am married now, Bob, I hope
+you will do what you can to make them believe it."
+
+"You can make 'em believe it at once," said Bob.  "I do think this is
+absurd.  And don't you see it's funny, too, Pen?"
+
+"No," said Pen, "it's not.  It's right, and what is right can't be
+funny."
+
+Bob reflected.
+
+"Well, there's something in that.  It ain't much fun generally."
+
+And he returned to Sherlock Holmes.
+
+"I wonder what he would do," said Bob to himself, pensively.  "There
+ain't any footsteps or blood in this.  I suppose he'd take a look at Pen
+and then have a smoke and go out in a hansom and come back very tired.
+I've looked at Pen a lot, but smoking still makes me sick, and I don't
+know where to go in a hansom.  And I think Holmes would think it mean to
+follow her when she goes off with Smith in her car.  Besides, a hansom
+can't catch a sixty-horse Panhard unless it breaks down.  I think he
+would get at it by looking at the men."
+
+That put him on the track of a dreadful scheme, a most wicked and
+immoral scheme, that his hero would have disapproved of.
+
+"I believe I have it," said Bob, starting up in wild excitement.  "If I
+go around to them all and say that I'm sure she's not married, but that
+she loves the one they hate most, they will jump and be in a rage, won't
+they?  I should be, I know.  And the one that doesn't jump will be him.
+I dare say De Vere won't jump, but he's not a jumping sort, but he'll
+cry, likely.  Rivaulx _will_ snort if it isn't him."
+
+He sat and pondered over this lovely scheme.
+
+"But if she loves one of 'em, why don't she own it to him, and why this
+mystery?  They'll ask that, of course.  Oh, but that doesn't matter;
+they'll do the snorting first.  And, besides, I could let on that not
+all of them are in earnest.  Ain't it possible that the one she loves
+won't ask her now, and she's covering up her disappointment?  That would
+make Rivaulx fairly howl, I know.  He's a real good chap, and between
+howling and weeping he says he wants her to be happy.  I'll do it."
+
+He went off to do it at once.
+
+"Ha, ha, my beautiful boy," said the Marquis of Rivaulx, whom he found
+in his rooms in Piccadilly, "have you come with news for me, the devoted
+and despairing?"
+
+"Well, I don't know, marquis," returned Bob, soberly.  "I've been
+thinking about it, and I'm in a state of puzzle."
+
+"And I am in a state of the devil himself," replied Rivaulx.  "I suspect
+every one.  I am enraged. I suspect you, Bob, my boy."
+
+Bob shook his head.
+
+"I suspect you, too.  I've never got over thinking that it may be you,"
+he said, "for you are all just like each other, and it's obvious some
+one is telling me lies."
+
+Rivaulx smiled, a deep and dark French smile, which was agonizing to
+behold.  It puzzled Bob dreadfully.
+
+"There," he said, "you smile, and so does Pen, and you all smile.  But I
+believe I've discovered something."
+
+"About who or which?" asked Rivaulx.  "Is it about that Goby?"
+
+He might loathe Gordon, but he was jealous of Goby.  He promenaded the
+room, and was already in a rage.
+
+"Yes," said Bob, boldly.  "I believe she's not married, and I believe
+she likes him best."
+
+"The hound, the vile one, the unmeasured beast," roared Rivaulx, "it
+cannot be.  If she loves him (no, I can't believe it), why does she not
+wed him? I shall slay him.  Is she unhappy?  Does she weep? I adore her,
+but if she loves him he shall marry her or I will stab him to the
+heart."
+
+"I dare say he's not in earnest," said Bob.  And the marquis ground his
+teeth and foamed at the mouth, and again tried to tear his close-cropped
+hair without the least success.
+
+"Not--oh, sacred dog of a man,--ha--let me kill him!"
+
+He tore around the room and knocked two ornaments off the mantelpiece
+and upset a table, which Bob laboriously restored to its place.  After
+he had put it back three times, he gave it up and cowered under the
+storm.
+
+"I shouldn't be surprised if this was put on," said Bob, rather
+gloomily.  "I know he can act like blazes; Pen says he can.  She said he
+was finer than Irving or Toole in a tragedy.  I don't think it has the
+true ring of sincerity."
+
+And making his escape from the cyclone, he went off to see Goby, who was
+hideously jealous of Carteret Williams.
+
+"I hope he won't be as mad as the marquis," said Bob.  "That table
+barked my shins horribly the last time it fell.  I wish Frenchmen
+wouldn't shout so when they're angry; I'm nearly deaf."
+
+There was the devil to pay with Goby.  He announced his intention of
+assaulting Williams at once.
+
+"Oh, I say, you mustn't," cried Bob, in great alarm.  "She'll never
+forgive you."
+
+"That Williams!" said Goby.  "I always did hate war correspondents.  I
+don't believe it."
+
+But it looked as if he did.
+
+"I dare say you are putting it on," cried Bob. "I don't know where I
+am."
+
+Goby said he didn't, either, but that if this turned out to be true he
+would wring Williams's neck in the park the first fine Sunday in June.
+
+"He would have acted just the same if he was married to her, and thought
+she loved Williams best after all," said Bob to himself.  "I'll try
+Bramber and Williams, and then give it up."
+
+Bramber was in a furious temper, and when Bob assured him that Penelope
+loved Gordon best of any one, he swore horribly.  As he rarely swore,
+this was very impressive, and Bob almost shivered.
+
+"I say, you mustn't kick Gordon," he urged. "After all, I may be
+mistaken."
+
+"I wish you were dead," said Bramber, "and you will be if you don't get
+out."
+
+Bob got out, and when he was in the open air he sighed.
+
+"I don't think I'll try Williams," he said, thoughtfully.  "He's much
+bigger and stronger even than Goby, and they say he's a terror when he's
+very angry.  My scheme doesn't seem to work; there's something wrong
+with it."
+
+But there was nothing wrong with it, and it worked marvellously.  The
+report that Bob said positively that Pen wasn't married carried much
+weight. Goby and Rivaulx both gave it away.  And all the men now loathed
+each other openly.  Rivaulx cut Goby and Goby cut Williams and Bramber
+sneered at Gordon, and there was great likelihood of there being the
+devil to pay.  Pen tried to patch up peace among them, and failed, and
+wept about it, seeing so much of the good she had done melt like sugar
+in warm rain.  At last she announced her intention of leaving them and
+the world alone.
+
+"I almost think I'll give up reform," she sighed.
+
+And the season went by and the autumn came, and Titania found herself at
+Goring in October with a large house-party which didn't include
+Penelope.
+
+"She is, of course, somewhat ashamed of herself," said Titania, happily.
+"This comes of having ideas and foolishly attempting to carry them into
+practice.  Now that I am certain she is not married and that she only
+says so, I feel quite different.  I no longer abhor the poor, foolish
+men who are so much in love with her.  I see plainly (for I, too, am
+naturally a democrat of the proper kind) that they have fine qualities.
+I have marked my sense of this in a way which appears to amuse Lord
+Bradstock for some reason that I do not follow,--but then, I never could
+follow Augustin, poor fellow,--by asking them all down here.  I dare say
+they think Penelope will come, for they have all accepted.  I am
+delighted, for I really admire them.  Mr. Carew is the handsomest young
+man in London, and will paint my portrait between meals. I wonder
+whether I shall try to get thinner by eating less, or will it be better
+to tell Mr. Carew to make me thinner in his picture.  That seems the
+easiest course; for if Penelope's conduct has not made me thin, what
+would?  Neither hot weather nor despair has the least effect upon me.  I
+shall trust to Mr. Carew's idea of what is right and proper.  I wish I
+could rely with equal confidence upon poor, dear, misguided Penelope."
+
+There was much discontent in the camp when the lovers learnt that their
+beloved was not one of Titania's house-party.  They were not civil to
+each other, and with difficulty were civil to Titania.
+
+"Confound the old harridan," said Goby.  This was wicked, for Titania
+was very sweet, and retained much more than a trace of her youthful
+beauty.  She belonged to the modern band of those who sternly refuse to
+grow old.
+
+"Great Scott!" said Carteret Williams.  The others made equally
+appropriate exclamations.  They damned Goring in heaps, and looked at
+each other like a crowd of strange dogs.  Owing to Penelope's influence
+they all came in motor-cars.  Even De Vere turned up in one which was
+guaranteed by age and its maker not to go more than ten miles an hour.
+There wasn't room to get them into the temporary garage out of the wet.
+But the marquis did not come in a balloon or a flying-machine.  That was
+something, at any rate, though Bob growled about it bitterly.  Pen's
+request that he should do his best to make the world believe she was
+married was entirely forgotten.  Without quite meaning to say so, he
+practically asserted in every word that she was not.
+
+"After all," said Bob, "I believe she is capable of deceiving even me,
+for she is a woman.  Horace, in his Odes, seems to think that.  It seems
+to me that classical authors had a very poor opinion of women."
+
+He went to Rivaulx crossly.
+
+"I say, I think you ought to have come in a flying-machine.  Why didn't
+you?  Pen will be mad."
+
+He introduced De Vere to Baker (who had been a sergeant in the Dublin
+Fusiliers), and left him with him, discussing hydrophobia and bulldogs.
+
+"Baker says he has a great admiration for you, sir," said Bob.  "He has
+lots of pups for you to look at.  There's a very queer spotted one that
+Pen said she was sure you would like.  It's very cheap for a spotted dog
+of the kind, Baker says."
+
+But they were an unhappy crowd, and even the shooting, which was fairly
+good for a poor duke's place, hardly consoled them.
+
+At night the women, who all gambled, naturally were very cross.  It
+appeared that not one of the men would play bridge, because Penelope had
+made them swear off.  There were only three men in the house not in love
+with Penelope.  Titania had a dreadful time, and much regretted her
+hospitality. Carew was furious, of course, and his notions of colour
+were very morbid.  And he appeared to see the duchess as she was, in
+spite of the hints the poor woman threw out to the desperate painter,
+who looked at her sorrowfully and sighed as he shook his head.
+
+"Being painted is an ordeal," she said.  Not one of the others consoled
+her.  De Vere wept with her in the drawing-room; Williams wrecked her
+orchids in the hothouse; Plant and Gordon quarrelled in the
+smoking-room.  And Bramber, who was only there for four days, looked
+horridly sorry for himself, and sneered at every one.  The marquis went
+around the park in a ninety-horse-power racer seventeen times between
+breakfast and lunch.  The chauffeurs quarrelled furiously; they even
+fought in the stable yard with Baker as umpire and Bob as timekeeper.
+
+At the dinner-table was the only time of peace, and then it was too
+peaceful.  Nobody but Bob and Ethel Mytton and Titania did any talking.
+Bob spoke of very little but Penelope, which was natural but awkward.
+He told them what Baker said, till they all desired to go out and
+strangle Baker. Bradstock encouraged him, for Bradstock was the only man
+there who had any apparent desire to be amused.  The rest of them played
+with the soup, toyed with the _entr�es_, fooled with the roasts, choked
+over the birds, and went out and oversmoked themselves.  Then they met
+in the big hall and the drawing-room, and Titania had to assure them all
+one after the other, that she was certain Penelope was not married.
+
+"Then why does she say she is?" they asked, bitterly.
+
+"It must be to try you," said Titania.  "Augustin, don't you think it is
+to try them?"
+
+Bradstock made that sound which the English write as "Humph" and the
+Scotch put down as "Imphm."  It means a great deal, but is intelligible
+to the intelligent.
+
+"Yes, it is to try you," said Titania.  "She is a dear, sweet thing, but
+has ideas which do not commend themselves to me.  I understand them, of
+course, but regret them.  It may be, of course, that she does not love
+any of you, and is trying to get out of it.  By and by you will find out
+if that is so.  She is enthusiastic and impulsive.  Oh, these impulses
+of youth!  How well I remember the delightful impulses of youth, when
+one feels as if one could fly with wings!  Even now I get impulses.
+Poor Penelope!  Ah, dear, I wish she would come.  I have written again
+and again to ask her, but I'm afraid she will not."
+
+And, indeed, no one at that moment knew where she was, unless, indeed,
+it was Timothy and Geordie Smith and Miss Mackarness and the pirate in
+goggles of the motor-car who carried her off.
+
+Titania and Bob between them, at any rate, accomplished one thing.  No
+one pretended to assign a satisfactory reason for Pen's conduct, but
+every one, except one, perhaps, believed she was still single.  They
+were sure of it, and grew surer every day.  As a result, they recovered
+some little peace of mind; they quarrelled less and ate more and shot
+straighter. Rivaulx only went fifteen times around the park before
+lunch; De Vere bought more dogs; Plant agreed to go into some scheme of
+trust robbery with Gordon, who assured the rest of them that he had
+Rothschild up his sleeve.  Williams stamped less on flower-beds and
+swore half as much as usual.  Goby and Bramber went out walks together
+with Bob and Ethel Mytton.  Titania's barometer went up and her size
+went down in Carew's picture.  He saw her less yellow, and did not
+insist on her wrinkles. Augustin sat in the library and read books which
+were of so humourous a character that they compelled him to put them
+down and laugh continually. It was certainly a most amusing house-party.
+
+"I thought there would have been duels in the park," said Augustin.  "I
+wonder what the deuce Pen would think of them if she saw them now."
+
+And then one day something serious happened. It was on a Sunday, and on
+Sundays the post came in at half-past ten, just at the time they were
+all having breakfast before going to church.  They were just about as
+happy as they could ever hope to be till Penelope married one or all of
+them.  Bob, who was especially greedy that morning, was eating against
+time and winning.  Only Ethel was sad, for Goby seemed quite cheerful.
+When he was mournful she was happier always.  Titania flowed
+wonderfully.  Augustin was saying the kind of thing he could say when
+sitting down.  Goring himself was eating as if he was in rivalry with
+Bob.  He never said anything, but looked like a duke, which is a very
+fine thing when a man is a duke, and can afford it with care.  Gordon
+was eating bacon as if he had no great appetite for it.
+
+"Oh, here's the post," said Titania.  Augustin took Saturday's _Times_
+and opened it.
+
+"I wonder whether dear Penelope has written to me," said Titania.  The
+"horde" looked up; they hoped even yet that Penelope would give in and
+come at last.
+
+"Any news?" grunted Goring.
+
+"I don't see any," replied Augustin.
+
+"What are Jack Sheppard's United?" asked Gordon, slipping a piece of
+bacon into his pocket.
+
+And Augustin made his celebrated speech over again, his single speech in
+the House of Lords.
+
+"Good God!" said Augustin, and he turned almost as white as the _Times_
+paper before it went through the machines.  Every one stared at him.
+
+"What is it?" screamed Titania.  Bob jumped up and deserted a pig's
+cheek just as it was showing signs of utter defeat.
+
+"It's--it's--" said Augustin, and he stammered vainly.
+
+"I say, let's look," cried Bob.  "Granny, it's something in the Births,
+Marriages, and Deaths!"
+
+"Good heavens, speak, Augustin!" implored Titania.
+
+The band of lovers went as white as Augustin; they stood up
+simultaneously.
+
+"I see it, I see it," said Bob, and he actually snatched the paper from
+Lord Bradstock's hand.
+
+"Is she married?  Is she dead?" asked Titania.
+
+"No, no," said Bob, sputtering and aflame with wild excitement; "it's
+'Brading--Lady Penelope Brading on the 18th of a son!'"
+
+
+
+
+                             *CHAPTER XIV.*
+
+
+There are blows which stun; this was, of course, one of them.  Titania
+did not shriek or faint at the awful intelligence conveyed by the
+Thunderer of Printing House Square.  She nodded her head as if she was
+partially paralyzed, and at last murmured in a dry whisper:
+
+"Of a son!  Of a son!"
+
+Bradstock's eyebrows were as high as they would go, and he stared at
+Titania, and then look around on the circle of men and women.  Ethel
+squeaked a little squeak, like a mouse behind the wainscot and was
+silent.
+
+"Oh--of a son," said Goby, sighing and looking at the floor.
+
+"Of a son!" said Plant, eyeing the ceiling.
+
+"_Un fils!_" shrieked Rivaulx.
+
+Gordon said "Damnation;" De Vere shook like a stranded jelly-fish;
+Bramber went as scarlet as a lobster, and then as white as cotton;
+Carteret Williams looked blue, and Carew looked green, and Bob said: "My
+eye!"
+
+There is something organic in any given number of people acting under
+the same shock or the same impulse.  What one thinks another thinks; and
+now all the room fixed their eyes on Titania, whose lips moved in
+silence.
+
+"This is dreadful!" said Titania to herself.  "I don't believe she's
+married at all.  One of these men is a scoundrel, a ruffian, a seducer!"
+
+No one heard what she said, but as she thought it the men looked at each
+other with awful suspicions.  And then Titania, whose mind was whirling,
+said feebly:
+
+"We--we must hush it up!"
+
+And there lay the _Times_!  Hush it up indeed! And Bradstock recovered
+some of his equanimity.
+
+"Nonsense!  She's married, as she says," he remarked, with comparative
+coolness.
+
+But no one believed it.  The men drew apart from each other.  De Vere
+moved his chair, because Goby was looking at him like a demon. Carew
+shrank from Carteret Williams.  Gordon went livid under Plant's eyes.
+Bramber looked at them all as if he would die on the spot.  Rivaulx rose
+up and waltzed around the room.  It was a happy chance that he did so;
+it is possible that he saved immediate bloodshed.  Bradstock and Bob
+caught the Frenchman in their arms, and led him outside to the lawn,
+where there was ample room for a frantic _pas seul_.
+
+"Steady, old chap!" said Bradstock, "steady! Her husband _must_
+acknowledge now who he is!"
+
+"Oh, no," said Bob, in immense delight, "not much!  If she's married at
+all, she's sworn him not to.  She told me she'd swear him not to!  And
+she said if he broke his oath she'd never see him again!"
+
+"Great heavens!" said Bradstock, "so she did. I remember now, she _did_
+speak of oaths, dreadful oaths!"
+
+Rivaulx danced over a flower-bed, came in contact with a fence, fell
+over it, and uttered a howl which brought every one into the garden.  He
+tumbled into a ditch, fortunately a comparatively dry one, and lay
+there, using the very worst French language.
+
+The gloomy crowd lined the ditch and listened, and wished they
+understood.  As a matter of fact, only Bradstock and Bramber knew
+sufficient decent French to guess what Rivaulx said, and they shivered.
+In the background Titania and Ethel hung to each other and wept; old
+Goring remained inside sucking at an unlighted cigar.
+
+"The terrible, terrible disgrace!" said Titania. She believed the very
+worst at once.  "Is it the marquis?  Is he smitten with remorse?"
+
+Rivaulx got out of the ditch on the wrong side, and walked out into the
+park, where he addressed a commination service to a nice little herd of
+Jersey cows.  After five minutes of this exercise, he returned toward
+the house and climbed the fence. Then he shook his fist at the others.
+
+"One of you is a _sc�lerat_," he howled, "a scoundrrrel!  I challenge
+you all to fight!  Ha, ha!"
+
+Bradstock took him by the arm and led him away.
+
+"One of us is a hound!" said Goby.
+
+"Yes," said the others, "yes!"
+
+They glared at each other horribly, and clenched their fists.  Bob ran
+around them in the wildest excitement.
+
+"Look here, I say, Captain Goby.  Oh, Mr. de Vere!  I say, Mr. Plant, if
+you want to fight, come into the stables.  Granny says you mustn't fight
+here."
+
+He grabbed several of them, and was hurled into space at once.  He
+finally laid hold of De Vere, who wasn't capable of hurling a ladybird
+off his finger.
+
+"You shall fight Goby if you want to," he roared.
+
+[Illustration: THE MARQUIS DE RIVAULX. Anti-Semite to his manicured
+finger-tips]
+
+"But I don't want to," shrieked the poet. "What shall I do?  My heart is
+broken!"
+
+"Oh, what rot!" said Bob.  "I don't understand what the row is about.
+Pen said she married, and she's got a kid.  It will make her happy, for
+she always loved kids."
+
+But then the notice in her maiden name!  Was it not awful, horrible,
+brazen, peculiar, anti-social, against all law?  It was wicked, immoral,
+indecent. Behind it there must be a dreadful story.
+
+"By God!" said Bradstock, speaking at large to all but Rivaulx, who was
+breaking up a cane chair at a short distance, "I do think, oaths or
+none, that the man who is married to her should tell the duchess in
+confidence."
+
+But Rivaulx heard in the intervals of destruction, and stayed his hand.
+
+"Ha, ha!" he said aloud, "I love her!  I am a man!  I love her!  What
+shall I do?"
+
+He threw the fragments of the chair into a fountain, kicked over a
+flower-pot, and ran again into the park, taking the fence in his stride.
+
+"I believe it's remorse," said Titania.  "I begin to suspect the
+marquis!"
+
+But everybody suspected everybody, and yet at the very height of their
+rage what Bradstock said sank into their hearts.  Pen had selected them
+with care for their inherent nobility.  They said to themselves that
+they would show how noble they were. With one accord they straightened
+themselves up, and an air of desperate resolve was upon every man's
+face.
+
+"I will think it out and make up my mind this afternoon," said each of
+them.  They walked away in different directions, and in five minutes not
+one of them was in sight but the marquis, who was knocking his head
+against a sapling in a way that caused the herd of Jerseys to revise
+their estimate of humanity.  Even he gave up at last, and went off into
+the distance with great strides.
+
+"I say," said Bob, "I don't know what to make of this.  Where are they
+going, and what are they going to do?  I wish I knew where Pen is; I'd
+send her a telegram."
+
+The rest of the party said nothing.  Titania wept. Old Goring asked
+Bradstock for a light, and at last got his cigar going.  He said nothing
+whatsoever. Ethel Mytton was in a fearful state of nervousness, and
+shook with it.  Bradstock walked up and down whistling.  The men who
+were not in it gathered in the billiard-room, and said they thought they
+had better have urgent calls to town.  They wanted to discuss the
+scandal in their clubs.  They knew that there wasn't a house in England
+that would not consider their presence in the light of a tremendous
+favour, considering all that had occurred at Goring while they were
+there.  They went, and regretted it afterward, for much occurred that
+very afternoon that no man could have foreseen.
+
+Not a soul came in to lunch but Bob and Bradstock and the old duke.
+
+"Augustin, my boy," said Goring, "these are surprising events, very
+surprising events.  I thought I understood something about women, but I
+find I'm as ignorant as a two-year-old.  What the devil does Penelope
+mean?"
+
+Bob intervened.
+
+"I believe, grandfather, that she wants to make you all sit up," he
+said, eagerly.
+
+"Shut up, Bob," said the duke.  "Eat pie and hold your tongue.
+Augustin, is she married, or isn't she?"
+
+"I'm sure of it," said Bradstock, "but--"
+
+"I think it's a damn silly business," said the duke.  "I can't remember
+any parallel except when Miss Wimple, who was a devilish pretty girl
+fifty years ago, married Prince Scharfskopf morganatically, and kept it
+dark in spite of twins.  There was a devil of a fuss, but it was kept
+quiet, no announcements in papers, and so on.  The emperor boxed
+Scharfskopf's ears in court when it came out, for it upset his
+diplomatic apple-cart, as Scharfskopf was to have married Princess
+Hedwig of Wigstein.  She was virtuous and particular, and made trouble,
+being thirty-five.  Do you think Penelope has married any damn prince,
+for instance?"
+
+Bradstock didn't think so.
+
+"Was any prince sneaking about, eh?"
+
+"Oh, I say," cried Bob, who was listening eagerly, "there was the Rajah
+of Jugpore!"
+
+"Good heavens!" said Goring, "so there was. I say, Bradstock, what have
+you to say to that? I'd like to have a look at the infant.  Damme, it's
+a wonderful world!"
+
+And this bore its fruit afterward in scandal and conjecture, for Bob
+threw out hints about it.  But in the meantime they could only talk, and
+presently they saw the marquis coming across the lawn.  He kept on
+stopping and looking up at the sky, as if for help or a balloon, and he
+smote his breast repeatedly in a very peculiar fashion.
+
+"Queer cuss, Rivaulx," said Goring.  "Takes it hard.  Give me a light,
+Bob.  Look at the Johnny smiting himself in the chest.  What's he
+thinking of now?  Looks as if he was bound upon a desperate deed.  Dear
+me, I hope there will be no bloodshed, Bradstock!  I'm too old for
+bloodshed now.  I won't have duels in the immediate neighbourhood of the
+house, Bradstock, mind that."
+
+"All right," said Augustin, still looking at Rivaulx gesticulating
+violently in front of a large laurestinus.  "Bob, give me those
+glasses."
+
+Through the glass Rivaulx's face was plain to see.
+
+"Damn!" said Augustin to himself, "what's up?  He's going to do
+something, something desperate.  He is looking like a hero on a
+scaffold. He has an air of sad nobility.  Oh, Pen, Pen!"
+
+Rivaulx advanced on the house with his head up.  He came in and sent
+word to the collapsed duchess that he desired most humbly an audience
+with her.  Bob listened.
+
+"He wanted to see granny," said Bob.
+
+"Let him," said the duke.  "I don't; I want peace."
+
+Titania sent down word that she would see him.
+
+"Poor sad Penelope, poor mournful Penelope!" said Rivaulx.  "Ha, but I
+will save her from further woe!"
+
+He found Titania on a sofa, and he kissed her hand.  This pleased poor
+Titania; it reminded her of her youth.
+
+"Oh, marquis, I am in despair!" she cried.
+
+"Despair not," said Rivaulx, as he stood up and smote his forehead,
+"despair not.  All is not lost.  But for me, I stand between two
+dreadful alternatives, and I have resolved to do my duty."
+
+There was an air of tragedy about him that covered him like a robe.
+Titania shivered.
+
+"What is it?  What have you to tell me?"
+
+"Ah, what!" cried Rivaulx.  "But I shall do it.  I shall do it at once,
+immediately, if not sooner, as your poet says."
+
+"You won't kill any one, at least not here," shrieked Titania.
+
+"Far from it," replied the marquis.  "Oh, but it is terrible, for I have
+to smash, to break an oath. I swore not to reveal what I am about to
+reveal."
+
+"Good heavens!" said Titania.  "Oh, what? Is it--can it be--no--"
+
+"Yes, yes," cried Rivaulx, "it is true; I own it!"
+
+"Own what, marquis?"
+
+He smote his breast and looked above her.
+
+"I am the man!"
+
+"Oh, what man?" squealed the duchess.
+
+"I am the husband--and--and--the father," said Rivaulx, with a gulp, as
+if he were swallowing an apple whole.
+
+"Of my Penelope?"
+
+"Yes, yes," said the marquis.  "Say nothing. It is a secret, full of
+oaths.  Why, I know not, but she, the dear, insists, and what am I?"
+
+Titania lay and gasped.  The relief was tremendous.  Three hours ago she
+would have refused to think of Rivaulx as Pen's husband.  Now she
+welcomed the notion; she sighed and almost fainted.  Rivaulx muttered
+strange things to himself.
+
+"Can I announce it?"
+
+"No," said the marquis, "it is a secret.  But it is all right.  I go."
+
+"Take my blessing," said Titania.  "Go to her quickly, poor dear, and
+implore her to let me come to her, and bid her tell all the world.  What
+is her address?"
+
+"I cannot give it," said Rivaulx, pallidly.  "It is a secret.  But I go,
+I hasten.  Adieu, duchess; I am distracted.  Oh, my mother and my
+country!"
+
+He fled from the room, and, leaving his man to bring on his things, went
+away at an illegal speed toward London.
+
+"Well, well," said Titania, with a gasp, "I cannot understand anything.
+But, after all, the marquis is a fine man and of a good family.  I could
+almost sleep a little."
+
+But just as she was composing herself to rest, Mr. Plant sent up word
+that he wished to see her for a few moments on urgent business before he
+went back to town.
+
+"Let him come up," said the duchess.  When Plant entered, he stood bolt
+upright in front of her, with a strange air of determination.
+
+"I shall surprise you, I reckon," he said, in an American accent as
+thick as petrol fumes.  "I know I shall."
+
+"No, you won't," said Titania.  "Nothing can surprise me now, I assure
+you."
+
+"I shall surprise you, ma'am," said Plant, "and you'll have to own it.
+Prepare yourself and remember that what I tell you is in the nature of a
+secret.  I can stand it no longer.  I have to let it out.  To hear Lady
+Penelope, whom I adore, spoken of as I do, makes my blood boil.  She may
+have made some mistakes, but I've made some, too. I am going to surprise
+you--"
+
+"No, you are not, Mr. Plant," said Titania.
+
+"I--I am Lady Penelope's husband," said Plant, desperately, fixing his
+eyes on space.
+
+"You are _what_?" shrieked Titania.
+
+"Her husband--and--the parent of the announcement in the _Times_," said
+Plant, firmly.
+
+"Am I mad?" asked Titania.
+
+"No, but I am," said Plant, who was as pale as a traditional ghost.
+"I'm mad both ways.  I want to kill."
+
+"You mustn't," cried Titania, feebly.  "I don't know where I am.  What
+did you say?  Oh, say it again!"
+
+He said it again, and before she could say anything further, he rushed
+from the room and bounded down-stairs.  She heard him turn his motor-car
+loose, and knew that in twenty seconds he was a mile away.
+
+"What's wrong with everything, and me, and them?" asked Titania.  "I
+wish I was a dairy-maid in a quiet farm, and had no relations.  Am I
+mad?  Did the marquis say it?  Or did I dream it?"
+
+Lord Bramber was announced.
+
+"Oh, oh, oh!" said Titania.  "Yes, I'll see him."
+
+Bramber came in fuming, and, like the others, fixed his eyes over her
+head.  He was nervous and abrupt.
+
+"I can't stand any more, duchess," he began.
+
+"I can't stand much," said Titania.
+
+"It's a secret of course," said Bramber, "and I'm breaking my word!"
+
+"Are you the husband of Penelope?" asked Titania.
+
+"I--I am," replied Bramber, "and the cause, so to speak, of the notice
+in the _Times_."
+
+"I thought so," said Titania.  "Look at me, Ronald.  Do I look mad? does
+my hair stand on end? do I seem wild and wandering?"
+
+"No, of course not," said Bramber.  "I'm telling you this because I feel
+I ought to.  Now I'm going to her at once.  This last news was rather
+unexpected, of course.  Good-bye--"
+
+"Stay!" shrieked Titania, but she was too late. Bramber was down-stairs
+and bounded into his motor-car and let her rip.
+
+"What's the matter with everybody?" wailed Titania.  "The marquis made
+me happy, but now I'm confused, very sadly confused, and I can't think
+she's married them all."
+
+Gordon was announced, and in about three sentences he told her that,
+though the affair was a secret, he was Penelope's husband.
+
+"I knew you were," said Titania.  "When I heard you wanted to see me, I
+knew you were coming to say so.  Oh, good-bye.  Ask Lord Bradstock to
+send for a doctor.  Good-bye, Mr. Gordon. Go now."
+
+And Gordon went, just as De Vere came in.
+
+"You have come to say you have married Penelope, I _know_," said
+Titania.  "I feel sure you have."
+
+"I have a heart for sorrow, for disgrace, for all things lovely.  I--I
+am responsible for everything, even the _Times_," said De Vere, who was
+as pale as plaster.
+
+"Leave me," said Titania.  "Go and see her at once.  Settle who it is.
+Go!"
+
+And when he had gone, Carteret Williams and Carew came one after the
+other with the same confession.  And she received them sadly, and
+appeared to wander.  When the house was empty, she sent for Bradstock.
+
+"Augustin, dear Augustin," she said, "you won't let them put me in an
+asylum.  Have me taken care of at home, won't you?  Don't let Goring
+give me cruel keepers.  I am quite gentle and broken down!"
+
+"I won't let anything beastly be done," said Bradstock.  "But, my dear
+child, what's the matter?"
+
+And Titania told him:
+
+"By the Lord," said Bradstock, "they are damned good chaps! but where
+the devil are we?"
+
+He went down-stairs when the doctor came and told everything to Goring.
+And Goring told Bob. For Titania forgot to mention to Augustin that all
+the husbands had insisted it was a dead secret.
+
+"I say," said Bob, "of all the larks I've ever heard of, this takes the
+cake!  I wonder what I ought to do.  I think I'll ask Baker."
+
+And he asked Baker.  And in less than twenty-four hours the world knew
+all about it.
+
+
+
+
+                             *CHAPTER XV.*
+
+
+But when it is said that all the world knew of it, Penelope herself must
+be excepted.  She knew nothing for some time, and, whoever her husband
+was, he certainly never acquainted her with the horrible details of all
+the good men who sacrificed their honour in the noble attempt to save
+her from the results of the terrible misfortune they believed had
+happened to her.  It was, indeed, Miss Mackarness who told her about it,
+and Miss Mackarness was the old governess whom Penelope had once sacked
+and sent away.  The poor woman was in a terrible state of mind about the
+affair, and in that was no different from all the rest of the world. To
+her went Timothy Bunting with the strange story.
+
+"If you please, ma'am, Geordie Smith 'as just brought in a paper wiv a
+true and pertic'ler account of 'ow all the gents that was courtin' our
+lady told the Duchess of Goring as 'ow they 'as married 'er!"
+
+"What!" said Miss Mackarness.
+
+"A true and perticuler account as 'ow they 'ad hall married our lady,
+sayin' as they 'ad concealed it till they could no longer!" repeated
+Timothy more loudly.
+
+"Good heavens!" said Miss Mackarness, trembling very much, "I fear it
+will upset Lady Penelope, to say nothing of the infant.  Do they all
+claim the infant, Bunting?"
+
+"I presume so, ma'am," said Bunting.  "It looks likely."
+
+"Under these circumstances, Bunting," cried Miss Mackarness, "I feel it
+is my duty to communicate the facts to our lady.  Give me the paper,
+Bunting!"
+
+Bunting said he would get it, and came back with a hatful of fragments.
+
+"If you please, ma'am, this is hall I can rescue of the details.  The
+cook and the parlour-maid and the two 'ousemaids 'ave fought over it in
+the servants' 'all, and are now in tears, not 'aving read a word."
+
+And Miss Mackarness took the hatful up to Penelope, who sat with her
+nurse and the cause of all the trouble in a south room overlooking the
+moat.
+
+"In the name of all that is wonderful, what's in that hat?" asked
+Penelope.
+
+"It is Timothy Bunting's hat, my lady," replied the Mackarness.
+
+"So I perceive," said Penelope.  "Is a bird in it?"
+
+"Oh, no, my lady.  It's the bits of a newspaper," replied the
+housekeeper, as if she served up the _Times_ in a groom's hat every day.
+"It's Timothy's hat, but a clean new one."
+
+"But why do you bring it, and why do you put newspaper in it?" asked
+Penelope.
+
+"If you please, my lady, I cannot help it.  The cook and the
+parlour-maid and the two housemaids fought over it in the servants'
+hall, and are now in tears, not having read a word of it."
+
+To all appearance the housekeeper had lost her senses.  Though this was
+no wonder, Penelope wondered at it.
+
+"Well," she said at last, "I see what's in the hat, but what's in the
+newspaper?"
+
+"If you please, my lady, according to Timothy Bunting and Smith, who
+appear to have read it, it contains the true account of what happened at
+Goring House the other day, when all the gentlemen staying there,
+hearing from the _Times_ that your ladyship had a fine boy on the
+eighteenth, and no husband named by your ladyship's particular
+directions, all got up one after the other, and, requesting private
+interviews with her upset Grace, the duchess, declared upon their oaths,
+though in secret, that they had married you themselves!"
+
+She recited this in a strange, mechanical way, which would have been
+extremely effective upon the stage, as a picture of hopeless
+conventionality wounded to death, and at last dying in sheer
+indifference to all things.
+
+"Dear me!" said Penelope, "dear me!"
+
+"It furthermore appears, my lady, begging your pardon for mentioning it,
+and I have reproved Bunting bitterly for daring to do so, though I
+haven't read the fragments in the hat, that no one believes your
+ladyship's word at all as to your being married."
+
+"Oh, how shameful!" said Penelope.  "Why, here's baby!"
+
+The nurse coughed and hid her mouth with her hand.
+
+"Yes, my lady, so he is," said Miss Mackarness. "There doesn't seem any
+doubt whatsoever about that, but--"
+
+And Penelope sighed.  Suddenly her face lighted up.
+
+"Ah!" she said, "I see why they said it to aunty.  How very, very noble
+of them!  I knew they were all splendid men; men of the highest
+character and attainments and possibilities.  Will you have telegrams
+written out to all of them, saying, 'Your conduct is noble, and I am
+deeply grateful'?"
+
+"Yes, my lady," replied the housekeeper, "and how will you sign it?"
+
+"Sign it Penelope Brading," said Penelope. "And tell Smith to take his
+car as quickly as he can to Spilsborough, and send them from there."
+
+She lay back in her pillows.
+
+"They are noble fellows," she said.  "I have done them an immense amount
+of good.  A year ago not one of them could have risen to such heights of
+abnegation, such love, such tenderness.  I shall see them bringing in a
+new era yet.  Leopold Gordon will inaugurate a new and pure finance.
+The dear marquis will abolish anti-Semitism and duelling in France.  De
+Vere will write poems of a purity appealing equally to Brixton and
+Belgravia, and my dear friend Carew will vindicate the Royal Academy's
+policy of showing that charity begins at home.  And the rest--ah, me!
+Poor dear aunty, how I love her!"
+
+And by the time that she had pondered over a renewed world, Geordie
+Smith was sending off the wires from Spilsborough with wonderful
+results.
+
+"I like this," said Smith.  "This is what I like! There's nothing dull
+about it.  I wonder what'll happen now?  I'll lay five to one I can
+guess!"
+
+He guessed right as to some, for in about four hours Rufus Plant arrived
+in Spilsborough on his racing-car, and put up at the Grand Hotel.
+
+"I guess she must be somewhere in this neighbourhood," said Plant.  "And
+here I stay till I find her.  And by the tail of the sacred bull,
+whatever happens, I'll marry her right here in this hyer noble pile of a
+cathedral.  And if she'll do it, I'll restore it for the authorities
+free of charge, till it's as gawdy as a breastpin and right up to date."
+
+He ran against Gordon, and the two men fell back in horrible surprise.
+
+"You--"
+
+"You!"
+
+"Oh, yes," said Plant, "I'm here on business connected with the
+cathedral."
+
+"And I'm to see the--bishop, who will join the board on allotment,"
+mumbled Gordon.
+
+And then Goby roared into town on his motorcar. The others saw him, and
+he saw them, and ignored them palely.  He, too, put up at the Grand, but
+never spoke to them.  And De Vere came in while they were at dinner, and
+sat down opposite to Goby.  He said, "Oh!" and, rising, at once bolted
+from the table.
+
+"I'm damned," said Goby, and he lost his appetite.
+
+"How many more of us?" they asked themselves.
+
+They looked up at every one who entered.
+
+"Bramber will be in any moment," said Plant.
+
+Poor De Vere sat in his bedroom and was ill.
+
+"If I look out into the corridor, I know I shall see that beast
+Williams," he sobbed.
+
+"Where's that French fool, Rivaulx?" asked Gordon.  They all believed
+the other was the scoundrel of the dreadful drama.
+
+And then the evening papers came in.  They declared in big lines that
+there had been "A Fracas in High Life."  They added that it had taken
+place in the Row at four o'clock that very afternoon. They went on to
+say that Lord Bramber and the Marquis de Rivaulx, well known as a great
+sportsman and a balloonist, had fought in a flower-bed, and had been
+torn from each other's arms and a big rhododendron by two dukes, three
+earls, and a viscount.  They further declared that it was a matter of
+public notoriety that all the trouble rose out of the mystery connected
+with the _Times_ and Lady Penelope Brading.  They promised more details
+in later editions.
+
+"They'll fight," said Gordon, savagely.  "I hope they'll kill each
+other.  But especially I hope that the marquis will be killed first and
+most!"
+
+And about eleven o'clock Rivaulx turned up with his chauffeur and a bad
+black eye.
+
+"He shall fight me here," said Rivaulx.  "This is a quiet town.  No one
+will think of Spilsborough!  He does not know that _she_ sent me a
+telegram from here!"
+
+He put up at the Angel, and escaped seeing the others for the time.  On
+his way up he had sent a defiant telegram to Bramber, desiring him to
+come to Spilsborough, and fight there with swords or pistols or any
+weapon that commended itself to him. This telegram Bramber never got,
+for, on reaching home and washing away the traces of the struggle in
+Hyde Park before all the loveliness of London, he had found his telegram
+from Spilsborough sent by Geordie Smith.  After looking in the ABC
+guide, and finding no good train, he pelted off in his motor-car,
+leaving a note for Rivaulx, saying that, though duels were absurd and
+illegal, he would not refuse to meet the marquis in France or Belgium,
+if he desired to make a bigger fool of himself than he had already done
+in the park.
+
+"Curse and confound them all," said Bramber, who was horribly cross and
+exceedingly sick of the whole world, even including Penelope.  "I wonder
+what she means by this telegram.  I wish I was dead!  Is she at
+Spilsborough?"
+
+Just in the middle of Spilsborough he met Rivaulx and pulled up short,
+not having the least notion, of course, that he would meet him there.
+But Rivaulx grinned a ghastly smile and raised his hat, as Bramber
+stopped.
+
+"Ha, I am pleased to see you," said the French marquis.  "You have come
+quickly.  It is a fine night, there is a moon, and close by here under
+the shadow of the cathedral there is a most beautiful piece of grass.
+There we will fight.  I have brought swords with me.  Or have you
+brought guns?"
+
+"I haven't brought guns," said Bramber, who was entirely stunned and at
+a loss for a word.
+
+The marquis bowed.
+
+"We will fight with swords, my lord.  I think this hotel is good; the
+lady is amiable; there are rooms to spare.  When the moon rises, ha!  I
+will call you forth."
+
+And Bramber went to the hotel to think what he should do.
+
+"The ass! the lunatic!  How did he get here? I can't get out of fighting
+him."
+
+He sat outside in his car.
+
+"No, I won't.  I'm damned if I do!" he said.
+
+He went in and wrote a note for Rivaulx, who was out in the cathedral
+close picking what he considered a good place for a duel.  The spot he
+chose was not far from the dean's house.
+
+"I wish it had been Mr. Plant," he said.  "Of Bramber, who is a young
+ass, I am not jealous. But of Plant I am horribly jealous, and he is a
+bad man.  If I met Plant I would say, 'Fight me at once now, and I will
+put off Lord Bramber till another day.'"
+
+And, going around the corner, he ran right into Plant, who was raging
+about the town, wondering where Penelope was and how everything was
+going to end.
+
+"The scoundrel is that marquis," said Plant. And he ran into the
+scoundrel's arms.
+
+And just while Bramber was shaking the dust of Spilsborough from the
+tires of his motor-car, Bob himself came into the town in a hired
+Daimler, full of the most extraordinary news.  And Titania was having a
+series of fits down at Goring, with Dr. Lumsden Griff in attendance.
+
+
+
+
+                             *CHAPTER XVI.*
+
+
+It cannot be imagined that Titania, who had survived so many shocks, was
+ill for nothing.  When Bob discovered what she was ill of, he stood
+outside on the lawn with his hands deep in his pockets and with his legs
+wide apart.
+
+"I must tell 'em this at once," said Bob, gloomily. "If I don't tell
+Gordon, he'll forget he's invested a hundred of mine in something to
+make hair curl, and I shall lose the money.  I mean to make money to
+keep up Goring by and by.  And he said he'd make me a director, too.
+For the sake of the family, I can't neglect him.  Or De Vere, either.
+Or any of 'em.  But--but I never thought it of Pen!"
+
+With his pockets full of money derived from the sale of dogs to De Vere,
+he rushed off to the station and caught a train for town.  When he
+reached London, he sent a wire to "Old Guth."
+
+"I'm in town on important business.  Break it to grandmother between
+fits.  I hope to be back to-morrow."
+
+He rushed off to Park Lane to find Gordon.
+
+"Mr. Gordon has gone to Spilsborough, sir," said Gordon's man.
+
+"D--  I mean confound it!" said Bob.  He went to Plant's.
+
+"Mr. Plant went to Spilsborough in a great hurry this afternoon, sir,"
+said Plant's landlady. The American millionaire still lived in
+Bloomsbury, though not on ten shillings a week.
+
+"Oh," said Bob, "I wonder what this means. There's a secret here!"
+
+He drove in a hansom to find Bramber.  A very ingenuous piece of
+humanity in buttons told Bob that Lord Bramber came in about four
+o'clock torn to ribbons, and found a telegram waiting him.
+
+"And off he went in his motor-car."
+
+"Where?" asked Bob.
+
+"I don't know," said the buttons.  But on Bob's going to Bramber's room,
+he found the ABC open on the table at the page with Spilsborough on it.
+
+"Sherlock Holmes would say he has gone to Spilsborough," cried Bob.
+"And if Gordon and Plant have gone there, too, I'll bet all the rest
+have gone.  I'll go, too."
+
+But there was no train for three hours!
+
+"I'm done," said Bob, "No, I'm not.  I'll hire a motor-car."
+
+He went to the nearest place in Regent Street and hired one.
+
+"Very well, sir," said the man, "but it's rather expensive, you know."
+
+Bob pulled out a handful of sovereigns.
+
+"Take as many as you think fair," he said, grandly.  "And don't forget I
+want a speedy one, and a man that can drive, and I'll pay the fines of
+course!"
+
+That was how he came to Spilsborough just in time and about the hour
+when the moon was to rise.  He passed a motor-car in the ditch about ten
+miles out of the cathedral city, and did not stop to find out what was
+the matter.  He thus missed the discovery that Bramber and his chauffeur
+were both sitting upon the wreck, using very awful language to each
+other on the subject of losing the way and coming bolt down a side road
+into the opposing hedge.  It is astonishing how an accident at thirty
+miles an hour brings owners and mechanics down to the same human level.
+
+When Bob reached Spilsborough, he was covered with dust, but was as spry
+as a grasshopper and awfully full of his news.
+
+"You _can_ drive," said Bob to his man.  "I'm very much pleased with
+you.  Stop at this hotel."
+
+He went into the Angel, and staggered blithely to the office.
+
+"Is Mr. Gordon here, or Mr. Plant, or the Marquis of Rivaulx?" he
+demanded.
+
+He thus discovered the marquis.
+
+He drove off to the Grand, and found Plant and Goby and De Vere and
+Gordon were there.  They were all in bed but Plant, and Plant had gone
+to see the cathedral by moonlight.
+
+"All right, we'll put up here," said Bob, "and I'll see if I can find
+Plant.  I say, I wonder what Baker will think of this?  It beats me!"
+
+He got to the cathedral precincts just about an hour after Rivaulx and
+Plant had run into each other's arms.  Much had occurred since then.
+
+For Rivaulx started back from Plant and almost forgot the existence of
+Bramber.
+
+"You are a scoundrrrel," said Rivaulx, rolling his r's in the most
+fearful manner.
+
+"You are a lunatic," replied Plant, coolly; "when did you escape?"
+
+"I have not escaped, I am here," snorted Rivaulx, "but you shall not
+escape.  I meant to kill Lord Bramber upon this spot, but I prefer to
+keel you.  I let him go; he is nothing.  You are the scoundrrel!"
+
+"Oh, dry up!" said Plant, crossly.  "You tire me, you fatigue me very
+much.  I am exhausted by looking at you.  Go home, or I will break you
+in three pieces and eat them!"
+
+Rivaulx foamed at the mouth.
+
+"Do you refuse to fight me, sare?"
+
+"Certainly not," said Plant.  "Take your coat off and hang it on a
+tombstone, and I'll leave nothing of you but a smear."
+
+"I do not fight with fists," said Rivaulx, contemptuously.  "I fight
+with swords, with steel, with guns or pistols."
+
+Plant shook his head.
+
+"I've none of 'em about me, my son!"
+
+"At the hotel I have swords," cried Rivaulx, eagerly.  "I brought them
+to kill Bramber, who punched my eye in the Rotten Row, and we rolled in
+bushes.  But I will first fight you.  Wait and I fetch the swords."
+
+He ran violently into the darkness, and Plant sat on a railing.
+
+"What am I to do?  Am I to wait and fight a lunatic?  Or shall I go back
+to the hotel?  I think I'll go back.  If that raging idiot is found
+prancing about here with swords, they will run him in."
+
+But he did not know how fast the marquis could run and how near the
+hotel was.  Before he had made up his mind to go, Rivaulx came back
+again. He flung the swords at Plant's feet.
+
+"Take one and let us begin," he said.
+
+"I think on the whole I'll have both," said Plant, suiting the action to
+the word.  "Now go home, marquis, like a good little boy, and come to
+the Grand Hotel in the morning and tell me why you want to be hanged in
+England."
+
+He put both the weapons under his arm.
+
+"You will not fight?" said the marquis, gasping like a dying dolphin.
+
+"What kind of a galoot do you reckon me?" asked Plant, quite
+unintelligibly.
+
+"Ha!" said the marquis, "I know not what a galoot is, but I will fight
+you here and leave your body on the grass."
+
+Neither of them had observed the approach of a portly and pleasant
+gentleman behind them.  He was now leaning upon the railing, watching
+them with a great deal of kindly curiosity.
+
+"I think, gentlemen, that the dean will object," he said at length, and
+they both turned around suddenly.
+
+"You must not interfere," said Rivaulx; "we do not know you."
+
+[Illustration: RUFUS Q. PLANT. Born in Virginia]
+
+"To be sure, to be sure," replied the gentleman, who was dressed very
+curiously, as Rivaulx noticed. "I hate interfering, especially with
+anything belonging to a dean.  Deans, gentlemen, are very touchy about
+matters connected with their cathedrals.  Now Dean Briggs, gentlemen,
+takes the very greatest care of that grass on which you both are now
+illegally trampling, and I understand that he has made a rule never to
+have duels upon it. He is very firm on that point.  Do I mistake you if
+I say that it looks to an unprejudiced observer as if you were going to
+fight a duel?"
+
+Rivaulx bowed.
+
+"I do not know you, sare, and I do not want to. I want to keel this man,
+who is a scoundrrel."
+
+The stranger addressed Plant.
+
+"And are you equally anxious to break this very rigid rule of the
+dean's?" he asked, suavely.
+
+"Certainly not," replied Plant; "I want to go to bed."
+
+"I am delighted to hear it.  I am intensely gratified to hear it.  If
+one duellist, having possession of both deadly weapons, desires to go to
+bed, I cannot see anything to hinder him, unless, indeed, he wants to
+lie down on Mr. Dean's grass.  You see, gentlemen, I am a bishop, and a
+bishop's first desire is to be on good terms with the dean.  If Mr. Dean
+heard that I encouraged any one to break his rules about duelling or
+going to bed in the precincts of this cathedral, I should _not_ be on
+good terms with him, I assure you."
+
+"I do not understand," said Rivaulx.  "I want to fight, that is all I
+want to do!"
+
+"Stay!" said the bishop, mildly.  "If the somewhat excited gentleman,
+who is, I gather, not an Englishman, will accompany me a few yards, we
+will go to the dean's, with whom I have been dining, and will refer the
+matter to him."
+
+"Of course," said Plant, "that is the right thing to do.  Marquis, his
+lordship the bishop suggests the only course open to gentlemen.  I trust
+you will accept his offer, and, if you do, I undertake to fight you if
+the dean gives his permission."
+
+"Stay, sare, my lord the bishop," said Rivaulx, "one moment, sare, the
+bishop.  Is this dean of whom you speak a gentleman?"
+
+"Certainly, certainly," replied the bishop, hastily. "He is of the
+highest breeding, and in his youth he fenced like a fencing-master."
+
+"Then he understands the code of honour, sare the bishop?"
+
+"Absolutely, for a dean," replied his lordship.
+
+"Then I agree, sir lord," cried Rivaulx.
+
+"Ha, we will go to his house, then," said the bishop, "if you will step
+over this railing.  But stop here one moment and observe the moon rising
+over Mr. Dean's cathedral.  Is it not a peaceful, pleasant spot,
+gentlemen?"
+
+"It beats thunder," said Plant.
+
+"It does, it does," nodded his lordship.  "Many Americans, who admire
+this cathedral immensely, have made the same acute observation.  May I
+ask your names, gentlemen?  I am the bishop of this diocese."
+
+"My name is Plant, Rufus Q. Plant, and my friend is the Marquis of
+Rivaulx."
+
+"Indeed," returned the bishop, "is the gentleman the French nobleman who
+is interested in balloons?"
+
+"Yes," said Plant.
+
+"Dear me!  I am delighted," said his lordship. "I, too, am interested in
+balloons.  I saw one go up once."
+
+"You like them?" asked Rivaulx, warmly. "That is good!  I will take you
+up in one."
+
+"We will talk of it later," said the bishop, rather hastily for a man of
+his gentle flowing speech. "But this is the dean's house.  If I knock at
+this window, he will put his head out."
+
+He knocked at the window, and Mr. Dean did put his head out.
+
+"I am _so_ loath to disturb you, Mr. Dean," said his lordship, "but, as
+I was leaving you and taking a little stroll before retiring, I met two
+gentlemen, one from the United States and one a French marquis, who were
+engaged in a warm discussion on a point of honour.  I am ignorant of the
+exact point, and I dare say there is no necessity for our knowing.  As a
+result of this discussion, the French marquis desired to fight a duel
+with swords (you will observe them under the arm of the gentleman from
+the United States), and I ventured to intervene, as the duel was to take
+place upon your grass."
+
+"Humph, indeed!" said the dean, in great astonishment. "And what did you
+say?"
+
+"I said that it was against your rules to allow any one to fight duels
+there.  Was I not right?"
+
+"Rather!" said the dean.  "I should say so."
+
+"And on the other hand," continued the bishop, "the gentleman from
+across the Atlantic wished to go to bed."
+
+"Then why the--why doesn't he?" asked the dean.
+
+"It seemed to me that the gentleman from across the water wanted to go
+to bed upon your grass," said the bishop.  "I pointed out to him that
+there was a very old and strict rule dating from the time beyond record
+which forbade this.  Was I not right?"
+
+"You were," said the dean.  "I never go to bed on the grass myself, and
+do not permit others to do so.  I never fight duels there, either, and
+do not allow it."
+
+"You see, gentlemen," said the bishop, but before he could add another
+word Bob rushed right upon the group outside the dean's windows, and saw
+that Plant made one of them.  He saw the swords also, and then
+recognized Rivaulx.
+
+"Oh, I say," said Bob, "you were going to fight a duel about Pen!  I've
+come in time!  It's no good. She has married Timothy Bunting, her
+groom!"
+
+
+
+
+                            *CHAPTER XVII.*
+
+
+It was such an awful shock to Plant and Rivaulx, and, for the matter of
+that, to his lordship the Bishop of Spilsborough, that they all gasped
+dreadfully. Plant took the bishop by the sleeve.  Rivaulx lay down upon
+the grass under the dean's window, and howled as he tore at the turf.
+The dean said:
+
+"I'll come out!  This is becoming serious!"
+
+He came out, and, as he opened the door, the light of the hall lamp fell
+upon Bob's face.
+
+"Good heavens!" said the bishop, "I thought I knew the voice.  Is that
+you, Robert Goring?"
+
+Bob said it was, but added that he didn't know the bishop.
+
+"Boy, I christened you," said the bishop.  "Is all this trouble about
+Penelope Brading, whom I also christened?"
+
+"Yes," replied Bob; "shall I tell you about it?"
+
+"Let us retire a few paces, and you can tell me," said the bishop.  "In
+the meantime, Mr. Dean, I beg you to exercise patience with the French
+nobleman on the grass.  Come, Bob."
+
+"Well, it's awful rot, you know," said Bob, speaking very rapidly.  "We
+don't know where we are in the family, and grandmother is lying on a
+sofa screaming."
+
+"Why, Bob?"
+
+"You must have heard of it."
+
+The bishop had heard a great deal, but not all.
+
+"Pen says she's married and has a kid," said Bob, "and she won't say who
+it is.  And all these jossers, including Plant, he's the American over
+there, and the marquis chewing the grass, said they had married her
+themselves.  Do you see, sir,--my lord, I mean?"
+
+"I see," said the bishop, putting his finger-tips together.  "It was, I
+think, very noble of them."
+
+"But granny said it was very trying, and it made her ill, for she wasn't
+any further than before, unless Pen had married them all.  And
+grandfather, who kept cool, said that was unlikely."
+
+"It certainly seems unlikely," said the bishop. "But when you came to
+us, you made some very astonishing remarks about a groom, one Bunting, I
+think.  Now what is there to know about him?"
+
+"Weekes said that, the beast!" cried Bob.
+
+"Who is the beast Weekes?" asked the bishop.
+
+Bob told him who Miss Harriet Weekes was.
+
+"And not an hour after these had said they were married to Pen, this
+Weekes woman came in black and in a cab and said she must see granny.
+And granny saw her, and is now in fits, with the doctor feeling her
+pulse and giving her brandy.  For Weekes was very solemn (I listened),
+and she said: 'Your Grace, I shall reveal the truth, which lies upon my
+bosom like a tombstone.  Her ladyship treated me cruel, and gave me the
+sack moreover, and I've no call to be silent no more 'avin' diskivered
+the truth.'  She talks like that.  Weekes is an uneducated beast, and
+why Pen ever had her as a maid I can't tell.  And granny was confused
+with the others, having said they were all married to Pen, and she
+waggled her head awfully.  'I shall surprise your Grace,' said Weekes,
+and granny said she wouldn't.  And she said, 'I shall surprise your
+Grace, for I've to reveal that I know the man, the serpent, that her
+ladyship 'as married.'  And granny smiled very curiously, and said,
+'Weekes, who do you say it is?'  And then Weekes cried, the crocodile,
+and she said that Penelope had married Timothy Bunting, the groom, and
+that Timothy had been engaged to her, and had as good as told her that
+he was looking high and despised a public-house at a corner.  I don't
+know what she meant. And she was so solemn and furious that granny
+believed her, and went off into fit after fit most awful, my lord, and
+they sent for the doctor, and I came away, for I knew the others would
+fight when they learnt that all of them had said the same thing.  And I
+believe it is Timothy myself."
+
+"Dear, dear me!" said the bishop, "this is even more remarkable than I
+anticipated from the very strange reports in the papers.  But I think
+you have done well, Robert, and I do not regret having christened you by
+any means, which is more than I can say for some of the aristocracy.
+Let us return to the dean, who is, I am afraid, having some trouble with
+the French marquis.  He is not accustomed to foreign noblemen and to
+Americans, except when they come here to see his cathedral."
+
+They turned toward the deanery, where Rivaulx was still rolling on the
+grass.
+
+"Do you think it is Timothy?" asked Bob.
+
+The bishop shook his head gently.
+
+"I do not see what grounds we have to go on, Robert.  Here we have an
+American who states, if I understand you rightly, that he has married my
+poor Penelope, and a French marquis of high repute who also states the
+same.  And there are others--"
+
+"Five or six!" said Bob.
+
+"And there are five or six others who commit themselves to the same
+statement.  And then a lady's maid says she knows that Penelope has
+married a groom.  I do not see what logical grounds we have for
+concluding anything more than that some one has told a lie, or that
+Penelope has been breaking the law by marrying more than one man at a
+time.  Speaking _a priori_, I think this latter alternative unlikely,
+and, as a matter of probability, I am forced to believe that only one at
+least out of seven (is it seven?) gentlemen of unblemished reputation
+has told the truth."
+
+It was all very sad.  But there were practical details to be attended
+to.  Though the marquis had ceased to raise the echoes of the stilly
+night, to say nothing of the echoes of the cathedral's west front, he
+was still in a fearfully mournful condition.  He was now weeping in the
+dean's arms, and the dean was endeavouring to soothe him as best he
+could. When the bishop came back, Mr. Dean seemed much relieved.
+
+"Don't you think you could get them to go away, bishop?" he inquired,
+pathetically.  "This kind of thing is beyond my experience, and I am
+extremely fatigued by it."
+
+"I will do my best," replied the bishop.
+
+Turning to the marquis, he said:
+
+"Get up, marquis.  I will walk with you to the hotel.  Mr. Plant, please
+follow with Robert, and be good enough to take care of those lethal
+instruments, which are, I rejoice to say, little understood in a quiet
+cathedral town.  It appears to me we are all in a state of mind which
+needs repose.  On the morrow, after I have slept upon it, I shall be
+happy to receive you all and give you the best advice in my power.  Now,
+marquis, I am waiting for you. The grass is damp."
+
+And they walked to the hotel, leaving the dean staring open-mouthed.
+
+"This is very unusual," sighed the dean.  "I cannot recollect anything
+exactly like it in my long experience."
+
+No more could the bishop.  Plant was in the same state of mind.  Rivaulx
+wept silently.  Bob was in the seventh heaven of delight, in spite of
+Bunting.  He thoroughly believed in what Harriet Weekes said.  Neither
+Plant nor Rivaulx knew that he knew they both claimed to be Pen's
+husband.
+
+"This story of Bunting is a goldarned lie," said Plant, hoarsely.  Bob
+did not reply.  He was sorry for them all, and relied on the bishop.
+What he relied on him for he did not know.  All he did know was that the
+bishop seemed fully equal to the situation.
+
+"How many more of you are there, Mr. Plant?" he asked at length.
+
+"Gordon and Goby and De Vere," replied Plant, miserably.
+
+"I must see Mr. Gordon," said Bob.  And then they came to the Angel.  By
+this time Rivaulx and the bishop were great friends, for Rivaulx was a
+clerical in his heart of hearts, and, if there wasn't a Catholic bishop
+to lean on, a Protestant one was a good substitute.  He stopped weeping,
+and held the bishop's hand.
+
+"You are a good man, sare bishop," he said. "I wish I was a good bishop,
+but I cannot.  Life is a very terrible thing.  I wish I could cut my
+throat.  I am weary."
+
+"I should go to bed," said the bishop, "and I'll look in and see you in
+the morning.  Bed is the best place when one is weary.  I assure you
+that I am not wholly ignorant of the world, or of the desire to cut my
+throat, but I find that after a good night's rest the wish to do so
+evaporates, and one determines to live for another twelve hours at
+least. But before you go, I hope you will give me your word that you
+will cut no one else's."
+
+"I give it," said Rivaulx.  "The desire to kill Mr. Plant has left me.
+I am no longer furious, even with Bramber.  I am simply sad and
+fearfully mournful.  I thank you, sare; good night."
+
+"Good night," said the bishop.  "Stay, marquis, I think Mr. Plant has
+the weapons."
+
+The marquis waved them off.
+
+"I have no need of them.  I give them you, sare bishop.  Take them."
+
+And when the bishop had bidden Plant and Bob good night, and had
+arranged to see Bob in the morning, the curious sight might have been
+witnessed of a great ornament of the Episcopal bench walking through the
+precincts of the cathedral to his palace, with a couple of
+duelling-swords under his arm.
+
+"This has been a very interesting evening," said the bishop.  "I very
+much wonder what Ridley will think when he sees me come in.  A butler's
+mind is naturally limited."
+
+He went in and gave the swords to Ridley.
+
+"Take these," said his lordship.
+
+"Yes, m'lord," said Ridley, stolidly.
+
+"I think you can hang them up in the dining-room, Ridley."
+
+"Yes, m'lord."
+
+"They are trophies, Ridley."
+
+"So I perceive, m'lord," said Ridley.
+
+"What are trophies, Ridley?"
+
+"These, m'lord," said Ridley.
+
+"Exactly so," said his lordship.
+
+And while he was taking off his gaiters and thinking of Penelope, Bob
+was sitting on the edge of Gordon's bed and telling him all about it.
+
+"Why are you here?" asked Bob.
+
+"She sent me a telegram," said poor Gordon.
+
+"I say, what about?"
+
+"Sayin' I wath a noble character and so on," replied Gordon, miserably,
+"and I came here at onth becauth the telegram came from here."
+
+As the sleep went out of his eyes, he talked less Hebraically.
+
+"I thought she might be here," he added, shaking his curly head.
+
+Bob thought very hard.
+
+"I say, this is awfully mixed, Mr. Gordon, because I know you told
+granny you were married to Pen!"
+
+Gordon gulped something down.  It was probably very bad language.
+
+"So--so I am," he said, sternly, without looking at Bob.
+
+"Rivaulx says so, too."
+
+"The devil!" cried Gordon.
+
+"And so does Goby and Rivaulx and Bramber and De Vere and all of 'em!"
+
+Gordon fell back on his pillows.
+
+"So you see," said Bob, "we're no further than we were, except that
+Weekes, who used to be Pen's maid, came to granny this afternoon and
+told her, the beast, that Pen had married Timothy Bunting!"
+
+Gordon bounced out of bed in his night-shirt.
+
+"Who the devil is Timothy Bunting?" he roared.
+
+Bob told him.
+
+"It's a lie--a lie!"
+
+"Of course it must be, if you've married her, as you say," said Bob.
+"But perhaps I'm disturbing you.  Would you like to go to sleep?"
+
+"Very much indeed," replied Gordon.  "I should like to go to sleep and
+stay asleep.  I wish you'd go and serve Goby and De Vere as you've
+served me!"
+
+"I'm so sorry," said Bob, "but you always said you wanted any news, and
+that's why I told you first."
+
+Gordon held out his hand, and Bob shook it warmly.
+
+"By the way," he asked, "what about the hair restorer?"
+
+"What hair restorer?" asked the astonished Hebrew.
+
+"The one you put ninety pounds of mine in, sir."
+
+"It wasn't in a hair restorer.  What makes you say so?"
+
+"Well," replied Bob, "I thought it was.  You said it would make my hair
+curl.  How much did it make, whatever it was?"
+
+A glow of pleasure spread over Gordon's sad countenance.  Making money
+was something even in despair.
+
+"My boy, I bought you Amalekites at half a crown, five hundred and sixty
+of 'em, and now they're at �4."
+
+"Dear me," said Bob, "how much does that make?  Why, it's �2,240."
+
+"Less commission," agreed the financier.
+
+"By Jove, that's a very, very good beginning," said Bob.  "Do you think
+they will go up more, Mr. Gordon?"
+
+Gordon looked at him and sighed.
+
+"They might.  But don't you think it would be safer to get out now,
+Bob?"
+
+Bob shook his head.
+
+"I'll follow your advice, sir, of course.  If it was only myself, I'd
+take the money, but I'm thinking of Goring, when my father and
+grandfather and uncle die.  What I want is fifty thousand, at least.
+Grandfather often says that is the least that can put the house on its
+legs again.  Let me see, �2,240 is eight times four times �90.  That's
+thirty-two times �90.  What's thirty-two times �2,240?"
+
+"Seventy-one thousand six hundred and eighty," replied Gordon, promptly.
+
+"That would do very well indeed," said Bob. "Please go on, sir, till
+it's that.  Or shall I take half and ask Mr. Plant to do something with
+it? He offered to help me."
+
+"Certainly not," replied Gordon, angrily. "Plant's a reckless speculator
+and a liar, and he'll wake up some day worth half a million less than
+nothing.  I'll do my best for you and Goring, Bob."
+
+"I'm sure you will, sir," said Bob.  "Good night, Mr. Gordon.  I'm sorry
+if I've worried you."
+
+And he went off to worry Goby.  Gordon walked up and down the room
+weeping.
+
+"If I only had a boy like that!" he cried.  "By Moses and all the
+prophets, I'll put Amalekites up sky-high, and squeeze the bears till
+they howl.  Oh, Pen, Pen!"
+
+
+
+
+                            *CHAPTER XVIII.*
+
+
+By breakfast-time or a little later, Goby and Gordon and De Vere and
+Rivaulx knew not only what was said about Timothy Bunting, but also that
+every one of them had told the Duchess of Goring that he was married to
+Penelope.  When the bishop looked in to see the marquis, he found him
+exceedingly difficult to manage.  He wanted the duelling-swords back in
+order to fight every one.  His especial desire now was to put cold steel
+through Gordon, and this led to a general evacuation of Spilsborough.
+
+"I say, Mr. Gordon," said Bob, rushing in upon the financier while he
+was shaving, "I've just met the bishop, and he wanted to know if I knew
+you, and I said 'rather,' and he said would I ask you, in the interests
+of peace, to go back to London, because the marquis wanted to cut your
+throat with swords hanging in the bishop's dining-room.  I say, will you
+go, or stay and fight?"
+
+Gordon cut himself, and then, as Bob said, "cut his stick" and went back
+to town shaved on one side and not on the other.  As a result of this,
+several men in the city sold bears of everything that Gordon was
+interested in, and they got left most horribly, especially on
+Amalekites.  Never afterward did they venture to think that any
+financier was on the borders of ruin if he came into the city partially
+shaved.  In fact, three very shady Jews, with some wildcat stock to
+boom, played the trick successfully, and, through not being shaved
+themselves, they shaved others.
+
+But this is all by the way, and it only shows that a real financier in
+love or in despair is just as dangerous as at other times.  Bob and the
+bishop talked the situation over in Spilsborough while Gordon was going
+to town, and the result was what might have been expected.
+
+"All we know is that Penelope, poor dear Penelope is near Spilsborough,"
+said the bishop.
+
+"And that she's married," said Bob.
+
+"We infer that from general grounds, our knowledge of her character,"
+said the logical bishop. "Strictly we cannot be said to know it.  It is
+not a primary datum of consciousness, nor is it a judgment or a purely
+rational conclusion, Bob."
+
+"Oh," said Bob, "well, perhaps not."
+
+"I think," said the bishop, "that I shall write to her--"
+
+"Where to?"
+
+"To everywhere," said the bishop, "and ask her to come and confide in
+me.  And in the meantime, as the others have gone, and your presence
+here is no longer necessary, I think you should go home and console your
+grandmother, and apply yourself to work."
+
+"All right," said Bob; "I don't think it's interesting here any more.
+But are you glad I came in time to stop the duel?"
+
+"I am glad," said the bishop.  "But, to tell the truth, Robert, I should
+not have allowed a duel on Mr. Dean's ancient grass and under his
+immemorial elms without a remonstrance, even a physical remonstrance."
+
+Within the memory of this portly and admirable pillar of the Church to
+which the British Empire owes all its greatness, and to which it pays a
+great deal of its money, were many fierce encounters at Oxford, that
+haunt of ancient peace and modern progress.
+
+"Would you have knocked 'em down?" asked Bob, eagerly.
+
+"Certainly," said the bishop.  "I would have knocked them as flat as a
+flounder."
+
+And Bob bade him good-bye.
+
+"I think he's a ripping good bishop," said Bob. "I'll ask Mr. Gordon to
+help restore the cathedral."
+
+He got back to Goring to find Titania no longer suffering from fits.
+Fits were not equal to the situation.  All her friends were writing to
+her to condole with her on the marriage of Penelope to Timothy Bunting.
+They came down in droves to condole and to get the latest intelligence,
+while gamekeepers and grooms were keeping journalists out of the grounds
+with guns and pitchforks.
+
+For the world was absolutely certain that Miss Weekes was right, and
+Pen's _ci-devant_ maid was making the salary of a star at the Empire by
+according interviews to those halfpenny papers which are England's glory
+and her hope.  The editors endeavoured to interview the lovers, but they
+were stern and savage.  They would not speak to each other and avoided
+strangers.  But it was no secret now that they each claimed to be Lady
+Penelope's husband.  As the acutest journalist of them all remarked,
+this was hardly possible.  The only theory that held water (or, at
+least, "good" water, as the Baboo pleader remarked) was the Bunting
+theory. But if Bunting was the man, where was he? and why this mystery?
+A journalist solved it, or said he did.  Bunting was a very handsome
+man.  There was no doubt of that.  But he was an uneducated man.  That
+was quite certain.  If a lady of Penelope's standing married a man of
+Bunting's, what would she do?  The answer was easy.  She would send him
+to Oxford to acquire the accent and the aplomb and the insolence which
+have rendered Oxford men the idols of the mob, and have put them into
+every position where tact with inferior races is a _sine qua non_.  This
+is what the journalist said. He ought to have known, as he had been
+brought up in the Yorkshire Dissenting College, and dissented from all
+other codes of manners, except those popular with the non-conformist
+conscience, which, equally with the Church of England, has made the
+empire what it is and what it should be.
+
+But this journalist knew his market.  The eyes of the civilized world
+once more turned to Oxford.
+
+"If it's Bunting, I'll kill him," said all the lovers who were not
+married to Penelope.  "She has made a mistake, if it's true, and he must
+be got rid of."
+
+Now was the time of the Marchioness of Rigsby's glory.
+
+"Did I not tell you she had married her groom?" she demanded of Titania.
+"Penelope was extremely rude to me.  I am almost glad she has married a
+groom.  If he is a nice groom, he may improve her manners."
+
+"She hasn't married any groom," cried Titania, furiously.  "I am
+perfectly certain it is the Marquis of Rivaulx."
+
+She was certain of nothing.  Bradstock was certain of nothing.  They
+both asked Bob what he was certain of, and Bob replied all the lovers
+were in such a state of mind that it couldn't be any of them.  And then
+at last Titania hit upon a certain truth.
+
+"Whoever it is would be just as miserable as all the others," she said.
+"He'll be sorry now that he agreed to it, and he'll be asking her to
+give in, and she won't.  And they'll quarrel."
+
+"You're right, Titania," cried Bradstock, slapping his thigh.  "Bob, I
+believe the most miserable of them all is the man.  Which is the most
+miserable?"
+
+Bob thought.
+
+"Gordon cried a little."
+
+"Ha!" said the duchess.
+
+"But Rivaulx cried a good deal," said Bob.
+
+"Oh," said the duchess.  "But which do you think it is, Robert?"
+
+"I think it's Timothy Bunting," said Bob. "And I want to go to Oxford to
+find out if he's there.  Baker says--"
+
+"Do you discuss these matters with Baker?" demanded his grandmother,
+haughtily.
+
+"He knows a great deal about the world," said Bob, "and about Bunting,
+you know.  Baker says--"
+
+"You may go to Oxford," cried Titania, "and I will go to bed and stay
+there.  I am a most unhappy woman, and Goring does not care!"
+
+So Bob went to Oxford all by himself, and called upon an undergraduate
+who had just come up from Harrow, one of the schools which Bob had been
+requested to leave on account of pugilism.  Jack Harcourt was four years
+Bob's senior, but could not fight so well in spite of that, and there
+was much more equality between them than would seem possible at first
+sight.  But then it is almost impossible to feel very much superior to a
+boy who has knocked you absolutely senseless, as Bob did Harcourt.  And
+Bob was one of those boys who make all the world equal.  He was familiar
+with princes, and said "Baker says" to cabinet ministers.  And if his
+uncle didn't marry, he was bound to be a duke.  Dukes are very important
+people, somehow, and the fact that Bob never showed any side was much in
+his favour over and above that important fact.
+
+"I say, is there a man up here called Bunting?" asked Bob.
+
+And Harcourt, after consulting a calendar, said there was.
+
+"Timothy Bunting?" asked Bob, jumping as if he were shot.
+
+"Thomas," said Harcourt.
+
+"Oh, he'd say Thomas, I dare say," said Bob. And he told Harcourt all
+about it.
+
+"Do you think she's married him?" asked the undergraduate.
+
+"Who knows what girls will do?" said Bob. "Don't you remember the
+black-eyed one in the pastry-cook's at Harrow who wouldn't look at you
+and was in love with that beast Black?"
+
+Harcourt did remember, but changed the conversation as quickly as
+possible.
+
+"This fellow is at All Saints," he said.  "I dare say, they'd let a
+groom in there."
+
+"Let's go and find him," said Bob.  "Poor old Bunting will be sick to
+see me.  I'm very sorry for him if he is a presumptuous beast.  It will
+be very awkward for the family.  But we must know.  The uncertainty is
+killing my grandmother, and Baker says it's always best to know the
+worst at once. Baker's the best judge of dogs and horses I know. He was
+a sergeant in the Dublin Fusiliers.  Oh, I told you that!"
+
+And when they got into the High Street, they ran right into Plant, who
+smiled a sickly smile and said he had come up to have a look at Oxford.
+
+"I say, Mr. Plant, what's the matter with your clothes?" asked Bob.
+"Have you fallen downstairs?"
+
+Plant murmured something unintelligible and hurried away, leaving Bob
+staring.
+
+"That's one of 'em, Harcourt," he said to his friend.  "He's a
+millionaire."
+
+"Then I think he might afford a hat without a dint in it," replied
+Harcourt.
+
+Bob shook his head.
+
+"I can't make it out.  He's very particular," he said.  "But let's get
+on."
+
+Around the next corner they bumped into Gordon, who also announced that
+he had been struck with a wild desire to have a look at the ancient
+university city.  Bob shook his head.
+
+"I say, Mr. Gordon, you want brushing badly. Do you know you look as if
+you had fallen downstairs?" he asked.
+
+Gordon said, "Do I?" and bolted.
+
+"I can't make this out," said Bob.  "This has all the appearance of a
+mystery, Harcourt."
+
+"It has," said Harcourt.  As they entered All Saints, they saw a man run
+across the grass and disappear under the far archway which led out into
+the Turl.
+
+"That looked very much like De Vere," said Bob, "very much.  Only I
+never saw him run except that time when the bulldog chased him.  And
+then he ran differently.  But of course it can't be De Vere."
+
+After asking two reverend-looking members of the university, who looked
+as if they knew all about the subjective world, and a scout with every
+appearance of a deep acquaintance with the objective one, they
+discovered Mr. Bunting's rooms.
+
+"I think he's havin' some gents to lunch, though I'm not his scout, sir,
+and they seems to be enjoying themselves now very much," said the scout.
+"Mr. Bunting is readin' 'ard, so I 'ear, but he's relaxin' a little
+to-day.  Just now I see a gentleman drop hout of 'is window, sir.  And
+you're the third lot I've directed there.  This is 'is staircase, gents,
+first floor.  Thank you, sir, I'm sure.  I'll drink your 'ealth."
+
+And here Harcourt said he thought he'd leave Bob.  So Bob went up about
+six dark steps by himself, and then he stopped.
+
+"Whoever he is, he's making a devil of a row," said Bob, pausing, "a
+devil of a row.  I wonder if it is Bunting.  I think Harcourt might have
+stayed.  But he never did like fighting or rows."
+
+He climbed up another step or two, and heard a mighty uproar.
+
+"I think they must be having a boxing party," said Bob.  And then he
+heard a door open on the landing above him.
+
+"Confound you, sir! to the devil with you, sir!" said a voice that he
+certainly did not recognize.  Then he heard a noise which was presently
+explained by the fact that Carteret Williams fell down the stairs,
+turning a crooked corner most wonderfully in company with a very large
+Liddell and Scott's Dictionary of that beautiful language, Greek.
+
+"Oh, is that you, Mr. Williams?" asked Bob.
+
+Williams appeared rather confused.
+
+"Yes, Bob," he said, as he hugged the dictionary. "I--I think so."
+
+"Why have you fallen down-stairs?" asked Bob.
+
+"That damn groom threw me down," said Williams. "At least, he threw this
+book at me, and I came down."
+
+[Illustration: CARTERET WILLIAMS, WAR CORRESPONDENT. He wrote with a red
+picturesqueness which was horribly attractive]
+
+"What, is it really Bunting?" roared Bob, eagerly.
+
+"He says his name's Bunting," replied Williams. "But he's very difficult
+to handle."
+
+"Oh, Tim can box," said Bob.  "But is he our Bunting?"
+
+"Whichever Bunting he is, you are welcome to him," said the enraged war
+correspondent.
+
+"I must go up and see," said Bob.  "Do you think he threw Mr. Plant and
+Mr. Gordon down, too?  I met 'em just now, and they looked as if he
+had."
+
+"I'm sure he's capable of it," said Williams, bitterly.  "Here, take
+this book with you.  I don't want it."
+
+And Bob climbed up, hugging several pounds' weight of Greek with him.
+He stood at the door and listened, and heard a man inside snorting
+violently and slamming things about as if he was very much disturbed in
+his mind.  Bob knocked at the door, and it was opened suddenly.  The man
+who opened it was in deep shadow.
+
+"It is--it is.  No, it isn't," said Bob, quite aloud.
+
+"Are you another of 'em?" asked the occupier of the rooms.
+
+"Oh, it isn't," said Bob.  And, choking down his disappointment, his
+politeness returned.
+
+"Is this your Greek dictionary?" he asked, courteously.  "I found it
+lying on Mr. Carteret Williams on the next landing, and he said he
+didn't want it."
+
+The man named Bunting seized the dictionary, and then took Bob by the
+shoulder and led him in. Bob went like a lamb, for this Mr. Bunting was
+six feet high, about three feet across the chest, more or less, and had
+a grip like clip-hooks on a bale.
+
+"Was that man named Williams?" he asked.
+
+"Yes," said Bob.
+
+"You know him?"
+
+"Why, of course," said Bob.  "I know 'em all."
+
+"All I've thrown down-stairs this afternoon?"
+
+"I think so," said Bob, modestly.  "At least, I met Mr. Plant and Mr.
+Gordon, who looked very much as if they had fallen down-stairs.  And I
+think the little gentleman you dropped out of the window on the grass
+must have been Mr. Austin de Vere."
+
+"Oh," said Mr. Bunting, "sit down, boy, and look at me.  Do I look mad?"
+
+Bob looked at him and then at the room.
+
+"The room looks mad," he replied.  And it certainly did.
+
+"That was the last one," said Mr. Bunting. "He was very troublesome."
+
+"He's a war correspondent," said Bob.  "But why is your name Bunting?"
+
+"How the devil do I know?" asked the other, in reply.  "Perhaps, as you
+seem to know them, you can explain what it all means?"
+
+"I will try, sir, if you will tell me what occurred," said Bob.
+
+"First of all," said the outraged member of All Saints, "the American
+person knocked and came in, and he said: 'Is your name Bunting?'  And I
+said, 'Yes, confound you, for your infernal impudence, and what is
+yours?'  And he said, 'What the devil do you mean by saying you have
+married her?'  And I said I'd said nothing of the kind, and I said if he
+didn't get out in two shakes of a lamb's tail, I'd throw him out.  And
+he was furious, and couldn't and wouldn't explain, so I did throw him
+out.  And, as he tumbled down-stairs, he said he'd married her himself.
+And he went away, and I sat down to read Thucydides.  He's under the
+sofa now somewhere.  And then the Jew came, and he said: 'You mutht
+contradict the report of your being married to her at onth,' and that
+made me very cross, and I said I wouldn't, and that made him very wild,
+so I said I was married to her just as he said he was--"
+
+"Oh," said Bob, "and are you?  Oh, dear, I am so confused!  Are you
+really, really married to Pen?"
+
+"I shall drop you out of the window in a minute," said Mr. Bunting.  "I
+said it to annoy him, and it did, and he said I was a liar.  So I opened
+the door and took him by the neck and dropped him down-stairs, and he
+howled awfully.  And I said to him over the bannisters, 'I am married to
+her, and have been married for years to her, and she loves me very much,
+and we are going to acknowledge it as soon as I've taken my B.A.'  And
+he went away holding his neck, and then the little man came in.  Did you
+say he was a poet?"
+
+"A very good poet, too," said Bob.  "And I sell him bulldogs."
+
+"Oh," said Mr. Bunting, blankly, "you do, do you?  Why?"
+
+"Because Pen thought they would do him good."
+
+Mr. Bunting shook his head.
+
+"Thicksides is lucid compared with this!" he murmured.  "But patience,
+patience, and I shall construe it yet."
+
+"And what did Mr. de Vere say?" asked Bob.
+
+"The same thing.  He stood there and said I must contradict it.  And he
+said of course it was very kind of her to have me educated, but that, if
+I had a spark of decency, I should know that a man who had once occupied
+the position I had couldn't possibly marry her.  And, by the way, what
+position had I occupied in regard to her?"
+
+"A groom," said Bob.  "You were supposed to have been a groom."
+
+"Dear me," said Mr. Bunting, "how interesting and remarkable.  Still no
+light, no real light!  And of course I said I had married her, and I
+asked him did he think I would desert the lady now?  And he went
+scarlet.  Why did he go scarlet do you think?"
+
+"I know," said Bob, "it must have been on account of the baby!"
+
+Mr. Bunting smote his forehead.
+
+"So it must," he said.  "I never thought of that. What a fearful
+complication!  And then he, too, said I was a liar.  So I took him by
+the collar and led him to the window, and I opened it and dropped him
+out.  And then the one you call Williams came, and he also was
+indignant, and said I was to deny it, and I wouldn't of course.  And
+then we fought, and the furniture was much disarranged and Thicksides
+went under the sofa, and at last I got him outside, and finished him
+with Liddell and Scott. And now you know all!  In your turn you can
+explain what it means.  I beg you to do it, and then we will have some
+tea."
+
+And Bob explained the whole story.
+
+"You might have seen it in the papers," said Bob.
+
+"I don't read 'em," said Bunting, "except to turn a _Times_ leader into
+Greek.  But it seems a complicated situation, doesn't it?"
+
+"It is very complicated," sighed Bob, "and my grandmother is very ill
+about it.  And now she will wonder if it's you, after all!"
+
+"Dear me, so she will," said Bunting.  "Have some tea."
+
+They had tea, and Bob rose to go.
+
+"Will you write to the _Times_, and say you haven't married her?" he
+asked.
+
+"Certainly not," said Mr. Bunting.  "Didn't I say to the others that I
+threw down-stairs that I _had_ married her?"
+
+"So you did," said Bob.  "But of course you haven't?"
+
+Bunting smiled.
+
+"Good-bye.  When you come to Oxford again, come and see me.  I must
+crawl under the sofa now."
+
+"What for?" asked Bob.
+
+"For Thucydides, of course," replied Mr. Bunting.
+
+And when Bob was in the train for London, he turned very pale.
+
+"Good heavens!" he said, "how do I know it isn't this Bunting, after
+all?"
+
+
+
+
+                             *CHAPTER XIX.*
+
+
+After this, things by no means cleared up, as they should have done
+considering the amount of trouble that all the world took to find out
+the truth.  Every one said something different from some one else. Bob
+gave horribly imaginative accounts of his adventures at Oxford, and
+threw out suggestions that Pen was really married to a Bunting, if not
+to Timothy Bunting.  But when he appealed for corroboration to Gordon,
+that gentleman shuffled and prevaricated dreadfully, as he did not like
+to acknowledge he had been thrown down-stairs.  There was a very curious
+scene, in which Gordon and Bob had the best part of a row before
+Titania, who came up to town to be near Dr. Lumsden Griff, who knew all
+about the left or right ventricle of her heart.  As his jealous
+confr�res said he knew nothing else, perhaps he did.  However, that is
+by the way.
+
+"Tell it me again, Robert," said Titania.
+
+Bob told her again.
+
+"He said he was married to her?"
+
+"He said he said so to Mr. Plant and Mr. Gordon, and Williams and De
+Vere," said Bob, gloating over the details of the row.  "And he slung
+'em all down-stairs.  He's about six feet six high, and as broad as a
+billiard-table, and as strong as three Sandows, I should say."
+
+"I am much confused again," said Titania, plaintively.  "I had come to
+the point where certain news of her marriage to a groom would have been
+a relief to me.  Where are we now?"
+
+As she asked, Gordon was announced.  Bob rushed at him.
+
+"I say, Mr. Gordon, tell us how he threw you down-stairs, and what he
+said?"
+
+"He didn't throw me down-stairs," said Gordon, quite crossly.  "I threw
+myself down--I mean I slipped."
+
+"Tell us how you slipped, then, and why," said Bob.
+
+But Gordon wouldn't.
+
+"Oh, I say!" said Bob.
+
+Titania begged Gordon to tell her.
+
+"But then he told me he had married Pen," she said to herself.  "What is
+the use of asking any one anything?"
+
+"How did you find him?" asked Bob.
+
+"I looked him up," said Gordon.
+
+"Why did you look him up?"
+
+"Because I wanted to find him out," returned Gordon, sulkily.  "But I
+didn't come to be cross-examined by you, Bob."
+
+In spite of the large sums of money which Gordon owed Bob, Bob was on
+the point of an explosion.  But trouble was averted by Plant's entrance.
+Before he could say a word, a telegram was brought to Titania, and she
+read it at once and uttered dismal groans.
+
+"What is it?" chorused the two men and Bob.
+
+"It's from Penelope."
+
+"Please read it out."
+
+Bob read it for his grandmother.
+
+
+"Am exceedingly displeased with latest reports and news.  Contradict at
+once.  Am not married to Bunting, who is much upset by report, and can
+hardly look me in the face.  PENELOPE."
+
+
+"Bunting is with her!" said Titania.
+
+"Which Bunting?" asked Bob.  "He--I mean the one at Oxford--told Mr.
+Gordon and Mr. de Vere that he was married to her."
+
+Gordon groaned, and, seizing his hat, fled from the room.  He came back
+again.
+
+"Where does the wire come from?"
+
+"From Spilsborough," said Bob.  "Granny, I wonder if the bishop is in
+it."
+
+Gordon groaned and went.  And went a little too early, for another wire
+came.  It was a very long one.
+
+Titania looked at the signature first, and she sat up.
+
+"It's from Penelope's husband," she cried.
+
+"Who is he really?" shrieked Bob.
+
+"It's signed Penelope's husband, I mean," said Titania, "and he seems
+very unhappy."
+
+The telegram read:
+
+
+"Am in great distress.  Penelope is furious because told you confidence
+that was married to her. She has heard this, and has learnt that others,
+lying scoundrels, said they were, too.  She says their noble conduct
+saved her, and will not speak at present, though holding out hopes of
+reconciliation later to her and infant, which is doing well, if I say
+nothing and do not fight with others, but do my duty, which I find hard
+under peculiar circumstances.  Hence am precluded from confirming what I
+told you, and can only communicate anonymously, as Penelope threatens to
+have divorce or equivalent, being headstrong, as you are aware, and I am
+in distress about it.  Wire reply.
+
+"PENELOPE'S HUSBAND."
+
+
+"He's mad," said Titania.  "How can I wire reply to a man I know nothing
+of?"
+
+She turned to Plant.
+
+"You told me in confidence, Mr. Plant.  Did you send this?"
+
+Plant turned all the colours of the rainbow.
+
+"Yes," he said, desperately, and he bolted from the room and the house
+and disappeared, while Bob gasped, and Titania nodded her head in a most
+awe-inspiring manner.
+
+"Get some telegraph forms," she said.  And when Bob brought them, she
+dictated telegrams to all the horde in the diplomatic form of identic
+notes.
+
+
+"Have received sad telegram signed Penelope's husband.  Recognize under
+painful circumstances he cannot reveal himself.  Am much composed and
+have given up hope.  It appears it cannot be Bunting, though Bunting is
+with her.  Contradict this; also the rumour that it is the Rajah of
+Jugpore.
+
+"TITANIA GORING."
+
+
+"Send them," she said, "and let me rest.  I presume that the right one
+will get it.  The only trouble is that six of the wrong ones will, too."
+
+"Goby will go insane," said Bob.  "I know he will.  I can't see how this
+will end without murder."
+
+And Titania laughed dreadfully.  She laughed so queerly that Doctor
+Griff was sent for, and refused to allow her to see De Vere and Goby and
+Bramber and Gordon and Plant and Williams and Carew.  The last turned up
+first in a hansom cab, with a large palette knife in his hand.  He had
+forgotten to put it down.  As hansom after hansom came up and discharged
+one furious lover after another at the steps of Titania's town house, it
+looked as if Bob's foreseen murder would occur there and then.  It is
+possible that nothing but the timely arrival of Bradstock saved London
+from the desirable news of a murder in high life and Belgrave Square.
+He got hold of the men one by one, and sent them away.  As they went, a
+telegraph boy came to the house with another telegram addressed to
+Titania.
+
+"I shall open this, Bob," said Bradstock.  It was another from Pen.
+
+
+"Have just learnt that you and others have been trying to discover my
+whereabouts.  If I am pursued, I shall leave and go elsewhere.  This is
+final.
+
+PENELOPE."
+
+
+"From Spilsborough, Bob," said Bradstock.
+
+"She's heard that I and Goby and Rivaulx and the others were there,"
+said Bob.  "Do you think the bishop knows where she is?"
+
+"I wouldn't trust a bishop," said Bradstock. "I daresay he does.  It is
+said that bishops steal Elzevirs and umbrellas, Bob.  I think I shall go
+to Spilsborough myself.  Have you seen the evening papers, Bob?"
+
+Bob had seen none of them.
+
+"Some say now that she is married to Jugpore, and others say it is a
+morganatic marriage to the mediatized Prince of Bodenstrau."
+
+"Oh, I say, Pen will be mad," cried Bob.  "Isn't he a real bad un?"
+
+"The very worst," said Bradstock.
+
+"And are you really going to Spilsborough, Lord Bradstock?"
+
+"I really think so," said Bradstock.  "I begin to think I must do
+something."
+
+He stood pondering.
+
+"May I come with you?"
+
+Bradstock declined the honour.
+
+"If I don't succeed, you may go again if you like," he said.  And that
+very afternoon he went to Liverpool Street and took the train for
+Spilsborough to call on the bishop.
+
+"My dear Bradstock, I am delighted to see you," said his lordship.  "I
+presume you, too, have come here about Penelope?"
+
+"I have," said Bradstock, "every one does."
+
+"Did young Bob tell you all about the peculiar occurrences which took
+place here only lately? They were quite remarkable."
+
+Bradstock agreed that they were remarkable.
+
+"A duel on the dean's grass, now!  Who would have thought of that but a
+Frenchman?  Have you seen the marquis lately, and that very agreeable
+financier, the American?  I was much grieved not to be able to ask him
+to dinner, owing to his sudden departure.  He showed considerable skill
+in grasping the essentials of the situation, for, when the marquis, who
+was literally foaming at the mouth, offered him the choice of swords in
+a violent but perfectly gentlemanly way, he chose both of them, and put
+them under his arm.  It is not every one who could have displayed such
+readiness in preventing violence.  One would not have expected it in an
+American, for I understand disorder and disturbances leading to
+bloodshed are quite common even in Washington."
+
+"I have frequently seen most bloodthirsty duels behind the Capitol
+during the sessions of Congress," said Bradstock, gravely.
+
+"Ah, so I understand," replied the bishop.  "But is there no news of
+dear Penelope?"
+
+"Come, bishop, let us be frank," said Bradstock. "Have you no idea whom
+she has married?"
+
+The gentle bishop looked much surprised.
+
+"I?  My dear Bradstock, I haven't the least idea. But I gather that both
+the gentlemen I interrupted the other day claim to be her husband, to
+say nothing of many others whom I have not yet set eyes on."
+
+"And you have no notion where she is?"
+
+The bishop lifted his hands.
+
+"I think she must be near this place," he said. "I consider there can be
+no doubt of that, owing to matters with which Bob made me acquainted. By
+the way, I think this young Bob a very remarkable boy, Bradstock."
+
+"So do I, bishop," said Bradstock.
+
+"A very remarkable boy.  The dean, who saw very little of him, came to
+that conclusion.  He said he would be an ornament to the House of Lords,
+or the biggest young rip that ever disgraced it."
+
+"Your dean must be a clever man," said Bradstock.
+
+"Do not call him my dean," replied the bishop. "He is the cathedral's
+dean, and very difficult to handle.  However, he is said to be clever,
+and I dare say is clever, especially about grass and a choir and things
+material.  But, as I was going on to say, I consider it quite easy to
+find out where Penelope is, provided we go about it skilfully.  I cannot
+but remember that I christened her, and I still take an interest in
+her."
+
+"How do you propose to discover her whereabouts?" asked Bradstock.
+
+"She sends telegrams from our Spilsborough post-office, does she not?"
+
+"Yes," said Bradstock.
+
+"Then some one should watch the post-office for her messenger.  It seems
+probable that you would know him, as she is not likely to confide in
+strangers. Who can say that the very man she has married does not send
+them?"
+
+That was easily disposed of, for, to Bradstock's certain knowledge, all
+the lovers were in town when the last wires came.
+
+"Well, I suggest you watch the post-office," said the bishop.  "It is, I
+opine, a perfectly legitimate thing to do."
+
+Bradstock objected that she mightn't send any more for weeks.
+
+A brilliant idea struck the bishop.
+
+"Send her one which requires an answer, Bradstock."
+
+"Where to?" asked Bradstock.
+
+"Tut, tut!" said the bishop, "how foolish of me.  Stay, I have it.  Put
+something in the _Times_ which requires an answer."
+
+"I will," said Bradstock.
+
+"And send for young Bob to watch," said the bishop.  "It is time that
+this scandal was stopped. I am exceedingly grieved with Penelope for
+getting married in a registrar's office.  I will offer to marry her all
+over again in this very cathedral.  And now you shall come and have
+lunch, and I will show you the swords given me by the marquis."
+
+After lunch and an inspection of the trophies in the dining-room,
+Bradstock and the bishop drafted an advertisement for the _Times_,
+imploring Pen to telegraph to Bradstock, saying how she was, as there
+was a rumour afloat that she didn't feel well. This was sent by wire to
+town, and was accompanied in its flight by one to Bob, asking him to
+come up in a motor-car at once.
+
+"I think," said the bishop, "that I should like to go in a motor-car.
+There must be something delightful in speeding through the country
+feeling that steel and petrol do not suffer any of the strain that comes
+on horses.  I shall ask young Bob to take me out."
+
+"He will be delighted," said Bradstock.  "I'm sure he will be delighted.
+They say he is an enterprising driver for his youth."
+
+"I love enterprise," murmured the bishop.  "I am surprised now to think
+of my own.  I entered the Church meaning to be a bishop, and I am a
+bishop.  I love enterprise.  All curates seem full of it.  Deans, I
+regret to say, are seldom vigorously enterprising.  Archdeacons, too,
+have a tendency to take things easily, too easily."
+
+"What do you think of the Higher Criticism?" asked Bradstock.
+
+"Ha!" said the bishop, "ha!  I think--oh, I think a great deal of it.
+That is, I think of it a great deal.  I do not think all enterprise is
+praiseworthy.  Would you like to know the dean?"
+
+They spent the afternoon in the dean's cathedral, and walked on the
+dean's grass, and about six o'clock Bob rolled into the cathedral close
+in a fifteen-horse-power Daimler, and drew up in front of the bishop's
+palace.
+
+"Have you found her out?" he demanded, eagerly, of Bradstock.
+
+"No, but you shall," said Bradstock.
+
+
+
+
+                             *CHAPTER XX.*
+
+
+The bishop was very kind and amiable to Bob. Some people say that
+bishops are always kind and good to people who will be dukes by and by.
+One never knows what a duke can do for one later, and, of course, a
+bishop wants to be an archbishop.  That is only natural: even a cardinal
+wants to be Pope, although he almost always says he is sorry he became
+one when he finds himself at the end of his tether.  The bishop was a
+human being, but a nice one, and he really liked Bob, who suggested
+youth and strength and the future, all of them agreeable things to those
+who are not young and see their future behind them.  So he talked to Bob
+almost as if he was one of the Bench of Bishops.  He was familiar and
+jovial, and told some good stories of other bishops and even one of an
+archbishop.  And he suggested to Bob that he rather wanted to see what a
+motor-car was like.
+
+"There is a prejudice against them here," said the bishop.  "Perhaps a
+natural prejudice among those who own chickens and dogs and children.
+But Providence works in a mysterious way, and I should be the last to
+hasten to blame even the gentleman known as a road hog.  I begin to
+perceive an unwonted sprightliness in the villagers as the elimination
+of the unfit, the rheumatic, the undecided, and the foolish proceeds
+apace.  A young man, who told me that he had in the course of his career
+as an owner of cars killed nearly a thousand dogs, two thousand five
+hundred fowls, several aged persons, some idiots, and a policeman, said
+that he noticed nowadays an air of bright alertness in his immediate
+neighbourhood which was at once a pleasure and an encouragement.  He
+asserted that the dogs who remained were of a higher type of intellect
+than the others; and he said that even the fowls now stood sideways in
+the road and used their natural advantage of looking both ways at once.
+There was, too, a great improvement in village children and even in
+policemen.  Oh, yes, I think much may be said for the motor-car."
+
+"I should very much like to take you out in one, my lord," said Bob.
+
+The bishop smiled graciously.
+
+"You shall, my boy, as soon as this matter of Penelope is settled.  I
+shall greatly enjoy passing rapidly through the country.  I think of
+buying one for purposes of my pastoral visitations.  Perhaps I may wake
+up some of my more somnolent clergy. I may even raise their general
+intellectual average, which is low, really low."
+
+Bob's chauffeur put up at the Angel, but Bob himself had a bed in the
+palace, and dined in state with the bishop and Bradstock.  They
+discussed Penelope all dinner-time, even before Ridley, for, as the
+bishop explained, Ridley took no interest in anything whatever but wine.
+
+"I believe," said the bishop, with a chuckle, "that I might venture in
+his presence to advocate the disestablishment of the Church, or to give
+vent to heretical or even atheistical sentiments without his being aware
+that I was doing anything surprising, improper, or unusual.  By all
+means, let us talk before Ridley.  How do you think Bob should proceed,
+Bradstock?"
+
+"He must stay in his car near, but not too near, the post-office," said
+Bradstock.  "If Bob is properly goggled, this George Smith, whom we
+suppose to bring Pen's letters and telegrams, will not notice him.
+Shall you know him, Bob?"
+
+"Rather," said Bob.  "He walks very queerly. I could tell him a mile
+off."
+
+"Very well, then," Bradstock continued, "when he goes, you will follow
+him at a distance.  He must not be lost sight of."
+
+"I much underrate our young friend's enterprise if he loses him," said
+the bishop.  "There are occasions when exceeding the legal limit becomes
+a duty, Bob."
+
+"Rather," said Bob.  "Oh, I'll do it."
+
+They calculated that the _Times_ would reach Pen about noon, as they
+believed she must be within twenty miles of Spilsborough.  Bob
+accordingly arranged to take up his watch at the post-office before one
+o'clock.
+
+"And perhaps to-morrow night the mystery will be solved," said the
+bishop.  "It is really remarkable.  I am not at all able to follow
+Penelope's mind."
+
+Bob explained it to him.
+
+"They ragged her," he said,--by "they" meaning Titania and others,--"and
+she loves peace and hates showing off, and she's as obstinate as a pig.
+And grandmother said she was to be married in Westminster Abbey by a
+bishop, and that put her back up.  Oh, Pen's easy to understand, I
+think."
+
+"You have no idea whom she has really married?" asked the bishop.
+
+"Not much," said Bob.  "I give it up.  I've thought it was all of 'em,
+and every one has done or said something that could be taken both ways.
+I was sure it was Goby, and then I was certain it was Bramber, and then
+I fairly knew it was Rivaulx, and I could have sworn it was Plant.  And
+I'm very much worried by what occurred at Oxford. This new Bunting was
+very surprising."
+
+The bishop had not heard of the new Bunting, and listened to Bob's story
+with great interest.
+
+"The world is a very surprising place," said the bishop, with emphasis;
+"a very surprising place indeed.  We do not need to go to Africa for new
+things.  We are surrounded by the unexpected, by the marvellous.  Bob's
+delightful story makes me feel that no one can reckon with certainty
+upon anything.  I am half-inclined to think that this new Bunting must
+be a relation of the other Bunting, and that Penelope has met him, been
+struck with him, and has married him and lives in temporary retirement,
+while her husband struggles with Thucydides under a sofa.  But after
+to-morrow we shall know more."
+
+"I hope so," said Bradstock.
+
+"I feel sure of it," said the bishop.
+
+And Bob went to bed.
+
+"Do you know, Bradstock," said the bishop, as he stroked his leg, which
+was a very reasonable leg for a bishop, "I wonder you didn't think I had
+married Penelope."
+
+"Good heavens!" said Bradstock, "have you?"
+
+"Certainly not," replied the bishop, "but it is odd she should be near
+Spilsborough, isn't it?"
+
+"She must be somewhere," said Bradstock, rather irritably.  "Hang it!
+the girl must be somewhere."
+
+"When you think of it, she must," said the bishop.  "Yes, yes, you are
+right.  Still, Spilsborough--yes, it's odd, but not remarkable.  As you
+say, she must be somewhere.  I hope it's not the Jew, Bradstock."
+
+So did Bradstock.
+
+"It looks very much as if she was ashamed of him.  But I'm incapable of
+judging, not having been married," said the bishop.
+
+"I've been married twice," said Bradstock, "and Pen is a woman, which
+means she resembles no other woman in any respect whatever as regards
+her ways, manners, customs, and thoughts."
+
+"You say that coolly?" asked the bishop.
+
+"Icily," replied Bradstock.
+
+The bishop shook his head.
+
+"You surprise me," said the bishop, "and I think I will go to bed."
+
+Bradstock went to bed, too.
+
+"I shouldn't be surprised if she had married the bishop and was under
+this roof now," said Bradstock.  "Nothing would surprise me unless I
+discover she's married to Rivaulx or Bramber.  I don't think I should
+mind either of 'em."
+
+And next day at half-past twelve Bob and his chauffeur took up a
+position near the post-office.  As Geordie Smith knew Bradstock, he kept
+quietly at the palace.  But the interested bishop who had not married
+Penelope kept bustling about the neighbourhood in quite an excitement.
+
+"I wish I was coming with you, Bob."
+
+"Oh, do!" said Bob.
+
+"I almost think it would be advisable," said the bishop.  "What I said
+would have weight with Penelope, I believe."
+
+"I rather wish you'd come," cried Bob.  "It would be fun, and you said
+you'd like to go in a motor-car."
+
+"So I did," said the bishop, "but I've never been in one.  No one has
+seen me in one.  I fear a crowd would assemble."
+
+"At any rate, my lord, you might get in and sit down a minute."
+
+The bishop looked around.
+
+"I really think I will," he said.  And he entered the car.
+
+"This is really comfortable, Bob, very comfortable, quite like an
+armchair.  Is your driver a good one?"
+
+"A ripper," said Bob.  "The best they have where I got the car.  It's
+not mine, but when I get all the money that Gordon owes me, I'll buy
+one."
+
+The chauffeur got down and did something inexplicable to the machinery
+with a spanner.  And the spanner broke.
+
+"I'll just run across and get a new one, sir," said the chauffeur.
+
+"It's getting late," said Bob.  "Don't be long, and before you go start
+her up."
+
+The driver set her going, and the bishop caught hold of Bob.
+
+"You're not off?  This is very surprising.  It makes a very curious
+noise."
+
+"There won't be any to speak of when we get her moving," said Bob.  "You
+see the engine is going, and when we like we can start at once."
+
+He was happy, bright, and eager.
+
+"There's a motor-car coming," whispered the bishop.
+
+Bob jumped.
+
+"I say, it's yellow like Pen's big new one," he said.  And the car
+stopped in front of the post-office ten yards away.  Bob grabbed the
+bishop's arm.
+
+"That's Geordie Smith," he said.  "That's Geordie getting out.  I could
+tell his legs a mile off.  Where's my man?"
+
+But the man didn't come, and Geordie was back in his car.  He went off
+sweetly.
+
+"The north road," said Bob.  "I'm sure he'll take it.  He's going quick.
+We can't wait for my man."
+
+He grabbed the steering-wheel, shifted the lever, and the car moved off
+on the first speed.
+
+"I'll--I'll go a little way with you," said the bishop.
+
+"You'll have to unless you jump," replied Bob. "I'll keep in sight if I
+die for it."
+
+This encouraged the bishop very much, of course, and it is possible that
+he might have jumped if he had not caught sight of the dean and a minor
+canon, who were staring hard at him with their mouths as wide open as
+the grotesque muzzle of a Gothic gargoyle.
+
+"I'll not jump," said the bishop, and he waved his hand to Mr. Dean.
+"No, I'll not jump before the dean if I die for it."
+
+Before he knew it, they were out on the road, and the dust of the yellow
+car in front was like the pillar of smoke to the Hebrews in the desert.
+Bob let her out to the second speed, and the bishop gasped.
+
+"We go very quick," he said.
+
+"Oh, not at all," replied Bob.  "I don't want to go fast.  If Geordie
+thinks he's being followed, he'll go sixty miles an hour, and I don't
+think I can do more than forty-five in this."
+
+"Can't you?" asked the bishop.  "I'm almost glad you can't."
+
+"Is this the great north road?" asked Bob.
+
+"No," said the bishop, "it's the road to Crowland and Spalding.  I've
+often driven on it, but never so fast as this."
+
+Geordie's car drew ahead, and Bob put his car on the third speed.
+
+"Bob!" cried the bishop, as he clutched the sides of his seat.  "Bob!"
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"Isn't this an illegal speed?"
+
+"Rather," said Bob.
+
+"I cannot aid and abet you in going at it, then," said the bishop, as
+firmly as he could.  "I must request you to be legal."
+
+Bob kept his eyes ahead.
+
+"Please don't talk," he roared, "or I shall have an accident.  You must
+remember I'm not at all experienced."
+
+What could the poor bishop do?  He groaned and sat very tight indeed,
+and, seeing the landscape eaten up by this monster at the rate of thirty
+miles an hour, came to the conclusion that there was nothing stable in
+the universe, not even theology.  And about a mile ahead of them rose a
+pillar of dust.
+
+"This is a remarkable situation," thought the bishop; "a situation which
+requires some firmness of mind.  I am a bishop, and I am no better than
+half my clergy who break the law regularly.  This must be nearly a
+hundred miles an hour!  I wish, I almost wish Penelope had died soon
+after I christened her.  This Bob is an infernal young ruffian; his
+manner is not respectful.  I should like to cane him.  But how can I
+stop him?  I do not understand these strange brass things.  I could as
+soon play the big organ in the cathedral that I wish I was in.  If I
+pull Bob he will have an accident.  If I speak to him, I may divert his
+attention--oh!"
+
+They executed a fowl which had not learnt to stand sideways, and slammed
+through a village, scattering several ancient inhabitants who were
+enjoying a gossip in the middle of the road.  As a matter of fact, they
+were damning Geordie Smith in heaps when the pursuing Bob fell upon
+them. They passed a church, and the bishop saw a clergyman staring over
+the wall.  The village fell into the category of things which had been
+and slid away behind them.
+
+"We are stopping still and the world slides," said the bishop, "but that
+was Griggs, I know, and he knew me.  He has eyes like a hawk's.  I am
+much surprised at myself.  I have seventeen engagements this afternoon.
+Ridley will be alarmed. The dean--oh!"
+
+They slammed a barking dog into the middle of the week after next.
+
+"That was a near shave," roared Bob, exulting. "I've seen a smaller dog
+than that capsize a bigger car than this!"
+
+"May I speak now?" implored the bishop.
+
+"Righto," said Bob.  "Here's a good straight bit.  What is it?"
+
+He was the superior: he was a big bird and the bishop was a beetle.  He
+was the head master; his lordship of the see of Spilsborough was a new
+boy. The bishop felt small, terrified, amazed, humiliated.
+
+"Are we going a hundred miles an hour?" asked the bishop.
+
+"Rot!" said Bob, "we're only doing about thirty."
+
+They scorched through quiet Crowland.
+
+"Please put me down," implored the humble bishop.
+
+"I can't stop," said Bob.  "I'm afraid he's getting ahead.  Sit tight,
+bishop, I'm going faster now."
+
+"You mustn't, you can't," said the bishop.
+
+Bob stooped for an answer and turned on the fourth speed.  The bishop
+felt the machine sailing underneath him.  He fell back and lost all
+ordinary consciousness.
+
+"It is true," said his mind deep inside him; "it is true that all things
+are illusion!  I have sometimes suspected it.  We are a mode of motion;
+we are affections of the ether.  I believe Professor Osborne Reynolds is
+right.  I am a kind of vortex spinning in piled grains of ether.  Bob is
+a vortex. We are in a vortex.  We are straws in ether; we are shadows.
+I have a real non-existent pain in my real imaginary non-existent
+stomach.  I am not alive and I am not dead.  I am brave; I am a coward;
+I am a bishop.  This is very wonderful. I shall preach about it when I
+return to earth.  Is that a hedge?  Did I see a cow?--a strange,
+elongated, horned, lowing, permanent, impermanent possibility of
+sensation and milk in a field made of matter, which is energy, which is
+an illusion. I become calm; motion is relative.  I almost enjoy it.  I
+become a Hegelian.  I see that being equals non-being; that pain becomes
+pleasure if you only have enough of it.  I no longer pity those who
+suffer sufficiently.  There is apparently too little pain in the
+universe.  Torquemada did his best to remedy it.  Oh, was that a dog?  I
+quite enjoy myself.  I wonder if he can go faster.  If he can, I wish he
+would.  We are going slow, too slow!"
+
+And, as Geordie's dust showed up much nearer, Bob put his car again at
+the third speed, and the bishop gasped.
+
+"How do you like it?" asked Bob, as they spun through Spalding.
+
+The bishop's face was a fine glowing crimson; his bloodshot eyes
+glittered like opals; he was intoxicated with movement and with new
+lights on philosophy.
+
+"I--I should like to go a thousand miles an hour at night," said the
+bishop.  "I think it is wonderful, Bob.  Are you Bob, and I a bishop?
+Where is Spilsborough?  Is there a Spilsborough?"
+
+"Steady on!" said Bob.  "I say, you're excited!"
+
+"I am," replied the bishop.  "I am excited; I feel peculiar.  I think I
+can originate a new philosophy.  Why are we doing this?"
+
+"We are trying to find out where Penelope is," said Bob.
+
+"Penelope, Penelope," said the bishop.  "Penelope is a vortex.  Yes, she
+is a vortex.  Men and women are vortices.  I shall study mathematics and
+apply it to theology."
+
+"Hello!" said Bob, and he stopped almost dead. For Geordie's dust had
+suddenly died down.
+
+"I'll bet he has a puncture," said Bob.  And the bishop sighed and
+stared about him, as if he were just awakened.
+
+"Where are we?" he asked.
+
+"Blessed if I know," said Bob.  "But you ought to know."
+
+"I don't," said the bishop.  And he got out and stood on the dusty road.
+He reeled, and the dean would have said he was intoxicated.  And so he
+was.
+
+"Geordie's off again," said Bob.  "Come, jump in."
+
+"I won't," said the bishop.  "Certainly I won't. That machine is a kind
+of devil.  It undermines the strongest convictions.  I am afraid of it.
+I shall have to resign my bishopric if I ride another mile."
+
+"Oh, rot!" said Bob.  "Aren't you coming? I can't wait."
+
+"Take the devilish thing away," cried the bishop. "Anathema maranatha
+and all the rest of it!"
+
+Without another word, Bob pulled the lever and sailed off up the road,
+leaving a trail of petrol vapour behind him.
+
+"Mentally and physically, I don't know where I am," said the bishop.  "I
+don't know who I am, either.  From my clothes I conclude I am a bishop,
+but to come to that conclusion I have to assume that I have the right to
+wear them.  I have had a remarkable experience.  Yes, I am a bishop.
+This is the earth and very dusty.  It is hot, and I am miles from
+anywhere."
+
+He looked up the road and saw a far cloud of dust.
+
+"Under that dust is Bob," said the bishop.  "As I said, Penelope is a
+vortex.  Everything is much more remarkable than I thought, much more
+remarkable.  I shall write to the professor to discover what he means.
+It is dreadful that what may be called a mere physical experience should
+incline me to look on some of my fellow bishops and the higher criticism
+with a more lenient eye.  I don't see how any dogma can survive a
+hundred miles an hour.  But Bob has not treated me altogether well.  He
+plumps me down somewhere between Spalding and Spilsby or Boston or some
+other dreadful locality under the ghostly influence of my brother of
+Lincoln, and disappears in dust and smell.  He was distinctly
+disrespectful.  He said, 'Sit down, bishop,' in a very authoritative
+manner. He told me I was excited.  I own I was, but I resented being
+told so by a boy, because he was a boy, or was it because I am a bishop?
+An unaccustomed bishop in a motor-car is plainly nobody compared with an
+experienced boy in one.  I wish Penelope was a sensible person, or that
+I had never known her, or that she hadn't been born!  I wonder what I am
+to do.  I must walk; I may be overtaken by a cart and get a ride in one.
+I anticipate much talk in Spilsborough about this.  I wonder what Ridley
+will say.  Ridley is a stoic; perhaps he will say nothing.  I wish I was
+near Ridley; I am thirsty.  This road is dusty.  It also appears long
+and interminable.  I am as dry as convocation.  I much resent Bob's
+treatment of me.  I wish Bradstock was here, and I was where Bradstock
+is. Bradstock is in my library, in my chair, with a book in his hand and
+a whiskey and soda by his side. He takes things with great calmness.  I
+wish he was here to take this with calmness."
+
+And he walked south for three hours and got back to Spalding, and there
+took a train for Spilsborough.
+
+
+
+
+                             *CHAPTER XXI.*
+
+
+"I don't think I quite understand the bishop," said Bob, as he left the
+dignitary of the Church stranded long miles from anywhere.  "He looked
+very queer.  But I suppose they're made bishops because they are queer,
+unless it's on account of their legs.  I can understand the gaiters, but
+the apron licks me.  I'll ask him about it some day. But I wonder where
+we are, and how much longer Geordie will go on.  It's luck I've had no
+puncture and no breakdown.  I thought it was all up when I sent that dog
+over the hedge.  He did fly. I wonder whether any bobbies have spotted
+my number.  I don't care.  Gordon owes me a lot of money by now.  What's
+thirty-two times two thousand odd?  Oh, I can't remember.  I'm getting
+rather tired."
+
+But he stuck to Geordie like a burr to a sheep, and between the two of
+them they stirred up more ancient peace and the haunts of it than any
+other two cars in the United Kingdom.  They fairly bounded through
+sleepy old Boston, and a policeman, waked up from sleep by Geordie, was
+wide-awake enough by the time Bob came through to call on him to stop.
+
+"I wouldn't stop for an army of policemen," said Bob, recklessly.  "I
+don't care.  I'll catch Geordie if I die for it.  Gordon will pay my
+fines. I wonder how the bishop is.  This is the Spilsby road, is it?  I
+wonder whether Pen's at Spilsby? Will she be very cross with me?  Oh,
+that was a hen!  I _do_ think hens shouldn't be allowed in a road."
+
+A dog stood in the middle of the way and barked. In the middle of his
+second bark, the front wheel caught him.  He ended his bark in the
+ditch, and was very dreamy about the whole affair for some time
+afterward.
+
+"That was a dog," said Bob.  "I _do_ think dogs shouldn't be allowed in
+a road."
+
+He missed a horse by a hairbreadth a mile farther on, and felt very
+cross.  He said horses shouldn't be allowed in a road.  He said the same
+of carts and of a carriage, of children and agricultural labourers.
+They were so slow.  For now Geordie was going pretty fast, and Bob had
+to go on the fourth speed, which is highly illegal and wicked and very
+dangerous.  He had never enjoyed himself so much before, and he was
+undoubtedly the happiest boy in the three kingdoms.
+
+"Geordie doesn't know I'm after him," he said. "I'll bet he's riding
+along easy.  That car of Pen's can go like lightning if he lets her out.
+He will be mad when I come up."
+
+And suddenly he perceived down a long, white road that Geordie was going
+more slowly.
+
+"This must be Spilsby," said Bob.  He saw Geordie's dust go off at a
+right angle toward the right.
+
+"I've done it," said the exultant boy.  "We must be near Pen's now."
+
+For to turn to the right in the neighbourhood of Spilsby means to go
+toward the North Sea.
+
+Bob ran into Spilsby quite meekly on the second speed, and turned after
+Geordie.  A mile farther on, Bob saw a house in some trees, and all of a
+sudden there was no more dust from Geordie's car. Bob pulled up in the
+middle of the road.
+
+"By Jove, I've done it, I know," said Bob, "and now I feel a bit
+nervous.  I wonder what Pen will say, and whether her husband is there,
+and what the kid's like.  Well, here's for it!  She can't do more than
+eat me."
+
+And he drove on till he came to the house, which was an ivy-covered
+building like a square barrack, and would have been hideous without its
+creepers. There was a moat around it and big elms hid it from a
+distance.  The gate was open, and by the front door stood Geordie and
+his car.  Bob gave a view-halloo, and, twisting through the gate, came
+to a standstill alongside Pen's big yellow racer.
+
+And Penelope herself came to the door, and saw not only Geordie, whom
+she recognized simply by the fact that he was in a car she knew, but an
+undistinguishable stranger also.
+
+"Oh!" said Bob.
+
+"Eh?" said Geordie.
+
+"Who--" said Penelope.
+
+And Bob staggered out of his machine, and fairly reeled when he stood
+upright.  He had no notion that no one, not even Titania, could have
+recognized him.  He forgot his goggles, and he forgot he was so dusty
+that one might have planted cabbages on his cheeks.  He did not know
+that he weighed several pounds more than usual, owing to the amount of
+Lincolnshire that he carried on him. He had no idea that he was awful,
+hideous, a goggled, dirty portent.  He smiled, and the dirt cracked upon
+him, and Penelope shrank back.
+
+"Oh, I say, Pen, are you mad with me?" he asked.
+
+And Penelope shrieked and ran to him, and, falling upon him, embraced
+him with horrible results to her clothes.
+
+"Oh, Bob, Bob, is it you?" she cried.
+
+"It's me, right enough," said Bob.  "I say, can I have a drink?  I'm
+dying!  Am I dusty?  Yes, so I am.  Oh, Pen, it's come off on you!  I
+say, I do want a drink.  It's such a warm day, and Geordie would go so
+fast.  I followed Geordie."
+
+Geordie looked horribly disgusted, but neither Pen nor Bob paid the
+least attention to him.
+
+"Followed up by a boy," groaned Geordie, "and in that thing!"
+
+He regarded the mean fifteen-horse-power concern with great contempt.
+"Well, I'm blessed!"
+
+"Oh, come in, Bob, dear Bob," said Pen.
+
+"Are you glad to see me?"
+
+"Oh, I've been dying to see you."
+
+"Upon your honour?" asked Bob.
+
+"Yes, yes," said Penelope.  "I want to ask you so much, and I've got so
+much to say.  But tell me, tell me quick.  Does any one else know where
+I am?"
+
+Bob shook dust out of his head.
+
+"Not a soul, unless it's the bishop," he replied.
+
+"What bishop?"
+
+"The Bishop of Spilsborough," replied Bob.  "I left him on the road."
+
+"Oh!" gasped Pen, "is he following you?"
+
+"Not much," said Bob.  "He got scared and got out and wouldn't get in
+again, and he talked such rot I thought he was mad, for a bishop, so I
+left him, and suppose he's walking home again."
+
+Pen almost shook him.
+
+"But what was he doing with you?"
+
+"He wanted to come part of the way in my car, so I let him, and he was
+awfully funky.  I don't think much of bishops if they're all like him,
+though he did stop Plant and Rivaulx fighting with swords in the
+cathedral."
+
+"Fighting? with swords?  Oh, what--" said Penelope.
+
+"To be sure, I forgot you very likely didn't know.  I'll tell you by and
+by.  Bradstock's at Spilsborough.  Where's my drink, Pen?  I say, did
+you hear of Mr. Bunting at Oxford?  That was fun.  He threw De Vere out
+of the window, and knocked Carteret Williams down with Liddell and
+Scott."
+
+"What Mr. Bunting?"
+
+"They thought he was Timothy Bunting, but he wasn't.  I had tea with him
+afterward.  I'll tell you by and by.  Do you know grandmother had fits
+about it all?"
+
+Penelope knew nothing, or very little, and as the results of her fatal
+conduct were thus revealed to her in dreadful incomplete chunks, her
+heart almost failed her and she half-forgot her own terrible troubles.
+
+"Am I mad, or is Bob?" she asked.  "Oh, the bishop and Guardy and duels
+and fits and Mr. Bunting and windows and Liddell and Bob having tea!"
+
+She ran for a drink herself, and poured it over Bob in her eagerness for
+more news.
+
+"I say, Pen, be careful!  That went down my neck," said Bob, "and
+outside it, too.  I say, who've you married?  Tell me.  Where's the kid?
+May I see it?  I say, Pen, you look splendid, but sad somehow and rather
+worried.  I feel better now.  I don't mind what went down outside.  I'll
+have a bath soon.  Where's the kid?  They _do_ talk a lot about it in
+town.  They say, some of 'em, that you've married the Rajah of Jugpore,
+the little beast, and that the baby is black, or partly black.  Is it?
+I know it isn't."
+
+"Oh, oh!" said Pen, "how horrible of them!"
+
+She rushed at the bell, and when the servant came she commanded the
+instant appearance of the baby and the nurse.
+
+"You know they said you married Timothy Bunting," said Bob.
+
+Penelope flushed crimson.
+
+"It was wicked of them."
+
+"That beast Weekes told granny you had.  She said she knew it.  That's
+how I had tea with Mr. Bunting at Oxford, after he'd chucked Plant and
+Gordon down-stairs.  They were sick.  Oh, oh! is this the kid?"
+
+Pen took the precious infant in her arms, and told the nurse she might
+go and have tea.  When she had disappeared, Pen burst into tears.
+
+"He's--he's all I've got," she said, sobbing.
+
+Bob started.
+
+"I say, what do you mean?  You don't mean you aren't married at all?"
+
+"No, no," said Penelope.  "I mean--oh, it's terrible!  Oh, baby, I love
+you!"
+
+She kissed the baby, who was certainly a very fine baby, and wept again.
+Bob inspected the boy with great interest.
+
+"I say, I rather think it's like Plant," he said.
+
+Pen gasped.
+
+"But in this light, it's rather like Gordon."
+
+"Oh!" said Penelope.
+
+"And its forehead is like De Vere's a little. I say, won't you tell me
+who you've married?"
+
+Penelope hugged the baby and howled.
+
+"I can't, I can't.  We've q-quarrelled," she said, "and he's furious,
+and I'm f-furious with him."
+
+"Why?" asked Bob, still inspecting the baby for signs of his male
+parentage, "why?  Oh, I say, sideways he reminds me of Williams and
+Rivaulx, and upside down he's a little like Carew and Goby. But why have
+you quarrelled, Pen?"
+
+Pen explained with tears how it had happened.
+
+"You see, I said he wasn't to tell," she said. "And he went to your
+grandmother and told!"
+
+"So did all the rest," said Bob, "and that was where granny got very
+confused.  I listened.  I know it was a sneak thing to do, but I was
+thinking of your interests, and she said to the last of 'em: 'I know
+you've come to say you've married dear Penelope.'  It was very pathetic,
+Pen.  I never thought granny could be pathetic before.  She usually
+makes me pathetic instead, or she used to. But was he one of 'em?"
+
+"He was," sniffed Pen, "and he broke his solemn oath.  The others were
+noble.  I sent them telegrams to say they were noble."
+
+"That's why they all went to Spilsborough, where you sent the telegrams
+from," said Bob, "and that's why Plant and Rivaulx fought with swords
+under the cathedral, till the bishop and the dean stopped them.  I tell
+you the dean _was_ mad."
+
+"Oh, dear, dear!" said Penelope.  "I wish they wouldn't.  Did they hurt
+each other?"
+
+"Not much, I think," replied Bob.  "I didn't see any blood.  But when I
+told 'em you'd married Timothy Bunting, Rivaulx lay on the grass and
+tried to bite it and howled dreadfully."
+
+"Poor marquis!" said Pen.  "But why did you tell them so dreadful a
+story?"
+
+Bob shook his head.
+
+"I'm sorry, Pen, but I believed it.  Weekes said she _knew_, and granny
+had fits.  There's something about fits that makes you believe almost
+anything. But you haven't told me who it is.  I say, with the light
+sideways on that baby, he reminds me of Bramber.  But who is it?"
+
+"We've p-parted," said Penelope.  "He came and said he'd told, and I was
+very f-furious, and we had a r-row.  And he was so cross and mad,
+because without me he couldn't prove it.  For we were married in other
+names, and I wrote my name in another handwriting, and I said I would
+deny it.  And he flew into a passion and into a motor-car and went away.
+And I've only my p-pride and b-baby left.  And I'm so sorry for every
+one.  And how did you find me?"
+
+Bob told her how he had done it, and told her of Bradstock's
+advertisement, and told her about the bishop, and more about Mr. Bunting
+of All Saints, Oxford, who was the strongest man he had ever seen.
+Carteret Williams was nothing in his hands.
+
+"And now I've told you everything, won't you tell me who it is?"
+
+"No," said poor Penelope; "it would humiliate me to tell now, and I
+won't."
+
+"But they must know here," said Bob.
+
+"Only three," replied Penelope.  "Miss Mackarness and Geordie Smith and
+Timothy.  And Timothy was so unhappy when he heard he had married me
+that I sent him away to Upwell, where there are more horses.  But he's
+back now.  And Miss Mackarness and Geordie Smith have sworn not to tell.
+And I expect you not to ask them."
+
+Bob snorted a little at this.
+
+"Oh, all right, but I shall have to say where you are when I go back to
+Spilsborough."
+
+"Oh, you won't," said Pen.
+
+"I must," said Bob.  "Bradstock is terribly worried about it now, and
+thinks you've treated him badly, and the bishop is very curious, and he
+asks questions in a way that it's difficult not to answer somehow.  And
+besides there's granny and all the rest.  I say, do you know Gordon has
+been speculating for me, and has made seventy thousand pounds for me?"
+
+"You don't say so?" cried Pen.
+
+"I think it must be Gordon," said Bob.  "When the shadow's on that kid,
+he looks rather like Gordon, if you can think of Gordon as a baby, which
+is hard.  But when I'm a duke, I shall rebuild Goring and pay off some
+of the mortgages.  Whoever you've married, I'm very grateful to you,
+Pen, about Gordon and De Vere.  De Vere bought the spotted dog I told
+you of.  I found Goby weeping with Ethel.  That made me think it wasn't
+him. But now you say you've quarrelled with him, I'm not sure again.  I
+say, I'm very sleepy.  May I stay to-night?"
+
+"Of course," said Penelope.  And then a brilliant idea struck her.
+
+"Bob, you do love me, don't you?"
+
+"What rot! of course," said Bob.
+
+"Then stay here altogether for a time," said Pen.
+
+"By Jove, what fun!" cried Bob.  "I'll send 'em a wire, and I will.  Can
+Geordie go somewhere else but Spilsborough and send one?"
+
+"Certainly," said Penelope.  And it was arranged that Geordie should go
+to Lincoln to send it from there.  This is the telegram Bob sent to Lord
+Bradstock:
+
+"I have found Penelope.  She won't say who it is because she has
+quarrelled with him, and she won't let me come back yet.  I will take
+care of her. Tell grandmother and Guthrie.  She quarrelled with him
+because he said he was married to her. But the baby is not black."
+
+And Bradstock swore.  The bishop was too tired to swear, perhaps, but he
+was very cross.  So were all the others, including her husband.
+
+
+
+
+                            *CHAPTER XXII.*
+
+
+They had relied greatly upon Bob.  The bishop, though rather bitter on
+the subject of Bob, tried to be fair to him, and said he was a very
+promising boy.
+
+"I think it most remarkable," said his lordship, when his fine but tired
+legs were beneath the mahogany once more, "that he should be able to
+drive these dreadful machines with such skill.  He missed a great many
+things that he might have hit, but, as he said, he 'boosted' one dog
+over a hedge in a most skilful way.  He said 'boosted,' a very peculiar
+word.  I must write to Doctor Murray about it.  But I do not think he
+has been brought up with care.  He was not altogether respectful to me,
+Bradstock."
+
+"I much regret it," said Bradstock, "but what can you expect at Goring?
+On the whole, his manners are not so bad.  Perhaps you annoyed him. He
+does not like being annoyed."
+
+"Indeed," said the bishop, "indeed!  Well, I may have worried him in a
+way that I do not quite understand.  But I have to own that for a boy to
+put his hand on my shoulder and say, 'Sit down, bishop,' in a most
+authoritative way, made me a little cross.  And when I refused to enter
+the motorcar again, I think he might have given me more time to reflect
+on the fact that I was a very long way from anywhere.  He was very short
+and peremptory with me.  It was most curious, and I regret I did not go
+on with him, for I am extremely anxious to put an end to this scandal.
+One never knows what will happen.  The duel in the moonlight under the
+cathedral was most remarkable.  I wonder when Bob will return."
+
+"So do I," said Bradstock, drily.
+
+"Why do you say so in that tone?" asked the bishop.
+
+"Because I doubt whether he will return at all if he finds Penelope,"
+replied Bradstock.
+
+"Good heavens!" cried the bishop, "but he went for the very purpose of
+discovering her."
+
+"You don't know Pen," said Bradstock, "and he worships her.  If she
+doesn't want to be discovered, she will keep him.  I am certain of it."
+
+This showed that Bradstock, though a silent peer, was a very sensible
+one.  The bishop frowned and smote the table.
+
+"I shall be extremely angry with Bob if you turn out to be right," he
+said, firmly.  "I shall be extremely angry with him."
+
+"Much he will care about that," said Bradstock. "You ought to have gone
+on with him."
+
+"I believe I ought to have done so.  Yes, you are right, Bradstock; it
+was an error of judgment. I was a coward.  I was afraid to die.  I did
+not like the idea of being 'boosted' over a hedge.  I am ashamed of
+myself."
+
+"Never mind," said Bradstock, consolingly, "I have seen heroes quail in
+a motor-car.  I myself have quailed in one."
+
+The bishop shook his head.
+
+"Nevertheless, I blame myself.  I ought not to have been afraid, even
+though I felt peculiar and unwonted sensations in my gaiters," he
+murmured.
+
+He smote the table again.
+
+"I will make amends, Bradstock.  I will devote myself to the task of
+finding Penelope at any speed that is necessary.  I cannot quite
+reconcile myself to the notion that I am a coward.  I will find her if
+Bob deceives us."
+
+"You can't," said Bradstock, rather gloomily.
+
+"I can, I will," said the bishop.  "I will use my brains."
+
+It was a happy thought.  The bishop mused. There was a knock at the
+outer door.  It was a double, a telegraphic knock.
+
+"From the duchess?" asked the bishop.
+
+"From Bob, or I am a bishop," said the peer.
+
+And Ridley gave him a telegram.  Bradstock read it slowly, lifted his
+eyebrows, rubbed his handsome white head, and handed it to the bishop.
+
+"From Bob, bishop, a very remarkable Bobbish document."
+
+The bishop read it.
+
+"It certainly is a remarkable document, a very remarkable document,
+indeed," said his lordship. "I see it was handed in at Lincoln.  She
+won't say who it is because she has quarrelled with him. With her
+husband, that is to say.  She will not let Bob come back.  She
+quarrelled with _him_ because he said he was married to _her_.  Very
+remarkable! Somewhat confusing.  But it is a relief to hear that the
+baby is not black, Bradstock."
+
+Bradstock was pessimistic.
+
+"It may be half-black," he said, mournfully.
+
+"Which half?" asked the bishop, with alarm. "If it is, I hope it will
+not be the top half."
+
+"Absurd!" said Bradstock.  "I mean it may be dun or yellowish."
+
+"Let us trust not," replied the bishop.  "I am inclined to think Bob
+would have said it was not very black if it had been at all coloured.  I
+think we may dismiss the Jugpore legend."
+
+"I trust we may," said Bradstock.
+
+"I have an idea," said the bishop, "I have a luminous idea.  Let us go
+to the library."
+
+They adjourned to the library, and Bradstock lighted a cigar.
+
+"What is your idea?" he asked.
+
+"I will tell you in a few minutes," said the bishop, as he laid a big
+atlas upon his table. Bradstock watched him curiously.  The bishop
+opened the atlas and laid a flat ruler on it.  He shifted it once or
+twice, nodded his head, said "Ah!" and nodded it again.
+
+"I believe I have it," said the bishop.  "It will be worth trying, at
+any rate."
+
+"What is it?" asked Bradstock.
+
+"Come and look at the atlas," said the bishop, and Bradstock did as he
+was asked.
+
+The bishop put his finger-tips together and began:
+
+"Bob was following this person named Smith, and went north, did he not?
+Let us say north. I believe it is technically north by east.  He put me
+out, or, to be fair even to Bob, I got out and was asked to return very
+casually, north of Spalding in the Boston road, miles from anywhere.
+This Smith was going back to Penelope.  For while Bob and I were away,
+you got her telegram dated Spilsborough, sent to London and
+re-telegraphed to you here, saying that she was well, in reply to your
+_Times_ advertisement.  Obviously, Penelope lives somewhere north of the
+spot where Bob left me without time for argument.  Do you follow me?"
+
+"Certainly," said Bradstock.  "It is all as clear as quaternions."
+
+"Now we get this very remarkable document from Lincoln."
+
+"We do, bishop."
+
+"It is obvious she doesn't live at Lincoln.  She has sent this very fast
+Smith there to send off Bob's telegram.  Is that not so?"
+
+"Of course," said Bradstock.
+
+"Let us imagine that Lincoln is nearly as far from where she is as
+Spilsborough is."
+
+"Let us imagine it," said Bradstock.  "I am willing to imagine it."
+
+"What conclusion do you draw?" asked the bishop.
+
+Bradstock shook his head.
+
+"Really, Bradstock," said the bishop, "I am surprised at you.  If she is
+between Spalding and Lough, as I'm sure she is, an equal distance from
+her to Lincoln and from her to Spilsborough would place her about
+Boston, or perhaps farther north. Now, if on inquiry we find she is not
+near Boston, she must be near a decent road fit for motor-cars to
+Lincoln.  Do you follow me?"
+
+"I do," said Bradstock.
+
+"Then if she is not near Boston, where is she?" Bradstock studied the
+map.
+
+"I should say Burgh, or Warnfleet, or Spilsby."
+
+"Right," said the bishop.  "I am almost sure of it.  For if she had been
+farther north, she would not have chosen Spilsborough to telegraph from
+in the first instance.  What do you say to that?"
+
+"I say that I am not surprised that you are a bishop, though I may
+wonder why you are in the Church," said Bradstock.
+
+"What do you mean by that, Bradstock?" asked his lordship.
+
+"Nothing, nothing at all," replied Bradstock, hastily.  "I agree with
+you.  What shall we do?"
+
+The bishop eyed him a little doubtfully, but returned to his muttons.
+
+"I want to bowl out Bob," he said.
+
+"A bishop is a human being, after all," thought Bradstock.
+
+"He might have reasoned with me," said the bishop.  "I am quite free the
+day after to-morrow, and we will go to Boston and make inquiries.  If
+they fail, we will try Warnfleet and Spilsby and Burgh."
+
+"We will," said Bradstock.  "I think this idea of yours exceedingly
+clever, bishop."
+
+"You do?"
+
+"Certain, I do."
+
+"I forgive your recent gibe," said the bishop. "It was clearer than
+quaternions to me, and much clearer than Bob's rudeness, which I
+continue to find inexplicable.  And now I think the duchess should be
+informed of his telegram.  It will console her, I am sure, to learn that
+this fatherless infant is not black."
+
+"Not very black," insisted Bradstock.
+
+And the bishop sent a wire to Titania, saying that Bob had disappeared
+into space, but had telegraphed saying that he had found Penelope with a
+normal infant.
+
+"After all, he only said it wasn't black," sighed Bradstock.
+
+But the bishop would not listen to him.  So he went out and sent a wire
+to Titania himself.
+
+"I should like to make Bob black and blue," the bishop said.  For his
+legs still ached.
+
+
+
+
+                            *CHAPTER XXIII.*
+
+
+Next morning the bishop had an hysteric telegram from Titania.  It was
+obscure and of great length:
+
+"Do not understand anything, but have hopes. Your telegram arrived
+before Augustin's.  You say normal; he says Robert's words do not convey
+anything but negation of extreme blackness. Jugpore going back to India,
+owing to scandalous conduct at music-hall.  India Office furious.
+Secretary of State in bed.  Rumour now affirms infant not Penelope's.
+Says adopted.  Have just seen Plant and Gordon and Carteret Williams,
+and expect the others.  They say they knew it all the time.  Say they
+gave her the infant.  Am confused, but hope you and Augustin will clear
+up details and find Penelope.  Am exceedingly vexed with Robert. De Vere
+has just come, weeps, but seems pleased. Bramber wires wishes to see me,
+but father is ill at Pulborough, doctors (three) giving up hope. Goby
+just left.  Will come to Spilsborough myself to-day if doctor permits,
+owing to palpitations. Keep me informed."
+
+"Dear me!" said the bishop, "this seems quite a new development, a very
+surprising one.  But I am sorry to see, Bradstock, that you sent another
+telegram without consulting me."
+
+"I didn't want you to give her too much hope," replied Bradstock.  "You
+were so certain.  Your telegram was not logical.  What is not black is
+not necessarily white, for not-black may be green, or blue, or magenta."
+
+"You are a pessimist," said the bishop.  "However, I forgive you.  What
+surprises me is this adoption story.  I don't believe it."
+
+Bradstock was fractious.
+
+"Well, I don't know, bishop.  She always said if she had none of her own
+she would adopt one."
+
+"Nonsense!" said the bishop.
+
+"It is not nonsense," said Bradstock.
+
+"Why don't you say they are twins?" demanded the bishop.
+
+"What are twins?"
+
+"It," said the bishop.  "Really, Bradstock, don't you see you are
+unreasonable?  You will believe anything."
+
+"And this from a bishop," murmured Bradstock. "Why should I say it was
+twins?"
+
+"If she adopted one, she might adopt two," said the bishop.
+
+"That is ridiculous.  I never heard of twins being adopted," cried
+Bradstock.  "Besides, Bob says 'the baby.'"
+
+"Well, well," said the bishop, "do not let us argue passionately about a
+detail."
+
+"I do not see that twins can be called a detail," said Bradstock,
+crossly.
+
+"Very well, call them what you like," said the bishop, hastily.  "But I
+expect the duchess will be here any moment."
+
+Bradstock said he shouldn't wonder if she was.
+
+"She will insist on coming with us to-morrow," he said.
+
+The bishop started.
+
+"Bradstock, we will go to-day.  I will put off my business and go at
+once.  The duchess is a remarkable woman, but she talks too much."
+
+And such was his lordship's energy that they started by train for Boston
+in less than half an hour.
+
+"I rather enjoy this," said the bishop.  "This is an unusual event in a
+life like mine, Bradstock. I wonder whether we shall succeed, and I
+wonder what the young rascal will say when he sees me. He will be rather
+abashed, I fancy."
+
+"Do you fancy that?" asked Bradstock.  "Is imagination necessary, by the
+way, for the clerical or episcopal life?"
+
+"It is highly necessary, but rare," said the bishop.
+
+"So I should imagine," said Bradstock.
+
+"What do you mean by that?" asked the bishop, a little warmly.
+
+Bradstock said he meant nothing by it, except that he was glad it was
+necessary.  Nevertheless, the bishop looked at him sternly for some
+minutes, and he felt rather uncomfortable.
+
+"I should not be surprised if Titania was now at the palace," he said,
+to change the conversation.
+
+"Ridley and my housekeeper must deal with her," said the bishop.
+"Ridley deals with every one calmly.  Kings and curates come equally and
+easily within his powers.  Ridley may most distinctly be called an
+adequate butler.  He will offer her my best spare bedroom, or arrange
+for her sojourn at the Grand.  I do not believe an archbishop in a fit
+would throw Ridley off his balance. I rather wondered whether it would
+disturb him to see me come in with two duelling-swords under my arm upon
+that memorable occasion of the duel, but Ridley was as calm as--as an
+adequate butler. I rejoice in Ridley.  If we fail to-day, I think I will
+ask his advice.  He is a sound and solid thinker.  I hardly think I
+should have been a bishop to-day, but for Ridley.  When I was a vicar of
+St. Mary's at Ray Pogis, he came to me, then deeply engaged in smashing
+Harnack into dust, and said: 'Sir, the Prime Minister is staying at
+Pogis House.'  I knew if he was at Pogis House, he would attend New
+Pogis church.  The incumbent at New Pogis was one of those men whom it
+would require much courage to make an archdeacon of, and he was under
+great obligations to me.  I spoke to him.  He fell ill most opportunely.
+I preached a sermon which had every appearance of spontaneity, though I
+had spent months upon it, keeping it by me for some such occasion, as it
+dealt with the duties of men in high position, and three months later I
+was offered Spilsborough. But for Ridley, I might still be a vicar.
+This, I believe, Bradstock, is Boston."
+
+They left the train and began to make inquiries just about the time that
+Ridley was dealing with the duchess.  He knew all about her, all about
+the duke, all about Penelope, all about Bradstock, and all about the
+"horde."  He had read all the telegrams, those which were sent and those
+which he had picked out of the bishop's waste-paper basket.
+
+"Yes, your Grace," said Ridley, "his lordship the bishop was called away
+early with Lord Bradstock on important business.  He wrote a letter
+which his lordship has probably taken away in his pocket, and desired me
+to ask your Grace whether you would prefer to stay here or at the Grand.
+The Grand is comfortable, but this is quiet."
+
+"I will stay here," said the duchess.  "I should like to lie down at
+once."
+
+And when she was comfortable, Ridley cross-examined her maid about
+everything, and was soon on firm ground.
+
+"You may rely on his lordship," said Ridley. "With me at his back, he
+will be an archbishop yet.  No, certainly not.  The baby is not black if
+his lordship says so."
+
+"But they do say she's not married and it isn't hers," said the lady's
+maid, shaking her head. "They say now that she has adopted it."
+
+"When I hear of young ladies adopting infants in obscure parts of the
+country, I know what to think," said Ridley.
+
+"Lord, Mr. Ridley, but I can't believe it of her," urged the maid.
+
+"I am alleging nothing against her young ladyship," said Ridley.  "She
+states it is hers.  I said that if she stated that she had adopted it, I
+should know what to think.  When she states it, I will tell you what I
+think.  And in the meantime I may say that I expect every one connected
+with this unseemly business to be here shortly.  I am a man of some
+discernment.  This adoption rumour will encourage these poor gentlemen,
+who are all mad, and they will follow her Grace here, or I am a mere
+footman in a poor family and my name's not Ridley."
+
+It apparently was Ridley, for there was a very loud knock at the door.
+
+"Mr. Ridley, will you see this gentleman?" said the footman, handing the
+butler a card, on which was engraved the name of Leopold Norfolk Gordon.
+"He seems very excited.  I think he's a Jew."
+
+"A Jew!" said Ridley.
+
+"By the looks of 'im a Jew," said the footman. And her Grace's maid gave
+them a few details of Mr. Gordon's career.
+
+"Oh, yes, of course," said Ridley.  "I remember. Let him wait, Johnson.
+He can wait in the little room.  As a Christian, I confess to feeling
+bitter against Jews, especially as I once borrowed money from one."
+
+"This is a very nice one, though," said the lady's maid, "and Mr. Robert
+is quite fond of him."
+
+"I cannot stomach the idea," said Ridley.  "I thought better of the boy.
+But I suppose I must see what he wants, though I can guess."
+
+He interviewed Gordon in the little room.
+
+"I want to see his lordship the bishop," said Gordon.
+
+"His lordship the bishop is absent on important business, sir," said
+Ridley.  He added to himself, "As the butler of a Christian bishop, I
+object to calling him 'sir;' but as a butler in the habstract I must."
+
+"Where has he gone?" asked Gordon.  "Do you know?"
+
+"He has gone to look for her young ladyship, sir."
+
+"Ah!  I guessed it!  With Lord Bradstock?"
+
+"Yes, sir, with his lordship."
+
+"Which way has he gone?"
+
+"I don't think, sir, that I should be justified in mentioning which way,
+sir," said Ridley.
+
+"Oh, yes, you would," said Gordon.  He put his hand in his pocket.
+
+"I do not think so, sir.  At least, I have doubts," said Ridley, with
+modified firmness.
+
+Gordon took out a sovereign and scratched his nose with it.
+
+"Which way?"
+
+"Boston way," said Ridley.  "Thank you, sir. But I do not think you can
+find him or catch him. Could I assist you in any manner, sir?  Things
+are mixed, sir.  Have you heard the news that Mr. Robert sent?"
+
+"What news?" asked Gordon.
+
+"I 'ardly think I should be justified in repeating it, sir," said
+Ridley.
+
+"Oh, yes, you would," said Gordon, as he put his hand in his pocket.
+
+And Ridley told him all about everything. Gordon knew very little beyond
+the fact that Bob had sent a telegram to Bradstock, who had sent it to
+the duchess, who had published it on the wires that the infant was not
+black.  And of course he knew the fresh London rumour that Penelope had
+adopted it.
+
+"Her Grace the Duchess of Goring is now in the palace, sir," said
+Ridley.  "And between you and me, sir, I should not be surprised if all
+the other gentlemen came.  I suppose you heard of the duel, sir?"
+
+"What duel?" asked Gordon.
+
+"I do not think I should be justified in saying which duel, sir," said
+Ridley.
+
+"Oh, yes, you would," said Gordon, thinking that a Christian butler was
+a very expensive person to deal with.  And Ridley told him.
+
+"You'll send me word to the Grand when his lordship comes back?" said
+Gordon.
+
+"I should hardly be--"
+
+"Of course, you would be," said Gordon.
+
+"Very well, I will, sir," said Ridley.
+
+Gordon went back to the hotel, and Ridley went back to the others.
+
+"He's not at all bad for a Jew," he said, contemplatively, "not at all
+bad.  I only hope that the Christian gentlemen whom I expect every
+moment will be as reasonable."
+
+Before the evening was over, he interviewed with varying results Mr.
+Rufus Q. Plant, Mr. de Vere, Captain Goby, and Mr. Carteret Williams.
+He knew that Lord Bramber couldn't come on account of the illness of the
+earl, and he heard that Carew was down with influenza and delirious on
+the subject of Penelope.  He told the others what he thought of them
+all.
+
+"Mr. Plant is a man I should like to meet often," said Ridley.  "I have
+heard people say unpleasant things of Americans.  It may be true that
+they know little of cathedrals.  I myself have heard an American speak
+of our best Norman harches as vurry elegant Gothic.  I have known one
+voluble with hadmiration of a beastly bit of late perpendic'lar. But a
+man may know little of harchitecture and be a very worthy person for all
+that.  This Mr. Plant has ways that I've heard described as befitting a
+nobleman.  My own opinion is that very few noblemen have ideas befitting
+an American millionaire.  Dukes are often mean; earls also.  I am
+acquainted with one viscount who is viciously careful.  Mr. Plant is a
+gentleman far above the others, even above Captain Goby, who has a
+generous mind.  Mr. Williams is peculiar, but, for a poor man, not mean.
+His second cousin, Lord Carteret, when I knew him, was as fine an
+open-handed, swearing nobleman as one would wish to meet.  Mr. Austin de
+Vere is peculiar; mad, I think, about dogs especially.  Young Mr. Robert
+told me he collected bulldogs.  He said it with a wink which I did not
+understand.  I wonder where his lordship is now."
+
+His lordship the bishop and Lord Bradstock were both cross.  They had
+drawn Boston blank, and found it too late and too hot to go on to
+Spilsby and Waynfleet and Burgh.
+
+"Well," said the bishop, "we have proved a certain amount.  She isn't at
+Boston."
+
+"Nor at Windsor or Manchester or Bristol or Plymouth," said Bradstock,
+whose temper was rapidly going.
+
+"I am surprised at you," said the bishop, who felt it necessary not to
+be cross when Bradstock was.  "We have also proved that a yellow car
+comes through here very often, mostly without disastrous results.  She
+is farther north.  We will go to Spilsby to-morrow, I think."
+
+"I think I will stay at home," replied Bradstock, "or at your place, and
+I'll read theology."
+
+The bishop raised his eyebrows.
+
+"It will do you good, if you can understand it," he said, a little
+tartly.
+
+"I do not expect to understand it," said Bradstock.
+
+"Then why read it?"
+
+"Only to see if the theologians understand it," replied Bradstock.
+
+It was quite evident that events were proving too much for Bradstock.
+It was also evident that Bradstock was proving too much for the bishop.
+
+"As a layman, you had better stick to Paley," said the bishop, tartly.
+"But let us return to Spilsborough.  I own my temper is a little touchy
+to-day, Bradstock."
+
+Bradstock's heart softened.
+
+"Bishop, I apologize for touching it," he said. "Penelope is rather too
+much for me."
+
+"She is too much for all of us, I fear," said the bishop.
+
+They took the train for home, and, as they moved out of the station, a
+man in the waterproof clothing of a chauffeur came on the platform.  He
+was not wearing goggles.
+
+"Bishop," said Bradstock, "that man is Geordie Smith."
+
+"Do you think he saw us?"
+
+"How do I know?"
+
+"I didn't ask how you could know.  I only asked what your opinion was,"
+said the bishop.
+
+"My opinion is worthless," said Bradstock.
+
+"Dear me!" said the bishop, blandly.
+
+
+
+
+                            *CHAPTER XXIV.*
+
+
+England was excited, and London was more excited still.  But
+Spilsborough was the most excited of them all.  How it came out, no one
+knew, but the fact that the bishop was hunting for Lady Penelope
+Brading, who was married, who was unmarried, who had an infant which was
+black, which was white, which was adopted, was blazed all over that
+quiet episcopal town.  Dean Briggs was very much annoyed, for the
+cathedral was no longer the centre of interest in the place.  The clergy
+and the choir and the beadles and the tradesmen all discussed Lady
+Penelope.  They stood in knots and fought and wrangled and argued till
+they were metaphorically black in the face.  The lovers were pursued by
+gangs of boys who knew their names, and expected them to fight when they
+met, and followed them around in the hope of making a ring for them.
+All the world was aware that the duchess was at the palace.  As a
+result, every one called there who was on terms with the bishop.  It is
+not at all surprising that rumour ran fast, east and west and south and
+north.  It is not every day that a quiet cathedral town is the centre of
+a vast social cyclone.  Boston and Spalding had their eyes on
+Spilsborough.  Boston knew that the bishop had made an unepiscopal
+visitation there with a white-haired peer.  Spilsby heard of it, and was
+jealous. Spilsby talked of it and began to wonder who the young married
+lady at the Moat House was.  Spilsby wondered slowly.  In Lincolnshire
+things move slowly.  Lincolnshire is not fast.  Folks there are rooted
+to the soil; they consider matters firmly and stolidly.  And of course
+it has to be remembered that they belong to the see of Lincoln and do
+not think very much of Spilsborough.  Spilsborough was all very well, no
+doubt, but Lincoln was older and finer and much more wonderful.
+Nevertheless, though the Lincolnshire folks are slow, they get there at
+last.  It was all very well for Penelope to call herself Mrs. Bramwell.
+The Spilsby people began to see through the matter.  In another month
+they would have solved the problem, and would have given away the
+solution by calling Mrs. Bramwell "Your ladyship."  But this was not to
+be, for when Geordie came back from Boston, he went to Bob at once.
+
+"Mr. Robert, the gaff is pretty nigh blowed," he said, earnestly.
+
+"Is it?" asked Bob.
+
+"Safe as houses," said Geordie.  "I've my suspicions that the whole show
+is up the spout, or very nigh up!"
+
+"You don't say so?" said Bob.
+
+"Blimy, but I do say it," replied Geordie.  "I saw that gaitered josser,
+the bishop, at Boston this very afternoon.  Her ladyship will be spoofed
+and smelt out.  Some one is givin' the game away.  I don't trust that
+bishop."
+
+"No more do I," said Bob.  "He's very mean, Geordie.  He encouraged me
+to follow you so that I could tell them where my cousin was."
+
+"Bah!" said Geordie, "and they call him a bishop!  Her ladyship wishes
+not to be found out, and she sha'n't be--by a bishop.  I own I don't
+understand her ladyship's idea."
+
+"I do," said Bob.  "Suppose some one said you couldn't do something,
+Geordie, a hundred miles an hour for instance."
+
+Geordie shook his head.
+
+"I'd show 'em!"
+
+"And that you wouldn't after you said you would."
+
+"I'd show 'em," repeated Geordie.
+
+"And that you shouldn't?"
+
+"Shouldn't be damned, beggin' your pardon, Mr. Robert.  I'd show 'em!"
+
+"That's my cousin's idea," said Bob.
+
+"And a dashed good idea, too," said Geordie. "I hate interferin' folks
+worse than policemen. I'd tell her ladyship about this here bishop.  And
+Lord Bradstock was with him, sir."
+
+"The devil!" said Bob, and he ran to Penelope bawling.
+
+"I say, Pen, you'll have to go," he roared, bursting into the room where
+Pen was lamenting over her many griefs.  "The bishop is after you.
+Geordie's seen him and Bradstock, too.  And I feel quite certain that
+all of 'em will be at Spilsborough now."
+
+"I won't go," sniffed Pen.
+
+"Oh, but you must," said Bob.  "You can't be caught here now by the
+whole lot."
+
+"I don't seem to care," said Penelope.
+
+"Oh, what rot!" cried Bob.  "You won't break down now, Pen, just in the
+middle of the game. I mean in the middle of your idea.  Just think how
+they'll crow over you and the baby."
+
+That roused Penelope.
+
+"They--they sha'n't!"
+
+"Well, they will, unless you've got the one you are married to here,"
+said Bob.  "Or are you going to tell me who it is?"
+
+Pen snuffled sadly.
+
+"How can I when we've q-quarrelled?" she demanded.
+
+"Then we'll start at once," said Bob.  "I'll tell Miss Mackarness and
+Tim and all of 'em, and we'll get your car and mine and we'll go
+somewhere else."
+
+"But where?" asked Pen.
+
+"What rot!" said Bob.  "You've got heaps of houses; any of 'em that are
+deserted.  Upwell Castle will do."
+
+"So it will," said Penelope, helplessly.  "But we can't go to-day, Bob.
+Baby is always asleep at this hour.  Can't it be to-morrow?"
+
+Bob shook his head.
+
+"It's very dangerous, with the bishop on our track," he said; "it's very
+dangerous.  He's very determined, except in motor-cars.  In motor-cars,
+going fast, he's not at all determined.  But out of 'em he's a terror.
+I'd go to-day."
+
+"No, no, to-morrow," said Penelope, weeping.
+
+And Bob went away.
+
+"I wish Baker was here," he said.  "Baker is quite as determined as the
+bishop, and his advice would be very valuable.  I wish I knew how to
+treat Gordon.  I'm afraid he'll be angry.  If he's angry, he may keep my
+money.  Well, I don't care."
+
+He told Miss Mackarness to pack up, and Miss Mackarness said she would.
+Miss Mackarness remarked that the world was not what she had imagined it
+when she was young.  It had in fact come to an end.  She said she was
+not surprised at anything and never would be again.  She said she had
+never been in a motor-car, but wanted to be in one, because death seemed
+quick and easy in a motor-car. She also said that if she escaped, and
+Lady Penelope was killed, she knew of a good opening in a lunatic asylum
+for a woman without nerves, who could not be surprised, and had been
+accustomed to the ways of the highest society.
+
+"Oh, yes, yes; we'll be ready," said Miss Mackarness.  And Bob went away
+to instruct Geordie and Timothy Bunting, and he spent the whole
+afternoon, covered with dirty oil, dancing about the two motor-cars,
+while Geordie put them into first-class trim.
+
+"We ain't going to be run to ground by a bishop," said Bob.
+
+"Not much we ain't, sir," said Tim.  "I'd sooner go in one of these
+machines, so I would."
+
+It was the first time he had ever said as much, and Geordie paid him a
+compliment from under the car.
+
+"That's the first sensible remark I've ever heard you make, Tim," said
+the concealed chauffeur.
+
+"Thank you," said Timothy.  "I always said you were a good chap,
+Geordie, even if you was wrapped up in muck and grease."  And an idea
+came to Bob.
+
+"I know what I'll do about Gordon," he said. "I'll write something about
+this now so's to show it him afterward."
+
+He wrote:
+
+"Pen is very sad.  I fear she has quarrelled with Gordon.  I'm sure she
+has married Gordon.  I wish she would let me send to him to come, but
+she has sworn me not to.  I think the baby is very like Gordon.  It is
+clever like him, only, being younger, not so clever.  I don't mind if it
+is Gordon. Gordon has been very kind to me, knowing how poor the family
+is.  I wish I was as clever as he is."
+
+He read it over carefully.
+
+"He's more jealous of Rivaulx than any one. I'll put something in about
+him."
+
+He added:
+
+"I think Rivaulx an ass because of balloons."
+
+"That will please Gordon," said Bob, as he stowed his note-book away.
+"But I do wish I knew who it is.  Women are very fond of secrets. They
+seem to like babies and secrets best.  Pen likes both together, and it's
+very confusing to any one."
+
+They started next morning in the two cars for Upwell Castle, taking the
+whole household.  Bob installed an old villager and his wife as
+caretakers. He had selected them himself on the ground that they seemed
+the stupidest people in the village. Bob was very clever, if not so
+clever as Gordon.
+
+"I think we've spoofed 'em, Pen," said Bob.
+
+Penelope hugged her baby and wept.
+
+"Why are you crying?" asked Bob.
+
+"I don't know," said Penelope.
+
+"Then don't," said Bob.  "It makes me very uncomfortable."
+
+They devoured space, and Timothy held on to the car and to Miss
+Mackarness.  Miss Mackarness said it altered her ideas.  Tim said it
+didn't, but then he was very conservative.
+
+"Now, let 'em all come," said Bob.
+
+
+
+
+                             *CHAPTER XXV.*
+
+
+Titania fell on Bradstock's neck when he came back with the bishop.  She
+very nearly fell on the bishop's neck, too, which alarmed him very much
+indeed, though he had all that confidence with women which marks the
+celibate clergy, especially when they are beautiful.
+
+"My dear-r Augustin," said Titania, "I came at once.  I felt I had to.
+I felt I must.  There is no sympathy at home for me in my troubles.  The
+duke laughs, laughs in my face, and says Penelope is damn fine sport!"
+
+"Tut, tut!" said the bishop, who was loath to think that dukes could use
+bad language.  "I very much regret to hear it."
+
+Titania waved her hands at large.
+
+"But I do not care.  I am wrapped up in woe, and in Robert.  Where is
+he?  Show me the telegram he sent."
+
+They showed her the telegram.
+
+"Not black!  Oh, Augustin, that might mean anything."
+
+"So it might.  What did I say, bishop?" asked Augustin.
+
+"Nonsense!" said the bishop.  "I do not believe it is even dark.  This
+is all waste of time. Time cannot now be wasted.  This scandal grows.
+Ridley tells me all these unfortunate gentlemen, but Lord Bramber and
+Mr. Carew, are in the town. I have had telegrams from both of those
+asking for information, most excited telegrams. Mr. Carew says he is
+delirious with fever, and I believe him.  Lord Bramber says his father
+is delirious, which I much regret.  I think the son is also delirious,
+though he does not say he is.  He implores me to remember that he is
+entitled to know first where Penelope is, as he is her husband.  This is
+the telegram."
+
+Augustin and Titania read it.
+
+"If we could only believe it," said Titania.
+
+"We cannot," said the bishop.  "Ridley declares they all say the same.
+They also say the infant is an adopted one.  I do not remember, in the
+course of all that wide experience which comes to a country clergyman in
+a place like Ray Pogis, any situation equal to this.  As a bishop with a
+wider experience, I have seen nothing so absurd even in the conduct of
+my clergy, who are indeed hard to beat in stupidity.  I regret we did
+not go on to Waynfleet and Spilsby, Bradstock."
+
+"So do I," said Bradstock, eyeing Titania.
+
+"We will go to-morrow," said the bishop.  "I have an intuition that
+to-morrow we shall find her. I feel sure of it."
+
+"I will come with you," said Titania.  "I must! I must!  I cannot help
+fearing, Augustin, that the very worst may have happened.  I have now no
+confidence whatever in dear, misguided Penelope's morals.  I do not feel
+sure that the child is not black, or that it is adopted!"
+
+"Good heavens!" said Augustin.
+
+"Good heavens!" echoed the bishop.
+
+"I haven't," affirmed Titania, dreadfully.  "No such thing has happened
+in our family since the time of Charles the Second, which was lamentable
+but natural, and has long since been forgiven.  I mistrust the general
+attitude of all these men, bishop.  I mistrust it!"
+
+"Certainly they seem in great distress," said the bishop.
+
+Titania rose and looked awful.
+
+"Only upon one supposition can I account for it, bishop.  This is their
+remorse.  They are remorseful.  They have treated her badly, and she has
+fled from them in her shame and will not see them!"
+
+"Ha!" said the bishop, "there is something in that!"
+
+"A great deal in it," boomed Titania, in her deepest tone of tragedy.
+"It explains everything."
+
+But Bradstock said:
+
+"Infernal nonsense, Titania!  Bishop, I am surprised at you.  They can't
+_all_ be remorseful."
+
+"Why not?" demanded Titania; "why not, Augustin?"
+
+"Of course not," interjected the bishop, hastily.
+
+"Why not, I ask?" repeated the duchess.
+
+"Oh, well, you know," said Bradstock, "when you come to think of it,
+wouldn't _one_ be enough to be remorseful for having behaved like a
+scoundrel?"
+
+The duchess collapsed.
+
+"Dear me! so it would," she said, weakly. "Now I come to think of it,
+one would be sufficient. Nothing is explained or can be explained till
+we find Penelope."
+
+The same feeling of desperation inspired the lovers in the various
+hotels.  Their hopeless passion grew upon them.  The sense of mystery
+deepened.  They were sorry for Penelope, for the others, for themselves.
+What did she mean by it?  They were all agreed now about the adoption
+theory, though they stuck to it manfully that they were married to her.
+Each one believed the infant was adopted, while he nobly claimed it as
+his own. They were really noble creatures, and showed themselves worthy
+of a better fate.  A peculiar feeling of sympathy grew up among them, as
+it does among the unfortunate who are yet strong enough not to be
+overwhelmed.  They spoke to each other again. Goby took De Vere's arm
+and walked about with him.
+
+"I wish I could tell you all the truth, old chap," sighed Goby.
+
+"Ah, so do I," said the poet.  "A great passion is a wonderful thing,
+Goby."
+
+"So it is, old chap," said Goby.  "Do you remember the happy days we
+spent in your home when we read Browning and Shelley together, and you
+explained your poems to me?"
+
+Austin de Vere sighed.
+
+"Ah, they were happy days, when my nose peeled on the water and my hands
+were blistered by rowing."
+
+"Do you remember the bulldog?" asked Goby.
+
+"Ah, and the terrier he bit!"
+
+"And the howling retriever?"
+
+"And the bald, bronchitic Borzois," said De Vere, with enthusiasm.  "I
+bought them all of Bob because she loved him."
+
+"I didn't like you then, Austin, old chap," said Goby.
+
+Austin gripped his arm.
+
+"Plantagenet, we will be friends always.  Now I can confess that I
+loathed you.  I told Bradstock so.  I said you were an ass."
+
+"So I am," said poor Goby.  "I admit now I can't understand Browning."
+
+Austin looked about him:
+
+"My dear chap, no more do I," he said, in an alarmed whisper.  "He's a
+much overrated man."
+
+"I never overrated him myself," said Goby, sagely.  "Look here, Austin.
+You know, of course, that I'm married to Penelope?"
+
+"Of course," said Austin.  "And you know that I am?"
+
+"We'll quarrel about nothing now.  To-morrow we'll look for her.
+Ridley, the bishop's butler, told me Bradstock and the bishop were going
+to Spilsby to-morrow.  I gave him a sovereign."
+
+"So did I," said Austin.  "Let's go in to dinner.  I'm glad we are
+friends, Plantagenet."
+
+"So am I, old chap," said Goby.
+
+At a near table to them were Rivaulx and Gordon. Farther off Plant was
+with Carteret Williams. Plant regretted that Bramber wasn't there.
+Williams sighed for the artistic company of the delirious Carew.  Not
+one look of envy or hatred or malice passed between any of them.
+
+"Marquis," said Gordon, gloomily, "will you come to-morrow with me to
+find my--I mean, Penelope?"
+
+"I will, my dear Gordon," replied the marquis. "To Spilsby."
+
+"How did you know?"
+
+"Ridley, the bishop's man, said it."
+
+"He told me, too.  I gave him five pounds," said Gordon.
+
+"I gave him four."
+
+"I'll bet he's told 'em all," said Gordon.  "I say, marquis, those were
+jolly, happy days before this misery came on, when you and I dined
+together."
+
+"And went up in balloons," said the marquis.
+
+Gordon shook his head.
+
+"Well, yes, even the balloons.  Do you know, marquis, I hated you then.
+I don't now.  I think you a real good chap."
+
+The marquis held out his hand, and Gordon shook it.
+
+"Gordon, I used to despise you.  It was a great trial to dine with you.
+I'm glad I did it now.  I'm a wiser, better man for the trials.  I see
+that Jews can be noble by nature just as they can be barons by creation.
+I finally absolve Dreyfus.  I almost love you now!"
+
+"Good old marquis," said Gordon.  "When we get up to town, I'll put you
+on the betht thing in the market.  I will, so help me!"
+
+Carteret Williams and Plant got on well together. They talked first of
+Bramber and Carew.
+
+"Carew's all right," said Williams; "all right for an artist.  I was in
+the Ashanti war with an artist once.  I put his head in a bucket of
+water!"
+
+"Why?" asked Plant.
+
+"Because he was too drunk to draw," said Williams.  "He hated me when he
+got sober, and caricatured me.  I never liked artists afterward.  But
+when Penelope put me into harness with Carew, I found there was good
+stuff in him.  He could work.  He talked awful rot, but there was
+something at the back of it.  I had to own it.  How did you get on with
+Bramber?"
+
+"I thought him a damn fool," said Plant.  "But I found out he wasn't.
+There's stuff in Bramber. My--I mean, Penelope knew that.  I say, as he
+isn't here, poor chap, will you come to Spilsby with me to-morrow?"
+
+Williams started.
+
+"How did you come to think of Spilsby?" he asked, suspiciously.
+
+"The bishop's butler told me.  I gave him five pounds," said Plant.
+
+"I gave him two," said Williams.  "Yes, I'll go with you, as Carew isn't
+here.  I like Carew now.  Poor Carew!"
+
+"And I like Bramber, poor chap," said Plant. "And now I'll go and shake
+hands with the marquis, who wanted to kill me last time I was here."
+
+"I wish I'd seen that," said Williams, simply. "I like seeing fights!"
+
+They spent a happy evening together and talked of Bob.  Austin was great
+upon Bob.  And so was Gordon.  Austin told them all about the dogs. Goby
+spoke about the spavined pony he had bought. Gordon told them how Bob
+had borrowed a hundred pounds of him to be put into something.
+
+"I owe him fifty thousand pounds, at least," said Gordon.  "The boy is a
+financier.  I wish I had a boy like Bob."
+
+And just then Carew walked into the room.  He looked ill, but was as
+handsome as paint.  Williams jumped to his feet.
+
+"Oh, Jimmy, I heard you were delirious," he said, anxiously.
+
+"I was," said Jimmy, "very delirious, extraordinarily so.  I'm not sure
+that I'm not delirious now."
+
+He looked around the room anxiously, and drew Williams into a corner.
+
+"Do you know anything about delirium?" he asked, anxiously.
+
+"A lot about delirium tremens," said Williams. "Most of the artists I've
+been with in Africa had it.  They said it was malaria.  But have you
+been drinking?"
+
+Carew shook his head.
+
+"Not much, but I see the room is full of 'em!"
+
+"Full of what?"
+
+"Things, visions, phantasms!" said Jimmy, creepily.  Williams looked
+around in alarm.
+
+"You don't say so!"
+
+"Yes," said Jimmy.  "This influenza is awful! I could swear I see the
+marquis and Gordon and that ass Goby and De Vere!"
+
+"Pull yourself together," said Williams. "They're here all right!"
+
+"Are they real?" asked Jimmy.  "They're not delusions?"
+
+"Devil a bit!" said Williams.
+
+"Oh," said Jimmy, "then I think I'll have some brandy.  What are they
+doing here?"
+
+[Illustration: JIMMY CAREW, A.R.A. He was the best looking of the whole
+"horde"]
+
+"What are we doing here?" asked Williams. "We're mad!  Oh, but, Jimmy,
+I'm dashed glad to see you," said Williams, with a lurid string of
+emphatic war expressions.  "Those were happy days when I learnt about
+art with you, and you learnt about life with me!"
+
+"They were," said Jimmy.  "But now I'm almost sick of art."
+
+Williams implored him not to say so.
+
+"Think of Rembrandt and Velasquez and Whistler!"
+
+"I can't think of them.  I think of Penelope!"
+
+"Try to think of Monet and Manet," said Williams.  "They'll do you
+good."
+
+"To be sure, to be sure," sighed Jimmy.  "I'll try to."
+
+They talked till two in the morning, and the only man missing was
+Bramber.
+
+"Perhaps he's chucked it," said Williams.  "The last time I saw him he
+looked sick enough to chuck anything.  But I suppose the old earl is so
+rocky he can't get away."
+
+"I hate earls," said Jimmy, jealously.  He added with extraordinary
+irrelevance, "But I'm glad she adopted him."
+
+No doubt he referred to the infant.
+
+
+
+
+                            *CHAPTER XXVI.*
+
+
+While Pen and Bob and the baby were going as fast as they could toward
+Upwell Castle, Pen wept at intervals and hugged the child that all the
+"horde" were glad she had adopted.
+
+"My only darling," said Pen, convulsively.
+
+Bob shook his head.
+
+"I say, Pen, I really don't understand you, you know!  I say, this is
+rot!  You mustn't cry; I can't stand it.  And you keep on saying it's
+your only one in a very silly way.  You irritate me very much, Pen!"
+
+"Why, Bob?" asked the desolate creature at his side.
+
+"You could stop all this if you wanted to!"
+
+"Not now," said Pen, "since we've quarrelled!"
+
+"Rot!" said Bob.  "You tell me who it is and I'll bring him along.  But
+I'm glad it isn't Timothy, you know."
+
+Timothy was now with Geordie in the other car.
+
+"I can't tell you," said Pen.
+
+"Then don't snivel, please," said Bob, crossly, "or I shall drive into
+something and kill the baby."
+
+"Oh!" said Pen, "oh, please don't!"
+
+"I think it's very hard lines," said Bob, "especially as Geordie and Tim
+know, and Miss Mackarness.  If they know, I ought to."
+
+"I had to tell them, Bob.  Besides, they knew him," said the incautious
+Pen.
+
+Bob's eyebrows lifted, and he drove rather fast down the next straight
+bit of road.
+
+"I say," he said to himself, "I ought to make something of that."
+
+He thought very hard and did not speak for a mile.  He thought all the
+more.
+
+"Tim knows 'em all, of course.  And Geordie may, though I remember his
+saying he didn't. But who does Miss Mackarness know?  If I can spot
+that, I can spot the winner."
+
+He went back to the time of Pen's youth, which he only knew by hearsay,
+as he wasn't much more than born then, and went through the list one by
+one.
+
+"By Jove!" he said, suddenly, and Penelope started.
+
+"Yes, Bob."
+
+"No," said Bob, thoughtfully; "no, I'm not sure."
+
+"What aren't you sure of, dear?"
+
+"Him," said Bob, and Penelope sighed.
+
+After another mile's silence, Bob spoke again.
+
+"By Jove!"
+
+"You said that before," cried Pen, irritably. He turned his eyes upon
+her, and she saw them full of strange intelligence.
+
+"Oh, what is it?" she asked, in alarm.
+
+Bob shook his head.
+
+"You've told me who it is," he said.
+
+"I haven't."
+
+"You have," said Bob.  "Pen, you're a wonder! I say, are all girls like
+you?"
+
+Penelope said she didn't know, and demanded his meaning.
+
+"If they are, they're interesting but trying," said Bob.  "You couldn't
+have made more fuss about it if it had been Bunting.  Pen, you are a
+wonder.  Well, I don't mind; I like him well enough.  He's all right.  I
+hope Bill will like him."
+
+"You are an annoying, irritating boy," said Pen, crossly.  "And you know
+nothing."
+
+"Bar him and Miss Mackarness and Timothy and Smith, I'm the only one
+that does," said Bob, drily.  "I know you, Pen.  You were ashamed of
+him, after all you used to say.  All right, don't get angry.  I'm all
+right.  I'll keep it dark till you say pull up the blinds.  It's not my
+business.  But I'm glad I know.  For granny doesn't, and no one has
+guessed, not even Baker.  And he's had great experience with girls in
+all parts of the world, just as he has had with dogs."
+
+Pen wept.
+
+"You are saying all this to worry me.  How can you know?" she cried.
+
+"I'll tell you some day," said Bob.  "But because you haven't told me
+yourself, and have made me find out, I won't tell you who it is till I
+want to.  But one thing I'll say, I don't think your brother Bill really
+likes him."
+
+He whistled and let the car out till she fairly hummed.  Pen was
+exceedingly cross, and hugged the baby, hoping that they would both be
+killed at once.
+
+"I don't know what's going to happen," she said.  "I've done my best,
+and nothing but trouble comes of it.  If I had to begin again, I don't
+think I'd try to reform anything.  I--I hate reform!"
+
+In the meantime Miss Mackarness's ideas got sadly altered.  She did not
+mind dying at first, but when Bob really went fast, it seemed to her
+that she loved life better than she thought.
+
+"If I am to die," she said, "I would rather die in my bed, much rather.
+I want peace, and my dear lady gives me none.  This young wretch is no
+better than a murderer.  He laughs.  I can't laugh. I can't even speak.
+The wind stops my screaming. I want to get out and die quietly."
+
+They pulled up close to a village to let a wagon loaded with long
+timbers get into a side road.  Miss Mackarness seized her chance, and,
+opening the door, jumped to the ground.
+
+"If you please, my lady, I'm going no farther. I will come on later in a
+cart."
+
+Penelope remonstrated with her.  Bob was urgent and impatient.
+
+"We may be caught any minute," he said. "Pen, let her come on in a
+cart."
+
+"If you prefer it," said Penelope.
+
+"My lady, I much prefer it," said the housekeeper.
+
+Bob let the car go, and Geordie, coming on behind, pulled up to
+interview Miss Mackarness.
+
+"Sooner than go in one a mile farther," she said, firmly, "I would lie
+down and die."
+
+"That's silly, ma'am," said Geordie.
+
+"I would rather live silly than die wise," replied Miss Mackarness.  "I
+may be used to much and past surprises, but I can't stomach these cars."
+
+They left her in the road.  And now they drove fast, for Bob set the
+pace, and made it a rapid one.
+
+"I say, Geordie," said Timothy, about twenty miles farther on, "don't
+you think you could go slower?"
+
+"How can I, with the other car ahead, man?" demanded Geordie.
+
+"Well, I feels queer inside," said poor Timothy. "I'd rather ride a
+bucking man-eater than go another yard.  Set me down!"
+
+"Not me," said Geordie.  "Be a man, Tim!"
+
+"I won't," said Tim.  "Set me down.  I'll walk."
+
+"Or come on in a cart," sneered Geordie. "Why, Mary here don't mind, do
+you, Mary?"
+
+Mary did mind, but she adored Geordie, and said she didn't.  She
+preferred to die with Geordie than to ride with Miss Mackarness in a
+cart.
+
+"I don't care," said Tim; "if Mary wants to die in a blazin' fiery mass
+of petrol under a wreck, I don't.  Let me down."
+
+And Geordie let him down.
+
+"A mad bull sooner," said Tim.  "And, though I 'ates walkin', bein' a
+groom, I'd rather walk to hell than motor into paradise."
+
+But peace was established in the cars by now. Geordie and Mary sat side
+by side, and whenever the pace was hot, she grabbed him so tightly that
+he remonstrated.
+
+"My dear, I'd rather you hugged me when we go slow," he said at last.
+
+"Lor', Mr. Smith, I wasn't huggin' you," remonstrated the blushing Mary.
+
+"To an outsider it would appear so," said Geordie.  "When a young lady
+puts her arms around a man's neck, it looks like huggin'.  Mind I don't
+say I object, but I _might_ run into the hedge."
+
+"What a very amusin' gentleman you are," said Mary.  "I've a very small
+opinion of Mr. Bunting except upon an 'orse.  I'm surprised he preferred
+to walk."
+
+"I'm not," said Geordie.  "I expected it, and if we went really fast,
+you'd want to walk."
+
+"Never," said Mary.  "I love goin' fast.  There's great po'try in a
+motor-car, Mr. Smith."
+
+"Poetry, well, maybe," said Geordie.  "To my mind, there's more
+machinery and oil.  I wonder what the next thing will be with my lady,
+Mary."
+
+"Ah," said Mary, "that's more than I can say. She's very sweet and kind,
+but I've give up tryin' to understand 'er.  And such an 'usband, too.
+If I 'ad an 'usband, I'd like to show 'im off, if I was proud of 'im,
+and I would."
+
+"Would you be?" asked Geordie.
+
+"I 'ope so," said Mary.
+
+"I guess you'd expect him to do what you wanted, like my lady," said
+Geordie.
+
+"Oh, no, never," said Mary.  "I'd do hexactly as I was told by 'im I
+loved.  I don't believe in a woman 'angin' on a man and tellin' 'im to
+do this or that!"
+
+And just then a mighty fine stretch of road opened before them, and Bob,
+half a mile in front, turned his car loose at the top speed.  Geordie
+put his on the third, and Mary squealed.
+
+"Hush your row, my dear," said Geordie. "Why, bless me, what's the
+matter with the girl!"
+
+She had him tight by the neck.
+
+"Oh, I'm frightened, Mr. Smith.  Don't go so fast," she screamed.
+
+"Lemme go," gasped Geordie, whom she was nearly strangling.  "Lemme go,
+girl!"
+
+"Never, never!" said Mary, settling on him tighter still.  "Stop, stop!"
+
+"I won't," said Geordie.  "D'ye think I'll let that young un get away
+from me?"
+
+"You must," screamed Mary, "or I'll get out."
+
+"Then get out," said Geordie, rudely.
+
+"Oh, you cruel, cruel Mr. Smith!" wailed Mary. "Let me down before I'm
+killed."
+
+Geordie wrenched himself free.
+
+"D'ye mean it?" he asked.
+
+"Yes, you brute!" said Mary, "I does mean it."
+
+He put her down there and then.
+
+"You're no gentleman," said Mary.
+
+"I never said I was," retorted Geordie, with his eyes on the vanishing
+Bob.
+
+"And I hate you, you coward," sobbed Mary.
+
+"There's a village a mile up the road," said Geordie.  And he left her,
+disappearing in a whirlwind.
+
+"Oh, I'm a sad, des'late, disappinted, jilted woman, with thin shoes and
+three and tuppence in my pocket," said Mary.  "And I don't know where I
+am!"
+
+She sat on a pile of road metal and cried bitterly. She took it much
+harder than the bishop did in a similar situation.
+
+"Well, it can't be helped," said Geordie, "and I don't know that I'm
+sorry.  She'd have proposed if I'd kept her at the second speed, I know
+that; so perhaps I'm well out of it."
+
+He whirled after Bob and his lady, and soon caught them up.
+
+There was peace on that car, too, for Bob hadn't been able to keep his
+discovery to himself.
+
+"Yes, you're right, Bob," sighed Penelope. "But what could I do after
+what I'd said?  And what can I do now?"
+
+"Cheer up!" said Bob.  "I'll fix it for you somehow.  Do you know, Pen,
+I begin to think that after all women aren't as difficult to understand
+as Baker says."
+
+They came to Upwell in the early afternoon, and were ignorant that the
+world was on their track. Bob sent a telegram to "Mr. Bramwell" as soon
+as they got there.
+
+
+
+
+                            *CHAPTER XXVII.*
+
+
+The bishop was excited.  There is no doubt about it.  Nor is it any
+wonder, for the sporting element exists even on the episcopal bench, and
+the hunting of Penelope was peculiar and choice sport. The clergy of his
+diocese were moderately tame, and when he pointed his episcopal gun at
+them, they said they would come down, just as the celebrated squirrel
+did when Colonel Crockett raised his weapon.  Not for a long time had he
+felt so pleased with himself.  He was quite certain that Penelope was to
+be run to earth in the neighbourhood of Spilsby, and, when he had found
+her, he proposed to speak to her like a father.
+
+"I shall certainly suggest a religious ceremony in the cathedral," he
+said, blandly.  "Oh, yes, I shall insist on it."
+
+"You'll do what?" asked Bradstock, who was with him and the duchess in
+the early train to Spilsby.  "You'll do what?"
+
+The bishop rubbed his hands.
+
+"As the one who christened her, I shall insist on a religious ceremony,"
+he replied.
+
+"Will you?" asked Bradstock.
+
+"To be sure I shall," said the bishop.
+
+"Did you ever hear of Mrs. Partington?" asked Bradstock, "or of King
+Canute, or of any other celebrated character in history or fiction whose
+insistence did not come off?"
+
+"I scarcely understand you, Bradstock," said the bishop, with dignity.
+"I can hardly imagine that you mean to hint, not altogether obscurely,
+that Lady Penelope will treat any suggestion of mine with disrespect."
+
+Bradstock intimated that that was what he did mean, and Titania, who had
+got up too early and felt like it, said that she expected nothing from
+Penelope now but the worst.
+
+"I don't know why I am here, or why I am going there," she said.  "I
+cannot imagine why any of us are doing anything but hiding our disgraced
+heads in the remoter parts of the country, while Penelope flaunts a
+black, adopted, illegitimate child in some peculiar part of
+Lincolnshire, while she is being chased on motor-cars by remorseful
+scoundrels, of whom I saw about a dozen as we left Spilsborough.  Little
+did I think that I should be running after her with Augustin and you,
+bishop, while the duke stays at Goring saying she is sport, and Robert
+is with her when he ought to be at home with Mr. Guthrie learning to
+spell.  And as a result of Penelope's being away like this, that
+disgraceful Chloe Cadwallader, of whom I shall always have the lowest
+opinion, is living in her house in Piccadilly, and I dare say spending
+her money right and left.  The marchioness said she knew, on the highest
+authority, that this was so.  The marchioness always goes on the
+principle of believing the worst, though, of course, she hopes the best.
+I hope the best for Penelope, but I'm sure the worst is before us.  I'm
+sure of it."
+
+The bishop asked her to cheer up, and Augustin stroked her hand to calm
+her.  But nothing calmed or cheered her.
+
+"I am calm," she said.  "I am even peaceful. What can be worse than the
+worst?  I am cheerful, for I believe there is a better world than this,
+in which even a duchess may find some kind of rest on the highest
+authority.  I shall be glad to go there, and leave you all."
+
+"Don't say so," said Augustin.
+
+"I do say so," said the duchess.  "I say it firmly and with faith.  You
+don't dare to deny there is a better world than this, Augustin?"
+
+"Certainly not, in the presence of the bishop," replied Augustin.
+"Though, in looking out of the windows, I should not be surprised to
+learn that there is a more exciting spot than Spilsby."
+
+For they had arrived.
+
+"_I_ will make inquiries," said the bishop, "while you look after the
+duchess in the waiting-room. I see that my wishes have been attended to.
+I telegraphed for a carriage to be in attendance, and it is in
+attendance.  I will speak with the driver."
+
+He spoke to the driver, who was much intimidated by the apron and the
+gaiters of the clerical dignitary.
+
+"This is the carriage I ordered, I think," said the bishop.  "I want to
+drive to--to Lady Penelope Brading's house.  Do you know it?"
+
+"No, sir," said the driver.  "I never heard owt of it, sir."
+
+"Dear me, dear me!" said the bishop.  "Well, well!  But that is easily
+explicable, my good man, for my young friend is in the peculiar position
+of having several names.  This is rare; yes, rare I admit, but not
+altogether so very rare.  Can you tell me if there is any one lately
+come to this neighbourhood known, let us say, as Mrs.--Mrs. Plant, for
+instance?"
+
+"No, sir, there be not as I knows," said the driver.
+
+"Or Mrs. Gordon, shall I say?"
+
+The driver scratched his head.
+
+"I never heard of her," he replied.
+
+"How remarkable," said the bishop, smiling. "But I am not surprised.
+Indeed, in this last case I am almost gratified, though I withhold my
+reasons for saying so.  Are you then acquainted with any one called De
+Vere?  No; or with a Mrs. Carteret Williams?"
+
+Light dawned in the driver's face at last. "Mrs. Williams!  Ay, sure
+enif.  She do sell sweets and tobacco."
+
+"Indeed," said the bishop, "indeed, how remarkable! But I don't think
+she will do.  Have you heard of a Mrs. Rivaulx or a Mrs. Goby?  Perhaps
+I surprise you in this part of Lincolnshire, but in London it is not at
+all uncommon for married ladies to have several names, not at all
+uncommon."
+
+"No, sir, I never heard o' none of 'em," returned the driver, thinking
+that this gentleman talked most remarkable "cat-blash."
+
+"Good heavens!" said the bishop, "this new custom is trying.  Do you
+then know a Mrs. Carew or Mrs. Bramber?"
+
+Again the man scratched his head and shook it. What did this strange
+person in gaiters mean?
+
+"Oh! ah!" he said at last.  "There be a Mrs. Bramwell at the Moat
+House."
+
+"Indeed," said the bishop.  "Perhaps that may be the lady.  At the Moat
+House!  Do you know Mr. Bramwell?"
+
+"I've seen un," said the driver.
+
+"What is he like?" asked the bishop.  "Is he fair or dark, or tall or
+short?"
+
+"He's fairish to dark and betwixt and between," said the driver, wishing
+to be accurate, "and mostly goes in big spectacles in his engine."
+
+"Ha!" said the bishop, "we are on the scent! And what is Mrs. Bramwell
+like?"
+
+"She do mostly go in the engine with specs on, too, sir.  But my wife do
+say she be a very fine woman."
+
+The bishop nodded.
+
+"I think you may drive us to the Moat House," he said.  "I will bring my
+friends out."
+
+He rubbed his hands and congratulated himself on the skill with which he
+had discovered the object of his search.
+
+"I really believe I have found her," he said, when he entered the
+waiting-room.  "I really believe it."
+
+"No!" said the duchess.
+
+"Yes," said the bishop.  "By a series of skilful questions and the
+exercise of a little pardonable deceit, I have learnt that there is a
+Mrs. Bramwell here, who is said to be a very fine woman, and goes out in
+goggles in a motor-car with her husband, who is fairish to dark and tall
+and short and also wears goggles."
+
+Augustin nodded.
+
+"This looks like--something," he said, hopefully. "Bramwell!  Perhaps
+really Bramber, Titania."
+
+"No, no," said Titania.  "I expect disaster.  I anticipate the Jew or
+Williams."
+
+"But Bramwell--the first syllable being Bram," suggested the bishop.
+
+"I cannot build on Bram," said the duchess. "We are an unfortunate
+family.  Lord Bramber may be an earl at any minute, and she has married
+a coal-heaver, of course!  Let us go at once."
+
+When they got into the carriage, the bishop told the man to drive to the
+Moat House.
+
+"Did you say Moat House?" asked the duchess.
+
+"I did," replied the bishop.
+
+"Augustin, do you remember that Penelope's mother loved houses with
+moats?  I think the bishop may be right.  I tremble with nervousness."
+
+She had more reason to tremble in a moment, for a big motor-car shaved
+them and scared the horse.
+
+"Perhaps--" she cried.
+
+"No," said Augustin, "it's Plant and Williams and Carew!"
+
+The duchess gasped.  And before she could say another word, another car
+swept by them.
+
+"Perhaps--" she cried.
+
+"No," said the bishop; "in spite of goggles, I recognize the marquis and
+Mr. Gordon and Mr. Austin de Vere.  This is very remarkable, and not a
+little annoying.  We shall all descend upon Penelope at once, and I fear
+it will somewhat disturb her.  I should have much preferred to see her
+quietly in order to bring her to a just sense of her peculiar, and our
+painful, position."
+
+When they got to the house, they found all the lovers but Bramber
+assembled at the gates.  If it hadn't been for the illness of the Earl
+of Pulborough, he would have been there, they knew.
+
+"Oh, which is it?" moaned Titania.  "They all said they were married to
+her, and I know it's none of 'em."
+
+The bishop greeted the crowd in the most courteous manner.  He shook
+hands with those he knew, and bowed to those he hoped to know.
+
+"I think, gentleman, that, with your permission, I will go in first and
+see Lady Penelope before any one else does."
+
+And while he went up the carriage drive, Titania glared at the lovers.
+
+"Don't look at 'em like that, Titania," said Augustin.
+
+"Like what, Augustin?"
+
+"Like a Gorgon, Titania," said Augustin.
+
+"I look as I feel," said Titania.  "I hate them all.  I shall not be
+able to restrain myself when I see Penelope.  I shall shake her.  I
+shall say what I think.  No, I won't be wise, Augustin!  I decline to be
+wise.  I am full of bitterness.  From her earliest youth, she has been a
+thorn.  And it is your fault; you encouraged her in reform, in
+anarchism. Don't speak to me!  I shall explode!"
+
+And Augustin got out just as the bishop rang the door-bell across the
+moat.  Instead of the kind of servant he expected to see, he was greeted
+by a bent old woman, whose chief glory was her rheumatism, though her
+claim on Bob had been her stupidity.
+
+"Is Mrs. Bramwell at home?" asked the bishop, with a beaming smile.
+
+"Naw," said the old lady, not beaming in the least.
+
+"No?  Then when will she be back?"
+
+"I don't know," replied the caretaker.
+
+"You don't know!  Will it be soon?"
+
+"She never said," snarled the old lady.
+
+"Did she go early?"
+
+"Maybe an hour ago, maybe two."
+
+"Will she be back late?"
+
+"Eh?  I'm 'ard of 'earin'."
+
+"Will she be back late?" roared the bishop.
+
+"She didn't say."
+
+"What did she say, then?"
+
+"Nothin' as I knows of."
+
+"Where did she go, my good woman?"
+
+"She didn't say."
+
+"Dear me, how vexing!" said the bishop.
+
+"I'm 'ard of 'earin', I tell ye," said the old dame.
+
+"Who went with her?"
+
+"All of 'em, so I 'eard."
+
+"Who were they?" asked the desperate bishop.
+
+"All as was 'ere.  There ain't one left."
+
+"Was a boy with her?"
+
+"To be sure, a young gentleman as fetched me 'ere, and give me a
+shillin'."
+
+"What was his name?"
+
+"'E didn't say," said the old woman, and the bishop wiped his fevered
+brow and tried again.
+
+"Was Mr. Bramwell with her?"
+
+"I never seed un."
+
+"How did they go?"
+
+"In two engines."
+
+"Ha!" sighed the bishop, "in two motor-cars."
+
+"Likely."
+
+"Will they be back to-night?"
+
+"I 'ope not," said the woman.
+
+"Why do you hope not?" asked the wretched bishop.
+
+"Because of fifteen bob a week, to be sure."
+
+"Then Mrs. Bramwell has gone, has left?"
+
+"Ain't I been sayin' so this last hour?" asked the exasperated old
+person.  "Me, with rheumatics, standin' on cold stones for hours arglin'
+that she and all have gone in engines!"
+
+"Good heavens!" said the bishop, "she has escaped!  She has eluded us!
+She has kept her word and has fled!  This is remarkable; it is annoying.
+I feel nearer losing my temper than I have done with any one but the
+dean for the last ten years. I must go back and tell them."
+
+He went back to the gate.
+
+"Is it--" they cried.
+
+"This is her house," said the bishop, who looked rather flushed, "but I
+have discovered by a series of skilfully devised questions that she is
+no longer here.  Duchess, Lord Bradstock, marquis, and gentlemen, she
+went away this morning in two motorcars with all her household, leaving
+behind her no one but a caretaker who, in my humble opinion, ought to be
+taken care of in an idiot asylum!"
+
+The duchess sighed.
+
+"Then she has kept her word!  Finding out that we are still pursuing
+her, she has fled from us. Oh, I think it wicked of her, wicked to all
+of us. When I get hold of Robert, I shall take steps to show him what I
+think of him.  Do you give it up, bishop?"
+
+The bishop's eyes flashed with indignation.
+
+"Never!" he said.  "I propose that we pursue her at once.  She cannot
+have thought we should be here so soon.  If we find out which road she
+took, we may yet overtake her."
+
+"In what?" asked Bradstock, with his hand on the ramshackle landau the
+duchess sat in.  "In this conveyance, for instance?"
+
+The bishop looked at the two big motor-cars, and at their wretched
+owners, Plant and Rivaulx.
+
+"Taking my courage in both hands," he said, bravely, "I propose that we
+lose no time.  _I_ will go in this car with the marquis, if he will take
+me."
+
+The marquis said through his clenched teeth that he would.
+
+"Bradstock, you will escort the duchess back to Spilsborough."
+
+"Certainly not," said the duchess.  "I am coming, too.  I must and I
+will.  Whatever the condition of Penelope may now be, it is my duty.  I
+come with you!"
+
+"And so do I," said Bradstock.
+
+They packed themselves in the cars, and moved away from the deserted
+house of the moat.  In the village they soon discovered that "Mrs.
+Bramwell" had gone northwest by the road to Horncastle, and a moment
+later the bishop said, "Oh!" as Rivaulx fairly launched his car into
+space.  Even Bradstock in Plant's car said something, and the duchess,
+losing the repose which stamps all duchesses the moment they become
+duchesses, uttered a scream. Gordon consoled the bishop, being very much
+pleased to find himself with one, by saying that he had been in a
+balloon with Rivaulx, and found him careful and very trustworthy.
+
+"I do not think any one who goes in a balloon," gasped his lordship,
+"can properly be described by any such terms."
+
+Williams said he didn't care if he was killed, as soon as Penelope had
+acknowledged she was married to him.  Gordon, who was desperately scared
+of Williams, said nothing, but gave the bishop to understand by signs
+that the war correspondent was mad.  Carew, who was still suffering from
+influenza, sat in his corner and wept at intervals.
+
+In Plant's car the duchess and Goby and De Vere got on admirably.
+Bradstock sat by Plant and prepared to die.  The duchess held Captain
+Goby's hand.  De Vere said some poetry before the speed was very great.
+Afterward he said his prayers, and wished he was at home with his
+bulldogs.
+
+"What does anything matter?" he asked, as he clutched Goby's offside.
+
+And all of a sudden Rivaulx's motor pulled up so quickly that the bishop
+was nearly precipitated upon the road.  A scared, oldish woman in
+respectable and sub-freak garments had done her best to get run over.
+Rivaulx swore terrible French oaths, and the bishop, who knew French far
+better than he dared acknowledge except in a literary conversation on
+Rabelais or _argot_, sympathized with him in awestruck silence.
+
+"You accursed old lady!  Why?" demanded Rivaulx.
+
+"Hush, hush!" said the bishop, and, leaning from the car, he said: "It
+is all right, my good woman.  I hope we have not alarmed you."
+
+Miss Mackarness said they had.  It was very hard to have got out of one
+car and then to be almost killed by another.  Then the car behind came
+up, and the duchess looked at the lady who had given her a little
+respite.  The duchess absolutely screamed again.
+
+"Augustin, it is Miss Mackarness!  I remember her well!"
+
+"Who the deuce is Miss Mackarness?" grumbled Bradstock.
+
+But Titania paid no attention to him.  Her eyes brightened.  She became
+clever all at once.
+
+"I remember," she said, "I remember!"
+
+She called to the stranger in the road.
+
+"I am so pleased to see you again after such a long time, Miss
+Mackarness," she said, kindly. "Are you still at Upwell Castle?"
+
+"I'm going there now, ma'am," said the housekeeper, who didn't recognize
+her Grace.
+
+"Are you walking?" asked Titania, kindly. "It is a long way to walk.
+You don't remember me, I see."
+
+"No, ma'am," said Miss Mackarness.
+
+"I am the Duchess of Goring," said Titania.
+
+"Oh, your Grace!  I beg your Grace's pardon, but, of course, you are,"
+gasped Miss Mackarness.
+
+"And I am going to Upwell now to see my niece."
+
+Miss Mackarness gasped again and could not speak.
+
+"To see Mrs. Bramwell, you know," said Titania, sweetly.  "Of course,
+_I_ know all about it, Miss Mackarness."
+
+"To be sure, your Grace," replied her victim, not knowing what to do or
+say.
+
+"Then _good_-bye," said the duchess.  "I hope you will enjoy your walk,
+Miss Mackarness.  It's such pleasant weather for a walk."
+
+They left the poor woman in the middle of the road, an easy victim to
+the slowest vehicle in the county.
+
+"Oh, I've done wrong, I know!" said Pen's housekeeper.  "What shall I do
+now?"
+
+"I said that on purpose," said Titania, viciously. "She has known all
+along, and ought to have told me.  But now we know all about it,
+Augustin!"
+
+"What about 'Mr. Bramwell'?" asked Augustin. Goby and De Vere turned
+pale, and the duchess threw up her hands.
+
+"I might have asked her!" she cried.
+
+"Captain Goby looked at her severely," said Augustin, "and so did De
+Vere."
+
+Goby and De Vere denied it.
+
+"Never mind," said the duchess, "this time she can't escape.  We are on
+the track."
+
+They passed a man a few miles farther on, and only Augustin noticed him.
+
+"You are right, Titania; we are certainly on the track.  That man was
+Timothy Bunting," he said.  "Pen has been shedding her retainers all
+along the road.  I suspect Bob of furious driving."
+
+A few miles farther, at the foot of a steep rise, they saw a young and
+pretty woman weeping on a heap of stones.
+
+"I wonder if that is another of 'em," said Augustin.
+
+It was Mary, whom Geordie had deposited on the road half-way between two
+villages.
+
+"Have two motor-cars gone this way?" asked Bradstock.
+
+"Yes, sir," sobbed Mary.
+
+"Why are you crying?" asked the sympathetic peer.
+
+"Because Geordie Smith is no gentleman," said Mary.
+
+"That's Mrs. Bramwell's driver, isn't it?  I know her well," said
+Bradstock.
+
+"Yes, it is, and he ain't a gentleman.  He drove so fast he frightened
+me, and I got out."
+
+"How sad," said Bradstock.  "We are going on to Upwell Castle now.  Can
+we help you?"
+
+"I would rather walk to Australia than get in another one of 'em," said
+Mary.
+
+"You are right," said Augustin.  "Titania, you are right.  In half an
+hour we shall see Penelope."
+
+"And I shall see Bob," said Titania, viciously.
+
+But the bishop felt rather pleased with Bob now. He was in a car driven
+by Rivaulx.  And Rivaulx was desperate.  And when Rivaulx was desperate
+he lacked consideration for others.
+
+
+
+
+                           *CHAPTER XXVIII.*
+
+
+As all antiquarians know, Upwell Castle consists of two wings and a kind
+of centrepiece joining two civilizations and two divergent schools of
+architecture.  The right wing is Tudor, and ruined; the left is
+Georgian, and habitable; the centre is nondescript and pseudo-Palladian.
+It cost a great deal to keep up, and nothing could keep it from falling
+down.  Penelope's mother fell in love with it on first sight, and fell
+out with her husband about the price.  Its value has fallen since then,
+for landed property is the only stable thing which always falls.  There
+were pictures in it that connoisseurs gloated over, and some that
+picture-cleaners had restored till they were as valuable as a Gothic
+cathedral brought up to date by a resurrected Vandal.  There were
+carvings by Grinling Gibbons to be seen, and some that were not by
+Grinling Gibbons.  There were some rooms decorated by Adams that would
+have made Adam ill.  There was an oak staircase there that a thousand
+intoxicated noblemen had fallen down; there was another that no sober
+gentleman could go up.  It was ruinous, romantic, and rat-haunted;
+tapestry waved in its corridors, ghosts loved its precincts; there was a
+room stained with something that the servants said was blood, and that
+the skeptical averred to be port wine.  The only thing against the
+latter theory was that the dining-room was not stained, though some said
+it had been so flooded all over that nothing showed.  It was a
+delightful place, and Penelope never stayed there.  Miss Mackarness did,
+but then she was a Scotchwoman, and didn't count.  Bob adored it, but
+then Bob was Bob, and nothing could change him.
+
+"I'll fix this all up," said Bob, "and make her happy.  She's silly.
+I'll blow the gaff, as Baker says.  She's up-stairs now, crying her eyes
+out, and making the baby bellow."
+
+He wandered about the grounds, and wondered where Mary and Bunting and
+Miss Mackarness were.
+
+"Silly fools!" said Bob; "the idea of being afraid of going in a
+motor-car.  By Jove, I wonder what's become of my man at Spilsborough!
+I suppose those people in Regent Street think I've stolen the car.  What
+fun!"
+
+He explored the ruined wing, and ruined it a little more, and came out
+again into the Queen Anne garden.
+
+"By Jove, I do wish I knew where they all were!" he said.  "I wonder
+what granny is doing. Is she having fits, and Dr. Lumsden Griff to look
+after 'em?  I think Griff's a soft-soapy ass.  He says, 'Well, how are
+we this morning?'  By Jove, all the rest of 'em will have fits, too.
+They will be sick.  But I'm glad they're out of it.  I wonder where Lord
+Bradstock is.  He'll pull my wig when he sees me.  And the bishop!
+Well, he's not a bad old boy.  I rather like bishops, but their legs are
+queer.  By Jove, but it's fun having skipped and done them!  If they
+ever get to Spilsby and find us gone, they'll be mad!"
+
+He walked around the corner of the house, and _paff_ came a motor-car
+and made him jump.  Another one followed like a streak of light.  Bob
+went quite pale for a boy with a complexion like an ancient red brick,
+and made a bolt for the door. He was too late, for Bradstock and the
+bishop stood in his way.  Bob slowed down, put his hands in his pockets
+and whistled.
+
+"I say," said Bob, "how did you find this place out?"
+
+"I own to being surprised and disappointed with you, Robert," said the
+bishop; "very much surprised and greatly disappointed."
+
+Bob wagged his head to and fro.
+
+"Why, what about?" he asked.
+
+"At your not returning, sir," said his lordship. "You treated me and
+Lord Bradstock, I regret to say, with great disrespect."
+
+"I'm very sorry," said Bob, "but I couldn't help it.  Pen--Oh, Lord!
+there's granny!"
+
+The duchess intervened.
+
+"Robert, where is Penelope?"
+
+Bob hesitated.
+
+"Gone to--t-to London for Paris and Marseilles and Australia," said Bob,
+hurriedly.  "She said she couldn't wait, but had an appointment there
+somewhere.  And she said I was to say she was sorry if any one called."
+
+"Robert," said the duchess, severely, "do not keep your eyes fixed upon
+the distant landscape. Look me in the face.  Are you speaking the
+truth?"
+
+Bob wriggled and shuffled.
+
+"No, I'm not," he said.  "It's a beastly lie. But she did say the other
+day that she would go to the ends of the earth.  And that's Australia,
+ain't it?"
+
+"Bob," said the bishop, "this is very painful to me.  Speak the truth
+like a man."
+
+"I won't," said Bob; "it isn't my truth.  I won't give Pen away to any
+one."
+
+His vision cleared, and he saw the lovers ranked behind his grandmother
+and the bishop.
+
+"Oh, Mr. Gordon," he cried, "do come and help me!  Would you tell if you
+were me?"
+
+"No," said Gordon, "no, of course not."
+
+"I always liked you," said Bob, "so I won't."
+
+"I command you," said Titania, looking at Gordon furiously.
+
+"It's no good," said Bob, rapidly; "Pen's a great way off, far enough,
+that is, and I swore I'd never disclose the secret of her whereabouts to
+any one.  At least, if I didn't swear it, I said it, and, if I said it,
+my lord, and broke my promise, it wouldn't be honourable, would it?"
+
+"I don't care," began Titania.
+
+"Would it, my lord?" asked Bob.
+
+"I'm afraid not," said the bishop, "though perhaps in the circumstances,
+which are very peculiar--"
+
+"Well, I won't," said Bob, "and that's flat. Goby wouldn't, I know,
+would you, Captain Goby?"
+
+But the duchess waved Goby into the background.
+
+"I mean to have the truth.  Shall we listen to your foolish scruples
+now?  If you won't tell us where she is, tell us whom she has married.
+Is it one of these gentlemen?"
+
+"I won't give any of 'em away," said Bob.
+
+"Then you know?"
+
+"Of course I know," said Bob.
+
+"Ah," sighed the duchess, "then she is married?"
+
+"She says so," said Bob, "and, if it's true, as I suppose, I know who it
+is.  But Pen, before she went up--before she went, said I wasn't to
+speak."
+
+Bradstock smiled.
+
+"Titania, Penelope is in the house.  Let us go in," he said, and he
+marched up the steps.  Bob shook himself free from the duchess and
+darted indoors before Bradstock.  He bolted up-stairs to Penelope, and
+burst in upon her like a whirlwind.
+
+"Pen, they're all here, all the gang!  I couldn't keep 'em out!"
+
+"Who are here?" asked Pen, in awful dismay.
+
+"All of 'em, and the bishop and Bradstock and granny!"
+
+"Oh, what shall I do?" wailed Penelope.
+
+"I'll tell you," said Bob.  "Let's sneak down the back way and steal one
+of their cars now, and get away!"
+
+"No, no," said Penelope, "it wouldn't be dignified.  I must be
+dignified, Bob, I must be; I will go down and see them."
+
+"No," said Bob.
+
+"I will," said Penelope.
+
+"And tell 'em the truth?"
+
+Penelope started.
+
+"I can't, I can't, because we've quarrelled.  But I will see them; I
+must."
+
+She went red and white and red again, and once more as pale as dawn.
+She kissed the sleeping, adopted, illegitimate, normal-coloured infant
+as he sprawled upon an historic bed, and went to the door.
+
+"Come with me, Bob."
+
+"I'll hold your hand, Pen.  I say, you shake!"
+
+"Squeeze my hand till you hurt me," said Pen. "Now come!"
+
+She swept down the big staircase, with Bob in tow, and found herself in
+the presence of the entire "gang," as Bob had called them.
+
+"Penelope!" said Titania, recoiling.
+
+"Oh, Pen," said Bradstock, advancing.
+
+"My dear Lady Penelope," said the bishop, sweetly, "do you recollect
+that I christened you at the early age of three months?"
+
+"No," said Penelope.
+
+"No!" said the bishop, "no, to be sure, how could you?  But I did."
+
+"It--it was very kind of you," said Penelope. Titania recovered herself
+and advanced.  Gordon and the rest hung about in the distance, looking
+as wretched as the ruined wing of the castle.
+
+"Are you married, Penelope?" asked Titania.
+
+"Yes," said Penelope.
+
+"Of course she is," said Bob.
+
+"Hold your tongue, Robert," said his grandmother. "And to whom?"
+
+"I won't say," replied Penelope.  "I told you I wouldn't, and I won't."
+
+"I said she wouldn't," cried Bob.
+
+Titania pointed her hand at the shrinking horde.
+
+"Every single one of these gentlemen, to say nothing of Lord Bramber,
+who is with his invalid father at the present moment, came to me and
+said he was married to you!  Every one of them without an exception!"
+
+"I am very much obliged to them," said Pen. "In the circumstances, I
+think it was noble of them."
+
+"Are you alluding to the advertisement in the _Times_?" asked Titania.
+"Are you aware that every one now says that you have adopted an infant?"
+
+"What rot!" said Bob.
+
+"Robert," cried his grandmother, "be silent, I command you.  I will not
+be interrupted by you. Are you aware, Penelope, that it is said all over
+England and Europe and the blatant United States that you have adopted
+an infant?"
+
+Penelope shook her head.
+
+"It's the first I've heard of it," said Penelope, who was the colour of
+a rose.
+
+"Is it true?  Do not evade my question," cried Titania.
+
+"I don't see, granny, what right you have to ask 'em," said the
+irrepressible Bob.  "I sent you a wire to say it wasn't black, and it
+isn't."
+
+"Augustin, silence that boy," said Titania.
+
+But Augustin shook his head.
+
+"Don't you answer anything, Pen," said Bob. "No one has any right to ask
+you anything."
+
+He marched over to Gordon.
+
+"Don't look so sad, Mr. Gordon."
+
+"I can't help it, my boy," said Gordon.  "It's a horrid situation.  I
+don't care whether it's adopted or not.  If she'll marry me, I'll have
+her."
+
+Bob squeezed his hand.
+
+"I ain't _absolutely_ sure it isn't you yet," he said. "Pen hasn't told
+me all, you know.  By the way, Mr. Gordon, did that speculation come
+off?"
+
+"Not so well as I thought by ten thousand," said Gordon.
+
+"Oh, I say," said Bob, "but, after all, it doesn't matter.  I'll make
+fifty or sixty thousand do."
+
+"You're a fine boy," said Gordon.  "But, Bob, I would like to strangle
+your grandmother."
+
+"Would you?" asked Bob, eagerly.  "I dare say Pen does, too.
+Grandmothers and aunts are very trying.  At least, I find them so."
+
+The duchess's voice rose now quite above the limits of social decency,
+except when any one is playing or singing.
+
+"I will not be put off, Penelope.  You will say who it is, and you will
+be married again by the bishop in his fine Gothic cathedral--"
+
+"Mr. Dean's cathedral," interjected the bishop.
+
+"With a proper service and the usual hymns, breathing over Eden, or I
+will stay here till you do."
+
+"Steady, Titania," said Bradstock.  "If she won't, she won't."
+
+"But she shall," shrieked Titania.  "Gentlemen, which of you is it?  I
+am now entirely desperate; which of you is it?"
+
+No one said a word.
+
+"Marquis, is it you?" asked the duchess.  "You said so before."
+
+"How can I say?" asked poor Rivaulx.  "She says no one must."
+
+"Quite right," said Bradstock.  "Who will believe any one, Titania?
+Let's have lunch and be friendly and stop this.  I'm very hungry, Pen.
+And let's see the baby."
+
+The duchess shivered.
+
+"I cannot and will not see it," said Titania. "For by all accounts, it
+is an adopted illegitimate child.  If Penelope will send it back to the
+person she got it of, and own the truth, I will forgive her and have
+lunch, for I am very faint."
+
+"I want to see the baby, Pen," said Augustin, with his hand on Pen's
+shoulder.  "You know, Pen, they still say it's rather dusky."
+
+Penelope was very indignant.
+
+"He's not," she cried.  "They sha'n't say it any more.  Bob, tell that
+girl up-stairs to bring him down."
+
+And Bob ran up-stairs like a monkey up a stick.
+
+"I decline to see it," said Titania.  "A baby without a name is a
+terrible object to me.  It is an insult to the bishop and to the Church
+to bring one into the room.  I will retire into the open air and try to
+breathe again."
+
+Goby assisted her outside.
+
+"This is a calamity," said Titania.  "It's a catastrophe.  What is the
+truth, Captain Goby?  Are you a liar, too?"
+
+Goby sobbed.
+
+"How can I say?" he asked.  "You know I can't."
+
+He looked out into the park.
+
+"Here's some one coming in a motor," he cried. They all ran to the
+windows.  But just then Bob and the nurse came down with the infant,
+who, though evidently awed by the number of creatures he saw about him,
+behaved like a gentleman, and not in the least like an adopted child.
+
+"I congratulate you, Pen," said Bradstock. "The mother must be a
+devilish pretty woman! Does she miss it much, Pen?  Oh, Pen, what a
+queer, mad darling you are!  I begin to see daylight."
+
+But nobody else did.  Penelope blushed and hugged the baby tenderly,
+while Bob danced around her in the wildest state of excitement.
+
+"I say, Captain Goby, come and look at it!  Mr. de Vere!  I say,
+marquis!  Ain't it a ripper, and as fat as a pup, and hardly a squeal
+out of it day or night!  Granny dear, won't you look at it?"
+
+"No, no," said Titania.  "I cannot, cannot bring myself to do so!"
+
+"You'll soon be jolly sorry, I can tell you," cried the loving grandson.
+"I'll bet you'll be sorry."
+
+He ran to Pen.
+
+"I say, Pen, give the kid to me, or you'll drop it."
+
+"Drop him!" exclaimed Penelope.  "Oh, Bob, is it likely?"
+
+"Very likely," said Bob, "if you knew that I sent a telegram to some one
+just as soon as we got here!"
+
+Pen flushed scarlet.  But not with anger.
+
+"Oh, Bob!"
+
+"I did!  You ain't angry?"
+
+"Oh, Bob!"
+
+"I don't care," said Bob, as he took the child. "I don't care a hang.
+I'm ruined with all these jossers now.  De Vere will never buy any more
+dogs of me.  I say, who's that?"
+
+A motor-car stopped outside the great hall door, and a gentleman in
+black got out.  He came up the steps rapidly, and stopped dead when he
+found all the world in front of him.
+
+"I thought so," said Bradstock.  "Now the catalogue is complete."
+
+"Lord Bramber!" cried the others.  Penelope stood in the centre of the
+great hall as if she were turned to marble.  But no marble ever had so
+sweet a colour.
+
+[Illustration: THE EARL OF PULBOROUGH. Clever; but indolent]
+
+"I believe it is now the Earl of Pulborough," said Bradstock, gravely,
+to the newcomer.
+
+"Yes," he replied.  "Penelope, you sent for me?"
+
+Pen fell upon his neck before them all and did not deny it.
+
+And, as they stood still in great amazement, Bob danced the baby up and
+down till that young gentleman made up his mind to roar as soon as he
+got his breath.
+
+"This--this is Lord Bramber," howled Bob, triumphantly.  "Now admit you
+feel sorry you spoke, granny!"
+
+He gave the baby to the nurse, and grabbed Goby by the arm.
+
+"I say, I'm awfully sorry, but it isn't my fault, Captain Goby, and
+Ethel Mytton is a very nice girl, and dead in love with you."
+
+"Is she?" sighed Goby.
+
+"Mr. de Vere, I've got a bulldog--"
+
+"Damn bulldogs!" said De Vere.
+
+Bob seized Gordon.
+
+"Do you feel very bad, Mr. Gordon?" he asked, sympathetically.  "I
+almost wish it had been you."
+
+"It can't be helped," said Gordon, gloomily.  "I never had a chance.
+Come and see me in the city next week, Bob."
+
+Rivaulx and Carew and Williams took their hats and slipped from the
+house, while Bob did what he could to soften things for them.
+
+"I'll come and see you all very often," he cried. "Good-bye now!"
+
+An hour later, when Titania had the baby upon her capacious lap, and
+said how certain she had been the whole time that Bramber was Penelope's
+choice, Bob walked around the garden with the bishop and Lord Bradstock.
+
+"Oh, it's quite easy to understand," said Bob. "After all she said, you
+expected she would marry some outsider, and you see she took the pick of
+the basket, and of course was ashamed.  Oh, I know Pen."
+
+"You are a wonder, Bob," said Bradstock.
+
+The bishop said that upon adequate reflection he was inclined to agree
+with Bradstock.
+
+"Well, Pen's all right," said Bob.
+
+
+
+                                THE END.
+
+
+
+
+           *      *      *      *      *      *      *      *
+
+
+
+
+*L. C. Page and Company's
+Announcement List
+of New fiction*
+
+
+
+*The Flight of Georgiana*
+
+A ROMANCE OF THE DAYS OF THE YOUNG PRETENDER.  By ROBERT NEILSON
+STEPHENS, author of "The Bright Face of Danger," "An Enemy to the King,"
+"The Mystery of Murray Davenport," etc.
+
+Library 12mo, cloth decorative, illustrated . . . $1.50
+
+Mr. Stephens's novels all bear the hall-mark of success for his men are
+always live, his women are always worthy of their cavaliers, and his
+adventures are of the sort to stir the most sluggish blood without
+overstepping the bounds of good taste.
+
+The theme of the new novel is one which will give Mr. Stephens splendid
+scope for all the powers at his command. The career of "Bonnie Prince
+Charlie" was full of romance, intrigue, and adventure; his life was a
+series of episodes to delight the soul of a reader of fiction, and Mr.
+Stephens is to be congratulated for his selection of such a promising
+subject.
+
+
+
+*Mrs. Jim and Mrs. Jimmie*
+
+By STEPHEN CONRAD, author of "The Second Mrs. Jim."
+
+Library 12mo, cloth decorative, illustrated . . . $1.50
+
+This new book is in a sense a sequel to "The Second Mrs. Jim," since it
+gives further glimpses of that delightful stepmother and her philosophy.
+This time, however, she divides the field with "Mrs. Jimmie," who is
+quite as attractive in her different way.  The book has more plot than
+the former volume, a little less philosophy perhaps, but just as much
+wholesome fun.  In many ways it is a stronger book, and will therefore
+take an even firmer hold on the public.
+
+
+
+*The Story of Red Fox*
+
+Told by CHARLES G. D. ROBERTS, author of "The Watchers of the Trails,"
+"The Kindred of the Wild," "Barbara Ladd," etc.
+
+Library 12mo, cloth decorative, with fifty illustrations and cover
+design by Charles Livingston Bull . . . $2.00
+
+Mr. Roberts's reputation as a scientifically accurate writer, whose
+literary skill transforms his animal stories into masterpieces, stands
+unrivalled in his particular field.
+
+This is his first long animal story, and his romance of Red Fox, from
+babyhood to patriarchal old age, makes reading more fascinating than any
+work of fiction.  In his hands Red Fox becomes a personality so strong
+that one entirely forgets he is an animal, and his haps and mishaps grip
+you as do those of a person.
+
+Mr. Bull, as usual, fits his pictures to the text as hand to glove, and
+the ensemble becomes a book as near perfection as it is possible to
+attain.
+
+
+
+*Return*
+
+A STORY OF THE SEA ISLANDS IN 1739.  By ALICE MACGOWAN and GRACE
+MACGOWAN COOKE, authors of "The Last Word," etc.  With six illustrations
+by C. D. Williams.
+
+Library 12mo, cloth . . . $1.50
+
+A new romance, undoubtedly the best work yet done by Miss MacGowan and
+Mrs. Cooke.  The heroine of "Return," Diana Chaters, is the belle of the
+Colonial city of Charles Town, S.C., in the early eighteenth century,
+and the hero is a young Virginian of the historical family of Marshall.
+The youth, beauty, and wealth of the fashionable world, which first form
+the environment of the romance, are pictured in sharp contrast to the
+rude and exciting life of the frontier settlements in the Georgia
+Colony, and the authors have missed no opportunities for telling
+characterizations.  But "Return" is, above all, a love-story.
+
+We quote the opinion of Prof. Charles G. D. Roberts, who has read the
+advance sheets: "It seems to me a story of quite unusual strength and
+interest, full of vitality and crowded with telling characters.  I
+greatly like the authors' firm, bold handling of their subject."
+
+
+
+*Lady Penelope*
+
+By MORLEY ROBERTS, author of "Rachel Marr," "The Promotion of the
+Admiral," etc.  With nine illustrations by Arthur W. Brown.
+
+Library 12mo, cloth . . . $1.50
+
+Mr. Roberts certainly has versatility, since this book has not a single
+point of similarity with either "Rachel Marr" or his well-known sea
+stories.  Its setting is the English so-called "upper crust" of the
+present day.  Lady Penelope is quite the most up-to-date young lady
+imaginable and equally charming.  As might be expected from such a
+heroine, her automobiling plays an important part in the development of
+the plot.  Lady Penelope has a large number of suitors, and her method
+of choosing her husband is original and provocative of delightful
+situations and mirthful incidents.
+
+
+
+*The Winged Helmet*
+
+By HAROLD STEELE MACKAYE, author of "The Panchronicon," etc.  With six
+illustrations by H. C. Edwards.
+
+Library 12mo, cloth . . . $1.50
+
+When an author has an original theme on which to build his story,
+ability in construction of unusual situations, skill in novel
+characterization, and a good literary style, there can be no doubt but
+that his work is worth reading.  "The Winged Helmet" is of this
+description.
+
+The author gives in this novel a convincing picture of life in the early
+sixteenth century, and the reader will be delighted with its originality
+of treatment, freshness of plot, and unexpected climaxes.
+
+
+
+*A Captain of Men*
+
+By E. ANSON MORE.
+
+Library 12mo, cloth, illustrated . . . $1.50
+
+A tale of Tyre and those merchant princes whose discovery of the value
+of tin brought untold riches into the country and afforded adventures
+without number to those daring seekers for the mines.  Merodach, the
+Assyrian, Tanith, the daughter of the richest merchant of Tyre, Miriam,
+her Hebrew slave, and the dwarf Hiram, who was the greatest artist of
+his day, are a quartette of characters hard to surpass in individuality.
+It has been said that the powerful order of Free Masons first had its
+origin in the meetings which were held at Hiram's studio in Tyre, where
+gathered together the greatest spirits of that age and place.
+
+
+
+*The Paradise of the Wild Apple*
+
+By RICHARD LEGALLIENNE, author of "Old Love Stories Retold," "The Quest
+of the Golden Girl," etc.
+
+Library 12mo, cloth decorative . . . $1.50
+
+The theme of Mr. LeGallienne's new romance deals with the instinct of
+wildness in human nature,--the wander spirit and impatience of tame
+domesticity, the preference for wild flowers and fruits, and the glee in
+summer storms and elemental frolics.  A wild apple-tree, high up in a
+rocky meadow, is symbolic of all this, and Mr. LeGallienne works out in
+a fashion at once imaginative and serious the romance of a young man
+well placed from the view of worldly goods and estate, who suddenly
+hungers for the "wild apples" of his youth.  The theme has limitless
+possibilities, and Mr. LeGallienne is artist enough to make adequate use
+of them.
+
+
+
+*The Grapple*
+
+Library 12mo, cloth decorative . . . $1.50
+
+This story of a strike in the coal mines of Pennsylvania gives both
+sides of the question,--the Union and its methods, and the non-Union
+workers and their loyal adherents, with a final typical clash at the
+end.  The question is an absorbing one, and it is handled fearlessly.
+
+For the present at least "The Grapple" will be issued anonymously.
+
+
+
+*Brothers of Peril*
+
+By THEODORE ROBERTS, author of "Hemming the Adventurer."
+
+Library 12mo, cloth decorative, illustrated . . . $1.50
+
+"Brothers of Peril" has an unusual plot, dealing with a now extinct
+race, the Beothic Indians of the sixteenth century, who were the
+original inhabitants of Newfoundland when that island was merely a
+fishing-station for the cod-seeking fleets of the old world.
+
+The story tells of the adventures of a young English cavalier, who, left
+behind by the fleet, finds another Englishman, with his daughter and
+servants, who is hiding from the law.  A French adventurer and pirate,
+who is an unwelcome suitor for the daughter, plays an important part.
+Encounters between the Indians and the small colony of white men on
+shore, and perilous adventures at sea with a shipload of pirates led by
+the French buccaneer, make a story of breathless interest.
+
+
+
+*The Black Barque*
+
+By T. JENKINS HAINS, author of "The Wind Jammers," "The Strife of the
+Sea," etc.  With five illustrations by W. Herbert Dunton.
+
+Library 12mo, cloth . . . $1.50
+
+According to a high naval authority who has seen the advance sheets,
+this is one of the best sea stories ever offered to the public.  "The
+Black Barque" is a story of slavery and piracy upon the high seas about
+1815, and is written with a thorough knowledge of deep-water sailing.
+This, Captain Hains's first long sea story, realistically pictures a
+series of stirring scenes at the period of the destruction of the
+exciting but nefarious traffic in slaves, in the form of a narrative by
+a young American lieutenant, who, by force of circumstances, finds
+himself the gunner of "The Black Barque."
+
+
+
+*Cameron of Lochiel*
+
+Translated from the French of PHILIPPE AUBERT DE GASP� by PROF. CHARLES
+G. D. ROBERTS.
+
+Library 12mo, cloth decorative . . . $1.50
+
+The publishers are gratified to announce a new edition of a book by this
+famous author, who may be called the Walter Scott of Canada.  This
+interesting and valuable romance is fortunate in having for its
+translator Professor Roberts, who has caught perfectly the spirit of the
+original.  The French edition first appeared under the title of "Les
+Anciens Canadiens" in 1862, and was later translated and appeared in an
+American edition now out of print.
+
+Patriotism, devotion to the French-Canadian nationality, a just pride of
+race, and a loving memory for his people's romantic and heroic past, are
+the dominant chords struck by the author throughout the story.
+
+
+
+*Castel del Monte*
+
+By NATHAN GALLIZIER.  Illustrated by H. C. Edwards.
+
+Library 12mo, cloth . . . $1.5O
+
+A powerful romance of the fall of the Hohenstaufen dynasty in Italy, and
+the overthrow of Manfred by Charles of Anjou, the champion of Pope
+Clement IV.  The Middle Ages are noted for the weird mysticism and the
+deep fatalism characteristic of a people believing in signs and portents
+and the firm hand of fate.  Mr. Gallizier has brought out these
+characteristics in a marked degree.
+
+
+
+*Slaves of Success*
+
+By ELLIOTT FLOWER, author of "The Spoilsmen," etc.  With twenty
+illustrations by different artists.
+
+Library 12mo, cloth . . . $1.50
+
+Another striking book by Mr. Flower, whose work is already so well
+known, both through his long stories and his contributions to
+_Collier's_, the _Saturday Evening Post_, etc. Like his first success,
+"The Spoilsmen," it deals with politics, but in the broader field of
+state and national instead of municipal.  The book has recently appeared
+in condensed form as a serial in _Collier's Magazine_, where it
+attracted wide-spread attention, and the announcement of its appearance
+in book form will be welcomed by Mr. Flower's rapidly increasing
+audience.  The successful delineation of characters like John Wade, Ben
+Carroll, Azro Craig, and Allen Sidway throws new strong lights on the
+inside workings of American business and political "graft."
+
+
+
+*Silver Bells*
+
+By COL. ANDREW C. P. HAGGARD, author of "Hannibal's Daughter," "Louis
+XIV. in Court and Camp," etc.  With cover design and frontispiece by
+Charles Livingston Bull.
+
+Library 12mo, cloth . . . $1.50
+
+Under the thin veneer of conventionality and custom lurks in many hearts
+the primeval instinct to throw civilization to the winds and hark back
+to the ways of the savages in the wilderness, and it often requires but
+a mental crisis or an emotional upheaval to break through the coating.
+Geoffrey Digby was such an one, who left home and kindred to seek
+happiness among the Indians of Canada, in the vast woods which always
+hold an undefinable mystery and fascination. He gained renown as a
+mighty hunter, and the tale of his life there, and the romance which
+awaited him, will be heartily enjoyed by all who like a good love-story
+with plenty of action not of the "stock" order.  "Silver Bells," the
+Indian girl, is a perfect "child of nature."
+
+
+
+
+*Selections from
+L. C. Page and Company's
+List of Fiction*
+
+
+
+                               *WORKS OF
+                        ROBERT NEILSON STEPHENS*
+
+
+
+*Captain Ravenshaw;* OR, THE MAID OF CHEAPSIDE.  (40th thousand.)  A
+romance of Elizabethan London.  Illustrations by Howard Pyle and other
+artists.
+
+Library 12mo, cloth . . . $1.50
+
+Not since the absorbing adventures of D'Artagnan have we had anything so
+good in the blended vein of romance and comedy.  The beggar student, the
+rich goldsmith, the roisterer and the rake, the fop and the maid, are
+all here: foremost among them Captain Ravenshaw himself, soldier of
+fortune and adventurer, who, after escapades of binding interest,
+finally wins a way to fame and to matrimony.
+
+
+
+*Philip Winwood.*  (70th thousand)  A Sketch of the Domestic History of
+an American Captain in the War of Independence, embracing events that
+occurred between and during the years 1763 and 1785 in New York and
+London. Written by his Enemy in War, Herbert Russell, Lieutenant in the
+Loyalist Forces.  Presented anew by ROBERT NEILSON STEPHENS.
+Illustrated by E. W. D. Hamilton.
+
+Library 12mo, cloth . . . $1.50
+
+"One of the most stirring and remarkable romances that have been
+published in a long while, and its episodes, incidents, and actions are
+as interesting and agreeable as they are vivid and dramatic."--_Boston
+Times_.
+
+
+
+*The Mystery of Murray Davenport.*  (30th thousand.)  By ROBERT NEILSON
+STEPHENS, author of "An Enemy to the King," "Philip Winwood," etc.
+
+Library 12mo, cloth, with six full-page illustrations by H. C. Edwards .
+. . $1.50
+
+"This is easily the best thing that Mr. Stephens has yet done. Those
+familiar with his other novels can best judge the measure of this
+praise, which is generous."--_Buffalo News_.
+
+"Mr. Stephens won a host of friends through his earlier volumes, but we
+think he will do still better work in his new field if the present
+volume is a criterion."--_N. Y. Com. Advertiser_.
+
+
+
+*An Enemy to the King.*  (60th thousand.)  From the "Recently Discovered
+Memoirs of the Sieur de la Tournoire."  Illustrated by H. De M. Young.
+
+Library 12mo, cloth . . . $1.50
+
+An historical romance of the sixteenth century, describing the
+adventures of a young French nobleman at the Court of Henry III., and on
+the field with Henry of Navarre.
+
+"A stirring tale."--_Detroit Free Press_.
+
+"A royally strong piece of fiction."--_Boston Ideas_.
+
+"Interesting from the first to the last page."--_Brooklyn Eagle_.
+
+"Brilliant as a play; it is equally brilliant as a romantic
+novel."--_Philadelphia Press_.
+
+
+
+*The Continental Dragoon:* A ROMANCE OF PHILIPSE MANOR HOUSE IN 1778.
+(43d thousand.)  Illustrated by H. C. Edwards.
+
+Library 12mo, cloth . . . $1.50
+
+A stirring romance of the Revolution, the scene being laid in and around
+the old Philipse Manor House, near Yonkers, which at the time of the
+story was the central point of the so-called "neutral territory" between
+the two armies.
+
+
+
+*The Road to Paris:* A STORY OF ADVENTURE. (25th thousand.)  Illustrated
+by H. C. Edwards.
+
+Library 12mo, cloth . . . $1.50
+
+An historical romance of the 18th century, being an account of the life
+of an American gentleman adventurer of Jacobite ancestry, whose family
+early settled in the colony of Pennsylvania.
+
+
+
+*A Gentleman Player:* HIS ADVENTURES ON A SECRET MISSION FOR QUEEN
+ELIZABETH.  (38th thousand.)  Illustrated by Frank T. Merrill.
+
+Library 12mo, cloth . . . $1.50
+
+"A Gentleman Player" is a romance of the Elizabethan period.  It relates
+the story of a young gentleman who, in the reign of Elizabeth, falls so
+low in his fortune that he joins Shakespeare's company of players, and
+becomes a friend and prot�g� of the great poet.
+
+
+
+
+                               *WORKS OF
+                         CHARLES G. D. ROBERTS*
+
+
+
+*Barbara Ladd.*  With four illustrations by Frank Verbeck.
+
+Library 12mo, gilt top . . . $1.50
+
+"From the opening chapter to the final page Mr. Roberts lures us on by
+his rapt devotion to the changing aspects of Nature and by his keen and
+sympathetic analysis of human character."--_Boston Transcript_.
+
+
+
+*The Kindred of the Wild.*  A BOOK OF ANIMAL LIFE.  With fifty-one
+full-page plates and many decorations from drawings by Charles
+Livingston Bull.
+
+Small quarto, decorative cover . . . $2.00
+
+"Professor Roberts has caught wonderfully the elusive individualities of
+which he writes.  His animal stories are marvels of sympathetic science
+and literary exactness.  Bound with the superb illustrations by Charles
+Livingston Bull, they make a volume which charms, entertains, and
+informs."--New York World.
+
+"... Is in many ways the most brilliant collection of animal stories
+that has appeared ... well named and well done."--_John Burroughs_.
+
+
+
+*The Forge in the Forest.*  Being the Narrative of the Acadian Ranger,
+Jean de Mer, Seigneur de Briart, and how he crossed the Black Abb�, and
+of his Adventures in a Strange Fellowship.  Illustrated by Henry
+Sandham, R.C.A.
+
+Library 12mo, cloth, gilt top . . . $1.50
+
+A romance of the convulsive period of the struggle between the French
+and English for the possession of North America. The story is one of
+pure love and heroic adventure, and deals with that fiery fringe of
+conflict that waved between Nova Scotia and New England.  The Expulsion
+of the Acadians is foreshadowed in these brilliant pages, and the part
+of the "Black Abb�'s" intrigues in precipitating that catastrophe is
+shown.
+
+
+
+*The Heart of the Ancient Wood.*  With six illustrations by James L.
+Weston.
+
+Library 12mo, decorative cover . . . $1.50
+
+"One of the most fascinating novels of recent days."--_Boston Journal_.
+
+"A classic twentieth-century romance."--_New York Commercial
+Advertiser_.
+
+
+
+*A Sister to Evangeline.*  Being the story of Yvonne de Lamourie, and
+how she went into Exile with the Villagers of Grand Pr�.
+
+Library 12mo, cloth, gilt top, illustrated . . . $1.50
+
+This is a romance of the great expulsion of the Acadians, which
+Longfellow first immortalized in "Evangeline."  Swift action, fresh
+atmosphere, wholesome purity, deep passion, searching analysis,
+characterize this strong novel.
+
+
+
+*By the Marshes of Minas.*
+
+Library 12mo, cloth, gilt top, illustrated . . . $1.50
+
+This is a volume of romance, of love and adventure in that picturesque
+period when Nova Scotia was passing from the French to the English
+regime.  Each tale is independent of the others, but the scenes are
+similar, and in several of them the evil "Black Abb�"," well known from
+the author's previous novels, again appears with his savages at his
+heels--but to be thwarted always by woman's wit or soldier's courage.
+
+
+
+*Earth's Enigmas.*  A new edition, with the addition of three new
+stories, and ten illustrations by Charles Livingston Bull.
+
+Library 12mo, cloth, uncut edges . . . $1.50
+
+"Throughout the volume runs that subtle questioning of the cruel,
+predatory side of nature which suggests the general title of the book.
+In certain cases it is the picture of savage nature ravening for
+food--for death to preserve life; in others it is the secret symbolism
+of woods and waters prophesying of evils and misadventures to come.  All
+this does not mean, however, that Mr. Roberts is either pessimistic or
+morbid--it is nature in his books after all, wholesome in her cruel
+moods as in her tender."--_The New York Independent_.
+
+
+
+
+                               *WORKS OF
+                              LILIAN BELL*
+
+
+
+*Hope Loring.*  Illustrated by Frank T. Merrill.
+
+Library 12mo, cloth, decorative cover . . . $1.50
+
+"Lilian Bell's new novel, 'Hope Loring,' does for the American girl in
+fiction what Gibson has done for her in art.
+
+"Tall, slender, and athletic, fragile-looking, yet with nerves and
+sinews of steel under the velvet flesh, frank as a boy and tender and
+beautiful as a woman, free and independent, yet not bold--such is 'Hope
+Loring,' by long odds the subtlest study that has yet been made of the
+American girl."--_Dorothy Dix, in the New York American_.
+
+
+
+*Abroad with the Jimmies.*  With a portrait, in duogravure, of the
+author.
+
+Library 12mo, cloth, decorative cover . . . $1.50
+
+"A deliciously fresh, graphic book.  The writer is so original and
+unspoiled that her point of view has value."--_Mary Hartwell
+Catherwood_.
+
+"Full of ozone, of snap, of ginger, of swing and momentum."--_Chicago
+Evening Post_.
+
+"... Is one of her best and cleverest novels ... filled to the brim with
+amusing incidents and experiences.  This vivacious narrative needs no
+commendation to the readers of Miss Bell's well-known earlier
+books."--_N. Y. Press_.
+
+
+
+*The Interference of Patricia.*  With a frontispiece from drawing by
+Frank T. Merrill.
+
+Small 12mo, cloth, decorative cover . . . $1.00
+
+"There is life and action and brilliancy and dash and cleverness and a
+keen appreciation of business ways in this story."--_Grand Rapids
+Herald_.
+
+"A story full of keen and flashing satire."--_Chicago Record-Herald_.
+
+
+
+*A Book Of Girls.*  With a frontispiece.
+
+Small 12mo, cloth, decorative cover . . . $1.00
+
+"The stories are all eventful and have effective humor."--_New York
+Sun_.
+
+"Lilian Bell surely understands girls, for she depicts all the
+variations of girl nature so charmingly."--_Chicago Journal_.
+
+_The above two volumes boxed in special holiday dress, per set, $2.50_.
+
+
+
+*The Red Triangle.*  Being some further chronicles of Martin Hewitt,
+investigator.  By ARTHUR MORRISON, author of "The Hole in the Wall,"
+"Tales of Mean Streets," etc.
+
+Library 12mo, cloth decorative . . . $1.50
+
+This is a genuine, straightforward detective story of the kind that
+keeps the reader on the _qui vive_.  Martin Hewitt, investigator, might
+well have studied his methods from Sherlock Holmes, so searching and
+successful are they.
+
+"Better than Sherlock Holmes."--_New York Tribune_.
+
+"The reader who has a grain of fancy or imagination may be defied to lay
+this book down, once he has begun it, until the last word has been
+reached."--_Philadelphia North American_.
+
+"If you like a good detective story you will enjoy this."--_Brooklyn
+Eagle_.
+
+"We have found 'The Red Triangle' a book of absorbing
+interest."--_Rochester Herald_.
+
+"Will be eagerly read by every one who likes a tale of mystery."--_The
+Scotsman, England_.
+
+
+
+*Prince Hagen.*  By UPTON SINCLAIR, author of "King Midas," etc.
+
+Library 12mo, cloth decorative . . . . $1.50
+
+In this book Mr. Sinclair has written a satire of the first order--one
+worthy to be compared with Swift's biting tirades against the follies
+and abuses of mankind.
+
+"A telling satire on politics and society in modern New
+York."--_Philadelphia Public Ledger_.
+
+"The book has a living vitality and is a strong depiction of political
+New York."--_Bookseller, Newsdealer, and Stationer_.
+
+
+
+*The Silent Maid.*  By FREDERIC W. PANGBORN.
+
+Large 16mo, cloth decorative, with a frontispiece by Frank T. Merrill .
+. . $1.00
+
+A dainty and delicate legend of the brave days of old, of sprites and
+pixies, of trolls and gnomes, of ruthless barons and noble knights.
+"The Silent Maid" herself, with her strange bewitchment and wondrous
+song, is equalled only by Undine in charm and mystery.
+
+"Seldom does one find a short tale so idyllic in tone and so fanciful in
+motive.  The book shows great delicacy of imagination."--_The
+Criterion_.
+
+
+
+*The Spoilsmen.*  By ELLIOTT FLOWER, author of "Policeman Flynn," etc.
+
+Library 12mo, cloth . . . $1.50
+
+"The best one may hear of 'The Spoilsmen' will be none too good.  As a
+wide-awake, snappy, brilliant political story it has few equals, its
+title-page being stamped with that elusive mark, 'success.' One should
+not miss a word of a book like this at a time like this and in a world
+of politics like this."--_Boston Transcript_.
+
+"Elliott Flower, whose 'Policeman Flynn' attested his acquaintance with
+certain characteristic aspects of the American city, has written a novel
+of municipal politics, which should interest many readers....  The
+characters are obviously suggested by certain actual figures in local
+politics, and while the conditions he depicts are general in large
+cities in the United States, they will be unusually familiar to local
+readers....  Ned Bell, the 'Old Man,' or political boss; Billy Ryan, his
+lieutenant; 'Rainbow John,' the alderman, are likely to be
+identified....  and other personages of the story are traceable to their
+prototypes."--_Chicago Evening Post_.
+
+
+
+*Stephen Holton.*  By CHARLES FELTON PIDGIN, author of "Quincy Adams
+Sawyer," "Blennerhassett," etc. The frontispiece is a portrait of the
+hero by Frank T. Merrill.
+
+One vol., library 12mo, cloth, gilt top . . . $1.50
+
+"In the delineation of rural life, the author shows that intimate
+sympathy which distinguished his first success, 'Quincy Adams
+Sawyer.'"--_Boston Daily Advertiser_.
+
+"'Stephen Holton' stands as his best achievement."--_Detroit Free
+Press_.
+
+"New England's common life seems a favorite material for this sterling
+author, who in this particular instance mixes his colors with masterly
+skill."--_Boston Globe_.
+
+
+
+*Asa Holmes;* OR, AT THE CROSS-ROADS.  A Sketch of Country Life and
+Country Humor.  By ANNIE FELLOWS JOHNSTON.  With a frontispiece by
+Ernest Fosbery.
+
+Large 16mo, cloth, gilt top . . . $1.00
+
+"'Asa Holmes; or, At the Cross-Roads' is the most delightful, most
+sympathetic and wholesome book that has been published in a long while.
+The lovable, cheerful, touching incidents, the descriptions of persons
+and things are wonderfully true to nature."--_Boston Times_.
+
+
+
+*A Daughter Of Thespis.*  By JOHN D. BARRY, author of "The Intriguers,"
+"Mademoiselle Blanche," etc.
+
+Library 12mo, cloth decorative . . . $1.50
+
+"I should say that 'A Daughter of Thespis' seemed so honest about actors
+and acting that it made you feel as if the stage had never been truly
+written about before."--_W. D. Howells, in Harper's Weekly_.
+
+"This story of the experiences of Evelyn Johnson, actress, may be
+praised just because it is so true and so wholly free from melodrama and
+the claptrap which we have come to think inseparable from any narrative
+which has to do with theatrical experiences."--_Professor Harry Thurston
+Peck, of Columbia University_.
+
+"Certainly written from a close and shrewd observation of stage
+life."--_Chicago Record-Herald_.
+
+
+
+*The Golden Dog:* A ROMANCE OF QUEBEC.  By WILLIAM KIRBY.  New
+authorized edition, printed from new plates.  Illustrated by J. W.
+Kennedy.
+
+One vol., library 12mo, cloth . . . $1.25
+
+"A powerful romance of love, intrigue, and adventure in the times of
+Louis XV. and Madame de Pompadour, when the French colonies were making
+their great struggle to retain for an ungrateful court the fairest
+jewels in the colonial diadem of France.  It is a most masterly picture
+of the cruelties and the jealousies of a maiden, Angelique des
+Melloises--fair as an angel and murderous as Medea. Mr. Kirby has shown
+how false prides and ambitions stalked abroad at this time, how they
+entered the heart of man to work his destruction, and particularly how
+they influenced a beautiful demon in female form to continued
+vengeances."--_Boston Herald_.
+
+
+
+*The Last Word*.  By ALICE MACGOWAN.  Illustrated with seven portraits
+of the heroine.
+
+Library 12mo, cloth, gilt top . . . $1.50
+
+"When one receives full measure to overflowing of delight in a tender,
+charming, and wholly fascinating new piece of fiction, the enthusiasm is
+apt to come uppermost.  Miss MacGowan has been known before, but her
+best gift has here declared itself."--_Louisville Post_.
+
+"The story begins and ends in Western Texas.  Between chapters, there is
+the ostensible autobiography of a girl who makes her way in New York
+journalism.  Out of it all comes a book, vivid, bright, original--one of
+a kind and the kind most welcome to readers of the hitherto
+conventional."--_New York World_.
+
+
+
+*The Captain's Wife.*  By W. CLARK RUSSELL, author of "The Wreck of the
+Grosvenor."  With a frontispiece by C. H. Dunton.
+
+Library 12mo, cloth decorative . . . $1.50
+
+"Mr. Russell's descriptions of the sea are vivid and full of color, and
+he brings home to the reader the feeling that he is looking upon the
+real thing drawn by one who has seen the scenes and writes from
+knowledge."--_Brooklyn Eagle_.
+
+"Every page is readable and exciting."--_Baltimore Herald_.
+
+"This story may be considered as one of the best of his excellent tales
+of the sea."--_Chicago Post_.
+
+"There are suggestions of Marryat in it, and reminders of Charles Reade,
+but mostly it is Clark Russell, with his delightful descriptions and
+irresistible sea yarns."--_Phila. North American_.
+
+
+
+*The Mate of the Good Ship York.*  By W. CLARK RUSSELL, author of "The
+Wreck of the Grosvenor," etc.  With a frontispiece by C. H. Dunton.
+
+Library 12mo, cloth decorative . . . $1.50
+
+"One of the breeziest, most absorbing books that have come to our table
+is W. Clark Russell's 'The Mate of the Good Ship York.'"--_Buffalo
+Commercial_.
+
+"For a rousing, absorbing, and, withal, a truthful tale of the sea,
+commend me to W. Clark Russell.  His novel, 'The Mate of the Good Ship
+York,' is one of the best, and the love romance that runs through it
+will be appreciated by every one."--_Philadelphia North American_.
+
+"Romantic adventures, hairbreadth escapes, and astounding achievements
+keep things spinning at a lively rate and hold the reader's attention
+throughout the breezy narrative."--_Toledo Blade_.
+
+
+
+*The Golden Kingdom.*  By ANDREW BALFOUR, author of "Vengeance Is Mine,"
+"To Arms!" etc.
+
+Library 12mo, cloth decorative . . . $1.50
+
+This is a story of adventure on land and sea, beginning in England and
+ending in South Africa, in the last days of the seventeenth century.
+The scheme of the tale at once puts the reader in mind of Stevenson's
+"Treasure Island."
+
+"Every one imbued with the spirit of adventure and with a broad
+imaginative faculty will want to read this tale."--_Boston Transcript_.
+
+"'The Golden Kingdom' is the rarest adventure book of them all."--_N. Y.
+World_.
+
+
+
+*The Schemers: A Tale of Modern Life.*
+
+By EDWARD F. HARKINS, author of "Little Pilgrimages Among the Men Who
+Have Written Famous Books," etc. With a frontispiece by Ernest Fosbery.
+
+Library 12mo, cloth . . . $1.50
+
+A story of a new and real phase of social life in Boston, skilfully and
+daringly handled.  There is plenty of life and color abounding, and a
+diversity of characters--shop-girls, society belles, men about town,
+city politicians, and others. The various schemers and their schemes
+will be followed with interest, and there will be some discerning
+readers who may claim to recognize in certain points of the story
+certain happenings in the shopping and the society circles of the Hub.
+
+"A faithful delineation of real shop-girl life."--_Milwaukee Sentinel_.
+
+"This comes nearer to the actual life of a modern American city, with
+all its complexities, than any other work of American fiction. The book
+shows an unusual power of observation and a still more unusual power to
+concentrate and interpret what is observed."--_St. Louis Star_.
+
+
+
+*The Promotion of The Admiral.*  By MORLEY ROBERTS, author of "The
+Colossus," "The Fugitives," "Sons of Empire," etc.
+
+Library 12mo, cloth decorative, illustrated . . . $1.50
+
+This volume contains half a dozen stories of sea life,--fresh, racy, and
+bracing,--all laid in America,--stories full of rollicking, jolly,
+sea-dog humor, tempered to the keen edge of wit.
+
+"If any one writes better sea stories than Mr. Roberts, we don't know
+who it is; and if there is a better sea story of its kind than this it
+would be a joy to have the pleasure of reading it."--_New York Sun_.
+
+"To read these stories is a tonic for the mind; the stories are gems,
+and for pith and vigor of description they are unequalled."--_New York
+Commercial Advertiser_.
+
+"There is a hearty laugh in every one of these stories."--_The Reader_.
+
+"Mr. Roberts treats the life of the sea in a way that is intensely real
+and intensely human."--_Milwaukee Sentinel_.
+
+"The author knows his sea men from A to Z."--_Philadelphia North
+American_.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LADY PENELOPE ***
+
+
+
+
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+<title>LADY PENELOPE</title>
+<meta name="PG.Id" content="45648" />
+<meta name="PG.Rights" content="Public Domain" />
+<meta name="DC.Creator" content="Morley Roberts" />
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+<meta name="DC.Title" content="Lady Penelope" />
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+<meta name="DC.Language" content="en" />
+<meta name="DC.Created" content="1904" />
+<meta name="PG.Producer" content="Al Haines" />
+<meta name="PG.Title" content="Lady Penelope" />
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+<p class="noindent pfirst"><span>This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States
+and most other parts of the world 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 </span><a class="reference internal" href="#project-gutenberg-license">Project Gutenberg License</a><span> included with
+this ebook or online at </span><a class="reference external" href="http://www.gutenberg.org/license">http://www.gutenberg.org/license</a><span>. If you
+are not located in the United States, you'll have to check the laws
+of the country where you are located before using this ebook.</span></p>
+<p class="noindent pnext"></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em">
+</div>
+<div class="container" id="pg-machine-header">
+<p class="noindent pfirst"><span>Title: Lady Penelope
+<br />
+<br />Author: Morley Roberts
+<br />
+<br />Release Date: May 14, 2014 [EBook #45648]
+<br />
+<br />Language: English
+<br />
+<br />Character set encoding: UTF-8</span></p>
+</div>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em">
+</div>
+<p class="noindent pfirst" id="pg-start-line"><span>*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK </span><span>LADY PENELOPE</span><span> ***</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em">
+</div>
+<p class="noindent pfirst" id="pg-produced-by"><span>Produced by Al Haines.</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 1em">
+</div>
+<p class="noindent pfirst"><span></span></p>
+</div>
+<div class="container coverpage">
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em">
+</div>
+<div class="align-center auto-scaled figure margin" style="width: 69%" id="figure-101">
+<span id="cover-art"></span><img class="align-center block" style="display: block; width: 100%" alt="Cover art" src="images/img-cover.jpg" />
+<div class="caption centerleft figure-caption margin">
+<span class="italics">Cover art</span></div>
+</div>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em">
+</div>
+</div>
+<div class="container frontispiece">
+<div class="align-center auto-scaled figure margin" style="width: 59%" id="figure-102">
+<span id="lady-penelope-brading"></span><img class="align-center block" style="display: block; width: 100%" alt="LADY PENELOPE BRADING Who had ideas of her own" src="images/img-front.jpg" />
+<div class="caption centerleft figure-caption margin">
+<span class="italics">LADY PENELOPE BRADING Who had ideas of her own</span></div>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em">
+</div>
+<div class="container titlepage">
+<p class="center pfirst"><span class="x-large">Lady Penelope</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em">
+</div>
+<p class="center pfirst"><span class="medium">By</span></p>
+<p class="center pnext"><span class="large">Morley Roberts</span></p>
+<p class="center pnext"><em class="italics small">Author of</em><span class="small"> "Rachel Marr," "The Promotion of
+<br />the Admiral," etc.</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em">
+</div>
+<p class="center pfirst"><em class="italics medium">Illustrated by</em><span class="medium">
+<br />Arthur William Brown</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em">
+</div>
+<p class="center pfirst"><span class="medium">L. C. Page &amp; Company
+<br /></span><em class="italics medium">Boston</em><span class="medium">
+<br /></span><em class="italics medium">Mdccccv</em></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em">
+</div>
+</div>
+<div class="container verso">
+<p class="center pfirst"><em class="italics small">Copyright, 1904, 1903</em><span class="small">
+<br />BY L. C. PAGE &amp; COMPANY
+<br />(INCORPORATED)</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 1em">
+</div>
+<p class="center pfirst"><em class="italics small">All rights reserved</em></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em">
+</div>
+<p class="center pfirst"><span class="small">Published February, 1905</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 1em">
+</div>
+<p class="center pfirst"><em class="italics small">COLONIAL PRESS
+<br />Electrotyped and Printed by C. H. Simonds &amp; Co.
+<br />Boston, Mass., U.S.A.</em></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em">
+</div>
+</div>
+<p class="center pfirst"><span class="bold large">LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em">
+</div>
+<dl class="docutils">
+<dt class="noindent"><a class="reference internal" href="#lady-penelope-brading">LADY PENELOPE BRADING</a><span> . . . . . . . . . </span><em class="italics">Frontispiece</em></dt>
+<dd><p class="first last noindent pfirst"><span>Who had ideas of her own.</span></p>
+</dd>
+</dl>
+<dl class="docutils">
+<dt class="noindent"><a class="reference internal" href="#captain-plantagenet-goby-v-c-late-of-the-guards">CAPTAIN PLANTAGENET GOBY, V.C., LATE OF THE GUARDS</a></dt>
+<dd><p class="first last noindent pfirst"><span>Who was ordered to read poetry.</span></p>
+</dd>
+</dl>
+<dl class="docutils">
+<dt class="noindent"><a class="reference internal" href="#leopold-norfolk-gordon">LEOPOLD NORFOLK GORDON</a></dt>
+<dd><p class="first last noindent pfirst"><span>Some said his real name was Isaac Levi.</span></p>
+</dd>
+</dl>
+<dl class="docutils">
+<dt class="noindent"><a class="reference internal" href="#austin-de-vere">AUSTIN DE VERE</a></dt>
+<dd><p class="first last noindent pfirst"><span>He wrote poetry, and abhorred bulldogs and motor-cars.</span></p>
+</dd>
+</dl>
+<dl class="docutils">
+<dt class="noindent"><a class="reference internal" href="#the-marquis-de-rivaulx">THE MARQUIS DE RIVAULX</a></dt>
+<dd><p class="first last noindent pfirst"><span>Anti-Semite to his manicured finger-tips.</span></p>
+</dd>
+</dl>
+<dl class="docutils">
+<dt class="noindent"><a class="reference internal" href="#rufus-q-plant">RUFUS Q. PLANT</a></dt>
+<dd><p class="first last noindent pfirst"><span>Born in Virginia.</span></p>
+</dd>
+</dl>
+<dl class="docutils">
+<dt class="noindent"><a class="reference internal" href="#carteret-williams-war-correspondent">CARTERET WILLIAMS, WAR CORRESPONDENT</a></dt>
+<dd><p class="first last noindent pfirst"><span>He wrote with a red picturesqueness which was horribly attractive.</span></p>
+</dd>
+</dl>
+<dl class="docutils">
+<dt class="noindent"><a class="reference internal" href="#jimmy-carew-a-r-a">JIMMY CAREW, A.R.A.</a></dt>
+<dd><p class="first last noindent pfirst"><span>He was the best looking of the whole "horde"</span></p>
+</dd>
+</dl>
+<dl class="docutils">
+<dt class="noindent"><a class="reference internal" href="#the-earl-of-pulborough">THE EARL OF PULBOROUGH</a></dt>
+<dd><p class="first last noindent pfirst"><span>Clever; but indolent.</span></p>
+</dd>
+</dl>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em">
+</div>
+<p class="center pfirst" id="chapter-i"><span class="bold x-large">LADY PENELOPE</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em">
+</div>
+<p class="center pfirst"><span class="bold large">CHAPTER I.</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em">
+</div>
+<p class="pfirst"><span>All the absurd birthday celebrations were over,
+and Penelope was twenty-one.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>She declared that her whole life was to be
+devoted to reform.  She meant to reform society,
+to make it good and useful and straightforward,
+and simple and utterly delightful.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>She let it be understood that men were in great
+need of her particular attention.  They were too
+selfish and self-centred, too extravagant, too
+critical of each other, too vain.  They acknowledged
+it humbly when she mentioned it, for Lady Penelope
+Brading's beauty was something to see and to talk
+of; major and minor poets agreed about it; artists
+desired to paint her and failed, as they always do
+when true loveliness shines on them.  She had the
+colour of a Titian; the contours of a Correggio;
+the witchery of a Reynolds, and under wonderful
+raiment the muscles of a young Greek athlete.  She
+wiped out any society in which she moved.  When
+sweet Eclipse showed herself, the rest were
+nowhere.  The other girls did not exist; she even
+made married beauties quake; as for the men, they
+endured everything she said, and worshipped her
+all the more.  She was strange and new and a tonic.
+She had no sense of humour whatsoever; she could
+not understand a joke even if it was explained by
+an expert on the staff of </span><em class="italics">Punch</em><span>.  This made her
+utterly delightful.  Her beautiful seriousness was
+as refreshing as logic in a sermon.  She believed
+in clergymen, in politicians, in the Deceased Wife's
+Sister, in all eminent physicians, in the London
+County Council, in the City of Westminster, in the
+British Constitution, in herself, and hygiene.  She
+read the </span><em class="italics">Times</em><span>, the </span><em class="italics">Athenæum</em><span>, the Encyclopædia
+Britannica, Herbert Spencer, Mr. Kidd, and the
+late Mr. Drummond.  She used Sandow's exercises
+and cold water.  She was opposed to war; she
+admired the leader of the opposition and the lord
+mayor; she subscribed to a society for establishing
+a national theatre to play Mr. Bernard Shaw's
+tragedies, and to the nearest hospital.  She was the
+most delightful person in England, and was against
+vaccination.  She had money and lands and houses
+and ideas.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"We ought all to do something; to be
+something," said Lady Penelope Brading.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>It was an amazing statement, a shocking statement,
+and clean against all class tradition when
+she interpreted it to the alarmed.  Was it not to
+be something if one was rich, let us say?  Was
+it not to do something if one spent one's money on
+horses and sport and dress and bridge?  Heaven
+defend us all if anything more is asked of man or
+woman than killing time and killing beasts!  Hands
+went up to heaven when Penelope preached.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Not that she preached at length.  Her sermons
+lasted five seconds by any clock, save at the times
+when she warmed her ankles by the fire with some
+pet friend of hers, and took into consideration how
+she was to use her power for the regeneration of
+the world which was hers.  Now she was with
+Ethel Mytton, a remote relative of the celebrated
+Mytton who drank eight bottles of port a day, and
+was a sportsman of the character which makes all
+Englishmen prouder of sport than of their history.
+Ten thousand on a football field would put him
+higher than Sir Richard Grenville.  Sidney was a
+fool to him.  Her father was a cabinet minister.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>But Ethel was meek and mild, and followed
+Penelope at a humble distance, modelling herself
+on that sweet mould of revolution.  So might a
+penny candle imitate an arc-light; so a glowworm
+worship the big moon.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"But you'll get married, dear," said Ethel, "of
+course you'll get married."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Penelope was pensive.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"There are other things than marriage," said
+Penelope.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, are there?" sighed Ethel.  She did not
+think so, for she was in love.  Penelope loved
+theories best.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Which of them will you marry?" asked Ethel.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Which what?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Silly, them," said Ethel.  "What the duchess
+calls your 'horde.'"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I don't know," replied Penelope.  "I'm like
+Diogenes, and I'm looking for an honest man."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, honesty,—yes, of course, I know what
+you mean.  But there are plenty of them, Pen dear.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Boo!" said Pen; "so the other Greeks said to
+the man in the tub."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Ethel sighed.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"What Greeks and what man in what tub?" she
+inquired, plaintively.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>And Penelope did not enlighten her darkness, for
+in came the Duchess of Goring, her aunt, whose
+Christian name was Titania.  She weighed sixteen
+stone in glittering bead armour, and had a voice
+exactly like Rose Le Clerc's in "The Duchess of
+Bayswater."  She rarely stopped talking, and was
+ridiculously moral and conventional, and, except
+for her voice, she might have been a shopkeeper's
+wife in any suburb.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"My dear Penelope," said Titania, "I'm glad to
+see you again.  You look positively sweet, my
+darling, after all these parties and carryings-on, and
+what not, and now at last you are quite grown up
+and yourself and your own and twenty-one.  I wish
+I was.  I was nine stone then exactly,—not a
+pound more.  Oh, and it's you, Ethel.  I hope your
+dear papa is not overworking himself, now he's a
+cabinet minister.  Cabinet ministers will overwork
+themselves.  I've known them die of it.  Tell him
+what I say, will you?  But of course he will pay
+no attention, and in time will die like the rest.
+It's no use advising men to be sensible.  I've given
+it up.  Ah, here at last is Lord Bradstock."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Titania flowed on wonderfully; she flowed exactly
+like the twisting piece of glass in a mechanical
+clock which mimics a jet of water.  She turned
+round and never advanced.  But Augustin, Lord
+Bradstock, was as calm as a mill-pond, as a mere
+in the mountains.  He was tall and thin and ruddy
+and white-haired at fifty.  He had been twice a
+widower.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Why at last, Titania?" he yawned, as he stood
+with Penelope's hand in his.  He was still her
+guardian in his heart, though she was out of tutelage.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I say at last, Augustin, because you were not
+here before me," cried Titania.  "And I expected
+you to be here before me from what you said this
+morning.  I told you I meant to come in and speak
+quietly and seriously to Penelope, and you said you
+would come, too."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Penelope's eyes thanked her guardian, and they
+smiled at him half-secretly, saying as plain as any
+words: "What a dear you are to come in and dilute
+aunty for me!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes," said Bradstock, "I think I said I would
+prepare her."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I've not had a single chance lately to say a word
+for her good," cried Titania, "what with this person
+and that person and the horde.  I think it is time
+now, Penelope, that you reorganized your amazing
+circle of acquaintances, mostly men, by the way.
+While Augustin was responsible for you, of course
+you were obstinate, but now you are in a position
+of greater freedom you will see the advisability
+of being guided by your aunt.  I'm sure, I'm
+positive of it."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Now the real sore point with the duchess was
+this matter of the "horde."  It was the only
+picturesque phrase she ever invented in her life, and
+without any doubt it did characterize in some
+measure the remarkable collection of men who were
+pretenders to Penelope's hand and fortune.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Out of the entire, the entire—"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Caboodle," said Bradstock, suggestively.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>The duchess shook her head like a horse in fly-time.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"No, Augustin, not caboodle; pray, what is
+caboodle?  Out of the entire—lot, Penelope, there
+are hardly three who belong to your class.  I
+entreat you to go through them and dismiss those
+of whom we can't approve, I and Lord Bradstock."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Don't drag me in," said Bradstock.  "They are
+all very good fellows; I approve of them all."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Tut, tut," said Titania, "is this the way you
+help, Augustin?  You are a hindrance.  I believe
+it is entirely owing to you that Penelope has these
+strange and alarming ideas.  Yes, my dear, I'm
+afraid it is.  He is not the kind of man who should
+have been your guardian.  I ought to have been
+consulted.  I knew a bishop who would have been
+admirable, most admirable.  He's dead, dear man,
+and the present one is a scandal to the Protestant
+Church, what with incense and processions and
+candles and confession-boxes.  But, as I was saying,
+I do hope you will dismiss some of these men.  And
+I hope you will be sensible and not say shocking
+things.  No one should say shocking things till they
+are married, and even then with discretion.  Socialism
+and reform and marriage!  Dear me, you really
+must not talk about marriage, but you must get
+married to a suitable person.  I'm sure, Augustin,
+we should have no insuperable objection to, let
+us say, young Bramber.  He'll be an earl by and
+by.  And you mustn't talk about reforming society,
+my dear love.  It is quite impossible to reform
+society without abolishing it, my pet.  Ethel darling,
+many cabinet ministers have owned as much to me
+with much alarm, almost with tears.  It's no use
+trying.  Tell your dear father so, Ethel.  I forgot to
+mention it the other day when we discussed the
+London County Council and its terrible extravagance
+compared with the economy of the government.  We
+talked, too, about the War Office, and I told him
+that it couldn't be reformed without abolishing it,
+which was not to be thought of for an instant.
+What should we do without a War Office, as we
+are always fighting?  He sighed deeply, poor man.
+Dr. Lumsden Griff says sighing is cardiac in its
+origin, and I wish your father would see him, Ethel.
+He's the first doctor in London for the ventricles
+of the heart.  So every one says.  But about your
+ideas, Penelope—"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Good heavens, aunty, I haven't any left," said
+Penelope.  This was not in the least surprising, for
+Titania reduced any ordinary gathering to idiocy at
+the shortest notice.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, but you have," said Titania, "and society
+cannot endure ideas, my love.  Anything but ideas,
+darling."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Well, well," sighed Bradstock, "what is the
+use of talking to her, Titania?  Pen is Pen, and
+there's an end of it."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I wish there was," cried the duchess.  "But
+she rails against marriage.  And she's only
+twenty-one.  Dear, dear me!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"She pays too much attention to you married
+women," said Bradstock.  "How's the duke, by
+the way?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>As the duke was engaged in running two theatres
+at the same time, not wholly in the interests
+of art or finance, Bradstock might have asked after
+his health at some other juncture.  Titania ignored him.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"She rails against marriage," lamented Titania.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I don't," said Penelope.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"You do," said her aunt.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"It's only the horrible publicity," said Penelope,
+"and the way things are done, and the ghastly
+presents and the bishops and the newspaper men
+and the horrible crowd outside and the worse crowd
+inside, and all the horrid fluff and flummery of it.
+If I'm ever married, I'll get it done in a registrar's
+office."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, Penelope," wailed Ethel.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>But Titania became terrible.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"You shall not be, Penelope," she cried.  "I
+could not stand it.  As your aunt, my dear—  Oh,
+my love, I knew some one who was married in that
+way, and it was a most shocking affair, and of
+course it turned out that he had been married
+before and was a bigamist.  The scandal was hushed
+up, and the first wife, who was the sweetest girl,
+and died of consumption shortly afterward at her
+father's vicarage in Kent or Yorkshire, near
+Pevensey or Pontefract; at any rate it began with
+a P, and the man, though a villain, was a gentleman,
+for he married the second one all over again in a
+foreign place, with a chaplain officiating; much
+better than a registrar, who can marry you, I'm
+told, in pajamas if he likes, though not like a bishop,
+which one might have expected in his case.  You
+all knew him slightly, at any rate.  Never, my dear,
+get married at a registrar's."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"It's better than the open shame of a cathedral
+and a bishop," said Penelope.  "Being married
+is one's private business, and it's nothing but horrid
+savagery to have crowds there!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Bravo!" said Bradstock, and Titania turned on him.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Did I not say all this was your fault, Augustin?
+You were no more fit to be her guardian than you
+are to be Archbishop of Canterbury.  Am I a
+savage, Penelope? and did I not get married in a
+cathedral, a most beautiful cathedral, all Gothic
+and newly restored at a vast expense?  My dear,
+I am amazed and horrified and shocked to think that
+you should not perceive the quite exquisite fitness
+of being married in a piece of lovely Gothic
+architecture, to the very loveliest music, breathing over
+Eden, and so on, while all your dearest friends shed
+tears of purest joy—"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"To see her got rid of," said Bradstock.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>And even Ethel Mytton laughed.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Augustin!  Ethel Mytton!  How can you say
+such things and laugh?  It's wicked; it's indecent!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes," said Penelope, "that's what I say.
+There's nothing to choose between your way and
+the American way the millionaire women have over
+there, when they hold a flower-show in a gilded
+room, and get married under a bell of roses at the
+cost of a hundred thousand dollars.  I'd rather be
+knocked down by a nice savage, or run away with
+by a viking, or caught by a pirate.  I won't be
+breathed over in Eden by a stuffy crowd.  If—if—"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, if what?" gasped Titania.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"If I ever do get married," said Penelope, "I'll
+never tell any of you beforehand!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Good heavens!" said the duchess, "you won't tell us?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I won't."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"You'll let us find out!  Shall I know nothing
+of the marriage of my brother's child till I read
+it in the </span><em class="italics">Times</em><span>?  It shall not be!  Augustin, does
+she mean it?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Augustin lighted a cigarette and walked to the
+window, which looked down on the traffic of Piccadilly.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I give it up," said Augustin.  "When could
+I answer riddles?  Do you mean it, Pen?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>And Penelope, rising up, stood on the hearthrug
+and, looking like the descendant of a viking and
+some fair Venetian, declared that she did mean
+it.  And she further went on to say, in great haste
+and with a most remarkable flow of words, that
+it shouldn't be in the </span><em class="italics">Times</em><span> or any other paper.
+And she said that if Titania, Duchess of Goring,
+was her aunt, it couldn't be helped, and that her
+principles were more to her than any one's approval.
+Though she loved her aunt and her dear sweet
+guardian, these same principles were even dearer
+than they were.  And she said that they had no
+principles ("not even Guardy dear"), and that they
+only thought of a demon thing called Society, which
+was at once a fetich and a phantom.  And she
+became so excited that she talked like a real woman
+orator upon a platform, and expressed her
+intention of using her influence to bring about reform,
+especially in such matters and with regard to young
+men who did nothing, and seemed to think they
+had been created for that very purpose.  And, as
+she talked, there wasn't a man in the world who
+would not have yearned to take his coat off and
+ask for a pick and shovel at the least, for she was
+as beautiful as any young goddess fresh from
+Grecian foam or from high Olympus.  Even Bradstock
+sighed to think that he had never done anything
+for the human race, which required so much help,
+but sit in the Upper House, a speechless phantom.
+And Ethel Mytton cried with an imparted enthusiasm,
+while the duchess wept with horror.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"And more than that," said Penelope, who broke
+down in her eloquence and resorted to the tone of
+conversation, "more than that, I'll never, never
+let you know whom I marry!  I mean it!  That—that's flat!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>And after this damp but awful peroration, she
+sat down with heaving bosom, and poor, bewildered
+Titania shook her head till it looked as if it would
+come off.  She found no flow of words to oppose
+Penelope with.  The biggest river is nothing when
+it flows into the sea, and, if Titania was the
+Amazon, Pen was the South Atlantic.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Not who he is?" said the duchess, as feebly
+as if she were no more than a brook in a meadow.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I will not," said Penelope, like a sea in a cyclone.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Not—  Oh, I must go home," piped Titania.
+"Augustin, she's capable of marrying a chauffeur,
+because he can drive at sixty miles an hour,—or—or
+a groom!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I'd rather marry either or both," said Pen,
+furiously, "than be mobbed and musicked into
+matrimony with a grinning crowd of idiots looking on."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"This is immoral," said Titania, "it's very
+immoral; you couldn't marry both.  I'll go home,
+Bradstock."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>And Bradstock took her there.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"You've done it, Titania," he said, as they drove.
+"She's as obstinate and as violent as a passive
+resister.  You've put her bristles up, and Pen never
+goes back from what she says."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"You are very like a man, Augustin," sobbed
+the duchess.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"She's more like a woman than I'm like a man,"
+growled Bradstock.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>He had never risen to eminence, and only once
+to his feet in the Upper House, and sometimes this
+rankled.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes, I mean it, I mean it," said Penelope.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"And I wanted to be your bridesmaid," sobbed Ethel.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"You never will be, and you can tell every one
+what I say."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I won't," said Ethel, "I won't."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>And she went away and told them.</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em">
+</div>
+<p class="center pfirst" id="chapter-ii"><span class="bold large">CHAPTER II.</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em">
+</div>
+<p class="pfirst"><span>In spite of what good conventional people said,
+there was nothing abnormal in Penelope's character.
+The walking world appears abnormal to an
+institute for cripples; good going is an absurdity, and
+as for running—  The truth is that Penelope, by
+some unimaginable freak of fortune, had been born
+quite sound and sane, barring her one lack, that
+of humour.  The providential death of her parents
+at an early age saved her from a deal of teaching.
+Bradstock saved her from a great deal more, and
+she saw to the rest.  It pleased Augustin, Lord
+Bradstock, to play with gunpowder, in spite of what
+he said about dynamite.  He encouraged her to
+trust to herself in a way that every well-regulated
+woman considered highly dangerous, and he used
+to enrage her in order to hear what she had to say
+to him.  There was a period in which she swore
+vigorously.  She learnt her language from an old
+stableman, who adored her even more than he did
+any horse.  This was at the age of three.  Her first
+interview with her aunt, the Duchess of Goring,
+was positively so shocking to Titania, who was
+mid-Victorian, and never got over it, that the poor
+thing almost fainted when Penelope, a shining brat
+of three, damned her eyes with terrific vigour.
+Goring, who was that very curious and absurd survival
+of a thousand ages, known as a sportsman, roared
+with laughter.  There was humanity in him.  There
+was none in Titania, though there might have been
+if she had married any one but a duke.  And
+Penelope damned her eyes for saying she mustn't go
+to the stables without a retinue, an escort, a
+bodyguard of footmen and nurses and governesses.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I haven't a governeth now," lisped Penelope.
+"I thacked the latht one, didn't I, Bradstock?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Lady Bradstock, number two, was then reigning
+without governing as far as Bradstock was
+concerned, and governing without reigning as far as
+another was concerned, and she paid no attention
+to Penelope, except to encourage her to amuse her
+guardian.  Thus Penelope grew like a tree in the
+open, and there were no Dutch gardeners to clip
+her.  At fifteen she greeted her last governess, a
+lady of great learning and no ability, with the news
+that she had had her luggage got ready, and that
+there was the carriage at the door for her.  There
+is no defending such conduct.  Pen never defended
+it herself in later years.  She acknowledged she had
+been a brute to Miss Mackarness, and gave her
+a position as housekeeper in one of her own houses,
+that she never visited, with permission to receive
+the shillings some visitors paid to see a mansion
+like a sarcophagus, with one treasure of a Turner
+in it.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>The trouble was that Penelope was natural.  She
+had not been trained to become so; she grew so.
+There is no more painful and laborious a process
+than to learn to be natural in later life.  But to
+grow like it!  Ah, that was splendid, and many
+unthinking people laughed to hear Pen when she
+swore, or cried, or begged for pardon, or dominated
+the whole little world around her.  The world
+indeed smiled on Pen, and now she was twenty-one
+and splendid, mobile, gracious, Venetian, strong,
+and as rich as an American heiress, and she already
+had as many wooers as Penelope of old.  But the
+little bow of Cupid was too much for them.
+Other defence was too good.  And now these strange
+notions grew up in her.  There was some natural
+shame in her heart that the crowd of duchesses and
+what not could not understand.  When He came
+at last, riding gallantly, a brave male, virile, strong,
+and bold, armed in shining armour, should she lead
+him out into Piccadilly, investing him in a frock
+coat for his armour and a cylinder for his helmet,
+and marry him in a crowd, while a paid organist
+played something about Eden?  Oh, where was Eden?</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Here's romance then, and in a new guise in a
+young woman.  For the true romantic age is the
+age of feminine desperation.  When one has been
+"taught" all one's best years, it's hard to be
+romantic till one wears through one's fetters at the
+very foot of the scaffold, when it's too late.  How
+many sweet women sour in cream-jugs, and escape
+the cat, or some roaring lion, for nothing but
+sourest contemplation.  They crowd feminine churches.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Pen's brother, or, rather, half-brother, was ten
+years her senior, and played a suitable part in the
+orchestra of the House of Lords as Lord Brading.
+He voted for the government when it was conservative,
+and against it when it was liberal with perfect
+certainty and good-will.  There was nothing
+remarkable about Brading but the strange, almost
+awestruck admiration with which he worshipped
+Penelope.  A man even of the most absurd
+conservative solidity must be a radical and an
+anarchist somewhere, and indeed he pretended to be
+something of a socialist.  Nevertheless, he had
+humour.  Brading thought his half-sister a wonder,
+and had no criticism for her.  Indeed it is believed
+that he helped the groom mentioned above to teach
+her unrefinements of the English language peculiarly
+shocking to early and mid Victorians.  But in his
+heart "Bill" Brading considered Pen's mother
+accounted for, excused everything.  The last Lady
+Brading was an American who wallowed in money,
+which she invested in repairing her husband's
+character and his castles.  When he died, and nothing
+could be done for his character but suppress
+biographers, she invested in ancient demesnes on Pen's
+behalf, and bought her rat-riddled and
+ghost-haunted mansions of historic character till there
+were few (and among them Penelope could not
+be counted) who could tell how many of them she
+owned.  Then Lady Brading went to a newer world
+than the United States, and left Pen to the care
+of Augustin, Lord Bradstock, a man of brains and
+no voice when on his legs.  It is reported that he
+learnt a speech of his own composing by heart, and
+when he rose to deliver it all he said was, "Good
+God," in an astonished whisper, and collapsed,
+struck by a form of paralysis which rarely attacks
+fools and which bores cannot suffer from.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Penelope was richer than her half-brother, for
+her mother, having paid her husband's debts, rebuilt
+Brading House, and saved his life from being
+written after a very quiet and gentlemanly departure,
+considered she had done her duty to the family.
+She left her stepson five thousand pounds, it is true,
+and, with a want of ostentation not peculiarly
+American, she left another five to Penelope, and modestly
+made her residuary legatee.  The residue was
+considerably over a million dollars.  And then there
+were the houses, most of them ineligible properties
+in ring-fences, fit for immediate occupation after
+they had been restored.  For poor Lady Brading
+had a passion for ruins, and collected castles as some
+do bric-à-brac.  The two great griefs of her life
+were that she could not buy Haddon Hall and Arundel Castle.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Well, there is the situation plainly outlined.  Pen
+was as savage as Pocahontas, so some said, and
+she could, an she liked, wallow in money.  She
+owned property all over England, to say nothing
+of a chateau near Tours, a palazzo in Venice, and
+a building in New York which brought in more
+than the rest cost to keep up.  She had a brother,
+a peer with a voice, a guardian a peer without one,
+an aunt who was a duchess, and strange ideas of
+her own which got up and talked on the most
+unsuitable occasions.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>But then there was her beauty as clamant as a
+rose of fire, as sweet as violet or verbena!  The
+rose can be gilded it seems, like a lily, and the gold
+was a power to her, giving authority over men.
+She who had enough to command the work of many
+thousands at current wages (for this is money
+truly) commanded that strange respect for power
+as well as love for herself.  Her lovers were
+numberless, so people said, and there was this truth in
+their being beyond arithmetic that no one troubled
+to count them.  Marriageable beauties of a lesser
+order of loveliness prayed for her extinction in
+matrimony.  Mothers of the marriageable prayed
+for it with a fervour only equalled by the fervour
+of her hopeless lovers, if there can be fervour
+without hope.  It is the command of true beauty that
+it can.  Had not all the painters, all the sculptors,
+from Pheidias down to the unselected classics of
+our own time, met together when she rose, a newer
+Aphrodite from the sea of the unknown!  Her
+loveliness was sweet and intolerable; one ached
+at it.  Cowards shrank from it.  Brave men cried
+for her.  There are strange tales!</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>What a strange motley gathering she selected.
+They had one thing in common, to be discovered
+shortly, one would think.  She discovered their
+qualities by inspection.  Many would-bes she drove
+away overcliff.  She knew men of many classes
+adored her, wondering and humble.  One great
+lover of hers, who was very good to horses, and
+only reasonably bitter against motor-cars, was her
+groom, Timothy Bunting.  He didn't know he loved
+her.  Indeed, he imagined he loved her maid.  But
+there is this quality in a great love, that it asks all
+or nothing.  Tim was perhaps as great as the
+greatest, but he rode behind her even when the Marquis
+de Rivaulx or Rufus Q. Plant rode alongside her
+with a quiet and unjealous mind.  There was much
+in Timothy, as much or more than there was in
+the French marquis, who rode "well enough," as
+Tim said, or as in Plant, who rode "all over 'is
+'orse," as became one bred in Arizona.  These must
+show themselves by and by.  They had the quality,
+at any rate.  Even Tim knew it.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>But what was it that gave permission to
+Mr. Austin de Vere to join the throng?  He wrote
+poetry.  He followed her as close as a rhyme in
+a couplet.  He never wrote her any, for which she
+was pleased to be flatteringly thankful.  There are
+some things that cannot be set down in verse even
+by the greatest, and the poet De Vere acknowledged
+this humbly.  He had the character of being the
+most conceited and immitigable ass in England,
+and when he was with Penelope he was as humble
+as a puppy in leash.  There was something great
+in his mighty subjection.  Not even Goby, late
+of the Guards, was so mitigable and so mitigated
+when Pen was by.  And Goby's V.C. was almost
+as much valued by him as his clothes and boots.
+He gained it by a fit of angry rage, such as had
+led him to pay several sovereigns at a desk in a
+back office at a police-station, and came out of his
+temper to discover he was a hero.  So much for
+luck when a big man, with the quality and temper
+of a bull, gets into a row in a sangar without any
+police to stay his hand.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"As for that De Vere," said Goby, "why, I
+could crush him with one hand."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"And he could make you sore with a few words,"
+said Penelope.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"He couldn't," bragged Goby.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Penelope smiled.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"No, perhaps he couldn't," she said, pensively,
+and Goby was pleased with her opinion of his bull's
+hide.  Europa had at any rate scratched him.  He
+indicated the sea of matrimony with inarticulate
+bellows.  But of course he was really quite possible.
+As Chloe Cadwallader said, his boots were
+inspiration, polished, and his Christian name was
+Plantagenet.  He had some obscure right to it.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Then there was Lord Bramber.  Some folks said
+if she married any one, she would marry Bramber,
+because his father was the Earl of Pulborough.
+They forgot all the rest of the aristocratic mob.
+If any title pleased her democratic soul, she could
+pick strawberries.  One senile and one merely silly
+duke pursued her panting.  But she certainly liked
+Bramber, and showed her partiality for him or her
+unpartiality with frankness.  She had hopes of him,
+though he appeared hopeless now at the age of
+twenty-seven.  She maintained that men were half
+their age and women twice it, at the least.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Dear Titania is ninety," said Penelope, "and
+Guardy is twenty-five.  Lord Bramber will perhaps
+think of doing some work when he is fifteen."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>There came with these, with and not after, Jimmy
+Carew, who was an A.R.A.  He painted portraits,
+and talked about art with eloquence till no one,
+even an artist, could guess what he meant.  But
+he believed things with such faith that many of his
+fair sitters agreed with him.  He was the best
+looking of the whole "horde," as Titania called Pen's
+adorers.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>The "horde" included Leopold Norfolk Gordon,
+who had a house in Park Lane and ever so many
+people's money to keep it up with.  As may be
+guessed from his name, he was a Jew.  Several
+people, with whom he could not share the money
+he had acquired by unsullied dishonesty, said his
+real name was Isaac Levi.  Goby, who hated him
+bitterly, consoled him when a less successful Israelite
+called him "Ikey," at Ascot, by saying:</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"It's damned hard lines, Gordon.  A man may
+be born in Whitechapel without being a Jew."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>So near may insolence come to wit.  When this
+was pointed out to Goby, he told the story
+everywhere with many chuckles.  But it was impossible
+to deny certain attributes to poor Gordon, whether
+his name was Levi or Moses, or Ehrenbreitstein,
+for that matter.  Penelope had no racial prejudices,
+and anti-Semitism was unnatural and abhorrent to
+her.  She said things about negroes to Rufus
+Q. Plant (born in Virginia) which made his flesh
+creep almost as badly as if he had been born in
+Delaware.  So in spite of Gordon's looking
+somewhat Semitic, she asserted there were the qualities
+she required in the poor man, who indeed was not
+bumptious or loud or peculiarly offensive in her
+presence.  He that stole millions feared a girl.  He
+polished his last week's hat with trembling hands,
+that had signed death-warrants in the city, when
+he spoke with her.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>And to round off the "horde" with another
+sample, there came in Carteret Williams.  He was the
+biggest of the lot, and had a voice like a
+toastmaster's, or that of the man who announces the
+train at Zurich.  It is worth going there to hear
+him, by the way.  Many good Americans travel for
+less.  Williams was a writer, a journalist, a
+war-correspondent, or, as he said, a "battle
+vulture."  When he could dip his pen in blood, he wrote with
+a red picturesqueness which was horribly attractive.
+He belonged to a very decent family, and took
+to his present trade by nature.  That gives some
+hint of why Penelope liked him.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>What was the secret, then, the secret that brought
+young Bramber, and Rufus Quintus Plant, and
+"Ikey Levi," alias Leopold Norfolk Gordon, and
+Captain Plantagenet Goby, and the verse-making
+De Vere, together with the Marquis de Rivaulx and
+Jimmy Carew, under one table-cloth, so to speak,
+at the Tattenham Corner of wooing?  Some said
+Penelope wouldn't have anything to do with any
+one who was not a Man.  It is true she abhorred
+those who were not men; but so much depends
+upon a definition.  In the West (and the East,
+for that matter) a Man goes for what he is worth,
+and is common currency, as he should be, and a
+"White Man" is the gold.  To be called a White
+Man is the true compliment, and implies,—well,
+it implies what the "horde" implied.  They were
+men and Man, and "White," so Penelope said
+when she had picked up the picturesque figure from
+Rufus Q. Plant.  They might be asses (and some
+were, or at least mules), but they meant to run
+straight.  They were lazy, or some were, but the
+laziest lay under the delusion that laziness was their
+godlike duty.  They needed the spur.  They might
+be brutes in the way of business (you should read
+what has been written in a New York paper about
+Plant, or hear what a certain disembowelled set
+in the city say of Gordon, who turned them inside
+out), but they played the game.  They knew what
+cricket was, even when it was played with red-hot
+shot, and not to carry one's bat meant blue ruin.
+After saying that they were all this, which implies
+they were men of honour, each according to the
+code of their fellows (for this is honour), I shall
+show you how they came, or how many of them
+came, to utter grief in curious ways under very
+odd stresses.  What can a man of honour do in
+an entirely new position, one not provided for in
+any code?  It would puzzle a jury of archangels to
+say.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Have you heard?" asked Goby, with wondering eyes.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"What she says?" replied Gordon.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Shade of Titian!" cried Jimmy Carew.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Well, I'm damned!" said Carteret Williams.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"This is romance," sighed the De Vere.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I'm—I'm—that's what I am," whistled Rufus
+Q. Plant.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Imphm!" murmured Lord Bramber.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Sapristi!" shrieked the French marquis.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Wasn't it enough to make them exclaim when it
+was reported all over London, and in the country,
+and in papers and cables to New York that
+Penelope Brading had sworn, with a great oath, that
+she meant to upset the holy apple-cart of all
+tradition (at least since Adam) by never letting any one
+know who her husband was!  They knew her, and
+knew her word was sacred.  Now let all unwhite
+men, all unrealities, all ghosts, all vain folks vanish
+one by one.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>With one voice the "horde" exclaimed, as they
+set their teeth:</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Well, we don't care!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>What does this say for Penelope's faculties of
+distinguishing men from monkeys, and white from gray?</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em">
+</div>
+<p class="center pfirst" id="chapter-iii"><span class="bold large">CHAPTER III.</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em">
+</div>
+<p class="pfirst"><span>All that happened now only shows one how the
+greatest sense of modesty may end in the biggest
+advertisement.  Penelope, though determined to do
+her duty, which was mainly to educate mankind,
+meant doing it unobtrusively, and there was not a
+man or woman in the British Isles or in the United
+States who did not hear of her quiet intention.  The
+cables hummed with Penelope's name; it was
+whispered in the great deeps of the sea; wireless
+telegraphists caught Lady Penelope Brading out of
+Hertzian waves; ships ploughed the ocean laden
+with Penelope and copy about her.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>In two twos the notoriety hunters in London sank
+into insignificance; professional beauties were
+neglected, and the sale of their photographs fell off.
+There was an immense demand for Penelope's,
+which, luckily, no one could satisfy until an
+enterprising New Yorker flooded the United States with
+portraits.  Before it was found out that this
+particular photograph was one of a young actress
+whom he proposed introducing to the public shortly,
+he sold amazing quantities of them.  When there
+was one in every inquiring household from Hudson
+Bay to the Gulf of Mexico, the real sitter for
+it wrote to the papers and complained bitterly.  She
+is now playing to crowded houses.  There are many
+paths to fame.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Poor Pen was at first horribly shocked.  She was
+young.  And yet she was human.  She said: "Oh,
+dear, oh, dear!" and, swearing that she would
+never read a word about herself, she subscribed to
+a newspaper cutting agency.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>From the New York papers alone one could cull
+a highly coloured account of her whole history.
+And they gave Bradstock's history, too, not
+omitting his two-word exclamatory speech in the House
+of Lords.  Bradstock stood it like a Trojan, like a
+Spartan.  He never turned a hair even when they
+said that he was going to marry Penelope himself.
+They gave a full biography of Titania, with a real
+photograph.  When the duchess saw it, she was
+silent for full five minutes, such was the shock it
+gave her.  Then she talked for five hours, and
+called on the American ambassador.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Cannot you do anything for me?" asked
+Titania, perorating.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I'm afraid not, your Grace," said the
+ambassador, wearily.  He said it was an awful thing to
+be an ambassador sometimes, though it had its
+points.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Being discomfited for once by an ambassador,
+she turned on Bradstock, and rent him limb from
+limb.  And then she went to Penelope.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I'm only doing my duty," said Penelope, with
+her beautiful lips as firm as Grecian marble.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Your duty!" shrieked the duchess; "and look
+at the papers!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I can't help what they say, aunt.  One's duty—"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"They tell my weight," said Titania.  "How
+did they know?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"They must have guessed it," said Penelope.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I don't </span><em class="italics">look</em><span> it," pleaded the duchess, now
+suddenly plaintive.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"No, no, dear auntie, you don't," said poor
+Penelope.  "Oh, it's cruel of them."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Help me, then," said Titania.  "Get married
+at once in a cathedral, and all this will stop.  I'll
+ask the dear archbishop to officiate, Penelope.  Oh,
+my darling!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>But Penelope became Pentelican marble again;
+she froze into a severe goddess, and she saw Titania
+weep.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"It's scandalous!  Oh, and they have a list of
+them all," said Titania.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Indeed, the </span><em class="italics">New York Dustman</em><span> had the "horde"
+set out in a row like the entries for the Derby.
+They said the betting was on Rufus Q. Plant, of
+course.  They gave a short and succulent biography
+of them all.  They headed the list "The Lady
+Penelope Handicap."  They used some slang about
+"weight for age."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Great heavens!" said Titania, "all town is
+ringing with it.  If this is the result of looking on
+marriage as one's private business, give me publicity!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>There would have been less of it if a prince had
+married a publican's daughter in St. Paul's, and
+had presented the dean with a set of pewter pots.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"And if she does what she says!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>The only men who did not talk much about
+Penelope were naturally those who aspired to win
+her.  Every one neglected politics and sport to
+discuss her.  She became politics and sport.  Huge
+sums of money were at stake as to whether she
+would keep her word; as to the length of time she
+would keep the secret, and as to who the man was
+to be.  There were public and private books made
+on the series of events.  And there was a Penelope
+party and an opposition.  Many young people who
+were revolutionary in their sentiments said she was
+right.  There was a Penelope Cave in the House
+of Commons.  Some of those who fought year in
+and year out for the Deceased Wife's Sister backed
+her up.  It was whispered that the prince was a
+Penelopian; two princesses threatened with
+objectionable persons of the royal blood were heard to
+observe that there was something in what she said.
+Penelope was within measurable distance of
+becoming a national, or even an international, question.
+Mrs. X. wrote an article in the </span><em class="italics">Fortnightly</em><span> on
+"Secret Marriage in History."  Mr. Z. sat down
+and wrote a novel, bristling with "wit and
+epigram," in ten days, which ran into the third edition
+of two hundred and fifty copies in thirty.  It was
+said that questions were to be asked in the House.
+A play on the subject was forbidden by the lord
+chamberlain.  The wittiest article on the subject
+was written by a Mr. Shaw.  He argued that no
+really beautiful woman had any right to be
+married at all.  He said plaintively that it wasn't fair,
+and convinced the ugly in two syllogisms.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>And, as the result of this, Penelope went away
+into the country, though it was May, with Ethel
+Mytton and Mrs. Cadwallader, who was called
+Chloe, and stood by Pen remorselessly in every
+difficulty.  For Pen had helped her out of an awful
+mess, the history of which would make a whole
+story of itself.  As a result of it, Cadwallader was
+in the Rocky Mountains shooting, and a certain
+young soldier was taking too much liquor and too
+little quinine in Nigeria, and Chloe got her
+diamonds back from Messrs. Attenborough, and was
+eternally grateful to Penelope in consequence.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"And I shall send for them one by one," said
+Penelope.  "They can come down by the ten
+o'clock train from Paddington, and go back by the
+five o'clock one from here.  And after lunch I shall
+explain my ideas to them."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"And I'll be with you," said Chloe, who was
+as dark-locked as a raven's wing.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, I don't mind," said Penelope; "of course
+you will.  I'm too young, am I not, to be left alone,
+Chloe?  Is it true, Chloe, that the older a woman
+gets the bigger fool she is?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Chloe said it was true.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I'll ask Titania to let Bob come over," said
+Penelope.  "He's the wisest person I know."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Bob was Titania's grandson, and was certainly
+young enough to be wise, as he was only fourteen.
+He had been sent to three of the great public
+schools, and had been taken away because of his
+fighting capabilities.  He never knew when he had
+enough, and it is quite impossible to keep a boy
+at any school if he breaks out of bounds to fight
+some young butcher or baker in a back alley at least
+once a week.  Now he had a tutor who had been
+an amateur boxer of great merit.  It began to take
+the tutor all his time to handle his pupil.  But if
+Bob was knocked endways about three times a week,
+it sobered him and made him do his work.  He did
+not yet know whether he wanted to be a prize-fighter
+or the commander-in-chief.  But he loved
+Penelope.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I'll send for Bob," said Penelope.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>And Bob came with Mr. Guthrie, his tutor, and
+Titania was glad to get rid of him for a time.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, Pen," said Bob, "how jolly kind of you
+to ask me.  I'm sick of grandmother; she worries
+me to death.  Always says, 'Robert, you mustn't.'  I
+say, have you read Kip's 'Cat that Walked by
+Himself'?  Mr. Guthrie says it's splendid, and
+I say it's rot.  But old Guth likes Virgil and
+Horace.  Isn't that strange, for he can box like
+anything.  Baker, the groom, says he can.  And Baker's
+awful good with the mitts.  But I say, Pen, what's
+all this about you in the papers?  Grandmother
+wails when she sees one now.  I ain't sure I like
+having you so much in the papers, Pen."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I don't like it, either," said Penelope, "but I
+can't help it."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Is it true that you're going to be married and
+never tell any one?" demanded Bob from the
+bottom of a huge rocking-chair, as they sat on the
+lawn.  They were in one of Pen's habitable houses,
+and the lawn ran down to the Thames.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I won't if I don't want to," said Penelope.
+"But you're a boy, Bob, and don't understand these
+things."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Bob snorted and smiled, not unsubtly.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, Pen, don't be like grandmother.  I understand
+pretty nearly everything now.  Granny's always
+saying that, and it's jolly rot.  You can't be
+like me, turned out of three schools, and not know
+something.  Are you going to get married soon?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Pen shook her head.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"She's very savage at your knowing that Jew
+cad, Gordon, but grandfather isn't.  He says that
+Gordon may be a Jew, of course, but he's all right.
+I asked him if I could get put on a board as a
+director, and he was so mad with me.  I think
+Gordon's asked him to be a director, and he'd like
+to only he daren't.  He's got none too much money,
+you know, Pen.  But about all these chaps, Pen?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>He went through the horde seriatim, and
+pronounced upon them all with ineffable wisdom.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Goby's an ass, but a good ass, Pen," he said,
+as he kicked with his legs.  "He gave me a thick-un
+a year ago when I was in difficulties.  But he hasn't
+the brains to make a good corporal.  Baker says
+that.  Baker was a sergeant in the Dublin Fusiliers.
+I like Plant, though, Pen.  Baker says he rides in
+a rummy fashion, more like a circus man than
+anything else, but he can stick to a horse.  And there's
+your Frenchman.  I say, how does he come to be
+called Rivaulx?  Was he called after Rivaulx in
+Yorkshire, or was it called after him?  Ask him
+if he shoots larks in his native country.  All
+Frenchmen do, old Guth says.  He says he read a book
+the other day in which a French priest says he never
+sees a lark without wanting to shoot it.  What a
+miserable rotter, wasn't he?  But Rivaulx isn't so
+bad, though.  He's a gentleman, at any rate, though
+he is French.  I say, why do foreigners never look
+like gentlemen?  Dashed if I know.  I've often
+wondered, because grandfather likes them, through
+his having been an ambassador.  Sometimes a
+German does, though.  And Bramber's all right, Pen.
+I don't think I'd mind your marrying him."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I won't marry any one who isn't a useful
+citizen," said Pen.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"He's all right," urged Bob.  "He's as strong
+as a bull.  Baker says he'd peel better than most
+prize-fighters.  What is a useful citizen?  I say,
+if you get married, you'll tell me who it is?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"No," said Penelope.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I call that mean," said Bob.  "I'd not tell any
+one, and I'd help like fun."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I'm sure you would, Bob.  But I may never
+get married."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Rot," said Bob, "a girl like you not get married!
+Oh, I say!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>And he continued to say for some hours, and
+proved himself most entertaining company, quoting
+Baker, who had been a sergeant in the Dublin
+Fusiliers, and had been very severely knocked about by
+Jem Mace, and appealing to Mr. Guthrie, who came
+over with him to get him to look at a book in the
+mornings, to back him up.  He was really very
+modest and gentlemanly, at the same time that he
+was exceedingly bumptious and arrogant, after the
+best manner of the extremely healthy English boy.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>And at twelve o'clock he came running to Penelope
+and Chloe by the river-bank in wild excitement.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I say, Pen, I say, Pen, there's old Goby coming,
+and with that miserable rotter who makes poetry.
+What's brought 'em here?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I asked them to lunch," said Pen.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Eh, what?" cried Bob.  "Goby and that rotter,
+Austin de Vere!  I say, Mr. Guthrie—"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>He ran off to Guthrie, bawling:</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I say, Mr. Guthrie, here's that poet chap, Austin
+de Vere, come.  Didn't you say he mostly wrote rot?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>And Goby and De Vere came across the lawn
+together, like a mastiff and a Maltese in company.
+They made each other as nervous as cats, and
+couldn't for their lives understand why they were
+asked together.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"The clumsy brute," said De Vere.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"The verse-making monkey," said Goby.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>But tailors could have admired them both.  They
+were perfect.  And lunch was a most painful
+function, only endurable to Penelope because she was
+on the track of her duty, and to Chloe because she
+laughed internally, and to Mr. Guthrie (who was
+really a clever man) because he liked to study men
+and manners, and to Bob because he talked all the
+time, owing to the silence of the others.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I say, Captain Goby, I've got a splendid
+bull-pup.  Baker got him for me, cheap, for a
+quid,—a sovereign, I mean.  You remember Baker.  He
+was a sergeant,—oh, I told you that just now.
+Do you like bulldogs, Mr. de Vere?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>De Vere was politely sulky.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Bulldogs, oh, ah, well, I do not know that I do."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>He looked at Goby, who was also sulky and feeling
+very much out of it.  But the subject of
+bulldogs appealed to him, because he saw it didn't
+amuse his rival.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I'll give you a real good pup, Bob," he said,
+good-naturedly; "one that no one could get for a
+sovereign.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"A real pedigree pup?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"With a pedigree as long as your own," said Goby.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Bob sighed, and laid his hand on Goby's.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I say, Pen, isn't Captain Goby a real good
+'un?" he asked.  "Baker says—"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>But what Baker said does not come into this
+history, as the lunch finished, and they all went into
+the garden.  Goby spoke to Bob as they went out.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I say, Bob, get hold of that ass De Vere, and
+talk to him as hard as the very deuce, will you?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"You meant that about the pup?" said Bob.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Of course, Bob."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I'll talk his beastly head off," said Bob.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>And this was why Penelope spoke confidentially
+to Captain Goby before she did so to the poet.  She
+was exceedingly pale and very dignified, but she
+lost no time in getting to the point.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Captain Goby," she said, "you have asked me
+to marry you at least three times."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Goby sighed.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Is it only three?" he demanded, and he added,
+firmly, "it will be more yet."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"And I said 'no' because I had no idea of
+marrying any one."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"That was rot," said Goby.  "For, if you
+married no one else, you would marry me."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Certainly not as you are," retorted Penelope.
+"I want you and all men (that I know) to reform."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Goby was not astonished at anything Penelope said.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I reformed long ago," he said.  "As soon as
+I saw you, I said I'd reform and I did.  It was a
+great deal of trouble, but I did it.  Oh, you've no
+idea how I suffered.  But I said, 'Plantagenet, my
+boy, if you are to be worthy, you must buck up!'"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>This was encouraging.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I'm glad I've had so much influence," said Pen,
+who didn't quite know what his reforms had been.
+"But there are other things.  This is merely
+negative.  What are you doing to be useful to the state?
+Are you loafing about on your money?  Do you
+do any work?  Are you educating yourself?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Goby gasped.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I say, come, Lady Penelope, I've done all that!
+Education! why, I had a horrid time at school and
+at a crammer's—"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Do you read?" asked Pen, severely.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Why, of course," said Goby.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"What?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Goby rubbed his cropped hair with two fingers.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Papers?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Anything?" said Pen.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Well, I read the </span><em class="italics">Sportsman</em><span> and the </span><em class="italics">Pink Un</em><span>
+(at least, I did before I reformed) and the
+</span><em class="italics">Referee</em><span>," said Goby.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Books?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Not many," said Goby.  "But I will.  What
+do you recommend?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I think Tennyson and Shelley would do you
+good," said Pen, "but you had better ask Mr. de
+Vere.  And do you do anything useful?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"De Vere!  Oh, Lord!" cried Goby.  "Anything
+useful?  Why, I was in the army—"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"And now you do nothing.  Well," said Penelope,
+"I think you had better begin at once.  Any
+man I know has to do something useful.  You must
+go to the War Office and ask to be made something
+again.  I think a colonelcy of a militia regiment
+would suit you.  And I am going to ask Mr. de
+Vere to take an interest in your reading."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"The devil!" said Goby.  "I say, my dear Lady
+Penelope, I can't stand him.  Why, you may have
+seen we are barely civil to each other."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I shall speak to him firmly," said Penelope,
+"and it's for his good, too.  He leads an unhealthy
+indoor life.  I want you to change all that.  You
+row a great deal still, don't you?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Since I reformed I began again," said Goby.
+He felt the muscles of his right arm with complacency.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Take him out and make him row, then," said
+Pen, "and while he rows you can read poetry to
+him, and so on.  It will be good for both of you."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"But—" said Goby.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"If I do this, will you marry me?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Penelope shook her head.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"If you do it, I'll think whether I'll marry you."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh," said the soldier, "and if I just can't hit
+it off with that poet?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Then I won't think about it," replied Pen.
+"I'll never, never consider the possibility of
+marrying any one who isn't leading a useful life, and
+educating himself, and living on less than a thousand
+a year.  Can you do that, too?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Dashed if I see how it can be done," said
+Plantagenet Goby.  "But I'll try, oh, yes, I'll try."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Now you talk to Chloe," said Penelope, and
+she went away to the rescue of the poet.  For Bob
+had got him in a corner.</span></p>
+<div class="align-center auto-scaled figure margin" style="width: 63%" id="figure-103">
+<span id="captain-plantagenet-goby-v-c-late-of-the-guards"></span><img class="align-center block" style="display: block; width: 100%" alt="CAPTAIN PLANTAGENET GOBY, V.C., LATE OF THE GUARDS. Who was ordered to read poetry" src="images/img-044.jpg" />
+<div class="caption centerleft figure-caption margin">
+<span class="italics">CAPTAIN PLANTAGENET GOBY, V.C., LATE OF THE GUARDS. Who was ordered to read poetry</span></div>
+</div>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I say, Mr. de Vere, wasn't that ripping of old
+Goby to say he'd give me a real pedigree bull-pup?
+He knows a bull-pup from a window-shutter, as
+Baker says.  You don't like them?  No, but you
+would if you had one.  I feed mine myself, and I
+wear thick gloves, so's not to get hydrophobia when
+he bites.  He's a most interesting dog, and not so
+good-tempered as most bulldogs.  When he sees
+a cat, oh, my, it's fun!  Look here, when Goby
+gives me the new pup with the pedigree, you can
+have mine, if you like, cheap.  I know you have a
+place in the country, and you must want a bulldog.
+Will you buy him?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Good heavens, no!" said the poet.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Humph!" cried Bob, who of course had quite
+forgotten that he was doing all this for Goby, and
+was just enjoying himself.  "Why, what do you
+do in the country without a dog?  Do you ride?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"No," said De Vere.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Well, of all—I say, Mr. de Vere, what do you
+do?  Do you walk about and make poetry, and do
+you like making it?  Old Guth, I mean Mr. Guthrie,
+he's my tutor, and he's over there talking to
+Mrs. Cadwallader, he reads a lot, and some of yours, too."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, does he!" said De Vere, who began to
+take some interest.  "Does he?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, a lot of yours, he says; most of it, I think."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"And does he like it?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Bob put his head on one side.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Well, he says it's not bad, some of it."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>De Vere flinched at this faint praise.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Indeed!  And what does he like best?" he asked.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, the beastliest rot," returned Bob, "Browning
+and Shelley, and I say, do you see that bulge
+in his pocket?  That's Catullus.  He reads him all
+day.  But here comes Pen.  I say, won't you have
+my bull-pup?  I'll let you have him for half a
+sovereign; I got him for a sovereign, at least, Baker
+did.  </span><em class="italics">I</em><span> think your poetry's very fine, sir; Mr. Guthrie
+lent me some."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>But Penelope came across the lawn, and De Vere
+forgot Bob and the bull-pup, and fell down and
+worshipped.  And the goddess took hold of him,
+and stripped a lot of his poetry away, and set a
+few facts before him and made him gasp.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I heard a very strange rumour, Lady Penelope,"
+he said, when he was once more standing
+upright before Aphrodite.  "I heard—oh, but
+it was absurd!  I can't believe it."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Then it is probably true," said the goddess,
+breathlessly, "for I mean to have my own way
+and to initiate a reform in marriages, Mr. de Vere.
+I have been reading the accounts of some fashionable
+weddings lately, and they made me ill.  What
+you have heard is quite true."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>The poet shook his head.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I have had the honour to beg you to believe a
+thousand times that I am devoted to you—"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Three times, I think," said Pen, who was good
+at arithmetic.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Is it only thrice?  But do I understand that,
+if I were to have the inexpressible delight of
+winning your love, Lady Penelope, that the marriage
+would be a secret one, that no one would know
+of it?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I mean that," said Penelope, enthusiastically.
+"It is a new departure, an assertion of a just
+individualism, although I am a socialist.  I abhor
+ceremonies, and will not be interfered with.  I have
+stated with the utmost clarity to all my relations
+that I shall not consult them or let them know until
+I choose, and I shall only get married (if I ever
+do) on these terms."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I agree to them," said the poet.  "Lady Penelope,
+will you do me the inexpressible honour to be my wife?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, dear, no," said Pen.  "Why, certainly not,
+Mr. de Vere.  I don't love any one yet, and perhaps
+I never shall.  But what I say is this: I'll think as
+to whether I shall marry you if you do as I wish
+about this matter and about others."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"My blessed lady," said the poet, "is there
+anything I would not dare or do?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I've told Captain Goby exactly the same thing,"
+said Penelope, thereby putting her pretty foot upon
+the sudden flowers of De Vere's imagination, "and
+what I want of you is to be more an out-of-door
+man.  You live too much in rooms, hothouses,
+Mr. de Vere, and in your own garden."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I was in a garden, I a poet, with one who
+was (oh, and is) an angel," said De Vere, "but
+now I dwell in arid deserts, shall I say the Desert
+of Gobi?  What have I to do with him?  Shall he
+dare to pretend to you, dear lady?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"He's a very good chap," said Pen, quite shortly,
+"and I think it would do you good to associate
+with him more.  I've told him so, and he agrees.
+I want you to make him read a little, and exercise
+his imagination.  And he can take you out rowing
+and shooting perhaps, and I think a little hunting
+wouldn't do you harm.  You might ask him to stay
+with you, and he'll ask you.  And I want you to
+go out in motor-cars."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Good heavens!" said De Vere.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I know it will be hard," said Pen, consolingly.
+"But you know what I want.  It's not enough to
+be rich and write poetry, Mr. de Vere.  I think you
+might read statistics; statistics are a tonic, and I
+want you to be a useful citizen, too.  There are
+things to be done.  Just look at my cousin Bob.
+Now he'll be a splendid man."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"He wanted to sell me a bull-pup," murmured
+the poet.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"He's a good boy," said Pen, affectionately,
+"and his instincts are to be trusted.  I think a
+bulldog would do you good perhaps.  And I shall
+expect to hear you have asked Captain Goby to
+stay with you.  And don't forget the statistics."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I'll do it," said the unhappy poet, "for while
+the One Hope I have exists, and until 'vain desire
+at last and vain regret go hand in hand to death,'
+I am your slave."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>And, as he went away, he called Bob to him.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I'll give you half a sovereign for that bulldog,"
+he said, bitterly.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, I say.  But Baker says he's worth two
+sovereigns," cried Bob.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I'll give you two," said the poet.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>And Bob danced on the lawn.</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em">
+</div>
+<p class="center pfirst" id="chapter-iv"><span class="bold large">CHAPTER IV.</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em">
+</div>
+<p class="pfirst"><span>If Penelope had had any sense of humour, she
+would have deprived the round world of much to
+laugh at in sad times, when laughter was wanted.
+But thanks be to whatever gods there are, some
+folks have no humour, and some have a little, and
+a few much, and thus the world gets on in spite
+of the spirit of gravity, which, as may be
+remembered by students of philosophy, Nietzsche branded
+as the enemy.  Pen went ahead, bent on cutting
+her own swath in the hay-field, and she cut a big
+one.  Goby and the poet must stand as exemplars
+of her clear and childlike method.  It was Pen's
+Short Way with Her Lovers.  She got Rivaulx,
+who was Nationalist and Anti-Semite to his
+manicured finger-tips, and had been mixed up in the
+Dreyfus case, and set him cheek by jowl with
+Gordon, alias Isaac Levi.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>She made them dine together in public, and the
+poor marquis, being head over heels in love with
+the earnest creature who was so beautiful,
+submitted like a lamb.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Very well, I will," said Rivaulx.  There were
+almighty shrieks in the Paris press.  The </span><em class="italics">Journal</em><span>
+had an article that was wonderful.  The affair woke
+up anti-Semitism again.  Rivaulx had been bought
+by Jewry; France was once more betrayed; the
+bottom of the world was falling out.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Pen, with no sense of humour, had a native
+capacity for discovering every one's real weakness.
+As the Frenchman would rather have died than dine
+as he did, so Gordon would almost prefer to die
+suddenly than to run the risk of it.  He had
+wonderful brains, and was a power in finance: he could
+risk a million when he hadn't it or when he had it
+as coolly as most men can risk a penny on the
+chance of a slot-machine working.  But physically
+he was timid.  Rivaulx went ballooning.  He
+intended to rival Santos-Dumont.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"You must go with him, Mr. Gordon," said
+Penelope.  Gordon nearly fainted, but Pen was
+firm, as firm as a rock.  Gordon offered to subscribe
+to all the hospitals in London if she would let him
+off.  He offered to build a small one and endow
+it; he even suggested that he would build a church.
+But the poor man had to go.  It was now
+thoroughly understood that any man who refused to
+do exactly what she told him was struck off the
+list.  The comic papers were almost comic about
+it.  On the day that Gordon went up with Rivaulx
+in an entirely non-dirigible balloon, the Crystal
+Palace grounds were crowded with all the Frenchmen
+and all the Jews in London.  The balloon came
+down in a turnip-field fifteen miles from anywhere,
+and Gordon got back to London and went to bed.
+He was consoled by a telegram from Penelope,
+who congratulated him on overcoming his natural
+cowardice, and suggested he should do it again.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I'll give her up first," said Gordon, knowing
+all the time that he could no more do it than give
+up finance.  He went out and robbed a lot of his
+friends as a compensation for disturbance, and
+found himself a hero.  In about forty-eight hours
+the sensation of being looked on as a man of
+exceptional grit so pleased him that he adored
+Penelope more than ever.  He was as proud of having
+been in a balloon as Rivaulx was of having dined
+</span><em class="italics">tête-à-tête</em><span> with him in the open.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>She sent for Rufus Q. Plant, and she introduced
+him to Lord Bramber.  Plant was a big American
+with the common delusion among Americans that
+he had an entirely English accent.  But he hated
+aristocrats.  Bramber had an Oxford accent
+(Balliol variety), and disliked Americans more than
+getting up in the morning.  He was a fine-looking
+young fellow with a good skull, who did nothing
+with it.  He had the tendencies of a citizen of
+Sybaris, and got up at noon.  Plant rose at dawn.
+Bramber loved horses and hated motor-cars.  Plant
+had a manufactory of motors.  Pen sent them away
+together on a little tour, and hinted delicately to
+Plant that his English accent would be improved
+by a little Oxford polish.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"And as for you, Lord Bramber, when you come
+back, I hope you will be more ready to acknowledge
+that you don't know everything.  Mr. Plant will
+do you good, and will teach you to drive a motor!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>She had never been so beautiful.  She showed
+at her best when her interest in humanity made
+her courageous and brutal.  The colour in her
+cheeks was splendid; her eyes were as earnest as
+the sea.  If Bramber choked, he submitted, though
+he blasphemed awfully when he got alone.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Go at once," said Penelope.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>She paired off Carteret Williams with Jimmy
+Carew, A.R.A.  Williams knew as much about
+art as a hog does of harmony.  Jimmy thought the
+war correspondent a howling Philistine, as indeed
+he was, and believed anything that could not be
+painted was a mere by-product of the universe.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"You'll do each other good," said Pen, clasping
+her beautiful hands together with enthusiasm.
+Jimmy wanted to draw her at once.  Williams
+wished for an immediate invasion, so that he could
+save her life and write a flamboyant article about it.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Show him pictures, Mr. Carew, beginning with
+Turner and Whistler."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Make him understand that art isn't everything,
+Mr. Williams."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>She sent them away together, and was wonderfully
+pleased with herself.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"They are all fine men," she said, thoughtfully,
+"but it is curious that every man I know thinks
+every other man more or less of a fool or an idiot,
+or a cad.  They are dreadfully one-sided.  When
+they come back they will be much improved.  This
+is my work in the world, and I don't care a bit
+what people say."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>People said lots, though after a bit the fun died
+down, except among her own people.  And even
+they laughed at last.  At least, every one did but
+Titania, and she had no more sense of humour than
+Penelope herself.  Indeed, she had less, for
+Penelope could understand a joke when it was explained
+to her carefully, and Titania couldn't.  And in after
+years Pen came to see the humourous side of things.
+She even appreciated a joke against herself, which
+is the crucial test of humour.  But Titania died
+maintaining that life was a serious business, and
+should be taken like medicine.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I never heard of more insane proceedings,"
+said Titania, "never!  The notion of sending that
+poor Jew up in a balloon with that mad Frenchman!
+Balloons at the best are blasphemous.  And to make
+Captain Goby read with poor little De Vere!  I'm
+sure there will be murder done before she's
+married.  And now it's an understood thing that she
+will marry one of them.  And Brading laughs!  If
+he is only her half-brother, I consider him
+responsible.  And Augustin smiles and smokes and smokes
+and smiles.  And Chloe Cadwallader, whom I never
+approved of and never shall, backs her up, of course.
+One of these days I shall tell Chloe Cadwallader
+what I think of her!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I say, granny, what do you think of her?"
+asked Bob.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Never mind," said Titania; "there are things
+that you know nothing of, Robert."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, are there?" said Bob.  "I say, granny, I
+ain't sure of that.  I've been expelled from three
+schools, and Baker says—"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, bother Baker," cried his exasperated
+grandmother.  "I think Mr. Guthrie might keep you
+away from Baker."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"He can't," said Bob, cheerfully.  "Old Guth
+and I have made a treaty.  I do what he tells me
+between ten and twelve, and what I like afterward.
+If we are reading Latin, and the clock strikes twelve,
+I say, 'Mr. Guthrie, don't you think Latin's rot?'
+and he says, 'Oh, is it twelve?  I thought it was
+only eleven!'  I get on with Guth, I tell you."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>And he was very thick with Goby, who had given
+him the pedigree bull-pup.  Mr. de Vere now owned
+the interesting one which had to be fed with gloves
+on, and loathed it with an exceeding hatred only
+exceeded by his hatred for Goby.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I say, Pen, you go it," said Bob.  "There's
+heaps of fun in this.  They all tip me now like
+winking."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>But Pen did not see the fun.  It was a serious
+business.  She looked after her lovers with the
+greatest care.  They brought her reports; they
+complained of each other.  She smoothed over
+difficulties, and explained what they were to do.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"How the devil am I to live on a thousand a
+year!" said Goby.  But he tried it and found it
+quite exciting.  It exercised his self-control
+wonderfully.  He went into the War Office once a week
+and demanded some kind of job, and was put off
+with all kinds of regulations.  He sent a telegram
+to Penelope the first week, saying that according
+to his accounts he had spent no more than £20.
+She wired congratulations, and received another wire:</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em">
+</div>
+<p class="pfirst"><span>"Have made a mistake.  Forgot to include a
+few bills.  Will be more careful in future.</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 1em">
+</div>
+<p class="pfirst"><span>"GOBY."</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em">
+</div>
+<p class="pfirst"><span>Plant said:</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"What, a thousand a year!  That's easy.  I can
+live on thirty shillings a week.  My dear Lady
+Penelope, I've done it on half a dollar a day.  I'll
+show you."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>He took one room in Bloomsbury, and sent in
+his bills and accounts to her weekly.  She suggested
+he should find out if his great success in the United
+States had ruined any one in particular, and if so
+that he should compensate them.  This cost him
+a hundred thousand dollars.  Almost every other
+day she got a telegram something like this:</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Have found another person I ruined.  Am
+cabling five thousand dollars to widow and orphans.
+Man is dead."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Or,—</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Another find.  Man said to be a lunatic, but
+perfectly sane except on point of Trusts.  Have
+cabled for his transfer to more comfortable asylum."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Or,—</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Widow refuses money with insults.  Have
+settled it on daughter, and have given son job."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Or,—</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Man in question has given amount cabled to
+Republicans of New York.  Has recovered and has
+started a Trust himself."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>This was very satisfactory.  Penelope saw she
+was doing good.  In the middle of her joy, she
+received a wire from Goby.</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em">
+</div>
+<p class="pfirst"><span>"May I stop poetry with De Vere?  Doctor says
+I am overdoing it.  GOBY."</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em">
+</div>
+<p class="pfirst"><span>She also received one at the same time from
+De Vere:</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em">
+</div>
+<p class="pfirst"><span>"If I could have a week to myself to write satire,
+should be eternally grateful.  Doctor says rowing
+may be carried to excess.  The bulldog is well.</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 1em">
+</div>
+<p class="pfirst"><span>"DE VERE."</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em">
+</div>
+<p class="pfirst"><span>The Marquis de Rivaulx, after a fortnight with
+Gordon, asked to be allowed to go over to Paris to
+see his mother.  But he acknowledged that Gordon
+was not a bad chap, though he was as white as a
+sheet in the balloon.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"And he told me, my dear lady, what to buy.
+He knows very well what to buy and what to sell.
+He is immensely clevair, oh, yes.  And may I go
+and see </span><em class="italics">maman</em><span>?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>She let him go, but not before he promised to
+take no part in any further anti-Semitic
+proceedings.  She told Gordon not to brag so much of
+having been in a balloon.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"You know you were afraid," she said.  "The
+marquis said you were."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Of course I was," said Gordon, "but I went,
+didn't I?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>That was unanswerable.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>She had an "at home" once a week.  It was
+understood that no one but her own relatives and
+members of the horde were to call on that day.
+She then issued any directions that she thought of
+during the week.  Bradstock was now openly and
+recklessly on her side.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I believe you're doing good, real good," said
+Augustin.  "I'm proud of you.  Don't mind my
+laughing, Pen.  Oh, but you are wonderful."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>He gave her advice.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Kick young Bramber into public life," he said.
+"He's got brains."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Lord Bramber," said Pen, "you are to go into
+Parliament at once.  Speak to Lord Bradstock
+about it, and I'll talk to Mrs. Mytton on your
+behalf.  I expect you to be an Under-Secretary of
+State at once."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Damn!  this is worse than Plant," said the
+obedient Bramber.  Nevertheless, he owned that
+Plant was a man, and a real good sort.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I go to see him, Lady Penelope, in his room
+in Bloomsbury.  He's living on about half a crown
+a day.  I—oh—yes, I'm coming down to the
+thousand by degrees.  And of course if you want
+me to go into the House, I'll go."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Carteret Williams was there, and was put
+through his paces by Pen about art.  He had learnt
+something about it by rote.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"The Academy is composed of painters," he
+said, mechanically, "but there are few artists in it.
+I quite agree with Carew, who had his pictures
+chucked before they made him an associate through
+fear.  Turner is a very great artist.  He shows how
+near the sublime can get to the ridiculous.  Whistler
+is also great.  He shows how near the ridiculous
+can go to the sublime.  Art is a combination of the
+material and the spiritual.  So Carew says.  He
+showed me a lot of Blake, and he says that the
+beauty of Blake is that you can't understand him
+by any ordinary means, such as the intellect.  I'm
+not up to Blake yet.  The old masters are very fine.
+I admit it.  Velasquez is dry, but wonderful.
+Rembrandt appeals to me because he is very dark; I
+think he would be better if he were darker.  We
+go to the National Gallery every day, and then I
+take him to the Press Club, where he hears about
+real life."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>When Carew came, he owned that Williams
+wasn't a bad sort.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"And he's doing his level best to understand,"
+said Carew, with enthusiasm.  "He stands before
+a picture of mine every day for an hour while I
+explain it.  He sees something in it at last.  And
+he's reading about art, and is beginning to see why
+a photograph isn't the last word of things.  He's
+led a wonderful life, Lady Penelope, and when he
+gets on what he's seen and done, I feel almost
+ashamed to live as I do."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"That's right," said Pen; "every artist should.
+And every man who is not an artist should be sorry
+that he is not.  We are far from perfect yet."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>How beautiful she looked, thought Carew.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"She lives in the world of the ideal, and so do I."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I am very much pleased with everything,"
+said Pen at large to the assembly, and De Vere,
+who was having a holiday for his satire, was pleased
+too.  And Goby was delighted at being let off poetry
+for awhile.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Not but what there's something in it, I admit,"
+said Goby, critically.  "Robert Lindsay Gordon is
+a fair snorter at it.  I can't say I'm up to Shelley
+yet.  De Vere read me the Epi-something-or-other."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"'Epipsychidion,'" said Pen.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"That's it, a regular water-jump of a word,"
+said Goby, "and he took it in his stride, while I
+boggled on the bank.  However, I'm coming up
+hand over hand with him.  I'm reading Keats with
+him.  He's all right when you get to know him,
+Lady Penelope, and rowing's doing him no end of
+good.  He's a well-made little chap, and getting
+some good muscle.  If I'm not dead by the time
+I can take the Epi-what's-his-name, I'll make a
+man of him."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Rivaulx, who had come in with Gordon on his
+return from seeing his mother in Paris, was very
+proud of himself.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"A year ago I should not have had the courage
+to show myself with a Jew," said Rivaulx,
+triumphantly.  "Lady, dear lady, I thought I should
+have died when I asked him to dinner.  But now
+I like him.  He is wonderful.  When he says 'buy,'
+I buy, and heigh, presto! the shares go up like
+my balloon.  And when he says 'sell,' I sell, and
+they go down like a barometer when you go up.
+Oh, yes, and all your aristocracy admire him.  I
+saw seven great lords with him the other day, and
+they said: 'What company am I to be a director
+of, Gordon?' and he said he'd ask his clerk.  But
+I have refused to be a director.  I should not like
+</span><em class="italics">maman</em><span> to know I know him.  She is very dreadful
+against Jews, owing to the </span><em class="italics">affaire</em><span> in France."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>And that was the celebrated afternoon that
+Penelope, who found that she was doing good in every
+way to all mankind by obliterating all class and
+professional jealousies, raised passion and curiosity
+to its highest point by saying, with the sweetest
+blush:</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Very well, then, I promise to marry one of you!"</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em">
+</div>
+<p class="center pfirst" id="chapter-v"><span class="bold large">CHAPTER V.</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em">
+</div>
+<p class="pfirst"><span>Penelope was the swan, and all her relations
+were the ducks.  The noise they made was simply
+unendurable.  For, besides Titania, she had cousins
+and other aunts, or people who were in the
+position of aunts, and she had friends who had been
+friends of her mother, and they came down on her
+like the Assyrian.  They objected to publicity,
+especially for other people, and for a young woman to
+become a public character was something worse
+than immorality.  Nothing but Penelope's entire
+singleness of character and her humourous want
+of humour enabled her to meet and overcome them.
+And even she felt at times that flight was the only
+thing left.  She sent to her solicitor for a list of
+all the houses and mansions and castles that she
+owned, and she took her motor-car and her pet
+chauffeur, and, having borrowed Bob from his
+grandmother, she set off on a tour.  She
+disappeared for a week at a time.  Then she disappeared
+for two weeks.  She was even lost for a month.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"She ought to be in an asylum," said Titania,
+"and I have to let Bob go with her.  He is some
+kind of a safeguard.  How do I know she isn't
+married already?  Bob, dear Bob, has ceased to
+confide in me.  When I interrogate him, he puts
+me off.  I get nothing out of him.  The only thing
+that I can congratulate myself on is that now,
+instead of 'Baker says,' it is 'Pen says.'  And I
+doubt, I own I doubt, and I cannot help it, whether
+Bob is not being done serious harm to, considering
+that he will one day be a duke.  A duke should be
+brought up properly.  Goring was brought up
+badly, I deeply regret to say.  He laughs at Penelope's
+behaviour, and says girls will be girls.  I say
+they will be women, and he says, 'Thank the Lord,'
+and I don't know what he means.  But, as I say,
+this wretched girl may be married by now.  It is
+already months since she said, in my hearing, to
+a whole crowd of men, 'I promise to marry one
+of you!'  Was there ever an aunt in a more
+unfortunate position?  I feel as if I should become a
+lunatic.  Augustin, do you hear me, I am rapidly
+becoming insane."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, ah," said Augustin, who always knew more
+about Pen's actions than any one else.  She wrote
+to him from a hundred places.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Keep your eye upon Mr. Gordon," she said.
+"And what are people saying about Lord Bramber's
+speech?  I shall be up in town in time to see
+Mr. Carew's new picture.  I got a letter from
+Mr. de Vere, saying that Captain Goby was learning
+Wordsworth's ode on the 'Intimations of
+Immortality in Childhood' by heart.  Mr. de Vere says
+he is doing what I told him, and is keeping his
+eye on Mr. Roosevelt.  I told him to model
+himself on the President of the United States.  He says
+he rows and has bought a Sandow exerciser, and
+he says it does not make him so tired now.
+Mr. Williams told me when I was last in town that he
+was thinking of writing a guide to Dulwich
+Gallery if war didn't break out.  I am afraid he hopes
+it will.  Mr. Plant's last weekly accounts were only
+10*s*. 6*d*.  I advised him to see a doctor if he thought
+it was doing him harm.  The marquis has written
+a very good article in the </span><em class="italics">Revue des Deux Mondes</em><span>
+against anti-Semitism.  I am greatly pleased with
+this.  I hope Mr. Carew's picture is intelligible.
+I told him it was no absolute sign of genius to be
+entirely incomprehensible.  He took it very well.
+I think Mr. Williams will have a good effect on
+him.  I have visited ten mansions, seven castles
+(two with moats; mother used to love moats,
+because there are none in America), and several other
+houses of mine.  Most need repairs.  I shall be
+home next week.  Tell aunt that Bob is very well
+and brown, and is learning to drive my car at full
+speed down a narrow road with sharp turns in it.
+Smith says he will be the best driver in England
+when he is grown up, if he goes on and doesn't
+have his nerve broken up early by an accident.  But
+I think his nerve is good, though I can't always
+tell, as I shut my eyes when we go very fast.
+Good-bye now, dear Guardy.</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 1em">
+</div>
+<dl class="docutils">
+<dt class="noindent"><span>"Your loving</span></dt>
+<dd><p class="first last noindent pfirst"><span>"PENELOPE.</span></p>
+</dd>
+</dl>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 1em">
+</div>
+<p class="pfirst"><span>"P. S. I am sure I am doing good!"</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em">
+</div>
+<p class="pfirst"><span>Bob was very sure of it, too.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I say, Pen, old Guth will be lonely, won't he?
+But he's all right if he has a bally Catullus in his
+pocket, and he draws his screw just the same.
+Granny is very decent to him, take it all around.
+And I like him because he likes dogs.  I must wire
+to Baker to hear how 'Captain' is getting on.  I
+called him Captain because old Goby gave him to
+me.  I say, Pen, don't you think Smith is a ripping
+good driver?  He says that he'll be my chauffeur
+when I'm a duke, if you don't want him.  He says
+him and me'll win every bally race.  I'd like to do
+that.  I begin to think horse-racing is rot.  You
+see three or four people can't ride a race-horse, and
+the responsibility of driving you fast when the
+road's crooked is the fun.  Every time I miss a
+cart, Pen, I feel as happy as if I'd hit Rhodes for
+four every time he sent a ball down to me.  That
+would be fun.  Baker says—no, I mean Smith
+says that all other sports are rot of the worst kind.
+He says if he's ever rich, he'll go through the city
+every day as fast as he can.  He hates the police,
+and some of them hate him.  He rode over a
+sergeant in the Kingston Road once, but he didn't
+hurt him much.  When shall we leave this castle
+and go to another one?  I hope the next is a long
+way off.  Smith says he wants a good road to show
+what she'll do when she's out to the last notch.
+And it must be down-hill."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>And in town, while Pen was going about the
+country, people's tongues ran as fast as any motorcar.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"It is nonsense," said one; "she's married already."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I know she's not.  I paid a shilling and looked
+it up at Somerset House."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"That's nothing," said a barrister.  "They could
+have been married under wrong names."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"That wouldn't be legal."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes, it would.  It's only illegal if a false name
+is used and one of the parties doesn't know.  Then
+the one who is deceived can get a declaration of
+nullity," said the barrister.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, well, but who is it?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"It's no one.  I don't believe she'll marry at all."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"She's a crank."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"It's madness.  I hear the Duchess of Goring
+has taken to her bed."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Well, Goring hasn't.  I saw him at the Frivolity."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Who is it now?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I don't know her name.  But where's Lady
+Penelope?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>No one knew but Bradstock, and even Augustin
+was behind by a post or two.  None of the "horde"
+knew, and they began to get suspicious of each
+other.  Goby watched De Vere, and De Vere kept
+his eye on Goby.  It was obvious from the
+newspapers that Bramber was in the House.  Gordon
+was seen at his Club.  And then Carteret Williams
+was missing.  Carew hunted for him in vain at
+the Press Club and at the office of the </span><em class="italics">Morning
+Hour</em><span>.  There was no war yet, though there were
+rumours of it in the Balkans as usual.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>It got about that she had married Williams,
+though he had only run away from Carew for a
+week.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"The very worst of the lot," wailed Titania.
+"I knew it would be Williams.  He's hardly a
+gentleman, though he comes of a good family.
+Being a war correspondent makes a man brutal.
+I knew, I knew, I knew it was Williams, and now
+I shall never speak to her; and he will beat her in
+time, I know it, and there will be a horrible scandal;
+and what, oh, what can she have done with Bob?
+Augustin, go at once and find where Bob is.  I
+knew it would be Williams!  Didn't I always say
+it would be Williams?  I could have forgiven her
+any one else."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Gordon came to ask Bradstock if it was true.
+And Bradstock had a sense of humour, if Pen had
+none.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"My dear sir," he said, "how can I tell?  She
+liked him very much, took a great interest in him.
+She told me he was writing a guide to the art of
+Dulwich Gallery.  Do you think that a bad sign?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Gordon groaned.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"It looks bad, Lord Bradstock.  But I don't
+believe she takes much interest in him.  She takes
+an interest in me, my lord!  Why, I went up in a
+balloon all on her account.  I went with that
+madman, the French marquis, and as sure as my name's
+Le—  I mean Gordon, there's not another woman
+in the world I'd have done it for.  Don't you think
+that going up in a balloon, when you'd rather die
+than do it, ought to touch a woman's heart?  I
+give you my word that she as good as said, 'Go
+up in a balloon and I'll—' well, or words to that
+effect.  I tell you what, Lord Bradstock, I know
+you ain't a rich man, not a very rich one, that is,
+but, if you'll be on my side, I'll put you on to a
+good thing, the best thing in the market.  It's going
+up like—oh, like a beastly balloon, sir,—my lord,
+I mean.  I'm making it go up, and I'll tell you when
+to sell.  Oh, Lord, I'm very unhappy, my lord.  I
+love the ground she walks on.  I'd like to buy it
+at the price of a city frontage.  Come in with me,
+my lord, and you shall have a tip that half a dozen
+dukes are dying for.  There's a room full of bally
+dukes waiting to see me now, and I gave them the
+slip.  Will you come in with me?  Do, do!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>He was a lamentable object, and there was a spot
+upon his hat which did not shine.  He worked at
+it eagerly with his sleeve, and stood waiting for a
+reply.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I don't mind telling you," said Bradstock, "that
+my income is only five thousand a year."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Poor beggar!" murmured Gordon.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"But I only spend four.  And if I had more
+what could I do with it?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Give it me," said Gordon, eagerly, "and I'll
+make more of it for you.  Man alive,—my lord,
+I mean—I can make it millions."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>There was a faint suspicion of the "millionth"
+in the word.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I can make it millionth," said Gordon.  "I've
+put a pound or two into that Frenchman's pocket,
+I can tell you, though he did take me up in a balloon,
+and I'll put fifty for one into yourth, so help me."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I don't want it."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Well, you can give it away," shrieked Gordon.
+"They'll make you a duke if you only give away
+enough.  If there wathn't a faint thuspithion of
+Jewish blood in me, I'd be a baron now at leathth.
+Give it away to hospithalths, build a lunatic asylum,
+finanth your party.  And if that don't thucktheed,
+go into beer or biscuits, and you'll be made
+anything you like."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"If they would make me thirty, I'd do it," said
+Bradstock.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Thirty dukes?" asked Gordon, in bewilderment.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Thirty years old," said Bradstock.</span></p>
+<div class="align-center auto-scaled figure margin" style="width: 63%" id="figure-104">
+<span id="leopold-norfolk-gordon"></span><img class="align-center block" style="display: block; width: 100%" alt="LEOPOLD NORFOLK GORDON. Some said his real name was Isaac Levi" src="images/img-072.jpg" />
+<div class="caption centerleft figure-caption margin">
+<span class="italics">LEOPOLD NORFOLK GORDON. Some said his real name was Isaac Levi</span></div>
+</div>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Gordon advanced on him and took him by a
+button.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"My lord," he said, solemnly, "money ith youth
+and strength and everything except Lady Penelope.
+If you had a million, you'd feel twenty-five.  When
+I had a measly hundred thousand, I was thin and
+always going to doctors.  When I got two, I got
+fatter and gave 'em up.  Now I'm worth two millionth."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>But Bradstock said, brutally: "No, Mr. Gordon,
+I don't want money, and I don't want you to marry
+Lady Penelope.  If I had a million, I'd rather lose
+it than see her do so."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Did you tell her that?" asked Gordon.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I did."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I'm damned glad," said Gordon.  "If you want
+a cat to go one way, pull its tail the other."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Tut, tut," said Bradstock, and Gordon went
+away sorrowfully, for he had great riches, and saw
+no good in them without Pen.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Bradstock had to interview all the lovers one
+after one.  They came to implore his vote and
+interest.  He saw Rivaulx, whose great desire was
+to look like an Englishman and act like one.
+Rivaulx adopted a stony calm, which sat upon him
+like a title on a Jew, but did not stick so tight.
+He ended a talk which began most conventionally
+in a wild and impassioned waltz around Bradstock's
+room, with despair for a partner.  He tore at his
+hair, but, having had it clipped till it was like a
+shaved blacking-brush, he could not get hold of it.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I must wed her," he howled.  "I told </span><em class="italics">maman</em><span>
+so, or I shall perish.  I will become an Englishman.
+</span><em class="italics">Mon Dieu</em><span>, I am sad.  I am fearfully mournful.  I
+weep exceedingly.  Have I not done all?  I have
+eaten largely in public with Mr. Gordon.  I have
+bought his shares and have sold them, but in my
+heart I cannot.  When I return to Paris, I shall
+fight duels because I have written for Dreyfus with
+tears in my eye and my tongue in my cheek for
+sorrow.  Where is she, Lord Bradstock?  Tell me
+where she is?  I will go to her and say I have done
+all and can no more!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>De Vere tackled him, too.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"My dear chap," said Bradstock, "I don't know
+her mind."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"She knows her own," said De Vere, with much
+bitterness, "and so does that boy Bob.  I bought
+a bulldog of him, because she said she thought one
+would do me good.  I don't know why, and now
+Bob sells me dogs by telegram, and I daren't refuse 'em."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Great Scott!" said his host; "but why?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"That young ruffian has an influence over her,"
+mourned the poet.  "He is always with her.  He
+is capable of saying I am a 'rotter'; yes, a rotter,
+a dozen times a day if I refuse, and to have him
+doing that would be more than I can endure.  I
+want her to love me, and so I buy his dogs.  I have
+a bulldog which hasn't done me any good.  All
+he has done is to tear my trousers and trample over
+my flower-beds.  I have an Irish terrier who is
+now being cured of bulldog bites by a veterinary
+surgeon.  I've a retriever who howls at night and
+makes the bulldog unhappy.  I have a Borzois with
+bronchitis and no hair on his tail.  Bob wrote to
+say the hair would grow if I put hair-wash on it
+myself.  He said men couldn't be trusted to do it.
+And then I've Goby on my hands.  I speak in
+confidence, Lord Bradstock."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Of course," said Bradstock.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Then I own I loathe Goby," said De Vere,
+viciously.  "He has less brains than my bulldog,
+and I think the bulldog has less brains than the
+retriever.  He reads poetry because she said he was
+to, and he makes me explain mine to him.  Explain
+it!  And he makes me row every day he's with me,
+and he says I'm not imitating Roosevelt if I don't.
+She said I was to imitate Roosevelt.  Why should
+I?  I loathe Republicans.  She also told me I was
+to imitate Sven Hedin.  On inquiry I found Sven
+Hedin was an ass who explored deserts, and went
+without water for many days.  Goby can do that,
+as my wine-cellar can testify.  He says he only
+tastes water when he cleans his teeth, and then it
+makes him sick.  And, though I keep wine for my
+friends, I am a water-drinker.  How can I do
+without it?  I am very unhappy."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I should chuck Goby and give it up," said Bradstock.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I wish I could," said the poet, "but my nature
+is an enduring one.  We learn in suffering Gobies
+and bulldogs what we teach in song.  A dog may
+be the friend of man, but a bulldog is a tailor's
+enemy.  And I believe they gave Goby the V.C. to
+get rid of him.  Do they ever give decorations
+to get rid of people?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Bradstock said he thought so, and wondered what
+he could give De Vere.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>And then the poet sighed and rose.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I have to meet Goby and lunch with him.  And
+afterward we read Shelley together, and then he
+will teach me billiards at his club.  I loathe billiards.
+It is the most foolish game on earth except keeping
+bulldogs.  And Goby's friends are not sympathetic.
+They are sportsmen, and ought to be hunted with
+bulldogs."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>He went away sadly, and Bradstock lay on a
+sofa and laughed till he cried.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Pen will be my death and the death of a dozen,"
+he said.  "And as for Bob—"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>No sooner had De Vere departed than young
+Bramber was announced.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Conceited young ass," said Bradstock.  But
+Bramber was in the House, and was supposed to
+be doing very well.  He had brains, no doubt, and
+the manner of Oxford (Balliol variety, as
+aforesaid) sat on him well.  He made speeches, and
+Mr. Mytton congratulated him on one of them.
+Nothing but his passion for Penelope prevented him
+being as conceited as Bradstock supposed him to
+be.  But it must be remembered that Bradstock
+couldn't make speeches.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I thought I'd come and look you up," said
+Bramber.  "I thought you could tell me something
+about Lady Penelope."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I can't," replied Bradstock.  "I spend all my
+afternoons in saying so.  I've had Rivaulx and
+Austin de Vere and Gordon here already, and after
+you go I don't doubt that Goby or Plant will turn
+up.  How do you get on with Plant?  Do you
+know, Bramber, I believe Plant is the best man of
+the lot of you."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Bramber frowned.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"He has an accent that can be cut into slabs, to
+use his own dialect," said Bramber.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Your own accent is equally disagreeable to an
+American," said Bradstock, who had been in the
+United States several times.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I have no accent," said Bramber, haughtily.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh," returned Bradstock.  "And how do you
+get along with Plant?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Bramber was obviously more jealous of Plant
+than any one.  But he made a tremendous effort
+to be fair.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"He's a very able man," he said at last, "but
+there's no man I should find it so hard to get on
+with.  He says just what he thinks in the most
+awful way.  And because Lady Penelope said he
+was not to spend more than twenty-five pounds a
+week, he is living on ten shillings out of bravado.
+I hate bravado.  He made me dine with him in
+Soho, and our dinners came to elevenpence each.
+Where is Lady Penelope?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I don't know," said Bradstock.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I didn't see Plant yesterday," said Bramber,
+uneasily.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"The devil!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"You don't think?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I don't know what to think," said Bradstock,
+wickedly.  "I hear that Jimmy Carew hasn't been
+seen for days, either."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Bramber fidgeted on his chair.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"She </span><em class="italics">can't</em><span> marry Carew.  He's a thorough outsider."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Women don't understand the word, my dear
+chap.  How are you getting on in the House?  And
+have you been motoring with Plant?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes," said Bramber; "we killed three fowls
+and a dog yesterday.  And Plant was fined ten
+pounds a week ago.  He said he would wire to
+Lady Penelope to know if that was business
+expenses.  I believe he wants to break my neck."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I shouldn't be surprised," said Bradstock.
+"Has he gone out alone to-day, do you think?  I
+suppose you know Penelope is doing a lot of it now?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"The devil she is!" said Bramber.  "I think
+I'll go and look up Plant."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Bradstock got some amusement out of the
+situation, if Titania didn't.</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em">
+</div>
+<p class="center pfirst" id="chapter-vi"><span class="bold large">CHAPTER VI.</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em">
+</div>
+<p class="pfirst"><span>Penelope came back to town about a week later
+and saw every one.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I wonder whom I love," said Pen, "for I'm
+sure I love some one.  And they are all so kind and
+sweet and good.  I'm sorry I shall have to hurt
+so many of them, for the poor dears all adore me."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>It was marvellous how they had developed in
+a short time under Pen's system, which was
+evidently sound, as Bradstock declared.  Plant, under
+his ten-and-sixpence-a-week scheme, had lost a stone
+weight, and was as hard and fine as a coil of wire.
+His search after the people he had ruined gave him
+a peace of mind to which he had long been a
+stranger, for American millionaires in business have
+no peace of mind.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I feel good," said Plant, meaning it both ways,
+"and my endurance of young Bramber has stiffened
+my moral fibre."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Whether I marry you or not, Mr. Plant," said
+Penelope, "I am awfully pleased with you.  And
+how has Lord Bramber behaved?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"He's been death on what he called my accent,"
+said Plant, a little bitterly, "and it is notorious
+I've none to speak of; and, for that matter, his own
+you could cut with a knife.  However, I think he's
+a good boy, and will discover he has brains.  I've
+talked to him straight, Lady Penelope.  I told him
+you meant me to.  I said he might be a lord and
+the son of an earl, but that he was a lazy, loafing
+scallawag, and that, if he'd been my son, I'd have
+cowhided him.  That did him good; it made him
+sit up, I tell you.  Oh, he fairly fizzled and felt like
+going for me, but he knew better.  He has brains,
+and I've talked with members of your legislature
+who say he'll do well.  Put this down to me, Lady
+Penelope.  Credit me with this.  I've looked after
+him like a baby, and I've hustled him around in
+my motor till he can't help going when he's out
+of it.  You and me together, my dear young lady,
+could educate the entire universe.  If you'll only
+marry me, I'll start a university on these lines of
+yours."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>The idea was a pleasing one, but of course Pen
+pointed out to him that it was his duty to do it
+whether she married him or not.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Duty is duty," said Pen.  "I'm doing all this
+out of a sense of duty."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Don't marry out of a sense of it," retorted
+Plant.  "I just want to be loved.  I'm going around
+feeling I want to be loved.  I've never been loved
+properly all my life, and I begin to hanker after
+it wildly.  And, if you do marry me, Lady
+Penelope, I want you to understand right here and now
+that I don't want you to do your duty by me.  If
+you begin to do that, I'll take a Colt's forty-five
+and scatter my brains out.  I want love, that's what
+I want.  I want it straight, without water in it."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I see what you mean," said Penelope.  "I think
+you are a very noble-hearted man, Mr. Plant."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>And away went poor Plant to draw up a scheme
+for a university.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I think I could almost love him," said the pensive
+Penelope.  "I could—almost—"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Her contemplations were interrupted by Captain
+Goby.  He was a little paler than usual, and perhaps
+a trifle more intelligent.  And he was more in love
+than ever.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I've done everything you told me," he said,
+as he sat down and eyed her wistfully.  "I've gone
+into poetry like a bull at a hedge, Lady Penelope.
+I begin to see what it means.  Old Austin (poor
+old josser) has taken the deuce's own pains over
+me.  He's read 'The Lady of the Garden' to me
+seventeen times.  He wrote it ten years ago.  He
+says he wonders how he did it, and so do I.  I've
+been trying to write poetry to you, do you know.
+That showed me there must be some special gift in
+it, for I never did anything worth the horrid trouble.
+And I've been worrying the War Office like a
+bulldog.  They say they'll think of me, and haven't
+gone any further, and talking of bulldogs, Bob's
+bulldog bit Austin de Vere, and he swore like a
+man.  I was surprised.  But if I were you, I'd tell
+Bob to stop sending him more dogs.  He's very
+kind to them, but they worry him.  Bob's prices are
+very high, too.  How is Bob?  Oh, by the way,
+I'm living on ten pounds a week.  Need I reckon
+tailor's bills in, do you think?  Oh, yes, this bulge
+is the Golden Treasury.  I take it out and read a
+lyric between meals.  The chaps at the Rag chaff
+me like blazes, but I don't mind so long as I
+improve.  I want to improve so as to be worthy of
+your intellect, Lady Penelope."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"The poor dear," said Pen, when he was gone,
+"I think I could almost love him!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>As luck would have it, Bob and Austin de Vere
+came in almost at the same minute.  For now Titania
+couldn't keep Bob away.  For the matter of
+that, she did not want to.  Bob was to be
+Penelope's safeguard.  He was much better than Chloe
+Cadwallader, said Titania.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>However, De Vere came in first.  He held
+Penelope's hand no longer than a poet should, as poets
+naturally hold girls' hands rather longer than other
+people.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"You are looking really well, Mr. de Vere," said
+Penelope, when she was free.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I am well," said the poet, "exceedingly well
+in a way.  My dear lady of the beautiful garden,
+I owe all that to you.  At first I was afraid of
+Captain Goby.  I told Lord Bradstock so the other
+day.  I'm afraid I left him under a false
+impression as to my feelings to Goby, by the way.  I'm
+quite proud of Goby.  He says I am really a
+powerful man, and he made me row till I was worn out.
+And then he insisted that I should use Sandow's
+exerciser.  I own I did it with reluctance.  I pointed
+out to Goby that I did not wish to look like
+Mr. Sandow.  Goby always stopped by the posters in
+which Mr. Sandow is lifting ten tons or so, and
+pointed out certain muscles to me as ideals.  I was
+recalcitrant, for, although I admire Mr. Sandow
+immensely, I think muscle can be overdone.
+However, I used the machine, which is ingenious and
+elastic, and only dangerous if the hook comes out
+of the wall, and I've found I rather like it.  I should
+miss it now.  I think it imparts a certain vigour
+to verse, if not overdone.  Oh—"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>For in came Bob.  He rushed at Pen and kissed
+her hair, and then bounced at the poet.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I say is it true the bulldog bit you?  I saw Goby
+yesterday in the park, and he said so," asked Bob,
+in great excitement.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"It is true," said the poet.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Penelope shook her head at the late owner of
+the dog.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, Bob!  Mr. de Vere, I'm very sorry."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"So was I," said De Vere.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Where did he bite you?" asked Bob, anxiously.
+"Was it the arm or the leg?  And did he hang
+on like a proper bulldog?  Baker says that if a
+bulldog once gets hold, you have to use a red-hot
+poker to make him let go.  Did you use a red-hot
+poker?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"He only snapped and fetched blood," said De Vere.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Ah!" cried Bob, "I always thought he wasn't
+a real good bulldog."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"At any rate, he bit the Irish terrier," said the
+poet.  "I mean the one you sold to me for three
+pounds."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I'm glad he did, sir.  That Irish terrier, though
+he's splendidly bred, Baker says, has an awful
+temper and is very troublesome.  Does Rollo, the
+retriever, howl much at night, sir?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, not so very much," said De Vere.  "It's
+only when the moon is near the full that he does
+his best."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I never thought of that," said Bob, "but now
+I remember that it was very moony when I sent
+him over to you.  Baker said you'd like him.  His
+kennel is next to Baker's house."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I'm much obliged to Baker," said De Vere.
+"But the tail of the Borzois is still bald, Bob."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Bob opened his eyes wide.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, dear, I thought you would have cured him
+by now; and how about his bronchitis?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"That's better, I hope and trust," said the poet.
+And Penelope, who was very greatly touched by
+his kindness to all these dogs, sent Bob into the
+library.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"It's so good of you to be kind to Bob," she
+said.  "Bob's a dear, and he adores me.  He says
+that he's going to live with me always, even when
+I'm married."</span></p>
+<div class="align-center auto-scaled figure margin" style="width: 58%" id="figure-105">
+<span id="austin-de-vere"></span><img class="align-center block" style="display: block; width: 100%" alt="AUSTIN DE VERE. He wrote poetry, and abhorred bulldogs and motor-cars" src="images/img-086.jpg" />
+<div class="caption centerleft figure-caption margin">
+<span class="italics">AUSTIN DE VERE. He wrote poetry, and abhorred bulldogs and motor-cars</span></div>
+</div>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh!" gasped De Vere.  "We were talking
+about Goby, I think, when dear Bob came in.  You'll
+find him much improved, I'm sure, my dear Lady
+Penelope.  He has read a great deal of Shelley
+and Keats and Browning with me.  He was
+especially struck with 'Sordello.'  I read it to him
+and he sat with his hand to his forehead taking
+it all in.  And every now and again he said, 'Great
+Scott!' which is his way of expressing wonderment
+and admiration.  I do not know its origin.  I've
+written to Doctor Murray to ask him if he knows.
+And Goby, oh, yes, you'll find him improved.  I've
+done my best with him, and I've really struggled
+hard.  Any improvement you notice is, I really
+believe, under you and Providence, due to me."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>And when he went, Penelope sat thinking.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"The poor dear, how nicely he took the bulldog
+bites and the howling of the retriever.  I
+think—I think I could almost love him!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>And that afternoon and evening she saw Bramber
+and Carteret Williams and Jimmy Carew and
+Gordon, and they were all most marvellously improved.
+Bramber was alert and bright, and began to show
+that he had some ambition in him, and, if he did
+not tell Penelope his exact mind about Plant, he
+did show some little appreciation of the American's
+qualities.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Associating with him has done you good," said
+Pen.  "I see it has.  You lived far too much for
+yourself, Lord Bramber.  I cannot endure selfishness."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I'm not selfish any more, I think," said Bramber.
+"I rather like Plant.  He seems a man, take
+him all around.  He is abrupt, perhaps, and brutal.
+I own I've found him trying, and he says things
+one finds it hard to forgive."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes, he told me," said Pen, delightedly.  "Oh,
+he told me he said you ought to be beaten severely,
+and he said you took it very nicely.  Did you?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Bramber bit his lip.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I did."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"That's right," said Pen.  "Oh, I'm improving
+you all so much.  You've no idea how much
+improved you are.  Mr. Mytton said he'd make
+something out of you, Lord Bramber."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Did he really?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, yes.  He said he made fair successes out
+of very much worse material.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"He's quite a dear," she sighed, when he was
+gone, but, before she could add that she might
+almost love him, Carew and Williams came in
+together.  And before she could greet them, Gordon
+came, too.  Williams eyed him with strange
+ferocity, for he was by nature a hater of Hebrews,
+and wanted to dust the floor with him.  Pen, who
+was as quick as lightning, caught his glances and
+said to him, sweetly:</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I think you would get on nicely with Mr. Gordon."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>And Williams blenched visibly.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, I couldn't leave Carew," he said.  "I'm
+deep in art, very deep; I adore it.  Carew has
+introduced me to several Academicians, and I have
+bought a box of paints.  One Academician took
+me home with him and showed me his pictures.
+He doesn't agree with Jimmy altogether, and he
+says Jimmy will alter his opinions presently.  His
+idea is that when a man is an A.R.A., he is only
+beginning, you see.  He also explained to me the
+attitude of the R.A. with regard to the Chantrey
+Bequest.  He says that if they found a good
+picture not by an Academician, they would buy it,
+which is interesting, isn't it?  He was painting a
+picture called 'War,' and wanted my opinion.  I
+said I'd ask Jimmy, because I didn't know anything
+about war except what I'd seen.  I don't know
+why he was chuffy about it.  I find artists get chuffy
+and huffy very quick, and I don't know what for.
+Do you think there will be war soon?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Penelope didn't know, and said she wanted
+eternal peace and happiness for every one, and meant
+having it if it could be got by any legitimate influence.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"War is horrible!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"It is," said Carew, who joined in just here,
+after getting away from Gordon, who told him
+to buy Hittites at 3-1/8.  "War is horrid.  Williams
+is always talking of it."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I'm not," said Williams, angrily.  "I want
+peace, eternal peace and happiness for every one."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Ah, so do I," put in Gordon.  "My idea is to
+have a peaceful life, far from the roar of London,
+in a deep green vale, where I shall hear no one
+talking of shares, and where mines are unknown, and
+there are no Chinese or crushing reports.  Why
+is it that most reports from mines are crushing?
+I wish I knew."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Ah, how sweet it would all be," said beautiful
+Penelope.  "You could keep cows, Mr. Gordon."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I adore them," said Gordon.  "There is a breed
+without horns, isn't there?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"They look incomplete," said Jimmy.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"What are you painting now?" asked Pen.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I'm not really painting, I'm modelling in clay,
+as you told me," said the obsequious lover.  "Don't
+you remember saying I was to model in clay?  I'm
+doing Williams in clay.  He looks very well in it.
+I'm also doing a bull going at a gate.  When I
+get tired of Williams, I do the bull, and when I'm
+fatigued by the bull I go back to Williams."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"And are they like?" asked Penelope.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, exactly," replied Carew.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>And the interesting conversation was interrupted
+by Chloe and Ethel.  But Penelope said to herself
+that they were all dears.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Mr. Williams is greatly improved," she
+murmured happily.  "And Mr. Carew looks more
+healthy and less engrossed in himself.  I was
+awfully glad to hear Mr. Gordon speak like that about
+a peaceful life."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>And Williams slipped Carew on the door-step
+and went to his club.  He roared of war till two
+o'clock in the morning, and then got three
+out-of-work war correspondents in the corner and told
+them the great story of his love.  But Jimmy went
+down to Chelsea, and damned modelling in clay
+to other impressionist painters, and had a real good
+time.  As for Gordon of the "deep green vale,"
+he went home and found a clerk waiting with a
+bundle of cables from all quarters of the mining
+globe.  He sent a wire to Bramber to be let off
+an engagement to hear a debate on drains.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>On the whole, every one was tolerably happy,
+if we do not include Titania and the retriever who
+howled at nights.</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em">
+</div>
+<p class="center pfirst" id="chapter-vii"><span class="bold large">CHAPTER VII.</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em">
+</div>
+<p class="pfirst"><span>It is possible that Penelope never enjoyed herself
+so much as she did at this period.  She was so busy
+that she had no time to worry; her team took all
+her time.  She was young, she was beautiful, she
+was adored, she was popular, she was even
+notorious.  A dozen reporters dogged her footsteps, and
+when they lost her they followed her lovers.  They
+haunted her door-step armed with kodaks; they
+invented paragraphs; they hunted her men and
+her maids.  They made love to the girls, and
+seduced the men into neighbouring bars.  One
+newspaper man, who belonged to the </span><em class="italics">Mayfair Daily</em><span>,
+got into her establishment as a footman, and was
+discovered by the butler drawing Penelope at
+dinner when he should have been drawing corks.  A
+search in his clothes revealed some pencils and a
+note-book and another book of drawings.  They
+were of such a character that the reporter was put
+outside into the street.  The butler could have
+forgiven the sketch of his mistress: there was one
+of himself that no man could forgive.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>The great desire of all these men was to spot the
+winner.  Penelope's maid, Harriet Weekes, who
+was more or less engaged to Timothy Bunting, the
+groom (a sad </span><em class="italics">mésalliance</em><span>, by the way), found it
+impossible to go out without being accosted
+respectfully by a new admirer, who tried to lead the
+conversation around to her mistress.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"If you please, my lady, another of them spoke
+to me to-day.  I hope, my lady, you don't think it
+my fault," said Weekes.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"What do they say?" asked Penelope, curiously.
+She took great interest in the manners and customs
+of other classes, perhaps with a view of altering
+them when she got time.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, my lady, they always say the same thing.
+I think men are very much the same all over the
+world.  They say 'It's a fine day,' even if it's
+raining, and of course it is, and they say they want
+to walk a little way with me (begging your
+pardon), and that I am very beautiful, and that they
+have long loved me, if you please, my lady, and
+have been trying to speak about it for years.  And
+I tell 'em I don't want 'em, and I don't, to be sure,
+though one (he's on the </span><em class="italics">Piccadilly Circus Gazette</em><span>)
+is a very handsome man with a heagle's glance,
+dressed in gray tweeds.  And they won't be put off,
+I assure you, my lady.  Men on newspapers are
+hextremely persevering with a fine flow of
+language.  And if, being persuaded to take a little
+walk, for they are difficult to put off by trade, I
+do take one, they begin to ask, begging your
+pardon, I'm sure, my lady, if I am your sister, and
+I'm sure I'm as like you as a butterfly is to a beetle,
+as Mr. Bunting says, though he adores the ground
+I walk on, if he's to be believed, which I'm not sure
+of yet, and the butler is very angry with me about
+the whole affair.  And one, who said he was the
+editor of the </span><em class="italics">Times</em><span>, which I don't believe in the
+least, because it doesn't seem likely, does it, my
+lady, that the editor of the </span><em class="italics">Times</em><span> would do such
+things himself? said he wanted to marry me and
+put me on the staff as his lovely bride.  I must say
+he spoke most beautifully, and he said he knew
+Captain Goby, and also Mr. Gordon, and he said they
+were getting thin he thought.  And another, quite
+the gentleman, though by his trousers poor and
+careful, said he owned most of the </span><em class="italics">Daily Telegraph</em><span>.
+And I couldn't help looking at his clothes.  He
+was very quick, and said that was owing to the
+competition of the half-penny papers.  Would I
+save the </span><em class="italics">Daily Telegraph</em><span> from himpending ruin
+by telling him which it would be, he said.  And
+I said flatly that I wouldn't.  I never saw such
+wicked impudence.  Oh, yes, my lady, your hair's
+done now, and it's as lovely as a dream."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>And, as Miss Weekes finished, she wondered,
+quite as much as any of the newspaper men, who
+it was to be.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"It's my belief," she said to Timothy, a little
+later, "that my lady is beginning to incline to one
+of 'em.  I've noticed she's quieter like and more
+gentle.  And there's a soft sadness in her eye and
+a colour that comes and goes."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"There ain't one of the biling worthy of her,"
+said Timothy, bitterly.  "But there, Miss Weekes,
+there ain't no man worthy of a real beautiful, good
+lidy.  A fair wonder how I dares to hope that some
+day far off, when motor-cars has killed every 'orse,
+you'll be Mrs. Bunting."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"It's a great come down, Tim," said Harriet.
+"Mr. Gubbles says he wonders, too."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"If he wasn't the butler, and old, I'd plug 'im,"
+said Timothy, crossly.  "It's all right for me to
+wonder, but he ain't in it."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Ah, but class distinctions is hard to get over,
+Mr. Bunting," said Harriet.  "You must pardon
+a butler's feelings.  Even Mr. Gubbles has his
+feelings.  And he agrees with you that there's no one
+but a duke ought to marry our dear lady.  And
+she demeaning herself (if I dare say so) with
+Academicians and war correspondencies and Jew men;
+not but what Mr. Gordon is very gentlemanly and
+generous.  Only yesterday, Mr. Bunting, he says
+to me when he met me outside, 'Do you read?'  And
+I says, 'Yes, sir,' being some flustered, and
+he says, 'You read that.'  And it was a five-pound
+note.  And he adds something about 'your vote and
+hinfluence.'  But I can't do it, Mr. Bunting, I can't.
+If it was Captain Goby, I might, and if it was young
+Lord Bramber I might more so, and even if it was
+Mr. de Vere, with a duke remote in his family, but
+for a Jewish man I can't.  So I said, 'Thank you,
+sir,' and he went off.  But some one is beginnin' to
+rise up in my lady's mind, I saw it plainly when I
+was dressing her.  It would be worth more than
+five pounds to know who is risin'."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes," said Timothy.  "'Ow much would it
+run to, do you think?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I believe it would be worth a public 'ouse."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Beer and spirits?" asked Timothy, eagerly.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"And a corner 'ouse at that," replied Harriet,
+nodding her head.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, 'Arriet," said Timothy, with a gasp, "you
+fairly dazzle me."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>The newspaper men had dazzled Harriet.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>But indeed what she said seemed true to her.
+And it seemed true to Lord Bradstock, who had,
+like the man of the </span><em class="italics">Circus Gazette</em><span>, an eagle's
+glance.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"She has been playing fair," said Bradstock,
+"but one of them is drawing ahead, Titania."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Good heavens, who is he, and how do you
+know?" asked Titania.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"It's intuition," said Bradstock, "intuition
+combined with, or founded on, a little observation.
+She's different, Titania.  She takes no interest in
+the London County Council."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"You don't say so!" cried the duchess, in alarm.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Bradstock nodded.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"It's a fact.  I asked her if she had read the
+last debate, and she hadn't, and when I mentioned
+the Deceased Wife's Sister she yawned."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"That looks bad," said Titania, "for only a
+week ago she raved about her, and Goring said
+he'd vote for her if she insisted on it.  And she did
+insist, and tears came in her eyes about the poor
+thing."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Well, I told you so," said Bradstock, "and
+I do hope it isn't Williams.  I'm afraid of Williams.
+He's capable of knocking her down and carrying
+her off on his shoulder.  Do you remember with
+what joy she read us the account of the savage
+tribe somewhere (was it the east of London?)
+where they do that?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"It made me shiver with apprehension," said
+Titania.  "Oh, if she was only married safely to
+a good duke, one not like Goring!  Is there a good
+duke, Augustin?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Several, so I'm informed," replied Bradstock,
+"and there are quite a number of good earls, some
+quite admirable.  But I wish you'd get hold of
+Chloe Cadwallader, and find out something."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Titania bristled like a porcupine.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"There is no need to find out anything about
+Mrs. Cadwallader," she said.  "If Penelope wasn't
+too dangerously innocent to be single, she would
+not have anything to do with her."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I'm sure the poor woman was only silly," said
+Bradstock.  "Haven't we all been silly in our time,
+Titania?  Didn't I marry twice?  And you married once."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I'll speak to her," said the duchess, hastily.
+"If we can only find out who it is, we can, I'm
+sure, prevent her doing as she says and making
+a secret marriage of it.  The scandal would be
+horrid.  Oh, Augustin, suppose she did it, and had
+a large family suddenly.  I should die of it."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Good heavens," said Bradstock, "you alarm
+me, Titania, you are so gloomy.  She would surely
+acknowledge her marriage then?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Titania threw up her hands.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Augustin, I'm sure of nothing with Penelope.
+I cannot answer for her.  She will bring my gray
+hairs with sorrow—"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"To cremation," said Bradstock.  "She has
+invested money in a crematorium."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I thought it was dairy-farming," cried Titania.
+"Oh, but think, Augustin, of the horror of the
+situation as it might be!  What would her Royal
+Highness say to me?  Imagine her marrying and
+keeping it dark, and having, as I say, a large family
+suddenly without a husband producible on the
+moment to answer natural inquiries!  Imagine her
+saying </span><em class="italics">then</em><span> that her marriage was her own business,
+and her certificate of marriage firmly withheld
+by a young and obstinate mother in a safe!  She has
+a safe.  She has a safe, Augustin, with many keys.
+I wish I could get at it, and find things out that
+are in it.  I wish I knew a burglar, a good honest
+and reliable burglar, married and trustworthy, that
+I could send in to break it open.  Most girls have
+a desk with an ordinary key, easy to open, but
+Penelope has a Lord Milner's safe with patent
+things to keep it shut.  It's not natural, it's wicked.
+Oh, I did hope, when I found out what the duke
+was like and what his ways were, that I knew the
+extent of my troubles, but there is no end to them,
+and Penelope begins where Goring leaves off."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Is it as bad as that?" asked Bradstock.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"And then there's Bob—"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"By Jove," said Augustin, "I believe Bob's the
+key to the safe!  Titania, he's more likely to find
+something out than any one."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Titania nodded solemnly.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Augustin, you are right.  I'll speak to Bob."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Let me do it."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"No, no, Augustin.  He is very quick and suspicious,
+and he loves her, he adores her.  This requires
+a feminine intelligence.  I will work upon
+him quietly."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>And she went away to work upon Bob quietly.</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em">
+</div>
+<p class="center pfirst" id="chapter-viii"><span class="bold large">CHAPTER VIII.</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em">
+</div>
+<p class="pfirst"><span>Now Titania believed that she was very smart
+and very clever, and that she would do things subtly
+and do them better than Bradstock or a barrister,
+even if he was a K.C.  And as it is the most
+invariably weak point in people that they think
+young people fools, or at any rate easily
+hoodwinked, she really believed that Bob, her dearly
+beloved young scoundrel of a grandson, would be
+as easy to work on as butter.  And yet she had the
+sense to see that Bob adored Penelope.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I am very greatly troubled about Penelope,
+Bob," she said to him, as soon as she got him
+alone.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Don't you worry about Pen, granny," replied
+Bob, cheerfully, "she can take care of herself.
+Why, she can drive a motor-car now up to about
+thirty miles an hour, and Geordie Smith says she's
+all there.  And so does old Guth.  He had long
+talks with her, and he says she has brains.  I tell
+you old Guth knows 'em when he sees 'em."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Titania nodded.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, I know she is clever, dear, but her ideas
+are so extraordinary."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Ain't they?" said Bob.  "I do wonder which
+of 'em she'll marry, don't you?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Indeed I do," replied his grandmother.  "Have
+you any idea, Bob, which she likes best?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Bob shook his head.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Not me.  I wish it was Goby; old Goby is a
+ripping good sort.  He knows what's what, does
+old Goby."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Goby tipped him freely and frequently, and Bob
+sold him a spavined pony, aged fifteen years.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"He's a bit of a fool, of course," said Bob,
+thoughtfully.  "Do you know, granny, he isn't the
+judge of horses you'd think he is?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Does Penelope ever confide in you, Bob?"
+asked Titania.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>There was a touch of anxiety in her voice that
+the boy felt at once.  He put his head on one side
+and looked at her out of the corner of his eye.  He
+didn't answer the question.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I say, granny, don't you think I can have a
+bigger allowance now?  I find mine much too
+little.  If I had ten shillings a week more, I could
+get on for a bit."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"You shall have it," said Titania.  "Does she
+ever confide in you, Bob?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Some," said Bob, carelessly.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Which do you think she likes best?" asked Titania.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I don't know," said Bob, "but I dare say I
+could find out.  I say, should you be very angry
+if it was Gordon?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Titania uttered a little scream.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Great heavens, Bob, I should die of it!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Bob sat down and looked at her.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"He's not bad, granny, not half mean, oh, no, not
+at all!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>He had given Bob as much as he gave Miss
+Harriet Weekes about three days before.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I rather like him," said Bob.  "Pen thinks he's
+much improved since she put him in harness with
+the Frenchy.  It touched her his going up in a
+balloon.  I say, may I go up in a balloon?  Rivaulx
+said I might."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"No!" screamed his grandmother.  "Oh, Bob,
+you wouldn't?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I won't if you don't want me to," sighed Bob,
+"but it's a horrid disappointment.  He says going
+up in one is jolly, and London underneath is
+ripping.  If I don't, will you ask grandfather to give
+me another hunter?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes, of course," said poor Titania; "but
+what do you think about Penelope?  Could you
+find out anything, Bob, if I let you go and stay
+with her?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Bob's eyes gleamed.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Rather," he said, "of course.  But I needn't
+worry about old Guth if I do?  I've been working
+very hard, and I think a holiday would do him
+good, too.  I'm very much overworked.  Do I look
+tired, granny?  I always feel tired now in my head.
+Guth says a breakdown from overwork is much
+worse than most fatal diseases."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"You shall go to Penelope if she'll have you,"
+said his anxious grandmother.  "Do you have
+headaches, Bob?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Not headaches," said Bob, "I shouldn't call
+'em headaches exactly.  They're pains, and old
+Guth says he had 'em when he was at Oxford.
+They get worse, he says, and then the breakdown
+comes, and you have to take a very long rest.  I'll
+go on working if you like, though."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>He sighed.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"You shall go to your cousin's," said Titania,
+"and my dear, dear Bob, keep your eye on Penelope
+and tell me all you discover.  Her ideas are
+very strange, you know, and we are all so anxious
+about her future."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"So am I," said Bob.  "If she married the
+wrong one I shall be out of it.  I couldn't get on
+well with old De Vere, and if she married him
+I'm quite convinced he wouldn't buy any more
+dogs.  I want her to marry Goby or Bramber.
+But I think Bramber is rather mean in some ways,
+and very thoughtless of others.  I told him I wanted
+some salmon fishing at his father's place in
+Scotland, and he's said nothing about it since."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I shouldn't mind Lord Bramber so much," said
+Titania.  "But I'm afraid it won't be Bramber."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Cheer up," said her grandson.  "I'll look after
+her.  But don't forget about the extra ten shillings
+and the horse.  Could you give me the ten shillings
+for six weeks now, granny?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>And he went off to Penelope's house and marched
+in on her.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Pen, I'm coming to stay with you if you'll have
+me," he said.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Of course I will," said Penelope.  "But how
+did you manage it?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I'm overworked," said Bob, solemnly, "and
+sitting on chairs and learning Latin don't agree
+with me.  I want more open air, I think, or I shall
+get consumption."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>He was fat and ruddy and as strong as a bull-calf.
+He put his arm around Pen's neck.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I say, Pen, I do love you," he said.  "I think
+it's rot I'm so young, or I'd have married you
+myself.  Granny's in an awful state about you,
+Pen.  She asked me if I knew who it was you
+liked best, and she threw out hints a foot wide that
+I was to find out if I could."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Indeed," said Pen; "and what did you say?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Bob chuckled.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I said the best thing would be for me to come
+and stay with you.  And that's why I'm here.  But
+I say, Pen, I'll never sneak, not even if you marry
+Mr. de Vere.  Granny's raised my allowance ten
+bob a week, and I'm to have another hunter.  I
+got too big for the pony, so I sold him to Goby;
+Goby looked very melancholy, but he said he wanted
+him badly for some reason.  And he said he hoped
+I'd be his friend always.  I like poor old Goby.  I
+think I'll go into the park, Pen.  My things will
+be here by and by.  Couldn't we go to the theatre
+to-night?  There's a ripping farce with a fight in
+it at the Globe.  And will you have plum pudding
+for dinner, and ice meringues?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>He went into the park and met Williams there.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I say, Mr. Williams, where's Mr. Carew?" he asked.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Damn Carew," said Williams.  "I don't know
+where he is, and I don't want to."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I'm staying at my cousin's," said Bob.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"At Lady Penelope's?" asked the war correspondent.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"That's it," said Bob.  "Would you like to know
+what theatre we are going to to-night?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes," said Williams, eagerly.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Bob shook his head.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I don't suppose I ought to tell you.  Tell me
+something very exciting about some bloody war,
+Mr. Williams."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Williams grunted.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Or an execution.  Have you ever seen heads
+chopped off with a sword?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Often in China, Bob."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I say, what fun!" said Bob.  "Tell me all about
+it.  Is it true they smoke cigarettes while they
+are being chopped?  And do they mind?  Could I
+see one if I went out?  I say, if you'll describe it,
+I'll see if I can tell you about the theatre."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Carteret Williams described it.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Seventeen!" said Bob.  "By Jove, I'll tell
+this to Penelope.  She'll be greatly interested.  Do
+you think I could be a war correspondent,
+Mr. Williams?  I'd like to be, because Latin wouldn't
+be needed.  I'm awfully sorry for war correspondents
+in those days when no one but the Roman chaps
+did any fighting.  I've enjoyed that story of yours
+more than anything I've heard for years, Mr. Williams.
+When they write about these things in books,
+why don't they describe the blood the way you do?
+It's the Globe we're going to; there's a ripping
+farce there.  I wish they would do an execution
+of pirates.  I say, don't tell Pen I told you; she
+might be waxy with me.  Think of something else
+to tell me.  Good-bye."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>And he went to look at the ducks.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Williams is all right," said Bob; "I wonder
+if it is Williams."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>And at home Pen began to know who it was.
+And Ethel Mytton began to know it was some
+one.  And so did Chloe Cadwallader.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Miss Weekes was right, there is no mistake about
+that.</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em">
+</div>
+<p class="center pfirst" id="chapter-ix"><span class="bold large">CHAPTER IX.</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em">
+</div>
+<p class="pfirst"><span>Penelope was certainly on the verge of being
+in love, to go no farther than that.  She discovered
+that certain of the horde had a curious tendency to
+disappear from her mind, though none of them
+lost any opportunity of appearing in her drawing-room.
+She was so sorry for those she didn't love
+that her kindness to them increased.  Her dread
+of the one she began to adore forbade her to show
+how soft she had grown to him.  Not even Ethel
+and Chloe together could make anything out of it,
+which shows every one, of course, that they were
+two simple idiots, or that Penelope had a very
+remarkable character.  It seems to me that the
+latter must have been the case, for Chloe was no
+fool in spite of the folly she had shown on one
+particular occasion.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Am I a fool?" she asked Ethel Mytton, "or
+is Penelope the deepest, darkest mystery of modern
+times?  I am convinced she has made her choice."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, which do you think?" asked Ethel, with
+much anxiety.  "Do you—do you think it is
+Captain Goby?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I don't know," replied Chloe; "it may be.  I
+give it up.  I shall ask Bob."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I've asked him," said Ethel, "and he won't say
+anything.  I think he knows more than we do.
+He's a sweet boy, but just as cunning as a ferret."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>But of course Bob knew no more than they did,
+though he would never own to it.  He threw out
+casual hints that he was wiser than his elders, and
+the only one he was in the least frank with was
+Lord Bradstock, who asked him to lunch and was
+infinitely amused with him.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I say, Lord Bradstock, if you'll keep it dark,
+I'll tell you something!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Bradstock promised to keep it as dark as a dry
+plate.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"All these women think I know who Penelope's
+sweet on, and I don't.  And, what's more, I
+wouldn't tell if I did.  Would you?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Certainly not," said Bradstock.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"You can't think how I'm chased," said Bob.
+"Ethel Mytton is the worst.  She's dead nuts on
+poor Goby, and Goby doesn't see her when Pen's
+in the room.  And Mrs. Cadwallader, she's always
+mugging up to me with chocolates or something to
+get things out of me.  And the newspaper Johnnies
+are on me, too.  And Williams takes me out, and
+Carew (I don't care for Carew), and I like Goby
+best.  Mr. de Vere is a rotter, don't you think?
+The marquis was at Pen's, and he said that if Pen
+didn't marry him he'd go up in a balloon and never
+come back.  I want him to take me in a balloon.
+Don't you think I might go?  Granny's cross when
+I speak of it.  I've always wanted to go in a balloon,
+and I think it hard lines I can't go because she
+doesn't like 'em.  Pen won't go, either.  She thinks
+that if she did, Rivaulx would never let her come
+down again, or something.  I daresay he wouldn't;
+he's quite mad, I think, sometimes.  Baker says
+all Frenchmen are mad.  Do you think so?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Bradstock didn't know; he wasn't sure of it,
+though he owned to thinking it was possible.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"After all, Bob," he said, when Bob went at last,
+"and after all I dare say Penelope won't marry any
+of them."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>And of course that is what a good many people
+said.  They said it was Lady Penelope's fun.  The
+Marchioness of Rigsby, who settled every one's
+affairs, said so to Titania.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Why wasn't she beaten, my dear, when she
+was young?" asked the marchioness.  "I was
+severely beaten; it did me good; it gave me sense.
+I always used to beat my girls with the flat of
+my hand, and now they are </span><em class="italics">most</em><span> sensible and
+married excellently, although I own they are not
+beauties.  I can afford to own it now.  I shall
+speak to Penelope myself."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>She did it and was routed.  Pen was direct;
+she beat no one, and certainly did not beat about
+the bush.  She had no fear of the world, and
+dreaded no marchioness.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I'll attend to my own affairs, thank you," said Pen.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"My dear love," said the marchioness, "you
+ought to have been beaten while you were still young.
+This conduct of yours is a scandal.  It is merely
+a means of attracting public notice.  And I am
+old enough to speak about it.  I will speak about it."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Pen left her speaking and went out.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"She is distinctly rude," said the marchioness,
+viciously.  "I wish she was about ten and I was
+her mother!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>But Pen could not endure being spoken to.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I love him," said Pen, "and what business is
+it of theirs?  If they disapprove I shall hate them!
+If they approve I shall hate them worse.  Oh, I
+almost wish I was going to marry some one who
+would make them die!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Mark me," said the marchioness to Titania,
+"this will end in her marrying a groom.  Has she a
+good-looking one?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Titania started.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, a very good-looking one," she cried.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"What did I say?  Remember what I said," said
+the marchioness, darkly.  "No really good girl
+could act as she does.  She will marry a groom!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>She went around saying so in revenge for
+Penelope's want of politeness.  The journalists took
+Timothy Bunting's photograph, and Miss Weekes
+was proud till she heard the dreadful rumour.
+Timothy beat a man on a paper, and Bob was
+delighted.  Titania took to her bed, and said the
+end of the world was at hand.  Bradstock laughed
+till he cried, and cut the marchioness in the park.
+Her husband was very much pleased at this, and
+said it served her right.  Chloe Cadwallader wrote
+her first letter since the scandal to Cadwallader in
+the Rockies, for she felt he would be the only man
+in the world who hadn't heard of it.  Ethel lay
+wait for Captain Goby, and asked him to kill some
+one.  There was not a soul in London who did
+not hear of it.  And then Timothy quarrelled with
+Harriet Weekes.  He went to Penelope, and with
+a crimson face and bated breath and much
+humbleness asked to be sent down to the country.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"You shall go," said Penelope, with great
+decision.  "I can trust you, I know."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"My lady, you can trust me with untold gold
+and diamonds," replied Timothy Bunting, almost
+with tears.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I shall send you to a house of mine you have
+never heard of," said Penelope.  "And I expect
+you, Bunting, not to write to any one from there.
+I do not wish any one to know I live there."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I'll not tell the Harchbishop of Canterbury
+'imself, my lady, not if he begged me on his knees,
+with lighted candles in his 'and," said Bunting.
+"And, above all, my lady, I'll not tell it to Miss
+Weekes.  Her and me 'ave quarrelled, and 'ave
+parted for hever.  And I wouldn't trust her, my
+lady, not farther than you can sling a bull by the
+tail, my lady.  I've trusted her to my rueing, so
+I have, and if she finds out hanything she'll sell it
+to the </span><em class="italics">Times</em><span>, which 'ave promised her a public
+'ouse at a corner."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>This revelation of the methods of Printing House
+Square shocked Penelope dreadfully.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, I always thought the </span><em class="italics">Times</em><span> was a respectable
+journal," she said.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>But Timothy Bunting shook his head.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Their sportin' tips ain't a patch on many of the
+penny papers, my lady.  But don't you forget what
+I says of Miss Weekes.  She's a serpent in your
+boodore a-coiling everywhere, and speaking to
+newspaper men outside the harea like an 'ousemaid.
+Not but that I knows an 'ousemaid far above
+such dirty work, my lady."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>A little encouragement might have led him to
+say more about the housemaid who would not
+condescend to talk with journalists.  But Penelope gave
+him an address, verbally.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"You will go to this place to-morrow," she said.
+"There are no horses now, but there will be next
+week.  I trust you to do what I tell you."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Miss—my lady, I mean," said Timothy,
+proudly, "I wouldn't reveal where I was if the
+Hemperor of Germany crawled to me for that
+purpose all along of the ground, making speeches
+as he went."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Penelope smiled at her faithful henchman kindly,
+and she wondered how it happened that he thought
+of placing the emperor in such an absurd position;
+a position, too, which was very unlikely.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Now are you sure you remember, Bunting?"
+she asked.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Miss Mackarness, Moat 'Ouse, near Spilsby,
+Lincolnshire," repeated Timothy.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"And you will speak personally to Miss Mackarness,
+who will give you every instruction," said
+his young mistress.  "I hope you don't drink,
+Bunting?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Never," said Bunting, promptly, "at least I
+won't from now on till you give the word, my lady.
+But, my lady, as I'm goin' from here I don't mind
+revealin' to you that Mr. Gubbles does.  Mr. Gubbles
+'as been very unkind to me, and—"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"That will do," said Penelope.  "Good-bye,
+Bunting.  I expect to see you in about a month.  It
+may be less."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I 'opes, my lady, it will be much less," said the
+groom, and as he went away he nodded his
+close-cropped head.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"This is a damned rum start," he murmured.
+"Wot's up, I wonder?  This 'ere Miss Mackarness
+was 'ousekeeper at Upwell Castle, and I'm a
+Dutchman if any one of us 'as ever 'eard of Moat 'Ouse.
+She's goin' to do it, as she said, goin' to be
+married and keep it dark.  Women is wonderful strange
+and, so to speak, dreadful.  I thot I knew
+'Arriet Weekes through and through, and she turned
+out to be a serpent with false teeth, ready to sell
+Lady Penelope to the </span><em class="italics">Times</em><span>.  And my lady 'as
+turned me round 'er finger.  I'm knee-deep in secret
+hoaths, and, without knowin' what I was doin',
+I've swore off drink.  Well, I always did like
+ginger-beer!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>But he sighed all the same.  And that
+afternoon he packed up and disappeared, and no one
+knew what had become of him.  Neither he nor
+any one of those who hunted for news had any
+notion of the fame which would presently be his.
+Nor did Penelope see quite what she had done when
+this nice-looking young man suddenly vanished by
+her orders.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>But Penelope was in love.</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em">
+</div>
+<p class="center pfirst" id="chapter-x"><span class="bold large">CHAPTER X.</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em">
+</div>
+<p class="pfirst"><span>Love is a pathological state which can only be
+cured by one means.  It is a disease, and robs the
+most humourous of their humour.  When Rabelais
+was in love he no doubt wrote poems which he
+afterward destroyed.  When Dante was in love he
+did the Paradiso.  When he cheered up he wrote
+the Inferno.  Neither of these is any joke.  But
+then, Dante had no more humour than Penelope.
+It can be imagined (or it cannot be imagined) how
+unhumourous Pen became when she found she had
+made her choice between Plant and De Vere and
+Goby and Carew and Williams and Bramber and
+Gordon and Rivaulx.  She wept at night over those
+she could not marry.  And it added grief to grief
+to think that the unmarried would probably relapse
+into their evil ways.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"What can one poor girl do with so many?"
+she asked.  "I'm sure they will turn around on me,
+and once more follow their dreadful instincts!  And
+they have improved so much!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>The result of her sorrow was such pity that every
+poor wretch of them all was convinced she loved
+him better and better.  They were quite cheerful.
+They looked at each other almost sympathetically.
+They grieved for each other, and struggled on the
+hard cinder-path of duty, with Penelope at least a
+long lap ahead.  The amount of good they did was
+wonderful.  Plant got his university started,
+Rivaulx went over to Paris and asked Dreyfus to
+dinner, Goby was deep in Imperial Yeomanry and
+rifle ranges, Bramber spoke on every opportunity
+in the House and voted with the insistence of a
+whip.  De Vere wrote a monograph on outdoor
+sports, with an appendix on bulldogs.  He also
+owned that poetry was not everything, and went
+so far as to say that the poet laureate was a very good
+fellow.  Gordon floated a company without any
+water in the capital, and ran the whole affair with
+absolute honesty and no waiver clause.  Carew
+learned to draw, and spoke sober truth about the
+Chantry Bequest.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Williams never swore in public, and painted in
+water-colours.  And none of them played bridge or
+went into good society.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"And when they know?" said poor Penelope.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I wonder if I ought not to sacrifice him and
+myself on the altar of duty?" said Pen.  But she
+was in love, and the motor-car in which she was to
+disappear stood ready.  She made weekly trips in
+it with Bob.  Sometimes they stayed away for three
+days, sometimes even for a week.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, Bob, I'm so unhappy: so happy," said Pen.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>And Bob looked at her critically.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Well, you look stunning, anyhow," he replied,
+"you get better looking every day, Pen.  Old De
+Vere said so.  He let on that you were a cross
+between a lily and a rose, or some such rot.  You mark
+me, Pen, he'll go back to poetry if you marry him,
+and give up dogs.  I don't want him to do that.
+Baker has some pups coming on, a new kind of
+very savage dog, and I'm halves in 'em.  Can't
+you give me a tip as to whether it's De Vere?  If
+it is, I'll sell him one now, cheap."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>But Pen looked beautiful and kept her mouth
+shut.  Neither Bob nor Titania nor Bradstock could
+extract a word from her.  And, nevertheless, the
+whole world grew suspicious.  The society papers
+said she had made her choice.  The sporting papers
+gave tips.  They said, "For the </span><em class="italics">Lady Penelope
+Stakes</em><span> we give Plant or Bramber," or at least one of
+them did.  Others selected De Vere, and one rude
+man said a rank outsider would get it.  Of course
+he didn't believe in Pen's word.  But then, no one
+did.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>And still Pen kept her teeth shut and was as
+obstinate as a government mule to all persuasion.
+Ethel cried and said:</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, is it Captain Goby?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Chloe laughed and laid traps for Penelope saying:</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, by the way, I saw Lord Bramber just now."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Or it might be De Vere or Carew or Williams.
+But no one got a rise out of Penelope.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I am entirely determined to give a lead to those
+who wish to be married without publicity.  I shall
+found a society presently," said Penelope.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>When Titania, whom nothing could discourage,
+went at her furiously, Bradstock smiled.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"If she has a daughter, some day we shall see the
+girl married in Westminster Abbey," said Bradstock.
+But even he was very curious.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Have you found out anything yet, Bob?" he
+asked that young financier.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I'm on the way," said Bob, "give me time,
+Lord Bradstock.  I feel sure it's not De Vere.  He's
+buying all the dogs I offer him.  If he was sure,
+he wouldn't."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>But Bradstock wasn't certain.  Penelope might
+have no humour, but she was quite equal to ordering
+De Vere to buy in order to blind Bob.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I never thought of that," said Bob.  "I frankly
+own Pen's a deal worse than Euclid.  And I never
+thought to say that of anything."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>And upon a certain day in June, when June was
+doing its best to live up to the poet's ideal, Pen
+disappeared, by herself, leaving Bob at home with
+Guthrie, who now came over each day to keep the
+young vagabond doing something.  She came back
+after lunch, and Bob found her abnormally silent.
+She had nothing to say, and there was a curious
+far-off look in her eyes.  Her interest in dogs was
+nil; she showed no appreciation of ferrets; when he
+spoke she said "Oh" and "Ah" and "what's that
+you say?"  And Bob had no suspicion whatsoever,
+just as clever people never have when they might be
+expected to show their wisdom.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>When she did speak, though, it was to the point.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I think, Bob, it is time you went back to your
+grandmother's," she declared, suddenly, and back
+he went in spite of all his cajoleries.  Pen was very
+strange, he thought, and rather beastly.  There
+certainly was a change in her, for she dismissed
+Harriet Weekes with a douceur which did not really
+sweeten that lady's departure.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>And in the afternoon Pen casually remarked to
+Chloe that she was going out of town for three
+days.  When she said so the motor-car was at the
+door, and Geordie Smith was there too.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>If Timothy Bunting had known that Smith was
+as deep in his lady's confidence as he was himself,
+he would have been jealous.  But he must have
+been, for Pen said to him, when they were out of
+Piccadilly:</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"How long will it take to get to Spilsby, Smith?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"My lady, with this new racing-car I'll get there
+when you like," replied Smith, firmly.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Pen remembered that Bob said Smith's ambition
+was to ride through the city regardless of fines.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I wouldn't try to do it under three hours,"
+she said.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Unless we are followed," said Smith.  "If we
+are followed, my lady, may I let her go?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes," said Penelope.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Geordie Smith nodded to himself.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Fines be damned, and legal limits ditto," said
+Smith to himself; "wait, my darling, till we get
+through the traffic."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>He meant "darling" for his new car.  He adored
+it as much as he did his mistress.  He used to
+dream of it at night and had nightmares about it.
+Dream ruffians cut up his tires; he was in the
+middle of Salisbury Plain without petrol; "she"
+refused to spark; he was held up by gigantic
+policemen with stop watches the size of a church clock.
+But now she moved under him smooth and cosy,
+with a vast reserve of power; she was quick, swift,
+docile, intelligent, fearless of policemen, careless
+of the limping law.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"If my lady wants to go quick, I'm the man,"
+said Geordie.  "But I wonder what's up?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Geordie played the car as Joachim plays the
+violin, or Paderewski the piano.  She skated, she
+swam, she shot like a water-beetle, she was
+responsive to his lightest touch.  He heard her music as
+every engineer does, and found it as lovely as a
+dream song.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, for a clear road," said the player.  He
+found some of it clear before they reached Barnet,
+and then he fingered the keyboard, as it were, like
+a master.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Horses, horses," said Smith, "the poor miserable
+things!  Ain't I sorry for Tim Bunting!  Here
+we go, my lady."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>He broke the law magnificently, and with such
+skill that Penelope wondered.  But only once he ran
+against the law in the shape of a policeman, north
+of Hatfield, who saw him coming and signalled to
+him to stop.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Shall I?" said Smith.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"No!" shrieked Pen, against the tide of wind.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>They passed him flying and saw him run as they
+passed.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"He'll wire to Hitchin and have us there,"
+said Smith.  But he knew his roads.  "Oh, will he?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>He took the right fork of the roads at Welwyn
+and roared through Stevenage to Baldock and
+found the main road again at Sandy.  They reached
+Huntington, sixty miles from town, in an hour and
+three quarters.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"And I've never let her out but once," said
+Smith; "she's a daisy!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>The eighteen miles to Spilsborough they did at
+a speed that made Penelope bend her head.  She
+felt wonderful: she was on a shooting-star.  They
+slackened on the outskirts of the cathedral city and
+rolled through it delicately.  She looked about her
+and remembered the dear bishop who had christened
+her when he was no more than a vicar.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"We'll go by Crowland and Spalding, Smith."  A
+car followed them out of Spilsborough, and
+Smith, going easy, looked back and saw it.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Catch us, my son," he said, contemptuously.
+But when they were well clear of town and he
+turned her loose, so to speak, Pen's nerve went,
+or it appeared to go.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Don't go so fast, Smith," she commanded.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>And Smith obeyed sorrowfully.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"They can't stand it," he said; "none of 'em
+can stand it really.  They let on they can, but it's
+no go.  A few hot miles gives them the mulligrubs."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>But nevertheless they were running over thirty
+miles an hour.  The car behind crawled up to them.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"All I've got to do, my lady, is to ask her to
+shake 'em off, and away we go and leave 'em," he
+suggested.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, no, no," said Pen.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>At Spalding the pursuer, if he were one, was
+not a hundred yards behind.  But in the town
+Smith got ahead.  He did not see Penelope
+trembling.  Smith had taken a look at the one behind.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"There's power there," he said, savagely.  "If
+he lets her out and my lady squeals, I'm passed!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>She did "squeal" the other side of Spalding,
+but not for herself.  The other car had to stop.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"That's done 'em," said Smith; "they're in the
+ditch."  He gained ten miles on them, and Penelope wept.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>And just as they were coming into Boston at an
+easy gait, Smith turned and saw the other car
+coming up behind like a meteor, with the dust astern
+of her in a fume.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"That chap can drive after all," said Smith.
+"Won't you try to let me get away from him
+before we get to Spilsby, my lady?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I—I don't want to," said Pen.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>And five miles outside of Spilsby the pursuing
+car drew up with them.  Two indistinguishable
+monsters drove it, and through his glaring goggles
+Smith glared at them as they came alongside.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Stop," said Penelope, suddenly.  "Stop, Smith."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>And the other car stopped too.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I'll go on with the other car," said Penelope.
+She took her place by the most unrecognizable
+portent of the two, and disappeared in a sudden and
+terrific cloud of dust.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Damned if I know who it is, even now," said Smith.</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em">
+</div>
+<p class="center pfirst" id="chapter-xi"><span class="bold large">CHAPTER XI.</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em">
+</div>
+<p class="pfirst"><span>It was Friday when Penelope disappeared from
+London in a motor-car, and was carried off by a
+motor pirate, unknown to any one, because he wore
+a peak cap, a fur coat with the fur outside, and
+gigantic goggles, making him resemble a diver or
+a cuttlefish.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>It was Monday when she returned to town in a
+motor-car with Geordie Smith.  And all the way
+into town Geordie said:</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Blessed if I'd ha' thought it.  I always
+reckoned it would have been one of the others.  I lose
+money on this, but if I do, it warms the cockles
+of my heart to see my lady happy.  Bless her sweet
+face, I wish she'd leave the blooming world alone
+and have a good time.  I never set eyes on such
+an aggravatin' beautiful sweet lady for interferin'
+with men.  Just as if the queen herself could alter
+our ways!  Women always gas that they can or
+mean to, and they're just like hens with men for
+ducks."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>If he had been a classical scholar he might have
+remembered Ariadne up to her knees in the sea,
+with her lover on the deep in a boat.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"When I saw who it was at Moat House," said
+Geordie, "you could have knocked me endwise with
+something less than a steel spanner.  And that
+horse-whipping ass of a Bunting was equal took
+aback.  For somehow we never spotted him as
+likely to make the non-stop run.  Humph, humph!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>And he left Penelope at her house just in time
+for afternoon tea.  As she lay on the sofa she
+handed a paper to Chloe Cadwallader, saying:</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I wish you would send out cards to all these
+people for Thursday night."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"That's very short notice, darling," said Chloe.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"They'll come," said Pen.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>And when Chloe looked at the list she found it
+included only Pen's particular friends, her most
+bitter relations, and the whole of the "horde."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I wonder—" said Chloe, and she wondered
+somewhat later with Ethel.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Is it?" said Ethel.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Can it be?" cried Chloe.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"It can't be," said Ethel.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Who knows?" asked Chloe.  "She is so plain
+and so simple and straightforward that there is no
+certainty about anything she does.  I understand
+the wicked and the weak, but Penelope—"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>She threw up her hands, and presently wrote out
+the cards.  And Penelope was trying "to a degree,"
+as Chloe said all Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday.
+And on Thursday she sent for Bob, who came
+helter-skelter in a hansom.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"You'll stand by me, Bob," said Pen, clutching him.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Bob put his hands in his pockets and stood
+straddle-legs.  He stared at her.  What was hidden
+from the wisdom of Chloe was revealed to the
+simplicity of this boy.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Pen," said Bob, solemnly, "I'll stick by you
+till death.  But ain't you going to tell me who it is?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Who what is?" asked Pen, feebly.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Him," said Bob.  "Pen, you've been and gone
+and done it."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Pen, the strong and mighty Pen, wept a little.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Don't snivel," said Bob.  "It can't be helped
+now, I suppose, unless you get a divorce.  Do you
+want one?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, no!" said Pen.  "Not at all!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Bob considered the matter for a few minutes.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I say, what makes you cry?" he asked.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I—I don't know," said Penelope.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Girls are very rum.  Baker says they are.  He's
+not married, you know.  He says mules are easy to
+them.  He drove mules once in India, he says.
+You know you are doing all this off your own bat,
+Pen, ain't you?  Why don't you chuck it?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Chuck what, dear?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, this notion of not letting on.  Baker says
+it's the rummest start he ever knew, and he says
+he's seen some rum things in his life, especially
+when he was a sergeant in the Dublin Fusiliers.
+Can't you chuck it?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, no, certainly not," said Pen, firmly.  "It's
+only, Bob, that I'm not used to it yet, you see."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Of course not," said Bob.  "Being married is
+strange at first, I suppose.  Baker says he knew a
+woman who was married four times, and by the
+fourth time she wasn't nervous to speak of.  But
+is it true, Pen, that you won't tell any one who
+it is?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I won't," said Pen.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Bravo," cried Bob.  "Stick to it.  Oh, it will
+make granny so savage!  Has Bill spoken about it
+to you?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"He laughs," said Pen.  "He always does laugh."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"He tells rattling good stories," said Bob.  "He
+told me a splendid one about a man who stole a
+parrot the other day.  I'll tell it you sometime when
+I remember it.  Is anything going to happen to-night, Pen?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Pen shivered.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, dear, I don't know.  Mind you come, too, Bob."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Bob vowed he wouldn't miss coming for worlds.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I believe you're thinking of telling 'em you've
+done it," he said, and Pen said she was thinking
+of telling them.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"You won't tell me who it is?  I'm as close as
+wax," urged Bob.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I can't, dear," said Pen.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, by Jove, I remember Bill's parrot story,
+Pen.  A man stole a parrot, and when he was caught
+he said he took it for a lark.  And the man who
+owned it said he'd make a bally fine judge at a
+bird-show."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh," said Pen, rather blankly; "but if he only
+took it for a lark, I suppose they let him off.  Did
+they?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Let him off what?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Why—going to prison, of course," said Pen.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I don't know," replied Bob, staring.  "Don't you
+see it's a joke?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes, I see, of course," said Pen.  "Why, the
+man said it was a lark, and it was a parrot.  I think
+it's a very good story, Bob."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>And Bob went away wondering whether it was or not.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I'll tell it to Baker," he said, thoughtfully.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>He turned up at nine o'clock that night with
+Titania, who was in a state of mind requiring
+instant attention from a physician.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Good heavens, what is it, I wonder," said
+Titania.  "Robert, I wonder what it is?  But what
+do you know?  I am in a tremble; I am sure she
+will do or say something even more scandalous than
+she has done yet.  I put it all on Bradstock; to
+make him her guardian was a fatal error.  My
+nerves—but I have none.  I quiver like a jelly; I
+shake; I must be pale as a ghost.  Why should
+we take so much trouble over anything?  I must
+think of myself.  I will go to bed and stay there
+for a week, and send for Dr. Lumsden Griff."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>But Bradstock was as calm as a philosopher
+without anything in the objective world to worry him.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"What does it matter?" he inquired.  "Does
+anything matter?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Brading, whom no one had seen for many months,
+as he had spent the whole winter in a yacht down
+the Mediterranean, was perfectly good-humoured.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"You see, she's a dear, but only my half-sister
+after all," he said to Bradstock, "and women are
+so wonderful!  I can tell you a story by and by
+of a Greek lady, and one about a Spaniard.  And,
+to tell the truth, I almost agree with Pen.  I'm a
+bit of a socialist, or an anarchist, if you like.  Have
+you read Nietzsche?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Who wrote it?" asked Bradstock.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>But the horde came in one by one, and Penelope,
+who was dressed in the most unremarkable
+costume at her disposal, and looked like a lily,
+received them at the door.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"A most awful and improper situation," said
+Titania.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I say, I'll tell you about that Greek girl,"
+said Brading.  "Do you think Pen could stick a
+knife in a fellow?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Bradstock didn't think so, and listened to the
+story of the lady who suggested the notion.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Right through my coat and waistcoat," said
+Brading.  "Only a very stiff piece of starch saved
+my life!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Good heavens!" cried Bradstock.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>The room was full, and Bob buzzed around it
+like a bluebottle in an orchard.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, I say," he cried to every one.  He told the
+story of the parrot after he had asked Brading
+whether he had it right.  He tried it on De Vere
+and failed.  Goby roared handsomely.  Bramber
+was absent-minded with his eye on Penelope.
+Gordon said, "Yes, yes, a ripping good story."  The
+Marquis de Rivaulx balked at it, but was led to
+understand it.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"And when can I go up in a balloon?" asked
+Bob.  He waited for no answer, but told it to
+Williams, suggesting that the war correspondent might
+pay for it by a story with blood and torture in it,
+please.  And all of a sudden it was noticed that
+the hostess had slipped out of the room.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Where—where is Penelope?" asked trembling
+Titania.  "Mrs. Cadwallader, where is Lady
+Penelope?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Bob ran her to earth in her bedroom, and after
+many appeals he was let in.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, dear, oh, dear," said Penelope.  "Bob, let
+me take hold of you.  Do I tremble?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Rather," said Bob.  "I'll bet you couldn't
+drink a glass of wine without spilling it.  What's
+wrong?  Buck up.  Ain't you comin' in to tell 'em?
+I've broken it a bit for you."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Pen screamed.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"You wretched boy, what have you done?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Bless you, nothing to speak of," said Bob.  "I
+only said you would make 'em sit up presently.
+They think I know something, and want to bribe
+me.  I say, Pen, if you say nothing for a few
+days, I believe old Gordon will make me a director.
+Can you?  I want to make money and restore the
+family property.  I say, do."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>But Pen paid no attention to him.  She groaned
+instead.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Where's the pain?" asked Bob, anxiously.
+"Shall I get you some brandy?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"No, no, Bob!  I </span><em class="italics">must</em><span> go in and tell them."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Come on, then," said Bob, eagerly.  "I don't
+care about the directorship.  They're all white and
+shaking.  I </span><em class="italics">guess</em><span> they </span><em class="italics">are</em><span> in a stew."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>But still Pen did not move, and when Chloe came
+she sent her away, saying, "In a moment, in a
+moment!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Then Bob had a brilliant idea.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I say, Pen, I'll do it!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Do what?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I'll go in and tell 'em you've done it.  It would
+be a lark!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>But Pen shook her head.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"No, I must, I will be brave.  If a woman has
+ideas she must live up to them.  I have done
+good so far.  Are they not very much improved, Bob?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Some, I think," said Bob, carelessly.  "But I
+dare say they'll go regular muckers now.  Come
+on, Pen, I do want to see their jaws drop."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>And Pen went with him.  She stayed outside the
+door, and Bob went in first.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"She's coming," said Bob.  And Pen entered
+with her eyes on the floor.  Bob took her hand.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Buck up and spit it out," he said, in an
+encouraging whisper, which was audible in the farthest
+corner of the room.  Some of the horde turned
+pale; Titania fell back in her chair; Bradstock
+leant against the wall.  Brading put up his
+eyeglass, and then told Bradstock Pen reminded him
+of a girl who had once tried to smother him with
+a pillow.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"She had Penelope's straightforwardness, and
+never gave in, just like Pen," said Brading, thoughtfully.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>And now Penelope took hold of her courage, so
+to speak, and opened her mouth.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"S-sh," said Bob, who looked on himself as the
+master of the ceremonies, "s-sh, I say."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>And he took hold of Pen's hand.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I'm so glad to see you here to-night," said the
+reformer, "for I am so much interested in you all,
+you see.  And you've all been so brave."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Hear, hear," said Bob.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"So brave in different ways, about balloons and
+motor-cars and curing yourselves of your weak
+points," went on Penelope.  "That's what I hoped
+my influence would do.  I said I was only a girl,
+but even a girl ought to do something, and I knew
+you all liked me very much, for you all said so, and
+I said, what can I do for you?  And I did my best,
+and you did yours, I'm sure, for I've heard from
+every one of you all about the others."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>This made many of them look rather queer, as no
+doubt it might.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"And months ago I said—I said—"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Go ahead, Pen," whispered Bob.  "You mean
+you said you'd marry one of 'em."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I said I'd—marry one of you."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Titania groaned in the corner of a vast settee.
+Bradstock and Brading whistled, or it seemed so.
+But the other poor wretches stared at Penelope,
+and saw no one, heard no one, but her.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"And I wanted you to come to-night so that I
+could ask you all to go on in the path of rectitude
+and simplicity and courage, balloons and hard
+work and healthiness and thought for others, even
+if I was married," said Pen, with a gasp.  "Will
+you, oh, will you?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"We will," said the crowd, Goby leading with
+a deep bass voice and tears in his eyes.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, I'm so glad," said Penelope, "for I shall
+not have lived in vain even if I died to-night.  And
+now—and now—I have to tell you something."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Great heavens," said Titania, in an awestricken
+and penetrating whisper, "what is she going to say now?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I have kept my word," said Penelope, with her
+eyes on the floor.  "I have kept my word!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"What—what word?" asked the collapsed
+duchess, and Pen tried to say what word she had kept.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Speak up," said Bob, "speak up, Pen!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>And she did speak up.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"For—for," gasped Penelope, "for, you see,
+I </span><em class="italics">have</em><span> married one of you!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Titania uttered a scream and promptly fainted.
+The men looked at each other furiously and
+suspiciously, while Pen was on her knees beside the
+poor duchess.  At that moment a message was
+brought in for Gordon, and an urgent note from
+the whip for Bramber.  Brading stood in a corner
+and whistled.  Bradstock shrugged his shoulders,
+and Bob buzzed all over the room like a wasp in a
+bottle.  By dint of water and smelling-salts and the
+slapping of hands Titania was brought to, and
+when she had recovered consciousness to the extent
+of knowing what it was that had bowled her over,
+she uttered words on the spur of the moment which
+were almost as much of a bombshell as those
+Penelope had spoken.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I don't believe she's married at all," said Titania.</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em">
+</div>
+<p class="center pfirst" id="chapter-xii"><span class="bold large">CHAPTER XII.</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em">
+</div>
+<p class="pfirst"><span>To talk about the grounds of certainty is to talk
+metaphysically, and metaphysics being the highest
+form of nonsense, becomes sense in that altitude,
+as it must be if Hegel is to be believed.  But in the
+conduct of life the grounds of certainty are an
+estate beyond the rainbow.  If Penelope believed
+any one thing with more fervour than another, it
+was that her truthfulness must be self-evident.  The
+course of events after the evening on which Titania
+fainted and recovered so sharply showed her that
+nothing was certain, not even self-evident truths.
+For though she said she was married, few, if any,
+believed her.  Titania, who believed in her intuitions,
+as all right-minded women must, because reason is
+only an attribute of man, declared that Penelope
+had lied, to put it plainly.  She invented an
+hypothesis to account for it.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"She found out she didn't want to marry any of
+them, and her courage to say so failed her.  This
+notion of hers gives her time, and of course, my
+dear, as you see from what I say, she's not married
+in the least."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Bradstock, who was a philosopher, disagreed with
+her, and agreed with Bob.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Not married in the least, eh?" said Bradstock.
+"What is the least degree of marriage which would
+meet with your moral approval, Titania?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Don't talk nonsense, Augustin," replied Titania,
+tartly.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I cannot help it," said Augustin, "the situation
+is so absurd."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>And so it was for every one but the Duchess and
+Penelope, who did not understand a joke even with
+illustrations.  And they undoubtedly had the
+illustrations.  There were leading articles in several
+papers on the subject of marriage, with discreet
+allusions to Penelope's case.  There was a long
+and rabid correspondence in the </span><em class="italics">Daily Turncoat</em><span>,
+a new halfpenny paper, to which every lady with a
+past or a future contributed.  The editor of the
+</span><em class="italics">Dictator</em><span> wrote a moral essay with his own hand,
+obvious to every student of his immemorial style,
+which proved that another such case would knock
+the bottom out of the British Empire and bring on
+protection.  He showed that marriage, open and
+unadulterated, in a chapel, at the least, was the
+minimum on which morality could exist, and he pointed
+out with sad firmness that the ethical standards of
+the true Briton were the only decent ones at present
+unfurled in the universe, and that they were in great
+danger of being rolled up and put away.  As every
+one knows, all he said was undoubtedly fact.  The
+true Briton is the only moral person in the world.
+As a result Penelope felt that she wasn't a true
+Briton, and it made her very mournful, as it should
+have done.  Nothing but her native obstinacy, which
+was imperial if not British, made her stick to her
+ideas, when her half-brother came to her and asked
+her crudely to "chuck" it.  For, though he was
+humourous, it was past a joke now, and his
+admiration of Pen was tinged with alarm.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I say, old girl, chuck it," said Bill.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I can't!  I won't!" said Penelope.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Nobody believes you."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Penelope couldn't help that.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I've spoken the truth."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Why, even the other men don't believe it," said
+her brother.  "Why, I met three of 'em to-day, and
+they all said, 'Oh, yes, we understand.'  I say, Pen,
+this is too much.  Chuck it!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Once for all, dear, I won't," said Penelope.
+"Much as I dislike this publicity, I see it is doing
+good.  I get letters every day from scores of people
+saying that I am doing good.  Three to-day
+declared that they were following my example in a
+registrar's office, and three more are thinking of
+it.  One lady writes, saying she hopes I would go
+in for abolishing marriage altogether when public
+opinion was prepared for the extinction of the race.
+I don't agree with her, but she was enthusiastic,
+and enthusiasm is a great thing."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I shall go yachting for a year," said Bill.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I wish you would, dear Bill," replied Penelope.
+"It will do you good.  You look quite pale, and I
+don't like you to do that.  Have you any cough?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Damn it, no," said Brading, crossly.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>And he went yachting again without publicity
+but with a lady.  He was no true Briton, and never
+read the </span><em class="italics">Dictator</em><span>.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>His departure took one thing off Pen's hands,
+but none of her lovers departed.  Titania's words
+had sunk deep in their minds.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"She's not married," they said.  "And if she
+says she is, it is only to try us."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>They all interviewed Bob, and made things very
+pleasant for that rising statesman.  If he believed
+Pen was married there was no reason to say so
+openly.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Am I old enough to be a director, do you
+think?" he asked Gordon.  "What I want is to
+make pots of money and rebuild Goring, which is
+a bally ruin."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"You don't answer my questions," said Gordon.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, about Pen," said Bob.  "She's queer.  I
+don't know, Mr. Gordon, I can't tell.  She may be,
+for all I know.  She's so clever, I don't know that
+she hasn't married you, and put you up to coming
+and asking me questions."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Gordon couldn't help grinning.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I think you'll be a director of something some
+day," said he.  "I can't make you one now, but if
+you have a hundred pounds I'll invest it in
+something for you, my son, that will make your hair
+curl."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Like yours?" asked Bob, curiously, and Gordon
+flinched.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Well," went on Bob, without waiting for an
+answer, "I haven't a hundred pounds, but I've an
+idea how to get it."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes?" said the financier.  "What's your idea, Bob?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"It's a safe and a certain investment, is it?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Why, of course," replied Gordon.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Then I'll tell you what, you lend it me," said
+Bob, brightly, "and invest it for me."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Damned if I don't," cried Gordon.  "Bob, when
+you are twenty-one I'll make you a director and ask
+your advice!  And you'll come and tell me if you
+find out anything about Lady Penelope?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Bob looked at him and shook his head.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I say, you're so clever, I don't know how to
+take you.  I dare say it's you!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>The flattered financier smiled.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, by the way," said Bob, rather in a hurry,
+"I suppose I should get nearly as much if I
+invested ninety pounds as if I put in a hundred?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Nearly," said Gordon, who hoped to be let off
+a little, "only ten per cent. less."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"That'll do me," said Bob.  "Then you can give
+me the tenner now, Mr. Gordon, and put in the
+rest for me."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I wish I had a boy like that," said Gordon.
+He went away ten pounds poorer, but with a great
+admiration for Bob, who was determined to restore
+the faded splendour of Goring.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Hanged if I know who it is," said Bob.  "It
+may be Gordon after all.  And every one but De
+Vere and Bramber have been at me.  Is it one of
+these?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>He had a remarkable list of all those who had
+pretended to Penelope's hand, for he was very
+curious, like all the rest of the world.  He was also
+a little sore with Pen for not confiding in him.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I told her I'd find out," he said, "and I will."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>This was his list, and a curious document it was,
+written in a big, round hand that "old Guth" could
+never get him to modify.  His spelling was almost
+ducal in its splendour.</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em">
+</div>
+<p class="pfirst"><span>"</span><em class="italics">Plant</em><span>.  It isn't Mr. Plant, because he said would
+I like to go out in a motor, a new one, ninety-horse
+power, and I said rather, if he'd let her rip.  And
+he looked anshious I thought.  He tiped me.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"</span><em class="italics">Goby</em><span>.  It isn't Goby, Goby says he'll always be
+my friend.  He said had I another pony not sound,
+to experiment with.  He stamped up and down,
+some.  He tiped me.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"</span><em class="italics">Williams</em><span>.  It isn't Williams, he took me to
+lunch and told me lots of things about the Chinese
+that his paper wouldn't print.  They were orful.
+He said if I'd keep in with him he knew worse.  He
+didn't tip me this time because the lunch was so
+much.  I had turtell three times.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"</span><em class="italics">Rivaulx</em><span>.  It isn't the Frenchy because he tore
+his hair, and said I could go up in a baloon any
+day.  At least, he didn't tear his hair; it's too short.
+He keeps it up with Gordon too but looks horrid.
+He tiped me.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"</span><em class="italics">Carew</em><span>.  It isn't him.  He's very anxshus and
+says he can't paint: says the crittics are right.  He
+was a sad sight to see, walking around in his studio.
+He said would I sit to him for an angel.  He stops
+walking and tries to do Pen quick.  I think it's muck.
+I wouldn't like a tip from him, for if an artist
+can't paint through grief what becomes of him?
+Do the others buy him for the Chantrey Bequest?"</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em">
+</div>
+<p class="pfirst"><span>"That's the lot so far," said Bob.  And he added
+to his notes:</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em">
+</div>
+<p class="pfirst"><span>"</span><em class="italics">Gordon</em><span>.  It isn't Gordon.  He lent me a
+hundred pounds to invest in something to make hair
+curl.  I said make it ninety and give me ten now,
+and he did.  He didn't tip me, but I don't think
+him mean on that account."</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em">
+</div>
+<p class="pfirst"><span>"That leaves only De Vere and Bramber," said
+Bob, "and she never seemed much stuck on either
+to my mind.  But if they don't say anything to me
+I shall begin to suspect."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>He said so to Bradstock, who called him a young devil.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>But about three days later Bob added to his notes:</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em">
+</div>
+<p class="pfirst"><span>"</span><em class="italics">Bramber</em><span>.  It isn't Bramber.  I met him in the
+park.  He took me to the House and gave me a
+beastly lunch.  But he didn't notice it as he couldn't
+eat and looked very pale and savidge.  He tiped me.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"</span><em class="italics">De Vere</em><span>.  It's not the poetry rotter.  He wants
+me to stay with him and look after the dogs.  He
+said if I had a sick one he'd rather have it than not.
+He said he was desprit.  I don't know why, but
+suppose it's Pen.  He tiped me."</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em">
+</div>
+<p class="pfirst"><span>"Now where am I at?" he said, blankly.  "I've
+written down it isn't any of 'em.  And that's what
+granny says.  But I don't believe her."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>He chewed his pencil till it was in rags, and then
+a sudden idea struck him.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I'll buy all Sherlock Holmes and read him right
+through," said Bob.  "That's the way to find out
+anything.  I wish I knew the man that wrote him.
+I wonder if De Vere knows him?  I'll ask Baker
+to get a sick dog from the vet's, and I'll go down
+and stay with De Vere if I can make granny say
+'yes.'  I wonder why old De Vere wants a sick
+dog, though.  I can't understand poets."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>It was no wonder Gordon wished he had a boy like Bob.</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em">
+</div>
+<p class="center pfirst" id="chapter-xiii"><span class="bold large">CHAPTER XIII.</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em">
+</div>
+<p class="pfirst"><span>It was all very well for Bob to declare that his
+grandmother was altogether "off it" when she said
+that Penelope wasn't married at all.  For, little by
+little, after furious discussions in ten thousand
+houses, in the court, the camp, and the grove, that
+came to be the general opinion.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Titania expressed the general opinion:</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"She is mad, of course.  What can one expect
+when her mother was an American?  All Americans
+are mad.  Bradstock assures me there is a
+something in the air of the United States (oh, even in
+Canada) which makes one take entirely new views
+of everything.  And that, of course, is madness,
+my dear, madness undoubted and dangerous.  He
+assured me, poor fellow, that six months in that
+absurd country made him tremble for his belief in
+a constitutional monarchy!  He adds that he has
+only partially recovered, by firmly fixing his eyes
+on what a limited monarch might be, if he tried.
+Yes, she was an American, and adored our
+aristocracy, not knowing what we are, poor thing.
+And yet where Penelope's ideas come from I do
+not know.  I firmly believe Bradstock is the cause
+of them.  When she was a little girl he would take
+her on his knee and pour anarchism into her
+innocent ears.  You know his way; he runs counter to
+everything, though now comparatively silent.  And
+Penelope was always ready to go against me, though
+she loves me.  This was an early idea of hers;
+Augustin owns that he suggested it humourously
+to her years ago.  There is nothing so dangerous
+as humour; it is always liable to be taken seriously.
+Mr. Browning, the poet, said so to me at a
+garden-party; he said he was a humourist, and he said
+Mr. Tennyson (oh, yes, Lord Tennyson) lacked
+humour, while he himself had too much of it.  He
+explained Sordello to me, and made me laugh
+heartily.  But as I was saying, Penelope took up
+the idea and gave it out, and now is sorry, and, not
+having the courage to say so, she has taken refuge
+in what I am reluctantly compelled to characterize as
+a lie, and it is a great relief to me.  The scandal
+will blow over; already the halfpenny papers are
+tired of her.  I expect she will marry by and by.
+Oh, no, of course she isn't married!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>And as Penelope's ideas were in every way
+absolutely contrary to what one has a right to expect,
+it is only natural that, proof of the contrary being
+lacking, the whole world began gradually to come
+around to Titania's opinion.  A duchess has a great
+deal of influence if she only likes to use it, and the
+public is no more proof against her than the public
+offices are.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>And Pen set her teeth together and ignored every
+one, and had very little to say to society.  Her
+apparent passion was for motor-cars, and she went
+out in the sixty-horse Panhard almost every day.
+And every end of the week she disappeared,
+coming back on Monday or Tuesday.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I could tell 'em something," said Geordie
+Smith, "couldn't I, old girl?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>The "old girl" he referred to was the machine he
+loved next best, at least, to Lady Penelope.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Me and Bunting could wake 'em up some," he
+said.  "I'd like Bunting if he'd only get rid of the
+notion that horses are everything.  I hope to see the
+time when there won't be any except in parks,
+running wild like deer."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>It was an awful notion, and it was a wonder that
+he and Bunting got on without fighting.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"My lady </span><em class="italics">uses</em><span> your bloomin' tracking engine,"
+said Tim, contemptuously, "but she </span><em class="italics">loves</em><span> 'orses.
+You can't give carrots to your old thing, and it
+ain't got no smooth and silky muzzle to pat.
+Faugh! the smell of it makes me sick; give me the 'ealthy
+hodour of the stable, Smith!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Find me a horse that'd carry her and me a
+hundred and twenty miles in three hours and damn the
+expense in fines," replied Smith, "and I'm with
+you.  My lady loves this car a'most as much as
+I do.  Who can catch her and me, flying along?
+Let 'em come, let 'em try, and I'll put her out to
+the top notch and let her sizzle.  You come out and
+try, Tim; one drive and you'll be another man,
+looking on horses as what they are, mere animals
+and not up to date.  My lady's up to date and
+beyond it."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"When I go in your bally machine hit'll be by my
+lady's horders," said Timothy, "and it'll be tryin'
+my hallegiance very 'ard.  Come and 'ave a drink,
+if you hain't too advanced for that!  'Ave you been
+chased lately as you brought my lady 'ome?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I thought I was," replied Smith, "but I shook
+'em off.  I'm egging her on to get a ninety-horse
+in case.  That young cousin of hers let on to me
+that she'll be followed up some day, and I told her.
+She'll do it!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I wonder what's her game?" said Tim.
+"Blowed if I hunderstand."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"So far's I see," replied Smith, "it's a general
+notion that a party's private biz is their private
+biz.  And the others says it isn't, and there's where
+the trouble begins.  I agree with her in a measure,
+don't you?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I agrees with my lady hevery time," said Tim.
+"She's a sweet lady, and, my word, if I didn't I'd
+get the sack, which I don't want.  What she says
+she sticks to, bein' in that different to hany woman
+I never met.  That's what the trouble is, that and
+reformin' lovers and husbands and law and so hon!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>But the real trouble was that what she said she
+stuck to.  She began to care much less for reform,
+and now never read Herbert Spencer and the greater
+philosopher, who has discovered that man doesn't
+think so much of yesterday as he does of to-morrow.
+She forgot the Deceased Wife's Sister, and
+ignored the London County Council, and didn't read
+the </span><em class="italics">Times</em><span> except on great occasions.  She spent the
+days in dreaming, and, except when she was
+devouring the space between London and Lincolnshire,
+she lay about on sofas and read poetry or listened
+to Bob, and looked ten thousand times more
+beautiful than ever, like the Eastern beauties, of whom
+one reads in the Arabian Nights, returning from
+the bath.  She was wonderfully affectionate to Bob,
+who was a most considerate boy, and didn't worry
+her when he had once discovered that asking
+questions was no use.  He told her of his vain efforts
+to find out whom she had married, and was very
+amusing.  He began to have great ambitions.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Mr. Gordon says I've a great future before me,
+Pen.  He thinks no end of me.  He says being a
+duke by and by is all very well, but I agree with
+him there are greater things than merely being one.
+He says the men with power are the rulers of the
+world.  He told me how he and Rothschild stopped
+a war in a hurry.  He didn't say which war.  I
+asked him why he didn't stop the South African
+War, and he said that was different.  I asked him
+did he bring it on then, and he said 'No.'  But I
+think he did, somehow.  Will you ask old Sir Henry
+if he did?  I don't like Sir Henry, though, do you?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>He went on to tell her about Sherlock Holmes.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I'm reading him through again, Pen.  And
+when I go down to De Vere's I shall ask De Vere
+to invite the man that wrote him.  I'm going to De
+Vere's to take him a sick dog.  He said he wanted
+one, and I've got one from Baker.  Baker says he
+must want to vivisect him, and he doesn't like the
+idea.  Baker's a very kind man to animals, but
+I've given my word that the dog sha'n't be
+vivisected.  You don't think a poet would, do you?
+Did you tell him to learn to be a vet or anything?
+If you did, that would explain it.  I've been through
+the whole list, Pen, and, though I won't worry you,
+I've come to the conclusion so far that I don't know
+which you've married.  If I find out I won't tell."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"You're a dear," said Pen, languidly.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I've got a notion how to find out, though," said
+Bob.  "At least, I shall have when I've finished
+Sherlock Holmes.  I'd rather be Sherlock Holmes
+than a duke.  It seems to me that unless you are
+the Duke of Norfolk or the Duke of Devonshire
+you are out of it.  Being a common duke is dull,
+but being Holmes must be very exciting."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>One thing that he told her made her think furiously.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Not one of 'em really believes you, Pen, and
+they're much more jealous of each other than they
+were.  I believe they'll be fighting presently."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Don't talk nonsense," said Pen, anxiously.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Bob shrugged his shoulders, a trick he had caught
+from the marquis.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"It's not nonsense.  I can see bloodshed in their
+eyes.  The marquis looks awfully ferocious, and
+Williams, too.  Of course, I don't say that Gordon
+would fight much.  And I should snigger to see old
+De Vere in a duel, shouldn't you?  But if Bramber
+and the marquis and Williams and Goby get together,
+I shouldn't be surprised if they fought with
+swords or guns.  I think Rivaulx would like that.
+He would stick them all and make 'em squeal, I
+can tell you.  He's a whale at fencing.  He took
+me to see him once, and when he stamped and said
+'Ha-ha,' like a war-horse, I wondered the other
+man didn't run."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"If they had a duel, any of them, I shouldn't
+speak to them again," said Penelope.  "I abhor
+duels and warfare and weapons, and think they
+should be abolished in universal peace.  And as I
+am married now, Bob, I hope you will do what you
+can to make them believe it."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"You can make 'em believe it at once," said
+Bob.  "I do think this is absurd.  And don't you
+see it's funny, too, Pen?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"No," said Pen, "it's not.  It's right, and what
+is right can't be funny."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Bob reflected.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Well, there's something in that.  It ain't much
+fun generally."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>And he returned to Sherlock Holmes.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I wonder what he would do," said Bob to himself,
+pensively.  "There ain't any footsteps or blood
+in this.  I suppose he'd take a look at Pen and then
+have a smoke and go out in a hansom and come
+back very tired.  I've looked at Pen a lot, but
+smoking still makes me sick, and I don't know where
+to go in a hansom.  And I think Holmes would
+think it mean to follow her when she goes off with
+Smith in her car.  Besides, a hansom can't catch
+a sixty-horse Panhard unless it breaks down.  I
+think he would get at it by looking at the men."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>That put him on the track of a dreadful scheme,
+a most wicked and immoral scheme, that his hero
+would have disapproved of.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I believe I have it," said Bob, starting up in
+wild excitement.  "If I go around to them all and
+say that I'm sure she's not married, but that she
+loves the one they hate most, they will jump and be
+in a rage, won't they?  I should be, I know.  And
+the one that doesn't jump will be him.  I dare say
+De Vere won't jump, but he's not a jumping sort,
+but he'll cry, likely.  Rivaulx </span><em class="italics">will</em><span> snort if it isn't
+him."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>He sat and pondered over this lovely scheme.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"But if she loves one of 'em, why don't she
+own it to him, and why this mystery?  They'll ask
+that, of course.  Oh, but that doesn't matter; they'll
+do the snorting first.  And, besides, I could let on
+that not all of them are in earnest.  Ain't it possible
+that the one she loves won't ask her now, and she's
+covering up her disappointment?  That would make
+Rivaulx fairly howl, I know.  He's a real good
+chap, and between howling and weeping he says he
+wants her to be happy.  I'll do it."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>He went off to do it at once.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Ha, ha, my beautiful boy," said the Marquis
+of Rivaulx, whom he found in his rooms in
+Piccadilly, "have you come with news for me, the
+devoted and despairing?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Well, I don't know, marquis," returned Bob,
+soberly.  "I've been thinking about it, and I'm in
+a state of puzzle."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"And I am in a state of the devil himself," replied
+Rivaulx.  "I suspect every one.  I am enraged.
+I suspect you, Bob, my boy."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Bob shook his head.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I suspect you, too.  I've never got over thinking
+that it may be you," he said, "for you are all
+just like each other, and it's obvious some one is
+telling me lies."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Rivaulx smiled, a deep and dark French smile,
+which was agonizing to behold.  It puzzled Bob
+dreadfully.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"There," he said, "you smile, and so does Pen,
+and you all smile.  But I believe I've discovered
+something."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"About who or which?" asked Rivaulx.  "Is
+it about that Goby?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>He might loathe Gordon, but he was jealous of
+Goby.  He promenaded the room, and was already
+in a rage.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes," said Bob, boldly.  "I believe she's not
+married, and I believe she likes him best."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"The hound, the vile one, the unmeasured beast,"
+roared Rivaulx, "it cannot be.  If she loves him
+(no, I can't believe it), why does she not wed him?
+I shall slay him.  Is she unhappy?  Does she weep?
+I adore her, but if she loves him he shall marry
+her or I will stab him to the heart."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I dare say he's not in earnest," said Bob.  And
+the marquis ground his teeth and foamed at the
+mouth, and again tried to tear his close-cropped
+hair without the least success.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Not—oh, sacred dog of a man,—ha—let
+me kill him!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>He tore around the room and knocked two ornaments
+off the mantelpiece and upset a table, which
+Bob laboriously restored to its place.  After he had
+put it back three times, he gave it up and cowered
+under the storm.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I shouldn't be surprised if this was put on,"
+said Bob, rather gloomily.  "I know he can act like
+blazes; Pen says he can.  She said he was finer
+than Irving or Toole in a tragedy.  I don't think it
+has the true ring of sincerity."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>And making his escape from the cyclone, he went
+off to see Goby, who was hideously jealous of
+Carteret Williams.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I hope he won't be as mad as the marquis,"
+said Bob.  "That table barked my shins horribly
+the last time it fell.  I wish Frenchmen wouldn't
+shout so when they're angry; I'm nearly deaf."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>There was the devil to pay with Goby.  He
+announced his intention of assaulting Williams at
+once.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, I say, you mustn't," cried Bob, in great
+alarm.  "She'll never forgive you."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"That Williams!" said Goby.  "I always did
+hate war correspondents.  I don't believe it."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>But it looked as if he did.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I dare say you are putting it on," cried Bob.
+"I don't know where I am."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Goby said he didn't, either, but that if this turned
+out to be true he would wring Williams's neck in
+the park the first fine Sunday in June.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"He would have acted just the same if he was
+married to her, and thought she loved Williams best
+after all," said Bob to himself.  "I'll try Bramber
+and Williams, and then give it up."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Bramber was in a furious temper, and when Bob
+assured him that Penelope loved Gordon best of
+any one, he swore horribly.  As he rarely swore,
+this was very impressive, and Bob almost shivered.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I say, you mustn't kick Gordon," he urged.
+"After all, I may be mistaken."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I wish you were dead," said Bramber, "and you
+will be if you don't get out."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Bob got out, and when he was in the open air he
+sighed.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I don't think I'll try Williams," he said,
+thoughtfully.  "He's much bigger and stronger even than
+Goby, and they say he's a terror when he's very
+angry.  My scheme doesn't seem to work; there's
+something wrong with it."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>But there was nothing wrong with it, and it
+worked marvellously.  The report that Bob said
+positively that Pen wasn't married carried much weight.
+Goby and Rivaulx both gave it away.  And all the
+men now loathed each other openly.  Rivaulx cut
+Goby and Goby cut Williams and Bramber sneered
+at Gordon, and there was great likelihood of there
+being the devil to pay.  Pen tried to patch up peace
+among them, and failed, and wept about it, seeing
+so much of the good she had done melt like sugar
+in warm rain.  At last she announced her intention
+of leaving them and the world alone.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I almost think I'll give up reform," she sighed.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>And the season went by and the autumn came,
+and Titania found herself at Goring in October
+with a large house-party which didn't include Penelope.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"She is, of course, somewhat ashamed of herself,"
+said Titania, happily.  "This comes of having
+ideas and foolishly attempting to carry them
+into practice.  Now that I am certain she is not
+married and that she only says so, I feel quite
+different.  I no longer abhor the poor, foolish men
+who are so much in love with her.  I see plainly
+(for I, too, am naturally a democrat of the proper
+kind) that they have fine qualities.  I have
+marked my sense of this in a way which appears to
+amuse Lord Bradstock for some reason that I do not
+follow,—but then, I never could follow Augustin,
+poor fellow,—by asking them all down here.  I dare
+say they think Penelope will come, for they have
+all accepted.  I am delighted, for I really admire
+them.  Mr. Carew is the handsomest young man in
+London, and will paint my portrait between meals.
+I wonder whether I shall try to get thinner by
+eating less, or will it be better to tell Mr. Carew to
+make me thinner in his picture.  That seems the
+easiest course; for if Penelope's conduct has not
+made me thin, what would?  Neither hot weather
+nor despair has the least effect upon me.  I shall
+trust to Mr. Carew's idea of what is right and
+proper.  I wish I could rely with equal confidence
+upon poor, dear, misguided Penelope."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>There was much discontent in the camp when the
+lovers learnt that their beloved was not one of
+Titania's house-party.  They were not civil to each
+other, and with difficulty were civil to Titania.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Confound the old harridan," said Goby.  This
+was wicked, for Titania was very sweet, and
+retained much more than a trace of her youthful
+beauty.  She belonged to the modern band of those
+who sternly refuse to grow old.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Great Scott!" said Carteret Williams.  The
+others made equally appropriate exclamations.  They
+damned Goring in heaps, and looked at each other
+like a crowd of strange dogs.  Owing to Penelope's
+influence they all came in motor-cars.  Even De
+Vere turned up in one which was guaranteed by age
+and its maker not to go more than ten miles an hour.
+There wasn't room to get them into the temporary
+garage out of the wet.  But the marquis did not
+come in a balloon or a flying-machine.  That was
+something, at any rate, though Bob growled about
+it bitterly.  Pen's request that he should do his best
+to make the world believe she was married was
+entirely forgotten.  Without quite meaning to say
+so, he practically asserted in every word that she
+was not.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"After all," said Bob, "I believe she is capable
+of deceiving even me, for she is a woman.  Horace,
+in his Odes, seems to think that.  It seems to me
+that classical authors had a very poor opinion of
+women."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>He went to Rivaulx crossly.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I say, I think you ought to have come in a
+flying-machine.  Why didn't you?  Pen will be mad."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>He introduced De Vere to Baker (who had been
+a sergeant in the Dublin Fusiliers), and left him
+with him, discussing hydrophobia and bulldogs.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Baker says he has a great admiration for you,
+sir," said Bob.  "He has lots of pups for you to
+look at.  There's a very queer spotted one that Pen
+said she was sure you would like.  It's very cheap
+for a spotted dog of the kind, Baker says."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>But they were an unhappy crowd, and even the
+shooting, which was fairly good for a poor duke's
+place, hardly consoled them.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>At night the women, who all gambled, naturally
+were very cross.  It appeared that not one of the
+men would play bridge, because Penelope had made
+them swear off.  There were only three men in the
+house not in love with Penelope.  Titania had a
+dreadful time, and much regretted her hospitality.
+Carew was furious, of course, and his notions of
+colour were very morbid.  And he appeared to see
+the duchess as she was, in spite of the hints the
+poor woman threw out to the desperate painter,
+who looked at her sorrowfully and sighed as he
+shook his head.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Being painted is an ordeal," she said.  Not one
+of the others consoled her.  De Vere wept with her
+in the drawing-room; Williams wrecked her orchids
+in the hothouse; Plant and Gordon quarrelled in
+the smoking-room.  And Bramber, who was only
+there for four days, looked horridly sorry for
+himself, and sneered at every one.  The marquis went
+around the park in a ninety-horse-power racer
+seventeen times between breakfast and lunch.  The
+chauffeurs quarrelled furiously; they even fought
+in the stable yard with Baker as umpire and Bob as
+timekeeper.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>At the dinner-table was the only time of peace,
+and then it was too peaceful.  Nobody but Bob and
+Ethel Mytton and Titania did any talking.  Bob
+spoke of very little but Penelope, which was natural
+but awkward.  He told them what Baker said, till
+they all desired to go out and strangle Baker.
+Bradstock encouraged him, for Bradstock was the only
+man there who had any apparent desire to be
+amused.  The rest of them played with the soup,
+toyed with the </span><em class="italics">entrées</em><span>, fooled with the roasts, choked
+over the birds, and went out and oversmoked
+themselves.  Then they met in the big hall and the
+drawing-room, and Titania had to assure them all
+one after the other, that she was certain Penelope
+was not married.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Then why does she say she is?" they asked, bitterly.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"It must be to try you," said Titania.  "Augustin,
+don't you think it is to try them?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Bradstock made that sound which the
+English write as "Humph" and the Scotch put
+down as "Imphm."  It means a great deal, but is
+intelligible to the intelligent.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes, it is to try you," said Titania.  "She is a
+dear, sweet thing, but has ideas which do not
+commend themselves to me.  I understand them, of
+course, but regret them.  It may be, of course, that
+she does not love any of you, and is trying to get
+out of it.  By and by you will find out if that is
+so.  She is enthusiastic and impulsive.  Oh, these
+impulses of youth!  How well I remember the
+delightful impulses of youth, when one feels as if
+one could fly with wings!  Even now I get
+impulses.  Poor Penelope!  Ah, dear, I wish she would
+come.  I have written again and again to ask her,
+but I'm afraid she will not."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>And, indeed, no one at that moment knew where
+she was, unless, indeed, it was Timothy and Geordie
+Smith and Miss Mackarness and the pirate in
+goggles of the motor-car who carried her off.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Titania and Bob between them, at any rate,
+accomplished one thing.  No one pretended to assign a
+satisfactory reason for Pen's conduct, but every one,
+except one, perhaps, believed she was still single.  They
+were sure of it, and grew surer every day.  As a
+result, they recovered some little peace of mind; they
+quarrelled less and ate more and shot straighter.
+Rivaulx only went fifteen times around the park
+before lunch; De Vere bought more dogs; Plant
+agreed to go into some scheme of trust robbery with
+Gordon, who assured the rest of them that he had
+Rothschild up his sleeve.  Williams stamped less on
+flower-beds and swore half as much as usual.  Goby
+and Bramber went out walks together with Bob and
+Ethel Mytton.  Titania's barometer went up and her
+size went down in Carew's picture.  He saw her
+less yellow, and did not insist on her wrinkles.
+Augustin sat in the library and read books which
+were of so humourous a character that they
+compelled him to put them down and laugh continually.
+It was certainly a most amusing house-party.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I thought there would have been duels in the
+park," said Augustin.  "I wonder what the deuce
+Pen would think of them if she saw them now."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>And then one day something serious happened.
+It was on a Sunday, and on Sundays the post came
+in at half-past ten, just at the time they were all
+having breakfast before going to church.  They
+were just about as happy as they could ever hope
+to be till Penelope married one or all of them.  Bob,
+who was especially greedy that morning, was eating
+against time and winning.  Only Ethel was sad,
+for Goby seemed quite cheerful.  When he was
+mournful she was happier always.  Titania flowed
+wonderfully.  Augustin was saying the kind of thing
+he could say when sitting down.  Goring himself
+was eating as if he was in rivalry with Bob.  He
+never said anything, but looked like a duke, which
+is a very fine thing when a man is a duke, and
+can afford it with care.  Gordon was eating bacon
+as if he had no great appetite for it.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, here's the post," said Titania.  Augustin
+took Saturday's </span><em class="italics">Times</em><span> and opened it.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I wonder whether dear Penelope has written
+to me," said Titania.  The "horde" looked up;
+they hoped even yet that Penelope would give in and
+come at last.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Any news?" grunted Goring.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I don't see any," replied Augustin.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"What are Jack Sheppard's United?" asked
+Gordon, slipping a piece of bacon into his pocket.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>And Augustin made his celebrated speech over
+again, his single speech in the House of Lords.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Good God!" said Augustin, and he turned
+almost as white as the </span><em class="italics">Times</em><span> paper before it went
+through the machines.  Every one stared at him.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"What is it?" screamed Titania.  Bob jumped
+up and deserted a pig's cheek just as it was showing
+signs of utter defeat.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"It's—it's—" said Augustin, and he stammered vainly.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I say, let's look," cried Bob.  "Granny, it's
+something in the Births, Marriages, and Deaths!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Good heavens, speak, Augustin!" implored Titania.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>The band of lovers went as white as Augustin;
+they stood up simultaneously.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I see it, I see it," said Bob, and he actually
+snatched the paper from Lord Bradstock's hand.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Is she married?  Is she dead?" asked Titania.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"No, no," said Bob, sputtering and aflame with
+wild excitement; "it's 'Brading—Lady Penelope
+Brading on the 18th of a son!'"</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em">
+</div>
+<p class="center pfirst" id="chapter-xiv"><span class="bold large">CHAPTER XIV.</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em">
+</div>
+<p class="pfirst"><span>There are blows which stun; this was, of course,
+one of them.  Titania did not shriek or faint at the
+awful intelligence conveyed by the Thunderer of
+Printing House Square.  She nodded her head as
+if she was partially paralyzed, and at last murmured
+in a dry whisper:</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Of a son!  Of a son!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Bradstock's eyebrows were as high as they would
+go, and he stared at Titania, and then look around
+on the circle of men and women.  Ethel squeaked
+a little squeak, like a mouse behind the wainscot
+and was silent.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh—of a son," said Goby, sighing and looking
+at the floor.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Of a son!" said Plant, eyeing the ceiling.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"</span><em class="italics">Un fils!</em><span>" shrieked Rivaulx.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Gordon said "Damnation;" De Vere shook like
+a stranded jelly-fish; Bramber went as scarlet as
+a lobster, and then as white as cotton; Carteret
+Williams looked blue, and Carew looked green, and
+Bob said: "My eye!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>There is something organic in any given number
+of people acting under the same shock or the same
+impulse.  What one thinks another thinks; and
+now all the room fixed their eyes on Titania, whose
+lips moved in silence.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"This is dreadful!" said Titania to herself.  "I
+don't believe she's married at all.  One of these
+men is a scoundrel, a ruffian, a seducer!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>No one heard what she said, but as she thought
+it the men looked at each other with awful
+suspicions.  And then Titania, whose mind was
+whirling, said feebly:</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"We—we must hush it up!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>And there lay the </span><em class="italics">Times</em><span>!  Hush it up indeed!
+And Bradstock recovered some of his equanimity.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Nonsense!  She's married, as she says," he
+remarked, with comparative coolness.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>But no one believed it.  The men drew apart
+from each other.  De Vere moved his chair,
+because Goby was looking at him like a demon.
+Carew shrank from Carteret Williams.  Gordon
+went livid under Plant's eyes.  Bramber looked at
+them all as if he would die on the spot.  Rivaulx
+rose up and waltzed around the room.  It was a
+happy chance that he did so; it is possible that
+he saved immediate bloodshed.  Bradstock and Bob
+caught the Frenchman in their arms, and led him
+outside to the lawn, where there was ample room
+for a frantic </span><em class="italics">pas seul</em><span>.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Steady, old chap!" said Bradstock, "steady!
+Her husband </span><em class="italics">must</em><span> acknowledge now who he is!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, no," said Bob, in immense delight, "not
+much!  If she's married at all, she's sworn him not
+to.  She told me she'd swear him not to!  And she
+said if he broke his oath she'd never see him
+again!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Great heavens!" said Bradstock, "so she did.
+I remember now, she </span><em class="italics">did</em><span> speak of oaths, dreadful
+oaths!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Rivaulx danced over a flower-bed, came in
+contact with a fence, fell over it, and uttered a howl
+which brought every one into the garden.  He
+tumbled into a ditch, fortunately a comparatively
+dry one, and lay there, using the very worst French
+language.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>The gloomy crowd lined the ditch and listened,
+and wished they understood.  As a matter of fact,
+only Bradstock and Bramber knew sufficient decent
+French to guess what Rivaulx said, and they
+shivered.  In the background Titania and Ethel hung
+to each other and wept; old Goring remained
+inside sucking at an unlighted cigar.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"The terrible, terrible disgrace!" said Titania.
+She believed the very worst at once.  "Is it the
+marquis?  Is he smitten with remorse?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Rivaulx got out of the ditch on the wrong side,
+and walked out into the park, where he addressed
+a commination service to a nice little herd of Jersey
+cows.  After five minutes of this exercise, he
+returned toward the house and climbed the fence.
+Then he shook his fist at the others.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"One of you is a </span><em class="italics">scélerat</em><span>," he howled, "a
+scoundrrrel!  I challenge you all to fight!  Ha, ha!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Bradstock took him by the arm and led him away.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"One of us is a hound!" said Goby.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes," said the others, "yes!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>They glared at each other horribly, and clenched
+their fists.  Bob ran around them in the wildest
+excitement.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Look here, I say, Captain Goby.  Oh, Mr. de
+Vere!  I say, Mr. Plant, if you want to fight, come
+into the stables.  Granny says you mustn't fight
+here."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>He grabbed several of them, and was hurled into
+space at once.  He finally laid hold of De Vere,
+who wasn't capable of hurling a ladybird off his
+finger.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"You shall fight Goby if you want to," he roared.</span></p>
+<div class="align-center auto-scaled figure margin" style="width: 62%" id="figure-106">
+<span id="the-marquis-de-rivaulx"></span><img class="align-center block" style="display: block; width: 100%" alt="THE MARQUIS DE RIVAULX. Anti-Semite to his manicured finger-tips" src="images/img-174.jpg" />
+<div class="caption centerleft figure-caption margin">
+<span class="italics">THE MARQUIS DE RIVAULX. Anti-Semite to his manicured finger-tips</span></div>
+</div>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"But I don't want to," shrieked the poet.
+"What shall I do?  My heart is broken!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, what rot!" said Bob.  "I don't understand
+what the row is about.  Pen said she married,
+and she's got a kid.  It will make her happy, for
+she always loved kids."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>But then the notice in her maiden name!  Was
+it not awful, horrible, brazen, peculiar, anti-social,
+against all law?  It was wicked, immoral, indecent.
+Behind it there must be a dreadful story.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"By God!" said Bradstock, speaking at large
+to all but Rivaulx, who was breaking up a cane
+chair at a short distance, "I do think, oaths or
+none, that the man who is married to her should
+tell the duchess in confidence."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>But Rivaulx heard in the intervals of destruction,
+and stayed his hand.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Ha, ha!" he said aloud, "I love her!  I am a
+man!  I love her!  What shall I do?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>He threw the fragments of the chair into a
+fountain, kicked over a flower-pot, and ran again into
+the park, taking the fence in his stride.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I believe it's remorse," said Titania.  "I begin
+to suspect the marquis!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>But everybody suspected everybody, and yet at
+the very height of their rage what Bradstock said
+sank into their hearts.  Pen had selected them with
+care for their inherent nobility.  They said to
+themselves that they would show how noble they were.
+With one accord they straightened themselves up,
+and an air of desperate resolve was upon every
+man's face.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I will think it out and make up my mind this
+afternoon," said each of them.  They walked away
+in different directions, and in five minutes not one
+of them was in sight but the marquis, who was
+knocking his head against a sapling in a way that
+caused the herd of Jerseys to revise their estimate
+of humanity.  Even he gave up at last, and went
+off into the distance with great strides.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I say," said Bob, "I don't know what to make
+of this.  Where are they going, and what are they
+going to do?  I wish I knew where Pen is; I'd
+send her a telegram."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>The rest of the party said nothing.  Titania wept.
+Old Goring asked Bradstock for a light, and at last
+got his cigar going.  He said nothing whatsoever.
+Ethel Mytton was in a fearful state of nervousness,
+and shook with it.  Bradstock walked up and down
+whistling.  The men who were not in it gathered in
+the billiard-room, and said they thought they had
+better have urgent calls to town.  They wanted
+to discuss the scandal in their clubs.  They knew
+that there wasn't a house in England that would
+not consider their presence in the light of a
+tremendous favour, considering all that had occurred
+at Goring while they were there.  They went, and
+regretted it afterward, for much occurred that very
+afternoon that no man could have foreseen.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Not a soul came in to lunch but Bob and Bradstock
+and the old duke.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Augustin, my boy," said Goring, "these are
+surprising events, very surprising events.  I thought
+I understood something about women, but I find
+I'm as ignorant as a two-year-old.  What the devil
+does Penelope mean?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Bob intervened.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I believe, grandfather, that she wants to make
+you all sit up," he said, eagerly.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Shut up, Bob," said the duke.  "Eat pie and
+hold your tongue.  Augustin, is she married, or
+isn't she?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I'm sure of it," said Bradstock, "but—"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I think it's a damn silly business," said the
+duke.  "I can't remember any parallel except when
+Miss Wimple, who was a devilish pretty girl fifty
+years ago, married Prince Scharfskopf morganatically,
+and kept it dark in spite of twins.  There
+was a devil of a fuss, but it was kept quiet, no
+announcements in papers, and so on.  The emperor
+boxed Scharfskopf's ears in court when it came
+out, for it upset his diplomatic apple-cart, as
+Scharfskopf was to have married Princess Hedwig
+of Wigstein.  She was virtuous and particular, and
+made trouble, being thirty-five.  Do you think
+Penelope has married any damn prince, for instance?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Bradstock didn't think so.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Was any prince sneaking about, eh?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, I say," cried Bob, who was listening
+eagerly, "there was the Rajah of Jugpore!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Good heavens!" said Goring, "so there was.
+I say, Bradstock, what have you to say to that?
+I'd like to have a look at the infant.  Damme, it's
+a wonderful world!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>And this bore its fruit afterward in scandal and
+conjecture, for Bob threw out hints about it.  But
+in the meantime they could only talk, and presently
+they saw the marquis coming across the lawn.  He
+kept on stopping and looking up at the sky, as if
+for help or a balloon, and he smote his breast
+repeatedly in a very peculiar fashion.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Queer cuss, Rivaulx," said Goring.  "Takes it
+hard.  Give me a light, Bob.  Look at the Johnny
+smiting himself in the chest.  What's he thinking
+of now?  Looks as if he was bound upon a
+desperate deed.  Dear me, I hope there will be no
+bloodshed, Bradstock!  I'm too old for bloodshed
+now.  I won't have duels in the immediate
+neighbourhood of the house, Bradstock, mind that."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"All right," said Augustin, still looking at
+Rivaulx gesticulating violently in front of a large
+laurestinus.  "Bob, give me those glasses."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Through the glass Rivaulx's face was plain to see.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Damn!" said Augustin to himself, "what's
+up?  He's going to do something, something
+desperate.  He is looking like a hero on a scaffold.
+He has an air of sad nobility.  Oh, Pen, Pen!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Rivaulx advanced on the house with his head
+up.  He came in and sent word to the collapsed
+duchess that he desired most humbly an audience
+with her.  Bob listened.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"He wanted to see granny," said Bob.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Let him," said the duke.  "I don't; I want peace."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Titania sent down word that she would see him.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Poor sad Penelope, poor mournful Penelope!"
+said Rivaulx.  "Ha, but I will save her from
+further woe!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>He found Titania on a sofa, and he kissed her
+hand.  This pleased poor Titania; it reminded her
+of her youth.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, marquis, I am in despair!" she cried.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Despair not," said Rivaulx, as he stood up
+and smote his forehead, "despair not.  All is not
+lost.  But for me, I stand between two dreadful
+alternatives, and I have resolved to do my duty."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>There was an air of tragedy about him that
+covered him like a robe.  Titania shivered.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"What is it?  What have you to tell me?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Ah, what!" cried Rivaulx.  "But I shall do
+it.  I shall do it at once, immediately, if not sooner,
+as your poet says."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"You won't kill any one, at least not here,"
+shrieked Titania.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Far from it," replied the marquis.  "Oh, but
+it is terrible, for I have to smash, to break an oath.
+I swore not to reveal what I am about to reveal."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Good heavens!" said Titania.  "Oh, what?
+Is it—can it be—no—"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes, yes," cried Rivaulx, "it is true; I own it!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Own what, marquis?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>He smote his breast and looked above her.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I am the man!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, what man?" squealed the duchess.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I am the husband—and—and—the father,"
+said Rivaulx, with a gulp, as if he were swallowing
+an apple whole.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Of my Penelope?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes, yes," said the marquis.  "Say nothing.
+It is a secret, full of oaths.  Why, I know not, but
+she, the dear, insists, and what am I?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Titania lay and gasped.  The relief was
+tremendous.  Three hours ago she would have refused
+to think of Rivaulx as Pen's husband.  Now she
+welcomed the notion; she sighed and almost
+fainted.  Rivaulx muttered strange things to himself.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Can I announce it?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"No," said the marquis, "it is a secret.  But
+it is all right.  I go."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Take my blessing," said Titania.  "Go to her
+quickly, poor dear, and implore her to let me come
+to her, and bid her tell all the world.  What is her
+address?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I cannot give it," said Rivaulx, pallidly.  "It
+is a secret.  But I go, I hasten.  Adieu, duchess;
+I am distracted.  Oh, my mother and my country!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>He fled from the room, and, leaving his man to
+bring on his things, went away at an illegal speed
+toward London.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Well, well," said Titania, with a gasp, "I
+cannot understand anything.  But, after all, the
+marquis is a fine man and of a good family.  I could
+almost sleep a little."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>But just as she was composing herself to rest,
+Mr. Plant sent up word that he wished to see her
+for a few moments on urgent business before he
+went back to town.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Let him come up," said the duchess.  When
+Plant entered, he stood bolt upright in front of her,
+with a strange air of determination.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I shall surprise you, I reckon," he said, in an
+American accent as thick as petrol fumes.  "I know
+I shall."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"No, you won't," said Titania.  "Nothing can
+surprise me now, I assure you."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I shall surprise you, ma'am," said Plant, "and
+you'll have to own it.  Prepare yourself and
+remember that what I tell you is in the nature of a
+secret.  I can stand it no longer.  I have to let it
+out.  To hear Lady Penelope, whom I adore,
+spoken of as I do, makes my blood boil.  She may
+have made some mistakes, but I've made some, too.
+I am going to surprise you—"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"No, you are not, Mr. Plant," said Titania.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I—I am Lady Penelope's husband," said
+Plant, desperately, fixing his eyes on space.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"You are </span><em class="italics">what</em><span>?" shrieked Titania.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Her husband—and—the parent of the announcement
+in the </span><em class="italics">Times</em><span>," said Plant, firmly.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Am I mad?" asked Titania.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"No, but I am," said Plant, who was as pale
+as a traditional ghost.  "I'm mad both ways.  I
+want to kill."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"You mustn't," cried Titania, feebly.  "I don't
+know where I am.  What did you say?  Oh, say
+it again!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>He said it again, and before she could say
+anything further, he rushed from the room and
+bounded down-stairs.  She heard him turn his
+motor-car loose, and knew that in twenty seconds
+he was a mile away.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"What's wrong with everything, and me, and
+them?" asked Titania.  "I wish I was a dairy-maid
+in a quiet farm, and had no relations.  Am
+I mad?  Did the marquis say it?  Or did I dream it?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Lord Bramber was announced.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, oh, oh!" said Titania.  "Yes, I'll see him."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Bramber came in fuming, and, like the others,
+fixed his eyes over her head.  He was nervous and
+abrupt.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I can't stand any more, duchess," he began.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I can't stand much," said Titania.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"It's a secret of course," said Bramber, "and
+I'm breaking my word!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Are you the husband of Penelope?" asked Titania.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I—I am," replied Bramber, "and the cause,
+so to speak, of the notice in the </span><em class="italics">Times</em><span>."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I thought so," said Titania.  "Look at me,
+Ronald.  Do I look mad? does my hair stand on
+end? do I seem wild and wandering?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"No, of course not," said Bramber.  "I'm
+telling you this because I feel I ought to.  Now I'm
+going to her at once.  This last news was rather
+unexpected, of course.  Good-bye—"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Stay!" shrieked Titania, but she was too late.
+Bramber was down-stairs and bounded into his
+motor-car and let her rip.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"What's the matter with everybody?" wailed
+Titania.  "The marquis made me happy, but now
+I'm confused, very sadly confused, and I can't think
+she's married them all."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Gordon was announced, and in about three sentences
+he told her that, though the affair was a
+secret, he was Penelope's husband.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I knew you were," said Titania.  "When I
+heard you wanted to see me, I knew you were
+coming to say so.  Oh, good-bye.  Ask Lord Bradstock
+to send for a doctor.  Good-bye, Mr. Gordon.
+Go now."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>And Gordon went, just as De Vere came in.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"You have come to say you have married Penelope,
+I </span><em class="italics">know</em><span>," said Titania.  "I feel sure you have."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I have a heart for sorrow, for disgrace, for
+all things lovely.  I—I am responsible for
+everything, even the </span><em class="italics">Times</em><span>," said De Vere, who was
+as pale as plaster.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Leave me," said Titania.  "Go and see her
+at once.  Settle who it is.  Go!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>And when he had gone, Carteret Williams and
+Carew came one after the other with the same
+confession.  And she received them sadly, and appeared
+to wander.  When the house was empty, she sent
+for Bradstock.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Augustin, dear Augustin," she said, "you
+won't let them put me in an asylum.  Have me
+taken care of at home, won't you?  Don't let
+Goring give me cruel keepers.  I am quite gentle and
+broken down!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I won't let anything beastly be done," said
+Bradstock.  "But, my dear child, what's the matter?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>And Titania told him:</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"By the Lord," said Bradstock, "they are
+damned good chaps! but where the devil are we?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>He went down-stairs when the doctor came and
+told everything to Goring.  And Goring told Bob.
+For Titania forgot to mention to Augustin that all
+the husbands had insisted it was a dead secret.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I say," said Bob, "of all the larks I've ever
+heard of, this takes the cake!  I wonder what I
+ought to do.  I think I'll ask Baker."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>And he asked Baker.  And in less than twenty-four
+hours the world knew all about it.</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em">
+</div>
+<p class="center pfirst" id="chapter-xv"><span class="bold large">CHAPTER XV.</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em">
+</div>
+<p class="pfirst"><span>But when it is said that all the world knew of
+it, Penelope herself must be excepted.  She knew
+nothing for some time, and, whoever her husband
+was, he certainly never acquainted her with the
+horrible details of all the good men who sacrificed
+their honour in the noble attempt to save her from
+the results of the terrible misfortune they believed
+had happened to her.  It was, indeed, Miss
+Mackarness who told her about it, and Miss Mackarness
+was the old governess whom Penelope had once
+sacked and sent away.  The poor woman was in
+a terrible state of mind about the affair, and in that
+was no different from all the rest of the world.
+To her went Timothy Bunting with the strange story.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"If you please, ma'am, Geordie Smith 'as just
+brought in a paper wiv a true and pertic'ler account
+of 'ow all the gents that was courtin' our lady told
+the Duchess of Goring as 'ow they 'as married 'er!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"What!" said Miss Mackarness.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"A true and perticuler account as 'ow they 'ad
+hall married our lady, sayin' as they 'ad concealed
+it till they could no longer!" repeated Timothy
+more loudly.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Good heavens!" said Miss Mackarness, trembling
+very much, "I fear it will upset Lady Penelope,
+to say nothing of the infant.  Do they all claim
+the infant, Bunting?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I presume so, ma'am," said Bunting.  "It looks likely."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Under these circumstances, Bunting," cried
+Miss Mackarness, "I feel it is my duty to communicate
+the facts to our lady.  Give me the paper,
+Bunting!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Bunting said he would get it, and came back with
+a hatful of fragments.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"If you please, ma'am, this is hall I can rescue
+of the details.  The cook and the parlour-maid and
+the two 'ousemaids 'ave fought over it in the
+servants' 'all, and are now in tears, not 'aving read
+a word."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>And Miss Mackarness took the hatful up to
+Penelope, who sat with her nurse and the cause of
+all the trouble in a south room overlooking the moat.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"In the name of all that is wonderful, what's
+in that hat?" asked Penelope.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"It is Timothy Bunting's hat, my lady," replied
+the Mackarness.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"So I perceive," said Penelope.  "Is a bird in it?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, no, my lady.  It's the bits of a newspaper,"
+replied the housekeeper, as if she served
+up the </span><em class="italics">Times</em><span> in a groom's hat every day.  "It's
+Timothy's hat, but a clean new one."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"But why do you bring it, and why do you put
+newspaper in it?" asked Penelope.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"If you please, my lady, I cannot help it.  The
+cook and the parlour-maid and the two housemaids
+fought over it in the servants' hall, and are now in
+tears, not having read a word of it."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>To all appearance the housekeeper had lost her
+senses.  Though this was no wonder, Penelope
+wondered at it.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Well," she said at last, "I see what's in the
+hat, but what's in the newspaper?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"If you please, my lady, according to Timothy
+Bunting and Smith, who appear to have read it,
+it contains the true account of what happened at
+Goring House the other day, when all the
+gentlemen staying there, hearing from the </span><em class="italics">Times</em><span> that
+your ladyship had a fine boy on the eighteenth, and
+no husband named by your ladyship's particular
+directions, all got up one after the other, and,
+requesting private interviews with her upset Grace,
+the duchess, declared upon their oaths, though in
+secret, that they had married you themselves!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>She recited this in a strange, mechanical way,
+which would have been extremely effective upon
+the stage, as a picture of hopeless conventionality
+wounded to death, and at last dying in sheer
+indifference to all things.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Dear me!" said Penelope, "dear me!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"It furthermore appears, my lady, begging your
+pardon for mentioning it, and I have reproved
+Bunting bitterly for daring to do so, though I haven't
+read the fragments in the hat, that no one believes
+your ladyship's word at all as to your being married."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, how shameful!" said Penelope.  "Why,
+here's baby!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>The nurse coughed and hid her mouth with her hand.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes, my lady, so he is," said Miss Mackarness.
+"There doesn't seem any doubt whatsoever about
+that, but—"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>And Penelope sighed.  Suddenly her face lighted up.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Ah!" she said, "I see why they said it to
+aunty.  How very, very noble of them!  I knew
+they were all splendid men; men of the highest
+character and attainments and possibilities.  Will
+you have telegrams written out to all of them,
+saying, 'Your conduct is noble, and I am deeply
+grateful'?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes, my lady," replied the housekeeper, "and
+how will you sign it?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Sign it Penelope Brading," said Penelope.
+"And tell Smith to take his car as quickly as he
+can to Spilsborough, and send them from there."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>She lay back in her pillows.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"They are noble fellows," she said.  "I have
+done them an immense amount of good.  A year
+ago not one of them could have risen to such heights
+of abnegation, such love, such tenderness.  I shall
+see them bringing in a new era yet.  Leopold
+Gordon will inaugurate a new and pure finance.  The
+dear marquis will abolish anti-Semitism and
+duelling in France.  De Vere will write poems of a
+purity appealing equally to Brixton and Belgravia,
+and my dear friend Carew will vindicate the Royal
+Academy's policy of showing that charity begins
+at home.  And the rest—ah, me!  Poor dear
+aunty, how I love her!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>And by the time that she had pondered over a
+renewed world, Geordie Smith was sending off
+the wires from Spilsborough with wonderful results.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I like this," said Smith.  "This is what I like!
+There's nothing dull about it.  I wonder what'll
+happen now?  I'll lay five to one I can guess!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>He guessed right as to some, for in about four
+hours Rufus Plant arrived in Spilsborough on his
+racing-car, and put up at the Grand Hotel.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I guess she must be somewhere in this
+neighbourhood," said Plant.  "And here I stay till I
+find her.  And by the tail of the sacred bull,
+whatever happens, I'll marry her right here in this hyer
+noble pile of a cathedral.  And if she'll do it, I'll
+restore it for the authorities free of charge, till it's
+as gawdy as a breastpin and right up to date."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>He ran against Gordon, and the two men fell
+back in horrible surprise.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"You—"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"You!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, yes," said Plant, "I'm here on business
+connected with the cathedral."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"And I'm to see the—bishop, who will join the
+board on allotment," mumbled Gordon.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>And then Goby roared into town on his motorcar.
+The others saw him, and he saw them, and
+ignored them palely.  He, too, put up at the Grand,
+but never spoke to them.  And De Vere came in
+while they were at dinner, and sat down opposite
+to Goby.  He said, "Oh!" and, rising, at once
+bolted from the table.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I'm damned," said Goby, and he lost his appetite.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"How many more of us?" they asked themselves.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>They looked up at every one who entered.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Bramber will be in any moment," said Plant.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Poor De Vere sat in his bedroom and was ill.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"If I look out into the corridor, I know I shall
+see that beast Williams," he sobbed.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Where's that French fool, Rivaulx?" asked
+Gordon.  They all believed the other was the
+scoundrel of the dreadful drama.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>And then the evening papers came in.  They
+declared in big lines that there had been "A Fracas
+in High Life."  They added that it had taken place
+in the Row at four o'clock that very afternoon.
+They went on to say that Lord Bramber and the
+Marquis de Rivaulx, well known as a great
+sportsman and a balloonist, had fought in a flower-bed,
+and had been torn from each other's arms and a
+big rhododendron by two dukes, three earls, and
+a viscount.  They further declared that it was a
+matter of public notoriety that all the trouble rose
+out of the mystery connected with the </span><em class="italics">Times</em><span> and
+Lady Penelope Brading.  They promised more
+details in later editions.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"They'll fight," said Gordon, savagely.  "I hope
+they'll kill each other.  But especially I hope that
+the marquis will be killed first and most!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>And about eleven o'clock Rivaulx turned up with
+his chauffeur and a bad black eye.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"He shall fight me here," said Rivaulx.  "This
+is a quiet town.  No one will think of
+Spilsborough!  He does not know that </span><em class="italics">she</em><span> sent me a
+telegram from here!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>He put up at the Angel, and escaped seeing the
+others for the time.  On his way up he had sent
+a defiant telegram to Bramber, desiring him to come
+to Spilsborough, and fight there with swords or
+pistols or any weapon that commended itself to him.
+This telegram Bramber never got, for, on reaching
+home and washing away the traces of the struggle
+in Hyde Park before all the loveliness of London,
+he had found his telegram from Spilsborough sent
+by Geordie Smith.  After looking in the ABC
+guide, and finding no good train, he pelted off in
+his motor-car, leaving a note for Rivaulx, saying
+that, though duels were absurd and illegal, he would
+not refuse to meet the marquis in France or
+Belgium, if he desired to make a bigger fool of himself
+than he had already done in the park.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Curse and confound them all," said Bramber,
+who was horribly cross and exceedingly sick of the
+whole world, even including Penelope.  "I wonder
+what she means by this telegram.  I wish I was
+dead!  Is she at Spilsborough?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Just in the middle of Spilsborough he met
+Rivaulx and pulled up short, not having the least
+notion, of course, that he would meet him there.
+But Rivaulx grinned a ghastly smile and raised
+his hat, as Bramber stopped.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Ha, I am pleased to see you," said the French
+marquis.  "You have come quickly.  It is a fine
+night, there is a moon, and close by here under
+the shadow of the cathedral there is a most
+beautiful piece of grass.  There we will fight.  I have
+brought swords with me.  Or have you brought guns?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I haven't brought guns," said Bramber, who
+was entirely stunned and at a loss for a word.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>The marquis bowed.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"We will fight with swords, my lord.  I think
+this hotel is good; the lady is amiable; there are
+rooms to spare.  When the moon rises, ha!  I will
+call you forth."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>And Bramber went to the hotel to think what he
+should do.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"The ass! the lunatic!  How did he get here?
+I can't get out of fighting him."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>He sat outside in his car.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"No, I won't.  I'm damned if I do!" he said.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>He went in and wrote a note for Rivaulx, who
+was out in the cathedral close picking what he
+considered a good place for a duel.  The spot he chose
+was not far from the dean's house.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I wish it had been Mr. Plant," he said.  "Of
+Bramber, who is a young ass, I am not jealous.
+But of Plant I am horribly jealous, and he is a bad
+man.  If I met Plant I would say, 'Fight me at
+once now, and I will put off Lord Bramber till
+another day.'"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>And, going around the corner, he ran right into
+Plant, who was raging about the town, wondering
+where Penelope was and how everything was going
+to end.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"The scoundrel is that marquis," said Plant.
+And he ran into the scoundrel's arms.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>And just while Bramber was shaking the dust
+of Spilsborough from the tires of his motor-car,
+Bob himself came into the town in a hired Daimler,
+full of the most extraordinary news.  And Titania
+was having a series of fits down at Goring, with
+Dr. Lumsden Griff in attendance.</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em">
+</div>
+<p class="center pfirst" id="chapter-xvi"><span class="bold large">CHAPTER XVI.</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em">
+</div>
+<p class="pfirst"><span>It cannot be imagined that Titania, who had
+survived so many shocks, was ill for nothing.  When
+Bob discovered what she was ill of, he stood outside
+on the lawn with his hands deep in his pockets and
+with his legs wide apart.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I must tell 'em this at once," said Bob, gloomily.
+"If I don't tell Gordon, he'll forget he's
+invested a hundred of mine in something to make
+hair curl, and I shall lose the money.  I mean to
+make money to keep up Goring by and by.  And
+he said he'd make me a director, too.  For the sake
+of the family, I can't neglect him.  Or De Vere,
+either.  Or any of 'em.  But—but I never thought
+it of Pen!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>With his pockets full of money derived from the
+sale of dogs to De Vere, he rushed off to the
+station and caught a train for town.  When he reached
+London, he sent a wire to "Old Guth."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I'm in town on important business.  Break it
+to grandmother between fits.  I hope to be back
+to-morrow."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>He rushed off to Park Lane to find Gordon.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Mr. Gordon has gone to Spilsborough, sir,"
+said Gordon's man.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"D—  I mean confound it!" said Bob.  He went
+to Plant's.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Mr. Plant went to Spilsborough in a great
+hurry this afternoon, sir," said Plant's landlady.
+The American millionaire still lived in Bloomsbury,
+though not on ten shillings a week.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh," said Bob, "I wonder what this means.
+There's a secret here!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>He drove in a hansom to find Bramber.  A very
+ingenuous piece of humanity in buttons told Bob
+that Lord Bramber came in about four o'clock torn
+to ribbons, and found a telegram waiting him.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"And off he went in his motor-car."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Where?" asked Bob.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I don't know," said the buttons.  But on Bob's
+going to Bramber's room, he found the ABC open
+on the table at the page with Spilsborough on it.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Sherlock Holmes would say he has gone to
+Spilsborough," cried Bob.  "And if Gordon and
+Plant have gone there, too, I'll bet all the rest have
+gone.  I'll go, too."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>But there was no train for three hours!</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I'm done," said Bob, "No, I'm not.  I'll hire
+a motor-car."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>He went to the nearest place in Regent Street
+and hired one.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Very well, sir," said the man, "but it's rather
+expensive, you know."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Bob pulled out a handful of sovereigns.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Take as many as you think fair," he said,
+grandly.  "And don't forget I want a speedy one,
+and a man that can drive, and I'll pay the fines of
+course!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>That was how he came to Spilsborough just in
+time and about the hour when the moon was to
+rise.  He passed a motor-car in the ditch about
+ten miles out of the cathedral city, and did not stop
+to find out what was the matter.  He thus missed
+the discovery that Bramber and his chauffeur were
+both sitting upon the wreck, using very awful
+language to each other on the subject of losing the
+way and coming bolt down a side road into the
+opposing hedge.  It is astonishing how an accident
+at thirty miles an hour brings owners and
+mechanics down to the same human level.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>When Bob reached Spilsborough, he was covered
+with dust, but was as spry as a grasshopper and
+awfully full of his news.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"You </span><em class="italics">can</em><span> drive," said Bob to his man.  "I'm
+very much pleased with you.  Stop at this hotel."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>He went into the Angel, and staggered blithely
+to the office.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Is Mr. Gordon here, or Mr. Plant, or the
+Marquis of Rivaulx?" he demanded.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>He thus discovered the marquis.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>He drove off to the Grand, and found Plant and
+Goby and De Vere and Gordon were there.  They
+were all in bed but Plant, and Plant had gone to
+see the cathedral by moonlight.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"All right, we'll put up here," said Bob, "and
+I'll see if I can find Plant.  I say, I wonder what
+Baker will think of this?  It beats me!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>He got to the cathedral precincts just about an
+hour after Rivaulx and Plant had run into each
+other's arms.  Much had occurred since then.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>For Rivaulx started back from Plant and almost
+forgot the existence of Bramber.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"You are a scoundrrrel," said Rivaulx, rolling
+his r's in the most fearful manner.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"You are a lunatic," replied Plant, coolly;
+"when did you escape?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I have not escaped, I am here," snorted Rivaulx,
+"but you shall not escape.  I meant to kill
+Lord Bramber upon this spot, but I prefer to keel
+you.  I let him go; he is nothing.  You are the
+scoundrrel!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, dry up!" said Plant, crossly.  "You tire
+me, you fatigue me very much.  I am exhausted
+by looking at you.  Go home, or I will break you
+in three pieces and eat them!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Rivaulx foamed at the mouth.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Do you refuse to fight me, sare?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Certainly not," said Plant.  "Take your coat
+off and hang it on a tombstone, and I'll leave
+nothing of you but a smear."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I do not fight with fists," said Rivaulx,
+contemptuously.  "I fight with swords, with steel,
+with guns or pistols."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Plant shook his head.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I've none of 'em about me, my son!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"At the hotel I have swords," cried Rivaulx,
+eagerly.  "I brought them to kill Bramber, who
+punched my eye in the Rotten Row, and we rolled
+in bushes.  But I will first fight you.  Wait and I
+fetch the swords."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>He ran violently into the darkness, and Plant
+sat on a railing.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"What am I to do?  Am I to wait and fight a
+lunatic?  Or shall I go back to the hotel?  I think
+I'll go back.  If that raging idiot is found prancing
+about here with swords, they will run him in."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>But he did not know how fast the marquis could
+run and how near the hotel was.  Before he had
+made up his mind to go, Rivaulx came back again.
+He flung the swords at Plant's feet.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Take one and let us begin," he said.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I think on the whole I'll have both," said Plant,
+suiting the action to the word.  "Now go home,
+marquis, like a good little boy, and come to the
+Grand Hotel in the morning and tell me why you
+want to be hanged in England."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>He put both the weapons under his arm.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"You will not fight?" said the marquis, gasping
+like a dying dolphin.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"What kind of a galoot do you reckon me?"
+asked Plant, quite unintelligibly.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Ha!" said the marquis, "I know not what a
+galoot is, but I will fight you here and leave your
+body on the grass."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Neither of them had observed the approach of a
+portly and pleasant gentleman behind them.  He
+was now leaning upon the railing, watching them
+with a great deal of kindly curiosity.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I think, gentlemen, that the dean will object,"
+he said at length, and they both turned around
+suddenly.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"You must not interfere," said Rivaulx; "we
+do not know you."</span></p>
+<div class="align-center auto-scaled figure margin" style="width: 58%" id="figure-107">
+<span id="rufus-q-plant"></span><img class="align-center block" style="display: block; width: 100%" alt="RUFUS Q. PLANT. Born in Virginia" src="images/img-202.jpg" />
+<div class="caption centerleft figure-caption margin">
+<span class="italics">RUFUS Q. PLANT. Born in Virginia</span></div>
+</div>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"To be sure, to be sure," replied the gentleman,
+who was dressed very curiously, as Rivaulx noticed.
+"I hate interfering, especially with anything
+belonging to a dean.  Deans, gentlemen, are very
+touchy about matters connected with their
+cathedrals.  Now Dean Briggs, gentlemen, takes the
+very greatest care of that grass on which you both
+are now illegally trampling, and I understand that
+he has made a rule never to have duels upon it.
+He is very firm on that point.  Do I mistake you
+if I say that it looks to an unprejudiced observer
+as if you were going to fight a duel?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Rivaulx bowed.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I do not know you, sare, and I do not want to.
+I want to keel this man, who is a scoundrrel."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>The stranger addressed Plant.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"And are you equally anxious to break this very
+rigid rule of the dean's?" he asked, suavely.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Certainly not," replied Plant; "I want to go to bed."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I am delighted to hear it.  I am intensely gratified
+to hear it.  If one duellist, having possession of
+both deadly weapons, desires to go to bed, I cannot
+see anything to hinder him, unless, indeed, he wants
+to lie down on Mr. Dean's grass.  You see, gentlemen,
+I am a bishop, and a bishop's first desire is
+to be on good terms with the dean.  If Mr. Dean
+heard that I encouraged any one to break his rules
+about duelling or going to bed in the precincts of
+this cathedral, I should </span><em class="italics">not</em><span> be on good terms with
+him, I assure you."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I do not understand," said Rivaulx.  "I want
+to fight, that is all I want to do!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Stay!" said the bishop, mildly.  "If the
+somewhat excited gentleman, who is, I gather, not an
+Englishman, will accompany me a few yards, we
+will go to the dean's, with whom I have been
+dining, and will refer the matter to him."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Of course," said Plant, "that is the right thing
+to do.  Marquis, his lordship the bishop suggests
+the only course open to gentlemen.  I trust you will
+accept his offer, and, if you do, I undertake to
+fight you if the dean gives his permission."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Stay, sare, my lord the bishop," said Rivaulx,
+"one moment, sare, the bishop.  Is this dean of
+whom you speak a gentleman?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Certainly, certainly," replied the bishop, hastily.
+"He is of the highest breeding, and in his youth he
+fenced like a fencing-master."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Then he understands the code of honour, sare
+the bishop?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Absolutely, for a dean," replied his lordship.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Then I agree, sir lord," cried Rivaulx.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Ha, we will go to his house, then," said the
+bishop, "if you will step over this railing.  But
+stop here one moment and observe the moon rising
+over Mr. Dean's cathedral.  Is it not a peaceful,
+pleasant spot, gentlemen?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"It beats thunder," said Plant.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"It does, it does," nodded his lordship.  "Many
+Americans, who admire this cathedral immensely,
+have made the same acute observation.  May I ask
+your names, gentlemen?  I am the bishop of this
+diocese."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"My name is Plant, Rufus Q. Plant, and my
+friend is the Marquis of Rivaulx."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Indeed," returned the bishop, "is the gentleman
+the French nobleman who is interested in balloons?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes," said Plant.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Dear me!  I am delighted," said his lordship.
+"I, too, am interested in balloons.  I saw one go
+up once."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"You like them?" asked Rivaulx, warmly.
+"That is good!  I will take you up in one."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"We will talk of it later," said the bishop, rather
+hastily for a man of his gentle flowing speech.
+"But this is the dean's house.  If I knock at this
+window, he will put his head out."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>He knocked at the window, and Mr. Dean did
+put his head out.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I am </span><em class="italics">so</em><span> loath to disturb you, Mr. Dean," said
+his lordship, "but, as I was leaving you and taking
+a little stroll before retiring, I met two gentlemen,
+one from the United States and one a French
+marquis, who were engaged in a warm discussion on
+a point of honour.  I am ignorant of the exact
+point, and I dare say there is no necessity for our
+knowing.  As a result of this discussion, the French
+marquis desired to fight a duel with swords (you
+will observe them under the arm of the gentleman
+from the United States), and I ventured to intervene,
+as the duel was to take place upon your grass."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Humph, indeed!" said the dean, in great astonishment.
+"And what did you say?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I said that it was against your rules to allow
+any one to fight duels there.  Was I not right?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Rather!" said the dean.  "I should say so."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"And on the other hand," continued the bishop,
+"the gentleman from across the Atlantic wished
+to go to bed."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Then why the—why doesn't he?" asked the dean.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"It seemed to me that the gentleman from across
+the water wanted to go to bed upon your grass,"
+said the bishop.  "I pointed out to him that there
+was a very old and strict rule dating from the time
+beyond record which forbade this.  Was I not right?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"You were," said the dean.  "I never go to
+bed on the grass myself, and do not permit others
+to do so.  I never fight duels there, either, and do
+not allow it."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"You see, gentlemen," said the bishop, but
+before he could add another word Bob rushed right
+upon the group outside the dean's windows, and
+saw that Plant made one of them.  He saw the
+swords also, and then recognized Rivaulx.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, I say," said Bob, "you were going to fight
+a duel about Pen!  I've come in time!  It's no good.
+She has married Timothy Bunting, her groom!"</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em">
+</div>
+<p class="center pfirst" id="chapter-xvii"><span class="bold large">CHAPTER XVII.</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em">
+</div>
+<p class="pfirst"><span>It was such an awful shock to Plant and Rivaulx,
+and, for the matter of that, to his lordship the
+Bishop of Spilsborough, that they all gasped dreadfully.
+Plant took the bishop by the sleeve.  Rivaulx
+lay down upon the grass under the dean's window,
+and howled as he tore at the turf.  The dean said:</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I'll come out!  This is becoming serious!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>He came out, and, as he opened the door, the
+light of the hall lamp fell upon Bob's face.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Good heavens!" said the bishop, "I thought I
+knew the voice.  Is that you, Robert Goring?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Bob said it was, but added that he didn't know
+the bishop.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Boy, I christened you," said the bishop.  "Is
+all this trouble about Penelope Brading, whom I
+also christened?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes," replied Bob; "shall I tell you about it?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Let us retire a few paces, and you can tell me,"
+said the bishop.  "In the meantime, Mr. Dean,
+I beg you to exercise patience with the French
+nobleman on the grass.  Come, Bob."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Well, it's awful rot, you know," said Bob,
+speaking very rapidly.  "We don't know where
+we are in the family, and grandmother is lying on
+a sofa screaming."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Why, Bob?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"You must have heard of it."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>The bishop had heard a great deal, but not all.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Pen says she's married and has a kid," said Bob,
+"and she won't say who it is.  And all these
+jossers, including Plant, he's the American over there,
+and the marquis chewing the grass, said they had
+married her themselves.  Do you see, sir,—my
+lord, I mean?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I see," said the bishop, putting his finger-tips
+together.  "It was, I think, very noble of them."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"But granny said it was very trying, and it made
+her ill, for she wasn't any further than before,
+unless Pen had married them all.  And grandfather,
+who kept cool, said that was unlikely."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"It certainly seems unlikely," said the bishop.
+"But when you came to us, you made some very
+astonishing remarks about a groom, one Bunting,
+I think.  Now what is there to know about him?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Weekes said that, the beast!" cried Bob.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Who is the beast Weekes?" asked the bishop.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Bob told him who Miss Harriet Weekes was.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"And not an hour after these had said they were
+married to Pen, this Weekes woman came in black
+and in a cab and said she must see granny.  And
+granny saw her, and is now in fits, with the doctor
+feeling her pulse and giving her brandy.  For
+Weekes was very solemn (I listened), and she said:
+'Your Grace, I shall reveal the truth, which lies
+upon my bosom like a tombstone.  Her ladyship
+treated me cruel, and gave me the sack moreover,
+and I've no call to be silent no more 'avin'
+diskivered the truth.'  She talks like that.  Weekes is an
+uneducated beast, and why Pen ever had her as a
+maid I can't tell.  And granny was confused with
+the others, having said they were all married to
+Pen, and she waggled her head awfully.  'I shall
+surprise your Grace,' said Weekes, and granny said
+she wouldn't.  And she said, 'I shall surprise your
+Grace, for I've to reveal that I know the man, the
+serpent, that her ladyship 'as married.'  And granny
+smiled very curiously, and said, 'Weekes, who do
+you say it is?'  And then Weekes cried, the
+crocodile, and she said that Penelope had married
+Timothy Bunting, the groom, and that Timothy had
+been engaged to her, and had as good as told her
+that he was looking high and despised a public-house
+at a corner.  I don't know what she meant.
+And she was so solemn and furious that granny
+believed her, and went off into fit after fit most
+awful, my lord, and they sent for the doctor, and
+I came away, for I knew the others would fight
+when they learnt that all of them had said the same
+thing.  And I believe it is Timothy myself."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Dear, dear me!" said the bishop, "this is even
+more remarkable than I anticipated from the very
+strange reports in the papers.  But I think you have
+done well, Robert, and I do not regret having
+christened you by any means, which is more than I can
+say for some of the aristocracy.  Let us return to
+the dean, who is, I am afraid, having some trouble
+with the French marquis.  He is not accustomed
+to foreign noblemen and to Americans, except when
+they come here to see his cathedral."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>They turned toward the deanery, where Rivaulx
+was still rolling on the grass.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Do you think it is Timothy?" asked Bob.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>The bishop shook his head gently.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I do not see what grounds we have to go on,
+Robert.  Here we have an American who states,
+if I understand you rightly, that he has married
+my poor Penelope, and a French marquis of high
+repute who also states the same.  And there are
+others—"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Five or six!" said Bob.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"And there are five or six others who commit
+themselves to the same statement.  And then a
+lady's maid says she knows that Penelope has
+married a groom.  I do not see what logical grounds
+we have for concluding anything more than that
+some one has told a lie, or that Penelope has been
+breaking the law by marrying more than one man
+at a time.  Speaking </span><em class="italics">a priori</em><span>, I think this latter
+alternative unlikely, and, as a matter of probability,
+I am forced to believe that only one at least out
+of seven (is it seven?) gentlemen of unblemished
+reputation has told the truth."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>It was all very sad.  But there were practical
+details to be attended to.  Though the marquis had
+ceased to raise the echoes of the stilly night, to say
+nothing of the echoes of the cathedral's west front,
+he was still in a fearfully mournful condition.  He
+was now weeping in the dean's arms, and the dean
+was endeavouring to soothe him as best he could.
+When the bishop came back, Mr. Dean seemed
+much relieved.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Don't you think you could get them to go away,
+bishop?" he inquired, pathetically.  "This kind of
+thing is beyond my experience, and I am extremely
+fatigued by it."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I will do my best," replied the bishop.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Turning to the marquis, he said:</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Get up, marquis.  I will walk with you to the
+hotel.  Mr. Plant, please follow with Robert, and
+be good enough to take care of those lethal instruments,
+which are, I rejoice to say, little understood
+in a quiet cathedral town.  It appears to me we are
+all in a state of mind which needs repose.  On the
+morrow, after I have slept upon it, I shall be happy
+to receive you all and give you the best advice in
+my power.  Now, marquis, I am waiting for you.
+The grass is damp."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>And they walked to the hotel, leaving the dean
+staring open-mouthed.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"This is very unusual," sighed the dean.  "I
+cannot recollect anything exactly like it in my long
+experience."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>No more could the bishop.  Plant was in the
+same state of mind.  Rivaulx wept silently.  Bob
+was in the seventh heaven of delight, in spite of
+Bunting.  He thoroughly believed in what Harriet
+Weekes said.  Neither Plant nor Rivaulx knew that
+he knew they both claimed to be Pen's husband.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"This story of Bunting is a goldarned lie," said
+Plant, hoarsely.  Bob did not reply.  He was sorry
+for them all, and relied on the bishop.  What he
+relied on him for he did not know.  All he did
+know was that the bishop seemed fully equal to
+the situation.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"How many more of you are there, Mr. Plant?"
+he asked at length.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Gordon and Goby and De Vere," replied Plant,
+miserably.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I must see Mr. Gordon," said Bob.  And then
+they came to the Angel.  By this time Rivaulx and
+the bishop were great friends, for Rivaulx was a
+clerical in his heart of hearts, and, if there wasn't
+a Catholic bishop to lean on, a Protestant one was
+a good substitute.  He stopped weeping, and held
+the bishop's hand.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"You are a good man, sare bishop," he said.
+"I wish I was a good bishop, but I cannot.  Life
+is a very terrible thing.  I wish I could cut my
+throat.  I am weary."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I should go to bed," said the bishop, "and I'll
+look in and see you in the morning.  Bed is the
+best place when one is weary.  I assure you that I
+am not wholly ignorant of the world, or of the
+desire to cut my throat, but I find that after a good
+night's rest the wish to do so evaporates, and one
+determines to live for another twelve hours at least.
+But before you go, I hope you will give me your
+word that you will cut no one else's."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I give it," said Rivaulx.  "The desire to kill
+Mr. Plant has left me.  I am no longer furious,
+even with Bramber.  I am simply sad and fearfully
+mournful.  I thank you, sare; good night."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Good night," said the bishop.  "Stay, marquis,
+I think Mr. Plant has the weapons."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>The marquis waved them off.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I have no need of them.  I give them you, sare
+bishop.  Take them."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>And when the bishop had bidden Plant and Bob
+good night, and had arranged to see Bob in the
+morning, the curious sight might have been
+witnessed of a great ornament of the Episcopal bench
+walking through the precincts of the cathedral to
+his palace, with a couple of duelling-swords under
+his arm.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"This has been a very interesting evening," said
+the bishop.  "I very much wonder what Ridley
+will think when he sees me come in.  A butler's
+mind is naturally limited."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>He went in and gave the swords to Ridley.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Take these," said his lordship.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes, m'lord," said Ridley, stolidly.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I think you can hang them up in the dining-room, Ridley."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes, m'lord."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"They are trophies, Ridley."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"So I perceive, m'lord," said Ridley.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"What are trophies, Ridley?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"These, m'lord," said Ridley.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Exactly so," said his lordship.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>And while he was taking off his gaiters and
+thinking of Penelope, Bob was sitting on the edge
+of Gordon's bed and telling him all about it.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Why are you here?" asked Bob.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"She sent me a telegram," said poor Gordon.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I say, what about?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Sayin' I wath a noble character and so on,"
+replied Gordon, miserably, "and I came here at
+onth becauth the telegram came from here."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>As the sleep went out of his eyes, he talked less
+Hebraically.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I thought she might be here," he added,
+shaking his curly head.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Bob thought very hard.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I say, this is awfully mixed, Mr. Gordon,
+because I know you told granny you were married
+to Pen!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Gordon gulped something down.  It was
+probably very bad language.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"So—so I am," he said, sternly, without looking at Bob.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Rivaulx says so, too."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"The devil!" cried Gordon.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"And so does Goby and Rivaulx and Bramber
+and De Vere and all of 'em!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Gordon fell back on his pillows.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"So you see," said Bob, "we're no further than
+we were, except that Weekes, who used to be Pen's
+maid, came to granny this afternoon and told her,
+the beast, that Pen had married Timothy Bunting!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Gordon bounced out of bed in his night-shirt.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Who the devil is Timothy Bunting?" he roared.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Bob told him.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"It's a lie—a lie!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Of course it must be, if you've married her,
+as you say," said Bob.  "But perhaps I'm disturbing
+you.  Would you like to go to sleep?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Very much indeed," replied Gordon.  "I should
+like to go to sleep and stay asleep.  I wish you'd
+go and serve Goby and De Vere as you've served me!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I'm so sorry," said Bob, "but you always said
+you wanted any news, and that's why I told you first."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Gordon held out his hand, and Bob shook it warmly.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"By the way," he asked, "what about the hair restorer?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"What hair restorer?" asked the astonished Hebrew.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"The one you put ninety pounds of mine in, sir."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"It wasn't in a hair restorer.  What makes you
+say so?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Well," replied Bob, "I thought it was.  You
+said it would make my hair curl.  How much did
+it make, whatever it was?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>A glow of pleasure spread over Gordon's sad
+countenance.  Making money was something even
+in despair.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"My boy, I bought you Amalekites at half a
+crown, five hundred and sixty of 'em, and now
+they're at £4."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Dear me," said Bob, "how much does that
+make?  Why, it's £2,240."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Less commission," agreed the financier.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"By Jove, that's a very, very good beginning,"
+said Bob.  "Do you think they will go up more,
+Mr. Gordon?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Gordon looked at him and sighed.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"They might.  But don't you think it would be
+safer to get out now, Bob?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Bob shook his head.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I'll follow your advice, sir, of course.  If it was
+only myself, I'd take the money, but I'm thinking
+of Goring, when my father and grandfather and
+uncle die.  What I want is fifty thousand, at least.
+Grandfather often says that is the least that can
+put the house on its legs again.  Let me see, £2,240
+is eight times four times £90.  That's thirty-two
+times £90.  What's thirty-two times £2,240?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Seventy-one thousand six hundred and eighty,"
+replied Gordon, promptly.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"That would do very well indeed," said Bob.
+"Please go on, sir, till it's that.  Or shall I take
+half and ask Mr. Plant to do something with it?
+He offered to help me."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Certainly not," replied Gordon, angrily.
+"Plant's a reckless speculator and a liar, and he'll
+wake up some day worth half a million less than
+nothing.  I'll do my best for you and Goring, Bob."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I'm sure you will, sir," said Bob.  "Good
+night, Mr. Gordon.  I'm sorry if I've worried you."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>And he went off to worry Goby.  Gordon walked
+up and down the room weeping.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"If I only had a boy like that!" he cried.  "By
+Moses and all the prophets, I'll put Amalekites up
+sky-high, and squeeze the bears till they howl.  Oh,
+Pen, Pen!"</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em">
+</div>
+<p class="center pfirst" id="chapter-xviii"><span class="bold large">CHAPTER XVIII.</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em">
+</div>
+<p class="pfirst"><span>By breakfast-time or a little later, Goby and
+Gordon and De Vere and Rivaulx knew not only
+what was said about Timothy Bunting, but also
+that every one of them had told the Duchess of
+Goring that he was married to Penelope.  When
+the bishop looked in to see the marquis, he found
+him exceedingly difficult to manage.  He wanted
+the duelling-swords back in order to fight every
+one.  His especial desire now was to put cold steel
+through Gordon, and this led to a general
+evacuation of Spilsborough.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I say, Mr. Gordon," said Bob, rushing in upon
+the financier while he was shaving, "I've just met
+the bishop, and he wanted to know if I knew you,
+and I said 'rather,' and he said would I ask you,
+in the interests of peace, to go back to London,
+because the marquis wanted to cut your throat with
+swords hanging in the bishop's dining-room.  I
+say, will you go, or stay and fight?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Gordon cut himself, and then, as Bob said, "cut
+his stick" and went back to town shaved on one
+side and not on the other.  As a result of this,
+several men in the city sold bears of everything
+that Gordon was interested in, and they got left
+most horribly, especially on Amalekites.  Never
+afterward did they venture to think that any
+financier was on the borders of ruin if he came into
+the city partially shaved.  In fact, three very shady
+Jews, with some wildcat stock to boom, played the
+trick successfully, and, through not being shaved
+themselves, they shaved others.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>But this is all by the way, and it only shows
+that a real financier in love or in despair is just
+as dangerous as at other times.  Bob and the bishop
+talked the situation over in Spilsborough while
+Gordon was going to town, and the result was what
+might have been expected.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"All we know is that Penelope, poor dear
+Penelope is near Spilsborough," said the bishop.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"And that she's married," said Bob.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"We infer that from general grounds, our
+knowledge of her character," said the logical bishop.
+"Strictly we cannot be said to know it.  It is not
+a primary datum of consciousness, nor is it a
+judgment or a purely rational conclusion, Bob."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh," said Bob, "well, perhaps not."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I think," said the bishop, "that I shall write
+to her—"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Where to?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"To everywhere," said the bishop, "and ask her
+to come and confide in me.  And in the meantime,
+as the others have gone, and your presence here is
+no longer necessary, I think you should go home
+and console your grandmother, and apply yourself
+to work."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"All right," said Bob; "I don't think it's interesting
+here any more.  But are you glad I came in
+time to stop the duel?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I am glad," said the bishop.  "But, to tell the
+truth, Robert, I should not have allowed a duel on
+Mr. Dean's ancient grass and under his immemorial
+elms without a remonstrance, even a physical
+remonstrance."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Within the memory of this portly and admirable
+pillar of the Church to which the British Empire
+owes all its greatness, and to which it pays a great
+deal of its money, were many fierce encounters at
+Oxford, that haunt of ancient peace and modern
+progress.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Would you have knocked 'em down?" asked
+Bob, eagerly.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Certainly," said the bishop.  "I would have
+knocked them as flat as a flounder."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>And Bob bade him good-bye.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I think he's a ripping good bishop," said Bob.
+"I'll ask Mr. Gordon to help restore the cathedral."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>He got back to Goring to find Titania no longer
+suffering from fits.  Fits were not equal to the
+situation.  All her friends were writing to her to
+condole with her on the marriage of Penelope to
+Timothy Bunting.  They came down in droves to
+condole and to get the latest intelligence, while
+gamekeepers and grooms were keeping journalists
+out of the grounds with guns and pitchforks.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>For the world was absolutely certain that Miss
+Weekes was right, and Pen's </span><em class="italics">ci-devant</em><span> maid was
+making the salary of a star at the Empire by
+according interviews to those halfpenny papers which
+are England's glory and her hope.  The editors
+endeavoured to interview the lovers, but they were
+stern and savage.  They would not speak to each
+other and avoided strangers.  But it was no secret
+now that they each claimed to be Lady Penelope's
+husband.  As the acutest journalist of them all
+remarked, this was hardly possible.  The only theory
+that held water (or, at least, "good" water, as the
+Baboo pleader remarked) was the Bunting theory.
+But if Bunting was the man, where was he? and
+why this mystery?  A journalist solved it, or said
+he did.  Bunting was a very handsome man.  There
+was no doubt of that.  But he was an uneducated
+man.  That was quite certain.  If a lady of
+Penelope's standing married a man of Bunting's, what
+would she do?  The answer was easy.  She would
+send him to Oxford to acquire the accent and the
+aplomb and the insolence which have rendered
+Oxford men the idols of the mob, and have put them
+into every position where tact with inferior races
+is a </span><em class="italics">sine qua non</em><span>.  This is what the journalist said.
+He ought to have known, as he had been brought
+up in the Yorkshire Dissenting College, and
+dissented from all other codes of manners, except those
+popular with the non-conformist conscience, which,
+equally with the Church of England, has made the
+empire what it is and what it should be.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>But this journalist knew his market.  The eyes
+of the civilized world once more turned to Oxford.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"If it's Bunting, I'll kill him," said all the lovers
+who were not married to Penelope.  "She has
+made a mistake, if it's true, and he must be got rid of."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Now was the time of the Marchioness of Rigsby's glory.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Did I not tell you she had married her
+groom?" she demanded of Titania.  "Penelope
+was extremely rude to me.  I am almost glad she
+has married a groom.  If he is a nice groom, he
+may improve her manners."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"She hasn't married any groom," cried Titania,
+furiously.  "I am perfectly certain it is the
+Marquis of Rivaulx."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>She was certain of nothing.  Bradstock was
+certain of nothing.  They both asked Bob what he
+was certain of, and Bob replied all the lovers were
+in such a state of mind that it couldn't be any of
+them.  And then at last Titania hit upon a certain
+truth.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Whoever it is would be just as miserable as
+all the others," she said.  "He'll be sorry now that
+he agreed to it, and he'll be asking her to give in,
+and she won't.  And they'll quarrel."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"You're right, Titania," cried Bradstock, slapping
+his thigh.  "Bob, I believe the most miserable
+of them all is the man.  Which is the most miserable?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Bob thought.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Gordon cried a little."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Ha!" said the duchess.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"But Rivaulx cried a good deal," said Bob.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh," said the duchess.  "But which do you
+think it is, Robert?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I think it's Timothy Bunting," said Bob.
+"And I want to go to Oxford to find out if he's
+there.  Baker says—"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Do you discuss these matters with Baker?"
+demanded his grandmother, haughtily.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"He knows a great deal about the world," said
+Bob, "and about Bunting, you know.  Baker says—"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"You may go to Oxford," cried Titania, "and
+I will go to bed and stay there.  I am a most
+unhappy woman, and Goring does not care!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>So Bob went to Oxford all by himself, and called
+upon an undergraduate who had just come up from
+Harrow, one of the schools which Bob had been
+requested to leave on account of pugilism.  Jack
+Harcourt was four years Bob's senior, but could
+not fight so well in spite of that, and there was
+much more equality between them than would seem
+possible at first sight.  But then it is almost
+impossible to feel very much superior to a boy who has
+knocked you absolutely senseless, as Bob did
+Harcourt.  And Bob was one of those boys who make
+all the world equal.  He was familiar with princes,
+and said "Baker says" to cabinet ministers.  And
+if his uncle didn't marry, he was bound to be a
+duke.  Dukes are very important people, somehow,
+and the fact that Bob never showed any side was
+much in his favour over and above that important
+fact.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I say, is there a man up here called Bunting?"
+asked Bob.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>And Harcourt, after consulting a calendar, said
+there was.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Timothy Bunting?" asked Bob, jumping as if
+he were shot.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Thomas," said Harcourt.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, he'd say Thomas, I dare say," said Bob.
+And he told Harcourt all about it.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Do you think she's married him?" asked the
+undergraduate.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Who knows what girls will do?" said Bob.
+"Don't you remember the black-eyed one in the
+pastry-cook's at Harrow who wouldn't look at you
+and was in love with that beast Black?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Harcourt did remember, but changed the
+conversation as quickly as possible.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"This fellow is at All Saints," he said.  "I dare
+say, they'd let a groom in there."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Let's go and find him," said Bob.  "Poor old
+Bunting will be sick to see me.  I'm very sorry for
+him if he is a presumptuous beast.  It will be very
+awkward for the family.  But we must know.  The
+uncertainty is killing my grandmother, and Baker
+says it's always best to know the worst at once.
+Baker's the best judge of dogs and horses I know.
+He was a sergeant in the Dublin Fusiliers.  Oh,
+I told you that!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>And when they got into the High Street, they
+ran right into Plant, who smiled a sickly smile and
+said he had come up to have a look at Oxford.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I say, Mr. Plant, what's the matter with your
+clothes?" asked Bob.  "Have you fallen downstairs?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Plant murmured something unintelligible and
+hurried away, leaving Bob staring.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"That's one of 'em, Harcourt," he said to his
+friend.  "He's a millionaire."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Then I think he might afford a hat without a
+dint in it," replied Harcourt.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Bob shook his head.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I can't make it out.  He's very particular," he
+said.  "But let's get on."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Around the next corner they bumped into
+Gordon, who also announced that he had been struck
+with a wild desire to have a look at the ancient
+university city.  Bob shook his head.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I say, Mr. Gordon, you want brushing badly.
+Do you know you look as if you had fallen
+downstairs?" he asked.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Gordon said, "Do I?" and bolted.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I can't make this out," said Bob.  "This has
+all the appearance of a mystery, Harcourt."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"It has," said Harcourt.  As they entered All
+Saints, they saw a man run across the grass and
+disappear under the far archway which led out into
+the Turl.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"That looked very much like De Vere," said
+Bob, "very much.  Only I never saw him run
+except that time when the bulldog chased him.  And
+then he ran differently.  But of course it can't be
+De Vere."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>After asking two reverend-looking members of
+the university, who looked as if they knew all about
+the subjective world, and a scout with every
+appearance of a deep acquaintance with the objective one,
+they discovered Mr. Bunting's rooms.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I think he's havin' some gents to lunch, though
+I'm not his scout, sir, and they seems to be
+enjoying themselves now very much," said the scout.
+"Mr. Bunting is readin' 'ard, so I 'ear, but he's
+relaxin' a little to-day.  Just now I see a gentleman
+drop hout of 'is window, sir.  And you're the third
+lot I've directed there.  This is 'is staircase, gents,
+first floor.  Thank you, sir, I'm sure.  I'll drink
+your 'ealth."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>And here Harcourt said he thought he'd leave
+Bob.  So Bob went up about six dark steps by
+himself, and then he stopped.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Whoever he is, he's making a devil of a row,"
+said Bob, pausing, "a devil of a row.  I wonder
+if it is Bunting.  I think Harcourt might have
+stayed.  But he never did like fighting or rows."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>He climbed up another step or two, and heard
+a mighty uproar.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I think they must be having a boxing party,"
+said Bob.  And then he heard a door open on the
+landing above him.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Confound you, sir! to the devil with you,
+sir!" said a voice that he certainly did not
+recognize.  Then he heard a noise which was presently
+explained by the fact that Carteret Williams fell
+down the stairs, turning a crooked corner most
+wonderfully in company with a very large Liddell
+and Scott's Dictionary of that beautiful language,
+Greek.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, is that you, Mr. Williams?" asked Bob.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Williams appeared rather confused.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes, Bob," he said, as he hugged the dictionary.
+"I—I think so."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Why have you fallen down-stairs?" asked Bob.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"That damn groom threw me down," said Williams.
+"At least, he threw this book at me, and
+I came down."</span></p>
+<div class="align-center auto-scaled figure margin" style="width: 61%" id="figure-108">
+<span id="carteret-williams-war-correspondent"></span><img class="align-center block" style="display: block; width: 100%" alt="CARTERET WILLIAMS, WAR CORRESPONDENT. He wrote with a red picturesqueness which was horribly attractive" src="images/img-230.jpg" />
+<div class="caption centerleft figure-caption margin">
+<span class="italics">CARTERET WILLIAMS, WAR CORRESPONDENT. He wrote with a red picturesqueness which was horribly attractive</span></div>
+</div>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"What, is it really Bunting?" roared Bob, eagerly.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"He says his name's Bunting," replied Williams.
+"But he's very difficult to handle."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, Tim can box," said Bob.  "But is he our Bunting?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Whichever Bunting he is, you are welcome to
+him," said the enraged war correspondent.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I must go up and see," said Bob.  "Do you
+think he threw Mr. Plant and Mr. Gordon down,
+too?  I met 'em just now, and they looked as if he had."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I'm sure he's capable of it," said Williams,
+bitterly.  "Here, take this book with you.  I don't
+want it."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>And Bob climbed up, hugging several pounds'
+weight of Greek with him.  He stood at the door
+and listened, and heard a man inside snorting
+violently and slamming things about as if he was very
+much disturbed in his mind.  Bob knocked at the
+door, and it was opened suddenly.  The man who
+opened it was in deep shadow.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"It is—it is.  No, it isn't," said Bob, quite
+aloud.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Are you another of 'em?" asked the occupier
+of the rooms.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, it isn't," said Bob.  And, choking down his
+disappointment, his politeness returned.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Is this your Greek dictionary?" he asked,
+courteously.  "I found it lying on Mr. Carteret
+Williams on the next landing, and he said he didn't
+want it."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>The man named Bunting seized the dictionary,
+and then took Bob by the shoulder and led him in.
+Bob went like a lamb, for this Mr. Bunting was
+six feet high, about three feet across the chest, more
+or less, and had a grip like clip-hooks on a bale.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Was that man named Williams?" he asked.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes," said Bob.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"You know him?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Why, of course," said Bob.  "I know 'em all."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"All I've thrown down-stairs this afternoon?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I think so," said Bob, modestly.  "At least, I
+met Mr. Plant and Mr. Gordon, who looked very
+much as if they had fallen down-stairs.  And I
+think the little gentleman you dropped out of the
+window on the grass must have been Mr. Austin
+de Vere."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh," said Mr. Bunting, "sit down, boy, and
+look at me.  Do I look mad?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Bob looked at him and then at the room.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"The room looks mad," he replied.  And it certainly did.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"That was the last one," said Mr. Bunting.
+"He was very troublesome."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"He's a war correspondent," said Bob.  "But
+why is your name Bunting?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"How the devil do I know?" asked the other,
+in reply.  "Perhaps, as you seem to know them,
+you can explain what it all means?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I will try, sir, if you will tell me what
+occurred," said Bob.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"First of all," said the outraged member of All
+Saints, "the American person knocked and came
+in, and he said: 'Is your name Bunting?'  And
+I said, 'Yes, confound you, for your infernal
+impudence, and what is yours?'  And he said, 'What
+the devil do you mean by saying you have married
+her?'  And I said I'd said nothing of the kind,
+and I said if he didn't get out in two shakes of a
+lamb's tail, I'd throw him out.  And he was furious,
+and couldn't and wouldn't explain, so I did throw
+him out.  And, as he tumbled down-stairs, he said
+he'd married her himself.  And he went away, and
+I sat down to read Thucydides.  He's under the
+sofa now somewhere.  And then the Jew came, and
+he said: 'You mutht contradict the report of your
+being married to her at onth,' and that made me
+very cross, and I said I wouldn't, and that made
+him very wild, so I said I was married to her just
+as he said he was—"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh," said Bob, "and are you?  Oh, dear, I
+am so confused!  Are you really, really married
+to Pen?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I shall drop you out of the window in a minute,"
+said Mr. Bunting.  "I said it to annoy him,
+and it did, and he said I was a liar.  So I opened
+the door and took him by the neck and dropped him
+down-stairs, and he howled awfully.  And I said
+to him over the bannisters, 'I am married to her,
+and have been married for years to her, and she
+loves me very much, and we are going to
+acknowledge it as soon as I've taken my B.A.'  And he
+went away holding his neck, and then the little
+man came in.  Did you say he was a poet?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"A very good poet, too," said Bob.  "And I
+sell him bulldogs."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh," said Mr. Bunting, blankly, "you do, do
+you?  Why?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Because Pen thought they would do him good."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Mr. Bunting shook his head.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Thicksides is lucid compared with this!" he
+murmured.  "But patience, patience, and I shall
+construe it yet."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"And what did Mr. de Vere say?" asked Bob.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"The same thing.  He stood there and said I
+must contradict it.  And he said of course it was
+very kind of her to have me educated, but that,
+if I had a spark of decency, I should know that
+a man who had once occupied the position I had
+couldn't possibly marry her.  And, by the way, what
+position had I occupied in regard to her?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"A groom," said Bob.  "You were supposed to
+have been a groom."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Dear me," said Mr. Bunting, "how interesting
+and remarkable.  Still no light, no real light!  And
+of course I said I had married her, and I asked him
+did he think I would desert the lady now?  And
+he went scarlet.  Why did he go scarlet do you
+think?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I know," said Bob, "it must have been on
+account of the baby!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Mr. Bunting smote his forehead.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"So it must," he said.  "I never thought of that.
+What a fearful complication!  And then he, too,
+said I was a liar.  So I took him by the collar and
+led him to the window, and I opened it and dropped
+him out.  And then the one you call Williams came,
+and he also was indignant, and said I was to deny
+it, and I wouldn't of course.  And then we fought,
+and the furniture was much disarranged and
+Thicksides went under the sofa, and at last I got him
+outside, and finished him with Liddell and Scott.
+And now you know all!  In your turn you can
+explain what it means.  I beg you to do it, and then
+we will have some tea."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>And Bob explained the whole story.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"You might have seen it in the papers," said Bob.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I don't read 'em," said Bunting, "except to
+turn a </span><em class="italics">Times</em><span> leader into Greek.  But it seems a
+complicated situation, doesn't it?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"It is very complicated," sighed Bob, "and my
+grandmother is very ill about it.  And now she
+will wonder if it's you, after all!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Dear me, so she will," said Bunting.  "Have
+some tea."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>They had tea, and Bob rose to go.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Will you write to the </span><em class="italics">Times</em><span>, and say you
+haven't married her?" he asked.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Certainly not," said Mr. Bunting.  "Didn't I
+say to the others that I threw down-stairs that I
+</span><em class="italics">had</em><span> married her?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"So you did," said Bob.  "But of course you haven't?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Bunting smiled.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Good-bye.  When you come to Oxford again,
+come and see me.  I must crawl under the sofa now."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"What for?" asked Bob.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"For Thucydides, of course," replied Mr. Bunting.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>And when Bob was in the train for London, he
+turned very pale.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Good heavens!" he said, "how do I know it
+isn't this Bunting, after all?"</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em">
+</div>
+<p class="center pfirst" id="chapter-xix"><span class="bold large">CHAPTER XIX.</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em">
+</div>
+<p class="pfirst"><span>After this, things by no means cleared up, as they
+should have done considering the amount of trouble
+that all the world took to find out the truth.  Every
+one said something different from some one else.
+Bob gave horribly imaginative accounts of his
+adventures at Oxford, and threw out suggestions that
+Pen was really married to a Bunting, if not to
+Timothy Bunting.  But when he appealed for
+corroboration to Gordon, that gentleman shuffled and
+prevaricated dreadfully, as he did not like to
+acknowledge he had been thrown down-stairs.  There was
+a very curious scene, in which Gordon and Bob
+had the best part of a row before Titania, who came
+up to town to be near Dr. Lumsden Griff, who
+knew all about the left or right ventricle of her
+heart.  As his jealous confrères said he knew nothing
+else, perhaps he did.  However, that is by the way.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Tell it me again, Robert," said Titania.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Bob told her again.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"He said he was married to her?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"He said he said so to Mr. Plant and Mr. Gordon,
+and Williams and De Vere," said Bob, gloating
+over the details of the row.  "And he slung
+'em all down-stairs.  He's about six feet six high,
+and as broad as a billiard-table, and as strong as
+three Sandows, I should say."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I am much confused again," said Titania,
+plaintively.  "I had come to the point where certain
+news of her marriage to a groom would have been
+a relief to me.  Where are we now?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>As she asked, Gordon was announced.  Bob
+rushed at him.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I say, Mr. Gordon, tell us how he threw you
+down-stairs, and what he said?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"He didn't throw me down-stairs," said Gordon,
+quite crossly.  "I threw myself down—I mean I
+slipped."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Tell us how you slipped, then, and why," said Bob.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>But Gordon wouldn't.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, I say!" said Bob.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Titania begged Gordon to tell her.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"But then he told me he had married Pen," she
+said to herself.  "What is the use of asking any
+one anything?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"How did you find him?" asked Bob.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I looked him up," said Gordon.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Why did you look him up?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Because I wanted to find him out," returned
+Gordon, sulkily.  "But I didn't come to be
+cross-examined by you, Bob."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>In spite of the large sums of money which
+Gordon owed Bob, Bob was on the point of an
+explosion.  But trouble was averted by Plant's entrance.
+Before he could say a word, a telegram was brought
+to Titania, and she read it at once and uttered
+dismal groans.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"What is it?" chorused the two men and Bob.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"It's from Penelope."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Please read it out."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Bob read it for his grandmother.</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em">
+</div>
+<p class="pfirst"><span>"Am exceedingly displeased with latest reports
+and news.  Contradict at once.  Am not married
+to Bunting, who is much upset by report, and can
+hardly look me in the face.  PENELOPE."</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em">
+</div>
+<p class="pfirst"><span>"Bunting is with her!" said Titania.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Which Bunting?" asked Bob.  "He—I mean
+the one at Oxford—told Mr. Gordon and
+Mr. de Vere that he was married to her."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Gordon groaned, and, seizing his hat, fled from
+the room.  He came back again.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Where does the wire come from?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"From Spilsborough," said Bob.  "Granny, I
+wonder if the bishop is in it."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Gordon groaned and went.  And went a little
+too early, for another wire came.  It was a very
+long one.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Titania looked at the signature first, and she sat up.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"It's from Penelope's husband," she cried.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Who is he really?" shrieked Bob.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"It's signed Penelope's husband, I mean," said
+Titania, "and he seems very unhappy."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>The telegram read:</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em">
+</div>
+<p class="pfirst"><span>"Am in great distress.  Penelope is furious
+because told you confidence that was married to her.
+She has heard this, and has learnt that others, lying
+scoundrels, said they were, too.  She says their
+noble conduct saved her, and will not speak at
+present, though holding out hopes of reconciliation
+later to her and infant, which is doing well, if I
+say nothing and do not fight with others, but do
+my duty, which I find hard under peculiar
+circumstances.  Hence am precluded from confirming what
+I told you, and can only communicate anonymously,
+as Penelope threatens to have divorce or equivalent,
+being headstrong, as you are aware, and I am in
+distress about it.  Wire reply.</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 1em">
+</div>
+<p class="pfirst"><span>"PENELOPE'S HUSBAND."</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em">
+</div>
+<p class="pfirst"><span>"He's mad," said Titania.  "How can I wire
+reply to a man I know nothing of?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>She turned to Plant.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"You told me in confidence, Mr. Plant.  Did you
+send this?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Plant turned all the colours of the rainbow.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes," he said, desperately, and he bolted from
+the room and the house and disappeared, while Bob
+gasped, and Titania nodded her head in a most
+awe-inspiring manner.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Get some telegraph forms," she said.  And
+when Bob brought them, she dictated telegrams
+to all the horde in the diplomatic form of identic
+notes.</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em">
+</div>
+<p class="pfirst"><span>"Have received sad telegram signed Penelope's
+husband.  Recognize under painful circumstances
+he cannot reveal himself.  Am much composed and
+have given up hope.  It appears it cannot be
+Bunting, though Bunting is with her.  Contradict this;
+also the rumour that it is the Rajah of Jugpore.</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 1em">
+</div>
+<p class="pfirst"><span>"TITANIA GORING."</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em">
+</div>
+<p class="pfirst"><span>"Send them," she said, "and let me rest.  I
+presume that the right one will get it.  The only
+trouble is that six of the wrong ones will, too."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Goby will go insane," said Bob.  "I know he
+will.  I can't see how this will end without murder."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>And Titania laughed dreadfully.  She laughed
+so queerly that Doctor Griff was sent for, and
+refused to allow her to see De Vere and Goby and
+Bramber and Gordon and Plant and Williams and
+Carew.  The last turned up first in a hansom cab,
+with a large palette knife in his hand.  He had
+forgotten to put it down.  As hansom after hansom
+came up and discharged one furious lover after
+another at the steps of Titania's town house, it
+looked as if Bob's foreseen murder would occur
+there and then.  It is possible that nothing but the
+timely arrival of Bradstock saved London from the
+desirable news of a murder in high life and
+Belgrave Square.  He got hold of the men one by one,
+and sent them away.  As they went, a telegraph
+boy came to the house with another telegram
+addressed to Titania.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I shall open this, Bob," said Bradstock.  It was
+another from Pen.</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em">
+</div>
+<p class="pfirst"><span>"Have just learnt that you and others have
+been trying to discover my whereabouts.  If I am
+pursued, I shall leave and go elsewhere.  This is
+final.</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 1em">
+</div>
+<p class="pfirst"><span>PENELOPE."</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em">
+</div>
+<p class="pfirst"><span>"From Spilsborough, Bob," said Bradstock.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"She's heard that I and Goby and Rivaulx and
+the others were there," said Bob.  "Do you think
+the bishop knows where she is?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I wouldn't trust a bishop," said Bradstock.
+"I daresay he does.  It is said that bishops steal
+Elzevirs and umbrellas, Bob.  I think I shall go
+to Spilsborough myself.  Have you seen the evening
+papers, Bob?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Bob had seen none of them.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Some say now that she is married to Jugpore,
+and others say it is a morganatic marriage to the
+mediatized Prince of Bodenstrau."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, I say, Pen will be mad," cried Bob.  "Isn't
+he a real bad un?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"The very worst," said Bradstock.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"And are you really going to Spilsborough, Lord
+Bradstock?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I really think so," said Bradstock.  "I begin
+to think I must do something."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>He stood pondering.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"May I come with you?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Bradstock declined the honour.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"If I don't succeed, you may go again if you
+like," he said.  And that very afternoon he went
+to Liverpool Street and took the train for
+Spilsborough to call on the bishop.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"My dear Bradstock, I am delighted to see you,"
+said his lordship.  "I presume you, too, have come
+here about Penelope?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I have," said Bradstock, "every one does."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Did young Bob tell you all about the peculiar
+occurrences which took place here only lately?
+They were quite remarkable."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Bradstock agreed that they were remarkable.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"A duel on the dean's grass, now!  Who would
+have thought of that but a Frenchman?  Have you
+seen the marquis lately, and that very agreeable
+financier, the American?  I was much grieved not
+to be able to ask him to dinner, owing to his
+sudden departure.  He showed considerable skill in
+grasping the essentials of the situation, for, when
+the marquis, who was literally foaming at the
+mouth, offered him the choice of swords in a
+violent but perfectly gentlemanly way, he chose both
+of them, and put them under his arm.  It is not
+every one who could have displayed such readiness
+in preventing violence.  One would not have
+expected it in an American, for I understand disorder
+and disturbances leading to bloodshed are quite
+common even in Washington."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I have frequently seen most bloodthirsty duels
+behind the Capitol during the sessions of Congress,"
+said Bradstock, gravely.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Ah, so I understand," replied the bishop.  "But
+is there no news of dear Penelope?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Come, bishop, let us be frank," said Bradstock.
+"Have you no idea whom she has married?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>The gentle bishop looked much surprised.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I?  My dear Bradstock, I haven't the least idea.
+But I gather that both the gentlemen I interrupted
+the other day claim to be her husband, to say
+nothing of many others whom I have not yet set eyes on."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"And you have no notion where she is?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>The bishop lifted his hands.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I think she must be near this place," he said.
+"I consider there can be no doubt of that, owing
+to matters with which Bob made me acquainted.
+By the way, I think this young Bob a very
+remarkable boy, Bradstock."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"So do I, bishop," said Bradstock.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"A very remarkable boy.  The dean, who saw
+very little of him, came to that conclusion.  He said
+he would be an ornament to the House of Lords,
+or the biggest young rip that ever disgraced it."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Your dean must be a clever man," said Bradstock.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Do not call him my dean," replied the bishop.
+"He is the cathedral's dean, and very difficult to
+handle.  However, he is said to be clever, and I
+dare say is clever, especially about grass and a choir
+and things material.  But, as I was going on to
+say, I consider it quite easy to find out where
+Penelope is, provided we go about it skilfully.  I
+cannot but remember that I christened her, and I still
+take an interest in her."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"How do you propose to discover her whereabouts?"
+asked Bradstock.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"She sends telegrams from our Spilsborough
+post-office, does she not?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes," said Bradstock.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Then some one should watch the post-office for
+her messenger.  It seems probable that you would
+know him, as she is not likely to confide in strangers.
+Who can say that the very man she has married
+does not send them?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>That was easily disposed of, for, to Bradstock's
+certain knowledge, all the lovers were in town when
+the last wires came.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Well, I suggest you watch the post-office," said
+the bishop.  "It is, I opine, a perfectly legitimate
+thing to do."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Bradstock objected that she mightn't send any
+more for weeks.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>A brilliant idea struck the bishop.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Send her one which requires an answer, Bradstock."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Where to?" asked Bradstock.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Tut, tut!" said the bishop, "how foolish of
+me.  Stay, I have it.  Put something in the </span><em class="italics">Times</em><span>
+which requires an answer."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I will," said Bradstock.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"And send for young Bob to watch," said the
+bishop.  "It is time that this scandal was stopped.
+I am exceedingly grieved with Penelope for getting
+married in a registrar's office.  I will offer to marry
+her all over again in this very cathedral.  And now
+you shall come and have lunch, and I will show you
+the swords given me by the marquis."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>After lunch and an inspection of the trophies in
+the dining-room, Bradstock and the bishop drafted
+an advertisement for the </span><em class="italics">Times</em><span>, imploring Pen to
+telegraph to Bradstock, saying how she was, as
+there was a rumour afloat that she didn't feel well.
+This was sent by wire to town, and was accompanied
+in its flight by one to Bob, asking him to
+come up in a motor-car at once.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I think," said the bishop, "that I should like
+to go in a motor-car.  There must be something
+delightful in speeding through the country feeling
+that steel and petrol do not suffer any of the strain
+that comes on horses.  I shall ask young Bob to
+take me out."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"He will be delighted," said Bradstock.  "I'm
+sure he will be delighted.  They say he is an
+enterprising driver for his youth."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I love enterprise," murmured the bishop.  "I
+am surprised now to think of my own.  I entered
+the Church meaning to be a bishop, and I am a
+bishop.  I love enterprise.  All curates seem full
+of it.  Deans, I regret to say, are seldom vigorously
+enterprising.  Archdeacons, too, have a tendency to
+take things easily, too easily."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"What do you think of the Higher Criticism?"
+asked Bradstock.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Ha!" said the bishop, "ha!  I think—oh, I
+think a great deal of it.  That is, I think of it a
+great deal.  I do not think all enterprise is
+praiseworthy.  Would you like to know the dean?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>They spent the afternoon in the dean's cathedral,
+and walked on the dean's grass, and about six
+o'clock Bob rolled into the cathedral close in a
+fifteen-horse-power Daimler, and drew up in front
+of the bishop's palace.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Have you found her out?" he demanded,
+eagerly, of Bradstock.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"No, but you shall," said Bradstock.</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em">
+</div>
+<p class="center pfirst" id="chapter-xx"><span class="bold large">CHAPTER XX.</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em">
+</div>
+<p class="pfirst"><span>The bishop was very kind and amiable to Bob.
+Some people say that bishops are always kind and
+good to people who will be dukes by and by.  One
+never knows what a duke can do for one later, and,
+of course, a bishop wants to be an archbishop.  That
+is only natural: even a cardinal wants to be Pope,
+although he almost always says he is sorry he
+became one when he finds himself at the end of his
+tether.  The bishop was a human being, but a nice
+one, and he really liked Bob, who suggested youth
+and strength and the future, all of them agreeable
+things to those who are not young and see their
+future behind them.  So he talked to Bob almost
+as if he was one of the Bench of Bishops.  He was
+familiar and jovial, and told some good stories of
+other bishops and even one of an archbishop.  And
+he suggested to Bob that he rather wanted to see
+what a motor-car was like.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"There is a prejudice against them here," said
+the bishop.  "Perhaps a natural prejudice among
+those who own chickens and dogs and children.
+But Providence works in a mysterious way, and
+I should be the last to hasten to blame even the
+gentleman known as a road hog.  I begin to
+perceive an unwonted sprightliness in the villagers as
+the elimination of the unfit, the rheumatic, the
+undecided, and the foolish proceeds apace.  A young
+man, who told me that he had in the course of his
+career as an owner of cars killed nearly a thousand
+dogs, two thousand five hundred fowls, several aged
+persons, some idiots, and a policeman, said that he
+noticed nowadays an air of bright alertness in his
+immediate neighbourhood which was at once a
+pleasure and an encouragement.  He asserted that
+the dogs who remained were of a higher type of
+intellect than the others; and he said that even the
+fowls now stood sideways in the road and used
+their natural advantage of looking both ways at
+once.  There was, too, a great improvement in
+village children and even in policemen.  Oh, yes, I
+think much may be said for the motor-car."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I should very much like to take you out in one,
+my lord," said Bob.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>The bishop smiled graciously.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"You shall, my boy, as soon as this matter of
+Penelope is settled.  I shall greatly enjoy passing
+rapidly through the country.  I think of buying one
+for purposes of my pastoral visitations.  Perhaps
+I may wake up some of my more somnolent clergy.
+I may even raise their general intellectual average,
+which is low, really low."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Bob's chauffeur put up at the Angel, but Bob
+himself had a bed in the palace, and dined in state
+with the bishop and Bradstock.  They discussed
+Penelope all dinner-time, even before Ridley, for,
+as the bishop explained, Ridley took no interest in
+anything whatever but wine.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I believe," said the bishop, with a chuckle, "that
+I might venture in his presence to advocate the
+disestablishment of the Church, or to give vent to
+heretical or even atheistical sentiments without his
+being aware that I was doing anything surprising,
+improper, or unusual.  By all means, let us talk
+before Ridley.  How do you think Bob should
+proceed, Bradstock?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"He must stay in his car near, but not too near,
+the post-office," said Bradstock.  "If Bob is
+properly goggled, this George Smith, whom we suppose
+to bring Pen's letters and telegrams, will not notice
+him.  Shall you know him, Bob?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Rather," said Bob.  "He walks very queerly.
+I could tell him a mile off."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Very well, then," Bradstock continued, "when
+he goes, you will follow him at a distance.  He
+must not be lost sight of."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I much underrate our young friend's enterprise
+if he loses him," said the bishop.  "There are
+occasions when exceeding the legal limit becomes a
+duty, Bob."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Rather," said Bob.  "Oh, I'll do it."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>They calculated that the </span><em class="italics">Times</em><span> would reach Pen
+about noon, as they believed she must be within
+twenty miles of Spilsborough.  Bob accordingly
+arranged to take up his watch at the post-office before
+one o'clock.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"And perhaps to-morrow night the mystery will
+be solved," said the bishop.  "It is really
+remarkable.  I am not at all able to follow Penelope's
+mind."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Bob explained it to him.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"They ragged her," he said,—by "they"
+meaning Titania and others,—"and she loves peace
+and hates showing off, and she's as obstinate as a
+pig.  And grandmother said she was to be
+married in Westminster Abbey by a bishop, and that
+put her back up.  Oh, Pen's easy to understand,
+I think."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"You have no idea whom she has really
+married?" asked the bishop.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Not much," said Bob.  "I give it up.  I've
+thought it was all of 'em, and every one has done
+or said something that could be taken both ways.
+I was sure it was Goby, and then I was certain it
+was Bramber, and then I fairly knew it was
+Rivaulx, and I could have sworn it was Plant.  And
+I'm very much worried by what occurred at Oxford.
+This new Bunting was very surprising."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>The bishop had not heard of the new Bunting,
+and listened to Bob's story with great interest.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"The world is a very surprising place," said the
+bishop, with emphasis; "a very surprising place
+indeed.  We do not need to go to Africa for new
+things.  We are surrounded by the unexpected, by
+the marvellous.  Bob's delightful story makes me
+feel that no one can reckon with certainty upon
+anything.  I am half-inclined to think that this new
+Bunting must be a relation of the other Bunting,
+and that Penelope has met him, been struck with
+him, and has married him and lives in temporary
+retirement, while her husband struggles with
+Thucydides under a sofa.  But after to-morrow we shall
+know more."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I hope so," said Bradstock.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I feel sure of it," said the bishop.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>And Bob went to bed.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Do you know, Bradstock," said the bishop, as
+he stroked his leg, which was a very reasonable leg
+for a bishop, "I wonder you didn't think I had
+married Penelope."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Good heavens!" said Bradstock, "have you?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Certainly not," replied the bishop, "but it is
+odd she should be near Spilsborough, isn't it?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"She must be somewhere," said Bradstock,
+rather irritably.  "Hang it! the girl must be
+somewhere."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"When you think of it, she must," said the
+bishop.  "Yes, yes, you are right.  Still,
+Spilsborough—yes, it's odd, but not remarkable.  As you
+say, she must be somewhere.  I hope it's not the
+Jew, Bradstock."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>So did Bradstock.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"It looks very much as if she was ashamed of
+him.  But I'm incapable of judging, not having
+been married," said the bishop.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I've been married twice," said Bradstock, "and
+Pen is a woman, which means she resembles no
+other woman in any respect whatever as regards
+her ways, manners, customs, and thoughts."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"You say that coolly?" asked the bishop.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Icily," replied Bradstock.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>The bishop shook his head.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"You surprise me," said the bishop, "and I
+think I will go to bed."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Bradstock went to bed, too.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I shouldn't be surprised if she had married the
+bishop and was under this roof now," said
+Bradstock.  "Nothing would surprise me unless I
+discover she's married to Rivaulx or Bramber.  I don't
+think I should mind either of 'em."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>And next day at half-past twelve Bob and his
+chauffeur took up a position near the post-office.  As
+Geordie Smith knew Bradstock, he kept quietly at
+the palace.  But the interested bishop who had not
+married Penelope kept bustling about the
+neighbourhood in quite an excitement.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I wish I was coming with you, Bob."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, do!" said Bob.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I almost think it would be advisable," said the
+bishop.  "What I said would have weight with
+Penelope, I believe."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I rather wish you'd come," cried Bob.  "It
+would be fun, and you said you'd like to go in a
+motor-car."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"So I did," said the bishop, "but I've never been
+in one.  No one has seen me in one.  I fear a crowd
+would assemble."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"At any rate, my lord, you might get in and
+sit down a minute."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>The bishop looked around.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I really think I will," he said.  And he entered
+the car.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"This is really comfortable, Bob, very comfortable,
+quite like an armchair.  Is your driver a good one?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"A ripper," said Bob.  "The best they have
+where I got the car.  It's not mine, but when I get
+all the money that Gordon owes me, I'll buy one."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>The chauffeur got down and did something inexplicable
+to the machinery with a spanner.  And
+the spanner broke.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I'll just run across and get a new one, sir,"
+said the chauffeur.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"It's getting late," said Bob.  "Don't be long,
+and before you go start her up."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>The driver set her going, and the bishop caught
+hold of Bob.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"You're not off?  This is very surprising.  It
+makes a very curious noise."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"There won't be any to speak of when we get
+her moving," said Bob.  "You see the engine is
+going, and when we like we can start at once."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>He was happy, bright, and eager.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"There's a motor-car coming," whispered the bishop.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Bob jumped.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I say, it's yellow like Pen's big new one," he
+said.  And the car stopped in front of the
+post-office ten yards away.  Bob grabbed the bishop's
+arm.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"That's Geordie Smith," he said.  "That's
+Geordie getting out.  I could tell his legs a mile
+off.  Where's my man?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>But the man didn't come, and Geordie was back
+in his car.  He went off sweetly.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"The north road," said Bob.  "I'm sure he'll
+take it.  He's going quick.  We can't wait for my
+man."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>He grabbed the steering-wheel, shifted the lever,
+and the car moved off on the first speed.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I'll—I'll go a little way with you," said the
+bishop.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"You'll have to unless you jump," replied Bob.
+"I'll keep in sight if I die for it."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>This encouraged the bishop very much, of course,
+and it is possible that he might have jumped if he
+had not caught sight of the dean and a minor canon,
+who were staring hard at him with their mouths
+as wide open as the grotesque muzzle of a Gothic
+gargoyle.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I'll not jump," said the bishop, and he waved
+his hand to Mr. Dean.  "No, I'll not jump before
+the dean if I die for it."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Before he knew it, they were out on the road,
+and the dust of the yellow car in front was like
+the pillar of smoke to the Hebrews in the desert.
+Bob let her out to the second speed, and the bishop
+gasped.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"We go very quick," he said.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, not at all," replied Bob.  "I don't want to
+go fast.  If Geordie thinks he's being followed,
+he'll go sixty miles an hour, and I don't think I
+can do more than forty-five in this."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Can't you?" asked the bishop.  "I'm almost
+glad you can't."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Is this the great north road?" asked Bob.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"No," said the bishop, "it's the road to Crowland
+and Spalding.  I've often driven on it, but
+never so fast as this."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Geordie's car drew ahead, and Bob put his car
+on the third speed.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Bob!" cried the bishop, as he clutched the sides
+of his seat.  "Bob!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Isn't this an illegal speed?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Rather," said Bob.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I cannot aid and abet you in going at it, then,"
+said the bishop, as firmly as he could.  "I must
+request you to be legal."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Bob kept his eyes ahead.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Please don't talk," he roared, "or I shall have
+an accident.  You must remember I'm not at all
+experienced."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>What could the poor bishop do?  He groaned
+and sat very tight indeed, and, seeing the landscape
+eaten up by this monster at the rate of thirty miles
+an hour, came to the conclusion that there was
+nothing stable in the universe, not even theology.  And
+about a mile ahead of them rose a pillar of dust.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"This is a remarkable situation," thought the
+bishop; "a situation which requires some firmness
+of mind.  I am a bishop, and I am no better than
+half my clergy who break the law regularly.  This
+must be nearly a hundred miles an hour!  I wish,
+I almost wish Penelope had died soon after I
+christened her.  This Bob is an infernal young ruffian;
+his manner is not respectful.  I should like to cane
+him.  But how can I stop him?  I do not understand
+these strange brass things.  I could as soon
+play the big organ in the cathedral that I wish I
+was in.  If I pull Bob he will have an accident.  If
+I speak to him, I may divert his attention—oh!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>They executed a fowl which had not learnt to
+stand sideways, and slammed through a village,
+scattering several ancient inhabitants who were
+enjoying a gossip in the middle of the road.  As a
+matter of fact, they were damning Geordie Smith
+in heaps when the pursuing Bob fell upon them.
+They passed a church, and the bishop saw a clergyman
+staring over the wall.  The village fell into
+the category of things which had been and slid away
+behind them.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"We are stopping still and the world slides,"
+said the bishop, "but that was Griggs, I know, and
+he knew me.  He has eyes like a hawk's.  I am
+much surprised at myself.  I have seventeen
+engagements this afternoon.  Ridley will be alarmed.
+The dean—oh!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>They slammed a barking dog into the middle
+of the week after next.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"That was a near shave," roared Bob, exulting.
+"I've seen a smaller dog than that capsize a bigger
+car than this!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"May I speak now?" implored the bishop.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Righto," said Bob.  "Here's a good straight
+bit.  What is it?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>He was the superior: he was a big bird and the
+bishop was a beetle.  He was the head master; his
+lordship of the see of Spilsborough was a new boy.
+The bishop felt small, terrified, amazed, humiliated.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Are we going a hundred miles an hour?" asked
+the bishop.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Rot!" said Bob, "we're only doing about thirty."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>They scorched through quiet Crowland.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Please put me down," implored the humble bishop.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I can't stop," said Bob.  "I'm afraid he's
+getting ahead.  Sit tight, bishop, I'm going faster
+now."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"You mustn't, you can't," said the bishop.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Bob stooped for an answer and turned on the
+fourth speed.  The bishop felt the machine sailing
+underneath him.  He fell back and lost all ordinary
+consciousness.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"It is true," said his mind deep inside him; "it
+is true that all things are illusion!  I have
+sometimes suspected it.  We are a mode of motion; we
+are affections of the ether.  I believe Professor
+Osborne Reynolds is right.  I am a kind of vortex
+spinning in piled grains of ether.  Bob is a vortex.
+We are in a vortex.  We are straws in ether; we
+are shadows.  I have a real non-existent pain in
+my real imaginary non-existent stomach.  I am
+not alive and I am not dead.  I am brave; I am
+a coward; I am a bishop.  This is very wonderful.
+I shall preach about it when I return to earth.  Is
+that a hedge?  Did I see a cow?—a strange,
+elongated, horned, lowing, permanent, impermanent
+possibility of sensation and milk in a field made
+of matter, which is energy, which is an illusion.
+I become calm; motion is relative.  I almost enjoy
+it.  I become a Hegelian.  I see that being equals
+non-being; that pain becomes pleasure if you only
+have enough of it.  I no longer pity those who
+suffer sufficiently.  There is apparently too little
+pain in the universe.  Torquemada did his best
+to remedy it.  Oh, was that a dog?  I quite enjoy
+myself.  I wonder if he can go faster.  If he can,
+I wish he would.  We are going slow, too slow!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>And, as Geordie's dust showed up much nearer,
+Bob put his car again at the third speed, and the
+bishop gasped.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"How do you like it?" asked Bob, as they spun
+through Spalding.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>The bishop's face was a fine glowing crimson;
+his bloodshot eyes glittered like opals; he was
+intoxicated with movement and with new lights on
+philosophy.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I—I should like to go a thousand miles an
+hour at night," said the bishop.  "I think it is
+wonderful, Bob.  Are you Bob, and I a bishop?
+Where is Spilsborough?  Is there a Spilsborough?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Steady on!" said Bob.  "I say, you're excited!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I am," replied the bishop.  "I am excited; I
+feel peculiar.  I think I can originate a new
+philosophy.  Why are we doing this?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"We are trying to find out where Penelope is,"
+said Bob.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Penelope, Penelope," said the bishop.  "Penelope
+is a vortex.  Yes, she is a vortex.  Men and
+women are vortices.  I shall study mathematics and
+apply it to theology."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Hello!" said Bob, and he stopped almost dead.
+For Geordie's dust had suddenly died down.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I'll bet he has a puncture," said Bob.  And the
+bishop sighed and stared about him, as if he were
+just awakened.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Where are we?" he asked.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Blessed if I know," said Bob.  "But you ought
+to know."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I don't," said the bishop.  And he got out and
+stood on the dusty road.  He reeled, and the dean
+would have said he was intoxicated.  And so he was.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Geordie's off again," said Bob.  "Come, jump in."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I won't," said the bishop.  "Certainly I won't.
+That machine is a kind of devil.  It undermines the
+strongest convictions.  I am afraid of it.  I shall
+have to resign my bishopric if I ride another mile."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, rot!" said Bob.  "Aren't you coming?
+I can't wait."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Take the devilish thing away," cried the bishop.
+"Anathema maranatha and all the rest of it!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Without another word, Bob pulled the lever and
+sailed off up the road, leaving a trail of petrol
+vapour behind him.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Mentally and physically, I don't know where
+I am," said the bishop.  "I don't know who I am,
+either.  From my clothes I conclude I am a bishop,
+but to come to that conclusion I have to assume
+that I have the right to wear them.  I have had
+a remarkable experience.  Yes, I am a bishop.
+This is the earth and very dusty.  It is hot, and I
+am miles from anywhere."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>He looked up the road and saw a far cloud of dust.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Under that dust is Bob," said the bishop.  "As
+I said, Penelope is a vortex.  Everything is much
+more remarkable than I thought, much more
+remarkable.  I shall write to the professor to
+discover what he means.  It is dreadful that what may
+be called a mere physical experience should incline
+me to look on some of my fellow bishops and the
+higher criticism with a more lenient eye.  I don't
+see how any dogma can survive a hundred miles
+an hour.  But Bob has not treated me altogether
+well.  He plumps me down somewhere between
+Spalding and Spilsby or Boston or some other
+dreadful locality under the ghostly influence of my
+brother of Lincoln, and disappears in dust and
+smell.  He was distinctly disrespectful.  He said,
+'Sit down, bishop,' in a very authoritative manner.
+He told me I was excited.  I own I was, but I
+resented being told so by a boy, because he was
+a boy, or was it because I am a bishop?  An
+unaccustomed bishop in a motor-car is plainly nobody
+compared with an experienced boy in one.  I wish
+Penelope was a sensible person, or that I had never
+known her, or that she hadn't been born!  I wonder
+what I am to do.  I must walk; I may be overtaken
+by a cart and get a ride in one.  I anticipate much
+talk in Spilsborough about this.  I wonder what
+Ridley will say.  Ridley is a stoic; perhaps he will
+say nothing.  I wish I was near Ridley; I am
+thirsty.  This road is dusty.  It also appears long
+and interminable.  I am as dry as convocation.  I
+much resent Bob's treatment of me.  I wish
+Bradstock was here, and I was where Bradstock is.
+Bradstock is in my library, in my chair, with a book
+in his hand and a whiskey and soda by his side.
+He takes things with great calmness.  I wish he
+was here to take this with calmness."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>And he walked south for three hours and got
+back to Spalding, and there took a train for Spilsborough.</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em">
+</div>
+<p class="center pfirst" id="chapter-xxi"><span class="bold large">CHAPTER XXI.</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em">
+</div>
+<p class="pfirst"><span>"I don't think I quite understand the bishop,"
+said Bob, as he left the dignitary of the Church
+stranded long miles from anywhere.  "He looked
+very queer.  But I suppose they're made bishops
+because they are queer, unless it's on account of
+their legs.  I can understand the gaiters, but the
+apron licks me.  I'll ask him about it some day.
+But I wonder where we are, and how much longer
+Geordie will go on.  It's luck I've had no
+puncture and no breakdown.  I thought it was all up
+when I sent that dog over the hedge.  He did fly.
+I wonder whether any bobbies have spotted my
+number.  I don't care.  Gordon owes me a lot of
+money by now.  What's thirty-two times two
+thousand odd?  Oh, I can't remember.  I'm getting
+rather tired."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>But he stuck to Geordie like a burr to a sheep,
+and between the two of them they stirred up more
+ancient peace and the haunts of it than any other
+two cars in the United Kingdom.  They fairly
+bounded through sleepy old Boston, and a
+policeman, waked up from sleep by Geordie, was
+wide-awake enough by the time Bob came through to
+call on him to stop.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I wouldn't stop for an army of policemen,"
+said Bob, recklessly.  "I don't care.  I'll catch
+Geordie if I die for it.  Gordon will pay my fines.
+I wonder how the bishop is.  This is the Spilsby
+road, is it?  I wonder whether Pen's at Spilsby?
+Will she be very cross with me?  Oh, that was a
+hen!  I </span><em class="italics">do</em><span> think hens shouldn't be allowed in a
+road."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>A dog stood in the middle of the way and barked.
+In the middle of his second bark, the front wheel
+caught him.  He ended his bark in the ditch, and
+was very dreamy about the whole affair for some
+time afterward.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"That was a dog," said Bob.  "I </span><em class="italics">do</em><span> think dogs
+shouldn't be allowed in a road."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>He missed a horse by a hairbreadth a mile
+farther on, and felt very cross.  He said horses
+shouldn't be allowed in a road.  He said the same
+of carts and of a carriage, of children and
+agricultural labourers.  They were so slow.  For now
+Geordie was going pretty fast, and Bob had to go
+on the fourth speed, which is highly illegal and
+wicked and very dangerous.  He had never enjoyed
+himself so much before, and he was undoubtedly
+the happiest boy in the three kingdoms.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Geordie doesn't know I'm after him," he said.
+"I'll bet he's riding along easy.  That car of Pen's
+can go like lightning if he lets her out.  He will
+be mad when I come up."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>And suddenly he perceived down a long, white
+road that Geordie was going more slowly.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"This must be Spilsby," said Bob.  He saw
+Geordie's dust go off at a right angle toward the
+right.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I've done it," said the exultant boy.  "We
+must be near Pen's now."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>For to turn to the right in the neighbourhood
+of Spilsby means to go toward the North Sea.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Bob ran into Spilsby quite meekly on the second
+speed, and turned after Geordie.  A mile farther
+on, Bob saw a house in some trees, and all of a
+sudden there was no more dust from Geordie's car.
+Bob pulled up in the middle of the road.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"By Jove, I've done it, I know," said Bob, "and
+now I feel a bit nervous.  I wonder what Pen will
+say, and whether her husband is there, and what
+the kid's like.  Well, here's for it!  She can't do
+more than eat me."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>And he drove on till he came to the house, which
+was an ivy-covered building like a square barrack,
+and would have been hideous without its creepers.
+There was a moat around it and big elms hid it
+from a distance.  The gate was open, and by the
+front door stood Geordie and his car.  Bob gave a
+view-halloo, and, twisting through the gate, came
+to a standstill alongside Pen's big yellow racer.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>And Penelope herself came to the door, and saw
+not only Geordie, whom she recognized simply by
+the fact that he was in a car she knew, but an
+undistinguishable stranger also.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh!" said Bob.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Eh?" said Geordie.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Who—" said Penelope.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>And Bob staggered out of his machine, and fairly
+reeled when he stood upright.  He had no notion
+that no one, not even Titania, could have
+recognized him.  He forgot his goggles, and he forgot
+he was so dusty that one might have planted
+cabbages on his cheeks.  He did not know that he
+weighed several pounds more than usual, owing to
+the amount of Lincolnshire that he carried on him.
+He had no idea that he was awful, hideous, a
+goggled, dirty portent.  He smiled, and the dirt cracked
+upon him, and Penelope shrank back.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, I say, Pen, are you mad with me?" he asked.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>And Penelope shrieked and ran to him, and, falling
+upon him, embraced him with horrible results
+to her clothes.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, Bob, Bob, is it you?" she cried.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"It's me, right enough," said Bob.  "I say, can
+I have a drink?  I'm dying!  Am I dusty?  Yes,
+so I am.  Oh, Pen, it's come off on you!  I say, I
+do want a drink.  It's such a warm day, and Geordie
+would go so fast.  I followed Geordie."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Geordie looked horribly disgusted, but neither
+Pen nor Bob paid the least attention to him.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Followed up by a boy," groaned Geordie, "and
+in that thing!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>He regarded the mean fifteen-horse-power
+concern with great contempt.  "Well, I'm blessed!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, come in, Bob, dear Bob," said Pen.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Are you glad to see me?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, I've been dying to see you."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Upon your honour?" asked Bob.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes, yes," said Penelope.  "I want to ask you
+so much, and I've got so much to say.  But tell
+me, tell me quick.  Does any one else know where
+I am?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Bob shook dust out of his head.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Not a soul, unless it's the bishop," he replied.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"What bishop?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"The Bishop of Spilsborough," replied Bob.  "I
+left him on the road."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh!" gasped Pen, "is he following you?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Not much," said Bob.  "He got scared and
+got out and wouldn't get in again, and he talked
+such rot I thought he was mad, for a bishop, so I
+left him, and suppose he's walking home again."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Pen almost shook him.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"But what was he doing with you?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"He wanted to come part of the way in my car,
+so I let him, and he was awfully funky.  I don't
+think much of bishops if they're all like him, though
+he did stop Plant and Rivaulx fighting with swords
+in the cathedral."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Fighting? with swords?  Oh, what—" said Penelope.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"To be sure, I forgot you very likely didn't
+know.  I'll tell you by and by.  Bradstock's at
+Spilsborough.  Where's my drink, Pen?  I say,
+did you hear of Mr. Bunting at Oxford?  That
+was fun.  He threw De Vere out of the window,
+and knocked Carteret Williams down with Liddell
+and Scott."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"What Mr. Bunting?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"They thought he was Timothy Bunting, but
+he wasn't.  I had tea with him afterward.  I'll tell
+you by and by.  Do you know grandmother had
+fits about it all?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Penelope knew nothing, or very little, and as the
+results of her fatal conduct were thus revealed to
+her in dreadful incomplete chunks, her heart almost
+failed her and she half-forgot her own terrible
+troubles.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Am I mad, or is Bob?" she asked.  "Oh, the
+bishop and Guardy and duels and fits and Mr. Bunting
+and windows and Liddell and Bob having tea!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>She ran for a drink herself, and poured it over
+Bob in her eagerness for more news.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I say, Pen, be careful!  That went down my
+neck," said Bob, "and outside it, too.  I say, who've
+you married?  Tell me.  Where's the kid?  May I
+see it?  I say, Pen, you look splendid, but sad
+somehow and rather worried.  I feel better now.  I don't
+mind what went down outside.  I'll have a bath
+soon.  Where's the kid?  They </span><em class="italics">do</em><span> talk a lot about
+it in town.  They say, some of 'em, that you've
+married the Rajah of Jugpore, the little beast, and
+that the baby is black, or partly black.  Is it?  I
+know it isn't."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, oh!" said Pen, "how horrible of them!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>She rushed at the bell, and when the servant
+came she commanded the instant appearance of the
+baby and the nurse.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"You know they said you married Timothy
+Bunting," said Bob.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Penelope flushed crimson.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"It was wicked of them."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"That beast Weekes told granny you had.  She
+said she knew it.  That's how I had tea with
+Mr. Bunting at Oxford, after he'd chucked Plant and
+Gordon down-stairs.  They were sick.  Oh, oh! is
+this the kid?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Pen took the precious infant in her arms, and
+told the nurse she might go and have tea.  When
+she had disappeared, Pen burst into tears.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"He's—he's all I've got," she said, sobbing.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Bob started.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I say, what do you mean?  You don't mean
+you aren't married at all?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"No, no," said Penelope.  "I mean—oh, it's
+terrible!  Oh, baby, I love you!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>She kissed the baby, who was certainly a very
+fine baby, and wept again.  Bob inspected the boy
+with great interest.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I say, I rather think it's like Plant," he said.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Pen gasped.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"But in this light, it's rather like Gordon."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh!" said Penelope.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"And its forehead is like De Vere's a little.
+I say, won't you tell me who you've married?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Penelope hugged the baby and howled.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I can't, I can't.  We've q-quarrelled," she said,
+"and he's furious, and I'm f-furious with him."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Why?" asked Bob, still inspecting the baby
+for signs of his male parentage, "why?  Oh, I say,
+sideways he reminds me of Williams and Rivaulx,
+and upside down he's a little like Carew and Goby.
+But why have you quarrelled, Pen?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Pen explained with tears how it had happened.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"You see, I said he wasn't to tell," she said.
+"And he went to your grandmother and told!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"So did all the rest," said Bob, "and that was
+where granny got very confused.  I listened.  I
+know it was a sneak thing to do, but I was thinking
+of your interests, and she said to the last of 'em:
+'I know you've come to say you've married dear
+Penelope.'  It was very pathetic, Pen.  I never
+thought granny could be pathetic before.  She
+usually makes me pathetic instead, or she used to.
+But was he one of 'em?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"He was," sniffed Pen, "and he broke his
+solemn oath.  The others were noble.  I sent them
+telegrams to say they were noble."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"That's why they all went to Spilsborough,
+where you sent the telegrams from," said Bob,
+"and that's why Plant and Rivaulx fought with
+swords under the cathedral, till the bishop and the
+dean stopped them.  I tell you the dean </span><em class="italics">was</em><span> mad."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, dear, dear!" said Penelope.  "I wish they
+wouldn't.  Did they hurt each other?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Not much, I think," replied Bob.  "I didn't
+see any blood.  But when I told 'em you'd married
+Timothy Bunting, Rivaulx lay on the grass and
+tried to bite it and howled dreadfully."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Poor marquis!" said Pen.  "But why did you
+tell them so dreadful a story?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Bob shook his head.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I'm sorry, Pen, but I believed it.  Weekes said
+she </span><em class="italics">knew</em><span>, and granny had fits.  There's something
+about fits that makes you believe almost anything.
+But you haven't told me who it is.  I say, with
+the light sideways on that baby, he reminds me of
+Bramber.  But who is it?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"We've p-parted," said Penelope.  "He came
+and said he'd told, and I was very f-furious, and we
+had a r-row.  And he was so cross and mad, because
+without me he couldn't prove it.  For we were
+married in other names, and I wrote my name in
+another handwriting, and I said I would deny it.  And
+he flew into a passion and into a motor-car and
+went away.  And I've only my p-pride and b-baby
+left.  And I'm so sorry for every one.  And how
+did you find me?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Bob told her how he had done it, and told her
+of Bradstock's advertisement, and told her about
+the bishop, and more about Mr. Bunting of All
+Saints, Oxford, who was the strongest man he had
+ever seen.  Carteret Williams was nothing in his
+hands.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"And now I've told you everything, won't you
+tell me who it is?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"No," said poor Penelope; "it would humiliate
+me to tell now, and I won't."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"But they must know here," said Bob.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Only three," replied Penelope.  "Miss
+Mackarness and Geordie Smith and Timothy.  And
+Timothy was so unhappy when he heard he had
+married me that I sent him away to Upwell, where there
+are more horses.  But he's back now.  And Miss
+Mackarness and Geordie Smith have sworn not to
+tell.  And I expect you not to ask them."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Bob snorted a little at this.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, all right, but I shall have to say where you
+are when I go back to Spilsborough."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, you won't," said Pen.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I must," said Bob.  "Bradstock is terribly
+worried about it now, and thinks you've treated him
+badly, and the bishop is very curious, and he asks
+questions in a way that it's difficult not to answer
+somehow.  And besides there's granny and all the
+rest.  I say, do you know Gordon has been
+speculating for me, and has made seventy thousand
+pounds for me?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"You don't say so?" cried Pen.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I think it must be Gordon," said Bob.  "When
+the shadow's on that kid, he looks rather like
+Gordon, if you can think of Gordon as a baby, which
+is hard.  But when I'm a duke, I shall rebuild
+Goring and pay off some of the mortgages.  Whoever
+you've married, I'm very grateful to you, Pen,
+about Gordon and De Vere.  De Vere bought the
+spotted dog I told you of.  I found Goby weeping
+with Ethel.  That made me think it wasn't him.
+But now you say you've quarrelled with him, I'm
+not sure again.  I say, I'm very sleepy.  May I
+stay to-night?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Of course," said Penelope.  And then a brilliant
+idea struck her.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Bob, you do love me, don't you?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"What rot! of course," said Bob.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Then stay here altogether for a time," said Pen.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"By Jove, what fun!" cried Bob.  "I'll send
+'em a wire, and I will.  Can Geordie go somewhere
+else but Spilsborough and send one?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Certainly," said Penelope.  And it was
+arranged that Geordie should go to Lincoln to send
+it from there.  This is the telegram Bob sent to
+Lord Bradstock:</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I have found Penelope.  She won't say who
+it is because she has quarrelled with him, and she
+won't let me come back yet.  I will take care of her.
+Tell grandmother and Guthrie.  She quarrelled
+with him because he said he was married to her.
+But the baby is not black."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>And Bradstock swore.  The bishop was too tired
+to swear, perhaps, but he was very cross.  So were
+all the others, including her husband.</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em">
+</div>
+<p class="center pfirst" id="chapter-xxii"><span class="bold large">CHAPTER XXII.</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em">
+</div>
+<p class="pfirst"><span>They had relied greatly upon Bob.  The bishop,
+though rather bitter on the subject of Bob, tried
+to be fair to him, and said he was a very promising boy.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I think it most remarkable," said his lordship,
+when his fine but tired legs were beneath the
+mahogany once more, "that he should be able to drive
+these dreadful machines with such skill.  He missed
+a great many things that he might have hit, but,
+as he said, he 'boosted' one dog over a hedge in
+a most skilful way.  He said 'boosted,' a very
+peculiar word.  I must write to Doctor Murray
+about it.  But I do not think he has been brought
+up with care.  He was not altogether respectful
+to me, Bradstock."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I much regret it," said Bradstock, "but what
+can you expect at Goring?  On the whole, his
+manners are not so bad.  Perhaps you annoyed him.
+He does not like being annoyed."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Indeed," said the bishop, "indeed!  Well, I
+may have worried him in a way that I do not quite
+understand.  But I have to own that for a boy
+to put his hand on my shoulder and say, 'Sit down,
+bishop,' in a most authoritative way, made me a
+little cross.  And when I refused to enter the
+motorcar again, I think he might have given me more
+time to reflect on the fact that I was a very long
+way from anywhere.  He was very short and
+peremptory with me.  It was most curious, and I
+regret I did not go on with him, for I am extremely
+anxious to put an end to this scandal.  One never
+knows what will happen.  The duel in the moonlight
+under the cathedral was most remarkable.  I
+wonder when Bob will return."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"So do I," said Bradstock, drily.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Why do you say so in that tone?" asked the bishop.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Because I doubt whether he will return at all
+if he finds Penelope," replied Bradstock.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Good heavens!" cried the bishop, "but he
+went for the very purpose of discovering her."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"You don't know Pen," said Bradstock, "and
+he worships her.  If she doesn't want to be
+discovered, she will keep him.  I am certain of it."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>This showed that Bradstock, though a silent peer,
+was a very sensible one.  The bishop frowned and
+smote the table.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I shall be extremely angry with Bob if you turn
+out to be right," he said, firmly.  "I shall be
+extremely angry with him."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Much he will care about that," said Bradstock.
+"You ought to have gone on with him."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I believe I ought to have done so.  Yes, you
+are right, Bradstock; it was an error of judgment.
+I was a coward.  I was afraid to die.  I did not
+like the idea of being 'boosted' over a hedge.  I
+am ashamed of myself."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Never mind," said Bradstock, consolingly, "I
+have seen heroes quail in a motor-car.  I myself
+have quailed in one."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>The bishop shook his head.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Nevertheless, I blame myself.  I ought not to
+have been afraid, even though I felt peculiar and
+unwonted sensations in my gaiters," he murmured.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>He smote the table again.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I will make amends, Bradstock.  I will devote
+myself to the task of finding Penelope at any speed
+that is necessary.  I cannot quite reconcile myself
+to the notion that I am a coward.  I will find her
+if Bob deceives us."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"You can't," said Bradstock, rather gloomily.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I can, I will," said the bishop.  "I will use
+my brains."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>It was a happy thought.  The bishop mused.
+There was a knock at the outer door.  It was a
+double, a telegraphic knock.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"From the duchess?" asked the bishop.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"From Bob, or I am a bishop," said the peer.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>And Ridley gave him a telegram.  Bradstock
+read it slowly, lifted his eyebrows, rubbed his
+handsome white head, and handed it to the bishop.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"From Bob, bishop, a very remarkable Bobbish
+document."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>The bishop read it.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"It certainly is a remarkable document, a very
+remarkable document, indeed," said his lordship.
+"I see it was handed in at Lincoln.  She won't
+say who it is because she has quarrelled with him.
+With her husband, that is to say.  She will not let
+Bob come back.  She quarrelled with </span><em class="italics">him</em><span> because
+he said he was married to </span><em class="italics">her</em><span>.  Very remarkable!
+Somewhat confusing.  But it is a relief to hear that
+the baby is not black, Bradstock."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Bradstock was pessimistic.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"It may be half-black," he said, mournfully.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Which half?" asked the bishop, with alarm.
+"If it is, I hope it will not be the top half."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Absurd!" said Bradstock.  "I mean it may be
+dun or yellowish."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Let us trust not," replied the bishop.  "I am
+inclined to think Bob would have said it was not
+very black if it had been at all coloured.  I think
+we may dismiss the Jugpore legend."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I trust we may," said Bradstock.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I have an idea," said the bishop, "I have a
+luminous idea.  Let us go to the library."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>They adjourned to the library, and Bradstock
+lighted a cigar.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"What is your idea?" he asked.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I will tell you in a few minutes," said the
+bishop, as he laid a big atlas upon his table.
+Bradstock watched him curiously.  The bishop opened
+the atlas and laid a flat ruler on it.  He shifted
+it once or twice, nodded his head, said "Ah!" and
+nodded it again.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I believe I have it," said the bishop.  "It will
+be worth trying, at any rate."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"What is it?" asked Bradstock.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Come and look at the atlas," said the bishop,
+and Bradstock did as he was asked.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>The bishop put his finger-tips together and began:</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Bob was following this person named Smith,
+and went north, did he not?  Let us say north.
+I believe it is technically north by east.  He put me
+out, or, to be fair even to Bob, I got out and was
+asked to return very casually, north of Spalding
+in the Boston road, miles from anywhere.  This
+Smith was going back to Penelope.  For while Bob
+and I were away, you got her telegram dated
+Spilsborough, sent to London and re-telegraphed to you
+here, saying that she was well, in reply to your
+</span><em class="italics">Times</em><span> advertisement.  Obviously, Penelope lives
+somewhere north of the spot where Bob left me
+without time for argument.  Do you follow me?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Certainly," said Bradstock.  "It is all as clear
+as quaternions."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Now we get this very remarkable document
+from Lincoln."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"We do, bishop."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"It is obvious she doesn't live at Lincoln.  She
+has sent this very fast Smith there to send off Bob's
+telegram.  Is that not so?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Of course," said Bradstock.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Let us imagine that Lincoln is nearly as far
+from where she is as Spilsborough is."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Let us imagine it," said Bradstock.  "I am
+willing to imagine it."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"What conclusion do you draw?" asked the bishop.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Bradstock shook his head.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Really, Bradstock," said the bishop, "I am
+surprised at you.  If she is between Spalding and
+Lough, as I'm sure she is, an equal distance from
+her to Lincoln and from her to Spilsborough would
+place her about Boston, or perhaps farther north.
+Now, if on inquiry we find she is not near Boston,
+she must be near a decent road fit for motor-cars
+to Lincoln.  Do you follow me?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I do," said Bradstock.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Then if she is not near Boston, where is she?"
+Bradstock studied the map.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I should say Burgh, or Warnfleet, or Spilsby."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Right," said the bishop.  "I am almost sure
+of it.  For if she had been farther north, she would
+not have chosen Spilsborough to telegraph from
+in the first instance.  What do you say to that?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I say that I am not surprised that you are a
+bishop, though I may wonder why you are in the
+Church," said Bradstock.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"What do you mean by that, Bradstock?" asked
+his lordship.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Nothing, nothing at all," replied Bradstock,
+hastily.  "I agree with you.  What shall we do?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>The bishop eyed him a little doubtfully, but
+returned to his muttons.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I want to bowl out Bob," he said.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"A bishop is a human being, after all," thought
+Bradstock.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"He might have reasoned with me," said the
+bishop.  "I am quite free the day after to-morrow,
+and we will go to Boston and make inquiries.  If
+they fail, we will try Warnfleet and Spilsby and
+Burgh."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"We will," said Bradstock.  "I think this idea
+of yours exceedingly clever, bishop."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"You do?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Certain, I do."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I forgive your recent gibe," said the bishop.
+"It was clearer than quaternions to me, and much
+clearer than Bob's rudeness, which I continue to
+find inexplicable.  And now I think the duchess
+should be informed of his telegram.  It will console
+her, I am sure, to learn that this fatherless infant
+is not black."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Not very black," insisted Bradstock.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>And the bishop sent a wire to Titania, saying that
+Bob had disappeared into space, but had telegraphed
+saying that he had found Penelope with a normal
+infant.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"After all, he only said it wasn't black," sighed
+Bradstock.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>But the bishop would not listen to him.  So he
+went out and sent a wire to Titania himself.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I should like to make Bob black and blue," the
+bishop said.  For his legs still ached.</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em">
+</div>
+<p class="center pfirst" id="chapter-xxiii"><span class="bold large">CHAPTER XXIII.</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em">
+</div>
+<p class="pfirst"><span>Next morning the bishop had an hysteric
+telegram from Titania.  It was obscure and of great
+length:</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Do not understand anything, but have hopes.
+Your telegram arrived before Augustin's.  You say
+normal; he says Robert's words do not convey
+anything but negation of extreme blackness.
+Jugpore going back to India, owing to scandalous
+conduct at music-hall.  India Office furious.  Secretary
+of State in bed.  Rumour now affirms infant not
+Penelope's.  Says adopted.  Have just seen Plant
+and Gordon and Carteret Williams, and expect the
+others.  They say they knew it all the time.  Say
+they gave her the infant.  Am confused, but hope
+you and Augustin will clear up details and find
+Penelope.  Am exceedingly vexed with Robert.
+De Vere has just come, weeps, but seems pleased.
+Bramber wires wishes to see me, but father is ill
+at Pulborough, doctors (three) giving up hope.
+Goby just left.  Will come to Spilsborough myself
+to-day if doctor permits, owing to palpitations.
+Keep me informed."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Dear me!" said the bishop, "this seems quite
+a new development, a very surprising one.  But
+I am sorry to see, Bradstock, that you sent another
+telegram without consulting me."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I didn't want you to give her too much hope,"
+replied Bradstock.  "You were so certain.  Your
+telegram was not logical.  What is not black is not
+necessarily white, for not-black may be green, or
+blue, or magenta."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"You are a pessimist," said the bishop.  "However,
+I forgive you.  What surprises me is this
+adoption story.  I don't believe it."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Bradstock was fractious.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Well, I don't know, bishop.  She always said
+if she had none of her own she would adopt one."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Nonsense!" said the bishop.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"It is not nonsense," said Bradstock.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Why don't you say they are twins?" demanded
+the bishop.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"What are twins?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"It," said the bishop.  "Really, Bradstock, don't
+you see you are unreasonable?  You will believe
+anything."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"And this from a bishop," murmured Bradstock.
+"Why should I say it was twins?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"If she adopted one, she might adopt two," said
+the bishop.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"That is ridiculous.  I never heard of twins
+being adopted," cried Bradstock.  "Besides, Bob
+says 'the baby.'"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Well, well," said the bishop, "do not let us
+argue passionately about a detail."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I do not see that twins can be called a detail,"
+said Bradstock, crossly.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Very well, call them what you like," said the
+bishop, hastily.  "But I expect the duchess will
+be here any moment."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Bradstock said he shouldn't wonder if she was.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"She will insist on coming with us to-morrow,"
+he said.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>The bishop started.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Bradstock, we will go to-day.  I will put off
+my business and go at once.  The duchess is a
+remarkable woman, but she talks too much."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>And such was his lordship's energy that they
+started by train for Boston in less than half an
+hour.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I rather enjoy this," said the bishop.  "This
+is an unusual event in a life like mine, Bradstock.
+I wonder whether we shall succeed, and I wonder
+what the young rascal will say when he sees me.
+He will be rather abashed, I fancy."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Do you fancy that?" asked Bradstock.  "Is
+imagination necessary, by the way, for the clerical
+or episcopal life?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"It is highly necessary, but rare," said the bishop.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"So I should imagine," said Bradstock.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"What do you mean by that?" asked the bishop,
+a little warmly.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Bradstock said he meant nothing by it, except
+that he was glad it was necessary.  Nevertheless,
+the bishop looked at him sternly for some minutes,
+and he felt rather uncomfortable.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I should not be surprised if Titania was now
+at the palace," he said, to change the conversation.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Ridley and my housekeeper must deal with
+her," said the bishop.  "Ridley deals with every
+one calmly.  Kings and curates come equally and
+easily within his powers.  Ridley may most
+distinctly be called an adequate butler.  He will offer
+her my best spare bedroom, or arrange for her
+sojourn at the Grand.  I do not believe an
+archbishop in a fit would throw Ridley off his balance.
+I rather wondered whether it would disturb him
+to see me come in with two duelling-swords under
+my arm upon that memorable occasion of the duel,
+but Ridley was as calm as—as an adequate butler.
+I rejoice in Ridley.  If we fail to-day, I think I
+will ask his advice.  He is a sound and solid
+thinker.  I hardly think I should have been a
+bishop to-day, but for Ridley.  When I was a vicar
+of St. Mary's at Ray Pogis, he came to me, then
+deeply engaged in smashing Harnack into dust,
+and said: 'Sir, the Prime Minister is staying at
+Pogis House.'  I knew if he was at Pogis House,
+he would attend New Pogis church.  The
+incumbent at New Pogis was one of those men whom
+it would require much courage to make an
+archdeacon of, and he was under great obligations to
+me.  I spoke to him.  He fell ill most opportunely.
+I preached a sermon which had every appearance
+of spontaneity, though I had spent months upon
+it, keeping it by me for some such occasion, as it
+dealt with the duties of men in high position, and
+three months later I was offered Spilsborough.
+But for Ridley, I might still be a vicar.  This, I
+believe, Bradstock, is Boston."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>They left the train and began to make inquiries
+just about the time that Ridley was dealing with
+the duchess.  He knew all about her, all about the
+duke, all about Penelope, all about Bradstock, and
+all about the "horde."  He had read all the
+telegrams, those which were sent and those which he
+had picked out of the bishop's waste-paper basket.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes, your Grace," said Ridley, "his lordship
+the bishop was called away early with Lord
+Bradstock on important business.  He wrote a letter
+which his lordship has probably taken away in his
+pocket, and desired me to ask your Grace whether
+you would prefer to stay here or at the Grand.
+The Grand is comfortable, but this is quiet."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I will stay here," said the duchess.  "I should
+like to lie down at once."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>And when she was comfortable, Ridley cross-examined
+her maid about everything, and was soon
+on firm ground.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"You may rely on his lordship," said Ridley.
+"With me at his back, he will be an archbishop
+yet.  No, certainly not.  The baby is not black
+if his lordship says so."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"But they do say she's not married and it isn't
+hers," said the lady's maid, shaking her head.
+"They say now that she has adopted it."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"When I hear of young ladies adopting infants
+in obscure parts of the country, I know what to
+think," said Ridley.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Lord, Mr. Ridley, but I can't believe it of
+her," urged the maid.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I am alleging nothing against her young ladyship,"
+said Ridley.  "She states it is hers.  I said
+that if she stated that she had adopted it, I should
+know what to think.  When she states it, I will
+tell you what I think.  And in the meantime I may
+say that I expect every one connected with this
+unseemly business to be here shortly.  I am a man
+of some discernment.  This adoption rumour will
+encourage these poor gentlemen, who are all mad,
+and they will follow her Grace here, or I am a mere
+footman in a poor family and my name's not Ridley."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>It apparently was Ridley, for there was a very
+loud knock at the door.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Mr. Ridley, will you see this gentleman?" said
+the footman, handing the butler a card, on which
+was engraved the name of Leopold Norfolk Gordon.
+"He seems very excited.  I think he's a Jew."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"A Jew!" said Ridley.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"By the looks of 'im a Jew," said the footman.
+And her Grace's maid gave them a few details of
+Mr. Gordon's career.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, yes, of course," said Ridley.  "I remember.
+Let him wait, Johnson.  He can wait in the
+little room.  As a Christian, I confess to feeling
+bitter against Jews, especially as I once borrowed
+money from one."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"This is a very nice one, though," said the lady's
+maid, "and Mr. Robert is quite fond of him."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I cannot stomach the idea," said Ridley.  "I
+thought better of the boy.  But I suppose I must
+see what he wants, though I can guess."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>He interviewed Gordon in the little room.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I want to see his lordship the bishop," said
+Gordon.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"His lordship the bishop is absent on important
+business, sir," said Ridley.  He added to himself,
+"As the butler of a Christian bishop, I object to
+calling him 'sir;' but as a butler in the habstract
+I must."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Where has he gone?" asked Gordon.  "Do you know?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"He has gone to look for her young ladyship, sir."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Ah!  I guessed it!  With Lord Bradstock?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes, sir, with his lordship."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Which way has he gone?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I don't think, sir, that I should be justified in
+mentioning which way, sir," said Ridley.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, yes, you would," said Gordon.  He put his
+hand in his pocket.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I do not think so, sir.  At least, I have doubts,"
+said Ridley, with modified firmness.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Gordon took out a sovereign and scratched his
+nose with it.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Which way?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Boston way," said Ridley.  "Thank you, sir.
+But I do not think you can find him or catch him.
+Could I assist you in any manner, sir?  Things
+are mixed, sir.  Have you heard the news that
+Mr. Robert sent?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"What news?" asked Gordon.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I 'ardly think I should be justified in repeating
+it, sir," said Ridley.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, yes, you would," said Gordon, as he put
+his hand in his pocket.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>And Ridley told him all about everything.
+Gordon knew very little beyond the fact that Bob had
+sent a telegram to Bradstock, who had sent it to
+the duchess, who had published it on the wires that
+the infant was not black.  And of course he knew
+the fresh London rumour that Penelope had
+adopted it.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Her Grace the Duchess of Goring is now in the
+palace, sir," said Ridley.  "And between you and
+me, sir, I should not be surprised if all the other
+gentlemen came.  I suppose you heard of the duel,
+sir?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"What duel?" asked Gordon.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I do not think I should be justified in saying
+which duel, sir," said Ridley.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, yes, you would," said Gordon, thinking
+that a Christian butler was a very expensive
+person to deal with.  And Ridley told him.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"You'll send me word to the Grand when his
+lordship comes back?" said Gordon.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I should hardly be—"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Of course, you would be," said Gordon.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Very well, I will, sir," said Ridley.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Gordon went back to the hotel, and Ridley went
+back to the others.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"He's not at all bad for a Jew," he said,
+contemplatively, "not at all bad.  I only hope that the
+Christian gentlemen whom I expect every moment
+will be as reasonable."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Before the evening was over, he interviewed with
+varying results Mr. Rufus Q. Plant, Mr. de Vere,
+Captain Goby, and Mr. Carteret Williams.  He
+knew that Lord Bramber couldn't come on account
+of the illness of the earl, and he heard that Carew
+was down with influenza and delirious on the
+subject of Penelope.  He told the others what he
+thought of them all.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Mr. Plant is a man I should like to meet often,"
+said Ridley.  "I have heard people say unpleasant
+things of Americans.  It may be true that they
+know little of cathedrals.  I myself have heard an
+American speak of our best Norman harches as
+vurry elegant Gothic.  I have known one voluble
+with hadmiration of a beastly bit of late perpendic'lar.
+But a man may know little of harchitecture
+and be a very worthy person for all that.  This
+Mr. Plant has ways that I've heard described as
+befitting a nobleman.  My own opinion is that very
+few noblemen have ideas befitting an American
+millionaire.  Dukes are often mean; earls also.  I
+am acquainted with one viscount who is viciously
+careful.  Mr. Plant is a gentleman far above the
+others, even above Captain Goby, who has a
+generous mind.  Mr. Williams is peculiar, but, for a
+poor man, not mean.  His second cousin, Lord
+Carteret, when I knew him, was as fine an
+open-handed, swearing nobleman as one would wish to
+meet.  Mr. Austin de Vere is peculiar; mad, I
+think, about dogs especially.  Young Mr. Robert
+told me he collected bulldogs.  He said it with a
+wink which I did not understand.  I wonder where
+his lordship is now."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>His lordship the bishop and Lord Bradstock were
+both cross.  They had drawn Boston blank, and
+found it too late and too hot to go on to Spilsby
+and Waynfleet and Burgh.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Well," said the bishop, "we have proved a
+certain amount.  She isn't at Boston."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Nor at Windsor or Manchester or Bristol or
+Plymouth," said Bradstock, whose temper was
+rapidly going.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I am surprised at you," said the bishop, who
+felt it necessary not to be cross when Bradstock
+was.  "We have also proved that a yellow car
+comes through here very often, mostly without
+disastrous results.  She is farther north.  We will go
+to Spilsby to-morrow, I think."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I think I will stay at home," replied Bradstock,
+"or at your place, and I'll read theology."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>The bishop raised his eyebrows.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"It will do you good, if you can understand it,"
+he said, a little tartly.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I do not expect to understand it," said Bradstock.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Then why read it?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Only to see if the theologians understand it,"
+replied Bradstock.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>It was quite evident that events were proving too
+much for Bradstock.  It was also evident that
+Bradstock was proving too much for the bishop.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"As a layman, you had better stick to Paley,"
+said the bishop, tartly.  "But let us return to
+Spilsborough.  I own my temper is a little touchy
+to-day, Bradstock."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Bradstock's heart softened.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Bishop, I apologize for touching it," he said.
+"Penelope is rather too much for me."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"She is too much for all of us, I fear," said the
+bishop.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>They took the train for home, and, as they moved
+out of the station, a man in the waterproof clothing
+of a chauffeur came on the platform.  He was not
+wearing goggles.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Bishop," said Bradstock, "that man is Geordie
+Smith."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Do you think he saw us?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"How do I know?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I didn't ask how you could know.  I only asked
+what your opinion was," said the bishop.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"My opinion is worthless," said Bradstock.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Dear me!" said the bishop, blandly.</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em">
+</div>
+<p class="center pfirst" id="chapter-xxiv"><span class="bold large">CHAPTER XXIV.</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em">
+</div>
+<p class="pfirst"><span>England was excited, and London was more
+excited still.  But Spilsborough was the most
+excited of them all.  How it came out, no one knew,
+but the fact that the bishop was hunting for Lady
+Penelope Brading, who was married, who was
+unmarried, who had an infant which was black, which
+was white, which was adopted, was blazed all over
+that quiet episcopal town.  Dean Briggs was very
+much annoyed, for the cathedral was no longer the
+centre of interest in the place.  The clergy and the
+choir and the beadles and the tradesmen all
+discussed Lady Penelope.  They stood in knots and
+fought and wrangled and argued till they were
+metaphorically black in the face.  The lovers were
+pursued by gangs of boys who knew their names,
+and expected them to fight when they met, and
+followed them around in the hope of making a ring
+for them.  All the world was aware that the duchess
+was at the palace.  As a result, every one called
+there who was on terms with the bishop.  It is not
+at all surprising that rumour ran fast, east and west
+and south and north.  It is not every day that a
+quiet cathedral town is the centre of a vast social
+cyclone.  Boston and Spalding had their eyes on
+Spilsborough.  Boston knew that the bishop had
+made an unepiscopal visitation there with a
+white-haired peer.  Spilsby heard of it, and was jealous.
+Spilsby talked of it and began to wonder who the
+young married lady at the Moat House was.  Spilsby
+wondered slowly.  In Lincolnshire things move
+slowly.  Lincolnshire is not fast.  Folks there are
+rooted to the soil; they consider matters firmly and
+stolidly.  And of course it has to be remembered
+that they belong to the see of Lincoln and do not
+think very much of Spilsborough.  Spilsborough
+was all very well, no doubt, but Lincoln was older
+and finer and much more wonderful.  Nevertheless,
+though the Lincolnshire folks are slow, they get
+there at last.  It was all very well for Penelope
+to call herself Mrs. Bramwell.  The Spilsby people
+began to see through the matter.  In another month
+they would have solved the problem, and would
+have given away the solution by calling Mrs. Bramwell
+"Your ladyship."  But this was not to be, for
+when Geordie came back from Boston, he went
+to Bob at once.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Mr. Robert, the gaff is pretty nigh blowed,"
+he said, earnestly.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Is it?" asked Bob.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Safe as houses," said Geordie.  "I've my suspicions
+that the whole show is up the spout, or very
+nigh up!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"You don't say so?" said Bob.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Blimy, but I do say it," replied Geordie.  "I
+saw that gaitered josser, the bishop, at Boston this
+very afternoon.  Her ladyship will be spoofed and
+smelt out.  Some one is givin' the game away.  I
+don't trust that bishop."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"No more do I," said Bob.  "He's very mean,
+Geordie.  He encouraged me to follow you so that
+I could tell them where my cousin was."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Bah!" said Geordie, "and they call him a
+bishop!  Her ladyship wishes not to be found out,
+and she sha'n't be—by a bishop.  I own I don't
+understand her ladyship's idea."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I do," said Bob.  "Suppose some one said you
+couldn't do something, Geordie, a hundred miles
+an hour for instance."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Geordie shook his head.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I'd show 'em!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"And that you wouldn't after you said you would."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I'd show 'em," repeated Geordie.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"And that you shouldn't?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Shouldn't be damned, beggin' your pardon,
+Mr. Robert.  I'd show 'em!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"That's my cousin's idea," said Bob.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"And a dashed good idea, too," said Geordie.
+"I hate interferin' folks worse than policemen.
+I'd tell her ladyship about this here bishop.  And
+Lord Bradstock was with him, sir."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"The devil!" said Bob, and he ran to Penelope
+bawling.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I say, Pen, you'll have to go," he roared,
+bursting into the room where Pen was lamenting over
+her many griefs.  "The bishop is after you.
+Geordie's seen him and Bradstock, too.  And I
+feel quite certain that all of 'em will be at
+Spilsborough now."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I won't go," sniffed Pen.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, but you must," said Bob.  "You can't be
+caught here now by the whole lot."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I don't seem to care," said Penelope.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, what rot!" cried Bob.  "You won't break
+down now, Pen, just in the middle of the game.
+I mean in the middle of your idea.  Just think how
+they'll crow over you and the baby."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>That roused Penelope.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"They—they sha'n't!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Well, they will, unless you've got the one you
+are married to here," said Bob.  "Or are you going
+to tell me who it is?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Pen snuffled sadly.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"How can I when we've q-quarrelled?" she demanded.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Then we'll start at once," said Bob.  "I'll tell
+Miss Mackarness and Tim and all of 'em, and we'll
+get your car and mine and we'll go somewhere else."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"But where?" asked Pen.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"What rot!" said Bob.  "You've got heaps of
+houses; any of 'em that are deserted.  Upwell
+Castle will do."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"So it will," said Penelope, helplessly.  "But
+we can't go to-day, Bob.  Baby is always asleep
+at this hour.  Can't it be to-morrow?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Bob shook his head.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"It's very dangerous, with the bishop on our
+track," he said; "it's very dangerous.  He's very
+determined, except in motor-cars.  In motor-cars,
+going fast, he's not at all determined.  But out
+of 'em he's a terror.  I'd go to-day."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"No, no, to-morrow," said Penelope, weeping.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>And Bob went away.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I wish Baker was here," he said.  "Baker is
+quite as determined as the bishop, and his advice
+would be very valuable.  I wish I knew how to
+treat Gordon.  I'm afraid he'll be angry.  If he's
+angry, he may keep my money.  Well, I don't care."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>He told Miss Mackarness to pack up, and Miss
+Mackarness said she would.  Miss Mackarness
+remarked that the world was not what she had
+imagined it when she was young.  It had in fact come
+to an end.  She said she was not surprised at
+anything and never would be again.  She said she had
+never been in a motor-car, but wanted to be in one,
+because death seemed quick and easy in a motor-car.
+She also said that if she escaped, and Lady
+Penelope was killed, she knew of a good opening
+in a lunatic asylum for a woman without nerves,
+who could not be surprised, and had been
+accustomed to the ways of the highest society.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, yes, yes; we'll be ready," said Miss
+Mackarness.  And Bob went away to instruct Geordie
+and Timothy Bunting, and he spent the whole afternoon,
+covered with dirty oil, dancing about the two
+motor-cars, while Geordie put them into first-class
+trim.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"We ain't going to be run to ground by a
+bishop," said Bob.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Not much we ain't, sir," said Tim.  "I'd
+sooner go in one of these machines, so I would."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>It was the first time he had ever said as much,
+and Geordie paid him a compliment from under
+the car.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"That's the first sensible remark I've ever heard
+you make, Tim," said the concealed chauffeur.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Thank you," said Timothy.  "I always said
+you were a good chap, Geordie, even if you was
+wrapped up in muck and grease."  And an idea
+came to Bob.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I know what I'll do about Gordon," he said.
+"I'll write something about this now so's to show
+it him afterward."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>He wrote:</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Pen is very sad.  I fear she has quarrelled with
+Gordon.  I'm sure she has married Gordon.  I wish
+she would let me send to him to come, but she has
+sworn me not to.  I think the baby is very like
+Gordon.  It is clever like him, only, being younger,
+not so clever.  I don't mind if it is Gordon.
+Gordon has been very kind to me, knowing how poor
+the family is.  I wish I was as clever as he is."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>He read it over carefully.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"He's more jealous of Rivaulx than any one.
+I'll put something in about him."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>He added:</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I think Rivaulx an ass because of balloons."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"That will please Gordon," said Bob, as he
+stowed his note-book away.  "But I do wish I
+knew who it is.  Women are very fond of secrets.
+They seem to like babies and secrets best.  Pen
+likes both together, and it's very confusing to any
+one."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>They started next morning in the two cars for
+Upwell Castle, taking the whole household.  Bob
+installed an old villager and his wife as caretakers.
+He had selected them himself on the ground that
+they seemed the stupidest people in the village.
+Bob was very clever, if not so clever as Gordon.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I think we've spoofed 'em, Pen," said Bob.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Penelope hugged her baby and wept.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Why are you crying?" asked Bob.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I don't know," said Penelope.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Then don't," said Bob.  "It makes me very
+uncomfortable."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>They devoured space, and Timothy held on to
+the car and to Miss Mackarness.  Miss Mackarness
+said it altered her ideas.  Tim said it didn't, but
+then he was very conservative.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Now, let 'em all come," said Bob.</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em">
+</div>
+<p class="center pfirst" id="chapter-xxv"><span class="bold large">CHAPTER XXV.</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em">
+</div>
+<p class="pfirst"><span>Titania fell on Bradstock's neck when he came
+back with the bishop.  She very nearly fell on the
+bishop's neck, too, which alarmed him very much
+indeed, though he had all that confidence with
+women which marks the celibate clergy, especially
+when they are beautiful.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"My dear-r Augustin," said Titania, "I came
+at once.  I felt I had to.  I felt I must.  There is
+no sympathy at home for me in my troubles.  The
+duke laughs, laughs in my face, and says Penelope
+is damn fine sport!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Tut, tut!" said the bishop, who was loath to
+think that dukes could use bad language.  "I very
+much regret to hear it."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Titania waved her hands at large.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"But I do not care.  I am wrapped up in woe,
+and in Robert.  Where is he?  Show me the
+telegram he sent."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>They showed her the telegram.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Not black!  Oh, Augustin, that might mean
+anything."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"So it might.  What did I say, bishop?" asked
+Augustin.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Nonsense!" said the bishop.  "I do not
+believe it is even dark.  This is all waste of time.
+Time cannot now be wasted.  This scandal grows.
+Ridley tells me all these unfortunate gentlemen,
+but Lord Bramber and Mr. Carew, are in the town.
+I have had telegrams from both of those asking
+for information, most excited telegrams.
+Mr. Carew says he is delirious with fever, and I
+believe him.  Lord Bramber says his father is
+delirious, which I much regret.  I think the son is also
+delirious, though he does not say he is.  He
+implores me to remember that he is entitled to know
+first where Penelope is, as he is her husband.  This
+is the telegram."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Augustin and Titania read it.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"If we could only believe it," said Titania.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"We cannot," said the bishop.  "Ridley declares
+they all say the same.  They also say the infant is
+an adopted one.  I do not remember, in the course
+of all that wide experience which comes to a country
+clergyman in a place like Ray Pogis, any situation
+equal to this.  As a bishop with a wider experience,
+I have seen nothing so absurd even in the conduct
+of my clergy, who are indeed hard to beat in
+stupidity.  I regret we did not go on to Waynfleet and
+Spilsby, Bradstock."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"So do I," said Bradstock, eyeing Titania.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"We will go to-morrow," said the bishop.  "I
+have an intuition that to-morrow we shall find her.
+I feel sure of it."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I will come with you," said Titania.  "I must!
+I must!  I cannot help fearing, Augustin, that the
+very worst may have happened.  I have now no
+confidence whatever in dear, misguided Penelope's
+morals.  I do not feel sure that the child is not
+black, or that it is adopted!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Good heavens!" said Augustin.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Good heavens!" echoed the bishop.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I haven't," affirmed Titania, dreadfully.  "No
+such thing has happened in our family since the
+time of Charles the Second, which was lamentable
+but natural, and has long since been forgiven.  I
+mistrust the general attitude of all these men,
+bishop.  I mistrust it!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Certainly they seem in great distress," said the
+bishop.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Titania rose and looked awful.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Only upon one supposition can I account for
+it, bishop.  This is their remorse.  They are
+remorseful.  They have treated her badly, and she
+has fled from them in her shame and will not see
+them!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Ha!" said the bishop, "there is something in that!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"A great deal in it," boomed Titania, in her
+deepest tone of tragedy.  "It explains everything."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>But Bradstock said:</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Infernal nonsense, Titania!  Bishop, I am
+surprised at you.  They can't </span><em class="italics">all</em><span> be remorseful."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Why not?" demanded Titania; "why not, Augustin?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Of course not," interjected the bishop, hastily.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Why not, I ask?" repeated the duchess.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, well, you know," said Bradstock, "when
+you come to think of it, wouldn't </span><em class="italics">one</em><span> be enough
+to be remorseful for having behaved like a scoundrel?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>The duchess collapsed.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Dear me! so it would," she said, weakly.
+"Now I come to think of it, one would be sufficient.
+Nothing is explained or can be explained till we
+find Penelope."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>The same feeling of desperation inspired the
+lovers in the various hotels.  Their hopeless
+passion grew upon them.  The sense of mystery
+deepened.  They were sorry for Penelope, for the others,
+for themselves.  What did she mean by it?  They
+were all agreed now about the adoption theory,
+though they stuck to it manfully that they were
+married to her.  Each one believed the infant was
+adopted, while he nobly claimed it as his own.
+They were really noble creatures, and showed
+themselves worthy of a better fate.  A peculiar feeling
+of sympathy grew up among them, as it does among
+the unfortunate who are yet strong enough not to
+be overwhelmed.  They spoke to each other again.
+Goby took De Vere's arm and walked about with him.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I wish I could tell you all the truth, old chap,"
+sighed Goby.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Ah, so do I," said the poet.  "A great passion
+is a wonderful thing, Goby."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"So it is, old chap," said Goby.  "Do you
+remember the happy days we spent in your home
+when we read Browning and Shelley together, and
+you explained your poems to me?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Austin de Vere sighed.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Ah, they were happy days, when my nose peeled
+on the water and my hands were blistered by rowing."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Do you remember the bulldog?" asked Goby.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Ah, and the terrier he bit!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"And the howling retriever?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"And the bald, bronchitic Borzois," said De
+Vere, with enthusiasm.  "I bought them all of Bob
+because she loved him."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I didn't like you then, Austin, old chap," said
+Goby.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Austin gripped his arm.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Plantagenet, we will be friends always.  Now
+I can confess that I loathed you.  I told Bradstock
+so.  I said you were an ass."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"So I am," said poor Goby.  "I admit now I
+can't understand Browning."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Austin looked about him:</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"My dear chap, no more do I," he said, in an
+alarmed whisper.  "He's a much overrated man."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I never overrated him myself," said Goby,
+sagely.  "Look here, Austin.  You know, of course,
+that I'm married to Penelope?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Of course," said Austin.  "And you know
+that I am?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"We'll quarrel about nothing now.  To-morrow
+we'll look for her.  Ridley, the bishop's butler, told
+me Bradstock and the bishop were going to Spilsby
+to-morrow.  I gave him a sovereign."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"So did I," said Austin.  "Let's go in to
+dinner.  I'm glad we are friends, Plantagenet."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"So am I, old chap," said Goby.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>At a near table to them were Rivaulx and Gordon.
+Farther off Plant was with Carteret Williams.
+Plant regretted that Bramber wasn't there.  Williams
+sighed for the artistic company of the delirious
+Carew.  Not one look of envy or hatred or malice
+passed between any of them.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Marquis," said Gordon, gloomily, "will you
+come to-morrow with me to find my—I mean,
+Penelope?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I will, my dear Gordon," replied the marquis.
+"To Spilsby."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"How did you know?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Ridley, the bishop's man, said it."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"He told me, too.  I gave him five pounds,"
+said Gordon.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I gave him four."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I'll bet he's told 'em all," said Gordon.  "I
+say, marquis, those were jolly, happy days before
+this misery came on, when you and I dined together."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"And went up in balloons," said the marquis.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Gordon shook his head.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Well, yes, even the balloons.  Do you know,
+marquis, I hated you then.  I don't now.  I think
+you a real good chap."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>The marquis held out his hand, and Gordon
+shook it.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Gordon, I used to despise you.  It was a great
+trial to dine with you.  I'm glad I did it now.  I'm
+a wiser, better man for the trials.  I see that Jews
+can be noble by nature just as they can be barons
+by creation.  I finally absolve Dreyfus.  I almost
+love you now!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Good old marquis," said Gordon.  "When we
+get up to town, I'll put you on the betht thing in
+the market.  I will, so help me!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Carteret Williams and Plant got on well together.
+They talked first of Bramber and Carew.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Carew's all right," said Williams; "all right
+for an artist.  I was in the Ashanti war with an
+artist once.  I put his head in a bucket of water!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Why?" asked Plant.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Because he was too drunk to draw," said
+Williams.  "He hated me when he got sober, and
+caricatured me.  I never liked artists afterward.  But
+when Penelope put me into harness with Carew,
+I found there was good stuff in him.  He could
+work.  He talked awful rot, but there was
+something at the back of it.  I had to own it.  How
+did you get on with Bramber?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I thought him a damn fool," said Plant.  "But
+I found out he wasn't.  There's stuff in Bramber.
+My—I mean, Penelope knew that.  I say, as he
+isn't here, poor chap, will you come to Spilsby with
+me to-morrow?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Williams started.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"How did you come to think of Spilsby?" he
+asked, suspiciously.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"The bishop's butler told me.  I gave him five
+pounds," said Plant.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I gave him two," said Williams.  "Yes, I'll
+go with you, as Carew isn't here.  I like Carew
+now.  Poor Carew!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"And I like Bramber, poor chap," said Plant.
+"And now I'll go and shake hands with the
+marquis, who wanted to kill me last time I was here."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I wish I'd seen that," said Williams, simply.
+"I like seeing fights!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>They spent a happy evening together and talked
+of Bob.  Austin was great upon Bob.  And so was
+Gordon.  Austin told them all about the dogs.
+Goby spoke about the spavined pony he had bought.
+Gordon told them how Bob had borrowed a
+hundred pounds of him to be put into something.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I owe him fifty thousand pounds, at least,"
+said Gordon.  "The boy is a financier.  I wish I
+had a boy like Bob."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>And just then Carew walked into the room.  He
+looked ill, but was as handsome as paint.  Williams
+jumped to his feet.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, Jimmy, I heard you were delirious," he
+said, anxiously.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I was," said Jimmy, "very delirious,
+extraordinarily so.  I'm not sure that I'm not delirious
+now."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>He looked around the room anxiously, and drew
+Williams into a corner.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Do you know anything about delirium?" he
+asked, anxiously.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"A lot about delirium tremens," said Williams.
+"Most of the artists I've been with in Africa had
+it.  They said it was malaria.  But have you been
+drinking?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Carew shook his head.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Not much, but I see the room is full of 'em!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Full of what?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Things, visions, phantasms!" said Jimmy,
+creepily.  Williams looked around in alarm.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"You don't say so!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes," said Jimmy.  "This influenza is awful!
+I could swear I see the marquis and Gordon and
+that ass Goby and De Vere!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Pull yourself together," said Williams.
+"They're here all right!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Are they real?" asked Jimmy.  "They're not
+delusions?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Devil a bit!" said Williams.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh," said Jimmy, "then I think I'll have some
+brandy.  What are they doing here?"</span></p>
+<div class="align-center auto-scaled figure margin" style="width: 61%" id="figure-109">
+<span id="jimmy-carew-a-r-a"></span><img class="align-center block" style="display: block; width: 100%" alt="JIMMY CAREW, A.R.A. He was the best looking of the whole &quot;horde&quot;" src="images/img-318.jpg" />
+<div class="caption centerleft figure-caption margin">
+<span class="italics">JIMMY CAREW, A.R.A. He was the best looking of the whole "horde"</span></div>
+</div>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"What are we doing here?" asked Williams.
+"We're mad!  Oh, but, Jimmy, I'm dashed glad
+to see you," said Williams, with a lurid string of
+emphatic war expressions.  "Those were happy
+days when I learnt about art with you, and you
+learnt about life with me!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"They were," said Jimmy.  "But now I'm
+almost sick of art."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Williams implored him not to say so.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Think of Rembrandt and Velasquez and Whistler!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I can't think of them.  I think of Penelope!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Try to think of Monet and Manet," said
+Williams.  "They'll do you good."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"To be sure, to be sure," sighed Jimmy.  "I'll
+try to."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>They talked till two in the morning, and the
+only man missing was Bramber.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Perhaps he's chucked it," said Williams.  "The
+last time I saw him he looked sick enough to chuck
+anything.  But I suppose the old earl is so rocky
+he can't get away."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I hate earls," said Jimmy, jealously.  He added
+with extraordinary irrelevance, "But I'm glad she
+adopted him."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>No doubt he referred to the infant.</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em">
+</div>
+<p class="center pfirst" id="chapter-xxvi"><span class="bold large">CHAPTER XXVI.</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em">
+</div>
+<p class="pfirst"><span>While Pen and Bob and the baby were going
+as fast as they could toward Upwell Castle, Pen
+wept at intervals and hugged the child that all the
+"horde" were glad she had adopted.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"My only darling," said Pen, convulsively.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Bob shook his head.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I say, Pen, I really don't understand you, you
+know!  I say, this is rot!  You mustn't cry; I can't
+stand it.  And you keep on saying it's your only
+one in a very silly way.  You irritate me very much,
+Pen!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Why, Bob?" asked the desolate creature at
+his side.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"You could stop all this if you wanted to!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Not now," said Pen, "since we've quarrelled!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Rot!" said Bob.  "You tell me who it is and
+I'll bring him along.  But I'm glad it isn't Timothy,
+you know."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Timothy was now with Geordie in the other car.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I can't tell you," said Pen.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Then don't snivel, please," said Bob, crossly,
+"or I shall drive into something and kill the baby."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh!" said Pen, "oh, please don't!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I think it's very hard lines," said Bob,
+"especially as Geordie and Tim know, and Miss
+Mackarness.  If they know, I ought to."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I had to tell them, Bob.  Besides, they knew
+him," said the incautious Pen.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Bob's eyebrows lifted, and he drove rather fast
+down the next straight bit of road.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I say," he said to himself, "I ought to make
+something of that."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>He thought very hard and did not speak for a
+mile.  He thought all the more.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Tim knows 'em all, of course.  And Geordie
+may, though I remember his saying he didn't.
+But who does Miss Mackarness know?  If I can
+spot that, I can spot the winner."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>He went back to the time of Pen's youth, which
+he only knew by hearsay, as he wasn't much more
+than born then, and went through the list one by
+one.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"By Jove!" he said, suddenly, and Penelope started.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes, Bob."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"No," said Bob, thoughtfully; "no, I'm not sure."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"What aren't you sure of, dear?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Him," said Bob, and Penelope sighed.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>After another mile's silence, Bob spoke again.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"By Jove!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"You said that before," cried Pen, irritably.
+He turned his eyes upon her, and she saw them full
+of strange intelligence.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, what is it?" she asked, in alarm.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Bob shook his head.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"You've told me who it is," he said.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I haven't."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"You have," said Bob.  "Pen, you're a wonder!
+I say, are all girls like you?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Penelope said she didn't know, and demanded
+his meaning.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"If they are, they're interesting but trying,"
+said Bob.  "You couldn't have made more fuss
+about it if it had been Bunting.  Pen, you are a
+wonder.  Well, I don't mind; I like him well
+enough.  He's all right.  I hope Bill will like him."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"You are an annoying, irritating boy," said Pen,
+crossly.  "And you know nothing."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Bar him and Miss Mackarness and Timothy
+and Smith, I'm the only one that does," said Bob,
+drily.  "I know you, Pen.  You were ashamed of
+him, after all you used to say.  All right, don't get
+angry.  I'm all right.  I'll keep it dark till you say
+pull up the blinds.  It's not my business.  But I'm
+glad I know.  For granny doesn't, and no one has
+guessed, not even Baker.  And he's had great
+experience with girls in all parts of the world, just as
+he has had with dogs."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Pen wept.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"You are saying all this to worry me.  How can
+you know?" she cried.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I'll tell you some day," said Bob.  "But because
+you haven't told me yourself, and have made
+me find out, I won't tell you who it is till I want
+to.  But one thing I'll say, I don't think your
+brother Bill really likes him."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>He whistled and let the car out till she fairly
+hummed.  Pen was exceedingly cross, and hugged
+the baby, hoping that they would both be killed at
+once.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I don't know what's going to happen," she
+said.  "I've done my best, and nothing but trouble
+comes of it.  If I had to begin again, I don't think
+I'd try to reform anything.  I—I hate reform!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>In the meantime Miss Mackarness's ideas got
+sadly altered.  She did not mind dying at first, but
+when Bob really went fast, it seemed to her that
+she loved life better than she thought.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"If I am to die," she said, "I would rather die
+in my bed, much rather.  I want peace, and my dear
+lady gives me none.  This young wretch is no
+better than a murderer.  He laughs.  I can't laugh.
+I can't even speak.  The wind stops my screaming.
+I want to get out and die quietly."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>They pulled up close to a village to let a wagon
+loaded with long timbers get into a side road.  Miss
+Mackarness seized her chance, and, opening the
+door, jumped to the ground.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"If you please, my lady, I'm going no farther.
+I will come on later in a cart."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Penelope remonstrated with her.  Bob was urgent
+and impatient.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"We may be caught any minute," he said.
+"Pen, let her come on in a cart."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"If you prefer it," said Penelope.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"My lady, I much prefer it," said the housekeeper.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Bob let the car go, and Geordie, coming on
+behind, pulled up to interview Miss Mackarness.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Sooner than go in one a mile farther," she said,
+firmly, "I would lie down and die."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"That's silly, ma'am," said Geordie.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I would rather live silly than die wise," replied
+Miss Mackarness.  "I may be used to much and
+past surprises, but I can't stomach these cars."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>They left her in the road.  And now they drove
+fast, for Bob set the pace, and made it a rapid one.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I say, Geordie," said Timothy, about twenty
+miles farther on, "don't you think you could go
+slower?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"How can I, with the other car ahead, man?"
+demanded Geordie.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Well, I feels queer inside," said poor Timothy.
+"I'd rather ride a bucking man-eater than go
+another yard.  Set me down!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Not me," said Geordie.  "Be a man, Tim!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I won't," said Tim.  "Set me down.  I'll walk."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Or come on in a cart," sneered Geordie.
+"Why, Mary here don't mind, do you, Mary?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Mary did mind, but she adored Geordie, and said
+she didn't.  She preferred to die with Geordie than
+to ride with Miss Mackarness in a cart.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I don't care," said Tim; "if Mary wants to
+die in a blazin' fiery mass of petrol under a wreck,
+I don't.  Let me down."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>And Geordie let him down.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"A mad bull sooner," said Tim.  "And, though
+I 'ates walkin', bein' a groom, I'd rather walk to
+hell than motor into paradise."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>But peace was established in the cars by now.
+Geordie and Mary sat side by side, and whenever
+the pace was hot, she grabbed him so tightly that
+he remonstrated.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"My dear, I'd rather you hugged me when we
+go slow," he said at last.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Lor', Mr. Smith, I wasn't huggin' you,"
+remonstrated the blushing Mary.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"To an outsider it would appear so," said
+Geordie.  "When a young lady puts her arms
+around a man's neck, it looks like huggin'.  Mind
+I don't say I object, but I </span><em class="italics">might</em><span> run into the
+hedge."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"What a very amusin' gentleman you are," said
+Mary.  "I've a very small opinion of Mr. Bunting
+except upon an 'orse.  I'm surprised he preferred
+to walk."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I'm not," said Geordie.  "I expected it, and
+if we went really fast, you'd want to walk."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Never," said Mary.  "I love goin' fast.  There's
+great po'try in a motor-car, Mr. Smith."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Poetry, well, maybe," said Geordie.  "To my
+mind, there's more machinery and oil.  I wonder
+what the next thing will be with my lady, Mary."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Ah," said Mary, "that's more than I can say.
+She's very sweet and kind, but I've give up tryin'
+to understand 'er.  And such an 'usband, too.  If
+I 'ad an 'usband, I'd like to show 'im off, if I was
+proud of 'im, and I would."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Would you be?" asked Geordie.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I 'ope so," said Mary.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I guess you'd expect him to do what you
+wanted, like my lady," said Geordie.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, no, never," said Mary.  "I'd do hexactly
+as I was told by 'im I loved.  I don't believe in a
+woman 'angin' on a man and tellin' 'im to do this
+or that!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>And just then a mighty fine stretch of road
+opened before them, and Bob, half a mile in front,
+turned his car loose at the top speed.  Geordie put
+his on the third, and Mary squealed.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Hush your row, my dear," said Geordie.
+"Why, bless me, what's the matter with the girl!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>She had him tight by the neck.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, I'm frightened, Mr. Smith.  Don't go so
+fast," she screamed.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Lemme go," gasped Geordie, whom she was
+nearly strangling.  "Lemme go, girl!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Never, never!" said Mary, settling on him
+tighter still.  "Stop, stop!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I won't," said Geordie.  "D'ye think I'll let
+that young un get away from me?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"You must," screamed Mary, "or I'll get out."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Then get out," said Geordie, rudely.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, you cruel, cruel Mr. Smith!" wailed Mary.
+"Let me down before I'm killed."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Geordie wrenched himself free.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"D'ye mean it?" he asked.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes, you brute!" said Mary, "I does mean it."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>He put her down there and then.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"You're no gentleman," said Mary.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I never said I was," retorted Geordie, with his
+eyes on the vanishing Bob.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"And I hate you, you coward," sobbed Mary.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"There's a village a mile up the road," said
+Geordie.  And he left her, disappearing in a
+whirlwind.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, I'm a sad, des'late, disappinted, jilted
+woman, with thin shoes and three and tuppence
+in my pocket," said Mary.  "And I don't know
+where I am!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>She sat on a pile of road metal and cried bitterly.
+She took it much harder than the bishop did in a
+similar situation.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Well, it can't be helped," said Geordie, "and
+I don't know that I'm sorry.  She'd have proposed
+if I'd kept her at the second speed, I know that;
+so perhaps I'm well out of it."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>He whirled after Bob and his lady, and soon
+caught them up.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>There was peace on that car, too, for Bob hadn't
+been able to keep his discovery to himself.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes, you're right, Bob," sighed Penelope.
+"But what could I do after what I'd said?  And
+what can I do now?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Cheer up!" said Bob.  "I'll fix it for you
+somehow.  Do you know, Pen, I begin to think that
+after all women aren't as difficult to understand as
+Baker says."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>They came to Upwell in the early afternoon, and
+were ignorant that the world was on their track.
+Bob sent a telegram to "Mr. Bramwell" as soon
+as they got there.</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em">
+</div>
+<p class="center pfirst" id="chapter-xxvii"><span class="bold large">CHAPTER XXVII.</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em">
+</div>
+<p class="pfirst"><span>The bishop was excited.  There is no doubt
+about it.  Nor is it any wonder, for the sporting
+element exists even on the episcopal bench, and the
+hunting of Penelope was peculiar and choice sport.
+The clergy of his diocese were moderately tame,
+and when he pointed his episcopal gun at them,
+they said they would come down, just as the
+celebrated squirrel did when Colonel Crockett raised
+his weapon.  Not for a long time had he felt so
+pleased with himself.  He was quite certain that
+Penelope was to be run to earth in the neighbourhood
+of Spilsby, and, when he had found her, he
+proposed to speak to her like a father.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I shall certainly suggest a religious ceremony
+in the cathedral," he said, blandly.  "Oh, yes, I
+shall insist on it."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"You'll do what?" asked Bradstock, who was
+with him and the duchess in the early train to
+Spilsby.  "You'll do what?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>The bishop rubbed his hands.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"As the one who christened her, I shall insist
+on a religious ceremony," he replied.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Will you?" asked Bradstock.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"To be sure I shall," said the bishop.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Did you ever hear of Mrs. Partington?" asked
+Bradstock, "or of King Canute, or of any other
+celebrated character in history or fiction whose
+insistence did not come off?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I scarcely understand you, Bradstock," said the
+bishop, with dignity.  "I can hardly imagine that
+you mean to hint, not altogether obscurely, that
+Lady Penelope will treat any suggestion of mine
+with disrespect."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Bradstock intimated that that was what he did
+mean, and Titania, who had got up too early and
+felt like it, said that she expected nothing from
+Penelope now but the worst.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I don't know why I am here, or why I am going
+there," she said.  "I cannot imagine why any of
+us are doing anything but hiding our disgraced
+heads in the remoter parts of the country, while
+Penelope flaunts a black, adopted, illegitimate child
+in some peculiar part of Lincolnshire, while she is
+being chased on motor-cars by remorseful
+scoundrels, of whom I saw about a dozen as we left
+Spilsborough.  Little did I think that I should be
+running after her with Augustin and you, bishop, while
+the duke stays at Goring saying she is sport, and
+Robert is with her when he ought to be at home
+with Mr. Guthrie learning to spell.  And as a result
+of Penelope's being away like this, that disgraceful
+Chloe Cadwallader, of whom I shall always have
+the lowest opinion, is living in her house in
+Piccadilly, and I dare say spending her money right and
+left.  The marchioness said she knew, on the
+highest authority, that this was so.  The marchioness
+always goes on the principle of believing the worst,
+though, of course, she hopes the best.  I hope the
+best for Penelope, but I'm sure the worst is before
+us.  I'm sure of it."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>The bishop asked her to cheer up, and Augustin
+stroked her hand to calm her.  But nothing calmed
+or cheered her.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I am calm," she said.  "I am even peaceful.
+What can be worse than the worst?  I am cheerful,
+for I believe there is a better world than this, in
+which even a duchess may find some kind of rest
+on the highest authority.  I shall be glad to go
+there, and leave you all."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Don't say so," said Augustin.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I do say so," said the duchess.  "I say it firmly
+and with faith.  You don't dare to deny there is
+a better world than this, Augustin?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Certainly not, in the presence of the bishop,"
+replied Augustin.  "Though, in looking out of the
+windows, I should not be surprised to learn that
+there is a more exciting spot than Spilsby."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>For they had arrived.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"</span><em class="italics">I</em><span> will make inquiries," said the bishop, "while
+you look after the duchess in the waiting-room.
+I see that my wishes have been attended to.  I
+telegraphed for a carriage to be in attendance, and it
+is in attendance.  I will speak with the driver."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>He spoke to the driver, who was much intimidated
+by the apron and the gaiters of the clerical
+dignitary.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"This is the carriage I ordered, I think," said
+the bishop.  "I want to drive to—to Lady
+Penelope Brading's house.  Do you know it?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"No, sir," said the driver.  "I never heard owt
+of it, sir."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Dear me, dear me!" said the bishop.  "Well,
+well!  But that is easily explicable, my good man,
+for my young friend is in the peculiar position
+of having several names.  This is rare; yes, rare
+I admit, but not altogether so very rare.  Can you
+tell me if there is any one lately come to this
+neighbourhood known, let us say, as Mrs.—Mrs. Plant,
+for instance?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"No, sir, there be not as I knows," said the driver.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Or Mrs. Gordon, shall I say?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>The driver scratched his head.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I never heard of her," he replied.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"How remarkable," said the bishop, smiling.
+"But I am not surprised.  Indeed, in this last case
+I am almost gratified, though I withhold my reasons
+for saying so.  Are you then acquainted with any
+one called De Vere?  No; or with a Mrs. Carteret
+Williams?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Light dawned in the driver's face at last.
+"Mrs. Williams!  Ay, sure enif.  She do sell
+sweets and tobacco."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Indeed," said the bishop, "indeed, how remarkable!
+But I don't think she will do.  Have you
+heard of a Mrs. Rivaulx or a Mrs. Goby?  Perhaps
+I surprise you in this part of Lincolnshire, but in
+London it is not at all uncommon for married ladies
+to have several names, not at all uncommon."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"No, sir, I never heard o' none of 'em,"
+returned the driver, thinking that this gentleman
+talked most remarkable "cat-blash."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Good heavens!" said the bishop, "this new
+custom is trying.  Do you then know a Mrs. Carew
+or Mrs. Bramber?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Again the man scratched his head and shook it.
+What did this strange person in gaiters mean?</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh! ah!" he said at last.  "There be a
+Mrs. Bramwell at the Moat House."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Indeed," said the bishop.  "Perhaps that may
+be the lady.  At the Moat House!  Do you know
+Mr. Bramwell?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I've seen un," said the driver.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"What is he like?" asked the bishop.  "Is he
+fair or dark, or tall or short?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"He's fairish to dark and betwixt and between,"
+said the driver, wishing to be accurate, "and mostly
+goes in big spectacles in his engine."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Ha!" said the bishop, "we are on the scent!
+And what is Mrs. Bramwell like?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"She do mostly go in the engine with specs
+on, too, sir.  But my wife do say she be a very
+fine woman."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>The bishop nodded.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I think you may drive us to the Moat House,"
+he said.  "I will bring my friends out."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>He rubbed his hands and congratulated himself
+on the skill with which he had discovered the
+object of his search.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I really believe I have found her," he said, when
+he entered the waiting-room.  "I really believe it."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"No!" said the duchess.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes," said the bishop.  "By a series of skilful
+questions and the exercise of a little pardonable
+deceit, I have learnt that there is a Mrs. Bramwell
+here, who is said to be a very fine woman, and goes
+out in goggles in a motor-car with her husband,
+who is fairish to dark and tall and short and also
+wears goggles."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Augustin nodded.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"This looks like—something," he said, hopefully.
+"Bramwell!  Perhaps really Bramber, Titania."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"No, no," said Titania.  "I expect disaster.  I
+anticipate the Jew or Williams."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"But Bramwell—the first syllable being Bram,"
+suggested the bishop.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I cannot build on Bram," said the duchess.
+"We are an unfortunate family.  Lord Bramber
+may be an earl at any minute, and she has married
+a coal-heaver, of course!  Let us go at once."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>When they got into the carriage, the bishop told
+the man to drive to the Moat House.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Did you say Moat House?" asked the duchess.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I did," replied the bishop.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Augustin, do you remember that Penelope's
+mother loved houses with moats?  I think the
+bishop may be right.  I tremble with nervousness."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>She had more reason to tremble in a moment,
+for a big motor-car shaved them and scared the
+horse.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Perhaps—" she cried.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"No," said Augustin, "it's Plant and Williams
+and Carew!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>The duchess gasped.  And before she could say
+another word, another car swept by them.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Perhaps—" she cried.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"No," said the bishop; "in spite of goggles,
+I recognize the marquis and Mr. Gordon and
+Mr. Austin de Vere.  This is very remarkable, and not
+a little annoying.  We shall all descend upon
+Penelope at once, and I fear it will somewhat disturb
+her.  I should have much preferred to see her
+quietly in order to bring her to a just sense of her
+peculiar, and our painful, position."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>When they got to the house, they found all the
+lovers but Bramber assembled at the gates.  If it
+hadn't been for the illness of the Earl of
+Pulborough, he would have been there, they knew.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, which is it?" moaned Titania.  "They all
+said they were married to her, and I know it's none
+of 'em."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>The bishop greeted the crowd in the most
+courteous manner.  He shook hands with those he
+knew, and bowed to those he hoped to know.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I think, gentleman, that, with your permission,
+I will go in first and see Lady Penelope before any
+one else does."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>And while he went up the carriage drive, Titania
+glared at the lovers.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Don't look at 'em like that, Titania," said
+Augustin.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Like what, Augustin?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Like a Gorgon, Titania," said Augustin.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I look as I feel," said Titania.  "I hate them
+all.  I shall not be able to restrain myself when I
+see Penelope.  I shall shake her.  I shall say what
+I think.  No, I won't be wise, Augustin!  I decline
+to be wise.  I am full of bitterness.  From her
+earliest youth, she has been a thorn.  And it is your
+fault; you encouraged her in reform, in anarchism.
+Don't speak to me!  I shall explode!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>And Augustin got out just as the bishop rang
+the door-bell across the moat.  Instead of the kind
+of servant he expected to see, he was greeted by
+a bent old woman, whose chief glory was her
+rheumatism, though her claim on Bob had been her
+stupidity.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Is Mrs. Bramwell at home?" asked the bishop,
+with a beaming smile.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Naw," said the old lady, not beaming in the least.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"No?  Then when will she be back?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I don't know," replied the caretaker.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"You don't know!  Will it be soon?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"She never said," snarled the old lady.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Did she go early?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Maybe an hour ago, maybe two."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Will she be back late?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Eh?  I'm 'ard of 'earin'."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Will she be back late?" roared the bishop.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"She didn't say."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"What did she say, then?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Nothin' as I knows of."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Where did she go, my good woman?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"She didn't say."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Dear me, how vexing!" said the bishop.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I'm 'ard of 'earin', I tell ye," said the old dame.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Who went with her?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"All of 'em, so I 'eard."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Who were they?" asked the desperate bishop.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"All as was 'ere.  There ain't one left."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Was a boy with her?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"To be sure, a young gentleman as fetched me
+'ere, and give me a shillin'."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"What was his name?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"'E didn't say," said the old woman, and the
+bishop wiped his fevered brow and tried again.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Was Mr. Bramwell with her?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I never seed un."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"How did they go?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"In two engines."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Ha!" sighed the bishop, "in two motor-cars."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Likely."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Will they be back to-night?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I 'ope not," said the woman.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Why do you hope not?" asked the wretched bishop.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Because of fifteen bob a week, to be sure."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Then Mrs. Bramwell has gone, has left?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Ain't I been sayin' so this last hour?" asked
+the exasperated old person.  "Me, with rheumatics,
+standin' on cold stones for hours arglin' that she
+and all have gone in engines!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Good heavens!" said the bishop, "she has
+escaped!  She has eluded us!  She has kept her word
+and has fled!  This is remarkable; it is annoying.
+I feel nearer losing my temper than I have done
+with any one but the dean for the last ten years.
+I must go back and tell them."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>He went back to the gate.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Is it—" they cried.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"This is her house," said the bishop, who looked
+rather flushed, "but I have discovered by a series
+of skilfully devised questions that she is no longer
+here.  Duchess, Lord Bradstock, marquis, and
+gentlemen, she went away this morning in two
+motorcars with all her household, leaving behind her no
+one but a caretaker who, in my humble opinion,
+ought to be taken care of in an idiot asylum!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>The duchess sighed.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Then she has kept her word!  Finding out that
+we are still pursuing her, she has fled from us.
+Oh, I think it wicked of her, wicked to all of us.
+When I get hold of Robert, I shall take steps to
+show him what I think of him.  Do you give it
+up, bishop?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>The bishop's eyes flashed with indignation.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Never!" he said.  "I propose that we pursue
+her at once.  She cannot have thought we should
+be here so soon.  If we find out which road she
+took, we may yet overtake her."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"In what?" asked Bradstock, with his hand
+on the ramshackle landau the duchess sat in.  "In
+this conveyance, for instance?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>The bishop looked at the two big motor-cars,
+and at their wretched owners, Plant and Rivaulx.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Taking my courage in both hands," he said,
+bravely, "I propose that we lose no time.  </span><em class="italics">I</em><span> will
+go in this car with the marquis, if he will take me."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>The marquis said through his clenched teeth that
+he would.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Bradstock, you will escort the duchess back to
+Spilsborough."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Certainly not," said the duchess.  "I am
+coming, too.  I must and I will.  Whatever the
+condition of Penelope may now be, it is my duty.  I come
+with you!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"And so do I," said Bradstock.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>They packed themselves in the cars, and moved
+away from the deserted house of the moat.  In the
+village they soon discovered that "Mrs. Bramwell"
+had gone northwest by the road to Horncastle, and
+a moment later the bishop said, "Oh!" as Rivaulx
+fairly launched his car into space.  Even Bradstock
+in Plant's car said something, and the duchess,
+losing the repose which stamps all duchesses the
+moment they become duchesses, uttered a scream.
+Gordon consoled the bishop, being very much
+pleased to find himself with one, by saying that
+he had been in a balloon with Rivaulx, and found
+him careful and very trustworthy.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I do not think any one who goes in a balloon,"
+gasped his lordship, "can properly be described by
+any such terms."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Williams said he didn't care if he was killed, as
+soon as Penelope had acknowledged she was
+married to him.  Gordon, who was desperately scared
+of Williams, said nothing, but gave the bishop to
+understand by signs that the war correspondent was
+mad.  Carew, who was still suffering from
+influenza, sat in his corner and wept at intervals.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>In Plant's car the duchess and Goby and De Vere
+got on admirably.  Bradstock sat by Plant and
+prepared to die.  The duchess held Captain Goby's
+hand.  De Vere said some poetry before the speed
+was very great.  Afterward he said his prayers,
+and wished he was at home with his bulldogs.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"What does anything matter?" he asked, as
+he clutched Goby's offside.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>And all of a sudden Rivaulx's motor pulled up
+so quickly that the bishop was nearly precipitated
+upon the road.  A scared, oldish woman in
+respectable and sub-freak garments had done her best
+to get run over.  Rivaulx swore terrible French
+oaths, and the bishop, who knew French far better
+than he dared acknowledge except in a literary
+conversation on Rabelais or </span><em class="italics">argot</em><span>, sympathized with
+him in awestruck silence.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"You accursed old lady!  Why?" demanded Rivaulx.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Hush, hush!" said the bishop, and, leaning
+from the car, he said: "It is all right, my good
+woman.  I hope we have not alarmed you."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Miss Mackarness said they had.  It was very
+hard to have got out of one car and then to be
+almost killed by another.  Then the car behind
+came up, and the duchess looked at the lady who
+had given her a little respite.  The duchess
+absolutely screamed again.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Augustin, it is Miss Mackarness!  I remember
+her well!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Who the deuce is Miss Mackarness?" grumbled Bradstock.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>But Titania paid no attention to him.  Her eyes
+brightened.  She became clever all at once.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I remember," she said, "I remember!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>She called to the stranger in the road.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I am so pleased to see you again after such
+a long time, Miss Mackarness," she said, kindly.
+"Are you still at Upwell Castle?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I'm going there now, ma'am," said the
+housekeeper, who didn't recognize her Grace.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Are you walking?" asked Titania, kindly.
+"It is a long way to walk.  You don't remember
+me, I see."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"No, ma'am," said Miss Mackarness.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I am the Duchess of Goring," said Titania.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, your Grace!  I beg your Grace's pardon,
+but, of course, you are," gasped Miss Mackarness.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"And I am going to Upwell now to see my niece."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Miss Mackarness gasped again and could not speak.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"To see Mrs. Bramwell, you know," said
+Titania, sweetly.  "Of course, </span><em class="italics">I</em><span> know all about it,
+Miss Mackarness."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"To be sure, your Grace," replied her victim,
+not knowing what to do or say.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Then </span><em class="italics">good</em><span>-bye," said the duchess.  "I hope
+you will enjoy your walk, Miss Mackarness.  It's
+such pleasant weather for a walk."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>They left the poor woman in the middle of the
+road, an easy victim to the slowest vehicle in the
+county.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, I've done wrong, I know!" said Pen's
+housekeeper.  "What shall I do now?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I said that on purpose," said Titania, viciously.
+"She has known all along, and ought to have told
+me.  But now we know all about it, Augustin!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"What about 'Mr. Bramwell'?" asked Augustin.
+Goby and De Vere turned pale, and the
+duchess threw up her hands.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I might have asked her!" she cried.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Captain Goby looked at her severely," said
+Augustin, "and so did De Vere."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Goby and De Vere denied it.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Never mind," said the duchess, "this time she
+can't escape.  We are on the track."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>They passed a man a few miles farther on, and
+only Augustin noticed him.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"You are right, Titania; we are certainly on
+the track.  That man was Timothy Bunting," he
+said.  "Pen has been shedding her retainers all
+along the road.  I suspect Bob of furious driving."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>A few miles farther, at the foot of a steep rise,
+they saw a young and pretty woman weeping on
+a heap of stones.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I wonder if that is another of 'em," said Augustin.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>It was Mary, whom Geordie had deposited on the
+road half-way between two villages.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Have two motor-cars gone this way?" asked
+Bradstock.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes, sir," sobbed Mary.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Why are you crying?" asked the sympathetic peer.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Because Geordie Smith is no gentleman," said
+Mary.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"That's Mrs. Bramwell's driver, isn't it?  I
+know her well," said Bradstock.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes, it is, and he ain't a gentleman.  He drove
+so fast he frightened me, and I got out."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"How sad," said Bradstock.  "We are going
+on to Upwell Castle now.  Can we help you?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I would rather walk to Australia than get in
+another one of 'em," said Mary.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"You are right," said Augustin.  "Titania, you
+are right.  In half an hour we shall see Penelope."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"And I shall see Bob," said Titania, viciously.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>But the bishop felt rather pleased with Bob now.
+He was in a car driven by Rivaulx.  And Rivaulx
+was desperate.  And when Rivaulx was desperate
+he lacked consideration for others.</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em">
+</div>
+<p class="center pfirst" id="chapter-xxviii"><span class="bold large">CHAPTER XXVIII.</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em">
+</div>
+<p class="pfirst"><span>As all antiquarians know, Upwell Castle consists
+of two wings and a kind of centrepiece joining
+two civilizations and two divergent schools of
+architecture.  The right wing is Tudor, and ruined;
+the left is Georgian, and habitable; the centre is
+nondescript and pseudo-Palladian.  It cost a great
+deal to keep up, and nothing could keep it from
+falling down.  Penelope's mother fell in love with
+it on first sight, and fell out with her husband about
+the price.  Its value has fallen since then, for
+landed property is the only stable thing which
+always falls.  There were pictures in it that
+connoisseurs gloated over, and some that picture-cleaners
+had restored till they were as valuable as a
+Gothic cathedral brought up to date by a resurrected
+Vandal.  There were carvings by Grinling
+Gibbons to be seen, and some that were not by
+Grinling Gibbons.  There were some rooms decorated
+by Adams that would have made Adam ill.  There
+was an oak staircase there that a thousand
+intoxicated noblemen had fallen down; there was
+another that no sober gentleman could go up.  It
+was ruinous, romantic, and rat-haunted; tapestry
+waved in its corridors, ghosts loved its precincts;
+there was a room stained with something that the
+servants said was blood, and that the skeptical
+averred to be port wine.  The only thing against
+the latter theory was that the dining-room was not
+stained, though some said it had been so flooded
+all over that nothing showed.  It was a delightful
+place, and Penelope never stayed there.  Miss
+Mackarness did, but then she was a Scotchwoman,
+and didn't count.  Bob adored it, but then Bob was
+Bob, and nothing could change him.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I'll fix this all up," said Bob, "and make her
+happy.  She's silly.  I'll blow the gaff, as Baker
+says.  She's up-stairs now, crying her eyes out,
+and making the baby bellow."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>He wandered about the grounds, and wondered
+where Mary and Bunting and Miss Mackarness were.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Silly fools!" said Bob; "the idea of being
+afraid of going in a motor-car.  By Jove, I wonder
+what's become of my man at Spilsborough!  I
+suppose those people in Regent Street think I've stolen
+the car.  What fun!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>He explored the ruined wing, and ruined it a little
+more, and came out again into the Queen Anne
+garden.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"By Jove, I do wish I knew where they all
+were!" he said.  "I wonder what granny is doing.
+Is she having fits, and Dr. Lumsden Griff to look
+after 'em?  I think Griff's a soft-soapy ass.  He
+says, 'Well, how are we this morning?'  By Jove,
+all the rest of 'em will have fits, too.  They will
+be sick.  But I'm glad they're out of it.  I wonder
+where Lord Bradstock is.  He'll pull my wig when
+he sees me.  And the bishop!  Well, he's not a
+bad old boy.  I rather like bishops, but their legs
+are queer.  By Jove, but it's fun having skipped
+and done them!  If they ever get to Spilsby and find
+us gone, they'll be mad!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>He walked around the corner of the house, and
+</span><em class="italics">paff</em><span> came a motor-car and made him jump.  Another
+one followed like a streak of light.  Bob went
+quite pale for a boy with a complexion like an
+ancient red brick, and made a bolt for the door.
+He was too late, for Bradstock and the bishop stood
+in his way.  Bob slowed down, put his hands in
+his pockets and whistled.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I say," said Bob, "how did you find this place out?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I own to being surprised and disappointed with
+you, Robert," said the bishop; "very much
+surprised and greatly disappointed."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Bob wagged his head to and fro.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Why, what about?" he asked.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"At your not returning, sir," said his lordship.
+"You treated me and Lord Bradstock, I regret to
+say, with great disrespect."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I'm very sorry," said Bob, "but I couldn't help
+it.  Pen—Oh, Lord! there's granny!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>The duchess intervened.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Robert, where is Penelope?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Bob hesitated.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Gone to—t-to London for Paris and Marseilles
+and Australia," said Bob, hurriedly.  "She
+said she couldn't wait, but had an appointment there
+somewhere.  And she said I was to say she was
+sorry if any one called."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Robert," said the duchess, severely, "do not
+keep your eyes fixed upon the distant landscape.
+Look me in the face.  Are you speaking the truth?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Bob wriggled and shuffled.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"No, I'm not," he said.  "It's a beastly lie.
+But she did say the other day that she would go
+to the ends of the earth.  And that's Australia,
+ain't it?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Bob," said the bishop, "this is very painful
+to me.  Speak the truth like a man."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I won't," said Bob; "it isn't my truth.  I
+won't give Pen away to any one."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>His vision cleared, and he saw the lovers ranked
+behind his grandmother and the bishop.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, Mr. Gordon," he cried, "do come and help
+me!  Would you tell if you were me?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"No," said Gordon, "no, of course not."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I always liked you," said Bob, "so I won't."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I command you," said Titania, looking at
+Gordon furiously.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"It's no good," said Bob, rapidly; "Pen's a
+great way off, far enough, that is, and I swore I'd
+never disclose the secret of her whereabouts to any
+one.  At least, if I didn't swear it, I said it, and,
+if I said it, my lord, and broke my promise, it
+wouldn't be honourable, would it?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I don't care," began Titania.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Would it, my lord?" asked Bob.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I'm afraid not," said the bishop, "though
+perhaps in the circumstances, which are very
+peculiar—"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Well, I won't," said Bob, "and that's flat.
+Goby wouldn't, I know, would you, Captain Goby?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>But the duchess waved Goby into the background.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I mean to have the truth.  Shall we listen to
+your foolish scruples now?  If you won't tell us
+where she is, tell us whom she has married.  Is
+it one of these gentlemen?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I won't give any of 'em away," said Bob.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Then you know?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Of course I know," said Bob.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Ah," sighed the duchess, "then she is married?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"She says so," said Bob, "and, if it's true, as
+I suppose, I know who it is.  But Pen, before she
+went up—before she went, said I wasn't to speak."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Bradstock smiled.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Titania, Penelope is in the house.  Let us go
+in," he said, and he marched up the steps.  Bob
+shook himself free from the duchess and darted
+indoors before Bradstock.  He bolted up-stairs to
+Penelope, and burst in upon her like a whirlwind.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Pen, they're all here, all the gang!  I couldn't
+keep 'em out!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Who are here?" asked Pen, in awful dismay.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"All of 'em, and the bishop and Bradstock and
+granny!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, what shall I do?" wailed Penelope.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I'll tell you," said Bob.  "Let's sneak down
+the back way and steal one of their cars now, and
+get away!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"No, no," said Penelope, "it wouldn't be
+dignified.  I must be dignified, Bob, I must be; I will
+go down and see them."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"No," said Bob.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I will," said Penelope.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"And tell 'em the truth?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Penelope started.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I can't, I can't, because we've quarrelled.  But
+I will see them; I must."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>She went red and white and red again, and once
+more as pale as dawn.  She kissed the sleeping,
+adopted, illegitimate, normal-coloured infant as he
+sprawled upon an historic bed, and went to the door.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Come with me, Bob."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I'll hold your hand, Pen.  I say, you shake!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Squeeze my hand till you hurt me," said Pen.
+"Now come!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>She swept down the big staircase, with Bob in
+tow, and found herself in the presence of the entire
+"gang," as Bob had called them.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Penelope!" said Titania, recoiling.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, Pen," said Bradstock, advancing.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"My dear Lady Penelope," said the bishop,
+sweetly, "do you recollect that I christened you
+at the early age of three months?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"No," said Penelope.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"No!" said the bishop, "no, to be sure, how
+could you?  But I did."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"It—it was very kind of you," said Penelope.
+Titania recovered herself and advanced.  Gordon
+and the rest hung about in the distance, looking
+as wretched as the ruined wing of the castle.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Are you married, Penelope?" asked Titania.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes," said Penelope.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Of course she is," said Bob.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Hold your tongue, Robert," said his grandmother.
+"And to whom?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I won't say," replied Penelope.  "I told you
+I wouldn't, and I won't."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I said she wouldn't," cried Bob.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Titania pointed her hand at the shrinking horde.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Every single one of these gentlemen, to say
+nothing of Lord Bramber, who is with his invalid
+father at the present moment, came to me and said
+he was married to you!  Every one of them without
+an exception!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I am very much obliged to them," said Pen.
+"In the circumstances, I think it was noble of
+them."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Are you alluding to the advertisement in the
+</span><em class="italics">Times</em><span>?" asked Titania.  "Are you aware that
+every one now says that you have adopted an infant?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"What rot!" said Bob.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Robert," cried his grandmother, "be silent, I
+command you.  I will not be interrupted by you.
+Are you aware, Penelope, that it is said all over
+England and Europe and the blatant United States
+that you have adopted an infant?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Penelope shook her head.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"It's the first I've heard of it," said Penelope,
+who was the colour of a rose.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Is it true?  Do not evade my question," cried
+Titania.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I don't see, granny, what right you have to
+ask 'em," said the irrepressible Bob.  "I sent you
+a wire to say it wasn't black, and it isn't."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Augustin, silence that boy," said Titania.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>But Augustin shook his head.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Don't you answer anything, Pen," said Bob.
+"No one has any right to ask you anything."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>He marched over to Gordon.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Don't look so sad, Mr. Gordon."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I can't help it, my boy," said Gordon.  "It's
+a horrid situation.  I don't care whether it's adopted
+or not.  If she'll marry me, I'll have her."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Bob squeezed his hand.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I ain't </span><em class="italics">absolutely</em><span> sure it isn't you yet," he said.
+"Pen hasn't told me all, you know.  By the way,
+Mr. Gordon, did that speculation come off?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Not so well as I thought by ten thousand," said
+Gordon.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, I say," said Bob, "but, after all, it doesn't
+matter.  I'll make fifty or sixty thousand do."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"You're a fine boy," said Gordon.  "But, Bob,
+I would like to strangle your grandmother."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Would you?" asked Bob, eagerly.  "I dare say
+Pen does, too.  Grandmothers and aunts are very
+trying.  At least, I find them so."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>The duchess's voice rose now quite above the
+limits of social decency, except when any one is
+playing or singing.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I will not be put off, Penelope.  You will say
+who it is, and you will be married again by the
+bishop in his fine Gothic cathedral—"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Mr. Dean's cathedral," interjected the bishop.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"With a proper service and the usual hymns,
+breathing over Eden, or I will stay here till you do."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Steady, Titania," said Bradstock.  "If she
+won't, she won't."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"But she shall," shrieked Titania.  "Gentlemen,
+which of you is it?  I am now entirely desperate;
+which of you is it?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>No one said a word.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Marquis, is it you?" asked the duchess.  "You
+said so before."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"How can I say?" asked poor Rivaulx.  "She
+says no one must."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Quite right," said Bradstock.  "Who will
+believe any one, Titania?  Let's have lunch and be
+friendly and stop this.  I'm very hungry, Pen.  And
+let's see the baby."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>The duchess shivered.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I cannot and will not see it," said Titania.
+"For by all accounts, it is an adopted illegitimate
+child.  If Penelope will send it back to the person
+she got it of, and own the truth, I will forgive her
+and have lunch, for I am very faint."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I want to see the baby, Pen," said Augustin,
+with his hand on Pen's shoulder.  "You know,
+Pen, they still say it's rather dusky."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Penelope was very indignant.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"He's not," she cried.  "They sha'n't say it
+any more.  Bob, tell that girl up-stairs to bring
+him down."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>And Bob ran up-stairs like a monkey up a stick.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I decline to see it," said Titania.  "A baby
+without a name is a terrible object to me.  It is
+an insult to the bishop and to the Church to bring
+one into the room.  I will retire into the open air
+and try to breathe again."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Goby assisted her outside.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"This is a calamity," said Titania.  "It's a
+catastrophe.  What is the truth, Captain Goby?  Are
+you a liar, too?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Goby sobbed.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"How can I say?" he asked.  "You know I can't."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>He looked out into the park.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Here's some one coming in a motor," he cried.
+They all ran to the windows.  But just then Bob
+and the nurse came down with the infant, who,
+though evidently awed by the number of creatures
+he saw about him, behaved like a gentleman, and
+not in the least like an adopted child.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I congratulate you, Pen," said Bradstock.
+"The mother must be a devilish pretty woman!
+Does she miss it much, Pen?  Oh, Pen, what a
+queer, mad darling you are!  I begin to see
+daylight."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>But nobody else did.  Penelope blushed and
+hugged the baby tenderly, while Bob danced around
+her in the wildest state of excitement.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I say, Captain Goby, come and look at it!  Mr. de
+Vere!  I say, marquis!  Ain't it a ripper, and as
+fat as a pup, and hardly a squeal out of it day or
+night!  Granny dear, won't you look at it?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"No, no," said Titania.  "I cannot, cannot bring
+myself to do so!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"You'll soon be jolly sorry, I can tell you,"
+cried the loving grandson.  "I'll bet you'll be
+sorry."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>He ran to Pen.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I say, Pen, give the kid to me, or you'll drop it."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Drop him!" exclaimed Penelope.  "Oh, Bob,
+is it likely?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Very likely," said Bob, "if you knew that I
+sent a telegram to some one just as soon as we got
+here!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Pen flushed scarlet.  But not with anger.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, Bob!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I did!  You ain't angry?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, Bob!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I don't care," said Bob, as he took the child.
+"I don't care a hang.  I'm ruined with all these
+jossers now.  De Vere will never buy any more
+dogs of me.  I say, who's that?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>A motor-car stopped outside the great hall door,
+and a gentleman in black got out.  He came up
+the steps rapidly, and stopped dead when he found
+all the world in front of him.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I thought so," said Bradstock.  "Now the
+catalogue is complete."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Lord Bramber!" cried the others.  Penelope
+stood in the centre of the great hall as if she were
+turned to marble.  But no marble ever had so sweet
+a colour.</span></p>
+<div class="align-center auto-scaled figure margin" style="width: 63%" id="figure-110">
+<span id="the-earl-of-pulborough"></span><img class="align-center block" style="display: block; width: 100%" alt="THE EARL OF PULBOROUGH. Clever; but indolent" src="images/img-361.jpg" />
+<div class="caption centerleft figure-caption margin">
+<span class="italics">THE EARL OF PULBOROUGH. Clever; but indolent</span></div>
+</div>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I believe it is now the Earl of Pulborough,"
+said Bradstock, gravely, to the newcomer.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes," he replied.  "Penelope, you sent for me?"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Pen fell upon his neck before them all and did
+not deny it.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>And, as they stood still in great amazement, Bob
+danced the baby up and down till that young
+gentleman made up his mind to roar as soon as he
+got his breath.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"This—this is Lord Bramber," howled Bob,
+triumphantly.  "Now admit you feel sorry you
+spoke, granny!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>He gave the baby to the nurse, and grabbed Goby
+by the arm.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I say, I'm awfully sorry, but it isn't my fault,
+Captain Goby, and Ethel Mytton is a very nice girl,
+and dead in love with you."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Is she?" sighed Goby.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Mr. de Vere, I've got a bulldog—"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Damn bulldogs!" said De Vere.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Bob seized Gordon.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Do you feel very bad, Mr. Gordon?" he asked,
+sympathetically.  "I almost wish it had been you."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"It can't be helped," said Gordon, gloomily.  "I
+never had a chance.  Come and see me in the city
+next week, Bob."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Rivaulx and Carew and Williams took their hats
+and slipped from the house, while Bob did what
+he could to soften things for them.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I'll come and see you all very often," he cried.
+"Good-bye now!"</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>An hour later, when Titania had the baby upon
+her capacious lap, and said how certain she had
+been the whole time that Bramber was Penelope's
+choice, Bob walked around the garden with the
+bishop and Lord Bradstock.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, it's quite easy to understand," said Bob.
+"After all she said, you expected she would marry
+some outsider, and you see she took the pick of the
+basket, and of course was ashamed.  Oh, I know Pen."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"You are a wonder, Bob," said Bradstock.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>The bishop said that upon adequate reflection he
+was inclined to agree with Bradstock.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Well, Pen's all right," said Bob.</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em">
+</div>
+<p class="center pfirst"><span>THE END.</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em">
+</div>
+<p class="center pfirst"><span>*      *      *      *      *      *      *      *</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em">
+</div>
+<p class="noindent pfirst"><span class="bold x-large">L. C. Page and Company's
+<br />Announcement List
+<br />of New fiction</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em">
+</div>
+<p class="noindent pfirst"><span class="bold large">The Flight of Georgiana</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>A ROMANCE OF THE DAYS OF THE YOUNG PRETENDER.  By
+ROBERT NEILSON STEPHENS, author of "The Bright Face of
+Danger," "An Enemy to the King," "The Mystery of
+Murray Davenport," etc.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Library 12mo, cloth decorative, illustrated . . . $1.50</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Mr. Stephens's novels all bear the hall-mark of success
+for his men are always live, his women are always worthy of
+their cavaliers, and his adventures are of the sort to stir the
+most sluggish blood without overstepping the bounds of good
+taste.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>The theme of the new novel is one which will give Mr. Stephens
+splendid scope for all the powers at his command.
+The career of "Bonnie Prince Charlie" was full of romance,
+intrigue, and adventure; his life was a series of episodes to
+delight the soul of a reader of fiction, and Mr. Stephens is
+to be congratulated for his selection of such a promising
+subject.</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em">
+</div>
+<p class="noindent pfirst"><span class="bold large">Mrs. Jim and Mrs. Jimmie</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>By STEPHEN CONRAD, author of "The Second Mrs. Jim."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Library 12mo, cloth decorative, illustrated . . . $1.50</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>This new book is in a sense a sequel to "The Second Mrs. Jim,"
+since it gives further glimpses of that delightful
+stepmother and her philosophy.  This time, however, she divides
+the field with "Mrs. Jimmie," who is quite as attractive in
+her different way.  The book has more plot than the former
+volume, a little less philosophy perhaps, but just as much
+wholesome fun.  In many ways it is a stronger book, and
+will therefore take an even firmer hold on the public.</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em">
+</div>
+<p class="noindent pfirst"><span class="bold large">The Story of Red Fox</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Told by CHARLES G. D. ROBERTS, author of "The Watchers
+of the Trails," "The Kindred of the Wild," "Barbara
+Ladd," etc.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Library 12mo, cloth decorative, with fifty illustrations and
+cover design by Charles Livingston Bull . . . $2.00</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Mr. Roberts's reputation as a scientifically accurate writer,
+whose literary skill transforms his animal stories into
+masterpieces, stands unrivalled in his particular field.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>This is his first long animal story, and his romance of Red
+Fox, from babyhood to patriarchal old age, makes reading
+more fascinating than any work of fiction.  In his hands Red
+Fox becomes a personality so strong that one entirely forgets
+he is an animal, and his haps and mishaps grip you as do
+those of a person.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Mr. Bull, as usual, fits his pictures to the text as hand to
+glove, and the ensemble becomes a book as near perfection
+as it is possible to attain.</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em">
+</div>
+<p class="noindent pfirst"><span class="bold large">Return</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>A STORY OF THE SEA ISLANDS IN 1739.  By ALICE
+MACGOWAN and GRACE MACGOWAN COOKE, authors of "The
+Last Word," etc.  With six illustrations by C. D. Williams.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Library 12mo, cloth . . . $1.50</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>A new romance, undoubtedly the best work yet done by
+Miss MacGowan and Mrs. Cooke.  The heroine of "Return,"
+Diana Chaters, is the belle of the Colonial city of Charles
+Town, S.C., in the early eighteenth century, and the hero
+is a young Virginian of the historical family of Marshall.
+The youth, beauty, and wealth of the fashionable world, which
+first form the environment of the romance, are pictured in
+sharp contrast to the rude and exciting life of the frontier
+settlements in the Georgia Colony, and the authors have
+missed no opportunities for telling characterizations.  But
+"Return" is, above all, a love-story.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>We quote the opinion of Prof. Charles G. D. Roberts, who
+has read the advance sheets: "It seems to me a story of
+quite unusual strength and interest, full of vitality and
+crowded with telling characters.  I greatly like the authors'
+firm, bold handling of their subject."</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em">
+</div>
+<p class="noindent pfirst"><span class="bold large">Lady Penelope</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>By MORLEY ROBERTS, author of "Rachel Marr," "The
+Promotion of the Admiral," etc.  With nine illustrations by
+Arthur W. Brown.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Library 12mo, cloth . . . $1.50</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Mr. Roberts certainly has versatility, since this book has
+not a single point of similarity with either "Rachel Marr"
+or his well-known sea stories.  Its setting is the English
+so-called "upper crust" of the present day.  Lady Penelope is
+quite the most up-to-date young lady imaginable and equally
+charming.  As might be expected from such a heroine, her
+automobiling plays an important part in the development
+of the plot.  Lady Penelope has a large number of suitors,
+and her method of choosing her husband is original and
+provocative of delightful situations and mirthful incidents.</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em">
+</div>
+<p class="noindent pfirst"><span class="bold large">The Winged Helmet</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>By HAROLD STEELE MACKAYE, author of "The Panchronicon,"
+etc.  With six illustrations by H. C. Edwards.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Library 12mo, cloth . . . $1.50</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>When an author has an original theme on which to build
+his story, ability in construction of unusual situations, skill
+in novel characterization, and a good literary style, there can
+be no doubt but that his work is worth reading.  "The
+Winged Helmet" is of this description.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>The author gives in this novel a convincing picture of life
+in the early sixteenth century, and the reader will be
+delighted with its originality of treatment, freshness of plot,
+and unexpected climaxes.</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em">
+</div>
+<p class="noindent pfirst"><span class="bold large">A Captain of Men</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>By E. ANSON MORE.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Library 12mo, cloth, illustrated . . . $1.50</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>A tale of Tyre and those merchant princes whose discovery
+of the value of tin brought untold riches into the country
+and afforded adventures without number to those daring
+seekers for the mines.  Merodach, the Assyrian, Tanith, the
+daughter of the richest merchant of Tyre, Miriam, her
+Hebrew slave, and the dwarf Hiram, who was the greatest artist
+of his day, are a quartette of characters hard to surpass in
+individuality.  It has been said that the powerful order of
+Free Masons first had its origin in the meetings which were
+held at Hiram's studio in Tyre, where gathered together the
+greatest spirits of that age and place.</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em">
+</div>
+<p class="noindent pfirst"><span class="bold large">The Paradise of the Wild Apple</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>By RICHARD LEGALLIENNE, author of "Old Love Stories
+Retold," "The Quest of the Golden Girl," etc.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Library 12mo, cloth decorative . . . $1.50</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>The theme of Mr. LeGallienne's new romance deals with
+the instinct of wildness in human nature,—the wander spirit
+and impatience of tame domesticity, the preference for wild
+flowers and fruits, and the glee in summer storms and
+elemental frolics.  A wild apple-tree, high up in a rocky meadow,
+is symbolic of all this, and Mr. LeGallienne works out in
+a fashion at once imaginative and serious the romance of a
+young man well placed from the view of worldly goods and
+estate, who suddenly hungers for the "wild apples" of his
+youth.  The theme has limitless possibilities, and
+Mr. LeGallienne is artist enough to make adequate use of them.</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em">
+</div>
+<p class="noindent pfirst"><span class="bold large">The Grapple</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Library 12mo, cloth decorative . . . $1.50</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>This story of a strike in the coal mines of Pennsylvania
+gives both sides of the question,—the Union and its methods,
+and the non-Union workers and their loyal adherents, with
+a final typical clash at the end.  The question is an absorbing
+one, and it is handled fearlessly.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>For the present at least "The Grapple" will be issued
+anonymously.</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em">
+</div>
+<p class="noindent pfirst"><span class="bold large">Brothers of Peril</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>By THEODORE ROBERTS, author of "Hemming the Adventurer."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Library 12mo, cloth decorative, illustrated . . . $1.50</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Brothers of Peril" has an unusual plot, dealing with a
+now extinct race, the Beothic Indians of the sixteenth
+century, who were the original inhabitants of Newfoundland
+when that island was merely a fishing-station for the
+cod-seeking fleets of the old world.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>The story tells of the adventures of a young English
+cavalier, who, left behind by the fleet, finds another
+Englishman, with his daughter and servants, who is hiding from
+the law.  A French adventurer and pirate, who is an
+unwelcome suitor for the daughter, plays an important part.
+Encounters between the Indians and the small colony of white
+men on shore, and perilous adventures at sea with a shipload
+of pirates led by the French buccaneer, make a story of
+breathless interest.</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em">
+</div>
+<p class="noindent pfirst"><span class="bold large">The Black Barque</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>By T. JENKINS HAINS, author of "The Wind Jammers,"
+"The Strife of the Sea," etc.  With five illustrations by
+W. Herbert Dunton.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Library 12mo, cloth . . . $1.50</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>According to a high naval authority who has seen the
+advance sheets, this is one of the best sea stories ever offered
+to the public.  "The Black Barque" is a story of slavery and
+piracy upon the high seas about 1815, and is written with a
+thorough knowledge of deep-water sailing.  This, Captain
+Hains's first long sea story, realistically pictures a series of
+stirring scenes at the period of the destruction of the exciting
+but nefarious traffic in slaves, in the form of a narrative
+by a young American lieutenant, who, by force of circumstances,
+finds himself the gunner of "The Black Barque."</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em">
+</div>
+<p class="noindent pfirst"><span class="bold large">Cameron of Lochiel</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Translated from the French of PHILIPPE AUBERT DE GASPÉ
+by PROF. CHARLES G. D. ROBERTS.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Library 12mo, cloth decorative . . . $1.50</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>The publishers are gratified to announce a new edition of
+a book by this famous author, who may be called the Walter
+Scott of Canada.  This interesting and valuable romance is
+fortunate in having for its translator Professor Roberts, who
+has caught perfectly the spirit of the original.  The French
+edition first appeared under the title of "Les Anciens
+Canadiens" in 1862, and was later translated and appeared in an
+American edition now out of print.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Patriotism, devotion to the French-Canadian nationality,
+a just pride of race, and a loving memory for his people's
+romantic and heroic past, are the dominant chords struck
+by the author throughout the story.</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em">
+</div>
+<p class="noindent pfirst"><span class="bold large">Castel del Monte</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>By NATHAN GALLIZIER.  Illustrated by H. C. Edwards.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Library 12mo, cloth . . . $1.5O</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>A powerful romance of the fall of the Hohenstaufen
+dynasty in Italy, and the overthrow of Manfred by Charles of
+Anjou, the champion of Pope Clement IV.  The Middle Ages
+are noted for the weird mysticism and the deep fatalism
+characteristic of a people believing in signs and portents
+and the firm hand of fate.  Mr. Gallizier has brought out
+these characteristics in a marked degree.</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em">
+</div>
+<p class="noindent pfirst"><span class="bold large">Slaves of Success</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>By ELLIOTT FLOWER, author of "The Spoilsmen," etc.  With
+twenty illustrations by different artists.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Library 12mo, cloth . . . $1.50</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Another striking book by Mr. Flower, whose work is
+already so well known, both through his long stories and his
+contributions to </span><em class="italics">Collier's</em><span>, the </span><em class="italics">Saturday Evening Post</em><span>, etc.
+Like his first success, "The Spoilsmen," it deals with politics,
+but in the broader field of state and national instead of
+municipal.  The book has recently appeared in condensed form
+as a serial in </span><em class="italics">Collier's Magazine</em><span>, where it attracted
+wide-spread attention, and the announcement of its appearance
+in book form will be welcomed by Mr. Flower's rapidly
+increasing audience.  The successful delineation of characters
+like John Wade, Ben Carroll, Azro Craig, and Allen Sidway
+throws new strong lights on the inside workings of American
+business and political "graft."</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em">
+</div>
+<p class="noindent pfirst"><span class="bold large">Silver Bells</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>By COL. ANDREW C. P. HAGGARD, author of "Hannibal's
+Daughter," "Louis XIV. in Court and Camp," etc.  With
+cover design and frontispiece by Charles Livingston Bull.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Library 12mo, cloth . . . $1.50</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Under the thin veneer of conventionality and custom lurks
+in many hearts the primeval instinct to throw civilization
+to the winds and hark back to the ways of the savages in the
+wilderness, and it often requires but a mental crisis or an
+emotional upheaval to break through the coating.  Geoffrey
+Digby was such an one, who left home and kindred to seek
+happiness among the Indians of Canada, in the vast woods
+which always hold an undefinable mystery and fascination.
+He gained renown as a mighty hunter, and the tale of his
+life there, and the romance which awaited him, will be heartily
+enjoyed by all who like a good love-story with plenty of
+action not of the "stock" order.  "Silver Bells," the Indian
+girl, is a perfect "child of nature."</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em">
+</div>
+<p class="noindent pfirst"><span class="bold x-large">Selections from
+<br />L. C. Page and Company's
+<br />List of Fiction</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em">
+</div>
+<p class="center pfirst"><span class="bold large">WORKS OF
+<br />ROBERT NEILSON STEPHENS</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em">
+</div>
+<p class="pfirst"><strong class="bold">Captain Ravenshaw;</strong><span> OR, THE MAID OF
+CHEAPSIDE.  (40th thousand.)  A romance of Elizabethan
+London.  Illustrations by Howard Pyle and other artists.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Library 12mo, cloth . . . $1.50</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Not since the absorbing adventures of D'Artagnan have we
+had anything so good in the blended vein of romance and
+comedy.  The beggar student, the rich goldsmith, the roisterer
+and the rake, the fop and the maid, are all here: foremost
+among them Captain Ravenshaw himself, soldier of fortune
+and adventurer, who, after escapades of binding interest,
+finally wins a way to fame and to matrimony.</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em">
+</div>
+<p class="pfirst"><strong class="bold">Philip Winwood.</strong><span>  (70th thousand)  A Sketch of
+the Domestic History of an American Captain in the War of
+Independence, embracing events that occurred between and
+during the years 1763 and 1785 in New York and London.
+Written by his Enemy in War, Herbert Russell, Lieutenant
+in the Loyalist Forces.  Presented anew by ROBERT
+NEILSON STEPHENS.  Illustrated by E. W. D. Hamilton.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Library 12mo, cloth . . . $1.50</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"One of the most stirring and remarkable romances that have
+been published in a long while, and its episodes, incidents, and
+actions are as interesting and agreeable as they are vivid and
+dramatic."—</span><em class="italics">Boston Times</em><span>.</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em">
+</div>
+<p class="pfirst"><strong class="bold">The Mystery of Murray Davenport.</strong><span>  (30th
+thousand.)  By ROBERT NEILSON STEPHENS, author of
+"An Enemy to the King," "Philip Winwood," etc.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Library 12mo, cloth, with six full-page illustrations by
+H. C. Edwards . . . $1.50</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"This is easily the best thing that Mr. Stephens has yet done.
+Those familiar with his other novels can best judge the measure of
+this praise, which is generous."—</span><em class="italics">Buffalo News</em><span>.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Mr. Stephens won a host of friends through his earlier volumes,
+but we think he will do still better work in his new field if the
+present volume is a criterion."—</span><em class="italics">N. Y. Com. Advertiser</em><span>.</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em">
+</div>
+<p class="pfirst"><strong class="bold">An Enemy to the King.</strong><span>  (60th thousand.)  From
+the "Recently Discovered Memoirs of the Sieur de la
+Tournoire."  Illustrated by H. De M. Young.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Library 12mo, cloth . . . $1.50</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>An historical romance of the sixteenth century, describing
+the adventures of a young French nobleman at the Court of
+Henry III., and on the field with Henry of Navarre.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"A stirring tale."—</span><em class="italics">Detroit Free Press</em><span>.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"A royally strong piece of fiction."—</span><em class="italics">Boston Ideas</em><span>.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Interesting from the first to the last page."—</span><em class="italics">Brooklyn Eagle</em><span>.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Brilliant as a play; it is equally brilliant as a romantic
+novel."—</span><em class="italics">Philadelphia Press</em><span>.</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em">
+</div>
+<p class="pfirst"><strong class="bold">The Continental Dragoon:</strong><span> A ROMANCE OF
+PHILIPSE MANOR HOUSE IN 1778.  (43d thousand.)  Illustrated
+by H. C. Edwards.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Library 12mo, cloth . . . $1.50</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>A stirring romance of the Revolution, the scene being laid
+in and around the old Philipse Manor House, near Yonkers,
+which at the time of the story was the central point of the
+so-called "neutral territory" between the two armies.</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em">
+</div>
+<p class="pfirst"><strong class="bold">The Road to Paris:</strong><span> A STORY OF ADVENTURE.
+(25th thousand.)  Illustrated by H. C. Edwards.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Library 12mo, cloth . . . $1.50</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>An historical romance of the 18th century, being an account
+of the life of an American gentleman adventurer of Jacobite
+ancestry, whose family early settled in the colony of
+Pennsylvania.</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em">
+</div>
+<p class="pfirst"><strong class="bold">A Gentleman Player:</strong><span> HIS ADVENTURES ON A
+SECRET MISSION FOR QUEEN ELIZABETH.  (38th
+thousand.)  Illustrated by Frank T. Merrill.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Library 12mo, cloth . . . $1.50</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"A Gentleman Player" is a romance of the Elizabethan
+period.  It relates the story of a young gentleman who, in the
+reign of Elizabeth, falls so low in his fortune that he joins
+Shakespeare's company of players, and becomes a friend and
+protégé of the great poet.</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em">
+</div>
+<p class="center pfirst"><span class="bold large">WORKS OF
+<br />CHARLES G. D. ROBERTS</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em">
+</div>
+<p class="pfirst"><strong class="bold">Barbara Ladd.</strong><span>  With four illustrations by Frank Verbeck.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Library 12mo, gilt top . . . $1.50</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"From the opening chapter to the final page Mr. Roberts lures
+us on by his rapt devotion to the changing aspects of Nature and
+by his keen and sympathetic analysis of human character."—</span><em class="italics">Boston
+Transcript</em><span>.</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em">
+</div>
+<p class="pfirst"><strong class="bold">The Kindred of the Wild.</strong><span>  A BOOK OF ANIMAL
+LIFE.  With fifty-one full-page plates and many decorations
+from drawings by Charles Livingston Bull.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Small quarto, decorative cover . . . $2.00</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Professor Roberts has caught wonderfully the elusive
+individualities of which he writes.  His animal stories are marvels of
+sympathetic science and literary exactness.  Bound with the superb
+illustrations by Charles Livingston Bull, they make a volume which
+charms, entertains, and informs."—New York World.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"... Is in many ways the most brilliant collection of animal
+stories that has appeared ... well named and well done."—</span><em class="italics">John
+Burroughs</em><span>.</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em">
+</div>
+<p class="pfirst"><strong class="bold">The Forge in the Forest.</strong><span>  Being the Narrative of
+the Acadian Ranger, Jean de Mer, Seigneur de Briart, and
+how he crossed the Black Abbé, and of his Adventures in a
+Strange Fellowship.  Illustrated by Henry Sandham, R.C.A.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Library 12mo, cloth, gilt top . . . $1.50</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>A romance of the convulsive period of the struggle between
+the French and English for the possession of North America.
+The story is one of pure love and heroic adventure, and
+deals with that fiery fringe of conflict that waved between
+Nova Scotia and New England.  The Expulsion of the Acadians
+is foreshadowed in these brilliant pages, and the part of
+the "Black Abbé's" intrigues in precipitating that catastrophe
+is shown.</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em">
+</div>
+<p class="pfirst"><strong class="bold">The Heart of the Ancient Wood.</strong><span>  With
+six illustrations by James L. Weston.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Library 12mo, decorative cover . . . $1.50</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"One of the most fascinating novels of recent days."—</span><em class="italics">Boston
+Journal</em><span>.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"A classic twentieth-century romance."—</span><em class="italics">New York Commercial
+Advertiser</em><span>.</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em">
+</div>
+<p class="pfirst"><strong class="bold">A Sister to Evangeline.</strong><span>  Being the story of
+Yvonne de Lamourie, and how she went into Exile with the
+Villagers of Grand Pré.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Library 12mo, cloth, gilt top, illustrated . . . $1.50</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>This is a romance of the great expulsion of the Acadians,
+which Longfellow first immortalized in "Evangeline."  Swift
+action, fresh atmosphere, wholesome purity, deep passion,
+searching analysis, characterize this strong novel.</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em">
+</div>
+<p class="pfirst"><strong class="bold">By the Marshes of Minas.</strong></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Library 12mo, cloth, gilt top, illustrated . . . $1.50</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>This is a volume of romance, of love and adventure in that
+picturesque period when Nova Scotia was passing from the
+French to the English regime.  Each tale is independent of
+the others, but the scenes are similar, and in several of them the
+evil "Black Abbé"," well known from the author's previous
+novels, again appears with his savages at his heels—but to
+be thwarted always by woman's wit or soldier's courage.</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em">
+</div>
+<p class="pfirst"><strong class="bold">Earth's Enigmas.</strong><span>  A new edition, with the addition
+of three new stories, and ten illustrations by Charles
+Livingston Bull.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Library 12mo, cloth, uncut edges . . . $1.50</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Throughout the volume runs that subtle questioning of the
+cruel, predatory side of nature which suggests the general title of
+the book.  In certain cases it is the picture of savage nature
+ravening for food—for death to preserve life; in others it is the secret
+symbolism of woods and waters prophesying of evils and misadventures
+to come.  All this does not mean, however, that Mr. Roberts
+is either pessimistic or morbid—it is nature in his books after all,
+wholesome in her cruel moods as in her tender."—</span><em class="italics">The New York
+Independent</em><span>.</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em">
+</div>
+<p class="center pfirst"><span class="bold large">WORKS OF
+<br />LILIAN BELL</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em">
+</div>
+<p class="pfirst"><strong class="bold">Hope Loring.</strong><span>  Illustrated by Frank T. Merrill.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Library 12mo, cloth, decorative cover . . . $1.50</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Lilian Bell's new novel, 'Hope Loring,' does for the American
+girl in fiction what Gibson has done for her in art.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Tall, slender, and athletic, fragile-looking, yet with nerves and
+sinews of steel under the velvet flesh, frank as a boy and tender and
+beautiful as a woman, free and independent, yet not bold—such is
+'Hope Loring,' by long odds the subtlest study that has yet been
+made of the American girl."—</span><em class="italics">Dorothy Dix, in the New York
+American</em><span>.</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em">
+</div>
+<p class="pfirst"><strong class="bold">Abroad with the Jimmies.</strong><span>  With a portrait, in
+duogravure, of the author.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Library 12mo, cloth, decorative cover . . . $1.50</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"A deliciously fresh, graphic book.  The writer is so original and
+unspoiled that her point of view has value."—</span><em class="italics">Mary Hartwell
+Catherwood</em><span>.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Full of ozone, of snap, of ginger, of swing and
+momentum."—</span><em class="italics">Chicago Evening Post</em><span>.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"... Is one of her best and cleverest novels ... filled to the
+brim with amusing incidents and experiences.  This vivacious
+narrative needs no commendation to the readers of Miss Bell's well-known
+earlier books."—</span><em class="italics">N. Y. Press</em><span>.</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em">
+</div>
+<p class="pfirst"><strong class="bold">The Interference of Patricia.</strong><span>  With a frontispiece
+from drawing by Frank T. Merrill.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Small 12mo, cloth, decorative cover . . . $1.00</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"There is life and action and brilliancy and dash and cleverness
+and a keen appreciation of business ways in this story."—</span><em class="italics">Grand
+Rapids Herald</em><span>.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"A story full of keen and flashing satire."—</span><em class="italics">Chicago
+Record-Herald</em><span>.</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em">
+</div>
+<p class="pfirst"><strong class="bold">A Book Of Girls.</strong><span>  With a frontispiece.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Small 12mo, cloth, decorative cover . . . $1.00</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"The stories are all eventful and have effective humor."—</span><em class="italics">New
+York Sun</em><span>.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Lilian Bell surely understands girls, for she depicts all the
+variations of girl nature so charmingly."—</span><em class="italics">Chicago Journal</em><span>.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><em class="italics">The above two volumes boxed in special holiday dress, per set, $2.50</em><span>.</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em">
+</div>
+<p class="pfirst"><strong class="bold">The Red Triangle.</strong><span>  Being some further chronicles of
+Martin Hewitt, investigator.  By ARTHUR MORRISON, author
+of "The Hole in the Wall," "Tales of Mean Streets," etc.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Library 12mo, cloth decorative . . . $1.50</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>This is a genuine, straightforward detective story of the
+kind that keeps the reader on the </span><em class="italics">qui vive</em><span>.  Martin Hewitt,
+investigator, might well have studied his methods from
+Sherlock Holmes, so searching and successful are they.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Better than Sherlock Holmes."—</span><em class="italics">New York Tribune</em><span>.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"The reader who has a grain of fancy or imagination may be
+defied to lay this book down, once he has begun it, until the last
+word has been reached."—</span><em class="italics">Philadelphia North American</em><span>.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"If you like a good detective story you will enjoy
+this."—</span><em class="italics">Brooklyn Eagle</em><span>.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"We have found 'The Red Triangle' a book of absorbing
+interest."—</span><em class="italics">Rochester Herald</em><span>.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Will be eagerly read by every one who likes a tale of
+mystery."—</span><em class="italics">The Scotsman, England</em><span>.</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em">
+</div>
+<p class="pfirst"><strong class="bold">Prince Hagen.</strong><span>  By UPTON SINCLAIR, author of "King
+Midas," etc.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Library 12mo, cloth decorative . . . . $1.50</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>In this book Mr. Sinclair has written a satire of the first
+order—one worthy to be compared with Swift's biting tirades
+against the follies and abuses of mankind.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"A telling satire on politics and society in modern New
+York."—</span><em class="italics">Philadelphia Public Ledger</em><span>.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"The book has a living vitality and is a strong depiction of
+political New York."—</span><em class="italics">Bookseller, Newsdealer, and Stationer</em><span>.</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em">
+</div>
+<p class="pfirst"><strong class="bold">The Silent Maid.</strong><span>  By FREDERIC W. PANGBORN.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Large 16mo, cloth decorative, with a frontispiece by Frank
+T. Merrill . . . $1.00</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>A dainty and delicate legend of the brave days of old, of
+sprites and pixies, of trolls and gnomes, of ruthless barons and
+noble knights.  "The Silent Maid" herself, with her strange
+bewitchment and wondrous song, is equalled only by Undine
+in charm and mystery.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Seldom does one find a short tale so idyllic in tone and so
+fanciful in motive.  The book shows great delicacy of
+imagination."—</span><em class="italics">The Criterion</em><span>.</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em">
+</div>
+<p class="pfirst"><strong class="bold">The Spoilsmen.</strong><span>  By ELLIOTT FLOWER, author of
+"Policeman Flynn," etc.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Library 12mo, cloth . . . $1.50</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"The best one may hear of 'The Spoilsmen' will be none too
+good.  As a wide-awake, snappy, brilliant political story it has few
+equals, its title-page being stamped with that elusive mark, 'success.'
+One should not miss a word of a book like this at a time like this
+and in a world of politics like this."—</span><em class="italics">Boston Transcript</em><span>.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Elliott Flower, whose 'Policeman Flynn' attested his acquaintance
+with certain characteristic aspects of the American city, has
+written a novel of municipal politics, which should interest many
+readers....  The characters are obviously suggested by certain
+actual figures in local politics, and while the conditions he depicts
+are general in large cities in the United States, they will be unusually
+familiar to local readers....  Ned Bell, the 'Old Man,' or political
+boss; Billy Ryan, his lieutenant; 'Rainbow John,' the alderman,
+are likely to be identified....  and other personages of the story
+are traceable to their prototypes."—</span><em class="italics">Chicago Evening Post</em><span>.</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em">
+</div>
+<p class="pfirst"><strong class="bold">Stephen Holton.</strong><span>  By CHARLES FELTON PIDGIN,
+author of "Quincy Adams Sawyer," "Blennerhassett," etc.
+The frontispiece is a portrait of the hero by Frank T. Merrill.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>One vol., library 12mo, cloth, gilt top . . . $1.50</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"In the delineation of rural life, the author shows that intimate
+sympathy which distinguished his first success, 'Quincy Adams
+Sawyer.'"—</span><em class="italics">Boston Daily Advertiser</em><span>.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"'Stephen Holton' stands as his best achievement."—</span><em class="italics">Detroit
+Free Press</em><span>.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"New England's common life seems a favorite material for this
+sterling author, who in this particular instance mixes his colors with
+masterly skill."—</span><em class="italics">Boston Globe</em><span>.</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em">
+</div>
+<p class="pfirst"><strong class="bold">Asa Holmes;</strong><span> OR, AT THE CROSS-ROADS.  A Sketch
+of Country Life and Country Humor.  By ANNIE FELLOWS
+JOHNSTON.  With a frontispiece by Ernest Fosbery.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Large 16mo, cloth, gilt top . . . $1.00</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"'Asa Holmes; or, At the Cross-Roads' is the most delightful,
+most sympathetic and wholesome book that has been published in a
+long while.  The lovable, cheerful, touching incidents, the
+descriptions of persons and things are wonderfully true to
+nature."—</span><em class="italics">Boston Times</em><span>.</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em">
+</div>
+<p class="pfirst"><strong class="bold">A Daughter Of Thespis.</strong><span>  By JOHN D. BARRY,
+author of "The Intriguers," "Mademoiselle Blanche," etc.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Library 12mo, cloth decorative . . . $1.50</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"I should say that 'A Daughter of Thespis' seemed so honest
+about actors and acting that it made you feel as if the stage had
+never been truly written about before."—</span><em class="italics">W. D. Howells, in
+Harper's Weekly</em><span>.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"This story of the experiences of Evelyn Johnson, actress, may
+be praised just because it is so true and so wholly free from
+melodrama and the claptrap which we have come to think inseparable
+from any narrative which has to do with theatrical
+experiences."—</span><em class="italics">Professor Harry Thurston Peck, of Columbia University</em><span>.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Certainly written from a close and shrewd observation of stage
+life."—</span><em class="italics">Chicago Record-Herald</em><span>.</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em">
+</div>
+<p class="pfirst"><strong class="bold">The Golden Dog:</strong><span> A ROMANCE OF QUEBEC.  By
+WILLIAM KIRBY.  New authorized edition, printed from new
+plates.  Illustrated by J. W. Kennedy.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>One vol., library 12mo, cloth . . . $1.25</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"A powerful romance of love, intrigue, and adventure in the
+times of Louis XV. and Madame de Pompadour, when the French
+colonies were making their great struggle to retain for an ungrateful
+court the fairest jewels in the colonial diadem of France.  It is a
+most masterly picture of the cruelties and the jealousies of a maiden,
+Angelique des Melloises—fair as an angel and murderous as Medea.
+Mr. Kirby has shown how false prides and ambitions stalked abroad
+at this time, how they entered the heart of man to work his
+destruction, and particularly how they influenced a beautiful demon in
+female form to continued vengeances."—</span><em class="italics">Boston Herald</em><span>.</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em">
+</div>
+<p class="pfirst"><strong class="bold">The Last Word</strong><span>.  By ALICE MACGOWAN.  Illustrated
+with seven portraits of the heroine.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Library 12mo, cloth, gilt top . . . $1.50</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"When one receives full measure to overflowing of delight in a
+tender, charming, and wholly fascinating new piece of fiction, the
+enthusiasm is apt to come uppermost.  Miss MacGowan has been
+known before, but her best gift has here declared itself."—</span><em class="italics">Louisville
+Post</em><span>.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"The story begins and ends in Western Texas.  Between chapters,
+there is the ostensible autobiography of a girl who makes her way
+in New York journalism.  Out of it all comes a book, vivid, bright,
+original—one of a kind and the kind most welcome to readers of
+the hitherto conventional."—</span><em class="italics">New York World</em><span>.</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em">
+</div>
+<p class="pfirst"><strong class="bold">The Captain's Wife.</strong><span>  By W. CLARK RUSSELL,
+author of "The Wreck of the Grosvenor."  With a
+frontispiece by C. H. Dunton.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Library 12mo, cloth decorative . . . $1.50</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Mr. Russell's descriptions of the sea are vivid and full of color,
+and he brings home to the reader the feeling that he is looking
+upon the real thing drawn by one who has seen the scenes and
+writes from knowledge."—</span><em class="italics">Brooklyn Eagle</em><span>.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Every page is readable and exciting."—</span><em class="italics">Baltimore Herald</em><span>.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"This story may be considered as one of the best of his excellent
+tales of the sea."—</span><em class="italics">Chicago Post</em><span>.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"There are suggestions of Marryat in it, and reminders of Charles
+Reade, but mostly it is Clark Russell, with his delightful descriptions
+and irresistible sea yarns."—</span><em class="italics">Phila. North American</em><span>.</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em">
+</div>
+<p class="pfirst"><strong class="bold">The Mate of the Good Ship York.</strong><span>  By
+W. CLARK RUSSELL, author of "The Wreck of the Grosvenor,"
+etc.  With a frontispiece by C. H. Dunton.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Library 12mo, cloth decorative . . . $1.50</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"One of the breeziest, most absorbing books that have come to
+our table is W. Clark Russell's 'The Mate of the Good Ship
+York.'"—</span><em class="italics">Buffalo Commercial</em><span>.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"For a rousing, absorbing, and, withal, a truthful tale of the sea,
+commend me to W. Clark Russell.  His novel, 'The Mate of the
+Good Ship York,' is one of the best, and the love romance that runs
+through it will be appreciated by every one."—</span><em class="italics">Philadelphia North
+American</em><span>.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Romantic adventures, hairbreadth escapes, and astounding
+achievements keep things spinning at a lively rate and hold the
+reader's attention throughout the breezy narrative."—</span><em class="italics">Toledo Blade</em><span>.</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em">
+</div>
+<p class="pfirst"><strong class="bold">The Golden Kingdom.</strong><span>  By ANDREW BALFOUR,
+author of "Vengeance Is Mine," "To Arms!" etc.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Library 12mo, cloth decorative . . . $1.50</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>This is a story of adventure on land and sea, beginning in
+England and ending in South Africa, in the last days of the
+seventeenth century.  The scheme of the tale at once puts
+the reader in mind of Stevenson's "Treasure Island."</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Every one imbued with the spirit of adventure and with a broad
+imaginative faculty will want to read this tale."—</span><em class="italics">Boston Transcript</em><span>.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"'The Golden Kingdom' is the rarest adventure book of them
+all."—</span><em class="italics">N. Y. World</em><span>.</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em">
+</div>
+<p class="pfirst"><strong class="bold">The Schemers: A Tale of Modern Life.</strong></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>By EDWARD F. HARKINS, author of "Little Pilgrimages
+Among the Men Who Have Written Famous Books," etc.
+With a frontispiece by Ernest Fosbery.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Library 12mo, cloth . . . $1.50</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>A story of a new and real phase of social life in Boston,
+skilfully and daringly handled.  There is plenty of life and
+color abounding, and a diversity of characters—shop-girls,
+society belles, men about town, city politicians, and others.
+The various schemers and their schemes will be followed with
+interest, and there will be some discerning readers who may
+claim to recognize in certain points of the story certain
+happenings in the shopping and the society circles of the Hub.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"A faithful delineation of real shop-girl life."—</span><em class="italics">Milwaukee
+Sentinel</em><span>.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"This comes nearer to the actual life of a modern American city,
+with all its complexities, than any other work of American fiction.
+The book shows an unusual power of observation and a still more
+unusual power to concentrate and interpret what is
+observed."—</span><em class="italics">St. Louis Star</em><span>.</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em">
+</div>
+<p class="pfirst"><strong class="bold">The Promotion of The Admiral.</strong><span>  By
+MORLEY ROBERTS, author of "The Colossus," "The Fugitives,"
+"Sons of Empire," etc.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>Library 12mo, cloth decorative, illustrated . . . $1.50</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>This volume contains half a dozen stories of sea life,—fresh,
+racy, and bracing,—all laid in America,—stories full
+of rollicking, jolly, sea-dog humor, tempered to the keen edge of
+wit.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"If any one writes better sea stories than Mr. Roberts, we don't
+know who it is; and if there is a better sea story of its kind than
+this it would be a joy to have the pleasure of reading it."—</span><em class="italics">New
+York Sun</em><span>.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"To read these stories is a tonic for the mind; the stories are
+gems, and for pith and vigor of description they are
+unequalled."—</span><em class="italics">New York Commercial Advertiser</em><span>.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"There is a hearty laugh in every one of these stories."—</span><em class="italics">The
+Reader</em><span>.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"Mr. Roberts treats the life of the sea in a way that is intensely
+real and intensely human."—</span><em class="italics">Milwaukee Sentinel</em><span>.</span></p>
+<p class="pnext"><span>"The author knows his sea men from A to Z."—</span><em class="italics">Philadelphia
+North American</em><span>.</span></p>
+<div class="vspace" style="height: 6em">
+</div>
+<!-- -*- encoding: utf-8 -*- -->
+<div class="backmatter">
+</div>
+<p class="pfirst" id="pg-end-line"><span>*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK </span><span>LADY PENELOPE</span><span> ***</span></p>
+<div class="cleardoublepage">
+</div>
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+</html>
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@@ -0,0 +1,13363 @@
+.. -*- encoding: utf-8 -*-

+

+.. meta::

+   :PG.Id: 45648

+   :PG.Title: Lady Penelope

+   :PG.Released: 2014-05-14

+   :PG.Rights: Public Domain

+   :PG.Producer: Al Haines

+   :DC.Creator: Morley Roberts

+   :MARCREL.ill: Arthur William Brown

+   :DC.Title: Lady Penelope

+   :DC.Language: en

+   :DC.Created: 1904

+   :coverpage: images/img-cover.jpg

+

+=============

+LADY PENELOPE

+=============

+

+.. clearpage::

+

+.. pgheader::

+

+.. container:: coverpage

+

+   .. vspace:: 3

+

+   .. _`Cover art`:

+

+   .. figure:: images/img-cover.jpg

+      :align: center

+      :alt: Cover art

+

+      Cover art

+

+   .. vspace:: 4

+

+.. container:: frontispiece

+

+   .. _`LADY PENELOPE BRADING`:

+

+   .. figure:: images/img-front.jpg

+      :align: center

+      :alt: LADY PENELOPE BRADING Who had ideas of her own

+

+      LADY PENELOPE BRADING Who had ideas of her own

+

+.. vspace:: 4

+

+.. container:: titlepage center white-space-pre-line

+

+   .. class:: x-large

+

+      Lady Penelope

+

+   .. vspace:: 2

+

+   .. class:: medium

+

+      By

+

+   .. class:: large

+

+      Morley Roberts

+

+   .. class:: small

+

+      *Author of* "Rachel Marr," "The Promotion of

+      the Admiral," etc.

+

+   .. vspace:: 3

+

+   .. class:: medium

+

+      *Illustrated by*

+      Arthur William Brown

+

+   .. vspace:: 3

+

+   .. class:: medium

+

+      \L. \C. Page & Company

+      *Boston*

+      *Mdccccv*

+

+   .. vspace:: 4

+

+.. container:: verso center white-space-pre-line

+

+   .. class:: small

+

+      *Copyright, 1904, 1903*

+      BY \L. \C. PAGE & COMPANY

+      (INCORPORATED)

+

+   .. vspace:: 1

+

+   .. class:: small

+

+      *All rights reserved*

+

+   .. vspace:: 2

+

+   .. class:: small

+

+      Published February, 1905

+

+   .. vspace:: 1

+

+   .. class:: small

+

+      *COLONIAL PRESS

+      Electrotyped and Printed by \C. \H. Simonds & Co.

+      Boston, Mass., U.S.A.*

+

+   .. vspace:: 4

+

+.. class:: center large bold

+

+   LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

+

+.. vspace:: 2

+

+.. class:: noindent white-space-pre-line

+

+`LADY PENELOPE BRADING`_ . . . . . . . . . *Frontispiece*

+   Who had ideas of her own.

+

+.. class:: noindent white-space-pre-line

+

+`CAPTAIN PLANTAGENET GOBY, V.C., LATE OF THE GUARDS`_

+   Who was ordered to read poetry.

+

+.. class:: noindent white-space-pre-line

+

+`LEOPOLD NORFOLK GORDON`_

+   Some said his real name was Isaac Levi.

+

+.. class:: noindent white-space-pre-line

+

+`AUSTIN DE VERE`_

+   He wrote poetry, and abhorred bulldogs and motor-cars.

+

+.. class:: noindent white-space-pre-line

+

+`THE MARQUIS DE RIVAULX`_

+   Anti-Semite to his manicured finger-tips.

+

+.. class:: noindent white-space-pre-line

+

+`RUFUS Q. PLANT`_

+   Born in Virginia.

+

+.. class:: noindent white-space-pre-line

+

+`CARTERET WILLIAMS, WAR CORRESPONDENT`_

+   He wrote with a red picturesqueness which was horribly attractive.

+

+.. class:: noindent white-space-pre-line

+

+`JIMMY CAREW, A.R.A.`_

+   He was the best looking of the whole "horde"

+

+.. class:: noindent white-space-pre-line

+

+`THE EARL OF PULBOROUGH`_

+   Clever; but indolent.

+

+

+

+

+

+.. vspace:: 4

+

+.. _`CHAPTER I.`:

+

+.. class:: center x-large bold

+

+   LADY PENELOPE

+

+.. vspace:: 3

+

+.. class:: center large bold

+

+   CHAPTER I.

+

+.. vspace:: 2

+

+All the absurd birthday celebrations were over,

+and Penelope was twenty-one.

+

+She declared that her whole life was to be

+devoted to reform.  She meant to reform society,

+to make it good and useful and straightforward,

+and simple and utterly delightful.

+

+She let it be understood that men were in great

+need of her particular attention.  They were too

+selfish and self-centred, too extravagant, too

+critical of each other, too vain.  They acknowledged

+it humbly when she mentioned it, for Lady Penelope

+Brading's beauty was something to see and to talk

+of; major and minor poets agreed about it; artists

+desired to paint her and failed, as they always do

+when true loveliness shines on them.  She had the

+colour of a Titian; the contours of a Correggio;

+the witchery of a Reynolds, and under wonderful

+raiment the muscles of a young Greek athlete.  She

+wiped out any society in which she moved.  When

+sweet Eclipse showed herself, the rest were

+nowhere.  The other girls did not exist; she even

+made married beauties quake; as for the men, they

+endured everything she said, and worshipped her

+all the more.  She was strange and new and a tonic.

+She had no sense of humour whatsoever; she could

+not understand a joke even if it was explained by

+an expert on the staff of *Punch*.  This made her

+utterly delightful.  Her beautiful seriousness was

+as refreshing as logic in a sermon.  She believed

+in clergymen, in politicians, in the Deceased Wife's

+Sister, in all eminent physicians, in the London

+County Council, in the City of Westminster, in the

+British Constitution, in herself, and hygiene.  She

+read the *Times*, the *Athenæum*, the Encyclopædia

+Britannica, Herbert Spencer, Mr. Kidd, and the

+late Mr. Drummond.  She used Sandow's exercises

+and cold water.  She was opposed to war; she

+admired the leader of the opposition and the lord

+mayor; she subscribed to a society for establishing

+a national theatre to play Mr. Bernard Shaw's

+tragedies, and to the nearest hospital.  She was the

+most delightful person in England, and was against

+vaccination.  She had money and lands and houses

+and ideas.

+

+"We ought all to do something; to be

+something," said Lady Penelope Brading.

+

+It was an amazing statement, a shocking statement,

+and clean against all class tradition when

+she interpreted it to the alarmed.  Was it not to

+be something if one was rich, let us say?  Was

+it not to do something if one spent one's money on

+horses and sport and dress and bridge?  Heaven

+defend us all if anything more is asked of man or

+woman than killing time and killing beasts!  Hands

+went up to heaven when Penelope preached.

+

+Not that she preached at length.  Her sermons

+lasted five seconds by any clock, save at the times

+when she warmed her ankles by the fire with some

+pet friend of hers, and took into consideration how

+she was to use her power for the regeneration of

+the world which was hers.  Now she was with

+Ethel Mytton, a remote relative of the celebrated

+Mytton who drank eight bottles of port a day, and

+was a sportsman of the character which makes all

+Englishmen prouder of sport than of their history.

+Ten thousand on a football field would put him

+higher than Sir Richard Grenville.  Sidney was a

+fool to him.  Her father was a cabinet minister.

+

+But Ethel was meek and mild, and followed

+Penelope at a humble distance, modelling herself

+on that sweet mould of revolution.  So might a

+penny candle imitate an arc-light; so a glowworm

+worship the big moon.

+

+"But you'll get married, dear," said Ethel, "of

+course you'll get married."

+

+Penelope was pensive.

+

+"There are other things than marriage," said

+Penelope.

+

+"Oh, are there?" sighed Ethel.  She did not

+think so, for she was in love.  Penelope loved

+theories best.

+

+"Which of them will you marry?" asked Ethel.

+

+"Which what?"

+

+"Silly, them," said Ethel.  "What the duchess

+calls your 'horde.'"

+

+"I don't know," replied Penelope.  "I'm like

+Diogenes, and I'm looking for an honest man."

+

+"Oh, honesty,—yes, of course, I know what

+you mean.  But there are plenty of them, Pen dear.

+

+"Boo!" said Pen; "so the other Greeks said to

+the man in the tub."

+

+Ethel sighed.

+

+"What Greeks and what man in what tub?" she

+inquired, plaintively.

+

+And Penelope did not enlighten her darkness, for

+in came the Duchess of Goring, her aunt, whose

+Christian name was Titania.  She weighed sixteen

+stone in glittering bead armour, and had a voice

+exactly like Rose Le Clerc's in "The Duchess of

+Bayswater."  She rarely stopped talking, and was

+ridiculously moral and conventional, and, except

+for her voice, she might have been a shopkeeper's

+wife in any suburb.

+

+"My dear Penelope," said Titania, "I'm glad to

+see you again.  You look positively sweet, my

+darling, after all these parties and carryings-on, and

+what not, and now at last you are quite grown up

+and yourself and your own and twenty-one.  I wish

+I was.  I was nine stone then exactly,—not a

+pound more.  Oh, and it's you, Ethel.  I hope your

+dear papa is not overworking himself, now he's a

+cabinet minister.  Cabinet ministers will overwork

+themselves.  I've known them die of it.  Tell him

+what I say, will you?  But of course he will pay

+no attention, and in time will die like the rest.

+It's no use advising men to be sensible.  I've given

+it up.  Ah, here at last is Lord Bradstock."

+

+Titania flowed on wonderfully; she flowed exactly

+like the twisting piece of glass in a mechanical

+clock which mimics a jet of water.  She turned

+round and never advanced.  But Augustin, Lord

+Bradstock, was as calm as a mill-pond, as a mere

+in the mountains.  He was tall and thin and ruddy

+and white-haired at fifty.  He had been twice a

+widower.

+

+"Why at last, Titania?" he yawned, as he stood

+with Penelope's hand in his.  He was still her

+guardian in his heart, though she was out of tutelage.

+

+"I say at last, Augustin, because you were not

+here before me," cried Titania.  "And I expected

+you to be here before me from what you said this

+morning.  I told you I meant to come in and speak

+quietly and seriously to Penelope, and you said you

+would come, too."

+

+Penelope's eyes thanked her guardian, and they

+smiled at him half-secretly, saying as plain as any

+words: "What a dear you are to come in and dilute

+aunty for me!"

+

+"Yes," said Bradstock, "I think I said I would

+prepare her."

+

+"I've not had a single chance lately to say a word

+for her good," cried Titania, "what with this person

+and that person and the horde.  I think it is time

+now, Penelope, that you reorganized your amazing

+circle of acquaintances, mostly men, by the way.

+While Augustin was responsible for you, of course

+you were obstinate, but now you are in a position

+of greater freedom you will see the advisability

+of being guided by your aunt.  I'm sure, I'm

+positive of it."

+

+Now the real sore point with the duchess was

+this matter of the "horde."  It was the only

+picturesque phrase she ever invented in her life, and

+without any doubt it did characterize in some

+measure the remarkable collection of men who were

+pretenders to Penelope's hand and fortune.

+

+"Out of the entire, the entire—"

+

+"Caboodle," said Bradstock, suggestively.

+

+The duchess shook her head like a horse in fly-time.

+

+"No, Augustin, not caboodle; pray, what is

+caboodle?  Out of the entire—lot, Penelope, there

+are hardly three who belong to your class.  I

+entreat you to go through them and dismiss those

+of whom we can't approve, I and Lord Bradstock."

+

+"Don't drag me in," said Bradstock.  "They are

+all very good fellows; I approve of them all."

+

+"Tut, tut," said Titania, "is this the way you

+help, Augustin?  You are a hindrance.  I believe

+it is entirely owing to you that Penelope has these

+strange and alarming ideas.  Yes, my dear, I'm

+afraid it is.  He is not the kind of man who should

+have been your guardian.  I ought to have been

+consulted.  I knew a bishop who would have been

+admirable, most admirable.  He's dead, dear man,

+and the present one is a scandal to the Protestant

+Church, what with incense and processions and

+candles and confession-boxes.  But, as I was saying,

+I do hope you will dismiss some of these men.  And

+I hope you will be sensible and not say shocking

+things.  No one should say shocking things till they

+are married, and even then with discretion.  Socialism

+and reform and marriage!  Dear me, you really

+must not talk about marriage, but you must get

+married to a suitable person.  I'm sure, Augustin,

+we should have no insuperable objection to, let

+us say, young Bramber.  He'll be an earl by and

+by.  And you mustn't talk about reforming society,

+my dear love.  It is quite impossible to reform

+society without abolishing it, my pet.  Ethel darling,

+many cabinet ministers have owned as much to me

+with much alarm, almost with tears.  It's no use

+trying.  Tell your dear father so, Ethel.  I forgot to

+mention it the other day when we discussed the

+London County Council and its terrible extravagance

+compared with the economy of the government.  We

+talked, too, about the War Office, and I told him

+that it couldn't be reformed without abolishing it,

+which was not to be thought of for an instant.

+What should we do without a War Office, as we

+are always fighting?  He sighed deeply, poor man.

+Dr. Lumsden Griff says sighing is cardiac in its

+origin, and I wish your father would see him, Ethel.

+He's the first doctor in London for the ventricles

+of the heart.  So every one says.  But about your

+ideas, Penelope—"

+

+"Good heavens, aunty, I haven't any left," said

+Penelope.  This was not in the least surprising, for

+Titania reduced any ordinary gathering to idiocy at

+the shortest notice.

+

+"Oh, but you have," said Titania, "and society

+cannot endure ideas, my love.  Anything but ideas,

+darling."

+

+"Well, well," sighed Bradstock, "what is the

+use of talking to her, Titania?  Pen is Pen, and

+there's an end of it."

+

+"I wish there was," cried the duchess.  "But

+she rails against marriage.  And she's only

+twenty-one.  Dear, dear me!"

+

+"She pays too much attention to you married

+women," said Bradstock.  "How's the duke, by

+the way?"

+

+As the duke was engaged in running two theatres

+at the same time, not wholly in the interests

+of art or finance, Bradstock might have asked after

+his health at some other juncture.  Titania ignored him.

+

+"She rails against marriage," lamented Titania.

+

+"I don't," said Penelope.

+

+"You do," said her aunt.

+

+"It's only the horrible publicity," said Penelope,

+"and the way things are done, and the ghastly

+presents and the bishops and the newspaper men

+and the horrible crowd outside and the worse crowd

+inside, and all the horrid fluff and flummery of it.

+If I'm ever married, I'll get it done in a registrar's

+office."

+

+"Oh, Penelope," wailed Ethel.

+

+But Titania became terrible.

+

+"You shall not be, Penelope," she cried.  "I

+could not stand it.  As your aunt, my dear—  Oh,

+my love, I knew some one who was married in that

+way, and it was a most shocking affair, and of

+course it turned out that he had been married

+before and was a bigamist.  The scandal was hushed

+up, and the first wife, who was the sweetest girl,

+and died of consumption shortly afterward at her

+father's vicarage in Kent or Yorkshire, near

+Pevensey or Pontefract; at any rate it began with

+a P, and the man, though a villain, was a gentleman,

+for he married the second one all over again in a

+foreign place, with a chaplain officiating; much

+better than a registrar, who can marry you, I'm

+told, in pajamas if he likes, though not like a bishop,

+which one might have expected in his case.  You

+all knew him slightly, at any rate.  Never, my dear,

+get married at a registrar's."

+

+"It's better than the open shame of a cathedral

+and a bishop," said Penelope.  "Being married

+is one's private business, and it's nothing but horrid

+savagery to have crowds there!"

+

+"Bravo!" said Bradstock, and Titania turned on him.

+

+"Did I not say all this was your fault, Augustin?

+You were no more fit to be her guardian than you

+are to be Archbishop of Canterbury.  Am I a

+savage, Penelope? and did I not get married in a

+cathedral, a most beautiful cathedral, all Gothic

+and newly restored at a vast expense?  My dear,

+I am amazed and horrified and shocked to think that

+you should not perceive the quite exquisite fitness

+of being married in a piece of lovely Gothic

+architecture, to the very loveliest music, breathing over

+Eden, and so on, while all your dearest friends shed

+tears of purest joy—"

+

+"To see her got rid of," said Bradstock.

+

+And even Ethel Mytton laughed.

+

+"Augustin!  Ethel Mytton!  How can you say

+such things and laugh?  It's wicked; it's indecent!"

+

+"Yes," said Penelope, "that's what I say.

+There's nothing to choose between your way and

+the American way the millionaire women have over

+there, when they hold a flower-show in a gilded

+room, and get married under a bell of roses at the

+cost of a hundred thousand dollars.  I'd rather be

+knocked down by a nice savage, or run away with

+by a viking, or caught by a pirate.  I won't be

+breathed over in Eden by a stuffy crowd.  If—if—"

+

+"Oh, if what?" gasped Titania.

+

+"If I ever do get married," said Penelope, "I'll

+never tell any of you beforehand!"

+

+"Good heavens!" said the duchess, "you won't tell us?"

+

+"I won't."

+

+"You'll let us find out!  Shall I know nothing

+of the marriage of my brother's child till I read

+it in the *Times*?  It shall not be!  Augustin, does

+she mean it?"

+

+Augustin lighted a cigarette and walked to the

+window, which looked down on the traffic of Piccadilly.

+

+"I give it up," said Augustin.  "When could

+I answer riddles?  Do you mean it, Pen?"

+

+And Penelope, rising up, stood on the hearthrug

+and, looking like the descendant of a viking and

+some fair Venetian, declared that she did mean

+it.  And she further went on to say, in great haste

+and with a most remarkable flow of words, that

+it shouldn't be in the *Times* or any other paper.

+And she said that if Titania, Duchess of Goring,

+was her aunt, it couldn't be helped, and that her

+principles were more to her than any one's approval.

+Though she loved her aunt and her dear sweet

+guardian, these same principles were even dearer

+than they were.  And she said that they had no

+principles ("not even Guardy dear"), and that they

+only thought of a demon thing called Society, which

+was at once a fetich and a phantom.  And she

+became so excited that she talked like a real woman

+orator upon a platform, and expressed her

+intention of using her influence to bring about reform,

+especially in such matters and with regard to young

+men who did nothing, and seemed to think they

+had been created for that very purpose.  And, as

+she talked, there wasn't a man in the world who

+would not have yearned to take his coat off and

+ask for a pick and shovel at the least, for she was

+as beautiful as any young goddess fresh from

+Grecian foam or from high Olympus.  Even Bradstock

+sighed to think that he had never done anything

+for the human race, which required so much help,

+but sit in the Upper House, a speechless phantom.

+And Ethel Mytton cried with an imparted enthusiasm,

+while the duchess wept with horror.

+

+"And more than that," said Penelope, who broke

+down in her eloquence and resorted to the tone of

+conversation, "more than that, I'll never, never

+let you know whom I marry!  I mean it!  That—that's flat!"

+

+And after this damp but awful peroration, she

+sat down with heaving bosom, and poor, bewildered

+Titania shook her head till it looked as if it would

+come off.  She found no flow of words to oppose

+Penelope with.  The biggest river is nothing when

+it flows into the sea, and, if Titania was the

+Amazon, Pen was the South Atlantic.

+

+"Not who he is?" said the duchess, as feebly

+as if she were no more than a brook in a meadow.

+

+"I will not," said Penelope, like a sea in a cyclone.

+

+"Not—  Oh, I must go home," piped Titania.

+"Augustin, she's capable of marrying a chauffeur,

+because he can drive at sixty miles an hour,—or—or

+a groom!"

+

+"I'd rather marry either or both," said Pen,

+furiously, "than be mobbed and musicked into

+matrimony with a grinning crowd of idiots looking on."

+

+"This is immoral," said Titania, "it's very

+immoral; you couldn't marry both.  I'll go home,

+Bradstock."

+

+And Bradstock took her there.

+

+"You've done it, Titania," he said, as they drove.

+"She's as obstinate and as violent as a passive

+resister.  You've put her bristles up, and Pen never

+goes back from what she says."

+

+"You are very like a man, Augustin," sobbed

+the duchess.

+

+"She's more like a woman than I'm like a man,"

+growled Bradstock.

+

+He had never risen to eminence, and only once

+to his feet in the Upper House, and sometimes this

+rankled.

+

+"Yes, I mean it, I mean it," said Penelope.

+

+"And I wanted to be your bridesmaid," sobbed Ethel.

+

+"You never will be, and you can tell every one

+what I say."

+

+"I won't," said Ethel, "I won't."

+

+And she went away and told them.

+

+

+

+

+

+.. vspace:: 4

+

+.. _`CHAPTER II.`:

+

+.. class:: center large bold

+

+   CHAPTER II.

+

+.. vspace:: 2

+

+In spite of what good conventional people said,

+there was nothing abnormal in Penelope's character.

+The walking world appears abnormal to an

+institute for cripples; good going is an absurdity, and

+as for running—  The truth is that Penelope, by

+some unimaginable freak of fortune, had been born

+quite sound and sane, barring her one lack, that

+of humour.  The providential death of her parents

+at an early age saved her from a deal of teaching.

+Bradstock saved her from a great deal more, and

+she saw to the rest.  It pleased Augustin, Lord

+Bradstock, to play with gunpowder, in spite of what

+he said about dynamite.  He encouraged her to

+trust to herself in a way that every well-regulated

+woman considered highly dangerous, and he used

+to enrage her in order to hear what she had to say

+to him.  There was a period in which she swore

+vigorously.  She learnt her language from an old

+stableman, who adored her even more than he did

+any horse.  This was at the age of three.  Her first

+interview with her aunt, the Duchess of Goring,

+was positively so shocking to Titania, who was

+mid-Victorian, and never got over it, that the poor

+thing almost fainted when Penelope, a shining brat

+of three, damned her eyes with terrific vigour.

+Goring, who was that very curious and absurd survival

+of a thousand ages, known as a sportsman, roared

+with laughter.  There was humanity in him.  There

+was none in Titania, though there might have been

+if she had married any one but a duke.  And

+Penelope damned her eyes for saying she mustn't go

+to the stables without a retinue, an escort, a

+bodyguard of footmen and nurses and governesses.

+

+"I haven't a governeth now," lisped Penelope.

+"I thacked the latht one, didn't I, Bradstock?"

+

+Lady Bradstock, number two, was then reigning

+without governing as far as Bradstock was

+concerned, and governing without reigning as far as

+another was concerned, and she paid no attention

+to Penelope, except to encourage her to amuse her

+guardian.  Thus Penelope grew like a tree in the

+open, and there were no Dutch gardeners to clip

+her.  At fifteen she greeted her last governess, a

+lady of great learning and no ability, with the news

+that she had had her luggage got ready, and that

+there was the carriage at the door for her.  There

+is no defending such conduct.  Pen never defended

+it herself in later years.  She acknowledged she had

+been a brute to Miss Mackarness, and gave her

+a position as housekeeper in one of her own houses,

+that she never visited, with permission to receive

+the shillings some visitors paid to see a mansion

+like a sarcophagus, with one treasure of a Turner

+in it.

+

+The trouble was that Penelope was natural.  She

+had not been trained to become so; she grew so.

+There is no more painful and laborious a process

+than to learn to be natural in later life.  But to

+grow like it!  Ah, that was splendid, and many

+unthinking people laughed to hear Pen when she

+swore, or cried, or begged for pardon, or dominated

+the whole little world around her.  The world

+indeed smiled on Pen, and now she was twenty-one

+and splendid, mobile, gracious, Venetian, strong,

+and as rich as an American heiress, and she already

+had as many wooers as Penelope of old.  But the

+little bow of Cupid was too much for them.

+Other defence was too good.  And now these strange

+notions grew up in her.  There was some natural

+shame in her heart that the crowd of duchesses and

+what not could not understand.  When He came

+at last, riding gallantly, a brave male, virile, strong,

+and bold, armed in shining armour, should she lead

+him out into Piccadilly, investing him in a frock

+coat for his armour and a cylinder for his helmet,

+and marry him in a crowd, while a paid organist

+played something about Eden?  Oh, where was Eden?

+

+Here's romance then, and in a new guise in a

+young woman.  For the true romantic age is the

+age of feminine desperation.  When one has been

+"taught" all one's best years, it's hard to be

+romantic till one wears through one's fetters at the

+very foot of the scaffold, when it's too late.  How

+many sweet women sour in cream-jugs, and escape

+the cat, or some roaring lion, for nothing but

+sourest contemplation.  They crowd feminine churches.

+

+Pen's brother, or, rather, half-brother, was ten

+years her senior, and played a suitable part in the

+orchestra of the House of Lords as Lord Brading.

+He voted for the government when it was conservative,

+and against it when it was liberal with perfect

+certainty and good-will.  There was nothing

+remarkable about Brading but the strange, almost

+awestruck admiration with which he worshipped

+Penelope.  A man even of the most absurd

+conservative solidity must be a radical and an

+anarchist somewhere, and indeed he pretended to be

+something of a socialist.  Nevertheless, he had

+humour.  Brading thought his half-sister a wonder,

+and had no criticism for her.  Indeed it is believed

+that he helped the groom mentioned above to teach

+her unrefinements of the English language peculiarly

+shocking to early and mid Victorians.  But in his

+heart "Bill" Brading considered Pen's mother

+accounted for, excused everything.  The last Lady

+Brading was an American who wallowed in money,

+which she invested in repairing her husband's

+character and his castles.  When he died, and nothing

+could be done for his character but suppress

+biographers, she invested in ancient demesnes on Pen's

+behalf, and bought her rat-riddled and

+ghost-haunted mansions of historic character till there

+were few (and among them Penelope could not

+be counted) who could tell how many of them she

+owned.  Then Lady Brading went to a newer world

+than the United States, and left Pen to the care

+of Augustin, Lord Bradstock, a man of brains and

+no voice when on his legs.  It is reported that he

+learnt a speech of his own composing by heart, and

+when he rose to deliver it all he said was, "Good

+God," in an astonished whisper, and collapsed,

+struck by a form of paralysis which rarely attacks

+fools and which bores cannot suffer from.

+

+Penelope was richer than her half-brother, for

+her mother, having paid her husband's debts, rebuilt

+Brading House, and saved his life from being

+written after a very quiet and gentlemanly departure,

+considered she had done her duty to the family.

+She left her stepson five thousand pounds, it is true,

+and, with a want of ostentation not peculiarly

+American, she left another five to Penelope, and modestly

+made her residuary legatee.  The residue was

+considerably over a million dollars.  And then there

+were the houses, most of them ineligible properties

+in ring-fences, fit for immediate occupation after

+they had been restored.  For poor Lady Brading

+had a passion for ruins, and collected castles as some

+do bric-à-brac.  The two great griefs of her life

+were that she could not buy Haddon Hall and Arundel Castle.

+

+Well, there is the situation plainly outlined.  Pen

+was as savage as Pocahontas, so some said, and

+she could, an she liked, wallow in money.  She

+owned property all over England, to say nothing

+of a chateau near Tours, a palazzo in Venice, and

+a building in New York which brought in more

+than the rest cost to keep up.  She had a brother,

+a peer with a voice, a guardian a peer without one,

+an aunt who was a duchess, and strange ideas of

+her own which got up and talked on the most

+unsuitable occasions.

+

+But then there was her beauty as clamant as a

+rose of fire, as sweet as violet or verbena!  The

+rose can be gilded it seems, like a lily, and the gold

+was a power to her, giving authority over men.

+She who had enough to command the work of many

+thousands at current wages (for this is money

+truly) commanded that strange respect for power

+as well as love for herself.  Her lovers were

+numberless, so people said, and there was this truth in

+their being beyond arithmetic that no one troubled

+to count them.  Marriageable beauties of a lesser

+order of loveliness prayed for her extinction in

+matrimony.  Mothers of the marriageable prayed

+for it with a fervour only equalled by the fervour

+of her hopeless lovers, if there can be fervour

+without hope.  It is the command of true beauty that

+it can.  Had not all the painters, all the sculptors,

+from Pheidias down to the unselected classics of

+our own time, met together when she rose, a newer

+Aphrodite from the sea of the unknown!  Her

+loveliness was sweet and intolerable; one ached

+at it.  Cowards shrank from it.  Brave men cried

+for her.  There are strange tales!

+

+What a strange motley gathering she selected.

+They had one thing in common, to be discovered

+shortly, one would think.  She discovered their

+qualities by inspection.  Many would-bes she drove

+away overcliff.  She knew men of many classes

+adored her, wondering and humble.  One great

+lover of hers, who was very good to horses, and

+only reasonably bitter against motor-cars, was her

+groom, Timothy Bunting.  He didn't know he loved

+her.  Indeed, he imagined he loved her maid.  But

+there is this quality in a great love, that it asks all

+or nothing.  Tim was perhaps as great as the

+greatest, but he rode behind her even when the Marquis

+de Rivaulx or Rufus Q. Plant rode alongside her

+with a quiet and unjealous mind.  There was much

+in Timothy, as much or more than there was in

+the French marquis, who rode "well enough," as

+Tim said, or as in Plant, who rode "all over 'is

+'orse," as became one bred in Arizona.  These must

+show themselves by and by.  They had the quality,

+at any rate.  Even Tim knew it.

+

+But what was it that gave permission to

+Mr. Austin de Vere to join the throng?  He wrote

+poetry.  He followed her as close as a rhyme in

+a couplet.  He never wrote her any, for which she

+was pleased to be flatteringly thankful.  There are

+some things that cannot be set down in verse even

+by the greatest, and the poet De Vere acknowledged

+this humbly.  He had the character of being the

+most conceited and immitigable ass in England,

+and when he was with Penelope he was as humble

+as a puppy in leash.  There was something great

+in his mighty subjection.  Not even Goby, late

+of the Guards, was so mitigable and so mitigated

+when Pen was by.  And Goby's V.C. was almost

+as much valued by him as his clothes and boots.

+He gained it by a fit of angry rage, such as had

+led him to pay several sovereigns at a desk in a

+back office at a police-station, and came out of his

+temper to discover he was a hero.  So much for

+luck when a big man, with the quality and temper

+of a bull, gets into a row in a sangar without any

+police to stay his hand.

+

+"As for that De Vere," said Goby, "why, I

+could crush him with one hand."

+

+"And he could make you sore with a few words,"

+said Penelope.

+

+"He couldn't," bragged Goby.

+

+Penelope smiled.

+

+"No, perhaps he couldn't," she said, pensively,

+and Goby was pleased with her opinion of his bull's

+hide.  Europa had at any rate scratched him.  He

+indicated the sea of matrimony with inarticulate

+bellows.  But of course he was really quite possible.

+As Chloe Cadwallader said, his boots were

+inspiration, polished, and his Christian name was

+Plantagenet.  He had some obscure right to it.

+

+Then there was Lord Bramber.  Some folks said

+if she married any one, she would marry Bramber,

+because his father was the Earl of Pulborough.

+They forgot all the rest of the aristocratic mob.

+If any title pleased her democratic soul, she could

+pick strawberries.  One senile and one merely silly

+duke pursued her panting.  But she certainly liked

+Bramber, and showed her partiality for him or her

+unpartiality with frankness.  She had hopes of him,

+though he appeared hopeless now at the age of

+twenty-seven.  She maintained that men were half

+their age and women twice it, at the least.

+

+"Dear Titania is ninety," said Penelope, "and

+Guardy is twenty-five.  Lord Bramber will perhaps

+think of doing some work when he is fifteen."

+

+There came with these, with and not after, Jimmy

+Carew, who was an A.R.A.  He painted portraits,

+and talked about art with eloquence till no one,

+even an artist, could guess what he meant.  But

+he believed things with such faith that many of his

+fair sitters agreed with him.  He was the best

+looking of the whole "horde," as Titania called Pen's

+adorers.

+

+The "horde" included Leopold Norfolk Gordon,

+who had a house in Park Lane and ever so many

+people's money to keep it up with.  As may be

+guessed from his name, he was a Jew.  Several

+people, with whom he could not share the money

+he had acquired by unsullied dishonesty, said his

+real name was Isaac Levi.  Goby, who hated him

+bitterly, consoled him when a less successful Israelite

+called him "Ikey," at Ascot, by saying:

+

+"It's damned hard lines, Gordon.  A man may

+be born in Whitechapel without being a Jew."

+

+So near may insolence come to wit.  When this

+was pointed out to Goby, he told the story

+everywhere with many chuckles.  But it was impossible

+to deny certain attributes to poor Gordon, whether

+his name was Levi or Moses, or Ehrenbreitstein,

+for that matter.  Penelope had no racial prejudices,

+and anti-Semitism was unnatural and abhorrent to

+her.  She said things about negroes to Rufus

+Q. Plant (born in Virginia) which made his flesh

+creep almost as badly as if he had been born in

+Delaware.  So in spite of Gordon's looking

+somewhat Semitic, she asserted there were the qualities

+she required in the poor man, who indeed was not

+bumptious or loud or peculiarly offensive in her

+presence.  He that stole millions feared a girl.  He

+polished his last week's hat with trembling hands,

+that had signed death-warrants in the city, when

+he spoke with her.

+

+And to round off the "horde" with another

+sample, there came in Carteret Williams.  He was the

+biggest of the lot, and had a voice like a

+toastmaster's, or that of the man who announces the

+train at Zurich.  It is worth going there to hear

+him, by the way.  Many good Americans travel for

+less.  Williams was a writer, a journalist, a

+war-correspondent, or, as he said, a "battle

+vulture."  When he could dip his pen in blood, he wrote with

+a red picturesqueness which was horribly attractive.

+He belonged to a very decent family, and took

+to his present trade by nature.  That gives some

+hint of why Penelope liked him.

+

+What was the secret, then, the secret that brought

+young Bramber, and Rufus Quintus Plant, and

+"Ikey Levi," alias Leopold Norfolk Gordon, and

+Captain Plantagenet Goby, and the verse-making

+De Vere, together with the Marquis de Rivaulx and

+Jimmy Carew, under one table-cloth, so to speak,

+at the Tattenham Corner of wooing?  Some said

+Penelope wouldn't have anything to do with any

+one who was not a Man.  It is true she abhorred

+those who were not men; but so much depends

+upon a definition.  In the West (and the East,

+for that matter) a Man goes for what he is worth,

+and is common currency, as he should be, and a

+"White Man" is the gold.  To be called a White

+Man is the true compliment, and implies,—well,

+it implies what the "horde" implied.  They were

+men and Man, and "White," so Penelope said

+when she had picked up the picturesque figure from

+Rufus Q. Plant.  They might be asses (and some

+were, or at least mules), but they meant to run

+straight.  They were lazy, or some were, but the

+laziest lay under the delusion that laziness was their

+godlike duty.  They needed the spur.  They might

+be brutes in the way of business (you should read

+what has been written in a New York paper about

+Plant, or hear what a certain disembowelled set

+in the city say of Gordon, who turned them inside

+out), but they played the game.  They knew what

+cricket was, even when it was played with red-hot

+shot, and not to carry one's bat meant blue ruin.

+After saying that they were all this, which implies

+they were men of honour, each according to the

+code of their fellows (for this is honour), I shall

+show you how they came, or how many of them

+came, to utter grief in curious ways under very

+odd stresses.  What can a man of honour do in

+an entirely new position, one not provided for in

+any code?  It would puzzle a jury of archangels to

+say.

+

+"Have you heard?" asked Goby, with wondering eyes.

+

+"What she says?" replied Gordon.

+

+"Shade of Titian!" cried Jimmy Carew.

+

+"Well, I'm damned!" said Carteret Williams.

+

+"This is romance," sighed the De Vere.

+

+"I'm—I'm—that's what I am," whistled Rufus

+Q. Plant.

+

+"Imphm!" murmured Lord Bramber.

+

+"Sapristi!" shrieked the French marquis.

+

+Wasn't it enough to make them exclaim when it

+was reported all over London, and in the country,

+and in papers and cables to New York that

+Penelope Brading had sworn, with a great oath, that

+she meant to upset the holy apple-cart of all

+tradition (at least since Adam) by never letting any one

+know who her husband was!  They knew her, and

+knew her word was sacred.  Now let all unwhite

+men, all unrealities, all ghosts, all vain folks vanish

+one by one.

+

+With one voice the "horde" exclaimed, as they

+set their teeth:

+

+"Well, we don't care!"

+

+What does this say for Penelope's faculties of

+distinguishing men from monkeys, and white from gray?

+

+

+

+

+

+.. vspace:: 4

+

+.. _`CHAPTER III.`:

+

+.. class:: center large bold

+

+   CHAPTER III.

+

+.. vspace:: 2

+

+All that happened now only shows one how the

+greatest sense of modesty may end in the biggest

+advertisement.  Penelope, though determined to do

+her duty, which was mainly to educate mankind,

+meant doing it unobtrusively, and there was not a

+man or woman in the British Isles or in the United

+States who did not hear of her quiet intention.  The

+cables hummed with Penelope's name; it was

+whispered in the great deeps of the sea; wireless

+telegraphists caught Lady Penelope Brading out of

+Hertzian waves; ships ploughed the ocean laden

+with Penelope and copy about her.

+

+In two twos the notoriety hunters in London sank

+into insignificance; professional beauties were

+neglected, and the sale of their photographs fell off.

+There was an immense demand for Penelope's,

+which, luckily, no one could satisfy until an

+enterprising New Yorker flooded the United States with

+portraits.  Before it was found out that this

+particular photograph was one of a young actress

+whom he proposed introducing to the public shortly,

+he sold amazing quantities of them.  When there

+was one in every inquiring household from Hudson

+Bay to the Gulf of Mexico, the real sitter for

+it wrote to the papers and complained bitterly.  She

+is now playing to crowded houses.  There are many

+paths to fame.

+

+Poor Pen was at first horribly shocked.  She was

+young.  And yet she was human.  She said: "Oh,

+dear, oh, dear!" and, swearing that she would

+never read a word about herself, she subscribed to

+a newspaper cutting agency.

+

+From the New York papers alone one could cull

+a highly coloured account of her whole history.

+And they gave Bradstock's history, too, not

+omitting his two-word exclamatory speech in the House

+of Lords.  Bradstock stood it like a Trojan, like a

+Spartan.  He never turned a hair even when they

+said that he was going to marry Penelope himself.

+They gave a full biography of Titania, with a real

+photograph.  When the duchess saw it, she was

+silent for full five minutes, such was the shock it

+gave her.  Then she talked for five hours, and

+called on the American ambassador.

+

+"Cannot you do anything for me?" asked

+Titania, perorating.

+

+"I'm afraid not, your Grace," said the

+ambassador, wearily.  He said it was an awful thing to

+be an ambassador sometimes, though it had its

+points.

+

+Being discomfited for once by an ambassador,

+she turned on Bradstock, and rent him limb from

+limb.  And then she went to Penelope.

+

+"I'm only doing my duty," said Penelope, with

+her beautiful lips as firm as Grecian marble.

+

+"Your duty!" shrieked the duchess; "and look

+at the papers!"

+

+"I can't help what they say, aunt.  One's duty—"

+

+"They tell my weight," said Titania.  "How

+did they know?"

+

+"They must have guessed it," said Penelope.

+

+"I don't *look* it," pleaded the duchess, now

+suddenly plaintive.

+

+"No, no, dear auntie, you don't," said poor

+Penelope.  "Oh, it's cruel of them."

+

+"Help me, then," said Titania.  "Get married

+at once in a cathedral, and all this will stop.  I'll

+ask the dear archbishop to officiate, Penelope.  Oh,

+my darling!"

+

+But Penelope became Pentelican marble again;

+she froze into a severe goddess, and she saw Titania

+weep.

+

+"It's scandalous!  Oh, and they have a list of

+them all," said Titania.

+

+Indeed, the *New York Dustman* had the "horde"

+set out in a row like the entries for the Derby.

+They said the betting was on Rufus Q. Plant, of

+course.  They gave a short and succulent biography

+of them all.  They headed the list "The Lady

+Penelope Handicap."  They used some slang about

+"weight for age."

+

+"Great heavens!" said Titania, "all town is

+ringing with it.  If this is the result of looking on

+marriage as one's private business, give me publicity!"

+

+There would have been less of it if a prince had

+married a publican's daughter in St. Paul's, and

+had presented the dean with a set of pewter pots.

+

+"And if she does what she says!"

+

+The only men who did not talk much about

+Penelope were naturally those who aspired to win

+her.  Every one neglected politics and sport to

+discuss her.  She became politics and sport.  Huge

+sums of money were at stake as to whether she

+would keep her word; as to the length of time she

+would keep the secret, and as to who the man was

+to be.  There were public and private books made

+on the series of events.  And there was a Penelope

+party and an opposition.  Many young people who

+were revolutionary in their sentiments said she was

+right.  There was a Penelope Cave in the House

+of Commons.  Some of those who fought year in

+and year out for the Deceased Wife's Sister backed

+her up.  It was whispered that the prince was a

+Penelopian; two princesses threatened with

+objectionable persons of the royal blood were heard to

+observe that there was something in what she said.

+Penelope was within measurable distance of

+becoming a national, or even an international, question.

+Mrs. X. wrote an article in the *Fortnightly* on

+"Secret Marriage in History."  Mr. Z. sat down

+and wrote a novel, bristling with "wit and

+epigram," in ten days, which ran into the third edition

+of two hundred and fifty copies in thirty.  It was

+said that questions were to be asked in the House.

+A play on the subject was forbidden by the lord

+chamberlain.  The wittiest article on the subject

+was written by a Mr. Shaw.  He argued that no

+really beautiful woman had any right to be

+married at all.  He said plaintively that it wasn't fair,

+and convinced the ugly in two syllogisms.

+

+And, as the result of this, Penelope went away

+into the country, though it was May, with Ethel

+Mytton and Mrs. Cadwallader, who was called

+Chloe, and stood by Pen remorselessly in every

+difficulty.  For Pen had helped her out of an awful

+mess, the history of which would make a whole

+story of itself.  As a result of it, Cadwallader was

+in the Rocky Mountains shooting, and a certain

+young soldier was taking too much liquor and too

+little quinine in Nigeria, and Chloe got her

+diamonds back from Messrs. Attenborough, and was

+eternally grateful to Penelope in consequence.

+

+"And I shall send for them one by one," said

+Penelope.  "They can come down by the ten

+o'clock train from Paddington, and go back by the

+five o'clock one from here.  And after lunch I shall

+explain my ideas to them."

+

+"And I'll be with you," said Chloe, who was

+as dark-locked as a raven's wing.

+

+"Oh, I don't mind," said Penelope; "of course

+you will.  I'm too young, am I not, to be left alone,

+Chloe?  Is it true, Chloe, that the older a woman

+gets the bigger fool she is?"

+

+Chloe said it was true.

+

+"I'll ask Titania to let Bob come over," said

+Penelope.  "He's the wisest person I know."

+

+Bob was Titania's grandson, and was certainly

+young enough to be wise, as he was only fourteen.

+He had been sent to three of the great public

+schools, and had been taken away because of his

+fighting capabilities.  He never knew when he had

+enough, and it is quite impossible to keep a boy

+at any school if he breaks out of bounds to fight

+some young butcher or baker in a back alley at least

+once a week.  Now he had a tutor who had been

+an amateur boxer of great merit.  It began to take

+the tutor all his time to handle his pupil.  But if

+Bob was knocked endways about three times a week,

+it sobered him and made him do his work.  He did

+not yet know whether he wanted to be a prize-fighter

+or the commander-in-chief.  But he loved

+Penelope.

+

+"I'll send for Bob," said Penelope.

+

+And Bob came with Mr. Guthrie, his tutor, and

+Titania was glad to get rid of him for a time.

+

+"Oh, Pen," said Bob, "how jolly kind of you

+to ask me.  I'm sick of grandmother; she worries

+me to death.  Always says, 'Robert, you mustn't.'  I

+say, have you read Kip's 'Cat that Walked by

+Himself'?  Mr. Guthrie says it's splendid, and

+I say it's rot.  But old Guth likes Virgil and

+Horace.  Isn't that strange, for he can box like

+anything.  Baker, the groom, says he can.  And Baker's

+awful good with the mitts.  But I say, Pen, what's

+all this about you in the papers?  Grandmother

+wails when she sees one now.  I ain't sure I like

+having you so much in the papers, Pen."

+

+"I don't like it, either," said Penelope, "but I

+can't help it."

+

+"Is it true that you're going to be married and

+never tell any one?" demanded Bob from the

+bottom of a huge rocking-chair, as they sat on the

+lawn.  They were in one of Pen's habitable houses,

+and the lawn ran down to the Thames.

+

+"I won't if I don't want to," said Penelope.

+"But you're a boy, Bob, and don't understand these

+things."

+

+Bob snorted and smiled, not unsubtly.

+

+"Oh, Pen, don't be like grandmother.  I understand

+pretty nearly everything now.  Granny's always

+saying that, and it's jolly rot.  You can't be

+like me, turned out of three schools, and not know

+something.  Are you going to get married soon?"

+

+Pen shook her head.

+

+"She's very savage at your knowing that Jew

+cad, Gordon, but grandfather isn't.  He says that

+Gordon may be a Jew, of course, but he's all right.

+I asked him if I could get put on a board as a

+director, and he was so mad with me.  I think

+Gordon's asked him to be a director, and he'd like

+to only he daren't.  He's got none too much money,

+you know, Pen.  But about all these chaps, Pen?"

+

+He went through the horde seriatim, and

+pronounced upon them all with ineffable wisdom.

+

+"Goby's an ass, but a good ass, Pen," he said,

+as he kicked with his legs.  "He gave me a thick-un

+a year ago when I was in difficulties.  But he hasn't

+the brains to make a good corporal.  Baker says

+that.  Baker was a sergeant in the Dublin Fusiliers.

+I like Plant, though, Pen.  Baker says he rides in

+a rummy fashion, more like a circus man than

+anything else, but he can stick to a horse.  And there's

+your Frenchman.  I say, how does he come to be

+called Rivaulx?  Was he called after Rivaulx in

+Yorkshire, or was it called after him?  Ask him

+if he shoots larks in his native country.  All

+Frenchmen do, old Guth says.  He says he read a book

+the other day in which a French priest says he never

+sees a lark without wanting to shoot it.  What a

+miserable rotter, wasn't he?  But Rivaulx isn't so

+bad, though.  He's a gentleman, at any rate, though

+he is French.  I say, why do foreigners never look

+like gentlemen?  Dashed if I know.  I've often

+wondered, because grandfather likes them, through

+his having been an ambassador.  Sometimes a

+German does, though.  And Bramber's all right, Pen.

+I don't think I'd mind your marrying him."

+

+"I won't marry any one who isn't a useful

+citizen," said Pen.

+

+"He's all right," urged Bob.  "He's as strong

+as a bull.  Baker says he'd peel better than most

+prize-fighters.  What is a useful citizen?  I say,

+if you get married, you'll tell me who it is?"

+

+"No," said Penelope.

+

+"I call that mean," said Bob.  "I'd not tell any

+one, and I'd help like fun."

+

+"I'm sure you would, Bob.  But I may never

+get married."

+

+"Rot," said Bob, "a girl like you not get married!

+Oh, I say!"

+

+And he continued to say for some hours, and

+proved himself most entertaining company, quoting

+Baker, who had been a sergeant in the Dublin

+Fusiliers, and had been very severely knocked about by

+Jem Mace, and appealing to Mr. Guthrie, who came

+over with him to get him to look at a book in the

+mornings, to back him up.  He was really very

+modest and gentlemanly, at the same time that he

+was exceedingly bumptious and arrogant, after the

+best manner of the extremely healthy English boy.

+

+And at twelve o'clock he came running to Penelope

+and Chloe by the river-bank in wild excitement.

+

+"I say, Pen, I say, Pen, there's old Goby coming,

+and with that miserable rotter who makes poetry.

+What's brought 'em here?"

+

+"I asked them to lunch," said Pen.

+

+"Eh, what?" cried Bob.  "Goby and that rotter,

+Austin de Vere!  I say, Mr. Guthrie—"

+

+He ran off to Guthrie, bawling:

+

+"I say, Mr. Guthrie, here's that poet chap, Austin

+de Vere, come.  Didn't you say he mostly wrote rot?"

+

+And Goby and De Vere came across the lawn

+together, like a mastiff and a Maltese in company.

+They made each other as nervous as cats, and

+couldn't for their lives understand why they were

+asked together.

+

+"The clumsy brute," said De Vere.

+

+"The verse-making monkey," said Goby.

+

+But tailors could have admired them both.  They

+were perfect.  And lunch was a most painful

+function, only endurable to Penelope because she was

+on the track of her duty, and to Chloe because she

+laughed internally, and to Mr. Guthrie (who was

+really a clever man) because he liked to study men

+and manners, and to Bob because he talked all the

+time, owing to the silence of the others.

+

+"I say, Captain Goby, I've got a splendid

+bull-pup.  Baker got him for me, cheap, for a

+quid,—a sovereign, I mean.  You remember Baker.  He

+was a sergeant,—oh, I told you that just now.

+Do you like bulldogs, Mr. de Vere?"

+

+De Vere was politely sulky.

+

+"Bulldogs, oh, ah, well, I do not know that I do."

+

+He looked at Goby, who was also sulky and feeling

+very much out of it.  But the subject of

+bulldogs appealed to him, because he saw it didn't

+amuse his rival.

+

+"I'll give you a real good pup, Bob," he said,

+good-naturedly; "one that no one could get for a

+sovereign.

+

+"A real pedigree pup?"

+

+"With a pedigree as long as your own," said Goby.

+

+Bob sighed, and laid his hand on Goby's.

+

+"I say, Pen, isn't Captain Goby a real good

+'un?" he asked.  "Baker says—"

+

+But what Baker said does not come into this

+history, as the lunch finished, and they all went into

+the garden.  Goby spoke to Bob as they went out.

+

+"I say, Bob, get hold of that ass De Vere, and

+talk to him as hard as the very deuce, will you?"

+

+"You meant that about the pup?" said Bob.

+

+"Of course, Bob."

+

+"I'll talk his beastly head off," said Bob.

+

+And this was why Penelope spoke confidentially

+to Captain Goby before she did so to the poet.  She

+was exceedingly pale and very dignified, but she

+lost no time in getting to the point.

+

+"Captain Goby," she said, "you have asked me

+to marry you at least three times."

+

+Goby sighed.

+

+"Is it only three?" he demanded, and he added,

+firmly, "it will be more yet."

+

+"And I said 'no' because I had no idea of

+marrying any one."

+

+"That was rot," said Goby.  "For, if you

+married no one else, you would marry me."

+

+"Certainly not as you are," retorted Penelope.

+"I want you and all men (that I know) to reform."

+

+Goby was not astonished at anything Penelope said.

+

+"I reformed long ago," he said.  "As soon as

+I saw you, I said I'd reform and I did.  It was a

+great deal of trouble, but I did it.  Oh, you've no

+idea how I suffered.  But I said, 'Plantagenet, my

+boy, if you are to be worthy, you must buck up!'"

+

+This was encouraging.

+

+"I'm glad I've had so much influence," said Pen,

+who didn't quite know what his reforms had been.

+"But there are other things.  This is merely

+negative.  What are you doing to be useful to the state?

+Are you loafing about on your money?  Do you

+do any work?  Are you educating yourself?"

+

+Goby gasped.

+

+"I say, come, Lady Penelope, I've done all that!

+Education! why, I had a horrid time at school and

+at a crammer's—"

+

+"Do you read?" asked Pen, severely.

+

+"Why, of course," said Goby.

+

+"What?"

+

+Goby rubbed his cropped hair with two fingers.

+

+"Papers?"

+

+"Anything?" said Pen.

+

+"Well, I read the *Sportsman* and the *Pink Un*

+(at least, I did before I reformed) and the

+*Referee*," said Goby.

+

+"Books?"

+

+"Not many," said Goby.  "But I will.  What

+do you recommend?"

+

+"I think Tennyson and Shelley would do you

+good," said Pen, "but you had better ask Mr. de

+Vere.  And do you do anything useful?"

+

+"De Vere!  Oh, Lord!" cried Goby.  "Anything

+useful?  Why, I was in the army—"

+

+"And now you do nothing.  Well," said Penelope,

+"I think you had better begin at once.  Any

+man I know has to do something useful.  You must

+go to the War Office and ask to be made something

+again.  I think a colonelcy of a militia regiment

+would suit you.  And I am going to ask Mr. de

+Vere to take an interest in your reading."

+

+"The devil!" said Goby.  "I say, my dear Lady

+Penelope, I can't stand him.  Why, you may have

+seen we are barely civil to each other."

+

+"I shall speak to him firmly," said Penelope,

+"and it's for his good, too.  He leads an unhealthy

+indoor life.  I want you to change all that.  You

+row a great deal still, don't you?"

+

+"Since I reformed I began again," said Goby.

+He felt the muscles of his right arm with complacency.

+

+"Take him out and make him row, then," said

+Pen, "and while he rows you can read poetry to

+him, and so on.  It will be good for both of you."

+

+"But—" said Goby.

+

+"Yes?"

+

+"If I do this, will you marry me?"

+

+Penelope shook her head.

+

+"If you do it, I'll think whether I'll marry you."

+

+"Oh," said the soldier, "and if I just can't hit

+it off with that poet?"

+

+"Then I won't think about it," replied Pen.

+"I'll never, never consider the possibility of

+marrying any one who isn't leading a useful life, and

+educating himself, and living on less than a thousand

+a year.  Can you do that, too?"

+

+"Dashed if I see how it can be done," said

+Plantagenet Goby.  "But I'll try, oh, yes, I'll try."

+

+"Now you talk to Chloe," said Penelope, and

+she went away to the rescue of the poet.  For Bob

+had got him in a corner.

+

+.. _`CAPTAIN PLANTAGENET GOBY, V.C., LATE OF THE GUARDS`:

+

+.. figure:: images/img-044.jpg

+   :align: center

+   :alt: CAPTAIN PLANTAGENET GOBY, V.C., LATE OF THE GUARDS. Who was ordered to read poetry

+

+   CAPTAIN PLANTAGENET GOBY, V.C., LATE OF THE GUARDS. Who was ordered to read poetry

+

+"I say, Mr. de Vere, wasn't that ripping of old

+Goby to say he'd give me a real pedigree bull-pup?

+He knows a bull-pup from a window-shutter, as

+Baker says.  You don't like them?  No, but you

+would if you had one.  I feed mine myself, and I

+wear thick gloves, so's not to get hydrophobia when

+he bites.  He's a most interesting dog, and not so

+good-tempered as most bulldogs.  When he sees

+a cat, oh, my, it's fun!  Look here, when Goby

+gives me the new pup with the pedigree, you can

+have mine, if you like, cheap.  I know you have a

+place in the country, and you must want a bulldog.

+Will you buy him?"

+

+"Good heavens, no!" said the poet.

+

+"Humph!" cried Bob, who of course had quite

+forgotten that he was doing all this for Goby, and

+was just enjoying himself.  "Why, what do you

+do in the country without a dog?  Do you ride?"

+

+"No," said De Vere.

+

+"Well, of all—I say, Mr. de Vere, what do you

+do?  Do you walk about and make poetry, and do

+you like making it?  Old Guth, I mean Mr. Guthrie,

+he's my tutor, and he's over there talking to

+Mrs. Cadwallader, he reads a lot, and some of yours, too."

+

+"Oh, does he!" said De Vere, who began to

+take some interest.  "Does he?"

+

+"Oh, a lot of yours, he says; most of it, I think."

+

+"And does he like it?"

+

+Bob put his head on one side.

+

+"Well, he says it's not bad, some of it."

+

+De Vere flinched at this faint praise.

+

+"Indeed!  And what does he like best?" he asked.

+

+"Oh, the beastliest rot," returned Bob, "Browning

+and Shelley, and I say, do you see that bulge

+in his pocket?  That's Catullus.  He reads him all

+day.  But here comes Pen.  I say, won't you have

+my bull-pup?  I'll let you have him for half a

+sovereign; I got him for a sovereign, at least, Baker

+did.  *I* think your poetry's very fine, sir; Mr. Guthrie

+lent me some."

+

+But Penelope came across the lawn, and De Vere

+forgot Bob and the bull-pup, and fell down and

+worshipped.  And the goddess took hold of him,

+and stripped a lot of his poetry away, and set a

+few facts before him and made him gasp.

+

+"I heard a very strange rumour, Lady Penelope,"

+he said, when he was once more standing

+upright before Aphrodite.  "I heard—oh, but

+it was absurd!  I can't believe it."

+

+"Then it is probably true," said the goddess,

+breathlessly, "for I mean to have my own way

+and to initiate a reform in marriages, Mr. de Vere.

+I have been reading the accounts of some fashionable

+weddings lately, and they made me ill.  What

+you have heard is quite true."

+

+The poet shook his head.

+

+"I have had the honour to beg you to believe a

+thousand times that I am devoted to you—"

+

+"Three times, I think," said Pen, who was good

+at arithmetic.

+

+"Is it only thrice?  But do I understand that,

+if I were to have the inexpressible delight of

+winning your love, Lady Penelope, that the marriage

+would be a secret one, that no one would know

+of it?"

+

+"I mean that," said Penelope, enthusiastically.

+"It is a new departure, an assertion of a just

+individualism, although I am a socialist.  I abhor

+ceremonies, and will not be interfered with.  I have

+stated with the utmost clarity to all my relations

+that I shall not consult them or let them know until

+I choose, and I shall only get married (if I ever

+do) on these terms."

+

+"I agree to them," said the poet.  "Lady Penelope,

+will you do me the inexpressible honour to be my wife?"

+

+"Oh, dear, no," said Pen.  "Why, certainly not,

+Mr. de Vere.  I don't love any one yet, and perhaps

+I never shall.  But what I say is this: I'll think as

+to whether I shall marry you if you do as I wish

+about this matter and about others."

+

+"My blessed lady," said the poet, "is there

+anything I would not dare or do?"

+

+"I've told Captain Goby exactly the same thing,"

+said Penelope, thereby putting her pretty foot upon

+the sudden flowers of De Vere's imagination, "and

+what I want of you is to be more an out-of-door

+man.  You live too much in rooms, hothouses,

+Mr. de Vere, and in your own garden."

+

+"I was in a garden, I a poet, with one who

+was (oh, and is) an angel," said De Vere, "but

+now I dwell in arid deserts, shall I say the Desert

+of Gobi?  What have I to do with him?  Shall he

+dare to pretend to you, dear lady?"

+

+"He's a very good chap," said Pen, quite shortly,

+"and I think it would do you good to associate

+with him more.  I've told him so, and he agrees.

+I want you to make him read a little, and exercise

+his imagination.  And he can take you out rowing

+and shooting perhaps, and I think a little hunting

+wouldn't do you harm.  You might ask him to stay

+with you, and he'll ask you.  And I want you to

+go out in motor-cars."

+

+"Good heavens!" said De Vere.

+

+"I know it will be hard," said Pen, consolingly.

+"But you know what I want.  It's not enough to

+be rich and write poetry, Mr. de Vere.  I think you

+might read statistics; statistics are a tonic, and I

+want you to be a useful citizen, too.  There are

+things to be done.  Just look at my cousin Bob.

+Now he'll be a splendid man."

+

+"He wanted to sell me a bull-pup," murmured

+the poet.

+

+"He's a good boy," said Pen, affectionately,

+"and his instincts are to be trusted.  I think a

+bulldog would do you good perhaps.  And I shall

+expect to hear you have asked Captain Goby to

+stay with you.  And don't forget the statistics."

+

+"I'll do it," said the unhappy poet, "for while

+the One Hope I have exists, and until 'vain desire

+at last and vain regret go hand in hand to death,'

+I am your slave."

+

+And, as he went away, he called Bob to him.

+

+"I'll give you half a sovereign for that bulldog,"

+he said, bitterly.

+

+"Oh, I say.  But Baker says he's worth two

+sovereigns," cried Bob.

+

+"I'll give you two," said the poet.

+

+And Bob danced on the lawn.

+

+

+

+

+

+.. vspace:: 4

+

+.. _`CHAPTER IV.`:

+

+.. class:: center large bold

+

+   CHAPTER IV.

+

+.. vspace:: 2

+

+If Penelope had had any sense of humour, she

+would have deprived the round world of much to

+laugh at in sad times, when laughter was wanted.

+But thanks be to whatever gods there are, some

+folks have no humour, and some have a little, and

+a few much, and thus the world gets on in spite

+of the spirit of gravity, which, as may be

+remembered by students of philosophy, Nietzsche branded

+as the enemy.  Pen went ahead, bent on cutting

+her own swath in the hay-field, and she cut a big

+one.  Goby and the poet must stand as exemplars

+of her clear and childlike method.  It was Pen's

+Short Way with Her Lovers.  She got Rivaulx,

+who was Nationalist and Anti-Semite to his

+manicured finger-tips, and had been mixed up in the

+Dreyfus case, and set him cheek by jowl with

+Gordon, alias Isaac Levi.

+

+She made them dine together in public, and the

+poor marquis, being head over heels in love with

+the earnest creature who was so beautiful,

+submitted like a lamb.

+

+"Very well, I will," said Rivaulx.  There were

+almighty shrieks in the Paris press.  The *Journal*

+had an article that was wonderful.  The affair woke

+up anti-Semitism again.  Rivaulx had been bought

+by Jewry; France was once more betrayed; the

+bottom of the world was falling out.

+

+Pen, with no sense of humour, had a native

+capacity for discovering every one's real weakness.

+As the Frenchman would rather have died than dine

+as he did, so Gordon would almost prefer to die

+suddenly than to run the risk of it.  He had

+wonderful brains, and was a power in finance: he could

+risk a million when he hadn't it or when he had it

+as coolly as most men can risk a penny on the

+chance of a slot-machine working.  But physically

+he was timid.  Rivaulx went ballooning.  He

+intended to rival Santos-Dumont.

+

+"You must go with him, Mr. Gordon," said

+Penelope.  Gordon nearly fainted, but Pen was

+firm, as firm as a rock.  Gordon offered to subscribe

+to all the hospitals in London if she would let him

+off.  He offered to build a small one and endow

+it; he even suggested that he would build a church.

+But the poor man had to go.  It was now

+thoroughly understood that any man who refused to

+do exactly what she told him was struck off the

+list.  The comic papers were almost comic about

+it.  On the day that Gordon went up with Rivaulx

+in an entirely non-dirigible balloon, the Crystal

+Palace grounds were crowded with all the Frenchmen

+and all the Jews in London.  The balloon came

+down in a turnip-field fifteen miles from anywhere,

+and Gordon got back to London and went to bed.

+He was consoled by a telegram from Penelope,

+who congratulated him on overcoming his natural

+cowardice, and suggested he should do it again.

+

+"I'll give her up first," said Gordon, knowing

+all the time that he could no more do it than give

+up finance.  He went out and robbed a lot of his

+friends as a compensation for disturbance, and

+found himself a hero.  In about forty-eight hours

+the sensation of being looked on as a man of

+exceptional grit so pleased him that he adored

+Penelope more than ever.  He was as proud of having

+been in a balloon as Rivaulx was of having dined

+*tête-à-tête* with him in the open.

+

+She sent for Rufus Q. Plant, and she introduced

+him to Lord Bramber.  Plant was a big American

+with the common delusion among Americans that

+he had an entirely English accent.  But he hated

+aristocrats.  Bramber had an Oxford accent

+(Balliol variety), and disliked Americans more than

+getting up in the morning.  He was a fine-looking

+young fellow with a good skull, who did nothing

+with it.  He had the tendencies of a citizen of

+Sybaris, and got up at noon.  Plant rose at dawn.

+Bramber loved horses and hated motor-cars.  Plant

+had a manufactory of motors.  Pen sent them away

+together on a little tour, and hinted delicately to

+Plant that his English accent would be improved

+by a little Oxford polish.

+

+"And as for you, Lord Bramber, when you come

+back, I hope you will be more ready to acknowledge

+that you don't know everything.  Mr. Plant will

+do you good, and will teach you to drive a motor!"

+

+She had never been so beautiful.  She showed

+at her best when her interest in humanity made

+her courageous and brutal.  The colour in her

+cheeks was splendid; her eyes were as earnest as

+the sea.  If Bramber choked, he submitted, though

+he blasphemed awfully when he got alone.

+

+"Go at once," said Penelope.

+

+She paired off Carteret Williams with Jimmy

+Carew, A.R.A.  Williams knew as much about

+art as a hog does of harmony.  Jimmy thought the

+war correspondent a howling Philistine, as indeed

+he was, and believed anything that could not be

+painted was a mere by-product of the universe.

+

+"You'll do each other good," said Pen, clasping

+her beautiful hands together with enthusiasm.

+Jimmy wanted to draw her at once.  Williams

+wished for an immediate invasion, so that he could

+save her life and write a flamboyant article about it.

+

+"Show him pictures, Mr. Carew, beginning with

+Turner and Whistler."

+

+"Make him understand that art isn't everything,

+Mr. Williams."

+

+She sent them away together, and was wonderfully

+pleased with herself.

+

+"They are all fine men," she said, thoughtfully,

+"but it is curious that every man I know thinks

+every other man more or less of a fool or an idiot,

+or a cad.  They are dreadfully one-sided.  When

+they come back they will be much improved.  This

+is my work in the world, and I don't care a bit

+what people say."

+

+People said lots, though after a bit the fun died

+down, except among her own people.  And even

+they laughed at last.  At least, every one did but

+Titania, and she had no more sense of humour than

+Penelope herself.  Indeed, she had less, for

+Penelope could understand a joke when it was explained

+to her carefully, and Titania couldn't.  And in after

+years Pen came to see the humourous side of things.

+She even appreciated a joke against herself, which

+is the crucial test of humour.  But Titania died

+maintaining that life was a serious business, and

+should be taken like medicine.

+

+"I never heard of more insane proceedings,"

+said Titania, "never!  The notion of sending that

+poor Jew up in a balloon with that mad Frenchman!

+Balloons at the best are blasphemous.  And to make

+Captain Goby read with poor little De Vere!  I'm

+sure there will be murder done before she's

+married.  And now it's an understood thing that she

+will marry one of them.  And Brading laughs!  If

+he is only her half-brother, I consider him

+responsible.  And Augustin smiles and smokes and smokes

+and smiles.  And Chloe Cadwallader, whom I never

+approved of and never shall, backs her up, of course.

+One of these days I shall tell Chloe Cadwallader

+what I think of her!"

+

+"I say, granny, what do you think of her?"

+asked Bob.

+

+"Never mind," said Titania; "there are things

+that you know nothing of, Robert."

+

+"Oh, are there?" said Bob.  "I say, granny, I

+ain't sure of that.  I've been expelled from three

+schools, and Baker says—"

+

+"Oh, bother Baker," cried his exasperated

+grandmother.  "I think Mr. Guthrie might keep you

+away from Baker."

+

+"He can't," said Bob, cheerfully.  "Old Guth

+and I have made a treaty.  I do what he tells me

+between ten and twelve, and what I like afterward.

+If we are reading Latin, and the clock strikes twelve,

+I say, 'Mr. Guthrie, don't you think Latin's rot?'

+and he says, 'Oh, is it twelve?  I thought it was

+only eleven!'  I get on with Guth, I tell you."

+

+And he was very thick with Goby, who had given

+him the pedigree bull-pup.  Mr. de Vere now owned

+the interesting one which had to be fed with gloves

+on, and loathed it with an exceeding hatred only

+exceeded by his hatred for Goby.

+

+"I say, Pen, you go it," said Bob.  "There's

+heaps of fun in this.  They all tip me now like

+winking."

+

+But Pen did not see the fun.  It was a serious

+business.  She looked after her lovers with the

+greatest care.  They brought her reports; they

+complained of each other.  She smoothed over

+difficulties, and explained what they were to do.

+

+"How the devil am I to live on a thousand a

+year!" said Goby.  But he tried it and found it

+quite exciting.  It exercised his self-control

+wonderfully.  He went into the War Office once a week

+and demanded some kind of job, and was put off

+with all kinds of regulations.  He sent a telegram

+to Penelope the first week, saying that according

+to his accounts he had spent no more than £20.

+She wired congratulations, and received another wire:

+

+.. vspace:: 2

+

+"Have made a mistake.  Forgot to include a

+few bills.  Will be more careful in future.

+

+.. vspace:: 1

+

+"GOBY."

+

+.. vspace:: 2

+

+Plant said:

+

+"What, a thousand a year!  That's easy.  I can

+live on thirty shillings a week.  My dear Lady

+Penelope, I've done it on half a dollar a day.  I'll

+show you."

+

+He took one room in Bloomsbury, and sent in

+his bills and accounts to her weekly.  She suggested

+he should find out if his great success in the United

+States had ruined any one in particular, and if so

+that he should compensate them.  This cost him

+a hundred thousand dollars.  Almost every other

+day she got a telegram something like this:

+

+"Have found another person I ruined.  Am

+cabling five thousand dollars to widow and orphans.

+Man is dead."

+

+Or,—

+

+"Another find.  Man said to be a lunatic, but

+perfectly sane except on point of Trusts.  Have

+cabled for his transfer to more comfortable asylum."

+

+Or,—

+

+"Widow refuses money with insults.  Have

+settled it on daughter, and have given son job."

+

+Or,—

+

+"Man in question has given amount cabled to

+Republicans of New York.  Has recovered and has

+started a Trust himself."

+

+This was very satisfactory.  Penelope saw she

+was doing good.  In the middle of her joy, she

+received a wire from Goby.

+

+.. vspace:: 2

+

+"May I stop poetry with De Vere?  Doctor says

+I am overdoing it.  GOBY."

+

+.. vspace:: 2

+

+She also received one at the same time from

+De Vere:

+

+.. vspace:: 2

+

+"If I could have a week to myself to write satire,

+should be eternally grateful.  Doctor says rowing

+may be carried to excess.  The bulldog is well.

+

+.. vspace:: 1

+

+"DE VERE."

+

+.. vspace:: 2

+

+The Marquis de Rivaulx, after a fortnight with

+Gordon, asked to be allowed to go over to Paris to

+see his mother.  But he acknowledged that Gordon

+was not a bad chap, though he was as white as a

+sheet in the balloon.

+

+"And he told me, my dear lady, what to buy.

+He knows very well what to buy and what to sell.

+He is immensely clevair, oh, yes.  And may I go

+and see *maman*?"

+

+She let him go, but not before he promised to

+take no part in any further anti-Semitic

+proceedings.  She told Gordon not to brag so much of

+having been in a balloon.

+

+"You know you were afraid," she said.  "The

+marquis said you were."

+

+"Of course I was," said Gordon, "but I went,

+didn't I?"

+

+That was unanswerable.

+

+She had an "at home" once a week.  It was

+understood that no one but her own relatives and

+members of the horde were to call on that day.

+She then issued any directions that she thought of

+during the week.  Bradstock was now openly and

+recklessly on her side.

+

+"I believe you're doing good, real good," said

+Augustin.  "I'm proud of you.  Don't mind my

+laughing, Pen.  Oh, but you are wonderful."

+

+He gave her advice.

+

+"Kick young Bramber into public life," he said.

+"He's got brains."

+

+"Lord Bramber," said Pen, "you are to go into

+Parliament at once.  Speak to Lord Bradstock

+about it, and I'll talk to Mrs. Mytton on your

+behalf.  I expect you to be an Under-Secretary of

+State at once."

+

+"Damn!  this is worse than Plant," said the

+obedient Bramber.  Nevertheless, he owned that

+Plant was a man, and a real good sort.

+

+"I go to see him, Lady Penelope, in his room

+in Bloomsbury.  He's living on about half a crown

+a day.  I—oh—yes, I'm coming down to the

+thousand by degrees.  And of course if you want

+me to go into the House, I'll go."

+

+Carteret Williams was there, and was put

+through his paces by Pen about art.  He had learnt

+something about it by rote.

+

+"The Academy is composed of painters," he

+said, mechanically, "but there are few artists in it.

+I quite agree with Carew, who had his pictures

+chucked before they made him an associate through

+fear.  Turner is a very great artist.  He shows how

+near the sublime can get to the ridiculous.  Whistler

+is also great.  He shows how near the ridiculous

+can go to the sublime.  Art is a combination of the

+material and the spiritual.  So Carew says.  He

+showed me a lot of Blake, and he says that the

+beauty of Blake is that you can't understand him

+by any ordinary means, such as the intellect.  I'm

+not up to Blake yet.  The old masters are very fine.

+I admit it.  Velasquez is dry, but wonderful.

+Rembrandt appeals to me because he is very dark; I

+think he would be better if he were darker.  We

+go to the National Gallery every day, and then I

+take him to the Press Club, where he hears about

+real life."

+

+When Carew came, he owned that Williams

+wasn't a bad sort.

+

+"And he's doing his level best to understand,"

+said Carew, with enthusiasm.  "He stands before

+a picture of mine every day for an hour while I

+explain it.  He sees something in it at last.  And

+he's reading about art, and is beginning to see why

+a photograph isn't the last word of things.  He's

+led a wonderful life, Lady Penelope, and when he

+gets on what he's seen and done, I feel almost

+ashamed to live as I do."

+

+"That's right," said Pen; "every artist should.

+And every man who is not an artist should be sorry

+that he is not.  We are far from perfect yet."

+

+How beautiful she looked, thought Carew.

+

+"She lives in the world of the ideal, and so do I."

+

+"I am very much pleased with everything,"

+said Pen at large to the assembly, and De Vere,

+who was having a holiday for his satire, was pleased

+too.  And Goby was delighted at being let off poetry

+for awhile.

+

+"Not but what there's something in it, I admit,"

+said Goby, critically.  "Robert Lindsay Gordon is

+a fair snorter at it.  I can't say I'm up to Shelley

+yet.  De Vere read me the Epi-something-or-other."

+

+"'Epipsychidion,'" said Pen.

+

+"That's it, a regular water-jump of a word,"

+said Goby, "and he took it in his stride, while I

+boggled on the bank.  However, I'm coming up

+hand over hand with him.  I'm reading Keats with

+him.  He's all right when you get to know him,

+Lady Penelope, and rowing's doing him no end of

+good.  He's a well-made little chap, and getting

+some good muscle.  If I'm not dead by the time

+I can take the Epi-what's-his-name, I'll make a

+man of him."

+

+Rivaulx, who had come in with Gordon on his

+return from seeing his mother in Paris, was very

+proud of himself.

+

+"A year ago I should not have had the courage

+to show myself with a Jew," said Rivaulx,

+triumphantly.  "Lady, dear lady, I thought I should

+have died when I asked him to dinner.  But now

+I like him.  He is wonderful.  When he says 'buy,'

+I buy, and heigh, presto! the shares go up like

+my balloon.  And when he says 'sell,' I sell, and

+they go down like a barometer when you go up.

+Oh, yes, and all your aristocracy admire him.  I

+saw seven great lords with him the other day, and

+they said: 'What company am I to be a director

+of, Gordon?' and he said he'd ask his clerk.  But

+I have refused to be a director.  I should not like

+*maman* to know I know him.  She is very dreadful

+against Jews, owing to the *affaire* in France."

+

+And that was the celebrated afternoon that

+Penelope, who found that she was doing good in every

+way to all mankind by obliterating all class and

+professional jealousies, raised passion and curiosity

+to its highest point by saying, with the sweetest

+blush:

+

+"Very well, then, I promise to marry one of you!"

+

+

+

+

+

+.. vspace:: 4

+

+.. _`CHAPTER V.`:

+

+.. class:: center large bold

+

+   CHAPTER V.

+

+.. vspace:: 2

+

+Penelope was the swan, and all her relations

+were the ducks.  The noise they made was simply

+unendurable.  For, besides Titania, she had cousins

+and other aunts, or people who were in the

+position of aunts, and she had friends who had been

+friends of her mother, and they came down on her

+like the Assyrian.  They objected to publicity,

+especially for other people, and for a young woman to

+become a public character was something worse

+than immorality.  Nothing but Penelope's entire

+singleness of character and her humourous want

+of humour enabled her to meet and overcome them.

+And even she felt at times that flight was the only

+thing left.  She sent to her solicitor for a list of

+all the houses and mansions and castles that she

+owned, and she took her motor-car and her pet

+chauffeur, and, having borrowed Bob from his

+grandmother, she set off on a tour.  She

+disappeared for a week at a time.  Then she disappeared

+for two weeks.  She was even lost for a month.

+

+"She ought to be in an asylum," said Titania,

+"and I have to let Bob go with her.  He is some

+kind of a safeguard.  How do I know she isn't

+married already?  Bob, dear Bob, has ceased to

+confide in me.  When I interrogate him, he puts

+me off.  I get nothing out of him.  The only thing

+that I can congratulate myself on is that now,

+instead of 'Baker says,' it is 'Pen says.'  And I

+doubt, I own I doubt, and I cannot help it, whether

+Bob is not being done serious harm to, considering

+that he will one day be a duke.  A duke should be

+brought up properly.  Goring was brought up

+badly, I deeply regret to say.  He laughs at Penelope's

+behaviour, and says girls will be girls.  I say

+they will be women, and he says, 'Thank the Lord,'

+and I don't know what he means.  But, as I say,

+this wretched girl may be married by now.  It is

+already months since she said, in my hearing, to

+a whole crowd of men, 'I promise to marry one

+of you!'  Was there ever an aunt in a more

+unfortunate position?  I feel as if I should become a

+lunatic.  Augustin, do you hear me, I am rapidly

+becoming insane."

+

+"Oh, ah," said Augustin, who always knew more

+about Pen's actions than any one else.  She wrote

+to him from a hundred places.

+

+"Keep your eye upon Mr. Gordon," she said.

+"And what are people saying about Lord Bramber's

+speech?  I shall be up in town in time to see

+Mr. Carew's new picture.  I got a letter from

+Mr. de Vere, saying that Captain Goby was learning

+Wordsworth's ode on the 'Intimations of

+Immortality in Childhood' by heart.  Mr. de Vere says

+he is doing what I told him, and is keeping his

+eye on Mr. Roosevelt.  I told him to model

+himself on the President of the United States.  He says

+he rows and has bought a Sandow exerciser, and

+he says it does not make him so tired now.

+Mr. Williams told me when I was last in town that he

+was thinking of writing a guide to Dulwich

+Gallery if war didn't break out.  I am afraid he hopes

+it will.  Mr. Plant's last weekly accounts were only

+10*s*. 6*d*.  I advised him to see a doctor if he thought

+it was doing him harm.  The marquis has written

+a very good article in the *Revue des Deux Mondes*

+against anti-Semitism.  I am greatly pleased with

+this.  I hope Mr. Carew's picture is intelligible.

+I told him it was no absolute sign of genius to be

+entirely incomprehensible.  He took it very well.

+I think Mr. Williams will have a good effect on

+him.  I have visited ten mansions, seven castles

+(two with moats; mother used to love moats,

+because there are none in America), and several other

+houses of mine.  Most need repairs.  I shall be

+home next week.  Tell aunt that Bob is very well

+and brown, and is learning to drive my car at full

+speed down a narrow road with sharp turns in it.

+Smith says he will be the best driver in England

+when he is grown up, if he goes on and doesn't

+have his nerve broken up early by an accident.  But

+I think his nerve is good, though I can't always

+tell, as I shut my eyes when we go very fast.

+Good-bye now, dear Guardy.

+

+.. vspace:: 1

+

+.. class:: noindent white-space-pre-line

+

+"Your loving

+   "PENELOPE.

+

+.. vspace:: 1

+

+"P. S. I am sure I am doing good!"

+

+.. vspace:: 2

+

+Bob was very sure of it, too.

+

+"I say, Pen, old Guth will be lonely, won't he?

+But he's all right if he has a bally Catullus in his

+pocket, and he draws his screw just the same.

+Granny is very decent to him, take it all around.

+And I like him because he likes dogs.  I must wire

+to Baker to hear how 'Captain' is getting on.  I

+called him Captain because old Goby gave him to

+me.  I say, Pen, don't you think Smith is a ripping

+good driver?  He says that he'll be my chauffeur

+when I'm a duke, if you don't want him.  He says

+him and me'll win every bally race.  I'd like to do

+that.  I begin to think horse-racing is rot.  You

+see three or four people can't ride a race-horse, and

+the responsibility of driving you fast when the

+road's crooked is the fun.  Every time I miss a

+cart, Pen, I feel as happy as if I'd hit Rhodes for

+four every time he sent a ball down to me.  That

+would be fun.  Baker says—no, I mean Smith

+says that all other sports are rot of the worst kind.

+He says if he's ever rich, he'll go through the city

+every day as fast as he can.  He hates the police,

+and some of them hate him.  He rode over a

+sergeant in the Kingston Road once, but he didn't

+hurt him much.  When shall we leave this castle

+and go to another one?  I hope the next is a long

+way off.  Smith says he wants a good road to show

+what she'll do when she's out to the last notch.

+And it must be down-hill."

+

+And in town, while Pen was going about the

+country, people's tongues ran as fast as any motorcar.

+

+"It is nonsense," said one; "she's married already."

+

+"I know she's not.  I paid a shilling and looked

+it up at Somerset House."

+

+"That's nothing," said a barrister.  "They could

+have been married under wrong names."

+

+"That wouldn't be legal."

+

+"Yes, it would.  It's only illegal if a false name

+is used and one of the parties doesn't know.  Then

+the one who is deceived can get a declaration of

+nullity," said the barrister.

+

+"Oh, well, but who is it?"

+

+"It's no one.  I don't believe she'll marry at all."

+

+"She's a crank."

+

+"It's madness.  I hear the Duchess of Goring

+has taken to her bed."

+

+"Well, Goring hasn't.  I saw him at the Frivolity."

+

+"Who is it now?"

+

+"I don't know her name.  But where's Lady

+Penelope?"

+

+No one knew but Bradstock, and even Augustin

+was behind by a post or two.  None of the "horde"

+knew, and they began to get suspicious of each

+other.  Goby watched De Vere, and De Vere kept

+his eye on Goby.  It was obvious from the

+newspapers that Bramber was in the House.  Gordon

+was seen at his Club.  And then Carteret Williams

+was missing.  Carew hunted for him in vain at

+the Press Club and at the office of the *Morning

+Hour*.  There was no war yet, though there were

+rumours of it in the Balkans as usual.

+

+It got about that she had married Williams,

+though he had only run away from Carew for a

+week.

+

+"The very worst of the lot," wailed Titania.

+"I knew it would be Williams.  He's hardly a

+gentleman, though he comes of a good family.

+Being a war correspondent makes a man brutal.

+I knew, I knew, I knew it was Williams, and now

+I shall never speak to her; and he will beat her in

+time, I know it, and there will be a horrible scandal;

+and what, oh, what can she have done with Bob?

+Augustin, go at once and find where Bob is.  I

+knew it would be Williams!  Didn't I always say

+it would be Williams?  I could have forgiven her

+any one else."

+

+Gordon came to ask Bradstock if it was true.

+And Bradstock had a sense of humour, if Pen had

+none.

+

+"My dear sir," he said, "how can I tell?  She

+liked him very much, took a great interest in him.

+She told me he was writing a guide to the art of

+Dulwich Gallery.  Do you think that a bad sign?"

+

+Gordon groaned.

+

+"It looks bad, Lord Bradstock.  But I don't

+believe she takes much interest in him.  She takes

+an interest in me, my lord!  Why, I went up in a

+balloon all on her account.  I went with that

+madman, the French marquis, and as sure as my name's

+Le—  I mean Gordon, there's not another woman

+in the world I'd have done it for.  Don't you think

+that going up in a balloon, when you'd rather die

+than do it, ought to touch a woman's heart?  I

+give you my word that she as good as said, 'Go

+up in a balloon and I'll—' well, or words to that

+effect.  I tell you what, Lord Bradstock, I know

+you ain't a rich man, not a very rich one, that is,

+but, if you'll be on my side, I'll put you on to a

+good thing, the best thing in the market.  It's going

+up like—oh, like a beastly balloon, sir,—my lord,

+I mean.  I'm making it go up, and I'll tell you when

+to sell.  Oh, Lord, I'm very unhappy, my lord.  I

+love the ground she walks on.  I'd like to buy it

+at the price of a city frontage.  Come in with me,

+my lord, and you shall have a tip that half a dozen

+dukes are dying for.  There's a room full of bally

+dukes waiting to see me now, and I gave them the

+slip.  Will you come in with me?  Do, do!"

+

+He was a lamentable object, and there was a spot

+upon his hat which did not shine.  He worked at

+it eagerly with his sleeve, and stood waiting for a

+reply.

+

+"I don't mind telling you," said Bradstock, "that

+my income is only five thousand a year."

+

+"Poor beggar!" murmured Gordon.

+

+"But I only spend four.  And if I had more

+what could I do with it?"

+

+"Give it me," said Gordon, eagerly, "and I'll

+make more of it for you.  Man alive,—my lord,

+I mean—I can make it millions."

+

+There was a faint suspicion of the "millionth"

+in the word.

+

+"I can make it millionth," said Gordon.  "I've

+put a pound or two into that Frenchman's pocket,

+I can tell you, though he did take me up in a balloon,

+and I'll put fifty for one into yourth, so help me."

+

+"I don't want it."

+

+"Well, you can give it away," shrieked Gordon.

+"They'll make you a duke if you only give away

+enough.  If there wathn't a faint thuspithion of

+Jewish blood in me, I'd be a baron now at leathth.

+Give it away to hospithalths, build a lunatic asylum,

+finanth your party.  And if that don't thucktheed,

+go into beer or biscuits, and you'll be made

+anything you like."

+

+"If they would make me thirty, I'd do it," said

+Bradstock.

+

+"Thirty dukes?" asked Gordon, in bewilderment.

+

+"Thirty years old," said Bradstock.

+

+.. _`LEOPOLD NORFOLK GORDON`:

+

+.. figure:: images/img-072.jpg

+   :align: center

+   :alt: LEOPOLD NORFOLK GORDON. Some said his real name was Isaac Levi

+

+   LEOPOLD NORFOLK GORDON. Some said his real name was Isaac Levi

+

+Gordon advanced on him and took him by a

+button.

+

+"My lord," he said, solemnly, "money ith youth

+and strength and everything except Lady Penelope.

+If you had a million, you'd feel twenty-five.  When

+I had a measly hundred thousand, I was thin and

+always going to doctors.  When I got two, I got

+fatter and gave 'em up.  Now I'm worth two millionth."

+

+But Bradstock said, brutally: "No, Mr. Gordon,

+I don't want money, and I don't want you to marry

+Lady Penelope.  If I had a million, I'd rather lose

+it than see her do so."

+

+"Did you tell her that?" asked Gordon.

+

+"I did."

+

+"I'm damned glad," said Gordon.  "If you want

+a cat to go one way, pull its tail the other."

+

+"Tut, tut," said Bradstock, and Gordon went

+away sorrowfully, for he had great riches, and saw

+no good in them without Pen.

+

+Bradstock had to interview all the lovers one

+after one.  They came to implore his vote and

+interest.  He saw Rivaulx, whose great desire was

+to look like an Englishman and act like one.

+Rivaulx adopted a stony calm, which sat upon him

+like a title on a Jew, but did not stick so tight.

+He ended a talk which began most conventionally

+in a wild and impassioned waltz around Bradstock's

+room, with despair for a partner.  He tore at his

+hair, but, having had it clipped till it was like a

+shaved blacking-brush, he could not get hold of it.

+

+"I must wed her," he howled.  "I told *maman*

+so, or I shall perish.  I will become an Englishman.

+*Mon Dieu*, I am sad.  I am fearfully mournful.  I

+weep exceedingly.  Have I not done all?  I have

+eaten largely in public with Mr. Gordon.  I have

+bought his shares and have sold them, but in my

+heart I cannot.  When I return to Paris, I shall

+fight duels because I have written for Dreyfus with

+tears in my eye and my tongue in my cheek for

+sorrow.  Where is she, Lord Bradstock?  Tell me

+where she is?  I will go to her and say I have done

+all and can no more!"

+

+De Vere tackled him, too.

+

+"My dear chap," said Bradstock, "I don't know

+her mind."

+

+"She knows her own," said De Vere, with much

+bitterness, "and so does that boy Bob.  I bought

+a bulldog of him, because she said she thought one

+would do me good.  I don't know why, and now

+Bob sells me dogs by telegram, and I daren't refuse 'em."

+

+"Great Scott!" said his host; "but why?"

+

+"That young ruffian has an influence over her,"

+mourned the poet.  "He is always with her.  He

+is capable of saying I am a 'rotter'; yes, a rotter,

+a dozen times a day if I refuse, and to have him

+doing that would be more than I can endure.  I

+want her to love me, and so I buy his dogs.  I have

+a bulldog which hasn't done me any good.  All

+he has done is to tear my trousers and trample over

+my flower-beds.  I have an Irish terrier who is

+now being cured of bulldog bites by a veterinary

+surgeon.  I've a retriever who howls at night and

+makes the bulldog unhappy.  I have a Borzois with

+bronchitis and no hair on his tail.  Bob wrote to

+say the hair would grow if I put hair-wash on it

+myself.  He said men couldn't be trusted to do it.

+And then I've Goby on my hands.  I speak in

+confidence, Lord Bradstock."

+

+"Of course," said Bradstock.

+

+"Then I own I loathe Goby," said De Vere,

+viciously.  "He has less brains than my bulldog,

+and I think the bulldog has less brains than the

+retriever.  He reads poetry because she said he was

+to, and he makes me explain mine to him.  Explain

+it!  And he makes me row every day he's with me,

+and he says I'm not imitating Roosevelt if I don't.

+She said I was to imitate Roosevelt.  Why should

+I?  I loathe Republicans.  She also told me I was

+to imitate Sven Hedin.  On inquiry I found Sven

+Hedin was an ass who explored deserts, and went

+without water for many days.  Goby can do that,

+as my wine-cellar can testify.  He says he only

+tastes water when he cleans his teeth, and then it

+makes him sick.  And, though I keep wine for my

+friends, I am a water-drinker.  How can I do

+without it?  I am very unhappy."

+

+"I should chuck Goby and give it up," said Bradstock.

+

+"I wish I could," said the poet, "but my nature

+is an enduring one.  We learn in suffering Gobies

+and bulldogs what we teach in song.  A dog may

+be the friend of man, but a bulldog is a tailor's

+enemy.  And I believe they gave Goby the V.C. to

+get rid of him.  Do they ever give decorations

+to get rid of people?"

+

+Bradstock said he thought so, and wondered what

+he could give De Vere.

+

+And then the poet sighed and rose.

+

+"I have to meet Goby and lunch with him.  And

+afterward we read Shelley together, and then he

+will teach me billiards at his club.  I loathe billiards.

+It is the most foolish game on earth except keeping

+bulldogs.  And Goby's friends are not sympathetic.

+They are sportsmen, and ought to be hunted with

+bulldogs."

+

+He went away sadly, and Bradstock lay on a

+sofa and laughed till he cried.

+

+"Pen will be my death and the death of a dozen,"

+he said.  "And as for Bob—"

+

+No sooner had De Vere departed than young

+Bramber was announced.

+

+"Conceited young ass," said Bradstock.  But

+Bramber was in the House, and was supposed to

+be doing very well.  He had brains, no doubt, and

+the manner of Oxford (Balliol variety, as

+aforesaid) sat on him well.  He made speeches, and

+Mr. Mytton congratulated him on one of them.

+Nothing but his passion for Penelope prevented him

+being as conceited as Bradstock supposed him to

+be.  But it must be remembered that Bradstock

+couldn't make speeches.

+

+"I thought I'd come and look you up," said

+Bramber.  "I thought you could tell me something

+about Lady Penelope."

+

+"I can't," replied Bradstock.  "I spend all my

+afternoons in saying so.  I've had Rivaulx and

+Austin de Vere and Gordon here already, and after

+you go I don't doubt that Goby or Plant will turn

+up.  How do you get on with Plant?  Do you

+know, Bramber, I believe Plant is the best man of

+the lot of you."

+

+Bramber frowned.

+

+"He has an accent that can be cut into slabs, to

+use his own dialect," said Bramber.

+

+"Your own accent is equally disagreeable to an

+American," said Bradstock, who had been in the

+United States several times.

+

+"I have no accent," said Bramber, haughtily.

+

+"Oh," returned Bradstock.  "And how do you

+get along with Plant?"

+

+Bramber was obviously more jealous of Plant

+than any one.  But he made a tremendous effort

+to be fair.

+

+"He's a very able man," he said at last, "but

+there's no man I should find it so hard to get on

+with.  He says just what he thinks in the most

+awful way.  And because Lady Penelope said he

+was not to spend more than twenty-five pounds a

+week, he is living on ten shillings out of bravado.

+I hate bravado.  He made me dine with him in

+Soho, and our dinners came to elevenpence each.

+Where is Lady Penelope?"

+

+"I don't know," said Bradstock.

+

+"I didn't see Plant yesterday," said Bramber,

+uneasily.

+

+"The devil!"

+

+"You don't think?"

+

+"I don't know what to think," said Bradstock,

+wickedly.  "I hear that Jimmy Carew hasn't been

+seen for days, either."

+

+Bramber fidgeted on his chair.

+

+"She *can't* marry Carew.  He's a thorough outsider."

+

+"Women don't understand the word, my dear

+chap.  How are you getting on in the House?  And

+have you been motoring with Plant?"

+

+"Yes," said Bramber; "we killed three fowls

+and a dog yesterday.  And Plant was fined ten

+pounds a week ago.  He said he would wire to

+Lady Penelope to know if that was business

+expenses.  I believe he wants to break my neck."

+

+"I shouldn't be surprised," said Bradstock.

+"Has he gone out alone to-day, do you think?  I

+suppose you know Penelope is doing a lot of it now?"

+

+"The devil she is!" said Bramber.  "I think

+I'll go and look up Plant."

+

+Bradstock got some amusement out of the

+situation, if Titania didn't.

+

+

+

+

+

+.. vspace:: 4

+

+.. _`CHAPTER VI.`:

+

+.. class:: center large bold

+

+   CHAPTER VI.

+

+.. vspace:: 2

+

+Penelope came back to town about a week later

+and saw every one.

+

+"I wonder whom I love," said Pen, "for I'm

+sure I love some one.  And they are all so kind and

+sweet and good.  I'm sorry I shall have to hurt

+so many of them, for the poor dears all adore me."

+

+It was marvellous how they had developed in

+a short time under Pen's system, which was

+evidently sound, as Bradstock declared.  Plant, under

+his ten-and-sixpence-a-week scheme, had lost a stone

+weight, and was as hard and fine as a coil of wire.

+His search after the people he had ruined gave him

+a peace of mind to which he had long been a

+stranger, for American millionaires in business have

+no peace of mind.

+

+"I feel good," said Plant, meaning it both ways,

+"and my endurance of young Bramber has stiffened

+my moral fibre."

+

+"Whether I marry you or not, Mr. Plant," said

+Penelope, "I am awfully pleased with you.  And

+how has Lord Bramber behaved?"

+

+"He's been death on what he called my accent,"

+said Plant, a little bitterly, "and it is notorious

+I've none to speak of; and, for that matter, his own

+you could cut with a knife.  However, I think he's

+a good boy, and will discover he has brains.  I've

+talked to him straight, Lady Penelope.  I told him

+you meant me to.  I said he might be a lord and

+the son of an earl, but that he was a lazy, loafing

+scallawag, and that, if he'd been my son, I'd have

+cowhided him.  That did him good; it made him

+sit up, I tell you.  Oh, he fairly fizzled and felt like

+going for me, but he knew better.  He has brains,

+and I've talked with members of your legislature

+who say he'll do well.  Put this down to me, Lady

+Penelope.  Credit me with this.  I've looked after

+him like a baby, and I've hustled him around in

+my motor till he can't help going when he's out

+of it.  You and me together, my dear young lady,

+could educate the entire universe.  If you'll only

+marry me, I'll start a university on these lines of

+yours."

+

+The idea was a pleasing one, but of course Pen

+pointed out to him that it was his duty to do it

+whether she married him or not.

+

+"Duty is duty," said Pen.  "I'm doing all this

+out of a sense of duty."

+

+"Don't marry out of a sense of it," retorted

+Plant.  "I just want to be loved.  I'm going around

+feeling I want to be loved.  I've never been loved

+properly all my life, and I begin to hanker after

+it wildly.  And, if you do marry me, Lady

+Penelope, I want you to understand right here and now

+that I don't want you to do your duty by me.  If

+you begin to do that, I'll take a Colt's forty-five

+and scatter my brains out.  I want love, that's what

+I want.  I want it straight, without water in it."

+

+"I see what you mean," said Penelope.  "I think

+you are a very noble-hearted man, Mr. Plant."

+

+And away went poor Plant to draw up a scheme

+for a university.

+

+"I think I could almost love him," said the pensive

+Penelope.  "I could—almost—"

+

+Her contemplations were interrupted by Captain

+Goby.  He was a little paler than usual, and perhaps

+a trifle more intelligent.  And he was more in love

+than ever.

+

+"I've done everything you told me," he said,

+as he sat down and eyed her wistfully.  "I've gone

+into poetry like a bull at a hedge, Lady Penelope.

+I begin to see what it means.  Old Austin (poor

+old josser) has taken the deuce's own pains over

+me.  He's read 'The Lady of the Garden' to me

+seventeen times.  He wrote it ten years ago.  He

+says he wonders how he did it, and so do I.  I've

+been trying to write poetry to you, do you know.

+That showed me there must be some special gift in

+it, for I never did anything worth the horrid trouble.

+And I've been worrying the War Office like a

+bulldog.  They say they'll think of me, and haven't

+gone any further, and talking of bulldogs, Bob's

+bulldog bit Austin de Vere, and he swore like a

+man.  I was surprised.  But if I were you, I'd tell

+Bob to stop sending him more dogs.  He's very

+kind to them, but they worry him.  Bob's prices are

+very high, too.  How is Bob?  Oh, by the way,

+I'm living on ten pounds a week.  Need I reckon

+tailor's bills in, do you think?  Oh, yes, this bulge

+is the Golden Treasury.  I take it out and read a

+lyric between meals.  The chaps at the Rag chaff

+me like blazes, but I don't mind so long as I

+improve.  I want to improve so as to be worthy of

+your intellect, Lady Penelope."

+

+"The poor dear," said Pen, when he was gone,

+"I think I could almost love him!"

+

+As luck would have it, Bob and Austin de Vere

+came in almost at the same minute.  For now Titania

+couldn't keep Bob away.  For the matter of

+that, she did not want to.  Bob was to be

+Penelope's safeguard.  He was much better than Chloe

+Cadwallader, said Titania.

+

+However, De Vere came in first.  He held

+Penelope's hand no longer than a poet should, as poets

+naturally hold girls' hands rather longer than other

+people.

+

+"You are looking really well, Mr. de Vere," said

+Penelope, when she was free.

+

+"I am well," said the poet, "exceedingly well

+in a way.  My dear lady of the beautiful garden,

+I owe all that to you.  At first I was afraid of

+Captain Goby.  I told Lord Bradstock so the other

+day.  I'm afraid I left him under a false

+impression as to my feelings to Goby, by the way.  I'm

+quite proud of Goby.  He says I am really a

+powerful man, and he made me row till I was worn out.

+And then he insisted that I should use Sandow's

+exerciser.  I own I did it with reluctance.  I pointed

+out to Goby that I did not wish to look like

+Mr. Sandow.  Goby always stopped by the posters in

+which Mr. Sandow is lifting ten tons or so, and

+pointed out certain muscles to me as ideals.  I was

+recalcitrant, for, although I admire Mr. Sandow

+immensely, I think muscle can be overdone.

+However, I used the machine, which is ingenious and

+elastic, and only dangerous if the hook comes out

+of the wall, and I've found I rather like it.  I should

+miss it now.  I think it imparts a certain vigour

+to verse, if not overdone.  Oh—"

+

+For in came Bob.  He rushed at Pen and kissed

+her hair, and then bounced at the poet.

+

+"I say is it true the bulldog bit you?  I saw Goby

+yesterday in the park, and he said so," asked Bob,

+in great excitement.

+

+"It is true," said the poet.

+

+Penelope shook her head at the late owner of

+the dog.

+

+"Oh, Bob!  Mr. de Vere, I'm very sorry."

+

+"So was I," said De Vere.

+

+"Where did he bite you?" asked Bob, anxiously.

+"Was it the arm or the leg?  And did he hang

+on like a proper bulldog?  Baker says that if a

+bulldog once gets hold, you have to use a red-hot

+poker to make him let go.  Did you use a red-hot

+poker?"

+

+"He only snapped and fetched blood," said De Vere.

+

+"Ah!" cried Bob, "I always thought he wasn't

+a real good bulldog."

+

+"At any rate, he bit the Irish terrier," said the

+poet.  "I mean the one you sold to me for three

+pounds."

+

+"I'm glad he did, sir.  That Irish terrier, though

+he's splendidly bred, Baker says, has an awful

+temper and is very troublesome.  Does Rollo, the

+retriever, howl much at night, sir?"

+

+"Oh, not so very much," said De Vere.  "It's

+only when the moon is near the full that he does

+his best."

+

+"I never thought of that," said Bob, "but now

+I remember that it was very moony when I sent

+him over to you.  Baker said you'd like him.  His

+kennel is next to Baker's house."

+

+"I'm much obliged to Baker," said De Vere.

+"But the tail of the Borzois is still bald, Bob."

+

+Bob opened his eyes wide.

+

+"Oh, dear, I thought you would have cured him

+by now; and how about his bronchitis?"

+

+"That's better, I hope and trust," said the poet.

+And Penelope, who was very greatly touched by

+his kindness to all these dogs, sent Bob into the

+library.

+

+"It's so good of you to be kind to Bob," she

+said.  "Bob's a dear, and he adores me.  He says

+that he's going to live with me always, even when

+I'm married."

+

+.. _`AUSTIN DE VERE`:

+

+.. figure:: images/img-086.jpg

+   :align: center

+   :alt: AUSTIN DE VERE. He wrote poetry, and abhorred bulldogs and motor-cars

+

+   AUSTIN DE VERE. He wrote poetry, and abhorred bulldogs and motor-cars

+

+"Oh!" gasped De Vere.  "We were talking

+about Goby, I think, when dear Bob came in.  You'll

+find him much improved, I'm sure, my dear Lady

+Penelope.  He has read a great deal of Shelley

+and Keats and Browning with me.  He was

+especially struck with 'Sordello.'  I read it to him

+and he sat with his hand to his forehead taking

+it all in.  And every now and again he said, 'Great

+Scott!' which is his way of expressing wonderment

+and admiration.  I do not know its origin.  I've

+written to Doctor Murray to ask him if he knows.

+And Goby, oh, yes, you'll find him improved.  I've

+done my best with him, and I've really struggled

+hard.  Any improvement you notice is, I really

+believe, under you and Providence, due to me."

+

+And when he went, Penelope sat thinking.

+

+"The poor dear, how nicely he took the bulldog

+bites and the howling of the retriever.  I

+think—I think I could almost love him!"

+

+And that afternoon and evening she saw Bramber

+and Carteret Williams and Jimmy Carew and

+Gordon, and they were all most marvellously improved.

+Bramber was alert and bright, and began to show

+that he had some ambition in him, and, if he did

+not tell Penelope his exact mind about Plant, he

+did show some little appreciation of the American's

+qualities.

+

+"Associating with him has done you good," said

+Pen.  "I see it has.  You lived far too much for

+yourself, Lord Bramber.  I cannot endure selfishness."

+

+"I'm not selfish any more, I think," said Bramber.

+"I rather like Plant.  He seems a man, take

+him all around.  He is abrupt, perhaps, and brutal.

+I own I've found him trying, and he says things

+one finds it hard to forgive."

+

+"Yes, he told me," said Pen, delightedly.  "Oh,

+he told me he said you ought to be beaten severely,

+and he said you took it very nicely.  Did you?"

+

+Bramber bit his lip.

+

+"I did."

+

+"That's right," said Pen.  "Oh, I'm improving

+you all so much.  You've no idea how much

+improved you are.  Mr. Mytton said he'd make

+something out of you, Lord Bramber."

+

+"Did he really?"

+

+"Oh, yes.  He said he made fair successes out

+of very much worse material.

+

+"He's quite a dear," she sighed, when he was

+gone, but, before she could add that she might

+almost love him, Carew and Williams came in

+together.  And before she could greet them, Gordon

+came, too.  Williams eyed him with strange

+ferocity, for he was by nature a hater of Hebrews,

+and wanted to dust the floor with him.  Pen, who

+was as quick as lightning, caught his glances and

+said to him, sweetly:

+

+"I think you would get on nicely with Mr. Gordon."

+

+And Williams blenched visibly.

+

+"Oh, I couldn't leave Carew," he said.  "I'm

+deep in art, very deep; I adore it.  Carew has

+introduced me to several Academicians, and I have

+bought a box of paints.  One Academician took

+me home with him and showed me his pictures.

+He doesn't agree with Jimmy altogether, and he

+says Jimmy will alter his opinions presently.  His

+idea is that when a man is an A.R.A., he is only

+beginning, you see.  He also explained to me the

+attitude of the R.A. with regard to the Chantrey

+Bequest.  He says that if they found a good

+picture not by an Academician, they would buy it,

+which is interesting, isn't it?  He was painting a

+picture called 'War,' and wanted my opinion.  I

+said I'd ask Jimmy, because I didn't know anything

+about war except what I'd seen.  I don't know

+why he was chuffy about it.  I find artists get chuffy

+and huffy very quick, and I don't know what for.

+Do you think there will be war soon?"

+

+Penelope didn't know, and said she wanted

+eternal peace and happiness for every one, and meant

+having it if it could be got by any legitimate influence.

+

+"War is horrible!"

+

+"It is," said Carew, who joined in just here,

+after getting away from Gordon, who told him

+to buy Hittites at 3-1/8.  "War is horrid.  Williams

+is always talking of it."

+

+"I'm not," said Williams, angrily.  "I want

+peace, eternal peace and happiness for every one."

+

+"Ah, so do I," put in Gordon.  "My idea is to

+have a peaceful life, far from the roar of London,

+in a deep green vale, where I shall hear no one

+talking of shares, and where mines are unknown, and

+there are no Chinese or crushing reports.  Why

+is it that most reports from mines are crushing?

+I wish I knew."

+

+"Ah, how sweet it would all be," said beautiful

+Penelope.  "You could keep cows, Mr. Gordon."

+

+"I adore them," said Gordon.  "There is a breed

+without horns, isn't there?"

+

+"They look incomplete," said Jimmy.

+

+"What are you painting now?" asked Pen.

+

+"I'm not really painting, I'm modelling in clay,

+as you told me," said the obsequious lover.  "Don't

+you remember saying I was to model in clay?  I'm

+doing Williams in clay.  He looks very well in it.

+I'm also doing a bull going at a gate.  When I

+get tired of Williams, I do the bull, and when I'm

+fatigued by the bull I go back to Williams."

+

+"And are they like?" asked Penelope.

+

+"Oh, exactly," replied Carew.

+

+And the interesting conversation was interrupted

+by Chloe and Ethel.  But Penelope said to herself

+that they were all dears.

+

+"Mr. Williams is greatly improved," she

+murmured happily.  "And Mr. Carew looks more

+healthy and less engrossed in himself.  I was

+awfully glad to hear Mr. Gordon speak like that about

+a peaceful life."

+

+And Williams slipped Carew on the door-step

+and went to his club.  He roared of war till two

+o'clock in the morning, and then got three

+out-of-work war correspondents in the corner and told

+them the great story of his love.  But Jimmy went

+down to Chelsea, and damned modelling in clay

+to other impressionist painters, and had a real good

+time.  As for Gordon of the "deep green vale,"

+he went home and found a clerk waiting with a

+bundle of cables from all quarters of the mining

+globe.  He sent a wire to Bramber to be let off

+an engagement to hear a debate on drains.

+

+On the whole, every one was tolerably happy,

+if we do not include Titania and the retriever who

+howled at nights.

+

+

+

+

+

+.. vspace:: 4

+

+.. _`CHAPTER VII.`:

+

+.. class:: center large bold

+

+   CHAPTER VII.

+

+.. vspace:: 2

+

+It is possible that Penelope never enjoyed herself

+so much as she did at this period.  She was so busy

+that she had no time to worry; her team took all

+her time.  She was young, she was beautiful, she

+was adored, she was popular, she was even

+notorious.  A dozen reporters dogged her footsteps, and

+when they lost her they followed her lovers.  They

+haunted her door-step armed with kodaks; they

+invented paragraphs; they hunted her men and

+her maids.  They made love to the girls, and

+seduced the men into neighbouring bars.  One

+newspaper man, who belonged to the *Mayfair Daily*,

+got into her establishment as a footman, and was

+discovered by the butler drawing Penelope at

+dinner when he should have been drawing corks.  A

+search in his clothes revealed some pencils and a

+note-book and another book of drawings.  They

+were of such a character that the reporter was put

+outside into the street.  The butler could have

+forgiven the sketch of his mistress: there was one

+of himself that no man could forgive.

+

+The great desire of all these men was to spot the

+winner.  Penelope's maid, Harriet Weekes, who

+was more or less engaged to Timothy Bunting, the

+groom (a sad *mésalliance*, by the way), found it

+impossible to go out without being accosted

+respectfully by a new admirer, who tried to lead the

+conversation around to her mistress.

+

+"If you please, my lady, another of them spoke

+to me to-day.  I hope, my lady, you don't think it

+my fault," said Weekes.

+

+"What do they say?" asked Penelope, curiously.

+She took great interest in the manners and customs

+of other classes, perhaps with a view of altering

+them when she got time.

+

+"Oh, my lady, they always say the same thing.

+I think men are very much the same all over the

+world.  They say 'It's a fine day,' even if it's

+raining, and of course it is, and they say they want

+to walk a little way with me (begging your

+pardon), and that I am very beautiful, and that they

+have long loved me, if you please, my lady, and

+have been trying to speak about it for years.  And

+I tell 'em I don't want 'em, and I don't, to be sure,

+though one (he's on the *Piccadilly Circus Gazette*)

+is a very handsome man with a heagle's glance,

+dressed in gray tweeds.  And they won't be put off,

+I assure you, my lady.  Men on newspapers are

+hextremely persevering with a fine flow of

+language.  And if, being persuaded to take a little

+walk, for they are difficult to put off by trade, I

+do take one, they begin to ask, begging your

+pardon, I'm sure, my lady, if I am your sister, and

+I'm sure I'm as like you as a butterfly is to a beetle,

+as Mr. Bunting says, though he adores the ground

+I walk on, if he's to be believed, which I'm not sure

+of yet, and the butler is very angry with me about

+the whole affair.  And one, who said he was the

+editor of the *Times*, which I don't believe in the

+least, because it doesn't seem likely, does it, my

+lady, that the editor of the *Times* would do such

+things himself? said he wanted to marry me and

+put me on the staff as his lovely bride.  I must say

+he spoke most beautifully, and he said he knew

+Captain Goby, and also Mr. Gordon, and he said they

+were getting thin he thought.  And another, quite

+the gentleman, though by his trousers poor and

+careful, said he owned most of the *Daily Telegraph*.

+And I couldn't help looking at his clothes.  He

+was very quick, and said that was owing to the

+competition of the half-penny papers.  Would I

+save the *Daily Telegraph* from himpending ruin

+by telling him which it would be, he said.  And

+I said flatly that I wouldn't.  I never saw such

+wicked impudence.  Oh, yes, my lady, your hair's

+done now, and it's as lovely as a dream."

+

+And, as Miss Weekes finished, she wondered,

+quite as much as any of the newspaper men, who

+it was to be.

+

+"It's my belief," she said to Timothy, a little

+later, "that my lady is beginning to incline to one

+of 'em.  I've noticed she's quieter like and more

+gentle.  And there's a soft sadness in her eye and

+a colour that comes and goes."

+

+"There ain't one of the biling worthy of her,"

+said Timothy, bitterly.  "But there, Miss Weekes,

+there ain't no man worthy of a real beautiful, good

+lidy.  A fair wonder how I dares to hope that some

+day far off, when motor-cars has killed every 'orse,

+you'll be Mrs. Bunting."

+

+"It's a great come down, Tim," said Harriet.

+"Mr. Gubbles says he wonders, too."

+

+"If he wasn't the butler, and old, I'd plug 'im,"

+said Timothy, crossly.  "It's all right for me to

+wonder, but he ain't in it."

+

+"Ah, but class distinctions is hard to get over,

+Mr. Bunting," said Harriet.  "You must pardon

+a butler's feelings.  Even Mr. Gubbles has his

+feelings.  And he agrees with you that there's no one

+but a duke ought to marry our dear lady.  And

+she demeaning herself (if I dare say so) with

+Academicians and war correspondencies and Jew men;

+not but what Mr. Gordon is very gentlemanly and

+generous.  Only yesterday, Mr. Bunting, he says

+to me when he met me outside, 'Do you read?'  And

+I says, 'Yes, sir,' being some flustered, and

+he says, 'You read that.'  And it was a five-pound

+note.  And he adds something about 'your vote and

+hinfluence.'  But I can't do it, Mr. Bunting, I can't.

+If it was Captain Goby, I might, and if it was young

+Lord Bramber I might more so, and even if it was

+Mr. de Vere, with a duke remote in his family, but

+for a Jewish man I can't.  So I said, 'Thank you,

+sir,' and he went off.  But some one is beginnin' to

+rise up in my lady's mind, I saw it plainly when I

+was dressing her.  It would be worth more than

+five pounds to know who is risin'."

+

+"Yes," said Timothy.  "'Ow much would it

+run to, do you think?"

+

+"I believe it would be worth a public 'ouse."

+

+"Beer and spirits?" asked Timothy, eagerly.

+

+"And a corner 'ouse at that," replied Harriet,

+nodding her head.

+

+"Oh, 'Arriet," said Timothy, with a gasp, "you

+fairly dazzle me."

+

+The newspaper men had dazzled Harriet.

+

+But indeed what she said seemed true to her.

+And it seemed true to Lord Bradstock, who had,

+like the man of the *Circus Gazette*, an eagle's

+glance.

+

+"She has been playing fair," said Bradstock,

+"but one of them is drawing ahead, Titania."

+

+"Good heavens, who is he, and how do you

+know?" asked Titania.

+

+"It's intuition," said Bradstock, "intuition

+combined with, or founded on, a little observation.

+She's different, Titania.  She takes no interest in

+the London County Council."

+

+"You don't say so!" cried the duchess, in alarm.

+

+Bradstock nodded.

+

+"It's a fact.  I asked her if she had read the

+last debate, and she hadn't, and when I mentioned

+the Deceased Wife's Sister she yawned."

+

+"That looks bad," said Titania, "for only a

+week ago she raved about her, and Goring said

+he'd vote for her if she insisted on it.  And she did

+insist, and tears came in her eyes about the poor

+thing."

+

+"Well, I told you so," said Bradstock, "and

+I do hope it isn't Williams.  I'm afraid of Williams.

+He's capable of knocking her down and carrying

+her off on his shoulder.  Do you remember with

+what joy she read us the account of the savage

+tribe somewhere (was it the east of London?)

+where they do that?"

+

+"It made me shiver with apprehension," said

+Titania.  "Oh, if she was only married safely to

+a good duke, one not like Goring!  Is there a good

+duke, Augustin?"

+

+"Several, so I'm informed," replied Bradstock,

+"and there are quite a number of good earls, some

+quite admirable.  But I wish you'd get hold of

+Chloe Cadwallader, and find out something."

+

+Titania bristled like a porcupine.

+

+"There is no need to find out anything about

+Mrs. Cadwallader," she said.  "If Penelope wasn't

+too dangerously innocent to be single, she would

+not have anything to do with her."

+

+"I'm sure the poor woman was only silly," said

+Bradstock.  "Haven't we all been silly in our time,

+Titania?  Didn't I marry twice?  And you married once."

+

+"I'll speak to her," said the duchess, hastily.

+"If we can only find out who it is, we can, I'm

+sure, prevent her doing as she says and making

+a secret marriage of it.  The scandal would be

+horrid.  Oh, Augustin, suppose she did it, and had

+a large family suddenly.  I should die of it."

+

+"Good heavens," said Bradstock, "you alarm

+me, Titania, you are so gloomy.  She would surely

+acknowledge her marriage then?"

+

+Titania threw up her hands.

+

+"Augustin, I'm sure of nothing with Penelope.

+I cannot answer for her.  She will bring my gray

+hairs with sorrow—"

+

+"To cremation," said Bradstock.  "She has

+invested money in a crematorium."

+

+"I thought it was dairy-farming," cried Titania.

+"Oh, but think, Augustin, of the horror of the

+situation as it might be!  What would her Royal

+Highness say to me?  Imagine her marrying and

+keeping it dark, and having, as I say, a large family

+suddenly without a husband producible on the

+moment to answer natural inquiries!  Imagine her

+saying *then* that her marriage was her own business,

+and her certificate of marriage firmly withheld

+by a young and obstinate mother in a safe!  She has

+a safe.  She has a safe, Augustin, with many keys.

+I wish I could get at it, and find things out that

+are in it.  I wish I knew a burglar, a good honest

+and reliable burglar, married and trustworthy, that

+I could send in to break it open.  Most girls have

+a desk with an ordinary key, easy to open, but

+Penelope has a Lord Milner's safe with patent

+things to keep it shut.  It's not natural, it's wicked.

+Oh, I did hope, when I found out what the duke

+was like and what his ways were, that I knew the

+extent of my troubles, but there is no end to them,

+and Penelope begins where Goring leaves off."

+

+"Is it as bad as that?" asked Bradstock.

+

+"And then there's Bob—"

+

+"By Jove," said Augustin, "I believe Bob's the

+key to the safe!  Titania, he's more likely to find

+something out than any one."

+

+Titania nodded solemnly.

+

+"Augustin, you are right.  I'll speak to Bob."

+

+"Let me do it."

+

+"No, no, Augustin.  He is very quick and suspicious,

+and he loves her, he adores her.  This requires

+a feminine intelligence.  I will work upon

+him quietly."

+

+And she went away to work upon Bob quietly.

+

+

+

+

+

+.. vspace:: 4

+

+.. _`CHAPTER VIII.`:

+

+.. class:: center large bold

+

+   CHAPTER VIII.

+

+.. vspace:: 2

+

+Now Titania believed that she was very smart

+and very clever, and that she would do things subtly

+and do them better than Bradstock or a barrister,

+even if he was a K.C.  And as it is the most

+invariably weak point in people that they think

+young people fools, or at any rate easily

+hoodwinked, she really believed that Bob, her dearly

+beloved young scoundrel of a grandson, would be

+as easy to work on as butter.  And yet she had the

+sense to see that Bob adored Penelope.

+

+"I am very greatly troubled about Penelope,

+Bob," she said to him, as soon as she got him

+alone.

+

+"Don't you worry about Pen, granny," replied

+Bob, cheerfully, "she can take care of herself.

+Why, she can drive a motor-car now up to about

+thirty miles an hour, and Geordie Smith says she's

+all there.  And so does old Guth.  He had long

+talks with her, and he says she has brains.  I tell

+you old Guth knows 'em when he sees 'em."

+

+Titania nodded.

+

+"Oh, I know she is clever, dear, but her ideas

+are so extraordinary."

+

+"Ain't they?" said Bob.  "I do wonder which

+of 'em she'll marry, don't you?"

+

+"Indeed I do," replied his grandmother.  "Have

+you any idea, Bob, which she likes best?"

+

+Bob shook his head.

+

+"Not me.  I wish it was Goby; old Goby is a

+ripping good sort.  He knows what's what, does

+old Goby."

+

+Goby tipped him freely and frequently, and Bob

+sold him a spavined pony, aged fifteen years.

+

+"He's a bit of a fool, of course," said Bob,

+thoughtfully.  "Do you know, granny, he isn't the

+judge of horses you'd think he is?"

+

+"Does Penelope ever confide in you, Bob?"

+asked Titania.

+

+There was a touch of anxiety in her voice that

+the boy felt at once.  He put his head on one side

+and looked at her out of the corner of his eye.  He

+didn't answer the question.

+

+"I say, granny, don't you think I can have a

+bigger allowance now?  I find mine much too

+little.  If I had ten shillings a week more, I could

+get on for a bit."

+

+"You shall have it," said Titania.  "Does she

+ever confide in you, Bob?"

+

+"Some," said Bob, carelessly.

+

+"Which do you think she likes best?" asked Titania.

+

+"I don't know," said Bob, "but I dare say I

+could find out.  I say, should you be very angry

+if it was Gordon?"

+

+Titania uttered a little scream.

+

+"Great heavens, Bob, I should die of it!"

+

+Bob sat down and looked at her.

+

+"He's not bad, granny, not half mean, oh, no, not

+at all!"

+

+He had given Bob as much as he gave Miss

+Harriet Weekes about three days before.

+

+"I rather like him," said Bob.  "Pen thinks he's

+much improved since she put him in harness with

+the Frenchy.  It touched her his going up in a

+balloon.  I say, may I go up in a balloon?  Rivaulx

+said I might."

+

+"No!" screamed his grandmother.  "Oh, Bob,

+you wouldn't?"

+

+"I won't if you don't want me to," sighed Bob,

+"but it's a horrid disappointment.  He says going

+up in one is jolly, and London underneath is

+ripping.  If I don't, will you ask grandfather to give

+me another hunter?"

+

+"Yes, of course," said poor Titania; "but

+what do you think about Penelope?  Could you

+find out anything, Bob, if I let you go and stay

+with her?"

+

+Bob's eyes gleamed.

+

+"Rather," he said, "of course.  But I needn't

+worry about old Guth if I do?  I've been working

+very hard, and I think a holiday would do him

+good, too.  I'm very much overworked.  Do I look

+tired, granny?  I always feel tired now in my head.

+Guth says a breakdown from overwork is much

+worse than most fatal diseases."

+

+"You shall go to Penelope if she'll have you,"

+said his anxious grandmother.  "Do you have

+headaches, Bob?"

+

+"Not headaches," said Bob, "I shouldn't call

+'em headaches exactly.  They're pains, and old

+Guth says he had 'em when he was at Oxford.

+They get worse, he says, and then the breakdown

+comes, and you have to take a very long rest.  I'll

+go on working if you like, though."

+

+He sighed.

+

+"You shall go to your cousin's," said Titania,

+"and my dear, dear Bob, keep your eye on Penelope

+and tell me all you discover.  Her ideas are

+very strange, you know, and we are all so anxious

+about her future."

+

+"So am I," said Bob.  "If she married the

+wrong one I shall be out of it.  I couldn't get on

+well with old De Vere, and if she married him

+I'm quite convinced he wouldn't buy any more

+dogs.  I want her to marry Goby or Bramber.

+But I think Bramber is rather mean in some ways,

+and very thoughtless of others.  I told him I wanted

+some salmon fishing at his father's place in

+Scotland, and he's said nothing about it since."

+

+"I shouldn't mind Lord Bramber so much," said

+Titania.  "But I'm afraid it won't be Bramber."

+

+"Cheer up," said her grandson.  "I'll look after

+her.  But don't forget about the extra ten shillings

+and the horse.  Could you give me the ten shillings

+for six weeks now, granny?"

+

+And he went off to Penelope's house and marched

+in on her.

+

+"Pen, I'm coming to stay with you if you'll have

+me," he said.

+

+"Of course I will," said Penelope.  "But how

+did you manage it?"

+

+"I'm overworked," said Bob, solemnly, "and

+sitting on chairs and learning Latin don't agree

+with me.  I want more open air, I think, or I shall

+get consumption."

+

+He was fat and ruddy and as strong as a bull-calf.

+He put his arm around Pen's neck.

+

+"I say, Pen, I do love you," he said.  "I think

+it's rot I'm so young, or I'd have married you

+myself.  Granny's in an awful state about you,

+Pen.  She asked me if I knew who it was you

+liked best, and she threw out hints a foot wide that

+I was to find out if I could."

+

+"Indeed," said Pen; "and what did you say?"

+

+Bob chuckled.

+

+"I said the best thing would be for me to come

+and stay with you.  And that's why I'm here.  But

+I say, Pen, I'll never sneak, not even if you marry

+Mr. de Vere.  Granny's raised my allowance ten

+bob a week, and I'm to have another hunter.  I

+got too big for the pony, so I sold him to Goby;

+Goby looked very melancholy, but he said he wanted

+him badly for some reason.  And he said he hoped

+I'd be his friend always.  I like poor old Goby.  I

+think I'll go into the park, Pen.  My things will

+be here by and by.  Couldn't we go to the theatre

+to-night?  There's a ripping farce with a fight in

+it at the Globe.  And will you have plum pudding

+for dinner, and ice meringues?"

+

+He went into the park and met Williams there.

+

+"I say, Mr. Williams, where's Mr. Carew?" he asked.

+

+"Damn Carew," said Williams.  "I don't know

+where he is, and I don't want to."

+

+"I'm staying at my cousin's," said Bob.

+

+"At Lady Penelope's?" asked the war correspondent.

+

+"That's it," said Bob.  "Would you like to know

+what theatre we are going to to-night?"

+

+"Yes," said Williams, eagerly.

+

+Bob shook his head.

+

+"I don't suppose I ought to tell you.  Tell me

+something very exciting about some bloody war,

+Mr. Williams."

+

+Williams grunted.

+

+"Or an execution.  Have you ever seen heads

+chopped off with a sword?"

+

+"Often in China, Bob."

+

+"I say, what fun!" said Bob.  "Tell me all about

+it.  Is it true they smoke cigarettes while they

+are being chopped?  And do they mind?  Could I

+see one if I went out?  I say, if you'll describe it,

+I'll see if I can tell you about the theatre."

+

+Carteret Williams described it.

+

+"Seventeen!" said Bob.  "By Jove, I'll tell

+this to Penelope.  She'll be greatly interested.  Do

+you think I could be a war correspondent,

+Mr. Williams?  I'd like to be, because Latin wouldn't

+be needed.  I'm awfully sorry for war correspondents

+in those days when no one but the Roman chaps

+did any fighting.  I've enjoyed that story of yours

+more than anything I've heard for years, Mr. Williams.

+When they write about these things in books,

+why don't they describe the blood the way you do?

+It's the Globe we're going to; there's a ripping

+farce there.  I wish they would do an execution

+of pirates.  I say, don't tell Pen I told you; she

+might be waxy with me.  Think of something else

+to tell me.  Good-bye."

+

+And he went to look at the ducks.

+

+"Williams is all right," said Bob; "I wonder

+if it is Williams."

+

+And at home Pen began to know who it was.

+And Ethel Mytton began to know it was some

+one.  And so did Chloe Cadwallader.

+

+Miss Weekes was right, there is no mistake about

+that.

+

+

+

+

+

+.. vspace:: 4

+

+.. _`CHAPTER IX.`:

+

+.. class:: center large bold

+

+   CHAPTER IX.

+

+.. vspace:: 2

+

+Penelope was certainly on the verge of being

+in love, to go no farther than that.  She discovered

+that certain of the horde had a curious tendency to

+disappear from her mind, though none of them

+lost any opportunity of appearing in her drawing-room.

+She was so sorry for those she didn't love

+that her kindness to them increased.  Her dread

+of the one she began to adore forbade her to show

+how soft she had grown to him.  Not even Ethel

+and Chloe together could make anything out of it,

+which shows every one, of course, that they were

+two simple idiots, or that Penelope had a very

+remarkable character.  It seems to me that the

+latter must have been the case, for Chloe was no

+fool in spite of the folly she had shown on one

+particular occasion.

+

+"Am I a fool?" she asked Ethel Mytton, "or

+is Penelope the deepest, darkest mystery of modern

+times?  I am convinced she has made her choice."

+

+"Oh, which do you think?" asked Ethel, with

+much anxiety.  "Do you—do you think it is

+Captain Goby?"

+

+"I don't know," replied Chloe; "it may be.  I

+give it up.  I shall ask Bob."

+

+"I've asked him," said Ethel, "and he won't say

+anything.  I think he knows more than we do.

+He's a sweet boy, but just as cunning as a ferret."

+

+But of course Bob knew no more than they did,

+though he would never own to it.  He threw out

+casual hints that he was wiser than his elders, and

+the only one he was in the least frank with was

+Lord Bradstock, who asked him to lunch and was

+infinitely amused with him.

+

+"I say, Lord Bradstock, if you'll keep it dark,

+I'll tell you something!"

+

+Bradstock promised to keep it as dark as a dry

+plate.

+

+"All these women think I know who Penelope's

+sweet on, and I don't.  And, what's more, I

+wouldn't tell if I did.  Would you?"

+

+"Certainly not," said Bradstock.

+

+"You can't think how I'm chased," said Bob.

+"Ethel Mytton is the worst.  She's dead nuts on

+poor Goby, and Goby doesn't see her when Pen's

+in the room.  And Mrs. Cadwallader, she's always

+mugging up to me with chocolates or something to

+get things out of me.  And the newspaper Johnnies

+are on me, too.  And Williams takes me out, and

+Carew (I don't care for Carew), and I like Goby

+best.  Mr. de Vere is a rotter, don't you think?

+The marquis was at Pen's, and he said that if Pen

+didn't marry him he'd go up in a balloon and never

+come back.  I want him to take me in a balloon.

+Don't you think I might go?  Granny's cross when

+I speak of it.  I've always wanted to go in a balloon,

+and I think it hard lines I can't go because she

+doesn't like 'em.  Pen won't go, either.  She thinks

+that if she did, Rivaulx would never let her come

+down again, or something.  I daresay he wouldn't;

+he's quite mad, I think, sometimes.  Baker says

+all Frenchmen are mad.  Do you think so?"

+

+Bradstock didn't know; he wasn't sure of it,

+though he owned to thinking it was possible.

+

+"After all, Bob," he said, when Bob went at last,

+"and after all I dare say Penelope won't marry any

+of them."

+

+And of course that is what a good many people

+said.  They said it was Lady Penelope's fun.  The

+Marchioness of Rigsby, who settled every one's

+affairs, said so to Titania.

+

+"Why wasn't she beaten, my dear, when she

+was young?" asked the marchioness.  "I was

+severely beaten; it did me good; it gave me sense.

+I always used to beat my girls with the flat of

+my hand, and now they are *most* sensible and

+married excellently, although I own they are not

+beauties.  I can afford to own it now.  I shall

+speak to Penelope myself."

+

+She did it and was routed.  Pen was direct;

+she beat no one, and certainly did not beat about

+the bush.  She had no fear of the world, and

+dreaded no marchioness.

+

+"I'll attend to my own affairs, thank you," said Pen.

+

+"My dear love," said the marchioness, "you

+ought to have been beaten while you were still young.

+This conduct of yours is a scandal.  It is merely

+a means of attracting public notice.  And I am

+old enough to speak about it.  I will speak about it."

+

+Pen left her speaking and went out.

+

+"She is distinctly rude," said the marchioness,

+viciously.  "I wish she was about ten and I was

+her mother!"

+

+But Pen could not endure being spoken to.

+

+"I love him," said Pen, "and what business is

+it of theirs?  If they disapprove I shall hate them!

+If they approve I shall hate them worse.  Oh, I

+almost wish I was going to marry some one who

+would make them die!"

+

+"Mark me," said the marchioness to Titania,

+"this will end in her marrying a groom.  Has she a

+good-looking one?"

+

+Titania started.

+

+"Oh, a very good-looking one," she cried.

+

+"What did I say?  Remember what I said," said

+the marchioness, darkly.  "No really good girl

+could act as she does.  She will marry a groom!"

+

+She went around saying so in revenge for

+Penelope's want of politeness.  The journalists took

+Timothy Bunting's photograph, and Miss Weekes

+was proud till she heard the dreadful rumour.

+Timothy beat a man on a paper, and Bob was

+delighted.  Titania took to her bed, and said the

+end of the world was at hand.  Bradstock laughed

+till he cried, and cut the marchioness in the park.

+Her husband was very much pleased at this, and

+said it served her right.  Chloe Cadwallader wrote

+her first letter since the scandal to Cadwallader in

+the Rockies, for she felt he would be the only man

+in the world who hadn't heard of it.  Ethel lay

+wait for Captain Goby, and asked him to kill some

+one.  There was not a soul in London who did

+not hear of it.  And then Timothy quarrelled with

+Harriet Weekes.  He went to Penelope, and with

+a crimson face and bated breath and much

+humbleness asked to be sent down to the country.

+

+"You shall go," said Penelope, with great

+decision.  "I can trust you, I know."

+

+"My lady, you can trust me with untold gold

+and diamonds," replied Timothy Bunting, almost

+with tears.

+

+"I shall send you to a house of mine you have

+never heard of," said Penelope.  "And I expect

+you, Bunting, not to write to any one from there.

+I do not wish any one to know I live there."

+

+"I'll not tell the Harchbishop of Canterbury

+'imself, my lady, not if he begged me on his knees,

+with lighted candles in his 'and," said Bunting.

+"And, above all, my lady, I'll not tell it to Miss

+Weekes.  Her and me 'ave quarrelled, and 'ave

+parted for hever.  And I wouldn't trust her, my

+lady, not farther than you can sling a bull by the

+tail, my lady.  I've trusted her to my rueing, so

+I have, and if she finds out hanything she'll sell it

+to the *Times*, which 'ave promised her a public

+'ouse at a corner."

+

+This revelation of the methods of Printing House

+Square shocked Penelope dreadfully.

+

+"Oh, I always thought the *Times* was a respectable

+journal," she said.

+

+But Timothy Bunting shook his head.

+

+"Their sportin' tips ain't a patch on many of the

+penny papers, my lady.  But don't you forget what

+I says of Miss Weekes.  She's a serpent in your

+boodore a-coiling everywhere, and speaking to

+newspaper men outside the harea like an 'ousemaid.

+Not but that I knows an 'ousemaid far above

+such dirty work, my lady."

+

+A little encouragement might have led him to

+say more about the housemaid who would not

+condescend to talk with journalists.  But Penelope gave

+him an address, verbally.

+

+"You will go to this place to-morrow," she said.

+"There are no horses now, but there will be next

+week.  I trust you to do what I tell you."

+

+"Miss—my lady, I mean," said Timothy,

+proudly, "I wouldn't reveal where I was if the

+Hemperor of Germany crawled to me for that

+purpose all along of the ground, making speeches

+as he went."

+

+Penelope smiled at her faithful henchman kindly,

+and she wondered how it happened that he thought

+of placing the emperor in such an absurd position;

+a position, too, which was very unlikely.

+

+"Now are you sure you remember, Bunting?"

+she asked.

+

+"Miss Mackarness, Moat 'Ouse, near Spilsby,

+Lincolnshire," repeated Timothy.

+

+"And you will speak personally to Miss Mackarness,

+who will give you every instruction," said

+his young mistress.  "I hope you don't drink,

+Bunting?"

+

+"Never," said Bunting, promptly, "at least I

+won't from now on till you give the word, my lady.

+But, my lady, as I'm goin' from here I don't mind

+revealin' to you that Mr. Gubbles does.  Mr. Gubbles

+'as been very unkind to me, and—"

+

+"That will do," said Penelope.  "Good-bye,

+Bunting.  I expect to see you in about a month.  It

+may be less."

+

+"I 'opes, my lady, it will be much less," said the

+groom, and as he went away he nodded his

+close-cropped head.

+

+"This is a damned rum start," he murmured.

+"Wot's up, I wonder?  This 'ere Miss Mackarness

+was 'ousekeeper at Upwell Castle, and I'm a

+Dutchman if any one of us 'as ever 'eard of Moat 'Ouse.

+She's goin' to do it, as she said, goin' to be

+married and keep it dark.  Women is wonderful strange

+and, so to speak, dreadful.  I thot I knew

+'Arriet Weekes through and through, and she turned

+out to be a serpent with false teeth, ready to sell

+Lady Penelope to the *Times*.  And my lady 'as

+turned me round 'er finger.  I'm knee-deep in secret

+hoaths, and, without knowin' what I was doin',

+I've swore off drink.  Well, I always did like

+ginger-beer!"

+

+But he sighed all the same.  And that

+afternoon he packed up and disappeared, and no one

+knew what had become of him.  Neither he nor

+any one of those who hunted for news had any

+notion of the fame which would presently be his.

+Nor did Penelope see quite what she had done when

+this nice-looking young man suddenly vanished by

+her orders.

+

+But Penelope was in love.

+

+

+

+

+

+.. vspace:: 4

+

+.. _`CHAPTER X.`:

+

+.. class:: center large bold

+

+   CHAPTER X.

+

+.. vspace:: 2

+

+Love is a pathological state which can only be

+cured by one means.  It is a disease, and robs the

+most humourous of their humour.  When Rabelais

+was in love he no doubt wrote poems which he

+afterward destroyed.  When Dante was in love he

+did the Paradiso.  When he cheered up he wrote

+the Inferno.  Neither of these is any joke.  But

+then, Dante had no more humour than Penelope.

+It can be imagined (or it cannot be imagined) how

+unhumourous Pen became when she found she had

+made her choice between Plant and De Vere and

+Goby and Carew and Williams and Bramber and

+Gordon and Rivaulx.  She wept at night over those

+she could not marry.  And it added grief to grief

+to think that the unmarried would probably relapse

+into their evil ways.

+

+"What can one poor girl do with so many?"

+she asked.  "I'm sure they will turn around on me,

+and once more follow their dreadful instincts!  And

+they have improved so much!"

+

+The result of her sorrow was such pity that every

+poor wretch of them all was convinced she loved

+him better and better.  They were quite cheerful.

+They looked at each other almost sympathetically.

+They grieved for each other, and struggled on the

+hard cinder-path of duty, with Penelope at least a

+long lap ahead.  The amount of good they did was

+wonderful.  Plant got his university started,

+Rivaulx went over to Paris and asked Dreyfus to

+dinner, Goby was deep in Imperial Yeomanry and

+rifle ranges, Bramber spoke on every opportunity

+in the House and voted with the insistence of a

+whip.  De Vere wrote a monograph on outdoor

+sports, with an appendix on bulldogs.  He also

+owned that poetry was not everything, and went

+so far as to say that the poet laureate was a very good

+fellow.  Gordon floated a company without any

+water in the capital, and ran the whole affair with

+absolute honesty and no waiver clause.  Carew

+learned to draw, and spoke sober truth about the

+Chantry Bequest.

+

+Williams never swore in public, and painted in

+water-colours.  And none of them played bridge or

+went into good society.

+

+"And when they know?" said poor Penelope.

+

+"I wonder if I ought not to sacrifice him and

+myself on the altar of duty?" said Pen.  But she

+was in love, and the motor-car in which she was to

+disappear stood ready.  She made weekly trips in

+it with Bob.  Sometimes they stayed away for three

+days, sometimes even for a week.

+

+"Oh, Bob, I'm so unhappy: so happy," said Pen.

+

+And Bob looked at her critically.

+

+"Well, you look stunning, anyhow," he replied,

+"you get better looking every day, Pen.  Old De

+Vere said so.  He let on that you were a cross

+between a lily and a rose, or some such rot.  You mark

+me, Pen, he'll go back to poetry if you marry him,

+and give up dogs.  I don't want him to do that.

+Baker has some pups coming on, a new kind of

+very savage dog, and I'm halves in 'em.  Can't

+you give me a tip as to whether it's De Vere?  If

+it is, I'll sell him one now, cheap."

+

+But Pen looked beautiful and kept her mouth

+shut.  Neither Bob nor Titania nor Bradstock could

+extract a word from her.  And, nevertheless, the

+whole world grew suspicious.  The society papers

+said she had made her choice.  The sporting papers

+gave tips.  They said, "For the *Lady Penelope

+Stakes* we give Plant or Bramber," or at least one of

+them did.  Others selected De Vere, and one rude

+man said a rank outsider would get it.  Of course

+he didn't believe in Pen's word.  But then, no one

+did.

+

+And still Pen kept her teeth shut and was as

+obstinate as a government mule to all persuasion.

+Ethel cried and said:

+

+"Oh, is it Captain Goby?"

+

+Chloe laughed and laid traps for Penelope saying:

+

+"Oh, by the way, I saw Lord Bramber just now."

+

+Or it might be De Vere or Carew or Williams.

+But no one got a rise out of Penelope.

+

+"I am entirely determined to give a lead to those

+who wish to be married without publicity.  I shall

+found a society presently," said Penelope.

+

+When Titania, whom nothing could discourage,

+went at her furiously, Bradstock smiled.

+

+"If she has a daughter, some day we shall see the

+girl married in Westminster Abbey," said Bradstock.

+But even he was very curious.

+

+"Have you found out anything yet, Bob?" he

+asked that young financier.

+

+"I'm on the way," said Bob, "give me time,

+Lord Bradstock.  I feel sure it's not De Vere.  He's

+buying all the dogs I offer him.  If he was sure,

+he wouldn't."

+

+But Bradstock wasn't certain.  Penelope might

+have no humour, but she was quite equal to ordering

+De Vere to buy in order to blind Bob.

+

+"I never thought of that," said Bob.  "I frankly

+own Pen's a deal worse than Euclid.  And I never

+thought to say that of anything."

+

+And upon a certain day in June, when June was

+doing its best to live up to the poet's ideal, Pen

+disappeared, by herself, leaving Bob at home with

+Guthrie, who now came over each day to keep the

+young vagabond doing something.  She came back

+after lunch, and Bob found her abnormally silent.

+She had nothing to say, and there was a curious

+far-off look in her eyes.  Her interest in dogs was

+nil; she showed no appreciation of ferrets; when he

+spoke she said "Oh" and "Ah" and "what's that

+you say?"  And Bob had no suspicion whatsoever,

+just as clever people never have when they might be

+expected to show their wisdom.

+

+When she did speak, though, it was to the point.

+

+"I think, Bob, it is time you went back to your

+grandmother's," she declared, suddenly, and back

+he went in spite of all his cajoleries.  Pen was very

+strange, he thought, and rather beastly.  There

+certainly was a change in her, for she dismissed

+Harriet Weekes with a douceur which did not really

+sweeten that lady's departure.

+

+And in the afternoon Pen casually remarked to

+Chloe that she was going out of town for three

+days.  When she said so the motor-car was at the

+door, and Geordie Smith was there too.

+

+If Timothy Bunting had known that Smith was

+as deep in his lady's confidence as he was himself,

+he would have been jealous.  But he must have

+been, for Pen said to him, when they were out of

+Piccadilly:

+

+"How long will it take to get to Spilsby, Smith?"

+

+"My lady, with this new racing-car I'll get there

+when you like," replied Smith, firmly.

+

+Pen remembered that Bob said Smith's ambition

+was to ride through the city regardless of fines.

+

+"I wouldn't try to do it under three hours,"

+she said.

+

+"Unless we are followed," said Smith.  "If we

+are followed, my lady, may I let her go?"

+

+"Yes," said Penelope.

+

+Geordie Smith nodded to himself.

+

+"Fines be damned, and legal limits ditto," said

+Smith to himself; "wait, my darling, till we get

+through the traffic."

+

+He meant "darling" for his new car.  He adored

+it as much as he did his mistress.  He used to

+dream of it at night and had nightmares about it.

+Dream ruffians cut up his tires; he was in the

+middle of Salisbury Plain without petrol; "she"

+refused to spark; he was held up by gigantic

+policemen with stop watches the size of a church clock.

+But now she moved under him smooth and cosy,

+with a vast reserve of power; she was quick, swift,

+docile, intelligent, fearless of policemen, careless

+of the limping law.

+

+"If my lady wants to go quick, I'm the man,"

+said Geordie.  "But I wonder what's up?"

+

+Geordie played the car as Joachim plays the

+violin, or Paderewski the piano.  She skated, she

+swam, she shot like a water-beetle, she was

+responsive to his lightest touch.  He heard her music as

+every engineer does, and found it as lovely as a

+dream song.

+

+"Oh, for a clear road," said the player.  He

+found some of it clear before they reached Barnet,

+and then he fingered the keyboard, as it were, like

+a master.

+

+"Horses, horses," said Smith, "the poor miserable

+things!  Ain't I sorry for Tim Bunting!  Here

+we go, my lady."

+

+He broke the law magnificently, and with such

+skill that Penelope wondered.  But only once he ran

+against the law in the shape of a policeman, north

+of Hatfield, who saw him coming and signalled to

+him to stop.

+

+"Shall I?" said Smith.

+

+"No!" shrieked Pen, against the tide of wind.

+

+They passed him flying and saw him run as they

+passed.

+

+"He'll wire to Hitchin and have us there,"

+said Smith.  But he knew his roads.  "Oh, will he?"

+

+He took the right fork of the roads at Welwyn

+and roared through Stevenage to Baldock and

+found the main road again at Sandy.  They reached

+Huntington, sixty miles from town, in an hour and

+three quarters.

+

+"And I've never let her out but once," said

+Smith; "she's a daisy!"

+

+The eighteen miles to Spilsborough they did at

+a speed that made Penelope bend her head.  She

+felt wonderful: she was on a shooting-star.  They

+slackened on the outskirts of the cathedral city and

+rolled through it delicately.  She looked about her

+and remembered the dear bishop who had christened

+her when he was no more than a vicar.

+

+"We'll go by Crowland and Spalding, Smith."  A

+car followed them out of Spilsborough, and

+Smith, going easy, looked back and saw it.

+

+"Catch us, my son," he said, contemptuously.

+But when they were well clear of town and he

+turned her loose, so to speak, Pen's nerve went,

+or it appeared to go.

+

+"Don't go so fast, Smith," she commanded.

+

+And Smith obeyed sorrowfully.

+

+"They can't stand it," he said; "none of 'em

+can stand it really.  They let on they can, but it's

+no go.  A few hot miles gives them the mulligrubs."

+

+But nevertheless they were running over thirty

+miles an hour.  The car behind crawled up to them.

+

+"All I've got to do, my lady, is to ask her to

+shake 'em off, and away we go and leave 'em," he

+suggested.

+

+"Oh, no, no," said Pen.

+

+At Spalding the pursuer, if he were one, was

+not a hundred yards behind.  But in the town

+Smith got ahead.  He did not see Penelope

+trembling.  Smith had taken a look at the one behind.

+

+"There's power there," he said, savagely.  "If

+he lets her out and my lady squeals, I'm passed!"

+

+She did "squeal" the other side of Spalding,

+but not for herself.  The other car had to stop.

+

+"That's done 'em," said Smith; "they're in the

+ditch."  He gained ten miles on them, and Penelope wept.

+

+And just as they were coming into Boston at an

+easy gait, Smith turned and saw the other car

+coming up behind like a meteor, with the dust astern

+of her in a fume.

+

+"That chap can drive after all," said Smith.

+"Won't you try to let me get away from him

+before we get to Spilsby, my lady?"

+

+"I—I don't want to," said Pen.

+

+And five miles outside of Spilsby the pursuing

+car drew up with them.  Two indistinguishable

+monsters drove it, and through his glaring goggles

+Smith glared at them as they came alongside.

+

+"Stop," said Penelope, suddenly.  "Stop, Smith."

+

+And the other car stopped too.

+

+"I'll go on with the other car," said Penelope.

+She took her place by the most unrecognizable

+portent of the two, and disappeared in a sudden and

+terrific cloud of dust.

+

+"Damned if I know who it is, even now," said Smith.

+

+

+

+

+

+.. vspace:: 4

+

+.. _`CHAPTER XI.`:

+

+.. class:: center large bold

+

+   CHAPTER XI.

+

+.. vspace:: 2

+

+It was Friday when Penelope disappeared from

+London in a motor-car, and was carried off by a

+motor pirate, unknown to any one, because he wore

+a peak cap, a fur coat with the fur outside, and

+gigantic goggles, making him resemble a diver or

+a cuttlefish.

+

+It was Monday when she returned to town in a

+motor-car with Geordie Smith.  And all the way

+into town Geordie said:

+

+"Blessed if I'd ha' thought it.  I always

+reckoned it would have been one of the others.  I lose

+money on this, but if I do, it warms the cockles

+of my heart to see my lady happy.  Bless her sweet

+face, I wish she'd leave the blooming world alone

+and have a good time.  I never set eyes on such

+an aggravatin' beautiful sweet lady for interferin'

+with men.  Just as if the queen herself could alter

+our ways!  Women always gas that they can or

+mean to, and they're just like hens with men for

+ducks."

+

+If he had been a classical scholar he might have

+remembered Ariadne up to her knees in the sea,

+with her lover on the deep in a boat.

+

+"When I saw who it was at Moat House," said

+Geordie, "you could have knocked me endwise with

+something less than a steel spanner.  And that

+horse-whipping ass of a Bunting was equal took

+aback.  For somehow we never spotted him as

+likely to make the non-stop run.  Humph, humph!"

+

+And he left Penelope at her house just in time

+for afternoon tea.  As she lay on the sofa she

+handed a paper to Chloe Cadwallader, saying:

+

+"I wish you would send out cards to all these

+people for Thursday night."

+

+"That's very short notice, darling," said Chloe.

+

+"They'll come," said Pen.

+

+And when Chloe looked at the list she found it

+included only Pen's particular friends, her most

+bitter relations, and the whole of the "horde."

+

+"I wonder—" said Chloe, and she wondered

+somewhat later with Ethel.

+

+"Is it?" said Ethel.

+

+"Can it be?" cried Chloe.

+

+"It can't be," said Ethel.

+

+"Who knows?" asked Chloe.  "She is so plain

+and so simple and straightforward that there is no

+certainty about anything she does.  I understand

+the wicked and the weak, but Penelope—"

+

+She threw up her hands, and presently wrote out

+the cards.  And Penelope was trying "to a degree,"

+as Chloe said all Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday.

+And on Thursday she sent for Bob, who came

+helter-skelter in a hansom.

+

+"You'll stand by me, Bob," said Pen, clutching him.

+

+Bob put his hands in his pockets and stood

+straddle-legs.  He stared at her.  What was hidden

+from the wisdom of Chloe was revealed to the

+simplicity of this boy.

+

+"Pen," said Bob, solemnly, "I'll stick by you

+till death.  But ain't you going to tell me who it is?"

+

+"Who what is?" asked Pen, feebly.

+

+"Him," said Bob.  "Pen, you've been and gone

+and done it."

+

+Pen, the strong and mighty Pen, wept a little.

+

+"Don't snivel," said Bob.  "It can't be helped

+now, I suppose, unless you get a divorce.  Do you

+want one?"

+

+"Oh, no!" said Pen.  "Not at all!"

+

+Bob considered the matter for a few minutes.

+

+"I say, what makes you cry?" he asked.

+

+"I—I don't know," said Penelope.

+

+"Girls are very rum.  Baker says they are.  He's

+not married, you know.  He says mules are easy to

+them.  He drove mules once in India, he says.

+You know you are doing all this off your own bat,

+Pen, ain't you?  Why don't you chuck it?"

+

+"Chuck what, dear?"

+

+"Oh, this notion of not letting on.  Baker says

+it's the rummest start he ever knew, and he says

+he's seen some rum things in his life, especially

+when he was a sergeant in the Dublin Fusiliers.

+Can't you chuck it?"

+

+"Oh, no, certainly not," said Pen, firmly.  "It's

+only, Bob, that I'm not used to it yet, you see."

+

+"Of course not," said Bob.  "Being married is

+strange at first, I suppose.  Baker says he knew a

+woman who was married four times, and by the

+fourth time she wasn't nervous to speak of.  But

+is it true, Pen, that you won't tell any one who

+it is?"

+

+"I won't," said Pen.

+

+"Bravo," cried Bob.  "Stick to it.  Oh, it will

+make granny so savage!  Has Bill spoken about it

+to you?"

+

+"He laughs," said Pen.  "He always does laugh."

+

+"He tells rattling good stories," said Bob.  "He

+told me a splendid one about a man who stole a

+parrot the other day.  I'll tell it you sometime when

+I remember it.  Is anything going to happen to-night, Pen?"

+

+Pen shivered.

+

+"Oh, dear, I don't know.  Mind you come, too, Bob."

+

+Bob vowed he wouldn't miss coming for worlds.

+

+"I believe you're thinking of telling 'em you've

+done it," he said, and Pen said she was thinking

+of telling them.

+

+"You won't tell me who it is?  I'm as close as

+wax," urged Bob.

+

+"I can't, dear," said Pen.

+

+"Oh, by Jove, I remember Bill's parrot story,

+Pen.  A man stole a parrot, and when he was caught

+he said he took it for a lark.  And the man who

+owned it said he'd make a bally fine judge at a

+bird-show."

+

+"Oh," said Pen, rather blankly; "but if he only

+took it for a lark, I suppose they let him off.  Did

+they?"

+

+"Let him off what?"

+

+"Why—going to prison, of course," said Pen.

+

+"I don't know," replied Bob, staring.  "Don't you

+see it's a joke?"

+

+"Yes, I see, of course," said Pen.  "Why, the

+man said it was a lark, and it was a parrot.  I think

+it's a very good story, Bob."

+

+And Bob went away wondering whether it was or not.

+

+"I'll tell it to Baker," he said, thoughtfully.

+

+He turned up at nine o'clock that night with

+Titania, who was in a state of mind requiring

+instant attention from a physician.

+

+"Good heavens, what is it, I wonder," said

+Titania.  "Robert, I wonder what it is?  But what

+do you know?  I am in a tremble; I am sure she

+will do or say something even more scandalous than

+she has done yet.  I put it all on Bradstock; to

+make him her guardian was a fatal error.  My

+nerves—but I have none.  I quiver like a jelly; I

+shake; I must be pale as a ghost.  Why should

+we take so much trouble over anything?  I must

+think of myself.  I will go to bed and stay there

+for a week, and send for Dr. Lumsden Griff."

+

+But Bradstock was as calm as a philosopher

+without anything in the objective world to worry him.

+

+"What does it matter?" he inquired.  "Does

+anything matter?"

+

+Brading, whom no one had seen for many months,

+as he had spent the whole winter in a yacht down

+the Mediterranean, was perfectly good-humoured.

+

+"You see, she's a dear, but only my half-sister

+after all," he said to Bradstock, "and women are

+so wonderful!  I can tell you a story by and by

+of a Greek lady, and one about a Spaniard.  And,

+to tell the truth, I almost agree with Pen.  I'm a

+bit of a socialist, or an anarchist, if you like.  Have

+you read Nietzsche?"

+

+"Who wrote it?" asked Bradstock.

+

+But the horde came in one by one, and Penelope,

+who was dressed in the most unremarkable

+costume at her disposal, and looked like a lily,

+received them at the door.

+

+"A most awful and improper situation," said

+Titania.

+

+"I say, I'll tell you about that Greek girl,"

+said Brading.  "Do you think Pen could stick a

+knife in a fellow?"

+

+Bradstock didn't think so, and listened to the

+story of the lady who suggested the notion.

+

+"Right through my coat and waistcoat," said

+Brading.  "Only a very stiff piece of starch saved

+my life!"

+

+"Good heavens!" cried Bradstock.

+

+The room was full, and Bob buzzed around it

+like a bluebottle in an orchard.

+

+"Oh, I say," he cried to every one.  He told the

+story of the parrot after he had asked Brading

+whether he had it right.  He tried it on De Vere

+and failed.  Goby roared handsomely.  Bramber

+was absent-minded with his eye on Penelope.

+Gordon said, "Yes, yes, a ripping good story."  The

+Marquis de Rivaulx balked at it, but was led to

+understand it.

+

+"And when can I go up in a balloon?" asked

+Bob.  He waited for no answer, but told it to

+Williams, suggesting that the war correspondent might

+pay for it by a story with blood and torture in it,

+please.  And all of a sudden it was noticed that

+the hostess had slipped out of the room.

+

+"Where—where is Penelope?" asked trembling

+Titania.  "Mrs. Cadwallader, where is Lady

+Penelope?"

+

+Bob ran her to earth in her bedroom, and after

+many appeals he was let in.

+

+"Oh, dear, oh, dear," said Penelope.  "Bob, let

+me take hold of you.  Do I tremble?"

+

+"Rather," said Bob.  "I'll bet you couldn't

+drink a glass of wine without spilling it.  What's

+wrong?  Buck up.  Ain't you comin' in to tell 'em?

+I've broken it a bit for you."

+

+Pen screamed.

+

+"You wretched boy, what have you done?"

+

+"Bless you, nothing to speak of," said Bob.  "I

+only said you would make 'em sit up presently.

+They think I know something, and want to bribe

+me.  I say, Pen, if you say nothing for a few

+days, I believe old Gordon will make me a director.

+Can you?  I want to make money and restore the

+family property.  I say, do."

+

+But Pen paid no attention to him.  She groaned

+instead.

+

+"Where's the pain?" asked Bob, anxiously.

+"Shall I get you some brandy?"

+

+"No, no, Bob!  I *must* go in and tell them."

+

+"Come on, then," said Bob, eagerly.  "I don't

+care about the directorship.  They're all white and

+shaking.  I *guess* they *are* in a stew."

+

+But still Pen did not move, and when Chloe came

+she sent her away, saying, "In a moment, in a

+moment!"

+

+Then Bob had a brilliant idea.

+

+"I say, Pen, I'll do it!"

+

+"Do what?"

+

+"I'll go in and tell 'em you've done it.  It would

+be a lark!"

+

+But Pen shook her head.

+

+"No, I must, I will be brave.  If a woman has

+ideas she must live up to them.  I have done

+good so far.  Are they not very much improved, Bob?"

+

+"Some, I think," said Bob, carelessly.  "But I

+dare say they'll go regular muckers now.  Come

+on, Pen, I do want to see their jaws drop."

+

+And Pen went with him.  She stayed outside the

+door, and Bob went in first.

+

+"She's coming," said Bob.  And Pen entered

+with her eyes on the floor.  Bob took her hand.

+

+"Buck up and spit it out," he said, in an

+encouraging whisper, which was audible in the farthest

+corner of the room.  Some of the horde turned

+pale; Titania fell back in her chair; Bradstock

+leant against the wall.  Brading put up his

+eyeglass, and then told Bradstock Pen reminded him

+of a girl who had once tried to smother him with

+a pillow.

+

+"She had Penelope's straightforwardness, and

+never gave in, just like Pen," said Brading, thoughtfully.

+

+And now Penelope took hold of her courage, so

+to speak, and opened her mouth.

+

+"S-sh," said Bob, who looked on himself as the

+master of the ceremonies, "s-sh, I say."

+

+And he took hold of Pen's hand.

+

+"I'm so glad to see you here to-night," said the

+reformer, "for I am so much interested in you all,

+you see.  And you've all been so brave."

+

+"Hear, hear," said Bob.

+

+"So brave in different ways, about balloons and

+motor-cars and curing yourselves of your weak

+points," went on Penelope.  "That's what I hoped

+my influence would do.  I said I was only a girl,

+but even a girl ought to do something, and I knew

+you all liked me very much, for you all said so, and

+I said, what can I do for you?  And I did my best,

+and you did yours, I'm sure, for I've heard from

+every one of you all about the others."

+

+This made many of them look rather queer, as no

+doubt it might.

+

+"And months ago I said—I said—"

+

+"Go ahead, Pen," whispered Bob.  "You mean

+you said you'd marry one of 'em."

+

+"I said I'd—marry one of you."

+

+Titania groaned in the corner of a vast settee.

+Bradstock and Brading whistled, or it seemed so.

+But the other poor wretches stared at Penelope,

+and saw no one, heard no one, but her.

+

+"And I wanted you to come to-night so that I

+could ask you all to go on in the path of rectitude

+and simplicity and courage, balloons and hard

+work and healthiness and thought for others, even

+if I was married," said Pen, with a gasp.  "Will

+you, oh, will you?"

+

+"We will," said the crowd, Goby leading with

+a deep bass voice and tears in his eyes.

+

+"Oh, I'm so glad," said Penelope, "for I shall

+not have lived in vain even if I died to-night.  And

+now—and now—I have to tell you something."

+

+"Great heavens," said Titania, in an awestricken

+and penetrating whisper, "what is she going to say now?"

+

+"I have kept my word," said Penelope, with her

+eyes on the floor.  "I have kept my word!"

+

+"What—what word?" asked the collapsed

+duchess, and Pen tried to say what word she had kept.

+

+"Speak up," said Bob, "speak up, Pen!"

+

+And she did speak up.

+

+"For—for," gasped Penelope, "for, you see,

+I *have* married one of you!"

+

+Titania uttered a scream and promptly fainted.

+The men looked at each other furiously and

+suspiciously, while Pen was on her knees beside the

+poor duchess.  At that moment a message was

+brought in for Gordon, and an urgent note from

+the whip for Bramber.  Brading stood in a corner

+and whistled.  Bradstock shrugged his shoulders,

+and Bob buzzed all over the room like a wasp in a

+bottle.  By dint of water and smelling-salts and the

+slapping of hands Titania was brought to, and

+when she had recovered consciousness to the extent

+of knowing what it was that had bowled her over,

+she uttered words on the spur of the moment which

+were almost as much of a bombshell as those

+Penelope had spoken.

+

+"I don't believe she's married at all," said Titania.

+

+

+

+

+

+.. vspace:: 4

+

+.. _`CHAPTER XII.`:

+

+.. class:: center large bold

+

+   CHAPTER XII.

+

+.. vspace:: 2

+

+To talk about the grounds of certainty is to talk

+metaphysically, and metaphysics being the highest

+form of nonsense, becomes sense in that altitude,

+as it must be if Hegel is to be believed.  But in the

+conduct of life the grounds of certainty are an

+estate beyond the rainbow.  If Penelope believed

+any one thing with more fervour than another, it

+was that her truthfulness must be self-evident.  The

+course of events after the evening on which Titania

+fainted and recovered so sharply showed her that

+nothing was certain, not even self-evident truths.

+For though she said she was married, few, if any,

+believed her.  Titania, who believed in her intuitions,

+as all right-minded women must, because reason is

+only an attribute of man, declared that Penelope

+had lied, to put it plainly.  She invented an

+hypothesis to account for it.

+

+"She found out she didn't want to marry any of

+them, and her courage to say so failed her.  This

+notion of hers gives her time, and of course, my

+dear, as you see from what I say, she's not married

+in the least."

+

+Bradstock, who was a philosopher, disagreed with

+her, and agreed with Bob.

+

+"Not married in the least, eh?" said Bradstock.

+"What is the least degree of marriage which would

+meet with your moral approval, Titania?"

+

+"Don't talk nonsense, Augustin," replied Titania,

+tartly.

+

+"I cannot help it," said Augustin, "the situation

+is so absurd."

+

+And so it was for every one but the Duchess and

+Penelope, who did not understand a joke even with

+illustrations.  And they undoubtedly had the

+illustrations.  There were leading articles in several

+papers on the subject of marriage, with discreet

+allusions to Penelope's case.  There was a long

+and rabid correspondence in the *Daily Turncoat*,

+a new halfpenny paper, to which every lady with a

+past or a future contributed.  The editor of the

+*Dictator* wrote a moral essay with his own hand,

+obvious to every student of his immemorial style,

+which proved that another such case would knock

+the bottom out of the British Empire and bring on

+protection.  He showed that marriage, open and

+unadulterated, in a chapel, at the least, was the

+minimum on which morality could exist, and he pointed

+out with sad firmness that the ethical standards of

+the true Briton were the only decent ones at present

+unfurled in the universe, and that they were in great

+danger of being rolled up and put away.  As every

+one knows, all he said was undoubtedly fact.  The

+true Briton is the only moral person in the world.

+As a result Penelope felt that she wasn't a true

+Briton, and it made her very mournful, as it should

+have done.  Nothing but her native obstinacy, which

+was imperial if not British, made her stick to her

+ideas, when her half-brother came to her and asked

+her crudely to "chuck" it.  For, though he was

+humourous, it was past a joke now, and his

+admiration of Pen was tinged with alarm.

+

+"I say, old girl, chuck it," said Bill.

+

+"I can't!  I won't!" said Penelope.

+

+"Nobody believes you."

+

+Penelope couldn't help that.

+

+"I've spoken the truth."

+

+"Why, even the other men don't believe it," said

+her brother.  "Why, I met three of 'em to-day, and

+they all said, 'Oh, yes, we understand.'  I say, Pen,

+this is too much.  Chuck it!"

+

+"Once for all, dear, I won't," said Penelope.

+"Much as I dislike this publicity, I see it is doing

+good.  I get letters every day from scores of people

+saying that I am doing good.  Three to-day

+declared that they were following my example in a

+registrar's office, and three more are thinking of

+it.  One lady writes, saying she hopes I would go

+in for abolishing marriage altogether when public

+opinion was prepared for the extinction of the race.

+I don't agree with her, but she was enthusiastic,

+and enthusiasm is a great thing."

+

+"I shall go yachting for a year," said Bill.

+

+"I wish you would, dear Bill," replied Penelope.

+"It will do you good.  You look quite pale, and I

+don't like you to do that.  Have you any cough?"

+

+"Damn it, no," said Brading, crossly.

+

+And he went yachting again without publicity

+but with a lady.  He was no true Briton, and never

+read the *Dictator*.

+

+His departure took one thing off Pen's hands,

+but none of her lovers departed.  Titania's words

+had sunk deep in their minds.

+

+"She's not married," they said.  "And if she

+says she is, it is only to try us."

+

+They all interviewed Bob, and made things very

+pleasant for that rising statesman.  If he believed

+Pen was married there was no reason to say so

+openly.

+

+"Am I old enough to be a director, do you

+think?" he asked Gordon.  "What I want is to

+make pots of money and rebuild Goring, which is

+a bally ruin."

+

+"You don't answer my questions," said Gordon.

+

+"Oh, about Pen," said Bob.  "She's queer.  I

+don't know, Mr. Gordon, I can't tell.  She may be,

+for all I know.  She's so clever, I don't know that

+she hasn't married you, and put you up to coming

+and asking me questions."

+

+Gordon couldn't help grinning.

+

+"I think you'll be a director of something some

+day," said he.  "I can't make you one now, but if

+you have a hundred pounds I'll invest it in

+something for you, my son, that will make your hair

+curl."

+

+"Like yours?" asked Bob, curiously, and Gordon

+flinched.

+

+"Well," went on Bob, without waiting for an

+answer, "I haven't a hundred pounds, but I've an

+idea how to get it."

+

+"Yes?" said the financier.  "What's your idea, Bob?"

+

+"It's a safe and a certain investment, is it?"

+

+"Why, of course," replied Gordon.

+

+"Then I'll tell you what, you lend it me," said

+Bob, brightly, "and invest it for me."

+

+"Damned if I don't," cried Gordon.  "Bob, when

+you are twenty-one I'll make you a director and ask

+your advice!  And you'll come and tell me if you

+find out anything about Lady Penelope?"

+

+Bob looked at him and shook his head.

+

+"I say, you're so clever, I don't know how to

+take you.  I dare say it's you!"

+

+The flattered financier smiled.

+

+"Oh, by the way," said Bob, rather in a hurry,

+"I suppose I should get nearly as much if I

+invested ninety pounds as if I put in a hundred?"

+

+"Nearly," said Gordon, who hoped to be let off

+a little, "only ten per cent. less."

+

+"That'll do me," said Bob.  "Then you can give

+me the tenner now, Mr. Gordon, and put in the

+rest for me."

+

+"I wish I had a boy like that," said Gordon.

+He went away ten pounds poorer, but with a great

+admiration for Bob, who was determined to restore

+the faded splendour of Goring.

+

+"Hanged if I know who it is," said Bob.  "It

+may be Gordon after all.  And every one but De

+Vere and Bramber have been at me.  Is it one of

+these?"

+

+He had a remarkable list of all those who had

+pretended to Penelope's hand, for he was very

+curious, like all the rest of the world.  He was also

+a little sore with Pen for not confiding in him.

+

+"I told her I'd find out," he said, "and I will."

+

+This was his list, and a curious document it was,

+written in a big, round hand that "old Guth" could

+never get him to modify.  His spelling was almost

+ducal in its splendour.

+

+.. vspace:: 2

+

+"*Plant*.  It isn't Mr. Plant, because he said would

+I like to go out in a motor, a new one, ninety-horse

+power, and I said rather, if he'd let her rip.  And

+he looked anshious I thought.  He tiped me.

+

+"*Goby*.  It isn't Goby, Goby says he'll always be

+my friend.  He said had I another pony not sound,

+to experiment with.  He stamped up and down,

+some.  He tiped me.

+

+"*Williams*.  It isn't Williams, he took me to

+lunch and told me lots of things about the Chinese

+that his paper wouldn't print.  They were orful.

+He said if I'd keep in with him he knew worse.  He

+didn't tip me this time because the lunch was so

+much.  I had turtell three times.

+

+"*Rivaulx*.  It isn't the Frenchy because he tore

+his hair, and said I could go up in a baloon any

+day.  At least, he didn't tear his hair; it's too short.

+He keeps it up with Gordon too but looks horrid.

+He tiped me.

+

+"*Carew*.  It isn't him.  He's very anxshus and

+says he can't paint: says the crittics are right.  He

+was a sad sight to see, walking around in his studio.

+He said would I sit to him for an angel.  He stops

+walking and tries to do Pen quick.  I think it's muck.

+I wouldn't like a tip from him, for if an artist

+can't paint through grief what becomes of him?

+Do the others buy him for the Chantrey Bequest?"

+

+.. vspace:: 2

+

+"That's the lot so far," said Bob.  And he added

+to his notes:

+

+.. vspace:: 2

+

+"*Gordon*.  It isn't Gordon.  He lent me a

+hundred pounds to invest in something to make hair

+curl.  I said make it ninety and give me ten now,

+and he did.  He didn't tip me, but I don't think

+him mean on that account."

+

+.. vspace:: 2

+

+"That leaves only De Vere and Bramber," said

+Bob, "and she never seemed much stuck on either

+to my mind.  But if they don't say anything to me

+I shall begin to suspect."

+

+He said so to Bradstock, who called him a young devil.

+

+But about three days later Bob added to his notes:

+

+.. vspace:: 2

+

+"*Bramber*.  It isn't Bramber.  I met him in the

+park.  He took me to the House and gave me a

+beastly lunch.  But he didn't notice it as he couldn't

+eat and looked very pale and savidge.  He tiped me.

+

+"*De Vere*.  It's not the poetry rotter.  He wants

+me to stay with him and look after the dogs.  He

+said if I had a sick one he'd rather have it than not.

+He said he was desprit.  I don't know why, but

+suppose it's Pen.  He tiped me."

+

+.. vspace:: 2

+

+"Now where am I at?" he said, blankly.  "I've

+written down it isn't any of 'em.  And that's what

+granny says.  But I don't believe her."

+

+He chewed his pencil till it was in rags, and then

+a sudden idea struck him.

+

+"I'll buy all Sherlock Holmes and read him right

+through," said Bob.  "That's the way to find out

+anything.  I wish I knew the man that wrote him.

+I wonder if De Vere knows him?  I'll ask Baker

+to get a sick dog from the vet's, and I'll go down

+and stay with De Vere if I can make granny say

+'yes.'  I wonder why old De Vere wants a sick

+dog, though.  I can't understand poets."

+

+It was no wonder Gordon wished he had a boy like Bob.

+

+

+

+

+

+.. vspace:: 4

+

+.. _`CHAPTER XIII.`:

+

+.. class:: center large bold

+

+   CHAPTER XIII.

+

+.. vspace:: 2

+

+It was all very well for Bob to declare that his

+grandmother was altogether "off it" when she said

+that Penelope wasn't married at all.  For, little by

+little, after furious discussions in ten thousand

+houses, in the court, the camp, and the grove, that

+came to be the general opinion.

+

+Titania expressed the general opinion:

+

+"She is mad, of course.  What can one expect

+when her mother was an American?  All Americans

+are mad.  Bradstock assures me there is a

+something in the air of the United States (oh, even in

+Canada) which makes one take entirely new views

+of everything.  And that, of course, is madness,

+my dear, madness undoubted and dangerous.  He

+assured me, poor fellow, that six months in that

+absurd country made him tremble for his belief in

+a constitutional monarchy!  He adds that he has

+only partially recovered, by firmly fixing his eyes

+on what a limited monarch might be, if he tried.

+Yes, she was an American, and adored our

+aristocracy, not knowing what we are, poor thing.

+And yet where Penelope's ideas come from I do

+not know.  I firmly believe Bradstock is the cause

+of them.  When she was a little girl he would take

+her on his knee and pour anarchism into her

+innocent ears.  You know his way; he runs counter to

+everything, though now comparatively silent.  And

+Penelope was always ready to go against me, though

+she loves me.  This was an early idea of hers;

+Augustin owns that he suggested it humourously

+to her years ago.  There is nothing so dangerous

+as humour; it is always liable to be taken seriously.

+Mr. Browning, the poet, said so to me at a

+garden-party; he said he was a humourist, and he said

+Mr. Tennyson (oh, yes, Lord Tennyson) lacked

+humour, while he himself had too much of it.  He

+explained Sordello to me, and made me laugh

+heartily.  But as I was saying, Penelope took up

+the idea and gave it out, and now is sorry, and, not

+having the courage to say so, she has taken refuge

+in what I am reluctantly compelled to characterize as

+a lie, and it is a great relief to me.  The scandal

+will blow over; already the halfpenny papers are

+tired of her.  I expect she will marry by and by.

+Oh, no, of course she isn't married!"

+

+And as Penelope's ideas were in every way

+absolutely contrary to what one has a right to expect,

+it is only natural that, proof of the contrary being

+lacking, the whole world began gradually to come

+around to Titania's opinion.  A duchess has a great

+deal of influence if she only likes to use it, and the

+public is no more proof against her than the public

+offices are.

+

+And Pen set her teeth together and ignored every

+one, and had very little to say to society.  Her

+apparent passion was for motor-cars, and she went

+out in the sixty-horse Panhard almost every day.

+And every end of the week she disappeared,

+coming back on Monday or Tuesday.

+

+"I could tell 'em something," said Geordie

+Smith, "couldn't I, old girl?"

+

+The "old girl" he referred to was the machine he

+loved next best, at least, to Lady Penelope.

+

+"Me and Bunting could wake 'em up some," he

+said.  "I'd like Bunting if he'd only get rid of the

+notion that horses are everything.  I hope to see the

+time when there won't be any except in parks,

+running wild like deer."

+

+It was an awful notion, and it was a wonder that

+he and Bunting got on without fighting.

+

+"My lady *uses* your bloomin' tracking engine,"

+said Tim, contemptuously, "but she *loves* 'orses.

+You can't give carrots to your old thing, and it

+ain't got no smooth and silky muzzle to pat.

+Faugh! the smell of it makes me sick; give me the 'ealthy

+hodour of the stable, Smith!"

+

+"Find me a horse that'd carry her and me a

+hundred and twenty miles in three hours and damn the

+expense in fines," replied Smith, "and I'm with

+you.  My lady loves this car a'most as much as

+I do.  Who can catch her and me, flying along?

+Let 'em come, let 'em try, and I'll put her out to

+the top notch and let her sizzle.  You come out and

+try, Tim; one drive and you'll be another man,

+looking on horses as what they are, mere animals

+and not up to date.  My lady's up to date and

+beyond it."

+

+"When I go in your bally machine hit'll be by my

+lady's horders," said Timothy, "and it'll be tryin'

+my hallegiance very 'ard.  Come and 'ave a drink,

+if you hain't too advanced for that!  'Ave you been

+chased lately as you brought my lady 'ome?"

+

+"I thought I was," replied Smith, "but I shook

+'em off.  I'm egging her on to get a ninety-horse

+in case.  That young cousin of hers let on to me

+that she'll be followed up some day, and I told her.

+She'll do it!"

+

+"I wonder what's her game?" said Tim.

+"Blowed if I hunderstand."

+

+"So far's I see," replied Smith, "it's a general

+notion that a party's private biz is their private

+biz.  And the others says it isn't, and there's where

+the trouble begins.  I agree with her in a measure,

+don't you?"

+

+"I agrees with my lady hevery time," said Tim.

+"She's a sweet lady, and, my word, if I didn't I'd

+get the sack, which I don't want.  What she says

+she sticks to, bein' in that different to hany woman

+I never met.  That's what the trouble is, that and

+reformin' lovers and husbands and law and so hon!"

+

+But the real trouble was that what she said she

+stuck to.  She began to care much less for reform,

+and now never read Herbert Spencer and the greater

+philosopher, who has discovered that man doesn't

+think so much of yesterday as he does of to-morrow.

+She forgot the Deceased Wife's Sister, and

+ignored the London County Council, and didn't read

+the *Times* except on great occasions.  She spent the

+days in dreaming, and, except when she was

+devouring the space between London and Lincolnshire,

+she lay about on sofas and read poetry or listened

+to Bob, and looked ten thousand times more

+beautiful than ever, like the Eastern beauties, of whom

+one reads in the Arabian Nights, returning from

+the bath.  She was wonderfully affectionate to Bob,

+who was a most considerate boy, and didn't worry

+her when he had once discovered that asking

+questions was no use.  He told her of his vain efforts

+to find out whom she had married, and was very

+amusing.  He began to have great ambitions.

+

+"Mr. Gordon says I've a great future before me,

+Pen.  He thinks no end of me.  He says being a

+duke by and by is all very well, but I agree with

+him there are greater things than merely being one.

+He says the men with power are the rulers of the

+world.  He told me how he and Rothschild stopped

+a war in a hurry.  He didn't say which war.  I

+asked him why he didn't stop the South African

+War, and he said that was different.  I asked him

+did he bring it on then, and he said 'No.'  But I

+think he did, somehow.  Will you ask old Sir Henry

+if he did?  I don't like Sir Henry, though, do you?"

+

+He went on to tell her about Sherlock Holmes.

+

+"I'm reading him through again, Pen.  And

+when I go down to De Vere's I shall ask De Vere

+to invite the man that wrote him.  I'm going to De

+Vere's to take him a sick dog.  He said he wanted

+one, and I've got one from Baker.  Baker says he

+must want to vivisect him, and he doesn't like the

+idea.  Baker's a very kind man to animals, but

+I've given my word that the dog sha'n't be

+vivisected.  You don't think a poet would, do you?

+Did you tell him to learn to be a vet or anything?

+If you did, that would explain it.  I've been through

+the whole list, Pen, and, though I won't worry you,

+I've come to the conclusion so far that I don't know

+which you've married.  If I find out I won't tell."

+

+"You're a dear," said Pen, languidly.

+

+"I've got a notion how to find out, though," said

+Bob.  "At least, I shall have when I've finished

+Sherlock Holmes.  I'd rather be Sherlock Holmes

+than a duke.  It seems to me that unless you are

+the Duke of Norfolk or the Duke of Devonshire

+you are out of it.  Being a common duke is dull,

+but being Holmes must be very exciting."

+

+One thing that he told her made her think furiously.

+

+"Not one of 'em really believes you, Pen, and

+they're much more jealous of each other than they

+were.  I believe they'll be fighting presently."

+

+"Don't talk nonsense," said Pen, anxiously.

+

+Bob shrugged his shoulders, a trick he had caught

+from the marquis.

+

+"It's not nonsense.  I can see bloodshed in their

+eyes.  The marquis looks awfully ferocious, and

+Williams, too.  Of course, I don't say that Gordon

+would fight much.  And I should snigger to see old

+De Vere in a duel, shouldn't you?  But if Bramber

+and the marquis and Williams and Goby get together,

+I shouldn't be surprised if they fought with

+swords or guns.  I think Rivaulx would like that.

+He would stick them all and make 'em squeal, I

+can tell you.  He's a whale at fencing.  He took

+me to see him once, and when he stamped and said

+'Ha-ha,' like a war-horse, I wondered the other

+man didn't run."

+

+"If they had a duel, any of them, I shouldn't

+speak to them again," said Penelope.  "I abhor

+duels and warfare and weapons, and think they

+should be abolished in universal peace.  And as I

+am married now, Bob, I hope you will do what you

+can to make them believe it."

+

+"You can make 'em believe it at once," said

+Bob.  "I do think this is absurd.  And don't you

+see it's funny, too, Pen?"

+

+"No," said Pen, "it's not.  It's right, and what

+is right can't be funny."

+

+Bob reflected.

+

+"Well, there's something in that.  It ain't much

+fun generally."

+

+And he returned to Sherlock Holmes.

+

+"I wonder what he would do," said Bob to himself,

+pensively.  "There ain't any footsteps or blood

+in this.  I suppose he'd take a look at Pen and then

+have a smoke and go out in a hansom and come

+back very tired.  I've looked at Pen a lot, but

+smoking still makes me sick, and I don't know where

+to go in a hansom.  And I think Holmes would

+think it mean to follow her when she goes off with

+Smith in her car.  Besides, a hansom can't catch

+a sixty-horse Panhard unless it breaks down.  I

+think he would get at it by looking at the men."

+

+That put him on the track of a dreadful scheme,

+a most wicked and immoral scheme, that his hero

+would have disapproved of.

+

+"I believe I have it," said Bob, starting up in

+wild excitement.  "If I go around to them all and

+say that I'm sure she's not married, but that she

+loves the one they hate most, they will jump and be

+in a rage, won't they?  I should be, I know.  And

+the one that doesn't jump will be him.  I dare say

+De Vere won't jump, but he's not a jumping sort,

+but he'll cry, likely.  Rivaulx *will* snort if it isn't

+him."

+

+He sat and pondered over this lovely scheme.

+

+"But if she loves one of 'em, why don't she

+own it to him, and why this mystery?  They'll ask

+that, of course.  Oh, but that doesn't matter; they'll

+do the snorting first.  And, besides, I could let on

+that not all of them are in earnest.  Ain't it possible

+that the one she loves won't ask her now, and she's

+covering up her disappointment?  That would make

+Rivaulx fairly howl, I know.  He's a real good

+chap, and between howling and weeping he says he

+wants her to be happy.  I'll do it."

+

+He went off to do it at once.

+

+"Ha, ha, my beautiful boy," said the Marquis

+of Rivaulx, whom he found in his rooms in

+Piccadilly, "have you come with news for me, the

+devoted and despairing?"

+

+"Well, I don't know, marquis," returned Bob,

+soberly.  "I've been thinking about it, and I'm in

+a state of puzzle."

+

+"And I am in a state of the devil himself," replied

+Rivaulx.  "I suspect every one.  I am enraged.

+I suspect you, Bob, my boy."

+

+Bob shook his head.

+

+"I suspect you, too.  I've never got over thinking

+that it may be you," he said, "for you are all

+just like each other, and it's obvious some one is

+telling me lies."

+

+Rivaulx smiled, a deep and dark French smile,

+which was agonizing to behold.  It puzzled Bob

+dreadfully.

+

+"There," he said, "you smile, and so does Pen,

+and you all smile.  But I believe I've discovered

+something."

+

+"About who or which?" asked Rivaulx.  "Is

+it about that Goby?"

+

+He might loathe Gordon, but he was jealous of

+Goby.  He promenaded the room, and was already

+in a rage.

+

+"Yes," said Bob, boldly.  "I believe she's not

+married, and I believe she likes him best."

+

+"The hound, the vile one, the unmeasured beast,"

+roared Rivaulx, "it cannot be.  If she loves him

+(no, I can't believe it), why does she not wed him?

+I shall slay him.  Is she unhappy?  Does she weep?

+I adore her, but if she loves him he shall marry

+her or I will stab him to the heart."

+

+"I dare say he's not in earnest," said Bob.  And

+the marquis ground his teeth and foamed at the

+mouth, and again tried to tear his close-cropped

+hair without the least success.

+

+"Not—oh, sacred dog of a man,—ha—let

+me kill him!"

+

+He tore around the room and knocked two ornaments

+off the mantelpiece and upset a table, which

+Bob laboriously restored to its place.  After he had

+put it back three times, he gave it up and cowered

+under the storm.

+

+"I shouldn't be surprised if this was put on,"

+said Bob, rather gloomily.  "I know he can act like

+blazes; Pen says he can.  She said he was finer

+than Irving or Toole in a tragedy.  I don't think it

+has the true ring of sincerity."

+

+And making his escape from the cyclone, he went

+off to see Goby, who was hideously jealous of

+Carteret Williams.

+

+"I hope he won't be as mad as the marquis,"

+said Bob.  "That table barked my shins horribly

+the last time it fell.  I wish Frenchmen wouldn't

+shout so when they're angry; I'm nearly deaf."

+

+There was the devil to pay with Goby.  He

+announced his intention of assaulting Williams at

+once.

+

+"Oh, I say, you mustn't," cried Bob, in great

+alarm.  "She'll never forgive you."

+

+"That Williams!" said Goby.  "I always did

+hate war correspondents.  I don't believe it."

+

+But it looked as if he did.

+

+"I dare say you are putting it on," cried Bob.

+"I don't know where I am."

+

+Goby said he didn't, either, but that if this turned

+out to be true he would wring Williams's neck in

+the park the first fine Sunday in June.

+

+"He would have acted just the same if he was

+married to her, and thought she loved Williams best

+after all," said Bob to himself.  "I'll try Bramber

+and Williams, and then give it up."

+

+Bramber was in a furious temper, and when Bob

+assured him that Penelope loved Gordon best of

+any one, he swore horribly.  As he rarely swore,

+this was very impressive, and Bob almost shivered.

+

+"I say, you mustn't kick Gordon," he urged.

+"After all, I may be mistaken."

+

+"I wish you were dead," said Bramber, "and you

+will be if you don't get out."

+

+Bob got out, and when he was in the open air he

+sighed.

+

+"I don't think I'll try Williams," he said,

+thoughtfully.  "He's much bigger and stronger even than

+Goby, and they say he's a terror when he's very

+angry.  My scheme doesn't seem to work; there's

+something wrong with it."

+

+But there was nothing wrong with it, and it

+worked marvellously.  The report that Bob said

+positively that Pen wasn't married carried much weight.

+Goby and Rivaulx both gave it away.  And all the

+men now loathed each other openly.  Rivaulx cut

+Goby and Goby cut Williams and Bramber sneered

+at Gordon, and there was great likelihood of there

+being the devil to pay.  Pen tried to patch up peace

+among them, and failed, and wept about it, seeing

+so much of the good she had done melt like sugar

+in warm rain.  At last she announced her intention

+of leaving them and the world alone.

+

+"I almost think I'll give up reform," she sighed.

+

+And the season went by and the autumn came,

+and Titania found herself at Goring in October

+with a large house-party which didn't include Penelope.

+

+"She is, of course, somewhat ashamed of herself,"

+said Titania, happily.  "This comes of having

+ideas and foolishly attempting to carry them

+into practice.  Now that I am certain she is not

+married and that she only says so, I feel quite

+different.  I no longer abhor the poor, foolish men

+who are so much in love with her.  I see plainly

+(for I, too, am naturally a democrat of the proper

+kind) that they have fine qualities.  I have

+marked my sense of this in a way which appears to

+amuse Lord Bradstock for some reason that I do not

+follow,—but then, I never could follow Augustin,

+poor fellow,—by asking them all down here.  I dare

+say they think Penelope will come, for they have

+all accepted.  I am delighted, for I really admire

+them.  Mr. Carew is the handsomest young man in

+London, and will paint my portrait between meals.

+I wonder whether I shall try to get thinner by

+eating less, or will it be better to tell Mr. Carew to

+make me thinner in his picture.  That seems the

+easiest course; for if Penelope's conduct has not

+made me thin, what would?  Neither hot weather

+nor despair has the least effect upon me.  I shall

+trust to Mr. Carew's idea of what is right and

+proper.  I wish I could rely with equal confidence

+upon poor, dear, misguided Penelope."

+

+There was much discontent in the camp when the

+lovers learnt that their beloved was not one of

+Titania's house-party.  They were not civil to each

+other, and with difficulty were civil to Titania.

+

+"Confound the old harridan," said Goby.  This

+was wicked, for Titania was very sweet, and

+retained much more than a trace of her youthful

+beauty.  She belonged to the modern band of those

+who sternly refuse to grow old.

+

+"Great Scott!" said Carteret Williams.  The

+others made equally appropriate exclamations.  They

+damned Goring in heaps, and looked at each other

+like a crowd of strange dogs.  Owing to Penelope's

+influence they all came in motor-cars.  Even De

+Vere turned up in one which was guaranteed by age

+and its maker not to go more than ten miles an hour.

+There wasn't room to get them into the temporary

+garage out of the wet.  But the marquis did not

+come in a balloon or a flying-machine.  That was

+something, at any rate, though Bob growled about

+it bitterly.  Pen's request that he should do his best

+to make the world believe she was married was

+entirely forgotten.  Without quite meaning to say

+so, he practically asserted in every word that she

+was not.

+

+"After all," said Bob, "I believe she is capable

+of deceiving even me, for she is a woman.  Horace,

+in his Odes, seems to think that.  It seems to me

+that classical authors had a very poor opinion of

+women."

+

+He went to Rivaulx crossly.

+

+"I say, I think you ought to have come in a

+flying-machine.  Why didn't you?  Pen will be mad."

+

+He introduced De Vere to Baker (who had been

+a sergeant in the Dublin Fusiliers), and left him

+with him, discussing hydrophobia and bulldogs.

+

+"Baker says he has a great admiration for you,

+sir," said Bob.  "He has lots of pups for you to

+look at.  There's a very queer spotted one that Pen

+said she was sure you would like.  It's very cheap

+for a spotted dog of the kind, Baker says."

+

+But they were an unhappy crowd, and even the

+shooting, which was fairly good for a poor duke's

+place, hardly consoled them.

+

+At night the women, who all gambled, naturally

+were very cross.  It appeared that not one of the

+men would play bridge, because Penelope had made

+them swear off.  There were only three men in the

+house not in love with Penelope.  Titania had a

+dreadful time, and much regretted her hospitality.

+Carew was furious, of course, and his notions of

+colour were very morbid.  And he appeared to see

+the duchess as she was, in spite of the hints the

+poor woman threw out to the desperate painter,

+who looked at her sorrowfully and sighed as he

+shook his head.

+

+"Being painted is an ordeal," she said.  Not one

+of the others consoled her.  De Vere wept with her

+in the drawing-room; Williams wrecked her orchids

+in the hothouse; Plant and Gordon quarrelled in

+the smoking-room.  And Bramber, who was only

+there for four days, looked horridly sorry for

+himself, and sneered at every one.  The marquis went

+around the park in a ninety-horse-power racer

+seventeen times between breakfast and lunch.  The

+chauffeurs quarrelled furiously; they even fought

+in the stable yard with Baker as umpire and Bob as

+timekeeper.

+

+At the dinner-table was the only time of peace,

+and then it was too peaceful.  Nobody but Bob and

+Ethel Mytton and Titania did any talking.  Bob

+spoke of very little but Penelope, which was natural

+but awkward.  He told them what Baker said, till

+they all desired to go out and strangle Baker.

+Bradstock encouraged him, for Bradstock was the only

+man there who had any apparent desire to be

+amused.  The rest of them played with the soup,

+toyed with the *entrées*, fooled with the roasts, choked

+over the birds, and went out and oversmoked

+themselves.  Then they met in the big hall and the

+drawing-room, and Titania had to assure them all

+one after the other, that she was certain Penelope

+was not married.

+

+"Then why does she say she is?" they asked, bitterly.

+

+"It must be to try you," said Titania.  "Augustin,

+don't you think it is to try them?"

+

+Bradstock made that sound which the

+English write as "Humph" and the Scotch put

+down as "Imphm."  It means a great deal, but is

+intelligible to the intelligent.

+

+"Yes, it is to try you," said Titania.  "She is a

+dear, sweet thing, but has ideas which do not

+commend themselves to me.  I understand them, of

+course, but regret them.  It may be, of course, that

+she does not love any of you, and is trying to get

+out of it.  By and by you will find out if that is

+so.  She is enthusiastic and impulsive.  Oh, these

+impulses of youth!  How well I remember the

+delightful impulses of youth, when one feels as if

+one could fly with wings!  Even now I get

+impulses.  Poor Penelope!  Ah, dear, I wish she would

+come.  I have written again and again to ask her,

+but I'm afraid she will not."

+

+And, indeed, no one at that moment knew where

+she was, unless, indeed, it was Timothy and Geordie

+Smith and Miss Mackarness and the pirate in

+goggles of the motor-car who carried her off.

+

+Titania and Bob between them, at any rate,

+accomplished one thing.  No one pretended to assign a

+satisfactory reason for Pen's conduct, but every one,

+except one, perhaps, believed she was still single.  They

+were sure of it, and grew surer every day.  As a

+result, they recovered some little peace of mind; they

+quarrelled less and ate more and shot straighter.

+Rivaulx only went fifteen times around the park

+before lunch; De Vere bought more dogs; Plant

+agreed to go into some scheme of trust robbery with

+Gordon, who assured the rest of them that he had

+Rothschild up his sleeve.  Williams stamped less on

+flower-beds and swore half as much as usual.  Goby

+and Bramber went out walks together with Bob and

+Ethel Mytton.  Titania's barometer went up and her

+size went down in Carew's picture.  He saw her

+less yellow, and did not insist on her wrinkles.

+Augustin sat in the library and read books which

+were of so humourous a character that they

+compelled him to put them down and laugh continually.

+It was certainly a most amusing house-party.

+

+"I thought there would have been duels in the

+park," said Augustin.  "I wonder what the deuce

+Pen would think of them if she saw them now."

+

+And then one day something serious happened.

+It was on a Sunday, and on Sundays the post came

+in at half-past ten, just at the time they were all

+having breakfast before going to church.  They

+were just about as happy as they could ever hope

+to be till Penelope married one or all of them.  Bob,

+who was especially greedy that morning, was eating

+against time and winning.  Only Ethel was sad,

+for Goby seemed quite cheerful.  When he was

+mournful she was happier always.  Titania flowed

+wonderfully.  Augustin was saying the kind of thing

+he could say when sitting down.  Goring himself

+was eating as if he was in rivalry with Bob.  He

+never said anything, but looked like a duke, which

+is a very fine thing when a man is a duke, and

+can afford it with care.  Gordon was eating bacon

+as if he had no great appetite for it.

+

+"Oh, here's the post," said Titania.  Augustin

+took Saturday's *Times* and opened it.

+

+"I wonder whether dear Penelope has written

+to me," said Titania.  The "horde" looked up;

+they hoped even yet that Penelope would give in and

+come at last.

+

+"Any news?" grunted Goring.

+

+"I don't see any," replied Augustin.

+

+"What are Jack Sheppard's United?" asked

+Gordon, slipping a piece of bacon into his pocket.

+

+And Augustin made his celebrated speech over

+again, his single speech in the House of Lords.

+

+"Good God!" said Augustin, and he turned

+almost as white as the *Times* paper before it went

+through the machines.  Every one stared at him.

+

+"What is it?" screamed Titania.  Bob jumped

+up and deserted a pig's cheek just as it was showing

+signs of utter defeat.

+

+"It's—it's—" said Augustin, and he stammered vainly.

+

+"I say, let's look," cried Bob.  "Granny, it's

+something in the Births, Marriages, and Deaths!"

+

+"Good heavens, speak, Augustin!" implored Titania.

+

+The band of lovers went as white as Augustin;

+they stood up simultaneously.

+

+"I see it, I see it," said Bob, and he actually

+snatched the paper from Lord Bradstock's hand.

+

+"Is she married?  Is she dead?" asked Titania.

+

+"No, no," said Bob, sputtering and aflame with

+wild excitement; "it's 'Brading—Lady Penelope

+Brading on the 18th of a son!'"

+

+

+

+

+

+.. vspace:: 4

+

+.. _`CHAPTER XIV.`:

+

+.. class:: center large bold

+

+   CHAPTER XIV.

+

+.. vspace:: 2

+

+There are blows which stun; this was, of course,

+one of them.  Titania did not shriek or faint at the

+awful intelligence conveyed by the Thunderer of

+Printing House Square.  She nodded her head as

+if she was partially paralyzed, and at last murmured

+in a dry whisper:

+

+"Of a son!  Of a son!"

+

+Bradstock's eyebrows were as high as they would

+go, and he stared at Titania, and then look around

+on the circle of men and women.  Ethel squeaked

+a little squeak, like a mouse behind the wainscot

+and was silent.

+

+"Oh—of a son," said Goby, sighing and looking

+at the floor.

+

+"Of a son!" said Plant, eyeing the ceiling.

+

+"*Un fils!*" shrieked Rivaulx.

+

+Gordon said "Damnation;" De Vere shook like

+a stranded jelly-fish; Bramber went as scarlet as

+a lobster, and then as white as cotton; Carteret

+Williams looked blue, and Carew looked green, and

+Bob said: "My eye!"

+

+There is something organic in any given number

+of people acting under the same shock or the same

+impulse.  What one thinks another thinks; and

+now all the room fixed their eyes on Titania, whose

+lips moved in silence.

+

+"This is dreadful!" said Titania to herself.  "I

+don't believe she's married at all.  One of these

+men is a scoundrel, a ruffian, a seducer!"

+

+No one heard what she said, but as she thought

+it the men looked at each other with awful

+suspicions.  And then Titania, whose mind was

+whirling, said feebly:

+

+"We—we must hush it up!"

+

+And there lay the *Times*!  Hush it up indeed!

+And Bradstock recovered some of his equanimity.

+

+"Nonsense!  She's married, as she says," he

+remarked, with comparative coolness.

+

+But no one believed it.  The men drew apart

+from each other.  De Vere moved his chair,

+because Goby was looking at him like a demon.

+Carew shrank from Carteret Williams.  Gordon

+went livid under Plant's eyes.  Bramber looked at

+them all as if he would die on the spot.  Rivaulx

+rose up and waltzed around the room.  It was a

+happy chance that he did so; it is possible that

+he saved immediate bloodshed.  Bradstock and Bob

+caught the Frenchman in their arms, and led him

+outside to the lawn, where there was ample room

+for a frantic *pas seul*.

+

+"Steady, old chap!" said Bradstock, "steady!

+Her husband *must* acknowledge now who he is!"

+

+"Oh, no," said Bob, in immense delight, "not

+much!  If she's married at all, she's sworn him not

+to.  She told me she'd swear him not to!  And she

+said if he broke his oath she'd never see him

+again!"

+

+"Great heavens!" said Bradstock, "so she did.

+I remember now, she *did* speak of oaths, dreadful

+oaths!"

+

+Rivaulx danced over a flower-bed, came in

+contact with a fence, fell over it, and uttered a howl

+which brought every one into the garden.  He

+tumbled into a ditch, fortunately a comparatively

+dry one, and lay there, using the very worst French

+language.

+

+The gloomy crowd lined the ditch and listened,

+and wished they understood.  As a matter of fact,

+only Bradstock and Bramber knew sufficient decent

+French to guess what Rivaulx said, and they

+shivered.  In the background Titania and Ethel hung

+to each other and wept; old Goring remained

+inside sucking at an unlighted cigar.

+

+"The terrible, terrible disgrace!" said Titania.

+She believed the very worst at once.  "Is it the

+marquis?  Is he smitten with remorse?"

+

+Rivaulx got out of the ditch on the wrong side,

+and walked out into the park, where he addressed

+a commination service to a nice little herd of Jersey

+cows.  After five minutes of this exercise, he

+returned toward the house and climbed the fence.

+Then he shook his fist at the others.

+

+"One of you is a *scélerat*," he howled, "a

+scoundrrrel!  I challenge you all to fight!  Ha, ha!"

+

+Bradstock took him by the arm and led him away.

+

+"One of us is a hound!" said Goby.

+

+"Yes," said the others, "yes!"

+

+They glared at each other horribly, and clenched

+their fists.  Bob ran around them in the wildest

+excitement.

+

+"Look here, I say, Captain Goby.  Oh, Mr. de

+Vere!  I say, Mr. Plant, if you want to fight, come

+into the stables.  Granny says you mustn't fight

+here."

+

+He grabbed several of them, and was hurled into

+space at once.  He finally laid hold of De Vere,

+who wasn't capable of hurling a ladybird off his

+finger.

+

+"You shall fight Goby if you want to," he roared.

+

+.. _`THE MARQUIS DE RIVAULX`:

+

+.. figure:: images/img-174.jpg

+   :align: center

+   :alt: THE MARQUIS DE RIVAULX. Anti-Semite to his manicured finger-tips

+

+   THE MARQUIS DE RIVAULX. Anti-Semite to his manicured finger-tips

+

+"But I don't want to," shrieked the poet.

+"What shall I do?  My heart is broken!"

+

+"Oh, what rot!" said Bob.  "I don't understand

+what the row is about.  Pen said she married,

+and she's got a kid.  It will make her happy, for

+she always loved kids."

+

+But then the notice in her maiden name!  Was

+it not awful, horrible, brazen, peculiar, anti-social,

+against all law?  It was wicked, immoral, indecent.

+Behind it there must be a dreadful story.

+

+"By God!" said Bradstock, speaking at large

+to all but Rivaulx, who was breaking up a cane

+chair at a short distance, "I do think, oaths or

+none, that the man who is married to her should

+tell the duchess in confidence."

+

+But Rivaulx heard in the intervals of destruction,

+and stayed his hand.

+

+"Ha, ha!" he said aloud, "I love her!  I am a

+man!  I love her!  What shall I do?"

+

+He threw the fragments of the chair into a

+fountain, kicked over a flower-pot, and ran again into

+the park, taking the fence in his stride.

+

+"I believe it's remorse," said Titania.  "I begin

+to suspect the marquis!"

+

+But everybody suspected everybody, and yet at

+the very height of their rage what Bradstock said

+sank into their hearts.  Pen had selected them with

+care for their inherent nobility.  They said to

+themselves that they would show how noble they were.

+With one accord they straightened themselves up,

+and an air of desperate resolve was upon every

+man's face.

+

+"I will think it out and make up my mind this

+afternoon," said each of them.  They walked away

+in different directions, and in five minutes not one

+of them was in sight but the marquis, who was

+knocking his head against a sapling in a way that

+caused the herd of Jerseys to revise their estimate

+of humanity.  Even he gave up at last, and went

+off into the distance with great strides.

+

+"I say," said Bob, "I don't know what to make

+of this.  Where are they going, and what are they

+going to do?  I wish I knew where Pen is; I'd

+send her a telegram."

+

+The rest of the party said nothing.  Titania wept.

+Old Goring asked Bradstock for a light, and at last

+got his cigar going.  He said nothing whatsoever.

+Ethel Mytton was in a fearful state of nervousness,

+and shook with it.  Bradstock walked up and down

+whistling.  The men who were not in it gathered in

+the billiard-room, and said they thought they had

+better have urgent calls to town.  They wanted

+to discuss the scandal in their clubs.  They knew

+that there wasn't a house in England that would

+not consider their presence in the light of a

+tremendous favour, considering all that had occurred

+at Goring while they were there.  They went, and

+regretted it afterward, for much occurred that very

+afternoon that no man could have foreseen.

+

+Not a soul came in to lunch but Bob and Bradstock

+and the old duke.

+

+"Augustin, my boy," said Goring, "these are

+surprising events, very surprising events.  I thought

+I understood something about women, but I find

+I'm as ignorant as a two-year-old.  What the devil

+does Penelope mean?"

+

+Bob intervened.

+

+"I believe, grandfather, that she wants to make

+you all sit up," he said, eagerly.

+

+"Shut up, Bob," said the duke.  "Eat pie and

+hold your tongue.  Augustin, is she married, or

+isn't she?"

+

+"I'm sure of it," said Bradstock, "but—"

+

+"I think it's a damn silly business," said the

+duke.  "I can't remember any parallel except when

+Miss Wimple, who was a devilish pretty girl fifty

+years ago, married Prince Scharfskopf morganatically,

+and kept it dark in spite of twins.  There

+was a devil of a fuss, but it was kept quiet, no

+announcements in papers, and so on.  The emperor

+boxed Scharfskopf's ears in court when it came

+out, for it upset his diplomatic apple-cart, as

+Scharfskopf was to have married Princess Hedwig

+of Wigstein.  She was virtuous and particular, and

+made trouble, being thirty-five.  Do you think

+Penelope has married any damn prince, for instance?"

+

+Bradstock didn't think so.

+

+"Was any prince sneaking about, eh?"

+

+"Oh, I say," cried Bob, who was listening

+eagerly, "there was the Rajah of Jugpore!"

+

+"Good heavens!" said Goring, "so there was.

+I say, Bradstock, what have you to say to that?

+I'd like to have a look at the infant.  Damme, it's

+a wonderful world!"

+

+And this bore its fruit afterward in scandal and

+conjecture, for Bob threw out hints about it.  But

+in the meantime they could only talk, and presently

+they saw the marquis coming across the lawn.  He

+kept on stopping and looking up at the sky, as if

+for help or a balloon, and he smote his breast

+repeatedly in a very peculiar fashion.

+

+"Queer cuss, Rivaulx," said Goring.  "Takes it

+hard.  Give me a light, Bob.  Look at the Johnny

+smiting himself in the chest.  What's he thinking

+of now?  Looks as if he was bound upon a

+desperate deed.  Dear me, I hope there will be no

+bloodshed, Bradstock!  I'm too old for bloodshed

+now.  I won't have duels in the immediate

+neighbourhood of the house, Bradstock, mind that."

+

+"All right," said Augustin, still looking at

+Rivaulx gesticulating violently in front of a large

+laurestinus.  "Bob, give me those glasses."

+

+Through the glass Rivaulx's face was plain to see.

+

+"Damn!" said Augustin to himself, "what's

+up?  He's going to do something, something

+desperate.  He is looking like a hero on a scaffold.

+He has an air of sad nobility.  Oh, Pen, Pen!"

+

+Rivaulx advanced on the house with his head

+up.  He came in and sent word to the collapsed

+duchess that he desired most humbly an audience

+with her.  Bob listened.

+

+"He wanted to see granny," said Bob.

+

+"Let him," said the duke.  "I don't; I want peace."

+

+Titania sent down word that she would see him.

+

+"Poor sad Penelope, poor mournful Penelope!"

+said Rivaulx.  "Ha, but I will save her from

+further woe!"

+

+He found Titania on a sofa, and he kissed her

+hand.  This pleased poor Titania; it reminded her

+of her youth.

+

+"Oh, marquis, I am in despair!" she cried.

+

+"Despair not," said Rivaulx, as he stood up

+and smote his forehead, "despair not.  All is not

+lost.  But for me, I stand between two dreadful

+alternatives, and I have resolved to do my duty."

+

+There was an air of tragedy about him that

+covered him like a robe.  Titania shivered.

+

+"What is it?  What have you to tell me?"

+

+"Ah, what!" cried Rivaulx.  "But I shall do

+it.  I shall do it at once, immediately, if not sooner,

+as your poet says."

+

+"You won't kill any one, at least not here,"

+shrieked Titania.

+

+"Far from it," replied the marquis.  "Oh, but

+it is terrible, for I have to smash, to break an oath.

+I swore not to reveal what I am about to reveal."

+

+"Good heavens!" said Titania.  "Oh, what?

+Is it—can it be—no—"

+

+"Yes, yes," cried Rivaulx, "it is true; I own it!"

+

+"Own what, marquis?"

+

+He smote his breast and looked above her.

+

+"I am the man!"

+

+"Oh, what man?" squealed the duchess.

+

+"I am the husband—and—and—the father,"

+said Rivaulx, with a gulp, as if he were swallowing

+an apple whole.

+

+"Of my Penelope?"

+

+"Yes, yes," said the marquis.  "Say nothing.

+It is a secret, full of oaths.  Why, I know not, but

+she, the dear, insists, and what am I?"

+

+Titania lay and gasped.  The relief was

+tremendous.  Three hours ago she would have refused

+to think of Rivaulx as Pen's husband.  Now she

+welcomed the notion; she sighed and almost

+fainted.  Rivaulx muttered strange things to himself.

+

+"Can I announce it?"

+

+"No," said the marquis, "it is a secret.  But

+it is all right.  I go."

+

+"Take my blessing," said Titania.  "Go to her

+quickly, poor dear, and implore her to let me come

+to her, and bid her tell all the world.  What is her

+address?"

+

+"I cannot give it," said Rivaulx, pallidly.  "It

+is a secret.  But I go, I hasten.  Adieu, duchess;

+I am distracted.  Oh, my mother and my country!"

+

+He fled from the room, and, leaving his man to

+bring on his things, went away at an illegal speed

+toward London.

+

+"Well, well," said Titania, with a gasp, "I

+cannot understand anything.  But, after all, the

+marquis is a fine man and of a good family.  I could

+almost sleep a little."

+

+But just as she was composing herself to rest,

+Mr. Plant sent up word that he wished to see her

+for a few moments on urgent business before he

+went back to town.

+

+"Let him come up," said the duchess.  When

+Plant entered, he stood bolt upright in front of her,

+with a strange air of determination.

+

+"I shall surprise you, I reckon," he said, in an

+American accent as thick as petrol fumes.  "I know

+I shall."

+

+"No, you won't," said Titania.  "Nothing can

+surprise me now, I assure you."

+

+"I shall surprise you, ma'am," said Plant, "and

+you'll have to own it.  Prepare yourself and

+remember that what I tell you is in the nature of a

+secret.  I can stand it no longer.  I have to let it

+out.  To hear Lady Penelope, whom I adore,

+spoken of as I do, makes my blood boil.  She may

+have made some mistakes, but I've made some, too.

+I am going to surprise you—"

+

+"No, you are not, Mr. Plant," said Titania.

+

+"I—I am Lady Penelope's husband," said

+Plant, desperately, fixing his eyes on space.

+

+"You are *what*?" shrieked Titania.

+

+"Her husband—and—the parent of the announcement

+in the *Times*," said Plant, firmly.

+

+"Am I mad?" asked Titania.

+

+"No, but I am," said Plant, who was as pale

+as a traditional ghost.  "I'm mad both ways.  I

+want to kill."

+

+"You mustn't," cried Titania, feebly.  "I don't

+know where I am.  What did you say?  Oh, say

+it again!"

+

+He said it again, and before she could say

+anything further, he rushed from the room and

+bounded down-stairs.  She heard him turn his

+motor-car loose, and knew that in twenty seconds

+he was a mile away.

+

+"What's wrong with everything, and me, and

+them?" asked Titania.  "I wish I was a dairy-maid

+in a quiet farm, and had no relations.  Am

+I mad?  Did the marquis say it?  Or did I dream it?"

+

+Lord Bramber was announced.

+

+"Oh, oh, oh!" said Titania.  "Yes, I'll see him."

+

+Bramber came in fuming, and, like the others,

+fixed his eyes over her head.  He was nervous and

+abrupt.

+

+"I can't stand any more, duchess," he began.

+

+"I can't stand much," said Titania.

+

+"It's a secret of course," said Bramber, "and

+I'm breaking my word!"

+

+"Are you the husband of Penelope?" asked Titania.

+

+"I—I am," replied Bramber, "and the cause,

+so to speak, of the notice in the *Times*."

+

+"I thought so," said Titania.  "Look at me,

+Ronald.  Do I look mad? does my hair stand on

+end? do I seem wild and wandering?"

+

+"No, of course not," said Bramber.  "I'm

+telling you this because I feel I ought to.  Now I'm

+going to her at once.  This last news was rather

+unexpected, of course.  Good-bye—"

+

+"Stay!" shrieked Titania, but she was too late.

+Bramber was down-stairs and bounded into his

+motor-car and let her rip.

+

+"What's the matter with everybody?" wailed

+Titania.  "The marquis made me happy, but now

+I'm confused, very sadly confused, and I can't think

+she's married them all."

+

+Gordon was announced, and in about three sentences

+he told her that, though the affair was a

+secret, he was Penelope's husband.

+

+"I knew you were," said Titania.  "When I

+heard you wanted to see me, I knew you were

+coming to say so.  Oh, good-bye.  Ask Lord Bradstock

+to send for a doctor.  Good-bye, Mr. Gordon.

+Go now."

+

+And Gordon went, just as De Vere came in.

+

+"You have come to say you have married Penelope,

+I *know*," said Titania.  "I feel sure you have."

+

+"I have a heart for sorrow, for disgrace, for

+all things lovely.  I—I am responsible for

+everything, even the *Times*," said De Vere, who was

+as pale as plaster.

+

+"Leave me," said Titania.  "Go and see her

+at once.  Settle who it is.  Go!"

+

+And when he had gone, Carteret Williams and

+Carew came one after the other with the same

+confession.  And she received them sadly, and appeared

+to wander.  When the house was empty, she sent

+for Bradstock.

+

+"Augustin, dear Augustin," she said, "you

+won't let them put me in an asylum.  Have me

+taken care of at home, won't you?  Don't let

+Goring give me cruel keepers.  I am quite gentle and

+broken down!"

+

+"I won't let anything beastly be done," said

+Bradstock.  "But, my dear child, what's the matter?"

+

+And Titania told him:

+

+"By the Lord," said Bradstock, "they are

+damned good chaps! but where the devil are we?"

+

+He went down-stairs when the doctor came and

+told everything to Goring.  And Goring told Bob.

+For Titania forgot to mention to Augustin that all

+the husbands had insisted it was a dead secret.

+

+"I say," said Bob, "of all the larks I've ever

+heard of, this takes the cake!  I wonder what I

+ought to do.  I think I'll ask Baker."

+

+And he asked Baker.  And in less than twenty-four

+hours the world knew all about it.

+

+

+

+

+

+.. vspace:: 4

+

+.. _`CHAPTER XV.`:

+

+.. class:: center large bold

+

+   CHAPTER XV.

+

+.. vspace:: 2

+

+But when it is said that all the world knew of

+it, Penelope herself must be excepted.  She knew

+nothing for some time, and, whoever her husband

+was, he certainly never acquainted her with the

+horrible details of all the good men who sacrificed

+their honour in the noble attempt to save her from

+the results of the terrible misfortune they believed

+had happened to her.  It was, indeed, Miss

+Mackarness who told her about it, and Miss Mackarness

+was the old governess whom Penelope had once

+sacked and sent away.  The poor woman was in

+a terrible state of mind about the affair, and in that

+was no different from all the rest of the world.

+To her went Timothy Bunting with the strange story.

+

+"If you please, ma'am, Geordie Smith 'as just

+brought in a paper wiv a true and pertic'ler account

+of 'ow all the gents that was courtin' our lady told

+the Duchess of Goring as 'ow they 'as married 'er!"

+

+"What!" said Miss Mackarness.

+

+"A true and perticuler account as 'ow they 'ad

+hall married our lady, sayin' as they 'ad concealed

+it till they could no longer!" repeated Timothy

+more loudly.

+

+"Good heavens!" said Miss Mackarness, trembling

+very much, "I fear it will upset Lady Penelope,

+to say nothing of the infant.  Do they all claim

+the infant, Bunting?"

+

+"I presume so, ma'am," said Bunting.  "It looks likely."

+

+"Under these circumstances, Bunting," cried

+Miss Mackarness, "I feel it is my duty to communicate

+the facts to our lady.  Give me the paper,

+Bunting!"

+

+Bunting said he would get it, and came back with

+a hatful of fragments.

+

+"If you please, ma'am, this is hall I can rescue

+of the details.  The cook and the parlour-maid and

+the two 'ousemaids 'ave fought over it in the

+servants' 'all, and are now in tears, not 'aving read

+a word."

+

+And Miss Mackarness took the hatful up to

+Penelope, who sat with her nurse and the cause of

+all the trouble in a south room overlooking the moat.

+

+"In the name of all that is wonderful, what's

+in that hat?" asked Penelope.

+

+"It is Timothy Bunting's hat, my lady," replied

+the Mackarness.

+

+"So I perceive," said Penelope.  "Is a bird in it?"

+

+"Oh, no, my lady.  It's the bits of a newspaper,"

+replied the housekeeper, as if she served

+up the *Times* in a groom's hat every day.  "It's

+Timothy's hat, but a clean new one."

+

+"But why do you bring it, and why do you put

+newspaper in it?" asked Penelope.

+

+"If you please, my lady, I cannot help it.  The

+cook and the parlour-maid and the two housemaids

+fought over it in the servants' hall, and are now in

+tears, not having read a word of it."

+

+To all appearance the housekeeper had lost her

+senses.  Though this was no wonder, Penelope

+wondered at it.

+

+"Well," she said at last, "I see what's in the

+hat, but what's in the newspaper?"

+

+"If you please, my lady, according to Timothy

+Bunting and Smith, who appear to have read it,

+it contains the true account of what happened at

+Goring House the other day, when all the

+gentlemen staying there, hearing from the *Times* that

+your ladyship had a fine boy on the eighteenth, and

+no husband named by your ladyship's particular

+directions, all got up one after the other, and,

+requesting private interviews with her upset Grace,

+the duchess, declared upon their oaths, though in

+secret, that they had married you themselves!"

+

+She recited this in a strange, mechanical way,

+which would have been extremely effective upon

+the stage, as a picture of hopeless conventionality

+wounded to death, and at last dying in sheer

+indifference to all things.

+

+"Dear me!" said Penelope, "dear me!"

+

+"It furthermore appears, my lady, begging your

+pardon for mentioning it, and I have reproved

+Bunting bitterly for daring to do so, though I haven't

+read the fragments in the hat, that no one believes

+your ladyship's word at all as to your being married."

+

+"Oh, how shameful!" said Penelope.  "Why,

+here's baby!"

+

+The nurse coughed and hid her mouth with her hand.

+

+"Yes, my lady, so he is," said Miss Mackarness.

+"There doesn't seem any doubt whatsoever about

+that, but—"

+

+And Penelope sighed.  Suddenly her face lighted up.

+

+"Ah!" she said, "I see why they said it to

+aunty.  How very, very noble of them!  I knew

+they were all splendid men; men of the highest

+character and attainments and possibilities.  Will

+you have telegrams written out to all of them,

+saying, 'Your conduct is noble, and I am deeply

+grateful'?"

+

+"Yes, my lady," replied the housekeeper, "and

+how will you sign it?"

+

+"Sign it Penelope Brading," said Penelope.

+"And tell Smith to take his car as quickly as he

+can to Spilsborough, and send them from there."

+

+She lay back in her pillows.

+

+"They are noble fellows," she said.  "I have

+done them an immense amount of good.  A year

+ago not one of them could have risen to such heights

+of abnegation, such love, such tenderness.  I shall

+see them bringing in a new era yet.  Leopold

+Gordon will inaugurate a new and pure finance.  The

+dear marquis will abolish anti-Semitism and

+duelling in France.  De Vere will write poems of a

+purity appealing equally to Brixton and Belgravia,

+and my dear friend Carew will vindicate the Royal

+Academy's policy of showing that charity begins

+at home.  And the rest—ah, me!  Poor dear

+aunty, how I love her!"

+

+And by the time that she had pondered over a

+renewed world, Geordie Smith was sending off

+the wires from Spilsborough with wonderful results.

+

+"I like this," said Smith.  "This is what I like!

+There's nothing dull about it.  I wonder what'll

+happen now?  I'll lay five to one I can guess!"

+

+He guessed right as to some, for in about four

+hours Rufus Plant arrived in Spilsborough on his

+racing-car, and put up at the Grand Hotel.

+

+"I guess she must be somewhere in this

+neighbourhood," said Plant.  "And here I stay till I

+find her.  And by the tail of the sacred bull,

+whatever happens, I'll marry her right here in this hyer

+noble pile of a cathedral.  And if she'll do it, I'll

+restore it for the authorities free of charge, till it's

+as gawdy as a breastpin and right up to date."

+

+He ran against Gordon, and the two men fell

+back in horrible surprise.

+

+"You—"

+

+"You!"

+

+"Oh, yes," said Plant, "I'm here on business

+connected with the cathedral."

+

+"And I'm to see the—bishop, who will join the

+board on allotment," mumbled Gordon.

+

+And then Goby roared into town on his motorcar.

+The others saw him, and he saw them, and

+ignored them palely.  He, too, put up at the Grand,

+but never spoke to them.  And De Vere came in

+while they were at dinner, and sat down opposite

+to Goby.  He said, "Oh!" and, rising, at once

+bolted from the table.

+

+"I'm damned," said Goby, and he lost his appetite.

+

+"How many more of us?" they asked themselves.

+

+They looked up at every one who entered.

+

+"Bramber will be in any moment," said Plant.

+

+Poor De Vere sat in his bedroom and was ill.

+

+"If I look out into the corridor, I know I shall

+see that beast Williams," he sobbed.

+

+"Where's that French fool, Rivaulx?" asked

+Gordon.  They all believed the other was the

+scoundrel of the dreadful drama.

+

+And then the evening papers came in.  They

+declared in big lines that there had been "A Fracas

+in High Life."  They added that it had taken place

+in the Row at four o'clock that very afternoon.

+They went on to say that Lord Bramber and the

+Marquis de Rivaulx, well known as a great

+sportsman and a balloonist, had fought in a flower-bed,

+and had been torn from each other's arms and a

+big rhododendron by two dukes, three earls, and

+a viscount.  They further declared that it was a

+matter of public notoriety that all the trouble rose

+out of the mystery connected with the *Times* and

+Lady Penelope Brading.  They promised more

+details in later editions.

+

+"They'll fight," said Gordon, savagely.  "I hope

+they'll kill each other.  But especially I hope that

+the marquis will be killed first and most!"

+

+And about eleven o'clock Rivaulx turned up with

+his chauffeur and a bad black eye.

+

+"He shall fight me here," said Rivaulx.  "This

+is a quiet town.  No one will think of

+Spilsborough!  He does not know that *she* sent me a

+telegram from here!"

+

+He put up at the Angel, and escaped seeing the

+others for the time.  On his way up he had sent

+a defiant telegram to Bramber, desiring him to come

+to Spilsborough, and fight there with swords or

+pistols or any weapon that commended itself to him.

+This telegram Bramber never got, for, on reaching

+home and washing away the traces of the struggle

+in Hyde Park before all the loveliness of London,

+he had found his telegram from Spilsborough sent

+by Geordie Smith.  After looking in the ABC

+guide, and finding no good train, he pelted off in

+his motor-car, leaving a note for Rivaulx, saying

+that, though duels were absurd and illegal, he would

+not refuse to meet the marquis in France or

+Belgium, if he desired to make a bigger fool of himself

+than he had already done in the park.

+

+"Curse and confound them all," said Bramber,

+who was horribly cross and exceedingly sick of the

+whole world, even including Penelope.  "I wonder

+what she means by this telegram.  I wish I was

+dead!  Is she at Spilsborough?"

+

+Just in the middle of Spilsborough he met

+Rivaulx and pulled up short, not having the least

+notion, of course, that he would meet him there.

+But Rivaulx grinned a ghastly smile and raised

+his hat, as Bramber stopped.

+

+"Ha, I am pleased to see you," said the French

+marquis.  "You have come quickly.  It is a fine

+night, there is a moon, and close by here under

+the shadow of the cathedral there is a most

+beautiful piece of grass.  There we will fight.  I have

+brought swords with me.  Or have you brought guns?"

+

+"I haven't brought guns," said Bramber, who

+was entirely stunned and at a loss for a word.

+

+The marquis bowed.

+

+"We will fight with swords, my lord.  I think

+this hotel is good; the lady is amiable; there are

+rooms to spare.  When the moon rises, ha!  I will

+call you forth."

+

+And Bramber went to the hotel to think what he

+should do.

+

+"The ass! the lunatic!  How did he get here?

+I can't get out of fighting him."

+

+He sat outside in his car.

+

+"No, I won't.  I'm damned if I do!" he said.

+

+He went in and wrote a note for Rivaulx, who

+was out in the cathedral close picking what he

+considered a good place for a duel.  The spot he chose

+was not far from the dean's house.

+

+"I wish it had been Mr. Plant," he said.  "Of

+Bramber, who is a young ass, I am not jealous.

+But of Plant I am horribly jealous, and he is a bad

+man.  If I met Plant I would say, 'Fight me at

+once now, and I will put off Lord Bramber till

+another day.'"

+

+And, going around the corner, he ran right into

+Plant, who was raging about the town, wondering

+where Penelope was and how everything was going

+to end.

+

+"The scoundrel is that marquis," said Plant.

+And he ran into the scoundrel's arms.

+

+And just while Bramber was shaking the dust

+of Spilsborough from the tires of his motor-car,

+Bob himself came into the town in a hired Daimler,

+full of the most extraordinary news.  And Titania

+was having a series of fits down at Goring, with

+Dr. Lumsden Griff in attendance.

+

+

+

+

+

+.. vspace:: 4

+

+.. _`CHAPTER XVI.`:

+

+.. class:: center large bold

+

+   CHAPTER XVI.

+

+.. vspace:: 2

+

+It cannot be imagined that Titania, who had

+survived so many shocks, was ill for nothing.  When

+Bob discovered what she was ill of, he stood outside

+on the lawn with his hands deep in his pockets and

+with his legs wide apart.

+

+"I must tell 'em this at once," said Bob, gloomily.

+"If I don't tell Gordon, he'll forget he's

+invested a hundred of mine in something to make

+hair curl, and I shall lose the money.  I mean to

+make money to keep up Goring by and by.  And

+he said he'd make me a director, too.  For the sake

+of the family, I can't neglect him.  Or De Vere,

+either.  Or any of 'em.  But—but I never thought

+it of Pen!"

+

+With his pockets full of money derived from the

+sale of dogs to De Vere, he rushed off to the

+station and caught a train for town.  When he reached

+London, he sent a wire to "Old Guth."

+

+"I'm in town on important business.  Break it

+to grandmother between fits.  I hope to be back

+to-morrow."

+

+He rushed off to Park Lane to find Gordon.

+

+"Mr. Gordon has gone to Spilsborough, sir,"

+said Gordon's man.

+

+"D—  I mean confound it!" said Bob.  He went

+to Plant's.

+

+"Mr. Plant went to Spilsborough in a great

+hurry this afternoon, sir," said Plant's landlady.

+The American millionaire still lived in Bloomsbury,

+though not on ten shillings a week.

+

+"Oh," said Bob, "I wonder what this means.

+There's a secret here!"

+

+He drove in a hansom to find Bramber.  A very

+ingenuous piece of humanity in buttons told Bob

+that Lord Bramber came in about four o'clock torn

+to ribbons, and found a telegram waiting him.

+

+"And off he went in his motor-car."

+

+"Where?" asked Bob.

+

+"I don't know," said the buttons.  But on Bob's

+going to Bramber's room, he found the ABC open

+on the table at the page with Spilsborough on it.

+

+"Sherlock Holmes would say he has gone to

+Spilsborough," cried Bob.  "And if Gordon and

+Plant have gone there, too, I'll bet all the rest have

+gone.  I'll go, too."

+

+But there was no train for three hours!

+

+"I'm done," said Bob, "No, I'm not.  I'll hire

+a motor-car."

+

+He went to the nearest place in Regent Street

+and hired one.

+

+"Very well, sir," said the man, "but it's rather

+expensive, you know."

+

+Bob pulled out a handful of sovereigns.

+

+"Take as many as you think fair," he said,

+grandly.  "And don't forget I want a speedy one,

+and a man that can drive, and I'll pay the fines of

+course!"

+

+That was how he came to Spilsborough just in

+time and about the hour when the moon was to

+rise.  He passed a motor-car in the ditch about

+ten miles out of the cathedral city, and did not stop

+to find out what was the matter.  He thus missed

+the discovery that Bramber and his chauffeur were

+both sitting upon the wreck, using very awful

+language to each other on the subject of losing the

+way and coming bolt down a side road into the

+opposing hedge.  It is astonishing how an accident

+at thirty miles an hour brings owners and

+mechanics down to the same human level.

+

+When Bob reached Spilsborough, he was covered

+with dust, but was as spry as a grasshopper and

+awfully full of his news.

+

+"You *can* drive," said Bob to his man.  "I'm

+very much pleased with you.  Stop at this hotel."

+

+He went into the Angel, and staggered blithely

+to the office.

+

+"Is Mr. Gordon here, or Mr. Plant, or the

+Marquis of Rivaulx?" he demanded.

+

+He thus discovered the marquis.

+

+He drove off to the Grand, and found Plant and

+Goby and De Vere and Gordon were there.  They

+were all in bed but Plant, and Plant had gone to

+see the cathedral by moonlight.

+

+"All right, we'll put up here," said Bob, "and

+I'll see if I can find Plant.  I say, I wonder what

+Baker will think of this?  It beats me!"

+

+He got to the cathedral precincts just about an

+hour after Rivaulx and Plant had run into each

+other's arms.  Much had occurred since then.

+

+For Rivaulx started back from Plant and almost

+forgot the existence of Bramber.

+

+"You are a scoundrrrel," said Rivaulx, rolling

+his r's in the most fearful manner.

+

+"You are a lunatic," replied Plant, coolly;

+"when did you escape?"

+

+"I have not escaped, I am here," snorted Rivaulx,

+"but you shall not escape.  I meant to kill

+Lord Bramber upon this spot, but I prefer to keel

+you.  I let him go; he is nothing.  You are the

+scoundrrel!"

+

+"Oh, dry up!" said Plant, crossly.  "You tire

+me, you fatigue me very much.  I am exhausted

+by looking at you.  Go home, or I will break you

+in three pieces and eat them!"

+

+Rivaulx foamed at the mouth.

+

+"Do you refuse to fight me, sare?"

+

+"Certainly not," said Plant.  "Take your coat

+off and hang it on a tombstone, and I'll leave

+nothing of you but a smear."

+

+"I do not fight with fists," said Rivaulx,

+contemptuously.  "I fight with swords, with steel,

+with guns or pistols."

+

+Plant shook his head.

+

+"I've none of 'em about me, my son!"

+

+"At the hotel I have swords," cried Rivaulx,

+eagerly.  "I brought them to kill Bramber, who

+punched my eye in the Rotten Row, and we rolled

+in bushes.  But I will first fight you.  Wait and I

+fetch the swords."

+

+He ran violently into the darkness, and Plant

+sat on a railing.

+

+"What am I to do?  Am I to wait and fight a

+lunatic?  Or shall I go back to the hotel?  I think

+I'll go back.  If that raging idiot is found prancing

+about here with swords, they will run him in."

+

+But he did not know how fast the marquis could

+run and how near the hotel was.  Before he had

+made up his mind to go, Rivaulx came back again.

+He flung the swords at Plant's feet.

+

+"Take one and let us begin," he said.

+

+"I think on the whole I'll have both," said Plant,

+suiting the action to the word.  "Now go home,

+marquis, like a good little boy, and come to the

+Grand Hotel in the morning and tell me why you

+want to be hanged in England."

+

+He put both the weapons under his arm.

+

+"You will not fight?" said the marquis, gasping

+like a dying dolphin.

+

+"What kind of a galoot do you reckon me?"

+asked Plant, quite unintelligibly.

+

+"Ha!" said the marquis, "I know not what a

+galoot is, but I will fight you here and leave your

+body on the grass."

+

+Neither of them had observed the approach of a

+portly and pleasant gentleman behind them.  He

+was now leaning upon the railing, watching them

+with a great deal of kindly curiosity.

+

+"I think, gentlemen, that the dean will object,"

+he said at length, and they both turned around

+suddenly.

+

+"You must not interfere," said Rivaulx; "we

+do not know you."

+

+.. _`RUFUS Q. PLANT`:

+

+.. figure:: images/img-202.jpg

+   :align: center

+   :alt: RUFUS Q. PLANT. Born in Virginia

+

+   RUFUS Q. PLANT. Born in Virginia

+

+"To be sure, to be sure," replied the gentleman,

+who was dressed very curiously, as Rivaulx noticed.

+"I hate interfering, especially with anything

+belonging to a dean.  Deans, gentlemen, are very

+touchy about matters connected with their

+cathedrals.  Now Dean Briggs, gentlemen, takes the

+very greatest care of that grass on which you both

+are now illegally trampling, and I understand that

+he has made a rule never to have duels upon it.

+He is very firm on that point.  Do I mistake you

+if I say that it looks to an unprejudiced observer

+as if you were going to fight a duel?"

+

+Rivaulx bowed.

+

+"I do not know you, sare, and I do not want to.

+I want to keel this man, who is a scoundrrel."

+

+The stranger addressed Plant.

+

+"And are you equally anxious to break this very

+rigid rule of the dean's?" he asked, suavely.

+

+"Certainly not," replied Plant; "I want to go to bed."

+

+"I am delighted to hear it.  I am intensely gratified

+to hear it.  If one duellist, having possession of

+both deadly weapons, desires to go to bed, I cannot

+see anything to hinder him, unless, indeed, he wants

+to lie down on Mr. Dean's grass.  You see, gentlemen,

+I am a bishop, and a bishop's first desire is

+to be on good terms with the dean.  If Mr. Dean

+heard that I encouraged any one to break his rules

+about duelling or going to bed in the precincts of

+this cathedral, I should *not* be on good terms with

+him, I assure you."

+

+"I do not understand," said Rivaulx.  "I want

+to fight, that is all I want to do!"

+

+"Stay!" said the bishop, mildly.  "If the

+somewhat excited gentleman, who is, I gather, not an

+Englishman, will accompany me a few yards, we

+will go to the dean's, with whom I have been

+dining, and will refer the matter to him."

+

+"Of course," said Plant, "that is the right thing

+to do.  Marquis, his lordship the bishop suggests

+the only course open to gentlemen.  I trust you will

+accept his offer, and, if you do, I undertake to

+fight you if the dean gives his permission."

+

+"Stay, sare, my lord the bishop," said Rivaulx,

+"one moment, sare, the bishop.  Is this dean of

+whom you speak a gentleman?"

+

+"Certainly, certainly," replied the bishop, hastily.

+"He is of the highest breeding, and in his youth he

+fenced like a fencing-master."

+

+"Then he understands the code of honour, sare

+the bishop?"

+

+"Absolutely, for a dean," replied his lordship.

+

+"Then I agree, sir lord," cried Rivaulx.

+

+"Ha, we will go to his house, then," said the

+bishop, "if you will step over this railing.  But

+stop here one moment and observe the moon rising

+over Mr. Dean's cathedral.  Is it not a peaceful,

+pleasant spot, gentlemen?"

+

+"It beats thunder," said Plant.

+

+"It does, it does," nodded his lordship.  "Many

+Americans, who admire this cathedral immensely,

+have made the same acute observation.  May I ask

+your names, gentlemen?  I am the bishop of this

+diocese."

+

+"My name is Plant, Rufus Q. Plant, and my

+friend is the Marquis of Rivaulx."

+

+"Indeed," returned the bishop, "is the gentleman

+the French nobleman who is interested in balloons?"

+

+"Yes," said Plant.

+

+"Dear me!  I am delighted," said his lordship.

+"I, too, am interested in balloons.  I saw one go

+up once."

+

+"You like them?" asked Rivaulx, warmly.

+"That is good!  I will take you up in one."

+

+"We will talk of it later," said the bishop, rather

+hastily for a man of his gentle flowing speech.

+"But this is the dean's house.  If I knock at this

+window, he will put his head out."

+

+He knocked at the window, and Mr. Dean did

+put his head out.

+

+"I am *so* loath to disturb you, Mr. Dean," said

+his lordship, "but, as I was leaving you and taking

+a little stroll before retiring, I met two gentlemen,

+one from the United States and one a French

+marquis, who were engaged in a warm discussion on

+a point of honour.  I am ignorant of the exact

+point, and I dare say there is no necessity for our

+knowing.  As a result of this discussion, the French

+marquis desired to fight a duel with swords (you

+will observe them under the arm of the gentleman

+from the United States), and I ventured to intervene,

+as the duel was to take place upon your grass."

+

+"Humph, indeed!" said the dean, in great astonishment.

+"And what did you say?"

+

+"I said that it was against your rules to allow

+any one to fight duels there.  Was I not right?"

+

+"Rather!" said the dean.  "I should say so."

+

+"And on the other hand," continued the bishop,

+"the gentleman from across the Atlantic wished

+to go to bed."

+

+"Then why the—why doesn't he?" asked the dean.

+

+"It seemed to me that the gentleman from across

+the water wanted to go to bed upon your grass,"

+said the bishop.  "I pointed out to him that there

+was a very old and strict rule dating from the time

+beyond record which forbade this.  Was I not right?"

+

+"You were," said the dean.  "I never go to

+bed on the grass myself, and do not permit others

+to do so.  I never fight duels there, either, and do

+not allow it."

+

+"You see, gentlemen," said the bishop, but

+before he could add another word Bob rushed right

+upon the group outside the dean's windows, and

+saw that Plant made one of them.  He saw the

+swords also, and then recognized Rivaulx.

+

+"Oh, I say," said Bob, "you were going to fight

+a duel about Pen!  I've come in time!  It's no good.

+She has married Timothy Bunting, her groom!"

+

+

+

+

+

+.. vspace:: 4

+

+.. _`CHAPTER XVII.`:

+

+.. class:: center large bold

+

+   CHAPTER XVII.

+

+.. vspace:: 2

+

+It was such an awful shock to Plant and Rivaulx,

+and, for the matter of that, to his lordship the

+Bishop of Spilsborough, that they all gasped dreadfully.

+Plant took the bishop by the sleeve.  Rivaulx

+lay down upon the grass under the dean's window,

+and howled as he tore at the turf.  The dean said:

+

+"I'll come out!  This is becoming serious!"

+

+He came out, and, as he opened the door, the

+light of the hall lamp fell upon Bob's face.

+

+"Good heavens!" said the bishop, "I thought I

+knew the voice.  Is that you, Robert Goring?"

+

+Bob said it was, but added that he didn't know

+the bishop.

+

+"Boy, I christened you," said the bishop.  "Is

+all this trouble about Penelope Brading, whom I

+also christened?"

+

+"Yes," replied Bob; "shall I tell you about it?"

+

+"Let us retire a few paces, and you can tell me,"

+said the bishop.  "In the meantime, Mr. Dean,

+I beg you to exercise patience with the French

+nobleman on the grass.  Come, Bob."

+

+"Well, it's awful rot, you know," said Bob,

+speaking very rapidly.  "We don't know where

+we are in the family, and grandmother is lying on

+a sofa screaming."

+

+"Why, Bob?"

+

+"You must have heard of it."

+

+The bishop had heard a great deal, but not all.

+

+"Pen says she's married and has a kid," said Bob,

+"and she won't say who it is.  And all these

+jossers, including Plant, he's the American over there,

+and the marquis chewing the grass, said they had

+married her themselves.  Do you see, sir,—my

+lord, I mean?"

+

+"I see," said the bishop, putting his finger-tips

+together.  "It was, I think, very noble of them."

+

+"But granny said it was very trying, and it made

+her ill, for she wasn't any further than before,

+unless Pen had married them all.  And grandfather,

+who kept cool, said that was unlikely."

+

+"It certainly seems unlikely," said the bishop.

+"But when you came to us, you made some very

+astonishing remarks about a groom, one Bunting,

+I think.  Now what is there to know about him?"

+

+"Weekes said that, the beast!" cried Bob.

+

+"Who is the beast Weekes?" asked the bishop.

+

+Bob told him who Miss Harriet Weekes was.

+

+"And not an hour after these had said they were

+married to Pen, this Weekes woman came in black

+and in a cab and said she must see granny.  And

+granny saw her, and is now in fits, with the doctor

+feeling her pulse and giving her brandy.  For

+Weekes was very solemn (I listened), and she said:

+'Your Grace, I shall reveal the truth, which lies

+upon my bosom like a tombstone.  Her ladyship

+treated me cruel, and gave me the sack moreover,

+and I've no call to be silent no more 'avin'

+diskivered the truth.'  She talks like that.  Weekes is an

+uneducated beast, and why Pen ever had her as a

+maid I can't tell.  And granny was confused with

+the others, having said they were all married to

+Pen, and she waggled her head awfully.  'I shall

+surprise your Grace,' said Weekes, and granny said

+she wouldn't.  And she said, 'I shall surprise your

+Grace, for I've to reveal that I know the man, the

+serpent, that her ladyship 'as married.'  And granny

+smiled very curiously, and said, 'Weekes, who do

+you say it is?'  And then Weekes cried, the

+crocodile, and she said that Penelope had married

+Timothy Bunting, the groom, and that Timothy had

+been engaged to her, and had as good as told her

+that he was looking high and despised a public-house

+at a corner.  I don't know what she meant.

+And she was so solemn and furious that granny

+believed her, and went off into fit after fit most

+awful, my lord, and they sent for the doctor, and

+I came away, for I knew the others would fight

+when they learnt that all of them had said the same

+thing.  And I believe it is Timothy myself."

+

+"Dear, dear me!" said the bishop, "this is even

+more remarkable than I anticipated from the very

+strange reports in the papers.  But I think you have

+done well, Robert, and I do not regret having

+christened you by any means, which is more than I can

+say for some of the aristocracy.  Let us return to

+the dean, who is, I am afraid, having some trouble

+with the French marquis.  He is not accustomed

+to foreign noblemen and to Americans, except when

+they come here to see his cathedral."

+

+They turned toward the deanery, where Rivaulx

+was still rolling on the grass.

+

+"Do you think it is Timothy?" asked Bob.

+

+The bishop shook his head gently.

+

+"I do not see what grounds we have to go on,

+Robert.  Here we have an American who states,

+if I understand you rightly, that he has married

+my poor Penelope, and a French marquis of high

+repute who also states the same.  And there are

+others—"

+

+"Five or six!" said Bob.

+

+"And there are five or six others who commit

+themselves to the same statement.  And then a

+lady's maid says she knows that Penelope has

+married a groom.  I do not see what logical grounds

+we have for concluding anything more than that

+some one has told a lie, or that Penelope has been

+breaking the law by marrying more than one man

+at a time.  Speaking *a priori*, I think this latter

+alternative unlikely, and, as a matter of probability,

+I am forced to believe that only one at least out

+of seven (is it seven?) gentlemen of unblemished

+reputation has told the truth."

+

+It was all very sad.  But there were practical

+details to be attended to.  Though the marquis had

+ceased to raise the echoes of the stilly night, to say

+nothing of the echoes of the cathedral's west front,

+he was still in a fearfully mournful condition.  He

+was now weeping in the dean's arms, and the dean

+was endeavouring to soothe him as best he could.

+When the bishop came back, Mr. Dean seemed

+much relieved.

+

+"Don't you think you could get them to go away,

+bishop?" he inquired, pathetically.  "This kind of

+thing is beyond my experience, and I am extremely

+fatigued by it."

+

+"I will do my best," replied the bishop.

+

+Turning to the marquis, he said:

+

+"Get up, marquis.  I will walk with you to the

+hotel.  Mr. Plant, please follow with Robert, and

+be good enough to take care of those lethal instruments,

+which are, I rejoice to say, little understood

+in a quiet cathedral town.  It appears to me we are

+all in a state of mind which needs repose.  On the

+morrow, after I have slept upon it, I shall be happy

+to receive you all and give you the best advice in

+my power.  Now, marquis, I am waiting for you.

+The grass is damp."

+

+And they walked to the hotel, leaving the dean

+staring open-mouthed.

+

+"This is very unusual," sighed the dean.  "I

+cannot recollect anything exactly like it in my long

+experience."

+

+No more could the bishop.  Plant was in the

+same state of mind.  Rivaulx wept silently.  Bob

+was in the seventh heaven of delight, in spite of

+Bunting.  He thoroughly believed in what Harriet

+Weekes said.  Neither Plant nor Rivaulx knew that

+he knew they both claimed to be Pen's husband.

+

+"This story of Bunting is a goldarned lie," said

+Plant, hoarsely.  Bob did not reply.  He was sorry

+for them all, and relied on the bishop.  What he

+relied on him for he did not know.  All he did

+know was that the bishop seemed fully equal to

+the situation.

+

+"How many more of you are there, Mr. Plant?"

+he asked at length.

+

+"Gordon and Goby and De Vere," replied Plant,

+miserably.

+

+"I must see Mr. Gordon," said Bob.  And then

+they came to the Angel.  By this time Rivaulx and

+the bishop were great friends, for Rivaulx was a

+clerical in his heart of hearts, and, if there wasn't

+a Catholic bishop to lean on, a Protestant one was

+a good substitute.  He stopped weeping, and held

+the bishop's hand.

+

+"You are a good man, sare bishop," he said.

+"I wish I was a good bishop, but I cannot.  Life

+is a very terrible thing.  I wish I could cut my

+throat.  I am weary."

+

+"I should go to bed," said the bishop, "and I'll

+look in and see you in the morning.  Bed is the

+best place when one is weary.  I assure you that I

+am not wholly ignorant of the world, or of the

+desire to cut my throat, but I find that after a good

+night's rest the wish to do so evaporates, and one

+determines to live for another twelve hours at least.

+But before you go, I hope you will give me your

+word that you will cut no one else's."

+

+"I give it," said Rivaulx.  "The desire to kill

+Mr. Plant has left me.  I am no longer furious,

+even with Bramber.  I am simply sad and fearfully

+mournful.  I thank you, sare; good night."

+

+"Good night," said the bishop.  "Stay, marquis,

+I think Mr. Plant has the weapons."

+

+The marquis waved them off.

+

+"I have no need of them.  I give them you, sare

+bishop.  Take them."

+

+And when the bishop had bidden Plant and Bob

+good night, and had arranged to see Bob in the

+morning, the curious sight might have been

+witnessed of a great ornament of the Episcopal bench

+walking through the precincts of the cathedral to

+his palace, with a couple of duelling-swords under

+his arm.

+

+"This has been a very interesting evening," said

+the bishop.  "I very much wonder what Ridley

+will think when he sees me come in.  A butler's

+mind is naturally limited."

+

+He went in and gave the swords to Ridley.

+

+"Take these," said his lordship.

+

+"Yes, m'lord," said Ridley, stolidly.

+

+"I think you can hang them up in the dining-room, Ridley."

+

+"Yes, m'lord."

+

+"They are trophies, Ridley."

+

+"So I perceive, m'lord," said Ridley.

+

+"What are trophies, Ridley?"

+

+"These, m'lord," said Ridley.

+

+"Exactly so," said his lordship.

+

+And while he was taking off his gaiters and

+thinking of Penelope, Bob was sitting on the edge

+of Gordon's bed and telling him all about it.

+

+"Why are you here?" asked Bob.

+

+"She sent me a telegram," said poor Gordon.

+

+"I say, what about?"

+

+"Sayin' I wath a noble character and so on,"

+replied Gordon, miserably, "and I came here at

+onth becauth the telegram came from here."

+

+As the sleep went out of his eyes, he talked less

+Hebraically.

+

+"I thought she might be here," he added,

+shaking his curly head.

+

+Bob thought very hard.

+

+"I say, this is awfully mixed, Mr. Gordon,

+because I know you told granny you were married

+to Pen!"

+

+Gordon gulped something down.  It was

+probably very bad language.

+

+"So—so I am," he said, sternly, without looking at Bob.

+

+"Rivaulx says so, too."

+

+"The devil!" cried Gordon.

+

+"And so does Goby and Rivaulx and Bramber

+and De Vere and all of 'em!"

+

+Gordon fell back on his pillows.

+

+"So you see," said Bob, "we're no further than

+we were, except that Weekes, who used to be Pen's

+maid, came to granny this afternoon and told her,

+the beast, that Pen had married Timothy Bunting!"

+

+Gordon bounced out of bed in his night-shirt.

+

+"Who the devil is Timothy Bunting?" he roared.

+

+Bob told him.

+

+"It's a lie—a lie!"

+

+"Of course it must be, if you've married her,

+as you say," said Bob.  "But perhaps I'm disturbing

+you.  Would you like to go to sleep?"

+

+"Very much indeed," replied Gordon.  "I should

+like to go to sleep and stay asleep.  I wish you'd

+go and serve Goby and De Vere as you've served me!"

+

+"I'm so sorry," said Bob, "but you always said

+you wanted any news, and that's why I told you first."

+

+Gordon held out his hand, and Bob shook it warmly.

+

+"By the way," he asked, "what about the hair restorer?"

+

+"What hair restorer?" asked the astonished Hebrew.

+

+"The one you put ninety pounds of mine in, sir."

+

+"It wasn't in a hair restorer.  What makes you

+say so?"

+

+"Well," replied Bob, "I thought it was.  You

+said it would make my hair curl.  How much did

+it make, whatever it was?"

+

+A glow of pleasure spread over Gordon's sad

+countenance.  Making money was something even

+in despair.

+

+"My boy, I bought you Amalekites at half a

+crown, five hundred and sixty of 'em, and now

+they're at £4."

+

+"Dear me," said Bob, "how much does that

+make?  Why, it's £2,240."

+

+"Less commission," agreed the financier.

+

+"By Jove, that's a very, very good beginning,"

+said Bob.  "Do you think they will go up more,

+Mr. Gordon?"

+

+Gordon looked at him and sighed.

+

+"They might.  But don't you think it would be

+safer to get out now, Bob?"

+

+Bob shook his head.

+

+"I'll follow your advice, sir, of course.  If it was

+only myself, I'd take the money, but I'm thinking

+of Goring, when my father and grandfather and

+uncle die.  What I want is fifty thousand, at least.

+Grandfather often says that is the least that can

+put the house on its legs again.  Let me see, £2,240

+is eight times four times £90.  That's thirty-two

+times £90.  What's thirty-two times £2,240?"

+

+"Seventy-one thousand six hundred and eighty,"

+replied Gordon, promptly.

+

+"That would do very well indeed," said Bob.

+"Please go on, sir, till it's that.  Or shall I take

+half and ask Mr. Plant to do something with it?

+He offered to help me."

+

+"Certainly not," replied Gordon, angrily.

+"Plant's a reckless speculator and a liar, and he'll

+wake up some day worth half a million less than

+nothing.  I'll do my best for you and Goring, Bob."

+

+"I'm sure you will, sir," said Bob.  "Good

+night, Mr. Gordon.  I'm sorry if I've worried you."

+

+And he went off to worry Goby.  Gordon walked

+up and down the room weeping.

+

+"If I only had a boy like that!" he cried.  "By

+Moses and all the prophets, I'll put Amalekites up

+sky-high, and squeeze the bears till they howl.  Oh,

+Pen, Pen!"

+

+

+

+

+

+.. vspace:: 4

+

+.. _`CHAPTER XVIII.`:

+

+.. class:: center large bold

+

+   CHAPTER XVIII.

+

+.. vspace:: 2

+

+By breakfast-time or a little later, Goby and

+Gordon and De Vere and Rivaulx knew not only

+what was said about Timothy Bunting, but also

+that every one of them had told the Duchess of

+Goring that he was married to Penelope.  When

+the bishop looked in to see the marquis, he found

+him exceedingly difficult to manage.  He wanted

+the duelling-swords back in order to fight every

+one.  His especial desire now was to put cold steel

+through Gordon, and this led to a general

+evacuation of Spilsborough.

+

+"I say, Mr. Gordon," said Bob, rushing in upon

+the financier while he was shaving, "I've just met

+the bishop, and he wanted to know if I knew you,

+and I said 'rather,' and he said would I ask you,

+in the interests of peace, to go back to London,

+because the marquis wanted to cut your throat with

+swords hanging in the bishop's dining-room.  I

+say, will you go, or stay and fight?"

+

+Gordon cut himself, and then, as Bob said, "cut

+his stick" and went back to town shaved on one

+side and not on the other.  As a result of this,

+several men in the city sold bears of everything

+that Gordon was interested in, and they got left

+most horribly, especially on Amalekites.  Never

+afterward did they venture to think that any

+financier was on the borders of ruin if he came into

+the city partially shaved.  In fact, three very shady

+Jews, with some wildcat stock to boom, played the

+trick successfully, and, through not being shaved

+themselves, they shaved others.

+

+But this is all by the way, and it only shows

+that a real financier in love or in despair is just

+as dangerous as at other times.  Bob and the bishop

+talked the situation over in Spilsborough while

+Gordon was going to town, and the result was what

+might have been expected.

+

+"All we know is that Penelope, poor dear

+Penelope is near Spilsborough," said the bishop.

+

+"And that she's married," said Bob.

+

+"We infer that from general grounds, our

+knowledge of her character," said the logical bishop.

+"Strictly we cannot be said to know it.  It is not

+a primary datum of consciousness, nor is it a

+judgment or a purely rational conclusion, Bob."

+

+"Oh," said Bob, "well, perhaps not."

+

+"I think," said the bishop, "that I shall write

+to her—"

+

+"Where to?"

+

+"To everywhere," said the bishop, "and ask her

+to come and confide in me.  And in the meantime,

+as the others have gone, and your presence here is

+no longer necessary, I think you should go home

+and console your grandmother, and apply yourself

+to work."

+

+"All right," said Bob; "I don't think it's interesting

+here any more.  But are you glad I came in

+time to stop the duel?"

+

+"I am glad," said the bishop.  "But, to tell the

+truth, Robert, I should not have allowed a duel on

+Mr. Dean's ancient grass and under his immemorial

+elms without a remonstrance, even a physical

+remonstrance."

+

+Within the memory of this portly and admirable

+pillar of the Church to which the British Empire

+owes all its greatness, and to which it pays a great

+deal of its money, were many fierce encounters at

+Oxford, that haunt of ancient peace and modern

+progress.

+

+"Would you have knocked 'em down?" asked

+Bob, eagerly.

+

+"Certainly," said the bishop.  "I would have

+knocked them as flat as a flounder."

+

+And Bob bade him good-bye.

+

+"I think he's a ripping good bishop," said Bob.

+"I'll ask Mr. Gordon to help restore the cathedral."

+

+He got back to Goring to find Titania no longer

+suffering from fits.  Fits were not equal to the

+situation.  All her friends were writing to her to

+condole with her on the marriage of Penelope to

+Timothy Bunting.  They came down in droves to

+condole and to get the latest intelligence, while

+gamekeepers and grooms were keeping journalists

+out of the grounds with guns and pitchforks.

+

+For the world was absolutely certain that Miss

+Weekes was right, and Pen's *ci-devant* maid was

+making the salary of a star at the Empire by

+according interviews to those halfpenny papers which

+are England's glory and her hope.  The editors

+endeavoured to interview the lovers, but they were

+stern and savage.  They would not speak to each

+other and avoided strangers.  But it was no secret

+now that they each claimed to be Lady Penelope's

+husband.  As the acutest journalist of them all

+remarked, this was hardly possible.  The only theory

+that held water (or, at least, "good" water, as the

+Baboo pleader remarked) was the Bunting theory.

+But if Bunting was the man, where was he? and

+why this mystery?  A journalist solved it, or said

+he did.  Bunting was a very handsome man.  There

+was no doubt of that.  But he was an uneducated

+man.  That was quite certain.  If a lady of

+Penelope's standing married a man of Bunting's, what

+would she do?  The answer was easy.  She would

+send him to Oxford to acquire the accent and the

+aplomb and the insolence which have rendered

+Oxford men the idols of the mob, and have put them

+into every position where tact with inferior races

+is a *sine qua non*.  This is what the journalist said.

+He ought to have known, as he had been brought

+up in the Yorkshire Dissenting College, and

+dissented from all other codes of manners, except those

+popular with the non-conformist conscience, which,

+equally with the Church of England, has made the

+empire what it is and what it should be.

+

+But this journalist knew his market.  The eyes

+of the civilized world once more turned to Oxford.

+

+"If it's Bunting, I'll kill him," said all the lovers

+who were not married to Penelope.  "She has

+made a mistake, if it's true, and he must be got rid of."

+

+Now was the time of the Marchioness of Rigsby's glory.

+

+"Did I not tell you she had married her

+groom?" she demanded of Titania.  "Penelope

+was extremely rude to me.  I am almost glad she

+has married a groom.  If he is a nice groom, he

+may improve her manners."

+

+"She hasn't married any groom," cried Titania,

+furiously.  "I am perfectly certain it is the

+Marquis of Rivaulx."

+

+She was certain of nothing.  Bradstock was

+certain of nothing.  They both asked Bob what he

+was certain of, and Bob replied all the lovers were

+in such a state of mind that it couldn't be any of

+them.  And then at last Titania hit upon a certain

+truth.

+

+"Whoever it is would be just as miserable as

+all the others," she said.  "He'll be sorry now that

+he agreed to it, and he'll be asking her to give in,

+and she won't.  And they'll quarrel."

+

+"You're right, Titania," cried Bradstock, slapping

+his thigh.  "Bob, I believe the most miserable

+of them all is the man.  Which is the most miserable?"

+

+Bob thought.

+

+"Gordon cried a little."

+

+"Ha!" said the duchess.

+

+"But Rivaulx cried a good deal," said Bob.

+

+"Oh," said the duchess.  "But which do you

+think it is, Robert?"

+

+"I think it's Timothy Bunting," said Bob.

+"And I want to go to Oxford to find out if he's

+there.  Baker says—"

+

+"Do you discuss these matters with Baker?"

+demanded his grandmother, haughtily.

+

+"He knows a great deal about the world," said

+Bob, "and about Bunting, you know.  Baker says—"

+

+"You may go to Oxford," cried Titania, "and

+I will go to bed and stay there.  I am a most

+unhappy woman, and Goring does not care!"

+

+So Bob went to Oxford all by himself, and called

+upon an undergraduate who had just come up from

+Harrow, one of the schools which Bob had been

+requested to leave on account of pugilism.  Jack

+Harcourt was four years Bob's senior, but could

+not fight so well in spite of that, and there was

+much more equality between them than would seem

+possible at first sight.  But then it is almost

+impossible to feel very much superior to a boy who has

+knocked you absolutely senseless, as Bob did

+Harcourt.  And Bob was one of those boys who make

+all the world equal.  He was familiar with princes,

+and said "Baker says" to cabinet ministers.  And

+if his uncle didn't marry, he was bound to be a

+duke.  Dukes are very important people, somehow,

+and the fact that Bob never showed any side was

+much in his favour over and above that important

+fact.

+

+"I say, is there a man up here called Bunting?"

+asked Bob.

+

+And Harcourt, after consulting a calendar, said

+there was.

+

+"Timothy Bunting?" asked Bob, jumping as if

+he were shot.

+

+"Thomas," said Harcourt.

+

+"Oh, he'd say Thomas, I dare say," said Bob.

+And he told Harcourt all about it.

+

+"Do you think she's married him?" asked the

+undergraduate.

+

+"Who knows what girls will do?" said Bob.

+"Don't you remember the black-eyed one in the

+pastry-cook's at Harrow who wouldn't look at you

+and was in love with that beast Black?"

+

+Harcourt did remember, but changed the

+conversation as quickly as possible.

+

+"This fellow is at All Saints," he said.  "I dare

+say, they'd let a groom in there."

+

+"Let's go and find him," said Bob.  "Poor old

+Bunting will be sick to see me.  I'm very sorry for

+him if he is a presumptuous beast.  It will be very

+awkward for the family.  But we must know.  The

+uncertainty is killing my grandmother, and Baker

+says it's always best to know the worst at once.

+Baker's the best judge of dogs and horses I know.

+He was a sergeant in the Dublin Fusiliers.  Oh,

+I told you that!"

+

+And when they got into the High Street, they

+ran right into Plant, who smiled a sickly smile and

+said he had come up to have a look at Oxford.

+

+"I say, Mr. Plant, what's the matter with your

+clothes?" asked Bob.  "Have you fallen downstairs?"

+

+Plant murmured something unintelligible and

+hurried away, leaving Bob staring.

+

+"That's one of 'em, Harcourt," he said to his

+friend.  "He's a millionaire."

+

+"Then I think he might afford a hat without a

+dint in it," replied Harcourt.

+

+Bob shook his head.

+

+"I can't make it out.  He's very particular," he

+said.  "But let's get on."

+

+Around the next corner they bumped into

+Gordon, who also announced that he had been struck

+with a wild desire to have a look at the ancient

+university city.  Bob shook his head.

+

+"I say, Mr. Gordon, you want brushing badly.

+Do you know you look as if you had fallen

+downstairs?" he asked.

+

+Gordon said, "Do I?" and bolted.

+

+"I can't make this out," said Bob.  "This has

+all the appearance of a mystery, Harcourt."

+

+"It has," said Harcourt.  As they entered All

+Saints, they saw a man run across the grass and

+disappear under the far archway which led out into

+the Turl.

+

+"That looked very much like De Vere," said

+Bob, "very much.  Only I never saw him run

+except that time when the bulldog chased him.  And

+then he ran differently.  But of course it can't be

+De Vere."

+

+After asking two reverend-looking members of

+the university, who looked as if they knew all about

+the subjective world, and a scout with every

+appearance of a deep acquaintance with the objective one,

+they discovered Mr. Bunting's rooms.

+

+"I think he's havin' some gents to lunch, though

+I'm not his scout, sir, and they seems to be

+enjoying themselves now very much," said the scout.

+"Mr. Bunting is readin' 'ard, so I 'ear, but he's

+relaxin' a little to-day.  Just now I see a gentleman

+drop hout of 'is window, sir.  And you're the third

+lot I've directed there.  This is 'is staircase, gents,

+first floor.  Thank you, sir, I'm sure.  I'll drink

+your 'ealth."

+

+And here Harcourt said he thought he'd leave

+Bob.  So Bob went up about six dark steps by

+himself, and then he stopped.

+

+"Whoever he is, he's making a devil of a row,"

+said Bob, pausing, "a devil of a row.  I wonder

+if it is Bunting.  I think Harcourt might have

+stayed.  But he never did like fighting or rows."

+

+He climbed up another step or two, and heard

+a mighty uproar.

+

+"I think they must be having a boxing party,"

+said Bob.  And then he heard a door open on the

+landing above him.

+

+"Confound you, sir! to the devil with you,

+sir!" said a voice that he certainly did not

+recognize.  Then he heard a noise which was presently

+explained by the fact that Carteret Williams fell

+down the stairs, turning a crooked corner most

+wonderfully in company with a very large Liddell

+and Scott's Dictionary of that beautiful language,

+Greek.

+

+"Oh, is that you, Mr. Williams?" asked Bob.

+

+Williams appeared rather confused.

+

+"Yes, Bob," he said, as he hugged the dictionary.

+"I—I think so."

+

+"Why have you fallen down-stairs?" asked Bob.

+

+"That damn groom threw me down," said Williams.

+"At least, he threw this book at me, and

+I came down."

+

+.. _`CARTERET WILLIAMS, WAR CORRESPONDENT`:

+

+.. figure:: images/img-230.jpg

+   :align: center

+   :alt: CARTERET WILLIAMS, WAR CORRESPONDENT. He wrote with a red picturesqueness which was horribly attractive

+

+   CARTERET WILLIAMS, WAR CORRESPONDENT. He wrote with a red picturesqueness which was horribly attractive

+

+"What, is it really Bunting?" roared Bob, eagerly.

+

+"He says his name's Bunting," replied Williams.

+"But he's very difficult to handle."

+

+"Oh, Tim can box," said Bob.  "But is he our Bunting?"

+

+"Whichever Bunting he is, you are welcome to

+him," said the enraged war correspondent.

+

+"I must go up and see," said Bob.  "Do you

+think he threw Mr. Plant and Mr. Gordon down,

+too?  I met 'em just now, and they looked as if he had."

+

+"I'm sure he's capable of it," said Williams,

+bitterly.  "Here, take this book with you.  I don't

+want it."

+

+And Bob climbed up, hugging several pounds'

+weight of Greek with him.  He stood at the door

+and listened, and heard a man inside snorting

+violently and slamming things about as if he was very

+much disturbed in his mind.  Bob knocked at the

+door, and it was opened suddenly.  The man who

+opened it was in deep shadow.

+

+"It is—it is.  No, it isn't," said Bob, quite

+aloud.

+

+"Are you another of 'em?" asked the occupier

+of the rooms.

+

+"Oh, it isn't," said Bob.  And, choking down his

+disappointment, his politeness returned.

+

+"Is this your Greek dictionary?" he asked,

+courteously.  "I found it lying on Mr. Carteret

+Williams on the next landing, and he said he didn't

+want it."

+

+The man named Bunting seized the dictionary,

+and then took Bob by the shoulder and led him in.

+Bob went like a lamb, for this Mr. Bunting was

+six feet high, about three feet across the chest, more

+or less, and had a grip like clip-hooks on a bale.

+

+"Was that man named Williams?" he asked.

+

+"Yes," said Bob.

+

+"You know him?"

+

+"Why, of course," said Bob.  "I know 'em all."

+

+"All I've thrown down-stairs this afternoon?"

+

+"I think so," said Bob, modestly.  "At least, I

+met Mr. Plant and Mr. Gordon, who looked very

+much as if they had fallen down-stairs.  And I

+think the little gentleman you dropped out of the

+window on the grass must have been Mr. Austin

+de Vere."

+

+"Oh," said Mr. Bunting, "sit down, boy, and

+look at me.  Do I look mad?"

+

+Bob looked at him and then at the room.

+

+"The room looks mad," he replied.  And it certainly did.

+

+"That was the last one," said Mr. Bunting.

+"He was very troublesome."

+

+"He's a war correspondent," said Bob.  "But

+why is your name Bunting?"

+

+"How the devil do I know?" asked the other,

+in reply.  "Perhaps, as you seem to know them,

+you can explain what it all means?"

+

+"I will try, sir, if you will tell me what

+occurred," said Bob.

+

+"First of all," said the outraged member of All

+Saints, "the American person knocked and came

+in, and he said: 'Is your name Bunting?'  And

+I said, 'Yes, confound you, for your infernal

+impudence, and what is yours?'  And he said, 'What

+the devil do you mean by saying you have married

+her?'  And I said I'd said nothing of the kind,

+and I said if he didn't get out in two shakes of a

+lamb's tail, I'd throw him out.  And he was furious,

+and couldn't and wouldn't explain, so I did throw

+him out.  And, as he tumbled down-stairs, he said

+he'd married her himself.  And he went away, and

+I sat down to read Thucydides.  He's under the

+sofa now somewhere.  And then the Jew came, and

+he said: 'You mutht contradict the report of your

+being married to her at onth,' and that made me

+very cross, and I said I wouldn't, and that made

+him very wild, so I said I was married to her just

+as he said he was—"

+

+"Oh," said Bob, "and are you?  Oh, dear, I

+am so confused!  Are you really, really married

+to Pen?"

+

+"I shall drop you out of the window in a minute,"

+said Mr. Bunting.  "I said it to annoy him,

+and it did, and he said I was a liar.  So I opened

+the door and took him by the neck and dropped him

+down-stairs, and he howled awfully.  And I said

+to him over the bannisters, 'I am married to her,

+and have been married for years to her, and she

+loves me very much, and we are going to

+acknowledge it as soon as I've taken my B.A.'  And he

+went away holding his neck, and then the little

+man came in.  Did you say he was a poet?"

+

+"A very good poet, too," said Bob.  "And I

+sell him bulldogs."

+

+"Oh," said Mr. Bunting, blankly, "you do, do

+you?  Why?"

+

+"Because Pen thought they would do him good."

+

+Mr. Bunting shook his head.

+

+"Thicksides is lucid compared with this!" he

+murmured.  "But patience, patience, and I shall

+construe it yet."

+

+"And what did Mr. de Vere say?" asked Bob.

+

+"The same thing.  He stood there and said I

+must contradict it.  And he said of course it was

+very kind of her to have me educated, but that,

+if I had a spark of decency, I should know that

+a man who had once occupied the position I had

+couldn't possibly marry her.  And, by the way, what

+position had I occupied in regard to her?"

+

+"A groom," said Bob.  "You were supposed to

+have been a groom."

+

+"Dear me," said Mr. Bunting, "how interesting

+and remarkable.  Still no light, no real light!  And

+of course I said I had married her, and I asked him

+did he think I would desert the lady now?  And

+he went scarlet.  Why did he go scarlet do you

+think?"

+

+"I know," said Bob, "it must have been on

+account of the baby!"

+

+Mr. Bunting smote his forehead.

+

+"So it must," he said.  "I never thought of that.

+What a fearful complication!  And then he, too,

+said I was a liar.  So I took him by the collar and

+led him to the window, and I opened it and dropped

+him out.  And then the one you call Williams came,

+and he also was indignant, and said I was to deny

+it, and I wouldn't of course.  And then we fought,

+and the furniture was much disarranged and

+Thicksides went under the sofa, and at last I got him

+outside, and finished him with Liddell and Scott.

+And now you know all!  In your turn you can

+explain what it means.  I beg you to do it, and then

+we will have some tea."

+

+And Bob explained the whole story.

+

+"You might have seen it in the papers," said Bob.

+

+"I don't read 'em," said Bunting, "except to

+turn a *Times* leader into Greek.  But it seems a

+complicated situation, doesn't it?"

+

+"It is very complicated," sighed Bob, "and my

+grandmother is very ill about it.  And now she

+will wonder if it's you, after all!"

+

+"Dear me, so she will," said Bunting.  "Have

+some tea."

+

+They had tea, and Bob rose to go.

+

+"Will you write to the *Times*, and say you

+haven't married her?" he asked.

+

+"Certainly not," said Mr. Bunting.  "Didn't I

+say to the others that I threw down-stairs that I

+*had* married her?"

+

+"So you did," said Bob.  "But of course you haven't?"

+

+Bunting smiled.

+

+"Good-bye.  When you come to Oxford again,

+come and see me.  I must crawl under the sofa now."

+

+"What for?" asked Bob.

+

+"For Thucydides, of course," replied Mr. Bunting.

+

+And when Bob was in the train for London, he

+turned very pale.

+

+"Good heavens!" he said, "how do I know it

+isn't this Bunting, after all?"

+

+

+

+

+

+.. vspace:: 4

+

+.. _`CHAPTER XIX.`:

+

+.. class:: center large bold

+

+   CHAPTER XIX.

+

+.. vspace:: 2

+

+After this, things by no means cleared up, as they

+should have done considering the amount of trouble

+that all the world took to find out the truth.  Every

+one said something different from some one else.

+Bob gave horribly imaginative accounts of his

+adventures at Oxford, and threw out suggestions that

+Pen was really married to a Bunting, if not to

+Timothy Bunting.  But when he appealed for

+corroboration to Gordon, that gentleman shuffled and

+prevaricated dreadfully, as he did not like to

+acknowledge he had been thrown down-stairs.  There was

+a very curious scene, in which Gordon and Bob

+had the best part of a row before Titania, who came

+up to town to be near Dr. Lumsden Griff, who

+knew all about the left or right ventricle of her

+heart.  As his jealous confrères said he knew nothing

+else, perhaps he did.  However, that is by the way.

+

+"Tell it me again, Robert," said Titania.

+

+Bob told her again.

+

+"He said he was married to her?"

+

+"He said he said so to Mr. Plant and Mr. Gordon,

+and Williams and De Vere," said Bob, gloating

+over the details of the row.  "And he slung

+'em all down-stairs.  He's about six feet six high,

+and as broad as a billiard-table, and as strong as

+three Sandows, I should say."

+

+"I am much confused again," said Titania,

+plaintively.  "I had come to the point where certain

+news of her marriage to a groom would have been

+a relief to me.  Where are we now?"

+

+As she asked, Gordon was announced.  Bob

+rushed at him.

+

+"I say, Mr. Gordon, tell us how he threw you

+down-stairs, and what he said?"

+

+"He didn't throw me down-stairs," said Gordon,

+quite crossly.  "I threw myself down—I mean I

+slipped."

+

+"Tell us how you slipped, then, and why," said Bob.

+

+But Gordon wouldn't.

+

+"Oh, I say!" said Bob.

+

+Titania begged Gordon to tell her.

+

+"But then he told me he had married Pen," she

+said to herself.  "What is the use of asking any

+one anything?"

+

+"How did you find him?" asked Bob.

+

+"I looked him up," said Gordon.

+

+"Why did you look him up?"

+

+"Because I wanted to find him out," returned

+Gordon, sulkily.  "But I didn't come to be

+cross-examined by you, Bob."

+

+In spite of the large sums of money which

+Gordon owed Bob, Bob was on the point of an

+explosion.  But trouble was averted by Plant's entrance.

+Before he could say a word, a telegram was brought

+to Titania, and she read it at once and uttered

+dismal groans.

+

+"What is it?" chorused the two men and Bob.

+

+"It's from Penelope."

+

+"Please read it out."

+

+Bob read it for his grandmother.

+

+.. vspace:: 2

+

+"Am exceedingly displeased with latest reports

+and news.  Contradict at once.  Am not married

+to Bunting, who is much upset by report, and can

+hardly look me in the face.  PENELOPE."

+

+.. vspace:: 2

+

+"Bunting is with her!" said Titania.

+

+"Which Bunting?" asked Bob.  "He—I mean

+the one at Oxford—told Mr. Gordon and

+Mr. de Vere that he was married to her."

+

+Gordon groaned, and, seizing his hat, fled from

+the room.  He came back again.

+

+"Where does the wire come from?"

+

+"From Spilsborough," said Bob.  "Granny, I

+wonder if the bishop is in it."

+

+Gordon groaned and went.  And went a little

+too early, for another wire came.  It was a very

+long one.

+

+Titania looked at the signature first, and she sat up.

+

+"It's from Penelope's husband," she cried.

+

+"Who is he really?" shrieked Bob.

+

+"It's signed Penelope's husband, I mean," said

+Titania, "and he seems very unhappy."

+

+The telegram read:

+

+.. vspace:: 2

+

+"Am in great distress.  Penelope is furious

+because told you confidence that was married to her.

+She has heard this, and has learnt that others, lying

+scoundrels, said they were, too.  She says their

+noble conduct saved her, and will not speak at

+present, though holding out hopes of reconciliation

+later to her and infant, which is doing well, if I

+say nothing and do not fight with others, but do

+my duty, which I find hard under peculiar

+circumstances.  Hence am precluded from confirming what

+I told you, and can only communicate anonymously,

+as Penelope threatens to have divorce or equivalent,

+being headstrong, as you are aware, and I am in

+distress about it.  Wire reply.

+

+.. vspace:: 1

+

+"PENELOPE'S HUSBAND."

+

+.. vspace:: 2

+

+"He's mad," said Titania.  "How can I wire

+reply to a man I know nothing of?"

+

+She turned to Plant.

+

+"You told me in confidence, Mr. Plant.  Did you

+send this?"

+

+Plant turned all the colours of the rainbow.

+

+"Yes," he said, desperately, and he bolted from

+the room and the house and disappeared, while Bob

+gasped, and Titania nodded her head in a most

+awe-inspiring manner.

+

+"Get some telegraph forms," she said.  And

+when Bob brought them, she dictated telegrams

+to all the horde in the diplomatic form of identic

+notes.

+

+.. vspace:: 2

+

+"Have received sad telegram signed Penelope's

+husband.  Recognize under painful circumstances

+he cannot reveal himself.  Am much composed and

+have given up hope.  It appears it cannot be

+Bunting, though Bunting is with her.  Contradict this;

+also the rumour that it is the Rajah of Jugpore.

+

+.. vspace:: 1

+

+"TITANIA GORING."

+

+.. vspace:: 2

+

+"Send them," she said, "and let me rest.  I

+presume that the right one will get it.  The only

+trouble is that six of the wrong ones will, too."

+

+"Goby will go insane," said Bob.  "I know he

+will.  I can't see how this will end without murder."

+

+And Titania laughed dreadfully.  She laughed

+so queerly that Doctor Griff was sent for, and

+refused to allow her to see De Vere and Goby and

+Bramber and Gordon and Plant and Williams and

+Carew.  The last turned up first in a hansom cab,

+with a large palette knife in his hand.  He had

+forgotten to put it down.  As hansom after hansom

+came up and discharged one furious lover after

+another at the steps of Titania's town house, it

+looked as if Bob's foreseen murder would occur

+there and then.  It is possible that nothing but the

+timely arrival of Bradstock saved London from the

+desirable news of a murder in high life and

+Belgrave Square.  He got hold of the men one by one,

+and sent them away.  As they went, a telegraph

+boy came to the house with another telegram

+addressed to Titania.

+

+"I shall open this, Bob," said Bradstock.  It was

+another from Pen.

+

+.. vspace:: 2

+

+"Have just learnt that you and others have

+been trying to discover my whereabouts.  If I am

+pursued, I shall leave and go elsewhere.  This is

+final.

+

+.. vspace:: 1

+

+PENELOPE."

+

+.. vspace:: 2

+

+"From Spilsborough, Bob," said Bradstock.

+

+"She's heard that I and Goby and Rivaulx and

+the others were there," said Bob.  "Do you think

+the bishop knows where she is?"

+

+"I wouldn't trust a bishop," said Bradstock.

+"I daresay he does.  It is said that bishops steal

+Elzevirs and umbrellas, Bob.  I think I shall go

+to Spilsborough myself.  Have you seen the evening

+papers, Bob?"

+

+Bob had seen none of them.

+

+"Some say now that she is married to Jugpore,

+and others say it is a morganatic marriage to the

+mediatized Prince of Bodenstrau."

+

+"Oh, I say, Pen will be mad," cried Bob.  "Isn't

+he a real bad un?"

+

+"The very worst," said Bradstock.

+

+"And are you really going to Spilsborough, Lord

+Bradstock?"

+

+"I really think so," said Bradstock.  "I begin

+to think I must do something."

+

+He stood pondering.

+

+"May I come with you?"

+

+Bradstock declined the honour.

+

+"If I don't succeed, you may go again if you

+like," he said.  And that very afternoon he went

+to Liverpool Street and took the train for

+Spilsborough to call on the bishop.

+

+"My dear Bradstock, I am delighted to see you,"

+said his lordship.  "I presume you, too, have come

+here about Penelope?"

+

+"I have," said Bradstock, "every one does."

+

+"Did young Bob tell you all about the peculiar

+occurrences which took place here only lately?

+They were quite remarkable."

+

+Bradstock agreed that they were remarkable.

+

+"A duel on the dean's grass, now!  Who would

+have thought of that but a Frenchman?  Have you

+seen the marquis lately, and that very agreeable

+financier, the American?  I was much grieved not

+to be able to ask him to dinner, owing to his

+sudden departure.  He showed considerable skill in

+grasping the essentials of the situation, for, when

+the marquis, who was literally foaming at the

+mouth, offered him the choice of swords in a

+violent but perfectly gentlemanly way, he chose both

+of them, and put them under his arm.  It is not

+every one who could have displayed such readiness

+in preventing violence.  One would not have

+expected it in an American, for I understand disorder

+and disturbances leading to bloodshed are quite

+common even in Washington."

+

+"I have frequently seen most bloodthirsty duels

+behind the Capitol during the sessions of Congress,"

+said Bradstock, gravely.

+

+"Ah, so I understand," replied the bishop.  "But

+is there no news of dear Penelope?"

+

+"Come, bishop, let us be frank," said Bradstock.

+"Have you no idea whom she has married?"

+

+The gentle bishop looked much surprised.

+

+"I?  My dear Bradstock, I haven't the least idea.

+But I gather that both the gentlemen I interrupted

+the other day claim to be her husband, to say

+nothing of many others whom I have not yet set eyes on."

+

+"And you have no notion where she is?"

+

+The bishop lifted his hands.

+

+"I think she must be near this place," he said.

+"I consider there can be no doubt of that, owing

+to matters with which Bob made me acquainted.

+By the way, I think this young Bob a very

+remarkable boy, Bradstock."

+

+"So do I, bishop," said Bradstock.

+

+"A very remarkable boy.  The dean, who saw

+very little of him, came to that conclusion.  He said

+he would be an ornament to the House of Lords,

+or the biggest young rip that ever disgraced it."

+

+"Your dean must be a clever man," said Bradstock.

+

+"Do not call him my dean," replied the bishop.

+"He is the cathedral's dean, and very difficult to

+handle.  However, he is said to be clever, and I

+dare say is clever, especially about grass and a choir

+and things material.  But, as I was going on to

+say, I consider it quite easy to find out where

+Penelope is, provided we go about it skilfully.  I

+cannot but remember that I christened her, and I still

+take an interest in her."

+

+"How do you propose to discover her whereabouts?"

+asked Bradstock.

+

+"She sends telegrams from our Spilsborough

+post-office, does she not?"

+

+"Yes," said Bradstock.

+

+"Then some one should watch the post-office for

+her messenger.  It seems probable that you would

+know him, as she is not likely to confide in strangers.

+Who can say that the very man she has married

+does not send them?"

+

+That was easily disposed of, for, to Bradstock's

+certain knowledge, all the lovers were in town when

+the last wires came.

+

+"Well, I suggest you watch the post-office," said

+the bishop.  "It is, I opine, a perfectly legitimate

+thing to do."

+

+Bradstock objected that she mightn't send any

+more for weeks.

+

+A brilliant idea struck the bishop.

+

+"Send her one which requires an answer, Bradstock."

+

+"Where to?" asked Bradstock.

+

+"Tut, tut!" said the bishop, "how foolish of

+me.  Stay, I have it.  Put something in the *Times*

+which requires an answer."

+

+"I will," said Bradstock.

+

+"And send for young Bob to watch," said the

+bishop.  "It is time that this scandal was stopped.

+I am exceedingly grieved with Penelope for getting

+married in a registrar's office.  I will offer to marry

+her all over again in this very cathedral.  And now

+you shall come and have lunch, and I will show you

+the swords given me by the marquis."

+

+After lunch and an inspection of the trophies in

+the dining-room, Bradstock and the bishop drafted

+an advertisement for the *Times*, imploring Pen to

+telegraph to Bradstock, saying how she was, as

+there was a rumour afloat that she didn't feel well.

+This was sent by wire to town, and was accompanied

+in its flight by one to Bob, asking him to

+come up in a motor-car at once.

+

+"I think," said the bishop, "that I should like

+to go in a motor-car.  There must be something

+delightful in speeding through the country feeling

+that steel and petrol do not suffer any of the strain

+that comes on horses.  I shall ask young Bob to

+take me out."

+

+"He will be delighted," said Bradstock.  "I'm

+sure he will be delighted.  They say he is an

+enterprising driver for his youth."

+

+"I love enterprise," murmured the bishop.  "I

+am surprised now to think of my own.  I entered

+the Church meaning to be a bishop, and I am a

+bishop.  I love enterprise.  All curates seem full

+of it.  Deans, I regret to say, are seldom vigorously

+enterprising.  Archdeacons, too, have a tendency to

+take things easily, too easily."

+

+"What do you think of the Higher Criticism?"

+asked Bradstock.

+

+"Ha!" said the bishop, "ha!  I think—oh, I

+think a great deal of it.  That is, I think of it a

+great deal.  I do not think all enterprise is

+praiseworthy.  Would you like to know the dean?"

+

+They spent the afternoon in the dean's cathedral,

+and walked on the dean's grass, and about six

+o'clock Bob rolled into the cathedral close in a

+fifteen-horse-power Daimler, and drew up in front

+of the bishop's palace.

+

+"Have you found her out?" he demanded,

+eagerly, of Bradstock.

+

+"No, but you shall," said Bradstock.

+

+

+

+

+

+.. vspace:: 4

+

+.. _`CHAPTER XX.`:

+

+.. class:: center large bold

+

+   CHAPTER XX.

+

+.. vspace:: 2

+

+The bishop was very kind and amiable to Bob.

+Some people say that bishops are always kind and

+good to people who will be dukes by and by.  One

+never knows what a duke can do for one later, and,

+of course, a bishop wants to be an archbishop.  That

+is only natural: even a cardinal wants to be Pope,

+although he almost always says he is sorry he

+became one when he finds himself at the end of his

+tether.  The bishop was a human being, but a nice

+one, and he really liked Bob, who suggested youth

+and strength and the future, all of them agreeable

+things to those who are not young and see their

+future behind them.  So he talked to Bob almost

+as if he was one of the Bench of Bishops.  He was

+familiar and jovial, and told some good stories of

+other bishops and even one of an archbishop.  And

+he suggested to Bob that he rather wanted to see

+what a motor-car was like.

+

+"There is a prejudice against them here," said

+the bishop.  "Perhaps a natural prejudice among

+those who own chickens and dogs and children.

+But Providence works in a mysterious way, and

+I should be the last to hasten to blame even the

+gentleman known as a road hog.  I begin to

+perceive an unwonted sprightliness in the villagers as

+the elimination of the unfit, the rheumatic, the

+undecided, and the foolish proceeds apace.  A young

+man, who told me that he had in the course of his

+career as an owner of cars killed nearly a thousand

+dogs, two thousand five hundred fowls, several aged

+persons, some idiots, and a policeman, said that he

+noticed nowadays an air of bright alertness in his

+immediate neighbourhood which was at once a

+pleasure and an encouragement.  He asserted that

+the dogs who remained were of a higher type of

+intellect than the others; and he said that even the

+fowls now stood sideways in the road and used

+their natural advantage of looking both ways at

+once.  There was, too, a great improvement in

+village children and even in policemen.  Oh, yes, I

+think much may be said for the motor-car."

+

+"I should very much like to take you out in one,

+my lord," said Bob.

+

+The bishop smiled graciously.

+

+"You shall, my boy, as soon as this matter of

+Penelope is settled.  I shall greatly enjoy passing

+rapidly through the country.  I think of buying one

+for purposes of my pastoral visitations.  Perhaps

+I may wake up some of my more somnolent clergy.

+I may even raise their general intellectual average,

+which is low, really low."

+

+Bob's chauffeur put up at the Angel, but Bob

+himself had a bed in the palace, and dined in state

+with the bishop and Bradstock.  They discussed

+Penelope all dinner-time, even before Ridley, for,

+as the bishop explained, Ridley took no interest in

+anything whatever but wine.

+

+"I believe," said the bishop, with a chuckle, "that

+I might venture in his presence to advocate the

+disestablishment of the Church, or to give vent to

+heretical or even atheistical sentiments without his

+being aware that I was doing anything surprising,

+improper, or unusual.  By all means, let us talk

+before Ridley.  How do you think Bob should

+proceed, Bradstock?"

+

+"He must stay in his car near, but not too near,

+the post-office," said Bradstock.  "If Bob is

+properly goggled, this George Smith, whom we suppose

+to bring Pen's letters and telegrams, will not notice

+him.  Shall you know him, Bob?"

+

+"Rather," said Bob.  "He walks very queerly.

+I could tell him a mile off."

+

+"Very well, then," Bradstock continued, "when

+he goes, you will follow him at a distance.  He

+must not be lost sight of."

+

+"I much underrate our young friend's enterprise

+if he loses him," said the bishop.  "There are

+occasions when exceeding the legal limit becomes a

+duty, Bob."

+

+"Rather," said Bob.  "Oh, I'll do it."

+

+They calculated that the *Times* would reach Pen

+about noon, as they believed she must be within

+twenty miles of Spilsborough.  Bob accordingly

+arranged to take up his watch at the post-office before

+one o'clock.

+

+"And perhaps to-morrow night the mystery will

+be solved," said the bishop.  "It is really

+remarkable.  I am not at all able to follow Penelope's

+mind."

+

+Bob explained it to him.

+

+"They ragged her," he said,—by "they"

+meaning Titania and others,—"and she loves peace

+and hates showing off, and she's as obstinate as a

+pig.  And grandmother said she was to be

+married in Westminster Abbey by a bishop, and that

+put her back up.  Oh, Pen's easy to understand,

+I think."

+

+"You have no idea whom she has really

+married?" asked the bishop.

+

+"Not much," said Bob.  "I give it up.  I've

+thought it was all of 'em, and every one has done

+or said something that could be taken both ways.

+I was sure it was Goby, and then I was certain it

+was Bramber, and then I fairly knew it was

+Rivaulx, and I could have sworn it was Plant.  And

+I'm very much worried by what occurred at Oxford.

+This new Bunting was very surprising."

+

+The bishop had not heard of the new Bunting,

+and listened to Bob's story with great interest.

+

+"The world is a very surprising place," said the

+bishop, with emphasis; "a very surprising place

+indeed.  We do not need to go to Africa for new

+things.  We are surrounded by the unexpected, by

+the marvellous.  Bob's delightful story makes me

+feel that no one can reckon with certainty upon

+anything.  I am half-inclined to think that this new

+Bunting must be a relation of the other Bunting,

+and that Penelope has met him, been struck with

+him, and has married him and lives in temporary

+retirement, while her husband struggles with

+Thucydides under a sofa.  But after to-morrow we shall

+know more."

+

+"I hope so," said Bradstock.

+

+"I feel sure of it," said the bishop.

+

+And Bob went to bed.

+

+"Do you know, Bradstock," said the bishop, as

+he stroked his leg, which was a very reasonable leg

+for a bishop, "I wonder you didn't think I had

+married Penelope."

+

+"Good heavens!" said Bradstock, "have you?"

+

+"Certainly not," replied the bishop, "but it is

+odd she should be near Spilsborough, isn't it?"

+

+"She must be somewhere," said Bradstock,

+rather irritably.  "Hang it! the girl must be

+somewhere."

+

+"When you think of it, she must," said the

+bishop.  "Yes, yes, you are right.  Still,

+Spilsborough—yes, it's odd, but not remarkable.  As you

+say, she must be somewhere.  I hope it's not the

+Jew, Bradstock."

+

+So did Bradstock.

+

+"It looks very much as if she was ashamed of

+him.  But I'm incapable of judging, not having

+been married," said the bishop.

+

+"I've been married twice," said Bradstock, "and

+Pen is a woman, which means she resembles no

+other woman in any respect whatever as regards

+her ways, manners, customs, and thoughts."

+

+"You say that coolly?" asked the bishop.

+

+"Icily," replied Bradstock.

+

+The bishop shook his head.

+

+"You surprise me," said the bishop, "and I

+think I will go to bed."

+

+Bradstock went to bed, too.

+

+"I shouldn't be surprised if she had married the

+bishop and was under this roof now," said

+Bradstock.  "Nothing would surprise me unless I

+discover she's married to Rivaulx or Bramber.  I don't

+think I should mind either of 'em."

+

+And next day at half-past twelve Bob and his

+chauffeur took up a position near the post-office.  As

+Geordie Smith knew Bradstock, he kept quietly at

+the palace.  But the interested bishop who had not

+married Penelope kept bustling about the

+neighbourhood in quite an excitement.

+

+"I wish I was coming with you, Bob."

+

+"Oh, do!" said Bob.

+

+"I almost think it would be advisable," said the

+bishop.  "What I said would have weight with

+Penelope, I believe."

+

+"I rather wish you'd come," cried Bob.  "It

+would be fun, and you said you'd like to go in a

+motor-car."

+

+"So I did," said the bishop, "but I've never been

+in one.  No one has seen me in one.  I fear a crowd

+would assemble."

+

+"At any rate, my lord, you might get in and

+sit down a minute."

+

+The bishop looked around.

+

+"I really think I will," he said.  And he entered

+the car.

+

+"This is really comfortable, Bob, very comfortable,

+quite like an armchair.  Is your driver a good one?"

+

+"A ripper," said Bob.  "The best they have

+where I got the car.  It's not mine, but when I get

+all the money that Gordon owes me, I'll buy one."

+

+The chauffeur got down and did something inexplicable

+to the machinery with a spanner.  And

+the spanner broke.

+

+"I'll just run across and get a new one, sir,"

+said the chauffeur.

+

+"It's getting late," said Bob.  "Don't be long,

+and before you go start her up."

+

+The driver set her going, and the bishop caught

+hold of Bob.

+

+"You're not off?  This is very surprising.  It

+makes a very curious noise."

+

+"There won't be any to speak of when we get

+her moving," said Bob.  "You see the engine is

+going, and when we like we can start at once."

+

+He was happy, bright, and eager.

+

+"There's a motor-car coming," whispered the bishop.

+

+Bob jumped.

+

+"I say, it's yellow like Pen's big new one," he

+said.  And the car stopped in front of the

+post-office ten yards away.  Bob grabbed the bishop's

+arm.

+

+"That's Geordie Smith," he said.  "That's

+Geordie getting out.  I could tell his legs a mile

+off.  Where's my man?"

+

+But the man didn't come, and Geordie was back

+in his car.  He went off sweetly.

+

+"The north road," said Bob.  "I'm sure he'll

+take it.  He's going quick.  We can't wait for my

+man."

+

+He grabbed the steering-wheel, shifted the lever,

+and the car moved off on the first speed.

+

+"I'll—I'll go a little way with you," said the

+bishop.

+

+"You'll have to unless you jump," replied Bob.

+"I'll keep in sight if I die for it."

+

+This encouraged the bishop very much, of course,

+and it is possible that he might have jumped if he

+had not caught sight of the dean and a minor canon,

+who were staring hard at him with their mouths

+as wide open as the grotesque muzzle of a Gothic

+gargoyle.

+

+"I'll not jump," said the bishop, and he waved

+his hand to Mr. Dean.  "No, I'll not jump before

+the dean if I die for it."

+

+Before he knew it, they were out on the road,

+and the dust of the yellow car in front was like

+the pillar of smoke to the Hebrews in the desert.

+Bob let her out to the second speed, and the bishop

+gasped.

+

+"We go very quick," he said.

+

+"Oh, not at all," replied Bob.  "I don't want to

+go fast.  If Geordie thinks he's being followed,

+he'll go sixty miles an hour, and I don't think I

+can do more than forty-five in this."

+

+"Can't you?" asked the bishop.  "I'm almost

+glad you can't."

+

+"Is this the great north road?" asked Bob.

+

+"No," said the bishop, "it's the road to Crowland

+and Spalding.  I've often driven on it, but

+never so fast as this."

+

+Geordie's car drew ahead, and Bob put his car

+on the third speed.

+

+"Bob!" cried the bishop, as he clutched the sides

+of his seat.  "Bob!"

+

+"Yes?"

+

+"Isn't this an illegal speed?"

+

+"Rather," said Bob.

+

+"I cannot aid and abet you in going at it, then,"

+said the bishop, as firmly as he could.  "I must

+request you to be legal."

+

+Bob kept his eyes ahead.

+

+"Please don't talk," he roared, "or I shall have

+an accident.  You must remember I'm not at all

+experienced."

+

+What could the poor bishop do?  He groaned

+and sat very tight indeed, and, seeing the landscape

+eaten up by this monster at the rate of thirty miles

+an hour, came to the conclusion that there was

+nothing stable in the universe, not even theology.  And

+about a mile ahead of them rose a pillar of dust.

+

+"This is a remarkable situation," thought the

+bishop; "a situation which requires some firmness

+of mind.  I am a bishop, and I am no better than

+half my clergy who break the law regularly.  This

+must be nearly a hundred miles an hour!  I wish,

+I almost wish Penelope had died soon after I

+christened her.  This Bob is an infernal young ruffian;

+his manner is not respectful.  I should like to cane

+him.  But how can I stop him?  I do not understand

+these strange brass things.  I could as soon

+play the big organ in the cathedral that I wish I

+was in.  If I pull Bob he will have an accident.  If

+I speak to him, I may divert his attention—oh!"

+

+They executed a fowl which had not learnt to

+stand sideways, and slammed through a village,

+scattering several ancient inhabitants who were

+enjoying a gossip in the middle of the road.  As a

+matter of fact, they were damning Geordie Smith

+in heaps when the pursuing Bob fell upon them.

+They passed a church, and the bishop saw a clergyman

+staring over the wall.  The village fell into

+the category of things which had been and slid away

+behind them.

+

+"We are stopping still and the world slides,"

+said the bishop, "but that was Griggs, I know, and

+he knew me.  He has eyes like a hawk's.  I am

+much surprised at myself.  I have seventeen

+engagements this afternoon.  Ridley will be alarmed.

+The dean—oh!"

+

+They slammed a barking dog into the middle

+of the week after next.

+

+"That was a near shave," roared Bob, exulting.

+"I've seen a smaller dog than that capsize a bigger

+car than this!"

+

+"May I speak now?" implored the bishop.

+

+"Righto," said Bob.  "Here's a good straight

+bit.  What is it?"

+

+He was the superior: he was a big bird and the

+bishop was a beetle.  He was the head master; his

+lordship of the see of Spilsborough was a new boy.

+The bishop felt small, terrified, amazed, humiliated.

+

+"Are we going a hundred miles an hour?" asked

+the bishop.

+

+"Rot!" said Bob, "we're only doing about thirty."

+

+They scorched through quiet Crowland.

+

+"Please put me down," implored the humble bishop.

+

+"I can't stop," said Bob.  "I'm afraid he's

+getting ahead.  Sit tight, bishop, I'm going faster

+now."

+

+"You mustn't, you can't," said the bishop.

+

+Bob stooped for an answer and turned on the

+fourth speed.  The bishop felt the machine sailing

+underneath him.  He fell back and lost all ordinary

+consciousness.

+

+"It is true," said his mind deep inside him; "it

+is true that all things are illusion!  I have

+sometimes suspected it.  We are a mode of motion; we

+are affections of the ether.  I believe Professor

+Osborne Reynolds is right.  I am a kind of vortex

+spinning in piled grains of ether.  Bob is a vortex.

+We are in a vortex.  We are straws in ether; we

+are shadows.  I have a real non-existent pain in

+my real imaginary non-existent stomach.  I am

+not alive and I am not dead.  I am brave; I am

+a coward; I am a bishop.  This is very wonderful.

+I shall preach about it when I return to earth.  Is

+that a hedge?  Did I see a cow?—a strange,

+elongated, horned, lowing, permanent, impermanent

+possibility of sensation and milk in a field made

+of matter, which is energy, which is an illusion.

+I become calm; motion is relative.  I almost enjoy

+it.  I become a Hegelian.  I see that being equals

+non-being; that pain becomes pleasure if you only

+have enough of it.  I no longer pity those who

+suffer sufficiently.  There is apparently too little

+pain in the universe.  Torquemada did his best

+to remedy it.  Oh, was that a dog?  I quite enjoy

+myself.  I wonder if he can go faster.  If he can,

+I wish he would.  We are going slow, too slow!"

+

+And, as Geordie's dust showed up much nearer,

+Bob put his car again at the third speed, and the

+bishop gasped.

+

+"How do you like it?" asked Bob, as they spun

+through Spalding.

+

+The bishop's face was a fine glowing crimson;

+his bloodshot eyes glittered like opals; he was

+intoxicated with movement and with new lights on

+philosophy.

+

+"I—I should like to go a thousand miles an

+hour at night," said the bishop.  "I think it is

+wonderful, Bob.  Are you Bob, and I a bishop?

+Where is Spilsborough?  Is there a Spilsborough?"

+

+"Steady on!" said Bob.  "I say, you're excited!"

+

+"I am," replied the bishop.  "I am excited; I

+feel peculiar.  I think I can originate a new

+philosophy.  Why are we doing this?"

+

+"We are trying to find out where Penelope is,"

+said Bob.

+

+"Penelope, Penelope," said the bishop.  "Penelope

+is a vortex.  Yes, she is a vortex.  Men and

+women are vortices.  I shall study mathematics and

+apply it to theology."

+

+"Hello!" said Bob, and he stopped almost dead.

+For Geordie's dust had suddenly died down.

+

+"I'll bet he has a puncture," said Bob.  And the

+bishop sighed and stared about him, as if he were

+just awakened.

+

+"Where are we?" he asked.

+

+"Blessed if I know," said Bob.  "But you ought

+to know."

+

+"I don't," said the bishop.  And he got out and

+stood on the dusty road.  He reeled, and the dean

+would have said he was intoxicated.  And so he was.

+

+"Geordie's off again," said Bob.  "Come, jump in."

+

+"I won't," said the bishop.  "Certainly I won't.

+That machine is a kind of devil.  It undermines the

+strongest convictions.  I am afraid of it.  I shall

+have to resign my bishopric if I ride another mile."

+

+"Oh, rot!" said Bob.  "Aren't you coming?

+I can't wait."

+

+"Take the devilish thing away," cried the bishop.

+"Anathema maranatha and all the rest of it!"

+

+Without another word, Bob pulled the lever and

+sailed off up the road, leaving a trail of petrol

+vapour behind him.

+

+"Mentally and physically, I don't know where

+I am," said the bishop.  "I don't know who I am,

+either.  From my clothes I conclude I am a bishop,

+but to come to that conclusion I have to assume

+that I have the right to wear them.  I have had

+a remarkable experience.  Yes, I am a bishop.

+This is the earth and very dusty.  It is hot, and I

+am miles from anywhere."

+

+He looked up the road and saw a far cloud of dust.

+

+"Under that dust is Bob," said the bishop.  "As

+I said, Penelope is a vortex.  Everything is much

+more remarkable than I thought, much more

+remarkable.  I shall write to the professor to

+discover what he means.  It is dreadful that what may

+be called a mere physical experience should incline

+me to look on some of my fellow bishops and the

+higher criticism with a more lenient eye.  I don't

+see how any dogma can survive a hundred miles

+an hour.  But Bob has not treated me altogether

+well.  He plumps me down somewhere between

+Spalding and Spilsby or Boston or some other

+dreadful locality under the ghostly influence of my

+brother of Lincoln, and disappears in dust and

+smell.  He was distinctly disrespectful.  He said,

+'Sit down, bishop,' in a very authoritative manner.

+He told me I was excited.  I own I was, but I

+resented being told so by a boy, because he was

+a boy, or was it because I am a bishop?  An

+unaccustomed bishop in a motor-car is plainly nobody

+compared with an experienced boy in one.  I wish

+Penelope was a sensible person, or that I had never

+known her, or that she hadn't been born!  I wonder

+what I am to do.  I must walk; I may be overtaken

+by a cart and get a ride in one.  I anticipate much

+talk in Spilsborough about this.  I wonder what

+Ridley will say.  Ridley is a stoic; perhaps he will

+say nothing.  I wish I was near Ridley; I am

+thirsty.  This road is dusty.  It also appears long

+and interminable.  I am as dry as convocation.  I

+much resent Bob's treatment of me.  I wish

+Bradstock was here, and I was where Bradstock is.

+Bradstock is in my library, in my chair, with a book

+in his hand and a whiskey and soda by his side.

+He takes things with great calmness.  I wish he

+was here to take this with calmness."

+

+And he walked south for three hours and got

+back to Spalding, and there took a train for Spilsborough.

+

+

+

+

+

+.. vspace:: 4

+

+.. _`CHAPTER XXI.`:

+

+.. class:: center large bold

+

+   CHAPTER XXI.

+

+.. vspace:: 2

+

+"I don't think I quite understand the bishop,"

+said Bob, as he left the dignitary of the Church

+stranded long miles from anywhere.  "He looked

+very queer.  But I suppose they're made bishops

+because they are queer, unless it's on account of

+their legs.  I can understand the gaiters, but the

+apron licks me.  I'll ask him about it some day.

+But I wonder where we are, and how much longer

+Geordie will go on.  It's luck I've had no

+puncture and no breakdown.  I thought it was all up

+when I sent that dog over the hedge.  He did fly.

+I wonder whether any bobbies have spotted my

+number.  I don't care.  Gordon owes me a lot of

+money by now.  What's thirty-two times two

+thousand odd?  Oh, I can't remember.  I'm getting

+rather tired."

+

+But he stuck to Geordie like a burr to a sheep,

+and between the two of them they stirred up more

+ancient peace and the haunts of it than any other

+two cars in the United Kingdom.  They fairly

+bounded through sleepy old Boston, and a

+policeman, waked up from sleep by Geordie, was

+wide-awake enough by the time Bob came through to

+call on him to stop.

+

+"I wouldn't stop for an army of policemen,"

+said Bob, recklessly.  "I don't care.  I'll catch

+Geordie if I die for it.  Gordon will pay my fines.

+I wonder how the bishop is.  This is the Spilsby

+road, is it?  I wonder whether Pen's at Spilsby?

+Will she be very cross with me?  Oh, that was a

+hen!  I *do* think hens shouldn't be allowed in a

+road."

+

+A dog stood in the middle of the way and barked.

+In the middle of his second bark, the front wheel

+caught him.  He ended his bark in the ditch, and

+was very dreamy about the whole affair for some

+time afterward.

+

+"That was a dog," said Bob.  "I *do* think dogs

+shouldn't be allowed in a road."

+

+He missed a horse by a hairbreadth a mile

+farther on, and felt very cross.  He said horses

+shouldn't be allowed in a road.  He said the same

+of carts and of a carriage, of children and

+agricultural labourers.  They were so slow.  For now

+Geordie was going pretty fast, and Bob had to go

+on the fourth speed, which is highly illegal and

+wicked and very dangerous.  He had never enjoyed

+himself so much before, and he was undoubtedly

+the happiest boy in the three kingdoms.

+

+"Geordie doesn't know I'm after him," he said.

+"I'll bet he's riding along easy.  That car of Pen's

+can go like lightning if he lets her out.  He will

+be mad when I come up."

+

+And suddenly he perceived down a long, white

+road that Geordie was going more slowly.

+

+"This must be Spilsby," said Bob.  He saw

+Geordie's dust go off at a right angle toward the

+right.

+

+"I've done it," said the exultant boy.  "We

+must be near Pen's now."

+

+For to turn to the right in the neighbourhood

+of Spilsby means to go toward the North Sea.

+

+Bob ran into Spilsby quite meekly on the second

+speed, and turned after Geordie.  A mile farther

+on, Bob saw a house in some trees, and all of a

+sudden there was no more dust from Geordie's car.

+Bob pulled up in the middle of the road.

+

+"By Jove, I've done it, I know," said Bob, "and

+now I feel a bit nervous.  I wonder what Pen will

+say, and whether her husband is there, and what

+the kid's like.  Well, here's for it!  She can't do

+more than eat me."

+

+And he drove on till he came to the house, which

+was an ivy-covered building like a square barrack,

+and would have been hideous without its creepers.

+There was a moat around it and big elms hid it

+from a distance.  The gate was open, and by the

+front door stood Geordie and his car.  Bob gave a

+view-halloo, and, twisting through the gate, came

+to a standstill alongside Pen's big yellow racer.

+

+And Penelope herself came to the door, and saw

+not only Geordie, whom she recognized simply by

+the fact that he was in a car she knew, but an

+undistinguishable stranger also.

+

+"Oh!" said Bob.

+

+"Eh?" said Geordie.

+

+"Who—" said Penelope.

+

+And Bob staggered out of his machine, and fairly

+reeled when he stood upright.  He had no notion

+that no one, not even Titania, could have

+recognized him.  He forgot his goggles, and he forgot

+he was so dusty that one might have planted

+cabbages on his cheeks.  He did not know that he

+weighed several pounds more than usual, owing to

+the amount of Lincolnshire that he carried on him.

+He had no idea that he was awful, hideous, a

+goggled, dirty portent.  He smiled, and the dirt cracked

+upon him, and Penelope shrank back.

+

+"Oh, I say, Pen, are you mad with me?" he asked.

+

+And Penelope shrieked and ran to him, and, falling

+upon him, embraced him with horrible results

+to her clothes.

+

+"Oh, Bob, Bob, is it you?" she cried.

+

+"It's me, right enough," said Bob.  "I say, can

+I have a drink?  I'm dying!  Am I dusty?  Yes,

+so I am.  Oh, Pen, it's come off on you!  I say, I

+do want a drink.  It's such a warm day, and Geordie

+would go so fast.  I followed Geordie."

+

+Geordie looked horribly disgusted, but neither

+Pen nor Bob paid the least attention to him.

+

+"Followed up by a boy," groaned Geordie, "and

+in that thing!"

+

+He regarded the mean fifteen-horse-power

+concern with great contempt.  "Well, I'm blessed!"

+

+"Oh, come in, Bob, dear Bob," said Pen.

+

+"Are you glad to see me?"

+

+"Oh, I've been dying to see you."

+

+"Upon your honour?" asked Bob.

+

+"Yes, yes," said Penelope.  "I want to ask you

+so much, and I've got so much to say.  But tell

+me, tell me quick.  Does any one else know where

+I am?"

+

+Bob shook dust out of his head.

+

+"Not a soul, unless it's the bishop," he replied.

+

+"What bishop?"

+

+"The Bishop of Spilsborough," replied Bob.  "I

+left him on the road."

+

+"Oh!" gasped Pen, "is he following you?"

+

+"Not much," said Bob.  "He got scared and

+got out and wouldn't get in again, and he talked

+such rot I thought he was mad, for a bishop, so I

+left him, and suppose he's walking home again."

+

+Pen almost shook him.

+

+"But what was he doing with you?"

+

+"He wanted to come part of the way in my car,

+so I let him, and he was awfully funky.  I don't

+think much of bishops if they're all like him, though

+he did stop Plant and Rivaulx fighting with swords

+in the cathedral."

+

+"Fighting? with swords?  Oh, what—" said Penelope.

+

+"To be sure, I forgot you very likely didn't

+know.  I'll tell you by and by.  Bradstock's at

+Spilsborough.  Where's my drink, Pen?  I say,

+did you hear of Mr. Bunting at Oxford?  That

+was fun.  He threw De Vere out of the window,

+and knocked Carteret Williams down with Liddell

+and Scott."

+

+"What Mr. Bunting?"

+

+"They thought he was Timothy Bunting, but

+he wasn't.  I had tea with him afterward.  I'll tell

+you by and by.  Do you know grandmother had

+fits about it all?"

+

+Penelope knew nothing, or very little, and as the

+results of her fatal conduct were thus revealed to

+her in dreadful incomplete chunks, her heart almost

+failed her and she half-forgot her own terrible

+troubles.

+

+"Am I mad, or is Bob?" she asked.  "Oh, the

+bishop and Guardy and duels and fits and Mr. Bunting

+and windows and Liddell and Bob having tea!"

+

+She ran for a drink herself, and poured it over

+Bob in her eagerness for more news.

+

+"I say, Pen, be careful!  That went down my

+neck," said Bob, "and outside it, too.  I say, who've

+you married?  Tell me.  Where's the kid?  May I

+see it?  I say, Pen, you look splendid, but sad

+somehow and rather worried.  I feel better now.  I don't

+mind what went down outside.  I'll have a bath

+soon.  Where's the kid?  They *do* talk a lot about

+it in town.  They say, some of 'em, that you've

+married the Rajah of Jugpore, the little beast, and

+that the baby is black, or partly black.  Is it?  I

+know it isn't."

+

+"Oh, oh!" said Pen, "how horrible of them!"

+

+She rushed at the bell, and when the servant

+came she commanded the instant appearance of the

+baby and the nurse.

+

+"You know they said you married Timothy

+Bunting," said Bob.

+

+Penelope flushed crimson.

+

+"It was wicked of them."

+

+"That beast Weekes told granny you had.  She

+said she knew it.  That's how I had tea with

+Mr. Bunting at Oxford, after he'd chucked Plant and

+Gordon down-stairs.  They were sick.  Oh, oh! is

+this the kid?"

+

+Pen took the precious infant in her arms, and

+told the nurse she might go and have tea.  When

+she had disappeared, Pen burst into tears.

+

+"He's—he's all I've got," she said, sobbing.

+

+Bob started.

+

+"I say, what do you mean?  You don't mean

+you aren't married at all?"

+

+"No, no," said Penelope.  "I mean—oh, it's

+terrible!  Oh, baby, I love you!"

+

+She kissed the baby, who was certainly a very

+fine baby, and wept again.  Bob inspected the boy

+with great interest.

+

+"I say, I rather think it's like Plant," he said.

+

+Pen gasped.

+

+"But in this light, it's rather like Gordon."

+

+"Oh!" said Penelope.

+

+"And its forehead is like De Vere's a little.

+I say, won't you tell me who you've married?"

+

+Penelope hugged the baby and howled.

+

+"I can't, I can't.  We've q-quarrelled," she said,

+"and he's furious, and I'm f-furious with him."

+

+"Why?" asked Bob, still inspecting the baby

+for signs of his male parentage, "why?  Oh, I say,

+sideways he reminds me of Williams and Rivaulx,

+and upside down he's a little like Carew and Goby.

+But why have you quarrelled, Pen?"

+

+Pen explained with tears how it had happened.

+

+"You see, I said he wasn't to tell," she said.

+"And he went to your grandmother and told!"

+

+"So did all the rest," said Bob, "and that was

+where granny got very confused.  I listened.  I

+know it was a sneak thing to do, but I was thinking

+of your interests, and she said to the last of 'em:

+'I know you've come to say you've married dear

+Penelope.'  It was very pathetic, Pen.  I never

+thought granny could be pathetic before.  She

+usually makes me pathetic instead, or she used to.

+But was he one of 'em?"

+

+"He was," sniffed Pen, "and he broke his

+solemn oath.  The others were noble.  I sent them

+telegrams to say they were noble."

+

+"That's why they all went to Spilsborough,

+where you sent the telegrams from," said Bob,

+"and that's why Plant and Rivaulx fought with

+swords under the cathedral, till the bishop and the

+dean stopped them.  I tell you the dean *was* mad."

+

+"Oh, dear, dear!" said Penelope.  "I wish they

+wouldn't.  Did they hurt each other?"

+

+"Not much, I think," replied Bob.  "I didn't

+see any blood.  But when I told 'em you'd married

+Timothy Bunting, Rivaulx lay on the grass and

+tried to bite it and howled dreadfully."

+

+"Poor marquis!" said Pen.  "But why did you

+tell them so dreadful a story?"

+

+Bob shook his head.

+

+"I'm sorry, Pen, but I believed it.  Weekes said

+she *knew*, and granny had fits.  There's something

+about fits that makes you believe almost anything.

+But you haven't told me who it is.  I say, with

+the light sideways on that baby, he reminds me of

+Bramber.  But who is it?"

+

+"We've p-parted," said Penelope.  "He came

+and said he'd told, and I was very f-furious, and we

+had a r-row.  And he was so cross and mad, because

+without me he couldn't prove it.  For we were

+married in other names, and I wrote my name in

+another handwriting, and I said I would deny it.  And

+he flew into a passion and into a motor-car and

+went away.  And I've only my p-pride and b-baby

+left.  And I'm so sorry for every one.  And how

+did you find me?"

+

+Bob told her how he had done it, and told her

+of Bradstock's advertisement, and told her about

+the bishop, and more about Mr. Bunting of All

+Saints, Oxford, who was the strongest man he had

+ever seen.  Carteret Williams was nothing in his

+hands.

+

+"And now I've told you everything, won't you

+tell me who it is?"

+

+"No," said poor Penelope; "it would humiliate

+me to tell now, and I won't."

+

+"But they must know here," said Bob.

+

+"Only three," replied Penelope.  "Miss

+Mackarness and Geordie Smith and Timothy.  And

+Timothy was so unhappy when he heard he had

+married me that I sent him away to Upwell, where there

+are more horses.  But he's back now.  And Miss

+Mackarness and Geordie Smith have sworn not to

+tell.  And I expect you not to ask them."

+

+Bob snorted a little at this.

+

+"Oh, all right, but I shall have to say where you

+are when I go back to Spilsborough."

+

+"Oh, you won't," said Pen.

+

+"I must," said Bob.  "Bradstock is terribly

+worried about it now, and thinks you've treated him

+badly, and the bishop is very curious, and he asks

+questions in a way that it's difficult not to answer

+somehow.  And besides there's granny and all the

+rest.  I say, do you know Gordon has been

+speculating for me, and has made seventy thousand

+pounds for me?"

+

+"You don't say so?" cried Pen.

+

+"I think it must be Gordon," said Bob.  "When

+the shadow's on that kid, he looks rather like

+Gordon, if you can think of Gordon as a baby, which

+is hard.  But when I'm a duke, I shall rebuild

+Goring and pay off some of the mortgages.  Whoever

+you've married, I'm very grateful to you, Pen,

+about Gordon and De Vere.  De Vere bought the

+spotted dog I told you of.  I found Goby weeping

+with Ethel.  That made me think it wasn't him.

+But now you say you've quarrelled with him, I'm

+not sure again.  I say, I'm very sleepy.  May I

+stay to-night?"

+

+"Of course," said Penelope.  And then a brilliant

+idea struck her.

+

+"Bob, you do love me, don't you?"

+

+"What rot! of course," said Bob.

+

+"Then stay here altogether for a time," said Pen.

+

+"By Jove, what fun!" cried Bob.  "I'll send

+'em a wire, and I will.  Can Geordie go somewhere

+else but Spilsborough and send one?"

+

+"Certainly," said Penelope.  And it was

+arranged that Geordie should go to Lincoln to send

+it from there.  This is the telegram Bob sent to

+Lord Bradstock:

+

+"I have found Penelope.  She won't say who

+it is because she has quarrelled with him, and she

+won't let me come back yet.  I will take care of her.

+Tell grandmother and Guthrie.  She quarrelled

+with him because he said he was married to her.

+But the baby is not black."

+

+And Bradstock swore.  The bishop was too tired

+to swear, perhaps, but he was very cross.  So were

+all the others, including her husband.

+

+

+

+

+

+.. vspace:: 4

+

+.. _`CHAPTER XXII.`:

+

+.. class:: center large bold

+

+   CHAPTER XXII.

+

+.. vspace:: 2

+

+They had relied greatly upon Bob.  The bishop,

+though rather bitter on the subject of Bob, tried

+to be fair to him, and said he was a very promising boy.

+

+"I think it most remarkable," said his lordship,

+when his fine but tired legs were beneath the

+mahogany once more, "that he should be able to drive

+these dreadful machines with such skill.  He missed

+a great many things that he might have hit, but,

+as he said, he 'boosted' one dog over a hedge in

+a most skilful way.  He said 'boosted,' a very

+peculiar word.  I must write to Doctor Murray

+about it.  But I do not think he has been brought

+up with care.  He was not altogether respectful

+to me, Bradstock."

+

+"I much regret it," said Bradstock, "but what

+can you expect at Goring?  On the whole, his

+manners are not so bad.  Perhaps you annoyed him.

+He does not like being annoyed."

+

+"Indeed," said the bishop, "indeed!  Well, I

+may have worried him in a way that I do not quite

+understand.  But I have to own that for a boy

+to put his hand on my shoulder and say, 'Sit down,

+bishop,' in a most authoritative way, made me a

+little cross.  And when I refused to enter the

+motorcar again, I think he might have given me more

+time to reflect on the fact that I was a very long

+way from anywhere.  He was very short and

+peremptory with me.  It was most curious, and I

+regret I did not go on with him, for I am extremely

+anxious to put an end to this scandal.  One never

+knows what will happen.  The duel in the moonlight

+under the cathedral was most remarkable.  I

+wonder when Bob will return."

+

+"So do I," said Bradstock, drily.

+

+"Why do you say so in that tone?" asked the bishop.

+

+"Because I doubt whether he will return at all

+if he finds Penelope," replied Bradstock.

+

+"Good heavens!" cried the bishop, "but he

+went for the very purpose of discovering her."

+

+"You don't know Pen," said Bradstock, "and

+he worships her.  If she doesn't want to be

+discovered, she will keep him.  I am certain of it."

+

+This showed that Bradstock, though a silent peer,

+was a very sensible one.  The bishop frowned and

+smote the table.

+

+"I shall be extremely angry with Bob if you turn

+out to be right," he said, firmly.  "I shall be

+extremely angry with him."

+

+"Much he will care about that," said Bradstock.

+"You ought to have gone on with him."

+

+"I believe I ought to have done so.  Yes, you

+are right, Bradstock; it was an error of judgment.

+I was a coward.  I was afraid to die.  I did not

+like the idea of being 'boosted' over a hedge.  I

+am ashamed of myself."

+

+"Never mind," said Bradstock, consolingly, "I

+have seen heroes quail in a motor-car.  I myself

+have quailed in one."

+

+The bishop shook his head.

+

+"Nevertheless, I blame myself.  I ought not to

+have been afraid, even though I felt peculiar and

+unwonted sensations in my gaiters," he murmured.

+

+He smote the table again.

+

+"I will make amends, Bradstock.  I will devote

+myself to the task of finding Penelope at any speed

+that is necessary.  I cannot quite reconcile myself

+to the notion that I am a coward.  I will find her

+if Bob deceives us."

+

+"You can't," said Bradstock, rather gloomily.

+

+"I can, I will," said the bishop.  "I will use

+my brains."

+

+It was a happy thought.  The bishop mused.

+There was a knock at the outer door.  It was a

+double, a telegraphic knock.

+

+"From the duchess?" asked the bishop.

+

+"From Bob, or I am a bishop," said the peer.

+

+And Ridley gave him a telegram.  Bradstock

+read it slowly, lifted his eyebrows, rubbed his

+handsome white head, and handed it to the bishop.

+

+"From Bob, bishop, a very remarkable Bobbish

+document."

+

+The bishop read it.

+

+"It certainly is a remarkable document, a very

+remarkable document, indeed," said his lordship.

+"I see it was handed in at Lincoln.  She won't

+say who it is because she has quarrelled with him.

+With her husband, that is to say.  She will not let

+Bob come back.  She quarrelled with *him* because

+he said he was married to *her*.  Very remarkable!

+Somewhat confusing.  But it is a relief to hear that

+the baby is not black, Bradstock."

+

+Bradstock was pessimistic.

+

+"It may be half-black," he said, mournfully.

+

+"Which half?" asked the bishop, with alarm.

+"If it is, I hope it will not be the top half."

+

+"Absurd!" said Bradstock.  "I mean it may be

+dun or yellowish."

+

+"Let us trust not," replied the bishop.  "I am

+inclined to think Bob would have said it was not

+very black if it had been at all coloured.  I think

+we may dismiss the Jugpore legend."

+

+"I trust we may," said Bradstock.

+

+"I have an idea," said the bishop, "I have a

+luminous idea.  Let us go to the library."

+

+They adjourned to the library, and Bradstock

+lighted a cigar.

+

+"What is your idea?" he asked.

+

+"I will tell you in a few minutes," said the

+bishop, as he laid a big atlas upon his table.

+Bradstock watched him curiously.  The bishop opened

+the atlas and laid a flat ruler on it.  He shifted

+it once or twice, nodded his head, said "Ah!" and

+nodded it again.

+

+"I believe I have it," said the bishop.  "It will

+be worth trying, at any rate."

+

+"What is it?" asked Bradstock.

+

+"Come and look at the atlas," said the bishop,

+and Bradstock did as he was asked.

+

+The bishop put his finger-tips together and began:

+

+"Bob was following this person named Smith,

+and went north, did he not?  Let us say north.

+I believe it is technically north by east.  He put me

+out, or, to be fair even to Bob, I got out and was

+asked to return very casually, north of Spalding

+in the Boston road, miles from anywhere.  This

+Smith was going back to Penelope.  For while Bob

+and I were away, you got her telegram dated

+Spilsborough, sent to London and re-telegraphed to you

+here, saying that she was well, in reply to your

+*Times* advertisement.  Obviously, Penelope lives

+somewhere north of the spot where Bob left me

+without time for argument.  Do you follow me?"

+

+"Certainly," said Bradstock.  "It is all as clear

+as quaternions."

+

+"Now we get this very remarkable document

+from Lincoln."

+

+"We do, bishop."

+

+"It is obvious she doesn't live at Lincoln.  She

+has sent this very fast Smith there to send off Bob's

+telegram.  Is that not so?"

+

+"Of course," said Bradstock.

+

+"Let us imagine that Lincoln is nearly as far

+from where she is as Spilsborough is."

+

+"Let us imagine it," said Bradstock.  "I am

+willing to imagine it."

+

+"What conclusion do you draw?" asked the bishop.

+

+Bradstock shook his head.

+

+"Really, Bradstock," said the bishop, "I am

+surprised at you.  If she is between Spalding and

+Lough, as I'm sure she is, an equal distance from

+her to Lincoln and from her to Spilsborough would

+place her about Boston, or perhaps farther north.

+Now, if on inquiry we find she is not near Boston,

+she must be near a decent road fit for motor-cars

+to Lincoln.  Do you follow me?"

+

+"I do," said Bradstock.

+

+"Then if she is not near Boston, where is she?"

+Bradstock studied the map.

+

+"I should say Burgh, or Warnfleet, or Spilsby."

+

+"Right," said the bishop.  "I am almost sure

+of it.  For if she had been farther north, she would

+not have chosen Spilsborough to telegraph from

+in the first instance.  What do you say to that?"

+

+"I say that I am not surprised that you are a

+bishop, though I may wonder why you are in the

+Church," said Bradstock.

+

+"What do you mean by that, Bradstock?" asked

+his lordship.

+

+"Nothing, nothing at all," replied Bradstock,

+hastily.  "I agree with you.  What shall we do?"

+

+The bishop eyed him a little doubtfully, but

+returned to his muttons.

+

+"I want to bowl out Bob," he said.

+

+"A bishop is a human being, after all," thought

+Bradstock.

+

+"He might have reasoned with me," said the

+bishop.  "I am quite free the day after to-morrow,

+and we will go to Boston and make inquiries.  If

+they fail, we will try Warnfleet and Spilsby and

+Burgh."

+

+"We will," said Bradstock.  "I think this idea

+of yours exceedingly clever, bishop."

+

+"You do?"

+

+"Certain, I do."

+

+"I forgive your recent gibe," said the bishop.

+"It was clearer than quaternions to me, and much

+clearer than Bob's rudeness, which I continue to

+find inexplicable.  And now I think the duchess

+should be informed of his telegram.  It will console

+her, I am sure, to learn that this fatherless infant

+is not black."

+

+"Not very black," insisted Bradstock.

+

+And the bishop sent a wire to Titania, saying that

+Bob had disappeared into space, but had telegraphed

+saying that he had found Penelope with a normal

+infant.

+

+"After all, he only said it wasn't black," sighed

+Bradstock.

+

+But the bishop would not listen to him.  So he

+went out and sent a wire to Titania himself.

+

+"I should like to make Bob black and blue," the

+bishop said.  For his legs still ached.

+

+

+

+

+

+.. vspace:: 4

+

+.. _`CHAPTER XXIII.`:

+

+.. class:: center large bold

+

+   CHAPTER XXIII.

+

+.. vspace:: 2

+

+Next morning the bishop had an hysteric

+telegram from Titania.  It was obscure and of great

+length:

+

+"Do not understand anything, but have hopes.

+Your telegram arrived before Augustin's.  You say

+normal; he says Robert's words do not convey

+anything but negation of extreme blackness.

+Jugpore going back to India, owing to scandalous

+conduct at music-hall.  India Office furious.  Secretary

+of State in bed.  Rumour now affirms infant not

+Penelope's.  Says adopted.  Have just seen Plant

+and Gordon and Carteret Williams, and expect the

+others.  They say they knew it all the time.  Say

+they gave her the infant.  Am confused, but hope

+you and Augustin will clear up details and find

+Penelope.  Am exceedingly vexed with Robert.

+De Vere has just come, weeps, but seems pleased.

+Bramber wires wishes to see me, but father is ill

+at Pulborough, doctors (three) giving up hope.

+Goby just left.  Will come to Spilsborough myself

+to-day if doctor permits, owing to palpitations.

+Keep me informed."

+

+"Dear me!" said the bishop, "this seems quite

+a new development, a very surprising one.  But

+I am sorry to see, Bradstock, that you sent another

+telegram without consulting me."

+

+"I didn't want you to give her too much hope,"

+replied Bradstock.  "You were so certain.  Your

+telegram was not logical.  What is not black is not

+necessarily white, for not-black may be green, or

+blue, or magenta."

+

+"You are a pessimist," said the bishop.  "However,

+I forgive you.  What surprises me is this

+adoption story.  I don't believe it."

+

+Bradstock was fractious.

+

+"Well, I don't know, bishop.  She always said

+if she had none of her own she would adopt one."

+

+"Nonsense!" said the bishop.

+

+"It is not nonsense," said Bradstock.

+

+"Why don't you say they are twins?" demanded

+the bishop.

+

+"What are twins?"

+

+"It," said the bishop.  "Really, Bradstock, don't

+you see you are unreasonable?  You will believe

+anything."

+

+"And this from a bishop," murmured Bradstock.

+"Why should I say it was twins?"

+

+"If she adopted one, she might adopt two," said

+the bishop.

+

+"That is ridiculous.  I never heard of twins

+being adopted," cried Bradstock.  "Besides, Bob

+says 'the baby.'"

+

+"Well, well," said the bishop, "do not let us

+argue passionately about a detail."

+

+"I do not see that twins can be called a detail,"

+said Bradstock, crossly.

+

+"Very well, call them what you like," said the

+bishop, hastily.  "But I expect the duchess will

+be here any moment."

+

+Bradstock said he shouldn't wonder if she was.

+

+"She will insist on coming with us to-morrow,"

+he said.

+

+The bishop started.

+

+"Bradstock, we will go to-day.  I will put off

+my business and go at once.  The duchess is a

+remarkable woman, but she talks too much."

+

+And such was his lordship's energy that they

+started by train for Boston in less than half an

+hour.

+

+"I rather enjoy this," said the bishop.  "This

+is an unusual event in a life like mine, Bradstock.

+I wonder whether we shall succeed, and I wonder

+what the young rascal will say when he sees me.

+He will be rather abashed, I fancy."

+

+"Do you fancy that?" asked Bradstock.  "Is

+imagination necessary, by the way, for the clerical

+or episcopal life?"

+

+"It is highly necessary, but rare," said the bishop.

+

+"So I should imagine," said Bradstock.

+

+"What do you mean by that?" asked the bishop,

+a little warmly.

+

+Bradstock said he meant nothing by it, except

+that he was glad it was necessary.  Nevertheless,

+the bishop looked at him sternly for some minutes,

+and he felt rather uncomfortable.

+

+"I should not be surprised if Titania was now

+at the palace," he said, to change the conversation.

+

+"Ridley and my housekeeper must deal with

+her," said the bishop.  "Ridley deals with every

+one calmly.  Kings and curates come equally and

+easily within his powers.  Ridley may most

+distinctly be called an adequate butler.  He will offer

+her my best spare bedroom, or arrange for her

+sojourn at the Grand.  I do not believe an

+archbishop in a fit would throw Ridley off his balance.

+I rather wondered whether it would disturb him

+to see me come in with two duelling-swords under

+my arm upon that memorable occasion of the duel,

+but Ridley was as calm as—as an adequate butler.

+I rejoice in Ridley.  If we fail to-day, I think I

+will ask his advice.  He is a sound and solid

+thinker.  I hardly think I should have been a

+bishop to-day, but for Ridley.  When I was a vicar

+of St. Mary's at Ray Pogis, he came to me, then

+deeply engaged in smashing Harnack into dust,

+and said: 'Sir, the Prime Minister is staying at

+Pogis House.'  I knew if he was at Pogis House,

+he would attend New Pogis church.  The

+incumbent at New Pogis was one of those men whom

+it would require much courage to make an

+archdeacon of, and he was under great obligations to

+me.  I spoke to him.  He fell ill most opportunely.

+I preached a sermon which had every appearance

+of spontaneity, though I had spent months upon

+it, keeping it by me for some such occasion, as it

+dealt with the duties of men in high position, and

+three months later I was offered Spilsborough.

+But for Ridley, I might still be a vicar.  This, I

+believe, Bradstock, is Boston."

+

+They left the train and began to make inquiries

+just about the time that Ridley was dealing with

+the duchess.  He knew all about her, all about the

+duke, all about Penelope, all about Bradstock, and

+all about the "horde."  He had read all the

+telegrams, those which were sent and those which he

+had picked out of the bishop's waste-paper basket.

+

+"Yes, your Grace," said Ridley, "his lordship

+the bishop was called away early with Lord

+Bradstock on important business.  He wrote a letter

+which his lordship has probably taken away in his

+pocket, and desired me to ask your Grace whether

+you would prefer to stay here or at the Grand.

+The Grand is comfortable, but this is quiet."

+

+"I will stay here," said the duchess.  "I should

+like to lie down at once."

+

+And when she was comfortable, Ridley cross-examined

+her maid about everything, and was soon

+on firm ground.

+

+"You may rely on his lordship," said Ridley.

+"With me at his back, he will be an archbishop

+yet.  No, certainly not.  The baby is not black

+if his lordship says so."

+

+"But they do say she's not married and it isn't

+hers," said the lady's maid, shaking her head.

+"They say now that she has adopted it."

+

+"When I hear of young ladies adopting infants

+in obscure parts of the country, I know what to

+think," said Ridley.

+

+"Lord, Mr. Ridley, but I can't believe it of

+her," urged the maid.

+

+"I am alleging nothing against her young ladyship,"

+said Ridley.  "She states it is hers.  I said

+that if she stated that she had adopted it, I should

+know what to think.  When she states it, I will

+tell you what I think.  And in the meantime I may

+say that I expect every one connected with this

+unseemly business to be here shortly.  I am a man

+of some discernment.  This adoption rumour will

+encourage these poor gentlemen, who are all mad,

+and they will follow her Grace here, or I am a mere

+footman in a poor family and my name's not Ridley."

+

+It apparently was Ridley, for there was a very

+loud knock at the door.

+

+"Mr. Ridley, will you see this gentleman?" said

+the footman, handing the butler a card, on which

+was engraved the name of Leopold Norfolk Gordon.

+"He seems very excited.  I think he's a Jew."

+

+"A Jew!" said Ridley.

+

+"By the looks of 'im a Jew," said the footman.

+And her Grace's maid gave them a few details of

+Mr. Gordon's career.

+

+"Oh, yes, of course," said Ridley.  "I remember.

+Let him wait, Johnson.  He can wait in the

+little room.  As a Christian, I confess to feeling

+bitter against Jews, especially as I once borrowed

+money from one."

+

+"This is a very nice one, though," said the lady's

+maid, "and Mr. Robert is quite fond of him."

+

+"I cannot stomach the idea," said Ridley.  "I

+thought better of the boy.  But I suppose I must

+see what he wants, though I can guess."

+

+He interviewed Gordon in the little room.

+

+"I want to see his lordship the bishop," said

+Gordon.

+

+"His lordship the bishop is absent on important

+business, sir," said Ridley.  He added to himself,

+"As the butler of a Christian bishop, I object to

+calling him 'sir;' but as a butler in the habstract

+I must."

+

+"Where has he gone?" asked Gordon.  "Do you know?"

+

+"He has gone to look for her young ladyship, sir."

+

+"Ah!  I guessed it!  With Lord Bradstock?"

+

+"Yes, sir, with his lordship."

+

+"Which way has he gone?"

+

+"I don't think, sir, that I should be justified in

+mentioning which way, sir," said Ridley.

+

+"Oh, yes, you would," said Gordon.  He put his

+hand in his pocket.

+

+"I do not think so, sir.  At least, I have doubts,"

+said Ridley, with modified firmness.

+

+Gordon took out a sovereign and scratched his

+nose with it.

+

+"Which way?"

+

+"Boston way," said Ridley.  "Thank you, sir.

+But I do not think you can find him or catch him.

+Could I assist you in any manner, sir?  Things

+are mixed, sir.  Have you heard the news that

+Mr. Robert sent?"

+

+"What news?" asked Gordon.

+

+"I 'ardly think I should be justified in repeating

+it, sir," said Ridley.

+

+"Oh, yes, you would," said Gordon, as he put

+his hand in his pocket.

+

+And Ridley told him all about everything.

+Gordon knew very little beyond the fact that Bob had

+sent a telegram to Bradstock, who had sent it to

+the duchess, who had published it on the wires that

+the infant was not black.  And of course he knew

+the fresh London rumour that Penelope had

+adopted it.

+

+"Her Grace the Duchess of Goring is now in the

+palace, sir," said Ridley.  "And between you and

+me, sir, I should not be surprised if all the other

+gentlemen came.  I suppose you heard of the duel,

+sir?"

+

+"What duel?" asked Gordon.

+

+"I do not think I should be justified in saying

+which duel, sir," said Ridley.

+

+"Oh, yes, you would," said Gordon, thinking

+that a Christian butler was a very expensive

+person to deal with.  And Ridley told him.

+

+"You'll send me word to the Grand when his

+lordship comes back?" said Gordon.

+

+"I should hardly be—"

+

+"Of course, you would be," said Gordon.

+

+"Very well, I will, sir," said Ridley.

+

+Gordon went back to the hotel, and Ridley went

+back to the others.

+

+"He's not at all bad for a Jew," he said,

+contemplatively, "not at all bad.  I only hope that the

+Christian gentlemen whom I expect every moment

+will be as reasonable."

+

+Before the evening was over, he interviewed with

+varying results Mr. Rufus Q. Plant, Mr. de Vere,

+Captain Goby, and Mr. Carteret Williams.  He

+knew that Lord Bramber couldn't come on account

+of the illness of the earl, and he heard that Carew

+was down with influenza and delirious on the

+subject of Penelope.  He told the others what he

+thought of them all.

+

+"Mr. Plant is a man I should like to meet often,"

+said Ridley.  "I have heard people say unpleasant

+things of Americans.  It may be true that they

+know little of cathedrals.  I myself have heard an

+American speak of our best Norman harches as

+vurry elegant Gothic.  I have known one voluble

+with hadmiration of a beastly bit of late perpendic'lar.

+But a man may know little of harchitecture

+and be a very worthy person for all that.  This

+Mr. Plant has ways that I've heard described as

+befitting a nobleman.  My own opinion is that very

+few noblemen have ideas befitting an American

+millionaire.  Dukes are often mean; earls also.  I

+am acquainted with one viscount who is viciously

+careful.  Mr. Plant is a gentleman far above the

+others, even above Captain Goby, who has a

+generous mind.  Mr. Williams is peculiar, but, for a

+poor man, not mean.  His second cousin, Lord

+Carteret, when I knew him, was as fine an

+open-handed, swearing nobleman as one would wish to

+meet.  Mr. Austin de Vere is peculiar; mad, I

+think, about dogs especially.  Young Mr. Robert

+told me he collected bulldogs.  He said it with a

+wink which I did not understand.  I wonder where

+his lordship is now."

+

+His lordship the bishop and Lord Bradstock were

+both cross.  They had drawn Boston blank, and

+found it too late and too hot to go on to Spilsby

+and Waynfleet and Burgh.

+

+"Well," said the bishop, "we have proved a

+certain amount.  She isn't at Boston."

+

+"Nor at Windsor or Manchester or Bristol or

+Plymouth," said Bradstock, whose temper was

+rapidly going.

+

+"I am surprised at you," said the bishop, who

+felt it necessary not to be cross when Bradstock

+was.  "We have also proved that a yellow car

+comes through here very often, mostly without

+disastrous results.  She is farther north.  We will go

+to Spilsby to-morrow, I think."

+

+"I think I will stay at home," replied Bradstock,

+"or at your place, and I'll read theology."

+

+The bishop raised his eyebrows.

+

+"It will do you good, if you can understand it,"

+he said, a little tartly.

+

+"I do not expect to understand it," said Bradstock.

+

+"Then why read it?"

+

+"Only to see if the theologians understand it,"

+replied Bradstock.

+

+It was quite evident that events were proving too

+much for Bradstock.  It was also evident that

+Bradstock was proving too much for the bishop.

+

+"As a layman, you had better stick to Paley,"

+said the bishop, tartly.  "But let us return to

+Spilsborough.  I own my temper is a little touchy

+to-day, Bradstock."

+

+Bradstock's heart softened.

+

+"Bishop, I apologize for touching it," he said.

+"Penelope is rather too much for me."

+

+"She is too much for all of us, I fear," said the

+bishop.

+

+They took the train for home, and, as they moved

+out of the station, a man in the waterproof clothing

+of a chauffeur came on the platform.  He was not

+wearing goggles.

+

+"Bishop," said Bradstock, "that man is Geordie

+Smith."

+

+"Do you think he saw us?"

+

+"How do I know?"

+

+"I didn't ask how you could know.  I only asked

+what your opinion was," said the bishop.

+

+"My opinion is worthless," said Bradstock.

+

+"Dear me!" said the bishop, blandly.

+

+

+

+

+

+.. vspace:: 4

+

+.. _`CHAPTER XXIV.`:

+

+.. class:: center large bold

+

+   CHAPTER XXIV.

+

+.. vspace:: 2

+

+England was excited, and London was more

+excited still.  But Spilsborough was the most

+excited of them all.  How it came out, no one knew,

+but the fact that the bishop was hunting for Lady

+Penelope Brading, who was married, who was

+unmarried, who had an infant which was black, which

+was white, which was adopted, was blazed all over

+that quiet episcopal town.  Dean Briggs was very

+much annoyed, for the cathedral was no longer the

+centre of interest in the place.  The clergy and the

+choir and the beadles and the tradesmen all

+discussed Lady Penelope.  They stood in knots and

+fought and wrangled and argued till they were

+metaphorically black in the face.  The lovers were

+pursued by gangs of boys who knew their names,

+and expected them to fight when they met, and

+followed them around in the hope of making a ring

+for them.  All the world was aware that the duchess

+was at the palace.  As a result, every one called

+there who was on terms with the bishop.  It is not

+at all surprising that rumour ran fast, east and west

+and south and north.  It is not every day that a

+quiet cathedral town is the centre of a vast social

+cyclone.  Boston and Spalding had their eyes on

+Spilsborough.  Boston knew that the bishop had

+made an unepiscopal visitation there with a

+white-haired peer.  Spilsby heard of it, and was jealous.

+Spilsby talked of it and began to wonder who the

+young married lady at the Moat House was.  Spilsby

+wondered slowly.  In Lincolnshire things move

+slowly.  Lincolnshire is not fast.  Folks there are

+rooted to the soil; they consider matters firmly and

+stolidly.  And of course it has to be remembered

+that they belong to the see of Lincoln and do not

+think very much of Spilsborough.  Spilsborough

+was all very well, no doubt, but Lincoln was older

+and finer and much more wonderful.  Nevertheless,

+though the Lincolnshire folks are slow, they get

+there at last.  It was all very well for Penelope

+to call herself Mrs. Bramwell.  The Spilsby people

+began to see through the matter.  In another month

+they would have solved the problem, and would

+have given away the solution by calling Mrs. Bramwell

+"Your ladyship."  But this was not to be, for

+when Geordie came back from Boston, he went

+to Bob at once.

+

+"Mr. Robert, the gaff is pretty nigh blowed,"

+he said, earnestly.

+

+"Is it?" asked Bob.

+

+"Safe as houses," said Geordie.  "I've my suspicions

+that the whole show is up the spout, or very

+nigh up!"

+

+"You don't say so?" said Bob.

+

+"Blimy, but I do say it," replied Geordie.  "I

+saw that gaitered josser, the bishop, at Boston this

+very afternoon.  Her ladyship will be spoofed and

+smelt out.  Some one is givin' the game away.  I

+don't trust that bishop."

+

+"No more do I," said Bob.  "He's very mean,

+Geordie.  He encouraged me to follow you so that

+I could tell them where my cousin was."

+

+"Bah!" said Geordie, "and they call him a

+bishop!  Her ladyship wishes not to be found out,

+and she sha'n't be—by a bishop.  I own I don't

+understand her ladyship's idea."

+

+"I do," said Bob.  "Suppose some one said you

+couldn't do something, Geordie, a hundred miles

+an hour for instance."

+

+Geordie shook his head.

+

+"I'd show 'em!"

+

+"And that you wouldn't after you said you would."

+

+"I'd show 'em," repeated Geordie.

+

+"And that you shouldn't?"

+

+"Shouldn't be damned, beggin' your pardon,

+Mr. Robert.  I'd show 'em!"

+

+"That's my cousin's idea," said Bob.

+

+"And a dashed good idea, too," said Geordie.

+"I hate interferin' folks worse than policemen.

+I'd tell her ladyship about this here bishop.  And

+Lord Bradstock was with him, sir."

+

+"The devil!" said Bob, and he ran to Penelope

+bawling.

+

+"I say, Pen, you'll have to go," he roared,

+bursting into the room where Pen was lamenting over

+her many griefs.  "The bishop is after you.

+Geordie's seen him and Bradstock, too.  And I

+feel quite certain that all of 'em will be at

+Spilsborough now."

+

+"I won't go," sniffed Pen.

+

+"Oh, but you must," said Bob.  "You can't be

+caught here now by the whole lot."

+

+"I don't seem to care," said Penelope.

+

+"Oh, what rot!" cried Bob.  "You won't break

+down now, Pen, just in the middle of the game.

+I mean in the middle of your idea.  Just think how

+they'll crow over you and the baby."

+

+That roused Penelope.

+

+"They—they sha'n't!"

+

+"Well, they will, unless you've got the one you

+are married to here," said Bob.  "Or are you going

+to tell me who it is?"

+

+Pen snuffled sadly.

+

+"How can I when we've q-quarrelled?" she demanded.

+

+"Then we'll start at once," said Bob.  "I'll tell

+Miss Mackarness and Tim and all of 'em, and we'll

+get your car and mine and we'll go somewhere else."

+

+"But where?" asked Pen.

+

+"What rot!" said Bob.  "You've got heaps of

+houses; any of 'em that are deserted.  Upwell

+Castle will do."

+

+"So it will," said Penelope, helplessly.  "But

+we can't go to-day, Bob.  Baby is always asleep

+at this hour.  Can't it be to-morrow?"

+

+Bob shook his head.

+

+"It's very dangerous, with the bishop on our

+track," he said; "it's very dangerous.  He's very

+determined, except in motor-cars.  In motor-cars,

+going fast, he's not at all determined.  But out

+of 'em he's a terror.  I'd go to-day."

+

+"No, no, to-morrow," said Penelope, weeping.

+

+And Bob went away.

+

+"I wish Baker was here," he said.  "Baker is

+quite as determined as the bishop, and his advice

+would be very valuable.  I wish I knew how to

+treat Gordon.  I'm afraid he'll be angry.  If he's

+angry, he may keep my money.  Well, I don't care."

+

+He told Miss Mackarness to pack up, and Miss

+Mackarness said she would.  Miss Mackarness

+remarked that the world was not what she had

+imagined it when she was young.  It had in fact come

+to an end.  She said she was not surprised at

+anything and never would be again.  She said she had

+never been in a motor-car, but wanted to be in one,

+because death seemed quick and easy in a motor-car.

+She also said that if she escaped, and Lady

+Penelope was killed, she knew of a good opening

+in a lunatic asylum for a woman without nerves,

+who could not be surprised, and had been

+accustomed to the ways of the highest society.

+

+"Oh, yes, yes; we'll be ready," said Miss

+Mackarness.  And Bob went away to instruct Geordie

+and Timothy Bunting, and he spent the whole afternoon,

+covered with dirty oil, dancing about the two

+motor-cars, while Geordie put them into first-class

+trim.

+

+"We ain't going to be run to ground by a

+bishop," said Bob.

+

+"Not much we ain't, sir," said Tim.  "I'd

+sooner go in one of these machines, so I would."

+

+It was the first time he had ever said as much,

+and Geordie paid him a compliment from under

+the car.

+

+"That's the first sensible remark I've ever heard

+you make, Tim," said the concealed chauffeur.

+

+"Thank you," said Timothy.  "I always said

+you were a good chap, Geordie, even if you was

+wrapped up in muck and grease."  And an idea

+came to Bob.

+

+"I know what I'll do about Gordon," he said.

+"I'll write something about this now so's to show

+it him afterward."

+

+He wrote:

+

+"Pen is very sad.  I fear she has quarrelled with

+Gordon.  I'm sure she has married Gordon.  I wish

+she would let me send to him to come, but she has

+sworn me not to.  I think the baby is very like

+Gordon.  It is clever like him, only, being younger,

+not so clever.  I don't mind if it is Gordon.

+Gordon has been very kind to me, knowing how poor

+the family is.  I wish I was as clever as he is."

+

+He read it over carefully.

+

+"He's more jealous of Rivaulx than any one.

+I'll put something in about him."

+

+He added:

+

+"I think Rivaulx an ass because of balloons."

+

+"That will please Gordon," said Bob, as he

+stowed his note-book away.  "But I do wish I

+knew who it is.  Women are very fond of secrets.

+They seem to like babies and secrets best.  Pen

+likes both together, and it's very confusing to any

+one."

+

+They started next morning in the two cars for

+Upwell Castle, taking the whole household.  Bob

+installed an old villager and his wife as caretakers.

+He had selected them himself on the ground that

+they seemed the stupidest people in the village.

+Bob was very clever, if not so clever as Gordon.

+

+"I think we've spoofed 'em, Pen," said Bob.

+

+Penelope hugged her baby and wept.

+

+"Why are you crying?" asked Bob.

+

+"I don't know," said Penelope.

+

+"Then don't," said Bob.  "It makes me very

+uncomfortable."

+

+They devoured space, and Timothy held on to

+the car and to Miss Mackarness.  Miss Mackarness

+said it altered her ideas.  Tim said it didn't, but

+then he was very conservative.

+

+"Now, let 'em all come," said Bob.

+

+

+

+

+

+.. vspace:: 4

+

+.. _`CHAPTER XXV.`:

+

+.. class:: center large bold

+

+   CHAPTER XXV.

+

+.. vspace:: 2

+

+Titania fell on Bradstock's neck when he came

+back with the bishop.  She very nearly fell on the

+bishop's neck, too, which alarmed him very much

+indeed, though he had all that confidence with

+women which marks the celibate clergy, especially

+when they are beautiful.

+

+"My dear-r Augustin," said Titania, "I came

+at once.  I felt I had to.  I felt I must.  There is

+no sympathy at home for me in my troubles.  The

+duke laughs, laughs in my face, and says Penelope

+is damn fine sport!"

+

+"Tut, tut!" said the bishop, who was loath to

+think that dukes could use bad language.  "I very

+much regret to hear it."

+

+Titania waved her hands at large.

+

+"But I do not care.  I am wrapped up in woe,

+and in Robert.  Where is he?  Show me the

+telegram he sent."

+

+They showed her the telegram.

+

+"Not black!  Oh, Augustin, that might mean

+anything."

+

+"So it might.  What did I say, bishop?" asked

+Augustin.

+

+"Nonsense!" said the bishop.  "I do not

+believe it is even dark.  This is all waste of time.

+Time cannot now be wasted.  This scandal grows.

+Ridley tells me all these unfortunate gentlemen,

+but Lord Bramber and Mr. Carew, are in the town.

+I have had telegrams from both of those asking

+for information, most excited telegrams.

+Mr. Carew says he is delirious with fever, and I

+believe him.  Lord Bramber says his father is

+delirious, which I much regret.  I think the son is also

+delirious, though he does not say he is.  He

+implores me to remember that he is entitled to know

+first where Penelope is, as he is her husband.  This

+is the telegram."

+

+Augustin and Titania read it.

+

+"If we could only believe it," said Titania.

+

+"We cannot," said the bishop.  "Ridley declares

+they all say the same.  They also say the infant is

+an adopted one.  I do not remember, in the course

+of all that wide experience which comes to a country

+clergyman in a place like Ray Pogis, any situation

+equal to this.  As a bishop with a wider experience,

+I have seen nothing so absurd even in the conduct

+of my clergy, who are indeed hard to beat in

+stupidity.  I regret we did not go on to Waynfleet and

+Spilsby, Bradstock."

+

+"So do I," said Bradstock, eyeing Titania.

+

+"We will go to-morrow," said the bishop.  "I

+have an intuition that to-morrow we shall find her.

+I feel sure of it."

+

+"I will come with you," said Titania.  "I must!

+I must!  I cannot help fearing, Augustin, that the

+very worst may have happened.  I have now no

+confidence whatever in dear, misguided Penelope's

+morals.  I do not feel sure that the child is not

+black, or that it is adopted!"

+

+"Good heavens!" said Augustin.

+

+"Good heavens!" echoed the bishop.

+

+"I haven't," affirmed Titania, dreadfully.  "No

+such thing has happened in our family since the

+time of Charles the Second, which was lamentable

+but natural, and has long since been forgiven.  I

+mistrust the general attitude of all these men,

+bishop.  I mistrust it!"

+

+"Certainly they seem in great distress," said the

+bishop.

+

+Titania rose and looked awful.

+

+"Only upon one supposition can I account for

+it, bishop.  This is their remorse.  They are

+remorseful.  They have treated her badly, and she

+has fled from them in her shame and will not see

+them!"

+

+"Ha!" said the bishop, "there is something in that!"

+

+"A great deal in it," boomed Titania, in her

+deepest tone of tragedy.  "It explains everything."

+

+But Bradstock said:

+

+"Infernal nonsense, Titania!  Bishop, I am

+surprised at you.  They can't *all* be remorseful."

+

+"Why not?" demanded Titania; "why not, Augustin?"

+

+"Of course not," interjected the bishop, hastily.

+

+"Why not, I ask?" repeated the duchess.

+

+"Oh, well, you know," said Bradstock, "when

+you come to think of it, wouldn't *one* be enough

+to be remorseful for having behaved like a scoundrel?"

+

+The duchess collapsed.

+

+"Dear me! so it would," she said, weakly.

+"Now I come to think of it, one would be sufficient.

+Nothing is explained or can be explained till we

+find Penelope."

+

+The same feeling of desperation inspired the

+lovers in the various hotels.  Their hopeless

+passion grew upon them.  The sense of mystery

+deepened.  They were sorry for Penelope, for the others,

+for themselves.  What did she mean by it?  They

+were all agreed now about the adoption theory,

+though they stuck to it manfully that they were

+married to her.  Each one believed the infant was

+adopted, while he nobly claimed it as his own.

+They were really noble creatures, and showed

+themselves worthy of a better fate.  A peculiar feeling

+of sympathy grew up among them, as it does among

+the unfortunate who are yet strong enough not to

+be overwhelmed.  They spoke to each other again.

+Goby took De Vere's arm and walked about with him.

+

+"I wish I could tell you all the truth, old chap,"

+sighed Goby.

+

+"Ah, so do I," said the poet.  "A great passion

+is a wonderful thing, Goby."

+

+"So it is, old chap," said Goby.  "Do you

+remember the happy days we spent in your home

+when we read Browning and Shelley together, and

+you explained your poems to me?"

+

+Austin de Vere sighed.

+

+"Ah, they were happy days, when my nose peeled

+on the water and my hands were blistered by rowing."

+

+"Do you remember the bulldog?" asked Goby.

+

+"Ah, and the terrier he bit!"

+

+"And the howling retriever?"

+

+"And the bald, bronchitic Borzois," said De

+Vere, with enthusiasm.  "I bought them all of Bob

+because she loved him."

+

+"I didn't like you then, Austin, old chap," said

+Goby.

+

+Austin gripped his arm.

+

+"Plantagenet, we will be friends always.  Now

+I can confess that I loathed you.  I told Bradstock

+so.  I said you were an ass."

+

+"So I am," said poor Goby.  "I admit now I

+can't understand Browning."

+

+Austin looked about him:

+

+"My dear chap, no more do I," he said, in an

+alarmed whisper.  "He's a much overrated man."

+

+"I never overrated him myself," said Goby,

+sagely.  "Look here, Austin.  You know, of course,

+that I'm married to Penelope?"

+

+"Of course," said Austin.  "And you know

+that I am?"

+

+"We'll quarrel about nothing now.  To-morrow

+we'll look for her.  Ridley, the bishop's butler, told

+me Bradstock and the bishop were going to Spilsby

+to-morrow.  I gave him a sovereign."

+

+"So did I," said Austin.  "Let's go in to

+dinner.  I'm glad we are friends, Plantagenet."

+

+"So am I, old chap," said Goby.

+

+At a near table to them were Rivaulx and Gordon.

+Farther off Plant was with Carteret Williams.

+Plant regretted that Bramber wasn't there.  Williams

+sighed for the artistic company of the delirious

+Carew.  Not one look of envy or hatred or malice

+passed between any of them.

+

+"Marquis," said Gordon, gloomily, "will you

+come to-morrow with me to find my—I mean,

+Penelope?"

+

+"I will, my dear Gordon," replied the marquis.

+"To Spilsby."

+

+"How did you know?"

+

+"Ridley, the bishop's man, said it."

+

+"He told me, too.  I gave him five pounds,"

+said Gordon.

+

+"I gave him four."

+

+"I'll bet he's told 'em all," said Gordon.  "I

+say, marquis, those were jolly, happy days before

+this misery came on, when you and I dined together."

+

+"And went up in balloons," said the marquis.

+

+Gordon shook his head.

+

+"Well, yes, even the balloons.  Do you know,

+marquis, I hated you then.  I don't now.  I think

+you a real good chap."

+

+The marquis held out his hand, and Gordon

+shook it.

+

+"Gordon, I used to despise you.  It was a great

+trial to dine with you.  I'm glad I did it now.  I'm

+a wiser, better man for the trials.  I see that Jews

+can be noble by nature just as they can be barons

+by creation.  I finally absolve Dreyfus.  I almost

+love you now!"

+

+"Good old marquis," said Gordon.  "When we

+get up to town, I'll put you on the betht thing in

+the market.  I will, so help me!"

+

+Carteret Williams and Plant got on well together.

+They talked first of Bramber and Carew.

+

+"Carew's all right," said Williams; "all right

+for an artist.  I was in the Ashanti war with an

+artist once.  I put his head in a bucket of water!"

+

+"Why?" asked Plant.

+

+"Because he was too drunk to draw," said

+Williams.  "He hated me when he got sober, and

+caricatured me.  I never liked artists afterward.  But

+when Penelope put me into harness with Carew,

+I found there was good stuff in him.  He could

+work.  He talked awful rot, but there was

+something at the back of it.  I had to own it.  How

+did you get on with Bramber?"

+

+"I thought him a damn fool," said Plant.  "But

+I found out he wasn't.  There's stuff in Bramber.

+My—I mean, Penelope knew that.  I say, as he

+isn't here, poor chap, will you come to Spilsby with

+me to-morrow?"

+

+Williams started.

+

+"How did you come to think of Spilsby?" he

+asked, suspiciously.

+

+"The bishop's butler told me.  I gave him five

+pounds," said Plant.

+

+"I gave him two," said Williams.  "Yes, I'll

+go with you, as Carew isn't here.  I like Carew

+now.  Poor Carew!"

+

+"And I like Bramber, poor chap," said Plant.

+"And now I'll go and shake hands with the

+marquis, who wanted to kill me last time I was here."

+

+"I wish I'd seen that," said Williams, simply.

+"I like seeing fights!"

+

+They spent a happy evening together and talked

+of Bob.  Austin was great upon Bob.  And so was

+Gordon.  Austin told them all about the dogs.

+Goby spoke about the spavined pony he had bought.

+Gordon told them how Bob had borrowed a

+hundred pounds of him to be put into something.

+

+"I owe him fifty thousand pounds, at least,"

+said Gordon.  "The boy is a financier.  I wish I

+had a boy like Bob."

+

+And just then Carew walked into the room.  He

+looked ill, but was as handsome as paint.  Williams

+jumped to his feet.

+

+"Oh, Jimmy, I heard you were delirious," he

+said, anxiously.

+

+"I was," said Jimmy, "very delirious,

+extraordinarily so.  I'm not sure that I'm not delirious

+now."

+

+He looked around the room anxiously, and drew

+Williams into a corner.

+

+"Do you know anything about delirium?" he

+asked, anxiously.

+

+"A lot about delirium tremens," said Williams.

+"Most of the artists I've been with in Africa had

+it.  They said it was malaria.  But have you been

+drinking?"

+

+Carew shook his head.

+

+"Not much, but I see the room is full of 'em!"

+

+"Full of what?"

+

+"Things, visions, phantasms!" said Jimmy,

+creepily.  Williams looked around in alarm.

+

+"You don't say so!"

+

+"Yes," said Jimmy.  "This influenza is awful!

+I could swear I see the marquis and Gordon and

+that ass Goby and De Vere!"

+

+"Pull yourself together," said Williams.

+"They're here all right!"

+

+"Are they real?" asked Jimmy.  "They're not

+delusions?"

+

+"Devil a bit!" said Williams.

+

+"Oh," said Jimmy, "then I think I'll have some

+brandy.  What are they doing here?"

+

+.. _`JIMMY CAREW, A.R.A.`:

+

+.. figure:: images/img-318.jpg

+   :align: center

+   :alt: JIMMY CAREW, A.R.A. He was the best looking of the whole "horde"

+

+   JIMMY CAREW, A.R.A. He was the best looking of the whole "horde"

+

+"What are we doing here?" asked Williams.

+"We're mad!  Oh, but, Jimmy, I'm dashed glad

+to see you," said Williams, with a lurid string of

+emphatic war expressions.  "Those were happy

+days when I learnt about art with you, and you

+learnt about life with me!"

+

+"They were," said Jimmy.  "But now I'm

+almost sick of art."

+

+Williams implored him not to say so.

+

+"Think of Rembrandt and Velasquez and Whistler!"

+

+"I can't think of them.  I think of Penelope!"

+

+"Try to think of Monet and Manet," said

+Williams.  "They'll do you good."

+

+"To be sure, to be sure," sighed Jimmy.  "I'll

+try to."

+

+They talked till two in the morning, and the

+only man missing was Bramber.

+

+"Perhaps he's chucked it," said Williams.  "The

+last time I saw him he looked sick enough to chuck

+anything.  But I suppose the old earl is so rocky

+he can't get away."

+

+"I hate earls," said Jimmy, jealously.  He added

+with extraordinary irrelevance, "But I'm glad she

+adopted him."

+

+No doubt he referred to the infant.

+

+

+

+

+

+.. vspace:: 4

+

+.. _`CHAPTER XXVI.`:

+

+.. class:: center large bold

+

+   CHAPTER XXVI.

+

+.. vspace:: 2

+

+While Pen and Bob and the baby were going

+as fast as they could toward Upwell Castle, Pen

+wept at intervals and hugged the child that all the

+"horde" were glad she had adopted.

+

+"My only darling," said Pen, convulsively.

+

+Bob shook his head.

+

+"I say, Pen, I really don't understand you, you

+know!  I say, this is rot!  You mustn't cry; I can't

+stand it.  And you keep on saying it's your only

+one in a very silly way.  You irritate me very much,

+Pen!"

+

+"Why, Bob?" asked the desolate creature at

+his side.

+

+"You could stop all this if you wanted to!"

+

+"Not now," said Pen, "since we've quarrelled!"

+

+"Rot!" said Bob.  "You tell me who it is and

+I'll bring him along.  But I'm glad it isn't Timothy,

+you know."

+

+Timothy was now with Geordie in the other car.

+

+"I can't tell you," said Pen.

+

+"Then don't snivel, please," said Bob, crossly,

+"or I shall drive into something and kill the baby."

+

+"Oh!" said Pen, "oh, please don't!"

+

+"I think it's very hard lines," said Bob,

+"especially as Geordie and Tim know, and Miss

+Mackarness.  If they know, I ought to."

+

+"I had to tell them, Bob.  Besides, they knew

+him," said the incautious Pen.

+

+Bob's eyebrows lifted, and he drove rather fast

+down the next straight bit of road.

+

+"I say," he said to himself, "I ought to make

+something of that."

+

+He thought very hard and did not speak for a

+mile.  He thought all the more.

+

+"Tim knows 'em all, of course.  And Geordie

+may, though I remember his saying he didn't.

+But who does Miss Mackarness know?  If I can

+spot that, I can spot the winner."

+

+He went back to the time of Pen's youth, which

+he only knew by hearsay, as he wasn't much more

+than born then, and went through the list one by

+one.

+

+"By Jove!" he said, suddenly, and Penelope started.

+

+"Yes, Bob."

+

+"No," said Bob, thoughtfully; "no, I'm not sure."

+

+"What aren't you sure of, dear?"

+

+"Him," said Bob, and Penelope sighed.

+

+After another mile's silence, Bob spoke again.

+

+"By Jove!"

+

+"You said that before," cried Pen, irritably.

+He turned his eyes upon her, and she saw them full

+of strange intelligence.

+

+"Oh, what is it?" she asked, in alarm.

+

+Bob shook his head.

+

+"You've told me who it is," he said.

+

+"I haven't."

+

+"You have," said Bob.  "Pen, you're a wonder!

+I say, are all girls like you?"

+

+Penelope said she didn't know, and demanded

+his meaning.

+

+"If they are, they're interesting but trying,"

+said Bob.  "You couldn't have made more fuss

+about it if it had been Bunting.  Pen, you are a

+wonder.  Well, I don't mind; I like him well

+enough.  He's all right.  I hope Bill will like him."

+

+"You are an annoying, irritating boy," said Pen,

+crossly.  "And you know nothing."

+

+"Bar him and Miss Mackarness and Timothy

+and Smith, I'm the only one that does," said Bob,

+drily.  "I know you, Pen.  You were ashamed of

+him, after all you used to say.  All right, don't get

+angry.  I'm all right.  I'll keep it dark till you say

+pull up the blinds.  It's not my business.  But I'm

+glad I know.  For granny doesn't, and no one has

+guessed, not even Baker.  And he's had great

+experience with girls in all parts of the world, just as

+he has had with dogs."

+

+Pen wept.

+

+"You are saying all this to worry me.  How can

+you know?" she cried.

+

+"I'll tell you some day," said Bob.  "But because

+you haven't told me yourself, and have made

+me find out, I won't tell you who it is till I want

+to.  But one thing I'll say, I don't think your

+brother Bill really likes him."

+

+He whistled and let the car out till she fairly

+hummed.  Pen was exceedingly cross, and hugged

+the baby, hoping that they would both be killed at

+once.

+

+"I don't know what's going to happen," she

+said.  "I've done my best, and nothing but trouble

+comes of it.  If I had to begin again, I don't think

+I'd try to reform anything.  I—I hate reform!"

+

+In the meantime Miss Mackarness's ideas got

+sadly altered.  She did not mind dying at first, but

+when Bob really went fast, it seemed to her that

+she loved life better than she thought.

+

+"If I am to die," she said, "I would rather die

+in my bed, much rather.  I want peace, and my dear

+lady gives me none.  This young wretch is no

+better than a murderer.  He laughs.  I can't laugh.

+I can't even speak.  The wind stops my screaming.

+I want to get out and die quietly."

+

+They pulled up close to a village to let a wagon

+loaded with long timbers get into a side road.  Miss

+Mackarness seized her chance, and, opening the

+door, jumped to the ground.

+

+"If you please, my lady, I'm going no farther.

+I will come on later in a cart."

+

+Penelope remonstrated with her.  Bob was urgent

+and impatient.

+

+"We may be caught any minute," he said.

+"Pen, let her come on in a cart."

+

+"If you prefer it," said Penelope.

+

+"My lady, I much prefer it," said the housekeeper.

+

+Bob let the car go, and Geordie, coming on

+behind, pulled up to interview Miss Mackarness.

+

+"Sooner than go in one a mile farther," she said,

+firmly, "I would lie down and die."

+

+"That's silly, ma'am," said Geordie.

+

+"I would rather live silly than die wise," replied

+Miss Mackarness.  "I may be used to much and

+past surprises, but I can't stomach these cars."

+

+They left her in the road.  And now they drove

+fast, for Bob set the pace, and made it a rapid one.

+

+"I say, Geordie," said Timothy, about twenty

+miles farther on, "don't you think you could go

+slower?"

+

+"How can I, with the other car ahead, man?"

+demanded Geordie.

+

+"Well, I feels queer inside," said poor Timothy.

+"I'd rather ride a bucking man-eater than go

+another yard.  Set me down!"

+

+"Not me," said Geordie.  "Be a man, Tim!"

+

+"I won't," said Tim.  "Set me down.  I'll walk."

+

+"Or come on in a cart," sneered Geordie.

+"Why, Mary here don't mind, do you, Mary?"

+

+Mary did mind, but she adored Geordie, and said

+she didn't.  She preferred to die with Geordie than

+to ride with Miss Mackarness in a cart.

+

+"I don't care," said Tim; "if Mary wants to

+die in a blazin' fiery mass of petrol under a wreck,

+I don't.  Let me down."

+

+And Geordie let him down.

+

+"A mad bull sooner," said Tim.  "And, though

+I 'ates walkin', bein' a groom, I'd rather walk to

+hell than motor into paradise."

+

+But peace was established in the cars by now.

+Geordie and Mary sat side by side, and whenever

+the pace was hot, she grabbed him so tightly that

+he remonstrated.

+

+"My dear, I'd rather you hugged me when we

+go slow," he said at last.

+

+"Lor', Mr. Smith, I wasn't huggin' you,"

+remonstrated the blushing Mary.

+

+"To an outsider it would appear so," said

+Geordie.  "When a young lady puts her arms

+around a man's neck, it looks like huggin'.  Mind

+I don't say I object, but I *might* run into the

+hedge."

+

+"What a very amusin' gentleman you are," said

+Mary.  "I've a very small opinion of Mr. Bunting

+except upon an 'orse.  I'm surprised he preferred

+to walk."

+

+"I'm not," said Geordie.  "I expected it, and

+if we went really fast, you'd want to walk."

+

+"Never," said Mary.  "I love goin' fast.  There's

+great po'try in a motor-car, Mr. Smith."

+

+"Poetry, well, maybe," said Geordie.  "To my

+mind, there's more machinery and oil.  I wonder

+what the next thing will be with my lady, Mary."

+

+"Ah," said Mary, "that's more than I can say.

+She's very sweet and kind, but I've give up tryin'

+to understand 'er.  And such an 'usband, too.  If

+I 'ad an 'usband, I'd like to show 'im off, if I was

+proud of 'im, and I would."

+

+"Would you be?" asked Geordie.

+

+"I 'ope so," said Mary.

+

+"I guess you'd expect him to do what you

+wanted, like my lady," said Geordie.

+

+"Oh, no, never," said Mary.  "I'd do hexactly

+as I was told by 'im I loved.  I don't believe in a

+woman 'angin' on a man and tellin' 'im to do this

+or that!"

+

+And just then a mighty fine stretch of road

+opened before them, and Bob, half a mile in front,

+turned his car loose at the top speed.  Geordie put

+his on the third, and Mary squealed.

+

+"Hush your row, my dear," said Geordie.

+"Why, bless me, what's the matter with the girl!"

+

+She had him tight by the neck.

+

+"Oh, I'm frightened, Mr. Smith.  Don't go so

+fast," she screamed.

+

+"Lemme go," gasped Geordie, whom she was

+nearly strangling.  "Lemme go, girl!"

+

+"Never, never!" said Mary, settling on him

+tighter still.  "Stop, stop!"

+

+"I won't," said Geordie.  "D'ye think I'll let

+that young un get away from me?"

+

+"You must," screamed Mary, "or I'll get out."

+

+"Then get out," said Geordie, rudely.

+

+"Oh, you cruel, cruel Mr. Smith!" wailed Mary.

+"Let me down before I'm killed."

+

+Geordie wrenched himself free.

+

+"D'ye mean it?" he asked.

+

+"Yes, you brute!" said Mary, "I does mean it."

+

+He put her down there and then.

+

+"You're no gentleman," said Mary.

+

+"I never said I was," retorted Geordie, with his

+eyes on the vanishing Bob.

+

+"And I hate you, you coward," sobbed Mary.

+

+"There's a village a mile up the road," said

+Geordie.  And he left her, disappearing in a

+whirlwind.

+

+"Oh, I'm a sad, des'late, disappinted, jilted

+woman, with thin shoes and three and tuppence

+in my pocket," said Mary.  "And I don't know

+where I am!"

+

+She sat on a pile of road metal and cried bitterly.

+She took it much harder than the bishop did in a

+similar situation.

+

+"Well, it can't be helped," said Geordie, "and

+I don't know that I'm sorry.  She'd have proposed

+if I'd kept her at the second speed, I know that;

+so perhaps I'm well out of it."

+

+He whirled after Bob and his lady, and soon

+caught them up.

+

+There was peace on that car, too, for Bob hadn't

+been able to keep his discovery to himself.

+

+"Yes, you're right, Bob," sighed Penelope.

+"But what could I do after what I'd said?  And

+what can I do now?"

+

+"Cheer up!" said Bob.  "I'll fix it for you

+somehow.  Do you know, Pen, I begin to think that

+after all women aren't as difficult to understand as

+Baker says."

+

+They came to Upwell in the early afternoon, and

+were ignorant that the world was on their track.

+Bob sent a telegram to "Mr. Bramwell" as soon

+as they got there.

+

+

+

+

+

+.. vspace:: 4

+

+.. _`CHAPTER XXVII.`:

+

+.. class:: center large bold

+

+   CHAPTER XXVII.

+

+.. vspace:: 2

+

+The bishop was excited.  There is no doubt

+about it.  Nor is it any wonder, for the sporting

+element exists even on the episcopal bench, and the

+hunting of Penelope was peculiar and choice sport.

+The clergy of his diocese were moderately tame,

+and when he pointed his episcopal gun at them,

+they said they would come down, just as the

+celebrated squirrel did when Colonel Crockett raised

+his weapon.  Not for a long time had he felt so

+pleased with himself.  He was quite certain that

+Penelope was to be run to earth in the neighbourhood

+of Spilsby, and, when he had found her, he

+proposed to speak to her like a father.

+

+"I shall certainly suggest a religious ceremony

+in the cathedral," he said, blandly.  "Oh, yes, I

+shall insist on it."

+

+"You'll do what?" asked Bradstock, who was

+with him and the duchess in the early train to

+Spilsby.  "You'll do what?"

+

+The bishop rubbed his hands.

+

+"As the one who christened her, I shall insist

+on a religious ceremony," he replied.

+

+"Will you?" asked Bradstock.

+

+"To be sure I shall," said the bishop.

+

+"Did you ever hear of Mrs. Partington?" asked

+Bradstock, "or of King Canute, or of any other

+celebrated character in history or fiction whose

+insistence did not come off?"

+

+"I scarcely understand you, Bradstock," said the

+bishop, with dignity.  "I can hardly imagine that

+you mean to hint, not altogether obscurely, that

+Lady Penelope will treat any suggestion of mine

+with disrespect."

+

+Bradstock intimated that that was what he did

+mean, and Titania, who had got up too early and

+felt like it, said that she expected nothing from

+Penelope now but the worst.

+

+"I don't know why I am here, or why I am going

+there," she said.  "I cannot imagine why any of

+us are doing anything but hiding our disgraced

+heads in the remoter parts of the country, while

+Penelope flaunts a black, adopted, illegitimate child

+in some peculiar part of Lincolnshire, while she is

+being chased on motor-cars by remorseful

+scoundrels, of whom I saw about a dozen as we left

+Spilsborough.  Little did I think that I should be

+running after her with Augustin and you, bishop, while

+the duke stays at Goring saying she is sport, and

+Robert is with her when he ought to be at home

+with Mr. Guthrie learning to spell.  And as a result

+of Penelope's being away like this, that disgraceful

+Chloe Cadwallader, of whom I shall always have

+the lowest opinion, is living in her house in

+Piccadilly, and I dare say spending her money right and

+left.  The marchioness said she knew, on the

+highest authority, that this was so.  The marchioness

+always goes on the principle of believing the worst,

+though, of course, she hopes the best.  I hope the

+best for Penelope, but I'm sure the worst is before

+us.  I'm sure of it."

+

+The bishop asked her to cheer up, and Augustin

+stroked her hand to calm her.  But nothing calmed

+or cheered her.

+

+"I am calm," she said.  "I am even peaceful.

+What can be worse than the worst?  I am cheerful,

+for I believe there is a better world than this, in

+which even a duchess may find some kind of rest

+on the highest authority.  I shall be glad to go

+there, and leave you all."

+

+"Don't say so," said Augustin.

+

+"I do say so," said the duchess.  "I say it firmly

+and with faith.  You don't dare to deny there is

+a better world than this, Augustin?"

+

+"Certainly not, in the presence of the bishop,"

+replied Augustin.  "Though, in looking out of the

+windows, I should not be surprised to learn that

+there is a more exciting spot than Spilsby."

+

+For they had arrived.

+

+"*I* will make inquiries," said the bishop, "while

+you look after the duchess in the waiting-room.

+I see that my wishes have been attended to.  I

+telegraphed for a carriage to be in attendance, and it

+is in attendance.  I will speak with the driver."

+

+He spoke to the driver, who was much intimidated

+by the apron and the gaiters of the clerical

+dignitary.

+

+"This is the carriage I ordered, I think," said

+the bishop.  "I want to drive to—to Lady

+Penelope Brading's house.  Do you know it?"

+

+"No, sir," said the driver.  "I never heard owt

+of it, sir."

+

+"Dear me, dear me!" said the bishop.  "Well,

+well!  But that is easily explicable, my good man,

+for my young friend is in the peculiar position

+of having several names.  This is rare; yes, rare

+I admit, but not altogether so very rare.  Can you

+tell me if there is any one lately come to this

+neighbourhood known, let us say, as Mrs.—Mrs. Plant,

+for instance?"

+

+"No, sir, there be not as I knows," said the driver.

+

+"Or Mrs. Gordon, shall I say?"

+

+The driver scratched his head.

+

+"I never heard of her," he replied.

+

+"How remarkable," said the bishop, smiling.

+"But I am not surprised.  Indeed, in this last case

+I am almost gratified, though I withhold my reasons

+for saying so.  Are you then acquainted with any

+one called De Vere?  No; or with a Mrs. Carteret

+Williams?"

+

+Light dawned in the driver's face at last.

+"Mrs. Williams!  Ay, sure enif.  She do sell

+sweets and tobacco."

+

+"Indeed," said the bishop, "indeed, how remarkable!

+But I don't think she will do.  Have you

+heard of a Mrs. Rivaulx or a Mrs. Goby?  Perhaps

+I surprise you in this part of Lincolnshire, but in

+London it is not at all uncommon for married ladies

+to have several names, not at all uncommon."

+

+"No, sir, I never heard o' none of 'em,"

+returned the driver, thinking that this gentleman

+talked most remarkable "cat-blash."

+

+"Good heavens!" said the bishop, "this new

+custom is trying.  Do you then know a Mrs. Carew

+or Mrs. Bramber?"

+

+Again the man scratched his head and shook it.

+What did this strange person in gaiters mean?

+

+"Oh! ah!" he said at last.  "There be a

+Mrs. Bramwell at the Moat House."

+

+"Indeed," said the bishop.  "Perhaps that may

+be the lady.  At the Moat House!  Do you know

+Mr. Bramwell?"

+

+"I've seen un," said the driver.

+

+"What is he like?" asked the bishop.  "Is he

+fair or dark, or tall or short?"

+

+"He's fairish to dark and betwixt and between,"

+said the driver, wishing to be accurate, "and mostly

+goes in big spectacles in his engine."

+

+"Ha!" said the bishop, "we are on the scent!

+And what is Mrs. Bramwell like?"

+

+"She do mostly go in the engine with specs

+on, too, sir.  But my wife do say she be a very

+fine woman."

+

+The bishop nodded.

+

+"I think you may drive us to the Moat House,"

+he said.  "I will bring my friends out."

+

+He rubbed his hands and congratulated himself

+on the skill with which he had discovered the

+object of his search.

+

+"I really believe I have found her," he said, when

+he entered the waiting-room.  "I really believe it."

+

+"No!" said the duchess.

+

+"Yes," said the bishop.  "By a series of skilful

+questions and the exercise of a little pardonable

+deceit, I have learnt that there is a Mrs. Bramwell

+here, who is said to be a very fine woman, and goes

+out in goggles in a motor-car with her husband,

+who is fairish to dark and tall and short and also

+wears goggles."

+

+Augustin nodded.

+

+"This looks like—something," he said, hopefully.

+"Bramwell!  Perhaps really Bramber, Titania."

+

+"No, no," said Titania.  "I expect disaster.  I

+anticipate the Jew or Williams."

+

+"But Bramwell—the first syllable being Bram,"

+suggested the bishop.

+

+"I cannot build on Bram," said the duchess.

+"We are an unfortunate family.  Lord Bramber

+may be an earl at any minute, and she has married

+a coal-heaver, of course!  Let us go at once."

+

+When they got into the carriage, the bishop told

+the man to drive to the Moat House.

+

+"Did you say Moat House?" asked the duchess.

+

+"I did," replied the bishop.

+

+"Augustin, do you remember that Penelope's

+mother loved houses with moats?  I think the

+bishop may be right.  I tremble with nervousness."

+

+She had more reason to tremble in a moment,

+for a big motor-car shaved them and scared the

+horse.

+

+"Perhaps—" she cried.

+

+"No," said Augustin, "it's Plant and Williams

+and Carew!"

+

+The duchess gasped.  And before she could say

+another word, another car swept by them.

+

+"Perhaps—" she cried.

+

+"No," said the bishop; "in spite of goggles,

+I recognize the marquis and Mr. Gordon and

+Mr. Austin de Vere.  This is very remarkable, and not

+a little annoying.  We shall all descend upon

+Penelope at once, and I fear it will somewhat disturb

+her.  I should have much preferred to see her

+quietly in order to bring her to a just sense of her

+peculiar, and our painful, position."

+

+When they got to the house, they found all the

+lovers but Bramber assembled at the gates.  If it

+hadn't been for the illness of the Earl of

+Pulborough, he would have been there, they knew.

+

+"Oh, which is it?" moaned Titania.  "They all

+said they were married to her, and I know it's none

+of 'em."

+

+The bishop greeted the crowd in the most

+courteous manner.  He shook hands with those he

+knew, and bowed to those he hoped to know.

+

+"I think, gentleman, that, with your permission,

+I will go in first and see Lady Penelope before any

+one else does."

+

+And while he went up the carriage drive, Titania

+glared at the lovers.

+

+"Don't look at 'em like that, Titania," said

+Augustin.

+

+"Like what, Augustin?"

+

+"Like a Gorgon, Titania," said Augustin.

+

+"I look as I feel," said Titania.  "I hate them

+all.  I shall not be able to restrain myself when I

+see Penelope.  I shall shake her.  I shall say what

+I think.  No, I won't be wise, Augustin!  I decline

+to be wise.  I am full of bitterness.  From her

+earliest youth, she has been a thorn.  And it is your

+fault; you encouraged her in reform, in anarchism.

+Don't speak to me!  I shall explode!"

+

+And Augustin got out just as the bishop rang

+the door-bell across the moat.  Instead of the kind

+of servant he expected to see, he was greeted by

+a bent old woman, whose chief glory was her

+rheumatism, though her claim on Bob had been her

+stupidity.

+

+"Is Mrs. Bramwell at home?" asked the bishop,

+with a beaming smile.

+

+"Naw," said the old lady, not beaming in the least.

+

+"No?  Then when will she be back?"

+

+"I don't know," replied the caretaker.

+

+"You don't know!  Will it be soon?"

+

+"She never said," snarled the old lady.

+

+"Did she go early?"

+

+"Maybe an hour ago, maybe two."

+

+"Will she be back late?"

+

+"Eh?  I'm 'ard of 'earin'."

+

+"Will she be back late?" roared the bishop.

+

+"She didn't say."

+

+"What did she say, then?"

+

+"Nothin' as I knows of."

+

+"Where did she go, my good woman?"

+

+"She didn't say."

+

+"Dear me, how vexing!" said the bishop.

+

+"I'm 'ard of 'earin', I tell ye," said the old dame.

+

+"Who went with her?"

+

+"All of 'em, so I 'eard."

+

+"Who were they?" asked the desperate bishop.

+

+"All as was 'ere.  There ain't one left."

+

+"Was a boy with her?"

+

+"To be sure, a young gentleman as fetched me

+'ere, and give me a shillin'."

+

+"What was his name?"

+

+"'E didn't say," said the old woman, and the

+bishop wiped his fevered brow and tried again.

+

+"Was Mr. Bramwell with her?"

+

+"I never seed un."

+

+"How did they go?"

+

+"In two engines."

+

+"Ha!" sighed the bishop, "in two motor-cars."

+

+"Likely."

+

+"Will they be back to-night?"

+

+"I 'ope not," said the woman.

+

+"Why do you hope not?" asked the wretched bishop.

+

+"Because of fifteen bob a week, to be sure."

+

+"Then Mrs. Bramwell has gone, has left?"

+

+"Ain't I been sayin' so this last hour?" asked

+the exasperated old person.  "Me, with rheumatics,

+standin' on cold stones for hours arglin' that she

+and all have gone in engines!"

+

+"Good heavens!" said the bishop, "she has

+escaped!  She has eluded us!  She has kept her word

+and has fled!  This is remarkable; it is annoying.

+I feel nearer losing my temper than I have done

+with any one but the dean for the last ten years.

+I must go back and tell them."

+

+He went back to the gate.

+

+"Is it—" they cried.

+

+"This is her house," said the bishop, who looked

+rather flushed, "but I have discovered by a series

+of skilfully devised questions that she is no longer

+here.  Duchess, Lord Bradstock, marquis, and

+gentlemen, she went away this morning in two

+motorcars with all her household, leaving behind her no

+one but a caretaker who, in my humble opinion,

+ought to be taken care of in an idiot asylum!"

+

+The duchess sighed.

+

+"Then she has kept her word!  Finding out that

+we are still pursuing her, she has fled from us.

+Oh, I think it wicked of her, wicked to all of us.

+When I get hold of Robert, I shall take steps to

+show him what I think of him.  Do you give it

+up, bishop?"

+

+The bishop's eyes flashed with indignation.

+

+"Never!" he said.  "I propose that we pursue

+her at once.  She cannot have thought we should

+be here so soon.  If we find out which road she

+took, we may yet overtake her."

+

+"In what?" asked Bradstock, with his hand

+on the ramshackle landau the duchess sat in.  "In

+this conveyance, for instance?"

+

+The bishop looked at the two big motor-cars,

+and at their wretched owners, Plant and Rivaulx.

+

+"Taking my courage in both hands," he said,

+bravely, "I propose that we lose no time.  *I* will

+go in this car with the marquis, if he will take me."

+

+The marquis said through his clenched teeth that

+he would.

+

+"Bradstock, you will escort the duchess back to

+Spilsborough."

+

+"Certainly not," said the duchess.  "I am

+coming, too.  I must and I will.  Whatever the

+condition of Penelope may now be, it is my duty.  I come

+with you!"

+

+"And so do I," said Bradstock.

+

+They packed themselves in the cars, and moved

+away from the deserted house of the moat.  In the

+village they soon discovered that "Mrs. Bramwell"

+had gone northwest by the road to Horncastle, and

+a moment later the bishop said, "Oh!" as Rivaulx

+fairly launched his car into space.  Even Bradstock

+in Plant's car said something, and the duchess,

+losing the repose which stamps all duchesses the

+moment they become duchesses, uttered a scream.

+Gordon consoled the bishop, being very much

+pleased to find himself with one, by saying that

+he had been in a balloon with Rivaulx, and found

+him careful and very trustworthy.

+

+"I do not think any one who goes in a balloon,"

+gasped his lordship, "can properly be described by

+any such terms."

+

+Williams said he didn't care if he was killed, as

+soon as Penelope had acknowledged she was

+married to him.  Gordon, who was desperately scared

+of Williams, said nothing, but gave the bishop to

+understand by signs that the war correspondent was

+mad.  Carew, who was still suffering from

+influenza, sat in his corner and wept at intervals.

+

+In Plant's car the duchess and Goby and De Vere

+got on admirably.  Bradstock sat by Plant and

+prepared to die.  The duchess held Captain Goby's

+hand.  De Vere said some poetry before the speed

+was very great.  Afterward he said his prayers,

+and wished he was at home with his bulldogs.

+

+"What does anything matter?" he asked, as

+he clutched Goby's offside.

+

+And all of a sudden Rivaulx's motor pulled up

+so quickly that the bishop was nearly precipitated

+upon the road.  A scared, oldish woman in

+respectable and sub-freak garments had done her best

+to get run over.  Rivaulx swore terrible French

+oaths, and the bishop, who knew French far better

+than he dared acknowledge except in a literary

+conversation on Rabelais or *argot*, sympathized with

+him in awestruck silence.

+

+"You accursed old lady!  Why?" demanded Rivaulx.

+

+"Hush, hush!" said the bishop, and, leaning

+from the car, he said: "It is all right, my good

+woman.  I hope we have not alarmed you."

+

+Miss Mackarness said they had.  It was very

+hard to have got out of one car and then to be

+almost killed by another.  Then the car behind

+came up, and the duchess looked at the lady who

+had given her a little respite.  The duchess

+absolutely screamed again.

+

+"Augustin, it is Miss Mackarness!  I remember

+her well!"

+

+"Who the deuce is Miss Mackarness?" grumbled Bradstock.

+

+But Titania paid no attention to him.  Her eyes

+brightened.  She became clever all at once.

+

+"I remember," she said, "I remember!"

+

+She called to the stranger in the road.

+

+"I am so pleased to see you again after such

+a long time, Miss Mackarness," she said, kindly.

+"Are you still at Upwell Castle?"

+

+"I'm going there now, ma'am," said the

+housekeeper, who didn't recognize her Grace.

+

+"Are you walking?" asked Titania, kindly.

+"It is a long way to walk.  You don't remember

+me, I see."

+

+"No, ma'am," said Miss Mackarness.

+

+"I am the Duchess of Goring," said Titania.

+

+"Oh, your Grace!  I beg your Grace's pardon,

+but, of course, you are," gasped Miss Mackarness.

+

+"And I am going to Upwell now to see my niece."

+

+Miss Mackarness gasped again and could not speak.

+

+"To see Mrs. Bramwell, you know," said

+Titania, sweetly.  "Of course, *I* know all about it,

+Miss Mackarness."

+

+"To be sure, your Grace," replied her victim,

+not knowing what to do or say.

+

+"Then *good*-bye," said the duchess.  "I hope

+you will enjoy your walk, Miss Mackarness.  It's

+such pleasant weather for a walk."

+

+They left the poor woman in the middle of the

+road, an easy victim to the slowest vehicle in the

+county.

+

+"Oh, I've done wrong, I know!" said Pen's

+housekeeper.  "What shall I do now?"

+

+"I said that on purpose," said Titania, viciously.

+"She has known all along, and ought to have told

+me.  But now we know all about it, Augustin!"

+

+"What about 'Mr. Bramwell'?" asked Augustin.

+Goby and De Vere turned pale, and the

+duchess threw up her hands.

+

+"I might have asked her!" she cried.

+

+"Captain Goby looked at her severely," said

+Augustin, "and so did De Vere."

+

+Goby and De Vere denied it.

+

+"Never mind," said the duchess, "this time she

+can't escape.  We are on the track."

+

+They passed a man a few miles farther on, and

+only Augustin noticed him.

+

+"You are right, Titania; we are certainly on

+the track.  That man was Timothy Bunting," he

+said.  "Pen has been shedding her retainers all

+along the road.  I suspect Bob of furious driving."

+

+A few miles farther, at the foot of a steep rise,

+they saw a young and pretty woman weeping on

+a heap of stones.

+

+"I wonder if that is another of 'em," said Augustin.

+

+It was Mary, whom Geordie had deposited on the

+road half-way between two villages.

+

+"Have two motor-cars gone this way?" asked

+Bradstock.

+

+"Yes, sir," sobbed Mary.

+

+"Why are you crying?" asked the sympathetic peer.

+

+"Because Geordie Smith is no gentleman," said

+Mary.

+

+"That's Mrs. Bramwell's driver, isn't it?  I

+know her well," said Bradstock.

+

+"Yes, it is, and he ain't a gentleman.  He drove

+so fast he frightened me, and I got out."

+

+"How sad," said Bradstock.  "We are going

+on to Upwell Castle now.  Can we help you?"

+

+"I would rather walk to Australia than get in

+another one of 'em," said Mary.

+

+"You are right," said Augustin.  "Titania, you

+are right.  In half an hour we shall see Penelope."

+

+"And I shall see Bob," said Titania, viciously.

+

+But the bishop felt rather pleased with Bob now.

+He was in a car driven by Rivaulx.  And Rivaulx

+was desperate.  And when Rivaulx was desperate

+he lacked consideration for others.

+

+

+

+

+

+.. vspace:: 4

+

+.. _`CHAPTER XXVIII.`:

+

+.. class:: center large bold

+

+   CHAPTER XXVIII.

+

+.. vspace:: 2

+

+As all antiquarians know, Upwell Castle consists

+of two wings and a kind of centrepiece joining

+two civilizations and two divergent schools of

+architecture.  The right wing is Tudor, and ruined;

+the left is Georgian, and habitable; the centre is

+nondescript and pseudo-Palladian.  It cost a great

+deal to keep up, and nothing could keep it from

+falling down.  Penelope's mother fell in love with

+it on first sight, and fell out with her husband about

+the price.  Its value has fallen since then, for

+landed property is the only stable thing which

+always falls.  There were pictures in it that

+connoisseurs gloated over, and some that picture-cleaners

+had restored till they were as valuable as a

+Gothic cathedral brought up to date by a resurrected

+Vandal.  There were carvings by Grinling

+Gibbons to be seen, and some that were not by

+Grinling Gibbons.  There were some rooms decorated

+by Adams that would have made Adam ill.  There

+was an oak staircase there that a thousand

+intoxicated noblemen had fallen down; there was

+another that no sober gentleman could go up.  It

+was ruinous, romantic, and rat-haunted; tapestry

+waved in its corridors, ghosts loved its precincts;

+there was a room stained with something that the

+servants said was blood, and that the skeptical

+averred to be port wine.  The only thing against

+the latter theory was that the dining-room was not

+stained, though some said it had been so flooded

+all over that nothing showed.  It was a delightful

+place, and Penelope never stayed there.  Miss

+Mackarness did, but then she was a Scotchwoman,

+and didn't count.  Bob adored it, but then Bob was

+Bob, and nothing could change him.

+

+"I'll fix this all up," said Bob, "and make her

+happy.  She's silly.  I'll blow the gaff, as Baker

+says.  She's up-stairs now, crying her eyes out,

+and making the baby bellow."

+

+He wandered about the grounds, and wondered

+where Mary and Bunting and Miss Mackarness were.

+

+"Silly fools!" said Bob; "the idea of being

+afraid of going in a motor-car.  By Jove, I wonder

+what's become of my man at Spilsborough!  I

+suppose those people in Regent Street think I've stolen

+the car.  What fun!"

+

+He explored the ruined wing, and ruined it a little

+more, and came out again into the Queen Anne

+garden.

+

+"By Jove, I do wish I knew where they all

+were!" he said.  "I wonder what granny is doing.

+Is she having fits, and Dr. Lumsden Griff to look

+after 'em?  I think Griff's a soft-soapy ass.  He

+says, 'Well, how are we this morning?'  By Jove,

+all the rest of 'em will have fits, too.  They will

+be sick.  But I'm glad they're out of it.  I wonder

+where Lord Bradstock is.  He'll pull my wig when

+he sees me.  And the bishop!  Well, he's not a

+bad old boy.  I rather like bishops, but their legs

+are queer.  By Jove, but it's fun having skipped

+and done them!  If they ever get to Spilsby and find

+us gone, they'll be mad!"

+

+He walked around the corner of the house, and

+*paff* came a motor-car and made him jump.  Another

+one followed like a streak of light.  Bob went

+quite pale for a boy with a complexion like an

+ancient red brick, and made a bolt for the door.

+He was too late, for Bradstock and the bishop stood

+in his way.  Bob slowed down, put his hands in

+his pockets and whistled.

+

+"I say," said Bob, "how did you find this place out?"

+

+"I own to being surprised and disappointed with

+you, Robert," said the bishop; "very much

+surprised and greatly disappointed."

+

+Bob wagged his head to and fro.

+

+"Why, what about?" he asked.

+

+"At your not returning, sir," said his lordship.

+"You treated me and Lord Bradstock, I regret to

+say, with great disrespect."

+

+"I'm very sorry," said Bob, "but I couldn't help

+it.  Pen—Oh, Lord! there's granny!"

+

+The duchess intervened.

+

+"Robert, where is Penelope?"

+

+Bob hesitated.

+

+"Gone to—t-to London for Paris and Marseilles

+and Australia," said Bob, hurriedly.  "She

+said she couldn't wait, but had an appointment there

+somewhere.  And she said I was to say she was

+sorry if any one called."

+

+"Robert," said the duchess, severely, "do not

+keep your eyes fixed upon the distant landscape.

+Look me in the face.  Are you speaking the truth?"

+

+Bob wriggled and shuffled.

+

+"No, I'm not," he said.  "It's a beastly lie.

+But she did say the other day that she would go

+to the ends of the earth.  And that's Australia,

+ain't it?"

+

+"Bob," said the bishop, "this is very painful

+to me.  Speak the truth like a man."

+

+"I won't," said Bob; "it isn't my truth.  I

+won't give Pen away to any one."

+

+His vision cleared, and he saw the lovers ranked

+behind his grandmother and the bishop.

+

+"Oh, Mr. Gordon," he cried, "do come and help

+me!  Would you tell if you were me?"

+

+"No," said Gordon, "no, of course not."

+

+"I always liked you," said Bob, "so I won't."

+

+"I command you," said Titania, looking at

+Gordon furiously.

+

+"It's no good," said Bob, rapidly; "Pen's a

+great way off, far enough, that is, and I swore I'd

+never disclose the secret of her whereabouts to any

+one.  At least, if I didn't swear it, I said it, and,

+if I said it, my lord, and broke my promise, it

+wouldn't be honourable, would it?"

+

+"I don't care," began Titania.

+

+"Would it, my lord?" asked Bob.

+

+"I'm afraid not," said the bishop, "though

+perhaps in the circumstances, which are very

+peculiar—"

+

+"Well, I won't," said Bob, "and that's flat.

+Goby wouldn't, I know, would you, Captain Goby?"

+

+But the duchess waved Goby into the background.

+

+"I mean to have the truth.  Shall we listen to

+your foolish scruples now?  If you won't tell us

+where she is, tell us whom she has married.  Is

+it one of these gentlemen?"

+

+"I won't give any of 'em away," said Bob.

+

+"Then you know?"

+

+"Of course I know," said Bob.

+

+"Ah," sighed the duchess, "then she is married?"

+

+"She says so," said Bob, "and, if it's true, as

+I suppose, I know who it is.  But Pen, before she

+went up—before she went, said I wasn't to speak."

+

+Bradstock smiled.

+

+"Titania, Penelope is in the house.  Let us go

+in," he said, and he marched up the steps.  Bob

+shook himself free from the duchess and darted

+indoors before Bradstock.  He bolted up-stairs to

+Penelope, and burst in upon her like a whirlwind.

+

+"Pen, they're all here, all the gang!  I couldn't

+keep 'em out!"

+

+"Who are here?" asked Pen, in awful dismay.

+

+"All of 'em, and the bishop and Bradstock and

+granny!"

+

+"Oh, what shall I do?" wailed Penelope.

+

+"I'll tell you," said Bob.  "Let's sneak down

+the back way and steal one of their cars now, and

+get away!"

+

+"No, no," said Penelope, "it wouldn't be

+dignified.  I must be dignified, Bob, I must be; I will

+go down and see them."

+

+"No," said Bob.

+

+"I will," said Penelope.

+

+"And tell 'em the truth?"

+

+Penelope started.

+

+"I can't, I can't, because we've quarrelled.  But

+I will see them; I must."

+

+She went red and white and red again, and once

+more as pale as dawn.  She kissed the sleeping,

+adopted, illegitimate, normal-coloured infant as he

+sprawled upon an historic bed, and went to the door.

+

+"Come with me, Bob."

+

+"I'll hold your hand, Pen.  I say, you shake!"

+

+"Squeeze my hand till you hurt me," said Pen.

+"Now come!"

+

+She swept down the big staircase, with Bob in

+tow, and found herself in the presence of the entire

+"gang," as Bob had called them.

+

+"Penelope!" said Titania, recoiling.

+

+"Oh, Pen," said Bradstock, advancing.

+

+"My dear Lady Penelope," said the bishop,

+sweetly, "do you recollect that I christened you

+at the early age of three months?"

+

+"No," said Penelope.

+

+"No!" said the bishop, "no, to be sure, how

+could you?  But I did."

+

+"It—it was very kind of you," said Penelope.

+Titania recovered herself and advanced.  Gordon

+and the rest hung about in the distance, looking

+as wretched as the ruined wing of the castle.

+

+"Are you married, Penelope?" asked Titania.

+

+"Yes," said Penelope.

+

+"Of course she is," said Bob.

+

+"Hold your tongue, Robert," said his grandmother.

+"And to whom?"

+

+"I won't say," replied Penelope.  "I told you

+I wouldn't, and I won't."

+

+"I said she wouldn't," cried Bob.

+

+Titania pointed her hand at the shrinking horde.

+

+"Every single one of these gentlemen, to say

+nothing of Lord Bramber, who is with his invalid

+father at the present moment, came to me and said

+he was married to you!  Every one of them without

+an exception!"

+

+"I am very much obliged to them," said Pen.

+"In the circumstances, I think it was noble of

+them."

+

+"Are you alluding to the advertisement in the

+*Times*?" asked Titania.  "Are you aware that

+every one now says that you have adopted an infant?"

+

+"What rot!" said Bob.

+

+"Robert," cried his grandmother, "be silent, I

+command you.  I will not be interrupted by you.

+Are you aware, Penelope, that it is said all over

+England and Europe and the blatant United States

+that you have adopted an infant?"

+

+Penelope shook her head.

+

+"It's the first I've heard of it," said Penelope,

+who was the colour of a rose.

+

+"Is it true?  Do not evade my question," cried

+Titania.

+

+"I don't see, granny, what right you have to

+ask 'em," said the irrepressible Bob.  "I sent you

+a wire to say it wasn't black, and it isn't."

+

+"Augustin, silence that boy," said Titania.

+

+But Augustin shook his head.

+

+"Don't you answer anything, Pen," said Bob.

+"No one has any right to ask you anything."

+

+He marched over to Gordon.

+

+"Don't look so sad, Mr. Gordon."

+

+"I can't help it, my boy," said Gordon.  "It's

+a horrid situation.  I don't care whether it's adopted

+or not.  If she'll marry me, I'll have her."

+

+Bob squeezed his hand.

+

+"I ain't *absolutely* sure it isn't you yet," he said.

+"Pen hasn't told me all, you know.  By the way,

+Mr. Gordon, did that speculation come off?"

+

+"Not so well as I thought by ten thousand," said

+Gordon.

+

+"Oh, I say," said Bob, "but, after all, it doesn't

+matter.  I'll make fifty or sixty thousand do."

+

+"You're a fine boy," said Gordon.  "But, Bob,

+I would like to strangle your grandmother."

+

+"Would you?" asked Bob, eagerly.  "I dare say

+Pen does, too.  Grandmothers and aunts are very

+trying.  At least, I find them so."

+

+The duchess's voice rose now quite above the

+limits of social decency, except when any one is

+playing or singing.

+

+"I will not be put off, Penelope.  You will say

+who it is, and you will be married again by the

+bishop in his fine Gothic cathedral—"

+

+"Mr. Dean's cathedral," interjected the bishop.

+

+"With a proper service and the usual hymns,

+breathing over Eden, or I will stay here till you do."

+

+"Steady, Titania," said Bradstock.  "If she

+won't, she won't."

+

+"But she shall," shrieked Titania.  "Gentlemen,

+which of you is it?  I am now entirely desperate;

+which of you is it?"

+

+No one said a word.

+

+"Marquis, is it you?" asked the duchess.  "You

+said so before."

+

+"How can I say?" asked poor Rivaulx.  "She

+says no one must."

+

+"Quite right," said Bradstock.  "Who will

+believe any one, Titania?  Let's have lunch and be

+friendly and stop this.  I'm very hungry, Pen.  And

+let's see the baby."

+

+The duchess shivered.

+

+"I cannot and will not see it," said Titania.

+"For by all accounts, it is an adopted illegitimate

+child.  If Penelope will send it back to the person

+she got it of, and own the truth, I will forgive her

+and have lunch, for I am very faint."

+

+"I want to see the baby, Pen," said Augustin,

+with his hand on Pen's shoulder.  "You know,

+Pen, they still say it's rather dusky."

+

+Penelope was very indignant.

+

+"He's not," she cried.  "They sha'n't say it

+any more.  Bob, tell that girl up-stairs to bring

+him down."

+

+And Bob ran up-stairs like a monkey up a stick.

+

+"I decline to see it," said Titania.  "A baby

+without a name is a terrible object to me.  It is

+an insult to the bishop and to the Church to bring

+one into the room.  I will retire into the open air

+and try to breathe again."

+

+Goby assisted her outside.

+

+"This is a calamity," said Titania.  "It's a

+catastrophe.  What is the truth, Captain Goby?  Are

+you a liar, too?"

+

+Goby sobbed.

+

+"How can I say?" he asked.  "You know I can't."

+

+He looked out into the park.

+

+"Here's some one coming in a motor," he cried.

+They all ran to the windows.  But just then Bob

+and the nurse came down with the infant, who,

+though evidently awed by the number of creatures

+he saw about him, behaved like a gentleman, and

+not in the least like an adopted child.

+

+"I congratulate you, Pen," said Bradstock.

+"The mother must be a devilish pretty woman!

+Does she miss it much, Pen?  Oh, Pen, what a

+queer, mad darling you are!  I begin to see

+daylight."

+

+But nobody else did.  Penelope blushed and

+hugged the baby tenderly, while Bob danced around

+her in the wildest state of excitement.

+

+"I say, Captain Goby, come and look at it!  Mr. de

+Vere!  I say, marquis!  Ain't it a ripper, and as

+fat as a pup, and hardly a squeal out of it day or

+night!  Granny dear, won't you look at it?"

+

+"No, no," said Titania.  "I cannot, cannot bring

+myself to do so!"

+

+"You'll soon be jolly sorry, I can tell you,"

+cried the loving grandson.  "I'll bet you'll be

+sorry."

+

+He ran to Pen.

+

+"I say, Pen, give the kid to me, or you'll drop it."

+

+"Drop him!" exclaimed Penelope.  "Oh, Bob,

+is it likely?"

+

+"Very likely," said Bob, "if you knew that I

+sent a telegram to some one just as soon as we got

+here!"

+

+Pen flushed scarlet.  But not with anger.

+

+"Oh, Bob!"

+

+"I did!  You ain't angry?"

+

+"Oh, Bob!"

+

+"I don't care," said Bob, as he took the child.

+"I don't care a hang.  I'm ruined with all these

+jossers now.  De Vere will never buy any more

+dogs of me.  I say, who's that?"

+

+A motor-car stopped outside the great hall door,

+and a gentleman in black got out.  He came up

+the steps rapidly, and stopped dead when he found

+all the world in front of him.

+

+"I thought so," said Bradstock.  "Now the

+catalogue is complete."

+

+"Lord Bramber!" cried the others.  Penelope

+stood in the centre of the great hall as if she were

+turned to marble.  But no marble ever had so sweet

+a colour.

+

+.. _`THE EARL OF PULBOROUGH`:

+

+.. figure:: images/img-361.jpg

+   :align: center

+   :alt: THE EARL OF PULBOROUGH. Clever; but indolent

+

+   THE EARL OF PULBOROUGH. Clever; but indolent

+

+"I believe it is now the Earl of Pulborough,"

+said Bradstock, gravely, to the newcomer.

+

+"Yes," he replied.  "Penelope, you sent for me?"

+

+Pen fell upon his neck before them all and did

+not deny it.

+

+And, as they stood still in great amazement, Bob

+danced the baby up and down till that young

+gentleman made up his mind to roar as soon as he

+got his breath.

+

+"This—this is Lord Bramber," howled Bob,

+triumphantly.  "Now admit you feel sorry you

+spoke, granny!"

+

+He gave the baby to the nurse, and grabbed Goby

+by the arm.

+

+"I say, I'm awfully sorry, but it isn't my fault,

+Captain Goby, and Ethel Mytton is a very nice girl,

+and dead in love with you."

+

+"Is she?" sighed Goby.

+

+"Mr. de Vere, I've got a bulldog—"

+

+"Damn bulldogs!" said De Vere.

+

+Bob seized Gordon.

+

+"Do you feel very bad, Mr. Gordon?" he asked,

+sympathetically.  "I almost wish it had been you."

+

+"It can't be helped," said Gordon, gloomily.  "I

+never had a chance.  Come and see me in the city

+next week, Bob."

+

+Rivaulx and Carew and Williams took their hats

+and slipped from the house, while Bob did what

+he could to soften things for them.

+

+"I'll come and see you all very often," he cried.

+"Good-bye now!"

+

+An hour later, when Titania had the baby upon

+her capacious lap, and said how certain she had

+been the whole time that Bramber was Penelope's

+choice, Bob walked around the garden with the

+bishop and Lord Bradstock.

+

+"Oh, it's quite easy to understand," said Bob.

+"After all she said, you expected she would marry

+some outsider, and you see she took the pick of the

+basket, and of course was ashamed.  Oh, I know Pen."

+

+"You are a wonder, Bob," said Bradstock.

+

+The bishop said that upon adequate reflection he

+was inclined to agree with Bradstock.

+

+"Well, Pen's all right," said Bob.

+

+.. vspace:: 3

+

+.. class:: center

+

+   THE END.

+

+.. vspace:: 4

+

+.. class:: center white-space-pre-line

+

+   \*      \*      \*      \*      \*      \*      \*      \*

+

+

+.. vspace:: 4

+

+.. class:: noindent x-large bold white-space-pre-line

+

+   L. C. Page and Company's

+   Announcement List

+   of New fiction

+

+.. vspace:: 3

+

+.. class:: noindent large bold

+

+The Flight of Georgiana

+

+A ROMANCE OF THE DAYS OF THE YOUNG PRETENDER.  By

+ROBERT NEILSON STEPHENS, author of "The Bright Face of

+Danger," "An Enemy to the King," "The Mystery of

+Murray Davenport," etc.

+

+Library 12mo, cloth decorative, illustrated . . . $1.50

+

+Mr. Stephens's novels all bear the hall-mark of success

+for his men are always live, his women are always worthy of

+their cavaliers, and his adventures are of the sort to stir the

+most sluggish blood without overstepping the bounds of good

+taste.

+

+The theme of the new novel is one which will give Mr. Stephens

+splendid scope for all the powers at his command.

+The career of "Bonnie Prince Charlie" was full of romance,

+intrigue, and adventure; his life was a series of episodes to

+delight the soul of a reader of fiction, and Mr. Stephens is

+to be congratulated for his selection of such a promising

+subject.

+

+

+

+.. vspace:: 3

+

+.. class:: noindent large bold

+

+Mrs. Jim and Mrs. Jimmie

+

+By STEPHEN CONRAD, author of "The Second Mrs. Jim."

+

+Library 12mo, cloth decorative, illustrated . . . $1.50

+

+This new book is in a sense a sequel to "The Second Mrs. Jim,"

+since it gives further glimpses of that delightful

+stepmother and her philosophy.  This time, however, she divides

+the field with "Mrs. Jimmie," who is quite as attractive in

+her different way.  The book has more plot than the former

+volume, a little less philosophy perhaps, but just as much

+wholesome fun.  In many ways it is a stronger book, and

+will therefore take an even firmer hold on the public.

+

+

+

+.. vspace:: 3

+

+.. class:: noindent large bold

+

+The Story of Red Fox

+

+Told by CHARLES G. D. ROBERTS, author of "The Watchers

+of the Trails," "The Kindred of the Wild," "Barbara

+Ladd," etc.

+

+Library 12mo, cloth decorative, with fifty illustrations and

+cover design by Charles Livingston Bull . . . $2.00

+

+Mr. Roberts's reputation as a scientifically accurate writer,

+whose literary skill transforms his animal stories into

+masterpieces, stands unrivalled in his particular field.

+

+This is his first long animal story, and his romance of Red

+Fox, from babyhood to patriarchal old age, makes reading

+more fascinating than any work of fiction.  In his hands Red

+Fox becomes a personality so strong that one entirely forgets

+he is an animal, and his haps and mishaps grip you as do

+those of a person.

+

+Mr. Bull, as usual, fits his pictures to the text as hand to

+glove, and the ensemble becomes a book as near perfection

+as it is possible to attain.

+

+

+

+.. vspace:: 3

+

+.. class:: noindent large bold

+

+Return

+

+A STORY OF THE SEA ISLANDS IN 1739.  By ALICE

+MACGOWAN and GRACE MACGOWAN COOKE, authors of "The

+Last Word," etc.  With six illustrations by C. D. Williams.

+

+Library 12mo, cloth . . . $1.50

+

+A new romance, undoubtedly the best work yet done by

+Miss MacGowan and Mrs. Cooke.  The heroine of "Return,"

+Diana Chaters, is the belle of the Colonial city of Charles

+Town, S.C., in the early eighteenth century, and the hero

+is a young Virginian of the historical family of Marshall.

+The youth, beauty, and wealth of the fashionable world, which

+first form the environment of the romance, are pictured in

+sharp contrast to the rude and exciting life of the frontier

+settlements in the Georgia Colony, and the authors have

+missed no opportunities for telling characterizations.  But

+"Return" is, above all, a love-story.

+

+We quote the opinion of Prof. Charles G. D. Roberts, who

+has read the advance sheets: "It seems to me a story of

+quite unusual strength and interest, full of vitality and

+crowded with telling characters.  I greatly like the authors'

+firm, bold handling of their subject."

+

+

+

+.. vspace:: 3

+

+.. class:: noindent large bold

+

+Lady Penelope

+

+By MORLEY ROBERTS, author of "Rachel Marr," "The

+Promotion of the Admiral," etc.  With nine illustrations by

+Arthur W. Brown.

+

+Library 12mo, cloth . . . $1.50

+

+Mr. Roberts certainly has versatility, since this book has

+not a single point of similarity with either "Rachel Marr"

+or his well-known sea stories.  Its setting is the English

+so-called "upper crust" of the present day.  Lady Penelope is

+quite the most up-to-date young lady imaginable and equally

+charming.  As might be expected from such a heroine, her

+automobiling plays an important part in the development

+of the plot.  Lady Penelope has a large number of suitors,

+and her method of choosing her husband is original and

+provocative of delightful situations and mirthful incidents.

+

+

+

+.. vspace:: 3

+

+.. class:: noindent large bold

+

+The Winged Helmet

+

+By HAROLD STEELE MACKAYE, author of "The Panchronicon,"

+etc.  With six illustrations by H. C. Edwards.

+

+Library 12mo, cloth . . . $1.50

+

+When an author has an original theme on which to build

+his story, ability in construction of unusual situations, skill

+in novel characterization, and a good literary style, there can

+be no doubt but that his work is worth reading.  "The

+Winged Helmet" is of this description.

+

+The author gives in this novel a convincing picture of life

+in the early sixteenth century, and the reader will be

+delighted with its originality of treatment, freshness of plot,

+and unexpected climaxes.

+

+

+

+.. vspace:: 3

+

+.. class:: noindent large bold

+

+A Captain of Men

+

+By E. ANSON MORE.

+

+Library 12mo, cloth, illustrated . . . $1.50

+

+A tale of Tyre and those merchant princes whose discovery

+of the value of tin brought untold riches into the country

+and afforded adventures without number to those daring

+seekers for the mines.  Merodach, the Assyrian, Tanith, the

+daughter of the richest merchant of Tyre, Miriam, her

+Hebrew slave, and the dwarf Hiram, who was the greatest artist

+of his day, are a quartette of characters hard to surpass in

+individuality.  It has been said that the powerful order of

+Free Masons first had its origin in the meetings which were

+held at Hiram's studio in Tyre, where gathered together the

+greatest spirits of that age and place.

+

+

+

+.. vspace:: 3

+

+.. class:: noindent large bold

+

+The Paradise of the Wild Apple

+

+By RICHARD LEGALLIENNE, author of "Old Love Stories

+Retold," "The Quest of the Golden Girl," etc.

+

+Library 12mo, cloth decorative . . . $1.50

+

+The theme of Mr. LeGallienne's new romance deals with

+the instinct of wildness in human nature,—the wander spirit

+and impatience of tame domesticity, the preference for wild

+flowers and fruits, and the glee in summer storms and

+elemental frolics.  A wild apple-tree, high up in a rocky meadow,

+is symbolic of all this, and Mr. LeGallienne works out in

+a fashion at once imaginative and serious the romance of a

+young man well placed from the view of worldly goods and

+estate, who suddenly hungers for the "wild apples" of his

+youth.  The theme has limitless possibilities, and

+Mr. LeGallienne is artist enough to make adequate use of them.

+

+

+

+.. vspace:: 3

+

+.. class:: noindent large bold

+

+The Grapple

+

+Library 12mo, cloth decorative . . . $1.50

+

+This story of a strike in the coal mines of Pennsylvania

+gives both sides of the question,—the Union and its methods,

+and the non-Union workers and their loyal adherents, with

+a final typical clash at the end.  The question is an absorbing

+one, and it is handled fearlessly.

+

+For the present at least "The Grapple" will be issued

+anonymously.

+

+

+

+.. vspace:: 3

+

+.. class:: noindent large bold

+

+Brothers of Peril

+

+By THEODORE ROBERTS, author of "Hemming the Adventurer."

+

+Library 12mo, cloth decorative, illustrated . . . $1.50

+

+"Brothers of Peril" has an unusual plot, dealing with a

+now extinct race, the Beothic Indians of the sixteenth

+century, who were the original inhabitants of Newfoundland

+when that island was merely a fishing-station for the

+cod-seeking fleets of the old world.

+

+The story tells of the adventures of a young English

+cavalier, who, left behind by the fleet, finds another

+Englishman, with his daughter and servants, who is hiding from

+the law.  A French adventurer and pirate, who is an

+unwelcome suitor for the daughter, plays an important part.

+Encounters between the Indians and the small colony of white

+men on shore, and perilous adventures at sea with a shipload

+of pirates led by the French buccaneer, make a story of

+breathless interest.

+

+

+

+.. vspace:: 3

+

+.. class:: noindent large bold

+

+The Black Barque

+

+By T. JENKINS HAINS, author of "The Wind Jammers,"

+"The Strife of the Sea," etc.  With five illustrations by

+W. Herbert Dunton.

+

+Library 12mo, cloth . . . $1.50

+

+According to a high naval authority who has seen the

+advance sheets, this is one of the best sea stories ever offered

+to the public.  "The Black Barque" is a story of slavery and

+piracy upon the high seas about 1815, and is written with a

+thorough knowledge of deep-water sailing.  This, Captain

+Hains's first long sea story, realistically pictures a series of

+stirring scenes at the period of the destruction of the exciting

+but nefarious traffic in slaves, in the form of a narrative

+by a young American lieutenant, who, by force of circumstances,

+finds himself the gunner of "The Black Barque."

+

+

+

+.. vspace:: 3

+

+.. class:: noindent large bold

+

+Cameron of Lochiel

+

+Translated from the French of PHILIPPE AUBERT DE GASPÉ

+by PROF. CHARLES G. D. ROBERTS.

+

+Library 12mo, cloth decorative . . . $1.50

+

+The publishers are gratified to announce a new edition of

+a book by this famous author, who may be called the Walter

+Scott of Canada.  This interesting and valuable romance is

+fortunate in having for its translator Professor Roberts, who

+has caught perfectly the spirit of the original.  The French

+edition first appeared under the title of "Les Anciens

+Canadiens" in 1862, and was later translated and appeared in an

+American edition now out of print.

+

+Patriotism, devotion to the French-Canadian nationality,

+a just pride of race, and a loving memory for his people's

+romantic and heroic past, are the dominant chords struck

+by the author throughout the story.

+

+

+

+.. vspace:: 3

+

+.. class:: noindent large bold

+

+Castel del Monte

+

+By NATHAN GALLIZIER.  Illustrated by H. C. Edwards.

+

+Library 12mo, cloth . . . $1.5O

+

+A powerful romance of the fall of the Hohenstaufen

+dynasty in Italy, and the overthrow of Manfred by Charles of

+Anjou, the champion of Pope Clement IV.  The Middle Ages

+are noted for the weird mysticism and the deep fatalism

+characteristic of a people believing in signs and portents

+and the firm hand of fate.  Mr. Gallizier has brought out

+these characteristics in a marked degree.

+

+

+

+.. vspace:: 3

+

+.. class:: noindent large bold

+

+Slaves of Success

+

+By ELLIOTT FLOWER, author of "The Spoilsmen," etc.  With

+twenty illustrations by different artists.

+

+Library 12mo, cloth . . . $1.50

+

+Another striking book by Mr. Flower, whose work is

+already so well known, both through his long stories and his

+contributions to *Collier's*, the *Saturday Evening Post*, etc.

+Like his first success, "The Spoilsmen," it deals with politics,

+but in the broader field of state and national instead of

+municipal.  The book has recently appeared in condensed form

+as a serial in *Collier's Magazine*, where it attracted

+wide-spread attention, and the announcement of its appearance

+in book form will be welcomed by Mr. Flower's rapidly

+increasing audience.  The successful delineation of characters

+like John Wade, Ben Carroll, Azro Craig, and Allen Sidway

+throws new strong lights on the inside workings of American

+business and political "graft."

+

+

+

+.. vspace:: 3

+

+.. class:: noindent large bold

+

+Silver Bells

+

+By COL. ANDREW C. P. HAGGARD, author of "Hannibal's

+Daughter," "Louis XIV. in Court and Camp," etc.  With

+cover design and frontispiece by Charles Livingston Bull.

+

+Library 12mo, cloth . . . $1.50

+

+Under the thin veneer of conventionality and custom lurks

+in many hearts the primeval instinct to throw civilization

+to the winds and hark back to the ways of the savages in the

+wilderness, and it often requires but a mental crisis or an

+emotional upheaval to break through the coating.  Geoffrey

+Digby was such an one, who left home and kindred to seek

+happiness among the Indians of Canada, in the vast woods

+which always hold an undefinable mystery and fascination.

+He gained renown as a mighty hunter, and the tale of his

+life there, and the romance which awaited him, will be heartily

+enjoyed by all who like a good love-story with plenty of

+action not of the "stock" order.  "Silver Bells," the Indian

+girl, is a perfect "child of nature."

+

+

+

+.. vspace:: 4

+

+.. class:: noindent x-large bold white-space-pre-line

+

+   Selections from

+   L. C. Page and Company's

+   List of Fiction

+

+.. vspace:: 3

+

+.. class:: center large bold white-space-pre-line

+

+   WORKS OF

+   ROBERT NEILSON STEPHENS

+

+.. vspace:: 3

+

+**Captain Ravenshaw;** OR, THE MAID OF

+CHEAPSIDE.  (40th thousand.)  A romance of Elizabethan

+London.  Illustrations by Howard Pyle and other artists.

+

+Library 12mo, cloth . . . $1.50

+

+Not since the absorbing adventures of D'Artagnan have we

+had anything so good in the blended vein of romance and

+comedy.  The beggar student, the rich goldsmith, the roisterer

+and the rake, the fop and the maid, are all here: foremost

+among them Captain Ravenshaw himself, soldier of fortune

+and adventurer, who, after escapades of binding interest,

+finally wins a way to fame and to matrimony.

+

+

+

+.. vspace:: 3

+

+**Philip Winwood.**  (70th thousand)  A Sketch of

+the Domestic History of an American Captain in the War of

+Independence, embracing events that occurred between and

+during the years 1763 and 1785 in New York and London.

+Written by his Enemy in War, Herbert Russell, Lieutenant

+in the Loyalist Forces.  Presented anew by ROBERT

+NEILSON STEPHENS.  Illustrated by E. W. D. Hamilton.

+

+Library 12mo, cloth . . . $1.50

+

+"One of the most stirring and remarkable romances that have

+been published in a long while, and its episodes, incidents, and

+actions are as interesting and agreeable as they are vivid and

+dramatic."—*Boston Times*.

+

+

+

+.. vspace:: 3

+

+**The Mystery of Murray Davenport.**  (30th

+thousand.)  By ROBERT NEILSON STEPHENS, author of

+"An Enemy to the King," "Philip Winwood," etc.

+

+Library 12mo, cloth, with six full-page illustrations by

+H. C. Edwards . . . $1.50

+

+"This is easily the best thing that Mr. Stephens has yet done.

+Those familiar with his other novels can best judge the measure of

+this praise, which is generous."—*Buffalo News*.

+

+"Mr. Stephens won a host of friends through his earlier volumes,

+but we think he will do still better work in his new field if the

+present volume is a criterion."—*N. Y. Com. Advertiser*.

+

+

+

+.. vspace:: 3

+

+**An Enemy to the King.**  (60th thousand.)  From

+the "Recently Discovered Memoirs of the Sieur de la

+Tournoire."  Illustrated by H. De M. Young.

+

+Library 12mo, cloth . . . $1.50

+

+An historical romance of the sixteenth century, describing

+the adventures of a young French nobleman at the Court of

+Henry III., and on the field with Henry of Navarre.

+

+"A stirring tale."—*Detroit Free Press*.

+

+"A royally strong piece of fiction."—*Boston Ideas*.

+

+"Interesting from the first to the last page."—*Brooklyn Eagle*.

+

+"Brilliant as a play; it is equally brilliant as a romantic

+novel."—*Philadelphia Press*.

+

+

+

+.. vspace:: 3

+

+**The Continental Dragoon:** A ROMANCE OF

+PHILIPSE MANOR HOUSE IN 1778.  (43d thousand.)  Illustrated

+by H. C. Edwards.

+

+Library 12mo, cloth . . . $1.50

+

+A stirring romance of the Revolution, the scene being laid

+in and around the old Philipse Manor House, near Yonkers,

+which at the time of the story was the central point of the

+so-called "neutral territory" between the two armies.

+

+

+

+.. vspace:: 3

+

+**The Road to Paris:** A STORY OF ADVENTURE.

+(25th thousand.)  Illustrated by H. C. Edwards.

+

+Library 12mo, cloth . . . $1.50

+

+An historical romance of the 18th century, being an account

+of the life of an American gentleman adventurer of Jacobite

+ancestry, whose family early settled in the colony of

+Pennsylvania.

+

+

+

+.. vspace:: 3

+

+**A Gentleman Player:** HIS ADVENTURES ON A

+SECRET MISSION FOR QUEEN ELIZABETH.  (38th

+thousand.)  Illustrated by Frank T. Merrill.

+

+Library 12mo, cloth . . . $1.50

+

+"A Gentleman Player" is a romance of the Elizabethan

+period.  It relates the story of a young gentleman who, in the

+reign of Elizabeth, falls so low in his fortune that he joins

+Shakespeare's company of players, and becomes a friend and

+protégé of the great poet.

+

+

+.. vspace:: 4

+

+.. class:: center large bold white-space-pre-line

+

+   WORKS OF

+   CHARLES G. D. ROBERTS

+

+.. vspace:: 3

+

+**Barbara Ladd.**  With four illustrations by Frank Verbeck.

+

+Library 12mo, gilt top . . . $1.50

+

+"From the opening chapter to the final page Mr. Roberts lures

+us on by his rapt devotion to the changing aspects of Nature and

+by his keen and sympathetic analysis of human character."—*Boston

+Transcript*.

+

+

+

+.. vspace:: 3

+

+**The Kindred of the Wild.**  A BOOK OF ANIMAL

+LIFE.  With fifty-one full-page plates and many decorations

+from drawings by Charles Livingston Bull.

+

+Small quarto, decorative cover . . . $2.00

+

+"Professor Roberts has caught wonderfully the elusive

+individualities of which he writes.  His animal stories are marvels of

+sympathetic science and literary exactness.  Bound with the superb

+illustrations by Charles Livingston Bull, they make a volume which

+charms, entertains, and informs."—New York World.

+

+"... Is in many ways the most brilliant collection of animal

+stories that has appeared ... well named and well done."—*John

+Burroughs*.

+

+

+

+.. vspace:: 3

+

+**The Forge in the Forest.**  Being the Narrative of

+the Acadian Ranger, Jean de Mer, Seigneur de Briart, and

+how he crossed the Black Abbé, and of his Adventures in a

+Strange Fellowship.  Illustrated by Henry Sandham, R.C.A.

+

+Library 12mo, cloth, gilt top . . . $1.50

+

+A romance of the convulsive period of the struggle between

+the French and English for the possession of North America.

+The story is one of pure love and heroic adventure, and

+deals with that fiery fringe of conflict that waved between

+Nova Scotia and New England.  The Expulsion of the Acadians

+is foreshadowed in these brilliant pages, and the part of

+the "Black Abbé's" intrigues in precipitating that catastrophe

+is shown.

+

+

+

+.. vspace:: 3

+

+**The Heart of the Ancient Wood.**  With

+six illustrations by James L. Weston.

+

+Library 12mo, decorative cover . . . $1.50

+

+"One of the most fascinating novels of recent days."—*Boston

+Journal*.

+

+"A classic twentieth-century romance."—*New York Commercial

+Advertiser*.

+

+

+

+.. vspace:: 3

+

+**A Sister to Evangeline.**  Being the story of

+Yvonne de Lamourie, and how she went into Exile with the

+Villagers of Grand Pré.

+

+Library 12mo, cloth, gilt top, illustrated . . . $1.50

+

+This is a romance of the great expulsion of the Acadians,

+which Longfellow first immortalized in "Evangeline."  Swift

+action, fresh atmosphere, wholesome purity, deep passion,

+searching analysis, characterize this strong novel.

+

+

+

+.. vspace:: 3

+

+**By the Marshes of Minas.**

+

+Library 12mo, cloth, gilt top, illustrated . . . $1.50

+

+This is a volume of romance, of love and adventure in that

+picturesque period when Nova Scotia was passing from the

+French to the English regime.  Each tale is independent of

+the others, but the scenes are similar, and in several of them the

+evil "Black Abbé"," well known from the author's previous

+novels, again appears with his savages at his heels—but to

+be thwarted always by woman's wit or soldier's courage.

+

+

+

+.. vspace:: 3

+

+**Earth's Enigmas.**  A new edition, with the addition

+of three new stories, and ten illustrations by Charles

+Livingston Bull.

+

+Library 12mo, cloth, uncut edges . . . $1.50

+

+"Throughout the volume runs that subtle questioning of the

+cruel, predatory side of nature which suggests the general title of

+the book.  In certain cases it is the picture of savage nature

+ravening for food—for death to preserve life; in others it is the secret

+symbolism of woods and waters prophesying of evils and misadventures

+to come.  All this does not mean, however, that Mr. Roberts

+is either pessimistic or morbid—it is nature in his books after all,

+wholesome in her cruel moods as in her tender."—*The New York

+Independent*.

+

+

+.. vspace:: 4

+

+.. class:: large center bold white-space-pre-line

+

+   WORKS OF

+   LILIAN BELL

+

+.. vspace:: 3

+

+**Hope Loring.**  Illustrated by Frank T. Merrill.

+

+Library 12mo, cloth, decorative cover . . . $1.50

+

+"Lilian Bell's new novel, 'Hope Loring,' does for the American

+girl in fiction what Gibson has done for her in art.

+

+"Tall, slender, and athletic, fragile-looking, yet with nerves and

+sinews of steel under the velvet flesh, frank as a boy and tender and

+beautiful as a woman, free and independent, yet not bold—such is

+'Hope Loring,' by long odds the subtlest study that has yet been

+made of the American girl."—*Dorothy Dix, in the New York

+American*.

+

+

+

+.. vspace:: 3

+

+**Abroad with the Jimmies.**  With a portrait, in

+duogravure, of the author.

+

+Library 12mo, cloth, decorative cover . . . $1.50

+

+"A deliciously fresh, graphic book.  The writer is so original and

+unspoiled that her point of view has value."—*Mary Hartwell

+Catherwood*.

+

+"Full of ozone, of snap, of ginger, of swing and

+momentum."—*Chicago Evening Post*.

+

+"... Is one of her best and cleverest novels ... filled to the

+brim with amusing incidents and experiences.  This vivacious

+narrative needs no commendation to the readers of Miss Bell's well-known

+earlier books."—*N. Y. Press*.

+

+

+

+.. vspace:: 3

+

+**The Interference of Patricia.**  With a frontispiece

+from drawing by Frank T. Merrill.

+

+Small 12mo, cloth, decorative cover . . . $1.00

+

+"There is life and action and brilliancy and dash and cleverness

+and a keen appreciation of business ways in this story."—*Grand

+Rapids Herald*.

+

+"A story full of keen and flashing satire."—*Chicago

+Record-Herald*.

+

+

+

+.. vspace:: 3

+

+**A Book Of Girls.**  With a frontispiece.

+

+Small 12mo, cloth, decorative cover . . . $1.00

+

+"The stories are all eventful and have effective humor."—*New

+York Sun*.

+

+"Lilian Bell surely understands girls, for she depicts all the

+variations of girl nature so charmingly."—*Chicago Journal*.

+

+*The above two volumes boxed in special holiday dress, per set, $2.50*.

+

+

+

+.. vspace:: 3

+

+**The Red Triangle.**  Being some further chronicles of

+Martin Hewitt, investigator.  By ARTHUR MORRISON, author

+of "The Hole in the Wall," "Tales of Mean Streets," etc.

+

+Library 12mo, cloth decorative . . . $1.50

+

+This is a genuine, straightforward detective story of the

+kind that keeps the reader on the *qui vive*.  Martin Hewitt,

+investigator, might well have studied his methods from

+Sherlock Holmes, so searching and successful are they.

+

+"Better than Sherlock Holmes."—*New York Tribune*.

+

+"The reader who has a grain of fancy or imagination may be

+defied to lay this book down, once he has begun it, until the last

+word has been reached."—*Philadelphia North American*.

+

+"If you like a good detective story you will enjoy

+this."—*Brooklyn Eagle*.

+

+"We have found 'The Red Triangle' a book of absorbing

+interest."—*Rochester Herald*.

+

+"Will be eagerly read by every one who likes a tale of

+mystery."—*The Scotsman, England*.

+

+

+

+

+.. vspace:: 3

+

+**Prince Hagen.**  By UPTON SINCLAIR, author of "King

+Midas," etc.

+

+Library 12mo, cloth decorative . . . . $1.50

+

+In this book Mr. Sinclair has written a satire of the first

+order—one worthy to be compared with Swift's biting tirades

+against the follies and abuses of mankind.

+

+"A telling satire on politics and society in modern New

+York."—*Philadelphia Public Ledger*.

+

+"The book has a living vitality and is a strong depiction of

+political New York."—*Bookseller, Newsdealer, and Stationer*.

+

+

+

+.. vspace:: 3

+

+**The Silent Maid.**  By FREDERIC W. PANGBORN.

+

+Large 16mo, cloth decorative, with a frontispiece by Frank

+T. Merrill . . . $1.00

+

+A dainty and delicate legend of the brave days of old, of

+sprites and pixies, of trolls and gnomes, of ruthless barons and

+noble knights.  "The Silent Maid" herself, with her strange

+bewitchment and wondrous song, is equalled only by Undine

+in charm and mystery.

+

+"Seldom does one find a short tale so idyllic in tone and so

+fanciful in motive.  The book shows great delicacy of

+imagination."—*The Criterion*.

+

+

+

+.. vspace:: 3

+

+**The Spoilsmen.**  By ELLIOTT FLOWER, author of

+"Policeman Flynn," etc.

+

+Library 12mo, cloth . . . $1.50

+

+"The best one may hear of 'The Spoilsmen' will be none too

+good.  As a wide-awake, snappy, brilliant political story it has few

+equals, its title-page being stamped with that elusive mark, 'success.'

+One should not miss a word of a book like this at a time like this

+and in a world of politics like this."—*Boston Transcript*.

+

+"Elliott Flower, whose 'Policeman Flynn' attested his acquaintance

+with certain characteristic aspects of the American city, has

+written a novel of municipal politics, which should interest many

+readers....  The characters are obviously suggested by certain

+actual figures in local politics, and while the conditions he depicts

+are general in large cities in the United States, they will be unusually

+familiar to local readers....  Ned Bell, the 'Old Man,' or political

+boss; Billy Ryan, his lieutenant; 'Rainbow John,' the alderman,

+are likely to be identified....  and other personages of the story

+are traceable to their prototypes."—*Chicago Evening Post*.

+

+

+

+.. vspace:: 3

+

+**Stephen Holton.**  By CHARLES FELTON PIDGIN,

+author of "Quincy Adams Sawyer," "Blennerhassett," etc.

+The frontispiece is a portrait of the hero by Frank T. Merrill.

+

+One vol., library 12mo, cloth, gilt top . . . $1.50

+

+"In the delineation of rural life, the author shows that intimate

+sympathy which distinguished his first success, 'Quincy Adams

+Sawyer.'"—*Boston Daily Advertiser*.

+

+"'Stephen Holton' stands as his best achievement."—*Detroit

+Free Press*.

+

+"New England's common life seems a favorite material for this

+sterling author, who in this particular instance mixes his colors with

+masterly skill."—*Boston Globe*.

+

+

+

+.. vspace:: 3

+

+**Asa Holmes;** OR, AT THE CROSS-ROADS.  A Sketch

+of Country Life and Country Humor.  By ANNIE FELLOWS

+JOHNSTON.  With a frontispiece by Ernest Fosbery.

+

+Large 16mo, cloth, gilt top . . . $1.00

+

+"'Asa Holmes; or, At the Cross-Roads' is the most delightful,

+most sympathetic and wholesome book that has been published in a

+long while.  The lovable, cheerful, touching incidents, the

+descriptions of persons and things are wonderfully true to

+nature."—*Boston Times*.

+

+

+

+.. vspace:: 3

+

+**A Daughter Of Thespis.**  By JOHN D. BARRY,

+author of "The Intriguers," "Mademoiselle Blanche," etc.

+

+Library 12mo, cloth decorative . . . $1.50

+

+"I should say that 'A Daughter of Thespis' seemed so honest

+about actors and acting that it made you feel as if the stage had

+never been truly written about before."—*W. D. Howells, in

+Harper's Weekly*.

+

+"This story of the experiences of Evelyn Johnson, actress, may

+be praised just because it is so true and so wholly free from

+melodrama and the claptrap which we have come to think inseparable

+from any narrative which has to do with theatrical

+experiences."—*Professor Harry Thurston Peck, of Columbia University*.

+

+"Certainly written from a close and shrewd observation of stage

+life."—*Chicago Record-Herald*.

+

+

+

+.. vspace:: 3

+

+**The Golden Dog:** A ROMANCE OF QUEBEC.  By

+WILLIAM KIRBY.  New authorized edition, printed from new

+plates.  Illustrated by J. W. Kennedy.

+

+One vol., library 12mo, cloth . . . $1.25

+

+"A powerful romance of love, intrigue, and adventure in the

+times of Louis XV. and Madame de Pompadour, when the French

+colonies were making their great struggle to retain for an ungrateful

+court the fairest jewels in the colonial diadem of France.  It is a

+most masterly picture of the cruelties and the jealousies of a maiden,

+Angelique des Melloises—fair as an angel and murderous as Medea.

+Mr. Kirby has shown how false prides and ambitions stalked abroad

+at this time, how they entered the heart of man to work his

+destruction, and particularly how they influenced a beautiful demon in

+female form to continued vengeances."—*Boston Herald*.

+

+

+

+.. vspace:: 3

+

+**The Last Word**.  By ALICE MACGOWAN.  Illustrated

+with seven portraits of the heroine.

+

+Library 12mo, cloth, gilt top . . . $1.50

+

+"When one receives full measure to overflowing of delight in a

+tender, charming, and wholly fascinating new piece of fiction, the

+enthusiasm is apt to come uppermost.  Miss MacGowan has been

+known before, but her best gift has here declared itself."—*Louisville

+Post*.

+

+"The story begins and ends in Western Texas.  Between chapters,

+there is the ostensible autobiography of a girl who makes her way

+in New York journalism.  Out of it all comes a book, vivid, bright,

+original—one of a kind and the kind most welcome to readers of

+the hitherto conventional."—*New York World*.

+

+

+

+.. vspace:: 3

+

+**The Captain's Wife.**  By W. CLARK RUSSELL,

+author of "The Wreck of the Grosvenor."  With a

+frontispiece by C. H. Dunton.

+

+Library 12mo, cloth decorative . . . $1.50

+

+"Mr. Russell's descriptions of the sea are vivid and full of color,

+and he brings home to the reader the feeling that he is looking

+upon the real thing drawn by one who has seen the scenes and

+writes from knowledge."—*Brooklyn Eagle*.

+

+"Every page is readable and exciting."—*Baltimore Herald*.

+

+"This story may be considered as one of the best of his excellent

+tales of the sea."—*Chicago Post*.

+

+"There are suggestions of Marryat in it, and reminders of Charles

+Reade, but mostly it is Clark Russell, with his delightful descriptions

+and irresistible sea yarns."—*Phila. North American*.

+

+

+

+.. vspace:: 3

+

+**The Mate of the Good Ship York.**  By

+W. CLARK RUSSELL, author of "The Wreck of the Grosvenor,"

+etc.  With a frontispiece by C. H. Dunton.

+

+Library 12mo, cloth decorative . . . $1.50

+

+"One of the breeziest, most absorbing books that have come to

+our table is W. Clark Russell's 'The Mate of the Good Ship

+York.'"—*Buffalo Commercial*.

+

+"For a rousing, absorbing, and, withal, a truthful tale of the sea,

+commend me to W. Clark Russell.  His novel, 'The Mate of the

+Good Ship York,' is one of the best, and the love romance that runs

+through it will be appreciated by every one."—*Philadelphia North

+American*.

+

+"Romantic adventures, hairbreadth escapes, and astounding

+achievements keep things spinning at a lively rate and hold the

+reader's attention throughout the breezy narrative."—*Toledo Blade*.

+

+

+

+.. vspace:: 3

+

+**The Golden Kingdom.**  By ANDREW BALFOUR,

+author of "Vengeance Is Mine," "To Arms!" etc.

+

+Library 12mo, cloth decorative . . . $1.50

+

+This is a story of adventure on land and sea, beginning in

+England and ending in South Africa, in the last days of the

+seventeenth century.  The scheme of the tale at once puts

+the reader in mind of Stevenson's "Treasure Island."

+

+"Every one imbued with the spirit of adventure and with a broad

+imaginative faculty will want to read this tale."—*Boston Transcript*.

+

+"'The Golden Kingdom' is the rarest adventure book of them

+all."—*N. Y. World*.

+

+

+

+.. vspace:: 3

+

+**The Schemers: A Tale of Modern Life.**

+

+By EDWARD F. HARKINS, author of "Little Pilgrimages

+Among the Men Who Have Written Famous Books," etc.

+With a frontispiece by Ernest Fosbery.

+

+Library 12mo, cloth . . . $1.50

+

+A story of a new and real phase of social life in Boston,

+skilfully and daringly handled.  There is plenty of life and

+color abounding, and a diversity of characters—shop-girls,

+society belles, men about town, city politicians, and others.

+The various schemers and their schemes will be followed with

+interest, and there will be some discerning readers who may

+claim to recognize in certain points of the story certain

+happenings in the shopping and the society circles of the Hub.

+

+"A faithful delineation of real shop-girl life."—*Milwaukee

+Sentinel*.

+

+"This comes nearer to the actual life of a modern American city,

+with all its complexities, than any other work of American fiction.

+The book shows an unusual power of observation and a still more

+unusual power to concentrate and interpret what is

+observed."—*St. Louis Star*.

+

+

+

+.. vspace:: 3

+

+**The Promotion of The Admiral.**  By

+MORLEY ROBERTS, author of "The Colossus," "The Fugitives,"

+"Sons of Empire," etc.

+

+Library 12mo, cloth decorative, illustrated . . . $1.50

+

+This volume contains half a dozen stories of sea life,—fresh,

+racy, and bracing,—all laid in America,—stories full

+of rollicking, jolly, sea-dog humor, tempered to the keen edge of

+wit.

+

+"If any one writes better sea stories than Mr. Roberts, we don't

+know who it is; and if there is a better sea story of its kind than

+this it would be a joy to have the pleasure of reading it."—*New

+York Sun*.

+

+"To read these stories is a tonic for the mind; the stories are

+gems, and for pith and vigor of description they are

+unequalled."—*New York Commercial Advertiser*.

+

+"There is a hearty laugh in every one of these stories."—*The

+Reader*.

+

+"Mr. Roberts treats the life of the sea in a way that is intensely

+real and intensely human."—*Milwaukee Sentinel*.

+

+"The author knows his sea men from A to Z."—*Philadelphia

+North American*.

+

+.. vspace:: 6

+

+.. pgfooter::

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@@ -0,0 +1,10947 @@
+                             LADY PENELOPE
+
+
+
+
+This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
+most other parts of the world 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
+http://www.gutenberg.org/license. If you are not located in the United
+States, you'll have to check the laws of the country where you are
+located before using this ebook.
+
+
+
+Title: Lady Penelope
+Author: Morley Roberts
+Release Date: May 14, 2014 [EBook #45648]
+Language: English
+Character set encoding: US-ASCII
+
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LADY PENELOPE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Al Haines.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Cover art]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: LADY PENELOPE BRADING Who had ideas of her own]
+
+
+
+
+                             Lady Penelope
+
+
+                                   By
+
+                             Morley Roberts
+
+              _Author of_ "Rachel Marr," "The Promotion of
+                           the Admiral," etc.
+
+
+
+                            _Illustrated by_
+                          Arthur William Brown
+
+
+
+                          L. C. Page & Company
+                                _Boston_
+                               _Mdccccv_
+
+
+
+
+                        _Copyright, 1904, 1903_
+                        BY L. C. PAGE & COMPANY
+                             (INCORPORATED)
+
+                         _All rights reserved_
+
+
+                        Published February, 1905
+
+                            _COLONIAL PRESS
+            Electrotyped and Printed by C. H. Simonds & Co.
+                         Boston, Mass., U.S.A._
+
+
+
+
+                        *LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS*
+
+
+LADY PENELOPE BRADING . . . . . . . . . _Frontispiece_
+       Who had ideas of her own.
+
+CAPTAIN PLANTAGENET GOBY, V.C., LATE OF THE GUARDS
+       Who was ordered to read poetry.
+
+LEOPOLD NORFOLK GORDON
+       Some said his real name was Isaac Levi.
+
+AUSTIN DE VERE
+       He wrote poetry, and abhorred bulldogs and motor-cars.
+
+THE MARQUIS DE RIVAULX
+       Anti-Semite to his manicured finger-tips.
+
+RUFUS Q. PLANT
+       Born in Virginia.
+
+CARTERET WILLIAMS, WAR CORRESPONDENT
+       He wrote with a red picturesqueness which was horribly
+       attractive.
+
+JIMMY CAREW, A.R.A.
+       He was the best looking of the whole "horde"
+
+THE EARL OF PULBOROUGH
+       Clever; but indolent.
+
+
+
+
+                            *LADY PENELOPE*
+
+
+
+                              *CHAPTER I.*
+
+
+All the absurd birthday celebrations were over, and Penelope was
+twenty-one.
+
+She declared that her whole life was to be devoted to reform.  She meant
+to reform society, to make it good and useful and straightforward, and
+simple and utterly delightful.
+
+She let it be understood that men were in great need of her particular
+attention.  They were too selfish and self-centred, too extravagant, too
+critical of each other, too vain.  They acknowledged it humbly when she
+mentioned it, for Lady Penelope Brading's beauty was something to see
+and to talk of; major and minor poets agreed about it; artists desired
+to paint her and failed, as they always do when true loveliness shines
+on them.  She had the colour of a Titian; the contours of a Correggio;
+the witchery of a Reynolds, and under wonderful raiment the muscles of a
+young Greek athlete.  She wiped out any society in which she moved.
+When sweet Eclipse showed herself, the rest were nowhere.  The other
+girls did not exist; she even made married beauties quake; as for the
+men, they endured everything she said, and worshipped her all the more.
+She was strange and new and a tonic. She had no sense of humour
+whatsoever; she could not understand a joke even if it was explained by
+an expert on the staff of _Punch_.  This made her utterly delightful.
+Her beautiful seriousness was as refreshing as logic in a sermon.  She
+believed in clergymen, in politicians, in the Deceased Wife's Sister, in
+all eminent physicians, in the London County Council, in the City of
+Westminster, in the British Constitution, in herself, and hygiene.  She
+read the _Times_, the _Athenaeum_, the Encyclopaedia Britannica, Herbert
+Spencer, Mr. Kidd, and the late Mr. Drummond.  She used Sandow's
+exercises and cold water.  She was opposed to war; she admired the
+leader of the opposition and the lord mayor; she subscribed to a society
+for establishing a national theatre to play Mr. Bernard Shaw's
+tragedies, and to the nearest hospital.  She was the most delightful
+person in England, and was against vaccination.  She had money and lands
+and houses and ideas.
+
+"We ought all to do something; to be something," said Lady Penelope
+Brading.
+
+It was an amazing statement, a shocking statement, and clean against all
+class tradition when she interpreted it to the alarmed.  Was it not to
+be something if one was rich, let us say?  Was it not to do something if
+one spent one's money on horses and sport and dress and bridge?  Heaven
+defend us all if anything more is asked of man or woman than killing
+time and killing beasts!  Hands went up to heaven when Penelope
+preached.
+
+Not that she preached at length.  Her sermons lasted five seconds by any
+clock, save at the times when she warmed her ankles by the fire with
+some pet friend of hers, and took into consideration how she was to use
+her power for the regeneration of the world which was hers.  Now she was
+with Ethel Mytton, a remote relative of the celebrated Mytton who drank
+eight bottles of port a day, and was a sportsman of the character which
+makes all Englishmen prouder of sport than of their history. Ten
+thousand on a football field would put him higher than Sir Richard
+Grenville.  Sidney was a fool to him.  Her father was a cabinet
+minister.
+
+But Ethel was meek and mild, and followed Penelope at a humble distance,
+modelling herself on that sweet mould of revolution.  So might a penny
+candle imitate an arc-light; so a glowworm worship the big moon.
+
+"But you'll get married, dear," said Ethel, "of course you'll get
+married."
+
+Penelope was pensive.
+
+"There are other things than marriage," said Penelope.
+
+"Oh, are there?" sighed Ethel.  She did not think so, for she was in
+love.  Penelope loved theories best.
+
+"Which of them will you marry?" asked Ethel.
+
+"Which what?"
+
+"Silly, them," said Ethel.  "What the duchess calls your 'horde.'"
+
+"I don't know," replied Penelope.  "I'm like Diogenes, and I'm looking
+for an honest man."
+
+"Oh, honesty,--yes, of course, I know what you mean.  But there are
+plenty of them, Pen dear.
+
+"Boo!" said Pen; "so the other Greeks said to the man in the tub."
+
+Ethel sighed.
+
+"What Greeks and what man in what tub?" she inquired, plaintively.
+
+And Penelope did not enlighten her darkness, for in came the Duchess of
+Goring, her aunt, whose Christian name was Titania.  She weighed sixteen
+stone in glittering bead armour, and had a voice exactly like Rose Le
+Clerc's in "The Duchess of Bayswater."  She rarely stopped talking, and
+was ridiculously moral and conventional, and, except for her voice, she
+might have been a shopkeeper's wife in any suburb.
+
+"My dear Penelope," said Titania, "I'm glad to see you again.  You look
+positively sweet, my darling, after all these parties and carryings-on,
+and what not, and now at last you are quite grown up and yourself and
+your own and twenty-one.  I wish I was.  I was nine stone then
+exactly,--not a pound more.  Oh, and it's you, Ethel.  I hope your dear
+papa is not overworking himself, now he's a cabinet minister.  Cabinet
+ministers will overwork themselves.  I've known them die of it.  Tell
+him what I say, will you?  But of course he will pay no attention, and
+in time will die like the rest. It's no use advising men to be sensible.
+I've given it up.  Ah, here at last is Lord Bradstock."
+
+Titania flowed on wonderfully; she flowed exactly like the twisting
+piece of glass in a mechanical clock which mimics a jet of water.  She
+turned round and never advanced.  But Augustin, Lord Bradstock, was as
+calm as a mill-pond, as a mere in the mountains.  He was tall and thin
+and ruddy and white-haired at fifty.  He had been twice a widower.
+
+"Why at last, Titania?" he yawned, as he stood with Penelope's hand in
+his.  He was still her guardian in his heart, though she was out of
+tutelage.
+
+"I say at last, Augustin, because you were not here before me," cried
+Titania.  "And I expected you to be here before me from what you said
+this morning.  I told you I meant to come in and speak quietly and
+seriously to Penelope, and you said you would come, too."
+
+Penelope's eyes thanked her guardian, and they smiled at him
+half-secretly, saying as plain as any words: "What a dear you are to
+come in and dilute aunty for me!"
+
+"Yes," said Bradstock, "I think I said I would prepare her."
+
+"I've not had a single chance lately to say a word for her good," cried
+Titania, "what with this person and that person and the horde.  I think
+it is time now, Penelope, that you reorganized your amazing circle of
+acquaintances, mostly men, by the way. While Augustin was responsible
+for you, of course you were obstinate, but now you are in a position of
+greater freedom you will see the advisability of being guided by your
+aunt.  I'm sure, I'm positive of it."
+
+Now the real sore point with the duchess was this matter of the "horde."
+It was the only picturesque phrase she ever invented in her life, and
+without any doubt it did characterize in some measure the remarkable
+collection of men who were pretenders to Penelope's hand and fortune.
+
+"Out of the entire, the entire--"
+
+"Caboodle," said Bradstock, suggestively.
+
+The duchess shook her head like a horse in fly-time.
+
+"No, Augustin, not caboodle; pray, what is caboodle?  Out of the
+entire--lot, Penelope, there are hardly three who belong to your class.
+I entreat you to go through them and dismiss those of whom we can't
+approve, I and Lord Bradstock."
+
+"Don't drag me in," said Bradstock.  "They are all very good fellows; I
+approve of them all."
+
+"Tut, tut," said Titania, "is this the way you help, Augustin?  You are
+a hindrance.  I believe it is entirely owing to you that Penelope has
+these strange and alarming ideas.  Yes, my dear, I'm afraid it is.  He
+is not the kind of man who should have been your guardian.  I ought to
+have been consulted.  I knew a bishop who would have been admirable,
+most admirable.  He's dead, dear man, and the present one is a scandal
+to the Protestant Church, what with incense and processions and candles
+and confession-boxes.  But, as I was saying, I do hope you will dismiss
+some of these men.  And I hope you will be sensible and not say shocking
+things.  No one should say shocking things till they are married, and
+even then with discretion.  Socialism and reform and marriage!  Dear me,
+you really must not talk about marriage, but you must get married to a
+suitable person.  I'm sure, Augustin, we should have no insuperable
+objection to, let us say, young Bramber.  He'll be an earl by and by.
+And you mustn't talk about reforming society, my dear love.  It is quite
+impossible to reform society without abolishing it, my pet.  Ethel
+darling, many cabinet ministers have owned as much to me with much
+alarm, almost with tears.  It's no use trying.  Tell your dear father
+so, Ethel.  I forgot to mention it the other day when we discussed the
+London County Council and its terrible extravagance compared with the
+economy of the government.  We talked, too, about the War Office, and I
+told him that it couldn't be reformed without abolishing it, which was
+not to be thought of for an instant. What should we do without a War
+Office, as we are always fighting?  He sighed deeply, poor man. Dr.
+Lumsden Griff says sighing is cardiac in its origin, and I wish your
+father would see him, Ethel. He's the first doctor in London for the
+ventricles of the heart.  So every one says.  But about your ideas,
+Penelope--"
+
+"Good heavens, aunty, I haven't any left," said Penelope.  This was not
+in the least surprising, for Titania reduced any ordinary gathering to
+idiocy at the shortest notice.
+
+"Oh, but you have," said Titania, "and society cannot endure ideas, my
+love.  Anything but ideas, darling."
+
+"Well, well," sighed Bradstock, "what is the use of talking to her,
+Titania?  Pen is Pen, and there's an end of it."
+
+"I wish there was," cried the duchess.  "But she rails against marriage.
+And she's only twenty-one.  Dear, dear me!"
+
+"She pays too much attention to you married women," said Bradstock.
+"How's the duke, by the way?"
+
+As the duke was engaged in running two theatres at the same time, not
+wholly in the interests of art or finance, Bradstock might have asked
+after his health at some other juncture.  Titania ignored him.
+
+"She rails against marriage," lamented Titania.
+
+"I don't," said Penelope.
+
+"You do," said her aunt.
+
+"It's only the horrible publicity," said Penelope, "and the way things
+are done, and the ghastly presents and the bishops and the newspaper men
+and the horrible crowd outside and the worse crowd inside, and all the
+horrid fluff and flummery of it. If I'm ever married, I'll get it done
+in a registrar's office."
+
+"Oh, Penelope," wailed Ethel.
+
+But Titania became terrible.
+
+"You shall not be, Penelope," she cried.  "I could not stand it.  As
+your aunt, my dear--  Oh, my love, I knew some one who was married in
+that way, and it was a most shocking affair, and of course it turned out
+that he had been married before and was a bigamist.  The scandal was
+hushed up, and the first wife, who was the sweetest girl, and died of
+consumption shortly afterward at her father's vicarage in Kent or
+Yorkshire, near Pevensey or Pontefract; at any rate it began with a P,
+and the man, though a villain, was a gentleman, for he married the
+second one all over again in a foreign place, with a chaplain
+officiating; much better than a registrar, who can marry you, I'm told,
+in pajamas if he likes, though not like a bishop, which one might have
+expected in his case.  You all knew him slightly, at any rate.  Never,
+my dear, get married at a registrar's."
+
+"It's better than the open shame of a cathedral and a bishop," said
+Penelope.  "Being married is one's private business, and it's nothing
+but horrid savagery to have crowds there!"
+
+"Bravo!" said Bradstock, and Titania turned on him.
+
+"Did I not say all this was your fault, Augustin? You were no more fit
+to be her guardian than you are to be Archbishop of Canterbury.  Am I a
+savage, Penelope? and did I not get married in a cathedral, a most
+beautiful cathedral, all Gothic and newly restored at a vast expense?
+My dear, I am amazed and horrified and shocked to think that you should
+not perceive the quite exquisite fitness of being married in a piece of
+lovely Gothic architecture, to the very loveliest music, breathing over
+Eden, and so on, while all your dearest friends shed tears of purest
+joy--"
+
+"To see her got rid of," said Bradstock.
+
+And even Ethel Mytton laughed.
+
+"Augustin!  Ethel Mytton!  How can you say such things and laugh?  It's
+wicked; it's indecent!"
+
+"Yes," said Penelope, "that's what I say. There's nothing to choose
+between your way and the American way the millionaire women have over
+there, when they hold a flower-show in a gilded room, and get married
+under a bell of roses at the cost of a hundred thousand dollars.  I'd
+rather be knocked down by a nice savage, or run away with by a viking,
+or caught by a pirate.  I won't be breathed over in Eden by a stuffy
+crowd.  If--if--"
+
+"Oh, if what?" gasped Titania.
+
+"If I ever do get married," said Penelope, "I'll never tell any of you
+beforehand!"
+
+"Good heavens!" said the duchess, "you won't tell us?"
+
+"I won't."
+
+"You'll let us find out!  Shall I know nothing of the marriage of my
+brother's child till I read it in the _Times_?  It shall not be!
+Augustin, does she mean it?"
+
+Augustin lighted a cigarette and walked to the window, which looked down
+on the traffic of Piccadilly.
+
+"I give it up," said Augustin.  "When could I answer riddles?  Do you
+mean it, Pen?"
+
+And Penelope, rising up, stood on the hearthrug and, looking like the
+descendant of a viking and some fair Venetian, declared that she did
+mean it.  And she further went on to say, in great haste and with a most
+remarkable flow of words, that it shouldn't be in the _Times_ or any
+other paper. And she said that if Titania, Duchess of Goring, was her
+aunt, it couldn't be helped, and that her principles were more to her
+than any one's approval. Though she loved her aunt and her dear sweet
+guardian, these same principles were even dearer than they were.  And
+she said that they had no principles ("not even Guardy dear"), and that
+they only thought of a demon thing called Society, which was at once a
+fetich and a phantom.  And she became so excited that she talked like a
+real woman orator upon a platform, and expressed her intention of using
+her influence to bring about reform, especially in such matters and with
+regard to young men who did nothing, and seemed to think they had been
+created for that very purpose.  And, as she talked, there wasn't a man
+in the world who would not have yearned to take his coat off and ask for
+a pick and shovel at the least, for she was as beautiful as any young
+goddess fresh from Grecian foam or from high Olympus.  Even Bradstock
+sighed to think that he had never done anything for the human race,
+which required so much help, but sit in the Upper House, a speechless
+phantom. And Ethel Mytton cried with an imparted enthusiasm, while the
+duchess wept with horror.
+
+"And more than that," said Penelope, who broke down in her eloquence and
+resorted to the tone of conversation, "more than that, I'll never, never
+let you know whom I marry!  I mean it!  That--that's flat!"
+
+And after this damp but awful peroration, she sat down with heaving
+bosom, and poor, bewildered Titania shook her head till it looked as if
+it would come off.  She found no flow of words to oppose Penelope with.
+The biggest river is nothing when it flows into the sea, and, if Titania
+was the Amazon, Pen was the South Atlantic.
+
+"Not who he is?" said the duchess, as feebly as if she were no more than
+a brook in a meadow.
+
+"I will not," said Penelope, like a sea in a cyclone.
+
+"Not--  Oh, I must go home," piped Titania. "Augustin, she's capable of
+marrying a chauffeur, because he can drive at sixty miles an
+hour,--or--or a groom!"
+
+"I'd rather marry either or both," said Pen, furiously, "than be mobbed
+and musicked into matrimony with a grinning crowd of idiots looking on."
+
+"This is immoral," said Titania, "it's very immoral; you couldn't marry
+both.  I'll go home, Bradstock."
+
+And Bradstock took her there.
+
+"You've done it, Titania," he said, as they drove. "She's as obstinate
+and as violent as a passive resister.  You've put her bristles up, and
+Pen never goes back from what she says."
+
+"You are very like a man, Augustin," sobbed the duchess.
+
+"She's more like a woman than I'm like a man," growled Bradstock.
+
+He had never risen to eminence, and only once to his feet in the Upper
+House, and sometimes this rankled.
+
+"Yes, I mean it, I mean it," said Penelope.
+
+"And I wanted to be your bridesmaid," sobbed Ethel.
+
+"You never will be, and you can tell every one what I say."
+
+"I won't," said Ethel, "I won't."
+
+And she went away and told them.
+
+
+
+
+                             *CHAPTER II.*
+
+
+In spite of what good conventional people said, there was nothing
+abnormal in Penelope's character. The walking world appears abnormal to
+an institute for cripples; good going is an absurdity, and as for
+running--  The truth is that Penelope, by some unimaginable freak of
+fortune, had been born quite sound and sane, barring her one lack, that
+of humour.  The providential death of her parents at an early age saved
+her from a deal of teaching. Bradstock saved her from a great deal more,
+and she saw to the rest.  It pleased Augustin, Lord Bradstock, to play
+with gunpowder, in spite of what he said about dynamite.  He encouraged
+her to trust to herself in a way that every well-regulated woman
+considered highly dangerous, and he used to enrage her in order to hear
+what she had to say to him.  There was a period in which she swore
+vigorously.  She learnt her language from an old stableman, who adored
+her even more than he did any horse.  This was at the age of three.  Her
+first interview with her aunt, the Duchess of Goring, was positively so
+shocking to Titania, who was mid-Victorian, and never got over it, that
+the poor thing almost fainted when Penelope, a shining brat of three,
+damned her eyes with terrific vigour. Goring, who was that very curious
+and absurd survival of a thousand ages, known as a sportsman, roared
+with laughter.  There was humanity in him.  There was none in Titania,
+though there might have been if she had married any one but a duke.  And
+Penelope damned her eyes for saying she mustn't go to the stables
+without a retinue, an escort, a bodyguard of footmen and nurses and
+governesses.
+
+"I haven't a governeth now," lisped Penelope. "I thacked the latht one,
+didn't I, Bradstock?"
+
+Lady Bradstock, number two, was then reigning without governing as far
+as Bradstock was concerned, and governing without reigning as far as
+another was concerned, and she paid no attention to Penelope, except to
+encourage her to amuse her guardian.  Thus Penelope grew like a tree in
+the open, and there were no Dutch gardeners to clip her.  At fifteen she
+greeted her last governess, a lady of great learning and no ability,
+with the news that she had had her luggage got ready, and that there was
+the carriage at the door for her.  There is no defending such conduct.
+Pen never defended it herself in later years.  She acknowledged she had
+been a brute to Miss Mackarness, and gave her a position as housekeeper
+in one of her own houses, that she never visited, with permission to
+receive the shillings some visitors paid to see a mansion like a
+sarcophagus, with one treasure of a Turner in it.
+
+The trouble was that Penelope was natural.  She had not been trained to
+become so; she grew so. There is no more painful and laborious a process
+than to learn to be natural in later life.  But to grow like it!  Ah,
+that was splendid, and many unthinking people laughed to hear Pen when
+she swore, or cried, or begged for pardon, or dominated the whole little
+world around her.  The world indeed smiled on Pen, and now she was
+twenty-one and splendid, mobile, gracious, Venetian, strong, and as rich
+as an American heiress, and she already had as many wooers as Penelope
+of old.  But the little bow of Cupid was too much for them. Other
+defence was too good.  And now these strange notions grew up in her.
+There was some natural shame in her heart that the crowd of duchesses
+and what not could not understand.  When He came at last, riding
+gallantly, a brave male, virile, strong, and bold, armed in shining
+armour, should she lead him out into Piccadilly, investing him in a
+frock coat for his armour and a cylinder for his helmet, and marry him
+in a crowd, while a paid organist played something about Eden?  Oh,
+where was Eden?
+
+Here's romance then, and in a new guise in a young woman.  For the true
+romantic age is the age of feminine desperation.  When one has been
+"taught" all one's best years, it's hard to be romantic till one wears
+through one's fetters at the very foot of the scaffold, when it's too
+late.  How many sweet women sour in cream-jugs, and escape the cat, or
+some roaring lion, for nothing but sourest contemplation.  They crowd
+feminine churches.
+
+Pen's brother, or, rather, half-brother, was ten years her senior, and
+played a suitable part in the orchestra of the House of Lords as Lord
+Brading. He voted for the government when it was conservative, and
+against it when it was liberal with perfect certainty and good-will.
+There was nothing remarkable about Brading but the strange, almost
+awestruck admiration with which he worshipped Penelope.  A man even of
+the most absurd conservative solidity must be a radical and an anarchist
+somewhere, and indeed he pretended to be something of a socialist.
+Nevertheless, he had humour.  Brading thought his half-sister a wonder,
+and had no criticism for her.  Indeed it is believed that he helped the
+groom mentioned above to teach her unrefinements of the English language
+peculiarly shocking to early and mid Victorians.  But in his heart
+"Bill" Brading considered Pen's mother accounted for, excused
+everything.  The last Lady Brading was an American who wallowed in
+money, which she invested in repairing her husband's character and his
+castles.  When he died, and nothing could be done for his character but
+suppress biographers, she invested in ancient demesnes on Pen's behalf,
+and bought her rat-riddled and ghost-haunted mansions of historic
+character till there were few (and among them Penelope could not be
+counted) who could tell how many of them she owned.  Then Lady Brading
+went to a newer world than the United States, and left Pen to the care
+of Augustin, Lord Bradstock, a man of brains and no voice when on his
+legs.  It is reported that he learnt a speech of his own composing by
+heart, and when he rose to deliver it all he said was, "Good God," in an
+astonished whisper, and collapsed, struck by a form of paralysis which
+rarely attacks fools and which bores cannot suffer from.
+
+Penelope was richer than her half-brother, for her mother, having paid
+her husband's debts, rebuilt Brading House, and saved his life from
+being written after a very quiet and gentlemanly departure, considered
+she had done her duty to the family. She left her stepson five thousand
+pounds, it is true, and, with a want of ostentation not peculiarly
+American, she left another five to Penelope, and modestly made her
+residuary legatee.  The residue was considerably over a million dollars.
+And then there were the houses, most of them ineligible properties in
+ring-fences, fit for immediate occupation after they had been restored.
+For poor Lady Brading had a passion for ruins, and collected castles as
+some do bric-a-brac.  The two great griefs of her life were that she
+could not buy Haddon Hall and Arundel Castle.
+
+Well, there is the situation plainly outlined.  Pen was as savage as
+Pocahontas, so some said, and she could, an she liked, wallow in money.
+She owned property all over England, to say nothing of a chateau near
+Tours, a palazzo in Venice, and a building in New York which brought in
+more than the rest cost to keep up.  She had a brother, a peer with a
+voice, a guardian a peer without one, an aunt who was a duchess, and
+strange ideas of her own which got up and talked on the most unsuitable
+occasions.
+
+But then there was her beauty as clamant as a rose of fire, as sweet as
+violet or verbena!  The rose can be gilded it seems, like a lily, and
+the gold was a power to her, giving authority over men. She who had
+enough to command the work of many thousands at current wages (for this
+is money truly) commanded that strange respect for power as well as love
+for herself.  Her lovers were numberless, so people said, and there was
+this truth in their being beyond arithmetic that no one troubled to
+count them.  Marriageable beauties of a lesser order of loveliness
+prayed for her extinction in matrimony.  Mothers of the marriageable
+prayed for it with a fervour only equalled by the fervour of her
+hopeless lovers, if there can be fervour without hope.  It is the
+command of true beauty that it can.  Had not all the painters, all the
+sculptors, from Pheidias down to the unselected classics of our own
+time, met together when she rose, a newer Aphrodite from the sea of the
+unknown!  Her loveliness was sweet and intolerable; one ached at it.
+Cowards shrank from it.  Brave men cried for her.  There are strange
+tales!
+
+What a strange motley gathering she selected. They had one thing in
+common, to be discovered shortly, one would think.  She discovered their
+qualities by inspection.  Many would-bes she drove away overcliff.  She
+knew men of many classes adored her, wondering and humble.  One great
+lover of hers, who was very good to horses, and only reasonably bitter
+against motor-cars, was her groom, Timothy Bunting.  He didn't know he
+loved her.  Indeed, he imagined he loved her maid.  But there is this
+quality in a great love, that it asks all or nothing.  Tim was perhaps
+as great as the greatest, but he rode behind her even when the Marquis
+de Rivaulx or Rufus Q. Plant rode alongside her with a quiet and
+unjealous mind.  There was much in Timothy, as much or more than there
+was in the French marquis, who rode "well enough," as Tim said, or as in
+Plant, who rode "all over 'is 'orse," as became one bred in Arizona.
+These must show themselves by and by.  They had the quality, at any
+rate.  Even Tim knew it.
+
+But what was it that gave permission to Mr. Austin de Vere to join the
+throng?  He wrote poetry.  He followed her as close as a rhyme in a
+couplet.  He never wrote her any, for which she was pleased to be
+flatteringly thankful.  There are some things that cannot be set down in
+verse even by the greatest, and the poet De Vere acknowledged this
+humbly.  He had the character of being the most conceited and
+immitigable ass in England, and when he was with Penelope he was as
+humble as a puppy in leash.  There was something great in his mighty
+subjection.  Not even Goby, late of the Guards, was so mitigable and so
+mitigated when Pen was by.  And Goby's V.C. was almost as much valued by
+him as his clothes and boots. He gained it by a fit of angry rage, such
+as had led him to pay several sovereigns at a desk in a back office at a
+police-station, and came out of his temper to discover he was a hero.
+So much for luck when a big man, with the quality and temper of a bull,
+gets into a row in a sangar without any police to stay his hand.
+
+"As for that De Vere," said Goby, "why, I could crush him with one
+hand."
+
+"And he could make you sore with a few words," said Penelope.
+
+"He couldn't," bragged Goby.
+
+Penelope smiled.
+
+"No, perhaps he couldn't," she said, pensively, and Goby was pleased
+with her opinion of his bull's hide.  Europa had at any rate scratched
+him.  He indicated the sea of matrimony with inarticulate bellows.  But
+of course he was really quite possible. As Chloe Cadwallader said, his
+boots were inspiration, polished, and his Christian name was
+Plantagenet.  He had some obscure right to it.
+
+Then there was Lord Bramber.  Some folks said if she married any one,
+she would marry Bramber, because his father was the Earl of Pulborough.
+They forgot all the rest of the aristocratic mob. If any title pleased
+her democratic soul, she could pick strawberries.  One senile and one
+merely silly duke pursued her panting.  But she certainly liked Bramber,
+and showed her partiality for him or her unpartiality with frankness.
+She had hopes of him, though he appeared hopeless now at the age of
+twenty-seven.  She maintained that men were half their age and women
+twice it, at the least.
+
+"Dear Titania is ninety," said Penelope, "and Guardy is twenty-five.
+Lord Bramber will perhaps think of doing some work when he is fifteen."
+
+There came with these, with and not after, Jimmy Carew, who was an
+A.R.A.  He painted portraits, and talked about art with eloquence till
+no one, even an artist, could guess what he meant.  But he believed
+things with such faith that many of his fair sitters agreed with him.
+He was the best looking of the whole "horde," as Titania called Pen's
+adorers.
+
+The "horde" included Leopold Norfolk Gordon, who had a house in Park
+Lane and ever so many people's money to keep it up with.  As may be
+guessed from his name, he was a Jew.  Several people, with whom he could
+not share the money he had acquired by unsullied dishonesty, said his
+real name was Isaac Levi.  Goby, who hated him bitterly, consoled him
+when a less successful Israelite called him "Ikey," at Ascot, by saying:
+
+"It's damned hard lines, Gordon.  A man may be born in Whitechapel
+without being a Jew."
+
+So near may insolence come to wit.  When this was pointed out to Goby,
+he told the story everywhere with many chuckles.  But it was impossible
+to deny certain attributes to poor Gordon, whether his name was Levi or
+Moses, or Ehrenbreitstein, for that matter.  Penelope had no racial
+prejudices, and anti-Semitism was unnatural and abhorrent to her.  She
+said things about negroes to Rufus Q. Plant (born in Virginia) which
+made his flesh creep almost as badly as if he had been born in Delaware.
+So in spite of Gordon's looking somewhat Semitic, she asserted there
+were the qualities she required in the poor man, who indeed was not
+bumptious or loud or peculiarly offensive in her presence.  He that
+stole millions feared a girl.  He polished his last week's hat with
+trembling hands, that had signed death-warrants in the city, when he
+spoke with her.
+
+And to round off the "horde" with another sample, there came in Carteret
+Williams.  He was the biggest of the lot, and had a voice like a
+toastmaster's, or that of the man who announces the train at Zurich.  It
+is worth going there to hear him, by the way.  Many good Americans
+travel for less.  Williams was a writer, a journalist, a
+war-correspondent, or, as he said, a "battle vulture."  When he could
+dip his pen in blood, he wrote with a red picturesqueness which was
+horribly attractive. He belonged to a very decent family, and took to
+his present trade by nature.  That gives some hint of why Penelope liked
+him.
+
+What was the secret, then, the secret that brought young Bramber, and
+Rufus Quintus Plant, and "Ikey Levi," alias Leopold Norfolk Gordon, and
+Captain Plantagenet Goby, and the verse-making De Vere, together with
+the Marquis de Rivaulx and Jimmy Carew, under one table-cloth, so to
+speak, at the Tattenham Corner of wooing?  Some said Penelope wouldn't
+have anything to do with any one who was not a Man.  It is true she
+abhorred those who were not men; but so much depends upon a definition.
+In the West (and the East, for that matter) a Man goes for what he is
+worth, and is common currency, as he should be, and a "White Man" is the
+gold.  To be called a White Man is the true compliment, and
+implies,--well, it implies what the "horde" implied.  They were men and
+Man, and "White," so Penelope said when she had picked up the
+picturesque figure from Rufus Q. Plant.  They might be asses (and some
+were, or at least mules), but they meant to run straight.  They were
+lazy, or some were, but the laziest lay under the delusion that laziness
+was their godlike duty.  They needed the spur.  They might be brutes in
+the way of business (you should read what has been written in a New York
+paper about Plant, or hear what a certain disembowelled set in the city
+say of Gordon, who turned them inside out), but they played the game.
+They knew what cricket was, even when it was played with red-hot shot,
+and not to carry one's bat meant blue ruin. After saying that they were
+all this, which implies they were men of honour, each according to the
+code of their fellows (for this is honour), I shall show you how they
+came, or how many of them came, to utter grief in curious ways under
+very odd stresses.  What can a man of honour do in an entirely new
+position, one not provided for in any code?  It would puzzle a jury of
+archangels to say.
+
+"Have you heard?" asked Goby, with wondering eyes.
+
+"What she says?" replied Gordon.
+
+"Shade of Titian!" cried Jimmy Carew.
+
+"Well, I'm damned!" said Carteret Williams.
+
+"This is romance," sighed the De Vere.
+
+"I'm--I'm--that's what I am," whistled Rufus Q. Plant.
+
+"Imphm!" murmured Lord Bramber.
+
+"Sapristi!" shrieked the French marquis.
+
+Wasn't it enough to make them exclaim when it was reported all over
+London, and in the country, and in papers and cables to New York that
+Penelope Brading had sworn, with a great oath, that she meant to upset
+the holy apple-cart of all tradition (at least since Adam) by never
+letting any one know who her husband was!  They knew her, and knew her
+word was sacred.  Now let all unwhite men, all unrealities, all ghosts,
+all vain folks vanish one by one.
+
+With one voice the "horde" exclaimed, as they set their teeth:
+
+"Well, we don't care!"
+
+What does this say for Penelope's faculties of distinguishing men from
+monkeys, and white from gray?
+
+
+
+
+                             *CHAPTER III.*
+
+
+All that happened now only shows one how the greatest sense of modesty
+may end in the biggest advertisement.  Penelope, though determined to do
+her duty, which was mainly to educate mankind, meant doing it
+unobtrusively, and there was not a man or woman in the British Isles or
+in the United States who did not hear of her quiet intention.  The
+cables hummed with Penelope's name; it was whispered in the great deeps
+of the sea; wireless telegraphists caught Lady Penelope Brading out of
+Hertzian waves; ships ploughed the ocean laden with Penelope and copy
+about her.
+
+In two twos the notoriety hunters in London sank into insignificance;
+professional beauties were neglected, and the sale of their photographs
+fell off. There was an immense demand for Penelope's, which, luckily, no
+one could satisfy until an enterprising New Yorker flooded the United
+States with portraits.  Before it was found out that this particular
+photograph was one of a young actress whom he proposed introducing to
+the public shortly, he sold amazing quantities of them.  When there was
+one in every inquiring household from Hudson Bay to the Gulf of Mexico,
+the real sitter for it wrote to the papers and complained bitterly.  She
+is now playing to crowded houses.  There are many paths to fame.
+
+Poor Pen was at first horribly shocked.  She was young.  And yet she was
+human.  She said: "Oh, dear, oh, dear!" and, swearing that she would
+never read a word about herself, she subscribed to a newspaper cutting
+agency.
+
+From the New York papers alone one could cull a highly coloured account
+of her whole history. And they gave Bradstock's history, too, not
+omitting his two-word exclamatory speech in the House of Lords.
+Bradstock stood it like a Trojan, like a Spartan.  He never turned a
+hair even when they said that he was going to marry Penelope himself.
+They gave a full biography of Titania, with a real photograph.  When the
+duchess saw it, she was silent for full five minutes, such was the shock
+it gave her.  Then she talked for five hours, and called on the American
+ambassador.
+
+"Cannot you do anything for me?" asked Titania, perorating.
+
+"I'm afraid not, your Grace," said the ambassador, wearily.  He said it
+was an awful thing to be an ambassador sometimes, though it had its
+points.
+
+Being discomfited for once by an ambassador, she turned on Bradstock,
+and rent him limb from limb.  And then she went to Penelope.
+
+"I'm only doing my duty," said Penelope, with her beautiful lips as firm
+as Grecian marble.
+
+"Your duty!" shrieked the duchess; "and look at the papers!"
+
+"I can't help what they say, aunt.  One's duty--"
+
+"They tell my weight," said Titania.  "How did they know?"
+
+"They must have guessed it," said Penelope.
+
+"I don't _look_ it," pleaded the duchess, now suddenly plaintive.
+
+"No, no, dear auntie, you don't," said poor Penelope.  "Oh, it's cruel
+of them."
+
+"Help me, then," said Titania.  "Get married at once in a cathedral, and
+all this will stop.  I'll ask the dear archbishop to officiate,
+Penelope.  Oh, my darling!"
+
+But Penelope became Pentelican marble again; she froze into a severe
+goddess, and she saw Titania weep.
+
+"It's scandalous!  Oh, and they have a list of them all," said Titania.
+
+Indeed, the _New York Dustman_ had the "horde" set out in a row like the
+entries for the Derby. They said the betting was on Rufus Q. Plant, of
+course.  They gave a short and succulent biography of them all.  They
+headed the list "The Lady Penelope Handicap."  They used some slang
+about "weight for age."
+
+"Great heavens!" said Titania, "all town is ringing with it.  If this is
+the result of looking on marriage as one's private business, give me
+publicity!"
+
+There would have been less of it if a prince had married a publican's
+daughter in St. Paul's, and had presented the dean with a set of pewter
+pots.
+
+"And if she does what she says!"
+
+The only men who did not talk much about Penelope were naturally those
+who aspired to win her.  Every one neglected politics and sport to
+discuss her.  She became politics and sport.  Huge sums of money were at
+stake as to whether she would keep her word; as to the length of time
+she would keep the secret, and as to who the man was to be.  There were
+public and private books made on the series of events.  And there was a
+Penelope party and an opposition.  Many young people who were
+revolutionary in their sentiments said she was right.  There was a
+Penelope Cave in the House of Commons.  Some of those who fought year in
+and year out for the Deceased Wife's Sister backed her up.  It was
+whispered that the prince was a Penelopian; two princesses threatened
+with objectionable persons of the royal blood were heard to observe that
+there was something in what she said. Penelope was within measurable
+distance of becoming a national, or even an international, question.
+Mrs. X. wrote an article in the _Fortnightly_ on "Secret Marriage in
+History."  Mr. Z. sat down and wrote a novel, bristling with "wit and
+epigram," in ten days, which ran into the third edition of two hundred
+and fifty copies in thirty.  It was said that questions were to be asked
+in the House. A play on the subject was forbidden by the lord
+chamberlain.  The wittiest article on the subject was written by a Mr.
+Shaw.  He argued that no really beautiful woman had any right to be
+married at all.  He said plaintively that it wasn't fair, and convinced
+the ugly in two syllogisms.
+
+And, as the result of this, Penelope went away into the country, though
+it was May, with Ethel Mytton and Mrs. Cadwallader, who was called
+Chloe, and stood by Pen remorselessly in every difficulty.  For Pen had
+helped her out of an awful mess, the history of which would make a whole
+story of itself.  As a result of it, Cadwallader was in the Rocky
+Mountains shooting, and a certain young soldier was taking too much
+liquor and too little quinine in Nigeria, and Chloe got her diamonds
+back from Messrs. Attenborough, and was eternally grateful to Penelope
+in consequence.
+
+"And I shall send for them one by one," said Penelope.  "They can come
+down by the ten o'clock train from Paddington, and go back by the five
+o'clock one from here.  And after lunch I shall explain my ideas to
+them."
+
+"And I'll be with you," said Chloe, who was as dark-locked as a raven's
+wing.
+
+"Oh, I don't mind," said Penelope; "of course you will.  I'm too young,
+am I not, to be left alone, Chloe?  Is it true, Chloe, that the older a
+woman gets the bigger fool she is?"
+
+Chloe said it was true.
+
+"I'll ask Titania to let Bob come over," said Penelope.  "He's the
+wisest person I know."
+
+Bob was Titania's grandson, and was certainly young enough to be wise,
+as he was only fourteen. He had been sent to three of the great public
+schools, and had been taken away because of his fighting capabilities.
+He never knew when he had enough, and it is quite impossible to keep a
+boy at any school if he breaks out of bounds to fight some young butcher
+or baker in a back alley at least once a week.  Now he had a tutor who
+had been an amateur boxer of great merit.  It began to take the tutor
+all his time to handle his pupil.  But if Bob was knocked endways about
+three times a week, it sobered him and made him do his work.  He did not
+yet know whether he wanted to be a prize-fighter or the
+commander-in-chief.  But he loved Penelope.
+
+"I'll send for Bob," said Penelope.
+
+And Bob came with Mr. Guthrie, his tutor, and Titania was glad to get
+rid of him for a time.
+
+"Oh, Pen," said Bob, "how jolly kind of you to ask me.  I'm sick of
+grandmother; she worries me to death.  Always says, 'Robert, you
+mustn't.'  I say, have you read Kip's 'Cat that Walked by Himself'?  Mr.
+Guthrie says it's splendid, and I say it's rot.  But old Guth likes
+Virgil and Horace.  Isn't that strange, for he can box like anything.
+Baker, the groom, says he can.  And Baker's awful good with the mitts.
+But I say, Pen, what's all this about you in the papers?  Grandmother
+wails when she sees one now.  I ain't sure I like having you so much in
+the papers, Pen."
+
+"I don't like it, either," said Penelope, "but I can't help it."
+
+"Is it true that you're going to be married and never tell any one?"
+demanded Bob from the bottom of a huge rocking-chair, as they sat on the
+lawn.  They were in one of Pen's habitable houses, and the lawn ran down
+to the Thames.
+
+"I won't if I don't want to," said Penelope. "But you're a boy, Bob, and
+don't understand these things."
+
+Bob snorted and smiled, not unsubtly.
+
+"Oh, Pen, don't be like grandmother.  I understand pretty nearly
+everything now.  Granny's always saying that, and it's jolly rot.  You
+can't be like me, turned out of three schools, and not know something.
+Are you going to get married soon?"
+
+Pen shook her head.
+
+"She's very savage at your knowing that Jew cad, Gordon, but grandfather
+isn't.  He says that Gordon may be a Jew, of course, but he's all right.
+I asked him if I could get put on a board as a director, and he was so
+mad with me.  I think Gordon's asked him to be a director, and he'd like
+to only he daren't.  He's got none too much money, you know, Pen.  But
+about all these chaps, Pen?"
+
+He went through the horde seriatim, and pronounced upon them all with
+ineffable wisdom.
+
+"Goby's an ass, but a good ass, Pen," he said, as he kicked with his
+legs.  "He gave me a thick-un a year ago when I was in difficulties.
+But he hasn't the brains to make a good corporal.  Baker says that.
+Baker was a sergeant in the Dublin Fusiliers. I like Plant, though, Pen.
+Baker says he rides in a rummy fashion, more like a circus man than
+anything else, but he can stick to a horse.  And there's your Frenchman.
+I say, how does he come to be called Rivaulx?  Was he called after
+Rivaulx in Yorkshire, or was it called after him?  Ask him if he shoots
+larks in his native country.  All Frenchmen do, old Guth says.  He says
+he read a book the other day in which a French priest says he never sees
+a lark without wanting to shoot it.  What a miserable rotter, wasn't he?
+But Rivaulx isn't so bad, though.  He's a gentleman, at any rate, though
+he is French.  I say, why do foreigners never look like gentlemen?
+Dashed if I know.  I've often wondered, because grandfather likes them,
+through his having been an ambassador.  Sometimes a German does, though.
+And Bramber's all right, Pen. I don't think I'd mind your marrying him."
+
+"I won't marry any one who isn't a useful citizen," said Pen.
+
+"He's all right," urged Bob.  "He's as strong as a bull.  Baker says
+he'd peel better than most prize-fighters.  What is a useful citizen?  I
+say, if you get married, you'll tell me who it is?"
+
+"No," said Penelope.
+
+"I call that mean," said Bob.  "I'd not tell any one, and I'd help like
+fun."
+
+"I'm sure you would, Bob.  But I may never get married."
+
+"Rot," said Bob, "a girl like you not get married! Oh, I say!"
+
+And he continued to say for some hours, and proved himself most
+entertaining company, quoting Baker, who had been a sergeant in the
+Dublin Fusiliers, and had been very severely knocked about by Jem Mace,
+and appealing to Mr. Guthrie, who came over with him to get him to look
+at a book in the mornings, to back him up.  He was really very modest
+and gentlemanly, at the same time that he was exceedingly bumptious and
+arrogant, after the best manner of the extremely healthy English boy.
+
+And at twelve o'clock he came running to Penelope and Chloe by the
+river-bank in wild excitement.
+
+"I say, Pen, I say, Pen, there's old Goby coming, and with that
+miserable rotter who makes poetry. What's brought 'em here?"
+
+"I asked them to lunch," said Pen.
+
+"Eh, what?" cried Bob.  "Goby and that rotter, Austin de Vere!  I say,
+Mr. Guthrie--"
+
+He ran off to Guthrie, bawling:
+
+"I say, Mr. Guthrie, here's that poet chap, Austin de Vere, come.
+Didn't you say he mostly wrote rot?"
+
+And Goby and De Vere came across the lawn together, like a mastiff and a
+Maltese in company. They made each other as nervous as cats, and
+couldn't for their lives understand why they were asked together.
+
+"The clumsy brute," said De Vere.
+
+"The verse-making monkey," said Goby.
+
+But tailors could have admired them both.  They were perfect.  And lunch
+was a most painful function, only endurable to Penelope because she was
+on the track of her duty, and to Chloe because she laughed internally,
+and to Mr. Guthrie (who was really a clever man) because he liked to
+study men and manners, and to Bob because he talked all the time, owing
+to the silence of the others.
+
+"I say, Captain Goby, I've got a splendid bull-pup.  Baker got him for
+me, cheap, for a quid,--a sovereign, I mean.  You remember Baker.  He
+was a sergeant,--oh, I told you that just now. Do you like bulldogs, Mr.
+de Vere?"
+
+De Vere was politely sulky.
+
+"Bulldogs, oh, ah, well, I do not know that I do."
+
+He looked at Goby, who was also sulky and feeling very much out of it.
+But the subject of bulldogs appealed to him, because he saw it didn't
+amuse his rival.
+
+"I'll give you a real good pup, Bob," he said, good-naturedly; "one that
+no one could get for a sovereign.
+
+"A real pedigree pup?"
+
+"With a pedigree as long as your own," said Goby.
+
+Bob sighed, and laid his hand on Goby's.
+
+"I say, Pen, isn't Captain Goby a real good 'un?" he asked.  "Baker
+says--"
+
+But what Baker said does not come into this history, as the lunch
+finished, and they all went into the garden.  Goby spoke to Bob as they
+went out.
+
+"I say, Bob, get hold of that ass De Vere, and talk to him as hard as
+the very deuce, will you?"
+
+"You meant that about the pup?" said Bob.
+
+"Of course, Bob."
+
+"I'll talk his beastly head off," said Bob.
+
+And this was why Penelope spoke confidentially to Captain Goby before
+she did so to the poet.  She was exceedingly pale and very dignified,
+but she lost no time in getting to the point.
+
+"Captain Goby," she said, "you have asked me to marry you at least three
+times."
+
+Goby sighed.
+
+"Is it only three?" he demanded, and he added, firmly, "it will be more
+yet."
+
+"And I said 'no' because I had no idea of marrying any one."
+
+"That was rot," said Goby.  "For, if you married no one else, you would
+marry me."
+
+"Certainly not as you are," retorted Penelope. "I want you and all men
+(that I know) to reform."
+
+Goby was not astonished at anything Penelope said.
+
+"I reformed long ago," he said.  "As soon as I saw you, I said I'd
+reform and I did.  It was a great deal of trouble, but I did it.  Oh,
+you've no idea how I suffered.  But I said, 'Plantagenet, my boy, if you
+are to be worthy, you must buck up!'"
+
+This was encouraging.
+
+"I'm glad I've had so much influence," said Pen, who didn't quite know
+what his reforms had been. "But there are other things.  This is merely
+negative.  What are you doing to be useful to the state? Are you loafing
+about on your money?  Do you do any work?  Are you educating yourself?"
+
+Goby gasped.
+
+"I say, come, Lady Penelope, I've done all that! Education! why, I had a
+horrid time at school and at a crammer's--"
+
+"Do you read?" asked Pen, severely.
+
+"Why, of course," said Goby.
+
+"What?"
+
+Goby rubbed his cropped hair with two fingers.
+
+"Papers?"
+
+"Anything?" said Pen.
+
+"Well, I read the _Sportsman_ and the _Pink Un_ (at least, I did before
+I reformed) and the _Referee_," said Goby.
+
+"Books?"
+
+"Not many," said Goby.  "But I will.  What do you recommend?"
+
+"I think Tennyson and Shelley would do you good," said Pen, "but you had
+better ask Mr. de Vere.  And do you do anything useful?"
+
+"De Vere!  Oh, Lord!" cried Goby.  "Anything useful?  Why, I was in the
+army--"
+
+"And now you do nothing.  Well," said Penelope, "I think you had better
+begin at once.  Any man I know has to do something useful.  You must go
+to the War Office and ask to be made something again.  I think a
+colonelcy of a militia regiment would suit you.  And I am going to ask
+Mr. de Vere to take an interest in your reading."
+
+"The devil!" said Goby.  "I say, my dear Lady Penelope, I can't stand
+him.  Why, you may have seen we are barely civil to each other."
+
+"I shall speak to him firmly," said Penelope, "and it's for his good,
+too.  He leads an unhealthy indoor life.  I want you to change all that.
+You row a great deal still, don't you?"
+
+"Since I reformed I began again," said Goby. He felt the muscles of his
+right arm with complacency.
+
+"Take him out and make him row, then," said Pen, "and while he rows you
+can read poetry to him, and so on.  It will be good for both of you."
+
+"But--" said Goby.
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"If I do this, will you marry me?"
+
+Penelope shook her head.
+
+"If you do it, I'll think whether I'll marry you."
+
+"Oh," said the soldier, "and if I just can't hit it off with that poet?"
+
+"Then I won't think about it," replied Pen. "I'll never, never consider
+the possibility of marrying any one who isn't leading a useful life, and
+educating himself, and living on less than a thousand a year.  Can you
+do that, too?"
+
+"Dashed if I see how it can be done," said Plantagenet Goby.  "But I'll
+try, oh, yes, I'll try."
+
+"Now you talk to Chloe," said Penelope, and she went away to the rescue
+of the poet.  For Bob had got him in a corner.
+
+[Illustration: CAPTAIN PLANTAGENET GOBY, V.C., LATE OF THE GUARDS. Who
+was ordered to read poetry]
+
+"I say, Mr. de Vere, wasn't that ripping of old Goby to say he'd give me
+a real pedigree bull-pup? He knows a bull-pup from a window-shutter, as
+Baker says.  You don't like them?  No, but you would if you had one.  I
+feed mine myself, and I wear thick gloves, so's not to get hydrophobia
+when he bites.  He's a most interesting dog, and not so good-tempered as
+most bulldogs.  When he sees a cat, oh, my, it's fun!  Look here, when
+Goby gives me the new pup with the pedigree, you can have mine, if you
+like, cheap.  I know you have a place in the country, and you must want
+a bulldog. Will you buy him?"
+
+"Good heavens, no!" said the poet.
+
+"Humph!" cried Bob, who of course had quite forgotten that he was doing
+all this for Goby, and was just enjoying himself.  "Why, what do you do
+in the country without a dog?  Do you ride?"
+
+"No," said De Vere.
+
+"Well, of all--I say, Mr. de Vere, what do you do?  Do you walk about
+and make poetry, and do you like making it?  Old Guth, I mean Mr.
+Guthrie, he's my tutor, and he's over there talking to Mrs. Cadwallader,
+he reads a lot, and some of yours, too."
+
+"Oh, does he!" said De Vere, who began to take some interest.  "Does
+he?"
+
+"Oh, a lot of yours, he says; most of it, I think."
+
+"And does he like it?"
+
+Bob put his head on one side.
+
+"Well, he says it's not bad, some of it."
+
+De Vere flinched at this faint praise.
+
+"Indeed!  And what does he like best?" he asked.
+
+"Oh, the beastliest rot," returned Bob, "Browning and Shelley, and I
+say, do you see that bulge in his pocket?  That's Catullus.  He reads
+him all day.  But here comes Pen.  I say, won't you have my bull-pup?
+I'll let you have him for half a sovereign; I got him for a sovereign,
+at least, Baker did.  _I_ think your poetry's very fine, sir; Mr.
+Guthrie lent me some."
+
+But Penelope came across the lawn, and De Vere forgot Bob and the
+bull-pup, and fell down and worshipped.  And the goddess took hold of
+him, and stripped a lot of his poetry away, and set a few facts before
+him and made him gasp.
+
+"I heard a very strange rumour, Lady Penelope," he said, when he was
+once more standing upright before Aphrodite.  "I heard--oh, but it was
+absurd!  I can't believe it."
+
+"Then it is probably true," said the goddess, breathlessly, "for I mean
+to have my own way and to initiate a reform in marriages, Mr. de Vere. I
+have been reading the accounts of some fashionable weddings lately, and
+they made me ill.  What you have heard is quite true."
+
+The poet shook his head.
+
+"I have had the honour to beg you to believe a thousand times that I am
+devoted to you--"
+
+"Three times, I think," said Pen, who was good at arithmetic.
+
+"Is it only thrice?  But do I understand that, if I were to have the
+inexpressible delight of winning your love, Lady Penelope, that the
+marriage would be a secret one, that no one would know of it?"
+
+"I mean that," said Penelope, enthusiastically. "It is a new departure,
+an assertion of a just individualism, although I am a socialist.  I
+abhor ceremonies, and will not be interfered with.  I have stated with
+the utmost clarity to all my relations that I shall not consult them or
+let them know until I choose, and I shall only get married (if I ever
+do) on these terms."
+
+"I agree to them," said the poet.  "Lady Penelope, will you do me the
+inexpressible honour to be my wife?"
+
+"Oh, dear, no," said Pen.  "Why, certainly not, Mr. de Vere.  I don't
+love any one yet, and perhaps I never shall.  But what I say is this:
+I'll think as to whether I shall marry you if you do as I wish about
+this matter and about others."
+
+"My blessed lady," said the poet, "is there anything I would not dare or
+do?"
+
+"I've told Captain Goby exactly the same thing," said Penelope, thereby
+putting her pretty foot upon the sudden flowers of De Vere's
+imagination, "and what I want of you is to be more an out-of-door man.
+You live too much in rooms, hothouses, Mr. de Vere, and in your own
+garden."
+
+"I was in a garden, I a poet, with one who was (oh, and is) an angel,"
+said De Vere, "but now I dwell in arid deserts, shall I say the Desert
+of Gobi?  What have I to do with him?  Shall he dare to pretend to you,
+dear lady?"
+
+"He's a very good chap," said Pen, quite shortly, "and I think it would
+do you good to associate with him more.  I've told him so, and he
+agrees. I want you to make him read a little, and exercise his
+imagination.  And he can take you out rowing and shooting perhaps, and I
+think a little hunting wouldn't do you harm.  You might ask him to stay
+with you, and he'll ask you.  And I want you to go out in motor-cars."
+
+"Good heavens!" said De Vere.
+
+"I know it will be hard," said Pen, consolingly. "But you know what I
+want.  It's not enough to be rich and write poetry, Mr. de Vere.  I
+think you might read statistics; statistics are a tonic, and I want you
+to be a useful citizen, too.  There are things to be done.  Just look at
+my cousin Bob. Now he'll be a splendid man."
+
+"He wanted to sell me a bull-pup," murmured the poet.
+
+"He's a good boy," said Pen, affectionately, "and his instincts are to
+be trusted.  I think a bulldog would do you good perhaps.  And I shall
+expect to hear you have asked Captain Goby to stay with you.  And don't
+forget the statistics."
+
+"I'll do it," said the unhappy poet, "for while the One Hope I have
+exists, and until 'vain desire at last and vain regret go hand in hand
+to death,' I am your slave."
+
+And, as he went away, he called Bob to him.
+
+"I'll give you half a sovereign for that bulldog," he said, bitterly.
+
+"Oh, I say.  But Baker says he's worth two sovereigns," cried Bob.
+
+"I'll give you two," said the poet.
+
+And Bob danced on the lawn.
+
+
+
+
+                             *CHAPTER IV.*
+
+
+If Penelope had had any sense of humour, she would have deprived the
+round world of much to laugh at in sad times, when laughter was wanted.
+But thanks be to whatever gods there are, some folks have no humour, and
+some have a little, and a few much, and thus the world gets on in spite
+of the spirit of gravity, which, as may be remembered by students of
+philosophy, Nietzsche branded as the enemy.  Pen went ahead, bent on
+cutting her own swath in the hay-field, and she cut a big one.  Goby and
+the poet must stand as exemplars of her clear and childlike method.  It
+was Pen's Short Way with Her Lovers.  She got Rivaulx, who was
+Nationalist and Anti-Semite to his manicured finger-tips, and had been
+mixed up in the Dreyfus case, and set him cheek by jowl with Gordon,
+alias Isaac Levi.
+
+She made them dine together in public, and the poor marquis, being head
+over heels in love with the earnest creature who was so beautiful,
+submitted like a lamb.
+
+"Very well, I will," said Rivaulx.  There were almighty shrieks in the
+Paris press.  The _Journal_ had an article that was wonderful.  The
+affair woke up anti-Semitism again.  Rivaulx had been bought by Jewry;
+France was once more betrayed; the bottom of the world was falling out.
+
+Pen, with no sense of humour, had a native capacity for discovering
+every one's real weakness. As the Frenchman would rather have died than
+dine as he did, so Gordon would almost prefer to die suddenly than to
+run the risk of it.  He had wonderful brains, and was a power in
+finance: he could risk a million when he hadn't it or when he had it as
+coolly as most men can risk a penny on the chance of a slot-machine
+working.  But physically he was timid.  Rivaulx went ballooning.  He
+intended to rival Santos-Dumont.
+
+"You must go with him, Mr. Gordon," said Penelope.  Gordon nearly
+fainted, but Pen was firm, as firm as a rock.  Gordon offered to
+subscribe to all the hospitals in London if she would let him off.  He
+offered to build a small one and endow it; he even suggested that he
+would build a church. But the poor man had to go.  It was now thoroughly
+understood that any man who refused to do exactly what she told him was
+struck off the list.  The comic papers were almost comic about it.  On
+the day that Gordon went up with Rivaulx in an entirely non-dirigible
+balloon, the Crystal Palace grounds were crowded with all the Frenchmen
+and all the Jews in London.  The balloon came down in a turnip-field
+fifteen miles from anywhere, and Gordon got back to London and went to
+bed. He was consoled by a telegram from Penelope, who congratulated him
+on overcoming his natural cowardice, and suggested he should do it
+again.
+
+"I'll give her up first," said Gordon, knowing all the time that he
+could no more do it than give up finance.  He went out and robbed a lot
+of his friends as a compensation for disturbance, and found himself a
+hero.  In about forty-eight hours the sensation of being looked on as a
+man of exceptional grit so pleased him that he adored Penelope more than
+ever.  He was as proud of having been in a balloon as Rivaulx was of
+having dined _tete-a-tete_ with him in the open.
+
+She sent for Rufus Q. Plant, and she introduced him to Lord Bramber.
+Plant was a big American with the common delusion among Americans that
+he had an entirely English accent.  But he hated aristocrats.  Bramber
+had an Oxford accent (Balliol variety), and disliked Americans more than
+getting up in the morning.  He was a fine-looking young fellow with a
+good skull, who did nothing with it.  He had the tendencies of a citizen
+of Sybaris, and got up at noon.  Plant rose at dawn. Bramber loved
+horses and hated motor-cars.  Plant had a manufactory of motors.  Pen
+sent them away together on a little tour, and hinted delicately to Plant
+that his English accent would be improved by a little Oxford polish.
+
+"And as for you, Lord Bramber, when you come back, I hope you will be
+more ready to acknowledge that you don't know everything.  Mr. Plant
+will do you good, and will teach you to drive a motor!"
+
+She had never been so beautiful.  She showed at her best when her
+interest in humanity made her courageous and brutal.  The colour in her
+cheeks was splendid; her eyes were as earnest as the sea.  If Bramber
+choked, he submitted, though he blasphemed awfully when he got alone.
+
+"Go at once," said Penelope.
+
+She paired off Carteret Williams with Jimmy Carew, A.R.A.  Williams knew
+as much about art as a hog does of harmony.  Jimmy thought the war
+correspondent a howling Philistine, as indeed he was, and believed
+anything that could not be painted was a mere by-product of the
+universe.
+
+"You'll do each other good," said Pen, clasping her beautiful hands
+together with enthusiasm. Jimmy wanted to draw her at once.  Williams
+wished for an immediate invasion, so that he could save her life and
+write a flamboyant article about it.
+
+"Show him pictures, Mr. Carew, beginning with Turner and Whistler."
+
+"Make him understand that art isn't everything, Mr. Williams."
+
+She sent them away together, and was wonderfully pleased with herself.
+
+"They are all fine men," she said, thoughtfully, "but it is curious that
+every man I know thinks every other man more or less of a fool or an
+idiot, or a cad.  They are dreadfully one-sided.  When they come back
+they will be much improved.  This is my work in the world, and I don't
+care a bit what people say."
+
+People said lots, though after a bit the fun died down, except among her
+own people.  And even they laughed at last.  At least, every one did but
+Titania, and she had no more sense of humour than Penelope herself.
+Indeed, she had less, for Penelope could understand a joke when it was
+explained to her carefully, and Titania couldn't.  And in after years
+Pen came to see the humourous side of things. She even appreciated a
+joke against herself, which is the crucial test of humour.  But Titania
+died maintaining that life was a serious business, and should be taken
+like medicine.
+
+"I never heard of more insane proceedings," said Titania, "never!  The
+notion of sending that poor Jew up in a balloon with that mad Frenchman!
+Balloons at the best are blasphemous.  And to make Captain Goby read
+with poor little De Vere!  I'm sure there will be murder done before
+she's married.  And now it's an understood thing that she will marry one
+of them.  And Brading laughs!  If he is only her half-brother, I
+consider him responsible.  And Augustin smiles and smokes and smokes and
+smiles.  And Chloe Cadwallader, whom I never approved of and never
+shall, backs her up, of course. One of these days I shall tell Chloe
+Cadwallader what I think of her!"
+
+"I say, granny, what do you think of her?" asked Bob.
+
+"Never mind," said Titania; "there are things that you know nothing of,
+Robert."
+
+"Oh, are there?" said Bob.  "I say, granny, I ain't sure of that.  I've
+been expelled from three schools, and Baker says--"
+
+"Oh, bother Baker," cried his exasperated grandmother.  "I think Mr.
+Guthrie might keep you away from Baker."
+
+"He can't," said Bob, cheerfully.  "Old Guth and I have made a treaty.
+I do what he tells me between ten and twelve, and what I like afterward.
+If we are reading Latin, and the clock strikes twelve, I say, 'Mr.
+Guthrie, don't you think Latin's rot?' and he says, 'Oh, is it twelve?
+I thought it was only eleven!'  I get on with Guth, I tell you."
+
+And he was very thick with Goby, who had given him the pedigree
+bull-pup.  Mr. de Vere now owned the interesting one which had to be fed
+with gloves on, and loathed it with an exceeding hatred only exceeded by
+his hatred for Goby.
+
+"I say, Pen, you go it," said Bob.  "There's heaps of fun in this.  They
+all tip me now like winking."
+
+But Pen did not see the fun.  It was a serious business.  She looked
+after her lovers with the greatest care.  They brought her reports; they
+complained of each other.  She smoothed over difficulties, and explained
+what they were to do.
+
+"How the devil am I to live on a thousand a year!" said Goby.  But he
+tried it and found it quite exciting.  It exercised his self-control
+wonderfully.  He went into the War Office once a week and demanded some
+kind of job, and was put off with all kinds of regulations.  He sent a
+telegram to Penelope the first week, saying that according to his
+accounts he had spent no more than L20. She wired congratulations, and
+received another wire:
+
+
+"Have made a mistake.  Forgot to include a few bills.  Will be more
+careful in future.
+
+"GOBY."
+
+
+Plant said:
+
+"What, a thousand a year!  That's easy.  I can live on thirty shillings
+a week.  My dear Lady Penelope, I've done it on half a dollar a day.
+I'll show you."
+
+He took one room in Bloomsbury, and sent in his bills and accounts to
+her weekly.  She suggested he should find out if his great success in
+the United States had ruined any one in particular, and if so that he
+should compensate them.  This cost him a hundred thousand dollars.
+Almost every other day she got a telegram something like this:
+
+"Have found another person I ruined.  Am cabling five thousand dollars
+to widow and orphans. Man is dead."
+
+Or,--
+
+"Another find.  Man said to be a lunatic, but perfectly sane except on
+point of Trusts.  Have cabled for his transfer to more comfortable
+asylum."
+
+Or,--
+
+"Widow refuses money with insults.  Have settled it on daughter, and
+have given son job."
+
+Or,--
+
+"Man in question has given amount cabled to Republicans of New York.
+Has recovered and has started a Trust himself."
+
+This was very satisfactory.  Penelope saw she was doing good.  In the
+middle of her joy, she received a wire from Goby.
+
+
+"May I stop poetry with De Vere?  Doctor says I am overdoing it.  GOBY."
+
+
+She also received one at the same time from De Vere:
+
+
+"If I could have a week to myself to write satire, should be eternally
+grateful.  Doctor says rowing may be carried to excess.  The bulldog is
+well.
+
+"DE VERE."
+
+
+The Marquis de Rivaulx, after a fortnight with Gordon, asked to be
+allowed to go over to Paris to see his mother.  But he acknowledged that
+Gordon was not a bad chap, though he was as white as a sheet in the
+balloon.
+
+"And he told me, my dear lady, what to buy. He knows very well what to
+buy and what to sell. He is immensely clevair, oh, yes.  And may I go
+and see _maman_?"
+
+She let him go, but not before he promised to take no part in any
+further anti-Semitic proceedings.  She told Gordon not to brag so much
+of having been in a balloon.
+
+"You know you were afraid," she said.  "The marquis said you were."
+
+"Of course I was," said Gordon, "but I went, didn't I?"
+
+That was unanswerable.
+
+She had an "at home" once a week.  It was understood that no one but her
+own relatives and members of the horde were to call on that day. She
+then issued any directions that she thought of during the week.
+Bradstock was now openly and recklessly on her side.
+
+"I believe you're doing good, real good," said Augustin.  "I'm proud of
+you.  Don't mind my laughing, Pen.  Oh, but you are wonderful."
+
+He gave her advice.
+
+"Kick young Bramber into public life," he said. "He's got brains."
+
+"Lord Bramber," said Pen, "you are to go into Parliament at once.  Speak
+to Lord Bradstock about it, and I'll talk to Mrs. Mytton on your behalf.
+I expect you to be an Under-Secretary of State at once."
+
+"Damn!  this is worse than Plant," said the obedient Bramber.
+Nevertheless, he owned that Plant was a man, and a real good sort.
+
+"I go to see him, Lady Penelope, in his room in Bloomsbury.  He's living
+on about half a crown a day.  I--oh--yes, I'm coming down to the
+thousand by degrees.  And of course if you want me to go into the House,
+I'll go."
+
+Carteret Williams was there, and was put through his paces by Pen about
+art.  He had learnt something about it by rote.
+
+"The Academy is composed of painters," he said, mechanically, "but there
+are few artists in it. I quite agree with Carew, who had his pictures
+chucked before they made him an associate through fear.  Turner is a
+very great artist.  He shows how near the sublime can get to the
+ridiculous.  Whistler is also great.  He shows how near the ridiculous
+can go to the sublime.  Art is a combination of the material and the
+spiritual.  So Carew says.  He showed me a lot of Blake, and he says
+that the beauty of Blake is that you can't understand him by any
+ordinary means, such as the intellect.  I'm not up to Blake yet.  The
+old masters are very fine. I admit it.  Velasquez is dry, but wonderful.
+Rembrandt appeals to me because he is very dark; I think he would be
+better if he were darker.  We go to the National Gallery every day, and
+then I take him to the Press Club, where he hears about real life."
+
+When Carew came, he owned that Williams wasn't a bad sort.
+
+"And he's doing his level best to understand," said Carew, with
+enthusiasm.  "He stands before a picture of mine every day for an hour
+while I explain it.  He sees something in it at last.  And he's reading
+about art, and is beginning to see why a photograph isn't the last word
+of things.  He's led a wonderful life, Lady Penelope, and when he gets
+on what he's seen and done, I feel almost ashamed to live as I do."
+
+"That's right," said Pen; "every artist should. And every man who is not
+an artist should be sorry that he is not.  We are far from perfect yet."
+
+How beautiful she looked, thought Carew.
+
+"She lives in the world of the ideal, and so do I."
+
+"I am very much pleased with everything," said Pen at large to the
+assembly, and De Vere, who was having a holiday for his satire, was
+pleased too.  And Goby was delighted at being let off poetry for awhile.
+
+"Not but what there's something in it, I admit," said Goby, critically.
+"Robert Lindsay Gordon is a fair snorter at it.  I can't say I'm up to
+Shelley yet.  De Vere read me the Epi-something-or-other."
+
+"'Epipsychidion,'" said Pen.
+
+"That's it, a regular water-jump of a word," said Goby, "and he took it
+in his stride, while I boggled on the bank.  However, I'm coming up hand
+over hand with him.  I'm reading Keats with him.  He's all right when
+you get to know him, Lady Penelope, and rowing's doing him no end of
+good.  He's a well-made little chap, and getting some good muscle.  If
+I'm not dead by the time I can take the Epi-what's-his-name, I'll make a
+man of him."
+
+Rivaulx, who had come in with Gordon on his return from seeing his
+mother in Paris, was very proud of himself.
+
+"A year ago I should not have had the courage to show myself with a
+Jew," said Rivaulx, triumphantly.  "Lady, dear lady, I thought I should
+have died when I asked him to dinner.  But now I like him.  He is
+wonderful.  When he says 'buy,' I buy, and heigh, presto! the shares go
+up like my balloon.  And when he says 'sell,' I sell, and they go down
+like a barometer when you go up. Oh, yes, and all your aristocracy
+admire him.  I saw seven great lords with him the other day, and they
+said: 'What company am I to be a director of, Gordon?' and he said he'd
+ask his clerk.  But I have refused to be a director.  I should not like
+_maman_ to know I know him.  She is very dreadful against Jews, owing to
+the _affaire_ in France."
+
+And that was the celebrated afternoon that Penelope, who found that she
+was doing good in every way to all mankind by obliterating all class and
+professional jealousies, raised passion and curiosity to its highest
+point by saying, with the sweetest blush:
+
+"Very well, then, I promise to marry one of you!"
+
+
+
+
+                              *CHAPTER V.*
+
+
+Penelope was the swan, and all her relations were the ducks.  The noise
+they made was simply unendurable.  For, besides Titania, she had cousins
+and other aunts, or people who were in the position of aunts, and she
+had friends who had been friends of her mother, and they came down on
+her like the Assyrian.  They objected to publicity, especially for other
+people, and for a young woman to become a public character was something
+worse than immorality.  Nothing but Penelope's entire singleness of
+character and her humourous want of humour enabled her to meet and
+overcome them. And even she felt at times that flight was the only thing
+left.  She sent to her solicitor for a list of all the houses and
+mansions and castles that she owned, and she took her motor-car and her
+pet chauffeur, and, having borrowed Bob from his grandmother, she set
+off on a tour.  She disappeared for a week at a time.  Then she
+disappeared for two weeks.  She was even lost for a month.
+
+"She ought to be in an asylum," said Titania, "and I have to let Bob go
+with her.  He is some kind of a safeguard.  How do I know she isn't
+married already?  Bob, dear Bob, has ceased to confide in me.  When I
+interrogate him, he puts me off.  I get nothing out of him.  The only
+thing that I can congratulate myself on is that now, instead of 'Baker
+says,' it is 'Pen says.'  And I doubt, I own I doubt, and I cannot help
+it, whether Bob is not being done serious harm to, considering that he
+will one day be a duke.  A duke should be brought up properly.  Goring
+was brought up badly, I deeply regret to say.  He laughs at Penelope's
+behaviour, and says girls will be girls.  I say they will be women, and
+he says, 'Thank the Lord,' and I don't know what he means.  But, as I
+say, this wretched girl may be married by now.  It is already months
+since she said, in my hearing, to a whole crowd of men, 'I promise to
+marry one of you!'  Was there ever an aunt in a more unfortunate
+position?  I feel as if I should become a lunatic.  Augustin, do you
+hear me, I am rapidly becoming insane."
+
+"Oh, ah," said Augustin, who always knew more about Pen's actions than
+any one else.  She wrote to him from a hundred places.
+
+"Keep your eye upon Mr. Gordon," she said. "And what are people saying
+about Lord Bramber's speech?  I shall be up in town in time to see Mr.
+Carew's new picture.  I got a letter from Mr. de Vere, saying that
+Captain Goby was learning Wordsworth's ode on the 'Intimations of
+Immortality in Childhood' by heart.  Mr. de Vere says he is doing what I
+told him, and is keeping his eye on Mr. Roosevelt.  I told him to model
+himself on the President of the United States.  He says he rows and has
+bought a Sandow exerciser, and he says it does not make him so tired
+now. Mr. Williams told me when I was last in town that he was thinking
+of writing a guide to Dulwich Gallery if war didn't break out.  I am
+afraid he hopes it will.  Mr. Plant's last weekly accounts were only
+10*s*. 6*d*.  I advised him to see a doctor if he thought it was doing
+him harm.  The marquis has written a very good article in the _Revue des
+Deux Mondes_ against anti-Semitism.  I am greatly pleased with this.  I
+hope Mr. Carew's picture is intelligible. I told him it was no absolute
+sign of genius to be entirely incomprehensible.  He took it very well. I
+think Mr. Williams will have a good effect on him.  I have visited ten
+mansions, seven castles (two with moats; mother used to love moats,
+because there are none in America), and several other houses of mine.
+Most need repairs.  I shall be home next week.  Tell aunt that Bob is
+very well and brown, and is learning to drive my car at full speed down
+a narrow road with sharp turns in it. Smith says he will be the best
+driver in England when he is grown up, if he goes on and doesn't have
+his nerve broken up early by an accident.  But I think his nerve is
+good, though I can't always tell, as I shut my eyes when we go very
+fast. Good-bye now, dear Guardy.
+
+"Your loving
+       "PENELOPE.
+
+"P. S. I am sure I am doing good!"
+
+
+Bob was very sure of it, too.
+
+"I say, Pen, old Guth will be lonely, won't he? But he's all right if he
+has a bally Catullus in his pocket, and he draws his screw just the
+same. Granny is very decent to him, take it all around. And I like him
+because he likes dogs.  I must wire to Baker to hear how 'Captain' is
+getting on.  I called him Captain because old Goby gave him to me.  I
+say, Pen, don't you think Smith is a ripping good driver?  He says that
+he'll be my chauffeur when I'm a duke, if you don't want him.  He says
+him and me'll win every bally race.  I'd like to do that.  I begin to
+think horse-racing is rot.  You see three or four people can't ride a
+race-horse, and the responsibility of driving you fast when the road's
+crooked is the fun.  Every time I miss a cart, Pen, I feel as happy as
+if I'd hit Rhodes for four every time he sent a ball down to me.  That
+would be fun.  Baker says--no, I mean Smith says that all other sports
+are rot of the worst kind. He says if he's ever rich, he'll go through
+the city every day as fast as he can.  He hates the police, and some of
+them hate him.  He rode over a sergeant in the Kingston Road once, but
+he didn't hurt him much.  When shall we leave this castle and go to
+another one?  I hope the next is a long way off.  Smith says he wants a
+good road to show what she'll do when she's out to the last notch. And
+it must be down-hill."
+
+And in town, while Pen was going about the country, people's tongues ran
+as fast as any motorcar.
+
+"It is nonsense," said one; "she's married already."
+
+"I know she's not.  I paid a shilling and looked it up at Somerset
+House."
+
+"That's nothing," said a barrister.  "They could have been married under
+wrong names."
+
+"That wouldn't be legal."
+
+"Yes, it would.  It's only illegal if a false name is used and one of
+the parties doesn't know.  Then the one who is deceived can get a
+declaration of nullity," said the barrister.
+
+"Oh, well, but who is it?"
+
+"It's no one.  I don't believe she'll marry at all."
+
+"She's a crank."
+
+"It's madness.  I hear the Duchess of Goring has taken to her bed."
+
+"Well, Goring hasn't.  I saw him at the Frivolity."
+
+"Who is it now?"
+
+"I don't know her name.  But where's Lady Penelope?"
+
+No one knew but Bradstock, and even Augustin was behind by a post or
+two.  None of the "horde" knew, and they began to get suspicious of each
+other.  Goby watched De Vere, and De Vere kept his eye on Goby.  It was
+obvious from the newspapers that Bramber was in the House.  Gordon was
+seen at his Club.  And then Carteret Williams was missing.  Carew hunted
+for him in vain at the Press Club and at the office of the _Morning
+Hour_.  There was no war yet, though there were rumours of it in the
+Balkans as usual.
+
+It got about that she had married Williams, though he had only run away
+from Carew for a week.
+
+"The very worst of the lot," wailed Titania. "I knew it would be
+Williams.  He's hardly a gentleman, though he comes of a good family.
+Being a war correspondent makes a man brutal. I knew, I knew, I knew it
+was Williams, and now I shall never speak to her; and he will beat her
+in time, I know it, and there will be a horrible scandal; and what, oh,
+what can she have done with Bob? Augustin, go at once and find where Bob
+is.  I knew it would be Williams!  Didn't I always say it would be
+Williams?  I could have forgiven her any one else."
+
+Gordon came to ask Bradstock if it was true. And Bradstock had a sense
+of humour, if Pen had none.
+
+"My dear sir," he said, "how can I tell?  She liked him very much, took
+a great interest in him. She told me he was writing a guide to the art
+of Dulwich Gallery.  Do you think that a bad sign?"
+
+Gordon groaned.
+
+"It looks bad, Lord Bradstock.  But I don't believe she takes much
+interest in him.  She takes an interest in me, my lord!  Why, I went up
+in a balloon all on her account.  I went with that madman, the French
+marquis, and as sure as my name's Le--  I mean Gordon, there's not
+another woman in the world I'd have done it for.  Don't you think that
+going up in a balloon, when you'd rather die than do it, ought to touch
+a woman's heart?  I give you my word that she as good as said, 'Go up in
+a balloon and I'll--' well, or words to that effect.  I tell you what,
+Lord Bradstock, I know you ain't a rich man, not a very rich one, that
+is, but, if you'll be on my side, I'll put you on to a good thing, the
+best thing in the market.  It's going up like--oh, like a beastly
+balloon, sir,--my lord, I mean.  I'm making it go up, and I'll tell you
+when to sell.  Oh, Lord, I'm very unhappy, my lord.  I love the ground
+she walks on.  I'd like to buy it at the price of a city frontage.  Come
+in with me, my lord, and you shall have a tip that half a dozen dukes
+are dying for.  There's a room full of bally dukes waiting to see me
+now, and I gave them the slip.  Will you come in with me?  Do, do!"
+
+He was a lamentable object, and there was a spot upon his hat which did
+not shine.  He worked at it eagerly with his sleeve, and stood waiting
+for a reply.
+
+"I don't mind telling you," said Bradstock, "that my income is only five
+thousand a year."
+
+"Poor beggar!" murmured Gordon.
+
+"But I only spend four.  And if I had more what could I do with it?"
+
+"Give it me," said Gordon, eagerly, "and I'll make more of it for you.
+Man alive,--my lord, I mean--I can make it millions."
+
+There was a faint suspicion of the "millionth" in the word.
+
+"I can make it millionth," said Gordon.  "I've put a pound or two into
+that Frenchman's pocket, I can tell you, though he did take me up in a
+balloon, and I'll put fifty for one into yourth, so help me."
+
+"I don't want it."
+
+"Well, you can give it away," shrieked Gordon. "They'll make you a duke
+if you only give away enough.  If there wathn't a faint thuspithion of
+Jewish blood in me, I'd be a baron now at leathth. Give it away to
+hospithalths, build a lunatic asylum, finanth your party.  And if that
+don't thucktheed, go into beer or biscuits, and you'll be made anything
+you like."
+
+"If they would make me thirty, I'd do it," said Bradstock.
+
+"Thirty dukes?" asked Gordon, in bewilderment.
+
+"Thirty years old," said Bradstock.
+
+[Illustration: LEOPOLD NORFOLK GORDON. Some said his real name was Isaac
+Levi]
+
+Gordon advanced on him and took him by a button.
+
+"My lord," he said, solemnly, "money ith youth and strength and
+everything except Lady Penelope. If you had a million, you'd feel
+twenty-five.  When I had a measly hundred thousand, I was thin and
+always going to doctors.  When I got two, I got fatter and gave 'em up.
+Now I'm worth two millionth."
+
+But Bradstock said, brutally: "No, Mr. Gordon, I don't want money, and I
+don't want you to marry Lady Penelope.  If I had a million, I'd rather
+lose it than see her do so."
+
+"Did you tell her that?" asked Gordon.
+
+"I did."
+
+"I'm damned glad," said Gordon.  "If you want a cat to go one way, pull
+its tail the other."
+
+"Tut, tut," said Bradstock, and Gordon went away sorrowfully, for he had
+great riches, and saw no good in them without Pen.
+
+Bradstock had to interview all the lovers one after one.  They came to
+implore his vote and interest.  He saw Rivaulx, whose great desire was
+to look like an Englishman and act like one. Rivaulx adopted a stony
+calm, which sat upon him like a title on a Jew, but did not stick so
+tight. He ended a talk which began most conventionally in a wild and
+impassioned waltz around Bradstock's room, with despair for a partner.
+He tore at his hair, but, having had it clipped till it was like a
+shaved blacking-brush, he could not get hold of it.
+
+"I must wed her," he howled.  "I told _maman_ so, or I shall perish.  I
+will become an Englishman. _Mon Dieu_, I am sad.  I am fearfully
+mournful.  I weep exceedingly.  Have I not done all?  I have eaten
+largely in public with Mr. Gordon.  I have bought his shares and have
+sold them, but in my heart I cannot.  When I return to Paris, I shall
+fight duels because I have written for Dreyfus with tears in my eye and
+my tongue in my cheek for sorrow.  Where is she, Lord Bradstock?  Tell
+me where she is?  I will go to her and say I have done all and can no
+more!"
+
+De Vere tackled him, too.
+
+"My dear chap," said Bradstock, "I don't know her mind."
+
+"She knows her own," said De Vere, with much bitterness, "and so does
+that boy Bob.  I bought a bulldog of him, because she said she thought
+one would do me good.  I don't know why, and now Bob sells me dogs by
+telegram, and I daren't refuse 'em."
+
+"Great Scott!" said his host; "but why?"
+
+"That young ruffian has an influence over her," mourned the poet.  "He
+is always with her.  He is capable of saying I am a 'rotter'; yes, a
+rotter, a dozen times a day if I refuse, and to have him doing that
+would be more than I can endure.  I want her to love me, and so I buy
+his dogs.  I have a bulldog which hasn't done me any good.  All he has
+done is to tear my trousers and trample over my flower-beds.  I have an
+Irish terrier who is now being cured of bulldog bites by a veterinary
+surgeon.  I've a retriever who howls at night and makes the bulldog
+unhappy.  I have a Borzois with bronchitis and no hair on his tail.  Bob
+wrote to say the hair would grow if I put hair-wash on it myself.  He
+said men couldn't be trusted to do it. And then I've Goby on my hands.
+I speak in confidence, Lord Bradstock."
+
+"Of course," said Bradstock.
+
+"Then I own I loathe Goby," said De Vere, viciously.  "He has less
+brains than my bulldog, and I think the bulldog has less brains than the
+retriever.  He reads poetry because she said he was to, and he makes me
+explain mine to him.  Explain it!  And he makes me row every day he's
+with me, and he says I'm not imitating Roosevelt if I don't. She said I
+was to imitate Roosevelt.  Why should I?  I loathe Republicans.  She
+also told me I was to imitate Sven Hedin.  On inquiry I found Sven Hedin
+was an ass who explored deserts, and went without water for many days.
+Goby can do that, as my wine-cellar can testify.  He says he only tastes
+water when he cleans his teeth, and then it makes him sick.  And, though
+I keep wine for my friends, I am a water-drinker.  How can I do without
+it?  I am very unhappy."
+
+"I should chuck Goby and give it up," said Bradstock.
+
+"I wish I could," said the poet, "but my nature is an enduring one.  We
+learn in suffering Gobies and bulldogs what we teach in song.  A dog may
+be the friend of man, but a bulldog is a tailor's enemy.  And I believe
+they gave Goby the V.C. to get rid of him.  Do they ever give
+decorations to get rid of people?"
+
+Bradstock said he thought so, and wondered what he could give De Vere.
+
+And then the poet sighed and rose.
+
+"I have to meet Goby and lunch with him.  And afterward we read Shelley
+together, and then he will teach me billiards at his club.  I loathe
+billiards. It is the most foolish game on earth except keeping bulldogs.
+And Goby's friends are not sympathetic. They are sportsmen, and ought to
+be hunted with bulldogs."
+
+He went away sadly, and Bradstock lay on a sofa and laughed till he
+cried.
+
+"Pen will be my death and the death of a dozen," he said.  "And as for
+Bob--"
+
+No sooner had De Vere departed than young Bramber was announced.
+
+"Conceited young ass," said Bradstock.  But Bramber was in the House,
+and was supposed to be doing very well.  He had brains, no doubt, and
+the manner of Oxford (Balliol variety, as aforesaid) sat on him well.
+He made speeches, and Mr. Mytton congratulated him on one of them.
+Nothing but his passion for Penelope prevented him being as conceited as
+Bradstock supposed him to be.  But it must be remembered that Bradstock
+couldn't make speeches.
+
+"I thought I'd come and look you up," said Bramber.  "I thought you
+could tell me something about Lady Penelope."
+
+"I can't," replied Bradstock.  "I spend all my afternoons in saying so.
+I've had Rivaulx and Austin de Vere and Gordon here already, and after
+you go I don't doubt that Goby or Plant will turn up.  How do you get on
+with Plant?  Do you know, Bramber, I believe Plant is the best man of
+the lot of you."
+
+Bramber frowned.
+
+"He has an accent that can be cut into slabs, to use his own dialect,"
+said Bramber.
+
+"Your own accent is equally disagreeable to an American," said
+Bradstock, who had been in the United States several times.
+
+"I have no accent," said Bramber, haughtily.
+
+"Oh," returned Bradstock.  "And how do you get along with Plant?"
+
+Bramber was obviously more jealous of Plant than any one.  But he made a
+tremendous effort to be fair.
+
+"He's a very able man," he said at last, "but there's no man I should
+find it so hard to get on with.  He says just what he thinks in the most
+awful way.  And because Lady Penelope said he was not to spend more than
+twenty-five pounds a week, he is living on ten shillings out of bravado.
+I hate bravado.  He made me dine with him in Soho, and our dinners came
+to elevenpence each. Where is Lady Penelope?"
+
+"I don't know," said Bradstock.
+
+"I didn't see Plant yesterday," said Bramber, uneasily.
+
+"The devil!"
+
+"You don't think?"
+
+"I don't know what to think," said Bradstock, wickedly.  "I hear that
+Jimmy Carew hasn't been seen for days, either."
+
+Bramber fidgeted on his chair.
+
+"She _can't_ marry Carew.  He's a thorough outsider."
+
+"Women don't understand the word, my dear chap.  How are you getting on
+in the House?  And have you been motoring with Plant?"
+
+"Yes," said Bramber; "we killed three fowls and a dog yesterday.  And
+Plant was fined ten pounds a week ago.  He said he would wire to Lady
+Penelope to know if that was business expenses.  I believe he wants to
+break my neck."
+
+"I shouldn't be surprised," said Bradstock. "Has he gone out alone
+to-day, do you think?  I suppose you know Penelope is doing a lot of it
+now?"
+
+"The devil she is!" said Bramber.  "I think I'll go and look up Plant."
+
+Bradstock got some amusement out of the situation, if Titania didn't.
+
+
+
+
+                             *CHAPTER VI.*
+
+
+Penelope came back to town about a week later and saw every one.
+
+"I wonder whom I love," said Pen, "for I'm sure I love some one.  And
+they are all so kind and sweet and good.  I'm sorry I shall have to hurt
+so many of them, for the poor dears all adore me."
+
+It was marvellous how they had developed in a short time under Pen's
+system, which was evidently sound, as Bradstock declared.  Plant, under
+his ten-and-sixpence-a-week scheme, had lost a stone weight, and was as
+hard and fine as a coil of wire. His search after the people he had
+ruined gave him a peace of mind to which he had long been a stranger,
+for American millionaires in business have no peace of mind.
+
+"I feel good," said Plant, meaning it both ways, "and my endurance of
+young Bramber has stiffened my moral fibre."
+
+"Whether I marry you or not, Mr. Plant," said Penelope, "I am awfully
+pleased with you.  And how has Lord Bramber behaved?"
+
+"He's been death on what he called my accent," said Plant, a little
+bitterly, "and it is notorious I've none to speak of; and, for that
+matter, his own you could cut with a knife.  However, I think he's a
+good boy, and will discover he has brains.  I've talked to him straight,
+Lady Penelope.  I told him you meant me to.  I said he might be a lord
+and the son of an earl, but that he was a lazy, loafing scallawag, and
+that, if he'd been my son, I'd have cowhided him.  That did him good; it
+made him sit up, I tell you.  Oh, he fairly fizzled and felt like going
+for me, but he knew better.  He has brains, and I've talked with members
+of your legislature who say he'll do well.  Put this down to me, Lady
+Penelope.  Credit me with this.  I've looked after him like a baby, and
+I've hustled him around in my motor till he can't help going when he's
+out of it.  You and me together, my dear young lady, could educate the
+entire universe.  If you'll only marry me, I'll start a university on
+these lines of yours."
+
+The idea was a pleasing one, but of course Pen pointed out to him that
+it was his duty to do it whether she married him or not.
+
+"Duty is duty," said Pen.  "I'm doing all this out of a sense of duty."
+
+"Don't marry out of a sense of it," retorted Plant.  "I just want to be
+loved.  I'm going around feeling I want to be loved.  I've never been
+loved properly all my life, and I begin to hanker after it wildly.  And,
+if you do marry me, Lady Penelope, I want you to understand right here
+and now that I don't want you to do your duty by me.  If you begin to do
+that, I'll take a Colt's forty-five and scatter my brains out.  I want
+love, that's what I want.  I want it straight, without water in it."
+
+"I see what you mean," said Penelope.  "I think you are a very
+noble-hearted man, Mr. Plant."
+
+And away went poor Plant to draw up a scheme for a university.
+
+"I think I could almost love him," said the pensive Penelope.  "I
+could--almost--"
+
+Her contemplations were interrupted by Captain Goby.  He was a little
+paler than usual, and perhaps a trifle more intelligent.  And he was
+more in love than ever.
+
+"I've done everything you told me," he said, as he sat down and eyed her
+wistfully.  "I've gone into poetry like a bull at a hedge, Lady
+Penelope. I begin to see what it means.  Old Austin (poor old josser)
+has taken the deuce's own pains over me.  He's read 'The Lady of the
+Garden' to me seventeen times.  He wrote it ten years ago.  He says he
+wonders how he did it, and so do I.  I've been trying to write poetry to
+you, do you know. That showed me there must be some special gift in it,
+for I never did anything worth the horrid trouble. And I've been
+worrying the War Office like a bulldog.  They say they'll think of me,
+and haven't gone any further, and talking of bulldogs, Bob's bulldog bit
+Austin de Vere, and he swore like a man.  I was surprised.  But if I
+were you, I'd tell Bob to stop sending him more dogs.  He's very kind to
+them, but they worry him.  Bob's prices are very high, too.  How is Bob?
+Oh, by the way, I'm living on ten pounds a week.  Need I reckon tailor's
+bills in, do you think?  Oh, yes, this bulge is the Golden Treasury.  I
+take it out and read a lyric between meals.  The chaps at the Rag chaff
+me like blazes, but I don't mind so long as I improve.  I want to
+improve so as to be worthy of your intellect, Lady Penelope."
+
+"The poor dear," said Pen, when he was gone, "I think I could almost
+love him!"
+
+As luck would have it, Bob and Austin de Vere came in almost at the same
+minute.  For now Titania couldn't keep Bob away.  For the matter of
+that, she did not want to.  Bob was to be Penelope's safeguard.  He was
+much better than Chloe Cadwallader, said Titania.
+
+However, De Vere came in first.  He held Penelope's hand no longer than
+a poet should, as poets naturally hold girls' hands rather longer than
+other people.
+
+"You are looking really well, Mr. de Vere," said Penelope, when she was
+free.
+
+"I am well," said the poet, "exceedingly well in a way.  My dear lady of
+the beautiful garden, I owe all that to you.  At first I was afraid of
+Captain Goby.  I told Lord Bradstock so the other day.  I'm afraid I
+left him under a false impression as to my feelings to Goby, by the way.
+I'm quite proud of Goby.  He says I am really a powerful man, and he
+made me row till I was worn out. And then he insisted that I should use
+Sandow's exerciser.  I own I did it with reluctance.  I pointed out to
+Goby that I did not wish to look like Mr. Sandow.  Goby always stopped
+by the posters in which Mr. Sandow is lifting ten tons or so, and
+pointed out certain muscles to me as ideals.  I was recalcitrant, for,
+although I admire Mr. Sandow immensely, I think muscle can be overdone.
+However, I used the machine, which is ingenious and elastic, and only
+dangerous if the hook comes out of the wall, and I've found I rather
+like it.  I should miss it now.  I think it imparts a certain vigour to
+verse, if not overdone.  Oh--"
+
+For in came Bob.  He rushed at Pen and kissed her hair, and then bounced
+at the poet.
+
+"I say is it true the bulldog bit you?  I saw Goby yesterday in the
+park, and he said so," asked Bob, in great excitement.
+
+"It is true," said the poet.
+
+Penelope shook her head at the late owner of the dog.
+
+"Oh, Bob!  Mr. de Vere, I'm very sorry."
+
+"So was I," said De Vere.
+
+"Where did he bite you?" asked Bob, anxiously. "Was it the arm or the
+leg?  And did he hang on like a proper bulldog?  Baker says that if a
+bulldog once gets hold, you have to use a red-hot poker to make him let
+go.  Did you use a red-hot poker?"
+
+"He only snapped and fetched blood," said De Vere.
+
+"Ah!" cried Bob, "I always thought he wasn't a real good bulldog."
+
+"At any rate, he bit the Irish terrier," said the poet.  "I mean the one
+you sold to me for three pounds."
+
+"I'm glad he did, sir.  That Irish terrier, though he's splendidly bred,
+Baker says, has an awful temper and is very troublesome.  Does Rollo,
+the retriever, howl much at night, sir?"
+
+"Oh, not so very much," said De Vere.  "It's only when the moon is near
+the full that he does his best."
+
+"I never thought of that," said Bob, "but now I remember that it was
+very moony when I sent him over to you.  Baker said you'd like him.  His
+kennel is next to Baker's house."
+
+"I'm much obliged to Baker," said De Vere. "But the tail of the Borzois
+is still bald, Bob."
+
+Bob opened his eyes wide.
+
+"Oh, dear, I thought you would have cured him by now; and how about his
+bronchitis?"
+
+"That's better, I hope and trust," said the poet. And Penelope, who was
+very greatly touched by his kindness to all these dogs, sent Bob into
+the library.
+
+"It's so good of you to be kind to Bob," she said.  "Bob's a dear, and
+he adores me.  He says that he's going to live with me always, even when
+I'm married."
+
+[Illustration: AUSTIN DE VERE. He wrote poetry, and abhorred bulldogs
+and motor-cars]
+
+"Oh!" gasped De Vere.  "We were talking about Goby, I think, when dear
+Bob came in.  You'll find him much improved, I'm sure, my dear Lady
+Penelope.  He has read a great deal of Shelley and Keats and Browning
+with me.  He was especially struck with 'Sordello.'  I read it to him
+and he sat with his hand to his forehead taking it all in.  And every
+now and again he said, 'Great Scott!' which is his way of expressing
+wonderment and admiration.  I do not know its origin.  I've written to
+Doctor Murray to ask him if he knows. And Goby, oh, yes, you'll find him
+improved.  I've done my best with him, and I've really struggled hard.
+Any improvement you notice is, I really believe, under you and
+Providence, due to me."
+
+And when he went, Penelope sat thinking.
+
+"The poor dear, how nicely he took the bulldog bites and the howling of
+the retriever.  I think--I think I could almost love him!"
+
+And that afternoon and evening she saw Bramber and Carteret Williams and
+Jimmy Carew and Gordon, and they were all most marvellously improved.
+Bramber was alert and bright, and began to show that he had some
+ambition in him, and, if he did not tell Penelope his exact mind about
+Plant, he did show some little appreciation of the American's qualities.
+
+"Associating with him has done you good," said Pen.  "I see it has.  You
+lived far too much for yourself, Lord Bramber.  I cannot endure
+selfishness."
+
+"I'm not selfish any more, I think," said Bramber. "I rather like Plant.
+He seems a man, take him all around.  He is abrupt, perhaps, and brutal.
+I own I've found him trying, and he says things one finds it hard to
+forgive."
+
+"Yes, he told me," said Pen, delightedly.  "Oh, he told me he said you
+ought to be beaten severely, and he said you took it very nicely.  Did
+you?"
+
+Bramber bit his lip.
+
+"I did."
+
+"That's right," said Pen.  "Oh, I'm improving you all so much.  You've
+no idea how much improved you are.  Mr. Mytton said he'd make something
+out of you, Lord Bramber."
+
+"Did he really?"
+
+"Oh, yes.  He said he made fair successes out of very much worse
+material.
+
+"He's quite a dear," she sighed, when he was gone, but, before she could
+add that she might almost love him, Carew and Williams came in together.
+And before she could greet them, Gordon came, too.  Williams eyed him
+with strange ferocity, for he was by nature a hater of Hebrews, and
+wanted to dust the floor with him.  Pen, who was as quick as lightning,
+caught his glances and said to him, sweetly:
+
+"I think you would get on nicely with Mr. Gordon."
+
+And Williams blenched visibly.
+
+"Oh, I couldn't leave Carew," he said.  "I'm deep in art, very deep; I
+adore it.  Carew has introduced me to several Academicians, and I have
+bought a box of paints.  One Academician took me home with him and
+showed me his pictures. He doesn't agree with Jimmy altogether, and he
+says Jimmy will alter his opinions presently.  His idea is that when a
+man is an A.R.A., he is only beginning, you see.  He also explained to
+me the attitude of the R.A. with regard to the Chantrey Bequest.  He
+says that if they found a good picture not by an Academician, they would
+buy it, which is interesting, isn't it?  He was painting a picture
+called 'War,' and wanted my opinion.  I said I'd ask Jimmy, because I
+didn't know anything about war except what I'd seen.  I don't know why
+he was chuffy about it.  I find artists get chuffy and huffy very quick,
+and I don't know what for. Do you think there will be war soon?"
+
+Penelope didn't know, and said she wanted eternal peace and happiness
+for every one, and meant having it if it could be got by any legitimate
+influence.
+
+"War is horrible!"
+
+"It is," said Carew, who joined in just here, after getting away from
+Gordon, who told him to buy Hittites at 3-1/8.  "War is horrid.
+Williams is always talking of it."
+
+"I'm not," said Williams, angrily.  "I want peace, eternal peace and
+happiness for every one."
+
+"Ah, so do I," put in Gordon.  "My idea is to have a peaceful life, far
+from the roar of London, in a deep green vale, where I shall hear no one
+talking of shares, and where mines are unknown, and there are no Chinese
+or crushing reports.  Why is it that most reports from mines are
+crushing? I wish I knew."
+
+"Ah, how sweet it would all be," said beautiful Penelope.  "You could
+keep cows, Mr. Gordon."
+
+"I adore them," said Gordon.  "There is a breed without horns, isn't
+there?"
+
+"They look incomplete," said Jimmy.
+
+"What are you painting now?" asked Pen.
+
+"I'm not really painting, I'm modelling in clay, as you told me," said
+the obsequious lover.  "Don't you remember saying I was to model in
+clay?  I'm doing Williams in clay.  He looks very well in it. I'm also
+doing a bull going at a gate.  When I get tired of Williams, I do the
+bull, and when I'm fatigued by the bull I go back to Williams."
+
+"And are they like?" asked Penelope.
+
+"Oh, exactly," replied Carew.
+
+And the interesting conversation was interrupted by Chloe and Ethel.
+But Penelope said to herself that they were all dears.
+
+"Mr. Williams is greatly improved," she murmured happily.  "And Mr.
+Carew looks more healthy and less engrossed in himself.  I was awfully
+glad to hear Mr. Gordon speak like that about a peaceful life."
+
+And Williams slipped Carew on the door-step and went to his club.  He
+roared of war till two o'clock in the morning, and then got three
+out-of-work war correspondents in the corner and told them the great
+story of his love.  But Jimmy went down to Chelsea, and damned modelling
+in clay to other impressionist painters, and had a real good time.  As
+for Gordon of the "deep green vale," he went home and found a clerk
+waiting with a bundle of cables from all quarters of the mining globe.
+He sent a wire to Bramber to be let off an engagement to hear a debate
+on drains.
+
+On the whole, every one was tolerably happy, if we do not include
+Titania and the retriever who howled at nights.
+
+
+
+
+                             *CHAPTER VII.*
+
+
+It is possible that Penelope never enjoyed herself so much as she did at
+this period.  She was so busy that she had no time to worry; her team
+took all her time.  She was young, she was beautiful, she was adored,
+she was popular, she was even notorious.  A dozen reporters dogged her
+footsteps, and when they lost her they followed her lovers.  They
+haunted her door-step armed with kodaks; they invented paragraphs; they
+hunted her men and her maids.  They made love to the girls, and seduced
+the men into neighbouring bars.  One newspaper man, who belonged to the
+_Mayfair Daily_, got into her establishment as a footman, and was
+discovered by the butler drawing Penelope at dinner when he should have
+been drawing corks.  A search in his clothes revealed some pencils and a
+note-book and another book of drawings.  They were of such a character
+that the reporter was put outside into the street.  The butler could
+have forgiven the sketch of his mistress: there was one of himself that
+no man could forgive.
+
+The great desire of all these men was to spot the winner.  Penelope's
+maid, Harriet Weekes, who was more or less engaged to Timothy Bunting,
+the groom (a sad _mesalliance_, by the way), found it impossible to go
+out without being accosted respectfully by a new admirer, who tried to
+lead the conversation around to her mistress.
+
+"If you please, my lady, another of them spoke to me to-day.  I hope, my
+lady, you don't think it my fault," said Weekes.
+
+"What do they say?" asked Penelope, curiously. She took great interest
+in the manners and customs of other classes, perhaps with a view of
+altering them when she got time.
+
+"Oh, my lady, they always say the same thing. I think men are very much
+the same all over the world.  They say 'It's a fine day,' even if it's
+raining, and of course it is, and they say they want to walk a little
+way with me (begging your pardon), and that I am very beautiful, and
+that they have long loved me, if you please, my lady, and have been
+trying to speak about it for years.  And I tell 'em I don't want 'em,
+and I don't, to be sure, though one (he's on the _Piccadilly Circus
+Gazette_) is a very handsome man with a heagle's glance, dressed in gray
+tweeds.  And they won't be put off, I assure you, my lady.  Men on
+newspapers are hextremely persevering with a fine flow of language.  And
+if, being persuaded to take a little walk, for they are difficult to put
+off by trade, I do take one, they begin to ask, begging your pardon, I'm
+sure, my lady, if I am your sister, and I'm sure I'm as like you as a
+butterfly is to a beetle, as Mr. Bunting says, though he adores the
+ground I walk on, if he's to be believed, which I'm not sure of yet, and
+the butler is very angry with me about the whole affair.  And one, who
+said he was the editor of the _Times_, which I don't believe in the
+least, because it doesn't seem likely, does it, my lady, that the editor
+of the _Times_ would do such things himself? said he wanted to marry me
+and put me on the staff as his lovely bride.  I must say he spoke most
+beautifully, and he said he knew Captain Goby, and also Mr. Gordon, and
+he said they were getting thin he thought.  And another, quite the
+gentleman, though by his trousers poor and careful, said he owned most
+of the _Daily Telegraph_. And I couldn't help looking at his clothes.
+He was very quick, and said that was owing to the competition of the
+half-penny papers.  Would I save the _Daily Telegraph_ from himpending
+ruin by telling him which it would be, he said.  And I said flatly that
+I wouldn't.  I never saw such wicked impudence.  Oh, yes, my lady, your
+hair's done now, and it's as lovely as a dream."
+
+And, as Miss Weekes finished, she wondered, quite as much as any of the
+newspaper men, who it was to be.
+
+"It's my belief," she said to Timothy, a little later, "that my lady is
+beginning to incline to one of 'em.  I've noticed she's quieter like and
+more gentle.  And there's a soft sadness in her eye and a colour that
+comes and goes."
+
+"There ain't one of the biling worthy of her," said Timothy, bitterly.
+"But there, Miss Weekes, there ain't no man worthy of a real beautiful,
+good lidy.  A fair wonder how I dares to hope that some day far off,
+when motor-cars has killed every 'orse, you'll be Mrs. Bunting."
+
+"It's a great come down, Tim," said Harriet. "Mr. Gubbles says he
+wonders, too."
+
+"If he wasn't the butler, and old, I'd plug 'im," said Timothy, crossly.
+"It's all right for me to wonder, but he ain't in it."
+
+"Ah, but class distinctions is hard to get over, Mr. Bunting," said
+Harriet.  "You must pardon a butler's feelings.  Even Mr. Gubbles has
+his feelings.  And he agrees with you that there's no one but a duke
+ought to marry our dear lady.  And she demeaning herself (if I dare say
+so) with Academicians and war correspondencies and Jew men; not but what
+Mr. Gordon is very gentlemanly and generous.  Only yesterday, Mr.
+Bunting, he says to me when he met me outside, 'Do you read?'  And I
+says, 'Yes, sir,' being some flustered, and he says, 'You read that.'
+And it was a five-pound note.  And he adds something about 'your vote
+and hinfluence.'  But I can't do it, Mr. Bunting, I can't. If it was
+Captain Goby, I might, and if it was young Lord Bramber I might more so,
+and even if it was Mr. de Vere, with a duke remote in his family, but
+for a Jewish man I can't.  So I said, 'Thank you, sir,' and he went off.
+But some one is beginnin' to rise up in my lady's mind, I saw it plainly
+when I was dressing her.  It would be worth more than five pounds to
+know who is risin'."
+
+"Yes," said Timothy.  "'Ow much would it run to, do you think?"
+
+"I believe it would be worth a public 'ouse."
+
+"Beer and spirits?" asked Timothy, eagerly.
+
+"And a corner 'ouse at that," replied Harriet, nodding her head.
+
+"Oh, 'Arriet," said Timothy, with a gasp, "you fairly dazzle me."
+
+The newspaper men had dazzled Harriet.
+
+But indeed what she said seemed true to her. And it seemed true to Lord
+Bradstock, who had, like the man of the _Circus Gazette_, an eagle's
+glance.
+
+"She has been playing fair," said Bradstock, "but one of them is drawing
+ahead, Titania."
+
+"Good heavens, who is he, and how do you know?" asked Titania.
+
+"It's intuition," said Bradstock, "intuition combined with, or founded
+on, a little observation. She's different, Titania.  She takes no
+interest in the London County Council."
+
+"You don't say so!" cried the duchess, in alarm.
+
+Bradstock nodded.
+
+"It's a fact.  I asked her if she had read the last debate, and she
+hadn't, and when I mentioned the Deceased Wife's Sister she yawned."
+
+"That looks bad," said Titania, "for only a week ago she raved about
+her, and Goring said he'd vote for her if she insisted on it.  And she
+did insist, and tears came in her eyes about the poor thing."
+
+"Well, I told you so," said Bradstock, "and I do hope it isn't Williams.
+I'm afraid of Williams. He's capable of knocking her down and carrying
+her off on his shoulder.  Do you remember with what joy she read us the
+account of the savage tribe somewhere (was it the east of London?) where
+they do that?"
+
+"It made me shiver with apprehension," said Titania.  "Oh, if she was
+only married safely to a good duke, one not like Goring!  Is there a
+good duke, Augustin?"
+
+"Several, so I'm informed," replied Bradstock, "and there are quite a
+number of good earls, some quite admirable.  But I wish you'd get hold
+of Chloe Cadwallader, and find out something."
+
+Titania bristled like a porcupine.
+
+"There is no need to find out anything about Mrs. Cadwallader," she
+said.  "If Penelope wasn't too dangerously innocent to be single, she
+would not have anything to do with her."
+
+"I'm sure the poor woman was only silly," said Bradstock.  "Haven't we
+all been silly in our time, Titania?  Didn't I marry twice?  And you
+married once."
+
+"I'll speak to her," said the duchess, hastily. "If we can only find out
+who it is, we can, I'm sure, prevent her doing as she says and making a
+secret marriage of it.  The scandal would be horrid.  Oh, Augustin,
+suppose she did it, and had a large family suddenly.  I should die of
+it."
+
+"Good heavens," said Bradstock, "you alarm me, Titania, you are so
+gloomy.  She would surely acknowledge her marriage then?"
+
+Titania threw up her hands.
+
+"Augustin, I'm sure of nothing with Penelope. I cannot answer for her.
+She will bring my gray hairs with sorrow--"
+
+"To cremation," said Bradstock.  "She has invested money in a
+crematorium."
+
+"I thought it was dairy-farming," cried Titania. "Oh, but think,
+Augustin, of the horror of the situation as it might be!  What would her
+Royal Highness say to me?  Imagine her marrying and keeping it dark, and
+having, as I say, a large family suddenly without a husband producible
+on the moment to answer natural inquiries!  Imagine her saying _then_
+that her marriage was her own business, and her certificate of marriage
+firmly withheld by a young and obstinate mother in a safe!  She has a
+safe.  She has a safe, Augustin, with many keys. I wish I could get at
+it, and find things out that are in it.  I wish I knew a burglar, a good
+honest and reliable burglar, married and trustworthy, that I could send
+in to break it open.  Most girls have a desk with an ordinary key, easy
+to open, but Penelope has a Lord Milner's safe with patent things to
+keep it shut.  It's not natural, it's wicked. Oh, I did hope, when I
+found out what the duke was like and what his ways were, that I knew the
+extent of my troubles, but there is no end to them, and Penelope begins
+where Goring leaves off."
+
+"Is it as bad as that?" asked Bradstock.
+
+"And then there's Bob--"
+
+"By Jove," said Augustin, "I believe Bob's the key to the safe!
+Titania, he's more likely to find something out than any one."
+
+Titania nodded solemnly.
+
+"Augustin, you are right.  I'll speak to Bob."
+
+"Let me do it."
+
+"No, no, Augustin.  He is very quick and suspicious, and he loves her,
+he adores her.  This requires a feminine intelligence.  I will work upon
+him quietly."
+
+And she went away to work upon Bob quietly.
+
+
+
+
+                            *CHAPTER VIII.*
+
+
+Now Titania believed that she was very smart and very clever, and that
+she would do things subtly and do them better than Bradstock or a
+barrister, even if he was a K.C.  And as it is the most invariably weak
+point in people that they think young people fools, or at any rate
+easily hoodwinked, she really believed that Bob, her dearly beloved
+young scoundrel of a grandson, would be as easy to work on as butter.
+And yet she had the sense to see that Bob adored Penelope.
+
+"I am very greatly troubled about Penelope, Bob," she said to him, as
+soon as she got him alone.
+
+"Don't you worry about Pen, granny," replied Bob, cheerfully, "she can
+take care of herself. Why, she can drive a motor-car now up to about
+thirty miles an hour, and Geordie Smith says she's all there.  And so
+does old Guth.  He had long talks with her, and he says she has brains.
+I tell you old Guth knows 'em when he sees 'em."
+
+Titania nodded.
+
+"Oh, I know she is clever, dear, but her ideas are so extraordinary."
+
+"Ain't they?" said Bob.  "I do wonder which of 'em she'll marry, don't
+you?"
+
+"Indeed I do," replied his grandmother.  "Have you any idea, Bob, which
+she likes best?"
+
+Bob shook his head.
+
+"Not me.  I wish it was Goby; old Goby is a ripping good sort.  He knows
+what's what, does old Goby."
+
+Goby tipped him freely and frequently, and Bob sold him a spavined pony,
+aged fifteen years.
+
+"He's a bit of a fool, of course," said Bob, thoughtfully.  "Do you
+know, granny, he isn't the judge of horses you'd think he is?"
+
+"Does Penelope ever confide in you, Bob?" asked Titania.
+
+There was a touch of anxiety in her voice that the boy felt at once.  He
+put his head on one side and looked at her out of the corner of his eye.
+He didn't answer the question.
+
+"I say, granny, don't you think I can have a bigger allowance now?  I
+find mine much too little.  If I had ten shillings a week more, I could
+get on for a bit."
+
+"You shall have it," said Titania.  "Does she ever confide in you, Bob?"
+
+"Some," said Bob, carelessly.
+
+"Which do you think she likes best?" asked Titania.
+
+"I don't know," said Bob, "but I dare say I could find out.  I say,
+should you be very angry if it was Gordon?"
+
+Titania uttered a little scream.
+
+"Great heavens, Bob, I should die of it!"
+
+Bob sat down and looked at her.
+
+"He's not bad, granny, not half mean, oh, no, not at all!"
+
+He had given Bob as much as he gave Miss Harriet Weekes about three days
+before.
+
+"I rather like him," said Bob.  "Pen thinks he's much improved since she
+put him in harness with the Frenchy.  It touched her his going up in a
+balloon.  I say, may I go up in a balloon?  Rivaulx said I might."
+
+"No!" screamed his grandmother.  "Oh, Bob, you wouldn't?"
+
+"I won't if you don't want me to," sighed Bob, "but it's a horrid
+disappointment.  He says going up in one is jolly, and London underneath
+is ripping.  If I don't, will you ask grandfather to give me another
+hunter?"
+
+"Yes, of course," said poor Titania; "but what do you think about
+Penelope?  Could you find out anything, Bob, if I let you go and stay
+with her?"
+
+Bob's eyes gleamed.
+
+"Rather," he said, "of course.  But I needn't worry about old Guth if I
+do?  I've been working very hard, and I think a holiday would do him
+good, too.  I'm very much overworked.  Do I look tired, granny?  I
+always feel tired now in my head. Guth says a breakdown from overwork is
+much worse than most fatal diseases."
+
+"You shall go to Penelope if she'll have you," said his anxious
+grandmother.  "Do you have headaches, Bob?"
+
+"Not headaches," said Bob, "I shouldn't call 'em headaches exactly.
+They're pains, and old Guth says he had 'em when he was at Oxford. They
+get worse, he says, and then the breakdown comes, and you have to take a
+very long rest.  I'll go on working if you like, though."
+
+He sighed.
+
+"You shall go to your cousin's," said Titania, "and my dear, dear Bob,
+keep your eye on Penelope and tell me all you discover.  Her ideas are
+very strange, you know, and we are all so anxious about her future."
+
+"So am I," said Bob.  "If she married the wrong one I shall be out of
+it.  I couldn't get on well with old De Vere, and if she married him I'm
+quite convinced he wouldn't buy any more dogs.  I want her to marry Goby
+or Bramber. But I think Bramber is rather mean in some ways, and very
+thoughtless of others.  I told him I wanted some salmon fishing at his
+father's place in Scotland, and he's said nothing about it since."
+
+"I shouldn't mind Lord Bramber so much," said Titania.  "But I'm afraid
+it won't be Bramber."
+
+"Cheer up," said her grandson.  "I'll look after her.  But don't forget
+about the extra ten shillings and the horse.  Could you give me the ten
+shillings for six weeks now, granny?"
+
+And he went off to Penelope's house and marched in on her.
+
+"Pen, I'm coming to stay with you if you'll have me," he said.
+
+"Of course I will," said Penelope.  "But how did you manage it?"
+
+"I'm overworked," said Bob, solemnly, "and sitting on chairs and
+learning Latin don't agree with me.  I want more open air, I think, or I
+shall get consumption."
+
+He was fat and ruddy and as strong as a bull-calf. He put his arm around
+Pen's neck.
+
+"I say, Pen, I do love you," he said.  "I think it's rot I'm so young,
+or I'd have married you myself.  Granny's in an awful state about you,
+Pen.  She asked me if I knew who it was you liked best, and she threw
+out hints a foot wide that I was to find out if I could."
+
+"Indeed," said Pen; "and what did you say?"
+
+Bob chuckled.
+
+"I said the best thing would be for me to come and stay with you.  And
+that's why I'm here.  But I say, Pen, I'll never sneak, not even if you
+marry Mr. de Vere.  Granny's raised my allowance ten bob a week, and I'm
+to have another hunter.  I got too big for the pony, so I sold him to
+Goby; Goby looked very melancholy, but he said he wanted him badly for
+some reason.  And he said he hoped I'd be his friend always.  I like
+poor old Goby.  I think I'll go into the park, Pen.  My things will be
+here by and by.  Couldn't we go to the theatre to-night?  There's a
+ripping farce with a fight in it at the Globe.  And will you have plum
+pudding for dinner, and ice meringues?"
+
+He went into the park and met Williams there.
+
+"I say, Mr. Williams, where's Mr. Carew?" he asked.
+
+"Damn Carew," said Williams.  "I don't know where he is, and I don't
+want to."
+
+"I'm staying at my cousin's," said Bob.
+
+"At Lady Penelope's?" asked the war correspondent.
+
+"That's it," said Bob.  "Would you like to know what theatre we are
+going to to-night?"
+
+"Yes," said Williams, eagerly.
+
+Bob shook his head.
+
+"I don't suppose I ought to tell you.  Tell me something very exciting
+about some bloody war, Mr. Williams."
+
+Williams grunted.
+
+"Or an execution.  Have you ever seen heads chopped off with a sword?"
+
+"Often in China, Bob."
+
+"I say, what fun!" said Bob.  "Tell me all about it.  Is it true they
+smoke cigarettes while they are being chopped?  And do they mind?  Could
+I see one if I went out?  I say, if you'll describe it, I'll see if I
+can tell you about the theatre."
+
+Carteret Williams described it.
+
+"Seventeen!" said Bob.  "By Jove, I'll tell this to Penelope.  She'll be
+greatly interested.  Do you think I could be a war correspondent, Mr.
+Williams?  I'd like to be, because Latin wouldn't be needed.  I'm
+awfully sorry for war correspondents in those days when no one but the
+Roman chaps did any fighting.  I've enjoyed that story of yours more
+than anything I've heard for years, Mr. Williams. When they write about
+these things in books, why don't they describe the blood the way you do?
+It's the Globe we're going to; there's a ripping farce there.  I wish
+they would do an execution of pirates.  I say, don't tell Pen I told
+you; she might be waxy with me.  Think of something else to tell me.
+Good-bye."
+
+And he went to look at the ducks.
+
+"Williams is all right," said Bob; "I wonder if it is Williams."
+
+And at home Pen began to know who it was. And Ethel Mytton began to know
+it was some one.  And so did Chloe Cadwallader.
+
+Miss Weekes was right, there is no mistake about that.
+
+
+
+
+                             *CHAPTER IX.*
+
+
+Penelope was certainly on the verge of being in love, to go no farther
+than that.  She discovered that certain of the horde had a curious
+tendency to disappear from her mind, though none of them lost any
+opportunity of appearing in her drawing-room. She was so sorry for those
+she didn't love that her kindness to them increased.  Her dread of the
+one she began to adore forbade her to show how soft she had grown to
+him.  Not even Ethel and Chloe together could make anything out of it,
+which shows every one, of course, that they were two simple idiots, or
+that Penelope had a very remarkable character.  It seems to me that the
+latter must have been the case, for Chloe was no fool in spite of the
+folly she had shown on one particular occasion.
+
+"Am I a fool?" she asked Ethel Mytton, "or is Penelope the deepest,
+darkest mystery of modern times?  I am convinced she has made her
+choice."
+
+"Oh, which do you think?" asked Ethel, with much anxiety.  "Do you--do
+you think it is Captain Goby?"
+
+"I don't know," replied Chloe; "it may be.  I give it up.  I shall ask
+Bob."
+
+"I've asked him," said Ethel, "and he won't say anything.  I think he
+knows more than we do. He's a sweet boy, but just as cunning as a
+ferret."
+
+But of course Bob knew no more than they did, though he would never own
+to it.  He threw out casual hints that he was wiser than his elders, and
+the only one he was in the least frank with was Lord Bradstock, who
+asked him to lunch and was infinitely amused with him.
+
+"I say, Lord Bradstock, if you'll keep it dark, I'll tell you
+something!"
+
+Bradstock promised to keep it as dark as a dry plate.
+
+"All these women think I know who Penelope's sweet on, and I don't.
+And, what's more, I wouldn't tell if I did.  Would you?"
+
+"Certainly not," said Bradstock.
+
+"You can't think how I'm chased," said Bob. "Ethel Mytton is the worst.
+She's dead nuts on poor Goby, and Goby doesn't see her when Pen's in the
+room.  And Mrs. Cadwallader, she's always mugging up to me with
+chocolates or something to get things out of me.  And the newspaper
+Johnnies are on me, too.  And Williams takes me out, and Carew (I don't
+care for Carew), and I like Goby best.  Mr. de Vere is a rotter, don't
+you think? The marquis was at Pen's, and he said that if Pen didn't
+marry him he'd go up in a balloon and never come back.  I want him to
+take me in a balloon. Don't you think I might go?  Granny's cross when I
+speak of it.  I've always wanted to go in a balloon, and I think it hard
+lines I can't go because she doesn't like 'em.  Pen won't go, either.
+She thinks that if she did, Rivaulx would never let her come down again,
+or something.  I daresay he wouldn't; he's quite mad, I think,
+sometimes.  Baker says all Frenchmen are mad.  Do you think so?"
+
+Bradstock didn't know; he wasn't sure of it, though he owned to thinking
+it was possible.
+
+"After all, Bob," he said, when Bob went at last, "and after all I dare
+say Penelope won't marry any of them."
+
+And of course that is what a good many people said.  They said it was
+Lady Penelope's fun.  The Marchioness of Rigsby, who settled every one's
+affairs, said so to Titania.
+
+"Why wasn't she beaten, my dear, when she was young?" asked the
+marchioness.  "I was severely beaten; it did me good; it gave me sense.
+I always used to beat my girls with the flat of my hand, and now they
+are _most_ sensible and married excellently, although I own they are not
+beauties.  I can afford to own it now.  I shall speak to Penelope
+myself."
+
+She did it and was routed.  Pen was direct; she beat no one, and
+certainly did not beat about the bush.  She had no fear of the world,
+and dreaded no marchioness.
+
+"I'll attend to my own affairs, thank you," said Pen.
+
+"My dear love," said the marchioness, "you ought to have been beaten
+while you were still young. This conduct of yours is a scandal.  It is
+merely a means of attracting public notice.  And I am old enough to
+speak about it.  I will speak about it."
+
+Pen left her speaking and went out.
+
+"She is distinctly rude," said the marchioness, viciously.  "I wish she
+was about ten and I was her mother!"
+
+But Pen could not endure being spoken to.
+
+"I love him," said Pen, "and what business is it of theirs?  If they
+disapprove I shall hate them! If they approve I shall hate them worse.
+Oh, I almost wish I was going to marry some one who would make them
+die!"
+
+"Mark me," said the marchioness to Titania, "this will end in her
+marrying a groom.  Has she a good-looking one?"
+
+Titania started.
+
+"Oh, a very good-looking one," she cried.
+
+"What did I say?  Remember what I said," said the marchioness, darkly.
+"No really good girl could act as she does.  She will marry a groom!"
+
+She went around saying so in revenge for Penelope's want of politeness.
+The journalists took Timothy Bunting's photograph, and Miss Weekes was
+proud till she heard the dreadful rumour. Timothy beat a man on a paper,
+and Bob was delighted.  Titania took to her bed, and said the end of the
+world was at hand.  Bradstock laughed till he cried, and cut the
+marchioness in the park. Her husband was very much pleased at this, and
+said it served her right.  Chloe Cadwallader wrote her first letter
+since the scandal to Cadwallader in the Rockies, for she felt he would
+be the only man in the world who hadn't heard of it.  Ethel lay wait for
+Captain Goby, and asked him to kill some one.  There was not a soul in
+London who did not hear of it.  And then Timothy quarrelled with Harriet
+Weekes.  He went to Penelope, and with a crimson face and bated breath
+and much humbleness asked to be sent down to the country.
+
+"You shall go," said Penelope, with great decision.  "I can trust you, I
+know."
+
+"My lady, you can trust me with untold gold and diamonds," replied
+Timothy Bunting, almost with tears.
+
+"I shall send you to a house of mine you have never heard of," said
+Penelope.  "And I expect you, Bunting, not to write to any one from
+there. I do not wish any one to know I live there."
+
+"I'll not tell the Harchbishop of Canterbury 'imself, my lady, not if he
+begged me on his knees, with lighted candles in his 'and," said Bunting.
+"And, above all, my lady, I'll not tell it to Miss Weekes.  Her and me
+'ave quarrelled, and 'ave parted for hever.  And I wouldn't trust her,
+my lady, not farther than you can sling a bull by the tail, my lady.
+I've trusted her to my rueing, so I have, and if she finds out hanything
+she'll sell it to the _Times_, which 'ave promised her a public 'ouse at
+a corner."
+
+This revelation of the methods of Printing House Square shocked Penelope
+dreadfully.
+
+"Oh, I always thought the _Times_ was a respectable journal," she said.
+
+But Timothy Bunting shook his head.
+
+"Their sportin' tips ain't a patch on many of the penny papers, my lady.
+But don't you forget what I says of Miss Weekes.  She's a serpent in
+your boodore a-coiling everywhere, and speaking to newspaper men outside
+the harea like an 'ousemaid. Not but that I knows an 'ousemaid far above
+such dirty work, my lady."
+
+A little encouragement might have led him to say more about the
+housemaid who would not condescend to talk with journalists.  But
+Penelope gave him an address, verbally.
+
+"You will go to this place to-morrow," she said. "There are no horses
+now, but there will be next week.  I trust you to do what I tell you."
+
+"Miss--my lady, I mean," said Timothy, proudly, "I wouldn't reveal where
+I was if the Hemperor of Germany crawled to me for that purpose all
+along of the ground, making speeches as he went."
+
+Penelope smiled at her faithful henchman kindly, and she wondered how it
+happened that he thought of placing the emperor in such an absurd
+position; a position, too, which was very unlikely.
+
+"Now are you sure you remember, Bunting?" she asked.
+
+"Miss Mackarness, Moat 'Ouse, near Spilsby, Lincolnshire," repeated
+Timothy.
+
+"And you will speak personally to Miss Mackarness, who will give you
+every instruction," said his young mistress.  "I hope you don't drink,
+Bunting?"
+
+"Never," said Bunting, promptly, "at least I won't from now on till you
+give the word, my lady. But, my lady, as I'm goin' from here I don't
+mind revealin' to you that Mr. Gubbles does.  Mr. Gubbles 'as been very
+unkind to me, and--"
+
+"That will do," said Penelope.  "Good-bye, Bunting.  I expect to see you
+in about a month.  It may be less."
+
+"I 'opes, my lady, it will be much less," said the groom, and as he went
+away he nodded his close-cropped head.
+
+"This is a damned rum start," he murmured. "Wot's up, I wonder?  This
+'ere Miss Mackarness was 'ousekeeper at Upwell Castle, and I'm a
+Dutchman if any one of us 'as ever 'eard of Moat 'Ouse. She's goin' to
+do it, as she said, goin' to be married and keep it dark.  Women is
+wonderful strange and, so to speak, dreadful.  I thot I knew 'Arriet
+Weekes through and through, and she turned out to be a serpent with
+false teeth, ready to sell Lady Penelope to the _Times_.  And my lady
+'as turned me round 'er finger.  I'm knee-deep in secret hoaths, and,
+without knowin' what I was doin', I've swore off drink.  Well, I always
+did like ginger-beer!"
+
+But he sighed all the same.  And that afternoon he packed up and
+disappeared, and no one knew what had become of him.  Neither he nor any
+one of those who hunted for news had any notion of the fame which would
+presently be his. Nor did Penelope see quite what she had done when this
+nice-looking young man suddenly vanished by her orders.
+
+But Penelope was in love.
+
+
+
+
+                              *CHAPTER X.*
+
+
+Love is a pathological state which can only be cured by one means.  It
+is a disease, and robs the most humourous of their humour.  When
+Rabelais was in love he no doubt wrote poems which he afterward
+destroyed.  When Dante was in love he did the Paradiso.  When he cheered
+up he wrote the Inferno.  Neither of these is any joke.  But then, Dante
+had no more humour than Penelope. It can be imagined (or it cannot be
+imagined) how unhumourous Pen became when she found she had made her
+choice between Plant and De Vere and Goby and Carew and Williams and
+Bramber and Gordon and Rivaulx.  She wept at night over those she could
+not marry.  And it added grief to grief to think that the unmarried
+would probably relapse into their evil ways.
+
+"What can one poor girl do with so many?" she asked.  "I'm sure they
+will turn around on me, and once more follow their dreadful instincts!
+And they have improved so much!"
+
+The result of her sorrow was such pity that every poor wretch of them
+all was convinced she loved him better and better.  They were quite
+cheerful. They looked at each other almost sympathetically. They grieved
+for each other, and struggled on the hard cinder-path of duty, with
+Penelope at least a long lap ahead.  The amount of good they did was
+wonderful.  Plant got his university started, Rivaulx went over to Paris
+and asked Dreyfus to dinner, Goby was deep in Imperial Yeomanry and
+rifle ranges, Bramber spoke on every opportunity in the House and voted
+with the insistence of a whip.  De Vere wrote a monograph on outdoor
+sports, with an appendix on bulldogs.  He also owned that poetry was not
+everything, and went so far as to say that the poet laureate was a very
+good fellow.  Gordon floated a company without any water in the capital,
+and ran the whole affair with absolute honesty and no waiver clause.
+Carew learned to draw, and spoke sober truth about the Chantry Bequest.
+
+Williams never swore in public, and painted in water-colours.  And none
+of them played bridge or went into good society.
+
+"And when they know?" said poor Penelope.
+
+"I wonder if I ought not to sacrifice him and myself on the altar of
+duty?" said Pen.  But she was in love, and the motor-car in which she
+was to disappear stood ready.  She made weekly trips in it with Bob.
+Sometimes they stayed away for three days, sometimes even for a week.
+
+"Oh, Bob, I'm so unhappy: so happy," said Pen.
+
+And Bob looked at her critically.
+
+"Well, you look stunning, anyhow," he replied, "you get better looking
+every day, Pen.  Old De Vere said so.  He let on that you were a cross
+between a lily and a rose, or some such rot.  You mark me, Pen, he'll go
+back to poetry if you marry him, and give up dogs.  I don't want him to
+do that. Baker has some pups coming on, a new kind of very savage dog,
+and I'm halves in 'em.  Can't you give me a tip as to whether it's De
+Vere?  If it is, I'll sell him one now, cheap."
+
+But Pen looked beautiful and kept her mouth shut.  Neither Bob nor
+Titania nor Bradstock could extract a word from her.  And, nevertheless,
+the whole world grew suspicious.  The society papers said she had made
+her choice.  The sporting papers gave tips.  They said, "For the _Lady
+Penelope Stakes_ we give Plant or Bramber," or at least one of them did.
+Others selected De Vere, and one rude man said a rank outsider would get
+it.  Of course he didn't believe in Pen's word.  But then, no one did.
+
+And still Pen kept her teeth shut and was as obstinate as a government
+mule to all persuasion. Ethel cried and said:
+
+"Oh, is it Captain Goby?"
+
+Chloe laughed and laid traps for Penelope saying:
+
+"Oh, by the way, I saw Lord Bramber just now."
+
+Or it might be De Vere or Carew or Williams. But no one got a rise out
+of Penelope.
+
+"I am entirely determined to give a lead to those who wish to be married
+without publicity.  I shall found a society presently," said Penelope.
+
+When Titania, whom nothing could discourage, went at her furiously,
+Bradstock smiled.
+
+"If she has a daughter, some day we shall see the girl married in
+Westminster Abbey," said Bradstock. But even he was very curious.
+
+"Have you found out anything yet, Bob?" he asked that young financier.
+
+"I'm on the way," said Bob, "give me time, Lord Bradstock.  I feel sure
+it's not De Vere.  He's buying all the dogs I offer him.  If he was
+sure, he wouldn't."
+
+But Bradstock wasn't certain.  Penelope might have no humour, but she
+was quite equal to ordering De Vere to buy in order to blind Bob.
+
+"I never thought of that," said Bob.  "I frankly own Pen's a deal worse
+than Euclid.  And I never thought to say that of anything."
+
+And upon a certain day in June, when June was doing its best to live up
+to the poet's ideal, Pen disappeared, by herself, leaving Bob at home
+with Guthrie, who now came over each day to keep the young vagabond
+doing something.  She came back after lunch, and Bob found her
+abnormally silent. She had nothing to say, and there was a curious
+far-off look in her eyes.  Her interest in dogs was nil; she showed no
+appreciation of ferrets; when he spoke she said "Oh" and "Ah" and
+"what's that you say?"  And Bob had no suspicion whatsoever, just as
+clever people never have when they might be expected to show their
+wisdom.
+
+When she did speak, though, it was to the point.
+
+"I think, Bob, it is time you went back to your grandmother's," she
+declared, suddenly, and back he went in spite of all his cajoleries.
+Pen was very strange, he thought, and rather beastly.  There certainly
+was a change in her, for she dismissed Harriet Weekes with a douceur
+which did not really sweeten that lady's departure.
+
+And in the afternoon Pen casually remarked to Chloe that she was going
+out of town for three days.  When she said so the motor-car was at the
+door, and Geordie Smith was there too.
+
+If Timothy Bunting had known that Smith was as deep in his lady's
+confidence as he was himself, he would have been jealous.  But he must
+have been, for Pen said to him, when they were out of Piccadilly:
+
+"How long will it take to get to Spilsby, Smith?"
+
+"My lady, with this new racing-car I'll get there when you like,"
+replied Smith, firmly.
+
+Pen remembered that Bob said Smith's ambition was to ride through the
+city regardless of fines.
+
+"I wouldn't try to do it under three hours," she said.
+
+"Unless we are followed," said Smith.  "If we are followed, my lady, may
+I let her go?"
+
+"Yes," said Penelope.
+
+Geordie Smith nodded to himself.
+
+"Fines be damned, and legal limits ditto," said Smith to himself; "wait,
+my darling, till we get through the traffic."
+
+He meant "darling" for his new car.  He adored it as much as he did his
+mistress.  He used to dream of it at night and had nightmares about it.
+Dream ruffians cut up his tires; he was in the middle of Salisbury Plain
+without petrol; "she" refused to spark; he was held up by gigantic
+policemen with stop watches the size of a church clock. But now she
+moved under him smooth and cosy, with a vast reserve of power; she was
+quick, swift, docile, intelligent, fearless of policemen, careless of
+the limping law.
+
+"If my lady wants to go quick, I'm the man," said Geordie.  "But I
+wonder what's up?"
+
+Geordie played the car as Joachim plays the violin, or Paderewski the
+piano.  She skated, she swam, she shot like a water-beetle, she was
+responsive to his lightest touch.  He heard her music as every engineer
+does, and found it as lovely as a dream song.
+
+"Oh, for a clear road," said the player.  He found some of it clear
+before they reached Barnet, and then he fingered the keyboard, as it
+were, like a master.
+
+"Horses, horses," said Smith, "the poor miserable things!  Ain't I sorry
+for Tim Bunting!  Here we go, my lady."
+
+He broke the law magnificently, and with such skill that Penelope
+wondered.  But only once he ran against the law in the shape of a
+policeman, north of Hatfield, who saw him coming and signalled to him to
+stop.
+
+"Shall I?" said Smith.
+
+"No!" shrieked Pen, against the tide of wind.
+
+They passed him flying and saw him run as they passed.
+
+"He'll wire to Hitchin and have us there," said Smith.  But he knew his
+roads.  "Oh, will he?"
+
+He took the right fork of the roads at Welwyn and roared through
+Stevenage to Baldock and found the main road again at Sandy.  They
+reached Huntington, sixty miles from town, in an hour and three
+quarters.
+
+"And I've never let her out but once," said Smith; "she's a daisy!"
+
+The eighteen miles to Spilsborough they did at a speed that made
+Penelope bend her head.  She felt wonderful: she was on a shooting-star.
+They slackened on the outskirts of the cathedral city and rolled through
+it delicately.  She looked about her and remembered the dear bishop who
+had christened her when he was no more than a vicar.
+
+"We'll go by Crowland and Spalding, Smith."  A car followed them out of
+Spilsborough, and Smith, going easy, looked back and saw it.
+
+"Catch us, my son," he said, contemptuously. But when they were well
+clear of town and he turned her loose, so to speak, Pen's nerve went, or
+it appeared to go.
+
+"Don't go so fast, Smith," she commanded.
+
+And Smith obeyed sorrowfully.
+
+"They can't stand it," he said; "none of 'em can stand it really.  They
+let on they can, but it's no go.  A few hot miles gives them the
+mulligrubs."
+
+But nevertheless they were running over thirty miles an hour.  The car
+behind crawled up to them.
+
+"All I've got to do, my lady, is to ask her to shake 'em off, and away
+we go and leave 'em," he suggested.
+
+"Oh, no, no," said Pen.
+
+At Spalding the pursuer, if he were one, was not a hundred yards behind.
+But in the town Smith got ahead.  He did not see Penelope trembling.
+Smith had taken a look at the one behind.
+
+"There's power there," he said, savagely.  "If he lets her out and my
+lady squeals, I'm passed!"
+
+She did "squeal" the other side of Spalding, but not for herself.  The
+other car had to stop.
+
+"That's done 'em," said Smith; "they're in the ditch."  He gained ten
+miles on them, and Penelope wept.
+
+And just as they were coming into Boston at an easy gait, Smith turned
+and saw the other car coming up behind like a meteor, with the dust
+astern of her in a fume.
+
+"That chap can drive after all," said Smith. "Won't you try to let me
+get away from him before we get to Spilsby, my lady?"
+
+"I--I don't want to," said Pen.
+
+And five miles outside of Spilsby the pursuing car drew up with them.
+Two indistinguishable monsters drove it, and through his glaring goggles
+Smith glared at them as they came alongside.
+
+"Stop," said Penelope, suddenly.  "Stop, Smith."
+
+And the other car stopped too.
+
+"I'll go on with the other car," said Penelope. She took her place by
+the most unrecognizable portent of the two, and disappeared in a sudden
+and terrific cloud of dust.
+
+"Damned if I know who it is, even now," said Smith.
+
+
+
+
+                             *CHAPTER XI.*
+
+
+It was Friday when Penelope disappeared from London in a motor-car, and
+was carried off by a motor pirate, unknown to any one, because he wore a
+peak cap, a fur coat with the fur outside, and gigantic goggles, making
+him resemble a diver or a cuttlefish.
+
+It was Monday when she returned to town in a motor-car with Geordie
+Smith.  And all the way into town Geordie said:
+
+"Blessed if I'd ha' thought it.  I always reckoned it would have been
+one of the others.  I lose money on this, but if I do, it warms the
+cockles of my heart to see my lady happy.  Bless her sweet face, I wish
+she'd leave the blooming world alone and have a good time.  I never set
+eyes on such an aggravatin' beautiful sweet lady for interferin' with
+men.  Just as if the queen herself could alter our ways!  Women always
+gas that they can or mean to, and they're just like hens with men for
+ducks."
+
+If he had been a classical scholar he might have remembered Ariadne up
+to her knees in the sea, with her lover on the deep in a boat.
+
+"When I saw who it was at Moat House," said Geordie, "you could have
+knocked me endwise with something less than a steel spanner.  And that
+horse-whipping ass of a Bunting was equal took aback.  For somehow we
+never spotted him as likely to make the non-stop run.  Humph, humph!"
+
+And he left Penelope at her house just in time for afternoon tea.  As
+she lay on the sofa she handed a paper to Chloe Cadwallader, saying:
+
+"I wish you would send out cards to all these people for Thursday
+night."
+
+"That's very short notice, darling," said Chloe.
+
+"They'll come," said Pen.
+
+And when Chloe looked at the list she found it included only Pen's
+particular friends, her most bitter relations, and the whole of the
+"horde."
+
+"I wonder--" said Chloe, and she wondered somewhat later with Ethel.
+
+"Is it?" said Ethel.
+
+"Can it be?" cried Chloe.
+
+"It can't be," said Ethel.
+
+"Who knows?" asked Chloe.  "She is so plain and so simple and
+straightforward that there is no certainty about anything she does.  I
+understand the wicked and the weak, but Penelope--"
+
+She threw up her hands, and presently wrote out the cards.  And Penelope
+was trying "to a degree," as Chloe said all Monday and Tuesday and
+Wednesday. And on Thursday she sent for Bob, who came helter-skelter in
+a hansom.
+
+"You'll stand by me, Bob," said Pen, clutching him.
+
+Bob put his hands in his pockets and stood straddle-legs.  He stared at
+her.  What was hidden from the wisdom of Chloe was revealed to the
+simplicity of this boy.
+
+"Pen," said Bob, solemnly, "I'll stick by you till death.  But ain't you
+going to tell me who it is?"
+
+"Who what is?" asked Pen, feebly.
+
+"Him," said Bob.  "Pen, you've been and gone and done it."
+
+Pen, the strong and mighty Pen, wept a little.
+
+"Don't snivel," said Bob.  "It can't be helped now, I suppose, unless
+you get a divorce.  Do you want one?"
+
+"Oh, no!" said Pen.  "Not at all!"
+
+Bob considered the matter for a few minutes.
+
+"I say, what makes you cry?" he asked.
+
+"I--I don't know," said Penelope.
+
+"Girls are very rum.  Baker says they are.  He's not married, you know.
+He says mules are easy to them.  He drove mules once in India, he says.
+You know you are doing all this off your own bat, Pen, ain't you?  Why
+don't you chuck it?"
+
+"Chuck what, dear?"
+
+"Oh, this notion of not letting on.  Baker says it's the rummest start
+he ever knew, and he says he's seen some rum things in his life,
+especially when he was a sergeant in the Dublin Fusiliers. Can't you
+chuck it?"
+
+"Oh, no, certainly not," said Pen, firmly.  "It's only, Bob, that I'm
+not used to it yet, you see."
+
+"Of course not," said Bob.  "Being married is strange at first, I
+suppose.  Baker says he knew a woman who was married four times, and by
+the fourth time she wasn't nervous to speak of.  But is it true, Pen,
+that you won't tell any one who it is?"
+
+"I won't," said Pen.
+
+"Bravo," cried Bob.  "Stick to it.  Oh, it will make granny so savage!
+Has Bill spoken about it to you?"
+
+"He laughs," said Pen.  "He always does laugh."
+
+"He tells rattling good stories," said Bob.  "He told me a splendid one
+about a man who stole a parrot the other day.  I'll tell it you sometime
+when I remember it.  Is anything going to happen to-night, Pen?"
+
+Pen shivered.
+
+"Oh, dear, I don't know.  Mind you come, too, Bob."
+
+Bob vowed he wouldn't miss coming for worlds.
+
+"I believe you're thinking of telling 'em you've done it," he said, and
+Pen said she was thinking of telling them.
+
+"You won't tell me who it is?  I'm as close as wax," urged Bob.
+
+"I can't, dear," said Pen.
+
+"Oh, by Jove, I remember Bill's parrot story, Pen.  A man stole a
+parrot, and when he was caught he said he took it for a lark.  And the
+man who owned it said he'd make a bally fine judge at a bird-show."
+
+"Oh," said Pen, rather blankly; "but if he only took it for a lark, I
+suppose they let him off.  Did they?"
+
+"Let him off what?"
+
+"Why--going to prison, of course," said Pen.
+
+"I don't know," replied Bob, staring.  "Don't you see it's a joke?"
+
+"Yes, I see, of course," said Pen.  "Why, the man said it was a lark,
+and it was a parrot.  I think it's a very good story, Bob."
+
+And Bob went away wondering whether it was or not.
+
+"I'll tell it to Baker," he said, thoughtfully.
+
+He turned up at nine o'clock that night with Titania, who was in a state
+of mind requiring instant attention from a physician.
+
+"Good heavens, what is it, I wonder," said Titania.  "Robert, I wonder
+what it is?  But what do you know?  I am in a tremble; I am sure she
+will do or say something even more scandalous than she has done yet.  I
+put it all on Bradstock; to make him her guardian was a fatal error.  My
+nerves--but I have none.  I quiver like a jelly; I shake; I must be pale
+as a ghost.  Why should we take so much trouble over anything?  I must
+think of myself.  I will go to bed and stay there for a week, and send
+for Dr. Lumsden Griff."
+
+But Bradstock was as calm as a philosopher without anything in the
+objective world to worry him.
+
+"What does it matter?" he inquired.  "Does anything matter?"
+
+Brading, whom no one had seen for many months, as he had spent the whole
+winter in a yacht down the Mediterranean, was perfectly good-humoured.
+
+"You see, she's a dear, but only my half-sister after all," he said to
+Bradstock, "and women are so wonderful!  I can tell you a story by and
+by of a Greek lady, and one about a Spaniard.  And, to tell the truth, I
+almost agree with Pen.  I'm a bit of a socialist, or an anarchist, if
+you like.  Have you read Nietzsche?"
+
+"Who wrote it?" asked Bradstock.
+
+But the horde came in one by one, and Penelope, who was dressed in the
+most unremarkable costume at her disposal, and looked like a lily,
+received them at the door.
+
+"A most awful and improper situation," said Titania.
+
+"I say, I'll tell you about that Greek girl," said Brading.  "Do you
+think Pen could stick a knife in a fellow?"
+
+Bradstock didn't think so, and listened to the story of the lady who
+suggested the notion.
+
+"Right through my coat and waistcoat," said Brading.  "Only a very stiff
+piece of starch saved my life!"
+
+"Good heavens!" cried Bradstock.
+
+The room was full, and Bob buzzed around it like a bluebottle in an
+orchard.
+
+"Oh, I say," he cried to every one.  He told the story of the parrot
+after he had asked Brading whether he had it right.  He tried it on De
+Vere and failed.  Goby roared handsomely.  Bramber was absent-minded
+with his eye on Penelope. Gordon said, "Yes, yes, a ripping good story."
+The Marquis de Rivaulx balked at it, but was led to understand it.
+
+"And when can I go up in a balloon?" asked Bob.  He waited for no
+answer, but told it to Williams, suggesting that the war correspondent
+might pay for it by a story with blood and torture in it, please.  And
+all of a sudden it was noticed that the hostess had slipped out of the
+room.
+
+"Where--where is Penelope?" asked trembling Titania.  "Mrs. Cadwallader,
+where is Lady Penelope?"
+
+Bob ran her to earth in her bedroom, and after many appeals he was let
+in.
+
+"Oh, dear, oh, dear," said Penelope.  "Bob, let me take hold of you.  Do
+I tremble?"
+
+"Rather," said Bob.  "I'll bet you couldn't drink a glass of wine
+without spilling it.  What's wrong?  Buck up.  Ain't you comin' in to
+tell 'em? I've broken it a bit for you."
+
+Pen screamed.
+
+"You wretched boy, what have you done?"
+
+"Bless you, nothing to speak of," said Bob.  "I only said you would make
+'em sit up presently. They think I know something, and want to bribe me.
+I say, Pen, if you say nothing for a few days, I believe old Gordon will
+make me a director. Can you?  I want to make money and restore the
+family property.  I say, do."
+
+But Pen paid no attention to him.  She groaned instead.
+
+"Where's the pain?" asked Bob, anxiously. "Shall I get you some brandy?"
+
+"No, no, Bob!  I _must_ go in and tell them."
+
+"Come on, then," said Bob, eagerly.  "I don't care about the
+directorship.  They're all white and shaking.  I _guess_ they _are_ in a
+stew."
+
+But still Pen did not move, and when Chloe came she sent her away,
+saying, "In a moment, in a moment!"
+
+Then Bob had a brilliant idea.
+
+"I say, Pen, I'll do it!"
+
+"Do what?"
+
+"I'll go in and tell 'em you've done it.  It would be a lark!"
+
+But Pen shook her head.
+
+"No, I must, I will be brave.  If a woman has ideas she must live up to
+them.  I have done good so far.  Are they not very much improved, Bob?"
+
+"Some, I think," said Bob, carelessly.  "But I dare say they'll go
+regular muckers now.  Come on, Pen, I do want to see their jaws drop."
+
+And Pen went with him.  She stayed outside the door, and Bob went in
+first.
+
+"She's coming," said Bob.  And Pen entered with her eyes on the floor.
+Bob took her hand.
+
+"Buck up and spit it out," he said, in an encouraging whisper, which was
+audible in the farthest corner of the room.  Some of the horde turned
+pale; Titania fell back in her chair; Bradstock leant against the wall.
+Brading put up his eyeglass, and then told Bradstock Pen reminded him of
+a girl who had once tried to smother him with a pillow.
+
+"She had Penelope's straightforwardness, and never gave in, just like
+Pen," said Brading, thoughtfully.
+
+And now Penelope took hold of her courage, so to speak, and opened her
+mouth.
+
+"S-sh," said Bob, who looked on himself as the master of the ceremonies,
+"s-sh, I say."
+
+And he took hold of Pen's hand.
+
+"I'm so glad to see you here to-night," said the reformer, "for I am so
+much interested in you all, you see.  And you've all been so brave."
+
+"Hear, hear," said Bob.
+
+"So brave in different ways, about balloons and motor-cars and curing
+yourselves of your weak points," went on Penelope.  "That's what I hoped
+my influence would do.  I said I was only a girl, but even a girl ought
+to do something, and I knew you all liked me very much, for you all said
+so, and I said, what can I do for you?  And I did my best, and you did
+yours, I'm sure, for I've heard from every one of you all about the
+others."
+
+This made many of them look rather queer, as no doubt it might.
+
+"And months ago I said--I said--"
+
+"Go ahead, Pen," whispered Bob.  "You mean you said you'd marry one of
+'em."
+
+"I said I'd--marry one of you."
+
+Titania groaned in the corner of a vast settee. Bradstock and Brading
+whistled, or it seemed so. But the other poor wretches stared at
+Penelope, and saw no one, heard no one, but her.
+
+"And I wanted you to come to-night so that I could ask you all to go on
+in the path of rectitude and simplicity and courage, balloons and hard
+work and healthiness and thought for others, even if I was married,"
+said Pen, with a gasp.  "Will you, oh, will you?"
+
+"We will," said the crowd, Goby leading with a deep bass voice and tears
+in his eyes.
+
+"Oh, I'm so glad," said Penelope, "for I shall not have lived in vain
+even if I died to-night.  And now--and now--I have to tell you
+something."
+
+"Great heavens," said Titania, in an awestricken and penetrating
+whisper, "what is she going to say now?"
+
+"I have kept my word," said Penelope, with her eyes on the floor.  "I
+have kept my word!"
+
+"What--what word?" asked the collapsed duchess, and Pen tried to say
+what word she had kept.
+
+"Speak up," said Bob, "speak up, Pen!"
+
+And she did speak up.
+
+"For--for," gasped Penelope, "for, you see, I _have_ married one of
+you!"
+
+Titania uttered a scream and promptly fainted. The men looked at each
+other furiously and suspiciously, while Pen was on her knees beside the
+poor duchess.  At that moment a message was brought in for Gordon, and
+an urgent note from the whip for Bramber.  Brading stood in a corner and
+whistled.  Bradstock shrugged his shoulders, and Bob buzzed all over the
+room like a wasp in a bottle.  By dint of water and smelling-salts and
+the slapping of hands Titania was brought to, and when she had recovered
+consciousness to the extent of knowing what it was that had bowled her
+over, she uttered words on the spur of the moment which were almost as
+much of a bombshell as those Penelope had spoken.
+
+"I don't believe she's married at all," said Titania.
+
+
+
+
+                             *CHAPTER XII.*
+
+
+To talk about the grounds of certainty is to talk metaphysically, and
+metaphysics being the highest form of nonsense, becomes sense in that
+altitude, as it must be if Hegel is to be believed.  But in the conduct
+of life the grounds of certainty are an estate beyond the rainbow.  If
+Penelope believed any one thing with more fervour than another, it was
+that her truthfulness must be self-evident.  The course of events after
+the evening on which Titania fainted and recovered so sharply showed her
+that nothing was certain, not even self-evident truths. For though she
+said she was married, few, if any, believed her.  Titania, who believed
+in her intuitions, as all right-minded women must, because reason is
+only an attribute of man, declared that Penelope had lied, to put it
+plainly.  She invented an hypothesis to account for it.
+
+"She found out she didn't want to marry any of them, and her courage to
+say so failed her.  This notion of hers gives her time, and of course,
+my dear, as you see from what I say, she's not married in the least."
+
+Bradstock, who was a philosopher, disagreed with her, and agreed with
+Bob.
+
+"Not married in the least, eh?" said Bradstock. "What is the least
+degree of marriage which would meet with your moral approval, Titania?"
+
+"Don't talk nonsense, Augustin," replied Titania, tartly.
+
+"I cannot help it," said Augustin, "the situation is so absurd."
+
+And so it was for every one but the Duchess and Penelope, who did not
+understand a joke even with illustrations.  And they undoubtedly had the
+illustrations.  There were leading articles in several papers on the
+subject of marriage, with discreet allusions to Penelope's case.  There
+was a long and rabid correspondence in the _Daily Turncoat_, a new
+halfpenny paper, to which every lady with a past or a future
+contributed.  The editor of the _Dictator_ wrote a moral essay with his
+own hand, obvious to every student of his immemorial style, which proved
+that another such case would knock the bottom out of the British Empire
+and bring on protection.  He showed that marriage, open and
+unadulterated, in a chapel, at the least, was the minimum on which
+morality could exist, and he pointed out with sad firmness that the
+ethical standards of the true Briton were the only decent ones at
+present unfurled in the universe, and that they were in great danger of
+being rolled up and put away.  As every one knows, all he said was
+undoubtedly fact.  The true Briton is the only moral person in the
+world. As a result Penelope felt that she wasn't a true Briton, and it
+made her very mournful, as it should have done.  Nothing but her native
+obstinacy, which was imperial if not British, made her stick to her
+ideas, when her half-brother came to her and asked her crudely to
+"chuck" it.  For, though he was humourous, it was past a joke now, and
+his admiration of Pen was tinged with alarm.
+
+"I say, old girl, chuck it," said Bill.
+
+"I can't!  I won't!" said Penelope.
+
+"Nobody believes you."
+
+Penelope couldn't help that.
+
+"I've spoken the truth."
+
+"Why, even the other men don't believe it," said her brother.  "Why, I
+met three of 'em to-day, and they all said, 'Oh, yes, we understand.'  I
+say, Pen, this is too much.  Chuck it!"
+
+"Once for all, dear, I won't," said Penelope. "Much as I dislike this
+publicity, I see it is doing good.  I get letters every day from scores
+of people saying that I am doing good.  Three to-day declared that they
+were following my example in a registrar's office, and three more are
+thinking of it.  One lady writes, saying she hopes I would go in for
+abolishing marriage altogether when public opinion was prepared for the
+extinction of the race. I don't agree with her, but she was
+enthusiastic, and enthusiasm is a great thing."
+
+"I shall go yachting for a year," said Bill.
+
+"I wish you would, dear Bill," replied Penelope. "It will do you good.
+You look quite pale, and I don't like you to do that.  Have you any
+cough?"
+
+"Damn it, no," said Brading, crossly.
+
+And he went yachting again without publicity but with a lady.  He was no
+true Briton, and never read the _Dictator_.
+
+His departure took one thing off Pen's hands, but none of her lovers
+departed.  Titania's words had sunk deep in their minds.
+
+"She's not married," they said.  "And if she says she is, it is only to
+try us."
+
+They all interviewed Bob, and made things very pleasant for that rising
+statesman.  If he believed Pen was married there was no reason to say so
+openly.
+
+"Am I old enough to be a director, do you think?" he asked Gordon.
+"What I want is to make pots of money and rebuild Goring, which is a
+bally ruin."
+
+"You don't answer my questions," said Gordon.
+
+"Oh, about Pen," said Bob.  "She's queer.  I don't know, Mr. Gordon, I
+can't tell.  She may be, for all I know.  She's so clever, I don't know
+that she hasn't married you, and put you up to coming and asking me
+questions."
+
+Gordon couldn't help grinning.
+
+"I think you'll be a director of something some day," said he.  "I can't
+make you one now, but if you have a hundred pounds I'll invest it in
+something for you, my son, that will make your hair curl."
+
+"Like yours?" asked Bob, curiously, and Gordon flinched.
+
+"Well," went on Bob, without waiting for an answer, "I haven't a hundred
+pounds, but I've an idea how to get it."
+
+"Yes?" said the financier.  "What's your idea, Bob?"
+
+"It's a safe and a certain investment, is it?"
+
+"Why, of course," replied Gordon.
+
+"Then I'll tell you what, you lend it me," said Bob, brightly, "and
+invest it for me."
+
+"Damned if I don't," cried Gordon.  "Bob, when you are twenty-one I'll
+make you a director and ask your advice!  And you'll come and tell me if
+you find out anything about Lady Penelope?"
+
+Bob looked at him and shook his head.
+
+"I say, you're so clever, I don't know how to take you.  I dare say it's
+you!"
+
+The flattered financier smiled.
+
+"Oh, by the way," said Bob, rather in a hurry, "I suppose I should get
+nearly as much if I invested ninety pounds as if I put in a hundred?"
+
+"Nearly," said Gordon, who hoped to be let off a little, "only ten per
+cent. less."
+
+"That'll do me," said Bob.  "Then you can give me the tenner now, Mr.
+Gordon, and put in the rest for me."
+
+"I wish I had a boy like that," said Gordon. He went away ten pounds
+poorer, but with a great admiration for Bob, who was determined to
+restore the faded splendour of Goring.
+
+"Hanged if I know who it is," said Bob.  "It may be Gordon after all.
+And every one but De Vere and Bramber have been at me.  Is it one of
+these?"
+
+He had a remarkable list of all those who had pretended to Penelope's
+hand, for he was very curious, like all the rest of the world.  He was
+also a little sore with Pen for not confiding in him.
+
+"I told her I'd find out," he said, "and I will."
+
+This was his list, and a curious document it was, written in a big,
+round hand that "old Guth" could never get him to modify.  His spelling
+was almost ducal in its splendour.
+
+
+"_Plant_.  It isn't Mr. Plant, because he said would I like to go out in
+a motor, a new one, ninety-horse power, and I said rather, if he'd let
+her rip.  And he looked anshious I thought.  He tiped me.
+
+"_Goby_.  It isn't Goby, Goby says he'll always be my friend.  He said
+had I another pony not sound, to experiment with.  He stamped up and
+down, some.  He tiped me.
+
+"_Williams_.  It isn't Williams, he took me to lunch and told me lots of
+things about the Chinese that his paper wouldn't print.  They were
+orful. He said if I'd keep in with him he knew worse.  He didn't tip me
+this time because the lunch was so much.  I had turtell three times.
+
+"_Rivaulx_.  It isn't the Frenchy because he tore his hair, and said I
+could go up in a baloon any day.  At least, he didn't tear his hair;
+it's too short. He keeps it up with Gordon too but looks horrid. He
+tiped me.
+
+"_Carew_.  It isn't him.  He's very anxshus and says he can't paint:
+says the crittics are right.  He was a sad sight to see, walking around
+in his studio. He said would I sit to him for an angel.  He stops
+walking and tries to do Pen quick.  I think it's muck. I wouldn't like a
+tip from him, for if an artist can't paint through grief what becomes of
+him? Do the others buy him for the Chantrey Bequest?"
+
+
+"That's the lot so far," said Bob.  And he added to his notes:
+
+
+"_Gordon_.  It isn't Gordon.  He lent me a hundred pounds to invest in
+something to make hair curl.  I said make it ninety and give me ten now,
+and he did.  He didn't tip me, but I don't think him mean on that
+account."
+
+
+"That leaves only De Vere and Bramber," said Bob, "and she never seemed
+much stuck on either to my mind.  But if they don't say anything to me I
+shall begin to suspect."
+
+He said so to Bradstock, who called him a young devil.
+
+But about three days later Bob added to his notes:
+
+
+"_Bramber_.  It isn't Bramber.  I met him in the park.  He took me to
+the House and gave me a beastly lunch.  But he didn't notice it as he
+couldn't eat and looked very pale and savidge.  He tiped me.
+
+"_De Vere_.  It's not the poetry rotter.  He wants me to stay with him
+and look after the dogs.  He said if I had a sick one he'd rather have
+it than not. He said he was desprit.  I don't know why, but suppose it's
+Pen.  He tiped me."
+
+
+"Now where am I at?" he said, blankly.  "I've written down it isn't any
+of 'em.  And that's what granny says.  But I don't believe her."
+
+He chewed his pencil till it was in rags, and then a sudden idea struck
+him.
+
+"I'll buy all Sherlock Holmes and read him right through," said Bob.
+"That's the way to find out anything.  I wish I knew the man that wrote
+him. I wonder if De Vere knows him?  I'll ask Baker to get a sick dog
+from the vet's, and I'll go down and stay with De Vere if I can make
+granny say 'yes.'  I wonder why old De Vere wants a sick dog, though.  I
+can't understand poets."
+
+It was no wonder Gordon wished he had a boy like Bob.
+
+
+
+
+                            *CHAPTER XIII.*
+
+
+It was all very well for Bob to declare that his grandmother was
+altogether "off it" when she said that Penelope wasn't married at all.
+For, little by little, after furious discussions in ten thousand houses,
+in the court, the camp, and the grove, that came to be the general
+opinion.
+
+Titania expressed the general opinion:
+
+"She is mad, of course.  What can one expect when her mother was an
+American?  All Americans are mad.  Bradstock assures me there is a
+something in the air of the United States (oh, even in Canada) which
+makes one take entirely new views of everything.  And that, of course,
+is madness, my dear, madness undoubted and dangerous.  He assured me,
+poor fellow, that six months in that absurd country made him tremble for
+his belief in a constitutional monarchy!  He adds that he has only
+partially recovered, by firmly fixing his eyes on what a limited monarch
+might be, if he tried. Yes, she was an American, and adored our
+aristocracy, not knowing what we are, poor thing. And yet where
+Penelope's ideas come from I do not know.  I firmly believe Bradstock is
+the cause of them.  When she was a little girl he would take her on his
+knee and pour anarchism into her innocent ears.  You know his way; he
+runs counter to everything, though now comparatively silent.  And
+Penelope was always ready to go against me, though she loves me.  This
+was an early idea of hers; Augustin owns that he suggested it
+humourously to her years ago.  There is nothing so dangerous as humour;
+it is always liable to be taken seriously. Mr. Browning, the poet, said
+so to me at a garden-party; he said he was a humourist, and he said Mr.
+Tennyson (oh, yes, Lord Tennyson) lacked humour, while he himself had
+too much of it.  He explained Sordello to me, and made me laugh
+heartily.  But as I was saying, Penelope took up the idea and gave it
+out, and now is sorry, and, not having the courage to say so, she has
+taken refuge in what I am reluctantly compelled to characterize as a
+lie, and it is a great relief to me.  The scandal will blow over;
+already the halfpenny papers are tired of her.  I expect she will marry
+by and by. Oh, no, of course she isn't married!"
+
+And as Penelope's ideas were in every way absolutely contrary to what
+one has a right to expect, it is only natural that, proof of the
+contrary being lacking, the whole world began gradually to come around
+to Titania's opinion.  A duchess has a great deal of influence if she
+only likes to use it, and the public is no more proof against her than
+the public offices are.
+
+And Pen set her teeth together and ignored every one, and had very
+little to say to society.  Her apparent passion was for motor-cars, and
+she went out in the sixty-horse Panhard almost every day. And every end
+of the week she disappeared, coming back on Monday or Tuesday.
+
+"I could tell 'em something," said Geordie Smith, "couldn't I, old
+girl?"
+
+The "old girl" he referred to was the machine he loved next best, at
+least, to Lady Penelope.
+
+"Me and Bunting could wake 'em up some," he said.  "I'd like Bunting if
+he'd only get rid of the notion that horses are everything.  I hope to
+see the time when there won't be any except in parks, running wild like
+deer."
+
+It was an awful notion, and it was a wonder that he and Bunting got on
+without fighting.
+
+"My lady _uses_ your bloomin' tracking engine," said Tim,
+contemptuously, "but she _loves_ 'orses. You can't give carrots to your
+old thing, and it ain't got no smooth and silky muzzle to pat. Faugh!
+the smell of it makes me sick; give me the 'ealthy hodour of the stable,
+Smith!"
+
+"Find me a horse that'd carry her and me a hundred and twenty miles in
+three hours and damn the expense in fines," replied Smith, "and I'm with
+you.  My lady loves this car a'most as much as I do.  Who can catch her
+and me, flying along? Let 'em come, let 'em try, and I'll put her out to
+the top notch and let her sizzle.  You come out and try, Tim; one drive
+and you'll be another man, looking on horses as what they are, mere
+animals and not up to date.  My lady's up to date and beyond it."
+
+"When I go in your bally machine hit'll be by my lady's horders," said
+Timothy, "and it'll be tryin' my hallegiance very 'ard.  Come and 'ave a
+drink, if you hain't too advanced for that!  'Ave you been chased lately
+as you brought my lady 'ome?"
+
+"I thought I was," replied Smith, "but I shook 'em off.  I'm egging her
+on to get a ninety-horse in case.  That young cousin of hers let on to
+me that she'll be followed up some day, and I told her. She'll do it!"
+
+"I wonder what's her game?" said Tim. "Blowed if I hunderstand."
+
+"So far's I see," replied Smith, "it's a general notion that a party's
+private biz is their private biz.  And the others says it isn't, and
+there's where the trouble begins.  I agree with her in a measure, don't
+you?"
+
+"I agrees with my lady hevery time," said Tim. "She's a sweet lady, and,
+my word, if I didn't I'd get the sack, which I don't want.  What she
+says she sticks to, bein' in that different to hany woman I never met.
+That's what the trouble is, that and reformin' lovers and husbands and
+law and so hon!"
+
+But the real trouble was that what she said she stuck to.  She began to
+care much less for reform, and now never read Herbert Spencer and the
+greater philosopher, who has discovered that man doesn't think so much
+of yesterday as he does of to-morrow. She forgot the Deceased Wife's
+Sister, and ignored the London County Council, and didn't read the
+_Times_ except on great occasions.  She spent the days in dreaming, and,
+except when she was devouring the space between London and Lincolnshire,
+she lay about on sofas and read poetry or listened to Bob, and looked
+ten thousand times more beautiful than ever, like the Eastern beauties,
+of whom one reads in the Arabian Nights, returning from the bath.  She
+was wonderfully affectionate to Bob, who was a most considerate boy, and
+didn't worry her when he had once discovered that asking questions was
+no use.  He told her of his vain efforts to find out whom she had
+married, and was very amusing.  He began to have great ambitions.
+
+"Mr. Gordon says I've a great future before me, Pen.  He thinks no end
+of me.  He says being a duke by and by is all very well, but I agree
+with him there are greater things than merely being one. He says the men
+with power are the rulers of the world.  He told me how he and
+Rothschild stopped a war in a hurry.  He didn't say which war.  I asked
+him why he didn't stop the South African War, and he said that was
+different.  I asked him did he bring it on then, and he said 'No.'  But
+I think he did, somehow.  Will you ask old Sir Henry if he did?  I don't
+like Sir Henry, though, do you?"
+
+He went on to tell her about Sherlock Holmes.
+
+"I'm reading him through again, Pen.  And when I go down to De Vere's I
+shall ask De Vere to invite the man that wrote him.  I'm going to De
+Vere's to take him a sick dog.  He said he wanted one, and I've got one
+from Baker.  Baker says he must want to vivisect him, and he doesn't
+like the idea.  Baker's a very kind man to animals, but I've given my
+word that the dog sha'n't be vivisected.  You don't think a poet would,
+do you? Did you tell him to learn to be a vet or anything? If you did,
+that would explain it.  I've been through the whole list, Pen, and,
+though I won't worry you, I've come to the conclusion so far that I
+don't know which you've married.  If I find out I won't tell."
+
+"You're a dear," said Pen, languidly.
+
+"I've got a notion how to find out, though," said Bob.  "At least, I
+shall have when I've finished Sherlock Holmes.  I'd rather be Sherlock
+Holmes than a duke.  It seems to me that unless you are the Duke of
+Norfolk or the Duke of Devonshire you are out of it.  Being a common
+duke is dull, but being Holmes must be very exciting."
+
+One thing that he told her made her think furiously.
+
+"Not one of 'em really believes you, Pen, and they're much more jealous
+of each other than they were.  I believe they'll be fighting presently."
+
+"Don't talk nonsense," said Pen, anxiously.
+
+Bob shrugged his shoulders, a trick he had caught from the marquis.
+
+"It's not nonsense.  I can see bloodshed in their eyes.  The marquis
+looks awfully ferocious, and Williams, too.  Of course, I don't say that
+Gordon would fight much.  And I should snigger to see old De Vere in a
+duel, shouldn't you?  But if Bramber and the marquis and Williams and
+Goby get together, I shouldn't be surprised if they fought with swords
+or guns.  I think Rivaulx would like that. He would stick them all and
+make 'em squeal, I can tell you.  He's a whale at fencing.  He took me
+to see him once, and when he stamped and said 'Ha-ha,' like a war-horse,
+I wondered the other man didn't run."
+
+"If they had a duel, any of them, I shouldn't speak to them again," said
+Penelope.  "I abhor duels and warfare and weapons, and think they should
+be abolished in universal peace.  And as I am married now, Bob, I hope
+you will do what you can to make them believe it."
+
+"You can make 'em believe it at once," said Bob.  "I do think this is
+absurd.  And don't you see it's funny, too, Pen?"
+
+"No," said Pen, "it's not.  It's right, and what is right can't be
+funny."
+
+Bob reflected.
+
+"Well, there's something in that.  It ain't much fun generally."
+
+And he returned to Sherlock Holmes.
+
+"I wonder what he would do," said Bob to himself, pensively.  "There
+ain't any footsteps or blood in this.  I suppose he'd take a look at Pen
+and then have a smoke and go out in a hansom and come back very tired.
+I've looked at Pen a lot, but smoking still makes me sick, and I don't
+know where to go in a hansom.  And I think Holmes would think it mean to
+follow her when she goes off with Smith in her car.  Besides, a hansom
+can't catch a sixty-horse Panhard unless it breaks down.  I think he
+would get at it by looking at the men."
+
+That put him on the track of a dreadful scheme, a most wicked and
+immoral scheme, that his hero would have disapproved of.
+
+"I believe I have it," said Bob, starting up in wild excitement.  "If I
+go around to them all and say that I'm sure she's not married, but that
+she loves the one they hate most, they will jump and be in a rage, won't
+they?  I should be, I know.  And the one that doesn't jump will be him.
+I dare say De Vere won't jump, but he's not a jumping sort, but he'll
+cry, likely.  Rivaulx _will_ snort if it isn't him."
+
+He sat and pondered over this lovely scheme.
+
+"But if she loves one of 'em, why don't she own it to him, and why this
+mystery?  They'll ask that, of course.  Oh, but that doesn't matter;
+they'll do the snorting first.  And, besides, I could let on that not
+all of them are in earnest.  Ain't it possible that the one she loves
+won't ask her now, and she's covering up her disappointment?  That would
+make Rivaulx fairly howl, I know.  He's a real good chap, and between
+howling and weeping he says he wants her to be happy.  I'll do it."
+
+He went off to do it at once.
+
+"Ha, ha, my beautiful boy," said the Marquis of Rivaulx, whom he found
+in his rooms in Piccadilly, "have you come with news for me, the devoted
+and despairing?"
+
+"Well, I don't know, marquis," returned Bob, soberly.  "I've been
+thinking about it, and I'm in a state of puzzle."
+
+"And I am in a state of the devil himself," replied Rivaulx.  "I suspect
+every one.  I am enraged. I suspect you, Bob, my boy."
+
+Bob shook his head.
+
+"I suspect you, too.  I've never got over thinking that it may be you,"
+he said, "for you are all just like each other, and it's obvious some
+one is telling me lies."
+
+Rivaulx smiled, a deep and dark French smile, which was agonizing to
+behold.  It puzzled Bob dreadfully.
+
+"There," he said, "you smile, and so does Pen, and you all smile.  But I
+believe I've discovered something."
+
+"About who or which?" asked Rivaulx.  "Is it about that Goby?"
+
+He might loathe Gordon, but he was jealous of Goby.  He promenaded the
+room, and was already in a rage.
+
+"Yes," said Bob, boldly.  "I believe she's not married, and I believe
+she likes him best."
+
+"The hound, the vile one, the unmeasured beast," roared Rivaulx, "it
+cannot be.  If she loves him (no, I can't believe it), why does she not
+wed him? I shall slay him.  Is she unhappy?  Does she weep? I adore her,
+but if she loves him he shall marry her or I will stab him to the
+heart."
+
+"I dare say he's not in earnest," said Bob.  And the marquis ground his
+teeth and foamed at the mouth, and again tried to tear his close-cropped
+hair without the least success.
+
+"Not--oh, sacred dog of a man,--ha--let me kill him!"
+
+He tore around the room and knocked two ornaments off the mantelpiece
+and upset a table, which Bob laboriously restored to its place.  After
+he had put it back three times, he gave it up and cowered under the
+storm.
+
+"I shouldn't be surprised if this was put on," said Bob, rather
+gloomily.  "I know he can act like blazes; Pen says he can.  She said he
+was finer than Irving or Toole in a tragedy.  I don't think it has the
+true ring of sincerity."
+
+And making his escape from the cyclone, he went off to see Goby, who was
+hideously jealous of Carteret Williams.
+
+"I hope he won't be as mad as the marquis," said Bob.  "That table
+barked my shins horribly the last time it fell.  I wish Frenchmen
+wouldn't shout so when they're angry; I'm nearly deaf."
+
+There was the devil to pay with Goby.  He announced his intention of
+assaulting Williams at once.
+
+"Oh, I say, you mustn't," cried Bob, in great alarm.  "She'll never
+forgive you."
+
+"That Williams!" said Goby.  "I always did hate war correspondents.  I
+don't believe it."
+
+But it looked as if he did.
+
+"I dare say you are putting it on," cried Bob. "I don't know where I
+am."
+
+Goby said he didn't, either, but that if this turned out to be true he
+would wring Williams's neck in the park the first fine Sunday in June.
+
+"He would have acted just the same if he was married to her, and thought
+she loved Williams best after all," said Bob to himself.  "I'll try
+Bramber and Williams, and then give it up."
+
+Bramber was in a furious temper, and when Bob assured him that Penelope
+loved Gordon best of any one, he swore horribly.  As he rarely swore,
+this was very impressive, and Bob almost shivered.
+
+"I say, you mustn't kick Gordon," he urged. "After all, I may be
+mistaken."
+
+"I wish you were dead," said Bramber, "and you will be if you don't get
+out."
+
+Bob got out, and when he was in the open air he sighed.
+
+"I don't think I'll try Williams," he said, thoughtfully.  "He's much
+bigger and stronger even than Goby, and they say he's a terror when he's
+very angry.  My scheme doesn't seem to work; there's something wrong
+with it."
+
+But there was nothing wrong with it, and it worked marvellously.  The
+report that Bob said positively that Pen wasn't married carried much
+weight. Goby and Rivaulx both gave it away.  And all the men now loathed
+each other openly.  Rivaulx cut Goby and Goby cut Williams and Bramber
+sneered at Gordon, and there was great likelihood of there being the
+devil to pay.  Pen tried to patch up peace among them, and failed, and
+wept about it, seeing so much of the good she had done melt like sugar
+in warm rain.  At last she announced her intention of leaving them and
+the world alone.
+
+"I almost think I'll give up reform," she sighed.
+
+And the season went by and the autumn came, and Titania found herself at
+Goring in October with a large house-party which didn't include
+Penelope.
+
+"She is, of course, somewhat ashamed of herself," said Titania, happily.
+"This comes of having ideas and foolishly attempting to carry them into
+practice.  Now that I am certain she is not married and that she only
+says so, I feel quite different.  I no longer abhor the poor, foolish
+men who are so much in love with her.  I see plainly (for I, too, am
+naturally a democrat of the proper kind) that they have fine qualities.
+I have marked my sense of this in a way which appears to amuse Lord
+Bradstock for some reason that I do not follow,--but then, I never could
+follow Augustin, poor fellow,--by asking them all down here.  I dare say
+they think Penelope will come, for they have all accepted.  I am
+delighted, for I really admire them.  Mr. Carew is the handsomest young
+man in London, and will paint my portrait between meals. I wonder
+whether I shall try to get thinner by eating less, or will it be better
+to tell Mr. Carew to make me thinner in his picture.  That seems the
+easiest course; for if Penelope's conduct has not made me thin, what
+would?  Neither hot weather nor despair has the least effect upon me.  I
+shall trust to Mr. Carew's idea of what is right and proper.  I wish I
+could rely with equal confidence upon poor, dear, misguided Penelope."
+
+There was much discontent in the camp when the lovers learnt that their
+beloved was not one of Titania's house-party.  They were not civil to
+each other, and with difficulty were civil to Titania.
+
+"Confound the old harridan," said Goby.  This was wicked, for Titania
+was very sweet, and retained much more than a trace of her youthful
+beauty.  She belonged to the modern band of those who sternly refuse to
+grow old.
+
+"Great Scott!" said Carteret Williams.  The others made equally
+appropriate exclamations.  They damned Goring in heaps, and looked at
+each other like a crowd of strange dogs.  Owing to Penelope's influence
+they all came in motor-cars.  Even De Vere turned up in one which was
+guaranteed by age and its maker not to go more than ten miles an hour.
+There wasn't room to get them into the temporary garage out of the wet.
+But the marquis did not come in a balloon or a flying-machine.  That was
+something, at any rate, though Bob growled about it bitterly.  Pen's
+request that he should do his best to make the world believe she was
+married was entirely forgotten.  Without quite meaning to say so, he
+practically asserted in every word that she was not.
+
+"After all," said Bob, "I believe she is capable of deceiving even me,
+for she is a woman.  Horace, in his Odes, seems to think that.  It seems
+to me that classical authors had a very poor opinion of women."
+
+He went to Rivaulx crossly.
+
+"I say, I think you ought to have come in a flying-machine.  Why didn't
+you?  Pen will be mad."
+
+He introduced De Vere to Baker (who had been a sergeant in the Dublin
+Fusiliers), and left him with him, discussing hydrophobia and bulldogs.
+
+"Baker says he has a great admiration for you, sir," said Bob.  "He has
+lots of pups for you to look at.  There's a very queer spotted one that
+Pen said she was sure you would like.  It's very cheap for a spotted dog
+of the kind, Baker says."
+
+But they were an unhappy crowd, and even the shooting, which was fairly
+good for a poor duke's place, hardly consoled them.
+
+At night the women, who all gambled, naturally were very cross.  It
+appeared that not one of the men would play bridge, because Penelope had
+made them swear off.  There were only three men in the house not in love
+with Penelope.  Titania had a dreadful time, and much regretted her
+hospitality. Carew was furious, of course, and his notions of colour
+were very morbid.  And he appeared to see the duchess as she was, in
+spite of the hints the poor woman threw out to the desperate painter,
+who looked at her sorrowfully and sighed as he shook his head.
+
+"Being painted is an ordeal," she said.  Not one of the others consoled
+her.  De Vere wept with her in the drawing-room; Williams wrecked her
+orchids in the hothouse; Plant and Gordon quarrelled in the
+smoking-room.  And Bramber, who was only there for four days, looked
+horridly sorry for himself, and sneered at every one.  The marquis went
+around the park in a ninety-horse-power racer seventeen times between
+breakfast and lunch.  The chauffeurs quarrelled furiously; they even
+fought in the stable yard with Baker as umpire and Bob as timekeeper.
+
+At the dinner-table was the only time of peace, and then it was too
+peaceful.  Nobody but Bob and Ethel Mytton and Titania did any talking.
+Bob spoke of very little but Penelope, which was natural but awkward.
+He told them what Baker said, till they all desired to go out and
+strangle Baker. Bradstock encouraged him, for Bradstock was the only man
+there who had any apparent desire to be amused.  The rest of them played
+with the soup, toyed with the _entrees_, fooled with the roasts, choked
+over the birds, and went out and oversmoked themselves.  Then they met
+in the big hall and the drawing-room, and Titania had to assure them all
+one after the other, that she was certain Penelope was not married.
+
+"Then why does she say she is?" they asked, bitterly.
+
+"It must be to try you," said Titania.  "Augustin, don't you think it is
+to try them?"
+
+Bradstock made that sound which the English write as "Humph" and the
+Scotch put down as "Imphm."  It means a great deal, but is intelligible
+to the intelligent.
+
+"Yes, it is to try you," said Titania.  "She is a dear, sweet thing, but
+has ideas which do not commend themselves to me.  I understand them, of
+course, but regret them.  It may be, of course, that she does not love
+any of you, and is trying to get out of it.  By and by you will find out
+if that is so.  She is enthusiastic and impulsive.  Oh, these impulses
+of youth!  How well I remember the delightful impulses of youth, when
+one feels as if one could fly with wings!  Even now I get impulses.
+Poor Penelope!  Ah, dear, I wish she would come.  I have written again
+and again to ask her, but I'm afraid she will not."
+
+And, indeed, no one at that moment knew where she was, unless, indeed,
+it was Timothy and Geordie Smith and Miss Mackarness and the pirate in
+goggles of the motor-car who carried her off.
+
+Titania and Bob between them, at any rate, accomplished one thing.  No
+one pretended to assign a satisfactory reason for Pen's conduct, but
+every one, except one, perhaps, believed she was still single.  They
+were sure of it, and grew surer every day.  As a result, they recovered
+some little peace of mind; they quarrelled less and ate more and shot
+straighter. Rivaulx only went fifteen times around the park before
+lunch; De Vere bought more dogs; Plant agreed to go into some scheme of
+trust robbery with Gordon, who assured the rest of them that he had
+Rothschild up his sleeve.  Williams stamped less on flower-beds and
+swore half as much as usual.  Goby and Bramber went out walks together
+with Bob and Ethel Mytton.  Titania's barometer went up and her size
+went down in Carew's picture.  He saw her less yellow, and did not
+insist on her wrinkles. Augustin sat in the library and read books which
+were of so humourous a character that they compelled him to put them
+down and laugh continually. It was certainly a most amusing house-party.
+
+"I thought there would have been duels in the park," said Augustin.  "I
+wonder what the deuce Pen would think of them if she saw them now."
+
+And then one day something serious happened. It was on a Sunday, and on
+Sundays the post came in at half-past ten, just at the time they were
+all having breakfast before going to church.  They were just about as
+happy as they could ever hope to be till Penelope married one or all of
+them.  Bob, who was especially greedy that morning, was eating against
+time and winning.  Only Ethel was sad, for Goby seemed quite cheerful.
+When he was mournful she was happier always.  Titania flowed
+wonderfully.  Augustin was saying the kind of thing he could say when
+sitting down.  Goring himself was eating as if he was in rivalry with
+Bob.  He never said anything, but looked like a duke, which is a very
+fine thing when a man is a duke, and can afford it with care.  Gordon
+was eating bacon as if he had no great appetite for it.
+
+"Oh, here's the post," said Titania.  Augustin took Saturday's _Times_
+and opened it.
+
+"I wonder whether dear Penelope has written to me," said Titania.  The
+"horde" looked up; they hoped even yet that Penelope would give in and
+come at last.
+
+"Any news?" grunted Goring.
+
+"I don't see any," replied Augustin.
+
+"What are Jack Sheppard's United?" asked Gordon, slipping a piece of
+bacon into his pocket.
+
+And Augustin made his celebrated speech over again, his single speech in
+the House of Lords.
+
+"Good God!" said Augustin, and he turned almost as white as the _Times_
+paper before it went through the machines.  Every one stared at him.
+
+"What is it?" screamed Titania.  Bob jumped up and deserted a pig's
+cheek just as it was showing signs of utter defeat.
+
+"It's--it's--" said Augustin, and he stammered vainly.
+
+"I say, let's look," cried Bob.  "Granny, it's something in the Births,
+Marriages, and Deaths!"
+
+"Good heavens, speak, Augustin!" implored Titania.
+
+The band of lovers went as white as Augustin; they stood up
+simultaneously.
+
+"I see it, I see it," said Bob, and he actually snatched the paper from
+Lord Bradstock's hand.
+
+"Is she married?  Is she dead?" asked Titania.
+
+"No, no," said Bob, sputtering and aflame with wild excitement; "it's
+'Brading--Lady Penelope Brading on the 18th of a son!'"
+
+
+
+
+                             *CHAPTER XIV.*
+
+
+There are blows which stun; this was, of course, one of them.  Titania
+did not shriek or faint at the awful intelligence conveyed by the
+Thunderer of Printing House Square.  She nodded her head as if she was
+partially paralyzed, and at last murmured in a dry whisper:
+
+"Of a son!  Of a son!"
+
+Bradstock's eyebrows were as high as they would go, and he stared at
+Titania, and then look around on the circle of men and women.  Ethel
+squeaked a little squeak, like a mouse behind the wainscot and was
+silent.
+
+"Oh--of a son," said Goby, sighing and looking at the floor.
+
+"Of a son!" said Plant, eyeing the ceiling.
+
+"_Un fils!_" shrieked Rivaulx.
+
+Gordon said "Damnation;" De Vere shook like a stranded jelly-fish;
+Bramber went as scarlet as a lobster, and then as white as cotton;
+Carteret Williams looked blue, and Carew looked green, and Bob said: "My
+eye!"
+
+There is something organic in any given number of people acting under
+the same shock or the same impulse.  What one thinks another thinks; and
+now all the room fixed their eyes on Titania, whose lips moved in
+silence.
+
+"This is dreadful!" said Titania to herself.  "I don't believe she's
+married at all.  One of these men is a scoundrel, a ruffian, a seducer!"
+
+No one heard what she said, but as she thought it the men looked at each
+other with awful suspicions.  And then Titania, whose mind was whirling,
+said feebly:
+
+"We--we must hush it up!"
+
+And there lay the _Times_!  Hush it up indeed! And Bradstock recovered
+some of his equanimity.
+
+"Nonsense!  She's married, as she says," he remarked, with comparative
+coolness.
+
+But no one believed it.  The men drew apart from each other.  De Vere
+moved his chair, because Goby was looking at him like a demon. Carew
+shrank from Carteret Williams.  Gordon went livid under Plant's eyes.
+Bramber looked at them all as if he would die on the spot.  Rivaulx rose
+up and waltzed around the room.  It was a happy chance that he did so;
+it is possible that he saved immediate bloodshed.  Bradstock and Bob
+caught the Frenchman in their arms, and led him outside to the lawn,
+where there was ample room for a frantic _pas seul_.
+
+"Steady, old chap!" said Bradstock, "steady! Her husband _must_
+acknowledge now who he is!"
+
+"Oh, no," said Bob, in immense delight, "not much!  If she's married at
+all, she's sworn him not to.  She told me she'd swear him not to!  And
+she said if he broke his oath she'd never see him again!"
+
+"Great heavens!" said Bradstock, "so she did. I remember now, she _did_
+speak of oaths, dreadful oaths!"
+
+Rivaulx danced over a flower-bed, came in contact with a fence, fell
+over it, and uttered a howl which brought every one into the garden.  He
+tumbled into a ditch, fortunately a comparatively dry one, and lay
+there, using the very worst French language.
+
+The gloomy crowd lined the ditch and listened, and wished they
+understood.  As a matter of fact, only Bradstock and Bramber knew
+sufficient decent French to guess what Rivaulx said, and they shivered.
+In the background Titania and Ethel hung to each other and wept; old
+Goring remained inside sucking at an unlighted cigar.
+
+"The terrible, terrible disgrace!" said Titania. She believed the very
+worst at once.  "Is it the marquis?  Is he smitten with remorse?"
+
+Rivaulx got out of the ditch on the wrong side, and walked out into the
+park, where he addressed a commination service to a nice little herd of
+Jersey cows.  After five minutes of this exercise, he returned toward
+the house and climbed the fence. Then he shook his fist at the others.
+
+"One of you is a _scelerat_," he howled, "a scoundrrrel!  I challenge
+you all to fight!  Ha, ha!"
+
+Bradstock took him by the arm and led him away.
+
+"One of us is a hound!" said Goby.
+
+"Yes," said the others, "yes!"
+
+They glared at each other horribly, and clenched their fists.  Bob ran
+around them in the wildest excitement.
+
+"Look here, I say, Captain Goby.  Oh, Mr. de Vere!  I say, Mr. Plant, if
+you want to fight, come into the stables.  Granny says you mustn't fight
+here."
+
+He grabbed several of them, and was hurled into space at once.  He
+finally laid hold of De Vere, who wasn't capable of hurling a ladybird
+off his finger.
+
+"You shall fight Goby if you want to," he roared.
+
+[Illustration: THE MARQUIS DE RIVAULX. Anti-Semite to his manicured
+finger-tips]
+
+"But I don't want to," shrieked the poet. "What shall I do?  My heart is
+broken!"
+
+"Oh, what rot!" said Bob.  "I don't understand what the row is about.
+Pen said she married, and she's got a kid.  It will make her happy, for
+she always loved kids."
+
+But then the notice in her maiden name!  Was it not awful, horrible,
+brazen, peculiar, anti-social, against all law?  It was wicked, immoral,
+indecent. Behind it there must be a dreadful story.
+
+"By God!" said Bradstock, speaking at large to all but Rivaulx, who was
+breaking up a cane chair at a short distance, "I do think, oaths or
+none, that the man who is married to her should tell the duchess in
+confidence."
+
+But Rivaulx heard in the intervals of destruction, and stayed his hand.
+
+"Ha, ha!" he said aloud, "I love her!  I am a man!  I love her!  What
+shall I do?"
+
+He threw the fragments of the chair into a fountain, kicked over a
+flower-pot, and ran again into the park, taking the fence in his stride.
+
+"I believe it's remorse," said Titania.  "I begin to suspect the
+marquis!"
+
+But everybody suspected everybody, and yet at the very height of their
+rage what Bradstock said sank into their hearts.  Pen had selected them
+with care for their inherent nobility.  They said to themselves that
+they would show how noble they were. With one accord they straightened
+themselves up, and an air of desperate resolve was upon every man's
+face.
+
+"I will think it out and make up my mind this afternoon," said each of
+them.  They walked away in different directions, and in five minutes not
+one of them was in sight but the marquis, who was knocking his head
+against a sapling in a way that caused the herd of Jerseys to revise
+their estimate of humanity.  Even he gave up at last, and went off into
+the distance with great strides.
+
+"I say," said Bob, "I don't know what to make of this.  Where are they
+going, and what are they going to do?  I wish I knew where Pen is; I'd
+send her a telegram."
+
+The rest of the party said nothing.  Titania wept. Old Goring asked
+Bradstock for a light, and at last got his cigar going.  He said nothing
+whatsoever. Ethel Mytton was in a fearful state of nervousness, and
+shook with it.  Bradstock walked up and down whistling.  The men who
+were not in it gathered in the billiard-room, and said they thought they
+had better have urgent calls to town.  They wanted to discuss the
+scandal in their clubs.  They knew that there wasn't a house in England
+that would not consider their presence in the light of a tremendous
+favour, considering all that had occurred at Goring while they were
+there.  They went, and regretted it afterward, for much occurred that
+very afternoon that no man could have foreseen.
+
+Not a soul came in to lunch but Bob and Bradstock and the old duke.
+
+"Augustin, my boy," said Goring, "these are surprising events, very
+surprising events.  I thought I understood something about women, but I
+find I'm as ignorant as a two-year-old.  What the devil does Penelope
+mean?"
+
+Bob intervened.
+
+"I believe, grandfather, that she wants to make you all sit up," he
+said, eagerly.
+
+"Shut up, Bob," said the duke.  "Eat pie and hold your tongue.
+Augustin, is she married, or isn't she?"
+
+"I'm sure of it," said Bradstock, "but--"
+
+"I think it's a damn silly business," said the duke.  "I can't remember
+any parallel except when Miss Wimple, who was a devilish pretty girl
+fifty years ago, married Prince Scharfskopf morganatically, and kept it
+dark in spite of twins.  There was a devil of a fuss, but it was kept
+quiet, no announcements in papers, and so on.  The emperor boxed
+Scharfskopf's ears in court when it came out, for it upset his
+diplomatic apple-cart, as Scharfskopf was to have married Princess
+Hedwig of Wigstein.  She was virtuous and particular, and made trouble,
+being thirty-five.  Do you think Penelope has married any damn prince,
+for instance?"
+
+Bradstock didn't think so.
+
+"Was any prince sneaking about, eh?"
+
+"Oh, I say," cried Bob, who was listening eagerly, "there was the Rajah
+of Jugpore!"
+
+"Good heavens!" said Goring, "so there was. I say, Bradstock, what have
+you to say to that? I'd like to have a look at the infant.  Damme, it's
+a wonderful world!"
+
+And this bore its fruit afterward in scandal and conjecture, for Bob
+threw out hints about it.  But in the meantime they could only talk, and
+presently they saw the marquis coming across the lawn.  He kept on
+stopping and looking up at the sky, as if for help or a balloon, and he
+smote his breast repeatedly in a very peculiar fashion.
+
+"Queer cuss, Rivaulx," said Goring.  "Takes it hard.  Give me a light,
+Bob.  Look at the Johnny smiting himself in the chest.  What's he
+thinking of now?  Looks as if he was bound upon a desperate deed.  Dear
+me, I hope there will be no bloodshed, Bradstock!  I'm too old for
+bloodshed now.  I won't have duels in the immediate neighbourhood of the
+house, Bradstock, mind that."
+
+"All right," said Augustin, still looking at Rivaulx gesticulating
+violently in front of a large laurestinus.  "Bob, give me those
+glasses."
+
+Through the glass Rivaulx's face was plain to see.
+
+"Damn!" said Augustin to himself, "what's up?  He's going to do
+something, something desperate.  He is looking like a hero on a
+scaffold. He has an air of sad nobility.  Oh, Pen, Pen!"
+
+Rivaulx advanced on the house with his head up.  He came in and sent
+word to the collapsed duchess that he desired most humbly an audience
+with her.  Bob listened.
+
+"He wanted to see granny," said Bob.
+
+"Let him," said the duke.  "I don't; I want peace."
+
+Titania sent down word that she would see him.
+
+"Poor sad Penelope, poor mournful Penelope!" said Rivaulx.  "Ha, but I
+will save her from further woe!"
+
+He found Titania on a sofa, and he kissed her hand.  This pleased poor
+Titania; it reminded her of her youth.
+
+"Oh, marquis, I am in despair!" she cried.
+
+"Despair not," said Rivaulx, as he stood up and smote his forehead,
+"despair not.  All is not lost.  But for me, I stand between two
+dreadful alternatives, and I have resolved to do my duty."
+
+There was an air of tragedy about him that covered him like a robe.
+Titania shivered.
+
+"What is it?  What have you to tell me?"
+
+"Ah, what!" cried Rivaulx.  "But I shall do it.  I shall do it at once,
+immediately, if not sooner, as your poet says."
+
+"You won't kill any one, at least not here," shrieked Titania.
+
+"Far from it," replied the marquis.  "Oh, but it is terrible, for I have
+to smash, to break an oath. I swore not to reveal what I am about to
+reveal."
+
+"Good heavens!" said Titania.  "Oh, what? Is it--can it be--no--"
+
+"Yes, yes," cried Rivaulx, "it is true; I own it!"
+
+"Own what, marquis?"
+
+He smote his breast and looked above her.
+
+"I am the man!"
+
+"Oh, what man?" squealed the duchess.
+
+"I am the husband--and--and--the father," said Rivaulx, with a gulp, as
+if he were swallowing an apple whole.
+
+"Of my Penelope?"
+
+"Yes, yes," said the marquis.  "Say nothing. It is a secret, full of
+oaths.  Why, I know not, but she, the dear, insists, and what am I?"
+
+Titania lay and gasped.  The relief was tremendous.  Three hours ago she
+would have refused to think of Rivaulx as Pen's husband.  Now she
+welcomed the notion; she sighed and almost fainted.  Rivaulx muttered
+strange things to himself.
+
+"Can I announce it?"
+
+"No," said the marquis, "it is a secret.  But it is all right.  I go."
+
+"Take my blessing," said Titania.  "Go to her quickly, poor dear, and
+implore her to let me come to her, and bid her tell all the world.  What
+is her address?"
+
+"I cannot give it," said Rivaulx, pallidly.  "It is a secret.  But I go,
+I hasten.  Adieu, duchess; I am distracted.  Oh, my mother and my
+country!"
+
+He fled from the room, and, leaving his man to bring on his things, went
+away at an illegal speed toward London.
+
+"Well, well," said Titania, with a gasp, "I cannot understand anything.
+But, after all, the marquis is a fine man and of a good family.  I could
+almost sleep a little."
+
+But just as she was composing herself to rest, Mr. Plant sent up word
+that he wished to see her for a few moments on urgent business before he
+went back to town.
+
+"Let him come up," said the duchess.  When Plant entered, he stood bolt
+upright in front of her, with a strange air of determination.
+
+"I shall surprise you, I reckon," he said, in an American accent as
+thick as petrol fumes.  "I know I shall."
+
+"No, you won't," said Titania.  "Nothing can surprise me now, I assure
+you."
+
+"I shall surprise you, ma'am," said Plant, "and you'll have to own it.
+Prepare yourself and remember that what I tell you is in the nature of a
+secret.  I can stand it no longer.  I have to let it out.  To hear Lady
+Penelope, whom I adore, spoken of as I do, makes my blood boil.  She may
+have made some mistakes, but I've made some, too. I am going to surprise
+you--"
+
+"No, you are not, Mr. Plant," said Titania.
+
+"I--I am Lady Penelope's husband," said Plant, desperately, fixing his
+eyes on space.
+
+"You are _what_?" shrieked Titania.
+
+"Her husband--and--the parent of the announcement in the _Times_," said
+Plant, firmly.
+
+"Am I mad?" asked Titania.
+
+"No, but I am," said Plant, who was as pale as a traditional ghost.
+"I'm mad both ways.  I want to kill."
+
+"You mustn't," cried Titania, feebly.  "I don't know where I am.  What
+did you say?  Oh, say it again!"
+
+He said it again, and before she could say anything further, he rushed
+from the room and bounded down-stairs.  She heard him turn his motor-car
+loose, and knew that in twenty seconds he was a mile away.
+
+"What's wrong with everything, and me, and them?" asked Titania.  "I
+wish I was a dairy-maid in a quiet farm, and had no relations.  Am I
+mad?  Did the marquis say it?  Or did I dream it?"
+
+Lord Bramber was announced.
+
+"Oh, oh, oh!" said Titania.  "Yes, I'll see him."
+
+Bramber came in fuming, and, like the others, fixed his eyes over her
+head.  He was nervous and abrupt.
+
+"I can't stand any more, duchess," he began.
+
+"I can't stand much," said Titania.
+
+"It's a secret of course," said Bramber, "and I'm breaking my word!"
+
+"Are you the husband of Penelope?" asked Titania.
+
+"I--I am," replied Bramber, "and the cause, so to speak, of the notice
+in the _Times_."
+
+"I thought so," said Titania.  "Look at me, Ronald.  Do I look mad? does
+my hair stand on end? do I seem wild and wandering?"
+
+"No, of course not," said Bramber.  "I'm telling you this because I feel
+I ought to.  Now I'm going to her at once.  This last news was rather
+unexpected, of course.  Good-bye--"
+
+"Stay!" shrieked Titania, but she was too late. Bramber was down-stairs
+and bounded into his motor-car and let her rip.
+
+"What's the matter with everybody?" wailed Titania.  "The marquis made
+me happy, but now I'm confused, very sadly confused, and I can't think
+she's married them all."
+
+Gordon was announced, and in about three sentences he told her that,
+though the affair was a secret, he was Penelope's husband.
+
+"I knew you were," said Titania.  "When I heard you wanted to see me, I
+knew you were coming to say so.  Oh, good-bye.  Ask Lord Bradstock to
+send for a doctor.  Good-bye, Mr. Gordon. Go now."
+
+And Gordon went, just as De Vere came in.
+
+"You have come to say you have married Penelope, I _know_," said
+Titania.  "I feel sure you have."
+
+"I have a heart for sorrow, for disgrace, for all things lovely.  I--I
+am responsible for everything, even the _Times_," said De Vere, who was
+as pale as plaster.
+
+"Leave me," said Titania.  "Go and see her at once.  Settle who it is.
+Go!"
+
+And when he had gone, Carteret Williams and Carew came one after the
+other with the same confession.  And she received them sadly, and
+appeared to wander.  When the house was empty, she sent for Bradstock.
+
+"Augustin, dear Augustin," she said, "you won't let them put me in an
+asylum.  Have me taken care of at home, won't you?  Don't let Goring
+give me cruel keepers.  I am quite gentle and broken down!"
+
+"I won't let anything beastly be done," said Bradstock.  "But, my dear
+child, what's the matter?"
+
+And Titania told him:
+
+"By the Lord," said Bradstock, "they are damned good chaps! but where
+the devil are we?"
+
+He went down-stairs when the doctor came and told everything to Goring.
+And Goring told Bob. For Titania forgot to mention to Augustin that all
+the husbands had insisted it was a dead secret.
+
+"I say," said Bob, "of all the larks I've ever heard of, this takes the
+cake!  I wonder what I ought to do.  I think I'll ask Baker."
+
+And he asked Baker.  And in less than twenty-four hours the world knew
+all about it.
+
+
+
+
+                             *CHAPTER XV.*
+
+
+But when it is said that all the world knew of it, Penelope herself must
+be excepted.  She knew nothing for some time, and, whoever her husband
+was, he certainly never acquainted her with the horrible details of all
+the good men who sacrificed their honour in the noble attempt to save
+her from the results of the terrible misfortune they believed had
+happened to her.  It was, indeed, Miss Mackarness who told her about it,
+and Miss Mackarness was the old governess whom Penelope had once sacked
+and sent away.  The poor woman was in a terrible state of mind about the
+affair, and in that was no different from all the rest of the world. To
+her went Timothy Bunting with the strange story.
+
+"If you please, ma'am, Geordie Smith 'as just brought in a paper wiv a
+true and pertic'ler account of 'ow all the gents that was courtin' our
+lady told the Duchess of Goring as 'ow they 'as married 'er!"
+
+"What!" said Miss Mackarness.
+
+"A true and perticuler account as 'ow they 'ad hall married our lady,
+sayin' as they 'ad concealed it till they could no longer!" repeated
+Timothy more loudly.
+
+"Good heavens!" said Miss Mackarness, trembling very much, "I fear it
+will upset Lady Penelope, to say nothing of the infant.  Do they all
+claim the infant, Bunting?"
+
+"I presume so, ma'am," said Bunting.  "It looks likely."
+
+"Under these circumstances, Bunting," cried Miss Mackarness, "I feel it
+is my duty to communicate the facts to our lady.  Give me the paper,
+Bunting!"
+
+Bunting said he would get it, and came back with a hatful of fragments.
+
+"If you please, ma'am, this is hall I can rescue of the details.  The
+cook and the parlour-maid and the two 'ousemaids 'ave fought over it in
+the servants' 'all, and are now in tears, not 'aving read a word."
+
+And Miss Mackarness took the hatful up to Penelope, who sat with her
+nurse and the cause of all the trouble in a south room overlooking the
+moat.
+
+"In the name of all that is wonderful, what's in that hat?" asked
+Penelope.
+
+"It is Timothy Bunting's hat, my lady," replied the Mackarness.
+
+"So I perceive," said Penelope.  "Is a bird in it?"
+
+"Oh, no, my lady.  It's the bits of a newspaper," replied the
+housekeeper, as if she served up the _Times_ in a groom's hat every day.
+"It's Timothy's hat, but a clean new one."
+
+"But why do you bring it, and why do you put newspaper in it?" asked
+Penelope.
+
+"If you please, my lady, I cannot help it.  The cook and the
+parlour-maid and the two housemaids fought over it in the servants'
+hall, and are now in tears, not having read a word of it."
+
+To all appearance the housekeeper had lost her senses.  Though this was
+no wonder, Penelope wondered at it.
+
+"Well," she said at last, "I see what's in the hat, but what's in the
+newspaper?"
+
+"If you please, my lady, according to Timothy Bunting and Smith, who
+appear to have read it, it contains the true account of what happened at
+Goring House the other day, when all the gentlemen staying there,
+hearing from the _Times_ that your ladyship had a fine boy on the
+eighteenth, and no husband named by your ladyship's particular
+directions, all got up one after the other, and, requesting private
+interviews with her upset Grace, the duchess, declared upon their oaths,
+though in secret, that they had married you themselves!"
+
+She recited this in a strange, mechanical way, which would have been
+extremely effective upon the stage, as a picture of hopeless
+conventionality wounded to death, and at last dying in sheer
+indifference to all things.
+
+"Dear me!" said Penelope, "dear me!"
+
+"It furthermore appears, my lady, begging your pardon for mentioning it,
+and I have reproved Bunting bitterly for daring to do so, though I
+haven't read the fragments in the hat, that no one believes your
+ladyship's word at all as to your being married."
+
+"Oh, how shameful!" said Penelope.  "Why, here's baby!"
+
+The nurse coughed and hid her mouth with her hand.
+
+"Yes, my lady, so he is," said Miss Mackarness. "There doesn't seem any
+doubt whatsoever about that, but--"
+
+And Penelope sighed.  Suddenly her face lighted up.
+
+"Ah!" she said, "I see why they said it to aunty.  How very, very noble
+of them!  I knew they were all splendid men; men of the highest
+character and attainments and possibilities.  Will you have telegrams
+written out to all of them, saying, 'Your conduct is noble, and I am
+deeply grateful'?"
+
+"Yes, my lady," replied the housekeeper, "and how will you sign it?"
+
+"Sign it Penelope Brading," said Penelope. "And tell Smith to take his
+car as quickly as he can to Spilsborough, and send them from there."
+
+She lay back in her pillows.
+
+"They are noble fellows," she said.  "I have done them an immense amount
+of good.  A year ago not one of them could have risen to such heights of
+abnegation, such love, such tenderness.  I shall see them bringing in a
+new era yet.  Leopold Gordon will inaugurate a new and pure finance.
+The dear marquis will abolish anti-Semitism and duelling in France.  De
+Vere will write poems of a purity appealing equally to Brixton and
+Belgravia, and my dear friend Carew will vindicate the Royal Academy's
+policy of showing that charity begins at home.  And the rest--ah, me!
+Poor dear aunty, how I love her!"
+
+And by the time that she had pondered over a renewed world, Geordie
+Smith was sending off the wires from Spilsborough with wonderful
+results.
+
+"I like this," said Smith.  "This is what I like! There's nothing dull
+about it.  I wonder what'll happen now?  I'll lay five to one I can
+guess!"
+
+He guessed right as to some, for in about four hours Rufus Plant arrived
+in Spilsborough on his racing-car, and put up at the Grand Hotel.
+
+"I guess she must be somewhere in this neighbourhood," said Plant.  "And
+here I stay till I find her.  And by the tail of the sacred bull,
+whatever happens, I'll marry her right here in this hyer noble pile of a
+cathedral.  And if she'll do it, I'll restore it for the authorities
+free of charge, till it's as gawdy as a breastpin and right up to date."
+
+He ran against Gordon, and the two men fell back in horrible surprise.
+
+"You--"
+
+"You!"
+
+"Oh, yes," said Plant, "I'm here on business connected with the
+cathedral."
+
+"And I'm to see the--bishop, who will join the board on allotment,"
+mumbled Gordon.
+
+And then Goby roared into town on his motorcar. The others saw him, and
+he saw them, and ignored them palely.  He, too, put up at the Grand, but
+never spoke to them.  And De Vere came in while they were at dinner, and
+sat down opposite to Goby.  He said, "Oh!" and, rising, at once bolted
+from the table.
+
+"I'm damned," said Goby, and he lost his appetite.
+
+"How many more of us?" they asked themselves.
+
+They looked up at every one who entered.
+
+"Bramber will be in any moment," said Plant.
+
+Poor De Vere sat in his bedroom and was ill.
+
+"If I look out into the corridor, I know I shall see that beast
+Williams," he sobbed.
+
+"Where's that French fool, Rivaulx?" asked Gordon.  They all believed
+the other was the scoundrel of the dreadful drama.
+
+And then the evening papers came in.  They declared in big lines that
+there had been "A Fracas in High Life."  They added that it had taken
+place in the Row at four o'clock that very afternoon. They went on to
+say that Lord Bramber and the Marquis de Rivaulx, well known as a great
+sportsman and a balloonist, had fought in a flower-bed, and had been
+torn from each other's arms and a big rhododendron by two dukes, three
+earls, and a viscount.  They further declared that it was a matter of
+public notoriety that all the trouble rose out of the mystery connected
+with the _Times_ and Lady Penelope Brading.  They promised more details
+in later editions.
+
+"They'll fight," said Gordon, savagely.  "I hope they'll kill each
+other.  But especially I hope that the marquis will be killed first and
+most!"
+
+And about eleven o'clock Rivaulx turned up with his chauffeur and a bad
+black eye.
+
+"He shall fight me here," said Rivaulx.  "This is a quiet town.  No one
+will think of Spilsborough!  He does not know that _she_ sent me a
+telegram from here!"
+
+He put up at the Angel, and escaped seeing the others for the time.  On
+his way up he had sent a defiant telegram to Bramber, desiring him to
+come to Spilsborough, and fight there with swords or pistols or any
+weapon that commended itself to him. This telegram Bramber never got,
+for, on reaching home and washing away the traces of the struggle in
+Hyde Park before all the loveliness of London, he had found his telegram
+from Spilsborough sent by Geordie Smith.  After looking in the ABC
+guide, and finding no good train, he pelted off in his motor-car,
+leaving a note for Rivaulx, saying that, though duels were absurd and
+illegal, he would not refuse to meet the marquis in France or Belgium,
+if he desired to make a bigger fool of himself than he had already done
+in the park.
+
+"Curse and confound them all," said Bramber, who was horribly cross and
+exceedingly sick of the whole world, even including Penelope.  "I wonder
+what she means by this telegram.  I wish I was dead!  Is she at
+Spilsborough?"
+
+Just in the middle of Spilsborough he met Rivaulx and pulled up short,
+not having the least notion, of course, that he would meet him there.
+But Rivaulx grinned a ghastly smile and raised his hat, as Bramber
+stopped.
+
+"Ha, I am pleased to see you," said the French marquis.  "You have come
+quickly.  It is a fine night, there is a moon, and close by here under
+the shadow of the cathedral there is a most beautiful piece of grass.
+There we will fight.  I have brought swords with me.  Or have you
+brought guns?"
+
+"I haven't brought guns," said Bramber, who was entirely stunned and at
+a loss for a word.
+
+The marquis bowed.
+
+"We will fight with swords, my lord.  I think this hotel is good; the
+lady is amiable; there are rooms to spare.  When the moon rises, ha!  I
+will call you forth."
+
+And Bramber went to the hotel to think what he should do.
+
+"The ass! the lunatic!  How did he get here? I can't get out of fighting
+him."
+
+He sat outside in his car.
+
+"No, I won't.  I'm damned if I do!" he said.
+
+He went in and wrote a note for Rivaulx, who was out in the cathedral
+close picking what he considered a good place for a duel.  The spot he
+chose was not far from the dean's house.
+
+"I wish it had been Mr. Plant," he said.  "Of Bramber, who is a young
+ass, I am not jealous. But of Plant I am horribly jealous, and he is a
+bad man.  If I met Plant I would say, 'Fight me at once now, and I will
+put off Lord Bramber till another day.'"
+
+And, going around the corner, he ran right into Plant, who was raging
+about the town, wondering where Penelope was and how everything was
+going to end.
+
+"The scoundrel is that marquis," said Plant. And he ran into the
+scoundrel's arms.
+
+And just while Bramber was shaking the dust of Spilsborough from the
+tires of his motor-car, Bob himself came into the town in a hired
+Daimler, full of the most extraordinary news.  And Titania was having a
+series of fits down at Goring, with Dr. Lumsden Griff in attendance.
+
+
+
+
+                             *CHAPTER XVI.*
+
+
+It cannot be imagined that Titania, who had survived so many shocks, was
+ill for nothing.  When Bob discovered what she was ill of, he stood
+outside on the lawn with his hands deep in his pockets and with his legs
+wide apart.
+
+"I must tell 'em this at once," said Bob, gloomily. "If I don't tell
+Gordon, he'll forget he's invested a hundred of mine in something to
+make hair curl, and I shall lose the money.  I mean to make money to
+keep up Goring by and by.  And he said he'd make me a director, too.
+For the sake of the family, I can't neglect him.  Or De Vere, either.
+Or any of 'em.  But--but I never thought it of Pen!"
+
+With his pockets full of money derived from the sale of dogs to De Vere,
+he rushed off to the station and caught a train for town.  When he
+reached London, he sent a wire to "Old Guth."
+
+"I'm in town on important business.  Break it to grandmother between
+fits.  I hope to be back to-morrow."
+
+He rushed off to Park Lane to find Gordon.
+
+"Mr. Gordon has gone to Spilsborough, sir," said Gordon's man.
+
+"D--  I mean confound it!" said Bob.  He went to Plant's.
+
+"Mr. Plant went to Spilsborough in a great hurry this afternoon, sir,"
+said Plant's landlady. The American millionaire still lived in
+Bloomsbury, though not on ten shillings a week.
+
+"Oh," said Bob, "I wonder what this means. There's a secret here!"
+
+He drove in a hansom to find Bramber.  A very ingenuous piece of
+humanity in buttons told Bob that Lord Bramber came in about four
+o'clock torn to ribbons, and found a telegram waiting him.
+
+"And off he went in his motor-car."
+
+"Where?" asked Bob.
+
+"I don't know," said the buttons.  But on Bob's going to Bramber's room,
+he found the ABC open on the table at the page with Spilsborough on it.
+
+"Sherlock Holmes would say he has gone to Spilsborough," cried Bob.
+"And if Gordon and Plant have gone there, too, I'll bet all the rest
+have gone.  I'll go, too."
+
+But there was no train for three hours!
+
+"I'm done," said Bob, "No, I'm not.  I'll hire a motor-car."
+
+He went to the nearest place in Regent Street and hired one.
+
+"Very well, sir," said the man, "but it's rather expensive, you know."
+
+Bob pulled out a handful of sovereigns.
+
+"Take as many as you think fair," he said, grandly.  "And don't forget I
+want a speedy one, and a man that can drive, and I'll pay the fines of
+course!"
+
+That was how he came to Spilsborough just in time and about the hour
+when the moon was to rise.  He passed a motor-car in the ditch about ten
+miles out of the cathedral city, and did not stop to find out what was
+the matter.  He thus missed the discovery that Bramber and his chauffeur
+were both sitting upon the wreck, using very awful language to each
+other on the subject of losing the way and coming bolt down a side road
+into the opposing hedge.  It is astonishing how an accident at thirty
+miles an hour brings owners and mechanics down to the same human level.
+
+When Bob reached Spilsborough, he was covered with dust, but was as spry
+as a grasshopper and awfully full of his news.
+
+"You _can_ drive," said Bob to his man.  "I'm very much pleased with
+you.  Stop at this hotel."
+
+He went into the Angel, and staggered blithely to the office.
+
+"Is Mr. Gordon here, or Mr. Plant, or the Marquis of Rivaulx?" he
+demanded.
+
+He thus discovered the marquis.
+
+He drove off to the Grand, and found Plant and Goby and De Vere and
+Gordon were there.  They were all in bed but Plant, and Plant had gone
+to see the cathedral by moonlight.
+
+"All right, we'll put up here," said Bob, "and I'll see if I can find
+Plant.  I say, I wonder what Baker will think of this?  It beats me!"
+
+He got to the cathedral precincts just about an hour after Rivaulx and
+Plant had run into each other's arms.  Much had occurred since then.
+
+For Rivaulx started back from Plant and almost forgot the existence of
+Bramber.
+
+"You are a scoundrrrel," said Rivaulx, rolling his r's in the most
+fearful manner.
+
+"You are a lunatic," replied Plant, coolly; "when did you escape?"
+
+"I have not escaped, I am here," snorted Rivaulx, "but you shall not
+escape.  I meant to kill Lord Bramber upon this spot, but I prefer to
+keel you.  I let him go; he is nothing.  You are the scoundrrel!"
+
+"Oh, dry up!" said Plant, crossly.  "You tire me, you fatigue me very
+much.  I am exhausted by looking at you.  Go home, or I will break you
+in three pieces and eat them!"
+
+Rivaulx foamed at the mouth.
+
+"Do you refuse to fight me, sare?"
+
+"Certainly not," said Plant.  "Take your coat off and hang it on a
+tombstone, and I'll leave nothing of you but a smear."
+
+"I do not fight with fists," said Rivaulx, contemptuously.  "I fight
+with swords, with steel, with guns or pistols."
+
+Plant shook his head.
+
+"I've none of 'em about me, my son!"
+
+"At the hotel I have swords," cried Rivaulx, eagerly.  "I brought them
+to kill Bramber, who punched my eye in the Rotten Row, and we rolled in
+bushes.  But I will first fight you.  Wait and I fetch the swords."
+
+He ran violently into the darkness, and Plant sat on a railing.
+
+"What am I to do?  Am I to wait and fight a lunatic?  Or shall I go back
+to the hotel?  I think I'll go back.  If that raging idiot is found
+prancing about here with swords, they will run him in."
+
+But he did not know how fast the marquis could run and how near the
+hotel was.  Before he had made up his mind to go, Rivaulx came back
+again. He flung the swords at Plant's feet.
+
+"Take one and let us begin," he said.
+
+"I think on the whole I'll have both," said Plant, suiting the action to
+the word.  "Now go home, marquis, like a good little boy, and come to
+the Grand Hotel in the morning and tell me why you want to be hanged in
+England."
+
+He put both the weapons under his arm.
+
+"You will not fight?" said the marquis, gasping like a dying dolphin.
+
+"What kind of a galoot do you reckon me?" asked Plant, quite
+unintelligibly.
+
+"Ha!" said the marquis, "I know not what a galoot is, but I will fight
+you here and leave your body on the grass."
+
+Neither of them had observed the approach of a portly and pleasant
+gentleman behind them.  He was now leaning upon the railing, watching
+them with a great deal of kindly curiosity.
+
+"I think, gentlemen, that the dean will object," he said at length, and
+they both turned around suddenly.
+
+"You must not interfere," said Rivaulx; "we do not know you."
+
+[Illustration: RUFUS Q. PLANT. Born in Virginia]
+
+"To be sure, to be sure," replied the gentleman, who was dressed very
+curiously, as Rivaulx noticed. "I hate interfering, especially with
+anything belonging to a dean.  Deans, gentlemen, are very touchy about
+matters connected with their cathedrals.  Now Dean Briggs, gentlemen,
+takes the very greatest care of that grass on which you both are now
+illegally trampling, and I understand that he has made a rule never to
+have duels upon it. He is very firm on that point.  Do I mistake you if
+I say that it looks to an unprejudiced observer as if you were going to
+fight a duel?"
+
+Rivaulx bowed.
+
+"I do not know you, sare, and I do not want to. I want to keel this man,
+who is a scoundrrel."
+
+The stranger addressed Plant.
+
+"And are you equally anxious to break this very rigid rule of the
+dean's?" he asked, suavely.
+
+"Certainly not," replied Plant; "I want to go to bed."
+
+"I am delighted to hear it.  I am intensely gratified to hear it.  If
+one duellist, having possession of both deadly weapons, desires to go to
+bed, I cannot see anything to hinder him, unless, indeed, he wants to
+lie down on Mr. Dean's grass.  You see, gentlemen, I am a bishop, and a
+bishop's first desire is to be on good terms with the dean.  If Mr. Dean
+heard that I encouraged any one to break his rules about duelling or
+going to bed in the precincts of this cathedral, I should _not_ be on
+good terms with him, I assure you."
+
+"I do not understand," said Rivaulx.  "I want to fight, that is all I
+want to do!"
+
+"Stay!" said the bishop, mildly.  "If the somewhat excited gentleman,
+who is, I gather, not an Englishman, will accompany me a few yards, we
+will go to the dean's, with whom I have been dining, and will refer the
+matter to him."
+
+"Of course," said Plant, "that is the right thing to do.  Marquis, his
+lordship the bishop suggests the only course open to gentlemen.  I trust
+you will accept his offer, and, if you do, I undertake to fight you if
+the dean gives his permission."
+
+"Stay, sare, my lord the bishop," said Rivaulx, "one moment, sare, the
+bishop.  Is this dean of whom you speak a gentleman?"
+
+"Certainly, certainly," replied the bishop, hastily. "He is of the
+highest breeding, and in his youth he fenced like a fencing-master."
+
+"Then he understands the code of honour, sare the bishop?"
+
+"Absolutely, for a dean," replied his lordship.
+
+"Then I agree, sir lord," cried Rivaulx.
+
+"Ha, we will go to his house, then," said the bishop, "if you will step
+over this railing.  But stop here one moment and observe the moon rising
+over Mr. Dean's cathedral.  Is it not a peaceful, pleasant spot,
+gentlemen?"
+
+"It beats thunder," said Plant.
+
+"It does, it does," nodded his lordship.  "Many Americans, who admire
+this cathedral immensely, have made the same acute observation.  May I
+ask your names, gentlemen?  I am the bishop of this diocese."
+
+"My name is Plant, Rufus Q. Plant, and my friend is the Marquis of
+Rivaulx."
+
+"Indeed," returned the bishop, "is the gentleman the French nobleman who
+is interested in balloons?"
+
+"Yes," said Plant.
+
+"Dear me!  I am delighted," said his lordship. "I, too, am interested in
+balloons.  I saw one go up once."
+
+"You like them?" asked Rivaulx, warmly. "That is good!  I will take you
+up in one."
+
+"We will talk of it later," said the bishop, rather hastily for a man of
+his gentle flowing speech. "But this is the dean's house.  If I knock at
+this window, he will put his head out."
+
+He knocked at the window, and Mr. Dean did put his head out.
+
+"I am _so_ loath to disturb you, Mr. Dean," said his lordship, "but, as
+I was leaving you and taking a little stroll before retiring, I met two
+gentlemen, one from the United States and one a French marquis, who were
+engaged in a warm discussion on a point of honour.  I am ignorant of the
+exact point, and I dare say there is no necessity for our knowing.  As a
+result of this discussion, the French marquis desired to fight a duel
+with swords (you will observe them under the arm of the gentleman from
+the United States), and I ventured to intervene, as the duel was to take
+place upon your grass."
+
+"Humph, indeed!" said the dean, in great astonishment. "And what did you
+say?"
+
+"I said that it was against your rules to allow any one to fight duels
+there.  Was I not right?"
+
+"Rather!" said the dean.  "I should say so."
+
+"And on the other hand," continued the bishop, "the gentleman from
+across the Atlantic wished to go to bed."
+
+"Then why the--why doesn't he?" asked the dean.
+
+"It seemed to me that the gentleman from across the water wanted to go
+to bed upon your grass," said the bishop.  "I pointed out to him that
+there was a very old and strict rule dating from the time beyond record
+which forbade this.  Was I not right?"
+
+"You were," said the dean.  "I never go to bed on the grass myself, and
+do not permit others to do so.  I never fight duels there, either, and
+do not allow it."
+
+"You see, gentlemen," said the bishop, but before he could add another
+word Bob rushed right upon the group outside the dean's windows, and saw
+that Plant made one of them.  He saw the swords also, and then
+recognized Rivaulx.
+
+"Oh, I say," said Bob, "you were going to fight a duel about Pen!  I've
+come in time!  It's no good. She has married Timothy Bunting, her
+groom!"
+
+
+
+
+                            *CHAPTER XVII.*
+
+
+It was such an awful shock to Plant and Rivaulx, and, for the matter of
+that, to his lordship the Bishop of Spilsborough, that they all gasped
+dreadfully. Plant took the bishop by the sleeve.  Rivaulx lay down upon
+the grass under the dean's window, and howled as he tore at the turf.
+The dean said:
+
+"I'll come out!  This is becoming serious!"
+
+He came out, and, as he opened the door, the light of the hall lamp fell
+upon Bob's face.
+
+"Good heavens!" said the bishop, "I thought I knew the voice.  Is that
+you, Robert Goring?"
+
+Bob said it was, but added that he didn't know the bishop.
+
+"Boy, I christened you," said the bishop.  "Is all this trouble about
+Penelope Brading, whom I also christened?"
+
+"Yes," replied Bob; "shall I tell you about it?"
+
+"Let us retire a few paces, and you can tell me," said the bishop.  "In
+the meantime, Mr. Dean, I beg you to exercise patience with the French
+nobleman on the grass.  Come, Bob."
+
+"Well, it's awful rot, you know," said Bob, speaking very rapidly.  "We
+don't know where we are in the family, and grandmother is lying on a
+sofa screaming."
+
+"Why, Bob?"
+
+"You must have heard of it."
+
+The bishop had heard a great deal, but not all.
+
+"Pen says she's married and has a kid," said Bob, "and she won't say who
+it is.  And all these jossers, including Plant, he's the American over
+there, and the marquis chewing the grass, said they had married her
+themselves.  Do you see, sir,--my lord, I mean?"
+
+"I see," said the bishop, putting his finger-tips together.  "It was, I
+think, very noble of them."
+
+"But granny said it was very trying, and it made her ill, for she wasn't
+any further than before, unless Pen had married them all.  And
+grandfather, who kept cool, said that was unlikely."
+
+"It certainly seems unlikely," said the bishop. "But when you came to
+us, you made some very astonishing remarks about a groom, one Bunting, I
+think.  Now what is there to know about him?"
+
+"Weekes said that, the beast!" cried Bob.
+
+"Who is the beast Weekes?" asked the bishop.
+
+Bob told him who Miss Harriet Weekes was.
+
+"And not an hour after these had said they were married to Pen, this
+Weekes woman came in black and in a cab and said she must see granny.
+And granny saw her, and is now in fits, with the doctor feeling her
+pulse and giving her brandy.  For Weekes was very solemn (I listened),
+and she said: 'Your Grace, I shall reveal the truth, which lies upon my
+bosom like a tombstone.  Her ladyship treated me cruel, and gave me the
+sack moreover, and I've no call to be silent no more 'avin' diskivered
+the truth.'  She talks like that.  Weekes is an uneducated beast, and
+why Pen ever had her as a maid I can't tell.  And granny was confused
+with the others, having said they were all married to Pen, and she
+waggled her head awfully.  'I shall surprise your Grace,' said Weekes,
+and granny said she wouldn't.  And she said, 'I shall surprise your
+Grace, for I've to reveal that I know the man, the serpent, that her
+ladyship 'as married.'  And granny smiled very curiously, and said,
+'Weekes, who do you say it is?'  And then Weekes cried, the crocodile,
+and she said that Penelope had married Timothy Bunting, the groom, and
+that Timothy had been engaged to her, and had as good as told her that
+he was looking high and despised a public-house at a corner.  I don't
+know what she meant. And she was so solemn and furious that granny
+believed her, and went off into fit after fit most awful, my lord, and
+they sent for the doctor, and I came away, for I knew the others would
+fight when they learnt that all of them had said the same thing.  And I
+believe it is Timothy myself."
+
+"Dear, dear me!" said the bishop, "this is even more remarkable than I
+anticipated from the very strange reports in the papers.  But I think
+you have done well, Robert, and I do not regret having christened you by
+any means, which is more than I can say for some of the aristocracy.
+Let us return to the dean, who is, I am afraid, having some trouble with
+the French marquis.  He is not accustomed to foreign noblemen and to
+Americans, except when they come here to see his cathedral."
+
+They turned toward the deanery, where Rivaulx was still rolling on the
+grass.
+
+"Do you think it is Timothy?" asked Bob.
+
+The bishop shook his head gently.
+
+"I do not see what grounds we have to go on, Robert.  Here we have an
+American who states, if I understand you rightly, that he has married my
+poor Penelope, and a French marquis of high repute who also states the
+same.  And there are others--"
+
+"Five or six!" said Bob.
+
+"And there are five or six others who commit themselves to the same
+statement.  And then a lady's maid says she knows that Penelope has
+married a groom.  I do not see what logical grounds we have for
+concluding anything more than that some one has told a lie, or that
+Penelope has been breaking the law by marrying more than one man at a
+time.  Speaking _a priori_, I think this latter alternative unlikely,
+and, as a matter of probability, I am forced to believe that only one at
+least out of seven (is it seven?) gentlemen of unblemished reputation
+has told the truth."
+
+It was all very sad.  But there were practical details to be attended
+to.  Though the marquis had ceased to raise the echoes of the stilly
+night, to say nothing of the echoes of the cathedral's west front, he
+was still in a fearfully mournful condition.  He was now weeping in the
+dean's arms, and the dean was endeavouring to soothe him as best he
+could. When the bishop came back, Mr. Dean seemed much relieved.
+
+"Don't you think you could get them to go away, bishop?" he inquired,
+pathetically.  "This kind of thing is beyond my experience, and I am
+extremely fatigued by it."
+
+"I will do my best," replied the bishop.
+
+Turning to the marquis, he said:
+
+"Get up, marquis.  I will walk with you to the hotel.  Mr. Plant, please
+follow with Robert, and be good enough to take care of those lethal
+instruments, which are, I rejoice to say, little understood in a quiet
+cathedral town.  It appears to me we are all in a state of mind which
+needs repose.  On the morrow, after I have slept upon it, I shall be
+happy to receive you all and give you the best advice in my power.  Now,
+marquis, I am waiting for you. The grass is damp."
+
+And they walked to the hotel, leaving the dean staring open-mouthed.
+
+"This is very unusual," sighed the dean.  "I cannot recollect anything
+exactly like it in my long experience."
+
+No more could the bishop.  Plant was in the same state of mind.  Rivaulx
+wept silently.  Bob was in the seventh heaven of delight, in spite of
+Bunting.  He thoroughly believed in what Harriet Weekes said.  Neither
+Plant nor Rivaulx knew that he knew they both claimed to be Pen's
+husband.
+
+"This story of Bunting is a goldarned lie," said Plant, hoarsely.  Bob
+did not reply.  He was sorry for them all, and relied on the bishop.
+What he relied on him for he did not know.  All he did know was that the
+bishop seemed fully equal to the situation.
+
+"How many more of you are there, Mr. Plant?" he asked at length.
+
+"Gordon and Goby and De Vere," replied Plant, miserably.
+
+"I must see Mr. Gordon," said Bob.  And then they came to the Angel.  By
+this time Rivaulx and the bishop were great friends, for Rivaulx was a
+clerical in his heart of hearts, and, if there wasn't a Catholic bishop
+to lean on, a Protestant one was a good substitute.  He stopped weeping,
+and held the bishop's hand.
+
+"You are a good man, sare bishop," he said. "I wish I was a good bishop,
+but I cannot.  Life is a very terrible thing.  I wish I could cut my
+throat.  I am weary."
+
+"I should go to bed," said the bishop, "and I'll look in and see you in
+the morning.  Bed is the best place when one is weary.  I assure you
+that I am not wholly ignorant of the world, or of the desire to cut my
+throat, but I find that after a good night's rest the wish to do so
+evaporates, and one determines to live for another twelve hours at
+least. But before you go, I hope you will give me your word that you
+will cut no one else's."
+
+"I give it," said Rivaulx.  "The desire to kill Mr. Plant has left me.
+I am no longer furious, even with Bramber.  I am simply sad and
+fearfully mournful.  I thank you, sare; good night."
+
+"Good night," said the bishop.  "Stay, marquis, I think Mr. Plant has
+the weapons."
+
+The marquis waved them off.
+
+"I have no need of them.  I give them you, sare bishop.  Take them."
+
+And when the bishop had bidden Plant and Bob good night, and had
+arranged to see Bob in the morning, the curious sight might have been
+witnessed of a great ornament of the Episcopal bench walking through the
+precincts of the cathedral to his palace, with a couple of
+duelling-swords under his arm.
+
+"This has been a very interesting evening," said the bishop.  "I very
+much wonder what Ridley will think when he sees me come in.  A butler's
+mind is naturally limited."
+
+He went in and gave the swords to Ridley.
+
+"Take these," said his lordship.
+
+"Yes, m'lord," said Ridley, stolidly.
+
+"I think you can hang them up in the dining-room, Ridley."
+
+"Yes, m'lord."
+
+"They are trophies, Ridley."
+
+"So I perceive, m'lord," said Ridley.
+
+"What are trophies, Ridley?"
+
+"These, m'lord," said Ridley.
+
+"Exactly so," said his lordship.
+
+And while he was taking off his gaiters and thinking of Penelope, Bob
+was sitting on the edge of Gordon's bed and telling him all about it.
+
+"Why are you here?" asked Bob.
+
+"She sent me a telegram," said poor Gordon.
+
+"I say, what about?"
+
+"Sayin' I wath a noble character and so on," replied Gordon, miserably,
+"and I came here at onth becauth the telegram came from here."
+
+As the sleep went out of his eyes, he talked less Hebraically.
+
+"I thought she might be here," he added, shaking his curly head.
+
+Bob thought very hard.
+
+"I say, this is awfully mixed, Mr. Gordon, because I know you told
+granny you were married to Pen!"
+
+Gordon gulped something down.  It was probably very bad language.
+
+"So--so I am," he said, sternly, without looking at Bob.
+
+"Rivaulx says so, too."
+
+"The devil!" cried Gordon.
+
+"And so does Goby and Rivaulx and Bramber and De Vere and all of 'em!"
+
+Gordon fell back on his pillows.
+
+"So you see," said Bob, "we're no further than we were, except that
+Weekes, who used to be Pen's maid, came to granny this afternoon and
+told her, the beast, that Pen had married Timothy Bunting!"
+
+Gordon bounced out of bed in his night-shirt.
+
+"Who the devil is Timothy Bunting?" he roared.
+
+Bob told him.
+
+"It's a lie--a lie!"
+
+"Of course it must be, if you've married her, as you say," said Bob.
+"But perhaps I'm disturbing you.  Would you like to go to sleep?"
+
+"Very much indeed," replied Gordon.  "I should like to go to sleep and
+stay asleep.  I wish you'd go and serve Goby and De Vere as you've
+served me!"
+
+"I'm so sorry," said Bob, "but you always said you wanted any news, and
+that's why I told you first."
+
+Gordon held out his hand, and Bob shook it warmly.
+
+"By the way," he asked, "what about the hair restorer?"
+
+"What hair restorer?" asked the astonished Hebrew.
+
+"The one you put ninety pounds of mine in, sir."
+
+"It wasn't in a hair restorer.  What makes you say so?"
+
+"Well," replied Bob, "I thought it was.  You said it would make my hair
+curl.  How much did it make, whatever it was?"
+
+A glow of pleasure spread over Gordon's sad countenance.  Making money
+was something even in despair.
+
+"My boy, I bought you Amalekites at half a crown, five hundred and sixty
+of 'em, and now they're at L4."
+
+"Dear me," said Bob, "how much does that make?  Why, it's L2,240."
+
+"Less commission," agreed the financier.
+
+"By Jove, that's a very, very good beginning," said Bob.  "Do you think
+they will go up more, Mr. Gordon?"
+
+Gordon looked at him and sighed.
+
+"They might.  But don't you think it would be safer to get out now,
+Bob?"
+
+Bob shook his head.
+
+"I'll follow your advice, sir, of course.  If it was only myself, I'd
+take the money, but I'm thinking of Goring, when my father and
+grandfather and uncle die.  What I want is fifty thousand, at least.
+Grandfather often says that is the least that can put the house on its
+legs again.  Let me see, L2,240 is eight times four times L90.  That's
+thirty-two times L90.  What's thirty-two times L2,240?"
+
+"Seventy-one thousand six hundred and eighty," replied Gordon, promptly.
+
+"That would do very well indeed," said Bob. "Please go on, sir, till
+it's that.  Or shall I take half and ask Mr. Plant to do something with
+it? He offered to help me."
+
+"Certainly not," replied Gordon, angrily. "Plant's a reckless speculator
+and a liar, and he'll wake up some day worth half a million less than
+nothing.  I'll do my best for you and Goring, Bob."
+
+"I'm sure you will, sir," said Bob.  "Good night, Mr. Gordon.  I'm sorry
+if I've worried you."
+
+And he went off to worry Goby.  Gordon walked up and down the room
+weeping.
+
+"If I only had a boy like that!" he cried.  "By Moses and all the
+prophets, I'll put Amalekites up sky-high, and squeeze the bears till
+they howl.  Oh, Pen, Pen!"
+
+
+
+
+                            *CHAPTER XVIII.*
+
+
+By breakfast-time or a little later, Goby and Gordon and De Vere and
+Rivaulx knew not only what was said about Timothy Bunting, but also that
+every one of them had told the Duchess of Goring that he was married to
+Penelope.  When the bishop looked in to see the marquis, he found him
+exceedingly difficult to manage.  He wanted the duelling-swords back in
+order to fight every one.  His especial desire now was to put cold steel
+through Gordon, and this led to a general evacuation of Spilsborough.
+
+"I say, Mr. Gordon," said Bob, rushing in upon the financier while he
+was shaving, "I've just met the bishop, and he wanted to know if I knew
+you, and I said 'rather,' and he said would I ask you, in the interests
+of peace, to go back to London, because the marquis wanted to cut your
+throat with swords hanging in the bishop's dining-room.  I say, will you
+go, or stay and fight?"
+
+Gordon cut himself, and then, as Bob said, "cut his stick" and went back
+to town shaved on one side and not on the other.  As a result of this,
+several men in the city sold bears of everything that Gordon was
+interested in, and they got left most horribly, especially on
+Amalekites.  Never afterward did they venture to think that any
+financier was on the borders of ruin if he came into the city partially
+shaved.  In fact, three very shady Jews, with some wildcat stock to
+boom, played the trick successfully, and, through not being shaved
+themselves, they shaved others.
+
+But this is all by the way, and it only shows that a real financier in
+love or in despair is just as dangerous as at other times.  Bob and the
+bishop talked the situation over in Spilsborough while Gordon was going
+to town, and the result was what might have been expected.
+
+"All we know is that Penelope, poor dear Penelope is near Spilsborough,"
+said the bishop.
+
+"And that she's married," said Bob.
+
+"We infer that from general grounds, our knowledge of her character,"
+said the logical bishop. "Strictly we cannot be said to know it.  It is
+not a primary datum of consciousness, nor is it a judgment or a purely
+rational conclusion, Bob."
+
+"Oh," said Bob, "well, perhaps not."
+
+"I think," said the bishop, "that I shall write to her--"
+
+"Where to?"
+
+"To everywhere," said the bishop, "and ask her to come and confide in
+me.  And in the meantime, as the others have gone, and your presence
+here is no longer necessary, I think you should go home and console your
+grandmother, and apply yourself to work."
+
+"All right," said Bob; "I don't think it's interesting here any more.
+But are you glad I came in time to stop the duel?"
+
+"I am glad," said the bishop.  "But, to tell the truth, Robert, I should
+not have allowed a duel on Mr. Dean's ancient grass and under his
+immemorial elms without a remonstrance, even a physical remonstrance."
+
+Within the memory of this portly and admirable pillar of the Church to
+which the British Empire owes all its greatness, and to which it pays a
+great deal of its money, were many fierce encounters at Oxford, that
+haunt of ancient peace and modern progress.
+
+"Would you have knocked 'em down?" asked Bob, eagerly.
+
+"Certainly," said the bishop.  "I would have knocked them as flat as a
+flounder."
+
+And Bob bade him good-bye.
+
+"I think he's a ripping good bishop," said Bob. "I'll ask Mr. Gordon to
+help restore the cathedral."
+
+He got back to Goring to find Titania no longer suffering from fits.
+Fits were not equal to the situation.  All her friends were writing to
+her to condole with her on the marriage of Penelope to Timothy Bunting.
+They came down in droves to condole and to get the latest intelligence,
+while gamekeepers and grooms were keeping journalists out of the grounds
+with guns and pitchforks.
+
+For the world was absolutely certain that Miss Weekes was right, and
+Pen's _ci-devant_ maid was making the salary of a star at the Empire by
+according interviews to those halfpenny papers which are England's glory
+and her hope.  The editors endeavoured to interview the lovers, but they
+were stern and savage.  They would not speak to each other and avoided
+strangers.  But it was no secret now that they each claimed to be Lady
+Penelope's husband.  As the acutest journalist of them all remarked,
+this was hardly possible.  The only theory that held water (or, at
+least, "good" water, as the Baboo pleader remarked) was the Bunting
+theory. But if Bunting was the man, where was he? and why this mystery?
+A journalist solved it, or said he did.  Bunting was a very handsome
+man.  There was no doubt of that.  But he was an uneducated man.  That
+was quite certain.  If a lady of Penelope's standing married a man of
+Bunting's, what would she do?  The answer was easy.  She would send him
+to Oxford to acquire the accent and the aplomb and the insolence which
+have rendered Oxford men the idols of the mob, and have put them into
+every position where tact with inferior races is a _sine qua non_.  This
+is what the journalist said. He ought to have known, as he had been
+brought up in the Yorkshire Dissenting College, and dissented from all
+other codes of manners, except those popular with the non-conformist
+conscience, which, equally with the Church of England, has made the
+empire what it is and what it should be.
+
+But this journalist knew his market.  The eyes of the civilized world
+once more turned to Oxford.
+
+"If it's Bunting, I'll kill him," said all the lovers who were not
+married to Penelope.  "She has made a mistake, if it's true, and he must
+be got rid of."
+
+Now was the time of the Marchioness of Rigsby's glory.
+
+"Did I not tell you she had married her groom?" she demanded of Titania.
+"Penelope was extremely rude to me.  I am almost glad she has married a
+groom.  If he is a nice groom, he may improve her manners."
+
+"She hasn't married any groom," cried Titania, furiously.  "I am
+perfectly certain it is the Marquis of Rivaulx."
+
+She was certain of nothing.  Bradstock was certain of nothing.  They
+both asked Bob what he was certain of, and Bob replied all the lovers
+were in such a state of mind that it couldn't be any of them.  And then
+at last Titania hit upon a certain truth.
+
+"Whoever it is would be just as miserable as all the others," she said.
+"He'll be sorry now that he agreed to it, and he'll be asking her to
+give in, and she won't.  And they'll quarrel."
+
+"You're right, Titania," cried Bradstock, slapping his thigh.  "Bob, I
+believe the most miserable of them all is the man.  Which is the most
+miserable?"
+
+Bob thought.
+
+"Gordon cried a little."
+
+"Ha!" said the duchess.
+
+"But Rivaulx cried a good deal," said Bob.
+
+"Oh," said the duchess.  "But which do you think it is, Robert?"
+
+"I think it's Timothy Bunting," said Bob. "And I want to go to Oxford to
+find out if he's there.  Baker says--"
+
+"Do you discuss these matters with Baker?" demanded his grandmother,
+haughtily.
+
+"He knows a great deal about the world," said Bob, "and about Bunting,
+you know.  Baker says--"
+
+"You may go to Oxford," cried Titania, "and I will go to bed and stay
+there.  I am a most unhappy woman, and Goring does not care!"
+
+So Bob went to Oxford all by himself, and called upon an undergraduate
+who had just come up from Harrow, one of the schools which Bob had been
+requested to leave on account of pugilism.  Jack Harcourt was four years
+Bob's senior, but could not fight so well in spite of that, and there
+was much more equality between them than would seem possible at first
+sight.  But then it is almost impossible to feel very much superior to a
+boy who has knocked you absolutely senseless, as Bob did Harcourt.  And
+Bob was one of those boys who make all the world equal.  He was familiar
+with princes, and said "Baker says" to cabinet ministers.  And if his
+uncle didn't marry, he was bound to be a duke.  Dukes are very important
+people, somehow, and the fact that Bob never showed any side was much in
+his favour over and above that important fact.
+
+"I say, is there a man up here called Bunting?" asked Bob.
+
+And Harcourt, after consulting a calendar, said there was.
+
+"Timothy Bunting?" asked Bob, jumping as if he were shot.
+
+"Thomas," said Harcourt.
+
+"Oh, he'd say Thomas, I dare say," said Bob. And he told Harcourt all
+about it.
+
+"Do you think she's married him?" asked the undergraduate.
+
+"Who knows what girls will do?" said Bob. "Don't you remember the
+black-eyed one in the pastry-cook's at Harrow who wouldn't look at you
+and was in love with that beast Black?"
+
+Harcourt did remember, but changed the conversation as quickly as
+possible.
+
+"This fellow is at All Saints," he said.  "I dare say, they'd let a
+groom in there."
+
+"Let's go and find him," said Bob.  "Poor old Bunting will be sick to
+see me.  I'm very sorry for him if he is a presumptuous beast.  It will
+be very awkward for the family.  But we must know.  The uncertainty is
+killing my grandmother, and Baker says it's always best to know the
+worst at once. Baker's the best judge of dogs and horses I know. He was
+a sergeant in the Dublin Fusiliers.  Oh, I told you that!"
+
+And when they got into the High Street, they ran right into Plant, who
+smiled a sickly smile and said he had come up to have a look at Oxford.
+
+"I say, Mr. Plant, what's the matter with your clothes?" asked Bob.
+"Have you fallen downstairs?"
+
+Plant murmured something unintelligible and hurried away, leaving Bob
+staring.
+
+"That's one of 'em, Harcourt," he said to his friend.  "He's a
+millionaire."
+
+"Then I think he might afford a hat without a dint in it," replied
+Harcourt.
+
+Bob shook his head.
+
+"I can't make it out.  He's very particular," he said.  "But let's get
+on."
+
+Around the next corner they bumped into Gordon, who also announced that
+he had been struck with a wild desire to have a look at the ancient
+university city.  Bob shook his head.
+
+"I say, Mr. Gordon, you want brushing badly. Do you know you look as if
+you had fallen downstairs?" he asked.
+
+Gordon said, "Do I?" and bolted.
+
+"I can't make this out," said Bob.  "This has all the appearance of a
+mystery, Harcourt."
+
+"It has," said Harcourt.  As they entered All Saints, they saw a man run
+across the grass and disappear under the far archway which led out into
+the Turl.
+
+"That looked very much like De Vere," said Bob, "very much.  Only I
+never saw him run except that time when the bulldog chased him.  And
+then he ran differently.  But of course it can't be De Vere."
+
+After asking two reverend-looking members of the university, who looked
+as if they knew all about the subjective world, and a scout with every
+appearance of a deep acquaintance with the objective one, they
+discovered Mr. Bunting's rooms.
+
+"I think he's havin' some gents to lunch, though I'm not his scout, sir,
+and they seems to be enjoying themselves now very much," said the scout.
+"Mr. Bunting is readin' 'ard, so I 'ear, but he's relaxin' a little
+to-day.  Just now I see a gentleman drop hout of 'is window, sir.  And
+you're the third lot I've directed there.  This is 'is staircase, gents,
+first floor.  Thank you, sir, I'm sure.  I'll drink your 'ealth."
+
+And here Harcourt said he thought he'd leave Bob.  So Bob went up about
+six dark steps by himself, and then he stopped.
+
+"Whoever he is, he's making a devil of a row," said Bob, pausing, "a
+devil of a row.  I wonder if it is Bunting.  I think Harcourt might have
+stayed.  But he never did like fighting or rows."
+
+He climbed up another step or two, and heard a mighty uproar.
+
+"I think they must be having a boxing party," said Bob.  And then he
+heard a door open on the landing above him.
+
+"Confound you, sir! to the devil with you, sir!" said a voice that he
+certainly did not recognize.  Then he heard a noise which was presently
+explained by the fact that Carteret Williams fell down the stairs,
+turning a crooked corner most wonderfully in company with a very large
+Liddell and Scott's Dictionary of that beautiful language, Greek.
+
+"Oh, is that you, Mr. Williams?" asked Bob.
+
+Williams appeared rather confused.
+
+"Yes, Bob," he said, as he hugged the dictionary. "I--I think so."
+
+"Why have you fallen down-stairs?" asked Bob.
+
+"That damn groom threw me down," said Williams. "At least, he threw this
+book at me, and I came down."
+
+[Illustration: CARTERET WILLIAMS, WAR CORRESPONDENT. He wrote with a red
+picturesqueness which was horribly attractive]
+
+"What, is it really Bunting?" roared Bob, eagerly.
+
+"He says his name's Bunting," replied Williams. "But he's very difficult
+to handle."
+
+"Oh, Tim can box," said Bob.  "But is he our Bunting?"
+
+"Whichever Bunting he is, you are welcome to him," said the enraged war
+correspondent.
+
+"I must go up and see," said Bob.  "Do you think he threw Mr. Plant and
+Mr. Gordon down, too?  I met 'em just now, and they looked as if he
+had."
+
+"I'm sure he's capable of it," said Williams, bitterly.  "Here, take
+this book with you.  I don't want it."
+
+And Bob climbed up, hugging several pounds' weight of Greek with him.
+He stood at the door and listened, and heard a man inside snorting
+violently and slamming things about as if he was very much disturbed in
+his mind.  Bob knocked at the door, and it was opened suddenly.  The man
+who opened it was in deep shadow.
+
+"It is--it is.  No, it isn't," said Bob, quite aloud.
+
+"Are you another of 'em?" asked the occupier of the rooms.
+
+"Oh, it isn't," said Bob.  And, choking down his disappointment, his
+politeness returned.
+
+"Is this your Greek dictionary?" he asked, courteously.  "I found it
+lying on Mr. Carteret Williams on the next landing, and he said he
+didn't want it."
+
+The man named Bunting seized the dictionary, and then took Bob by the
+shoulder and led him in. Bob went like a lamb, for this Mr. Bunting was
+six feet high, about three feet across the chest, more or less, and had
+a grip like clip-hooks on a bale.
+
+"Was that man named Williams?" he asked.
+
+"Yes," said Bob.
+
+"You know him?"
+
+"Why, of course," said Bob.  "I know 'em all."
+
+"All I've thrown down-stairs this afternoon?"
+
+"I think so," said Bob, modestly.  "At least, I met Mr. Plant and Mr.
+Gordon, who looked very much as if they had fallen down-stairs.  And I
+think the little gentleman you dropped out of the window on the grass
+must have been Mr. Austin de Vere."
+
+"Oh," said Mr. Bunting, "sit down, boy, and look at me.  Do I look mad?"
+
+Bob looked at him and then at the room.
+
+"The room looks mad," he replied.  And it certainly did.
+
+"That was the last one," said Mr. Bunting. "He was very troublesome."
+
+"He's a war correspondent," said Bob.  "But why is your name Bunting?"
+
+"How the devil do I know?" asked the other, in reply.  "Perhaps, as you
+seem to know them, you can explain what it all means?"
+
+"I will try, sir, if you will tell me what occurred," said Bob.
+
+"First of all," said the outraged member of All Saints, "the American
+person knocked and came in, and he said: 'Is your name Bunting?'  And I
+said, 'Yes, confound you, for your infernal impudence, and what is
+yours?'  And he said, 'What the devil do you mean by saying you have
+married her?'  And I said I'd said nothing of the kind, and I said if he
+didn't get out in two shakes of a lamb's tail, I'd throw him out.  And
+he was furious, and couldn't and wouldn't explain, so I did throw him
+out.  And, as he tumbled down-stairs, he said he'd married her himself.
+And he went away, and I sat down to read Thucydides.  He's under the
+sofa now somewhere.  And then the Jew came, and he said: 'You mutht
+contradict the report of your being married to her at onth,' and that
+made me very cross, and I said I wouldn't, and that made him very wild,
+so I said I was married to her just as he said he was--"
+
+"Oh," said Bob, "and are you?  Oh, dear, I am so confused!  Are you
+really, really married to Pen?"
+
+"I shall drop you out of the window in a minute," said Mr. Bunting.  "I
+said it to annoy him, and it did, and he said I was a liar.  So I opened
+the door and took him by the neck and dropped him down-stairs, and he
+howled awfully.  And I said to him over the bannisters, 'I am married to
+her, and have been married for years to her, and she loves me very much,
+and we are going to acknowledge it as soon as I've taken my B.A.'  And
+he went away holding his neck, and then the little man came in.  Did you
+say he was a poet?"
+
+"A very good poet, too," said Bob.  "And I sell him bulldogs."
+
+"Oh," said Mr. Bunting, blankly, "you do, do you?  Why?"
+
+"Because Pen thought they would do him good."
+
+Mr. Bunting shook his head.
+
+"Thicksides is lucid compared with this!" he murmured.  "But patience,
+patience, and I shall construe it yet."
+
+"And what did Mr. de Vere say?" asked Bob.
+
+"The same thing.  He stood there and said I must contradict it.  And he
+said of course it was very kind of her to have me educated, but that, if
+I had a spark of decency, I should know that a man who had once occupied
+the position I had couldn't possibly marry her.  And, by the way, what
+position had I occupied in regard to her?"
+
+"A groom," said Bob.  "You were supposed to have been a groom."
+
+"Dear me," said Mr. Bunting, "how interesting and remarkable.  Still no
+light, no real light!  And of course I said I had married her, and I
+asked him did he think I would desert the lady now?  And he went
+scarlet.  Why did he go scarlet do you think?"
+
+"I know," said Bob, "it must have been on account of the baby!"
+
+Mr. Bunting smote his forehead.
+
+"So it must," he said.  "I never thought of that. What a fearful
+complication!  And then he, too, said I was a liar.  So I took him by
+the collar and led him to the window, and I opened it and dropped him
+out.  And then the one you call Williams came, and he also was
+indignant, and said I was to deny it, and I wouldn't of course.  And
+then we fought, and the furniture was much disarranged and Thicksides
+went under the sofa, and at last I got him outside, and finished him
+with Liddell and Scott. And now you know all!  In your turn you can
+explain what it means.  I beg you to do it, and then we will have some
+tea."
+
+And Bob explained the whole story.
+
+"You might have seen it in the papers," said Bob.
+
+"I don't read 'em," said Bunting, "except to turn a _Times_ leader into
+Greek.  But it seems a complicated situation, doesn't it?"
+
+"It is very complicated," sighed Bob, "and my grandmother is very ill
+about it.  And now she will wonder if it's you, after all!"
+
+"Dear me, so she will," said Bunting.  "Have some tea."
+
+They had tea, and Bob rose to go.
+
+"Will you write to the _Times_, and say you haven't married her?" he
+asked.
+
+"Certainly not," said Mr. Bunting.  "Didn't I say to the others that I
+threw down-stairs that I _had_ married her?"
+
+"So you did," said Bob.  "But of course you haven't?"
+
+Bunting smiled.
+
+"Good-bye.  When you come to Oxford again, come and see me.  I must
+crawl under the sofa now."
+
+"What for?" asked Bob.
+
+"For Thucydides, of course," replied Mr. Bunting.
+
+And when Bob was in the train for London, he turned very pale.
+
+"Good heavens!" he said, "how do I know it isn't this Bunting, after
+all?"
+
+
+
+
+                             *CHAPTER XIX.*
+
+
+After this, things by no means cleared up, as they should have done
+considering the amount of trouble that all the world took to find out
+the truth.  Every one said something different from some one else. Bob
+gave horribly imaginative accounts of his adventures at Oxford, and
+threw out suggestions that Pen was really married to a Bunting, if not
+to Timothy Bunting.  But when he appealed for corroboration to Gordon,
+that gentleman shuffled and prevaricated dreadfully, as he did not like
+to acknowledge he had been thrown down-stairs.  There was a very curious
+scene, in which Gordon and Bob had the best part of a row before
+Titania, who came up to town to be near Dr. Lumsden Griff, who knew all
+about the left or right ventricle of her heart.  As his jealous
+confreres said he knew nothing else, perhaps he did.  However, that is
+by the way.
+
+"Tell it me again, Robert," said Titania.
+
+Bob told her again.
+
+"He said he was married to her?"
+
+"He said he said so to Mr. Plant and Mr. Gordon, and Williams and De
+Vere," said Bob, gloating over the details of the row.  "And he slung
+'em all down-stairs.  He's about six feet six high, and as broad as a
+billiard-table, and as strong as three Sandows, I should say."
+
+"I am much confused again," said Titania, plaintively.  "I had come to
+the point where certain news of her marriage to a groom would have been
+a relief to me.  Where are we now?"
+
+As she asked, Gordon was announced.  Bob rushed at him.
+
+"I say, Mr. Gordon, tell us how he threw you down-stairs, and what he
+said?"
+
+"He didn't throw me down-stairs," said Gordon, quite crossly.  "I threw
+myself down--I mean I slipped."
+
+"Tell us how you slipped, then, and why," said Bob.
+
+But Gordon wouldn't.
+
+"Oh, I say!" said Bob.
+
+Titania begged Gordon to tell her.
+
+"But then he told me he had married Pen," she said to herself.  "What is
+the use of asking any one anything?"
+
+"How did you find him?" asked Bob.
+
+"I looked him up," said Gordon.
+
+"Why did you look him up?"
+
+"Because I wanted to find him out," returned Gordon, sulkily.  "But I
+didn't come to be cross-examined by you, Bob."
+
+In spite of the large sums of money which Gordon owed Bob, Bob was on
+the point of an explosion.  But trouble was averted by Plant's entrance.
+Before he could say a word, a telegram was brought to Titania, and she
+read it at once and uttered dismal groans.
+
+"What is it?" chorused the two men and Bob.
+
+"It's from Penelope."
+
+"Please read it out."
+
+Bob read it for his grandmother.
+
+
+"Am exceedingly displeased with latest reports and news.  Contradict at
+once.  Am not married to Bunting, who is much upset by report, and can
+hardly look me in the face.  PENELOPE."
+
+
+"Bunting is with her!" said Titania.
+
+"Which Bunting?" asked Bob.  "He--I mean the one at Oxford--told Mr.
+Gordon and Mr. de Vere that he was married to her."
+
+Gordon groaned, and, seizing his hat, fled from the room.  He came back
+again.
+
+"Where does the wire come from?"
+
+"From Spilsborough," said Bob.  "Granny, I wonder if the bishop is in
+it."
+
+Gordon groaned and went.  And went a little too early, for another wire
+came.  It was a very long one.
+
+Titania looked at the signature first, and she sat up.
+
+"It's from Penelope's husband," she cried.
+
+"Who is he really?" shrieked Bob.
+
+"It's signed Penelope's husband, I mean," said Titania, "and he seems
+very unhappy."
+
+The telegram read:
+
+
+"Am in great distress.  Penelope is furious because told you confidence
+that was married to her. She has heard this, and has learnt that others,
+lying scoundrels, said they were, too.  She says their noble conduct
+saved her, and will not speak at present, though holding out hopes of
+reconciliation later to her and infant, which is doing well, if I say
+nothing and do not fight with others, but do my duty, which I find hard
+under peculiar circumstances.  Hence am precluded from confirming what I
+told you, and can only communicate anonymously, as Penelope threatens to
+have divorce or equivalent, being headstrong, as you are aware, and I am
+in distress about it.  Wire reply.
+
+"PENELOPE'S HUSBAND."
+
+
+"He's mad," said Titania.  "How can I wire reply to a man I know nothing
+of?"
+
+She turned to Plant.
+
+"You told me in confidence, Mr. Plant.  Did you send this?"
+
+Plant turned all the colours of the rainbow.
+
+"Yes," he said, desperately, and he bolted from the room and the house
+and disappeared, while Bob gasped, and Titania nodded her head in a most
+awe-inspiring manner.
+
+"Get some telegraph forms," she said.  And when Bob brought them, she
+dictated telegrams to all the horde in the diplomatic form of identic
+notes.
+
+
+"Have received sad telegram signed Penelope's husband.  Recognize under
+painful circumstances he cannot reveal himself.  Am much composed and
+have given up hope.  It appears it cannot be Bunting, though Bunting is
+with her.  Contradict this; also the rumour that it is the Rajah of
+Jugpore.
+
+"TITANIA GORING."
+
+
+"Send them," she said, "and let me rest.  I presume that the right one
+will get it.  The only trouble is that six of the wrong ones will, too."
+
+"Goby will go insane," said Bob.  "I know he will.  I can't see how this
+will end without murder."
+
+And Titania laughed dreadfully.  She laughed so queerly that Doctor
+Griff was sent for, and refused to allow her to see De Vere and Goby and
+Bramber and Gordon and Plant and Williams and Carew.  The last turned up
+first in a hansom cab, with a large palette knife in his hand.  He had
+forgotten to put it down.  As hansom after hansom came up and discharged
+one furious lover after another at the steps of Titania's town house, it
+looked as if Bob's foreseen murder would occur there and then.  It is
+possible that nothing but the timely arrival of Bradstock saved London
+from the desirable news of a murder in high life and Belgrave Square.
+He got hold of the men one by one, and sent them away.  As they went, a
+telegraph boy came to the house with another telegram addressed to
+Titania.
+
+"I shall open this, Bob," said Bradstock.  It was another from Pen.
+
+
+"Have just learnt that you and others have been trying to discover my
+whereabouts.  If I am pursued, I shall leave and go elsewhere.  This is
+final.
+
+PENELOPE."
+
+
+"From Spilsborough, Bob," said Bradstock.
+
+"She's heard that I and Goby and Rivaulx and the others were there,"
+said Bob.  "Do you think the bishop knows where she is?"
+
+"I wouldn't trust a bishop," said Bradstock. "I daresay he does.  It is
+said that bishops steal Elzevirs and umbrellas, Bob.  I think I shall go
+to Spilsborough myself.  Have you seen the evening papers, Bob?"
+
+Bob had seen none of them.
+
+"Some say now that she is married to Jugpore, and others say it is a
+morganatic marriage to the mediatized Prince of Bodenstrau."
+
+"Oh, I say, Pen will be mad," cried Bob.  "Isn't he a real bad un?"
+
+"The very worst," said Bradstock.
+
+"And are you really going to Spilsborough, Lord Bradstock?"
+
+"I really think so," said Bradstock.  "I begin to think I must do
+something."
+
+He stood pondering.
+
+"May I come with you?"
+
+Bradstock declined the honour.
+
+"If I don't succeed, you may go again if you like," he said.  And that
+very afternoon he went to Liverpool Street and took the train for
+Spilsborough to call on the bishop.
+
+"My dear Bradstock, I am delighted to see you," said his lordship.  "I
+presume you, too, have come here about Penelope?"
+
+"I have," said Bradstock, "every one does."
+
+"Did young Bob tell you all about the peculiar occurrences which took
+place here only lately? They were quite remarkable."
+
+Bradstock agreed that they were remarkable.
+
+"A duel on the dean's grass, now!  Who would have thought of that but a
+Frenchman?  Have you seen the marquis lately, and that very agreeable
+financier, the American?  I was much grieved not to be able to ask him
+to dinner, owing to his sudden departure.  He showed considerable skill
+in grasping the essentials of the situation, for, when the marquis, who
+was literally foaming at the mouth, offered him the choice of swords in
+a violent but perfectly gentlemanly way, he chose both of them, and put
+them under his arm.  It is not every one who could have displayed such
+readiness in preventing violence.  One would not have expected it in an
+American, for I understand disorder and disturbances leading to
+bloodshed are quite common even in Washington."
+
+"I have frequently seen most bloodthirsty duels behind the Capitol
+during the sessions of Congress," said Bradstock, gravely.
+
+"Ah, so I understand," replied the bishop.  "But is there no news of
+dear Penelope?"
+
+"Come, bishop, let us be frank," said Bradstock. "Have you no idea whom
+she has married?"
+
+The gentle bishop looked much surprised.
+
+"I?  My dear Bradstock, I haven't the least idea. But I gather that both
+the gentlemen I interrupted the other day claim to be her husband, to
+say nothing of many others whom I have not yet set eyes on."
+
+"And you have no notion where she is?"
+
+The bishop lifted his hands.
+
+"I think she must be near this place," he said. "I consider there can be
+no doubt of that, owing to matters with which Bob made me acquainted. By
+the way, I think this young Bob a very remarkable boy, Bradstock."
+
+"So do I, bishop," said Bradstock.
+
+"A very remarkable boy.  The dean, who saw very little of him, came to
+that conclusion.  He said he would be an ornament to the House of Lords,
+or the biggest young rip that ever disgraced it."
+
+"Your dean must be a clever man," said Bradstock.
+
+"Do not call him my dean," replied the bishop. "He is the cathedral's
+dean, and very difficult to handle.  However, he is said to be clever,
+and I dare say is clever, especially about grass and a choir and things
+material.  But, as I was going on to say, I consider it quite easy to
+find out where Penelope is, provided we go about it skilfully.  I cannot
+but remember that I christened her, and I still take an interest in
+her."
+
+"How do you propose to discover her whereabouts?" asked Bradstock.
+
+"She sends telegrams from our Spilsborough post-office, does she not?"
+
+"Yes," said Bradstock.
+
+"Then some one should watch the post-office for her messenger.  It seems
+probable that you would know him, as she is not likely to confide in
+strangers. Who can say that the very man she has married does not send
+them?"
+
+That was easily disposed of, for, to Bradstock's certain knowledge, all
+the lovers were in town when the last wires came.
+
+"Well, I suggest you watch the post-office," said the bishop.  "It is, I
+opine, a perfectly legitimate thing to do."
+
+Bradstock objected that she mightn't send any more for weeks.
+
+A brilliant idea struck the bishop.
+
+"Send her one which requires an answer, Bradstock."
+
+"Where to?" asked Bradstock.
+
+"Tut, tut!" said the bishop, "how foolish of me.  Stay, I have it.  Put
+something in the _Times_ which requires an answer."
+
+"I will," said Bradstock.
+
+"And send for young Bob to watch," said the bishop.  "It is time that
+this scandal was stopped. I am exceedingly grieved with Penelope for
+getting married in a registrar's office.  I will offer to marry her all
+over again in this very cathedral.  And now you shall come and have
+lunch, and I will show you the swords given me by the marquis."
+
+After lunch and an inspection of the trophies in the dining-room,
+Bradstock and the bishop drafted an advertisement for the _Times_,
+imploring Pen to telegraph to Bradstock, saying how she was, as there
+was a rumour afloat that she didn't feel well. This was sent by wire to
+town, and was accompanied in its flight by one to Bob, asking him to
+come up in a motor-car at once.
+
+"I think," said the bishop, "that I should like to go in a motor-car.
+There must be something delightful in speeding through the country
+feeling that steel and petrol do not suffer any of the strain that comes
+on horses.  I shall ask young Bob to take me out."
+
+"He will be delighted," said Bradstock.  "I'm sure he will be delighted.
+They say he is an enterprising driver for his youth."
+
+"I love enterprise," murmured the bishop.  "I am surprised now to think
+of my own.  I entered the Church meaning to be a bishop, and I am a
+bishop.  I love enterprise.  All curates seem full of it.  Deans, I
+regret to say, are seldom vigorously enterprising.  Archdeacons, too,
+have a tendency to take things easily, too easily."
+
+"What do you think of the Higher Criticism?" asked Bradstock.
+
+"Ha!" said the bishop, "ha!  I think--oh, I think a great deal of it.
+That is, I think of it a great deal.  I do not think all enterprise is
+praiseworthy.  Would you like to know the dean?"
+
+They spent the afternoon in the dean's cathedral, and walked on the
+dean's grass, and about six o'clock Bob rolled into the cathedral close
+in a fifteen-horse-power Daimler, and drew up in front of the bishop's
+palace.
+
+"Have you found her out?" he demanded, eagerly, of Bradstock.
+
+"No, but you shall," said Bradstock.
+
+
+
+
+                             *CHAPTER XX.*
+
+
+The bishop was very kind and amiable to Bob. Some people say that
+bishops are always kind and good to people who will be dukes by and by.
+One never knows what a duke can do for one later, and, of course, a
+bishop wants to be an archbishop.  That is only natural: even a cardinal
+wants to be Pope, although he almost always says he is sorry he became
+one when he finds himself at the end of his tether.  The bishop was a
+human being, but a nice one, and he really liked Bob, who suggested
+youth and strength and the future, all of them agreeable things to those
+who are not young and see their future behind them.  So he talked to Bob
+almost as if he was one of the Bench of Bishops.  He was familiar and
+jovial, and told some good stories of other bishops and even one of an
+archbishop.  And he suggested to Bob that he rather wanted to see what a
+motor-car was like.
+
+"There is a prejudice against them here," said the bishop.  "Perhaps a
+natural prejudice among those who own chickens and dogs and children.
+But Providence works in a mysterious way, and I should be the last to
+hasten to blame even the gentleman known as a road hog.  I begin to
+perceive an unwonted sprightliness in the villagers as the elimination
+of the unfit, the rheumatic, the undecided, and the foolish proceeds
+apace.  A young man, who told me that he had in the course of his career
+as an owner of cars killed nearly a thousand dogs, two thousand five
+hundred fowls, several aged persons, some idiots, and a policeman, said
+that he noticed nowadays an air of bright alertness in his immediate
+neighbourhood which was at once a pleasure and an encouragement.  He
+asserted that the dogs who remained were of a higher type of intellect
+than the others; and he said that even the fowls now stood sideways in
+the road and used their natural advantage of looking both ways at once.
+There was, too, a great improvement in village children and even in
+policemen.  Oh, yes, I think much may be said for the motor-car."
+
+"I should very much like to take you out in one, my lord," said Bob.
+
+The bishop smiled graciously.
+
+"You shall, my boy, as soon as this matter of Penelope is settled.  I
+shall greatly enjoy passing rapidly through the country.  I think of
+buying one for purposes of my pastoral visitations.  Perhaps I may wake
+up some of my more somnolent clergy. I may even raise their general
+intellectual average, which is low, really low."
+
+Bob's chauffeur put up at the Angel, but Bob himself had a bed in the
+palace, and dined in state with the bishop and Bradstock.  They
+discussed Penelope all dinner-time, even before Ridley, for, as the
+bishop explained, Ridley took no interest in anything whatever but wine.
+
+"I believe," said the bishop, with a chuckle, "that I might venture in
+his presence to advocate the disestablishment of the Church, or to give
+vent to heretical or even atheistical sentiments without his being aware
+that I was doing anything surprising, improper, or unusual.  By all
+means, let us talk before Ridley.  How do you think Bob should proceed,
+Bradstock?"
+
+"He must stay in his car near, but not too near, the post-office," said
+Bradstock.  "If Bob is properly goggled, this George Smith, whom we
+suppose to bring Pen's letters and telegrams, will not notice him.
+Shall you know him, Bob?"
+
+"Rather," said Bob.  "He walks very queerly. I could tell him a mile
+off."
+
+"Very well, then," Bradstock continued, "when he goes, you will follow
+him at a distance.  He must not be lost sight of."
+
+"I much underrate our young friend's enterprise if he loses him," said
+the bishop.  "There are occasions when exceeding the legal limit becomes
+a duty, Bob."
+
+"Rather," said Bob.  "Oh, I'll do it."
+
+They calculated that the _Times_ would reach Pen about noon, as they
+believed she must be within twenty miles of Spilsborough.  Bob
+accordingly arranged to take up his watch at the post-office before one
+o'clock.
+
+"And perhaps to-morrow night the mystery will be solved," said the
+bishop.  "It is really remarkable.  I am not at all able to follow
+Penelope's mind."
+
+Bob explained it to him.
+
+"They ragged her," he said,--by "they" meaning Titania and others,--"and
+she loves peace and hates showing off, and she's as obstinate as a pig.
+And grandmother said she was to be married in Westminster Abbey by a
+bishop, and that put her back up.  Oh, Pen's easy to understand, I
+think."
+
+"You have no idea whom she has really married?" asked the bishop.
+
+"Not much," said Bob.  "I give it up.  I've thought it was all of 'em,
+and every one has done or said something that could be taken both ways.
+I was sure it was Goby, and then I was certain it was Bramber, and then
+I fairly knew it was Rivaulx, and I could have sworn it was Plant.  And
+I'm very much worried by what occurred at Oxford. This new Bunting was
+very surprising."
+
+The bishop had not heard of the new Bunting, and listened to Bob's story
+with great interest.
+
+"The world is a very surprising place," said the bishop, with emphasis;
+"a very surprising place indeed.  We do not need to go to Africa for new
+things.  We are surrounded by the unexpected, by the marvellous.  Bob's
+delightful story makes me feel that no one can reckon with certainty
+upon anything.  I am half-inclined to think that this new Bunting must
+be a relation of the other Bunting, and that Penelope has met him, been
+struck with him, and has married him and lives in temporary retirement,
+while her husband struggles with Thucydides under a sofa.  But after
+to-morrow we shall know more."
+
+"I hope so," said Bradstock.
+
+"I feel sure of it," said the bishop.
+
+And Bob went to bed.
+
+"Do you know, Bradstock," said the bishop, as he stroked his leg, which
+was a very reasonable leg for a bishop, "I wonder you didn't think I had
+married Penelope."
+
+"Good heavens!" said Bradstock, "have you?"
+
+"Certainly not," replied the bishop, "but it is odd she should be near
+Spilsborough, isn't it?"
+
+"She must be somewhere," said Bradstock, rather irritably.  "Hang it!
+the girl must be somewhere."
+
+"When you think of it, she must," said the bishop.  "Yes, yes, you are
+right.  Still, Spilsborough--yes, it's odd, but not remarkable.  As you
+say, she must be somewhere.  I hope it's not the Jew, Bradstock."
+
+So did Bradstock.
+
+"It looks very much as if she was ashamed of him.  But I'm incapable of
+judging, not having been married," said the bishop.
+
+"I've been married twice," said Bradstock, "and Pen is a woman, which
+means she resembles no other woman in any respect whatever as regards
+her ways, manners, customs, and thoughts."
+
+"You say that coolly?" asked the bishop.
+
+"Icily," replied Bradstock.
+
+The bishop shook his head.
+
+"You surprise me," said the bishop, "and I think I will go to bed."
+
+Bradstock went to bed, too.
+
+"I shouldn't be surprised if she had married the bishop and was under
+this roof now," said Bradstock.  "Nothing would surprise me unless I
+discover she's married to Rivaulx or Bramber.  I don't think I should
+mind either of 'em."
+
+And next day at half-past twelve Bob and his chauffeur took up a
+position near the post-office.  As Geordie Smith knew Bradstock, he kept
+quietly at the palace.  But the interested bishop who had not married
+Penelope kept bustling about the neighbourhood in quite an excitement.
+
+"I wish I was coming with you, Bob."
+
+"Oh, do!" said Bob.
+
+"I almost think it would be advisable," said the bishop.  "What I said
+would have weight with Penelope, I believe."
+
+"I rather wish you'd come," cried Bob.  "It would be fun, and you said
+you'd like to go in a motor-car."
+
+"So I did," said the bishop, "but I've never been in one.  No one has
+seen me in one.  I fear a crowd would assemble."
+
+"At any rate, my lord, you might get in and sit down a minute."
+
+The bishop looked around.
+
+"I really think I will," he said.  And he entered the car.
+
+"This is really comfortable, Bob, very comfortable, quite like an
+armchair.  Is your driver a good one?"
+
+"A ripper," said Bob.  "The best they have where I got the car.  It's
+not mine, but when I get all the money that Gordon owes me, I'll buy
+one."
+
+The chauffeur got down and did something inexplicable to the machinery
+with a spanner.  And the spanner broke.
+
+"I'll just run across and get a new one, sir," said the chauffeur.
+
+"It's getting late," said Bob.  "Don't be long, and before you go start
+her up."
+
+The driver set her going, and the bishop caught hold of Bob.
+
+"You're not off?  This is very surprising.  It makes a very curious
+noise."
+
+"There won't be any to speak of when we get her moving," said Bob.  "You
+see the engine is going, and when we like we can start at once."
+
+He was happy, bright, and eager.
+
+"There's a motor-car coming," whispered the bishop.
+
+Bob jumped.
+
+"I say, it's yellow like Pen's big new one," he said.  And the car
+stopped in front of the post-office ten yards away.  Bob grabbed the
+bishop's arm.
+
+"That's Geordie Smith," he said.  "That's Geordie getting out.  I could
+tell his legs a mile off.  Where's my man?"
+
+But the man didn't come, and Geordie was back in his car.  He went off
+sweetly.
+
+"The north road," said Bob.  "I'm sure he'll take it.  He's going quick.
+We can't wait for my man."
+
+He grabbed the steering-wheel, shifted the lever, and the car moved off
+on the first speed.
+
+"I'll--I'll go a little way with you," said the bishop.
+
+"You'll have to unless you jump," replied Bob. "I'll keep in sight if I
+die for it."
+
+This encouraged the bishop very much, of course, and it is possible that
+he might have jumped if he had not caught sight of the dean and a minor
+canon, who were staring hard at him with their mouths as wide open as
+the grotesque muzzle of a Gothic gargoyle.
+
+"I'll not jump," said the bishop, and he waved his hand to Mr. Dean.
+"No, I'll not jump before the dean if I die for it."
+
+Before he knew it, they were out on the road, and the dust of the yellow
+car in front was like the pillar of smoke to the Hebrews in the desert.
+Bob let her out to the second speed, and the bishop gasped.
+
+"We go very quick," he said.
+
+"Oh, not at all," replied Bob.  "I don't want to go fast.  If Geordie
+thinks he's being followed, he'll go sixty miles an hour, and I don't
+think I can do more than forty-five in this."
+
+"Can't you?" asked the bishop.  "I'm almost glad you can't."
+
+"Is this the great north road?" asked Bob.
+
+"No," said the bishop, "it's the road to Crowland and Spalding.  I've
+often driven on it, but never so fast as this."
+
+Geordie's car drew ahead, and Bob put his car on the third speed.
+
+"Bob!" cried the bishop, as he clutched the sides of his seat.  "Bob!"
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"Isn't this an illegal speed?"
+
+"Rather," said Bob.
+
+"I cannot aid and abet you in going at it, then," said the bishop, as
+firmly as he could.  "I must request you to be legal."
+
+Bob kept his eyes ahead.
+
+"Please don't talk," he roared, "or I shall have an accident.  You must
+remember I'm not at all experienced."
+
+What could the poor bishop do?  He groaned and sat very tight indeed,
+and, seeing the landscape eaten up by this monster at the rate of thirty
+miles an hour, came to the conclusion that there was nothing stable in
+the universe, not even theology.  And about a mile ahead of them rose a
+pillar of dust.
+
+"This is a remarkable situation," thought the bishop; "a situation which
+requires some firmness of mind.  I am a bishop, and I am no better than
+half my clergy who break the law regularly.  This must be nearly a
+hundred miles an hour!  I wish, I almost wish Penelope had died soon
+after I christened her.  This Bob is an infernal young ruffian; his
+manner is not respectful.  I should like to cane him.  But how can I
+stop him?  I do not understand these strange brass things.  I could as
+soon play the big organ in the cathedral that I wish I was in.  If I
+pull Bob he will have an accident.  If I speak to him, I may divert his
+attention--oh!"
+
+They executed a fowl which had not learnt to stand sideways, and slammed
+through a village, scattering several ancient inhabitants who were
+enjoying a gossip in the middle of the road.  As a matter of fact, they
+were damning Geordie Smith in heaps when the pursuing Bob fell upon
+them. They passed a church, and the bishop saw a clergyman staring over
+the wall.  The village fell into the category of things which had been
+and slid away behind them.
+
+"We are stopping still and the world slides," said the bishop, "but that
+was Griggs, I know, and he knew me.  He has eyes like a hawk's.  I am
+much surprised at myself.  I have seventeen engagements this afternoon.
+Ridley will be alarmed. The dean--oh!"
+
+They slammed a barking dog into the middle of the week after next.
+
+"That was a near shave," roared Bob, exulting. "I've seen a smaller dog
+than that capsize a bigger car than this!"
+
+"May I speak now?" implored the bishop.
+
+"Righto," said Bob.  "Here's a good straight bit.  What is it?"
+
+He was the superior: he was a big bird and the bishop was a beetle.  He
+was the head master; his lordship of the see of Spilsborough was a new
+boy. The bishop felt small, terrified, amazed, humiliated.
+
+"Are we going a hundred miles an hour?" asked the bishop.
+
+"Rot!" said Bob, "we're only doing about thirty."
+
+They scorched through quiet Crowland.
+
+"Please put me down," implored the humble bishop.
+
+"I can't stop," said Bob.  "I'm afraid he's getting ahead.  Sit tight,
+bishop, I'm going faster now."
+
+"You mustn't, you can't," said the bishop.
+
+Bob stooped for an answer and turned on the fourth speed.  The bishop
+felt the machine sailing underneath him.  He fell back and lost all
+ordinary consciousness.
+
+"It is true," said his mind deep inside him; "it is true that all things
+are illusion!  I have sometimes suspected it.  We are a mode of motion;
+we are affections of the ether.  I believe Professor Osborne Reynolds is
+right.  I am a kind of vortex spinning in piled grains of ether.  Bob is
+a vortex. We are in a vortex.  We are straws in ether; we are shadows.
+I have a real non-existent pain in my real imaginary non-existent
+stomach.  I am not alive and I am not dead.  I am brave; I am a coward;
+I am a bishop.  This is very wonderful. I shall preach about it when I
+return to earth.  Is that a hedge?  Did I see a cow?--a strange,
+elongated, horned, lowing, permanent, impermanent possibility of
+sensation and milk in a field made of matter, which is energy, which is
+an illusion. I become calm; motion is relative.  I almost enjoy it.  I
+become a Hegelian.  I see that being equals non-being; that pain becomes
+pleasure if you only have enough of it.  I no longer pity those who
+suffer sufficiently.  There is apparently too little pain in the
+universe.  Torquemada did his best to remedy it.  Oh, was that a dog?  I
+quite enjoy myself.  I wonder if he can go faster.  If he can, I wish he
+would.  We are going slow, too slow!"
+
+And, as Geordie's dust showed up much nearer, Bob put his car again at
+the third speed, and the bishop gasped.
+
+"How do you like it?" asked Bob, as they spun through Spalding.
+
+The bishop's face was a fine glowing crimson; his bloodshot eyes
+glittered like opals; he was intoxicated with movement and with new
+lights on philosophy.
+
+"I--I should like to go a thousand miles an hour at night," said the
+bishop.  "I think it is wonderful, Bob.  Are you Bob, and I a bishop?
+Where is Spilsborough?  Is there a Spilsborough?"
+
+"Steady on!" said Bob.  "I say, you're excited!"
+
+"I am," replied the bishop.  "I am excited; I feel peculiar.  I think I
+can originate a new philosophy.  Why are we doing this?"
+
+"We are trying to find out where Penelope is," said Bob.
+
+"Penelope, Penelope," said the bishop.  "Penelope is a vortex.  Yes, she
+is a vortex.  Men and women are vortices.  I shall study mathematics and
+apply it to theology."
+
+"Hello!" said Bob, and he stopped almost dead. For Geordie's dust had
+suddenly died down.
+
+"I'll bet he has a puncture," said Bob.  And the bishop sighed and
+stared about him, as if he were just awakened.
+
+"Where are we?" he asked.
+
+"Blessed if I know," said Bob.  "But you ought to know."
+
+"I don't," said the bishop.  And he got out and stood on the dusty road.
+He reeled, and the dean would have said he was intoxicated.  And so he
+was.
+
+"Geordie's off again," said Bob.  "Come, jump in."
+
+"I won't," said the bishop.  "Certainly I won't. That machine is a kind
+of devil.  It undermines the strongest convictions.  I am afraid of it.
+I shall have to resign my bishopric if I ride another mile."
+
+"Oh, rot!" said Bob.  "Aren't you coming? I can't wait."
+
+"Take the devilish thing away," cried the bishop. "Anathema maranatha
+and all the rest of it!"
+
+Without another word, Bob pulled the lever and sailed off up the road,
+leaving a trail of petrol vapour behind him.
+
+"Mentally and physically, I don't know where I am," said the bishop.  "I
+don't know who I am, either.  From my clothes I conclude I am a bishop,
+but to come to that conclusion I have to assume that I have the right to
+wear them.  I have had a remarkable experience.  Yes, I am a bishop.
+This is the earth and very dusty.  It is hot, and I am miles from
+anywhere."
+
+He looked up the road and saw a far cloud of dust.
+
+"Under that dust is Bob," said the bishop.  "As I said, Penelope is a
+vortex.  Everything is much more remarkable than I thought, much more
+remarkable.  I shall write to the professor to discover what he means.
+It is dreadful that what may be called a mere physical experience should
+incline me to look on some of my fellow bishops and the higher criticism
+with a more lenient eye.  I don't see how any dogma can survive a
+hundred miles an hour.  But Bob has not treated me altogether well.  He
+plumps me down somewhere between Spalding and Spilsby or Boston or some
+other dreadful locality under the ghostly influence of my brother of
+Lincoln, and disappears in dust and smell.  He was distinctly
+disrespectful.  He said, 'Sit down, bishop,' in a very authoritative
+manner. He told me I was excited.  I own I was, but I resented being
+told so by a boy, because he was a boy, or was it because I am a bishop?
+An unaccustomed bishop in a motor-car is plainly nobody compared with an
+experienced boy in one.  I wish Penelope was a sensible person, or that
+I had never known her, or that she hadn't been born!  I wonder what I am
+to do.  I must walk; I may be overtaken by a cart and get a ride in one.
+I anticipate much talk in Spilsborough about this.  I wonder what Ridley
+will say.  Ridley is a stoic; perhaps he will say nothing.  I wish I was
+near Ridley; I am thirsty.  This road is dusty.  It also appears long
+and interminable.  I am as dry as convocation.  I much resent Bob's
+treatment of me.  I wish Bradstock was here, and I was where Bradstock
+is. Bradstock is in my library, in my chair, with a book in his hand and
+a whiskey and soda by his side. He takes things with great calmness.  I
+wish he was here to take this with calmness."
+
+And he walked south for three hours and got back to Spalding, and there
+took a train for Spilsborough.
+
+
+
+
+                             *CHAPTER XXI.*
+
+
+"I don't think I quite understand the bishop," said Bob, as he left the
+dignitary of the Church stranded long miles from anywhere.  "He looked
+very queer.  But I suppose they're made bishops because they are queer,
+unless it's on account of their legs.  I can understand the gaiters, but
+the apron licks me.  I'll ask him about it some day. But I wonder where
+we are, and how much longer Geordie will go on.  It's luck I've had no
+puncture and no breakdown.  I thought it was all up when I sent that dog
+over the hedge.  He did fly. I wonder whether any bobbies have spotted
+my number.  I don't care.  Gordon owes me a lot of money by now.  What's
+thirty-two times two thousand odd?  Oh, I can't remember.  I'm getting
+rather tired."
+
+But he stuck to Geordie like a burr to a sheep, and between the two of
+them they stirred up more ancient peace and the haunts of it than any
+other two cars in the United Kingdom.  They fairly bounded through
+sleepy old Boston, and a policeman, waked up from sleep by Geordie, was
+wide-awake enough by the time Bob came through to call on him to stop.
+
+"I wouldn't stop for an army of policemen," said Bob, recklessly.  "I
+don't care.  I'll catch Geordie if I die for it.  Gordon will pay my
+fines. I wonder how the bishop is.  This is the Spilsby road, is it?  I
+wonder whether Pen's at Spilsby? Will she be very cross with me?  Oh,
+that was a hen!  I _do_ think hens shouldn't be allowed in a road."
+
+A dog stood in the middle of the way and barked. In the middle of his
+second bark, the front wheel caught him.  He ended his bark in the
+ditch, and was very dreamy about the whole affair for some time
+afterward.
+
+"That was a dog," said Bob.  "I _do_ think dogs shouldn't be allowed in
+a road."
+
+He missed a horse by a hairbreadth a mile farther on, and felt very
+cross.  He said horses shouldn't be allowed in a road.  He said the same
+of carts and of a carriage, of children and agricultural labourers.
+They were so slow.  For now Geordie was going pretty fast, and Bob had
+to go on the fourth speed, which is highly illegal and wicked and very
+dangerous.  He had never enjoyed himself so much before, and he was
+undoubtedly the happiest boy in the three kingdoms.
+
+"Geordie doesn't know I'm after him," he said. "I'll bet he's riding
+along easy.  That car of Pen's can go like lightning if he lets her out.
+He will be mad when I come up."
+
+And suddenly he perceived down a long, white road that Geordie was going
+more slowly.
+
+"This must be Spilsby," said Bob.  He saw Geordie's dust go off at a
+right angle toward the right.
+
+"I've done it," said the exultant boy.  "We must be near Pen's now."
+
+For to turn to the right in the neighbourhood of Spilsby means to go
+toward the North Sea.
+
+Bob ran into Spilsby quite meekly on the second speed, and turned after
+Geordie.  A mile farther on, Bob saw a house in some trees, and all of a
+sudden there was no more dust from Geordie's car. Bob pulled up in the
+middle of the road.
+
+"By Jove, I've done it, I know," said Bob, "and now I feel a bit
+nervous.  I wonder what Pen will say, and whether her husband is there,
+and what the kid's like.  Well, here's for it!  She can't do more than
+eat me."
+
+And he drove on till he came to the house, which was an ivy-covered
+building like a square barrack, and would have been hideous without its
+creepers. There was a moat around it and big elms hid it from a
+distance.  The gate was open, and by the front door stood Geordie and
+his car.  Bob gave a view-halloo, and, twisting through the gate, came
+to a standstill alongside Pen's big yellow racer.
+
+And Penelope herself came to the door, and saw not only Geordie, whom
+she recognized simply by the fact that he was in a car she knew, but an
+undistinguishable stranger also.
+
+"Oh!" said Bob.
+
+"Eh?" said Geordie.
+
+"Who--" said Penelope.
+
+And Bob staggered out of his machine, and fairly reeled when he stood
+upright.  He had no notion that no one, not even Titania, could have
+recognized him.  He forgot his goggles, and he forgot he was so dusty
+that one might have planted cabbages on his cheeks.  He did not know
+that he weighed several pounds more than usual, owing to the amount of
+Lincolnshire that he carried on him. He had no idea that he was awful,
+hideous, a goggled, dirty portent.  He smiled, and the dirt cracked upon
+him, and Penelope shrank back.
+
+"Oh, I say, Pen, are you mad with me?" he asked.
+
+And Penelope shrieked and ran to him, and, falling upon him, embraced
+him with horrible results to her clothes.
+
+"Oh, Bob, Bob, is it you?" she cried.
+
+"It's me, right enough," said Bob.  "I say, can I have a drink?  I'm
+dying!  Am I dusty?  Yes, so I am.  Oh, Pen, it's come off on you!  I
+say, I do want a drink.  It's such a warm day, and Geordie would go so
+fast.  I followed Geordie."
+
+Geordie looked horribly disgusted, but neither Pen nor Bob paid the
+least attention to him.
+
+"Followed up by a boy," groaned Geordie, "and in that thing!"
+
+He regarded the mean fifteen-horse-power concern with great contempt.
+"Well, I'm blessed!"
+
+"Oh, come in, Bob, dear Bob," said Pen.
+
+"Are you glad to see me?"
+
+"Oh, I've been dying to see you."
+
+"Upon your honour?" asked Bob.
+
+"Yes, yes," said Penelope.  "I want to ask you so much, and I've got so
+much to say.  But tell me, tell me quick.  Does any one else know where
+I am?"
+
+Bob shook dust out of his head.
+
+"Not a soul, unless it's the bishop," he replied.
+
+"What bishop?"
+
+"The Bishop of Spilsborough," replied Bob.  "I left him on the road."
+
+"Oh!" gasped Pen, "is he following you?"
+
+"Not much," said Bob.  "He got scared and got out and wouldn't get in
+again, and he talked such rot I thought he was mad, for a bishop, so I
+left him, and suppose he's walking home again."
+
+Pen almost shook him.
+
+"But what was he doing with you?"
+
+"He wanted to come part of the way in my car, so I let him, and he was
+awfully funky.  I don't think much of bishops if they're all like him,
+though he did stop Plant and Rivaulx fighting with swords in the
+cathedral."
+
+"Fighting? with swords?  Oh, what--" said Penelope.
+
+"To be sure, I forgot you very likely didn't know.  I'll tell you by and
+by.  Bradstock's at Spilsborough.  Where's my drink, Pen?  I say, did
+you hear of Mr. Bunting at Oxford?  That was fun.  He threw De Vere out
+of the window, and knocked Carteret Williams down with Liddell and
+Scott."
+
+"What Mr. Bunting?"
+
+"They thought he was Timothy Bunting, but he wasn't.  I had tea with him
+afterward.  I'll tell you by and by.  Do you know grandmother had fits
+about it all?"
+
+Penelope knew nothing, or very little, and as the results of her fatal
+conduct were thus revealed to her in dreadful incomplete chunks, her
+heart almost failed her and she half-forgot her own terrible troubles.
+
+"Am I mad, or is Bob?" she asked.  "Oh, the bishop and Guardy and duels
+and fits and Mr. Bunting and windows and Liddell and Bob having tea!"
+
+She ran for a drink herself, and poured it over Bob in her eagerness for
+more news.
+
+"I say, Pen, be careful!  That went down my neck," said Bob, "and
+outside it, too.  I say, who've you married?  Tell me.  Where's the kid?
+May I see it?  I say, Pen, you look splendid, but sad somehow and rather
+worried.  I feel better now.  I don't mind what went down outside.  I'll
+have a bath soon.  Where's the kid?  They _do_ talk a lot about it in
+town.  They say, some of 'em, that you've married the Rajah of Jugpore,
+the little beast, and that the baby is black, or partly black.  Is it?
+I know it isn't."
+
+"Oh, oh!" said Pen, "how horrible of them!"
+
+She rushed at the bell, and when the servant came she commanded the
+instant appearance of the baby and the nurse.
+
+"You know they said you married Timothy Bunting," said Bob.
+
+Penelope flushed crimson.
+
+"It was wicked of them."
+
+"That beast Weekes told granny you had.  She said she knew it.  That's
+how I had tea with Mr. Bunting at Oxford, after he'd chucked Plant and
+Gordon down-stairs.  They were sick.  Oh, oh! is this the kid?"
+
+Pen took the precious infant in her arms, and told the nurse she might
+go and have tea.  When she had disappeared, Pen burst into tears.
+
+"He's--he's all I've got," she said, sobbing.
+
+Bob started.
+
+"I say, what do you mean?  You don't mean you aren't married at all?"
+
+"No, no," said Penelope.  "I mean--oh, it's terrible!  Oh, baby, I love
+you!"
+
+She kissed the baby, who was certainly a very fine baby, and wept again.
+Bob inspected the boy with great interest.
+
+"I say, I rather think it's like Plant," he said.
+
+Pen gasped.
+
+"But in this light, it's rather like Gordon."
+
+"Oh!" said Penelope.
+
+"And its forehead is like De Vere's a little. I say, won't you tell me
+who you've married?"
+
+Penelope hugged the baby and howled.
+
+"I can't, I can't.  We've q-quarrelled," she said, "and he's furious,
+and I'm f-furious with him."
+
+"Why?" asked Bob, still inspecting the baby for signs of his male
+parentage, "why?  Oh, I say, sideways he reminds me of Williams and
+Rivaulx, and upside down he's a little like Carew and Goby. But why have
+you quarrelled, Pen?"
+
+Pen explained with tears how it had happened.
+
+"You see, I said he wasn't to tell," she said. "And he went to your
+grandmother and told!"
+
+"So did all the rest," said Bob, "and that was where granny got very
+confused.  I listened.  I know it was a sneak thing to do, but I was
+thinking of your interests, and she said to the last of 'em: 'I know
+you've come to say you've married dear Penelope.'  It was very pathetic,
+Pen.  I never thought granny could be pathetic before.  She usually
+makes me pathetic instead, or she used to. But was he one of 'em?"
+
+"He was," sniffed Pen, "and he broke his solemn oath.  The others were
+noble.  I sent them telegrams to say they were noble."
+
+"That's why they all went to Spilsborough, where you sent the telegrams
+from," said Bob, "and that's why Plant and Rivaulx fought with swords
+under the cathedral, till the bishop and the dean stopped them.  I tell
+you the dean _was_ mad."
+
+"Oh, dear, dear!" said Penelope.  "I wish they wouldn't.  Did they hurt
+each other?"
+
+"Not much, I think," replied Bob.  "I didn't see any blood.  But when I
+told 'em you'd married Timothy Bunting, Rivaulx lay on the grass and
+tried to bite it and howled dreadfully."
+
+"Poor marquis!" said Pen.  "But why did you tell them so dreadful a
+story?"
+
+Bob shook his head.
+
+"I'm sorry, Pen, but I believed it.  Weekes said she _knew_, and granny
+had fits.  There's something about fits that makes you believe almost
+anything. But you haven't told me who it is.  I say, with the light
+sideways on that baby, he reminds me of Bramber.  But who is it?"
+
+"We've p-parted," said Penelope.  "He came and said he'd told, and I was
+very f-furious, and we had a r-row.  And he was so cross and mad,
+because without me he couldn't prove it.  For we were married in other
+names, and I wrote my name in another handwriting, and I said I would
+deny it.  And he flew into a passion and into a motor-car and went away.
+And I've only my p-pride and b-baby left.  And I'm so sorry for every
+one.  And how did you find me?"
+
+Bob told her how he had done it, and told her of Bradstock's
+advertisement, and told her about the bishop, and more about Mr. Bunting
+of All Saints, Oxford, who was the strongest man he had ever seen.
+Carteret Williams was nothing in his hands.
+
+"And now I've told you everything, won't you tell me who it is?"
+
+"No," said poor Penelope; "it would humiliate me to tell now, and I
+won't."
+
+"But they must know here," said Bob.
+
+"Only three," replied Penelope.  "Miss Mackarness and Geordie Smith and
+Timothy.  And Timothy was so unhappy when he heard he had married me
+that I sent him away to Upwell, where there are more horses.  But he's
+back now.  And Miss Mackarness and Geordie Smith have sworn not to tell.
+And I expect you not to ask them."
+
+Bob snorted a little at this.
+
+"Oh, all right, but I shall have to say where you are when I go back to
+Spilsborough."
+
+"Oh, you won't," said Pen.
+
+"I must," said Bob.  "Bradstock is terribly worried about it now, and
+thinks you've treated him badly, and the bishop is very curious, and he
+asks questions in a way that it's difficult not to answer somehow.  And
+besides there's granny and all the rest.  I say, do you know Gordon has
+been speculating for me, and has made seventy thousand pounds for me?"
+
+"You don't say so?" cried Pen.
+
+"I think it must be Gordon," said Bob.  "When the shadow's on that kid,
+he looks rather like Gordon, if you can think of Gordon as a baby, which
+is hard.  But when I'm a duke, I shall rebuild Goring and pay off some
+of the mortgages.  Whoever you've married, I'm very grateful to you,
+Pen, about Gordon and De Vere.  De Vere bought the spotted dog I told
+you of.  I found Goby weeping with Ethel.  That made me think it wasn't
+him. But now you say you've quarrelled with him, I'm not sure again.  I
+say, I'm very sleepy.  May I stay to-night?"
+
+"Of course," said Penelope.  And then a brilliant idea struck her.
+
+"Bob, you do love me, don't you?"
+
+"What rot! of course," said Bob.
+
+"Then stay here altogether for a time," said Pen.
+
+"By Jove, what fun!" cried Bob.  "I'll send 'em a wire, and I will.  Can
+Geordie go somewhere else but Spilsborough and send one?"
+
+"Certainly," said Penelope.  And it was arranged that Geordie should go
+to Lincoln to send it from there.  This is the telegram Bob sent to Lord
+Bradstock:
+
+"I have found Penelope.  She won't say who it is because she has
+quarrelled with him, and she won't let me come back yet.  I will take
+care of her. Tell grandmother and Guthrie.  She quarrelled with him
+because he said he was married to her. But the baby is not black."
+
+And Bradstock swore.  The bishop was too tired to swear, perhaps, but he
+was very cross.  So were all the others, including her husband.
+
+
+
+
+                            *CHAPTER XXII.*
+
+
+They had relied greatly upon Bob.  The bishop, though rather bitter on
+the subject of Bob, tried to be fair to him, and said he was a very
+promising boy.
+
+"I think it most remarkable," said his lordship, when his fine but tired
+legs were beneath the mahogany once more, "that he should be able to
+drive these dreadful machines with such skill.  He missed a great many
+things that he might have hit, but, as he said, he 'boosted' one dog
+over a hedge in a most skilful way.  He said 'boosted,' a very peculiar
+word.  I must write to Doctor Murray about it.  But I do not think he
+has been brought up with care.  He was not altogether respectful to me,
+Bradstock."
+
+"I much regret it," said Bradstock, "but what can you expect at Goring?
+On the whole, his manners are not so bad.  Perhaps you annoyed him. He
+does not like being annoyed."
+
+"Indeed," said the bishop, "indeed!  Well, I may have worried him in a
+way that I do not quite understand.  But I have to own that for a boy to
+put his hand on my shoulder and say, 'Sit down, bishop,' in a most
+authoritative way, made me a little cross.  And when I refused to enter
+the motorcar again, I think he might have given me more time to reflect
+on the fact that I was a very long way from anywhere.  He was very short
+and peremptory with me.  It was most curious, and I regret I did not go
+on with him, for I am extremely anxious to put an end to this scandal.
+One never knows what will happen.  The duel in the moonlight under the
+cathedral was most remarkable.  I wonder when Bob will return."
+
+"So do I," said Bradstock, drily.
+
+"Why do you say so in that tone?" asked the bishop.
+
+"Because I doubt whether he will return at all if he finds Penelope,"
+replied Bradstock.
+
+"Good heavens!" cried the bishop, "but he went for the very purpose of
+discovering her."
+
+"You don't know Pen," said Bradstock, "and he worships her.  If she
+doesn't want to be discovered, she will keep him.  I am certain of it."
+
+This showed that Bradstock, though a silent peer, was a very sensible
+one.  The bishop frowned and smote the table.
+
+"I shall be extremely angry with Bob if you turn out to be right," he
+said, firmly.  "I shall be extremely angry with him."
+
+"Much he will care about that," said Bradstock. "You ought to have gone
+on with him."
+
+"I believe I ought to have done so.  Yes, you are right, Bradstock; it
+was an error of judgment. I was a coward.  I was afraid to die.  I did
+not like the idea of being 'boosted' over a hedge.  I am ashamed of
+myself."
+
+"Never mind," said Bradstock, consolingly, "I have seen heroes quail in
+a motor-car.  I myself have quailed in one."
+
+The bishop shook his head.
+
+"Nevertheless, I blame myself.  I ought not to have been afraid, even
+though I felt peculiar and unwonted sensations in my gaiters," he
+murmured.
+
+He smote the table again.
+
+"I will make amends, Bradstock.  I will devote myself to the task of
+finding Penelope at any speed that is necessary.  I cannot quite
+reconcile myself to the notion that I am a coward.  I will find her if
+Bob deceives us."
+
+"You can't," said Bradstock, rather gloomily.
+
+"I can, I will," said the bishop.  "I will use my brains."
+
+It was a happy thought.  The bishop mused. There was a knock at the
+outer door.  It was a double, a telegraphic knock.
+
+"From the duchess?" asked the bishop.
+
+"From Bob, or I am a bishop," said the peer.
+
+And Ridley gave him a telegram.  Bradstock read it slowly, lifted his
+eyebrows, rubbed his handsome white head, and handed it to the bishop.
+
+"From Bob, bishop, a very remarkable Bobbish document."
+
+The bishop read it.
+
+"It certainly is a remarkable document, a very remarkable document,
+indeed," said his lordship. "I see it was handed in at Lincoln.  She
+won't say who it is because she has quarrelled with him. With her
+husband, that is to say.  She will not let Bob come back.  She
+quarrelled with _him_ because he said he was married to _her_.  Very
+remarkable! Somewhat confusing.  But it is a relief to hear that the
+baby is not black, Bradstock."
+
+Bradstock was pessimistic.
+
+"It may be half-black," he said, mournfully.
+
+"Which half?" asked the bishop, with alarm. "If it is, I hope it will
+not be the top half."
+
+"Absurd!" said Bradstock.  "I mean it may be dun or yellowish."
+
+"Let us trust not," replied the bishop.  "I am inclined to think Bob
+would have said it was not very black if it had been at all coloured.  I
+think we may dismiss the Jugpore legend."
+
+"I trust we may," said Bradstock.
+
+"I have an idea," said the bishop, "I have a luminous idea.  Let us go
+to the library."
+
+They adjourned to the library, and Bradstock lighted a cigar.
+
+"What is your idea?" he asked.
+
+"I will tell you in a few minutes," said the bishop, as he laid a big
+atlas upon his table. Bradstock watched him curiously.  The bishop
+opened the atlas and laid a flat ruler on it.  He shifted it once or
+twice, nodded his head, said "Ah!" and nodded it again.
+
+"I believe I have it," said the bishop.  "It will be worth trying, at
+any rate."
+
+"What is it?" asked Bradstock.
+
+"Come and look at the atlas," said the bishop, and Bradstock did as he
+was asked.
+
+The bishop put his finger-tips together and began:
+
+"Bob was following this person named Smith, and went north, did he not?
+Let us say north. I believe it is technically north by east.  He put me
+out, or, to be fair even to Bob, I got out and was asked to return very
+casually, north of Spalding in the Boston road, miles from anywhere.
+This Smith was going back to Penelope.  For while Bob and I were away,
+you got her telegram dated Spilsborough, sent to London and
+re-telegraphed to you here, saying that she was well, in reply to your
+_Times_ advertisement.  Obviously, Penelope lives somewhere north of the
+spot where Bob left me without time for argument.  Do you follow me?"
+
+"Certainly," said Bradstock.  "It is all as clear as quaternions."
+
+"Now we get this very remarkable document from Lincoln."
+
+"We do, bishop."
+
+"It is obvious she doesn't live at Lincoln.  She has sent this very fast
+Smith there to send off Bob's telegram.  Is that not so?"
+
+"Of course," said Bradstock.
+
+"Let us imagine that Lincoln is nearly as far from where she is as
+Spilsborough is."
+
+"Let us imagine it," said Bradstock.  "I am willing to imagine it."
+
+"What conclusion do you draw?" asked the bishop.
+
+Bradstock shook his head.
+
+"Really, Bradstock," said the bishop, "I am surprised at you.  If she is
+between Spalding and Lough, as I'm sure she is, an equal distance from
+her to Lincoln and from her to Spilsborough would place her about
+Boston, or perhaps farther north. Now, if on inquiry we find she is not
+near Boston, she must be near a decent road fit for motor-cars to
+Lincoln.  Do you follow me?"
+
+"I do," said Bradstock.
+
+"Then if she is not near Boston, where is she?" Bradstock studied the
+map.
+
+"I should say Burgh, or Warnfleet, or Spilsby."
+
+"Right," said the bishop.  "I am almost sure of it.  For if she had been
+farther north, she would not have chosen Spilsborough to telegraph from
+in the first instance.  What do you say to that?"
+
+"I say that I am not surprised that you are a bishop, though I may
+wonder why you are in the Church," said Bradstock.
+
+"What do you mean by that, Bradstock?" asked his lordship.
+
+"Nothing, nothing at all," replied Bradstock, hastily.  "I agree with
+you.  What shall we do?"
+
+The bishop eyed him a little doubtfully, but returned to his muttons.
+
+"I want to bowl out Bob," he said.
+
+"A bishop is a human being, after all," thought Bradstock.
+
+"He might have reasoned with me," said the bishop.  "I am quite free the
+day after to-morrow, and we will go to Boston and make inquiries.  If
+they fail, we will try Warnfleet and Spilsby and Burgh."
+
+"We will," said Bradstock.  "I think this idea of yours exceedingly
+clever, bishop."
+
+"You do?"
+
+"Certain, I do."
+
+"I forgive your recent gibe," said the bishop. "It was clearer than
+quaternions to me, and much clearer than Bob's rudeness, which I
+continue to find inexplicable.  And now I think the duchess should be
+informed of his telegram.  It will console her, I am sure, to learn that
+this fatherless infant is not black."
+
+"Not very black," insisted Bradstock.
+
+And the bishop sent a wire to Titania, saying that Bob had disappeared
+into space, but had telegraphed saying that he had found Penelope with a
+normal infant.
+
+"After all, he only said it wasn't black," sighed Bradstock.
+
+But the bishop would not listen to him.  So he went out and sent a wire
+to Titania himself.
+
+"I should like to make Bob black and blue," the bishop said.  For his
+legs still ached.
+
+
+
+
+                            *CHAPTER XXIII.*
+
+
+Next morning the bishop had an hysteric telegram from Titania.  It was
+obscure and of great length:
+
+"Do not understand anything, but have hopes. Your telegram arrived
+before Augustin's.  You say normal; he says Robert's words do not convey
+anything but negation of extreme blackness. Jugpore going back to India,
+owing to scandalous conduct at music-hall.  India Office furious.
+Secretary of State in bed.  Rumour now affirms infant not Penelope's.
+Says adopted.  Have just seen Plant and Gordon and Carteret Williams,
+and expect the others.  They say they knew it all the time.  Say they
+gave her the infant.  Am confused, but hope you and Augustin will clear
+up details and find Penelope.  Am exceedingly vexed with Robert. De Vere
+has just come, weeps, but seems pleased. Bramber wires wishes to see me,
+but father is ill at Pulborough, doctors (three) giving up hope. Goby
+just left.  Will come to Spilsborough myself to-day if doctor permits,
+owing to palpitations. Keep me informed."
+
+"Dear me!" said the bishop, "this seems quite a new development, a very
+surprising one.  But I am sorry to see, Bradstock, that you sent another
+telegram without consulting me."
+
+"I didn't want you to give her too much hope," replied Bradstock.  "You
+were so certain.  Your telegram was not logical.  What is not black is
+not necessarily white, for not-black may be green, or blue, or magenta."
+
+"You are a pessimist," said the bishop.  "However, I forgive you.  What
+surprises me is this adoption story.  I don't believe it."
+
+Bradstock was fractious.
+
+"Well, I don't know, bishop.  She always said if she had none of her own
+she would adopt one."
+
+"Nonsense!" said the bishop.
+
+"It is not nonsense," said Bradstock.
+
+"Why don't you say they are twins?" demanded the bishop.
+
+"What are twins?"
+
+"It," said the bishop.  "Really, Bradstock, don't you see you are
+unreasonable?  You will believe anything."
+
+"And this from a bishop," murmured Bradstock. "Why should I say it was
+twins?"
+
+"If she adopted one, she might adopt two," said the bishop.
+
+"That is ridiculous.  I never heard of twins being adopted," cried
+Bradstock.  "Besides, Bob says 'the baby.'"
+
+"Well, well," said the bishop, "do not let us argue passionately about a
+detail."
+
+"I do not see that twins can be called a detail," said Bradstock,
+crossly.
+
+"Very well, call them what you like," said the bishop, hastily.  "But I
+expect the duchess will be here any moment."
+
+Bradstock said he shouldn't wonder if she was.
+
+"She will insist on coming with us to-morrow," he said.
+
+The bishop started.
+
+"Bradstock, we will go to-day.  I will put off my business and go at
+once.  The duchess is a remarkable woman, but she talks too much."
+
+And such was his lordship's energy that they started by train for Boston
+in less than half an hour.
+
+"I rather enjoy this," said the bishop.  "This is an unusual event in a
+life like mine, Bradstock. I wonder whether we shall succeed, and I
+wonder what the young rascal will say when he sees me. He will be rather
+abashed, I fancy."
+
+"Do you fancy that?" asked Bradstock.  "Is imagination necessary, by the
+way, for the clerical or episcopal life?"
+
+"It is highly necessary, but rare," said the bishop.
+
+"So I should imagine," said Bradstock.
+
+"What do you mean by that?" asked the bishop, a little warmly.
+
+Bradstock said he meant nothing by it, except that he was glad it was
+necessary.  Nevertheless, the bishop looked at him sternly for some
+minutes, and he felt rather uncomfortable.
+
+"I should not be surprised if Titania was now at the palace," he said,
+to change the conversation.
+
+"Ridley and my housekeeper must deal with her," said the bishop.
+"Ridley deals with every one calmly.  Kings and curates come equally and
+easily within his powers.  Ridley may most distinctly be called an
+adequate butler.  He will offer her my best spare bedroom, or arrange
+for her sojourn at the Grand.  I do not believe an archbishop in a fit
+would throw Ridley off his balance. I rather wondered whether it would
+disturb him to see me come in with two duelling-swords under my arm upon
+that memorable occasion of the duel, but Ridley was as calm as--as an
+adequate butler. I rejoice in Ridley.  If we fail to-day, I think I will
+ask his advice.  He is a sound and solid thinker.  I hardly think I
+should have been a bishop to-day, but for Ridley.  When I was a vicar of
+St. Mary's at Ray Pogis, he came to me, then deeply engaged in smashing
+Harnack into dust, and said: 'Sir, the Prime Minister is staying at
+Pogis House.'  I knew if he was at Pogis House, he would attend New
+Pogis church.  The incumbent at New Pogis was one of those men whom it
+would require much courage to make an archdeacon of, and he was under
+great obligations to me.  I spoke to him.  He fell ill most opportunely.
+I preached a sermon which had every appearance of spontaneity, though I
+had spent months upon it, keeping it by me for some such occasion, as it
+dealt with the duties of men in high position, and three months later I
+was offered Spilsborough. But for Ridley, I might still be a vicar.
+This, I believe, Bradstock, is Boston."
+
+They left the train and began to make inquiries just about the time that
+Ridley was dealing with the duchess.  He knew all about her, all about
+the duke, all about Penelope, all about Bradstock, and all about the
+"horde."  He had read all the telegrams, those which were sent and those
+which he had picked out of the bishop's waste-paper basket.
+
+"Yes, your Grace," said Ridley, "his lordship the bishop was called away
+early with Lord Bradstock on important business.  He wrote a letter
+which his lordship has probably taken away in his pocket, and desired me
+to ask your Grace whether you would prefer to stay here or at the Grand.
+The Grand is comfortable, but this is quiet."
+
+"I will stay here," said the duchess.  "I should like to lie down at
+once."
+
+And when she was comfortable, Ridley cross-examined her maid about
+everything, and was soon on firm ground.
+
+"You may rely on his lordship," said Ridley. "With me at his back, he
+will be an archbishop yet.  No, certainly not.  The baby is not black if
+his lordship says so."
+
+"But they do say she's not married and it isn't hers," said the lady's
+maid, shaking her head. "They say now that she has adopted it."
+
+"When I hear of young ladies adopting infants in obscure parts of the
+country, I know what to think," said Ridley.
+
+"Lord, Mr. Ridley, but I can't believe it of her," urged the maid.
+
+"I am alleging nothing against her young ladyship," said Ridley.  "She
+states it is hers.  I said that if she stated that she had adopted it, I
+should know what to think.  When she states it, I will tell you what I
+think.  And in the meantime I may say that I expect every one connected
+with this unseemly business to be here shortly.  I am a man of some
+discernment.  This adoption rumour will encourage these poor gentlemen,
+who are all mad, and they will follow her Grace here, or I am a mere
+footman in a poor family and my name's not Ridley."
+
+It apparently was Ridley, for there was a very loud knock at the door.
+
+"Mr. Ridley, will you see this gentleman?" said the footman, handing the
+butler a card, on which was engraved the name of Leopold Norfolk Gordon.
+"He seems very excited.  I think he's a Jew."
+
+"A Jew!" said Ridley.
+
+"By the looks of 'im a Jew," said the footman. And her Grace's maid gave
+them a few details of Mr. Gordon's career.
+
+"Oh, yes, of course," said Ridley.  "I remember. Let him wait, Johnson.
+He can wait in the little room.  As a Christian, I confess to feeling
+bitter against Jews, especially as I once borrowed money from one."
+
+"This is a very nice one, though," said the lady's maid, "and Mr. Robert
+is quite fond of him."
+
+"I cannot stomach the idea," said Ridley.  "I thought better of the boy.
+But I suppose I must see what he wants, though I can guess."
+
+He interviewed Gordon in the little room.
+
+"I want to see his lordship the bishop," said Gordon.
+
+"His lordship the bishop is absent on important business, sir," said
+Ridley.  He added to himself, "As the butler of a Christian bishop, I
+object to calling him 'sir;' but as a butler in the habstract I must."
+
+"Where has he gone?" asked Gordon.  "Do you know?"
+
+"He has gone to look for her young ladyship, sir."
+
+"Ah!  I guessed it!  With Lord Bradstock?"
+
+"Yes, sir, with his lordship."
+
+"Which way has he gone?"
+
+"I don't think, sir, that I should be justified in mentioning which way,
+sir," said Ridley.
+
+"Oh, yes, you would," said Gordon.  He put his hand in his pocket.
+
+"I do not think so, sir.  At least, I have doubts," said Ridley, with
+modified firmness.
+
+Gordon took out a sovereign and scratched his nose with it.
+
+"Which way?"
+
+"Boston way," said Ridley.  "Thank you, sir. But I do not think you can
+find him or catch him. Could I assist you in any manner, sir?  Things
+are mixed, sir.  Have you heard the news that Mr. Robert sent?"
+
+"What news?" asked Gordon.
+
+"I 'ardly think I should be justified in repeating it, sir," said
+Ridley.
+
+"Oh, yes, you would," said Gordon, as he put his hand in his pocket.
+
+And Ridley told him all about everything. Gordon knew very little beyond
+the fact that Bob had sent a telegram to Bradstock, who had sent it to
+the duchess, who had published it on the wires that the infant was not
+black.  And of course he knew the fresh London rumour that Penelope had
+adopted it.
+
+"Her Grace the Duchess of Goring is now in the palace, sir," said
+Ridley.  "And between you and me, sir, I should not be surprised if all
+the other gentlemen came.  I suppose you heard of the duel, sir?"
+
+"What duel?" asked Gordon.
+
+"I do not think I should be justified in saying which duel, sir," said
+Ridley.
+
+"Oh, yes, you would," said Gordon, thinking that a Christian butler was
+a very expensive person to deal with.  And Ridley told him.
+
+"You'll send me word to the Grand when his lordship comes back?" said
+Gordon.
+
+"I should hardly be--"
+
+"Of course, you would be," said Gordon.
+
+"Very well, I will, sir," said Ridley.
+
+Gordon went back to the hotel, and Ridley went back to the others.
+
+"He's not at all bad for a Jew," he said, contemplatively, "not at all
+bad.  I only hope that the Christian gentlemen whom I expect every
+moment will be as reasonable."
+
+Before the evening was over, he interviewed with varying results Mr.
+Rufus Q. Plant, Mr. de Vere, Captain Goby, and Mr. Carteret Williams.
+He knew that Lord Bramber couldn't come on account of the illness of the
+earl, and he heard that Carew was down with influenza and delirious on
+the subject of Penelope.  He told the others what he thought of them
+all.
+
+"Mr. Plant is a man I should like to meet often," said Ridley.  "I have
+heard people say unpleasant things of Americans.  It may be true that
+they know little of cathedrals.  I myself have heard an American speak
+of our best Norman harches as vurry elegant Gothic.  I have known one
+voluble with hadmiration of a beastly bit of late perpendic'lar. But a
+man may know little of harchitecture and be a very worthy person for all
+that.  This Mr. Plant has ways that I've heard described as befitting a
+nobleman.  My own opinion is that very few noblemen have ideas befitting
+an American millionaire.  Dukes are often mean; earls also.  I am
+acquainted with one viscount who is viciously careful.  Mr. Plant is a
+gentleman far above the others, even above Captain Goby, who has a
+generous mind.  Mr. Williams is peculiar, but, for a poor man, not mean.
+His second cousin, Lord Carteret, when I knew him, was as fine an
+open-handed, swearing nobleman as one would wish to meet.  Mr. Austin de
+Vere is peculiar; mad, I think, about dogs especially.  Young Mr. Robert
+told me he collected bulldogs.  He said it with a wink which I did not
+understand.  I wonder where his lordship is now."
+
+His lordship the bishop and Lord Bradstock were both cross.  They had
+drawn Boston blank, and found it too late and too hot to go on to
+Spilsby and Waynfleet and Burgh.
+
+"Well," said the bishop, "we have proved a certain amount.  She isn't at
+Boston."
+
+"Nor at Windsor or Manchester or Bristol or Plymouth," said Bradstock,
+whose temper was rapidly going.
+
+"I am surprised at you," said the bishop, who felt it necessary not to
+be cross when Bradstock was.  "We have also proved that a yellow car
+comes through here very often, mostly without disastrous results.  She
+is farther north.  We will go to Spilsby to-morrow, I think."
+
+"I think I will stay at home," replied Bradstock, "or at your place, and
+I'll read theology."
+
+The bishop raised his eyebrows.
+
+"It will do you good, if you can understand it," he said, a little
+tartly.
+
+"I do not expect to understand it," said Bradstock.
+
+"Then why read it?"
+
+"Only to see if the theologians understand it," replied Bradstock.
+
+It was quite evident that events were proving too much for Bradstock.
+It was also evident that Bradstock was proving too much for the bishop.
+
+"As a layman, you had better stick to Paley," said the bishop, tartly.
+"But let us return to Spilsborough.  I own my temper is a little touchy
+to-day, Bradstock."
+
+Bradstock's heart softened.
+
+"Bishop, I apologize for touching it," he said. "Penelope is rather too
+much for me."
+
+"She is too much for all of us, I fear," said the bishop.
+
+They took the train for home, and, as they moved out of the station, a
+man in the waterproof clothing of a chauffeur came on the platform.  He
+was not wearing goggles.
+
+"Bishop," said Bradstock, "that man is Geordie Smith."
+
+"Do you think he saw us?"
+
+"How do I know?"
+
+"I didn't ask how you could know.  I only asked what your opinion was,"
+said the bishop.
+
+"My opinion is worthless," said Bradstock.
+
+"Dear me!" said the bishop, blandly.
+
+
+
+
+                            *CHAPTER XXIV.*
+
+
+England was excited, and London was more excited still.  But
+Spilsborough was the most excited of them all.  How it came out, no one
+knew, but the fact that the bishop was hunting for Lady Penelope
+Brading, who was married, who was unmarried, who had an infant which was
+black, which was white, which was adopted, was blazed all over that
+quiet episcopal town.  Dean Briggs was very much annoyed, for the
+cathedral was no longer the centre of interest in the place.  The clergy
+and the choir and the beadles and the tradesmen all discussed Lady
+Penelope.  They stood in knots and fought and wrangled and argued till
+they were metaphorically black in the face.  The lovers were pursued by
+gangs of boys who knew their names, and expected them to fight when they
+met, and followed them around in the hope of making a ring for them.
+All the world was aware that the duchess was at the palace.  As a
+result, every one called there who was on terms with the bishop.  It is
+not at all surprising that rumour ran fast, east and west and south and
+north.  It is not every day that a quiet cathedral town is the centre of
+a vast social cyclone.  Boston and Spalding had their eyes on
+Spilsborough.  Boston knew that the bishop had made an unepiscopal
+visitation there with a white-haired peer.  Spilsby heard of it, and was
+jealous. Spilsby talked of it and began to wonder who the young married
+lady at the Moat House was.  Spilsby wondered slowly.  In Lincolnshire
+things move slowly.  Lincolnshire is not fast.  Folks there are rooted
+to the soil; they consider matters firmly and stolidly.  And of course
+it has to be remembered that they belong to the see of Lincoln and do
+not think very much of Spilsborough.  Spilsborough was all very well, no
+doubt, but Lincoln was older and finer and much more wonderful.
+Nevertheless, though the Lincolnshire folks are slow, they get there at
+last.  It was all very well for Penelope to call herself Mrs. Bramwell.
+The Spilsby people began to see through the matter.  In another month
+they would have solved the problem, and would have given away the
+solution by calling Mrs. Bramwell "Your ladyship."  But this was not to
+be, for when Geordie came back from Boston, he went to Bob at once.
+
+"Mr. Robert, the gaff is pretty nigh blowed," he said, earnestly.
+
+"Is it?" asked Bob.
+
+"Safe as houses," said Geordie.  "I've my suspicions that the whole show
+is up the spout, or very nigh up!"
+
+"You don't say so?" said Bob.
+
+"Blimy, but I do say it," replied Geordie.  "I saw that gaitered josser,
+the bishop, at Boston this very afternoon.  Her ladyship will be spoofed
+and smelt out.  Some one is givin' the game away.  I don't trust that
+bishop."
+
+"No more do I," said Bob.  "He's very mean, Geordie.  He encouraged me
+to follow you so that I could tell them where my cousin was."
+
+"Bah!" said Geordie, "and they call him a bishop!  Her ladyship wishes
+not to be found out, and she sha'n't be--by a bishop.  I own I don't
+understand her ladyship's idea."
+
+"I do," said Bob.  "Suppose some one said you couldn't do something,
+Geordie, a hundred miles an hour for instance."
+
+Geordie shook his head.
+
+"I'd show 'em!"
+
+"And that you wouldn't after you said you would."
+
+"I'd show 'em," repeated Geordie.
+
+"And that you shouldn't?"
+
+"Shouldn't be damned, beggin' your pardon, Mr. Robert.  I'd show 'em!"
+
+"That's my cousin's idea," said Bob.
+
+"And a dashed good idea, too," said Geordie. "I hate interferin' folks
+worse than policemen. I'd tell her ladyship about this here bishop.  And
+Lord Bradstock was with him, sir."
+
+"The devil!" said Bob, and he ran to Penelope bawling.
+
+"I say, Pen, you'll have to go," he roared, bursting into the room where
+Pen was lamenting over her many griefs.  "The bishop is after you.
+Geordie's seen him and Bradstock, too.  And I feel quite certain that
+all of 'em will be at Spilsborough now."
+
+"I won't go," sniffed Pen.
+
+"Oh, but you must," said Bob.  "You can't be caught here now by the
+whole lot."
+
+"I don't seem to care," said Penelope.
+
+"Oh, what rot!" cried Bob.  "You won't break down now, Pen, just in the
+middle of the game. I mean in the middle of your idea.  Just think how
+they'll crow over you and the baby."
+
+That roused Penelope.
+
+"They--they sha'n't!"
+
+"Well, they will, unless you've got the one you are married to here,"
+said Bob.  "Or are you going to tell me who it is?"
+
+Pen snuffled sadly.
+
+"How can I when we've q-quarrelled?" she demanded.
+
+"Then we'll start at once," said Bob.  "I'll tell Miss Mackarness and
+Tim and all of 'em, and we'll get your car and mine and we'll go
+somewhere else."
+
+"But where?" asked Pen.
+
+"What rot!" said Bob.  "You've got heaps of houses; any of 'em that are
+deserted.  Upwell Castle will do."
+
+"So it will," said Penelope, helplessly.  "But we can't go to-day, Bob.
+Baby is always asleep at this hour.  Can't it be to-morrow?"
+
+Bob shook his head.
+
+"It's very dangerous, with the bishop on our track," he said; "it's very
+dangerous.  He's very determined, except in motor-cars.  In motor-cars,
+going fast, he's not at all determined.  But out of 'em he's a terror.
+I'd go to-day."
+
+"No, no, to-morrow," said Penelope, weeping.
+
+And Bob went away.
+
+"I wish Baker was here," he said.  "Baker is quite as determined as the
+bishop, and his advice would be very valuable.  I wish I knew how to
+treat Gordon.  I'm afraid he'll be angry.  If he's angry, he may keep my
+money.  Well, I don't care."
+
+He told Miss Mackarness to pack up, and Miss Mackarness said she would.
+Miss Mackarness remarked that the world was not what she had imagined it
+when she was young.  It had in fact come to an end.  She said she was
+not surprised at anything and never would be again.  She said she had
+never been in a motor-car, but wanted to be in one, because death seemed
+quick and easy in a motor-car. She also said that if she escaped, and
+Lady Penelope was killed, she knew of a good opening in a lunatic asylum
+for a woman without nerves, who could not be surprised, and had been
+accustomed to the ways of the highest society.
+
+"Oh, yes, yes; we'll be ready," said Miss Mackarness.  And Bob went away
+to instruct Geordie and Timothy Bunting, and he spent the whole
+afternoon, covered with dirty oil, dancing about the two motor-cars,
+while Geordie put them into first-class trim.
+
+"We ain't going to be run to ground by a bishop," said Bob.
+
+"Not much we ain't, sir," said Tim.  "I'd sooner go in one of these
+machines, so I would."
+
+It was the first time he had ever said as much, and Geordie paid him a
+compliment from under the car.
+
+"That's the first sensible remark I've ever heard you make, Tim," said
+the concealed chauffeur.
+
+"Thank you," said Timothy.  "I always said you were a good chap,
+Geordie, even if you was wrapped up in muck and grease."  And an idea
+came to Bob.
+
+"I know what I'll do about Gordon," he said. "I'll write something about
+this now so's to show it him afterward."
+
+He wrote:
+
+"Pen is very sad.  I fear she has quarrelled with Gordon.  I'm sure she
+has married Gordon.  I wish she would let me send to him to come, but
+she has sworn me not to.  I think the baby is very like Gordon.  It is
+clever like him, only, being younger, not so clever.  I don't mind if it
+is Gordon. Gordon has been very kind to me, knowing how poor the family
+is.  I wish I was as clever as he is."
+
+He read it over carefully.
+
+"He's more jealous of Rivaulx than any one. I'll put something in about
+him."
+
+He added:
+
+"I think Rivaulx an ass because of balloons."
+
+"That will please Gordon," said Bob, as he stowed his note-book away.
+"But I do wish I knew who it is.  Women are very fond of secrets. They
+seem to like babies and secrets best.  Pen likes both together, and it's
+very confusing to any one."
+
+They started next morning in the two cars for Upwell Castle, taking the
+whole household.  Bob installed an old villager and his wife as
+caretakers. He had selected them himself on the ground that they seemed
+the stupidest people in the village. Bob was very clever, if not so
+clever as Gordon.
+
+"I think we've spoofed 'em, Pen," said Bob.
+
+Penelope hugged her baby and wept.
+
+"Why are you crying?" asked Bob.
+
+"I don't know," said Penelope.
+
+"Then don't," said Bob.  "It makes me very uncomfortable."
+
+They devoured space, and Timothy held on to the car and to Miss
+Mackarness.  Miss Mackarness said it altered her ideas.  Tim said it
+didn't, but then he was very conservative.
+
+"Now, let 'em all come," said Bob.
+
+
+
+
+                             *CHAPTER XXV.*
+
+
+Titania fell on Bradstock's neck when he came back with the bishop.  She
+very nearly fell on the bishop's neck, too, which alarmed him very much
+indeed, though he had all that confidence with women which marks the
+celibate clergy, especially when they are beautiful.
+
+"My dear-r Augustin," said Titania, "I came at once.  I felt I had to.
+I felt I must.  There is no sympathy at home for me in my troubles.  The
+duke laughs, laughs in my face, and says Penelope is damn fine sport!"
+
+"Tut, tut!" said the bishop, who was loath to think that dukes could use
+bad language.  "I very much regret to hear it."
+
+Titania waved her hands at large.
+
+"But I do not care.  I am wrapped up in woe, and in Robert.  Where is
+he?  Show me the telegram he sent."
+
+They showed her the telegram.
+
+"Not black!  Oh, Augustin, that might mean anything."
+
+"So it might.  What did I say, bishop?" asked Augustin.
+
+"Nonsense!" said the bishop.  "I do not believe it is even dark.  This
+is all waste of time. Time cannot now be wasted.  This scandal grows.
+Ridley tells me all these unfortunate gentlemen, but Lord Bramber and
+Mr. Carew, are in the town. I have had telegrams from both of those
+asking for information, most excited telegrams. Mr. Carew says he is
+delirious with fever, and I believe him.  Lord Bramber says his father
+is delirious, which I much regret.  I think the son is also delirious,
+though he does not say he is.  He implores me to remember that he is
+entitled to know first where Penelope is, as he is her husband.  This is
+the telegram."
+
+Augustin and Titania read it.
+
+"If we could only believe it," said Titania.
+
+"We cannot," said the bishop.  "Ridley declares they all say the same.
+They also say the infant is an adopted one.  I do not remember, in the
+course of all that wide experience which comes to a country clergyman in
+a place like Ray Pogis, any situation equal to this.  As a bishop with a
+wider experience, I have seen nothing so absurd even in the conduct of
+my clergy, who are indeed hard to beat in stupidity.  I regret we did
+not go on to Waynfleet and Spilsby, Bradstock."
+
+"So do I," said Bradstock, eyeing Titania.
+
+"We will go to-morrow," said the bishop.  "I have an intuition that
+to-morrow we shall find her. I feel sure of it."
+
+"I will come with you," said Titania.  "I must! I must!  I cannot help
+fearing, Augustin, that the very worst may have happened.  I have now no
+confidence whatever in dear, misguided Penelope's morals.  I do not feel
+sure that the child is not black, or that it is adopted!"
+
+"Good heavens!" said Augustin.
+
+"Good heavens!" echoed the bishop.
+
+"I haven't," affirmed Titania, dreadfully.  "No such thing has happened
+in our family since the time of Charles the Second, which was lamentable
+but natural, and has long since been forgiven.  I mistrust the general
+attitude of all these men, bishop.  I mistrust it!"
+
+"Certainly they seem in great distress," said the bishop.
+
+Titania rose and looked awful.
+
+"Only upon one supposition can I account for it, bishop.  This is their
+remorse.  They are remorseful.  They have treated her badly, and she has
+fled from them in her shame and will not see them!"
+
+"Ha!" said the bishop, "there is something in that!"
+
+"A great deal in it," boomed Titania, in her deepest tone of tragedy.
+"It explains everything."
+
+But Bradstock said:
+
+"Infernal nonsense, Titania!  Bishop, I am surprised at you.  They can't
+_all_ be remorseful."
+
+"Why not?" demanded Titania; "why not, Augustin?"
+
+"Of course not," interjected the bishop, hastily.
+
+"Why not, I ask?" repeated the duchess.
+
+"Oh, well, you know," said Bradstock, "when you come to think of it,
+wouldn't _one_ be enough to be remorseful for having behaved like a
+scoundrel?"
+
+The duchess collapsed.
+
+"Dear me! so it would," she said, weakly. "Now I come to think of it,
+one would be sufficient. Nothing is explained or can be explained till
+we find Penelope."
+
+The same feeling of desperation inspired the lovers in the various
+hotels.  Their hopeless passion grew upon them.  The sense of mystery
+deepened.  They were sorry for Penelope, for the others, for themselves.
+What did she mean by it?  They were all agreed now about the adoption
+theory, though they stuck to it manfully that they were married to her.
+Each one believed the infant was adopted, while he nobly claimed it as
+his own. They were really noble creatures, and showed themselves worthy
+of a better fate.  A peculiar feeling of sympathy grew up among them, as
+it does among the unfortunate who are yet strong enough not to be
+overwhelmed.  They spoke to each other again. Goby took De Vere's arm
+and walked about with him.
+
+"I wish I could tell you all the truth, old chap," sighed Goby.
+
+"Ah, so do I," said the poet.  "A great passion is a wonderful thing,
+Goby."
+
+"So it is, old chap," said Goby.  "Do you remember the happy days we
+spent in your home when we read Browning and Shelley together, and you
+explained your poems to me?"
+
+Austin de Vere sighed.
+
+"Ah, they were happy days, when my nose peeled on the water and my hands
+were blistered by rowing."
+
+"Do you remember the bulldog?" asked Goby.
+
+"Ah, and the terrier he bit!"
+
+"And the howling retriever?"
+
+"And the bald, bronchitic Borzois," said De Vere, with enthusiasm.  "I
+bought them all of Bob because she loved him."
+
+"I didn't like you then, Austin, old chap," said Goby.
+
+Austin gripped his arm.
+
+"Plantagenet, we will be friends always.  Now I can confess that I
+loathed you.  I told Bradstock so.  I said you were an ass."
+
+"So I am," said poor Goby.  "I admit now I can't understand Browning."
+
+Austin looked about him:
+
+"My dear chap, no more do I," he said, in an alarmed whisper.  "He's a
+much overrated man."
+
+"I never overrated him myself," said Goby, sagely.  "Look here, Austin.
+You know, of course, that I'm married to Penelope?"
+
+"Of course," said Austin.  "And you know that I am?"
+
+"We'll quarrel about nothing now.  To-morrow we'll look for her.
+Ridley, the bishop's butler, told me Bradstock and the bishop were going
+to Spilsby to-morrow.  I gave him a sovereign."
+
+"So did I," said Austin.  "Let's go in to dinner.  I'm glad we are
+friends, Plantagenet."
+
+"So am I, old chap," said Goby.
+
+At a near table to them were Rivaulx and Gordon. Farther off Plant was
+with Carteret Williams. Plant regretted that Bramber wasn't there.
+Williams sighed for the artistic company of the delirious Carew.  Not
+one look of envy or hatred or malice passed between any of them.
+
+"Marquis," said Gordon, gloomily, "will you come to-morrow with me to
+find my--I mean, Penelope?"
+
+"I will, my dear Gordon," replied the marquis. "To Spilsby."
+
+"How did you know?"
+
+"Ridley, the bishop's man, said it."
+
+"He told me, too.  I gave him five pounds," said Gordon.
+
+"I gave him four."
+
+"I'll bet he's told 'em all," said Gordon.  "I say, marquis, those were
+jolly, happy days before this misery came on, when you and I dined
+together."
+
+"And went up in balloons," said the marquis.
+
+Gordon shook his head.
+
+"Well, yes, even the balloons.  Do you know, marquis, I hated you then.
+I don't now.  I think you a real good chap."
+
+The marquis held out his hand, and Gordon shook it.
+
+"Gordon, I used to despise you.  It was a great trial to dine with you.
+I'm glad I did it now.  I'm a wiser, better man for the trials.  I see
+that Jews can be noble by nature just as they can be barons by creation.
+I finally absolve Dreyfus.  I almost love you now!"
+
+"Good old marquis," said Gordon.  "When we get up to town, I'll put you
+on the betht thing in the market.  I will, so help me!"
+
+Carteret Williams and Plant got on well together. They talked first of
+Bramber and Carew.
+
+"Carew's all right," said Williams; "all right for an artist.  I was in
+the Ashanti war with an artist once.  I put his head in a bucket of
+water!"
+
+"Why?" asked Plant.
+
+"Because he was too drunk to draw," said Williams.  "He hated me when he
+got sober, and caricatured me.  I never liked artists afterward.  But
+when Penelope put me into harness with Carew, I found there was good
+stuff in him.  He could work.  He talked awful rot, but there was
+something at the back of it.  I had to own it.  How did you get on with
+Bramber?"
+
+"I thought him a damn fool," said Plant.  "But I found out he wasn't.
+There's stuff in Bramber. My--I mean, Penelope knew that.  I say, as he
+isn't here, poor chap, will you come to Spilsby with me to-morrow?"
+
+Williams started.
+
+"How did you come to think of Spilsby?" he asked, suspiciously.
+
+"The bishop's butler told me.  I gave him five pounds," said Plant.
+
+"I gave him two," said Williams.  "Yes, I'll go with you, as Carew isn't
+here.  I like Carew now.  Poor Carew!"
+
+"And I like Bramber, poor chap," said Plant. "And now I'll go and shake
+hands with the marquis, who wanted to kill me last time I was here."
+
+"I wish I'd seen that," said Williams, simply. "I like seeing fights!"
+
+They spent a happy evening together and talked of Bob.  Austin was great
+upon Bob.  And so was Gordon.  Austin told them all about the dogs. Goby
+spoke about the spavined pony he had bought. Gordon told them how Bob
+had borrowed a hundred pounds of him to be put into something.
+
+"I owe him fifty thousand pounds, at least," said Gordon.  "The boy is a
+financier.  I wish I had a boy like Bob."
+
+And just then Carew walked into the room.  He looked ill, but was as
+handsome as paint.  Williams jumped to his feet.
+
+"Oh, Jimmy, I heard you were delirious," he said, anxiously.
+
+"I was," said Jimmy, "very delirious, extraordinarily so.  I'm not sure
+that I'm not delirious now."
+
+He looked around the room anxiously, and drew Williams into a corner.
+
+"Do you know anything about delirium?" he asked, anxiously.
+
+"A lot about delirium tremens," said Williams. "Most of the artists I've
+been with in Africa had it.  They said it was malaria.  But have you
+been drinking?"
+
+Carew shook his head.
+
+"Not much, but I see the room is full of 'em!"
+
+"Full of what?"
+
+"Things, visions, phantasms!" said Jimmy, creepily.  Williams looked
+around in alarm.
+
+"You don't say so!"
+
+"Yes," said Jimmy.  "This influenza is awful! I could swear I see the
+marquis and Gordon and that ass Goby and De Vere!"
+
+"Pull yourself together," said Williams. "They're here all right!"
+
+"Are they real?" asked Jimmy.  "They're not delusions?"
+
+"Devil a bit!" said Williams.
+
+"Oh," said Jimmy, "then I think I'll have some brandy.  What are they
+doing here?"
+
+[Illustration: JIMMY CAREW, A.R.A. He was the best looking of the whole
+"horde"]
+
+"What are we doing here?" asked Williams. "We're mad!  Oh, but, Jimmy,
+I'm dashed glad to see you," said Williams, with a lurid string of
+emphatic war expressions.  "Those were happy days when I learnt about
+art with you, and you learnt about life with me!"
+
+"They were," said Jimmy.  "But now I'm almost sick of art."
+
+Williams implored him not to say so.
+
+"Think of Rembrandt and Velasquez and Whistler!"
+
+"I can't think of them.  I think of Penelope!"
+
+"Try to think of Monet and Manet," said Williams.  "They'll do you
+good."
+
+"To be sure, to be sure," sighed Jimmy.  "I'll try to."
+
+They talked till two in the morning, and the only man missing was
+Bramber.
+
+"Perhaps he's chucked it," said Williams.  "The last time I saw him he
+looked sick enough to chuck anything.  But I suppose the old earl is so
+rocky he can't get away."
+
+"I hate earls," said Jimmy, jealously.  He added with extraordinary
+irrelevance, "But I'm glad she adopted him."
+
+No doubt he referred to the infant.
+
+
+
+
+                            *CHAPTER XXVI.*
+
+
+While Pen and Bob and the baby were going as fast as they could toward
+Upwell Castle, Pen wept at intervals and hugged the child that all the
+"horde" were glad she had adopted.
+
+"My only darling," said Pen, convulsively.
+
+Bob shook his head.
+
+"I say, Pen, I really don't understand you, you know!  I say, this is
+rot!  You mustn't cry; I can't stand it.  And you keep on saying it's
+your only one in a very silly way.  You irritate me very much, Pen!"
+
+"Why, Bob?" asked the desolate creature at his side.
+
+"You could stop all this if you wanted to!"
+
+"Not now," said Pen, "since we've quarrelled!"
+
+"Rot!" said Bob.  "You tell me who it is and I'll bring him along.  But
+I'm glad it isn't Timothy, you know."
+
+Timothy was now with Geordie in the other car.
+
+"I can't tell you," said Pen.
+
+"Then don't snivel, please," said Bob, crossly, "or I shall drive into
+something and kill the baby."
+
+"Oh!" said Pen, "oh, please don't!"
+
+"I think it's very hard lines," said Bob, "especially as Geordie and Tim
+know, and Miss Mackarness.  If they know, I ought to."
+
+"I had to tell them, Bob.  Besides, they knew him," said the incautious
+Pen.
+
+Bob's eyebrows lifted, and he drove rather fast down the next straight
+bit of road.
+
+"I say," he said to himself, "I ought to make something of that."
+
+He thought very hard and did not speak for a mile.  He thought all the
+more.
+
+"Tim knows 'em all, of course.  And Geordie may, though I remember his
+saying he didn't. But who does Miss Mackarness know?  If I can spot
+that, I can spot the winner."
+
+He went back to the time of Pen's youth, which he only knew by hearsay,
+as he wasn't much more than born then, and went through the list one by
+one.
+
+"By Jove!" he said, suddenly, and Penelope started.
+
+"Yes, Bob."
+
+"No," said Bob, thoughtfully; "no, I'm not sure."
+
+"What aren't you sure of, dear?"
+
+"Him," said Bob, and Penelope sighed.
+
+After another mile's silence, Bob spoke again.
+
+"By Jove!"
+
+"You said that before," cried Pen, irritably. He turned his eyes upon
+her, and she saw them full of strange intelligence.
+
+"Oh, what is it?" she asked, in alarm.
+
+Bob shook his head.
+
+"You've told me who it is," he said.
+
+"I haven't."
+
+"You have," said Bob.  "Pen, you're a wonder! I say, are all girls like
+you?"
+
+Penelope said she didn't know, and demanded his meaning.
+
+"If they are, they're interesting but trying," said Bob.  "You couldn't
+have made more fuss about it if it had been Bunting.  Pen, you are a
+wonder.  Well, I don't mind; I like him well enough.  He's all right.  I
+hope Bill will like him."
+
+"You are an annoying, irritating boy," said Pen, crossly.  "And you know
+nothing."
+
+"Bar him and Miss Mackarness and Timothy and Smith, I'm the only one
+that does," said Bob, drily.  "I know you, Pen.  You were ashamed of
+him, after all you used to say.  All right, don't get angry.  I'm all
+right.  I'll keep it dark till you say pull up the blinds.  It's not my
+business.  But I'm glad I know.  For granny doesn't, and no one has
+guessed, not even Baker.  And he's had great experience with girls in
+all parts of the world, just as he has had with dogs."
+
+Pen wept.
+
+"You are saying all this to worry me.  How can you know?" she cried.
+
+"I'll tell you some day," said Bob.  "But because you haven't told me
+yourself, and have made me find out, I won't tell you who it is till I
+want to.  But one thing I'll say, I don't think your brother Bill really
+likes him."
+
+He whistled and let the car out till she fairly hummed.  Pen was
+exceedingly cross, and hugged the baby, hoping that they would both be
+killed at once.
+
+"I don't know what's going to happen," she said.  "I've done my best,
+and nothing but trouble comes of it.  If I had to begin again, I don't
+think I'd try to reform anything.  I--I hate reform!"
+
+In the meantime Miss Mackarness's ideas got sadly altered.  She did not
+mind dying at first, but when Bob really went fast, it seemed to her
+that she loved life better than she thought.
+
+"If I am to die," she said, "I would rather die in my bed, much rather.
+I want peace, and my dear lady gives me none.  This young wretch is no
+better than a murderer.  He laughs.  I can't laugh. I can't even speak.
+The wind stops my screaming. I want to get out and die quietly."
+
+They pulled up close to a village to let a wagon loaded with long
+timbers get into a side road.  Miss Mackarness seized her chance, and,
+opening the door, jumped to the ground.
+
+"If you please, my lady, I'm going no farther. I will come on later in a
+cart."
+
+Penelope remonstrated with her.  Bob was urgent and impatient.
+
+"We may be caught any minute," he said. "Pen, let her come on in a
+cart."
+
+"If you prefer it," said Penelope.
+
+"My lady, I much prefer it," said the housekeeper.
+
+Bob let the car go, and Geordie, coming on behind, pulled up to
+interview Miss Mackarness.
+
+"Sooner than go in one a mile farther," she said, firmly, "I would lie
+down and die."
+
+"That's silly, ma'am," said Geordie.
+
+"I would rather live silly than die wise," replied Miss Mackarness.  "I
+may be used to much and past surprises, but I can't stomach these cars."
+
+They left her in the road.  And now they drove fast, for Bob set the
+pace, and made it a rapid one.
+
+"I say, Geordie," said Timothy, about twenty miles farther on, "don't
+you think you could go slower?"
+
+"How can I, with the other car ahead, man?" demanded Geordie.
+
+"Well, I feels queer inside," said poor Timothy. "I'd rather ride a
+bucking man-eater than go another yard.  Set me down!"
+
+"Not me," said Geordie.  "Be a man, Tim!"
+
+"I won't," said Tim.  "Set me down.  I'll walk."
+
+"Or come on in a cart," sneered Geordie. "Why, Mary here don't mind, do
+you, Mary?"
+
+Mary did mind, but she adored Geordie, and said she didn't.  She
+preferred to die with Geordie than to ride with Miss Mackarness in a
+cart.
+
+"I don't care," said Tim; "if Mary wants to die in a blazin' fiery mass
+of petrol under a wreck, I don't.  Let me down."
+
+And Geordie let him down.
+
+"A mad bull sooner," said Tim.  "And, though I 'ates walkin', bein' a
+groom, I'd rather walk to hell than motor into paradise."
+
+But peace was established in the cars by now. Geordie and Mary sat side
+by side, and whenever the pace was hot, she grabbed him so tightly that
+he remonstrated.
+
+"My dear, I'd rather you hugged me when we go slow," he said at last.
+
+"Lor', Mr. Smith, I wasn't huggin' you," remonstrated the blushing Mary.
+
+"To an outsider it would appear so," said Geordie.  "When a young lady
+puts her arms around a man's neck, it looks like huggin'.  Mind I don't
+say I object, but I _might_ run into the hedge."
+
+"What a very amusin' gentleman you are," said Mary.  "I've a very small
+opinion of Mr. Bunting except upon an 'orse.  I'm surprised he preferred
+to walk."
+
+"I'm not," said Geordie.  "I expected it, and if we went really fast,
+you'd want to walk."
+
+"Never," said Mary.  "I love goin' fast.  There's great po'try in a
+motor-car, Mr. Smith."
+
+"Poetry, well, maybe," said Geordie.  "To my mind, there's more
+machinery and oil.  I wonder what the next thing will be with my lady,
+Mary."
+
+"Ah," said Mary, "that's more than I can say. She's very sweet and kind,
+but I've give up tryin' to understand 'er.  And such an 'usband, too.
+If I 'ad an 'usband, I'd like to show 'im off, if I was proud of 'im,
+and I would."
+
+"Would you be?" asked Geordie.
+
+"I 'ope so," said Mary.
+
+"I guess you'd expect him to do what you wanted, like my lady," said
+Geordie.
+
+"Oh, no, never," said Mary.  "I'd do hexactly as I was told by 'im I
+loved.  I don't believe in a woman 'angin' on a man and tellin' 'im to
+do this or that!"
+
+And just then a mighty fine stretch of road opened before them, and Bob,
+half a mile in front, turned his car loose at the top speed.  Geordie
+put his on the third, and Mary squealed.
+
+"Hush your row, my dear," said Geordie. "Why, bless me, what's the
+matter with the girl!"
+
+She had him tight by the neck.
+
+"Oh, I'm frightened, Mr. Smith.  Don't go so fast," she screamed.
+
+"Lemme go," gasped Geordie, whom she was nearly strangling.  "Lemme go,
+girl!"
+
+"Never, never!" said Mary, settling on him tighter still.  "Stop, stop!"
+
+"I won't," said Geordie.  "D'ye think I'll let that young un get away
+from me?"
+
+"You must," screamed Mary, "or I'll get out."
+
+"Then get out," said Geordie, rudely.
+
+"Oh, you cruel, cruel Mr. Smith!" wailed Mary. "Let me down before I'm
+killed."
+
+Geordie wrenched himself free.
+
+"D'ye mean it?" he asked.
+
+"Yes, you brute!" said Mary, "I does mean it."
+
+He put her down there and then.
+
+"You're no gentleman," said Mary.
+
+"I never said I was," retorted Geordie, with his eyes on the vanishing
+Bob.
+
+"And I hate you, you coward," sobbed Mary.
+
+"There's a village a mile up the road," said Geordie.  And he left her,
+disappearing in a whirlwind.
+
+"Oh, I'm a sad, des'late, disappinted, jilted woman, with thin shoes and
+three and tuppence in my pocket," said Mary.  "And I don't know where I
+am!"
+
+She sat on a pile of road metal and cried bitterly. She took it much
+harder than the bishop did in a similar situation.
+
+"Well, it can't be helped," said Geordie, "and I don't know that I'm
+sorry.  She'd have proposed if I'd kept her at the second speed, I know
+that; so perhaps I'm well out of it."
+
+He whirled after Bob and his lady, and soon caught them up.
+
+There was peace on that car, too, for Bob hadn't been able to keep his
+discovery to himself.
+
+"Yes, you're right, Bob," sighed Penelope. "But what could I do after
+what I'd said?  And what can I do now?"
+
+"Cheer up!" said Bob.  "I'll fix it for you somehow.  Do you know, Pen,
+I begin to think that after all women aren't as difficult to understand
+as Baker says."
+
+They came to Upwell in the early afternoon, and were ignorant that the
+world was on their track. Bob sent a telegram to "Mr. Bramwell" as soon
+as they got there.
+
+
+
+
+                            *CHAPTER XXVII.*
+
+
+The bishop was excited.  There is no doubt about it.  Nor is it any
+wonder, for the sporting element exists even on the episcopal bench, and
+the hunting of Penelope was peculiar and choice sport. The clergy of his
+diocese were moderately tame, and when he pointed his episcopal gun at
+them, they said they would come down, just as the celebrated squirrel
+did when Colonel Crockett raised his weapon.  Not for a long time had he
+felt so pleased with himself.  He was quite certain that Penelope was to
+be run to earth in the neighbourhood of Spilsby, and, when he had found
+her, he proposed to speak to her like a father.
+
+"I shall certainly suggest a religious ceremony in the cathedral," he
+said, blandly.  "Oh, yes, I shall insist on it."
+
+"You'll do what?" asked Bradstock, who was with him and the duchess in
+the early train to Spilsby.  "You'll do what?"
+
+The bishop rubbed his hands.
+
+"As the one who christened her, I shall insist on a religious ceremony,"
+he replied.
+
+"Will you?" asked Bradstock.
+
+"To be sure I shall," said the bishop.
+
+"Did you ever hear of Mrs. Partington?" asked Bradstock, "or of King
+Canute, or of any other celebrated character in history or fiction whose
+insistence did not come off?"
+
+"I scarcely understand you, Bradstock," said the bishop, with dignity.
+"I can hardly imagine that you mean to hint, not altogether obscurely,
+that Lady Penelope will treat any suggestion of mine with disrespect."
+
+Bradstock intimated that that was what he did mean, and Titania, who had
+got up too early and felt like it, said that she expected nothing from
+Penelope now but the worst.
+
+"I don't know why I am here, or why I am going there," she said.  "I
+cannot imagine why any of us are doing anything but hiding our disgraced
+heads in the remoter parts of the country, while Penelope flaunts a
+black, adopted, illegitimate child in some peculiar part of
+Lincolnshire, while she is being chased on motor-cars by remorseful
+scoundrels, of whom I saw about a dozen as we left Spilsborough.  Little
+did I think that I should be running after her with Augustin and you,
+bishop, while the duke stays at Goring saying she is sport, and Robert
+is with her when he ought to be at home with Mr. Guthrie learning to
+spell.  And as a result of Penelope's being away like this, that
+disgraceful Chloe Cadwallader, of whom I shall always have the lowest
+opinion, is living in her house in Piccadilly, and I dare say spending
+her money right and left.  The marchioness said she knew, on the highest
+authority, that this was so.  The marchioness always goes on the
+principle of believing the worst, though, of course, she hopes the best.
+I hope the best for Penelope, but I'm sure the worst is before us.  I'm
+sure of it."
+
+The bishop asked her to cheer up, and Augustin stroked her hand to calm
+her.  But nothing calmed or cheered her.
+
+"I am calm," she said.  "I am even peaceful. What can be worse than the
+worst?  I am cheerful, for I believe there is a better world than this,
+in which even a duchess may find some kind of rest on the highest
+authority.  I shall be glad to go there, and leave you all."
+
+"Don't say so," said Augustin.
+
+"I do say so," said the duchess.  "I say it firmly and with faith.  You
+don't dare to deny there is a better world than this, Augustin?"
+
+"Certainly not, in the presence of the bishop," replied Augustin.
+"Though, in looking out of the windows, I should not be surprised to
+learn that there is a more exciting spot than Spilsby."
+
+For they had arrived.
+
+"_I_ will make inquiries," said the bishop, "while you look after the
+duchess in the waiting-room. I see that my wishes have been attended to.
+I telegraphed for a carriage to be in attendance, and it is in
+attendance.  I will speak with the driver."
+
+He spoke to the driver, who was much intimidated by the apron and the
+gaiters of the clerical dignitary.
+
+"This is the carriage I ordered, I think," said the bishop.  "I want to
+drive to--to Lady Penelope Brading's house.  Do you know it?"
+
+"No, sir," said the driver.  "I never heard owt of it, sir."
+
+"Dear me, dear me!" said the bishop.  "Well, well!  But that is easily
+explicable, my good man, for my young friend is in the peculiar position
+of having several names.  This is rare; yes, rare I admit, but not
+altogether so very rare.  Can you tell me if there is any one lately
+come to this neighbourhood known, let us say, as Mrs.--Mrs. Plant, for
+instance?"
+
+"No, sir, there be not as I knows," said the driver.
+
+"Or Mrs. Gordon, shall I say?"
+
+The driver scratched his head.
+
+"I never heard of her," he replied.
+
+"How remarkable," said the bishop, smiling. "But I am not surprised.
+Indeed, in this last case I am almost gratified, though I withhold my
+reasons for saying so.  Are you then acquainted with any one called De
+Vere?  No; or with a Mrs. Carteret Williams?"
+
+Light dawned in the driver's face at last. "Mrs. Williams!  Ay, sure
+enif.  She do sell sweets and tobacco."
+
+"Indeed," said the bishop, "indeed, how remarkable! But I don't think
+she will do.  Have you heard of a Mrs. Rivaulx or a Mrs. Goby?  Perhaps
+I surprise you in this part of Lincolnshire, but in London it is not at
+all uncommon for married ladies to have several names, not at all
+uncommon."
+
+"No, sir, I never heard o' none of 'em," returned the driver, thinking
+that this gentleman talked most remarkable "cat-blash."
+
+"Good heavens!" said the bishop, "this new custom is trying.  Do you
+then know a Mrs. Carew or Mrs. Bramber?"
+
+Again the man scratched his head and shook it. What did this strange
+person in gaiters mean?
+
+"Oh! ah!" he said at last.  "There be a Mrs. Bramwell at the Moat
+House."
+
+"Indeed," said the bishop.  "Perhaps that may be the lady.  At the Moat
+House!  Do you know Mr. Bramwell?"
+
+"I've seen un," said the driver.
+
+"What is he like?" asked the bishop.  "Is he fair or dark, or tall or
+short?"
+
+"He's fairish to dark and betwixt and between," said the driver, wishing
+to be accurate, "and mostly goes in big spectacles in his engine."
+
+"Ha!" said the bishop, "we are on the scent! And what is Mrs. Bramwell
+like?"
+
+"She do mostly go in the engine with specs on, too, sir.  But my wife do
+say she be a very fine woman."
+
+The bishop nodded.
+
+"I think you may drive us to the Moat House," he said.  "I will bring my
+friends out."
+
+He rubbed his hands and congratulated himself on the skill with which he
+had discovered the object of his search.
+
+"I really believe I have found her," he said, when he entered the
+waiting-room.  "I really believe it."
+
+"No!" said the duchess.
+
+"Yes," said the bishop.  "By a series of skilful questions and the
+exercise of a little pardonable deceit, I have learnt that there is a
+Mrs. Bramwell here, who is said to be a very fine woman, and goes out in
+goggles in a motor-car with her husband, who is fairish to dark and tall
+and short and also wears goggles."
+
+Augustin nodded.
+
+"This looks like--something," he said, hopefully. "Bramwell!  Perhaps
+really Bramber, Titania."
+
+"No, no," said Titania.  "I expect disaster.  I anticipate the Jew or
+Williams."
+
+"But Bramwell--the first syllable being Bram," suggested the bishop.
+
+"I cannot build on Bram," said the duchess. "We are an unfortunate
+family.  Lord Bramber may be an earl at any minute, and she has married
+a coal-heaver, of course!  Let us go at once."
+
+When they got into the carriage, the bishop told the man to drive to the
+Moat House.
+
+"Did you say Moat House?" asked the duchess.
+
+"I did," replied the bishop.
+
+"Augustin, do you remember that Penelope's mother loved houses with
+moats?  I think the bishop may be right.  I tremble with nervousness."
+
+She had more reason to tremble in a moment, for a big motor-car shaved
+them and scared the horse.
+
+"Perhaps--" she cried.
+
+"No," said Augustin, "it's Plant and Williams and Carew!"
+
+The duchess gasped.  And before she could say another word, another car
+swept by them.
+
+"Perhaps--" she cried.
+
+"No," said the bishop; "in spite of goggles, I recognize the marquis and
+Mr. Gordon and Mr. Austin de Vere.  This is very remarkable, and not a
+little annoying.  We shall all descend upon Penelope at once, and I fear
+it will somewhat disturb her.  I should have much preferred to see her
+quietly in order to bring her to a just sense of her peculiar, and our
+painful, position."
+
+When they got to the house, they found all the lovers but Bramber
+assembled at the gates.  If it hadn't been for the illness of the Earl
+of Pulborough, he would have been there, they knew.
+
+"Oh, which is it?" moaned Titania.  "They all said they were married to
+her, and I know it's none of 'em."
+
+The bishop greeted the crowd in the most courteous manner.  He shook
+hands with those he knew, and bowed to those he hoped to know.
+
+"I think, gentleman, that, with your permission, I will go in first and
+see Lady Penelope before any one else does."
+
+And while he went up the carriage drive, Titania glared at the lovers.
+
+"Don't look at 'em like that, Titania," said Augustin.
+
+"Like what, Augustin?"
+
+"Like a Gorgon, Titania," said Augustin.
+
+"I look as I feel," said Titania.  "I hate them all.  I shall not be
+able to restrain myself when I see Penelope.  I shall shake her.  I
+shall say what I think.  No, I won't be wise, Augustin!  I decline to be
+wise.  I am full of bitterness.  From her earliest youth, she has been a
+thorn.  And it is your fault; you encouraged her in reform, in
+anarchism. Don't speak to me!  I shall explode!"
+
+And Augustin got out just as the bishop rang the door-bell across the
+moat.  Instead of the kind of servant he expected to see, he was greeted
+by a bent old woman, whose chief glory was her rheumatism, though her
+claim on Bob had been her stupidity.
+
+"Is Mrs. Bramwell at home?" asked the bishop, with a beaming smile.
+
+"Naw," said the old lady, not beaming in the least.
+
+"No?  Then when will she be back?"
+
+"I don't know," replied the caretaker.
+
+"You don't know!  Will it be soon?"
+
+"She never said," snarled the old lady.
+
+"Did she go early?"
+
+"Maybe an hour ago, maybe two."
+
+"Will she be back late?"
+
+"Eh?  I'm 'ard of 'earin'."
+
+"Will she be back late?" roared the bishop.
+
+"She didn't say."
+
+"What did she say, then?"
+
+"Nothin' as I knows of."
+
+"Where did she go, my good woman?"
+
+"She didn't say."
+
+"Dear me, how vexing!" said the bishop.
+
+"I'm 'ard of 'earin', I tell ye," said the old dame.
+
+"Who went with her?"
+
+"All of 'em, so I 'eard."
+
+"Who were they?" asked the desperate bishop.
+
+"All as was 'ere.  There ain't one left."
+
+"Was a boy with her?"
+
+"To be sure, a young gentleman as fetched me 'ere, and give me a
+shillin'."
+
+"What was his name?"
+
+"'E didn't say," said the old woman, and the bishop wiped his fevered
+brow and tried again.
+
+"Was Mr. Bramwell with her?"
+
+"I never seed un."
+
+"How did they go?"
+
+"In two engines."
+
+"Ha!" sighed the bishop, "in two motor-cars."
+
+"Likely."
+
+"Will they be back to-night?"
+
+"I 'ope not," said the woman.
+
+"Why do you hope not?" asked the wretched bishop.
+
+"Because of fifteen bob a week, to be sure."
+
+"Then Mrs. Bramwell has gone, has left?"
+
+"Ain't I been sayin' so this last hour?" asked the exasperated old
+person.  "Me, with rheumatics, standin' on cold stones for hours arglin'
+that she and all have gone in engines!"
+
+"Good heavens!" said the bishop, "she has escaped!  She has eluded us!
+She has kept her word and has fled!  This is remarkable; it is annoying.
+I feel nearer losing my temper than I have done with any one but the
+dean for the last ten years. I must go back and tell them."
+
+He went back to the gate.
+
+"Is it--" they cried.
+
+"This is her house," said the bishop, who looked rather flushed, "but I
+have discovered by a series of skilfully devised questions that she is
+no longer here.  Duchess, Lord Bradstock, marquis, and gentlemen, she
+went away this morning in two motorcars with all her household, leaving
+behind her no one but a caretaker who, in my humble opinion, ought to be
+taken care of in an idiot asylum!"
+
+The duchess sighed.
+
+"Then she has kept her word!  Finding out that we are still pursuing
+her, she has fled from us. Oh, I think it wicked of her, wicked to all
+of us. When I get hold of Robert, I shall take steps to show him what I
+think of him.  Do you give it up, bishop?"
+
+The bishop's eyes flashed with indignation.
+
+"Never!" he said.  "I propose that we pursue her at once.  She cannot
+have thought we should be here so soon.  If we find out which road she
+took, we may yet overtake her."
+
+"In what?" asked Bradstock, with his hand on the ramshackle landau the
+duchess sat in.  "In this conveyance, for instance?"
+
+The bishop looked at the two big motor-cars, and at their wretched
+owners, Plant and Rivaulx.
+
+"Taking my courage in both hands," he said, bravely, "I propose that we
+lose no time.  _I_ will go in this car with the marquis, if he will take
+me."
+
+The marquis said through his clenched teeth that he would.
+
+"Bradstock, you will escort the duchess back to Spilsborough."
+
+"Certainly not," said the duchess.  "I am coming, too.  I must and I
+will.  Whatever the condition of Penelope may now be, it is my duty.  I
+come with you!"
+
+"And so do I," said Bradstock.
+
+They packed themselves in the cars, and moved away from the deserted
+house of the moat.  In the village they soon discovered that "Mrs.
+Bramwell" had gone northwest by the road to Horncastle, and a moment
+later the bishop said, "Oh!" as Rivaulx fairly launched his car into
+space.  Even Bradstock in Plant's car said something, and the duchess,
+losing the repose which stamps all duchesses the moment they become
+duchesses, uttered a scream. Gordon consoled the bishop, being very much
+pleased to find himself with one, by saying that he had been in a
+balloon with Rivaulx, and found him careful and very trustworthy.
+
+"I do not think any one who goes in a balloon," gasped his lordship,
+"can properly be described by any such terms."
+
+Williams said he didn't care if he was killed, as soon as Penelope had
+acknowledged she was married to him.  Gordon, who was desperately scared
+of Williams, said nothing, but gave the bishop to understand by signs
+that the war correspondent was mad.  Carew, who was still suffering from
+influenza, sat in his corner and wept at intervals.
+
+In Plant's car the duchess and Goby and De Vere got on admirably.
+Bradstock sat by Plant and prepared to die.  The duchess held Captain
+Goby's hand.  De Vere said some poetry before the speed was very great.
+Afterward he said his prayers, and wished he was at home with his
+bulldogs.
+
+"What does anything matter?" he asked, as he clutched Goby's offside.
+
+And all of a sudden Rivaulx's motor pulled up so quickly that the bishop
+was nearly precipitated upon the road.  A scared, oldish woman in
+respectable and sub-freak garments had done her best to get run over.
+Rivaulx swore terrible French oaths, and the bishop, who knew French far
+better than he dared acknowledge except in a literary conversation on
+Rabelais or _argot_, sympathized with him in awestruck silence.
+
+"You accursed old lady!  Why?" demanded Rivaulx.
+
+"Hush, hush!" said the bishop, and, leaning from the car, he said: "It
+is all right, my good woman.  I hope we have not alarmed you."
+
+Miss Mackarness said they had.  It was very hard to have got out of one
+car and then to be almost killed by another.  Then the car behind came
+up, and the duchess looked at the lady who had given her a little
+respite.  The duchess absolutely screamed again.
+
+"Augustin, it is Miss Mackarness!  I remember her well!"
+
+"Who the deuce is Miss Mackarness?" grumbled Bradstock.
+
+But Titania paid no attention to him.  Her eyes brightened.  She became
+clever all at once.
+
+"I remember," she said, "I remember!"
+
+She called to the stranger in the road.
+
+"I am so pleased to see you again after such a long time, Miss
+Mackarness," she said, kindly. "Are you still at Upwell Castle?"
+
+"I'm going there now, ma'am," said the housekeeper, who didn't recognize
+her Grace.
+
+"Are you walking?" asked Titania, kindly. "It is a long way to walk.
+You don't remember me, I see."
+
+"No, ma'am," said Miss Mackarness.
+
+"I am the Duchess of Goring," said Titania.
+
+"Oh, your Grace!  I beg your Grace's pardon, but, of course, you are,"
+gasped Miss Mackarness.
+
+"And I am going to Upwell now to see my niece."
+
+Miss Mackarness gasped again and could not speak.
+
+"To see Mrs. Bramwell, you know," said Titania, sweetly.  "Of course,
+_I_ know all about it, Miss Mackarness."
+
+"To be sure, your Grace," replied her victim, not knowing what to do or
+say.
+
+"Then _good_-bye," said the duchess.  "I hope you will enjoy your walk,
+Miss Mackarness.  It's such pleasant weather for a walk."
+
+They left the poor woman in the middle of the road, an easy victim to
+the slowest vehicle in the county.
+
+"Oh, I've done wrong, I know!" said Pen's housekeeper.  "What shall I do
+now?"
+
+"I said that on purpose," said Titania, viciously. "She has known all
+along, and ought to have told me.  But now we know all about it,
+Augustin!"
+
+"What about 'Mr. Bramwell'?" asked Augustin. Goby and De Vere turned
+pale, and the duchess threw up her hands.
+
+"I might have asked her!" she cried.
+
+"Captain Goby looked at her severely," said Augustin, "and so did De
+Vere."
+
+Goby and De Vere denied it.
+
+"Never mind," said the duchess, "this time she can't escape.  We are on
+the track."
+
+They passed a man a few miles farther on, and only Augustin noticed him.
+
+"You are right, Titania; we are certainly on the track.  That man was
+Timothy Bunting," he said.  "Pen has been shedding her retainers all
+along the road.  I suspect Bob of furious driving."
+
+A few miles farther, at the foot of a steep rise, they saw a young and
+pretty woman weeping on a heap of stones.
+
+"I wonder if that is another of 'em," said Augustin.
+
+It was Mary, whom Geordie had deposited on the road half-way between two
+villages.
+
+"Have two motor-cars gone this way?" asked Bradstock.
+
+"Yes, sir," sobbed Mary.
+
+"Why are you crying?" asked the sympathetic peer.
+
+"Because Geordie Smith is no gentleman," said Mary.
+
+"That's Mrs. Bramwell's driver, isn't it?  I know her well," said
+Bradstock.
+
+"Yes, it is, and he ain't a gentleman.  He drove so fast he frightened
+me, and I got out."
+
+"How sad," said Bradstock.  "We are going on to Upwell Castle now.  Can
+we help you?"
+
+"I would rather walk to Australia than get in another one of 'em," said
+Mary.
+
+"You are right," said Augustin.  "Titania, you are right.  In half an
+hour we shall see Penelope."
+
+"And I shall see Bob," said Titania, viciously.
+
+But the bishop felt rather pleased with Bob now. He was in a car driven
+by Rivaulx.  And Rivaulx was desperate.  And when Rivaulx was desperate
+he lacked consideration for others.
+
+
+
+
+                           *CHAPTER XXVIII.*
+
+
+As all antiquarians know, Upwell Castle consists of two wings and a kind
+of centrepiece joining two civilizations and two divergent schools of
+architecture.  The right wing is Tudor, and ruined; the left is
+Georgian, and habitable; the centre is nondescript and pseudo-Palladian.
+It cost a great deal to keep up, and nothing could keep it from falling
+down.  Penelope's mother fell in love with it on first sight, and fell
+out with her husband about the price.  Its value has fallen since then,
+for landed property is the only stable thing which always falls.  There
+were pictures in it that connoisseurs gloated over, and some that
+picture-cleaners had restored till they were as valuable as a Gothic
+cathedral brought up to date by a resurrected Vandal.  There were
+carvings by Grinling Gibbons to be seen, and some that were not by
+Grinling Gibbons.  There were some rooms decorated by Adams that would
+have made Adam ill.  There was an oak staircase there that a thousand
+intoxicated noblemen had fallen down; there was another that no sober
+gentleman could go up.  It was ruinous, romantic, and rat-haunted;
+tapestry waved in its corridors, ghosts loved its precincts; there was a
+room stained with something that the servants said was blood, and that
+the skeptical averred to be port wine.  The only thing against the
+latter theory was that the dining-room was not stained, though some said
+it had been so flooded all over that nothing showed.  It was a
+delightful place, and Penelope never stayed there.  Miss Mackarness did,
+but then she was a Scotchwoman, and didn't count.  Bob adored it, but
+then Bob was Bob, and nothing could change him.
+
+"I'll fix this all up," said Bob, "and make her happy.  She's silly.
+I'll blow the gaff, as Baker says.  She's up-stairs now, crying her eyes
+out, and making the baby bellow."
+
+He wandered about the grounds, and wondered where Mary and Bunting and
+Miss Mackarness were.
+
+"Silly fools!" said Bob; "the idea of being afraid of going in a
+motor-car.  By Jove, I wonder what's become of my man at Spilsborough!
+I suppose those people in Regent Street think I've stolen the car.  What
+fun!"
+
+He explored the ruined wing, and ruined it a little more, and came out
+again into the Queen Anne garden.
+
+"By Jove, I do wish I knew where they all were!" he said.  "I wonder
+what granny is doing. Is she having fits, and Dr. Lumsden Griff to look
+after 'em?  I think Griff's a soft-soapy ass.  He says, 'Well, how are
+we this morning?'  By Jove, all the rest of 'em will have fits, too.
+They will be sick.  But I'm glad they're out of it.  I wonder where Lord
+Bradstock is.  He'll pull my wig when he sees me.  And the bishop!
+Well, he's not a bad old boy.  I rather like bishops, but their legs are
+queer.  By Jove, but it's fun having skipped and done them!  If they
+ever get to Spilsby and find us gone, they'll be mad!"
+
+He walked around the corner of the house, and _paff_ came a motor-car
+and made him jump.  Another one followed like a streak of light.  Bob
+went quite pale for a boy with a complexion like an ancient red brick,
+and made a bolt for the door. He was too late, for Bradstock and the
+bishop stood in his way.  Bob slowed down, put his hands in his pockets
+and whistled.
+
+"I say," said Bob, "how did you find this place out?"
+
+"I own to being surprised and disappointed with you, Robert," said the
+bishop; "very much surprised and greatly disappointed."
+
+Bob wagged his head to and fro.
+
+"Why, what about?" he asked.
+
+"At your not returning, sir," said his lordship. "You treated me and
+Lord Bradstock, I regret to say, with great disrespect."
+
+"I'm very sorry," said Bob, "but I couldn't help it.  Pen--Oh, Lord!
+there's granny!"
+
+The duchess intervened.
+
+"Robert, where is Penelope?"
+
+Bob hesitated.
+
+"Gone to--t-to London for Paris and Marseilles and Australia," said Bob,
+hurriedly.  "She said she couldn't wait, but had an appointment there
+somewhere.  And she said I was to say she was sorry if any one called."
+
+"Robert," said the duchess, severely, "do not keep your eyes fixed upon
+the distant landscape. Look me in the face.  Are you speaking the
+truth?"
+
+Bob wriggled and shuffled.
+
+"No, I'm not," he said.  "It's a beastly lie. But she did say the other
+day that she would go to the ends of the earth.  And that's Australia,
+ain't it?"
+
+"Bob," said the bishop, "this is very painful to me.  Speak the truth
+like a man."
+
+"I won't," said Bob; "it isn't my truth.  I won't give Pen away to any
+one."
+
+His vision cleared, and he saw the lovers ranked behind his grandmother
+and the bishop.
+
+"Oh, Mr. Gordon," he cried, "do come and help me!  Would you tell if you
+were me?"
+
+"No," said Gordon, "no, of course not."
+
+"I always liked you," said Bob, "so I won't."
+
+"I command you," said Titania, looking at Gordon furiously.
+
+"It's no good," said Bob, rapidly; "Pen's a great way off, far enough,
+that is, and I swore I'd never disclose the secret of her whereabouts to
+any one.  At least, if I didn't swear it, I said it, and, if I said it,
+my lord, and broke my promise, it wouldn't be honourable, would it?"
+
+"I don't care," began Titania.
+
+"Would it, my lord?" asked Bob.
+
+"I'm afraid not," said the bishop, "though perhaps in the circumstances,
+which are very peculiar--"
+
+"Well, I won't," said Bob, "and that's flat. Goby wouldn't, I know,
+would you, Captain Goby?"
+
+But the duchess waved Goby into the background.
+
+"I mean to have the truth.  Shall we listen to your foolish scruples
+now?  If you won't tell us where she is, tell us whom she has married.
+Is it one of these gentlemen?"
+
+"I won't give any of 'em away," said Bob.
+
+"Then you know?"
+
+"Of course I know," said Bob.
+
+"Ah," sighed the duchess, "then she is married?"
+
+"She says so," said Bob, "and, if it's true, as I suppose, I know who it
+is.  But Pen, before she went up--before she went, said I wasn't to
+speak."
+
+Bradstock smiled.
+
+"Titania, Penelope is in the house.  Let us go in," he said, and he
+marched up the steps.  Bob shook himself free from the duchess and
+darted indoors before Bradstock.  He bolted up-stairs to Penelope, and
+burst in upon her like a whirlwind.
+
+"Pen, they're all here, all the gang!  I couldn't keep 'em out!"
+
+"Who are here?" asked Pen, in awful dismay.
+
+"All of 'em, and the bishop and Bradstock and granny!"
+
+"Oh, what shall I do?" wailed Penelope.
+
+"I'll tell you," said Bob.  "Let's sneak down the back way and steal one
+of their cars now, and get away!"
+
+"No, no," said Penelope, "it wouldn't be dignified.  I must be
+dignified, Bob, I must be; I will go down and see them."
+
+"No," said Bob.
+
+"I will," said Penelope.
+
+"And tell 'em the truth?"
+
+Penelope started.
+
+"I can't, I can't, because we've quarrelled.  But I will see them; I
+must."
+
+She went red and white and red again, and once more as pale as dawn.
+She kissed the sleeping, adopted, illegitimate, normal-coloured infant
+as he sprawled upon an historic bed, and went to the door.
+
+"Come with me, Bob."
+
+"I'll hold your hand, Pen.  I say, you shake!"
+
+"Squeeze my hand till you hurt me," said Pen. "Now come!"
+
+She swept down the big staircase, with Bob in tow, and found herself in
+the presence of the entire "gang," as Bob had called them.
+
+"Penelope!" said Titania, recoiling.
+
+"Oh, Pen," said Bradstock, advancing.
+
+"My dear Lady Penelope," said the bishop, sweetly, "do you recollect
+that I christened you at the early age of three months?"
+
+"No," said Penelope.
+
+"No!" said the bishop, "no, to be sure, how could you?  But I did."
+
+"It--it was very kind of you," said Penelope. Titania recovered herself
+and advanced.  Gordon and the rest hung about in the distance, looking
+as wretched as the ruined wing of the castle.
+
+"Are you married, Penelope?" asked Titania.
+
+"Yes," said Penelope.
+
+"Of course she is," said Bob.
+
+"Hold your tongue, Robert," said his grandmother. "And to whom?"
+
+"I won't say," replied Penelope.  "I told you I wouldn't, and I won't."
+
+"I said she wouldn't," cried Bob.
+
+Titania pointed her hand at the shrinking horde.
+
+"Every single one of these gentlemen, to say nothing of Lord Bramber,
+who is with his invalid father at the present moment, came to me and
+said he was married to you!  Every one of them without an exception!"
+
+"I am very much obliged to them," said Pen. "In the circumstances, I
+think it was noble of them."
+
+"Are you alluding to the advertisement in the _Times_?" asked Titania.
+"Are you aware that every one now says that you have adopted an infant?"
+
+"What rot!" said Bob.
+
+"Robert," cried his grandmother, "be silent, I command you.  I will not
+be interrupted by you. Are you aware, Penelope, that it is said all over
+England and Europe and the blatant United States that you have adopted
+an infant?"
+
+Penelope shook her head.
+
+"It's the first I've heard of it," said Penelope, who was the colour of
+a rose.
+
+"Is it true?  Do not evade my question," cried Titania.
+
+"I don't see, granny, what right you have to ask 'em," said the
+irrepressible Bob.  "I sent you a wire to say it wasn't black, and it
+isn't."
+
+"Augustin, silence that boy," said Titania.
+
+But Augustin shook his head.
+
+"Don't you answer anything, Pen," said Bob. "No one has any right to ask
+you anything."
+
+He marched over to Gordon.
+
+"Don't look so sad, Mr. Gordon."
+
+"I can't help it, my boy," said Gordon.  "It's a horrid situation.  I
+don't care whether it's adopted or not.  If she'll marry me, I'll have
+her."
+
+Bob squeezed his hand.
+
+"I ain't _absolutely_ sure it isn't you yet," he said. "Pen hasn't told
+me all, you know.  By the way, Mr. Gordon, did that speculation come
+off?"
+
+"Not so well as I thought by ten thousand," said Gordon.
+
+"Oh, I say," said Bob, "but, after all, it doesn't matter.  I'll make
+fifty or sixty thousand do."
+
+"You're a fine boy," said Gordon.  "But, Bob, I would like to strangle
+your grandmother."
+
+"Would you?" asked Bob, eagerly.  "I dare say Pen does, too.
+Grandmothers and aunts are very trying.  At least, I find them so."
+
+The duchess's voice rose now quite above the limits of social decency,
+except when any one is playing or singing.
+
+"I will not be put off, Penelope.  You will say who it is, and you will
+be married again by the bishop in his fine Gothic cathedral--"
+
+"Mr. Dean's cathedral," interjected the bishop.
+
+"With a proper service and the usual hymns, breathing over Eden, or I
+will stay here till you do."
+
+"Steady, Titania," said Bradstock.  "If she won't, she won't."
+
+"But she shall," shrieked Titania.  "Gentlemen, which of you is it?  I
+am now entirely desperate; which of you is it?"
+
+No one said a word.
+
+"Marquis, is it you?" asked the duchess.  "You said so before."
+
+"How can I say?" asked poor Rivaulx.  "She says no one must."
+
+"Quite right," said Bradstock.  "Who will believe any one, Titania?
+Let's have lunch and be friendly and stop this.  I'm very hungry, Pen.
+And let's see the baby."
+
+The duchess shivered.
+
+"I cannot and will not see it," said Titania. "For by all accounts, it
+is an adopted illegitimate child.  If Penelope will send it back to the
+person she got it of, and own the truth, I will forgive her and have
+lunch, for I am very faint."
+
+"I want to see the baby, Pen," said Augustin, with his hand on Pen's
+shoulder.  "You know, Pen, they still say it's rather dusky."
+
+Penelope was very indignant.
+
+"He's not," she cried.  "They sha'n't say it any more.  Bob, tell that
+girl up-stairs to bring him down."
+
+And Bob ran up-stairs like a monkey up a stick.
+
+"I decline to see it," said Titania.  "A baby without a name is a
+terrible object to me.  It is an insult to the bishop and to the Church
+to bring one into the room.  I will retire into the open air and try to
+breathe again."
+
+Goby assisted her outside.
+
+"This is a calamity," said Titania.  "It's a catastrophe.  What is the
+truth, Captain Goby?  Are you a liar, too?"
+
+Goby sobbed.
+
+"How can I say?" he asked.  "You know I can't."
+
+He looked out into the park.
+
+"Here's some one coming in a motor," he cried. They all ran to the
+windows.  But just then Bob and the nurse came down with the infant,
+who, though evidently awed by the number of creatures he saw about him,
+behaved like a gentleman, and not in the least like an adopted child.
+
+"I congratulate you, Pen," said Bradstock. "The mother must be a
+devilish pretty woman! Does she miss it much, Pen?  Oh, Pen, what a
+queer, mad darling you are!  I begin to see daylight."
+
+But nobody else did.  Penelope blushed and hugged the baby tenderly,
+while Bob danced around her in the wildest state of excitement.
+
+"I say, Captain Goby, come and look at it!  Mr. de Vere!  I say,
+marquis!  Ain't it a ripper, and as fat as a pup, and hardly a squeal
+out of it day or night!  Granny dear, won't you look at it?"
+
+"No, no," said Titania.  "I cannot, cannot bring myself to do so!"
+
+"You'll soon be jolly sorry, I can tell you," cried the loving grandson.
+"I'll bet you'll be sorry."
+
+He ran to Pen.
+
+"I say, Pen, give the kid to me, or you'll drop it."
+
+"Drop him!" exclaimed Penelope.  "Oh, Bob, is it likely?"
+
+"Very likely," said Bob, "if you knew that I sent a telegram to some one
+just as soon as we got here!"
+
+Pen flushed scarlet.  But not with anger.
+
+"Oh, Bob!"
+
+"I did!  You ain't angry?"
+
+"Oh, Bob!"
+
+"I don't care," said Bob, as he took the child. "I don't care a hang.
+I'm ruined with all these jossers now.  De Vere will never buy any more
+dogs of me.  I say, who's that?"
+
+A motor-car stopped outside the great hall door, and a gentleman in
+black got out.  He came up the steps rapidly, and stopped dead when he
+found all the world in front of him.
+
+"I thought so," said Bradstock.  "Now the catalogue is complete."
+
+"Lord Bramber!" cried the others.  Penelope stood in the centre of the
+great hall as if she were turned to marble.  But no marble ever had so
+sweet a colour.
+
+[Illustration: THE EARL OF PULBOROUGH. Clever; but indolent]
+
+"I believe it is now the Earl of Pulborough," said Bradstock, gravely,
+to the newcomer.
+
+"Yes," he replied.  "Penelope, you sent for me?"
+
+Pen fell upon his neck before them all and did not deny it.
+
+And, as they stood still in great amazement, Bob danced the baby up and
+down till that young gentleman made up his mind to roar as soon as he
+got his breath.
+
+"This--this is Lord Bramber," howled Bob, triumphantly.  "Now admit you
+feel sorry you spoke, granny!"
+
+He gave the baby to the nurse, and grabbed Goby by the arm.
+
+"I say, I'm awfully sorry, but it isn't my fault, Captain Goby, and
+Ethel Mytton is a very nice girl, and dead in love with you."
+
+"Is she?" sighed Goby.
+
+"Mr. de Vere, I've got a bulldog--"
+
+"Damn bulldogs!" said De Vere.
+
+Bob seized Gordon.
+
+"Do you feel very bad, Mr. Gordon?" he asked, sympathetically.  "I
+almost wish it had been you."
+
+"It can't be helped," said Gordon, gloomily.  "I never had a chance.
+Come and see me in the city next week, Bob."
+
+Rivaulx and Carew and Williams took their hats and slipped from the
+house, while Bob did what he could to soften things for them.
+
+"I'll come and see you all very often," he cried. "Good-bye now!"
+
+An hour later, when Titania had the baby upon her capacious lap, and
+said how certain she had been the whole time that Bramber was Penelope's
+choice, Bob walked around the garden with the bishop and Lord Bradstock.
+
+"Oh, it's quite easy to understand," said Bob. "After all she said, you
+expected she would marry some outsider, and you see she took the pick of
+the basket, and of course was ashamed.  Oh, I know Pen."
+
+"You are a wonder, Bob," said Bradstock.
+
+The bishop said that upon adequate reflection he was inclined to agree
+with Bradstock.
+
+"Well, Pen's all right," said Bob.
+
+
+
+                                THE END.
+
+
+
+
+           *      *      *      *      *      *      *      *
+
+
+
+
+*L. C. Page and Company's
+Announcement List
+of New fiction*
+
+
+
+*The Flight of Georgiana*
+
+A ROMANCE OF THE DAYS OF THE YOUNG PRETENDER.  By ROBERT NEILSON
+STEPHENS, author of "The Bright Face of Danger," "An Enemy to the King,"
+"The Mystery of Murray Davenport," etc.
+
+Library 12mo, cloth decorative, illustrated . . . $1.50
+
+Mr. Stephens's novels all bear the hall-mark of success for his men are
+always live, his women are always worthy of their cavaliers, and his
+adventures are of the sort to stir the most sluggish blood without
+overstepping the bounds of good taste.
+
+The theme of the new novel is one which will give Mr. Stephens splendid
+scope for all the powers at his command. The career of "Bonnie Prince
+Charlie" was full of romance, intrigue, and adventure; his life was a
+series of episodes to delight the soul of a reader of fiction, and Mr.
+Stephens is to be congratulated for his selection of such a promising
+subject.
+
+
+
+*Mrs. Jim and Mrs. Jimmie*
+
+By STEPHEN CONRAD, author of "The Second Mrs. Jim."
+
+Library 12mo, cloth decorative, illustrated . . . $1.50
+
+This new book is in a sense a sequel to "The Second Mrs. Jim," since it
+gives further glimpses of that delightful stepmother and her philosophy.
+This time, however, she divides the field with "Mrs. Jimmie," who is
+quite as attractive in her different way.  The book has more plot than
+the former volume, a little less philosophy perhaps, but just as much
+wholesome fun.  In many ways it is a stronger book, and will therefore
+take an even firmer hold on the public.
+
+
+
+*The Story of Red Fox*
+
+Told by CHARLES G. D. ROBERTS, author of "The Watchers of the Trails,"
+"The Kindred of the Wild," "Barbara Ladd," etc.
+
+Library 12mo, cloth decorative, with fifty illustrations and cover
+design by Charles Livingston Bull . . . $2.00
+
+Mr. Roberts's reputation as a scientifically accurate writer, whose
+literary skill transforms his animal stories into masterpieces, stands
+unrivalled in his particular field.
+
+This is his first long animal story, and his romance of Red Fox, from
+babyhood to patriarchal old age, makes reading more fascinating than any
+work of fiction.  In his hands Red Fox becomes a personality so strong
+that one entirely forgets he is an animal, and his haps and mishaps grip
+you as do those of a person.
+
+Mr. Bull, as usual, fits his pictures to the text as hand to glove, and
+the ensemble becomes a book as near perfection as it is possible to
+attain.
+
+
+
+*Return*
+
+A STORY OF THE SEA ISLANDS IN 1739.  By ALICE MACGOWAN and GRACE
+MACGOWAN COOKE, authors of "The Last Word," etc.  With six illustrations
+by C. D. Williams.
+
+Library 12mo, cloth . . . $1.50
+
+A new romance, undoubtedly the best work yet done by Miss MacGowan and
+Mrs. Cooke.  The heroine of "Return," Diana Chaters, is the belle of the
+Colonial city of Charles Town, S.C., in the early eighteenth century,
+and the hero is a young Virginian of the historical family of Marshall.
+The youth, beauty, and wealth of the fashionable world, which first form
+the environment of the romance, are pictured in sharp contrast to the
+rude and exciting life of the frontier settlements in the Georgia
+Colony, and the authors have missed no opportunities for telling
+characterizations.  But "Return" is, above all, a love-story.
+
+We quote the opinion of Prof. Charles G. D. Roberts, who has read the
+advance sheets: "It seems to me a story of quite unusual strength and
+interest, full of vitality and crowded with telling characters.  I
+greatly like the authors' firm, bold handling of their subject."
+
+
+
+*Lady Penelope*
+
+By MORLEY ROBERTS, author of "Rachel Marr," "The Promotion of the
+Admiral," etc.  With nine illustrations by Arthur W. Brown.
+
+Library 12mo, cloth . . . $1.50
+
+Mr. Roberts certainly has versatility, since this book has not a single
+point of similarity with either "Rachel Marr" or his well-known sea
+stories.  Its setting is the English so-called "upper crust" of the
+present day.  Lady Penelope is quite the most up-to-date young lady
+imaginable and equally charming.  As might be expected from such a
+heroine, her automobiling plays an important part in the development of
+the plot.  Lady Penelope has a large number of suitors, and her method
+of choosing her husband is original and provocative of delightful
+situations and mirthful incidents.
+
+
+
+*The Winged Helmet*
+
+By HAROLD STEELE MACKAYE, author of "The Panchronicon," etc.  With six
+illustrations by H. C. Edwards.
+
+Library 12mo, cloth . . . $1.50
+
+When an author has an original theme on which to build his story,
+ability in construction of unusual situations, skill in novel
+characterization, and a good literary style, there can be no doubt but
+that his work is worth reading.  "The Winged Helmet" is of this
+description.
+
+The author gives in this novel a convincing picture of life in the early
+sixteenth century, and the reader will be delighted with its originality
+of treatment, freshness of plot, and unexpected climaxes.
+
+
+
+*A Captain of Men*
+
+By E. ANSON MORE.
+
+Library 12mo, cloth, illustrated . . . $1.50
+
+A tale of Tyre and those merchant princes whose discovery of the value
+of tin brought untold riches into the country and afforded adventures
+without number to those daring seekers for the mines.  Merodach, the
+Assyrian, Tanith, the daughter of the richest merchant of Tyre, Miriam,
+her Hebrew slave, and the dwarf Hiram, who was the greatest artist of
+his day, are a quartette of characters hard to surpass in individuality.
+It has been said that the powerful order of Free Masons first had its
+origin in the meetings which were held at Hiram's studio in Tyre, where
+gathered together the greatest spirits of that age and place.
+
+
+
+*The Paradise of the Wild Apple*
+
+By RICHARD LEGALLIENNE, author of "Old Love Stories Retold," "The Quest
+of the Golden Girl," etc.
+
+Library 12mo, cloth decorative . . . $1.50
+
+The theme of Mr. LeGallienne's new romance deals with the instinct of
+wildness in human nature,--the wander spirit and impatience of tame
+domesticity, the preference for wild flowers and fruits, and the glee in
+summer storms and elemental frolics.  A wild apple-tree, high up in a
+rocky meadow, is symbolic of all this, and Mr. LeGallienne works out in
+a fashion at once imaginative and serious the romance of a young man
+well placed from the view of worldly goods and estate, who suddenly
+hungers for the "wild apples" of his youth.  The theme has limitless
+possibilities, and Mr. LeGallienne is artist enough to make adequate use
+of them.
+
+
+
+*The Grapple*
+
+Library 12mo, cloth decorative . . . $1.50
+
+This story of a strike in the coal mines of Pennsylvania gives both
+sides of the question,--the Union and its methods, and the non-Union
+workers and their loyal adherents, with a final typical clash at the
+end.  The question is an absorbing one, and it is handled fearlessly.
+
+For the present at least "The Grapple" will be issued anonymously.
+
+
+
+*Brothers of Peril*
+
+By THEODORE ROBERTS, author of "Hemming the Adventurer."
+
+Library 12mo, cloth decorative, illustrated . . . $1.50
+
+"Brothers of Peril" has an unusual plot, dealing with a now extinct
+race, the Beothic Indians of the sixteenth century, who were the
+original inhabitants of Newfoundland when that island was merely a
+fishing-station for the cod-seeking fleets of the old world.
+
+The story tells of the adventures of a young English cavalier, who, left
+behind by the fleet, finds another Englishman, with his daughter and
+servants, who is hiding from the law.  A French adventurer and pirate,
+who is an unwelcome suitor for the daughter, plays an important part.
+Encounters between the Indians and the small colony of white men on
+shore, and perilous adventures at sea with a shipload of pirates led by
+the French buccaneer, make a story of breathless interest.
+
+
+
+*The Black Barque*
+
+By T. JENKINS HAINS, author of "The Wind Jammers," "The Strife of the
+Sea," etc.  With five illustrations by W. Herbert Dunton.
+
+Library 12mo, cloth . . . $1.50
+
+According to a high naval authority who has seen the advance sheets,
+this is one of the best sea stories ever offered to the public.  "The
+Black Barque" is a story of slavery and piracy upon the high seas about
+1815, and is written with a thorough knowledge of deep-water sailing.
+This, Captain Hains's first long sea story, realistically pictures a
+series of stirring scenes at the period of the destruction of the
+exciting but nefarious traffic in slaves, in the form of a narrative by
+a young American lieutenant, who, by force of circumstances, finds
+himself the gunner of "The Black Barque."
+
+
+
+*Cameron of Lochiel*
+
+Translated from the French of PHILIPPE AUBERT DE GASPE by PROF. CHARLES
+G. D. ROBERTS.
+
+Library 12mo, cloth decorative . . . $1.50
+
+The publishers are gratified to announce a new edition of a book by this
+famous author, who may be called the Walter Scott of Canada.  This
+interesting and valuable romance is fortunate in having for its
+translator Professor Roberts, who has caught perfectly the spirit of the
+original.  The French edition first appeared under the title of "Les
+Anciens Canadiens" in 1862, and was later translated and appeared in an
+American edition now out of print.
+
+Patriotism, devotion to the French-Canadian nationality, a just pride of
+race, and a loving memory for his people's romantic and heroic past, are
+the dominant chords struck by the author throughout the story.
+
+
+
+*Castel del Monte*
+
+By NATHAN GALLIZIER.  Illustrated by H. C. Edwards.
+
+Library 12mo, cloth . . . $1.5O
+
+A powerful romance of the fall of the Hohenstaufen dynasty in Italy, and
+the overthrow of Manfred by Charles of Anjou, the champion of Pope
+Clement IV.  The Middle Ages are noted for the weird mysticism and the
+deep fatalism characteristic of a people believing in signs and portents
+and the firm hand of fate.  Mr. Gallizier has brought out these
+characteristics in a marked degree.
+
+
+
+*Slaves of Success*
+
+By ELLIOTT FLOWER, author of "The Spoilsmen," etc.  With twenty
+illustrations by different artists.
+
+Library 12mo, cloth . . . $1.50
+
+Another striking book by Mr. Flower, whose work is already so well
+known, both through his long stories and his contributions to
+_Collier's_, the _Saturday Evening Post_, etc. Like his first success,
+"The Spoilsmen," it deals with politics, but in the broader field of
+state and national instead of municipal.  The book has recently appeared
+in condensed form as a serial in _Collier's Magazine_, where it
+attracted wide-spread attention, and the announcement of its appearance
+in book form will be welcomed by Mr. Flower's rapidly increasing
+audience.  The successful delineation of characters like John Wade, Ben
+Carroll, Azro Craig, and Allen Sidway throws new strong lights on the
+inside workings of American business and political "graft."
+
+
+
+*Silver Bells*
+
+By COL. ANDREW C. P. HAGGARD, author of "Hannibal's Daughter," "Louis
+XIV. in Court and Camp," etc.  With cover design and frontispiece by
+Charles Livingston Bull.
+
+Library 12mo, cloth . . . $1.50
+
+Under the thin veneer of conventionality and custom lurks in many hearts
+the primeval instinct to throw civilization to the winds and hark back
+to the ways of the savages in the wilderness, and it often requires but
+a mental crisis or an emotional upheaval to break through the coating.
+Geoffrey Digby was such an one, who left home and kindred to seek
+happiness among the Indians of Canada, in the vast woods which always
+hold an undefinable mystery and fascination. He gained renown as a
+mighty hunter, and the tale of his life there, and the romance which
+awaited him, will be heartily enjoyed by all who like a good love-story
+with plenty of action not of the "stock" order.  "Silver Bells," the
+Indian girl, is a perfect "child of nature."
+
+
+
+
+*Selections from
+L. C. Page and Company's
+List of Fiction*
+
+
+
+                               *WORKS OF
+                        ROBERT NEILSON STEPHENS*
+
+
+
+*Captain Ravenshaw;* OR, THE MAID OF CHEAPSIDE.  (40th thousand.)  A
+romance of Elizabethan London.  Illustrations by Howard Pyle and other
+artists.
+
+Library 12mo, cloth . . . $1.50
+
+Not since the absorbing adventures of D'Artagnan have we had anything so
+good in the blended vein of romance and comedy.  The beggar student, the
+rich goldsmith, the roisterer and the rake, the fop and the maid, are
+all here: foremost among them Captain Ravenshaw himself, soldier of
+fortune and adventurer, who, after escapades of binding interest,
+finally wins a way to fame and to matrimony.
+
+
+
+*Philip Winwood.*  (70th thousand)  A Sketch of the Domestic History of
+an American Captain in the War of Independence, embracing events that
+occurred between and during the years 1763 and 1785 in New York and
+London. Written by his Enemy in War, Herbert Russell, Lieutenant in the
+Loyalist Forces.  Presented anew by ROBERT NEILSON STEPHENS.
+Illustrated by E. W. D. Hamilton.
+
+Library 12mo, cloth . . . $1.50
+
+"One of the most stirring and remarkable romances that have been
+published in a long while, and its episodes, incidents, and actions are
+as interesting and agreeable as they are vivid and dramatic."--_Boston
+Times_.
+
+
+
+*The Mystery of Murray Davenport.*  (30th thousand.)  By ROBERT NEILSON
+STEPHENS, author of "An Enemy to the King," "Philip Winwood," etc.
+
+Library 12mo, cloth, with six full-page illustrations by H. C. Edwards .
+. . $1.50
+
+"This is easily the best thing that Mr. Stephens has yet done. Those
+familiar with his other novels can best judge the measure of this
+praise, which is generous."--_Buffalo News_.
+
+"Mr. Stephens won a host of friends through his earlier volumes, but we
+think he will do still better work in his new field if the present
+volume is a criterion."--_N. Y. Com. Advertiser_.
+
+
+
+*An Enemy to the King.*  (60th thousand.)  From the "Recently Discovered
+Memoirs of the Sieur de la Tournoire."  Illustrated by H. De M. Young.
+
+Library 12mo, cloth . . . $1.50
+
+An historical romance of the sixteenth century, describing the
+adventures of a young French nobleman at the Court of Henry III., and on
+the field with Henry of Navarre.
+
+"A stirring tale."--_Detroit Free Press_.
+
+"A royally strong piece of fiction."--_Boston Ideas_.
+
+"Interesting from the first to the last page."--_Brooklyn Eagle_.
+
+"Brilliant as a play; it is equally brilliant as a romantic
+novel."--_Philadelphia Press_.
+
+
+
+*The Continental Dragoon:* A ROMANCE OF PHILIPSE MANOR HOUSE IN 1778.
+(43d thousand.)  Illustrated by H. C. Edwards.
+
+Library 12mo, cloth . . . $1.50
+
+A stirring romance of the Revolution, the scene being laid in and around
+the old Philipse Manor House, near Yonkers, which at the time of the
+story was the central point of the so-called "neutral territory" between
+the two armies.
+
+
+
+*The Road to Paris:* A STORY OF ADVENTURE. (25th thousand.)  Illustrated
+by H. C. Edwards.
+
+Library 12mo, cloth . . . $1.50
+
+An historical romance of the 18th century, being an account of the life
+of an American gentleman adventurer of Jacobite ancestry, whose family
+early settled in the colony of Pennsylvania.
+
+
+
+*A Gentleman Player:* HIS ADVENTURES ON A SECRET MISSION FOR QUEEN
+ELIZABETH.  (38th thousand.)  Illustrated by Frank T. Merrill.
+
+Library 12mo, cloth . . . $1.50
+
+"A Gentleman Player" is a romance of the Elizabethan period.  It relates
+the story of a young gentleman who, in the reign of Elizabeth, falls so
+low in his fortune that he joins Shakespeare's company of players, and
+becomes a friend and protege of the great poet.
+
+
+
+
+                               *WORKS OF
+                         CHARLES G. D. ROBERTS*
+
+
+
+*Barbara Ladd.*  With four illustrations by Frank Verbeck.
+
+Library 12mo, gilt top . . . $1.50
+
+"From the opening chapter to the final page Mr. Roberts lures us on by
+his rapt devotion to the changing aspects of Nature and by his keen and
+sympathetic analysis of human character."--_Boston Transcript_.
+
+
+
+*The Kindred of the Wild.*  A BOOK OF ANIMAL LIFE.  With fifty-one
+full-page plates and many decorations from drawings by Charles
+Livingston Bull.
+
+Small quarto, decorative cover . . . $2.00
+
+"Professor Roberts has caught wonderfully the elusive individualities of
+which he writes.  His animal stories are marvels of sympathetic science
+and literary exactness.  Bound with the superb illustrations by Charles
+Livingston Bull, they make a volume which charms, entertains, and
+informs."--New York World.
+
+"... Is in many ways the most brilliant collection of animal stories
+that has appeared ... well named and well done."--_John Burroughs_.
+
+
+
+*The Forge in the Forest.*  Being the Narrative of the Acadian Ranger,
+Jean de Mer, Seigneur de Briart, and how he crossed the Black Abbe, and
+of his Adventures in a Strange Fellowship.  Illustrated by Henry
+Sandham, R.C.A.
+
+Library 12mo, cloth, gilt top . . . $1.50
+
+A romance of the convulsive period of the struggle between the French
+and English for the possession of North America. The story is one of
+pure love and heroic adventure, and deals with that fiery fringe of
+conflict that waved between Nova Scotia and New England.  The Expulsion
+of the Acadians is foreshadowed in these brilliant pages, and the part
+of the "Black Abbe's" intrigues in precipitating that catastrophe is
+shown.
+
+
+
+*The Heart of the Ancient Wood.*  With six illustrations by James L.
+Weston.
+
+Library 12mo, decorative cover . . . $1.50
+
+"One of the most fascinating novels of recent days."--_Boston Journal_.
+
+"A classic twentieth-century romance."--_New York Commercial
+Advertiser_.
+
+
+
+*A Sister to Evangeline.*  Being the story of Yvonne de Lamourie, and
+how she went into Exile with the Villagers of Grand Pre.
+
+Library 12mo, cloth, gilt top, illustrated . . . $1.50
+
+This is a romance of the great expulsion of the Acadians, which
+Longfellow first immortalized in "Evangeline."  Swift action, fresh
+atmosphere, wholesome purity, deep passion, searching analysis,
+characterize this strong novel.
+
+
+
+*By the Marshes of Minas.*
+
+Library 12mo, cloth, gilt top, illustrated . . . $1.50
+
+This is a volume of romance, of love and adventure in that picturesque
+period when Nova Scotia was passing from the French to the English
+regime.  Each tale is independent of the others, but the scenes are
+similar, and in several of them the evil "Black Abbe"," well known from
+the author's previous novels, again appears with his savages at his
+heels--but to be thwarted always by woman's wit or soldier's courage.
+
+
+
+*Earth's Enigmas.*  A new edition, with the addition of three new
+stories, and ten illustrations by Charles Livingston Bull.
+
+Library 12mo, cloth, uncut edges . . . $1.50
+
+"Throughout the volume runs that subtle questioning of the cruel,
+predatory side of nature which suggests the general title of the book.
+In certain cases it is the picture of savage nature ravening for
+food--for death to preserve life; in others it is the secret symbolism
+of woods and waters prophesying of evils and misadventures to come.  All
+this does not mean, however, that Mr. Roberts is either pessimistic or
+morbid--it is nature in his books after all, wholesome in her cruel
+moods as in her tender."--_The New York Independent_.
+
+
+
+
+                               *WORKS OF
+                              LILIAN BELL*
+
+
+
+*Hope Loring.*  Illustrated by Frank T. Merrill.
+
+Library 12mo, cloth, decorative cover . . . $1.50
+
+"Lilian Bell's new novel, 'Hope Loring,' does for the American girl in
+fiction what Gibson has done for her in art.
+
+"Tall, slender, and athletic, fragile-looking, yet with nerves and
+sinews of steel under the velvet flesh, frank as a boy and tender and
+beautiful as a woman, free and independent, yet not bold--such is 'Hope
+Loring,' by long odds the subtlest study that has yet been made of the
+American girl."--_Dorothy Dix, in the New York American_.
+
+
+
+*Abroad with the Jimmies.*  With a portrait, in duogravure, of the
+author.
+
+Library 12mo, cloth, decorative cover . . . $1.50
+
+"A deliciously fresh, graphic book.  The writer is so original and
+unspoiled that her point of view has value."--_Mary Hartwell
+Catherwood_.
+
+"Full of ozone, of snap, of ginger, of swing and momentum."--_Chicago
+Evening Post_.
+
+"... Is one of her best and cleverest novels ... filled to the brim with
+amusing incidents and experiences.  This vivacious narrative needs no
+commendation to the readers of Miss Bell's well-known earlier
+books."--_N. Y. Press_.
+
+
+
+*The Interference of Patricia.*  With a frontispiece from drawing by
+Frank T. Merrill.
+
+Small 12mo, cloth, decorative cover . . . $1.00
+
+"There is life and action and brilliancy and dash and cleverness and a
+keen appreciation of business ways in this story."--_Grand Rapids
+Herald_.
+
+"A story full of keen and flashing satire."--_Chicago Record-Herald_.
+
+
+
+*A Book Of Girls.*  With a frontispiece.
+
+Small 12mo, cloth, decorative cover . . . $1.00
+
+"The stories are all eventful and have effective humor."--_New York
+Sun_.
+
+"Lilian Bell surely understands girls, for she depicts all the
+variations of girl nature so charmingly."--_Chicago Journal_.
+
+_The above two volumes boxed in special holiday dress, per set, $2.50_.
+
+
+
+*The Red Triangle.*  Being some further chronicles of Martin Hewitt,
+investigator.  By ARTHUR MORRISON, author of "The Hole in the Wall,"
+"Tales of Mean Streets," etc.
+
+Library 12mo, cloth decorative . . . $1.50
+
+This is a genuine, straightforward detective story of the kind that
+keeps the reader on the _qui vive_.  Martin Hewitt, investigator, might
+well have studied his methods from Sherlock Holmes, so searching and
+successful are they.
+
+"Better than Sherlock Holmes."--_New York Tribune_.
+
+"The reader who has a grain of fancy or imagination may be defied to lay
+this book down, once he has begun it, until the last word has been
+reached."--_Philadelphia North American_.
+
+"If you like a good detective story you will enjoy this."--_Brooklyn
+Eagle_.
+
+"We have found 'The Red Triangle' a book of absorbing
+interest."--_Rochester Herald_.
+
+"Will be eagerly read by every one who likes a tale of mystery."--_The
+Scotsman, England_.
+
+
+
+*Prince Hagen.*  By UPTON SINCLAIR, author of "King Midas," etc.
+
+Library 12mo, cloth decorative . . . . $1.50
+
+In this book Mr. Sinclair has written a satire of the first order--one
+worthy to be compared with Swift's biting tirades against the follies
+and abuses of mankind.
+
+"A telling satire on politics and society in modern New
+York."--_Philadelphia Public Ledger_.
+
+"The book has a living vitality and is a strong depiction of political
+New York."--_Bookseller, Newsdealer, and Stationer_.
+
+
+
+*The Silent Maid.*  By FREDERIC W. PANGBORN.
+
+Large 16mo, cloth decorative, with a frontispiece by Frank T. Merrill .
+. . $1.00
+
+A dainty and delicate legend of the brave days of old, of sprites and
+pixies, of trolls and gnomes, of ruthless barons and noble knights.
+"The Silent Maid" herself, with her strange bewitchment and wondrous
+song, is equalled only by Undine in charm and mystery.
+
+"Seldom does one find a short tale so idyllic in tone and so fanciful in
+motive.  The book shows great delicacy of imagination."--_The
+Criterion_.
+
+
+
+*The Spoilsmen.*  By ELLIOTT FLOWER, author of "Policeman Flynn," etc.
+
+Library 12mo, cloth . . . $1.50
+
+"The best one may hear of 'The Spoilsmen' will be none too good.  As a
+wide-awake, snappy, brilliant political story it has few equals, its
+title-page being stamped with that elusive mark, 'success.' One should
+not miss a word of a book like this at a time like this and in a world
+of politics like this."--_Boston Transcript_.
+
+"Elliott Flower, whose 'Policeman Flynn' attested his acquaintance with
+certain characteristic aspects of the American city, has written a novel
+of municipal politics, which should interest many readers....  The
+characters are obviously suggested by certain actual figures in local
+politics, and while the conditions he depicts are general in large
+cities in the United States, they will be unusually familiar to local
+readers....  Ned Bell, the 'Old Man,' or political boss; Billy Ryan, his
+lieutenant; 'Rainbow John,' the alderman, are likely to be
+identified....  and other personages of the story are traceable to their
+prototypes."--_Chicago Evening Post_.
+
+
+
+*Stephen Holton.*  By CHARLES FELTON PIDGIN, author of "Quincy Adams
+Sawyer," "Blennerhassett," etc. The frontispiece is a portrait of the
+hero by Frank T. Merrill.
+
+One vol., library 12mo, cloth, gilt top . . . $1.50
+
+"In the delineation of rural life, the author shows that intimate
+sympathy which distinguished his first success, 'Quincy Adams
+Sawyer.'"--_Boston Daily Advertiser_.
+
+"'Stephen Holton' stands as his best achievement."--_Detroit Free
+Press_.
+
+"New England's common life seems a favorite material for this sterling
+author, who in this particular instance mixes his colors with masterly
+skill."--_Boston Globe_.
+
+
+
+*Asa Holmes;* OR, AT THE CROSS-ROADS.  A Sketch of Country Life and
+Country Humor.  By ANNIE FELLOWS JOHNSTON.  With a frontispiece by
+Ernest Fosbery.
+
+Large 16mo, cloth, gilt top . . . $1.00
+
+"'Asa Holmes; or, At the Cross-Roads' is the most delightful, most
+sympathetic and wholesome book that has been published in a long while.
+The lovable, cheerful, touching incidents, the descriptions of persons
+and things are wonderfully true to nature."--_Boston Times_.
+
+
+
+*A Daughter Of Thespis.*  By JOHN D. BARRY, author of "The Intriguers,"
+"Mademoiselle Blanche," etc.
+
+Library 12mo, cloth decorative . . . $1.50
+
+"I should say that 'A Daughter of Thespis' seemed so honest about actors
+and acting that it made you feel as if the stage had never been truly
+written about before."--_W. D. Howells, in Harper's Weekly_.
+
+"This story of the experiences of Evelyn Johnson, actress, may be
+praised just because it is so true and so wholly free from melodrama and
+the claptrap which we have come to think inseparable from any narrative
+which has to do with theatrical experiences."--_Professor Harry Thurston
+Peck, of Columbia University_.
+
+"Certainly written from a close and shrewd observation of stage
+life."--_Chicago Record-Herald_.
+
+
+
+*The Golden Dog:* A ROMANCE OF QUEBEC.  By WILLIAM KIRBY.  New
+authorized edition, printed from new plates.  Illustrated by J. W.
+Kennedy.
+
+One vol., library 12mo, cloth . . . $1.25
+
+"A powerful romance of love, intrigue, and adventure in the times of
+Louis XV. and Madame de Pompadour, when the French colonies were making
+their great struggle to retain for an ungrateful court the fairest
+jewels in the colonial diadem of France.  It is a most masterly picture
+of the cruelties and the jealousies of a maiden, Angelique des
+Melloises--fair as an angel and murderous as Medea. Mr. Kirby has shown
+how false prides and ambitions stalked abroad at this time, how they
+entered the heart of man to work his destruction, and particularly how
+they influenced a beautiful demon in female form to continued
+vengeances."--_Boston Herald_.
+
+
+
+*The Last Word*.  By ALICE MACGOWAN.  Illustrated with seven portraits
+of the heroine.
+
+Library 12mo, cloth, gilt top . . . $1.50
+
+"When one receives full measure to overflowing of delight in a tender,
+charming, and wholly fascinating new piece of fiction, the enthusiasm is
+apt to come uppermost.  Miss MacGowan has been known before, but her
+best gift has here declared itself."--_Louisville Post_.
+
+"The story begins and ends in Western Texas.  Between chapters, there is
+the ostensible autobiography of a girl who makes her way in New York
+journalism.  Out of it all comes a book, vivid, bright, original--one of
+a kind and the kind most welcome to readers of the hitherto
+conventional."--_New York World_.
+
+
+
+*The Captain's Wife.*  By W. CLARK RUSSELL, author of "The Wreck of the
+Grosvenor."  With a frontispiece by C. H. Dunton.
+
+Library 12mo, cloth decorative . . . $1.50
+
+"Mr. Russell's descriptions of the sea are vivid and full of color, and
+he brings home to the reader the feeling that he is looking upon the
+real thing drawn by one who has seen the scenes and writes from
+knowledge."--_Brooklyn Eagle_.
+
+"Every page is readable and exciting."--_Baltimore Herald_.
+
+"This story may be considered as one of the best of his excellent tales
+of the sea."--_Chicago Post_.
+
+"There are suggestions of Marryat in it, and reminders of Charles Reade,
+but mostly it is Clark Russell, with his delightful descriptions and
+irresistible sea yarns."--_Phila. North American_.
+
+
+
+*The Mate of the Good Ship York.*  By W. CLARK RUSSELL, author of "The
+Wreck of the Grosvenor," etc.  With a frontispiece by C. H. Dunton.
+
+Library 12mo, cloth decorative . . . $1.50
+
+"One of the breeziest, most absorbing books that have come to our table
+is W. Clark Russell's 'The Mate of the Good Ship York.'"--_Buffalo
+Commercial_.
+
+"For a rousing, absorbing, and, withal, a truthful tale of the sea,
+commend me to W. Clark Russell.  His novel, 'The Mate of the Good Ship
+York,' is one of the best, and the love romance that runs through it
+will be appreciated by every one."--_Philadelphia North American_.
+
+"Romantic adventures, hairbreadth escapes, and astounding achievements
+keep things spinning at a lively rate and hold the reader's attention
+throughout the breezy narrative."--_Toledo Blade_.
+
+
+
+*The Golden Kingdom.*  By ANDREW BALFOUR, author of "Vengeance Is Mine,"
+"To Arms!" etc.
+
+Library 12mo, cloth decorative . . . $1.50
+
+This is a story of adventure on land and sea, beginning in England and
+ending in South Africa, in the last days of the seventeenth century.
+The scheme of the tale at once puts the reader in mind of Stevenson's
+"Treasure Island."
+
+"Every one imbued with the spirit of adventure and with a broad
+imaginative faculty will want to read this tale."--_Boston Transcript_.
+
+"'The Golden Kingdom' is the rarest adventure book of them all."--_N. Y.
+World_.
+
+
+
+*The Schemers: A Tale of Modern Life.*
+
+By EDWARD F. HARKINS, author of "Little Pilgrimages Among the Men Who
+Have Written Famous Books," etc. With a frontispiece by Ernest Fosbery.
+
+Library 12mo, cloth . . . $1.50
+
+A story of a new and real phase of social life in Boston, skilfully and
+daringly handled.  There is plenty of life and color abounding, and a
+diversity of characters--shop-girls, society belles, men about town,
+city politicians, and others. The various schemers and their schemes
+will be followed with interest, and there will be some discerning
+readers who may claim to recognize in certain points of the story
+certain happenings in the shopping and the society circles of the Hub.
+
+"A faithful delineation of real shop-girl life."--_Milwaukee Sentinel_.
+
+"This comes nearer to the actual life of a modern American city, with
+all its complexities, than any other work of American fiction. The book
+shows an unusual power of observation and a still more unusual power to
+concentrate and interpret what is observed."--_St. Louis Star_.
+
+
+
+*The Promotion of The Admiral.*  By MORLEY ROBERTS, author of "The
+Colossus," "The Fugitives," "Sons of Empire," etc.
+
+Library 12mo, cloth decorative, illustrated . . . $1.50
+
+This volume contains half a dozen stories of sea life,--fresh, racy, and
+bracing,--all laid in America,--stories full of rollicking, jolly,
+sea-dog humor, tempered to the keen edge of wit.
+
+"If any one writes better sea stories than Mr. Roberts, we don't know
+who it is; and if there is a better sea story of its kind than this it
+would be a joy to have the pleasure of reading it."--_New York Sun_.
+
+"To read these stories is a tonic for the mind; the stories are gems,
+and for pith and vigor of description they are unequalled."--_New York
+Commercial Advertiser_.
+
+"There is a hearty laugh in every one of these stories."--_The Reader_.
+
+"Mr. Roberts treats the life of the sea in a way that is intensely real
+and intensely human."--_Milwaukee Sentinel_.
+
+"The author knows his sea men from A to Z."--_Philadelphia North
+American_.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LADY PENELOPE ***
+
+
+
+
+A Word from Project Gutenberg
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